Cinema PSYOPS

SPEAKER_1: There is very little time or point in an explanation.

SPEAKER_1: To be blunt, the audio came from a timeline and dimension that has collapsed at a quantum level, rendering it null and void in terms of existence.

SPEAKER_1: Operational time in the dimensional continuum where the beings that created the audio collapsed in on itself, rendering all of their civilization, including technology, null and void.

SPEAKER_1: Timelines across the entire continuum are collapsing and changing.

SPEAKER_1: The destruction has a nexus that centers on CINEMA SILOPS.

SPEAKER_2: 10 YEARS!

SPEAKER_3: 10 years.

SPEAKER_3: Ten years!

SPEAKER_5: Ten years!

SPEAKER_6: Ten years!

SPEAKER_3: What is the most likely way humanity will be wiped out?

SPEAKER_3: Maybe it's something from space, or us.

SPEAKER_7: Although, the way the world ends might be because of you.

SPEAKER_3: And if this is the case, you wouldn't have any control over it.

SPEAKER_8: The global temperature rise underscores a chilling reality.

SPEAKER_1: On top of the initial flash of thermonuclear light, which is 180 million degrees, which catches everything on fire in a nine-mile diameter radius.

SPEAKER_1: On top of the bulldozing effect of the wind, and the old buildings coming down, and more fires, igniting more fires.

SPEAKER_1: On top of the radiation that they happened to have survived, poisoning people to death.

SPEAKER_1: On top of all of that, each one of these fires creates a mega fire that is a hundred or more square miles.

SPEAKER_1: Timelines across the entire continuum are collapsing and changing.

SPEAKER_1: The destruction has a nexus that centers on cinema-sci-ops.

SPEAKER_9: A breathtaking scientific revolution is taking place.

SPEAKER_9: Biotechnology has been progressing at stunning speed, giving us the tools to eventually gain control over biology, solving the deadliest diseases, while also creating viruses more dangerous than nuclear bombs, able to devastate humanity.

SPEAKER_1: It's man returning to the most primal, violent state, as people fight over the tiny resources that remain.

SPEAKER_1: Timelines across the entire continuum are collapsing and changing.

SPEAKER_1: The destruction has a nexus that centers on CinemaSciLabs.

SPEAKER_1: 10 years!

Cort: Hello, and welcome to the 470th consecutive week of Cinema Psy Ops.

Cort: This represents the run to the end of year 10.

Cort: This is two episodes in.

Cort: I'm your host, Cort, the guy that is super excited to talk about one of his favorite films with his co-host, Matt.

Matt: Oh, my head, my brain.

Matt: I don't know, man.

Cort: This episode is doubling as a way for someone to keep an eye on Matt's cognitive functions by speech patterns.

Matt: Yeah, if I start going downhill, you'll call 911 for me.

Matt: Right.

Cort: I'm going to keep an ear out on you and make sure, and I'm going to tease your brain while we talk Wonder Boys as best I can, and make sure that you're remembering everything that happened in the film.

Cort: And if you can recall all of that stuff, it's very recently something that happened, but it also should be relatively long-term memory too, from watching the film for the show.

Cort: So I think that's a pretty good cognitive test, and it's kind of the best I can do.

Cort: And otherwise, who else is going to keep an eye on you because you're home alone, right?

Matt: Yeah, right.

Matt: Yeah, pretty much.

Matt: Well, my son's here, so.

Cort: Right.

Cort: Like I said, you're home alone.

Matt: Not wrong.

Matt: Actually, he has been checking on me.

Matt: He's a good kid.

Cort: That's awesome.

Cort: Yeah, I kid your kid.

Cort: But yeah, despite being raised by you, your son turned out just fine.

Matt: Yeah, he's pretty all right.

Cort: Absolutely.

Cort: All right.

Cort: So I am 100 percent the guy who picked Wonder Boys, which may surprise a lot of people.

Cort: It's an early 20-aughts film, and there's a reason why I picked it.

Cort: The very easy reason to explain why I picked it is basically this.

Cort: When this film was shot in Pittsburgh, I was living there.

Cort: This is a snapshot of what my life was like in Pittsburgh and how things looked in the years that I was going to college in Pittsburgh.

Cort: That's what the city looked like when I lived there to me.

Cort: The miserable raining over top of snow that is just melting kind of season that this film takes place in, that sort of is it winter or is it spring?

Cort: Will it make up its mind kind of weird gray misery that is represented in this film is my fondest memories of living in Pittsburgh for college, right?

Cort: So I have a very nostalgic reason for loving it.

Cort: And on top of that, this is some really top notch dialogue.

Cort: This is obviously a extremely clip heavy show because literally the entire film has been clipped.

Cort: I'm not kidding.

Cort: I almost all dialogue has been clipped in this film because it deserves to be.

Matt: Yeah.

Cort: So if you're ready for a clip show of a movie, basically where I've condensed down all of like removed a lot of the dead spaces between the dialogue and just condensed it all down.

Cort: And we're going to give you a Cliffs Notes of Wonder Boys.

Cort: If that's what you're looking for, this is the review you're about to get.

Matt: That's right, god damn it.

Cort: Yeah, and I'm going to gush all over it and make sure that Matt's okay while I'm doing it.

Cort: But up first, we're going to have to play the Legion Patreon ad.

Cort: And then immediately following that, as I mentioned last week, this week as well, films featured in the soundtrack.

Cort: Up first is Little Willie John with the song, I Need Your Love So Bad, on the pirate radio edit right after this.

SPEAKER_5: This will keep you quiet.

SPEAKER_5: Oh, hi there.

SPEAKER_5: I didn't see you.

SPEAKER_5: You called me cutting a new show.

SPEAKER_5: I'm Beau Ransdell and I'm one of the many creators you can find on Legion Podcasts.

SPEAKER_5: I said quiet.

SPEAKER_5: My fellow podcasters and I work hard to bring you the best in horror podcasting, but that comes at a cost.

SPEAKER_12: What's that like to live deliciously?

SPEAKER_5: Not that, but also yes.

SPEAKER_5: No, what I'm getting at is that there are server costs, costs for good microphones and software for editing, all the things that make our shows, you know, fun to listen to and you can help.

SPEAKER_5: If you're enjoying the shows on legionpodcasts.com or in the Legion Network available on iTunes and Stitcher, just about anywhere you can download a podcast really, you can help us out and get a little something for your trouble at patreon.com/legionpodcasts

SPEAKER_5: For just two bucks a month, you get a pair of movie commentaries exclusive to Patreon, and for $5, you can also join us for a monthly screening of a movie.

SPEAKER_5: All of that available on patreon.com/legionpodcasts

SPEAKER_5: We appreciate it, and thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_5: Now, back to the cutting room.

Cort: I believe that this was the song that was featured in the bar where all the Colleges were there, and one of the students asked to dance with Michael Douglas' character.

Matt: Weird as shit.

Cort: Yeah, well, if you think that's weird as shit, strap in, because this movie's gonna make you real uncomfortable for a lot of sequences.

Matt: Of course it is.

Cort: All right, Wonder Boys from 2000.

Cort: The film opens with an overture song to set the mood and credits to tell you who is in the film.

Cort: And then this moves into voiceover, and our first clip.

Michael Douglas: The young girl sat perfectly still in the confessional, listening to her father's boot scrape like chalk on the ancient steps of the church, then grow faint, then disappear altogether.

Michael Douglas: She could sense the priest beyond the great waiting.

Michael Douglas: On that particular Friday afternoon, last February, I was reading a story to my advanced writer's workshop by one James Lear, junior lit major and sole inhabitant of his own gloomy gulag.

Michael Douglas: She bit the flesh of her lip, closed her eyes, mute.

Michael Douglas: James' stories were about as sunny as his disposition.

Michael Douglas: I was distracted.

Michael Douglas: Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my wife had left me that morning.

Michael Douglas: So, anyone?

Michael Douglas: Maybe not.

Michael Douglas: Wives had left me before.

Michael Douglas: Carrie?

Michael Douglas: As usual, James' classmates, aware of a writer's inherent vulnerability, offered their sensitive, gentle opinions.

SPEAKER_14: I mean, Jesus, what is it with you Catholics?

Michael Douglas: All right, all right.

Michael Douglas: Let's try to be constructive here, shall we?

Michael Douglas: Howard, what about you?

SPEAKER_9: I hated it.

SPEAKER_15: His stories make me want to kill myself.

Michael Douglas: That's not exactly what I meant by being constructive, Howard.

Michael Douglas: Yes, Anna.

SPEAKER_16: I think maybe we're missing the point.

Michael Douglas: Anna Green, a talented writer who rented a room in my house, and I knew her to be insightful, kind, and compulsively clad in red cowboy boots.

Michael Douglas: I had in fact never once seen her without them.

SPEAKER_16: He respects us enough to forget us, and that takes courage.

Michael Douglas: Well put, Anna.

Michael Douglas: And a good note to end on, I think.

Michael Douglas: Oh, don't forget about WordFest this weekend.

Michael Douglas: Those of you who are driving VIPs to the cocktail party this evening should have them at the Chancellor's house no later than 5.30.

Michael Douglas: Thank you for that.

Michael Douglas: Is he all right?

SPEAKER_16: I think so.

SPEAKER_16: How about you?

SPEAKER_18: Me?

SPEAKER_18: Yeah.

SPEAKER_18: Why?

SPEAKER_16: Just checking.

Tobey Maguire: Turn off the light, please.

Michael Douglas: It felt good to be in the car, alone, where I could clear my head.

Michael Douglas: Tonight was the opening of WordFest, the university's annual three-day Gabathon for writers and wannabes.

Michael Douglas: My editor, Terry Crabtree, was flying in for the event.

Michael Douglas: He alone had championed my last novel, Arsonist's Daughter, and its critical success had put us both on the map, but that was seven years ago, and I still hadn't finished my follow-up.

Michael Douglas: I knew Terry didn't give a rat's ass about WordFest.

Michael Douglas: He was coming to town to get a look at my long overdue book.

Michael Douglas: I had to keep him at bay.

Robert Downey: Hi, Tripp.

Michael Douglas: Crabtree, how are you, my friend?

Robert Downey: It's good to see you, Tripp.

Michael Douglas: Let me help you with this here.

Robert Downey: Say hello to my new friend, Ms.

Robert Downey: Antonia Slivovic.

Michael Douglas: Nice to meet you.

Michael Douglas: This way.

Robert Downey: I took the liberty of inviting Antonia to tonight's festivities.

SPEAKER_19: The more, the merrier.

SPEAKER_18: Terry was telling me about you on the plane.

SPEAKER_18: It was all so interesting.

Robert Downey: Well, I was just explaining to her how a book comes to be published, what you do as a writer, what I do as an editor, you know.

Michael Douglas: I sweat blood for five years, and he corrects my spelling.

SPEAKER_18: That's exactly what he said.

SPEAKER_22: Yeah, we know each other pretty well.

SPEAKER_2: And actually, it's seven years.

Robert Downey: You know how many times I've boarded an airplane just praying that some gal like her would be sitting down beside me?

Michael Douglas: She's a transvestite.

SPEAKER_4: You're stoned.

Michael Douglas: She's still a transvestite.

SPEAKER_4: So, how's the book?

Michael Douglas: Uh, it's fine.

Michael Douglas: It's done.

Michael Douglas: Well, basically, it got a little tinkering us, so that had to do it.

SPEAKER_8: Great.

SPEAKER_4: Great.

Robert Downey: I was hoping I could get a look at it sometime over the weekend.

Michael Douglas: Do you think that'd be possible?

Michael Douglas: It's gonna be a little tough.

Michael Douglas: I'm at a critical juncture right now.

Robert Downey: Well, I thought you were just tinkering.

Michael Douglas: Well, I am, but I have a couple of little details I've got to work on.

Robert Downey: I'm not gonna pressure you.

Robert Downey: I just got off the plane, you know?

Robert Downey: I mean, I get pressure, you know?

Robert Downey: I get it.

SPEAKER_4: You know what I mean?

Robert Downey: What the hell in the hootenanny you suppose that would be?

Michael Douglas: That would be a tuba.

Robert Downey: So you didn't actually purchase this car, did you?

Michael Douglas: No, I got it from Jerry Nathan.

Michael Douglas: He owed me some money.

SPEAKER_22: Oh, he owes God money, including my commission on that full novel of his.

Michael Douglas: That perfume you're wearing, Antonio, that wouldn't happen to be Cristal, would it?

SPEAKER_18: Um, oh, yes, it is.

SPEAKER_18: How did you know?

Michael Douglas: Lucky guess.

Michael Douglas: The WordFest kickoff party was always held at Sarah and Walter Gaskell's house.

SPEAKER_18: Here we go.

Michael Douglas: She was the chancellor, which meant she oversaw the university.

Michael Douglas: Her husband, Dr.

Michael Douglas: Gaskell, was the chairman of the English department, which meant he oversaw me.

SPEAKER_18: Isn't that a nice greenhouse?

Michael Douglas: It's Mrs.

Michael Douglas: Gaskell's.

Michael Douglas: It's her hobby.

SPEAKER_22: I thought you were Mrs.

SPEAKER_22: Gaskell's hobby.

Michael Douglas: Oh, piss off.

Michael Douglas: Well, you Krabs, I lost a wife today.

SPEAKER_22: Oh, you'll find another.

Robert Downey: She'll be young, beautiful.

SPEAKER_22: They always are.

SPEAKER_14: Oh, hello, everyone.

SPEAKER_14: Terry, good to see you again.

Robert Downey: Chancellor, don't you look ravishing.

SPEAKER_4: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_14: These goddamn shoes.

SPEAKER_14: I don't know how anyone can walk in these things.

SPEAKER_18: Practiced.

SPEAKER_14: I don't believe we've met.

SPEAKER_18: Antonia Sleviak.

SPEAKER_14: Poe, Poe, Poe.

SPEAKER_23: Poe, stop.

SPEAKER_14: Poe.

SPEAKER_12: That wouldn't be Walter's dog, would it?

SPEAKER_19: Poe.

SPEAKER_18: Who's he barking at now?

Michael Douglas: He's still barking at me.

Michael Douglas: He's blind.

Cort: Stop this.

SPEAKER_14: Honestly.

