Diseases & Song Sung Blue

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Welcome to Bad Dad's Film Review, the podcast that is to cinematic discourse as rodent feces is to the captain's table. This week Dan's in charge and he's brought the top five diseases with him, which is either inspired topicality or just an accurate description of what he brings to every recording. Strictly speaking, of course, hantavirus is a virus rather than a disease, but sure the three people who died this week probably don't care about the domain criticism. Well, I haven't really made that distinction when we get to the Me neither. No. It's alright, because viragens are just micropathogens, aren't they? And diseases are essentially the symptoms of stuff. Right, okay. Uh anyway, we'll be going more viral than a Wuhan wet market and spreading ourselves more aggressively than your sister. Our main feature is director Craig Brewer's Song Sung Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson in the true story of Mike and Claire Sardina, a Wisconsin couple who built their entire lives round a Neil Diamond tribute act, and were rewarded with an amputated leg, several concealed heart attacks, and a death in a car park minutes before meeting your hero. It's a story so moving it almost makes you forgive the music. Common symptoms of listening to this podcast include strong language, spoilers, mild confusion, and a sensation a bit like the specific discomfort of being introduced to someone you've already met. Listeners are advised to seek immediate help, though exposure at this point should be considered unavoidable, and the prognosis is poor. Before we go any further, let's meet this week's hosts, all of whom should probably be isolated from the general public, starting with Dan. So old he remembers when heroin was the responsible thing to give a child with a cough, and considers the current approach overly cautious. Yeah, yeah, it's true. And whatever fucks he once had have long since been absorbed back into the universe where they continue to mean nothing.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Yeah, again. Bang on.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Next up, feverish Chris, a man whose cheekbones belong on a billboard but whose film taste belongs in a skip. Unless someone is bleeding out of at least two orifices by the halfway point, Chris approaches watching films with the grim stoicism of someone who's been told the results are back and they're not good. Correct. And no stranger to close contact transmissions in third place, the man who didn't need a global healthcare emergency to start wearing rubber from head to toe. It's Sidy. Hello. And then there's me, Riggs. Hello. Hello. Hi, Riggs. Hi, Daniel. Hi, Danny. Hi.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Straight into a walking football update for everyone. Well, I think that's why people are tuning in this week because they will know that it was a huge walking week in the walking football world. And there was a cup final against two very, very good teams, but they could only be one, as the Highlander once said. And who was that? Who was that? Who was that? It was a tough game. It was played away from the usual fortress of football at Springfield. Yeah, away from at Hope Valley. Oh the altitude's a bit different.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

It is different. It's like Mexico, it's like in Bolivia when it's La Paz or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

Exactly. And it was Yeah, a big crowd came out to watch. I mean, I think that's why they moved it there, just because it's got the standards are big enough at the Springfield. It's got a bigger, bigger watching area, viewing platform. And unfortunately, the the the teams that that played, well, unfortunately for them, because we won!

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yay!

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah. Full one. More unfortunate than Dan refuses to get a hat-trick. He's scoring two. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:43

And just refuses quite happy with two, you know?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

He just refuses to kill them off with a third.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

He's always liked braces, haven't you? Yeah, that's it. I've been to the dentist again. Um knee braces. Yeah. All sorts of braces. Leg braces. Yeah, like Forrest Gump. That was it. When a young Forest, he's got those leg braces. That was like a few of us walking around. And then we went on to celebrate, which is the part we really started.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Um the pair of you are looking a little bit green to the opened a bottle of wine or anything.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

We've got the uh no, we think probably Well, we had about a million beers yesterday. Yeah. And a lot of wine. Yeah. So there's no need for any more today.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

Um and then we woke up with bad necks because of carrying these big heavy metals around with us all night, and that our sides have hurt a little bit from lifting the trophy. Yeah. But other than that, we're uh we're all thoroughly delighted and pleased with ourselves. The final score was 4-1. 4-1. 4-1. And that'll be likely our last game of the season, though the season could have another twist plot plot quiz. So where will that leave you then? Finishing in the league? Second. Second as it stands at the moment, but the well, no, we're equal first at the moment, aren't we? Yeah. They they've got a game in hand, they've got a play against the team that we beat in the cup final. So it's it still could be a yeah, could be a twist plot.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Because if they lose, the the team's asked first. It could be down to uh playoffs. Go to a playoff. Well, if they do another final.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

What if we could if we could transfer Jock to Trinity for a week? Yeah. He can just be their keeper.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Because the Trinity's week's keeping their keeper was the the weak spot, really, wasn't it? Yeah. But we won, they didn't, and we defended the the trophy that we picked up.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

So back to back. Don't think it's ever been done before. No, never. Yeah, did Chris, did you watch anything this week?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Uh I watched the first episode of the Ronaldinho thing on Netflix. Yeah. It's all in Portuguese. Play foreigners. A few bits in Spanish, Messi Talks about him Ed Milson, Cafu, Felipe Scolari, all the greats. Ronaldo, all of Neymar, everyone is hi Ronaldinho, the best I've ever seen. And I've only seen the first bit. It's actually a really cool story because I knew his brother used to play, and his brother was the first one, really, and that was his kind of person looking up to, but I didn't know how good his brother actually was. He played for Brazil as well. Yes, yeah. That's the thing where I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

He's Ronaldinho's brother.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah, Assis, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

What was his name?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Assis. That's why Ronaldo is Ronaldinho's name is Ronaldo de Assis Moreira. Alright. And his brother was Assis. And he got nicknamed Ronaldinho Gaucho by the Brazilians in the Copa America. Because Gaucho's are the region in where he's from, from Rio Grande del Sul. Yeah. But it's good. It's it's good and it's it just shows him smiling and laughing and that then it de at the beginning it kind of gives you a bit of a like a montage of what's gonna happen in the three episodes, and they do bring up the fact that he went to prison. There's some weird stuff with passports, didn't they? Yes, yeah. And his brother takes the the the blame for that. It's like it's all my fault.

SPEAKER_04 7:02

His brother became his manager, I think. Yes, yeah, didn't he? But yeah, it was something to do with with passports, and he's trying to pretend he's someone else with like a Uruguay and they're looking at him going, you know, it's not global or something.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

And in South America, it's not imagine if you were going to I don't know, you would think maybe to go to Myanmar or he could go to Lesotho or a bit like being Beckham in Manchester. In South America, it's like everyone will know who you are. One of the biggest players to ever come from South America. Yeah. But yeah, so I've seen it.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Wasn't he a bit taxi, taxi, taxi as well? Didn't he get done for tax, Ronald DNA?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

One way or another, I think. But there is a really good scene in when they do a photo with him and Ballon d'Or's and trophies, like individual trophies, and there's six of them. And it's like him and the those. He's like, I prefer that photo with the bums with the you know the famous photo of him and the girls in the pool, yeah. With the with the bums out, and he's like, I prefer the ones with the girls than this.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

Yeah, he's he was a bit of a wild one. I don't know, around the tax, I think there was a lot of Spanish footballers, footballers that played in space. Yeah, they got done with the tax because they were badly managed or advised or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Well, even Messi, even Ronaldo, they all had settlement cases with the Spanish government because the same, they kind of had that, they all thought, oh, this is the loop. Get the accountants on it and whatever. I don't think at that level, I don't think they personally, football players, they don't know anything about tax. Yeah. They hire someone and they do it for them, right? That's just how it works normally. But yeah, I've all watched that. I didn't have any time any any time for anything else. I've been working and I've been at a party on Saturday night, so there you are. Yeah. Yeah, that's me. And I've the biggest party I've been to, obviously, was the walking football final. I didn't go to the action. I just went to the game and then went to the pub after and then decided to drop me home, and that was good enough for me. Well. Did you watch anything, Daniel?

