WarGames (1983) - Bleep-Bloops, Card Catalogues & a Pterodactyl

So this is the last of the episodes. I'm going to be recording in Florida for a little while. I'm still here, but I'm leaving soon, and i just want to get something off my chest that I've learned about my parents in the last couple of months. It's that they're both in their seventies now and they have started a certain old person behavior that I have. I've never seen them exhibit before.

Originals.

Oh no, no, no. My dad's been on the word there's original tips. He's in his thirties. He's into that. No, your parents will be normal one day. They'll just be normal people with interests and hobbies and and experiences outside of their home. And then one day they start to spy on their neighbors.

They start Harriet the Spying Yay, start.

Harry At the Spy. And my mom started at first where she'll just be like, so they have three kids now, and I'm like, okay, I don't care. I've never met them. She's like, yeah, they have three kids now. When they first moved here, they only had that one kid, but now they have three kids, and she knows all the ages of the kids, and I'm like okay, and then I'll catch her just like looking out the window and going new car. Huh. And then my dad, who is

Huh.

And I'm like, what do you mean do you suspect that will play? And he's like, no, it's just weird. Don't you think they always have packages?

Are the packages like overflowing? Are they blocking?

Oh? No, Oh, I can't tell you enough. It was like two Amazon packages.

So you need me to be on alert for you later if you start spying on your neighbors, I have to. I have to cut that off right.

Away the minute I turned seventy. Look for it. Look for it. If I'm just suddenly like so someone has a new girlfriend, Nope, cutting off.

Go to the opera. Go to the opera right now? Hey on ball, And this is that aged.

Well Today's pop culture Today, Erica.

It's it's the finale of weird, crazy eighties and nineties technology month. This month has given us a lot.

A lot of bleep bloops. We've got a lot of bleep they We're gonna have so many bleep bloops.

So many bleet bloops. But correct me if I'm wrong. The most satisfying key stroke sound? Did that?

Not?

Like every time he pressed a key on the computer, I was like, Oh, I want to press that buttony.

You know what it is is laptops have ruined keystrokes for us because they used to have these big, chunky, delicious You had to really put some some like weight down.

Yeah, you had to put some elbow grease into hit it, and then it get that really that hollow, metallic bunk sound on every oh oh fantastic makes me.

Want to buy a typewriter. Yes, I don't even know type. I don't care.

But before we get to the final movie of this month, Erica, we do have a couple of podcast reviews. Shall I read the first one?

Sure?

All right? This is from Apple Podcasts and it's written by Laurie M eighty and Laurie says better than binge worthy. I found that aged twel a month ago and have been listening NonStop since then. I'm devastated that I've now gone through the entirety of the back catalog and wow, you've gone through the back catalog in a month. That, my friend, that is better than binge worthy. You know what golf collapse.

Is that even mathematically possible? Good gravy?

You know what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that Lori m Medi has a job like the one I used to have where I sat in front of a computer all day and entered data and the podcast was the thing that made me not like throw myself out the third story windows from sheer boredom, and that this is what I'm feeling a kinship. Okay, so Laura A Medi goes on. Paul and Erica have wonderful insights into the movies that filled my childhood and adolescence. Like Paul, I was a

I have been in movie theaters with Paul will Heeks covered his eyes, and I can tell you it's adorable.

Uh, Laurie, Emiti goes on, I have two movie suggestions for you. Number one Rags to Riches, which I found after falling in love with Troop Beverly Hills, and I'm sure it does an age nearly as well. And number two, Dream a Little Dream, which might possibly have been a fever dream. Thank you, and happy Pride.

Happy Pride, Laurie. I loved Dream a Little Dream when I was a kid. I cannot. I do not think it age as well.

What's it about?

Well, the Corries are in it. Okay, it's a nineteen eighty nine film, Starry. The Cory's Piper Laurie, Harry, Dean Stanton and Jason Robards.

I'm not non interested. I'll say that right now.

Here's a blurb. An accident swaps the minds of a married, older man, Jason Robards and a teenager Corey Feldman chasing his dream girl played by Meredith Salinger.

Whoa.

Okay, much information was just given. I think I have, just like as a good journalist, seen all the Corey films. Yeah, and it has both of them.

It has.

I only mentioned Feldman, but Haim is in there as well.

I mean maybe body Swap movie month. There's a there's a whole genre of film out there about body swap.

There's too many.

Of those, frankly for something that can literally never happen. Knock on Wood's too many. Do you want to read the next review?

Sure? This review comes from Podchaser. It was written by Dorin Laffer and it reads, Paul and Erica are funny, classy, and astute. I could listen to them review an infomercial and still be entered.

Am I like that? Classy is still coming through?

Classy is still coming through? Honestly, we should do infomercials from the nineties. Have you ever watched No, of course you didn't. You went outside as a kid. Yeah, I was an indoor kid, and on Saturday mornings after like after the cartoons were done, they would do like fully half an hour infomercials where it was like a half hour show about like a submersion blender, like what I like, how to make mayonnaise with a submersion blender and shit like that. I watched so many.

Of those when there was a kid. I don't think, I like. I think. The closest I've come is seeing the parodies on SNL like the Bassomatic.

People think, oh, those must have only been like five minute commercials. No, no, no, no no. They were thirty minute paid advertisements of one product.

Were they able to create a story like like did it go from A to B? Or do they just do like the same thing, the same five minute things six times in hopes of catching someone?

No, they created stories. So basically they do demonstrations and then they'd get like a housewife who's like I used to not be able to cook, and now woh with this, I was able to. And then they go to the housewives home and just show her making a meal with the thing.

Oh my god.

Oh it's a whole production and they were fantastic.

Okay, I love the idea. Thank you so much to Lori M. Eighty and Dorin Laufer for those reviews. If you would like a tote bag, please go ahead email us. We'll send it off to you. Erica, what are we talking about on this the final Monday of March twenty twenty five.

Today's film is the nineteen eighty three techno thriller war Games.

Wargames was requested by Nancy Michael, Mary Beth, Kathleen, Nanette, Jay, Ariel, Sabrina, Ben, Shannon, Laurie, Camille Stewart, Corina Kelly, Christine, Josephine, Erica Another Christine, Michelle Stacy, some people who are anonymous on the internet, and Erica our patrons. We had so many, so many submissions for this month. We just said I can't decide. We're just going to do the two top vote getters. So that was Wargames against Flight the Navigator. Wargames won pretty handily.

I didn't realize we were doing a broaderick versus Parker.

You know what, that would have been a good hook.

Amazing. Yeah, this month's got like this one hit a nerve people. Yeah, people are into bleep bloop.

Movies, bleep bloop movies. I do love a bleep blop movie. I'll say it.

These were fun movies. And the funny thing too, is like I would say, this one is pretty hmmm. I don't want to use the word realistic. This one is this one hues to some level of reality that I can almost understand, like I could almost see happening, but like it's so insane, Like it's so bleep bloopy.

All right, So Wargames was written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parks Erica. I don't know if those names sound familiar to you, but those are the exact same authors as our previous movie Sneakers.

Dude, I did not clock that.

I did not know that until after this was chosen. I was like, oh, well, I guess we're doing back to back Lascar in Parks production.

I had no idea. Okay, there is there are similarities here, Yep, there's an arc.

Wargames was directed by John Badham and stars Matthew Broderick, Ali Sheety, John Wood, and Dabney Coleman.

War Games was nominated for three Academy Awards Best Original Screenplay, which lost to Tender Mercies. I've never seen Tender Mercies, nor have I. That doesn't sound I'm gonna.

Tad it doesn't sound like a hoot.

No, I'm just gonna put that out there. There's no way that's a That's a Gene Wilder comedy. Best Cinematography, which it lost to Fanny and Alexander. I've seen that one. Definitely not a hoot.

Is that like the eight hour Swedish film it is?

It's a very long it's I don't I don't know if it's eight is it? It might be, but it's a very long Bergman film. Yeah. It's a very good film and beautifully beautifully filmed. And it was also nominated for Best Sound, which it lost to the right stuff.

Sure.

The fact that this was nominated for cinematography is kind of wild actually, now that I think about it, because I at no point while I was watching this movie was I like, who that shots incredible?

I don't know, like could could all of the computer graphics, which I know are laughable to us now, but like, could the could all of that have been something? I don't know. It's purely purely hypothetical.

Like, yeah, but that's not cinematography though, that's that's special effects. I'd say, right, yeah, production design. Yeah, I that's just interesting. I'm just curious, is to I would actually now like to rewatch this movie with that in mind and look at the cinematography, because I clearly I've missed something.

Yeah, yeah, because I like thinking back on it, like, it's not bad cinematography, it's just not like the attention getting it don't feel like Erica. Allegedly, John Lennon was interested in playing the role of jaded scientist Stephen Falcon, but was assassinated while the script was still in development.

Well, if you wanted to fucking kick me in the balls today, Paul, you've done it. Congratulations.

I should have warned you. I should have warned you about the ovary punt that was coming.

Holy sh I've never wanted something more that I didn't fucking get. That would have been awesome.

It would have been awesome.

It would have been fucking awesome. Oh man, now I'm pissed. Well, couldn't they have gotten Ringo?

Then you have said that Ringo's a great actor.

Ringo's not bad, Like honestly, of the four, if you've seen their films, which I have, of the four, Ringo's actually the best actor. I think Ringo would have fucking nailed this.

To be fair, John Wood, who plays this role, is the thing that lands this entire plane, solely by himself.

War Games has a ninety four percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a whoa a seventy six percent audience score. I did not expect to drop.

I thought it was going to be high in the audience score. It's hard to figure out, like because we're so far removed from this, like this is forty years ago. Now, this is more than forty years ago this movie came out. I don't know that I would give it ninety four percent critically speaking, but I but a lot of that is just simply because the technology of movies is so different.

Like the moral of the story is war is futile and there are no winners in war, and it's told in this very poetic way. Actually, the only slight issue is is if you're going into this movie expecting like a tight espionage thriller, that is not what you're going to get. Yeah, I don't think you've seen these films. So have you ever seen like Doctor Strangelove No. Or two thousand and one. There's a scene in Doctor Strangelove

Yeah, there's real like like particularly with his parents, because at first I was like, what's going on with his parents? And I was like, Oh, they're a parody of an American white picket fans, purely comic, stupid creations that have almost no plot purpose other than to inject a little bit of humor, yeah into the plot. And so yeah, it's it's interesting. It's a really interesting movie.

So that's where I think maybe the seventy six percent is coming from. Where it's people who maybe came in we are going into this thinking they're going to watch something that's like really polished, and it's not polished.

It's shaggy.

None of it actually makes any sense. No, And I'm not talking about the computer stuff. I'm talking about the human behavior stuff. None of the human behavior makes any sense.

Agreed, Agreed. So when did you first see the movie, Erica?

