Transcript

Intro Clip

Oh, no. What? What is it? It's the jerk. What is she doing? My husband, My uncle. Your what? Oh, God. That makes you Auntie Vera. Oh. Oh. Oh, God. Oh, God. What's my mother gonna say? I've disgraced my whole family. Oh, the hell you did. Not funny. Okay? This is not a funny moment in my life. Oh, relax, Brantley. Who's gonna find out? Come home. He's gonna find out. That's who's gonna find out. Don't worry, he won't fire you. There's no way I'm gonna get a raise out of this. Vera, what's the company car doing in the driveway? It broke down, darling. The driver had to take the train back to town. No, he didn't, darling. He's in here having trouble with his fly. Get back. Do you ever stop? No. How am I gonna get home now, huh? You wanna tell me that? Maybe we'll just have to keep you. Here and adopt you. You're right, Vera. Please, Lord, get me out of this. I'll go all over the world telling people not to screw the boss. What are you doing in here? Feeling romantic. Oh. What's for dinner?

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. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we're Talking about the 1987 Michael J. Fox starring romantic comedy, the Secret of My Success. Also, by the way, the name of a fantastic Night Ranger song that is featured prominently in the film.

Nic

Beautiful, Beautiful. Did they work together on it or did one predate the other?

Steve

I believe Night Ranger was contracted to write the title song for this movie and then it. Because they did a few movie soundtrack songs in the 80s and then this ended up on their album that came out the same year. So they had an album that came out in 87. This was the big hit single off of it, but it was intentional and written for the movie, so.

Nic

Excellent. Excellent. Well, a hell of a song.

Steve

Yeah. Yeah. So, Nic, this was your pick for us. So tell us a little. A little bit about your history with the Secret of My Success and why you picked it for us.

Nic

Yeah. So I think I'd only seen this a couple times and not in 20 years, but I definitely remember enjoying this probably late high school, just when these kind of movies really hit, especially where it's this guy, like, making his way to the top and he's screwing and the evil boss's wife and, like, all this stuff that he. That you get a kick out of at the time. And there are some good gags in it that I feel, like, really held up. So, Yeah, I wasn't, like, crazy familiar with it, but I just remember it being fun. And I feel like, hey, this is a great one to talk to Steve about.

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, for my part, I realized in watching this movie and, you know, really enjoying it and kind of writing about. Writing notes about what I liked and what I didn't and what kind of worked and what didn't work for me as much this time around. And we'll get into the details on it, but it's like, I think this is one of those movies that. And we all have them. I love this movie maybe more than it deserves. Yeah. And I'm willing to live with that.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Yeah, we all have those. Those. I don't want to call them guilty pleasures, because that's dumb. Like, there's nothing guilty about it. It's just, like, I can recognize that, like this. And, you know, like, Summer Rental and maybe UHF are like. I love those movies. And the average person walking around, even somebody our age. Right. Is maybe kind of like. Like what? I barely remember that. Yeah.

Nic

So, I mean, you're part of, like, the 45% rather than part of the. A lot of these movies.

Steve

That's fair. Exactly.

Nic

Yeah. Well, that's good, though. I mean, and we all have movies like that. I know I've definitely brought a few to the POD in the past. So this is something. Did you see this around when it came out then?

Steve

I probably saw this for the first time. Not like, in the theater, because it was 87. It was PG 13. And it would have been kind of over my head anyway, but probably, like, 11 or 12. Probably middle school would have been the first time I saw this. Probably an edited version on, you know, TBS or, you know, USA or something like that. Yeah. And then later seeing, you know, getting a copy of whatever on vhs. But. But, yeah, this was, you know, I. I loved Michael J. Fox. I loved Back to the Future. And, like, I watched Family Ties. Like, I already, like, you know, I love this guy. So pretty much anything he was in, I wanted to see. I feel like this is. I don't know if the timing is exactly right. I haven't looked it, but this feels very much in his. Also, like the doc. Hollywood era of his career.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

So I Think it was like, that was around this time. And I loved that movie as well. So it's like, you know, he. He had this niche of like a little bit raunchy PG13 romantic comedies, you know, in the middle of his career there. Not the middle of. But, you know, past the sort of very beginning, the Back to the Future stuff.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And so, you know, to me, this was just. It was kind of like being a Michael J. Fox fan led me to this movie.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

At a fairly young age. And I think that is a. I don't know if there's. If this is even a well accepted term, but It's a hard. PG 13. Like, I do feel like it's a.

Nic

Well, 100% agree. I mean, it's a. It's a. It's on the cusp.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

It's a. It's a Jim rice of a PG 13. You know, it's. It's right teetering on the R. If.

Steve

This movie came out in 83 before the PG13 rating had been invented, it probably would have been an R. This wouldn't have been one. I don't think that would have skated by on a pg. I think this probably earned the R. I don't know. Maybe not like. Like, we'll. We'll get into it. But anyway. Yeah, so this is definitely one I saw, you know, probably again, frankly, at too young an age to really appreciate the movie and all the references and different things in it, but it's one I've always loved, so. All right, well, let's. Let's dive into the facts.

Nic

Yeah, let's hear some facts.

Steve

Cool. So the secret of my success does have a PG13 rating. It came out on April 10, 1987, with a running time of 101 minutes. It was directed by Herbert Ross, written by Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr. And AJ Carruthers, starring Michael J. Fox and Helen Slater. The scores? Rotten Tomatoes. The critics didn't like this movie. It got a 46% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So definitely. I didn't. Didn't. You know, I think maybe what we should start doing is, especially for these lower ones, I should probably pull some quotes out to see what people, you know. Yeah. Just didn't like about it. Well, maybe we'll do that for next time we have one of these rotten movies. IMDb rating of 6.5, which is not great. It's fine. It's not bad, but it's certainly not. Not praised there.

Nic

It skews high on IMDb because if you bother to Go on and write a review generally, or you're on the positive side.

Steve

You either really like it or like you really hate it. You're trying to kill it, like this movie.

Nic

Pile on troll 2 or whatever.

Steve

No, but nobody. Nobody hates this movie. I can't imagine. Right. It's just not that you're probably ambivalent towards it or you enjoy it. So. It did win an award at the 1988 BMI Film Music Awards. David Foster, the composer, won best movie score for this movie, which is interest.

Nic

Well, well done.

Steve

Yeah. There's a lot of music in the movie, but so much of it is pop music. So it's. Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. So I guess how do they determine, like, is he responsible for replacing those pop songs in the movie as part of his composition? Do they take that into consideration?

Steve

Might. And I think it might just be. I mean, there obviously are other instrumental scores of parts. I think, you know, just we'll get into it. But, like, when Christie's sipping at the water fountain and, you know, Brantley Caesar for the first time, like, there's definitely just this very tinkling piano kind of very. Not whimsical kind of ethereal music. And so I think that was his. And other things like that. Okay. On a $12 million budget, which is like. Did all. Did half that go to go to Fox? Like, seriously. Yeah, it doesn't show up on the screen, so. But on a $12 million. But maybe it was just renting that house, right? Yeah. It earned $111 million at the box office, which has to be like. It's just Michael J. Fox could do no wrong in the mid to late 80s.

Nic

Yeah. It almost seems like. Yeah, whatever you put him in at this point, because he was coming off. Was it Teen Wolf and Back to.

Steve

The Future, Back to the Future and Back the Future two would come out, like, the year after. So, I mean. Yeah, like, seriously, it was.

Nic

And then, I don't know, when Family.

Steve

Ties was running, that was more like 80 to, like 80. 85 or 86.

Nic

That predated the film.

Steve

Predated this. Oh, yeah. Definitely predated the film career, but then overlapped with the start of the film career. But I don't think it lasted much past that. So by this time, he was probably. That show was wrapped, I think.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But, you know. Yeah. So this guy was America's what on.

Nic

Something that, you know, like we just said, was getting not good reviews before it came out.

Steve

Yeah. So Point two, five times its budget was the box office take, which is.

Nic

One of Our best.

Steve

One of the. One of the highest ones right up there with Coming to America. And it's, yeah, obviously a huge hit in that sense. So those are the facts on the secret of my success. Let's dive in. You want to start, Nic?

Nic

Yeah. So the secret of my success we are introduced kind of through some. A montage type thing. You know, it's. It's really like the most 80s that's ever going to hit you at once. Like, you have to really be prepared. And if you're not ready for this, make sure you're wearing your best, like, 80s proof goggles and like, a lead 80s proof vest, because this is gonna smack you in the face.

Steve

You need those, like, venetian blind sunglasses things.

Nic

Exactly. And I was watching this with my wife and my daughter, and my daughter immediately commented on the theme song at the beginning. She was like, is this the same as the St. Elmo's Fire song? Because she has all these like, 80s songs in her head. So I thought that was funny.

Steve

I love Secret of My Success as a song, but St. Elmo's Fire is a Fire song.

Nic

Way better. So good. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we're kind of getting, like, flashes between Brantley Foster, our star. Michael J.

Steve

Fox.

Nic

Great name.

Steve

No, not really.

Nic

I mean, not a name of a guy you would want to hang out with in real life, but for a fictional character, I think. I think it's pretty good. So, yeah, it's kind of flashing between him, like, leaving the farm in Kansas, you know, like, pitchforking.

Steve

Hey.

Nic

And being like, yo Ma, I want to be a stockbroker or whatever he's saying. Yeah. So a lot of back and forth, like, good motivational 80s, like, believe in yourself, Reagan kind of stuff. I think he still has a little Alex P. Keaton in him a bit in this film. Although, you know, he leans a little bit differently. But he definitely has that kind of ambition when he leaves for New York.

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. I think I feel like Alex P. Keaton maybe wouldn't have Brantley Foster displays so much sort of like, empathy for fellow people. And I don't know that Keaton would have been on that tip necessarily. I think he was a little. A little too young Republican. But obviously, yeah, Foster's goal here, Brantley's goal is making money. That's what he wants to do. Wants to go to New York City. He's gone to college. You know, they don't go into a lot of details about his college time. So I want to stop for a second, just chat about that. So we See him. So first of all, he's from Kansas. We know that his parents paid for his college because he makes a comment about, hey, mom, all those years of college will pay off. Like, you know, he's basically saying, like, I'm gonna make it worth it for you. He wears at one point a Kansas State shirt at one point in the movie. So we have to assume that's where he went to school, is Kansas State, which is not like a, not a bad college, but it's certainly not Harvard, Stanford, Baylor, like what?

Nic

Like it's not, you know, apologies to Michael Bishop.

Steve

But do we think he's got an mba? Like, did he do that much school? Because he's like 24 and I can't imagine that he hung out on the farm for two to three years after graduating with a bachelor's degree right before going to New York. So is this, Is he just post business school? Is that what we're supposed to believe?

Nic

I mean, like, as we get into it later and we see like how knowledgeable it is, it seems like it's, it's not a four year degree worth of knowledge. But also, I mean, you know, Litzy and NBA do that as well. Everyone would be like, oh, no, shut the hell up.

Steve

Yeah, it's an absolute fantasy.

