Another Pass at Another Pass at Mallrats

Case and Sam are looking back at the earliest episodes of the show! Check out their thoughts on the second episode when Case sat down with Geoff Moonen and chatted about Mallrats!

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Transcripts

(Subject to errors)

00:02
CASE
Let's do a clap for me and.

00:03
SAM
A clap for case.

00:04
CASE
A clap for case.

00:06
CASE
Yay.

00:09
SAM
Let's do this real.

00:16
CASE
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another past podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as has been the case for the last two years.

00:23
CASE
I am joined by my co host, Sam Alice.

00:25
SAM
Hi.

00:26
CASE
And this is another pass at another pass episode. This is one of our bonus recap episodes looking back on the early days of the show. Sam, this is our second episode ever, and it's the first one with breaking away from the cpov stuff. So we had Jeff Moonin on.

00:45
SAM
Right. And it's not a Star wars.

00:47
CASE
Also true.

00:49
SAM
Yeah, it's different. I mean, it's still within the nerd realm, the universe of nerdom, because I would say that Kevin Smith in general is considered a huge nerd. But.

01:02
CASE
Again, this is the second episode of another pass that were discussing today. This was our episode on Mallrats, and it was important to me to start the show in an area that felt like certain point of view and then show how it is going to be a little bit different. Because at the time, it was still on the certain point of view feed. It was all just one Libsyn RSS feed, and it was only going to be, I think, episode nine is when we split off into our own channel. So I wanted it to be clear, like, this is my show. It's not always going to Ben and Addie, and we're going to do some stuff that is different, but it's going to still feel like a thing that you would find on certain point of view.

01:40
SAM
Yeah.

01:41
CASE
So it's wild, though. This was, again, our second episode. We're still feeling out the format and with just me and one guest. It is fast.

01:53
SAM
Yeah. This is a remarkably short episode, actually, considering the kind of episodes we put out. This is very fast. It's like 39 minutes runtime. And that's it. Because Jeff also, and you mentioned this in the episode, jeff, and you came up with this game, kind of. This is something you did. So you guys are so, like. So as the listener to like, I was just like, yeah, all of these are really good ideas. And at the end, I was so glad that you summed up and went back to what your ideas were because I had forgotten all the things because it really just felt like a conversation between two friends making very good and valid points about mall rats. But still.

02:40
CASE
Yeah, that's the thing that I miss doing. I think we need to kind of get back into doing, like, taking notes on what we had all said and sort of summarizing, here's the big bullet points, the things that absolutely needed work, because it's easy to miss those when we get into these much more gargantuan episodes.

03:01
SAM
Yeah. In general, I think because the format has changed, it's not as bad. Right. Because we spend a lot of time talking at the beginning, and then we kind of like. It is almost like a summary when know. Setting it up, however. Yeah, I can see where some of it needs to be. Maybe just a little bit. But, like, with this, it was. Because it was. So you guys were just kind of vibing off of each other, which was really nice. I'm not taking anything away. We love Jeff, but you were really vibing with each other and going back for. They were. Yeah, yeah. That would be a great fix. That would be a great fix. And at the end, you were like, so just to sum this all up, we'd want to be in the mall more.

03:48
CASE
So a little bit of background before we actually play the episode. This was recorded twice, so this is our second time taking a crack at it because we hadn't really figured out the systems for recording remotely yet. And Jeff was actually in town in DC and came and visited me. So we watched the movie together, we tried doing a recording, and then we ran out of time, which is weird, considering that the ultimate episode is only like 40 minutes. But we watched the movie together and basically we got, like, ten minutes in and Jeff had to go. So we ended up meeting up once more. And there's some mic issues on my end. When I first got my recording set up, one of the lobs was not as good as the other, which is going to plague us for several episodes going forward.

04:41
CASE
So one person is going to be much clearer than the other person. So that's a problem. I cleaned it up as much as I could, twice, both for the initial release on the CPOV feed, and then when it was moved to its own feed, I went back and recut everything to try to get the audio as clean as I could get it, which is unfortunate that for a while, the only version people had heard was the one that was on the CPOV feed, because not a lot of people went back and re listened to the early episodes who had already been listening, which, when I say not a lot, I mean, like, tens of people.

05:21
SAM
All tens of, like.

05:23
CASE
I know that people who found the show after the switch, which was at this point now, five and a half years ago when we split off onto our own channel, that people have gone back to those episodes, have heard the cleaned up version, but it is still not perfect. Clearly the mic that I am wearing is just not picking me up as clearly as Jeff, which is crazy because we're in the same room together. Yeah, but that's just sort of the preamble for this all. Why don't we play the episode and see what people think? And then when we come back, we'll just chat a little bit about our takeaways for it.

06:02
Speaker 5
Welcome to certain point of views, another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

06:11
CASE
Thanks, everyone for tuning in to another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and today I am lucky enough to be joined by a very good friend of mine, Jeff Moonin.

06:23
Speaker 5
Hi there, everybody. It's great to be here.

06:26
CASE
Now, Jeff is actually the co originator of the podcast concept with me back in the day when we used to be stage hands together at New World stages up in New York, he and I would be doing random maintenance work throughout the day, and we would just shoot the shit and be like, well, if I was remaking just revenge of the Sith like none of the others, those are the way they are. Here's what I would do different. And that's how we started going back and forth on, you know, I'm just glad to have you on because I've been doing this now with Addie and Ben over at CPOV, and now doing this as a, you know, I've missed budy.

07:08
Speaker 5
Likewise. Honestly, this has been a long time coming. I'm really happy to be here. Thank you for having me. It's great to be doing this again.

07:16
CASE
Yeah.

07:17
CASE
So today we are talking about mall rats.

07:20
CASE
Yes.

07:21
CASE
Now, it's funny, were talking about movie ideas for this episode, and I was thinking, man, I could do mall rats. I hadn't really thought about mall rats in a while, but I used to love that movie.

07:36
CASE
Yeah.

07:36
Speaker 5
And I more or less felt the same way. When you brought it up to me, I instantly leaped on this. I am originally from New Jersey, and I grew up at just the right time. Where nerds loved Kevin Smith, and Mall Rats was one of those movies that it was on absolute endless rotation in my home. I have owned mall rats on three different mediums. I have a laser disc copy.

08:03
CASE
Oh, my God. You do?

08:04
Speaker 5
I do. And my great nerd goal of life is to have Kevin Smith sign that. I came so close during the first comic con, and it was just so poorly organized. I couldn't get on the autograph line. But I still have the thing as soon as it's signed that's going in a frame and hermetically sealed. This is a big deal. Mall Rats is a big deal for me historically. So this is a great topic.

08:27
CASE
Yes.

08:28
CASE
And as we all know, fuck dvd.

08:30
Speaker 5
Fuck DVD.

08:32
CASE
So I listen to the dvd to death, by the way. Like, there's an audio commentary that I've listened to so many times.

08:41
Speaker 5
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the DVD edition is hilariously definitive considering all the opinions that Kevin Smith had at the time.

08:49
CASE
Yeah.

08:50
CASE
And there's a special edition, actually, we talked about this as, like, what is our starting point for this movie? And with theatrical cut, Kevin Smith talked a lot about the things he did to re edit it and do reshoots. And there's actually, I think, a version where you can watch it with the original opening. But even before that version came out on the dvds, they had that original opening. And Smith talked a lot about why they did the changes that they did.

09:20
Speaker 5
Yeah, absolutely.

09:21
CASE
Yeah.

