Episode 146 - Dreamcatcher

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Curtis Gwinn (Narcos, The Walking Dead) and Jessica McKenna (Serious Music) join Paul and Jason to discuss the 2003 science fiction horror film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Dreamcatcher. They’ll talk about butt aliens, the importance of the toothpick, comically bad farts, and of course, Morgan Freeman’s amazing eyebrows.

[Bumpy 1674]

If this is just an hour of them screaming 'Whaaaaat?!' I wouldn't be at all surprised.

[jacksimms95 14]

"Bob/Robert Gray" is one of the personas mentioned/assumed by Pennywise in It - at one point, he claims it to be his real name, and I remember a short part of the story dealing with the idea of Bob Gray as one of many possible 'origin stories' for It/Pennywise.

[jacksimms95 14]

Also, I'm a qualified British person (born and raised here, never lived anywhere else) and have lived in both the North and the South for a while. I've never heard Duck/duct tape referred to as "Friction tape" in my life....

[Jamie Power 224]

Was anyone else impressed by Timothy Olyphant's dick calligraphy? He can pee in the snow in perfect cursive! His dickwriting is genuinely better than my handwriting.

 

Also I feel like this film was trying much too hard to make SSDD a thing.

[Darbler Cheesegarbler 1110]

I remember enjoying this movie when it came out, despite some ridiculousness. I'm a sucker for Stephen King, hell I even enjoyed Maximum Overdrive (despite a TON of ridiculousness). I'm definitely going to revisit Dreamcatcher before listening to this episode...

[ChunkStyle 1160]

MAJOR OMISSION ALERT

 

There was no discussion of the dumbest callback in movie history. No Bounce No Play. What did the filmmakers think our reaction would be when we saw that stenciled on the wall during the flashback? "Who did that? Banksy? That is fucking brilliant!!"

 

They thought it was so great that it gets brought back twice including to setup the stupid climax of the movie. But it was the first callback that actually made me angry. When Damian Lewis stops them from breaking down the door to ask the question "but what happens if we just bounce off?" It is the clumsiest setup imaginable.

 

On a separate note I was pleased with the time they spent setting up Tim Olyphant as the fastest boy in the world. That had a big payoff.

[markserletic 24]

Omission:

 

If the endgame of the toothed vagina alien was to get into the water supply, why didn't it just swim down the toilet? Clearly it had no problem with diving down into a culvert/reservoir thingy so why is trapping it in a toilet and effective way of containing it?

[ChunkStyle 1160]

Omission:

 

If the endgame of the toothed vagina alien was to get into the water supply, why didn't it just swim down the toilet? Clearly it had no problem with diving down into a culvert/reservoir thingy so why is trapping it in a toilet and effective way of containing it?

 

I think a septic tank may have saved the human race there.

[nocode1437 9]

I shared an anecdotal story about Dreamcatcher in the Bad Movie Recommendations section.

 

[Quick Recap from my Memory Vault] College roommate and I caught the matinee of this work of art. It was so absurd we convinced as many friends as we could to come see it with us again that same night. It was a thrilling prank and people were quite upset... although I now question whether my roommate and I were the true losers - we paid to see shit-aliens with ass-hooks twice in the same day.

 

Anyway, I wanted to thank you, Paul, for finally watching Dreamcatcher. Next week I'll be catching up with my old roommate for the first time in nearly 8 years at a wedding. I look forward to sharing HDTGM episode 146 with him... it'll be a real Fuckeroo!

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I got a twitter notification earlier that said, "Lin-Manuel Miranda, Chelsea Peretti, and 5 others just liked Stephen King's tweet," and my first thought was, "OH MY GOD PLEASE TELL ME HE LISTENED TO HOW DID THIS GET MADE"

 

But no, he just praised Michelle Obama, which is also cool.

[Lando 2019]

These guys make terrible use of their powers. From the best that I can tell, three of them get the ability to read minds and one gets some sort of supernatural finger swirl locator power. However, with these powers one becomes a lousy therapist, one a teacher and one a used car salesman. At minimum Jane should be a damn good therapist getting at the heart of people's problems and Olyphant would make a great detective. Instead Jane is forgetting that he's reading his clients minds and Olyphant is using his powers to creep out women, trying to leverage dates by finding missing car keys?

