483: Proximity

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But he's 12.

Yeah, but she's also 12, though.

No, she's like 16.

Oh, my God.

You know what?

It might just be, Kara, is that we're over 40 and everybody looks 12 now.

So.

I'm not over 40.

Does she look 12 to you then?

I'm young and lying.

Oh, okay.

I can put my foot behind my head.

So

I can put my foot behind your head, too.

So, but then.

You keep going.

I'm a terrible bait.

All right.

It's not even at my chest.

God-awful

movie.

Movie.

Movies.

Welcome back to the Game Cast, where each week we sample another selection from Christian Cinema because, in a couple of months, that's where we're going to be getting our national policy agenda, so we should know what it is.

I'm your host, No Illusions, Illusions, and sitting 700 miles to my immediate left.

I know I depressed you early, sorry about that, but that sigh came from my good friend Heath Ed Wright.

Heath, welcome back, sir.

This fucking movie and country.

I'm going to be doing a lot of signs.

A lot of signs.

I get it.

And of course, sitting 900 miles to my northeast is my bad friend Eli Bosnick.

Eli, how are you this fine afternoon, sir?

I appoint this movie head of NASA.

Yeah.

That's, hey, if you're going to listen to this in the backlogs, well, you're probably not because the power doesn't work anymore, but that was great.

That was a real zinger I nailed.

And sitting about 2,400 miles to my west is the most masochistic of guest masochists and the host of Talk Nerdy, Kara Santa Maria.

Kara, welcome back.

Oh,

this was like a special Kara torture, this movie.

So tell us, Ethan, what will we be torturing Kara with today?

We watched a feature-length film of two goddamn hours called proximity it's the story of writing an alien movie while you're watching fear and loathing and you're doing all the drugs along with hunters like a fucking drinking game

we should do that that sounds like fun actually yeah yeah except for the adrenochrome yeah and eli how bad was this movie well If you love the I want to believe vagary of the X-Files, but you wish it had the writing acumen of an eight-year-old trying not to lose a game of cops and robbers.

For Jesus,

you will love this movie.

I just, it's hard to imagine how one would love this movie.

Yeah.

The way this movie fits that in at the end is just like, and it's for Jesus.

Fuck you.

It stops Jesus right at the end.

Yeah.

And Kara.

Just sorry.

I didn't have a question or anything.

Just sorry that you had to suffer through everything that you hate in a movie all at once for us.

She missed us.

So,

quite possibly the worst one, yeah.

It was really fucking bad.

So, is there anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best of being the worst out?

Best, best masks, best masks.

Oh my god, I hated every single moment of this movie, except when some masks pop up.

We'll talk about all the details, but there's a moment when the good guys in the movie foil the bad guys by just wearing very silly masks and sitting still.

And I was weeping with laughter.

See, I think you were, I thought you were talking about the Android fans.

Me too.

Their masks were epic as hell.

Those are pretty best-worst also.

Yep.

Because this movie has a pretty, I don't know, I don't want to say it has a very high budget, but someone who knew After Effects said yes to this movie.

And their expertise very much stopped at the Android masks.

Well, so yeah, but it had what it didn't have a big budget.

It had a shockingly big budget, right?

For the quality of the film, you just kept going like, really?

You can afford to blow that up, huh?

Yeah.

They couldn't afford actors.

And those people also went to like an eyes wide shut party and had three masks.

And they were like, we're fucking using these.

Yeah.

Yep.

So I'm going to go with best, worst, God of the gaps fallacy.

Okay.

Because this whole movie is something, something, something, something, something, something.

Jesus, something, something.

And like, the whole time I was watching it, I was like, how is this a god-awful movie?

There is no religion in this movie until there is for one second.

If you blink, you will completely miss it.

Yeah.

So I was looking through IMTB at one point in this movie and I saw that someone was credited as Jesus.

And I'm just like, what?

Okay.

What?

And the whole time I'm watching the movie, I'm like, fucking what?

And yeah, yeah.

All right.

So I've actually gone back and forth on this.

I was going to do best worst androids, but I assume that's what Heath was talking about.

So instead, I went with Best Worst Pacing.

Oh, God.

Sure.

This movie is two hours long.

And like, honestly, like, like, we talk all the time about how you could cut this movie down to 18 minutes or whatever.

But, like, this movie should have been in about an hour and 26.

There are so many useless fucking scenes where the movie is like slapping its legs and standing up and going, well, yeah.

Jesus Christ, this was boring.

Yeah.

And I am going to go with sort of a more thematic overall note.

I'm going to go with best worst movie that gets interrupted by a significantly worse movie.

Because

here's the argument I want to make to you.

The first, I'm going to say 55 minutes of this movie are pretty well shot,

not very well acted,

standard alien abduction movie.

Yeah.

And then

it quite literally gets side-tackled by kids yelling, pew, pew, pew, I got you.

I got you.

The most amazing thing is that that kept happening, right?

Like, so it was like every like half of it, it was like a Xeno's stupidity system that they wrote this movie.

So, an hour in, it gets way stupider, and then 30 minutes after that, it's like, oh, wow, that's even dumber.

And then 50 minutes, it was like, wow, even dumber.

And then seven and a half minutes, it just did that all the way up to the end.

Indeed.

At the golden ratio of the story.

Yeah, they do get to stupid, though.

So it's kind of like a paradox.

Well, right.

No, you're right.

But in a way, in a way, Eli, though, it gets interrupted by a significantly better movie.

Yes,

I agree.

I was having more fun in the latter half when the movie was stupid

than I was in the first entire half of the movie where I was just like, because I think we've called an Audible like three times in the history of this podcast.

And I got like 40 minutes in and I was like, I don't know.

Might have to send a bunch of sad face texts over to Karen and he knows.

But it came out.

I'm pretty sure the fuck does.

Okay.

I want to change my theory about the fear and loathing thing.

It was like that, but what Eli said makes a little more sense with the kids yelling pew, pew, pew, it felt like somebody wrote an hour of this movie, like a grown-up, not a good grown-up, but a grown-up.

Right.

And then like the next day was take your kids to work day.

And everybody's kids got to be a writer that day.

And like there was no compromising.

So like one kid was like, I want fucking masks.

And they were like, yeah, all right.

Fine.

I want the light bikes from Tron.

And they were like, yeah, okay.

We'll put that in.

All right.

I want lava blood and they're like oh what then the homeschool kid was like and it should be about Jesus they were like all right

sadly

give you one second a film about Jesus Billy got light bikes I want Jesus

all right you just you just spoiled the entire movie you did you have to watch there's like nothing left to talk about wow you know what podcast listener Episode over.

We did it.

Jesus.

All right.

So with the promise that we're going to get dumber as we go, we're going to take a quick break before we dive into all the loosely assembled cliches that are

proximity.

Seriously?

Not even mashed potatoes?

Nope.

Come on.

Hey, guys.

Where's Kara?

Oh, yeah.

So Eli put the wrong ads in the script when we recorded this episode.

So we're recording this the night before release by ourselves.

Heath.

I mean, the other room doing famous people applates is

that you're not going to be able to do that.

Okay, so what was the matter?

Oh, it's Podcastiverse Thanksgiving.

I'm trying to figure out how to feed everyone, but we all have such different diets.

I mean, did you know Carl is keto now?

Really?

Well, why don't you try Factor?

What's Factor?

Okay, so you only agreed to show up for the point.

I am here.

That is all that matters.

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I don't know, Noah.

A meal kit?

I've got enough cooking coming up as it is.

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Mouthwatering, right?

You said it, no illusions.

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All right.

Thanks, Noah.

Hey, who is this bags of pleasant-looking food for?

That's Inside Out, Little Girl.

Got it.

Yeah, that tracks.

Right?

So thoughtful.

Hey, Special FX guys.

You got a second?

Hey, boss.

What's up?

So it's about your work on this new movie we're making, Proximity.

Oh, yeah, that one's gonna be off.

Totally awesome!

Right.

Have you guys read the script?

Uh, not really, no.

Yeah, I read the pages we worked on, right?

Right.

Okay, so this is actually what I wanted to talk to you about.

This movie is a slow and quiet meditation on the importance of belief

with

androids in it.

Well, yes, it has androids, but really, we want this to be about people looking inward,

inward, and hopefully finding their higher power.

You mean like the superpowers that the main character has?

Higher power?

No, more like Jesus.

Jesus?

Yes.

Like the Christ?

Jesus.

Okay.

Look, I don't want to note a note, but do you think maybe the fact that the movie has androids and superpowers is what's taking away from your message rather than the

special effects?

No, no, I think it's you guys.

Oh.

Okay.

Well, we will

tone it down.

Yeah, we'll tone it down.

Awesome, guys.

Thanks so much.

No problem.

Jesus.

Sorry, note a note.

Is that a thing?

Yeah, it's like when you respond to feedback with feedback about the feedback.

Oh, got it.

You do that, Jerry.

I do not.

You just, you say everything mean.

See, he's noting a note right there.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah.

Got it.

Can't say I'm not because then I'd be noting that note.

And we're back for the breakdown, and we're going to open up with some like pilots seeing a UFO audio over the logos, right?

Well, pilots seeing something.

Right, yeah.

Pilots following a raindrop on a camera, very aggressively.

It's not identified yet.

That's also not flying, but still, yeah.

What's amazing is whenever like they try and play this audio for us to show that like UFOs are everywhere.

Or see, this is a real thing.

And I don't even know if this is real audio.

Like I doubt.

They could have just had someone record this on grainy tape and I wouldn't know the difference.

But like whenever they play it, the person's so obviously unbothered because pilots see shit they don't understand all the time.

They're in the moving GETIMO plane.

Yes.

Yes.

Exactly.

And so, but that eventually resolves on a bunch of loggers wrapping up a hard day of logging in Alaska in 1979.

Oh, the good old days.

Those are some cool trucks, aren't they?

Yeah, man.

Their trucks were cool.

Vehicles look so much better back.

Cars the size of a Ukrainian tank.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They cut back to the pilots for a second here.

And one of them is like, I have a needle thing on one of my things that moved.

That is aliens.

I would like to nuke them now.

Yeah.

It's not great.

Right.

Yeah.

Because there's like a the whole time, there's like a guy on a microphone at like mission control picking up weird readings or something as this is going on.

Yeah.

He's like, I'm detecting activity in the outer rim of something.

The outer rim?

Like, yeah.

What?

Of Of the frame that you're looking at?

Yeah.

So, but then the logging guy, they're driving away from their logging site and the radio is not working.

There's two trucks, like one following the other.

And the guy who's following, his radio stops working.

And then suddenly the truck in front of him just floats up in the air and then falls back down.

And then they drop it.

It's the best.

Yeah.

Okay.

I really wanted it to cut up to the alien me in the ship being like, oh, no, I dropped it.

Heath, Heath, come take the tractor, Pete.

I saw it.

Did you drop it again?

I dropped it.

They couldn't be trusted with this.

We practiced on the claw machine so much, but

I got nervous.

Are they okay?

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

So, anyway, so he gets out of the truck and he makes a run for it.

But the UFO is right above him in a very, he's right behind me kind of a moment, right?

Yeah, he like, he makes a run for the UFO, it looks like.

He's running towards it.

I will say that the aliens will operate exclusively in he's right behind me as a team tactics

for the entire film.

They do.

But so suddenly he's getting violently beamed up and he's resisting.

And I'm like, what muscle would you clinch?

How do you do that?

Relax, dude.

It's a tractor beam.

You're trying to grab the sides of the carrier like a cat.

There's no carrier, man.

We definitely knew about tractor beams in 1979.

You'd be like, oh, this is a tractor beam.

Yeah.

Right.

So, okay, so then the title rolls in like it's running late, right?

It's so far back there, and we zoom in.

And it also, it has a very like

Trapper Keeper look to it.

Yeah.

This is, we talk about it a little bit in that first interstitial that everyone just heard, but like, I felt like the SFX guys and the authors of this movie never met, right?

Because the SFX guys were doing like a fun, cool sci-fi film, and this movie is a boring skinny man staring into the middle distance.

It's also really confusing what they mean by the present day.

Yeah.

Because I looked and this movie came out in 2020.

Yes.

Yeah.

But it's like weirdly stuck in 1992.

It is, definitely.

Well, and the other thing is like the movie would make sense if it was in 1992, right?

Like the weird absence of cell phones in the movie, the fact that all the fucking computers have CRTs, the fact that the guy's carrying a goddamn camcorder around, except that occasionally they'll just say, like, you know, hide your cell phone or whatever.

And they say that it's modern day, but yeah,

it was bizarre.

And the kid we meet here, the main character is riding like a Huffy Diamondback with pegs to work.

It was like the bike that I wanted, but my family couldn't afford, but my friends had when I was a kid in 1992.

I was too busy being snapped up by NASA scientists.

Right, yeah.

Thank you for saying kid because he's like 12.

He looks the weirdest casting.

Yeah.

Sick Marsh.

Are we talking about Sick Marsh?

Yes.

Yeah, we're talking about.

Sick Marsh.

Oh, that's funny.

You know what?

You know who I realized halfway through the film?

He looks exactly like?

DJ Qualls.

Tig Notaro.

Boy.

He does.

I don't know that I'm comfortable with you talking about Tig Notaro that way, Kara.

I'm so sorry.

I don't know that I can.

Tig Notaro with like a Hawk's Adam app or a vulture's atom apple.

Totally.

Yeah, but he has lesbian comedian energy throughout this entire film.

Yes.

Tig Notaro, who has swallowed an eight ball but will refuse to admit it.

Yes.

There you go.