SPEAKER_04 9:04

I I did. I watched Project Hail Mary. Oh, you've seen that, have you? Yeah. Is it good? And I really enjoyed it. Yeah, of course, our our dream boat, Ryan Goslin, is in it. It's all about Rocky in the book, really. It's yeah, well, Rocky plays a big part of it. He's the alien that is named Rocky, because he looks like a rock. And and they end up naming the his partner, I think. He said, Oh yeah, I've got like a partner, uh a Mrs. Rock, you know, at home. Oh, what do you call it? Oh, Adrian. Oh, she's and it was quite funny. He wakes up on it's a bit like passengers in the sense that he what he's woken up after deep sleep in space. Everybody else.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

There's quite a few spoilers here, so there might be people because what you're about to say possibly.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

I think well then. They know where to go. But we will we'll be spoiling another film in a little while, won't we, that we're we're talking about. But it's you know, what he wakes up and he's he's gotta then navigate this this ship and try and understand what he's doing there and where it's going, and he he kind of gets these flashback moments and we go back into onto Earth where we find out Earth is days are numbered.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Um the sun is being eaten by a microscopic organism called an astrophage, something like that.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

That's right, yeah. And true story, Chris. Apart from apart from one planet in our solar system that is not having that, so that's where he's going. He's going out to this planet. But it's the way he gets there, and obviously being so brave, actually, is he like, you know, and he does all these kind of plays on on the situation of him being out there, but he holds it together brilliantly, Goslin, the film.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

I mean, he he's just um And it's Andy Weir, so it's all built around the sort of scientific plausibility of some of this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Yeah. Yeah, I g I guess so. I mean, it didn't seem completely outlandish and ridiculous as as it could easily do, but I think just it had a message of just how people can get along or should be getting along, people that are completely different, or beings that are completely different, and how they can work together to to fix a situation. So probably good in these times of chaotic wars and uh shit everywhere. So it was a nice message. Like the film, feel good factor, hi. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:33

Did you see anything really? No, not really. Um finishing off. I'm on the last episode of Beef, which was the series I talked about last week, the A24 one that's really good, but no, nothing other than that this week's been a bit chaotic.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Neither, nothing at all. My goodness. Yeah, bereft. Yeah. Shall we uh should we talk disease?

SPEAKER_04 11:53

Let's talk disease, please. Don't sneeze. Don't sneeze. No, contagion. Remember that movie? I do remember that movie. That was full of disease. Obviously, there was a vi was that a viral thing?

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Maybe that was uh and people were I mean it was literally the plot of COVID-19, wasn't it? That we had, really. Minus the fact that unfortunately Gwyneth Paltray didn't die in real life, did she?

SPEAKER_02 12:23

But no, I didn't enjoy that bit of the film.

SPEAKER_04 12:25

You we go right to the end and we realise how it was uh at the end of the film, we realise how it was started, don't we? It was like a bat dropping, I think, that went into soup. A China farm and then it's so zoonotic kind of or or kind of disease, isn't it? And lots of that found it that pig found its way into a restaurant and a high-end restaurant, and then the disease just sort of sort of passed through, but it came from bats. Not randomly.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

It was 2012 uh that Steven Soderbergh they came up with this, and then obviously it was so scarily accurate, really, wasn't it? I mean not in the scale. This one is really horrible, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 13:10

People like within a couple of hours have got like blood leaking from their eyes and stuff, which is a bit more than what we And they found that some were immune to it and some were able to, you know, work past it, and they it took them months obviously to get some kind of you know grip of it. One of the things that they did in that was I think you had a lottery, didn't you, with the birthdays and remember that who was gonna get the vaccine who and you had to watch kind of if you were born on this day and this day and this day, then you were gonna get the vaccine. Otherwise, uh people's families were were split and not everybody could could make it. Yeah, it was it was, you know, a a movie that scarily accurate and for what we went through with with COVID.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

I think like the spread of stuff and uh the reaction that was all made that was all quite interesting, but they went very chaotic in that movie and lots of sort of civil unrest. Whereas it actually turned out we all got really bored and a bit fat and watched a lot of box sets. Spent a lot of time in the garden. Yeah. A lot of drinking. A lot of drinking, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

I was off the booze up cutting your own hair. And I actually go wild. Yeah, nice. Yeah, I had a COVID haircut.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

I like the kids too much. So so some things like that were weren't quite on point, but uh others others were, and you know, I think we we probably got a little more comfortable again now, and they still likely you mentioned hanter virus or whatever it is at the moment, it's still likely that the thing that is gonna do most damage to the human race will be another virus and uh a thing that will just cut, you know, that could have been a test.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

On that note then, Dan, why don't we pick The Last of Us? Because that's about oh gosh, here we go. Orphe cordyceps unilateralis, that's a real fungus that inhabits carpenter ants and stuff. Did you see the show The Last of Us based on a video game? Does anybody? Was it just me?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

I've seen season one, I haven't seen season two yet.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

It was really good. You know, had a terrific arc, a bit sort of walking dead-y, but much more horrible. But then it was what I find really chilling about it is the central idea of these fungal infections that could easily sort of take over. It could, it is a thing that could happen. Scientists are warning that that is a, you know, in the same way that a COVID, a novel coronavirus could emerge, that this kind of fungal bacteria type thing, pathogen that grows on a human, can actually happen. And in the plot of The Last of Us, it takes down the whole world, basically.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

I've I always started to think that was like vampires or something, but obviously not. This is a completely different approach. I don't know why I thought that about that particular series. So sounds okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

I think part of what's the interesting thing about that is that it's because at the moment fungal things like that can't spread to humans, but they're changing because of the the changes in global temperatures and the stuff that they can absorb and what they can live on as they get closer to being able to live on.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

There's there's mushrooms in like Chernobyl now that eat radiation and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

It's fucking mad how they You can get a mushroom on your toes, no? Yeah, fungal infection.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yeah, yeah. So these kind of type of cordyceps inf infections are gonna be particularly mingle. And The Last of Us was good too.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

It was really nice. Okay, yeah, that Grayscale?

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Oh, Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Game of Thrones. But they get they turned basically into stone. It's like a scary medieval disease. Yeah, it's like a like a really hardcore sort of psoriasis.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Shereen Baratheon had it, the one of the Baratheon kids, didn't she? She had on her face and she was like banished up to a she was not she was locked away. And then eventually sacrificed by the stake, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Oh, that's horrific. By her father, yeah, it was an actual pleaser.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Sejora got it as well, did he?

