we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

looks like i picked the wrong way to

quit sniffing blue light

of my life we enjoy your films

i thought they smelled bad on the

outside

[Music]

welcome to vintage video where we're

re-watching the 80s so you don't have to

we'll be reviewing every major film

release of the 1980s in real time

over analyzing what you've seen and

spoiling what you haven't i'm patrick

o'reilly i'm jess

bayless and i'm richard wells and today

marks the 40th anniversary of the

release of middle age crazy

on july 25th 1980 it was written by

carl kleinschmidt based on the song

written by

sonny throckmorton and sung by jerry lee

lewis

i can't believe this was based on a song

like yeah how many movies are based on

songs well and the song came up i'm like

oh they wrote like a mediocre song to go

along with this movie you're like nope

no it was a great song this was such a

good song this is a mediocre movie

written for a

stupid song directed by john

trent produced by sid and marty croft

and released by 20th century fox somehow

there is no recorded production

information for this film aside from it

having been a canadian-american

co-production

and probably a tax dodger i was as soon

as i saw that in the credits

i was like oh yeah this is this is

another one of those tax moves yeah it's

definitely

it's definitely a movie that you're just

dumping money into

because you need to get rid of it

somewhere you know you wouldn't

otherwise make this movie

and i guarantee you that everyone on set

hated the movie

like actively while they were making it

they were like this is dumb but we have

to do it because it's our job

is that why uh bruce stern feels annoyed

the whole time

he feels annoyed in every movie i've

never seen him not feel annoying i know

who

i am uh

i have to say like also seeing sid and

marty croft's name

in the opening i was like oh maybe i

don't know what this movie's going to be

like maybe this is going to be some kind

of zany

crazy weirdness yeah and it was not

i feel like the only way they personally

could have saved this movie

is if the entire time bruce dern was

just wearing a giant felt head

of his own face

frank movie yeah exactly

who was in there it was uh it was um

magneto right it was fast

yeah uh i mean i know we're gonna get

into the movie here

yeah because i got i was very excited

for the opening of this movie

yes uh because of the cbs fox logo yeah

um because it looks direct to video yeah

but

um that that little fanfare is burned

into my mind

because star wars was originally

released by cbs fox oh interesting

vhs yeah so every time you start up the

star wars vhs

you saw the cbs fox logo and you heard

that little fanfare

and i hadn't heard it probably since the

80s

and when this movie started and played

that theme i was like oh

it like i could just rush of like

nostalgia into my body and

throw that onto your phone as a ringtone

i know i was like oh my god i haven't

heard i was almost in tears

because it was just so exciting to hear

him

according to the opening credits here

this is our second consecutive michael

caine movie

this guy spells it wrong um the sun is

setting behind a bunch of i think oil

pumps

uh a credit comes up that says that this

features songs by bert bacharach

whose wife angie dickinson starred in

our previous film dressed to kill

released the same day

we follow city streets out to the

suburbs and uh

over the backyard pool into the house of

bobby lee and suanne

not watching the tonight show because

they're having sex in another room his

wife is shouting bingo as she orgasms

apparently she's keeping track and they

tied the all-time record at exactly

midnight

on his 40th birthday that's not how

bingo works

should he be shouting letters and

numbers at her while this is happening

also the tonight show in texas did not

run past midnight so

that's a that's a mistake uh she is very

excited about his sexual prowess as an

elderly 40 year old

the next morning suanne reminds her son

greg not to be late for

his father's 40th birthday later a woman

is riding

on a lawn mower when suen pulls over

to hitch a ride sue is surprised by how

the mower feels

and the woman

twice as says as that son of a [ __ ]

lamar ever was

i don't think we see this woman again

though for the whole rest of the movie

she gets brought up in conversation but

they just drop her here

she might have been at the birthday

party birthday party

but she didn't say anything yeah she's

not a major character for sure but the

two of them play tennis here and talk

about

what an important milestone turning 40

is which this is the first i'm hearing

then we cut to the parking lot of a

mexican restaurant called senor abes

where bobby is telling a co-worker that

they don't need any more clients right

now that senor abes has enough work to

keep them busy forever

the co-worker rushes him off to a

special occasion lunch and bobby

correctly guesses that this means strip

club

bobby asks if they can move their

conversation to the bathroom where they

can at least hear each other talk

and he complains there that his wife

seems to be making sex into a contest

and that he can barely keep up with her

the woman is screwing my brains out

he also hates that she seems obsessed

with his turning 40.

