Scott Poythress on Planes, Trains and Automobiles

seen him on TV before. Most notably recently, he was in a pretty great horror movie called I Trapped the Devil. It's a low budge horror movie that got some really good marks. And uh, and Scott was a lead in that one. And he's a good dude. He's a friend of fellow guests Dan Bush and uh, we have some other common friends here in Atlanta. But Scott is a great guy. We had a great conversation about acting and planes, Trains and Automobiles. And here we go with Scott Poythress.

This is a movie I've seen many, many times, but you've always got to rewatch them for these for these talks totally, you know, even if you think like and I know a lot of this movie by heart. It had been a few years though. Oh yeah, yeah, everythank's giving put it all. Well, I'm cooking. I'm a big turkey friar, and now we have this oilist friar. Here, pull that over close to your mouth. Were we going on? They always just find an entry point. I love brianing.

I'll Brian for about Okay, do you do a wet Brian or a dry I do a wet because I do a wet. But I'm doing the turkey this year, and this is my first turkey. It's I'm a little nervous, your first try. You grew up in the South, is your first turkey? My first turkey? That right, Remember the peanut oil days, the deep frying into fo Yeah, that's amazing. Fire hazards. Yeah, I've never done it myself. I mean, obviously we have turkey every year, but we're hosting for

the first time. Nice and you know, turkey usually goes to the host, right, the host, absolutely, So tell me your dry brine or your wet brine. I'd like to do a mix. Sometimes I'll throw in I'll also do an injection to Okay, the wet brine, Alright, um apple, cider, vinegar, all the spices, all the fixings um for to thirty

six hours over ice, keep it on the porch. And then this oil was fryer made by char Broil, so it works like an infrared in this thing, so you don't have to deal with oil at all or clean up is no fuss, no must and it up just like h like a fried turkey. Totally interesting, very well m m, well, I think I don't have to go the standard oven round, but I've got a nice oven,

very accurate. But this is going to be the first big thing because we redid our house recently, so the oven has not even been I mean it's been test driven, but not turkey driven. So I'm a little nervous. Season that bad boy seasoning is key. Yeah yeah, yeah, sage, we're just like just heating it period season the actual device of whatever you're gonna cook something. Sure, yeah, it's been on a lot, but the gate is that it

kind of stunk a little bit at first. But do you recommend even turning it on like some this week and just getting it hot could probably four degrees for a while. Okay, yeah, let's let us smoke. Yeah, where are you from. I grew up in Charleston until I was one of my favorite I love it. Yuh Ala Palms, Mount Pleasant Soli Palms is where I vacation every year,

no kidding, It's incredible how much has changed. So they do a lot of production out there, which brings actors there sometimes, So growing up there and yeah up till us five memories. But I've been back to work on a few shows since then. But it's insane, hell congested, the people and just the landscape completely different. Much like Atlanta. The Olympics change based started to change the skyline here Now every time you got to town for a month or two would come back into the news. Insane. It's

not even a month. Like I'll go down the street I haven't been on in two weeks and there's like a new building or apartment complex or something. No, it's yeah, it's renamed. Yeah it is crazy. Shoutouts to United Grand Park. What when did you make it to Atlanta? My dad worked in the UH in a government facility UH in US with him, my brother seven years older, and my mom Mariatta, So essentially Mariatta, I say Atlanta. But did you act? Did you act in your early years in

high school and stuff. It's funny. I wanted to be an animator for Walt Disney until I was about fifteen, and when I so you can draw, I can? Okay, I can? I'm not. Uh yeah, I don't continue the practice often at all, but I did for a long time. Um. And then I also played football in middle school and into high school, and I had learned it was not my bag. And when I quit, I got bullied a good bit for quitting football, for quitting football, for quitting

the scene. So I would literally I would I found myself hiding in the theater until always cleared out and I can't kind of escape safely. So that's real deal bullying then totally, and uh, they would put productions on This was Pope High School, he cop. I went there a freshman year and then finished up at last year because we moved. Um, I would literally I'd find myself like outside the the light booth and people would wonder

what I'm doing there. And I kind of got looped into running the following spot on South Pacific and one other show Christmas, some kind of a Christmas show, and so I was like, yeah, cool, I'll it keeps me out the hallways from I'm down, Well, say I'll run your following spot. And I did that for like that whole production of a show. It was like, they're having so much more fun. I want to do that. This is lane is dark and cold up here, and they

look like they're having a blast. And that's kind of how there's girls girls like my odds are exponentially greater already. H And I did that for a while and UM realized it also at church. It's already got looped into

getting on stage at church at the time. So high school and church at the same time merged into getting this bug and then realizing how much fun I was having doing it and really enjoying it, and then pursuing it at the University of Georgia and I went, seriously, Yeah, I was eighty nine to We're probably had the taco stand together. I was at the ducking stand a lost. I worked at Vision Video for a little while and uh, but my main gig was I waited tables at MEXICALI grill.

I'm sure you remember very well. And it's funny. My mom just texted me of the day and said, I found an old MEXICALI grill T shirt. You want me to throw that out? I went like please. It was just like there's one that remains out of like the eight that I had over my career. There as asty good tease tease it was. It was a scary dive tease. Um, I don't think I know tease. I'm miss speaking. Skies sky Teas isn't merry. That was a bar that we

would freaking up after I waited tables. Uh, Sky's Place. Sure, I went to Skies Um ceilings like seven and a half feet right, and sky was like eight feet tall, big right? Yeah? And it was It was one of in one of the cheap hotels, wasn't it. Yeah, like that where they stumble up because I lived in Russell a freshman year, so stumble up the cobblestone. That's what we called it, Baxter. The Sky's is where you could

drink fourteen year olds. Yeah, that's pretty pretty liberal with the I d S had the worst fake idea ever. It was I never had one. I never needed it. Yeah, I had Wes, you just don't. I don't know. I mean I looked super young back then and I had not only was it not me in the picture. Um, it was not a driver's license. It was a military idea, and it was a fake military idea. It was one of those things. It's uh. It wasn't a baller move.

It was a you know how you well you didn't have one, but you know, they're passed down from person to person, and then I was like the third person to get this thing. It worked, okay. I guess I wasn't really hitting the bars though. At Georgia until I was probably twenty one, I wasn't either. You have some house drinking and stuff. Yeah, Russell Hall, they would fire bottle rockets on the hallway and Russell I was on

the tenth floor. You have heard stories about you're out onto the tennis courts if you remember the tennis for the basketball court. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. I lived in read which was a little calmer, and then just for one year and then I you know, got smart and went the apartment house route. Being there players Club, Yeah, that was like the first year. I think when they opened, we lived in a players Club. Do you ever get back over there? Rarely? Really? Yeah? Maybe, I mean it's

been probably two or three years. I don't go to the games I wish I did. Yeah, I went to I go to I go there once or twice a year maybe for various things, either a show at the forty watt or I am going to the game this weekend. But I haven't been to a football game and pbably five years. I just I just never get out there anymore. But Athens is great. But talking about changing a lot, right, Yeah, nuts big time. Uh yeah, like the the Community Center. I don't know when the last time there, but Tate

Center Center crazy. It's so different now. So you acted there? I did? Yeah, like it? Did you take class? Because I took one acting class at Georgia even though I'm not an actor and had never wanted to be. But it was just seemed like a fun class. Remember your teacher's name. I don't remember his name. His first name was Greg and he was bald on top and had the hair around the sides and had a mustache. And he was in Woody Allen's radio days. He had a

very very very small, little two liner part. But that was like the thing. I was like, oh man, he was in a Woody Allen movie and he was teaching at Georgia. So I took one acting class and really enjoyed it, but was no good at it. I can't remember his last name, Greg Bernard. I remember there was Stanley Longman with Chuck Charles Idswick who was a film professor. Okay, I remember I didn't take the class, but he was

supposed to be pretty great. Yeah, um gosh, I took a class over the journalism department, and I believe I think he since passed on, but he started the Peabodies. It's like, right, I feel terrible. I can't remember his name right now. Well, did you act in plays? There? Was it? Just? Yeah? Yeah, I never went to any of those. What were the productions? Like? They were great because we had a nice, big facility stage. I don't know if you saw the main stage did it was cool?