09:22
CASE
So that opening, it was the whole governor's ball thing. There was all this craziness. And it's a full half hour before they actually get to the mall which.

09:31
Speaker 5
Is ridiculous when you have a movie called mall rats.

09:34
CASE
Oh, yeah, it's nuts. And I kind of agree. I think making that cut made sense. It's funny. Those scenes are funny. It was well written scenes.

09:44
Speaker 5
Absolutely.

09:45
CASE
But it really doesn't get you to the actual movie fast enough. And for comedy, that's kind of death.

09:52
Speaker 5
Yeah. It's a whole lot of setup that while it informs what's been going on it's unnecessary, largely. And stuff that could be told better either piecemeal or through referral. And Kevin Smith had already proved in clerks that he is fantastic at world building without showing. Showcasing groups of friends or people who interact with each other either through close knit social circles or by, oh, man, there's that guy. I haven't seen him in forever. And showing a bigger breathing world. And the governor's ball is still referred to within the film and they don't have to show it. And there's still a sense of, oh, something happened.

10:35
CASE
Yeah.

10:37
CASE
This movie, more so than I think, any of the other individual.

10:43
CASE
Well, at.

10:44
CASE
Least part of the trilogy did. World building by way of references. Clerks had a few. Chasing Amy commented on a few of them, but this is the one. And especially with the reshoots that really united the Jersey trilogy as, like, one shared universe.

11:03
Speaker 5
Yeah, it was the cement. Like, they poured it in clerks. It hardened in marats.

11:10
CASE
Yeah. So we agreed that, okay, we're going to say we're doing the reshoots right now. Kevin Smith has said, like, well, I need some producers to come in and give some notes and ideas. So that's the standpoint we're taking for this. So we each had some ideas. And I think the big one that we both agreed on was that maybe he didn't go far enough. Like, maybe he should have gotten to the mall even faster.

11:36
Speaker 5
Absolutely. You don't necessarily need to. Even this short scene that he put at the very beginning of the movie, which sort of infamously, nobody wanted to do because it was after everything else.

11:49
CASE
Had wrapped up and clearly no one wants to be there.

11:52
Speaker 5
No one wanted to be there. And it ultimately felt a little flimsy.

11:59
CASE
I don't think they even had the right dialogue because it looks so 80 yard, that entire sequence.

12:05
CASE
Yeah. No.

12:05
Speaker 5
When we watched it, there was just kind of going, wait, she's 80 yard. Like, I think every last one of Claire Ferlani's lines was, oh, absolutely. And while you could have that kind of a setup involved in setting the breakup between Ts and Brandy, having it play out like that felt like, well, a high school drama while they're clearly in college. And b could have just as easily been told through conversation or even flashback, if need be, to show those little pieces. Ala chasing Amy, comparing war stories between Banky and Alyssa.

12:43
CASE
Yeah.

12:43
CASE
We had said when were watching the movie the two points we could start it from is just when TS shows up at Brody's house and is just. He recounts the breakup, Brody recounts the. Know, we can get that great line from Shannon Dougherty where it's like, do you want me to tell my mother what we do at night? What? You play video games and I fall asleep unfulfilled. It's such a great bit. But we could do that in a flashback.

13:10
Speaker 5
Exactly.

13:10
CASE
We could start with them stewing and then they go to the mall, which is pretty fast. Or we could even just start with them right at the mall. Like you're doing reshoots. Why not do some mall reshoots?

13:20
Speaker 5
Agree. Especially because if you start even from the filmed point of them entering the mall, you get such a great opening line of Brody declaring, I love the smell of commerce in the morning. It's such a great, just dynamic entry.

13:37
CASE
Oh, man. Can you imagine if the credits like the opening credits and that very cool, very off brand, or at least not off the concept of the mall rat thing, but, like, very Kevin Smith, like with all the comic book stuff, if they just go from that straight into the doors of the mall and they're like, burst open. And Brody goes, man, I love the smell of commerce in the morning.

13:59
CASE
Yeah.

14:00
Speaker 5
And whether you very immediately have the confrontation with Shannon, with Ben Affleck's character. And were even talking about that idea of the mall as a character and as a sort of.

14:17
CASE
Would be. This would be where we would really want to drive it home. They make some references to sort of the ebb and flow of the mall throughout it, but they don't really double down on it. We're not really focusing on it. And really, we're not even focusing on mall rats. We're really focusing on the mall rat, which is Brody Bruce Jason Lee's character. But what would be really nice is if it was kind of like one of those old cityscape movies where we follow the flow of a day at a location, like a day in the life kind of setting. So we open with them arriving at the mall, and the shops are still opening up. And it's like you got the old people doing their power walking exercises. And mostly it's just coffee places.

14:58
CASE
It's very driven by the needs of the morning. And then we watch them be there the whole day to really emphasize that they're there all the day.

15:08
Speaker 5
And you don't need to change anything in the script for that to be there. I mean, they're there until the game show happens.

15:14
CASE
Yeah, I mean, you could probably put a few. Couple of references in, like, some scenes of, especially, like, lines at certain stores, which would be an interesting way to tell the time of day and set continuity, where it's like, the busy stores are ones that make sense for the time of day.

15:29
Speaker 5
Yeah, and it's kind of a funny thing, too, that given that they're in such a center of commerce. And I understand why Kevin Smith might have shied away from this, not really showcasing any of the people working the mall. I mean, you've got security going on, and you've got the people setting up the game show, but you don't really have the wage slaves. I mean, he already did that movie, but there's an interesting either culture clash that could happen within that, or the people who wander around. I mean, they have it a little bit when Shannon is beating up Brody. And that whole, know, I have no respect for people with no shopping agenda.

16:06
CASE
Right. And I guess you could say that not doing the full day in the mall is also being like, oh, I don't want to do another day at this location kind of movie. But let's be honest, no one saw El Mariachi first. Most people saw desperado and then went back and were like, oh, what's this movie?

16:29
CASE
Yeah.

16:30
Speaker 5
And it's easy to forget x number of years on that. Clerks, especially at that point, was pretty much an unknown. It was a Sundance darling. It wasn't in everybody's collection.

16:42
CASE
Yeah, I mean, this was before the aftermarket craze had even hit. Mallrats is one of the big early examples of the dvd scene really pushing forward and saving a movie. Because this movie did not do well in theaters, but it did really well on the dvd market and apparently very well in the laserdisc market for one. Jeff Moonin.

17:05
Speaker 5
That's right. Well, granted, it was an ex girlfriend founded at a flea market, so I have no idea how. I don't know its numbers, but I'm a proud owner.

17:13
CASE
Ooh, what if it was the flea.

17:14
Speaker 5
Market from the movie and that actually was something else? The fact that when they leave the mall and they go to the dirt mall, there is an OD sort of, it's such a quick little thing. And I almost feel, again, that's a great opportunity to make the mall a strange entity. And it's either that part of the mall that nobody goes to, or it's that wing where all the shops are closed, or there's really just a big flea market anchor shop at the end of it. It's easy to hide out here.

17:49
CASE
Or it could be like a lot of malls that I've seen where there's, like, the main physical mall structure and then there's kind of like a strip mall built around it.

17:57
CASE
Yeah.

17:59
CASE
It didn't need them to drive off just to turn around and come back. It would have been interesting. It's like, we need to hide out. We're going to go across the parking.

18:07
Speaker 5
Lot and that can even have its own setup of, like, again, ts not understanding how the mall works, which is, again, something I feel they dropped the ball on. But, like, ts going, we're still on the mall. No, we're not. We're at the dirt mall. This is the part of the mall where nobody ever goes.

