Mannequin (1987)

Matt (00:00:21):

Hey, hello, this is Load Baring Beams. I’m Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:00:24):

And I’m Laci Roth.

Matt (00:00:25):

Laci, it’s nice. I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve talked about a bug nuts fucking demented

Laci (00:00:31):

Crazy movie.

Matt (00:00:32):

Like today’s film we’re going to be talking about.

Laci (00:00:35):

Get out of your mind.

Matt (00:00:36):

Which is what?

Laci (00:00:37):

Mannequin from 1987.

Matt (00:00:39):

I’m wrong. It’s not a ridiculously weird and crazy movie.

Laci (00:00:42):

Completely rational ’80s montage of pleasure. Thank you. But it is the movie Mannequin from 1987.

Matt (00:00:50):

That’s right.

Laci (00:00:51):

Fucking classic.

Matt (00:00:52):

Okay.

Laci (00:00:53):

That no one’s ever watched

Matt (00:00:54):

Except for

Laci (00:00:55):

All the people that did.

Matt (00:00:57):

Today covering mannequin. Next week though, we have a little something special planned. What is it?

Laci (00:01:03):

Very similar to mannequin. It is the butterfly effect. Okay. It’s not at all similar. We are very excited because this is our first film talk guest who will be coming on. His name is his page is called Cinematic Joshua and he gives film reviews and he does funny creative things with these reviews to make them interesting. He does TV, music, other things too, but I mainly know him for his movie opinions and he selected the butterfly effect and one of my favorite insects.

Matt (00:01:36):

I’m excited. I’ve been sort of eyeing this movie recently just to watch for fun. So I’m very excited to talk about it and to get into it. I love the final destination movies and the people who made Butterfly Effect were very involved in the final destination movies. I will watch any shitty movie about time travel. Not saying I know that this is huge. This is a time

Laci (00:02:01):

Travel movie? Yeah,

Matt (00:02:02):

Because he travels back in time. It’s all done. Don’t

Laci (00:02:04):

Tell

Matt (00:02:04):

Me. You didn’t know that basic premise?

Laci (00:02:07):

I saw it in the theaters, which was like 2018.

Matt (00:02:11):

2004.

Laci (00:02:13):

I was trying to say 20 years ago and then I stopped myself and I said other things that were wrong. So 2004. Okay. So two years out of the high school. Yeah. I have no business remembering anything from this movie. I just remember it’s like a sliding doors type movie where- But

Matt (00:02:25):

That’s not a hidden plot detail. That’s in the trailer. I don’t

Laci (00:02:27):

Feel like you’re spoiling. I just didn’t know if you were going to keep going and then ruin my life.

Matt (00:02:32):

Yes, I was going to ruin your life.

Laci (00:02:33):

I felt it and I just wanted you to convert. I wanted you to go the other path much like maybe this movie shows us.

Matt (00:02:41):

Well, the Ashton Kutcher of it all makes me a little suspicious, but-

Laci (00:02:47):

But he feels like he needed to be interjected into this time. It was his time, Matt. Let him be there. Look how serious he is in this poster.

Matt (00:02:55):

Look at that eye. He

Laci (00:02:55):

Looks like Edward.

Matt (00:02:56):

So the butterfly effect available for rental. I don’t see it streaming for free anywhere, but it’s on PVOD. If you’re in the United States at least.

Laci (00:03:06):

That’s helpful that you do that, Matt.

Matt (00:03:08):

But yeah, so tell me, I mean, explain yourself, defend your … Why are we talking about Mannequin?

Laci (00:03:14):

I can’t even believe you could watch that whole thing and not know why this would’ve been a movie that just stuck with me. It is a complete pick me up. Anyway, let’s not get too into it. My history with this movie is that this would’ve been one of my go- tos during the summer when I would stay at Ms. Barbara’s house, which I’ve mentioned her before. She was the first becoming a major figure. First person that had a massive physical media collection and it was just so … I didn’t know that was an option and I think that’s what inspired my collecting and it ruined me for the rest of my life. Anyway, so this movie has a lot of things that I like about it. It has a flamboyant character that’s very funny and who’s a sweetheart the whole time. Most people are sweethearts, a beautiful, loving couple who just can’t get enough of each other and tons of wardrobe changes.

(00:04:10):

Count me in.

Matt (00:04:11):

You like that?

Laci (00:04:12):

A montage. In a mall. Well, it’s not a mall, but it’s mall enough. It’s the biggest department store I’ve ever seen in my fucking life.

Matt (00:04:20):

Yeah. It’s mall enough. It’s fun. But how long had it been since you’d seen it?

Laci (00:04:28):

Truly had zero memory of it except for Hollywood Montrose. And I didn’t know his last name until yesterday and now I’ll never forget it. So yeah, but I would say under 15 years old. So do the math because I’m not going

Matt (00:04:43):

To do

Laci (00:04:44):

Any

Matt (00:04:44):

… So it’s been a while. Yeah. You said this, oh, let’s talk about Mannequin. And I was like what? Didn’t know. It’s rare that I have never heard of a movie. I mean, people know this movie. I see by going on Letterboxd. Normal people are aware of this movie, but I wasn’t. So we’ll see what I thought about it.

Laci (00:05:03):

Won’t we?

Matt (00:05:04):

We will. Take me

Laci (00:05:06):

There.

Matt (00:05:07):

You know what we do on this show is we make pre-movie prognostications. How are we going to feel? And we record them ahead of time so you know that they’re authentic.

Laci (00:05:16):

And Matt makes me film them in the kitchen so that it sounds weird.

Matt (00:05:19):

Yeah, you started doing it near me and I said, “No, no, no. Get out

Laci (00:05:23):

Of here.” I want it to sound weird. Go in a different room. I think the movie will be funny. I’m worried it might be cheesy. I remember laughing a lot. I remember liking being in a mall and possibly being in a mall when no one else was in a mall. And I remember that this is where I got my love for the Starship song. Put your hand in my … Don’t ever look better. So glad you cleaned it. Yes, that one. You’re welcome. I think I’ll like it fine. I truly have no idea if it’s good. That’s fair. I couldn’t remember one quote, on there’s

Matt (00:06:00):

So many too.

Laci (00:06:03):

You’re absolutely right. I

Matt (00:06:04):

Mean, there are- Jonathan.

Laci (00:06:05):

There aren’t quotes. It’s not funny like that. It’s slapstick. It’s camp. It’s fucking over the top crazy pants. Crazy things. I didn’t want to say crazy pants.

Matt (00:06:16):

Here’s my prediction.

Laci (00:06:17):

Okay.

Matt (00:06:20):

What’s up guys? Mannequin Matt Stokes here. We are about to head over to the Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie, Louisiana to do a little preparation. See, get a lay of the land of malls and department stores, because I know that that’s what the movie Mannequin is all about. Figured I’d give you my prediction for this movie Mannequin before I hop in the car. Yeah, I have no idea what to expect about this movie. There’s so little information about it. I don’t know. I have no idea. I know I don’t like Andrew McCarthy. I think he sucks. I don’t know. Is it like a splash type movie where he just like fantasy woman and her kind of kooky ways changed this man for the better? Maybe he’s too career obsessed. I don’t know. This movie doesn’t have a good reputation, but I’m liking the names I’m seeing in the supporting cast.

(00:07:08):

So maybe it’ll be a good time. We’ll see. All right. Going to get, oh hey, Laci’s already in the car. Good. She’s not moving. So I don’t know what was happening there, but-

Laci (00:07:19):

Brilliant.

Matt (00:07:20):

Yeah, I did not quite get it right with what the plot of the movie is.

Laci (00:07:25):

That’s okay. It was close.

Matt (00:07:26):

I mean, I guess. I thought, is this going to be like Splash? But I guess it wasn’t. I don’t really remember Splash. I don’t

Laci (00:07:32):

Either.

Matt (00:07:32):

I just feel fantasy woman kind of plucked out of the fantasy realm and now has to live in New York City and what’s that going to be like? I know in this movie it’s Philadelphia, but …

Laci (00:07:42):

Close enough.

Matt (00:07:43):

But the thing about this movie is there’s so little information about it online. There’s no oral history. Almost every movie you pick has like a, the cast of whatever looks back 25 years

Speaker 3 (00:07:56):

Later.

Matt (00:07:57):

Nothing like that. There’s no interviews with the director, Michael Gottlieb. Yeah. So we’re going to talk about the history of Mannequin, the making of a mannequin, but the information’s a little sparse.

Laci (00:08:09):

I don’t know. I’m prepared.

Matt (00:08:18):

So the only extra feature on the Blu-ray is the trailer, so that wasn’t helpful. If you look up Michael Gottlieb, everything about him is just from his obituary from 2014. And then it’s basically like it’s just a reprint from the press release put out by the college that employed him at the time. It’s

Laci (00:08:36):

Like they tried to erase like it was a blip on everybody’s career and no one felt like speaking about it, which is insane. It looked like it was really fun to make.

Matt (00:08:46):

In the case of Gottlieb, it was the only good thing that happened in his feature film career. It was the only hit. Now, it wasn’t very long. Was it a

Laci (00:08:52):

Hit?

Matt (00:08:53):

It was a hit. It was a big hit.

Laci (00:08:54):

Oh,

Matt (00:08:55):

Wow. So Michael Gottlieb, yes.

Laci (00:08:58):

It’s interesting. This director died the same year that Mishach Taylor died, Hollywood Montrose. They both died the same year, 2014.

Matt (00:09:07):

Makes you ask some questions maybe.

Laci (00:09:09):

No one was cancer.

Matt (00:09:11):

Well, wasn’t a hit. So not like an Egyptian sort of … Okay.

Laci (00:09:14):

Curse right now, not like a mummy.

Matt (00:09:16):

So this guy, yes. He started as a fashion photographer, which makes sense in this movie.

Speaker 3 (00:09:24):

And

Matt (00:09:24):

Then he moved into commercial directing. He directed commercials for McDonald’s and Coca-Cola and Xerox. And then Mannequin was his feature film debut. It was 1987. He wrote it and he directed it, though he did not direct the sequel, but this was his first film. He only directed four total movies. This was the only hit. After Mannequin, he made a movie called The Shrimp on the Barbie. She’d

Laci (00:09:49):

Never heard of-

Matt (00:09:50):

Star Cheach Marin, which he directed under a pseudonym.

Laci (00:09:53):

But isn’t that the actress that plays Roxy in this movie right there?

Matt (00:09:59):

Is it? Let me look it up.

Laci (00:10:00):

Wait, wait. I have it right here. It is not. Move on. But I was doing a little research myself and there’s someone that’s also in this, but I do not know these actors except for Cheach.

Matt (00:10:12):

So yes, he was credited as Alan Smithy on Shrimp on the Barbie. And then he made Mr. Nanny, the Hulk Hogan vehicle. Which

Laci (00:10:20):

I’ve of course seen. Yeah.

Matt (00:10:22):

I think I have too. Kid and

Laci (00:10:23):

King Arthur’s court have definitely seen that. He made a Kid in

Matt (00:10:25):

King Arthur’s court, which was also a big bomb. These were all bombs. The only thing I feel like Kid and King Arthur’s quarter is remembered for is Daniel Craig and Kate Winslet are in it as very young people. Oh,

Laci (00:10:37):

Wow. I

Matt (00:10:37):

Mean, probably 27, but still very early role for both of them. Michael Gottlieb transitioned into producing video games where he had a lot of success. He made Mortal Kombat four or he produced. I don’t know enough about video games to tell you what role the producer of a video game plays. And then he taught screenwriting at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and he died in 2014 at the age of 69 in a motorcycle accident. But I feel like, and looking into the history of this movie, its biggest legacy appears to be its sort of pioneering use of market research.

Laci (00:11:17):

Okay.

Matt (00:11:18):

So let me introduce you to Joseph Farrell. He was an executive producer on Mannequin. He was called in his obituary the founding father of Hollywood focus groups.

Laci (00:11:28):

What an honor.

Matt (00:11:29):

So Satan, in other words. Okay. He founded a firm called Market Research Group in 1978. And the way he started was he would interview families outside the movie theater and give them free ice cream. What’d you think of the picture?

Laci (00:11:45):

And

Matt (00:11:46):

Then he’d write it down.That’s

Laci (00:11:47):

How they would answer because of all the ice cream.

Matt (00:11:49):

And you know the classic model of the Hollywood executive is you read a script, you meet a director or a producer and you go with your gut. And this one feels good. I got a good feeling about this. It’s a very non-logical business and Mr. Farrell wanted to bring some data, some rigorous data to it.

Laci (00:12:10):

I mean, you can trace a line from this man all the way to now these companies that just AI that you just plug in and you swap one actor out for another and get a thing that shoots out the other side of like, would this be more successful or not until you plug … It makes my stomach hurt. How boring. They’re going to average us to death.

Matt (00:12:32):

No, I would kill for this to come back for sort of the data driven executives to come back using.

Laci (00:12:38):

But the data driven thing is this is its natural-

Matt (00:12:41):

It’s natural. Conclusion. Yeah. And I know people will say like, “What are these fucking executives? Why do we even need them?” Just a computer could do it, could make the decision to green light something or not. There we go. And it’s like that’s true, but that’s bad. I mean, because the thing about all of this is it’s not logical. You can’t actually … Okay, so it’s bad for art, yes. When you’re making a creative product, you should not be driven by …

Laci (00:13:07):

A consensus. But yeah, right. There’s no art by committee.

