Sideways (2004)

Matt (00:00:21):

Hello and welcome to 1-Week Rental: A Movie Podcast, where we spend the week with a movie deeply considering the movie and bonding with it and then we tell you all about it. “Here’s the thing about Sideways.” I’m Matt Stokes. I stick my big old beak into a glass of movie and I’m like, “I’m detecting a faint hint of a Bernard Herman illusions in the score.” Who’s with me?

Laci (00:00:44):

I’m Laci Roth. I am his newb of a wife, although not new to being his wife. That’s 13 years old. But I’m not a film snob, but I’m growing to be a cinephile and loving it. I know more now than ever. I like to think about movies and where they were made and that they are a living thing and that I was trying to do her speech whatsoever.

Matt (00:01:10):

I meant to sample that tinkly piano and I could just sprinkle it throughout the … It’s

Laci (00:01:15):

Not too late.

Matt (00:01:16):

Maya’s the … Yeah, but I wanted you to hear it in real

Laci (00:01:18):

Time. Tinkle

Matt (00:01:18):

It. Truly, the only thing I dislike about the movie is the

Laci (00:01:21):

Tiny

Matt (00:01:22):

Little

Laci (00:01:22):

Tinkle. Or divorce me.

Matt (00:01:24):

It has even made me think I don’t like Virginia Madsen in the movie. Wrong. I like her a lot in the movie. It’s that tinkly piano. What are they doing?

Laci (00:01:31):

She’s angelic. She’s matching his vibe, but she’s showing how to do it without being morosed and stuck up.

Matt (00:01:38):

Whenever she says anything.

Laci (00:01:42):

Because you look at a character like Miles and you think, who could please you? He’s the Pinot Grape. He’s what he’s describing. It takes a very specific, very special kind of care to pull out what is amazing about him. And that’s why she tinkles when you look at her.

Matt (00:01:57):

I agree.That’s what makes me okay with … I still don’t like the tinkle, but yeah, she’s performative for him.

Laci (00:02:06):

Yes. She’s doing the Pinot area. She’s even becoming a horticulturist just so that she can tend to him.

Matt (00:02:19):

Each week we dive deep into a different movie, such as Sideways, the movie we’re covering.

Laci (00:02:23):

I have a theory.

Matt (00:02:23):

Today we spend the week with it reading multiple interviews with the people who made it.

Laci (00:02:28):

Some of us and we talk about what works, what doesn’t work. We do some psychoanalysis of the people who made it, the characters in it. We don’t give any care if we’re right or wrong. It’s opinions, man. What we try to do is expand on the movie. You can watch a movie and we can tell you about it, but what if we tell you our thoughts about it?

Matt (00:02:48):

Spoiler alert for everything we talk about. We’re going to spoil sideways. It ends with him knocking on a door. Sorry to ruin it for you. But assume if you’re watching this or listening to this, you don’t care. You’ve seen the movie. If you’ve not seen Sideways, what’s wrong with you?

Laci (00:03:00):

Please get out of your shell and into mine where I play the movie Sideways.

Matt (00:03:05):

I think Sideways is like-

Laci (00:03:07):

A perfect movie.

Matt (00:03:08):

I know that The Dark Night made more money, but I think this is the biggest movie of the 2000s. Wait,

Laci (00:03:15):

Why?

Matt (00:03:16):

I don’t know how you measure this, but just some combination of enduring cultural legacy, popularity and critical acclaim at the time.

Laci (00:03:23):

Okay.

Matt (00:03:24):

Because I just think it’s such a big movie for just normal people and for grownups.

Laci (00:03:30):

I don’t feel like I ever bring it up and people go, “Oh, I’ve seen that. ” I feel like it’s just people we like that have seen it.

Matt (00:03:37):

Maybe I’m in my elite coastal bubble.

Laci (00:03:38):

It’s not that. It’s just people who care about movies care about this movie.

Matt (00:03:43):

I think people who don’t care about movies like this movie, they’ve seen this movie.This is their cultural movie that they’ve seen and they like it. And you’ve seen it many times before this. Yes? Yes. Okay. At

Laci (00:03:54):

Least five.

Matt (00:03:55):

And Alexander Payne has made many movies that we love. We did an episode on election go to November of 2024. We’re like, “Hey, this will be fun. We’ll cover the movie election as a theme tying into the grand old election happening in real life.” Look,

Laci (00:04:09):

We did. Look at how we did that.

Matt (00:04:10):

It’s our fault, sorry. But that’s a great episode. So check out election. And any more business we need to attend to? Just this- Funny

Laci (00:04:17):

Business. I’ll probably do some of that.

Matt (00:04:20):

Yeah, yeah. So be on the lookout for laughing.

Laci (00:04:23):

Ty Jinx.

Matt (00:04:24):

If you’re laughing, you’d be like, “She told me this would happen.” Just a huge movie for me comes out when I’m 16 and I felt like it was my movie for me.

Laci (00:04:35):

I know what you mean by that.

Matt (00:04:36):

Despite it being a massive hit, a critical darling, nominated for a billion Oscars, I was like, it’s just this smalllight I know. And very,

Laci (00:04:42):

Very, very much for adults. I can’t imagine absorbing it when you’re 16 and going, “Yeah, no, I

Matt (00:04:47):

Get it. ” I

Laci (00:04:48):

Get it.

Matt (00:04:49):

Like election and Alexander Payne’s great at this, is you’re like, “Yeah, these are movies for thinking people who do some book learning and they’re very sophisticated.” And then the guy would be like, “Her pussy gets so bad.”

Laci (00:05:01):

Oh, you’re right.

Matt (00:05:02):

Or this movie where it’s like, oh, now MC Gainey’s just running around with his dick out.

Laci (00:05:06):

MC Gainey. Is that the name of the husband of the …

Matt (00:05:10):

He’s from Lost.

Laci (00:05:11):

Oh, okay. All right. Well-

Matt (00:05:13):

Sideways. I love Sideways. Yeah. Did not diminish at all. Like Virginia Madsen’s speech, the wine will taste the way it tastes only that specific day. It’s going to taste different anytime you open the bottle.

Laci (00:05:27):

I was serious when I said it’s a living thing. The experience I have watching this movie yesterday and today, it will be different a year from now.

Matt (00:05:35):

Absolutely. Especially because we’re the age of these characters now. We might even be older.

Laci (00:05:39):

Okay. Watch your mouth.

Matt (00:05:41):

But a 16 year old watching this movie is like these people are ancient. But I think what’s special about this movie among other things is it’s about … There are lots of movies that are about adults and people in their 50s and 60s in second marriages and stuff, but plenty of people get divorced and their lives fall apart in their 30s and they’re like, “I’m 37 and have to suddenly figure out how to be a person again.” And that’s kind of weird and that’s what this movie’s kind of all about.

Laci (00:06:07):

Yeah, especially, I mean, what’s the policy on teachers dating each other? He’s eighth grade teacher. I mean, he’d have the same struggles anyone does a little bit easier than if it were taking place now. But where the fuck do you meet people? If not in college, if not because you work at a restaurant with a bunch of people that are your age, once you get to get to your final resting place, unless it’s Google or something, hustling and bustling, it’s just not a lot of sweet tale walking by.

Matt (00:06:34):

Although I think he might have the perfect hobby to be able to meet people and everywhere he goes- Video wine

Laci (00:06:39):

Tasting?

Matt (00:06:40):

Yeah. And everywhere he goes in wine country, everyone knows him and likes him. You’re doing great, Miles. Be better. I

Laci (00:06:47):

Have thoughts.

Matt (00:06:48):

Okay. All right, you have thoughts. So we’re going to unpack the history of Sideways, starting with the author, Rex Pickett. If you just love the movie Sideways is your first time with 1-Week Rental. There’s two components to each episode, the history segment and then the movie discussion itself. History segment is the only part we put on YouTube. The movie discussion you have to listen to the podcast and your RSS feed, your Apple podcast is fine. Which is free. It’s

Laci (00:07:11):

Totally

Matt (00:07:11):

Free. Yeah, this is all free. We

Laci (00:07:13):

Just want you to come on over.

Matt (00:07:14):

Come on over.

Laci (00:07:15):

We can’t give you our Christine sweet ass. You’ll go marry … No, we can’t give you our … What is her name?

Matt (00:07:22):

Jessica Heck. No.

Laci (00:07:23):

No, Sandra O’s character.

Matt (00:07:26):

Oh, Stephanie.

Laci (00:07:29):

We can’t give you our Stephanie sweet ass. You’ll go marry Christine on Saturday. Pretend I said that just right.

Matt (00:07:34):

And who does Jessica Heck play? Who’s Miles’ wife, ex- wife?

Laci (00:07:39):

As soon as I saw it was fucking her, I’m like, “Oh, you’re perfect. Oh, you’re perfect for me to hate right here, just like I didn’t break in bad and you’re playing the same little … I’m cold, but culture.” She’s the

Matt (00:07:50):

Coldest actor who has ever lived. So

Laci (00:07:52):

Cold and ever so polite and I’ve married a polite man. I used to date a more crude, maybe even smarter man, but now I’m pregnant because mentally I could never keep up. Not with Walter White, not with mine. She’s southern. She is.

Matt (00:08:10):

You turn every dainty lady into a song. Well,

Laci (00:08:12):

Because she’s a little pedal.

Matt (00:08:14):

That’s

Laci (00:08:15):

Already fallen off of her.

Matt (00:08:16):

What about the foul? All right, we’re going to get into sideways history. If you’re not interested in history, look in the episode description, you’ll see movie discussion, just jump right there. This all starts with Rex Pickett. Author of Sideways. As always, links to our sources are in the description. Here I’m reading from a 2004 profile of Rex Pickett in The Guardian. “In the mid 1990s, Rex Pickett considered himself a failure, a never published novelist, depressed, penniless, and miserably divorced, who used an interest in wine to mask what was really, if we’re being honest about it, a drinking problem. And so with nothing to lose, he wrote sideways. A novel about a never published author, depressed, divorced, and drinking too much, who takes his closest friend, a hopeless womanizer who’s about to get married on a pre-wedding tour that almost ends in catastrophe. Most of that really happened too.

Matt (00:09:33):

Wow. The main difference is that Miles, the central character in Sideways, never does get his book published.

Laci (00:09:38):

“He just gets his movies made.

Matt (00:09:40):

Yes, Laci.

Laci (00:09:40):

Yes, have a question. Is there a reason why you’re reading it like a ticker tape news person in the beginning of a movie in the 1950s?

Matt (00:09:49):

No.

Laci (00:09:49):

Now let me tell you about the Rex Picket hit. The

Matt (00:09:53):

Same impulse that leads you to turn Jessica Hectt into a Southern bell. I don’t know.

Laci (00:09:56):

Okay, but you usually don’t read it like that. So if you could just loosen up.

Matt (00:10:00):

I didn’t know I was doing anything different. You’re

Laci (00:10:02):

Being so tight.

Matt (00:10:03):

I am.

Laci (00:10:04):

Oh yeah, you’re tight like that windy taste when he says that’s tight as a …

Matt (00:10:08):

It’s not without its tightness.

Laci (00:10:10):

A nun’s butt or whatever he says.

Matt (00:10:13):

It’s like a Ron Nan’s butt hole. That’s not Giomani. I can do a Giamatti.

Laci (00:10:18):

Do it. It’s kind of like, ” I can’t have in a poison. “It’s a little bit like-

Matt (00:10:25):

Jack, we’re calling Juan Contrera. Not Giomati in this movie, but Giomani is as the orangutan from Planet of the Apes.

Laci (00:10:33):

We need to be a little calmer.

Matt (00:10:34):

Kids who want some hash brown. Okay. Yeah, Rex Pickett, he’s the real Miles. The book that Miles is working on is the book Sideways and in the book Sideways, it doesn’t get published, but in real life, his book got published.

Laci (00:10:50):

Oh, that’s why I was like, it didn’t and how to get in a movie.

Matt (00:10:52):

But then in Rex Pickett’s three sequels to Sideways, Miles’s life turns out a lot like Rex Pickett.He’s like, ” My book got published and then it got turned into a major motion picture. I’m a star now. “But we’ll get into all that into the sideways universe, the cinematic and book universe that I didn’t know existed.

Laci (00:11:10):

You know what? I respect him for picking someone like Paul Giamatti to be the representation of him on the screen. Well, he didn’t pick him. He did let it happen.

Matt (00:11:20):

Okay, but he’s the novelist.

Laci (00:11:21):

Think it’s very confident to go over intellect and skill rather than that guy doesn’t look exactly hot enough for me.

Matt (00:11:33):

He went to film school in the ’80s, wrote and directed two independent movies that were not successful and then he just worked intermittently as a screenwriter in the ’90s. He describes himself as broke. The coverage of him presents him certainly as like, boy, rags to riches. Do however, keep in mind, he is working in Hollywood. He’s going to like Hollywood parties. He

Laci (00:11:52):

Can afford wine

Matt (00:11:53):

Country. And he can afford to go to wine tastings and stuff, but the reason he went to Solvang and Buellton and Santa Barbara is like, it’s cheaper over there. Wine’s cheaper over there. But it’s still like, yeah, but you at least have enough money to be able to do this as a hobby.

Laci (00:12:09):

Okay. But you’re surrounding yourself with people who live in LA. In LA, when the most expensive places to live, I’m sure for LA, he’s broke.

Matt (00:12:17):

Yes. And that is how he talks about it.

Laci (00:12:18):

Especially by his standards for what he thought he would be, what he thought he deserved. What all novelists seem to think they’re owed.

Matt (00:12:25):

Writes the novel Sideways On Spec, finishes it in 1999. It doesn’t get sold until 2004, but he shares a literary agent with Alexander Payne. Alexander Payne had directed two feature films, Citizen Ruth in 1996, an election in 1999. And he says like, let’s do this. Let’s option this book. I want this to be my next movie. So the book has never been published at this point, but Payne is going to work on it as his next project before deciding no, and he moves on to About Schmidt. But the book stays- Oh, okay.

Laci (00:12:57):

Because I knew you watched about Schmidt and said it was the before this one movie.

Matt (00:13:01):

So the book stays with Alexander Payne’s production company and the book still is not published. It’s an unpublished manuscript. And after about Schmidt, he returns to Sideways. Now there’s conflicting reporting about when exactly it was sold to a publisher. He said that lots of people were saying it only got purchased by a publisher because they knew it was getting made into a movie and he resented that, but that really seems like what happened because it got bought by a very small publisher for $5,000 and that happened right after they learned that his movie was, that Alexander Payne had gotten the green light from Fox 20th Century Fox to make a movie out of it. That’d

Laci (00:13:44):

Make me publish it.

Matt (00:13:45):

Yeah. And that is a tiny amount, $5,000. And he said, but the good news is they give you an advance and then every copy sold, like you don’t make money until you get past that advance, but because it immediately became a huge hit, he just made tons and tons of money off of it. So the book gets sold, he’s finally a published author and Alexander Payne’s making a movie out of his script. He is involved in the production in that he’s invited to set, but he has no creative role. Well, he’s in the

Laci (00:14:13):

Cup chair.

Matt (00:14:14):

But that’s why I wanted to push back on what you said because it’s not him making the decision, “Oh, we have to get Paul Giamatti.”

Laci (00:14:20):

Got it. I’ve been considering me pushed.

Matt (00:14:22):

But it’s an interesting thing to think about. Uncurb your enthusiasm, they would do the thing where Larry David would talk to Jason Alexander and Jason Alexander would be like, “George is just such an idiot. Why is he doing all these things?” And Larry’s like, “That’s me. I did those things.” To talk to the person who other people see as the onscreen version of you.

Laci (00:14:42):

I don’t know. It sounds super invasive and very fun if you’re a narcissist.

Matt (00:14:48):

And Alexander Payne was apparently concerned about him being on set and that influencing Giomati’s performance and he didn’t want it to happen.

Laci (00:14:55):

Paul Giomanti is a pro, Alexander. I mean, fuck off. What is his name?

Matt (00:14:59):

Alexander.

Laci (00:15:00):

All right.

Matt (00:15:02):

Obviously this transformed this guy’s life. It’s the fairytale thing. Every single person who’s … I’ve written … Me, Matt Stokes, I’ve written books. They suck shit. Because you need a literary. Nothing good ever happens.

Laci (00:15:12):

You need a literary agent of someone who is also the agent to someone good.

Matt (00:15:17):

I know. And in this movie, Miles has a literary agent.That is already the impossible thing to achieve. Right.

Laci (00:15:24):

We looked into it.

Matt (00:15:25):

Yeah. All we have to do is get a literary agent. And the whole time I wrote my novel generation Y, I was thinking, I’m Miles. I’m like Miles. I’m going to be like Miles. But in a good way, I just have to get a literary agent. That’s all. That’s all I have to do. And by the way, when he describes his book, his book sounds horrible. It’s kind of I’m taking care of my dad and

Laci (00:15:43):

Jumping around and talking. What looks horrible is how many pages it is. Yeah. Nothing past page 729 changed caught you. I was like, “Dude, that’s solid. It’s hefty. Maybe edit yourself.”

Matt (00:15:56):

But yeah, so the movie becoming such a phenomenon impacted his life and transformed this area, the Santa in East Valley, Santa Barbara County north of LA and shooting in these real locations, all these businesses suddenly became incredibly popular. And they called it the sideways effect. Two different things happening.

Laci (00:16:15):

Gingerfied the gingers?

Matt (00:16:17):

Gentrify?

Laci (00:16:18):

Gentrified the gingers. There was already white, but then it brought in bigger money and people wanted to live there. All the apartments look so cute, but these are people like working class people who can afford to live in this area and work in this area. And then all of a sudden it becomes popular. It seems like you just boot those people right out.

