This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Alex Smolowe: Hey Nick.

[0:01] Nik Walker: Hey Alex.

[0:03] Alex Smolowe: So uh guys, as we said before, we're recording these cold opens in the past. And uh our producer Brittany just told us to claim our space. Claim ourselves. Because like I love Sasha. She's so great.

[0:18] Nik Walker: She is great.

[0:19] Alex Smolowe: But that conversation, you know, it’s well sometimes I just sometimes I just need my friend Nick. You know, sometimes I just need to take it down, get back in my little bubble.

[0:29] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[0:29] Alex Smolowe: Uh hear those dulcet tones. Yeah, you know, what is it? What does it mean to come back to the space? Come back to the ground. Because, you know, Sasha's certainly claimed the space. Um, you know, almost drunkenly so.

[0:42] Nik Walker: Uh and I'm glad she did.

[0:44] Alex Smolowe: I'm glad she did too. I'm glad she can have that space, but as long as long as I get this little moment and our audience gets this little moment before we dive back in. Before we go back, before we find out what our choices for the chaos film is. So last episode part one, we didn't talk about movies at all. Like we just talked talked about everything else but but movies. This one we do eventually talk about movies. Uh so get your little notepads ready. So you know, for those of you playing along at home. Uh did you guys get notepad? Did we get them notepads? Do we have notepads? If one person listening to this podcast has a notebook filled with what our choices are, I will consider this a rousing success.

[1:25] Nik Walker: If you are that person with the notepad, do you know what you get? Candy.

[1:32] Alex Smolowe: Stay away from our audience.

[1:35] Nik Walker: Little Justin.

[1:39] Alex Smolowe: Little Justin.

[1:42] Nik Walker: Little Justin.

[1:45] Alex Smolowe: Fuck yeah. That's the marker. That's what you come back to is hot dogs. So, ladies and gentlemen, when you come back, you'll be listening to Hot Dogs. For us, it's not gonna be, it's instantaneous. We're already in the new episode. Congratulations. It's episode part two of Sasha's chaos episode. But I just wanted to pause that because it's too long. We've gone on too long talking about hot meat.

[2:05] Nik Walker: Is it weird that I'm kind of hungry?

[2:06] Alex Smolowe: I want meat.

[2:08] Nik Walker: I want meat. Talking about meat and hot.

[2:13] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, you gotta go back. Go back to the first part. You know, the cold open. We'll probably do a cold open that'll explain it a little bit. Get everybody up to speed. A deli. Alex, what was it?

[2:24] Nik Walker: I don't know how I would explain this conversation.

[2:26] Alex Smolowe: No, there's no touching this. It's just pure chaos.

[2:29] Nik Walker: I don't know how I prepare somebody for a part two of this.

[2:32] Alex Smolowe: You don't. You just throw them in. Wasn't there a deli that we used to go to in college? Or was am I making this up?

[2:38] Nik Walker: We went no, we went to Yum House, Yummy House.

[2:42] Alex Smolowe: Chinese.

[2:45] Nik Walker: Oh, yeah. There was a Chinese on the corner.

[2:47] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[2:48] Nik Walker: I don't remember what it was called.

[2:49] Alex Smolowe: Yummy House.

[2:49] Nik Walker: Yeah, it was like 13th and B.

[2:51] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, 13th and B. It was close enough that we ate there way too often for the city.

[2:54] Nik Walker: So Sasha, some background for you is uh when I was a senior in college, uh I went through the worst breakup of my life. Of my life. And uh I was living, I had an apartment in Harlem uh at the time, but I did not want to go there. So I literally just lived rent-free on Alex's couch. Uh for my I'd say for a while. There was three of us who actually lived there and about 750 square feet within which to live.

[3:25] Alex Smolowe: Yep.

[3:25] Nik Walker: Three grown, you know, college age men, and then Nick on the couch.

[3:30] Alex Smolowe: Oh man. Stayed there. It was the best.

[3:31] Nik Walker: It was really good times. We may think that that was where Whiskey Land started.

[3:33] Alex Smolowe: That was where Whiskey Land started.

[3:38] Nik Walker: Holy shit. I don't know if you know this, but I'm an original uh contributor to Whiskey.

[3:42] Alex Smolowe: Alex actually, Sasha, Alex actually wrote the song Whiskey Land.

[3:46] Nik Walker: I'm not even joking. It's not a joke. I wrote Whiskey Land. I have yet to receive my contract for the work.

[3:53] Alex Smolowe: He Nick has disputed over time. I wrote a lot more than that, and he slowly trimmed it out. And this is the one of the show that he's tried to get rid of.

[4:02] Nik Walker: It's too good. It's the core. That song is things.

[4:06] Alex Smolowe: So he's designed the contributor, aka I wrote the title. Okay, I wrote it. Well, like 10 years later, more than that now. Uh I think that's all I get.

[4:15] Nik Walker: That's all you can do.

[4:16] Alex Smolowe: Because I pieced after like two weeks. You literally was like, I'm not gonna die. This is hard to collaborate with you in this capacity. I'm gonna go do something else. So I'm take you can take my music and whatever. And then he worked on it for 10 years. I was like, you know what? There might be money here. So I did it, right? Like I'm a, I did this. I did come back.

[4:37] Nik Walker: It's so funny, because yeah, Whiskey Land is Whiskey Land definitely was born there. A lot of things were born there. My, you know, my the I this podcast was born in that in that den of sin, that horrible place.

[4:50] Alex Smolowe: That's exactly what it was. Um just a wall of movie posters, like it was the most college thing.

[4:57] Nik Walker: Yeah, any place more than like two and a half men exist is gonna smell like feet.

[5:02] Alex Smolowe: It's so true. It's actually really when I remember I remember I don't know if I ever showered Alex.

[5:11] Nik Walker: I don't think I ever once and I mean because I would stay there.

[5:15] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, I think you smell smell bad pretty good.

[5:17] Nik Walker: I smell pretty bad. That sounds about right. It was also, Sasha. This was also so this was like a year out of college. I had uh gone on a big I didn't understand how to work out, I didn't understand what fitness was, Sasha. So I was I thought that you just drink muscle milk and that's all you gotta do. Just so I just drank muscle milk. So I gave I remember those guys.

[5:37] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, no, no, but but I didn't work out, Sasha. I just drank muscle milk. Do you understand what I'm saying? I just got fast.

[5:45] Nik Walker: I remember those guys. Great.

[5:48] Alex Smolowe: I remember the guys that just drank muscle milk. And I was like, I feel like this is part one of a several part series, but you're only doing it. And listen. If you are somebody who has, you know, who has a little extra weight on them, and you are beautiful, there is no problem. But if you are somebody who's trying to gain muscle, do not just drink muscle milk and not work out. Don't do that. That's actually antithetical to the entire point and purpose of the drink. You know what I mean? Like, so it was just bad. I just I was like, I just drank muscle milk and I ate bagels. Do you know like I don't know what I was thinking?

[6:25] Nik Walker: I don't know what carbo loading, man.

[6:27] Alex Smolowe: Carbo loading, dude.

[6:28] Nik Walker: That's adding mass. Building mass.

[6:31] Alex Smolowe: Adding mass. I was building mass. I was building so much mass. I was like, Sasha, I was just trying to be like clay, so you could I could be sculpted.

[6:43] Nik Walker: So problematic. Uh but but no, uh, it was it was a crazy time, and Alex was Alex was there for me. But but in that, we we got the idea to talk about movies, and and that that is where this came from. We just we we both love movies and we both love this, and and now you know, Sasha, we're you know, we have shared chaos. So it was like, well, putting the two of them together, it's the chaos movie. Uh so you know, let's like attempt.

[7:06] Alex Smolowe: Oh, my cat just farted. My cat just farted, y'all. God fucking.

[7:10] Nik Walker: Is it happening again.

[7:11] Alex Smolowe: Oh my god, it smells awful. Fuck Ferris. Well, fill everybody in on what happened right before the episode started.

