Transcript

Intro Clip

I'll be using your chlorpyrifos and pyrrhythm. In a high pressure injection system. I've also got the rsu. What's that? Roach sucking unit. It's just a backup. Whoa. Get up. Get up. They're coming in from next door. Oh, shit. Whoa. Reinforcement. Holy shit. Albert. They probably camped out in the other apartment. Out of them over there would have a better chance of containment. What if we can get a whole. Bunch of little tiny leashes and pretend they're pets?

Steve

It's two Dads One Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around and shoot the about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hey. Hello everybody out there in movie watching Land. It's 2Dads 1 movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we're going to be talking about Pacific Heights. And Nic, I'm excited about this one. I had not seen this before. This was your pick.

Nic

It was my pick and I had seen it maybe two, three years ago and that was the first time I'd seen it. And it was just one of those movies that I didn't necessarily love and didn't feel like it was an all time classic. But there's a lot of stuff that makes it a fun one to talk about.

Steve

Yeah, that's fair. I had never seen it before until early this last week and I didn't really know what to expect going in. This movie stars Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine and Michael Keaton. And I'll be totally honest with you, Michael Keaton drags the shambling corpse of this movie around like its Weekend at Bernie's. Like he does everything he can to make this not suck.

Nic

Yeah, he definitely. He kept this thing from being a direct to video release probably.

Steve

Yeah, there's. There's not a whole lot. Not a whole lot to it, so. But that's okay. We're here to talk about it. It was released on September 28, 1990. We have a running time of 102 minutes. The film was directed by John Schlesinger and written by Daniel Pine, who this was his first feature film screenplay.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

He himself was a landlord with a tenant he couldn't evict, which inspired him to write the screenplay. Oh, is it dripping with that obvious sort that's where it came from kind of thing. He went on to do lots of other stuff though. He wrote the story for Any Given Sunday. He wrote the screenplay for Doc Hollywood. Like the dude's done stuff, but this.

Nic

Was his first stuff.

Steve

His was his first move from TV into film. He had spent quite a bit of time, apparently, with, like, Miami Vice, working on their writing staff.

Nic

And he used that Miami Vice money to buy a 4 Plex and then had a bad tenant. And that sparked this genius.

Steve

And that's what gave us this movie supposedly starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, Michael Keaton. The scores on this one, 55% of rotten tomatoes. That's not fresh. That's a. That's a little squishy tomato. But it's also not terrible. You know, there. There are worse. Right. It actually did well at the box office. I was kind of surprised.

Nic

Yeah. I was shocked to see that on.

Steve

An $18 million budget, which I think, obviously the majority of that must have gone to the cast because there were no real practical effects or special effects to speak of, except for near the very end.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But at the box office, it pulled in $55 million, which is, you know, that makes it, like, a clear success, if not like a blockbuster hit. It's a clear success.

Nic

So was this pre. Pre Batman Returns?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So it was between the two Batmans.

Steve

Absolutely. Yep.

Nic

So, yeah, Maybe we had a little Keaton fever. I was surprised to see how much money that made, because back then, that was like. That was a big box office.

Steve

Yeah. Yes.

Nic

To make $50 million was, you know, was something back then.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Maybe A lot of disgruntled landlords out there who finally felt heard.

Steve

Oh, boy. Yeah. Especially watching this for the first time in 2025, it's like, boy, how do you root for landlords who are, you know, I mean, obviously they're being taken advantage of by a con man, don't get me wrong. But they're not the most sympathetic protagonists.

Nic

No. And it's set up that way. You know, it establishes. It establishes at the beginning, when the couple is first considering we want to buy this house, they're like, oh, we know we're going to be weighing over our head. Everything needs to go perfectly in order for us to even make it two months in. And. And maybe we should lie out our application to make sure we get approved and all that stuff.

Steve

Oh, my God.

Nic

It's an interesting thing because you kind of have to make Keaton such a ridiculous bad guy in the end to be bad enough to contrast Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith, because you're just like, they kind of suck. There's not a whole lot that I'm rooting for with these people here.

Steve

Yeah, let's. I Want to back it up just a minute? So at the very beginning of the movie, we have this sort of very hot, cold open and we get Beverly d' Angelo and Michael Keaton, you know, in coitus in this crappy place. It's not clear why he's like, got a mattress on the floor and there's these guys coming, driving out in the desert to come get him. I think it says they're in Palm Desert or something like that in Southern California.

Nic

Classic Mal.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, so they're making love and we get nudity in the first two minutes of the movie and then never again. Which I feel like a little. Kind of like I was conned, really is the problem.

Nic

This reminds me a little bit of the way that our movie for episode two, Toy Soldiers, went, where it was very front loaded with the R rated stuff, right?

Steve

That's true, yes, very much so, yeah. And I felt like in this first, it was about a five minute sequence where Michael Keaton is sort of, you know, these two guys come and they find Michael Keaton in bed with Beverly Angelo and they beat him with a baseball bat. And they beat him, beat him up and, you know, oh, that'll take care of that. And he makes some sort of cryptic remarks about, oh, you love my family, or whatever. And they do come back. Like, these comments are paid off eventually. But the problem is this was clearly meant to be like a grabber, you know, first five minutes, whatever. And I just was so confused. Like, none of it made any sense. I'm like, why am I. Who. Who are these people? Why, like, outside of the fact that I went in, know, oh, Michael Keaton plays like, basically a con man who's like a terrible tenant and, you know, whatever. I kind of knew he was like the bad guy in a sense. Other than that. Who are these people? Why do I. Am I supposed to sympathize with Keaton for getting his ass beat? Like, what is this exactly?

Nic

It's just. It's really tough to follow from the beginning. And this is why, even when I was texting you when you had watched it for the first time and I just had my vague remembrance and I was just like, I don't know if we ever understand what his motivations are. And watching it again, where I'm paying attention, I'm like, okay, I guess I get it, but it's not really. Yeah, it's not clear. And it is kind of a bad guy getting beat up by worse bad guys and then not great people who are the heroes Right. Confusing from the beginning.

Steve

I don't even get the sense that the guys beating him up are bad guys. Because when we later just briefly jump ahead later, Beverly d' Angelo sort of tells Melanie Griffith a little bit about the scheme and Nate makes a comment that Carter Hayes is the idiot who owned this place. I almost wonder if one of those two guys. Is that supposed to be Carter Hayes? The identity that Michael Keaton steals for most of the movie. Like, I don't know if that's the case, but it kind of seems like maybe he also.

Nic

And he has this later. But a lot of phone books. Yeah. Carter Hayes, Michael Keaton character is just loaded up on phone books. And I don't know if it's trying to demonstrate to us this is how hard working of a scammer this guy is. He's going through every page in the phone book and he'll find you if you're in there.

Steve

I guess he has all the white pages, the yellow pages. He had all of them, you know, which is obviously, it's a great. I do love seeing stuff like that because it's a great throwback to the era. And it's like, yeah, we didn't have. You couldn't just like Yelp a business or Google a person or whatever, obviously in 1990. So it's kind of a fun throwback to the era. But it never really. Another thing that never really paid off. It was. It was almost a red herring of yellow pages.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it just didn't make a lot of sense or.

Nic

I mean, it fits, I guess, with the general paranoia of this movie. And it would go along the lines of people who were like, I have an unlisted number. I don't want people to be able to find. Okay. So it's a little bit of a nod to those.

Steve

I could see that. I could see that.

