Buffalo '66 w/ Andrew Edwards: The J. Burden Show Ep. 425

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sat back through it and genuinely enjoyed it. I don't know if I necessarily have the greatest argument as to why I enjoyed it, but as part of that, I've sort of also become fascinated by Vincent Gallo as sort of the world's most insane film all tour. He is reviled by many people, which is sort of funny. But anyway, Andy, I'll kick it back to you. I'm curious to get your thoughts. We were talking a little bit about, you know, your kind of initial reaction upon seeing the movie.

was was that right, nineteen ninety eight. It comes out, but I don't remember any of it, and Burden says to me, we're doing this movie, so okay. So I sit down after a very long day, and likewise I

didn't make it fifty percent. I wanted to tap out at about I don't know, like really the minute that Vincent Gallo's character gets out of jail, which is how the movie opens, you know, you're like, man, this guy is just gusting, Like this is not somebody that I can identify with, and and therein begins what is really a great movie in many ways, but is extremely difficult

anyway for me. For me to get through. One thing to note is he's going for a kind of like seventies John Cassavetti's uh feel and vibe, and that's that's something pretty interesting because he he goes, he brings in Ben Gazara as his dad, who worked with famously John cassavettis on a number of movies, including what I think is Cassavetti's best, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and he's in some other ones. But I think that that plays into how the movie has has situated itself in

like popular cultural, popular culture or history. Uh, he's Vincent Gallo, isn't like you were saying earlier. I mean, he's polarizing, but he's got a lot of respect from a lot of people too. So for the audience. Once again, guy gets out of prison and immediately wants to go over and see his parents, who this is all said in Buffalo, which is kind of awful, You know that, Like the weather is very gray, and it's just every everything about it is kind of depressing and weird, which may be accurate.

I've never been to Buffalo, have you been?

go see his mom and dad. He immediately kidnaps this girl and then dig go over to his mom and dad's house and we find out that he's he's been in jail because he was sort of set up to take the fall for another guy in this betting scheme. He does his five or seven years or something, he gets out and there he is, he has nowhere he has. He's pretty young, and I mean, I guess he's supposed to be maybe thirty or something like late twenties. And from there, yeah, like what do you think, like, not

much really happens. It's really about this guy's internal thing and the relationship between him and the girl.

flying all around the world. And as part of this, he's married. So he gets out of jail, which is sort of played up in this kind of like sad pathetic way. You know, he's just you know, trying to The whole inciting incident is he's trying to find a bathroom, right.

He runs into this dance studio and that's where he sees this girl, Leila, kidnaps her, demands that she drive him to his parents' house, and this is where you get kind of the comedy of it, because he is vacillating between completely normal conversations and insane threats, threatening to kill her, just badgering her constantly, and she is, relatively speaking, a normal person compared to you know, Vincent Gallo, kind of chewing the scenery and so, you know, that's the

inciting incident to the main plot. But in the background, we find out that he was put away for betting on the Buffalo Bills at the I think it's isn't at the at the super Bowl. Yeah, and you know, at this this notable super Bowl, he put ten thousand dollars on the Buffalo Bills to win. You know, the best kicker in the league misses the field goal right, screws the game, screws him. And so when he gets out and he's concocted this plan to you know, go

find this kicker and shoot him. And so that's sort of the b plot. The background, the interactions between you know, Vincent Gallon and Leila are just off the rip, incredibly uncomfortable, like he's threatening her with the most insane threats over

very minor things. This is a very quotable movie. One of the funniest parts is, you know he's kidnapped her, you know, from this dance studio, which is shot in kind of a comedic way, like he's just dragging this girl past like a bunch of eight year old girls like doing ballet. But he goes out to her car, he shoves her in the passenger seat, he gets in the driver's seat, and we find out that, you know,

she drives, you know, a manual. Weirdly enough, this is funny that this car was at the time sort of a comedic ship box. Now those old eighties Corollas are worth like fifteen grand, bare minimum. Just a funny aside has this massive blowout right where he talks about I don't know how to drive shifter cars. I drive luxury cars.

