Give me that baby.
I want that baby.
Give me that baby, you warthog from hell.
It's two Dads one Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged
dads sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the 80s and 90s.
Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nick Brianna.
Hello, everybody. It's another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. And. And today we are continuing down the pathway of
cagevember, which is super exciting, and we have
got a whole new, amazing Nicolas Cage centered film
to talk to you all about from an earlier part of his career. Actually,
absolutely not from the mid-90s that we spent the last
couple weeks at with the Rock and before that, Con Air. But this time we're
going to look at Raising Arizona, starring Cage and Holly Hunter.
And it's the second feature film from the Coen brothers, who would go on.
To do amazing stuff. A number of ridiculously good
things over the years. Personally from the Coens, I was never
as into this movie, and I'll get into why in a second as some
of the other ones. I love Big Lebowski. Yeah, that was huge for our
age range too. And oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? Was fantastic, but this
was also really good. So, Nick, you picked Raising Arizona for us. Tell us a
little bit about your history with it. Yeah, so I have actually only seen this
once, and I think I'm kind of the same as you. I enjoy the Coen
Brothers work. This movie. People rave about this movie. This isn't
uncovering a undiscovered gem or anything. This is thought of as
a great film, and I thought it would be fun to kind of juxtapose along
with our other Nicolas Cage cagevember selections. And kind of is
a little bit of a change of pace from the last two with Con Air
and the Rock, where we had Nicolas Cage being
in some sort of a prison at some point, and in this movie, he.
Darn, so many prisons. More Cage in a cage.
No. So I just thought it would be fun to go to a different kind
of phase of his career and see if maybe we're seeing the same things about
him. Nice. Because the other movies were one year after another or like the same
year or something. So, yeah, I thought it would be interesting. And the cast is
killer, and the pedigree of this film speaks for itself.
So I'm looking forward to chat about it, but I'm not super familiar with it,
so I'm kind of coming in as a semi new person here. That's cool.
Yeah. When you recommended this movie for us, I was like, oh, cool. Raising Arizona.
Like, awesome Coen Brothers. This will be so much fun. Boy, I haven't seen it
in a long time. And then as I'm watching it, I go, oh, no,
I've never actually seen this movie all the way through. So I watched it like
three or four days ago, and that was actually the first time I'd ever watched
it all the way through. So this will be an interesting, you know, sort of
conversation, I think both of us coming in with more maybe experience around Cage
and around the Cohen's than this film in particular. It was really interesting
even just coming into it and thinking through comparing this to other Coen brothers movies
and other Nicholas Cage performances and seeing, you know,
where things line up and where they're different. And I think that's going to make
for. For a really interesting conversation. Cool. All right, let's jump into the facts.
Yeah, let's look at some facts on Raising Arizona. So Raising Arizona was released
on March 13, 1987 with a PG13 rating.
It has a running time of 94 minutes. Directed by, I think
in the credits we said it was just Joel Cohen listed and then Ethan Cohen
is a producer. Yes, I believe so. But on IMDb they do list both Joel
and Ethan as directors. So they both directed, maybe sort of written by.
Flip the names around. Ethan Coen and Joel Cohen. Nice work. It's kind of how
the Coen brothers always operated, at least until recently. Good for them. Yeah. Starring Nicolas
Cage, Holly Hunter and John Goodman. I was actually surprised. I did not remember how
much John Goodman is in this, which is great because Goodman in Coen
brothers movies is like peak height of Goodman's work. Yeah,
the perfect fit for him. Absolutely. Rotten tomatoes.
91% fresh on rotten tomatoes. Critics love this in general.
IMDb gave it a 7.3 over time. That's a very respectable score
from IMDb. Our buddies Siskel and Ebert, we got a thumbs up from Gene Siskel
and a thumbs down from Roger Ebert. What is going on, Rog?
Yeah, so I actually looked at Roger's review because I was surprised to see
that. And he. And I think they rate them out of five on his website
or whatever. Out of four. Okay, so it was one and a half out of
four that he gave. And his big beef with it was the dialogue.
He felt like it was unrealistic that all the characters have such,
you know, extensive vocabularies and everything. But it's like. Yeah, but you didn't
know the Coen Brothers yet because that's kind of what they do in a lot
of situations. And I've never seen Blood simple, which is the first Coen Brothers feature.
So I don't know if the same vibe kind
of plays through that movie in the same sort of. Yeah, like, cadence to the
characters and the kind of cartoonishness of them, if that's in Blood simple as well.
But it certainly is prevalent in every Coen Brothers movie after this
one, for sure. You know, that's. It's very much their style. But care not.
Not for Raj, apparently. The film did not win any awards and didn't
get any major nominations that I was aware of, so there's that. On a $6
million budget, however, it pulled in $29 million at the box office, which is,
you know, small potatoes, but almost five times what it costs. So congratulations.
Cohen's not surprising why they continued to get booked and got
to make movies that they wanted to make. That's. That's good stuff. So. All right,
man, you want to kick us off? Yeah, let's get into it. And I
was delighted throughout the first 10 minutes of this movie with
the voiceover narration kind of getting us up to speed with who our characters
are and how they end up in the situation they begin in.
And we have this great montage where, Hai, who's Nicolas
Cage's character, and he's a petty criminal,
kind of a doofus who keeps, you know, doing dumb stick ups and getting caught
for whatever goes into jail. He's getting his mugshot taken by a very serious
woman police officer and turned to the right, you know, and he's immediately
smitten by her. You could tell he's really flirty with her and everything.
And she's all business. It's kind of funny. He asked what her name is.
She goes, ed. And he's
like, well, Ed. That's a strange name for a woman. She's like, short for Ed.
We need to turn to the right. All business and everything. So we
have this scene of kind of his life, you know, going in and out of
prison. So he gets his mug shot, then he's in prison, and then he's in
the prison counseling session, which is a really entertaining thing to see.
Yes. And then he'd be in front of the parole board, and then it would
show him kind of how he gets back into prison getting his mug shot again.
So this goes on for about, you know, five minutes here at the beginning,
and it's really delightful. Absolutely. And I think a few things to point out.
One, clearly I don't know about current state of Arizona criminal law, but apparently
no three strikes laws in Arizona in the 80s. Yeah. Because these were.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio came in because these are clearly felonies.
Although we do get high does mention specifically that the gun that he uses,
has always used in his stick up robberies of convenience stores is never loaded.
That way he can't actually get busted for armed robbery or at
least not for, you know, the, the kind of additions to
sentencing you would get from using a weapon in crime. Right, so, so there's that
which is. I don't know if that's, I'm not a lawyer, I don't know if
that's legit or was back then, but it certainly is true in the story.
Good enough for this film, right? Yeah, exactly. So. So, yeah, so he is a
bit of a recidivist, which for the parole board tells us specifically that as
he keeps going in and out. One thing I'll note as well, just having watched
Con Air, this accent by Nicholas Cage, far superior and
much more pleasant and it's still got a bit of that southern, you know,
and it is a little more southwestern, a little closer to Texas, you know,
kind of style, but it's, it's, but it's a good job.
Yeah, exactly. So why couldn't he just do his, his high
voice in Con Air? I don't know, but it would have. Been funny if he
was just, if high. Just like if Cameron Poe and Con Air
was just an older version of high. Like he got,
he like went straight by going to the Rangers or. Yeah, it exists in the
same universe. Yeah. A couple things to point out here. So in the prison
counseling session, we're introduced to a couple of other fellow prisoners who were
kind of his buddies in jail. Right. And it's William Forsyth and John Goodman.
That's right. And they're. I forget the names, I'm just going to call them the
jailbirds, whatever. His buddies, the brothers. There's a really funny line where the
counselor's asking, telling them that if you want a life and
a family, jail should not be an acceptable option for you.
And John Goodman says something like, well, some of us just have
to sometimes put career ahead of family.
So. Yeah, I mean, the way this kind of self awareness that even the
supposedly dumbest characters have is very fun in this film.
