grudlian.

I think calling the movie Utahpastor would have been confusing.

I assume this was supposed to justify her hating the church which, in turn, made her hate her mother for accepting the minister. But it felt out of nowhere. When she made a big production like "you want to know who the father is????", I hadn't even thought of it being an issue. I assumed it was some guy who left her when she got pregnant, end of story. Maybe this was a bigger deal to not like religion in 1987 and no justification would have felt like an affront to viewers. It felt so unnecessary to me. She was tired of her mother being a shitty mom, and her mom always used Christianity as an excuse. We picked all that up in the first time Joan Jett and Michael J. Fox visited their mom. The minister being the father just brought up more questions.

This poster is terrible. It has two taglines. I really hate the tagline "He's back from the future and having a hell of a time!!" Because, he's largely having a lousy time. Also, the O in "Light Of Day" is way too skinny.

Exactly this. Make this a Springsteen song come to life. A guy grew up trapped in a blue collar town. Works at the factory his dad worked at and his dad got him a job. He married his first serious girlfriend out of high school (or high school sweetheart) maybe because he got her pregnant. That's been his life for however many years and will be until he retires...unless his band gets big. It's the only possible escape. He's been playing local bars in his dead end town. The movie could probably just end with them deciding to go on the road. It doesn't matter if he's successful, just that he finally took a chance in his life. Nothing ground breaking. Maybe not even particularly great depending on how well Bruce can act. But it already sounds better than this (although, what we got sounds like a good movie in theory).

Lol for real. Since I wasn't paying attention at first, I saw a sign and thought it said "The Babysitters". Not a great name, but I could see a young teenage girl coming up with that as a real "We're the girls babysitting you're kids, but we're secretly punks/rockers at heart! You don't know what we're teaching your kids!!!!" Then they keep that name forever. I laughed at the name Barbusters when I saw that's what they were called. Best case scenario is you tour a bunch of shitty bars forever just like this band does.

Also, it would have been weird for it to be the minister's baby at that point.

Yeah, they wouldn't have gotten Joan Jett if Springsteen was still in this. It makes me wonder if the 1981 version of this would have been good at all. The movie only makes sense in Bruce is the guy who won't quit music. If he's Michael J. Fox's character, who the hell do you get to play the sister against Bruce Springsteen as the musical one in the family?

Is the name of the band on Friday "Numbers Band 15 60 75"? Or possibly Numbers Band 15-60 =75"?

I thought that was interesting until I looked up how old Born In The USA is. Born In The USA, the song, was recorded in 1982 (written in 1981, but who knows if the title was a part of the song in 1981) This movie came out in 1987. Paul Schrader had this kicking around for five years and this is the best he got? That kind of makes sense though. I could see Schrader having a good script, then tinkering with it once Springsteen leaves. Then tinkering with some new ideas that cause some other things to need cut out. Then you just get this thing that doesn't quite do anything interesting. For sure. I went from "They're brother and sister" to "oh jeez, I can't believe I thought they were brother and sister" to "ewww...they're brother and sister?!?" I was making lunch while watching the first half hour and chalked part of my confusion up to that, but then it kind of maintained that weird level of way too close family stuff.

On paper, this is a great movie. Written by Paul Schrader. Original music but Bruce Springsteen. Examination of a blue collar family torn apart and healed at the end of Reagan's America. Gena Rowlands. Michael J. Fox at the peak of his fame. This could easily have been a miniseries for television that people still talked about today. This is just flat throughout. Every big reveal doesn't get much out of me. The acting is just okay. I don't think the casting is bad but everyone feels unconvincing in most scenes. I don't buy Michael J. Fox ever in this band. Joan Jett never quite pulls off the biggest emotional scenes (but I do think she's decent in this). The movie looks cheap. There are some good scenes but most of this feels 75% there. Like every person in this production said "yeah, I think we got it that time," but they didn't get it.

The weirdest thing about this is that I thought "Michael Mckean is absolutely not convincing as a bassist in a rock band" but Spinal Tap had already come out.

The 400 Blows is a wonderful and I don't have anything to add here that wasn't covered in the podcast. I think it's an obvious choice to go on any list of greatest movies. I'll confirm the other Antoine Doinel movies are very good (except Love On The Run which is pretty bad and mostly a clip show of the previous movies). I don't understand Amy's love of Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls which I'd say is a conflicting mess of trashy moralizing.

Blindspotting is great. It was one of my favorite movies in whatever year it came out.

