Hi, my name is Milli to Jericho and welcome to Deer Movies.

I love you.

Whoa Millie?

What a stunt?

Dag my leg my leg my leg?

Oh my god, Millian, I didn't know a human body could contort that way.

Yo, dude, my leg?

I dude, why did you tell me to get on this missile that we launched into a lake?

Oh?

I thought it'd be sick.

I thought it'd be sick and it was.

Yo.

Yeah, I can't believe you got me to do all these crazy things.

There was also an alligator that was on the missile with me, which I thought was you know, a little a little crazy.

And then you know, I don't know, They're like everybody was naked.

Everybody was standing around was just naked.

There's a jar of alligator seamen on top of the rocket.

Is that really necessary?

Ye?

Well, my leg is completely separate.

Well, I hope you can keep doing the podcast today because we've got a huge one.

Really huge one.

If you couldn't tell we're actually going to talk about this.

Has this the first time we talked about a sequel and not the original movie?

Oh that's a good question.

Yeah, I guess that's true.

It is a sequel.

Yeah, and you do need to have seen the first one for the second one to make sense, right.

I feel like everybody has probably seen the first one at least, But we're going to talk about Jackass number two that came out in two thousand and six.

There's a reason why we're talking about the second one, which will be clear in just a few moments.

But I don't even know if I know the reason.

Uh, you don't have to.

As long as one of us is as Yeah, as long as we I have known what's going on, we're okay.

And that's great, very exciting.

And then we are also going to be talking to the wonderful Caden Mark Gardner on our segment, my area of expertise, and we're going to be talking about fifties diner aesthetic.

A really awesome conversation with Caden.

Would you say Cayden is a film writer, a writer about film.

Yeah, I would say Cayden and I run in the same streets.

It's like we're all out here doing a little bit of programming, a little bit of writing, a little bit historian stuff.

He's just a wealth, truly a wealth of knowledge.

And we talk about fifties diner aesthetic and we get into it.

That's fun, that's right, So please stay tuned.

It's going to be a wild and wonderful episode.

And in the meantime, I have to try to put my leg back on somehow.

I think I'm just going to pull this duct tape.

Anyway, I'll figure.

It out, and just imagine the first guitar riffs of minute Men's Corona is playing.

Imagine that in your head, audience, because we can't play.

It, but we can play this song because you're listening to Deer Movies.

I Love You, Dear, I Love you, and I've got to.

Love me too.

Check the box.

All right, Hey, y'all, welcome to another episode of Deer Movies, I Love You.

This is the podcast for those who are in a relationship with movies.

My name is Millie to Jericho, and.

I'm Casey O'Brien.

And Casey, what did you just tell me during the Dark Day?

I said, you know, in the brief moment between the intro and this part of the podcast, I said, when I was taking guitar lessons, one of the first things I learned was minute Men's Corona, which is the theme song for Jackass because minute Men.

I loved them and I was really obsessed with them, and they're a great band.

That's so funny.

What I the first time I ever learned, Like, I picked up a guitar and my neighbor taught me how to play guitar.

I learned the opening to Come As You Are by Nirvana.

Bom boom boom, boom boom.

Yeah, that's a good one.

That's tough.

That's the only one I know, the only thing I know how to play.

And I just played over and over and over again.

But I wish I would have learned the miniments.

That had been fun.

Yeah, it's complicated.

D Boone was an excellent guitarist.

Rip uh if you ever want to learn us easy song and guitar.

All of Neutro Milk Hotel songs are really easy.

I love them though, you know what's saying.

Uh.

Anyways, huge episode, like you said at the top, but really I have two questions quickly, quick questions here.

Okay.

Number one, did you hear that still in Scars Guard called Ingmar Bergman a Nazi?

Have you heard that before?

No?

He said Ingmar Bergmann was a Nazi during World War Two?

And he's the only person he knows that cried when Hitler died.

What And I'd never heard this before.

I was just curious if you had ever heard any rumors that Ingmar Bergmann was like a Nazi sympathizer.

How old is Stellam Scars Guard, by the way, was he around to see that?

Here's the here's the thing, he said, he's he's seventy four, so he was born after Hitler died.

So I don't know.

I he did not see it.

He didn't see him cry.

So I'm kind of like, maybe you heard it secondhand.

I don't know.

I'm no, it's just a bummer because I love Ingmar Bergmann.

I have all of his movies from the Criterion collection, literally all of them.

I have a huge set.

And it's just hard for me to someone who like is such a poet of human nature to be a Nazi.

That's just hard for me to reconcile.

I guess.

So anyways, well, one time, my grandfather, this is not for nothing.

Maybe we cut this.

I don't know, we'll see.

Once my grandfather told me when I was like a teenager, that he actually appreciated living under fascism in Italy because he felt like things were run very efficiently.

The trains ran on time.

Yes, he basically said that he was like, actually, I thought that fascism was for the most part of positive because it felt like everything was just like working well.

And I was like, Wow, interesting, bold dog Grandpa.

Wow, I think I know.

That's what I'm saying.

Maybe this is a thing where it's like maybe he was like maybe he was like on a Twilight Bender and he was like, hey, you know what, I love Hitler or whatever.

Scale Scar's guard was just happened to be there.

He like, what the fuck, dude?

Or I don't know.

I'm not gonna I'm not going to speculate.

But anyways, that was one question I had.

And then I have a I just wanted you to weigh in on this.

I did something I've never done before, and I feel weird about it.

Okay, went and saw a movie at the movie theater.

H bought popcorn.

It was good.

You know how when the popcorn is like that yellowish orange and it's just like really salty.

It was good.

Anyways, it was a big bag and I only finished like half of it, and so I brought it home and I put it in a big iploc bag and I ate it for the next rest of the week.

Is that weird that I did that?

No?

What the fuck?

You paid like thirty dollars for that.

I did pay more for that than I did for my movie ticket for my pop and popcorn was more expensive than the movie ticket.

Okay, I just wanted to check in it.

I really enjoyed it, and I loved eating it throughout the week.

I just felt like nine years old, like pulling out like this giant iploc bag of popcorn throughout the leekue.

It seems way that.

First of all, I'm glad that you did that.

Second of all, now that i'm now that you said it, I'm curious.

Have you ever gone to a movie theater just to buy the popcorn, not see a movie, and just walked walked?

No, but my grandma used to do that.

Yeah, And there's a movie theater in my neighborhood, not but two blocks from my home where they say they have the best popcorn in the city and people will apparently go in and just buy some and leave.

Yeah, I've done it, and I'll go you one further.

Perhaps I've done a lot of hard research onto like what it is?

Uh huh, that's in the movie theater popcorn that makes it so delishus.

Yeah, do you want to know what it is?

Or do you I do?

Okay, of course, Well this is according to Reddit.

Okay, it's a.

Combination of a couple of things.

Number One, this seasoning salt called flavor.

Call okay, chemical flav.

A call it's the out.

It looks like a carton of milk, and it's got like a really cute like nineteen fifties nineteen sixties design scheme.

It looks like it hasn't changed.

Since the fifties or sixties.

Which is one.

You know, it was manufactured by a company called gold Metal, which I'm assuming is maybe the flower people from Cincinnati, Ohio.

So that's the seasoning salt that goes on the popcorn.

Then I read that there's this butter flavored oil.

Yeah, because I don't really actually want real butter.

Yeah it's not real butter.

Good by the way, I've had popcorn with real butter and it's cond of Marley.

I gotta tell you.

Oh, I feel like the art house cinemas are trying to make their popcorn more healthy.

I feel like, no, I feel like it's not the way to go.

It tastes I think that this is a It's like going to a gas station knowing you're going to be snacking on something disgusting.

It's the whole part of the experience.

You don't want to go in there and find a bunch of fruit and vegetables in there.

No, I don't need like a watcha smoothie at you know, a racetrack.

But so I went online, did a little bit more research, and there's this gallon that you can buy on Amazon called Snappy I think the name of the company is Snappy, but it's called butter Burst, and it's a literal gallon of oil.

Like I guess it's like a butter flavored oil.

It's like sludge basically, like you can get a gallon of popcorn sludge.

We should do shots on the podcast.

I should send you some.

I've been like, because what am I going to get through a gallon?

I've been like, you know, peeling people off some of the butter bursts.

I'm like, well, I'm not going to have this.

Let me let me give you a plate.

As they say down, what do they say in uh, Minnesota.

If you go to a cookout, you know, and somebody walks out to you know, come get you, Come get.

A plate, het you a plate.

Let me put together a plate for you.

Get your plate.

Yeah that's what I mean.

Get you a plate of this butter burst and I'll send it up to you.

Very good.

Yeah.

Well, just wanted to check in with those two questions, Millie, I have something.

Else, please a follow up real hot off the presses.

Did you hear that the paranormal investigator who was handling the Annabelle doll died?