Do you know what a luxury car is? I drive cataloged, just berating this almost completely silent woman, which you're right, it's incredibly uncomfortable, but man, it is it is pretty funny. It is chewing the scenery.

like a primitive sense. He establishes this like absolute base level relationship with her right there, and he there's sort of like this indication, well, you know, maybe he's going to abscond with her a raper, and it turns out to be the absolute opposite of that. Right at the end, his like, mommy problems are so profound that when when the time comes when this relationship gets like quote intimate, we can get there to that, because that's its whole

other thing. But the way that heh he describes what he's going to do to her, you know, I'm going to take a big bite out of your cheek and then shot it out. He there's no capacity when this within this guy to actually do this to her, and there's no indication from her that she's actually going to leave, and so it sets this bizarre tension that is you're right, like kind of comedy gold where you wonder, like, what what are these people doing? What is really happening here?

When she He's not going to come through on any of these threats. He's totally inept and she doesn't even want to leave and she's just met him. Like, what's going on with that part of it? What did you make of the Christina Ricci characters just kind of giving over to that.

otherwise sort of, you know, completely ignored. And I think it's interesting because you sort of see this distinction between like, and it's funny me I haven't even using his real name because it is there are kind of questions about how autobiographical this movie is, right, but you know, Gallo's kind of very incomplete projected self image and how everyone else actually sees him because you know, up to the very beginning, you don't actually know really what's going on.

You know, you are not given the sort of context about you know, taking the dive and the bet and all that, right, and so you know, you're sort of in real time learning that this guy is kind of just a massive loser. Like his best friend is special needs, his parents hate him, he doesn't really have anything going on in life other than you know, this relationship with

with Leila. And what's interesting, and we'll get into this at the end of the movie, is that his sort of core motivation is sort of killing the guy who sent him to prison, right, this kicker. Yeah, and that is sort of the one animating thrust throughout this entire movie, and he is able to sort of discard that for this relationship in a way that's oddly touching given the griminess of this movie. Otherwise, I want I actually to get back to your much earlier point about you know,

sort of the the echoes to the seventies. It's kind of interesting thing. So obviously this was the late nineties, so it's a little bit ahead of the curve. But in my mind, really the two thousands through the twenty tens are like kind of this this weird like the emergence of kind of retro futurism, Like you see this in car designs, right, Like the class like the new Mini, the Volkswagen Beetle, all of those being brought back as

kind of echoes to a previous era. So in film as well, I mean to be honest, a lot of Tarantino's work is again calling back to the kind of grind house look. Robert Rodriguez, you know, basically made a

career on doing exactly that. But I think it's interesting as well because I actually hadn't even thought about that, but once you mentioned it, like, there are multiple features of this that are basically out of you know, a movie twenty years earlier, right, the whole the whole fact that this guy, like, I mean to be honest, the way he's dressed, but the you know, the the prominence of bowling, right this, that whole scene is sort of

dripping in it. And uh, yeah, it's funny. I would not have noticed that, but you're you're kind of spot on on that.

a dream scenario. That's one he uses that technique of where he which I thought was I have. I usually don't like that sort of stuff, you know, like gimmicks or whatever, especially maybe now as you point out, like it's it's almost like it's gone through one loop back and then another, and in each loop back it maybe gets a little bit I don't know if it's compressing into some like truth or if it's kind of getting deluded.

I'm really not sure. But he uses this technique of many screens within the screen and I have to admit that was pretty all right.

enjoyed it. I don't know if I necessarily have the greatest argument as to why I enjoyed it, but as part of that, I've sort of also become fascinated by Vincent Gallo as sort of the world's most insane film all Tour. He is reviled by many people, which is sort of funny. But anyway, Andy, I'll kick it back to you. I'm curious to get your thoughts. We're talking a little bit about, you know, your kind of initial reaction upon seeing the movie.

think it was was that right, nineteen ninety eight. It comes out, but I don't remember any of it, and Burden says to me, we're doing this movie, so okay. So I sit down after a very long day, and

likewise I didn't make it fifty percent. I wanted to tap out at about I don't know, like really the minute that Vincent Gallo's character gets out of jail, which is how the movie opens, you know, you're like, man, this Guy is is is disgusting, Like this is not somebody that I can identify with, And therein begins what is really a great movie in many ways, but is extremely difficult anyway for me, for me to get through.