Absolutely. And we should point out we saw William Forsyth last week in
the Rock. That's a very different role. Ten years after this or nine years
after this or whatever like that. But it's just so funny to think of the
characters in these two movies. They were so different from each other. Oh, absolutely.
And played so differently in such range. Very interesting. But, yeah, so.
Yeah. So one of the times that that High goes back into jail,
poor Ed is bawling. She's clearly been crying. You know, she's trying to hold it
back because she's trying to be professional, but she's crying. He asks, you know,
what happened, you know, whatever. And she goes, my finance left me. I love the
way she says, it's fantastic. Really good. So. But. But this, you know, clearly the
High sees this as an in. Right? Like, and he. And he tells her,
like, tell me who he is. I'll tell him what an idiot he is.
Deal. And she kind of, like, goes, oh, maybe this guy's not so bad.
And he's obviously is a handsome dude. You know, he's got a full head of
hair. You know, I'm sure the standards couldn't have been that high in Arizona in
the late 80s, so. Sure. Yeah. What the heck? I mean, he. A little bit
of the bad boy stuff, you know? Yeah, yeah. So he
ends up, you know, he goes into jail again. And it also shows a scene
of him, like, laying on the bottom bunk while his bunk mate on the top
bunk is just rattling off all this nonsense, which is kind of a precursor to
Bubba in Forrest Gump, Baby O in Con Air.
I think these movies exist in the same universe. Oh, man. So connected.
So. But he kind of makes a decision, like, kind of based on, I'm in
love with this woman and this guy's boring the shit out of me. I'm not
coming back to jail. And he finally gets paroled again,
and he goes straight to the booking right
to the police station there. The intake. Yeah, exactly. And immediately proposes to
Ed. And then while he's doing that, he turns to the guy who's currently getting
his mugshot taken and being like, oh, hey, Greg. Like, just so casually,
really funny. Oh, man. So, yeah, so he gets a real job.
Hi and Ed get together, they get married, and hi has to, you know,
he's not going to knock up convenience stores anymore. So he's got a real job
working at. Looks like maybe like a metal sheet. Metal sheet. Metal plane. Right.
That's something like that. And I love it because he's chit chatting with this guy,
the thing and that. We saw him in another 2Dads episode. He was the
doctor in Fletch that's right. Right. Who gave the. The anal exam?
Rectal exam, I guess, to. To Mr. Babar. But yeah,
so that's good. And then. And then I believe it's shortly after that point
we actually get a title card. Well, so leading up to this, two things I
want to point out. One is the wedding scene is very funny because it's just
like three straight, like very brief one second shots. And it's just, I do.
And then Nick Cage says, you bet I do. And then the priest just says,
okay, then. Okay then. And so he says,
hai says having a critter was the next logical step.
And he's talking about how they're trying to have a kid and they're unsuccessful with
that. That's right. She comes home from work, she's crying,
and he's like, what's wrong? She said, I'm barren. So it shows the doctors pointing
to this diagram of the reproductive system. And this is the quote that I love
from high so much. He says, the doctor explained that her insides were a rocky
place where my seed could find no purchase. Like,
God damn, such Coen brothers. Would you look, you stop for a second.
And you know, like I said, I was watching this going, I think I'd seen
this opening before, but like, generally speaking, I'm not super familiar with the movie,
so I was like, enjoying it as like a fresh watch. But lots of
context from future Coen brothers stuff and like the similarities in
just the way these people are talking to Big Lebowski and Fargo. And I felt
especially, oh, brother, where art thou? Right. Which even though that was deliberately set back
in like the twenties or the thirties of the Great Depression. Right. Like, you know,
much, much further in the past of this movie. There's just so many hints
at what's to come kind of from the Coen brothers imagination in this
movie. And certainly the purple prose of these characters
is a big part of that. Yeah. But. Yeah, so after they find out they
can't have kids, that's when we get the title card, which is 11 minutes
into the movie. I had to go back and look because we've had a lot
of like, cold opens. Like, I realized we've a ton of movies that have had
cold opens. Right. The Fugitive had a cold open. You know, Con Air had a
cold open. You know, Demolition man has a cold open. Right. This was
an 11 minute long cold open. Crazy. It's almost like a short film leading up
to this film. It's like the prequel. They just put it at the beginning of
the Movie to get us all set up. But. Yeah, but basically that brings us
to, you know, the, the existence of these two.
They have this like kind of double wide trailer they live in. And they're drifting
apart, you know, throughout this, you know, lack of success and trying to conceive
and everything. Wanting to have kids was huge for both of them. And so,
yeah, it really puts a strain on their relationship and.
Yeah. And that's when we find out about the Arizona Quints.
Yes. So Ed and hi are just kind of like slumped on the couch eating
off a TV tray. It's just the classic relationship that's not going
well. View. And on the TV comes this
big news story that there were quintuplets born to the Arizona family.
And it's a big deal and they get the idea.
And the Arizonas are rich people, basically. Nathan Arizona
and his wife, whose name I forget now, but whatever.
Nathan Arizona owns and runs the Unpainted Arizona,
which is like the state's largest retail store specifically
for unpainted wood furniture. I believe it's very specific. But he's got this saying
where he always says on his commercials, you know, like, you get the best price
here or my name isn't Nathan Arizona. Yeah. And of course the funny part we
find out later is he changed his name to Nathan Arizona. Really good. But yeah,
very funny, Very funny guy. But they kind of see this and they go,
man, that's not fun. Like, why should they have five babies
and we can't even have one? Right? And then we're shown the Arizonas
sitting there and it's set up, you know, just like a stage play, basically like
an unmoving scene where they're both on their chairs. It's settled in for the night.
She's sitting there reading Dr. Spock's like baby care book. And he's
just yelling at people on the phone like businessmen do. There's one really funny thing
because it gives us the location. Yeah. And then he's
talking to somebody on the phone and then it says 8:45pm and right as he's
saying, oh, what time is it? It's 8:45. Like he says it right after.
It's really just a funny. A funny way to do that.
Yeah. And they're hearing noises upstairs because,
well, somebody's there. Yeah. Right. And. And so
there's a lot of bouncing and banging and we cut up to the top before
the Arizona's make any real reaction. But we got up to the top and it's
high, high is up in the nursery, there's this enormous. Looks like something out
of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, like, huge bed for like five wide crib,
you know, Five wide crib. And it's got the baby's names on it. And for
whatever reason, their names are Harry, Barry, Gary,
Larry and Nathan Junior.
Why they needed to rhyme everybody but the Junior, who knows. Really nice touch,
though. But it's so funny. Hai is treating this like going to, like the pound
to get a dog. Right. He's, like, trying to play with different ones. He's trying
to keep them quiet, but he's also sort of trying to see, you know,
does this one like me? Does this one react well? What if I pick this
one up? You know, he's almost like kind of like trying to figure, like,
which one do I take? Because, you know, we. We understand how he's climbed up
through the window. Right. Because the last time we saw High and Ed, they were
driving away from their trailer with a ladder on the roof of the car.
So this is what. Is what they decided. Arizona's have enough babies. They need
a baby. And so they're going to go take them. But, you know, they're making
a lot of noise. The babies are making noise. High stumbling around. Yeah. Finally,
Nathan Arizona tells his wife, you know, why don't you go look at him?
Want to go check on them, see what they need? Yeah. And this
is great comedy by Nick Gage. I mean, again, he is really,
really funny, really good in this scene. And it's slightly
surreal. It's almost like 30% the Pee Wee universe. Almost.
There's some bit of surreality to it,
but, yeah, he's testing the babies and everything. And Mrs.
Arizona is coming upstairs to check on him. And then looks in the crib
and sees the babies are all just sitting there. They're fine. They're fine. He has
left, gone back to the car to Ed and say, I didn't get any of
them. Like, I couldn't tell which one to take. Like, whatever. I don't know about
this. And she is not having it. Ed is like, she won't let him in
the car. Yeah. She, like, locks the door, rolls the window up. You get back
in there, you get me a baby, you know? Yeah. When he comes back,
he says, it didn't. It just didn't work out. It didn't work out.
