Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Sure Thing (1985) - Rob Reiner | Houselights #128

Transcript

The Sure Thing (1985) - Rob Reiner | Houselights #128 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the Nerd Party. Hello everybody at home, and welcome to Houselights
0:23
House of Rhiner, specifically Rob Reiner. And tonight we are going to be
0:27
talking about The Sure Thing coming out in nineteen eighty five, written by Steve
0:33
Bloom and Jonathan Roberts, starring John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, and Anthony Edwards.
0:38
Tonight, Oh my gosh, tonight. The only sure thing tonight is
0:43
that you guys are going to have a good time just as much as we
0:46
are, and have me. Who we have here joining us from the sunny
0:51
West coast is Darren Moser. And on the other side of the coast,
0:57
which is still sunny, we have have John Mills, who is just sunning
1:02
himself and rubbing lotion all over himself practically in slow mo. I wish you
1:06
guys could see it. Well, you're the one that keeps shouting at me
1:08
that I rubbed the lotion on my skin or I get the hose again,
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So like what else am I going to do? That's the only way we
1:15
could have gotten the opening titles. John, I don't know how many times
1:17
I got to tell you. And I am also your co host, Tristan
1:21
Riddell who is in embroiled with snow while everybody else is enjoying the sunshine.
1:27
And I hate how accurate that statement is. I mean, this movie was
1:32
totally accurate to my college experience in California. I don't know what you're talking
1:36
about. Did you go to Did you go to college in California? I
1:40
did, yes, But I went to a Christian university, so it's not
1:44
quite like this little different. I gotta say that. I always feel now,
1:51
granted, I went to a commuter school, so I didn't live on
1:53
campus in college, but I always look at these college movies and I'm like,
1:57
was it really like that on? Like I've talked with I knew people
2:01
who were who lived in dorms, and it didn't seem that fun. I
2:06
mean, imagine the same dorms, but it's all Halo and counterstrike. That's
2:12
what it was. That's college. That is college, yep, I mean
2:15
at least from like, I also went to a Christian university, but we
2:17
had wind and snow as opposed to um, your weather. No, it's
2:23
the white stuff that ruins your hopes and dreams. Oh okay, okay,
2:28
just like justin Rudel, I thought you were going to make a cocaine joke
2:32
since we were talking about the eighties movies. No cocaine helps. So this
2:36
movie is your college experience coming from east to West. I mean, I
2:40
didn't see the connection before, but it's there, and I'm smack dab in
2:44
the middle. And also what is smack dab in the middle of your ears?
2:49
Is the nerd Party's content. So you should go to the Nerdparty dot
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com. Check out all of our different kinds of shows. We got something
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for everyone. We got a Harry Potter show, we got a Doctor Who
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You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Just search the nerd
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Party. If you're on Twitter, go at Join nerd Party Now, John,
3:09
where can we find you on Twitter? Look for me as Castle Junkie.
3:14
You should be able to spell it. If you're a nerd like we
3:15
are, mister Moser on Twitter, they can find me at Doctor sci Fi
3:21
Dr Sci Fi. So let's go ahead and kick it eighties style. So
3:28
John Cusack was seventeen in this movie. I believe Anne very much looked at
3:35
yes, and they needed a permission slip from his parents in order to film
3:38
on location. Was it a permission slip? I read that he had to
3:44
like sue for emancipation, like in an amicable way or something like that.
3:47
He had to get legally emancipated or something. I didn't hear any of that.
3:51
Like all I read was that he needed permission from his parents. I
3:53
didn't read. Well, no, but I mean, like like whatever,
3:57
the amicable version of that. It wasn't like a Britney Spear thing where but
4:00
like he had to get legally emancipated so that they weren't his guardians anymore,
4:04
because like he had to go, you know, basically like work you know,
4:10
adult hours, Like technically he wasn't allowed to work the hours that I
4:13
mean according to Wikipedia, which is always right, it does say that they
4:16
had to go to court to have him emancipated. I don't again, I
4:19
don't I think like you're saying, John, it was amicable. It was
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just more of the legal technicality to allow him to legally be able to work.
4:28
But that was interesting. Yeah, I did not know that, all
4:31
right, So, yeah, the producer became his guardian that's so conflict of
4:35
interest. But okay, only sla hey, that's how they did the little
4:40
rascals. True. Yeah, John, were you seventeen when you saw this?
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No? No, I was this. I was this year's old and
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I had never seen this before any of us have seen it. I gotta
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say. I gotta say in the eighties, I was a wee lad and
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this wasn't really my these these sex comedies weren't really my age demographic. I
5:04
was more in the Transformers mindset and g I Joe the movie is more my
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speed around this time, and Robotech, especially Robotech. Okay, so this
5:14
was this was our first time seeing it all around, right, So all
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three of us, this was the this is the only time that we've seen
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it. Yes, And so you brought up sex comedy. I want to
5:25
I want to talk about that. Would you call this a sex comedy?
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Would you call it a comedy with sex? Would you call it a sex
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comedy? Would you call it a raunchy comedy? What would you define this
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movie at? I would struggle to call it a comedy honestly. Heyo,
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hey, oh early early views on her ratings. So, as I was
5:45
watching this one, I was getting frustrated since the cats had a bag for
5:47
you. I also was getting frustrated while watching this because I kept trying to
5:51
think, what is this movie trying to be? What is this movie trying
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to do. Is it a raunchy comedy like Porgies or American or is it
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a comedy that just has some sexual overtones to it? And it was so
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confusing to me because it wouldn't pick a direction. And there was one moment
6:13
I actually was reading some of the behind the scenes stuff and they, I
6:16
think, like some producer wanted to add something, and Rob Reyner said,
6:20
this is a movie for kids, we can't include that, and I'm like,
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what the heck? There was there was an actress who was going to
6:28
play a stripper, but then they changed that scene so that she was a
6:30
waitress, and I'm like, really, that's where you draw the line.
