Hello, I'm John Waters and I'm supposed to announce there is no smoking in this theater, which I think is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever.

Heard of in my life.

How can anyone sit through a length.

Of a film, especially a European film, and not have a cigarette?

But don't you wish you had one right now?

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm.

And I'm telling you, smoke anyway.

It gives ushers jobs.

And if people didn't smoke smoke, there would be no employment for the youth of today.

So once again, no smoking in this theater.

Thank you very, very much for listening to Trylove.

This is a literal roundtable podcast where we talk about movies we saw and or people we met at or through the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

You can find us on Twitter rylovpodcast Blue Sky @trylovepodcast.

G in touch with us@trilogpodcastmail.com My name is Jason Deffness.

I can't remember why I wanted a flute in the first place.

And you can find me on Twitter and bluesky.

Nintendofus.

I wouldn't shit you.

You're my favorite turd.

I'm Cody Narveson and you can find me in Blue sky at codynarvison.

I forgot about that.

It's really good, man.

Okay, sorry.

I'm Harry Mackin and I once do a whore with a glass eye and she would take it out and for a dollar she would podcast.

And you can find me on blueskyunishtake.

My name is Aaron and folks we are bringing back.

I don't know, this is a 2026 thing or maybe kind of longer term, but we're bringing back Calling the Bathroom the Head.

Head is very.

Sign my petition.

We need 10,000 more signatures and we will all start calling the Bathroom the Head.

You can find me on Blue sky with a link to that petition at rvplease.

Would they call it Der Cop in certain parts of the world where they was a universal word.

I thought that was good.

You cut out.

You cut out.

You cut out a little bit.

Yeah.

In Spanish countries.

I know the word for head in Spanish.

That is the joke that I made.

That was the only here on trial of local Spanish scholars.

Harry, we have today a film that played as part of the cult film collective series of films at the Trilon dedicated to preserving and displaying 16 millimeter and 35 millimeter prints of films through from.

I guess just preserving film as projected through actual film.

You should check it out at trilove.org filmseries/cult film collective.

I'll leave a link in the show notes as well.

Not tied by any specific author or performer of these works, but just by the group that puts them on.

You should check it all out though.

It's a pretty good group of people putting together a pretty good group of movies.

That is enough from me though, because we're actually going to talk about a movie today and Aaron is going to help us introduce it with actually the full introduction.

And he gets his own little mini introduction on the front of his introduction.

And it goes like this.

Yes, indeed, folks.

Thanks, Jason.

Really quick to kind of toss back what do you.

If you had to put this under a film series, what would you Jack Nicholson would be a good film series.

Nicholson.

You know, Kelly was mentioning last night that Nicholson is in a few movies at the trial on this year.

Five Easy Pieces, One Floor of the Cuckoo's Nest and this.

And it's like happens to not be any Jack Nicholson series.

He's just common to all of us.

Could still be the king though.

He's gonna be in the running point last night.

Spoilers.

Yeah.

I would put it under a Hal Ashby.

Frankly.

I love a Hal Ashby series.

Dude.

Oh my God.

B.

I think.

Right.

It's also a Cody, resident officiant of the Point A to Point B moniker.

Does it count as one of those?

I think so, yeah.

One where.

One where particularly one wherein the characters are not particularly enthused about getting to point B.

True.

You could the evolving like ignoring the real world, the evolving ideologies of Randy Quaid.

You throw in something like this, you.

Throw in Independence Day.

You throw in one of those vacation movies where he's sort of like a different dude.

Okay.

Yeah.

I like it.

Under a Scaring the Hose.

That's a very good one.

Or like.

Well, this would actually work with the too.

But I kept thinking about Husbands.

The Cassavetes movie and just like the.

The scariest and worst boys weekend of all time, I guess would be the.

The thing here.

I thought a lot about that one never ending.

Right.

Exactly.

Anyway, to.

To I'll.

I'll actually introduce the movie now we're talking about The Last Detail 1973 film directed by Hal Ashby.

It is based on a novel of the same name by Daryl Ponnikson.

It stars Jack Nicholson, Otis Young and Randy Quaid as three members of the Navy.

The first two, Billy L.

Badass Badutsky and Richard Mule Mulhall, are assigned to transport the young Lawrence Larry Meadows to prison where he is to serve eight years or maybe six for attempting to steal $40.

The trip would only take about two days if they were to gun it.

But they're allotted a week and Badusky and Mule decide to spend their per diem giving Larry a good time before he.

He is locked away.

The film was, if not a large financial success, certainly a critical one, was largely gone on to be remembered for the performance of its three main actors, many of them receiving award nominations and whatnot.

When the movie came out, it broke the record for the highest number of instances of the word uttered in a movie at 65 utterances, which now seems.

Sort of good luck.

It's like baby numbers.

I'm sure we have podcasts in which we approach that.

Probably Scorsese, Tarantino, just roll out of bed and give about 70.

I think Goodfellas, I may have done the same.

May have done the same statistic for Goodfellas introducing it, because I know that's another one that had.

I think maybe that was general profanity versus the specific word fuck.

But anyway, that's Jason.

Have fun carrying that one into a topic of conversation.

Back to you.

I sure will.

It's a good movie.

There is this very simple setup of, as Aaron mentioned, where, you know, it's sort of of an ilk of.

Of a group of maybe stories where it's like a peek behind this sort of specific experience of, you know, behind a certain cultural wall.

We'll say, like, oh, inside the Navy, when somebody commits a crime, they need to be escorted to a place, right?

It's kind of a simple, simple setup that, like, in this highly regulated environment, requires some kind of special attention.

It sort of gives it the structure of, you know, road movie style.

It sort of makes it necessarily ripe for comedy, ripe for like this peek behind the curtain.

But I think it seems also that the original author, as you were saying, David Ponnikson, that was sort of his thing was he spent time in the Navy and some of his stories, some of his most popular stories, including this one, were more about like, his unique experiences in the Navy or his like, maybe interpretation of.

Or like just building.

Building the world of what it was like to be inside the Navy.

The kind of people that showed up, the kind of things that would happen.

He probably liked it a lot and thought it was a cool, normal, chill place.

Right?

That was probably the big takeaway.

I don't know at all.

I haven't read, obviously any of Ponnux's stories, including this one or Last Flag Flying or, oh, I'm forgetting the name of the Other one with James Caan in it, which released the same year as this, actually, like, he was pretty at the forefront of stories being adapted into movies.

Cinderella, Liberty.

Cinderella, Liberty.

That's it.

I was pointing out that both Jack Nicholson and James Caan, arguably main characters in both of those movies, have mustaches in their Navy uniforms.

So I think there's a bit of a ponic sentence, mustache coup thing going on there.

But my point being it is there's a very simple, straightforward.

I guess looking back on it with 50 years of hindsight, there could.

Well, not that I have 50 years of hindsight, but with 50 years of films that have come between that and this, like, modern day, I do feel like there's a much simpler.

They have their experiences, they teach each other things about, you know, the strictures of what it means to be an upstanding person and what it means to have freedom and who wins, all that kind of stuff.

But I think from the very jump of this movie, the thing that grabbed me this time, I have seen it before before.

Once in 2022, after seeing it pop up on Cody's log list and he was on HBO or whatever at the time.

I think that what jumps out at me first is there's no pretense about why they're doing this.

Like, the.

The actual crime is revealed at the beginning.

The crime for which Larry, and I'm forgetting the character's last name, but Randy Quaid, Larry, is being reprimanded.

He's being put in eight years and dishonorable discharge for stealing from a collection plate that just had a very small amount of money that just happened to be taken from the commandants.

I forget exactly what character it is.

The.

The old lady, I think they refer to her as like an important person's.

The head of the Navy, essentially.

The head of the Navy.

The wife of the head of the naval base.

Yeah, sure.

It's her pet project.

It's, you know, around polio, cures diseases, probably an ineffectual, like, liberal, like, you know, fundraising thing.

And from the jump, it's established between all main characters that, like, it's kind of a sham that he's being put away at all.

Right.

Like, but you got to do it.

You're part of the Navy.

You are the men attached to this detail, you know, stick with it at the.

Like, to have that right up front, I think gives the whole movie for me, at least on second watch, a different coloring.

Not necessarily of, like, the events that happen in the movie, but it's a Good reminder to go back to, like, this was all performance anyway.

This is all like the execution of certain sham, like, upholding ritual and upholding face type.

Like, anything that's done in the name of the Navy is sort of being done with this sort of really weak, thin backing to it in that color.

Your experience of it, Aaron, had you seen it before and does that make you think of it differently this time?

I had not seen it before.

I think there's like, three different ways I could go based on.

Because you mentioned a lot of good stuff there.

I think there's.

There's similarly kind of a few different avenues you kind of have, you know, take to explore this movie.

I think that, like, maybe a good one would be kind of comparing it to a movie we saw earlier this year, which was beautifully.

Right.

I think that, that that was a movie which was based.

I'm going to bring it up because I'm pretentious and I read it, but it's based on a Herman Melville novella called Billy Bud Sailor, which is.

These three stories are all, like, based around, I guess, specifically like, the Navy, right?

But based around, like a.

A sort of kind of, I don't know, misuse of justice.

Right.

In.

In a kind of military setting, right.

In which a character who is, like, sort of unambiguously, like the.

The best, the most pure.

Right.

Maybe.

Maybe not the most forward in their moral thinking, but certainly the most, like, untainted by the world around them.

Right.

Is like, you know, given some sort of absurdly unjust penalty due to a crime that, like, is by the books, but.

But certainly kind of reveals the.

The flawed natures of the books themselves.

Right.

I think that, like, that's like a very good comparison point in this movie.

Kind of uses that to explore, you know, these three men, how they approach conceptions of themselves, right.

Their masculinity.

I think that, like, the character of Larry is like, a really good one for doing that because he is the youngest, he is the most inexperienced.

He is, you know, as kind of previously mentioned, he is like the.

The most pure due to his, like, inexperience with the world.

Right?

And these two characters, you know, Jack Nicholson's character, Otis Young's character, who are kind of, you know, they've been in the Navy for a while, right there.

They call themselves Navy lifers.

They don't know what they would do if they weren't in the Navy.

In fact, they both have conversations about, you know, moments in their past when they realized that, like, damn if I don't do the Navy.

There's.

There's kind of nothing for me.

Right.

Very.

To the story.

Yeah, that.

Right.

It's very, very good.

And I think that, like, this movie does a really interesting thing where it kind of explores that in what I would say a pretty subtle way.

Right.

Where it's.

It's these three characters, like, kind of slowly coming to terms with their lives due to the nature of the situation that this.

This young man is in.

I think.

I think it's really good.

I think there's like a.

A sort of.

And the comparison to Botrivail is kind of unfair because that's what that movie is.

Right.

But, like, I think that there is kind of a very quiet, like, understated sadness to this, which.

And I've been rambling.

But the other aspect that maybe we should discuss at some point would be, you know, this being a film about characters sort of grappling with the impending nature of death.

Right.

Death here being a metaphor, not literal.

Like, it's mentioned that Larry's probably going to get the shit kicked out of him a lot in prison, right.

Because he's so young and, like, fresh, but it's not, like a literal death that he's facing.

But I very much read, like, the kind of impending nature of this person's incarceration as a metaphor for.

Of the end of a way of life, if not death.

It's the deficiency change.

Right?

It's.

You know.

Yes.

This is a.

It's like Catcher in the Rye.

These are.

These are people who are, like, grappling with the fact that this kid is going to end up like them, and there's really no avoiding it.

And they are so desperate to keep him from becoming them in a sense.

Right?

Because, like.

Like, them, they're gonna.

He's gonna get the kicked out of him and he's gonna be bent out of shape into the, you know, the lifer shape that they're in before this movie even starts.

Which is my.

My favorite part about this movie.

Right.

And.

And I should say up the top.

This is my favorite movie I've seen at the trial on.

In a very long time.

I think probably my favorite movie of the year, except for maybe.

Butre vi not to sort of get ahead of things, but.

Holy.

I was blown away by this movie.

I have.

I think it's my favorite Jack Nicholson performance, which is crazy to say, but I think it's probably true.

It's unbelievable in this movie.

Dude.

It's.

It's.

We were talking about it with Jason.

But, like, in addition to everything else, like, it's.

It's the type of performance where, like, almost all of his lines feel superfluous because he is such a gifted physical actor and comedian that he conveys literally everything you could ever need him to say through body language in this movie without even opening his mouth.

Anyway, one thing, and.

And this is a real sensibility thing that.

