I'm recording. Hey guys, this is Dan and that's Rob. Hi, and we have an apology to issue you. You see sometimes in a man's life you go to record your podcast and instead of using the nice expensive microphones you accidentally record with the onboard mic for your laptop.
Right. So they're still talking to the nice microphone. Yes, because you think they're working. Yeah, because you're still hearing in your headphones.
Right. You dummy, it's just the wrong input. Right. So this episode doesn't sound as good as the others.
And we apologize for that. Sorry. Sorry. But it's not that bad.
And it's not it's we're both luckily sitting pretty close to the mic. So you can hear us both pretty well. And I'm going to do what I can to beef up the sound a little bit before we release it. And it's a really good movie that we talk about.
And it's it's a lot of fun. It's so much fun that we tried to rerecord this episode. We couldn't recapture that. No, no, it's a good app.
And if you if you can tolerate slightly subpar sound quality, you'll be rewarded for sticking with us. Promise will be better next time. Yes, it will. It better be we have a guest next time.
So and you're going to have to listen if you want to find out who that guest is. So enjoy the episode. Yeah, have fun. Okay.
And go. King me. King me. King me.
Hi. Welcome to King me. I am Dan Gagliardi. I'm Rob Avon.
And today, we're talking about a movie about a car, a very smart car, but a very mean car. Oh, the meanest car on the streets. And it's very deceiving because you look at the car and your first thought is this car looks a little bit like Lightning McQueen from the movie cars. Oh, but it's no Owen Wilson.
Let me tell you I've never seen cars. I guess he's like, wait, yeah, yeah, Lightning M. Uh huh. Yeah.
What do you mean you've never seen cars? I've never seen it. You mean you weren't you weren't six years old in 2008? I don't know why I've seen it.
You know what? It is. It's older. It's like 15 years old.
It is. And I don't remember why, but I saw it in a theater by myself. I don't remember why. How I got there where you maybe dropped off.
I yeah, I think I think someone drugged me and then dropped me off the movies. I got off really easy. That's probably the least that's ever happened to somebody who's been drugged by another person. They picked me up in a van, they'll drop me off the movies, pick me up 90 minutes later, took me straight home.
I'm usually on all those Pixar movies alone. I just watched that inside out. Well, let me tell you, oh, that's a great movie. Uh, did you cry?
Yeah, multiple times. It felt good to cry. Yeah, I felt like I was crying for the right reasons. Yeah, you know how like on a day to day basis, maybe you feel kind of like you got you got a sense of yourself.
Yeah. And then this just plums up. Yeah, just reaches down your throat and pulls up some childhood drama that you didn't know about. Yeah, like I never relocated to San Francisco.
If you if you showed this, if you showed inside out to somebody and they the park with big mom didn't didn't hit them emotionally. That's the Voic comp test. That's it. That's it.
You're you're a freaking replicant. Get out of my country. Uh, so we're talking about Christine from 1983 directed by John Carpenter. Fucking Johny C.
I did not know this was a John Carpenter movie, which is why I hadn't seen it up to this point. I'm a big fan of John Carpenter, and this has his stink all over it. That wonderful fucking musk. Yeah, my concern going into it.
My big question about finding out this was a John Carpenter movie. I know what it is. Will this will the score be in e minor and predominantly synth driven? Right.
And the answer is yes. Yeah, everything that is in play through Christine's radio is is e minor. John Carpenter loves e minor. And I love John.
So, transitive property tells us you love e minor. No, it's I'm such a huge John Carpenter fan. I love even like even the not so good movie. Ghost of Mars.
That one's a coaster vampires. It's ghosts. Okay. Vampire's all alone is its own movie with James Woods.
That's a John Carpenter movie. Okay. And ghost of Mars is the one with ice cube and Natasha Hinch. I don't know.
That sounds like you and Jason say it sounds like you had to make up a last name on the spot and you didn't take him from one. Yeah. But John Carpenter's so like 70s and 80s John Carpenter is like prime time Carpenter. Oh, goddamn.
You got like the fog the thing. It's came from New York. Just like hit all the those that you could ever want. Big trouble in Little John.