So. So, so he goes in and, you know.
Yeah, the. So Mrs. Arizona has gone back downstairs. Nathan or
High goes up, grabs a baby, comes back out. He says, she goes,
which one did you get? He goes, I think it's Nathan Junior. I also love,
like, I know it was the 80s, so it's like. But I've been thinking about
it from the perspective of someone who had kids in like the mid 20 teens.
That house is not baby proofed at all. Like, there's. There's no, there's no gate
at the top of the stairs. There's nothing. Like that is like not a safe
house. I mean, even the crawl babies. Yeah. Like if the babies can
crawl on top of each other, you make like a World War Z kind of
like zombie stack to get out of there. Like, also definitely do that. How long
has it been? Because we just saw the news report, we assume like that day
or the day before. Right. Like not a lot of time has passed. These are
clearly like six month old babies. Like maybe 40 or four to six
months old or something at least. Like, these are not. These are not newborns in
the Arizona household for sure. But High is very proud of the baby that he
got because he was kind of making faces to them as the mom was checking
on them before she left the room. Went back downstairs and he gets in the
car and she's. Ed is now clutching this baby. She's in
love with this High saying, he's awful damn good. I think I got the
best one. Yeah. And because he said damn, Ed has to tell him, don't you.
Don't you cuss around him? I love. He says, oh, he don't know a cuss
word from Shinola. Because I love don't know shit from Shinola as a saying.
So that was fun. So. So they bring him back to their trailer and
they have it prepared with this kind of welcome homestead. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They had already planned on it. Hai runs inside, goes to
the bedroom really quickly and realizes he has a Playboy hidden or
sitting out. So he goes to put it under the bed and then he's like,
huh. Pulls it out, takes one last look and then puts it under the bed.
It's so bizarre. There is so much like cartoonishness about this. I think
the comparison to Pee Wee is very apt. I think that there's a fair amount.
I think if you really look at the entire catalogs of the Coen
brothers as filmmakers and Tim Burton and maybe Wes Anderson, there's a ton
of stylistic overlap. Not. Not that any of them took from each other, but just
like the approaching a live action movie as if it is at
least partly animated. Yes. And is inspired by like Mel Blanc,
you know, And Jack Kirby, like, a little bit. Right. You know, both Looney Tunes
and maybe, like, comic books. Right. Really, really cool stuff. And the set
design in this, too, like, the. The baby nursery set is beautiful
looking. It's really well composed. I mean, there's so much thought put into that whole
thing. Even earlier, when they were doing the montage, he was talking about how Ed
had become kind of. Because of not being able to have a baby, had become
too depressed to do the laundry or whatever, and she's sitting there on the bed
and all this dirty laundry is scattered, but in such a beautiful way. So this
really has, like, the hunger of kind of young filmmakers all
over. Yes, absolutely. So I think it's around here that we get a cutaway to
a different scene outside of the prison. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah,
sorry. So he's holding the baby, and she says, the baby's very tired. Yeah,
yeah. And he goes and puts him on the couch and he says, hey,
pop those dogs up and take a load off.
And they're doing a. She wants to get a photo or he wants to get
a photo. That's right. And bust out this camera on a tripod. And she's very
concerned. She's trying to talk to him. She's trying to look at the baby.
And he's just holding his smile for the longest time. He's so nervous about missing
the opportunity of the photo. He's like, we're set to pop here. Yeah, we're set
to pop your honey. He says it a couple times really good. Oh, my God.
And they ended up with a very funny pose. So, yeah, now we're. Now we're.
So we cut elsewhere. We cut to, I mean, a prison, but we can assume
it's the prison that High has spent time in. And sure enough, the brothers William
Forsyth and John Goodman, they start climbing up through the ground, right. As if
they were buried alive and in graves. But really they're pulling kind of a Shawshank
several years before, where they had to. Where they tunneled out of the prison and
got into, like, the sewage system and come up just covered in human
waste. But they are able to pull out. I love John Goodmass. Reach down and
grab William Forsyth by the leg and sort of pull him upside down. Like,
it is like, how do you get upside down? How'd you get backwards in the
first place? It's like a cross between. Yeah. The breech birth through the.
Through the prison hole. It's like a cross between Shawshank
and the rhino birth from Ace Ventura. Oh, my God. Yes.
Yes. They really, they really nailed it. Which, which also then reminds me of.
Of Frank Reynolds in the couch and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
That was some Frank Reynolds looking stuff.
Absolutely. Yeah. So. So they go to kind of clean
themselves up. The brothers do in like probably. It must be like a gas station
bathroom or something like that. And they have the
just mind boggling amount of pomade that they are putting in their
hair. Like, absolutely gobs. And just the only way it's
like. They use the whole tin between the two of them, which is like,
that tin should last you like a couple of months. Right, Right. Doing your hair.
So they are just loading themselves up with pomade, which probably smells better than the
shit they're covered in. Yeah. You know, and it's raining, so maybe you're waterproofing yourself
to some degree. Yes. Really? Yeah, Very funny with that.
And they, they end up showing up. Yeah. There's a, there's a knock at the
door at High and Ed's place when they're enjoying their brand new baby at like
2:00am, right. And their friends very hilariously are saying, it's the
police. Open up. But so, yeah, so the
brothers come in and High's happy to see them, you know, and, oh, honey,
these are the boys from the joint. You know, they just got out. And of
course it comes through because they're covered in shit. And John Goodman mentions like,
oh, well, you know, when we're on our way out, we got into the sewer
system. Which is when Ed realizes, oh, you boys broke out of jail.
Oh, okay, you're not, you weren't like, released, like, you know. Yeah. And from Jump
Street. I feel like John Goodman's character is absolutely suspicious of this whole situation
with the baby and stuff. Like, immediately he's got a lie asking questions about
why does it say welcome home, son? And they have to like, you know,
they do that classic thing where they both try to tell a lie at the
same time, but they haven't talked to each other. So they're different lies about where
the baby was and why. Like, why would a baby be anywhere not with his
parents. Right. This doesn't make any sense. But he's immediately suspicious of what's going on.
But also, hai agrees to let him stay for a little bit. Got nowhere else
to go right now, so it's kind of like, all right, cool. But Ed,
Ed is suspicious of these guys, right? Well, she's a cop. I mean, you just
retired. Yeah, she, she, she knows she's a cop. So she's like, this is not.
I don't want these people around my baby kind of thing. And they say she's
asking them about, you know, what are they doing here. And I think William Forsyth
says, we released ourselves on our own recognizance.
Recognizance. It's like, that's not how that works, buddy.
So, so funny. So she basically goes to the bedroom. She's like, you guys got
to get out of here. I'm going in the bedroom with the. With the baby,
and at Nick Cage, and they're like, you know, I think she's got you on
a pretty tight leash. And then he looks and gives the funniest wink to them.
Yeah, Like, I've got. Don't worry, I've got a genius plan. And his genius plan
is that he just says, hey, they're gonna stay for a couple. Yeah, just for
a couple nights. Just for, like, two nights. Not for long. I also love this
interesting thing here where. Where so High tells. In the. In the intro segment,
he says his name is hi. Right. But call me High.
And William Forsyth's character always does call him High. John Goodman's character always
calls him hi. And I don't know if there's, like, something really ingrained
there we're supposed to understand about his relationship, or maybe he doesn't actually like High
as much as he pretends to. I don't know. But there's an interesting thing where
Goodman's character always calls him H. I never calls him High. Forsyth's character
always calls him High. Ed always calls him High. I don't think John Goodman ever
called him High. You know what's funny now that you bring that up? When they
introduce the baby to these guys, they say, this is Junior.
Right, Right. And William Forsyth's character says, J.R. like the TV show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, he's doing the initials now instead of pronouncing it.