Nic

But yeah, that's interesting. They don't really get into a whole lot of detail because we're still in the 80s in the era where like college boy was a good insult in a lot of parts of the country. So it was like, it doesn't really matter. We talk about advanced degrees. We're going to lose a lot of our audience. We want to make nine times our budget.

Steve

And it is, it is definitely a good insult, especially in the mail room at Penrose Corporation, as it turns out. So. But yeah, I just wanted to say this is the first. This opening sequence, it's great and I think it's really efficient. It gives us a lot of backstory really quickly. It obviously sets the scene that he's arrived in New York in the present day. But this, the movie does this a lot where it sort of gives us these little. They're almost like flashbacks, but they're not really positive like flashbacks. They just. The timeline jumps around anytime there is a pop song or rock song playing in the background. Well, I say in the background, really in the foreground of the audio. If there is any dialog, you can't be sure that you're seeing it happen in real time. Like, it's very often like jumping around a little bit. And so I don't know if we can call them montages or interludes or whatever, but there are like at least five or six of those them throughout the movie. And it starts with this one, I believe. Cindy Crawford makes a very brief appearance in the film.

Nic

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I did spot that one. Yeah. It's funny. And this is where sometimes things in this movie are realistic, sometimes they're not. If you're a short, very out of place guy in the big city, the girls love that. So this is all very accurate that he's being fawned over by these like 5 foot 11 models, right, exactly.

Steve

What is he about? Like 5, 5? And so then Brant Lee, right? He's, you know, coming to town, he arrives on a bus, and we've got all these little scenes of New York. It's like dirty New York. It's 80s New York. It is pre Giuliani. I made a joke. But like, literally, it's like he hasn't cleaned up Times Square yet, blah, blah, blah. So there's all this going on and then he gets to his apartment. Right. And do we have any idea why his apartment is literally filled with garbage? Like, why isn't it just empty?

Nic

Good, good comedic effect. But yeah, I have no idea. You feel like it would be empty, but yeah, it is. It's in a similar building to the one that Akeem stayed at.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

To America. You know, just where they're like, look, it stays however the last person left it. And that's none of my business. Here's the key. But yeah, it was really funny, all the junk that was in there.

Steve

And then I guess he's in Manhattan because they don't make a point of telling us he's anywhere else.

Nic

Right.

Steve

He doesn't seem to be like having to travel far to get to work.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So somewhere in maybe downtown, it's a.

Nic

Very montageable mess to clean. So it's important to show that which.

Steve

They don't even really bother. Show the mess. And then later on, it's just better. It's just better later. So. Yeah, so. So Brantley, he's come to New York City. Yep. And he's got a job lined up.

Nic

He's ready to roll.

Steve

He has been responsible and good and he's got a job. So what happens when he shows up for the first day of work?

Nic

The company is being shut down, of course. It's like the boxes are being carried out. Everything's. Everything's going there.

Steve

And so I'm have to put my finger in my mouth for a second to sound like the boss. Hostile takeover is what he says with a huge cigar in his mouth. But yeah, hostile takeover. They 90 something percent right. Of the people in are out on the street. You are part of that group. So he is already sol.

Nic

And I don't know if this is when he's interviewing. I don't know if he interviews right away, but he's basically says, then why did I go to college? And the guy's like, well, you had fun, didn't you?

Steve

Yes, yes. That was the first interview that he does to try to find another job. I love that actor, by the way. Uncredited appearance, but that is Sheriff Farley from My Cousin Vinnie, that actor, which is a fantastic role.

Nic

I know the guy you're talking about. Yeah, he was certainly familiar.

Steve

Yes, exactly. But yeah, so he goes there, he interviews, the guy basically says, like, hey, if you joined our training program out of high school, you'd be qualified for the job you're applying for now. But you have no experience. You just have college experience. Just like, yeah, that sucks, man. There's not much you can do. Why did I go to school? Hey, I had fun. Whatever.

Nic

So when he's like, well, our concern is that you're just going to use us for the experience and then use that to get a better job. But we can. It was. It was a very funny exchange, I think.

Steve

I'm a. I'm a. I'm a. In my industry, I'm a manager of people. I have like 10 people who like, report to me. I work in software and like, training people and helping them grow and making them better and having them go off to do other things is, in my industry, universally seen as a positive. Right, right. Because the entire industry gets smarter and better and the people are. But, you know, whatever. And. And frankly, that probably drives employment costs to the employer down because more people can do the job.

Nic

Yeah, exactly.

Steve

So there's just no reason why they should be so against the idea of bringing him in to train him. But I digress.

Nic

So Brantley, he gets right on. I mean, he kind of has to because he already has an apartment to pay for and everything. But he doesn't really sulk. He's like immediately trying to find a new job.

Steve

He's a go getter.

Nic

There's a very funny scene that has a little surrealism to it where he's on the payphone kind of talking to his parents back home, and he's telling her, oh, no, New York's Great. My apartment's beautiful. The job's wonderful. No crime. I don't think there's a lot of crime. And in the meantime, these guys go into a liquor store and rob it, which leads to this crazy police shootout.

Steve

Yeah, like, right where he is.

Nic

Like, yeah, it's unbelievable. And he's just there in the phone booth as these shots are going, and glass is breaking and everything.

Steve

His mom's like, oh, it's so loud. He's like, yeah, the TV broke. It's Miami Vice. And then he, like, reacts. He goes like, ah. She goes, what's wrong? Oh, they just totaled a Ferrari. Like, as if he would react that strongly. Two things I love about this scene. One is when the two, you know, ne' er do Wells head into the corner store. There's a guy just chilling on the corner. Listen to a boombox, right? He kind of sees these two looking around as they go in, and he goes, nope. And just turns around and walks away. That's a smart New Yorker. There's that piece. And then also these two guys, the cops show up. First of all, the cops are there instantly, which has probably never ever happened in New York City. But they're there instantly, two or three of them. And the guys take a hostage. These robbers actually take the woman or somebody who is from the sort a hostage. And they're right up against the payphone that Brantley is near. And the cops and the guys start shooting at each other. And it looks like. It looks like either one of the guys gets shot in the head, one of the robbers or the cop shoots past him, but it's enough to make him lose his, like, drop his gun and fall to the ground. It was very strange because nobody got shot. Clearly, like, at the end, they're still cuffing everybody and, like, whatever. But I'm like, how did that. Why did that work? Like, why didn't he just shoot back?

Nic

They had a couple ideas. They just shot them both and left them both in.

Steve

There you go. It's that New York in the 80s, man. It's crazy shit.

Nic

So, yeah, so Brantley's obviously. He's had a bummer of a first day. First couple days, right? And there's sad music playing. And he's got his New York slice back in his apartment. So we get the slice in there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So I think this is when he kind of realizes that there is potentially someone he could reach out to.

Steve

Yeah. So we get another little flashback to Kansas and talking to his parents, and his mom says, here, take this. It's Uncle Howard's number in New York. And he goes, I got an uncle in New York. And she goes, well, my cousin married his nephew's sister or something. Like it was some weird thing there, so. But kin is kin, right? And, you know, from the sounds of it, it's something like he's a second cousin at least. Like a second cousin at least once or twice removed, potentially. Like, I mean, because there's. There's. There's different generations in both ways that are off. And it sounds like Howard is part of that family. It's very hard to understand, but that's kind of the point. Like, I don't think they want you.

Nic

Right. One of those, like, very distant relations where you technically would say uncle or cousin.

Steve

Exactly. And I think, again, another kind of city mouth, country mouse kind of thing, right? Where it's like in more rural communities where you are both likely to be nearby to family that distant from you genealogically, but it matters more versus being in a city where you're way more siloed and way more solo. You know, this is a comparison of, like, the world he's coming from and the world he's going to. In the world he's coming from. His mom is like, this is family.

Nic

It's totally appropriate. Yeah, that's what we do, is you find a distant relation, they hook you up with a job.

Steve

Exactly. Totally normal. Totally. Nothing weird about it. And then, of course, when he actually does meet his uncle, you know, he's a little nonplussed at his presence because it's like, all right. Yeah, I guess technically, we're related.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So, yeah, a little fun. Interesting distance there. So he decides, yeah, I've got Uncle Howard's number. I'm going to go check it out. So he arrives at Pemrose Corporation. You know, it's one of these skyscrapers, I guess, that the entire building is all working.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Who. He says something. Howard does about 30,000 employees in the building alone. And they talk about numerous different, you know, offices in other cities at different points in the movie. And they talk about. He says something like, they make everything from dog food to guided missile system. So it's like this is like a Procter and Gamble kind of thing, I.

Nic

Guess, or it's like Globo Chem International.

Steve

Yeah. Yeah. So he goes to. To visit Uncle Howard.

Nic

Yeah. And he goes to visit Uncle Howard. A couple funny things here. There's the usual, you know, trying to get through the. The secretary, what's your business with him? And all that, and. And he doesn't have a business card or anything. He walks over to the copy machine and sticks his face on it. Makes an excellent quality copy of his face.

Steve

Very high quality.

Nic

Kind of signs his name and phone number to it and gives it to her and says, this is my card. He's able to get in and meet, though, with uncle Howard, with Mr. Prescott right after he was just seen chewing out the entire executive team.

Steve

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. The entire executive leadership team just got their butts chewed. And I love it, too, because. What does he say? He says something like, he was a warm guy or so. Oh, no. He asked Uncle Howard, and she kind of nods at him. He says the warm guy thing later. But, yeah, like, so he goes in to meet Howard, and I love a good line. He says, you know, I know you told your secretary to get me out of here in five minutes. And Prescott stops and goes, two. Yeah, okay. Got it. Austin is like, dude, Brantley's tie is way too short. He has not tied his tie right at all. It looks very strange. Like, he. He looks out of place in so many ways. Yeah.

Nic

I can't tell what some of that stuff. Like, is he supposed to look like a bumpkin, or is that the coolest way to wear your. In 1987?

Steve

I can't imagine that revealing three of your shirt buttons below the tie and above your waist was, like, the style.

Nic

But I don't know. We got to get his tie length and Trump's tie and split the difference. And that's the correct.

Steve

There you go. That would hit the buckle right there. Yeah. So, yeah. So he. He meets with. With Howard. Howard Prescott. He calls Uncle Howard and is told, here I'm Mr. Prescott.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Or Prescott, I think is how he puts it. But basically, he's just like, hey, like, would you give me a chance? You know, like, imagine back to when you were my age and you wanted that first job. You needed it. You didn't have any experience, and it's a reasonably good sell. You know, I mean, he really does.

Nic

He does like the. Yeah, the traditional I believe in myself speech.

Steve

You know, the kind of thing that has always worked for white men.

Nic

Yeah, exactly.

Steve

And that's it. Okay, so.

Nic

And then. And then going back, he will credit his entire career to that speech that he gave if ignoring the fact that he was giving it to his uncle, who then gave him a job.

Steve

Exactly. He was literally trying to sell his uncle on the nepotism he knew needed to get his foot in the door.

Nic

I started off in an Apartment full of junk. We, we offered to clean that out. You said you need it for your origin story.