Nic

Yeah. So we start off with Carter Hayes. We'll get into the other names, but we'll just refer to Michael Keaton's character as Carter Hayes from now on. And he's getting beaten up. And then we go to our, quote, heroes.

Steve

Right. Our protagonists.

Nic

And we've got Matty Modine and Melanie Griffith. And they're discussing. We're going to buy this house as a part investment part somewhere for us to live.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

It looked so dilapidated.

Steve

Oh, my God, what a shithole.

Nic

And I think I read that they really, like, you know, they did some cosmetic things to the outside of the place to make it look worse or whatever.

Steve

Before they started, it looked dirty. Like it Didn't.

Nic

That was the thing about it.

Steve

It was like all over the side.

Nic

Of the building and. And they're the only people who have the genius to envision that maybe with a little cleaning and some paint, this turns into a house that's worth twice as much as we bought it for.

Steve

But not to mention what a place like that would be worth today. Victoria.

Nic

I looked it up.

Steve

Oh.

Nic

So, okay, so the house in this movie was listed at $749,000. Right. And the address was shown as 170 Pacific street, which is not a real address, but I found some other website for another person who've done the research for us and they linked to this house on Zillow. 3.4 million.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Is the current estimate. And I think that the house in the movie was represented maybe as bigger than the actual houses because I was looking at the number of bedrooms and who knows, there might be like four dens that they don't count as bedrooms or some shit like that. But yeah, 3.4 million. So if they just held on to it, they had just been able to, you know, manage their tenant a little bit better.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. Rolling in it.

Steve

It did seem like they were living in like, almost an attic space that had, that had, had a kitchen added to it. Like, it really did seem like the downstairs was like the living of the home, even though they treated it like two apartments. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's not that hard. You just put a lock on, on the door, I guess, make sure they have a bathroom. But the upstairs where Modine and Griffith actually live seemed very attic y. Like it wasn't like a real space. It seemed like.

Nic

Yeah, it was kind of a cross between the, the traditional cool person loft that people would live in. Like a.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So I married an axe murderer type loft crossed with the attic that they have to live in in Arrested Development. In the attic of the. Yeah, so it's somewhere in between those two.

Steve

Nice. Yeah. And I love that. Yeah. They're talking about, oh, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to buy this place, but we're going to need to rent these apartments out. A one bedroom and a studio. I mean, that's a lot of tenants to have in the place you're living for your home. And they're. I don't know if this guy's their lawyer, their financial advisor, whoever the friend is, you know, that's kind of advising them at the beginning. And he says, you know, well, you know, you guys, you'll struggle to make this work, whatever. And Melanie Griffith goes, well, we'll fudge the numbers a little. Everybody does. All I thought in that moment was like, thanks for 2008, Melanie Griffith.

Nic

I wrote propaganda for 08 right here on my notes. And it's funny that establishing the stakes of the movie after we already see this is a good example of the unevenness of this movie. So we start off with the establishing scene and we've got Carter Hayes getting the crap beat out of him for some reason, but that's a pretty extreme thing to happen. And then we meet the protagonists and we're establishing what the stakes of the movie are. And the stakes are 3,700 bucks a month.

Steve

Right.

Nic

We get to come up with 37 Honda a month. Otherwise, I mean, it doesn't really explain the fact that if you default on a mortgage, it's not like you have to. You can give the house back.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So worst case, we're starting over from the nothing that it seemed like they had to begin with.

Steve

By definition, a mortgage is a secured loan. Yeah. So like go back to renting if you have. That's in the worst case scenario. These two people who clearly have some. Well, at Matthew Odin clearly has a job that pays. Melanie Griffith apparently trains kids to ride horses.

Nic

I want to talk about their job jobs. Yeah, it shows Melanie Griffith's job, which is a perfect, fantastical movie job where she's some type of equestrian trainer, which, you know, that's always something you're rolling in it. It's a job that a lot of really poor people have. It's never the nieces and nephews of the people that own the stables and the horses and everything. Matthew Modine's character's job, I think is he was some kind of a foreman at a factory that makes kites.

Steve

He makes a comment about kites are forever or something. Whatever. I don't remember.

Nic

That is the most insane job. I feel like the writer asked two five year olds what they wanted to be when they grew up. And he said, no matter what they say, I'm putting it in the movie. And I want to work at a kite factory and I want to train horses. It's really.

Steve

Yeah. Matthew Modine's job in this felt very similar to me. And a movie that I'm sure I will pick for our. For our series here someday. If you've ever seen Father of the Bride starring Steve Martin, it's the remake of a much older movie. But he owns and operates a athletic shoe company that is wholly operated within Like Los Angeles or like a suburban. Like. Like Pasadena.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And he. And they manufacture shoes right there. And this is. It's like by the 90s, that had never existed. Not in America, not anymore. And, you know, he literally is like supposed to be competing with Nike. And it's like the most ridiculous job. This. This was in that line. Yeah, the kite, I think. What is it? A sweatshop? Like, it was.

Nic

So it did look like he was some kind of a sweatshop foreman. So again, even though there are richer people than. I mean, he's somebody whose place in the whole ladder of things is with his foot on the neck of somebody else who's worse off than him.

Steve

He's like Frank Reynolds, sort of.

Nic

And the other thing is as if I'm giving the tips to the filmmaker for any future director's cut or remakes or anything. If we're trying to show his financial distress in the midst of this big home purchase and having to come up with $3,700 a month, then show him working at the kite factory. Then show him reading a newspaper that says wind expected to be slow this entire year.

Steve

And he's like, ah, son of a bitch.

Nic

I'll never sell another kite.

Steve

It's San Francisco, man. I don't think they could get away with that. It is always windy in San Francisco.

Nic

Just such a funny job. I. It's. It's to the point where it's distracting because it's such an absurd thing. It didn't show him at work much, so.

Steve

Yeah, that's true. Just a few scenes. I will say there's a coup. Combination. We're getting a picture of Matthew Modine in this movie of Drake Goodman. What's the stupidest name. Yeah.

Nic

Really.

Steve

But anyway, we're getting this picture of him, right. And psycho. So he works. He's the manager at the kite factory. He's getting in over his head in. In this real estate deal. As movie goes on, we understand, you know, he really does not know how to deal with the law or anything else. But I think the example that I would give that most outlines his ridiculousness as a human being is that he drives a Volkswagen thing. Like, it's a. It's a neat looking vehicle, but like the least practical possible thing in a hilly, you know, town like San Francisco. It just.

Nic

You want a super heavy stick shift with a 80 horsepower engine.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

That weighs 6,000 pounds.

Steve

So dumb.

Nic

The Volkswagen thing and then the Keds that he was wearing. It's just. They do a good job of aesthetically making this character a true weenie. Oh, God, he's good. So I guess I skipped ahead a bit. We got. We got a little bit beyond. They. They bought this house and now they have to find tenants for it.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And this is a process. I mean, it should. They could have fit in a Doubtfire style model or montage that would have been very entertaining. But they just kind of immediately took the first person that came for the one place and then the other one was a black guy who said that he needed a little time for the paperwork. He seemed like the perfect tenant otherwise, and they liked him. And.

Steve

And he dropped off the paperwork the next day, as we see.

Nic

Dropped it off the next day. Unfortunately, the Japanese couple that was living downstairs had their movers coming in. His paperwork got discarded. That was something. The first time I watched this movie, I completely missed it.