[7:18] Nik Walker: Ferris, okay, guys. So Ferris is in pure chaos mode. Ferris is uh so we are we are going to leave this apartment to go back to another apartment in New York uh soon. And Ferris is very excited yet. I mean, I think he senses it in the air. He pooped everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean every where uh every and every corner, like I mean, what he'll do is like it will be he'll be like whining and running around the house, and then when he it's when he feels that he doesn't have enough attention, like you will all of a sudden you'll be doing your work or whatever, and then you'll be like, what the fuck is that smell? And you'll check the litter box and there's no poop in there, but it's just like little deposits of poop that he places in like the most inconvenient spots just to let you know how pissed he is at you, and then and then he will like have the audacity when you see him to like literally this is what he did.

I was like, Ferris, what the fuck? He looks at me and he just walks into the bedroom, like truly he knows precisely what he did. And Sarah tries to tell me he doesn't. This cat knows exactly what the fuck he did, but I love him. He's my little, he's my little man, but he just farted in my face, so that's cool.

[8:29] Alex Smolowe: Uh so Ferris doing well, but um, but movies. That's what we're here to talk about.

[8:34] Nik Walker: But movies, movies, movies, movies. We gotta talk about movies. So so today's today's theme uh part in part two. Uh it should have been it should have been part one, but it's we're going to part two. Uh, is the chaos movie. We the the chaos movie, and and as such, we we often I find on Little Justice leave our our themes vague. Do you know what I mean? So that we can just kind of have an open-ended what wherever it takes us. And chaos, I I realized as we were prepping for this very vague theme do you know what I mean like very vague it was it was a lot more difficult than I thought to find super difficult I was like oh like chaos like it's a broad word like it's used a lot generally you know it shouldn't be too hard to find find but no it is yeah it's I had to like look up the definition and try to apply the definition to like various things and it's I don't know it's it's hard you did some you did a deep dive oh I did a deep dive so I take this very seriously Sasha how do you feel how do you feel that we use the how is chaos defined on our show the Chaos Twins how do we define it on Chaos Twins it is undefined it is undefined so we have not defined it no chaos I what I will say though chaos on the Chaos Twins comes from uh trying to hold just the funny and fun and light and life with the crazy and the dark and the depressing and the truly terrifying uh of what it is to be human in this moment on earth when yes earth is ghetto I want to leave have you guys heard that song I have Earth is ghetto I want to leave there's a there's an Instagram uh I forget the the actual handle of the artist who does this she's a writer songwriter and she wrote this Ali Alia Sheffield yes yes she wrote this song and it sort of coincided with the capital with the insurrection at the Capitol.

[10:32] Nik Walker: And the lyrics are Earth is ghetto. I want to leave. Can you beam me up? I'm out on the street on the corner store. You know the one on 15th. Got a bright shirt on. It's basically like this letter to whatever aliens may exist that I don't want to be here anymore.

[10:49] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[10:49] Nik Walker: Here I am. Come come get me. Come get me, please. You can't believe what people are how people are treating each other. And I I do. I do think that chaos for us is the ability to just sort of hold everything, hold the good and the bad, hold the hard and the easy, um, all together and try to make sense of it, but also be okay with the fact that it probably won't make sense.

[11:12] Alex Smolowe: See, I love that definition.

[11:15] Nik Walker: Uh and actually I made me feel a lot better about my movie choice. That's a really good one.

[11:19] Alex Smolowe: Makes me feel terrible.

[11:20] Nik Walker: It makes me feel terrible about my movie choice.

[11:23] Alex Smolowe: You don't like your movie choice now.

[11:25] Nik Walker: And that you guys makes me feel absolutely awful. Your feelings about your movie choices, that is chaos. We're gonna hold both of those things. We're gonna hold space for everything. Chaos is you know what I love the idea too of like space, because chaos is also like I think like it's like the Greek word like for universe and for like what space is like there chaos has its roots in that as well.

[11:52] Nik Walker: Of just like there's some order, but then there's also no gravity, there's no, you know, there's just a vacuum of there's nothing but everything. It's just entropy.

[12:02] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, yeah. It's like what what Jeff Goldblum gets into in Jurassic Park with the drop of water, right? Like, yeah, the smallest little changes can can decide big things. And like yeah, that's kind of chaos. The definition online, it's complete disorder and confusion, um, but related to physics, behavior is so unpredictable as to appear random owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions.

[12:25] Nik Walker: I love that. That's that's it.

[12:27] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, that's chaos. I will say, you know, it's it to dabble in the political, because we I think everybody on this on this uh talk is very politically minded. I will say I I have felt a lot less chaos in these days, especially like Sasha.

[12:44] Nik Walker: We did our last Chaos Twins on the inauguration.

[12:47] Alex Smolowe: In the three days since, watching how this administration has handled even the three days, yeah, has been extremely comforting.

[12:58] Nik Walker: Um, have you felt that? Have either of you felt that?

[13:01] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, absolutely. I have found it quite boring, which is incredibly comforting.

[13:07] Nik Walker: It feels great.

[13:08] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[13:08] Nik Walker: I will tell you that I'm not feeling—I was watching Joe Biden give a speech from the Oval and talking about his plans and what was happening, and I just—he started to go on and on and on, and I was just like, "Oh, I want to change the channel."

[13:23] Nik Walker: And I was like, "Oh my god, what a luxury. What a luxurious feeling."

[13:28] Sasha Hutchings: To say we can just change—you're boring.

[13:31] Nik Walker: Yeah, this is all boring, so good. Like feeling secure that the adults in the room are gonna do what they are supposed to be doing.

[13:39] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[13:39] Nik Walker: Right? Not feeling like there's all this shifty stuff going on and like reality's not real. It's like, okay, like there are people with other people's interests in mind, and like, you know, there's gonna be stuff over the next four years that comes out as bad. You know, there's still money in politics and corporate interests and lobbying and all like that—that hasn't gone anywhere. But just knowing that someone still wants to get up in front of the country and say, like, "We're trying to help you."

[14:06] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[14:07] Nik Walker: Instead of saying like lying, you know, just that is a breath of fresh air.

[14:12] Sasha Hutchings: It really is a lovely thing.

[14:13] Nik Walker: I do, I do love that. I love the amount of color that I see in the Senate. I love the amount of—I just love—I love the people. There is a sense, especially with Joe Biden, who I know everybody gets on him, you know.

[14:26] Sasha Hutchings: Yes, he is definitely our oldest president. We know that.

[14:29] Nik Walker: We get it. But there is a sense of decency. I'm sorry, it's a sense of decency about this dude. He just seems like a decent person. He seems like a good guy.

[14:38] Sasha Hutchings: Like that's fine.

[14:38] Nik Walker: And some respect for the office and respect for the people. And like you said, you know, it is what it is. Like there's gonna be manipulation, there's gonna be money, there's gonna be politics.

[14:49] Sasha Hutchings: But I think—

[14:49] Nik Walker: And just the basics of this is truly what our democracy is built on. And there are limits to how far you can push it before it breaks.

[15:00] Sasha Hutchings: Yes, and that it actually is a lot more fragile than we like to think it is.

[15:05] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[15:06] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[15:07] Nik Walker: But I mean, it's like an old white guy is gonna be at the head, right? Is gonna be in charge that the way he's surrounded himself, um, and the focus he's given to making sure he's allocating responsibility responsibly, yeah.

[15:19] Sasha Hutchings: You know, it's not just—it doesn't feel like Pelosi built the team, right? It feels like he heard everybody and what they're saying and built a coalition that is gonna get things done.

[15:31] Nik Walker: It's not everything like the more far-left people want, it's not everything the moderates want. It's like a blanket, okay. We're gonna all do this together and we're not gonna keep anybody out.

[15:40] Sasha Hutchings: Like the conversations will be had.

[15:42] Nik Walker: And like that alone is great. I hope we get to hear from him post his presidency, you know.