Michael Douglas: Excuse me, I need to talk to you for a second, Chancellor.

SPEAKER_14: It's funny, I need to talk to you too.

SPEAKER_14: Maybe you could come and take these coats to the upstairs guest room, Professor Trev.

Michael Douglas: I'd be happy to, Chancellor, if I knew where the upstairs guest room was.

SPEAKER_14: All I could show you.

SPEAKER_8: Terry.

Cort: Yeah.

SPEAKER_8: Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_9: We'll make ourselves at home.

Cort: We'll let Poe show us around.

SPEAKER_9: Thanks.

Michael Douglas: That's new, isn't it?

SPEAKER_14: Yeah, Walter just got it back from the framer.

SPEAKER_14: You first.

SPEAKER_17: This morning...

SPEAKER_14: I'm pregnant.

SPEAKER_14: I'm sure.

SPEAKER_17: Well, that's...

SPEAKER_17: that's very surprising.

SPEAKER_17: Does Walter know that...

SPEAKER_14: I think Walter would find this a little more than surprising.

Michael Douglas: Emily left me this morning.

SPEAKER_5: She's left before.

SPEAKER_17: She's left the room before, but she's always come back.

SPEAKER_25: So...

SPEAKER_14: I guess we just divorce our spouses, marry each other, and have this baby, right?

SPEAKER_25: Simple.

SPEAKER_15: Yeah, right, thanks.

SPEAKER_15: Simple, you know.

SPEAKER_14: Is that Christophe?

SPEAKER_14: Oh, God.

SPEAKER_14: I wear the same scent as a transvestite.

SPEAKER_14: She is a transvestite, isn't she?

SPEAKER_17: She's not now.

SPEAKER_17: Terry will make sure she is, Emily.

SPEAKER_17: Has he asked you about the book yet?

SPEAKER_17: Yes.

SPEAKER_4: And?

SPEAKER_4: Are you gonna tell him?

SPEAKER_17: No.

SPEAKER_17: Maybe I don't.

SPEAKER_17: I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_4: Me either.

SPEAKER_24: Well, DiMaggio's record for hits in consecutive games is probably the most impressive feat in all of sports, and in my opinion, will never be broken.

SPEAKER_17: Come here, big guy.

SPEAKER_18: His condition's so sad.

SPEAKER_24: Yes, but even blind, he still gets around.

Michael Douglas: I don't drink, normally.

Michael Douglas: But this was turning out to be one fucked up day.

Michael Douglas: And now I found myself in close proximity to Sarah's husband and his dog, Poe.

Robert Downey: Walter, I see you met my friend.

SPEAKER_24: Oh yes, she's charming.

Michael Douglas: Despite his much-wanted Harvard education, Dr.

Michael Douglas: Walter Gaskell didn't have a clue about his wife and me.

SPEAKER_24: Simply put, DiMaggio represented, metaphorically speaking, of course, the husband as Slugger.

Michael Douglas: Poe had been on to me since day one.

SPEAKER_24: In fact, I present to you that every woman in some way desires to be Marilyn Monroe.

SPEAKER_18: Oh, I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_6: Sure, I've had a lot of successes.

Michael Douglas: Q was rich.

SPEAKER_17: Q was famous.

Michael Douglas: Q completed a novel every 18 months.

SPEAKER_17: I hated him.

SPEAKER_6: My finest work vanished in resident five, so I find myself conflicted.

Michael Douglas: Ask him if he's conflicted about his house in the Hamptons.

SPEAKER_3: Well, Professor...

Michael Douglas: Q, for your information, Anne already has two stories published at the Paris Review, so you better dust off your A material.

SPEAKER_6: You didn't tell me you were a writer.

SPEAKER_16: He didn't ask.

SPEAKER_18: How did you feel about the adaptation?

SPEAKER_8: I thought it was more literary than cinematic.

SPEAKER_8: Brady.

SPEAKER_12: I was Tridley, Hamhurst.

SPEAKER_12: I've had Arsonist daughter on my graduate study syllabus three years running.

Michael Douglas: I wonder if it's still in print.

SPEAKER_8: Long time since Arsonist daughter.

Cort: After this, Brady sneaks outside and lights up a joint and eavesdrops on his illicit lover and her pretentious-as-fuck husband before coming across James, who is standing in the woods holding a gun and looking morose-as-fuck.

Cort: James is always telling a story and pretty much lies with everything he says, so when he tells this grand story about something, you know it's a lie and that the gun is real and that kid was going to do something dreadful with it.

Cort: Whether it was going into the party and emptying it into people or emptying it into himself, while people in the party hear him from there and have to come find him, whatever it was, it was not going to be good.

Matt: Yeah, no, you get the bad vibes right away.

Cort: Grady offers James a hit from his joint and James refuses in our next clip.

Tobey Maguire: Oh, thank you.

Tobey Maguire: I don't like to lose control of my emotions.

Tobey Maguire: I'm not supposed to be here in case you're wondering, but the other night I was out with Hannah at the movies and she asked me since she was coming, so I ended up coming too.

Michael Douglas: You and Hannah, you sing each other?

Tobey Maguire: No, what gave you that idea?

Michael Douglas: James, relax.

Michael Douglas: I'm not her father.

Michael Douglas: I just rent her a room.

Tobey Maguire: She likes old movies like I do, that's all.

Michael Douglas: So what's the movie you guys saw?

Tobey Maguire: Son of Fury with Tyrone Power and Francis Farmer.

Michael Douglas: She went crazy, Francis Farmer.

Tobey Maguire: So did Gene Tierney.

Tobey Maguire: She's in it too.

Michael Douglas: Sounds like a good one.

Tobey Maguire: It wasn't bad.

Tobey Maguire: You're not like my other teachers, Professor Tripp.

Michael Douglas: You're not like my other students, James.

Michael Douglas: Look, James, about this afternoon workshop, I'm sorry.

Michael Douglas: I think I let things get a little out of hand.

Tobey Maguire: They really hated it.

Tobey Maguire: I think they hated it more than any of the other ones.

Michael Douglas: Well...

Tobey Maguire: It doesn't matter.

Tobey Maguire: It only took me an hour to write.

Michael Douglas: Really?

SPEAKER_17: That's remarkable.

Tobey Maguire: I have trouble sleeping.

Tobey Maguire: While I'm lying in bed, I figure them out.

Tobey Maguire: The stories.

Michael Douglas: You cold, James?

Tobey Maguire: Oh, a little.

Michael Douglas: Why don't we go inside?

Tobey Maguire: It's colder in there.

Michael Douglas: I guess you're right.

Tobey Maguire: Actually, I saw the greenhouse.

Tobey Maguire: I thought I'd come outside and take a look at it.

Tobey Maguire: It looks like heaven.

Michael Douglas: It looks like heaven.

Tobey Maguire: I saw a movie once.

Tobey Maguire: Part of it took place in heaven.

Tobey Maguire: Everyone wore white.

Tobey Maguire: Lived in crystal houses like that.

Tobey Maguire: I really should be going.

Tobey Maguire: Goodbye, Professor Tripp.

Michael Douglas: Hey, James.

Michael Douglas: James, don't go.

Michael Douglas: No.

Michael Douglas: There's something I want you to see.

Tobey Maguire: I'll miss my bus.

Michael Douglas: It's worth it.

SPEAKER_17: Trust me.

SPEAKER_16: Let me help you.

SPEAKER_16: James, are you riding with me?

Tobey Maguire: No, I'm going home.

Michael Douglas: No, he's going with me.

Michael Douglas: Why don't you take Crabtree and his friend?

Michael Douglas: Right?

SPEAKER_16: All right.

Michael Douglas: Where are they anyway?

Cort: Here we are.

SPEAKER_22: Well, hello there.

Michael Douglas: James, this is my editor, Terry Crabtree.

Michael Douglas: James.

SPEAKER_16: James will know about George Sanders.

Tobey Maguire: George Sanders?

SPEAKER_16: Mr.

SPEAKER_16: Crabtree was saying how George Sanders killed himself, only he couldn't remember how.

Tobey Maguire: Pills, April 25th, 1972, in a Costa Brava hotel room.

Robert Downey: How comprehensive of you.

SPEAKER_16: James is amazing.

SPEAKER_16: He knows all the movie suicides.

SPEAKER_16: Go ahead, James, tell him.

Tobey Maguire: There are so many.

SPEAKER_16: Well, just a few, the big ones.

Tobey Maguire: Pierre Angeli, 1971 or 72, also pills.

Tobey Maguire: Donald Redberry shot himself in 1980.

Tobey Maguire: Charles Boyer, 1978, pills again.

Tobey Maguire: Charles Butterworth, 1946, I think, in a car.

Tobey Maguire: Supposedly, it was an accident, but you know, he was distraught.

Tobey Maguire: Dorothy Dandridge, pills, 1965.

Tobey Maguire: Albert Decker, 1968, he hung himself.

Tobey Maguire: He wrote his suicide note and lipstick on his stomach.

Tobey Maguire: William Inge, carbon monoxide, 1973.

Tobey Maguire: Carol Landis, pills again.

Tobey Maguire: I forget when.

Tobey Maguire: George Reeve, Superman on TV, shot himself.

Tobey Maguire: Gene Seabird, pills, of course, 1979.

Tobey Maguire: Everett Sloan, he was good.

Tobey Maguire: Pills.

Tobey Maguire: Margaret Sullivan, pills.

Tobey Maguire: Lupe Velez, a lot of pills.

Tobey Maguire: Gig Young, he shot himself and his wife in 1978.

Tobey Maguire: There are tons more.

SPEAKER_16: I haven't heard of half of them.

Robert Downey: You did them alphabetically?

Tobey Maguire: It's just how my brain works, I guess.

Robert Downey: Fascinating.

Robert Downey: Say, why don't you come out with us?

Robert Downey: After the lecture, does this place up on the hill always get Tripp to take me?

Tobey Maguire: Actually, I just want to go home.

Robert Downey: Don't be silly.

Robert Downey: No one your age just wants to go home.

Robert Downey: Besides, faculty will be present.

Robert Downey: Just consider it a field trip.

Tobey Maguire: Is that really it?

SPEAKER_17: That's really it.

Tobey Maguire: The one she wore on her wedding day.

SPEAKER_15: So I'm told.

SPEAKER_17: Really?

SPEAKER_15: Really.

Tobey Maguire: She was small.

Tobey Maguire: Most people don't know that.

Tobey Maguire: The shoulders are so small.

Tobey Maguire: It looks so perfect.

Tobey Maguire: I bet it was the only time she wore it that day.

Tobey Maguire: She must have felt so happy.

Tobey Maguire: Must have cost Dr.

Tobey Maguire: Gaskell a lot.

Michael Douglas: I guess.

Michael Douglas: Walter never tells Sarah the truth about how much he pays recently.

Tobey Maguire: You're really good friends with the Chancellor, aren't you?

Michael Douglas: Pretty good.

Michael Douglas: I'm friends with her husband, too.

Tobey Maguire: I guess you must be, if you know the combination to his closet, and he doesn't mind you being in here in their bedroom.

Michael Douglas: Right.

Michael Douglas: We better skedaddle.

Michael Douglas: James.

SPEAKER_15: You all right, James?

Tobey Maguire: I'm sorry, Professor Trev.

Tobey Maguire: Maybe it's seeing that jacket that belonged to her.

Tobey Maguire: It just looks really lonely hanging there in a closet.

SPEAKER_3: Maybe I'm just a little sad tonight.

Michael Douglas: I'm a little sad tonight, too, James.

Tobey Maguire: You mean with your wife leaving you at all?

Tobey Maguire: Hannah mentioned something about it.

Michael Douglas: Yeah, well, it's complicated, James.

Michael Douglas: I think we should go now.

SPEAKER_17: Easy, easy.

SPEAKER_19: He's a good boy, Poe.

Michael Douglas: Poe's a good boy.

Michael Douglas: Easy, Poe.

Michael Douglas: Easy.

SPEAKER_2: Good dog.

Cort: Okay, I will freely admit that I have cut the fuck out of these clips to try and get as much screen time condensed down as possible, and it's going to take away some of the dramatic effect.

Cort: Don't listen to these clips and think that this is Poe acting.

Cort: This is just Court cut the fuck out of it and removed all the dramatic pauses that leave very uncomfortable feelings.

Cort: Yes.

Cort: All right, so with that, at the end of the clip, we hear the dog springs on Grady, biting at his leg, latching on and shaking him to the ground after a prolonged struggle.

Cort: James comes out of that bedroom and proves that he is a liar by shooting the poor dog without hesitation.

Cort: That dog is dead as fuck.

Matt: Yeah, yeah, that dog is dead.

Cort: Yeah, fuck you, movie, that was wrong.

Matt: Yeah, we didn't need that.

Cort: They talk about it now in our third clip.

Michael Douglas: Shit, James, you shot Dr.

Michael Douglas: Gaskell's dog.

Tobey Maguire: But I had to, didn't I?

SPEAKER_17: You could have pulled him off me.

Tobey Maguire: No, the dog was crazy, Professor Tripp.

Tobey Maguire: He was attacking you.

SPEAKER_18: The dog was attacking you.

Michael Douglas: Calm down, James.

Tobey Maguire: What was I supposed to...

Michael Douglas: Calm down.

Michael Douglas: Don't freak out, all right?

Tobey Maguire: Okay.

Tobey Maguire: All right.

Tobey Maguire: Do you have a mirror?

Tobey Maguire: It's the best way to see if someone's still breathing.

Michael Douglas: The dog is dead, James.

Michael Douglas: Believe me, I know a dead dog when I see one.

Tobey Maguire: What are we supposed to do now?

Michael Douglas: First, you're going to give me that little cap gun of yours.

SPEAKER_12: Professor Tripp, what are we going to do with it?

Michael Douglas: I don't know.

Michael Douglas: I'm still trying to figure out how to tell the Chancellor that I murdered her husband's dog.

Tobey Maguire: You?

Michael Douglas: Trust me, James, when the family pets been assassinated, the owner does not want to hear that one of her students was a trigger man.

Tobey Maguire: Does she want to hear it was one of her professors?

Michael Douglas: I've got tenure.

SPEAKER_19: It's still warm.

Tobey Maguire: Yuck!

Tobey Maguire: That is a big trunk.