Steve

Oh, interesting.

Nic

Yeah. So I was just like. I don't know. I think they just forgot about this forever.

Steve

So I. Do they. They definitely showed us a few, you know, where it's sort of just there on the stoop and then the one guy, you know, takes it off his foot and shoves it in one of the Watanabe's boxes or something. And it seems like, well, maybe they could have, like, found it later and there could have been a moment of realization for either Griffith or Modine about, oh, my God, he did turn it in, or whatever. They didn't bother with anything like that. Yeah. I will say the Watanabes are the most reasonable people in this entire film. They're. They're downstairs. Japanese tenants are logical, reasonable people who seem like good tenants and get out when the getting's good. Which was like, yeah, amazing. Because everyone in this movie makes horrifyingly bad decisions.

Nic

Really do.

Steve

Except for Mr. And Mrs. Watanabe.

Nic

Thank God for them. I mean, other than. Other than nailing a nail directly into the wires. But that's. That's not really on him. I don't know how cheap stud finders were back then.

Steve

Probably. Probably not exp. Or not cheap. Probably expensive.

Nic

So. So this black gentleman shows up and he's looking to rent the unit. And they say, okay, we need your paperwork.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Okay. An honest black man with good intentions. Missing a little bit of paperwork is always going to lose in this scenario to a very slimy, very obviously lying about everything from the beginning white guy. But look, he's got a Porsche. I mean, how do you explain the Porsche if he's not rich?

Steve

Can't explain the Porsche clearly.

Nic

I'm rich.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Saying this to the guy in the $80,000 Porsche.

Steve

Come on. It was. It was really kind of. Look, I do think, as I said at the very beginning of the podcast, Keaton carries this movie for what it's worth, as far as it can be carried. It's on his back. But I think even he kind of overplayed the, like, sliminess with which Carter Hayes has an answer to everything.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Like, really, when he's talking to Matthew Modine about, like, you know, I talked to your girlfriend, your wife or your girlfriend, whatever, you know, this, that. It was just very much like, oh, I'll have my banker call you, or you can call this. Or, you know, here's the reference for that. And, oh, yeah, I've only got this much money on me, and I'll give this water. It's like he had an answer for everything. It's like, you have to know at some point in your life. And maybe Matthew Modine was just too naive and too young at this point. The character, of course I'm talking about Drake Goodman, was just too young. He was probably in his, like, early to mid-30s. Is that kind of what we're both.

Nic

I think that's about right. Yeah.

Steve

You know, maybe it's just as a learned man in my 40s, looking back and going, anytime anybody's got all the answers for me, I'm just pointing at them and yelling, scam. Because it just never works out right.

Nic

But Carter to. To Drake is maybe the guy that he wants to become.

Steve

Oh, true. I didn't know that.

Nic

He's the cool rich guy. I want to be a cool rich guy. Hey, I'm an investor now. I'm getting out of this kite factory, right? And, you know, I'm going to start. I'm going to start being a real estate mogul.

Steve

I'm going to get my own pied terre as a little. One little studio apartment in Pacific Kites somewhere or whatever in some other town.

Nic

Two things about that scene. The excuses that Carter had reminded me a lot of the excuses that in the office when Michael Scott is with his improv group and they're leaving after the class and none of them want him to join them, and they say, oh, we're all going to meet a private friend that each of us knows from different ways to try to get him away. It sounded about as believable as that, pretty much. One thing I was thinking, when Carter Hayes pulls up in this black Porsche, this kind of stuff is always fascinating to me. There has to have been at some point, a discussion about how Batmobile. Ish of a car is he allowed to drive in other movies. Kind of like the Pierce Brosnan can't be in a tuxedo while he's enrolled as being James Bond. So I saw the black portion. I thought, is this a little nod to the Batmobile, or was it, you.

Steve

Know, could have been.

Nic

But he's very slick, very obviously lying. But I don't think we're supposed to expect that. Drake Goodman is a genius who's got all the answers.

Steve

And frankly, we know that he's an idiot, and we learn pretty quickly that he's. He's kind of racist, too, because while he and Melanie Griffith are discussing, you know, these two tenants.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Oh, well, we're waiting for. I think it was Mr. Baker, I think, is the other gentleman, you know, waiting for his paperwork. Oh, he doesn't put his paperwork in. Well, he will. Well, whatever this guy's already got, you know, they're going back and forth, and literally, Drake Goodman utters, well, you got to watch out for these minority scam artists. And he uses the term these people. And I'm just like, wow, that does not. That does not hold up. That is ugly. Yeah, that is some ugly from Matthew Martine's character right there.

Nic

He definitely. But, I mean, the good thing is to watch this movie that took place more than 30 years ago and to realize that now your average homeowner who lives in San Francisco is totally cool with every kind of race of people and every type of person we have solved. We've come a long way. Yeah.

Steve

God.

Nic

Yeah. They're not hurdling homeless folks like they're in the Olympics. So, yeah, he's. I mean, you can tell they're setting themselves up to be foiled by their own. Their own faults.

Steve

Right.

Nic

The first thing that Carter does when he shows up, he's not officially admitted to be the tenant yet. He just kind of has a very slick agreement with Drake that, oh, the money's on his way anyway. And then he lets himself in.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And he's hammering. And then she comes down to check on him, and he's just like, nobody's hammering in here.

Steve

Wasn't happening here. Which, like, sure, buddy.

Nic

Which was wonderful.

Steve

Yeah. And this is actually. I want to stop real quick because there was definitely this moment in that scene where Melanie Griffith first comes in and kind of meets him for the first time, even though he had told. Right, Drake, oh, I met your wife, girlfriend, whatever. But this is the first time she's actually Meeting him and he compliments the light fixtures. And it was so funny because I had thought at the time, oh, what a great way to just ingratiate yourself to this person that you're going, that's your con target. Right. But it's like, as we learned later on, he had a much bigger interest in those light fixtures as he ends up stripping the entire apartment of anything of any value. But I was kind of like, at first thought, oh, that's just nice. But they did kind of come back and make those light fixtures sort of a part of the plot again later on.

Nic

Yeah. So he's in there unauthorized. They're trying to knock on the door and get his attention. Nobody's coming to the door. There's a great scene where Drake's knocking on his door. Hey, I haven't got my money yet. He's not here. So he goes to walk outside, and then you see the blinds peep open and you see Carter staring at him just to show that he's a real bad dude.

Steve

Looking like the evil queen atop the Snow White ride at Disneyland.

Nic

Yes. And then he has a friend there who is never really explained. He has a friend named Greg who starts answering the door for him. It's interesting, I guess, the powerlessness that Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine have over this situation, but they don't really deal with it in the best way.

Steve

Yeah, I have a note here that as this all starts happening, as the ball, basically the ball starts rolling where we can tell something's wrong. Like, you know, he got in there. I think Matthew discovers that he changed the locks. That may have been a little later, but, like, there's a point where that happens. And Modine is continuingly calling his references, trying to, I guess, get the money, but, like, also just trying to, like, confirm that he. That Carter Hayes is a good dude or whatever. Of course, he calls Beverly d' Angelo's character, who's kind of been in with him, so knows just to sort of say anything good about. About him. But I got thought to myself immediately at that point. I'm like, why hasn't he called the cops? This is a guy who has not. Not paid any rent. I know that there's a lease, and so there's going to be some legal sort of, like, you know, kerfuffle about that. And it's not. You can just kick somebody out. But, like, why hasn't he involved the police, like, from the beginning? Like, that's the thing is I would have, like, left out, like, I would have put A call in, and it's been like, hey, this has happened. You know, putting it on the record, I guess, in a sense. Or like. Or I don't call your lawyer. Somebody get somebody who's not just you involved. Because he clearly does not know what he's doing.