It's so funny. And now we are back talking to Mr.
Arizona. That's right. The authorities are talking to Mr. Arizona. And this
is funny. They say, Mr. Arizona, which tot. Was abducted. And he
goes, Nathan Junior. I think. Well, they're all, you know, they're looks like they're identicals.
So, yeah, that's rough. And he's going on a rant about how these cops
don't have any leads. And I think we have some of the same kind of
interagency drama we talked about during Con Air with, you know, the FBI
versus the cops or. Whoever he had look at The. It's like the local sheriff.
Yeah, it's like the local sheriff is there. They're the ones more uniformed. And then
there's the two guys in the suits. I think they introduce themselves as FBI.
Right. Kidnapping and whatever else. And I guess that's an FBI kind of thing.
But, yeah, they. They are not. They are not happy with each other. They're both
trying to ask questions of Mr. Arizona at the same time and kind of talking
over each other. So those two law enforcement agencies are not operating well. And that
pisses Mr. Arizona off even more. And he's kind of. That's when he kind of
goes on his rant. Yeah. You know, and everything. But he basically is like,
you guys need to find this baby. Like, so he's like, you're leaving microbes everywhere.
And he's, like, picking up this. And the cops have left this, like, super disrespectful
mess. He's like, you're all hanging out in the one house in this world that
we know my kid is not at. Good point. Which is a very good point.
Good point. Oh, and he does say that his wife and the other four babies
have left. Gone to, like, her mom's house or something. So they're not there anymore.
Right. Just as a thing. So. Yeah, but. So Mr. Arizona alone at home.
Cut back to Ed and high.
And the whole thing is like, the boys can't hang out. The jailbird
boys can't hang out in the day because some of their friends are coming over.
Some of their proper friends. Proper. Whatever. Yeah, exactly. Proper friends.
So it's Frances McDormand, and I can never remember the actress. Lance McMurray.
One of the best. So great. And he's in, I mean, so much stuff.
We'll see him. We've seen him. Yeah. I mean, from 80. Yeah. We're covering 80
to 99. That guy was probably in 150 movies from 80 to 99.
Great actor. He. He's a good best friend to the main guy.
And that's his position in a lot of situations. Absolutely. But, yeah, he adds
a ton to it. So they show up and they're this family that have five,
six kids. They got a whole bunch of kids, right? Demon children. Absolute demon children.
Every archetype of the worst kind of kid. Like, every different type of bad kid
they have. They're writing on the walls. They're throwing things around, wrestling and
screaming and getting into whatever kind of trouble. And of course, the parents are just
oblivious, essentially, to this. They don't care either. They don't notice or they don't care.
Yeah. And Frances McDormand, like, all she wants to do is see the baby.
She wants to see the new baby. But she's, you know, like that classic,
like Coen Brothers. And this is so great, too. Again, like, just to take a
step back a second to watch these actors who would later go on to be
in many more Coen Brothers movies, and to see I. Again, I don't. I haven't
seen Blood simple, so I'm assuming, at least for a few of these, is their
first encounter with the Coens as filmmakers. And it's just they fit so well.
Goodman and McDormand in particular, fit so well into these roles
and the style, because the overacting is such a part of it,
you know? And to get the right Coen Brothers vibe, there's gotta be
overacting. You know, if you think about the big Lebowski, Goodman overacts huge in that.
As. So as Walter Sobchak and Jeff Bridges even does a little bit by
kind of underacting in that movie. Right. But everybody. The Cohen seem to require
from their actors either ridiculously big or
almost inexplicably small performances in order to
get the right vibe. And it's so great. And Frances McDormand literally bursts
onto the screen and into the trailer and is just immediately
captivating. She's so great, and she doesn't get a ton of screen time in
this film. Yeah, she's incredible. I mean, that's why she's
a legend, right? Absolutely. And then Glenn Lance McMurray at. Glenn is such a
typical, like, shithead. He wants to tell, like,
racist jokes to you. He wants to. He's ignoring his kids. He's. And then he's
bragging about how his one kid. Oh, Buford over there, already learned his ABCs.
And then it shows him writing fart on the wall.
Oh, my God. Yeah. He tells a Polish joke, which is like. When I heard
it, I was like, God, that's. It's so wrong in such an archaic
way now. Like, nobody has done that. I feel like for 35 years.
Like, nobody has told a Polish joke anywhere in the world for 35 years.
And here we are. Well, in these jokes, it's not like, oh, you have to
really understand Polish culture to get this. It's just like, all right, this is a
joke about whoever we're going to say is the dumb class of. Yeah, exactly.
But, yeah, I remember those really flying around. Oh, yeah. And especially guys
like that. I Mean, he would be like the asshole uncle by marriage that shows
up. And you're just like, oh, this guy. He is Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite
meets the boss you hate. Like, that's like, oh,
yeah. So that's the other thing is that he is hired. Oh, that's right.
You should mention a supervisor at work. You have to kind of
put up with his bullshit jokes. And we've all been through that before where you
have to sit there. I used to have this boss who would
tell the worst jokes in the world. And if I didn't give him a reaction,
he would tell me like, I don't get jokes. And he would have me
call his clients. This is my first job out of college, and this guy was
a monster. But he would have me call his clients for whatever business reason,
and then he would also say and tell them this joke.
And he would give me an exact joke to tell them. And sometimes I wouldn't
tell him. He'd be like, oh, he didn't. He said, you didn't tell a joke.
I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, seriously torture, dude. Wow.
So. So, yeah, shout out to Mark. I hope he's no longer in
charge of anybody. Hey, one of my first bosses I hated was named Mark.
Isn't that funny? It's crazy. Anyway. Oh,
okay, hold on a second. I have to bring up this line
here. When they're at the house and the jailbirds are there and they're
kind of watching as Ed is feeding the baby with the bottle. Oh, right.
And John Goodman, I think, says, why aren't you breastfeeding?
You appear to be capable. Yeah.
And then they go on and talk about how they were not breastfed by their
mother and look at, you know, and that's why they're the way they are.
Why they're. They're jailbirds, supposedly. So. And I got a
little hint that maybe they just wanted a little exhibition in front of them.
Certainly seemed like it. But yeah, I don't. I don't think they're actually out
there giving good pediatric advice. They're probably going to see a nipple or two.
Yeah, sorry. Okay, back to Glenn and daughter there at the house.
And. And Dot is really concerning Ed and asking her, well, have you done this?
Have you done this? Do you have this set up? Do you have a college
fund? Do you have a pediatrician? All this stuff. Do you have these shots and
all? And she gets kind of like, I just found out about that. Right.
Well, because she's holding a six month old. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know,
from Dot's perspective, it's like, what the hell have you been doing? How do you
not have a pediatrician yet you were pregnant for nine months. Going to your ob
gyn, then having a bit like. Of course you have a. You don't. What.
It actually. Dot's not being unreasonable, right?
The expectations we like. It's funny, because I was watching this think to
myself, oh, man, she is really going hard on them on the second day they
have a baby. And then I thought to myself, wait, wait, wait, wait. No,
no, no, she doesn't. If she knew it was the second day they had a
baby, she'd have called the cops. Like, it'd be clear that they kidnapped this child.
Yeah. That's the thing I love about this movie. Just like, for a second here,
let's just appreciate the fact that the Coen brothers have given us a film where
in our heroes and the people that we are so clearly rooting for the entire
time are kidnappers. Like,
it takes me a minute to, like, recognize that, but it's really true.
But I think it works because, I mean, the Arizon doesn't
appear to be, like, appropriately tormented by what's happened to them. They seem
more offended that someone would take something from them. But I feel like he'd be
just as pissed if his car got stolen. Exactly. It seemed like that. Yeah.
So Glenn is telling hi.
