[00:00:00] Clip: See the problem here is, is that my little brother this morning, he got his arm caught in the microwave and, and, uh, my grandmother dropped acid and she freaked out and hijacked a school bus full of penguins. So it's kind of a family crisis, so come back later. Great.

I've been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I'm no dummy.

[00:00:34] Matthew: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Inter Millennium Media Project Podcast, the IMMP. My name is Matthew Porter. 

[00:00:42] Ian: And I'm Ian Porter. 

[00:00:44] Matthew: I'm his dad. He's my son and we're still in back to school season, so we've chosen another, we are another back to school kind of movie. 

[00:00:54] Ian: This is one of those movies you've shown me before.

so it's not one that I went in having never seen before, not one that I went into this episode blindly, and yet that doesn't help. It doesn't explain this movie. 

[00:01:09] Matthew: And if, if you ever wanted to know Ian, what it was like to be in high school in the 1980s, this movie is not a good source.

[00:01:18] Ian: Okay. Good. Okay, good.

[00:01:22] Matthew: However, there are some scenes in this movie that kind of conveys some of the feeling of being a high school student, being at that age, especially around that time.

[00:01:38] Ian: Okay. 

This, this film is Better Off Dead written, directed by Savage. Steve Holland. 

[00:01:49] Matthew: Yep. 1985. 

[00:01:52] Ian: Dead set in the middle of the eighties.

Uh, how does one, how does one start on this film? 

[00:02:03] Matthew: That's a tough one. 

[00:02:04] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:02:05] Matthew: At first when this film came out, I did not give it a, a chance. 

[00:02:12] Ian: Oh. 

[00:02:12] Matthew: Because I, 

[00:02:13] Ian: okay. 

[00:02:14] Matthew: There, there were a ads and trailers and they had some decent jokes in them, but I knew that the premise of the movie right from its title, and this is also, this can, I think, qualify as a content warning.

If this subject matter is disturbing, please take a look at one of our, our other episodes. But. The idea behind this movie, it's a comedy about teen suicide. 

[00:02:38] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:02:39] Matthew: The teen attempted suicide in which, because of a bad breakup, a character repeatedly contemplates or even begins to attempt to do himself in throughout this movie.

And when I've heard about that, I th this as a, as a kid at the time, I just thought, this is just reprehensible. I have no interest in this. This is, uh, terrible from, its very conception. And I did not give a chance, even though I laughed at some of the things that were in the trailer. And then I was like cleaning the house or something.

And it came on HBO and I started listening to it and realized it was, it was an absurdist comedy about attempted teen suicide. And it was, it was. Fully invested in the, the absurdity of the situation that it had set up for itself. And I gave it a chance and I, I learned to appreciate it. We'll talk about how much of the movie works, but at least I learned how to appreciate it on its own terms.

[00:03:46] Ian: That makes sense. 

Overall, I, I kind of wanted to say this, this film feels like a long live action. Looney Tunes Bit. 

[00:03:58] Matthew: That's a good comparison. 

[00:04:01] Ian: It's got some of that same Looney tunes, like dismissive and wild characters interacting with each other aspects.

And that element where a scene can have what looks like much more catastrophic effects. And once that scene ends, you move on to the next one. A character might be limping out of something that they shouldn't just be limping out of. That is part of how it undercuts that dark humor of the attempts and everything else in a, you know, our main character falls off of a bridge and gets caught by a, trash truck carrying a bunch of bags down the highway and he's dirty in the next scene as he shows up, back up.

But he's not injured. That's the sort of, you know, you know, lessen the impact on the, on the next scene, but still acknowledge the previous one through line that keeps this going. That allows them to play with those jokes, which allows them to set up these wild situations and not let the, the darkness of what's being implied actually halt the story.

[00:05:13] Matthew: You're right. It, it is very, very cartoony in that way. Mm-hmm. And it's, it's violence also in its social. Awkwardness and , the catastrophic embarrassment and things like that, it's all very cartoony. There literally is a, scene in which a character is blown up by a combination of paint thinner and, uh, a badly timed cigarette lighter.

[00:05:40] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:05:41] Matthew: And the next time you see that character, they have some bandages on. It's like they, they were holding the Acme TNT bundle and when it blows up they're, embarrassed in their face is blackened. 

[00:05:54] Ian: Exactly. 

That, that's, that's exactly, well, the, a fine example from the film of what I'm describing here. Yeah.

It never does that , pause and have Daffy put his, his beak back in place to tell you this means war, but it's got that same level of character invulnerability. And that same level of world absurdity, our main character at Lane Meyer is not just a teased high school student. He is becoming the most teased and targeted high school student possible.

The social dynamics of who's dating who are not just important to the high schoolers, they are the only talk in the town and everyone is interacting with it. Information doesn't just travel fast. It is immediately being relayed on the school pa system by people who couldn't have known that information yet if they weren't in the room.

[00:06:53] Matthew: And that's where I say this, as absurd as it is, it captures something real about what it was like, what it's like to be an adolescent, a high school. At any time, and with some particulars, what it was like to be a, a high, an adolescent in high school at that time, because it is very much the world that he inhabits is the world as it would be defined in, in his mind.

So if his breakup with his girlfriend is the most important and catastrophic thing that has ever happened to him, how could it not be the biggest thing in everybody else's world? How could in everybody else in town not be talking about this and judging him and trying to take advantage of the situation?