Matt (00:16:35):

I think this is the only good way it can happen, which is like people are coming in and- Visiting? It’s not like they want to live there. They just want to come in and visit and like, “Ooh, this is where Miles had his train. This is where he poured all the spit onto himself. That’s so funny.”

Laci (00:16:48):

Who the fuck is going to that

Matt (00:16:50):

One? Everyone.That’s

Laci (00:16:51):

The one that’s trash.

Matt (00:16:53):

No, all these places are doing great. So two different things. Santa Barbara County, the tourism to this day thrives because of Sideways. There’s Sideways Tours you can take. Sideways self-guided tours, Sideways Bus Tours. The places like The Hitching Post and the Windmill Inn, these are real places. And in the wine economy of America, more broadly, Pinot Noir explodes. People like Pinot Noir now. Meanwhile, Merlot, get out of here.

Laci (00:17:24):

It went lower than you thought it could.

Matt (00:17:27):

There’s an interview I read with Rex Pickett in Decanter Magazine celebrating 20 years of Sideways. I love when I get to read these weird niche interest magazines as part of this.

Laci (00:17:37):

Well, did you ever watch the documentary Somalier?

Matt (00:17:40):

No.

Laci (00:17:40):

Well, it’s awesome. It’s all about this crazy shit.

Matt (00:17:45):

Quote, “I distinctly remember in huge screenings, most notably the closing night of the New York Film Festival at the Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, how hard people laughed at the Merlot line and how at first I didn’t get why they thought it was so funny. I still don’t, but I love that they love it. I remember running into many people who told me after that, that they came out of the theater, seeing the film, they immediately drove to the nearest wine shop and said, Do you have any Pinot noir? Miles’s passion for Pinot Noir is outsized, exaggerated, but romanticized, lyricized. I wanted Miles to believe in something. I love Pinot noir, so I hyperbolized my passion. That love though is genuine and it’s obviously carried over to people who saw the movie and loved it. They just had to know what this Pinot Noir obsession was all about.

Matt (00:18:29):

I wrote the infamous line, pain directed it, Giomani delivered it. And yeah, I know that I think down I think poorly of Merlot because of this movie.

Laci (00:18:39):

And it tastes bad.

Matt (00:18:41):

I don’t know that it tastes bad. It

Laci (00:18:42):

Does. It’s too sweet.

Matt (00:18:44):

How could that … I mean, sure. Four

Laci (00:18:46):

Red, it tastes bad.

Matt (00:18:47):

I have opinions about wine, but they’re not based on anything at all. It’s just, this is what I’m used to. This is why I like drinking.

Laci (00:18:53):

Correct.

Matt (00:18:53):

Yeah. And Cabernet.

Laci (00:18:55):

The good stuff tastes like water to me. I can’t even … I need it to sting a little. I need it to taste cheapest pot.

Matt (00:19:02):

Sure, sure, sure. But I don’t like Pinot Noir very much either. I pretty much only like- No, I don’t like

Laci (00:19:08):

White wine.

Matt (00:19:09):

Pinot noir is red.

Laci (00:19:10):

That’s what I said.

Matt (00:19:11):

So they’re actually filming in these areas in Buellton in Solvang and the locals are very excited about it. Look, all these movies. Oh, the woman from David Lynch’s Dune is in town. Great. So they were very excited about it, but once they realized how filthy the movie was, they started having second thoughts and the wine makers and wine cellars were like, “This movie seems like it’s maybe celebrating alcoholism or suggesting that people only drink wine are into wine because they’re alcoholics.” So they were concerned about that.

Laci (00:19:45):

And I don’t think they’re looking at it with enough nuance. They’re not celebrated. Miles is not a celebrated character. He’s seen and still loved for his flaws.

Matt (00:19:53):

The owner of the hitching post got very concerned and this was after the production had already spent a few weeks dressing up his restaurant and embedding themselves, setting up lights and camera stations and stuff. And he said he was going to pull out because he thought that this would give wine a bad name. So Rex Pickett had to intervene. He says, I said, “Frank, you’re not in the mineral water business. People get drunk up there. Don’t be a hypocrite.” But in the end- Thanks,

Laci (00:20:21):

Rex. That was really helpful. It’s like when my ex- husband offers to go talk to somebody for me, don’t. No, thank you.

Matt (00:20:29):

Yeah, because in this same quote I’m reading, it’s like, but in the end, Paine, Alexander Payne had a heart-to-heart with Frank and talked him out. And the rest was history. So this year is Rex Picket talking about the impact that the movie and the book had. “The impact it had on the Santa Ines Valley was and to this day immense. The movie made wine tasting hip. I started seeing Pinot noir under reds on wine lists and restaurants when it never was before. All of the wine industry have benefited from the movie. Pinot Noir, the locations, the wineries. Kathy Johns Joseph, in one example, with just a 10 second exchange between Miles and Maya about her Sauvignon Blanc grew 300% in gross from 2004 to 2005, a 10 second conversation. “And I know all this stuff is organic here, but it does make you realize the business of movies has to be constantly thinking about this of who can we get money from and the companies that pour money into movies thinking like, ” Oh, this will be sideways.

Matt (00:21:25):

“What sideways was for this lady’s wine will be for us and most of the time it doesn’t work out.

Laci (00:21:31):

But it just feels like a Marty Supreme situation, that’s name, right? That’s the name of this movie, right? It’s like these people are immensely educated in something that in a regular room makes them sound like fucking assholes. And so I just think it’s so niche and to give it any kind of coolness at all, they’re probably like, ” Thank fucking God. “And one pretentious person needs another pretentious person or how else you’re going to live together. So Miles and Maya make complete sense to me.

Matt (00:22:05):

I think that the movie does a good job of explaining enough about it to you and otherwise you don’t really need your handheld because you get it’s like, ” Okay, when they do this, it’s good. When you sniff that, it’s bad. “You don’t actually need to understand wine to kind of vibe the movie.

Laci (00:22:21):

I mean, Miles says what to do to look to check the viscosity and to open up the thingy and to do the what, but he doesn’t say why. I mean, okay, if I’m checking the rim, the color, how it fades from whatever to white, okay, but what makes it good? Does it fade fast? Does it fade slow? Is there a hard line? At least tell me what the fuck I’m looking for. Don’t just tell Jack to fucking do it and then be like, ” I’m doing it. “Just to look not stupid in wine country with you. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing.

Matt (00:22:53):

All in service of just like, ” We’re just observing. We’re just making little observations about the viscosity of the- I mean, I

Laci (00:22:59):

Guess we’re trying to impress the person serving it to

Matt (00:23:01):

Us no matter

Laci (00:23:02):

Who they are. I noticed nuts asparagus. You’re telling me people are planting asparagus right next to grapes just so someone can sniff it and go, asparagus? Yeah, I guess

Matt (00:23:12):

So. It is kind of …

Laci (00:23:14):

That can’t be what it is. Asparagus must be putting in the barrel while it ferments and stuff. I mean, because there’s only so … Grapes are grapes, right? It’s what you put with it that is going to make it distinct from other shit and how you process it. So I mean, how do you distinguish yourself or come upon something that’s like, “Fuck, I finally … I hit a thing here. I put enough cheese and fucking, I don’t know, ear wax and fucking shit from babies droppings.” No, cut that. I’ve never thought about that. I just think about it as grapes and time, but I think it has something to do with asparagus and cheese now. I’ll tell you what, this Alexander Payne will not go over two words when he’s naming a movie. He won’t do it.

Matt (00:24:06):

This was his fourth film.

Laci (00:24:07):

Well, do it.

Matt (00:24:08):

Fourth film is a director. Again, go check out episode 135 about election. He’s from Omaha, Nebraska. The poet, the laureate of Omaha, Patron Saint of Omaha. So many of his movies take place in Nebraska, got a writing deal from Universal Pictures in the 1980s that didn’t go anywhere, but he did write the screenplay for about Schmidt in the 80s, which I did not. No until researching this. And then he directed several short films, including some pornos for the Playboy channel.

Laci (00:24:34):

Oh, that checks out because he loves a wet pussy and a blowjob and butt sex. Loves it.

Matt (00:24:42):

And all those things you could find on the Playboy channel.That’s where they did. Your parents went to bed and your friend had a satellite dish.

Laci (00:24:48):

You could see boobs and an anus. Nope. No

Matt (00:24:51):

Aanish. They’ve

Laci (00:24:51):

Never had an anus there.

Matt (00:24:53):

Featured directorial debut in 96, Citizen Ruth, then election in 1999, then about Schmidt in 2002, sideways 2004.

Laci (00:25:01):

And what is a Citizen Ruth about?

Matt (00:25:04):

Laura Dern plays a woman who is addicted to huffing paint and she gets pregnant and then becomes an object in a culture war in her town between pro abortion and anti-abortion activists and just kind of gets exchanged between the two, but she’s just kind of drumming like, “I don’t know. Whoever’s going to buy me lunch, I’ll say whatever they want me to say.”

Laci (00:25:24):

Just like that movie.

Matt (00:25:26):

Citizen Ruth. Yeah.

Laci (00:25:27):

Beaufinger.

Matt (00:25:28):

I’ve never seen Beaufinger.

Laci (00:25:29):

I don’t know if it’s that movie. No, it’s the one where someone’s in a purple state and he’s got the winning vote and I think I want to say-

Matt (00:25:35):

Swing State

Laci (00:25:36):

With Kevin Costner. Yeah, Kevin Costner.

Matt (00:25:38):

Bowfinger.

Laci (00:25:39):

I was close.

Matt (00:25:39):

The Eddie Murphy movie?

Laci (00:25:40):

Yeah, close. I was so close.

Matt (00:25:43):

The descendants, he goes along. He does not have that many movies and he takes a long time between movies. The descendants was his follow up to Sideways. It took nine, no, seven years, but that is the movie that Laci and I saw in theaters together and she said, “You know what? I was wrong. George Clooney’s not a little bitch.” And then she forgot about that.

Laci (00:26:01):

That’s how he’s a load bearing beam opinion that he is a little bitch.

Matt (00:26:04):

Nebraska downsizing in the holdovers and allegedly he is working on developing the election sequel, Tracy Flick Can’t Win, but we’ll see if we ever see that.

Laci (00:26:13):

I don’t know if I need a part two from him, but I’m sure he’ll do something very interesting with it if he’s going to bother doing a part two to one of his masterpieces.

Matt (00:26:21):

Well, the author of that book of Election, who also wrote The Leftovers wrote a sequel 25 years later and Reese Witherspoon’s production company optioned it, but she said, “I only want to do it if Alexander Payne does it.

Laci (00:26:35):

” And I love the whole other verse. I haven’t seen downsizing.

Matt (00:26:39):

That’s the only one of his movies I haven’t seen as well, because it got such bad reviews, but how bad could it be?

Laci (00:26:43):

It’s Mat Damon, right?

Matt (00:26:45):

And he gets small and I love when people get small. And I like the idea

Laci (00:26:48):

Of downsizing.

Matt (00:26:49):

Yeah. All right casting, casting this movie. What

Laci (00:26:50):

In the fuck have you done to the screen? What is that picture? Come on. Paul Giomati, what is that?

Matt (00:26:59):

That’s the movie Big Fat Liar When they paint and blue.

Laci (00:27:03):

I don’t like that at all.

Matt (00:27:04):

I remember hearing an interview with him where he says if he had to say what’s the role he’s most known for, it’s probably Big Fat Liar based on how many people have talked to him about it, just because it was this kid’s movie that I gush- Paul

Laci (00:27:19):

Giamatti, I promise I will never talk to you about it. The thing that made you famous to me is Howard Stern’s private parts. You will always be pig vomit to me.

Matt (00:27:28):

And because I had not seen Pig Vomit, I had not seen Private Parts until we did it for this podcast, episode 89. Whenever you would say Pig Vomit, I would say, “Who are you talking about? What does that mean?” The studio wanted Edward Norton to play Miles and George Clooney to play Jack, but Alexander Payne had settled on Giomadi and Church through the auditioning process and said, “These are our guys.” He had to fight really hard to get his guys in there. Paul Giomani, 36 years old during production, was an extremely successful character actor, but this movie made him a legit movie star. And you’ll watch these 90s movies like my best friend’s wedding and be like, “Why is Paul Giamatti in that scene or the Truman Show? Why is he in the three scenes as the eighth most important character?”

Laci (00:28:17):

Because someone good needs to do it. It’s an actual meaningful moment, even though it’s so short.

Matt (00:28:23):

Right, but because I guess he just wasn’t famous at the time, but he’s still Giamani. It’s Paul Giamatti. It’s Paul Gimoti.What’s he doing there?

Laci (00:28:28):

He’s a pro

Matt (00:28:29):

Help

Laci (00:28:29):

Deliverer.

Matt (00:28:30):

And Big Fat Liar, 2002, the movie that broke him through in terms of awards attention was American Splendor in 2003. I was certain he got an Oscar nomination for that, but he didn’t because famously among Oscar people, it was a scandal that he was not nominated for Sideways because it was like not only he should have won the Oscar for Best Actor for Sideways. He wasn’t even nominated. And in my memory, it was always like, “Yeah, because they just nominated him for American Splendor,” but they didn’t.

Laci (00:28:58):

What the … He’s upsetting some higher ups. He sounds like he might be a communist. They don’t like those.

Matt (00:29:05):

It might be the case.

Laci (00:29:06):

I

Matt (00:29:06):

Hope he does. But then the next year he got an Oscar nomination for Cinderella Man, Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, which was very clearly like a sorry.

Matt (00:29:17):

In this interview with Paul Giamatti in 2007 with Scott Rabb of Esquire, he is talking about the period around sideways and he says, “A lot of people at that time started asking, does it bother you that people call you a character actor?” And I’d go, “No.” And then the next guy would ask, “Does it bother you that people call you a characteracor?” And I’d go, “No.” And then the next guy, and eventually somebody asked me and I said, “Well, now it does because everybody keeps asking, should bother me. ” But he did become a star. He was a legit star.

Laci (00:29:41):

I would love to be a character actor. That means you’re making an impact.You’re stealing the show when you’re not supposed to. That’s my favorite.

Matt (00:29:50):

No, character actors are what make, not the only thing, but I mean- A good movie, my favorite thing about movies is character actors.

Laci (00:29:58):

But it adds so much Texture. You can have the whole weight of the movie on two characters, fine, but you need a break. Well, I don’t know. Not every movie needs it, but I think the really good ones have great people and key spots for sure.

Matt (00:30:14):

And it’s one of those-

Laci (00:30:16):

There’s a tip for anyone making a movie.

Matt (00:30:17):

But it’s one of those things where it’s like the easiest answer for … Why does it seem like there are a fewer good character actors? It’s economics. Studios used to be hapy to pay James Cromwell, whatever, to be in two scenes. And now they’re like, “No, we don’t need to do that. ” Anyway, Thomas Hayden Church, prominent TV actor in the 1990s, Wings for eight seasons. You ever seen Wings?

Laci (00:30:39):

No, I remember it though.

Matt (00:30:41):

Ned and Stacy, opposite Deborah Messing.

Laci (00:30:44):

I’ve heard of it, but no.

Matt (00:30:47):

He’s the villain in Georgia of the Jungle in 1997.

Laci (00:30:50):

Oh, that I do remember.

Matt (00:30:53):

I must be

Laci (00:30:53):

Where I know him from.

Matt (00:30:54):

His career is in such a place that when they do a straight to video sequel to George of the Jungle in 2003, he’s the only character actor to reprise his role. This is one year before Sideways, before it gets an Oscar nomination. Wow. So yeah, this movie was huge for him.

Laci (00:31:08):

He got an Oscar nomination, but fucking Paul Giamani didn’t? That’s rude.

Matt (00:31:12):

Yep.

Laci (00:31:13):

Was he in anything after that?

Matt (00:31:15):

Yeah, sure. Well, the big, okay, now here’s your next big move is he was the villain in Spider-Man three. That was big.

Laci (00:31:22):

Just don’t go superhero right after something that’s good.

Matt (00:31:24):

It was different back then, but yeah, absolutely. Oh, I’m a big CGI sand guy.

Laci (00:31:29):

Wow. Yeah, because I don’t know him from anything else.

Matt (00:31:32):

No, I mean, this is the heights, but he’s always worked very steadily, but neverhealth. I just don’t find him

Laci (00:31:37):

Handsome at all. I know he’s supposed to be, but I don’t see it. He’s charming, but not handsome.

Matt (00:31:43):

He’s handsome in a dumb way, like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Laci (00:31:47):

Okay. He’s not my type. That’s all I

Matt (00:31:49):

Mean.

Laci (00:31:50):

He’s charming the shit out of everybody in this movie and I’m like, “Eh, no, thank you. ” I don’t see it.

Matt (00:31:56):

Virginia Madsen working a long time in movies like Dune, Dave Lynch’s Dune and she’s leading Candyman. Sandra O was in a lot of TV. Basically, one of the most important TV actors of all time at this point. Gray’s

Laci (00:32:09):

Anatomy.

Matt (00:32:10):

And Anne Killing Eve. During Sideways, she was a co-star of HBO’s Arlis. So that Sandra also famously got drunkenly accosted by Laci Roth in an elevator. I’m

Laci (00:32:22):

Sorry. I’m still sorry about it.

Matt (00:32:24):

Of that one

Laci (00:32:24):

Time. I only gave her a great one liner that made her very uncomfortable.

Matt (00:32:29):

What was it?

Laci (00:32:31):

I’m pretending not to know who you are. It’s

Matt (00:32:33):

Very funny.

Laci (00:32:34):

I whispered it. But I also did this weird bend at the waist, this 90 degree angle to position myself out from you into her waist. Not into her waist, but I want her to see me jetting out from you. I don’t

Matt (00:32:50):

Know. You should have told her your classic elevator bit. Hey, have you heard of the elevator conspiracy?

