Phantom of the Paradise

This is Free with Ads, the the podcast that asked the question: why pay an indie movie theater 10 bucks to see a midnight screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show when you can go online for free and watch a similarly toned camp musical, get to bed at a reasonable hour, and not risk getting a thigh rash from discount fishnets?

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Emily Fleming.

Today's movie is The Phantom of the Paradise, the 1974 musical extravaganza directed by Brian DePalma and co-written by a wheelbarrow full of cocaine.

With us, as always, is the super producer, the he freak Matt Lieb hitting us with those decadent drops.

Carburetors, man.

That's what life is all about.

Yep.

Best thing in the movie.

Easy.

Carburetors, man.

This movie hates the Beach Boys.

I know.

Yeah.

Shots fired.

Shots fired.

Shots fired.

Shots fired, for sure.

Of course, the guy who directed Scarface hates the Beach Boys.

Like, it makes total sense.

he doesn't like fun he doesn't like beach he doesn't like car no not at all um well yeah uh we're gonna talk about the Phantom of the Paradise which is as of this recording streaming free with ads uh but before that we're gonna dive into our email inbox in a segment we call we got mail

you got mail

uh okay just I want to want to say a couple of things about the email inbox before we get to this wonderful email uh-oh this sounds like a dad who needs to give us a talking to.

There's going to be some dad energy.

Am I in trouble?

Are we in trouble?

Are we in trouble?

No one's going to Disneyland this summer.

You're all going to summer school.

I'll stop sending you pictures of my penis.

No, no, that's not the complaint.

The penis pictures are fine.

Free with ads at maximumfun.org.

That's our email address.

We love hearing from you.

A lot of our emails are movie suggestions.

We are not taking those at the moment.

We're going to like reserve the like listener picks for special occasions.

So, you know, just hold on those movie suggestions.

We'll let you know when we're taking them.

Just to address some of the things people are suggesting over and over again.

We will get to repo the genetic opera at some point.

Obviously.

We will obviously get to repo the genetic opera, the movie where Giles from Buffy steals people's organs, and it's a musical, and I think Paris Hilton is in it.

Yes, Jordan, you're going to hate this.

But, like, after we were done, we were going to talk about what to do next.

And Repo Man is available, and I wanted to do that.

Oh, the Emilio Esteves one or the June one?

Oh, that's Repo Man.

Oh, let's do Repo.

Let's do Repo Man.

I'm always going to do it.

But is that?

Yeah.

But is that trolling our house?

No.

No, no, no.

I think they want to see.

We're deciding it right now.

Next week, Repo Man.

Because the thing is, we love a soundtrack.

That is something that that all of you know about us.

And the Repo Man soundtrack is one of the most legendary movie soundtracks of all time.

So I'm sorry.

No Repo genetic opera, but.

We'll do it.

We'll do it at some point.

We know you want to hear it.

We're saving it for a special occasion.

So yes, so we'll make it.

Mommy needs Estebas.

Thank you I want to address.

We've done tremors.

Thank you for everyone who's suggesting tremors.

We've done it.

There is an episode about it.

Maybe you missed it.

Refresh your feed.

Don't like my opinions about it.

What was your?

We like tremors, right?

Do they not like it?

Did they like it?

Is it problematic?

No, there was, I remember we've gotten at least one email that said, like, I tried to listen to the podcast, but it's clear that you don't understand tremors.

And I was like, I thought

we liked it.

Right?

What did we, what did we miss about it?

I think we didn't give it its proper due because

it's someone who like really really likes tremor and that's great i think was it a graboid who learned to email i can only

with the little tentacles that come out of the mouth honestly those tentacles are probably better at typing than i've ever been so fair enough

but we love that movie so and we even we even want to go to like lone pine and go to the thing yeah i think it just uh there are going to be people who discover this podcast and the thing they discover is that in general um we think movies are fine.

We don't think

that movies are fine.

We don't think they're art.

Well, I also think it's very important to know that, I mean, the two of you gentlemen may be in a different arena of literacy and writing and whatnot, but like I'm I thoroughly think that my

contribution to this podcast is how fun I think something is.

Yeah, sure.

I am not a movie expert.

I am not a critical.

I'm not a critic.

None of us are.

None of us.

And this is about how it's free and how fun it is when it's free.

And so I may not be a brilliant movie critic, but

we're just, the podcast exists to set Emily up for stories about public sex.

Yes, does the movie make me?

Who cares?

Whatever.

Does the movie make me horny?

That is it.

That is all of my input.

There you go.

The movie that has to, at some point, lead to this sting.

Fingering story.

Thank you.

That's all the podcast is.

So, yes.

Quit looking to me for like,

like, what is it, academia?

Like, don't be looking at me.

Don't look to Emily for ever.

Don't be coming to me about fingering shit.

But also, Emily, maybe don't read the comments so much.

Maybe stay out of the comments.

Jordan.

That's all I have.

Try to do Jordan.

But it doesn't seem like it's fun.

Anyway,

so yes, we've done tremors.

We're sorry if we didn't like it enough.

We said we just kind of regular liked it.

And yes, we did it.

And if you, we will, we'll try and do one of the tremors sequels soon.

So there we go.

I feel like I've addressed all the recurring things in the email inbox.

Yes, yes.

Let's read this actual email we got, free with ads at maximumfun.org.

That's the address.

This is from Elise.

They write.

Hi, Emily, Jordan, and Matt.

I thought you would appreciate a podcast slash cat related story since y'all love the kitties.

I was driving one of my cats Nira to the vet vet today to get an ear hematoma drained.

Gross, but necessary.

She usually sings the song of her people non-stop while going to the vet, which gets old fast.

I have tried a thousand things to get her to stop singing to me over the years, but nothing has worked until today.

On the way home, Matt, did you have a thought on ear hematoma?

No, I have a thought on singing the song of her people.

We're talking about a cat?

I think meowing.

I think she was just saying

meows in a cute way.

Okay, okay, got it, got it, got it.

I've got a lot of people.

a bet.

I was very confused, but now I understand.

We're being whimsical.

Yeah, we're, you know, being memories.

Sorry.

All alone in the moonlight.

You have to understand, as soon as I had a child, I looked at my cat and said, oh, that's just a fucking cat.

And so I lost the whimsy that comes with them.

