Danielle and Millie discuss I LOVE YOU TO DEATH (1990) and RIVER'S EDGE (1986), sexual awakenings, appreciation for nunchakus, and how sometimes it just ain't that deep.
To see a full ISWYD movie list, check out our Letterboxd here: https://letterboxd.com/isawwhatyoudid/films/diary/
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of I Saw What You Did.
My name is Millie to Jericho.
I'm Daniel Henderson.
Hey and uh hey, we're doing another podcast about movies.
Danielle, what's up?
Not much is up? Yeah, I feel like I don't have much to report.
I had a.
Journey to find coffee on Sunday morning, which was I only mentioned because it's like it was shockingly it took a shockingly terrific amount of time for me to get a cup of coffee on Sunday morning.
Okay, well do this for me because I always feel like I can visualize where you're at, right, But you say you're like an hour from New York City, so you're but you're in a very rural area.
Right, yes, very rural. Okay, So is there there have to be coffee shops though, right? Or are there or not? I could be wrong?
Yeah, Okay, Well this is the thing, Like, there's there's if you want your chain coffee, You've got dunkin Donuts in my town. But there are lots of like several you know, several small small owned businesses you know, in the downtown main street area. One of those is completely off limits because the owner was at the insurrection and like possibly took part in it.
Oh so I don't go there.
God, yeah, okay, understood.
So my option is then limited to three places, Dunkin Donuts and two local. One is a restaurant that serves coffee. One is a coffee shop that serves like dessert. It's Sunday, and again, all of us would be solved if I had a kitchen and could make my own fucking coffee in my house. Right I cannot do that right now, So I have to go out for coffee. So it's Sunday. I figure I'm gonna get a nice coffee. It was a beautiful day, could not be more gorgeous. And I drive to dunkin Donuts. I'm like, you know what, that's going to hit the spot. I want a dunkin Donuts iced coffee, milk and sugar. It's gonna be like my treat for the whole day.
Yeah.
When I tell you that dunkin Donuts was closed, and this is like eleven o'clock on a Sunday morning, they were so closed that they had signs up that were like we're hiring, but not until next week. He could say, you were a fully running, years long operation that just closed for a week for no reason.
And I didn't know that. I don't know if they were cleaning.
I don't know if they were reorgan I have no idea what they were doing while they were closed. But they were just closed and I could not recover. Let me just say that.
Okay, I have to admit something to you right now. I'm not saying that this is the reason why they were closed. But I used to work at Dunkin Donuts. I don't know if I told you that. No, that was my very first job ever when I was fifteen. It was literally like the weekend after I turned fifteen. My dad was like, all right, you ready to go start applying for jobs. I was like, damn, I just fucking turned fifteen, Okay, So we drove around my town. I probably like within the twenty minutes of us leaving the house, I ended up with an application at Dunkin Donuts. I was hired like two hours later, And the next weekend I started working at Duncan Donuts. So I've effectively been employed like a week after, you know, I turned fifteen or whatever.
So holy shit.
When I was working at Duncan Donuts. I worked myself up to the manager.
I was a key holder. I was a key holder. I don't know if it was a manager, but I definitely owned keys. That's still a lot of respont damn.
It is a responsibility, yes, and I uh normally took it pretty seriously. But uh, there was a couple times where I was working with my friend Mikey and we were like, hey, what do you say we closed down the restaurant, go to the mall, Millie and we did that, Like, yeah, we did it a couple times.
Ah ah.
And it was literally like a Sunday at eleven thirty or two pm.
It was like in the middle of the day.
To be fair, you were teenagery. What do I always say? What do I always say? You leave a teenager in charge? You get what you get exactly.
Yeah.
It in retrospect, it's totally not whoever hired me shouldn't have hired me in my fifteen year old friends obviously, But I want to offer that as a possible explanation as to why the fucking Duncan Donuts was closed at a very crucial moment of a Sunday where people need coffee I.
Would accept that, except it was literally closed for a week.
Oh okay, a week straight. And I'm like, unless.
They fucked off for the whole week, which is possible.
A somebody really had a Ferris Bueller's day off. They had like a Ferris Bueller's week off. They were like, fuck it, we're not open this place. And they took every single employee with them.
Yes, like they were rolling so deep in Duncan Donuts money that they took every employee with them on their rum springer, which.
I would love. I would love to hear that story.
Yes, yes, But there's so I'm like, all right, no Dunkin Donuts here, There's a Dunkin Donuts six miles away in the next town over, okay, because that's what I was craving for that day. I'm like, I'm going to get that particular kind of ice coffee. Go over to the next town. Guess what is also closed for no fucking reason.
Two Duncan Donuts closed. What dose Dunkin Donuts closed?
And then I was like, well, I could drive to the big town, which is thirty minutes away, where like the Target and all that shit is. But I'm not gonna do that at this point, I cannot drive thirty minutes without coffee, like I can't.
I'm I'm malfunctioning at this point.
So I decide to go back to town, towards my town and I'm like, you know what, I'm not gonna get dunkin Donuts today, and it's fine. I'm going to get a regular coffee from my little local place. Can't go to the Insurrection place, wow. So I go to the rest. I looked to the restaurant that I like. It's you know, I don't want to sit down and eat, but I always love their coffee. I can go grab it and go. I go in, or I try to go in and there is no parking anywhere because it's Sunday. So it's the Farmer's market in the parking lot. That is where they put the Farmer's market in the town parking lot off of Main Street, and every other space is taken because people are driving up here in droves to pick fucking apples.
Oh no, the apple pickers.
The streets are teeming with families and double wide strollers and fucking nanas and like people I've never seen before in my fucking life. And I was like Oh my god, it fucking hit me like I live in a tourist town. I cannot leave my house or enjoy my own town on the weekends anymore.
That's not how it works anymore.
So I couldn't stop at the two spots in town, and I couldn't stop at the Insurrection Place, and I refuse to go to Burger King for coffee.
True, don't do that.
Desperation not that deep.