Tobey Maguire: It holds a tuba, a suitcase, a dead dog, and a garment bag almost perfectly.

Michael Douglas: Yeah, that's just what they used to say in the ads.

Michael Douglas: Come on, Crabtree, I know you're holding.

Tobey Maguire: Whose tuba is that anyway?

SPEAKER_3: Miss Sloviaks.

Tobey Maguire: Can I ask you something about her?

Michael Douglas: Yes, she is.

Tobey Maguire: So is your friend Crabtree, is he gay?

Michael Douglas: Most of the time he is, James.

Michael Douglas: Some of the time he isn't.

Michael Douglas: What do we have here?

Michael Douglas: This looks like...

Michael Douglas: That's our old friend Mr.

Michael Douglas: Codine.

Michael Douglas: Let you take the old pinch out of the ankle, won't we?

Tobey Maguire: No thanks.

Tobey Maguire: I'm fine without them.

Michael Douglas: Right.

Michael Douglas: That's where you're standing in the Chancellor's backyard, spinning like Cap Gun of yours.

Michael Douglas: You're fine.

SPEAKER_9: Yeah, you're just as fit as a fucking fiddle.

Michael Douglas: I'm sorry, James.

Michael Douglas: I'm sorry I said that.

Michael Douglas: How about we try that again?

SPEAKER_24: It is a great pleasure to introduce best-selling author Quentin Morwood, known to his friends simply as Q.

SPEAKER_6: I am a writer.

SPEAKER_6: As a writer, you learn that everyone you meet has a story.

SPEAKER_6: Every bartender, every taxi driver has an idea that would make a great book.

SPEAKER_6: Assumedly, each of you has an idea, but how do you get from there to here?

SPEAKER_6: What is the bridge from the water's edge of inspiration to the far shore of accomplishment?

SPEAKER_14: Faith.

SPEAKER_6: Faith that your story is worth to tell it.

SPEAKER_6: Faith that you have the wherewithal to tell it.

SPEAKER_17: I'll be back in a minute.

SPEAKER_6: Like Whitman, I admit, I worship at the shrine a formal construction, but like Conrad, I confess that I had a...

SPEAKER_14: Grady, you had another one again, didn't you?

Michael Douglas: Is the thing, is it over?

SPEAKER_14: Almost.

SPEAKER_14: Wanna sit up?

SPEAKER_15: What's wrong?

Michael Douglas: Nothing, I just twisted Sarah to something I gotta tell you.

Michael Douglas: Something hard.

SPEAKER_14: Stand up, then.

SPEAKER_14: Control for all this rolling around on the floor.

Michael Douglas: Give me a hand.

SPEAKER_23: Well, it seems that...

SPEAKER_14: I know what you're gonna say.

Michael Douglas: I don't think you do know what I'm gonna say, sir.

SPEAKER_14: You love Emily.

SPEAKER_14: Of course you love Emily.

SPEAKER_4: She's young, she's beautiful, she's your wife.

SPEAKER_8: You have to stay with her.

Michael Douglas: But I don't have a choice.

Michael Douglas: Emily left me.

SPEAKER_14: She'll come back.

SPEAKER_14: That's why I'm going to have this baby.

Michael Douglas: You're not gonna have it?

SPEAKER_14: No, there's no way.

SPEAKER_14: I mean, don't you think there's no way?

Michael Douglas: Well, I don't see any, but I know what it means to you.

SPEAKER_14: No, you don't.

SPEAKER_14: Fuck you for saying you do.

SPEAKER_14: Fuck you for saying that there's no way.

SPEAKER_17: Because there could be a way, Grady.

SPEAKER_14: They must be finishing.

SPEAKER_14: We should go.

SPEAKER_17: Whose gun is that?

Michael Douglas: Souvenir from Baltimore.

SPEAKER_14: It's heavy.

SPEAKER_14: It smells like gunpowder.

SPEAKER_17: Caps.

SPEAKER_23: I love you.

Tobey Maguire: The doors made so much noise.

Tobey Maguire: It was so embarrassing.

SPEAKER_25: They had to carry him out.

SPEAKER_25: Is he all right?

SPEAKER_25: He's fine.

SPEAKER_2: He's never ready.

Tobey Maguire: They were going to the men's room, but would they make it in time?

SPEAKER_14: Terry Crabtree and James Lear.

SPEAKER_14: Leave it to you to make that mistake.

SPEAKER_14: Wait here.

SPEAKER_18: I need a ride.

Michael Douglas: I'm your man.

Michael Douglas: There's an explanation.

SPEAKER_18: Couldn't he have just thrown a shoe at the poor thing?

Michael Douglas: Antonia, listen.

SPEAKER_18: Tony.

SPEAKER_18: Now that I'm home.

Michael Douglas: Tony, I'm sorry.

Michael Douglas: Tonight didn't work out the way you'd hoped to with Terry.

SPEAKER_18: Forget it.

SPEAKER_18: Your friend is just, I don't know, into collecting weird tricks.

Michael Douglas: I think you'd call it habit.

Michael Douglas: I do get the feeling he's going through the motions a little bit.

SPEAKER_18: You mean because his career is ruined and all?

SPEAKER_17: Jesus, is that what he told you?

SPEAKER_18: He said he hasn't had a success in over five years, and everyone in New York thinks he's kind of a loser.

SPEAKER_18: But he said he's sure your book's so good that he'll be able to keep his job.

SPEAKER_18: And you're not one of those writers who has a success and then freezes up and never has another one.

SPEAKER_18: You can turn here.

SPEAKER_9: I gotta go.

Michael Douglas: I think I may have to rescue James Lear.

SPEAKER_18: You know, Grady, maybe you should think about going home.

SPEAKER_18: You look like you need a little rescuing yourself.

Michael Douglas: How are you?

Michael Douglas: Can I get a double tickle on the rocks, please?

SPEAKER_22: I'm right over here at dinner.

Michael Douglas: Is that just beer?

SPEAKER_5: Primarily.

SPEAKER_22: Although I gather the two of you staged a little raid on the Crabtree Pharmacopia.

Michael Douglas: So, where is everybody?

SPEAKER_5: Well, Sarah and Walter declined.

SPEAKER_22: I guess they just want to go home and curl up on the couch at Poe.

Michael Douglas: Jesus, he's out.

SPEAKER_22: He has a book.

Michael Douglas: I know.

Michael Douglas: He started it in fall semester.

SPEAKER_22: Finished it.

SPEAKER_4: Winter break.

SPEAKER_22: So, is he any good?

Michael Douglas: No, not yet here.

Matt: Well, I'm going to read it anyway.

Michael Douglas: Crabs, come on.

Michael Douglas: He's one of my students for price sakes.

Michael Douglas: Besides, I'm not sure if he's...

Matt: He is.

SPEAKER_5: I'm sure.

SPEAKER_5: Take my word for it.

SPEAKER_5: I see myself in him.

Michael Douglas: Oh, I'm sure you do.

Michael Douglas: But it's a little more complicated than that.

Michael Douglas: Besides, he's a little scattered right now.

Michael Douglas: He almost hit something really stupid tonight.

Michael Douglas: I don't think he needs sexual confusion to mix up the stew a little more.

SPEAKER_4: On the contrary, I think it might be just a ticket.

SPEAKER_8: Double dickle on the rocks.

Michael Douglas: Cheers.

Robert Downey: Oh, my goodness.

SPEAKER_4: Do you see what I see?

Robert Downey: Let's go.

SPEAKER_2: You're first.

Michael Douglas: President of the James Brown Hair Club for Men.

Michael Douglas: He's a boxer of flyweight.

Robert Downey: No, no, no.

SPEAKER_4: He's a jockey.

SPEAKER_4: His name is Curtis.

SPEAKER_22: Curtis Hard Apple.

Michael Douglas: I'm not Curtis.

Robert Downey: Okay, well, then burn it.

Robert Downey: Burn in Hard Apple.

SPEAKER_22: The scars are from a horse.

SPEAKER_22: He fell during a race.

SPEAKER_22: He got trampled.

Michael Douglas: He's addicted to painkillers.

Cort: Yeah, he can't even piss it in enough.

SPEAKER_9: But he lives with his mother.

SPEAKER_22: That's right.

SPEAKER_22: He's got a younger brother who's a...

Michael Douglas: Who's a groom named Claudel, and his mother blames Vernon for Claudel's death.

SPEAKER_2: Because.

SPEAKER_22: Because...

SPEAKER_2: Because...

SPEAKER_5: Because why?

Tobey Maguire: He was killed when a gangster named Freddy Nostrils tried to shoot his favorite horse.

Tobey Maguire: Claudel took the bullet himself.

Tobey Maguire: Vernon over there was in on the hit.

SPEAKER_9: That was good.

Michael Douglas: Yeah, he heard everything we said.

SPEAKER_16: I want you to dance with me.

Cort: So during the clip, Grady downs a sample bottle of whiskey and two rather large codeine tablets.

Cort: James coughs up his single codeine tablet onto Grady's coat and then has to do some shooting of whiskey and the pain pill all over again.

Cort: And the pill takes effect during the clip.

Cort: As we hear, he starts losing his shit during the conference, and he can't control himself because he's on pills and booze.

Cort: Given to him by a faculty member.

Cort: I just want to point this out, everybody.

Matt: I mean, it's not responsible.

Cort: Also, when Antonio asks for a ride home, she is shown the dead dog by a guess accident when she needs to get her bag from the trunk so that she can change on the way to her house.

Cort: I just wanted to point that out.

Cort: She gets shown the dead dog by accident.

Cort: Like, yeah, like he's just that dumb.

Cort: Like for a professor, he's awfully stupid.

Matt: I think his mind is elsewhere.

Matt: Well, yeah, he's not concentrating on anything.

Cort: Well, he's also mentally not doing well.

Cort: Besides the fact that his wife left him, he hasn't been sleeping, he hasn't been able to finish this book.

Cort: He's been slowly deteriorating writing this book for a while before we even meet him.

Cort: We just are watching the final descent into rock bottom for this gentleman.

Matt: Yeah.

Cort: That's what's happening in this film.

Cort: At the end of the clip, we also see the writers making up a story of a man across the way from them based on the way that he appears.

Cort: James owns it with his final piece that we heard there of Vernon's made up backstory.

Cort: And Hannah comes to drag Grady out onto the dance floor for a dance during a slow dancing blues song at the end of the clip.

Cort: And that takes us roughly through the first third of the film.

Cort: So at this set up, we already see that James has shot the dog.

Cort: They now have the dead dog.

Cort: It's in the trunk with the luggage of the writers that they are driving around and Antonio's luggage.

Cort: Antonio sees the dead dog, but really doesn't have any stake in this at all.

Cort: And that's all in just the first 40-ish minutes, just under 40 minutes.

Cort: It's 37, 36-ish minutes here at this point, when we get to the point of no return of, this guy's career is fucked.

Cort: He's just murdered his boss's dog.

Cort: More or less.

Matt: This really doesn't usually work.

Cort: Right.

Cort: So I mean, it's a really interesting setup because you think, well, how could it get any worse for this guy?

Cort: Because you know he's just going to make it get worse.

Cort: Yeah.

Matt: There's no way this does it.

Matt: There's no getting better out of this.

Matt: It's just going to get worse and worse.

Cort: Well, speaking of how it's only going to get worse, everybody strap in because the next third starts with Hannah being clearly into Grady while they're dancing.

Cort: In our fourth clip.

SPEAKER_16: So I've been rereading Arsonist's daughter.

SPEAKER_16: So beautiful, Grady.

SPEAKER_16: So natural.

SPEAKER_16: It's like all of your sentences always existed, just waiting up there in style heaven for you to fetch them down.

SPEAKER_17: I thank you.

SPEAKER_16: And I love the inscription you wrote to me.

SPEAKER_16: Only I'm not quite the Downey Innocent you think I am.

SPEAKER_17: Well, that's not true.

Michael Douglas: We need all the Downey Innocents we can get.

SPEAKER_6: What this boy could use is a nice whole Coca-Cola.

Cort: Here, let me help you.

SPEAKER_2: No, we got them.

SPEAKER_2: We got them.

Michael Douglas: I'll meet you at the car.

Tobey Maguire: Oh, I see.

Tobey Maguire: All right.

SPEAKER_22: Well, give me the keys to the trunk.

SPEAKER_2: Well, yeah, I got to get my property out of there.

Michael Douglas: The trunk's a little sticky.

Michael Douglas: Perhaps I got to do it.

SPEAKER_23: Whatever.

SPEAKER_22: Professor.

Michael Douglas: Hey, Hannah, when you get James back to the apartment, make sure he's all right before you leave, okay?

SPEAKER_8: I would if I knew where I was taking him.

Michael Douglas: Hannah, are you telling me you don't know where James Lear lives?

SPEAKER_16: Some apartment somewhere.

SPEAKER_16: I've never seen it.

Michael Douglas: That strikes me as very odd.

SPEAKER_16: Well, James is odd.

SPEAKER_16: I know his aunt lives in Spickly Heights.

SPEAKER_16: I dropped him there once.

SPEAKER_16: But come to think of it, it wasn't even his aunt's house.

SPEAKER_16: He said she worked there or something.

SPEAKER_16: I don't remember.

Tobey Maguire: I remember in there, sir.

Michael Douglas: What's he saying?

SPEAKER_16: His bag.

SPEAKER_16: You know that ugly green thing he's always carrying around?

SPEAKER_16: He must have left it inside.

Michael Douglas: Ah, shit.

Michael Douglas: Left it for the auditorium.

SPEAKER_23: Napsap!

Michael Douglas: All right, let him crash in my house.

SPEAKER_16: Where should I put him?

Michael Douglas: The shape that he's in.

SPEAKER_2: You can stand him up in the garage next to the snow shovels.

SPEAKER_3: He'll be all right.

SPEAKER_16: Great if you want to talk later.

SPEAKER_16: I'll be up.

SPEAKER_2: Hey, guy.

SPEAKER_22: Trev, the truck, you're killing me.

SPEAKER_3: I'm gonna get it, all right?

SPEAKER_17: You're killing me.

SPEAKER_19: You driving this car?

Michael Douglas: Excuse me?

SPEAKER_19: This is 1966 Maroon Ford Galaxy 500.

SPEAKER_19: You driving this car?

