Episode 138 - The Boy Next Door (w/ Heather Anne Campbell, Ben Siemon)

[Smigg 1488]

The names that people are called in this movie piss me off. "Wizz" for a kid that pissed himself?! Either the people who made this movie never had the piss taken out of them, or it's a different time, and the sheer brutality in piss taking has been curbed as society has gotten more sensitive.

 

From my days:

 

Kid pissed himself? He was called "Piss Flaps", denoting that he had both urinated in his undergarments, and that he was also a giant pussy.

 

No one was safe,

One kid lost a testicle, he was called "Womble" because it sounds like "One Ball". (For those unaware, "The Wombles" was a very popular TV show, they looked like this... http://img.thesun.co...82_1112416a.jpg)

You have epilepsy? You're known as "Eppo Leppo" throughout your school years.

 

There was even a lad known as "Aye-Aye" for a number of years, because he hated the song "Return to Innocence", people got wind of it, so they sang it at him until he cried

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1NHXSR3R7I

 

And this was not long after he cried announcing that he was "scared of thunder", which wouldn't be so laughable if it was actually thunder, and not a truck driving passed.

 

There was one lad who had the piss taken out of him for wanking in the library, when he was just rubbing his hands together, so everyone said he was the kid who wanked in the library.

 

It was absolute brutality when I went to school, the only thing that gave you immunity was life threatening illness, and even then, you were called a "poof" because there was always that one kid who would say "My uncle had that, and he was alright after a week", or accused of faking it. The other way you get immunity is if a relative died. I went to school with deplorable people.

[Amy the Gorilla 732]

 

But, to be fair to the movie (why would I ever do that?), he says he can't down shift and they do ultimately stop by pulling the emergency brake.

 

Speaking of down shifting, doesn't John Corbit tell him to do that, and The Wiz screams "There's no clutch!"

 

...

 

I'm pretty much an idiot when it comes to standard shifting vehicles, but don't you need a clutch to even start a standard car? Let alone drive, or up/down shift.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

 

Speaking of down shifting, doesn't John Corbit tell him to do that, and The Wiz screams "There's no clutch!"

 

...

 

I'm pretty much an idiot when it comes to standard shifting vehicles, but don't you need a clutch to even start a standard car? Let alone drive, or up/down shift.

My interpretation of that was the clutch was stuck and the explanation was just horribly written. Cause don't they show him then slam his foot onto it and it finally goes?

[tomspanks 9039]

Did anyone notice JLo's knife collection? I'm jealous.

 

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

i wonder if ryan guzman is related to louise guzman in some way?

[BrianAndrewSmith 8]

Im not sure if i had a stroke, or if i am completely losing it, but why does this episode feel like a bit of deja vu, Am i crazy or I have heard jason talk about a first edition of the Iliad, and the cars in the movie? I feel like i have heard all of this before. Was it another podcast? Someone tell me I'm not crazy?

[SusieQ 0]

The punching bag incident was probably not an asthma attack and was more likely an episode of exercise-induced anaphylaxis. It's a real (and weird) thing and--speaking from experience--it's goddamn terrifying. It probably would have been worth a tiny bit of explanation in the movie though.

[MeghannO'Brien 0]

Im not sure if i had a stroke, or if i am completely losing it, but why does this episode feel like a bit of deja vu, Am i crazy or I have heard jason talk about a first edition of the Iliad, and the cars in the movie? I feel like i have heard all of this before. Was it another podcast? Someone tell me I'm not crazy?

 

Planet money covered this movie when they discussed the producers low budget approach to movie making. I was super excited my two very different but equally beloved podcasts covered the same movie.

[jarrycanada 2483]

and now a public service announcement.

 

[jarrycanada 2483]

When this movie first came out, I thought it was a sequel to "The Girl Next Door", the teen comedy starring Elisha Cuthbert, Timothy Olyphant and James Remar about a porn star moving in next door to a high school kid.

 

when it first came out it was called,

an Albert Hitchcock film. one of the greatest movies of all time. I love that movie even if it's turning into mylife story. was also called "Something Wild" one of Ray Liotta's greatest hits.

 

 

"Has that guy got a man bun!!!"

 

"and these are the stupid stoners down the street, he calls them that because they are stupid stoners down the street!."

 

"and on the left is the ass hole truck, he calls them that because they are asshole's who drive a black track with tinted windows all around, who knows what kinds of shenanigans they are getting up to in that."

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

i found a blog where someone reads scripts that are floating around hollywood. the author reviewd the script for this back in november 2011. they give a few details about it and noah was indeed supposed to be 17. i really think this little detail would have made the whole thing more interesting.

 

but i was wondering why they changed his age at all ... was it a studio thing, did they not want to have a sexual thriller thing with someone who was underage. or maybe Jlo didnt want to be seen to have a sex scene with an underaged boy. or maybe they hired guzman and someone pointed out he did not look like he was 17 ... maybe blake can find out ...