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Yes, he did. And he was able to get rid of it somehow. He just went away or something. I thought it was you know it was a death sentence, basically, if you got this. Yeah. But he was able to survive it somehow. Yeah. They just wrote that into the story, they said he survived it.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

I'd be honest, when they started introducing that, I was like, this is really cool. They're gonna turn him into some kind of hideous rock monster. Yeah. Which I was well up for, but it was just a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Yeah. Game of Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Game of Thrones. It pains me to say, but I have found a film with a virus called the Crippen virus. It's a fictional virus, like a measles virus originally designed to cure cancer in a film called I Am Legend. Ah yes. And it's what it does is it's killed 90% of the world's population and transformed the rest of them into zombies that are called dark seekers. I don't know if you've seen this film.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Yeah, it's and it's based on was it Amega Man? Was that the other one that was the Richard Matheson book that it was based on?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, it would be it was it killed roughly 5.4 billion people, yeah, with 588 million transforming into creatures. Yeah. And a small percentage of humans are immune, including the main character. Will Smith. It's I would prefer to call him Robert Nebel. Yeah. Gary's brother.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

Uncle. Uncle. It's his uncle. I remember them he's on a aircraft carrier. I can't remember which one, but he's just twating golf balls into the uh into the skyline.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah, in the original book, the infection was caused by a plague bacteria associated with a vampire rather than a mutated virus. But that's In the film, there's a deleted alternate ending.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

I watched that the other day for some reason. Oh, really? It popped up in my own.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

In which in which it makes out that he's the bad guy.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

He's to blame. And it one of them comes in and shouts at him and takes away like a dead. The wife, basically zombie wife. It's like appalling CGI. It's really well, obviously because it didn't make the final cut, I suppose, but it was bad anyway in the film.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Yeah. People say that ending's a lot better, but it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, really, from what we've seen of two hours of running away from these things while they try and kill him. No. It's just not a very good film, I don't think. Yeah. But it also had a sign-up for Batman versus Superman, and people got fucking real well excited, because this was back in 2007, way before any of that stuff ever happened.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

But yeah. I just remember that and I thought that would be a good one. Yeah. Disease. Disease in in a film.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

I think the end even is near a lab, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 19:29

It's in a lab, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It blows it up.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Leaving Las Vegas, Nick Cage. Oh, alcoholism's a disease. Actually, your wife accused you of being an alcoholic when you weren't here before, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 19:41

Well, she does it when I am here as well. Yeah, and it's got a good grip of Nick Cage in this, who goes to Las Vegas, meets Elizabeth Shue along the way, doesn't he? Who's working as a as a hooker? And he wants to drink himself to death because of I think the loss of his family in a traffic accident or something in a little while. And he he had been prior to that quite a successful businessman or or salesman, but then it was yeah, lost his his will to live, really, even though Elizabeth Shue and he get close and he's got absolutely no intention of of living and drinks himself to death. Very sad that won him in Oscar, I think. I think you're right. Elizabeth Shoe.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Hated, hated, hated that film.

SPEAKER_04 20:33

Yeah, I went to the cinema to watch it. Really? And I came out not particularly impressed, but I've since watched it again and enjoyed it a lot more.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

I think if you're in the right mood, but it's not exactly a laugh, right? No, it wasn't just a laugh to death for two hours.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't really get my head around it.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Uh Red Dwarf? Yeah. Quarantine was the episode. It's where they meet Dr. Landstrom, who's contracted a hollow virus. And this is something they introduce that Rimmer then picks up and he puts the rest of the crew in quarantine, if you remember. Do you remember this one? He ends up wearing a gingham dress, a bonnet, and he's got this like penguin hand puppet that he's called Mr. Flibble.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

It's not where they have to drink the luck serum, is it? And he's exactly he's gotta do this combination of like joy and sexual magnetism. Yeah, he goes, he's really just genius because it's all done on such a budget.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

They've read They're like, Oh, we can't get through this door, I don't know the code. He just drinks the serum.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

He's like, Oh, that was lucky.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

Yeah, very good. But yeah, quite good. And also a bit of a thing about how your emotions are contagious, which is quite an interesting thing to be delivered by a hand puppet oliver. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Wizard flu. It's not actually, it's called Dragonpox.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Is there some kind of potter thing? It's potter, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Yeah. Uh I see I've only I haven't read the text. Only watched the movies and you don't actually see it in you don't actually s ever see anyone with it.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Can you only get it if you're a wizard?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

I think so, and that's how it works. But I don't know if in the in the books you the uh people actually get it because they don't they talk about it, but you don't actually see anyone, so that makes it a bit shit, really. What about the T virus? Movies and video game. T virus? What's the title? Oh, Resident Evil. Yeah, yes. Again, it's just lots of mutations and stuff like that. I remember playing the first one, you know, and you were like walking down corridors and you're just waiting for something to fucking jump out, and it's probably like first time I played a video game, it was actually like really you know atmospheric and intense. I feel like a movie. Lights are off. Really feeling it, yeah. So that was good. With jump scares and whatnot in it. I haven't seen any of the movies. There was a none of these movies. Yeah. I think I've seen most of them.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

I've seen quite a few of them. Yeah. Miller Yovovich. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

And she gives it her all. You know, she's not fucking about, right? She earns her credit ticket.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

So there are definitely very. The thing I always think that's mad is that it's her husband who makes the movies. So they've made like eight of these movies or whatever it is. He just likes dressing her up in leather and watching her kick people's ass all day. Film, they both get paid a fortune and go back and start again. No?

SPEAKER_02 23:27

So yeah, well, that was virus, isn't it? Yeah, T virus, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah, uh I found a virus that creates these zombie kind of creatures. Uh it's a film called Rampant, it's a South Korean film. I wouldn't be able to tell you how it sounds in Korean, so don't make me do that. But uh it's kind of like a it's a historic horror, which is quite strange in a way, but it it's the plague is kind of brought in by by the Dutch pilots or whatever merchant vessels, and uh the infected ones have they become aggressive and bloodthirsty, then they die and then re-born as flesh-eating monsters. And the only way to kill them is to break their neck, break their spine, or pierce their heart. And it's uh Piers Morgan's the same, isn't he? It's uh that's the only way to kill him. Who Piers Morgan? Yeah, yeah, I I I'm not I'm not trying, but i it's like it's got the minister of war, is let's kill all of them, the prince, which is Hyong Bing or something like that. He says, no, we need to make them it turn him into an army and all that, and it's quite Yeah. Quite interesting. I do like South Korean films and I don't know why I watched this to be fair, because it didn't really but it said his history action horror, so I thought, man, this will be fine. Is that a Netflix joint? Uh I can't remember where I've seen it, but it's from 2018.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

So that's not heard of that one.