18:23
CASE
They share a parking lot. Yeah, exactly.

18:26
Speaker 5
There's the tent city of shops over here, or there's the, whatever it might be. And it's just like, nobody ever goes here, apparently not even, nor any discerning consumer.

18:38
CASE
Ts is supposed to be sort of like an audience viewpoint character. And even though in the final edit and I think, really, once they got shooting, they realized, like, actually, Jason Lee is just way more charismatic and people want to watch him and not Jeremy London, but TS is supposed to be this person who just doesn't get the mall. And at first he's like, no, I.

18:57
CASE
Don'T really want to go to the mall.

18:58
CASE
And he doesn't understand it as a culture. He might go there to buy a thing, but he'll walk in, buy his thing, and leave. It's always Brody explaining the mall to him. And I think that really is a thing that they could have emphasized a lot more because Brody is the mall rat, or really what he should be is the king of the mall rats, and we should see more of the mall culture, and ts is just constantly being exposed to it all.

19:23
CASE
Yeah.

19:25
Speaker 5
And although every time he keeps saying the mall rat, I'm just imagining some kind of ridiculous noir film, I feel like there was a missed opportunity.

19:34
CASE
Yeah.

19:34
CASE
I mean, they definitely could have done that. And then they could have done, like, the Tim Burton Batman y stuff with Jane, Silent Bob, and it would all, ooh, really?

19:43
Speaker 5
It's just a whole nother movie hidden in.

19:45
CASE
Yeah.

19:46
CASE
Oh, man. We are, we're putting together gold here, but let's actually talk about the scenes we have.

19:51
Speaker 5
Yeah, let's get back to it.

19:52
CASE
We're only going to rewrite so much. I think you could actually edit a lot from the opening down. And I would love to see more of the mall culture. Like, they have some stuff at the food court, they have some stuff outside the cookie stand. They have some stuff at a fountain, but none of it's very big. And we don't get the sense that there's a lot of people there. There's like, trisha, there's Willem Black. Which would have been great, by the way, is if they had, like, hung a lampshade on Willem Black being played by two characters between clerks and put.

20:23
Speaker 5
Scott Mosier in a wake.

20:24
CASE
Yeah.

20:24
CASE
Have Scott Moser just, like, walk up at one point and be like, oh, hey, sailboat. And just walk off. Just to acknowledge that there's two Willem blacks.

20:33
Speaker 5
If they didn't have Stan Lee do it, they could have had Willem and it would have been easily as effective and differently hilarious.

20:42
CASE
Oh, actually, I have the best way to make it work. If the Stan Lee a sailboat right at the end, if just by chance, the clerk's era, Willem Black was standing right next to him. And when it's like, oh, hey. Oh, look, a sailboat. And he goes, oh, yeah. Oh, jeez, that would have been great.

21:02
Speaker 5
Let's keep it all. No, absolutely. There's a certain. They make references to these points, these sort of people, these denizens or characters. And they even have a great setup in why you don't see as many or where a lot of people could or could not be. Just as they had gum in the locks to explain why the shutters were closed because Kevin Smith had to shoot at night. You couldn't get enough extras for the mall. You could just as easily say, everybody is online for Lee.

21:35
CASE
Oh, yeah. Like, that would actually be great. Every time they needed someone, they just go and find someone in the line. Line and then they get really mad to be pulled out because then they have to go back to the ending of the line. That would have been a great setup. Oh, man, that's a great idea.

21:47
CASE
Yeah.

21:47
Speaker 5
Even if there are people that have no interest in Stan Lee either they're holding the line for somebody or they're like, oh, this is going to make me a mint. By getting something signed or just anything. Like, I don't know, you find silent bobbin there for any reason. Just anything.

22:04
CASE
Yeah, that would be great. Especially because this was in the height of 90s comic inflation. We would have been seeing just a huge collector craze for comic books. Like people trying to get the most value out of it and thinking like, oh, Stanley, I could get a signature on this. They can even make a joke. Like, someone wants a thing that Stanley has nothing to do with.

22:28
Speaker 5
Know, somebody standing there with a massive box going, I'm going to have him sign every comic that's a number one. Did he write those? Who cares?

22:37
CASE
Exactly.

22:38
Speaker 5
And off we go.

22:40
CASE
But we've now started to mention Jay and Silent Bob. We should probably address their whole thing. Yeah, they're the cartoon that's inside this movie. And I kind of love it. It's sort of unrelated to the rest of it. It's like they have the starting point of working with Brody and Ts and then they just go off. And then the more conventional comedy is happening over here. But they're off doing, like, the slapsticky stuff.

23:07
CASE
Yeah.

23:08
Speaker 5
And they're there. They're in the background, the fabric. And they're utilized when necessary. But, yeah, they basically have a Tex avery cartoon happening whenever they're not crucial to the plot.

23:21
CASE
Yeah.

23:22
CASE
My one regret on that is I kind of would have liked more drugs.

23:26
CASE
Yes.

23:29
Speaker 5
That sounds terrible.

23:31
CASE
It sounds terrible. I feel bad even saying it, but it's supposed to take place a day before clerks. So why are they in one scenario, like barely referencing drugs and then the next day, just, like, going around selling. I really feel like if they just hinted a little bit more at that instead of just once at the end, really. And, well, really twice at the end because Jay yelling at Willem, being like, you know, what would let you see it? And then also when he uses drugs to knock out the people which I.

24:05
Speaker 5
Feel was kind of odly enough, a punchline or what should have been a punchline to a lot of fake outs throughout the movie because they set up Jane and Silent Bob as kind of the fixers or get you what you need kind of thing. Like between Silent Bob pulling out enough sex toys and then the grappling gun for the Batman reference. And they're the guys that Brody goes to make sure the stage gets sabotaged one way or another. And the way they set it up when Jay pulls the drugs out and it's just one of those, like, oh, man, you're stressed out. You got problems. I got something to make you feel relaxed as hell. And that is something that he could have done that several times throughout the movie and then referred to something else entirely. And then it was finally drugs.

24:54
Speaker 5
It's finally drugs.

24:56
CASE
Yeah.

24:56
CASE
Like, if every time they were asked Jay's suggestion for how to solve it is drugs and then Silent Bob just has the right answer, someone is like, not that. And then finally we get to when Jay has his moment to shine and it's like, you know what will solve your problem? Drugs.

25:12
Speaker 5
And it does exactly.

25:15
CASE
In rule of it.

25:17
CASE
Exactly.

25:17
CASE
Set it up twice where it's a fake out and then finally on the third one, have it happen.

25:24
Speaker 5
Yeah, there's a lot of those. And again, because they've already got a sort of cartoonish precedent right down to the Wiley Coyote blueprints. Having those sort of big moments doesn't even take you out of the fabric that's already being woven of this film.

25:42
CASE
Yeah.

25:43
CASE
I mean, they barely are in the fabric of this film as it is, but they're there.

25:51
Speaker 5
Although, speaking of those who are intertwined in the film, let's talk about brandy.

25:58
CASE
I could do with less brandy, honestly, which is.

26:03
Speaker 5
I know it sounds awful when we say it. It's like, you know what? This could have need less of the female leads.

26:10
CASE
But she's already a really small part.

26:12
CASE
Yeah.

26:13
Speaker 5
When you really look at it, she's kind of there a little bit in the beginning just to set it up. Then there's that one conversation and then she shows up at the end. It's almost more powerful to have her just show up at the end and only be referred to.