He casually suggests,
hey, we're swingers. He brings this up,
what about some wife swapping? And I don't know if he was trying to propose
it as a solution to his own problem. Because the other
thing that he has mentioned multiple times is that there's something. Something ain't right with
my semen. Right. That's right. He says it several times because Dot wants a
sixth, seventh, or whatever. So they have a crazy amount of kids. And he's
basically suggesting wife swapping. I don't know if it's a solution so that High could
maybe impregnate his wife, but either way, it's inappropriate. Hai is not interested in it.
Yeah, because he says, like, Dot thinks you're pretty handsome. And I certainly
think, you know, I mean, Ed's quite the looker. Whatever he's trying to say.
And Hyde does not get it at first. And he goes, you know, what are
you talking about? And he goes, oh, we're swingers. I'm talking about wife swapping.
Yeah. And he just. And he knocks him out high. Just gives him one right
to the. Right to the nose and just punches the hell out of him.
And Glenn runs off and. Right into a tree. Right into it.
He hurts himself way worse. Like, what are those?
Saguaro. Yeah. The ones that wave goodbye
to you. Yeah. So he runs right into a cactus. Like, all bad for them.
But I think that's. I think that's the last we see of Glenn and Dot
for a little bit. Yeah. And he's screaming high screaming, keep your goddamn hands
off my wife. Which is very Will Smithy.
Yeah. But much more desert. Glenn deserves it more than Chris Rock did, that's for
sure. So they decide that they don't have enough. They have
not prepared enough for this journey of parenthood. And among the things
they need is diapers. Like, they don't have enough diapers. I don't have any diapers
at the house. But they definitely have enough. They need to go get more diapers.
And so they pull up to convenience store, they park and,
you know, hi gets out. And the first thing we see him pick up when
he's in the convenience store is some pantyhose. Yep. Because he's going to pull that
over his face and stick the place up. And sure enough, he does.
The clerk in there is. He's kind of like the donut shop kid from Boogie
Nights. And he's sitting there reading a jugs magazine. That's right. As he comes up
to him. Yeah. So he says, I'm going to take these diapers and whatever cash
you have in that drawer. At which point Ed looks up and notices what hai
is doing and is mad and starts, that son of a bitch. That son of
a bitch. And she drives off, and she drives off and. Oh, and the clerk
had a little alarm button to the cops. He was able to push when the
gun came out. So she. That's, I think, why Ed looks up, she hears the
sirens off in the distance and then realizes what hai's doing. And she drives away
because she's like, I got the baby in the car. Like, I'm not gonna just
do this. We're not going down for this. He starts running after her. Like,
he runs out, runs after her. And the coolest. I swear to God,
this is the coolest chase scene ever. In movie history. In movie history.
First of all, it is over 8 minutes long, which is amazing.
19 minutes of this movie is the cold open and this chase.
Yeah. And the whole movie is only 94 minutes. Yeah. Yeah.
But it's a great. So he. And there's the pieces. Some of the pieces of
this I love. The cops start shooting at him immediately.
They don't yell, freeze. No regard for anything. They're shooting at houses,
they're shooting everywhere. It's just ridiculous. He gets into a backyard
and there is the second, a primary attack
dog of the 80s, the Rottweiler. That's right. Not a. Not a Doberman, not a
Doberman, but one step down. But a Rottweiler comes in and of course,
it's on those staked chains, right? That's just long or just short enough that it
doesn't get him and he's able to get away. But, like, that little moment is
one that I love. But yeah, it's like all this up until finally,
I guess Ed decides that she's going to try to find him and pick him
up and sure enough is able to, like, drive and see and find.
Oh, no, he go to the grocery store first. He runs into the grocery store
and. They'Re shooting up the grocery store in the grocery store. So insane. And he's.
He's throwing diapers at the cop and stuff, like the things that he's
doing. And then the grocery store worker pulls out a shotgun shooting. So everyone is
just blasting at it. I mean, this is a Western, but it's set in
the kind of the way that they talk and everything.
It's kind of deadwoodish a little bit. The vocabulary that
they use. Like a modern western. Yeah, yeah, 100%, yeah. And the
soundtrack to this whole scene worked so well. And it's music I
would never listen to in real life, but in this scenario, this yodeling country music,
kind of pre Hank Williams style of country music that we knew
in this is just, oh, my God, it works so well. And it
stops for a bit and then it comes back on when the dog gets off
the chain. Really, really well done, but, yeah, super, super enjoyable.
And he's being chased by a mob of other dogs, too, because they all join
the Rottweiler. So he's going through a house and everything.
We're getting a chase similar to the Point Break chase.
Oh, yeah. Where Johnny Utah is, you know, running through the apartment and the sliding
door and stuff. Really, really great. And it ends with,
he's in the car, she's yelling at him, she slaps
him immediately. That's right. And he does a classic face when you get slapped
and it turns your entire head. And she's
yelling at him and he's like, turn right here, sweetie. Turn left here, sweetie.
While he's absorbing everything she's saying. And he ends up scooping the diapers
up off the road. A foreshadow to a future scene
where someone has to scoop something off the road as well. But we'll get to
that when we get to it. Yeah. From going into the store to
picking up the diapers off the street. I timed it as eight minutes, which is,
like, so insane, but so much fun.
Oh, my God. Like, just a great scene. Absolutely great.
Oh, he had the nylon on. And he tried to get into another guy's truck
at one point. That's right. He gets in there and the guy looks at him,
he goes, son, you got a panty on your head.
Oh, man. Oh, man. So fantastic stuff. Yes.
So we get back to the trailer, I believe, and the brothers are
there. And I've got a note here that basically says
one of them, Cohen, I think it's William Forthsize to go. What? He need his
dip tet. Like, he knows what the shot is. But I can't remember the context
of what happened there, but it was very funny. That was really what dipted.
It was. And they're just surrounded by empty beer cans
and stuff. And Ed basically takes the baby into the bedroom. She's like, I'm.
You know, we'll fight about this tomorrow, but I gotta go to bed. Yeah.
And they're trying to convince High that, you know, hey,
you're a criminal, right? Yeah. This is not for you. You shouldn't be a dad.
But you can at least send money to this family, Right. You know, that's the
plan. And we have this plan to heist this bank, right? There's a bank.
It's like all farmers and hillbillies and hayseeds, they say. But it's like on the
whatever day of the month, every month there's more money in the bank because people
come in and check their farm cash, their farm subsidies, checks. So the bank has
to have more cash on hand at the time. And that's when they're going to
rob it is the idea is they'll go knock it over when it's extra flush
with cash, which makes a lot of sense. One thing I did notice, while they
were chatting with Hai in the front seat, we kept cutting to ostensibly
Ed and the baby sleeping in the next room. But that baby is never asleep.
Not once. Are any of the babies in this movie actually shown sleeping. I don't
know if it was a thing about not being able to get one to fall
asleep with cameras and lights around or what, but they're definitely never asleep.
They did shoot it from behind, and it doesn't move Around a whole lot,
so you kind of get the feel. But it's like, if you look closely,
it's like, oh, no, no. That little bugger still moving around. Yeah.
So at this point, when John Goodman's telling them, you know,
how they found out about this bank, he has kind of a funny anecdote about
some guy that we met in prison who used to be Richard Nixon's
secretary of Agriculture or whatever. And he says,
ordinarily, we don't associate with that type.
Yeah, right. That's so much worse than the pet criminals they are.
Yeah. So high. Basically writes a, you know, goodbye letter. Hey,
I. I'm a criminal. I'm out. Like, I'd rather have you resent me
while I'm sending you money than me fail to be, you know, what I need
to be when I'll. When I'm around here. I mean, they know, you know,
he's basically, at this point, he hasn't talked to Glenn yet, but he's figuring he's.
He's lost his job. Right. He punched his supervisor in the nose, so that's done.
And he wondering, how is he even gonna, you know, support the family
and, like. And, like, make money for them to buy food and stuff? So right
in his mind, this is like the next right move.
And I think that's when Glenn shows. Up at the door, I believe so.
