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Seems to not have made the cut on the ep but at the show Jason started in almost immediately at how weirdly pervy and sexual this movie could be and I agreed completely. The very first sentence that we hear Martin Landau speak is "This log has a will of its own." To which I could only respond, "That's what she said." This totally set the tone for me for the whole rest of this bonkers movie. So many wood puns turned double entendre. The wallpaper on Paul's Mac would attest to the perv quotient of this movie as well. Both shows were so great! 6 for 6 at Chicago shows and they just keep getting better! Thanks guys! And check out this Jason-being-a-creeper progression during our photo op, had no clue why the lady taking the photos was taking so many pictures and laughing so hard until hours later!

The studio must have really thought this movie was going to be a bigger deal than it was. I was reading an article about it written back in 1996 where the director, Steve Barron (who also directed the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie) says that it took two years just to get the songs rights. Stevie Wonder wrote and performed two songs for the movie. I also discovered that this film actually had trading cards. Not surprisingly, the majority of the cards seem to feature Jonathan Taylor Thomas despite him being in the film for less than five minutes. And for those of you who are thinking this is the only way to get an Udo Kier trading card, you would be wrong. He is also featured in trading cards for Barb Wire, another HDTGM classic.

This is a good option I haven't thought of. I was leaning towards James Franco just because of Disaster Artist. I think he was able to get to the heart of these people chasing dreams of celebrity but I'm not sure how he'd handle a big cast with intersecting stories. I also like Greta Gerwig. I think one of the best things about this movie is how vibrant it can feel. I think she could do that well. I tried it shortly after Polly Darton suggested it. I didn't notice any lag on the audio or video. I just jumped in some random room though and wasn't in it long. So, maybe I was lucky.

OK, so I'm no expert on Italian culture or the original Pinocchio novel, but at 59:21 into the movie am I insane or are these kids eating rocks out of a bottle?

I would pick Paul Greengrass for his documentary style (Bloody Sunday). Make the movie more like the auditions.

I have a theory as to why JTT-Pinnochio wanted a "wooden girl" even though he was a real boy. It was a set-up for a Pinnochio/Mannequin crossover movie. Picture it. It's the 90s, and Pinnochio has been living alone for centuries because Gepetto couldn't carve an adequate girlfriend. As it turned out, Pinnochio is a huge asshole, one girlfriend wasn't "adequately sanded in certain areas", one was rejected because Gepetto ran out of wood, and we can't even talk about the time Gepetto brought him a girlfriend that he carved out of mahogany. Now, living as "Pete", he moves to America, and becomes a carpenter. He walks through a department store, sees a particularly fetching manneqiuin, and the magic happens.

I'm not totally ready to give up on kast. Most of us had occasional trouble hosting on rabbit. So, I don't think any site is going to be perfect yet. I think rabbit was slightly more intuitive but people are using kast the same way we used rabbit.

Oh, a mall, you say?

Will I never be free? Will this vile image haunt me until my dying days?

So I actually spoke at the lie show AND I WAS WRONG. I felt so bad I called the Paul help line to correct myself. I told everyone that they were turned into donkeys for their skin. But I thought I had mis-remembered. Only boys who don't study get "donkey fever" . And only Pinocchio was going to be turned into a drum because he ended up breaking his leg ( as a donkey) in a circus and being sold to a guy who wanted him for his skin for a drum. So I go to double check and now I'm more confused than ever. Because it looks like I found a short story called Donkey Fever . I usually listen to the episodes and look things up that I want to talk about and somehow found this. So then I went back and ended up reading the chapters in the original book. It turns out that I was sort of right and sort of wrong? So the Coachman basically lures children to ToyLand where they get Donkey Fever from not studying and being good. This is apparently his business model. He then sells the former little boys. ( When he meets Pinocchio and his friend Candlewick he fucking bites a donkey's eat off but pretends he's giving it a kiss? HOW DO YOU FAKE A KISS FOR BITING A GIDDAMN EAR OFF!!?) Pinocchio is then sold to a circus where he breaks a leg or something to that effect ( the book says he goes lame) while performing. He's THEN sold to the man who wants to turn him into a drum and that man throws him into the sea. And Candlewick you ask? Well I have the 1916 version which isn't as hard core but apparently he FUCKING DIES FROM BEING OVERWORKED AND ABUSED . I CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH HOW THIS WAS ACTUALLY WRITTEN FOR CHILDREN IN A CHILDREN'S MAGAZINE Should I call again and apologize for calling in very late and tried and messing yet again? Should you guys just start a shame bell walk for my lack of clarity! I'm normally so precise on research! ( Tbf at the show I had a really awful time with the theater management and if you saw two women having panic attacks on the lobby that was me and my friend hi!)