[15:49] Sasha Hutchings: You know, obviously, he's very, you know, old, and we don't know like what we get, um, how much we get from him, but I think I really hope that we get to hear how he is approaching this because he's talked about himself being a figure—a transitional figure, a transitional president, someone who's getting us out of where we have been and sort of to the next phase.

[16:12] Nik Walker: And I think his choices um illustrate that or are proof of that.

[16:16] Sasha Hutchings: And so I kind of wonder like what his thinking is about what that next phase looks like, how he is handing over responsibility, what he's creating space for, and how he really is going to execute his own role.

[16:31] Nik Walker: Um, because it—it's such a change from the egocentric president we just had and the egocentric sort of administration and approach to governing, um, that this feels, again, like you said, it just feels a bit more aware that, um, you know, of his own impermanence, I would say.

[16:51] Sasha Hutchings: Um, you know, so I just—I hope—I don't know how long, you know, if it's one term, if it's two terms. I don't know what his plans are even, you know.

[16:58] Nik Walker: At some point you might be like, "I don't know if I want to just like give my dying breath to like w in office," you know.

[17:05] Sasha Hutchings: I don't know like what—how he sees it or what he sees his pace being.

[17:09] Nik Walker: Um, but I'm—I would just be—I'm really interested in how he's approaching and I think maybe—I don't know, with that reality of like I won't be here forever.

[17:19] Sasha Hutchings: This, yeah, this—I won't be in this office forever, I won't be in this life forever, and what we do matters and what we leave behind matters.

[17:26] Nik Walker: Um, would be really interesting to hear from him.

[17:28] Sasha Hutchings: Which is why—and this is—I don't know anything about what Joe Biden's plans are. This is all conjecture and just thinking about the way he's setting himself up just aesthetically.

[17:40] Nik Walker: I'm not surprised if he is a one-term, like just by choice.

[17:45] Sasha Hutchings: I'm not surprised if he's like, "Yo, Kamala, go for it."

[17:49] Nik Walker: Like I truly see a world where that happens because it's like I think he understands that.

[17:54] Sasha Hutchings: I don't think he's purporting.

[17:56] Nik Walker: Like what I love about him is exactly like you say, Sasha, there's just somebody in the office who's just very honest, like very real about where he's at.

[18:03] Sasha Hutchings: And like, look, if he feels he's got the energy, you know, to take it to—to take it to 86, like fuck, let's go.

[18:09] Nik Walker: But at the same time, it's like knowing who he is.

[18:12] Sasha Hutchings: I don't think that he originally wanted to run.

[18:16] Nik Walker: That was never the plan.

[18:17] Sasha Hutchings: I think his whole time running was built on the sense that nobody else is going to be able to beat Trump.

[18:24] Nik Walker: Right?

[18:25] Sasha Hutchings: Like you have to do this. It was like a sense of patriotic responsibility that he stepped forward and stuck with it.

[18:31] Nik Walker: And I think that he's maintained that too.

[18:34] Sasha Hutchings: He hasn't gotten swept up in it.

[18:35] Nik Walker: He's like built a team of like, "Okay, like we're here now."

[18:39] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[18:39] Nik Walker: And let's do it. And knowing that he's not there to be Joe Biden the president, right?

[18:43] Sasha Hutchings: He didn't want to be.

[18:43] Nik Walker: He's been in that position, he's seen how it works, he's been up close and personal and had power.

[18:48] Sasha Hutchings: Uh, it doesn't feel at all like he did it for the office as a career politician.

[18:53] Nik Walker: It feels like he did it for, I don't know, the country.

[18:55] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[18:56] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[18:56] Sasha Hutchings: I think there's, again, there just seems to be like a selflessness and maybe just a bit removed from it enough to say like this—I'm not the center of this thing.

[19:04] Nik Walker: That being president does not mean that you are the center of the universe and the center of our democracy.

[19:11] Sasha Hutchings: It means that you have a lot of responsibility to uphold it.

[19:15] Nik Walker: Um, and I feel like he just, you know, hopefully can be very restorative.

[19:19] Sasha Hutchings: And you know, I don't—yeah, like it's just—it's kind of—it's very—he's had such a long career, obviously, in the Senate and in government.

[19:27] Nik Walker: So there's—I just hopefully, yeah, restoration and of what the best of what it can be.

[19:35] Sasha Hutchings: I will—I will say, uh, it has been a pleasure still.

[19:35] Nik Walker: Yeah, it's still—it's been a pleasure to see Fauci unleashed.

[19:35] Sasha Hutchings: Fauci unleashed is my favorite thing.

[19:35] Nik Walker: So happy I've ever seen in my life. He literally is like a kid in a candy store. He's like, "Oh god, thank god you guys can't—we're safe, we're safe."

[19:35] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, I think someone asked him what is it like to have a White House that says we're gonna be guided by science, and he said, "It just makes me go hallelujah."

[20:03] Nik Walker: Yeah, he literally—like he was like, um, you know, the one big difference between this administration is that, you know, when we don't know the answer, we just—we just say we don't know. Like we don't—we don't guess, like we don't lie.

[20:03] Sasha Hutchings: I also—I want to bring up—I was trying to—as we were talking about this, I was trying to—this is a throwback to part one of this episode. My wife, uh, sent me texts, uh, during our Bridgerton conversation when I mentioned that my mother—when I mentioned my mother talking about masturbation, and she just wanted to make—I wanted to make it clear that she had made it clear to me that she was very uncomfortable by my mother's, uh, talking about masturbation.

[20:03] Sasha Hutchings: She was very taken aback, uh, so I just want to bring that back. If you—if you don't know what we're talking about, go listen to—go listen to the first episode because it's—it's fucking hysterical.

[20:03] Nik Walker: Uh, she says it was very scary.

[20:03] Sasha Hutchings: Now she's texting me, "It was very scary."

[20:03] Nik Walker: It was.

[20:03] Sasha Hutchings: But this is—this is chaos, guys. This is chaos. Chaos theory. So let's get into it because we truly have not talked about movies.

[21:04] Nik Walker: We have not.

[21:06] Sasha Hutchings: And we, you know, this has been going on. So let's do this.

[21:09] Nik Walker: Uh, the Chaos Movie—it's a movie with chaos in it or a movie that makes you feel chaos.

[21:14] Sasha Hutchings: Uh, who wants to—Nik Walker: Sasha, usually we save the guests for last.

[21:19] Sasha Hutchings: Okay.

[21:19] Nik Walker: The guest is best and the guest goes last.

[21:21] Alex Smolowe: Uh, so Alex, do you want to go first or should I go first?

[21:25] Alex Smolowe: I don't know. I don't feel good about my choices.

[21:27] Nik Walker: So originally we thought, okay, two-part, or maybe we should do two movies.

[21:30] Alex Smolowe: So I had to watch two movies about chaos.

[21:33] Nik Walker: And I did too.

[21:35] Alex Smolowe: And I really wish that I hadn't wasted my time with it.

[21:40] Nik Walker: It's never a waste.

[21:41] Alex Smolowe: It's never a waste.

[21:42] Nik Walker: Yeah, but so I now have to pick one of them.

[21:46] Alex Smolowe: And like, uh, Sasha, after your graceful explanation of how you view chaos in the dramatic form, I'm like, "Oh god, like I just picked chaotic movies, like movie just bonkers."

[21:57] Nik Walker: I think that's great.

[22:02] Alex Smolowe: Thank god we're only talking about one because the one that I had picked that was kind of my throwaway for episode one, knowing we'd want to like keep it short for a two-parter, I literally sat down today and I watched from beginning to end Crank: High Voltage.

[22:15] Sasha Hutchings: In a story so bizarre, I can scarcely believe the event I'm reporting, and yet cooperated by at least a dozen eyewitnesses, a white male apparently fell from the sky above downtown Los Angeles today, landed in the middle of a busy intersection, and then was removed from the scene before emergency personnel could respond.

[22:32] Alex Smolowe: Reports of a second body landing in the Boyle Heights area have yet to be confirmed and are being treated as the bullshit they most likely are.