That is a bullseye for me.

But, like, I.

It's a thing that is so endemic of 70s movies, but especially this movie, is that we start so late in the.

The quote, unquote, second act of these people's lives, right?

Like, I think it's really important to this movie that Badass and Otis Young's character mule are, like, by the time this movie starts, they are so divorced from any sort of sense of reality outside of the confines of the Navy, right?

It's like.

Like you said, Aaron, where, like, the term lifer carries so much weight and meaning in this movie where it's just sort of like these are dudes who cannot return to society, right?

And I really love the boutrevai comparison, right?

Because, like, that movie is all about how profoundly twisted by military service the protagonist of that movie has become, right?

It's like, these are guys.

There's.

There's the great monologue that Nicholson has where it's sort of like he ended up going into the Navy because he basically, like, had to reckon with the fact that he couldn't deal with society.

And so, like, these are people who are completely sort of, like, twisted by their experiences, who are now, like, they come into contact with this relative innocent and are trying to sort of, in their own very backward, very sort of halted, halting way.

They're.

They're trying to impart some sense of agency to this kid, some.

Some way for him to navigate the world the way they have.

Well.

And in the process, they kind of have to reconcile with the fact that they never really did it themselves, right?

That they themselves were also kind of ruined by their experience irrevocably.

And there is this unbelievably poignant, in my opinion, sort of exploration of those themes, right, this idea that, like, these are people who have been victimized, sort of coming to terms, like you said, Aaron, with their own victimization at the hands of this system and at the hands of this institution, while at the same time trying to sort of, like, reckon with that and in their own way sort of, like, undo the pattern of.

Of trauma that.

That they have become a part of.

And, you know, we can talk about how successfully they do that, but it's not clear in any sense.

Right.

But I.

I find the messiness of this and the sort of metaphor of what it means to sort of be shaped and traumatized by evil institutions like the military service or the United States of America in general and what you do with that trauma and.

And how you try to preserve some sense of selfhood and agency within that really powerful theme that this movie explores.

Cody, I believe you've seen this movie before, right?

Once before.

What did you make of it this time and last time?

I guess, yeah, as has been happening a lot with me lately.

I'll think of a movie that I've seen once before and it's like, oh yeah, I saw that last year, maybe a couple years ago and that's how I felt about this one.

But I.

It was like over four years ago that I last saw and it's time.

Be doing that to me all the time lately.

Be doing that a lot.

But all which is to say this movie has stuck with me a good amount.

I've pondered revisiting this motivated in part by like Jason taking the baton and watching this and getting a lot of it, a lot out of it the.

The first time he watched it.

I will say I was not able to make it to the same screening as some of the fellas here were able to make last night.

Had a ticket shout out to Lumos Apartments.

I would love it if you had a parking situation structure that made it capable and convenient for.

For me to get my vehicle instead of having it locked up in an accessory on notice.

Lumos.

That's ridiculous.

Dude.

I'd be so fast.

That happens to me like once a month at my apartment.

And every time it happens, it's like a minor inconvenience and my day is ruined.

I'm like, I can't believe this.

Just like I'm walking around in a storm for the rest of the day.

Right.

Realistically, I could have called a cab, but it was too close to Showtime.

I was like, well to.

I don't make the rest of my night work out.

I just get to catch it some other way.

And I did not to litigate this.

Now I usually try to save my favorite trial on films of the year, like our personal picks.

I try to save those for in theater.

May have to.

Well, I mean, we'll see how the rest of the year goes.

May have to slide this movie in there just because it is so great.

And I knew I would get a lot more out of it this time around.

And I certainly, certainly did.

Dude, I had like a full on marvelous situation I talk about sometimes where, like, I was like.

I was like 35 minutes into this movie thinking, like, oh, this is one of my favorite movies.

Like, I.

This is.

This is a new Instant Harry classic for me.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

And the thing.

Not that it doesn't kick in the first time you see it, but especially upon rewatch, the fact that this is.

It's.

We've gestured at it.

It's not a plotty movie, it's not a particularly lean movie, but it's also a film where I don't know what I would cut, if anything.

I don't.

I certainly wouldn't cut anything.

And it.

The film doesn't make.

Leave it obvious as to, like, what would be susceptible to cuts because the overlapping of character interactions and conversations, the sort of random splicing and cutting to and from things that we get in the order that they're presented is.

Is so important.

We have a couple of anchor points, at least in my mind, as far as setting the stage for this environment.

As Jason said, it is like, it's in broad strokes, a point A to point B kind of movie.

It's dictated by.

I'm just gonna call them by their nicknames, Badass and Mule.

Getting told that they need to escort this guy to prison, basically.

And Badass immediately kind of going to Mule and being like, hey, you know, we have X number of days to do this.

Let's stretch this out.

Let's make the most of our per diem, you know, let's make this worth our while.

The most that we can, within the confines of the rules that they have spent a good portion of their lives living within and probably will live among for the rest of their existences.

Because as the film goes to show, and they plainly say, like, there's no other place for them really, other than just this, you know, bullshit chicken shit outfit that this chickens detail.

Excuse me, that they're.

That they're occupying.

So there's.

That there's the meeting of Meadows, and with every word he says, mule.

And particularly Badass, seeing more of themselves without them necessarily.

Not like, you know, a Persona type thing where it's like we are literally the same person.

We're like.

We're the same people transposed onto one another.

But this kind of silent, dreadful sense of.

It makes little to no sense that Meadows is here in this position.

And I've had like, a long, not necessarily storied career.

He's the Badass in particular, is the type of person who I wrote in my notes this.

Oh, come on, Badusky.

Because that's, you know, this guy who's trying to, like, rouse him from his armchair just like, come on, Baduski, it's your ass, it's my ass, it's our ass, it's the world's ass.

He's like that.

A lot of asses to be found, and badass included.

Both, like, that's the role he had.

And this sort of melding of these men together, it makes for an.

As I kind of alluded to, it makes for this journey that we don't want to end because we.

I mean, I certainly enjoyed hanging out with these three men in the capacity that I did, but it's.

I also don't want it to end, and they don't want it to end because of the, you know, what is going to, like, what is going to happen at the.

It's the, the figurative death of innocence.

Yeah.

I really liked the death of this guy.

Right.

I really liked the way Aaron characterized it.

Right.

Where there is such an impending doom hanging over this movie.

I.

There, There are so many moments in this movie where there's just like, everybody will be laughing and like, like commiserating together as comrades.

And then there's just a beat.

And they, you can tell without them saying anything that the reality of the situation has just hit them again.

And they will all just go quiet and their faces will drop.

And that's often the end of a scene, and it is so powerful.

Yeah.

And then through various transitions, like, you see some of that lifted and sort of like implied in the margins of, we are addressing the real world or the, you know, our reality without explicitly saying it.

But later we will see.

We're not having any sort of grand discussions about who's getting the nice bed.

We know that Meadows is getting the nice bed.

We're just, we're kind of like sliding past.

Oh, my God, I love this movie so much.

Sorry, go ahead.

No, that's okay.

Hey, and I'm here looking at my boys, one boy in particular, Jason.

Where are we at as a result of, of all that?

What's, What's, a sensible next place to, to kick this?

What's.

And I guess, what else new did you, did you take from, you know, revisiting this for a second time?

Right?

This is your second time?

This was my second time, yeah.

Back in 2022.

Again, I, I, I watched it at home.

Far better to watch it in person.

It was on 35 millimeter.

As implied by the cult film collective showing it played to a great crowd at the trial on.

Everybody was laughing at the right times.

Really regret you couldn't be there.

It is.

It is wild how this movie plays like a.

Like blockbuster comedy.

Like people were like.

It's absolutely losing their.

About how funny this movie is.

The shape of it is.

Again, I think, like all we're saying about the end of things, the sort of impending death that Aaron was like metaphorical death, we'll say is I think best framed as like the great internal struggle of Badusky and Mulhall, which again, just to reorient the listener, Baduski sometimes called Badass, Mulhall sometimes called Mule, just reorienting there it like the sort of push pull there of wanting to feel comradery with those, with.

With Larry, with Meadows, but also needing to uphold the detail like they're stuck on it.

They.

Like you say those beats Harry or when they kind of all remember why they're there, even despite all of their, like, silly goings on and sort of the.

They're all.

They all sort of rebound back to this one state.

But it like I love Harry that you brought up the fact that it's set against like the failures of their own.

Excuse me.

The background of their own failed lives, at least those two, Buteski and Mulhall.

And with the great tragedy of it being like Larry.

The end of Larry's way of life.

Right.

Like they have something to rely on.

They have like an established.

Basically the rest of their careers are kind of mapped out.

They don't have orders, so they're just on reserve.

But kind of the rest of their military careers are sort of set for them in a way.

They're sort of on parallel tracks in that excuse.

Meadows is going to be going to jail and his whole situation is going to be set.

But Badesky and Mulhall are also sort of set on their parallel track of their.

In the.

Maybe they're all like House always wins.

They are stuck in their.

In their paths.

Right.

But it was one was maybe Badusky and Mulhall were strictly by choice, like they enlisted or I guess maybe it's implied that they were drafted as part of the Vietnam War.

But Meadows is more of a tragedy because he's younger, he hasn't had those life experiences.

So I guess it's all adding up to like when it's.

It's those couple of moments.

I think we've already touched on some of them.

Badusky is constantly.

He's a character that's constantly insisting that he's a badass, that he just has, like.

He has this certain flair, this, like, untameability to him, despite being, like, a career serviceman in the Navy.

And you don't really quite believe it.

Movie doesn't really, like, let you see him as an unrepentant, unchained badass because you know that he's on a mission that he's been forced to go on.

Mulhall, later, after Baduski suggests that he sort of in.

In coping with the fact that Meadows is going, like, they're still headed to Portsmouth.

They're still headed to send Meadows to the end of his.

Basically the end of his military career and a huge chunk of his life, like, formative years.

He suggests that maybe his mom, like, Larry's mom, could write letters to the.

To his.

To her congressmen and sort of, like, appeal to political power to get this situation resolved.

Maybe the saddest scene in the movie, right, where they're just very kind of trying to, like, figure out some way they could actually help this dude, and they immediately come up with nothing.

And Mulhall even, like, shoots him down specifically.

He's like, you're like, I'm done with the psychological jive bullshit.

Like, we're.

We're here to do a job sort of thing.

He reorients, like, he slams him back down.

But then.

And, you know, it's sort of flattened, we're back on.

On track.

But then.

And I think this is a line that really stuck with me was Mulholl says to Badusky, like, I wrote it.

The Navy's the best thing that ever happened to me.

And it's another moment where, like, you don't believe that at all because of the situation he's in, because of the person you've known.

You've come to know him to be like, you do get that he has some structure to his life.

You do get that he has.

Like, maybe his situation in life was a little bit less glamorous, or maybe he was on a worse path, but, like, truly that he still.

Maybe.

I guess the fact that what he's saying does not match what you're watching, where he seems to be kind of like an alone, maybe not successful, maybe stuck where he is type of person.

Both of them, both Mulholland and Baduski, but specifically for the fact that Mulhall says this to Baduski, it sort of gives us this ironic, very 1970s feel.

That whole scene with the sort of fade transitions on the train as Larry is sort of moping on the train.

They're headed out from where they were at his mom's place, where she wasn't there.

It's revealed that she's probably, like, an alcoholic anyway, like, all of that sort of the great irony of what these characters say that they're there to do, and, like, the fact that they.

They have a mission.

The fact that, like, their way of life is good for them, and this one mission takes them away from that.

And they're both, like.

Without telling each other, they're both like, we hope that we can instill something in this guy that sort of gives.

Him the tools he needs, right?

Under the guise of, like, one last hurrah, which I would like to talk about how kind of cruel that is in a way, knowing what they know about his end state there.

But that's maybe another point for later.

I've sort of hugged the mic for a little bit long, though, so, no, I.

You said a lot of really great stuff here.

I.

I wanted to talk about Mulhall, specifically based on what you brought up.

One of my favorite parts about this movie.

It's very weirdly 1970s, where, like, despite how up things were in the 1970s, weirdly, like, we were less afraid to talk about race relations or to, like, sort of be honest about race relations in cinema in that time.

And, like, I think that, like, the Mulhall storyline in this movie is such a radical deconstruction of race relations in America.

I think it's, like, so smartly done where, like, the big difference between him and Badass is basically that, like, Badass can get away with being badass because he's white, whereas Mulhall has to be much straighter.

Like, I think a lot about the contrast between their two characters where, like, when we first see Badass, he is slumped over, too drunk to stand up, and a chair.