26:27
CASE
Yeah, it'd be like Maureen in a.

26:31
CASE
The.

26:32
CASE
There's the breakup scene at the beginning in the cut that we got. There is the one scene when Renee goes to talk to her, which is like such a nothing scene. And then there's the actual game show. And it would be so much more effective if the game show was her unveiling. Like, we could just reference the breakup so we don't see her and then we're just wondering what she's like. And then you've got this, like, I mean, ostensibly. Not ostensibly, literally. And then you've got this literally gorgeous woman just stepping out on stage with tv lighting and perfect makeup and everything.

27:06
Speaker 5
And she is literally a prize to be won.

27:08
CASE
Yes.

27:11
CASE
I mean, this would be Mario finding Peach. This is the perfect kind of quested after girl in the context of the movie. Obviously, everyone knows her. Everyone knows what she looks like, but we, the audience, don't.

27:26
CASE
Yeah.

27:27
Speaker 5
And even if you wanted to have moments where if you have visual flashbacks, you never quite see Brandy's face, but details of her and whether ts thinks he sees her in the distance or anything like that, just you mentioning the princess is in another castle having moments of that. But you also have Renee, Shannon Dougherty's character as a little bit more of the visible back and forth, almost.

27:56
CASE
The.

27:56
Speaker 5
Realistic breakup happening, which is kind of funny, honestly. A little more of her.

28:05
CASE
Shannon Dougherty's character is so much more developed. Yes. She's such a more dynamic character. And then you also have other strong female characters. I wouldn't say they're perfectly written. Both Trisha Jones and Gwen. Is Gwen Joey Lauren Adams character? Yes. Both of them know a little sex crazed, but they exist in a world where that's kind of not weird. Everyone talks about it.

28:34
Speaker 5
Everyone. Like man or woman. They're all sex crazed in the uscuverse.

28:38
CASE
Pretty much Willem Black's the only one who isn't in this movie.

28:42
Speaker 5
That's true. And only this isn't snowball. Or is it?

28:46
CASE
This is Snowman. But they're just more dynamic characters. On that note, I would love to see more of them, but they're just way more interesting than brandy. And having brandy sort of not focused on until we actually get to her, like, where we hear a lot about her, allows us to fill in the gaps a bit better than what we actually see.

29:09
CASE
Yeah.

29:10
Speaker 5
And we still have Michael Rooker there as sort of the guardian of it all. And rather than ts having conversations with his girlfriend. With his ex girlfriend trying to figure this out. He keeps having to deal with her father. Which is already there. And is something that doesn't need much tweaking or even any, necessarily, depending upon how it falls. To really still have this kind of potent guy trying to win the girl. But he's almost got the dragon in front of him. And then he has to get to the game show. One of the concepts we talked about while were watching the movie was even the idea of. A third idea of an opening is actually opening at the game show. And a lot of this being Brody telling people, the audience at the game show and us, the audience, the day they've had.

30:02
CASE
Yeah, we did talk about that one. I think it would require a bit more editing than what we talking about. Because you'd end up having a bit more of the game show scenes to tell it. To tell the story. No matter how much you flashback. Otherwise it starts being like a very weird framing device. But it could work. You could still do it. And hell, we're talking about doing reshoots anyway, right?

30:25
Speaker 5
I don't think it's the strongest idea, but it's that same. The game show is a very strong centerpiece for what everybody is vying for. One way or the other. Either stopping it, getting on it, winning, branding, one way or the other. And it's a big focal point for those who in this film have a focus. Jay and Silent Bob have no focus. Brody doesn't admit his focus. TS has his focus. So game show, let's talk about the.

30:57
CASE
People who actually work at the mall. So I just mentioned Gwen. I mentioned Trisha Jones, the other two big female characters. We noted the Stan Lee stuff going on. So let's talk about that world. Like Trisha Jones's character, Renee Humphreys. The actress who is cataloging all of her sexual encounters and who doesn't. I mean, it was certainly an interesting idea. I love Smith, like, throwing in more obscure references. Like the Junior Masters and Johnsons reference in there. Fantastic stuff. Kind of wish the actor who's supposed to be young. Didn't look older than everyone else in the movie.

31:43
Speaker 5
And that's just unfortunate. And that just sometimes happens in film. But here we are.

31:47
CASE
Yeah.

31:48
CASE
I mean, she actually might be. I have no idea.

31:50
CASE
Right.

31:51
Speaker 5
And they also didn't have her in the film so much that you didn't spend a ton of time going really 15. Or maybe lended some credence to Ben Affleck's line 15. I thought she was 36.

32:08
CASE
Yeah, that actually could be something they lampshade a little bit where it's like where everyone thinks she's a little bit older especially because of the way she talks and that she's doing a sex project and all that stuff. Then it's like, oh, but wait, she's in high school. What?

32:23
CASE
Yeah.

32:25
Speaker 5
And whether they have, I mean, they had that one little throwaway line or throwaway bit with her and silent Bob as he's trying to do Jedi psychokinesis on the cigarette. But that same kind of like this is going on when the plot bursts in. Whether she's trying to preposition people or trying to get their age or something like that is another instance of progressing that idea or ingraining it a little further into what's going on. If you're only going to use a few characters within the mall have them be doing things when the plot crashes into them.

33:04
CASE
Yeah.

33:05
CASE
Well, and speaking of crash into Gwen Turner, Joey, Lauren Adams character. So, you know, she's sort of an interesting character because I think she's kind of underwritten. But Lauren Adams, like, this was, like, prime era for her. She was just really interesting on screen. Not just the fact that you could see her shirtless, but she was just so dynamic and that's why the next movie was focused around her.

33:33
CASE
Yeah.

33:35
Speaker 5
It doesn't hurt that she and Kevin Smith were dating.

33:39
CASE
True. But on this movie, it is one where she ends up being so dynamic a character that she's kind of like the fourth biggest protagonist. Know, you've got t s and Brody and then you have Renee, who is a very large role. And then, as we just said, brandy's such a small part even in every version of the movie that Gwen ends up being on screen a lot. But she starts off as kind of a bit joke who then just happens to know.

34:11
Speaker 5
And they, and even for her, they do a decent job of writing the fact that she's kind of, in a way, part of the gang. And, I mean, being Ts's ex from high school is a fun thing. And being a character, like, they did a good job of having her show up. Everyone knew who she was. There was no big deal.

34:31
CASE
Right.

34:32
Speaker 5
And after her being the girl know, Silent Bob keeps crashing in on. That was strong. I like that. But, yeah, I feel like with everything shifting, the way we're shifting it, she needs more.

34:47
CASE
Yeah.

34:47
CASE
I would have liked some comeuppance at the end with Silent Bob when he falls down off of doing the video trick if he landed right in front of her in some sort of compromised position. Just so we got to reverse the.

35:02
Speaker 5
Situation because they have the rope break for him falling. So they already set up that he's cartoonishly falling but whether it's like, instead his pants ripping and him falling out of them or something of that sort.

35:14
CASE
Yeah.

35:14
CASE
And he only stumbles in on her twice.

35:16
CASE
Right? Yeah.

35:17
Speaker 5
So they're already setting up for a third.

35:19
CASE
Yeah.

35:20
CASE
Which, I mean, come on, Kevin, I know you quit film school, but come on.

35:25
Speaker 5
He quit before they talked about the third thing. Just first set up precedent. Is there any more? Screw it, I'm leaving.

35:32
CASE
Exactly.

35:33
CASE
I can get my money back.

35:34
CASE
Okay.