Nic

Right, right. And he gets himself in a lot of trouble by saying, okay, well, you're not going to answer the door. I never let you in. I don't think they had any kind of signed documentation, but they were saying that because you gave him possession of the place, which they didn't really do. I mean, it's an extreme depiction of that situation. And then he decides, okay, I'm going to shut the power off. And he does a little dance, which is really goofy.

Steve

So dumb.

Nic

It just makes him. Again, you know, he's in a situation, he's definitely being taken advantage of. But it's hard to root for the guy who's like, hell, yeah, I just shut the power.

Steve

Yeah. Because like I said, I. To this point, kind of the movie. I'd been thinking, you know, from. Because I think. Because just being trained by movies, you know, to root for the clear protagonist in the story is kind of a thing that you just do kind of by default, maybe, until you're given a reason not to. And so I'm thinking, you know, up to this point, I'm like, yeah, Matthew Modin, you got to do this, you got to do that. You know, the landlord should. And then when he shuts off the Heat and the power, my first thought was, I've been a renter In California, not 1990, but in 2000, 10 years later, I know you can't do that. Like, you can't just shut off people's heat and power like that. You're gonna get in trouble, buddy.

Nic

Yeah, like.

Steve

And it was just like. And sure enough, of course, that. That is kind of what happens next. He does get in trouble, but. But it was like, that makes him far less sympathetic and easy to root for. It's like, oh, you're willing to just cut the heat and power to the guy. Like, you know, you don't know what you're doing is really the key.

Nic

Well, and he expects that everything should go perfectly for him, and when it doesn't, he's kind of throwing a fit and isn't doing a good job of dealing with this as if it's a new business for him, which it is.

Steve

Right.

Nic

He's still treating it like, I let this guy come live in my house. Like, well, once you make it a business. You have to follow a certain set of procedures to make this work.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, yeah, they. The cops do show up after he shuts the power off, and they basically say, sir, this is America. You're allowed to stay forever once you set foot inside of a house. And he believes everything that Carter has to say to him and doesn't believe anything that Drake has to say.

Steve

Are we supposed to believe from. Because I wrote down in my notes here, like, no way the cops would so quickly side with the tenant. And I stand. There's no way they would. No way are we to believe in any way that these are not actually cops or there's somebody working with Carter. Because I'm not saying the movie gives us that indication, but, like, why were they so. I think maybe there were. What I'm wondering is, were they just so pro tenant? Because that's what the screenwriter needed for the movie to work. Because it doesn't really work.

Nic

I think it's really trying to hammer home A, how bad? How bad Drake fucked up by not following the law and this thing. But B, just that the cops aren't protecting us, the business owners, the job creators. The cops are protecting these pieces of shit who don't have 20% to put.

Steve

Down on a house. Right. Which, you know, Melanie Griffith and Matthew Dean didn't have 20% down either. There's no way but getting their subprime.

Nic

So, so far to this point, though, this. I was making notes as to what Carter had done that was bad.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

Because just the stakes of this movie are very interesting to me. Like, I mentioned earlier that it started off with this beating, and then it's like, hey, a couple thousand bucks a month. So he. He let himself into the apartment. Yeah, that's not cool. He lied about hammering and he hammered on the walls. He allowed his friend Greg with the goggles to live in there. He was just sitting in his Porsche in their garage.

Steve

Creepy.

Nic

And he was just smoking and looking at Melanie Griffith. I think we've come a long way as a society in the sense that if someone was smoking 10ft away from me, I'd probably notice the smell.

Steve

Honestly.

Nic

I know, right? I know this is back in the day where you could smoke at a Denny's or whatever, but I always think that's funny where someone's trying to be discreet, but they're being movie discreet. So they're still smoking a cigarette, right.

Steve

The little ember at the end is lighting their face up with every drag. It's like, yeah, there's A person there.

Nic

In the car, and then he just pulls out of there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Also, why are you gonna give the one garage parking spot? I don't know if he just took it or what, but it seemed like.

Steve

I'm sure that wasn't in the lease. Whether a lease was signed or not.

Nic

It seems like Drake would also be. Would say, oh, that car is so cool.

Steve

Oh, no way you're parking that baby on the street.

Nic

And then he shows his friends when they come to visit. Oh, check out my tenants. Porsche. He changed the locks in the apartment. That's bad. And then the next thing that he did as we're building is he would not take the documents from the process server that showed up to his apartment.

Steve

Yeah. For the eviction notice. Right.

Nic

So fine. So far, not that good. He's twirling a razor blade in a few scenes.

Steve

Yeah. What's that about?

Nic

It doesn't. It's Chekhov's razor blade.

Steve

It doesn't make any sense.

Nic

Unless there's some scene where he shaves at the end that got cut out.

Steve

But no, there are at least two or three times. Yeah. Where he just is twirling that thing in his fingers, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Nic

Yeah. It's kind of like the scene in Toy Soldiers where the bad guy was washing his fist rather than his hand in the sink. It's just a little extra oomph to show how bad he is.

Steve

It was menacing. Guessing. I felt. I felt like, oh, this is a. This is a dangerous person. I mean, I. So yeah, but then. Is that. So then at this point, you just got the razor. This is when a couple bugs start showing up. Right. Isn't that kind of this point in the movie?

Nic

Yep. Couple bugs start showing up. And we have also found out that Melanie Griffith is pregnant.

Steve

Oh, that's right. That's right.

Nic

Okay, so, yeah, so we have some roaches showing right into the wannabes. That's such a. Such an 80s movie name of a Japanese. It would be like a Morimoto or like, what a great name. And they start getting bugs there they call the Exterminator. I don't know if you recognize the Orkin guy.

Steve

I'm so glad you mentioned it because I wanted to talk about the Batman connections in this movie. And obvious. The most obvious one, obviously, is Michael Keaton, who played Batman in two of the films. But of course, Matthew Modine in the Dark Knight Rises was Deputy Commissioner Foley and fought against Bane in that movie. But yes, the Orkin man was Bob the Joker's.

Nic

Right hand man, Tracy Walter. He's a good, he's a good. That guy in this era. And he shows up in a lot of movies. There's this terrible Burt Reynolds movie that we got obsessed with in college called Malone. And it's one of those, you know, the rich guys trying to buy out all the good citizens of this small town and we get to stop. Anyway. I love that guy's work. He's very funny. He's in Aaron Brockovich.

Steve

Oh my gosh. Okay.

Nic

He's in a lot of things where he plays this kind of of scummy looking dude. There's a certain look to him and his scene was really funny. So he goes in and he's spraying for the roaches and he's explaining all the attachments that he has to his roach sprayer just in case and all this stuff and realizes that they're not, they're not going to be able to kill them.

Steve

Well, because that's not the source. Right. He discovers this hole, it's going to the next apartment. I also thought that scene was very, very reminiscent of a movie that would come out later. So maybe, you know, vice versa. I don't know how inspired John Goodman was when he did Arachnophobia and his exterminator character in that movie. I don't know if you've seen that one, but. But he has very similar kind of like where this is the high end stuff, like kind of whatever when he's going to kill all these mutant spiders in this little town. So very much a similar kind of feel to the characters.

