Raising Arizona (1987) - Raising Fargo - Part One

Yeah, since the last time we recorded you and I are both in new studios, and We're working out some technical difficulties. It's been a frustrating

So what movies are we going to be discussing today?

And we're going to, this is actually a good one for any beginning writer or anybody that's just a fan of these films because the Coen brothers don't write scripts traditionally. They don't do what you're quote unquote supposed to do. They break all the rules of screenwriting and yet somehow their films fucking work and they work amazingly. So I was really looking forward to today. I'm really dug in on these two, but first, before we get to your booze, I'm going to tell you mine.

I am going to apologize to the makers of larceny, who I believe we did larceny on a previous episode, or we just talked about it. You did,

are we going with first?

They really get to the meat of a story and then they get the hell out. You know what I mean? They don't linger and that love that about the Coen's, but okay. Running time of an hour and 34 minutes. A budget of 1987. It was released on April 10th, 1987, and it made 22. 8 million domestic, which was good for 52nd place on the domestic list that year, it got beat by roughly 700, 000 by the plate, by the 51st placed holder. Ernest goes to camp.

Yeah. Okay, so i'm just gonna bunch together like miller's crossing barton fink hud sucker proxy They were all the same made on shoestring budgets and they made they turned profits That's why the coen's kept getting contracts to make movies you know allowed to make their films so I will say however It did land at number 31 on the American Film Institute's top 100 comedies of all time. That's amazing.

So, yeah, I mean, 31, I think it should be higher, but 31's not bad when you had no Oscar nominations and you didn't make hardly any money at the box office. To, like you said, its cultural impact is significant. Now, just a side note on that 100 comedies of all time. Some Like It Hot was number one. Tootsie was number two and you got to go all the way down to number 10 before you get to airplane.

So, you know, let's, let's take it as a grain of salt in my, in my book, airplane would be number one and, and raising Arizona is probably in the top 10 if I had to do my top comedies of all time. So, all right, we'll just take that for what it is. Another side note on the box office the top 10 films of that year, three men and a baby was number one with 167 million.

Followed by Fatal Attraction, Beverly Hills Cap 2, Good Morning Vietnam, Moonstruck, The Untouchables, Secret of My Success, Stakeout, Lethal Weapon, and The Witches of Eastwick. The reason why I wanted to bring this up, a couple of reasons, number one, there's a couple of action films in there, Beverly Hills Cap 2 and Lethal Weapon. In today's market, those would have been the top two films. Which Lethal Weapon was it? One was the first one. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And you see all these other movies are all Oscar laden movies. Yeah. Fatal attraction. Good morning, Vietnam. Moonstruck the untouchables. You know what I mean? These are movies that win Oscars and they were the top grossing movies that it just goes to show how different the times are today. Transformers and Marvel and Disney star wars, they make all the money and the Oscars are won by movies like past lives and anatomy of a fall and American fiction. You know what I mean?

Like, I mean, granted, this wasn't the best year for that example, since Oppenheimer and Barbie were doing the biggest movies of the year and kind of ruled the Oscar nominations. But still the other side note on there, big year for share. She had two movies in that top 10 with Moonstruck and The Witches of Eastwick. Yeah. And she went best actress for Moonstruck that year. So big year for Cher 1987, but we're not talking about Cher today.

We're going to talk about Raising Arizona, which stars Nicholas Cage as H. I. McDonough, Holly Hunter as Edwina. Trey Wilson as Nathan Arizona Sr., which, by the way, I have to just tell you right now, Trey Wilson steals the show. He's fucking hilarious in every scene he's in as Nathan Sr. Francis McDormand as Honey, John Goodman as Gale Snotes, and his brother William Forsythe, well, he's not his brother, Actor William Forrest Light plays his brother, Evel Snotes.

Sam McMurray of course plays Glenn as well. So that's pretty much your top cast there. When was the first time you seen this movie? What's your experience with it?