[wyldride 285]

He was all about her pleasure, so naturally he's a psycho. That's one of the big, wrong messages of this movie. It's not hard to draw the conclusion that the movie telling you that female sexuality and pleasure is wrong.

 

This has the most complicated age of consent algebra since Crazy Stupid Love (The babysitter has to be old enough to send nude pictures to the dad without it being child porn, but then she maybe passes those photos on to the son). We have to go through hoops to make the boy next door legal, but then, is hardware store girl legal? And if so, does that make her too old for the son? Makes that Transformers movie where the guy has a laminated copy of the age of consent law (even though the daughter in the movie is of age in the jurisdiction the movie is set in) seem simple by comparison.

[CooperWiseman 14]

I'm watching the movie right now but the scene with the Iliad was so ridiculous I had to stop and find out how much a first edition would be, thinking they would not exist. I was wrong, It does exist, but it's OVER 130 YEARS OLD. Also, the actual book price (plus $4 shipping) is $1,235.64 MORE that the film's ridiculous price of "A buck at a garage sale"

[SevenDollarsWorthofHoobastank 226]

You can tell Noah has deviated far from the script of the D.E.N.N.I.S. system created by Dennis Reynolds.

His N.O.A.H. system must be:

 

N: Negotiate Sex

 

O: Obsess Psychotically

 

A: Assault Friends, Family and others

 

H: Harass Climactically

[Glen Toran 94]

The names that people are called in this movie piss me off. "Wizz" for a kid that pissed himself?! Either the people who made this movie never had the piss taken out of them, or it's a different time, and the sheer brutality in piss taking has been curbed as society has gotten more sensitive.

 

From my days:

 

Kid pissed himself? He was called "Piss Flaps", denoting that he had both urinated in his undergarments, and that he was also a giant pussy.

 

No one was safe,

One kid lost a testicle, he was called "Womble" because it sounds like "One Ball".

You have epilepsy? You're known as "Eppo Leppo" throughout your school years.

 

There was even a lad known as "Aye-Aye" for a number of years, because he hated the song "Return to Innocence", people got wind of it, so they sang it at him until he cried

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1NHXSR3R7I

 

And this was not long after he cried announcing that he was "scared of thunder", which wouldn't be so laughable if it wasn't a truck driving by making the noise he was crying over.

 

There was one lad who had the piss taken out of him for wanking in the library, when he was just rubbing his hands together, so everyone said he was the kid who wanked in the library.

 

It was absolute brutality when I went to school, the only thing that gave you immunity was life threatening illness, and even then, you were called a "poof" because "My uncle had that, and he was alright after a week", or accused of faking it, or if a relative died. I went to school with deplorable people.

 

Sounds like my old boys secondary school in the mid 70s.

One lad had a small white streak in his hair, he was (& still is) Spunkhead.

Another had a large strawberry birthmark on his cheek. He was Jambake. Bake being a local dialect word for jaw or mouth around Belfast.

A friend of mine had a sort of natural 'fro and I cant post what his general name was but it would lead to an arrest these days. I have to point out that Black or Asian people were virtually nonexistent around here back then, and are pretty thin on the ground even now. He would kill for that ridiculous hair now though as hes as bald as a coot these days.

If anyone had an Irish sounding name or else were of Catholic descent theyd invariably be Mick or Paddy.

Another name of a classmate was Darky, but this was in no way racist because around here anyone with the surname Campbell was automatically Darky. I have no idea why. Its a bit like in the UK in general where if your surname is Clark you get called Nobby, or Dinger if your name is Bell.

I was called Bugs or Bugsy, not because of rabbits or buck teeth or anything but because it seemed to go with my actual surname.

Similar to Smiggsy's mate who knuckled shuffled in the school library, we had I**n S****e who was caught getting erect in the school showers after a football match (while on his own, I have to add and as far as I know he was and is straight). He wasn't wanking or anything , just teenage hormones kicking in at the worst possible moment. He spent the remaining 5 years at the place known to everyone, including some teachers, as Hoits. Hard On In The Showers.

[Cameron H. 23786]

i found a blog where someone reads scripts that are floating around hollywood. the author reviewd the script for this back in november 2011. they give a few details about it and noah was indeed supposed to be 17. i really think this little detail would have made the whole thing more interesting.

 

but i was wondering why they changed his age at all ... was it a studio thing, did they not want to have a sexual thriller thing with someone who was underage. or maybe Jlo didnt want to be seen to have a sex scene with an underaged boy. or maybe they hired guzman and someone pointed out he did not look like he was 17 ... maybe blake can find out ...

