questionmarks
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This is making me miss my DVD collection!!! It's been very fun to read though all of this.
So y'all would put A Clockwork Orange under C (and not A)? Or would some of you say K for Kubrik?
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I tracked down a VHS of this almost fifteen years ago and used to force gatherings of friends to watch itâbut in the end, they were also glad they had. It's a wild ride. I really hope for an HDTGM? episode on ROTOR some day.
Robotic Officer Tactical Operations Research? Yes, please!
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On 8/13/2019 at 11:06 AM, theworstbuddhist said:Nice try, Michael Bay. I wish all your screenplays were this coherent.
Ha!
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[Apologies for the formatting! I'm not sure how to do indentation on this thing.]
INT. HDTGM STUDIO - UNSPECIFIED TIMEÂ
PAUL, alias TALL JOHN SCHEER, sits at a microphone looking at familiar ad copy on the screen of his laptop. A couple of producers [Nate? Avril? Cody? Whoâs in studio during the ad recordings?] monitor his performance and the audio quality with varying levels of attention.
  PAUL
 People! Hereâs the deal. I. love. Squarespace. SquarespaceâPAUL sighs audibly.
  PAUL (contâd)
 How many times do I have to tell youâyou have to have your own website. And thereâs no better way to make your own website than by using Squarespace. [How much detail do we want to include here about 24/7 support, ecommerce, and the sites Paulâs made using Squarespace?]The ROBOT CHORUS chimes in to mark a transition.
  ROBOT CHORUS
 Howdidthisgetmade.INT. LARGO AT THE CORONET - NIGHT
A CROWD of amiable, slightly intoxicated nerds sits in silence punctuated by a smattering of chuckles, giggles, and a single dry couch. The CROWD knows what itâs in store for, and is pleased.
On stage, PAUL, wearing light blue jeans and a tucked-in blue check shirt, with the kind of close-cropped hairstyle worn by Jason Statham in CELLULAR, stands in front of three bulky-looking chairs, a small table with PAULâS laptop, and a projector screen displaying the laptopâs desktop: an image of John Turturo in a leather jacket flanked by two mannequins dressed in old air force uniforms.Â
PAUL clicks on the folder titled âTRANSFORMERSâ and opens the file âremixtheme.mp4.â Still vibrant from a well-received warm-up, PAUL delivers the opening monologue heâs prepared for this event.Â
  PAUL
 Itâs like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY if 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was incomprehensible garbage. Thatâs right, we saw TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, and you know what that means!PAUL clicks the play button and saunters offstage.
MUSIC CUE: âHDTGM Theme Song - Remix.â
A wave of cheers washes over the final few words of the theme song, as PAUL returns from his brief trip offstage.Â
  PAUL
 Hello! people of earth! And hello! people of Largo!The CROWD acknowledges itself with another wave of cheers and applause at the mention of the LARGO theater.
  PAUL
 Welcome to âHow Did This Get Made?â Iâm your host, Tall John Scheer.PAUL pauses for laughter, which the CROWD happily supplies.
  PAULÂ
 This movie...ÂAnxious laughter.
  PAUL (contâd)
 People, I did not want to watch this movie. I tried not to watch this movie. I resisted watching this movie. But one thing is for sure: If I was going to sit through all ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MINUTES of this movie, I was not going to do so without my cohosts. Please welcome my first co-host: Jason Mantzoukas!ÂJASON, alias ZOUKS, wearing dark jeans and a white button-up t-shirt, his hair and beard exploding outward in every direction, shifts onstage and drags his feet toward his chair, visibly sighing and shaking his head as he lifts up his microphone and sits.Â
The initial applause and cheering of the CROWD is quickly overpowered by a roaring welcome.Â
  CROWD
 Zouks!  JASON
 Whatâs up, jerks!The CROWD, already in the midst of applause, chants of âZouks,â and loud cheers, lets out a collective whoop.
  PAUL
 Jasonâ  JASON
 Paul?  PAUL
 TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN.  JASON
 Oh boy.PAUL cackles as nervous laughter settles over the CROWD.