SPEAKER_04 25:03

Yeah. I've not heard of that one. One you probably have heard of is Papillon and the movie It means butterfly. It does mean butterfly, and it was obviously a book based on the the book by Henri Cherie, I think his name was. I might have got that wrong. But the true story of a guy who was uh sent from France to the the colonies, the penal colonies in French Guyana, and how he had to kind of escape, and he did to a few times he escaped, and one of the times he escaped he escaped to the the lepers colony and leprosy was was rife and they obviously didn't want to go there because it could be passed on and and things and he sits and eats with them and drinks with them, and at one point they they give him a cigar, the the head kind of leper, and he takes it and he's he smokes it and he goes, Yeah, okay, we'll help you. But how did you know that you know I have dry leprosy, like it can't be passed on? He goes, I didn't and he it was like you know, he's just a man at the end of his his tether, and it it's or you know, just that is the love to get no, he didn't have any any other pages to turn, but that was it. So I've read the books as well, which are are fantastic. They did a new Papillon film, yeah. A little which wasn't too bad actually. I went in with quite low. Yeah, I went in with quite low expectations to to feel that this was going to be anywhere near as good. You shouldn't mess with, you know, the the original, really, which was McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, who were amazing, and it was just like what a fantastic film that is. You've obviously seen the the original Papillon. Yeah. But the the next one wasn't too bad, the one with the the newer one. It it's a slightly different take.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

I've watched both of them, and to be fair, the new one is fairly good as well. Yeah, yeah, it's not both.

SPEAKER_04 27:02

Maybe we could do a papillon week and compare them better week. It was a butterfly week, yeah. But that was the the dry leprosy and the leprosy. Or a bit wet leprosy. Yeah, I know you do. You're in those butt-like cigars that you can really get a good dose of leprosy. Don't go in my mouth.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Would you like a few diseasy films? Yes. Go on. Actors and stuff. Athlete's foot loose, Herpes Fully Loaded, The Gangrene Mile, The Gout, The Bad and the Ugly, Gone A Rear with the Wind, Crohn's Alone, and that's obviously starring Katherine Hartburn and Sigorney Fever, with music by Johnny Rash, Iggy Gibby, Iggy Pox, Little Rickets, and Fleetwood Black. Very good. Yeah. So The Simpsons, they like a virus or a disease or something. A Sarka flu yeah that they had was crossed into a box, yeah, and sends it to them. Homer fakes a disability, I suppose, but um Hyperobesity. Lumber lung pieces, juggler's despair, breaky, breaky pelvis. And Mr. Burns, of course, is diagnosed with every disease and illness that there is known to man simultaneously. The sort of diseases blocking each other so that he can stay alive. Nice. Good old Simmy Simpsons. And then I've just got my nom after that, I think.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Can we have lycanthropy? Yeah. It's turning into a werewolf. Yeah. There's more of that in the the Harry Potter world. But of course, American werewolf in London, and they try and treat it like an infectious disease in that.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

But it's inspired by stories of rabies, really, isn't it? I think.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Rabbi's. I haven't heard of rabies in a while. What I what I have heard of, it's another Asian film because you know how I love the Asians. But Pete's not here. Yeah, I was gonna say. It's a film which you would probably know. Uh I don't don't ask me how I found this film because I don't want to tell you. Uh it refers to a pandemic caused by the Alvin virus. Oh, it turns into a chipman. No. Um the virus is a mutation of a flu-like virus that affects the brain, causing extreme aggression rather than mindless zombification.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

And the film is a Taiwanese 2021 film called The Sadness.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

No, I've not seen it. It's been on my list before that one, but yeah, I've not seen it.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Um the movie was inspired by COVID-19. Yeah, you know, obviously they ate a bat in Taiwan one day and they thought, right, let's see what we're gonna deal here with. Yeah. But yeah, they do have in in this film depression and clinical depression, persistent depressive disorder, PDD, and something called seasonal affective disorder.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

Sad. Yeah. Yeah. That's a well-known one. Yeah, you could do some people sit next to sad lamps in the in the winter months to give themselves a bit more UV, make themselves feel more normal.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Okay. After this, I'll have my norm. But this is actually this was actually surprisingly good, to be fair. Because it's quite angry. It's a it's a angry film. The sadness. Yeah. Sounds more sad than angry. Well, it's actually angry, but I don't know. I think this is a translation. The original name I would imagine is in in Taiwanese or or Mandarin or whatever, so I couldn't really tell you. Well, next week learn it. Yes, thank you. I I shall. Good.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Well, I don't know if the next two I've got to really fit the description. One of them I guess does alien when they've kind of got an illness. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

That's true. Is that an alien? It's like being an alien.

SPEAKER_04 30:51

It's kind of like that, isn't it? Parasite being.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

Yeah, it might it might fit the the the description. But the other one that I thought of was the the film Nost Nostradamus, and it's in and around the plague as well, around those times, and they wear those kind of masks. Scary. They're really, really kind of scary. So that's my nom. The longest beaky feathers and that, yeah. And they used to that would be the the doctor's effect, but they would all go round in that. Oh, it's called the plague terrifying. It really was.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

It is called the plague mask. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

Yeah. So there it is. Is that your norm? That's my norm. I am going to nominate Sarah Colwell, who was the subject of a documentary that I watched back in about 2013. She had something called foreign accent syndrome. You ever heard of this? Yes. I've heard of it. It affects a very small number of people. It says it here, less than a hundred in the world, but I'm not sure. Is that that woman that started speaking Chinese? Like with a Chinese accent. She started speaking with a Chinese accent. Yes. I've heard of that. They wake up one day after sometimes they have a stroke, or this woman she had a migraine, and then the next day she woke up and it sounds like she's sort of taking a piss, basically. I've seen that. She can't control it. Really? So like a like a Tourette's. It's like a recognized thing. Well, but it seems to have some physiological I don't know. Yes, maybe Tourette's like, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Because she's she had the BBC or someone like the news people showing up to her house. This was a woman in her fifth like 50s, 60s, and they then she started speaking English, but with a Chinese accent, and she asked people. Yeah, exactly. That's it. Like a cup of tea and da-da-da.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

But then people were like, But the thing is, I mean, of course, like, you know, all that happens is that people think she's taking the pits and she's getting abused and it's like destroying her life. And you know, you can't help that it's deeply funny as well.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

But there's one of those just reminded me of when they can't see sunlight, you know. Have you heard those they'll burn like their skin or they'll just you know, it just goes and they have to just stay, yeah. You know, I watched a hermetically sealed bubble on this on this lady, and she just couldn't have any windows. Well, like the ginger people. So even worse though, like you know, that really they you know Is there any one word?

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Probably the origin of stuff like vampirism and stuff where people can't go in direct sunlight.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

That's how it starts to be a vampire, doesn't it? Yeah. Being ginger.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Yeah. So foreign accent syndrome.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Nice. My name is Simeon Flew.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Yeah. From uh Planet for Games.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Yeah, it's the Genesis lab created They were trying to cure Alzheimer's, weren't they?

SPEAKER_03 33:30

They're always trying to cure Alzheimer's.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

And it it didn't work and it went and destroyed 99% of the Earth's population and like gave intelligence to you know to the apes.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

But to be fair, they made a better job of it than we did.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

So I th I think they were trying to cure Alzheimer's in the the shark one as well.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

And that's what I was just thinking, like get this deep yeah, get the sharks from Deep Blue Sea to fight the monkeys from Rise of the Planet of the Ace.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

So there you go. Yeah, that's it. We need one more. Did we have Did you not?