back at their home during the party that

night everyone's watching birthday

salutations

on this weird curved flat screen

television yeah this is the weirdest

monitor i've ever seen yeah so

it's um i believe it's a front

projection tv right

but it's it's bent forward at the

audience

that's how they were yeah what is a

front projection tv

so from like uh the projectors behind

the people watching it

no no no it's um so if you could picture

the screen kind of looming like this and

just down on the floor in front of it

are three

giant lenses of color you'd have the the

red

uh yellow and blue and they were

red blue and green red blue and green

yeah probably yeah red blue and green i

know

my neighbor used to have when i was a

real kid little kid uh

and they would have the signal split

between those colors and then they would

the image would form on the screen

it was never that clear no because it

had to be perfectly calibrated because

you have three separate lenses

trying to project an overlaying image

into the center

and it was curved like that to catch the

light or something like what

the one that they have wasn't so much

curve but it was

tilted way forward i think this one's

just trying to look futuristic with the

curved corners yeah i was thinking very

jet sensing of him

but but the quality was never anything

like that oh and

and and it was so faded and

blurry because they didn't have it

calibrated at least this these people

didn't have now

at the time would that have been

desirable i mean obviously

the picture wasn't super clear was it

desirable because you could get it

larger than you could with like

a cathode ray tube type television

correct they didn't make tvs anywhere

near that size the only way would be to

project it

got it and you know like the tv that i

had

that you guys had that was originally

mine way back in the day oh the one that

changed hands like four times yeah that

was a rear projection

yeah okay yeah uh so similar concept but

the the size of the picture is limited

by

the size of the television correct

whereas with a front projection

television

presumably the higher you install the

screen

the bigger the picture would be right

correct yeah the further away it is

and then obviously because it needs to

be bigger it needs to be above

people's like kind of eye level i guess

yeah but on this screen first we have

suanne

tearfully giving her 40th birthday

message

and then she drags her son greg into the

shot and then

uh bobby's mother and father his dad

seems reluctant to record a greeting and

tells him that 40 is nothing

but 64 is the shits 64 is the [ __ ]

i guess in 1980s terms that was

bad because now i would say if somebody

says it's the [ __ ]