And also, so I have to, I have to credit some unknown IMDb author for pointing this out.

He's he works at JPL.

So he goes to work at JPL.

They have legit misspelled the word propulsion on the goddamn sign they made for the JPL.

Incredible.

Incredible.

Yeah.

Mike Pence putting up the letters, spelling it.

Just touching all of them for some reason.

Dan Quayle standing behind him.

I don't think that's spelled right.

Yeah.

We're just defunding all this.

We're going into JPL, and they're all sciencing very hard.

And I was like, I wrote in my notes, well, at least they don't have fucking beakers, I guess.

But so he comes in.

This character's name is Isaac.

They'll tell us that in like 25 fucking minutes.

But Isaac comes in and his buddy's like, I bet you can't type the typing.

And so they have this weird moment where they try to outnerd each other on the computer.

Oh my God.

It's so funny.

I wrote, hey, could someone exposit what you're doing?

And then the Carras Santa Maria character, the girl with glasses, walks in and is like, hey, what are you doing?

I'm just here to ask men what they're doing.

Yeah, it's true.

Her entire role in this film is just walking around with a clipboard, reading the same page on the clipboard all day long.

Yeah.

It's a tough job.

But yeah.

She will literally just, she never is attributed any scientific ability.

They are super geniuses who bounce audio files around space as part of their chess game.

And she's like, and you honestly weren't in work yesterday.

Okay, done.

Yeah, she just, she's just doing a really hard Sudoko, like the whole time.

That's her whole job.

So now we should point out here that their whole stupid fucking shoehorned in thing of trying to find the audio on the satellite, that's just there so they can see a weird, mysterious signal from Canada that no one can explain.

Oh.

Yeah.

Hey, stay tuned, everybody.

In an hour and 58 minutes, that will be relevant to the movie, maybe kind of.

Yeah, sort of, yeah.

So, but he works late that night.

We see the clock whirr into the future.

He's working late at night when suddenly a mysterious computer signal comes in.

That will also matter in about an hour and 58 minutes.

Yeah.

And the computer pops up with a window that just says receiving data, which that feels a little vague for, like, that's what computers just always do.

It's just like computering now still.

Computing, yeah.

Yeah.

The movie definitely wants to make a moment of it.

Like computers never do anything they're not supposed to do, but anyone who has ever worked with a computer would just be like, oh,

X.

Yeah, right, right.

Somebody's logging in remotely or something.

Right, right.

So, but that's very important.

So then we get a very quick moment where he's in therapy and his therapist is recommending that he keep a video diary with his giant ridiculous camcorder.

Yeah.

Hey, do you have a 475-pound camera you could just lug around with you to sort of bookend this movie?

I do.

Oh, well, then get, get with it.

For my mental health?

You think that's a good idea?

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good.

Sure, why the fuck not?

Super helpful.

Starting a podcast, great for mental health.

Let me tell you.

Let me tell you.

It's awesome.

I recommend it to all my patients.

Yeah.

So then

we get some shots where there's like a meteor burning its way through the atmosphere behind LA, but nobody notices because they're all very busy, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Okay, again, what was this in the movie?

We never find out what this meteor was.

It's the alien spaceship.

It's the aliens.

It's the UFO arriving.

You didn't put that together?

It's the main part of the movie.

This is the whole device.

This is the movie.

Let me explain for my own, but first of all.

Okay, what did you think it was?

So here's my question: Is I thought the ship like crashed or something.

No, it just came in hot.

Well, I think.

It's entry into the atmosphere, I think, is what's happening, right?

Yeah, that's it.

It's Bernie.

That's what happens when things enter.

Apparently, everyone got him a meme.

Question withdrawn, everybody.

All right.

So, yeah, but so he just happens to be.

You idiot.

Piece of shit.

So, but Isaac just happens to be up on a hill doing his video diary.

When that meteor rumbles by.

And again, here's one of these moments that we're talking about, like we're like lost in time.

Like we didn't need a fucking therapist.

We didn't need a video diary.

We needed an excuse why a young person would be talking into a camera, right?

Like, everybody does that all the fucking time now.

Yeah, but apparently, the writers of this film don't think that's true because later, when they're like, why were you talking into a camera?

That's weird.

Nobody does that.

He had no response.

Right.

So, yes, but he's the only person in LA that notices the meteor.

And then once he's noticed it, everybody else is allowed to notice it in a big dramatic reveal.

But it happens to like, it's coming like right at him, I guess.

And right hot on its heels is a fucking fighter jet and a cop with a bunch of Humvees.

Yeah, okay.

So it seems like, you know, intergalactic space traveling aliens would land better, first of all.

And also, you know, somewhere else, anywhere but like right next to the biggest city in the United States, felt like a weird pick.

Yeah, these aliens are extremely sloppy.

Well, so, but these aliens are coming for him specifically, sort of stupidly later.

But yeah, so, but he decides, he sees all the cops coming and he's like, I better hide from them.

So he hides from them, which is a great way to get shot by guys with guns, by the way.

Also, he's wearing a white shirt and he's carried around this giant 1987 camcorder and it's like red.

It's like bright red.

I'm like, how the fuck would they not notice you running through the goddamn woods?

Well, he's like, I'm going to go hide with the aliens, obviously.

Yeah.

Right.

So he sneaks up on the flying saucer and it's spinning super fucking fast.

We haven't mentioned that yet the whole time.

Why are UFOs always spinning the whole time?

They're not always.

I feel like this one was spinning more so than usual.

Yeah.

Part of the tech.

I just want one cut to the aliens like vomiting inside.

Right.

Yeah, they're all in the scramblers

to the wall.

There has to be a better way.

Their hair's all kooky.

If you vomit next to me, it goes into my mouth.

It goes out a little bit and then snaps right back in.

So then we get the.

You can die.

I know somebody who died.

I know somebody who told me about somebody who died.

You don't know somebody who died, Mark Lar.

Yes.

It was third hand.

So, but then we get the first of the movie's alien jump scares, right?

Because he's standing there staring at the UFO.

And then we kind of like, he moves and the alien was right behind him the whole time.

Okay, but can I say that the alien kind of has, and I think it's just special effects or whatever, the alien has the attitude that I have when I realize I'm walking behind a woman alone at night, right?

Which is like, oh, I want to communicate to this person that I don't want to scare them, but talking too loud too fast is a part of the scaring.

So I'll.

Right.

So he turns around and he sees.

I thought the alien was going to go just going to squeeze paste.

Yeah, he's like,

yeah.

Scooch.

But really, it just stands there blinking, which is a strange device.

It just made him blink.

And like in that scene where he's standing right behind the 12-year-old NASA engineer, I'm like, wow, they have like the same body type.

They do.

Yeah.

They do.

Very high asses, him and this alien.

Very slim.

And so he turns around and he like very surreptitiously kind of turns on his camera recorder.

He's like, I'm just going to push this button right over here.

Hope nobody.

Yeah.

He just starts filming the silent alien who's staring at him.

And then the alien's like, Dude, you're making it weird.

All right.

I'm going to take off.

Look, I don't know how aware aliens are of our technology, but maybe don't take the thing that has an end and point it at the alien and push the button just in case they're not super familiar in the difference between camcorders and, I don't know, guns or laser weaponry.

I'd at least want to do like a, I'm going to film this.

This won't hurt you, I think.

Yeah, right.

So, yeah, but then the alien leaves.

And so Isaac runs more, but then there's a flash of blue light.

And then suddenly we're in outer space, but it's like colorized Hubble style.

We're in Hubble space.

Yeah, we're like inside of nebulas.

Yeah.

But that's not what they look like from the

stars.

Yeah.

It's just space.

It's very clearly someone saw like space pictures on Twitter and they were like, wow, that's what the universe looks like.

Yeah.

I want to be in that part of the space.

It looks like where the Care Bears go to like smoke pots.

Right.

Yes.

So

we see that for a second.

And then the news comes out, and it's just like, it was just a meteor, just a meteor, no big deal.

And the news person says meteor, and then they're like, also known as a space rock in science.

Is it though?

Well, yeah.

Kara, is that the official science term?

Space rock?

Yeah, is that what you guys call it?

It is a space rock.

Sure, okay.

Oh, there we go.

And so is an asteroid.

Good journalism.

Who's the stupid one now?

You cometh shit.

I hope you fucking die.

At least I don't film women when I come up behind him on the street.

You're supposed to film, they like it.

But by the way, it wouldn't be a meteor if it landed.

It would be a meteorite.

And it wouldn't be a space rock.

It would be a rock from space, but now it's on Earth.

No, it's an Earth rock now.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm sorry, you didn't let me finish.

I was going to say the same thing.

Thank you, Kara.

Exactly.

Thank you.

You lie in your face.

I'm not saying that.

Although it's not really a meteorite because it was a flying saucer.

And there's nothing there.

There's no remnants, which we learned here.

Stop changing changing it.

We learn that, though.

Which is what we learn here.

We cut to JPL because, you know, they're usually the hands-on meteor guys.

When there's a meteorite to be examined, they take it to JPL.

So we go to the JPL and they're going, like, we got to go get some rock samples, but there are no rocks to sample.

Right.

And by the way, there's nothing about that is true, what you just said.

Nope.

Yeah.

It's so funny.

It's so funny because they actually,

why the fuck would they be getting rock samples?

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, granted, it was right next door.

You know, I wish the terrorist science guy goes into gas.

They're like, they're grabbing like Tupperware out of the break room and shit.

They're like, ah.

Yeah, and this specific lab is supposed to be analyzing it.

That's not what this lab does.

They were doing satellite shit earlier.

They're chemists.

They're physicists.

This is so confusing.

And then, okay, we cut to three days later, Isaac suddenly wakes up.

He's just like out in the fucking woods somewhere.

He wakes up and his camera's sitting right next to him.

Yeah.

So he takes a look at it.

He sees the footage that he took earlier of the alien.

And apparently he took a little bit of footage of himself getting zooped away with the tractor beam.

Yeah, I wrote in my notes, oh man, Isaac got to watch more of the movie than we did.

I really wanted him to run out of battery right there when he was trying to watch it.

That would have been fun.

Oh, yeah.

But okay, question.

The aliens zooped him into a ship or something right we see him get levitated for a second and then they let him go with his camera yes yep is that the idea yep so these aliens want to be discovered very unclear Great question about the film as a whole.

Yeah.

Well, there is kind of a weird meta thing later, and I'm probably reading too deeply into this where they're like, it doesn't matter how much evidence you have.

Yes.

Because you have to have faith.

Oh, it's like reality now.

Yeah.

Exactly.

But also, and this will come back later.

He can feel something interesting, so, like, something wrong in his arm after his abduction.

Yeah, because they tagged him like a migrating bird.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They'll only show us 97 shots of Isaac looking at his arm and going, owie, to communicate that to us.

Don't worry, everybody.

Right.

So, so he goes home, but ominously, right?

Keeps looking at his arm like he's expecting webs to shoot out of it.

And then he disappears his TV with his mind.

Yeah, because he has powers now.

By the way, his apartment is so embarrassing.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Everything about this guy.

And I'm Heath Enright saying that.

All right.

So, but then we see him banf his TV away and then it bamphs back.

So now he has the ability to turn TVs invisible.

He looks around.

He's like, oh, what else could I do?

Oh, how about the camcorder that has all the evidence of my alien encounter?

This is what I wrote this in my notes.

They said, I would not practice my zoop powers on my evidence of aliens.

I would maybe focus on like a pencil.

There you go.

An olive garden breadstick.

Those are unlimited.

Yeah.

You don't have to worry about it.

It's not going to run out.

But don't worry.

He bamps it back.

This is the part where I don't really even understand the device, like, because later, I mean, this is going to be used a lot, but he's invisibling things.

Well, I don't know.

Because he sticks his hand in liquid air where the TV was.

Right.

So they will be super unclear unclear about what power he has, and it'll be super inconsistent throughout the movie.

He has some kind of magic from the aliens, but he's doing the dumbest shit with it.

And the aliens must be watching, being like, dude, you got to do, you got to do better stuff.

We gave you like, you guys not show him phase two.

He's just making it invisible to only him.

Because honestly, what I construct, and we'll go through the movie and we'll talk about it.

What I believe the power he demonstrates here is making things invisible to him.

To himself.

Well, right.

Right.

Except that he also puts his hand into the space where the TV was.

It's true.

Right.

So, like, I think we're supposed to believe that he's shifting dimensions somehow.

That's what I think.

I think later, when we get to the stuff later, that that's what's happening.

It's like a dimensional shift.

It's still, again, they're super duper unclear about it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So then he goes to see a doctor about his alien abduction.

This is possibly the best scene in this movie.

This doctor is bad at doctoring.

Okay.

I literally wrote my notes.

I'm going to ask Kara what a real doctor would do here.

I feel like it's none of this.

Yeah.

He says, well, you know, we took a x-ray of your arm and we're like, why?

He didn't break his arm.

You just guessed.

And before that, he's like, okay, you're fine, except you're dehydrated.

So you need sleep.

What?

That's not the solution to that problem.

You have a water bed, right?

You're tired.

So let me get you a a drink.

What the fuck is wrong with you, man?

So, yeah, but he says, but we looked at your arm and there's a,

you can see here on the x-ray, there's a break in your phone and it's almost perfectly straight.

I brought along a regular break to show you why that's weird.

Sorry, what does the word straight mean?

Oh, okay, eventually I got it.

It's very strange.

He literally is like, was your arm ever cut off and reattached?

Yeah, right.

Are you sure?

Are you sure?

Because sometimes when you get a little, you have a lot to drink.