Steve

Exactly. So he is given a job in the mailroom. So he has to head down to the mailroom. But apparently before he gets to the mailroom, he's stopping in the lobby. I guess the mail room's in the basement or something, right. So he stops in the lobby and he goes to. You know, this is one of those things that makes this movie 100 an 80s movie, is that there is a water fountain that people actually use just with their mouths, not to like fill a bottle or anything like that. So he goes and he sips from the water fountain and then he's, you know, asked if, if he could move aside for another person who wants to use the water fountain. It's this, you know, gorgeous blue eyed blonde. We find out later her name is Christy Wills. And you know, he is just, just absolutely smitten from, from the moment that he sees her. And then we get another one of these sort of musical interludes kind of at this moment where it's not so much like that it's a pop song, a rock song thing, even be part of that score that ended up winning an award. But it's like, it's like a fantasy moment. It's like a daydream, right. Like nobody else is in the lobby. Suddenly she's just wandering through the rotating door a few times looking at him and he's looking at her and.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

But it's like we also get the sense that she definitely later on that she has definitely never seen him. Right, right. You know what I mean? So it's just, yeah, it's very much like. It reminds me a little bit of that HBO show Dream on where the guy would always like dream, you know, daydream himself into TV shows or something. Like. Yeah, kind of like, like he just daydreams about this girl the second he sees her, which is an interesting, interesting choice. But yeah, so, you know, he has, he sees Christy, he gets smitten. But he has to go report to his new job now, doesn't he?

Nic

Yeah. And the Christie. So at this point, my daughter watching this movie, she, she said, who ordered the cheese? She couldn't, she couldn't deal with this. But it's kind of interesting. I was talking about during the, the pay phone call slash robbery shootout was a little bit of an absurd thing that actually happened in his world. And then this is kind of like an absurd thing that was in his head. So it was like not congruent with just the reality of the film, really. So it was kind of interesting. I wanted to ask you, how do you feel about those revolving doors? Because I love them. And ever since my daughter's been little, I've been so excited to have someone to walk around twice with them. And my wife will not go in once for any reason. She always goes around. And I feel like, why are you. Why are you depriving yourself of some of the best joy that's just out there?

Steve

I feel like I have the exact same dynamic in my family. My kids love them. I'll go through them with them. Although, I'll be honest, I could take it or leave it. But yeah, I think my wife generally doesn't go through the revolving door. Yeah. The kids do love it, though. There's a restaurant in Dublin that has a revolving door at its front. And anytime we go there, the kids want to go a couple times. And it's always like, for me, I'm always like, I gotta look around and make sure nobody else is actually trying to use the damn door. And they're just in the way. But, but, but, yeah, no, they're. They're fun. They're for sure fun.

Nic

It's a good, absolutely free treat that you can give your kid. You know, you could probably be like, hey, if you're good, you can go through the door three times when we leave this place.

Steve

My kids are a little old for it now, but we used to go to the mall and just be like, hey, if you're. If you're good, you know, like, we can get this thing. We gotta buy whatever. I'll let you go up down the escalator a couple times. You know, that was all it took.

Nic

Oh, man. Simplicity.

Steve

Yeah. Yeah. So we meet. We meet the boss of the mailroom. Is it Ratigan? Is that. Is that his name? I can't remember now.

Nic

Something like that.

Steve

Something like that. Yeah.

Nic

The guy who has, like the. The kind of navy.

Steve

Yes. Ball cap.

Nic

Yes. Who's like, I'm gonna be on your ass. He's very determined.

Steve

College puke. Yeah. Oh. Oh.

Nic

You think you're better than us with your college and your college time? They don't really have a lot of, like, supporting facts for why they don't like him.

Steve

No, no, they pretty much. That guy just doesn't like him because he got put there and he didn't hire. I don't know if he normally hires his mailroom people or not maybe. And so it's sort of like there was an end around because he came from upon high or was it just. Yeah, just the college thing. And it's like in the mail room, especially in the late 80s, I'm sure, you know, nowadays I'm sure if there still are mailrooms. I don't even know if there really are mailrooms in the offices like that. But if they are, they might as well. They might well be populated with college grads just based on the reality of the day. But back in the 80s, certainly not if you had gone to college and it's again, I'm. I'm betting Foster has postgraduate degree, but yeah, you wouldn't be working in the mail room. So it's like weird, right? And it's like. And so his thought is like, he's.

Nic

Not one of us.

Steve

Yeah, he's not one of us. Is this somebody I'm going to have to like, ride because he doesn't want to do a hard day's work? You know, that kind of stuff. And also just I think that standard sort of jealousy bullshit of like, you know, like, yeah, you think you're better than me, you know, thing a very.

Nic

80S only mentality of nobody wants to work anymore. We never heard that again.

Steve

Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

Okay. And then I missed. I wish that I wrote this guy's name down. I might have later. His buddy, like the.

Steve

Oh, Melrose.

Nic

The styles of this movie, Right?

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

And I love this character, this guy. This is one of the reasons that I remember this movie being so good is the way he dresses like the cool guy who has to add a little extra cool guy to everything he does. The tiniest ponytail ever. Yeah. Oh, my God. The littlest ponytail. But man, his disdain for suits is as somebody who, like in my family and a lot of friends of mine are people that wear suits to work. Like, it's kind of tough to hear this. Like, I don't want to hear this slur repeated over and over. He's. Man, he does not want to make any friends with the people he's delivering mail to.

Steve

No consorting. Mix, mix. Not with the suits.

Nic

Yeah. So, yeah. So he's kind of being taken around and shown the ropes by his Melrose, which is an enjoyable scene. Absolutely. Telling him, like, oh, yeah, don't do this and don't talk to this. Keep your head down and don't talk to the suits. And beautiful.

Steve

We get a line. He's like, wait a minute. Foster says to Melrose, wait a minute. I'm a human being. He's a human being. I can't say hi to him. He Goes, he's not a human being, he's a suit. It's like, yo, all right. I mean, I get it, though, man. Class. Class solidarity. Yeah.

Nic

I'm with the mailroom, but I've never.

Steve

Worn a suit to work in my life, so. But anyway, then he. Oh, this is the. We get a little foreshadowing this sequence too, because we see a guy has just been shit canned. He's been fired. And Melrose even says, like, hey, mailroom learned about this a week ago. This guy just found out today, you know? And so, you know, it's an interesting thing. It sounds like the mail. Sounds like the envelopes that go in and out of the mail room are not sealed.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Which is interesting. But, yeah, so. So there's that. So we see that this guy's getting can, and he says, oh, you think his job's available? He's like, no, no. It's like downsizing. It's like they dissolved the position, you know? So that gets put into Foster's head, into Brantley's head. And he can, you know, remember that for later. By the way, real quick, the name Brantley Foster. Like, I. It's hard. And he ends up taking the name Carlton Whitfield because of a story his father told him about cousin Whitfield's son. Carlton went to New York, came back with nose in his ring in his nose and half his head shaved or whatever it was. So that's where he gets the name from. But Brantley Carlton Whitfield Foster. I mean, is this a Big four accounting firm? Like, what. I mean, it's the most ridiculous set of. None of them are first names. There's not a first name in the group. Yeah, I mean, I guess, technically, obviously, Carlton, you know, whatever. But it's like, they all sound like last things. It's a very strange thing. And it's hard for me to, like, it's. I honestly sort of got him. I love this movie, but I find it harder to, like, identify with characters with such strange names sometimes. Like, couldn't the dude's name just be, like, Dave? Could he have been Dave Foster? Like, why not?

Nic

Or. Yeah, he could have been, like, B. William Whitfield and gone by Bill or whatever.

Steve

Sure, something.

Nic

Yeah. Well, I think that that name is kind of perfectly constructed for success in the 80s. Like, if you're trying to be, like, among the Hamptons elite. I think that's a hell of a name to have.

Steve

When your uncle is the CEO of a major corporation and can get you a job. Might as well be named Brantley.

Nic

Exactly. It doesn't hurt. Throw a little Brantley on it.

Steve

Oh.

Nic

So Brantley is kind of. He's looking into. When. When Melrose is explaining to him as the mail's going down, he's like, okay, the yellow envelopes come from outside, and the white envelopes is them talking to each other.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And then Brantley just starts pulling it out and reading it, and immediately is like, well, they got three people doing the same job here. I mean, there's so much redundancy. I'd forgotten the plot of the movie. Like, from what he said at the beginning, I'm like, is he trying to, like, do layoffs? Like, is this what happens with this company? But Brantley is just appalled by, like, the little memo that he's read. So we see that he's got an analytical brain, man. Nothing gets by this guy.

Steve

Yeah. And so he. He decides. He heads down to the research center, like, the library, whatever they have there. And it's like, hey, we're getting a lot of cool requests for research here for, you know, in the mail room. Quarterly reports, stockholder reports, like, whatever. And she goes. And the woman he's talking to is like, are you serious? You can have anything you want. Like, who gives a shit? Kind of thing. So he grabs a bunch of stuff and we start his research. You know, he's doing a lot of stuff at his apartment. He's, like, figuring out. He's, like, reading through things, like, whatever. And this is another interlude as we. As we sort of break into Act 2. Right. Like, this is. We've set the stage. You know, this is probably. This is basically near the end of, like, act one, where now Brantley's got a minute, Right. He's got a purpose, of course, on the.

Nic

Sorry. On the financials. Real quick. It's funny because you see scenes like this sometimes where a person goes into, like, an overwhelmed file room or whatever, and they ask for something. And the mentality of the person there isn't really. Well, my job is to protect these confidential records, so I shouldn't really let anything go. It always seems like they're like, oh, man, we have plenty of files. Please take some. Obviously, I have too many files here, so please take some of these files away.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I don't even know if it's.

Nic

Like I said, interject as file keeper.

Steve

I don't even know if these would necessarily be secret, Right. If it is, like, quarterly reports, shareholder reports, or they're a public company.

Nic

Well, the Published report, though, is probably only like 20 pages. The underlying data is what he's digging at.

Steve

There you go.

Nic

So a little inside baseball with the auditing and financial report preparation world. Just cut that.

Steve

I wanted to mention, when Brantley starts his research, we get another sort of montage and interlude. One of the best songs, probably on the soundtrack, which is the Price of Love by the who's Roger Daltrey. Great 80s ballad, you know what I mean? Just. Just very, very classic. And of course, you know, Daltrey is a great singer, so it. It works. But yeah, so another one of our. I mean, this is already the second of like, five or. No, second or third even of like, six of these at this point.

Nic

Yeah. So he's kind of like becoming a. He is a financial genius who finally has access to the data, but he's still like a lowly gopher mailroom guy. Whatever we tell you, you gotta do. And his Uncle Howard's wife needs a ride out to Litchfield, I think, which is their fancy. I don't know if that's a real place, but it's like a Hamptons type. One of those fancy rich person getaway places.

Steve

Yeah, for sure.

Nic

And, yeah, so now Brantley's the driver there.