you think it's a good thing yeah but i

think when you pluralize shits it's

still bad okay um and this was being

presented on a brand new betamax player

right so we're getting the impression

right away that these people are

rich i i just want to back up because of

this big smile that richard had when he

said betamax yeah

well i mean because uh you know uh some

people probably

people who are listening uh may not know

of the betamax vhs

the war the war and all wars

the wars that always end with whoever

pornography chooses

exactly um but uh yeah betamaxes were

pretty great

uh although i guess porn lost

uh in the blu-ray versus hd dvd yeah

contest but uh usually

whichever format agrees to host

pornography is the one that gets

selected as the did betamax infamously

not

do pornography vhs had porn and

max did not it was just cheaper cheaper

equipment and cheaper in general

uh but you didn't have the quality and

you didn't have the

the long play either i don't think at

the time yeah um

but also what's did you guys notice what

was in the background of these videos

no it was like was it a studio recording

area or something yeah it had a whole

bunch of tv monitors it was all

hr puff and stuff and sydney so it's

just their offices probably

that's that's weird the wife comes back

on at the end of the video

for a second time before dragging greg's

girlfriend janet into frame

and she sort of says her message and

that she she always thought he was a

nice guy and that

he's very successful and that he drives

a shitty car and so he must be great

because no one would drive a shitty car

if they had money in the backyard

the filmmakers wasted part of the budget

on the birthday song apparently the

party devolves into a congo line

and downstairs in the basement dad is

giving bobby his family watch

and cries about his son turning 40. this

was the only part of the movie that

generated any kind of emotion from me

him his father like holding him almost

trying to like he's trying to hold his

child yeah um it

really choked me up um and like i know

this movie

we're gonna we're gonna probably crap on

this movie a little bit yeah but this

movie actually

that part this one part was like oh my

goodness this is actually a really

heartfelt moment for me yeah i just

thought it was weird because just

a second ago he said 40 isn't an

important

like milestone in in a person's life and

then he immediately is like

crying over his son's shoulder for this

but um bobby asks you know it might be

more

related to his son's

uh graduation here because his son is

also

hitting the milestone of graduating high

school yeah

either way bobby asks a party guest if

she's having fun

or needs a drink and she says no because

it's against jesus's wishes

luckily for bobby he's dragged away just

by some random party-goer

but unluckily for jd this woman's

husband

she turns her condemnation on him and he

sheds some light on their relationship

by warning her

if you start crying again i'm not taking

you home at all

like he's just gonna leave her because

she constantly starts crying about

things

and jd is uh the co-worker his business

partner yes

bobby spends a three second shot telling

another party guest that his breath

stinks

you ever heard of banaka and then we

just cut immediately back to

jd now in the hot tub halfway through a

bottle of whiskey

and it's like how did you do that so

quickly you were just

arguing with your wife five seconds ago

there's a couple of really weird edits

like that

yeah um and then we cut back to his wife

standing in the same place where she was

just yelling at him

begging for the lord's forgiveness bobby

heads into the garage looking for greg

and finds him having sex with his

girlfriend in a parked car with the

music blasting

as he heads back to the party we keep

cutting back to the fantasy version of

what we saw in the car

as bobby's like imagining it but the

edit is really disorienting and it's

unclear until bobby enters the fantasy

what we're even seeing

back outside bobby is embarrassed by his

own fantasy of sleeping with his son's

girlfriend when his mom

asks him to speak to his father about

his depression

for whatever reason at 64 he's obsessed

with his mortality

and he's making lists of all of his dead

friends and then not just

dead friends but even just dead people

yeah just people who he's heard of who

have died

and bobby agrees to have a conversation

with him as she leaves she asks if bobby

has seen a doctor lately to remind him

of his own mortality

and then the fantasy turns to a scene

about

bobby having died of a heart attack

while having sex with his son's

girlfriend

and we cut to his funeral where he's

giving a eulogy for himself

and there's a pretty seamless yeah

composite shot or

camera tilt yeah it's it's a weird like

as the as the camera pans up from the

coffin to the lid

it's like a weird little bit of a blur

yeah but then it

comes right back up to bruce stern

because it's an open casket and we see

bruce dern lying in it

and then as we tilt up to brewster and

giving the eulogy

you know he's in two places at once in

the one shot but it's almost seamless

the church is empty except for that

curved flat screen

where family members are randomly

appearing as he mentions them

can you really call it a curved flat

screen yes

i mean it's not flat if it's curved it's

curved

on one dimension and it's flat on

another dimension

the corners are curved oh i think the

whole thing like i think it's like

it's concave like a lens well because

when you have

when you have light projecting up at an

angle like that it come it doesn't come

up as a perfect square it comes up as

like a a trapezoid

oh okay um and so forth so it's curved

to compensate i believe so

that would make more sense but when it's

his dad's turn to talk

he offers some poignant advice he says

humping your son's girlfriend

that's the [ __ ] after the party everyone

has gone home

and bobby heads into the house for a

very sudden epilepsy inducing strip

dance

that was my note yeah i was like sue

anne surprises him with a seizure

yeah it's not even footage it's

it's because she's moving weirdly faster

than a person would right it's literally

just a bunch of photographs that they

cut on and off

on and off but we cut to them already

having had sex in a bed

with like 20 light switches and two

phones installed on the headboard

i i don't know what that is about it's

the future

unless they're just having sex and sit

in marty croft's office yeah

like i mean do they control every light

in the house from this position

i don't know and and i would be freaked

out if

in the middle like the phone rang and it

was right above my head

it's very weird he asks if they can

spend some time away from the house but

together and she's not really listening

because she has a lot planned for his

birthday week

and this is before you even had birthday

weeks yeah but it's just supposed to be

one day and when you're 40 you don't

even celebrate it anymore

do you have birthday weeks now people do

people on social media are like oh it's

my birthday month

and they plan out things for the whole

event

bobby drives in the rain the next day

with the voices of everyone giving him

[ __ ] for turning 40 ringing in his head

till he notices a porsche on his right

inviting him to race not only does he

not race the porsche when the light

changes but he just sits there

until honking commuters wake him from

his days

he heads directly to the porsche

dealership i'm gonna

flip back and forth between porsche and

porsche just like he does in this movie

we cut immediately to him driving the

porsche home

and he speeds past other cars on the