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That's where you draw the line. We literally see a woman with her legs
6:38
in the air getting pounded, and then we see like a dude's butt through
6:42
the window, and then like, I mean, you don't see anything but
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like her, she flashes the guy at Moonser, like we see five minutes
6:50
of Nicolette Sheridan rubbing oil on herself as the opening titles, and but no,
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having someone be not even stripped, just be a stripper. That's that's
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too well. I think that what Reiner probably meant at the time, not
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that I, you know, Rob and I aren't really on speaking terms right
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now, but I would guess that probably at the time he was like he
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was talking about kid quote unquote, I'm doing air quotes just since nobody can
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see me right now as somebody younger than he was, basically like fifteen up
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sort of thing. He wasn't saying like, ah, we're going after the
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Disney crowd on this one. You know, it's like I want to get
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those five year olds in the door. I think he probably would have been
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horrified at that idea. But at the same time, compared to a lot
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of those sex comedy stuff, sex whatever you want to call this, this
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is extremely tame for the time, like super extremely tame, and in fact
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champions the idea of you know, in its own sense, champions the idea
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of chastity and waiting for the right person as opposed because most of the movies
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of this era are all about you know, even if they eventually fall in
8:01
love with the right person. They're still having wacky sex along the way,
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whereas this one is about you know, them not indulging with each other and
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going along and relating to each other as humans and stuff like that, and
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then him not doing the thing at the end. Like it's sort of a
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reversal for the time. Doesn't mean that I'm sitting here like and therefore it's
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great cinema. I'm not saying that, but I get what they're trying to
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do here. Yeah, for me, I just I didn't get what they
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were I felt like they needed to commit either one go one way or the
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other. Because I was I was asking myself, like, am I being
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hypocritical? Because I love American Pie. I think it's a fantastic comedy.
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I think it really captured it came out in ninety nine, I felt like
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it really captured the time and the genre and it's raunchy as raunchy as hell,
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and it's hilarious. With this one, I just I was like,
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am I being hypocritical? Because this is nowhere near as raunchy as American Pie?
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But yet I'm offended at some of the stuff that they do in the
9:03
movie because it felt out of place. I think that's where it was kind
9:07
of coming at at me. Explain what was out of place, Well,
9:11
the sex stuff, like the like the like Nicolet Nicolete Sheridan oiling herself at
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the beginning, I'm like, sets the absolute wrong tone. Him seeing his
9:20
roommate, Um, you know, like going to town on some girl.
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Yeah, okay, that's good. You know, like just like all that
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stuff, like like the stories that were written about like you know, like
9:31
him writing about his equipment and everything like that. It just it. If
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you're going to go for a romantic comedy, go for a romantic comedy.
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Don't interject awkward things into it. Now. If you're gonna do a sex
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comedy, do a sex comedy. Commit. I get what you're saying.
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I get what you're saying. I think I feel the same way it because
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after the movie, I was like, and why was this movie called The
9:54
Sure Thing Because that's barely the plot. It's it's almost a footnote. Like,
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yes, you could say it's inciting incident, but yeah, it feels
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more like he started writing a romantic comedy of you know, the not star
10:09
cross over. This is the wrong term, but like you know, the
10:11
the guy and girl who don't like each other, who end up liking each
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other and they go on a wrong road trip, and then because yeah,
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and then because sex sells, They're like, well, we can't just tell
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that story. Your kids won't come see it. So we're gonna call it
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the Sure Thing, and we're going to insert these scenes that are going to
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all end up in the trailer so that the kids will come and watch it.
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But honestly, yeah, it is weird because at its core the story,
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the actual story, is a decent story, but it does feel really
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jarring when you then jump to these Yeah, it's like, what is it
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trying to be? I think it could do fine on its own as a
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romantic comedy. Would that put butts in the seat? I don't know.
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I'm not a you know, a producer in nineteen eighty five, but probably
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not, which is probably why they added the bits they did. I think
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that you the gag I was going to go for in the beginning was I
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would be very interested to see us pull an hour of material out of this,
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because there was barely an hour of material in the movie and it is.
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It's if anything, I think this highlights the shortcomings of Reiner that are
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still as a director. This is what I would have expected from his first
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film. I honestly think This is Spinal Tap as a fluke, because,
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let's be honest, especially in retrospect, Chris for Guests is some kind of
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mad genius with that stuff. Reiner's cast in This Is Spinal Tap is all
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a list talent. They might not have been a list at the time the
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movie was going, but these are people who went on to have careers that
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were phenomenally successful because of who the talent that they brought to the screen.
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This feels like a first film from somebody who comes from TV. It's lit
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like TV, the sets look like TV, the writing and the performances feel
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like TV. This honestly feels like what would have been in a normal world.
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His first movie, and This Is Spinal Tap is this bizarre fluke that
12:22
comes out of left field. And then this one comes along much more what
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I would have expected, and then this one winds up being more financially successful.
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So nuts to me. I don't know what the hell yet his art
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film first and then his stable film. Yeah, and maybe Spinal Tap gets
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that, you know, extra pass because it at the time, you know,
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the mockumentary. I mean, this is just a statement. I don't
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know if it's true, but it feels like that wasn't really a thing or
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as much of a thing as it is now. So it was kind of,
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well, we don't know what this is, so we're gonna see.
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Like you said, that kind of lends itself to the flukeness of it's a
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great documentary as it defines what that is at the time, so it kind
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of can do whatever it wants. It's the first one. May not be
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the first one. Please don't check me Internet, but you know, but
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yeah, no this one. But you know, for the actual story,
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we do get you know, TV movie of the Week as it is.