Laci (00:32:55):

Goes all the way to the top. Yeah.

Matt (00:32:57):

So that’s this incredible cast. Virginia Madsen also gets an Oscar nomination for this role. Movie’s a huge hit again.

Laci (00:33:08):

How are Virginia Madison and Sandro making the exact same wrong face in this picture? They’re both like, “Eh.”

Matt (00:33:14):

This is them at the Golden Globes where sideways- Which is a

Laci (00:33:17):

Precursor to let you know if you’re going to get any fucking Oscar action, right?

Matt (00:33:22):

Sideways wins best picture musical or comedy and lose to the eventual Oscar winner, Million Dollar Baby. Correction, correction. Actually, it was the aviator that won the globe for best picture drama. The aviator, not million dollar baby. So who are the others now? You

Laci (00:33:39):

Killed one Hillary Swank. I swear to God.

Matt (00:33:43):

It’s the thing with the Oscars. Million Dollar Baby- You’re

Laci (00:33:46):

Never going to watch that again. You’re going to watch it one time. It’s going to ruin your fucking day and then that’s it.

Matt (00:33:51):

It is a movie that if it had not won best picture, people would say, “That’s that underrated movie. That’s a really good movie.” But your point, that’s what I’m saying. Because it won best picture, you’re like, “That movie? Come on. “

Laci (00:34:03):

I’m sure if I watch it again, I’d think it was good. I remember thinking it was good. It just was very hard to watch. That and Boys Don’t Cry, also really hard to watch. Hillary Splunk was just riding that fucking, who wants to have a hard time watching me wave.

Matt (00:34:16):

And I’ve never seen Boys Don’t Cry and it’s not streaming. I was thinking I’m going to pay 25 dollars to watch this on DVD.

Laci (00:34:23):

Let’s not get crazy.Here’s

Matt (00:34:25):

Who was nominated for best actor that year, Janie Fox in Ray.

Laci (00:34:28):

Oh. Also a heartbreaking movie to watch.

Matt (00:34:31):

Yeah, but

Laci (00:34:33):

He was great.

Matt (00:34:34):

Yeah, I know, but it’s just the classic, you’ve impersonated a musician and you worked real hard, so here’s an Oscar.

Laci (00:34:40):

But it was out of character. Ever going to watch Ray again. It was out of character for Jamie Fox to do something that deep and serious. I feel like that was his breakout serious role.

Matt (00:34:51):

Fine. Don Shield and Hotel Rolando. But that’s what gets

Laci (00:34:53):

Rewarded, right? When people switch lanes abruptly or change body size abruptly or handle a very important topic well.

Matt (00:35:00):

You do both. You abruptly switch personas and you play a musician.

Laci (00:35:04):

Right. Wait, you can also do other things. You’re not just hilarious.

Matt (00:35:09):

Don Shiedle for Hotel Rwanda. Johnny Depp for finding Leverland. What are we doing? Come on.

Laci (00:35:13):

What are we doing? This is before we were all depth out of our fucking minds.

Matt (00:35:17):

Leonard DiCaprio for the aviator.

Laci (00:35:19):

All right.

Matt (00:35:19):

Yes. Great. Show me all the blueprints. Show me all the blueprints. Show me all the blueprints. Show me all the poop. Clint Ead for Million Dollar Baby.He’s good. Calm

Laci (00:35:27):

Down. Calm down, Clint Eastwood. You have a directing career now. You don’t also need an Oscar.

Matt (00:35:33):

He’s definitely

Laci (00:35:34):

Got an Oscar already, right?

Matt (00:35:35):

Not for acting. He had won best director.

Laci (00:35:38):

Derek, that’s fine.

Matt (00:35:39):

And best picture for Unforgiven and then did it again.

Laci (00:35:41):

No one’s going up close and reading the little script on your award. It’s just a fucking Oscar in the background of your Zoom call. They’ll think it’s for your acting. It’s

Matt (00:35:51):

Fine. They’ll do this with Ben Affleck or Matt Damon. If they’re on a movie poster and you’ve got them with other Oscar winners like Anthony Hopkins say, Oscar winner, Anthony Hopkins. And they’ll just go, Oscar winner. Ben Affleck, but Ben Affleck’s Oscar was for writing Goodwill Hunting. It’s a little deceptive. Five Oscar and I mentioned, picture director, supporting actors, supporting actress, and then wins the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Rex Pickett went on to only right sideways books. Vertical in 2011.

Laci (00:36:26):

Yes.

Matt (00:36:27):

In which Jack is divorced and he goes on a road trip with Miles and Miles’s mother. No, no. Yeah. Jack is divorced from Christine.

Laci (00:36:35):

God, that’s another great character actor that just fills this movie out is the scenes with the mom are so memorable.That could have been such a throwaway, but you can see through this tiny, short performance, how you make a Miles. It’s not just a great portrayal of a type of lady. The question she asked, the way she is around his friend, what am I trying to say? Her expectations, her guilting. It’s just all such a perfect little … I love it when you see an actor, a performance, you go, “That is a fucking purse. That’s

Matt (00:37:16):

A

Laci (00:37:16):

Fully understood person.” And it had no business being so good for 10 minutes of a performance.

Matt (00:37:23):

What Payne is so good at is capturing in two ways, both with the performances. Well, I guess three ways, casting. You cast people who look like real people. You get performances that feel like real performances like the way people really are. And then production design and locations, these places that look so perfectly like real places.

Laci (00:37:46):

Yes. And it’s so much use of apartments in one fucking movie and they’re all different. And just the touch of the mom being asleep in her outfit that she wore the night before on the sofa, clearly passed out drunk. You get right there, Quinn Miles gets his alcoholism handed down to him. She fell asleep with the TV on. He knows not to wake her up by turning the TV off. He’s used to sneaking around and being the adult in the room or being the manipulator. It’s just as a child of an alcoholic, I know these things he’s doing. I’m doing kind of a shitty thing to my mom, but I’ve got a backlog of shitty things she did to me that I don’t feel too bad about skipping out on her for fucking brunch.

Matt (00:38:26):

But she probably knows that he’s doing it. It’s an understanding.

Laci (00:38:31):

It’s just like a type of relationship where you’re like, I came and gave you a birthday present. You didn’t know I was coming to steal all your money, but I brought you flowers. I went out of my way. I think we’re good here.

Matt (00:38:43):

No, exactly. But there’s all these kinds of mutual self-deceptions throughout the movie, which is why I feel like she knows that if she doesn’t know in advance, she’s going to obviously realize he stole her money and she’ll never bring it up because that’s just the relationship. When Jack at the end of the movie is going to go home with the waitress, he says to Miles like, “Miles, just make sure she gets home safe.” And he’s like, “Really?” And he’s like, “You got this look like, yeah, I know. I just have to say something. Come on. We have to say these stupid things to deceive ourselves and to deceive each other even though we all know we’re lying.” But the other thing I love that he does, and it’s all throughout this movie, is people will give information and then not explain to the audience what it is things like, “Yeah, I called Alice in the twins or whatever.” And Gimoni’s like, “You called Alice in the twins?

Matt (00:39:32):

Who are Alice and the twins?” I don’t know, but you don’t need to know.

Laci (00:39:35):

You need to know. I mean, it’s definitely the sister and his estranged sister and their two kids, but it’s like, I haven’t seen them in forever. Why would we want to add this to that?

Matt (00:39:44):

It’s

Laci (00:39:45):

So perfect.

Matt (00:39:45):

Yes. And again, how real people talk. Yes. Well, and you know it

Laci (00:39:49):

Because then they show you pictures of it later. Oh, there’s his sister and her husband and

Matt (00:39:55):

Twins. Right. But even if they hadn’t done that. One of my pet peeves is overexplaining and especially is when characters have to explain why they know something. Right.

Laci (00:40:05):

And we’re going to let it go anyway. This is just like a little sprinkling on top, but to let you know he’s not super pumped about his family and isn’t trying to stick around for much longer. He’s going to do the bare minimum and peace out. At

Matt (00:40:20):

The end of the movie, Maya leaves her voicemail for Miles and says like, “In the letter you wrote me, we didn’ see him write a letter. That’s all the information we have about it. But you know what? Oh, I guess he wrote her a letter. Sideways, the sideways series of novels, Vertical in 2011, then Sideways Three, Chile. That

Laci (00:40:39):

Needs to go to hell. That needs to go to Hell and Die.

Matt (00:40:41):

And then Sideways New Zealand from 2024. I’m sorry.

Laci (00:40:44):

So you’re just mixing about Schmidt Sideways here with this camper life? Yeah.

Matt (00:40:48):

All right.

Laci (00:40:49):

And just going around

Matt (00:40:49):

The world to different wine places being like, what’s the wine like here? Are they good?

Laci (00:40:53):

Are these books good? I don’t know.

Matt (00:40:54):

Okay.

Laci (00:40:54):

And you call yourself a one week expert?

Matt (00:40:58):

I’ve read Sideways twice now, but yeah, I’ve not journeyed further into the series. We’ve never

Laci (00:41:02):

Seen it the other way around.

Matt (00:41:03):

And then in theaters right now- I need

Laci (00:41:05):

To go with a backwards or an upside down. He didn’t need to go Chile. He just needed to keep going with the directions.

Matt (00:41:11):

Yeah. Let’s assume that Vertical was not the hit the publisher was looking for. So they’re like, “Can you put Sideways in the title?”

Laci (00:41:17):

Yeah, I got it. Okay. In

Matt (00:41:18):

Theaters right now is the Napa Boys.

Laci (00:41:20):

This

Matt (00:41:20):

Is actually why I wanted to do … We’ve wanted to do a Sideways episode for a long time, but the comedy of The Napa Boys, which stars Mike Mitchell from The Doughboys. So I’m hearing a lot about this movie and all the podcasts I listened to. But when I heard what the premise of the movie was, I was like, that was Taylor made for me. The idea of this movie is that if Sideways got a series of American pie asks straight to video sequels that were raunchy and so-

Laci (00:41:46):

Even the

Matt (00:41:46):

Font. Yes. And so the actual onscreen title of the movie is the Napa Boys Four, the Samel Ye’s Amulet and there’s Jack Jr. And Miles Jr. And they’re going for one last trip through Napa.

Laci (00:41:59):

Oh my God. And it’s written like Indiana Jones. The

Matt (00:42:02):

Fun. The font. Yeah. So I’m excited to see this movie. I think more movies should be fake sequels to other movies.That’s

Laci (00:42:09):

So funny. You don’t even have to have any affiliation. You’re just like, “Let me take this from you.

Matt (00:42:14):

” Yes. And apparently, and I’ve not seen this movie yet, the Napa Boys in the movie there’s tons of references and lore for movies that don’t exist to the previous three Napa Boys movies. And I love-

Laci (00:42:27):

Oh, what do they call that? Not a spooky pasta. What the fuck do they call that?

Matt (00:42:33):

A creepy pasta.

Laci (00:42:34):

Yeah. So that’s what I was going to say and be wrong there too. But just a fully realized world that they put on the internet and they make you think that they give you all the evidence of there being a whole lore, but none of it’s real. So it’s usually wrapped around a video game. I’ve explained this exact thing on the podcast and had just as little good stuff to say, but it’s like they give you the thing and then through it is all these things to discover and they talk about the mesdo, they do exist and then those will be implanted on the internet somewhere and you got to go find them. It’s just cool, like a video game that never existed and it’s related to a movie that never

Matt (00:43:10):

Existed,

Laci (00:43:11):

But then they make it exist because it’s called a NPR, NRP, RPM. Tell us in the comments if you got this far. I

Matt (00:43:20):

Don’t know, but I do, I mean, I love it of willing something like that into existence by just insisting that it already does exist. So that’s Sideways, love Sideways, and now we’re going to talk about Sideways while swishing around some Pinot Noir. We’re going to make ourselves later. All you do is

Laci (00:43:37):

Think about how tired I’d be after the first stop. Jesus. Wine tells my brain it’s time to quit for the day. Can you fuck? Jesus.

Matt (00:43:45):

What would Miles say about you putting ice in your wine?

Laci (00:43:48):

I wouldn’t invite him because he seems like kind of an ass.

Matt (00:44:30):

Well, I wanted to, before we even get into anything, I wanted to ask you something, my love. You know me very well. What thing does a character do in this movie where I am truly just jealous?

Laci (00:44:44):

Oh, does a crossword while they’re driving? No. No. Shit’s with the door open? No,

Matt (00:44:49):

No.

Laci (00:44:49):

Okay. No, you’ve got this

Matt (00:44:52):

On. I know.

Laci (00:44:53):

Any character?

Matt (00:44:54):

Yeah.

Laci (00:44:55):

Doesn’t truly opens his mouth all the way. Has butt sex on the floor.

Matt (00:45:01):

Both things I wish I could do. No, it’s when he eats the burger and onion rings and has his special bottle of wine. I want to do that so badly. I don’t know. Oh, I know that. Because I say this to you a lot.

Laci (00:45:14):

When have you said you want to go

Matt (00:45:15):

Eat a burger with- A couple of weeks. Don’t you know that I like wine from a paper cup?

Laci (00:45:21):

Yes, Matt, but do you like a 1961 Chevrolet, whatever the fuck?

Matt (00:45:27):

It doesn’t need to be a good bottle of wine. Okay. So you don’t know me that well.

Laci (00:45:31):

Fucking riveting.

Matt (00:45:32):

This movie opens with, well, a knock on the door. Isn’t it ironic that the movie also ends with a knock on the door?

Laci (00:45:39):

No, it happens four times in the movie. I wanted to ask you what you think the movie is saying about it. If Miles himself as the narrator always feels a step behind, kind of feels like a loser, feels like just unprepared for life, but it’s his fault, right? He sets himself up for failure the night before and then is mad at the failure the morning of.

Matt (00:46:02):

That’s just

Laci (00:46:02):

A reoccurring thing in this movie.

Matt (00:46:03):

Okay. I didn’t … Yeah. I mean, so Miles or Jack knocks on the door with his balls in his hand is another … What’s the other time?

Laci (00:46:13):

Well, okay, to move his car at the end, balls in his hand. I swear it happened four times.

Matt (00:46:21):

Well, so I think the thing is things are happening to him, life is happening to him and at the end he finally says, “I’m going to do something. I’m going to take control of my life.”

Laci (00:46:31):

Yeah, but he also seems to want to be the victim, right? He’s just going along for the ride. But

Matt (00:46:34):

That is victim mindset.

Laci (00:46:36):

Sure. But in the whole idea of, you don’t just need to get up right now in your bathroad. You need to run downstairs by some manly men because you parked bad, which is such a man coated thing. Don’t fuck that up.That’s what men do. Men drive well.

Matt (00:46:53):

And such a good detail that they’re all there to watch him do it.

Laci (00:46:57):

They’re just watch, because what else is there to do? That is what you would do. You would like, whoever did this is a fucking asshole and I can’t wait to lay eyes on him. Yeah, that’s an asshole. Oh, wave at as good. Wave at as asshole, you fucking asshole. That’s how I feel whenever a car is being dumb in front of me. I’m like, oh, when I pass you, oh, I’m going to look at your face. I’m going to know your face and I’m going to notice the face of an asshole. Yeah. If you

Matt (00:47:18):

See somebody typing on their phone, you want to give them the business. How could you? As if I never do that. It’s

Laci (00:47:24):

Never satisfying though. It’s always someone that’s just having a bad day or something. It’s so rarely someone I really think is an asshole. And then I’m like, I’m the asshole. Damn it. I got to say this is the rare instance where guy thighs don’t bother me.

Matt (00:47:38):

Oh, really?

Laci (00:47:38):

His thighs are not bugging me. Maybe because I can’t see where they connect to the butt.That’s when it bothers me. No butt connection here.

Matt (00:47:46):

I love, love, love. I feel it’s underrepresented in movies, dirt bag, intellectual.

Laci (00:47:52):

Sure. Yeah. Someone with potential but still just wasting away.

Matt (00:47:58):

Is a fuck up and a slob and a loser, but like has- Is he a

Laci (00:48:02):

Slob? How’s he a slob?

Matt (00:48:04):

Maybe he’s not a slob. Yeah, that’s true. You just

Laci (00:48:06):

Look at him and you think slob because he dares to have a gut and a bald spot.

Matt (00:48:11):

That’s true. I mean, his apartment does seem a little like a orderly. He’s got

Laci (00:48:15):

Piles of books, but that’s because he’s

Matt (00:48:16):

An

Laci (00:48:16):

Intellectual.

Matt (00:48:17):

You’re right. Okay. Yeah. Slob is the thing that is adjacent to all of this, but dirt bag and it’s the divorce. He probably had a nice house back in the day. He still has that convertible.

Laci (00:48:29):

Sure, sure. And he clearly had the bookshelves that could encase all these piles of books, but now since the divorce, she got the good furniture and he wouldn’t have been able to fit them in his … You could picture the mahogany matching bookshelves that were left behind. But I’m taking my books, God damn it. I’ll be fucking goddamn did you take these books? Sally, whatever her name is. Victoria.

Matt (00:48:54):

I’m Vicky and my books, but they might fall on me and I’ll

Laci (00:48:57):

Contrast forever. I’m underneath. It’s a Dickens and it’s a Dickens. So it’s very hefty. I don’t know. I don’t know book sizes. I know Charles Dickens.

Matt (00:49:09):

Those are hefty motherfuckers.

Laci (00:49:10):

Fucking knew it.

Matt (00:49:12):

Dirt bag intellectual. Alexander Payne, we slobbed his knob all during the history segment about how good he is at. Production design and how it informs your understanding of the character. Right. And just in his apartment, you get all you need to know about him. You get all you need to know about him in that he’s waking up at 10:45, fucking loser.

