Hola, Sneakers! Welcome back to Sneaky Dragon, the podcast with bite!
This week: de-nunciate; salad daze; communication breakdown; beyond human; boxing day; take apart-ment; developmental difficulties; space is the place; inured loss; drop ins; attired out; aimed wander; inattentive wedding; local youth; dangerous games; frolic area; real men and lost purpose; dealing with grief; Ian aime Zazie dans le métro; the relevant in the room; mystery movie; golf bores; dad relations; travelling movies; celebrating the bad; day for night; Coppola-la-land; great and not-so-great 3D; dreaded adaptation; Viva laserdiscs; top of the topless; the Blade Runner rundown; computer vs. computer; redundant Star Wars characters; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; a plethora of Italian stallions; murderous baseball; Christmas comfort; spilt milk; ice is nice; revolting cocks; paperless driving; bar none; Musk rat; right to unfree speech; Dave eyed Stud Hunters; too many dicks; and, finally, American-ish names.
Question of the Week: What is your favourite holiday comfort entertainment?
Sub-question of the Week: Are you in favour of guests dropping by?
Thanks for listening.
Here is the showdown between HAL9000 and GlaDOS is LEGO Dimensions as mentioned by Ian:
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I’ve commented before on my holiday comfort movie which is Love, Actually. So I’ll recommend a YouTube channel which I also find comforting called Cinema Therapy. On it, licensed therapist Jonathan Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright, analyze popular movies from a relationship and mental health perspective. The 30-minute videos show clips from the films and offer good advice to the characters, and to us. Here are the titles of some seasonal episodes.
“Ranking the Relationships in LOVE ACTUALLY”
“Therapist Reacts to ADHD in ELF”
“Therapist Reacts to THE GRINCH (1966)”
“Save your marriage with DIE HARD”
I’m also recommending the new Netflix documentary series “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet”, especially to Mr. Edward Draganski and/or anyone who’s ever dreamed of scoring big with a points-collecting promotion.
I’m in favour of guests dropping by, but only if they bring treats.
Louise, I just heard about this documentary from my Brother, who is something of a documentary-aholic. It sounds very on brand with me having worked 17 years in the beverage industry, I’ll be sure and check it out with two recommendations already! When I heard about this from my Brother, I immediately thought of “Punch Drunk Love” and the promotional loophole Adam Sandler’s character found that won him a trip to Hawaii.
Also, of the three films in New York Stories, I preferred Martin Scorsese’s segment, “Life Lessons” written by Richard Price, about a middle-aged painter played by Nick Nolte and his assistant played by Rosanna Arquette. At the time the movie came out, I often saw that sort of mentor/muse relationship in the theatre community where older professors or directors would date much young actors or directing students so it felt realistic to me. The Calliope segment of Sandman reminded me of that dynamic taken to an extreme.
Being that today is Thanksgiving here in the states, I’ll tell you a Thanksgiving story about a classic Thanksgiving film. It was 1987 and I was in college living in the dorm. We were all leaving for Thanksgiving and my friend Brian was making arrangements to stay in the dorm over the break. He had just broken up with his girlfriend Jan and all plans to spend Thanksgiving with her were off. Brian was from Georgia and couldn’t get a flight home so he was stuck at school. He assured us he would be fine but I still felt bad for Brian’s situation. Fast forward to Thanksgiving day…my Brother and I took in an early showing of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” which opened that day, years before it would become a holiday classic. As I watched the movie I watched as Steve Martin realizes John Candy was alone for the holidays and returns to him sitting alone at the train station. Martin offers to share his Thanksgiving with Candy and invites him into his home. Thinking of my friend Brian, I immediately ran home to call him and invite him to my house so he wouldn’t have to spend the day alone in the dorm. There was still time to go get him and bring him back to my house.
When I called I heard an answering machine message Brian left telling anyone who called that he had gone to Mexico to spend Thanksgiving there with Jan, the girlfriend he had just broken up with. When I returned to the dorm the next week, Brian said it was the best Thanksgiving ever and that they had a blast down in Mexico after getting back together.
To this day, whenever I see “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” I think of 1987 and how I did my best to save Brian from a lonely holiday by himself. I don’t think he and Jan stayed together much longer, maybe through Christmas but Brian had at least half a dozen more girlfriends into 1988.
I live far enough North of just about everyone I know that “stopping by” isn’t really an option but if it did happen, I’m all for it! I usually call if I’m in the area with any plans of dropping by, we’re pretty much spread out here in Texas and if you’re nearby you’re probably driving through.
Susan has been cooking for three days now and speaking of dropping by, we’ll have a house full later today for dinner and football. All the usual fare had been made with little room left in both refrigerators, sweet potatoes with brown sugar pecan topping, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, baked mac & cheese made with real cheddar, corn pudding, rolls made from scratch by my stepson, pumpkin pie cheesecake with ginger snap crust and southern style cornbread stuffing. A smoked turkey is being brought in along with sugar free pies for the two diabetics. It goes without saying that we’ll have leftovers and hopefully I won’t suffer a blood sugar spike…
Happy Thanksgiving to all and Good Luck on Black Friday should you decide to venture out into that retail chaos!