Nic

I felt like that's a good film character that I don't think you see in real life. I feel like the average guy who's working for Orkin is maybe not super psyched about it or maybe used to work delivering water for Arrowhead and maybe worked some somewhere else. And it's just one of those kind of blue collar jobs.

Steve

He's been a rooter, rooter guy.

Nic

Yeah. But the guys in the film is always someone who's like, my life is bugs. And let me tell you about this. And I know more than any entomologist or. Yeah, so yeah, that was great. So Carter once again being bad, probably breeding cockroaches and somehow funneling them into next door. I don't know how he's doing it so quick, quickly.

Steve

I'm guessing he just brought them in. I mean, at San Francisco, like you, you could go to basically any building that has both, you know, apartments and restaurants in it and you'd find roaches. Right. So he probably has collected them, I guess. But. Yeah, I don't. I don't know how you would breed roaches. I'm not sure how that works. Yeah, thankfully. Yeah. So at that. About that time in the movie, shortly after the. The Orkin scene, Beverly d' Angelo shows up, right. Because she was the reference that Matthew Modine had to call. And she. This was, I thought, funny. She asked him where. Where did Carter end up? What's the address? I don't know why he would give that address, his own home address, to this random person, but he does. She shows up. Carter, you know, Keaton is not there. Greg is there, but. And Greg and Beverly d' Angelo seem to know each other, or at least there's a familiarity or whatever. And I wrote down this note because, like, I was flabbergasted by the reaction of Melanie Griffith in the scene. She lets Beverly d' Angelo in. She goes into the apartment, talk to Greg, and they are talking so loudly that you can clearly hear their conversation from the hallway. And given everything they were dealing with, with these people, I cannot believe she wouldn't just stand there and listen.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Maybe she would have learned something. She just leaves. What do you got? You got. You got a horse lesson? Where the hell are you going? Get back there and listen. Like, what the. Oh, my God, that was so infuriating. Like, I wrote. I wrote the words I'm sorry in the largest font I could in my notebook. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, how would you not eavesdrop over that conversation and try to figure out what the hell is going on?

Nic

Yeah, that's very important. And I think they really. Yeah. Their lack of curiosity and lack of follow through dug their hole after the. The roaches. And around this time, they were looking for maybe a quick injection of cash and went to a high interest loan shark type place. And I don't know if you noticed the guy.

Steve

I can't remember his name, but it definitely recognized the actual.

Nic

I just thought of it. I wrote. Wrote a note of who he was, but I thought of his name. I think it's Dan Hadiah.

Steve

Oh, that sounds right. Yeah.

Nic

And he was in. He was the bad guy in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

He was Steve and Doug Batabi's dad in Night at the Roxbury, probably in a lot of things in between.

Steve

He was also Cher's dad in Clueless.

Nic

Okay. Oh, right, right, right.

Steve

Yeah. Great actor.

Nic

Good character actor. And he tells. He tells Drake, I'm a sleazy loan guy. I'm not a miracle worker. You're not getting anything from me. So he's. He's. He's out of luck there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So the roach problem is just gonna continue to be a problem. And Drake decides I'm gonna go in the crawl space of the house and I need to investigate. Cause I can hear to their apartment, but something's going on. And he's looking up through a little hole in the floor and seeing this hijinks going down. And he's realizing, oh, I don't know why he needs to keep reconfirming the most obvious thing in the world. I would just be like, actually bad dudes. I'm getting out of here.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And then they drop a jar, a glass jar, which is full of roaches. And then the glass and the roaches just go all over his face while he has to remain quiet in a crawl space. And leading up to a question that I have for you, the next scene, it shows him just kind of sulking in their apartment. And he's obviously drinking a bunch of beers. I think there was, like, seven beer bottles around on how many beers would you need to drink if you got hit in the face or. I mean, that's something you really have to erase. Yeah, that's. I would be shaking for a while.

Steve

The bigger question I would have is that after I've clearly gone to the emergency room to get all the lacerations on my face, you know, stitched up because of the fact that a glass jar just broke and fell on my face. You know, how safe would it be to douse myself in whiskey with all the pain meds I'd be on? That really would be my first concern. You know, that thins the blood a little and whatnot. So I would be concerned with that. The fact that he had no markings on him whatsoever.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

When, like, a glass jar of roach roaches just, like, exploded in front of him and rained down on his face, it's like, come on. This is worse than, you know, this is worse than the kid getting hit in the knee and never limping in toy soldiers. Like, it's. It's just like. There's got to be some continuity here. But yes. No. A face full of roaches. I mean, that's an easy 12 pack. There's. There's no way.

Nic

I think that's right.

Steve

Less than that, he.

Nic

I think he discontinued his health insurance because he had to make sure he had enough money for two cans of paint to completely remodel this house.

Steve

So.

Nic

So the Watanabes have had it. And as they should.

Steve

100%.

Nic

They. They've put up with enough. And honestly, I think during this time period they should have been like, hey, we're gonna. We're going to the Homestead Suites for a few nights until you guys figure this out.

Steve

Courtyard by Marriott.

Nic

So they're leaving and they're breaking the lease. They're not suing them for anything. They're just saying, we're out of here.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And Melanie Griffith is just beside herself that they're not honoring the lease that they signed as if there are no clauses about the condition. And your experience with it.

Steve

Brooches everywhere. And like, yeah, I got a landlord willing to just shut off people's heat on a whim.

Nic

So it's another example of just their cluelessness and how kind of whiny and entitled they are that everything is like, but this isn't going my way.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So her lack of understanding towards them really took her down another path.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

In my book, they come home to the garage and they open it where the Porsche normally is. And the Porsche is just fully disassembled.

Steve

Assembled. Yeah. It's like all pulled apart, like for like it's been stripped or whatever. Right? Yeah.

Nic

The ability of a bad guy to just fully disassemble a car is incredible. I wouldn't even know the first screw to undo.

Steve

Oh my God. I would try to take off a door, I guess. I don't know. That part moves. It's got to have a hinge. You could take hinges apart, I guess. Like, I don't know. Yeah. Wouldn't even know where to start.

Nic

Yeah. So they're kind of starting to go mad. And this is where the stakes are raised in this movie because we've got. He caught a face full of roach glass. And now Matthew Modine's character is having this crazy dream sequence. He's hallucinating. Caused completely by self induced financial ruin, which is a hell of a drug. And it leads to Melanie Griffith's character losing her pregnancy. She has a miscarriage, which is terrible for them to deal with. It's also the only successful eviction in this movie. And it's terrible. And they're dealing with this. And then Carter really steps up his nastiness.

Steve

Timeout. So a couple things. First off, this is the second movie we've done in a row that features a miscarriage as a plot point. We need to break that streak.

Nic

For one thing.

Steve

Apologize to everyone in the world world about that. However, this was so crazy to me. Right? So she. She has this miscarriage. Awful. She ends up coming home and Carter, Yeah, first of all, he pre. Calls the police, which should have not worked, and then goes and tries to give, like, condolences, but really he's baiting Matthew. I'm guessing this is why we have HIPAA now, because he apparently was able to just call the hospital, go, yeah, this is a woman, you know, she came in there. What was that about? I saw a stretcher. Oh, yeah, she had a miscarriage. She's gone home now. Like, why would anyone give that information out? It's insane. And then now there's laws against it. But, like, I can see why we needed the. The oft, you know, maligned and misappropriated HIPAA laws to stop hospitals from handing out this information. It's ludicrous.