road flips off a cop

switches lanes in front of an 18-wheeler

before we flash back to the dealership

where he's just

we see he's just imagining the scene

again he locks eyes with a woman in the

showroom

and the score lets us know that he finds

her attractive he also cannot stop

staring at her

and it's just creepy now she joins the

fantasy as he's driving down the freeway

and she's just like sleeping on his

chest while he drives the salesperson

tells him that the porsche 928 that he's

looking at

is listed at 40 and his voice goes up a

couple octaves

thousand at a bar later he asks jd to

come back to the dealership with him to

check out the car

jd says oh you just want to see that

cute girl again

i'm not sure why she would be back at

the dealership

like every time you go there yeah she

doesn't come with the place

well unless she just hangs out waiting

for people to buy a car

well yeah she's like a plant for the

dealership to get to lure people in

like she pretends that she's looking at

a car and you go this is the kind of

woman who's interested in this car you

should buy this car

that is a car salesman tactic yeah he

brings up some project he's interested

in pursuing

that bobby describes as a whorehouse

that he doesn't want to build

is this the same as the the the sweet

that they're trying to build this is the

stadium

oh i thought it was one of his taco

stands no that's the thing that they are

doing

i missed that i missed that joke i'm

sorry

but yeah he he's not he's not interested

in uh

in working on this uh thing at the at

the cowboys stadium

because he thinks that it's just a waste

of their time and they should just keep

making senor abe's

his co-worker says we got to think about

the future though not if it means doing

that

if that's what it means [ __ ] the future

at his son's graduation bobby gets tired

of listening and fantasizes that he's

addressing the crowd

he tells all the kids that life sucks

and that if they think the future is

bright that they should look at their

shitty parents and see that that's their

future

and he finishes his speech with the

future sucks

and gets a standing ovation very deep

writing

at bobby's dad's house we see him

catching the tail end of a news story

about police apprehending a crowd of

mexican americans as some kind of

demonstration

and he turns off the tv in frustration

and loudly suggests they should have

dropped the a-bomb on juarez

because he's just a shitty racist person

for no reason like

the whole rest of the movie has been

like oh this is just like a sweet old

man oh but he also just

[ __ ] hates mexicans with a passion

yeah it comes back later but

to no end yeah bobby's mother is reading

in the paper that it's all over for

farrah fawcett majors

and dad assumes that she died but mom

just meant that her posters aren't

selling like they used to

this was a big thing in the 80s but all

the a-list actresses would have branded

posters i remember when we interviewed

christina waybourne for our macgyver

podcast she talked about a poster she

did with a

tiger that um she talked about how great

it sold and how it outsold so-and-so's

posters and like it was a thing people

kept track of at the time

but it's kind of doesn't exist anymore

or maybe it does i don't know

i don't think people buy posters for

their childhood rooms anymore

apparently greg is at a grad night type

celebration and this leads to a

conversation about

bobby's grad knight and his long-lost

high school sweetheart linda mcallister

bobby smiles wistfully as they discuss

all of linda's stellar

extracurriculars and then suanne rips on

her for either being a [ __ ] or a virgin

i can't really tell from what she says

she says linda mcallister student

council glee club pep squad

only thing they forgot was verge he's

saying they forgot to list that among

her accomplishments

or that was not one of her

accomplishments i don't know

but bobby goes into a fantasy about

meeting linda under a gazebo

in a park and they spin around holding

hands with each other

though they must be on some spinning

platform because it doesn't look like

their feet are moving

and while they spin they speak entirely

in voice over

but their facial expressions match the

words to give the impression they're

speaking telepathically

i'm guessing that the dialogue here was

actually an afterthought and it was just

supposed to be a fantasy thing with

music playing

i have no memory of this scene i just

have to say that

i'm like when was this

wanda jean the religious woman from the

party

jd's wife is in the kitchen cooking with

bobby

and tells him about an actual encounter

she had with jesus who appeared to her

and told her that fornication is no

longer necessary

we cut to a winnebago honking outside

and it sounds like bobby's dad made an

impulse buy of this rv and mom is pretty

upset about it

greg and grandpa have a conversation

about the journeys they're starting

greg's trip to college and grandpa

taking his life on the road for a bit

greg admits to grandpa that he's

studying to be an architect but might

not want to do that at all

grandpa makes a bizarre proposal that if

greg promises to go to college which he

doesn't want to do

that he will promise to take grandma on

the road which he doesn't want to do

i don't know why either of them is

agreeing to this

greg for whatever reason agrees but soon

after as he's getting in the car to

leave

admits point blank to his father that he

doesn't want to go to college

and bobby thinks he just doesn't want to

leave his girlfriend behind so he's not

listening to this conversation at all

but wait also with that deal why is it

beneficial

to greg for any reason to have his

grandma go on the road

for no reason for the same as it's not

beneficial to grandpa for

the kid to go to college well i could

see that it'd be beneficial to him in

that he wants

his grandsons to be successful and he

thinks that this is the way to success

yeah well maybe taking grandma on the

road is is

the path to success after he leaves

bobby's watching a football game when

his wife comes in and says he better not

be watching football just for the

cheerleaders

even though they're not on screen right

now like how hard would it have been for

them to just be on screen when she makes

this comment

he laughs her off and then she straddles

him on the couch

later he complains again to his

co-worker that this led to sex on a pool

table

and jd says wanda gene won't even play

pool on a pool table

neither will suanne suddenly bobby

invites jd up to dallas to take a look

at that stadium remodel that he's been

against this whole time

and so i was very confused because at

first i thought this was a different

character

because jd follows up and says we don't

do remodels

and his line read wasn't in the way of

like

i thought you said we don't do

remodeling it was like we don't do

remodels yeah he's like what are you

talking about i would never

consider doing that i was like is this

the same person that was pitching that

yesterday

he says well i'm not talking about doing

it i just thought we'd go up and have a

look at it

i just want to get away for a while uh

suanne asks why

they can't just send jd and he says it's

business

and he tells her that he can't just keep

building taco stands forever

up in dallas jd and bobby meet with

senior abe himself

in a luxury box he's telling them all

the improvements he'd like to see

including a radar range over the bar

which is the second shout out for radar

range microwaves after airplane earlier

this

year senior abe directs their attention

out the window to the dallas cowboy

cheerleaders on the field

and refers to them as real first-class

[ __ ]