Yes?

I did.

I did see this.

What is going on, Millie?

I'm freaking out here.

I am too, dude.

I'm just like, I feel like we shouldn't have even talked about it on the podcast.

How about this is the first thing that I thought about.

I was like, we've invoked this now and now I'm worried.

That's something sad.

It's gonna happened up.

But here's the t Casey.

In addition to doing shots of butter bursts, should we also sage the podcast?

Yes, we should have my mom come on and do a catholic blessing the podcast.

She did that on our house when we moved in, so she's no stranger to it.

Maybe she should come on and she can do this.

Listen, I'm fucking serious.

No, I need to Okay, let's talk to your mom.

Okay, I'll get my mom.

She's the most Catholic person I know.

She It's like it goes like Pope and then her and we got to get her on.

Okay, this is good.

There's been a lot of news at the top, I know, jeez, but Millie, we got to get to our film diary at the movies we watched this past week.

Open it up?

Man?

How much if Okay, so let's say you were staring at the case that Annabel is in, My God, how much money would it take for you to open it?

To open it?

Yeah, got to be at least at least ten gee's if not more, I would do five figs.

Bear mins.

I need to take care of my family.

Sure you know that our loved ones.

Have you know our beneficiary money?

Because once you open that fucking gate, that girl is going ham on you.

So spooky.

There is a new one of the Conjuring movies coming out soonish, I believe so well, what all this Annabel tour was all about.

But see, now, is it going to be like some crazy polter guy scenario like everything's cursed or like exorses the Exorcist, everything's cursed?

I don't know.

Oh scared?

Okay, Millie, can you tell us what you watched this week?

Sure?

I watched quite a few things.

Wow, So I'll just be brief about things.

I watched two serious documentaries and then I watched basically films for teenage boys.

Good, okay.

I saw two documentaries about classic film icons of our past.

I saw the two thousand and five Kevin Brownlow co directed documentary about Greta Garbo entitled Garbel.

Okay, I've never been not familiar with this.

It was it was, you know, put together by my old stomping grounds at TCM, but it was basically talking about Garbo, you know, kind of famously decided to retire in her was it late thirties, early forties, and then she just was like, I'm going to live in New York and be a normal person.

And if you try to say hi to me in an antique store, I probably won't say high back.

But who knows.

Like she just was like I'm going off the grid type.

That's cool, and then people were like obsessed with spotting her and wanting to talk to her and things.

So I thought that was kind of cool, very cool.

I like, again, I'm really pulling for celebrities that are cool by the way, to just disappear from public life and just being on a person, Like if you're cool, you don't need to be famous for the rest of your life.

See.

That's why I was so disturbed by the death of Gene Hackman, because I like that he did do that.

He like was like peace, go into the desert, audios everybody.

But they from all accounts, and trust me, I've read about this a lot well because I am in constant fear of things like this happening to me as a single woman who lives alone.

Right, Yes, they really pulled out, like pulled out in a way that was like probably not like they didn't.

From what I gather, it didn't seem like they were very social.

They went too far.

They went too far, they kind of stayed too inside.

I didn't didn't have their social network or anything, so you know, I try not to.

That's why I'm like trying to be nice to people, because I'm like, don't forget about me, because I will one day not be able to walk out of this house.

And you've got you see a lot of mail piling up in the mailbox, Come knock on my door.

Yeah, if you see my mummified remains, if.

You see that I have magazine subscriptions and newspapers subscriptions.

I don't need it, I need I don't need those.

Those will just pile up and fall on me.

Just cancel them.

And then I saw I don't know if you've heard about this, but you know Mariska Harkta.

I'm very familiar with miss Mariska Hargita because I produce a podcast about a little show called lawn Order S for you.

No, that's exactly why I said.

I said it that way.

She made it to documentary about her mom, Jane Mansfield, which is called My Mom Jane, came out this year.

Heartbreaking, heart, really sad, and the whole thing is just so sad, so.

Sad, but also like a testament to like her and her brothers and sisters and her husband and just sort of like the people that like stayed in her life, like her father's and everything.

I don't know, I just was like, man, I cried man, I cried during that she's lovely, and also the pictures of her from like the late eighties and early nineties.

Damn, she was the hottest woman.

I'm talking about Marishka.

I'm not talking like Jane Mansfield.

I mean, why wasn't she more famous?

Then?

It's interesting like lon order SVU is kind of her big break, but not that she was old by any means.

But I think she was like in her thirties, you know, you think she would have blew up earlier than that.

Sure, Yeah, she's like man, she was.

She was a smoke show.

I'll tell you, if I look like her, I wouldn't be doing this podcast.

I wouldn't even be on the Internet.

Just throwing that out there.

Okay, So I watched those two documentaries.

So then I watched a couple of movies to prepare for this episode, which I feel like I should just mention, but I'm not going to go into it because we're going to talk about it.

Yeah.

I watched the first three Jackass movies obviously, but then the end.

To put a cap a feather in the cap of my old film diary, this week, I decided to rewatch Weird Science from nineteen eighty five.

A movie I've never seen.

Holy fucking shit.

Now, I like I said, I don't like to make people feel bad if for na see movies.

But I'm actually legit surprised you've never seen this.

I am too, because I'm like a John Hughes fan.

That's like my era.

I don't know it was on TV and I caught snippets of it.

I gotta watch it.

Very very contentious at this point in our culture, which duh, I get it.

Yeah, every horny teenage boy movie from the eighties is being dragged at this point.

There's issues, there's issues that movie particularly was I have seen that movie so much in my life, wow a lot.

I can quote it in fact, because again I was in John Hughes Freak too.

I actually think the concept in and of itself is so stupid, you know, but the issues that arise, at least for me and I don't like I don't think I have as many as others would, although I do understand why they would have them, because it is like gross teenage you know, masculinity, misogyny, homophobia, racism, this kind of stuff.

Right, It's just like very broad, dumb eighties comedy strokes, let's get serious.

Yeah, but there is something to be said for a movie that is basically like taking the idea of like what teenage boys think they want, which is they want to be able to like create a woman, which is what's happening right now in like AI, it's happening by the way still where guys are basically like, I'm fifteen and I want to know what, you know, it would be like to kiss a girl, So I'm going to like create some computer simulation of it.

That's exactly what they do.

Yeah, but it's completely improbable because it's like, you know, obviously the science doesn't add up, size doesn't ad up.

And then like Lisa, who's played by Kelly LeBrock, who's like impossibly hot, Like she's I was like sitting there watching her this time, going, she's gotta be like the hot woman I've ever seen.

Uh And I say that as a straight woman, and I have no I've no bone, no bones about it.

She is like probably the hottest woman I've ever seen in that game.

If you look like her, no podcast no podcasts, I would know you.

It wouldn't even fucking talk to you, bro Sorry, But like like she kind of is like a Mary Poppins in the in the sense that she's like basically creating alternate universes where things can happen.

Yeah, there's something fun about that.

But sure there is a couple there are a couple of scenes that are really hard to take in twenty twenty five.

But for the most part, I'm still like sort of charmed by it.

And I sure maybe you feel a little guilty about that.

But you know, you have to look at things through, uh, you know, a certain lens when we're looking at art from the past, you know.

And no one would have fault you for enjoying a movie like that, but I would.

Of your take.

By the way, you should watch it.

Nineteen eighty five's Weird Science.

I gotta yeah, I gotta check it out.

You know, it's funny the t There's a TV show, Weird Science that I would watch sometimes, and I had five seasons.

Five seasons, my god.

They always advertised in the back of my comic books, and I'd be like, Ooh, what's this horny show?

Was it like a USA?

Yeah?

I think that's right, of course, my turn.

Yeah.

I watched one movie in addition to my homework.

I didn't talk about this last time today.

Final Destination Bloodlines no from this year, twenty twenty five, year of Our Lord?

How was it?

H This was incredible, incredible film.

I think this is maybe the best Final Destination.

I thought it was done so well.

It's like very air tight, it's funny, it's insanely violent, it's like so outrageous and it just flies by.

I thought it was incredible.

Everyone should see this movie.

Take your children to this movie.

It's so good.

How long is it?

It's an hour and fifty minutes, So that's a little long.

That's a little long for horror, but I know, but it hugs along.

And guess what Filipino representation get out of here?

In what way?

Make characters Filipino get out?

Who is it?

Her name is Caitlin Santa Juana.

She's yeah, I mean she's Canadian, but she's a Filipino descent.

Fantastic.

You know when you're in a hurry to google something and you just destroy the spelling of it.

Huh I put it it looks like a Russian word.

Finally, death Sta Matilo.

It's like, do you have any elderly relatives that you get emails from and you're like, when did you stop learning how to spell?

Does that ever happen to you?

I'm putting it in the chat just because it looks oh fucking stupid.

It's like, I'm going to hurry to find this out.