Nic

Yeah. His evil really could have been cut off by many people with some kind.

Steve

Of authority or any common sense at all.

Nic

Yeah, really bad. Really bad.

Steve

By the way. Wait, actually, this is the point where I wrote the notes. In my notes, literally, I wrote, jesus, this movie is only half over because the pacing to this point was really bad.

Nic

It's zigzagging all over the place. It truly is an insane movie.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Drake is gonna beat up Carter. I mean, that's such a. It's a despicable thing to do. He knows exactly what he's doing. But also, Drake, you need to be smarter because you already have, you know, legal trouble relating to this guy. The cops show up, do not ask a single question immediately. Just throw Drake into the police car. Normally, at least they're cuffing people. They're sitting them down on a curb and finding out what happened. And there's neighbors and there's witnesses, but it's just trying to show, man, if you're a landlord, it is hard. You're probably the single most discriminated against group by the police in the country.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

And history backs that up. Landlords have never had it worse.

Steve

No more persecuted group in society than landlords. I do think, like, why, like, the cops are so dumb and that's maybe not surprising, whatever. But like, it's, you know, he calls and then. And he calls them, I guess, to say, there's these guys, there's a fight happening or whatever, you know, he has to say something to draw them there, right? This guy's beaten somebody's. But whatever. And then it's like they, you know, they have to be there, like 15 minutes later, and there's the fight happening. It's like, that didn't raise a single eyebrow at sfpd. Like, what is going on? Like, why would that be not questioned at all?

Nic

Terrible. It's terrible. So Drake has been beat up, and he needs to stay away from the house because Carter has a restraining order against Drake.

Steve

Yes, he does.

Nic

So the most logical thing is definitely, leave my wife there. Leave my wife, who recently had a girlfriend, who recently had a really bad trauma and is still in the house with this guy who's trying to slowly drive us insane. I'm gonna leave her there, and I'm gonna go have bro time with my friend sleeping on the pullout couch. And I love that scene again, because it did not fit with anything. Drake is having the time of his fucking life. He's making Bananas Foster with his friend. They're, like, lighting things on fire. And, oh, my God. And she's there with their door getting knocked on with this creep who knows that she's vulnerable and alone. And Drake is not thinking twice about it. He's just. Oh. And then it occurs to him when he's on the phone, oh, you should come here.

Steve

Oh, you should.

Nic

This safe house that I'm at, you should come be safe here with me.

Steve

I can't disagree with your framing that this is his bad, but I originally watched this going, why isn't Melanie Griffith with him? Why wouldn't she just go? Yeah, why did she even go back to the house at all? Like, they're both being complete idiots. Like, this doesn't make any sense. This guy is like. I guess to this point, maybe they haven't thought that he's dangerous, per se. He's just been, you know, obviously squatting and not paying them and, like, all this stuff. But, like, maybe to that point, because he didn't start the fight with. With Drake, right? He basically got his ass beat. I mean, really, you know, Drake got hurt more from the fall down the stairs than anything Michael Keaton did specifically to him. So maybe they just weren't thinking he was that dangerous, which I think is insane. They wouldn't think he's dangerous. But it doesn't make any sense that she would be back at that house at all.

Nic

Not at all. And it immediately proves to be the wrong decision. And she's being harassed there. So Drake comes back to the house, breaks the tro, doesn't let anybody know in advance. I mean, the move would have been, hey, this guy's crazy. He has a restraining. Restraining order against me. I think my wife is in danger. Can somebody go check on her? Or can she meet you and you can escort her away? Something. But he shows up stupidly. Carter catches him breaking in. He shoots him twice and plants a crowbar in his hand so it looks like he broke in. Smart guy. Great, Great move. Once again. And they go to the police. And they're talking to the police about what happened, and the cop says, oh, well, let me get my supervisor. Let's get the big boss.

Steve

Get the lieutenant.

Nic

And the lieutenant is the original.

Steve

The original potential tenant. Our African American gentleman, Mr. Baker.

Nic

Mr. Baker. And he was nicer to them than he should have been, probably.

Steve

Well, he didn't. But he did say he didn't let his disappointment go unnoticed. But he was very professional to his gratitude.

Nic

Yeah. And good. Good for him. Although the way that they're depicting SFPD in this movie, I don't know if they would have loved having an SFPD as a tenant, because the SFPD has been failing them at every turn throughout this. Maybe this is the only good SFPD guy, too. Props to this guy, by the way. Not using his position as a police officer to try to muscle his way into getting that apartment. He didn't even mention it at all.

Steve

That's true.

Nic

It's like Teen Wolf playing as Scotty and not the wolf. He's like, yeah, I'm not gonna be the cop applying for this apartment. I'm just gonna be me and see what happens.

Steve

See, when you frame it that way, though, it sounds like a really dumb move. He should have used his power that way. I mean, Scotty can't play.

Nic

Yeah. He probably ended up in a. In a better place.

Steve

Yeah, we're assuming, you know, he clearly found somewhere to live, so.

Nic

So now the movie doesn't know what to do.

Steve

No, nor did I. It didn't make any sense. For a little while.

Nic

The whole time, yeah, we're thinking, okay, so somebody has been shot.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And it's not over.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Which logic would lead you to believe that somebody has to get shot worse.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And some. Something worse than that has to happen.

Steve

You gotta raise it.

Nic

You gotta build. Right? So they. They go on a search, and they're trying to find out who's this. Well, not just.

Steve

Just Melanie Griffith. And I wrote down here, like, I didn't. I didn't understand why she was following him. I didn't understand why she didn't just let him go. I didn't understand what her motive was. None of that made sense until she talks. She finds and talks to Beverly d'. Angelo. And when she talks to her and gets a sense of like, there's. There's this identity theft sort of element behind all this. Yeah, that was the first time when. Oh. Like, that's. That's when it ended up seeming more like this guy's actually dangerous versus just being an. Yeah, right. And it's like, okay, so he's not just there to, like, you know, strip mine your apartment for the. The, you know, freaking baseboards and light fixtures, you know, and make your life hell for no good reason. He's trying to steal your identity and your finances. So. Okay, now we've got. But I don't know why the movie took us. Took so long to tell us that. It would have made him a much more compelling villain and then much more sympathetic protagonists. If I knew the whole time he was trying to become Drake Goodman and steal his life.

Nic

Yes. And I feel like they could have made Keaton's character. They could have made the protagonist, like, 20% better, and then he would have seemed bad enough. They're just. He just needs to be so bad for them to suck so bad. And if they had just revealed that at the beginning, it would have made a lot more sense rather than, oh, he's just some guy who's getting away with stuff. The way that she confirmed that Carter was in this hotel is she went up to the desk and said that she was returning a lost wallet.

Steve

Right.

Nic

But then she was waiting there in the lobby anyway. And she knows what he looks like. I don't understand what the purpose of that entire scene was.

Steve

Well, I guess it was she was checking the hotel, confirming his presence, but needed an excuse to do that so that she didn't seem like she was doing something wrong, so that the. The concierge or whatever at the front desk hotel wouldn't ask his own questions about. Why is this woman asking. Maybe something like that. I mean, it's flimsy, but I must be something along those lines.

Nic

So then he was trying to steal. Obviously trying to steal Drake's identity.

Steve

Well, he kind of had. Right? I mean, he was there as Drake was checked in, as Drake Goodman moved on.