It, it can't be so important to him and not be important to everybody else. Which part of growing up is realizing, oh yeah, the things that are super important to you don't register for most of the people in the world. 

And Lane himself. He starts out as an exaggeration 

From the very first moment we see him, he's waking up and it is clear how incredibly obsessed he is with his girlfriend, Beth.

[00:08:09] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:08:09] Matthew: The first thing we see is his walls covered in pictures of Beth and he sleeps with a framed picture of her in the bed next to him.

And it's like, yeah, you're, she, she's your girlfriend, you're her boyfriend, but you really are stalking. This is really not healthy for anybody involved. 

[00:08:33] Ian: Young John Cusack is doing amazing work there being the most unlikable, likable, protagonist possible. Yeah. You like Lane Meyer is a man. Who you are rooting for because he's the protagonist and yet you're desperate for him to figure things out and stop being so dumb about this.

[00:08:58] Matthew: Yes. And that's one of the things that makes this work is you've got somebody like John Cusack in this role, super good looking kid, very charming, very quick. You're rooting for him. You want him to succeed. Anybody who was less charming in this role, he would just be the creepy guy and you wouldn't care about what's happening to him unless it was for him to, get the appropriate consequences for his weirdness.

[00:09:25] Ian: He is definitely put in a little bit of the same, the same category that one year later you'd see characters like Ferris Beuller be in. In terms of like protagonist small town, but he is the, the failure to Bueller's success. 

[00:09:40] Matthew: Yes. It, it's Ferris Bueller. If Ferris Bueller did not have his tremendous amount of largely unearned confidence.

[00:09:48] Ian: Yeah. No low charisma score, high constitution Ferris Bueller is Lane Meyer from Better Off Dead. He is much more resilient. He's much less aware. 

[00:10:00] Matthew: So this begins with Lane being so obsessed with Beth. Yes. And there being one character who recognizes this is not normal, this is not right. Mm-hmm. And that is David Ogden Stiers as his dad.

Yeah. He is the one representative of the non-surreal world in this movie. He's stuck in this world, but he recognizes this isn't right. This isn't normal. I should, my son should not be this obsessed with his girlfriend. I should not be terrorized by the paper boy. And yet I am, I am stuck in this world.

[00:10:41] Ian: There is something about having, 

Al Meyers being a lawyer. He is attempting to impose rules and logic to the Looney Tunes world he lives in. And we continually see him do that. We see him rebuilding the garage door and it being utterly bewildered that it always breaks. We see him trying to deal with paperwork.

And every time it cuts back the paperwork, it's a little bigger. And he seems to be aware of that and bothered. 

[00:11:16] Matthew: Yes. And his wife, Lane's mom is a resident of this surreal world. And Lane's little brother, a totally native resident of this surreal world. And Lane. Yes. Lane is too. But most of what we're seeing is from Lane's point of view, and we're seeing the world as defined by his perceptions of things. And that of course means that this entire world crumbles when, Beth breaks up with him. 

She breaks up with him. To go out with the captain of the ski team. 

[00:11:50] Ian: Oh yes. 

[00:11:51] Matthew: The ski team, that lane, even though he's a good skier, fails to get on because his tryout was sabotaged by this captain who wanted, wants to go out with Beth.

Mm-hmm. Uh, Roy Stalin. 

[00:12:04] Ian: Yeah. Oh goodness. They're, they play with names. 

[00:12:08] Matthew: And we learn, we kind of know the breakup is coming because, Beth is talking to her friends about wanting to go out with Roy, but we also get, as a voiceover, her little breakup speech to, to Lane. And these are usually presented of, you know, you are a wonderful person.

It's not you, it's me. I just think we should instead her breakup speech is essentially, I think it would be in my best interest to date somebody who's more popular and has a better car, and I don't don't think I should date you anymore.

[00:12:42] Ian: It's, it's really like an investment pitch in the weirdest way 

[00:12:45] Matthew: it is, and it's clearly, it wouldn't matter what she said. The speech that we get in the voiceover is what he would've heard.

[00:12:54] Ian: Yes. 

[00:12:55] Matthew: She could have said, it's not you, it's me. I just think we need to change. You're a wonderful guy. I am sure things will go great for you.

She could have said all of that, and that's not what he would've heard. 

[00:13:07] Ian: He heard what we hear. 

[00:13:08] Matthew: Yes. 

[00:13:09] Ian: Despite being a weirdly omniscient camera, this is definitely unreliable narrator through Lane Meyer's head. Because some of that unreality we're describing is his perception being presented to us even when he's not in the room. And , this breakup as you'd expect, hits him like a freight train and he is in this awful mood and we kind of watch him wander his way through the town in this post breakup haze. And that's our establishment of a lot of the other characters and places and things. We'll see, this is where we get to see the running joke of how awful his mom's cooking is.

And this is where we get to encounter, the running joke of the, paper boy. 

[00:13:59] Matthew: Yes. The paper boy who, who has been delivering the papers, who has been destroying the windows in the garage door. 

[00:14:08] Ian: He wants his $2 cash.

[00:14:13] Matthew: Apparently the paper boys are a gang because as this goes on and nobody happens to have the cash on hand to pay the paperboy, they're all menaced by larger and larger gangs of paper Boys on BMX bikes. 