The issues with having Pinocchio in Lorenzini's puppet show was addressed from a couple of different angles, but I also wondered what the appeal was for Lorenzini? He clearly wanted Pinocchio for his show, but why? You have trained puppeteers who can make the dolls move and act however you want. But it would seem like it would be a lot of extra trouble trying to teach a sentient doll all of the songs and how to act in the show. Why go through that headache?

I've shut it down. Will try tonight at 8 p.m. if anyone wants to join.

I have a room open right now. I want to try a watch party tonight of the Fame remake. Please log in and see if you can see anything. https://s.kast.gg/g/4cpw6w3gnm1

This might be just a be a note for Paul since his comment from the Live show was edited out of the final podcast: As Paul has mentioned before, in the live show they show the trailer beforehand to the audience. When he came out afterwards and they were talking about it, he made mention of the odd choice of music for the trailer. What he maybe didn't realize at the time is that it is the song "A Kind of Magic" by Queen. I thought he would have connected the dots when he mentions that Brian May (of Queen) did the music for the movie and did indeed write the opera in it. Maybe he doesn't remember even saying that, but thought to at least mention it here. It obviously makes sense when you know of May's involvement (although still not a super fitting song outside of having the word "magic" in it I guess).

I loved this movie when I first saw it back in high school, but since then I've heard more than a few negative opinions on it, much along the lines of the negative reviews Amy read off in the podcast episode: that CC Baxter is just too much of a cowardly schlub to root for and therefore the happy ending feels too false and cynical. So I was a bit wary going into this revisit. I can see where those criticisms are coming from (Baxter definitely embodies a lot of the characteristics of what we've now come to know as the false "nice guy," the guy who pretends to be nice but is actually frustrated and resentful that women won't sleep with him), but by the end I thought the movie had pretty beautifully sidestepped them. I think the movie is about precisely that: a guy who thinks he's a "nice guy" but comes to realize over the course of the film that he's not actually helping anyone with his niceness. He's become a doormat. Only after he finally quits his job and starts packing to move out of his apartment is he truly ready to receive Fran's admiration. The other nice thing is that this also works from the female lead's perspective: Fran Kubelik is also a "nice" person who is not doing herself or anyone else any favors for just going along with whatever Sheldrake wants her to do. She's trapped in a bad relationship because she lacks respect for herself, much like Baxter. Only once she's willing to stand up and leave that is she ready to try starting a potentially healthy relationship. The other thing I love about the ending is that I don't think it's framed as "happily ever after." It's presented as a new beginning, after midnight on New Year's Eve. The last line is so memorable because it also represents a reset, and two reborn people just taking a chance on each other (over a card game, a game of chance): "Shut up and deal." It's not asking you to buy this as a romance for the ages, just a positive step. This movie seems to have inspired a lot of modern rom-coms (When Harry Met Sally seems to have lifted the ending almost wholesale, just with a gender swap), but most of them don't have the same depth of character and theme this one does, nor are they willing to go to the same dark places The Apartment goes to. But of course, you can't have rebirth without going to a dark place first.

Pinnochio is basically like a new born baby in a lot of ways in this movie. He doesn't know what anything is, how things work etc... yet the first day he's "alive" he follows the boys to school sits in class (no one notices or cares which is a whole topic in itself) but he knows how to lie immediately! He can barely speak coherently but somehow already knows what lies are, how to lie, and under what circumstances a person would lie...??

Something I don't think ever got explicitly address is that, I believe the Cricket was suppose to be dead and we were seeing his ghost! This is not a reach for a Jacob's Ladder scenario, however one element of the source material that never got mentioned was that (in the source material) when Pinocchio meets the talking cricket who warns him about being disobedient, Pinocchio throws a hammer at him and kills him. In the movie, when Pinocchio comes across the cricket there is a line to the affect of: "Ow, watch your step" (or something) that is said just off camera. Then we see the cricket with this weird ethereal glow around him that's never explained. I believe it was a subtle nod to the original story without having to definitively say, in a kids movie, that the cricket died. I was at the live show. A great time as always!

When Pinocchio and Geppetto were climbing out of whale Lorenzini so Pinocchio can lie in order to break free under him, I noticed his regular puppet ears and his ripped out donkey ears were being switched back and forth from different shots.

One thing that I thought was funny that wasn't touched on in the episode was at the beginning of the whale scene. When Pinocchio enters, Geppetto says that Pinocchio looks so skinny and asks if he has eaten. First, it's been like 3 hours since he last seen him, it's not like he would be withering away. And secondly, he's a puppet. He doesn't lose weight. My only thought is that maybe he was referring to the bullet holes after being shot. But that didn't make him skinny. P.s. loved the show and it was great meeting you.

This pity party’s a real disappointment.

I think the Fame reboot should be directed by the Safdie Brothers (Uncut Gens, Good Time)!

I like The Room. Plus, things can totally belong in more than one category.

The "Hollywood Facts" theme