And the dude just comes over and he's like, come on, Badass.

Like, you got orders.

We gotta go.

And, like, compare that to Mulhall, who also mouths off, right?

But he mouths off within the auspices of the Navy, where he immediately defaults to the rules.

First of all, he's ironing, right?

He's doing, like, actual Navy work.

He's surrounded by other people.

And instead of being like, no, I'm like, I'm too drunk or I don't want to do this, he's like, like, tell him you couldn't find me.

And, like, this is how we're going to, like, navigate this.

He is a.

Like, a.

A player, right?

He is a company man.

He is on the inside.

Of course, it's later revealed this is because Mulhall basically, like, has no other opportunities to make money and needs to take care of his black mother, right?

And it turns out that, like, the.

The big difference between he and Badass, the reason why Badass can be so much more of a sort of, like, maverick and.

And so much more of a rascal within the Navy, is essentially white privilege, right?

Like, Mulholl is.

Is desperately afraid, afraid to maintain his position at the Navy because he knows it's the only opportunity he'll have to make money and retain status.

He talks a lot about how.

Or he has one very pointed monologue about how his mom is very proud of him.

And that means so much to him, right?

Because not because it means a lot to him that he's in the Navy, but because it means a lot to her that she has a son that's successful, right?

He is.

He is essentially living his life and his career for her, and that informs everything he does, including the fact that he has to take Meadows in.

Right.

I think it's very important that neither of these characters ever really seriously entertain the idea of busting Meadows out, right?

They.

They sort of, like, talk about how much it's going to suck for Meadows.

They sort of, like, delay taking him in and everything, but, like, there is never a moment in this where they're like, could we do this?

Could we help Meadows get away?

Right?

Like, that never even enters the picture here because it's just not.

Not realistic.

And I think that, like, my favorite thing about this movie is.

And maybe this sounds kind of ironic given how big it can be, but, like, I think there's a ton of subtlety to the way that these characters are treated, right?

Like, I don't think it ever comes out and says, like, you know, Badass and Mall Haul are like, people who are shattered by the oppressive environment of the Navy and America in general.

It doesn't have to say any of those things, right?

We get everything we need to know about these characters just from their interactions with one another and from the way that they carry themselves.

And I.

I just think that, like, Mulhall in particular, being a sort of like.

Like a message about blackness right, within America.

Like, it.

It integrates with the bigger themes here so well.

And it.

It's such a great way to understand his relationship with Meadows and with the Navy in general, right?

Which is this sort of, like, I Unfortunately, like, I think the big thing about him saying, and he says it a couple times, that the Navy is the best thing that ever happened to him.

Him.

I think that he believes that, right.

It just the.

The operative word there being best, right.

Doesn't.

Doesn't mean it was a good thing.

Doesn't mean it's something that he likes.

But it is the best thing that happened to him in the sense that, like, this is how he survives.

This is how he makes money.

And, like, you know, not to be too, like, dark about it, but it's like, I bet his life would have been worse without the Navy.

It just so happens that, like, it's maybe even darker and scarier that, like, he has to live as this, like, broken person within this oppressive system.

You know, one thing that I thought about throughout watching this movie was the way in which, like.

And this is really broadening it because I want to get specific and I want to, like, build some middle ground here.

But the relationships between groups of people here, like, broadly, there's civilian life, there's military life, and then there's between.

Like, the power dynamic between Meadows and the Baduski Mulhall combo.

Like, we'll call these, like, the bodies, the relation, the groups in this movie that are, like, when they intersect, when they, you know, react off of one another.

That's what moves the platform.

That's what moves these characters, you know, helps develop these characters.

I'm thinking very specifically, and I got a little bit in my head about it, around how many times Jack Nicholson says the phrase, you know what I mean, or know what I mean?

Like, it's.

It's offhand, but it happens 13 times over the course of this movie.

And he kind of says it always the same way and always to, like, a tool to the same effect of, like, creating this little understanding between him and the person he's talking.

He's kind of desperate.

This little.

Right, this little tick exactly like you were saying.

Like, it helps them create some sense of camaraderie that I don't think is naturally there.

They don't feel that as part of the Navy, they're in separate parts of whatever building they're in.

They're learning about each other.

Badusky and Mulholl are learning about each other over the course of the movie as they are about Meadows.

And, like, those moments when they come in contact with the outside.

We'll call it the outside world, like, civilian life.

Like when.

Like, the bar room scene, you know, I am the fucking shore patrol or the Bathroom brawl scene where like they just have these self imposed clashes that reveal to them maybe for the first time, maybe at least for a long time, that their way of life, their lifestyle, their existence as servicemen is.

Is out of step, is out outside what, you know, civilian life looks like now.

There's even the scene where Jack Nicholson is talking to Nancy Allen and he's like really breaking out his scene.

She treats him like a space alien, right?

She's like, he's breaking out all of this, all of his masculinity, his open sea, like, you know, manifest destinyism.

Yeah, even.

Even.

Yeah, even giving more alpha male about it.

And the more and more he does it, the harder it goes, the less and less interested she is indicating that there's like, like, again, there's an out of step, there's an imbalance there.

This.

He doesn't really have a beat on what it's like to be among Sylvia.

He's not just a fish out of water.

He's, you know, he's.

He's like.

It is built to.

Excuse me, those scenes exist to like, build that wall, to force them back toward each other.

To see like, what community, what camaraderie, what, like, humanity can I find within this little inserted group of three people?

And when I bundle that up, it's like he's saying, you know what I mean, to people that he like, supposedly already has some relationship to some common understanding with some like maybe shared vision of the world as shared.

You know, servicemen in the same division, but not really, like, they all find that they have different views of it.

You know, they're.

The more aged servicemen are jaded.

The Meadows himself is obviously very underprepared for, you know, civilian or, you know, military life.

He's just a man in the making.

Right.

I think that those moments are there to specifically define.

These are the walls between the groups of people.

These are how they relate to one another.

And this is like, it's.

Rather than like building community or getting closer, they're kind of building walls between each other in these, like, shorthand.

In these ways that they've always deployed to relate to one another are actually backfiring almost every time.

And it just creates this, like, I waited for the next time for things to go wrong, I guess, between people in this movie.

And that that's what contributes to feeling like less a fun road movie and more a like, you know, emotionally manipulative situation.

I want to see them bro down a lot more.

I want to see them like, connect in meaningful, humorous and heartfelt ways.

And it's like actually again with that seed of it's all a sham.

It's for posturing.

It's because he offended somebody in power that he's being given such a severe sentence with that looming over the plot.

That also makes me think of those times as like, yeah, of course they're always set against each other that it doesn't benefit the people in power to have them like united against, you know, with one another.

They're sort of like, I'm going on and on and on.

But Meadows is a certain type of person.

Baduski and Mulholl are a certain type of person with some, you know, differences, of course, drawn along race lines primarily, but.

And their inability to like relate to one another yet like really, really sincere desire to is.

Is the main tension of the movie.

And what I keep coming back to.

Yeah, that's well said.

Yeah, the.

I also clocked the, you know what I mean tick.

I'll stick with that because that's.

I think that's somewhat appropriate.

The first time I believe it comes up is when Badass is talking with Mule.

The whole like trying to get a sense of understanding about how they're going to spend the next.

Whatever it is, like five, seven days, you know, like we're going to make this last.

We're going to make this worth our while.

We're going to, you know, make the most of the per diem's ready to get for the two of us as well as this guy that we're chasing it.

There is something like hand shaky about it and it feels like operatively like a bridge to some type of understanding.

And again serving as a tick for a specific type of person.

In this case the tick of a Navy man and all that entails.

Good and bad.

Mule eventually says it just conversationally.

Meadow Speed eventually drops it once or a couple times.

And I think it serves as like an appropriate inroad for something that I've been kicking around, well, I mean the past 24 hours or so, as well as just hearing you guys talk about it along the way as they're trudging from point A to point B for them, for lack of a better way to put it, searching for some type of realness or at least something beyond the scope of.

I am in this chicken shit detail, you know, this bullshit outfit because there's nowhere else for me or because I need to take care of my mother.

But like beyond that, like what is.

What is something tangible that I can take from this?

What is a valid Expression of that camaraderie, but beyond just me extending my hand, saying, you know what I mean?

And kind of getting through the moment, the types of things I mean.

And they're the moments of the movie that I think really shone through for me the most, that I felt myself, you know, beaming and forgetting about the fact that effectively this one dude's life is going to end by the end of the 104 minute run time.

If not literally, then at least figuratively, the, the brawl in that.

That train station bathroom where they're just.

Oh, with the Marines?

Yeah, with the Marines.

I love that this movie is just like, God, I fucking hate the Marines.

Yay.

Verily the that and sort of another bridge to like get to what.

And I, I think it serves as a valid alley to a few oops we get later on.

But that party scene with Nancy Allen, them sort of laying on the kind of the opposite of that realness, but laying on that sort of that Navy man, that romanticism that comes with wearing a uniform, that with them having been in the uniform up to this point, they're able to just put that on when it calls for it.

Sort of unspoken.

Of course, Meadows doesn't really.

I mean his conversation, his threat at that party goes notably different.

But for Badass and Mule, that's like an exception to that realness where they can just.

It's very much real to everybody that they're talking on.

That's their perception of their sort of realness in this chicken shit detail.

But for them to allow for that five minutes where we are seeing through the other side of the two way mirror.

But things like the sort of sentiment, something like Meadows getting that wristband with the chief signalman thing, because that in itself that title is not real.

And as far as we know, he's never going to get the chance to apply to be a signalman.

But the fact that somebody reached out and said you have real talent in this specific way and if things were different, I see a future for you here that's scraping at the realness that serving X number of years in some branch of the armed services could potentially never afford you.

Right.

He actually saw him for a moment.

Yeah, exactly.

And the.

One of the comes through with some of the.

The.

I'm thinking about scene transitions, but some of the other things that this film does technically.

But by the end of the.

The trip we're really trying to wring as much as we can out of this, out of this trek and try to give this.

And he's Meadows rightfully says, you know, I've done everything I wanted to do once.

If I were to do it more times, like, they wouldn't pop in the same way.

They would mean as much.

And so with the scene ending with him offhandedly being like, you know, oh, if it were warmer, we could have a picnic.

And then them immediately cutting to, it's.

Snowing.

It'S so good, they're freezing their fingers off, they're trying to grill hot dogs.

It eventually comes out, that badass forgot buns.

And he would never say it, but he's very visibly mad at himself that he fucked up.

Just like, I don't have the buns.

How are we supposed to eat these without buns?

But the, the.

And I specifically them, like, stomping on branches, trying desperately to cram in this not quite idyllic outing for them, just to give them one last, you know, valid memory before everything changes.

I don't know, I even forgot where I was going with this whole thing.

But I think that is a good thread to explore, Jason.

And it all sort of feeds into this.

I don't know why everything here is so simultaneously beautiful and just the saddest.

Everything has to be both of those things because of the structures we occupy within these men, in particularly, because that is their lives, unfortunately.

Yeah, well, I mean, I really loved the way that Jason characterized it as this tension.

And I, I like, to me that is the central idea of this movie is, is there is this very like.

And I don't want to get too broad with it because I really love the specificity of this movie.

But it, but it's sort of like these are people who live an absurd life, right?

A somewhat meaningless life like that.

You can tell that, like, the last line of the movie is like, hopefully our orders will have come in.

These are people who are languishing at a Navy base, waiting for the next meaningless task that they will be called to perform.

And this task will be, no doubt chicken, right?

Like, they'd literally have to transport an 18 year old prisoner who is a kleptomaniac who accident or not accidentally, but like stole $40 and now he's gonna.

Be stole from the wrong collection.

It's just like, it's horrible and absurd and dehumanizing that they have to do this, but they have to do it.

And, like, we find out, like, the real tragedy here is they have to care about it, right?

Like, despite the fact that their lives are not worth getting excited about, they are excited about them.

They are, because they're the lives that they have to live.

And they have to.

So they immediately identify in this deeply empathetic way with Meadows, even though that is a huge detriment to them performing their duties, right?

Like, it sucks for them that they love Meadows so much, but they do immediately, right?

Like, without any sort of, like, real.

Like, they can't help themselves.

Like, they immediately fall for this kid because they identify with him so completely, right?

Because they see in him themselves.

And this becomes to me the.

The central idea of this movie, which is just that, like.

Like, even though our lives are.

We are oppressed and our lives are meaningless, like, the.

The pain is that we have to find a way to make meaning out of this thing, right?