[22:38] Sasha Hutchings: Jesus Christ, with Jason Statham.

[22:42] Alex Smolowe: I did, I did. I watched it—not even Crank one, Crank two, because I was like, "It's gotta be, it's gotta be even more."

[22:47] Sasha Hutchings: I don't know. I've never seen these movies.

[22:48] Alex Smolowe: Sasha, have you seen anything from the Crank franchise?

[22:52] Sasha Hutchings: No, I haven't.

[22:53] Alex Smolowe: Oh my god. These two films are—it's pretty nuts, and I just want to say here's the way I can describe Crank to you.

[23:01] Sasha Hutchings: Jason Statham having sex with Amy Smart on a horsing racetrack.

[23:09] Nik Walker: Is this number two, Alex?

[23:11] Alex Smolowe: This is number two.

[23:12] Nik Walker: So Jason Statham has had his heart removed and replaced with an electrical device that needs to stay charged or he'll die.

[23:19] Alex Smolowe: Uh, he's informed that that skin friction will provide enough electricity to charge his battery.

[23:25] Nik Walker: Um, so he and Amy Smart end up having sex on an active racetrack in front of a large audience while the horses are racing in order to keep his heart pumped.

[23:36] Alex Smolowe: It is—it is from beginning to end. It kind of like the point of the movie is to be so over the top and crazy and whatever that it's—I mean, it literally is chaos.

[23:45] Nik Walker: Like it doesn't care about making sense, it doesn't care about staying grounded.

[23:48] Alex Smolowe: It's like—and the first movie I think was the same thing, right?

[23:50] Nik Walker: It's like Crank referring to like this guy's heart's gonna stop if he doesn't keep it pumped up.

[23:55] Alex Smolowe: He has to keep it above a certain rate or he'll die.

[23:57] Nik Walker: So they're both about his heart rate.

[23:59] Alex Smolowe: They're—well, she's—yes, they're both about his heart.

[24:04] Nik Walker: More or less, yes, they're both about his heart.

[24:04] Alex Smolowe: He literally does anything he can to make sure his heart rate does not fall below a certain thing.

[24:10] Nik Walker: So that whether that's like jumping out of an airplane or shocking himself with a fucking car, you know, jumper cables, or like whatever he gotta do to stay at that level, that's what he's gonna do.

[24:19] Sasha Hutchings: And it's shot like super handheld, and it's all over the place.

[24:22] Alex Smolowe: There's little animated sequences.

[24:24] Nik Walker: There's like—it's so out of touch with the modern day in terms of how it presents its characters.

[24:33] Alex Smolowe: Like it's pretty racist.

[24:34] Sasha Hutchings: Oh no, it's horribly racist.

[24:36] Alex Smolowe: I mean, it's terrible.

[24:37] Sasha Hutchings: It's like—it's like pretty, pretty horrible.

[24:40] Nik Walker: What you's a fact, okay?

[24:42] Alex Smolowe: Good law, bitch.

[24:43] Sasha Hutchings: Fuck you!

[24:45] Nik Walker: Like Kevin Kaufner, he's gonna beat you off.

[24:47] Sasha Hutchings: What?

[24:49] Alex Smolowe: You looking to get your ass killed, doll?

[24:53] Sasha Hutchings: Wrong expression.

[24:55] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[24:55] Alex Smolowe: Which, like, I'm sure, like, when they were making it, it feels like it was made by a bunch of like dude bros from 2002.

[25:00] Nik Walker: It's—oh man, wouldn't this be fucking hilarious if we did this and then that, like, oh, it's so sick, man.

[25:05] Sasha Hutchings: Alex, I'm gonna be honest with you.

[25:08] Alex Smolowe: That's exactly what it was made by.

[25:10] Sasha Hutchings: That's amazing.

[25:10] Alex Smolowe: Is that who these guys are?

[25:11] Nik Walker: I don't even know.

[25:12] Alex Smolowe: I'm just made by looking myself. I'm looking at their creative team right now, and uh, I'm gonna tell you that's exactly what they are.

[25:19] Sasha Hutchings: There's just there's like naked women everywhere, and it's just like and I was like, okay, like because in my head, like the style of the film, thinking back to it was like chaotic. Um actually, you know, because it is, it really is like nonstop. I thought I was I was more than halfway through the movie at some point, like, okay, we're getting there. The story, like, so much shit had like, oh my god. And I looked at it, it was like 20 minutes had gone by. I'm looking at like pictures of like crank. The icon is just him with you know, because he gets into a car accident and he's uh with these guys, and he's like, his car's wrecked. He's like, I need to get to this place. Uh, can you give me, you know, can you can you give me a jump?

So they get out thinking they're gonna jump the car, and he grabs the things and sticks it on his tongue and stuff. That's exactly what I'm looking at. I'm looking at it. And then runs. And then apparently, this is how it works. He jumps himself, so he shocks himself with this car battery, and apparently gives him the ability to run at like Superman speed through the city. Oh my god. It's it's it's absurd. It's absurd and completely out of touch. I think you're right on point with your chaos pick. Like, honestly. It's chaos. It's chaos, but like it it wasn't fun. It wasn't fun chaos to watch. It wasn't. I'm just looking at these images and I don't feel like I felt dirty. It's really disturbing.

Uncomfortable. This is bad. This is not good. And I I spent the whole time. I mean, maybe this is just my pick now because we've spent so long talking about like I No, no, no. No, you got another one. I got another one. I feel I feel weird for Amy Smart. I feel because let me tell you something. Her character is there to just be this. Oh my god, she's she's horrible. This is a longer conversation than we should be movies. Maybe the movie is maybe I I want to do an episode, and I think Sasha should come back for this. The actresses of the late 90s into early 2000s who had who had to put up with all of this bullshit. Like I want to do like a movie just like a salute to those actors. Because this was like one of her last big role.

It's not even a big role, but like one of her last ditch roles before she sort of went to private life. Um and it and it's it's so objectified her character and and why she's terrible. It's like I I want to know how you get in a movie like this, get everybody on board. Like there's a scene, right? The skin on skin friction, the first thing he tries is grabbing an old woman and just rubbing up against her behind while she's like, ah, like how do you just sexual harassment an 80 year old actress? Okay, Jason Statham is going to molest you right now. Like, do they explain the story so she gets it, or do they just expect her to be comfortable with it without it? Well, even if they explained the story, then no, I was like, if you explain the story to you, might be like, I'm so sorry, I still can't justify this.

There's no justification. This is literally just Jason Statham acting like that. Well, yeah, I just got I'm in the trailer. I just got to him rubbing up against the but can I so can I tell you something though? Here's what I love. I love putting these movies in context. Because when did this movie come out, ladies and gentlemen? 2006, at the height of which presidency? The Bush presidency. And and I'm just and it was it was just the time, like truly, there are these movies that are just so representative of their time when, like, yes, like this, like this hard-looking British white dude feels well, he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Do you mean like and that's right, that's the movie. And and that was the time.

Do you mean so like it it it tracks? It sadly tracks. Um, but yeah, I I say give it crank is not worth your choice. So I say give it a shit. I see not it is not. So I so I thought, because I was going through everything. Yeah. Um and and uh Jason Statham also in a movie called Chaos. Yes, he was. I literally looked up like chaos because I Googled it. I was curious about what the internet had to say, and I couldn't really find very much. Uh, but I did I did type in chaos movie, and Jason Statham was the star of that one also. Good. Um, but I thought, you know, what what is this movie like why does this movie feel chaotic? Why did my mind immediately go to this as chaos? Like it it's because it's not a film about chaos, right?

Like, I'm sure there are such there are much more intelligent uh options for movies that actually examine the idea of chaos. Uh I was thinking from more of a from a production standpoint, right? From an entertainment standpoint, like in making something where you're not bound by rules, you're not bound by expectations, where you can drop something right into the middle. You can just have it go to left field. Um, and still carry, because it's a movie, you still carry a through line, right? It's still an emotional through line where like it can it can be made in a million patchwork million different ways, but still have a point and an idea and a thesis. So uh the movie that I came up with, uh, it opens on uh it's the desert.