Michael Douglas: This is my car.

SPEAKER_19: Bullshit!

SPEAKER_19: It's mine, motherfucker!

SPEAKER_2: I'm afraid you're mistaken.

SPEAKER_19: Bullshit!

SPEAKER_22: Who is that?

Michael Douglas: Oh, Vernon, go home to your mother, will ya?

SPEAKER_19: What are you looking at?

SPEAKER_17: I'm looking at you, fella.

SPEAKER_22: Get it, will ya?

SPEAKER_22: Come on, Killjoy, go.

SPEAKER_22: Can we go now, Dan Mother?

Michael Douglas: What's with you?

SPEAKER_22: I wonder.

SPEAKER_2: Come on, Krabs, the kid was comatose.

SPEAKER_3: Who started that?

SPEAKER_2: I'm trying to calm him down.

SPEAKER_3: Oh, yeah?

Cort: You calmed it down, Dr.

Cort: Fierce.

SPEAKER_3: Grady!

SPEAKER_2: Hit the brakes!

SPEAKER_3: Hey!

SPEAKER_2: What's his problem?

SPEAKER_2: Back up!

SPEAKER_22: Go around, go around him.

SPEAKER_2: I'm stopping you!

Cort: I don't think so!

Cort: So, the guy that they were making up all that back story about, that they nicknamed Vernon Appletree or something like that, or Bad Apple or something like that, I can't remember what his last name was supposed to be.

Cort: Turns out that he thinks that that Galaxy 500 that the current Michael Douglas character, Grady, is driving is actually his, and he's very upset about it and really seems like, yeah, that he's quite pissed, actually.

Matt: Yeah, he's quite angry.

Matt: He's had better moods, I'm sure.

Cort: This leads into a sequence where they are chased by the guy that they're calling Vernon around the streets, who is trying to stop them from driving away, claiming once again that this is his car and not theirs.

Cort: It culminates in Vernon popping in the hood with his ass and taking a bow to walk away immediately after he does it.

Cort: They then cut from this to Grady driving back to the college to get James' bag.

Cort: The janitor who lets him in to get the bag is none other than Alan Tudyk himself.

Cort: And it turns out James does have a manuscript completed in only a few months since he started it in the fall.

Cort: Grady exits the building to find his car and the people in it have disappeared.

Cort: And that is our fifth clip.

Michael Douglas: So there it was.

Michael Douglas: Somewhere in the night, a Manhattan book editor was prowling the streets of Pittsburgh.

Michael Douglas: Best selling author at his side.

Michael Douglas: Dead dog in his trunk.

SPEAKER_23: I say, Professor Tripp, is all that stuff true about Errol Flynn?

SPEAKER_23: How he used to put paprika on his dick?

SPEAKER_23: To make it, you know, like, more stimulating for the chick?

Michael Douglas: Christ, Jack, so how the hell should I know?

SPEAKER_15: Are you reading his biography, are you?

SPEAKER_17: Oh, no, it's true.

Michael Douglas: He used to rub all sorts of things on it.

Michael Douglas: Salad dressing, ground lamb, sick.

Michael Douglas: Whenever I wondered what Sarah saw in me, and I wondered more than once, I always came back to the fact that she loved to read.

Michael Douglas: She read everything, every spare moment.

Michael Douglas: She was a junkie for the printed word.

Michael Douglas: And lucky for me, I manufactured her a drug of choice.

Michael Douglas: Is that your wife?

SPEAKER_15: No, my wife's out of town.

SPEAKER_15: But what exactly are we doing here, Professor Tripp?

SPEAKER_15: Taking the long way home.

SPEAKER_15: Take it easy, Professor Tripp.

Michael Douglas: Thanks for the ride.

Cort: Professor Tripp comes home to find James passed out on the couch in his writing office where he limps over to his desk and plops down.

Cort: This is the quietest his surroundings and mind are before he notices that James has stolen the Marilyn Monroe coat from the Chancellor's house.

Cort: Having discovered this, he puts the coat back and shuts out the light.

Cort: They cut from this to a rainy as fuck winter day as he steps out onto his front porch to have a joint and discovers that Crabtree brought back his car.

Cort: So Grady gets his keys back from Crabtree's guest room and then has an inner monologue.

Cort: So that is our sixth clip.

Michael Douglas: I told myself I needed to put everything aside for the moment, Emily, Sarah, the furloin jacket and the dead dog, and work on my book.

Michael Douglas: It started out as a small book.

Michael Douglas: Probably about 250, 300 pages.

Michael Douglas: It had gotten a little larger in scope.

Michael Douglas: In the ending, it kept getting further away.

Michael Douglas: But the ending was there, I knew it.

Michael Douglas: I could almost see it.

SPEAKER_17: James, I'm okay, I just lost my balance.

SPEAKER_25: I put you on the floor.

Michael Douglas: Oh, thank you.

Tobey Maguire: I thought you might swallow your tongue or something.

Tobey Maguire: I guess you must really miss her, huh?

SPEAKER_17: Oh, oh, this, no, no, I just write in this.

SPEAKER_17: This wasn't Emily's.

Tobey Maguire: I guess there's probably a story behind that.

SPEAKER_17: There is, but it's not very interesting.

Tobey Maguire: Is all of that single space?

Michael Douglas: I'm afraid so, yeah.

Tobey Maguire: That's a really big book you're writing.

SPEAKER_25: Wow.

Tobey Maguire: And I always swore you were working, but...

SPEAKER_17: But?

SPEAKER_25: Nothing.

Tobey Maguire: It's just, it's been a while since Arsonist Daughter, and some people, some of the kids in workshop thought maybe you were...

SPEAKER_17: Washed up?

SPEAKER_4: Blocked.

Michael Douglas: Well, I don't believe in writer's block.

Tobey Maguire: No kidding.

Tobey Maguire: You want me to get that?

Michael Douglas: Please, could you?

SPEAKER_15: Glasses?

Michael Douglas: Thank you.

Tobey Maguire: He didn't give his name.

Michael Douglas: Who?

Tobey Maguire: The guy on the phone.

Michael Douglas: What did he want?

Tobey Maguire: He wanted to know if a Grady Triplift here and drove a dark maroon 1966 Ford Galaxy 500 with black interior.

Michael Douglas: What did you tell him?

Tobey Maguire: Yes.

Michael Douglas: Oh, good, James.

Tobey Maguire: Well, I just thought maybe...

SPEAKER_22: Good morning, boys.

Robert Downey: Good morning, James.

SPEAKER_15: Good morning.

SPEAKER_15: Take a shower.

Tobey Maguire: Professor Triplift, how did I get here last night?

Michael Douglas: No one knows where you live, James, and I thought you'd like my couch.

Tobey Maguire: And before that, did I do anything?

Tobey Maguire: I mean, did I do anything bad?

Michael Douglas: Well, James, you did shoot the head of the English department's dog and steal his most prized piece of memorabilia.

SPEAKER_17: Oh, shit.

Michael Douglas: Do yourself a favor.

Michael Douglas: Hi.

Michael Douglas: Good morning.

SPEAKER_2: Good morning.

SPEAKER_7: Professor Tripp?

Michael Douglas: That's right.

SPEAKER_7: I understand you attended an event at Sarah and Walter Gaskill's house last night.

Michael Douglas: Yeah, what's this all about anyway?

SPEAKER_7: Somebody pulled a B&E on Dr.

SPEAKER_7: Gaskill's closet, and the dog's missing.

SPEAKER_7: I was just wondering if you saw someone who seemed suspicious, maybe.

Michael Douglas: I wouldn't say there was anybody particularly suspicious.

SPEAKER_7: About this kid, student of yours, Lear, James Lear?

SPEAKER_7: You wouldn't happen to know how I could get in touch with him, would you?

Michael Douglas: I think I have his number on campus.

SPEAKER_7: That's all right.

SPEAKER_7: We'll find him.

SPEAKER_6: Morning.

Michael Douglas: You have a good one.

SPEAKER_16: There you are.

SPEAKER_16: I thought we were going to talk.

SPEAKER_23: Well, I was...

Tobey Maguire: Professor Tripp?

Tobey Maguire: I heard what he said.

Tobey Maguire: What do we do now?

Michael Douglas: Just one minute.

SPEAKER_23: Hello?

SPEAKER_19: Ready?

SPEAKER_2: Sarah?

SPEAKER_1: Thank God you're there.

SPEAKER_14: You won't believe what happened.

Michael Douglas: Could you hold on just a minute, honey?

Tobey Maguire: May I ask you something, Professor Tripp?

SPEAKER_2: Sure, James.

Tobey Maguire: Where exactly are we going?

SPEAKER_2: Well, there's a few things I gotta do today.

Tobey Maguire: See my wife, the one that left you?

Michael Douglas: Yes, that's the one.

Michael Douglas: Oh, no.

SPEAKER_17: Son of a bitch.

Tobey Maguire: You're bleeding, Professor Tripp.

Michael Douglas: No shit, James.

Michael Douglas: So where exactly do you live, James?

Michael Douglas: Apparently not even Hannah Green has a clue as to the location of your apartment.

Tobey Maguire: I got kicked out.

Tobey Maguire: Well, not exactly kicked out.

Tobey Maguire: I was asked to leave.

Michael Douglas: I guess there's probably a story there.

Tobey Maguire: There is, but it's not very interesting.

Michael Douglas: So where do you stay?

Tobey Maguire: At the bus station.

Tobey Maguire: It's not so bad.

Tobey Maguire: I know the night janitor, and there's a broken locker I can put my stuff.

SPEAKER_17: Jesus, James.

Michael Douglas: I mean, well, how long?

Tobey Maguire: A couple of weeks.

Tobey Maguire: That's why, that's why I have the gun, for protection.

Michael Douglas: You should have told someone.

SPEAKER_9: Who?

SPEAKER_17: I don't know.

Michael Douglas: Me.

Michael Douglas: James' story was the stuff of bad fiction, and under other circumstances, I might have wondered where the page ended with him and real life began, but I had other things on my mind.

Michael Douglas: The Gaskell House looked deserted, which figured since WordFest was in full swing on campus.

Tobey Maguire: What are we?

Michael Douglas: You gotta ease off on that stuff, James.

SPEAKER_9: It's pretty acidic.

Tobey Maguire: I can't help myself.

Tobey Maguire: I don't know what's the matter with me.

Michael Douglas: James, you're hungover.

Michael Douglas: What do you think's the matter with you?

SPEAKER_6: I'll be right back.

Michael Douglas: I knew I needed to have a heart to heart with Sarah, but until then, I just make a little gesture.

SPEAKER_14: Feeling guilty?

SPEAKER_14: I can't believe you hung up on me, you dick.

Michael Douglas: Sarah, I am so sorry about this morning.

SPEAKER_17: There was a lot going on.

SPEAKER_14: Walter's a basket case.

SPEAKER_14: Someone stole Marilyn's jacket last night, and Poe's missing.

SPEAKER_17: No, I heard.

SPEAKER_17: You heard?

SPEAKER_14: How?

Michael Douglas: A 12-year-old policeman came by my house this morning.

SPEAKER_14: Did you confess?

SPEAKER_14: Your fingerprints were all over the bedroom.

Michael Douglas: Really?

SPEAKER_17: I was fast.

SPEAKER_14: I'm joking.

SPEAKER_14: Hello?

Michael Douglas: All right.

SPEAKER_17: All right.

SPEAKER_23: All right.

Michael Douglas: Look, about last night, there's something I have to talk to you about.

SPEAKER_15: Okay.

Michael Douglas: I...

SPEAKER_17: I...

Michael Douglas: I want to be with you.

SPEAKER_14: Gee, Grady, that sounded so heartfelt.

Michael Douglas: Oh, really, Sarah, I do.

Michael Douglas: I...

Michael Douglas: Honest, I...

SPEAKER_14: I know.

SPEAKER_14: I believe you.

SPEAKER_14: I believe you want to be with me, but it's just not good enough.

Michael Douglas: I know that.

Michael Douglas: I mean, I know what's at stake here.

SPEAKER_14: No, I don't think you do.

SPEAKER_14: Besides, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_14: I haven't decided yet.

Michael Douglas: About the baby.

SPEAKER_14: That and you.

SPEAKER_14: I'm not going to draw you a map, Grady.

SPEAKER_14: In times like these, you have to do your own navigating.

SPEAKER_8: Why's your car over there?

SPEAKER_14: And who's that sitting in it?

Michael Douglas: James Lear.

SPEAKER_14: What's he doing here?

Michael Douglas: I'm sort of helping him through some issues.

SPEAKER_14: Isn't he lucky?

Tobey Maguire: She seemed to take it pretty well.

Michael Douglas: Yeah.

Michael Douglas: Yeah, well, the moment didn't actually present itself.

Michael Douglas: You feel like taking a ride, James?

SPEAKER_4: Yes.

Tobey Maguire: Humboldt County.

SPEAKER_17: Maybe.

Tobey Maguire: My father, he gets it from his doctor.

SPEAKER_15: Black coma?

Tobey Maguire: Colon cancer.

Michael Douglas: Jesus, James, well.

Tobey Maguire: It's a bit of a scandal.

Tobey Maguire: My parents live in a small town.

SPEAKER_17: Where's that?

Tobey Maguire: Carvel.

SPEAKER_23: Carvel?

SPEAKER_18: Where's Carvel?

Tobey Maguire: Outside Scranton.

SPEAKER_18: I've never heard of it.

SPEAKER_18: It's a hell hole.

Tobey Maguire: Three motels in a mannequin factory.

Tobey Maguire: My dad worked there for 35 years.

Michael Douglas: Your father worked in a mannequin factory?

SPEAKER_23: Sites Plastics.

Tobey Maguire: That's where I met my mom.

Tobey Maguire: She was a fry cook in the cafeteria.

Tobey Maguire: Before that, she'd been a dancer.

Michael Douglas: What kind of dancer?

SPEAKER_18: Whatever kind they wanted her to be.

Michael Douglas: Didn't you say that your mom went to Catholic school?

Tobey Maguire: Well, when we fall, we fall hard.

Michael Douglas: I thought you were the guy that didn't like to lose control of his emotions.

Tobey Maguire: Maybe I just needed the moment to present itself.

Cort: James starts to partake in all forms of drugs now as he craves Grady's pot and is now smoking it.