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I was getting major you know, Ferris Bueller's Day Off vibes not as funny
13:28
as Ferris Bueller, but I could almost see, you know, a Matthew
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Broderick time. Now I looked it up. So Ferris is next year,
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that's the next summer in eighty six versus this one. But yeah, it
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it's I mean, John Cusack one, he looks I mean, like we
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all said, super young in this very very young. But yeah, it's
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yeah, it just falls into that what does it want to be because like
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Ferris's, he's the super confident you know, I'm I'm kind of breakfast clubbish,
14:07
I'm going to be outspoken and do my thing, and you already love
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me. You just don't know it. And it's like, yeah, but
14:11
does she But you're kind of being a jerk and I don't know. Again,
14:16
it's it's kind of all over the map. As they travel across the
14:20
map, it is characterizations are all over the map too. I feel like
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there's a lot of character moments that may be funny, but at the same
14:26
time, you're like, would that character do that at that point in time?
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Like would GiB do that at that moment? Would Alison do that at
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that moment? I think, like what really kind of turned me off was
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when Alison, who we've seen as completely buttoned up for this entire time,
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all of a sudden strips off her shirt and flashes the guys in the other
14:48
car. Was it a funny moment kinda, But if it was a different
14:54
character, it would have been even funnier. If it happened later, it
14:58
might have more sense, Like I don't feel she was there yet, Yes,
15:03
exactly right. If it had happened later after THEA Wow, is it
15:11
that rare for me to agree with you? No, it's not. I'm
15:13
just teasing. He just wants to suck it in. No, it's fair
15:16
enough. No. I I like, after they've gone through everything, even
15:20
after the rainstorm, it would have made sense for her just to go absolutely
15:24
off the deep end like that. That's a natural character progression. And so,
15:28
like you were talking, you were talking about that point too, where
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it's like, would they do this now? I don't know, you know,
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yeah, like you said with the rainstorm, John, it's like if
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at that moment he says, oh man, this must be you know,
15:43
messing up with your planner because you weren't accounting for the rain, and she's
15:46
like accounting for the rain, like I'm more spontaneously than you believe. And
15:50
then she does something crazy like again this is this is as good as the
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dialogue that was in the movie. So I'm not apologizing for it, like
15:56
like that's how they get the trucker to stop and pick them up, right,
16:00
you know, like that kind of thing like they did in euro Trip
16:03
or whatever. But yeah, exactly. And see, this movie is filled
16:07
with a lot of funny moments like there there are several moments where I laughed,
16:11
but it's not a cohesive collection, Like it didn't feel like they earned
16:17
those moments like there there was I think there was one the two moments come
16:21
to mind where I was just like, Okay, that's funny, um,
16:25
and this is going to start off at rough territory. But like so after
16:33
the attempted rape, um, everybody laughed when Gibbs. When Gibb gets into
16:41
the car and just starts acting crazy, like I thought that was hilarious because
16:48
another guy or another character would have come in and tried to make a physical
16:52
altercation. But he's smart enough to know he has no idea if this guy
16:55
is a gun, He has no idea what this guy is capable of.
16:57
He doesn't want to get her hurt, and he goes a little crazy.
17:00
I just thought it was a good performance from GiB It's a fun performance from
17:06
q Sack in this in that moment, but the entire scene is undone by
17:11
how you mentioned how it starts. Yeah, you can have the old guy
17:14
just start hitting on her and making her uncomfortable and him being like even not
17:18
saying it's good, but like have him like start, you know, being
17:23
like Dennis from Always Sunny in Philadelphia, where he's just a slee's ball and
17:29
he's like, well, you want to get a ride, don't you?
17:30
Just like, where are you trying to proposition me? No? No,
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I'm just saying you want to you know, like have it be something like
17:36
like the cab driver in planes, trains and automobiles. That's something something yes,
17:41
like Dubie's Taxiola, Whereas I'm I can't imagine anybody watched that scene in
17:48
nineteen eighty five and was like ha ha, like there's nothing funny about that.
17:55
There's nothing you know it, And it's it speaks to again, I
18:00
think Reiner, being so young and so new to directing, he can put
18:07
his foot down about whether there's a stripper in the movie, but then this
18:11
scene he doesn't say. You know, it seems to me that maybe this
18:15
scene should play differently. Oh yeah, maybe yeah, like we can't have
18:18
a stripper in there, but attempted rape a okay, yeah, this so
18:22
long as slungs it ends with a joke, it's okay. It's like,
18:26
no, it's just not funny at all. And that's that's what sucks is
18:32
because I think that moment is funny, the Q Sack moment when q Sack
18:36
is coming in. But I hate that. I like, one of the
18:41
few moments when I find this movie actually funny is preceded by something god awful
18:45
and horrible that doesn't belong in there. And and then the second time that
18:52
made me laugh was when she found her credit card and she said, well,
18:55
my dad said it was only for emergencies, and he's like, well,
18:57
maybe we can wait for one to come up. Yeah. Well in
19:02
that scene too, I mean, I think Q Sack and Snega have just
19:06
like a natural screen presence, and even just a few lines earlier in that
19:11
when the when the trailer is locked, he goes, oh, yeah,
19:15
good, you know a lock. Yeah. Security is important in the in
19:18
the middle of nowhere like this with your trailer. Um. I honestly I
19:26
have to ask the question because you're like, there are scenes that made me
19:27
laugh, like quantify qualify rate your laugh on a scale of too ha,
19:37
where are we right? It's definitely closer to the like that's the most it
19:45
got out of me. Yeah, Like, there was no belly laughs,
19:47
there was no knee slappers, there was no oh my god, I have
19:49
to go check he was texting at the moment and put lol, but no
19:52
reaction in real life. Yeah, you know, only sociopaths do that,
19:56
Darren. If you type lol, that's a contract that you were laughing out
20:00
loud at that moment. Always with you, John, Always with you.