There's no time.

Uh.

Anyways, check this out.

Incredible film.

Oh yeah, incredible.

It was so fun fantastic.

You know, I had every intention of seeing it.

Then I sort of slept, honest.

Slept on it.

I think it's on HBO Max now with all of the Final Destination movies and I and I admittedly haven't seen all of them.

But it was good.

All right, Millie, moving on to a main discussion, Close it up, Close it up?

All right, welcome back.

It is time for a main discussion, and today we're talking about I mean, I give this movie five stars on letterbox.

I think I did too.

If it wasn't a or Actually, I gotta tell you, I might have given it my actual five stars, which is four and a half.

Does that makes sense, Yeah, that makes sense.

That makes sense.

Jackass number two from two thousand and six.

You know, there's not really a synopsis to this, you know, it's an extension of the Jackass TV show and the first movie.

There's a bunch of stunts, violent stunts and outrageous pranks.

And what would you describe what they're doing in these movies?

How would you describe, Well, this is something I wanted to talk about.

In fact, I feel like this is a modern example of a mondo movie.

Would you say, perhaps.

Yeah, okay, yeah, I would say so.

I'm not totally familiar with mondo movies.

I know, like, what is it Faces of Death?

Sure, yep, that's a good example.

So that's a good documentary documentary.

Mondo Kane, which is pretty much where I think the term comes from, which is a sixties Italian movie that was kind of like so just a really really really short brief history of a mando movie.

First of all, I feel like they the term mondo and like the kind of genre has kind of fallen out of fashion in that classic sense.

There's kind of a classic mondo period.

There's actually probably two classic Mondo periods, one in the sixties and one in the eighties.

But basically they were these attempts at making documentaries that were supposed to kind of give you a peek into some kind of world that's very like Lurid and taboo when salacious.

So it was like the original Mondo Kane and Kane is spelled c E la Caine and it's basically Italian for a dog's world or a dog's eye view of the world or something like that.

But it was essentially like a collection of sequences of like, you know, just weird things.

And these are for people who didn't get to travel the world and didn't see like indigenous cultures and like you know, different outfits and different like religious rights and stuff like that.

So it was kind of taking advantage of people who were like not well traveled and not really you know, either couldn't be interested or didn't have the means to be interested in the world, right, Yeah, And it was meant to shock and titilate in awe.

That was the whole point.

Over the years and the sixties, they started getting a little bit more, I don't know, they up the stakes a little bit.

A lot of them started being made in America, and it would focus on place like Hollywood of course, or like New York City, places where if you were living in like Minnesota and you didn't go to New York, you'd be like.

Oh my God, New York so crazy.

Look at all these crazy things that happened there.

So it was kind of a peek into these like again, these kind of like taboo salacious worlds.

Then in the eighties you get kind of a resurgence of them, probably because of home video, but that's where you come in with the faces of death and the traces of death in the faces of gore and the whatever, these kind of like fake death sequency things like, because that was the other part of it too, was a lot of times these Mando movies were being staged.

They were not real, I see, right, So it was like, as much as it was kind of scary to be like, oh my god, I feel like I'm watching a snuff movie or something, you're like, no, these are like people recreating or faking things like this, right.

But that's different than Jackass, I would say, because the relationship the viewer has with the Jackass boys is very direct.

They're speaking to you, the audience member, yes, and it's all real.

Yeah, I think that, Like, that's what is interesting, and this is why I call it Monto in that way, which is that basically they're they're making a documentary or they're at least, you know, hobbling together scenes of realness, right that is hard to watch is taboo if you think about it, it will get We'll probably get to that later with like the nudity and all this stuff.

But it's also like a peek into the world of these kind of like skater guys essentially, and that's really where I came in to the Jackass world was through like skate videos.

I don't know if that was your way experience.

I had heard of Cky cam Kill Yourself, which was like Bam Margera's crew in Philadelphia.

Yeah, putting these like they were like there was more like skate videos and there was like stunt stuff.

I can't even really remember them.

But there was also like music videos because I think Jess BAM's brother was a musician and there was a band Cky and everything.

But I mean, how I discovered Jackass was watching MTV at one in the morning when I was thirteen years old.

Yeah, you know, and it really rocked my word.

I was obsessed with the show Jackass when it came out.

It felt like something so new and exciting and thrilling, and you would just watch one after another because it was just sort of like NonStop.

You know, there's no narrative to these things.

It's just these crazy stunts or it's just kind of like funny things they do.

You know, it's a vibe.

It's a very specific vibe, and that's kind of.

How I think of it too, because I do think that, Like I remember seeing one of the Ky videos, I think it was called Ky two K, and it was a lot of like, yeah, BAM's Crew with Brandon decamillios on his name self, Yeah, Rob himself, Ryan Dunn, all these folks, and it was like, yeah, a combination of skate tricks then kind of like it almost seems like b roll or behind the scenes footage of them just like fucking around and like pulling pranks on each other, and they were just kind of these comp videos of like hanging out with skater dudes, which at the time that was my main interest being in high school in the nineties.

I was like, yeah, I want to hang out with guys like this.

I think they were funny and weird and that kind of stuff.

So when Jackass, when I did see Jackass on MTV, I thought, oh my god, like these are basically these skate videos, except now it's a TV show.

Yeah, and they kind of added you know, kind of the other like other crews to it.

So there was that original kind of Cky crew, but then there was like the Steve O and Chris Pawnee stuff, and then Johnny.

And I came from Yeah, it came from Big Brother Skate Magazine, and Jeff Tremaine and Johnny Knoxville and Spike Jones kind of all met up.

And because Johnny Knoxville was pitching around kind of a Hunters Hunter S Thompson kind of style of a series of articles he wanted to do where he like had weapons tested on him, you know, like tasers and rubber bullets, and he even got shot with a gun with like a bulletproof vestante.

And so he was kind of shopping that around and he came in contact with Jeff Tremaine, who is that Big Brother Skate magazine, and they sort of did that.

And then Steve O was in Florida like the circus performer, and he was trying to submit stuff to Big Brother Magazine.

And then so there was like that crew and then the Cky crew and they kind of came together to do Jackass, like all together.

It was kind of like these two separate crews were kind of doing a similar thing, So that was sort of the impotent the origin behind it.

Yeah, well, I and to be completely honest with you, like, you know, despite the fact that I had already sort of liked watching you know, like Edgelord's skate videos and other people doing pranks, and I was a huge fan of Mando movies.

Like I said before, I do.

I do actually still to this day, believe this that there was there was something that was happening with like the Jackass Show and then the subsequent movies that I feel like had this Maybe it was an unintended effect, which is that it was like a way for people to see male bonding in a way that I don't think i'd ever seen before.

Necessarily, Yes, I think it is a revolutionary representation of like vulnerable masculinity.

Yeah, and like friendship, because there's a lot of them where like they'll be like I'm scared.

Fuck this, I'm not doing this, Like they're they're really scared and they're showing all that on the show.

It's not just the stunt.

It's also like you know, in Jackass Number two, Dave England watches these rubber bullets like destroy a mannequin, and he and they're like, okay, you guys are up next, and he's like, I'm like, I'm having an anxiety attack.

I'm not gonna I CA.

I can't do that.

But also they do get hurt, and then they they're like, I'm in pain, I'm hurt.

You know, they're not tough guys either, you know, and I don't know.

I just I feel like you don't see that.

You don't see that type of masculinity on screen.

It's either like tough guys who get hurt but like power through, or it's like super weepy, sensitive poet guys, but never this kind of in between dufis who is like, you know, showing his emotions on screen as he's getting you know, kicked in the nuts or whatever, right, And that's.

They think kind of what I what I always think about when I think about like nineties skaters and sort of the worlds that I traversed when I was in high school with like knowing skater guys and kind of being obsessed with skater guys.

I've talked about this with Danielle on our old podcast ad nauseum because she was also she actually skated.

I was simply a poser.

I just wanted to like hang out with skaters, but she she actually skated.

A little bit was that they were they were like athletes that weren't real athletes in that traditional masculine sense, right, So it's like, yeah, they were athletic, they could skate, they were you know, they had body confidence and they knew how to like you know, keep themselves on a skateboard.

But they were also like not macho, and they were.

Just like there's a real lack of match show yeah in this Yeah, and they're like they were, They're all about you know, like not being too proud to fail and fall and break bones.

And you know be scared of you know, putting beer funnels in their asses and things like that.

I mean, it's like totally normal stuff, which which humanizes men to me, which is what I needed so badly as a young woman, was that I needed to feel like guys were like normal and nice.

So I don't know, watching Jackass was kind of like that for me, where I was like, oh, it's like a peak into again.

I use the word peak because I was using it talking about Mamda movies, but like there was a peak into this world of guys who were like also super confident with like being naked around each other and like touching each other's bodies, which I've never seen before.