it's real fun that the dallas cowboys

organization gave their approval for

this script yep

because uh that's ridiculous and

something else that's going to come up

over the course of this movie is like

why would you

be okay with that being out there in a

movie

bobby is trapped in another one-way

staring contest

as the cheerleaders exit the stadium

that night in his hotel room he

practices hitting on the cheerleaders in

his mirror

at home again he has sex with his wife

in the pool and she's shouting bingo

over and over again

when the phone rings and it's mama and

bobby's father has passed away

they make all the funeral arrangements

and bobby heads to the airport to pick

up his absentee sister who hasn't seen

daddy in 10 years

in the funeral procession they have to

pause for a moment to let some cars pass

and bobby's mother is upset when she

sees why they've stopped oh

my god mexicans

wouldn't tommy just die oh yeah

i forgot we we should mention again that

he's a racist piece of [ __ ] shouldn't

forget that

later we see bobby on the phone at home

and he carries the phone into a room

where his wife is watching let's make a

deal on full blast for some reason

and tells her to turn it down instead of

going back to the room that he was in

with his wealth of phone cord yeah and

also you have a phone in the bedroom

yeah there's phones all over this house

uh he seems to be panicking about a late

delivery

suanne doesn't care about the business

because she wants to know how soon they

can kick out his widowed mother and get

back to the constant sex

greg wants to talk about dropping out of

school and bobby agrees to discuss it

next weekend

i don't understand the mom's perspective

here at all

i mean the his wife's probably yes yeah

she's very badly written

yeah in addition to that it's just

the timeline here correct me if i'm

wrong seems very close together i mean

the kid was just

talking with his grandpa about dropping

out of school and then the grandpa died

and now he wants the mom out and we

haven't resolved the kid dropping out of

school thing so this has been

i mean at most like a week or two right

it's less than a week

it's crazy why why was she so eager to

kick out somebody who's morning

because she wants to have sex every day

and break a record every day

it's just weird yeah bobby's mother

isn't sure that she wants to go with

bobby to take becky to the airport i

don't know why we need to hear about

that

it's yeah completely irrelevant it's

pretty clear at this point that becky

was just added to try and clutter up his

life more and make his plate seem fuller

but he really has no responsibilities to

any of these people

his mom's problem doesn't even really

matter so he's just dealing with a kid

that doesn't want to drop

out and his selfish nymphomaniac wife in

another fantasy bobby's father appears

as a judge

sentencing him to be everyone's dad

forever

he's terrified because so far the extent

of his fathering has been we'll talk

about it later for every problem that

comes up ever

including to his actual son of which he

is the father of yes

uh he comes out of the fantasy as he

drops becky off at the airport and tells

her cryptically

i don't want to be the daddy because

he's a child i guess

he runs away and yanks off his jacket

and buys a porsche

to the tune of jerry lee lewis's awful

song that was adapted needlessly into

this film

trying to prove he still can

he gets a cowboy shirt a big gold belt

buckle and some mom jeans

and at home suan blows up at him for

buying a car he can clearly afford

with the money he makes from the company

he owns well yeah and he's not even

paying for the company's paying for it

yeah

which any and he said the irs is writing

an office like

is that that's great is that how it

works well if he uses it for work

sure it's his car it's his work vehicle

and uh and she's also very mad that he's

letting his mom stay with them while she

recovers from the death of her husband

bobby's father less than a week ago

because she does say something like

i'm very upset you know it's it's been a

very hard week and he's like well

it's been a hard week for her too like

referencing the funeral and it's like

yeah that literally happened this week

and you're already like

get her the hell out of my house if the

message being conveyed here isn't

look what an awful caricature of a woman

we wrote or

this couple doesn't belong together that

i'm not sure what it is

he apologizes to her for not just

sitting there and getting yelled at

i cannot stand the editing of this movie

we have a couple second long shot of the

conversation with greg about quitting

school

that essentially begins and ends with

sue ann saying bobby

for god's sakes bobby you tell him

you're his father without any progress

being made in the conversation to

another fantasy

of bobby driving with i think the same

woman from the dealership

correct then suddenly we're in an empty

condo

presumably trying to kick grandma out

the realtor comes in and says oh they're

asking

this much but i think we should we

should offer this much yeah i was kind

of shocked at this though because the

price of the condo was like

52 thousand dollars yeah and the price

of the porsche was 40

000 right but this is also houston i

guess i'm just saying

you're buying a car that's the same

price as like the house you're

you're putting your mother in yeah but

it's also so quickly

putting like a big bow on the whole

story of oh well my mom needs a place to

live and it's like

okay well we found a place and it's real

cheap and mom doesn't care about moving

out

so that's not an issue for anyone so now

you only had two problems on your whole

plate and you just solved one of them in

like two seconds

yeah and then immediately the fantasy

music is kicking up again

and i pause the movie and walk away from

it for a day

this is intolerable don't bother

watching it if you haven't already i can

vouch

for the fact that because you were

watching it before i started into it and

you were just

infuriated like every time up and down

it's like suddenly it's a foggy shot

again and it's another fantasy it's like

i don't care about this guy's fantasies

this guy's

[ __ ] he wakes from this fantasy to

his wife shouting for his attention and

when she finally gets it

she asks what he wanted to tell her but

he obviously wasn't about to say

anything to her because he was in

fantasyland

he tells her that he has to head back to

dallas soon and she leaves exasperated

later we do this other thing where

instead of having a conversation between

two characters

every line of dialogue is broken up by a

scene change

for no reason so even though this would

be the next thing that she logically

says

we cut outside to where they're just

sitting on the patio across the table

from each other

and he's trying to watch a football game

or something and she says oh well this

is all my fault isn't it

why do you have to go now of all times

as if there was anything else happening

in the movie for this to interfere right

she confides in bobby before he leaves

that she thinks janet is pregnant

and that that's why greg doesn't want to

leave we've seen no evidence for this

beyond the fact that they had sex at the

birthday party

which was like two weeks ago or maybe

less than that but

who knows maybe it's true it comes off

as her just making something up so that

he won't leave town i

it goes by so fast i didn't even know

that it happened until later on when

bruce storm brings it up in another

speech

yeah i was like wait when when did that

happen yeah and i went back i was like