It was cool? So um handful of shows that I remember doing hair Towards the end of my What's So Funny, everybody literally gets naked in the show. Literally. I was asked to play the cop who comes in and busts up, like al right, sure, sure, sure, right is it? Because why why do you want me to play? Like? And then I've been self conscious ever since because you didn't get to get naked and the production. I could naked

not in the production. Did you feel like you uh like, when did you feel like you really learned about acting? Was it did you get a lot of great instruction there or was it more kind of post I did, and there was technique. Uh, whether it's uh Meisner or or movement we have mask work, I mean, whatever it is. Honestly, I'm still learning quite a bit. And I have learned more exponentially since we started an acting studio in the past seven years than I think I ever have cumulatively

in my in my journey as an actor. Well, let's talk about that a little bit. You're telling my Drama Inc. Druma Inc. Which you had started with some of my neighbors. Some of your neighbors live right down the street. Jason oh Curse east Lake represent Jason McDonald, Katherine Dyer. They're married couple, My wife and myself, Claire Bronson. The four of us were with the same agent, so seven eight years ago. We had the same agent at the time

and realized that we lived very close together. So we would get together, you know, once a week every two weeks and sit on what we called the screamed in porch and just bullshit, have a glass of wine. Event about auditions we were getting weren't getting what your agents sending us on right, They're not, you know, just um,

information is currency in our business, honestly, UM. And we learned what we had to offer because actually it was actually pretty valuable that the knowledge that we had accumulated over the hundred plus years of all of us together, and how long we've done it, multiple coasts, and how much I wished I had this getting out of college, kicked out the nest with a theater degree. How am I supposed to do with that? Where do I? What do I? And then in the future production capital of

the world. Now, um, realizing we could have something valuable to to offer, whether it's self taping, headshots, demoials, classes, just the people within that we know, the information that we've gathered just through contacts, casting directors, what they like, what they don't like, and um, we realized, you know what, let's let's start a studio. Jason had had the idea, He had marinated on it for a long time, literally with the logo with the name his business sense is incredible.

His um coming at it from a financial standpoint because he ran stone suit for a very long time. He has things that he's wired differently than I am. I'm more of a tech geek, so I can I can set up our WiFi extenders, know whatever, you know, stuff like that, cameras, UM and we all different things that we bring to the table, which is really cool. So we realized, holy crap, we actually have something really cool

and we have. We're so blessed to have grown into accidentally a conservatory because we didn't set out to do that, and we're very picky about who we bring on. Teachers who specialize in specific techniques, practical aesthetics, Meisner movement, improv voice dialects, whatever it is. UM have just helped us grow into something really really cool. And the biggest sense

is the sense of community. So our actors are coming in, getting into each other, they're writing for each other, they're off in the weekends making their own movies, and it's so freaking satisfying. Yeah, that's really need. The idea that you get creative people in a room together and like something's going to happen, you know, yep, like it will bear fruit totally. That's really great and it seems like it's going really well, it really is. Yeah, it's really

really cool. Or in we're in our seventh year where just south of Zoo Atlanta, so we have the belt Line little literal really once it's completed, running through the back just outside the back parking lot. Oh that's fantastic,

that's cool, a little bit of serendipity there, right. Yeah, for people listening, the belt line is uh, it sounds silly, but it is a a walking path that has changed the city right by connecting all the neighborhoods of the city that we're never connected before by foot pedestrian walkway. And I think it's the same developers who made the is it called the high Line, Yeah, the Highland, Yeah, yeah, just repurposing the train track which is sitting there decrepit.

It's crazy. Yeah, I wish you know, I wish I grew up here like you did, and it would have been great to have something like that back then. If they've come a long way though, it's really cool. Well what about um, I would like to talk a little bit about auditioning, because we have people that listen, that act, people that are experienced all the way down to people that have are just like putting their toe in the pool. UM. And I'm sure you guys teach auditioning. What what what

are tips like? You know? What's interesting because we live in this market which is um, there's so much work here. Um. But it's all literally, well not all, I would say, eighty five self tape. So the net that casting directors local casting directors throw that seems to be the way now it is the way, and it just it makes sense financially, uh, for people's time. The number of actors that they can see with self tape, I'm talking about

casting directors themselves. Uh is hundreds or thousands versus you have X amount of hours in a day, how many people can you see? Depending on the size of the role, you're gonna be there for ten fifteen minutes. Um. This way, they can start watching a tape, they'll know in their first eight to ten seconds if this is their guy or their girl. Skip it, move on, Nope, Nope, nope, nope. Imidating it is. It is. At the same time, it's empowering because if you get good at it, it's an

art form in and of itself. Self taping you're video and audio. I've got to be good. You need a good reader with an actor, you know, all these all these things that we've learned since we started doing it in two thousand eight. We lived in l A at the time, and we were literally self taping on like the camera on your laptop, just set it up in the dining room and I'd take for army wives or whatever was happening at the time, which wasn't not much.

A couple of things dropped that Diva started to kind of happen around that time, and we've been doing it since then, so we've kind of we've perfected it and gotten very good at self taping, and actually I enjoy it quite a bit. Really we teaching it or or just audition boat both. I miss being in the room and getting feedback and redirect from directors, casting directors, whoever, because that's an art form in and of itself, to just being in the room and shooting yourself in the

foot not tripping over the light. You know. Just there's so much desperation that goes with I need this job, I need it, I need I need right and and it comes through. I can smell it down the hallway before you walk in. Yeah, I have heard that, you know the best thing to do is to not care or not think you're going to get it totally. Auditioning is the job. This is our job. Yeah, the bookings are icing. When they happen, it's wonderful. I can't cannot

rely on it. Yeah, it's um. It's an interesting bag to get into where you there's such a limited success rate just booking anything. But you still have to like, you've gotta love it. I guess deep down you do, you really do. Yeah, I don't have a plan B right kind of hope I book it right. But I also have the luxury of being around it every day. Was starting the studio and being with people that I love,

very good friends, a woman I'm in love with. I cannot call that work and very fortunate to be able to do this. And you guys have classes every six days a week, days a week. Ever if seven days a week really? Yeah, we we don't always have classes on Sundays, but kids classes on Saturdays. We pop up classes, workshops. We have a taping room. It's a very much like this. It's a soundproofed room. Thankfully one of our neighbors when they moved out, it was a recording studio. So when

they moved out. We're like, we took over that least, and we expanded, knocked a door in between the suites and took it over. So we have a sound proof room that we can work because our building is it's a tin roof. If it even drizzles, there is deafening. It ruins any audio. Yeah, you can't do it. So this is a room like this isn't it's critical for

self taping. So we have that going. I mean not literally twenty four hours a day, but um, we have a full taping team that are in that they can we kind of take shifts and get in there and take people. And that's awesome man. Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah, it really is. Yeah. So it's called Drama Inc. And um, I imagine people in the Atlanta area can find it easy enough, but do you get people that come in from uh you know, I imagine people don't travel too far.