I thought I had seen this movie. I swore i'd seen this movie, But I have seen is another Matthew Broderick kind of computery hackery movie called Project x Ah. He like helps to free a bunch of monkeys who are being experimented on in a lab.

Okay, I thought that was this.

Yesterday. It is the first time I've seen this movie, how about you, Paul?

Yesterday? I had never seen this movie. I never even heard of this movie. I was not overly aware that Ali Sheety had a career prior to The Breakfast Club. If you'd asked me, I would have said she had done, like, you know, she'd probably been in some things, but had no like feature film career prior to The Breakfast Club. This is this is pre Breakfast Club Ali Shety.

And she's amazing.

Playing a wildly different character.

I honestly might big takeaway from this is Ali she should have been a bigger star than she and she became, because she is so watchable like and there's something really magnetic about her.

I wonder if she kind of like is one of those character actors in a leading woman's body, because Alison in The Breakfast Club is not like the lead like well, I mean, they're all this an ensemble cast, but she's not like the pretty princess girl.

Right.

That's Molly Ringwald. Yeah, Alison's a little darker, like maybe Ali. Sheety herself is like, I don't want to be the charming movie star. I want to do something interesting.

Oh I bet, I bet, and I bet. She was offered a bunch of nonsense and the the eighties that she was like, can I try something different?

So Erica. The tagline for wargames is is it a game? Or is it?

Oh? Okay, I'm always so happy when there's a good tagline.

Such a relief. It's a balm to your soul. It's an actual tagline. It makes sense for the movie.

Mm hmm.

The answer is both, it is a game, and it's also real.

It's also very fucking much real.

Should I read the iTunes synopsis?

Sure?

Okay. A teenager bored by traditional high school subjects like biology but fascinated by computers, accidentally taps into the Pentagon's top secret computer, the USA's NORAD system. That's not correct, That's that's not what happens.

That's how it happens, and also I don't anyway, keep moving on.

He starts what he innocently believes is a computer game called Global Thermonuclear War.

So much fun you guys so fun. My favorite game is it used to be thermonuclear War, Global thermonuclear War. Now it's a total annihilation of all the children.

Are excellent game?

So fun?

Yeah, yeah, but the quote unquote game is real. The Pentagon's best minds cannot shut down or reprogram the supercomputer that is readying a missile attack against the USSR, and could thereby unleash arm I get in. The teen and his girlfriend attempt to aid the helpless Pentagon, and, in a frantic race against a ticking doomsday clock, try to persuade the computer to end the quote unquote game.

Love the other game I love playing when thermonuclear war isn't isn't available? Is throwing nuns into a river?

Do you wait them down first?

Oh?

Of course, yeah, the habit's not heavy enough. Let's give them only the strong survive as and if you.

Get to the next level, it's nuns and orphans.

Okay, good times, good times?

What's that? Morphans the idea that someone saw the title Global Thermonuclear War and that what fun? What a fun game to play?

Moment happens in the movie, It's like, wait, what I mean?

I guess he was playing Space Invaders at the beginning to sort of sure the idea of like, yeah, we know this is far fetched, but James have dumb names, you guys.

Yeah, yeah yeah.

Actual synopsis for this movie. Nothing this lighthearted should also be this terrifying.

Uh huh yeah, holy shit.

I was so on edge the entire time I was with me.

It's a real potent brew that you're not quite expecting.

No, because it's a dumb movie. I can't tell you enough. It's a dumb movie. Guys. This is a dumb movie, but like the implications.

Are there and like not to bring the present day into it, but the feeling of unsafety and a lack of control. It's like a white knuckling this this is.

What happens when you have idiots at the helm of everything.

Yeah. Uh, all right, everyone, So that is your intro. Stick around. We're gonna come right back after a couple of commerci If you don't want to listen to commercials, you can head to our patreon patreon dot com slash that age Ball podcast. You can sign up for any paid here you will get ad free episodes. Note you do not want to sign up in the uh in the Patreon app. If you sign up within the Patreon app, there is now a search charge that Apple podcast or

Good to know.

Yeah, all right, But if you don't want to stick off with these commercials, that's cool too. Stick around.

We'll be right back to go through war games.

And we're back.

We open on car headlights, driving through a foggy night. The car comes upon an isolated cabin and two men get out. Captain Jerry Lawson played by John Spencer, otherwise known as Leo McGarry from The West Wing.

He's so middle aged his entire career. It's the same.

How old is he?

Here?

Is he sixteen? He might be sixteen. He looks forty six.

He's either sixty or thirty or fifteen. I can't tell.

I cannot tell. And Lieutenant Steve Phelps played by Michael Madson, otherwise known as that guy that is in everything.

Everything, He's in every Quinton Tarantino movie.

Hear play this game in the Erica. How many acting credits do you think Michael Madson has an imdba.

Oh good, Okay, one hundred and fifty.

Three hundred and forty five.

Damn.

That is like I was a ninety year old who was working since I was ten in the studio system, churning out eight movies a year. Numbers like wow, is in everything well done?

Michael Madson, I actually like have a note that's like, oh, babyface Michael Madson. That's so because I've seen him play like ruthless Killers. Yeah, you had to see him play like a like a sweet like maybe twenty five year olds.

I don't even I didn't even recognize him. I was like, that guy looks familiar, but it's in that way that like every one in the eighties kinds of looks kind of looks alike now to our eyes, because they all have the same dumb hair cut in the same like. All right, So Lawson and Phelps head into the cabin and they are quickly led into an entire complex that it that's hidden behind the cabin facade, this military complex.

Behind this facade, they go up to a window, or not a window, they go up to a mirror and they just flash their badges and then we cut from the other side of the mirror and you see the entire facility this like all metallic, cavernous, incredible like military facility behind this window. It's such a cool shot. Okay, maybe now I'm getting that cinematography.

That's true. That's actually the shot of them walking into the cabin too. There's like I was like, is it a dust storm or is it fog or I actually couldn't tell what the particulate in the atmosphere are supposed to be. But it's a very cool shot of them walking in and like all this stuff blows in after them. So yeah, we're finding that cinematography as we talk, we're finding it. Okay, they head down into the nuclear command

I don't know the farting protocol? Paul? But did you see the sign that said anyone caught urinating in here will be immediately discharged?

I did not. Anyone caught discharging will be discharged.

So Okay, here's the thing I do. Have happened often enough that someone had to go to Kinko's yeah and be like, don't ask why, but I need a sign that says this.

Well. Also, because they say it's a twenty four hour shift and they're in this room and I'm like, what what is the bathroom protocol? Like, this is the command center for if the president decides we need to launch our nukes. Yeah, and it requires two people to turn the keys, which means it really should be a three person team in there so everyone. If someone needs to go dump out, they don't have to rush it.

Well. Also, someone just like feints or something or has as a reaction to the tense stress of the situation.

Yeah, Almost immediately the command comes through, it's time to launch the nukes. It's time to make the donuts. Let's go.

Ah.

They immediately start going through their routine laws and starts to sweat lost ins. Leo McGarry eternally middle aged. He says, I don't want to be responsible for the murder of twenty million people. He tells Phelps get someone on the phone, and Phelps like, that's not the protocol. He's like, get someone on the phone before I launch these nukes. I can't do it. No one picks up the phone. The tension is rising, the music is getting more and more dramatic.

So tense, so tense. Such a tense scene also slight spoiler. We're gonna find out later that Phelps, the older man just couldn't do it, and he didn't launch the nukes. The younger guy did. And we both know now that there was like the younger guy was holding a gun to the older guy's head. The should die if no one gets shot in the scene we find out later. But like, man, how awkward is their friendship going to be after this?

I feel like like we don't know how to resolve this. We just have to cut, We just have to cut away from this.

Well, it's also it's a great cut because it feels real. We later will find out it's a simulation. Like in the next scene we find out it's a simulation. But like this seems so real and so terrifying. Yeah, and like it's a great beginning to the movie. Like the movie just like draws you in immediately, right, And.

They do such a good because these are such two good actors too, that they're like as they're walking in, they're chatting about like normal everyday stuff. Like they they create this very lived in camaraderie and friendship that is destroyed in the space of like ninety seconds.

Yeah, because one guy just can't do can't bring himself to do the thing his whole life has been pointing to.

Yeah, can I say just one thing? The Cuban missile crisis was avoided by people refusing to launch nukes.

Yeah, I really know what I think about it. Let's stop thinking about this right now.

Stop it, stop it.

We smash cut to an incongruously happy, cheerful score.

Think Think John Phillips, SUSA writing a graduation march for West Point.

It's like one guy holding a gun on another going launch the dukes, launch the nukes. What the fuck? So we headed to NOD the North American Aerospace Defense Command For those of you who don't know.

That, idiots, obviously I knew it.

I'm not learning it now Inside Norad. Doctor John McKittrick played by Dadney Coleman. I'm always so happy to see Daphney Coleman. Dadney makes my day every goddamn tom to see him. He is debating General Jack Behringer, played by an excellent Barry Corbyn. Yeah, this is like, this is my favorite performance in the movie.

It's all really right.

Like, not not that it's the best, because John Wood is the best, but this guy knows exactly how to play this character in a way that's funny.

It's also clear because because you have Dabney Coleman, at least this was my experience. I know it's true of everyone, but because you have Dabney Coleman, I'm like, I know that Dabney Coleman's gonna be wrong. He's gonna be like he's not even the villain, but he's just wrong in this movie, right, Like, isn't.

Even really a villain in the movie, Like none of these all these people turn out to be very decent human beings. Yeah, they're fundamentally wrong and they're bad at their jobs, but they're not bad people. Yeah, you know, like none of them are bloodthirsty warmongers. They're just idiots.

They're just idiots. Whereas like Behringer is like he's not foghorn leghorn, but he is foghorn. He's like half foghorn, likehorn.

It's so close, it is so close, it's really he's like he's like smoking cigars and so okay. So McKittrick and Barringer are in front of two representatives from the President of the United States. We never meet potus in this film, So we learn in this scene that the scene we just watched was just a simulation, right, that didn't actually happen. It's something the military puts its men through to see if they've got basically the medal to actually launch nukes, and turns out that it wasn't just

Does this not seem just like cruel and unusual punishment to put your soldiers, Like, I understand there has to be some order, but like, can you imagine launching them and then finding out it was just a test. That's hard to come.

Back from Actually, no, I'd be thrilled. I'd be thrilled to find out it was just a test.

Oh no, I mean like you'd be happy, but like you.

Would be yeah, But then every single time in the future that I was told to launch the nukes, in my head, I'd be like, this is probably just a test.

Oh okay, so I didn't think that much about it.

And then that would make it okay for me to launch the nukes.

Sure I would.

By the way, I would never be put in this position. This is this is not a job for Erica's.

I would know, not a job for Erica's, not a job for Paul's.

Erica's would be too like, are we.

Sure this seems hasty? Guys, why don't we all have a Pina Colada and just have a conversation.