[00:14:28] Ian: Yes. , 

It's really weirdly similar to the fog and the Yes. The monsters coming out there and attacking and chasing people into the nearby church kinda stuff. It's straight up John Carpenter.

Very, and it's, it's well done. But that's one of those like, this menacing kid demanding their money becomes this, this hounding relentless force of supernatural ill intent. 

[00:15:00] Matthew: And what happened between Lane and Beth that provides kind of a narrative structure for the movie, but a very, very thin and loose one because it's just a spare framework on which to hang all these strange, surreal scenes that fill out most of the movie, but that framework mm-hmm.

Is essentially, he is incredibly depressed. He wants Beth back. He knows he can't win her back decides to. End his own life because either he can't live without her or because he thinks that this will get her attention and she'll realize what she, she missed all those incomprehensible thought processes that can go into something like that.

And he, he has these ideas. He makes a decision. He takes steps to do this and then thinks better of it, realizes, no, this is, this is not right. I've got my whole life ahead of me. I shouldn't be doing this. Yeah. Sometimes he comes to that realization himself. Sometimes he comes to it with the help of his one friend.

Yes. His best friend, Charles DeMar,

[00:16:04] Ian: played by Curtis Armstrong, 

[00:16:06] Matthew: who is, he is the best. He is the. As he says, I have been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I am no dummy. Yeah. So listen to my advice. So he is, the aging, can't quite graduate from high school, doesn't seem to have any particular interest in graduating high school because it, as a high school student, he can hang out and, and take drugs and, uh, um, well, no, 

[00:16:30] Ian: and, and 

try to find drugs.

Yes. There's no drugs in this small town. So we see him desperately trying to figure out and invent other drugs in the background. 

[00:16:40] Matthew: That's a good point. 

[00:16:41] Ian: But he doesn't have anything on hand. 

[00:16:43] Matthew: He's a druggie in a town with no drugs, which is a, a certain kind of personality I guess. 

[00:16:48] Ian: Absolutely. 

[00:16:49] Matthew: He hears about the one kid who's always snorting nasal spray and he's saying, oh, can I, any, any help on where I can score some of that.

Yeah. 

[00:16:58] Ian: He, we see him buying like, I think cans of whipped cream and jello and then trying to use those as powders and yes, he's snorting down sprays inside. It's like. Um, I, I admit he seemed like the sort of person that in my high school days, we would've invited over to try to learn and play Yugi-Oh. It's like we would've, we would've absolutely had him come over and join us in playing card games at lunch.

But he's such a fun character 'cause he's got this infectious energy and he's, it's this weird, like, I'm having a, a rough time. I'm trying to find my own little things, but you've got better than this dude. Come on. 

[00:17:38] Matthew: Like, and Curtis Armstrong is so good at this because as you say, he's got that energy, he's got this weird charm for being the, the grungiest, creepiest looking guy, usually wearing a top hat 

[00:17:50] Ian: or, or other weird hats.

I think he switches it up a couple times. 

[00:17:54] Matthew: He does. And he is a, he is kind of Lane Meyer's, Jiminy Cricket. Yes. And in fact, I, I sometimes think that. You could do an edit of this movie without changing it too much, because there are a few times when, uh, Charles interacts with other characters, but not much.

Mm-hmm. You could edit this such that the, the only interactions that Charles DeMar has with anyone are with Lane. So is he in a figment of lane's imagination? He certainly could be because he sort of absolutely plays that role of a conscience or a second thought. 

[00:18:29] Ian: What if your shoulder angel was asking you how to score?

Yes. Scores. Like what? Very, very different, different feeling. And lane is, lane keeps on figuring out, backing out somehow getting still tossed into the thing he was about to do coming out. Okay. Yes. 

[00:18:52] Matthew: And he has all these ideas and he'll, he'll have a, an a suicide attempt. He'll think better of it.

Other things will happen. Something will trigger that depression again. And he'll find another way to try this. But one of the other things that he's contemplating is something that it is not specifically a suicide attempt, but he's afraid to do it because it's practically suicide. People have tried it and not survived.

And that is skiing the K 12, 

[00:19:25] Ian: which is such a perfect naming of I love that. You know, you know, how about we put, how about we put our entire metaphor just on a billboard? Yes. 

In the story, 

[00:19:38] Matthew: your entire, primary and secondary education is a mountain. But he, uh, others have attempted to ski the K 12 and not survived.

Roy is like the only person in town who's managed to ski the K 12 from the glacier and survived. Yeah. And Charles is saying, don't be trying to kill yourself. Don't do all these things, but you are a great skier. You could ski the K 12. So Charles is trying to coach him and convince him to give a shot at skiing the K 12.

[00:20:13] Ian: And, and so you 

wind up with this, this very comedic scene by scene cartoonish repetition of the, what are you doing? Attempting suicide? Don't do that. You could just ski the K 12. Why would I do that? That's suicide. Yeah. Is the, is the running joke 

but. It fits, and we see these bits. We see him getting a job at the local fast food place and getting fired from it. And we see him, uh, just kind of continuing to degrade as he does. So pondering back and forth. We also get elements of other things he's good at. He's artistic.

Lane is a saxophone player, but he doesn't play anymore. He is a artist. He draws cartoons and yet his mental state is getting in the way, and he winds up in a fight with his own cartoons. He is a car enthusiast. He has a, beaten up, , Camaro that's been sitting on the lawn for, a long while and he hasn't gotten it running.

