EPISODE 105 — Safe Haven

[JulyDiaz 2797]

The very funny Eliza Skinner and Zombeavers director Jordan Rubin join Paul & Jason to talk about the most seemingly normal but insane film Safe Haven. They’ll discuss how the movie feels like it’s made up of scenes that you would want cut out, the heavy paint can scene, the multiple shocking reveals, and what made everyone except Jordan burst into tears. Plus, we hear some glorious Amazon 5 star review one liners in another edition of 2nd Opinions.

[Cameron H. 23786]

First of all, I would like to say I did like this movie. What I appreciated was, unlike Zardoz, the insanity was more subtle, but once you started to pull at a thread the whole movie just unravels. For instance..............................................

 

I am glad they brought up the fact that in the book Katie/Erin thinks she has killed her husband, because that is how I took the first half of the movie. I knew that the cop had to be her husband, but I felt she thought she had killed him and that was why she was on the run. So when Alex confronts her and holds up the wanted poster, logically, her response should have been, "Yes, I killed him. He was beating me. It was an accident." Instead,the movie makes the bold choice for her reaction to be, "Yeah, I've been running from him. That sign is fake."

 

So....whoa, wait a minute! She knows she didn't kill him??

 

If that's the case, then as soon as Alex shows her that sign, her reaction should have been to snatch that piece of paper out of his hand and demand that she be taken directly to his friend the Sheriff's office. Once there she could easily explain what happened. How? For starters, she could explain that no one is dead. There is no body. There has not been a murder! I am pretty sure she could have him arrested for filing a false APB on her and sued his entire precinct. This is what he gets fired for! His own boss would testify on her behalf. She is not going to go on trial for a fake murder. It's not even like she would have to go back to Boston, she could have done all this without ever having to be face to face with her crazy ass husband ever again.

 

P.S. Why does Jason keep implying that the forums are some kind of inhospitable Thunderdome? Does shit get crazy when I'm not around? I have been posting on the forums since July, and aside for one very brief instance, I don't recall anyone on here to be anything other than friendly, funny, and welcoming. Sure there have been some debates, but I always took them to be in good fun and never once have I seen it get personal. Compared to the rest of the Internet, I'd say that the HDTGM forums are our own...Safe Haven.

[SexAstronaut 36]

Considering the things Jason has confessed he came to, I don't think he's in any position to call us out.

[RoyCorder 48]

Even knowing the ending about cobie smulders, I was thinking this wasn't THAT bad and why choose this movie. Then the cop is revealed as the husband and it all made sense. I was like "Fuck yeah! Now that's a hdtgm movie!"

[robozebra 20]

Yeah, I kind of enjoyed this movie, too. Mostly in how pretty it was. I have a pretty low tolerance for love stories, but this one wasn't so bad. I found it more boring than crazy, really, even after the cop reveal. I also figured out that Cobie was the wife fairly early on, but I had gotten a tip that there was a crazy twist and so I was looking for it. I don't think it would've been so obvious to me if I didn't know that something crazy was coming.

 

Okay, two things. The first one is pretty minor, but you guys made a point about how the neighbors are an old lady and her feeble husband who has to leave to take a nap when the cop comes over to talk to them. I took her "it's time for my husband's nap" as just a way to come up with an excuse to get away from that cop. Her husband was just doing some kind of yard work, he clearly isn't that weak, but he played along because they both know that that guy is dangerous and don't want to talk to him. At the time, you think it's because they're trying to hide where Katie went, but later realize it's because this guy is aggressive and possibly drunk and they're legit scared of him. Which make me wonder why they don't call the police to report him for harrasing them, but there were a lot of choices in this movie that I didn't understand.

 

When the cop photoshops that picture of Katie/Erin for the APB, I'm pretty sure (I watched this a while ago so I may be remembering incorrectly) but didn't he have a surveillance camera image of her from the bus station? That's how he knew to make her hair short and blonde for the picture. Which begs the question, why did he photoshop a picture of her instead of just putting the actual picture of what she now looks like on it? Or at least include both? Also, true story, I used to work in a police department (just to clarify, I'm not a cop) and they do actually post APBs and wanted posters up on the wall like that (at least this one did). What they don't do is put one up and then immediatly tack another one directly on top of it. They generally try to make sure they are all visible, at least until everyone has had enough time to see them.

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

I love you guys, but I can totally wait extra weeks between episodes if that means we don't miss June.

[starri 116]

I must be dead inside.

[WEdidITagain 458]

Girl gets spooked!

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

forgive me for the length of this comment but there were 2 things that i just couldnt figure out but, after listening to this episode, i think they now make sense to me , i think ...