So then I thought, all right, I'm gonna drive out towards town the I'm gonna drive out of town the other way, and I'm gonna hit up my favorite farm stand. Farm stand will have me covered. I try to go to the farm stand. And if you thought town was Mayhem, it was like Death Race five that Like it was like I can't even tell you how many fights I saw just driving by the parking lot, like people just yelling about like I was going to park and then there's like kids throwing pumpkins in the air and like fucking apples whizzen by, like it was chaos. And I was like, Nope, not doing that. Can't go to the farm stand for coffee. When I tell you that, I had to drive to New Jersey for coffee on Sunday morning. It sounds incredibly dramatic, but I real live right. I live right on the New Jersey border, so it's truly only fifteen minutes away. Yeah, but I enjoy saying I had to drive to New Jersey for coffee.
I mean, I mean, first of all, that story gave me anxiety many times. Okay, like after the second Dunkin Donuts being closed, I was like, oh shit, like strap the fucking this is gonna be a fucking trial.
I'm nervous for her.
Yeah, But then you add all of the fucking the fall merriment aspects of it, being like, oh I can't access this essential good that I need to start my day. Yes, because of like fall fucking festival antics. Yeah, I'm like, oh my god, this kid, this is potentially infesting everywhere you live, Like it could be thirty miles north, thirty miles south in every direction where you're not gonna find a place to get coffee.
I'm getting I was getting roll nervous. Yeah.
I now have to basically on Friday nights, get large iced coffees without ice for the weekend because I cannot leave my house on the weekends.
I totally forgot.
When I lived here and I was growing up here, it wasn't as bad as it is now, but we had some of this. Like I was like, all right, apple picking seasons just sucks. Get out of town when you can, like whatever. But now that I am an adult who has like errands to run, yeah, I can't with these apple folks. I can't with the apple folks. CA I can't do it. Go to a grocery store. Just go to shop, right, They've got bags of fresh apples there from the orchard down the road.
Like, just go to shopright.
I have to be able to like get medicine if I need it instead of going through the throngs of you and all your children and your merriment and looking at the leaves and the trees. I'm just I'm a grouchy, scroogy bitch all throughout the fall. And I know I'm going to be this way because I cannot get simple, basic life sustaining coffee because everyone wants to come up here and look at a goddamn tree.
Like, here's what I'll say about this type of stuff.
I'm not gonna lie.
When I see my own nephews at a fucking pumpkin farm. I'm like, oh my god, this is the cutest thing in the world. Okay, beyond that, I'm like, y'all can keep that shit right, because it's like, if it doesn't involve my blood relatives, then I kind of don't care about a pumpkin farm slash apple orchard slash fall festival.
Yeah, because you're right, it does create a lot of chaos for people. And really, it's like.
Most people go because they want to take fucking pictures for Instagram. But does anybody really be like, oh my god, these apples are so incredible.
You can only get them at this one.
Place that has fucking head cut out boards where you can have your children put their heads in the fucking farmer's tractor or whatever.
I guarantee those apples are rotting on somebody's table right now, And I couldn't get coffee so you could go get those apples that are rotting in your goddamn fruit bowl right now.
Nobody's like I need that apple from that one place an hour from here, And they should treat this shit like they do at Christmas.
You line up, you take your fucking picture, you get in your car, and you go home.
Yes, it should definitely be like a fucking Christmas story scenario where there's like grumpy elves, like grumpy scarecrows that are like, all right, who's next, get the kid on the pumpkin, let's go.
Sign me the fuck. I'll be the grumpiest elf of all time. I'd be like, you don't even like pumpkins. This kid doesn't even get him out of here. Like I'd be like a bouncer, the bouncer at the pumpkin patch.
A bouncer at a pumpkin patch.
I good bye, but yeah, I'm totally grouchy. And I'm like, oh, I understand why people want to come here.
It's beautiful.
That's why I bought a fucking house and moved here.
Yeah, what the fuck dude.
Well, and that's the thing about tourist towns. Full time residents are like, fuck this shit. Like we're just trying to like do our fucking errands, right, and now we got all this other shit to contend with. And honestly, your situation was trying to find a coffee ooh.
It was. It was a very precarious situation. I did have to drive to another state to get coffee. I cannot wait for my fucking kitchen to be done. And now I know that I have to plan on being housebound and shut in every weekend until people get this apple shit out of their system. And it's not even like it used to be, where like, oh, apples are only available this time of year. No, we're monsters. We made everything available all year round, all the time. Now you can get a fucking lime in the middle of January. You can get a pineapple in in April, like nothing matters anymore. You have apples all year round. I'm livid.
Well, yeah, I mean, I gotta tell you, like, you need a plan B Like I'm thinking, dude, is it Wait, does your refrigerator work?
Is your refrigerator running?
My refrigerator is running, okay, And I'm getting ice coffee from the local place without ice, and I'm gonna get two big ones and just put them in my fridge.
Yeah, every Friday.
I was gonna say, in a pinch, like I think a lot of gas stations now sell like gross like pre made iced coffee jugs that you know you can put in your refrigerator. You'd have to probably dilute it with a lot of water. It's not great, but in a pinch. How dare you?
I know?
How dare you?
I know?
I'm just saying, Hey, emergency situation.
I have one single more joy in my life on a day to day basis, and it's fucking coffee. I refuse to treat my guts to gas stations.
Swill you don't want.
Pre creamed vanilla hazelnut ice coffee mixes?
Wait, make my carrot pukes down. Listen, you're talking to a no bigger coffee stop.
That's one of the things that I think bonds us together is the fact that we are fucking into coffee big time, and we're snobs about it.
That's what I love about you.
I love it. I fucking love it.
If it pays me to have suggested that, however, trade this as if it was a natural disaster. The natural disaster is people's fucking families.
And their Instagram accounts and prepare you know you're being rational, and I appreciate it. I shouldn't have been so hasty to turn down your gas station option, but I get it. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it, but I appreciate how rational you are. I did drive by a gas station that was like any size coffee ninety nine cents, and I just like spit out the window, like I would rather drive to another fucking state to get coffee.