 

The only way this movie could make any sense is if he is underage. The weird thing is, they did age the characters up, but didn't change all of the lines. When J Lo is explaining where "The Wiz" nickname came from (Which, by the way, if I was a shy, bullied teen and my mother ever told that story to a potential new friend...that would be mortifying. Completely inappropriate!) she says that it happened because three years ago he got stung by a bee "on the playground!" Her son is at least sixteen! So...at at least thirteen he was still playing on the playground? That's almost as embarrassing as your mom telling ever stranger she meets that you peed yourself. The only way I could rationalize it is both of the boys had been aged up from an earlier draft that cast them younger.

 

I'm watching the movie right now but the scene with the Iliad was so ridiculous I had to stop and find out how much a first edition would be, thinking they would not exist. I was wrong, It does exist, but it's OVER 130 YEARS OLD. Also, the actual book price (plus $4 shipping) is $1,235.64 MORE that the film's ridiculous price of "A buck at a garage sale"

 

The funniest part of that is that it makes a point of saying that it's "used."

[firsttimecallerlongtimelistenr 3590]

wikipedia

 

they only cut 2 seconds out but what a 2 seconds...

 

"The film was released on January 23, 2015. It runs for approximately 90 minutes and was given an R rating from the MPAA for "violence, sexual content/nudity, and language".^[28] A BBFC classification, dated February 9, 2015, gives the film a 15 certificate for "strong violence, threat, very strong language". The film's UK distributors, also Universal Studios, chose to remove two seconds of material, the eye gouging scene, in order to obtain a 15."

[LordOfTheOceans 1]

Ahh...I just finished Dragon Heart. Just when I was finally ahead of the next episode, it changes.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

He was all about her pleasure, so naturally he's a psycho. That's one of the big, wrong messages of this movie. It's not hard to draw the conclusion that the movie telling you that female sexuality and pleasure is wrong.

Yes the movie does give out this message, but as I wrote I'm not sure it's just because he was "all about her pleasure."

 

I think that since Noah is a psychopath the way he leans in to her pleasure makes it still all about him because he's just ~so damn good~ at getting her to orgasm. So that makes him feel like more of a man than her husband because he got her to that point. It still has nothing to do with her.

[Cameron H. 23786]

As Paul said on the show, this is a movie about poor judgement, and he's absolutely right, but there is one moment in the movie where J Lo's poor judgement is totally unforgivable. At the end of the movie, J Lo calls Kristin Chenoweth and Noah plays a recorded message that ends ends with Chenoweth screaming. At this point, she has destroyed all the files on his computer and he is holding her friend hostage, there is absolutely no reason for her to not call the police. What bad thing could possibly happen to her if she does? Even though she doesn't know that Chenoweth is already dead, she does know that she's being held captive. So, if she calls the police and they go out to the house, they are going to find the murdered body of her friend and her son and estranged husband being held hostage by a crazy psychopath. She's destroyed the evidence of their hookup at this point! Do you really think, when they see the grisly remains of her friend, the police are going to believe anything Noah tells them? She is all but in the clear, all she has to do is not go to that fucking house!

 

Also, when she does go to the house and discovers Chenoweth's body, it would probably be a good idea that when she runs out and gets into her car, that she maybe locks the goddamn door and drives away before she tries to FINALLY call the police.

[CooperWiseman 14]

To the point of how little everyone involved in the movie understands the first edition nonsense, the prop they used is a very ornate green and gold cover.

 

It looks just like something you'd find on those tables of Barnes and Noble classics.

The prop guy didn't even get an old book that could even plausibly be a first edition.

 

If we assume that TBND used his inheritance to buy a rare first edition of a certain translation (as Paul mentioned in the episode) IT WOULD STILL LOOK VERY OLD.

 

Here's a real first edition I found listed online. It was published by Hillard Gray more than 130 years ago and it costs over 12 hundred dollars

Also, this plot point of him giving her a rare book is not that far-fetched! Here's how you fix it:

 

J-Lo: (after the backyard dinner) I teach modern american classics

 

LATER

 

TBND: I got you something (hands her a copy of The Old Man and the Sea)

J-LO: Oh my god this must have cost so much.

TBND: I found it online for 30 bucks.

 

 

This way the scene is virtually the same without making everyone involved (Including a character who is supposed to be an expert on books and literature) look very stupid

[jarrycanada 2483]

I'm watching the movie right now but the scene with the Iliad was so ridiculous I had to stop and find out how much a first edition would be, thinking they would not exist. I was wrong, It does exist, but it's OVER 130 YEARS OLD. Also, the actual book price (plus $4 shipping) is $1,235.64 MORE that the film's ridiculous price of "A buck at a garage sale"

 

I just need This book for one hour..

 

 

have to see "

" to get that joke. as JCVD uses that as a weapon, amazing.

[EllenM 943]

I think J-Lo already made this "Every Wrong Decision" movie, and it was called "Enough".