 

firstly, once it was revealed that the cop was her husband i really struggled with the time-line from when she stabbed him up to the point when she was on the bus, because when he was searching the buses he looked fine. no sign of any injury and no sign of blood. so i assumed at least a few days, if not weeks, had passed. because from all the blood on her hands, she stabbed him deep.

 

the second thing was why he looked so ragged once he arrived at the town. the man looked like an extra from the walking dead. i thought he was just going insane and this was the film makers way of visualising it.

 

but now, with the proper time-line in mind, im thinking if she had only stabbed him a few hours before going on the run then he must not have had any medical treatment on the wound and that he must have been bleeding all this time or got an infection or something? is that why he looked so shitty?

 

but writing this out i now have even more questions in my mind .. for instance, does this mean he hadnt told his boss/colleagues he had been stabbed?.. if not, how did he justify the manpower for the search of the bus station??? the other cops knew who they were searching for right? would it not have gotten around the station that he was chasing his wife?

 

my brain is starting to hurt again, i think i need to pull a June and forget everything about this stupid movie

[RoyCorder 48]

not related to the episode, but...

 

what's up with Netflix? do they hate hdtgm? because this is the 3rd or 4th time in the last few months that a movie is removed from Netflix as soon as it's announced for the show.

[Cameron H. 23786]

 

When the cop photoshops that picture of Katie/Erin for the APB, I'm pretty sure (I watched this a while ago so I may be remembering incorrectly) but didn't he have a surveillance camera image of her from the bus station? That's how he knew to make her hair short and blonde for the picture. Which begs the question, why did he photoshop a picture of her instead of just putting the actual picture of what she now looks like on it? Or at least include both?

 

Great point Robozebra, and you are absolutely correct, but what about this? How does he know to look on the surveillance camera for someone with short, blond hair? Oh, he only thrusts her photo in every one's face he crashes into at a very busy, Boston bus terminal. At which point some rando says something to the effect of, "Oh yeah, I've seen her. Doesn't she have short, blond hair though?"

 

Okay, we can take this one of two ways, either this dude at the bus depot either has a hyper developed photographic memory, or he is the perviest guy on Earth, which--as this is a bus station in the middle of the night--is probably the most likely. As far as we know she has had no contact with anyone at the bus station aside from the ticket taker and even he can't identify her or provide that level of detail. Yet, somehow this weird skeezeball has not only committed her face to memory, but has done so to a such a degree that he can intuit what she would look like with a different hair color and style. Barf!

 

Hell, I run into people all the time that I know, who look just as they always have, and still don't recognize them until my memory is jogged. There's no way I could do it after a brief flash of a picture of someone I don't know.

[hemlocksmoothie 30]

I too thought the way they shot the young son in some scenes made him seem almost sinister. I know we're supposed to understand that he's a bit suspicious & guarded about this new woman in his father's life, and perhaps broody over the prospect of someone trying to "replace" his mom, etc., but it was a strange vibe they created. At one point, I leaned over to my girlfriend and said, "If this little kid ends up calling in the tip on Katie that leads to her being found, I'm going to lose it."

 

On the subject of kids in the film, I also thought the performance by the daughter (and store manager, apparently) was pretty good, although all the lingering glances of approval from her as her dad fell in love with this new girl drove me crazy. Obviously this little girl was meant to be wise beyond her years, but c'mon. Haha. I think it was the cloyingness of it that I couldn't stomach after a while. I do realize we're talking about Nicholas Sparks here, so I guess that's a given.

 

I feel compelled to mention, my sister loves Nicholas Sparks novels and I always felt like a bit of a literary snob when I would criticize him ... until I read this interview from 2010, that is. I had just finished Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and stumbled upon it while googling for different interpretations of its famously inscrutable ending. In the article, Sparks repeatedly strokes his own ego, comparing himself to Sophocles and Hemingway, and accusing Cormac McCarthy and other writers of "melodrama" ---

 

"There's a difference between drama and melodrama; evoking genuine emotion, or manipulating emotion. It's a very fine eye-of-the-needle to thread. And it's very rare that it works. That's why I tend to dominate this particular genre. There is this fine line. And I do not verge into melodrama. It's all drama. I try to generate authentic emotional power."

 

 

Oh yeah, Sparks really threads that needle! That's just one hilarious quote in an avalanche of narcissistic insanity from the interview. He really skewers McCarthy in particular. Maybe it's common knowledge, but I never knew Sparks was so full of himself and lacking in self-awareness about his own work. Seriously, screw this guy.