Fucking chill everyone. Yeah. Yeah, So Baron Jared, the military man, the general defends his men, saying they'll impose stricter psych exams prior to putting them in that situation in the future. You know that line from Big Business, Get tougher rats. Yeah, He's like, well, just get tougher soldiers. McKittrick, who is a scientist First, he's not a military man. He is a computer scientist. Scoffed that that head shrink or horseshit doesn't work.

Yeah, it's great.

He proposes that they take humans out of the decision making process altogether and make the responses automated to a computer program, so that once the president makes the decision as to whether or not to launch the nukes, we know it's going to happen for sure. Okay, already fascinating. I'm in I'm so into this this conversation that, like, I kind of know where this is going because it's a movie, you know, like, well, we're probably not going to end in war. I like, but ps spoiler for

So in order to accomplish this, McKittrick introduces WHOPPER, which is the War Operation Plan Response, which is a supercomputer that continually runs simulations on nuclear war. So he's like, look, this computer is constantly going through every different possibility, so it always knows what the proper thing to do is in any situation. Behringer tries to fight back. It's weird. That they don't bring up the Cuban missile crisis because

But that is interesting, You're right. Maybe they were like, that's actually too logical for this movie. Once you heard that argument, you'd be.

Like, yeah, yeah, So the decision is made to recommend the President put Whopper in charge. Okay, I have to take one moment to talk about my favorite performance in the movie. There is a man. The character is called mister Richter. He's played by a man named Irving Metzman. He is like the Whoppers an custodian.

Yeah yeah, yeah, the nerd, the nerd.

He I do not mean this as an insult. I do not believe this man is acting at all. I believe he is actually just an anxious, tiny bit fay New York overweight jew in this movie. And like Bereinger is so masculine and tough, and Dabney Coleman is being Dabney Coleman. But and he is just this guy who's like, I like computers.

It's a terrific performance. He's a character actor. I've seen him in a bunch of stuff and he basically always plays.

This guy and he's perfect.

Yeah, like this like beta male. It's very good. So we cut to an arcade in Seattle where David Leichman, played by and unbelievably young and charming Matthew Broderick, helps to young Matthew Broderick is a teenage boy. He's so well cast because A he's a really really good actor, like even from the early days, he's a very good actor. B. He's handsome enough to be a leading man in a movie, but also kind of awkward enough that I believe him as a computer nerd.

The only problem with Matthew Brodrick's casting is that I don't believe him as like a bad boy who like shrugs off school. That's the thing where I'm like, I don't quite buy that part of it. But Ferris Bueller, Yeah, but that's like Ferris Bueller is like there's a there's an impishness. This is not meant to be ambitious is kind of I feel like this movie like he's playing at impish, but this movie wants to be Like he gets in trouble all the time. He goes to the

You figured out though, why he's getting in trouble all the time. He's doing it on purpose.

Yeah, yeah, so he can so he can.

Find the code. So like once the movie told me that, I was like, oh, okay, he's not a troublemaker. He's doing it so that he can sneak in and get the codes that he needs, Like he's a genius. It's I really like this before you're right though, Like there is something about him that like screams I brush my teeth every night and.

Follow Yeah that's what I mean. Like, like he's also a degenerate in some like he is an a moral delinquent also in this movie, I don't know that, and he gets morals later, but like in the beginning, he has no concept of right and wrong.

The whole movie is underwritten. I think we should actually just say that, right, Yeah, every single character is is underwritten.

Yeah, I think the only person who creates that character is John Wood. At the end, he is able to even even though that character is also somewhat underwritten, he is able, Like you get him completely you know exactly who that person is.

Yeah, just just from a look. But that's an act. That's like a superlative actor doing doing that job. Like so I I yeah, okay, we'll keep going. But yeah, this is the movie is about to get real stupid, y'all. Yeah, okay. So he's in the arcade, he's playing games. He's playing Space Invaders. Before school, he notices his classmates are leaving.

Wait did you think it was Space Invaders?

I thought it was Space Invader? Which one was he playing?

I thought it was Asteroids?

Oh it might have been Asteroids, or.

It might have been neither one of those. I feel like a lot of those games look the same.

Well, yeah, it's all like bleep, blooplepleep. It could have been Frogger. I don't know. Yeah, there is someone out there who loves this movie now deep to their core, who is calling us cunts through their phone screen.

I also initially wrote Asteroids as a S. S T E R O. I yes, And I was like, there's a whole riff in that.

That is a I would play as put on that thing. We could change to snatch snatchinators, we could do we can do a whole a whole like pornographic arcade just for adults.

He can invade my space, you know what I mean.

He can pack my man, you know what I mean. Yeah, this is not a terrible idea. We've had terrible ideas.

This is not one of solid one.

If we put an all adult arcade in New York City that did pornographic video games, sold cocktails, made it into like a young hip happy hour thing in green Point Paul.

Billions billions, We just.

Pay billions of dollars. Guys don't feel that idea just because we're putting it out there hours.

So we're going to do it.

We swear we're going to do it.

I mean that game where you just keep a collecting little dots and get longer. That snake, that's just that's just, that's just Penisca, the Penis game. It makes itself.

Street Fighter, and you change none of it because that game is already really sexy. Yeah, keep street Fighter exactly as it is. What do all the street Fighters, even the one that looks like a big green monster.

What is his name?

It's like the Brazilian.

It's the Brazilian one. Yes, And I feel like it might be probably I feel like that whole game might be problematic.

But oh yeah, it's definitely problematic. I don't care. I don't cur Again, we have computer nerds screaming at us right now. We have gamers screaming at us right now. Blanca, Blanca, we heart you, Blanca, would Blanca, we see you, We would do Blanca would do Hello, Hello Chun yum yummy.

Yummy, yum yum. I am saying, Kenny, you would be boring because they just want to fuck each other.

Oh but I'd be into that.

I watch, I mean, I totally watch.

Honestly, truly, street Fighter might be the sexiest game.

We haven't even brought up, Kyle.

We don't have to change a goddamn thing. Okay, back to the movie. Back to the movie. So, Okay, David goes to school. He goes to the science biology class. Teacher is not helping himself. Okay, the teacher is trying to talk about asexual reproduction. He's trying to teach them. I get it, it's something we need to learn. But man, you know what you're saying is funny. You know what

Just blatantly and frall while the teacher's like, not even at the board, he's just like looking at the class, just walks in and like acts like he's sneaking. I'm like, he can see you.

He's doing like an old timey like black and white movie villain where he's like sneaking into the.

Roomy versus spy.

The teacher hates David very clearly. David is a disruption in class. He doesn't like him. He gleefully hands it is test back with a big giant F on it, circled and read. Is this innovation of privacy or we allowed to just tell everyone each other's grades?

I feel like in the eighties when we would get papers back, they'd be like, you got an A like they would say, I.

Honestly think, like I remember a couple of times a teacher being like, I'm going to give out the top grade first, and like I would get the top grade ye, and I would have to go up to the front of the class and collect my paper with the top

I can tell you don't remember your summer school story.

Yeah, I definitely had to go to summer school at some point. I think that honestly scarred me a little bit from wanting to try too hard. Oh okay, So he gets his test back with the F on it. Seated directly in front of him is Jennifer Mack, played by the luminous Ali Sheety. She giggles openly with her friend while class is going on. She's talking over the teacher's lesson. Before long, the teacher' is like, oh, you

Yeah, what is the protocol for handing back papers?

Bully the worst kids?

Yes, but you think that, like I presumed when he snuck in that the rest of the class had received their papers and he had it because he was late. Oh but then Ali Sheedy has also not received her papers. She wasn't late. So did he hand out like? Is he just meeting out the p Yes?

You know what it is is he's a petty bitch. He's giving them out at the end of class. But he has the f's on standby in case those students do something to humiliate him, so he can humiliate ate them back. Yeah, it's psychological warfare.

Is def con one at all times. All right, So class continues, the teacher has to bring up, like Erica comment non, the concept of asexual reproduction. He wonders aloud, who knows where the idea first came up? I don't. I'm guessing Egypt for Greece. I feel like it's always Egypt for grease when these questions ask are asked.

It's got to be grease, right, It's got to be some scientist looking at a flower going now, how did this get reproduced?

Right? That's got to be what happens, something about athena jumping from Zeus's head, parthenogenesis, all that, all right? So David under his breath is like his wife, maybe his wife came up with a sexual reproduction, right, and all the kids around.

Him laugh sick burn David Jennifer.

Laughs loudly, which draws the teachers attention. He's like, what's so funny? And David, because as Erica pointed out, he wants to get sent to the principal's office, just repeats his joke full out. You can see this actor playing the teacher is a good job because when he says that, you can see he has nothing to say back. He has been castraighted and his balls have been hung up on thet kid. He can't he has to retire. He needs a new job now, Like he can never come back to this class.

Nor should he. Frankly, yeah, you can't burn back a kid who's burned you. You shouldn't be a high school teacher. Yeah, that job is not for the week.

All right. So he sends David to the principal's office. While David is waiting for the principal. He's sitting outside the office. He leans over to this desk where a computer sits, and he slides out one of those things that used to slide out from desk. It's like an additional writing surface.

Oh I love those.

Yeah. And when we get to the card catalog moment, we're gonna have eight minutes. I'm gonna have eight minutes on a card catalog. Everyone get ready, hah. He pulls this out and he sees like passwords written on it, and he in the next password his pencil. It's clear he's done this before. It's clear that this is part of a routine.

We cut to after school. David is walking home. Jennifer putters up to him on her motorbike and she's she apologizes for getting him into trouble, right, She's like, sorry guy. He's into the principal's office. He's like, oh, no, big deal.

Does it not look like ali sheet? He's gonna fall off this mo her bike In the scene when she's trying to like slowly move it.

She was not given time to prep No, she was not given time to practice. The motorbikes they gave her that morning and they were like, do it and she's like.

Okay, okay, it's fine once she's actually going, but when she's trying to like do this like go slow and talk to David thing, it's it's worrying. It is touch and go.

Also, this is the best take. There are forty.

Wiping out that bike blooper reel blooperoo.

Come on, you cowards, give us the blooper reel. I need to see it. There is at least one tick of Ali sheet he's just hitting Matthew brought up absolutely right.

There's a couple sext of her hitting the camera like going too fast.

So she offers David a ride home. He takes her up on it. They're so cute. There's a lot of chemistry here. He clearly has a big giant crush on her, because who wouldn't, because she's adorable. She laments that they both have to take biology again in summer school because they're both clearly failing, but David's like, no, I don't think either one of us is going to have to go to summer school. And when they get to his house, he invites her in and they head up to his room.

Well, that's my question. I'm like, so this kid is both of his parents' work, which says kind of middle class. Yeah, but he has an on suite bathroom in his room, and then can this thousands of dollars in nineteen eighties money this computer system? He has multiple like stereos and computers, he has his own private landline that goes to this computer, Like, like,

That's honestly the best explanation.

Yeah.