First we have a flash to another character
that we haven't brought up yet. Oh, yeah. Who just showed up a little bit
earlier. And we're kind of unsure if this is just a figment of hai's
imagination or if this is a real guy. But hai said that kind of when
I did a bad thing, then it's almost like he summoned this biker of the
apocalypse is what he referred to him as. Like he dreamed him into existence,
almost. Yeah. Yeah. And it's this great, great character actor from the
time, Randall Texcoff, who is this big. I guess he used to be a boxer
or something like that. Ended up being an actor.
Very good at being, like, a goofy, intimidating guy.
Yeah. And he's on his motorcycle, he's filthy.
He's smoking the worst looking cigars I've ever seen in my life. He's got shotguns,
grenades, all this stuff. And he's just, like, killing small animals as he travels the
travels across the country. So at this point, we see that he
has arrived now at Arizona's office. That's right, at the unpainted
Arizona offices. And he's basically there like Nathan Arizona's secretary
Somebody says, oh, sir, I don't know why he's here. Like, he didn't. He just
came right in kind of thing. And this character, and his name is Leonard Smalls,
he tells Arizona, like, you know, basically, there's a reward out for
your baby. I know how to find it. That's what I do. I find things.
But here's the thing. That price is not enough. Nathan Arizona has offered $25,000
for the return of his baby, and he basically says, healthy, white baby.
I can get a lot than that from somebody else. So if you're not willing
to pay 50,000, somebody else will. Yeah. And I'm going to find the baby either
way. Like, I'm going to get the baby either way. I don't see that in
many. I mean, I like this. This device of being like, well, I'm.
I'm stealing the baby no matter what, either for you or it's gone.
So happy to return the baby to their rightful place, but only if you give
me what I want. Yeah. It's like second kidnapping. And the way he.
The way he talks is very funny as well. Yeah.
So he says to Mr. Arizona's, like, the rewards. $25,000.
He says, the price is not what you say it is. It's what the market
will bear. All these different, like, it very Lebowski
ish, the way that randomly a character will have some very prescient thought.
We just got a very brief lesson on Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market.
Right. Exactly.
So. So now Glenn. Now we're back at the trailer.
Right. So Glenn has showed up basically to first to tell. Hi. That he's fired.
Yep. Right. You're fired. There's that. But then they realize he's got a newspaper,
and it shows, like, that, you know, Nathan Jr. Or Nathan Arizona Jr.
Has been kidnapped. And Glenn said, I know.
Like, we dot and I know that who that baby is. That's not your baby.
That's the Arizona baby. And here's the thing. We're not going to turn you in
because you're going to give that baby to us, and we're going to raise that
baby because Doc wants a baby. And so they're basically like, same idea, but it's
basically like, if you. You've got. I think he says two days. You've got two
days, like, hand over the baby, or we're going to go to the cops and
turn you in. Yeah. Which is like, there's not a whole lot of ways out
of that. It seems like. Right. Initially, at least. No, no.
Yeah. Really, really brutal. So Glenn takes off, and I think this is the
last we see of Glenn. So in the meantime. Not quite. There's a little bit.
There's a little scene with Glenn later. He gets himself in some trouble, but that's
okay. Oh, okay. So. So this is funny
here. So now. Now High is back in there, and we've got the jailbirds there,
and they seem to have changed their plan and they're kind of like.
Because they heard Glenn say who this. Baby is,
so they know this baby is valuable as hell. So we're doing our crime
spree still, but we're taking this baby with us, and we don't need High as
any part of this. Well, I think it's mainly they're. They're. I think initially they're
like, we can still knock that bank over, but, like, we'll return this baby and
get the $25,000 reward. I mean, that's what they're thinking, which is like, guys,
you are fugitive, so you need to be careful about trying to collect on a
legitimate reward. Seriously, they're gonna put you back in jail, guys.
But they basically. So they. There's this huge fight that happens mostly between Goodman
and High while Forsyth holds the baby. Yeah. And one of my favorite moments in
it is that they're both such big guys. Cage and Goodman are both very tall.
Yeah, they scrape. I think it's Kate scrapes his knuckles on, like, the popcorn ceiling
dude. And he goes for like a double. Ax handle attack and scrapes
his knuckles. And he's screaming like crazy. And I wrote
down at this point point that up till this point, because there's been
a lot of it. Some of the best man screaming I've ever seen in a
movie. And we haven't even scratched the surface yet.
But, yeah, I love that Popcorn ceilings came into play. That's a. It's a
very nice detail. Very classic. Very classic. And so basically,
they beat the hell out of High and they leave with, you know,
whatever car that they stole to show up in. Right. But they leave with the
baby, and it's like almost immediately they're falling in love with the baby, too.
They talk about the baby and wanting to keep it. And, like, look at him.
He's so great and he looks so perfect. Whatever. So these guys are now.
They've now changed their plan again. They're not going to turn the baby in.
Yeah. The 25,000 reward, they're going to go rob the bank, but that baby's going
to be in our crew. He's in the crew now. You know, maybe in a
couple of years, he'll be able to, like, you know, he'll. He'll be the River
Phoenix sneakers character. He'll go through. Yeah, right. You know, that kind of thing.
But yeah, so they go. And they go. This is when they go to get
some baby stuff, I think, at a convenience store, and then stick
it up instead of paying for it. But they're asking the old timer behind
the counter advice on what to get. And he
gives them advice. Then they pull the gun. Okay, thanks very much. We're gonna go
now. And I love it because this is something. We haven't mentioned this earlier in
the episode, but several characters, especially in the very beginning segment, said okay
then. But they all said it, okay then. I think the parole board does it.
I think that's what the priest or the minister for the wedding says it that
way. And this old timer is like, all right, you get down now, this William
Forsythe. You get down and you count to 500, and then you count back down
for 500, and I'm going to come back in five minutes and make sure you're
counting, if not, blow you away. Yeah. And he goes, okay, then.
And, like, gets down on the ground. One, two, three.
And it's like, so. So the things that they get from the store, he gets
the diapers. And he asked the clerk, you know, how do you attach the diapers?
The thing that I loved is there's this bag of
balloons. And he sees this bag of balloons and he goes.
He goes, these blow up into funny shapes. And then the guy. And then
the clerk goes, not lest you think round is funny.
But he takes the balloons and he takes the diapers and whatever. And so then.
So they go. And they. You know, I think. I think even Goodman's filling up
the car with gas or whatever. They're ready to go rob this banks, get in
the car and they head off, and not too far,
but, like, actually apparently pretty far away. They realized that car seat is not in
the back of the car. They left the baby, as it turns out, in the
middle of the damn street, which is, like, pretty wild.
Well, they left him on the roof of the car when they drove. That's what
it was, right? And somehow he fell. They're freaking, didn't get hurt, which is great.
But, like. And they are losing their minds. Both of them screaming.
It's very funny, the male screaming. Just absolutely
losing their minds. And they end up getting back and they. They have the Baby.
Yeah, and they, you know, and then they go towards
the bank. And at the same time, now Ed and High are looking. Looking to
retrieve the baby. Yeah, they've also. And they're on the road. Ed came home,
found High, whatever, and they're out looking for the other. They. They know, obviously,
the twin, you know, the brothers took the baby, so they're out looking for it.
At which point, I believe this is where Leonard shows up at the double wide
and sees the chaos and all of the, like, you know, mess and everything with
the fight that happened. But he knows now, okay? Now the baby. Baby's not here.
He's got to go looking for the baby. But he's a tracker, right? You got
to figure he probably can follow a couple sets of car tracks.
Well, earlier, when he first encountered the
pomade in the bathroom, he sniffed like he was picking up
the actual scent of it. Interesting thing, that bathroom where they put the pomade
on their hair had graffiti on the door, and it said Poe
was the top thing that it said. And then it said eop. It said it
in, like, a different thing, but it says po. So once again, Con Air prequel.
See, I'm such a nerd. I heard Poe. I immediately thought power over Ethernet.
I was like, I don't think that existed in 87. But anyway, yeah, so now.