That is a friggin cartoon caper of a film. I love that movie. But this like and I use the word film. I think I consider this a film.
If we're gonna be if we're gonna be like that about it. Yeah, we should be. I feel like there are two kinds of movies that we're tackling here. Like there are movies that we can go through.
Movies that we have to go through in just like the order of the events and just kind of like comment on the events of the movie. And then there are movies like this which I think we can dissect. Yeah, there are like ideas that lift this movie up. There's a lot going on here and I'm very excited to talk about it.
All right. So right off the bat, we meet our our two main characters. Our boys, our boy, our king boys, Dennis played by John Stockwell and Arnie played by Keith Gordon. Neither of whom according to IMDB have aged very well.
It's rough. Yeah, guys, if you're listening, huge fans of your work, I love the movie. Keith just go bald man. Just shave at it out of it.
Yeah, you're you're fighting the losing battle here. Keith Gordon from Dressed to Kill, a bride to pom. Excuse me, bride to come on. And back to school with Rodney Dangerfield.
Oh, he plays Rodney Son who they go to school. Spoilers man. I know. You're having a rough 30 seconds breaking all the rules.
But Arnie's like Arnie's a big nerd. Okay, I Arnie is such an interesting character to me. Not strictly to it. Okay, first of all, just the petty stuff right off the bat.
Arnie's character he starts off nerdy. He is swayed by this devil car and becomes increasingly cool. Let's say, however, his fashion choices. I feel like even for the time were a little misguided.
Like to the point where I was wondering if it was intentional like, Oh, this is a dork trying to be cool. Did you get that vibe? Well, I wasn't sure if it was like, okay, the movie is from 1983. But for some reason, it's set in 1978.
I don't know if you got that. Oh, I did not catch that. It's in the vault. All I noticed was that one part said it took place in November, which I wasn't weird thing.
Like it's so weird. The dates in the years, and they pop up and they disappear. And it doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah.
And it has no bearing on the story whatsoever. Right. Like the difference between 78 and 83, as far as like technology is like nothing. There must have been like one person involved with the production of this movie, who was like, no one's going to believe that this happened over such a short span of time.
Well, the only the only theory was that this is an interesting thing. A theory that exists outside of us. Yes. Okay.
Stephen King had not finished writing the book when this went into production. Really? Yeah. So it was happening at the same time.
And one of the theories is that he started the book in 1978 and just took it that long and whatever. They just like when they were making a movie, they're like, I guess it's 1978. I don't know. Whatever.
Yeah. Doesn't matter. Right. That's interesting.
Yeah. I like that because Stephen King camped her a little shit fit about the way this movie turned out. That's what that means. Nor should he like it's a fine movie.
And because the premise is like so Stephen King-ish with like inanimate objects coming to life, we've talked about it before. It's one of his favorite things. It's one of his trademarks to just have something be the devil. Yeah.
I feel like he couldn't complain. Like I feel like this problem. I haven't read the book and we don't talk about the books, but I feel like we don't talk about the books. Yeah.
No, no, no, no, no. We're not nerds. We're no Arnie's. Yeah, we're gonna be a dentist.
Not a dirty. Although Dennis Dennis is sort of like he's the all American. He's like a he's a good guy. Solid wide receiver.
Yeah, it was weird. He was your running back. He lined up. Was he?
Yeah. I feel like he lined up to be a running back and then just went out for a pass. Maybe. Hey, I don't know what to play book.
I don't know. Or anything else really about football. I feel like a horse is ass right now because I jumped ahead to bar into the movie. Yeah.
We didn't talk about the production line for the car. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay.
Our first kill. Yes. Right out of the game. That should be a segment that we do is first kill.
First kill. I like that. Right? All right.
Welcome to first kill. No, that makes it sound like a show within a show. It's not. It's not.
It's just a segment. That brings us to our first segment for skill. Great. So the car is going down the production line and they're pretty much done at this point.
The guy comes around. He lifts the hood. He's checking something and he's not paying attention. The hood comes down and smashes his hand.
Breaks his hand up. Then another guy. What auto worker, whatever. Larry gets his hand broken.