Matt (00:13:11):

And by like, “Well, I don’t know, the audience isn’t responding or this specific theater in Peoria isn’t responding so well to this, so maybe we’ll change that scene.” But if you just put that aside, I don’t even know how well you actually can predict what is going to be a hit and what is not going to be a hit based on what people say in surveys and focus groups and turning a knob when they feel happy. Right,

Laci (00:13:33):

Because you’re also not taking into consideration how much do they feel indebted to you from this free ice cream? Well, how many people places are you asking? How many kids are walking out of the theater and haven’t hit that stage where they have real opinions about things? It was great. This nice man gave me

Matt (00:13:49):

A hotdog.

Laci (00:13:49):

Well, just like you said, you remember thinking lots of shit movies were great just because you got to go to the movies that day. It’s just not very scientific and I don’t want it to be more scientific or that.

Matt (00:14:01):

Well, the Simpson scene of the focus group that they use to create Pucci is just the best distillation. The kids are like, “We want characters who are totally down to earth and relatable, and also they should be robots and have lots of firepower and totally out of control and crazy.” But it’s just funny, in sports, this is very parallel to analytics coming into sports where I feel the exact opposite way, where saying the baseball scout who’s like, “Well, I met this young man and he had a firm handshake and his girlfriend’s attractive, so he’s going to be a star.” That’s the worst thing you can say, and I don’t like it in sports, but movies are different. Anyway, Joseph Ferrell, he basically standardized market research and standardized the way you do it. And when he died, everybody said we all use the stuff he pioneered and Mannequin was a very early example of a movie at the script stage being driven by his data, his analysis.

(00:15:02):

So

Laci (00:15:02):

When does he come into it though? When there’s still time to rewrite, when there’s time

Matt (00:15:06):

To recut? Good question. Good question. I don’t know when he- Or it’s

Laci (00:15:08):

Just like, “Hey, everybody look out. This one’s a bomb. Okay. I told you a week before you were going to find out anyway.”

Matt (00:15:13):

No, because you have test screenings where you still have time to do reshoots and stuff. I don’t know if he actually was involved at the scripting stage, but I mean, this movie, you feel it in this movie. I guess

Laci (00:15:25):

I just wonder if he developed the system, what is it? I just don’t know. Oh,

Matt (00:15:30):

I don’t know. It could be like, here are 500 questions to ask or …

Laci (00:15:33):

Yeah, and then what?

Matt (00:15:36):

And then you do reshoots or then you rewrite the script. I don’t know what stage-

Laci (00:15:40):

Right. I get it with animation. You’ve got enough screen boards and things you can show, but yeah, maybe they make a tiny movie pilot. Just seems expensive to bring him in and go, “Should we completely throw this away now?”

Matt (00:15:55):

Well, you maybe get a reshoot budget. We’ll give you $5 million and you have to decide how to divvy up the $5 million. What is worth reshooting? Can we get this actor back? Did we get this comment

Laci (00:16:06):

Enough?

Matt (00:16:07):

Yes. But I feel like this guy’s like the waita with the toupee falling in the soup, that’s worth $9 million right there. I just felt it watching the movie.

Laci (00:16:18):

I did feel like they put every gag can be … Pull my finger, but it felt self-aware. It felt like it was over the top on purpose, but I guess it was just like, that’s a laugh in the films.

Matt (00:16:34):

It’s very broad. I mean, and any gag, any side gag, they really linger on it for a while. The Hollywood’s license plate, they stay on that for 10 seconds like, “You read it? You read the whole thing? Okay. Everybody back in the back.” The big example everyone points to for what this guy did is his research showed that Infatal Attraction, which had a more ambiguous ending that involves Glen Close artfully killing herself. Instead, they change it so that Michael Douglas’s wife shoots her to death. And when you watch it, it is exciting. You’re like, “Hell yeah.” But they’re like, “That decision is why this movie made $300 million as opposed to, I don’t know. ” They

Laci (00:17:15):

Never know.

Matt (00:17:16):

No, I know you never know, but-

Laci (00:17:18):

Interesting also someone in the wrong choosing to end their own life as well. I don’t know. I don’t remember the movie.

Matt (00:17:24):

But it does turn the movie into something that can be a crowd pleaser. And this is a very bleak and depressing movie, but you end it that way and suddenly you’re like, “Yeah, I can feel good about life and families again.” And

Laci (00:17:37):

Gun ownership.

Matt (00:17:40):

I guess that’s the legacy of Mannequin. It was a hit. They made a sequel, Mannequin II. Which is

Laci (00:17:48):

Very different except for Hollywood. Hollywood’s in it.

Matt (00:17:50):

The only person who returned was Mishak Taylor who played Hollywood. Also, the guy who plays the janitor from the end of the movie is in it. But according to the Wikipedia, it’s unclear if he’s playing the same character, which I love. You can’t tell from the movie.

Laci (00:18:03):

And I knew I knew him in a very similar role and he’s in the police academy movies, right?

Matt (00:18:09):

I’ve never seen him.

Laci (00:18:10):

Yeah. I knew he was very familiar. He plays a jerk.

Matt (00:18:13):

Kim Cottrell as well.

Laci (00:18:15):

Also in Police Academy?

Matt (00:18:16):

Yeah. I like that and this is just based on my reading the Wikipedia summary of Mannequin II is it takes place in the same department store. None of the old characters are back except for Hollywood and apparently he has one brief line where he is like, “Hmm, a mannequin came to life before and now it’s happening again.” But that’s it. That’s the only acknowledgement that-

Laci (00:18:37):

What is the catalyst for it happening in this?

Matt (00:18:39):

I don’t

Laci (00:18:39):

Know. That’s the most forgettable part of all of this. I don’t need all … I mean, there are some weak moments, I guess, but what were we 10 minutes in to the … Or do I wait for when we go through scene by scene before I divulge? Yeah, we’ll get into that. Am I freak out? Okay.

Matt (00:18:58):

You’re freak out. Stay tuned for Laci’s freakout.

Laci (00:19:01):

I really flipped.

Matt (00:19:02):

All right. Let’s talk about Andrew McCarthy. He plays Jonathan.

Laci (00:19:05):

I love him. I’m in love with Andrew McCarthy.

Matt (00:19:11):

Okay.

Laci (00:19:11):

Look at him.

Matt (00:19:12):

What?

Laci (00:19:12):

Look at that sweetheart. I love

Matt (00:19:14):

His whole shit.

Laci (00:19:15):

Fine.

Matt (00:19:15):

This is my question. Well, okay, wait. Let’s talk about Andrew McCarthy. He was 24 years old when he made Mannequin. He was a member of the Brat Pack as we’ve discussed many times on Loadbearing Beans. Does he have? The Brat Pack is something that missed me completely. I hadn’t seen any of these movies. And when we discussed Weekend at Bernie’s a few years ago, that was my first exposure to Mr. McCarthy. And I said, “Who the hell is this guy? Who is this zero?” And you’re like, “That’s right. McCarthy.” He’s

Laci (00:19:43):

Good in everything he’s in.

Matt (00:19:45):

So he made his film debut in a movie called Class 1983 also the film debut of John Cuzack and Virginia Madsen. Have you seen Class?

Laci (00:19:53):

I have not. This looks like Rob Blow as well. Is that right?

Matt (00:19:55):

Rob Blow, yes. And then he was in a movie called The Bineker Gang.

Laci (00:19:59):

Never heard of it.

Matt (00:20:00):

The surprise me.

Laci (00:20:02):

A nightmare cartoon puppy.

Matt (00:20:04):

And then a movie called Helven Helpless. Have you heard of that?

Laci (00:20:06):

I’ve heard of it, but

Matt (00:20:07):

I’m

Laci (00:20:08):

Sure I’ve seen it actually. I’m sure I’ve seen it. Yeah, the guy in the middle looks really familiar, but it didn’t stick.

Matt (00:20:16):

All right. Well, I’d never seen San Almost Fire 1985. I did watch- Sorry, can I

Laci (00:20:22):

Just please explain that you’re showing pictures of him from every movie that I love and I’m quivering. Okay. Continue.

Matt (00:20:30):

And I saw Less Than Zero a few years ago and he just brings absolutely nothing to that. He’s with Robert Downey Jr. And James Spader and just- Well,

Laci (00:20:39):

That’s not fair.

Matt (00:20:40):

Okay. Okay. I watched Pretty and Pink over the weekend because I know that’s his big movie. I’m like, maybe I’ll get it here.

Laci (00:20:47):

I don’t like him there. I mean, he’s fine. He’s fine, but I don’t think he’s any …

Matt (00:20:51):

This guy.

Laci (00:20:53):

He doesn’t Andrew McCarthy it up in that movie.

Matt (00:20:55):

What does that mean? He’s on nothing.

Laci (00:20:58):

Weekend at Bernie’s

Matt (00:20:59):

He’s so

Laci (00:20:59):

Funny.

Matt (00:21:00):

The other guy is so much funnier than him.

Laci (00:21:02):

No, this is the one you liked.

Matt (00:21:03):

No, this guy’s a fucking this guy.

Laci (00:21:06):

Go back and listen to that episode. This is the guy that was the bad friend, the one that wanted to do it. He’s the one that exit on the whole time. The other one is the swiveling asshole that’s like, “I don’t think we need to call the cops. Oh, look, boobs.” Yes, go back and listen to that episode. When he gets to be a heel, he is- I

Matt (00:21:23):

Can’t be held accountable for what I said a few years ago. I can see that.

Laci (00:21:29):

You don’t like him as a love interest. That’s fine. He’s great as a heel.

Matt (00:21:34):

Because I feel like he has no screen presence, nothing appealing about him at all.

Laci (00:21:41):

He’s so

Matt (00:21:41):

Cinchal. So I watch Pretty in Pink because I’m like, “Well, that’s got to be the movie.” And he’s fine in that. He’s the ninth best performance in Pretty In Pink. Wait, can we talk about Pretty in Pink?

Laci (00:21:53):

Please.

Matt (00:21:54):

You’ve seen it, right?

Laci (00:21:55):

I’ve seen it.

Matt (00:21:56):

I had never seen it. It’s a pretty good movie.

Laci (00:21:58):

Thank you.

Matt (00:22:00):

Hey, here was my takeaway. Molly Ringwald’s good. No

Laci (00:22:02):

Fucking shit.

Matt (00:22:03):

No. Don’t

Laci (00:22:03):

You think that from the Breakfast Club as well though?

Matt (00:22:06):

Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I think I was much more captivated by her in this. I wouldn’t say it’s a great movie, but it’s got that sort of John Hughes sentences people say that are very good, but they also take you out of it because you’re like, “No idiot teenager would say that. ” And he, McCarthy, is good because he’s playing just a dead-eyed mouth breathing teenager who looks pretty, but he’s like a system quarterback in that movie. He’s like, “Okay, Brock, throw it nine yards that way. Okay. And just be really careful. Okay, go, throw. You did it great.” But don’t take any chances, don’t take any risks or we’re going to lose the game.

Laci (00:22:48):

That’s why he’s better in comedies. Pretty and Pink is a romantic comedy.

Matt (00:22:53):

He fucking sucks in mannequin. If you swapped out James Spader, he’s right there. Swap them out. You’ve got a movie.

Laci (00:23:01):

Spader is awesome, actually.

Matt (00:23:02):

You need a fucking weirdo playing this role. And this guy is just the most Jeremy Negillekers. I love art and playing the piano. No, you don’t. You liar. You don’t do anything. You sit at home and stare ahead with nothing on TV.

Laci (00:23:17):

Oh, you’re hurting me. Okay, fine. I mean, I don’t agree with you,

Matt (00:23:22):

But- AnniePot’s also very good and pretty into it.

Laci (00:23:24):

Andy Potts is very good.

Matt (00:23:24):

And Harry Dean Stanton. Oh, it was so good.

Laci (00:23:26):

Ducky?

Matt (00:23:28):

No, the guy who plays her dad.

Laci (00:23:31):

Oh yeah.

Matt (00:23:31):

They’re very sweet. Though I will say this, I will say this and I would never say this about a fictional character. I’m not a fan of the intelligence agencies or the military industrial complex. You’re

Laci (00:23:46):

Not. Let me say he’s not.

Matt (00:23:48):

But SEAL Team six needs to do something about Ducky.

Laci (00:23:52):

What the

Matt (00:23:52):

Fuck? He needs to be taken out. He needs to be erased from the timeline. What the

Laci (00:23:55):

Fuck he?

Matt (00:23:57):

This guy, he doesn’t know. He’s a war crime of a person. And I know he’s not a real person.

Laci (00:24:02):

The Otis Redding scene. Try a little tenderness. Breaks my heart. All right, fine. I’m sure if I rewatched it, it’s been years.

Matt (00:24:11):

And it’s not- I’m

Laci (00:24:12):

Sure he’s that abusive, stalkerish. You know me we’re friends, so why don’t we fuck guy.

Matt (00:24:17):

It is that, but that’s not what I’m talking about. He’s just so annoying. I just want to kick him in the dick.

Laci (00:24:23):

He looks so cool.

Matt (00:24:24):

Just go away. Shut up with your antics and your singing and your jokes. I don’t need him. Get out.

Laci (00:24:29):

He’s Ferris Bueller. Ferris Bueller were

Matt (00:24:31):

Interesting. You know who I’d kick in the dick?

Laci (00:24:33):

Right.

Matt (00:24:34):

Ferris Bueller.