That's what we were doing that day. That's just, that's it now. That's where I'm at. And raising Arizona was like that, where if you're flipping around and it's on, guess what you're doing. Now you're going to watch that. Right. My, I'm very similar with that. I remember being in a car again, I was 11. I hadn't quite turned 12 yet. But I was in a car, I wanna say mom or dad were driving and the radio was on and you know, they were playing music and stuff.

And then they went to a commercial and the guy on the commercial was like coming, you know just released this week or whatever. He was doing a promo for it. It was called Raising Arizona. And I didn't, I never heard of it, obviously. It just had come out. I wasn't. You know that knowledgeable about the actors at that time, Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter were not huge names yet. But I remember the guy on the radio saying, this is the most unique film I have ever seen.

I remember saying, he's like, movies are going to change after this. I remember the guy on the radio fucking saying that.

They made a comedy about people kidnapping a baby.

Even, even in preparing for this show, I watched it a few times and I loved every time I watched it. I didn't get bored of it at all. All right. So log me.

So right off the bat, before we get to the beats, I'm going to give you a little side note bar sidebar on the, on the beats here. The Coen's are notorious for knowing the rules of screenwriting and then breaking them. They understand structure. And, and yet they still deliver their story, but they do it, they always do it like in this unique way that deviates from structure. For instance, the credits aren't shown until 11 minutes into the movie.

The love story set up almost immediately when he calls her a little desert flower and that gets her attention. We proceed, by the way, I read the actual screenplay, which is available online. There is no mention in the screenplay that this is working on Edwina. It just says everything that High says and the scene ends. When you watch the movie though, they have shots of Ed like, Noticing this, right? Like she's catching the attention already.

And the idea is you do something once you do it again, like a second time, only it's a little bit different. And then the third time it's very different, sometimes almost a reversal, but it's, it's where it's almost like a punchline of a joke. It's where it's even funnier the third time. So the rule of three is actually an all writing. It's not screenwriting. It's, it's, it's actually in life too. Like people use the rule of three when they give speeches, they use the rule of three.

You know, in anything. So The Coens use it specifically Let me see if I wrote down how many times they do it. So, so they use the rule of three at least four times in the first eleven minute montage. so I'm gonna break up the montage by the way. Into the first six minutes and the next five minutes. The reason why I'm breaking 'em up is because I have them is there're two different montages. What I'm cons, what I consider the first six minutes, I call the recidivism montage. Mm-Hmm.

And that's highs criminal past. Mm. Okay. Now you gotta remember they're cramming all this in 11 minutes so that you get to know who these people are. Right? Right. Um, and then the next five minutes after that is sort of what I call the salad days montage. It's where Hi and Ed are together. So So in the first montage, we have three moments of the first rule of three is the mugshots fingerprinting. There's a rule of three for the off screen cop telling Edwina not to forget something.

There's a rule of three for the parole board, the guys that say, okay then. And then there's a rule of three for the Of every time he walks by the mopping convict in prison. Okay. Okay. And then actually there's another one too. The, the rule of three of what I call contemplating prison life with a twist. So, I'm gonna break all three of these down. So the mugshot figure printing. The very first time is the first scene in the movie where Ahai calls Ed a desert flower.

The second time we see him being mugshotted, Ed is crying because her fiancé left her. for. Remember that part? You tell him, I think he's a damn fool. You tell him, hi, McDonough said so. You know what I mean? And then the third time is the fingerprinting. It's not the mugshotting, but it's the fingerprinting where he puts a promise ring on her finger. Right? So the offscreen cop, first time we hear him, don't forget his profile, Ed.

That's where she's like, turn to the right, turn to the right. Right? The second time we hear him is. She said, you hear the offscreen cow go, don't forget his phone call it. And then on the third one, right before he on the third time, when he goes to put the promise ring on her, don't forget his fingerprints it. So that's the rule of three there too, as well. So now we have the mopping prisoner who growls at high. Every time he walks by the first time he does it.

If you notice he's way far in the back of the corridor, like he's just started mopping the

It's just where he's laying there where the guy's rambling on high is laying in bed thinking about Ed. So this use of repetition, the rule of three is to develop the first six minutes of the film into where the audience is completely aware of who these people are, particularly high because we're learning about them so quickly. You know what I mean? That's what the rule of three does. The repetition is the key. Kits you the idea of this is regular life, right?