One thing to note is he's going for a kind of like seventies John Cassavetti's feel and vibe, and that's that's something pretty interesting because he he goes, he brings in Ben Gazara as his dad, who worked with famously John cassavettis on a number of movies, including what I think is Cassavetti's best, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and he's in some other ones. But I think that that plays into how the movie has has situated itself

in like popular cultural, popular culture or history. He's Vincent Gallo isn't like you were saying earlier. I mean, he's polarizing, but he's got a lot of respect from a lot of people too. So for the audience. Once again, guy gets out of prison and immediately wants to go over and see his parents, who this is all said in Buffalo, which is kind of awful. You know that, Like the weather is very gray and it's every everything about it is kind of depressing and weird, which may be accurate.

I've never been to Buffalo, have you been?

go see his mom and dad. He immediately kidnaps this girl and then dig go over to his mom and dad's house and we find out that he's been in jail because he was sort of set up to take the fall for another guy in this betting scheme. He does his five or seven years or something. He gets out and there he is he has nowhere he has. He's pretty young, and I mean I guess he's supposed to be maybe thirty or something like late twenties. And from there, yeah, like what do you think, Like, not

much really happens. It's really about this guy's internal thing and the relationship between him and the girl.

We find this out later in the narrative, used his mentally disabled friend Goon, who is a background character in this, to basically send his parents letters, right, you know, like postdated so that they would think that he is, you know, living this life as a you know, man of mystery, right, flying all around the world, and as part of this he's man. So he gets out of jail, which is sort of played up in this kind of like sad

pathetic way. You know, he's just you know, trying to The whole inciting incident is he's trying to find a bathroom, right.

He runs into this dance studio and that's where he sees this girl, Leila, kidnaps her, demands that she drive him to his parents' house, and this is where you get kind of the comedy of it, because he is vacillating between completely normal conversations and insane threats, threatening to kill her, just badgering her constantly, and she is, relatively speaking, a normal person compared to you know, Vincent Gallo, kind of chewing the scenery. And so, you know, that's the

inciting incident to the main plot. But in the background, we find out that he was put away for betting on the Buffalo Bills at the I think it's isn't at the at the super Bowl, Yeah, and you know, at this this notable super Bowl. Yeah, he put ten thousand dollars on the Buffalo Bills to win. You know, the best kicker in the league misses the field goal right, screws the game, screws him. And so when he gets out and he's concocted this plan to you know, go

find this kicker and shoot him. And so that's sort of the b plot. The background, the interactions between you know, Vincent gall and Layla are just off the rip, incredibly uncomfortable, like he's threatening her with the most insane threats over

very minor things. This is a very quotable movie. One of the funniest parts is, you know, he's kidnapped her, you know, from this dance studio, which is shot in kind of a comedic way, like he's just dragging this girl past like a bunch of eight year old girls like doing ballet. But he goes out to her car, he shoves her in the passenger seat, he gets in the driver's seat, and we find out that, you know,

she drives, you know, a manual. Weirdly enough, this is funny that this car was at the time sort of a comedic ship box, and now those old eighties Corollas are worth like fifteen grand bare minimum. Just a funny aside, has this massive blowout right where he talks about, I don't know how to drive shifter cars. I drive luxury cars.

Do you know what a luxury car is? I drive catalogs, just berating this almost completely silent woman, which you're right, it's incredibly uncomfortable, but man, it is it is pretty funny. It is chewing the scenery.

absolute base level relationship with her right there, and he there's sort of like this indication, well, you know, maybe he's going to abscond with her a raper, and it turns out to be the absolute opposite of that. Right at the end, his like, mommy problems are so profound that when when the time comes when this relationship gets like quote intimate, we can get there to that, because

that's its whole other thing. But the way that heh he describes what he's going to do to her, you know, I'm going to take a big bite out of your cheek and then shift it out. He there's no capacity when this within this guy to actually do this to her, and there's no indication from her that she's actually going to leave, and so it sets this bizarre tension that is You're right, like kind of comedy gold where you wonder, like, what are these people doing? What is really happening here?