Like.

Like Badowski, even though he hates the Navy, he has to take pride in being a signal man, right?

He has to pretend he likes the sea because, like, this is the life that we have to live.

And like, the only way that you're going to make it through it is by essentially pretending that you take pride in it or that you've learned something, right?

And these are.

This is a story of these two men who themselves are sort of reckoning with the fact that, like, they have sort of failed to make their lives meaningful because it's so difficult in this absurd world to make meaning.

Trying to impart some meaning and some lesson onto Meadows to help him survive what is going to happen to him and in the same.

In the same breath, sort of redeem themselves, right?

They're thinking, like, if we can use what we've learned from our lives to prepare Meadows for the future, that means that our lives were also meaningful, that we've actually learned something, that we get to that.

That these.

This posturing that we're doing that I'm a badass, right?

Or that Mull is.

Is worth something, that that can actually be true.

And that immediately comes into the fore, right?

Like, I.

You can you get the sense that, like, this relationship with Meadows is so important to these people immediately, without it ever really having to be directly addressed, just because, like, you.

You understand the stakes so intimately and so profoundly without having to actually speak to them directly, right?

It's just like, naturally, with.

With a life like this, these people would, like, it's so human to fall for Meadows and, like, so unavoidable that they would have to have this.

This search for meaning.

And it.

It gets to this, like, you know, I mean, again, like, this sounds too broad, but this very existential, humanist thing where it's.

It's like the search for meaning an agency in a world that is going to frustrate your attempts to do so.

Right.

Like these are three men who are especially Mullen badass, like desperate to cling to something that makes them human.

And that is the connections that they have with each other.

Even though those connections are, as you spoke to Jason, like in the process of being eradicated by their environments.

Right.

Like this is not this.

Everything that they're doing is like.

Is taking them away from each other.

But there is still this.

This undeniable urge to stay connected to.

One another that I think, again, I don't know if you're trying to do this, Harry, but really good handoff to where I was going to go.

I was going to ask Aaron specifically because you saw the same thing we did.

And maybe you have an opinion here on the Nichiren Shoshu group.

Just to reorient the listener again, they almost crash a gathering of Nichiren shoshu.

It's the most 70s part of this extremely 70s movie.

A sect of Japanese Buddhism is meeting in somewhere in.

I think it's New York, maybe Boston, where they are at that time.

And like they are exposed to the chance to the concept of manifesting and enlightenment, et cetera.

I'm no scholar, but, you know, it's sort of painted the way you think it is.

The elder servicemen are very dismissive of it, generally directly homophobic about it.

There's.

And Larry Meadows seems to accept it a little more genuinely.

He goes on to repeat the chant many times.

He uses it and connects with people at a bar over at the end of that party.

It actually like is material to the.

To the plot of the movie.

What does.

I guess, like, what did you see of the difference between what it means to what that whole sequence of spirituality and like the desire to connect and enlightenment means to those two, Baduski and Mule, versus what it means to Larry because he is shaped by them.

They're not so much shaped by him.

He's goading something out of them a little bit, but maybe like not successfully if we're to believe the ending.

Anyway, like, what did you see them walking away with Versus Larry?

Namya.

How I was saying it in my head.

Namya.

No, Regenkyo.

Is that how it sounds?

They do it in a much pretty rapid fashion.

That's the term apparently means the devotion to the mystic law of the Lotus Sutra.

It is a chant in that sect.

Right.

And worth noting, by the way, that you said it was Japanese Buddhism.

I think there's maybe one Asian person there.

It's.

It's an overwhelmingly white group.

That's sort of what the thing is, right?

The same thing with the people at the party.

I mean, so it's, you know, obviously for, for.

For Larry.

I think there, I think there's, there's a bit to read into there, right?

And that he is, he is, you know, as this kind of fresh faced, you know, 18 year old, right?

He is very clearly from a kind of good old American family, right.

He is religious.

Right.

The one instance of violence that he talks about previous to kind of, you know, being transported to prison is, is, you know, getting mad at this guy because he, he said that he basically compared himself to Jesus, right?

And he took this as sacrilegious, even.

The unbelievable character point for him.

Because it's also like that would bother Meadows so much because he would sort of like, like he would take it very seriously, right?

He would be like, maybe this guy is Jesus.

Oh, no.

And, and he, he also mentions that, like, there's a quick line about whether, you know, this Buddhist chanting is sacrilegious.

Right.

I think it's like a, it's an important moment for Larry.

I don't read maybe too much into it for Badass and Mule, but I think for Larry it's a moment of a character who already has some sort of maybe kind of like assumed religious grounding, right.

Who is unable to find solace in that kind of in the face of his impending punishment.

Right.

And I think this kind of exists in kind of a, you know, in the sort of movie that Cody called this, like an A to B movie, right?

Or like a road trip film.

I think there's often moments like this where there's kind of bits of the outside world that kind of, you know, help the characters kind of come to terms with.

With their journey.

I think that something like, oh, brother, art thou has moments like this, right?

I think that, that for Larry it's this kind of way for him to help process, you know, the.

What is obviously going to happen to him that he maybe has been maybe kind of like trying to put out of.

Right?

This is the new sort of new thing for him.

It's also, I think, representative, at least once they go to the party of kind of the cultural moment that, that they as like members of the Navy are like kind of insulated from, right?

Which is like younger, you know, mostly white kind of hippies that are kind of, you know, I don't know, adopting, let's say, this culture.

And I think that, that at Least for.

For Badass and Mule.

I think there's a number of very funny conversations with the members of that party as they, you know, mostly try and get laid, right?

But they try and, like, relate to.

Young white women who are asking them about, like, you know, why did you join up to go to Vietnam?

Like, why did you go to Vietnam?

There's the question about, you know, Larry maybe, like, escaping to Canada, right, As a form of escape, right?

It's like all of this is like, basically, like kind of the one way that Larry could, like, do something to escape from his.

His impending imprisonment, which is like, do you, you know, put your chips in faith, right, As a way to grapple with this?

Do you try and do something more practical, like escape?

Right?

What is your form of escape?

And, like, I think at the end, it's like, it kind of isn't one, right?

Like, I think he.

He knows that due to the.

The way that, like, Badass and Mule, you know, their.

Their.

Their futures are, like, tied to him going to prison.

Right.

I think there is something very Christlike in the way that he, you know, doesn't try really to escape except until the very end.

Right.

I think that you could see him as a Christ like figure as well.

I love that.

That's even further than I was going to go with it.

I was just going to say that, like, I respect that.

Like, it is clearly not as strong.

We'll say it doesn't mean the same thing to Badusky and Mule as it does to Larry, to Meadows.

But, like, it gives them an opportunity as well to define themselves in opposition to how Larry is interpreting it.

Like, again, a young mind in Walding.

He's 18 years old.

Maybe he is.

He does, like, he takes it pretty, like, genuinely.

Even after, you know, things don't go right for him, he's still, like, chanting it through the rest of the movie, right?

Even after, like, he sort of gets what he wants and he's confronted by, I think it's.

Is it Debbie, the woman who, like, chants for him and talks to him about why he doesn't just skedaddle?

And he's like, they're my best friends.

But for Baduski and Mulhall, he, like, immediately after they're out of that apartment where the Nishir and Choshu are meeting, they're like, hey, let's.

Let's, you know, chant for the three of us to get laid.

Am I right, guys?

And then they, like, they drop it.

They're like, it is their opportunity to be Defined directly in opposition to how somebody else, maybe less jaded, maybe a little bit less like as Harry was saying earlier, maybe a little bit less broken or fractured or like calcified in their, their certain like ways of living, might have been open to thinking about those things, but they are, as evidenced by the party which like they do ring a good deal of comedy out of that like missed opportunity.

The fact that like they are so committed to it that they are pushing forward with.

I mean maybe Mulholla is a little bit more success as he's like able to give an actual unique perspective on what it's like to be a black man in the military.

But for Badusky, he like, like you were saying, he's just got.

He's just got one liners about the masculinity of being on the sea and of how his suit makes him look.

Makes his dick look bigger and stuff.

Like that's all he's got.

He resorts to like this sort of puerile, childish take on the whole thing where Larry is taking it somewhat more genuinely.

That to me is like, yeah, it could be just a moment of comedy but again this being.

And I don't think I've seen other Hale Ashby movies but this being at least an early 70s movie, sort of of somewhat removed from Vietnam but still fairly cynical and like emotionally manipulative.

It's still, it's taking that opportunity to be like, you know, what does it mean that these guys just shut it down and that the young guy is actually holding on to this concept of like you were saying Aaron, like finding some kind of hope and faith or like escaping through like in the end, like you said, no escape is impossible for both of them, for both of the groups of guys.

We'll talk about the ending shortly.

But like the fact that there is some degree of hope, some degree of like self determination left in Larry I think is brought out by the Nichiren Shoshu and his exposure to it.

Where the fact that maybe Badusky and Mulholl are in my opinion lost causes to.

It is revealed most strongly in that.

In that sequence and their reaction to it.

Yeah, no, I mean like it.

It is the perfect sort of demonstration of what, what the difference between these characters is, right?

Which is that like Meadows is a sponge.

Like you know, absurdly naive, like absurdly young immature person who is just going to like internalize everything he is exposed to.

This is a movie about especially badass, but really both characters kind of trying to break that out of him to preserve it in A.

In a funny, backwards way, right?

Like, this is essentially about Badass trying to teach Meadows how to be a toxic, masculine person so that he won't be so crushed and so affected by the things that are happening to him.

I mean, I think that the.

The thesis statement of this entire movie is the speech that Badowski gives in the hotel room where he says, like.

Like, Jesus, Meadow, don't.

Don't you ever get mad?

Don't you ever want to just, like, fucking punch somebody in the face instead of sort of immediately internalizing the abuse that you're suffering?

Suffering, right?

Like, this is a.

This is a movie where, like, Meadows hears, like, a dude calling himself Jesus and it's like, an existential crisis for him, or, like, he is exposed to Buddhism and he immediately converts to Buddhism, right?

At least for a scene until.

And, like, Badass and Mule are watching this and they're thinking, a.

This is me.

This is exactly what happened to me with the Navy.

Like, I was once Meadows, right?

Like, that is the huge unspoken metaphor here, right, is that they were similarly sort of like broken, maladjusted men who entered the Navy because they didn't have a lot of other options and were immediately sort of, like, shaped by it in a way that is now irreverocable, except in their own little backward ways to try to, like, scratch out some level of agency and personality within these systems.

They are desperate to, with their last couple days with Meadows, impart some sort of lesson on him so that he won't be just, like, disintegrated by the abuse that he's about to suffer in the brig, right?

They're trying to sort of, like, use what they have learned to prepare him for this thing that is going to happen to him.

And ironically, right, the only way they can do this is in this very haltering backward way where they're sort of like, ironically trying to, quote, unquote, toughen him up and abused him a little bit themselves, right?

Just to sort of like.

Like, badass is basically, like, the only way I know how to be is.

Is badass, and I'm going to try to teach you to be a badass.

Even though, like, that is such a, like, stupid thing for a guy like Meadows to try to internalize because it's.

It's either that or that he's going to be destroyed, right?

And it's sort of like, how do we.

How do we protect the soul of this person, right?

How do we preserve this sort of, like, spark of.

Of innocence that we see in Meadows.

And they only know how to do that using the tools that they use to protect it in themselves, which in Badass's case is this bravado, right?

It's this sort of like hyper cynical, hyper masculine denial of everything around him and this.

This anger that he holds so close to him to basically, like, hide from the fact that he is also being traumatized.

Right?

It's this defensiveness that they're trying to impart on Meadows.

Yeah, It.

All of that, like, adds, or excuse me, leads to the.

Like, the turning moment in this movie is when they decide, like Badesky suggests, that they make a stop off on the way to meet Meta's father.

Excuse me, Mother.

Doesn't pan out.

She's not there.

Sort of revealed that he comes from a broken home of sorts, that, you know, there's not much for him to rely on going back and then thereafter.

Like, that's a bit of a turning point for Larry himself.

After that, he's like, there's.

I guess the clearest scene they give of it is him, like, sending his eggs back to say, like, they're not done.

Hell, yeah.

Just.

Just to be an ass.

To be a little bit more like them.

Like, they see a mind in need of molding, they mold him a little bit.

It's exemplified through the eggs.

And then literally, after he sends the eggs back, he turns to Badass and he's like, I'm learning.

I'm learning.

And it's like, oh, honey, like, you beautiful soul.

And.