Like I was like, oh, don't I don't watch guys like you know, basically hold guys's balls.

To things and stuff and like there's no which would have been very there's know, like gay jokes like like you're gay, you know.

It's like there's there's not a whiff of that to be seen.

Yeah, and it's refreshing, it is.

And that's that's like the one thing that I will always defend is that I do think it is like it is that exactly the thing that you mentioned.

Although it's funny now because I actually asked a friend of mine to watch Jackass two with me, Like I was like, oh, sh you know, hey, I gotta watch Jackass two again for the podcast what you want to watch?

And he's like hell no.

He was like, this is like the reason why all these like stupid TikTok bros.

Exist.

And I was just like, huh, maybe.

I mean that's really interesting because I was thinking about gen Z.

Yeah, and I was like gen Z could never Yeah, because I feel like there's a real lack of control.

They give up complete control in Jackass, Like they set things in motion, but they don't know what's going to happen.

That's kind of the beauty of it, right, you know.

Like for example, one of the kind of a famous image is Johnny Knoxville putting on a blindfold and lighting a cigarette as they unleash a bull at him.

Who knows what's going to happen.

He gets flipped like perfectly.

But like I feel like TikTok is so manicured and they're in such control of their image and the outcome that I feel like they're completely different, because when you don't know what's going to happen, you are completely vulnerable to how you are represented, you know what I mean?

Yeah, Yeah, it makes me wonder because it feels like Jackass sort of existed in a pre social media era almost, even though I know that's not entirely true, but at least the show and the first couple of movies existed pre TikTok for sure, and pre Instagram stories or whatever, So it is like this contained universe of like, oh, these are like these are like real reactions and real things happening.

I mean, it's a it's a documentary.

We're probably seeing the best of the best, you know, and not every single take, but we're also like seeing things that are real and having people having real reactions.

And you're right, it isn't this like manicured thing.

Although I want to say this, this is this was like part of the reason why I think I was compelled to do number two Jackass too.

I don't know if you've seen how long has it been since you've seen the first Jackass.

Probably three years.

It's somewhat reason.

Yeah, the one thing that really stock out to me between one and two is that the production value got.

Upped a lot in two.

The first Jackass movie was pretty much like the show.

It was still really rough around the edges.

It felt kind of like very you know, digital video, a lot of like, you know, there was no I mean, there was an opening sequence, but it wasn't.

I just felt like the production value went up significantly, probably because the first one was so popular that they got more money to do the second one, of course, and so the second one feels like a more fully formed piece.

Than the first one.

And I will say my favorite.

The reason why Jackass two is my favorite is because of the end of Jackass two, which is a total nod to Buzzby Berkeley.

Yes, that is my favorite shit in the world.

Is that whole ending sequence of Jackass two with like the cevo as Esther Williams and then the like you know, fifties like technicolor Western musicals and like the crazy stage stuff.

I mean, I just loved that shit.

I think too, like just to go back to like sort of like TikTok Stars and how different Jackasses from those people.

Yeah, they are so committed to doing the dance and the singing, right, Yeah, like it's what makes it funny, you know, but they are there's no kind of like wink at the camera, like isn't this funny that I'm doing this?

It's like, no, they're trying to do it.

Obviously, it's funny that they're doing like attempting to do a Busby Berkeley ending, right, But there's no they have they're both feed in.

They don't have one foot out the door, you know, Like they're just they're very committed to it in a sincere way, which I think we don't see anymore.

Yeah, I feel part of it.

Hopefully this isn't going to get too intellectual, psychological or something, but like part of it is that I feel like those Jackass guys have reference for things like that.

That's true.

I've read many articles with Johnny Knoxville and with you know, some of the creators of Jackass and some of the Jackass guys talking about how they loved Looney Tunes cartoons, and they loved the old Tom Jerry cartoons and Bugs Bunny and like all of those like road Runner, you know, cartoons where the antics are so violent and so funny that they just wanted to be like real life versions of that.

They were like, Oh, we want to drop anvils on people's heads and doorways, and we want to.

Like, you know, God, have a giant hand come from a wall and slap somebody down.

That's the first one, I guess.

But that's the third one.

I think.

Is that the third one, yes.

Because that shit is fucking so funny When I rewatched it, it is definitely I think the third one where they had one of the guys brig in like all this soup like for something, you know, they wanted to basically hit him with his giant hand.

Yeah, and it's like high five and this hand just comes out of nowhere and like, oh, it's fans cartoon.

It's fantastic.

It's like that is the essence of what of jack ask to me is like that cartoonishly stupid stuff.

And also, I mean, even though this makes me gag when they do like models, like models of things and then like it's something disgusting involving models, like either someone's poop or someone.

Yeah, they have like a miniature, they have a little diorama and you're like, oh, this is cute, and then a giant piece of shit from someone's butt falls onto the diorama and it's funny.

Or it's like a it's like a puppet in a plane, it's actually someone's dick or whatever.

You're like, oh my god.

But those That's what I mean is like those jackass guys loved old entertainment.

They loved old cartoons, they loved old movies, they loved like the old show biz stuff, and it shows in these jackass movies.

Whereas I feel like, sorry, I hate to call you out, gen Z, but like when I watch a TikTok, there's no like.

There's no cinematic reference.

There's no reference, there's no antics though, there's no anything.

It's just basically you guys like pulling up at you know, wherever and like filming things.

I don't know.

To me, I just feel like maybe it's because I'm older and I get those references that the Jackass movies are funnier to me, Like.

Oh, I mean, I don't know if I've laughed harder at a movie ever, to be honest.

Yeah, my favorite is when they dress in costumes, Like when they dress in a costume based on the stunt that they're doing, you know, that really cracks me up.

Any kind of old school Tom and Jerry scenario is my favorite.

Yeah, I mean I love the like this is kind of a classic.

But this is like obviously based on Lunatus, Johnny Knoxville on a rocket.

What would happen if we put Johnny Knoxville on a rocket?

And it's like, holy shit, that's what would happen.

Yeah.

Yeah, Well, I now I have to ask.

Yes, I know this is like a very difficult proposal, but I'm gonna ask anyway, what is your ranking of.

You know, it's hard because I kind of have tears.

Can I do it that way?

I'll rank him well.

I feel like the top tiered guys obviously are Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve O, and I'd throw Chris Pontius into that top.

Uh.

If I had to rank those guys, I would say John Knoxville is number one.

I think he's an American hero, He's the last great showman.

Of course, I would put Bammargera number two.

He's kind of the lead guitar, lead act.

I feel like Johnny Knoxville is like kind of the architect of the whole show in some ways, but like Bammar Jerra is like he brings kind of a cool, hip leading man quality to the the show.

Yeah, I hear you.

And then Steve O is just a wild man.

I'd probably put Steve.

When I put Steve O number two, it's hard.

This is hard.

I told you it's hard.

I'll put Steve O number three for now, Chris Pontius number four, and then after that I would go we Man.

I like we Man, though, but I would go we Man, Ryan Dunn, Dave England, Preston Lacy, and then Danger.

Aaron is probably my least favorite, so what about you, what's your ranking?

I'm with you that number one with a bullet with a rocket in fact, is Johnny Knoxville.

I want to talk more about him after this, but.

Of course, I mean I have a lot to say.

He used to live in my neighborhood.

When I look at that, and I saw him so many times, so many times.

And also he's like a Tennessee guy.

Yeah, dangerously attractive.

There's so many reasons to like Johnny Knoxville.

Here's one thing I don't know if we've exactly touched upon.

I think all these guys are pretty hot, Like they're all really cute.

Oh they're cute.

What we wouldn't follow the boy band if the boy band didn't work.

It's exactly right, Okay, Johnny.

Knoxville is definitely number one, And I think the reason why is because you're right.

He is a showman.

He kind of has the pomp and circumstance of like doing the old stunts, Like he kind of presents it in a way that's like he's like an old Carnival barker.

I love it.

I love it well.

And I think his steady hand, he never shows fear.

Now, he's the only one that's not like I don't want to do this.

You never see him like that.

He's he's very much a showman in the way that it's like no, I said, I'm doing this, and we're doing it.

Yeah, there's no going back.

He's like Evil Canevel in that way, like, yeah, once he's decided to do it, it's happening.

You know.

And he kind of has he kind of has this older brother quality to him that I really appreciate.

But in number two, I feel like, especially there's a lot of times where the guys you'll hear them be like Noxill's insane, or they'll be like really afraid, like that bull scene where they're on the teeter totter.

Yeah, they show the guys like legitimately frightened for the guys in the bowl, yeah, you know, and they're like you can tell Steve O is like disturbed.

Yeah, but it's like Johnny Knoxville just doesn't he never quits.

Yeah, I don't.

I think it was the second one where they flip the golf cart.

No, that's not that's not number two.

