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?
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 Nick Briana.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1
Movie. I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. 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. Beautiful, Beautiful.
Did they work together on it or did one predate the other? 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. Excellent. Excellent. Well, a hell of a song. Yeah. Yeah.
So, Nick, 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. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. So,
I mean, you're part of, like, the 45% rather than part of the.
A lot of these movies. That's fair. Exactly. 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? 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. Yes. 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. Right. 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. Yeah. 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.
Well, 100% agree. I mean, it's a. It's a. It's on
the cusp. Exactly. It's a. It's a Jim rice of a PG 13. You know,
it's. It's right teetering on the R. If. 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. Yeah, let's hear some
facts. 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. It skews high on IMDb because if you bother
to Go on and write a review generally, or you're on the positive side.
You either really like it or like you really hate it. You're trying to kill
it, like this movie. Pile on troll 2 or whatever. 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.
Well, well done. Yeah. There's a lot of music in the
movie, but so much of it is pop music. So it's. Yeah. 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?
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.
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. 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. And then, I don't know, when Family. Ties was running, that was more
like 80 to, like 80. 85 or 86. That predated the
film. 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. Yeah.
But, you know. Yeah. So this guy was America's what on.
Something that, you know, like we just said, was getting not good reviews before it
came out. Yeah. So Point two, five times its budget
was the box office take, which is. One of Our best. 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, Nick?
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. You need those, like, venetian blind
sunglasses things. 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. I love Secret of My Success as a song,
but St. Elmo's Fire is a Fire song. Way better. So good. Yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah, we're kind of getting, like, flashes between Brantley
Foster, our star. Michael J. Fox. Great name. No, not really.
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. Hey. 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. 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? Like it's not, you know, apologies to
Michael Bishop. 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? 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. Yeah, it's an absolute fantasy.
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. 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. 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. 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? 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.
Okay. 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. And then
I guess he's in Manhattan because they don't make a point of telling us he's
anywhere else. Right. He doesn't seem to be like having to travel far to get
to work. Yeah. So somewhere in maybe downtown,
it's a. Very montageable mess to clean. So it's important
to show that which. 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. He's ready to roll. 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? The company is being shut down, of course. It's like the
boxes are being carried out. Everything's. Everything's going there. 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.
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?
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.
I know the guy you're talking about. Yeah, he was certainly familiar.
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. 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. 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. Yeah, exactly.
So there's just no reason why they should be so against the idea of bringing
him in to train him. But I digress. 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. He's a go getter.
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. Yeah,
like, right where he is. 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. 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?
They had a couple ideas. They just shot them both and left them both in.
There you go. It's that New York in the 80s, man. It's crazy shit.
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. Yeah. So I think this is when he kind of realizes
that there is potentially someone he could reach out to. 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. Right. One of those, like, very distant relations
where you technically would say uncle or cousin. 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. It's totally appropriate. Yeah, that's what we do, is you find a
distant relation, they hook you up with a job. 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. Yeah. 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.
Right. 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.
Guess, or it's like Globo Chem International. Yeah.
Yeah. So he goes to. To visit Uncle Howard.
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. Very high
quality. 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. 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. 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?
I can't imagine that revealing three of your shirt buttons below the tie and
above your waist was, like, the style. 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.
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. Right. 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.
He does like the. Yeah, the traditional I believe
in myself speech. You know, the kind of thing that has always worked for white
men. Yeah, exactly. And that's it. Okay, so. 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. Exactly. He was literally trying to sell his uncle on
the nepotism he knew needed to get his foot in the door. 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.
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. Yes.
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? 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?
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. 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. 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.
Oh, man. Simplicity. 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. Something like that. Something like
that. Yeah. The guy who has, like the. The kind of navy. Yes. Ball cap.
Yes. Who's like, I'm gonna be on your ass.
He's very determined. College puke. Yeah. Oh. Oh. 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.
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. Not one of us. 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. 80S only mentality
of nobody wants to work anymore. We never heard that again. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. And then I missed. I wish that I wrote this guy's name down.
I might have later. His buddy, like the. Oh, Melrose. The styles of
this movie, Right? Exactly. 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. No consorting.
Mix, mix. Not with the suits. 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. 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.
I'm with the mailroom, but I've never. 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. Yes. 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? Or. Yeah, he could have been, like, B.
