In this episode, we dive into a conversation about the personal tastes of movies with a focus on the recent hit, Project Hail Mary. The discussion touches on the subjective nature of enjoyment in film, highlighting how what appeals to one may elicit a strong opposing feeling in another. As opinions clash, the importance of friendship and understanding different perspectives shines through.
That is Rufus, 1974, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan out front. Love your confidence. And she’s 73, so happy birthday to Chaka Khan.
SPEAKER 02 :
Nothing good about to happen. This is a conversation I’ve been dreading since about 9.30 last night. Let me just get it out of the way. For what reasons and on what issue? Well, first of all, I treasure our friendship. And I don’t want to be the guy who bags on a movie that you obviously love. I know Project Hail Mary is in your wheelhouse. Right. I know that they set all kinds of records. People are flocking to the theater. Did you go?
SPEAKER 03 :
Did you go?
SPEAKER 02 :
I went last night, and I resisted calling you because I wanted to call you, and I thought, look, our friendship is too important. So here’s all I’ll say, which might apply to the Trump tweet about Robert Mueller. If you don’t have something nice to say about something, maybe don’t say it. Because, frankly, you call it a masterpiece? I did. I did. Oh, boy. Okay. I’m not going to go there. I’m not going to go there. Knock yourself out.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good for you. We’ve talked about this a thousand times. Everything is… A matter of taste. Everything is a matter of taste. It is totally subjective. So what was it in this film? I can’t find anybody. What was it? I know what it was. I know what it was. You ready? I know what it was. Now, the details of this will descend from here. Was it everything? You didn’t care. You didn’t care. There have been some great movies that have come out. The English Patience. I’m sure there are great works of art, but I just didn’t care. There have been some movies that are a B, a B-, but I cared deeply, made them better for me. So I’ll never be offended by something you don’t like.
SPEAKER 02 :
I just don’t want to be that guy. I know that I get disappointed where there’s something I really like and I tell you about it or tell my dear friends or my family and they don’t like it. Then I get disappointed and then I feel like, and look, and I guarantee you, it’s got to be me. I mean, it only did about $2 billion at the box office this weekend. So it must be me. So what was it?
SPEAKER 03 :
Just in a sentence.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, no, no, no, no. Don’t make me do it. And in fact, there may be spoilers in your answer, so don’t do that. Right. That’s what I’m afraid to do. I will ask you, though, off the air, because you’re going to have to interpret the ending for me. Oh, okay. Okay, because I’m not entirely sure what the ending meant. I’ll ask you off the air. That’s enough of that. Let’s move on.
SPEAKER 03 :
But ultimately, I’m right, though, right? Everything that was put on the screen, all the acting, all the directing, all the writing, it was what it was. But ultimately, after the credits rolled, you just did not care. It just did not reach out and touch you and wrap around you. You just didn’t care, correct?
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m not sure not caring would be the right way to describe it.
SPEAKER 03 :
You were actively repelled.
SPEAKER 02 :
Visceral rage.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re the guy. Boy, wow. Two and a half hours of my life, I’ll never get back. It is you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my gosh. Let’s do Trump and let’s do whatever else.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, let me conclude. We’ll do Trump. And I’m glad we’re tackling this because, look, we shouldn’t go the Fox News route. You saw the Fox News route. They’re probably smarter than we are because they didn’t even mention it. They went the whole weekend, not one mention of a pretty significant tweet. I mean, it’s not like you can ignore it. And if you saw the Sunday morning news shows, except for Fox News, that’s all they were apoplectic about. Of course. And by the way, your take on it, Mark, as usual, is pitch perfect. You know, spare me all the pearl clutching and the righteous indignation. On the other hand, not my favorite thing. On the other hand, this is a guy that, for all of his strengths… is lacking an empathy gene. There’s a gene that he lacks. Look at the death of Rob Reiner. Look at the death of John McCain. He’s got a deficiency in that department. I think for him, it’s personal for him. It’s his enemies.