I'm asking you.
This question, legit, what is the worst coffee you've ever had?
Do you remember?
Hm?
I do? Yeah, I do.
And it has to be cross country? Okay, what's that big? It's like a huge the Ta centers.
Oh yeah, the travel I know exactly what you're talking about. They have them in Florida.
Yep. When I was driving out to All THEA and just thought, i'll drive through the night, I'll save some time, I'll drink some coffee. And I got a coffee from the Ta rest stop place, and I basically would have been better off, just like renting a toilet.
Yeah, that shit ran through me.
So it was so bitter to taste. I could not put enough milk or sugar in it. Too bitter and just genuinely ran through me. I was like this twenty something, you're like early twenties, young woman on her own in the dark at like two am, driving looking for a bathroom and being like, if I stop, I'll get murdered. But if I don't stop, I'm shitting my pants in my car. So the worst cup of coffee for taste, but also for the situation to put me in.
Yeah, oh yeah, that sounds terrible. What about you.
I can remember it like it was fucking yesterday, man, Like I was in Ashville, North Carolina with my two friends. I was in my twenties. We decided to go up to Ashville and just kind of like go hiking and do some shit. And we stayed at this extremely cheap motel. It wasn't like it wasn't like a Laura Palmer situation, but it was, you know, it was.
It was sort of clean.
It was like a little bit better than you know, a Twin Peaks motel. But it's again sounds a little bit like your situation where it was like a Sunday, it was pasted a certain time, so nothing is open and everything is like super far away, and so I was like, well, I really want some coffee. I guess I'm gonna have to make the coffee that's in the motel room.
Oh and Lord have mercy.
I was like, that thing has probably been sitting there since nineteen seventy six.
I try to put that powdered creamer in.
It comes with the napkin and the stir in that plastic wrap thing, you know what I mean.
Brutal and single use plastic no thing.
Oh yes, it was, and I barely it was barely enough.
I mean I would say it was probably eight ounces.
It didn't give me much, and I was like, I don't even know if I could drink this.
Like I'm desperate for coffee.
I'm in my twenties, so I have no taste, but I'm like, even now, I don't think it was. It was awful, and I'll remember like always because it was truly the grossest cup of coffee I've ever had.
That is oh god.
Yeah, I could feel so many parts of that story in my body as you were saying, yes.
Well, hopefully you will not have to deal with something like that.
Now you know you have to be prepared. Now you know the.
Orchards are on fire, oh my gosh, and got you gotta come up with a plan. B.
So the orchards are too hot, and it's I'm gonna get myself through orchard season. But then I know that fucking Christmas is right around the corner, and that shit doesn't need any better because people are all like.
Oh my god, look at the little church with the lights. It's I live in. It's too quaint where I live. It's too quaint.
Yes, we need to dial down the quaint factor by a lot so that I can move around.
Yeah, I'm wiley. I like to bob and weave.
I'm shifty, and I can't be shifty here because everyone wants to stop and talk about the fucking sign post and.
I can't help it. I'm like, I don't want to do this.
You're gonna have to start spreading rumors that like there's ghosts or some shit, or like there's like hauntings or oh yeah you know which activity or heavy metal kids like burden.
Fucking bonfires or something. This is gonna be some sleepy hollow shit. It's gonna be some sleepy hollow level ghost stories. Or I don't come here.
But hey know in those assholes they will be like, hell, yeah, let's go bring it.
I love a ghost.
Yeah, more people will come for the ghost stories. They'll be like I can eat an apple and see a ghost. Fucking great weekend.
Oh my god. I have to get over it.
I won't.
You cannot win. It's my own fault. I did it to myself. It's my own fault.
Here we are.
But you know what I loved about this weekend, aside from not being able to get any coffee on Sunday until almost one o'clock in the afternoon, I loved the movies we watched this week for this episode.
Oh my god, I did too. I have to.
Say, just for the record, I'm starting to get self conscious about all of the Well, I'll let you say that the theme first, and then I'll tell my story.
What's our theme this week?
Oh my god, it gives me such great pleasure to tell you all. The theme for this week is hoarty for None John Wick Keanu Reeves.
See.
That's so, That's what I want to say.
I'm starting to get a little self conscious about the level the amount of horny material we have on the show because I am not a horny person in real life, like I will. I do not want to date. I don't want any of this shit, and I know horny this doesn't always relate to relationships, but I'm just just putting it out there. I'm starting to get self conscious about the amount of horny material because I can see it now in our comments. Someone's gonna say, oh, I thought this theme was, you know, crime crimes against women that are unfounded, and we're gonna be like, no, it's horny. And they're gonna be like, you guys are fucking dumb. We just guessed like some academic, like dissertation level theme and you're like, no, it's horny again.
I know.
It always pays me with somebody like either on Instagram or Twitter is like really thinking about it. They're like, oh my god, I'm like really really like trying to connect the dots, and they come up with this like incredible you know, through line between the two movies, and it's something that like is really interesting and complex.
And then it's like, not, ain't that deep, Like when the two of us are like that deep, Like you're like, oh God, Like, it pays me to say that it ain't that deep. Sometimes. Oh no.
But here's the thing I will say at our defense. Okay, a lot of people think horniness can't exist with that great art. Obviously we prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt with our bracket from earlier this year. But I argue that horniness is inherent to cinema. That's what I say, I say that the screen and watching things on the screen, Like, you can't sit in a movie theater and watch Keanu Reeves be like twenty feet tall and not feel a little something. I don't care who you are. Yeah, this is true, and that is what the cinema does. It causes us to desire things.
Okay, you know what, I'm fine to blame it on cinema. I'm good with that.
I'm back.
Yes, I'm ready to He's made us horny. It's not our fault.
I'm sitting here in my non horny life. And then I have to do homework for this podcast, and all of a sudden, I'm like, oh oops, haha, it's the movies.
They do it to us.
But I also, I'm really excited about how dirt baggy Keanu Reeves.
Is in both of these films.