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Not yet. Oh okay. I can shut up now. I know. No, we need one more from a minute. Shut up in a minute.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

We did that you last week.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Sorry, it's getting used to it now. To be fair, it doesn't really make much sense what I'm saying, but generally. But I have my name is uh Epidermolysis bullosa. Okay. Epidermolisis bullosa EB, often called butterfly disease. Butterflies. It's a group of rare genetic conditions causing extremely fragile skin that blisters from minor frictional trauma similar to a butterfly's wings. And its key aspects is fragility, it's inherited disease resulting from mutation in genes, and skin basically doesn't produce problems.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

Is this just your favorite disease now?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Or is it tied to some sort of movie? It's tied to the movie, okay, but this is the disease, but then they call it in the butterfly effect the film because this is a similar condition to what his brain started doing. It goes in time, goes back in time. Yes, yeah, but this disease is a condition that would be associated to a film like the butterfly effect, which that's what they call it, but this is the condition for which the movie was initially associated with.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

I d I don't really understand any of that, but well, the butterfly effect was based on uh On a butterfly disease. Wow, there you go. I'm not seeing it all the time. Ashton Kutcher goes back in time, I think strangles himself with his own umbilical. He goes quite a lot in time. Yeah, there's three movies. I don't really like him. He I think he strangles himself in the climax of the first movie. I'm pretty sure he he goes back in one to a baby and strangles himself with an umbilical. No, it's three black play effects, yeah, at least three.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

But is it is he and all of them?

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Ooh Has he been me too no? I don't know if he No, he's he's like a VC now, isn't he? What is it? Toilet No venture capitalist. He does just loads of investments. Money, money, money! He likes big bottom lines.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

He's in the British Manager's club.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Yeah. Um money, money, money. So I'm out with Aston Kutcher for sure. Yeah. Okay. Right, so we do need one more though.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

So give us disease. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Pass it on.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

Song Sung Blue. Indeed. Yeah. This was a movie my sister actually uh told me about that she really enjoyed. Right. And she liked music films and and I don't think she's a particularly huge fan of Neil Diamond, but suggested this might be a a good one for me to watch. And then when I saw it come up on Prime, which is where I rented it from, I thought, well why not? It's it's been a while since we've done a musical biopic kind of thingy film, and and Huge Jackman in it actually, you know, as we as we'll go on and discuss, he's he does a good impression of um. Oh, guys, as well, because that's what this is.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

Not an impression down, an interpretation. Thank you. Thank you for the correction. Yeah, but I think he sounds quite a lot like him when he sings. He really does have a he was on Broadway, was he? Jack huge Jack Man. Yeah. Yeah, he's done all this.

SPEAKER_02 37:33

Well, he sang at a MAGA event, didn't he?

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Did he?

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

I didn't realise that. And obviously he's Australian, isn't he? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

Yeah, but it's paid to just fucking say.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

But obviously he's done musicals in the past with The Great Showman, Le Mes Rabler, some others as well. But for me, Kate Hudson was fucking amazing in this as well.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

So it's based on a true story.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

Yes. A really unlikely true story of a Milwaukee couple, this Mike and Claire Sardinia Sardina that performed as light lightning and thunder, a Neil Diamond tribute act. It maybe should never have been anything more than like a local thing, but it became unexpectedly huge. Big out some and then the backdrop to it was this crazy story of their turbulent private life.

SPEAKER_04 38:23

Yeah. Um and you say like we'll we'll go into it, they end up opening up for Pearl Jam at one point, who also meant. It makes it takes a big, you know, part of their lives, really. And he also says, Oh, who was it at the the time there was Tony Bennett was opening up for another big band? I can't remember. There's no rules to music, man. Yeah, that was it. So obviously there was that time where getting the crooners were in, and if you couldn't get the crooners and you get the next best thing, being Milwaukee, then Happy Days, that's where that was filmed, wasn't it? Milwaukee. Sidebar. Sidebar. Yeah. But how does it start? It starts with him at an AA meeting.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

He's at a meeting, yeah. It's just his face at first, and you can't see who he's talking to.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

He's doing a recording as he does many times. In fact, I think the song is the film is bookended with this song, isn't it? That he plays at the A. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

So yeah, he's 20 years sober. Yes. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

Yeah, he's silly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

Although I have to say, time is a complete anomaly to this movie where the children stay the same age despite 10 years passing and all sorts of stuff. But yeah, I think he's 20 years sober at this point. And I think later in 1995, he'll be 21 years sober. So had you was you waiting for him just to fall off the wagon the entire film? Yeah. And I was so glad, spoiler alert, that he doesn't. He was tested many times. There are lots of things bad happened to him, but he does not never fall off the wagon.

SPEAKER_04 39:49

Yeah. And there's that one time about halfway through the film, and he he finds a bottle, doesn't he? Stashed one, and he just looks at it, kind of looks like it's like it was gonna break. And I thought that was it, you know. But you just him chipping it down the thingy, and you think, yes, well done.

SPEAKER_03 40:05

Uh so yeah, he plays Song Song Blue, apparently his tradition that he does every year on the anniversary of his sobriety. Yeah. Um, and then he goes to a kind of it's sort of an amusement park where there's a load of impersonators there. This I really liked, all the different impersonators. You've got Sex Machine, James Brown, you've got Michael Imperioli as Buddy Holly, uh, and you've got Kate Hudson as Patsy Klein.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

And the Elvis guy was funny.

SPEAKER_03 40:30

The Elvis, he's such a bad Elvis as well.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

They find out he's putting it. 20 grand though, this is 1987 for doing his life, I need to and it gives him that impetus then to change his act because he wants to be known as Lightning, and they were asking him to do some other impersonation of someone else. Don Ho, Don Ho, and he just won't do it. He just goes, No, no, it's not. And everybody then has to change the the setup of the songs and things, and he's he's really kind of put the promoter in it a little bit with that last-minute decision. But he stays around long enough to listen to Kate Hudson's Patsy Klein, and there's uh a few sparks that seem to fly for him there, and he thinks, Wow, you know, she's she's really great. And I think she looks at him and he says it's his birthday, doesn't he? Yeah, it's my birthday, but it's not actually my birthday, and she goes okay, then.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

Well, and also though, they have been at pains to point out that he is like he's pretty good. Yeah. Like, you know, he sings well, he's a good entertainer, he's passionate about his music, he's the only white guy who plays in the all-black band of the Esquires, so he must be pretty fucking good to be doing that. And so she, and as we'll come to find out, you know, this is they'll start to embark on a bit of a love affair that started through their music, isn't it? And sh she kind of f moved away from her first husband because he wasn't really supporting her in this kind of thing. Yeah. And he's all about, you know, the music.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

He's all about Well, at one point it like at the start, he doesn't want to do Neil Diamond songs. He like holds him in such high. It's too much, it's too good. I can't do Neil.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

And they have like a ten or fifteen minute like jamming session where they start, it's really cool actually. They bring out loads of different instruments, starts playing loads of different tunes, they just jam around it what might sound like her mum comes in to tell them to shut the music down. And and kind of the the beginnings of lightning and thunder are start to emerge.