This is how it goes for him, including the parole board. I forgot to even mention the parole board. There's a rule of three with the parole board where every time they ended, the guy ends it with, like I said, okay then, right? But even those are different because there's different statements in each one. The reason why I say that one for the end is because this is where you're going to get our theme stated.

So on the third and final visit to the parole board, one of the board members asks, you're not just telling us what you, we want to hear, are you high? And he says, no, sir. And the board member says, because all we want is the truth. Hi. It's a little befuddled. And he goes. Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear. And the board members all boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?

Definitely comes into play with the Snotes when they crash at his place. We can't, he can't make them and his wife happy. Right? It's gotta be one or the other. But he tries so hard to make everybody happy. This of course leads to self sacrifice. When you give up your own welfare for another, Heis battling towards his spiritual goal. So the next five minutes, which I call the salad days montage is after he walks in and he proposes, right?

So now we're in the, the post wedding marital bliss part, the narrated montage of happy married life where they, they this is what Blake Snyder, of course, would call at work at home at play, right? So they show them at work, we show them at home, you know what I mean? We show them watering the lawn and stuff. There's another rule of play here. Where they watch the sunset. He's watering the bushes. She's knitting. He works at the sheet metal plant. So that's the at work at home play.

By the way, I don't know if you noticed in those work scenes, the name on his uniform is says HUD, HUD sucker industries. So they're already laying out their plans to make the HUD sucker proxy, which is a movie that would come out years later. I always thought that was a cool little thing there. All right. So four point push. Now this is something that I've sort of, I don't want to say I've coined because all these terms are already known.

I, I just, I, if there's anything that I coined, it's calling it the four point push. So, I think that all the best screenplays have four points. We always talk about the five point finale. I believe that the first act should have four indisputed points, undisputed points, I should say, undisputed points, which will drive the character to the second act. Okay? Some movies have some, some movies have one. Some movies have a lot, but they should all at least have four. More than that is fine.

When we talk to a double bump, the double bump is usually an added one. That's like a fifth one. The more beats, the better, right? Because you're creating this, you, you, you want the main character to have to be forced to make a decision, right? Lazy writing is where they just sort of drift into act two. And there's no driving force. So, my points of the four point push are the inciting incident, which is the first hint that the before world is about to change. Okay?

So, there's always been a lot of confusion between inciting incident and catalyst. Well, which one's the catalyst? Which one's the inciting incident? In movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's even harder to identify, because in Raiders of the Lost Ark, there's simply one catalyst and nothing else. The FBI agents meet with him and tell him about Hitler's And then, like, the next scene, he's already decided he wants to go for it. He's waiting for them to give him the okay. You know what I mean?

There's no debate. Indiana Jones doesn't have to debate if he wants to go after something, right? It's just like, that's the catalyst, and the next scene, he's on his way to Cairo. You know? In that movie, it works, though. It works in that movie but in most films you want more than that. There's got to be more of something to really push the character into act two. So the inciting incident is kind of like the first hint that the before world is about to change. Catalyst, that's the next one.

That's the second point. That's the big thing that happens that crashes into the before world. It's no longer just a hint. This is now something big. The debate begins. Is the will they won't they? That's the debate. Will they decide to go into Act 2 or will they

not? And of course, the fourth point is the break into 2, which is the thing that happens that causes Act 2 to begin. So, like I said, all the best films should have all four of these. Some of them only have one. But in the case, you know, not everybody's going to be good enough to write Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know what I mean? So if you're writing a screenplay, make sure you have your four point push.

And if you have a double bump that makes it five points, even better, the more points, the better inciting incident.

If you, if we're not going to get into double bump, but again, it's another Blake Snyder term where. The first catalyst isn't enough, sometimes they need two, right? They need something else. We've often talked about Star Wars being the double bump, right? Inciting incident. Roughly eight minutes in, a crying Ed returns home and tells Hai she's barren and cannot have kids. This isn't enough, by the way, to catapult them into act two. They need all four points of these four point push. Here's

the next one. Catalyst, the adoption agency, rejections, depressed high drives by convenience stores, a pivotal moment of where's their future headed. By the way, the scene where the adoption agency rejects them is kind of hilarious. It's where she's like, they're looking at their history and Edwina's all, I, we realize high has a checkered past and then high is all, but Ed, here's a Officer of the law twice decorated.