William Whitfield and gone by Bill or whatever. Sure, something.
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. When your uncle is the CEO of a major corporation and can get
you a job. Might as well be named Brantley. Exactly. It doesn't hurt. Throw a
little Brantley on it. Oh. 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. Yep. 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.
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. 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. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I don't even know if it's. Like I
said, interject as file keeper. 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. Well, the Published report, though, is probably only like 20
pages. The underlying data is what he's digging at. There you go. So a
little inside baseball with the auditing and financial report preparation
world. Just cut that. 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. 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. Yeah, for sure. And,
yeah, so now Brantley's the driver there. 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. Right.
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.
Yes, we both noticed that. 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. 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. 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. The shoes, and we get bow. Bow. Yeah. 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.
Yes. In this. In this movie. But yeah,
so. So she is. And she. There's all kinds of little. 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. 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. Noise.
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. Or like,
wait, no subordinate has ever spoken to me that
way before. You're the help, kid. Like, what are you doing? 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. 10 out of 10, no splash, perfect dive.
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. 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. She's great. 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.
Yeah. 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. 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. 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.
Back in the 80s. It was just a boombox that played Bow. Bow.
Yeah, that by the name is, by the way, is the name of the song.
It is. Oh yeah, by yellow. But yeah, yeah. So he's, he's getting into it
with Vera and massive HR violation
on her. Part, by the way. I know she technically isn't employed by the company,
but she is a show. 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. Well, yeah, except that this
is the scene where he finds out that Uncle Howard is, is, is right.
He doesn't know that. 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. But he
basically has to watch Howard. Yeah, Howard is walking very.
At a very moderate pace across, like a 600 yard field.
And he's. 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. Oh, my God,
ridiculous. 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. 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. 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.
Yes. Right. And he comes across an empty office, which is
somebody who is just. Yes. Let go. Yep. 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. 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. And the phone rings,
and the phone rings, and it's the funniest, like, Italian supplier,
whoever this guy is. New York guy. 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. It's pronounced brute.
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. 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? What is a dog food or missiles? 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. 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. So, yeah, so Brantley scores this
win, I guess. But it basically. It basically emboldens him. Yeah, right. He's like.
He's like, hey, I can do this stuff. 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. So we know that there's some,
like, extra time built into his day if. He figures it out. Right. 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. 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. 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. But I don't think that stock avoid aviation style situation.
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. Right. Like, they're the
ones who are likely to be kept on, though, versus, like, mailroom guys.
Well, yeah, that's. That's accurate, I think. But. But I think that we'll go to
our studio and we'll get copies of the financials. 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. Right. Clearly you're working. You can have a shorter work
day if you just did all this stuff at home. 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. And everybody's very image conscious. Yeah, I get
that. He wouldn't, like. He's the kind of guy that wouldn't abide having, like,
a fat guy in his ex. Totally. 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. Right.
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. 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? No, at this point,
Melrose definitely doesn't know. He finds it. He started becoming a suit. 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. 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. Right, right. Or change your clothes
or do anything else. 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. Ducks into an office.
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. Yeah, I mean, she kind of is eventually at least
saying, just get out of here. She eventually does. 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. That's a good point. 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. 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. He deliveries and then switching into a suit again and
going back and forth. 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.
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. 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. That's good. That's good stuff. 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.
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.
Yeah. So she's going to stand Whitfield, which is just Whitfield.
So slash Brantley, slash Foster. Michael J. Fox. 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.
Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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. 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. 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. This stuff already looking like he's 60 years
old. I mean, this was like 30 years. 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. Yeah. Tie in box. 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. 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. But, yeah, so good.
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. Great. 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. You never see the
bagel bowl before. 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. 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. 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. So I. Christie's level of
experience, I would assume she's at least as educated as Brantley.
Right. Plus has multiple years of experience in this business.
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. Yeah. 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?
Like, right. That's. That's the way you write your ticket. Brantley was in Kansas,
going to Kansas. State and just, just becoming A farm genius. Exactly. 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.
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. But she's like, you know,
of it. 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. 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. 101.
I think. Yeah. That you could trim it a little bit. Yeah,
you know, it's definitely. Let's have just the bagels. 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.
Yeah, but that fairy seems like. I've seen that in other fiction. It seems so
easy to get that whole thing to yourself. 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. Alameda Ferry to the city, to the Giants game, to the Warrior game.