Oh my god, this is what I love. This is like what I was really interested in this week. Because Okay, we're saying it's non john Wick because that's an inside joke obviously between Danielle and I, because we bring up john Wick like every fucking week. The john Wick trilogy is essentially pornography to the both of.
Us, and your mom, like, we talk about it a lot.
Okay, and we talk about Keanu Reeves a lot. I think you know this about us. So we were like, okay, let's talk about Kanu Reeves, but we're not allowed to talk about John Wick. And then we both came to the table with two movies where he's basically the same dude, ah good, Like, he's definitely on the dirt bag scale on both movies.
There we was so he has done so many movies, we had so much to pick from, and we both were like, how about this movie where he's as gross as possible?
Well, I have to say I know you're going first this week. Your movie brought me so much fucking joy that I just I don't even know where to put these feelings because I don't think i've seen it since it came out, which meant that when I did see it, I was really young. I was probably about ten or eleven, and it brought back so many feelings of like my parents and being Italian and like all this shit.
I mean, it's like, I loved.
Your movie so much and I just cannot wait to hear about it from you.
I just cannot Well, let's not wait let's get into it because my movie for this week for the theme of Horny four, non John Wick Keanu Reeves is released in nineteen ninety was directed by Lawrence Casten, was written by John Costmeyer, and it's I Love You to.
Death Divorce never first good for you to die, Rosalie.
Oh my god, this movie.
I swear I love that you picked it. I love that you picked it.
I have such fond memories of this movie being just as bonkers as it actually is. Yeah, first and foremost, you're gonna have to suspend disbelief a little bit because Kevin Klein is playing a very Italian man named Joey Boca.
Yes, Kevin Klein is that good?
He can play Cole Porter and Joey Boca.
Yeah. I was like, oh, he is got that a talent accent, which is I gotta say, It's very interesting.
Sometimes but very interesting.
I want to say this for the record too, just like right off the back, because I knew we were going to talk about him as an Italian guy in this movie. Honestly, I don't know if anybody out there is a fan of like sixties Italian film, Like there is a film from the early sixties called Mafioso, and it's this Italian comedy and it was directed by this Italian filmmaker named Alberto Latuada. And Alberto Sorti, who's the actor that is in that movie, looks exactly like Kevin Klein and.
I Love You to Death, or I should say Kevin Klein and I.
Love You to Death looks exactly like Alberto Sorti in Mafioso. And it's also a comedy about families and about you know, the mafia or whatever. And so there's a moment where I thought, I wonder if this is what he's channeling as he's channeling this like sixties Italian.
Comedic nic or whatever.
And the minute I made that connection, I was like, this is so awesome.
I love it.
Even if it's not intentional, the fact that he looks exactly like him is great.
I absolutely love that connection, and I would not put it past someone as studied as Kevin Klein. Yes to do that, Yes, I really, and I'm saying that with all seriousness.
The man is a gem.
I had my sexual awakening watching this movie when he was tossing pizza in the beginning.
He is in my heart forever.
They filmed some scenes of In and Out, another movie that he was in with Joan Cusack and a bunch of other people. They filmed some scenes at a church in my town when I was in high school, and I knew even then, like, I can't get anywhere near this man.
I'm too young to go to jail for the rest of my life.
You had your sexual awakening to Kevin Kline as an Italian guy flipping pizzas.
Possibly this movie or The January Man, but he was definitely involved.
Let's just say that.
I saw him in one of those films and I was like.
Yes, men are okay.
Wow, I love it. I love to hear it.
So this film, I'll give you my little one sentence synopsis before we get into the plot and talking about this film. So this is a movie based on a true story of a woman who, after catching her philandering husband in the act, commits herself to trying to kill him. And it takes nearly five times. Just again, run through this incredible cast. Yes, Kevin Klein's playing Joey. Tracy Ullman plays Rosalie, his wife. Joan Plowwright plays Mama Naja, her mother. Joan Plowwright is a dream of vision, stunning, hilarious, river.
Phoenix, rest in Peace.
King plays Devo, who is an employee of the pizza shop that Joey owns. William Hurt and Keanu Reeves play Harlan and Marlin, two guys who are hired to kill Joey. God. And when I tell you that William Hurt Academy Award winning actor William Hurt, children of a Lesser God, William Hurt has never been better, I am not exaggerating, has never been big chill.
William Hurt has never been better.
Than he was as Harlan and I Love you to death.
So this film is really interested in the beginning, in setting up the comic tragedy that is about to follow. So for a long time you see Joey's life, like you see the pizza place where his kids come after school, and they sit at the counter and they eat lunch, and you know, have a sight sent a coke and there's a there's pictures on the wall that made me laugh instantly. I was laughing from the minute this fucking movie started. You've got a picture of JFK, the Pope, Jesus and Mary and Frank Sinatra. Yes, just like the Holy there's a Holy Trinity plus Sinatra. But I love it, and you know, and Rosalie works there, and Divo is like, this really kind of hippie, chill guy, but his brother knows a bunch of people who have been imprisoned, and it's just kind of a little family, family business. And Divo also really loves Rosalie, like he's into her, but she loves she loves Joey, and he asks her one day they're sitting down and he's like, what would you do if you found out he was cheating on you? Because he knows he's seen this guy in action. And she says, I'd kill myself and if that didn't work, I'd kill him. So going back for a moment to the real life story of this movie, the real life couple were named Tony and Francis Toto and they lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and this is where the movie takes place. So yes, so it's like a Pennsylvania East Coast family. At the time of the article I read in the Chicago Tribune in nineteen ninety, when the movie came out, they were still married and they'd been married for twenty four years. They had four kids two grandchildren. But she, the real life woman Francis went to jail. She had to plead guilty to two felonies and went to prison for four years. And this article, again, this is a direct quote from the Chicago Tribune. Tony sold the pizza restaurant they owned and found a forty hour a week job as a printer at a substantial cut in income so he could spend more time with the children while she was away. They were reunited when she was released from prison two years ago.
End quote.