SPEAKER_04 42:25

Yeah. And and he, with her support, says, Yeah, I'm I don't want to be like a an impersonator and she says, No, you're as you said, an interpreter. And that he he really connects onto then and he begins this.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

They're building this this stage show, this Neil Diamond sort of homage to him. And at the same time, they're becoming like romantically involved as well, and their families are becoming closely integrated because he has an older daughter who was about sixteen, I guess, and she has a a son and another daughter as well. Yeah. And so through them we find out some stuff like Huge Jackman was a tunnel rat in Vietnam. Yeah, it led to the drinking. It led to the drinking, yeah. And he, you know, he still wakes up in terror half the nights and all that sort of stuff. It's a tough gig that. Yeah. Um and they sort of get I quite like that scene where the two girls who are a bit standoffish, brought together only because their parents are fucking You've arranged a play date, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

You know, they call it.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

And they actually become friends and bond a bit over the fact that their parents are a bit screwed up but still really love music.

SPEAKER_04 43:34

Yeah. They have a a joint, don't they, looking at the planes, which they're in the flight path of the house and everything. So you get these low flying planes just coming in to land or take off, which breaks up the the the yards kind of silence every now and again. But they get on. Yeah, they they enjoy each other's company, and you see throughout the film actually that they become family, these kind of yeah You know, otherwise forced together, but actually start to to like each other and everything.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

So the band, he's they start to cr like bring in everybody that's been part of the film so far, like you know, the band that he was playing with in the Esquires, Michael Imperioli gives up playing Buddy Holly, he's too old to play him now. He's like 30 years older than Buddy Holly was when he died. So he comes to join the band and they start really building this thing up and they've got one eye on the casino gigs. That's right. And it's quite funny when they go to it quite unexpectedly. I didn't know he was going to be in it, but Jim Belushi turns up as the big casino guy that they've got to try and impress. He turns out basically to be a bus driver, pretty much. Yeah. But he does get them gigs and stuff, doesn't he? But their first gig is a kind of disastrous. Yeah, the bikers turn up. Yeah. There's a bunch of like they want to listen to basically metal.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Leonard Skinner do all that. And play free bird. He fucks it, doesn't he? Because he goes, I'm in charge of this band. Yeah. And we're playing fucking.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

We're playing Suleiman, which is this song that he really loves that it's a running joke in the movie that nobody can pronounce it properly.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

And it's a fairly niche. It's not one that you'd open with, especially to a bunch of bikers.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Because he's got like a leaf blower and he's blowing his hair. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

He's got like a yeah, like a bright yellow satin shirt. Yeah, he looks like it's just not the right vibe for these guys, so they immediately start throwing bottles of beer at them.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

Well, they say to him, right, okay, you can play your Neil Diamond stuff, but definitely play Sweet Caroline first. It's also another running joke that they don't play it for a long time, but everybody's asking for it.

SPEAKER_04 45:27

Well, Neil does so much more than that.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

Yeah, he gets really annoyed that Neil Diamond wouldn't do it. So yeah, it it devolves into a big fist fight, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 45:36

Yeah, they have they have a fight. I think Belushi takes one on the nose, and he he's saying, No, I I've I've got to be the one that drives his insurance purposes. Like I've got to be the one that that drives his home still. No, I can't. And at that time he's saying, I just want it to go well. And she said, Well, look, I can see it's your band now, and everything. And he goes, And we're gonna go for a buffet and has say a nice place to stay, and I was gonna propose to you. And then it kind of just you know is taking their relationship to another level because she's gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03 46:05

He sort of accidentally lets it slip, doesn't he? Yeah, he's gonna propose.

SPEAKER_04 46:09

Just through the frustration of how we wanted this evening to go. But she's like, Yes, yes, I'll uh and the next thing we we have the big wedding.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

And she's terrific in this movie, Kate Hudson, because she's like very sexy as Patsy Klein and really good as a musician, and later she's gonna have some big dramatic chops to play as well. Yeah. Um so yeah. Anyway, the wedding, it's a nice affair, isn't it? They all Well the the family all getting on, you know, there's no there's music there, there's no musical number, isn't there?

SPEAKER_04 46:38

I can't remember what it is, I didn't write it down, but yeah, no, they I mean Neil Diamond's obviously played throughout this this movie, and they start doing really well. I mean, the band they've got behind the show, the costumes. It's quite a big production, is it?

SPEAKER_02 46:53

It is a big production, and and they're able to we start to see them on the news, don't we? There's a lot of local buzz around them. Yeah. And then like you mentioned earlier, walkie's arms. They get a phone call one day, and he's like, It's amazing he's talking to what I don't know. Anyone know of Pearl Jam or something? Yeah. And the the door is like, what the fuck? Yeah, they yeah, they're being asked to open for Pearl Jam, it just seems extraordinary.

SPEAKER_03 47:15

This is in 1995 as well, when the album 10 came out, so really at the height of their surging popularity, Pearl Jam. Yeah, and his love for Neil Yar Neil Diamond was so much that he actually licensed Alive to be played in this movie. It's the first time Alive ever allowed to be, and it's in this Neil Diamond movie. Wow. And actually he was the one who told Neil Diamond to drop the lawsuit so this movie could get made as well. Oh right. So yeah, he played a big role in in all of this Neil Diamond stuff. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Yeah, so they they have this like enormous gig, you know, it's by far the biggest show they've played. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

And he says to Well, opening for Pearl Jack, yeah. They sing with him.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

He says to Eddie Vedder before he goes on stage, but you know, could do me a favour, like one musician to another, and then like he brings them out on stage to sing one of the numbers. And yeah, and I was watching thinking, this might I thought this would be how like they would play out the movie, you know.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

This would be like not halfway through it.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

The mega happy ending, you know, and you're like, So what's you know, because I don't obviously know these people what their story is, what's gonna happen. And you say you've got this like you know, the if you look at the curve of the film, you know, this super happy, and like what's round the corner.

SPEAKER_03 48:21

Yeah, because there's still an hour and fifteen.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Yeah, sure, because it's quite a long film as well. And they're they're back at the gaff, aren't they? Yeah, and he's rec he's got the kid, he's just in his pants and a and a shirt, and he's getting the getting the kid to record his next message for the the next year of sobriety. Yeah. Life is good. They they've just been. She's gardening, and she's been saying about how she just wants to have colour in her life and plants and music and blah. So she's like fulfilling all of her ambitions, and you just see this fucking erratic car like driving around. And at first, when it was in the back, I thought, oh, that's the daughter, because we've seen her working on her car a little bit, and then the car just gets closer and closer and closer, and cut, and it just cuts just before it obviously piled into her neck. Yeah, in the hospital and there's loads of red everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 49:06

There's blood and screaming and crying, the kids are there, they're both covered in blood, like especially the youngest son. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:12

Yeah, and and at that time, as we find out the doctors are working on her to save her life and and he's having a heart attack. He's already had one earlier, hasn't he?

SPEAKER_03 49:23

Or at least murmurs when he was doing the lawnmower. Oh yeah, he gets to get the daughter. And then in this amazing scene, he is having a heart attack while his wife is having her leg amputated in the room next door, and he gets his 16-year-old daughter to restart his heart with a defibrillation. Yeah, stepdaughter, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

He doesn't it made me sort of wonder why you're having many doctors in that hospital to do that. But I I think it's just probably he's not thinking straight.

SPEAKER_03 49:51

This was a scene that was fabricated for the movie, though many things were not that that happened.