So he shows her how he can hack into the school's computer and change their grades. He goes into his grades first and he changes the F to a C in biology, and then he changes her biograde as well. She's like, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Don't do it. And he's like, what it's not it's I do it all the time, don't worry, and she forces him to change it back. He changes it back. He's like, I'm really sorry. She goes okay, no worries,

Is a like, bro, the smart thing to do is what you did first. It's change it to a C. He at one point he's like, no one's gonna find out, and I'm like, well, the teacher's gonna know you didn't get an A, Like if he gave you an F, the teacher'll be like, that's not right, he got an F.

Yeah, Like it's way too obvious. But but that's not the point. The point is he does it without her consent, and I'm like.

Dude, no, And at this moment in the movie, like Ali Shety plays this very seriously, like I thought we were headed for was like Ali Sheety's superpower to balance out, like David superower with the computers, that she was going to be the moral compass of this like dynamic duo, Like no, you can't do that. That, by the way, is not where the film is heading. Ali Shety is going to become wildly less interesting. In the her next scene, she.

Is I'm gonna jump ahead here clinically stupid, medically stupid. She's good. This is the only good decision she makes the entire film. And it is a fleeting moment and it is gone. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. And they changed the characters completely, like you're absolutely right. I don't even know why they put the scene in. Why did they bother to put the scene in? Because I guess to show that what David's doing matters. Yeah, Like,

All right, So we briefly cut back to Norad and we see the Whopper. That's the supercomputer being connected to the nuclear command center where Lawson and Phelps were stationed in the first scene of the film. So the Whopper is now control of the no urination box. At least you know, the Whopper is going to urinate in there.

Yeah, they could take that signed down.

Maybe get signed down.

Maybe post has a return policy.

Yep. So we cut back to Seattle to David's house that night. At dinner, his parents stand around, and when I tell you, the parents and both the actors do a good job, are like the most dumb, white bread suburban parents you could possibly imagine. There is a scene there at dinner the father is putting an absolutely unholy amount of I can't believe it's not butter on like a piece of wonderbread, like untoasted wonderbread. This piece of

We still have those in my house.

We eat.

We had corn on the cob the other night with those.

He takes the corn on the cob, he splats it onto the bread. He like tacos the bread around the corn to like swirl the corn around to get all of that. I can't believe it's not butter off the bread onto the corn. Throws the piece of bread onto the table.

That confused me. I was like, is that bread just waste now?

Or this is this is waste on all? This is the eighties levels of waste peppers, the corn salts, the corn bites it and then finds out the corn is raw. Like what is happening at this dinner?

I've seen the bread someone else showed it to me once. It's like a trick quote unquote trick to butter.

And I was like, okay, you could just take a knife and do it like everyone else does.

But also the amount of butter.

This man, it's so much butter. It looks like mayonnaise.

It's half a tub of I can't believe it's not butter.

That is not going to be a happy bathroom later. Like the stuff that is in that, you can't have too much of it, remember anal leakage from the Olestra, Like, I.

Isn't I think it's still a product, so I don't want to. I don't wanna. I don't want to get in trouble. But isn't like margarine supposed to be like partially plastic, like probably the same shit plastic is made out of. Like just eat the goddamn butter people. And also, yeah, raw corn, that's not a thing. You can't just eat raw corn.

Yeah, now you can't eat raw corn. It's quite toothsome but you can eat it big.

Yeah.

I made it and you kind of cook it in like acid and stuff, so it was like civich it. So it softens it up a little bit. And it's very good.

This movie is positing, Paul, that's true that you correct a chase situation. This is a bitch put raw corn on the table and served it to her family.

Cooked corn is already coming out whole. Can you imagine what raw corn covered in? I can't believe it's not butter is coming out. That is just a fire hose out your ass.

It won't get to my ass because my teeth will die. And once once I try to chew on that it's done. I'm like, well, now I'm having a dental emergency over all.

Right, okay, okay, So back to the movie. David sees an ad for Proto Vision, which is an upcoming gaming system coming out in a few months. He immediately heads for his room to set about hacking into the system so he can grant himself early access. He's like, new

So The next day, we're back at the arcade. Jennifer approaches David and after her briefcase of morals, she's shrugged that off.

Yeah, thank god, she's reconsidered.

And she's like, you know what, actually, would you change my grade in biology? I sure would hate to go to summer school? And what's Ventura? Had?

Detective? No, wasn't it ace Ventura? When nature calls?

It's when nature calls when nature.

Don't rewrite that. If anyone wants to know what we're talking about, go listen to our episode on summer school. Erica went to summer school where some guy showed her his favorite movie, which was ace Ventura When Nature calls.

Don't say it's that's some guy, Paul. It's the teacher man who taught me geometry or whatever. I was there for algebra.

One of my favorite stories you've ever told in the entirety of this podcast, genuinely top notch.

So David kind of hems and haws a little bit, and eventually he confesses to her that he actually already did change her grade back, and she takes it very well. I was so mad. She was like, oh, good, thank you. What did I get? She's like hey, and she's like, excellent, love that I've changed personalities completely in the last twenty four hours.

There's this They go back to his house and she sees like the setup and she's like, well, isn't calling all these numbers expensive? And my three Broderick goes there are ways around that, and she goes, you can go to jail for that, and he just smiles. He's like, only if you're eighteen. This he is a degenerate, has no morals.

He is a sociopath.

Actually, he also doesn't wash his hands after peeing in the bathroom. That's another thing that I noticed.

There's a couple of gross teenage boy things that happened in this. Wee also feel very true tolized. I'm gonna cut to later later, way later in the movie. Not way later, but later in the movie. She comes over. She's been jogging, so she's sweaty, and she goes into his en sweet bathroom and she just grabs a random cup or glass in there and fills it with water and drinks it. PSA for this episode. Don't drink out of an unattended glass left alone with a teenage boy.

Well she's dead.

Now she's dead. I honestly don't know what else happened in that scene. I'm gonna learn in real time as we're reading this recap.

All right, So they're back in David's room now, she's looking at the computer. He explains that he's trying to pirate video games like that, this is his stated purpose here, right. Uh. He shows her the different computers program is connected with, including a bank and the pan Am reservation system. On a lark, he makes reservation for them from Chicago to Paris.

Why are they going from Chicago when they're living in Seattle? What's going on? So?

Okay, So the movie sets it up with a shot of the Seattle space needle. Right, So I was like, Okay, we're in Seattle, like way back in the first in the first scene when we come to Seattle, we're in Seattle. Great. Then he buys them tickets from Chicago to Paris, and I'm like, are they not in Seattle? And then something else is about to happen that makes me again believe they're not in Seattle, But they are in Seattle.

Yes, canonically they are definitely in Seattle.

Can I take a brief moment with you here to try to understand a joke? Because I don't, I genuinely don't get it. She says, do we really have tickets for Paris? And he says, no, we have a reservation though, oh.

Yeah, he didn't pay for them yet. This is Oh, you don't remember the old days, Paul. No. Yeah, you could just make reservations for and then pay for it later because there was no system to pay for it.

Like guess you go and pay when you get there.

Yeah. I think you could make a reservation for a flight, you had a certain amount of time to go pay for it, And I don't think you had to pay for it at the airport. I think you had to go to like a travel agency or something like that, or like an office for pan Am somewhere and pay for the ticket. Is that bonkers that that used to be the way things were done, But.

It makes sense. That makes because I was literally like, is he trying to make a joke about Like, no, we don't have the tickets, we have the reservations, we don't physically have the tickets, but like Matthew Broderick doesn't say it as a joke. So I was literally like, I don't understand. I don't understand the.

Said like he didn't he didn't pay for the tickets.

Yeah, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I'm like, are you planning on paying for them? Aren't you stealing it? Whatever, it doesn't matter. So uh. They find a system that won't allow them to log on. So David tries to get help by typing in help games, and the computer responds with games refers to models, simulations, and games which have tactical and strategic applications. This convinces David that he's found pro division. Aha.

I'm still in Paul Street Street Fighter Yeah sure, uh.

Huh, Gorilla Engagement, Okay.

Mortal Combat. I'm still in yeah, there could be a game called that.

Sure, desert warfare.

There literally is a game called that.

Yeah, that's that's I'm good, I'm good.

I'm still in I'm still in.

Air to ground actions.

Okay, less and less convinced. That's a game.

Theater wide tactical warfare.

Okay, also not really a fun game name.

Is that like a fancy way of saying risk? I'm not sure. Yeah, theater wide biotoxic and chemical warfare.

Okay, that sounds like a bummer. That sounds a huge bummer to play.

Yeah, and of course global thermonuclear war.

Once you saw theater wide biotoxic and chemist the warfare, you should be like, well, that's a terrible name for a game.

What the fuck are they doing at Proto Vision?

That should have given you pause to be like, is that a first draft of a computer game? What the fuck is happening here? So David and Jennifer head for I don't know, a computer programming firm I don't know. They go talk to adult nerds that David. They get there and David tells Jennifer to hang back so that she doesn't make them nervous, and she's like what, and he's like you'll see. And he goes up to one of them and it's okay, it's these two guys, one of whom is Eugene from Greece.

Yep.

This is where I learned that the actor who played Eugene and Greece is perhaps not the most nuanced performer of a generation, because it is the exact same performance.

This is what he does in case you were wondering. Because Eugene wasn't a geeky enough geeky enough name, they've named him Malvin, not Melvin Malvin.

Yeah, it's giving Jerry Lewis on crank. It is the most absurd performance. Is like a little two real for my taste, honestly, Yeah, very angry and selly guy who's like who is prone to like violent fits, but is also a computer genius. And that one was less.

Funny, aged beautifully like.

A fine wine. So he asked them about the list of games that they've printed out, and they tell David that they're like, the I don't think this is a game company. I think you hacked into the military.

Okay. He is told that he hacked into the military. When that when they said that to him, my jaw dropped because now, like, I really wonder why they put that in the script, because all you'd have to do is have them not say it. And he has the character, I mean, has deniability of being like he thinks it's this game. He genuinely thinks it's a game. He has been warned by people who know better than him that this looks like the military.

I guess the only reason they put this in is so that it gives him a reason to think, oh, this could be military. Later on, he should have come to that conclusion by himself.

Yeah, because he's not stupid.

He's not stupid. He's actually a genius. Right, you ra absolutely right, because now that I think about where this is going, this makes no sense that it's in here.

Yep. So David wonders why it would have checkers in chess on it if it's from the military, and they're like, look, those games teach basic strategy, so like it makes sense. Then they tell him about the idea of a backdoor password. I was not expecting Eugene from Greece to make the back door euphemism joke about like there's a lady present, you're talking about our back doors. I was like, wow, okay a lot.

Uh.

But the hacker, the other hacker is like, look, I always put a backdoor password into any system that I create to make sure I can always get in, which doesn't fill me with confidence about asking this guy to build me a computer system. But whatever they suggest. Looking deeper into the guy who created the system, they say

We get a montage. We're getting montage and the most meat meat.