He also gets into little street races with a, another pair of characters. So he's got some interest in in that going on. We see these little bits of who he is and and what he could be throughout it. And they're always interrupted by this self cycle he's in and dealing with that. And the fact that that keeps on halting him just continues him down that path and makes it harder for him to snap out.

[00:21:44] Matthew: And all of these things are set up. They do reveal some character about, about him dealing with the street racing and things like that. And yet they clearly are just little set pieces of weirdness, of absurdity, of, uh, illuminating this bizarre world. He lives in the, the street races? Yes. They involve a pair of brothers.

Yeah. These, these Japanese American brothers or, or Japanese immigrant brothers, one of whom speaks no English. The other of whom speaks some English, but he learned all of his English listening to the wide world of sports, so he can speak only as Howard Cosell. Now, I'm curious, did that mean anything to you in watching this?

Have you seen enough clips of Howard Cosell broadcast? 

[00:22:26] Ian: I don't think I've ever seen a clip of a Howard Cosell broadcast, and yet I have seen enough media with parodies and impersonations of Howard Cosell broadcasts that I completely understood the joke. 

[00:22:44] Matthew: Okay. 

[00:22:45] Ian: The same, oh, this is the voice of sports announcing joke that they were running for in this movie has since then, especially with things online, there's something about that tone that fit as a joke I'd heard elsewhere.

[00:23:03] Matthew: So it's not necessarily, oh, that's Howard Cosell as, oh, that is the trope. You can trace back to Howard Cosell. 

[00:23:11] Ian: It's just such a distinct tone and intonation in everything. Yes. 

[00:23:15] Matthew: And a way of using this overwrought language. 

[00:23:19] Ian: we get all these pieces and I think the movie really does take a, there's two major pivot points for this film, I'd say. And one of them is how he gets fired from his job, the job his dad insists he take,

which is just

dad. 

[00:23:40] Matthew: Yeah. 

[00:23:40] Ian: What was wrong with the eighties? 

[00:23:43] Matthew: So many things. 

[00:23:44] Ian: What was wrong with this? Because. 

[00:23:48] Matthew: There, you're talking about the, uh, the claymation interlude.

[00:23:53] Ian: Yes. The most existentially, terrifying thing in this film.

[00:23:59] Matthew: At, at one point, lane is working in the kitchen, the pig burger, a fast food place, making hamburgers. and in the past, by the way, we've seen him infuriate the guy who owns this place by crashing into his car at stoplights and left alone in the kitchen. He starts to have this reenactment of Frankenstein where he is building this monster out of raw meat and hoisting it up to be struck by a lightning on the roof of the place.

And then that goes into a, a claymation rock and roll song and dance bit. Involving animated hamburgers and french fries and things.

[00:24:46] Ian: I knew it was coming, and yet I still feel like I walked down the alley of this movie and got mugged by the Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer music video. 

[00:25:01] Matthew: I could absolutely do without that entire sequence because it doesn't, doesn't really add anything to the movie. It changes the tone very much. It doesn't, it doesn't even fit with much of what we have seen of Lane before.

[00:25:15] Ian: I actually 

don't think that's the case. Oh really? We saw him working on animation before. That's true. And the intro is animated. And it's animated in a specific style that is very much of its time there. It's very much the same kind of art style of Pink Floyd's the wall and some of that kind of rougher, uh, sketchy postwar art style.

Mm-hmm. And so we already can kind of see that that's his style. And Claymation of that time did have an element that was a three dimensional version of that same heavy squash and stretch heavy, , pose to pose movement as as that. So it doesn't not fit with Lane, I feel, but I do feel it doesn't fit with the film.

[00:26:11] Matthew: Yeah, 

that's, that is interesting. I, I kind of get the impression sometimes that that savage, Steve Holland thought, okay, this is my chance to make a movie. They've given me some kind of a budget. Let me write and direct this movie. This may be the only chance I ever get to do this. So I'm gonna put into this everything I possibly want to ever put in a movie.

So we get the long animated intro sequence because he wanted to showcase his animation. We get this claymation bit in the middle because he wants to have some claymation. And this may be my last, uh, chance to get Claymation on a big screen or something. He threw in everything and you know, some things fit better than others, but yet you're right.

I could see how this might fit with, with some of what we've learned about Lane. Yeah, 

[00:26:54] Ian: I, yeah, I definitely do feel like this is much more of a, an element from Savage, Steve Holland, and, I mean, he's an a, that's a, he's a fascinating, writer director looking at his IMDB. It's an interesting, interesting trajectory and I can see pieces of where he went after showing up in this kind of elements that are distinctly his style already in there.

That, that claymation scene is just so jarring and weird. 

[00:27:25] Matthew: It is. And it seems to go on forever. 

[00:27:27] Ian: It is a fine time to get some popcorn, in my opinion. 

[00:27:30] Matthew: Yep. 

[00:27:31] Ian: And especially 'cause after that scene and as we get into other stuff, I feel like a second movie starts up. 

[00:27:38] Matthew: Yes, yes, you're right. It it, it gets a little bit less surreal at that turning point because Lane's life starts to take shape again and find a new path.

[00:27:51] Ian: It's kind of like 

he has hit this, low point, this climax of his, difficulties when he's having full on hallucinations. Yeah. And then as he returns to the world, the camera. Shows us more actual reality. The characters start to have some more depth to them. Some of these is a little bit more reasonable 

[00:28:13] Matthew: and it, it sort of shifts into being a more straightforward teen coming of age, romance kind of movie.