35:35
Speaker 5
I need it for clerks.

35:37
CASE
And ultimately he.

35:43
Speaker 5
Yeah, but there's just a lot of those little things where Maritz has a lot of great material. There's just certain pieces that I guess if that got a little more developed or if this was tightened up a little bit, it's Ikea furniture. It's well constructed. It's got all the parts they work. But I don't know. It's going to end up a little shaky. It's going to kind of tweak and creak a little.

36:12
CASE
Yeah.

36:13
CASE
If you don't screw it in properly and if you don't put enough wood glue there, just not going to hold tight. Like it's going to look like it's good but give it a few weeks of use. And then all of a sudden you're like, why is this bookshelf wobbling a little bit? That's not right.

36:26
CASE
Yeah.

36:28
Speaker 5
And I think that's why.

36:32
CASE
We can.

36:33
Speaker 5
Kind of keep coming back to it and go like, yeah, but what if, but because all of those fundamental pieces are there. It's also why we keep coming back and going, this isn't a bad movie. It's not.

36:44
CASE
No, it's not.

36:46
Speaker 5
It's always going to hold a special place in my heart. Even if I'm not going to call it my favorite anymore. I think I'm going to call it the movie I've watched more than any other.

36:54
CASE
Yeah.

36:55
CASE
I mean, for me, chasing Amy still is my favorite Kevin Smith movie. But, yeah, when we rewatched this, I was like, oh, yeah, I loved this movie back in the day. Like, my windows desktop had so many sound effects from mall rats. Like my recycling bin. When you recycled it would go, that was the biggest piece of crap I've ever. Like, it was great. Every time, like, tossed out a deleted file, it was like, yes, Brody, love you.

37:24
Speaker 5
Honestly, if I could just get my computer to sound like Jason Lee, I think my life would be a little bit better.

37:31
CASE
Yeah.

37:31
CASE
And this is so early in Jason Lee's career. Like, this is after. Right after he's coming off of being a skateboarder, right?

37:37
CASE
Yeah.

37:37
Speaker 5
I think this is his first major film.

37:39
CASE
Yeah.

37:39
CASE
I think he might have been, like an extra in some.

37:41
CASE
Yeah.

37:41
Speaker 5
Like, he's certainly been on camera in more than just skate videos.

37:45
CASE
Yeah. Oh, wait.

37:46
CASE
Wasn't he an extra in dazed and confused?

37:48
CASE
Was he?

37:49
CASE
I thought I heard that. Hold on, let me check on this one. Because the other funny thing, and my headcanon always kind of goes here, is that this movie the casting director was shared from days confused. And as a result, so many people came from that. In my headcanon, it's like, oh, well, it's kind of like how saved by the bell goes from being set indiana to California. But it's the same people in this case, it's like, well, the same people from 1970s Texas to 1990s New Jersey mall. Makes sense. Yeah, it all works.

38:26
Speaker 5
People just repeat themselves.

38:27
CASE
Yeah.

38:28
CASE
I mean, the only weird one is that there is a Jeremy London in this one. And Jason London was in Daisy confused.

38:34
Speaker 5
Yeah, well, I didn't see days of confused until after I watched mallrats. And actually I watched it after I saw out cold, which is where I got the twin confusion. Did you ever see that one?

38:48
CASE
I did not see that one.

38:50
Speaker 5
Not a good movie.

38:53
CASE
I would say a good chunk of their catalog would be described that way.

38:56
Speaker 5
Yes, I agree. I'm very sorry, London boys.

39:02
CASE
Yeah.

39:02
CASE
All right. So what I'm hearing is that ultimately, if were from the perspective of the reshoots going into it, we'd definitely make sure that they get into the mall ASAP. Which is a good idea that Smith had in the first place. But probably go even further than what he was saying. Go like, just set them up as broken up. And at the mall, either at Brody's place, commiserating before they go to the mall or right at the beginning of the mall. I think either one works pretty well. It gives you a little more space to squeeze in those flashbacks if you open at Brody's. But if you do it at the mall, you can open with just. I love the smell of commerce in the morning, which is a great line to open on.

39:45
Speaker 5
And you can even work a little bit of that previous scene into the opening. I just thought of the fact that in the scene at Brody's house he has the breakup letter from Renee already framed. And it would be hilarious if his only itinerary at the mall was getting that framed.

40:01
CASE
Yeah.

40:02
Speaker 5
He actually brought the breakup letter with him, which sets up talking about it. And it's just him getting it framed, which is its own funny thing of, like, Renee noticing that.

40:10
CASE
Yeah.

40:10
CASE
That would actually perfectly put that scene there, which is honestly the thing you need the most of.

40:15
CASE
Yeah.

40:16
Speaker 5
And they already go over a lot of the details in those bits when they're walking in leading up to the magic eye. So, yeah. Just cut it and fit in the important bits.

40:27
CASE
So start at the mall. Start at the mall. Get some scenes in there with all these peripheral characters and kind of make the mall more of a living know show. The cycle of the mall from early morning towards throughout the day up until you get to the actual game show.

40:45
Speaker 5
Right.

40:47
CASE
Don't really focus on brandy until you get to the game show. Like, we don't need those scenes earlier or seen really earlier. I think we really liked Shannon Dougherty's character, Renee. I think she's fine. I think the jokes with Ben Affleck's character are fine. That's all good stuff, really. Just a little more focus on the peripheral characters, especially Gwen, Joey Lauren Adams character. I think she is so dynamic and interesting and actress in this movie. Her career has been kind of, like all over the place, but this is one where it was kind of in her prime.

41:25
CASE
Yeah.

41:26
Speaker 5
And you could almost look at it and go, they kind of wasted here.

41:30
CASE
Yeah.

41:30
CASE
I mean, I think she fought to make her role bigger than it was. And as a result, she's very memorable in part because we remember her for other things that she does. And then it's kind of the same way that we remember Shannon, Ben Affleck's character because it's.

41:47
Speaker 5
And then, and nowadays you can look at mall rats and say, look, there's even more Batman in mall rats.

41:53
CASE
Exactly.

41:55
Speaker 5
It all comes back to comic books.

41:58
CASE
I love the Stan Lee stuff. I would have loved a little more lampshade hanging on things like Willem Black and like the shared universe that he was setting up. This very absurd shared universe with Jay and silent know being the connective tissue in a lot of ways with the.

42:16
Speaker 5
Cousin Walter stories between Randall and.

42:18
CASE
Oh, yeah. So I'd love, if you really emphasize know. To his credit, this is the second movie. He didn't even really know it was going to be this big shared universe until he was like, oh, yeah, I did make these same references a few times. It's really with the third one where it's like, yes. Doubling down on this.

42:37
CASE
Yeah.

42:37
CASE
But it would have been nice if he threw a few more in here.

42:40
Speaker 5
Well, hilariously enough, he was still in Jersey in Maratz, and you don't talk about the hometown quite the same way as when you're living in the city, which was, well, chasing Amy. But it was a good raising of the stakes, a necessary raising of the stakes.

42:57
CASE
But, yeah, so I would know. Keep it tight. Expand on the peripheral characters because they are fun. So we can have some more comedy around that and then just really fly through the day of the mall. Kind of make it more clerks. Not really, but clerks from a different angle.

43:19
CASE
Yeah.

43:19
CASE
Be a bigger sophomore movie than what it is.

43:22
Speaker 5
Right. It's pretty much about trimming the narrative fat to let the really good bits that are already there breathe better.

43:29
CASE
Yeah.

43:29
CASE
I mean, this is a comedy. Like, the plot is fairly irrelevant.