  JASON
 I'm gonna say it: I donât think we should be negotiating with terrorists.  PAUL
 Michael Bay has been taunting and threatening us literally for years, and now weâve finally given in.  JASON
 I am exhausted from this movie! The only good thing I can say about this movie is that I didnât have to spend any money on it because you already own eight thousand TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN DVDs.  PAUL
 Itâs true.  JASON
 My little baby booty boy?!The CROWD erupts.
  PAUL
  (laughing)
 Weâre gonna get into all of it. But first, let me introduce my second-cohost. Please welcome: June Diane Raphael!JUNE, wearing blue jean capris and a black-and-white striped top, steps onstage to a boisterous response from the CROWD. First, what sounds like a chorus composed predominantly of the women in the audience lets out a loud, delighted wave of cheering; this is quickly followed by a slightly lower-pitched rumble of hollers and applause; finally, both are drowned out by a forceful roar.
  CROWD
 June!JUNE grabs her microphone and sits down, making quick eye contact with JASON, whose smile and laughter elicits the same in JUNE.
  PAUL
 Welcome, June, how are you?  JUNE
 Iâm fine, Paul, how are you?  PAUL
 Iâm great, thanks for asking.Giddy, knowing giggles filter through much of the CROWD.
  PAUL
 First thoughts about TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN?JUNE sighs loudly and sorrowfully. JASON lets out a gleeful monosyllabic laugh.
  JUNE
 Whatâ  JASON
  (under his breath)
 Here we go.  JUNE (contâd)
 âis this? I suppose, technically, this is a motion picture?- 1
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Peopleâhere's the deal. I don't want Paul and the gang to ever watch "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," but I would also love an episode about it. So I'd like to make a modestâread: insaneâproposal for the dedicated weirdos who populate this forum with so much ingenuity and persistence. Why don't some of us fall on the sword, take one for the team, bite the bullet, and sit and watch this very long, almost surely very tiresome movie, and crowdsource a script for the imaginary live taping of the "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" episode of HDTGM?
Feel free to watch the movie, draft some dialogue, and add it below. But equally importantly: What would be some of the important elements for the script? Do we want to try to imagine the voice of a special guest, or keep it to our three hosts? What are some essential beats that we have to hit? (E.g., Jason interrupting June or Paul to make essentially the same point they're making as if it just came to him.) What callbacks and inside jokes, what schticks and segments, should we imagine?
I suppose I should make a google doc or something, but I'm not sure whether anyone will actually be interested in participating in such nonsense. If I get a few takers, perhaps we can set up a google doc and slowly put together something needlessly ambitious. For now, here's a quick draft of the opening few minutes of the episode. (I've only watched the opening few minutes so far...)
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10 hours ago, muttnik said:That link is a good watch, along with the deleted scenes link DrGuts posted. I got around to watching them all the other day and they made me like Mickey! That version of Mickey should have been in the movie.
Finally got fast enough wifi to watch the deleted scenes. Some of them are great! Agreed re Mickey, several of those scenes humanize him in a big way and also connect a number of important dots. I donât see how the scene in the imaginary weigh station was supposed to work, thoughâhe says goodbye and then shows up in the dollhouse immediately after? Anyway, thanks to DrGuts for posting that vid.Â
I canât get the link JonnyC posted to open for some reasonâmaybe country restrictions? But Iâll look forward to that when Iâm home this weekend. Thanks, Gray Jedi, for bumping that post.
I donât think we have to accept  filmmakersâ (stated) intent (art can surpass the limits of the artist), but if theyâre as clear as JonnyC says, itâs certainly a strong point in favor of that reading.
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5 hours ago, ol' eddy wrecks said:This talk of children's movies as horror movies made me think of this article (mostly unrelated, except, let's look at this movie through the eyes of the other characters):
https://www.theringer.com/2016/9/28/16045542/big-is-secretly-a-horror-movie-95d766715a7b
Â
Ha! This is very cute, I can see why this made you think of it.