Curly gets in the car. Yeah. He got the guy gets in the car smoking cigar and he turns on the radio and buddy Holly is playing. He's he ashes on the it's covered in plastic, but it's the car.
Yeah. And next shot is the car car coming down the line. A different guy is like, where's that music come from? Opens the door.
Guy. The cigar smoker spills out. He's dead. First kill.
Death by Buddy Hong. Rock and Roll. That must be pretty satisfying as Buddy Holly. himself died tragically.
Right. Who was also murdered by a vehicle. Right. Yeah.
So right out of the gate, this car means business. It's already killing people. It's a bad car. And I did not.
I didn't understand like at first, how did he kill that man in the car? I still don't think I understand. Well, the only thing I can think of because it happens later on is some sort of a fixation with the exhaust. Right.
They mentioned it a few times with a few people. But so first, yeah, I'm on the rules of what the car can and can't do are little unclear. Like it can make you choke on your sandwich. Oh, yeah.
That was some silly business. But yeah. So Arnie Dennis, the first day of school, high school seniors, they're going to run the school big men on campus. Now Dennis, he's a well adjusted guy, as we said, he's on the football team.
Nice. He's friends with Arnie, presumably their childhood friends. Yeah. That's the vibe you get, right?
Because Arnie is a square with helicopter parents. Yeah, he's under lock and key. But his parents are pretty insufferable. Yeah, you're not even that upset when he chokes his father.
That was pretty upsetting. If I'm being honest, I did not like that. It was intense. Yeah.
But yeah, so first day of school, they're dry, Dennis is driving Arnie to school because Arnie doesn't have a car we find out. Right. And Dennis and Arnie are talking about how Arnie needs to get laid. Right.
We got to get you laid, Arnie. And I couldn't tell if he was being facetious, but it didn't seem like it. But did he not? And maybe I'm just remembering.
Okay. Did he not make some sort of comment about how he carries his whole life between his legs? Is that what he says? He does something.
There's some illusion of Arnie having a massive cock. Yeah. Which, fine. It's never referenced again.
But the whole the rest of the movie, I'm like, this guy's got the biggest dick on the block. Possibly the neighborhood. You couldn't focus on the movie. No, I yeah.
Every like, when we're gonna talk about this elephant. Yeah, no, it was definitely like, and okay, I don't want to like, how do you want to do this episode? Because I want to get into like the themes. Let's talk about the tropes that get kind of not turned on their ear, but certainly like explored pretty deeply.
All right. So okay. Go ahead. Arnie is the male version of the the female trope of like nerdy girl, who when you take her glasses off and put her hair down, becomes hot shit.
Right. That's why I thought they gave him a big dick. I thought that was part of that. All right.
I also, I don't know if at that point in 1983, if that was a trope yet, no, I don't know. Because like, when I think of that, I think like 16 candles, yeah, John Hughes and stuff. And that's just like about time. Yeah, I guess so.
And I don't know enough to like trace it further back than that, but knowing what we know now, right, it's interesting to look at it, given that this trend follows it, right. So I'm still right to want to mention it. Yeah. So like, he's basically, he's the male version of that.
And like, it's so interesting to see how like, differently their fates play out. Like, like, like, you do, you have two virgin characters in this movie, which is another hard trope that the virgin always lives. And the girl virgin does live. Yeah.
But the boy virgin is killed by his virginity, essentially. All right. He's horned up. He's well, almost like Chris, we're walking in the dead zone, where he has my name in his virginity.
That was the last movie we did. I am kidding that. Yeah. So this is two movies in a row where our male virgin is punished for Virginia.
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to jump too far head, but like the way it ends, he kind of loses his virginity in a very symbolic way. Can I speak to that?
Or do you want to hold off on it? Let's let's hold on. I feel like that's tantalizing because even if you know what the ending is as a listener, you're probably maybe thinking what the fuck is he talking about? That's the look on your face.
Yeah. I think I know where you're going. Yeah. There's two very strong symbolic things that happen.
Okay. But yeah, basically. He's fate. Or he's fate as a poon in heaven or hell.
Right. He's poon hounded hell. Right. No, you know what?