I think the scene is entertaining and, for two modern comedic icons of the same era, I think this is their only time together other than some SNL skits. But Bill Murray doesn't relate to any main characters. He barely talks to Seymour. We don't learn anything valuable from him. For all it does for the story or characters, you might as well cut in one of his monologues from Caddyshack. If you want something that really reinforces the villainy of the dentist (which this scene does), I think more dialogue with Audrey explaining how little she enjoys BDSM would be way more effective. If you cut it from the movie and showed it to someone for the first time, no one would ask for more of the dentist. I also think the humor is a bit different from everything else we see. It's not that it isn't funny; it's that it's unrelated to the rest of the movie. But I realize this is a controversial take on this section of the movie.

Yeah. I'm not against dark endings at all. I can't even say the movie isn't moving toward an ending of plant domination from the beginning but I think it's also going toward Seymour and Audrey together. I'm certainly more invested in their story over Audrey 2.

I think Taren Edgerton could work but probably won't. He was able to play Eddie The Eagle and give a completely different feeling than he normally seems to exude. But I think the meek boyishness isn't him. If you must remake it, Tom Holland seems like a better choice. I also don't like Scarlett Johansson for Audrey either. Audrey, in the musical, is also meek and shy and innocent and I don't think Scarlett Johansson can do that convincingly. The closest she's done to that is Lost In Translation or Ghost World and that's not at all what Audrey is. Her as Audrey is going to feel like a high budget SNL character. I think I saw the alternate ending the first time I saw this in full. It was on tv and they played the full movie then showed it immediately after the credits. They made a big deal about the newly discovered alternative ending. I feel like it might have been in black and white. So, I'm not sure if I've ever really known this without the director's ending in some capacity. I prefer the happier ending as well. I like having the darker ending available because I like it. Maybe if we didn't see Seymour die and cut to the rest of the plants around the world with an implied death?

I really don't see what a remake is going to accomplish. The effects in this hold up quite well (and that opening shot that looks like space revealing its a puddle is so surprisingly good that it fools me every time). I predict this just not having the heart of the original which is what pushes this along. I wouldn't say it's perfect either but the only thing I'd change is the dentist. I've always felt the scene with the dentist is unnecessarily long in both versions. I'd say it could be cut completely. Set up that he abuses Audrey and that's all we need instead of a lengthy scene without our leads.

By the way, there is a remake of the musical in the works according to imdb. Taren Edgerton is playing Stanley. Scarlett Johansson is playing Audrey. Billy Porter as Audrey 2. Chris Evans as the dentist. This is a strong cast but, boy, I really don't like the idea of remaking a movie that's basically flawless as is.

Honestly, I think the original movie is a good idea and works quite well. It's not some huge feat pushing cinema forward or some grand take on the human condition. It's kind of badly acted. It doesn't look great. But I think it achieves everything it set out to do. I think it's genuinely funny in parts. It's creepy in parts. That said, I'd definitely watch a remake, not of the musical, but a horror movie. Less comedy. Lean into the psychology of this. The bones of a genuinely good, creepy story are here. A Twilight Zone/Alfred Hitchcock Presents feel. You could potentially tweak it to have Stanley be creepier mediocre instead of a loveable loser but that might make the whole thing fall apart. Does anyone know if the original was a well known movie before the musical? I've always thought it was a largely forgotten b movie revived by the musical and being an early Jack Nicholson movie.

For sure on Levi Stubbs. I have never heard him speak and I want to believe it's his normal speaking voice. It wouldn't explain why he doesn't sound like that singing, but...I just need that to be his voice.

I definitely knew Mother Brain before Audrey II. The first time I watched this, I definitely was wracking my brain trying to figure out where I knew the voice from. So, just to confirm, everyone watched the director's cut ending right? Even if you watched the theatrical cut, the directors cut ending is available on youtube and I recommend checking it out.

I watched both versions and that inexplicable two part episode of Head Of The Class where they performed the play. I really liked all versions of this. I really wish I could have been there when they came up with the idea of writing a musical based on an b movie. I can only imagine someone being really high like "what a great idea!" and escalating beyond their control until it was done.

Hamilton is the only musical I knew really well before seeing it live. I found listening to it in advance was very helpful to be honest. I wouldn't have picked up on the nuances of the story seeing it cold. I personally wasn't put off from the differences because I was experiencing the visuals the first time and focused on that. I did record the audio of performance I saw (because I'm a gangster and you can't stop me). The live version was very very similar though when I listened to it my recording. Maybe they were purposefully similar because Hamilton was still in BROADWAY! SMASH! HAMILTON! zone and they knew that's what people wanted (Chicago was the first city to get it outside New York).

Yeah, I almost switched from Stop Making Sense to this because I realized we hadn't done it yet.

This movie very much feels like a post 9/11 movie because of its anything to defeat terrorism stance and Travolta being vindicated at the end. Had this come out a couple weeks before 9/11 instead of a few months, it might have been more successful.