So we kind of we figure it kind of evens out and then they show his rap sheet It's been arrested, right? Of course, they're not gonna approve his adoption Okay, so debate begins. That's when they discover Nathan, Arizona and his wife and his wife have given birth to five babies They immediately come to, we figure they had more than they can handle, right? They don't need all five of those babies. So that's where they start to plan and plot.

And of course the break into two is literally the credit sequence. It's basically the break into two. It's because they've made the decision and now they're going into act two to kidnap one of these babies. So think of how different that is from just about every other movie we've ever talked about. Where they wait 11 minutes to show the title of the movie, and in the first 11 minutes there's two separate montages.

One of High's past, one of High and Ed together, and, and, don't, can't you admit, That at that 11 minute mark, when the credits start, we know everything we need to know about these two. Oh yeah. Right. Everything we need, we know everything about them. God. So how fucking brilliant is that? All right. So fun and games always the first part of act two. Kidnapping scene in the ensuing first night at home. And now they're officially in the upside down world version of act one, right?

Cause now they get a baby at home and now they have to be responsible adults.

Ironically, the next scene, the Snotes boys escape from prison. It's another funny way to escape prison. Just the way that they do it. They get themselves a car and they go to high's house immediately. Their

But, but when they escaped from prison, it's like, you'd think they'd want to be as quiet as possible, but they're fucking screaming at the top of their lungs as they break out of the sewer line. So anyway, they represent the childish and selfish nature of high. Whereas. Ed represents the decent and responsible nature. See where we're going here? We're already going into High's tug of war. Yeah. It's no mistake that these scenes are back to back.

Yeah. They come home with the baby, and the very next scene, the Snowes escape from prison. Right. That's not an accident.

B story at the 27 minute mark. This is an interesting B story for me. So remember when we talk about B story, the B story is the character that's going to drive your, your protagonist to their spiritual goal. A lot of times it's a love interest, right? The love interest is usually introduced at this point. Guess who I have as being the B story for raising Arizona. You could disagree. Others can disagree.

I think there's solid evidence that at the 27 minute mark, Leonard Smalls, the biker from hell arrives in the film. He oddly enough is going to serve as the B story because ultimately he's going to drive high to him. And if you wanted to talk timing, the timing actually does follow Blake Snyder's beat sheet because you know, 27 minutes is kind of right after the break into two. Usually the B story is introduced right after your break into two. Alright, more fun and games.

We round out the first half kidnapping, tension during breakfast between the Snotes and Edwina, then finally, the Glenn and Honey visit, which is Sam McMurray and Francis McDormand. It's, and that, oddly enough, is also broken up into three segments. Another rule of three. First part is, we meet Glenn, and we get a good feel of this guy. Two, the dip test and insurance discussion with Honey and Edwina. Which by the way, I got it. It stopped. Well, I'll just tell you the third one.

And the third one, of course, is the wife swapping discussion where a high punches out Glenn. So that's like a three segment, three scene rule of three of meeting Glenn and honey. What's funny about honey press McDormand when she first sees the baby and she's all, Oh, look at this baby. Oh, he's so good. It's like a total baby. Talk to the baby. And then in like an instant looks at it and goes, so you're going to send him to Arizona state.

And just what made me laugh so hard about that is like, that's kind of like how we in Michigan, like when a baby is born, like, Oh, he's going to go to Michigan, right? Like automatically we start thinking about which college they're going to go to Michigan or Michigan state. Right. So when I heard that, I just started rolling.

All right. Midpoint scene 45 minutes into the film, almost exactly halfway through an hour and a half movie. Hi, Rob's another convenience store for money and huggies. And it sets off the events of the big car chase, which I think is one of the best chase scenes ever. As he alludes, not only cops, but dogs and an armed convenience store clerk and a shoot happy grocery store manager as well.