[00:28:23] Ian: Yes. 

[00:28:24] Matthew: Because one of the, the running bits in the background of this movie has been the fact that across the street they're across the street neighbors from Lane, , they have taken in a foreign exchange student, a girl from France. And the family there is, uh, a very overbearing mom and her kind of Creepy, nerdy son.

And the French student , wants really nothing to do with them, especially nothing to do with this boy because this boy wants a lot to do with her. Uh, and the mom is all in favor of that. It's very a creepy situation. They've put her in, but as things go on, we find out that she is very aware of this. She is hiding the fact that she can speak English so he, she can minimize her need to interact with this family she's been put in with. And she and Lane become friends.

[00:29:16] Ian: Yes. 

[00:29:16] Matthew: And she becomes the person who's encouraging him in a different way than Charles DeMar does. She, Charles DeMar May, may encourage him and, and boost his confidence.

She gives him a little more insight into what he's good at and that, that he has to work at it, but he can really develop a lot of potential and. She is somebody whose opinion of, of him he cares about. He wants to impress her. Yes. And that makes him want to be a better person, which is a great thread for a romance story.

And from there they become friends. Seems like maybe there's more interest there. She helps him fix up this car that has been under a tarp on Lane's front lawn, for months, much to the displeasure of his dad. So we have the montage of fixing up the car together and she apparently knows enough about cars to help get it running and she's teaching him and they're working together.

And, we eventually get the car working and a final race against the brothers where they, they win. And as she puts it, if you have a little bit of success that you might find it suits you. Don't keep shying away from, from challenges and from being, the best version of you.

And she is the one who eventually starts coaching him and getting him to the point where, maybe he can ski the K 12 because he issues that as a challenge to Roy Stalin. Because Roy is, pestering, Monique now. 

[00:30:46] Ian: And that's one of those things where, uh, well, two parts there.

It's not like Monique introduction here. Undoes that surreal weirdness. No, but it really feels like she, as a character tames that some of the wild moments happen there, but at the same time, everyone else is living through it and she seems to use it to her advantage. Getting that car fixed, she gets it running and then is holding up an engine part and oh, we'll have to put this back in.

And it's in that very much like Loony Tunes. Look at, there's a part missing, but it's working right. Kind of element where those two things can't happen like that. And yet she's leveraged that unreal reality to her advantage. The skiing portions, they go from showing some basic stuff to having stunt people doing trick skiing.

Yes. Together so swiftly that it has this delightful, you know, this is our life. This is the kind of world we live in. Enjoy it. Element fits very well. That makes the, the drama a little when Roy starts attacking Monique, in part because she's spending time with Lane it seems, but there's an element where Lane is no longer wanting to do this for his own sake.

He's doing it to defend Monique, he's doing this for someone else. He's got something to strive for there, he's got a connection and she's not a damsel in distress, but she's someone he cares about who he can put himself on the line for. In that sense, it, it really works because it puts him using that unreality.

He goes from our lead character to a protagonist. He kind of picks up a character role in the way everyone else has one in a new way there, and there's a bit of a difference in how he's being played to some extent. Yes. That little bit of a spark you're describing the fact that that unreality is still there means that this act is emphasized by that and the drama of it becomes part of the world in a different way.

[00:33:06] Matthew: Yeah, that's a good point. To be a protagonist, you need a goal. And he had no goal even at the beginning of the movie. Mm-hmm. And then he had a false goal of of doing himself in, and now he's got a real goal. And unlike Beth, Monique is not an object of obsession. Yes. She's a person he cares about. And like you say, she is not a damsel in distress.

He might have issued the challenge to Roy that they would have a race down the K 12, but she's the one who's able to coach him and give him both the, the knowledge and the confidence to maybe have a shot at this. And yes, I love the fact that early on when Lane is contemplating skiing the K 12 and Charles is his coach, Charles's advice is go that way very fast.

Something's in your way. Turn. Yes. And later on when she's coaching him, Monique gives him the same exact advice. It is. Good advice. Exactly. You have to admit 

[00:34:07] Ian: It's good advice. And there, there's a little bit of funness there. Like my high friend and my French girlfriend have the same mentality on something.

Is that a comment on my high friend or my French girlfriend? 

[00:34:20] Matthew: Or, but maybe it's just universally true and they both know it. 

[00:34:24] Ian: Exactly. There's something there and it fits very differently. He kind of, dismisses it the first time and he's like, okay, on that second, he listens to it this time.

[00:34:35] Matthew: Yeah. He still winds up tumbling, headfirst down a, an 85 degree slope, which is what happens whenever he tries to ski the K 12. 

[00:34:44] Ian: But he does a lot better. 

[00:34:47] Matthew: He does. 

[00:34:47] Ian: And I do love how the actual race down the K 12 happens because it is, it is prompted, I mean, he's going to, you know, is he gonna make it in time to the event is a whole thing, and then he winds up getting there, being chased by the newspaper kid.

[00:35:08] Matthew: Yes. 

Who's got skis on his BMX now. Yes. 

[00:35:11] Ian: It, it's very much like a James Bond skiing scene where, you know, yeah. Being chased and suddenly going down this professional course with someone pursuing you on. Snowmobile practically this bike has been modded. Now it's like, this gotta cost this kid more than two bucks to chase people around.