And he actually actually looks at the skin and he's like, ooh.

So even though it's been cut off clean, there's no swelling and there's no scar tissue.

Hmm.

This is a magic arm break.

Instead of being like, oh, that perfect line on your film is probably an artifact.

So we need to re-image it.

Yes, exactly.

That would be what any other doctor would do.

Okay.

There was a hair on the machine.

It made it look like there's a line across her bone.

You go to a doctor and you're like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I got abducted by aliens.

My arm feels weird.

And I forget three entire days.

The doctor's going to be like, oh, you ate mushrooms by accident, right?

Like, that's the answer.

Right.

The answer is you're dehydrated, so you need rest.

Yeah, well, I guarantee that no matter what happened, he wouldn't be like, so go ahead and leave.

I'll call you in a few days.

I'm going to.

look some shit up, I guess.

I'm going to learn some new shit.

I'm going to jerk off to this x-ray.

That is what he said.

He's like, I'm going to just look at these longer.

Wait, what?

Are you going to?

Something will come to me.

Yeah.

I really wanted the end credits to be interrupted by a mid-credits scene of this doctor just sweatily staring at the x-ray.

No, no.

Still nothing.

So then we cut to him showing up at work.

He goes to the other nerd that he was satellite friending with or whatever.

And he's like, hey, I got to show you my new magical powers.

And he grabs a cup.

And I'm like, yeah, there you go.

Olive garden breadstick.

That makes fucking sense.

He grabs a cup, sets it on the table.

And for a long time, we think that the powers are going to Michigan J frog his ass.

Oh, so good.

I was so excited for that.

But then he does disappear the glass.

But he only disappears it for him, right?

Because the other guy goes, like, what do you mean, this glass?

And he picks it up and it reappears.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is like really inconsistent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At this point, I was like, okay, you can make things only disappear for you.

That's a really funny prank by the aliens to give you what you think is a magic power.

Yeah.

Sure.

That's what the aliens should do.

They should just give us bullshit power.

But then like, okay, but that's not that bullshit.

Like, if I could say, what if it works through like the gray stuff on the front of a scratch-off ticket, right?

You know, look, there are uses for being able to see through shit, is all I'm saying.

This is why we keep you around No Illusions because you're going to hack those super power, those bullshit super powers, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Winning the lottery is pretty good, but you could start a restaurant maybe and use the powers for that.

I don't know.

So, there's a lot of things you could do.

So, okay, so but then he's like, oh, okay, you can't see my turning shit invisible power.

I also have video.

So, he shows him the video.

Yeah, why didn't he lead with that video?

You would think you did also fucking video.

And the way he shows them the video is by hooking it up to like a Mac monitor from 1996.

Yeah, again, if this made, like, why would he never just put this video on a phone and just be showing people a phone?

He looks like he makes him look through the eyepiece of his camcorder and shit.

Yeah, the whole time.

Great idea would be taking the video with a phone and it's then it's on the phone.

Yes, it would just be on the phone the whole fucking time yeah 2020.

and science friend is wildly unimpressed by this by the way he's like oh you got some footage of an alien cool so I was talking to Christine and it turns out she is dating someone

I know she doesn't talk about her home life it's crazy yeah but no and this guy is this nerd friend is so stupid he's just like huh how would a meteor an alien and three missing days of your life connect hold on a second it'll come to me and also this is where he learns that it's been three days right he goes wait three days and I'm like you didn't notice the date when you went to the fucking doctor oh yeah and also like he was abducted on a Saturday yes they mentioned that it's a Saturday so it's like he thought he was going to work Sunday right he thought everybody was just at JPL chilling on a fucking Sunday sorry I've been gone for three business dates

so then but girl nerd this is Grita I think is the character's name again I had to look it up on IMDP.

They don't fucking tell you shit like that.

She comes in to explain that something about this meteor crater doesn't add up.

Oh, yeah.

Wait, this movie doesn't pass the Bechdel test.

Oh, no.

No.

There's only two women in the whole movie and they are never in the same scene together.

No.

That's true.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

It doesn't even come close.

Wow.

Didn't even try.

Yeah.

So, and then they have this weird moment where they're like, hey, you know, should I tell Grita about my alien thing?

She's like, no, no, she's a girl.

She doesn't know about aliens.

She doesn't know any science.

She's just here because of the glasses.

I told you, she's still working the numbers out.

The numbers are, yeah, right.

She's no, when she finishes the Sudoku, her name's Greeda.

But yeah, but she says at this point, she says something about, like, yeah, I wish we could get one of our videos to go viral on Science Magazine because that's where everybody goes for all their great science videos.

Karen, are you aware of the great sciencemagazine.com traffic going on these days?

You insane hot on that topic yeah there's there's one million people yeah that watch video mostly feet aliens mostly feet on there so yeah but so then we watch him go upload his video to science.com or whatever and

we watch him upload his like we watch him hook his camcorder to his computer and then drop that into a like we watch like a nine-step process there's coax cables and adapters it's a lot yeah This is an important note for the entire film.

Yeah.

Everything that happens in this movie, we watch in real time.

Happen all the way.

Yep.

Well, again, the pacing is insane.

Even the made-up science stuff, they do unnecessary steps that you don't need to do because you're making it up.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

But like the way this scene is made by a competent filmmaker is that she says, you know, science.com, that's where everybody really goes to the video.

And then we just see him like kind of have an idea.

And then we cut to him having uploaded the video and watching the view numbers go up, right?

Kara, is this how it works when you want to publish something important in science magazine?

You upload it, and then they have to put it on their magazine, and you've now told that story, done that study.

Yes, especially when you make sure that the heading is real alien in all caps.

It's so good.

Yep.

It's how RFK Jr.

plans to run the department.

Yeah, you'll upload all of the science and whale pants onto science.com.

That's the guy that's going to say that joke.

That's your dude.

Well, you guys have made me depressed again.

God damn it.

Oh, they'll get it because their bones are so brittle.

If they're listening back, they'll be like,

Was this Manethay Walker's papa?

Yeah, no, that's what the joke Eli's been doing.

Everyone had teeth.

Yeah.

Say,

into their 40s.

Into their 40s, even.

Kara, you're going to be disarmed.

What are you going to do?

What do you mean, what am I going to do?

Men's rim cages everywhere.

No, because she could bite through a man's rim cage like a barbed shop.

I did not even put that together.

You need to keep your eye on the lore document I messaged you.

I thought you were actually talking about, you know, my real job as a science communicator.

Which is going to be terrifying.

Yeah, right, right.

I want this as a D ⁇ D character sheet that we use with all of Kara's backstory.

Kara.

Yes spot.

All right.

So meanwhile, at the news, there's a reporter lady, and she's being told about this awesome new video of alien footage on the internet.

It's like, we should do a story on this.

Yeah, by the resident

office bro.

Yeah.

He's like, no, this one looks real.

Yeah.

So she calls Isaac.

I have a fleece vest.

Apparently, Isaac's phone number, his cell phone, is listed,

right?

Well, that's therulesofscience.com.

You put your video of aliens, your personal cell phone

number, and your blood type.

So she calls him.

She's like, I want to do a story about your alien video.

And then he checks his views.

Over

000 views

that's like one one billionth of a cat that's not it's not very hot yeah i mean it's like i'd be happy with that but yeah it's not all that yeah so but then he checks his inbox and it's filled with interest in his alien story but then he checks the youtube comments and some of them are not being very nice at all right yeah this this was fun hey sarah forever who tells him to kill himself You're welcome on this podcast.

She gets it.

So yeah, there's this big montage of like him getting attention and stupid drip of dopamine for his dumb video but then it ends with a bunch of atheists in the comments being like you're lying and i was like okay

nice all right well done

wait was it really the one who was like you should jump off a bridge or whatever was that really sarah forever sarah forever this is so confusing because one of the characters

yeah right yeah i know it could be literally anybody else any other name would have done yeah now in my head canon it was her yeah

Just playing both sides.

So no, so he's heading to work.

His phone number is, his phone's just blowing up with people calling him about interviews for his alien thing.

There's fucking graffiti on the wall that says aliens exist for some reason.

Right, because this is the only alien video that's ever been uploaded to the internet, apparently.

It's just like a lazy tag right there.

Aliens exist, right?

Yeah.

Like you get a little more creative than that.

I've got to take this to the streets.

Aliens

are.

Fuck.

I'm out.

How do I do the fancy S?

So, okay, so now it's time for him to interview with Christine, the reporter lady.

My favorite character in the movie.

She's great.

I want this character in all movies forever.

Just like barely being able to not laugh at the idiot who's talking to her.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yeah.

So she says, okay, so why don't you tell us your story at length?

And he says, really?

Because the people watching the movie already saw it.

Why would I talk you through it in detail now in the film?

That makes no fucking sense.

But they do.

And then she goes, well, isn't it convenient that you just happen to have a camera with you?

And I'm like, yeah, who would have a camera in 2020?

Right.

And then we get the part that Carol was talking about.

He was like, well, I was documenting myself.

And she says, is that something that people really do?

And I'm like, is it 2020?

Yeah.

Instead, he responds like a sovereign citizen right outside a police station.

station, like, I'm allowed to film myself.

My name is lowercase letters.

Right.

And she, again, is sort of very skeptical.

She's like, okay, so like a quick question.

Did you make this video on your computer or

faster than light speed travel possible?

Which of those do you think is?

Well, yeah, right.

And he goes, hummana, humana, humana.

I didn't think of this.

And she goes, all right, well, you're probably full of shit.

Back to the real news, right?

Also, by the way, she introduces him as as local resident Isaac, but then later in the interview, she talks about how he's an engineer at JPL.

You would think that he would, she would introduce him as that, right?

Sure.

Give him more weight.

And also, by the way, I have interviewed so many JPL scientists and engineers.

They would never have allowed this interview.

Yeah, right, right.

Absolutely.

Their media people are so careful.

Because they're in on it.

Exactly, Karen.

Exactly.

Weather Jews.

Ah, I see.

So he's gone rogue.

He's gone rogue.

That's gone rogue.

All right.

Well, Isaac needs a minute to recover.

So we're going to take another break, but we'll be back in a minute with even more proximity.

Hey, Noah, you got a second?

Hey, Eli.

Hey, Eth.

What's up?

So we were thinking maybe we could give you our Christmas gifts a little early.

I mean, sure, if you guys wanted to.

Okay, great.

So we're thinking an original Galaga cabinet.

Wow.

Guys, that's, oh, that's amazing.

Is it here already?

Oh, sorry.

No, we were just thinking of it because you know how they say it's the thought that counts.

Also, we can't afford real presents this year.

Well, guys, if you want to save money for the holidays, why don't you try Rocket Money?

Oh, you mean like rescue the stranded astronauts for a big reward?

Believe me, we've been thinking about it.

I have a catapult drawing and everything.

It's pretty

good.

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Alright, Noah, I'm sold.

Where do I sign up?

Stop wasting money on things you don't use.

Cancel your your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com/slash awful movies.

That's rocketmoney.com slash awful movies.

Rocketmoney.com/slash awful movies.

Thanks, Noah.

Christmas is saved.

So you guys are going to get me the cabinet?

I mean, we already got you the thought.

Right.

Sure.

I think those astronauts might die up there.

They're not going to die up there.

They might.

Hello and welcome back to Skeptical News.

I'm Kara Santa Maria.

Joining me today is Isaac Cypress.

Isaac, welcome to the program.

Thanks for having me, Kara.

So, Isaac, you claim to have been abducted by aliens.

And I think what the folks at home want to know is: are you mentally ill or are you a liar?

Sorry, what?

Well, are we using a person in need of mental health care in front of a camera?

Or are we giving you exactly what you want?

Which one is it?

No, I

got abducted by aliens.

No, you did not.

I did, though.

So, like, Einstein was wrong?

I don't.

I don't understand what that has to do.

You sure don't.

So, you know, E equals MC squared.

I have heard that, yeah.

Right.

So the aliens would have to travel faster than light.

And since Einstein's math probably wasn't wrong, you're either lying or you are mentally ill.

Which one is it?

Mentally ill?

Yeah, there you go.

Okay, next up, a new weight loss secret, having different genes than the ones in your body.

So this character is just like Kara post-election then?

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

And we're back for more of this shit.

And we're going to rejoin the action with a quick montage of people on the news not accepting the reality of his video.

Well, not all of them.

The exobiologist believes in him, Noah.

Yeah, they had a one moment where on the news, there's a cosmologist and an exobiologist duking it out.

And I'm like, I fucking wish,

right?

But this montage goes on endlessly, right?

It goes on for fucking ever.

And it ends with Isaac starting to Google alien abductions so that he can hear from like other, like, I guess his people now.

Yep.

He finds a bunch of people talking about having pain in their arms after their abduction.

I feel like this is the most accurate part of the movie, is when they show the podcast, bros.

Okay, I thought it was a little too real.

I thought it was

too much neckbeard.

That's accurate.

Yeah.

Some of those people love you, Kara.

And some of them don't.

We don't all look like Tim Poole.

Yeah, I mean, I do.

And so does Heath a lot, but that's a coincidence.

I have the beanie on right now, but not always.

Noah's hair is longer than ours, and that makes him different.

Look at him.

I'm different.

So he sees that like a bunch of people are talking about arm pain.

So he ultimately he reaches out to Truth Seeker 5 on the internet.

And I'm like, oh, that's never a good idea, man.

Never reach out to Truth Seeker 5.

Yeah.

Hold on.

Let me check this attachment from Truth Seeker 5.

This is the only time in fiction or in reality anyone's ever reached out to an anonymous person on the internet, not for gay sex.