That's a Disney animation, but it's not a Disney computer animated. Dreamworks. Yeah. So I don't know.
I thought it was really, really interesting that he's kind of it's like a coming of age story where the process of coming of age kills the character. So let's go into the coming of age thing. Okay. How does he go from nerd?
Sure. Zero to hero in a villain? Is he ever the hero? I thought it was a steady downward sloper.
I felt like for a second, he was like, I'm getting self-confidence. I've got a girl. I've got a hobby. Yeah.
He's got like, he's kind of reoriented his life in a way that like he's doing things for himself instead of because of what his parents wanted to do. Right. And what everybody else is like? Like, because he's just being pushed around by everybody.
Really? Yeah. Those three bullies, including disgusting version of John Travolta guy. Oh, that one bully.
Yeah. It was Randy? That's 35 year old man. Who was a senior in high school?
Oh, man. I did not like his whole deal. He seemed very unclean. Not.
We got to that. Like he brought his own switch blade to sit. This is the vibe you put on. We have a Kelly Preston was in this movie.
She was the blonde who's like in the beginning who's making eyes if that's Kelly Preston. That's John Travolta's current wife. Wow. Travolta.
Carrie. What a pristine. Bringing it all around. Oh my god.
She's got to be one of the most beautiful beards on the planet. If you're going to get a beer, get a Preston. Right. You're going to want to spend that extra money.
You could throw a TM on the end of that. If you're going to get a beer, make it a Preston. I wrote down here. It's like the evil version of Greece.
Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like the Greece lightning kind of like the face of the car. He's Sandra Dee.
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's a really like, it's very much like there are a lot of plot like there's points that are twisted from Greece that are used here. There's so much like Americana.
Yeah. It's like the car itself. Yeah. Well, yeah.
So the car is like, it's a Plymouth something or other. It's a 57 Plymouth theory. Yeah. They get it.
It's a beautiful cherry red fucking classic looking car. It's a sweet ride. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
It's a pretty, pretty cool car. And yeah, this is the first I wonder if this is like the first time that the music of that period was old enough that it was creepy to use. Yeah. Did that, did that occur to you?
Because I've been thinking about that since I watched it. Is he kind of trying to think it? I don't know if it was the music being from that era for the way it's used specifically. Yeah.
And that's the thing is coming out of Christine's radio is very much used like communication. Yeah. The car is. And that's a thing that Stephen King recycles.
I know at least once again in 1408, is that the name of that movie? Yeah. There's that one song that keeps playing on the radio. Yeah.
It's the only just begun song, which is very creepy, very effective. So super creepy. So here we're seeing the birth of a trope within Stephen King movies, possibly. So we hit on the, we touched on those bullies, which is another Stephen King.
He's all about having like having bullies pick on like a significantly weaker character. And then having those bullies get their confidence. Oh man. Like, yeah, all of them died really terribly.
Buddy, especially I think. Buddy, the leader of the game. Yeah. Oh my god.
And also the coolest scene of the movie. I was kind of embarrassed that it was just like, oh, wow, that's freaking cool, man. What do you make of the part when they're having a fight in shot class? You know, and like, it comes for yogurt.
No, I like that before, yeah. Well, after he cuts the yogurt before the teacher gets there, they get into it and Dennis like steps in there's like, stealth or whatever. And the fat kid grabs his dick. And yeah, I was like, well, I know what kind of movie this is like, it's just there's like sexuality is everything in this movie.
It's so charged. Yeah. I thought that was just like kind of an interesting take on like bullies. Yeah.
Well, like, I mean, it's a little on the nose, but it's a good detail, I guess. Yeah. But John Corbinar gets it, man. He's got a gift master.
Isn't he working on something now? I mean, on his side, he probably says like, on title project. No, it might have a title. I feel like I heard about something going into production or at least pre-production, something, something, something?
Something? I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. No, it says not.
The last movie because I'm here is The Word, which is obviously not a bird word. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Don't look it up. We both said it. Therefore, it must be true. How would we both have known to tell the same lie?
All right. So bullies. All right. Dick, grab in bullies.
They step on Arne's glasses. Talk them up a little bit. It's very classic bullying techniques. Yeah.