Laci (00:24:35):

A lot of dick kicks here. I

Matt (00:24:37):

Watched Ferris Bueller in the past few months too and I have a lot of thought about that. We’ll table them. It’s got to be

Laci (00:24:42):

Someone’s movie because it’s not mine and it’s not yours.

Matt (00:24:46):

I could stretch it and say it was mine.

Laci (00:24:48):

What? Nope. Like that? You have to go on the YouTube video to see what he just did. Wow.

Matt (00:24:57):

But it’s most- Stretched

Laci (00:24:58):

His penis from here to the kitchen.

Matt (00:25:01):

The take is like this movie. He’s the villain of the movie. It’s the boring take.

Laci (00:25:05):

Of Pretty and Pinker?

Matt (00:25:06):

Of Ferris

Laci (00:25:07):

Buler, yeah. Wait, yes. What?

Matt (00:25:09):

That Ferris Bueller himself is the villain of this movie and makes everybody around him worse.

Laci (00:25:15):

Okay. But I thought we discussed at a different time that it’s actually the best friend who is the villain. He’s a big fucking bummer.

Matt (00:25:22):

Did we say that?

Laci (00:25:23):

Yeah.

Matt (00:25:23):

That’s also interesting. But no-

Laci (00:25:25):

There are no good guys. The sister, that is it.

Matt (00:25:30):

That’s true. Yeah. She’s the one that comes across most sympathetic. Yeah. I mean, Cameron is annoying, but you watch it. Makes

Laci (00:25:36):

Everything about him.

Matt (00:25:39):

He has an abusive best friend that he can’t-

Laci (00:25:41):

That’s

Matt (00:25:42):

True. Who he can’t get out of his way. And then the girlfriend as well. Yeah. So he just latched onto another abuser, but I was like, this movie’s about Donald Trump. That’s what I thought when I was watching it. Okay.

Laci (00:25:55):

I have to watch this again.

Matt (00:25:56):

He’s like, he’s making principle Jeffrey Jones. He’s breaking the law and going into people’s houses because he’s like, “It doesn’t matter. I just have to get him. I just have to get him.” Yeah.

Laci (00:26:06):

All right. Shit.

Matt (00:26:08):

And then one more note about Pretty In Pink.

Laci (00:26:10):

Okay.

Matt (00:26:10):

You know the scene where Andrew McCarthy takes Molly Ringwald to the party?

Laci (00:26:14):

Yeah.

Matt (00:26:14):

You remember this scene and how uncomfortable it is?

Laci (00:26:17):

Yeah.

Matt (00:26:19):

This is from Taxi Driver. This is Robert De Niro taking Sybil Shepherd on a date to the Porno Theater. What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Why

Laci (00:26:27):

Would this be where I want to go?

Matt (00:26:28):

The second you see it, you’re like, no, no. So that’s Andrew McCarthy. Yeah. Look

Speaker 3 (00:26:37):

At him.

Matt (00:26:42):

After he stopped being a fantasy for eight-year-old girls, by the way, the market research said, “We’ll put this guy in our movie. I know you don’t think he’s a star, but he has a fan base.”

Laci (00:26:53):

Of course he does. I mean, yeah, anyone in the Brad Pack did, but there’s just something. He’s just unruined by any of the Brad Pack movies. He was allowed to stay a sweetheart in every single one of them and he makes girls go, “Because he’s the ultimate safe choice and there’s something really fucking comfortable in that. People don’t get to do that. And you’re in enough movies, you got to switch it around. He never

Matt (00:27:21):

Did. I mean, that is why he works in that In Pretty and Pink as the ultimate safe choice. This guy isn’t going to challenge you or say anything weird or interesting. And he falls

Laci (00:27:30):

In love hard.

Matt (00:27:32):

Yeah. And I did like about that movie that it really presents … When you’re a teenager, you have big giant emotions and swings and stuff, but you don’t have the emotional intelligence to explain it. And so these characters don’t talk to each other and don’t explain things like, ” Here’s why I’m not taking you to the prom. “They just kind of grunted each other and I thought it was-

Laci (00:27:55):

Well observed?

Matt (00:27:56):

Yes.

Laci (00:27:58):

Don’t wait, but don’t you find the way he’s in love with Kim Cottrell and this movie, you don’t see those moments? He’s in pure awe of her, but she loves him just as much back. Just the sincerity of it all without it makes you want to throw up, this movie does it a million times and it’s just like, oh my God, are these actual people really in love because I feel like I’m staring at it.

Matt (00:28:24):

No, I did not feel that.

Laci (00:28:26):

And our kid felt it the whole … Every time a moment like that would happen, our kid would go … Sister slapping my leg and going.

Matt (00:28:34):

No, I did not pick up on the …

Laci (00:28:37):

Look at these

Matt (00:28:38):

Guys. Because this movie is working on … It’s trying to work on a fairytale level or a fable level. These aren’t real people.

Laci (00:28:45):

Yes. And even in fairytales, I don’t see real love. I see people who just met each other.

Matt (00:28:50):

That’s what I’m saying. We just think

Laci (00:28:51):

Each other are hot, but this movie takes the time to show you that they have the same sims of humor. They like to talk about the same stuff. He is inspired by her. She loves his art. He loves her art. There’s a real give and take.

Matt (00:29:04):

I know that that’s happening in the movie. You feel it. I don’t feel it from him. I feel it from her when Kim Cottrell shows up like, oh, this movie has a little life in it finally. But no, this guy is a negative.This guy sucks life out.

Laci (00:29:16):

You’re saying we get all the

Matt (00:29:17):

Life from the

Laci (00:29:17):

Mannequin?

Matt (00:29:18):

Yeah, ironically.

Laci (00:29:20):

Okay. Well, what about Hollywood?

Matt (00:29:21):

Oh yeah. No. He’s

Laci (00:29:23):

Amazing.

Matt (00:29:23):

This movie’s stacked supporting cast.

Laci (00:29:26):

That doesn’t mean you like them in the roles. So I’m asking.

Matt (00:29:29):

How do you feel about- Yes. Everyone, virtually everyone. I loved Stellgetti. I did too. I wouldn’t say I loved. I liked Stellgetti. I liked James Spader. I like all the weird villainous people whose names I don’t remember.

Laci (00:29:42):

I loved Roxy’s, the character Roxy. I just like how violent

Matt (00:29:45):

She is. No. I mean, this is one where I was like, she’s … She

Laci (00:29:48):

Plays with

Matt (00:29:49):

You. She’s not bringing any heat. These line deliveries-

Laci (00:29:53):

You don’t want someone to outdo Kim Cottrell in this. She was meant to be just second banana burnet. Who’s hot?

Matt (00:30:02):

Bring something to the table. I have a clip. No, I have a clip of … It doesn’t. It doesn’t. I have a clip of one of her line readings where I’m like, they couldn’t have done that again. Now, John, I’m not got dying on.

Laci (00:30:14):

Okay. Well, I will enjoy that. But you have just the most wonderful slide up in front of me and it makes me … You know this is my favorite stuff when you show me stuff like this, that people in real life really do like each other and they still like each other. Why don’t you explain what’s on the screen,

Matt (00:30:31):

Matt? Oh, well, Andrew McCarthy transitioned into sort of a TV character actor role and also directs a lot of TV, including on his friend James Spader’s show The Black List. Now in this story that I screenshotted, it then says they did not talk to each other for like 25 years. No. Fall out or anything. They’re just people in life sometimes stop being friends. But then when they started working together, they became friends again. I don’t actually think they’re best friends. It is just weird that they did three movies together in the ’80s and now work together on the Black

Laci (00:31:06):

Livestock. Don’t you assume it’s got to be hard to make really close friends in this industry at all because you basically keep going after the same parts.You’re forever tied together as those two guys, but Spader being the one that’s always the douche and not the heart throb. Andrew McCarthy being the one that often gets the sweet guy role, but you can’t see him the other way. They both end up getting typecasted.

Matt (00:31:32):

No, when you’re like James Bader and you’re like, “I’m like a talented actor and I bring interesting things to my roles and this guy’s a pretty face and his appeal is that he’s not interesting.” Watch

Laci (00:31:41):

Weekend at Bernie’s again and tell me that shit.

Matt (00:31:43):

I really don’t want to. He’s

Laci (00:31:44):

So funny. He’s the only reason you like the movie.

Matt (00:31:46):

No, I remembered it being the opposite. Jonathan Silverman is the other guy. No, he’s the worst. But he was the funny one.

Laci (00:31:52):

No. Who was the one that just listened to the episode? Do you heal? A piece of crap. Your memory’s wrong here. You don’t get to be the memory Lord right now. I’m the memory Lord.

Matt (00:32:07):

We’ll talk about Kim Cottrell.

Laci (00:32:09):

Look at her.

Matt (00:32:10):

She plays the mannequin. She was 30 years old. The notable instance of the female love interest being older than the male. How about that? Kim Cottrell is British Canadian. She was born in London but raised in Canada and she rose to prominence in Porky’s 1982. Police Academy 1984, Big Trouble in Little China. 1986, directed by John Carpenter.

Laci (00:32:33):

Hey.

Matt (00:32:34):

And yeah, she shows up in this movie. Yeah, Kurt Russell’s John Carpenter’s guy.

Laci (00:32:39):

Aw. Did he also do Overboard one of my movies?

Matt (00:32:42):

He did not direct Overboard, but that would be interesting if he did. So yeah, I mean, she’s just effervescent and great in this movie and great in everything. And everybody says, well, she’s obviously the best actress of Sex in the City. So naturally she is not in the sequel series because the other three ladies were mean to her.

Laci (00:32:59):

Yes. I always have a tinge of sadness when I see anything with her in it or just think of her. That was a lot of years of your life on a show that you added a lot to. That’s going to be your legacy, whether you want it to be or not. And for you, it’s bad memories.

Matt (00:33:13):

No, she never said it’s a bad legacy. She likes it. It’s just she wasn’t friends with the costars and that’s okay. It’s a job.

Laci (00:33:21):

Sure. But I don’t want to go to a job every day where I know everyone else are friends and they understand each other, but I’m not.

Matt (00:33:27):

Okay. But well, yes, that’s the part that makes it hard. And especially when all I’m talking about. When Sarah Jessica Parker is also an executive producer on the show and the highest paid and you’re like, “Well, I’m a better actress than she is and everyone likes me better.” Yeah. And seems to be-

Laci (00:33:42):

And playing the harder role, playing the role that can follow you around. I mean, people look at Kim Cottrell and think slut. It’s just they equal each other because she plays that role so well. I mean, she’s such a convincing person in that show and I mean, just a very sexually empowered woman. I don’t know why it’s taking me so long to say words today.

Matt (00:34:06):

She’s just, yes, empowered. She’s a woman.

Laci (00:34:09):

She has sex with herself and with others. She’s got nice feet. I’m looking at her feet right now. I didn’t go search for them. They’re just right here.

Matt (00:34:18):

So those are the stars of the movie.

Laci (00:34:21):

Oh, but you didn’t even talk about Manchack. I mean Manchec.

Matt (00:34:24):

Well, I don’t usually get into the supporting cast.

Laci (00:34:29):

He’s hardly supporting. For me, he is the movie. I looked so hard for a shirt with his face on it. It doesn’t exist.

Matt (00:34:36):

Yeah, no, he’s funny. And hey, I liked that I was shocked when this movie ended without the hero at characters being super homophobic. It’s like, wait a minute, this movie doesn’t have any homophobic jokes. It just depicts the bad characters being homophobic. That’s interesting. I don’t hate this movie.

Laci (00:34:53):

Good.

Matt (00:34:54):

It was an okay time. It started horribly.

Laci (00:34:57):

Yes, it did.

Matt (00:34:58):

And it has enough going on, but I don’t like it.

Laci (00:35:02):

Right. Okay. Well, I made my glasses look really cool in honor of Hollywood Montrose and I’ve clearly put on the dyslexic database here that best character in all of cinema.

Matt (00:35:15):

I don’t disagree. I

Laci (00:35:17):

Don’t like to be hyperbolic. No,

Matt (00:35:18):

He’s good. Just

Laci (00:35:19):

Accurate.

Matt (00:35:20):

He’s good. His good performance, good character. And now we shall talk about Mannequin back after this. So the task at hand is to really carefully analyze mannequin, scene by scene, frame by frame.

Laci (00:35:52):

That’s excessive.

Matt (00:35:54):

Yes. Okay. Dig in. Get something to eat, everybody. As is our process here on Load Bearing Beams, we take a break between our history segment and our main movie discussion and I did go back and watch the movie again, as I usually do to make notes, get clips. Did this improve my appreciation for the film?

Laci (00:36:14):

Did it?

Matt (00:36:15):

Maybe by like a quarter of a star.

Laci (00:36:19):

I’ll take it

Matt (00:36:20):

When

Laci (00:36:20):

Our point system doesn’t even allow for quarter stars.

Matt (00:36:22):

I know. I still

Laci (00:36:23):

Take

Matt (00:36:23):

It. Yes. Do I round up or down? I don’t know. My central issue with this is the director I don’t feel like has a grasp of the material and the tone. I feel like this is five different comedies at once.

Laci (00:36:37):

I will allow it.

Matt (00:36:38):

Thank you. Toward the end of the movie, for the first time in the whole movie, there’s a sped up fast forward, fast sequence. Hollywood covers this convertible with a cover and they go into fast motion.