43:34
Speaker 5
Yeah, it's nice that they have it.

43:36
CASE
Yeah, it is nice plight of them to allow for us to get to these scenes and to keep the characters moving from place to place.

43:43
CASE
Yeah.

43:43
Speaker 5
But what are the things you remember? The goofy lines, the strange gags, the comedy. And the comedy is not in the plot in this one. It's in the.

43:56
CASE
But I think, you know, it's already a good movie. It's just a few small tweaks that would really push it into.

44:02
CASE
Great.

44:03
Speaker 5
Agreed.

44:04
CASE
Well, Jeff, it's been great having you on, being on. I really look forward to doing some more with you because like I said, dude, I miss you.

44:15
Speaker 5
Likewise. It's been too long since we've gotten to do this, and I think we need to do it again soon.

44:21
CASE
All right, well, until then, thanks so much, listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Next time, we'll be talking about Highlander two. And until next time, stay scruffy, my nerf herders.

44:36
Speaker 5
Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another past podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

45:10
CASE
Yeah, so that was our second episode. It's so weird listening to it. So we're listening to it now, the way I listen to podcasts now, where everything's at 1.7 speed with all the spaces cut out and hearing it in me crazy mode and hearing me still getting used to the idea of being the host of the show. We recorded a whole bunch of episodes, so I don't think this was actually the second episode recorded, not even considering the fact that we recorded this. Like, Ben and Addie and I recorded a whole bunch together because we didn't want them to be the guest for the first x number of episodes. We wanted it to be sprinkled throughout. So I think we did Dark Knight rises at the same session that we did return of the Jedi, and we certainly did a few more.

46:01
CASE
So when this episode was recorded, I had already done it, like, four or five times, and I forget necessarily the exact order for how I put them all together, but it was just a decision to, like, well, let's get Jeff on ASAP, because Jeff is the co creator of the concept for the show.

46:22
SAM
Right.

46:23
CASE
Also, he's awesome. I wanted to get him on and get him in regularly. And this is right about the time that fun and games launched. I think that it hadn't actually come out yet, but by way of when the show split off onto its own feed, I think we skipped an episode. I think we did, like, a week where we just had every episode of another pass come out, and then that gave me an extra week to get the first full new episode. So we ended up having fun and games be on the exact same schedule. Like, we're at the exact same episode count, or at least were. At some point, fun and games has had, like, bonus episodes that they don't count, and that's not even getting into side quests in terms of how many episodes they've done.

47:10
SAM
Right.

47:10
CASE
So getting it into the raw release order. But I think if you go back and look at the first Libson date for them, it's going to be a couple of weeks apart from us. And that when you look at episode nine or ten or whichever one was our first, another pass on its own feed episode. I think the episode number is the same as the one that came out the following day for fun and games.

47:35
SAM
Yeah. I want to say something about the episode. I think my favorite thing posited in this episode is about the dead ball in the adjoining parking lot or, like, down the street. I think that's, like, when you guys talked that out, that was my favorite bit. And I was like, oh, they should have done that because that would have been amazing. Because that always happens with malls. There's always, like, right across the street or the parking lot over. There's one place that just has a Coles and maybe, like, a Spencer's that's already in the other mall, and you're.

48:13
CASE
Like, wait, here's the wing with the sears.

48:17
SAM
Yeah, exactly. It's just like, that's it. There's no people here. We've come here for inner peace and quiet. Really? That's what this mall is all about.

48:27
CASE
Yeah.

48:27
CASE
Mall rats has really missed the window when it could have done the vacant mall craze of the early 2010s when everyone was going into all the malls that hadn't been torn down yet, and it was like, oh, look at all these vacant spaces. And I'm not sure where that's really at, but I don't see articles about them anymore.

48:48
SAM
Well, I did see a TikTok recently about someone walking through this one last mall that was dying in her town, and she was just making fun of the stores that were holding on because she's like, why are you still here? I think this one even changed their floors. They're so optimistic or delusional. So I think there's, like, small pockets in small town America where certain places are just holding on. But, yeah, for the most part, malls are a thing of the past.

49:21
CASE
For the most part, not all malls. I mean, there are certainly active ones.

49:25
SAM
Well, there's the mall of the like, where you can do everything. It's an experience.

49:30
CASE
Yeah, there are certainly malls that are going strong in certain communities, but I do think that the number of malls needed have gone away. So growing up, I had access to three or four major ones that were not terrible drives for me, versus now I think there's only two that are kind of holding on and they're doing fine. But for a period, there was just way too many.

49:55
SAM
That just were so many. I, as people know, if they've listened to this, I grew up in New York City, but my parents would drive up to Westchester or Yonkers, and it's almost all strip malls up there. It's like one after another, and there's too many. There's too many little, tiny. And I get it. People needed stuff, and now they can order stuff from Amazon. But there were far too many.

50:23
CASE
And also the megastore has replaced a lot of that. When I went to college upstate New York, there were tons of strip malls that were just vacant because a Walmart had moved in ten minutes down the road, and that assumed all the roles that the mall had. And then the Internet kind of came in and took up even more. So I think it really affects people who are in more remote areas versus there will always be a value of being able to just immediately go to a shop and buy a thing right then and there. But it certainly is not the epicenter of culture that it was in the.

51:00
SAM
Here's the big question, because this is like a cultural zeitgeist thing, right? And it's almost like a time capsule, because now we're talking about there's fewer malls and there are fewer people spending time at the mall as their social center of their lives. Would you still recommend this movie to someone who had not seen it?

51:23
CASE
It's more of a period piece now.

51:25
CASE
Which is funny because in the episode, we talk about how days of confused has so many similarities in the cast, and as a result, there's kind of a charisma to the movie that is shared, even though they're very different movies. But it's just like a lot of the same actors who have a lot of the same charm at about the same age in their lives. And that was very much a period piece. And now mall rats has become more of a period piece as well, where it's like, oh, man.

51:52
CASE
And not to say that it's all.

51:54
CASE
Gone, but it's just not the same where you kind of went to a mall by default as a place to hang out now it's sort of like you go with more of a purpose, which I guess is what they want.

52:10
SAM
Yeah, well, you know what? Yes and no. Because I think that there was a part of mall culture, especially, like, in the early aunts, even before that, in the 80s, where spending time at the mall was good because that meant that you saw more shops, right? So I think, yes, they still want you to go specifically to shop, but if you're walking around and doing activities, and then you get hungry and you go to the food court, and then you see that there's a hot topic or Spencer's, because there's always one of those around, and you stop, like. And then you're with grandma and she wants to go to like, you know what? Just, like, they want you to spend time there. They want you to spend money there.

52:57
SAM
They want you to go into Claire's and buy a bunch of small, cheap earrings that you can't afford. This is all for the time capsule kids. I don't know how many of you will understand any of these stores. Most of them are still.

53:08
CASE
Yeah, actually, a lot of them still are. Some have been reinvigorated because of millennials nostalgia for those things. You know, one thing I realized that we didn't talk about in the episode that would have been a perfect thing for that era of malls, which is a video arcade. Like, they don't go into one. I have to imagine that they just didn't know how they were going to film it or do anything with that. What were they going to do? But Kevin Smith is a video game fan. They have the whole thing with them playing hockey on the Genesis. And I remember there was like a whole deal that whatever one they played, they wanted to use Madden, but they got like, a sponsorship deal to use this other less successful hockey game on Genesis in it.

