Spies Like Us (1985) - Wordplay, Ninjas & a Delayed Grenade

Paul, I may have committed a hate crime this week. Again again, Yeah, an accidental hate crime. I I was at the office. My stomach was was grumbling, wasn't feeling great.

I've been there, Yeah.

A little rumble in the tom top and I.

Was like, our stomach, Oh, oh.

I need to I need to find a restroom. And I went to the ladies. And then I went into the ladies. But there's like six stalls in the ladies. It's like people are you know, people can come in and out. It's not a fully private situation. So I like, there's no there's no good way to there's no good way to say this. I destroyed the all gender bathroom,

Did you enter to find a bathroom thriving in pristine or or had someone already taken a knife to it that day?

She'd been she'd been roaded hard, but not put away wet. Let's put it that way. Yet not yet, not yet, she they I should say they were road hard.

The least you can do for the bathroom is a sign of the proper pronouns.

That's true. That's fair, that's fair, that's fair. They did not deserve what I did to them. And I would like to apologize to all all non binary people out there for what I have done, for the crime I half committed in your in your space, in your safe space.

Hey on, Paul in America, And this is that aged.

Well, yesterday's pop culture.

Today, and I'm ripping off my face mask to reveal that I'm actually Tom Cruise.

Saha, No, no, that was last week.

But we are still in spy movie May Yes.

Right, so we're doing another spy.

Movie, another spy movie. A movie, it is, without a doubt, a movie.

We're doing a movie today?

Yeah? Should we do some five star Apple podcast reviews? First?

Sure?

All right? Shall we read the first one.

Sure thing?

All right? This is from Kelsey NC Kelsey North Carolina perhaps or North California or non carbonated. Ha.

I like that one, Yeah, Kelsey, non carbon noncarbonated.

Yeah, they write hysterical. I recently discovered this podcast and have been working my way through the back catalog of episodes, falling more in love with these two fools, with each and every one. That's beautiful. I just finished the Aladdin episode and to hear Paul laugh slash cry at any Mitch of Iago stating that after the week he had, that stupid bird just brought him so much joy. He

No notes, no notes on you, Kelsey.

Yeah that this is an excellent thing I learned like in New York of like acting a little weird if you need a little space, yeah, yeah, Yeah.

The problem is is we've really raised the bar in the city.

Yeah.

You have to be like.

Naked, waist down.

Or covered in a substance that no one can identify. Yeah, and they're like, oh, no, that person, we don't know what that is.

The only shore fire thing to do is to smell. Haha. That is the one true repellent. Yeah, because people immediately wonder a why be what and see where can they go?

So we're glad we can be your repellent. Yes, your your grocery store repellent.

Absolutely, Kelsey.

Our second review comes from putting the fun in refunds. H Okay, I love this.

I love this.

There's a story there. It has nothing to do with our review. Yeah, it's just they signed up for Amazon or whatever just for that and it makes me so happy.

Yeah, it's appropriate that we're reading it now. We're coming up on tax season in the real world.

Hell yeah yeah. One of my favorite retrospective pods haven't missed an episode yet. You guys need to review Gus Van Sands to Die For, featuring Babyface, Joaquin Phoenix and Unhinged Noicole Kidman.

True story. My mother requested to die four years ago and we still haven't done it.

You know your mother contains multitudes, because I would not have expected that.

She also has never seen it. My mom will like, hear a review of something, or like she'll be listening to an NPR radio show and they'll reference a movie and she'd be like, you guys should do that. It sounds like fun. And also that way, I don't have to watch it. You can watch it and tell me.

Okay, okay, okay, the multitudes are receding, they're coming back because that that track, like.

An ebbing tide that all tracks.

For a minute, I thought that like she was super into Gus vand Sant films.

No, that's nice.

It loves to die for.

All right, Kelsey Noncarbonated putting the fun in refund. Thank you so much for these reviews. If you would like it the actual dope bag, you know what to do. Contact us say hey it's me, I want my dope bag. I'll send it off for you. Erica, what is the spy movie that we are undercovering today? Uncovering today, undercovering undercovery.

Today's film is the nineteen eighty five spy comedy Spies Like Us.

Yes, This was requested by Shannon Christy, Laurie, Michelle, Heather, Danielle Camille, Nicole Lavin, and some people whose names don't appear on their social media profiles. Some anonymous listeners m.

Dan Ackroyd himself perhaps perhaps probably.

Know he's a fan. A Spies Like Us was written by the aforementioned dan Ackroyd, Lol Gans and Babba Lou Mandel. It was directed by John Landis and stars dan Ackroyd, Chevy Chase, Steve Forrest, Donna Dixon, Bruce Davison, Bernie Casey, William Prince, and Tom Hatton.

Spies Like Us was one of three Chevy Chase movies released in nineteen eighty five. People could not get enough of the Chase.

Yeah, they were chasing the Chase. Yeah.

Along with Fletch and European Vacation. It outgrossed. Oh, I'm reading this for the first time, and I'm shocked. It outgrossed both of those other films, but unlike them, never got a sequel. I've seen Fletch and I've seen European Vacation, and those to me seem like they were hits. Yeah, I've shocked this outgrossed them.

I did not know this movie existed. I knew Fletch existed, and I knew European Vacation existed. I haven't seen either one, but I knew they existed. Yeah, this one. This was our most requested movie this month. Yep. I was like, I've never even heard of this.

This is a part of people's childhoods. I guess, So, okay, guys, listen, listen up. If this was a part of your childhood, if this is a beloved memory of your childhood, if you sat on your mother's knee while watching this movie. A little trigger warning anyway. We didn't love it. We didn't hate it.

We didn't hate it.

We're not my shit all over it. We're gonna shit all over it A little yeah, but we're not gonna shit all over it. I will say that, much like I did to that non gender bathroom.

I will say that no one who has ever listened to an episode of this podcast where we discuss in eighties comedy could have thought that I would love this movie.

Yeah, everyone had their butts clenched a little bit. What they're not expecting is for me to turn Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem.

You're the double agent.

I'm the double Yeah. Yeah, I'm the betrayal today. This is the betrayals coming on this side of the desk, and I apologize.

Yeah, Erica Spies like Us as a thirty five percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a fifty six percent audience score.

You know what that tracks both tracks. Thirty five percent critical reading, yes, because this movie is a hot mess does not make any kind of sense at all, But fifty six also tracks because look, it's look as a movie as a job that people had to go to work every day and tell a story that was cohesive.

Huh.

I wouldn't say it succeeds.

It doesn't hit it out of the park, no, no, no.

But as a collection of jokes that people might enjoy, sure, yeah.

Sure, it's a collection of SNL sketches kind of smashed together.

None of them know how to end.

None of them know how to end. Some of them, I will say this, some of them work ish some.

Really good one liners in the movie.

I that's what I like. I guess we should say. I've never seen this movie, and I don't think you'd ever seen it. I never seen it now, Yeah, I actually because you. You watched it first and you were like hoof, And I think that the fact that you went hoof, I went in with the proper expectations.

Yeah.

So while we're kind of like having fun about like we didn't like it. I didn't hate it. I really didn't like there were genuine moments where I laughed and it was mostly the wordplay. Yes, the physical stuff in this movie generally does not work for me so much.

We've talked about this before. Comedy has just grown. Comedy has changed completely in the last forty years, and like what used to be funny is not funny anymore. And that's not how that has absolutely nothing to do with that aging well or or anything like that. It's simply the timing doesn't It's not the same the real estate that films used to have for physical comedy bits. Yeah, that went on and on and on the mc Mansions, we used to build around someone falling on the floor

That's it also just moves like like like you said, the real estate given to some of these bits that are mediocre at best, and I'm like, this is five minutes.

It's gone on too long.

Like like this might have been funny if it was for lack of a better term, louder, faster, funnier, like just go and get off it and move on to the next thing. Like it. It was never particularly funny to me, But I actually think it genuinely objectively stopped being funny like a while ago. Yeah, going on.

I did laugh at certain parts. I chucked it in certain parts, but like, I don't think it hit me the way like, yeah, it probably hit other people.

Yeah, well, and I think you kind of prepping me that you didn't love it. I didn't. Like I remember when I watched Caddyshack and I was like, I don't I don't even understand where people are laughing, Like I don't get it at all. And and you got it, like you enjoyed it much more than I did.

You hand me a Rodney Dangerfield bit and going with you all the way, all the way.

And this one I think going in being like okay, so I know what I'm getting and and so I I think pound for pound, I probably enjoyed it more than I enjoyed caddy Shack. I don't know that I would say it necessarily a better movie, and maybe watching them both back to back, I would say, oh no, I cattish like a superior film or whatever. But like I had a better experience watching this one, perhaps simply because my expectations were at the proper place.

That's true, because Caddyshack is so iconic. You went in being like, well, everyone loves this movie.

Right, maybe own age. Well, but there's some of these jokes are gonna hit yeah, yeah, And this one I went in and be like, it might be it might be an oh for two hundred on these jokes, I don't I don't know. Yeah, And it wasn't.

Yeah, so yeah, neither of us had ever seen it before. This really wasn't even on my radar. And the movie that I'm like, oh, I you know, I never got to see that movie. I should see it. I heard about it before I knew it existed. There's also something this is so dumb, but like the poster for the movie is like the two of them in like snowsuits climbing a mountain, yeah, like in the snow, And I was I don't know that just didn't appeal. That just looked onerous and tiring.

Yeah, and it was odd because it makes sense in the movie kind I mean, as much as anything makes sense of this movie. Why they're in that outfit? Yeah, because they're in Russia. But like, it's it's a little bit incongruous with the title Spies Like Us maybe because you're like, what are they doing? Yeah?

Are they mountain climbing? Yeah? But uh yeah, Erica.

The tagline for Spies Like Us was with spies like these, who needs enemies?

Okay, that's cute.

That's cute.

That's what I like that. Yeah, I'm okay with that.

You know, I love a pithy witticism. The stuff that I liked in here were pithy witticisms for the most.

Pt Yeah, and I like that. Do you want to read the iTunes synopsis?

Sure? Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd star in this Cold War farce as two complete misfits who aspire to spy for the CIA. Much to their surprise, they are trained as operatives and sent to Central Asia, But the biggest secret of their covert operation is that they are expendable decoys for another team of agents sent on the real mission and no one expects them to survive.

It's such a good premise. It is a good prices so very funny premise.

Actual synopsis, Paul Oh actual synopsis for this is and I really I wanted to. I want to do a kind actual synopsis because I think we may be a little unkind moving forward. But the kind actual synopsis is this movie is not offensive in any of the ways you expect it to be offensive.