Laci (00:36:55):

That’s got to be because the act, it was a funny bit, but the actor probably took a really long time to actually do it. When I was watching it, that was what I was-

Matt (00:37:01):

But it’d be funny if he did it in real time. It’s just so urgent. We have to run to the store, but he still has to cover. If you go slower, it’s funnier. But some- No, that’s a good point. The people outside the theater in Oklahoma City said they love fast motion. So got to do it. No, I’m not saying I know that happened.

Laci (00:37:17):

Oh.

Matt (00:37:19):

And the guy is driving the motorcycle with his mannequin and this woman’s like, “Look, it’s a man in his dummy.” And her husband’s like, “Who are you to criticize?” I’m like, “Where’d this come from?”

Laci (00:37:31):

Also, when did anyone start calling a mannequin a dummy? Just because it’s made of wood and often they’re plastic in metal. It’s

Matt (00:37:40):

Even on the poster.

Laci (00:37:40):

That was a stupid joke from the beginning. A dummy is for ventriloquism dolls.

Matt (00:37:49):

Quizm? Ventrellaquism.

Laci (00:37:51):

Oh, good. Thank you.

Matt (00:37:52):

Even the poster says like, “Jonathan may have a mannequin to have sex with, but he’s no dummy.” It says that.

Laci (00:37:59):

I must say the thing I’ve been let down by the most whenever we review movies from the 80s and 90s and even early aughts sometimes are the stupid freaking punchlines they put on the movie poster.

Matt (00:38:10):

Oh,

Laci (00:38:11):

Taglines. Ataxhore. It often does not end up … It doesn’t withstand the test of time. They have no control marketing over what the lasting impression and vibe of the movie is. And I feel like the vibes are off often. And what comes to mind is Romeo Michelle High School Reunion. The blonde leading the blonde is like, fuck off. They have been in post-its.

Matt (00:38:35):

Even that one, yeah they did. Even that one, that feels like it could be on a poster today. In the 80s and 90s, you just had the longest taglines and often there’d be multiple taglines.

Laci (00:38:46):

Right. Each post, they just try A and B testing. Yeah.

Matt (00:38:49):

Now it’s just very short and just feel the power or whatever. So

Laci (00:38:53):

You’re saying you miss jokes?

Matt (00:38:56):

Are you

Laci (00:38:56):

Saying you wish they were?

Matt (00:38:57):

I kind of missed the really long and unnecessary long taglines.

Laci (00:39:03):

I think it’s just maybe because marketing, you can’t be totally sure if someone caught a commercial or however it is to advertise movies back then. So it’s like, I need to give you a quick gist of what you might expect. Yeah, here’s my elevator pitch if we’re going up one floor.

Matt (00:39:20):

These ladies went to high school together. It’s 10 years later. They got an invitation in the mail. They opened it. It’s a reunion.

Laci (00:39:27):

See how that would goe how that didn’t work?

Matt (00:39:31):

So the movie mannequin opens an ancient Egypt predictably.

Laci (00:39:37):

As soon as this happen, I’m like, “It’s just like with the Exorcist. I never remember we opened

Matt (00:39:41):

Here.” It is very Exorcistish. Yeah. So the onscreen text says Ed Fu Egypt a really long time ago right before launch. So you know what kind of movie you’re watching. Because speaking of Romeo and Rochelle, we watched that movie and to prepare, I watched the Woody Allen movie, Mighty Aphrodite to prepare myself.

Laci (00:40:05):

Oh, right, because of Mira Savino.

Matt (00:40:07):

Yes. And I feel like this movie mannequin could easily be a shitty Woody Allen movie. I had those

Laci (00:40:13):

Beats.

Matt (00:40:13):

Yep. He’s playing the guy who makes mannequins and Scarlet Johansson plays the mannequin. My mannequin is a live if no one believes me. Can’t you see it?

Laci (00:40:24):

I immediately put him in the guard roll for … He’d put himself in

Matt (00:40:29):

A silly role. I know. He put himself as the romantic lead.

Laci (00:40:32):

Or the little old lady that almost gets hit by the sign.

Matt (00:40:35):

He could be her. Yeah. So we’re in a tomb. Kim Cottrell, Emmy is in this tomb. She’s dressed herself up in a mommy costume. There’s scarubs. Brendan Frazier’s outside the pyramid if you listen closely. And her mom comes in and she’s like-

Laci (00:40:54):

Bobby, baby, mommy. Get into this man’s

Matt (00:40:59):

Car. It’s time for you to get married to Hazira.

Laci (00:41:03):

A sarcophagus for two.

Matt (00:41:05):

He sells camel dung.

Laci (00:41:06):

Can’t write.

Matt (00:41:07):

And she’s like, “Mother, I want to do things. I want to invent things. I want to create human-like dolls that you can put clothes on and I want to fly.” So she says, “God’s helped me, ” and then they make her disappear. And

Laci (00:41:22):

The mom is not that upset, I

Matt (00:41:24):

Must say. The little non-plus. These Egyptian gods recur throughout the movie. I think we have to bring back her old segment. Is God real in this movie? And if so, which God is it?

Laci (00:41:38):

I imagine it’s the cabin in the woods one.

Matt (00:41:41):

Go on.

Laci (00:41:42):

No, just that there’s definitely going to be a bloodletting sacrifice. No, blood sacrifice and it’s inside of some sort of tomb

Matt (00:41:50):

And it

Laci (00:41:50):

Goes through the-

Matt (00:41:51):

Yeah. If you saw what Emmy was up to all these years, there’s a lot of that.

Laci (00:41:55):

Right. Lots of people have gone missing. And people have been said to have crashed on an airplane. But what it really is, is that Emmy has been killing these famous missing and dead figures all along.

Matt (00:42:06):

So animated credits. Hey, look at them.

Laci (00:42:09):

I was wondering, did this work for you? Because I was like, oh, thank God. It’s something Matt likes for some reason.

Matt (00:42:16):

Animation.

Laci (00:42:17):

Animated credits out of nowhere.

Matt (00:42:21):

Hey, good job making these.

Laci (00:42:23):

But is it like they didn’t know who was going to be in the star? Well, no, they knew the names because they wrote them in, but it’s like, let me make this non … I guess it’s a cat. Is this an Egyptian cat? No, thank you, asshole. I know the thing with the snout’s a pig. I mean, the lady.

Matt (00:42:39):

Yeah, it’s a cat. Egyptians love cats.

Laci (00:42:41):

Okay.

Matt (00:42:42):

The animation here is by Sally Crookschank and her team at Playhouse Pictures. I was wondering, what does this remind me of? And when I looked into it- Great. No, no, no. It’s not like Greece at all, but it’s something I know I’ve seen. Anna

Laci (00:42:55):

Barbera?

Matt (00:42:55):

No. What it is, is it’s the animated interludes from Sesame Street, which Sally Crookshenk also did. And she also did a bunch of other movies, had animated opening credits around this time. Ruthless People, Loverboy, Mad House. You seen any of these movies?

Laci (00:43:12):

Loverboy. He’s the piece of Delivery Boy that’s also a whore.

Matt (00:43:15):

That movie was written by Robin Schiff of Rome and Michelle. That’s why that poster looks familiar to me.

Laci (00:43:19):

Okay. I thought you were going to tell me why it looks familiar to me, and you’d be wrong. And Patrick Dempsey now. And

Matt (00:43:25):

Then the song playing during this sequence is in My Wilder Streams by Belinda Carlisle.

Laci (00:43:31):

It’s really a nothing song, isn’t it? Especially considering the fucking banger that happened at the end. Oh, it changed my life. I can’t wait. Don’t get there. I’m going to calm down.

Matt (00:43:43):

So we meet Jonathan, Andrew McCarthy. And this guy, his heads are in the clouds. He won’t focus on the job or he focuses too much because he loves making mannequins. With

Laci (00:43:53):

Nipples though.

Matt (00:43:54):

Well, that’s the job. You got to put-

Laci (00:43:56):

Sculpt their nipples.

Matt (00:43:57):

Do mannequins not have nipples? Is that not a thing?

Laci (00:44:00):

No, they haven’t had nipples in a minute. Those are 80s mannequins right there, baby.

Matt (00:44:05):

His methods are unorthodox. He insists on nipples. So yeah, he’s dancing around with his mannequin. He’s singing My Girl.

Laci (00:44:12):

Off key.

Matt (00:44:13):

Even though it doesn’t appear to be playing in the room, but his coworkers are joining in. “Oh, Jonathan, look at Jacob. I’m going to dance too, my girl.

Laci (00:44:20):

“It’s playing in the other room, it seems like they’re not in the cool room of the workshop of the factory. And at this stage, why the fuck do they have wigs on? These would be bald mannequins right now. It’s silly that they’re … It doesn’t matter. Go on.

Matt (00:44:35):

So he just wants to make his art, just wants to make his beautiful art. But the boss is like, ” We’re here to make profits, not art. So you’re fired.

Laci (00:44:42):

“So few jobs for sculptors, but you know Jonathan, he’s ahead of them. He turns every job into a tedious

Matt (00:44:50):

Details.

Laci (00:44:51):

No

Matt (00:44:51):

Matter what job he gets, he

Laci (00:44:52):

Is.

Matt (00:44:52):

Tell us what-

Laci (00:44:53):

Frustrating.

Matt (00:44:54):

Tell us what he does.

Laci (00:44:55):

All right. Well, so this one seems to be the only one where he doesn’t get into his little, I have to make everything take a really long time. I guess the first thing we see is he’s a balloon artist and it connects to the job he had right before because you see he’s doing it for his boss’s son’s party. It’s the boss from the one that fired him right before. It is. It doesn’t matter. It is. And boy is this wacky. In this reality, a large balloon can take a boy away into the sky. What is this movie doing? So, okay, he gets fired because that’s not okay. And then here’s our second, not Tim Robbins. I’m going to need help here. Tim Burton moment because at first I got very nightmare before Christmas vibes when it’s a conveyor belt of arms and legs and they’re putting together a lady and then all of a sudden he’s Edward Scissorhands and he’s making a poodle out of a topiary when no one asked him to.

Matt (00:45:53):

They just want you to trim the hedges, not make a lawn animal. I can’t help it. I have the soul of an artist.

Laci (00:46:02):

And the attention span of someone who doesn’t listen to instructions. And then the next thing he does is he goes to make a pizza pie and he spends a really long time, which come on, come on John.

Matt (00:46:12):

And he just loads it with toppings.

Laci (00:46:13):

Come on, John.

Matt (00:46:14):

All the colors of the rainbow. And each time he gets fired, the boss is like, “Go collect your paycheck and get out of here.” All these different-

Laci (00:46:21):

The decent paycheck. I’ve been here for five minutes.

Matt (00:46:24):

Yeah, but it’s nice that they’re paying him. But they all say that phrase, “Go get your paycheck.” You know

Laci (00:46:29):

Many W2s this man’s going to have to produce at the end of the damn year or I forget. I forget which one it is when it’s you have an employer. It doesn’t matter. Let’s not get into taxes on this episode again. All right. Now we meet Roxy, Carol Davis. She seems to be into him. That’s his girlfriend. Sorry. He goes and picks her up at her fancy … I assumed at first this was some kind of Wall Street situation. I know they’re in Philadelphia. There’s no reason I should think this is some sort of-

Matt (00:47:03):

Department store.

Laci (00:47:04):

But why do people have nice clothes? Oh, because they fucking work there. But anyway, they look like a bunch of bankers. He comes up on his little motorcycle. She’s so embarrassed. She gets on the back and hugs him dearly. And then she needs to get away really fast because her boss is coming out and it’s like, is her boss just a giant creep who she’s running away from or is she so embarrassing?

Matt (00:47:27):

No, she’s trying to ingratiate herself with the muckety mucks with the boss. That’s Mr. TJ. But you’re hiding

Laci (00:47:32):

From him.

Matt (00:47:33):

No, because she’s embarrassed to be on the back of a motorcycle instead of a Rolls Royce.That

Laci (00:47:38):

Was option B I was offering. Okay. But he’s also a creep. They’re all creeps. Everyone she works with is a creep.

Matt (00:47:43):

So she’s like, “That’s Mr. BJ Wirt. He’s the regional manager. He basically is illustra, which they don’t say at any point illustra is a department store.” They do

Laci (00:47:51):

Not.

Matt (00:47:52):

But

Laci (00:47:53):

They love tensel. Look at that window display. Did

Matt (00:47:55):

You find

Laci (00:47:56):

Anything tackier?

Matt (00:47:57):

We’ll find out later. It’s in contrast to the classic beauty of Princeton Company, the good department

Laci (00:48:03):

Store. The inside of their store feels very 80s, very neon lights, super, I guess that made it high energy and exciting for the time and Walmart and Kmart and stuff wouldn’t have been what they are now, but that is kind of where Walmart and Kmart went, was this bright colors. Everything’s jam packed in signs and low shitty, those ceilings you can pop in. What am I trying to say?

Matt (00:48:31):

Popcorn.

Laci (00:48:31):

No, no. The ones that pop open, you can push them. It doesn’t matter. It’s like a fake, a false ceiling. I’m sure it was supposed to look like hip and cool, but it just looks like cheap and shit. So whoever mimicked that going forward made this store not look cool

Matt (00:48:51):

Over

Laci (00:48:51):

Time.

Matt (00:48:51):

Play this clip because this right here is sort of my indictment of the director for not letting his actors know what kind of movie they’re in.

Laci (00:48:59):

And

Matt (00:49:02):

I want to apologize to Carol Davis. I think she’s good in this movie second time through. I think she’s pretty good. Right here, it’s just weird and confusing.