53:50
CASE
And that's why Smith, in chasing gaming made a big point. It's like, no, we're going to use Madden because that's the one I like, or not Madden, but the EA one, whatever.

54:00
SAM
Yeah. Which is, yeah, that's what we're going to use. Damn it.

54:04
CASE
So it's surprising that we have no element of a video game like a video arcade in this movie because that seems to be the type of thing that Kevin Smith would have experienced as a mall thing. And it's still in the time where that was a thing. Like, in fact, this is about the exact time that Street Fighter two was becoming so huge that you would imagine there'd be some element of that.

54:29
SAM
Something at least. But there wasn't actually. You're actually really right about that because it's so surprising because it's such a good time capsule. But that was totally missing and that was really big. And arcades were still a thing right.

54:48
CASE
Inside of malls, like, arguably one of the big things to go do and spend money at a controlled rate as opposed to make a purchase. It was like, okay, well, I'm going to go and I'm going to hang out and I'm going to put a dollar into the machine before I go to lunch. And then I'm going to come back and I'm going to play some more and see how I do. And that's not at all in this movie, which it's just interesting because you can imagine them doing something with the story about either one of the scenes of them just shooting the shit could have been while playing a video game or have a plot about a character who is good at video games or is stuck on the video game.

55:28
SAM
Honestly, since this is the man who directed clerks, actually, just having someone who's obsessed with video games that's always there. You could even make him like an oracle figure of them all, have them go visit the guy that's obsessed with his high score. There's so many things that you could do that fit right within the mindset of stuff that Kevin Smith would do has done.

55:55
CASE
Yeah.

55:56
SAM
So I don't know. Yeah. Missed opportunity.

55:59
CASE
Like, you could have had, like, Willem Black, instead of being obsessed with the magic Eye poster, which also is a perfect early ninety? S time capsule piece.

56:05
SAM
Oh, my God.

56:06
CASE
Instead of being obsessed with the magic Eye poster, he could have been obsessed with trying to beat some damn kid at Street Fighter two.

56:13
SAM
But you know what? That magic eye poster, that was freaking. That was everywhere. I feel like if you tossed a coin and you were like, arcade or magic Eye poster, I would say that we had to keep the magic Eye poster because there's nothing more time capsule of that era of mall than people standing around staring at those dumb posters.

56:38
CASE
Yeah.

56:38
CASE
So maybe not that then. So maybe that is the restriction, which is that both the way that they do the magic eye thing is the way that I instinctively would do a scene like that for video games, right? So I guess it could be like them all hanging out, talking while playing Konami X Men or something where you get like six players going something. I imagine the biggest reason they don't do it is that it is a licensing thing a little bit more difficult to shoot because you'd have to figure out how you're going to film them at the console. So I guess you would take the console apart or have a dummy setup of like here's the glass and then here's the controls and have the camera inside the glass and filming out.

57:21
CASE
And also from the standpoint of the time capsule, I agree that the magic eye is the more necessary one because it's also the one that people talk about less. Arcades still exist in pop culture, even if they don't exist in the same way for people to go to, because people love those games. There's still tournaments for maybe not original Street Fighter two, but Street Fighter two turbo.

57:45
CASE
Yes.

57:45
CASE
And like super Street Fighter two turbo, 1000%. And all those arcade collections, people love playing. And there's still like conventions, like Magfest, where a lot of us have gathered from, a lot of us being the certain point of view, crew have gathered for conventions. A big chunk of that is just here's the game room, and it's like all these old arcade games to go play. Or there's like all the barcades that have popped up all over the country, which are awesome, but they're also for millennial adults.

58:13
SAM
Absolutely. Well, they serve alcohol, so. Yes, they are. I was actually surprised because when I went to visit a friend who moved to Maui, and while I was there, went to one of the local malls. It was one of the bigger malls and they had an arcade inside, like a real arcade. And there were children in there. And I was like, what? I don't see arcade games with children anymore. I only see them at bars where children aren't allowed.

58:41
CASE
Yeah, well, and then there's also like, there's that other type of arcade, which is much more kid focused. The new games that I see tend to be like, there was a wave and it may have ended at this point where they were taking fruit, ninja and all the other iPhone games and just making giant ones, but the kind of prize centric kind of arcades are still around. They're just usually a bit smaller because they're competing with home consoles and with your phone, the need for it has changed a lot. But this movie is still set in an era where you have to go someplace to get that video game fix, especially of any sort of higher quality of game, because, like, consoles for a long time could not compete.

59:28
CASE
And then the flip happens with, like, the dreamcast, where all of a sudden it was like, oh, you can do a better version of this game at home. Okay, that changes the math all of a sudden.

59:38
SAM
I loved playing bomber man on the Dreamcast. I loved it, and then people started ruining it by cheating, and it wasn't fun anymore. Thanks a lot, people.

59:51
CASE
It's really interesting looking at this episode again. We recorded it twice, so we are very much, like, summarizing what we had already said. And we watched the movie together the first time, so were making notes to each other actively while watching the movie. But it was really nice to have that conversation with the two of us. Years ago, we had tried to get a podcast off the ground, and neither of us knew what were doing at the time. So the show that we wanted to do, the bizarro bad touch time or the bizarro bad touch fun time, never really got off the ground. We had it up on, like, blip for a little while, and then Blip completely died.

01:00:31
CASE
And it was like us doing commentary tracks on movies that we thought were good, which was interesting, but probably not for a lot of people. It was just like, yeah, man, that seems really good. And we would do, like, drinking games and stuff while were watching movies that were fun, but those are lost to history now, which kind of sucks because I have fond memories of those, like, oh, yeah, we're going to try to do a podcast and didn't know what were doing, but it was still a lot of fun. And were like, young energy and it was a good time, and it wouldn't be until our 30s, when all.

01:01:12
CASE
Of a sudden were like, oh.

01:01:12
CASE
This is how you do it.

01:01:13
SAM
Oh, okay, I understand now. And now both of you have multiple.

01:01:20
CASE
Podcasts and, like, real microphones and, like, real.

01:01:25
SAM
Wow. Yeah, there were a couple of times Jeff sounded like the voice of God, which was fine. I mean, he was just, like, kind of far away.

01:01:34
CASE
I don't know what happened exactly, but there's, like, a couple of spots with reverb. I think it's because his. Again, we're in the same room together, so it probably has something to do with my mic and his mic. But overall, he sounds pretty good. I don't sound terrible in this episode. There are going to be ones that are a lot worse in this recap.

01:01:56
SAM
And we will get there, people, very shortly.

01:01:59
CASE
It's like, either going to be the next one or the one after that.

01:02:04
SAM
There are a couple of episodes I'm.

01:02:05
CASE
Already nervous about, but this was a fun one. It was one that it made so much sense for us to come at because it was infamously reshot and recut. And so that was, like, a really good jumping on point for a discussion where it's like, okay, well, the original cut is too long. We know that they had to fix it here. Why don't we say we're starting from this point? And I think that was a really good exercise coming from a movie that we knew a lot about, which it doesn't always work because we don't always just know that much about the behind the scenes for the movie. But this is one where Jeff and I had both listened to the commentary track maybe 50 times each. And so we just knew the ins and outs of what went into making this movie.

01:02:49
SAM
And I think people can tell by listening to the episode, we don't even.

01:02:53
CASE
Feel the need to recap what actually happens, because it's just like, yes. We know exactly what happens intimately.

01:03:00
SAM
Yes. Which is why it's only 39 minutes.

01:03:04
CASE
What are we like? Yeah, we like this movie.

01:03:06
CASE
Yeah. Okay.