I agree. Actually it's slightly progressive.

It's slightly progressive. There there's there's a lightly yeah, slightly, let's not.

Let's right standards.

Yeah, but like they are constantly in foreign countries. They're in Pakistan for a stretch. There are multiple ethnicities that they encounter. There's not accent jokes, there's no black or brown face.

Nope, they don't go for the low hanging fruits.

Yeah, there's a couple of like jokes that I was like, I don't know about that, but like nothing truly nothing like oh boy, oh boy, you know, Like and then there's a moment at the end that, let me tell you of weirdly progressive stuff.

The same thing when I said progressive, I was like, yeah.

That was like so progressive that I was like, did I Did I have an aneurysmen? So yeah, there's there's stuff to recommend this year, So every every one, stick around. We're gonna play a couple of commercials. You hate commercials, you can get rid of them by just going to patreon dot com slash that HL sign up for any pay tire you add free episodes and more. If you're not gonna do that, that's okay. Stick around. We right back after these messages to take you through spies like US, and we're back.

We open on an enormous missile being hauled through the forest on the back of a Soviet tank case. You weren't sure how nineteen eighty five this was going to be.

It's gonna be very nice to eighty five.

Pine trees being crushed underneath the treads of dis missile. We zoom into outer space and see a US satellite taking photos of the missile and then sending those photos back down to Washington, DC, where a young analyst takes them to the Pentagon. Right cool. We get antagonists Russia protagonist US.

Yeah, or so think we don't know where it's gonna end up once.

There, he gives them to Ruby played by Bruce Davidson and Keys played by William Prince. The actress whose names you will not know, but if you look at their faces, you'd go, oh that oh, that guy, oh and that guy.

Yeah.

I love these guys. It's those guys. They are of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Can I interrupt for one second?

You may?

Okay? So remember I was going with low, low expectations. This the first five minutes of this movie with this group of people works like Gangbusters for me. I got really excited. I was like, maybe Erica was high. Maybe this is all brilliant. Because the courier comes in and he goes, I have a security package from the NATSC printing room, and Bruce Davison, just playing an eighties dick to the hilts so Good, says, well, why don't you say it a little louder? We could open a window,

The courier, I don't know who this person is. No, it's a small bit part. They nailed it. Indeed, at one point the thing is attached to his wrist by like my handcuffs, because he's like it's like a top secret thing. But he can't be privy to what's in the briefcase. So they make him get in a closet.

It's like hidden behind a bookcase.

Yeah, so that they can then look at the briefcase as his hand sticks out of the closet and this the like the physical comedy. This very tall actor does to crouch down and it's this You're absolutely right. I had very high expectations going into the scene. You know why, because it's giving shades of police squad that Leslie Nielsen show that then became the naked gun Like. It's giving that at first and you're like, oh okay, he like kind of fun, dry humor.

It will continue to give that sometimes.

But it gives other things that I perhaps did not order from a part of the menu I don't care for.

I enjoy the burger, but I don't want the Coleslaw.

Yeah. Yeah, the Colt Slaw's Chevy Chase Chevy Chaselaw is one hundred percent the Coleslaw.

Correct.

So they're joined by General Sline Niges played by Steve Forrest and Tom Hatton. Two more of those guys. Yea handsomer versions. These are like the handsome those guys, Oh those guys.

Steve Forrest is a is a Marlboro Man like wo one.

Together, they need to deal with the Soviet missile. But the last team they sent in wound up dead. What shall they do? They decide to send in two teams, one for the actual mission and also a decoy team to draw the attention and if needed, take the fall when the Soviets find them while the real team does the mission.

We cut to junior diplomat Emmett Fitzhume played by Cornelius.

Chase uh huh, played by the Coleslaw.

Yeah, played by the Coleslaw. He is lounging at his desk. He's watching an old musical featuring Ronald Reagan. And look that this is not the movie's fault at all, but fuck Ronald Reagan fucking all the way to the hell that he currently resides in and back.

I hate him, I do too, but you know what, he did have a terrible voice.

He doesn't have to. Actually, this is.

That was like the one thing I thought of when I saw this. See because it's a musical and he know he sings one line yeah and not great. Don't get me wrong. He's not a good voice, but it's not terrible.

Yeah, he can carry you. Tune. This movie is it's called She's Working her Way through College. Get this. It's from nineteen fifty two. It is about a burlesque dancer who's paying her own way through school because she wants to become a writer. Oh not bad for nineteen fifty two. That's a glorious sin of essay in his magazine, And like the whole thing works out that, like people try to tear her down for her past and she like rises above it.

Excellent.

Yeah, Like I read this because I don't know the movie, but I read the synopsis and I was like, for Ronald fucking Reagan, I would want.

To watch this thing the main part or is he like the main part?

I think he is not her love interest because he's also clearly older than she is. But he's like a professor that somehow gets involved. And I think he's a professor at college. Yeah, and then there's a love interest as.

Well, gotcha?

Gotcha?

Oh yeah, you're right, because it would suck to have to watch a Ronald Reagan movie, but it does sound good.

Particularly a musical. Get off my fucking.

Block, Stay in your lane, Reagan.

Yeah, why don't you go choke on a dick like your wife or actually, she didn't choke on dick's famously just took him right down, like like like, oh, yeah, that's like a hot dog eating cont.

Forgot that was like a whole thing about her, right, because she was just.

Like, yeah, she gave great head.

Good for her.

Yeah. I can't think of anything that I say else nasty say about the Reagans. I'll let it go now. So Emmett's deescimate is agitated. He's trying to talk to him, but he has these headphones on. Right. Irritated, em Ittt finally takes off his headphones and his descimate asks if he's not worried about the Foreign Service Board exam they have to take tomorrow. It's five hundred questions in two hours. That is that is more than four questions a minute.

Yeah, well maybe it's like great, like you don't have to get all five hundred, right, you have to just get like eighty percent of them correct, and like you can skip over the ones you absolutely can't answer. I don't know, I don't know how tests work. Yeah, in this universe, in this university, absolutely right, that's too many questions.

It's too many. Emmett scoffs. He says, the questions are all common sense and multiple choice. Besides, he's a legacy higher his grandfather and father with both agents, He's got it made in the shade. I love Nepo babies in this plus, he says, I have an appointment with our supervisor later, and then we cut to him sleeping with their supervisor. Yeah, we should erect a monument to all of the gorgeous blonde women who had to pretend that Chevy Chase was physically attractive in the eighties.

If so many women had to make up with him in this movie, that monument should be like, it should be like a pole that starts with a Goldie honcause she had to do it the most. Yeah, and then

He's so charismatic and charming and witty.

Right, and he is sleeping his way to the top, And I kind of love that, Like it's the guy. It's the guy doing that this time, because he's like, I have appointment with our supervisor. And then they cut to him and this gorgeous woman and they're in bed, and he's like, and they clearly have just had very satisfying sex on both sides of the for both sides of the table. And then he goes, so, I have a question for you about the exam tomorrow, and she's like,

Of Okay, it didn't occur to me, but makes sense.

So we cut to a basement office in the Pentagon where codebreaker Austin Millbarge perfect name, Good Name played by dan Ackroyd, who truly is like the comic spice of this movie. I love dan Akroyd. He is working on his assignments from his boss, who hates him. His boss really fucking hates him, and there's no reason for it.

He appears to be an excellent employee, like top notch.

Like quiet, you know, gets his work done, but it anyway, his boss appears and after some general mockery basically calling him an asshole for no reason, the boss mentions that the exam is coming up tomorrow, aren't you aren't you nervous about that exam you have to take tomorrow, that five hundred word like five hundred word, five hundred question exam. And Austin's like, what exam? What are you talking about? And the boss said, oh, I forgot to tell you.

Yeah, I get it. I get the setup of two opposites, but to set Chevy Chase up, the Cherry Chase character up as such a ne'er do well idiot, and to set the dan Ackroyd character up as such like a do well all the time good employee. Yeah, it strains some credulity that they would wind up like that. Dan Aykroyd would wind up doing the things he then does in the next scene, and like that they would wind up being great friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like it's almost

Well, I don't need this, because the audience would have already had the association.

Of the two of them work being friends.

Sure, yeah, working on Saturday Live together, and so like that work is sort of done in the moment by the culture. So we don't like, like, if Bill Hayter and Kristen Wigg showed up in a movie and like we're opposites who just immediately clicked, we'd be like, well, yeah, they have chemistry. Yeah, obviously the cultural context exactly.

Yeah, all right, this scene, oh.

Yeah, this scene. This is the scene I was talking about where I was like, this has gone on too long.

This scene made me want to punch a stranger in the throat. You know, that's not fair to strangers. It made me want to punch every single person who had anything to do with its inception in the throat, up to and including dan Aykroyd. I'm sorry, up to.

Including frank Oz in this scene.

This scene was rough. Okay, we cut to the test. It's being proctored by frank Oz, so in a way, we could say it's being proctured by Ms Piggy, who would be a great test proctor. Fantastic, you know.

You want to do it? Hmm, times up, hand in your papers, Pencils down, pencils down.

Everyone. Emma and Austin are both late, and Emmett, who was wearing an eye patch and a deeply unconvincing fake broken arm, claims it was because he was at a will reading. I laughed at that. I'm like, that's random, that's pretty funny.

Yeah, I'm with you.

He tries to bribe frank Oz in full view and within earshot of the rest of the room. Okay, I'm still okay. Then we get into the actual taking of the test, and a law quote unquote comic sequence follows, with Emmett trying only the most obvious ways imaginable to cheat, from reading answers off the inside of his eyepatch to writing notes to Austin next to him and loudly coughing loudly coughing barely getting just kind of vocalizing at one point yeah, to get Austin to give him the answer

I would say ten percent of it also look like it's not fair. But like, I don't find chevy Chase that funny. Like I don't think he's as good at this as everyone thinks he is. Because if Steve Martin were in the scene, or if Martin Short were doing the scene, I would find it infinitely funnier. Martin Short would do it faster and Steve Martin would do it in a way that made it seem almost balletic.

But they would also play it from a place of low status. They would play it from a place.

Of yeah, yeah, I have.

To somehow figure out a way to pass this test. Chevy Chase is playing it from a place of I am owed everyone telling me what the answers to this test are. Yeah, that's true, and like it's extremely off putting.

That is very true. I didn't think about that. You're right. Maybe that's why I just because technically he's not doing anything wrong. The pratfalls are prodding, the eye patches, eye patching again, I'm like, why don't I find this that funny?