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

The setup for the movie sounds exactly like another terrible Thomas Jane "bunch of shitty bros with a shared secret past get together in a vacation home or something to be terrible" movie called "I Melt With You", which had fewer ass monsters, but more people ready to kill themselves.

[pscudese 701]

God I loved some of the script choices they went with in this film. I can see this possibly working in the book, but for a present day film... WTF?!

 

Here’s a list of some of my favorite things these actors had to memorize and say on film, thus existing forever:

• Jesus Christ bananas!
  
• Bitch in a buzz saw!
  
• I’ve had perfectly good fuckarees turn into fuckarows in a flash.
  
• What have you been eating, woodchuck turds?
  
• Criminettlies!
  
• Bullshit! He dropped a clinker! I heard it.
  
• This is turning into a double fuckarow. A real jobba-nobba.
  
• Stop your blatting, laddie-buck!
  
• Bite my bag, motherfucker! All right, Pete, I’ll bite. Your bag and everything else.
  
• Those poor schmucks. They drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart never miss an episode of Friends. These are Americans.
  

 

And of course.... Fuck me, Freddy.

[pscudese 701]

After the car accident, we follow Thomas Jane back to the cabin where he's talking to himself.

 

He says, "Yesterday you want to call it quits, throw in the towel, pull the plug. Today, you'sre begging, praying. Couple more hours. Couple more miles. Make up your mind."

 

So he's obviously talking about the time he almost shot himself in the head. But that happened 6 months ago, so it's either:

 

1) A continuity error in the film script; or

2) Every day, after his last session, the doc puts a gun to his head and almost pulls the trigger.

 

Based on how insane this film is, I'd go with the latter.

[ScooterMcFudden 9]

Hey Paul. I was born an raised in Maine. The "rough '50s language," isn't something Stephen King made up. That's just how we talk in Maine.

[ScooterMcFudden 9]

God I loved some of the script choices they went with in this film. I can see this possibly working in the book, but for a present day film... WTF?!

 

Here’s a list of some of my favorite things these actors had to memorize and say on film, thus existing forever:

• Jesus Christ bananas!
  
• Bitch in a buzz saw!
  
• I’ve had perfectly good fuckarees turn into fuckarows in a flash.
  
• What have you been eating, woodchuck turds?
  
• Criminettlies!
  
• Bullshit! He dropped a clinker! I heard it.
  
• This is turning into a double fuckarow. A real jobba-nobba.
  
• Stop your blatting, laddie-buck!
  
• Bite my bag, motherfucker! All right, Pete, I’ll bite. Your bag and everything else.
  
• Those poor schmucks. They drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart never miss an episode of Friends. These are Americans.
  

 

And of course.... Fuck me, Freddy.

 

Seriously I've said most of these growing up. I shit you not, (another Maine-ism), this is how we talk. Also, we call duct tape friction tape. It's just the dialect, man. Maine's a strange state, folks. It has like 3 different dialects and accents.

[pscudese 701]

Ok. So a dreamcatcher is something that catches nightmares.

 

That being said, can someone on this forum explain the connection it has to this film... let alone be the title??

 

During the 2nd flashback, we see the boys around a dreamcatcher they made. Duddits claims the center circle and the friends are represented by those circle around it. Great. This is represented a few moment later in the park, when they are trying to find the lost girl. They all stand around Duddits with a hand on him.

 

But I ask you again... what meaning is meaning of a Dreamcatcher in this film?

 

None of the events take place while they are sleeping. Hell... when the group discussed "IT," that book/film would be a better story under the Dreamcatcher title. You have a villain playing mind games with the heroes... almost causing walking nightmares.

 

And you can't say it has something to do with Jonesy's mind vault. Those are memories; not dreams.

 

So someone. Anyone. Please help me understand this.

[ChunkStyle 1160]

Can someone who knows what they are doing in the forum setup a poll with this question?

 

"Was it a choice to show Duddits as the actual alien and not a host + hitchhiker? Or was it just a filming mistake?"