When she he's not going to come through on any of these threats. He's totally inept and she doesn't even want to leave and she's just met him. Like, what's going on with that part of it? What did you make of the Christina Ricci characters just kind of giving over to that? Yeah, Well, it's.

you know, completely ignored. And I think it's interesting because you sort of see this distinction between like, and it's funny me I don't even using his real name because it is there are kind of questions about how autobiographical this movie is, right, but you know, Gallo's kind of very incomplete projected self image and how everyone else actually sees him, because you know, up to the very beginning,

you don't actually know really what's going on. You know, you are not given the sort of context about you know, taking the dive and the bet and all that, right, and so you know, you're sort of in real time learning that this guy is kind of just a massive loser. Like his best friend is special needs, his parents hate him, he doesn't really have anything going on in life other

than you know, this relationship with with Leila. And what's interesting, and we'll get into this at the end of the movie, is that his sort of core motivation is sort of killing the guy who sent him to prison, right this kicker, and that is sort of the one animating thrust throughout this entire movie, and he is able to sort of discard that for this relationship in a way that's oddly

touching given the griminess of this movie. Otherwise, I want, I actually to get back to your much earlier point about you know, sort of the the echoes to the seventies. It's kind of interesting thing. So obviously this was the late nineties, so it's a little bit ahead of the curve.

But in my mind, really the two thousands through the twenty tens are like kind of this this weird like the emergence of kind of retro futurism, Like you see this in card designs, right, like the class, like the new Mini, the Volkswagen Beetle, all of those being brought back as kind of echoes to a previous era, but also in in film as well, I mean to be honest, a lot of Tarantino's work is again calling back to the kind of grind house look. Robert Rodriguez, you know,

basically made a career on doing exactly that. But I think it's interesting as well because I actually hadn't even thought about that, but once you mentioned it, Like, there are multiple features of this that are basically out of you know, a movie twenty years earlier, right, the whole the whole fact that this guy, like I mean to be honest, the way he's dressed, but the you know, the the prominence of bowling, right this that whole scene is sort of dripping in it, And uh, yeah, it's funny.

I would not have noticed that, but you're you're kind of spot on on that.

a dream scenario. That's one he uses that technique of where he which I thought was I have. I usually don't like that sort of stuff, you know, like gimmicks or whatever, especially maybe now as you point out, like it's it's almost like it's gone through one loop back and then another, and in each loop back it maybe gets a little bit. I don't know if it's compressing into some like truth or if it's kind of getting diluted.

I'm really not sure. But he uses this technique of many screens within the screen, and I have to admit that was pretty pretty useful and pretty cool way to kind of, you know, he would transition into backstory, and he would transition like kind of to show the interior of his character's mind. And I guess overall, you know, it seems like in reading up on the movie that Gallo wrote the script ten years earlier and didn't really

expect to be the director. But I don't know how true that is when I think about Vincent Gallo and like what he has become. But then again, I don't know. I was hoping to go back to you because this aspect where you don't really know, like how much of this is Vincent Gallo and how much isn't and then how much because this has been you know, he's been queried on this point many many times. I don't think he's giving like the truth. I don't think Vincent Gallo

the man is concerned about the truth. What do you think when you take this whole package in, I feel like this is more like the younger generation. He's kind of preempted gen X, and he's kind of picked up on your guy's stuff, like a layer deeper than maybe gen X experienperience is it where he's using irony and I begin, what do you think? What do you make of all that?

it just says faggot giant red block letters. He has an application where you can apply for five hundred thousand dollars for a natural or artificial dose of his sperm, provided that you're attractive enough, and it's like a like, I'm not doing it. It's like a three page rant about who will and won't meet his criteria, including entire races and continence. He is not interested in so like you look at that and you're like, all right, clearly he is to a certain degree playing a bit right.

He is, you know, deliberately sort of casting himself in opposition to Hollywood, you know, while at the same time, you know, being surrounded by you know, you know, high fashion all that. So he's not truly this sort of he's I don't believe he is truly the character he portrays.

But as regards kind of like the the irony of it, I think that's a very interesting element one of the things that and that's sort of I guess in my mind what I find irritating in the conversation around this movie is you have a lot of kind of pearl clutching responses that say, oh, you know, Vincent Gallo is just horrible to women in this movie. This is a

you know, a misogynistic movie. And it's like, well, I mean, if this person actually existed and actually did this shore but I think that that's almost a too direct reading of this film. And I think that you know, from my mind, what we're what we're sort of seeing is you know, this man who's sort of marked by profound abandonment. So the and I don't know if it's actually true, but it feels like the longest section of this movie.