Speaker 3 (00:49:11):

Oh Rock, this job of us just destroying his sense of humor. Got to quit. I’m not the one that can’t deal with reality.

Speaker 4 (00:49:17):

Reality

Speaker 3 (00:49:17):

Is

Speaker 4 (00:49:17):

Very disappointing.

Speaker 3 (00:49:19):

Jonathan, I really do care about you, but I think that if we sleep together tonight, we only confuse things. I think you should see a professional. Professional what? You mean a hooker? No, a psychiatrist.

Speaker 4 (00:49:30):

No, I can’t afford a psychiatrist, Roxy.

Speaker 3 (00:49:31):

Well, then call one of those shrinks on the radios. Come on.

Speaker 4 (00:49:34):

They’re only good if you have little problems that fit between the commercials.

Speaker 3 (00:49:38):

Goodnight, Jonathan.

Matt (00:49:40):

So is he like a Chandler Bing? He’s a lot of wise cracks hiding behind sarcasm, but he doesn’t play it that way, but he’s saying these things that sound like

Laci (00:49:52):

They

Matt (00:49:52):

Are.

Laci (00:49:53):

The way I’ve always read it is he’s a kid. I mean, he’s just immature and kind of, he’s kind of immature, but he seems to be a romantic as well. I don’t know. It just seems like he can’t be serious. Or maybe she’s so serious he feels like he needs to keep it light. I have no

Matt (00:50:12):

Idea. That makes sense. But all of this, this is supposed to be like ratitatat screwball comedy, but- No, it is not. It’s so flat.

Laci (00:50:19):

It’s very flat.

Matt (00:50:21):

Yeah.

Laci (00:50:21):

Well, and she’s completely uninterested in him. I mean, grossed out by him losing another job. I mean, just completely turned off. But to me, I thought they broke up here, but now I guess no, they just-

Matt (00:50:31):

Oh, it certainly seems like they do.

Laci (00:50:32):

It does, but she still seems to think they’re still together later on. It was just like, “Look, just not tonight. Don’t come back to my apartment. I’m not going to reward this behavior. Eat your ice cream, little boy.”

Matt (00:50:41):

Like what? Okay. If we sleep tonight together, it’ll just confuse things.

Laci (00:50:46):

Well, yeah, I guess he should have some sort of … That’s what I’m saying. She’s the mommy. He’s the baby. It’s like he needs to have some sort of punishment while he eats his fucking ice cream.

Matt (00:50:54):

Hey, okay.

Laci (00:50:55):

All right then. All right. Jonathan’s sad. You can tell because he won’t drive his motorcycle. He’ll only push it and only when it’s raining. Kidding. It breaks down. What else could go wrong? And just as he’s at his lowest point in the dark pushing the only thing he has left, he sees the woman he made once and he runs over. Oh my God, it’s you. Oh my God. And it just gives him the biggest erection, I assume. Oh, and then his motorcycle works, which … Okay, so anything’s possible with Kim Cottrell.

Matt (00:51:28):

Yes. And he is, as you said, walking his motorcycle through the rain. And this right now is the introduction to … I mean, the music in this movie is fucking nuts, but it’s just swaps between the most somber piano and now this piano will recur throughout her episode depending on the seriousness of what we’re talking about.

Laci (00:51:45):

Okay.

Matt (00:51:47):

So it switches between this and just the most 80s synth you can imagine. So then we meet a Stelgeti. Beautiful. She plays Claire. Her department store, she’s just inherited it. It’s not doing well. Well, okay. We need to go.

Laci (00:52:02):

That’s very loud. Okay. Now I feel like I’m in the old country. All right.

Matt (00:52:06):

So Estel Geddi is Ms. Claire Timpkin. She’s inherited Princeton Company and Jonathan returns to the store to I call his mannequin and there he runs into Ms. Claire who she says, “Oh, I just recently inherited this store from my father. He died, but he died exactly where he wanted to be in women’s lingerie.” And Andrew McCarthy’s like, “What? I’m what? ” But she says lingerie. I should have gotten this clip. She says it’s so weird. She says it like laundry. In women’s laundry.

Laci (00:52:41):

Correct. What a good little piece of piece

Matt (00:52:44):

Of- Observation. Yeah. Thank you.

Laci (00:52:46):

What the fuck? Man, we’re spending a lot of time on this scene.

Matt (00:52:49):

Yes. Well, Jonathan, suddenly there’s a sign swinging away and Jonathan pushes her out of the way. Well,

Laci (00:52:55):

Instead of just saving her life, he also takes a ride on the fucking sign. You know what? To show his dedication to the money this woman is spending and how important this business is that these assets matter. They’re not disposable and therefore he will not be. He has been in the pattern.

Matt (00:53:13):

Well, he swings around on this sign for a long time. And she’s like, “What is your name, son?”

Laci (00:53:19):

And as if that’s not enough, he electrocutes his butt not once, but twice. So many gags.

Matt (00:53:25):

And here’s where we meet the synth score. Oh my God. Get my dad from here.

Laci (00:53:34):

Okay. Not Grease at all. And you’re doing your Travolta party.

Matt (00:53:37):

I don’t have that many voices. Tell me about this department store.

Laci (00:53:42):

This department store is amazing. In my head, this movie was a mall movie and I get it. It’s just if a mall were vertical because holy fucking shit, not since Madmen and even then have I seen a department store with, is it 11 floors? I mean, to be fair, the only floor that has a lot of surface area is the first one because the rest of them are kind of this wraparound thing, but it’s just immensely huge. Well,

Matt (00:54:09):

I think department stores have their origins in city centers and downtowns and we think of department stores as being in malls, but I think this is more the classic

Laci (00:54:18):

Thing. Yeah. And it feels that way. Hence, why it reminds me of the one in Madmen in the first season. It seems like the higher you go up, the darker it gets, the less populated it is. The more random the product. Here’s a mattress, something anyone needs to buy once every 10 years and they’re expensive and no one’s up here, but please don’t sleep in the bed for some reason, lady. Get your son out of the bed. I’m not speaking from personal experience. He likes the beds. Let the boy lay in the … All right.

Matt (00:54:48):

Who the fuck buys a bed from a department store?

Laci (00:54:51):

And who’s taking this home? How are we getting? I guess it gets delivered, but I always just assume the beds are there to show off the …

Matt (00:55:02):

The sheets and the blankets.

Laci (00:55:03):

Right. Which is in the comforters, which is true. It’s just in Madmen they’re selling beds. It confuses.

Matt (00:55:10):

Well, it’s not 1903 anymore where the point is, this is a store with departments, every department you need. Because where else are you going to get a bed? Where else are you going to get a toaster or a toy?

Laci (00:55:23):

And tools and hard things with soft things.

Matt (00:55:27):

This department store, Prince and Company, it’s empty. It’s almost like a department store right now. Every time we’re in a department store, I’m just like, how the hell is this place open? I’m outnumbered by employees like three to one. It makes no sense. But it’s very melancholy.

Laci (00:55:44):

Okay. Yeah, I’m bummed.

Matt (00:55:47):

Because it used to be a place where we’re rewatching Mad Men. Multiple women who get married say finally I could stop working at the department store, but it was a place where women could work. No,

Laci (00:55:57):

That makes sense.

Matt (00:55:58):

It was a path to middle class career. You didn’t have to be super educated and maybe you could even move up into corporate.

Laci (00:56:04):

Well, I mean, it’s a form of networking, right? Especially if you’re at the high end places, you’re going to meet and run into people who have decision making power and stuff in different companies.

Matt (00:56:15):

So the person who runs this store, his name is Mr. Richards. He doesn’t have a first name.

Laci (00:56:21):

I love this

Matt (00:56:21):

Character. And he’s James Spader. And yes, he’s very funny in this movie.

Laci (00:56:25):

He is good at being this guy.

Matt (00:56:27):

Love a fussy department store manager. It’s kind of a trope.

Laci (00:56:31):

There’s a lot to be done.

Matt (00:56:33):

Yeah.

Laci (00:56:33):

It’s a thankless job.

Matt (00:56:35):

So he is plotting to take over the department store/sell it/demolish it.

Laci (00:56:43):

Just I think to become the number two at the highest grossing one by sabotaging it so that it can be bought by the Lester guy.

Matt (00:56:53):

I think that’s it. Yeah, because he’s colluding with-

Laci (00:56:55):

And I’ll be the VP or some bullshit.

Matt (00:56:57):

Yeah, he’s colluding with Mr. Wirth over at a lush trust. Worked. Worked, sorry. And again, I returned to my theory. Just swap Spader and McCarthy and suddenly this movie works 50% better.

Laci (00:57:11):

Bader has such a punchable face though.

Matt (00:57:13):

Oh, okay.

Laci (00:57:14):

He’s got a little asshole face.

Matt (00:57:18):

So he would work with- He looks like a jerk.

Laci (00:57:20):

No.

Matt (00:57:21):

But okay. I watched some of Weekend at Bernie’s and yes, I agree. Yes, he is Andrew McCarthy. Funny in that. Yep. But he is weaponizing his inherent blandness as a … He’s a good shit heel. So make him a shit heel here.

Laci (00:57:37):

Oh, that’s true.

Matt (00:57:38):

And this movie needs to be about a weird guy, a guy who would fall in love with a mannequin. I mean, he doesn’t fall in love with the minute. He falls in love with a real woman, but there needs to be more weirdness to him. John Cusack

Laci (00:57:48):

Could have done that real well.

Matt (00:57:49):

Sure.

Laci (00:57:50):

He’s always fallen in love hard. No matter the scenario, no matter how much the girl doesn’t want to also love him.

Matt (00:57:58):

He will never give up.

Laci (00:58:00):

So because Jonathan rodeoed with a sign, saved a lady, he gets a new job, stockboy, pushed around panties, boxed panties for some fucking reason. And he knew exactly where department store windows are. Weirdly, they are inside of also where the dressing rooms are. I was like, why is he going straight to the ladies’ dressing rooms to try and find the mannequin? And one of the doors is the mannequin. If a non-woman needs to go change out these mannequins, why would you want someone walking straight through that department to do their job? Hence, why they work at night though, when you think about it, window dressers work at night. I had no idea.

Speaker 4 (00:58:41):

See anything you likes, winter?

Speaker 3 (00:58:42):

I was just looking for panties. Ah,

Speaker 4 (00:58:44):

Well, you found them however my friend

Laci (00:58:45):

Missed. You’re the scrubs department. Where are these ugly fucking clothes?

Speaker 4 (00:58:50):

Get going. Asshole. What was that? Oh.

Laci (00:58:58):

I’m glad you got the end of that clip where he’s just walking off and on carries footsteps. Perfect. Okay. What do you want me to say about this?

Matt (00:59:05):

Here’s what I want you to say. James Spader says lingerie exactly how you accuse me of saying the word lunch.

Laci (00:59:11):

I like that. The lingerie. How dare you make a thing? The lingerie

Speaker 4 (00:59:18):

Department. The lingerie department.

Matt (00:59:21):

Which I do not say.

Laci (00:59:22):

Yeah. Except for whatever you’re really interested in.

Matt (00:59:25):

Probably get really into it. Do you want to go out and get a bunch to eat for lorry? What do I say? What do you think I say?

Laci (00:59:34):

That’s what I just said.

Matt (00:59:35):

Say it.

Laci (00:59:36):

Lunch.

Matt (00:59:38):

What? You

Laci (00:59:38):

Put extra letters in there. I’m just

Matt (00:59:40):

Trying to sound like Spader.

Laci (00:59:42):

All right. Now we meet Hollywood Montrose, my favorite character in all of cinema it turns out. Now he is played by Mishak Taylor, who I was very sad to find out died it in 2014 and I wish you hadn’t put this picture of him because it makes me sad to think of him outside of the world The movie, How Dare You. But he is just the most supportive, understanding, flamboyant, smart, fucking creative. He’s just Johnny on the spot. He’s so supportive. He doesn’t know this man. Maybe it’s lonely working nights and he’s just happy to see someone else who cares about going the extra mile, whatever it is. But so much to love about this person.

Matt (01:00:26):

And crucially, he sees Jonathan, I see that you want to fuck the mannequin. I don’t judge you for it.

Laci (01:00:31):

Right.

Matt (01:00:31):

It’s okay.

Laci (01:00:32):

No harm.

Matt (01:00:32):

There’s

Laci (01:00:33):

No harm here.

Matt (01:00:34):

We’re a family here at Prince and Company.

Laci (01:00:36):

Not even that. Weird, recognized weird. And eccentric recognizes centric. I’m not talking about his sexuality. I am talking about he’s used to people not getting it.

Matt (01:00:47):

No, he is weird. Yes. And he even says that. I like you. Finally, I met someone who works here who’s stranger than I am. Yeah,

Laci (01:00:53):

Something like that.

Matt (01:00:53):

And now neither of us is gay so we can’t judge whether this performance is offensive. It does go over the top in every single character, every single stereotype.

Laci (01:01:05):

But I will say, I mean, it was already a well-founded character, right? Or which came before? Designing women or

Matt (01:01:10):

This? Designing women came first, which again- Eight

Laci (01:01:12):

Years, each seasons. And I guess they had enough information to know that this character worked for … I guess I can’t know. I can’t know if there was an outcry from the gay community to put it into that character that they would’ve done it or not done replicated on this movie. But from what I read, it was just nice to have representation, especially of a black person that is gay.