 

Don't you dare disrespect Enough! It was the first movie where I fully realized actors weren't their previous characters. I couldn't fathom a world where Noah Wylie was a horrible sociopath.

 

As a little forewarning, I have A LOT to say about this movie. I'll try not to blow up the boards and give everyone a chance to post their thoughts, but it's gonna be real tough to sit back...

 

They mentioned in the episode that J Lo is always making (and sniffing) cookies, but considering her marital issues--and the fact that somehow he let an email get out that described his mistress smelled like cookies--why would J Lo EVER have chocolate chip cookies in her house? Based on the situation, you would think you would lose all appetite for that particular food and you would definitely not have them on hand, nor serve, them to your philandering husband. Why would serve a food that can only evoke in him the memory of his mistress?

 

C'mon, J Lo! Have some self-respect!

 

I totally understood what she was doing. She wasn't truly making them to eat. She wanted to fully understand just what her husband was stepping out for and this was the only clue she had to go on. It's insane to think that the scent of cookies would create this realization of "Oh, I see it all clearly now. No wonder..."

 

I wanted to talk about something that the gang touched on in this episode.

 

They mention a lot about how The Boy Next Door is focusing on JLo's pleasure throughout that sex scene but something that I think is very telling is how that can still be tied to a man's ego and negatively impact a woman and lessen her enjoyment of sex if that partner is abusive.

 

We know that JLo did enjoy herself at the end despite the amount of times she said no and stop which really put me off for the rest of the movie, but what if she hadn't? Noah had this ideal about them based solely on the fact that she liked what he did that night. His possessive nature towards her was directly tied to how good he thought he was in bed. So if they had had sex again and she didn't like it would he have gotten angry? Would she have felt obligated to fake an orgasm to avoid that anger?

 

Maybe a way for her to really cut him deep and prove that she didn't care about him would have been to say, "I faked the whole thing." That then takes away the power he feels like he has over her because he no longer has the thought that he provided any kind of pleasure to her.

They touched on it super quick but my biggest problem with this movie is that it is so focused on "Fuck yeah, ladies getting it for themselves!" that it forgets that women can't get what they what, and if they do, they're punished.

 

John Corbett fucks around and he's almost in a car accident, which doesn't have anything to do with his affair. It has to do with TBND seeing him staying over at his own fucking house with his wife and child.

 

J.Lo, on the other hand, scores a young guy who worships the ground she walks on, gets hers and as soon as she stops it, her life spirals into chaos. She almost loses her husband and son in the aforementioned car accident and she does lose her best friend to TBND.

[Smigg 1488]

Sounds like my old boys secondary school in the mid 70s.

One lad had a small white streak in his hair, he was (& still is) Spunkhead.

Another had a large strawberry birthmark on his cheek. He was Jambake. Bake being a local dialect word for jaw or mouth around Belfast.

A friend of mine had a sort of natural 'fro and I cant post what his general name was but it would lead to an arrest these days. I have to point out that Black or Asian people were virtually nonexistent around here back then, and are pretty thin on the ground even now. He would kill for that ridiculous hair now though as hes as bald as a coot these days.

If anyone had an Irish sounding name or else were of Catholic descent theyd invariably be Mick or Paddy.

Another name of a classmate was Darky, but this was in no way racist because around here anyone with the surname Campbell was automatically Darky. I have no idea why. Its a bit like in the UK in general where if your surname is Clark you get called Nobby, or Dinger if your name is Bell.

I was called Bugs or Bugsy, not because of rabbits or buck teeth or anything but because it seemed to go with my actual surname.

Similar to Smiggsy's mate who knuckled shuffled in the school library, we had I**n S****e who was caught getting erect in the school showers after a football match (while on his own, I have to add and as far as I know he was and is straight). He wasn't wanking or anything , just teenage hormones kicking in at the worst possible moment. He spent the remaining 5 years at the place known to everyone, including some teachers, as Hoits. Hard On In The Showers.

 

Oh you just reminded me of this lad who, after PE, he got changed and forgot to do his zip up, hormones kicked in next lesson. Now he was the guy who got the boner because of the Religious Studies teacher.

[wyldride 285]

Yes the movie does give out this message, but as I wrote I'm not sure it's just because he was "all about her pleasure."

 

I think that since Noah is a psychopath the way he leans in to her pleasure makes it still all about him because he's just ~so damn good~ at getting her to orgasm. So that makes him feel like more of a man than her husband because he got her to that point. It still has nothing to do with her.

 

That is, essentially, my point. Combined with the fact that movies so rarely focus on female pleasure, the one time it does is because the guy is crazy. Of course, she never really consents, either, so that's in line with standard Hollywood depictions of sex.

 

I see what you mean, though: Consider "all about her pleasure" more of a figure of speech. The character is obviously only concerned with himself. I was really more focused on the message sent by the film makers and what they were depicting with that scene.