It is sort of like the cinematic equivalent of having your your fingernails pulled out, uh is you know the scene at his parents'.

Gallo's character. They're slightly interested in in Layla a little bit, not very much, but I mean really that is her entire life.

to the Buffalo Ells. You know, it starts off with players then like you know, SYSI athletic directors, and then it gets to you know, like the caterer and the bus driver and of of course, right it's played for a joke. But when they finally go to see you know, Billy's photo, it's it's somewhere else. It's all folded up in gross and you know, we get this kind of again slightly comedic, over the top childhood trauma where his dad you know, chokes his puppy to death in front

of him for barking too loudly. And interesting enough, that's shot. I don't know if it actually the aspect ratio changes, but that's another time where we see that sort of frame within a frame and it shot almost like eight millimeter film, right, like it has that sort of film autests are going to get on me for that, but it looks like you know, kind of a handheld you know,

film camera. Yeah, you know, kind of interestingly done. And so with regards to the you know, kind of the irony of this, it's like, well, obviously he's sort of playing it up, hamming it up. This is comedic in a certain sense. You know, it's so over the top, and we'll see that, you know, even in the conclusion

to the movie. But also I think that there is something interesting being said there about this kind of the culture of distraction and abandonment, right, this idea that you know, his his mother in particular, is so much more obsess with something that is fake and not real. You know, that is this kind of like TV you know experience that she is completely and totally disconnected from her son.

And as these people have no doubt heard me complain about the last two weeks, we've been just buried in snow here, and so my wife and I have been walking to most places just because it's you know, safer.

it rots your brain kind of reading. But I think it's it's interesting one to the degree that like we genuinely see this exact same dynamic with many people of the kind of you know, boomer and silent generation with you know, news of all type, but also right, like the skinner box in your pocket, you know, this sort of like you know, device of distraction which kind of pulls you away from you know, your actual human connections.

And clearly this is marked Billy, right, you were talking about again his kind of you know, mommy issues, right he is. That is the hole that he is sort of trying to fix. H one other moment, and you know you mentioned the kind of film gimmicks, and I'll kick it back to you. There's a there's sort of a bizarre scene. Uh, and Billy's dad is just lecherous this entire time, like almost a ludicrous degree.

of her chest exposed. They're back in this back room and Billy is just looking at the one picture that they have of him. She has that his mom has this whole catalog as as you mentioned, of all of her absurd buffalo Bill's connections, and they have one single picture of their son. And when they switch over to the Ben Gazzara character, his dad and by the way, evidently this is another one of these these crossover weird

misunder I don't know how we understand this. Evidently, Vincent Gallow's dad really does have some incredibly beautiful singing voice, and he is this guy who's I mean, you imagine sitting in some you know, like depressing basement imagining what he could have been. And that's Vincent Gallow's actual experience of Evidently his dad is just this maniacal asshole, like over the top and real like that's what Vincent Gallow's

experience of having a father is. And evidently his mother is not too far from this over the top vision that he presents in the film. But yeah, it thinking about it and talking about it with you now I realize Gallo is pulling more from David Lynch in terms of his style and technique than I ever noticed before.

I have seen his other Is It Brown Bunny is his other kind of controversial film, and those are probably the only they may be his only two movies, but I have seen that one, but I did not realize how much of the Lynchian ethos esthetic that he is just borrowing from fully. And it's in that scene with the puppy, it's like it's almost just note for note Lynchi and how he's moved or altered the visual just enough and then gone into this type of absurd level

of violence. And you know, part of the discomfort in watching it now I think wasn't wasn't like available to viewers in it wasn't available to me. Okay, this level where it's kind of common to hear of these just horror stories of how bad parents are. I mean, I don't I look at normal parents around me now and I have to I have to be critical of them. They're not hitting like a standard benchmark where and I'm talking about people at church, people who are otherwise pretty

good citizens. I'm still looking over at them saying, Jesus, this parenting is really substandard. So if you go back, you know, this is thirty five years I one thing that stands out about this is and part of why Vincent Gallow must be kind of hated is, Dude, he saw this like narcissism of the female and the corruption of the mother figure, evidently through his own experience, which is horrible and tragic and probably explains why he's such