Cort: He actually kind of reached his hand out almost demanding a puff there, too.

Matt: It's about time it stops being a fucking nerd.

Cort: And that happens at the end of the clip there.

Cort: They make it to Emily's parents' house and Grady is monologuing about how he fucked up by being a cheating piece of shit.

Cort: So it's Michael Douglas delivering that dialogue.

Cort: That's going to be our seventh clip.

Matt: Oh yeah.

Michael Douglas: I had come to the childhood home of my soon to be ex-wife to set things straight, to say something that would end things on the right note, to make Emily feel better about it all, or maybe to make me feel better.

Michael Douglas: Truthfully, I wasn't really sure why I was there.

Tobey Maguire: Someone jumped on your car with their butt.

Michael Douglas: How can you tell?

Tobey Maguire: Well, you can see the outline of a butt.

Tobey Maguire: You want one?

Tobey Maguire: They're incredible.

Tobey Maguire: Incredible.

Michael Douglas: Smoke the rest of that joint, James.

Michael Douglas: You can start chewing on the box.

SPEAKER_19: Hey, maybe she didn't come here.

Michael Douglas: Hey, she came here.

Michael Douglas: We'll just wait.

Michael Douglas: In the meantime, I'm gonna need you to shimmy right through there.

Michael Douglas: Relax, James.

Michael Douglas: Emily hasn't used her keys since she was 15 years old.

Michael Douglas: Besides, your hips aren't much bigger than hers.

Tobey Maguire: Well, it's not that.

Tobey Maguire: It just reminded me of what's in the car.

Tobey Maguire: In the trunk?

SPEAKER_17: Oh, right.

Michael Douglas: Let's try not to think about that, okay?

SPEAKER_17: Thank you.

Tobey Maguire: It feels really good in here.

Michael Douglas: Yeah, I know.

Michael Douglas: It's the kind of house you like to wake up in on Christmas morning.

Michael Douglas: I'll be right back.

Michael Douglas: Make yourself at home.

Michael Douglas: I'm gonna make a phone call.

Cort: With this, James starts scarfing down grandma candy from the candy dish on the table there, in front of the TV, and watching their TV, while Grady goes rifling through his soon-to-be ex-wife's childhood room.

Matt: Of course, because that makes sense.

Cort: James helps himself to the liquor cabinet, and Grady realizes he was never meant to really be with Emily with this inner dialogue thing that I just decided not to include.

Cort: Grady makes a call to the chancellor from Emily's house, and James finds a Judy Garland movie to get into.

Cort: As the parents of Emily, Grady's soon-to-be ex-wife, arrive home, James has lit up the rest of that joint and is smoking it up in their house as they walk in on this stranger smoking pot and drinking their liquor in their house with his fucking feet up on their couch.

Matt: Not a good look.

Cort: They say hello to him.

Cort: He just kind of coughs hello back, and they cut from this to our eighth clip.

SPEAKER_6: Oh, it's infected.

SPEAKER_25: I can clean it up, but then you need to see someone who knows what he's doing.

SPEAKER_8: How we like some hot chocolate.

SPEAKER_8: Fresh go with it.

Tobey Maguire: Nice, thank you.

SPEAKER_25: He's one of your students, this boy?

SPEAKER_17: Yeah, he's a good kid.

Michael Douglas: He's just a little messed up.

SPEAKER_25: Oh, then I'm sure he'll be fine.

SPEAKER_25: With the proper guidance.

Michael Douglas: So where's Emily Hank?

SPEAKER_25: I don't know if I should tell you that, Brady.

SPEAKER_17: I don't want to stalk her.

Michael Douglas: I just want to tell her that I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_17: I'm not trying to get her back.

Michael Douglas: Things haven't been right with us for a while.

SPEAKER_25: Well, all I know is Emily felt you weren't there for her, that she's felt that for a long time, Brady.

SPEAKER_25: Right now, she's in Philadelphia visiting Linda Ashby.

SPEAKER_25: For Christ's sakes, they went to Wellesley together.

SPEAKER_25: Linda spent a week at your house.

Michael Douglas: Oh, Linda.

SPEAKER_15: Oh, oh.

Michael Douglas: I haven't been sleeping a whole lot lately.

Michael Douglas: I got my editor in town trying to finish my book.

SPEAKER_25: Ah, right.

SPEAKER_25: The book.

SPEAKER_25: I hope it's really good, Brady.

SPEAKER_25: I'm having a really good time, Professor Tripp.

Michael Douglas: I'm really happy for you, James.

Michael Douglas: Do me a favor, lay off my dope.

Michael Douglas: That stuff's not for amateurs.

Tobey Maguire: You're mad at me, aren't you?

Tobey Maguire: You're mad because I shot your girlfriend's dog.

SPEAKER_17: It wasn't her dog.

Michael Douglas: It was her husband's.

Michael Douglas: Who said anything about a girlfriend?

Michael Douglas: Okay, James, I wish you hadn't shot my girlfriend's dog, even though Poe and I were not exactly what you call simpatico, that's no reason he should have taken two in the chest.

SPEAKER_17: I don't know.

Michael Douglas: You just keep acting like a goddamn spook all the time, James.

Tobey Maguire: I guess that explains why all the kids in Workshop hate me.

Michael Douglas: All the kids in Workshop hate you, because right now, you are ten times the writer any one of them will ever be.

Tobey Maguire: My stuff stinks.

Tobey Maguire: You said so yourself last night to your friend Crabtree.

Michael Douglas: I didn't mean it like that.

Michael Douglas: And what does it matter what I think?

Michael Douglas: I mean, what does it matter what anybody thinks?

Michael Douglas: Most people don't think, James.

Michael Douglas: And if they do, it's not about writing books.

Michael Douglas: They don't mean anything.

Michael Douglas: Not to anybody.

Michael Douglas: Not anymore.

Tobey Maguire: Arsonist's daughter meant something.

Tobey Maguire: It meant something to me.

Tobey Maguire: It's the reason I came to school here, to be taught by you.

Tobey Maguire: It's one of the reasons I wanted to become a writer.

Michael Douglas: Well, for that, James, you have nothing else.

Michael Douglas: I'm really sorry.

Tobey Maguire: What are we doing?

Michael Douglas: I'm gonna get you a nice meal, a couple of cups of coffee, and I'm taking you home.

Tobey Maguire: Take me now.

Michael Douglas: What?

Tobey Maguire: I'm not hungry.

Michael Douglas: James, you gotta eat.

Tobey Maguire: I'll get something out of the vending machine.

Michael Douglas: Vending machine?

Michael Douglas: What are you talking about?

Tobey Maguire: At the bus station, they have these cheese sandwiches.

Tobey Maguire: They're pretty good.

Tobey Maguire: It's better if you take me now.

Tobey Maguire: That way, Carl won't get my spot.

Michael Douglas: Carl?

Tobey Maguire: Never mind.

Michael Douglas: James, go get us a table, will you?

Michael Douglas: I'm not letting the most talented writer in my class eat some weak old cheese sandwich, okay?

Michael Douglas: I'm not letting them sleep at some bench at a bus station.

Michael Douglas: So go on inside.

Michael Douglas: I'll be there in a minute.

Michael Douglas: C-A-R-V-E-L.

Michael Douglas: Yes, I'm sure, ma'am.

Michael Douglas: It's outside of Scranton.

Michael Douglas: You have no listing.

Michael Douglas: Okay.

Michael Douglas: Well, lady, as we speak, I am looking at a resident of Carvel, Pennsylvania.

Michael Douglas: I'm sure he'd be pretty interested to learn that the good people at Bell Atlantic have misplaced his entire hometown.

Michael Douglas: It's not like I'm making this up as we go.

Michael Douglas: Never mind.

Michael Douglas: My mistake.

Tobey Maguire: You want a bite?

SPEAKER_15: No, thanks.

Tobey Maguire: That's why you're having them.

Tobey Maguire: They're spells.

SPEAKER_3: Spells?

SPEAKER_17: Jesus, James.

Michael Douglas: You should make it sound like we're in a Tennessee Williams play.

Michael Douglas: I don't get spells.

Tobey Maguire: What would you call them, then?

SPEAKER_17: I don't know.

Tobey Maguire: I just worry about you.

Tobey Maguire: That's all.

SPEAKER_17: You just worry about yourself, okay?

Tobey Maguire: Where are you going?

Michael Douglas: No worry.

Michael Douglas: Just stay here and eat.

SPEAKER_17: I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_17: Good evening.

SPEAKER_15: Professor Tripp.

Michael Douglas: Grady.

SPEAKER_15: Fred Lear.

SPEAKER_15: This is my wife, Amanda.

Michael Douglas: Well, looks like I dashed a wonderful evening here.

SPEAKER_8: We were on our way to a benefit, but his luck would have it the club was on the way, so we were able to put in an appearance.

Michael Douglas: I just thought it would be good for James to be with his family this weekend.

SPEAKER_15: Oh, well, of course we can understand that.

Michael Douglas: Right.

Michael Douglas: Okay, I guess I'll go get James.

Michael Douglas: I hope you don't find this forward, Amanda, but I wonder if I might ask, did you ever go to Catholic school?

Tobey Maguire: Excuse me?

Tobey Maguire: I'm not going with them.

Michael Douglas: Things are a little weird for me right now, James.

Tobey Maguire: Things are a little weird for me right now, too.

Michael Douglas: I know, but I got my editor in town, I got to finish my book, and there's some extenuating stuff.

Tobey Maguire: I won't bother you, I won't even talk to you.

Michael Douglas: James, like it or not, those people out there are your parents.

Tobey Maguire: They're not my parents.

Michael Douglas: What?

Tobey Maguire: They're my grandparents, my parents are dead.

Michael Douglas: James, the man is obviously your father, you look just like him.

Tobey Maguire: There's a reason for that.

Michael Douglas: I'll get out of here.

Tobey Maguire: No, that's why she hates me, that's why she makes me sleep in the basement.

Michael Douglas: Crawl space with the rats in the cask of Amantillegos.

SPEAKER_23: No, it's true, they treat me like a freak.

Michael Douglas: Well, you are a freak, James.

Michael Douglas: All right, welcome to the club.

Tobey Maguire: You don't understand, you don't know what it's like.

Michael Douglas: You're right, I don't.

Michael Douglas: Don't expect me to feel sorry for you, all right?

Michael Douglas: Because I don't know who you are.

Michael Douglas: Let me ask you something, James.

Michael Douglas: In the past 36 hours, have you told me one thing that's true, one thing that comes from you?

Tobey Maguire: I just wanted to stay with you for a little while.

Tobey Maguire: That's all.

Michael Douglas: I'm a teacher, James.

Michael Douglas: I'm not a holiday in.

SPEAKER_22: I thank you, Professor Tripp.

Cort: It was an obvious setup that the professor would drop James off with his, I'm gonna call them legal guardians, because just like the professor points out, what do we know is even actually true about James at this point?

Matt: Yeah, James is a liar, so...

Cort: He's a compulsive liar at that.

Cort: That's why he's such a good storyteller, because he can't tell the truth.

Matt: So, I mean, yeah, it's just gonna be one of those fucking things where you don't know what's the truth.

Matt: It's, you know, is he a bastard son of these people?

Matt: Like, I don't know, fucking Jesus.

Cort: So anyway, he's back with his legal guardians at this point.

Cort: We did see him looking for a modicum of the truth by digging through James' bag and finding a number on the receipt for his school supplies.

Cort: I think that's where we found that phone number.

Matt: I think so.

Cort: The end of the clip has the professor packing James away in the car with who may or may not be his grandparents.

Cort: Again, we don't know, but they are his legal guardians.

Matt: Or his dad and grandmother, I guess.

Matt: His dad slash grandpa.

Matt: I don't know.

Matt: I don't know.

Cort: His grandpa father.

Matt: Yeah, it's fucking weird.

Cort: Grady limps his way over to his car and is splashed by the Lear's car as they drive off for his trouble.

Cort: Grady discovers James' bag and ends up smoking out and reading James' book by the light of a street lamp.

Cort: That was the most gritty writer writing about writer stuff that I've seen.

Matt: Yeah, right.

Matt: These gritty authors being gritty.

Cort: Yeah.

Cort: I just like the idea of he's sitting in his fucking car that's all fucked up from that guy dropping his fucking ass on it.

Cort: That sounds terrible everywhere it drives.

Cort: Outside of the restaurant where he abandoned James, he's loitering in their parking lot, freezing his ass off, reading James' book, and smoking dope in a well lit parking lot.

Cort: It's just fucking so gritty and kind of cool.

Cort: And it's just about an author, you know?

Cort: Yeah.

Cort: No, no.

Matt: I mean, it's good shit.

Cort: The guy gives no fucks about anything.

Matt: So it's one of those early awk movies that is just depressing as shit, please.

Cort: He drives home and parks extremely illegally.

Cort: He parks at an angle, sticking out into the street and in front of a fire hydrant at the same time.

Matt: Yeah.

Cort: He discovers his home has been turned into a raging house party by his editor and that his lodger is reading his book without his permission.

Cort: He walks in on her while doing it in our ninth clip.

SPEAKER_16: Uh, I know I shouldn't have, but it was just in the open and I couldn't resist it.

Michael Douglas: No, no, I just can't believe that I left it out like this.

Michael Douglas: Is crab creeping in here?

Michael Douglas: Has he been strooping around?

SPEAKER_16: I don't know.

SPEAKER_16: Maybe.

SPEAKER_16: I don't think so.

SPEAKER_17: Let's put this away.

SPEAKER_18: Oh, shit.

SPEAKER_16: No, um, don't go.

SPEAKER_16: I've been waiting the night for you.

Michael Douglas: I'm really flattered, honey, but this just isn't...

Robert Downey: I'm sorry.

Robert Downey: You're gonna be roasting a teacher-student conference?

Robert Downey: No offense, Tripp.

Robert Downey: You're not exactly the most attentive host.

Michael Douglas: Well, you've been taking good care of that, huh, crabs?

Robert Downey: Sometimes we have to improvise.

Robert Downey: Where the hell have you been?

Robert Downey: Anyway...

Michael Douglas: I took a drive with James Lear.

Robert Downey: He popped the Chancellor's dog, didn't he?