I wanted the whole web to go down.

Just like, we don't know what to do with this new information.

Yeah.

So then, okay, so he's meeting up with Truth Seeker at a diner.

He's waiting at the diner for Truth Seeker 5 to come in.

And then all of a sudden, all the silverware and the plates around him start floating,

but only for him.

Okay, again, if everybody else sees stuff not floating, that's just you hallucinating.

That's all.

Yep, yes.

That's all that is.

Yeah.

But then the waitress snaps at him out of it, you know, and asks for an order.

He'll have a coffee.

And that's when the love interest walks in.

Sarah, Truth Seeker 5.

Yes.

And I noticed in your notes, that you noticed this as well.

The waitress brings him fucking decaf.

Get the fuck out.

He didn't say decaf.

You assumed decaf?

No.

If someone asks what you'd like to eat at a diner and you order just a black coffee, you bring them decaf.

She is the villain of this movie.

God damn it.

No, she's she's just doing her job.

Believe women.

He looks pretty.

No.

He looks pretty sweaty and jittery to begin with.

So that's true.

He's doing a salary.

So, all right, but he's going to show her his alien video through the eyepiece of her.

He's like, hey, look in the eyepiece of my camcorder.

And she's like, sure.

Can't imagine how that would go wrong.

Sarah, that's a terrible idea.

Come on, girl.

What is it?

Is this your first rodeo?

Sarah looks weirdly disturbed the entire meeting, too.

Yeah.

Like she's, it's not a vibe.

No.

She just looks up and there's shoe polish all around her eye.

And she's like,

idiot.

Got you.

So, but I think what we're supposed to get out of this is that she's worried that he's like an MIB, right?

Like that he's a government agent trying to rope her in because he knows her UFO story.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I think.

Yeah.

I think that's why she was like shy at first.

But he's 12.

Yeah, but she's also 12, though.

They're hiring him younger and younger these days, Kara.

No, she's she's like 16.

Oh, my God.

You know what?

It might just be, Kara, is that we're over 40 and everybody looks 12 now.

So I'm not over 40.

Does she look 12 to you then?

I'm young and lying.

Oh, okay.

I can put my foot behind my head.

So

I can put my foot behind your head, too.

So, but then

you keep going.

I'm a terrible bait.

All right.

It's not even at my chest.

I used to be able to put both of my legs behind my, both of my feet behind my head.

I bet I can't do that anymore.

Tila's just rolling around like a turtle right now yeah

yeah this is why i use a headset mic everybody so you can get this quality audio

so yeah but so then she sees his alien video and he starts giving us a speed version of an ancient aliens youtube video

it's just it's joe rogan's speed debating about the moon landing and yes for a while exactly just gish gallop yeah you mean white house prec secretary joe rogan

People are going to love it when I called that one.

Yeah, right.

Minister of Truth, Joe Rogan.

And I was going to say, hey, as long as it's not Alex Jones, I got to be happy.

I got to take what I can get.

Okay, the onion owning Alex Jones is the fucking greatest thing amidst the darkness.

It's amazing.

Yes.

They're even given knowledge fight the fucking desk, dude.

Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

I absolutely love it.

So, but she goes to leave and he goes, hey, so call me if you want to be the love interest interest later.

And she's like, yeah, okay.

And then she's out.

Yep.

Then we, we briefly cut to an old guy in the woods fiddling with his old-timey radio and looking at his yarn and push pins bulletin board.

Right.

Right.

He'll come back later.

But then we cut back to Isaac getting a call from Sarah, the love interest.

She has found the story of the alien abduction from the cold open.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Right.

The guy with the trucks in Alaska or whatever.

And she finds, she's like, this seems like it's important.

He goes, why?

And she's like, well, because it was the beginning of the movie.

Obviously, it has some significance.

Otherwise, why wouldn't they have shown it now?

Watching the Cold Open.

Duh.

This is where she tells us that they, but they can't be lying because they all passed lie detector tests.

I had this thought for the first time because I hadn't thought about lie detector tests in a really long time.

If lie detector tests were real, wouldn't we use them all the time for everything?

Sadly, we do.

like the cia uses yeah no they

said they were used way too much but yes no no i i know they're and they're useful in some ways right yeah but aren't they aren't they using them because they know how stupid the people they're interrogating yeah yeah

you can make someone say no and you can also use them for torture which is something the ciaea does the time they'll like put someone through a six-hour test then they can't leave to go to the bathroom like i get that right but like for average everyday people who believe in lie detector tests wouldn't you be really mad that every courtroom isn't just a lie detector test?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, right.

Yes, exactly.

If they really fucking work.

Wow, we're wasting this time.

Let's just hook this guy up to the machine that knows what's true and what ain't and see who killed my son once and for all.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, exactly.

So, but yeah, but also she says, you know, I found this at the library, but there's nothing about it

on the internet.

Which is why all the good evidence for aliens isn't available online because the men in black are scrubbing it, y'all.

They're scrubbing it from the net.

Couldn't they go to libraries if they had this like big internet?

Maybe a few books.

I feel like that's something they could do.

Right, right.

They're great at that.

The bathrooms smell weird, sir.

We're not going in there for our information scrub.

But then we get this bizarre fucking rock and roll montage

of Isaac making copies of his VHS tape to send to to all the alien weirdos on the internet.

Okay, again, goes to my argument that like sound and effects was not reading the script for this movie because this is like, we're going to turn Paul Giamatti blue once and for all.

It's weird.

The music throughout this whole film is really weird.

Yeah, no, it's never appropriate.

Never makes sense.

Never at any point.

So yeah, so he gets all this stuff.

And it's a long montage of him like addressing envelopes and licking those envelopes it just goes on for fucking ever yeah we're literally watching him write addresses down yeah he doesn't even print them off on his fucking computer it's compelling it's a very compelling film but the music is that he's like magically renovating a new restaurant that's about to fail it's right yeah stupid right so then we cut to him like unabombering the cassettes all out to alex jones or whatever the fuck i wrote in my notes but does he deliver the packages

oh no.

Yeah, he's creepily stuffing a mailbox, and then a creepy guy creepily gives him a hand stuffing that mailbox.

Yes.

Can I say, as a pervert who does pervert things and occasionally runs into other perverts and has that nice head nod moment, I felt very seen in this moment.

I'm sure you did.

You're mailing back a dildo because you lost it inside your body.

And another guy at his P.O.

box are like, lost it inside your body.

You need the flared bottom.

It's important.

Okay.

I genuinely laughed at this scene, too.

This is one of those few moments.

He He has to just drop a bunch of packages in a mail thing,

and he has to then physically like drop them on the ground because that's going to set up the scene.

Right.

And the acting is very unconvincing.

He's like clearly fake dropping stuff.

Yes.

I laughed at that.

He's like, this sponge is so slippery.

I need a better plan.

And right.

And then a random guy who saw that happening is like, hey, bud,

you badly acting an infomercial for nobody.

Does there have to be a better way?

So he goes, Hey, I recognize you.

The guy who's helping it with the packages goes, You're that alien guy from TV.

Hey, it just so happens I'm a blogger and I'd like to help you get your story out there.

No pressure.

And I'm like, oh, well, that's how you can tell he's not really a blogger, though.

But he's like, no pressure, but here's my card that I have as a blogger.

You can come see me in the next scene.

Yeah.

And my name is Keith Oberman.

Keith Oberman.

Why the

Obermensch.

Yeah.

And he gives big pedo energy, this guy.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Sweater vest, everything.

Yeah.

So he goes to see Keith Oberman, the blogger.

We have a long scene where like his secretary calls and makes sure he's free and then he is.

And so she walks him up and everything.

We watch all of this happen.

Right.

Yeah.

Also, did he forget he was doing a different plot a couple of scenes ago, right?

Where he was going to look for the logger guy?

Because it's like the movie got distracted by a squirrel.

It's like, oh, oh, oh, look, the reporter guy announced that the movie isn't out yet.

Right, right.

And how is he not a little bit like skeptical?

Like, when is the last time that a blogger, you know, had an office for his blogging?

Right.

In a giant

building in downtown L.A.

It was L.A.

It wasn't even Pascal.

Yeah, it was L.A.

Oh, you're looking for the blogging department here with the New York Times?

Yeah, right.

All the way up to the penthouse with you, honey.

Right.

Right.

So he goes into the blogger's big ass office and the blogger's like, hey, you know what would help with my article would be a lie detector test.

Those are infallible in this universe.

At this point, I was like, oh, the movie's stuck in a recursive loop, right?

Because it's like, there's a land and then a lie detector test and then a reporter and then a lie detector test.

I was like, oh, someone is like having an episode while they write out loud into Google Docs.

It's pretty bad.

Like even the name on the card, I feel like, why, why would they pick the name Keith Oberman?

Oh, but guy.

Like, I know it's, I know it's spelled differently, but

giving that scene in Family Guy where he's like trying to invent a fake name.

And then he's like, P-Tear

Griffin.

Griffin.

Damn it.

Fuck.

So he's like, don't worry.

I've got a lie detector test right down the hallway.

And I'll do a lie detector test and that way we can prove to the world that you're telling the truth, right?

Yeah.

Not only am I a blogger, I'm a certified lie detector.

Lie detectorism.

Obviously.

Man.

You know, what good blogger can't proctor a fucking polygraph test?

So that's why mine never made it, by the way.

Right, right, because you didn't know how to do a fucking polygraph.

You didn't do enough lie detector tests on there.

And do you know what they do next, which is my favorite thing ever?

What's that?

They make us watch the entire lie detection test.

Yeah, it's like him plugging it in and starting it up, going and getting it in the other room and shit.

Slapping his thighs while he waits for the new update to install.

That's right.

All right, just hold these cans and we'll find out how many volcano demons are inside your lie or not.

There we go.

And also, it's worth noting that they don't have any witnesses or a camera or even an audio recording.

So it's only just going to be like instead of Isaac's word, Isaac and Keith's word, even if he passes this test, right?

So fucking dumb.

So he goes, do you really not know?

He's like, well, first of all, he's like, hey, are you going to lie lie to me?

And he goes, No, I'm not.

And he goes, Good start.

And I was like, Oh, cool.

You can wrap it up there.

Yeah, really, honestly.

Yeah, polygraphs are real.

You're done, right?

Yeah.

He says, Do you really not know where you were Wednesday and Thursday of last week?

And me and Kara at least were like, Those aren't the days he was missing.

Yeah, that was Saturday to Sunday to Monday.

Plus, that's such a confusing question for a lie detector test.

Do you really not know?

Okay, wait, what?

What if I were to

cut their guard what you would say about your

alien?

Fuck.

Yeah, so but we learned that this movie is paying less attention to itself than we were.

And then Keith is like, oh, wow.

You know, he's like, dude, really get abducted by aliens.

He's like, yepers.

And he looks at the lie detector test and he's like,

you know, I need a second to recover from how much truth you're telling.

And he walks off.

And then who should show up?

But the goddamn men in black.

Yeah.

And they shoot him in the back with a laser gun.

With a laser gun.

Now, so this is the moment, in case you were wondering, from the very beginning, when Eli said that this movie gets side-tackled by a much dumber and Kara, I pointed out, much more fun movie.

This is the side-tackle, folks.

They might as well walk in and go, nope, boring.

This movie's boring.

You're coming with a laser gun.

Yeah, because up until now, it's been a boring normal movie about a boring JPL engineer who, yes, there is some, you know, special effects because there's an alien.

But from here on out, it's just magic.

Everything is magic.

Yep.

And then some.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's awesome.

So, okay.

So then he wakes up in Illuminati prison being drugged by the best, worst robots of this century.

Okay.

It's giving like mid-century energy, right?

Yeah, very far.

They call it vintage guys.

Early Doctor Who, right?

Where they were like, we have white and also these Halloween costumes.

Right.

So look, I almost went with best worst robots for my best women.

But like, I like old movies.

These are not the best worst robots.

Certainly the best worst robots of the 21st century.

Yeah.

Okay.

Why are they in like sexual straitjackets, though?

It looks like Storm Train came from a fuck party and then were like the guards for this Illuminati thing.

There's a lot of belts and loops for someone not to be having something up their butt.

And why wouldn't it just be people?

Like they like there's no advantage to these being robots at any point.

No.

They're never super strong.

No, they're later going to be like kicked and they'll be like, ow, I died.

I explode.

And they're also like super late.

They'll be trying to sneak around later to find people.

And they're like, well, if you didn't use a goddamn robot, maybe people wouldn't be.

Yeah.

Well, and to be clear, they are just people.

Well, right.

Yeah, exactly.

They're people.

Yeah, they're wearing all white.

They've got like the stormtrooper vibe.

And then they've got these weird masks with the light up eyes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like the light up eyes, I guess, is CG.

What do you guys think?

Were they practical?

I would assume everything in this is CG.

Yeah.

Okay.

So they take him to this all-white room where they strap him down in an ominous dentist chair in the middle of the room.

Yeah.

Very inefficient use of space.

I feel like somebody's got to be like, hey, can we do like neutral tones?

I know we're like an evil Illuminati layer thing, but like, yeah.

It's just, this is going to be such a pain in the ass to keep clean.

I mean, everything, you're going to see every fucking footprint on this look like a cheesecake factory

so oh we see that sarah has also been kidnapped she's also in this illuminati prison yeah i didn't get that why was sarah there because she also got abducted and has talked to him i guess or oh no because she knows about carl but how do they know that she knows about carl they've been listening in on his phone conversations i think they don't explain it now they don't explain this at all

you said that so confidently i was like god another part of the movie i missed that i missed a lot So I'll believe anything you say.