SPEAKER_04 49:57

Okay, because it it just made me think if that was true, because I did I didn't know that it wasn't, that you're just not thinking straight at that point, like you know, and you don't want to worry anybody, so just do it myself. So, yeah, she's sees him, he he's told her what to do. He said, In a minute I'm gonna collapse. Like, and you just I think he passes out as he's saying it and then she does it, she just kind of screams and goes, Oh, and D fibs in back, and we see them kind of back, and we we learn then that she's lost.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Well, no, it just kind of cuts, isn't it? It cuts to her waking up in bed. Yeah. It's 'cause I thought it was quite well done. Because you don't know the outcome and you're like, I'm like, oh, she did, what's going on? And then thud, she's on the ground, and then you see her set up and she's had a She's trying to get out of bed and forgotten that she's lost her leg. Yeah, so below the knee amputation.

SPEAKER_03 50:45

Yeah, yeah. So yeah. And it'll start a period of the movie that's very bleak where she becomes addicted to painkillers, she's starting extremely painful. In fact, she doesn't start the rehabilitation yet, really. She just becomes more and more depressed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

She well, she starts off kind of strong, doesn't she? But then I think the recovery's just not going quick enough, and she won't give us oh look, it just and then she slides into this depression and she can't do music, is that's the main thing. Yeah, well, we already know that she's had depression before. Had depression before. Because when the the kids were talking about their mother and father's lives, they were saying, Yeah, well, you know, that's what happens with us, you know, your dad he drinks or whatever, my mum's had these problems before. And they obviously know it between each other, but yeah, she's just quite awful and quite sad then after that because he has to make this call to take her into care, really. He just can't deal with it.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

Well, she has a psychotic breakdown, doesn't she? I mean, there's a few things that go on because she starts accusing him of seeing other women when he's only going out to do a kind of karaoke job at this Chinese restaurant, and then she has a complete psychotic break where she imagines herself on stage, but she's actually outside in the yard, and then she he does have her committed. Um And then he kind of gives up absolutely everything, he even gives up the karaoke, the one part of his life he had left to become a mechanic again, which he's shown to be good at, but is obviously not his passion. No, right. He's yeah, it's it is a sad time for them because he's you know, I'm expecting him to fall off the wagon here at this point because he's Well, and then because Rachel, the daughter, is like, oh by the way, I'm four months pregnant and you haven't noticed because mum's had a little leg amputated, but I'm about to have a baby, and then he's very supporting.

SPEAKER_04 52:39

Oh white, and he goes, Or does he say I'm gonna Is it C Mac or something like that? The um Some military acronym. Yeah, sort of situation, mission admin. Something, something, something execution, admin, something like that. And he did it because he was gonna give over soon. He he breaks it down for her and she says, Well, I want my mum here to help.

SPEAKER_03 53:02

And she thankfully has a very clear vision for what she wants to do. So she's going to have the child and she wants to give it up for adoption to a an infertile couple. And she's already been on the case. She's found them already.

SPEAKER_04 53:14

She's already done admin. That's right, so he's gonna lead you, you know, how you said, I want my mum.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

You know, oh fuck it.

SPEAKER_04 53:21

And fortunately, she's talking, uh, much like his therapy sessions with AA and his his his meetings that he still attends and and goes, and they're obviously a big part of of his recovery. She's starting to talk about it, and you hear her talking in a in a circle within the hospital about music that's still mine, I can I can do that still, and she's got getting a little more spark back into her life and everything. And when she gets home, he's he's not shown to be a mean man at any point, but he's he's actually really kind of nice. But when she just comes back, he's you can see he's he's at the end of his tether and and he's saying, Look, I'm not gonna talk about the music for you because I know where this goes, it's just gonna be an argument. Yeah. But actually she's in a much better place and she sort of says, you know, no, I'm I want to talk about this, and I think it might actually help me if I can do music again with you. And he it's quite emotional scene, he kind of is breaking down and he's he's going, Yeah, okay, we can try that. And they just start to sing again on TV, don't they? Like they're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 54:37

Well, they they start with the smallest shows first at the Chinese restaurant and that sort of thing, and then it becomes a part of her re rehabilitation as well. He's starting to help her physically with her movement and all that sort of stuff. You see it stronger as their momentum. Great shell suits, amazing shell suits, yeah. And basically, you know, they're building up, building up, they're doing pretty well, and then it happens that Neil Diamond is in town. Yeah. He's playing a show in Milwaukee, and I think it's is it Jim Belushi comes up with the idea?

SPEAKER_04 55:09

W well w one of one of the Ritz guys or something, they're basically they know that there's gonna be a a sellout crowd at Neil Diamond. They also know there's gonna be an overflow of people that couldn't get tickets and want something else to do, so the next best thing is him round the corner at the Ritz, and he's saying, Look, we're not gonna sell out this place, like but absolutely it plays down because they they do, they are gonna sell out. And I don't know when the timeline when it happens, but she starts looking into the garden again just where she was about to plant and and just as she moves away, for she's sort of staring at for about a couple of minutes or so, just the area, thinking bloody oh, that was where and I thought, oh, maybe she's gonna start planting again there, and you know, and she's just wanders off on that start, goes up like two flights of stairs, and another car comes and hits in exactly the same spot.

SPEAKER_03 56:06

It's actually the thing that motivates her to go forward, isn't it? Because she's like, oh, lightning struck in the same place twice. They say it can't happen, and it did. And it's absolutely but it's amazing, she would have been killed if she'd have been or the say you know, lose the other leg if she'd have been howling the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 56:20

Yeah, that's it. She was just kind of howling with laughter, like an hysterical thing and laughing at the guy who's just crashed his car. He's like, Oh, I'm sorry, I just kind of lost control. You think ah like it's just absolutely nuts, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:34

And yeah, it kind of motivates them to to go and seize the day in the moment. So they have the big show, it comes on, but the night of the show, Mike has a kind of heart attack in the prepar preparing in the bathroom, falls and hits his head really horribly on the sink, and when he stands up, it's clear it's like pretty fucking bad. Like luckily he's got some nail glue. Glue nail glue, and so he glues his head back together, blood absolutely everywhere, yeah, and just about pulls himself together to then do the show, which is a good 20 minutes, I reckon, of the movie. Yeah, 15-20 minutes of Neil Diamond, if you like.

SPEAKER_04 57:13

He's gotta go up in a up in a uh a lift to enter through the the floor of the stage and everything, and he just tells her how much he loves her on the way, and he's he's got the words for the girls. I think he he senses that he's not long for this world, but he's like, Wait, doesn't he nearly have a heart attack on stages and his daughter cocks her?

SPEAKER_02 57:35

And he's like she panics a bit and he sort of gets up and looks at her, like nods or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 57:40

Well he's in help me, and then he turns it into like part of the acting, and he's he sort of hugged the girls and says, You two are great, you'll always know what to do. And it's just a massive success. He says, in the back of the van, didn't he? In the back of the car, as they're going to meet Neil Diamond, who's requested them to meet. He's saying I think actually we were even better than Pearl Jam. Yeah, where you know, we were they loved it, and he's going, No, no, I I don't know. He's going, but our fans, they're they're like, they loved us, they absolutely love so they're delighted with their performance, they're delighted with their evening.