The points about his motherâs experience are very well taken, and his love interestâs story is also horrifying, but the other characters are all likely either to easily move on (that guyâll get that promotion now) or better off: âScotty absorbs what Josh said and realizes that the way he values woman is incorrect and stupid. He becomes profoundly sad.â Great! Now he stands a chance to learn to be a better man! Iâd want to slightly add to or emend the argument to be that âBigâ discounts the experiences of its womenâsurprise, surprise.Â
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14 hours ago, Cameron H. said:To be fair to doxrus, they were responding to my claim that Team Sanity seemed to have a more analytical approach to their criticism and Team Fred having a more emotional approach. In that post, I didn't mean to imply any negative connotations with the use of the word "emotional" - especially considering I'm Team Fred myself  I just didn't want too much to be laid on doxrus when I was the one who brought it up.
Thanks for this, Cameron! Iâm sorry to doxorus and everyone else if I came across too combatively! I meant my response sweetly, but I know itâs easy to come across harshlyâand to be unintentionally harshâon the internet. Iâm enjoying the varied and at times vigorous nature of this wide-ranging discussion  and Iâll be vigilant in highlighting and centering good vibes in future debates here. I see you all as fellow travelers.
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2 hours ago, doxrus said:Yes â weâre having parallel debates which can never meet. The minute someone says, âThis film means a great deal to meâ regardless of its actual artistic merit, or defends the film's (ostensible) flaws as integral to that meaning, there is no response, and the critical discussion is over (You can't say, "No, the film doesn't mean that for you")Â If we want to meet on common ground, we need to agree: what kind of discussion is this?
This is a noble goal, but Iâm not sure itâs as neutral as you suggest.
I think this movie is strange and ambiguous enough to simply warrant differences of opinion. It would, then, only be natural for the discussion to be a bit all over the place. You, on the other hand, seem to imply that if I canât see that this movie is garbage, Iâm being blinded by emotion. Funnily enough, I think the concept of a neat divide between emotion and rationality is often a fallacy and a marker of patriarchal thinking rather than a sign of greater objectivity
In any case, Iâll restate my earlier suggestion of what I think is a fair and neutral description of the basic divide: âTeaï»żmï»żÂ Fred says the film more or less succeeds on its own tï»żerms, Team Sanity says it fails on any terms.ï»żâ Yes? No?
The next question is what its terms are. Absent any clear genre conventions, the debate would seem destined to be irresolvable. Butâmore mutual understanding seems possible. Actually, I think a little has already come about! The film is sufficiently ambiguous to cause problems no matter the interpretation, and it seems to go out of its way to cause discomfort. Do the problems undermine the filmâs success? Is such discomfort relevant and worthwhile, or grating and needless? Weâre not going to agree about such things! Itâs okay.Â
But if you think thereâs no such thing as a movie that cannot be conclusively said to be âgoodâ or âbad,â then weâre back where we started: with me, from Team Fred, questioning the range of your imagination!
Damn, Iâm spending all my internet time on the forum. First time posting and Iâm already obsessed! I get why the guys are always talking about yâall. This is great stuff. Thanks, everyone!
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3 hours ago, E.Lerner said:Despite (or maybe because) being on Team Fred, I think one of the flaws of the movie is that it treats mental illness pretty flippantly. But I don't think Fred being an avatar of Lizzie's mental illness, rather than simply being her id, invalidates any of the points June or Jason were making. Just the opposite, really â the Fred parts of Lizzie's psyche can indeed be very problematic, even life-threateningly dangerous, but they are still a valuable part of her that she needs to learn to control. Polly, by forcing her daughter to fully repress and ignore those symptoms, is doing real, lasting, traumatic harm, rather than getting her daughter the mental help she needs.
[...]
Lizzie has been told from an early age that her mental illness ruins everything, including her parents' marriage and her mother's love for her. It's totally believable to me that she sees everything through that catastrophic lens.