And then we have the prostitution scene and Carol Kane, you know, that whole saga where we learn a lot more about.

Honestly, we learn a lot more about Badusky.

And at least Badusky, he was going to have, you know, a life with a woman as a TV repairman.

And he's.

I guess we get a little bit more background on these characters now that we've set them.

Like, maybe we've drawn the lines between them.

We learn a little bit more about who they are.

And then he, like, he's as.

Just as he's starting to become, coming into his own as a serviceman, that, like, they're starting to give up the.

The myth, the idea that he might.

That they can prolong this magic much further.

Right?

But they still try with that one scene of right after he says, let's have, like, we could have a picnic maybe if it was warmer.

And then, boom, they're having a picnic.

I suppose I'm trying to, like, clumsily get toward the ending here, but I wanted to open Before.

Before we get there.

Any thoughts around that saga between leaving the Nichiren Shoshu and ending up in a park in the middle of February?

Yeah, totally, I think.

And.

And I think you appropriately called it out the.

Like the movies, if not the movie's turning point or.

And I guess and the turning point for Meadows as he's on his mother's home's doorstep, like maybe little column A, little column B.

The scene, the short scene before that where they're in transit to that location and Meadows is just like calling out, oh, I went to school there.

I wonder how this teacher's doing.

And I think at this point it's the shot that's captured in the header photo on the last Details letterboxd page that is the first of two bookending scenes with Jack Nicholson.

And I think it was Harry who called out.

Just like anything Jack Nicholson does audibly in this movie is superfluous because he is such a great physical performer.

But that him just almost staring daggers into the back of Meadows head because every single syllable out of Meadows mouth just makes him feel worse and worse and worse.

And then to your point, Jason, the come down following the wintry barbecue attempt, which I don't know successful enough.

They're dipping hot dogs in a jar of mustard and the hot dogs are on sticks.

It's cute.

I would do that.

I would wear a thicker coat.

That's just me personally.

They do what they can with what they have.

But this was the Nicholson scene that really stood out to me the most.

And again, the performances layered upon a number of interactions that are sequenced in like a seemingly messy, seemingly random order.

But they're so important.

All of those scenes built upon themselves and then seeing the acidity come through in.

In what Badass is saying.

And it's layered upon like the sort of the.

The general intensity that's always living inside of him.

That sort of like little dog energy maybe.

I'm saying that just because he's like particularly short compared to the other two guys he's walking around with all movie.

And then the.

Compounded by the fact that it's not the first time that they've been outmatched by the weather.

He's.

He's visibly.

He's act.

If nothing else, acting out the cold extremely well.

All of that is feeding into like his.

His eyebrows are pointed into like.

There's a tinge of sadness coming through as well.

As much as he doesn't want to show, we know this guy doesn't want to show any semblance of vulnerability at any given moment.

But him just saying like they're, they're going to eat this alive in there.

That short little monologue was.

And then that.

And then the, the escape attempt which is, which feeds into kind of the final couple beats of the movie.

And you look at it and it's, it's a huge bummer.

But it's also probably like it's the only way this could have gone, this movie.

I don't know if maybe too extreme to say that it doesn't work, but I, I don't know if I would have liked it as much if there were like big tearful goodbyes and she's like, oh, and I'm going to miss you most of all.

Scarec not just invoking, you know, the, literally the last episode we recorded just like, oh, I'm gonna take these lessons that you guys gave me and I'm gonna make it through these next eight or six or whatever years and really, you know, come out of this.

It's just like that would just take the piss out of everything.

The fact that when, when they walk into the building, Meadows doesn't see either of those two men like clearly they're in this but he's sort of like ushered off.

He never looks back.

Badass.

That sounds like in the chest, dude.

Oh my God.

Like the fact that I, I agree with you that like I, it's exactly how I want the movie to end.

But like the fact that they don't get to say goodbye, they just like usher him through a door and that guy's just gone.

Like that's the last we see of Meadows is his back going into the brig.

It's.

That's it, he's gone.

It is, it is something of an echo from what, from what Meadows himself kind of prophesied.

Just like all these things that I did that I've done these past few days, like all these great things I did once, like, and I don't if there's anything that was telegraphed by the movie that I missed, feel free to call me out.

But like there is almost the sense of like maybe he attempted that escape on purpose to say he did it once, you know, well, also that but like some intentionality to just like if there is.

That's.

And maybe it's me like far like an over expectation of like the maturation of this 18 year old guy, you know, serviceman over the course, course of a couple days.

But like reading, maybe reading too much into the intentionality of him like having that as A sort of like, nasty sauce spread over this, like, lovely little dinner that's been prepared the last couple of days so that none of these men are compelled to have this sort of like, like, emotional farewell.

It is.

It leads to some pretty devastating images when I think back on this movie, honestly.

Like, that him walking up the stairs is the thing that I've continued to think about, which is a shitty thing to say.

And, like, doesn't bode well for anybody who's watching this for the first time, maybe wanting to go, Go back and watch in the future because it is an amazing film.

But that is just a brutal end to their relationship with, with this character.

But it's, it's effectively brutal and.

I don't know, I guess.

Harry, other thoughts on, like, how you would have wanted this to go?

Like, how, like, was it a fitting sort of like, end point for everything that we'd seen up to this point?

Yeah, no, I mean, this is, that's a perfect transition because, like, I, maybe this is a hot take, but I, I read the ending and specifically the escape sequences.

Triumphant.

Triumphant.

Like, I, I think that that is the.

Yeah.

Silver lining on this movie.

Right.

Is that this is a movie about Meadows.

The wild thing about Meadows is he doesn't seem to understand that he is a victim, that.

That his life is.

And that he is being crushed by an evil system that doesn't care about him.

The entire movie is about Badowski trying to impart on him that life is.

It's not fair and you should be angry about it.

Like, Meadows is never angry in this movie.

Right.

Except for that one time.

Right.

Entire movie is.

Is Badowski to the point of driving himself crazy, smacking a lamp and driving himself up the wall just to be like Meadows, like, be angry about what's happening to you right now?

It's.

Dude, like, what happens to us is.

And you deserve to be angry about it.

It's like a rage against the dying of the light movie.

Right?

And to me, the fact that Meadows first of all signals bye bye he.

To show that he learned something from Badowski and then runs away is I, I think Meadows, like, rather than trying to literally escape, I think it is him signaling to, in his own way, right.

Maybe only subconsciously to Badowski and Mule, that he has internalized what they were trying to teach him, which is that, like, now he understands that, like, this life isn't fair, that he deserves something more, that he is entitled to a better life than he is going to have and that he is going to stand up for.

For himself, like, this whole movie to me.

And I think we've talked about this relatively recently, but it.

But it really is.

It, like, it reminds me so much of, like, being in junior high with, like, friends who are even nerdier than you and unable to hide how nerdy they are, and you end up kind of bullying them the whole time just to be like, hey, man, like, if you don't shape up, you're gonna get destroyed by, like, worth.

And so you end up kind of bullying them, but just to sort of, like, help them, like.

Like, learn to not be so themselves.

And there is this very, like, sad truth to that, where it's sort of like I am becoming a bully and also like, I am hating this person for being something that I ostensibly like, but I have to do this to them.

This is.

That's like.

That is Badowski and Meal to me is They're.

They're sort of like, trying to, like, like, stage bully Meadows into standing up for himself.

And I.

I honestly think, like.

Like, I think it's important that, like, this movie is not saying Meadows is going to be okay, right?

I think what this movie is saying is that Meadows is going to be about as okay as Mule and Badass, which is to say not really okay at all, but, like, you know that.

I think Mule and Badass end this movie.

We see their back similar to the way that we saw Meadows back walking away, and they're talking about how they hope their orders come in and, like, wasn't this.

And, like, you know, like, the.

The last thing they do.

I think it's very important that, like, after Meadows is gone, they.

The Marine at the prison attempts to sort of, like, give them the hi hat, so to speak, where they're like.

He tries to deny their orders.

He tries to, like, tell them that they up and they just don't stand it, right?

They're like, well, okay, like, let me talk to your exo.

Like, like, you think you're gonna stop me from, like.

Like, getting paid or whatever?

They're.

They're.

And it works, right?

Like, they.

They successfully top dog this dude into backing down.

And it's like, that is the whole thing, right?

Is that, like, you are going to be crushed by this system.

But that doesn't mean you have to take it.

That doesn't mean you have to pretend like it's not right.

This is a.

This is a movie.

This is.

And this is what's so 1970s.

And what I love so much about it, right, Is it.

Is this like, very cynical, but, like, important thing that, like, capitalism is and the United States of America is, it's important that you realize that.

And that instead of sort of, like, being optimistic about it or pretending that it's better than it is, or pretending that, like, you deserve what's happening to you, you should be angry about it.

I, like, I think that this is a.

This is a movie about, like, the importance of anger and the importance of, like, calling out for what it is and like, maintaining that even though it's never going to amount to success.

Right.

It's still important to have that reality.

I.

I just.

I think that the.

The ending is so poignant, and I think it has to go exactly the way it does.

Including the fact that they don't really like that.

That they don't succeed in, you know, quote unquote, springing Meadows or something.

That the only victory here is spheric.

Right?

That is the.

The notion that maybe Meadows has learned something, something from all of this and won't be as destroyed by his incoming six to eight years of prison as maybe he would have been otherwise.

I don't think they get there.

I do not think that they have that self awareness to push back on what Harry was saying.

I do not think that he's.

That throughout the movie that they're saying, be mad or excuse me, but Dusky is saying, be mad at, you know, the system.

Be mad at, you know, be mad at me, so to speak, because I'm part of it.

Because I'm part of the thing that's being inflicted upon you.

I don't think that they have that self awareness.

I think part of the tragedy of this movie is that Badusky and Mulhall are both already sort of, like, gone.

They feel themselves pulled toward this.

I say gone, but I mean, like, fully, you know, hypnotized is the word that comes to mind.

But fully, like, bought into the life of being a Navy serviceman, of being, like, subject.

Oh, I disagree.

Interesting.

I just don't see, like, I see them.

I see them encouraging, like, he fucking.

I see them.

I see, yeah, in the way that you hate your job, but you still do it.

And you still.

And you, like, you wouldn't give it up if you didn't, like, strictly have to.

Right.

Like, I just don't see that he's really, like, reactionary or.

Or any of them are really reactionary in that way.

I think that both Baduski and Mulhall are pretty well calcified in their ways.

And I think that's what makes the ending to me even more tragic is like, yeah, they.

They big ball.

The.

The guy who tries to, like, keep them from getting their due at the end and, you know, getting their papers signed and stuff.

But it's because they see him as an obstacle to doing their job, not because they see him as a, like, piss ant element in a piss ant system that they're bigger than and that they deserve to get whatever over on.

It's like they.

They literally, like, walk out of frame.

I walk behind a building out of frame in the movie at the very end, going right back to where they were and just like, really just kind of complaining about, like, like grumbling again, you know, about how I think they hope that their orders come through and stuff.

I just don't see, like, a great self awareness in those characters by the end.

Sorry.

I.

Maybe the.

The self awareness is not material to me.

I think the complaint is the important part, like the fact that.

That they are angry.

Like, this is.

This is a movie about the importance of hating your job to me and about how it's actually kind of important to like.

I think the, the fact, the redemptive thing about Badowski is the fact that he is such an angry, pissed off.

Say it right, like that ironically, like, the fact that he is not just a company man, but he is a dude who bitches about this stuff is important.

But.

But maybe you feel differently.

I just feel like the ending was.

Is more about how little was ever in their control and how easily they bow back to it, rather than, like, having any.

I guess, what realistically could they have to do except, you know, defect?

Both is important.

Commit a crime or whatever.

The fact that they don't have any actual power and that this isn't actually going to affect anything is part of it.

Right.

It's sort of like, well, you have to hate it, but also like, even if you don't, like, do anything about it.

Yeah.

Aaron, the ending.

They're headed back to their, you know, platoon, whatever it is, in the Navy.

Do you see, like, the spirit of what, like, did they leave?

Did they get enough from their time with Meadows to like, like, be different people at all?

Or are they going right back to where they were, back to the bottle ironing?

It's a good question.

That's kind of one that I struggle with as well.

Right.

I.

I struggle to see them as, like, terribly different from at the beginning of the film.

Right.

I think this is.

Maybe that's the point, I guess.

Right.

That they're to me, it was kind of dropping off this character.

The journey means everything from the.

For this character.

I'm sure that experience is important for both of them.

Right.

But I think that they.

It's kind of important that they're headed back to where they came from, right.