For two bucks, you're have to buy stuff and put stuff onto your bike like that. That's you, you've got some budget problems there, kid. But it does give this wonderful opportunity of the fact that now he's skiing down the slope. Missing a ski. 

[00:35:49] Matthew: Yes. 'cause that got broken in the chase. 

[00:35:52] Ian: , so he's skiing with one ski and catches, Roy off guard.

And so now Roy is chasing him as they're skiing against each other and the kid is coming after them, still yelling about $2. And this gives an opportunity for lane to look cool doing this all with only one ski instead of two. For Roy to be more awful when he shoves the newspaper kid, he shoves him off of a cliff in the wildest dramatic and another one of those highly looney tune scenes.

[00:36:25] Matthew: Yes, we see him going off this cliff, hundreds of feet in the air tumbling, still screaming my $2, but they do later cut to him plastered into the snowbank at the bottom of the cliff saying $2. Exactly. So even exactly, even the, the menacing deadly paperboy does not perish. 

[00:36:48] Ian: Yeah, definitely not a save the cat moment.

Shove the child moment. Right. but of course Lane succeeds big grand. Congratulations. And he succeeds. With only one ski. So even though, you know, Roy gets to the bottom as well, lane did the more impressive thing. 

[00:37:08] Matthew: Yes. He still beat Roy in the race and did so in, spectacular fashion. Mm-hmm.

Which Beth being Beth, and they've kind of presented her as a fairly shallow character. She's suddenly kind of interested in lane again. But Lane has no time for that really, 

[00:37:23] Ian: He wants to go find Monique and save her from being carried off by, her creepy, exchange family. But I will say that's, talk about the, the taking up the hero role and using that cartoony, unreal reality of this town. When he was imagining being the, the, you know, being able to do something about this. He drew a sketch of Roy getting eaten as a dragon. And then the dragon talks in Roy's voice.

Roy was the dragon here and he was imagining, you know, oh, you know, Roy is a dragon and I'll get Beth back and all that. And then finally he's in this final moment and he defeats Roy then proceeds to fight off Monique's creepy, exchange family using ski poles in a sword fight, and they drive off in his Camaro.

It's very much, he defeats the dragon, wins a sword duel, and they ride off on his steed. He's taken up that cartoonish hero role in an element. When he finally does action, it has that element that he was only imagining before. And the, the sword fight scene is kind of, kind of funny and silly. It's got this, this weirdness, but by the end of this film, you've gone through enough weird things going on.

You're like, 

okay. 

[00:38:50] Matthew: Yeah. It's, it's a little clumsy. It's a little clumsy inserted, but it's par for the course as, as for this movie. Mm-hmm. And they even have a little coda for, for Ricky from across the street where he's now been defeated by lane. He's sprawled out in the snow and a girl comes up and offers, uh, him a hand up.

And she is just as he is a very stereotypical nerd, character. She is a stereotypical female nerd with the, the, the pigtails and the glasses and the, the weird clothes and all of that. And. It's, it's an example of, of something that you saw in movies of its time, of, of this time so much more, which is that kind of, that physical determinism of characters where certain people are nerds and are ugly and the best they should hope for is to go off on their own with their own kind kind of characters.

Yeah. And it's, uh, you also get some of the other things like the, the brothers in the street races that you could, uh, certainly see that as being racially insensitive, although they make a point that these are immigrants to America and learning English in different ways. There are a lot of tropes like that that I don't think you would see in a movie today.

Some of them are more abrasive than others. Yeah. Uh, you know, they, they fit in with the movie as it was made, even though you might have criticisms of them. It's insensitive, but not unkind. Yeah. The, the, the part with the brothers, I would agree the part with Ricky and the, the girl he winds up with. Again, there's that, that, that idea of, well, if you are, if your body is not of a certain type and you don't look a certain way, that means you're gonna behave in a certain way.

That means you should only associate with these other people. 

[00:40:47] Ian: Yeah. And that's where I, I'm looking at that and saying, it's like, it's not like they're saying he'll never find anybody. Mm-hmm. But it's got some problems in who's its suggesting he should find. Yeah. And that's a, uh, yeah. and it ends with lane and Monique having driven to Dodgers Stadium.

'cause there's a thing of her being a Dodgers fan. 

[00:41:06] Matthew: Yes. 

She loves American baseball. 

[00:41:09] Ian: Yeah. And she's got a very good arm apparently. Uh, I do appreciate the very final moment of this. It's the paperboy Johnny bicycling towards them still. Yes. It's, it, it's, it's kinda like, okay, you finished the romantic comedy that this film was, you never dealt with the zombie film running along in the background.

That's still happening. 

[00:41:31] Matthew: That's right. Yeah. We've, they, they're, they've got, they're sitting on the Camaro in the middle of the infield in, in Dodger Stadium, and somehow the newspaper boys found them.

[00:41:44] Ian: My goodness. , 

[00:41:46] Matthew: Well, I think we might be heading towards our final questions now.

[00:41:49] Ian: I think so, 

[00:41:50] Matthew: But first please do stay tuned for those final questions. But if you're enjoying the Inter Millennium Media project, please go to imm project.com

that's where you will find all of our back episodes. That's where you'll find a link to our YouTube channel, if you like, podcasts in video format, or if you find that as a, an easier way to share with others. And you'll also find a link to various ways in which to support the podcast. The most important being, as I say, sharing with others, uh, letting other people know about it, giving us, uh, five star ratings wherever you get your podcasts.