Frank Oz clocks this almost as fast as we the audience clock it, and rather than making him stop, he just activates the cameras to start filming all of these shenanigans.

We cut to Ruby Keys Sline and me, do we.

Need like a nickname? We need a nickname for these four uh nightmare blunt rotation Jesus. No, Actually, I would actually rather get high with any of these four characters, and I would would emmit, yeah, because you know, if they got high they would start spilling state secrets. This is not a secure ha b.

The lame Beatles, the lame Beatles, well them the lame Beatles, or the the.

Four horsemen of the four Horsemen.

Of governmental incompetence.

There you go, that's it, the four horsemen of governmental incompetence.

So they're going through the options for the decoy team and they realize that Emmett and Austin are actually perfect for it since they are, in the words of Sline, a couple of absolutely self involved bullshit artists who got caught cheating on a departmental exam. Although not fair to Austin.

Here, that's that's the weird thing, Like if they Austin wasn't cheating. He helped him cheat, but he himself was not cheating. And I don't look as someone who often had people wanting to cheat on him off of hrags and didn't didn't appreciate it, brag. There is no part of Austin who would be like, yeah, I'll give you the answer. Fuck off.

Well I was cool in high school, so I did help people cheat and no, no, no, I'm kidding. I wasn't cool enough. At one point later in the scene, we kind of glossed over it. But like, the scene goes on for ten minutes, the cheating scene, and Austin does help him more than like just giving him an answer. He like he starts like throwing other people's papers at him and stuff. I get you. It doesn't quite make sense as to why, but for some reason these two

Dumb?

It's like, we didn't pass the examine. In fact, we got caught cheating, so why are you making a spies? And Ruby and Keys are like, listen, we're not. We're not like trying to find boy scouts out here trying to find hardened spies. And we liked your teamwork during the cheating like not you picked up you, yes, and him so hard.

Yeah, we love that that.

We've made you a part, an integral part of the US government.

They are part of the improv troupe in the in the in the Defense and tel Agencies improv troop.

Wouldn't imagine a Pentagon improv troop, Like there's like a board at the at the Pentagon, like a bulletin board that's like, you know, like you know, kittens for sale or whatever. And then next to someone's like join my improv group the laft Con five if you will, Yeah, if you will. That would be the perfect name for a Pentagon based improv troop.

You know, honestly, I would go to at least one show. I would want to know I.

Would, because you know what you could do is when they're like, call out something you want to hear, and you're like, departmental secrets. Yeah, just to see if one of them does it.

Yeah, I heard departmental secrets. Apartmental secrets.

They're like they're like, JFK was an inside job. Oh shit, I wasn't supposed to tell everyone that. So they are sent off to training.

Yep, sending them to training. Erica in this case involves being tossed out of a plane with no notice, parachuting into a forest, and being surrounded by n ninjas. Ninjas.

This was really surprising. I wasn't expecting ninja.

It's really weird.

It's so like I didn't hate it because it was so weird that I was like, I was into it.

Yep, but I'm like hot, I will say this is because I'm I'm almost positive these are not Asian men under these under these ninja garbs.

Yeah, yeah, which is fine. I'm not offended by that because it's not like they're the idea. Isn't that they're being like thrown into Japan. They're roughly like five hundred miles away at some training facility in the United States, and these are other soldiers who are like American soldiers who are training them in case they have to fight ninjas.

Yes, but also I thought some of the vocalizing was approaching, perhaps not completely kosher. Men playing ninjas were doing but minor, minor, like it's so odd, it's.

Such a choice, such a choice was made to do this.

I did enjoy some more of the wordplaying. The scene when they're surrounded by ninjas, Austin looks to Emmett and he's like, you're the diplomat, diplomat something here, and he first he pulls out a picture. He says, this is my sister. You can all have her, which is funny color but it's funny. Yeah. Then Austin tries to take over and he gets like a stick and He's like, come on, let's fight, and chevy Chase says, you hear

That's funny.

That's funny. That's funny. In any case, if it wasn't apparent from those two stories, they're utterly out of their depth. Yeah, Colonel Rambis played by Bernie Casey, appears to announce that he is in charge now. To impress them, he beats up all of the ninjas, who are his own men. From what I can tell, so I really don't see how this helps morale around camp.

This is all fake though, right, Like here's where I'm like, And by the way, I didn't think this while I was watching the movie, but I am thinking this now. Is that like, and I might be giving it too much credit. This is all a fake quote unquote training exercises because actually the government has no actual need to train these guys. If they're just gonna drop them into the middle of nowhere to be decoys, they're putting them

That's possible. I would say that.

Love the movie too. Actually, like back me up on that never says that because they're not with other soldiers, these two are being trained alone.

Yeah, that's fair. I am then concerned with the amount of money that's being devoted to the fake training.

Well, I don't care about that.

We are destroying things that that our tax dollars paid for it.

It's our parents' tax dollars. It's fine, it's fine.

I don't hate that that theory at all.

Because it also makes more sort of sense.

Or what is about to happen exactly. Yeah, yeah, I wish they had lampshaded that because I think I then may have found some of what proceeds a little funnier. I didn't find it not funny. I found it kind of confusing. That's it's what's going on.

It's confusing, and they I think, I actually think I'm right, and this is what is happening. What's happening is is that the government's putting them through a fake training process that's like increasingly stupid. But no one who movie actually said anything. Yeah, about that, So we get a training montage. Austin and Emmett see an obstacle course complete with random explosions.

The more you talk about, the more I'm sure you're right. That makes sense.

They're just fucking with them for their own amusement. Basically, yeah, we're too nice.

We didn't think of we didn't think of sending two people into die, but also fucking with them for a week first and putting them through any number of like difficult things.

And you know what, maybe this is why Chevy Chase's character has to be so off putting at first, because you're like, yeah, let's do that to this guy that I am on board. They also have to test their ability to stay afloat at high speeds by dragging them behind a.

Speed Now I'm laughing, you solved.

It a Their ability to withstand high temperatures is tested with some special suits and a pair of flamethrowers.

So there.

Yeah, they're put into these like these fireproof suits and then they're like, all right, let's see how long you can stand there. And then they just hit them with flamethrowers while they cook. Their ability to withstand G Force is tested so Dan Akroyd and Chevy Chase can make funny faces. Yeah, they're put in a G force machine, right.

They walk out and what they are holding the faces I'm presuming just with their own facial muscles.

Yeah, it's impressive, it's impressive. Yeah. Yeah, they're in the G Force machine. And then they come out with their faces still all like crazy from that. Yeah. Then they're loaded into a plane and dumped off the top of a building a quote unquote radical vertical impact simulation.

That's not a simulation, sir, that's an actual radical vertical impact. They take a plane, they dump it off, and it nose dives into the ground. After all of this, Emma and Austin try to quit. They run up to the colonel and say, hey, you know what, thank you so much. We've decided we want to go home. Rambas tells them it would be a shame to have to kill them, and he leaves. So Austin realizes that they are now

I did get nervous, and that's gonna lie when they're like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, it's gonna happen. Yeah, I wait, it's fine.

It's fine, it's fine. Not up to today's standards, I don't think, but genuinely, like inoffensive.

I do believe that everyone in the background of the scene and it is genuinely Asian of sort. Maybe not exactly Pakistani, but like it's not white people in brown face.

Yeah, it could have been.

Is exactly what I thought it was.

I my asshole was the size of the head of a needle. Yeah, yes, oh my god. It wasn't are we going to get brown face? It was how much brown face are we going?

How bad is it going to be? Is it going to be Rodney Gingerfield popping up in brown face pretending to be Pakistani? Because even my love for Rodney Dingerfield not with stands.

Is this where Tracy Ellman got that idea for the character? Is she going to be here? Is it going to be Tracy Ullman?

Is it going to be her?

I want to bring up another line I thought was funny. When they're trying to quit Chevy Chase says, thanks to the bruises, and you can keep the stool samples, which was I left. That's funny.

Cut to a plane and a large shipping crate being tossed out of it. You know, now that we're talking about it, it's much funny than the actual movie, Like the idea of the US government cares so little about these you know what I wonder?

I wonder if it could have done something with a couple more fast cuts back to the four horsemen, the bureau deocratic incompetence and like them getting a question, oh how should we get them? I just stump in a crate and throw them out of there, to highlight the fact litterally give a shitnnon. Yeah, I think when I was watching it, obviously I knew this was not what they would do with normal spies, but it didn't process to me. I thought they were doing it to try

I mean I would say I did realize it, and it still was just like, Okay, that's funny.

Well, okay, good, okay.

Yeah, it didn't make me laugh out loud or anything. So they're parachuted down through this crate, floating down into Pakistan. They crash into a building and they draw the attention of all the locals there, because of course they do. The crate opens and reveals are too heroes. They're enjoying chips and beer, like like they're sitting in a living room watching watching the Big Game. The locals hold them at gunpoint, and Austin's like, well you again, you're the diplomat,

I got a little concerned because I was like, are we gonna act as if this is real? But all the Pakistani people laugh, Yeah, and they start to kind of like act as if like they're trying to measure his head to play.

Polo, play polo, like, yeah.

Bringing them in on the joke. I was worried they were going to treat it like, oh, that sounds like a good idea.

Yeah, No, which they don't do. So that was like, Okay, we're all in on this dumb situation. Yeah. Two men appear suddenly and like, okay, so this is again where the movie, like the visual jokes really land for me, like the we're're in this like sea of extras who look like people from Pakistan and they're dressed like locals. And then all of a sudden, these two dudes appear, Bob and Bud, tall, blonde wearing like wearing like pastel colors and.

Like a sweater wrapped around their neck tied.

Yeah, like they just came from the country club in Beverly Hills. So clearly distinguished from everyone else in the scene, and they're like quintessential Americans and I'm like, that's a funny joke. And they're like, oh, hi, we're your contacts here in Pakistan. Yeah, and they and Austin and Emmett go with them and they all head off in a jeep yep.

They're driving through the desert and Austin notices that one of them is wearing a watch that is a Russian knockoff. So smart, so smart. Austin, I think, is actually pretty smart this entire movie Heat, which I did appreciate always.

Yeah.

The only dumb thing he does is help emin on the tesk that that is genuinely the only like non supported character beat that I can think of. He gets them to stop. He says, you have to use the bathroom, and he's like, Emmett, why don't you come with me? And them it's like, I don't have to pine. He's like, are you sure, and he's like, yes, I'm a grown man. I don't have to pain. He's like, but I think you do. This goes on. I would say maybe half a beat too long, but this is about right.