Steve

Yeah. So he picks this woman up, and I don't think at this point, I think initially we don't know who she is. She's just an executive's wife. Is kind of all set, I think, at the beginning. Beginning when, you know, then executive's wife wants a ride to Litchfield, and he says, hey, how do I get there? I follow the smell of money.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Okay. Definitely bad directions, pal. So he gets in, and she's, you know, immediately kind of complaining, and she's like, you know, like, put the car in drive, hit the gas and go. Like, you know, any idiot could do that, Even my husband. And he's like, okay. But he, like. Because he's a nice guy, he sort of like, you know, engages with her like, hey, how's it going? Seems like you're having a bad day. She complains. And I do. I do love this. This moment where it was like, I don't think there's a single F bomb in this movie, but they clearly intended there to be one.

Nic

Yes, we both noticed that.

Steve

You see Vera. She's in the rear view mirror. There are at least three scenes I can think of where a conversation occurs between two people, one of whom we see and one of whom we see in a mirror. And this happens a fair amount of times. And this is the first one. So Vera's talking. We can see her in the rearview mirror that Brantley has for the car, for the limo. And we just see the back of his head as he sort of turns a little bit to talk to him. And she says, basically, my husband is screwing someone at the office, is what we clearly hear. But you see her mouth in the mirror clearly say, fucking. Fucking somebody at the office. And so that was obviously an ADR decision at some point after filming to say, ah, let's go ahead and take that out. I don't know if they were being threatened with an R and thought that would hurt, which it probably really would have hurt.

Nic

They were close. Like, I mean, there's a lot of things that really could push this movie to an R. So that. That editing out that F word got us, like, a little crescent areola later.

Steve

In the film for a tiny bit. But so basically, you. He says really nice things to her, and it's like, oh, the thing that kind of sells her because she's, like, talking someone on the phone and makes a funny remark, and he chuckles. And then she's like, hey, do you know my husband? And he's like, oh, I can't hear you. But later he's like, you know, you're crazy. Like, you're beautiful. I just hope that when I'm your husband's age, I've got someone as beautiful as you to wake up next to. Right. And that's just like. So now she's into it. She's being flattered. She loves it. She's putting on the lipstick, taking off.

Nic

The shoes, and we get bow. Bow. Yeah.

Steve

Song playing I believe the song is called. Called Beautiful or so Beautiful by yellow. I'm not 100% sure, actually. But, yeah. One of. One of two uses of the song.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

In this. In this movie. But yeah, so. So she is. And she. There's all kinds of little.

Nic

There's like the car antenna goes up. And, like, when he's, like, really smitten by whatever she's doing back there, he's like. The windshield washer fluid goes off.

Steve

Yeah. A lot of really unsubtle sort of hints at things. And then, like, she locks the door and he unlocks it, which is interesting because they're driving him.

Nic

Noise.

Steve

He tries to raise the divider between them. She lowers it again. You know, they're sort of wrestling in this sense. They arrive at her home. It's gorgeous. Beautiful country estate. Really. Really enormous and beautiful. They pull up to it. You know, he helps her out. She hands him all her bags, bring those in. And then they go out to the back and she makes a comment about, I hate the country. Nobody can live on all these trees. And he goes, yeah, yeah, this seems like a really terrible place to be. I hate the trees. They suck up all the oxygen. He goes, oh, no, actually, they create oxygen. She's just like. I can't tell if she's pissed or just sort of like finds him interesting in that way. But like, she almost seems like, upset that he corrected her. Yeah.

Nic

Or like, wait, no subordinate has ever spoken to me that way before.

Steve

You're the help, kid. Like, what are you doing?

Nic

But she offers him a drink and is flirting with him and then invites him to swim in the pool. Which I think he's kind of like, well, I got to get back. But also, I got to do what you want me to do. And also, it seems like it'll be fun. I do love when Brantley goes into the swimming pool. He does a flip to get in the pool. And I was thinking like, ah, this show off. And then she does like the most amazing, like, olympic level dive.

Steve

10 out of 10, no splash, perfect dive.

Nic

It's like the dive from Cone Heads. I don't know if we remember the zero splash dive from. From the Academy Award winning film Conehead. Yeah, but, yeah, really good.

Steve

Real quick. Like, you know, like, I think the first time I saw this I was like 11 or 12. But like, you know, I watched it several times throughout, like, my teenage years, whatever. And I gotta be honest, I. Vera did it for me. Like, even as a teenager.

Nic

She's great.

Steve

She's gorgeous. I always thought her. She was more beautiful than Christie. Like, I definitely was like, man, Braylee, you should just, like, I don't care if she's this distant relative, married in twice or whatever. Like, screw it, man. Like, that's the one to be with.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, obviously that she's more age appropriate. He's more age appropriate with Christie than with Vera, but, like, she is stunning. And very quickly, after they're in the pool together, she basically rips off his swim trunks, which, you know, I think it's unfortunate. You can clearly see the, like, jock strap he's wearing. Not that I want to see Michael J. Fox's junk. I'd rather. I wish they just cropped the scene better so we didn't see anything from his waist down. You know what I mean? It kind of ruins it a little bit. But I also don't need to see his dong. So like let's maybe just, you know, edit that differently. But yeah, so basically, basically, you know, she attacks him in the pool.

Nic

She does. How does it feel as an actor if you're, you're a Michael J. Fox and it seems like most of the sex scenes he's involved in, he's basically being like assaulted by the woman to begin with. You know, like he's never like smoothly like, yeah. You know, making it work for himself. He's always like, oh, I don't think this is a good idea.

Steve

Well, there, most films, I don't know for sure if this was the case back then, but I know most, most of us today at least have an intimacy counselor coordinator on set. So that when there is a love scene to be filmed, there's a person there who's like a psychologist of some kind or sexual therapist or whatever to talk the people who have to do this through kind of how to do it safely and how to do it comfortably and to understand their sort of any issues they might have or hang ups or whatever so that they don't kind of trigger each other. There's all kinds of work done to really make that emotionally safe for the actors. So hopefully that's also what they did.

Nic

Back in the 80s. It was just a boombox that played Bow. Bow.

Steve

Yeah, that by the name is, by the way, is the name of the song. It is. Oh yeah, by yellow.

Nic

But yeah, yeah. So he's, he's getting into it with Vera and massive HR violation on her.

Steve

Part, by the way. I know she technically isn't employed by the company, but she is a show.

Nic

She should be aware of this stuff. Yeah. Especially since it was like her dad's company or something. Right. And then there's a good little pillow talk session. And again, Michael J. Fox, who already believed in himself more than anybody in the world, imagine what this did to his ego. It's like when the strongman hits that hammer bell game and it just blasts through the top like this is like Popeye ODing on spinach. And he's given her this speech about like, no, I don't need Uncle Howard's help. I'm going to make it to the top by myself.

Steve

Well, yeah, except that this is the scene where he finds out that Uncle Howard is, is, is right.

Nic

He doesn't know that.

Steve

She says, hey, I'm going to talk to my husband and get you a leg up or whatever. He makes a funny joke about, I think we did all right ourselves with a leg up, you know. And she is like, no, no, no, at work. And he's like, no, I'm gonna do this on my own. I'm gonna make it to the top of my own. Whatever. And she's, you know, impressed by that. She thinks that's, like, really kind of noble. They're like, all right, you don't need my help. But that's when they hear, like, the car pull up and the door closed. And she's like, oh, there's the. And that. So he freaks out, like, oh, my God, your husband's here. Sure enough, peek through the venetian blinds. Here comes Uncle Howard. She goes, that's my husband. He goes, that's my uncle. She goes, that makes you Auntie Vera. I just love that reveal. I think it's hilarious. He freaks the fuck out. I love the line where he says, I mean, I'm a disgrace to my whole family. And she goes, the hell you are. Yeah, it's a great line.

Nic

But he basically has to watch Howard. Yeah, Howard is walking very. At a very moderate pace across, like a 600 yard field.

Steve

And he's.

Nic

He's like, looking and checking through the blinds every 15 seconds. Doing the worst job anyone's ever done to try to get dressed.

Steve

Oh, my God, ridiculous.

Nic

He's, like, putting his shirt on backwards and stuff. Vera has another good line. She says, you really know how to sweep a girl back onto her feet. And. Yeah. So Brantley ends up getting himself away, and he's able to run away, and he's chased by the official dog of the 80s, the dobermanship.

Steve

Yes, of course it's a Doberman, but he does not get his ass chewed. Bitten. Otherwise, whatever. He's able to scramble over a trellis to get out of there. I'm still not 100% sure how it gets back to the city, though, because Howard asks Vera, like, why is the company car in the driveway? And she goes, oh, it broke down. Driver. Yeah, the driver had to call a cab or something, but I guess he probably gets in it and drives it back. But that's. I don't know why that doesn't raise suspicions later on, but whatever I'm thinking, I'm overthinking.

Nic

It is one of those, like, hey, for the sake of movie magic, we're just going to teleport this guy somewhere because we don't feel like doing this. So he's back doing his mailroom job.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Right. And he comes across an empty office, which is somebody who is just.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Let go.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And he's. I think he had previously poked his Head in there and just been like, boy, yeah, this is what it's like making it in the big city.

Steve

And he just kind of sits down, like, puts his feet up on the desk, just kind of, you know, like, just kind of imagine for me minute.

Nic

And the phone rings, and the phone rings, and it's the funniest, like, Italian supplier, whoever this guy is.

Steve

New York guy.

Nic

Hey, hey, I'm not gonna tell you anything specific, but the way you do's business is not the ways we used to do's business.

Steve

It's pronounced brute.

Nic

Yeah, so, I mean, it is. So he's telling him, and then Brantley's like, oh, that's ridiculous. We'll have it there. But, oh, that's what I like to hear. Hey, yeah, that's a guy who knows how to do business.

Steve

You should have a big office or something. It's pretty crazy because he's like. The guy's like. Like, he's like, complaining about transportation of some kind of goods, right? And Brantley's like, well, you know, what is this?

Nic

What is a dog food or missiles?

Steve

What are we talking here? But he asked me, well, what does a. What does. What is the term use? It's like, like. Like a freight car cost something or a stock car or something, right? So that it's like a. On a train versus like, using trucks, you know, And. And then it's like he goes, well, well, you tell them that, you know, that we need to service our customers. If they're not going to help us, we'll find somebody who can. So we basically just threatened the company's vendor relationship with some transportation company. The guy's like, yeah, there you go. To show you, talking to these people, you know, and also, my apologies to anyone listening who's an Italian American. My bad.

Nic

No apologies. You've done it to yourselves. You've gotten to bask in the glory of how cool the mafia is. You can get made fun of a little bit.

Steve

So, yeah, so Brantley scores this win, I guess. But it basically. It basically emboldens him. Yeah, right.

Nic

He's like. He's like, hey, I can do this stuff.

Steve

I could do this job. And so he basically moves into that office because the next time he comes to work, he's got, like, a attache with him, you know, briefcase with him, and it's got a suit in it. And he, like, changes in the elevator going up. And so now he's sort of like pretending to be an executive. I get that it's a big company, but I don't know how this could happen, but whatever. He pretends to be an executive, but he's also obviously still working in the mailroom. Yeah, but we did get a. There was actually a little comment earlier in the movie when Melrose was first showing Brantley the ropes and. And the route and everything. He says, it takes me half an hour to run this route and deliver these things. But. But Ratigan thinks it takes me two hours exactly. So we kind of already.