Matt (01:01:35):

Yes. I read an obituary … Well, article by a gay man in vulture, don’t remember the author’s name, but who said this was somebody he loved on designing women because he just didn’t see people like himself represented a gay man but a very eccentric and weird gay man like this. So no, my take is, he plays it with such joy, with such sweetness and such weirdness that, yeah, I really like it. It seems like a

Laci (01:02:06):

Celebration. And

Matt (01:02:07):

He’s not the butt of the joke at all. And everyone likes him. Even fucking asshole Andrew McCarthy.

Laci (01:02:13):

And I will say the only time he is made fun of and talked about in a derogatory way, Andrew McCarthy then says that that man’s a bigot. It’s corrected. It’s not a punchline.

Matt (01:02:25):

And the thing that Andrew McCarthy does in this movie that’s likable is he laughs along with Hollywood. Hollywood makes jokes and he laughs. I like in movies when characters laugh at each

Laci (01:02:35):

Other. I do too. It’s very Bob’s Burger. It’s very Bob of Bob’s Burger specifically. And you actually just put a nail in. One of the things that I like about Andrew McCarthy that he’s so natural. You say it’s bland. I say it’s realistic. He’s always snickering or laughing or making a little stupid joke squeezing something in there when it doesn’t need to go. But I guess-

Matt (01:02:58):

Real people are also boring and have no charisma or screen presses.

Laci (01:03:01):

But I think he does have charisma and I do think he says little things when he shouldn’t, but not in a like, “I’m so theatrical. I’m so precocious way.” Just in a very relatable way, it’s what I like about him. So there. All right. Now Captain Felix Maxwell, I’m pretty sure of Police Academy. I should have looked that up. And he is the night patrol and they show his white socks. So that’s how you know there’s no need to respect this man. It’s the equivalent of showing toilet paper on the bottom of his shoe. What idiot doesn’t even know to wear black socks or to have pants that go all the way to the bottom of the floor. But he takes himself very seriously. He’s probably ex- military. They might even say he is actually. They do.

Matt (01:03:41):

Dwight Schrute I’m kind of picking up on is …

Laci (01:03:45):

Don’t make me say it.

Matt (01:03:48):

Well, no, because that is not this character. No. I’m going

Laci (01:03:50):

To take my back off.

Matt (01:03:51):

Don’t do it. No, no, no, no because especially with what I’m going to say next. No, this guy definitely was at January 6th. No, he’s like a citizen soldier.

Laci (01:04:01):

Right. He needs to have that authority, that purpose again, that he liked that little bit of power and-

Matt (01:04:08):

He thinks he’s a troop, even though he’s not a troop anymore, but I’m still a troop. I’m going to bust into comic ping pong and save everybody here.

Laci (01:04:15):

I got you. I mean, when you peak then, when that’s the most purpose you’ve ever had, I do understand seeking it out in the real world and veterans don’t get any respect, not the way that you’re really supposed to. But he seems completely oblivious to how poorly he’s being treated and talked to by the guy he reports to. He’s kind of kissing his ass a little bit and or just taking it. But maybe that’s a military thing too. Just take it. No.

Matt (01:04:40):

So G.W. Bailey plays Felix, he does a fine job, but this is a character from a different movie. This is from a straight to Nickelodeon movie.

Laci (01:04:49):

I agree.

Matt (01:04:51):

Again, five different comedies in this one comedy. You

Laci (01:04:54):

Know what I realized after … I’m going to look it up. I should have already, but a weird coincidence in Mannequin two, the guy that plays weekend at Bernie is the bad guy. And he’s a good one. He’s funny. I remember him being very funny and over the top. But anyway, I was just like, oh, that’s the … Wait, there’s no connection there. They’re not in this movie. They’re in those movies together. Anyway.

Matt (01:05:17):

So the manning comes to life because- She’s

Laci (01:05:20):

So casual too.

Matt (01:05:21):

Jonathan is playing with the mannequin behind closed doors and suddenly she’s like, “Well, hello, I’m alive.” And he’s like, “Boo, what? ” But not what enough?

Laci (01:05:31):

No, he falls into the window. He does a great job.

Matt (01:05:35):

I’m saying the rules of physics and reality are not what I took them to be. Okay, I guess. It’s the same

Laci (01:05:43):

Thing with Pleasantville, right? It’s like, how long do we want

Matt (01:05:45):

To

Laci (01:05:46):

Freak

Matt (01:05:46):

Out to go?

Laci (01:05:46):

How much do we need it? I mean, they just need the movie to accept it and move on.

Matt (01:05:51):

I know. And then he’ll … I should probably get a cat scan after this. She only comes to life when other people aren’t around, although we don’t know that yet and we don’t know what causes this to happen. Is this woman’s spirit, this ancient Egyptian woman, it’s not tied to the corporeal form of the mannequin.

Laci (01:06:12):

We also don’t know how she came alive in all the other

Matt (01:06:15):

Times when she

Laci (01:06:15):

Did. I mean, they don’t explain it. I just assume her soul gets to possess an object.

Matt (01:06:21):

Could she possess like a Mr. Potato head?

Laci (01:06:23):

Well, and maybe this is why she’s met so many impressive characters. Maybe only a deserving, interesting person gets to. It doesn’t make sense, but why try to make something make sense so much if you’re not actually going to explain it later? Why do we even need this backstory?

Matt (01:06:42):

Yeah. I do kind of like a fantasy where everything is just kind of brushed. No, don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about that. I know there are people who do care about that, but that’s not the kind of story you’re watching.

Laci (01:06:53):

Just decide which one it is though. Yeah.

Matt (01:06:55):

So yeah, Kim Cottrell as Emmy and her British Canadian-ness does come out when she says, “Does this feel like an hallucination?” She says, “An hallucination.” It is a pet peeve of mine that Americans will sometimes inject an and before an H word. They’ll often say an historic. But the point is that if you were British, you would not say historic. You would say historic. So you’d say, “An historic. An historic.” Right,

Laci (01:07:24):

Because it’s how it sounds is not how it’s spelled.

Matt (01:07:26):

Exactly idiots. So they play with power tools and they run around the department store and frog and stuff.

Laci (01:07:34):

That’s all you’re going to say? It’s adorable. They wear all the clothes. Is this the montage of all the clothes?

Matt (01:07:39):

No, that’s later.

Laci (01:07:40):

Okay, good.

Matt (01:07:41):

It’s fine. It’s my favorite. Jonathan wonders if insanity’s covered in the company health plan.

Laci (01:07:46):

All right. But there’s no reason that we can really know if-

Matt (01:07:50):

If it covers it.

Laci (01:07:51):

Exactly. We need to talk to them. But also, I mean, there’s a reading of this movie that he is insane. Damn.

Matt (01:08:00):

This

Laci (01:08:00):

All was an illusion because he was at his lowest point. All right. Talk about the impossible bigness of his fucking apartment. Go on.

Matt (01:08:07):

Oh, no, I wouldn’t. That’s hack. To complain about how people in movies have enormous apartments that this is absurd. And he has a fucking grand piano in his apartment. Also, lots of books. He’s so soulful. He’s always reading books and he calls his mom and he’s like, “Mom, I know I’m so weird and I’m always doing weird things like playing baseball and stuff. But tell me, did I ever have any hallucinations when I was growing up and did ever a mannequin come to life or anything like that? ” And yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:36):

All righ.

Matt (01:08:38):

The window displays that Jonathan and Emmy and Hollywood, I guess, are teaming up to do.

Laci (01:08:44):

Hollywood didn’t do any of it, but maybe it might help later.

Matt (01:08:48):

But he’s the window dresser.

Laci (01:08:49):

He’s in charge of …

Matt (01:08:51):

Protecting his job.

Laci (01:08:53):

Yeah, he could have been read that way, but that’s why Hollywood’s so awesome. He rolls with it. He’s excited. He likes the creativity. But anyway, he left early because he needed to go be with Albert.

Matt (01:09:01):

That’s true. This screenplay is airtight. So it’s starting to attract a crowd. People are starting to show up, “What’s in this window? Why is this mannequin wearing that? And why are there tennis rackets?” Only one way to find out, how to go into the store and buy stuff. I wonder if, I’m sure you will say yes, but I wonder if there’s data on window displays actually affecting

Laci (01:09:22):

Sales. It brings me in. So yeah, I’m going to say yes because if something catches my eye, if there’s a style or a look or a range of styles that I like on a mannequin, I can assume that in the store are going to be things that I like. It’s a completely different experience to grab something that’s row by row by row, squinched in and pull it up and go, “What does that look like on a human?” You do need to see it on a form.

Matt (01:09:42):

Yes.

Laci (01:09:42):

And you need to see it outside. If there’s a row of shops, it’s the way you’re going to pull me into yours.

Matt (01:09:48):

Okay.

Laci (01:09:49):

Next question. You want to talk about babies?

Matt (01:09:53):

Babies.

Laci (01:09:54):

Homemaking, nipples. All the female topics that I know so much about.

Matt (01:10:00):

Yeah. Jonathan is getting all of this credit and James Spader, Richards is not happy about that. And he’s talking on the phone to Mr. BJ Wirt over at illustra because again, they’re colluding. They’re trying to take down this store and he is trying to get Jonathan fired because he set up this garish display. I don’t know what’s so garish about it, but everybody agrees this is bold and daring and garish and an unbecoming of Prince and Company.

Laci (01:10:31):

No one agrees.

Matt (01:10:32):

But sorry, am I missing something? What’s wrong with this display?

Laci (01:10:37):

It’s Kitch.

Matt (01:10:38):

It is?

Laci (01:10:38):

It’s not highbrow. Well, the fact that they … I mean, her outfit’s beautiful. It’s very playful pose, but they have electronics. They have a tennis ball going back and forth, which is why-

Matt (01:10:47):

Oh wait, there’s tennis rackets instead of people’s heads.

Laci (01:10:50):

Are you fucking

Matt (01:10:51):

Kidding? I

Laci (01:10:52):

Should notice. So the tennis rackets go back and forth like this the way you follow a tennis match. There’s a ball going back and forth between the two people making you look that person, that person. So it’s a double entendre. I can’t stop looking at these outfits. I can’t stop watching this game.

Matt (01:11:08):

Oh, this is garish and bold. Jesus. But I might have to shop at this point.

Laci (01:11:11):

You don’t just have face blindness. You have blindness when an object is used as a face.

Matt (01:11:16):

That’s true.

Laci (01:11:17):

What if it had been a Mac truck? You’d be dead.

Matt (01:11:19):

So Estelle Getty, sorry, because trying to say character names and not actor names.

Laci (01:11:24):

I know’ bad at that.

Matt (01:11:25):

Claire is leading this board meeting where Richards is trying to get Jonathan fired, but she won’t have it. She says, “In fact, I’m going to promote him because this is the most attention our store has ever gotten.” And then they go into the business of, “We’re near bankruptcy. We’re days away from bankruptcy. We got to sell to a lustron.” And she’s like, “But at 10% of our value, no, let’s give it another six weeks. Let’s try. Let’s double down on these weird window displays and see if anything happens with there.” So Jonathan gets his promotion and please go do your window stuff. James Bader is very funny here because once Jonathan’s job is saved, James Bader’s Richards is like, “Hey, I saved your job, Jonathan. You’re very welcome.” There

Laci (01:12:06):

Was everything I could do to keep

Matt (01:12:07):

You

Laci (01:12:07):

Here

Matt (01:12:08):

Funny. So then they fucking dance and costume

Laci (01:12:11):

Montage because- They wear the best stuff and they get to finally show off Andrew McCarthy’s little tricks too. He can do things with hats. He can dance kind of. He’s a sweetheart. The bottom line is they like being … If people can be silly together and they think it’s funny and they get each other’s humor, that’s it. This movie is a fast love, whirlwind love thing that actually does a good job of laying the groundwork for why two people like or love each other so much so quickly.

Matt (01:12:40):

Too boring people. Yeah, it makes sense. They’re

Laci (01:12:41):

Not boring. Look at them. They’re having a blast. You’re boring.

Matt (01:12:46):

This montage goes on for a long time. It’s

Laci (01:12:48):

Really fucking long.

Matt (01:12:49):

Laci in New Orleans says she loves costume montages, so they roll it.

Laci (01:12:53):

Oh, right.

Matt (01:12:54):

Which

Laci (01:12:55):

Is why I had a costume change too. This is not what I was wearing at the beginning of the episode.

Matt (01:12:58):

It was very exciting when you changed.

Laci (01:13:00):

You

Matt (01:13:00):

Made some gestures of me and I was like …

Laci (01:13:02):

So 80s, the shirt, man.

Matt (01:13:05):

Yeah. After this montage, I think is where it reveals that Emmy will turn back into a mannequin whenever anybody else comes around because Hollywood shows up and Jonathan’s like, “Hollywood, I want you to meet my girlfriend, Emmy.” What? You’re a mannequin again. And then he leaves, Hollywood leaves and Emmy comes back to life and says, “Oh, I forgot to tell you, you’re the only one who can see me. ” And he’s like, “Well, that’s not fair.” And she says, “Don’t ask me. Talk to them.” And she points up at the sky at the Egyptian gods at Amanra and Anubis. So they are real. They’re playing a role in this movie.

Laci (01:13:39):

So people are so excited. This is the 80s. There’s nothing else to do. They’re looking at these window displays. It’s on my way to work anyway. And now Roxy is given the very sexist mission of seducing Jonathan into working at Illustra so they can continue their plan of taking over the business. So she asks him to dinner. She’s very confident. He hilariously has worked at this restaurant before and apparently set an entire part of it on fire, which that joke’s funny. The balcony looks nice. They redid the balcony. Those parts are fine, but that they needed to burn a man’s toupee and put … I don’t know, just wasn’t very well done, but whatever. He says no. He can’t be bought. He’s not the same person, meaning he’s found love.