It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny because you get dan Ackroy doing that like machine gun fast talking thing where he's like he's like the human bladder can only hold so much, and like, I think I've seen you drink all day, and I think you really should be going to the bathroom now.

So Emmett goes with him and they're walking away. He explains the situation. Now, this is this is the first example of it. There's an epidemic in this movie of the thing that I hate, which I talked about in the parent trap. When you have two characters walking on open field mm hmm, looking directly in front of them, and then suddenly they act as if they are surprised to see what is in front of them. It happens

It is an intentional runner. I that's the joke.

But they don't. It's just it's just there. They don't do anything with it.

That's well, because it's I'm gonna lie to you. This made me laugh.

It makes me nuts.

So these two are walking because it's it's stupid on purpose. Yeah, that's why it's funny. They're walking away from the jeep with the two other dudes, and they're whispering to each other, like those two a Russian spies. How can you tell the wristwatch gave it away? What do we do? I don't know? And then they stop short. They look up and they go, oh no, and right in front of them are Bud and the other guy, Bob, right, the two Russian spies and like we didn't see them, Like,

I think if they didn't act surprised, it's something about it. I'm like, they're right there, like it's like the joke is for the audience. Yeah, so if it just like if they just just make it so they can actually be surprised, it makes me nuts. It bothers me.

I know this. I'm gonna defend this joke, okay, okay, And nothing is funnier than when a joke is dissected so bad. It's here for this.

This joke is the dead frog corpse in your ninth grade biology class. We are going to get into the intestine.

We are going to poke their pancreas because it's funny because it's it's so unexpected and stupid. Also one continuous shot, so we don't know how.

Those two like those two guys, like I get the joke of like us like then surprised to be there, like how did they get there? I get that, And that is a solid joke. It's for me. It is literally like the they have them like whispers, so they're literally not looking.

I thought they were in my head they are, but I could be wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know, but like it's gonna happen two more times. This movie's gonna nome me every time anyway. So Bob and Bud have obviously realized that Emma and Austin have clocked them, so they stomp on Bud and Bob's feet. They take off their hats, they shove them on the Russian agents heads, and they run back to the jeep and they escape, and Bob and Bud start firing at them afterwards, but they escape.

Yeah, excellent spycraft, everyone knows. Stomp the feet, put the hat on the head. Yes, that's the only way, frankly to defeat a foe.

They push in on the Russian shooting the tire, which I really thought was going to be a problem.

No problem.

They also talk about like potentially running out of gas, not a thing, you don't have to worry about it.

So many loose threads, things that I'm.

Just like, well, why is the lining? I guess just to fill time, but just cut.

Yeah, the movie's not short. The movie could could use twenty fewer minutes in it. Frankly so. Emmett is driving away, Austin is asleep in the passenger seat. He comes across. Emmett comes across a Pakistani man on a horse. He tries to talk to him to engage, and suddenly a whole squadron of men start riding over to the on

Yep, this made me laugh. This was funny.

Anytime someone in a movie goes, I'm an American, and it's smash cuts to something terrible happening to them as a result of that. Funny, it's fucking funny.

That's funny. Yep, yeah, agreed. So they're they're being watched by the They refer to this character as Khan. I'm not sure if that's his name or his title, but like the leader of the freedom fighters, and they're spotted luckily by doctor Jerry Hadley played by Charles McEwan, who is at the camp to provide medical support for the

You can't really be like, no, we're spies.

Yep. Hadley brings them into his tent to introduce them to his team. Most importantly, doctor Karen Boyer played by Donna Dixon aka Missus dan Ackroyd.

Yeah, it's weird because she does not hook up with dan Ackroyd in the movie. She hooks up with Chevy Chase.

And yeah, that's.

Just an interesting thing. Knowing that, like dan Ackroyd's, was part of the casting process.

They came up during the seventies. Fair enough, you know what the they were a little looser with all that stuff.

Yeah, who gives a shit?

Who gives a shit?

We've all been to key parties. Don't worry about it.

Yeah, Emmett, that's Chevy Chase is immediately very interested in doctor Boyer, and fair enough, this woman is stunning. Yeah, dan Ackroyd turns out pulled.

Yeah.

The introductions lead to a joke where the only word sit on screen for twenty seconds is doctor.

Erica, doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor.

Did it work for you? Yeah?

I was. I don't think I laughed out loud. My brain smiled. Does that make sense? Yeah, that moment when you like you recognize a joke as a joke, and you're like, okay.

It feels like you're getting like pet in your brain.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my brain had a little smile. I don't get made it all the way to my face.

Gotcha.

But yeah, I'm not to say it worked on me, but I didn't hate it.

Okay, I hated it all right. So so everyone's introducing themselves by saying doctor Hadley tells them to get some rest, and everybody leaves the tent, which means, of course, everyone has to say goodbye by saying doctor again.

Yeah, see that. Maybe the second time it worked better for me. Is it better for you the second time?

No? Nope, sorry, sorry everyone, I am a wet blanket.

Austin immediately says, okay, look, we've got to get the hell out of here, and it's like no, no, no, no, no no. These are good doctors. We should hang out with them longer. And also one of them is smoking hot.

Have you seen your wife on cue?

She sticks her head back in and asks to talk with him alone. Emmett immediately throws Austin out. He's like, get he out, get out, ye. Doctor must consult with other doctor, and she reveals doctor Boyer reveals that she's a huge fan of his work because she remembers she thinks he's a famous doctor. So she's like, I really hope you'll be able to help with something. The rebel leader's brother needs an emergency appendectomy, so this is this is a very high ranking official. We need we need

Basically, he really gives her boob a squeeze. Yeah, it looked uncomfortable.

He's like, see, I can't feel anything. It's like squeezing her boob. Then he says, but you know what, Austin can be my hands during the surgery and I'll walk him through it. I'm like now even I'm like, yeah, what the fuck is this movie doing? Like he's volunteering to perform surgery on someone, like try to get out of it and then for some reason you can't or else. Yeah, that's how you do this. Don't just like write the character agreeing to something that's insane.

Did you have ever any interested in being a surgeon or a doctor or anything like that. Hard fast, yeah, hard past.

Well, for a minute I thought I might want to be a veterinarian because I love animals. But then like, I just remember taking my own cat to the vet when we were when I was little, and the cat having such a negative reaction to the situation, and I was like, I can't live my life to the animals being angry at me all day, all day. Fair enough, that's heartbreaking.

I'm trying to think of what situation have to be in for me to be like, Okay, we'll try. I will pretend to perform an appendectomy.

I would do because I've seen so many of them on television and film. I would do a tricky hot No, I would do a makeshift.

Discussed this.

The minute you show even the smallest sign of issues in any part of your body, I'm giving you an emergency, Aerica.

If you say the word blood clot I am going to end this podcast.

Paul. Don't worry. I'm not going to talk about how it would suck the bloods out of your emergency drinking out of me and then spit it out. Don't worry. Not going to say it Paul, I'm not going to say it. There's no reason for you to have that reaction because I didn't mention sucking blot out of your body and into mine. Frankly, I think we're good enough friends for that.

If you were dying and I had to give you an emergency tracha outo me, I'm so sorry you would die.

I'm cutting you out of my will just in case. I'm gonna put an addendum to my will. If I die in your care and I could have been saved, it's an emergency trachy outomy. Done done, We're done. You get nothing.

I might be dead, but you are dead to me.

You get none of my billions. So okay again, like the movie whatever, He's like, I can, We'll do the surgery because I like this lady and I don't know how to say no to a pretty face. And she kisses him and I genuinely went oh out loud at the this TV screen when I saw the movie, because I was like, why is she kissed? She met him a min ago? Yeah, like one minute ago, And I really cannot tell you enough. This actress is a full ten. Yeah, Like, who stop? You don't have to kiss him there's no

Yep, she leaves. Austin comes in, Emmett tells him the plan. Austin's like WTF and then a golf ball flies to the tent, followed by Bob Hope.

Okay, you know what, throw as many wacky cameos as you want at me in this movie.

This is so this movie was based on like movies that Bob Hope did with Bing Crosby called the Road to Whatever movies, So that that's that's the source of this cameo. That's why it's here. And and like honestly it's fine. Like I wasn't annoyed at it. I was. It made me go to the to the Internet and be like, why is there a Bob Hope cameo in this movie? Because it doesn't. It doesn't play anymore. It didn't. This is not like a not aging well thing. It

She was funny is I didn't associate this with like Bob Hope movies. I thought this cameo. Okay, like so sorry really quick. What happens is a golf ball like goes into the tent. Bob Hope shows up in full golf gear like he's been golfing through the desert and act and accidentally played through the camp that they're at.

The entire desert's a sandtrack.

And like exactly, and like the my association with Bob Hope, especially in the later years, he was like the USO guy. He could go to all the like war zones and plays like perform for soldiers, And honestly, I was like, okay, so I think the joke here is that Bob Hope is nearby, like performing for soldiers, and.

You just you justified it in your head.

Yeah, and he's also playing golf on the weekends for fun because he is Bob Hope. There are other celebrity cameos throughout the movie, but they're playing characters.

Yeah, this is just Bob Bob Hope as Bob Hope. All right. So we have another comic sequence. The two are like standing in front of this patient. The patient is knocked doubt for some reason, there's an audience like, look, I get we can't get like a sterile room or in the middle of the desert. But you don't need people looking at you in any case. They say, the first step is to shave him, and chevy Chase starts like trying to shave his face and then you know, oh,

This isn't good. And this one, I'm gonna give you this one. This is not good because a it doesn't escalate. It escalates tiny bit like shaving, Yes, we can shave him. Anyone can shave a man. And then they do that wrong and they're like, ah, we got that wrong. Next thing, and like then it should slowly escalate to things that they like really can't do. And also it needs to be a lot faster than it is. And it just seems super shaggy, like they're like it almost feels like

Yeah, and nothing was cut yeah. Yeah, so they're momentarily saved when the patient's son only gasps, wakes up, and then dies on the table.

Yeah.

We cut outside the tent. The two of them walk out, they're whistling, they're trying to act casual, and then the rebel leader comes out, remember that was his brother and all the other doctors, and he shouts something at all of his men, and they all start chasing Emma and Austin. They didn't kill him, They actually didn't do anything. Yeah, why are you mad at the doctors? This doesn't make any sense?

Chased away?

I mean whatever that clearly the movie is as well. It's just waa sorry. I know my wet.

Bleas he better than them having actually killed the guy, though, I have oh yeah.

Hundred like I I just think, like, what do they do afterwards? They'd be like they pronounced him dead in some way that's that's extremely irreverent.

Or yeah, they're like, don't worry, we're not real doctors. Yeah, and then they get chased out.