is this it is this the only mention of

it yeah

and suen ends this conversation with see

that's what i mean

you just can't go to dallas now and we

cut to him already driving to dallas

um he's working late at the stadium when

he finds a few cheerleaders drooling

over his porsche

one in particular nancy is very

impressed by it

she realizes after a moment that she

actually saw him at the dealership in

houston

and it's the girl that he can't stop

staring at when she learns that he's a

contractor for senor abe she brings up

that alongside her cheerleading

she is also an interior decorator and he

says aren't you a cheerleader

what a full-time cowgirl on 15 a game

which is another thing that

dallas should never have said yeah

that's cool just put that in the movie

yep we don't care if people know that we

only pay our cheerleaders 15

a game and not for training or

rehearsals or anything else we

just give them 50. it's literally 15 a

week totally what they do

yeah i'm sure it is just outrageous but

it's just like it's not even different

now

it's crazy that they gave their approval

for that though it's like okay you have

two options

you have to say oh yeah that's kind of a

shitty thing we're doing

don't put it in your movie or we should

pay them a lot more if you're gonna

mention how much they get paid in the

movie

yeah but yeah so that blew me away

he's hypnotized by her name though nancy

suanne calls him that night to announce

that janet is pregnant and demands that

he come home at once as though he has

any say in what they might do

although i guess maybe 1980 you did you

could just go to your son and say

i'm driving all of us to the abortion

clinic and we're going to take care of

this right now

i don't think it's clear what they

actually want him to do yeah

they never really take a stand on it i

got the impression at least that suanne

doesn't want

her son to be a father already maybe

she does she wants to go to college yeah

the next day he brags to jd that he has

a date with a cheerleader

but he insists that it's just about

business when it turns out that nancy

also thought it was a business meeting

bobby quickly explains that no i don't

care about your professional work

and she is ecstatic to learn that this

old man just wanted to have sex and not

pay her any money for a job

we just cut right to them after having

had sex

and now we officially don't care about

anyone in the movie there's no one left

to sympathize with

and uh she sees that he wants to leave

and she's totally cool with that and

doesn't care

that he's married because she was just

using him for his sexy body

because married guys don't get clingy

back at their hotel

jd is fielding a call from their boss on

this job

and bobby apparently just skipped a

meeting though we never saw that meeting

being scheduled

or skipped yeah i mean that's why he was

checking his watch

because he was supposed to meet senior

abe at a certain time and

jd said so before he went out he's like

don't forget about the three o'clock

meeting oh okay i missed that part

but i i thought that he did leave after

that because she said oh you keep

checking your watch and then we don't

see much more of that scene

so i assumed he just left him yeah i

thought i guess he did yeah i thought he

left too but i guess he stayed behind

why i don't know

yeah because she said get out of my

house essentially supposed to be no

strings attached you can go to your

business meeting

yeah anne calls their room just after

bobby gets back and is very upset that

he's still doing this job in dallas and

hasn't just quit

and raced home to have more sex with her

bobby drives home

speaking and voice over about how he's

headed home to his wife to straighten

out his life

and then suddenly he pulls the u-turn

and drives back to the cheerleader for

another date

after the date with the cheerleader

senior abe choose bobby out until he

just quits the job and drives away

he tells senior abe to take your

everything

and shove it straight up your

conglomerate

and then he drives away and quits his

job the job that he's been doing

his whole life presumably well in the

only source of income for his

company so his company is

yeah he's bankrupting his own

construction company who does nothing

but senor abe restaurants

yeah i don't really understand the

thought process here i mean i guess

they actually have to represent that

he's middle aged crazy somehow by being

crazy

but i don't but it's just so illogical

for this character

we're supposed to sympathize with this

guy and senior abe is a thousand percent

in the right here it's like

hey i'm paying you a lot of money to do

a thing and you've been

m.i.a for two days and he's kind of

giving him an

out and he's not taking it yeah and he's

like

you know what i quit this stupid job

then see ya

loser uh when he gets home suan is

waiting on the couch

drunk medicated and smoking which i

guess she had quit because he's

surprised to see that

she starts to tell him how while he was

gone she

basically went out drinking with that

friend from the lawn mower

and got a dui and he interrupts the

story to see if she has a point

like what are you talking about she just

told you she got pulled over by the

police drunk driving

he's like is this story going anywhere

sweetie i got a lot of literally nothing

else to do

in my whole life and she says well

actually you know what it does have a

point

because after i got pulled over i slept

with one of those cops

and before she can even finish this

sentence he attacks her

smacks that drink out of her hand and

winds up to hit her yeah and he jumps on

top of her on the couch

i yelled when this happened yeah i was

shocked because it's so it's so out of

character for him it just makes me so

mad they are not

being consistent with who this guy is

yeah this guy should feel

super guilty about having had sex with a

cheerleader for the last 48 hours

and then coming home and finding out

that his wife did it once with someone

else and he just attacks her

like it's completely insane but then

they apologize back and forth for a

while

and then we do this thing where what he

would have said next

we're cutting to a few hours later

they're in the kitchen

and he starts to admit what he did he

doesn't even finish admitting it he says

you know sweetie there's something else

i should tell you and then we cut

immediately again to several hours

further into the day

and they're in the backyard coming

inside from presumably having been

outside for a while and and she says do

you love her

so he he admitted to everything that he

did but for some reason we don't get to

see him admit it

we don't get to see her reaction to it

at all

i don't even think we get an answer to

that question yeah

this movie is like the seinfeld yada

yada yada episode where we're just

editing around every scene that might

carry any weight at all

but she doesn't believe that he doesn't

love her because they had sex more than

once

and more than once means that you're

you're in love with the person

we cut again for no reason to sometime

later in the house when he's still

making the case that it has nothing to

do with love

and he complains to her that everyone

wants him to be the daddy

and the plot has not backed this up at

all nobody's asking him for anything

except for his wife and all she's asking

is for him to be around and i wish he

would stop using the word daddy

because it makes him sound like a

five-year-old it's creepy too

i guess it would make him sound like an

even bigger whiner to be like people

want me to be a father

