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I’ve actually defended Spider-Man 3 on these forums before. No matter how many times they said it, it was not a “franchise killer.” Raimi wanted more time to do a fourth one and the studio wouldn’t (couldn’t?) give it to him. Also, the infamous dancing sequence was meant to show that Parker was tragically unhip, that trying to be cool didn’t fit him in the slightest, and that the symbiote made him into something that he wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it has a lot of flaws and I haven’t seen it in ages, but the movie has a 63% on Rotten Tomatoes, which sounds about right. It’s really not on the level of the terrible movies that HDTGM is supposed to be about.

So I'm about to get very personal. I saw myself in this movie. I've always suffered from mental health issues. I now know I have extreme anxiety, depression and slight OCD . As a child my mom as a single mother and was working a very stressful high profile job as a quality auditor for a blood banking company. She would be gone for a week every other week traveling around the country. When she was home she worked late. I had a really hard time regulating my emotions and dealing with outbursts and fits. Some of it ( most of it) was my anxiety and some was acting out for attention. My doctors ended up putting me on a bunch of medication that caused me to hallucinate and I had to be detoxed. I saw my mom in the Mothers frustration and it reminded me of when she was at the end of her rope because I had been sobbing uncontrollably for over an hour because she said " I love you more than the sun, the moon, and the stars " in the wrong order at bed time . I saw myself in Elizabeth making the mud pie in the time that I tried to make my paternal grandmother lemonade before she woke up with the lemons from her backyard by dumping everything in the kitchen together . I was like 8 I should have known how to make lemonade, and I knew enough to wait for her. It's the only time she's ever yelled at me. To me the movie could be viewed as a the story of a person whose on the spectrum, has adhd, really any number of mental illnesses or is neurodivergent. I don't think that the mother in this movie is evil, I think she doesn't understand how to parent a child who is different . In her mind Elizabeth is deliberately trying to hurt her and be destructive. She sees only malice and is at her wits end. Everything she has tried with her child to get her to "behave" and be "normal" has failed and she's as unruly as ever. We also have to look at her parenting through the time period. Elizabeth's childhood takes place in the 60's it's still very much a conservative time where children, especially girls, are supposed to listen to their parents and the idea of kids having agency is ridiculous. Hitting children was considered a normal punishment and no one would bat an eye. In fact people in her neighborhood probably thought her mom wasn't harsh enough. The methods her mother used out of anger and frustration are wrong. She is not a good mother, I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying that I understand her. Just as I understand Elizabeth. I know exactly how it feels to want to destroy everything in your reach because you can and it's the only way to make the adults in your life suffer as much as you are. I'm not sure it's healthy but God do I understand it.

I am firmly Team Who Gives A Shit. What Larcen says above was essentially my whole thesis about why this movie is a trainwreck. Fred is treated as both an absolute independent entity and an abstract representation, and he simply cannot be both. Fred clearly exists in certain scenes, especially in the scene where we see other imaginary friends. I also read online that one deleted scene took place at a bar where all the imaginary friends hung out while they were off work. But in other scenes, things that are perceived as Fred are either meant to represent Lizzie doing these things (the mud pies and property damage) or they are explained away, such as when Lizzie and her husband are in the bedroom and we hear what we think is Fred trying to open the door but then it ends up being the nurse, who gets accidentally bonked on the head. This movie is trying very hard to be a clumsy metaphor for growing up and Fred is treated as representation of that, but he is also treated as a real entity, one imaginary friend in a world full of them, in order I suppose to make it more kid-friendly and less deeply metaphorical.

The hits just don't stop coming.

??

I saw Michael Pate in the credits and misread Michael Pare. I thought "Oh, no."

I like how our sides now have official bands. We need to draw up official other things as well and just fully commit to this very odd version of the Jets and the Sharks we got going on here.

Fully Team Fuck This Movie. It's tearing us apart!!!!