Nic

So we know that there's some, like, extra time built into his day if.

Steve

He figures it out.

Nic

Right.

Steve

He's got some wiggle room to do this other stuff. And so. So, so he gets on the phone and immediately starts demanding things. He's like, Carlton Whitfield in 4193 or whatever the hell the number is. Like, I need a nameplate. I need a secretary. Like, I got a drainium on a windsill, but I wind windowsill, but I needed a secretary. Done it. All this stuff and people just, I guess they don't verify that there actually should be someone in the office or they just send up a secretary.

Nic

Like, sir, you sound awfully white. I'll get right on that. Oh, at the same time, I did just want to bring up this because as a visual, and I'm sure it's a real thing, but I thought it was pretty cool, is Howard and the executive team are all jogging on this, like, jogging track that's on the roof of the building that goes around the roof of the building. Pretty cool feature. But it's funny that he's like, jogging and then all these guys are struggling to keep up with him. All his, like, sycophants who are, like, trying to, you know, trying to gain his favor. So he was going through his decision making at the time. And I think what they're talking about is being bought out, basically, which would lead to a whole bunch of jobs being lost at the peon level. But these guys would make out like bandits maybe.

Steve

I mean, that's the thing is that the sense I get is that nobody in this group of people really owns significant shares in the company because again, that's Vera. Vera owns a huge portion. Her father started the company. This feels like the kind of thing that a lot of it's publicly owned.

Nic

But I don't think that stock avoid aviation style situation.

Steve

I don't think stock units were that popular as compensation in the 80s unless you were very top top. And then like, Howard's got that weird thing where his wife owns so much of the company. So it's like, a little funky, like, whether that's community property or whatever. Right. But I don't think these executives, they're worried about their jobs. Like, if they were to have a hostile takeover, like, it would be a problem for them, or they could.

Nic

Right. Like, they're the ones who are likely to be kept on, though, versus, like, mailroom guys.

Steve

Well, yeah, that's. That's accurate, I think. But.

Nic

But I think that we'll go to our studio and we'll get copies of the financials.

Steve

But. But, yeah. So basically, I do love this line in here. There's a guy who says something about how, like. Like, his kid's dog, like, got sick or whatever, and then, like, basically, like, he chewed up the reports that I. He's like, did you say your dog ate your homework? Yeah. Is that what you're claiming here? Very funny. But, yeah, they're just jogging and trying to, like, he wants them to stay in the proper. Like, you know, and these guys work out all the time. Like, there's so many scenes in this movie where, like, they have, like, a gym there in the office, and the guys are just, like, on treadmills in sweatsuits and stuff. And it's like, how. First of all, how long's your work? Workday.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Clearly you're working.

Nic

You can have a shorter work day if you just did all this stuff at home.

Steve

12 hours at work, I guess, from 7 to 7 or 8 to 8 or something like that. And they're doing all this working out. But, you know, it's clear that Howard is sort of like. He's presented to us as, like, everything's got to be perfect, you know, so everybody's got to be in good shape and everybody's got to, like, look. Right.

Nic

And everybody's very image conscious. Yeah, I get that.

Steve

He wouldn't, like. He's the kind of guy that wouldn't abide having, like, a fat guy in his ex.

Nic

Totally.

Steve

You know, like, wouldn't be a. Okay. That kind of thing. And so. So he's. He's all about these guys working out all the time, which is super weird. But, yeah. So it's a little aside. The basis introduces the name Donald Davenport to us.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Who comes back later. And then this is. Yeah, they're basically. DAvenport has bought 5% of their stock on the open market. And therefore, that's sort of like. I guess that's an indication, like, the way they refer to it in this movie a few times, I feel like. Did everybody know that this is like the precursor to a hostile takeover, is buying 5% of the shares in the company. Yeah, I didn't know that, but apparently that was. Well, so there's a potential takeover of Penrose in the offing.

Nic

Pretty unrealistic that There's a very rich asshole named Donald in New York in the 1980s. That's one part of this movie that I don't really get. Brantley. So he's got his secretary now, and he's kind of got his crew. Who knows what's. I think Melrose knows what's going on. Or does he not even know?

Steve

No, at this point, Melrose definitely doesn't know. He finds it.

Nic

He started becoming a suit.

Steve

Yeah, no, exactly. But there is a point later where Melrose figures it out, but for now, it's basically Brantley keeps disappearing from the mail room and showing back up. We see him changing the elevator a lot. He usually hits the. The fire alarm or whatever, you know, really abused.

Nic

I mean, I don't know any personally, but if I'm an elevator repair person, I will say, just as a public service, don't abuse that button. Yeah, that's a very specific button for emergencies. It's not for you to make out with someone.

Steve

Right, right. Or change your clothes or do anything else.

Nic

Oh, he dips into Christy's office. This is so Brantley. Like, during this whole time, he's kind of becoming known. Whitfield is kind of becoming known a little bit, as he's, like, doing stuff. People know who he is. They mention his name and everything. And Howard hasn't met him yet. And every time Howard is around, Brantley's gotta duck out. And he ends up.

Steve

Ducks into an office.

Nic

Ducks into an office. And it's Christy. And Christie is just like the coldest but wittiest person. Like, her witty banter with him, but. But then she's saying these, like, snappy retorts to whatever he's saying, and he's acting like she's dissing him. I'm like, she's kind of playing with you, dude. She's. She's engaging with you. She's not just saying, get out of here.

Steve

Yeah, I mean, she kind of is eventually at least saying, just get out of here.

Nic

She eventually does.

Steve

But it's clear that sarcasm as a humor form, and I think very specifically, sarcasm from women, was just not as accepted at the. The time. I think that's really us.

Nic

That's a good point.

Steve

That's a good point. You know, we're in a. In a In a post broad city comedy world these days. Right? There's, there's, there's this. This attractiveness of sarcasm in women, I think, personally. I mean, my wife's very sarcastic sense of humor, you know, but I think that that's something that, like, if you go back 40 years, there just weren't. There wasn't as much acceptance of, you know, first of all, of women being funny. People just didn't think women were funny, which was incorrect, but it was the sort of like, default position most people took. And then like, sarcasm in general's humor wasn't really. I think it was just seen as putting up your guard, you know, putting.

Nic

Barriers or just being like a cold fish or whatever they would, you know, probably describe her as. Yeah, that, that, that makes sense. So in, in Carlton slash Brantley, I think we get a good montage of him walking on sunshine is playing as he's kind of settling into his new position. He's making his call and he's switching back and forth to the mailroom thing.

Steve

He deliveries and then switching into a suit again and going back and forth.

Nic

Making every one of his motions look extra like 80s. Cool guy is so funny. The way he's dipping in around corners. Hey, what's up? You know, like, he would never put a peanut into his mouth. He'd have to throw it in the air and catch it in his mouth.

Steve

Yeah, it's very much. This feels very much like, you know, this is Marty McFly on the skateboard holding onto the back of the truck. I mean, for sure, that's the style, you know. Yeah, but. Yeah, so then we get a scene back at his apartment. He's brought home a bunch of stuff. He's still doing research, still doing, you know, all this kind of like work for work. But his neighbors. And this was, I thought was the most unnecessary little scene. But his neighbors are having sex and they're banging up against the wall, which is moving his bed, everything. And he gets a so or beer or whatever out of the fridge and starts, like, conducting them. Yes, like a conductor. And then, you know, as they climax, he opens the beer and it like sprays everywhere. And it's like that gave us nothing. There's nothing about that. Because in the very next scene, he's laying in bed and they wake him up with their lovely king. And so it's like that's all that was necessary to make that joke work.

Nic

I thought. Yeah, they probably thought that would just be a funny bit. I will say somebody watching this with his 13 year old daughter. I definitely had to do a lot of throat clearing and, like, subject changing and, you know, bring a dish that's not dirty into the kitchen just to leave the room. So that's what that did for me.

Steve

That's good. That's good stuff.

Nic

Yeah. And that's when I remember that being really funny, because you don't see that in a lot of movies. And we had a similar couple in a hotel room next to us a few weeks ago. And I wish that I'd seen this movie because I certainly would have done that. It would have enhanced the uncomfortableness of, like, oh, my God, what are these walls made of, tissue? Will this guy stop here? He's really making me look bad.

Steve

But immediately after that sequence, Brantley's in bed asleep. Ostensibly, he's woken up by his neighbors beginning to have sex again. And then there's a knock at his door or the little buzzer or something, and it's Vera. And he's like, are you kidding me? But she comes in. They clearly spend the night together. And then he moves on to the next day and goes back to work. At which point, I believe we see Christy and Howard chat. And it's clear that Howard and Christy are in a relationship together. Now, this has been made clear to us just in their conversation. I don't know if it had been before that or not. But, you know, he basically, like, invites her to lunch, right? And so they go to a nice restaurant. This is another sequence where there's, again, a mirror. And we're, like, seeing one person in the mirror and seeing the other person sitting. I think Christie's sitting in the banquette and the mirror above and behind her. We see Howard in as they're chatting. And it's just like, I actually really like the framing, the shots that way. And it was sort of like, I didn't really realize until I was. Was, like, looking back through my notes that they really do that a few times in the movie. And it's kind of a fun thing. But basically, Christie mentions to Howard that there was a dissenting opinion when she presented the idea of cutting these offices in the Midwest they're talking about cutting in order to raise capital to fend off the Hustle takeover. She said a dissenting voice was heard and that it was Carlton Whitfield. And this is a name that Howard has never heard. He's like, who's Carlton Whitfield? Oh, new executive. And he goes, oh, it might be a plant from Davenport Port here to gain, you know, to gather information. It's like, how the fuck does somebody plant somebody in your company, dude? Like, you have to, like, hire people. Like, it's just so bizarre, like, that any of this even happens. But that's okay. He basically says, I want you to stay close to him. Find out what you can find out. Steal notes from him or something, whatever. Like, she basically. He basically asks her to spy on him. And she kind of reluctantly, but does agree to do so.

Nic

Yeah. So she's going to stand Whitfield, which is just Whitfield. So slash Brantley, slash Foster. Michael J.

Steve

Fox.

Nic

All right, if you're not following that. And. Which is exactly what he wants. So it's kind of easy for her to do.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And we get some scenes, I think of him doing the quick change, you know, back and forth in the elevator now. And, you know, he'll stop the elevator. I don't understand. He goes all the way down to the socks.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

I'd be like, dude, you can keep the same lower body. Just put a sweater on. Like, you can make it so much simpler. But he changes his, like, shirt undershirt.

Steve

But I think they really had. He had to wear a full suit and tie as an executive and couldn't wear any piece of a suit or tie for mailroom because it would have been suspicious.

Nic

That guy will smell the suit on you. He's even 1% of a suit counts as a suit. The elevator maintenance guy is very frustrated by this. And he keeps having to come and see it. And you saw who the elevator maintenance guy was. Hector Salamanca, aka Mr. Shika Dance from Ace Ventura, Ace Ventura's landlord as well. Well, so I like seeing him in.