Laci (00:49:35):

I’m so mad at him. Well, yeah, not only did he get drunk and now he has to wake up late. I mean, I get that. I get alcoholism. What I cannot abide by is a fucking person that tells the person who’s waiting on them, I’m headed out the door. I’m right around the corner. I’m coming. And then lies the perpetually late person. The person that feels as though it’s not in their power to be on time to anything and is so comfortable by this about them, that they’re not full of anxiety and they’re stopping to get a fucking crystal and a goddamn-

Matt (00:50:08):

That’s what really seals it is because I’m all the way, which people say and they’re literally on the way, but he’s going to stop taking leisurely shit, read a book, and then go into the cafe and it’s like, “Garcia, I’m running a little late today, so I’m just going to have it. ” Why are you telling him this?

Laci (00:50:24):

Well, and also you’re so lonely that you go see the same guy every single day to go sit in a place and drink your coffee. But I mean, at least he’s doing something about his

Matt (00:50:32):

Loneliness. But I noticed all the people who talk to him are service workers, but they do like him.

Laci (00:50:39):

He’s a nice guy, good tipper. He’s pleasant. And I think it’s a nice touch that you can guess he’s not the most social person, but because of the divorce, he kind of has to be. And he likes the counter between the two of them. They can’t get too close and he’s already got the upper hand because he’s the intellectual and they’re the service worker. And I think there’s something that he likes about the power imbalance, but he also likes to be really nice to them because it makes him feel like a really good guy.

Matt (00:51:09):

And Jack, who he feels very morally superior to, he needs Jack to push him just to interact more with the service workers of the world. You know they can be your friends. It’s for stupid. His motives are pure. They’re both

Laci (00:51:22):

Exploitative. Okay, right. I mean

Matt (00:51:24):

They’re opportunistic. That’s the thing, and it’s a beautiful friendship. It’s one of my favorite film friendships is Miles feels so … Paul Giamatti feels so morally superior to Thomas Hayden Church, but he is just as deceitful a little fuck and thrives on Jack’s deceptiveness and getting to give him big speeches. Well,

Laci (00:51:44):

When you’re not a just conventionally good looking person and you’re in the midst of someone who’s never been unattractive, it is interesting to watch them go through the world. Now, if they were smart too, then you’d have to hate them. But if this guy just looks, he does seem to look up to Miles. He genuinely seems to think that he’s talented and he respects them. I don’t know. I think it took me a watch or two before I was sure Jack really likes him. He acts like he likes him because he’s just kind of person that smoozes and lies to everybody. But there’s some moments that’s clear like, okay, no, you both are kind of codependent on each other.

Matt (00:52:26):

Yeah. And that’s okay. This is a thing that I’ve evolved on in my view of Sideways where I used to say they’re actually not good friends for each other. And now I feel the complete opposite. And I think that it’s clearly a friendship where they were freshman roommates, whether they got randomly assigned, I don’t know.

Laci (00:52:43):

Obviously.

Matt (00:52:45):

They would never be friends if they met each other today, but that’s beautiful.

Laci (00:52:48):

They’d also never be friends if they met each other before. It is literally because … And I know several people who are still friends with their college roommate and they couldn’t be more different because we just don’t think that we can love someone outside of what looks like familiarity

Matt (00:53:05):

Or

Laci (00:53:05):

That they could ever love us.

Matt (00:53:07):

Right. And that is beautiful. And I think the downside of all the advice of like, you need to do a culling of your friends. Who makes you feel good about yourself at the end of the day is you’re kind of just going to end up with people who are exactly like you and like make you feel high achieving. Least

Laci (00:53:23):

Resistance.

Matt (00:53:24):

And it’s good to be bonded with someone. Bonding doesn’t necessarily mean make me feel good all the time, but we have a history-

Laci (00:53:31):

We have a history. Right. You knew me when.

Matt (00:53:33):

You knew me when.

Laci (00:53:34):

You’ve been with me through the bad things.

Matt (00:53:37):

He goes to pick up Jack from Jack’s fiance’s big old mansion.

Laci (00:53:42):

No, no, no. He goes to pick up Jack from the fiance’s parents’ mansion.

Matt (00:53:46):

Isn’t that what I said?

Laci (00:53:47):

No, you said the fiance. This isn’t her mansion.

Matt (00:53:49):

It’s her mom and dad’s. Her dad’s like an Armenian business kingpin.

Laci (00:53:54):

Jack’s a guy that like puts off wealth but has like no money to his name. I mean, he made good money as a soap opera star, but now just does commercials. So you know he’s living job to job. So he’s got this like glamorous look and he’s got this way of talking, but you can tell that the dad has not bought into it. He knows damn well he’s marrying up, marrying into his money. And this is an immigrant family, right? So this guy’s like worked his ass off to get this mansion in this company, this real estate mogul or whatever and he’s even considering letting the fucker be in the business. I like the dad’s, it’s a really well, what am I saying? Really well observed character for the dad to not be totally buying into the bullshit the way the mom and the fiance are.

Matt (00:54:40):

And Miles comes in and he’s like, “Oh, I’m so sorry. It was bumper to bumper the whole way.” And people getting an early start on the weekend, I guess. Miles, who I fucking love as a character, I just hate everything about him and hate everything he says. Why are you saying that? I guess everyone’s getting an early start to the weekend. Yeah, that’s what was going on. My

Laci (00:54:58):

Genius. I guess everyone was drunk and hung over.

Matt (00:55:02):

Just a specific type of shit head who has to lie and put in details like that.

Laci (00:55:05):

Do you feel like this movie shows you up close shots of their teeth on purpose just so that because they know that they’re drinking red wine the whole time and they want to be like, “See?”

Matt (00:55:14):

Good question.

Laci (00:55:15):

No red wine teeth.

Matt (00:55:16):

Good question.

Laci (00:55:17):

Because like how are they drinking this west red wine in every closeup? They’re fine. They’re doing good. Doing fine. Teeth are fine.

Matt (00:55:25):

Yeah, I guess they have a toothbrush guy on.

Laci (00:55:27):

I think they need to have a polisher.

Matt (00:55:30):

Miles, before you go, we need you to try two different kinds of cake. Which do you prefer? Light or dark? And he says, “I prefer the dark.” It’s a metaphor, you see, but-

Laci (00:55:40):

But only if pressed.

Matt (00:55:41):

If pressed, yes. That’s

Laci (00:55:42):

Right.

Matt (00:55:43):

He

Laci (00:55:44):

Likes both.

Matt (00:55:44):

And Miles is getting his book published and all like, “Oh, that’s great, Miles.” And we just see he also, he doesn’t correct him like, “No, I’m not. ” I’m like-

Laci (00:55:53):

Right. He could easily correct the situation, but also it’s got to feel a little rough because it could be that Jac just really believes in you or it could be that Jac’s not going to be proud of you until you are published. It’s hard to know how to take it or it’s kind of like Jac’s like, “See, I’m not a loser because I’m friends with a published author.” I think that’s more- That’s

Matt (00:56:12):

True.

Laci (00:56:13):

… what he’s doing. This pisses me off more than maybe anything else that happens in the whole fucking movie is Miles is pleading with him to not open this very significant bottle of champagne and like, no, I have been saving it. Maybe Miles is a person who’s always saying a phrase like, “I’ve been saving it for a special…” Okay, but he brought it with him. Miles has committed to using it. It’s not his car champagne.

Matt (00:56:39):

No, this is why they’re perfect for show because Jack knows. He knows. Miles is saying the stuff, don’t open it. And he’s like, “Oh, I’m not going to open it. I’m not doing it. Pops open.” And Miles is like, “Oh, Jack, you bastard, but he’s happy. He loves it. ” And I love it. I wish I were drinking and driving like him. There’s a lot of drinking and driving in this movie.

Laci (00:56:59):

Well, how else do you get up and down in the wine country?

Matt (00:57:01):

I know. That’s

Laci (00:57:01):

Why you go to the cheap wine country, that way you hit poor people.

Matt (00:57:04):

There you go. Yeah. So Miles asks him like, “Have you read my new draft of my book?” And Miles Jack is like, “Oh yeah, yeah. I really loved it, Miles.” So many of the changes, it just felt more congealed.

Laci (00:57:22):

Yeah, it really solidified and it was different, but somehow the same.

Matt (00:57:27):

What did you think of the new ending?

Laci (00:57:29):

But do you know that’s a fucking, that’s a trap. Anyone can smell that trap.

Matt (00:57:33):

And he says, “There is no new ending.” Maybe it just felt new because everything leading up to it was different.

Laci (00:57:39):

Yeah, he cannot help himself. Neither of them when caught in the middle of bullshit can just let it-

Matt (00:57:45):

Yeah, no, that’s the thing. Or I know that you know I’m lying and vice versa. Let us never acknowledge it.

Laci (00:57:52):

Let us never. In fact, they’re not even in a car right there. They’re on top of Aladdin’s rug. The rug, they’ve been sweeping everything under their entire relationship. Yes.

Matt (00:58:02):

There’s a very charming commentary from the two of them on this movie.

Laci (00:58:06):

Oh, they’re friends. They

Matt (00:58:10):

Clearly enjoy each other a lot. It was recorded in 2004. It’s fun to just hear them, but everything is just like, “Oh yeah, this was a stunt driver. Oh yeah, this is just a, oh yeah, production person brought out that show.” He said it

Laci (00:58:24):

Was charming.

Matt (00:58:25):

It’s charming just to hear them talk. It’s not that insightful into the movie.

Laci (00:58:29):

Just letting you know the sausage made

Matt (00:58:32):

Moments. And just like, “Oh yeah, remember the woman who worked on the set that day?” Oh yeah, and she was a sweetheart. Yeah. But I think the worst thing done in the entire movie is we just got to make a quick old stop at Oxnard.

Laci (00:58:46):

This truly is a fucking dickhead move, but you get to know Jack and you’re like, “All right, he’s going to wreck your car by the end of this fucking movie.” You both take-

Matt (00:58:56):

That’s the thing. Yeah.

Laci (00:58:57):

Very big because it seems like it’s something that’s escalating because of the initial slight, but it’s not. This is just the relationship. Plus the whole motive is Paul Giamatti has to go to his mom’s. He needs $1,000. I counted. It’s a thousand.

Matt (00:59:14):

It’s at least a thousand. It might be more.

Laci (00:59:16):

No, I counted.

Matt (00:59:17):

He keeps counting as if the camera pans away, but he takes all that money and I’m like, “That’s not enough.”

Laci (00:59:22):

Yeah, but it was then.

Matt (00:59:24):

I don’t think so.

Laci (00:59:24):

It’s cheap wine country, man.

Matt (00:59:26):

I hope so.

Laci (00:59:26):

They’re driving a rug. They’re fine. You don’t need gas in a rug.

Matt (00:59:31):

And he’s just got the grocery store flowers with the-

Laci (00:59:34):

With the little price tags still on them. But it’s an amazing point. The mom cares so little about the flowers that whenever they’re leaving, you see them dried out and laying on top of the TV. That’s how much she cared. It’s just that they’re all just checking the boxes.

Matt (00:59:50):

She’s happy that he’s there.

Laci (00:59:52):

Happy that he’s there, sure. But she’s the kind of mom that you can get some things out of her that are mother and helpful and supportive, but there’s a lot of bullshit with her, like alcoholism, no boundaries, being inappropriate with his friend the whole time I’d be so embarrassed. Clearly not fostering the kind of family life that made siblings stay close. These things are clues. Falling asleep on the sofa drunk in the same outfit you were already wearing to the TV, this is a kind of person and Miles probably spent plenty of his childhood being the parent so he doesn’t mind taking some of the money.

Matt (01:00:35):

And his dad had a stroke and he seems to be the one who had to take care of the dad.

Laci (01:00:39):

Oh, okay. When was that? I don’t remember that

Matt (01:00:41):

Part. He says it about his book.

Laci (01:00:43):

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Matt (01:00:44):

I’ve been Googling because of our podcast, I Google our blank and blank friends in real life and Google AI.

Laci (01:00:50):

How tall are they?

Matt (01:00:51):

Because I did look this up anticipating the question. The Google AI is like, yes, Paul Giomani and Thomas Haden Church have a mutual respect for each other.

Laci (01:00:59):

That’s not the same Google. You need to put it into lacy mode, please. And then it’ll also tell you their heights.

Matt (01:01:04):

But love, you work intensively with somebody for four months, then you go your separate ways. And how are you supposed to continue being friends?

Laci (01:01:11):

As long as they’re not friends, I think I’m okay. And California is tiny. I mean, it feels big, but the world where you act, you know what I mean? You’re bumping into each other, I’m saying.

Matt (01:01:22):

And Giomadi’s based in New York and I think

Laci (01:01:25):

Church is based in Texas. Exactly what I said. So how you’re always running into New York Texan people in California.

Matt (01:01:32):

Howdy.

Laci (01:01:33):

The red carpet’s only so big.

Matt (01:01:34):

Howdy. Hiya.

Laci (01:01:37):

Okay.

Matt (01:01:37):

Jack, this is Maya. Hi. Hi. I love a

Laci (01:01:41):

Rhyme.

Matt (01:01:43):

Bring in the flowers and the … And you brought cards. They’re from both of us.

Laci (01:01:49):

And I didn’t even get my face sign.

Matt (01:01:52):

A famous actor bringing me flowers.

Laci (01:01:55):

How many times has she said that to him every time they … And they discussed every time his couple of roles. You know they have the same conversation every time he sees her.

Matt (01:02:05):

Miles says like, “The wedding’s on Saturday, mom. Yo know that already.”

Laci (01:02:10):

Oh, we hope she knows how lucky she

Matt (01:02:13):

Is. Miles

Laci (01:02:13):

Goes

Matt (01:02:14):

In.

Laci (01:02:14):

I’m doing a great impression and you’re stepping all over. I think this impression is more facial embodied than it is voice, but audience, I want you to imagine the best impression of this old lady. It’s

Matt (01:02:26):

Good. Paul Giomani is so great. This is a very physical performance so much is in the posture the way he carries himself.

Laci (01:02:33):

You think he has a choice? Yeah, no, he’s slumped. You’re right.

Matt (01:02:36):

He’s

Laci (01:02:36):

More slumped the majority of this movie.

Matt (01:02:38):

Giomani’s like, “Oh, just a quick stop. We’ll be in and out. ” But he goes immediately sits on the couch and slouches back. Right. Relax like he’s in his childhood home, which is probably not. He’s

Laci (01:02:48):

Not. This is clearly an apartment she got after the stroke after

Matt (01:02:51):

This. Yes. But it’s like I’m in my mom’s house now. Because

Laci (01:02:54):

You know it’s the childhood sofa, that thing is ripe.

Matt (01:02:56):

There you go. Yeah. So mom.

Laci (01:02:58):

Smells his braces getting stuck in the cloth. I could smell it.

Matt (01:03:02):

Get me a Pop-Tart and Amondo.

Laci (01:03:04):

I mean, as soon as she’s like, “Are y’all hungry? Yeah.

Matt (01:03:08):

” Just a snack. So this is what they do. And even Miles’ Jack’s acting career is … He never dissuades people of the idea that he’s not an important actor because based on what we know, he seems to have had a small role on a soap opera.

Laci (01:03:26):

I don’t know how small, whatever it was that was impactful to the people who watched that soap opera.

Matt (01:03:31):

Okay.

Laci (01:03:32):

Just saying that people who love a soap opera are so dedicated that it doesn’t matter what time of their lives that you meet them, they will know you, know your storyline. It’s a intimate kind of fandom. That’s all I wanted to say.

Matt (01:03:47):

And then talks to mostly commercials, but by all indications, he’s not on camera in commercials. He’s like-

Laci (01:03:53):

Right.

Matt (01:03:54):

She’s

Laci (01:03:55):

Past his prime.

Matt (01:03:56):

This has changed. Now you’ll watch a very expensive Toyota commercial or a Ford commercial. Is that John Cena doing the voiceover? What’s the point of that? Just get a voice actor. But Brian Cranston needs to tell you about the Ford Taurus, but that’s what he was doing. That’s what he’s doing. Yeah. But then the mom’s like, “And you’re staying over tonight, obviously, and tomorrow we’ll all go out to brunch.” And Miles says, “Jac’s actually really anxious to get going. ” So shitty. Such a shitty thing to say.

Laci (01:04:26):

We’ll see how it’s going. We’ll see how it goes.

Matt (01:04:29):

Just say no. And then she says, “Well, you boys do whatever you want.

Laci (01:04:33):

” We always do whatever you want, but I just thought it’d be nice to be all to be together for my birthday. I love the detail of Miles and Jack. There’s just one wine glass in this family or two. So wait, no, I don’t know, but I can see that they’re drinking white wine out of margarita glasses, but there’s three red wine glasses. What the fuck is going on at this table?

Matt (01:04:56):

One of them is used. It’s like in the bathroom or something. She fell asleep with it last night. No.

Laci (01:04:59):

There’s four.

Matt (01:05:00):

There’s three

Laci (01:05:01):

Full red wine glasses and two full margarita glasses full of white wine. Yeah,

Matt (01:05:05):

Because Jack and Miles are each drinking two glasses of wine.

Laci (01:05:07):

Oh, they’re making pink.

Matt (01:05:08):

A white and a red. You got to switch back and forth.

Laci (01:05:10):

You’re doing a rose.

Matt (01:05:11):

And then his mom’s like, “When are you going to get married? You should get back with your ex wine.”

Laci (01:05:17):

I don’t care how blind that’s over the fucking top. She’s clearly getting dementia.That’s an insane thing to say to someone who’s been depressed for two years after the divorce who did not initiate the fucking divorce, but he cheated on her, but that one’s a tricky one. I know sometimes-

Matt (01:05:37):

What do you mean?