If not geographically, then sort of metaphorically, right?

Yeah.

I don't.

I guess that's maybe in a sort of poetic sense, maybe kind of the point for those characters, right, that, like, you can have.

You can put all of the importance onto it that you want.

But then, like, once the.

Once the.

Once.

Once Larry's dropped off, he's dropped off, right?

And like, we are lifers at the end of the day, and there's.

There's kind of nothing to do about it.

It's.

It's sort of like, how do you process that or deal with that?

Right.

Again, not to.

Not to tie this too much to, like, you know, this is kind of like a metaphor for.

For death or whatnot.

But, like, I think that's.

That's sort of the thing, right.

Is like, it's going to happen, right?

This character is going to get dropped off.

Any sort of attempts for, you know, running away or processing it through faith or whatever, you know, that's up to the character.

But, like, at the end of the day, like, it's a.

Not even time for a goodbye, and then they're.

They're back outside.

Right.

So I don't know.

I also don't.

Maybe there's something to be read into the.

The conversation they have at the end with the.

What would he be?

I think they combine it.

Who is that?

I don't know.

Yeah.

It's just an officer.

Yeah.

Right.

Maybe there's something to be read into the kind of the subtleties of that conversation.

Maybe they deal with that differently than they would have at the beginning of the film.

I don't necessarily think so, but maybe there's something there.

I don't know.

Harry, do you have a take on it?

I mean, I said it as much.

Right.

But, like, I think the important thing is they stand up to him.

They don't just, like, take his bullshit.

Yeah.

It's different than the beginning where they're kind of, you know, they're.

Are.

They're being looked for in order to be assigned this.

This detail, and they're kind of skirting around it, attempting to.

That's like a sort of.

Yeah, right.

The.

The arc is in the preservation.

Right.

Which is.

I mean, like, this is the thing that.

That is kind of difficult to talk about because it is so feric and it is so sort of subtle is not the right word.

But.

But vanishing.

Right?

It's just the idea that, like, like, the important thing here is that.

That Badowski and Mule know that their lives are right.

That, like, they, they don't capitulate to the idea.

Like, like, they still control the own.

Like, or they, they have a realistic understanding of the narrative of their lives, which is that, like, it's.

They are being exploited.

It sucks.

Like, I, I honestly, I read this movie as like an important.

Like, it's important to understand that like, like, the systems that are oppressing you are evil.

And, and, and to not sort of like, capitulate to the idea that like, like, they, they are actually okay or, like, what is happening to you is okay.

Right.

Like, I, I think about, like, how this, this is a movie that's sort of like, hey, man, like it.

Like, don't.

Don't delude yourself into thinking that your job is cool.

Like, like, if the world sucks, capitalism sucks.

Like, there is something important and even redemptive about realistically evaluating that and being angry about it.

Even if your anger is never going to calcify into action because you are always going to be disenfranchised.

Right.

Like that.

You know, I'm never going to overthrow capitalism, unfortunately.

I'm 33 years old.

I think I have to come to terms with that.

I'm working on it.

I'm working on it.

But, you know, but I don't have to be a dude who, like, deludes himself into thinking that marketing rocks.

Right?

Like, I.

You don't have to be a LinkedIn guy.

Yeah, exactly.

This is, this is a movie about.

You might have to be a link.

The importance of never becoming a LinkedIn guy.

Well, I.

Listen, it's not working out for me not being a LinkedIn guy so far.

So we'll see, you know?

Yeah.

Pathways, resistance.

I do.

I.

Like, maybe it is pointed.

This is my final word on the ending.

Maybe it is pointed then.

Because Harry, you were talking about how they are above all, Badusky is a rage, rage against the dying of the light guy.

Like, he wants Meadows to be angry.

He wants him to lash out.

He wants him to not take it lying down.

It lying down is like injustice and unfairness.

Even though they all implicitly know they can't go against the will of the United States military, they're lifers.

At the end, I think he's doing the same thing.

He's like, hey, be a piss and Be shitty.

Be angry about it.

It.

But.

But, you know, but, like, also, sling your bag over your shoulder, walk back to the station.

You're going back to Norfolk.

Maybe you'll actually get to serve action on on the Sea at some point.

Like, he.

He is sadly reserved to it, but angrily reserved because he doesn't have the emotional capacity for, like.

Right.

This is.

This is not a movie that believes in a better future, but it is a movie that believes in being mad about the fact that there's not a better future.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a good way to put it.

I think we can find middle ground.

You know, especially not to be.

But, like, in 2025.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, there's.

There's a kernel of truth there.

But Colonel isn't in the Navy.

Maybe he is.

I was just a good wordplay joke.

And it was good.

We should.

We should point that out.

I'm struggling.

You can see the wheels turning.

I'm trying to turn it into a segue to our final bits, but it's not coming.

Our orders came in dishonorable discharge from the main conversation of this movie.

Thank you so much.

We're gonna get to our final segments, the first of which we like to call the Junk Drawer.

So we put the thoughts that didn't fit in the main conversation.

If there are any for you folks, mine is going to be that Gilda Radner appears in that Nichiren Shoshu scene where she's talking.

Yeah, you called that out.

I was very impressed with that.

You also identified Karen Allen or not Karen Allen.

Who's the woman?

Nancy.

Nancy.

Nancy Allen.

She looks like a bunny rabbit.

She just looks.

She's got this, like, very 1950s.

Like, she's in a soap.

I think she toys that scene super well, by the way, because she is, like, yeah.

Like, bemused in the most condescending possible way with Badowski's, like, bravado.

Right?

And he.

He almost wins her over when he starts.

He almost.

He almost.

Right, that even.

And then he's, like, part of the game, though, right?

Like that.

That she sort of.

Sort of like, oh, it's.

It's more fun if I sort of lead this guy on a little bit.

Right.

Like, it's so sad.

I wonder.

Yeah, that was my only.

My big jump for thought.

And I feel bad.

Like, I feel like maybe this is just because of, like, my weaknesses as a critic, but, like, I didn't talk a lot about, like, what this movie looks like.

It's gorgeous.

I think it's like kind of like like look of a movie.

We were talking about this after the movie Jason, but like for me, like a 1970s movie that it's just sort of like you're in Central park and there it's February, there is just dirty snow on the ground.

Everything is brown and white and gray is like ironically just like that's everything I want from a movie.

Like this is cinema to me.

Like, I think like all of the train photography, the, the urban photography in this movie, I.

This movie is unbelievably good looking.

Like, in terms of just sort of like we capturing this sort of, of malaise and this, this like distinct like depressed lack of inspiration that is driving these people into the ground.

Right.

Like, visually this movie communicates its themes so well that like we said about Jack Nicholson, like the dialogue is almost superfluous.

Like all you really need to see is the, the browns and the, the grays and the, the whites and like Jack Nicholson's eyebrows and his Kubrick stare and Randy Quaid's like, like wide eyed, like sadness and complete lack of preparation for what's to come.

It like communicates everything you need to.

You need.

You are.

You're very right in pointing that out.

I was watching Shout Factory.

Excuse me?

Shout Factory's extra special features for the 4K.

I think it was maybe Blu Ray release.

And the editor of this movie, Robert C.

Jones, he was talking about how they specifically and intentionally used like low lighting in interior scenes and natural lighting outside specifically to like create more of that intimate.

Like you're not going to understand everything that's going on all the time.

Some things are going to be lost in the background of blacks and of, you know, darker hues.

Yeah, same thing with the audio.

Understand all that.

But it feels real, especially in the theaters.

And maybe this was different at home, but like I feel like I may be caught 70% of the dialogue in this movie.

I totally missed.

Cody, you were talking about how that the wrist piece actually ends up like, like reflecting his new quote unquote rank that Baduski gives him.

Totally missed that because it's.

There's a lot of noise going on in that scene and I was like, what the is going.

Yeah, I don't.

Okay, I get it's an important little trinket to him that that's all that means to the plot to me.

But I don't know enough about audio design to sort of like.

But like I know that Altman, for instance, miked up all of his actors, which is why, like, his audio is often so muddy and why you can hear everybody equally.

That's kind of how this movie feels too.

Is that like, there intention?

There is an intentional muddiness of dialogue and a sort of overwhelming of environment around these characters that.

That really helps sell the fact that they are people who are sort of like, unmoored by what's around them or part of a larger environment.

My only other juncture thought is just like, this is very heavy movie in a lot of ways.

Our discussion has been very heavy.

It really can't be like, over, like stated how funny this movie is.

It is a movie that like, has a great deal of fun with the fact that, like, the inherent absurdity of life and of the Navy and of this situation and especially of masculinity.

Right.

Like, my favorite scenes are probably the bender scenes in the hotel where it's just like, these are.

These are three people who are trying to sort of like, I.

I love that, like, this is a movie about how hard it is to have a good time too.

For instance, like.

Like, literally, there's this immortal line that Mule has where he's like, I'm just trying to show the kid a good time.

Badass as a mule literally says, like, he doesn't have it in him.

Like, this.

There's.

There's no.

There's no way this kid can have a good time.

It's like, I mean, I.

We just got back from Jason's bachelor party and like, this reminded me of nothing so much as that about how like, how hard it can be to have a good time when all you're trying to do is have a good time.

We had a very good time at the bachelor party to.

To be clear.

But like, it really, like, there's so many great sequences of like, like Badowski and Mule, like, trying to like, set up cots in the hotel room or just like, like teaching each other signals.

And just like the doldrums of it all is like, it's a.

It's a movie that, like, I think it's very important to the themes that we've been discussing that this movie thinks that the state of these people's lives is funny.

Or at least that there is.

There is humor to be gleaned from it in an absurdist sense.

Right.

Like, I think it's.

It's very important that like, not only is this way of life and this message sad and heavy and frustrating and rage inducing, it's also comedic.

Right There.

There is.

There is a great satire to how absurd Our lives are in this movie.

Totally.

Yeah.

Movie wasn't going to be one of my points.

I want to echo how funny this movie is.

And not in that there are great like quips or.

I mean, there are a few good ones.

I don't know.

Stay tuned for maybe the end of the episode.

But like it's situational and it's often as like a release for the preceding scene as great films who like juggle multiple genres at once of just like it's really heavy and then we're laughing maybe a little extra hard at this because it's like a release valve for us.

But, you know, these guys get into some heavy shit.

They collectively house 50 beers between them and then they are tasked with.

Yeah, setting up two hotel beds.

Whomstemongus hasn't been there.

Or at least that was just emotion.

Me and you.

And it's in our little room in the cabin after the bachelor party.

That's true.

It's like, oh, now I gotta get onto a bed after drinking angry balls all day.

This is.

I may as well be climbing a mountain.

And then.

Oh, what was the other?

The.

Oh, the.

One of the audible laughs for me is.

I forget after which, like vignette.

That's probably the wrong word for it.

But just like their night on the town, they come back to the hotel.

It's again presumed that Meadows just has the nice bed and like a kid, you know, asking his father something before he leaves the room.

Meadows is like, you know, badusky or badass or whatever.

And then Nicholson just going, what is something to the effect of like, what in the ever loving fuck is it now?

Meadows?

Like that just really, again, just as a release valve for everything that we did.

The actual thing that I wanted to bring up, we did.

We didn't talk a lot about the music.

It's not a music music filled film necessarily.

It's.

It's like appropriately used.

It's not like super minimalistic, but it is just for appropriate patches of like we're transitioning between movements.

Literally figurative, you know, like they're walking through, you know, I don't know, Washington or whatever it plays.

It's.

I guess, I don't know if it's literal, like marching, like military marching music or just has the.

It's clearly reminiscent of like a ridiculously triumphant pomp and circumstance military march.

Right.

Yeah.

And after the second or third time you hear it, it immediately, like it comes to passage.

Oh, this is poking holes in all of this.

It plays as, you know, goofy off putting triumphants rather than self serious triumphants, which I don't know.

I.

I love that.

So just the nice little zest for the top of the plate.

That.

That was.

That was excellent, right?

It really is like, in.

In.

Because, like, these characters are supposed to be sympathetic.

Like, it doesn't play into this too much, but, like, the big difference between this and Husbands, the Cassavetes movie is like.

Like, think about what it would look like to encounter these people from the outside.

And you've got Husbands, right?

Which is basically like, these guys are terrifying.

Like, it would be very scary to have these three dudes walk into your bar or walk into your hotel room or something, right?

And I love that, like, there's this triumphant, like, military march music playing as they're like, trying to chase down tail or like, beer or whatever.

And it's just sort of like these guys are just like raw wounds on the earth that are just there to up my.