Kara, I told you, you got to pause when you cry.

You just pause it, get the cry out, and then you restart the movie.

No, but then it takes even longer.

Yeah, right.

That's true.

Sacrifices we make for art.

You got to play through the weeping.

Thank you.

Sacrifices you make for art.

So then they so they've got him strapped down on the chair.

They roll this fucking

kitchen TV from 1978 up to him, and a guy pops up on the TV to talk to him.

This is, I shit you not,

agent graves

yep okay and is the bad guy i paused it when they wheeled in the thing and it's supposed to be like ominous there's you know droids wheeling in the evil device that might torture him and then you see it for a second and it's it's a deli scale from yes like delivery it has a readout for unit price that's on it so what what's supposed to be happening here is they're going to test him for magic powers right and the first thing they're going to test is can he add weight to this to this scale but we don't know that so they wheel it in right like you said like the thing like the robot in star wars that's going to come in and and make princess leia tell the truth or whatever and it's just a fucking deli scale and we're like wait what yeah and they're like focus on the scale think about peppermint turkey or something

they don't even tell him what to do to no they just say focus they just say focus on it and like couldn't he just not focus on it right he can look at it and not really think about it.

Yeah.

They don't even say try the telekinesis.

Like he doesn't have powers.

And then they're like, nope, no telekinesis.

And I'm like, I feel like you haven't established that.

And then they roll in some water with a thermometer and they're like, okay, now focus on the water.

And they don't say, and try to change his temperature, but they're like, nope, no water powers.

But he does focus like really hard, which is like, what are you doing?

Which side are you on, my friend?

He's a try-hard.

Yes.

He is.

He's a brown noser.

He's an A a student

yeah so but then they bring out a light bulb and he can't use his electricity powers either and they're like damn this guy fucking sucks what series of tests how many tests are they gonna do in powers we know he doesn't have yet right but now now can we talk about how hapless these at this point we think they're feds right yeah uh-huh that we're like why are these feds so bad at fedding like can we talk about how hapless they are oh they're gonna get so much worse as we go they're they're the ones dropping the sponges the whole movie.

Right.

Just

right.

Because at this point, he goes, Well, what do you know about Carl Meisner?

And he's like, who?

He's like, the guy from the fucking cold open.

He goes, I don't know.

And then they forget to turn off the fucking microphone.

And he goes, damn it, Carl Meisner's hiding somewhere in British Columbia.

I sure hope he doesn't find out about it.

Oh, fuck my mic.

God damn it.

Why do we have these old-timey buttons on this thing?

Yes.

So embarrassing.

Yeah.

So, and so, but that's how Isaac learns that Carl is in British Columbia.

Good, you know, now that it's narrowed down, this should be pretty easy to find.

So then he needs to break out of this prison, which he's gonna do.

This is my favorite.

This was almost my best, worst, best, worst escape.

By wriggling.

They have him strapped down, but no, they know.

It's literally just like one strip of Velcro.

That's it.

And we should point out, because this kid is me levels of scrawny, right?

Like, this is not like Arnold Schwarzenegger fighting his way out of the chair in total recall.

This is me going, eh, I don't want to be here and then getting out.

Yeah.

And this is Marsh on a hunger strike.

Yes.

And then he goes to fight the fucking robots.

He picks up like a stand that's next to him.

He smacks one of the robots in the head and its head just explodes

because it was full of android lava.

Why?

Lava blood.

Why would the

aliens start pouring out lava blood?

Now, what I want to note happen here, because as Kara pointed out, these are just guys in suits or whatever, is for him to hit that thing in the head and break the head open.

And it's just a dude in there, and he goes, ow, man, fuck.

Ow, fuck.

Liquid hot magma.

That's what I'm saying.

Nope, it is.

I'm going to do you lava blood.

Why would the okay, so okay, there's so many questions there.

It becomes lava once it sprays out of your face, I guess.

Oh, right, right.

Blue when it's inside.

No, but why would they have blood at all?

They're robots.

but okay so then he goes to run away and he sees sarah and luckily she's not like locked in or anything right so he goes and he gets her out yeah she doesn't understand the velcro technology so he has to help and he gets her out too yeah and this is very important no i hate to i hate to correct on air or as is almost certainly the case incorrectly correct on air i think he uses his magic door opening powers to get her out of her cell yeah i think you're right because she says later remember how you got me out of this cell yeah

But then he dodges some lasers.

He ducks.

You know, when somebody shoots you with a laser, you got a minute.

You can duck.

They're not that fast.

No, no.

But then he gets a laser gun of his own.

And so they pecue, pecue for, they literally pecue, pecue their way out of this goddamn federal prison.

And the feds are all in one room going, whoa, oh no, they're getting away.

I'm like, what?

Damages.

Hold on.

Am I still on mute?

Fuck the children.

Just grab the children.

So, but then he uses his magic powers to get out the main door.

And the robots don't have magic powers, so they can't get out that door.

I guess.

Yeah, they're like, give us the digital key.

And we cannot comply.

So he has...

magical powers that can like do telekinesis seems like you'd try to do like i don't know a fireball or like a force choke on the bad guys or something right right or warm up some water make a breadstick and then the laziest bit of writing in the whole movie comes up right here, right?

Because then they bust out of the MIB prison and they're in a jungle and they don't know where they are.

Well, but luckily,

just that moment.

Luckily, there's a donkey cart going by that is labeled Costa Rica Donkey Kart.

You are in Costa Rica in a movie.

Costa Rica's number one donkey cart.

Yes.

And we spend a solid minute looking at this donkey cart.

And we all know we're in Costa Rica.

It literally just says Costa Rica on this side of it, like a welcome to sign.

But then later, she's like, where are we?

And he's like, I'm pretty sure.

Don't you show the fucking donkey car?

What the hell's wrong with you, lady?

Oh, I missed the plot.

Sorry.

Oh, so this is so Sarah can't read.

That's why she's struggling so much in the movie.

He's like, so order whatever you want from the menu.

And she's like, I will.

Can't help but notice there's no pictures.

Can I give a note to bad guys in general real quick?

I wish you would.

You're making a secret lair for your Illuminati alien, whatever the fuck.

Sure.

Don't build the daring escape hatch door that goes out into the jungle, maybe.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times.

Just build it without having to go to the bottom.

Why don't they have a whole plane out of black boxes?

Just have one door.

Or maybe have an armed guard at the door.

That would also help.

But also, here's the thing that I don't get is that they walk out the door and then we cut to the robots on motorcycles trying to get to them.

Yeah, they're in Tron, but they're starting from the same place.

Yeah, the light bikes from fucking Tron, but they're starting from the same place.

Why wouldn't the robots just come out the fucking door?

They just came out.

Well, they couldn't, they couldn't get access.

As I saw the androids get on their light bikes, I asked myself a very important question that I'd love your guidance on now, which is:

where did the budget from this movie come from?

I don't know.

Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Is anyone like named Zuckerberg or Musk associated with this?

This feels like dad's money, the movie.

You know what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

So, okay.

So then Sarah and Isaac, they happen upon a restaurant.

Apparently they keep the CIA Black site.

in Costa Rica close enough that you could run and get a bite, you know, on foot.

So they come across this restaurant.

There's nobody there.

Oh, now there's somebody there.

Don't worry about it.

And they're like,

this woman doesn't speak any English.

They don't speak any Spanish, but they're trying to communicate that they need to get online.

They need the internet.

It's so stupid.

First of all, like almost everybody in Costa Rica does speak English, but he goes up and he's like, Estoy, Tianis, El Niño, nope, internet.

I don't know.

And then she says a bunch of things in Spanish and he writes them down.

Yeah, he can understand it clearly.

Right.

Yes, exactly.

Right.

She can't really even speak it.

The Spanish-speaking actress can't speak Spanish.

Did you guys notice that?

I did not.

She was a little clumsy.

Yeah.

It's not good.

But she does manage to communicate that there's a guy named Zed about two kilometers that way.

Now, when they find him, he's just sitting at a restaurant having lunch, but she knew which restaurant he would be at.

Was eating lunch at?

In the time that, well, he wouldn't even be there yet, right?

Because they still have to walk two kilometers to get to it, right?

She knows what restaurant he will be eating lunch at.

I want to take a moment to clarify because this is so mystifying.

So, Zed, as we're about to learn, will be the hacker character.

I won't spoil anything else, but he's going to be the hacker character.

So, that means that they came in, right?

I assume this place occasionally sees tourists.

They asked for a place where there is internet, and she referred them to fucking Morpheus.

I imagine that doesn't work out when, like, I'm traveling in Costa Rica and I want to check my Facebook, and you keep referring me to Zed, the underground black site operator.

Yes, right.

Right.

Yeah.

Now, of course, so they go off there and then we see that the bad guys are hot on their heels.

Well, not actually on their heels, which they should be.

They're hot close to their heels.

And again, you get the impression that maybe things would be a little better for the bad guys if they didn't have creepy white robots on light bikes driving around all conspicuously.

I feel like somebody in Costa Rica would mention the sidebar.

Workmen mentioned that

would have come out somewhere.

Probably.

Yeah.

We see that the waitress that talked to him, she lies for them.

She knows good guys when she sees them.

Yeah.

So, but they show up at this place where Zed is.

And I guess Zed is the guy who's using Costa Rica's laptop at the moment.

Yeah.

And Zed's American.

Yep.

For some reason.

Yep.

No explanation from that.

But he says, hey, I need your help.

And he's, and Zed's like,

I don't know.

What's your name?

And he goes, Isaac Cypress.

He goes, Is it really Isaac Cypress?

And he goes, Yeah.

And he goes, Oh, okay, I'll help you.

In fact, I'll be a sidekick for the remainder of the day.

You have passed my polygraph, sir.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Riddle two.

So, hi.

Like me designing a DD campaign.

Wait, wait, wait.

Okay.

If it sounds like I haven't been present, I haven't.

I was Googling something.

I just discovered that this movie was written,

directed, and produced by this dude named Eric Demusi.

Yeah.

And Eric Demusi is like an award-winning animator.

Come on.

Oh, really?

And so he did like the title sequence

for Game of Thrones.

Oh, wow.

And like,

he worked on Tron Legacy.

He worked on Pacific Regional.

Oh, he was using that.

That's why he borrowed the love bikes.

Yeah.

He like has a bunch of assets.

And they were like, yeah, no, man, you can take those home with you.

And he was like, seriously?

he was like i know how to make stuff pretty maybe i can make a movie yep oh

exactly i'm such a good animator that i could probably also write and direct people are gonna want to read my blog yeah no i get it

yikes we've all been there buddy oh this is like tommy wiseau's friends with john williams and the room as that is the soundtrack yeah like he won and he won a primetime emmy for outstanding main title design for stranger things oh wow

Wow.

And then he made this.

Stick to animation, buddy.

It's an age of specialists, my friend.

If you learn anything from this week's podcast, yikes.

So, yeah.

So, but the androids with their light bikes show up and everybody's like, hey, there's androids with light bikes.

We should probably get the fuck out of there.

And once again, little subtlety would have gone a long way here, right?

But so I guess...

We're in a different movie now, so we all need to recalibrate.

But first, let me give Act 3 the hard sell.

Will this movie stay the same same genre from this point?

What the fuck genre is that?

Could it maybe turn out to have been a rom-com the whole time?

Find out the answers to these questions and more when we return for the increasing, exponentially, increasingly stupid conclusion of proximity.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Oh, and Bailey, I am grateful for her.

This is amazing.

Hey, guys.

What are you doing?

Keith is telling me about all the stuff he's grateful for.

Oh, okay.

And?

And he's like grateful for so much stuff.

Yeah, man.

That's normal, right?

What?

No, it isn't.

You're supposed to be like filled with self-doubt all the time and like unable to think positive thoughts like ever, right?

No, that's not right.

Eli, have you considered therapy?

Therapy for gratitude?

For whatever you're struggling with.

If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.

It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge.

Now that's something to be grateful for.

Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp.

Visit betterhelp.com/slash awful today to get 10% off your first month.

That's betterhelphelp.com/slash awful.

All right, Noah, thanks.

Hey, guys, you mind if I try one?

Yeah, sure, go ahead.

It was such a nice ad.

I'm gonna beep it.

You think?

Lulu Lou, doing Heath stuff.

Heath stuff is my favorite stuff.

Lulu Lu.

Be not afraid, human.

Oh, okay.

Got it.

We are here to...

Wait, did you say got it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Said got it.

You're aliens, right?

This is a tractor beam.

So.

Yes.

Yeah.

Got it.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

How did you know it was a tractor beam?

Oh, like movies and stuff.

You have movies about our tractor beams?

Oh, yeah, like hundreds.

So you guys are going to probe me next?

I mean.

Yeah.

Oh,

what's wrong?

Well, it's sorry.

We're just kind of used to more screaming and like, where am I?

Where am I?

And you're just, well, you're pretty chill.

Yeah, I really like movies.

Do you not want to probe me?

I mean, the surprise is part of the fun.

Oh.

Sorry?

I think.

No, it's fine.

We'll just

implant me with a tracker and erase my memories.

Well, you know what, man?

You're

sorry.

Surprise.

And we're back for still more of this shit.

We're going to rejoin Isaac Sarah and now Zed, who's just part of the movie.

He's on the team now.

I'm in the movie now.

Yep.

Yep.

They've just slipped away from the

ISRP Android Comps.

ISRP, you ask, well, yes, that is the International Space Research Program.

And Zed says, yeah, you know, I know all about them.

That's why I'm untraceable.