I'm very sorry.

It's not your whittle baby.

It's not my whittle baby anymore.

That's your fuzzy man.

Honestly, it's an argument against having children because it makes you like the cat less.

Yeah, it does.

It's so sad.

Matt, give me your cat.

No, I still love her a little, even though she shits everywhere.

Just a little.

So, yes, listener taking the cat to the vet.

Cat will not stop meowing in the car.

Elise goes on to write, on the way home, I was like, screw it.

I want to listen to Free With Ads.

So I started playing the podcast, expecting to have her sing the whole time.

I was listening to the Black Christmas episode, and Nira got quiet and started listening.

Oh, my god.

Sure, she would interject.

Yeah, sure, she would interject at times, probably commenting on the feminist themes, but she was largely quiet.

Don't worry, she's also old enough to listen.

She's 11, so like 60 in cat years.

So thank you for getting my sassy little girl to take a chill pill at a significantly lesser frequency.

Rock on from a cat lady librarian, Elise and Nira, the best cat.

I love that.

It's a fun, see, it's a fun, feel-good story.

I know I complained about everybody who emails us, but sometimes they're nice.

I feel bad about everything we said before this.

Okay, we said nice things mostly, and the things that weren't nice were cut out, so they don't know.

Okay, so

to make up for it, we are going to get

a shot-for-shot reenactment of Repo the Genetic Opera.

We're going to do

a lot of things.

I don't think this writer cares about Repo the Genetic.

You're making a lot of promises.

Okay, I'm sorry.

We'll use all of my action figures.

It'll be great.

It'll be great.

You'll love it.

So, yes, thank you.

Yes,

we do love your emails.

Free with ads at maximumfun.org.

Hey, this would be fun.

If you have a, here's an email I think we'd like to get.

We'd love to answer some of your questions at the top of the show.

So these could be movie questions.

These could be just fun either or.

These could be would you rather type questions.

It doesn't have to be about the movies.

so yeah let us know freewithads at maximum fun.org and uh maybe we'll read a question or two on the air jordan yes if you have pictures of your cat with any free with ads merch you want to send it oh sure that'd be fun yes if you can listen free with ads uh um maxfunstore.com we got shirts we got hats we got pint glasses if you can uh you know safely and humanely put free with ads merch on your let's open it up to all pets pets.

I bet we have some wizard foods out there.

Or next to.

Yeah, next to.

Yeah, let's do that.

And we'll highlight those on our social media.

Oh, my God.

Fuck FunStore.com.

A kitty cat with a bucket hat.

Are you kidding?

That'd be fun.

Everyone would like that.

Free with the cat.

Or Jordan, Jordan, a kitty cat drinking water out of the pint glass because you know they only drink out of human cups.

That's true.

That's true.

If you're drinking the water, they want to stick their little head in there.

My cat has absolutely stuck her head in my Free With pint glass.

MaxFunstore.com.

That's where you go to get your merch.

FreewithAds at maximumfun.org.

That's our email address.

And yeah, give us a follow on Instagram, FreeWithAdsPod, and we'll post those pet pics if we get them.

All right,

we're going to talk about the Phantom of the Paradise, which does contain suicide.

So if that's not something you want to hear us talk about, we're going to play some music to give you a chance to find another episode.

We're back.

It's free with ads.

We are going to talk about the Phantom of the Paradise.

This is a movie that I had been wanting to watch for a long time, a new popular cult movie,

popular cult musical.

These are all things I'm interested in, but I had never seen it before.

I, of course, knew the image of the Phantom, right?

The guy with the kind of bird-like mask and the weird silver teeth.

This was a popular t-shirt for goth girls who would not talk to me in high school.

And yeah, so I had always kind of knew the like imagery of this movie, but I had never actually seen it.

Had y'all seen this before?

No.

Never seen it.

Only heard about it from people who also liked Rocky Horror.

Oh, sure, yes.

And so it was like impossible not to compare these movies.

Right.

So it was always like recommended to me to watch at some point.

And every time I just

would kind of go,

I'd literally rather watch anything else.

Like I can't, I couldn't think of a good reason.

I have a sort of, it takes me a while to like watch a musical because I have to be like mentally prepared to enjoy it.

And,

you know, so when this came free with ads, I was like, let's finally do it.

Let's do it.

Let's watch it.

I'd been seeing it on like clips on Instagram and TikTok.

Once again, like so many of the things that I suggest end up being from insane clips that I see.

I'd never even heard of this.

Right.

It's a very clippable movie.

I have to say, watching it, I was like, yeah, I could see how someone could see a one-minute long clip of this movie and be like, well, I have to know what is happening here.

It is beautifully shot and completely strange.

Yeah, it looks cool as hell.

The sounds.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, yeah,

let's get into it.

We start with a little voiceover, voiceover by Rod Sterling from The Twilight Zone.

Fun little Danio.

No, that was him.

I remember being confused because I was like, wait, when did he die?

And it turns out he was still.

He dialed while recording this voiceover.

He recorded it in a kiddie pool full of cocaine and had a heart attack.

He died a year later in 1975.

Oh, my gosh.

Whoa.

Then, wait.

Oh, that was Casey Kasim.

Different guy.

I know.

I know.

I was like, wait, who's been, who was doing top 40 all those years?

There's

a lot of two.

You know, both of them had voices, though.

Yes.

They both had great voices.

And they look a little similar.

Well, Dick Clark definitely looks like Rod Sterling.

But Rod Sterling is, I mean, he's the GOAT.

This guy, Twilight Zone, and he wrote him, you know?

Yeah.

Sure.

That's so crazy.

Cool voice.

And yeah, and this, it seemed like, okay, so this this is going to be kind of Twilight Zones-y.

So, yeah, it's the story of Swan, a famous record producer.

He has no other name.

His past is a mystery.

He's a guy who's just constantly winning gold records.

And one of the things that the narrator says about him is that he brought rock and folk together.

So this guy is responsible for Dave Matthews' band and John Mayer.

Cool.

Thanks.

This guy's responsible for Dylan going electric.

Yeah.

Everyone's favorite Dylan moment.

So, yes,

he's starting an amazing rock club like no other called The Paradise.

And his main band that he produces, his big hit band, is called The Juicy Fruits.

We open on them.

The worst gum of all time.