 

Here's a link to the article in case you like the sensation of blood shooting out your eyes as you read something: http://usatoday30.us...song11_CV_N.htm

[juliet 4]

I enjoyed this movie as well. A few things I noticed too:

• The episode touches on this a bit, but after Alex confronts Katie/Erin about the ABP, why does he run to catch her to and tell her he loves her like an hour later? When he confronts her before she tries to leave town she reveals NOTHING about the situation and Alex is left to believe she is a dangerous criminal. He thinks she is a MURDERER and a CON ARTIST that he let into his children's lives! Why would he go back to her, and why doesn't he tell his cop friend about this???
  
• Once Katie does clarify that her husband is dangerous and chasing her, Katie moves in with Alex's family. A few things here. First, how many dates have these two been on, like three? At the most a few weeks have gone by since Katie moved to town. And Alex moves her in with his two small children a few weeks into the relationship? What? Why is the town and his ghost wife okay with this? WAAAY to fast, guys, especially since Julianne Hough looks like she's about 19 years old in this movie. Also, this woman is being HUNTED by her crazy alcoholic cop husband, so how is it a good idea to have her LIVE with your children? Also, again, wouldn't you clue in your cop buddy to the situation?
  
• Finally, after Katie shoots Kevin and the fire, there is a scene that appears to be at dawn and shows the paramedics loading Kevin's body bag into the ambulence while in the back ground Josh, Katie and fam survey the damage of the store and go through the rubble. Assuming the fireworks were at say 9pm, Kevin's body has been lying on the ground, or at a minimum sitting in a body bag on a gurney at the scene of the incident out in the open for AT LEAST 8 hours. This seems like VERY poor EMS work.
  

[RyanLadner 0]

"I can't even."

[Cameron H. 23786]

 

but writing this out i now have even more questions in my mind .. for instance, does this mean he hadnt told his boss/colleagues he had been stabbed?.. if not, how did he justify the manpower for the search of the bus station??? the other cops knew who they were searching for right? would it not have gotten around the station that he was chasing his wife?

 

 

Yeah, they had to know because his boss (the chief I assume) is the one who calls him out on the phony murder charge and says that it's his wife.

 

forgive me for the length of this comment but there were 2 things that i just couldnt figure out but, after listening to this episode,

 

the second thing was why he looked so ragged once he arrived at the town. the man looked like an extra from the walking dead. i thought he was just going insane and this was the film makers way of visualising it.

 

 

It's the Tyler Perry thing again. Being an alcoholic has turned him into a MONSTER! He is sweating so much it is hilarious, like clear through two or three shirts. My thought was that either he has the worst case of hyperhidrosis I have ever heard of or he is some kind of sentient snowman melting in the summer heat.

[CPiz 232]

Jason: "She's a ghost trapped in this town until her husband plows someone else into loving him."

[Nerdlove 82]

Normally, I'm the world's biggest sap and I cry at the drop of a hat. I cry at commercials sometimes. I fully love the movie "Where the Heart Is." But this movie just left me... meh. I didn't buy into the romance of between Katie and Alex at all. Their chemistry was... like... Canadian.

[OoofMaGOOF 348]

Halfway through and I gotta say...not loving this week's guests. They're not adding that much, and not really standing out at all.

 

I'm also shocked Jason both loved this movie, and cried at the end.

[SeveralCircles 426]

CORRECTION:

Duhamel doesnt rhyme with "Paul", Paul. Its doo-MELL. PLEASE RESPECT YOUR FELLOW ACTORS.

 

He's married to a dutchess for Pete's sake.

[coconutcara 3]

I'm shocked that you guys didn't mention how much the husband looked like Seth Meyers! I thought at least the top half of his face was a dead ringer. Anybody agree?

[SeveralCircles 426]

PS Eliza Skinner is amazing.

[justinmh05 1968]

No June? Sadness abounds.

[HotSaucerman 2051]

Looks like Netflix pulled this movie from instant, sometime between this episode and the last minisode, because I checked and it was there last week... Sucks cuz halfway through the episode, I feel like I need to watch this crazy movie to better enjoy the episode.

[hemlocksmoothie 30]

Looks like Netflix pulled this movie from instant, sometime between this episode and the last minisode, because I checked and it was there last week... Sucks cuz halfway through the episode, I feel like I need to watch this crazy movie to better enjoy the episode.

 

Yeah, I had the same experience. I put it on my Netflix list on Tuesday, and on Wednesday night it was gone. Had to shell out the three bucks and rent it on Amazon.

[ItzRegula 0]

This movie blew my fucking mind.