01:03:07
CASE
What didn't work?

01:03:08
CASE
Random spots. Okay, how about this?

01:03:12
SAM
Yeah. This is basically like 39 minutes of almost pure pitch. Yeah.

01:03:22
CASE
I think it was solid for the time. I think the big reason why we needed some kind of structure, we needed some kind of way of approaching it for people who weren't coming in quite as versed with a movie. Especially once we start getting weirder movies and we get guests who just aren't part of the normal conversation. The same way we needed some kind of structure to be like, hey, person who has talked with us a few times online, or maybe we guessed it on their show, this is how we do it.

01:03:51
CASE
We'll talk about the movie for a minute, and then we'll sort of give a pitch and give often a chance for someone who is uncomfortable taking the lead on that one a chance, like, listen to us kind of go for it and not have to participate and then kind of give them space.

01:04:10
SAM
Yeah. And definitely having me go first gives them confidence because mine are usually short and sweet.

01:04:14
CASE
If you're not saying notes, hey.

01:04:18
SAM
That was one time, and I stand by it. I stand by it. I absolutely do. I have to remember that is not something I can do very often. But, yeah, I still stand by it. No notes for Hercules? None.

01:04:33
CASE
But mullrats clearly had notes. Mallorets had notes at the time of production that were worked on. And I think overall, they did a good enough job, but the movie was not meant for theaters. It came out at the exact wrong era for people to actually watch it.

01:04:49
CASE
But then it came out on dvd.

01:04:51
CASE
And people loved it. And so I think it worked fine in that regard. And I think our notes are mostly tightening. You know, it's a sophomore movie from a low budget. Like, you can kind of see that it had a lot of growing pains. And Kevin Smith would be a much better writer with later projects and a much better director with later projects. I think of Dogma as being Kevin Smith's spiritual successor to Mallrats in terms of there's more action, chasing Amy is a follow up to clerks effectively, and then Dogma is a follow up to mallrats where there's more action, there's bigger stars, there's more set pieces going on, and Kevin Smith is just a way better director by the time you get there.

01:05:32
SAM
Angry.

01:05:34
CASE
Yeah.

01:05:34
CASE
So that's all I have to say, really, about this episode. I hope people enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed it.

01:05:41
CASE
I hope you don't feel like I'm.

01:05:43
SAM
No, not yet. I'm waiting for american tale. I've listened to that once before in the past, and I know that will torture me.

01:05:51
CASE
Then that's going to between recording issues and just, like, a lot of energy. That was a thing.

01:05:58
SAM
Yeah, it's awkward right from the top.

01:06:00
CASE
Not that it's like a bad episode, but it was just different energy.

01:06:08
SAM
Yeah. No, for me, it's like, well, we'll talk about it when we get to. Yeah, yeah. You know what? I'm going to put a pin in that, and I'm going to save it for when we get to it.

01:06:18
CASE
All right. Well, Sam, thank you for going down.

01:06:22
CASE
Memory lane with me. Going back to the mall with me.

01:06:25
SAM
Absolutely. You know what? We have one of those magic eye posters I think could use some focus.

01:06:33
CASE
God, can you imagine if I figured out a way to make the episode art. A magic eye poster.

01:06:39
CASE
He says that right now.

01:06:44
CASE
I don't know. Can you even do that on a screen or does that have to be printed?

01:06:49
SAM
I don't know. I would ask Google.

01:06:56
CASE
You'll find out.

01:06:57
CASE
Go to our website, certainpov.com, where you can see the proper episode art if you are coming at it from your podcast player, where some people have it.

01:07:06
CASE
So that it loads our thumbnails.

01:07:07
CASE
But even that's like the square version versus the 16 x nine full art.

01:07:14
SAM
Which you might need to see the magic sailboat in the middle. That is the magic eye.

01:07:26
CASE
Yeah.

01:07:26
CASE
So that's about it for this episode. Oh, I will note that the original art, this was a phase where I was still trying to figure out how to make the cutout figures not look weird against the background of the desk. And so I was doing a lot of feathering of the edges, which in retrospect doesn't look very good. So I'm not as big a fan of some of these earlier, some of the earlier. Another pass art. Even though the basic format is still what we use, it's just like, oh, that doesn't look as clean.

01:07:59
CASE
And I cleaned up some of it.

01:08:00
CASE
But there was only so much I was going to do for going back to old episodes.

01:08:06
SAM
That's fair.

01:08:06
CASE
So we'll see what this looks like and yeah, then next week we'll be back with another real episode of another pass. Or another full new episode of another pass.

01:08:19
SAM
Yes.

01:08:21
CASE
So last time were talking about turtles two. Next time we'll be talking about the island of Dr. Moreau.

01:08:26
SAM
Woohoo.

01:08:27
CASE
So people should check that out@certainpov.com. Or on.

01:08:31
SAM
It was a trippy movie on all.

01:08:33
CASE
Of our podcast players. They can find us on socials, on Twitter if it is still going, which is.

01:08:40
SAM
It's, it's mean. In the future, guys, I don't know what's going to happen, but right now the man baby who purchased it is upset that he's not getting enough views. And so he may ban muting and blocking so that to up his supposed engagement because he thinks that's why people are not seeing his stuff. So you never know. It might be even more of a shit show by the time this air.

01:09:10
CASE
Yeah, this is the week that we're recording this, the week that they tried to roll out 4000 character tweets, which at that point. So this is a blog instead of a micro blog. And this is also when they did so they broke it in such a way that you could only quote tweet or quote reply people instead of doing any other thing for 4 hours.

01:09:29
SAM
4 hours. It was crazy. And tumblr exists, guys. It still exists. It's still living. It's fine. You have a blog. Like, twitter can stay a micro, kind of.

01:09:41
CASE
That's kind of its niche, that you.

01:09:43
CASE
Can just say a thing.

01:09:44
SAM
Yeah.

01:09:44
CASE
And not make a big thing.

01:09:45
CASE
Yeah.

01:09:46
SAM
And then walk away and let the.

01:09:47
CASE
World burn and say a thing. Go into work.

01:09:49
CASE
And when you come back, be like.

01:09:50
CASE
Oh, that was engagement.

01:09:52
CASE
That I didn't expect. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fire up people.

01:09:58
SAM
You say something simple like, I like cream cheese. And then people be like, how dare you?

01:10:03
CASE
But if you are still.

01:10:05
SAM
What are you saying about butter?

01:10:07
CASE
If you are still on that hell.

01:10:09
CASE
Site, however, you can find us at another pass. You can find me at case Aiken. Sam, can people find you?

01:10:17
SAM
I hope not. I only want to be found on our discord. And here now we're doing it every week. Not every other week. So, look, you've got twice the. Sam, congratulations. Other than that, again, everything I said, or whether or not you're offended about how I don't love butter as much as cream cheese, which is a lie. I just said I liked cream cheese. Did nothing against butter at all. But if you have any complaints about that, please make sure to find case, because he takes all of my complaints.

01:10:54
CASE
Yeah.

01:10:54
CASE
And we'll be back next week, like we said. And I don't know, I feel like we broke the illusion on this one.

01:11:02
SAM
No, it's fine. Elon Musk is a man, baby. I hated him before. It was cool.

01:11:08
CASE
Just wanted to say that, well, if you enjoyed the show, pass it on.

01:11:13
SAM
Pass it on.

01:11:15
CASE
It.

01:11:16
CASE
Something.

01:11:16
SAM
No, actually, Case, the show goes here to see you. Remember when you're editing this later.