Oh, I kind of like it.

I like a stick of juicy fruit.

It doesn't, you know,

different gums for different fruits.

The flavor goes away in five chomps.

It ain't shit.

Some mouths like certain gums.

And I think that's, and I think that's beautiful.

I think that is beautiful.

We see the juicy fruits playing.

They're a greaser kind of band.

They make the teens from Greece look like public enemy.

They are

very corny.

They're wearing kind of like pink bowling shirts, and they're doing some kind of like doo-wop song.

Yeah.

Yeah.

While this is happening, yes.

The O'Neaters could.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Before they became the wonders with the W.

The O-Neaders would

dropkick these guys.

Speaking of, had you ever seen the video about how

one of the dudes from ICP tried to dropkick Fred Durst, but ended up just

falling and hurting himself?

Yeah.

That sounds like the ICP guy, right?

Yeah.

I have not seen that, but I totally believe it exists.

I think the own eaters would do that to this bit.

And so, you know, maybe worth talking about this up top.

I don't think the music in this is good.

The music

has the quality.

You know, when we watched

All Dogs Go to Heaven,

and we learned that the music in that is so weird because Burt Reynolds just wanted to sing whatever he wanted to, and later someone dropped in music.

I don't know if that was the case with this.

It sounds like it.

It sounds sounds like people are just singing dooty dooty doot doot doot.

And then later, weeks later, someone on speed tried to like do a lead vocal tune.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

I made a note.

I've only like I sometimes do like Emily's notes at the end of our dog.

I only had a couple of things and one of them was favorite lyrics and I only have one and it's dream a bunch of friends.

Dream a bunch of friends.

He just went dream a bunch of friends.

Like he kept saying it, and it was like in the first song, and they never sang the song again.

Yeah.

Yet he was like so angry that they stole his music.

And I'm like, I don't think you should.

You probably bang out another one of those.

Yeah.

Maybe don't worry about it.

Yeah.

A little cocaine and one late night.

I think you'll be able to get a few more mid-songs.

Sure.

Yeah.

This is like if Amy Schumer took your worst joke.

Right.

Yeah.

She's who care.

Yeah, it's okay.

Yeah.

I mean,

to bring up that thing you do yet again on this show,

maybe even the most often-mentioned movie on this show, like the amazing thing about that, and

oh gosh, the guy who wrote all that music is the guy from Fountains of Wayne.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the guy from Fountains of Wayne, who passed away not too long ago, wrote all the music for that thing you do.

And I've heard it said, I'm repeating someone else's observation, that he had the insurmountable job of writing a song that felt like it was the biggest song in the world and you believed it.

And he did it.

Yeah.

And he just wrote a song that you believed was the number one song,

whatever the year that takes place.

Like it actually became sort of a hit song.

It was totally

better than the movie.

Yeah.

Well, no, there's, and there's other good songs that he wrote for that soundtrack.

That's

true.

But it was like Tom Hanks produced it.

And they had like a contest.

People could just send in music.

Anybody could have done it.

And they didn't think they were going to find anything.

And then that song went in there and did it.

My family, the

carpool on Westwood Avenue where I grew up,

it was the Austin Power soundtrack and That Thing You Do.

Non-stop.

Non-stop.

Adam Schlesinger.

Adam Schlesinger, the guy's name.

All right.

Anyway, legend.

So you're supposed to like believe in this movie that these songs are huge hit songs.

Yeah.

Not fucking one of these is memorable.

They're all so weird and cokey.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's like part of the vibe of the movie.

It's dreamlike.

It's strange.

It's kind of sati-y.

But yeah, I feel like

that prevented me from enjoying the movie.

The songs in Rocky Horror are great.

They're all so

hummable and singable.

Anyway, these songs are so strange.

It's kind of like, that's why I can't enjoy a movie about stand-up comedy, because there'll always be a scene in which someone is doing stand-up comedy.

That's not even close to what it would sound like.

Yes.

It's like no one's doing a good joke.

You need a good joke in it.

You need a joke at all.

Yeah.

And it's usually because a screenwriter is attempting to write what he thinks stand-up sounds like and those who don't necessarily,

you know, they're not necessarily the same thing.

Well, do you think

it's different?

Maybe, so I don't know when...

The musical Phantom of the Opera came out.

In 86 or something like that.

So that was after this.

Yes, but Phantom of the Opera had been around, you know, it's like a book from

1910 or something like that.

The music of Phantom of the Opera.

So it felt to me like if he had heard the music for Phantom of the Opera and been like, fuck you, I hate the Beach Boys and I hate the musical Phantom of the Opera.

I'm just going to

take a diarrhea all over music and musical theater.

Like, I don't know.

So the guy who wrote the music for this is Paul Williams, who plays Swan, and he is a famous songwriter.

He wrote the fucking Rainbow Connection.

Like, this guy, you know, he's written tons of hit songs that you know, but you know, I think he did some songs with Daft Punk later in life, too.

Yeah, like, he's I guess they have said that their helmets are inspired by this movie.

Oh, so maybe

a fun little, fun little full circle thing, but that's pretty cool.

So, yeah, this guy knows how to write a song, but I don't know.

None of them in this movie like did anything for me.

I thought the Beach Boys parody thing was funny, but other than that, like, anyway, yeah.

Well, maybe he didn't want to give us his best songs because he sold his soul to the devil.

That's true, yes, in the movie.

And like, he's like, Well, I can't give you the best ones because I sold my soul.

Yeah, the problem is, is like a lot of the music up top is music that is supposed to be a joke, sort of, about the genres that they that at least Paul, what is it, Paul Wilson?

What's his name?

Paul Williams, yeah, Paul Williams.

Hey, he also plays the kind of weird uh little Enos in

Smoky and the Bandit.

Anyway, oh, yeah, that's right.

That's right.

I knew he looked familiar.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, but the problem is, is not being, it's very of its time.

So it's at a time where people are

like the Beach Boys is a punchline.

You know, people kind of saw them as like this campy band that sold their soul to do surf songs, you know, throughout the Vietnam War.

Yeah, what assholes to try to make us smile a little bit.

Fuck the Beach Boys.

Yeah, I know.

And it's like, it's like that, that, you know, that piss take is just like, well, well, are any of these songs good?

Like, I don't know.