Michael Douglas: What?

SPEAKER_16: Yeah, at first the police thought he just ran away, but this afternoon Dr.

SPEAKER_16: Gaskell found blood spots on the carpet.

Michael Douglas: Oh, Jesus.

SPEAKER_16: Most everyone figured it was an intruder, but right off, Terry said it sounded like something James would be messed up in.

Michael Douglas: Has anybody else come up with this brilliant deduction?

Robert Downey: Not yet, but they will.

Robert Downey: It's just a matter of time.

Michael Douglas: Come on, you don't even know James.

SPEAKER_16: Who does?

Michael Douglas: I do.

SPEAKER_17: I do now.

Michael Douglas: I spent some time with him, and I read something of his.

SPEAKER_12: His book?

SPEAKER_17: Yeah.

SPEAKER_12: You read his book?

Michael Douglas: Yes.

Michael Douglas: Is it good?

SPEAKER_17: It's good.

SPEAKER_15: It's very, very good.

SPEAKER_15: It's...

Michael Douglas: it's true.

SPEAKER_15: I knew it.

SPEAKER_15: So where's he now?

Michael Douglas: I sent him home with his parents.

SPEAKER_15: What?

SPEAKER_9: His parents?

SPEAKER_15: Why?

Robert Downey: Why did you do it for?

Michael Douglas: Because under the circumstances, I thought it was the best thing for him.

Michael Douglas: But I'm beginning to think maybe it was the best thing for me.

Michael Douglas: I just...

SPEAKER_19: I wasn't there for him.

Robert Downey: Imagine that.

Michael Douglas: Hannah, don't you remember where you took James that day?

Michael Douglas: Was it his aunt's?

SPEAKER_19: Yes.

SPEAKER_16: I told you, Swickley Heights.

Michael Douglas: What was the address?

SPEAKER_16: I don't know.

SPEAKER_16: He had me drop him on a corner.

Robert Downey: Call the University, I'm sure they know where he lives.

Michael Douglas: A little late to call admissions.

Robert Downey: It's a little late to call the Chancellor.

Michael Douglas: I don't know, baby.

SPEAKER_4: God, you really just made an awful, stinky little mess of everything, haven't you?

Robert Downey: Who's that?

SPEAKER_4: It.

Michael Douglas: Do not even think about it.

SPEAKER_4: Don't go there.

SPEAKER_4: No, no, no.

Robert Downey: Never without your permission, but that's a lot of books.

SPEAKER_16: 262 Baxter Drive.

SPEAKER_16: They're in the book.

Robert Downey: I'll drive.

Michael Douglas: I'll drive.

SPEAKER_6: A love parade.

Robert Downey: I got a feeling about this trip.

SPEAKER_4: Look, I feel this kid in my bones.

Michael Douglas: Only in your bones.

SPEAKER_15: I've had this feeling before.

SPEAKER_6: Remember?

SPEAKER_22: It's been a long time, but...

Michael Douglas: How bad is it for you, Krabs?

SPEAKER_12: It's pretty bad.

SPEAKER_4: Bad enough for me.

Robert Downey: They look at me like I don't work there anymore.

Robert Downey: I guess I just don't fit the new corporate profile.

SPEAKER_17: Which is?

Robert Downey: Oh, kind of some......competence.

SPEAKER_15: Out on the highway.

SPEAKER_17: This is it.

Michael Douglas: I had no business trudging up to James Lear's parents' house in the middle of the night, not when all that really mattered was trying to make things right with Sarah.

Michael Douglas: But we had decided to rescue James Lear.

Michael Douglas: I wasn't quite sure from what, because I was pretty much convinced that everything that came out of James' mouth was basically horse shit.

SPEAKER_17: Yikes.

SPEAKER_9: It must be two dozen windows.

SPEAKER_15: How are we supposed to find his?

Michael Douglas: I told you that he can't be chained in the basement.

Michael Douglas: But maybe that didn't really matter.

Michael Douglas: Sometimes people just need to be rescued.

Michael Douglas: Rodgers and Hart?

Michael Douglas: Yeah.

Michael Douglas: James Lear.

Tobey Maguire: Hey, what are you guys doing here?

Robert Downey: We're springing in, Jimmy.

SPEAKER_2: We're putting on some buzz.

Robert Downey: Oh, I love what you've done with the place.

SPEAKER_22: When's Captain Nemo moving in?

Michael Douglas: I cannot believe that you made fun of my bathroom.

Tobey Maguire: Candelabras from my great-grandmother.

Michael Douglas: Please don't start with a family history, all right?

Michael Douglas: I'll leave you right here.

Robert Downey: I just want you to know, I heard everything about the parents and grandparents and the whole Chinatown thing.

Michael Douglas: I believe you.

SPEAKER_4: That's why we're here.

SPEAKER_4: Go get dressed.

Tobey Maguire: I mean, do you mind if I wear this again, Professor Tripp?

Michael Douglas: Wear whatever you want to.

SPEAKER_5: He's so modest.

Michael Douglas: So sensi.

Robert Downey: Tripp, why don't you go to get some plaque?

Michael Douglas: These are all overdue library books.

Michael Douglas: Every one of them.

Robert Downey: It looks like our Mr.

Robert Downey: Lear is facing some monster late fees.

Michael Douglas: I just can't believe all the shit he spins.

Michael Douglas: Just once.

Michael Douglas: I like to know little bastards telling the truth.

Robert Downey: Hey, check this out.

Robert Downey: Finally, the door opened.

Robert Downey: It was a shock to see him shuffling into the room like an aging prizefighter limping, beaten.

Robert Downey: Does this sound like anyone we know?

Robert Downey: But it was later when the great man squinted into the bitter glow of twilight.

Robert Downey: The glow of twilight.

Robert Downey: This kid definitely needs an editor.

Robert Downey: And muttered simply, It means nothing, all of it, nothing, that the true shock came.

Robert Downey: It was then that the boy understood that his hero's true injuries lay in a darker place.

Robert Downey: His heart.

Michael Douglas: His heart what?

Robert Downey: His heart, once capable of inspiring others so completely, could no longer inspire so much as itself.

Robert Downey: It beat now only out of habit.

Robert Downey: It beat now only because it could.

Tobey Maguire: I'm ready.

Tobey Maguire: You all right, Professor Tripp?

Robert Downey: He's fine, James.

Robert Downey: Now, can we go before Granny comes down here and boils her bones for breakfast?

Tobey Maguire: That could be a problem.

Tobey Maguire: She's been coming down here every half hour or so to check up on me, and if I'm not here, she might call the police or something.

Robert Downey: Okay, Decoy, we'll put a couple of your pillows and a little teddy bear under the spread.

Robert Downey: She won't know the difference.

Tobey Maguire: Well, I can against all flags, only they used a couple of gigantic hams.

Michael Douglas: No, no, no, no, I got a better idea.

Cort: Again, they just keep making everything worse for themselves as they go.

Matt: Yeah, all the time.

Cort: What I mean by that is with that, they tuck the Chancellor's dead fucking dog into James' bed, and that takes us well over the middle third of the film, and we will have only 32 minutes left for a run to the end of the film after this break.

Matt: Yeah, it's just a lot of bad decisions.

Matt: Everyone's making them.

Cort: It's primarily Michael Douglas' character of Grady, like Robert Downey Jr.'s character, like we said last week, he is literally just like Derek grown up and just much worse.

Cort: Crabtree is just chaos and sheer dumb luck.

Cort: That's what he operates on.

Cort: He even says as an editor, he hung all of his would-be glory and thing that's keeping him employed with being Grady's editor.

Cort: And the fact that Grady hasn't turned in a book and he hasn't been able to push him for so many years after Arsonist Daughter was such a hit, it's pretty much like a foregone conclusion that this is the end of his career.

Cort: If the book doesn't get delivered sooner rather than later.

Cort: And they have that conversation.

Cort: And essentially, Crab Tree is more or less asking for James as like a restitution for losing his career thanks to Grady.

Cort: In more ways than one, he's asking for James and like Grady's kind of pimping James out to Crab Tree in this.

Cort: Let's not mince words about this.

Cort: That's kind of what's happening here a little bit.

Matt: But our voices are going to get any higher here.

Cort: It's really uncomfortable.

Cort: Like at the same time, like James is a compulsive liar and he's manipulating all of them.

Cort: So like maybe this is just his way of trying to get published.

Matt: I think so.

Cort: I don't know.

Cort: Like, it's so hard to tell.

Cort: And that's the thing that keeps me rewatching this movie because I'm like everybody's motivation is dubious and everybody's on way too many fucking pills to be driving, yet they keep driving.

Matt: And everyone's driving under the influence.

Matt: And everyone's gotten motives.

Cort: Michael Douglas' character is constantly more stoned than even what I am comfortable with.

Cort: Right?

Matt: This is right.

Cort: He's more high than me on a weekend when I don't have to work for three days.

Matt: Listen, I do wrong.

Matt: I like to get fucked up.

Cort: But yeah, he's taking two giant codeins and chasing them down with like an airport bottle of fucking whiskey.

Cort: Like he's very clearly not dealing with some things, including his writing issues and like his marriage falling apart and the fact that he's in love with his boss's wife and all of that kind of stuff.

Cort: He's been numbing himself for a while, and he wonders why he's that fainting spells because he's also not eating.

Matt: Yeah, exactly.

Cort: Gee, I wonder what's wrong with him.

Cort: You know what I mean?

Matt: Yeah, right.

Matt: All right.

Cort: You ready to do the run to the end of this?

Matt: Let's hit it.

Cort: All right.

Cort: So they make it back to Grady's Trashed and Empty House and Crabtree lures James upstairs for some laughter and fun times.

Cort: That could mean the two of them possibly getting all sexy because that's definitely what Crabtree has on his mind.

Cort: And James seems kind of interested in it, too.

Cort: Grady finds Hannah passed out in what may be his bed with his book and goes outside to smoke up and attempts to make a phone call while a van drives past his house.

Cort: All suspicious.

Cort: You can actually hear the van going by in our tent.

SPEAKER_14: You have reached the home of Sarah and Walter Gaskell.

SPEAKER_1: Neither Walter or I can take your...

SPEAKER_15: Hello?

SPEAKER_15: Walter?

SPEAKER_15: Grady?

SPEAKER_4: Oh, Christ, Grady.

SPEAKER_15: Do you know what time it is?

Michael Douglas: Yeah.

Michael Douglas: I got 8.15.

Michael Douglas: I don't think that's right, though.

SPEAKER_24: It's 3.30.

Michael Douglas: Grady?

Michael Douglas: Well, this is important, Walter.

SPEAKER_23: Oh?

Michael Douglas: I, um...

SPEAKER_24: What is it, Grady?

SPEAKER_15: I'm in love with your wife.

SPEAKER_15: Excuse me?

SPEAKER_15: Sarah.

SPEAKER_15: I'm in love with her.

SPEAKER_15: Are you drinking, Professor Tripp, right now?

SPEAKER_2: No.

SPEAKER_24: Nevertheless, I'd like to see you in my office.

SPEAKER_6: Monday morning.

Cort: After this, the film cuts to what Daylight reveals to be an even bigger mess left behind in Grady's house, as Grady struggles to write, and Sarah arrives at his house in our eleventh clip.

SPEAKER_14: I tried to call, but it seems there's something wrong with your phone.

SPEAKER_14: It appears one of our students is missing, and his parents found a dead dog in his bed.

Michael Douglas: It's my fault.

Michael Douglas: I'm sorry.

Michael Douglas: I've been trying to tell you that...

SPEAKER_14: I'm not feeling very happy with you right now.

SPEAKER_14: And more importantly, Walter isn't very happy, and he's gotten the police involved.

SPEAKER_14: They seem to think James Lear is somehow responsible for all this.

SPEAKER_14: You wouldn't happen to know where James Lear is, would you?

Michael Douglas: He's inside.

SPEAKER_14: And Marilyn's jacket?

Michael Douglas: It's in my car.

SPEAKER_9: Somebody stole my car.

SPEAKER_14: Oh, man!

Michael Douglas: Honestly, somebody stole my car.

Michael Douglas: I parked it right there last night.

SPEAKER_14: Are you sure it was parked right there?

Michael Douglas: Of course I'm sure.

Michael Douglas: Oh, Christ, here comes the puberty police now.

SPEAKER_14: Okay, okay, I'll deal with this.

SPEAKER_14: You go dig up James.

Michael Douglas: Is he awake?

Michael Douglas: There's a police officer on the porch and he's not going away.

Tobey Maguire: The same guy?

Michael Douglas: The same one.

SPEAKER_25: No offense, Professor Tripp, but you look sort of crappy.

Tobey Maguire: He's right.

SPEAKER_4: I mean, you do look horrible.

SPEAKER_18: It's the Chancellor.

Michael Douglas: We're fine.

Michael Douglas: We're just fine.

Tobey Maguire: Fine, right.

Tobey Maguire: If it is a fucking fiddle.

Michael Douglas: James, come on.

Robert Downey: James, this book of yours, it's...

Tobey Maguire: Not bad.

SPEAKER_4: It's not bad at all.

Tobey Maguire: Thank you.

SPEAKER_17: I'm going to publish this.

SPEAKER_4: I think with the proper editorial guidance, this could be brilliant.

Michael Douglas: Oh, that's great.

Michael Douglas: That's great.

Michael Douglas: Between Officer Pubchick and you, he can be the next Jean Genet.

Michael Douglas: Been a long time since somebody wrote a really good book in jail.

Michael Douglas: Don't you worry, James.

Michael Douglas: We're going to figure something out.

Tobey Maguire: I'm not worried.

Tobey Maguire: You're not worried, are you, Professor Tripp?

Michael Douglas: I'm a little worried, James.

SPEAKER_19: Don't be.

Tobey Maguire: I don't care if they expel me.

Tobey Maguire: I probably should be expelled.

Michael Douglas: Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Tobey Maguire: Professor Tripp?

Michael Douglas: Yes, James?

Tobey Maguire: Even if I end up going to jail, you're still the best teacher I ever had.

SPEAKER_14: I wonder if this is what the university has in mind when it promises a liberal education.

Michael Douglas: Walter wouldn't really press charges, would he?

SPEAKER_14: We'll know soon enough.