But do you get people from out of town? We do? Yeah, for classes too, we have people coming in from Knoxville, Cleveland, Orlando. Oh wow, it's great. Weekly man, it's nuts. It's dedication, it's really it's it's humbling. Yeah, that's really cool. It's really very cool. Well, congratulations, that's thank you. I appreciate that. But yeah, people who are in town working on stuff,

they hear about our facility. So let's say series regulars on whatever show is shooting Walking Dead right there on the hiatus or they're not shooting that day, and then auditions from their next gig. Because we're constantly auditioning for our next job. We always have that literally our job, wondering where our next job. So they'll come in and tape with us all the time. Oh cool, that's great.

Before we get going on planes trains, I want to talk a little bit about I Trapped the Devil um which came out earlier this year, and I got to watch um. I got to watch about a third of it today before I came in right before the clock was taking spirit. I had to get on playing strains. But man, I liked what I saw so far, and I'm looking forward to watching the rest of it at night in the dark. It needs to be, yeah, lights low,

because there's a lot of really really dark imagery. Yeah. Literally, like most of the time when we're in the basement, we have like a red bulb, so it's it's literally hard to see so you need your lights low in whatever environment we're watching and sound up because Chris Sullivan voices a character in the film and listeners may know him from This is Us and I fell in love with him on um the nick Oh yeah, ste and he plays this Irish ambulance driver. He's incredible, incredible on

the show. I I don't watch This is Us, but that's what how the world knows him and I still can't believe we got him to do the role in the movie. Very excited and people. Man. Yeah, and I know, uh, I read a little bit about it as well, and I know it was sort of um not based on necessarily a Twilight Zone episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little bit make the reference and it it does live in there for sure. And Josh Lobo, our director Young Guys, is the first film. H he's aware of the reference.

I don't know if it was a cerebral a conscious decision, but it probably lived in there somewhere. Cool. Yeah, I mean it's a we just got finished with our October sort of horror movie homages, and that's one that will throw on the list for next year to get out to the folks. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, it seemed like it's getting good reused everywhere I look, We've got some. It's polarizing, as most horror or genre films are. People are like, sure this movie for making it, or they

really really enjoy it. It's just what it is. But I mean, even just to get covered by the New York Times and Variety and absolutely have a release at all, I mean to be in theaters period, just monumental. Yeah, so we're in like twenty cities. We had a day and date release, So that's great. I have seen Midnight released this. Yeah, that's really cool. How old is the director? I want to say he's twenty six now, maybe twenty seven, God bless him. Right, it sounds to dude, I remember

being a movie but I didn't. That's the difference. You gotta do it. Yeah, just grab buckets of blood and toss among your friends and work for free and work for pizza. Yeah. All right, Well let's get into Playing Trains, one of my favorite movies from seven um, written, produce

and directed by the great John Hughes. Note and um, so let's hit play and we'll watch the movie together, starring, of course, Steve Martin Is, Neil Page, John Candy del Griffith and then boy, just a murderers row of character actors in this movie, like one after the other. Favorite. Uh boy, it's really hard because I mean, you know, Michael mckinson ninety seconds of this movie. But he's great

in that scene as the as the highway patrolman. I think, if I had to be honest, my true just because he's said, I don't I can't think of the guy's name. I've seen him in a bunch of stuff. But the scene where um, Steve Martin is trying to it was after the car fire, and we'll jump around all over

the place, so don't worry about going on order. But when he's trying to negotiate the hotel room, the guy who plays the hotel clerk, is he the same from the second motel now the first guy in the second hotel when he has like the burned credit cards from Jurassic Park. Yeah, yeah, it was great in that part because he's just so weird and are credit cards. His line readings just themselves are just hysterical. Um, I'm gonna have to say good night. He was just so odd.

Oh yeah, when he displaced the cassio on the arm so classic. I have two dollars. Um, but I mean it's hard to just hard to pick because so many of them come from the John Hughes a verse. Yes, from other films. Yeah, like you get Ferris's dad is the first guy right and the uh you'll never make the sale, never make a six, that's one of my favorite lines. But it's the doors closing. It's such a dick move. You know. Well, do you have a favorite

from the Carretter actors? They're they're there two. I love Michael McKey, but but Dylan Baker, my brother and I have been bit for a third two years. Sero. It's like favorite sequence in the movie is that part last one came out people train run out of stubbles cattle. Yeah. I mean we'll probably just be doing like throwing quotes at each other back and forth. And then Dye mcclerk,

who as Rooney's as Grace. Yeah, yeah, from Ferris Bueller. Yeah, she's so great that scene is and apparently she improved that she did the Thanksgiving bit. Yeah. Um, from what I this was like making of stuff on the plane trains supplemental wonderful supplemental stuff on iTunes. If you buy it. Well, I bought it today and I haven't dug into that stuff yet. It's good. Yeah, it's really good and and sad and heartbreaking and wonderful all of it. Are there

A bunch of interviews and stuff. Yeah, man, I gotta say that, I can't imagine everybody all the all the usual suspection. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. The John hugheser versus so cool because he's you know, he was well known for populating these characters and early on, well, one thing I noticed was, and this had to be outside of the John he was a verse. Was that great opening scene and the ad agency the head boss he is either his father or his father in law, Kevin Bacon's

and she's having a baby. Yes, So that's where it gets a little disrupted because Kevin Bacon obviously has that great cameo a taxi racer, and there's speculation that that is Jake from She's having a baby. Huh um. I don't know if that's true or not. Yeah, it makes sense a lot. I will never know, but I don't think that can be true because his father or father in law would not have been running that ad agency, right, And I know this is getting like, seriously, John, he's

a nerd out time. But that's fun of me. But that's really interesting. Yeah to think about it. Yeah, I didn't even realize that, but that move. I think they shot around the same time because Kevin, they told John, I'm live in Chicago, right, do you want me for anything, I'll do it? Yeah, right, extra roll or whatever. He had this little bit and he lived in Chicago. It's like,

come come race Steve Martin down park Ov. That's so great and he um and they I think they did shooting around the same time because there is the part where Neil's wife was watching She's having a baby on the television in this movie, but that movie hadn't come out yet. That's so funny, so when you see it in you don't even know, like Elizabeth mccovern's in the background of the scene like yelling. Hious and I've been trying to track down a copy of The Canadian Mounted.

It doesn't right, is that there is amazing the Canadian Mounted. Um. We should also mention too that the well not inexpsplicably, because there's a very good reason why this movie is rated are because of the classic F bomb scene. But it's got to be the cleanest, sweetest R rated movie of all time totally because that is the only part in this movie that is not pretty family friendly. A few of the cussboards here and there in some sort of you know, suggested stuff sexually, but nothing, it's just

those eighteen fox in a row. And I love that Johns was like he didn't he didn't sacrifice that bit to uh to get his ratps a ratings board, Yeah, which could It would have been very easy to do, you know. I think my first I mean this was sixteen Candles and that was PG right, remember correctly, I think, yeah, I think that was because there's a shower scene and there are there are breasts, ye, female breasts. I remember, never forget it. It was a very big when I

was nine. Yeah, sure, yeah, I was a little older than that, but sure I remember it was clearly a body double. Of course, you're right, but still just for that to happen at all, I mean I think, yeah, back then there was a little more leeway because it was pre PG thirteen was around Porky's. That was a that was a hard around there. It's hard art, right, but the he uh kind of tempered what he was doing.