20:04
One thing with this movie, and it's just I never do this. Like
20:11
of the things that I watch that are on my TV, my phone is
20:15
not in reach. I don't play with my phone. I don't look at
20:18
my phone. I don't check on anything on my phone while something's going on
20:22
on the TV. If for some reason I get a call or I think
20:26
it's an important text, I will pause said TV and check my phone and
20:30
then put it down and unpause. With this movie, the dialogue was so
20:33
predictable, the story was so predictable. When a scene would start, I'd
20:40
be like, oh, I know how exactly how this is going to go.
20:41
Oh I wonder, Oh man, Oh Paramount's doing some funny business.
20:45
Oh okay, all right, interesting, okay, all right, the Halo
20:49
guy left. They're okay interesting, Yeah, Apple, Yeah, they chose
20:55
not to keep HBO. They totally known name that everybody knows and they're using
20:59
the word acts, which is really Hey, obviously they know more about branding
21:03
than we do. Dar, We're just I'm loling in real life to that,
21:07
But there you go. Lol, I r l and I didn't miss
21:11
a single thing because I knew exactly how it was going to play out.
21:17
Like I could have. I could have if you gave me the scene blocks.
21:21
I could have written the movie without ever seeing it before. Yes,
21:25
And it would have been that easy to do. What is fascinating to me
21:30
is I did do a little bit of reading before this about the movie,
21:37
and it has positive refusal. Roger Ebert gave this three and a half out
21:41
of four stars. This is on like top one hundred and two hundred lists
21:47
all over the place. I completely don't get that. I can't I can't
21:52
understand it. But what I will say is that Ebert a warding. What's
22:00
written on Wikipedia is that he said it was a small miracle for its handling
22:06
of teenage material in the Porky's era. I think that the positive reactions logged
22:11
at the time are the fact that this wasn't Porky's or Revenge of the Nerds
22:18
or movies like that where they were like, oh, this isn't this isn't
22:23
awful? Is this It has decent people at the core, It has you
22:30
know, milktoast sensibilities overall. Okay, I'm not because the thing is like
22:37
the onslaught of really risque comedy in the eighties. There's plenty of stuff where,
22:45
you know, even seeing it as a child, like you grow up
22:49
with it and everything. In certain comedies like The Blues Brothers you revisit later
22:52
you're like, yeah, that, yes, that's why that's a classic.
22:56
And you're like, oh, I remember loving Easy Money with Rodney Dangerfield and
22:59
you go, can you rewatching? You go, oh, that's just because
23:02
everybody love Rodney Dangerfield for a long time. This movie's awful, that sort
23:06
of thing. And I think that this if I were watching this, like
23:11
at my current age, little kids in a mortgage and a day job and
23:18
everything like that, and I'm seeing this onslaught of stuff like Easy Money and
23:22
Porky's and Porky's Revenge and all of these sorts of things, and then the
23:26
sure Thing comes along, my reaction probably would be very kind is like,
23:30
oh okay, oh you know, And that resolved pretty nicely. And the
23:34
point wasn't for him to have sex with the sure Thing, but to you
23:38
know, at the end of it, be a decent dude and wait for
23:41
the right girl. Okay, yeah, this is pretty good. I like
23:45
that. Let's let's talk about that. Let's let's talk about the ending a
23:48
little bit. Okay, So, how frigging low is the bar for John
23:55
Q sex character at the end where she goes, you didn't sleep with her?
24:02
No, I didn't, baby, totally could have, but I didn't
24:06
because I got feelings for you. Oh oh, finally a true gentleman.
24:11
He didn't have sex, even though he could have totally done it and lied
24:15
about it. But no, he didn't have sex with another woman, the
24:18
lowest thing that you could do in pursuing a relationship with somebody else. And
24:23
the woman doesn't even have a name. She doesn't have a name. She
24:27
does sure Thing. Yeah that's her name, that's her legal name on her
24:30
birth certificate. Is the sure Thing? Like that in itself has aged poorly.
24:36
So much of this movie is aged poorly, and that's one of them.
24:37
Where like this character is called the sure Thing. It's very broad.
24:42
I mean, it's cartoony in that sense, but they're especially in this genre,
24:49
there's not an expectation for more than that. I mean, they're establishing
24:53
it doesn't matter what her name is, she's the sure thing. Like that's
24:57
it's which not as good I'm saying, but that's what they're saying. But
25:03
that's the thing is like, yeah, something like this, this is God,
25:07
forgive me for saying it this way. It's groundling humor. This isn't
25:11
something complex. This is the sort of the toss off that you know,
25:15
you went, you know, you're you're groundling, You're you're going to see
25:18
something where you just your brain doesn't need to function. You don't care who
25:22
anybody's name is. I doubt that I'll remember GiB as the name of the
25:26
title character, not title character, as the main character in this movie,
25:30
Like, oh, come back, that's for sure, come back to me
25:34
in a week. What was the name of the main character in The sure
25:37
Thing, John Cusack, I don't know. Well, it turns out that
25:41
we were all the sure Thing all along. The sure Thing was the friends
25:45
we made along the way, except for Andy Dufraine, who went to jail
25:49
for leaving two people stranded in the middle of nowhere. Now, now that
25:55
that's Another thing that that really was so weird to me is that this movie
26:03
is about a guy whose entire mission is to hitchhike across the country so that
26:08
he can have anonymous sex with a random woman. But the people that are
26:14
the more you know they're they're they're the flanders Is basically, and you know,
26:19
they're singing show tunes, they're having a grand old time, and they're
26:22
treated as the butt of the joke, and I'm like, no, these
26:25
are actually pretty good people. You might not spend your weekend doing this,
26:30
but at least they're not hitchhiking across the country because their friend is promised that
26:36
no matter what, this girl will have sex with you. I don't know,
26:40
I think I think maybe there's a little bit of a perception problem here
26:44
with the characters. Yeah, it's it's it's true where you feel like,
26:49
yeah, they're the butt of the joke and they're like, oh, this
26:52
this this free trip that they're giving us is going to be so annoying because
26:56
they're because they're decent people, and it's it. Yeah, I definitely felt
27:02
that a little bit where it kind of blew my mind and um, but
27:06
then that's the thing is that, like, they're super decent people, and
27:07
I know that they're supposed to. I know that the movie is trying to
27:11
show them as being pushed to the limit, and that's what kicked him out.