Matt (01:14:34):

I’m not the person you used to know three days ago.

Laci (01:14:37):

Fine. He’s had the most profound thing happen to him. Physics are different and he’s got someone who really appreciates him. He got a job and a promotion. Also, he’s good at sculpting, even though he’s not sculpting anything. But he’s an artist, Matt. He’s fulfilling all the shit. Spies. Okay. So now Felix the Cup and Roxy and Armaan catch Jonathan … I’m reading your notes and I’m not setting up the fucking premise. Okay. So since Jonathan says no, the big plan from Big BJ is that, well, then you go and spoil him. We got to get some dirt. We got to blackmail this guy into coming over here. So they get footage of him making sweet love to a mannequin, his mannequin, and take pictures of it like that’s some big deal. And Felix, the cop is also seeing him and trying to catch him and think he’s up to something, not sure what it is, but it’s gross.

Matt (01:15:41):

And he’s like, oh. What does he

Laci (01:15:42):

Think is happening?

Matt (01:15:43):

No, I don’t know, but he’s like- He’s going

Laci (01:15:44):

To be fucking every clothes rack and every mannequin. And who cares?

Matt (01:15:47):

You’re fucking this mannequin? I’ll show you what I think of that. And then he socks him in the face.

Laci (01:15:52):

Right. Standing up for mannequins? Yeah.

Matt (01:15:54):

What’s

Laci (01:15:54):

He doing? I

Matt (01:15:56):

Don’t know. He says, “I’m just a weirdo artist. This is just how I work. This is how I get my answers.” So yes, I think that’s a good defense. I think it would work. I think that he could keep this up for probably 30 years until maybe 2017 when a shocking expose comes out about what he’s really doing.

Laci (01:16:15):

Okay. This is a very weird part of the movie. I guess she’s just … They need to hurry up and have her fulfill all those things she wanted while she was talking to her mom because at the end of the day, all she’s really fulfilling is a love story. She’s only just marrying a guy and getting married and he’s going to love her for the rest of her life. So is it that much different from what she was going to do in Egypt? But wait, before she commits, she’s going to get in one of those fricking weird parasite … What are they called? It’s a hang life. A hang glider with the weird body, like the dead body thing attached to it. It’s just a weird body bag that you put your legs in. It’s not becoming. And she flies down the middle of the giant store, like Amelia Earhart in her little outfit.

(01:16:57):

And that is smittening material for the Jonathan here. Yeah,

Matt (01:17:03):

Because she’s like, Jonathan, there’s never been anyone more special than you in 4,000 years of human history. Yes, there has.

Laci (01:17:10):

Come on. Chris. It is nice that they imply in a not weird way that Christopher Columbus is gay.

Matt (01:17:17):

No, they don’t. No, Michelangelo.

Laci (01:17:19):

Him two. Both. Together they were together.

Matt (01:17:22):

No, she dated Michelangelo, but he was more into a guy named David.

Laci (01:17:26):

Oh, right.

Matt (01:17:27):

Her guy named Chris, I told him, because I’m smart, that the world is round, which Christopher Columbus knew the world was round. Everyone knew that at

Laci (01:17:35):

The time. She told him. No,

Matt (01:17:36):

I know. That’s how

Laci (01:17:37):

You found out.

Matt (01:17:39):

Yeah. Hey, you think if you lived for 4,000 years, do you at a certain point you forget everything, right?

Laci (01:17:49):

Are you asking me personally?

Matt (01:17:51):

Yeah. I can barely remember 10 years ago. My memories are fading fast.

Laci (01:17:56):

Oh, you’re so right. I mean, she’s magical, right? She made his motorcycle start. So I mean, does that mean she can also retain-

Matt (01:18:02):

Her brain tissue is stronger? But

Laci (01:18:03):

Wait, also I don’t know that she has experienced every part of the history. And what I thought was that she kind of pops in and out. So to her, she’s just had probably 30 years of memories and it’s just that they’ve all been at different times and because what else would explain her weird Egyptian dancing? Why does she only know how to dance like an Egyptian if she’s been through all of humanity up until this point? The Charleston should have been on the table at some point, I’m saying. Yeah,

Matt (01:18:32):

Because she doesn’t know things like when the music starts playing on the speakers, she’s like, “Where are the musicians?”

Laci (01:18:37):

Right. So she doesn’t know what happened up. There’s gaps. So she’s worldly, she knows things, but I think she’s only been popped in and out of time.

Matt (01:18:48):

I do like to think about having eternal life and you’d change your name probably every few hundred years because you’d literally just feel like you’re a different person.

Laci (01:18:59):

You said you change your name every five years on the Fried Green Tomatoes episode.

Matt (01:19:03):

I did? Why did I say that? Because

Laci (01:19:05):

You’re a different person.

Matt (01:19:07):

Five years. I thought

Laci (01:19:08):

It was a short window of time as well. I guess you’re an

Matt (01:19:11):

Idiot. No, I had read an article about that idea of are we the same person? Does it even make sense to use the same name we used, which is something … Philosophers have debated for a long time, but what do I have in common with the four year old version of myself? Something to ponder, ladies and gentlemen.

Laci (01:19:30):

I don’t have enough of

Matt (01:19:31):

That. Jonathan is on the up and up. Well, he’s ascendant. He’s a star and we get spinning newspaper headlines like-

Laci (01:19:40):

Luster Prophet’s down.

Matt (01:19:41):

Windowman does good window stuff.

Laci (01:19:44):

Why are they going to feature illustrat and for some reason they care about BJ Wort. I mean, is he

Matt (01:19:49):

… He’s a regional man.

Laci (01:19:51):

He’s a regional. Look, it’s a huge picture of him too.

Matt (01:19:54):

I know. This son of a bitch is doing a bad job.

Laci (01:19:57):

He’s wartless.

Matt (01:20:00):

Nice.

Laci (01:20:00):

Thank you.

Matt (01:20:01):

So Richards and Felix the cop-

Laci (01:20:04):

The son of a bitch is doing a … What an incentive to do good at your work.

Matt (01:20:10):

You don’t

Laci (01:20:11):

Want to make it on page four. The press to nail your ass. What? That’s just reserved for own of the what, day, week, whatever.

Matt (01:20:19):

Yeah, the

Laci (01:20:20):

Fucking- You got to find yourself on page four.

Matt (01:20:22):

Philadelphia newspaper man whose beat is departments doors.

Laci (01:20:27):

No, just anyone that sucks at their job right now. They’d really sell that ad space. You got anybody you hate? $25. It would be a hit.

Matt (01:20:38):

Richards and Felix, they get fired because they’re doing weird stuff. They’re spying on Jonathan in the middle of the night. And Claire Estel Getty doesn’t like that and she says …

Laci (01:20:52):

That is quite a role to just fire … I mean, he clearly runs the everyday operations of the entire 11 floor.

Matt (01:21:00):

She has Jonathan now. She doesn’t need it.

Laci (01:21:01):

He doesn’t do the administrative

Matt (01:21:03):

Work.

Laci (01:21:03):

Doesn’t matter. All right then.

Matt (01:21:05):

It is a little rash, but here’s- And then

Laci (01:21:08):

She makes him a vice president.

Matt (01:21:09):

She says this. Oh, because when Kim Cottrell was flying in the hang glider, she crashed it into Felix and knocked him out for the night. So he woke up 12 hours later in the store and Claire’s like, “Mr. Richards, is this what you call a security officer who sleeps on the floor, whatever?” So she says, “He’s fired.” And then James Spader’s like, “Oh, how could you fly?” Don’t do his voice.

Laci (01:21:36):

It’s gross what you’re doing.

Matt (01:21:37):

And she says, “You know what? When you escort him to pick up his last paycheck, pick up your own last paycheck, Mr. So it recurs again the

Laci (01:21:48):

Paycheck line.” Oh God, I didn’t know where the fuck this point was going.

Matt (01:21:51):

It’s all connected. Jonathan, a lot of pressure on him now. He’s got the big job. He’s got to do window stuff real good, but he’s not doing the window stuff. It’s actually his girlfriend who is the one see. He’s helping, but it’s not-

Laci (01:22:08):

He ends up being the one that’s completely doing it.

Matt (01:22:11):

At this point though, it’s not. At this point it’s all Emmy. So it’s basically ratatouille. You just

Laci (01:22:17):

Want to say that.

Matt (01:22:19):

Yes. This store is really successful montage. Everything’s going great.

Laci (01:22:24):

Except for he every day needs to go into the women’s bathroom and definitely do hand stuff with that mannequin.

Matt (01:22:30):

Yes. Yes, he does.

Laci (01:22:32):

This guy fucks is the name of this slide.

Matt (01:22:34):

This guy

Laci (01:22:35):

Fucks.

Matt (01:22:36):

A mannequin. His coworkers are like, “He went in the bathroom again to fuck his mannequin. Let’s listen.” But

Laci (01:22:42):

Why the women’s bathroom? That’s polite to go into the women’s one?

Matt (01:22:47):

You know who doesn’t like this. She wrote about a certain wizard. Illustra, they’re going to blackmail Jonathan with the pictures of him smooching with his mannequin and they’re going to make him come work for us instead. Come make our windows good, please.

Laci (01:23:04):

Don’t you want to be here

Matt (01:23:05):

Where all the black male is? Or else we’ll release these photos to the press and your picture will be large.

Laci (01:23:12):

You’re on page four.

Matt (01:23:13):

He takes her into the bathroom. He’s like, “Great news, Emmy. I’m the vice president.” And she’s like, “That’s great.” But then for a second, looks kind of somber.

Laci (01:23:20):

They don’t have miles and miles of back storage room areas. Just ghost places where all kinds of old stock has just been pushed over. Where do they kep the winter stuff? 11 floors. I mean, you got to go in the fucking executive women’s bathroom. He doesn’t even seem to be on the floor, the shopping floor. He seems to be in the boardroom, executive floor. Look at the nice … Do hand stuff with Emmy in a different bathroom, or not a bathroom at all. I

Matt (01:23:49):

Did write several times. So are they having sex in my notes? No, they’re

Laci (01:23:52):

Just talking.

Matt (01:23:53):

I would say canonically they’re not having sex

Laci (01:23:55):

Yet. No, I know.

Matt (01:23:58):

Also,

Laci (01:23:58):

Get a wagon. Pull her around in a wagon. That’d be cute.

Matt (01:24:03):

But she’s like, “Oh, I only wish.” And he’s like, “No, I’m sorry, Emmy. I never asked you about your day. I know that I’m getting all the credit for your work.” And she’s like, “But I’m happy about that. I’m fine. I don’t need anything else beyond doing all your work for you and you getting all the credit and me never getting to see anybody else.” And then-

Laci (01:24:21):

I’ll bet you’re great. I wouldn’t know. I only ever get to see one man at a time. Every time I pop into history, one guy and I turn to a mannequin. That’s right.

Matt (01:24:34):

Hollywood- My

Laci (01:24:35):

Lamjolo, she was a sculptor.

Matt (01:24:37):

That makes sense. And

Laci (01:24:38):

Then for Christopher Columbus, she was a boat.

Matt (01:24:41):

The whole boat?

Laci (01:24:43):

He was in her.

Matt (01:24:44):

Ooh. Hollywood comes into the bathroom and she turns back into a mannequin and he’s like, “Hey, you’ve kind of taken my job.” And he’s like, “Don’t worry. I failed up into a position of power so I’ll protect your job forever.” Yes.

Laci (01:24:56):

Okay. But very sweetly, all the little assholes are like all the employees who got their ear to the door, they’re listening, they’re being total gross voyeur idiot judgers. And Hollywood walks up and he tells everybody to go, “Fuck off. I think it’s very sweet.”

Matt (01:25:13):

That’s not true. He says, “How dare you eaves drop on him without me. “

Laci (01:25:18):

Oh damn

Matt (01:25:19):

It. So he joins in on the eves dropping.

Laci (01:25:21):

Okay, but he normalizes it. Whatever, he’s great. He’s infallible. Go ahead.

Matt (01:25:25):

I will. Jonathan decides I’m going to publicly acknowledge that I’m dating my man again.

Laci (01:25:30):

Good for him.

Matt (01:25:31):

And he takes her out on a date on the back of his motorcycle. Who cares? Who knows? This kind of reminded me of the movie Her where Joaquin Phoenix starts dating his voice assistant and he tells his coworker and the cork is like, “Yeah, a lot of people are doing that now.” But Roxy shows up. She’s like, “Please work for Illustra. Please, please, please work for Illustra.” And he’s like, “No, I work for Princeton Company. We care about each other. We’re a family here. Our jobs are totally not going to go away in eight years when Amazon takes over.” She’ll be

Laci (01:26:00):

An old mannequin by then.

Matt (01:26:02):

They finally fuck.

Laci (01:26:06):

I like that they make it clear that now it’s fucked time.

Matt (01:26:08):

Yeah.

Laci (01:26:08):

Because I was unclear. I just assume.

Matt (01:26:11):

No, I assume too, but now you know.

Laci (01:26:13):

Right. That’s sweet. So after romantic sex, Johnson falls asleep. I’ll never understand. People in a dangerous, precarious situation, they’re not in their own home and they’re doing something they’re not supposed to usually fucking and they get fucked so good they fall asleep in the place they shouldn’t be.