It was kind of in a similar vein similar world, um, especially with like European Vacation, right, uh, just some dirty, dirty stuff in the European Vacation. Yeah, I think once PG thirteen rolled around, they could, um there was a little more envelope nuance, you know because subtext, Yeah, you couldn't like you know, one nude shot didn't warrant an R rating, but it certainly would warrant a PG thirteen once that eight called around eighteen bucks get you such

a classic scene. Um, and there are supposedly a two hour and a three hour cut of this movie. Um, it was a hundred and forty five page script, which, as you know, it's just crazy. And how quickly do you think he wrote it? Well, I know, because he wrote it in a few days. Would turn and burn, I mean yeah, that was his deal. Like he would write and apparently would rewrite a ton, but would write a draft in like three or four days. I read he wrote Weird Science on a weekend. Nuts that It's

just it's amazing, astounding. I mean seriously, his body would like breakfast Club, European European Vacation, Weird Science, pretty in paink Ferris Bueller's kind of wonderful right writing planes, trains, She's having a baby, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, Christmas Vacation, had a long career, opportunities, Dutch and curly Sue. I'm stopping before we get to Beethoven. And he's like, because

he took on a pseudonym, Uh, Edmond Dante. He wrote a few of the Beetho maybe all the Beethoven movies under Edmund Dante. And that's the protagonist from the Count of Monte Cristo. So it's it's his Alan Smithy ye. So um the Beethoven movies, maybe Dennis the Menace movies. I'm trying to think of what else that um maid in Manhattan, Uh towards the end of his career, sadly drill Bit Taylor, that was under Edmund Dante. I wonder what he would be doing now. He's one of those

would be really interesting to see. I think he's still be on his farm. He bought a huge plot of land outside Chicago. He left l A. I think he got really disenfranchised and sad and just kind of beat down. I think he was very um, very emotional, he very connected to all the things that he wrote and directed an actually but yeah, he literally bought a farm and he got into botany. It was planting trees, and so you think he would have not done this anymore. I

don't know. I feel like he's God knows what kind of scripts he had just in drawers, because he wrote, that's what he just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, wrote, And he was so in love with music and started his own record label, yeah, Hefty Hefty Productions. It wasn't what it was, and that it didn't take off, But I think he was wanting to literally kind of gather your arms around music because music is so in the

DNA of every one of his films. Yeah, absolutely special. Yeah, you know, even this one that's not um a teen romance with all the great new wave and eighties music that he used, like the music and this is key in so many ways, even though a lot of it's silly and fun. Um, it's just yeah, starting out that

kind of sessed the tone. But you're right. It goes to complete one eighty with ah trying to think of the the name of the bands, but there's there's two and they revisit over the course of the film too, like two the instrumental tracks. Oh yeah, that's like the score. Yeah, unofficially, yeah, because it wasn't Iron Newborn and it was because he did the score. Yeah, these are actual bands who have these licensed tracks its music. Um, I can't think of him.

It wouldn't Tangerine Dream was it, because they did like every other score. So it's just a guess. I love that one bit of score that comes in about two thirds of the way in the on the Chatty Cathy, I like me, no, no, no, that's great. Is the the jaunty fun one towards the end the dude Dude, dude, dude do yeah, yeah, d oh god. Just in the band it's the red River red River Rock. I think it's the name of the try really don't think that.

I can't remember that, man. Like when I knew I was gonna be watching that today, that song just started like going through my head. Yeah. They revisit that throughout. It's so wonderful. Um. And it was sort of a you know, a change of pace for John Hughes. He had done all these high school movies and this was

right after Ferris Bueller. He sort of did his two. Um, I guess more adult movies this one and She's having a baby kind of went back to back, but um it was interesting as a kid to like go through that change with him because I was a sixteen year old seeing she's having a baby and like crying and think and so moved and looking back and it's like hysterical because it's so not a movie for teenage boys,

you know. And I was so Breakfast Club. He came out of the gate right with sixteen Candles, so that was what eight. So I'm nine, I'm watching high schoolers. So I'm like, this is gonna be what high schools like when I get detention. This is what I'm gonna be doing. So I was like, this forms like who I kind of am? So John Who's literally is like in ingrained in me as I'm growing up and a lot of us and our music and sensibilities and and

and tone for what I like in film performances. And um, so it's interesting you say that the time period because I was, like I said, nine, watching Breakfast Club and then sixteen Candles, uh or sixteen Kennels, and then his sophomore film is a Breakfast Club. Man. It's crazy. I remember distinctly. The first time I saw that in the movie theater, the Dollar Theater, North Lake. Uh, it was movies and we used to go with our church group

all the time. And I went and saw The Breakfast Club and it just it rocked my world and and ages fine, I think for a movie that's so firmly about it's time and place totally, you know, if you could suspend your disbelief with social media and access to information, because I'll walk around today sometimes and forget that I have access to everything immediately, like just just kind of how we grew up and what we think. You know,

it's interesting to know that there are people born after eleven. Yeah, I know this world, that's that's the world that they know. I got a four year daughter, man, she's grown. Yeah wow, So it's a it's a weird thing to see a kid that age already be tech savvy and um talk about buffering and stuff like that. Were taking apart my Amiga comment over sixty four and yeah, I mean we

we had more root of entry versions of the same stuff. Yeah, we had our screens they were just shitty, you know, I mean we had I mean I had all those all the handhealth games. You could have the football game in the Merlin and have a little handheld Space Invaders and a handheld pac Man, and we just had twenty five of them instead of everything being on one device, you know, my da. Well, that's why I when I hear people complaining about and in screen time is out

of hand now for sure for all of us. But I always like to remind them, like, you know, we had the same stuff. It was just I was glued to my crappy television. Sure, I watched as much TV as I could get my hands a much in different strokes on what's happening and everything. That's my babysitter totally. So early on in the movie, um, we get Dell's trunk on the ground that he trips his introduction, right, because that's how he loses the foot race with Kevin

Bacon's right, tripping over this trunk. Yeah, it turns looks del Griffith and little do we know that that trunk becomes almost a character in this movie, the third character in them, no doubt. Yeah, it's the three of them on this journey together because they can't go anywhere without it.

And yeah, and there are a lot of moments with the trunk, they keep referencing it um whether he recognizes it again as like you're the guy, or the great scene after the train breaks down where he's struggling across the field and Steve Martin goes over and helps him

carry it, like that look back so good. It is well in such great character arcs to um, maybe the obvious character arcs like I don't think he was like breaking dramatic ground in the story, but it was just so well executed, you know, for the you're talking about performances or John Hughes well the two three, the two characters for Neil Andel like great good drama too, and that's some of the best comedic performances and comedic actors. A lot of times comes from the trauma and the

tragedy and the sadness. Some of the funniest stuff that we're laughing at is is uh tyber l like for lack of current analogy. Phil Dunfie on The Modern Family, his world is falling up parts tragic, but we're laughing our asses off because how funny it is. Yeah, Robin Williams was a master of course at right. Jim Carrey is great at it. Yeah, Adam Sandler, it's phenomenal at it um for people had to take or leave Adam Sandler.