Thanks for the kind words, but alsoâwow, this! I couldnât agree more with this critique. This gets at the heart of why I love the movie and why I think it doesnât completely get where it needs to go.Â
1 hour ago, TurnerArrington said:Fred is a Beetlejuice-like character going around causing mayhem in Phoebe's life. Because otherwise, she's mentally ill, and we as an audience are supposed to be sad when the manifestation of that illness goes away.
You mean when sheâs a child? But then youâre again taking Fred as something literal, a one-to-one correspondent to a specific mental illness, when her illness may not have appeared until adulthood, and/or may have been created or exacerbated by the trauma of her childhood, no?Â
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On 8/3/2019 at 3:50 PM, PollyDarton said:But see... You have to build an entire event to happen off screen to explain away things that are implicitly shown in the movie.
When the little girl talks about Drop Dead Fred, we as the audience SEE Drop Dead Fred. He is there abiding by the few rules the movie gave him, that the child he is attached to is the only one who can see him. That coupled with the information that the other IFs have moved on to new kids (those kids in the waiting room weren't all 30 years old) it is laid out plain and simple. Fred got a new kid because he exists.
Yes, I am aware that imaginary friends don't actually exist, but in the universe of this movie they do. If those two scenes did not exist then I might be able to agree with you, but they do. We of Team Sanity did not conjure them up... the shitty shitty filmmakers put them in.
Totes, itâs a flaw in the writing one way or the other. My biggest problem with the movie is that it was written and directed by men. We fuck everything up.
Iâm acknowledging that this is an interpretive leap that speaks poorly for the writing. (One small scene wouldâve done.) Iâm not aware of any Team Fredster, starting with June and Jason, saying, âThis movie works perfectly.â The debate canât amount to whether it all comes together, because weâre not, I donât think, arguing that it does. Weâre arguing that it more or less works on its own terms, that it resonates powerfully for us, and that both of those things entail regarding Fred as imaginaryâas insane and complicated as that makes things (welcome to our world) and even though the writing doesnât always work.Â
Itâs a great point about the implication that the other IFs have moved onto other kids. Nevertheless, if you donât take that scene literally, it just speaks to the internal logic of Fredâs imaginary existence. He speaks about the metaphysical reality of IFs, ergo such a reality must exist within Fredâs world, but that doesnât mean it all isnât still imaginary. My own imaginary friend implied similar things. A good representation of my encounter with him would include the seeming reality of his imaginary life outside of me as if outside my imagining of it.
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This is a wild and fun conversation.
My sense of the fundamental divide is: Team Fred says the film more or less succeeds on its own terms, Team Sanity says it fails on any terms.
You can agree that a film succeeds on its own terms while disliking it, and you can agree that a film fails on any terms and still like it.Â
As a Team Fredster, Iâd love for Team Sanity folks to see that the film may, in fact, succeed on its own terms without at all expecting that to mean theyâll come to like it. Hence the debates about Fredâs status and whether the film is a zany comedy or an exploration of trauma, etc. Weâre trying to work out what the filmâs terms are.
Iâm happy to accept that some films I love donât really work unto themselves, but just work for me. Like Hackers. I think DDF actually works for the most part and I like it. But it is very clearly not for everybodyâand thatâs okay!
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Iâm currently on a vacation in a tiny town on the coast of Morocco, and Iâve created a forum account so I can post about this movie because this episode got me all riled up. (I assume Iâm breaching some forum etiquette, for which Iâm sorryâIâll learn for the future.)Â I have a lot to say. And, to put my cards on the table right off the bat: Team Fred. I have a few relatively small corrections to June and Jasonâs commentsâI agree with them implicitly, but in the heat of the moment I think they missed a few things that help explain why Team Fred is the right interpretationâand then a few more serious comments about the deeper dynamics of the discussion. Itâs obviously insane that Iâm writing this whole big long thing, and Iâll of course understand if it slips everyoneâs notice or folks choose not to read this diatribe, but I hope you have a look. Itâs not a lark. If anything, skip to the last two paragraphs.