Not to mention the shoot happy cops who don't seem to care about the Whatever might be in the background of whatever they're shooting at. Just firing at houses. They're firing at cars. They're firing at anything just to get to high. So here's his tangible goal. Now, remember his tangible goal was wanting to provide for his family. And he technically he prevails. It's a false victory. He does in fact, get the money. And the huggies. Right.

So technically he is a success, but it's a false victory because now his wife is pissed off because he's going back to that recidivism again. Right. And, and of course the happiness, the false victory is short lived because the bad guys closing in as always, what comes right after the midpoint and immediately upon arriving home, Ed has it out with the Snotes effectively kicking them out in the morning and, you know. They want to recruit High for a bank robbery.

So, it's already now all starting to go to shit. More bad guys closing in scenes as High writes and narrates a goodbye note for Ed. Letter to Smalls shakes down Nathan Senior, and finally Glenn arrives with some bad news, and you know, that he knows who the baby is. By the way, in that scene, I don't know if you ever noticed, in the back window of Glenn's station wagon, there's a sticker on the window decal that says, Caution, I drive naked. I never noticed that.

This is a guy who's got a wife and five kids! Yeah. Or four kids, however many of those there are. Those annoying kids that they have and he's got that on his window. It's hilarious. All

right. All is lost at the one hour, five minute mark. The Snope brothers turn on high because they want the reward money for the baby. They trash this place and steal the baby kidnapped away from the kidnappers. Another rule of three, by the way, is introduced at this point, this late in the movie at the all is lost. The Coen brothers are initiating another rule of three. You know, you remember which one it is? The baby book.

So after Gale leaves High is all tied up and he's screaming and he tips over. Gail re enters, but he only comes in to get the baby book. The sort of like the instructions on how to raise a baby, right? Later after they rob the bank and the dye pack explodes, Ed looks for the baby book when they get inside the car. And then of course, the third one is when they return the baby at the end. I'm jumping the gun here, but I just wanted to explain the rule of three on this one.

When they return the baby at the end, They returned the baby book. It's like it's their instructions on how to raise a baby.

All right. So, Dark Night of the Soul, Ed sees that the Snotes have fled and she feels relieved until she gets home and sees that she has to free High and that the baby is gone. Break into three. High reasons with Ed about how right she was and how wrong he was. When he racks his shotgun. Now let's go get Nathan Jr. Just before Evel robs the convenience store and he makes the old man count to 825 and then back down to zero, which is funny because they leave the baby behind.

So then when the old man's halfway through counting, he's all, Oh, the hell with this. And he gets up and they're coming back.

Five point finale. We're in act three now. Five point finale. Gathering the team. Hi and Ed are in the car. They discuss not only getting Nathan back, but likely breaking up. They're just not good for each other. Execution of the plan for all involved. Actually, this is a good execution of the plan for everyone. Smalls arrives at the McDonough home. The Snotes have taken Nathan Jr. on a bank heist with them. After the dye pack explodes, however, like I said Ed will retrieve the baby book.

By the way, in that scene, where the dye pack explodes there obviously was a real exploding device of some kind when they shot the movie, because when you see John Goodman's character yells at Evel, Damn it, you never leave a man behind when they realize the baby's gone. Both of them are wearing earplugs.

This connection will show up later in the dream sequence in both films. I'll talk about that after, but okay, so dig down deep. Both Ed and High attempt to retrieve the baby from Smalls, who gives chase with his motorcycle. Execution of the new plan. High must fight Smalls and win in order to secure the baby safely. During this fight, he sees that he has the same Woody Woodpecker tattoo that that Smalls does. This is significant because Smalls represents the evil nature of high.

And if high doesn't change his ways, he could end up possibly having that sort of future for himself. Right. You know, we talked about, our friends over at writer's blockbusters, the script butcher himself, Jimmy George, and one of his podcasts where he talks about nightmare fuel aspects, one of the things that he says their main character will have to face their biggest fear in order to succeed.