That might be number one.

I think it's number one.

That was terrifying, Like I was like, I mean, golf carts kill guys.

That's why you don't race around in them.

I'll just keep it they do.

But it's there was a thing in number one where it looks pretty pretty hairy for Johnny Knoxville.

But I love him the most, and I like not just because he was at a John Waters movie and he's just generally like he feels like a guy that I would know from sure the South, Like he's just kind of like a diminutive, skinny, like weird guy that also loves weird things.

I don't know.

He just reminds me of home, I suppose.

But anyway.

My second is Chris Pontius, and I get it, yes, because I feel like there's a sensitivity to Chris Ponnius, like a kind of I don't know if it's a dandy quality to him, but uh.

His stunts he was never like to me, even though the first stunt of the movie is his dick getting bit by a snake.

Yeah.

I always felt like his stunts on the show were like him dressed as the Devil going down the street being like keep is it Keep God out of California or something like that.

Or he would go into a best buy and start playing music and start stripping like that was.

He was always getting naked and his were more His were less based off like physical pain than the other guys.

He was very okay with being like a lepperprint thong.

He kind of reminds me of David Lee Roth a little bit.

He's a little esty.

I think that's why I like him.

Yeah, he's a little estyle.

I've actually seen him act in stuff more than any of the other guys.

Yeah.

From there, I'm kind of like I used to think, not gonna lie.

I used to get freaked out by Steve O back in the day, and I think it's just because he was just so fucking crazy, Like when he put the fish hook through his mouth.

I think this is almost too much, too much, man, I was like, and he goes into a different level where I'm like, you're oh, you're like actually like self mutilating.

Yeah.

Yeah, but he's kind of around still, right.

He does like things on social media.

He's like completely sober and like he's in a good spot.

See.

I think that's what I like about him now, is that he's kind of like, yeah, he's sober.

He's kind of like assessing his life a little bit.

But honestly, it's it's kind of a tie between him and I.

I have to say, rip, Ryan's done.

But Ryan's done in the old Jackass shows, but in the movies was always the biggest grump.

He's a big grump.

I feel like he's a little bit more prom it in the first one then he was in number two.

Yeah, And I have read a little bit about sort of like the timeline of the hole, like him and Bammar Jera and the kind of falling out of things, you know, they all kind of split up or whatever.

But yeah, I believe Ryan Dunn didn't talk to any of them for two years between number two and number three.

Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

But I I always love the kind of reluctant like grump, the guy that's like, I can't fucking believe we're doing this shit, just so fucking and say, like I think it was the first one that got put in a barrel.

Ryan done got putting a barrel and pushed over the waterfall and he's just complaining about the hole.

He's gotta be that guy, you know, And he very rarely like takes his clothes off which I really appreciate.

I love that guy too that doesn't like, isn't quick quick to be in the underwear?

Yeah, the anti Zach Graf.

The guy's a little bit more, you know, reserved about showing skin.

I appreciate that.

And then I don't know.

From there, I do like, I like, I like we man and pressed in together.

I think that they're like a good like that they're good pairing, and I know why they pair them together, but I actually think that they're like funny together.

And then I don't know, I think danger Aaron and Dave.

God, they just get the ass end of every fuck they do.

I do feel kind of like bad for them.

They get like the shittiest ones.

Oh my God, like the wor they get the worst of the worst, and they always have teeth missing, and they always look like they're they've been knocked unconscious and revived.

I don't know, those poor guys.

So and then bam, is your Wow is least favorite?

Yeah?

I think so Wow.

I don't know, I don't There was kind of an energy for a while where you felt like he was kind of like, I don't know, just kind of like too bratty perhaps, and then like, although I do love his parents, but there was even in those moments where I felt like he was like, Okay, he breaks his parents, we get that, but he was actually like too bratty about it.

I don't know, I'm kind of like, yeah, I mean, I guess your parents aren't getting paid to do all this stuff.

But like, I mean, Van Bargerr is an interesting person in the history of Jackass because he's really on the outs with them now and he is really struggling with like addiction.

Yeah, and it's sad because I think a lot of them and then like Ryan Dunn died in I want to say, twenty eleven.

Yeah, yeah, Ryan Dunn died in twenty eleven at the age of thirty four, which does kind of cast a shadow over everything.

And he was struggling with addiction and he was drunk driving and he died.

Yeah, and it's hot.

You know, that does make it all.

You know, you're always worried one of these guys is going to get killed, you know, doing it.

But then it does sort of make you view the whole thing from a little bit of a different point of view, you know.

Yeah, I mean these guys were like skater dudes.

I mean they you know, they weren't like you know, from the Ivy League acting schools like they were you know, like kind of like street kids, like hanging out and pulling pranks.

It's not, you know, that far of a stretch to imagine that maybe something bad happened to them sometime, you know, it's unfortunate.

But yeah, I think that's that's the interesting about this whole.

They feel like, to me, pretty authentically punk in that way, whereas I feel like, I don't know, what's the comp is it the try guys?

Like what are we comping now?

Like what are we try guys?

The buzzer you try guys over even attempting to be punk.

No, of course, what I'm saying is like, what's this like modern iteration of like this thing of like here's a group of guys, or here's a group of people that are gonna do something wild or do something like weird.

They're gonna be like you're that's the thing.

It is like TikTok or like streamers on twitch, you know, Kai Sinnat or Drew Ski, but it's so less dangerous or trying to do something, you know.

I I think there's a real lack of punk rock going on right now.

And.

I can't imagine gen Z doing something as beautiful as Jackass.

Yeah, I think the punk is the entire factor to this whole conversation is punk rock and coming from you know that world, which I like, I said, I can't even believe I said try guys as in the same sentence.

Really, And this is me saying that having seen only like one episode of this try Guys thing.

But I know people that are into it.

But it's just everything is so soft and predictable now it makes me so sad.

I just watched this TikTok or I guess it was a video from the poet and author Ocean Vang.

Yes, do you know this person?

Of course I do.

He was talking about his students.

He's a college professor.

He's talking about his students and how so many of them are like I want to be a poet, I want to be a writer, but none of them are doing it.

Yeah, because they're terrified of looking cringe.

They're terrified of looking like they are trying too hard or attempting to do something and failing.

They don't want to be cringe.

Cringe is the worst thing possible.

Yes, And do you think the Jackass guys feared cringe?

You know, it's like so many young people are worried that they won't look fully polished or someone will make fun of them for being sincere.

Because I think Jackass there's a real sincerity to it.

Yeah, you know, and gen Z is afraid to look sincere lest they be cringe.

Well, they have more eyeballs on their things.

That's the That's ultimately a huge too, is that you know, back in the day when Jackass was conceived, it was like, oh, you might have a video.

Of you.

Having, you know, to inhale some dude's farts in a gas mask.

That might be shown to other skaters.

It might be sold in like a skate shop.

But that's the extent of it.

There really wasn't anything.

There were like little to no stakes, even in the context of a television show.

I mean that Jackass TV show was so fucking popular it was probably beamed into like one hundred million homes, like you know, the sixty eight Comeback special from Elvis or some shit.

But it's at the same time, like there is no the quality of the Internet, which is that things are mimified and preserved forever and ever and ever and remixed and sent to people's phones in their homes.

It's like that quality of it, I think is what might explain why the Jackass guys went harder than any of these TikTokers.

But at the same time, like those Jackass guys are punk rock and that doesn't seem like a thing anymore.

It's really fun ethos that I don't feel like these streamers have.

Yeah, well it's funny you say that ocean wong thing, because there's also this other tick going around on TikTok of Matt Rogers from The Lost Cultures's podcast, Yes, also dogging out gen Z for being like obsessed with cringe and calling millennials like losers because they're cringe.

I don't know, you should look it up, but basically.

You should look it up.

I'm sure I agree.

I always agree with Matt Rogers generally.

Yeah, he's basically like, y'all are making fun of us for being earnest and cringe and stupid.

But guess what, you will also be stupid when you get old.

Like every day you live is more time for your style and everything that you hold true to phase out and become cringed, do you know what I mean, Like, there's always a generation coming after you that's gonna think you're a loser.

So like lighting up type thing.

But I do think that, like gen Z, is it really inhibited creatively because the creative act inherently there is a point where you depart from something you can control.

Sure, like you are putting something out there into the world and you honestly don't know how people are going to react and it might be embarrassing.

Yeah, but that is inherent to the creative process.

And so if you're not willing to take that leap, there will be no You will not create anything.

Yeah, So that's like the foundation of this podcast.

Well we are cringe, but we are free.

That's I mean, like, if you sat around caring, you just would be completely catatonic from fear and anxiety of the perception of what you're doing or you or your ideas or whatever.

I actually am surprised that Jackass two has brought us to this point where we're talking about creative inspirations.

That's an unintended consequence of watching Jackass too, but I love it.