So now Leonard is on the trail. So everybody is heading, and the brothers have
gone to this hayseed bank, this farmers and mechanics bank or something like that that
they're going to go stick up. And I love their outfits. They got the big
trench coats on. They look very much the part. They still have. Their hair is
still ridiculously green, greasy and everything. And they go in, and they bring the baby
in with them, right? They have a discussion before they go in. They say,
well, if we leave him in the car and something happens to us, it might
be hours before somebody finds him. That's too dangerous. So let's just bring him into
our gunfight. Potential gunfight. You know, I mean, I got to give him respect for,
like, kind of recognizing that, like, a baby left alone in a car for hours
could be very dangerous. Like, maybe not. You know, that could be all bad.
But the alternative being bring him into the bank robbers does
not seem like the right call at all. But that's okay.
So they go in and they put the baby down. And this scene is excellent.
It's really amazing. And they start off with John Goodman yells, all right, everybody freeze.
Get down on the floor. And, like, nobody moves. And finally, this, like, old Guy
closes and goes, well, son, which is it? You want me to freeze or you
want me to hit the ground? Because if I hit the ground, I'll have stopped
freezing. If I freeze, ain't no way I'm reaching the ground. Just like,
so explanatory. And then they're like, where'd the tellers
go? And then they're like, we're down here. They dropped like you
told them to, buddy. Like, yeah, really good.
And they call each other by their real name. And then he's kind of like,
oh, why did you use my real name? He's like, code name. You mean your
code name? Oh, that's right. Code name. That's right. We're using code names.
Such an excellent scene, though. And they end up getting their bag filled
with money, and then the teller puts one of those, like, exploding dye canisters in
there. Yeah. So the dye packs, they've gotten much smaller. They used to be.
Yeah, it was like a whole canister. Enormous. It would have been easier to
ditch, you think. If you look for half a second. You know, that's like a.
A Coors Light pint can, you know. Yeah.
So they're driving away and they're like, oh, we got the money. Yeah. Like,
we're good. Yeah. How much is this split? Three ways. Kind of like because.
Because they're going to give the baby. Yeah, yeah. And they turn back and then
they realize. We did it again. Right. That baby's not there.
And pretty much at the same time, they realize that the dye explodes and it's
just blue that they can't wipe. Off the windows and stuff inside the windshield.
They can't see anywhere. So they crash. Right. Like, and. Yeah.
And they encounter Ed and. Hi. Oh, that's right.
That's right. Who are like, where's the baby? What'd you do back at the bank?
So then they take off after him, and William Forsyth is like, I'm worried.
That sick about him. It's our baby, too. So good.
So. So they go back to the bank, and now, of course,
they didn't leave the baby inside the bank. They kind of, once again, either put
it on the roof and then drove off, or they left it. So it's in
the street. So High and Ed are racing in their car towards the baby,
and I got a little nervous at this point, just thinking, like, they might want
to slow down at some point here because you don't want to run the baby
over or whatever. Yeah. But they go and. But before they can reach the baby,
they See off in the distance, coming from the other direction, this motorcycle.
And it's Leonard Smalls. And he actually is able to swipe the baby
up just like high, grabbing the diapers off the road and kind of stick the
car seat on the handlebars, I guess. Yeah, just sort of the bikes have that
built in baby seat. And like, it's like he was prepared. We had those when
our kids were little. We had the little like a carrying thing that, yeah,
like clicked into the base, would stay in the car. You click it in and
out. It's like. But that was pretty advanced. They don't have that 87, I don't
think. But yeah. So now Leonard's got the baby and. Basically they're
driving the car at him. He pulls out a shotgun. Excellent blast out of the
windshield. One of my favorites that I've seen in a film. Really good windshield blast.
They kind of crash their car. So he has the baby and Ed
just kind of marches up to him like, no weapon. Just like, fuck you,
buddy. That is my baby. I'm taking it. That's when she delivers the
famous line, right? Like, it's not just. It's, I want that baby. Give me
that baby. You give me that baby, you warthog from hell.
He does look like a warthog. He's all furry. He does.
And then he has a couple like, knives ready. That's right. Basically,
High is able to shoot him directly in the hand, which really good accuracy.
And then with his other hand, he throws the knife and knocks the gun out
of his hand. Perfect shot. So lots of accurate action. Yeah, really nice.
Yeah. Dead eyes. Even with all like the bad cigar smoke and dirt in his
eyes, he really does it in the sun and everything. So Hai and
the biker end up in this great fistfight. And this
is again, Nic Cage's faces while he's getting beat up
are just this amount of overacting that make it so perfect
and it's really, really funny. So his physical comedy
chops are excellent. In this movie. As he's getting beat up,
it turns out that the biker is able to get him in some sort
of a bear hug. And he's just crushing it, Right. And he has
this vest on with all these grenades. He's like a bandolier across his chest.
And Hai is able to pull the pin from one of those grenades before
he gets away a little bit. Yeah. I would recommend separate
grenade storage. Maybe not on your person. Maybe have a grenade duffel
bag in a blast proof trunk or something like that. It really should be in
a box with a biometric scanner to make sure. And the kids can't get a
hold of the grenade. And that's really important. You don't want the kids in your
grenade stash. Before Leonard Smalls blows up, we do.
See, on his chest is the same tattoo that High has on his
arm. Right? That looks vaguely like the Looney Tunes Roadrunner character, but not exactly.
I can't quite tell what that image is supposed to be or why they have
the same tattoo. Yeah, I don't know if it's like a car thing, like a.
We'll have to look at. We'll add a correction next. Next year
when we do this again, Right? Yeah. So he notices the tattoo.
And I thought for a second, like, oh, maybe that they'll come to some sort
of affiliation buddies. Look, you and I, we're not so different.
Nope. He just pulls the pin, blows Leonard up. And before he
blows up High looks at him and he's just like, I'm sorry.
Blows his ass up. I'm sorry.
So Leonard's gone. The brothers are Sol and High and
Ed have got Nathan Jr back. And they decide
to do the right thing. So they drive to the Arizona house and
climb up the ladder into the nursery and go put the baby back
in the thing. But I think that's when. With the burnt out copy of
the Dr. Spock's book, which is really funny how that travels with the baby wherever
he goes. When hai first took the baby, he grabbed that and
he said, oh, look here, hon, I got the instruction manual.
But yeah, so. So they are bringing them back and there's this really great sort
of conversation between. Because basically, hi. And Ed.
Ed's so mad that hai got the baby re.
Kidnapped by the. By the jailbird brothers, that. That she's basically telling them, like,
we're not sticking together. You know, we're done. And. And so there's
this really great scene between. Between hai and Ed and. And Nathan
Arizona about, like, what it takes to keep people together. And I'm so sorry
you can't have babies. But, like, maybe there's something else, you know, that will keep
you two together. You gotta, like, talk to each other. It was a very interesting
kind of nice thing. And yeah, and we did. I did leave. We know.
Obviously, with the sense. I think that High and Ed are fine.
You know, we get a little bit of an epilogue that kind of just,
you know, talks about them still being together. And that's a good thing. Yeah.
And the epilogue, I mean, the speech by Nathan Arizona. Because the
tone of this movie, it's still. Even though it's like outlaws on the
run, it's a very sweetly intentioned movie in a
lot of ways, you know, if misguided. But it's like, at its
heart, it's like somebody who's doing what they think the right thing is in a
stupid way. Yeah. And. And the Nathan Arizona conversation
really kind of ties it together. And he even empathizes with them when they
say, we can't have kids of our own. And he kind of alludes to fertility
treatment, it seems like, because he's like, oh, my wife and I couldn't. And now
look at this shit. Yeah. Although they mentioned that they did some kind of fertility,
even at the beginning of the movie when they first announced that. That the quintuplets
were born, there was some comments about. About they were trying. And they used to
like this new fertility drug. And suddenly, boom, five kids. So that
is part of it. So I thought this was kind of funny. So after this
conversation, and Nathan's like. He lets them say goodbye, and he's like, well, why don't
you go out. The way you came? And then he goes. Just leaves the room
with them with the baby that they just kidnapped,
just unsupervised. I can't co sign that.