an asshole himself now. But that was so like, that was thirty years ahead of the curve, and it's points like that where at the end of the movie, I really had that moment of I had to reevaluate a lot of my not very developed conceptions of Vincent Gallo as an artist, as you say, like he's a performance artist, he's associated, he's made albums, he's doing all sorts of really strange things and not strange and just unusual, and maybe maybe he deserves maybe some more credit than he's

been given. Because I guarantee you that if we were to go back in the record and look at reviews, nobody could have I don't think taken on that vision of the mother as so just she's the worst to me. I mean that scene that you mentioned where they're at the table is so hard to take. And it's not because of like personal stuff related to me. I think it's every human being watches this and it's like, this

dude has literally nothing. I mean, his mom doesn't even give a shit about him, and his dad, of course, is terrible.

physically within the house. You know, he has his his room right where he goes to sing, but you Billy's mom runs the roost, right Her stuff is everywhere that you know, the Buffalo Bill's memorabilia is on every part of the house, and even you know, when Billy leaves, you know, she's in the kitchen and his dad is retreating back to kind of his little cave.

then I wasn't and they lost the big game. But there's actually kind of a an interesting dynamic between you know, her and Layla, where Layla is, for some reason inexplicably trying to do a very good job of pretending to be you know, Billy's devoted fiance. You know, she's you know, saying how much she likes him, you know, telling the story of how they met, all the things that normal parents would be concerned with. She even says like, oh, we're having a baby, which is obviously not true. She's

just lying. But throughout the entire thing.

the worst. And he even like halfway through this conversation he gets up to go burrate goon his best friend, who is You're living at home with his mom.

it's up there. This is this scene is there's a whole lot going on. So we get a couple of things, which is one, you know, Billy goes in and we see his you know, his lockers undisturbed. He does seem to have some sort of you know, like friendship connection to the guy who runs it, right uh, And we get a couple of things in his locker. We get, you know, a whole bunch of sort of memorabilia of him as a highly talented youth bowler, bowl one who bowls.

I don't know what the term of that is sort of echoing in what we see in his father's room, right, the idea of this kind of untapped potential derailed by life, and also Chekhov's school picture, right, a picture of a girl and when uh, you know, Leyla asks about he goes, oh, you know, it's some girlfriend I had. You know, I've had a lot of girlfriends or whatever.

I don't mean to cut you off, but I just wanted to say there again, you're right the other since I did interrupt you, I just wanted to mention that that scene like changes the whole game for me with respect to Billy, because you realize, like, wait a minute, this dude has something like a really he's like, like you say, like a bowling savant or something. He's got this very like like they say the third place or whatever.

He's he's a loser at school, he's a loser at home, but he goes to this bowling alley evidently and he becomes like this stud. I mean, the dude behind the counter is it seems to evidence like genuine admiration and respect, and Vincent Gallo kind of changes into this like a gangster suave, like like a like a real dude, and then he just hits strike after strike up to strike.

And it occurred to me, like part of I don't mean to jump too far ahead, but it just occurred to me as I was watching this, like, oh, Billy's whole thing here in terms of like the parents that don't love him, and you know, his diminished avenues in life or what have you. He makes this bet on his mom's dream, you know, the Buffalo Bills is to

come through, and this derails everything. When he had this opportunity if he really had the ten grand, which it's not clear if you ever even had the ten grand to make the bet which gets him in so much trouble.

But he could have bet. He could have like, you know, the expression like bet on yourself, like believe in yourself, which in some way does manifest at the end of the film, where he's he's kind of been able to wend his way through the little you know, like the psychic forest that he's been dumped into by these completely insufficient parents who have left him. Like on the one hand, he has this vision of females in general, which is

it's just putrid. I mean, you could not if you had this mom like and you and you wind up at all functional, it would be a miracle. And if you have this dad likewise, you know, to think that you could find it within yourself to be good at something. So I just wanted to throw in that for me.