It's beautiful. I should do that. So. And then Howard has told
Christy that he's. I want to be with you. I'm getting divorced. Right.
Right. You know, so that's. 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.
I don't want to be your. I'm not gonna. Yeah. I just. Mistress. 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. Right. 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. 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.
He's a complete slime ball. I disagree. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I do not accept.
So. So Howard almost catches Brantley at
some point where he sees him in the suit. Yes. And,
you know, there's this chase scene going through the office where he's got
a. Well, that's. That's. Yeah, the boss. Yeah. Sorry. Yes. His boss, Ratigan or whatever
catches him, but. Oh, that's the guy. 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. 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. 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. Like four guys get affected. By God,
people just get the. The waxing machine gets pulled everything.
I will say, though, for a movie like this that features the.
The floor buffing machine. Yeah, yeah. 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. The movie is so grounded
in realism. Yeah. 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. Yes.
Whitfield's office. It looks like a second grade classroom.
I don't understand the walls of his office. It is crazy, right?
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. 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. 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. She. 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.
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? He's an idiot.
They get walked in. They are done. Because he's, like, in her arms on the
couch. 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. She says, he fainted. 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. Okay. Yes, exactly.
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. Try eating a raw eggplant.
Listeners, please pause this. Drive to the nearest grocery and just
take a chomp out of an eggplant. Don't do that. I mean, it's the most
baffling. Thing visually certainly looks like food. Again, this is
just like the AI generated plate of food. Exactly. It's like we need a
plate of vegetables in the California cuisine style. This is what it would generate.
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. It is, kind of crudite. It's like a deconstructed pasta
primavera with no pasta. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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. Right. So that he can spend time with Christie.
He needs to win Christie back. Yeah. And he. And so they're basically, he's inviting.
Let's listen. He's like, distract my wife so I can win my mistress back at
the party that everyone's at. 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. 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. Yeah. And so.
Yeah. So then we get to. We get to Litchfield. 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. 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. Right. 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. 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.
Made in the shade, man. So she goes around, and she's
introducing Brantley to all these guys, and we get. Get kind of a montage.
Another montage interlude. Yep. 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. And it's. 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. 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.
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. 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. Is that the real. The name for it? French bedroom farce. Yeah. Or a
French. I always call it Scooby Doo doors. I'm glad. I know that's French bedrooms.
Yeah, that's, that's. And then in theater we'll call it a door play. Okay.
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.
Yes. 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. Uncle Frank from Home Alone. 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. No.
Perfectly silent, but apparently heard him anyway. So there's all this happens.
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. No, she's facing the door. She's clearly listening to,
like, hear what's happening outside the door. And yet he's like. And then he's
part of the entire fucking nine minute montage of this bullshit that could
have lasted like a minute. This was. 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. 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.
Whitfield is Brantley kind of situation going on. 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. Yep. 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. Right. Judge Chamberlain. Holla. Oh, my God. We'll have to do my
cousin. What is a ute. 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.
Yeah. And that's, of course, the green light. They all need to say, okay,
cool. Our jobs are. They're like, good. We're fine with this deal. Yep. Yep.
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. I don't. This elevator, it's like the phone booth
from Bill and Ted. It just has, like, magic power. Is. It'll turn you from
a mailroom guy into an executive. Yeah. 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. We get towards
the end here. Yeah. So. 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? 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. So we have. Right. Take enough money to
make this work. 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. Everyone would be so mad as the.
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. That's right. 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. 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. 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. Yeah. And then we kind of get like.
Vera ends up hooking up with Melrose and Brantley
is hooked up with Christie. Right. 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. That's right. 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. That's definitely not business as usual here at Pemrose Corporation any longer.
So that's the secret of my success. 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. Results may vary. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. So of course I'll be editing all those
out so nobody actually will hear those. 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. Right. 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. 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? Right. So sprinkle him in. 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. 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. Yeah.
To see, like, what might have pushed it over and stuff. So. 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. 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. So. Yeah, I think that's, you know, appropriate and cool and all right,
well, I guess it's time for me to. Yeah, you're next, Steve, what do we
have coming up? 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.
Nice. 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. 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.
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. And I'm
Nick. And talk to you next week when we watch this is Spinal Tap.
Thanks,