Action. Mr. Arizona. You should have at least waited for them to leave and then
lock the window behind them or something. Yeah. So.
Yeah. So the movie ends with a voiceover. By,
like, it started. Yeah, just like it began. And he's talking about
a dream that he had, which is like, kind of a theme that's come through
a couple times in this film. And part of
the dream is that his jailbird buddies, like, went back to prison through
the hole that they escaped. Climbed back in, put themselves back where they belong.
And he's thinking about other people in his life. He's thinking about his friend Glenn.
And he says, yeah, maybe people finally got tired of hearing his jokes.
And it shows him too many Polish jokes. And it shows him being pulled over
by an officer who has a badge that says Officer Kowalski. Kowalski.
Sergeant, I believe. And then he goes to this scene
of the Arizona family on Christmas morning. He's like, well, maybe Nathan Junior opens a
gift from a couple he's never met before. And it shows him getting a football.
And maybe this football inspires him in some way later in life,
he's star. And he's dreaming and talking about how,
I've never dreamed this far into the future. And it wasn't super clear to me,
but it was an old couple who I thought was me and Ed and Dude,
I mean, really kind of a tearjerker. That last scene, it was very, very sweet.
Talking about how I envision kind of no matter what, we're still
okay. We're still together. We have all this happiness in our lives. We have a
family who's okay. We have grandkids who are okay. Kind of everything's
gonna be okay. I can't see for sure that that's what this is, but that's
what this feels like to me. And that's kind of like how it wraps.
And it certainly looks like the intimation or what he's dreaming ahead, whatever, is that
they do end up having. Through adoption or something else. I don't know. I mean,
they do try adoption early in the movie, but because of High's criminal past.
Right. It's denied. But it looks like two kids because there's like two adult
couples at their Thanksgiving table. And then like they've each got five kids. So,
you know, so even if Hai and Ed can't have a ton of kids,
they end up with a couple and then 10 grandkids or something like that.
So, you know, it's a very much like that. That is as happy an ending
as two kidnappers could possibly ask for, frankly. Like, that is.
But. But that's. That's Raising Arizona. Very, very fun
movie. Really great to. To look back at a very,
very early Coen Brothers film. This also marked, by the way, one, this was the
last year pretty much until Leaving Las
Vegas, where Cage was in really good movies. Because in 87, both this
movie and Moonstruck came out okay. And then there was like, he had. Like the
guarding test era, like all that kind of stuff. Something someone like
you in Vegas. Was that before leaving? That was before, yeah. But it's like there,
there's this. He did this stretch of like kind of romcoms and just kind of
crap until Leaving Las Vegas, which, you know, regenerated his career.
But this was sort of the, the end of. Of kind of an era of
Cage's career. Yeah. And he really got sucked into kind of really
just crappy mainstream rom com stuff that weren't even all that
good for the most part, for at least the next five, I think seven or
eight years. Right. Until. Until leaving Las Vegas in 95. So.
But, you know, a lot of fun and a very different look at Nicholas
Cage, which I think is. It's great for our cagevember episodes. Absolutely. Yeah,
well, this was my pick. Should I go ahead and rate this first? Go for
it. All right. So, yeah. I mean, and such a fun case. What a great
look, by the way. Yes, this is a fun. Like, I'd like to. I don't
know if I talked about it on the pod, but I like to do.
I like to paint. And a lot of the stuff that I've done is just
kind of like, you know, fan art type stuff, like a painting of a scene
from a movie or a character or whatever. And I think this character is definitely
on my list as someone that would be really fun to paint. I just love
the look. I love the way this movie looks and feels in general.
It's almost 40 years old. It doesn't feel super out
of place. I mean, it obviously doesn't take place now, but you're not like,
oh, this doesn't hold up. There's a couple lines where you're like, okay, maybe you
tweak that a little now, but a lot of time has passed.
All the performances were bangers. And this really helped
hopefully launch, like, part of the long and successful careers of some of the people
that we love so much that are in this movie as a Cage. I mean,
this isn't the Cage. Iest Cage has ever been, but it was early in his
career, and you definitely see glimpses of his range and, like, his ability. I don't
know. His face is really magical. Jim Carrey gets credit for being rubber face.
Cage is, like, secondary rubber face, I feel. Absolutely. Yeah. So,
yeah, I enjoyed the shit out of this movie. There's a lot of laughs in
here. I'm going to go ahead and give the Coen brothers and Nick Cage a
four and a half out of five. Wow. For Raising Arizona. Fantastic. Yeah. I also
really enjoyed it. I thought it was really great to watch. Like I said kind
of earlier in Nicholas Cage's career, not. Not earliest. I mean, he definitely. He started
in the 70s, but, like, you know, very, very early part of the Coen brothers
filmmaking career. And it was a really interesting way to look at this. Holly Hunter
is a delight. She's an absolute delight. Didn't even talk about her. I mean,
like, she's. Yes. So good. So good in this. It's really, really a lot of
fun. And. And. And looks great. She's gorgeous, too. And. And the whole thing that
all the character actors that are in it, you know, from Glenn and Dot to
the jailbird brothers to. To Nathan Arizona, like, and Leonard Smalls, like, all the whole
cast is just A really great group, really great ensemble. Had a
lot of fun with it. Didn't, like, was not head over heels for it.
Definitely wasn't, like, oh, my God, that's amazing. Like, if I don't watch it again
for a while, it's not going to, like, bother me kind of thing. But I
really enjoyed it. And I'm going to give it a three and a half out
of five. So that makes us an eight out of ten. The two dads are
an eight out of ten on Raising Arizona. Yeah. Which is, I think,
pretty fair. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Yeah. If you haven't seen this,
I mean, this is really worth putting on your list. And again, it's only an
hour and a half long, so it's a breeze. It's really fun.
Yeah. And it looks good and sounds good and everything.
And, man, I'm kind of sad, Steve, that we're already, like, three quarters of the
way through cagevember. We are. We are. We have one more cagevember movie to
do. And I am going to take us back away from the 80s
cage. Yes. And we're going back to the mid-90s, and we're going to go a
little full circle. And I've got a whole timeline of
a theoretical kind of, how did we get to this point that we'll go into
in the episode, but basically we're going back to 1997,
the same year Con Air came out. In fact, 21 days after
Con Air came out, this movie came out.
Nicholas Cage in yet another. Hey, we got to put two big stars
in an action movie together. Hey, we got to have a great action director do
this. We put together John Woo, the director, with John
Travolta and Nicholas Cage, and we are going to do some acting
like each other in Face Off. And Face off,
to me, is the culmination of this era of Nicolas Cage.
And it's. It's going to be so much fun. It's. You know, John Woo is
a fantastic action director. The premise is insane, just absolutely
ludicrously bonkers. And, you know, this is right after Travolta had
his career resurrected. This is still just a couple years after actually one year after
Nicolas Cage won the Oscar for leaving Las Vegas. And here they are doing just
the most absolute, batshit crazy thing either of them would ever be in until Battlefield.
So, yeah, I realize now I need to react audibly to what you're saying because
I just have this huge grin on my face and the listeners cannot see this.
I cannot wait. Dude, I love Face off. I loved it so much when it
came out and oh yes, this is going to be a fun one.
So next week we will wrap up Case Agevember with Face Off. That about
wraps it up. So if you like what you hear and we hope you do,
please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a five star review.
It really helps new folks find the show. If you want to drop us a
line, share your thoughts on an episode, tell us what we got wrong or suggest
a movie we should do next, you can do so@theshowdadsonmovie.com
that's the number two and the number one. You can also follow us on Instagram
@2dads1movie. Once again, this has been raising your hand, Arizona. Another episode
of 2Dads1movie. I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. Thank you so much for listening and we'll
catch you next week. Thanks everyone.