He says to the two people who don't even speak the native language that we're able to find him on foot.

Well, except for Marichelle.

Mary Chell does give up my location quite badly.

I do need to speak to her about that.

A lot of people show up just wanting to check their Facebook thing.

Yeah, see, actually, it's really

a real problem.

I give him a red pill.

It's like this.

I've got a big chart of them at the back.

It's really.

So, and we're supposed to be going out to his like out-in-the-middle of nowhere place where he hackers all the time.

I guess he just walks in from here to the fucking restaurant all day, every day.

You mean their Matreon buddy house that they very clearly rented as a nice fun thing for them to do?

Uh-huh.

Yep, yep.

They

okay, so let me explain what happened, podcast listener.

They found one of those tree houses on Airbnb and fucking DeMussi was like, like, I would love to stay in one of those.

Could we make it a part of the movie?

And they were like, yeah.

I mean, if it's like two or three scenes in the movie, he's like, yeah, it'll totally be two or three scenes in the movie.

And then we can rent a house in Airbnb.

Yeah, we can hang out.

We can play board games and have a good time.

Yeah.

So, yeah,

I guess it's like an old

Fire Watch station.

You said Fire Watch.

That he's kind of beautiful.

It's rated it up.

Oh, it's absolutely gorgeous.

Yeah, I'd stay there.

Yeah, it looks like one of those AI shots of like the fake awesome house in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah.

True.

Fair.

But no, but so they go in there.

And there's also like they go about over this like immaculately maintained rope bridge that's clearly in some fucking well-trafficked national park in Costa Rica or something.

Yeah, it's really weird.

And Sarah has like a Jurassic park moment.

Yeah.

Like they like.

do a tight shot on her just like enjoying the nature.

I'm like, what are we offering?

It looks like a ropes course in a mall, but like in the Costa Rican jungle.

But nice.

And what's so funny is that they're trying to use this to say, see, he lives so far out in the middle of nowhere that there's this immaculately maintained rope bridge on the way.

It's mostly yard work.

That's what I spend most of my time doing, cutting back the brush.

And didn't he say he's only been there for a few months?

Yes.

Well, he moves around a lot.

He just finds really nice Airbnbs

through rope bridges when he does.

On hot pads, you guys on hot pads?

So they go up there and he's like, it's going to take me a while to get my computer up and running.

Why don't you and Sarah go have a love interest scene out on the deck?

Yeah.

And also we'll keep cutting back to me plugging things in.

For some reason, so that you'll know every goddamn step of everything everyone does in this stupid fucking movie.

Yeah.

So they go out on the deck and Isaac is like, hey, Sarah, you know, we never really heard your backstory.

Is it very similar to mine?

And she's like, painfully, he's like, can you tell it to us at length into the camera?

She's like, exactly.

That is what I'm going to do.

Yeah.

I actually, I love this scene because he's like, do you want to exposit your backstory?

And she's like, I don't like to talk about that.

Pause.

Two, three.

I was staying with my aunt.

Right.

And so she, yeah, so she saw a spaceship and she was like, meh, and she took a nap.

But when she woke up, it was days later and everybody was wondering where she'd been.

And they have this like weird, like, yeah, and people think we make up this story.

Who would make up a crazy story to get attention?

Am I right?

Kind of a moment.

Yeah, that was dumb.

And then, so meanwhile, meanwhile, Zed is computering away and he's looking for this guy, Carl Meisner, the guy from the opening of the movie.

No idea.

They have established in no way why they would be looking for that guy.

But yeah.

So, I mean, they're looking for him because the other guys are, but they haven't established that either.

And they never answer that, by the way.

They never tell us why they're looking for him.

As far as we know, he's just another guy who got abducted.

No, they will.

They'll tell us about it.

Oh, God, I forgot.

Yes, they do.

Oh, my God.

It's incredible.

Beautiful and wonderful.

I'm so sorry.

I forgot.

So, but there's no record of this guy for the last 30 years, but he's somewhere in British Columbia and he's using some kind of weird satellite.

And of course, that's when Isaac goes, Wait, a weird satellite signal coming from Canada?

Why we shoehorned this into the movie earlier.

I know right where that is.

Yeah.

So, so the idea here is that Carl with the oscilloscopes has hacked JPL's satellite

in order to send,

no, receive alien signals.

Send and receive, yeah.

Send and receive.

And that Isaac Cypress, JPL engineer, satellite guy, yeah.

Also hacks his own satellites to play fun games with his labmate.

Right.

When he's not collecting soil samples, he's also a geologist for the JPL.

Yeah, well, right, and a chemist, yeah.

Let's not get distracted.

And so then he remembers that there was a Canadian signal and is like, that must be Carl with the oscilloscopes.

Yes.

Correct.

And so then he goes, hey, new new hacker that we found, even though you're unfindable in the Costa Rican rainforest, can you now hack into the JPL satellite?

And he goes, click, click, I'm in.

Yes, yes.

Two, click.

He says a two-click into the JPL satellites.

All of them now.

So what we've learned now is that JPL's satellites are not very secure.

Not at all.

Not at all.

Yeah.

I feel like you just go back to Margarita and you're like, where's Carl Meisner in Britain?

Yeah, really, honestly.

You're human.

Yeah.

So, but then they call

Carl, the Canadian abductee hermit that doesn't want to be found.

They like call him on Skype.

Yeah, they like Skype him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they were like, he answers.

They're like, hey, are you Carl Meisner, the guy who's hiding out and doesn't want anybody to find you?

Hello.

Hello.

Oh, God, why didn't I answer the call?

Oh, Carl.

Right.

So then he hangs up.

And they're all like, fuck, he hung up.

And they yell at Zed hacker guy.

And they're like, do another fucking hack thing.

And he has to explain.

He's like, yeah, people, people can just turn off their computer.

Well, no, because he has to explain to them that he can make the Skype call go through.

He can do a no having to answer Skype call.

But if he turns off his computer, he won't be able to turn it back on.

Right.

So this is their last chance.

So basically, they call him one more time.

They force call him.

And they have to, we had a baby eats a boy their entire story quick before he can call,

before he can hang up.

That's the fucking

tension of this scene, right?

It is correct.

Can he exposit fast?

It was like the old collect call thing of being like, will you accept charges from, don't accept the charges, come pick me up at the moment.

We had a baby eats a boy.

Yeah.

That's why I had a baby eats a boy.

Thank you.

No illusions.

Thank you.

Yes.

Sack of shit.

I hope you enjoy.

We don't always understand all your references.

Keith, do you remember that from earlier in the show?

We were saying mean things to each other.

Keith,

I feel like you really bully me a lot.

I feel like this is going to turn into a conversation about aftercare.

Is that so?

You want me to teach you a new kink thing?

I'll teach you a new kink thing.

So then, so now it's finally,

they get their backstory out, right?

And they get it out in time.

And Carl goes to talk to him.

And I wrote in my notes, like, there is a one in 800 chance that the guy named Carl is going to have a Brooklyn accent, and I'm going to fucking listen.

He did.

He's just a regular Carl.

Turns around, well, well, well.

It isn't the podcastiverse.

So, yeah, but this is where we learn that he has alien decoding software, and he's been trying to reach out to the aliens that probed his butt all those years ago.

He's trying to reach them about their extended spaceship work.

I guess.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, this is one of my favorite things.

This is where they're like, we need to download the data.

So they're like, can you send it?

Okay.

But they hang up the Skype call because they can't have two windows open at the same time.

Did you notice that?

And then they call them back after they get the data.

And they're going to send this data to a guy who was a lumberjack in 1979?

I think we all know how this conversation would actually go.

All right.

We're sending you the file now.

Excellent.

This should finally be what we need to get the message.

Amazing.

Can't believe this.

And done.

Oh, I didn't get it.

Oh,

did you refresh your inbox?

What's that?

What's what?

I don't know anything that you're talking about right now.

Maybe check the spam folder.

On my desktop?

Nope.

Nope.

Email.

Let me see.

Spam folder.

I don't see a spam.

They might be called junk.

Junk or spam.

That's stupid because spam isn't.

Oh, there it it is.

There it is.

The junk folder?

No, the emails, but

I didn't get the attachment.

Did you check like the top of the email?

Which top?

Where the X button is?

No, where the attachments are.

Why would the attachments be at the top?

They should be at the bottom.

That's stupid.

Okay, stop calling the things you don't know stupid.

The things you don't know aren't stupid.

You just don't know them.

Dude, relax.

Sorry.

Okay, all right.

I think I found the attachment.

Okay, great.

Was it on the email?

Saving.

All right, now where is it?

Well, where did you save it to?

I don't know.

Why wouldn't it just open?

That's just.

If you say stupid, I will hang up and we will not talk to aliens.

Oh, it was on my desktop.

Cool.

Well, right, because also because he's on the fucking oscilloscope.

His shit looks like my console collection.

All that shit around him, right, is from 1978.

His laptop has a floppy drive.

Yes.

His laptop is thick.

Like a five and a half inches.

Yes.

Yes.

So yeah, but

he gets

going to get my Commodore going ring.

All right, did you send it?

So yeah, so they send the data.

This is the data, by the way, that the alien sent that he found on the computer way earlier when we said an hour and 58 minutes later it was going to come back.

This is that data.

Nailed it.

Yeah.

So he decodes the data and it's the aliens saying that they're going to show up in five days time.

Right, because that's that's Carl's special skill is he developed an alien language translator.

Right with his lumberjack skills.

Now, I want to point out

that by this movie, so this is the data that they got, you know, before he got abducted.

The aliens said then that they would be there in five fucking.

That would be three goddamn days ago, as the movie goes, but the movie's paying no attention to itself whatsoever.

So they treat it like it's five days from then, from when they translate it.

Well, the aliens knew when they would translate.

And earlier in the movie, Thursday was Saturday.

Right, no, you're right.

You're right, exactly.

That's the power.

He's moving through time dimensions as well.

Okay, this is not arrival.

Just make that very clear.

No, it is not.

So, yeah, but they need to go to Canada.

Now, there's also this weird moment where Sarah doesn't want to go.

And I'm like, yeah, you know, like you're not from Costa Rica or Canada.

You should just be able to go and live your fucking life.

But Isaac's like, I can't do this without you.

Why?

He goes, I need your help.

Why?

What does she ever do?

He wants to bone her.

Yeah.

Spoiler alert.

He would go on to do this without her.

Right.

Yeah.

It's also so weird to me that the whole movie, like whenever they talk about where they are, well, maybe not so much in Costa Rica because they're just generically in Costa Rica.

But when they're in, it's very clear that they're in Pasadena.

They are not in LA, right?

We are in Northeast.

We are in Pasadena.

But then they go to British Columbia.

Just all of British Columbia.

All things.

Yes.

Do you think there's a chance they think they're in the country called Columbia, the British part?

Yep.

100%.

From Costa rica little britain in colombia that's true because i know i'm cutting but they took a

like prop plane there okay and i'm pretty sure they would have to refuel like five times

i think they believe the british own part of the country called columbia in south america these are solid now according to some dude on imtp actually care it would have been eight times if if they went as fast as far as they possibly could they would that little ass goddamn cessna goes about 450 miles before you need to refuel the fucking

hilarious.

Yeah, right.

And also they probably would have to account for themselves to air traffic control at some point.

But yeah, no, they hitch a goddamn Cessna to Canada from Costa goddamn fucking Rica.

And they show a really bad, like, I mean, really good Mr.

DeMussi scene where the Cessna is flying.

Emmy Wimner's got to stick together.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, you know, it's flying like a bomber in World War II, like above the clouds.

You're like, no, no.

So, yeah.

So, they arrive in all of British Columbia and they're like, hey, there's a train that we can take that goes 30 miles from his cabin.

And they're like, what?

Why do we have?

Because we've been now on a boat and we've been on a fucking plane and we've been on a train.

We don't need any of this.

Are you going to hitch a ride with John Candy now?

You can just be in the next scene if you want.

If it's your movie.

We're fine with that.

No, you guys, it's because d'Musi had already worked really hard on that beautiful it's like the most picturesque gorgeous train you've ever seen in your life actually that train through BC looked beautiful it was gorgeous and I don't think it was real I think it was fully one of his side projects that got cut from another movie oh interesting I finally get to change a chance to crack well hey look I would not want to take this scene away from anybody okay so they're on this they're on the fucking train and they're bonding over their arm alone yes, alone, fully alone.

That's true.

There's no conductor or anything.

No, yeah, it's just the three of them.

And there's Sarah and Isaac are bonding over their arm implants when suddenly we see that the white light bike androids are chasing the train, driving their light bikes down the train track.

Sorry, did they drive from Costa Rica on their

light bikes?

You missed the sequence where it was like,

It's a good thing we don't need to breathe.

Am I right?

Oh, so like, so there's, there's a part like, so they're driving on their light bikes behind the train, but then they're on the train.

So like they leapt from the light bikes onto the train, like high noon style.

Well, and also that gorgeous establishing shot of the train is on like the world's highest bridge.

Uh-huh.

Like it's it's like spanning this like really scary gorge.

And so so they were riding their light bikes, I guess, on the track behind them the whole time.

Yeah.

That's terrifying.

Once they got to them.

I want to believe they got on the train with their light bikes and they had to awkwardly walk.

Check them, right?

We have to go to the bank lunch right now.

Sorry.

Scooch it.

Scooch it.

There's an old lady.

These are very wise.

There's an old lady and a family on their way to Disney taking up all the good ones.

So they got to go to the next car.

Right, right.

So, but then Zed realizes that the bad androids are after them, which just because he does, right?