I'm not going to lie there was a moment or two when I thought to it's "... Oh no can Drop Dead Fred Get It? I'm going to have to bury whatever this feeling is deep inside of me because I'm not emotionally capable of dealing with the ramifications of this." Is Drop Dead Fred the new Bad Ernest you guys?! My therapist and I WILL be discussing this movie don't you worry. It's been a slow week for me and frankly this movie left me rattled. I can't be attracted to Drop Dead Fred I REFUSE. It's gonna be this and the fact my friends are buying fanny packs and it's confusing me because I'm not filled with loathing. So maybe not such a slow week after all?

IMAO, there are two possible explanations for June and Jason's apologia of the film. One, that they really believed what they were saying, and only dug in their heels in deeper when challenged by Casey and Tall. I can understand an aggressive and passionate defense of FORBIDDEN GAMES or PAN'S LABYRINTH, but this film? It just doesn't deserve the effort. Or, two, it was all an act, and perhaps as mentioned elsewhere here - all of HDTGM is just an put-on. Really, are we to believe that June has based her entire career on this film? Can we accept that the screenwriters (Davis and Fingleton) and director (de Jong) were somehow able to create the masterpiece that June and Jason describe, when they exhibit nothing even close to it in the rest of their careers?

Maybe? My take on it, after a long think, is that June should have followed her instincts and recused herself from doing this episode. Because this is the first time I can think of where she not only actually remembered seeing the movie, she was deeply invested in the movie, probably more than anyone in the theatre and more than anyone involved in making it. She credits it with her sexual awakening and with her career as an actor. That is some high stakes for this kind of a show. To disagree with her, it seemed from her responses, was to insult her and her career. She implied that those who didn't like the film just didn't get it, and were not very observant, and maybe dead inside. None of this is acceptable as film criticism, or comedy, or rhetoric. She made it too personal for the rest of the cast to work. And I don't mean to pick on June - the same weird dynamic could have arisen from anyone who was deeply invested in a given film, and this week it happened to be her with this movie. I think if nothing else this episode proves that they shouldn't do an episode about a movie that one of them is in, or is so invested in the film that they may as well have been. Thankfully, this seems like a weird exception in an otherwise enjoyable string of episodes. If the dynamic was like this all the time, I wouldn't listen anymore.

I understand these sentiments, but oddly found this to be one of my favorite episodes, even if the movie itself was total garbage. Part of what made me enjoy the episode was the genuine disagreement over how to interpret a movie that did (albeit crudely) aspire to be something bigger. My take on this is that June and Jason were arguing in favor of the movie that the filmmakers aspired to make, whereas Casey and Paul were arguing against the movie that existed. There's something to be said for trying something big and coming up short -- Heaven's Gate and Ishtar have their adherents -- and I will say that these movies make for much more enjoyable HDTGM episodes than the cynical crap that occasionally gets featured. However, at the end of the day, art is what it is. I could spend years of monumental effort and best intentions trying to sculpt like Rodin but I guarantee that it would be nowhere comparable. Or in other words, this:

I feel sort of convinced by both sides of the debate, and found this episode a blast to listen to. On the other hand, somehow, the two sides of the debate as presented have made me like the movie even less than I already did.

Don't disagree with the thesis here. Just thought I'd note that Carrie Fischer did seem have totally forgiven Lizzie after she got the monster insurance check for her floating condo(?) after it sank.

Here's a different way to look at this. Based on the comments they made, June and Jason seem to feel that Lizzie is better off for having Drop Dead Fred return. But let's run down the state of Lizzie's life by the end of the movie. She has: No job No car No place to live Lost her best friend (this is not explicitly established, but why would Carrie Fisher want to be friends with her after sinking her home?) No relationship (she doesn't really seem to want to pursue anything romantic with Ron Eldard) Severed ties with her mother She's not only worse off than she was when the movie began, but she's probably now ill-equipped to deal with the real world as an adult on her own.