First, regarding the gladiolus: This little girl is allergic to one single type of flower and her dismissive control freak mother nevertheless insists on growing them in the backyard and bringing them into the house. Notice that Fred treats the impending sneeze as a very grave situation, but nothing ever really comes of it. Heâs not an actual physical being, so the bouncy trip the sneeze sends him on doesnât do anything, and a moment later heâs perfectly fineâthe gravity is about what the flowers represent. (More on this in a moment.)Â
Think of the skirts: Phoebe Cates is not literally looking under these womenâs skirts. We see where she is in space in relation to them. She is thinking about whatâs under the skirts. But when you grow up in a repressive context, certain thoughts and ideas that are perfectly normal and natural nevertheless feel unacceptable, so we sometimes concoct excuses for them. Fredâs vantage gives her the excuse to think about, joke about, fantasize about, judge whatâs going on under these womenâs skirts. The logicâthe ârulesââhave nothing to do with world-building, itâs just the logic of Phoebe Catesâs psychology and imagination.
So then letâs get to the one moment when we see the sneeze result in a real-world effect. Put yourself in her shoes. From the jump, her cheating husband is represented as gaslighting her. The first thing we see him do is manipulate her, tell her she said something she didnât, and use it as an excuse to bully and control her. Gaslightingâand this is very similar to the scenario after which the term was coinedâis psychological abuse. So we know from the beginning of the movie that this man is an abusive, controlling bully (just like her mother, by the way), and now, very shortly after theyâve gotten back together after her encounter with Annabella, heâs in the next roomâdoing what, exactly?âwhile she has to prepare a salad... again, Fredâs imaginary vantage point gives her an excuse to think thoughts that she is afraid to claim. She (for good reason) suspects Charles is up to something, but she cannot bring herself to consciously own the suspicion. Team Sanity wants to say, âBut how does Fred hear what Charlie is saying?â He doesnât! He âlistens inâ and tells Phoebe Cates to have a look. We hear what Charles is saying. Fred doesnât say, âHe just said Annabellaâs name!â He just tells her to do what she wants but is afraid to do (and afraid even to want to do). Her trauma, and Charlieâs abusive behavior, makes it terrifying for her to just bolt in and say, âWhatâs going on?â Fred gives her the excuse to pursue her implicit, well-earned suspicion.Â
Team Sanity seems insistent on taking imagination literally. Take the little girl at the end. Now, here is where Jasonâs disclaimer about not defending every move the film makes comes into play. I have to take an interpretive leap to explain whatâs going on with the little girl. The interpretation flows very naturally from the characters, but the movie couldâve helped us connect these dots. In any case, recall Mickeyâs obsession with Phoebe Cates. He is so smitten with her, and with his memory of her effect on him as a child, that he sees her unstable behavior and finds it charming. Heâs basically treating her as a would-be Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Onlyâthis isnât his movie. He encounters Fredâs return to her life and vividly remembers encountering him, albeit indirectly, in their childhood. Do you really think heâs not going to mention this figure, âDrop Dead Fred,â to his daughter when theyâre playing? Heâs not going to say, when sheâs being mischievous, âYou know, I just saw an old friend of mine who reminds me of you. She had a friend,â etc., etc., all while wistfully hoping heâll get to wind up with Phoebe Cates? There is no need to imagine that this little girl has come upon the name âDrop Dead Fredâ out of nowhere, or through the intervention of some mystical being. We have a very straightforward character arc to explain the connection: childhood Mickeyâs crush on Phoebe Cates and excitement about Fred, and then adult Mickeyâs resurgent affection for her and encounter with Fredâs return, and his close relationship with his own daughter who he says reminds him of Phoebe.Â
Thereâs no reason to take any of the imaginary things literally. I had an imaginary friend named Bombo when I was a kid. In my mind, Bombo had a life outside his relationship with me. When I saw him, it was like an old friend visiting from out of town. But every time he showed up, the implicit presumption was that he had come from somewhere. I didnât know where, I didnât ask, I didnât really care. But the point is, for some kids part of the sense of the reality of their imaginary friends is the implicit assumption that they have their own lives. Why wouldnât these poor kidsâhauled into this crankâs office, being given some bizarre pills that do who knows whatâimagine their imaginary friends playing with the other imaginary friends that they know are there in the room? Fred isnât literally interacting with other imaginary friends because he is imaginary, but his engagement with themâapart from helping us to understand the stakes of the green pillsâfairly straightforwardly represents the sense children often have for the fullness of the lives of their own imaginary friends.