Maybe the Beach Boys are corny, but like.

Right, but do a good song in comparison or else this sucks.

Well, it's also not a series of noises from a split screen at the event

where it was like, what the fuck?

Yeah, at the moment they're doing the Beach Boys parody.

It is a split screen of what's going on backstage so you're hearing the backstage conversation and this beach boys parody and uh which you know cool filmmaking idea i guess but it it made me feel insane yeah me too

yeah uh i just well i don't know about you guys when

i listen like or when i listen when i watch the movies that we do for this podcast i don't usually just sit in one place and watch it i'm usually like you know i'm kind of folding my laundry and doing which i think that's good for watching movies at home, a free movie with ads.

You should be able to live your life and watch the movie at the same time.

This movie will not allow you to do that.

Like, it just will not.

You will have to, you will be frozen in like, in a herky jerky twitch in like in order to get through it.

So, so going on, going on after the juicy fruits is Winslow Leach.

He is a dude playing a piano.

He makes Billy Joel look like a member of Guar.

He is, I think, supposed to be kind of an Elton John, kind of an artiste.

He writes these songs that, you know, like that thing you do, you're supposed to believe these are going to be these giant hit songs, and they're just these kind of weird free association, hookless, chorus-less noodlings.

Bunch of friends.

Yeah, in the world of the movie, I guess these are supposed to be hit songs.

He gets approached by Swan's goon to

sell the songs.

He says he won't do it if they're given to the juicy fruits.

He'll let the juicy fruits open for him, I guess, but he won't sell the songs to them.

The goon says, okay, well, we'll make an album with you and we'll give you a record contract.

And he takes all the sheet music.

And I guess the guy buys this.

A month goes by.

He doesn't hear anything.

He sneaks into the record company office death records.

Death records.

Yeah.

Cool as fuck, by the way.

Yeah, I know the logo was

really sick.

I'm sure there's death record shirts on Etsy somewhere.

Oh my god.

I need, I need yeah.

Apparently they were going to call it Swan Songs, uh, Swan Songs Records

because obviously Swan, but uh they decided to change it because that became literally the record label for um Led Zeppelin's like vanity projects.

So they didn't want to get into a protracted legal battle over it, and they last minute changed it to Death Records.

And honestly, great change.

Great change.

Cool Dead Bird as a logo.

There are hella Death Records t-shirts all over the internet.

Oh, I guess something we should mention, too, a kind of ham-fisted analogy that comes back repeatedly.

This guy is writing a rock opera about Faust, a character who's so- Oh, boy.

Here's where that not academia Fleming comes in.

Yeah, well then for you.

Can you guys, real quick, explain Faust?

It's like a German story about a guy who sells his soul to the devil.

Oh, okay.

It's like a, you know, it's a Faustian bargain is, you know, you sell your soul, you know, you get the thing you want, but then, of course, you know, everything goes awry because you sold your soul to the devil.

Well, he could have just said Charlie Daniels.

He could have.

And then I would have understood.

Well, the nobody gets a gold fiddle in the movie.

And nobody gets a good song either.

Nobody goes down to Georgia.

So he is trying to get them to acknowledge him.

And

I think the movie,

a lot of this movie is ineffective.

Something I think works really well is this feeling he has of being gaslit by them, of saying, we never took your songs.

Like, as a, you know,

low-on-the-totem pole,

lower-middle-class creative person, the terror you feel.

Yeah.

Just like a fucking bazillionaire or a giant evil company will just steal your shit and you will be out on the street.

Yeah, yeah.

It's relatable.

It is relatable.

Totally.

And they burn your face, too.

Well, I think he burned his face.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

But inadvertently, they burned his face.

So, yeah, he's trying to get this record contract.

He goes into

Swan's house, which has no security.

He just goes in, and there's a bunch of women there auditioning with his songs.

And

so he tries to like, he tries to infiltrate the house to get Swan to pay attention to him.

And

we see this moment of what's happening in Swan's bedroom.

He has this big circular bedroom.

But wait, we got to introduce the female.

He meets Phoenix.

Oh, sure.

He meets Phoenix there.

Phoenix will come back.

She's this kind of nice, nice gal who just wants to sing.

Wants to sing her heart out.

Well, she's the actress from Sesperia as well.

From the original.

She's like kind of a fun 70s.

Horror icon.

She's been in a lot of stuff.

Like, she does other roles.

She was in the Rocky Horror sequel as well.

Yes.

I know there was a Rocky Horror sequel.

There is.

Oh!

My God, it's kind of

unofficial, I feel like, but it's written by the same guy who did Rocky Horror.

I didn't know that.

Oh, my God.

We have to do that one.

But she's, her voice is the most okay voice I've ever heard.

And

no one in this seems to be a good singer.

Boy, we're

going to beef at some point.

Oh, but hang on now.

Don't you fucking shit on me.

Don't agree Beef.

You're a beef fan.

All right.

Oh, I think we know who the hunk watch is going to be for this episode.

And I agree.

So, yeah, so he meets Phoenix there, and to kind of infiltrate things, he sneaks into like Swan's bedroom, and he has like all of these women kind of laying around, rubbing each other on this circular bed.

They're like, Swan likes to watch us before he joins.

And I am like, here we go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, I,

like, hell comes to Frogtown, you assume this movie is going to be way hornier than it is.

Oh, 100%.

Basically,

nothing else sexy happens in this movie.

They were even talking about taking off the chick's blouse, and I was like, do it!

Yes.

I was so excited.

They didn't even do it.

And people are so clothed in this movie.

In this movie about sexy rock and roll excess.

Everyone is wearing huge...

ponchos and jackets all the time.

I know.

Well, the other thing was in Hell Cups Frogtown, I told you guys about how I am, as a straight woman, somehow still very turned on by the meatloaf music video with the women all

love yeah this is the same fucking thing and it wasn't hot to me this time yeah it wasn't hot yeah if you if you think this movie is gonna be some sort of like decadent sexy rock and roll good time it is not so no not sexy it's not trying to be either I don't think you know yeah I feel like it wants to be at certain times there's that like weird sex scene between them anyway but yeah it's like it's like it uh yeah nothing nothing titillating happens in this unless you like silver teeth.

Nothing tit at all.

No, yeah, no tits whatsoever.