SPEAKER_03 58:15

And they go off to the frozen custard shop, which is apparently a thing.

SPEAKER_04 58:19

Well, word has got out that Neil Diamond's gonna be there, so Jim Belushi's there already, and there's a few, and she gets out the car and says, Are you okay? And he goes, I'm huge, baby. Which he'd been saying all the way through, I'm huge, I'm huge. Um and that's the last words he ever says because he doesn't get out of the car.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

Yeah, he dies in the backseat of the car.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

She comes, she goes back in the car to get him and he's gone.

SPEAKER_03 58:40

It must take like three seconds for it to happen because she gets out of the car, looks round, and then goes back in for him and he's gone.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

And yeah, that that's it. The next thing we cut to funeral planning, yeah, and and the daughters distracting the final words, and you know, they're all being kind of brave about it, and he was obviously kind of young still, but he lived his life really you know how he wanted to do it, and they have the the a lovely song, don't they? She sings at the end, like a not a well-known Neil Diamond song, but she does some Tupac. Yeah. And and then we cut to him in video.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

Drinking a coffee sobriety.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Because he said he'd offered him a coffee when he first met him, didn't he? Yeah. He said, Oh, coffee.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

I was like, nine. He said, I don't drink coffee. He's like, would you want to start? Yeah. And that and that's it. We kind of Well, we we get a slightly weird thing of just the last bit is that she goes out, Claire goes out to plant plants, and she has her daughter there to watch while she does it, as you fucking win. Yeah. And then it's sort of left with like a horror type shot as it just lingers on her putting the plants in, thinking, fuck me, is it gonna happen again?

SPEAKER_04 59:57

I thought they'd just park the car in front of her, like you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:00

I always thought I'd just put a fence or a few rocks there at least.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:04

I'd be putting those massive like things that they have, you know, that they put on London Bridge when the terror attacked. That's what I'd be putting outside my house.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

Yeah, certainly after it's happened twice, like you know, it's it's just a bad road for it, isn't it? It comes off that corner. But so it's two hours and two hours fifteen to change, isn't it? Um it's quite a lot for a Neil Diamond tribute. It is a lot for a Neil Diamond tribute film, but I watched it in two parts actually because you're a coward. It's just the way that it panned out. Because I wanted to savour every every moment and not watch it too tired because I was really enjoying it after. And we watched this together as a family, actually, the first part. They're catching up now, actually, watching the second part of it. Whereas I watched all the lols they're happening in there then. Exactly. You know, that's it. High spirits in there. They'll be talking about the holidays. It's all gonna get better and better as as they realise he's not gonna make it. Yeah, I I'm interested to know that this was a true story.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:59

So what else did it say that was true about this film that's a lot of the stuff, the car crashes were true, the Eddie Veda stuff involvement's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

He is dead. Yeah, he is dead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:11

Yeah. He did die. I mean, it's not quite as it's depicted as dramatically as it's depicted in the movie, as he's on the way to meet his hero, but Neil Diamond was coming to you know, there was an arrangement, and he did fall very ill just before it happened, and that's Claire did end up meeting him later on.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:28

Oh, really? Not that night, but like years later. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

It's a strange one, this. I really enjoyed it. The two central performances from Huge Jackman and Kate Hudson, especially Kate Hudson, I think really, really brilliant. On point, yeah. It's in some ways like quite a very conventional and fluffy kind of biopic, and then it throws these harrowing like things that happened to them at you that's you know, makes it something else. And I couldn't get over the time thing in it that like it was supposed to have been taking place over about 15 years, and everybody stayed looking exactly the same. Yeah, it's like Bart Simpson never ages. It's bizarre to me that as a choice, but I still really enjoyed it actually. I I really I did dislike the music of Neil Diamond. I actively disliked the music of Neil Diamond.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:11

Well, you we've seen you like anti-Neil, yeah, no Diamonds. Yeah. Yeah. In the rough. Yeah. Whereas I don't actually, I think he's got a few cracking, crackling rosy songs in Sweet Caroline. That's all you did.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:25

Do you play Sweet Caroline just before just to wind me up because you know I don't like it? Just because it's the only song that you like is that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:31

It's the only one that, as they say in the film, that anybody knows really, or everybody knows that Neil Diamond song, but he has written obviously some other great songs. He's Sullima. That's the one that got me going. A great performer, and still gets in the crowds. I mean, I think if the Neil Diamond. Yeah, he's still going and he still sells out everywhere. Absolutely. His fans are like much that are really, really loyal to Neil Diane. I mean, they'll just go anywhere and everywhere to see him. They're still throwing their knickers on the stage to him and everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

Oh, speaking of that, Huge Tatman's hairy, isn't he? Yeah. He's a hairy boy. I notice that when he's not waxed to oblivion, he's like waxing must be a tough, tough gig.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

He's got quite yeah, that would be a tough gig. He's got quite a uh a chest wig.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:23

Well, not just a chest, because he spends a lot of this time in pants as well. He's like just hairy all over.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:28

He has, yeah. So if you want to see Hugh Jackman in pants, then this is definitely a film to check out. Did you enjoy it, Chris?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:35

No, not really. I watched this, uh I I said it on the pod that I watched this a few, maybe a month ago or something like that. Randomly I put it on because it was Kira was actually watched something and I I found it on uh the same one of these platforms. And I was like, well, this is a based on a true story, it's about music. I thought, let's see how I didn't expect it to be this long, and I didn't expect it to be. I I kind of get your thing with the the the performances. They it was both of them were good performances, and there were a few giggles and a few bits, but I didn't really enjoy it. Apart from the music, the music was really good.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

He enjoyed the music, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, he really both of them actually can sing. Yeah. You know, really good performances as far as the singing goes.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:25

Uh and it's well, even if you don't like the music like I don't, it's there's enough going on with the camera to keep you interested during the very long Neil Diamond stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:34

Great disabilitian something. And who is the other guy who was his agent? Fisher Stephen.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:39

No, he's dentist. Oh yeah, he was got like a weird He's got funny hair, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

Yeah. He was Phoebe's weird boyfriend in one of the very first episodes of Friends. Oh, and um Mr.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:50

Johnny Five as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:52

Ah, yes, of course. That's where he would have And Succession.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

He's he's in Succession, he's very good at that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:58

Yes and Michael Imperioli, I really like seeing him as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

I thought he'd be They just sort of fucking sideline him though, as soon as he joins a band, is that you never really see him again. You're like, come on, this guy's great. Let's see more of him. I enjoyed it, but it the fuck, it's a 90-minute video.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:12

There's quite a lot to fit in, though. I mean there's an extraordinary amount. Two hours fifteen was alright for me. I think it's alright.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:20

Well, I think it's a strong recommend, and I would recommend it strongly.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

Very well put, Daniel. Thanks, mate.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:37

Oh, somebody else is gonna have a choice next week. I think it's me. Oh, Smithers.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

I've got one of them. Well I think I know what one of them is. Okay. Okay. That's encouraging. This is gonna be a kung fu movie. Oh yeah, I can't really let you know later on about that, but the spurs are on, so all that remains is the society signing out. Reeks has left the building. Dan's gone.