Steve

This stuff already looking like he's 60 years old. I mean, this was like 30 years.

Nic

He had a Leslie Nielsen type age plateau, I think, where he just stayed like 60 for 35 years. So this was a scene that cracked me up. And I remembered this a lot from when I first saw it. So these different scenes where he's going in the elevator, stopping the elevator and changing. And one of the times the maintenance guy is able to get the elevator going. So it starts again and he's mid change and he's just fully naked. And you wonder, how are they gonna deal with this? Is he gonna disappear through that very easy to access thing? Through the drop of the elevator, which is the easiest thing to get through according to all other fiction. But instead he's just fully. Like, he's wearing just a tie and underwear, I think.

Steve

Yeah. Tie in box.

Nic

And the elevator opens and he Just goes into, like, a flexing pose. And the funniest part of it is doing this slight turn back and forth and doesn't say anything.

Steve

Well, no, it's Gene, his secretary. Is that the elevator? He goes, gene, could you get. Could you take these to, like, dry cleaning for me or something like this? Dry cleaning for me. Throws something at her and moves on with the elevator door closing.

Nic

But, yeah, so good.

Steve

Oh, the other thing I wanted to mention. So we get a couple. We've seen a few of this executive leadership team, and there are so many people on this. On this group of executives that I recognize recognizable character actors, right? So one of them, the sort of main guy of, you know, that would be right hand man to Howard, is obviously Uncle Frank from Alone, right? But the tall guy who they refer to as Ron a couple times, that is the actor that Dawber on Coach, which I found out in looking that up. He's also the voice of Patrick and like, every SpongeBob SquarePants thing ever. I had no idea that that was. My kids are so into spongebob, so I had no idea that Dawber was. Was the voice of Patrick because we used to call my son Dawber because when he was about 18 months old. You know, when kids hit that 18 months to 2 years, there's, like, an awkwardness to little kids. His. The way his hair looked at that time. We thought, like, dauber, where it was, like, thin, but, like. But, like long, you know, I mean, it's a little funky because he was 18 months old and everybody looks funky. 18 months.

Nic

Great.

Steve

Weird little circular thing there. But, yeah, so. So we get now where Christie and Brantley are, you know, talking in his office. Basically, she says, you know, you're wrong, but convince me that you're right. Like, he says he wants to expand that. That's the way to, like, bolster the company and make it too valuable to have a household take over. And she said, yeah, but. But Prescott wants to. Wants us to cut, so that's what we have to do. So he's basically. They're chatting for a while. She ends up slinking into the couch like she's about to faint and says, oh, my blood sugar's low. I need food. But, like, also, it was a very strange choice by the actress, frankly. But they go to heaven. They go to paradise in order to eat. Because they go to a place, it's clearly a bar with a waitress that you can order food from and just a bowl of bagels on the table just for munching. Where is this glorious place? What is this? I have never seen anything like this in my life.

Nic

You never see the bagel bowl before.

Steve

It's so amazing. And they actually, when they come out at the end of the scene, it says locks around the clock is the name of the place, which is fantastic. But yeah, all night bagel bar. Yes, I'm in.

Nic

It is funny, like if it didn't have that, that part where it shows you the name of the restaurant and kind of the joke about that. It's almost as if you had AI come up with like what would be in a bowl at a New York bar for a second snack.

Steve

It's like it's 3am so you can still buy booze. So the bar is all bagels. It's New York City. It's Manhattan. What's on the table can't be rolls. It's got to be bagels. Right. So it is.

Nic

So I. Christie's level of experience, I would assume she's at least as educated as Brantley.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Plus has multiple years of experience in this business.

Steve

Here's my guess. She's about 26 or 27. I don't think we get her age at any point, but that's like my guess. A little older than Brantley, but just a couple years. Years. We heard she went to Harvard. Melrose knows that and says that she went to Harvard. So let's assume for a second that's Harvard mba.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Right. So if she's three to four years removed from earning her Harvard mba, she probably got into an executive training program straight out of school. She would have interned while at Harvard at major companies in Boston or New York City like over the summer and stuff. Whereas Brantley, going to Kansas State just didn't have that kind of opportunity for internship. And I think that's where she is separated, is able to earn that position like rightfully and not have to trick her way into it. The way Brantley does that she actually has that job is a. Probably because she is some kind of. These Melrose calls are like a math genius or finance genius or something like that. Fine. But just the idea of like if you go to Harvard for your undergrad and your MBA and you're doing summer internships all the time, right. In New York City or in Boston, like you're going to. It's going to pan out for you. You know what I mean?

Nic

Like, right.

Steve

That's. That's the way you write your ticket. Brantley was in Kansas, going to Kansas.

Nic

State and just, just becoming A farm genius.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

So it's kind of like a bad lesson in the movie is like probably the most qualified woman that in that position. And then Brantley's like, nah, dummy, this is how you do it. Hey, I read this. I read this on my only spring. No mattress, no fabric, just a spring that I sleep on.

Steve

But before we leave, the bagels, the bagel bar real quick, the waitress. Did you recognize the waitress? That was Academy Award winning actress Mercedes Ruhl who also played Mrs. Baskin, Tom Hanks mom in Big oh My God. And she also had a short role on Frasier and stuff like that. But yeah, that she like won an Academy Award like three years after this movie. She won a best supporting actress award for the Fisher King is what she won. But yeah, so she would go on to win an Academy Award. And she also starred in one of the, you know, most beloved movies of the 80s. And big. Well, not starred, I guess she was a supporting role.

Nic

But she's like, you know, of it.

Steve

Exactly. So I thought that was really, that was a funny poll. I was like, oh my God, is that, is that. I was like, is that Mrs. Baskin? Yeah, sure enough.

Nic

I did write down that the date scene, I didn't time it or anything, but I just wrote down boring date scene. I feel like it dragged. And this isn't a short, this is not an 80 something minute movie. It's like 111 or something like that.

Steve

101. I think. Yeah.

Nic

That you could trim it a little bit.

Steve

Yeah, you know, it's definitely.

Nic

Let's have just the bagels.

Steve

Yeah. Although, although, you know, it is 111. I said 101 earlier. I think I did the math wrong. It's is 111 minutes. But yeah, this is. And especially when you compare it to the wonderful date montage and the Naked Gun, which we did a couple weeks ago. That was exactly. But yeah, they end up like on a three masted sailing ship, but then also on a ferry at some point. I have no clue what's happening, but they're basically falling for each other. Well, she's falling for him. He's already in love, but you know she's falling for him. They end up kissing, but she admits I'm seeing someone. I'm dating a married man from work and you know, and he of course does not not admit, you know, because even goes to say, well, I would never. It's like, dude, you, you've been, you've banged a married woman you're actually related to twice already. So don't act like your Mother Teresa are, like, doing all the right things or whatever. Yeah, but. Yeah, so basically this is. This is their We've fallen in love. Not even a montage is there. Right. There's a scene kind of goes on kind of long. It's on some kind of a weird boat, but.

Nic

Yeah, but that fairy seems like. I've seen that in other fiction. It seems so easy to get that whole thing to yourself.

Steve

Yeah. Or at least, I mean, if you're just off hours, right. You're doing it in the middle of the day. You can find a corner somewhere, I guess. But. Yeah, maybe they're big. I have personally not ridden a lot of fairies in my day, and there actually are quite a few of them here in the Bay Area, and I've never really done it.

Nic

Alameda Ferry to the city, to the Giants game, to the Warrior game. It's beautiful.

Steve

I should do that.

Nic

So. And then Howard has told Christy that he's. I want to be with you. I'm getting divorced.

Steve

Right. Right.

Nic

You know, so that's.

Steve

She tells him I own a break up. Like, she basically says, like, I'm. I'm done. Like, I don't want to do this anymore.

Nic

I don't want to be your.

Steve

I'm not gonna. Yeah. I just.

Nic

Mistress.

Steve

We need to be just, you know, colleagues and like, nothing else. Whatever. And he goes, oh, the timing. So ironic because I was about to. I'm gonna tell Vera that I'm leaving her. Whatever. Which is still not the same as, like, having done it. He's still saying, I'm gonna do it.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But then she, you know, I don't even think at this point she really acquiesces. She sort of just like, says, well, okay, you know, it's too bad. Like, I'm done. I think, you know, she's still basically like. Like, sticks to her guns and tells him that she's done, which is great. Good for her.

Nic

She's not a man to be told no, though. He's probably kind of like, okay, whatever. Yeah, I'm still. We're still together.

Steve

He's a complete slime ball.

Nic

I disagree.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Right. Yeah.

Steve

I do not accept. So.

Nic

So Howard almost catches Brantley at some point where he sees him in the suit.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And, you know, there's this chase scene going through the office where he's got a.

Steve

Well, that's. That's. Yeah, the boss. Yeah. Sorry. Yes. His boss, Ratigan or whatever catches him, but.

Nic

Oh, that's the guy.

Steve

Right. Yeah, that's catches him and sees him in the suit and, like, chases him. He's gotta, like. He runs past Melrose, who actually, like, nearly kills his boss.

Nic

Dude. Okay, I just wrote devastating. Devastating hose trip. So he's like running down these stairwells and stuff, and Melrose like, throws like a big hose out.

Steve

It's like there's. There's somebody. I think what it is is it's maybe an electrical cord. There's somebody like waxing floors. Okay. Right. And then it's like he like, takes his foot under the electrical cord and raises it. So now the cord is up at like shin height right at the top of the stairs. Chairs. And Ratigan goes, go.

Nic

Like four guys get affected.

Steve

By God, people just get the. The waxing machine gets pulled everything.

Nic

I will say, though, for a movie like this that features the. The floor buffing machine.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

To have the discipline, to not have the scene where someone does it and, like, gets carried away by it is incredible. So I really commend the filmmakers here.

Steve

The movie is so grounded in realism.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

There's so little fantasy to it. You know, it's very important that we keep this cinema verite. Yeah. So. But. Yeah, but then when he gets away from Ratigan, he runs into his office.

Nic

Yes. Whitfield's office. It looks like a second grade classroom. I don't understand the walls of his office. It is crazy, right?

Steve

He's got all these, like, butcher paper sheets. He's big. Like, they come off the roll, you know that he's like. But he hasn't just, like, put up charts and stuff. He's like, drawn little cards and little cards colored in. And it's like, which. How many trucks do we have in Vermont? We have four. Draw four trucks. Color them in. It's like, so bizarre. Yeah.

Nic

It's like if a kid tried to design their dad's office in Minecraft and that's the stuff they'd put on the wall. He'd be like, this looks like office stuff.

Steve

And then Howard, even, he's like. So basically, after Brantley gets away from Ratigan, he runs to his office. Obviously, it's Carlton's office. It's the nameplate. Howard's in there because he's snooping on Whitfield. And even he says, like, what is all this stuff? Like, what even is this? And he runs the company. So, like, if he's like, bewildered by it, you know, it's interesting. But basically he comes in. So now Howard knows Brantley as Brantley, but is like, why are you Wearing a suit. That's so weird. He goes, oh, a friend. He died. We buried him. Okay, So, I mean, that's a reasonable excuse, I guess. But then he hands. Howard hands a bunch of the. Technically, Whitfield's notes or whatever. Whatever to Brantley and says, take these up to my office, right? Because he's like, these are Whitfield's. Take them up. Do you know Whitfield? Oh, I've seen him around. Like, good guy or whatever, you know? So he goes up to Howard's office, and who's there? Vera's there, of course.