I I think it's Los Angeles, um, or no, New Mexico. It's the the desert in New Mexico, um, inner cut uh with media images, newscaster, stuff like that. A leonard starts to play. It's kind of it's kind of groovy, kind of whatever. Um, in between all of these, it's it's like quick cuts and weird transitions and all that. Uh, and it introduces the first scene in the midst of it. Uh it's uh like a diner, like a roadside diner out in the desert. Um, a man sitting at the bar talking to the waitress, she's kind of flirting with them. They're having a nice conversation. You can tell she's interested. Maybe I don't know this movie. There's a woman next a woman next to him at the bar getting, you know, his his girlfriend, you don't know who she is, getting uh a little annoyed with it.

Just gives him a, you know, not at not at him, at her. Uh that she's flirting. She gets bored and gets up and goes to the jukebox. She's kind of dressed scantily. She's dressed, you know, kind of like a big skimpy little top of the movies. And she goes to the jukebox, puts a song on, and and in this like conservative desert nowhere, uh, she starts just like dancing. Uh and as she does, this this pickup truck full of rednecks shows up and they come in, they start laughing about it. Oh, look at her. Look at that. Like, oh, like making really crude, rude comments about it. And the one guy says, Oh, you should go, you should take a take a shot. Like, like go. Um, try your luck, basically. Uh it it devolves very quickly as this guy comes up and tries to start talking to this dancing woman.

You know, at first you think like she's annoyed, she's ignoring him, whatever. Then she starts, you know, okay, okay, like playing with him a little bit. Uh, and then all of a sudden the shotguns come out. Yep. And they just are happily. This man and this woman start happily slaughtering these people. I mean, that sounds right on point on brand for a pair of natural born killers. No! There is no escaping here. Amy Manie Moe. Catcher Red Nick by Stoe. If the haulers let him go. Amy Meanie Mani Mo. Maya told me to pick that and you are when people come here and they ask you who done this, you tell Mickey and Mallory Knox did it. Alright, say it. Mickey and Aurie Knox did it. Mickey and Mallory Knox.

I love you, Mickey. Boom. Boom. Boom. Sasha, have you seen? Have you boom? Have you seen have you seen chaos? Chaos. Chaos. Chaos. Chaos. Sasha, have have you seen have you seen Natural Born Killers? I have not. Okay. Oh, you never have. I love that I've been like, I've like been invited onto this podcast because I will tell you, I watch way more television than I do. I love that. But that's great. That's great. We love that. We we make space for that. Do you know what I mean? Natural born killers. I'm so proud of Alex because Alex makes fun of me for my Tarantino obsession. And here he has chosen. Well, yeah, story by. Well, screenplay by. Story by. No. No. So actually, technically, um, he wrote a screenplay uh that he had tried to make about a pair of a couple that go on a killing spree.

Um, and when he failed to make it, he sold the script on Oliver Stone, who directed this film, bought it. Uh by the end of production, they had changed the script so much that they moved Tarantino to a story by credit. Wow. So he didn't actually write the screenplay, which he supported. He said that's fine, because they basically the only thing still in this is the dialogue. Because there's also Robert uh Robert Downey Jr. plays a news reporter who kind of gets sucked in following this this crime spree couple. Um and the original script was about him. Oh wow. So they changed it to be to be about but uh Sasha, you haven't seen this movie. Basically, like every scene is kind of shot differently.

It's very, very in your face metaphor for like the glorification of violence in the media. And so they do these really it's shot like every sh every shot's tilted. Uh there's a scene, an opening sequence where where Juliet Lewis's character, Mallory, is at home with her abusive family. Her dad, who's like uh it's it's played by Rodney Dangerfield, who's just this like gross alcoholic who just is, you know, basically like abusing the whole family, but her specifically and creating this hell for her. Shot like a sitcom, right? So he's making these grotesque comments about how he's gonna come up to the shower when she's in it, and he's grabbing her his daughter, his like teenage daughter. That's the most grotesque thing you've ever seen, but there's a laugh track behind it.

What are you wearing? A broomstick in a trash bag? Why don't you put some meat on you, huh? A few pounds lighter, you'll be missing the opium. How the hell do you think you're going, huh? I'm going to John Lee Hooker concert with Donna. I told you that yesterday. First off, you don't tell me anything. You ask my permission. Second, you're not going out in our hoo house dress. You'll end up pulling your ass, you stupid bitch. And third, you're not going out at all. You didn't mow the yard. And then Woody Harrelson, who plays Mickey, uh shows up at the door and they're clapping and all that. And it feels it just feels so uncomfortable. Uh and it's the only time that they use that format. And then later they're in, they're in a motel, so they they they're together, they kill the family, uh, the mom and the dad, um, and they go on this murder spree.

Like they're they're in a hotel room at one point, watching TV, uh, and the window of the motel behind them is also a TV screen playing stuff, like behind the frame of the window. Uh-huh. And it's kind of got the red tint, and there's like like the whole thing throws grounded reality out the window, and everything just becomes about the feeling of what's going on instead of the actual reality of it. Um it just, you know, you never know kind of what is gonna happen or or what's possible. It's very, it's definitely like straight up, you know, in that like it all it honestly almost reminds me of like a spike lee joint, like in that it's just it's like use whatever you have to use to like get the satire across and and kind of sell it.

And I mean, it really, it's just it it's uncomfortable. I get it it it actually truly is. So uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. Like it you there's not it's not a fun watch. Like you're not you're not enjoying yourself watching this film. You're just kind of like, yikes. Which which is Alex, I now understand why you did not, why you're mad that you watched two movies, because watching Crank and Natural Born Killers back to back, good lord, man. Like good lord. I know have a drink. Well, I watched Crank, and then I because I've seen I didn't watch Natural Born all the way through. I watched the first like quarter of it, but watching it, I was like, oh, like this is what Crank was trying to do. Like it was trying to take this energy and update it, and it didn't work at all.

Because it's it's frenetic, it moves a mile a minute, it throws grow you know all of this grotesque imagery and the dialogue is terrible, and like uh, but it feels like it has a point as opposed to crank, which um doesn't does not have a point. Well, natural born kill that's a that's a good choice. I think you kind of nailed it, yeah. I feel like that's a really good choice. It's it's chaotic. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely watch it. And I mean it is the performances are great.

[37:55] Nik Walker: Uh, it's always fun watching Robert Downey Jr. in earlier stuff.

[37:58] Alex Smolowe: Oh yeah.

[37:59] Nik Walker: It's kind of similar to his like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

[38:02] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, a little bit of that movie.

[38:03] Nik Walker: His character in that, just like this, you know, it's that same attitude. Um, speaking of which, me and Sarah, because we've been watching WandaVision, and after watching episode three last night without giving anything away, which, uh, Alex, you and I will talk about that at some point, uh, because it's fucking brilliant. Um, we watched the end, we watched, uh, the final battle in Endgame with Robert Downey Jr. Uh, that man. I just, I love that man. I just love his boy.

[38:27] Sasha Hutchings: I love him.

[38:32] Nik Walker: Yeah, he's fucking brilliant. And Chadwick was up there is great.

[38:35] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[38:36] Nik Walker: His story is just... Remember when he did Blackface?

[38:39] Sasha Hutchings: Um, wait, oh no, no, but here's, but let me tell you something. Sasha, Sasha. Let me tell you.

[38:44] Nik Walker: Trump bring chaos into this, Sasha. I fucking love that movie. It was hilarious. It was what has the modern conversation where has it landed on Tropic? You know what? Has it landed? Has it landed? It hasn't landed. Are people just nervous to talk about it?

[39:06] Sasha Hutchings: Probably. I feel like we bring it up.