Matt (01:26:35):

He is a deep and weird tortured artist. He lives for this shit. The toxins and hormones in his brain, you know what I’m saying? Get all released and he has to go to sleep in the tent, in the middle of the store.

Laci (01:26:46):

All right. Anyway, so he wakes up in fur or whatever. I don’t know what he’s wearing.

Matt (01:26:50):

He’s covered in fur. Covered in

Laci (01:26:51):

Fur. The

Matt (01:26:52):

Tent is gone.

Laci (01:26:53):

He drifted over into the-

Matt (01:26:55):

The fur

Laci (01:26:55):

Section. The bear rugs section. Because you go camping, you need a tent, you kill a bear and then you make rugs. And so it’s all in the same department. Floor seven.

Matt (01:27:07):

I did like this. The crowd, they wake up, it’s 11:30 in the morning and he’s naked in the middle of the store, but he doesn’t get fired.

Laci (01:27:14):

They applaud him though, right? Yeah,

Matt (01:27:15):

I like that. Like it was

Laci (01:27:16):

Some sort of performance office.

Matt (01:27:16):

Yeah, because somebody says, this is on the subtitles. They’re like, “Oh, it’s theater. I get

Laci (01:27:21):

It. ” And yeah, I don’t want to be left out of

Matt (01:27:23):

This. Yeah. It’s funny. Oh, I forgot to say that before he falls asleep, he says to Emmy, “You inspire me. We could build cities, design things with care and dignity.” People need that.

Laci (01:27:33):

Huh. How do you feel about that? That

Matt (01:27:37):

Gets dumb.

Laci (01:27:38):

Ah, piss. All right. There’s this … God, illustra. We’re in illustra right now. Oh, there’s a heist. Did we skip? So while the fucking is happening? No, wait, we’re skipping some parts. I don’t understand.

Matt (01:27:55):

They steal the mannequin. Yeah,

Laci (01:27:56):

But he’s busy doing something. I forget why he’s distracted.

Matt (01:28:00):

No, while he’s asleep, they steal the mannequin.

Laci (01:28:02):

Oh,

Matt (01:28:02):

1. So he falls asleep. Emmy goes back to her window.

Laci (01:28:05):

Okay.

Matt (01:28:05):

And that’s when they steal her.

Laci (01:28:06):

Emmy goes back to her window. But they steal a lot of mannequins because they can’t tell the difference. They hide him in the storage room, which that’s fine. This is a giant department store. And then I think they let Jonathan know that we’ve got your girls or work here. You never see her again. I can’t actually-

Matt (01:28:24):

Yeah, Hollywood’s like bad news. The mannequins have all been stolen and so he runs over here.

Laci (01:28:29):

He runs where to go. Okay. And then that’s where we’re like, “You’ll get her back if you work here.” And then for some reason, well, because he says no, but Roxy freaks the fuck out and just runs to where she is. The mannequins are all hiding, which is like, you don’t have to do that. Also, why you got to take his love? He’s finally happy asshole. She probably thinks he can just get another mannequin. She doesn’t understand.

Matt (01:28:51):

To be fair, she doesn’t know that it’s a living being.

Laci (01:28:54):

Yeah, but she knows how attached to it he is.

Matt (01:28:56):

Yeah, but she thinks he’s a child. She thinks my used to date a child who’s obsessed with a toy.

Laci (01:29:01):

That’s fine. But you don’t take that child’s toy and then incinerate it or destroy it. That’s fucking cruel

Matt (01:29:06):

And horrible. You do if you’re scorned ex- lover.

Laci (01:29:09):

You shouldn’t be fucking children, Roxy.

Matt (01:29:11):

I agree with that.

Laci (01:29:12):

He was too infatal for you to date. You shouldn’t have been taking advantage of him the whole time. She wanted a lovesick, putty in her hands kind of guy. I see you, Roxy.

Matt (01:29:20):

No, she’s disgusting.

Laci (01:29:21):

Disgusting. Get some more shoulder pads. You look so unboxy. Roxy. Okay. Here comes my man, Hollywood to the rescue because Jonathan chases her for far too long. It’s a giant store.

Matt (01:29:39):

I like that there’s like 20 cops chasing him through the clothes section and it’s just like throwing aside the clothes unnecessarily.

Laci (01:29:46):

All of this is someone’s art or job or something. A lot of care. If you’ve ever worked in retail, which I did briefly, it is horrible, thankless, precise boring work. And the work I see put Into this shit, line up each pair of pants in the same order by size. There’s a whole art to it and they just … Anyway.

Matt (01:30:09):

Got them.

Laci (01:30:10):

Yeah. They chase them all the way back into the back of this building that looks like the place in us where all the people who are tethered live. That’s how big and giant this area is. But Hollywood comes to the rescue because Jonathan … Roxy puts all the mannequins on a big giant conveyor belt Ala Toy Story three. It takes a really long time to get up to the place where it then goes into the chopper. I don’t know why you can’t just stick them straight to the fucking chopper. But anyway, so for dramatic effect, we’re watching it. He’s running out of time. Jonathan needs to get away from these cops. Don’t worry. For some reason there’s a giant fire hose and Hollywood’s going to spray it. And there’s two things Hollywood likes and that’s fighting and kissing boys.

Matt (01:30:59):

And then once they turn off the water and he runs away, James Baders yells at the cops, shoot him. What an upset that this unarmed black man doesn’t get shot by the cops. Is

Laci (01:31:08):

That what he says?

Matt (01:31:08):

Yeah. But it’s shoot him. It’s funny.

Laci (01:31:12):

Boom. Give more shot on the arm.

Matt (01:31:14):

But then Emmy is about to … The mannequin is about to fall into the incinerator, but Jonathan saves her because she comes to life.

Laci (01:31:21):

And for some reason, for the first time … Wait, wait, wait. Before she comes to life, he’s struggling to get this mannequin out of there. He’s been totally worried about down the store all over the place. And all of a sudden …

Matt (01:31:34):

When suddenly she has blood and tissue and stuff inside her, she’s lighter and he can pull her up.

Laci (01:31:39):

No, Matt. I’m saying when she was not … She came to life eventually, but he’s pulling up a wooden mannequin for half of it.

Matt (01:31:47):

I know. I was jokingly saying that suddenly she’s a real person, but now she’s …

Laci (01:31:54):

Really good joke. Anyway, he saves her life and now she is alive. For some reason this … You know what? What? Jonathan was the first person that the gods popped her into existence, into their life and did something truly selfless, I guess, except for he wants her. It’s not selfless. I’m saving the person I love.

Matt (01:32:14):

My income depends on you.

Laci (01:32:16):

He’s heroic and this brings her to actual life for some fucking reason.

Matt (01:32:20):

It’s very sweet. God’s work in mysterious ways, the ancient Egyptian gods. And then all the cops are like, “I don’t know who do we shoot. Just shoot them all just to be safe.” But then a Stalgetti shows up and she’s like, “Wait a minute, I have a videotape. I installed a security camera system finally and it shows that you people have been sneaking around my store and illegally spying on my employees. Arrest these men.” And the cops are like, “Oh, okay, I guess.” So yeah. And then Jonathan is like, “Boss, you see everything on those tapes?” And she’s like, “I saw everything I needed to. ” And he’s like, “Everything?” And she’s like, “Everything.” I saw you eating that mannequin

Laci (01:33:03):

Dress. All right. They’re so easy to pose though. You can get right to that anus. And then they get married and Hollywood cries and smells sweet and then they play the world’s best song.

Matt (01:33:17):

Which is?

Laci (01:33:18):

No.

Matt (01:33:19):

No. What is the name of the song?

Laci (01:33:21):

Nothing’s going to stop us now. The mannequin song. Opens

Matt (01:33:23):

The

Laci (01:33:23):

Mannequins. Starship.

Matt (01:33:25):

Okay. And it’s nice. I’m very proud of you, Love. All right, go ahead. Sing it.

Laci (01:33:31):

Well, no, I wonder if you want it.

Matt (01:33:34):

What if I put the character-

Laci (01:33:34):

Nothing’s going to stop us now. That’s all you get until we’re alone.

Matt (01:33:41):

Presumably she has a social security number now.

Laci (01:33:44):

Yeah. That all came into her purse whenever she was brought to life.

Matt (01:33:49):

Yes. It is nice that, hey, you got to get married because the Christian God will frown on.

Laci (01:33:55):

Right. They can’t even co-habitate an apartment and see what it’s like whenever everyone can see her and she

Matt (01:34:02):

Gets

Laci (01:34:02):

Attention from other humans.

Matt (01:34:03):

Ronald in Minneapolis likes weddings at the end of movies.

Laci (01:34:07):

Ronald for

Matt (01:34:07):

Minneapolis. On our last episode, you were so resistant to giving me final thoughts. Are you familiar with Laci, let me tell you how you tell people stuff. You tell them what you’re going to tell them. You tell them and then you tell them what you told them.

Laci (01:34:31):

Are you mansplaining what you explained and now you’re splaining it in my face right now? Hmm? Is that what you’re doing?

Matt (01:34:36):

It appears so. So what are your final thoughts on Mannequin?

Laci (01:34:39):

Okay. Well, I will say that 10 minutes into this movie, I was fucking devastated. I looked at you and I said, “Did I pick the first and only unwatchable movie of this entire podcast?” Because it takes a fucking minute. Parenthood. But once it gets going, boy. Oh, it’s cooking.

Matt (01:34:55):

Goes hard.

Laci (01:34:56):

I see why I liked it. I still like it. It’s just relaxing. If I was hungover, I’d like to watch. There’s no stakes. Everything turns out well. People really like each other. Bad guys are bad. Good guys are good. It’s so uncomplicated. I love that. All the outfits, stop it. Oh, my final thought.

Matt (01:35:18):

Star rating.

Laci (01:35:18):

Three.

Matt (01:35:19):

Three?

Laci (01:35:20):

Yeah. I don’t give fives. Okay. There’s five stars and this one got all the way up to three. Good for it.

Matt (01:35:28):

I’m going to go with 2.25.

Laci (01:35:31):

Oh my.

Matt (01:35:33):

I love that you love it. I love what a good time you and the kid had watching it. The kid did enjoy it. And I appreciate a lot about it and I think that most of these actors do yeoman’s work. They do a good job. I don’t think this director maybe knows what he’s doing and maybe should stick to video games and McDonald’s commercials.

Laci (01:35:51):

Jesus. Go back to flipping

Matt (01:35:53):

Burgers. And I certainly did not … I think Andrew McCarthy is a bad leading man for this material. You need a weirdo or you just get John Cusack who’s just weird enough.

Laci (01:36:05):

Yeah. He’s a little goth edge on him.

Matt (01:36:08):

Little bit.

Laci (01:36:09):

Because of that brunette hair.

Matt (01:36:13):

So that’s mannequin. May the gods of Egypt bless you and keep you. And hey people, if you’re so pleased, we are on YouTube where we post our video episodes in full. So if you’re listening, well, hey, if you’re listening, give us five stars, please. We never ask that. On

Laci (01:36:31):

Apple podcasts, pretty please.

Matt (01:36:33):

And I think Spotify can do that as well. It makes a difference.

Laci (01:36:35):

It makes a difference.

Matt (01:36:36):

But if you’re listening, you can watch this as well. If you’re watching, you can listen. Load Bearing Beamspot on YouTube. Hey, Laci’s spinning a drumstick.

Laci (01:36:42):

I noticing it.

Matt (01:36:43):

Look at a

Laci (01:36:44):

Bear. As soon as you gave it to me and I fucked it up.

Matt (01:36:47):

Load bearing pot on Twitter. Load bearing beams on Instagram, load.bearing.beams on TikTok.

Laci (01:36:52):

Which brings me to this. Thank you for saying TikTok.That’s the buzzword. That’s when everyone goes, “Ah.” Here’s why. Because every week starting two weeks ago, I say thank you to the very sweet, wonderful, knowledgeable community of Film Talk and the people who have welcomed us with open arms. And today I feature two women of the Film Talk. There’s not a ton of us and so I just wanted to point to two pages. They make a lot of content and it’s good and engaging and their names are Laura Ann Reviews. Go follow her, do it. And Jen walks into walls. That’s what the letter in and the number two. You see this here. Okay. Anyway, go follow their pages.

Matt (01:37:39):

Follow them. They are worth your time.

Laci (01:37:41):

Indeed.

Matt (01:37:42):

And then follow me on Letterboxd Matt Stokes nine to see what I watch when I wash.

Laci (01:37:49):

No. Laush while you wash.

Matt (01:37:53):

Sometimes.

Laci (01:37:55):

Matt, this music is … Where could they get it?

Matt (01:37:59):

Thank you for asking. The music on Load Bearing Beams is by my band, Rural Route nine. Well, I should say the original music. There’s some stock music also, but the big- Not on the

Laci (01:38:08):

Album.

Matt (01:38:08):

The big … No, not on the album. Like the Sith music you heard in this episode. My band didn’t do that, but we do the song you’re hearing now and a lot of the interstitials and the theme. Load Bearing Beams is our podcast. Rural Route nine is the band-

Laci (01:38:22):

Still is. …

Matt (01:38:22):

That I have. I played the guitar in that band.

Laci (01:38:25):

And you play the Vokes.

Matt (01:38:26):

Yep. And we have an album, The Joy of Averages, which you can listen to on Spotify, Apple Music and everywhere else. Please check us out. Thank you so much. Love doing this podcast and playing my tunes.

Laci (01:38:39):

Okay. I love you. Bye.