Nic

She.

Steve

She ostensibly is coming to have lunch with Howard, but Brantley gets there first and is once again sexually assaulted by the wife of the CEO.

Nic

She's. Yeah, I mean, we gotta say Brantley, give her what she wants. I mean, just treat. Treat Vera like she's a. Like she's a black bear attacking you and just lay down and whatever happens, just let it happen. Yeah, she's chasing him around, and they get. They get walked in on. It is funny how clueless Uncle Howard is, right?

Steve

He's an idiot.

Nic

They get walked in. They are done. Because he's, like, in her arms on the couch.

Steve

She's, like, on top of him, his shirts, like, his jackets off and his suspenders are pulled down. And she's literally, like, straddling him, like, laying on him. And they sort of like, oh, oh.

Nic

She says, he fainted.

Steve

Right? And then. Whatever. Oh. And then he goes, oh, I got to go to a funeral. And Howard's like, didn't you already go like, oh, fuck. I use the same grief. Yeah. But basically, Howard tells Vera, like, oh, I can't do lunch today. I'm busy. Whatever. Or I already had my lunch or whatever. But that's when he basically keeps. He basically talks to Brantley. He's like, hey, like, come. Come eat with me. Like, let's chat with me, or whatever? And so he ends up. Brantley ends up having food with Howard. Right? And it's the most bizarre plate of food I've ever seen.

Nic

Okay. Yes, exactly.

Steve

It's all vegetables. I wrote down. It looked like broccoli, asparagus, two little half eggplants, I think carrots, bean sprouts, and baby corn. Like, there's maybe 100 calories on that whole plate, and it's bizarre.

Nic

Try eating a raw eggplant. Listeners, please pause this. Drive to the nearest grocery and just take a chomp out of an eggplant.

Steve

Don't do that.

Nic

I mean, it's the most baffling. Thing visually certainly looks like food. Again, this is just like the AI generated plate of food.

Steve

Exactly. It's like we need a plate of vegetables in the California cuisine style. This is what it would generate.

Nic

I want to rewatch and see all the other food because we get a couple weird plates, we get the bagel bowl and we get the crudite, whatever.

Steve

It is, kind of crudite. It's like a deconstructed pasta primavera with no pasta.

Nic

So do you think that was kind of a joke about like the Howard character and like, you know, we all just eat vegetables. Like we're not gonna eat crap while we're here. Like the healthy, like image, I think.

Steve

It was another class signifier. So I think it's another like 1980s, like this is how we indicate that this person is an upper crusty, out of touch, wealthy person, is that this is their food. It felt very, if you think back to the kind of food that would be featured in American Psycho, like whenever Patrick Bateman would go out to restaurants, right. It was always these tiny little plates and it was all very fancy, but like, like, you know, very, very full of itself, sort of very self important plates of food. And I think that was sort of the indicator or like I love and Scrooged, the guy from California orders the like the California plate or whatever. And it's like just crappy, barely steamed vegetables, you know, and it's the same kind of idea. So I think that was really more of just like a class indicator than anything specific about Howard. But it's funny because he takes a bite or two, I think. But Brantley really just plays with the.

Nic

Food on his fork. Yeah. I don't know how you go about eating that. And is there a ranch? Like, what's going on here?

Steve

No, it looked like maybe the carrots had some kind of glaze on them or some kind of had been drizzled in some oil or something. It was basically a plate full of raw.

Nic

Very bizarre looking meal. Yeah, I agree. And so kind of the point of what Howard wants him there for is he wants Brantley now to watch Vera at the party.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So that he can spend time with Christie.

Steve

He needs to win Christie back.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And he. And so they're basically, he's inviting. Let's listen.

Nic

He's like, distract my wife so I can win my mistress back at the party that everyone's at.

Steve

Yeah. And the reason they're all going to the house over the weekend is that basically Davenport has called a board meeting For Monday, Basically, it sounds like to offer a vote of no confidence and leadership. And a hostile takeover. Right. Like a merger, a forced merger. So Howard wants to get all of the executive leadership team together at his house over the weekend to go over all the details, make sure they're prepared for that meeting. They know what they're going to say or whatever, which is actually a reasonably good plan, and frankly, do an on site together and, like, figure it all out. Right. But that means Christie will be there. Obviously. Vera lives there, so she's there with him. He wants to also take the opportunity over the weekend to rekindle with Christie and, like, you know, kind of save their affair that they're having. So he needs Vera to be distracted. And it was after the Vera and Brantley interaction in Howard's office that Howard realized, oh, your Aunt Vera has really taken a shine to you. You know, he basically is saying, like, could you fuck my wife for the weekend so that I could fuck my mistress? Right.

Nic

And that's. I mean, that's how little he cares, too, because even if it came down to it, he would say, exactly. Just like, yeah, I don't.

Steve

Yeah. And so. Yeah. So then we get to. We get to Litchfield.

Nic

So we're at the party. Yeah. And. And Vera actually is very cool with Brantley. Like, she. Since he's kind of talked to her previously about his dreams and his aspirations and stuff, and she knows what an obstacle her husband is to all this stuff. She. She's like, oh, I'll introduce you to all these guys. So she's like, oh, here's fucking this evil piece of shit. And here's this demon, and here's this fucking lizard person. And she goes around and is able to introduce him to all these important men.

Steve

Yeah. It was funny, though, because especially after that explanation that you just gave of the scene. Very apt description of all of the reality going on. But growing up, despite all of the sex and everything else in this movie, this, to me, was the biggest fantasy, was that someone with connections like this would basically introduce you directly to power brokers. Yeah. Right. To me, this was like. This was the fantasy scene. This was the thing that I was like, oh, man, that would be fucking awesome if you could just meet all these, like, rich people and they liked you, you know, kind of thing. Obviously, I didn't understand at the time, you know, what you have to do to your humanity to gain the amount of money that these people clearly have.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Not something I would be up for. But, you know, at the time, I Was kind of like, dude, this is how you make it, man. You got to, like, you got to find an old lady to bang who knows rich people.

Nic

Yeah. You got to meet the important guys. Yeah. And at the age I first saw this movie, I would have thought the most important guys were, like, the game developers who put themselves into NBA Jam if you had a certain code like, oh, if I could ever meet this guy who works at Midway, then. Then I make it to the top.

Steve

Made in the shade, man.

Nic

So she goes around, and she's introducing Brantley to all these guys, and we get. Get kind of a montage.

Steve

Another montage interlude. Yep.

Nic

Brantley, like, basically talking to, like, you know, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and all these guys in a gazebo, and he's breaking down economics that he learned whatever he's saying at the Wall Street Journal.

Steve

And it's.

Nic

It's. I like that one of the guys was holding the Wall Street Journal at the party. When they walked up to him, it's like, we know where we are. Like, if you need an extra, like, arrow pointing to what this guy is at this point. But, yeah, I really love that everyone's just, like, gathered around the gazebo, and they can't get enough of Brantley just yapping about.

Steve

And there's a moment in here where. So Christie and Brantley are hanging out together, because, of course, Christie's not here for Howard. Like, she's here to do the work, and then. But she's interested in Brantley. She's not interested in Howard or. Excuse me, she's interested in Whitfield. Right. That's how she knows him. But she doesn't care about Howard. But then someone else is like, have you seen, you know, Whitfield? Oh, he's over there talking to Christy. Someone says to Howard. So he comes over, over and in. In a moment that could have saved a lot of time where he could have just said, brantley, have you seen Whitfield? That's all he would have had to say. But instead, he pulls Brantley away from Christie without referring to him by name, and in secret, talks to him like, whitfield's here. Somebody saw him with Christie. You've got to keep. You've got to stay with Christie and keep Whitfield away from her. And it's, like, literally impossible. But also, you just gave him carte blanche to now spend time with her, which is weird. And originally, he wanted to spend time with Christie, but whatever. Like, so now he needs Brantley to stay with Christie, which, of course, Surprises her. And you know, he comments about like, oh, yeah, I know he's really understanding guy. He's really cool or whatever, you know. So there's that and it's, it's like, you know, I thought about when I. When I saw this, I'm like, this could have like ended the movie at this point. Movie could be over if he had just. Hey, Brantley, have you seen Whitfield? Someone said he was over here, that's all.

Nic

It just approached so poorly. So poorly. I don't know exactly where this happened, but my next note, which is just a one off. There was this lamp somewhere. I think it might have been next to Brantley's bed. And it's like a deer foot. Like deer hoofs are the base of the lamp. Like there's four deer hooves. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen.

Steve

I missed that. I'll have to go back and watch it. But the room he's staying in clearly is like hunting themed. There's like a deer head on the wall, trophy, and there's like a pictures on the wall of like hunts and stuff. So I mean, yeah, clearly it's a hunting lodge themed, you know, guest room that he's in. This actually is a sequence that I forgot about when I started watching the movie this week. That's the very classic French bedroom scene or sometimes called a door play. Right. Where people are going in and out of these different rooms.

Nic

Is that the real. The name for it?

Steve

French bedroom farce. Yeah. Or a French.

Nic

I always call it Scooby Doo doors. I'm glad. I know that's French bedrooms.

Steve

Yeah, that's, that's. And then in theater we'll call it a door play.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

But yeah, so it's, it's, you know, people coming out, both Vera and Howard pretending that they're asleep so that one of them leaves and the other one does because they want to go find, respectively, Christy and Brantley to have sex with them.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

But then Christie and Brantley have both left to find each other and there's just all this, you know, action going on. This way, that way, whatever. While again, yellow. Oh yeah, by Yellow plays over all this happening. At one point, Christy has to duck into a room that she doesn't realize apparently is occupied and Frank is. Or not. Well, it's Uncle Frank.

Nic

Uncle Frank from Home Alone.

Steve

Yeah, Art is the character. But Uncle Frank is there and he thinks. Thinks he's about to get lucky. So he gets up and sidles over to her and then she like, leaves and slams the door on his hand. Which he doesn't like, shriek or anything.

Nic

No.

Steve

Perfectly silent, but apparently heard him anyway. So there's all this happens.

Nic

He's so presumptive. Like, she doesn't come into his room in any kind of way. It's just like a person is clearly just hiding in here. She wasn't facing him.

Steve

No, she's facing the door. She's clearly listening to, like, hear what's happening outside the door. And yet he's like.

Nic

And then he's part of the entire fucking nine minute montage of this bullshit that could have lasted like a minute.

Steve

This was.

Nic

I was like, all right, we can't say shit about the fight scene. And they live after this scene here. This is too much.