When he when he shows that he there's a part of him that is cool, that is capable, and and he has his talent of bowling, and he may have had the opportunity to to bet that ten grand on himself and go a whole other way anyway.

flawed with it. But it's this sort of scene where they're together, you know, in this cramp photo booth, kind of shot from the camera's pov in the photo booth, and you know, it goes through the first time, and he's just furious with her. It's like no, no, no, we're a couple that likes each other but doesn't touch. We span time together and just just says that in minor derivations throughout the entire thing. You know that he's

interestingly enough because this will you know circle background. He's furious with her for wasting his money, right, the idea that we had to go through this process of getting photos. It's like fifty cents, right, in consequential amount of money. Uh. But yes, they they you know a bit, they leave the bowling alley, uh and you know head out to I believe they go to Denny's next. Is that the next?

who followed me around. I don't even know your name. And you know, he's having this sort of hushed conversation with Laila while the other couple is making out in the back in this Denny's and it gets kind of more and more over the top, and it's never again, it's all out of focus really, So you're like watching this like very hushed, serious conversation while there's just this

like flailing going on in the background. Again, Uh, incredibly uncomfortab Well, you know, they leave and they head basically you know, one of the things that they've talked about, uh, you know, while they're driving around, and while she's driving him around in her car is you know, she says like, oh, you know, like do you want to come back to my place? He you know, kind of throws her off,

says no, and well we're at Denny's. He's been you know, constantly looking at the clock right trying to figure out like, okay, like when can I go to this this I think it's the strip club like off the side of the highway where this buffalo Bill's retired kicker you know, owns. And so, you know, when they leave the Denny's right. He basically like says like all right, like we're done, you can go home now, goes to the payphone, calls this strip club and finds out, oh, the guy's not

into not He doesn't come in until two am. It's like eight or whatever. He's like, all right, fine, I guess we can go get a hotel. They go back to again. It just absolutely horrible hole in the wall motel. Like it's it's just grim and dirty, and the whole thing is like it almost has this green cast to it. Yeah, and you know, the two of them go back. Clearly she is envisioning, you know, romantic entanglement. He is not

at all. There's a very funny moment where he wants to go take a bath and so you know, he gets into the he gets into the bath and she's like, oh, hey, you know, can I come in? And he's just aghast. He's like, no, you cannot, you know, I want to be in the bath. And it's it's again, there's never any time for this, you know, to be comedic. It's just sort of something you notice. But you know, as she sort of wears him down, we see this you know evolution where it's like okay, we can come in,

but you can't look. So she's like, you know, got her hands over her eyes, and then you know, it kind of cuts to the next stage of the conversation. They're in the bath together and you see her, you know, presumably wearing and then the pants over to Billy and he's wearing a shirt. It's just a very funny, like background joke through the whole thing. But as that, you know, as that develops, right, the two of them, I mean literally just sit in or like lay in bed next

to each other. Again, they're they're sort of shot in this way where you can see he is incredibly uncomfortable with this. He's sort of you know, arms together on the opposite side. But you know, ultimately the time comes for him to go to you know, confront the man who sent him to jail maybe, and so as he he gets up to leave, you know, she's like, hey, like, what are you doing? You know, where are you going?

AND's go, you know, I was going to bring you if I bring you some coffee, something that she had expressed interest in earlier, and she says like, okay, we'll just like if you're not going to come back, just tell me. He's like, yeah, I'll come back, and while going through his items in you know, this locker, this bowling alley, he pulled out, you know, a tiny little pocket pistol, right like one of those tiny little Saturday

night specials. It is, again, kind of comediically small, and he's, you know, as he walks out of the hotel, which we realize now is across the street from this strip club. Uh, you know, we see him pull out the gun and is you know, as he walks in, he calls Goon again. Now I don't remember what Goon's actual name is, but a major theme in their interaction Rocky, yes, is that

Goon doesn't want to be called Goon anymore. He wants to be called Rocky, and Billy has been making fun of him the entire time, again being very cruel to

this disabled man. Ironically enough, by the way, I don't you notice this, One of the things he criticizes Goon slash Rocky for is always doing exactly what his mother tells him to, which I thought was a very interesting thing that you know, Billy identifies that in Goon, not in his own experience, but he stands outside and basically, you know, says, you know, all right, good, like you can have all my stuff, kind of signaling that he's

going in on a one way mission. So we've covered a lot of ground there and before we get into kind of the the climax, I'm curious if there's anything you wanted to add.

not now any of this other stuff. Now you want to kiss me, We spend time, and he hits this, hits this beat over and over and over. There's you know