But you'll also find a link to our Patreon where you can support us and get bonus audio content. And if you join us at the movie club level, get random DVDs appearing in your, um, mailbox periodically. You'll also find a link to our store where you can find coffee mugs and t-shirts and notebooks and other fun things for fans of the podcast and for fans of things like Space 1999 and The Prisoner.

[00:42:47] Ian: Yes. 

[00:42:48] Matthew: And also at that uh, imm project.com website, you will find our contact page because we would love to hear from you. You can reach us by US Mail at our Po Box. You can reach us by email or our contact form, and you can reach us on Blue Sky, on Mastodon and uh, on our discord. We'd love to hear from you in any of these ways.

So, let us know, what you think of some of these movies we talk about and are there other movies that you think or TV shows that you think we should take a look at? Yeah. And Ian, where can people find you? 

[00:43:20] Ian: I can be found as item crafting. Most places be that on Blue Sky or Item Crafting Live on Twitch.

I stream every Thursday, so come join for games and crafting and just a good time. 

And dad, how about you? 

[00:43:35] Matthew: Well, you can find me, uh, just about anywhere as by Matthew Porter. So you'll, you can go to by matthew porter.com for, uh, for links to all of those. You'll also find me as by Matthew Porter on Blue Sky and Mastodon.

And, uh, you'll find me as by Matthew Porter on YouTube where I review movies and movie theater experiences and travel.

[00:43:56] Ian: Aha. 

[00:43:57] Matthew: So final questions,

[00:44:01] Ian: final questions. 

[00:44:03] Matthew: Screen or no screen.

[00:44:09] Ian: I'm saying no screen. You've shown me this film twice. And every single time I look at it and say, this has a bunch of parts that all sound like things I'd love, and yet something about it put all together is not a pleasant watch for me. I find, like I find getting through it to be draining in a weird way, partially because it's got that weird reality and partially 'cause it's that cartoony humor, but it's.

97 minutes. And there's something where it's like staying in that head space for that long takes something out of you and it's not smooth. And even across this could have used some more polish. This, I feel like this needed something else done to it. 'cause it's, it's missing something that puts all cohesive.

But if you were to tell, you know, it's a meal of things I enjoy blended together in a way that I don't quite like. This is, you know, oh, you love the, you know, you'll love this dish and you'll love some chocolate cake for dessert. You, you want this to drink? So we put it all in a blender and now here it is all in one cup.

And I'm like, I can't enjoy any single piece of this now because of how you've presented the whole of it to me. So. I think that there's value in what this did and knowing about it for cinema reasons to some extent. But unless you're watching it for film class, it's not a, it's a no screen from me. 

[00:45:47] Matthew: You know, having seen it again now for this podcast episode, I agree.

I would say no screen. There's too much of it that is uncomfortable and unpleasant to watch, to make it worth sitting through as a movie. It has some really good and fun parts. One thing we didn't even mention, by the way, is the, the little brother who's Yeah. Who's another aspect of what the world must look like to a high schooler like Lane, where even his little brother is a genius who can do anything or build anything.

He builds a space shuttle out of household items. He gets a mail order book on how to pick up trashy women and winds up having this whole bevy of ladies with him, on like Christmas Eve or New Year's. I. 

[00:46:32] Ian: Yeah. Wait a second. Is the younger brother just a character from our last episode? Real genius who escaped into this one? 

[00:46:39] Matthew: Maybe I could see his brother going to, uh, Pacific Tech eventually. 

[00:46:43] Ian: Yeah. Kind of a, kind of a 

different film over here. 

[00:46:46] Matthew: So there are enough of these things, the things that are fun to watch in this movie. They work at least as well as sketch comedy as they do part of a 97 minute movie.

Mm-hmm. So I can't recommend, I wouldn't advise anybody to watch this if, um, if, if I'm hanging out with somebody and we're talking about movies, I could see putting in this DVD and fast forwarding through it to show them the funny parts. Yeah. And, and turning it into a 40 minute collection, but I don't mm-hmm.

I don't recommend screening this movie.

[00:47:25] Ian: Something about the. The way Savage, Steve Holland was able to get into the mind of a, of a, of a high schooler and present that level of, of tension and anxiety through cinema, means that his later career work makes a lot more sense to me.

[00:47:46] Matthew: Oh, is that right?

[00:47:48] Ian: Because he did things like Better Off Dead and such early on. But what he's known for later on is things like episodes of Even Stevens Lizzie McGuire, Zoe 1 0 1, big Time Rush. He went to kids TV programming where that same type of directorial elements are applied in those early aughts kids shows.

To give you that relatable sense of understanding. In a much shorter 20 minute, 30 minute episode. 

[00:48:26] Matthew: Maybe that just suited his style more. 

[00:48:30] Ian: Yeah. He actually went into like Bill and Ted's excellent adventures TV series and then went from there into similar, TV directing roles 

[00:48:41] Matthew: Another thing that he did, I think it was early in the development of the Fox TV network, is he got a chance to create a TV show, the New Adventures of Beans Baxter, essentially a kid who winds up getting involved as a, uh, an espionage operative. The little Okay. Junior spy kind of thing.