Nic

He was. He was draking it up.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And she was following him. It was funny for her to watch him go from this mansion straight into a limo, straight to a yacht. I loved him. Just showing he's living the life as.

Steve

I don't understand how much time has passed, though, because it seems like a day or two.

Nic

Yeah. Because I think Modine is still like. Has like a sling and.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, he's got. He's bandaged up and he's out of the hospital after a gunshot. So that's okay. A few days. Less than a week though.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, and. And he's already moved on to a new grift to such an extent that he's making out with this like widow or whoever she is or this. This heiress.

Nic

You know.

Steve

And you know, it's just kind of like how. Like why. Why am I supposed to believe that this is something. Was he prepared? I guess maybe he was preparing this. The fact when he was gone all the time.

Nic

Yeah. Down in la Juggling a few Griffs at once.

Steve

Again. Something that movie just doesn't bother to make clear to us. Just doesn't care enough.

Nic

Not at all. It would have been funny if she followed him all the way to where he's checked into this Marriott and everything to see what he's up to. And then he's just drilling holes in the wall doing the same shit.

Steve

Bringing roaches.

Nic

He's a one trick pony. He has no other plans. I'm going to do this to the JW Marriott family of hotels. Now in her research about his back history and realizing that James Danforth, I guess that's Carter's real name. He was an heir to a very big fortune but was cut out of it for some reason. We're all waiting for the sequel because he's a psycho.

Steve

I guess.

Nic

But she finds this newspaper article about him being left out of the family fortune. And I know don't when's that getting written? Like who's on Will Watch? And they're just writing all these things about which people are being excluded from their fortunes.

Steve

It feels like a page six. The society pages. Which I've never seen in real life but have heard in movies and TV shows. There are things like that. I don't know if it's like the New York Times or maybe it's like tabloidy kind of. That would be in the New York Daily News or something. Right?

Nic

It's true. It was just the article cut out. We didn't see the publication.

Steve

I don't think it was the old Gray Lady. I don't think it was like. Yeah.

Nic

And there was a suitcase with the false bottom and the envelope full of cash. I love to see this. She gets out of his hotel room just in time. And she's in Carter's hotel room. She's snooping around. And he keeps just a series of convenient newspaper clippings that fully explain his life to this point. Which I always keep handy of course, yeah. And he sees her leaving. He's not quite sure, so he's running away. And then she gets in a taxi and does the just drive thing, which I love. And somehow Carter runs after that taxi like the liquid metal Terminator.

Steve

I literally thought that. I'm like, man, he's just not as fast as Jason Patrick.

Nic

He's just busting ass after this taxi. So I enjoyed that. Just how extreme he's become.

Steve

I loved. Before she left the hotel room, though, she took the chocolate off the pillow after the turndown service. That was such a great little moment of like. Like, I got you. Like, you know, I just thought, yeah, take the chocolate, babe. Take it like it's your chocolate.

Nic

Now, this is not plot related, but this is a good Bay Area thing that I'm sure you noticed in the movie. It showed a scene of the classic coffee kofy TV commercial. Remember that channel TV 20, right?

Steve

Yeah, I do remember.

Nic

And it would have one of the pets. It would always be a pet that's up for adoption. Looking at the screen and then it says, KO fy. And then the pet turns its head and it showed one of those.

Steve

I was like, oh, man, I was right.

Nic

When I looked out here.

Steve

Yeah, I think I might have looked away when that happened. I don't remember that.

Nic

But, yeah, that was a good bait. There wasn't. For a San Francisco movie, there was almost no San Francisco.

Steve

Very little.

Nic

Yeah, even there's so many opportunities with chase scenes and such that you just. They didn't have the classic San Francisco Haley chase scene or anything like that.

Steve

Yeah, there was. There was. You know, if you have a movie set in SF entitled After the neighborhood in San Francisco that is supposedly taking place in. And we don't once see the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Coit Tower, the Transamerica Pyramid. I mean, anything, Right. That's like a standard sort of SF architectural beacon. What's the point? Why set it there? Set it in any other town but make it in la. Every movie is like default in la, right?

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

Go from there. But no, they really didn't take advantage of the suit at all.

Nic

Not at all. They could call the movie Non Specific Heights, Atlantic Depths. So we're getting close to the end here.

Steve

Yes, thank God.

Nic

And. And here's Carter. And Carter has. Has gotten back into their place because. Why. Why are they there? They're. They have to be there for the plot. And he beats up Matthew Modine with a golf club, which is pretty sweet.

Steve

I dig it.

Nic

Good to see him get Beaten up.

Steve

And I love a good golf club beating. In any movie, that's always a good classic. Better than a baseball bat. It moves so much faster.

Nic

Yep. And the place is under. The place is completely stripped.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Like you said, he came in, he pulled the copper pipes out and everything. It's just completely destroyed. So it's a construction zone of his own doing. And in the final fight, Matthew Modine, despite having the crap beaten out of him with the golf club, is able to muster a little bit of strength. And we push Carter backwards, and he falls onto two very convenient pieces of rebar.

Steve

Yeah, rebar or copper piping or something. I don't know if they were plumbing or what they were, but they were. Something sticking up in the middle of the floor.

Nic

There was nothing. That was plumb too. No, I think it was just one of those perfect Jim kata style situations where it's like, oh, there's a pommel horse.

Steve

Yeah. It didn't. It didn't quite work, but it also didn't need to because at that point, that movie could have.

Nic

We were ready for it to be done.

Steve

He could have spontaneously combusted, and I just would have been like, yeah, okay, that fits this movie.

Nic

Sure. And before it got to this part, so Carter had gotten arrested earlier, and it seemed like this is the lamest way for this movie to end because we've already been to these heights of the stakes and they've lost a pregnancy and. And someone's gotten shot and all this. So it was satisfying to see the impale. The impalement. Impalement.

Steve

Yeah, that sounds right.

Nic

Impalation.

Steve

I don't know, man.

Nic

We'll have to fact check that one. But that's always a great bad guy death. It's just a little extra cruel, little extra gruesome to show that this guy really got what was coming to him.

Steve

Reminded me of Ghost, the bad guy. Of Ghost falling onto the Lopez. Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

So that's the end of the saga as far as Carter goes.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And Carter's. Carter's gone. And a little bit of time passes and we're in this. It doesn't. I don't know if it even says, but it's a. Four months later.

Steve

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

And the house is fixed up.

Steve

Yep. Looks great.

Nic

And here they are, Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith leading people around. Oh, and this is great. You know, this is all original. I started.

Steve

We restored this and that. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Telling people about the house. And they're showing another young couple around the house and then leave them Alone in the room. And they go elsewhere. And the last scene in the movie is the young couple talking to each other.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And it's the same conversation that we had at the beginning. I don't know if we can afford this place. Well, that's okay. You know, you don't have to worry. We don't have to put the real numbers down on the application. And the cycle continues.

Steve

They also owned that place, it seems like for something in the neighborhood of six months. Months. I'm not sure exactly how long the movie takes place for, but it feels like less than a year.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And they're asking 900 grand for a house they bought for.

Nic

So I didn't see the. I didn't see the price.

Steve

It was like over 900,000 was the list price.

Nic

I think I missed that. Okay, that's. That's good.