Finally, and most importantly: Team Sanity seems intent on centering the perspectives of the men in this movie (including the literally imaginary one). Paul, for example, talks about it like itâs a romcom where Phoebe Cates ends up with Mickey in the end. Thatâs not this movie! They donât kiss, they donât hold hands, they donât go on another dateâshe doesnât express any actual romantic interest in him apart from trying to engage with him on their one date. But Paulâyou focus on his perspective, on what is happening to him, to the extent that you imagine how good of a step-mom Phoebe Cates will be to his child. As silly as it may be to argue so passionately about a silly movie, June and Jason both spoke eloquently about misogyny and patriarchy, and I think Paul and everyone on Team Sanity (and, I mean, really all of us and especially all of us men) should listen carefully and take that aspect of the discussion very seriously. Toward the end of the podcast, in response to one of the questions, Paul snarkily asks June: âIs this young girl [i.e., Mickeyâs daughter] in danger?â Yes, Paul, because in our fucked up world, all girls are in danger, serious, constant danger. (The brief riff on Weinstein was, in this sense, almost ironic.) I donât care whether you come to appreciate or like this movie or agree with Team Fredâs take(s) on it, but I do care that you recognize that you are centering the male characters in this film. The fact that itâs called âDrop Dead Fredâ doesnât mean it is his story, it just means it centrally concerns him. (Itâs also a much better title than whatever Phoebe Catesâs characterâs name is...) We all perpetuate patriarchy and misogyny to some extent or another. But itâs not often that we get to see ourselves doing it in subtle, seemingly mundane ways. But thatâs the opportunity Paul (and Team Sanity) has right now. You are centering the male perspectives (and the momâsâwomen perpetuate patriarchy, too) in a story about a traumatized, abused womanâs journey to come to recognize and accept her own being, her own body, her own mind, thoughts, feelings, in a hostile world... The fact that Paul thought the reveal that she had shut up her emotions and tried to hide her true self from her mother from a very young age, was an unearned twist, suggests that he never really took her characterâs perspective seriously. He was convinced by the controlling, bullying, manipulative behavior of her mother, and her cheating, gaslighting husband. (And yes, by the way, her own absent father failed, as well.)Â
A book Iâd suggest is âDown Girlâ by Kate Manne, which is about the logic of misogyny, the relationship between misogyny and patriarchy, and the effects these ideologies have in our world. Itâs a work of academic ethics, so it can be a little heady here and there, but itâs  very well written and well researched and thought out, and you can kind of skim over the occasional jargon if you like. Thereâs plenty more out there to read. The point is that we should all take as imperative the need to educate ourselves about patriarchy, one of the oldest and most pernicious ideologies on the planet. We wonât loosen its grip on usâor on our interpretations of strange moviesâso long as weâre ignorant to it, but it is pervasive enough to seem perfectly normal and natural. Listen to June, Paul! This isnât really about Fred at all.Â
And I should note, obvious though I hope it is, that being Team Fred doesnât mean being a feminist and being Team Sanity doesnât mean being anti-feminist. Not at all. Itâs just that being Team Sanity may happen to involve, for some folks, an instance of patriarchal thinking.
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Episode 231 â The Master of Disguise (Live from The Beacon Theatre)
in How Did This Get Made?
Posted
Putting all the pieces together, it seems clear the sequel to this movie would've featured a bizarre set of contrived flashbacks to explain that Jennifer Esposito's son actually is a Disguisey because she and Pistachio had an encounter eight years ago that they both sort of forgot for some reason.Â