It's almost Ross's music from Friends on the score, Like it's so close.

It's a same Pop eight he's montage. Yeah, we're seeing David in the librariest as he's coming through microfiche and searching the card catalog.

Every card catalog looked the same, every single one that was.

The exact Every card catalog I ever went to looked exactly like that one.

It had that it was the same color brown, It had the same incredibly satisfying sliding long drawers in and out with that gold hook that Oh I can smell it. I can smell that card catalog.

We should go. We should buy one from like an antique store and put any and then just I would play card catalog all day.

Oh oh the dream, Oh.

My god, that would be actually very cool.

Now that I'm thinking about it. Can we get one in repurpose it as a bar or something.

Yes, you could like put little like passwords and secret codes in there for party guests and if you find the secret password code, you get a free drink. I don't know, justin off top of my head.

Why does not every escape room have a card catalog?

Oh? You know what. I have been to escape a couple of them that do, though, But they.

Better have that sliding drawer. It better be a long drawer.

You best believe they do. Paul. So during the montage, David finds out that the maze the game, Falcon's Maze, is named for Stephen Falcon, who's an early researcher into AI and machine learning. He passed away years ago while he was still young. He was like, there's a line here.

Oh hurt hurts you and your so everyone buckle up.

This hurt me so much. I was angry.

I always do something at the television. I was like, fuck off.

He's like. Later, explaining to Jennifer who this person is, who Falcon is, She's like, oh, he looks so young to have died, and David goes, he's not young. He's forty one, and she goes, oh, yeah, forty one is old.

Yeah.

No, Irony just said it. I like, just said it like it was a thing, and I wanted. I was like, you know what, we should force children into work camps.

Why are we the ones working? Our bodies are so fragile, they are young, and supple I break.

Them young immediately became a Nazi. The minute she said that, I was like, I get it, I get I get fascism because that made me angry.

They also met like they show a picture of young John Wood here, Jennifer goes, that's him. Wow, he's amazing looking and we love and respect to John Wood? Was he okay?

Also like forty year old John Lennon would have been in this role too, And I don't I don't know about that. I'm sure that is a weird one to write. Agree to her eternal credit, she actually sells it. I get it, But I'm like, is he amazing looking? Or is he just like a dude.

Yeah, here's the dude.

So David is trying to figure out the log on to Falcon's maze with no success. Jennifer comes over. They have that conversation, which is where they talk about how forty one year olds.

Are just old, and where they personally attack us and every listener of this podcast where.

They tell people over the age of forty to just fucking.

Die already get on the iceberg.

A Falcon while he was still alive, turns out to have lost his wife and young son, whose name was Joshua, in a car crash, and David goes, oh my god, could it be that obvious? And he types Joshua in and it logs on.

Okay, So David and Jennifer chat with quote unquote Joshua, which we the audience know is really Whopper. So for the rest of this movie, Wopper and Joshua are essentially one and the same thing. David will keep calling it Joshua, the military people will keep calling it Wopper. That's the same thing in this movie. They sign on to the computer, the computer addresses David as Professor Falcon, right, and they start to have this conversation. It's been a long time.

I mean, in his defense, Checkers does not sound like fun.

So I get it.

But Chess, you get it. Yeah, it's sound like funn either.

I think it sounds like fun to someone like David.

Nuclear war sounds like fun to someone.

Like apparently, so Joshua asks him if he wants to play as the US or as Russia, and David chooses Russia, and he and Jennifer slurp tab and choose a couple of targets for bombing, like Las Vegas and Seattle, the city they live in, which is the other reason. I was like, are they in Chicago? What is happening?

I can't tell you enough. All it is is then putting in the names of cities they want to bomb and then watching the bleep bloops on the screen slowly.

Yeahink.

I'm like, this is so boring, Like this is genuinely so boring. I'm surprised She's not like, I gotta go, I got I got friends in the mall to go to, Like this is bullshit. So we cut to Norrad headquarters in surprise surprise, they're like what now the computer is telling us that the Russians are attacking Las Vegas and Seattle the fuck. Meanwhile, we cut back to those two Jabroni's in Seattle and they're interrupted by David's parents, who are angry with him for not securing the trash properly.

Right, So we cut to the next day. David comes home. His mother's like, you get down here and she's like and he's like okay, and he comes down and she's like, you passed all of your classes? They got they got his report card, and like they are celebrating, not that he aced all of his classes, just that he passed that. Everyone is thrilled. There's this moment where Matthew Broderick, he comes in, goes to see his mother. They go into the living room. We've seen We've had the camera on

Like the performance when he's yo yo ing is very like young and babyish and childish. He's like, yes, like this. He does the thing in Ferris Vieler too at the end of the movie when he talking to his mom and he's like, I love you mommy.

Yeah.

In that movie, it makes sense. He's like manipulating his parents. I think that's what they're going for here, but it Doesn'tah, it's weird.

It's a weird moment. I'm like, was there a further joke that got cut? With this, I'm look at.

It, flirting with your mom?

What is it happening? So they hear in a local news report that NORAD was hacked yesterday and that for three and a half minutes, the government basically believed that World War three was starting, So he starts to sweat.

Don't you just love how like the news knows everything about the military in this scenario, like the amount of times has actually probably has happened if we just don't know about it. Yeah, thank god, I'm kind of fine with that.

I am fine with that. You want you want to know why I could never have been in that bunker because I would have been shitting my pants the entire time I was in tummy troubles. Forget about it. I can't do this. I would develop ibs in that fucking bunker. Absolutely not. So David starts to sweat. He rushes upstairs in time to get a call from Jennifer on his

This computer is so sassy with him. This computer's like, baby, you know what I'm here for.

You know what we're doing here? And David frantically types in what is the objective? And the computer says, because he set up like a voice module with it, now to win the game. And David picks the phone up and he unplugs the phone cord and he hugs his little dial up to his chest and he sits on his bed and.

Is like, fuck, can you even imagine? I'm so averse to being in trouble? I know, I know, Like this is giving me hives watching this.

Do you remember when I told you that I thought I was going to go to jail if I pulled the fire alarm, Like that is how verse I am to getting in trouble.

Yeah, me too. I would just run away and never come back. Yeah, I just I would take that ticket to Paris and disappear into the night.

All right, Erica, that is about halfway through war games. Why don't we take a quick break here, We'll play up more ads and we'll come back and we'll take everyone through the rest of the film, and.

We're back the next day. After David realizes row, he is immediately picked up by the FBI. Didn't take them long to find.

Him, which is a bit a bit comforting in this entire situation. You're like, you know what that happened quickly? I appreciate that.

Okay. Here's the funny thing, though, we know that David is seventeen because he says it earlier in the film. The FBI picked David up outside of like a seven eleven by himsell he's by himself, and they bring him to nor Ad, which is in I want to say New Mexico.

I think Colorado, say later it's in Colorado.

Okay, So they have kidnapped a teenage boy and without his parents, yea, taken him across state lines. I don't think that's how anything works. I'm just gonna move gloss past that. But that's one of the very few things that the government does in this movie that I'm like, that's not how government governments, y'all.

Very questionable.

Meanwhile, also, something the government does not do while that's happening there is Chekhov's tour group from Birmingham. So these are ostensibly VIPs who are there to just look at our top secret nuclear shit at Norad. Right, I don't want to be a dick about this, but I'm gonna wear Birmingham having like, like, guess the Tuskegee Institute is there. But this these people do not seem like college students, do you know what I mean?

People seem like a tour group from Birmingham, like they just signed.

Up and it's like wildly different ages on everyone. There's teenagers on the trip. There's like an older woman that they really with at one point.

So I thought it was a school trip at one point. I'm like, they can't be bringing a high school a high school, like I don't know, physics class into Norrad.

Remember Paul, when you were in high school and we and we visited the top secret bunker for the president.

Yeah, remember that trip? That was so nice?

Well got to hang out in the top secret bunker? What the fuck? Like, do you remember when your junior high was taken into Fort Knox and everything, like just take one piece, you can take one piece?

Yeah? Remember when you got a moon rock in elementary school? You got to go you got to go to like the NASA Museum. You got to take a moon rock. Everyone got one.

Everyone got one. Remember remember when we were all shot into space? What? None of this makes sense? Why are these people at NORAD?

Remember if you got a high enough grade on your like astrophysics test, you got to go to Area fifty one and see the alien ships. That that all happened.

I can't tell the audience enough how little security there is. So someone at NORAD explained to the tour group and also to the audience that deaf Con means defense condition, right like defense readiness condition.

I also always thought that deaf Con five was the worst one, which is not. Deaf Con five is where you want to be. Deaf Con one is when you shit your pants.

Yeah, exactly, exactly good point. So we're currently at deaf Con four. We're currently at four specifically because of what David pulled.

Does it feel like there should be more levels between the should be fine?

I would like thirty six deaf Cons like deaf I would like to be a deaf Con seventy two.

That's where I would like to be.

I would definitely like some more layers because we're I feel like we're currently at three, right.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, that's how that's that's how my gut feels.

So not only are we at deaf Con four because of what David did, but the Soviets caught on to what happened. Yeah, us with our simulation, and now they're on alert.

Yeah. Now now we're in a dick swinging contest with Russia. Fantastic cool. Yeah, So we to McKittrick. That's Stabney Coleman. He's getting debriefed on the situation, while Baron Jurr, the General, is just enjoying the fact that, like the computer had to screw up, right, He's like this is great. He's like eating red vines or red ones or something like. Yeah, basically mocking McKittrick from the sidelines. Just it's funny but not appropriate, sir.

This is seconds from pushing him into a locker, right, He.

Is like, shut up one hundred percent. So McKittrick is convinced that David has to be working with someone else. A high school student could not possibly have hacked his way into whopper. McKittrick announces, I'm going to take care of questioning David, and he goes to meet David in the infirmary where he's being held because apparently NORAD does not have like jail cells because it's not a secure institution.

Yeah, that kind of wigged me out. I don't like that at all. I'm like, is there not even like a fucking office that you could just lock? Yeah, don't put this kid in there with like medical equipment.

If you actually think he's a spy, which you do. They're very very capable, they're imaginative.

Yeah, they think David is an undercover like Russian agent, like a sleeper agent.

So McKittrick takes David out of the infirm rate to his office. He's kind of trying to like he's trying to be buddy buddy at this point.

He's trying to play a good cop with David. Right again, Like what McKittrick is a scientist at NORAD. He is not a cop, he is not an FBI agent, he is not a military, he's not trained to interrogate anyone. He is a computer guy. None of this is how anything works. And he takes the guy who he believes is a secret Russian spy into his office, not a secure location, not a room for questioning. People, not even

How has this gone so wrong.

Before the quote unquote interview can continue, because this is all at an impasse, mckckittrick is called away and he leaves David the Russian spy, the parent person he believes is a Russian spy and super genius in his office unattended.

That's correct.