But I guess if you like bird masks and silver teeth, maybe you'll be horned up by that.

And Dennis, by the way, this movie go with God.

This movie is rated PG, by the way.

Sure.

It is.

And has some stuff in it.

Anyway, yeah, maybe don't

show this to your eight-year-old.

Right.

It's crazy that this movie is rated PG.

I saw that and then I was like, oh, there won't be tits in this.

Wait, wait, wait.

What is Rocky Horror rated?

That's a great question.

I don't know.

Because Rocky Horror is one of the most sensual experiences as like anyone I think you'll ever have.

And I don't know when that came out versus when this came out.

That came out a couple years later.

So Rocky Horror, Rocky Horror was a play before this.

Oh.

This movie comes out, and then a year later, the Rocky Horror Picture Show comes out.

So I,

you know, and again, it's impossible to compare, not to compare these movies, but I, I, I do feel like maybe they saw the play and ripped this off.

That, that's, that's,

this is my,

I agree.

That has to be it.

Also, Brian De Palma seems like a bitter Betty.

I'm going to be real.

Like, this movie just feels like, I hate the beach boys, and, like,

fuck that play that was trying to do this.

Like, a little bit, but I mean,

it's, it's all the same guts for sure, but yeah, definitely.

But Brian DePalma, you're still alive.

You're 84.

If you need anyone to write anything or get your coffee, we are all available.

Absolutely.

Do you want to be a guest on a podcast?

Yeah.

Get over here, you bitter bitch Benny.

I would love to have you.

Come on, Brian DePalma.

You want to watch Lara Croft Tomb Raider on Zumo play?

Join us.

That might be fun to watch sometimes.

I would.

Anyway, so, yeah, so the movie isn't sexy.

He

what's our whatever our dude's name who becomes the phantom?

He like dresses up and dragged like you know, he's like

in the pile of women.

Again, this all should be sexy and fun.

It's not.

He's just like in the pile.

He gets thrown out and like

he gets drugs planted on him by the cops.

Yeah.

And

he gets thrown into this jail.

where

they have to take his teeth out.

But that it's owned by Swan, the villain, owns the prison.

Yeah.

And again, this kind of like, I think it does a pretty good job of like the paranoia of the giant corporation.

Like, this guy owns everything, so he's just fucked, like, no matter what he does.

Yes.

I did think the gag of everybody at this prison has to get all their teeth pulled was good.

That to me is kind of a dark, funny, Brazil-y type joke that I liked.

So he, so he gets, he gets in this jail where he gets his teeth pulled.

He gets the like silver teeth that maybe you've like seen on the posters and on the, you know, in the clipboard.

Cool as the fuck.

Yeah, he looks super cool.

He escapes jail somehow.

He like gets in this cardboard box and kind of falls out of a truck.

This little segment is kind of fun.

It's a little zany.

I think maybe you're kind of supposed to think of a hard day's night a little bit here.

He's kind of sped up.

But anyway, so he tries to blow up the record company with, and I appreciated this, a big bundle of dynamite.

Now, would I have preferred it to be a giant giant circular black bomb with a wick at the top?

Yes, that's the way you blow something up.

But

bundle of dynamite, pretty good.

It does the trick.

It does the trick.

As long as the detonator is a thing that you have to push down like a T, you know, and

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A plunger.

Yeah, that's a fun way to blow up a bomb.

And as we mentioned, he gets his face smashed in one of the record presses, scarring it so that he must don a mask, he must don a crazy.

But it was more than scarring it, it was putting his eyeball in a different place.

It moved his eyeball.

That's how bad he got burned.

His eye moved, yeah.

He turned into sloth from the Goonies, essentially.

So, yeah, he put, and again, this, like, this look of his is so fucking cool and genuinely pretty scary.

And sexy.

And maybe a little sexy.

There's a lot of cuts to him reacting to stuff, going like, ya,

and like his

every time they did that, I'm like, oh, that is my face when I'm looking at the Yelp page of the restaurant I'm going to that night.

I'm going to have the Brussels sprouts.

Which I.

I hope I have room for dessert.

I have sponge cake.

When will six o'clock get here?

I have a question, though.

Maybe I missed the context for this, but his mask that he takes on does look a lot like a bird mask.

Yes.

Which we've got Swan, who is our villain, and then Phoenix, who is our female protagonist.

Was he just going as the Phantom, or was there another bird he was going to be?

I mean, he looks like a bird.

He looks like a toucan.

He looks like toucan Sam.

Yeah.

Goth.

I think there is.

I think you have identified a genuine film motif, which is

very academia.

Very academia.

Very academia.

But I mean, they could have, the phantom, they could have called him, I don't know.

There could have been some kind of a phantom too, Kent.

I don't know.

There's a pun in there.

But you know what?

The fact is you identified it, and for that, we're going to give you this honorary degree.

Now, hang on.

Just because I'm admitting that I'm not an academic does not mean that we can just stupefy me.

No, we haven't stupefied you.

I'm saying you're right.

There is, that is the motif of it.

He looks like a bird, goddammit.

No, you are right.

And then the guy's name is a bird name.

What Tar Nation?

Give me my gun.

Pew, pew, motherfucker.

I'm literally not making fun of you.

I'm telling you, you're right.

I know, I know, I know.

You are correct.

But the thing is, everybody starts painting their face like his character in the like chorus and stuff for things moving forward.

And it makes you think, oh, is is it supposed to be Swan?

Is he like, I don't know.

Either way, cool mask.

Looks like a music.

Looks awesome.

Yeah.

You can see

why the image of this has endured totally because it looks awesome.

And yeah, so they, he like terrorizes the record company a little bit.

They,

Swan makes a deal with them.

He's like, stop terrorizing me and I'll let you rewrite your musical.

So they lock him in this like room with a bunch of synthesizers.

Looks pretty cool.

I guess it was an actual recording studio that Paul Williams used to make make better songs than the ones that appear in this movie.

Sure, sure.

But secretly, they are trying to find someone to perform the music who is not Phoenix.

The Phantom has said he only wants Phoenix to perform.

And they're like, yeah, sure.

But they stick her in the chorus and they try and find a new singer.

I don't exactly know why.

I don't know what their problem with Phoenix is.

I guess they just want someone more.

He said something about she was too perfect.

Yeah, you're right.