[39:09] Nik Walker: Well, can I know? I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something very, very, very incendiary here. But I feel like because I've seen a lot of posts of people, um, in our community trying, you know, going back and being like, oh, well, there was, you know, without context, like looking at that role and be like, well, Robert Downey Jr. did Blackface in Tropic Thunder. But like, it's that is the point. That was the joke, right? Like, yeah, to me, like, like it was, it was so fucking funny because it that was like the entire point of that film or of that character was like just pure white privilege. Just the idea that this man is like, I'm trying to inhabit this man. Like, so like he literally becomes a black man, like for to get an Oscar. It's so, yeah, it's really bad. It's so bad. But it's so true. It's when, you know, there seems to be a bit more intention. Like it has its function, and it is making it is like sort of a satire on like the actual thing.

[40:12] Alex Smolowe: Well, you know, I don't know. I don't know where the conversation has landed on Drake. We gotta watch that back. We gotta watch that back. I kind of, it makes me want to watch it again. I need to watch it. We gotta go back and watch it. As my 2021 self, I need to watch it.

[40:24] Nik Walker: He was so, I'm sorry. Some of his ad libs as that character are some of the funniest fucking things I've ever heard in my life. In my life.

[40:36] Sasha Hutchings: When he starts quoting the Jeffersons.

[40:41] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[40:42] Sasha Hutchings: Oh my god, so good.

[40:43] Nik Walker: It's chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos. Chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos.

[40:47] Sasha Hutchings: Now I wanna, now I'm gonna bring this movie into play because I think I'm gonna, I'm not gonna actually describe this movie to you. I'm going to sing the first song of this film. And I think that both of you will get it. I think you will. I want you to imagine there's, okay. So we first see the logo of the studio. It looks a little, uh, degraded. Uh, like it looks like an old-timey thing. And it's, and it's like it's playing. I'm gonna tell you this, and you're gonna know exactly what this movie is. It's playing, but it's, it's like we're in an old movie house. Like we can actually see the conductor conducting the orchestra down, like down, like in the bottom of the screen. You know what movie this is. Come on, Alex, you know.

[41:31] Alex Smolowe: I believe that I did.

[41:33] Nik Walker: And, and then we, we zoom in on the screen, we push past the studio logo, we push past an opening title card that gives us time and place. I'm not gonna say what it is, because then you'll know what it is. But then we see, uh, a young man in black and white in almost what looks like clown makeup, and he's singing There was a boy a very strange enchanted boy.

[41:59] Sasha Hutchings: Interesting.

[42:00] Nik Walker: They say he wandered very far. Very far. Overland and sea. Sasha, come on, you know what this is.

[42:12] Sasha Hutchings: I don't know.

[42:12] Nik Walker: I'm not gonna say this is.

[42:14] Sasha Hutchings: There's a, I'll tell you right now, if you were to go, uh, so that show we did called Hamilton. If you were to go a block down from the Rogers Theater, uh, and you were to go across Eighth Avenue.

[42:31] Nik Walker: It just became a GPS key.

[42:33] Sasha Hutchings: At the, at the theater that was formerly the home of Kinky Boots, Sasha. What show would be playing there?

[42:41] Sasha Hutchings: Nothing because of the pandemic.

[42:44] Nik Walker: She beat you.

[42:47] Sasha Hutchings: Moulin Rouge.

[42:49] Nik Walker: Moulin Rouge, Moulin Rouge.

[42:50] Sasha Hutchings: Mulan fucking Rouge.

[42:52] Nik Walker: You goddamn psychopath. Sasha, Jesus Christ. It was 1899. The summer of love. I knew nothing of the Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler. Oh, Satine. The world had been swept up in a Bohemian revolution. And I had traveled from London to be a part of it. I had come to live a penniless existence. I had come to write about truth, beauty, freedom, and that which I believed in above all things. Love.

[43:21] Sasha Hutchings: Always dis ridiculous obsession with love.

[43:26] Nik Walker: I thought it was a trick question, Nick.

[43:29] Sasha Hutchings: It was not a trick question. It was just trying to be so real for you. Sasha, Moulin Rouge.

[43:35] Nik Walker: You watched Contagion.

[43:36] Sasha Hutchings: You watched Contagion.

[43:39] Nik Walker: I did not watch it. Let me tell you what I'm not watching. Fucking Contagion. No, so it was, it was a choice, but it was gonna be between I knew that I wanted to.

[43:47] Sasha Hutchings: You watched Moulin Rouge.

[43:48] Nik Walker: I watched Moulin Rouge. I've seen Moulin Rouge like twelve times probably. I fuck, I love Moulin Rouge. I walk because it was a choice, but I was on it was I knew it was gonna be a Baz Luhrmann, and I didn't know if it was gonna be Romeo and Juliet or Moulin Rouge, but I signed on Moulin Rouge because Moulin Rouge to me just feels that much more batshit. Like it's, it's like, like Romeo and Juliet's crazy, but Moulin Rouge is like, I don't even, I don't even know what, where we are. Do you know what I mean? Like I don't even know what's happening. Nothing says chaos like John Leguizamo as a dwarf falling through your table. That's as chaotic as something chaos.

[44:26] Sasha Hutchings: It was, it was truly just one of those times when watching this movie back, I was just like, this is like you literally just like did whatever the fuck you wanted for the first 30 minutes of this film. Like you all just like, you all are just insane, and, and he's drinking absinthe. I, I like you, you almost have no sense of character or place or time until Nicole Kidman comes in, and then the movie slows down, and it's, and even then it's not even like slow, it's just like, and then they're like on top of an elephant singing Elton John, and like it's just cool.

[45:02] Nik Walker: Don't you die with my emotions? You must know the effect you have on you want to make love, don't you?

[45:15] Sasha Hutchings: Uh, but there was something I, I wanted when I was thinking of like what movie I could choose, I wanted to do a chaos that was a joyful chaos. I was like, oh, but this, there's such, such hope, and they're all bohemians and starving artists, and like, and it was that time, you know. This movie came out of the time in my life when I was like, oh man, oh, to be a starving artist when like that's like a fucking romantic thing. It's not, it's terror. Don't kids, please don't be a starving artist. Please get, yeah, like do whatever you gotta do to put food on your table. All right, it's not cute. It's not fun. It's not fun to be hungry. Hunger's not fun, guys, uh, at all. You know, so that was, that was company. It was kind of this perfect encapsulation of like the romantic, the romantic of it, you know.

[45:55] Nik Walker: I love that. I, and I gotta say, guys, you know, I know we talk about, uh, what's his name from Bridgerton. Uh, I'm a straight man, I'm a married man, but even McGregor in this film, y'all. I'm, this is beautiful. He was, he is gorgeous. I was like, okay. I, I went back after we just talked about Dr. Sleep on a previous episode. So I went and watched it because I had never watched all the through, so I did. And, uh, you and McGregor with a big thick beard. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot there, there's a lot to unpack with that. And, uh, and I have no problem with that. Uh, you know, it's great. Uh, so I mean, I, I just, I love, I love that film, and I, and if you haven't, you know, if you haven't seen Moulin Rouge, I think definitely go check it out. It's just, it's, it's just everything that you'd want from a Baz Luhrmann film. It's just color and craziness.

[46:39] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, I mean, Baz Luhrmann, he does it. I, I guess chaos is a good word for it, but it's very emotionally driven. And I think what this movie does really well is like because the main character from the get-go presents himself as like it doesn't matter what's going on in the world, like what's happening around me, the only thing that's important is love. Is life like, like that's it, like that is the lifeblood of existence is love, so it doesn't matter what else, you know, come what may, like that's, that's the whole kind of driving thing of the movie, and it stays to that so well. Um, I don't know. It's just simple, just simple. Simplicity, simplicity, and colorful.

[47:31] Sasha Hutchings: You're gonna be bad for business. I can tell.

[47:54] Nik Walker: Sasha, you know, you, you are, you are our guest. Hello. You're here. What describe, describe your film to us. Describe, don't tell us what it is, you know. Just describe how this film opens. And let us try to guess. Let's see if we can guess this.