but saying daddy makes it sound really

creepy and weird

because he's 40. the man child and the

sex addict

come to terms with the dumb people they

married

and eventually suanne asks him to leave

and he says not until i and she says

he goes back to [ __ ] the cheerleader

again because he's stupid

and she's entertaining another man

there's no reason this shouldn't have

been senior abe

i wish it was but it's just another d or

jd

i thought i thought it would be funny

was jd but i was like no that messes up

that character too

but then that's that's probably it's

amazing that it wasn't jd because

they could have [ __ ] up every

character i think but i think it

actually makes a lot more sense because

jd is obviously sexually frustrated and

he knows that there is this

promiscuous cheerleader who will have

sex with anybody he likes

married men specifically that's true um

but i i wanted it to be seniority and be

like

i was like oh you come to beg for your

job back and he's like oh [ __ ] like you

ha

sorry i didn't know you had a guest in

keeping with his history of not

listening to anyone he ignored the

cheerleader

when she point blank said that married

guys mean no strings and he thought that

they were

in a deep and meaningful relationship he

calls su-ann and basically says

hey i went to [ __ ] that cheerleader

again but her vagina's full what are you

doing tonight

and understandably she says i won't be

home when you get back

uh if these people end up together at

the end of this movie it's the saddest

one of the year so far

i guarantee this screenwriter was

divorced at least four times

bobby somehow guesses correctly that his

son would be moping around grandpa's

headstone at the cemetery

yeah uh it's like this guy never listens

to anything his son says

but he's picked up enough that he knows

to go to the cemetery to find him

it's like why why does he know that

there's literally no clues to that

there's

obviously not a pattern emerging here

that he does this all the time yeah and

then comes one of the most

frustrating parts i got so mad i was

like it's like well if you're the kid i

guess i have to be the father it's like

yeah what you were already the father

yeah who raises this child

yeah uh craig says that he used to talk

with grandpa and that grandpa would

actually listen

bobby suggests that maybe now that he's

40

and his son is expecting a child maybe

it's time for him

to act like a father figure to someone

makes me the daddy now huh

he tells greg he knows that there's a

lot of pressure that he's going through

right now

because he's regretted his marriage and

son for nearly 20 years

greg will be a father before his dad is

and i hate this character

their last chance at saving this film

officially expired when they cut away

from this cemetery

without any zombie hands bursting

through the surface

uh bobby watches the birthday video of

just his immediate family wishing him a

happy birthday again

no video was necessary because they were

all at the party in the room when they

were watching it

and there was only five of them but now

it serves the purpose of being

rewatchable

after he's burned his life to the ground

yeah it would have been more meaningful

if

she kept trying to convince him to watch

it yeah and then finally he watches it

and it's just about how much he loves

him

yeah and he realizes he would realize

something that's actually that would

have been great

we've heard voices from early scenes

echo in his head for half of this movie

already

and i would argue that this video is

still largely unnecessary he gets

in the hot tub fully dressed apparently

by accident we learned later i didn't

realize it was by accident

and he just starts drinking or i guess

continues drinking

and suan sees this as a sign of his

budding maturity

and takes the opportunity to forgive and

apologize

to him he says he doesn't know if he's a

grandad

he is or if he's still in business he's

not

but he loves her a lot so he deserves

her back

hold on hold up back it up when he says

i don't know if i'm a grandad

like to me that is i don't

it's like it's a casual comment to say i

don't know if my son's

girlfriend got an abortion or not yeah

like that's a horrible

well it also could just mean like how he

wasn't sure until yesterday that he was

even a father

like maybe okay so it's super clear that

she's pregnant i just don't know if i

take responsibility for anything i don't

know if i'm technically the granddad

i'll decide

uh when i'm [ __ ] dead i guess 40

years from now i'll decide whether i'm a

grandfather why do you hit 50.

yeah she's overjoyed at just being

wanted because that

is all that female characters ever need

and uh he pulls her into the hot tub and

agrees to sell the porsche

we zoom out and pan over the house to

the porsche in the front yard

and zoom into the hood which looks

damaged or just graffitied

yeah someone wrote something on it but i

i couldn't yeah the quality wasn't

this was basically a vhs transfer so i

have no idea what the message on the

hood says

i don't know who would have even written

anything on this car

like the cheerleader wouldn't have

written it it looks like it's written

it looks like it there's a heart right

with an arrow through it and a message

written on the heart

but suanne wouldn't have written that

before she went in to talk to him

and he wouldn't have done that himself

the cheerleader definitely would have

done

it because no strings attached maybe

it's just like janet's

phone number maybe it's his son's

girlfriend it's like

hey we took care of it come on over

neither of them agrees to go to therapy

and they divorce later the same year

that part's not in the movie but it's

pretty obvious uh the director here was

john trent

he wrote and directed sunday in the

country and find the lady

neither of which anyone has heard of

writer

carl kleinschmidt has lots of tv stuff

this is his only feature

thank god sid and marty croft are

sibling entertainment producers

famous for fantasy programs led by

large-headed puppets

like hr puff and stuff sigmund and the

sea monster lane to the lost

bruce dern played bobby lee he's mark

rumsfeld in the burbs

he's general sandy smithers in hateful

eight he was woody grant in nebraska

and his daughter laura deren made her

first film appearance this year in foxes

ann margaret sue anne burnett uh

long music and acting career viva las

vegas bye bye birdie carnal knowledge

tommy newsies grumpy old man uh it's

also her birthday today as we're

recording yeah that's fun

uh graham jarvis was jd he was libby and

misery

he's howard humphries and mr mom deborah

wacom

was nancy that's the cheerleader she's

billy's mom and spider-man billy i think

is a kid who almost gets killed during

the

yeah during the parade float thing yeah

the green goblin attack

janice bowden in major league and she

plays a ski patrol person and out in the

cold

yeah diver episode one of our favorites

yeah it's a good one when pete breaks

both oh my god i forgot about that the

sound of his leg breaking at the end of

the episode

woof that also has a cameo from uh the

most interesting man in the world

eric christmas plays tommy that's

grandpa i don't know why he's credited

as tommy because they barely ever say

his name

uh he plays they only say it when

they're like talking about how much he

hates mexicans

yeah that's true that's his racist name

he plays the priest in harold and mod

he co-conducted the seance in the

changeling earlier this year he's mr

carter and

a senator in the andromeda strain and

apparently he died in camarillo in 2000.