It's the line he uses is I'll do anything I need to do to achieve the goal except the one thing I have to One of his examples is in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones is willing to do anything, but he hates snakes. Well, what happens to be in the entire inside of the well of souls where the Ark is snakes, right? So in this case, high has to fight smalls to the death. Yeah. Which would be his ultimate fear, right? So he's, you know, high is even

Yeah. And that's when he reveals he's holding a pin from one of the grenades that's on Leonard Smalls jacket. Smalls blows up.

And then, they return the baby to Nathan Sr. High even says to Nathan Sr. about why they're splitting up, he's like, we're just too selfish and unrealistic. And Nathan Sr. says, well you brought back my boy, so you must have your good points too.

Closing image, High has his dream, a futuristic, hopeful vision of himself. By the way, the entire dream is selfless as he's focusing on what is best for everybody else in his life. That final dream sequence, by the way, I told you I would talk about it. It mentions or I mentioned earlier the connection to the end of No Country for Old Men. Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen that movie. When Tommy Lee Jones is retelling the dream he had to his wife.

So he has a dream and the movie ends with him telling his dream to his wife. The dream is way more somber, right? It's about seeing his long deceased father. And in the dream, his father goes on ahead and tells him he'll meet him there and builds a fire. And he knows he'll see him again. It's an obvious metaphor for afterlife and that Tommy Lee Jones, having survived the wrath of evil, that is Anton Chigurh realizes his own mortality and that he too will die someday.

Didn't High pretty much do the same thing? Like, he faced his evil, which was Leonard Smalls, and survived. But the stark contrast is that his dream is hopeful and uplifting. Right. Of a possible happy future. Okay, trivia. 13 babies are credited for playing the Arizona Quints, including Nathan Jr. Apparently, there were as many as 15 at one point, but one was eventually fired during filming because he learned how to walk.

And the musical score was done by Carter Burwell. Both of them Carter Burwell and Francis McDormand, that was their first film, by the way, was Plot Simple. But all four of them, Holly Hunter, Francis McDormand, M. Emmett Walsh and the composer Carter Burwell would join together for the Coen Brothers next film, which was this one, Raising Arizona. All four of them appear in it. Between them, Holly Hunter and Francis McDormand now have five Academy Awards.

Though Franny is winning heavily, she's up 4 to 1 right now on Oscars. Yeah, right. 3 of them for Best Actress and she has a 4th Oscar for, she was the producer of the Best Picture winning Nomadland. Holly Hunter, of course, has 1 Best Actress Oscar for The Piano. Coincidentally Carter Burwell, who did the music, also did the music for Fargo. And he has 3 total Oscar nominations, but he has yet to win one.

There is another rule of three, Mohit, that I forgot to mention, when the cops pull somebody away from something. Opening image, Hai is pulled away from by a cop while he's flirting with Ed. In the second, Hai is pulled away again when he's sticking up for Ed. The first two mugshot scenes, a cop keeps pulling him away. And the third one is Nathan seniors being pulled away from the, by the cops when he's trying to talk to the media.

So it seems that that's a running rule of three in this one where the cops pull somebody away. A couple more funny lines in the film film that's loaded with funny lines. But just a couple that I had to write down. The cops are interrogating, interrogating Nathan Senior. Do you have any disgruntled employees? Nathan says, oh hell, they're all disgruntled. Now, as a retail manager, I can respect that. In the same, in the same scene, the cop asks, what would the child's jammies look like?

And first of all, it's important to note that the child wasn't in any jammies. He was just wearing a diaper, but to answer the question, he's all where's he says, Oh yeah, this is a quote. I don't know. There were jammies. They had Yotas and shit on them. When the Snotes are talking about how they found out about the hayseed bank that they're going to rob on that particular Friday, why they need to do it on that day. Friday because the, all that cash was there to cover farmer subsidy checks.

Gail says we got it in a joint from a guy named Lauren Spivey, one of Dick Nixon's under secretaries of agriculture. And then Evel says he's in for solicitating sex from a state trooper. I think Gail says ordinarily we don't associate with that type of person, but he was trying to score some brownie points. Like it's kind of like that Pulp Fiction esque of honor among low lives. You know what I mean?