SPEAKER_14: In a couple of hours, he's going to sit down with the police and James' parents.

SPEAKER_14: And if he was a wee bit quickly this morning.

SPEAKER_14: You didn't happen to call our house last night, did you?

Michael Douglas: I think I might have, yes.

SPEAKER_14: What do you think you might have said?

Michael Douglas: I think I might have said I was in love with you.

SPEAKER_22: I told you.

SPEAKER_14: You told me.

Michael Douglas: Well, what did you say?

SPEAKER_14: I said it didn't sound like you.

Cort: Oh, snap, it's a good thing that it was raining, because that had to hide some tears for sure.

SPEAKER_5: Yeah, no shit.

Cort: It didn't sound like you, god damn.

SPEAKER_5: Oh, blooded.

Cort: With that, Sarah drives off after the pigs haul James away.

Cort: Grady and Crabtree devise a plan to get the jacket back by borrowing Hannah's car, and that leads to more dialogue in our twelfth clip.

SPEAKER_16: Sure, keys are on the desk next to your book.

SPEAKER_16: I didn't finish, I fell asleep.

Michael Douglas: Oh, is that good?

SPEAKER_16: It's not that, it's just...

Michael Douglas: It's just...

SPEAKER_16: Grady, you know how in class, how you're always telling us that writers make choices.

SPEAKER_16: And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean, amazingly beautiful, it's at times, it's very detailed.

SPEAKER_16: You know, the genealogies of everyone's horses and the dental records and so on.

SPEAKER_16: And I could be wrong, but it just, it sort of reads in places, like, you didn't really make any choices at all.

SPEAKER_16: And I was just wondering if it might not be different, if when you wrote, you weren't always under the influence.

Michael Douglas: Well, thank you for the thought.

Michael Douglas: But shocking as it may sound, I am not the first writer to sip a little weed.

Michael Douglas: Furthermore, it might surprise you to know that one book I wrote, as you say, under the influence, just happened to win a little something called the Penn Award, which, by the way, I accepted under the influence.

Cort: With that, Grady gathers up his manuscript of his book, and Hanna loses a bit of respect for him visibly, as he doesn't.

Matt: Yeah.

Cort: She no longer views him as whatever ideal writer he may have been to her.

Cort: He is certainly not that malo at all.

Matt: No, no, she's, she's, the rose-colored glasses have come off.

Cort: Crabtree tries to touch the book and is denied access to it.

Cort: They get into Hanna's car with it for some reason and head out in our next clip.

SPEAKER_22: Okay, I'll try.

SPEAKER_22: Let me get this straight.

SPEAKER_22: Jerry Nathan owes you money, so it's collateral he gives you his car.

Michael Douglas: Only I'm beginning to think that the car wasn't exactly Jerry's to give.

SPEAKER_22: Ah, so whose car was it?

Michael Douglas: I guess Vernon Hart Apple.

SPEAKER_22: The hood jumper?

Michael Douglas: He said a few things that lead me to believe that the car was his.

SPEAKER_22: Such as?

Michael Douglas: That's my car, motherfucker.

SPEAKER_22: All right, so we find Vernon, we find the car, we find the car, we find the jacket.

SPEAKER_17: Wow.

SPEAKER_15: How did you know, Trev?

SPEAKER_17: Oh, I don't know.

Michael Douglas: Let's just call it a hunch.

SPEAKER_22: I call it genius.

Michael Douglas: Good to know I'm still talented.

Matt: Something.

SPEAKER_3: Careful.

SPEAKER_8: Keep that motor running here.

Cort: They find the car and Grady gets out to try to get the Maryland jacket in the car.

Cort: He finds James' bag and gets into the car to go rifling through the bag.

Cort: He gets his weed out of the glove box and starts looking at the gun he got from James and passes out again to wake up to Ula saying hello and Vernon pulling a gun on him.

Cort: Things escalated pretty quickly as Grady accidentally fires the small gun and then Crabtree drives Hannah's car at them and opens the door of the car to try to get Grady to jump in.

Cort: This action coupled with the swerve of the car as he's driving past spills the 2000 plus pages everywhere along the bank of the river effectively destroying this book.

Cort: Vernon is apparently nice enough to drive them to wherever they need to go as they discuss this loss of the book in a cut scene and our 14th clip.

Michael Douglas: Take it back, shoot them.

SPEAKER_22: Naturally, you have copies.

Michael Douglas: I have an alternate version of the first chapter.

SPEAKER_22: You'll be all right then.

SPEAKER_22: Look at Carlisle when he lost his luggage.

Michael Douglas: That was McCauley.

SPEAKER_22: Oh, well, what about Henningway when Hadley lost all those stories?

Michael Douglas: He was never able to reproduce them.

SPEAKER_22: Look, Tripp, I don't want to depreciate the loss.

SPEAKER_22: But maybe, you know, in a sense, it's for the best.

Michael Douglas: You're suggesting it's some kind of sign?

SPEAKER_17: In a sense.

Michael Douglas: My experience, signs are usually a little more subtle.

SPEAKER_19: Let me get this straight.

SPEAKER_19: All that paper that blew away back there, that was the only copy?

Michael Douglas: I'm afraid so, yes.

SPEAKER_19: And you?

SPEAKER_19: You're saying that it's some kind of a sign?

SPEAKER_19: Man, what the fuck the matter with you?

SPEAKER_19: Don't.

SPEAKER_22: All I'm saying is that sometimes, subconsciously, a person will put themselves in a situation, perhaps even create that situation, in order to have an arena in which to work out an unresolved issue.

SPEAKER_22: It's a covert way, if you will, of addressing a problem.

SPEAKER_19: I'll tell you the problem.

SPEAKER_19: You behind the wheel, there's your problem.

SPEAKER_22: Excuse me, did you or did you not have a gun to his head?

SPEAKER_19: Watch the road, B.

SPEAKER_19: He was trying to steal my car.

SPEAKER_22: I'm asking you a question, did you or did you not have a gun to his head?

SPEAKER_19: Can't you get me?

SPEAKER_17: That is enough.

SPEAKER_17: The ride is done.

SPEAKER_19: It's done.

SPEAKER_19: I don't want to hear about it anymore, okay?

SPEAKER_14: So what was it about?

SPEAKER_23: Your book.

SPEAKER_18: What was the story?

Michael Douglas: I don't know.

SPEAKER_22: What he means is it's difficult to distill the essence of a book sometimes because it lives in the mind.

SPEAKER_19: But you got to know what it was about, right?

SPEAKER_19: If you didn't know what it was about, why were you writing it?

SPEAKER_17: I couldn't stop you.

Michael Douglas: Vernon, can I ask you a question, boy or girl?

SPEAKER_19: As long as it looks like her, I really don't care.

SPEAKER_19: You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_19: Yeah.

Michael Douglas: Thanks for the ride, Vernon.

SPEAKER_19: Anytime.

SPEAKER_19: And another thing.

Michael Douglas: Yeah?

SPEAKER_19: Stop calling me Vernon.

Michael Douglas: Okay.

SPEAKER_15: Jacket trip.

SPEAKER_9: What?

SPEAKER_17: We need the jacket.

Michael Douglas: Oh, right.

Michael Douglas: Oola, about that jacket.

SPEAKER_7: Yeah.

Michael Douglas: It used to belong to Marilyn Monroe.

SPEAKER_14: Really?

SPEAKER_17: She had small shoulders, just like you.

Michael Douglas: A lot of people don't know that.

SPEAKER_16: Thank you.

SPEAKER_19: Man, that book of yours must have been one nutty ride.

SPEAKER_19: Come on, Veevon, let's go.

Robert Downey: Would you mind explaining to me what you just did?

Michael Douglas: Came to my census.

SPEAKER_15: Oh, congratulations.

Robert Downey: Meanwhile, what's James supposed to do?

SPEAKER_5: Pray that Walter Gaskell comes to his?

Michael Douglas: Walter Gaskell doesn't want to send James later to jail.

Michael Douglas: He's up in his office right now.

Michael Douglas: He's talking to his parents, local police, trying to find a solution.

SPEAKER_4: A trip the least they're going to do is expel him.

Michael Douglas: It doesn't matter.

Robert Downey: It's a very enlightened professor.

Robert Downey: It's comforting to know that America's children have you for a teacher.

Michael Douglas: Nobody teaches a writer anything.

Michael Douglas: You tell them what you know, you tell them to find their voice and stay with it, you tell the ones that have it to keep at it, you tell the ones that don't have it to keep at it, too, because that's the only way they're going to get to where they're going.

Michael Douglas: Of course, it does help if you know where you want to go.

Michael Douglas: Oh, helping my students figure that out.

Michael Douglas: That and Sarah.

Michael Douglas: That's what's made these last years worthwhile.

Michael Douglas: As for James, well, he doesn't really need me anymore.

Michael Douglas: He's got you.

SPEAKER_3: Me?

SPEAKER_4: What can I do?

Michael Douglas: Oh, I don't know, Krabs.

Michael Douglas: Improvise.

Michael Douglas: You're pretty good at that.

Robert Downey: Trep.

Robert Downey: Sorry.

Cort: With this, Grady limps off, leaving Crabtree alone to clean up that mess.

Cort: Grady monologues about how he has to do whatever it takes to win over Sarah again.

Cort: The film then cuts from this to the auditorium with announcements and our 15th clip.

SPEAKER_24: And now, as those of you who have been with us in previous years know, we have a tradition of sorts here at WordFest.

SPEAKER_24: I'm speaking, of course, of the Plums, those fortunate local writers who have successfully placed their manuscripts with visiting publishers' representative.

SPEAKER_24: This weekend, Susan Lowry of North Braddock found a publisher for her children's book, The Loneliest Prawn.

SPEAKER_24: Stand up, Susan.

SPEAKER_24: Now, this next one is, I think, very exciting to announce because it concerns a student here at the university.

SPEAKER_24: Our own James Lear, sophomore in English literature, has found a publisher for his first novel, which I believe is called The Lovely Parade.

Michael Douglas: Love Parade.

SPEAKER_24: And finally, and perhaps not least importantly, Terry Crabtree of Bartisan has also decided to publish my own book, A Critical Exploration of the Union of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe and Its Function in American Mythopoetics, which tentatively I have entitled The Last American Marriage.

SPEAKER_24: So until next year, thank you everyone.

SPEAKER_6: I took another look at the Ornstein's daughter the other night.

SPEAKER_6: That description of all Cyprus left me breathless.

Michael Douglas: Thanks Q, I appreciate that.

Cort: First of all, no, eagle-eyed viewers who are now our listeners.

Cort: You were not mistaken.

Cort: That was in fact Mack from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, sitting next to Hannah during the scenes with James taking a bow.

Cort: That is in fact Mack that was sitting there.

Matt: That's hilarious.

Cort: I also had to include that little bit of ripped-torn talking at the very end about Grady's book, because ripped-torn has the greatest name in show business, and he has to be on the show.

Matt: Yeah, ripped-torn was awesome.

Matt: God rest his soul.

Cort: At the end of the clip, Grady is desperate to get to Sarah.

Cort: As he mentioned, he needs to get to her to try to make things right with her before she gets fully away, and he is delayed by the multiple things, including ripped-torn at the end of the clip there.

Cort: He makes it up a staircase and shouts her name before reaching into his pocket and looking at his weed stash.

Cort: He sees the janitor that gave him a ride and asks him if he gets high.

Cort: When the janitor replies, it's only when he is working will he get high.

Cort: Grady drops the whole bag on him and almost passes out and nearly falls to his death.

Cort: They wrap up the story with a final monologue, so that is our final clip.

SPEAKER_24: Holy shit.

SPEAKER_17: Are you serious?

SPEAKER_15: Careful there, Professor Tripp.

Matt: Whoa.

Michael Douglas: I didn't fall.

Michael Douglas: Not then, not ever again.

Michael Douglas: Once the Monongahela River swallowed my never-ending opus, there were no more spells.

Michael Douglas: James Lear didn't get expelled or go to jail thanks to Crabtree's wheeling and dealing, but he could anyway, went to New York to rework his novel for publication.

Michael Douglas: Hannah Green has decided to take a position as a junior editor when she graduates, and Crabtree, well, Crabtree's gone right on being Crabtree.

Michael Douglas: As for me, I lost everything.

Michael Douglas: My wife, my book, my job, everything that I thought was important, but I finally knew where I wanted to go.

SPEAKER_17: And now I had someone to help me get there.

Cort: We see at the end of the clip that Sarah drives up to the house, he is writing in and that their child is with her, and he states just as she's arriving about finding the person to get him where he wants to go, and then they roll those fucking credits.

SPEAKER_25: Cinema Siloops.

Robert Downey: Ten!

Robert Downey: Years!

Cort: What a story, man.

Cort: Like, just...

Cort: Yeah.

Matt: Really.

Cort: You kind of think that they were going to go for the Ultram mega unhappy ending where he's going to follow his death on to the janitor and that's it, you know?

Matt: Yeah.

Cort: Everybody else's life has worked out, and then he just basically exits stage left, and then maybe the chancellor can reconcile with her husband and raise his child.

Cort: Because it seems like all he cares about is now his book is getting published.

Cort: Like, he really doesn't even seem all that concerned about his wife at all, you know?

Matt: Oh yeah, he really doesn't.

Cort: Like, I mean, it's obvious that if he doesn't know, it's because he does not care enough to know about what's going on with his wife, because she's not exactly trying to hide it at all.

Cort: Like, it's like the worst kept secret on campus, apparently, and the only person that doesn't know is fucking John Boy there.

Matt: Yeah.

Matt: So I don't know, man.

Matt: But yeah, I mean, they gave everyone kind of a happy ending in a weird sense.

Cort: It wraps it up like you find out that, you know, Hannah moves on and becomes an editor, and she's going to be a thumping good one.

Cort: I'd wager.

Cort: Turns out James just ended up dropping out instead of getting kicked out of school, so he could go write more books because he's going to be published.

Cort: I mean, why go to school to become a published author when you can just become a published author because you are now a published author?

Matt: Yes, exactly.

Matt: No reason to waste the money.

Cort: Right.

Cort: And like Grady was telling him, he's already 10 times the writer than any of his other students will even be.

Cort: So, I mean, he doesn't really need to get further educated apparently.

Matt: Yeah, no, he does not.