okay another camarillo death uh helen

hughes played ruth i'm guessing that's

the mom

she plays the second grade teacher in

billy madison

and the she's credited as board room

lady

in tommy boy so i'm assuming that's uh

someone

at the company that aykroyd runs jack

mather played the minister here

i don't remember a minister but he's ted

old man clemens and billy madison

uh with helen hughes and uh

is that is that he called the [ __ ] poop

guy oh probably

[Music]

his poop again and uh he's also the

conductor in silver streak i bet that is

him

um yeah this is a down

there's no question that it is down

all of these divorce comedies have been

awful like all these midlife crisis

divorce comedies

i i wonder how far into the 80s they

carry because i'm already

so tired of them um it's a down for me

if i was joking earlier when i said well

maybe yeah no i get it it's

there's no way it was going to be uh

nicely listed there

um so overall what are we thinking

richard do we know where this goes

yeah i have this at uh number eight zero

out of ninety it's 80. okay um i have

this just below nothing personal

i do too i rather watch a movie about

clubbing seals maybe

yeah a romantic comedy about clubbing

seals

then this movie yeah um which puts it

above happy hooker

okay jess what are you thinking

boy i think i am putting it

just above gorp and just below home

movies

which which only leaves up the academy

and nothing personal below it

okay but man i hated corpse so much i

really never want to watch that movie

again

uh and this is ever so slightly more

tolerable than that

um i'm putting this below nothing

personal but above

bon voyage charlie brown which means

that it is 88th

out of 90. so we both have it in 88 out

of 90.

um but yeah that's we're all in the 80s

that's what's important

we all recognize this movie as a very

smash

there's just stuff that doesn't need to

happen the sister character is totally

pointless i also forgot to mention that

they're going to the wake and the mom in

the back of the car goes

oh i forgot to tell becky uh because

somebody and

and then sue anne's like oh don't worry

like we talked to her she's on her way

and it's like

you forgot to tell becky your daughter

that her father died

what is wrong with you but otherwise

that character is completely unnecessary

well

in except that she wants to someone to

talk to

because her pill addiction and cocaine

aren't aren't satisfying it

right but he doesn't have any personal

responsibility to that yeah i i assume

that he hasn't seen her in 10 years

either yeah

it's not like oh okay well i'll suddenly

i'm signing up to be my sister's

therapist and it's like

no she's rich like she could pay a

therapist she doesn't need her brother

to talk her through this [ __ ]

her brother's an idiot but also out of

the whole

three problems that this now makes in

his life this one is totally valid to be

like

look i'm i'm going through some stuff

right now i don't think i can help you

yeah and he could say that to his mom

too

conceivably they have money like it's

not like they're hurting for money they

have money

he could just be like here i'm giving

you money to go get a place

he has this whole house wired above his

bed yeah

that kind of electrical work isn't cheap

yeah he they've

they made it very clear that he's rich

so he's not hurting for money

his mom doesn't care that she's being

asked to move out she

sounds excited about the new condo that

she found hey she's not living in an

rv she's happy so that that problem

isn't even a real problem

so really his only complaint is that he

has to be married

and go to work and have sex right

what a [ __ ] [ __ ] well and talk to

his son

that's all the sun even wanted to do all

the sun was just like

just hear me out not do anything not

solve my problems just

talk to me yeah but everyone wants him

to be the daddy like my son wants me to

be the daddy

and uh nobody else but everyone wants me

to be the daddy it's so

frustrating to have to father the things

that squirt out of you

anyway uh patrick is working through

some other problems

yeah kids keep falling out of me um

yeah no that's um i think that's about

it for this one

that sounds fair yeah i i got nothing

that's more than it

if you guys have any thoughts you'd like

to share on this one i will be surprised

we are vintage videopod on twitter

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vintage video podcast thank you so much

for listening and i hope you'll join us

next time when we'll be discussing

the final countdown which imdb describes

like so

a modern aircraft carrier is thrown back

in time to 1941 near hawaii just hours

before the japanese attack on pearl

harbor

we leave you now with the trailer for

the final countdown

on december the 6th 1980 the

nuclear-powered attack aircraft carrier

uss

nimitz with a crew of 5 000 men and a

strike force of mighty aircraft

was on a routine mission in the pacific

when it encountered a storm

unlike any ever recorded and

disappeared

[Music]

captain we're down across the board

antennas check out but we're off the air

any word from our destroyers we aren't

getting anything except some code

transmissions in the 200 meter band

otherwise we're dead as a door nail ops

what's our radar picture

radar shows us clear sir can't you see

that russian trawler

i have the signal officer on deck but no

visual sighting sir

all of us know that movement through

time is possible einstein proved it

there are forces in the universe which

we're only now just beginning to

understand i mean understand through

science not superstition

there are black holes in space

anti-matter curved space

things that are as strange to us as

electricity would have been to people in

the middle ages or this ship

in world war ii

what's happening here who are you people

are we at war is that what happened

splash the zeros i say again splash the

zeros

[Music]

we've got an incredible opportunity here

we know where all the mistakes are going

to be made for the next 40 years and

you've got the power to correct them

got planes out those planes give us all

a second chance we're a bunch of damn

fools we don't take it

[Music]

those men have enough knowledge among

them to build the atom bomb

reach the moon years before it should

have happened is that a terrifying

prospect captain

or tempting one

[Music]

on december the 6th 1980 the nuclear

carrier uss

nimitz disappeared in the pacific and

reappeared december 6 1941

off the coast of pearl harbor the final

countdown

is about to begin

[Music]