I think he's a fantastic actor. He's great, right, and when you do both it's a and John Candy, god boy, he was one of the best. Yeah, what could we have gotten from him? And the like Canadian Bacon. I think that might have been his last film, but yeah, I mean I miss him so much, right, he was so great and he's so good in this. And Dell is such a lovable character because he knows and he even says in that in that great scene after Neil attacks him in the hotel room and it's so mean.

You know they're going at each other, but then he crosses that line and he's just he's about to cry and he's he's like, I know, I know who I am, and I would like me. My wife likes me. In retrospect, he just revisiting that, um seeing it's like knowing what we know now right seeing it again, Well, there's so many little he always he always has that framed, the picture of Marie too, was always next to the bed.

By the end of time, he's in the hotel, he's got that little frame picture of her well, and those are some of the little hints laid along the way, um about Marie, And of course you know that's sort of the big reveal at the end that Marie has passed away, which is just tragic. It's funny you mentioned the trunk too, because after the LaSalle van Buren in the Chicago station they part ways. The music is playing the Dream Academy Power to Believe in the Book of

Love Dream Again. Those are the two tracks that we revisit, so he's piecing together. Wait a minute, Dell is probably on his own. Tell what are you doing? What are you doing here? Right? Uh? And he gives the admission, the confession the little train station boom cut to them carrying the trunk. My I was crying, was good And the music hits right there and they're carrying the trunk up towards Steve's house just in time for thanks again.

Oh my god. Yeah, that that smash cut to them carrying that goddamn trunk down the middle of his street, his own street. It's just like it's one of the great moments, and you know, it really is. I don't think that's like hyperbole at all. Um, And it sort of occurred to me watching at this time through this sort of more studied lens, that everything that like it's Neil's fault that he's in this because at the very

beginning he could have let it go. He recognizes him as the cab steeler, and he could have the funniest moments in the airport because they have this thought, this fun trick where they do they bring in a taxi door in the airport, so we see Niel's POV and he turns behind the door inside the airport and he's got the little cab and he reenacts I think I noticed that that was it's it's brilliant. That's really, it's brilliant.

They're just bringing this prop door to stick in front of this candy in the airport and he has a little hat on him and he recreates the face. Well, he could have let it go though, and nothing, none of this would have happened. But he had to say, like you stole my cab, and that's what kicks off this whole thing. You know, if he could have just let it go, he wouldn't have been in that pickle.

He wouldn't have he would have ended up sitting by him on the airplane again, but probably wouldn't have reconnected, although probably would have looped him into conversation, and it's clear that Dell would have like made him speak totally. That might be one of my their two favorite moments of mine in the film. And just after repeating, I don't even know how many times I've seen hundreds same here,

maybe probably more. One is when he's on the plane they're finally leaving New York from Chicago, and Del's sitting in the seat and he looks up and sees Neil coming towards him. He said whatever, he says like, um, here the recognition and just the look on Steve's face.

There's incredible, priceless, priceless moment. The other is when the in Stubb No no, it's after the car is the debacle of the fire there and they finally get the little the two singles in the room, Oh yeah, the little and they're having their little slumber party, Doritos everywhere, and where do you gonna go? Tequila right, Um and has to go to the bathroom and they're cutting up,

there's laughing, and he goes into the bathroom. He's still let's all hear him laughing, and he opens the door back up, and there's that moment of him just we're on the same page. I'm laughing, We're having such a good time, and here's me opening the door just to show you my face and see how hard I'm laughing, right, And it's just so real and so special. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, man, there's so many moments like that, so many little I mean, this movie is all about

the little touches. There are so many great broad slapstick moments that are just so silly and dumb and fun, but little touches like that, And like the wolf in the cab, like there was no reason to make that just not a cab ride. But John, He's like, I don't know, man, let's bring in another great character actor. I don't know the guy's name. Larry Hankin. Yeah, Larry Hankin. Yeah, let's bring him Dubis Taxiola Chariot of Sin. It's written on the cab the lights. I mean, there's no reason

to do that. And to bring in someone you recognize and make it a little bit more fun, just a little bit greater than the into the braidwood end. He's proud of his town these days. Uh. And when they go into the Braidwood I don't know if you've noticed this, but oh my god, cracked up about this, I don't know, the past few months or something, just upon revisiting the nasty, nasty Braidwood end the first you know, where he gets athletes foot and literally he got athletes foot, and yeah,

the water and the just trash. That little bed that they're sharing. There's a painting above the bed, and there's I believe there's a headboard on the bed itself, but here's the paintings. No way on either side of the painting prints, whatever nefarious thing happened in that bed, it's so funny because the place as nasty as hell. Yeah,

and just that little touch wonderful. Another on that same plane, that very first plane scene when he he squashed between them and he in the dark and he leans over and John Kenny just opens his eyes and says six bucks and riding my right nuts says we aren't landing in Chicago. So many great lines. Yeah, which is the next things that happens, But shoes in the sock and oh my god, yeah, I mean imagine Steve Martin does such a good job as I mean, priceless guys, so

so good. You're on that journey with him for sure. Uh and then he's really sort of Del is kind of like this the sage he really if you pay attention, is offering really wonderful advice throughout the movie, whether it's like like your work, love your wife, or just being comfortable with who you are. Like there's a great message that he's he's getting through all this comedy. You know,

it's really pretty great. Yes, we'd have more like playing pick up sticks with the ben Stein has one great little line and the greatest thing about that is he announces the flight cancelation and then maybe the only time I've ever seen ben Stein smile. He does that little smile. It's like it brought him great pleasure to announce this flight.

It's really great. Um, So Del has a hook up like everywhere he goes because of his job as a shower curtain ring salesman American light Fixtures, which is hysterical. I wonder how many things John Hughes went through to come up with that job, Like what would Dell do for a living? Seriously? You know it's so good because there's no such that's not a thing. Ulter chronicite moon, a lot of graph Darryl Strawberry. Yeah, that's a crazy

st Darryl Strawberry line. But um, the the sort of the classic scene when they finally get to that hotel and they go in, and I love a good camera gag. I'm always a sucker for when the camera plays a joke. Yeah, you're doing it. The camera it stops or goes past the bed and then back to that single bed and then over the candy's face. Yep, it's so great, it's perfect. Yeah yeah, And and I know there's a two and three hour version, but this, this ninety minute version just cooks.

It does and it's the right length, I think, you know anything more. Always I'm never like, what's this scene over? It's like such an inertia and energy does it. It's like maybe it's because it's a travel movie, but it's just always moving. It feels like yep, completely um, but they get out, it's over. I'm seen, and you know it's gone down in movie history that those aren't pillows.

It's you know, it's got to be on the list. Well, sweet little kiss on the ear that's I'm glad you did that, because that's everyone goes to those aren't pillows as the moment in that scene, the funniest part of the scene are those two little nibbles that he takes on his ear so good. I think they must have done.

I don't even know how many it takes, but apparently there's a cracking up every take over above them and and Steve Marta said, the cameras they started shaking laughing before they even got to their moment, and they would just bust up. You imagine those two little sweet kisses because we accepts them. He's they're not kind of snuggling up, nustle into it. And what does he say there? Um? What was the line that he first says? Why why did you just kiss me on the ear or whatever? Yeah?