27:15
That's why he was kicked out of the car of the car. But
27:19
I just at that point, it just again felt out of character for those
27:23
characters, Like, I don't know that I would have let them keep writing.
27:30
I might not. I might not have kicked out her. But John
27:34
Cusack's character, look, I've already forgotten his name. GiB right, Gibb
27:38
would have been out and like, screw you, dude, and I would
27:41
have explained to the cop. I'm like, that's the problem right there.
27:45
That's the guy that you need to blame for these issues right now. And
27:48
you could have gotten that that lonely hideous cop to listen to you for just
27:53
a moment, because that's just ah. I mean, I'm not saying it
28:00
was the wrong thing to do. Yeah, I'm saying it was. I
28:03
don't think that that character would have done that. Yeah, Okay, fair
28:07
enough, fair enough. But you know, look, man, it's the
28:14
soundtrack's good. It's got some good music on. Well, Okay, all
28:18
right, let's let's go. Let's go through a tour of the music here,
28:21
because I think it's pretty decent. Right Infatuation by Rod Stewart. It's
28:25
a good song, right harder rock and roll. Huey Lewis in the news.
28:30
Who can't love that song? Two Sides Love by Sammy Haygar. Sammy
28:33
Haygar is one of the greatest rock and rollers of all time. Right there,
28:37
go three right there? Absolutely perfect? All right, three right there?
28:41
Okay, yeah, um, Now I want to move on to something.
28:45
This is um. I want to ask you guys about this because this
28:48
is a trope, a frigging hate and it's it's lasted for decades, and
28:52
we all know what trope I'm I'm gonna say, And it's when the boyfriend
28:59
who's clearly going to get dumped by the end of the movie, is completely
29:03
wrong for the girl and is not exciting, is really boring. He's the
29:11
safer bet. Yeah, he has the nerve to be predictable and stable and
29:18
faithful and just absolutely he doesn't want to go out and get blind stinking drunk
29:25
in a room full of strangers. What's wrong with him? Good? He
29:30
picked the right kind of tea for her. That's a man. Yeah,
29:33
there you go. Was it Earl Gray? I think it was. It
29:37
was close to it. But yeah, but that's the thing. The t
29:41
scene went on way too long, guys. Maybe a little maybe just a
29:45
little terry, maybe just a little. But the movie shows us this character
29:49
as a loser. This movie shows us and the one scene we really see
29:55
him in, yeah, it's just like, oh, he's gonna get left
29:57
because he's the total opposite Gibb and we're supposed to like GiB and he's the
30:03
protagonist, and so we're supposed to like the protagonist. I hate that trope,
30:07
and I'm trying to think, like, okay, in nineteen eighty five,
30:11
is this a trope at this time? Like, do you guys have
30:15
any opinions on him? Should I give it some slack for that trope?
30:18
No? No, okay, no, everybody was tired of it by this
30:22
point. It's like the only purpose of this character is, like you're saying,
30:27
to elevate Gibb in some way so that we can be like, huh,
30:33
look at that square. He'd never get on a cross country trip to
30:37
go sleep with someone he's never met. What a nerd? Like that's seriously,
30:42
like that the whole purpose of the character is just to get dumped.
30:45
And it's like he didn't even need to exist. She could have been going
30:52
out for any reason whatsoever. Yeah, to see her grandmother, right,
30:57
and then you could little red riding jokes through the entire movie, which probably
31:02
would have been better than half the material we got. But no, she
31:04
had Like but honestly, I don't think an eighteen year old should have been
31:07
dating a forty five year old, like, you know, Like, I
31:11
just think that's wrong. He was only forty five at heart. Okay,
31:17
he wasn't forty five in real life. I don't think he was. I
31:18
think they definitely dressed him up as if he were, you know, significantly
31:26
older. But he was older. He was like ten or twelve years older
31:30
than Yeah. Well here's the thing, Like, so it's so who is
31:36
the foil in this movie? Like, you know, there's again not that
31:42
I want to keep comparing to Ferris Buelers, because it's a part of the
31:45
movie, but but in Farris Buelers, like the principle is the foil like
31:49
and granted this is a different kind of movie. I'm not saying it has
31:52
to be a one for one, but like, yeah, Jason is not.
31:56
He's not the bad guy. He's just the air. Like he's not.
32:01
It's just a conto road movie. This is a road movie like Man
32:05
versus Nature or whatever. Yeah, like your your foil is either time or
32:08
circumstance or the crazy craft that they get into. I mean this, this,
32:14
this format has been used. It Happened One Night has been remade so
32:17
many different times, and this is just another veneer of It Happened One Night.