That's something like that.

It feels so

a statement on hating.

It's like very much like

the experience of Paul Williams and a producer he hates.

Yeah.

And this is just like, you know, producers, how they're always like, you have the song, you have the perfect person, and they want to change it.

And it's like, I don't know that, but that

sucks.

You know how you write a beautiful song and they give it to Kermit the frog thing?

Yeah.

I was like, great if he was bitter about that that his whole life.

Been there, dude.

Yeah.

The other thing.

That was for Christine McVie.

I think that that's 100% correct.

But then I also think this idea of someone being perfect for someone for something and then stringing them along to kind of make them more obsessed with pleasing you

could be like his motivation to string Phoenix along to the point where she knows she's better than these other people.

And then the moment he gives her the opportunity, he's got her in the palm of his hand.

So, yeah, so we, so he's, he's trying to like, yeah, he is stringing her along, but he's like trying to replace her behind her back, and the guy he gets is

beef.

That's right, beef, who is a supposed to be kind of like a glam rock guy.

Maybe he's supposed to be kind of a bowie pastor.

I do think it's meatloaf.

Oh, maybe.

Maybe there's a little meatloaf in there.

Yeah, all the all the glam guys from the 70s.

He's very camp.

What I love about this character is the guy who's playing him is like he's he's doing an over-the-top like effeminate, you know, you know, accent.

He's got a lisp.

You know, there's a lot of, what do you call it?

Sibilant S's and stuff like that.

And

the character

itself is mostly comic relief.

And what I enjoy is the fact that there's one guy, and we say this every time, there's one guy who knows what movie he's in, and this is my guy.

I'm watching him 100%

enjoying his

performance is perfect.

He's not a great singer necessarily, or at least not in this movie.

I couldn't tell.

It's hard.

It's hard to tell.

I'd agree.

Beef is funny in this.

He does some like prat falls that kind of got a laugh out of me.

Yeah.

He understands, like, okay, this is kind of like

a stupid, silly movie.

Okay.

So he's doing great.

I have a lot of opinions about

stuff.

I definitely think this is a dig at Meatloaf, especially because we know that the musical came out and all that stuff.

And I think Meatloaf was in the musical.

I'm not sure.

Now that I'm looking at it, I feel like there is some underlying, men, you know what?

This is...

An assumption may not be true.

There is a little bit of underlying homophobia.

100,000 percent.

To juicy fruits,

calling the beach boys juicy fruits because you don't like them in this time period.

And then making this character that I think is referencing Meatloaf, who was in Rocky Horror.

Yes.

Maybe that.

So I'm thinking there's something going on here where there's some machines.

100%.

I think Bowie was kind of like out at this point.

So maybe there's a little bit of like, look at these gay guys and their

makeup.

And so yeah, I think that is absolutely here.

But I love beef.

I think beef was just said yes to a gig.

Sure.

And did the best.

He changed the octave as he should have.

And I thought once he got that, I think he was a good singer.

Yeah.

Because the thing is, okay, I don't think that you're supposed to be an amazing singer at everything.

I think you've got to give it the oomph and that, you know, that something, something that makes you feel the music.

You don't have to be, not everybody's Whitney Houston, y'all.

That's right.

that's right.

Sometimes you just give it the have a unique voice.

Give it the juice, if you will.

Yeah, the juicy fruits.

The beef.

Give it that.

Beef's got the fruit.

Give it the beef.

Where's the beef?

Here's the beef, motherfuckers.

Yeah.

So, yes, I think, listen, I think, you know,

beef's performance.

I think you can feel a lot of different ways about it.

I think we can all agree he's probably the tallest person in the movie.

Oh,

tallest guy.

That's you're sure it's not Swan.

Yeah.

You know what?

I do probably need to see them back to back.

Yeah, yeah.

Did you guys do that too when people wanted to go back to back with you?

Matt, you've probably had this experience.

Oh, I love it.

It's my favorite game.

I always do that.

Me too.

As a girl, everybody's like, oh, we'll go back to back.

And I'm like, just look at me in the eyes.

You can see I'm taller than you.

You're at my nipple level.

So Beef is the new like star of this show, this Faust rock opera.

They do the, like, we get to see the play, and it's, like, not as cool as you want it to be.

The, like, juicy fruits come out in, like, kiss makeup, and they, like,

have, they, like, cut up these dolls.

I couldn't, I couldn't tell if we're supposed to think they're actually cutting up audience members or not.

Anyway, whatever.

Yeah.

Which the audience was losing their mind over it.

Yeah, the audience is freaking out.

And it's, it, again, it's that thing of like, you're supposed to be buying that these are going to be the world's greatest songs.

And you just, they're so weird and atonal.

You just don't.

And anyway, oh, and also, uh, so Swan and Phoenix have a like a little love affair.

They go to his circle bed, and you're like, okay, we have a sex scene, and she just kisses him on the cheek, and they remain fully clothed.

Well, she does some pajama grinding, she does some pajama grinding, they do grind pajamas, but wait, we have to talk about how you heard of a BJ, but a PJ?

But we have to talk about how beef got set on fire and exploded.

When did beef get set on fire and explode before this yeah yeah

this was uh beef dies uh this is after um

you know the phantom threatens him in a psycho you know in this

shower scene there's a little yeah parody of the psycho shower scene yeah uh the phantom threatens him with a plunger puts a plunger on his face it's pretty cool right and super funny he breaks out basically they were trying to okay so they were going to trap him in the room where he's writing all the songs by breaking it off which which a plan

immediately fails because he breaks out because he just breaks out of the bricks.

And then he goes and he threatens Beef and he says, Those songs are only for Phoenix, but you know, in his robot voice.

And then Beef is about to quit the show, and he does it in such like a great way where he's like, I'm a professional.

When I say I don't want to do a show, I'm not going to do a show.

And then the guy threatens him and he does the show, anyways.

And then on stage,

as he's performing, the Phantom throws a neon lightning bolt at him.

Right.

Yeah.

Which looks like a prop, I guess.

I don't know.

Yeah, it's like in the world of the show, is this a prop?

Is this the actual lightning bolt?

Where did he get it?

It's the Power Rangers logo.

Yeah, sure.

It actually was.

And then he gets electrocuted and then explodes.

Explodes.

And sets on fire.