Something like that. Yeah, so they are forced to fly the camp. They're being chased, They get into a nearby ambulance. There is a long chase sequence that is it's not comic or thrilling. I don't know why it exists. Just have them drive off in the ambulance. It's nothing happens, it's funny they get at one point, they both get pulled into the back to fight like a border in the ambulance with the ambulance keeps going. I'm like, how the ambulance would stop. No one is driving it. There's

You guys need to see the look at his face. He's so he just looks like you hated him. Something disgusting to eat and he's trying to swallow.

It makes me crazy. Erica, it's halfway through the movie. Should we take a break?

I think you need a break. You need to take a lapse.

I need to take a lap. You know what, I'm gonna go do two tequila shots and I'm gonna come back. We're gonna finish this after a couple of messages. Excellent, and okay, I've had my two shots of tequila. I'm actually more salty because I had the salt with them, but I'm less like metaphorically salty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're mellow me exactly, yeah, exactly.

Everyone knows tequila just makes people less less themselves.

They don't call it truth serum for nothing. Haha.

Everyone knows nothing makes mellow someone out like tequila, like doing shots. Yeah, yep, yep, it just makes everyone super chill.

So we cut to Ruby and Keys. That's the bureaucratic half of the four horsemen of the governmental incompetence. Yeah, whatever it was. They are arriving at a secret base that's hidden in an abandoned drive in. We get an actual like run of cameos now because they pull in. There's these two guards. I did not recognize them until I looked at the cast list, but you said you did, right, Well.

I recognized one of their faces and I thought it was someone else. I thought he was an actor because I was like, I know this face. It's a very distinctive face. And that's because that face belongs to Joel Cohen of the Cohen Brothers, And yeah, that's a distinctive face.

And the other guy is Sam Raimi. Yeah, both of them. I was. It was one of those things where I was like, oh, they must have gone on to do stuff Like I was like, I did what you did their actors, I don't. I don't know their names. That's you know whatever. Then they go in and then BB King is there him.

I knew right away BB King.

I was like, that's I know. I knew it was he was a famous person. I wasn't pulling BB King.

Yeah. I literally, like out loud to the TV, was like, baby King's in this. You know, we would have recognized Joel Cohen if we'd had Francis McDorman standing next to him like a fabulous gown talking about an award she's about to win. Yeah, that's that's how I know Joel CON's face.

Yeah. Imagine being one of the most part of one of the most successful directing duos of all time and still not being as famous or as accomplished as your wife.

Hah, you just imagined Joel Cohen's whole thing.

Yeah, and you know what, he's still weather, which means maybe he's a good egg. I hope.

So I bet he's a good egg. I think he's the Cohen seem good like good eggs.

I agree, I agree, all right. So it turns out that the generals, the other two of the four horsemen of governmental incompetence have made this base into an anti ballistic missile system, using money that they fooled Congress into thinking was for more stealth bombers. There is one line in the movie about this. I'm connecting this back to the first scene. This is what I am gathering. Maybe

Useful and they're doing their job. They are decoying.

The decoys are decoying.

The decoys be decoying.

So they tell Emma and Austin that a rescue team will be ready once they accomplish their objective. And Emmett and Austin ask what is the objective? Because remember they've never been told what their actual mission is. They've just been told they're being dropped in Pakistan, and then they were never met by anybody. They're told it's neat to know, and right now they don't need to know. The four Suits send them into the USSR with instructions on how to find their next contact.

We shot on the script a bit, but I'm gonna keep shitting on the script of smarter script would have had them have a mission, yeah, because if the whole point is that they're supposed to draw attention away from the real team, then they should actually be drawing attention. These are these guys are accidentally drawing attention, which is also funny, But it'd be funnier if there was like a thing they were being told to do that would

Yeah?

You know what I mean, Like, oh, those are definitely narcs.

They need to be more overcover, specifically specifically specifically overcover, not generally overcame.

We talked about overcover during the Mission Impossible episode of Spies overcovering instead of undercovering, like, oh, you're obviously spies. So Austin and Emmett wonder how they're gonna get into the USSR for for if you don't know what I'm talking about congratulations of being young. I used to call Russia, Yeah, and a whole bunch of other places. You know what, I don't have time to go into it. Google it.

You probably don't get random pains in your finger when you wake up for no reason. Why is my finger hurt? Yeah? Why does a finger hurt?

Why does a finger hurt? And also I know exactly what the Uss are? So Austin and Emmett arrive at a plan. They'll have to sell everything they are wearing, disguise themselves as like Russian natives, basically like to be able to cross the border undetected. So they start that plan, and then they get on a bus to the border

It wasn't even the guy just died.

The guy just died. So they immediately approach them and em It begins emitting and he's like, hey, what's up, sexy lady, And Karen's like, absolutely not. But while that's happening, Austin who's not a total moron, is like watching them, and he sees her putting a silver case in her saddle bags right.

On the horse, not the saddle bags on her.

This one does not have sate She does not have saddle bags.

She is a saddle bag free.

Yeah, he tells Emmett. Austin tells Emmett that this means that Karen and Hadley are not doctors either, because that case is a system for sending and receiving satellite messages of very highly classified device. Oh my god, there are more agents in the fields. Yeah, these are not doctors. These are other agents. Emmett asks are they spies.

Like us title of the film.

And Austin, again very cleverly goes, yes, they're definitely spies, but we don't know who they are or who they're working for, remember, so they're not necessarily on our side.

Yeah, there's a choice. In the scene, they're kind of at this big hub of activity. I don't really know. Maybe it's like supposed to be like a rest area or something. And while Austin is telling Emmett all of this stuff, he's watching like a puppet show. Oh yeah, like a marionette show. I don't really have anything to say about it. It's just a wild choice. It's like so distracting what is going on? Anyway?

You know how Russians love puppets. They love puppets, They love chess, they love ballet, and they fucking love puppet.

That's it. That's if you know three things about Russians, and now you do, and now know those three things.

Also you want to know four things vodka, five things caviar, you know six things. I don't know a sixth thing.

That's it. That's it.

I'm done.

So we cut to Austin and Emmett on a camel, and man, you really don't You really don't know how fucked up a camel looks until you see a camel up close.

Honestly, though, don't they kind of remind you of cats? Because, first of all, in this scene, no scene, I'm just gonna jump ahead a couple of seconds, the camel just decides I'm tired, I'm done, and it sits fuck off, fuck off. That's cat be here.

That okay behavior, Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

They're kind of dicks the way cats are, but they're kind of cute the way cats are too, so you kind of want to like nuzzle them a little bit. I love a camel.

I I really agree with the idea that camels are cute. That is a fucked up looking animal.

Those giant sexy eyebrows, Yeah, sexy, I said it. I find camels sexually attractive.

They look like if if if an uncircumcised penis was made into an.

Animal but also had breasts and gorgeous sexy eyes. Oh my god, you're making it worse now. I really want to fuck a camel.

I didn't realize that camels they they have like hooves, slash toes.

Yeah, webbed hoofs.

That weird to be out. That's really weird to be out.

I'm not gonna lie that part of it is weird. That's fucking weird. Also, they don't want to be your friend, no, so it just makes you want them to be your friend harder, like they're nagging you. God, camels are cool. I wish it could be a camel.

You know who the coolest camel is Joe Camel.

Joe Camel, the smoking Camel.

Joe Camel, the smoking Camel.

Fuck you governments, particular with Joe Camel. Maybe I want to smoke cigarettes. Maybe I want my kids to smoke.

You don't know me.

You don't know me. You don't know Mike.

You can't tell me what to do. So Austin and Emmit are on this camel. They're following Hadley and Karen. Their camel, like Erica said before, for absolutely no reason, decides it's done, refuses to move. This gives us a chance to enjoy the comic stylings of Chevy Chase imitating the noises the camel is making back in its face. I really thought the camel was gonna spit out.

Him genuinely too. I was like, that's a real camel. Yeah, like he's playing with his life. Yeah, like that fucking animal could just swipe at him and kill him.

Yep. The two continue on foot, and we eventually find them hiking through a full winter climate. We've gone from from desert to full snowy winter. They're wrapped in furs and these costumes are a lot like pelts and Pelts, and and Emma is wearing like an enormous pillbox hat, and Austin is wearing like a like a head piece that kind of looks like a barrister's wig. And made out of it be shown. Aren't those called isn't aka?

Oh no, that's a woman that's grandmother.

Yeah.

But there's also a hat called that, I swear to you. Yeah, a headscarf tied under the chin. Oh yeah, big, that's a different thing. JK.

I want everyone to know that I did the motion for headscarf tunder it, even though I didn't say it. I didn't know what.

He did he did. I was too busy looking at Google, but yeah he did. Also, this posits that the two of them hiked a fucking mountain. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. No, they height high enough that it became like a snow snow drift tundra. That's not No, I don't believe you.

That's not how mountain's mountain.

That's well, that is how mountains mountain. That's not how these two rons mountain.

That's not how RONI.

Yeah, exactly. So the two of them are on their mountain, they're waiting for their contact, and they're spotted by Russian equivalent of highway patrol, and they're held at gunpoint.

I'm just gonna point out really quickly. I won't dwell on it. This is another one of those things where they stand there staring at something and then the lights come on and they see it. It's they are five feet away from a car they don't see, and then the cartoons headlights on and they're like just putting it there.

This one I didn't notice and I didn't laugh, So I'm gonna go. I'm on your side. I'm on your side. Then I bet it's dumb excellent. Austin, rather than be caught, throws himself down the mountain side.

You know what. Sure, that's how you spy.

That's how you spy.

You know.

Gulogs are no fun.

No.

I refuse to be in one.

Not interested.

I would rather die on this mountain.

It is a blanket no for me on gulags. Yeah yeah.

Emmett is picked up and brought in because Emmett uh never read the debrief on how shitty gurlogs are?

That makes sense. We cut to Emmett being held in a cabin. He's handcuffed. This is the third and final time where two characters are standing right in front of him and he has to pretend he doesn't see them because it's.

Butt and Bob oh, look at them Butt and.

Bob are back. He tries to wisecrack his way through the interrogation. Butt and Bob are not interested. They are done playing. One of them keeps hitting him, and then the other one is like, you're gonna answer our questions? Are I'm gonna cut off your fingers and the other guy hits him in chemmy chase goes, they're cutting you gonna cut off my fingers? Stop hitting me?

Yeah, that made me laugh. I wrote that one down. Why are you still hitting me? He's gonna cut my fingers off? Hitting is not gonna hit me to talk.

He has upped the anpty. This is now the bar.