32:23
Far better movie than this, but yes, well I've never seen it
32:27
happen when, so jud judge me all that you want to. I've heard
32:31
great things about it. But speaking of the timelock on it, the timelock
32:37
is so forced and stupid, where Gibb has to get there by December twenty
32:43
second in order for him to sleep with the sure thing. And I was
32:47
never quite clear because she get me, what did she decide? She'd done
32:52
her wilding long enough by that point. I know they mentioned a reason or
32:57
something, or it's like, oh, it's leaving for christ Christmas break or
33:00
something. She was leaving and go see your parents something, and she would
33:02
never have sex after that Christmas break, she was going to join a nunnery
33:07
afterwards. That's not the best reason, but it's as well. See that's
33:10
that's what bothers me about that whole thing, Like, not only is it,
33:15
you know, regressive to just have this character called the sure thing,
33:17
why does it need to be one character because they never explain why she is
33:22
a sure thing? Like why is this incredibly gorgeous woman who could have any
33:28
man that she wanted on that campus at any time waiting for gibb and why
33:35
is she a sure thing? They'd never explain that, Like, wouldn't it
33:37
have made more sense for Anthony Edwards character to say, come, we're having
33:44
a huge party. It's a one night rager before everybody goes on Christmas break.
33:50
All these amazing women are going to be there. You're gonna have your
33:52
pick of all these women. If you are here, you like you.
33:57
It's a sure thing. It's a sure thing if you were here because all
34:00
these amazing ways stop making this movie ten times better with three minutes of dialogue
34:05
Tristan. That gives you the ticking clock. That makes sense. Yeah,
34:10
that gives you multiple options. It's not as regressive as just calling one character
34:15
sure thing, because like she's a really sweet girl like you when we see
34:19
her, Yeah, she's like she's nice. Why are you so nice?
34:21
Why? Like what's the deal? Never never mind this why are you so
34:23
nice? Thing? Like the what there was the way that Anthony Edwards whatever
34:30
his character's name was her well, but but the way he paints the character
34:34
is she's just going crazy and she's just having the time of her life because
34:38
she's just had enough. But we don't see that exactly exactly my point.
34:44
We see her and it's like there's I don't get any vibe off of this
34:47
character that she's at the end of her rope. She doesn't care anymore,
34:52
she's just and on top of that, like it's it's one of those things
34:58
where I just think that there were certain things and I keep going back to
35:01
it, just like you mentioned Trisan, so many things where you have an
35:07
opportunity to rewrite and refine, and all you chose to do was changed the
35:13
stripper to a waitress. That's it. Everything else was fine, and you
35:17
could have that's the thing that needed to be just a microcosm of the movie.
35:21
Yes, I mean you could have made it where both he and both
35:25
GiB and Lance were both from California, and Lance state and State and went
35:30
to the awesome university. But Gibb went East Coast and he can't afford to
35:34
get home for Christmas, so he already has a family, like other reasons
35:37
to go, like instead of just yeah, I mean, it's not hard
35:42
to make it here in all honesty, In all honesty, you could set
35:45
up the central thing of him having to get back is that his old girlfriend
35:51
has you know, it's not working out. She's going to go He went
35:54
off to the university. She's decided she's going to go off somewhere and she's
36:00
like, GiB you gotta come back. I gotta see you one last time.
36:02
We've got to see if the magic is there. Come back home.
36:07
And but I leave on December twenty second, and I'm gonna fly. I'm
36:10
gonna study in Europe for four years. And you mean that probably of the
36:15
people that we are with in high school aren't necessarily right for us yep,
36:21
as we age and mature. That's a great method message to put through.
36:27
Or you could have the message of Homer Simpson, which is I haven't changed
36:30
since high school, and suddenly I'm not cool way to my out of touch.
36:34
No, it's the Children's Children. Yes, yeah, yeah, I'm
36:42
calling it. Oh wait, well, before we round third, I want
36:45
to just talk about some of the other casts that we have, because again,
36:49
it's really fun seeing people that you don't necessarily know who they are,
36:52
but you know them from other things. So I think I had to look
36:57
it up because she looked so young with you know, Alison the main you
37:01
know, female protagonist. Is that what we call it? Female lead?
37:07
Uh? Waltwood. Later we would see her as the Druish princess from Spaceballs,
37:14
which the only other thing I've ever seen her in. But she actually
37:17
did grow up to be a princess like her character wanted. Here you go.
37:22
And now that I'm seeing that Lance would become Doctor Green from Er,
37:28
that's tripping me out a little bit. He's a Top Gun the year after.
37:31
Yeah, this is Goose from Top Gun. Oh you're right, well,
37:36
how did he go from that? He's also in the same in the
37:38
same year, he's in a raunchy sex comedy called Revenge of the Nerds.
37:45
Like Andy, Edwards had had a hell of a career in the eighties and
37:52
into the nineties. Um and By the way, Daphne's Zeniga wasn't just Princess
37:55
Vespus. She was also on Melrose Place. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:00
But last, but not least, we also have the Professor Professor Talb
38:05
before she discovered the Stargate as Catherine in in Stargate Camera. Yeah, we
38:13
were talking off camera or off mike about how like her first movie was in
38:17
nineteen forty and she's been acting ever since, and yet the only thing that
38:23
you and I know her from is Stargate, her second to last film at
38:28
the very end. But hey, that's all right. But yeah, there's
38:31
Sarah Buckston is in this, Tracy Reiner, and uh, you know,
38:37
we talked about Tim Robbins, and it's just like, yeah, there's there's
38:40
a lot of people that like, you're watching this and you're just like,
38:44
oh, I know them, I know them, I know them, I
38:45
know them, and uh, and one thing that it's just you know,
38:49
like last last week when we talked about Spinal Tap, we talked about how
38:53
we couldn't judge this as Rob Reiner's first film because it's so different from anything
38:58
else that he's ever done. And I think John, you hit it on
39:01
the head earlier when you talked about how, oh, now we know that
39:06
this that was a guest vehicle, like Christopher, Guest and everybody else,
39:10
like Rob Reiner probably was just a workman and and Guest and everybody else,
39:15
like that's that's where the movie is. Guest just wasn't comfortable being a director
39:19
at that point. He needed somebody to be running the camera and with this
39:24
one. By that, this is as you said, like this is very
39:28
much feels like a TV film, like this is a TV movie like that,
39:30
like you you just I just I just want to reiterate everything you said,
39:35
because I think you just absolutely nailed this picture. Is that it's a
39:38
TV movie with some sex thrown in. It's lit like a TV movie,
39:43
it's performed like one, it's shot like one. It's just the script was
39:47
probably written in like a couple of weeks and now see hit the deadline.