SPEAKER 03 :
He doesn’t lack an empathy gene. He has an enormous empathy instinct. Look at him around kids. Look at him around Gold Star families. He absolutely has the empathy gene, but it’s instantly suspendable if somebody has come after him.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’ve got a clip of him. him with a gold of a gold star dad a man who lost his son and explains the humanity that he saw all over trump’s face when trump was trying to express his condolences to this grieving father in fact you can compare that to the woman who was offended when she met with joe biden because joe biden when he met with her a gold star mom said well you know my son died too all right You know, he does that, and she was so offended by that. So, yeah, you’re right. It’s not like he is void of empathy. But, boy, let’s just put it this way. If somebody dies who has crossed him, he doesn’t care. It will not be warm and fuzzy. It will not be. He does not have that warm, fuzzy gene, and it’s just a matter – look, he is who he is. And there’s not a single political leader that we have loved who hasn’t had plenty of shortcomings. Name one. Name one.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, no, of course. Name one. And usually they’re way more – Important than this, for those unfamiliar, I’ll do it one more time. So Robert Mueller dies, and Robert Mueller himself had a life of long and admirable service. Until the end. The reason everybody knows who Robert Mueller is, is the witch hunt, the hoax, the Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense. He tried to destroy a man’s life, destroy a presidency, and so that’s enormously bad. So Mueller dies at the age of 81, and Trump’s truth social post was… Robert Mueller just died. Good. I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people. President Donald J. Trump.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s probably telling that after the post dropped, most people who saw it who are Trump supporters didn’t believe it was real.
SPEAKER 01 :
I thought it was a hoax.
SPEAKER 02 :
They said it was Babylon B. It was AI. It was fake. And people were saying, he didn’t say that. They went to Grok, and Grok said, no, there’s no proof that he said that. And then people were saying, see, see, Grok said he didn’t say that. He wouldn’t say that. He didn’t say that. He couldn’t say that. But he did say it because that’s part of who he is. Now, whether you love him or hate him, you cannot change the consequential nature of this man’s presidency. Close your eyes if you get mad at a tweet, and he’s got plenty of tweets that make you crazy. Close your eyes and picture President Kamala Harris and what the border would look like right now. Close your eyes and think about the crime. Here we go again. Another beautiful, innocent girl in Chicago, shot dead, 18-year-old Loyola student, Sheridan Gorman, everybody know her name, shot in the head and killed, once again, by an illegal immigrant. Now, imagine that on steroids if it were President Kamala Harris. Yeah. So you’ve got to just take the good with the bad, I think.
SPEAKER 03 :
If this is the price we pay for the presidency we have, I will gladly pay it. You know what people are saying? It’s like, hey, Trump supporters, what do you think now? What do you think now? What am I supposed to say? I wish Mitt Romney were president or I wish Kamala Harris were president? No. Of course not. I will take it and be blessed and thrilled. Thank God he won. Every day on moments like this will I say, wow, sir, not good. Sure I will. And then I get on with my day.
SPEAKER 02 :
If you had a crystal ball and you knew that he was going to say crude things once in a while or boorish things by tweet, and you would see that a border has been completely sealed, that we are trying and we are close to eradicating an evil, evil regime like Iran. And how about this brilliant move? of sending ICE to our nation’s airports. Oh, my gosh. I mean, they wanted ICE out. Now they’re going to have to pass through ICE on their way out of town. How rich is that? It’s the best. It’s a combination of troll and mic drop and perfection. And by the way, once again, you know the old meme about for my next trick, I’m going to get Democrats. They got Trump dressed up in the magician outfit. For his next trick, he’s going to get Democrats to complain about trying to make airport security more efficient right now with ICE. They’re complaining about that. They’re acting like ICE is just going to start firing guns. Because they got nothing. They’re such liars. They go on the Sunday morning shows and they say, we have put together seven proposals to fully fund TSA. Yeah, as long as we defund ICE. Exactly. We know what you’re doing. You’re not going to defund ICE. ICE is funded through 2029. Now, the American people are either going to be stupid enough to accept the lie or we’re going to see right through it. We’re going to blame Democrats and we’re going to win in the midterms.
SPEAKER 03 :
What’s it going to be?
SPEAKER 1 :
100%.