Why are you holding my hand? And the back and forth they do there, Yeah, why why you're my hands are between two pillows? Of course? And that's the line everyone his face drop well, and before that, even when they when they go to the room, he says, uh, do you want to take a shower? He oh no, no,

he so well, you thought, of course not. And he's just layering on the bits and the jokes, like the next day when he goes in and it's the socks are in the sink and you're like, and you think that's it, and then he watches his face with the drives up. One of the funniest moments for Yeah, for sure, just to him getting out of the shower and realizing that disarray. Yeah, that little thing nightmar wash cloth on that empty rack and like it's all perfect. It is.

It's almost unfair how many jokes he's throwing at you. You know, it's overload, and it's yeah, like thank you gotta what's your song around? Making more Apparently Steve Martin took this movie based on the eighteen Fox scene and the the seat adjustment scene in the car when Yeah and again messed around with the sound effects. You know, that's part of the humor. There's so many layers of comedy, like just that motorized sounded that sea. It was so funny.

Um oh, and I forgot the other line I love too much when he when they're in bed together finally and he goes, you know, I had no idea those beer cans we're gonna blow like that. You left him on a vibrating bed. What did you think was gonna happen? And that's funny because it's funny or not seeing that they may have shot that, who knows, they may have, But yeah, we do see Candy on the bed having a cigarette and enjoying the vibration while while Steve's taking

a shower. But it's funnier just to reference it. Yeah, I think you see the I don't think we see beer the bed, but I don't think so. I sleep in a love of beer. I just want to go to bed. I mean, if there is a two and a three hour version, he probably did shoot all that stuff. But that's like I think, and you're you're an editor as well, like so you understand fully, like sometimes stuff

is funnier with less not seeing it. Yeah, that's why Hitchcock was so effective to a lot of things that he implied we don't see that's right, that just terrorized you, just letting your imagination wonder. Right. We don't need a bucket of blood tossed on us to know that something scary whatever. But yeah, absolutely, Um And back to Hughes and his proficiency and masterful technique, the way he uses timing and music is unmatched. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, those

needle drops like it's always maximum effect. Uh so special. Yeah yeah, Um, he's uh, he's reading by lighter light and he's cracking his knuckles in his neck and he's scratching his balls and he's he's clearing his sinuses. The wonderful odd couple familiar with the Walter math out lemon Old, Yeah, the original I think it's tossed about throwback to that, but that the sign is clearing, especially God and just watching Steve be patient because we're on him right, and

then candies things. Yeah, yeah, I lost my mind too. It's just literally I would have lost my mind and got them, would lose your patients. That's what that kicks off the whole the chatty cathy and crossing the line the moment that we talked about, Well, they put them in just close, such close physical proximity. Um, when you start kind of studying the just the blocking. They're always

jammed up against each other. And sometimes it's by nature of the fact that it's bus seats are playing seats, but even like in the diner and everywhere they go there, they're practically touching each other. And that gives the real sense of this claustrophobia that Neil is feelings time back of that truck. Yeah, they're always sitting on each other. If you think it is one, Yeah, just a nip. I still say that too, And uh, when it's super cold and people are like, jeez, what do you think

it is? Always go why one? Such a great line. There's so many great dumb jokes. I'm a big fan of dumb jokes. Um, they you know, they get robbed overnight, which is very silly because I don't think that happens. But it was like John, He's like at the same time. I think it was the same year. His name is Gary Riley. He played Dave. Remember Dave and Chainsaw from uh Summer School. Oh sure, I'm Dave. I'm but I'm chaining that. Yeah yeah, interesting another little uh cameo. Yeah yeah,

alright school. I don't know if you're a fan, but I love That's when I saw unapologetically. Really it's great. It's great. Even going back and revisiting is a wonderful fun as hell. Yeah, I gotta go check that out again. That's one of those I saw back in the day. But I don't think I like kept up with it. They're the die hards for Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They keep one screenings of Texas Chainsaws. Right, Yeah, that was Dave

the longer blonde hair. Another one of my favorite lines is right after that scene when he goes, uh and if they told you wolverines would make good house pitts, would you believe them? There's such a wonderful throwback quality to a lot of Hughses comedy writing, Like a lot of it feels like, you know, Bob Hope or you know these sort of classic old super clean comedy bit Yeah, almost like one liners singers. I love how he tailored the right He'd write a script, but then he would

go back and Taylor for whoever was playing them. So yeah, I did that specifically with with both of them. That's why everything feels so seamless, like something they would obviously say, and whatever scenario that they were in, yeah, felt so real. Uh. And he's such a collaborator. He didn't care where a great idea came from. It's just so that's all special

and yeah and rare and how it should be. Yeah. Absolutely, this is the most collaborative art form filmmaking on Earth Absolutely, Oh sure, I mean what else I mean, I guess if you want to talk about like orchestras and stuff like that. But even so, Hony people are going to be making a well it depends on the budget and obviously this is the project utually. But but you know how it is on a set, You've got thirty two hundred people all with their own job to make it

all happen. And he welcomed ideas from Wardrop Department, from them, from transpot. It doesn't matter. If it's a good idea, I'd love to use it. Yeah, he didn't claim credit or anything. That's great. He wanted he was he was concerned about the final project. Yeah, and that's a doctor you Uh, if you check your ego at the door, great things can happen, you know. Yeah, it sounds like that was the case with John Hughes for sure. Um, they they all right, so they're they're they've done the plane,

they have done the bus. The bus ride is great, it's fantastic. I don't know, if you start taking a bus trend a wonderful awkward scene. Yeah. Yeah, have you ever traveled by bus? I have? Yeah, Yeah, it's long. Bus rides I have to man, it's the word I didn't went from Arizona to Atlanta, and it was just like, it's one of those things where that's a lot, that's it's a hall because you know how long it takes

forever because you got to stop so much. But um, you know, no one's bathing on that bus for four days at that one tight little bathroom in the midd Yeah, it's bad. And um, I'm glad they put the bus in the bus trip in here, because there's something very specific about a long haul bus ride. It's just the worst. Yeah, and even has a great line you ever traveled by bus before, your mood probably isn't going to improve much.