39:52
Yeah, but keep in mind like every time we say like, oh,
39:55
the script was written in a couple of weeks. Yeah, so it was
39:57
Star Trek two, so like Rocket, you know, yeah, yeah,
40:00
no accounting for results, I guess. Yeah, it's true. It's true.
40:04
It's a generalization. It's a bad one, but it's but it's a
40:06
generalization and it's just yeah, it's but this is this is beloved like a
40:10
lot of people like this. This is ranked really high. We have no
40:14
idea. Um, I have one question before we give our ratings here.
40:17
We keep kicking that down the road as we're all ready to wrap up and
40:21
everything, but I gotta ask. Okay, number one, I don't remember
40:24
the exact year, but yeah, they're eighteen and they're drinking heavy in this
40:29
movie. And that's because this is right around the time that the law has
40:32
changed. So I'm just a little too young to have enjoyed that era.
40:39
So thanks guys. He had a fake idea in the bar that he was
40:44
in. Oh oh, maybe I had changed. Maybe they maybe that was
40:46
something the guy said, like doctor doctor. Yeah. And also, how
40:52
did he pay for the boots? How do you pay for the boots?
40:53
He bought rounds very well, but he had eighteen bucks to his name.
40:57
I was, okay, there was a lot cheaper, then a lot cheaper,
41:01
and I promise you he wasn't drinking the top shell stuff that we do.
41:05
So you know, there you go. But I got to ask the
41:07
two of you because I suspect I know the answer. Have either of you
41:10
shotgun to beer, because that's very pivotal to this movie. That was so
41:15
Yeah, I've seen people do that, but I didn't know that. Oh
41:21
that does the pressure thing which makes it go all down at once, which
41:23
totally makes sense. But I had no idea why people did that. Tristan,
41:30
have you ever shotgun to beer? I have had one sip of beer
41:35
in my entire life and I almost spat it up. Well, what type
41:38
of beer was it? Oh? It was yellow. I don't know that
41:43
narrows it down. Um, all right, we'll have to fix that.
41:45
UM. I have tried to shotgun a beer once or twice in my life,
41:51
and I can tell you that I'll never understand why people do it,
41:54
because it's the most disgusting, terrible way to consume any like. It's sounds
42:00
like a giant lugie going down your throat. If you're if you're that desperate
42:04
to get that drunk that quickly, then buy a bottle of Boone's Farm Grimace
42:09
through the first half of the bottle and you're fine. Don't bother with a
42:14
shotgunning thing, and always drink responsibly, folks. I just want to say
42:16
that drink responsibly. That's what the ads say. Apparently, um John Cusack,
42:22
Like the entire reason why that's in the movie is because John Cusack said,
42:24
oh yeah, I know how to do that, so they wrote it
42:27
into the film. That's good to know at all. Yeah, that was
42:34
such a I don't want to say plot point, but kinda was he kinda
42:38
was he? Uh? He practiced with soda, he learned how to Yes,
42:43
yes, yes, that's what it was. Pepsi, which is less
42:45
carbonated than coca cola. Although shotgunning soda sounds even worse. Maybe shotgun doctor
42:52
Pepper who actually explode. It'll clear up your naisal cabin. Now, what
42:58
if you swallow some mento and then shotgun some diet coke while pop rocks are
43:04
being thrown out? I've seen urban legend. I know what happens. Uh.
43:07
So okay, all right, right, okay, okay, okay,
43:10
okay, okay, okay, okay, all right. So, so,
43:14
John, how many um shotgun beers are you? Are you giving this picture?
43:20
And why? Uh it has fallen continually since I watched it. I'm
43:27
gonna have to go with a one. I really think this movie stinks.
43:30
I do I think it stinks. You know, guess what, film lists
43:36
and people who love this movie come after me all that you want to for
43:39
all the charm the q Sack and Zuniga bring to it, this is a
43:45
one I'll never watch this again. And the one is just in um an
43:50
acknowledgement of the absolute earnestness that q Sack and Zuniga try to inject into that
43:58
final scene. They try so hard to save this movie, but it's beyond
44:02
their skills at this point. They're too young. If they made this movie
44:06
three years later, they might have been able to save it. But alas
44:08
nineteen eighty five is the sure thing. One shotgun beer and at that it's
44:14
a PAP's blue ribbon. It's not even a bud light, all right,
44:19
doctor sci Fi. Um, how many master cards that you've that you found
44:23
in your in your date book? Well I gotta mention that I have a
44:27
master card for like a three minute scene. God that seemed was too long
44:31
for anyway. Um yeah, same kind of same as John. I don't
44:37
really see myself ever watching this again. It you know, it's a it's
44:44
a movie. It's it man. We just like ripped this movie to shts
44:52
did. I thought that we were a little coy with it for a while,
44:57
but right out of the gate, all of us were like, no,
44:59
we hated this. Let's talk about why it sucked. I mean,
45:01
I wouldn't say that I hate is a strong word. I wouldn't say I
45:05
hate it. It's a good word. Sometimes it could have been a lot.