Well.

I think that Jackass as a form is so creative, Like I was so inspired watching this, and it's so like there's so much thought that goes into these bits.

Yeah, and I think it's cool when they just like show one that's like five seconds long and clearly took a huge setting.

Like there's like a scene where they're in BAM's house and they set up a ski hill on their steps, but we only see it for like ten seconds.

Yeah, you know, yeah, which makes I don't really have a point to that.

I just I'm I'm I was just so inspired watching this, and I was just like the form of Jackass as a film is so interesting and unique, and I just really enjoyed watching Yeah, it's it's this movie.

It really to me.

This is why I think two.

I mean, there has been times where a sequel has been a better movie than the first and the subsequent Once Pee, a lot of people think The Night Around Mstreet two is the best Night around Elms Street, as well as other movies other properties The Godfather Too, Evil Dead two Exactly what I think two is the best, perhaps out of all of them, is because it is it is a perfect step up from the first one, which was very raw and like the TV show and kind of still pretty low fi, but it's not like like once you jump to Jackass three D.

By the way, Jackass three D is great too.

They're all great.

I literally have seen every Jackass movie in a movie theater.

They I go opening weekend.

I'm obsessed.

I love the Jackass movies, and if they make Jackass twenty seven, I'm gonna go.

I don't care if I'm ninety years old, I don't care if I'm Spike Jones and the bad Grandma Boobs costume.

I'm going to see the new Jackass movie.

But I feel like Jackass three D got leveled up, like you could really tell that they were like, oh, we have like Hollywood money now because they all have tans.

That was the first thing I noticed.

And Jackass three D.

I was like, oh, these guys will have tans.

They're not like pasty white with like bad skater tattoos.

They're all like tan buff Johnny Knoxville talks out.

At one point, he talks about working out.

He's like, oh, yeah, I do squats now, and shit, I'm like, damn, these guys.

They made it baby, which is fine.

They and it.

As the movies go on, that like the they keep the pranks fresh, which is why they can continue to do this shit for the rest of their lives if they wanted to.

But it is this, I think, who is this perfect encapsulation of like the best they can be.

It's like, yeah, a little bit more money than shooting things on camcorders, but not like gobsmackingly huge amounts of money.

Does that make sense?

It's still raw, still still got, it's leveled up more.

Yeah, but and also to me that you just can't beat the Buzzbee Berkeley ending and even the beginning, Like the end caps of the movies are always like these big production numbers and they're so.

Funny, like did you have a favorite stunt?

In number two?

Oh my Jesus Christ.

Where so this is one of the ones that involves ban Margera's mom and dad, but the one where they dress pressed it up like Phil and they sneak.

Into risingly similar bodies.

Yes, but the mom like that holds the the old sequence where she's like, God, get off of me, like what is your problem?

And then she like this is all in the dark, and then she like reaches back, she's like, what like Phil realizing in the dark that it's not her husband.

And then just like the moment of her like flipping the fuck out that it was like some brand dude, she like falls on the floor.

I was like, God, but I hope they paid her a shit tot of money to put up with.

But then at the end she's smiling, which I was like, Okay, so you are ban Margia's mom.

Like there's at least kind of like she knows that this was funny, you know, like.

Yeah, is this the one is to the one with the brand where he gets the brand on his.

Ass that is fucked up?

Oh my god.

But she he like goes home.

This is what I mean about the brandiness.

He's like, oh, check out my ass.

And she's just like, oh, you had such a cute but why did you ruin it?

You know?

And I was like, Oh, that's a mom.

That's as a mom.

That's a mom.

I never liked Viva Labam as much.

Either I wasn't as big on that or I honestly I didn't like Wild Boys that much either.

They just felt there was something about like watching an episode of Jackass was like entering a world, you know, and it was a certain type and maybe it was that Spike Jones, Jeff Tremaine touch that gave it sort of this energy that you were like hanging out with these guys that felt kind of like unpolished, but like, I don't know it just you were submerged into this world in a way that I didn't feel the same for Wild Boys and viand.

Listen you can't sometimes the band is too good in the side projects.

You respect, you respect them, but you're not really is into them, you know what I'm saying.

Oh, well, anything else you wanted to touch upon.

I think it was great that we were able to really chew a lot of a lot of meat.

On this boat.

Can I recommend something so I used to produce I think I've recommended this podcast before.

I used to produce a podcast called Switchblade Sisters.

Sure, And we had the filmmaker and cinematographer Kirsten Johnson on the show to talk about the documentary which is sort of similar to Jackass, called Dick Johnson Is Dead and it's about her dad going into the late stages of Alzheimer's and they keep doing these like fake stunts where they like fake his death and it is sort of like Jackass, light sort of and it's very funny.

But she was on the podcast Switch Sisters to talk about how Jackass inspired her Wow, and it is one.

It's probably the best episode of the podcast.

She goes into depths of like the vulnerability and masculinity of these Jackass boys, how they're you know, their relationships with their bodies and how they are communicating something with their bodies in these movies, and how your relationship with your body as your ending, you know, is your life is coming to an end changes and Dick Johnson is dead sort of touches upon that.

So really great podcast conversation and episode and but yeah, should check that out if anyone's interested in that.

Cool.

Should we move on?

Let's go Okay, everybody, we have an amazing guest for this edition of My Area of Expertise.

I would consider him an old friend.

I will say that I don't know when the threshold for old friend and like friend is, but we've been in these film streets for a long time together and I'm just super thrilled that he's here to give us his time talking about his area of expertise, which is very fascinating, very specific as we like here on Dear movies.

I Love you, But our guest is a freelance trans film critic, programmer, and researcher based in upstate New York.

He focuses on queer cinema and the history of the trans film image, and his book that he co wrote with his fellow film critic Willem McClay came out last year.

It's amazing.

It's called Corpses, Fools and Monsters, The History and Future of transnis in Cinema.

And I guarantee that this book is a classic already.

It's going to be taught in schools everywhere.

I just know it.

But we're very, very very happy to have our guests.

Cayden Mark Gardner, Hello, Cayden.

I knowly, Hi Casey, thank you for having me on.

We have to get into this area of expertise, Corse, because it's so again, so specific.

It also feels so you.

And again I don't want to you know, it's not because I know you.

I just feel like it's you.

But if you want and just to tease, it's tease if you thought if we're talking about trans cinema and I think my I stated in my area of expertise on the surface doesn't sound anything like yeah, imp but yes it's me.

Well okay, so on tell everybody then, what your area of expertise is.

The nineteen fifties diner esthetic in both spirit and also period, Like, I think I have a kind of ratitude, huge ratitude, and what would be considered acceptable in this even though it's a very specific thing, and I believe like my kind of example is something that actually came from the nineteen fifties, which is the Frank Tashlin film The Girl Can't Help It.

So walk us through a little bit about you.

So you're saying, the girl can't help it was kind of the seed for this obsession?

Or was there anything else?

Like were you a diner person?

Like growing up, did you go to diners a lot?

Or you know, did you like hang out in diners as a teenager?

I know I did, But I just was wondering if there was something else that influenced this passion of yours.

Well, the crucial part of my origin story that actually in a sort of long game way, does connect to the book and at least one movie, at least where I went hung out at this nineteen fifties diner ish place called Bruno's in Albany, New York, and wow, it doesn't.

It wasn't shaped like this sort of tin camp and to bul a train car style of a nineteen fifties diner.

Inside it had everything.

It had chrome, it had chrome accent, It had a checkerboard, it had a checkerboard floor, It had jukeboxes at the tables, at the seatings, and it also had a lot of nineteen fifties kitchen memorabilia all over the place.

And I remember locking eyes with one particular piece of memorabilia, which was the James Dean poster from Giant, and I remember that was kind of the anatomy of my obsession with James Dean, which then later led me down the rabbit hole of one of the movies featured in the book, Come Back through the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean, which itself is about sort of nostalgia and memorabilia tied to Jamesteen.

That's all over that movie, But the girl can't help it kind of for me, even though it takes place exactly at that time, sort of has this sort of relationship of being this sort of jukebox musical review which even though it doesn't have Elvis because Elvis was just breaking as that movie was happening.

It does feature all the players at the time, and that can include both the rock such as Eddie Cochrane in the movie Little Richard of course his song the Girl Can Help It is the title of the movie, but also torch song singers like Julie London and do wop performers like the Platters, who are completely iconic to me.

And yeah, I have a soft spot for that period as far as meet American pop, particularly the Platters and the whole do wop kind of stuff.

I listened to a due op radio station regul and yeah, I have an affinity for that, and I also obviously have an affinity for a lot of the movies that were coming out at that time.