Hi gents,
I don’t have anything to add on the topic of comfort films or the etiquette of unscheduled drop-ins, but I did want to thank Ian for confirming that I am not the only person who always thought that Doc Brown made a momentary appearance during the instantaneous ageing sequence in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Thank you for validating a thought I had kept to myself for 33 years.
And I am fully on board with the theory that Indiana Jones as at least somewhat immortal after drinking from the holy grail. At least immortal enough to survive into a fifth movie 40 years after he was first fighting nazis.
Happy Spanksgiving.
Mick
1. I know a very religious family who binge watches the entire LOTR series every Xmas to which I thought Huuuhn? For me, my Xmas viewing is: the Grinch (cartoon), Frosty (cartoon), and Charlie Brown (cartoon). I also love A Christmas Story (sadly, Dave does not).
2. I would like people to drop in; I grew up with people dropping in (and often staying over for sometimes extended periods of time) – our house was always full of people. However, I’m hardly ever home, and when I am home, it’s not usually at a time conducive to drop-ins. Plus since I am not home much, I’m pretty sure the house would be in an embarrassing state.
Hey did you watch the NSBC Harmon interview ?
What you didn’t ????
– if not, eer if you really did not do it then go to 12
– if not… i’ mean you did it go to 1289457, but go to a number 54 or 45 before
12.
I’m disappointed I took several minutes to write a too complicated sentences to explain what a genius he is and me too because I had guessed all about it !!
– err no…Got to 54
– Hum the sentence was about Community go to 45
45 / 54.
As You’re dyslexic we helped you making the two possibilities coexist, or not. Pet the cat, which is not dead or maybe. If not, or if not not, you can talk to him about the last Rick And Morty (Se6Ep7).
– You did not saw it then go to 666
– I you did go to 1289457
666.
Too be or not no be disappointed, I wish it was the question
Throw the dice :
– If its even go to 15
– if it’s a multiple of 2 go to 51
– If it’s 0 the dice has fallen under the table
15.
Your dead (I told you ! I think), Buuut…. You sneaky &@#, you have a finger on each page of the previous choices, it’s a lot of fingers ! Do you remember which one yo use ?
– The mi…?? Oh ! Gross… but you drop the book… In your face! Now go play outside.
– It’s the table of content
– It’s internet you can not put your finger in it you silly !
51.
The dragoon sneaks behind and burn you to the ground, wait a minute… It was 51 or 15.
– It was not 15 but go to it, your dead any way.
1001.
How did you get there ? Get lost !
1289457.
That was interesting, wasn’t it?
– If not go to hell (that’s 666)
– It was but you haven’t already gone to 54 go to 45, so do it
– otherwise throw the dice until you get 1 and go to 1289458
1289458.
If it’s not a « mise en abyme » I don’t know was it was. I mean the Rick and Morty episode and, by the way, the last one of Community too (thanks you for having convince me to go past season 5 episode 2!!).
– Stay Sneaky and go to 574 .
Hey there Ian, David, Nina and
– who’s that lurking in the corner..?
– Can it be..?
No, my mistake.
Thanks David for recommending Batchelor Mother – I will definitely be checking it out. That’s one of many Swing Era films I know only for its dance scene, since it features several extras dancing the innuendo-laden dance I teach as a sideline – the dance known as ‘Collegiate Shag’. Yes, it’s a funny name, but look at what Rock’n’Roll used to mean and you see why.
In a similar vein, The Thin Man series is a great holiday one-two punch, with the first set at Christmas and the second picking up immediately after at New Year. One of the many later movies features an astounding ‘rumba’ dance by Rene and Estella which is [Sound effect: chef’s kiss!]!
One recent movie which we’ll be watching again this year is Netflix’s ‘Klaus’, a lovely story well told and beautifully animated. The style of the film is a captivating mixture of 2D drawings augmented with AI-generated faux-3D shading and lighting.
Holidays present the perennial problem of ‘what the hell can several generations watch together’ – we’ll most likely settle down with ‘Glass Onion’, since what greater familial therapy can there be than watching a group of people assemble in a remote location to bicker and bump one another off.
Guests dropping by – yes please!
I lived in Oxford for a while, and for the first time experienced the pleasure of being both a regular dropper-in and a dropped-in upon. The small city is perfect for it – just hop on your bicycle and you’ll be passing a friend’s house in a couple of minutes – quick diversion to see if they’re in, if not then on you go. London and similar big cities are not conducive to the drop-in, since nobody lives in the middle, and it’s super unlikely you’ll be passing a friend’s house. A pity.
Hope you’ve had a warm and cosy evening as a trio,
Viva los trios Dragones!
Peter.
PS – a random question that popped into my head this week:
If their weapons were swords, why were they called The Three Musketeers?
That Thin Man dance clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XHcyE8k2iQ