He smells them coming or whatever.

And he's like, don't worry, I have the dumbest possible way to get out of there.

I fucking love it.

I love it.

Truly, he could be like, we have to put these icicles up our ass.

And there would not have been a sillier moment in the movie.

He's like, their facial recognition software can't see past these goofy ass spirally masks.

So everybody has to just sit still and wear a silly ass spiral mask, and the robots will walk right by us.

And they have to sit there in silence and just like be cool, wearing this incredibly silly.

I would have been weeping with laughter, fucking the whole thing up because it's so stupid looking.

Well, and they don't explain that at all.

Like, why does it have Jurassic Park rules?

Like, why can't they move?

They can't see it.

They're basically put in the scenario that Heath and I are put into whenever they do an in-memorium at a convention, which is like, now is the time for quiet.

You cannot say funny words now.

Crash.

That's Heath diving out a window so he doesn't get in trouble.

Yeah.

Also, so Zed, by the way, the hacker in Costa Rica, he's the one who gives them the masks, right?

Brought them with him.

So he had them.

Why does he have these?

In case he runs and crossed any bad case, he runs into the androids.

He's just okay.

He's a real cowboy.

How do you think he figured that out the first time?

He was on his way to a very, very specific Halloween pile of masks and

the cyborgs came up and he just put one on and they like walked right past him.

I guess.

Yeah.

Yep.

Must have been what happened.

But it doesn't quite work though, right?

Because one of the androids just starts looking at Isaac and Isaac screams at the top of his lung, it's not working.

And Zed's like, don't move.

He can tell when you move.

You know I can tell you.

He can't tell when you're screaming.

It's not working.

Yeah, apparently not.

We can hear.

You have to wear a COVID mask and they can't understand when you scream.

This isn't working.

So, yeah, but so the alien or the android rather looks at him for a while and he goes, no, this is a fucking dude in a mask.

He pulls out his gun.

Luckily, he can duck under lasers as they're being fired, right?

As we learned earlier.

He's really good.

Can't we all?

Yeah.

So he fights his way off.

The other android loses him.

And then there's a moment where, like, he can see him with Android vision on the top of the train track.

We can't because they couldn't afford to stunt people to do that, but he can.

Right.

And the cyborgs are talking about like, okay, tracker chips.

I can see that he can see through it.

And he's like, that's where they're going.

And they have like trackers on them.

We're going to learn how that works a little bit later.

But if they have tracker chips, how did the masks help?

Like, what did they do?

Well, also, well, they turned that part off.

And the tracker chip not only allows them to track it, but it allows them to see like a...

a CGI image of everything around him above the train.

It's a really crazy tracker that they've got there.

Honestly, the lens that Kara has given us, that this is a guy who like makes opening credits for big movies makes this such a beautiful tragedy of film, right?

Because

you can see his gifts shining through beautifully in the late, that top of the train thing looks really good.

What lines do they say?

I need to wear this mask so the robots can't see me.

Okay.

Yep.

Yeah, but so one of the robots is up on the train chasing him, but they get him with the old duck move, right?

Because if you're ever on top of a train and you duck, something will come by and that's right.

Smack the other bad guys off of it.

Yeah, I want to see one time somebody does that and there's nothing and they're just like, oh, you just dove on the ground.

Yeah, tunnels and stuff are actually fairly rare in this part of the country.

Yeah.

So

yeah, but they duck under them.

Then the other robots, like, well, now I got to go get them.

But the robots don't know about Zed.

So Zed gets the other robot with the old kick him off the train maneuver.

The old chovaroo.

Right.

Which could have just done that at the beginning.

Why use it?

He just had the masks, so he wanted to use them, is what it is.

Right.

This is the first time I wrote in my notes.

Oh, we're just torturing Kara with this one.

This is so bad.

Robots and aliens, huh?

Huh?

So they get off the train, and then you're probably thinking to yourself, what other vehicle do they ride in?

So they get into a.

Maybe they do the canoe or the escalator as a mime until they get to the right place in British Columbia.

Fucking close.

So, yeah, so we watch them like hook up with these guys that are going to take them in this little weird RV or whatever because they've run out of other vehicles to fucking ride in.

Yeah, they ride in the back of a van the next 30 miles for no reason.

Yep.

And we see that.

And we see the, yeah, like just random people.

They just asked them and they were like, sure.

Yeah, we'll drive you out to the hermit cabin.

I won't pick up my friends from LAX.

I would never just drive a random person 30 miles into the woods.

Yeah, right.

Into the middle of fucking nowhere.

So they get, the guys drop him off in the middle of nowhere.

So I hope he says yes.

And they go up to this paranoid guy's cabin.

And he's got a bunch of cameras watching them.

And they are very noisily oscillating cameras, right?

Yep.

Free, free.

One second.

I got a...

It's like a baby monitor.

Yeah, I gotta oil this thing.

Stuck all the way to the left.

But yeah, but so Carl pops out shotgun first and he's like, who are you people?

And Isaac's like, don't worry, we're all named characters, right?

We've known Zed for why days now, so we know he's safe.

So the hermit accepts them.

He goes inside and he gets his

alien tracker deactivator device and deactivates their track.

Convenient.

He has to.

Dude, the noise that the track, the deactivator makes are so, there's so a guy being like, and what noise does that make?

So, and I also want to point this out.

So, at this moment, this guy, this hermit who's managed to hide off the grid for the last 30 years, he's like, oh, you guys have trackers on you.

Let me deactivate those and then stay in the place that they were deactivated for days.

Yeah.

Why don't we go somewhere else first?

You sure you don't want to like cut off our arm and like move it somewhere and then come back at least?

Yeah, right.

Duh.

So, yeah.

So, but we, go inside.

Carl's gonna tell them his identical goddamn backstory.

I know you guys watched this in a movie, but DeMusi said I'd get a monologue.

So, here we go.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Like,

I was done at this point.

Like, I kept dissociating.

At one point, I got up to pee and grab a bite, and I realized I had dishes in the sink, and I just did my dishes.

And then I remembered that the movie was still playing.

But I came back and I hadn't missed anything no no eventually and this happens in all movies but it happens pretty early in this when all of chara's notes just turn into hate notes towards me yep yeah yep it's true so yeah but he tells them all about the time that he escaped from the isrp and i'm like okay well fucking isaac escaped with the wriggle harder strategy they're not they're like the most escapable in the history of agencies yeah i'm not super impressed man are they supposed to be a gov an inter-governmental agency or are they supposed to be like this private organization i think that because they said at one point that it grew out of a UN thing or something.

Oh, there's one of

those hours of goddamn useless exposition in this movie.

It's Jewish lizard aliens.

Yeah.

Bloblist.

But this is where he explains that he has deciphered the alien language because they speak in the pops from signs, like every alien after signs.

And he plays us a translation of one of the alien transmissions he's translated.

It's

approaching the solar system, orbiting Earth, human origin positive, returning.

Seems like a long way to come for that, right?

Also, doesn't it feel like the super advanced aliens that can travel through galaxies would have been the ones who invented the translating part of this instead of the lumberjack?

You'd think so, right?

You'd think if you can move faster than light and travel through dimensions, you might also figure out sending an email.

Yeah, right, right.

Google Translate, maybe.

So, also, by the way, I looked up the guy that played Karl Meisner at this point, and I just had to point this out.

These are some other titles that actor has started.

Bikini Chain Gang, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity,

and Witchcraft 11, Sisters in Blood.

I just wanted to point that out.

These are all now in the God-awful movies.

Yeah,

you're just dictating the next three movies, Karis,

spoilers, Karis.

Hurry to ruin it.

Maybe the first 10, but if this guy wasn't in those, I don't know.

We'll take a look.

So then, okay.

So then some thunder rolls to make the moment more ominous.

And Zed goes, what's that noise?

And everybody's like, you don't, you don't know about thunder?

They put a thunder jacket on him.

He's underneath the kitchen table.

And then in perhaps the movie's weirdest turn, Sarah goes, oh, that's a lovely record player that you have.

And Carl says well you know what that is franklin roosevelt's old turntable and then no one asks any questions about that and you can tell he really wants somebody to ask why he has and we really want somebody he's like but he's like nope they just play a fucking record on it yeah the whole thing

what who said that i had someone

they're crazy from a very good friend of mine and the roosevelt family Yeah, they don't ask and then they put on a classical piano like record and play the whole thing the whole time.

Right.

What a crazy choice from a pacing perspective.

Yeah.

And they didn't tell these actors that they were going to play classical music because she's like, ooh, and sort of does that like we're putting on some music in a movie thing, but it's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And she's like bopping along to it.

I love this movement.

So, okay.

So meanwhile, while they're doing that, bad guys are bad guying at the bad guy department, right?

Sorry, I'm just picturing FDR as a DJ at a club with a...

Drop the beast.

Timponese and cannons.

Hey, guys, when podcasting doesn't work out, I just realized I'm going to be a fucking amazing DJ.

Yeah, fuck yeah, man.

So, okay, so we see the bad guys for just a second going like, you know, the finale is is right around the corner.

And they're like, yeah, somehow.

And then we have a fucking Sarah and Isaac preparing for the finale exchange.

Hey, you,

you know, the movie's almost over.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did Debussy talk to you about a sex scene?

He sure did.

Okay, great.

Is it sure what he said?

It's going to be all about DeMussi, am I right?

Am I right?

I said it earlier in my notes, but I was really proud of it.

So let me go back to it.

DeMussi is the campaign the Dems will be running in 2028.

So everybody, look out.

They're going to catch Gen Z with that one.

Oh, God.

I love it.

Yeah.

I mean, this was the point in the film where I came back from doing the dishes, actually.

And they were, they were doing it.

Guys, doing our jobs with us if you just have the movie on at the other room.

Amen.

Yes, it does.

I seem to get paid either way.

I'm separating you and Heath.

You and Heath can't sit together at events anymore.

I see what's happening here.

So, yeah, I come back from the kitchen and

they're frolicking in the woods.

They frolic back.

It is the weirdest.

Falling in love on a hike, Manta.

The music starts.

I laugh so hard.

There's like 19 minutes left in the movie, right?

Do they ever touch each other or kiss?

Nope.

Nope.

Didn't think so.

They frolic.

They sure frolic.

The pacing of this movie is fucking bonkers.

It's like a...

like a sensual lover, but they mix it up, you know?

And they're taking

drugs like Hunter S.

thompson along the way yeah saying weird

and the music the music is never right for the scene no never no it's so bizarre so then carl like you if you played that

scene for somebody and you said yeah right if you played that scene from somebody and you said 18 minutes later they will around with aliens in this movie they would not believe you so Then we get Carl and Isaac.

They get back to the cabin and they have a preparing for the finale exchange.

Do you want to do a romp as well through the no?

Okay.

All right.

I just wanted to

romp.

That wasn't unclear.

Yeah.

So Carl goes, we'll only have one chance.

And we're all like, one chance at what?

Yeah, I still don't know.

No, the movie.

To this day, yeah, right.

The finale.

And he goes, I have a plan.

And then the movie fades out.

And normally what that would mean is that that character has a plan.

And that we will later see him enact some sort of plan.

And we'll have, and we would otherwise have to say, when would they have planned this out?

Right.

That's what normally that scene would signify, but no, there will never be anything remotely like a plan from Carl.

Well, and also they fade out just to fade back in one minute later.

Yeah.

To Isaac, like talking to the girl in her sleep about how much he loves her.

Yeah, that was a real creepy watching her sleep moment where she like wakes up and she's like, hey, Isaac, are you looking at me while I'm asleep?

He goes, no, I was looking at the

headboard.

I was admiring.

I was just very grateful for all the the times you've been on my podcast.

It was just fun thing to do.

I'm making sure you're watching the movies.

Right, yeah, right.

Okay, mansion, apartment, shack, house.

Let's.

So they have this like long moment where like, well, he, he sort of monologues to her about how all moments have purpose and there's a reason that they came together and he just can't live without her.

And, and then she just falls asleep in the middle of it.

Yeah, you guys, this is, this is the title of the movie.

You're right.

This is the proximity moment.

Oh my God.

We discovered that off, like during one of the interstitial breaks while we weren't recording, and it's a really sad moment.

But I think you're right.

I think that's the proximity we were talking about.

Yeah, it's not nonsensical.

He thought it was deep.

Well, it is nonsensical, but he also thought it was deep.

Yeah.

It's just the layers.

More of a credits guy.

The layers.

More of a credits guy.

It's so true.

If you look at this movie, boy ate it, though.

Yeah.

It's a series of fucking title sequences.

I get it, man.

Hey, we've all been there, brother.

Shoot us an email.

I thought people wanted to read my Harry Potter fan fiction.

We've all made mistakes.

You know what I'm saying?

So now the title card comes up and it says Thursday at 3.55 p.m.

on the day of the arrival.

But none of us remember when the arrival was supposed to be.

Yeah, I was really lost.

Right.

Why the fuck doesn't it say X hours or whatever till the arrival?

But no.

And why are you going at the end of the business day everybody's tired and they're just like trying to check out thank you right fucking aliens popping their head in the door while you're trying to put chairs on tables can we just real no the kitchen already cleaned up

the saran it's too late it's a law also like if you're waiting

for an alien like arrival

Why are Isaac and the girl just hanging out in the bedroom?

Right.

So like, and also, if your movie doesn't have anything happening right now, why are we looking at it?

Right.

We watch Sarah just look at a sunbeam and Isaac stare at the wall through a big marble while they're waiting for the aliens to show up.

But wouldn't they all be together in a room like working on the plan?