But then the ride home, they drive past the fucking old man's yard. Yes. A very Stephen King-ish County. Yeah.
Very. Is it a back race that he's wearing? Or like a police or something? It looked like what I imagine football players wore when like from the air when they also wore leather helmets.
Right. It seemed like equipment for something. I didn't know what. I'd never seen that before and I doubt I ever will again.
It was almost like a corset, but without any of the time. It was like metal. It looked like the shell of a life preserver. Yeah.
Like a life vest that had no foam in it. Like you'd sink if you were wearing that life vest. Yeah. It's weird.
Yeah. I don't know. The frailest old man and they find this beat up old Christine. Yep.
Arne is he just falls in love with his dog. He just loves it. Like from the start. Even though it's like a rust bucket.
It's got nothing. And Arne's like, this is my car. Guys like give it to you for three. I was trying to sell for 300.
But give it to you for two or fifteen. My brother died in it. No, he doesn't say it. He doesn't say it.
He's like, he used to be my brothers. He died. He died. That was it.
Right. Yeah. Find out. We find out that he died in the car after the car had already killed his wife and his kid thought his daughter.
Yeah. Fucking. Guys, this is a real evil car. Yeah.
So the car with the heart of shit. Yeah. It's a real badass car. So he buys he buys a car.
Hey, would you fuck Christine the car? The car? Yeah. Yeah.
Would you put your. Would you fuck this car? Bro. Bro.
One of. Yes or no. I mean, said yes. Okay.
Not emphatically enough. I like it. Keith Gordon said that he fucked the car. One of the things well, almost one of the things about the car will acting and like how he wanted to like be perceived or whatever.
One of the things he would imagine is every time he touched the car, it was like he was touching a different part of a woman. I think that's a good acting technique. Yeah. It's a good thing to.
I bet that would happen. It's the kind of thing that would happen literally in a Stephen King novel. Yes. And at the end, when we talk about Arnie's demise, yeah, there's a part that is very specific to that.
This is yeah. No, I know the part. Yeah. And I was like, I see this.
Yeah. Very good. Very successful. So he gets the car and he goes to Dornell's auto body.
Do it yourself. The guy. The guy. The guy from Mrs.
Delphi. The guy who he runs the public access network. Right. Yeah.
The guy. He's so sweet and Mrs. Delphi. He's a good actor.
I was betrayed by this man I consider like sort of a father figure. A daddy of sorts. I think that Oh, so yeah, he brings this car and this guy just right out of the gate. It's like, get the fuck out.
Yeah. Like I don't like the fucking face. I don't like your jerk off face. He says he plastic.
I know creep when I see one and you look like one and he's right. He ends up being right. He doesn't. But not before having like a conflicted tumultuous relationship with this young man.
Yeah. They have a scene later on when like Arnie has taken parts out of Darnell's like, it's just a job. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a like if you've ever seen making a murder, it's a total. It's an only difference is Darnell doesn't whip his dick out at anyone. Right. Now I've since come around and I'm positive Stephen Avery is quite guilty.
You think so? Yeah. Well, his defense attorneys are going to be right back. You can ask him that.
If I'm asking anything to Dean Strang it's for his hand in in holy matrimony. Yeah. And also for him to adopt me. Internet heart problems.
Yes. I'm going to ask him to marry and adopt me. He gets it all. Strang gets what he wants.
And then so I am fascinated by everybody else's fascination. The country's fascination with Dean. You don't get it? No, I know.
I get it. I'm on board. I love it. But I'm also like, I think it's funny.
Like the whole country's just like this guy. Yeah. There were two guys on that defense. Yeah.
I don't know. Yeah. Jerry who's name like for the first, I don't know, I watch this with my girlfriend and every time we talk about it, I'd have to ask who the other guy was. Like while we're watching his name, yeah.
Dean doesn't need this guy. He should break off and go solo. He's holding him back. Yeah.
It's so weird that something in the collective unconscious titillated by this very average man. He's just a good normal looking guy. It's like a Midwestern dad. Yeah.