Steve

My last thought on the movie as I was. As the credits began to roll was like, do they have to declare the death? It is for sale by owner. They're not involving a real estate agent. I don't know what. You know, a man died in that dancer's apartment. We just saw it. I don't know what their declaration requirements are at that point. But it did. It did make it. Because the boy. Will the circumstances around that kind of. You deaden the interest in the sale? Like. Yeah, and we killed a guy, but it was self defense and he was squatting. But don't you want to buy the house?

Nic

Right. Yeah. There's a lot of baggage with that house. And. And they should also be made aware of the lack of police protection in that neighborhood towards anybody who owns.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Are the Porsche pieces still in the garage?

Steve

They have to have cleared those out.

Nic

Are there phone books everywhere still? What's going on with.

Steve

All part of the restoration process.

Nic

So very, very weird movie. I think this was a fun conversation though. I think that this type of movie I am really drawn to for some reason. It's something that I don't really have to pay attention to the details when.

Steve

I'm watching it because there are none.

Nic

It has. It's hilarious in things that it's trying to be serious with in its earnest ear and how hard it's trying in a certain way. That's the kind of thing that I find funniest out of anything when it comes to movies. So I really. I really laughed a lot. One improvement I would give to this movie, I think if you take the base of the Michael Keaton character and make him kind of a hero type thing where he's moving on to destroy different properties who have established reasons that they've, you know, screwed people over or this place is full of asbestos. And the only way to get that taken out is to get the full building condemned. So I'm going to move in here and help this housing project. So turn him into a hero type character, like a Robin Hood of squatters.

Steve

The tenant avenger or something. Yeah, that could be fun.

Nic

Just because his charisma, you could do a lot with him. And he did drag this entire movie. I don't know what Matthew Modine's character traits were other than being kind of a rube and a weenie. And then Melanie Griffith. I feel bad. I've just been saying Melanie Griffith this whole time. I don't know what her character's name was.

Steve

I think it was Patty, I think, remember either at this point. Yeah, Patty Palmer or something like that. Yeah.

Nic

And she's been good in things, but this movie, it's just, I don't know, like they didn't give her a lot to do. I don't, I don't feel like she was used to the advantage of the script.

Steve

I've never been a big Melanie Griffith fan. Not that she's like bad or anything, you know, it's just she never really. Maybe it's just the kinds of movies that she has been in and at what era, you know, when I was watching movies and the kind of stuff she did that wasn't really movies I would have been interested in that much at the time that she was doing them. But like, you know, this was, this was not good. And I don't think it was her. I think it was the character in the script and, and all that. Like, like you said, they gave her nothing to work with. Matthew Modine's character at least had some, some interesting kind of plot related action. Only until the third act does Melanie Griffith do anything. Yeah, like literally through the entirety of the movie. She's just there to either be a sounding board for Matthew Modine's ideas or, you know, give him an alternate idea maybe. But like, you know, she's just kind of there until the miscarriage. And so that's like a plot point, but really only a plot point in that it is an opportunity for Michael Keaton to make Matthew Modine mad and get him to attack him. That's really the only reason that exists.

Nic

Right.

Steve

As far as the plot goes. Only at the end when she's the one hunting him down, you know, exacting revenge on Michael Keaton does she get interest. Interesting. And so we're going to get into the rating I gave this movie and I'll tell you how I thought about it on its merits. Initially. Kind of the baseline for me for this movie is literally a zero out of five. I'm going to give it a one star. And the one star comes in two parts. It gets half a star from Michael Keaton being Michael Keaton and being great. And when he's on screen, I'm interested and I like the character and everything. The other half a star goes to Melanie Griffith's revenge subplot. It was interesting. I said, I love the chocolate getting pulled off the pillow. Great little moments like that, passing each other the. On the elevator. There's great little sort of almost Hitchcockian kind of elements to it. Then I really felt like that was the strongest part of the movie. And it was still not strong enough, you know, to make me really care. But, yeah, I'm a one out of five on this movie. I thought it was terrible.

Nic

One out of five. Okay. So I enjoyed this more than you, but, you know, I have different standards for enjoyment for films. And I think you make. You make valid points here. If we got a different ending that involved flying one of the kites that was fresh off the assembly line. If we got a sequel where Matthew Modine's character just went to his buddy's house and slept on the couch and made crepe Suzettes, I feel like that would just be more enjoyable. They're just such goofy stuff in this movie. This checks a lot of boxes for me. It has ridiculous bad guy scenes, like Weenie, good guy stuff and just good 90s things. The Keds. I enjoy seeing the Keds and everything. The phone book, books. And Beverly d' Angelo naked, like not long after her kind of peak, as. As. What's her name?

Steve

Ellen Griswold.

Nic

Ellen Griswold, Yeah. I am giving this movie a surprising three and a half out of five.

Steve

You're insane.

Nic

I would definitely watch this movie again. I don't know how soon, but it's one of those movies that has enough parts that really tickle me in a certain way. And I think I would watch it again. I would probably not recommend it to other people. I would say that this is my three and a half.

Steve

Fair enough.

Nic

If I'm telling other people, I would say, yeah, it's probably a two out of five. But for me and for people who like. Who were like me, I'm going to say three and a half out of five.

Steve

So that goes four and a half then out of ten as our overall score, which I'm okay with. To me, to me that that sends the proper signal that, like, this is not a good movie. Neither of us are saying this is a good movie.

Nic

And we're close to the. What were the IMDb and rotten tomatoes? It was 55% rotten tomatoes.

Steve

55% of rotten tomatoes. And I think it was a 6.7. Actually fairly high 6.4 on. On IMDb, which is.

Nic

It's the Keaton army, the online Keaton heads, you know, the Modin Gripers, and all these people that are out there just, just standing for their favorite actors.

Steve

So that was Pacific Heights.

Nic

Fun one.

Steve

Cool. All right, well, I have the honor of announcing the next movie that we're going to take a look at.

Nic

Oh, can't wait.

Steve

Oh yeah, this was a good one. So this is a movie that came out in 1987. I actually saw this movie in the theater. My brother and I were taken to this movie by our parents. It's a PG movie, but for all kinds of fun reasons we'll get into when we actually talk about it, we'll discuss why that really shouldn't be the case. The movie stars Bill Pullman, John Candy and Rick Moranis alongside a whole cast of other sort of cameos and character actors and great stuff. It is the one and the only Mel Brooks's best movie, in my opinion, from the 80s. So he had lots of, lots of great movies in the 70s, from the 80s. It's Mel Brooks's best movie. It's Spaceballs. We're gonna see Spaceballs next time. Nic, any history with Spaceballs?

Nic

You want to hear something crazy? I've never seen Spaceballs.

Steve

Absolutely insane. I have seen this movie 40 to 50 times. Not joking.

Nic

I'm excited. This is one of those movies that many people who I like a lot of the same things and I respect their taste in comedy and they love it and I have no reason to think that I won't enjoy it. I'm excited to have a reason to sit down and pay attention to it and to talk about it with an expert. So this will be a good one.

Steve

Yeah, gonna be a lot of fun. So stick around. Next time a couple weeks, we will come to you all with Spaceballs from mel Brooks from 1987. And if you enjoyed this episode, you can go ahead and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast from and leave us a five star review if you wouldn't mind. It helps people find the show. You can also send us an email to discuss the episode or give us an idea, whatever you want to do. You can reach us at the show@2dads1movie.com. That's 2dads1movie.com. That's a number two and a number one. In the meantime, this has been 2dads1movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you all so much for listening. Take care.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.