Laci (01:05:38):

Well, I know sometimes when people cheat, it’s because the other one had already checked out or whatever, but he did it so I guess he thought he could undo it.

Matt (01:05:49):

But what’s tricky? I mean-

Laci (01:05:51):

Well, because he’s the one that seems so dejected and sad about the divorce, but he was the one that was so unhappy already that he was cheating.

Matt (01:05:59):

That’s what I’m

Laci (01:05:59):

Saying.

Matt (01:06:00):

Because- Usually

Laci (01:06:01):

The cheater is a little more adjusted to the bill for unless it was one time they immediately regretted it.

Matt (01:06:08):

No, because he was a loser in the marriage. Now she took control and ended the marriage against his will. He feels like it’s his fault and he’s suffering for one little son. I’m only a man. You got to get married again. I worry about you, Miles. Do you need to borrow some money?

Laci (01:06:27):

You’re whispering it, but to where my friend can hear it.

Matt (01:06:32):

So then they sneak out of the house the next morning. I love Jack just getting woke up. He’s sleeping in his shoes and he just gets nudged and just pops right up. And listen, the whole movie is a story of me and Patrick taking-

Laci (01:06:47):

That’s all I

Matt (01:06:47):

See. … and our many travels together. Patrick

Laci (01:06:51):

Does not get up that easy.

Matt (01:06:55):

He does kind of just spring up and don’t say anything and just be like, “Okay.”

Laci (01:07:00):

Yeah, I’m used to being moved around.

Matt (01:07:01):

So they go to a diner the next morning and Jack is like, “It’s my mission this week, Miles. I got to get your joint work done.” But Miles is like, “No, that’s not what I want. This week isn’t about me. It’s about you. We’re going to drink wine, eat food, play- Play

Laci (01:07:16):

Golf.

Matt (01:07:16):

All the things that you specifically love.

Laci (01:07:20):

It sounds like my … Jac’s good at golf, but

Matt (01:07:25):

Yeah. I know, but this week is about you. We’re going to do all

Laci (01:07:27):

The things that I’m interested in. My favorite road trip where everyone knows me where there are no strip clubs in sight and you were lucky to run into even one woman that you wanted to fuck on this journey.

Matt (01:07:37):

To go to their first winery, Miles explains how to evaluate wine in a very clinical way. I don’t understand wine at all and I don’t understand this enough to know is the point of Miles being so, at least in this scene, so clinically you got to diagnose it, pick out all the component parts. Is he doing it in a way that’s like, Miles, you’re missing the point, man. I don’t know. Well, he’s

Laci (01:08:02):

Doing the thing. No, this is the point. The point is to sniff it all out. That’s the biggest honor. A developed palette is the only way you can be a salmier. And by sniffing out each scent individually, he is showing his palate. That’s

Matt (01:08:17):

Why

Laci (01:08:17):

He’s so moved by his ex- wife’s palate. No, I mean it.

Matt (01:08:22):

Yeah. Yeah. And so impressed by Maya when she gets a correct opinion before he does.

Laci (01:08:28):

Well, and Maya mentions her palate too.

Matt (01:08:31):

And maybe foo and wine is different from art where if you said to a director, “I noticed all these things that you did and it felt like this was an illusion to that and this was an illusion to that and this technique that the director might be like, none of that was the point. The point was for you to experience the movie, but maybe food and wine are different. We were

Laci (01:08:51):

Supposed to- Or wine are different. These wineries would not exist, nor would anyone pay them money for these wines if there weren’t people like this who cared about the distinction. I mean, Jack drinks these. They all taste good to him. You need them miles. They all taste good to Jack because Jack does not have … Neither you nor me have the palate. We will never understand this, but you need people like him to make food that tastes good and wine that’s different. I mean, having this much wine is unnecessary, but there’s a market for it.

Matt (01:09:22):

This does seem fun to me, but I mean- I’d be drunk

Laci (01:09:25):

By the first fucking winery. I’d be useless.

Matt (01:09:28):

Yeah. I mean, me and you have the most fun when we just go do something and drink. So this is a thing we could do. It’s why we like going and playing slot machines and drinking for six hours. We could just go to a bar, but I don’t know.

Laci (01:09:41):

Those are the same. There’s not the hopes of losing $1,200 at a bar.

Matt (01:09:47):

That’s right. They check into the Windmill Inn, which now I believe is the sideways in Buelton, California. I

Laci (01:09:53):

Wish they hadn’t changed it.

Matt (01:09:54):

Walk down to the side of the highway to the Hitching Post.

Laci (01:09:57):

That is one of my favorite details. That is such a vacation thing to do

Matt (01:10:01):

And

Laci (01:10:01):

Such a like, ” I’m going to go have fun thing to do. I don’t want to drive my car. “It’s like the only time they’re responsible with their drinking and driving. They don’t do it, but I think it’s because it’s literally next door, but it’s just like, ” Oh, every time they get dressed up and they’re walking and it looks like there’s a breeze and it’s like, Ooh.

Matt (01:10:17):

“You

Laci (01:10:17):

Guys are going to eat.

Matt (01:10:18):

It’s not like in a downtown where it’s natural for people to walk on the idea.

Laci (01:10:22):

No, right. It’s just like the way it … Well, I mean, I guess it’s not exactly like Pensacola, but when I’d go to Pensacola, we’d walk to the boardwalk, even though it was a slightly longer walk than you’d really want to take. Or when I went to Orlando with the kid, I had to walk to the Walgreens. You don’t have a car.

Matt (01:10:39):

It feels like an adventure. I love it.

Laci (01:10:41):

It’s a

Matt (01:10:41):

Feature. They go in, this place makes their own wine here. They get a taste of some wine. Miles is like a tighter than a nun’s asshole, but good concentration. I sound like Jack Palance. You are my number one guy. They’re sitting at a table and Jack is like, ” Miles, check out that shit. She’s fucking rocking. It’s Maya.

Laci (01:11:02):

“Maya.

Matt (01:11:03):

Virginia Madsen.

Laci (01:11:03):

Tinkle,ting. Oh, you’ve got the sound.

Matt (01:11:11):

Dude, Miles. Check out that chick over there. Yeah.

Laci (01:11:15):

Her name’s Maya. She’s married.

Matt (01:11:17):

Jackie, this is the place I come when I’m up here to din and drink. He says it so indignantly like, ” Oh, you know that girl. Yeah, miles. Yeah, Jack.

Laci (01:11:27):

Okay. Well, wait. Turn it off. Jack treats everything like it’s disposable and I think it is something that bothers. He’s like, look, Jack, we’re not here at a place where you’re going to vomit and leave. I do not want you to embarrass me. These aren’t people I want you to fuck. These aren’t people I want you to lie to. Just consider that these are people who are long-term friends with me and I have to come back here after you fucking burn it all to the ground.

Matt (01:11:54):

Right. And he’s never been there with him before. Yeah. I’m going to bring you into my world.

Laci (01:11:59):

Right. It’s a bit of trust, but it’s also a bit of a self-sabotage because you know how he is. Why do this on his big, my last time to party? Just take him to Vegas. Let him go fucking come and throw up everywhere over there.

Matt (01:12:13):

I met you when you were 19, you didn’t know about wine and shit. What are you doing? Who are you trying to fool?

Laci (01:12:18):

What do you mean?

Matt (01:12:19):

Who’s full of life? It’s interesting to … What does Jack think? Well, Jack worships Miles, so he just thinks Miles is so great and smart, this wine thing must be incredible. But if you know somebody and during that time they pick up a brand new obsession, you kind of always look at it a little skeptically.

Laci (01:12:35):

Well, maybe it was Victoria that was into it because they both definitely shared that passion.

Matt (01:12:41):

But Miles is like, “Yeah, she’s an amazing chick, but she’s married to some philosophy professor at UC Santa Barbara, which just sounds like a nightmare as Maya later confirms. Maya, this is my friend Jack. Jack, Maya. Hia.” And Jack is like, “Dude, she’s so into you, but he’s actually right.”

Laci (01:13:00):

He is right.

Matt (01:13:02):

And she is so happy to see Paul Giomati.

Laci (01:13:05):

But Jack can’t help himself. He feels like there’s a lag in the conversation. I need to keep this live. He doesn’t know Maya’s speed. He doesn’t know that she’s okay with a little bit of a calmer situation. Her and Miles are so on the same wavelength that even on day two of their relationship, they’re totally comfortable sitting under a tree and doing separate things. I find that so romantic, so sweet.

Matt (01:13:30):

The night before, when she is driving his car, which is like, that’s kind of sexy.

Laci (01:13:35):

It’s intimate.

Matt (01:13:36):

Neither of them are speaking, but they’re both content.

Laci (01:13:39):

Their hair’s blowing. They’re just like, “This is exactly what I want. This is my speed.”

Matt (01:13:43):

I think, okay, computer’s the master radio had album. That’s what I would be doing.

Laci (01:13:46):

She’s just fucking Chris.

Matt (01:13:48):

But later, Miles and Jack are having a drink at the bar and Maya comes over and come sit with us. It’s our treat. Miles is getting his book published, by the way. That’s why we’re here celebrating.

Laci (01:14:00):

Fucking Jack.

Matt (01:14:01):

Maya is like, “You guys are so much fun. I hope we continue having fun the rest of the night.” And Miles is like, “No, I want to go to sleep.” So they go back to the motel and Jack yells at him.

Laci (01:14:12):

Well, he had had a full day. I’m tired too. Wine is not an energetic drink. They did a whole winery. They had a full day.

Matt (01:14:22):

It is for them. It’s an energizing drink. But the next morning they’re at a restaurant for breakfast and Jack says, “Miles, let there be no confusion. I’m going to get my nut on this trip and you’re not going to get in the way with your depressive shit.”

Laci (01:14:36):

Yeah, Miles gets really ticked here too. Oh, with cars on the table.

Matt (01:14:42):

Yeah.

Laci (01:14:42):

He really gets upset.

Matt (01:14:43):

He really does. And he’s like, “I’ll just take the bus home then.”

Laci (01:14:46):

All

Matt (01:14:46):

Right.This is what he does. Sad pants. And Jack knows it.

Laci (01:14:48):

Throws a fucking tantrum. Because

Matt (01:14:50):

He later says on the phone to Christine, Miles are just having one of his freakouts. No big deal.

Laci (01:14:55):

Total hissy here, like a child.

Matt (01:14:58):

And Jac’s like, “Come on, this is my last week. It’s something we should share.”

Laci (01:15:05):

Because you know Jack has fucked so many women fucking Fargo sex in their college dorm room.This isn’t crazy to him. He’s like, “You’ve seen the side of me fucking plenty of times.”

Matt (01:15:18):

Fargo sex is what We Hate Movies podcast calls it when there’s two twin beds in a hotel room or two double beds in a hotel room and there’s a couple on each fucking, like in Steve Bushemi and Peter Stormy and Fargo. There

Laci (01:15:30):

You go. Fargo sex.

Matt (01:15:32):

So now we get a little montage of them going through the vineyards, seeing ostriches, tasting wine. And then we meet Stephanie, a girl who knows how to pour Sandra O. She’s

Laci (01:15:42):

A bad girl.

Matt (01:15:43):

Because she overpours for both of them. Then Jack is like, “You are a bad girl. I know I need to be spanked.” It’s like,

Laci (01:15:49):

Damn. Okay.

Matt (01:15:51):

I love this performance. I love a dirt bag woman. But she’s

Laci (01:15:56):

Not.

Matt (01:15:57):

She’s not. She’s just horny. She’s horny. Her house is a little bit of a mess. She rides a motorcycle and she smokes cigarettes. It is

Laci (01:16:04):

Confusing she rides a motorcycle and has a child, but okay.

Matt (01:16:07):

But it seems like she had a child too young, probably her mom. She

Laci (01:16:10):

Smokes weed, not cigarettes.

Matt (01:16:12):

It looked like cigarettes.

Laci (01:16:13):

Win.

Matt (01:16:14):

I’m no marijuanologist.

Laci (01:16:15):

But when?

Matt (01:16:16):

When they’re sitting at her coffee table before them. That is they’re

Laci (01:16:18):

Passing a joint around. All of them are slipping.

Matt (01:16:20):

At first, I thought it was a joint, but then I saw a pack of cigarettes on the table and I know you can’t do both at the same time. You

Laci (01:16:25):

Can’t. But you can’t have them on the table while smoking a joint. That’s okay.

Matt (01:16:30):

Her mom watches the kid a lot of the time.

Laci (01:16:33):

That is an interesting signal. Sure.

Matt (01:16:36):

But I mean, dirt, I’m just using the term loosely, dirt bag. So maybe

Laci (01:16:40):

Don’t.

Matt (01:16:40):

Okay.

Laci (01:16:41):

Maybe don’t on this woman who’s just trying to make

Matt (01:16:43):

It. Yeah, maybe I just mean cool. I think that might

Laci (01:16:44):

Be

Matt (01:16:44):

What

Laci (01:16:44):

You’re looking

Matt (01:16:45):

For. Don’t get cool woman in cinema much and she’s immediately into Jack, just immediately like …

Laci (01:16:52):

And I always find it so charming that they both actually are really that into each other and Jack even talks himself into thinking he loves her. I don’t like how he flips on that immediately as soon as she breaks his nose. But when he comes to Miles with the plan to buy the vineyard and to live there, I’m like, “Yes, Miles, say yes. Yes, this is the best thing ever. We don’t need that wedding. We don’t need to go back to your sad apartment. I love it. “

Matt (01:17:17):

See, I think Jack had to have grown up with money because otherwise he’d be in the military. The military would’ve gotten to him because the kind of guy who’s like, “The latest thing I did is the brand new thing I’m obsessed with. There’s a specific guy we both know who I’m thinking of gets sucked up by the military unless they have parents with means.

Laci (01:17:38):

Oh, okay. Got you. But yeah, no, he definitely … He talks like this, bro. He definitely puts off that he had money. He’s very comfortable around money and he’s a famous person for a little bit, so you know.

Matt (01:17:51):

I need to be spanked. And I like that he’s like, “Hey, do you know this girl, Maya?” I feel like this is a thing that my mom would ask somebody out in the world.

Laci (01:17:59):

Right. And you expect them to be like, “Do you

Matt (01:18:01):

Think we

Laci (01:18:01):

All know each

Matt (01:18:02):

Other?” Yes. But

Laci (01:18:02):

They do.

Matt (01:18:03):

And she’s like, “Oh yeah, I know Maya.”

Laci (01:18:05):

I know her really well.

Matt (01:18:07):

So they’ve just arranged a dinner with all four of them. And then Giomani and Church are driving around and that’s like when Jac decides this is a good time of God to tell you, Miles, Victoria’s public. Why

Laci (01:18:24):

Do you do it now? Why now? Wait till after the fucking fun dinner.

Matt (01:18:28):

And she’s getting married. But he says like, “But I thought this was the perfect time to tell you because you’re very excited about our dinner and you’re in beautiful wine country.” Now Victoria, I mean I like how much this movie does not tell you. One of the things it doesn’t tell you is like, what is her connection to Jack and/or Jack’s fiance? Why does she have to come to the wedding at all when Miles is the best man?

Laci (01:18:48):

Well, it could just be that they met each other through Jack.

Matt (01:18:52):

Yeah, but even so if it’s like we had a bad divorce, one of these people is way more important.

Laci (01:18:57):

Wait, you’re assuming she might be important to Victoria.

Matt (01:19:01):

But she’s not in the wedding party.

Laci (01:19:04):

I need you to calm down over there.

Matt (01:19:05):

No.

Laci (01:19:05):

Okay. There’s only so many friends in this world. Just because people get a divorce doesn’t mean you have to break up with both of them.

Matt (01:19:10):

Yeah, but then he drunk dials her and he’s like, “I was thinking I shouldn’t go to the wedding.” And she’s like, “You’re probably right, you shouldn’t go to the wedding. He’s the best man. You say I’m not going to the wedding.”

Laci (01:19:21):

That was after he said a bunch of inappropriate shit. I’m team Victoria. No, I’m not. I’m neither. They’re both kind of shitty.

Matt (01:19:30):

They’re both kind of shitty. Well, yeah. Coming to the wedding and she’s getting married. You know Anora, that movie getting married and Miles freaks out.

Laci (01:19:41):

Great reference.

Matt (01:19:43):

Miles freaks out, grabs a bottle of

Laci (01:19:47):

Wine. I’m like amazed at his athleticism here. He’s running downhill and chugging a bottle of wine so fast that he’s done with it by the time he gets to the bottom of the fuck. No, it’s not. Beautiful. You have odd wants and needs. I want to tell you that.

Matt (01:20:06):

It’s because it’s Thursday. I haven’t drank since Saturday. That’s my weekly schedule.

Laci (01:20:11):

I do love the blender noises on Friday. It means it’s time to party, which means Matt’s going to have a drink while he sits and watches TV with me.

Matt (01:20:21):

Oh, look, I talked to Victoria about this and she’s cool. Everybody’s cool.

Laci (01:20:26):

Right. You’ve talked to her behind my back.

Matt (01:20:28):

But it is funny that this is, I don’t know, 18 months before Facebook and suddenly all of this information, including that Jack is getting married, is available to everybody. And it would be the most natural thing in the world. I met this cool guy at the wine stop today, going to go home and look him up on Instagram or whatever.

Laci (01:20:45):

Yeah. You’re a little bit forgetting how long it took for Facebook to become what it

Matt (01:20:49):

Is. By like 06, it was pretty normal to just get on your computer and go to Facebook.

Laci (01:20:54):

How long had it been out since then?

Matt (01:20:56):

I think 03.

Laci (01:20:57):

How long had it been beyond colleges?