And they take forever to like

to extinguish it.

And then Swan goes over to Phoenix and goes, now you have to sing the songs.

Right.

And she goes out and does the okayest job.

Oh, so I guess we're going to go to the middle of the moment.

And then everybody loses their minds.

Everyone loses their mind.

The twist, I guess,

I passed over is that

we see this very tepid PJ sex scene between Swan and Phoenix.

The Phantom is watching this.

He just has a knife.

He stabs himself, but he can't die.

And we learn that

Swan

has a very on-the-nose backstory where he like the main character of faust made a deal with the devil to stay famous and he can't die yeah uh so he can't die because they're both contractually linked to each other that logic makes it's like it follows like yeah it's a little bit like an it follows so yeah they both like try and kill themselves and can't it's so stupid because it's like you can't have more faustian bargains not everyone can have a deal with the devil that can't you can't just keep doing that over and over.

Well, maybe his deal with the devil is that he has to keep getting people contractually obligated.

He's like an MLM, but with the devil.

Well, no, no.

Exactly.

It's like

a bunch of leggings he has in his drawing.

He's got to sell some cutco knives.

Exactly.

It's like the ring, where it's like, I make a tape and you got to watch the tape.

And then it is.

It's exactly like an MLM.

I love multi-level marketing devil.

He's a real son of a bitch.

I know he's evil, but this is really, really dastardly.

You know, I think that the sad thing is that the devil is probably not as evil and exciting as

we think he is.

He's probably mundane as fuck.

Absolutely.

Like that with MLMs.

I think that is where he lives.

Well, it's going to be selling supplements in the afterlife.

A girl.

So, yes.

And so Swan has this plan to kill Phoenix on stage for some reason.

He hires a sniper.

And before we talk about the weird, confusing ending of The Phantom of the Paradise, we're going to hear a little message.

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We're talking about the conclusion of the Phantom of the Paradise.

So, yes, as we mentioned, beef gets blown up with a lightning bolt.

The Phantom, as the Phantom of the Opera also does, is kind of like sneaking around up in the wings,

up on the you know, proscenium or whatever.

And he's throwing stuff in.

Nice.

I don't know if that's what I don't know if that's what it's called.

Boy,

the comments are gonna take that comment.

I'm gonna get roasted for misusing proscenium.

Oh, it was the perennium.

Perennium, sorry.

Perineum.

Yeah,

yes.

Perineum.

I just met him.

We're having fun.

The perineum.

It's the little ramp backstage between the penis and ball.

The phantom of the perennial.

Yes, sure.

Anyway, so like Phoenix is the star of the show.

There's these like bikini dancers who are just kind of like gyrating around her.

And she just gets on stage and kind of spins around.

They didn't give her any choreographer.

She's just kind of randomly spinning.

But the phantom saves.

He saves Phoenix.

And he jumps down and I think stabs Swan.

And then like everybody turns on Swan.

I don't know if it's supposed to remind you of like people killing Caesar, but maybe that's kind of what it's supposed to be.

There's something about with his deal he made with the devil, it was about him staying young and beautiful, technically.

And so he had this kind of Dorian Gray,

like a video.

No great literary reference.

Exactly.

Somebody's in academia.

Look at that.

Look at academia, Deadmaster.

Somebody got horny to Penny Dreadful.

Anyway,

so anyway, he's got...

Shout out to Reeve Carney.

But also, very the ring coded, where it's like he, instead of a painting, it was a video recording that he had to reference every night in order for him to stay beautiful.

And I think when our Phantom was watching it, he had destroyed it.

Yeah,

he burned down his video room.

And you knew his was video room because every single video said video on it yes and so so he nullified all the contracts i guess i guess or he made him not beautiful anymore yeah so at the wedding which this was a wedding for phoenix and live on tv oh right sure live he was gonna kill her at yes and i think that that is supposed to be a sacrifice in some way i think that the the point was muddled but in my opinion because he's bad well he forced her to sign a contract in blood the same way he made The Phantom sign it.

And I feel like he was going to take her voice, which is like a little mermaid thing.

I don't know.

Or a Phantom of the Opera thing.

So when he, like, shit goes down, his face comes up and is looking at her and it's all burned off.

Right.

And you assume that's because he fucked up his Dorian Gray video?

I guess.

I don't know.

I'm just accepting it as that.

That's what I think.

I think that's a fine explanation.

Thank you.

To whatever happened at the end of this movie.

I just like things to be somewhat, you know.

That makes sense.

That sounds fine to me.

Yeah.

And that's the end of the Phantom of the Paradise.

We are going to rank it on a scale of one to ten Super Loud commercials.

But first, you know, we got to do the honk watch.

Yay!

It's honk watch.

Emily, I'll let you kind of like take this home because I think you have the biggest opinions here.

I'll just say one of the juicy fruits at the beginning was smoking a cigarette while he was playing the guitar.

That guy was pretty cool.

Yeah, he was pretty cool.

That's my guy, the guy who smokes and plays the guitar.

Matt, did you have any thoughts?

I mean, it's got to be beef.

Like, I truly was, beef made the movie watchable to me

because even in the scenes where he's singing, even if I'm not fully enjoying the singing,

I was enjoying watching his performance of it.

And yeah, like I said, he's the one guy who gets that he's in a movie that's stupid.

And I respect that.

And he was very attractive.

Emily,

you share these thoughts?

Yeah, Beeve is my guy.

I just, I liked that he was actually a good guy.

I like characters that are seen as vain and frivolous.

that are actually they have a heart of good like heart of good heart of good

heart of good goddamn gold

and and they just because you're frivolous and selfish doesn't mean you don't give a fuck about other people right and i think he's one of those guys but also he's hot and he's got that curly head of hair and he's got a cool voice not a good voice a cool voice yeah yeah it was uh you know a movie that should have had more hunks i feel like one of the things it was missing i mean it's a movie about how i guess like glam rock sucks or something So I figure, like, we'll have some more glam guys in it.

What are we doing?

Have hot dudes.

Show the chest.

Yeah, I know.

And it's like, and again, you hate to do this.

Rocky Horror is so full of hot people.

Yes.

Anyway, so if they were like ripping it off, they like

didn't, they got so much stuff wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah,

that's the hunk watch.

We're going to rank this movie on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials when we come back.