And of course he has. And and that's part of the fun of this movie is this fishot of Water thing was kind of upper middle class guy. I mean, I don't know if he's rich. It's kind of hard to tell. I wonder if it's the same house from Home. It looks exactly like the house from Hold alone. It does. Chicagoan suburb also read that they built this house, but surely they didn't build the exterior because it said that they built this house from scratch. And I was like, well,

it was in a neighborhood. I doubt if they meant they must have just meant the interior or something, but I don't know that would have made much sense. Apparently he spent like a hundred grand in the studio was all piste off at him because they were like, why did you do that? I don't know, but right the first time we see Emmy's in this, Uh, it's funny. The office could looking over the boards, right, the marketing boards. Yeah, they're too fireplaces in this office, old office, right, So

I mean it definitely makes money. Yeah, and it's absolutely funny throwing him on a bus and throw him him, throwing him into the braidwood end, putting him in that burned out car. Yeah, I'll leave up. The radio still works. I always wonder about movie props and where they end up, um, partially because we uh smoking the Bandit was shot, you

know here in Atlanta when I was a kid. It was my elementary school is in one of the scenes, and my my dad's car was in one of the scenes because he was the principal of my elementary school and my dad ended up with the uh Jackie Gleason's card door the sheriff's card door that gets knocked off ship. We had that in my garage for years until it was one of those things that was just you know, I'm sure you just threw it away, but you wonder

what happens to this stuff? And I found myself today thinking what the where did the fund did that car end up? That great burned out car that they they may just look so perfect for this, Like where did that go? I'm sure it's in a in a junkyard somewhere. I was gonna say hopefully in a museum somewhere, but but there's no point. You know, it's like it should

be in a muse it is. It's because again, like the trunk that's a character this film, and there are Hollywood car museums that have like the Batmobile and the Dukes of Hazzard car, But like, why is it that car in the museum? You know you honestly think this is safe for the road? Yes I do, Yes, I do so Earnest in that scene and not of your

instruments work, not a one. He was like, Oh, I could believe that you would know better than me, dude, because you know, like I said, it's phenomenas melted, ripping their fingers out of the dash. Yeah. Well, in the highway scene, I think that whole sequence, starting with the car rental, which the car was modeled after the Vacation Family truckster, gotta be clearly wooden paneled, metallic beat. Um. I think that she wrote vacation. I didn't realize that.

I mean, he worked for National Lampoon for years. I mean his record is impeccable. As we're saying, they started writing jokes for Roddy Dangerfield and uh and Joan Joan Rivers that's ridiculous, and then come out of the gate with right and Vacation right off the bat. But that whole car sequence I think is my favorite, starting when they get to the car. I love the planes and the trains and the bus and all that, but starting when they get that car is when things really really

heat up for me. Um, because they had that great sequence on the highway at night with the John Candy trying to get out of his coat, which is just some of the best, like physical comedy, smoking toss the button, You forget about the butt until they're sitting on that trunk, sit on the trunk. Right after the cheat they cheated death, the great devil turnency and and the scraping of that. All right, it's like eight seconds later, out of the way of the past. Thank god we got through that.

But yeah, they sit on the trunk and uh and yeah, you're the great sound effect and you see it on their backs, right, the flection of the fire. Yeah. But the taking off of the coat scene is some of the best. Like, it's so easy to take that for granted, Uh, but it's such a great acting like comedy acting bit is him trying to get out of that coat and then the panic that sets in in both of his arms,

like you see it on his face. And he's driving actually, and he starts talking to himself, right, comtence back and I'll be all right, I just need to just it's so great. You know, he's starting to sweat, and it's just really easy to overlook, Like what a great bit of comic acting that that part is. Seriously, Yeah, kick your part off. Yes I will yes, which again is a very sort of corny old school like a tag

joke at the end. I love how he embraced that, you know, it's ah, it is very much an old sort of throwback movie in a lot of ways, a road movie, odd couple movie. It's sort of one of the classic comic duos. Is you know these the obnoxious sort of a barbarian and the and the well to do you know, it goes all the way back to

like British stage, you know, based on stuff like that. Yeah, putting these the odd couple together, right, the straight man, I mean, you can't would mean nearly as funny without the straight Steve Martin, Yeah, you know, which is kind of an undersung role period is to to do the straight man role. It's not as fun considering what he was doing, I mean up into his career up until the yea cocaine fused through the head, you know, crazy wow and crazy guy. You know that's kind of a

chick um. But he's so good at the at the dramatic stuff too. Yeah. I think he really sort of in this period with this and like Rock Sane, he really started to kind of evolve as an actor. Do you ever see Leap of Faith? Yeah, great movie, and he plays the shyster, the tent pole preacher going around. It's great in that role. Yeah, Steve Martin is just one of the greats, I think, I don't. I don't think he's undersung or anything, because he's certainly gotten a

lot of accolades. But he's seventy four years old now and like his his career is like, well, it's hard to tell with him because he went gray in his twenties, Like when I was a little kid and he was doing Wild and Crazy guy gave the mop of gray hair. He's always been kind of hard to tell. But a Spanish prisoner, I mean, he's just he's such a quality actor. Shop Girl. He wrote this too, especially, Yeah Girl is amazing. Yep, yeah, Yeah.

My brother met him once and I saw him on a back lot once, riding a bike just across the back lot and he just smiled NodD at everyone that passed. And he apparently still does this. But he has a card he gives you rather than a photo or an autograph. He carries her on these cards that says I certified that I had a personal moment with Steve Martin and I found him to be charming, funny and blah blah

blah blah blah. And it has this little signature ere yeah, and a great idea if you're always getting stopped, you know, because it's a joke. You know, he gives someone a card and then they have a story and something tangible and away with love that it just seems like such a good dude. So Neil breaks up with him a few times in this movie. The time when he finally breaks up with them in the diner is I think one of the most heartbreaking is because he just he

pulls no punches because they had already bonded. Though. I think that's what makes it so tough. Is John Candy thinks you're a team at this point, and he reminds him that they're not. Uh He shortly after this, because he makes a nice water cash tries to pay him back. Yeah, it's heartbreaking, it is. But yeah, with the exchange of money, it's just like I'm just gonna leave it on the table, and he's just so like he's he can tell he's

just about to bust out crying at any moment. And the way he wants to save face and leave before he exactly such a tough moment it is. But of course fate will keep them together in the truck. Um. Then we get to finally that that carminal scene. Um, and you know it's it's got I know that that. Uh. Some of these publications keep track of like best movie lines and best movie moments and things like that. This has got to be a top twenty all time great

comedy scene. It better be. It better be a you know, I'll raise hell. It's like people that have seen this movie once remember this scene above all else. So good, the great what's her name, Eadie mcclark, Eadie mcclark, mcclark, she's so great well, and she has that wonderful line because that's a you know, he's still he's obviously the

has that the great run of f bombs. But she's got to hold her own on her end, and she has a great line where she goes, I really don't care the way you're speaking to me, smile because she's still got to keep up that customer service thing, you know, until the end, and she she gets to steal the show away your yeah, oh dear what oh man? Uh. Then that gets us to one of my other favorite scenes, which is the taxi scene. Um, after he tries to rebook a flight in Chicago and that great taxis dispatcher

stated like a slab of meat with mittens. He goes, Yeah, he goes, he goes Chicago. You know you're in St. Louis. If I wanted a joke, I'd follow you into the john and watch you take a link man picked up by his testicles before Yeah, and and then the face that Steve Martin makes when he gets punched in the face, that little like again it goes. It's like Charlie Chaplin stuff,

right totally, you know, Yeah, it's like such a throwback. Okay, I'm gonna watch this movie another hundred times, watching Tonight over the years. It's so good. Tays the season two. Yeah, Turkey and putting planes trains on a loop. That's right, And well I did buy it, So I'm gonna make this a definite tradition. I don't watch it every year,

but it's uh, I'm gonna start. I think, um, I do that with holiday holiday films around Christmas side you like emmitter, I'll put that on a loop Halloween, right? Have you? Have you seen it at the Puppetry Art Center that it's amazing. It's hard to I did a play in two thousand one. It was January two Thoe called Light Up the Sky at the Alliance Theater and uh, I did a One of the other actors from New Yorker name is Maryland Sokol. That's okay o L. I

don't know she's still around. I hope she is. Um. She voiced my Otter. So I lost my mind when I learned this news because she'd have stories about Jim Hinson and how he just courted her and was like in love with her. I mean, who knows how much she's fellishing. Um, but just my dad turned me onto Paul Williams as a as a child, so and then and then emmet Order very big part of my childhood and growing up absolutely man as probably us around that age. It would come on HBO. Remember um now they have

the supplemental fun stuff like Kermit is now in there. Really, I don't think. I don't know if you've seen the blue ray or the DVD of the updated version, No, I haven't. Um, it's different than what we saw growing up. The music is indelible. Yeah, river Bottom Nightmare, Right Bottom Nightmare. They actually scared me when I was a fine. I tried to show that to my daughter last year and she, uh, she didn't get into it. My heart was a little broken, But I think it was just a little too soon,