Made me boil. It takes so little to just not be this stupid, Like, just don't be this is so stupid. Anyway, I will move on.

So we cut to mckittrick's meeting. He's told that someone got into the system and stole the nuclear launch codes. This is said so casually. Yea, like someone got into the system and they refunded twenty dollars to if a person didn't deserve it. Like that's the.

Someone got into the office fridge and stole all the yogurt.

Yeah, someone ate my lunch. I had it clearly marked in the office fridge and they ate it. Like that's how this is said. He's unconcerned. He tells us two pieces of information. One the system will not launch unless they are at Defcon one, and two he can change the launch codes in less than an hour. So I think with the implication here because I couldn't quite get it the first time time Whopper Slash Joshua stole the codes. That's how they. That's how they. That's the thing that

Yeah.

This all further convinces them that David must be working with someone, and Bhringer takes them to def Con three. Hey, you know what, we just found out. The fucking nukes can't launch if you're not at def Con one.

Let's maybe back up to five.

Let's go back down.

Def Con should have more levels than the Kidney scale.

What I'm saying exactly.

Even the Kinzie scale I think needs more levels. I honestly think the Kinsey scale should have like ten. Yeah, there's a whole lot on that spectrum of sexual behavior. Sure is, let's make deaf Con at least better than the Kidsey scale.

Please.

Meanwhile, back at mckittrick's office, the fucking kid they left alone with all the computers does the thing you think he's going to do. He logs into the Kittrick's computer to speak with Joshua right again to speak with Whopper again. He asks the computer if it's still playing the game, which it obviously is. It projects and it will now be launching the missiles in about twenty eight hours. Joshua tells David that it has been trying to reach him,

The movie does not engage at all with how weird it is that the AI is like a living thing.

Missing its friend. Yeah, so Joshua tells David that I wasn't able to reach you in Seattle or at your classified address, because remember, the computer thinks David is Falcon, right, David's like, oh what, I have a classified address? What might that be? And Joshua tells him that doctor Robert Hume, an alias of doctor Falcon, currently lives on Goose Island

So he's brought to the infirmary by this swarthy man in full military garb.

Okay, what is this military though? What military is this?

I don't know, but I'm into it.

The man is wearing a navy blue suit with a white, silky sheeny looking ascot like it's got like a metallic sheen to it, a jaunty beret.

Uh huh.

He has a porn stash for the ages.

He looks like a star of the Falcon videos that I always dreamed of watching in the eighties.

He looks like if there was a poor made about sodom Hussein. Yeah, Like it's it's like there has to be right, there has to be and it's spelled sodom sodom hussein porno out there. That's what this guy looks like. What is this outfit you're wearing.

I'm not going to top that. That's perfect sodom Hussein, So David's in the infirmary. He immediately starts to plan his escape, while sodom Hussein s O d O M starts sexually harassing the woman that's like working at her at her desk close by the door. David mcgivers his way out of the prison using only a couple of scissors, a tape recorder, the duct system, and a lot of luck.

He bleep bloops himself out of is wild.

He manages to masquerade as a member of Chekhov's Birmingham tour group and hops on the departing bus with them, and he makes it out of Norad.

So we cut to David hopping out of like a semi right, he's hitchhiking. He then like jury rigs a phone call using a top of like a tab from like a coke co can, like an aluminum co can. But like this scene actually super interested me because I actually think that might be a real thing, and I just don't know, I think it was. Yeah, he like takes the bottom off of the payphone and then like tricks it into letting him bypass making a payment because he doesn't have any money, so he tries to call

Like, oh no, oh no.

You need to go back to school. I should not have pulled you out of school. I'm so sorry. I thought you no, no, no, no, you can't. You need to learn things because you are clinically stupid. You were with me when we broke into the government, right, you saw that part. You were there, you saw you helped me almost nuke Las Vegas. But you think the whole ass government is after me because I changed your biology.

Grid, specifically yours, not ours. Are you in trouble for changing grades? Maybe? Maybe then maybe.

He should have put her back on the bus and been like, I do not care how attractive you are. You need to learn things before we can ever engage in a conversation. Again.

Well, it's funny because I heard the line and I was like, why did they have for Why didn't they say no? Ali, like you have to do it, like you know, that's not the reason.

It's a joke, make light of the situation.

Yeah, it's Jennifer making a joke to David because it's kind of funny the way she's not it's not like a failure as a joke. It just so undercuts the character that she says it, like, is it because you change my grade? Supposed to be like, oh, you're in trouble the FBI, Probably because you change my grade. Right, that's a big deal, like something like that, and acause.

We almost started World War three in your room, I literally out loud to my computer. I was watching this, and my computer went I was so angry.

All right. So the two barely make the ferry to Goose Island and David explaining that Falcan's still alive and he's the only one who understands Joshua and he might be able to stop the computer from trying to win the game of global thermo nuclear war that they started. And Jennifer at first is like, I don't know, and then finally she's like no, no. He starts to really freak out, and she's like, Okay, I believe you. I

If she kissed him, Yeah, I think so, because she's dumb enough to believe also emotionally intelligent to read the room and be like, now is not the time for a bake out, Sash, Now is the time to calm him down.

Yeah.

I cannot get a read on this character.

Yeah, like, maybe maybe it's her hug him at this point, he can just hug him. Okay, I believe you. I'm here, Like, we'll figure this out together. We two intrepid teenagers will somehow stop global thermer nuclear war. Ah. They arrive on Goose.

Island, can't even stop a motorbikes, Like, where are the breaks on the game?

Because that was my fault, that was my problem. Are their breaks on the game? No, I wouldn't.

Trust Jennifer to fix any situation.

They arrive on Goose Island, they make their way to the address that Joshua gave them. As they walk up to the address, by the way, this features one of our favorite things, which is when the characters are walking at dusk and then we just change and suddenly it's full daylight, Like, there's what happened? Okay, fine, they see

Is this a Jurassic Park moment?

I literally was like, I know, we have a mad scientist and I'm like, is this gonna be something like he's he has a pet pterodactyl. Because I'm like, it's the anything could happen? And they actually got me for a second. After wildly underreacting to the pterodactyl, David and Jennifer come across doctor Stephen Falcon played by the great and good John Wood. He is piloting the pterodactyl, which turns out to be a robot.

What a really fucking realistic looking pterodactyl? Like, yeah, it looks fantastic.

It looks good enough that it made me think this is the eighties telling me that this is an actual fucking pterodactyl. Like I did buy it. I will admit that I might also be clinically stupid for saying this, but I will be honest that I did have a moment.

Okay, I can't look since we're being real, Since we're being real. I saw this in the movie, and I for my first thought was pterodactyl. Yeah, it looks so real that my second thought was even dummer pul. My second thought was, are there birds that look like pterodactyl? Is there a hawk or something that looks like a pterodactyl?

Well, I think we would have been helped if they had reacted to it, if they were like, what the fuck is that? Like like, but they don't. And then at one point it like swoops down. They just dive to the ground to avoid it. But at no point it's either one.

Of them like, that's a fucking pterodactyl.

There's this great thing I learned in when I was writing more about like you can have your character shoot like lightning out of his hands or her hands, right, And the thing that tells us the most about the story you're telling is how the person next to them reacts to them shooting lightning out of their hands.

Yeah. Right.

If the person's like holy shit, you just like, okay, so that's real. And if the person's like, oh yeah, I can do that too, you know so much more about the world that you're inhabiting and this is a pterodactyl. Have them react to it?

Ha ha.

I mean, honestly, I would have been very sea And if Jennifer was like, do birds look like karad Actor? I would have been like, Okay, Jennifer, you know what? Yeah, I see you girls, I.

See you girl. That is a good question, all right. So Falcon is eccentric and stand offish, but when David says he came because of Joshua, Falcon stops and he allows them into his house. Meanwhile, back at Norad, things continue to escalate, and Behinger takes them to deaf Con too. You guys, I'm gonna make a number two at deaf Con two.

What what? What are you doing?

What are you doing?

Who? By the way, is this the one guy who gets I get that? He's also the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. They said that at the beginning of the movie, which is hilarious because he's such a buffoon. Can we get Ronald Reagan on the horn and just make sure he's he buys into all of this for a minute before we fucking go to deaf Con too.

I actually wonder if this just based on what I know of their politics from their movies. If if the fact of like the president being like an absentee president with these idiots in charge is meant to just be another hit on Ronald Reagan by thee.

And also the movie could just have not Ronald Reagan, right, Yeah, it could cut to a guy in a white man in the White House. But they the movie doesn't do that because they show a photo of Ronald Reagan in Berenger's office. I think there's a moment that show a photo of and I'm like, okay, so we're in the world were president. Yeah, it's not a cut to like some actor. Bizarre, very bizarre. Meanwhile, back on Goose Island, Falcon tells David and Jennifer that there was a time

What's wrong with you?

And Falcon's like, do you play tic tac toe? And she's like no, And he's like, why don't you play tic tactoe? She goes because it's boring, there's always a tie, there's never a winner, like I stopped playing it when I was four. Falcon says, exactly, that game is pointless, but the war room believes that there are winners in nuclear war, so they keep trying to find out who wins. Even though they don't, they do not realize that it

And john Wood is so good in this scene because it's like he's giving this air of like your most beloved college professor. Yeah, kind of gently telling you the truth about something that's really hard to understand. And he's

Who we're not gonna be in the Walking Debt, don't worry, We're gonna be those people who died before that happens.

Jennifer says, if your son was still alive, you'd call Naurad, you'd stop them from doing this, and Falcon says, well, yeah, maybe that would buy us a few years, maybe enough for you to have your own son that you could watch die. But if there's one thing that humanity is insisted on, it's planning our own destruction.

Okay, look, this movie does not age badly.

No, no, it does not.

Man, that is some dark ass shit. And then they cut to late Matthew Broadwick and they're like, please say something funny. It's like, make this okay. David asks what's the last thing you cared about, and Falcon looks to the side but doesn't answer. The horn of the Last Fairy sounds and he offers to let them sleep on the floor. He says good night. David and Jennifer are like, fuck this noise, and they leave. They go in search of a boat so they can get off this fucking island.

I can do it.

I do aerobics. Yeah, And there's a bit here where he's like, I don't want to do it and she's like, come on, it's our only hope. I don't want to do it, and then he finally admits to her that he can't swim. There's all these like callbacks to older movie. Have you ever seen Butch Cassidy and The Sun Dance Kid. No, Oh, you're gonna love that movie. I highly recommend that. That's a great movie. Very funny moment in that movie where the punchline is I can't swim. There's no way that's

Anyway, he says he didn't he didn't know.

That this was coming. He's like, I always plan to learn how to swim someday. But I thought I half time. I didn't think the world was going to end by the time he was seventeen, and starts to get really emotional, and he's like, I thought I had time. I have time. I want to learn how to swim. I want to be able to be an adult. She tells him that she was going to be on local TV and then

Now now.