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We're going to rank this movie, The Phantom of the Paradise, I almost said Repo the Genetic Opera,

on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials.

But first, we want to remind you to go to maximumfun.org/slash join.

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All right.

We're going to rank Phantom of the Paradise on a scale of one to 10 super loud commercials.

Emily, let's hear from you first.

What'd you think?

Okay, so I love camp, you know me, and I like silly and I like big swings, but I don't like it when it's got hate in its heart.

And I feel like this movie had nothing but disdain and hate in its heart.

The joy wasn't there to me.

I want to see something that is joyful,

or at least, I mean, it's definitely a good movie to have in the background of a party.

Of course, that's one of my main things.

But you can't even have it on in the background of doing stuff around your house because it's like,

I don't know.

It's just so jarring.

I would rather watch Hell Comes to Frogtown

twice.

Twice

back to back than watch this movie ever again.

It is a two for me.

Matt Lieb, what do you think?

I, yeah, I mean, I mostly agree, although my rating is going to be a little bit higher because I found there to be some redeeming aspects to it, but I agree.

It was,

I could only see it as coming from a bitter and hateful place.

There was just something about it where it was just kind of like,

you know,

sort of hackneyed, which is kind of maybe unfair because maybe it was groundbreaking.

But to me, the like, man, aren't record producers like the devil?

It doesn't feel like a groundbreaking insight.

And also the music wasn't great.

And I feel like if the music isn't great,

what are we really doing here?

And yes, I do feel like there was sort of a latent homophobia to the whole, not just the beef character, but sort of the anti-glam rock stance that it felt like it took.

Yeah.

Which in the 80s really, I mean, goes hardcore in that direction.

And in the 70s.

I feel like.

Well, the 70s was the beginning of sort of the backlash of the 60s and sort of like, you know, the, yeah, all of our men aren't men anymore.

You know, they're wearing makeup and high heels.

Yeah, yeah, they're doing dresses.

And they look awesome.

yeah, yeah, and they look cool, and they fucked way more than you ever will.

So, what are we talking?

What are we really doing here?

Yeah,

why are you mad?

Um, but yeah, it is so there was a little bit of that for me, although again, I don't know if it's fair to say if it meant to be that way, uh, and yeah, but visually, cool movie to look at.

I'm gonna give it a four because of how awesome the makeup was and how awesome the costume design was.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll go right in between you guys.

I think it's a three for me.

Yeah, I was kind of surprised I didn't like this more.

I like all this stuff.

I'm like, great.

I, you know, I like camp.

I like a rock musical.

I like a cokey, weird 70s thing.

But yeah,

all the stuff we've mentioned, you know, and they think just the main crime is that the music isn't great.

Like, if it would have an awesome Beach Boys parody that you were humming, or if it had a great glam parody that like felt like, you know, the the coolest glam song you've never heard in your life, it would like that, you know, even if you are sending the stuff up, you know, weird Al Yankovic

has affinity for the music he's parodying, you know?

So yeah,

I thought all the, yeah, if the songs were better, it would be a totally different ballgame.

But yeah,

I think like last week's Hell Comes to Frogtown, I think this movie works so well in clips, and maybe that is just the best way to experience it.

Check out a couple clips, you know, see some of the set set designs, see his weird costume, which is genuinely very cool.

But yeah, don't feel like you need to waste a movie night on this thing, in my opinion.

All right, let's do a little plug-in.

Emily, think you got anything coming up?

I mean, as always, I'm going to say go check out Goodbythe Weekend on Saturdays on the GMM channel on YouTube.

You can just put in GMM and then it'll pop up.

And Saturdays, we're all on there.

Oh, yeah.

Go check that out.

Matt, anything?

Yeah, you should, if you are in the Los Angeles area, please come out to the Ice House in Pasadena where

my wife, my wife, Francesca Fiorentini and I, I'm sorry, I can't help it.

We have a monthly show over at the Ice House.

It is called New World Disorder.

We have our next one on October 1st.

So please, if you are in Los Angeles or Pasadena or Altadena or somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area.

Please come to me.

Alameda, maybe?

Sure.

Well, that's Alameda, isn't that?

That's far.

That's maybe a little far.

That's maybe a little far.

But if you're in Alameda.

If you're in Alameda and you want a nice long weekend trip.

Yeah, drive down to L.A., take a boat, or take a plane, or take a car.

Camp Anawana?

Yeah.

I hold you in my heart.

This thing came apart.

Yeah.

We never part.

Now get it right or pay the price.

Look at that.

Do we all know Hey Dude?

No, wait.

What show is that?

Excuse me, salute for sure.

Hey, Dude was also very good.

Oh, look at us.

Are we 90s kids?

You're a member of the,

you know, you're old.

Kill me.

You can see the

die.

Yeah, so please come out to the ice house.

It's going to be really fun.

Link and bio.

Yeah.

Also,

something else for you lucky folks in the Southern California area.

I'm going to be at LA Comic-Con September 26th through 28th.

I'm going to be tabling at J07.

You can remember that by remembering Jack Off7.

That's where I'll be.

At the table, I'm going to have a new guest with me every day.

So I'm going to have a buddy with me selling stuff.

So it'll be me and a rotating group of pals selling stuff at LA Comic-Con September 26th through the 28th.

And on the 27th, I will be doing a panel 1 p.m.

4.0.07 with a bunch of other cool comics writers.

So come see that.

Come to the table, get some stuff.

Remember, Jack Off Seven.

That's where I'll be.

Jordan.

Will you reveal one or two of those people in the future?

Like, will you give us a sneak peek?

You know, I can do that right now.

I'll do it.

On the 26th, joining me will be

Max Fun's own Jesse Thorne.

He's going to be a good one.

He's going to be selling weird stuff from

his online store that put this on shop.

He has a bunch of weird pop culture stuff he'll be selling.

On the 27th, my buddy Eliza Skinner will be with me selling her pop culture ceramics.

Oh, shit.

On the 28th, Rob Kuttner, a great

comedy writer, will be there selling his comics and graphic novels.

And I'll have copies of comics for everybody.

So come down, hang out with those cool folks and me at LA Comic-Con the 26th through the 28th.

Okay.

Tune in next week when our movie will be Repo Man.

Woo!

Woo!

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