My last thing.

We would be remiss, not to mention Carol Kane in the.

The sequence at the house, which I think is so good and so tender and kind of like, plays out as a microcosm of the entire movie, where it's just sort of like, Carol Kane seems to like, immediately, like, clock what the situation is with Meadows and sort of like, try to like, provide him with what Badowski's been trying to provide him in, in a way.

And it's like, so sad and so inevitable, right to the point where like, like the very next scene is Meadows discussing, like, you know, I think that actually had romantic feelings for me.

And like, Podowski just reacts as if, like, he knew he was gonna have this conversation and he was rehearsing what he was going to say, because that was the point, right?

Is this idea that, like.

Oh, yeah, no, you're right, kid.

Like, they've got feelings like everybody else that could have been real, like, and.

And you should internalize that that was real and, like, learn something from it when, like, clearly that was like, like what they were trying to buy in the first place.

And it is like a perfect microcosm for sort of like, it's very sad.

And also, you know, I.

There's just an entire, like, universe in that one scene, right?

Where, like, Carol Kane looks so young, she's so understanding, and, like, she is such a tragic character, and she plays the tragedy so well without ever having to, like, we never learn who she is or what her backstory is.

It's just.

It's all right there in the scene, right?

And I think it's so well done.

Quick junk drawer, off the junk drawer.

One person who doesn't like the music in this movie, director Alexander Payne.

Again, the Shout Factory, like special features.

Part of it is him giving a forward an introduction and commenting on the movie generally.

A lot of stuff he loves about it all.

A lot of the same things we've talked about.

And then for some reason, and I've never seen a featurette do this, he's like.

And one thing that I don't like about the movie.

Movie.

And they give him like 2 minutes to explain something they don't like about the movie.

About that.

Like how incongruous the victorious march sounds, especially in scenes where it's, like, used ironically.

Imagine telling.

Yeah, the guy.

I mean, to be fair, I've only seen, I think, one of his movies and it was the Holdovers.

And I frankly really, really love that movie.

And also, also, he's of Greek descent.

His original name is Papadopoulos.

Alexander Papadopoulos.

He's made Wikipedia, teaches you everything, saying.

I'm learning, I'm learning better pizza Papadopoulos.

Aaron, how do you feel about Alexander Payne being of Greek descent?

I don't have any opinion on that.

But I also do not love the music of this movie.

So I will.

Get ready to conflict.

You got to get conflict.

I don't feel conflict strong about it.

It's just sort of overbearing and at times kind of.

It does a little bit of.

Of the sort of kind of, you know, overly patriotic critique that all you guys were bringing up earlier.

But I just don't.

I don't know.

There are certain scenes where I was, like, listening to the music.

I'm like, I don't know what the.

Is this doing here?

We gotta get.

Sometimes it works some fucking Stevie Ray Vaughan in here instead.

Let's get some Jimmy going.

This is what.

Hell yeah, dude.

Dude, you get SRV's version of little Wing in the background of the bar scene.

Better scene, better scene.

Something to think about.

You heard it here first.

Hal, come back, redo that scene.

Thanks, everybody, for filling our junk drawer with a great new.

We got to get a new sound effect because it's so full.

It just keeps getting.

It's harder to close it these days.

I'm pushing, pushing it.

Finally, it's closed.

That's the junk drawer.

We have one penultimate segment.

I like to call it to all the loves we've tried before.

I need to take my timestamp real quick.

1, 3, 4, 11 in my timestamp.

It'll Be more than that or less than that, depending based on some silences I remove and such.

Anyway, this.

Hi, Diana.

This one's called to all the loves we've tried before for the year 1973.

Your tip off the first bat here is I think there are eight films prior to this one that we've covered from the year 1973.

One of them pretty recently.

Sorry, that's not podcasting.

No, dude.

600 more episodes.

I'll give Cody the floor for a first guess.

1973 films that we've covered on this year podcast trial.

I love.

I'm only.

I knew going into this that one of them was pretty recent.

And as much as we promise we're all going to remember all of them the next time they come around, I knew I was not, but I think.

I think I just have a.

Ooh.

Actually, I might have two, but I'll just guess one for now.

The one that I'm more certain of, Ganja and Hess, was the same year as this.

Correct.

Ganja and hess was indeed 1973.

Episode 88 in October of 2020.

You got that one correct.

Correct.

Episode 80 within our first hundred.

Jesus.

And then maybe episode 89 or 90 was our interview with Sam Wayman.

I still follow him on Twitter, and he just occasionally posts a jpeg from an event.

He's gonna.

He's a legend.

It's a good living.

Yeah.

I'm gonna guess.

I think that this is maybe later, but I want to guess Night Moves, Jason.

Night Moves, I believe, was 74, though I did not review it as I should probably start doing, like, what's on the periphery of this, just in case Harry gets it wrong.

I can be concerned.

That's nice.

Thank you.

I believe it's not just Terry.

What about.

What about sorcerer?

Sorcerer was 75.

Oh, no, that's 78.

77.

Conversation.

77.

Because star.

Conversation was 70.

Weekend 71.

Yeah.

Conversation was 7.

I think it's 70 or 71.

71.

Yeah.

We're like, Gene Hackman is in there somewhere where we're getting close.

Conversation was a 74 film, all you guys, because it was made the same year as Godfather, so.

God, we didn't cover Godfather it.

Okay, well, that's all I got.

I don't know what.

What did.

Who.

Who.

Who won Best Actor instead of Nicholson here?

You know what I mean?

Like, what.

Maybe that when we covered that.

I don't.

I don't know that we covered the best actor recipient film of 1973.

And that's.

That's more of a Cody question.

Honestly.

I'm very interior questions.

If you ask me things about the movies we've covered.

Perhaps I'll give you a guess.

The very first one we covered was within our first 50 episodes.

And it was on an animated feature film.

Was Fantastic Planet.

Fantastic guess and it's the correct one.

It's Fantastic planet was episode 31 in August of 2019.

Remember that?

That was a time in the year.

Yeah.

You were right, by the way.

Aaron, conversation is 1974.

I apologize.

There we go.

Wait, so Francis Ford Coppola released the Conversation right after Watergate and Godfather Part.

One was the year before, I believe.

And then this.

Yeah, I think two or three years gap.

That's fucking crazy.

You never know this much about good few years.

Are these.

Are these movies your dad likes?

How do you know these are the top?

I've watched them all and we've covered one of them.

We've talked about one of them for two hours.

One of these is an Italian film.

Maybe that's it.

Revolver.

Or It's Revolver.

Episode 215 in February 2023.

Which Kelly Krantz.

You know, I mean, do you.

Do you wanna.

I wouldn't be quizzed on poetry by my friend every week.

Hey, here's a quiz for you.

Here's a.

Here's a headline for the quiz.

He has.

Here's a headline.

Aaron and I were only people.

Sorry, was that your Leno?

Jason?

Aaron.

You hear about this?

Aaron and I.

Every Monday I was watching Headlines with my grandpa.

It was the Cherished Childhood Memory episode.

I'm not gonna say the number because it might give it away.

It won't give it away.

You're not gonna remember that.

Aaron and I were the only two regular hosts of this show to be on that episode.

I think it's maybe the only episode where it's been.

Aaron and I are the only two, like, regulars.

Remember what that would be?

It was Holy Mountain.

Yeah.

With Finn.

Episode 256 in December 2023 with our friend.

I think I was in New York for that.

Anyway, you're just too busy.

When was King of Marvin Gardens?

It was before 1973.

Yeah.

Because I think I've read something about Jack Nicholson looking for another project after King of Marvin Gardens.

He didn't even really like, audition for things.

He just sort of stumbled drunkenly from movie set to movie set and gate.

Gave some of the greatest performances ever put on screen in the 1970s.

I think we got two martial arts films.

Oh, enter the Dragon.

One of them.

One of.

Indeed.

Episode 44 in November of 2019.

Remember, we went to the Chick Fil a on Central after that over by Midtown.

Oh, man, that was good.

Wow.

It was a long time ago.

The other one, Martial Arts, it's more specifically, like samurai era.

Sorry, by the way, I.

Not Chick.

Not Chick.

It's sort of doom, isn't it?

Is it not sort of doom?

Okay, sorry.

It wasn't Chickfila.

It was Popeyes, by the way.

Sorry, I would never go.

Was that one on Central?

Was that the one on Lake?

I forget it was on Lake and Central.

Yes.

But, yeah, good stuff.

Lady Snowblood, episode 229 in June of 2023.

You guys got to take notes because this is.

I'm gonna go through this next time we cover a movie from 1973, and there will be nine to remember in.

A week and a half.

We're literally doing that in a week and a half.

And I will remember, big man.

I may be gone for that episode.

But finally, final two films.

One was very recent.

Cody, did you say that you remembered this one?

The other one that I was.

No, I didn't remember the recent one.

The other one that was on the tip of my brain was Enter the Dragon.

I was foolishly gonna forget the more recent one.

One that was probably tantalizing.

Recent.

Recent.

It sounds like tantalizingly.

I wasn't on this most recent episode.

Oh, somebody uniquely qualified to be on.

Was you in instead?

This episode was filled with your friends, and they were friends of Eddie Coyle.

Friends of Jenny, Jason, Daphnes.

They are episode 331.

In May of 2025, we covered the friends of Eddie Coyle with a friend.

Perhaps the only movie that is more 1973 than the last Detail.

If you're looking at American films, maybe, Harry, open your horizons a little bit.

You know, look.

Look beyond your borders.

You're known for episode 223.

In April of 2023, we covered a movie where trains are a big thing.

Oh, is this fucking.

Oh, wait, 2023.

Was that that long ago already?

What's the.

The name of the one with.

With a one.

The Emperor of the North.

Emperor of the North.

Emperor of the North.

Aaron finally got it from that year.

Yeah.

With the.

With the Hobo.

That's the scariest thing that's ever been in a movie.

Love that one.

If I remember correctly, Cody, you weren't there for that episode because I had a whole segment about, like, hobo code.

No, train code.

Yeah.

It was like Terminology.

Oh, boy.

I'll have to go back to that one.

The thieves can't.

There you go.

We have another segment here.

I'm not the one to introduce it alone, though.

Harry always does it.

He always counts us in so that we can.

So we can end our episodes the same way we always do when Cody's around.

Jason every single week says that I count them in, and I don't think I've ever actually counted.

You gotta start a single time, and I'm not gonna start now.

This is the segment we like to call Cody's Noties.

Cody's Noties.

A one and a two.

That was a solid introduction.

You know what I mean?

Remember WikiLeaks?

This is WikiLevs.

WikiLeaks.

No, no, just it's WikiLeaks and then this is Wikileves.

Let it be known that Jason will be going there after this race recording.

But for now, here's what's going to happen.

I'm going to try to get y'.

All.

I'm going to do everything in my power, literally everything, to try to get y' all to guess the Jack Nicholson film that will eventually be described using only the final line in.

In select Wikipedia passages for said movie.

I know that's sort of ambiguous.

It'll make sense as we go.

The last detail, if you will, that's.

You stole my thunder.

In other words, using only the last detail.

But Harry clocked it.

He's right.

He doesn't get bonus points for it.

Sorry.

Very, very well done.

No, it's okay.

Can we take away points from his final score due to that?

Like, there's no reason.

Yes.

Yes.

Kudos to Harry for picking up on the gag.

That's very good.

Yes.

In other words, using only the last detail of aforementioned passages.

After hearing a line, if you think you know the movie being referenced, raise your little Zen caster.

And this is pretty much the same format as we did last week.

For folks who were present and or listeners of that episode, raise your little Zen cast your hand.

I will then call on you and ask for your guess.

If you're wrong, you're done for the round.

If you're right, you'll get the corresponding amount of points.

The first line.

I'll have three lines per film.

First one, if you get it, using only that, will be worth five points to your final score.

Three points for the next one.

And then if you need the third one, you get one point.

And the person with the most points at the end, as you might expect, will Win the whole dang thing.

Trivia mafia rules apply, as they nearly always do.

Use your noodles, not your Googles.

Let's jump into it for our first film.

The first line.

So the five point, you know, component.

The five point line.

This is from the inch, the introduction section of the film's Wikipedia page.

That is as follows.

The.

I'm sure.

Sorry, I got eyes on everybody's end.

Cast your hands.

The then new Steadicam mount was used to shoot several scenes.

And I'm going to pause because Jason has a guess.

Jason, what is your guess?

You know, I've confused them again, but I'm going to stick.

You say Tombstone again, I'm going to flip my lid.