Honestly, though, Jennifer, I see her point where she's like, how many hours do we have left? I have a couple of bucket items, like things I want.

To check dying a virgin, Yeah, thinking about nuclear the global nuclear war, and get in me.

I will teach you how to swim after we fuck twice. As they're kissing, a helicopter appears and they flee before realizing that it's actually falcon Right. They've actually convinced him to save the world. He take he's been turned around. He picks him up and they take off for nor Ad.

We cut back to nor Ad. The computer reports that the Soviets have launched missiles. Behreinger announces they're going to def Con one, and Whopper recommends a full scale retaliatory strike. Meanwhile, Russia is still claiming that they have launched nothing. All right, now we've skipped something because we cut outside nor Ad. Jennifer, David and Falcon are being driven by a soldier towards

None of this is how anything works in any case.

They get in, they burst into the control room and McKittrick immediately walks up to them and Falcon tells him, Look, this is a bluff, and McKittrick is like, what are you talking about. This is not a bluff. So Falcon shouts to Behringer, look, this is a simulation. The computer is doing this, and McKittrick consists that there is nothing to indicate that. But Falcon walks up to Behringer and he tells him, look, are you prepared to completely destroy

The US is now suddenly completely surrounded by submarines.

Yeah, all of a sudden, it's like little.

Bleep bloops coming towards us from the sky and little bleep bloops coming at us from the ocean.

So he says, an unprovoked attack makes no sense. Ride it out, Do not respond with a scorched earth counter strike. You don't need to. You are listening to a machine, don't act like one. John Wood is so good.

Every actor in this movie is punching so hard above the weight of the movie to make all of this work.

Barringer looks at him and he announces that they're going to hold off on the retaliation, do not launch the counter strike.

So the countdown to impact continues. There's a woman they keep cutting to this one woman whose job it is to do that, which is very funny to me. It's like a human being who's like ten seconds to impact, nine seconds to impact, Like what if she coughs and then she's like seven six six sorry, five hour five? Fuck? Wait? How what time?

Stat?

Three? Three seconds impact? They hit zero, nothing hits. No Soviet missiles. All the guys who are sitting there shooting their pants.

Get not a clean pair of underwear and that in that control room.

Are like, hey, guys, we're alive. Nothing happened. Nothing happened at this army base. We're fine. No impact, nothing in the sky. We actually you skip something that is actually crucial to this moment, Paul. Earlier in the film, it looked like a bunch of missiles, the first set of missiles.

Unfortunately, Joshua is still trying to win the game of global thermonuclear war. It has locked them out of Whopper and is trying to decipher the launch code so it can launch the missiles and win the game. They determine they have five minutes to stop it. Barringer, who now is basically like, well, all I can do is bend over and kiss my ass goodbye. She pulls out a cigar and is like, Hey, McKittrick, I've come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks.

I really like this performance.

It's great. David, Jennifer and Falken frantically try to figure out. Jennifer's contributing a lot how to get They're trying to figure out how to get back into Whopper because the military took out the back door pass codes, so Joshua's not working anymore, and they need to figure out the new passcode to get back into Whopper and to talk to Joshua. Right, this whole scene is it's so John Wood is so good in this movie. It it becomes very clear that he starts to view David as a

It's true. I mean it. Also, Matthew Broderick is adorable.

Yeah, he looks like Bambie. So David remembers that Wopper is built on games. So he starts trying chess as a log on, and poker doesn't work, and then there's a logic leap here. I'm not quite sure how he makes it, but he says, like the game missing from the list is tick tack toe, so that must be the log on. Sure types in tic tac toe. This works. He starts to play tic tac toe with Joshua, but of course it always ends in a tie, and he realizes he has to make it play itself so it

I didn't pause did you pause it all during this?

Oh?

To see the different so terrifying, like like it's like, oh, okay, let's try an Asian attack. Oh okay, let's try this attack. I'm like Jesus fucking Christ. And it goes to them so fast that you realize these have all been like pre programmed in, and I'm like, oh my god, this is terrifying.

It learns that there is no way to win Global Thermonuclear War. It takes the lesson of futility from Tic tac toe and applies it to Global thermonucular War. All the screens go blank, and then the computer greets Professor Falcon and says, Global Thermonuclear War is a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. Would you like a nice game of chess?

There's so many other ways to learn futility though, Yeah, we didn't have to get it to play Tic tac toe.

Yeah, yeah, try to get John Travolta to come out of the.

Closet, try to lose ten pounds after the holidays. Like, it's just futile. You tell the computer to try try January. It's never gonna work. Yeah, yeah, Thank god David was playing as the Russians, right, because if David started playing as the US, this would have gone oh badly. Okay, So the computer is decided the game is unwinnable. It stops playing simulations over everyone is rejoicing. McKittrick shakes Falcon's hand, ruffles, he ruffles David's hair.

Yeah, weird, weird.

David ruffles his hair back and then kisses Jennifer as Barringer takes Norad back up to Deafcon five, moving it roll back up.

Yeah.

End of movie, Sweet Dreams.

Everybody, all right, stick around, We're gonna come right back with our random observations and final rankings for war games, and we're back Erica. Do you have any last last bloops you'd like to bleep about wargames?

Speaking of bleep bloops, did you notice the eyes of the floppy disc? Oh my god, Roderick loads into his he needs two hands fucking pizza carton. I was like, what the fuck? We're flopping disc to nineteen eighty three.

It's the size of like a pancake that I hop cells is like a giant pancakes, so big.

There you go, Why is it's so big? Some of the like technology in the movie, actually there's I'm we're a little too old for this, but also some of it still does kind of resonate, Like the drive for the floppy disk still kind of looked like the ones we used when we were a little bit older, but like just smaller. It was very funny.

I want to I want to give us both a little virtual hocke here you met. We're a little too young for some of the technology in the movie, but some of it resonates. Oh yeah, we're so dewey dewey eyed.

I just assume I'm old all the time. You're right, but I meant to say we're too young.

There. Jennifer has a line at the end when they're trying to figure out it's the final the final thing. They're trying to figure out the tic Tactoe thing. Jennifer looks at David and she's like, I told you not to start playing that game, and I'm like, you, in fact didn't you instigated, you fully co side, and granted you, you have less blame because you knew less and you understand less because, as we've said before, you're medically an idiot.

Speaking of Jennifer in case, you're like, they haven't built enough of a case for me to think she's that stupid. You guys, like, come on, you guys.

Be cool.

There's a moment earlier in the film when they are first playing the war games in his room and they're drinking their sucking down tabs. She's reading the screen. She goes, what's a tragic story heading? And he goes, trajectory trajectory heading. I missed that one tragic tory is what she says. She is seventeen, She's not six, She is seventeen, and she does not know how to read the word trajectory.

She's like Sean Connery on Celebrity Jeopardy on.

Us it el, what is a tragictory heading and he goes, it's a trajectory heading where the bombs are gonna hit. And he says it in such a way where he thinks she should well you're the fact that you're too dumb to live is actually pretty charming, and I'm like, no, girl, go back to school. Yeah, go back to school right now.

We talked about the whiplash moment of like Michael Madsen holding a gun on John Spencer and then going to like the score. But the other thing that accompanies is the score that we didn't talk about is the title font used in this in this movie, which I cannot express to everyone enough is the bricks from Super Mario Brothers spelling out words. It looks like you're suddenly in like like what's a military comedy like Stripes or Major Dad or something like that. It's so incongruous.

Was that cutting edge technology in nineteen eighty three though? Was that like the coolest they could make it?

Maybe? Like, but when we were kids playing Super Mario that looked cool.

Something about nineteen eighty three that is a positive though, is cigarettes were seven dollars a curtain at seven eleven.

Oh damn.

I love when people are in like a real seven eleven or a real like store in a movie because I like pause and I start to look at the prices of everything. Yeah, yeah, And that's the one that jumped out at me, the most, oh, car ton of cigarettes, but like, I don't know what's in a cart and a cigarette. I think it's over one hundred cigarettes.

I thought it was twelve twelve twelve packs.

Yeah, I think, oh yeah, I think each pack is like twenty cigarettes in it.

Yeah.

Oh, we're over two hundred cigarettes at this point. Seven books back in nineteen eighty three. Smoke them if you got them, kids.

Absolutely. Did you notice David has a dog. The dog runs up to greet David and Jennifer when they first arrive. There's barking, but the dog's mouth ain't moving, just like in just like in that Jean Wilder Gilda Radner movie Hunted Honeymoon does bark, bark, bark? That dog's not barking. That's hilarious.

There is a scene okay, actually okay. For as clinically stupid as Jennifer is, there is good female representation in the film, although for the life of me right now, I cannot remember the character's name where the actress's name, So it's not great female representation. It's Dadney Coleman's assistant.

Oh, I don't know what her I think she's just missed something. But the actress's name is Juanine Clay okay iguana, but I n at the end rather than a.

She's wonderful the whole throughout the film. She is his assistant, but she knows a lot, right, Like he knows how how this the computer system works. She understands Wopper better than any of the military people. She starts to help de escalate the situation. At the end she's helping figure out how to like stop it from getting the launch code. So she's really savvy with everything.

So yeah, very competent, more than.

Your typical like I'll get you coffee assistant.

Right.

There is a weird dynamic I do her and McKittrick that I could not figure out. I'm like, are they married? Is that the thing? Are they actually like a married couple who also work together, or is the idea that they've worked together so closely for so long that they kind of interact with each other like an old married couple. Because there is a moment in the film when he has to go like make a presentation and she's helping him like straighten his tie and stuff. Again, all very

It's gonna taste like I'm gonna I want to escalate this just slightly because she hasn't. She has her hand out and he says, here, take this, and puts a gum in her head. So it's not even like I don't even know she was expecting the gum. I don't. I don't know what the dynamic is supposed to be.

There is this like.

A BDSM situation.

I know it's very odd, but it's it's funny. It's it's funny, like she does it in a way that's funny.

Well, honestly the way you just said it, because I'm remembering it wrong. I'm remembering it as her being like, to give me your gum. But if he's the one giving, if he's like, she's not planning on it. He's like, here, take this, and he hands with her gum. Maybe she's making lemonade out of lemons. Sure, he's like, yeah, my boss did just put his gross gum in my hand. But I'm a chewett. I'm gonna I'm gonna get some calories out of this to keep going with my day. I don't know.

Yeah, who knows? Who knows?

Goddamn weird. There's just too many moments like that in this movie where I'm like, what is happening?

Yeah? I feel like they're trying to inject comedy into a very dark thing, and like it's dark because of her and also Dabney Coleman, because again you see Dabney Coleman, like that's the bad boss from nine to five, Like that's I presume what most people first think of when they see him, and like it's such a Dabney Coleman thing, Like did he come up with that? It was like, hey, let's do this, this will be funny.

Oh possibly, that's always an improv moment and the actress was like, I'm gonna guess and the shit out of this and pop it in my mouth. Maybe it could have stayed on the cutting room floor.