45:08
It's easily it's disappointing because it easily could have been a lot better with
45:13
little changes. And I think our deduction that this is really the true first
45:19
film. I'm going to give it a one for first film my man Man,
45:25
same as Mad Max, by the way, I hate Yeah, Okay,
45:30
so okay mad Max. We all we all gave ones to Mad Max.
45:36
Yeah. No, Like I enjoyed this movie more than Mad Max.
45:38
So that actually makes me feel a little bit better about the rating that I'm
45:40
going to give um. I actually, when I watched this and I put
45:45
it on letterbox, I gave it a two and a half because I was
45:49
like, it's mediocre. It has some fun parts, but you know,
45:51
it's it's not that great. But like, after talking it out with you
45:53
guys and just ripping on it for forty five minutes, straight. I'm like,
45:59
no, like this is this isn't just mediocre. No, this is
46:01
a bad movie. There's several reasons why it's bad, and it easily could
46:05
have been changed. I'm going to give it a two. Um to me,
46:09
two is a bad film. One and a half, I say,
46:14
as Walmart been, Um what what I have this written down? What is
46:17
this? So? Like? Yeah? Like the ratings according to Tristan in
46:22
the rigious style, they're written in stone, handed down from ten ten?
46:30
Shut up on my done? Um, one and a half has Walmart been?
46:35
One star is a waste of film? And a half star is how
46:37
did this get made? So I'm gonna i'm i'm I'm I'm good with I'm
46:40
good with my two. My two star for bad mhm. On my scale,
46:45
it makes sense. I think I think I was kind of leaning towards
46:50
two. But the fact that I will literally never choose to watch this movie
46:52
again kind of like, oh yeah, I'll never watch this again. There
46:55
yeah, also never watch bad Max again. Just deleted often the service.
47:01
I'm going to take it off the server. I what, what, John?
47:04
What did I do that with? Like? We we did a movie
47:07
for this podcast, and I actually I screen recorded my phone. I remember
47:13
that. I remember that to me to somehow out of the hundred twenty eight
47:19
that we've gone through, Triss and I can't recall it off the top of
47:22
my head. Well, what had to have been? It had to have
47:24
been? Yeah, like okay, so right now, folks like we keep
47:27
track of Darren Era, Yeah, we keep it wasn't Sugarland expressed it might
47:35
have been Rainmaker. You didn't watch that with them? It was sixteen candle,
47:43
sixteen candles, No, I don't think it wouldn't have candles flourished about
47:46
it. Oh, howling, the Howling? I think it was the Howling
47:52
or Conquest of Paradise, which is also it was one of the two.
47:55
I think it was. I think it was. I think it was the
47:58
Howling because that one was so bad, and the Howling I gave a one
48:01
as well. I was so offended by how terrible that was that I screen
48:06
recorded me to leading a p server. Although honestly fourteen ninety two too,
48:13
So yeah, the sure thing for me enters the category of mat the original
48:16
Mad Max and the Howling and fourteen ninety two Conquest of Paradise. It is
48:23
oh now see now I want to raise it. I'm calling the audible right
48:28
here, okay, because this was noting yet, you're gonna I'm gonna say
48:32
one and a half just because you know, well, you can't compare to
48:37
pass results though, because I can't. Thing is in the moment. I
48:43
can compare to pass results because it's an important measuring stick to be like if
48:47
you if you said to me, look, these are the last five movies
48:51
on Earth. Everything, every other drive has been raised, all other celluloid
48:54
has been burned. And I have to watch the sure Thing fourteen ninety two
48:58
Mad Max or The Howling. I'm watching the sure Thing every day all day.
49:01
Yeah, that is a good point. And I'm just getting up and
49:05
I'm getting up and going to the bathroom during you know what, I'm gonna
49:07
audible too. I'm going to bump it up to a two as well.
49:10
I feel, oh that's right, because you don't believe in half stars.
49:13
I don't be in half start you know again, like it was it the
49:17
Howling was worse. I'll just say that the how know. I think this
49:21
is good. I feel like I've been a good influence on the eleventh thousand.
49:25
If you keep talking, if you keep talking like that, Tristan,
49:29
I'm gonna go back down to the one. So let's just call it while
49:30
we can, all right, So I give it a to Darren gave it
49:35
to two. John gave it one and a half. As we go,
49:37
as we went through our one star picks and realize that the sure Thing is
49:42
nowhere near as bad as those films, you know, after a rhyner or
49:45
sometime in the future, I would love to do an episode where we discuss
49:49
the movies that we rated the least or the rated the lowest and then rated
49:53
the highest. I would love to kind of kind of go back and forth
49:57
and kind the lowest aggregative, like the lowest of all of it, like
50:00
in the lowest average for all of us, because like Last Action Hero,
50:04
you gave a three and a half between That's a good question, John,
50:07
like individually or between the three of us, or are we overthinking it?
50:13
I mean, you could be crapping on my idea that I just haven't really
50:15
formed. Your brainstorm. We're brainstorming. This is back at house stuff,
50:21
guys. You're listening to it live. You're listening to the Magic live here
50:24
on Houselights. You guys, should be thinking us that you're listening to this
50:29
instead of us continuing sure thing, yes, yeah, you know what.
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This happens to us whenever we hit one that we don't like, like we
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might have talking We want to talk about anything else but that movie. All
50:42
right, okay, so um John, what are we doing next week?
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Oh? Next week we're going with the first dramatic I think Stephen King adaptation
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when Rob Reiner brought to screen Stand by Me, starring a pre Wesley crusher,
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William join the Revolution, join the Nerd Party,