[48:12] Sasha Hutchings: I will describe. Um, yes. So I actually had my film playing, um, silently in front of me this whole time. Um, really excited about it. So this film opens, um, at, I feel like it's gonna give it away immediately.

[48:31] Nik Walker: Are you playing with a slinky right now?

[48:33] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah, do I sound like a slinky?

[48:39] Nik Walker: Ooh.

[48:40] Sasha Hutchings: No.

[48:40] Nik Walker: Who's that?

[48:41] Sasha Hutchings: Chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos. Guys, I'm sorry to hear, sorry to interrupt. I thought I heard a slinky.

[48:46] Nik Walker: I don't know.

[48:48] Sasha Hutchings: Anything I love that you assumed I was a slinky, whatever it was.

[48:52] Nik Walker: For some reason, it's exactly what it sounded like. It did sound like a slinky. Very specific, metallic, like dropping and settling, dropping and settling, dropping and settling sound. Like a slinky.

[49:01] Sasha Hutchings: Well, describe the start of the funny film.

[49:06] Sasha Hutchings: This film starts at a carnival on a beach. And there is a f, a mother and father walking.

[49:15] Nik Walker: Good for you.

[49:18] Sasha Hutchings: We just love it. I love it. I love it. Walking with their daughter who wanders off.

[49:26] Nik Walker: Yes.

[49:26] Sasha Hutchings: And down into the depths.

[49:28] Nik Walker: Yes.

[49:29] Sasha Hutchings: Yes, yes, yes. Of a not so fun house.

[49:33] Nik Walker: Is this, is this movie? Would you say that this movie is kind of a metaphor for the country we live in, Sasha?

[49:39] Sasha Hutchings: I would say it's a metaphor for the whole goddamn universe.

[49:39] Nik Walker: The whole goddamn universe. Sasha, it's so funny because we actually, I chose this as my, and it's great. We love when there's a repeat because that means that means we're all in the same place. I chose this as my 2020 as my le, what was it? What was the name of that episode, Alex?

[49:58] Alex Smolowe: Leaving 2021 or leaving 2020 into 2023.

[50:02] Nik Walker: It was like the cathartic leaving it behind a movie.

[50:05] Sasha Hutchings: Oh, yeah.

[50:06] Nik Walker: That's what this was for me.

[50:08] Sasha Hutchings: The movie, of course, is Us.

[50:13] Nik Walker: Okay, we lost power.

[50:15] Alex Smolowe: Go back to bed.

[50:16] Nik Walker: There's a family in our driveway.

[50:19] Alex Smolowe: But there's not a family in our driveway.

[50:26] Nik Walker: Huh.

[50:27] Alex Smolowe: Who is that?

[50:28] Nik Walker: Sasha, talk to me about it.

[50:30] Sasha Hutchings: So good.

[50:31] Nik Walker: Talk to me about your family.

[50:32] Sasha Hutchings: You know, the thing about us, the thing about Jordan Peele, I of course when we were talking chaos, I was like, this is probably like where I'm gonna sit, is in a Jordan Peele situation. Just because um, I don't usually watch like the like I said, I don't watch horror films, I don't really enjoy thrillers, but Jordan Peele gets me every time. I just really end up um sort of I know that I have to see it and I have to witness it. And um I I do. I I loved this movie. I felt chaos every moment of watching it, um, because I'm always waiting for some the thing to drop. Uh I I really am a terrible, terrible watcher of thriller films. But I think the reason that I I really do enjoy um Jordan's uh brand or version or genre take on this genre is because it does have such a um uh an evident like underlying meaning, and there's something so so human about it, and it's just so grounded and rooted in um a familiar angst, and it's not so covered up in gore that I can't look.

Yes. Um so I I really actually I enjoyed this movie a lot. And you know, we were doing two parters, so I'll go ahead and talk about the other film that sort of went hand in hand with this one for me, um, which opens with a family in a subterranean apartment or place of living, looking for a Wi-Fi signal. Um there are trying to see if um a WhatsApp message has come through because the pizza place is supposed to be letting them know if they have a job folding pizza boxes.

[52:14] Alex Smolowe: Accurate.

[52:30] Sasha Hutchings: Do we know do we know the movie yet?

[52:33] Nik Walker: Yeah, definitely.

[52:34] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah. Um, so like I love that these are both these like sub, like just sort of um parallel lives, these parallel family units. One's like, you know, well to do and the other not, but the dynamics between them are the same, and when they are when they enter into each other's world, like chaos actually ensues.

[52:56] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[52:56] Sasha Hutchings: I I've never put that together, the subterranean aspect of both of those movies.

[53:00] Alex Smolowe: Around the same time, right?

[53:01] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[53:02] Alex Smolowe: And they have similar themes in them.

[53:03] Sasha Hutchings: Like I never put that together. I Sasha, but see, this is why you say that you're not good with thrillers, that you you're not a good watcher thrillers. But this is honestly, I think that I think you should try more thrillers because what is a I think that that is something that I always love about them is so often, and we talked about this on our I think we talked about this on our horror episode, Alex, that the the the horror movie or the thriller movie at its core is about the uncovering of a truth that you have buried. That is literally what it is. And that and and we we talked about how that is a that is a truly American story, right? The burying the burying of trauma that rises up to grab you. And and s and so many movies deal with that.

[53:47] Nik Walker: My god, yeah, you just said that. I was just like carry.

[53:50] Sasha Hutchings: I immediately saw the hand coming out of the ground.

[53:52] Nik Walker: Oh my god, it's all over, and especially like like Candyman.

[53:56] Sasha Hutchings: Do you mean like all these things about these berries?

[53:59] Nik Walker: I know what you did last summer.

[54:00] Sasha Hutchings: I shut I'll kill you.

[54:01] Nik Walker: I'll kill you.

[54:03] Sasha Hutchings: But it's so it's so it's just so true, man. And I I I love that that's what you chose. And I also we I I we said this last episode, but I I just want to see what you think about this, Sasha. Uh why wasn't Lupita nominated?

[54:18] Sasha Hutchings: And just just talk talk to me about Lupita's performance.

[54:18] Nik Walker: Talk to me about Lupita's performance in this film.

[54:23] Sasha Hutchings: That's incredible.

[54:24] Nik Walker: Yes, yeah.

[54:26] Sasha Hutchings: It's incredible. It's just um, you know, I'm sitting there watching her act with herself. And what what's like talk about what's buried? I believe they figured out how to make a copy of the body, but not the soul. The soul remains one shared by two. For generations. The death continued without direction. They all went mad down here. And then there was It's one of those films that you do have to go back and watch another time because once you figure out you uncover like the story at the end of who she really is, then you go back and look at all of these moments and just the con the conflict of um staring at her children that you know which one which ones are her child like it just there's looking at like what she is buried, what she's left behind, what's present.

It's just very um it's incredibly complex, and she's just so specific and so acute with all of it, and it's so guttural. Um I don't, you know, why wasn't she chosen? I think what we're the way that we're used to evaluating women and their value and what it looks like and and how sexy it's supposed to be. The the trauma of a black mother is not one of those things that the Academy is used to recognizing, I would say.

[55:53] Nik Walker: Yeah, that's insane.

[55:54] Sasha Hutchings: Is this the same year? Is this the year Olivia Coleman won?

[55:57] Nik Walker: Best actress for the favorite for the favorite.

[55:59] Sasha Hutchings: Let's see, this is a 2019 movie.

[56:01] Nik Walker: Because I do I do love Olivia Coleman.

[56:05] Sasha Hutchings: No.

[56:06] Nik Walker: Let me see.

[56:07] Sasha Hutchings: Would it be the 2020 Oscars?

[56:09] Nik Walker: If she I mean, look, sure her performance in the favorite was lovely.

[56:16] Sasha Hutchings: No, because she was great, but Melissa McCarthy also got nominated.

[56:20] Nik Walker: Like, can you ever forgive me? Was fine.

[56:22] Sasha Hutchings: It was good.

[56:23] Nik Walker: But like it just showed that Melissa McCarthy has more range than Melissa McCarthy.