Matt (01:21:00):

Yeah. Well-

Laci (01:21:02):

Exactly. You fucking

Matt (01:21:03):

Pretentious

Laci (01:21:04):

Asshole.

Matt (01:21:04):

That’s why I said they’re about two years away.

Laci (01:21:07):

I won’t hear it.

Matt (01:21:09):

It’s just that you could make this movie today, folks.

Laci (01:21:13):

Yeah, okay.

Matt (01:21:13):

Because you’d find out instantly who they are and you’re getting married like Anora.

Laci (01:21:17):

No, I got you. But you stop with that Anora reference. I don’t think anyone understands what you’re saying.

Matt (01:21:21):

We’re getting married. Miles grabs a bottle, flees into the field. Jack is like, “Put that wine bottle down. Get back here, Miles.” And then the Moros music plays as Miles looks at the pinot grapes. So delicate.

Laci (01:21:38):

I like that. I like that they don’t have- Oh my God,

Matt (01:21:40):

Mac. Jack, they’re kind of like me.

Laci (01:21:46):

But I like that they don’t have to talk it out. They handle it with the music. Now everyone has been at during this, everyone has had this sad hotel downtime where maybe there was a fight or something or if someone got sunburnt or you just did too much the day before and now you’re just in the bed and you’re just like, “Ugh, I’m just going to watch whatever.” You don’t have any control over what’s … Well, at least then they would be used to not having control over what’s on the TV, but now it’s even worse. You can’t put on what you want to put on. And they’re just like, “I’m watching golf.”

Matt (01:22:17):

Alexander Payne has a thing for people falling asleep awkwardly and then waking up and looking stupid. I think he understands how undignified people look when they’re asleep or when they’ve just woken up and something very, very sad about falling asleep on your hotel bed in the middle of the day.

Laci (01:22:32):

They letting a whole vacation day go by.

Matt (01:22:34):

Yeah,

Laci (01:22:35):

Super

Matt (01:22:35):

Sad. But Miles, or Jack wakes him up, we’re going to the hitching post, what are you going to wear? And I love, he asks, “Do you have any other shoes?” And

Laci (01:22:46):

He’s like, “Well, no.”

Matt (01:22:48):

And Thomas Hayden church just goes,

Laci (01:22:50):

“Hmm.” There’s nothing we can do about that.

Matt (01:22:53):

Says same Miles. Whenever Laci suggests I change shoes, I’m like, “Shoes.”

Laci (01:22:59):

They make a huge difference. You look so cool in any shoes but those.

Matt (01:23:04):

These. Yeah. I don’t think about clothes at all. Shoes even less so. Shoes of the list thought about of all the clothing.

Laci (01:23:14):

They’re the furthest from your face. That makes sense.

Matt (01:23:16):

Yeah. Yeah. So they’re going to go into the, not the hitching post, they’re going into a different restaurant and Jack gives Miles a pep talk. Do not sabotage me. We’re going to go in there and have fun. And if anyone wants to drink Merlot, we’re drinking Merlot. No, I am not drinking any fucking Marlow.

Laci (01:23:33):

Okay. Okay.

Matt (01:23:34):

But this is Jac prepping him and treating him like the pinot grape. He needs a lot of care. You need to be fun like you used to be. Don’t be depressed. Don’t act sad. I need you to drink, but don’t drink too much. Did you take your Xanax?

Laci (01:23:47):

You probably shouldn’t have asked him to take a Xanax. That’s not helping right now.

Matt (01:23:53):

And they go in and they meet up with Maya and Stephanie. Jack just instantly goes in and starts rubbing Stephanie’s back and this is so good. This whole sequence is so well done. It is. Most of it’s in montage where you don’t totally hear what they’re saying, but you can- But they’re

Laci (01:24:10):

Laughing a lot.

Matt (01:24:11):

They’re laughing. Miles and Maya are talking about wine and sophisticated stuff and Stephanie and Jack, he’s just like, “So what kind of stuff do you have to do to close the wine? Chop.”

Laci (01:24:21):

But just litle stuff.

Matt (01:24:22):

Just put the glasses away. Put the

Laci (01:24:23):

Chairs away.

Matt (01:24:24):

Get

Laci (01:24:24):

The chairs out.

Matt (01:24:26):

And it’s a thing that happens in groups where on partner notices of the other. Usually it’s marriages, but it can be best friends. Uh-oh, I can tell Miles is getting, is going to that place. There’s a

Laci (01:24:43):

Face. A face has happened to Matt and now we’re going to need a side talk.

Matt (01:24:48):

Even while he’s continuing to put on it, he’s continuing to participate in the conversation and talk to Maya and everything, but I can tell.

Laci (01:24:55):

I love this sequence, but I am so on edge. This is probably the most anxious I am the whole movie is this. Why do

Matt (01:25:02):

You

Laci (01:25:02):

Do this? Bause I don’t want him to blow it with Maya. I don’t want him to have to apologize, but he doesn’t go so far to the dark side that he actually did anything in clear view. It’s just that Jack knows.

Matt (01:25:16):

Yes, that’s what’s good about it. And Jack even casually blocks the wine bottle from him. No, no, you don’t need that. And then it’s just what is happening, he’s still obsessing over his ex- wife getting remarried. Meeting a cool new girl isn’t going to make you forget about that. Of course not. It might even make you think about it more. So Jack, dammit, Miles gets up from the table.

Laci (01:25:42):

At this one.

Matt (01:25:43):

And goes to the payphone and calls up Jessica Hect. Victoria, Victoria. Oh, well, what the heck’s going on with you? And she’s like, ” .”

Laci (01:25:56):

All right.

Matt (01:25:57):

And what does he say that’s so bad? I don’t

Laci (01:25:59):

Know why it turns. I feel like he’s pulling it off for a minute. When you’ve been with a person for a long time, you just know the tone, you know the wind up. You can sense the nostril flare on the other side of the phone or whatever. I mean, they even have a rule, “I told you not to call me when you’re drunk.” So he’s got to pass to this and Jack immediately guesses, “You didn’t drink in dial, did you? We’ve had this talk.”

Matt (01:26:29):

Oh, my parents were so delighted by him coining that phrase, drink and dial.

Laci (01:26:33):

They coined it here? I

Matt (01:26:34):

Don’t know if they coined it. My parents had never heard it. Drunk dial is what it’s called now or drunk text. But Miles even says to her like, “I don’t know. I thought maybe you and I had a chance of getting back together.”

Laci (01:26:45):

Right.

Matt (01:26:45):

Just a completely, just what a fucking loser. What’s illusion?

Laci (01:26:48):

Not a loser.

Matt (01:26:49):

He’s a loser. He even calls himself a loser.

Laci (01:26:53):

Most people who are sad do call themselves a loser just to make it true.

Matt (01:26:58):

So Miles goes back out to the table. The girls excuse themselves to go to the bathroom like ladies are always doing. And

Laci (01:27:05):

They were making a plan seeing if they were on the same wavelength with, are they both having a good enough time

Matt (01:27:11):

To

Laci (01:27:11):

Take this to the sexy side?

Matt (01:27:14):

Yeah.

Laci (01:27:15):

Yeah.

Matt (01:27:15):

And so fucking Jackie’s yelling at Miles, you drunk and dial. Aren’t you forgetting all the bad times? Aren’t you forgetting all the bad times you had with Victoria? How small she could make you feel? I

Laci (01:27:28):

Thought that was just a good move on Jack.

Matt (01:27:30):

Yeah. Isn’t that why you had the affair with Brenda in the first place? Shut up. Shut up. Shut your face. Shut up. Shut up. And then Stephanie Maya come back and be like, “Hey, let’s go back to my place and let’s just see what happens.”

Laci (01:27:41):

And that looks fun and I love her house.

Matt (01:27:44):

Yeah. There’s

Laci (01:27:45):

Candles everywhere. She had time. Where’d you guys go? This one got lost.

Matt (01:27:50):

Magellan over

Laci (01:27:51):

Here. Were they not following each other? Isn’t it just a straight line?

Matt (01:27:56):

They probably had to pull over so they could yell at each other. Jack takes out four condoms, hands, Miles one, he keeps the other three for himself and Jack and Stephanie started just immediately fucking and Miles gets sent off to the other room.

Laci (01:28:07):

I know my first thought was like, “You’re not going to need three.” But he uses all three that night.

Matt (01:28:13):

And it’s kind of a high school thing. Not that this ever happened to me ever, but

Laci (01:28:20):

This has never happened to me.

Matt (01:28:22):

The situation where one couple is having sex and it’s like, well, the other couple could be having sex and instead we’re just listening to it. This is just for movies. Right.

Laci (01:28:31):

Yeah.

Matt (01:28:32):

But it’s high school, but they’re 40 year olds and that’s funny. And they’re hearing the other fuck, but Virginia Madsen is kind of like she’s leading the charge. She’s like, “We can be fucking true. Maybe here’s what I’ll try. I’ll move us closer to the fucking and we’ll hear it. Then we’ll have to- “

Laci (01:28:49):

That’s not what she did. She moved them away. She

Matt (01:28:51):

Went outside. No, no, no. First moves them closer to the bedroom into the living room. Wrong. No, I’m not wrong. And they hear the fucking and Miles is like, “Oh, they’re fucking in there. You can hear it. ” And she’s just like … And then she notices this is making him uncomfortable. Let’s move again. Move out to the

Laci (01:29:08):

Patio. You think Maya was trying to engage in a four way? That’s what you think is happening?

Matt (01:29:13):

No, but I think she does want to have sex.

Laci (01:29:15):

Why would they have-

Matt (01:29:17):

Sex in the

Laci (01:29:18):

Living room where

Matt (01:29:19):

Jack

Laci (01:29:19):

Could walk

Matt (01:29:20):

In. No, no. She just wants Tim to-

Laci (01:29:23):

Feel

Matt (01:29:23):

Horny. Sex exists. And we could be doing that too.

Laci (01:29:28):

I don’t agree with you, but okay. I think she- Don’t agree with me. I think she just wants to make out. I think she’s in it for the long haul. I don’t think she’s trying to immediately fuck Miles. I agree. I think she’s interested in him just see what he’s like. And then just the worst looking kiss I’ve ever seen, because he grabs her shoulders and you could tell it was awkward. I’m just so relieved when she kisses him on the cheek a litle bit after that, like, “Oh, thank

Matt (01:29:51):

God.” It’s so good. All right, we’re going to go through step by step through all of this. Oh,

Laci (01:29:55):

Thank

Matt (01:29:55):

God. Here we go. So they’re fucking, all right, let’s go into a different room. Do you have any special one? Yes, I do. I have a 1961 Shevel Bunk saving it for a special occasion. Oh, when

Laci (01:30:06):

You open it, that’s the specialty.

Matt (01:30:08):

I hear they’re peaking right now. It might be too late. Oh no, no.What’s your novel called? And he says, it’s called The Day After Yesterday. Great title. So today. And he’s like, well yeah, just being a fucking loser.

Laci (01:30:25):

It’s like the first time you realize that that’s today. It’s like, oh, right.

Matt (01:30:30):

It is a weird, he plays it kind of weird. Is that the joke here that he’s never thought of that?

Laci (01:30:36):

That’s what I think.

Matt (01:30:37):

But he describes it, he’s like, it’s all taking place at the same time. It just devolves into this whole thing with no resolution, which is just like life. It sounds like a Jonathan Franzen novel or something, like a New York Times literary award sort of book that a lot of people will buy and not read, but they’ll say, oh, it was excellent.

Laci (01:30:57):

Rex Picket is happy you said that. Is that his name?

Matt (01:31:00):

Yeah.

Laci (01:31:01):

Fucking

Matt (01:31:01):

God. Very good.

Laci (01:31:02):

It’s a weird name.

Matt (01:31:03):

Rex, pick it.

Laci (01:31:04):

Easier to remember, I mean.

Matt (01:31:06):

Maya is getting her master’s in horticulture. Hortaculture.

Laci (01:31:10):

Wait, you’re not just some bimbo fucking waitress? Now you’re on my level.

Matt (01:31:14):

What? Horticulture. Wow.

Laci (01:31:17):

I didn’t even know you knew how to breed.

Matt (01:31:20):

Yeah, he’s very impressed.

Laci (01:31:22):

He’s relieved. He doesn’t need to marry down. He doesn’t need to go in front of Jack’s people and fucking run into Victoria and have married a waitress from wine country.

Matt (01:31:33):

You’re right because-

Laci (01:31:34):

He needs to move sideways or up.

Matt (01:31:38):

You’re right.

Laci (01:31:39):

And I think that’s the point. She’s a lateral move.

Matt (01:31:41):

Because later in the movie when he’s like, “Jack, what are you doing? This woman who just pours wine for a little.” He does kind of talk down about this service people. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t roll your eyes at me. Oh, I rolled the baby. Because you figured out something before I did.

Laci (01:31:55):

You were never going to figure it out.

Matt (01:31:57):

Yeah, because it’s like a glass of wine. We’re both going to taste different things. We’re going to respond to things.

Laci (01:32:00):

Yeah, you’re going to taste the stupid half of the wine and I’m going to say all the smart stuff about the wine.

Matt (01:32:05):

Yeah. So she says, “I got out of a bad marriage and it’s a contrast. They both got out of bad marriages. She’s like, this is a brand new opportunity for me. This is a brand new life. I can do things.”

Laci (01:32:19):

Because this is very important. She led the divorce for herself and Victoria led the divorce for their … So you’re seeing it from both ends, the rejected and the empowered.

Matt (01:32:30):

And he feels like this is like a death. I died but I’m still lingering on earth. It doesn’t make … I passed into some shitty alternate reality and things like the creator of the game needs to come in and fix everything, make it

Laci (01:32:43):

Right. It doesn’t feel fair that you should have a best friend who’s getting married after you just got divorced. It feels wrong.

Matt (01:32:50):

Like you said, he cheated on his wife, but it was probably not a great marriage to begin with.

Laci (01:32:56):

Sounds like it.

Matt (01:32:57):

And he could absolutely just view this as all a new opportunity for me.

Laci (01:33:02):

But he probably felt lucky that he ever got picked to begin with and even Victoria was a step up for him and attract … I mean, she’s convictedly attractive and he’s not. So I’m sure he had already married the refined … He seemed to rise to her level. She’s the one that’s into wine probably, so he learns all about it. He’s a fucking English teacher, but he’s trying to impress her and be something better because she marries a professor. He’s a teacher. Oh my God. Yes. So it’s like he’s trying to at least get published because that will at least put him in the … I think that’s why he thought- Wait now,

Matt (01:33:35):

Doesn’t he own a restaurant?

Laci (01:33:37):

I don’t think so. But I think that’s why he thought they would eventually get back together. Somehow getting published would put him back in this circle. I don’t think he thinks lighting can strike twice. And when he finds out that she’s going to be a graduate with a master’s, he’s like, “Fuck, maybe this is something.”

Matt (01:33:59):

So they go out into the patio, the score is doing kind of this sexy like Angelo Battlementi like, Miles, why do you like wine? They’re like, “Oh, why do you like Pinot Noir so much?”

Laci (01:34:14):

It’s a thing with

Matt (01:34:15):

You. Yeah. And he explains like, “Oh, it’s hard to grow. It’s temperamental, thin skinned. Why do you love wine?” And she gives- The longest. Ever since I saw the movie, even when I was an idiot teen, I thought that’s a little Oscar real sort of speech and it kind of annoyed me. And now I think it’s great acting and I think it’s very, very well written. And I know that it is her performing to try to forge a sort of intimate connection with Miles, whether sexual or not.

Laci (01:34:46):

Well, I think it’s to say like, look, I’ve realized how hard it is to find someone with these very specific interests that I have or with a passion to anything like I have towards horticulture. And I am seeking authenticity, like a real connection and a marriage based on or a relationship based on mutual common interest and respect for each other. And I think a Miles is really rare even in this area. So she realizes he only knows me as a waitress. If I don’t show him right now, then he’s not going to view me as someone in his circle.

Matt (01:35:29):

And what she says is a very poetic way of thinking about wine, of every single day it’s a different thing. And all the people who made it, the life that went into it, the life surrounding the grapes, the fermentation, the alcohol, et cetera, et cetera, and puts her hand on his hand and then he’s just like, “Yeah, wine’s pretty great and moves it away.” But the way she handles this is so … It’s great from Virginia Madsen playing it is like, “Well, that’s a little disappointing, but she’s not embarrassed.” And she’s not thinking like, “Well, fuck this

Laci (01:36:03):

Guy.” No, she probably realizes he’s still damn … I don’t know how much she knows about him having had a divorce, but I mean, you would think that he used to go up there with Victoria and then he started not doing

Matt (01:36:13):

That. Well, he had just said that he got out of a bad marriage and the only good thing about the marriage was we didn’t have kids that I would’ve fucked up. So he then goes into the bathroom and yells a himself in the mirror, “You stupid fucking lose it, ” which is exactly what I’m yelling at him from my sofa.

Laci (01:36:31):

And puts water all over his face but doesn’t wipe it all off. So now he’s just dripping wet for his first kiss with her.

Matt (01:36:37):

Goes back out to the kitchen and he kind of tries to hide from her at first, just step behind the wall so she doesn’t see that he’s back. The way it’s framed is it stays at a respectful distance and he goes into the kitchen and kisses her and it’s a little awkward, but she gives him a little peck on the cheek and then hugs him and says it’s not

Laci (01:36:53):

Going to go. The hug after is crazy. The hug after

Matt (01:36:56):

Is

Laci (01:36:56):

So relatable and so cringey. We’ve huh, we’ve kissed, we’ve

Matt (01:37:01):

Made

Laci (01:37:01):

It through the first kiss.