I should also add that "Team Fred vs. Team Sanity" is probably not the best way to phrase this debate because it suggest that the film has a point of view that can be interpreted in different ways. At its core, the debate is whether or not this movie is a hot piece of garbage (and it 100% is). There are several pieces of evidence to suggest that Phoebe Cates is insane. There's even the throwaway line by the guy on trial suggesting that she 'plead insanity' after she returns late from lunch. But there are also several scenes that point to Fred being his own thing and not a manifestation of Lizzie's mind. The movie is all over the place and thus has no redeeming value. I was saddened to see Jason defend it as I almost always agree with him (I hope he just decided to do a bit the whole show by supporting this movie) and I was disturbed by June's infatuation with this movie. Her love of this movie is more troubling than any story Paul has shared about his childhood.

I know most of the posts on here will be simply be offering their stance on the primary debate (I'm 100% Team Sanity, btw) But I wanted to focus on a scene before Fred arrives when Phoebe Cates gets fired. She is a court reporter and after coming back late from lunch gets fired by the judge. First of all, the judge is not her boss. Court reporters either work for the court system or are freelance. That judge would not have the power to fire her. And even if he did, why would you fire the court reporter in the middle of a trial like that. All that would do is delay the trial even further until a new court reporter is available. There's also the possibility that whatever shorthand Phoebe Cates had used when recording the previous parts of the trial wouldn't be understood by anyone else. She would still be needed to transcribe all that she had already typed/reported. However, seeing her get fired as a court reporter did make me recall a news story from a few years ago where a court reporter was fired from his job after it was discovered that he would frequently just by typing random keys or typing repeatedly "I hate my job" instead of actually reporting what was happening in the court cases. Now those cases could be potentially thrown out because lawyers could claim crucial evidence is missing. If you do not have a consistent, reliable court reported, it could be a real mess. The bottom line is that there is no way she's getting fired mid-trial over being late (for a reasonable reason) from lunch.

I. Have. Never. In 7 years of listening to this podcast (no big deal) stopped an episode before the end, but I was so exhausted listening to this one that I stopped it over 40 minutes from the end. I may return to hear the audience Q & A on my upcoming vacation, but I need some time to rest, do some self-care, reflect on my life choices, and perhaps ingest some edibles to finish it up. I love you all, and if this is the last episode at least it was...well, I don't know what it was. I'm tired

I thought for like five seconds that I wanted to comment on this, and then I was all

YES! Actually, Livingston gets a "Story by" credit, whereas the writers were Carlos Davis and Tony Fingleton. And it blows me away that June would go to bat so hard for a movie that tries to represent the coming-of-age of a young girl which was written by two hack men, one of whom is known more for being a swimmer, and the other who never did anything else of note (EDIT: Aside from Hurricane Heist, I guess). I tried to find out more about Livingston and came up with bupkis. She's written a few other short stories, all having some supernatural elements to them, but never made another splash as big as this. I would just hate to think that she had a real bildungsroman that got crapped on by this movie.

Love the late Rik Mayall and Phoebe Cates but yeah, no interest in seeing this again. And this episode was really unpleasant to listen to, honestly.

Yay the killer dog episode!!! Did not disappoint!!!! So what I know about American fox hunting based on a cozy mystery series I loved reading as a kid you don't kill the fox. You "run it to ground" . You're probably not even going to see a fox while you ride. The British fox hunting tradition is much different and I believe is the kind that kills ? Women also ride English saddle. Fox hunting is really more of a ridding and a social thing. The hunt breakfast is a *huge* thing. Even the people who don't go on the ride go to the breakfast. The area around where I live is very rural suburban if you can imagine such a thing. The tiny town next to me is known for its horses. I actually know someone whose grandfather started their hunt club and if I work with her at my book sale soon I can ask her to explain it to me in more detail. I know there are some hunt clubs that do this thing that lay a scent out for the dogs to find and don't bother with a fox at all. Jessica is wearing brown because she hasn't earned her "colors ". The men in red ( technically called" pinks") are men who have earned their colors from being good riders, following tradition, etc , The Master of The Hunt,The Hunstmen, and the other hunt officials. if you saw a guy in a black jacket he also is without his colors. Women wear black even if they have earned their colors because... Tradition.

There was no guest in Charleston either. Maybe they just had an easier time managing the trip without having to worry about guests. It was still an incredibly fun time.

2 appearances: Michael Ironside - Highlander II: The Quickening, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II