 

A.) choice

B.) mistake

 

I am voting B.

[Lando 2019]

Ok. So a dreamcatcher is something that catches nightmares.

 

That being said, can someone explain how that has any connection to this film... let alone be the title??

 

During the 2nd flashback, we see the boys around a dreamcatcher they made. Duddits claims the center circle and the friends are represented by those circle around it. Great. This is represented a few moment later in the park, when they are trying to find the lost girl. They all stand around Duddits with a hand on him.

 

But I ask you again... what meaning is meaning of a Dreamcatcher in this film? None of the events take place while they are sleeping. There's no explanation that they are living in a waking nightmare. And you can't say it has something to do with Jonesy's memory vault. Those are memories; not dreams.

 

So someone. Anyone. Please help me understand this.

 

The five of them combined prevent the alien invasion so they are clearly the dream catcher.

[Lando 2019]

If I may play "utilitarian" for a minute (and this logic only applies to these butt aliens), this movie also tries to make Morgan Freeman out to be a bad guy by wanting to kill potentially innocent/potentially infected people. At the same time they make Thomas Jane out to be a hero for having sympathy for them and wanting to set them free. However this movie establishes that:

1) The aliens are stone cold killers with no hesitation taking human life

2) Dudditz informs us that "One worm kills the world"

3) The aliens will try to manipulate our sympathies to get what they want

Morgan Freeman has been preventing an invasion for 25 years and in that time not a single infected person, animal nor worm has gotten anywhere near a major water source! Maybe there is a better way to handle it so that the innocent uninfected people don't have to die and infected people don't roam in the general populace, but I would side with Freeman over Jane on this issue. Thomas Jane is taking a huge risk in letting them out.

 

There's also a bit of a connection to another HDTGM film: The Covenant. During an English class scene in The Covenant the teacher brings up Stephen King and the blonde witch yells out "Dreamcatcher is the shit!"

[pscudese 701]

 

The five of them combined prevent the alien invasion so they are clearly the dream catcher.

 

 

Based on that logic, we should call this film "Power Rangers: Secret of the Poop Alien."

[pscudese 701]

Can someone who knows what they are doing in the forum setup a poll with this question?

 

"Was it a choice to show Duddits as the actual alien and not a host + hitchhiker? Or was it just a filming mistake?"

 

A.) choice

B.) mistake

 

I am voting B.

 

 

But now I ask you this... If Duddit was an alien, why did he let the bullies get so far? Stripping him down to his underwear. Definitely got some hits on him. And about to make him eat dog shit.

 

Transform and fuck those kids up!

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

God I loved some of the script choices they went with in this film. I can see this possibly working in the book, but for a present day film... WTF?!

 

Here’s a list of some of my favorite things these actors had to memorize and say on film, thus existing forever:

• Jesus Christ bananas!
  
• Bitch in a buzz saw!
  
• I’ve had perfectly good fuckarees turn into fuckarows in a flash.
  
• What have you been eating, woodchuck turds?
  
• Criminettlies!
  
• Bullshit! He dropped a clinker! I heard it.
  
• This is turning into a double fuckarow. A real jobba-nobba.
  
• Stop your blatting, laddie-buck!
  
• Bite my bag, motherfucker! All right, Pete, I’ll bite. Your bag and everything else.
  
• Those poor schmucks. They drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart never miss an episode of Friends. These are Americans.
  

 

And of course.... Fuck me, Freddy.

They mention it sounding like Kevin Smith did a punch-up, but I also sense a bit of Star Wars-ian "This doesn't even sound like a real word ever muttered by humans" in there, which isn't TOO surprising with the Kasdan connection.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

 

 

Seriously I've said most of these growing up. I shit you not, (another Maine-ism), this is how we talk. Also, we call duct tape friction tape. It's just the dialect, man. Maine's a strange state, folks. It has like 3 different dialects and accents.

As someone that's familiar with it, do you appreciate the attempt at authenticity, or is it more like listening to nails on a chalkboard when you hear the words spoken by people that have never said them in their lives?

 

Someone mentioned "The Covenant", which reminded me that that movie is full of people butchering the names of places in the surrounding area, which you would never do if you were actually FROM there.