SPEAKER 03 :
It all depends. It all lies in the months and months and months ahead. And having invoked ICE, let us dip back into the culture for one second because you had an interesting tweet to me where you said, I tried to warn you about something, tried to warn me about what? It involves one of my favorite shows, The Pit. magnificent medical drama. Here’s what happens. It’s chaos. It’s an ER. It’s an unbelievable show. It’s just superb on every level. Most recent episode, the ice guys bring in a wounded, an injured person who is being detained. So the ER has a job to do. The ice guys have a job to do. Instantly, it plays out to three or four minutes of the worst smear against ice agents. The ice guys are mean and boorish. I’m prepared to stipulate some of the ice guys can be mean and boorish. So far, nope. Whatever. Okay. Mild irritants so far. But then, as they are trying to do their job and move her on out of there, a doctor or, I guess, male nurse intervenes. Things get rapidly escalated. They arrest the guy in the ER. Dr. Robbie, played by the great Noah Wiley, says, we’ll get you out. We’ll get you out. And then Dr. Robbie delivers this scaldingly. scathing, scolding of the ICE agent. Can’t you see that I’m losing doctors and losing patients? They’re all running scared from the ER. Well, why would anybody run? Do they think that ICE is going to be checking papers in the ER? It was not just stupid. It was an intentional smear of ICE. It was a horrible moment in a show that I otherwise love. And you then tweeted, hey, tried to warn you. Warn me about what?
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m just picking on you. I just don’t like the show as much as you do. I watched it, and I was like, oh, okay, tedious. We’ve got the angst-ridden doctor and the mean hospital supervisor character.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s otherwise great.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, look, I’m the guy that wanted to…
SPEAKER 03 :
hang myself after uh project hail mary so you know what do i know about what do i know about entertainment although i will tell you that disliking the pit and even disliking project hail mary i can get it they’re an acquired taste or a type of thing you know what i just can’t still get past you know what i still can’t get past you know it’s marvellous marvellous mrs mazel it’s 60s new york show business and you hated it
SPEAKER 02 :
What? Just what? Well, speaking of show business, can I just conclude by sharing the love of a couple – I’m not mentioning their name, but they are from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex – who ponied up $18,000 to come from Dallas, from the Dallas area – And she is a lovely lady. Her husband sounds delightful. They wanted to help kids who are in desperate need of clean drinking water in some of our poorest community. With their $18,000 donation, they’re going to provide 360 people, fellow humans, with clean drinking water for an entire year. It’s our Food for the Poor campaign. I’m taking them to New York. It’s all part of our Food for the Poor campaign. You can go to MikeOnline.com if you’d like to help us. We’ve got about another week and a half to go before the campaign comes to an end. But this wonderful couple, and we’re way over our goal, by the way, so keep it going. Let’s see how far over our goal we can be. The goal was 40, and you guys helped, and you helped with our dinner or lunch. We’re going to take a bunch of people to lunch. Those details are soon to unfold. So thank you. Thank you. We’re so blessed to be surrounded by such great people. That’s great. And they all loved Project Hail Mary. I just know it in my heart.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, they did, because that’s a precursor.
SPEAKER 02 :
The depth. Oh, the depth of the movie.
SPEAKER 03 :
And as we began, you said nothing good lay ahead. Then it was going to be all unpleasantness. And look what we finished. Look at the positivity. Maybe a little hyperbole on my part.
SPEAKER 02 :
Maybe a little hyperbole. Every day is a good day with the M&M experience. Soon to be M&M Extra. Stay tuned for the podcast form. Incidentally, if you want to get access to the podcast platform, text the keyword podcast to 800-655-MIKE. Excellent. The Eminem Experience Extra will be right there for you, so we can’t wait.
SPEAKER 03 :
Where if we’re talking about something in the news and we stub our toes on some odd personality quirk, we can just flesh it out for a half a flippin’ hour if we want to. No time constraints.
SPEAKER 02 :
No one can stop us. Matt, Ron does not wave it at us to wrap it up. We just got all the time in the world.
SPEAKER 03 :
Are we sure this is a good idea? Are we sure we thought about this?
SPEAKER 02 :
Come to think of it, maybe we should reassess. I’m in. I’m in. Ready to go. I love you. Happy Monday.
SPEAKER 03 :
I know I did for the Mike Gallagher show today. He’s ready. 10 o’clock right here on 660 AMDN.
SPEAKER 01 :
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Project Hail Mary: Masterpieces or Not?
In this episode, we dive into a conversation about the personal tastes of movies with a focus on the recent hit, Project Hail Mary. The discussion touches on the subjective nature of enjoyment in film, highlighting how what appeals to one may elicit a strong opposing feeling in another. As opinions clash, the importance of friendship and understanding different perspectives shines through.
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