My initial assessment of him, like my knee jerk reaction was this man is as a father is stern but fair. Yeah. You get that vibe. Like he, he like if his daughter was seeing a guy, he'd be like worried about it.
But only privately, like you wouldn't pull any of that alpha bullshit. Right. Like you break her heart and I break your neck. It doesn't pull the kid into like this study.
Yeah. No, it's like fucking studying. Yeah. A nice, nice study.
We want like a an office chair but it's leather and it's got those rivets in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Like an old time banger. Yeah. He probably sits in it with no pants on. You got it all good from the waist down.
Ultimate court. Yeah. Court attire from the waist up below the belly button because we're short shirts and jackets and high waisted pants. Let you know average size dick hang.
Kind of a little bit just regular size. Got to hang that string. Hang that string. So okay.
So junk yard. But there was a really, there was a really nice moment when darnell was like offered, offered Arnie a job. He's like, you know, you clean up around here, you sweep up and you do something that you can have, you know, whatever you want. Jerk off.
Yeah. But then Arnie's like, well, you know, you know, think about it. And like, yeah. And you know, like, I'll say this point.
Yeah. His defense is down. He was like, God, I like this kid. He's got a lot of mopsie.
He's putting all his time into the car and and he's like, you know, I'll make him this offering. How can he possibly right? So anything but yes. And then kids like, I'll think about it.
And he's like, what the fuck? Think of it. Yeah. Yeah.
That was hard for me. That moment, actually, I felt very hard for, once his name, darnell. I was trying to think of his real name. I don't know why.
We were pretty comfortable calling him darnell Robert Prosti. Prosti? Very unimportant. Yeah.
Darnell. Yeah. And that was a real moment of betrayal and I felt for him. Yeah.
Oh, and just real quick, the best known world in the world is New Carcine. The best known world is New Carcine. Or Or According to the guy that sold Ryan the car. And they're one and the same.
Yeah. That new. Yeah. So even if you even if you did that perfectly, I don't think it would have been worth it.
That's not the new girl in school. Who's actually Lee who later on in her career was on Baywatch. I saw that in her IMDb. Yeah.
She looked familiar to me and I don't know why. It's not Baywatch. I didn't watch Baywatch reruns growing up. Did anybody actually watch Baywatch?
It was harder to get porn in a discreet way. But like, I guess it's a weird thing. The 80s were that's like what the 80s were all about. It was like the 80s.
Was it? Yeah. I have no explanation then. Yeah.
Baywatch in my experience existed only so that people can make parodies about it. That sounds right. And again, hindsight is everything. Right.
Yeah. So Lee, all the guys in school are like trying to pick up Lee and whatever. And Dennis approaches earnings like you want to answer. I can't.
She's a date. Yeah. She was I don't know. She's a weirdo.
Yeah. She everybody was all about Lee. We loved her. But I don't think she had enough.
She's kind of boring. Right? A little boring. Yeah.
Not even because she won't put out. Well, that doesn't help any. Oh. She's a she's a regular Connie Palermo.
That's if there's a drinking game for the show, drink every time you bring up Connie Palermo. Yeah. And how she won't. Yeah.
Drink twice if I mention how she won't let me feel her tits. One reached it. Yeah. No, she's just kind of like she's very beautiful.
Like, no, not going on. He's like, Hey, what are you reading? She's like history history. What's all of it?
Come on. Oh, you're like, Oh, that's big. I mean, to be fair, she probably also wasn't interested in talking to him. This is a very male perspective we're providing.
We're really showing our strings on this one. Oh, man. Is that the new? Isn't that the isn't that that show on FX about the virus?
The strange? Yeah. Yeah. The one that the one that puts people in like, highways to jeans, if they get the virus, they go on by highways to jeans, start talking like Bob Odenkirk, get glasses and that's what hair kind of.
Low maintenance hair. Yeah. Maybe it's her. My hair.
I got all this. Yeah. No, Lisa, she's a real she's a wet mom. Yeah.
But blanket. Like, she's so fucking bad with like, she's a wet mob and a dirty blanket or she's a wet mob and a dirty pillow. I don't know. So then the football game, which the bullies, I thought this was where the bullies attended.