Though, while we're on the topic of female NORAD employees, I do want to talk a little bit more about we kind of glossed over the sexual harassment moment of Sodom Hussein and the woman who is sitting outside the infirmary. I presume some sort of medical professional if she's sitting outside the infirmary.

You mean Sodom Hussein, the military man dressed like a Belgian bakery owner.

Ye, the guy that's dressed like the Disney prince who doesn't get the princess at the end of the movie.

Yeahhh yeah, the guy who's seconds away from initiating a duel with his glove.

Yeah, yes, that guy. So he puts David in the infirmary and walks out. We stay with him for a minute and he walks over to the woman at the desk and she's not immediately put off. That happens like later in the scene. You hear that more than see him. He's like, oh, you want me to leave. He's like, yes, I want you to leave. Like good for her. She is very like, now I am done, leave me alone. But when he walks over, he's like, oh, I heard

And and fucking smoking everyone and winning.

That then brings those trophies into work to display them for her coworkers to look at.

I am going to get a hobby amazing at it. You know what, you know what, you know what. I'm making it more complicated and it needs to be. You can go on Amazon dot com raight by Trophies, fucking by Tropes, My forty Bowling trophies and just stick them at my desk at work and just wait for someone to ask me about them. Guys, that is a free thing you can It's not free because those bowling trophies

Yeah, and don't limit yourself to bowling. Get weird, get badminten trophies, archery arch sure, yeah, get get like I don't know ax throwing.

Oh my god, Judo trophies. Yes, a roly poly girl like me walked in that office like, I'm actually amazing at Judo.

If you ask me about it, I will kill you using my skills.

Just I just have one more.

And uh.

There's like when at the end of the movie, when everything's escalating and it's you know, I actually said out loud to the screen. I was like, if this fucking ends with then unplugged, unplugging, whopper, that's how this movie ends. I will burn it. I will burn it to the ground right like, And that second someone, I think Barringer says, why don't we just unplug the machine? And I'm like, motherfucker, I'm getting angry. I'm like, my my brushes up. And

With the amount of urine that's flowing in that thing, maybe that maybe that is the best thing to do. Just everyone start pissing on the computer. Just try to shut it down with water.

Paul, How should we rank war games? By the way I wrote it in my notes as war games two different words, but it's actually the movie is one where it's wargames stylized war games war games?

How should we rank?

We're games?

One to ten? Beautiful nostalgic soothing card catalogs ah.

Someone on YouTube is definitely put a video up for us to watch. That's just people opening and closing card catalogs. I will find it. Yeah, how about one to ten adult arcade games and the new business venture that we're one hundred percent going to open.

Yeah, meat Fighter too, that's what I'm talking about, Mortal combat right right.

Donkey Kong, it already sounds like done. Just donkey Kong, we all know what we're talking about. Throw a barrel at me, you big brilliant.

Okay, come on, how about one to ten birds that look like pterodactyls.

Fuck off, Paul, because you know what, I bet there is one. I'm gonna google it. I will find it. There's some bird right now in Africa that looks exactly like a pterodactyl.

The we're just looking fucking two. Can you've ever seen?

How about one to ten bleep bloops.

Bloop, bleep bloop. We should do this one.

Has been boops, We've done, has had has had a moment of bleep bloop?

Do you want to go? Shall I go first?

Why don't you bleep bloop this one first?

All right? Okay, so there's no gay representation in this movie. That's fine. We don't even need to say anything else about it. There's nothing. I mean, Joshua was obviously queer, but I think that goes without saying there is something specifically gay about a man or a computer named Joshua that refuses to stop playing the game until it's done. Like that that I've been at those game nights with those people. A female representation, it's mostly a sausage fest.

I'm googling it right now because it's bothering me that she's the only other really major female role in the movie, and I cannot remember this poor woman's name.

But the fact that neither of us can remember it also speaks to how major of a role it actually is.

Hat Healey hat Heally played by Juan in Clay.

So that's not great. I would have loved, at least if if Jennifer could have had something that she did in the movie that actually made her participation necessary, which I do think the movie set itself up for with like that, that her being like the moral one, and like what if she was the one who was able to argue Falkan into actually coming back to help like that, that would have been the thing that David couldn't do that.

He needed Jennifer for you're giving her quite a tragictory.

I love a character on a tragictory. I love a character on a promontory. I love a character on a tragictory. Okay, racial diversity, so this one's is a little more interesting than you might think. Even what we've talked about. There are no major characters of color, but the movie is populated with people of color throughout the whole thing. Like the guy that plays Sandra Bullock's boss and best friend and While you Were Sleeping is in this movie. He has like five lines.

Oh yeah, he's the military guys.

Yeah. The woman who does the countdown is a black woman. The woman who they play that horrible prank on who's part of the tour group where they're like, why do you press that button? And she's like, ah, yeah, she's a woman of color. Like, So, because this is nineteen eighty three, I don't want to award too many points for that, but like, it does feel like this movie very could have easily been a sea of white faces and it isn't.

That's fair.

I've seen enough movies from the early eighties now where it makes me feel like someone at least was like, we have no black people anywhere in this film. Can we just get some hiresome day players to come in and do this? Like and which is it some? It's something. It's not everything, but it's something, right.

Yeah.

Outside of that, we age horribly and the movie has only become more upsetting, terrifying.

Terrifying my stomach talking about it, honestly.

But that's not the movie's fault. That's that's the movie doing its job right. That's that's what that's the story they set out to tell. And I really think that John Wood performance is excellent, like like really next level. Like I think everyone in the movie is good, but like he's he's a whole new level. All the weight of the philosophy and the life lessons, it's all on him to do what essentially amounts to like three scenes basically, and he does it.

And he has to turn on a dime too, because he goes from being totally nihilistic it's being totally like bought in.

Yeah. So I'm going to rate this relatively high despite it kind of falling down. I think on some of our the major things that we talk about, like Jennifer is in a lot of the movie, but I want to call her like amazing female representation. I'm gonna give it you know what, I'm gonna give it a seven. I'm gonna give it a seven because despite the ways that it doesn't age well, there's ways that it does age well that I think balance that out, which sometimes

You know? Thing? One reason I think at Ages really really well is because it's meant for teenage boys to watch. Sure, this is not meant for an audience of adults. This is meant for an audience of children because it's the main character is a teenage boy and the protagonist is like a computer hacker, you know, And so it was meant for like fourteen year olds to watch in nineteen eighty three, and I think the messaging then gets even more important and it's educational in like a really good way.

I wasn't going to offer a palate cleanser. I think this is a good movie. I think it is it's it's it's and it has a point and it makes its point well. And I admit I was a little concerned until John Wood arrived because I was like, I've wasn't sure where the plane was landing until suddenly he arrived and was like right here, and I was like, okay,

Well yeah, but also there's like a philosophical bent to both films too.

Yeah yeah, all right, So that is the end of our show. Everyone listening can follow us on social media. We are on Blue Sky, we are on Threads, we are on Instagram. If you want to request movies for us to do, you can go on Instagram. That's the only place I post the monthly themes and we take requests on those themes. We have a tea public shop. We would love it if you would a five star review on Apple Podcasts or on any podcasting platform that

You want, ask for it.

You will get zero percent of the tote bags you don't ask for. So if you've always thought I don't know how to do that, I put some instructions in there for you. If you go to the show notes, there's a link there to rate this podcast, slash that age Well and you can follow those instructions and it will take you through it.

That aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Kayola. We would end an AI bot. You guys don't know this, I'm fully ai huh I don't. I'm not real. Yeah, I have nowhere to go from that jokes. That's a dumb joke.

That's a real Jennifer joke.

We would like to thank Nancy, Michael, Mary, Beth, Kathleen, Nnette, j Ril, Sabrina, Ben shann and Laurie, Canille Stewart, Corina, Kelly, Christine, Josephine, Erica, another Christine, and oh there's more Michelle Stacey and our patrons for voting for this movie that I one hundred percent thought was Project X yep, but I'm really glad I saw it. I think Project That's is even more of a bummer because it's about like testing on animals.

Oh that's if we bare the secret of nim.

Yeah, memory sirs, that's an even harder one. So thank you all for reaching out, letting us know what you want to hear. If you want to have a say in the topics we discuss, come on, guys, join our Patreon. Every patron gets to vote in the exclusive monthly poll to determine one of our subjects, one of the films we do. For example, We're Games Were Games, So head on over to patreon dot com. Slash That Aged Well

Oh hello, my dearest darlings. I have only a few moments to spend with you today. I'm in the midst of a whirlwind of appointments to prepare for my appearance at the Oscars this year.

Oh, Piggy, you're going to the Oscars?

Oh?

Being sure me, little chickadee. I go to the Oscars every year, whether they invite me or not, But this year I feel that they must, must, must let more present the video clip on the substance. Did you know that film was based on my experiences in Hollywood? Oh?

I thought the film was more of like a metaphor about female experiences.

Oh oh, are you one of those women who try to erase other women in a vinglorious attempt to lift yourself or are you prepared to name another star of my stature that has seventeen old bodies with the stuffing rapped out shoved into the back of her boudoir.

Okay, not off the top of my head. We agree.

The gay film of the year is a meditation on more and More alone. But I'm not here to discuss to me Moore's performance, even though she ignored all of the notes I've painstakingly wrote and shipped to her in edible arrangements each and every day of the shoot. No, no, no, I am here to thank Carrie for being a patron of that agedd well mercy bookou carry. And now I'm off I have an appointment to teach to me how to cry just the right amount of beautiful tears when

Claire Danes catching strains from Miss Peggy.

She loves to spray and pray. Have you noticed that there's never a visit that goes by without an opinion, A hard opinion. Yeah?

Yeah, someone on the internet wrote, and I think and I fully agree, even though I've never seen the show. Is they need to have a real Housewives of Beverly Hill season that includes Miss Piggy as a character, and no one acknowledges the fact that it's a muppet. The entire time, not at all.

It straight perfect, all right, Erica. Any final thoughts on war games? War games?

Hello, Paul, would you like to play a game?

She ripped the mask off.

Do you want to keep going about card catalogs?

No, that's good. I'm good. It may come up again, but I can bring it up.

I just want to give you space.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Yeah, you're I'm holding space for your card catalogs.

You know you can be a catalog model. I could be a card catalog model. Oh my god. Look look at how the drawer comes out and you can comb through it. You can find the book you want.

You can do ASMR with just the opening and closing the drawers and.

Like things to exist. I'm going to look for that on YouTube tonight.

I know it does exist because I think people who do ASMR are too young to know what a card catalog is, and people who know who what a card catalog is are like, what the fuck is ASMR?

Okay, in the adult Arcade with the porno video games, to find the video game you want, you have to go into the card catalog.

It's all getting cut from this episode. There's no way you're actually gonna put this in. We have lost the thread.

That's what a card catalog comes in handy, because you can go, you can find it.

Okay, I'm no longer holding space for your card catalog