So she really went to prison, He really waited for her, she really came out and they really stayed together.
Wow, that is insane.
Yeah, so that is the real life couple behind this film. But what happens it's so unbelievable that it makes it funnier somehow. So essentially you get this really cute scene of Kevin Klein dancing with his real life wife Phoebe Kate's and Mama and Naja is like at home soldering because she can fix anything. And Rosalie has gone to this library and seen Joey cheating, so she comes home and she's upset and Mama Naja, Mama Na just trying to like console her, but you know, she takes a bunch of Bayar aspirin and tries to kill herself.
That doesn't work, so.
She sets out.
She goes forward with her plan of trying to kill him, and her mother is part of the plot to kill this man.
Oh god, I have to say so this this film was actually really heartwarming in so many ways for me, even though I mean it's a black comedy obviously, and there's attempted murder happening, But the relationship between Rosalie and her mother, I was like, literally like this is the best mother daughter relationship I've ever seen on screen. Part of me is like, you know what, I think if I was in this situation, my mom would pull some shit like this. My own mother, I think, would actually be like, yeah, let's fucking.
Get this guy who broke your heart.
You know that moment of like where the mother's like, hell, yeah, let's go. I got you know, I don't want to fix shit. I'm like, I'm a guyver type and I can really get this done for you.
Was like, oh my god. It made me miss my mom. Like I was like, oh, I missed my mom.
The mom starts singing, I got five on it.
Ah so good, it's so good.
Your mom would totally do.
I can see your mom like soldering together a car engine and then like taking a bat and trying to kill someone. And that is my highest compliment, I mean met with all of the complimentary juice I can muster.
She's got the prison tattoo.
She might as well, you're gonna be uninvited from Christmas if we keep talking about.
Oh good, But so she does. So they try. They try to kill him five times.
So the first time, Mom and Naja hires someone one of her friend's grandsons to swing a bat, like, try to hit him with a bat, and he's wearing a Lincoln mask and it's kind of funny because the guy messes up, and when Joey comes inside, she's like, what did he look like?
And he's like, he looked like a blinking coming.
Up to bat.
Then Joey gets a gun for his own protection that ends up backfiring. The second time they try to kill him, Mama Naja basically fucks with his car, tries to blow up his car. Doesn't work, thankfully because Rosalie's in the car with him. The third time, Rosalie decides to spike the tomato sauce that she's making for dinner with two bottles of sleeping pills.
Yeah, just in the.
Tomato sauce, melt him in there. He gets tired, he doesn't die. He gets back on his feet when he like after he takes a dump and he's like, I'm good to go, and she's like he is inhuman, Like I don't understand.
How is this possible? I'm not how is this possible?
And the kids are away for the weekend, like she thought enough ahead, but she's basically has to give him like four bowls of pasta and then she calls Divo and she's like, Divo, I need you to shoot him because he won't he won't die.
So Divo comes over.
And he's like this is possibly my favorite.
River Phoenix scene in this movie, where he's like, I have to get myself together, give me a minute, and he like closes the door and goes into the den.
And he's like, all right, get your shit together, and then he comes back.
That's all it takes, like all right, get your shit together, get your shit together, and he comes back out, but Divo does. Divo shoots him in the head, and he's still alive. He's still walking around. He's still saying like, I'm sleepy, I've got a virus. I don't know what happened to me. So then here come the warm jets, Here comes my favorite bar.
Oh my gosh.
So Divo decides to hire Harlan and Marlin to kill Joey. So he goes down to this bar again, William Hurt and Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves look is so feral in this film.
But dare I say we are horny?
Four? Four?
Of course I'm terrible taste. This is noted.
I love.
I love a guy that has like his the sides of his head shaved like indiscriminately.
Just it looked like it looked like that, remember that mister bucket toy, or like what was the the water wiggle? It looks like a water wiggle was holding onto a razor. That was That's how I can how it described that haircut. Ah, well, he just laid down on the grass under a fucking water wiggle and let that razor go to town. But he's so funny because they're basically playing like these incredibly drugged out, like really really really drugged out dudes who are very slow moving. They take a taxi to the scene of the crime. They jump at the slightest provocation. Everything freaks them out. They are the one of the greatest tag team do in the in the nineties.
For sure. For this movie alone.
Even though I know that River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves have done more movies together, this is my favorite pairing.
Oh my gosh, totally. And they have such different energies.
I mean, it's like the thing where they're like, you know, obviously they're somehow connected. I mean, he, you know, Devo knows these two fucking chuckle heads. But the fact that they're both in the same movie and they're both kind of like like, Keanu is definitely more of like he's definitely a groder, as I would call them. I don't know if anybody listen to the heavy Metal episode, but he was like a classic groter, and uh, River Phoenix was more of like kind of a hippie spiritual guy.
It was so great, Oh god, it's beautiful. And of course they all get caught. Of course they all get caught because as soon as they shoot him again, but Harlan and Marlon don't know what side of the body the heart is on. Oh my god, So they shoot him in the wrong They shoot him in the wrong side.
The part where they try to figure it out is so good.
Is so good God, And they shoot him on the wrong side and he just comes like stumbling downstairs. And so they get paid for half the job because they didn't kill him. They just woke him up, is what River fixs. What Devo said, Oh no, it was Mama Naja. Mama Naja, is like, you just woke him up. So they get paid for half the job. But then they go to the bar and they start bragging about how they killed Joey Bocha for five thousand dollars, which is not true. None of it is true. So of course the cops come. All hell breaks loose from that point forward. But it is this movie is just so funny, and it's such a weird karmic movie because like, he gets what's coming to him, but then you also don't want him to get what's coming to him, Like this is like it's such an extreme reaction. But it's just so interesting to see see her kind of have a plan, use her mother as her partner, and.
Cry to go through with it on the screen. I think.
I don't think she used her mother in real life, but on the screen and then to just go for it like she tried it. And I love that they're still together. I love that that they worked it out. Yeah, made it through the wilderness. But this movie is just a delight. It's really a good movie to put on if you just want to laugh. There's so many parts that are so funny.