I guess if we ever do it, the fucking

plan.

So you know, no, the rest of the movie just happens to them.

They do nothing and it just happens.

So then the cabin shakes, right?

And Isaac's like, okay, I'm going to walk off by myself and do the rest of this alone.

And they're like, well, that's not the plan.

Or maybe it was.

We don't know.

Yeah.

But he walks off.

And then we have another the aliens right behind me, isn't he?

Moment.

I thought it was a flashback.

Yes, it was so similar to the previous fucking scene.

Same scene.

Yeah.

Right.

And Isaac looked really ill and then they faded to fucking black again.

And I was like, are you kidding me?

I so wanted him to turn around and just kind of like pop and click at that point.

You know,

but no no's like what

do you want to do a frolic by any chance

now that we're out here there's room for a third over

so so it fades to bike and then when it comes back i laughed so fucking hard and so fucking long i know this is the best they're sitting around we we fade back in on all the named characters carl and zed and sarah and and isaac sitting around the table with the alien making a podcast making a podcast

I love how you guys all went there yeah you all went there doing a podcast they might as well have the InfoWars desk at this exact moment

I went with they were having tea like it looked like they were all sitting down to tea but they had microphones facing each other because it's for the translator right so they could translate back and forth so okay I would have given the aliens the outside of the booth.

Can I say that?

I would have given them the outside ends.

I wouldn't have made one of the aliens scooch yep yep they got him they got him hemmed in on both sides there like fucking like tim at a pot restaurant sorry that's very very narrow mostly for eli very but you know what andrew i bet tim's really enjoying it as well

so but so then they they asked the alias they're like hey aliens we have a question for you why the fuck are you on a gam movie This doesn't seem like a gam movie at all.

What are you guys even doing here?

Yeah, Kara is really confused at this point.

Right.

Yes.

And they're like, well, well you know we've noticed that humans have measurable god auras and we're all all of us movie and outside we all go fucking what

what units are you using for that

so well and they said that some humans have more aura than others right and so apparently these humans

We must assume, have the best aura.

These three humans who have not ever referenced anything religious in the whole movie

are the closest to God.

What might they have in common?

I wonder.

But then the alien reaches out, like, you know, Spockstile.

We're going to mind-melled with him, and he psychically sends an image and he says, who is this?

And we see

Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

But it's like CGI Jesus, right?

And of course, it's like medieval white guy Jesus.

It's literally like Jesus on those altar candles.

Yes, right.

It's all

exactly.

Which means that Damusi is one of those Christians, right?

Because here's the thing: this guy works in like major Hollywood movie studios, right?

Which means that he's probably been around people who are good at art late at night.

And they've been like, Yeah, no, dude, you did such an amazing job.

And he's like, Yeah, can I, um, can I ask you about your walk?

And they're like, Oh, god damn it, Damusi.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Every fucking time.

Yeah.

So, yeah, so they're looking for Jesus.

And at one point, like, so they send the image of Jesus into Isaac's head.

And he, Isaac goes, why are you looking for him?

And I'm like, because he's fucking Jesus, man.

Come on.

Come on.

And Sarah goes, if this happened to me, I'd be like, oh, okay.

Well, yeah, sure.

All right.

Yeah.

I'd also be very clear about like, hey, how literal are you as a people?

Yeah.

But yeah, but Sarah says his name is Jesus.

And the aliens like, are like, oh, now we know.

And I'm like, now you know, you couldn't look that up on the internet.

what what you could have found him on a candle and then asked somebody hey who's the guy on the candle it would say it would have like they've written the below probably the wi-fi signal in our dimension is

so yeah and and they're like oh hey also by the way did you guys put um magic power pain devices in our arms and they're like oh fuck yeah we did let us get those with our arm separator devices let us get those for well that wasn't the the magic power device no it wasn't no you're right because they're gonna have the magic powers later too yeah that was just the tracker which as we know has already been deactivated so why do they have to remove it true yeah honestly because damasi did the cool thing with the arms that bring over that's right you're right exactly that's the actual answer to all the questions in this movie isn't it which by the way takes one second to do on the woman's arm on series and takes one hour to do on the main character's arm yeah well you know women's arms and i've said this before women's arms come apart much more easily

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, Karen.

This is the creepiest quote, Elias.

That's so good.

Stop blocking my number, and y'all send you pics.

So, but just then,

the motion alarm goes off.

The men in black are here, and they've all got guns.

So, Carl goes to meet them with his shotgun, which seems like a terrible idea.

And the MIP are like, we've got you surrounded.

And this is where we reveal why they're looking for Carl.

because agent graves' dad was one of the guys that got abducted by the aliens in the opening of the movie and never came back what did you do to my dad that's exactly how we learned that but also wait this doesn't even make sense with the movie go back to the original scene The two guys in the truck go up, come down, and are lying in the truck.

Carl wanders off and he gets beamed up.

Yep.

The two guys never left.

That's how we saw it.

Yeah.

I think there were supposed to have been three guys in the truck originally because he says that they were the three brothers later.

So this is so stupid.

Eli Marglar had to go back and use the claw machine to like

just smashing it back and forth between trees, like me trying to back up in the company van.

Yeah.

Also, like, this guy is really sad that his dad is gone, and clearly it turned him into an evil alien hunter.

But Carl doesn't give two fucks.

Well, so he, that's the stupidest thing about all of this, right?

Because his thing is, I don't believe Carl, I believe Carl had something to do with my dad's death, and I don't believe in any of this alien abduction shit.

They have aliens in the fucking cowboy.

If one of those aliens would just lean out and wave, he'd go, oh, fuck, I had it all wrong.

I'm so sorry.

My bad.

My bad.

It was aliens.

Can I talk to them?

Ah, they're

looking for Jesus.

Oh, I don't want to then.

Never mind.

Never mind.

I don't want to talk to them.

So, yeah.

So, but then Carl runs out to tell him that it really was an alien abduction.

They shoot him with a laser.

Yeah, just fully kill him.

Well, they don't.

He's actually going to be alive in a second.

But yeah, for all.

I think they're going to

bring him back.

Oh, is that

because they do an ET touch or that or they were just copping a field?

They were like, I've actually always wanted to grab a titty.

No, I think fully this guy is like, You can't tell me where my dad is.

Well, fuck you, you're dead now.

Okay, well, and then Sarah comes out and she's like, Carl, we've met days, almost a day ago.

I love you, and and so they shoot her too, kill her too, because I want everyone to be lying down for the superpowers part of the movie.

Yeah, right, right.

So, Isaac wants to help at this point, but the arm thing is going way too smooth.

It's still happening inside.

He's like, It's a fucking Windows update on that.

Just give it a second.

Mr.

Beans starts to wrap his arm in like beautiful ribbons and sprinkle chocolate onto it.

Well, I feel like he could have just walked out with his arms separated, right?

And just because he was just going to use magic powers any fucking way.

Do you need two arms for your magic powers?

I would not have left that.

procedure

personally

the doctor everybody she takes all the she takes all the antibiotics that the doctor gives you not just till you feel better

you don't have to take all of them everyone you can just don't listen to Eli.

All right, RFK.

I'm the head of health and human services.

So I would be less terrified.

Okay, so, so, but the aliens, they, they're like, hey, man, don't forget we gave you superpowers.

And then they just disappear.

And I'm like, really?

They're just going to leave them on your own.

Okay, so he's on his own.

So he uses his superpowers to make the goddamn laser guns stop midair.

And then he picks up Sarah and he walks away.

Yeah, so we assume that's all that happened.

That's what we all had in our notes.

You're just leaving Zed and Carl.

But no, he's going to.

And by the way, this skinny ass actor is just struggling mightily to carry her without visibly shaking.

But then he turns invisible and then he goes and he gets Carl.

And now it's kind of unclear what the fuck is exactly going on here.

Yeah.

Yeah, we don't know if they're invisible or in another dimension.

The aliens just lean out of the house and go, use your senses.

And he's like, are my powers my senses?

and they're like shrug

yeah yeah but right so he's turning invisible but then like the people that he's rescuing they also can't see the cops anymore so it's like they're in another dimension but then he walks by them and it's like they're invisible because they have to avoid him what i wanted to happen here was just credits Yeah, because then I would have would have like all of the energy of the end of the mist.

I have that in my notes throughout the movie.

No, but like this might be redeeming.

You know what this could use is some fucking being over.

But like, you know how in the mist it was a really bad movie and then at the end it got fucking amazing.

Yeah.

I don't know that.

Hey, Kara.

I know that.

I'm with you.

Oh, yeah.

Come on, Heath.

Absolutely.

You guys all know that.

Okay.

In this moment, it's pretty awesome.

Like he slows down laser beams and like goes and gets people.

He does like a Zach Morris Jesus close by like sort of stopping time-ish and making invisibility-ish happen.

And yeah, it's not clear who sees whom at this point.

So, like, I wanted him to walk out and like assume he was invisible and then, like, bump into the truck and be like, fuck.

And then they just catch him.

I just wanted him to walk away from the house with Sarah in his arms into the sunset and then nothing be resolved.

And then for the movie to be overall.

Yeah, just Carl is lying there.

The aliens are still standing there.

Yep.

That would have been the best ending.

That would have been great.

But no, they have to do the dumbest possible thing.

So all the good guys are fine, apparently.

And Agent Graves is just left holding his dick.

Yeah.

Yep.

And then instead of being over, we get this six months later scene where a VO comes on and it's like, I don't really know what the fuck that last scene was about.

Who could see what or whatever?

Were we in another dimension or are we invisible?

Who the fuck knows?

So we'll give you a breakfast club close.

It literally says, I don't know what that movie part was, but.

Well, it doesn't literally say that, but yeah.

You know, you're supposed to make a concession statement in a shitty essay in middle school.

Yeah.

It was like that, but not like, but I did say it was just like, that was dumb.

Yep.

Didn't really know.

End of essay.

I never really figured out what was going on there.

We should have established my power set.

But he and Sarah did fall in love.

They opened a restaurant, I think, in Costa Rica.

Yeah, she was really into it.

Yeah, apparently.

Yeah.

It looks like they stole that Spanish lady's restaurant.

It does.

It was that they just had their own restaurant.

They might have.

And

we watched them doing their restaurant for a second.

And he uses his telekinesis to like grab a coffee mug.

Yeah.

So to be clear, he still has all this magic and he used it to open a restaurant and beam coffee mugs.

Oh, it's so much debt.

Kind of a waste.

Yeah.

And then Zed and Carl started their own international alien detection agency together.

Graves got fired and Isaac is still doing that video diary, still trying to get over the death of his father.

Oh, and it's, it's so from the heart.

It's like, that's a little of my story, but I think it's just beginning.

And you're like, you will never make a movie again, Damussi.

My favorite thing ever here, I couldn't bring myself to type anything about this scene.

I couldn't think of a single clever thing to type.

But as I'm waiting for the movie to be over, I realized that Amazon Prime hated this movie so much that it cut it off in the middle of his last words.

Yes.

I had the same thing.

He was like, and one last commercial.

And there was no way to get it.

I'm watching a thing for like roofing.

And then the next shooting movie came out.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

You can't even, it won't even let you watch the credits on Amazon.

It's fucking amazing.

And well, that does it for our review of Proximity.

That's not going to do it for the episode just yet because we still need to 484 up all down.

So Eli, tell us what's on deck.

Well, Noah, I think we can all agree in times like these, we need a hero.

And who better to guide us to serve as a beacon?

Than Bible Man.

Oh, God damn it.

That's right.

We'll be rejoining Bible Man with the Incredible Force of Joy.

Oh, my God.

That sounds so much better.

And also, you know what else?

It's going to be like 30 minutes long, which is going to be crazy.

Oh, my God.

Why did I

sign up for this week?

So, with that to look forward to, we're giving episode 48.

Yeah, that's true.

You only watched 38 minutes, obviously.

Sorry, the dishes were boring.

Once again, a huge thanks to Kara for doing her dishes with us today.

Be sure to check out Todd Nerdy, which you'll find linked in the show notes for more from her.

And a perhaps even huge thanks to all the Patreon donors that helped make the show go.

If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com/slash GodAlphin and thereby earn early access to an ad-free version of every episode.

You can also help a ton by leaving a five-star review and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms.

And if you enjoyed this show, be sure to check out our sibling shows, The Skating Atheist, Citation Needed, DD Minus, and The Skeptic, available wherever podcasts live.

If you have questions, comments, or send them masks suggestions, you can get them on GodOffleMovesgmail.com.

Tim Robertson takes care of our social media.

Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slapnick of Viva Drafts on Mars.

All the other music was written and performed by our audio engineer, Morton Clark, and was usable for permission.

Thanks again for giving us a trink of your life this week.

For Heathenray, Nela, Bosnik, I'm New Lucius, promised to work hard to earn another chunk next week.

Until then, we'll leave you with the breakfast club close.

The restaurant failed right away.

Jesus didn't die for those aliens' salvations.

They can get fucked.

Isaac never picked up his last paycheck at JPL, and also his parents clearly never loved him because nobody seemed to notice that he up and left his entire life.

Everyone was really nervous when they asked the aliens if they've heard of Muhammad, but because white people wrote the movie, don't worry, they hadn't.

Who are we here?

So you're the old, Noah, you're the old guy, and we're the young people.

Oh, okay.

All right.

So am I the girl?

Yeah.

God.

Who could be Zed.

Or Heath could be the girl.

Heath could be the girl.

You're the Zed dynamically.

I'm the girl dynamically, just for everyone's

pleasure at home.

The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle in a Thunderstorm LLC, copyright 2024.

All rights reserved.

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