Meanwhile, Austin trapesing through the snow. He's muttering to himself and he hears gunshots. It turns out that Karen and Hadley have encountered another group of Soviet soldiers and after a shootout, Karen is the only one left alive. And in case you didn't already figure it out, Karen and Hadley were the main team that was sent in. Austin and Emmett were the decoys for Karen and Hadley. Austin falls down another cliff and winds up right in front.

Of Karen, just for the point of order. He hears the gunshots, he starts running in let's let's say a westerly direction. He trips, he tumbles down, He falls for like ten seconds down this cliff in the opposite direction easterly in this example, and he winds up in front of Karen, which implies he started running away from the gunshots he was hearing.

But then landed back where in the gunshots central.

Yeah, And I was like, doesn't he he probably wants to run towards the gunshots. I mean, I know we would run away from them, but he's just I don't know.

I got he thinks he's a real spy.

Yeah.

Yeah. So now Karen's her own on her mission. Austin is like, great, I need your help. Emmett's been caught. We need to help him out. And she's like, ah, you two were decoys. I don't know if you're aware of that. Yeah, and my partner who's now dead, and I were the original team and I'm not interested in wasting my time saving the decoy when I have my mission to accomplish, he snaps. Austin snabs, look, I have a mission too, and my mission is to get my partner out. Yeah, and he leaves.

We cut back to the cabin. Emmett is being let out by his captors when suddenly Austin, like like Zoro himself, starts riding up, shouting and firing guns into the air, a gun in each hand. Yeah, no self involved in this, no trying to get him out, just a full frontal assault, four on one. Great. The Russians take cover and a short standoff happens until the Russians Erica are hoisted on

Yeah, those are two too long. It's a grenade PSA for this episode. If you are a grenade maker, yeah, if you are a purveyor of fine American grenades, I would suggest no more than a five second yeah. Yeah, like pin to explosion ratio.

Yeah. I got I got concerned because I don't know anything about grenades, and I was like, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe grenades do take thirty seconds to explode.

Notoriously easy to throw that.

And I was like and then I looked up as like, no, it seems to be like a five second delay. You pull it and you get it the fuck away from you, and that's it. But this one takes twenty five seconds, so Emmett has time to catch it. Ask Austin what it is. He tells him, He stands up, He throws it back into the cabin, where it lands on a bucket of other grenades, which sets off a chain explosion. Yeah, Emmett and Austin flee on horseback while the Russians also run away.

Cinematography is very good. The special effects are quite good. Oh, this explosion was awesome. So like when it does like the action thing, it actions quite well. Well that's not true because when it's a big fight scene it's not great. But like some of the action stuff, explosions and stuff like that are done very well. And we haven't really

Have you considered the gorgeous vista that nature created that they were nice enough to put in their movie so we could see it?

Yeah, have you fought? Look that explosion went boom.

So we find them again linked up with Karen. No explanation as to why. I guess ostensibly you could say maybe there was a cut scene where she, like Austin shame, turned to helping him, and she gave him the horse and the weapons, and she was like, if you come back, we can join up. If not, I I have to protect myself to to finish the mission.

That makes a ton of sense because Karen and her partner were both on horseback, so it makes sense that's where he got the horse from from the dead partner.

Yeah. So there with Karen, they arrive at the site of the Soviet missile that started at all that Soviet missile that crushed all those pine trees that we saw in the very beginning of the movie. They're observing the camp from afar. They note three male soldiers who are doing this fun little like dance. They have like a boombox and.

It's Yes, there's actually a really funny line here. They hear this like American song and they're like, what is that? And Austin says it's Soule Finger by the bar Keys, and Emma says, whoof, they must be having trouble getting gigs. That's a chuckle.

Yeah. So they also see one older female soldier who seems to be in charge, and then one younger female soldier who likes to do that thing that everyone does when they're camping the snow, you know exactly. Yeah, it's that thing where like you put on your lacey Brian and your little panties and you just step your feet into your snowsuit and then you waddle outside and you stretch and kind of let your enormous kazungas feel the cold to the lace. So you get you get those pointy.

The mighty melons are a meloning.

The headlights are up, and then you put on your snowsuit to protect against the bitter cold.

Because I don't know if like you mentioned you mentioned a bikini, but it's like it's it's like a string bikini almost that I'm wearing and this is scenario obviously. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

The less coverage the better. That way, the snowsuit feels warmer when you put it on.

Yeah, okay, so I have I have notes for the scene. I really do about what about what?

So?

Okay, So they're watching this, they see like, you know, random soldiers, older woman and then they see the hot woman and I did look her up and she turns out she's like a supermodel or something.

She stuning.

She is a full fucking tent. This woman. She's tall, she's gorgeous, enormous breasts and so like the joke is is that the two boys are like, whoaing hot lady, which is fine, but it's like I wanted her to

Give her a joke, so she's not just an object.

Yeah that, Like the joke is how much it's weird, how much this woman likes getting naked and frolicking in the snow. Yeah, like, or then she builds a snowman that looks like her, and it's just like tall, sick, it's.

A perfect, perfect model.

Yeah, yeah, give her shit to do because like this, this didn't even make me laugh, I just got I like rolled my eyes at the joke was so obvious.

Well, and also it's not a joke. There's no joke to it.

I think the joke is how the guys react to her. But also she's worth reacting to.

I reacted to her like that.

It's not Yeah, that's the thing too. It's not like it's not like they're like sex starved and she's the only woman they've seen for days. This is a leg she can't supermodel in her underwear, Like, you're right, that's not even a joke. It's not even a real joke.

The other thing I would say about this and about these Russian characters in general, because they will stick around basically for the rest of the movie. I don't want to give too many points for this because it really is the bare minimum. But they are treated like humans the whole time, Like they don't have individual characters, but like they are not treated as just faceless.

They're not monsters.

They're not monster monstrous enemies, which I and they like give the five of them kind of like a fun like almost familial like interaction, like they seem to like each other and they get to they dance to the boombox and they laugh together. So it's it's something that you don't always see in these kinds of movies, and I did appreciate it. I was like, oh, and given the way the movie turns out, there's a reason for all of this, but like it was nice, is it?

So Karen informs them of the real objective of the mission, which is to subdue the Soviet crew the people were seeing down there and seize control of the missile. The men object to the idea of killing the Soviets right away. They're like, no, no, no, we don't kill people.

Are you not spies?

And Karen appeals to their sense of patriotism. She's like you're doing it for you, for America.

What if she's broken to do it for your country from Greece too. They had given her a full musical number here that would and never explained it. The movie could have supported it. I would have supported it, frankly.

Can I can I tell you something so stupid and so dark and it's a real thing and it's going to depress you. But I have to say, oh, I just saw online this morning that like apparently from the White House official oh god, officia jd Vance was like shooting of like of a K forty seven at a gun range. The caption was something like, this is just the vice president learning how to shoot freedom seeds. They're calling bullets freedom seeds. Now ew ew.

Ew.

It's so bad that I have to laugh at it because it's so we're not even doing fascism. Well, we're doing it so badly.

Ew freedom seeds. What a loser?

Imagine what like, just imagine it's like like forty years from now, once this is all over and done, No, twenty years from ten years from now, guys, it's gonna be over, So this can't last forever, Like this is all actually done and we're ready to start really making fun of it the way we are like sort of starting to get comfortable making fun of other stuff in the past. And someone's like, appeal to appeal to the patriotism. Tell them about freedom. To me, you're not murdering people.

You have to stop.

I refuse. I'm looking straight in the eyes and say freedom seeds four more times. Oh God, we record these so far in advance. I have no idea how poorly everything I just said is going to may not make it.

This may be cut this entire thing genuinely.

By the time this goes to air, people are going to be like triggered by what I just said.

All right, we can't bring up freedom seeds anymore. In case I have to cut.

This out, I was gonna put it in every sentence I say from now on. Erica wasn't even in that episode what happened? All right, So she tells, and they're gonna be using tranquilizers on the Soviets. Those are French seeds.

I don't know.

They're gonna be using tranks. They're not gonna be using real bullets. Yeah, the boys are back on board. Yeah, like fine, we can trank people. That seems fine.

Meanwhile, back at the abandoned drive in theater, Sline locks the doors of the bunker and takes them to response level yellow and the systems start to prepare their missile defenses. There's all of this like kind of slow moving thing, like like laser guns moving up in large mirrors, and we don't really know what's going on.

It's very war games.

It was very war games.

I feel like this was so in the zeitgeist in the early eighties, like people were just so afraid of I can't imagine why, yeah, of nuclear fallout that like this, this penetrated like every level of torture.

Yeah, we cut back to the Soviets at camp. This is when they're kind of drinking, laughing, they're having a good time. The leader starts dancing to the boom box, this funny little dance, right, and then Karen sets off a flare that kind of bathes their camp and this violet light this is what Erica was talking about before. Two figures that kind of look like they look like if a kid said they wanted their Halloween costume to be robot alien overlord. These two figures start approaching. Obviously

So, just to be clear, their plan was to dress up like aliens, pretend there's an alien invasion happening, because while people will shoot at each other, they won't necessarily shoot at aliens.

Okay, yeah, I guess maybe they come in peace.

Look, you guys, If I see aliens, I'm shooting at them.

They're not American aliens.

If I see little green men and I have access to freedom.

Seeds, nope, I don't think you need a gun. I feel strongly that I would wind up with a phone call the middle of the night if you had a gun.

Are you? I think I'd be amazing with an I think I think my level of anxiety is the perfect amount. My level of anxiety combined with my outsized sense of like imagination and what could possibly be there in the dark, and.

Deep deep fear of rodents, A deep.

Fear of rodents, and I guess aliens. I didn't know that was in there too.

Yeah, who knew. I'm not that afraid of the aliens.

Let's unpack that one further later.

I know most other humans sucks, so I'm willing to give aliens the benefit of the doubt. They may be doing better than we are.

They're probably statistic they got here, at least stem wise, they're doing better than we are done.

Aliens and stem.

Yeah, I'm gonna could take this debate with you later. I think I think I'd be an excellent gun owner. Could you imagine?

No?

Oh, I genuinely I'd be the worst. That's the worst gun owner. First of all, zero chance I don't shoot myself in the foot.

That's really what I was thinking. A call from the hospital. You have to come get me. I shot myself in the foot cleaning my gun. Yeah, that all makes sense. So then we cut back to the headquarters. They receive word that the mission has been completed. So our three heroes in Russia send word to headquarters mission accomplished. The agents are awaiting their go ahead for the next step.

I have to admit I don't remember this at all.

Yeah, because you blacked out from boredom.