Yeah.
I truly feel like this is a type of movie that I just don't see very much anymore, and it just made me nostalgic for that, for these comedies that like this is something that we would have definitely rented at the video store. I know for a fact my dad would have loved to see it because he loves people doing imitations of Italian guys.
It's just like un he loves.
I almost called him after I watched the movie today because I was basically like, Dad, do you remember that Kevin Kleinde movie where he plays the Italian guy?
And he'd be like, oh, yeah, we gotta put that on again. Whoo. Yeah, this was a that was a classic.
The next time you go to visit, you should change his ring tone to Kevin Klined from this movie going.
Oh, Sally, Yes and rad Oh.
It just reminded me of when of the high Tracy Oleman era and when she was in movies and she was on TV all the time.
Oh so wonderful, a classic A banger.
Yes, and Keanu in this film, you know, despite the fact that he looks fucked up, still horny for right.
He's so cute, so cute, so cute.
I don't that's the man has a charm a power about him because he could not look worse.
But you know what I mean, I love that Kevin Kleine like it's coming around the back gate, kind of like yo, sneaking into you know, sneaking into your brain and your heart, like Kevin Clyde with a mustache.
Oh just took up residence in my heart, has been renting space for free since nineteen eighty nine eighty eight, like ready to go with Kevin Klein at all times.
I just love that this might have been to the movie that exploded your loins as a as a young person.
So also, I love pizza. I love pizza. What's better Kevin Kline and pizza Get out of here.
Hello, I am so glad you picked this movie. It was truly a joy to watch.
Again, I loved it. I loved being in the world. It was so cozy and wonderful and reminded me of being a kid.
It was great. Oh that's the fastest I love that. Well.
I felt similarly about yours been in a very weird way.
Reminded me of being a kid in a very weird way.
I mean, yeah, maybe a few years go by and you're like, Oh, I'm no longer hanging out with my mom and dad on a Friday night. Now I'm hanging out with like the people that smoke cigarettes in my high school.
Quite a different feeling.
But this sault shack nonetheless, As Danielle just pointed out, Oh my goodness. So my movie for the theme Horny four non Joan wick keaner Reeves is a movie that was released in nineteen eighty six. It was written by Neil jim Andez directed by Tim Hunter, and it's called River's Edge.
You don't understand a goddamn thing, do you.
Jamie is bad.
Damn it, and there's nothing that we can do to save now what happens to like.
But John is still alive. Don't you see that? All right?
So I'm gonna do the one sentence synopsis right now, go for it, am I get it out of the way. A group of high school age thrash metal stoners living in California are rocked to the core after fighting out one of their friends has murdered his girlfriend, and each have their own disturbing ways of processing it.
Solid Yep, just had to say.
It on top because everything that I just said is going to inform the rest of what I'm.
About to say. It's gonna happen.
So I will say upfront that River's Edge is a fictionalized account of an actual murder that happened in the early eighties. But I want to say I think the one of the most interesting things about River's Edge is the idea that this movie was out in a time nineteen eighty six nineteen eighty seven that was absolutely the height of the teen movie craze, like the John Hughes era. I mean, it's like you had pretty and Pink, Ferris Bueller's day off in eighty six, some kind of wonderful was in eighty seven.
I mean, I don't need to go on.
But also, weirdly enough, You also had stand By Me that came out in eighty six, which is another movie about kids who are going to look at a dead body. Weirdly enough, but even still, I will argue that stand By Me is not even as dark as River's Edge. Okay, No, I feel like River's Edge is still a really disturbing movie to me to this day, and I think part of that is because of the type of kids this movie is about, which yes, obviously you're definitely.
Not like a Molly Ringwald than her Friend's type of vibe.
Right, The kids in this movie are legit scary, very authentic. They were like the burnouts, the pill heads, like the heavy metal punk kids, and you just did not see a lot of that in this era.
Well, these kids hung out with adults, like when teens hang out with adults, I'm always freaked out, Oh my god, like that teen is is too much for me already.
They know some shit that I don't know.
Yeah, and it wasn't like even I mean, there are some characters in the John Hughes universe that are that type, you know, like the kind of like you know, heavy metal guy or you know, like I think of you know, Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller or some of the kids and some kind of wonderful that is not even them.
Like, these kids go way harder than any of those characters.
Even so, like I said, this film takes place in California. It's about a group of high school kids. There's a kid named Matt who is played by Arbois Keanu Reeves. His younger brother Tim, who's played by Joshua John Miller.
Tim who was also in Teen Witch.
Yes, he's the one that says you're a dog, Louise a dog.
He was in the Halloween franchise. I mean, Joshua John Miller is a king. He's a cult lady king. We love him. You got Matt's friend Lane, who was played by Crispin Glover.
Definitely more about him in just a moment. There's not enough tape, definitely not.
We don't even have enough time to cover the full scope of Lane in this film. Then you've got the two girls that hang out with the guys. So there's Clarissa who's played by Ione Sky, Maggie who is played by Roxanna Zol And finally you have Samson John Samson who is played by Daniel Roebuck and he is the friend that has committed the murder of his girlfriend. Okay, and by large, the actors who are in this movie were pretty much unknown at the time or we're just starting their careers. I mean, Crispin Glover would probably have been the most famous one. He had just been in Back to the Future like a year or two prior. Is probably the most famous one out of the kids. Really, but definitely an early Keana Roll for sure. Definitely an early Ione sky Roll. And you know, I think that's part of why this movie seems pretty authentic, is because you just have all these new faces and they seem to be kind of of age.
You know, you don't have like forty year olds playing high school students.