And I also found Frank Tashlan to be a wonderful sort of character that sort of had this relationship with both iconography and the public reaction to that He's this is probably his best known live action film, but he was obviously famously an animator who did Mooney Tunes cartoons, and I think for runner to The Girl Can Help It is his nineteen forties cartoon called Swooner Krooner, which which kind of you could almost say predicted the sort of hysteria around Elvis, because it's about the hysteria regarding figures at that time, be it sinaftra Bing, Crosby, cap Cowaway and how suggestive and blue.

A lot of the jokes are such as the signs of the sort of hysteria and arousal from seeing these cartoon characters, these cartoon crooners perform and stuff has all these people laying eggs.

Yeah, and it's and it kind of makes me think of the girl can help it with the famous milk shots of milk popping and exploit and exploding.

When Gene Mansfield walks.

She's I mean suggestive much?

Yeah, No, I it's so funny because I what I was like, thinking about your area of expertise.

I was going, Okay, so we have to make a line of demarcation, I feel like, because you have the movies of the time period that are featuring the diners of the time period, right, but then you have this like hole, there's like this whole like you know, proliferation of that esthetic that has persisted throughout the years where it's almost kind of like a joke at this point.

Like I think about a movie like Ghost World, for example, with Rowsville, and I'm like, it became kind of this I don't know, this like symbol of boomerness or something I don't know.

And I thought about like my friends's dads and stuff that were like obsessed with you know, like they had these like basements that were set up like fifties diner looking things, with like the straw holder that pops out and the whole Like yeah, just like like retrofitting an entire basement as a fifties diner.

It is interesting.

I feel like there is like sub after you know, the nineteen fifties and diner culture.

It now holds a place that's both ironic and sincere at the same time.

Yes, you it holds that boomer space, but also, like ghost World, they keep going back to that diner.

It's a it's a safe place in a lot of ways.

You know.

Well, so I wanted to ask, is there besides the girl can help it, is there other movies of this era that you would suggest people watch to kind of get the vibe of the diner vibe if you will.

I mean, there is isn't there a great diner scene in the Wild World.

There's a diner diner scenes in the Wild One.

Oh yeah, he'd got he like Brando definitely has that sort of playful kind of let's listen to music type of moment there.

I'm trying to think of others I almost want to say and pay in place, because they're mainly because again I think again, it's a move, it's a it's a it's a it's a text that shook everyone to their or when it came out first as a book.

And while the movie does shape off some of the edge from the original book, it's still a pretty good sort of look into sort of the dark undercurrents.

I would say David Lynch, his whole World an uber itself, can be seen as a nineteen fifties diner aesthetic.

And when you mentioned it was so me like Willow often said, we're both Lynchy and and the fact that she's into the sort of industrial, gothic, fractured, feminine, fallen woman's side of his work, while I'm definitely the nineteen fifties diner.

Yes, I'm with you, I'm.

Well, yeah, with David Lynch.

How does that differentiate for you?

In terms of like the way he is presenting kind of diner culture, because so many of his movies have important scenes in diners.

I mean, I think about Maulholland Drive and Blue Velvet especially, But how is his interpretation of diner culture different from one than Like The Girl Can't Help It.

Well, I think there's kind of a sort of simple more sort of it seems simple on the surface, like he likes the Lynch likes the ambience of drinking just coffee and eating pie, whereas Tashlin is not really sort of diving into the finer things in life, so to speak.

It is mostly to move platforward or just have a moment, to have a joke or two for the central characters in his work.

But Lynch definitely wants to live in that nineteen fifties diner aesthetic, or at least have his characters sort of situate themselves in it, because it fascinates him as kind of a place that can be feel like it's lost in time in many ways.

Whereas I think I'm not.

I think Tashling, while being very much of it, of his time.

I think by the nineteen sixties when he was doing like doors Day pictures and I love doors Day, So I'm not saying this at saying this in a dismissive manner towards her.

I think he sort of felt like he was out of time.

And also the sort of Looney Tunes renaissance was also kind of fading fading out by the nineteen sixties, so he kind of he kind of becomes the person who who becomes the sort of figure for nostalgists to to obsess over, but not necessarily the one who builds those worlds that hole nostalgia like Lynch does.

Yeah, it's interesting because I do think that if you know, if I really like scope out on it, and I think about how many movies since the nineteen fifties have kind of employed the fifties aesthetic of a diner in movies.

I mean, I'm think I think of.

Michael Michael Diner, Michael Mann movies, you know, like Greece.

I mean obviously stuff like that.

But then you know, like when Harry met Sally and things of this nature, and it's kind of like I can't think of another physical location maybe or especially just a restaurant, like an eating established, that eating establishment that's sort of more that like like instead of like, for example, would it be as effective if like Paccino and you know, De Niro met at a Chipotle or like, you know, something like that, like some other type of interesting restaurant versus a diner, which because it just feels like there's sort of this like tradition to it that orients a movie better for two characters to have like a convo or something.

I don't know if you think that it's almost like it's a physical space, but it's like a liminal space at the same time.

Does that make sense?

I think it does communicate a sense of safety, you know, just like heat for example, you know they're not going to get into a fight in the diner, you know, or like in Mulholland Drive when he's like I had a dream about this place, they have to leave the diner to go find the scary person behind it.

You know, it does sort of communicate that this is a sacred space for these characters and that they'll be protected there.

Well.

Boops kind of themselves kind of insulate you and kind of allow you to have this sort of intimacy with another person across in these sort of worlds, and then at the same time, you can also have control of that whole entire space of the diner with say the jukebox, where you can pick the whole a song for quarter or whatever.

Yeah, there's an autonomy in the whole, in the whole thing, MILLI, what do you think al Pacino and roberts Niro's Chipotle order would be my brain, buz, and then picking out pinto or black beans in line.

It's just I was going to walk to the nearest Duncan to order that Dunkino.

That's right, my name's dunk I think, I think, I think the Nero is a readable guy.

I agreed, Yeah, extra sour cream, you know.

And there's also two like there is such a mythology or like I love maybe for the diner waitress.

Yeah, you know, I love the movie Alice doesn't live here anymore, and you know, just the whole like there is a culture of diner waitresses I think of.

Is it gas food lodging?

Is that the one where, like Ioti Sky is the waitress yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, But you know, just like there's like almost like a camaraderie between the waitresses and they, you know, there's like all these like side stories or almost entire movies sometimes about like waitress culture, and it's always in a fifties diner type of place.

You know, it is interesting.

They're almost like uh nuns because I feel like it's like a lot of like, well, it's like a job that you expect that person to do it for the rest of their life or something.

Yeah, and there's the outfits, little uh and crisp white collar things happening.

It gave a bunch of men a kind of sense of well, I can't have any other woman in my life talk to me, but I can have this waitress and made.

Conversation with me.

Now, I can't imagine this generation of men talking to waitresses at all.

No, No, I think they're looking at their phones and they're just like, I don't want to.

Talk to anybody I know, and I'd be scared for the waitresses or waiters or whatever.

I also think of, obviously, you think of all the lovely waitresses of Twin Peaks, and also yes, and also like obviously Tarantino, the diner is masure is a major part from From the Jump the Reservoir Dogs.

Whole conversation happening about the ethics of tipping and all that, obviously in a more profane manner, and also that that riffs in pulp fiction.

It riffs on the nineteen fifties diner aesthetic where everyone is dressed up like a nineteen fifties person, Steve Buscemi as Buddy Holly.

Nothing that far, but yeah, I have a soft spot for the whole rude sixty six mid century type of aesthetic generally, like, yeah, I like, I loved, like, I loved Wes Anderson's Asteroid City.

Yeah, American graffiti probably also will come up, come up, even though that's technically early nineteen sixties.

I think the whole sort of boomer narrative that the nineteen fifties were still going on up until the jfk assassination is something that I think is agreed agreed upon.

Like again, even though it was a little looser and not as conformists as the Eisenhower years were in the early nineteen sixties, like, it was still very much left over nineteen fifties seeping into that period.

Yeah, it is interesting.

You know, we were talking about Trump at the top two and so much of like make America Great Again is sort of this idealized version of the nineteen fifties.

I mean, the nineteen fifties constantly comes up with those sort of conversations of as the time that America was at its height.

If they looked at if they looked at the taxt urates of the nineteen fifties, I feel like they would immediately realize how much of that, how much of a how much of a ride they're going into.

It's like, oh, yeah, we used to fund things.

We funded a whole space race race, we.

Used to have libraries.

Yeah, God, well, this is fantastic.

I mean, honestly, I love anybody that comes to this section of the pod and kind of brings up something, you know, very specific, but then it's a kind of entry point into like I don't know, film culture, but also regular culture, and I don't know, I just I think it's fascinating thinking about the idea of the esthetic itself, like transcending the time, and it just kind of moves on and means different things to different movies, and I don't know, it's kind of cool.

Yeah, And I definitely recommend The Girl Can't Help It.