I watched this movie really early in the week because I like timing wise, and like, there are moments that I'm remembering as we're talking about it, and I'm like ry. Meanwhile, back in Russia, our heroes are receiving instructions to plug in a code to the missile. They do it, and the missile initiates a launch just as the Soviets wake up. Everyone's panicking, so like it's clear that Karen was not

They process this quickly. I mean, I guess it's a bend over and kiss you ask good bye situation, like there's nothing we can do. Yeah, so good for them.

I'm not sure I could get into a full panic in forty two minutes. I usually need more time than that. Oh really yeah, Oh I could do it, like I mean a.

Full fall planet. Yeah, there's a spiraling that needs to happen on some level.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know if my processors run fast enough for that.

That might overheat.

They all decide to ring in the end of the world by fucking each other.

You know what, fair, I've heard of worse ideas.

There are many worse ideas.

You know what, You're not going to get in forty two minutes an SDI that matters to you at all.

Nope, Yeah, an unwanted pregnancy. No, who cares, doesn't matter, it's over. It's all over everyone. Karen's like, fine, and to the Emmett and I went ew out to my television. I went ew she's sleeping with Emmett. Gross. Uh. The older woman pairs off with one of the soldiers. So there's only Austin left, the two Russian soldiers and the hot, super hot lady.

Yeah. Oh no, Austin's not gonna get his dick wet before the world burns.

Oh, I don't know something about this wigs me out. But wait, Paul, wait, wait, can you believe what's that in there? This film pulls out a gay plot line. Yeah, that was unexpected.

I was shocked.

That was dare I say respectful?

One hundred percent respectful.

And kind of progressive? Yeah, amazing. Agreed in nineteen eighty six.

Yep.

Basically what happens is the two male Russian soldiers look at each other wink yeah, and they are like yeah, yeah, fuck yeah, and they go into a tent together.

Yeah.

No one says anything.

No one's grossed out.

There's no there's no cut to Dan Aykroyd being like, whoa, yeah, there's nothing, absolutely nothing is mentioned. It is not even a joke. Really, it's just like a sweet moment in the movie. And I'm like, holy shit, incredible, And I get that in nineteen eighty six that maybe was a joke. It's that thing that we talked about that there's.

Risky business where it's like just the the audience would have laughed at them without the but the movie does not pileon.

But the movie does not pileon. And this is not the last time we will see these gay soldiers. That's correct, That's what that's all I'm saying.

They won't die. We have incredible representation.

They won't die, they won't be made fun of, they won't be like, no one's gonna walk in on them, and like it's incredible. So the soldiers go off together. Austin gets the very hot Russian lady. Fuck, yeah, yeah, let's do this.

He gets to visit her Vladivostok.

Yeah.

We cut back to the headquarters with the four horsemen of bureaucratic incompetence. Right, they initiate their defense protocol, which seems to be using a series of mirrors to zap a super laser into the air and destroy the missile while it's still in space. Whatever they miss o hoopes, yikes, This means the missile is still inbound for the US. So Ruby and Keys, those are the two bureaucrats not The generals start to panic. They say, we need to call the president. We need to tell them that the

Yep.

The bureaucrats are Cray. The generals are Cray.

Cray Yeah yeah.

Sline says that naive wishing for peace is the surest possible way to encourage an aggressor, and they'll risk the future of the human race in order to preserve the American way of life. So, while the generals and the bureaucrats all intended for this fake missile strike to be set off, their plan was to fend it off and then destroy Russia with nuclear strikes. However, since the dye has been cast and the missile is inbound, we might as well launch some counter strikes. Shut down this monker.

Meanwhile, back in Russia, Austin has an idea. He thinks he can recall the missile. Austin's one of those people that when he orgasms, has ideas, Yeah, we should keep this man on a loop. We should have we should we should hook him up to a machine.

Yeah, absolutely, because his brain works well. Yeah, in the in the afterglow. Yeah, unlike most of us, I guess go to sleep.

So basically, a lot of stuff that we have no interest in actually talking about happens where he he figures it out. He figures out like how to make the missile explode in space and not on Earth, and he averts nuclear war.

Yeah. Two short things to talk about in the scene. One, we get to watch Chevy Chase being electrocuted for a while. That's fun.

That's always a good thing.

I enjoyed that. Second, they two gay Russian soldiers or or who knows that maybe they're bisexual. The two Russian male soldiers who get together.

Maybe they're pan sexual.

Yeah exactly, I don't want I'm not gonna label them. They come out of the tent and they have their shirts off. I know that's a really little thing, but I was like they're not they're not protect Like there's no avoiding this, Like these two were fucking it's cool and.

It's fine, and everyone's no even like at that point, everyone's gathered, so you expect, like maybe the older woman Russian soldier the person is charged to be like, oh what in my in my squadron? But no, again, nothing happens and it's not nothing. You say it's nothing, but this is nineteen eighty six. This is not nothing. Yeah, this is actually so progressive.

By the way, apparently the movie initially ended with just nuclear war in the world ending. It didn't test well. I wonder why. I mean, you can write a comedy about nuclear war war, but you can't write a comedy about nuclear war that just ends with the total annihilation of humanity. That's really hard.

So you've never seen Doctor Strangelove.

Then I have.

I have it spoiler for a sixty year old movie.

I did see this is the end, and I didn't care for it.

Doctor Strangelove ends like, like that's what they're a lot of these movies are basically picking up with Doctor Strangelove. Sure, like it's a lot of the same stuff.

Yeah, all right, So at the drive in bunker. The army arrives and places everyone under arrest. Keys and Ruby immediately try to throw the generals under the bus. The generals are very stoic like, so all the bad guys are are rested taken away. Then we cut I don't know, a month or two months into the future. There's a reporter. He's telling us about the ongoing disarmament talks that are

Yes, the ending, it's very sweet. This is a war movie written by Canadians.

Yeah, I will say this one once. I think I can say that once they hit Russia and this whole last section starts, I don't really think I have any complaints. Like, I think the funny stuff is funny. There's some borings that it goes on for a little too.

Long, but whenever they cut back to like people, come.

On, come on, come on. Yeah, but like the last third of this movie, it's pretty solid. Not my favorite movie ever, but I have no real complaints about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I look this. The messaging is is really good. Yeah, like really good.

You know it's not really good. Did you watch the credits? Oh no, Oh, so you missed the Paul McCartney theme song Spies Like Us, which.

I've heard it before. Yeah, I actually know that.

Listen. Listen, kids, listen, listen.

I forgot about it.

Gather close around the fire and.

Let let Grandpa tell me.

Grandpa tell you something. If you have a dream, if you are a creative person or any anything, you have a dream in this world, and all of us have voices in our head telling us that we aren't good enough, that we're not working hard enough, that will never make it. It's so hard to make it in this world. You remember that Paul McCartney, who has achieved the very pinnacle of creative success, one of the greats.

Yeah, Sir Paul, Sir Paul.

McCartney released the song Spies like us, the greats take a dump sometimes. So when you take a dump, it doesn't mean you're not great. It just means you took a dump, like all humans do, even Sir Paul McCartney. And that's the end of the movie.

You should end on that. That should be, That should be, that should be. I'm gonna have that written on your tombstone, the finest speech ever given.

Stick around. We will be right back with our random observations and final rankings, and we're back Erica. Do you have any any other little, little coded messages that you want to send to the listening audience and to me, frankly about spies like.

Usha, Just a couple of like jokes that really did land with me. During the interminable test taking scene, which we shiit on a lot, there was one line that really made me laugh. Oh okay, And it turns to Austin and goes, what does kg B stand for? That made me laugh?

Okay.

I have to say that's that's fair enough.

Here's here's something that made me laugh that that I didn't mention. When Austin rides up on horseback he's gonna save Emmett from the Russians. Towards the end of the movie, he's like, come on, and chevy Chase runs over and he grabs his hand and they pull and they both just fall off the horse.

That's comedy, that's funny. That's fucking funny.

Because it was fast. It happened fast, and we moved on.

It was unexpected. Yeah, okay, look what I shout a lot on chevy Chase through the episode. I'm gonna give him one more flower here. I this might have had less mileage with you. But there was a scene earlier in the movie when he's doing a press briefing, not the one late at the end of the movie. Early like, his job with the Pentagon seems to be very like media facing, which is like, but then, why would he even want to be a spy?

He seems to have the best parts of all of.

Those, but also likes he's like very visible. He's a visible member of the US government. It's probably not an ideal candidate to be a fucking spy. It's the fucking White House Press secretary. But I digress. So he's doing a press briefing and he doesn't have the information. He doesn't want to answer the questions they're asking, actually hard questions. He didn't do any of the research, and so he's doing this Chevy Chase famous bit where he pretends the

He does it, very good job.

But I have to say that bit was very funny, worked on me, excellent.

Another Chevy Chase moment that worked for me that we didn't bring up. Now, why do I feel bad for hating on Cornelia's Chase? Everyone anyone hates him. When they're in Pakistan, they're watching the Puppet Show. They're talking about the fact that Emma is pursuing Karen, right, Austin's like,

Tests, I think so. I think it's either boot because that's what he was doing with his manager, right boss. I think it's either that he's screwing his teachers to get or screwing his like female classmates to get answers or to get them to do their homework. Either way, I actually think that joke is quite progressive in the same way the other one was where he's sleeping his way to the top with his female manager, who's gorgeous by.

The way, Yeah, and just like Chevy Chase. No, but I think it stunning. Man.

It is important in this case as she is she's hotter than him, because it implies that like a level of skill, it implies he's getting he's he really is sleeping his way to the top. He's not just like yea, it's like, do you know what I mean? There's something about this joke that I find quite progressive because it's usually the other way. The gender is flipped and it's a woman sleeping her way to the top or a woman like sleeping with her teachers to get good grades.

That is a bit. If you don't accept.

That, just go no, no, no. But it's funny because it's not funny anymore because it's the expected joke, and it's kind of it's now like offensive, but when it's a guy, it's not offensive and it's actually funny. So I agree with you, and I kind of really really like this joke.

All right.

Uh, speaking of dicks, there's a line it's stupid but funny when they're in that like the woods, when they're in training and they're dropped in the middle of the woods right before they like quote unquote ninjas descend on them. Uh huh. They see these like woodland creatures and Austin goes, wait, that's a dick for. And it's like like trying to figure out where they are. He's like, that's a dick for. That means we're in the you know, such and such

I have a comment about the costuming not on Emma in Austin. When they're with Colonel Rambas. There's a bunch of grunts, right yep. But Colonel Rhmbas and like it seems like his his.