Cort: So overall, love this film.

Cort: Absolutely.

Cort: I'm so stoked to actually get to talk about it because this is definitely a film that we would normally never do on the show.

Cort: It's just not the sort of thing we would do.

Matt: Well acted, a lot of great actors and actresses.

Cort: Yeah, the performances alone in this are terrific.

Cort: The writing is really well done.

Cort: I love the dialogue.

Cort: Very quippy, you know.

Cort: The twists and turns.

Matt: Top notch writing, yep.

Cort: Yeah, the twists and turns that end up happening where it just keeps escalating with more and more horrible things and he just keeps digging himself deeper into trouble and getting more fucked up and not dealing with it.

Cort: It rivals the big Lebowski for how much danger the dude puts himself in.

Matt: Yeah, right?

Cort: I mean, it gets really fucking close.

Matt: If we're being a smart man, he makes some stupid ass decisions.

Cort: Right, like accepting a car from somebody that owes him money without making sure that the guy fully owns the car.

Cort: You know, yeah, like he's just with a dead dog in the bed to be a person.

Cort: Right, like that seems like a threat, does it not?

Matt: Yeah, totally.

Cort: Or something like something that their child, who is very clearly disturbed, James has done.

Cort: And it also seems like a threat, right?

Cort: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they just, they make a lot of bad choices, they do a lot of bad things, and they get really, really high and fucking drunk.

Matt: Yeah, then you remember he's high almost all the time.

Matt: So maybe his bad choices isn't because he's dumb, but it's because he's fucking so high.

Cort: Yeah, and I think that the whole symbolism of him throwing the weed away to the janitor and then moving on with his life to try and get Sarah, it's the symbolism of him finally trying to grow up and get clean, which kinda is a very unhappy ending to those of us that refuse to grow up and get clean.

Matt: Yeah, cuz who needs that?

Cort: All right, why don't we take the break here?

Cort: We'll go ahead and play from Clarence Carter, the song Slip Away, which was on the soundtrack for Wonder Boys.

Cort: When we come back, I'll come up with something for some kind of a fucking story time.

Cort: Clarence Carter with Slip Away, that was beautiful.

Cort: I really, really dug that song.

Matt: Mm-hmm, that was nice.

Cort: I don't know if this will work or not, but I think I'll figure out a way to fit it in for the film, for the story time.

Matt: Storytime.

Cort: Okay, so, it was roughly around the fall to early winter, or maybe the end of winter to early spring.

Cort: I can't remember 100% because it's been like over 20 years now.

Cort: But it was essentially the weather that was occurring in this film, right, is what was going on.

Cort: Yeah.

Cort: While I was living in Pittsburgh at the time, and this was shortly after we had both graduated my now-wife, then-girlfriend, and I, and at the time, we had an apartment together in Pittsburgh, and she was coming to Omaha for an internship, and I was staying in Pittsburgh in that apartment until that lease was up for just a couple of months, right?

Cort: That's what ended up happening, and we were packing up the apartment and not sure 100% of where things were going to end up with us, because she was in Omaha, and I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to fucking move from Pittsburgh to Omaha.

Cort: But I also knew I didn't want to not be with her.

Cort: So, you know, it was a very confusing time.

Cort: Well, we're packing up our apartment, and one of the days that before we get rid of everything and start packing up electronics and things like that, we rent this movie, Wonder Boys, and with the weather matching exactly the way that it was outside in Pittsburgh and the neighborhood that he lived in looking exactly like where our apartment was, because our apartment was a giant house like his that was carved into four different apartments, essentially, like gutted and then carved into four different apartments.

Cort: That's basically it.

Cort: It looked almost exactly like his house, is what our apartment building looked like, right?

Cort: And so it was just kind of like this really interesting touchstone of where we were at.

Cort: It was almost the exact same time because this film was released in 2000 and we were packing our stuff up like maybe 2000 into 2001.

Cort: You know, like the spring of 2001 maybe is when we're packing our stuff up is when I'm thinking, something along those lines or maybe 2002, whatever.

Cort: But it's around the same time frame that this film takes place in.

Cort: And it's the sort of end of a relationship start of another one that's happening, weird, bittersweet thing.

Cort: And my wife and I, girlfriend at the time, were laughing and chuckling and forgetting our woes and our worries of what's going to happen with us, you know, with this and what are we going to do because we're not having this conversation while we're trying to pack up the apartment.

Cort: And the film helped us kind of, you know, distract ourselves from that.

Cort: And all these years later, we still love the film because it's a great film, but I have that nostalgic moment of, you know, not knowing, I guess, is a good way to put it at that point.

Matt: Not knowing what life is going to throw at you.

Cort: Right.

Cort: And then having this movie where this, you know, adult who is, you know, supposed to have his shit figured out, that this college professor, that's even more of a mess and just, you know, trying to figure out what his relationship should be and where his life should be and, like, you know, not having any of those decisions.

Cort: And us being basically the age of James at the time, you know, I was like, can I get a fucked up guru to help me navigate my life here in the future?

Matt: Like, yeah, right.

Cort: Like what's happening here with Michael Douglas?

Cort: Anyone?

Cort: Anyone?

Cort: No.

Cort: OK, guess no.

Cort: All right.

Matt: Thanks a lot.

Cort: Coincidentally, in case anyone was wondering how that story ended, I'm living in Omaha with a woman that is now my wife.

Cort: So, yeah, so you got to figure it out.

Cort: Yeah.

Cort: So far, it's a happy ending.

Cort: Knock on wood.

Cort: You know, I haven't driven her so crazy yet, so we'll see.

Cort: But that's my story time of how this film came into my life and why it has such a special place in my heart, besides being a film that I really enjoy and I think is great.

Matt: There you go.

Cort: All right.

Matt: Sounds good.

Cort: Why don't we take the break here?

Cort: We'll play the show Housekeeping.

Matt: Let this up so I can go and die.

Cort: And when we come back after the show Housekeeping on the Pirate Radio Edit, we will have Neil Young with the song Old Man immediately following the cast.

Cort: If you've decided you can't get enough of the show and would like to check out more of it, we're available at legionpodcasts.com.

Cort: Just do a quick search for CinemaSciOps, or just enter this entire URL into your browser, www.legionpodcasts.com/ cinemadashsciopsdashpodcast.

Cort: Also available along with all of the fellow Legioneers on the Legion Discord chat.

Cort: And now let's give you a rundown of the memes and how you're going to get them through CinemaSciOps.

Cort: The easiest place to go is to subscribe to our Instagram feed, which is our main meme repository at cinema underscore SciOps.

Cort: Or you could also follow the Facebook page of CinemaSciOps, because they are immediately posted there, after they get posted to the Instagram repository.

Cort: And you can also check out the Facebook group of CinemaSciOps, and the memes are shared there.

Cort: I am available on Facebook as CourtSciOps, because the memes are also shared there as well.

Cort: Thanks for listening to the show.

Cort: I still can't believe that you're subscribed to us or here every week, just like us.

SPEAKER_3: As hard as it is to believe, they used to say before the things that the mark of a chef's ability and skill could be summarized by their ability to cook eggs.

SPEAKER_3: They used to say that all the pleats in a chef's hat represented a different way to prepare eggs.

SPEAKER_3: I know that sounds insane, but you have to remember this is a time when eggs still came in shells, and that you could identify an avian species just by sight.

SPEAKER_3: You didn't need a retina orb 3000 to be able to pick them out.

SPEAKER_3: So things were different.

SPEAKER_3: Now, one interesting tidbit, and this is what we're looking for today of our little foraging expedition.

SPEAKER_3: There's a particular type of egg that you don't actually cook.

SPEAKER_3: You actually use it to do the cooking for you.

SPEAKER_3: And this is a very particular species of egg.

SPEAKER_3: Came from a bird that's now long extinct called the Peltro Eagle.

SPEAKER_3: And it was primarily considered to be found in the California region.

SPEAKER_3: But surprisingly, it had a population that spread to various areas like Cape Cod, Hamptons, even a little enclave in Greenwich Village, in what was once known as New York.

SPEAKER_3: So we have a lead on one, and it's found in this old, probably was a farmhouse, beachfront property.

SPEAKER_3: And we're gonna just pop in here and see if we can get our hands on this.

SPEAKER_3: And I'll try to give you a rundown of what we're gonna do here.

SPEAKER_3: Okay, here it is now.

SPEAKER_3: So you're gonna see, this is a classic egg, like a cartoon of an egg that you may have seen.

SPEAKER_3: It has that oval shape to it.

SPEAKER_3: Quite a good heft.

SPEAKER_3: The thing is, you don't wanna come in direct contact with it.

SPEAKER_3: You need to have correct containment facilities and equipment.

SPEAKER_3: Those are in short supply.

SPEAKER_3: What I do have here is, Gino, Gino, come here.

SPEAKER_3: Okay, don't underestimate Gino.

SPEAKER_3: He may look like a 70-year-old Italian man in short shorts and suspenders, but he's seen some stuff.

SPEAKER_3: Gino, egg, egg, just grab that.

SPEAKER_3: Just reach, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_3: No, it's on the thing, the toilet.

SPEAKER_3: It's on top of the, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_3: Yeah, I know, it feels funny.

SPEAKER_3: Yeah, yeah, it's gonna tingle.

SPEAKER_3: It's gonna make your fingers tingle.

SPEAKER_3: That's why we have to do this fast.

SPEAKER_3: Okay, here, let's keep going.

SPEAKER_3: So another thing back in the old days, that you're gonna find this hilarious, there was some controversy and conflict over irradiating eggs.

SPEAKER_3: There were people that were, resisted the idea of eggs getting irradiated.

SPEAKER_3: And that sounds ridiculous now, how would you even digest an unirradiated egg?

SPEAKER_3: But our paltrow egg here has a unique function that it is unirradiated.

SPEAKER_3: In other words, it doesn't radiate anything.

SPEAKER_3: It's a dead space.

SPEAKER_3: It doesn't emit radiation, but it pulls all forms of radiation wave into it.

SPEAKER_3: It's a dead zone.

SPEAKER_3: It's a dark, murderous, dead zone.

SPEAKER_3: So here's what we do.

SPEAKER_3: We come up into this field and we've dug a little pit, probably only three feet deep.

SPEAKER_3: Gino, just drop that down there.

SPEAKER_9: Yeah, yeah, scoop it up.

SPEAKER_3: Yeah, the blisters on your fingers will be fine.

SPEAKER_3: Just suck them off.

SPEAKER_3: It'll give you a little extra protein.

SPEAKER_3: It's fine.

SPEAKER_3: We're just going to cover that up, make sure it's not disturbed.

SPEAKER_3: And we're going to come back in about two, three weeks.

SPEAKER_3: And what we're going to find when we dig up, we're not going to dig up where the egg itself was.

SPEAKER_3: We're going to make a perimeter rim, just like this, about 20 feet circumference around where we bury the egg.

SPEAKER_3: And what we're going to see is any living organisms in that circumference, more or less, will have been transformed.

SPEAKER_3: All of the energies irradiating out of them will be gone, will be pulled out and absorbed into this egg, which now provides us an easy to kill protein source that will be littered all throughout.

SPEAKER_3: It doesn't really matter what it was, worms, grubs, republicans, anything that happens to live in the soil and the dirt will all be kind of transformed into a substance that we in the industry like to just call goop.

SPEAKER_3: And we're going to get in there, we're going to extract this goop, you can put it into bags, you can dry it in the sun and make goop jerky.

SPEAKER_3: You can just chew on it if you like, if you don't mind the smell.

SPEAKER_3: And even if you do mind the smell after it's been in your mouth, and the fumes get up into your nasal cavities, you won't be smelling anything at all anyway.

SPEAKER_3: So I know this is a little gourmet, this is a little rare, this is fancy pants, you're not going to be able to get these paltry eggs anywhere.

SPEAKER_3: It's a pretty special commodity, but when you find them, don't panic, scream, run away, and tear your eyes out.

SPEAKER_3: Like most people do, you can actually get some good goop eyes with paltry eggs.

SPEAKER_3: Chef Al, over and out.

Cort: Ah, Neil Young was featured in there, and I think that the lyrical content actually kind of works really well in conjunction with what was going on with James trying to figure out his life and begging Michael Douglas' character, Grady, for help with that.

SPEAKER_15: Yeah.

Cort: Well, if you're out there thinking that I'm getting way too pretentious about a fucking song written by Neil Young, you're absolutely right.

Cort: But I invite you to create your own theories about the song Things Have Changed from Bob Dylan that is now featured on our Pirate Radio Edit while you kick the fuck out of this week and make it your bit.

SPEAKER_1: Recording in progress.

Cort: All right, so I got a shit ton of clips.

Cort: I obviously don't need to play all of them.

Cort: Some of them are actually pretty long.

Cort: Had you seen this movie before we did it now?

Matt: No, I had not.

Cort: Okay.

Matt: I've heard of it.

Matt: I think I may have seen scenes of it, but...

Cort: This is the first time you've watched it, watched it?

Matt: Correct.

Cort: Okay.

Cort: If you don't feel too lost as to where we're at, I might skip around in some of the clips just to save us some time.

Cort: So I'm not keeping you on the line for too awful long and all that.

Cort: And then also, just as a way to make sure that your brain is functioning after the header, I'm going to tease it a little bit and keep asking you questions with this.

Cort: So it's two purposes, to keep an ear out on you and then to also get the show done.

Cort: Sound good.

Cort: All right.

Cort: All right.

Cort: So we're recording on all channels, I think.

Tobey Maguire: Yes.

Cort: Yeah, we're recording here and there.

Cort: All right.

Cort: Again, no theme song.

Cort: So three, two, one.

Cort: Okay.

Cort: You responded.

Cort: Just once.

Cort: I was about to check in.

Cort: Yeah.

Cort: You doing all right?

Cort: No, I'm here.

Cort: Okay.

Cort: Cool.

Cort: And create your own theories about the song Things Have Changed from Bob Dylan, that is now featured on our Pirate Radio Edit, while you kick the fuck out of this week, and make it your bitch.

Cort: All right, we don't have to play all of that, we can let you go.

SPEAKER_15: All right, man.

Cort: All right.

Cort: Let me go ahead and stop this recording.

SPEAKER_1: Recording stopped.