I recommend hearing John Waters talk about The Girl Can't Help It, which I think is on the criterion disc, but he talks about how much he loves the colors in the movie, and it's not even like technic color.

It's deluxe color that was done and it's crazy.

It's at some point it does look like a circ movie, even though obviously, again it's made by basically a comedian who again was also a very dirty old man.

I often talk about how his movie Susan Slept Here is a much more disturbing Christmas movie than Eyes White Shut, and people don't believe me until they watch it and then they agree with me.

Yeah, that was a TC Christmas classic.

I remember programming that a bunch.

So oh yeah, it's I still feel like it has to be on there.

It has to be a tradition.

You have to have Susan slept Here in outrage all the people who are expecting a nice, cuddly movie with Debbie Reynolds.

Oh my god.

Well, Kiten, I was wondering if maybe I know that you've got some projects coming up that you kind of don't want to talk about, you don't want to jinx, but is there any is there anything coming up that you want to plug or maybe you can just like plug where you're doing writing.

I know you write for a Criterion channel and your you have your own substack.

Do you have a substack?

I don't write enough in my substack, mainly because I've been trying to start I'm actually i have a day job and I'm actually starting that relatively soon, so that has been kind of my focus.

However, there's the baseball movie that actually came out this past year called Athus by Carson Lund that is coming out on Blu ray and my essay is actually included on the booklet of that and the again, I did the audio commentary with Willow on a movie that we didn't feature, that wasn't featured in our book, but we obviously had great affinity for called Ava Man, which you can buy on Blu ray disc.

And I also have the essay Bookleate for Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers that is also going to be coming that soon, So a lot of disc work forthcoming in that case.

Well, thank you so much, Cayden.

It was such a pleasure having you on the show.

Thank you for having me on.

Yeah, and everybody, definitely if you haven't checked it out, please get corpses Fools and Monsters, The History and the Future of Transnist in Cinema, written by Cayden and Willem McLay and it's an incredible book.

Everybody should have it on the shelf.

And yeah, thanks Caiden, we appreciate it, Thank you very much.

All Right, phenomenal, great conversation with Kayden.

Great to meet him.

I never met him before, so that was fun.

Now it's time for Employees' Picks, where we recommend a film based on the theme of our discussion, Millie, do you have a wreck?

Yeah?

I do have a wreck, but it's not a movie that's okay?

Is that okay?

Oh?

Huh, okay, guys.

Yeah, I'm going to recommend because you know, I was going down this road of sort of you know, the world of Jackass and Jeff Tremaine and some of the other stuff that came on MTV.

I don't know if you ever saw this series, but I mean, of course, now one of the people in this series is gone on and done so many things.

And I say that like my eyes rolling in the back of my head a little bit.

But the og the original series Robin Big on MTV is fantastic.

Yes, fantastic.

Yes, And that was like I would say, an extension that got on the show the network because of Jackass, that's right, Yeah, yeah.

I feel like Jeff Tremaine, well, he was a co creator of it, so he brought it.

But it was goddamn like the original Robin Big show where they were like in the house together and Big and Rob would just like do these like dumb things, like, you know, just like these again kind of like because Rob Jrdick is a skater, of course they would just do like dumb They would go on like these dumb quests.

I guess it would be these like dumb side quests.

And I mean, I just remember this one about I think it was Big Black Christopher Boykan, who plays the kind of you know to Rob Dirdick, his bodyguard.

Right, that's how they met.

I was talking about how his ass sweats so bad that he puts paper towels in his crack and calls it, calls it a man pawn.

Good.

He's like, he just gotta put it in that man pon And I was like, that is too damn funny.

What what is what is the name of Rob's show?

Now?

Oh god, it's it's like the only thing on MTY ridiculousness.

Yeah.

I mean, this is why I'm kind of rolling my eyes a little bit because I'm basically like, that show has been on forever and it is really much a nothing.

I mean, it's basically him pulling up like tiktoks and viral videos and then he has a panel of people that I don't know who I'm assuming are influencers, uh, kind of riffing on him.

But it's like he's been able to make the show for like seventy five years, it seems like.

And there's like eight billion episode Yeah.

Oh it began airing on August twenty ninth, two thousand and elevenin.

Insane.

Wow, dude, there's been I'm sorry, forty four seasons of it.

That's crazy.

I don't even understand what that means.

Forty four seasons of this show.

If you go on Wikipedia, it'll give you a chart, and it's basically like forty four seasons.

Guess what some of them there's one hundred and nineteen episodes in one season.

I mean, come on, are we serious with this?

Wow?

But anyway, Robin Big, I don't know.

I think you could probably see it on YouTube or something, but it's it's really funny.

I loved it when I came on.

I can't tell you how much Jackass meant to me as a twelve year old boy.

Everyone I was in school with started videotape themselves, like jumping off their roof or like jumping down the stairs.

There were so many copycat videos, and in some ways it sort of inspired me to become a filmmaker.

I mean, I wasn't doing that stuff, but I think that Jackass shows the power of what you can illustrate with very simple means.

You know, you do not need that.

You can just if you have an iPhone, you can make a movie, you know.

And so I love Jackass and one of the things, and I love the show Jackass and one of the things that what they did they did make a TV movie.

It's technically a TV movie, but it's also just an elongated episode of Jackass called Jackass Gumball three thousand Rally Special.

Did you ever watch this?

I never saw it.

It's incredible, basically, and it's like a it's different than the rest of the show.

It's Johnny Knock, Phil Steve O, and Chris Pontius.

It's just those three guys and they are taking a part of Gumball three thousand, which is like this race across Europe, and it's like a bunch of it's them driving across Europe, partying with like all these other guys doing the Gumball three thousand, and it's just great because it gets to you get to hang out with them a little bit more than and they're doing stupid shit obviously, but you get to hang out with them a little bit more than these just short segments, and uh, it's a delight.

And you can watch that on Pyramount Plus or Prime.

It's out there, but definitely check that out.

It's really funny.

It's like forty minutes, I think for an hour.

But that's my that's my recommendation, that's my staff pick or my employee's pick.

I love that we're still pulling from this universe for our recommendations.

But what a fun episode.

I'm really we got to go in hard on this.

I think it's a good summer vibe too.

I don't know why, even though I guess you could pull pranks year round well, and I also think it's funny just to cap off this episode that you and I have gone on record several times about hating to be pranked.

Yeah, I'm anti prank.

I fucking hate pranks, Like, don't prank me.

If you prank me, I'll probably we'll never talk to you again.

And I'm not even joking.

I would never.

However, we love the Jackass movies.

What's up with that?

Yeah, it's something internal, something deep within.

I don't know, maybe what we don't want for ourselves we want an others who knows.

I'm scared to go down this rabbit hole.

I don't cover some deep truth about myself.

I know.

I feel like we've analyzed ourselves too much already.

But you know, it's the funny thing though, the jack Yeah, it's like they're almost not pranks most of the time.

Like there are obviously like pranks where they're like tricking someone, but most of them are like this in between type of like jackass thing.

I don't know, I don't know.

It's it's hard to put your finger on.

You know.

Yeah, Well, all I know is that if my friends got together and shave their pubes and then put them in a box and then made it made someone's spirit gum it to my face, I'd be so I would never talk to those people again.

Yeah, that would be a tough one to get over.

I think.

Well.

On that note, here's the deal, folks.

If you're in need of anything, and I mean anything from us, a specific a recommendation, if you want film advice, if you want to talk about a director of filmography, if you got a film grape, if you got a film consensual grope, if you want to just talk about who your favorite members of Jackass are, we are at Deer Movies at exactly where media dot com.

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And also, if you want to leave us a voicemail, we would love it because we love hearing your voice.

Record it on your phone, keep it under a minute, and again email it too.

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Let's keep this summer train rolling shows a fun.

What's going on next week?

Next week we're talking about Jurassic World Rebirth from twenty twenty five, and just the concept of summer blockbusters we're going to discuss as well.

Yes, dive in.

Another new movie.

So if you don't want spoilers, maybe you know.

What could you spoil?

Abutch a Jurassic Park movie.

So there's this dinosaur.

There's a dinosaur.

Well, that'll be fun.

Anyway, you should listen even if you don't, if you haven't seen it or don't want to see it, just listen.

Why not?

Absolutely one agree?

All right, Mellie, I'm gonna go jump off.

I'm gonna go jump out of a moving car and into a bush.

I'm going to figure out what's going on with my leg and hopefully we'll get gangreen and then I guess I'll hopefully see you next week.

Sounds good?

Okay, Bye bye bye.

This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Millie to Cherco and produced by my co host Casey O'Brien.

This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfocal.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Our guest booker is Patrick Cottner, and our artwork is Vanessa Ilac.

Our incredible theme music is by the best band in the entire world, The Softies.

Thank you to our executive producers Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark, Daniel Kramer and Millie.

To Jerico, we love you.

Goodbye, Becer