You have like young people playing these burnouts, and they seem very authentic. Yeah, But essentially what happens is that at the beginning of River's Edge, Samson is standing next to the dead body of his girlfriend near the river in this town that they live in. It's actually Tim, the younger brother of Matt, who sees it all first. And I think Tim is, like, his character is really interesting in this movie because he sees a lot of things that nobody else is seeing because he's younger. I mean, I would say he's probably like in middle school, right, And he's not friends with his brother and his crew, although he would love to be. He just kind of follows them around, and so a lot of like what we end up viewing while watching the movie is kind of through him, through his kind of observations, right. But eventually everyone figures out that Samson has killed his girlfriend and Lane, who, like I said, he kind of fancies himself the leader of the crew. I guess he's kind of the first one on the ground assessing the situation. But I got to talk about Crisp and Glover in this movie because he is the character I think that everyone talks about when they.
See River's Edge, right, right, because he's so over the top.
Yes, and from what I've read about the movie, like he essentially came to the audition with this whole vibe and they were like, Okay, like, I guess you're in this movie because you're so extremely weird. But like, first of all, there's the accent, like it's like this very extreme, like Calum Stoner thing, which is so outrageous.
But for me, it's the fucking wig.
Okay, thank Lord, Like, thank you for mentioning the wig.
I swear to God every time I see this movie, I'm like, who let him wear that wig?
Oh?
My?
Like, did he come to set with that? And did he pull it off of a mannequin in a river before he did? Dude?
There's this moment in the movie where his he wears this like mit cap right that's like on top of the wig, And there's this moment where he's in a scuffle and the cap comes off and you could really see how jacked up this wig is.
And I'm like, what the fuck this wig is insane?
The bangs start from like back in the middle of his head.
Ah, it is so outrageous, And I mean, when it comes down to it, like we all know Crispin is one of LA's finest professional weirdos, but this whole performance truly underscores it. It's just like here it is in plain view. Here's here's your boy, Crispin Glover in this crazy ass wig.
Okay, And I.
Will say this is all very appropriate for what happens next because Lane essentially consults the town drug dealer about the situation with his friend Samson. As you do right. The drug dealer is named Beck and is played by another Hollywood wild man, Dennis Hopper, And honestly, I'll just say this, Dennis Hopper playing both Frank Booth in Blue Velvet and Bech in River's Edge around the same fucking time absolutely influenced my perception of him when I was younger, which is that I was terrified of.
Dennis Hopper, same, same, same, across the board.
I swear like I had to go back as an adult and see Rebel without a Cause and like Night Tide to just remember that he was actually a professional actor.
I couldn't believe it when I saw him in Rebel Ladlac. I watched it with my grandma one weekend, and I'm like, that cannot be the same guy that I saw last weekend dancing around with a blow up doll.
Yes, Like, we have to remember that he was like a legit theatrical trained actor and not like some weirdo that was hired off of Hollywood Boulevard to be in a bunch of eighties movies like you just based off of River's Edge and Blue Velvet. I was terrified of him, terrified but completely. But Peck is actually a perfect person to consult because he is a drug dealer, he owns a gun, and he also murdered his girlfriend once and as Danielle said, now he shacks up with a blow up doll named Ellie. And to me, it's this moment where I'm like, this is outrageous. But also there was always a weird older person in town like this, like somebody who's like getting beer or weed for kids, Like I remember a guy like this in my town.
I'm sure you do. I'm sure everybody does, right.
Absolutely, And just a terrifying component to all this because all these kids are definitely like, you know, interacting with him, and he seems very dangerous, but you know, they're all freaked out about what Samson did, even as they're all going to see the body of their friends.
I mean, this woman who died is their friend.
Well That's what I find really interesting is at one point, Clarissa ione Skuy's character says, what makes John more important than Jamie? Wasn't she our friend too? And Lane keeps comparing it to being in a movie where he's like, you know, it's exciting and you know interesting, and it's just such a disconnect to what's actually happening in reality and how Jamie in her death is being treated. And it's really that's one of the things that's turning everyone on their head a little bit, is they don't know how to respond, seemingly because they knew both parties involved.
Yeah, and and that there's a lot to this too, because you're right about lame. It's almost like he dissociates from it by saying, like, oh, I feel like Chuck Norris. There's a line where he says, oh, I feel like Chuck Norris right now, which is that he's like that this isn't happening in real life, that he's just like participating in like a drama that's not actually happening or something. And there's a moment where I do think that young people don't have the tools to deal with stressful situations. You know, yes, and you know this is I'm not saying that that is exactly what is happening, both you know, in the movie and perhaps in the real crime that it's based off of.
But that's what makes the.
Movie dark certainly, is this that these kids, kids are kind of like numb to the situation and that like I said, nobody really has the emotional tools to handle it, and they just really get high and drink and have sex to sort of avoid everything, right exactly.
Yeah, there's a really deep sadness in them that just permeates this this whole movie, and it's sadness that was there before the murder. You know, it's like they don't have the tools to communicate their feelings and they don't have the tools to deal with the violence in their life, which is plentiful.
There's so much violence in their lives. Yeah, I mean both like at home.
I mean I think with you know, the Matt and Tim character, like his mom is works at night and she kind of has this boyfriend that's sort of in and out, and so everybody seems to kind of have, you know, these fairly fucked up home lives. And obviously they do a lot of drugs, they do a lot of drinking. But then also it's just sort of like, yeah, just being in high school and sort of being like, well, we don't want to snitch on our friend, but then also he killed somebody that we were friends with, and we don't know what to do.
We feel kind of like, you know, stuck with our feelings.
And you know, I think honestly, at this point in culture, like I don't know if we necessarily saw a movie like this. I mean, we have certainly seen dark. There have always been dark teen films, and there was a lot in the eighties, but like River's Edge somehow like really stuck out to me as a movie that was just very disturbingly about kids. And yeah, of course later like in the nineties, you had really dark teen films like kids and you know, like the Gregor Rocky movies and stuff. But honestly, River's Edge is very grim. It's very much of a time. You know, I would be I would be lying if I said that these kids didn't remind me of people that I knew from high school a little bit, right, That's the plane ass truth. I'm like, oh, I remember guys. I mean maybe not Lane, no, but I certainly remember guys like Matt.
Actually we we had a Leane now that imber we did have a Leene.
Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
No, no, go ahead, no, no, that's all I'm just I was like, yeah, no, no, no Lane that I'm like, no, wait, we did have a Leene.
Yeah.
I feel like I feel like there.
Was probably a Lane too.
Maybe not, maybe without the crazy wig and the crazy accent, but there was definitely kind of like the leader of the Freaks type of person. Right. Yeah, But you know, the I keep going back to the Joshua John Miller character because that's the the character that really actually disturbs through the most, because he's like in middle school and there are moments of the of the movie where he's basically like, oh man, I need a joint somebody. You know, he breaks him and his friend break in effect's house, which is terrifying.
Like okay, but the setup to that scene was fucking hilariou is. He sneaks over to this kid's house, knocks on his window, and says, go get your nunchucks and your dad's car, which to me is a marriage proposal. Go get your nunchucks in your dad's car. We're gonna cost some trouble be Like, yes, I am. There.
Have we ever talked about kids in the eighties that were into the martial arts and how that.
Was such a thing. We haven't, and we need to.
We need to dedicate entire episode to it.
Like a kid with nunchucks is the coolest kid on the block as far as I'm concerned.
To this date.
If I see a kid with nunchucks, I'm like, you canna have my car?
I'll just throw the keys at him. You're working on another level.
But all in all, I mean, when it comes down to it, Keanu in this film, okay, pretty much the same look as I Love You to Death.
I mean, maybe not the crazy shaved head, but like, he's.
Definitely the guy wearing a hoodie underneath a flannel you know what I mean, over a over a tia. You know, it wouldn't be that long after that he would appear as you know, Ted Theodore Logan in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. And I just felt like, wow, okay, is this the origin story for all of these subsequent roles that he was in.
It's like, if you need a stoner, yes, here's your man. And we love him for that.
We love him for that absolutely. I mean, is he a podhead in this movie?
Yes?
Will this character also go to a funeral for a doll without missing a beat?
Also? Yes?
Oh my god, he is a total sweetheart in this movie.
Yes.
That was What I will say to close this out is that Matt's character seems to be the one that has He seems to be the only one out of his friends that has a conscience, right, Yeah, And he ends up kind of with Clarissa at a certain point of the film. I think they're kind of like, I don't know, trauma bonding in a way. But also, you know, they're just sort of like teenagers and they're just trying to like know each other and date each other. But it's that thing where you're like, oh, well, if he is the one, If there is a moral metronome character, it's probably Matt. It's probably Keanu's character, which yeah, I mean you sort of need because otherwise everybody else in this movie is really fucked up, you know.
So bleak, yeah, so bleak. But I love that you picked this.
It's it's such a good movie and it took me back to a time that I maybe didn't want to go, but I but I was glad I went yes. And they have There's so many good lines in this movie that I'd kind of forgotten as well, like when Lee says, you think this.
Car runs on God's own methane. I used to stand it to my.
Friends all the time when I started driving, And when the little sister comes back and like basically desecrates the grave of the doll he.
Threw in the river, and his little sister says he's still killing her.
Honestly, I could go so long on this movie because it does there's so many, so many things going on. It really is like, to me, it's a great nowar film when.
It comes down to it.
Yeah, it is so a part of that era of the eighties where people were legit afraid.
Of like heavy metal kids.
I mean, he had the PRMC, you had like all this stuff going on where guys and girls like this were terrifying in this era. And I think it's what makes the movie so powerful still to this day. And I love it. And Keanu, we salute you in this film.
We salute your dirt bag phase. We appreciate it.
And also this was a nice reminder of the fact that Ione Sky either made out with on film, dated or married every single guy ever had a crush on. Yes, like I bowed down to an indie queen.
Oh, don't even get me started on Clarissa's look. I mean, it's just like, I love it, such an iconic eighties girl look that I wanted so badly. I wanted that like cascade of like curly hair with like a flannel over like a little you know, white undershirt.
I just she was everything to me in this movie.
I swear, so good, truly incredible.
I'm so glad you picked it.
So such a good time to go back to such a weird, weird movie.
Yes, and I gotta tell you, like, as a horny four episode, we did a pretty good job.
I mean we weren't, like, you know, too crazy, but I think we both we talked about.
The movie, he talks about the movies.
Hey, we're still intelligent women, Like we can still process thoughts that aren't laden with sexual power.
Well, let's see if that's true when you give them the movies for next week. We can test this theory next week.
So next week's movies are in the Mouth of Madness from nineteen ninety four and The Evil Dead nineteen eighty one.
So good, very spooky. What's the theme? Ugh, I cannot wait.
Yeah, very spooky week. Wonder what that theme's going to be. But hey, if you want to email us, if you want to talk about Keanu Reeves, we know you do. Hit us up at I Saw what you did pot at gmail dot com.
You can also find us on our social media at I Saw Pod, on Instagram and Twitter.
We've also got merch Getting a bit cold outside, you know you need a hoodie. We're in the Exactly Right shop at Exactlyrightmedia dot com.
And we have a whole bunch of bonus episodes over on Stitcher Premium. You can still use the promo code SAW for a free month and it really helps us. So thank you for supporting us, those of you who have already signed up.
Yes, yes, Yes, Danielle. It was inevitable that we were going to do this theme. I'm so glad we finally tackled it. It was such a pleasure.
I'm embarrassed and honored simultaneously. I've revealed so much, so much, but I'm honored.
Listen, if we see a theme in the future that is Kevin Klein has Italian guys with mustaches.
Now we know the origin story, right.
I don't think I can take it again. I don't think my heart could take it again.
You're gonna be like the Chicken Lady, just exploding feathers everywhere.
Goodbye, bye, I see you next week. This has been an exactly Right production. Our producers Alexis a MARESSI. Our engineers Analise Nelson. Our theme songs by Tom bry Foegel, artwork by Garrett Ross. Our executive producers are Georgia hart Stark, Karen kil Gareth and Danielle Kramer. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at I saw pod email us at I Saw what you did pod at Gmail, and please don't forget to listen, subscribe, leave us a review on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you listen