Age drill sergeants.

I think, yeah, are wearing something to distinguish them. They are wearing these neon canary banana yellow dickies.

Yes, to me, they look like ascots.

They look like ascots, but they're not because they are elastic gathered around their neck.

Yeah, yeah, I noticed that too. It is odd, it is weird, it is ugly, it's very there's no military use for it, no, like.

You know what I mean, except to draw attention to yourself because you're wearing camouflage. Other than that, and then one incredibly bright neon color that doesn't appear in nature like.

They don't appear to have any kind of like you know, defense mechanism. These aren't going to deflect bullets from your neck.

No, not at all.

I don't know why they're wearing them.

I guess it's just to distinguish them. But then why not just get them an actual like yellow scarf to tie around their necks, like, I don't know whatever.

I also was like, I'm not realizing I don't really know what military uniforms looked like in the eighties. Not really. It's possible these are historically accurate, in which case what queen is dressing our military. I need words. I need to have words with them because you're doing it wrong. Come on, if nothing else, our military should look chic.

Read the room, Read the room.

I only have one more, and it's a dumb like film nerd joke, but it made me laugh. In the Russian Guards outpost, in the one where Austin freeze emmit and then they throw the grenade back. Yeah, that scene. The in the outpost building, the Russian guards have posters up like the walls, and they are posters for American made Russian movies. So it's posters for Reds, which I found very funny. Yeah, and for Doctor Ravago.

Yep, excellent. I saw that too. I thought that was cute. I had one other thing that it just threw me back to the eighties. It's such a small little thing. In the very beginning, when we first meet Austin and his asshole boss is yelling at him. He's like, clean up your desk, and Austin just kind of like shoves all the stuff on his desk into a drawer. One

Yeah.

And then also at the same time and this is why the world is ending because it's covered in styrofoam.

Yeah. I didn't have the second party and we had the first part. I had the nostalgia hit because he also had a McDonald's like coffee cup on his on his desk, and it was like that old logo from like nineteen Anytime I see a logo from nineteen eight, like the mid eighties in a movie or a TV show, I get so happy, like totally there's such a like true like endorphin hit to my brain when I get one of those, when I see one of those, and.

It just makes me like it's it's what happens to me when I see a tab Oh yes, yes, Erica. How should we rank spies like us?

How about one to ten pentagon based improv troops.

Oh that we should have picked that up again. That was good. That was good. It's something like the Five Sides of Funny, something like that.

The Pentaga faws.

Oh I love going to a Pentagafaus show after a long week of work.

Yes, ending those pentagavaws absolutely absolutely.

How about one to ten bewildering legendary cameos?

Yeah? Why stop at bb King?

Why stop it, Bob Hope?

Why not have Miles.

Gene Kelly just tap dances in the back? It's going on.

Abraham Lincoln is alive this? Yeah, who knew? One to ten Soviet titsmigi the Russian Russian.

Ladies, headlights, laborche Jugs Ivanova jugs, Oh, jugs Ivanova is good? But what if her name is actually Gazunga's Gorbachev fun bags, roman Off, dirty pillows, Dostayevski boobs, Petrova. I like this one, But how about one to ten bits that don't end? For example, for example, we could keep going on that, but we're.

How don't end?

Okay, okay, let's see this one. Should I? Shall I go first this time? Or shall you you go first? All right? Looking at this movie through the usual criteria, which is as f as people of color, Colonel Rambus is a black man. There's really three characters in the movie that track the whole way, and even Karen enters about halfway through, so it's really Emma and Austin and then Karen for like the last fifty percent. And even that's genero. She's not in it that much.

She's not. She's given stuff to do. She is I would say Donna Dixon is a very lovely woman, but perhaps not the greatest actress of a generation. I think that's fair. So she doesn't do much with it. It's a little bit wooden.

It's a little bit wooden she but they give the character. The character is competent. The character is an excellent spy, right, and she does things that prove that she's a good spy. And you know, like when she first meets Chevy Chase and she's trying to get her and her team out of the problem they're in because they can't operate on him. She's she's trying to make sure this guy's gonna operate on them so she doesn't get caught, right, So, like, yeah,

I actually doubt they're real Russians.

I'm just going by the names of the actors. They could be American Russians, like I don't Russian Americans, I should say, I don't know. But it's a fairly diverse movie for nineteen eighty five, and like we said earlier, it never gets offensive with the diversity. They never use a diversity as an excuse to again get everybody who is white into black or brown face.

I realized that this sounds like the bar is so low. Yeah, when we say things like that, that's because it is. But that's because it fucking is.

The bar is so low, you guys. Yes, the only little moment of gay representation is truly progressive, and it probably is, like you were saying, like, just the very fact that those two men were going off in a tent together was a joke in nineteen eighty five. But I don't care because the movie doesn't pile onto.

It and maybe like not really Like honestly, there's like a real undercurrent of progressivism through the whole film. Even the message itself is excellent. Right, So probably not, And it probably was intentional of like, let's have gay people in this movie, not make fun of them and just show them as.

Like normal people.

Yes, yeah, part part of the part of the fucking team.

So overall, when I was going into this movie, I was very concerned. Yeah, I would say it aged way better than I was expecting. Did it age perfectly?

Know?

Like, are all of those Pakistani people just set dressing basically for the movie? Yes? Are the are the rebel freedom fighters a bit? You know? First thought? Absolutely, Like, I'm not trying to give too much credit here, but I don't think the movie is offensive in any way. Do I think it totally succeeds as a comedy? Also, No, but that's not what we're judging here. We're judging aging. So I don't want to give it too much credit, but I want to give it you little credit either. Yeah,

Hahah Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that. By the way, while you were talking, I was looking up where this movie was filmed, because I'm like, really, obviously can't really film in Russia in nineteen eighty six, and it's filmed in Norway. Is where they film the Russian scenes and the Sahara as Pakistan because Pakistan guessing also would have been a slightly dicey situation har filming wise. So in terms of like whether or not the people in the background in the Pakistan scenes are actual people

Backwards they are. Food weird.

Yeah, that seems like such a like low hanging fruit, low hanging fruit. There's always a food joke. There's always one right where they're like, do you like what you're eating? It's monkey testicles and everyone spits up or whatever, or they.

Eat something it's too spicy, a diarrhea.

Yeah that's and they don't do any of that. I made this joke earlier, but there is maybe something to be said about like war movies written by Canadians. They're just a gentler people.

Yea than we are.

And so yeah, I really like the progressive streak that goes through this movie. Now you were right as a movie. Normally when we rank these movies, I'm always like, well, it doesn't age well, but it's fucking awesome. Yeah, this is the opposite. It actually ages very well. I think it ages beautifully in a way because there's there is there's like effortless diversity in the film too, right, you have, you have people of color, you have which you know,

Everyone just take this and all get rid of our nuclear arms and then we're good.

How about that? How about we do that? So it has all of that. However, it's not fun to watch. I don't think like it's it goes on too long. The jokes are so old timy at this point that like they're just not funny. You've seen them all a million times. The timing for me is just off, like a lot of the jokes are unless it's like a quick like pitter pattern kind of like wordplay joke, like all in the fall flat does? It all kind of

We're being funny about it.

We're being ironic and so like, there is that, but like, but given the time the movie was made, what the movie is about, and the fact and who made it, Yeah, like aka dudes, comedy dudes, it could have gone so much off the cliff and it didn't. It's it's it's very it's a very nice movie, agreed, you know, it's

I have a similar thought. I was trying to think of an eighties spy comedy that I thought that I thought was funnier, and I went with Jumping Jack Flash. Oh, Yes, which is which, for my money, was a funnier movie. I laughed a lot more on Jumping Jackflash.

Yes I did too. Yeah, you know what's funny is Jumping Jackflash was also shaggy, like this movie is so shaggy. But when you put Whoopy Goldberg in the center of something versus when you put Chevy Chase in the center of something, yep, that's where your mayallage will vary. Because Whoopy Goldberg to us is a charisma machine, agreed and eminently watchable, whereas we both have very limited patients for Chevy Chain.

Very limited Chevy Chase patience. All right, so everyone listening, That is the end of our show. You can follow us on social media. We are on Threads, we are on Blue Sky, we are on Instagram. If you want to know what our monthly themes are in advance and want to request films on that theme, you gotta do on Instagram. It's the only place we take those requests. We have a tea public shop. We'd love for you to visit it. We would love it if you'd leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts or on any

That Aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Keola. We would like to thank Shannon, Christy, Laurie, Michelle, Heather Danielle Camille, Nicole, Lavender, and some people whose names do not appear on their social media profiles. Frankly, good for you. Yeah, but thank you also for requesting spies like us. Thank you for reaching out for letting us know what you want to hear. If you want to have a say in the topics we discuss, you can join our patreon.

It's so fun on the Patreon, it really is. Yeah, And usually this is a spot where we would thank a patron. And we do have some patrons who are ore thanks, but some of them are very shy.

They don't want to be thanks, they.

Don't want to they don't want their names set. They're very shy, So we were thanking them anonymously.

Oh wait a minute. If you want to be faked, but you just don't want us to say your name, you don't have to say your name. Yeah, give us a fake name. Yeah, give us the name of your sworn enemy. Oh and have us you know what you know what? Have us roast them. Yeah, instead of thanking you have us roast someone you don't like.

You know that that dick from the office, Jerry who you are? Yeh?

Give u Jerry.

Give us a little info on Jerry and we will tear him a new one. For you, we.

Will roast someone.

Listen, we won't even do any character. We'll do it as us.

If you put a lot of positivity out into the world with this podcast, we really do. We try to keep things positive. We try to keep things We try to like instill people with our values, which are generally positive values. But you know what I feel like, Karmicle, We we're good. We can swing the other way a little bit if you want, we can do some negative.

In fact, if we have thanked you and you need us to roast someone, let us help.

Oh, let us roast that bitch for you.

We have anger that we're suppressing to sound this happy.

Yeah, one hundred percent, we are miserable. Let us let us let us feed into that, let us live or also if you want to be thanks sincerely and beautifully and then feel free to do that as well.

Erica, any final thoughts on spies like us, No, Paul.

I have no thoughts on this movie, but if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go load up my freedom, my freedom boat with freedom. No. I'm trying to think of what we could call guns now ejaculators, freedom, freedom, ejaculate, freedom peniss. I'm gonna load up my freedom penis with its freedom seeds.

I have to go wash my eyes and ears.

I have to move to Canada and the there's only one woman left and three men because we have Austin to Russian dudes, and the built like a ship brick house, hot lady, a brit shikhouse.

We sit it wrong