[56:28] Sasha Hutchings: Like, that was about the extent of the character.

[56:30] Nik Walker: Like, it wasn't especially.

[56:30] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[56:30] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[56:33] Sasha Hutchings: So 2020, I think is the 2020 is the year that it would have been nominated.

[56:39] Nik Walker: She, yeah, they didn't.

[56:40] Sasha Hutchings: And there was so I don't even know who won in that insane to me.

[56:43] Nik Walker: Best actress Renee Zellweger for Judy.

[56:43] Sasha Hutchings: Wow.

[56:47] Nik Walker: I mean, look, she was great.

[56:48] Sasha Hutchings: She was great, but I'm just like, you I mean, all yeah, all the actresses, uh Harriet, Bombshell, Little Women, Marriage Story, sure.

[56:56] Nik Walker: Uh, all very, very good performances.

[56:59] Sasha Hutchings: And like, you know, marriage story had it's you can tell like a movie that these actresses have sat at like Cynthia was nominated for Harriet, but Lupita wasn't nominated for the for us.

[57:11] Nik Walker: I need you to stop.

[57:13] Sasha Hutchings: I'm sorry.

[57:14] Nik Walker: Did I say that out loud?

[57:15] Sasha Hutchings: Um, is someone playing with a slinky?

[57:19] Nik Walker: I don't know.

[57:20] Sasha Hutchings: Is there a sling?

[57:21] Nik Walker: I'm sorry, I interrupted you though.

[57:23] Sasha Hutchings: I just that caught me.

[57:26] Nik Walker: No, no, no, no, no.

[57:26] Sasha Hutchings: No, no, no, no, no.

[57:31] Nik Walker: We can go back to what you were saying.

[57:33] Sasha Hutchings: I'm just gonna sit over here with my slinky.

[57:36] Nik Walker: Chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos.

[57:39] Sasha Hutchings: The jackal, the jackal.

[57:41] Nik Walker: Oh my god.

[57:43] Sasha Hutchings: I am I'm so sorry.

[57:45] Nik Walker: I totally interrupted you.

[57:47] Sasha Hutchings: I just really was like, wait a minute.

[57:50] Nik Walker: No, no, no.

[57:50] Sasha Hutchings: No.

[57:52] Nik Walker: There's nothing wrong with what you did or what you said.

[57:54] Sasha Hutchings: Uh oh my god.

[57:56] Nik Walker: We just we you know, let's just be real.

[57:56] Sasha Hutchings: Let's just be real for a minute.

[58:00] Nik Walker: I mean, I and yeah.

[58:03] Sasha Hutchings: There's room for everyone.

[58:04] Nik Walker: That's I think the point.

[58:05] Sasha Hutchings: There is room for everyone.

[58:07] Nik Walker: And the fact that Lupita was not nominated is kind of gross.

[58:12] Sasha Hutchings: It's crazy.

[58:13] Nik Walker: Isn't it I'm looking through 2019 and 2020 and I'm not seeing anything for us.

[58:13] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[58:18] Nik Walker: It's that's what I'm saying.

[58:20] Sasha Hutchings: Which is insane.

[58:21] Nik Walker: Especially because Get Out put him put him in a position.

[58:24] Sasha Hutchings: It wasn't like Get Out was like, oh, brilliant horror movie, but we're not gonna nominate horror movies.

[58:29] Nik Walker: Get out broke that mold.

[58:31] Sasha Hutchings: So there if you want it, like nominate this fucker.

[58:34] Nik Walker: You mean like Yeah, and like I get horror not normally, but like Joker got nominated.

[58:39] Sasha Hutchings: Like their the comic book movie broke into the Oscars in 2020.

[58:42] Nik Walker: Like like it's not it's not out of the I don't know, man.

[58:46] Sasha Hutchings: That was dumb.

[58:47] Nik Walker: So that was dumb.

[58:47] Sasha Hutchings: But also, what's going on with the Oscars this year?

[58:50] Nik Walker: Is it what's going on with the Tonies this year?

[58:52] Sasha Hutchings: What's going on with anything?

[58:54] Nik Walker: The Tony's is hot topic.

[58:57] Sasha Hutchings: Hot topic.

[58:59] Nik Walker: Hot topics.

[59:00] Sasha Hutchings: I'm sorry.

[59:01] Nik Walker: I'm still on the nominations.

[59:03] Sasha Hutchings: This okay.

[59:03] Nik Walker: Wow.

[59:05] Sasha Hutchings: Get into it.

[59:06] Nik Walker: I had to get into it.

[59:07] Sasha Hutchings: I had to get to a picture.

[59:09] Nik Walker: Bombshell, Charlie's was bombshell.

[59:12] Sasha Hutchings: I mean, like, I loved a bombshell.

[59:14] Nik Walker: I thought it was great, but I just like this us is exquisite.

[59:14] Sasha Hutchings: Yes.

[59:19] Nik Walker: It is an exquisite film.

[59:21] Sasha Hutchings: Um and that performance specifically.

[59:23] Nik Walker: Her performance specifically, 100%.

[59:26] Sasha Hutchings: Film aside, the performance.

[59:28] Nik Walker: Yeah, I would say, yeah, out of the movie, her performance and the film, like the filmography, and it just the screenplay itself.

[59:36] Sasha Hutchings: It's just everything else, you know, sort of revolves around that.

[59:36] Nik Walker: Yes.

[59:36] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah.

[59:41] Nik Walker: And and like, and like it it the the entire film as a film, like it truly it is a brilliant concept it is brilliantly done it would not have worked without that central performance so if you're gonna tell me that you have a film that that's that brilliant and and is hinged on Lupita and you don't nominate Lupita then what what the fuck are we doing?

[1:00:01] Sasha Hutchings: Do you know you guys didn't see this though. Us was nominated for one art director's guild award and three MTV movie awards.

[1:00:08] Nik Walker: I need you to look at there's a slinky with my name on it over here.

[1:00:16] Sasha Hutchings: When we do the next Chaos Twins I need you to know that I am going to buy you a slinky sends me a slinky I'm gonna send you a slinky for the next episode and nobody will understand until they watch Little Justice and that's quite to play this back you guys can hear what I'm hearing.

[1:00:31] Nik Walker: I know I hear it just I actually do hear it is it still happening it's it's your audio sasha not say anything it was just it's a slinky.

[1:00:42] Sasha Hutchings: I'm gonna get a sound of a slinky and play it next to it well I wish I could hear the slinky maybe it's my earring I think it might be them yeah take off this earring my earring for the record my earring is not a slinky your earring's not a slinky no that is good to know slinky earrings would be kind of cool though slinky earrings would be really cool though.

[1:01:10] Nik Walker: Well sasha you know what else is cool the fact that you were here we are so thankful that you came through and did this and and talked to us and and you know we're your wonderful self is there anything you know anything you want to tell the people anything you want to say you want to plug you know just just you just or just be you just you're Sasha just Sasha.

[1:01:28] Sasha Hutchings: Yeah honestly I'm um slinkies are cool and I'm still reeling from this list of nomin 2020 nominees so I'm I'm done I'm out you're you're moving back to TV yeah like I am so upset right now and I need to go I need to go deal with it like I need to go deal with like I think I have to go watch Judy now which I'm upset about like I think I have to stop I mean I saw a marriage story and like it was great but it was just like white people yelling at each other like all the time just it's like I get it you guys are upset the chaos getting a divorce so I don't know that's where I'm at honestly and I just you know this is this is America this is us NBC this I'm this is gonna go down as it's probably the greatest episodes we've ever done I just want to say that this is this is this is the episode that gets us that gets us the recognition uh guys take care of yourselves if you're if you're a white couple fighting through your divorce good luck and uh I mean watch a marriage story let me know uh how close is it real is that what it's like I'll never know we'll never know we'll never know uh but take care of yourselves out there chaos chaos chaos chaos chaos chaos chaos chaos chaos little justin little just in little justice Fuck yeah.