It was, it was a, a few years after this movie and it was fun. I don't think it ever quite got a chance to find its potential, but it was, it was an interesting experiment that, of the sort of thing that Fox was doing at the time as it started out. And I do see that as kind of a bridge into what he found success in later on, those kind of Disney Channel TV shows.

[00:49:20] Ian: Yeah. Is that, is that a show that might wind up as an episode at some point? Or did you not watch that? I, 

[00:49:26] Matthew: I, it didn't last very long and I watched a few episodes of it. I can't say that it had a bunch of, uh, it had much influence. It might even be out of bounds in terms of, of timing or close to it. Okay.

But yeah, I, I'll, I'll look into that. 

[00:49:40] Ian: Okay. 

[00:49:40] Matthew: But it's another example of how even though he started out trying to make these feature films, maybe feature films were not the best showcase for what he's good at. 

[00:49:50] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:49:52] Matthew: And, and also so many of the, the actors that he worked with either came from already established careers or this was really the start of things for John Cusack.

He's, I don't think John Cusack is a, a big fan of this movie, but you have to admit it, it kind of got things going for him. Uh, Curtis Armstrong playing Charles DeMar, we've seen him before because he had a, a long time supporting role in Moonlighting. And I, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen, uh, Curtis Armstrong in something in which he just was not a whole lot of fun.

[00:50:29] Ian: Yuji Akimoto, one of the two brothers, , doing the driving. We'd seen just the previous episode as Fenton in Real Genius, and he does all sorts of things now. He, that was early in his career, but he's got a long career in a variety of one episode or recurring character roles in TV and looks like a, a movie every year almost.

[00:50:57] Matthew: And both Curtis Armstrong and John Cusack come back to work with Savage Steve Holland. Uh, not long after this, in the movie, one Crazy Summer, which, which we might have to watch at some point for the podcast.

It's another absurdist comedy, but ah, you know, it wasn't, can't have been that bad. An experience to come back and make another feature with him.

[00:51:19] Ian: Yeah. must have been. Okay. Not great, but it's something 

[00:51:25] Matthew: that kind of leads us around to our, our second question, which is, revive, reboot, or Rest in Peace.

[00:51:34] Ian: I don't know how you do that with this.

I mean, well, okay. Revive is like, I guess, I guess the story of Lane and Monique later, maybe their kid. I don't know. 

[00:51:50] Matthew: I don't know. 

[00:51:52] Ian: Uh, reboot gets weird because this film set anytime other than that mid eighties timeframe. Would land so differently. Yes. Even the small town that they depict here is now more connected and discussing other things and what young people are bombarded with is so different that I don't know if that level of isolation and mentality could land the same.

I think it's a rest in peace. Just 'cause you're, we're kind of standing here going, what do we do with this thing? What else 

[00:52:28] Matthew: could you possibly do? Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it has to be a rest in peace. The only thing I would want to see that could technically qualify as a revival under our terms, because the, what we see in the movie would still be Canon would be a mock documentary narrated by the brother who learned how to speak English from Howard Cosell. 

[00:52:49] Ian: Okay. 

[00:52:50] Matthew: And it would be a short, but it would be the Charles DeMar story.

Okay. How did Charles DeMar become the man that he is in his seven and a half year of of high school? What were his trials and tribulations? Who were his influences? What is the story behind the man? I could see you catch a really fun eight to 12 minute. Story there. 

[00:53:16] Ian: I agree. Yeah. You, I, I can also see if you want to have some fun and kind of do a acknowledgement.

Yeah. This is the same world. Just ha, just, just casting Curtis Armstrong as a Shopkeep somewhere named Charles wearing a top hat and having him play the wearing a top hat, playing the same sort of character. So it's obviously he's gotten himself a little business somewhere. You've got a, a thing set in California, you wanna throw some extra fun there.

You have, , Yuji Komoto come in to the shop. Oh, hey, good to see you. Oh, by the way, I got a message from Lane. Just run that in the background as this little like world building element while your other main characters wander off to do something. Do that as an establishment to be able to borrow some of this.

World tone if you want. Make a callback. Uh, you know, throw, throw some love to some actors from a thing that could be, and especially with what I'm saying, that this film is the sort of thing I don't think it's worth seeing, but I said maybe if you're watching like a film studies, because I could see another artist being inspired by something willing to go as wacky as this does.

Yep. I could see someone wanting to have put in a, a little love, love letter to this film in the corner. It's just never going to be me. Right. But I could, I could imagine that, and I could imagine that being done well by pulling those actors who are happily doing stuff in for a cameo. 

[00:54:51] Matthew: Yeah. I could, I could imagine enjoying seeing that and giving it a little nod.

Mm-hmm. But that's as much as I want, as far as more of this goes. 

[00:55:00] Ian: Exactly. 

We are, we're, we're nicely in agreement on this one. 

[00:55:08] Matthew: So this was a, a very particular kind of example of something from my youth. 

[00:55:14] Ian: Yeah. 

[00:55:16] Matthew: And, I think we're, , well established now in the new school year.

[00:55:20] Ian: We are, 

[00:55:22] Matthew: which means that next time around we will be back with another theme, because soon it'll be that season again. 

[00:55:32] Ian: We're going on from the better off. Dead to the dead. And better off, 

[00:55:39] Matthew: we're, we're 

sneaking up on the Halloween season, so join us in a couple of weeks for more tales of Media from the 20th century.

And in the meantime, go find something new to watch.