Matt (01:37:02):

Yeah, but she’s trying to like … Yeah, I still like you. And if all of this hinged on the us capturing the moment, jumping at the right moment, well, like Jimmy World says, here’s still living in the moment because it passed. I like you a lot. We have more opportunities to do this. Right.

Laci (01:37:21):

Tonight just maybe is too soon. This is just, you’ve got a lot going on.

Matt (01:37:25):

But hey, can I read your book? And he’s like, “Yeah, here’s 10,000 pages in two shoe boxes.” She’s like, “Okay, great.” Shoe

Laci (01:37:30):

Boxes. No, it’s not. It’s in the copy boxes.

Matt (01:37:33):

I wrote down in my notes, wrote down in my notes, Laci would correct me about the box.

Laci (01:37:36):

Because it’s not the box you from the copier.

Matt (01:37:40):

Miles wakes up at his hotel at 7:00 in the morning the next morning by Jack … No, it’s the next morning, Miles is in the motel room by himself and Jack’s cell phone is in the room.

Laci (01:37:50):

This is the second knock, this one.

Matt (01:37:55):

He didn’t need to knock though. Does he knock?

Laci (01:37:57):

For sure he knocks. He wakes him up.

Matt (01:37:59):

He gets woken up by the phone call.

Laci (01:38:01):

Well, that’s what I mean then. It’s like this intrusions into his sleeping that constantly happen.

Matt (01:38:05):

Yeah. Things are happening to him. He’s not doing things.

Laci (01:38:08):

Right. And he can’t answer the phone. He’s supposed to watch the red light blink. He can’t answer that. It’s like you can do a lot of things. You could call Jac. I don’t know how you would actually, but …

Matt (01:38:18):

But I mean, shitty of Jack to bring Miles into this dissension. Oh yeah.

Laci (01:38:24):

This is a lie for the rest of y’all’s relationship, your relationship with his wife. Yeah, that’s not cool.

Matt (01:38:29):

That’s true. Yeah. That relationship that I’m sure is destined for grace.

Laci (01:38:33):

Right. And at any moment, Jack might come clean or be found out and then that’ll then put Miles, the target on him and she’s friends with Victoria. I’m just saying, he’s not setting him up for success at all if he ever had another chance with Victoria like, “Oh, so not only did you cheat on me, but you helped your friend cheat,

Matt (01:38:53):

You’re

Laci (01:38:53):

Still the fucking same.” It’s just not thoughtful.

Matt (01:38:56):

Called by Christine. I love the wine glasses on the nightstands. Every hotel we’ve ever stayed at, you bet your ass there’s wine on the nightstand, but then Jack just swaggers in. Chick is unbelievable dude. Nasty, nasty. And I just love, I guess this is their whole relationship is- He’s

Laci (01:39:12):

Got it going on.

Matt (01:39:12):

Jack talks like this and Miles never reciprocates, but he just keeps doing it.

Laci (01:39:17):

He gets pissed that he would even imply that Miles would give details.

Matt (01:39:22):

And Jack is like, he’s like, “Listen, Miles not going to go golfing with you today, but hey, go golf by yourself. You need to take my clubs.” And he says, “Stephanie’s off today. We are thinking about taking a hike.” But there’s that lying for no reason. We are thinking about, “No, you’re doing it. You’re literally in the middle of leaving our hotel room right now so that you can continue being with her.” But Miles is like, “Hey, call your wife.” He’s like, “Okay, I need the room for a little bit of a minute.” And Miles goes outside and Sandra O is down there on her motorcycle in the parking lot below and she’s like, “Hi, Miles.” And he’s like, “Oh,

Laci (01:39:57):

Hi.” Yeah, but it’s so much awkwarder than that. He’s not happy to see her and she feels real weird

Matt (01:40:03):

About it. Hi, boner. What does she say? I think even when I saw this movie when I was 16-

Laci (01:40:10):

Maya had a good time last night. Something about it.

Matt (01:40:12):

Yeah, yeah. And she says that and then Miles is just like, “Okay.” And even when I was 16, I noticed this, that the camera lingers on her. She looks forward, looks back at him, is thinking, trying to come up with something to say. And I noticed when I was 16 like, “Oh, that just made her a real person.” Just something with editing and camera, you can make somebody a more fully formed character if you show them think. But Jack is like, “Hey, Miles, I’m going to go do shit with Sandra O today, but after that, the three of us can do stuff together.” And so he’s resentful. It was just supposed to be the two of us, something that has never happened with me and Laci on a trip.

Laci (01:40:48):

What are you talking about?

Matt (01:40:49):

Of you bringing in other people who made on the cruise ship. That

Laci (01:40:52):

One fucking time, man. It was a week long or four days. We can talk to people.

Matt (01:40:58):

I have embraced the talking to people. I have. Well,

Laci (01:41:01):

I’m glad you brought it up then.

Matt (01:41:03):

Well, what I’m saying is I’m on Jack’s side. Even though I feel like Miles, I don’t want to have to perform for other people. Yes, you do. You got to do it, bitch. Just do it.

Laci (01:41:11):

It’s his week.

Matt (01:41:12):

Exactly. You know what? Yeah. And it’s his week and he wants to talk to other people.

Laci (01:41:15):

Well, and he’s found something to do that’s really fun for him, but he’s falling in love and making a new plan for a different life.That element’s weird.

Matt (01:41:23):

Miles calls up his fiance or Jack calls up his fiance and he’s like, “Hey, I’m totally not cheating. Okay. Talk to you later by.”

Laci (01:41:29):

No, he gets voicemail. He totally

Matt (01:41:31):

Totally

Laci (01:41:31):

Lucked

Matt (01:41:32):

Out. I lucked out. She didn’t even answer dumb bitch.

Laci (01:41:36):

He’s so chill. He just does this all the time. And

Matt (01:41:40):

He runs out and he just shouts to Stephanie, “Ha ha, here I am.” And she goes, “Hi.” So Miles spends his day grading his papers, cutting his toenails, playing golf by himself. His

Laci (01:41:56):

Little pill bottle next to him in the wine.

Matt (01:41:59):

And

Laci (01:41:59):

Then he gets a barely legal, but he gets them so often he knows which one’s the new one. Ew.

Matt (01:42:04):

Barely legal. My God. Why

Laci (01:42:06):

Barely legal?

Matt (01:42:07):

But even sadder than that, he doesn’t jack off to it. He falls asleep. Well,

Laci (01:42:10):

He’s reading the

Matt (01:42:11):

Articles. Jack comes back. Jack and Miles are having a drink at the hotel bar and he’s like, “Stephanie took me to the grapefields. I feel like I’m really getting the hang of this whole wine thing. We ate pinot grapes right off the vine. They were a little sour, but showing great potential for structure down the wall. So this is the club I want us to watch.

Laci (01:42:32):

Okay.

Matt (01:42:33):

What the

Speaker 3 (01:42:34):

Fuck are you doing?

Matt (01:42:37):

What?

Speaker 3 (01:42:38):

With this chick.

Speaker 4 (01:42:41):

Why?

Speaker 3 (01:42:43):

Does she know about Saturday?

Speaker 4 (01:42:45):

Not exactly, but I’ve been honest right there. I haven’t told her I’m available and she knows this trip is only for a few days. Besides, I just …

Speaker 3 (01:42:55):

Besides what?

Speaker 4 (01:42:58):

Well, just the wedding.

Speaker 3 (01:43:00):

What?

Speaker 4 (01:43:04):

Just been doing some thinking about it.

Speaker 3 (01:43:07):

Oh, you’ve been thinking and …

Speaker 4 (01:43:12):

Might have to put the wedding on hold. Look, I know that that could be tricky for certain people to accept it first. All right. But life is short miles. I have to be sure I’m doing the right thing before taking such a big step. And you know what? That’s not just for my sake. I’m looking out for Christine’s feelings too. I mean, being with Stephanie has completely opened my eyes. She’s not uptight or controlling. She’s just cool. I mean, she smells different. She tastes different. She fucks different. Fucks like an animal. I tell you, man. I went deep last night.

Laci (01:43:58):

Deep. Deep.

Matt (01:44:01):

What do you think he means?

Laci (01:44:04):

I think he meets with this dick, honestly, but I also think he might’ve had a nice talk with her after. I think his one night stands are just quick and over, but I think he ended up realizing like, “Oh, I can have this wild sexual experience with a woman that’s also interesting to talk to and ask me things about myself where I kind of realize

Matt (01:44:24):

Something.” See, I assume that he’s done this many times, that he would do this with anyone, just fall in love with him and be like, “I’m going to marry you and adopt your kid.”

Laci (01:44:34):

No, I didn’t take it that way. I think she’s the full package and just completely different and I think he’s freaking out about the sameness that he’s about to experience.

Matt (01:44:43):

Right. I mean, just the biggest dumbass in the world saying the most cliche things like, “This girl I just met two days ago, she’s not uptight at all. She just likes me being me exactly who I am. And that’s how she would be for the rest of our relationship, surely.” But I love that he ends this by saying, “Miles, I’m an actor. All I have is my instinct and you’re telling me to go against my instinct.” But then we immediately, we go to the bowling alley because now Stephanie, her mother and Stephanie’s kid are at the bowling alley with Jack and Miles and this is truly evil demented shit.This

Laci (01:45:17):

Is fucked.

Matt (01:45:18):

Yeah. This is like an up in the air when Vera Farmiga goes to George Clooney’s sister’s wedding with him, not telling him that she is married where you watch the movie and you’re like, “I don’t know that the movie realizes how much of a psycho she is for doing this.

Laci (01:45:34):

” Right. This is truly a weird lead. You’re leading a person on in such a way that … Well, now you’re living a double life.This is beyond- Now

Matt (01:45:44):

It’s double life shit. But this movie does know that Jack is evil for doing this for bonding with the kid.

Laci (01:45:51):

Oh, yes. And we’re watching, but he’s lying to himself the whole way too, really convincing himself this is what he wants and means. And I think he’s buying his own shit.

Matt (01:46:01):

Yeah, absolutely. I like that when they all part ways and Jack is like, “I’m going to go make sure they get home safe. So I’ll see you later, Miles.” And Stephanie’s mom says to Miles, “I loved talking with you. ” Yeah,

Laci (01:46:14):

Right, because they got stuck at the third wheels table together.

Matt (01:46:18):

So he goes to the hitching post. Oh, he

Laci (01:46:20):

Gets all dressed up. He’s excited. He gets freshened up and he puts on his nice clothes and he walks proudly to the hitching post because he’s like, “I’m going to make my … ” Fuck it. If Jack can have a good time during this, I’m just going to just see. I just want to see what it’s like to be with Maya by myself. And he already ordered a bottle and then finds out that she’s not there. The saddest bottle.

Matt (01:46:45):

So yeah, then it just cuts forward and he’s drunk and just staggers out and then it’s the next day and they’re golfing, Jack and Myles golfing.

Laci (01:46:53):

And his stupid little short pants. Boy does he look dumb.

Matt (01:46:57):

Jack keeps pestering Miles, but Miles, you got to strike when the iron’s hot. You got to fuck that chick, man. And also gives him a lot of golfing advice. Right.

Laci (01:47:05):

It’s too much. It’s too much.

Matt (01:47:06):

You know your novel? I think maybe just publish it yourself. Just put it out there, get it reviewed.

Laci (01:47:11):

Can you get off of me? Right. Just let me be sad still. I don’t …

Matt (01:47:16):

I’m sensing a lot of hostility.

Laci (01:47:18):

But I love the way it turns around. They truly are friends. They truly are on the same level in a crazy way because all it takes is someone from outside of their little group being a dick and they both are like, “Wait a minute, that’s what a dick does.” That’s a dick ass boot. Love it. And then Paul Giovanni’s so fucking thrilled to see what it is that Jac’s about to do.

Matt (01:47:42):

They say this is what you do when a bear comes to a tackle. Make yourself big and go … And it works. They’re dirt bags together.

Laci (01:47:49):

Just like that they’re both down to

Matt (01:47:51):

Not

Laci (01:47:52):

Be normal in a situation that brings out the brute in them. Neither of them are going to hurt anybody,

Matt (01:47:59):

But

Laci (01:47:59):

We’re going to fuck with them.

Matt (01:48:00):

But there’s other things like they’ll do little petty thefts together. The bartender isn’t looking, so they’ll grab the wine bottle and pour themselves in an extra pour.

Laci (01:48:09):

Yeah.

Matt (01:48:10):

And Giomadi isn’t like, “Oh no, that’s against the wine code,” or whatever. So they’re walking back to the locker room or whatever and Jack is just like, “Miles, I’m not going to be happy unless you get your ops locked.” Oh God,

Laci (01:48:21):

Just say it normal one time.

Matt (01:48:23):

And they’re passing by like a dad and his son, “Hey, mine keeping it down, buddy.” And that guy is Phil Reeves, the actor who plays the vice president and Veep and who’s in a lot of Alexander Payne movies. He’s the principal in election. He’s the priest in about Schmidt and he is in downsizing Phil Reeves. Stephanie calls Jack and he answers like a psychopath. He goes, “Oh, hey honey.”

Laci (01:48:43):

Right. And also you gave Stephanie your phone number. Do you think she’s not going to drunk call you when you’re back with fucking Victoria?

Matt (01:48:53):

I did not think.

Laci (01:48:54):

Dude, you need a burner.

Matt (01:48:57):

So then we get the montage of the four of them writing the convertible with the top down, doing all the fun wine stuff, sneaking into the wine barrel warehouse.

Laci (01:49:04):

And then Maya making the sad drinking at the restaurant before, not a big deal because, “Hey, then tell me you came and look for me. I was at class.” And then she squeezes his shoulders. I think it’s nice you came to look for me. You’re right.

Matt (01:49:17):

Yeah.

Laci (01:49:17):

She totally fixes what was really loser feeling to him.

Matt (01:49:22):

And he’s … How come I can’t say you’re right without you rolling your fucking eyes at me? I

Laci (01:49:27):

Don’t know. Because if I’m right, then anyone could have been right, so you’re stupid.

Matt (01:49:30):

Fuck. So again, she’s like, huh, cool. Glad to see you now. Oh yeah.

Laci (01:49:36):

Sweet.

Matt (01:49:37):

And go to the fucking wine place, go through the wine barrel warehouse. Stephanie and Jack are kissing and smooching while Miles and Maya are talking about literature. I read the groups of Raf, yes. But then Maya takes Miles to her apartment. The camera respectfully pans away so they can make love tenderly.

Laci (01:49:56):

Max.

Matt (01:49:57):

And then it’s the next morning and Maya steps out of her apartment sipping her cup of

Laci (01:50:00):

Coffee. Stop Matt.

Matt (01:50:02):

Looking out at the town at the Santa Inez Valley.

Laci (01:50:06):

I’m going to fucking murder myself. This valley. Can I murder myself? I’m going to figure it out.

Matt (01:50:11):

Well, they’re having fun walking around town the next day, having a picnic. He’s doing the crossword and we’ve seen them walk around downtown Solvang eating popcorn, but they’re having their little picnic and she’s like, “You and Jack should come by the restaurant for lunch today.” And I’m just like, “What the fuck time is it? ” You’re saying you’re going to work later and you’re just like totally relaxed right now. What the fuck? I

Laci (01:50:31):

Know. Same. Same. You just had a whole fucking day.

Matt (01:50:34):

Morning popcorn?

Laci (01:50:36):

Morning popcorn.

Matt (01:50:38):

But yeah, you should come to this thing on Saturday night and he’s like, “Oh, I can’t. We’re going to the wedding that night.” Who’s getting married?

Laci (01:50:44):

Going to the rehearsal that night, rehearsal there on Friday. I’m sorry.

Matt (01:50:49):

Rehearsal. Who’s getting married? Who’s getting married?

Laci (01:50:53):

Myles. Who’s getting married?

Matt (01:50:55):

Anora. Then she freaks out like it’s an episode of Friends. You didn’t tell Mary. No, I know. It’s insane. And I love when people say this, “Hey, I could have lied to you just now, but I told you the truth.”

Laci (01:51:09):

I kind of agree. I do agree. He did come clean as soon as he could have kept going. If this were truly just to fuck for a couple times and that’s his whole play, then why tell the truth? Because they’re not going to get to fuck anymore on this trip.

Matt (01:51:24):

She says, she points that out because he says, “I was on the verge of telling you last night, but you wanted to fuck me first.”

Laci (01:51:30):

Right, but he probably wants to fuck her later too and he just ruined that.

Matt (01:51:34):

And he says, “Oh, Maya, no.” And she goes, “Yeah. I’ve spent the past three years of my life trying to extricate myself from a relationship full of deception.” So Miles returns to the motel and Jack starts humping him, celebratory humping. “Dude, you got your knobs lobbed. I’m so happy, but Miles won’t give him any details and he gets mad.

Laci (01:51:56):

“He just fucked it up for him. I’d be mad too.

Matt (01:51:58):

Yeah, but Miles can’t tell him that how it ended.

Laci (01:52:01):

I know.

Matt (01:52:01):

So they’re in their car and he’s like, ” Well, let’s go to that vineyard. We haven’t been there yet, but it’s like a big sort of commercial vineyard because you got the busload of seniors. They have all their merchant stuff. It’s much bigger than the ones they’ve been to. And Miles says like, no, that place is a joke.

Laci (01:52:16):

“Yeah, but I didn’t know that that’s why it was a joke.

Matt (01:52:18):

Me neither. You have to really look- Is it

Laci (01:52:19):

The Liberty Creek Riner?

Matt (01:52:22):

I know that the real owner of this vineyard didn’t want their name in there so they had to make fake merchandise.

Laci (01:52:28):

That’s what I was wondering.

Matt (01:52:30):

But I think they didn’t want that because of what happens here, like the scene where he dumps the spit one. Okay. So yeah. Well, then he

Laci (01:52:36):

Says it’s garbage. Why would you want to be the one that everyone’s making fun of?