Keep that lid, you know, 180 from where you want it to be because I.

I'm going to say I confused him for Robert De Niro.

I was going to guess Raging Bull.

Okay, what raging.

Raging Bull.

Here's the guess.

Jason just two minutes ago said Aaron and you don't know anything about movies.

Two.

I mean, like literally two or three months ago.

That's crazy.

And then I delivered you the punchline of the year by guessing a Robert Denor movie during the.

Jack Nicholson.

Turned out to be sort of a casino guy.

Are you listening?

I would like to see Raging Bull with Jack Nicholson is what I'm saying.

I don't know if I want that, but that is a good reminder.

One thing that I forgot to Cody.

What'S the last introduction to this movie?

So again, these are Jack Nicholson films.

Thank you for being honorable with your guest, Jason.

I'll start from the top just because a lot has happened since then.

We've lived a lot of life since the start of this line.

It reads, the then new steady cam mount was used to shoot several scenes, giving the film an innovative and immersive look and feel.

Jack Nicholson film.

Steady cam mount.

Harry with the gas.

I'm just going to.

I'm not confident about this.

I want to guess the Shining.

The Shining is the guess.

The Shining is correct.

Steadicam mount.

There's a bunch of those shots.

Yeah, exactly.

The other lines, the three point line would have been from the cast section.

And this is in quotes from somebody else saying.

Nonetheless, they are frequently referred to in discussions about the film as the Grady twins.

So a little slice of that.

And then the one point line would have been in a section or a subsection titled ambiguities in the film.

Excuse me.

He dubs the film a failure as a ghost story but brilliant as a study of madness.

And the Unreliable Narrator.

Ooh, unreliability.

Nothing spookier than that.

But Harry is shooting up the scoreboard with five spooky dookie points.

Hot take.

That's very much anybody's game.

The Shining.

Good movie.

Stephen King.

That is a hot take.

That.

No, that's a hot take.

The Razzie nominated The Shining is actually a good film.

You heard it here first.

Moving along to our second film, the five point line is as follows.

This comes from the production section.

I'm holding up listener my fingers with every line.

It's like I'm just like.

It's like an inch long to represent the fact that every section in Wikipedia is about an inch.

This communicates nothing but just wanted to call that out.

This is from the production section which is famously this big.

It was in an old mansion that had been converted to a of part apartments.

That is the last detail from a passage in the production section.

I'll read it again.

It was in an old mansion that had been converted to apartments.

Was there a guess for this one?

Looks like Aaron is sticking to his guns.

Aaron, what's your guess?

Yeah, I accidentally pressed it, but I'll do King of Marvin Gardens.

King of Marvin Gardens is the guess.

King of Marvin Gardens is correct.

Holy shit.

Nice, dude.

Wow.

Was it about the rundown looking fucking building?

Yeah, I believe so.

So the three point line came from the reception section which reads Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, also awarded three stars out of four writing that much of the film doesn't work, but it contains three of the best performances of the year.

Okay, Gene.

And then I guess, I don't know.

He's got a point there.

And then one point for the final line, which.

Or rather the last detail, the introduction section, the title alludes to the.

And I would have crossed that out.

The blank in Margate, New Jersey.

And one of the properties in the Monopoly board game which was based.

Based on the streets.

Nice city.

Also.

Yeah.

1972 is the king wild.

That Gene does kind of have a point.

I bet that King of Marvin Gardens is like the 12th best movie that came out in 1972.

And I still think of it as like an American masterpiece.

Just because like movies are so different now than.

Than they and some may say worse than they were in the 1970s.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Yep.

Also.

Yeah.

Sorry, Jason, apologies for any loud noise.

I don't know what.

No buffalo.

Somebody's in my apartment.

Moving right along.

Oh, oh.

It woke.

Woke the cat up.

Hey listeners, I'm watching over a cat for at least six months, if not longer.

Her name is Clementine.

She's a big old sweetie.

I'm very excited.

Yep.

Maybe she'll be on camera, but I don't know.

We'll see.

Just calling that out as we mosey through this game.

The score is 550 in the order of Aaron, Harry, Jason, again, still very much anybody's game.

Here's the five point line for this next film.

This comes from the introduction section of the film's Wikipedia reads as follows.

A sequel called the Evening Star was released in 1996.

A sequel, the Evening Star was released in 1996.

See Aaron with the hand raise.

I'll let him guess and then anybody else who has a guess can guess.

Otherwise we can move along to the later lines here.

Aaron, what do you think?

I've never seen this movie.

I don't know what it's really about.

I'm going to guess as good as it gets.

As good as it gets is the guess.

As good as it.

There we go.

Gets.

Unfortunately not the film.

A valiant effort.

Valiant guess.

Any other guesses for this?

Otherwise we can.

No, I think I'm going to go through it.

All right.

All right.

So this comes from the production section of the film's Wikipedia.

It reads, on working with Jack Nicholson, I'm going to remove this particular actor's name on working with Jack Nicholson.

Blank said working with Jack Nicholson was crazy, but that his spontaneity may have contributed to her performance.

Working with Jack Nicholson was crazy, but that his spontaneity may have contributed to her performance.

I'll let that simmer.

Let it simmer.

If not, we'll let it go to the one point.

This is where I will pop in and say, this is a previous episode.

So at one point, and with the additional knowledge that it's a previous episode, Jason choosing to raise his hand, now, do you want to stick to your guess and go for it, Mr.

Daphnis?

Terms of Endearment.

Terms of Endearment is the guess.

I'm going to lock in that guess and then read the line.

Anxious to escape her mother, Emma marries callow young college professor Flap Horton over her mother's objections.

It is indeed terms of endurance.

What's that?

What's that line?

He said you're my.

My fine ass gal or whatever goofy he says in that movie.

What a winning thing.

So that's, that's a point for the old daft man, as they call him, as we've come to call him.

And Jason pointing earnestly at the scoreboard he's doing the meme and everything.

That was a very good rendition of the meme, Jason.

That was actually pretty good.

No particular reason that I'm very good at doing that.

Yeah.

God, I used to.

The troll face.

God, I used to be so good with that.

I'm not going to put that on camera, but it's five points to Aaron, five points to Harry, and one point to Jason.

As we continue on, we've got two more of these nickel flicks here.

The five point line is as follows.

This comes from the critical response section of the film's Wikipedia page.

It reads, william Arnold of the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

It's more of a mouthful than I expected.

Gave the film a D, describing it as a perfectly dreadful affair that makes no sense, has almost no good laughs, and finally just sinks like a rock in a Beverly Hills swimming pool.

What prose from William.

William Arnold there.

We've got a guest coming in from Aaron.

Aaron, what do you think?

Yeah, and this is not a good strategy.

I'm going to go with anger management.

Anger management is the guess.

And that guess is correct.

2003's anger management.

Very good, Aaron.

Anger.

Anger freaking management.

The other lines have been in the introduction section.

Released in theaters in the United States on April 11, 2003 by Columbia Pictures, the film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $195 million, a couple against the $75 million budget.

A world wherein those optics existed.

Mixed reviews.

195 million gross at the box office against $75 million budget.

We need to go back.

And then the final line would have come from the cast section.

I don't know if this would have necessarily helped, but several others appeared as themselves, such as John McEnroe, Derek Jeter, Bob Knight, and Roger Clemens.

All sports people have not seen that movie.

How much that would have helped, but seems bad.

Maybe it is not good.

I would not recommend seeing it.

It's bad.

Yep.

That's.

Aaron's not wrong, but he has been also.

I'm actually wrong in multiple of his guests.

Yeah.

As they.

There's a word for that and it is right.

He's got 10 points to Harry's five into Jason's one.

We've got one final prompt here.

You know, let's see if we can shake these standings up a little bit more going into the.

The final prompt.

The final film of the game.

This is the five point line.

It comes from the final line in the casting section of the film.

Zikipedia.

I'm doing that dumb Thing with my fingers again.

Clip that.

No, don't clip that.

Phrasing.

Boom.

Doing that thing with my fingers again.

Get it in the casting section.

He also demanded top billing on promotional materials.

And I will go as far as to say is the.

He in this case is indeed Jack Nicholson.

Aaron's got a guess.

Aaron, what do you think?

As good as it gets.

As good as it guesses in this case, not good enough.

Okay.

As good as it gets.

Anybody else have a guess?

Not to put the pressure on anybody, but getting this right is kind of the only.

Yeah, it's the only way I can tie error.

So I guess I have to guess sort of right.

Kind of.

Yeah.

Let's see.

Top billing in promotion, unless you want.

To play for seconds, which is also.

I don't think this is.

He also demanded top billing on promotional materials.

Yeah, sorry, I don't think this is the right guess, but I'm going to guess the Departed.

The Departed is Harry's guess, and the Departed is not the film in question, unfortunately.

So, Jason, it comes.

If you want to listen to a couple more lines.

I have.

I have nothing to gain and even less to lose by just hearing the rest of them.

Okay.

I guess you do technically have second place to game if you gain.

If you wanted to guess now and get it right, but is there a.

Serious chance that I guess.

Yeah, if I.

I'm not gonna get it on this one.

You said it was.

He also demanded top billing in all promotional materials.

Yes.

Yep.

Oh, I know the answer, actually.

Maybe.

Is it Batman?

Because I remember he was famously, like.

Weird about Batman in I'm gonna chamber your guess.

I'm not gonna give any indication either way until Jason either guesses or hears the rest of the lines.

Give me another.

Another clue.

All right, this one comes from the new tech section.

At the encouragement of Prince's then manager, Albert Magnoli, it was agreed that Prince himself would write and sing the film songs.

I would have gotten it on that thing.

So I'll say Batman and lock.

In third place, Wally West.

So he could have tied for first.

Batman.

Yeah.

Yep.

Batman.

He's Batman.

Batman, 1989.

I.

I don't know if I realized that thing about the promotional.

He was also paid, like, money, right?

Like, didn't he make, like, literally, like, a fourth of the budget or something on his casting?

That's.

That.

That sounds.

That sounds right.

Well done, everyone.

Everybody got YouTube.

Got.

Got points.

Oh, that's a band.

But I appreciate it.

The final scores are as follow Jason the daftman Daphnis, Jason, the Batman.

Daphnis remains to be seen.

For now he's just Jason, Todd, Daphnis but he got four points, Harry with five and Aaron bringing out the big guns 10 points.

So the pop off platform is his.

Thank you.

This has been Wikiloves Aaron Sound off.

Sounds like I objectively know the most about movies.

That's interesting, interesting, interesting.

You could have let that keep going, but it's fine.

It was to keep going.

Just happy to compete, fellas.

Was that the extent?

Okay, that's the extent of his pop off platform.

So I will take over the reins here.

Shoop.

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast.

You can find a lot more episodes on a lot more movies, including some starting Jack Nicholson, including some starring Jack Nicholson from the 1970s, which you should check out wherever you get a podcast.

Also go to perisphere.org it is the trial in cinema's companion blog for two pieces written about this movie, one from Jackson Stern and one from Ryan Sanderson.

People who feel strongly enough about movies to write about them get on Perisphere.

Keep that in mind.

Keep that nugget in mind because you'll be it'll be relevant in a few episodes.

Check it out all out@perisphere.org if you want to know about actually seeing a movie at the trial on the main CTA here is go to trial on.org check out their calendar.

The cult film collective is not not the only set of movies that they play there.

They also play digitally projected films in larger series.

We'll be covering several of those over the next few months.

Check it all out@trilon.org, check out specific movies we're going to cover on Twitter bluesky and I think it's just Twitter and bluesky for right now.

Trilog Podcast and I am Jason Daphnis.

You can find me on Twitter and.

Bluesky nintendofus I've been Cody Narvison.

You can find me on bluesky and letterboxd at Cody Narveson.

So for the record, Jack Nicholson actually made less money than usual in his upfront quote for Batman.

He usually asks for $10 million to be in a movie at that time.

In 1990 he only did six, but he demanded participation in the film's gross and all merchandising.

So he made a reported 60 to 90 million million dollars off of Batman because of merchandise.

Wow.

And like really radically like revolutionized the way that contracts worked.

I don't think like any actor was ever given participation in merchandising after that because they were all like, oh, Jack Nicholson made way too much money off of this movie.

But hey, get it, I guess.

King I've been Harry Mack and you can find me on Blue sky at.

Punished talking and I'm and you can find me on Bluesky rb, please.

And I was going to signal bye bye.

But given the limitations of this medium, I will instead say, hey, you guys, drop your socks and grab your we are going to a party.

Sa.