Steve

Fair. Fair pool. Okay, that's fair. Anyway, so let's get to the end here. So what happens is Brantley ends up in Christie's room where peeking out of her bag are the notes that she stole from him, gave to Howard, in which he returned to her at the party for some reason. So she has them with her. So he sees him and is like, what the fuck? She stole from me. So he has locked the door and is looking through the notes. Howard tries to open the door to get in because he thinks Christie's in there, but the door's locked. So he goes down to the basement to get the skeleton key or whatever. The key for the room comes back, unlocks it. Brantley jumps into bed, at which point Howard just climbs into bed to like, oh, baby, I'm going to leave my wife. Like, all this stuff, whatever. And eventually Brant. Brantley, you know, is like, oh, it's me, you, or whatever, you know, Christie comes in, light, turns on, I think Vera comes in. Basically, everybody confronts everybody. And there's the whole, this isn't Brantley. This is Whitfield. No, this is Whitfield. This is Brantley. And he even says Brantley is Whitfield.

Nic

Whitfield is Brantley kind of situation going on.

Steve

So everybody is now in the know as to what happened, which, of course, results in Brantley being fired, Christie being fired, and. And Howard, you know, sort of trying to. To sweep all this under the rug, I guess. Right? So cut now to Monday morning back at the Penrose offices.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

We get a quick clip of the board meeting. Donald. Donald Davenport has called this board meeting to have a hostile takeover. Penrose, played by one of the greatest voices of all time. And Fred Gwynn. Oh, is the character timer. I mean, just absolute amazing voice. Another My cousin Vinnie reference as well, by the way, since he.

Nic

Right.

Steve

Judge Chamberlain. Holla. Oh, my God. We'll have to do my cousin.

Nic

What is a ute.

Steve

Did you say utes? Anyway, Fred Gwynn is Donald Davenport. Fantastic. And so they say. I love this line, you know, like, we understand you'll want to bring in some of your own people for middle management, but, you know, we're really concerned about the upper management. And he says, well, a lot of them will have to go, of course. And everybody kind of gets tense. He goes, but some of them, such as yourselves, who've been so helpful and be staying as long as you like.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And that's, of course, the green light. They all need to say, okay, cool. Our jobs are.

Nic

They're like, good. We're fine with this deal. Yep. Yep.

Steve

I think I jumped around a little bit. But, like, Christy and Brantley, they don't really explain this, but they're, like, fighting because they're yelling at each other. He. She stole from him for Howard. He lied to her about her name. Right. They've got good reason to be pissed at each other, but they end up in an elevator together, both leaving. And when the elevator gets to the bottom, they're making out.

Nic

I don't. This elevator, it's like the phone booth from Bill and Ted. It just has, like, magic power.

Steve

Is.

Nic

It'll turn you from a mailroom guy into an executive.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. I didn't. I didn't get that. But I think even as they were making the movie, they're like, all right, let's just fucking wrap it up. Yeah, we get it.

Steve

We get towards the end here.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So.

Nic

So we're in this meeting now, and this. This hostile takeover is going to happen. Everyone's basically going to lose their job, right? And then Brantley comes, right?

Steve

So Brant, we've seen. What we saw was Brantley and Christie kind of come go back upstairs and get Gene and Melrose and, like, hey, we need to make some phone calls. We need some stuff. Like, don't leave yet. Like. Like. And basically what it is, is they come in, Brantley and Christie especially, come in, and, you know, Howard's like, oh, who are you? Got to get out of here. Like, you're fired. You know, whatever. And he basically says, like, no, no, no. Like, we've got. You know, we've got a plan. We're going to buy you out, Davenport. Like, base. It's like, what are you talking about? You know, how Prescott. Who are these people? You know, whatever. And there's a line I love at first where it's like Howard looks at Brand, he goes, who's going to listen to some kid who used to work in our mailroom? And he goes because yeah, nobody at first. Howie. He calls him Howie. Great. But yeah, sure enough, the, the, the billionaire, you know, lizard people from, from the party over the weekend. And Vera come in and it's like this is the financial backing, right? To sort of.

Nic

So we have.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Take enough money to make this work.

Steve

Exactly. They've got the Shares. Vera has 50.1% of shares in the company. So she can essentially do almost whatever she wants as far as that goes. And then these other guys, right. Are there as financial backing as well. And so Vera fires Howard and apparently installs calls Brantley, who is 24 years old and fresh out of business school.

Nic

Everyone would be so mad as the.

Steve

CEO, Not Christy, Harvard educated executive who's been there for years. The guy who was in the mailroom and lied his way into the executive washroom. He gets to be CEO.

Nic

That's right.

Steve

Chairman or whatever the hell he is. Actually, no, she's chairperson. Right. They refer to the new chairperson of the Penrose board, Vera Pembroke. Vera Prescott.

Nic

So yeah, Vera is basically the biggest girl boss in the whole movie. And her big move is to hire some unqualified like Nepo baby. Basically.

Steve

Exactly. So she banged him and they're slightly related and you know what I mean, like that's it. But yeah, that's pretty much the movie.

Nic

Yeah. And then we kind of get like. Vera ends up hooking up with Melrose and Brantley is hooked up with Christie.

Steve

Right.

Nic

There's a great scene of just showing that they are in fact rich because they're in tuxedos and they take a limo to the opera.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

So they go to the limo. There's a whole lot of making out in this movie. Again, during one of the making out scenes in this, my daughter just says, I'm just going to poof out of existence now. So that was her final thought on this movie. But yeah, I think that wraps up the story. So the good guys saved the day. We saved a lot of jobs. The bad guys were punished. And I'm sure this new gang of investors in this company are not going to cut a single job. They're not looking out for their boss. Bottom line. They just want to help out this kid who's got a lot of pluck and moxie.

Steve

That's definitely not business as usual here at Pemrose Corporation any longer.

Nic

So that's the secret of my success.

Steve

That is indeed. So maybe this was your pick. Do mine first real quick and, and say through I, you know, look, I love this movie, but I am 100%, after rewatching it again, on board with the idea that I love this movie because I have nostalgia for this movie. It is a passable romantic comedy comedy. It has some really funny lines and a couple very memorable scenes as a, as a sort of a drama head, a theater kid from way back. I love the, the French bedroom, forest scene. It's very, it's really rooted in theater. So I love that kind of stuff. But yeah, like, I love this movie and I'm not going to be ashamed to say that I'm giving it a four out of five. What I will say is you can't necessarily.

Nic

Results may vary.

Steve

Yeah, results may vary. You know this. I am a 4 out of 5 because I love this movie. I. I can't justify giving it a five out of five, but I kind of wanted to. But yeah, so I'm four out of five on the secret of my success. It's a ton of fun. There's a lot of 80s in this movie and it's just a lot of fun. And I really enjoyed it. And I think the soundtrack is great. I honestly really enjoy 80s power ballads and that's the majority of the songs in the soundtrack.

Nic

Yeah, no, hey, I support your rating and I get the nostalgia bump. I thought I would like this a lot more. When I think of the Mandela effect, I think of didn't Berenstain bears used to be spelled differently? And wasn't stovetop stuffing made by Stouffer's and not craft? And now one of my Mandela effect things is wasn't secret of my success Good. And for some reason it just didn't work for me. I think there were certainly very funny parts, but I think as a movie, I didn't like the Christie actress. I didn't think she was that good. I liked Melrose. I wish it was kind of more of a buddy style thing with him. Vera was good. It just didn't really work that much for me.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, and I think, you know, the Mandela effect thing is certainly real, which is why the Deep state has kept sending fire trucks by our recording today.

Steve

So of course I'll be editing all those out so nobody actually will hear those.

Nic

Ladies and gentlemen, there are fire trucks on the recording we're making. Missing a minute. So, yeah, I'll say about this movie. I love MJ Fox and His charisma can really carry anything. And I think his charisma was doing a whole lot of work in this. But the best I'm able to give you on this movie is a two out of five. I think if you haven't seen it, it's worth flipping on. You're not going to not. You're not going to hate it.

Steve

Right.

Nic

It's just if you're trying to do your first Michael J. Fox movie of a podcast about 80s and 90s movies, maybe that's a swing and a mist from me.

Steve

That's okay. Look, we all know at some point we're going to do Back to the Future, but, you know, we don't want to, like. We don't want to hit all the greats early. You know, at some point, like, like Listener. At some point we're going to do Beverly Hills Cop, we're going to do the Goonies, we're going to do Home Alone, we're going to do Die Hard. We're going to do these movies that, like, are classics of the era that everybody wants to, you know, think about and remember and they watch over and over again. We're not going to start with those. You know, we got to ease into it. You know what I mean?

Nic

Right. So sprinkle him in.

Steve

Maybe we could have gone Doc Hollywood instead of. Instead of Secret High Success. I don't know. But anyway, that's a six out of ten. So that's a.

Nic

This was a fun one to talk about, though. And I think the. The edge of the pg. It's very interesting to watch movies that are kind of at the. At the cusp of their rating.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

To see, like, what might have pushed it over and stuff.

Steve

So.

Nic

Yeah, I think. I think it's worth. It's worth a watch. I think rotten tomatoes and IMDb are about right on this one. We're pretty much in line with this.

Steve

Yeah. Because it was like a 6.9 IMDb be 42. 46 or something that. On Rotten Tomatoes, and we're right in between those two at a six out of ten.

Nic

So.

Steve

Yeah, I think that's, you know, appropriate and cool and all right, well, I guess it's time for me to.

Nic

Yeah, you're next, Steve, what do we have coming up?

Steve

So we're gonna do something a little different from this. We're staying in the comedy realm, but definitely different genre of comedy. And I think we're gonna go back something we've done a couple times recently, a couple weeks ago or last month, we did Happy Gilmore. Right before Happy Gilmore 2 kids came out. Yeah, we did the Naked Gun. Right before the new Naked Gun with Liam Neeson came out. We got another one where there's a sequel coming, a sort of resurrection sequel. All right, so this movie came out in 1984 and it was. It invented a genre of comedies. It was basically the world's first, as far as I can tell, the world's first mockumentary.

Nic

Nice.

Steve

So it's a fictional movie about a fictional group of people set up as a documentary style movie movie. So this one stars Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKeon and Harry Shearer as UK's darkest heavy metal band, Spinal Tap. So you're gonna watch this is Spinal Tap. Fantastic. You know, again, invented the mockumentary style and was really, really ahead of its time. And I think it'll be fun to look back because in a couple weeks after that movie, after that episode drops, Spinal Tap 2 comes out. Oh, Jay. And actually features all the same actors. They're all alive. The simple fact that Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer are all alive is crazy. So it'll be fun to see. I think it'll be fun to revisit this one and to then look forward and look ahead at. At what the sequel might bring us.

Nic

Okay, awesome. I'm excited about this one. I think I've only seen it one time, so I'm very much looking forward to revisiting it.

Steve

Very cool. All right, well, if you liked what you heard, folks out there, you know, go to after, give us a five star review. We really appreciate it. You go to Spotify, do the same thing. It just really helps. We'll find the show and we get good ratings. If you want to, send us an email. And a few of you have been doing this and suggesting films and, you know, we respond to everybody and we take every, you know, piece of criticism and suggestion into account. You can do that at the show@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two and the number one. Yeah. This has been 2Dads1 movie. This has been the secret of my success. And I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And talk to you next week when we watch this is Spinal Tap.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.