Matt (01:52:40):

You’re saying we’re a joke.

Laci (01:52:42):

And that the wine is bad.

Matt (01:52:44):

Yeah, I know. So Miles is like, fucking I got to call my agent. “Hey, Agent, have you sold my book yet?” And she’s like, “I did have a meeting this morning with that publisher.” And he’s like, “Oh yeah, anything good?” No. No. And honestly, I don’t see how we can move forward in any way at all. Sorry. Yeah. I think this is just one of those things where a book is not going to get published.

Laci (01:53:07):

No. It’s just a weird book. It’s the first of its kind.

Matt (01:53:14):

Hard to take care of my trauma.

Laci (01:53:19):

It ends in a way that’s unsettling.

Matt (01:53:21):

Again, this Oprah book club would eat this shit up, but it’s really made him upset. So he goes into the wine place, he’s like, “Pour me a glass of wine. Sir, this is not a bar. This is something else.”

Laci (01:53:36):

Entirely.

Matt (01:53:37):

Wait, what is it then?

Laci (01:53:38):

I feel like I’m at a bar right now.

Matt (01:53:40):

I’m literally

Laci (01:53:40):

At the bar.

Matt (01:53:41):

Pours the giant spit bucket into

Laci (01:53:44):

Space. It’s not spit. It’s just the stuff that people didn’t finish. No one’s-

Matt (01:53:47):

It’s the stuff they spit out. They

Laci (01:53:48):

Don’t spit it in there, do they?

Matt (01:53:50):

Yes, they do. That’s the point of it. That’s why it’s gross.

Laci (01:53:54):

I mean, it is gross no matter what, but I thought they just don’t finish what’s in the cup and then they-

Matt (01:53:57):

They can spit out from their mouth or they can spit out from their cup, but their cup still has their spit in it. And Rex Pickett said he did do this and he’s like, “Oh, there’s thousands of dollars of wine in there. I’m going to not drink it. “

Laci (01:54:08):

But he did it like this angry drinking?

Matt (01:54:10):

Something happened, yeah. Maybe not. Maybe he did this all the time. But they go back to the motel and Stephanie is waiting for them and she smashes her motorcycle helmet into Jack’s face and’s like, “Stephanie, you told me you love me. I do love you, babe.” She continues so violent. It’s awesome. No, he

Laci (01:54:28):

Turns on a dime though because now he’s in the car and he’s like,

Matt (01:54:31):

“I can

Laci (01:54:31):

Sue her.”

Matt (01:54:32):

Yes, yes. And she shots, “Fuck face.” And looks at Miles, “You too.” He goes, “Mary.” Which is big. And so Jack takes Miles takes Jack to the hospital. Myles shirt is stained, so it looks like blood. Jack has … Oh, Jack, like Jack Kennedy has actual blood on his shirt. They’ve both been stained.

Laci (01:54:51):

Sure.

Matt (01:54:52):

I ought to sew her ass. The only reason I won’t is to protect Christine. So they go to the buffalo restaurant. This restaurant looks awesome with all the buffaloes on the wall.

Laci (01:55:02):

Does. Is this one also part of the sideways tour?

Matt (01:55:05):

I hope so. My God. And Jack starts flirting with their waitress, Cammie, who’s a little bit overweight and he’s like two tons of falling. She’s real grateful if you fly. You’re the

Laci (01:55:13):

Grateful type.

Matt (01:55:15):

And she recognizes him from his soap opera, although he seems to have to do some work to get her to recognize him.

Laci (01:55:20):

Well, he’s wearing a thing across his fucking nose,

Matt (01:55:22):

Man. That’s true.

Laci (01:55:23):

And he’s older.

Matt (01:55:24):

And so they flirt a litle bit and then later Jack goes to listen Miles. I’m just going to make sure Camet gets him say. And he gives the evil smile. And then he says, “You just don’t understand my plot.”

Speaker 4 (01:55:39):

Listen, man, Cami gets off in an hour, so I was thinking I’d just hang around and have a drink.

Matt (01:55:46):

Have a drink.

Speaker 4 (01:55:46):

Make sure she gets home safe.

Speaker 3 (01:55:55):

Unfucking believable. Can’t we just go back to the motel and hang out, get up early, play nine holes of golf before we head home?

Speaker 4 (01:56:12):

Listen, man, you’re my friend and I know you care about me and I know you disapprove and I respect that, but there are some things that I have to do that you don’t understand and you understand literature, movies, wine, but you don’t understand my plight.

Laci (01:56:34):

He’s so soulful there. I’m like, “I don’t. This is a sex addiction. It’s not your fault.” It’s a disease.

Matt (01:56:42):

There’s an interview I heard with Thomas Dayton Church talking about 20 years later, somebody asking him about the movie and the interviewer brings up the scene and he’s like, “You don’t understand my situation.” Thomas Hayden Church is like my plight.

Laci (01:56:54):

Yeah, right. My

Matt (01:56:54):

Plight. Yeah. Alexander Payne made me do that scene over and over and it’s like each time say it lower, lower, lower. And he’s like, he’s used to acting on TV. He’s not used to like, “This is film acting. You don’t have to project. You can swing into the thing in your fucking .” My plight. So the plight you think is just, I’m sex addict, I’m addicted to sex.

Laci (01:57:16):

Yeah. Well, and that I used to be very hot and I was on a soap opera and people noticed me all the fucking time that that random girl noticed me. You don’t understand how much I need to fuck her. She’s going to let me do so many things because I’m doctor, whatever. It’s all I’ve got. I’m never even going to be in another soap opera. I’m done.

Matt (01:57:43):

I may not ever be on camera and then the voiceover work’s going to dry up.

Laci (01:57:47):

Well, especially because he’s going to sound different because his nose is broken.

Matt (01:57:51):

Which he even says, good thing your voice after, that’s going to affect it too. But then now another knock. It’s the next morning at six o’clock. Giomati wakes up to Jack knocking on the door. He’s naked and covering his balls and-

Laci (01:58:07):

Sticking balls, but yeah.

Matt (01:58:08):

His dicking balls. And fucking chick is married, dude. Fucking husband comes in, supposed to be working a late shift, comes in, got my wife and my dick and his wife’s ass. And Giomadi starts laughing and he’s like, “I’d fucking run up five miles from Solvang, ran through an ostrich farm. Those fuckers are mean, bro.” And he’s laughing and Jackie is also amused. And then he suddenly turns. I left my wallet there because the wedding rings and he’s like, “We’ll fucking get him replaced. It’s okay.” He’s like, “You don’t understand, man. They had dolphins and shit. Our name’s written in Sanskrit. Please, I need Christine. I’ll lose everything. You got to help me, Miles. I know I’m a fuck up. I know I’m a bad person, but you got to save me, Miles. You got to save me. “

Laci (01:58:55):

And then it clicks for Miles like, okay, yeah, you seem to have it all, but you have nothing like I do and one of us needs to get saved. I’ll save you.

Matt (01:59:06):

And so he does. He does. I go to the house.

Laci (01:59:08):

Heroically.

Matt (01:59:09):

And what’s the plan?

Laci (01:59:11):

Man, but I’m glad they show that that couple’s okay because I am bummed as fuck as soon as I hear that a waitress got taken advantage of by fucking Jack and then ruins her marriage. I’m so sad for her. And then I’m like, “Oh, they’re fine.

Matt (01:59:26):

Yay.” It’s like the Alexander Payne touch. I don’t know. It’s like you’re going to stumble in on something that you are so not expecting a whole other world of sex and debauchery. That’s lovely. It is lovely. It’s beautiful. In Amount Schmidt, Kathy Bates gets naked to get into a hot tub with Jack Nicholson and he’s like, “Oh, why is she naked in this bathtub with me? ” But it’s like to her, this is totally normal, but he freaks out. Anyway, so the plan is just knock on the door, explain the situation.

Laci (01:59:54):

That’s a bad plan. Your plan is bad. And

Matt (01:59:58):

He’s like, “All right. And well, you’re going You’re going to have to go. May. He’s like, “Fine. I guess I’ll do it. I have to do everything.” I remember my mom laughing so hard at that line. I have to do everything. But Miles does it because Jack hurt his little ankle. But I don’t know why he sneaks into the house.He doesn’t knock her anything.

Laci (02:00:14):

Because he knows immediately. He hears the blaring music and stuff and he’s like, “There’s not reasonable people in here. It’s 6:30 AM and there is rock music blasting right now. This man just found his wife with another guy’s ticket. Whatever’s going on in here, I do not want to fucking see it if I don’t have to. I certainly don’t want to talk through it.

Matt (02:00:35):

Yeah. This in the immediate aftermath of this man discovering his wife’s infidelity. And there’s ACDC playing. What the fuck?

Laci (02:00:42):

It’s still dark. That’s how early in the morning this is.

Matt (02:00:46):

And he goes into the house, can’t find the wallet, goes into the bedroom, sees this man fucking his wife. You picked him up and you were fucking him. It’s like, “That’s right, you caught me. I’m a bad girl, daddy.” And Miles sees the wallet, grabs it and we just hear, “What the fuck?” And then MC Gainey is this actor running naked, pushes his little dick up against the car window. Not that

Laci (02:01:06):

Bad of a dick. Totally de- stick.

Matt (02:01:08):

I love that the cut from him running out of the house to Jack in the car, just listening to talk radio. And he has his eyes closed. He’s not nervous at all. No. Just like, this is just a thing. Right. We’ll see what’s going on. So adventure over, one last thing remains, my nose. We have to explain my nose. Oh, let’s say you got into a car accident. Okay. But without telling Miles, he’s like, “Miles, let me drive the car so he can crash it into a tree, but he doesn’t crash it good.”

Laci (02:01:38):

These guys are not-

Matt (02:01:40):

They’re

Laci (02:01:40):

Not good. They’re not skiing. They’re just regular fucking guys. The cylinder block on the fucking pedal, we’ve seen that in a movie. That works in movies. And it worked here. You know how cars don’t always drive straight? This is all cars. Sometimes they drive. I bet Miles hasn’t had alignment in a long fucking time.

Matt (02:01:58):

They could have called the movie alignment, not sideways. Oh,

Laci (02:02:01):

Perfect.

Matt (02:02:03):

But they do it. Miles drops Jack off at the in- laws, make sure they get a good look at the car on Miles. They do. And then it’s the wedding. The wedding goes off with a hitch without a hitch. I love the thing where the bride and groom put their heads together and then Jack just gives a little smirk to Miles on the side. They’re actually each other’s spouses, each other’s-

Laci (02:02:22):

That’s how I take it. I think he sees that Jack really does love Christine in his own way and he’s actually, he didn’t feel happy for him and he certainly didn’t feel happy for him through that trip where he was being so ungrateful to be getting married to a great person and he sees in this moment like, okay, you deserve this. Yo deserve to be happy. And whatever it means to you to be happy.

Matt (02:02:43):

But Jack giving Miles the look,

Laci (02:02:46):

The

Matt (02:02:46):

Little smirk.

Laci (02:02:47):

That’s just like, “Hey, I love you. We love each other.”

Matt (02:02:50):

Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.

Laci (02:02:52):

But that smirk doesn’t mean that we’re the ones getting married. That’s not

Matt (02:02:55):

At all how it takes. I know Jack doesn’t understand that, but he actually is married to Miles. I’m not going based on the Wikipedia summaries of the books. I’m telling you, projecting forward from this movie, these two aren’t going to make it and Jack and Miles are destined to be together forever.

Laci (02:03:10):

Oh, okay. Well, you’re cheating. You’re reading ahead.

Matt (02:03:13):

No, I’m- You’re

Laci (02:03:14):

Reading ahead.

Matt (02:03:14):

Well, like Patrick said to me one day, he’s like, “We’re just going to be friends with the rest of our lives.” And I realize- So once I’m

Laci (02:03:20):

Dead,

Matt (02:03:21):

Patrick’s

Laci (02:03:21):

Moving in here.

Matt (02:03:22):

No, but he was right. Yeah, if we’re still friends at this point, we’re never going to not be friends. And that’s good. Even if someone sucks.

Laci (02:03:31):

Patrick, that’s not what he means.

Matt (02:03:33):

I mean, I’m not saying Patrick sucks and he would never hear this so don’t worry about that.

Laci (02:03:36):

He doesn’t listen to our fucking podcast. Patrick sucks.

Matt (02:03:41):

They wed each other. And then Giomani goes outside and he’s watching everybody and then Jessica Hecht comes up, “Hey, my hell’s I’m your divorce X Wayne.” I’m

Laci (02:03:49):

A million years old and I’m having a baby.

Matt (02:03:51):

A baby.

Laci (02:03:52):

And he was really making it through. He was making it through the talk. Actually it seemed like he was doing a little bit better getting through. It wasn’t as bad as he thought to see her and him. And then she says she’s pregnant and now he’s about to cry and he leaves. And in my memory, he goes in his talks to Maya. And I’m glad that’s how it happens. He’s actually being reasonable. I don’t need Maya for this bottle of champagne or whatever the fuck it is, battle of wine.

Matt (02:04:22):

Yeah, but he does. He drives back to San Diego, which is two hours away neglecting his best man dudes. Don’t you ever give a toast and- So

Laci (02:04:28):

Fucking what?

Matt (02:04:30):

Come on, man.

Laci (02:04:31):

I think he’s

Matt (02:04:32):

Good. But does the best thing you can do, which is drink wine out of a paper cup at a fast food restaurant. And then life returns to normal, teaching shitty eighth graders.

Laci (02:04:42):

They seem fine.

Matt (02:04:43):

I know. You have a job that pays you. Get over it, buddy.

Laci (02:04:46):

I mean, the eighth graders seem

Matt (02:04:47):

Fine.

Laci (02:04:47):

Yeah. Okay.

Matt (02:04:48):

And one day he comes home into his sad apartment. About Schmidt basically ends the exact same way of the sad man character journey of self-discovery that was kind of pointless is over and then finds a piece of correspondence that changes everything. And here it’s a voicemail from Maya. Hi, Miles. You wrote me a letter. Took me a long time to process it. Also, I finished reading your book. Oh, you went through so much trauma. I’m so sorry. Anyway, come look me up. And he does.

Laci (02:05:19):

And it opens without even seeing her face. I love that. It’s just the point is that she took charge and he went and did something. Well, should you surprise people like that? I don’t think so. You can tell him you’re coming,

Matt (02:05:29):

But- This is not a great time, Miles.

Laci (02:05:31):

Right. What if she was pooping on her period, whatever?

Matt (02:05:33):

Poop and poos. Those period poops.

Laci (02:05:35):

You don’t know.

Matt (02:05:36):

I hear so much about. Miles, you fucking idiot.

Laci (02:05:39):

This was a big, big swing.

Matt (02:05:41):

You’re

Laci (02:05:41):

Lucky. You’re lucky. Also, that’s not the point, right? It doesn’t matter if Miles on the other side of the door at all, which is why.

Matt (02:05:48):

Exactly. Yes. And they might not make it, but that’s okay. That’s okay. As Tyrian Lanister says, life is full of possibilities. Don’t

Laci (02:05:57):

Look at

Matt (02:05:57):

Me like that.

Laci (02:05:58):

Wow. I think Terry Lanser’s the only person I’ve ever said that. Like random character and movie says, “We got to get out of here.” It’s the most common phrase ever uttered in movies.

Matt (02:06:30):

We got to get out of this episode. I got to pick up our kid from school. I’m

Laci (02:06:32):

Going to go sideways to get out.

Matt (02:06:34):

Star rating, Laci?

Laci (02:06:36):

A five. It’s a five. Every time I’ve seen it, it’s a five now.

Matt (02:06:40):

Yeah, five stars for me with a little heart. I still actually think I like election a litle bit more if I was picking his best movie. But I love this movie. I love this. I’d like to talk about more of his movies. Yeah. Sideways. I really think a very important movie for people our age and a touchstone from that decade, the biggest movie of the 2000s, bigger than Avatar, bigger than-

Laci (02:07:03):

That’s

Matt (02:07:03):

Crazy. The Dark Night.

Laci (02:07:04):

Is that true?

Matt (02:07:06):

No, it’s not literally true. Wow. I’m just saying. In terms of … We argued about this yesterday, how it’s lingered in the culture and you’re like, “I never hear anybody

Laci (02:07:14):

But. ” It’s mine because I feel like it’s mine and no one else is allowed to talk about it.

Matt (02:07:19):

So coming up next, we have sex month.

Laci (02:07:21):

Yeah, because bees on their knees sucking them Ds. Woo.

Matt (02:07:26):

And we’re opening with this most sexual movie of all times. What is it? 50 Shades of Gray.

Laci (02:07:30):

Oh, do I have to read the book? I feel like I’ve already said this. I

Matt (02:07:32):

Have to read the book.

Laci (02:07:33):

I’m not doing it.

Matt (02:07:34):

What?

Laci (02:07:34):

I don’t have to read the fucking book.

Matt (02:07:36):

You read a book for every episode, right? So 50 Shades of Gray begins sex month. Can’t wait to have lots of sex podcasts.

Laci (02:07:44):

We’re going to have sex on screen so there’s no better time to come and sub and PR sub.

Matt (02:07:51):

Speaking of subs, subscribe to Laci’s movie Character Morphs, 1WR coloring channel.

Laci (02:07:57):

I have to say I have 176 subscribers right now. Guys, get in before there’s no more room.

Matt (02:08:05):

Subscribe to Laci’s YouTube coloring channel. Link in the description. Follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, blue sky, Instagram, et cetera. Subscribe on YouTube. LoadBearingLaci on Letterboxd, MattStokes9 on Letterboxd. Rural Route Nine is my band. And bye now.

Laci (02:08:21):

Oh, okay. I love you. Bye.