Like, Even these hardened criminals, they have a line they rarely cross, and they don't associate with sex offenders. So, okay music playing a factor as a character. As Edwina helps to calm a restless Nathan Jr. from a bad dream, she carries him gently around the bedroom humming a soothing lullaby. That song, Down in the Willow Garden, that's the name of the song, is actually about the murder of a girl.

You know what I mean? Like it just for him it didn't match up. A low rent criminal. Yeah. Hi McDonough. Right. All right. We're gonna do a fun exercise here. Real quick, that 11 minute pre credits set up that I was talking about. Yeah. Right. The before the credits 11 minute montage has its own beat sheet.

Don't forget the bouquet, Ed, by the way, that's the cop, the officer, the king cop, actually a rule of three. He throws a fourth one in there, but that was is the wedding. And this is their tangible goal for both of them to get married. Bad guys, closing in mundane work at the sheet metal plant, watching the sunrise and the salad days. All is lost. Hi. I'm barren. Dark night of the soul.

The doctor explains why she can't have kids with pictures break into three and the gathering of the team, deciding to have a baby one way or another execution of the plan adoption agency fails. Oh no, I'm sorry. I put adoption agency.

But the Hightower surprise comes right after that the hot adoption agency denies them based on highs checkered past Dig down deep losing all drive to housekeeping and ed resigns from being a cop and then execution of the new plan They abduct the baby born to a large family in order to start their own family So as you see the beats sort of flow even in that 11 minute pre credit montage.

Similarly, in the same year, 1987, lethal weapon came out and they use the exact. Same concept both martin riggs mel gibson the good guy and mr Joshua played by gary bucey the bad guy. They have the exact same special forces tattoo This signifies that they are the opposite sides of the same coin I forgot about that and if mel didn't make the choices that he made to become a cop It's possible he could have ended up like Mr. Joshua. He could have been a thug for criminals.

After his wife died and he dove deeper into suicidal tendencies and alcoholism, he could have eventually become Mr. Joshua. But, Roger, Danny Glover's role, is the one that sort of crashes into his life and keeps him on the straight and narrow just like Edwina does for High. Other examples, Indiana Jones and belloc. They're both archaeologists, but one uses it for evil, one uses it for good. Batman and Joker. You could argue they're both insane, right? Because they need alter egos to survive.

They are both kind of cut from the same cloth. Only one has chosen the path of good and one has chosen the path of evil. I got in a discussion recently with somebody online. I got, I get into these movie thread arguments all the time. And the subject of the movie was falling down, falling down. And I use this concept. I said, a character that Michael Douglas plays, his name's defense. He is the, Opposite side of the coin of Prendergast, which Robert Duvall's character plays, right?

They're both frustrated with society. They're both feel unappreciated and disrespected by both their peers and their family, particularly their wives They're practically the same person, but they've chosen different paths And if Prendergast had continued to go down this path Maybe he becomes the guy who gets frustrated out of his car one day and says fuck it and snaps.

You know what I mean? So like The bad thing happened where they split off and now one's the bad guy. You know what I mean? Like, they're basically the same guy, but one's good and one's bad. Anything else to wrap up, Raising Arizona?

whatever.

We thought about movies. We drew pictures of movie posters. We didn't pay attention at all. I, my grades probably could have been a hell of a lot better if I actually paid attention, but we were dreamers and, and, but this is an example of how movies do teach you things. Dave told me the story where he was in class. I want to say it was in high school. And he's not paying attention as usual. He's daydreaming.

But they somehow were talking about the law, and the teacher said there's a term called recidivism. Does anyone know what that is? And Dave yells out, REPEAT OFENDER Just like the guy in the movie says, Because he's seen Raising Arizona a thousand times and knows it back and forth so when he heard that movie, he immediately said out loud, repeat O Fender and the teacher goes, yes, that's right. Good job, Dave. All because he'd seen this movie so much. Yeah, that's great. So that's awesome.

I forgot about that story, but every time I hear it now, I think of that story. The one time he shined in his class. Yeah. Alright, so let's lay on this plane before we take off in the connecting flight.