So I'm gonna gonna try again this year. I don't know, maybe kids like the animated stuff more or do they like the practical she would she would dig it? Yeah, I think I think at that age, you're you're still game for whatever, you know, we should show her the Mandalorian. Yeah you watched that? I have you think? Oh? I love it so far? Right. It feels like a wonderful throwback to a new Hope. Yeah. Tone, it's like what I remembered as a child. Yep, And it feels like

this new friend now. I really like the direction it's headed a lot. And I like the thirty minute format. I've seen other people saying they wish it was an hour, but I think that thirty minute is just like just the right night, little nice, little sweet spot. Yeah. Yeah. And and we're so used to binging things. I kind of appreciate the fact that they're dolling it out a little by little yeah, because now he's not having everything immediate and accessible now, I know. I like the anticipation

of imagination. Yeah, and that little jeez and everyone's calling baby Yoda even though it's not Yoda. But what a what a genius thing for Jon Favreau to think to do, you know, it's brilliant. Yeah, he's really usually putting together quite a career for himself. The dude from Swingers soon knew. Uh So the car gets impounded, Dell comes through with the truck there at the end, the the cheese truck where they have to ride in the back, but he gets some home. Yeah, which, oh my gosh, that's what

says on which sounds so midwestern of course. But that great scene at the train station that you you talked about earlier is I mean, that's where it all comes together. And um, just that look on Neil's face when it just watches over him, and that the character arc coming full circle for him, Like he could have just gone home, but he wouldn't have been able to live with himself in all these pieces together, everything he's been through. He could easily just say, oh screw Dell, Yeah I'm done well.

And he shows that sign of relief when he gets on the train at first, even like thank god, that's over, yep, done, I know, go home, give me back to my wife, my kids. Yeah. The one thing that he wants to do smash cut to them. Where's that prop? Right? Like that should be an amazing fixtures. You know, if that ended up and it's got it's got him, I'm gonna track it down. I'm gonna good, well, I'm gonna buy it,

or I'll go in again. Or if it's uh, it's it's like Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's just sitting in some prop warehouse in Los Angeles somewhere. Funny. You know how those things end up. It's probably rented and returned. That that was the trunk from whatever, you know, some other dumb movie. You just slap some stickers on it and said del Griffin Stincil. But the very end is such a great payoff because they there's a lot of ways you could have handled that final scene where they

go to the house. They could have shown the hand of very heavily, no doubt. Yeah, they could have shown him having dinner. They could have carried that a little more. They may have shot that stuff, but just I think Hughes having the restraint to know that there was so much more power and that introduction and how they did it. Uh, this is my friend like that said at all. Yeah,

this is the first time he uses that phrase. Very first time Del refers to Neil as his friend to Gus, I think when he's trying to get the hotel to my old friend, Neil says no, and he says, this is my friend, and it's so like it's such a gut punch in all the right ways. And when his wife, I don't know who that actress. She does such a good job in this movie though, that's sort of this like behind the scenes heartbeat. Um when she says, hello

Mr Griffith, Hello Miss Page, Mrs Page. It's just it's perfect. So yeah, there's no better way to it. Yeah, And and she you get the sense that she knows, like there may have been six other phone calls that we don't know about where she learns all this stuff. Seriously, what do you think Neil saying, I'm sure I'll believe this bullshit I'm dealing with. Yeah, and I'm right he's trying to kill me three t like literally yeah, but her warmth is so welcoming. Yeah, it was so special.

And then we does he know we freeze on his smile. I know it's just like now you see that, And all I can think of is like John Candy and memory that literally that's what Yeah, do you think is about to pop on the screen. Yeah, but this has been final cut since since seven right years before Candy died. Candy died, do you know, I don't know the mid nineties. Maybe I feel like I was in high school. It might have been like ninety four. Yeah, I think I was a senior of the great one of the greats.

He's a big dude, six tooing that much weight around six too, that's not that's a lot of dude. He was a large man, Yeah, but just a giant and by all accounts, just a sweetheart of a guy. Like every story I've ever heard is just you know that John Candy was just as great as he would helpe him to be. Like he has everyone's uncle Buck, you

know what a great body of work. Yeah, and cameos that he did the splash and stripes, Yeah, everything against stripes and then he played a big asshole and you know it's kind of the only time he ever did that, I think. And I stumbled across SETV growing up, Yeah, I watched and ever watched it. I was like, what is who are these Canadian weirdo sor I don't even know where I found it. Was it like w N

or some probably? Yeah, I bet it was. Yeah, I've stumbled across a lot of movies because there was a guy named Danny or Denny who would host w g N. It was based out of Chicago and the Saturday and Sunday afternoons, would you get home from church, we'd ever miss Winners, KFC whatever, and I plopped in front of TV and watch Swamp Thing Poison ivy whenever they're showing

at the time, early mid eighties. But he was a Daniel Danny, and I've actually looked up trying to find this guy what he was doing, and he was the host. He was the host of of these movies that would and I'll bet you anything SETV was on yeh, watch you let it b g N. Yeah. After was there anything better than getting out of those church clothes? Right?

It's like people that didn't grow up going to church, that feeling at like twelve fifteen just to get home and like take off those shoes and socks and like get on your shorts totally such such the great thing. Well you got anything else? Man? I mean, I think it's one of the best endings ever, certainly the best Thanksgiving movie. Yeah, I'd vote that number one. I mean, there aren't a ton of Thanksgiving movies, but nothing touches um Dutch. Yeah. John Hughes wrote, there's a few those

Thanksgiving right now. Yeah. I mean, this movie manages to be sentimental. It just strikes just the right tone. I think it does. You know, there's got to be a bit of that, but it's not so over the top and you need that valve release every once in a while too, with with anything watching, if it's because dramatic, yeah, it's a comedy, but they're definitely some heavy dramatic moments. Yeah right, oh yeah, um it does. It's a perfect blend. Yeah, wonderful film. Yep, R I P. Mr Hughes and Mr

Candy and uh thanks for coming on. It's been great. It's awesome. I'll crush it anytime with you, please, every love. I love movies. Yeah, we'll have to get you back in you all right, all right, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope your belly is full of I guess on a Friday it would be cold turkey sandwich with cranberry, maybe a little mayo, but I hope you

cued up planes, trains, and automobiles today. It's kind of a tradition in our house to watch this one every year, one of my favorite movies, and we had a great chat about it. So I hope you enjoyed it, because I sure did. So sit back, eat some more turkey, maybe fall asleep on the couch listening to the sweet dulcet tones of Neil Page and Delve Griffith. Have a great weekend. Everybody. Movie. Crush has produced, edited and engineered by Ramsay Hunt here in our home studio at Pont

City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,