Christi Dodge 0:00
Hello, everybody, we want to do a quick little straw poll, we’re thinking of maybe doing for a special event, an in person podcast taping. We’re wondering how many people in the Portland metro area would be interested in attending, this would be a free event.

We would just record the podcasts are in front of a live audience. So you guys can see what it’s like to, you know, kind of be behind the scenes. So, let us know if you’d be interested so that we can get a venue that would be big enough to hold everybody. We will do put something like that together. Email me at Christi@dodgemediaproductions.com. That email will be in the show notes and just shoot me an email and say, I’d be there.

Mike Dodge 0:45
I just never stop and neither do our listeners.

Brennan 0:48
You’re listening to Dodge Movie Podcast. Your hosts are Christi and Mike Dodge the founders of Dodge Media Productions. We produce films and podcasts. So this is a podcast about films. Join them as they share their passion for filmmaking.

Christi Dodge 1:05
Welcome back, everybody to the Dodge Movie Podcast. This is episode 94 where we are kicking off our month celebrating with our Jewish friends and a Happy Hanukkah. Hanukkah begins this year on December 18 and ends on December 26. And in honor, I would love to share a latke recipe with you all so you can get in the spirit. Or to this Shiksa used to call them porcupine potatoes.

Mike Dodge 1:33
And this Goy used to call them nothing because I didn’t get them.

Christi Dodge 1:36
You didn’t get them? No. Do you enjoy them when we have them?

Mike Dodge 1:41
I believe I do. I never had them with like sour cream on them. Maybe I could try that though. Yeah,

Christi Dodge 1:46
I think one time. No, we would put our sour cream and applesauce in crepes that she would make not as not a big fan of crapes. Yeah, so we would just have the potatoes. Anyway, everybody,

Mike Dodge 1:59
Maybe we should eat them for Hanukkah.

Christi Dodge 2:01
I think we should, we are and join us get get out your latkes. Okay, let’s talk about An American Pickle. We watched it on Amazon for $3.99. I do believe it’s available generally if Amazon has and Apple has it. I think we took advantage of the delayed shipping so we technically didn’t pay for this one. But it’s $3.99 on Amazon, Director Brandon Trost. Who DPed for Dear Evan Hanson, the film Bros The recent LGBTQ movie that we enjoyed The Righteous Gemstones and The Disaster Artists which that made sense because I read through the other DP and they all kind of you know work together.

So writer and who’s the DP on this film though? DP on this film as John Gleserian s who did About Time, Equals, Like Crazy and The Happiest Season? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we love that one. Another good LGBTQ movie. We can circle back to the cinematography at that stage. Okay. Simon Rich wrote this. He did Miracle Workers and Inside Out.

Mike Dodge 3:11
Right, Simon Rich that sounds like a Jewish name to me.

Christi Dodge 3:15
He was a writer on SNL for I believe it was like eight years okay showed you. Let’s see. It stars Seth Rogen, Sara Snook. Molly Evanson, who played Clara and Sarah Snook played Sarah. That was easy. Yeah. Okay, let’s see. The synopsis for this film is an immigrant worker at a pickle factory is accidentally preserved for 100 years and wakes up in modern day Brooklyn.

Mike Dodge 3:46
But just seems a description.

Christi Dodge 3:49
Well, Oh, I see. It doesn’t go into kind of what happens throughout the movie. Not much sizzle, it just kicks off the movie. Like basically. That’s the first 20 minutes. Yeah, opening was longer than I remembered from our first viewing.

Mike Dodge 4:05
But I expected something a little bit. jazzier like a movie about pickles, including Seth Rogen, or something like that. I mean, that’s just a description. Wow.

Christi Dodge 4:17
Well, there are longer synopsis on IMDb, but I try not to tagline No, no, no, that’s a synopsis. Okay, well, then it’s a synopsis. Okay, and I have really bad news for you and Udo, oh, dear. There’s no tagline. Okay, see,

Mike Dodge 4:31
I stand by my there should be. This is a movie about pickles, including Seth Rogen. I mean, you could come up with something better. Simon Rich, I guarantee you has a half dozen better, right. So I’m gonna go ahead and email us with a better tag.

Christi Dodge 4:46
I loved there’s a featurette that I’m going to include in the show notes. It talked about the film’s movie poster was taken with a preserved camera that was made in the 19th century. It’s the kind where you have to stand there really, really still for like five I have minutes, because the exposure is right.

Mike Dodge 5:02
I read that trivia too. And if that’s exactly accurate, that’s totally cool. However, the thing that I have is, as you may know, I inherited a camera from like the 60s from my dad. Yeah. Even then it was hard to find film or to figure out how it worked. Did they get somebody from like the Smithsonian that knows all this antique cameras to help them operate it correctly.

Christi Dodge 5:34
All I can tell you is if they’re lying about this fact, they went to the trouble of setting up a video shoot where you can see them with the camera. Seth and Sarah are in the position that they’re in in the movie. Because there was other the movie poster just has Seth.

You can see that they have like the gray backdrop. Now they were doing it outside, which I found interesting, which you always went back then. Okay, so maybe they were just trying to replicate. If this is a giant lie, and it’s all Photoshop, they went to great pains to sell the lie, right? Here’s the problem. I believe I’m in the movies, we lie. Oh,

Mike Dodge 6:15
But I’m saying this little trivia note for IMDB. I would love that. It’s true. Like I said, I just want to know, your skepticism is deep, very much. But who knew how to operate it because it’s not like any other camera you can purchase right now.

Christi Dodge 6:32
It’s a shutter boom.

Mike Dodge 6:35
Wow. I’m sorry, to every photographer and cinematographer in the world for that statement.

Christi Dodge 6:42
Just I mean, I haven’t know I’m seeing a camera removes these didn’t have like, expanded menus that you needed to know worse than that didn’t have F stops. They didn’t have like,

Mike Dodge 6:57
So when was the last time you use the bellows camera? Alright, then they didn’t have menus, but they had a lot more going on mechanically. And chemically, there weren’t sensors or there were not pixels or the chemistry alone of developing the plate. How did they know what that

Christi Dodge 7:18
They did that they show that on the thing. They did it immediately. Like, the guy had the cover, you know, like the cloth that goes over and he took it out and he put it right down. You didn’t watch the feature at before you get all high and mighty. I’m not hiding it in the little Rubbermaid and have the solution and you watch it develop and then they hold it up and they’re like, that’s amazing. You

Mike Dodge 7:42
You think I’m being home? I’m not I’m just asking, how do they figure out how to do it? I know you could eventually but this is a production they don’t have time to experiment do they have already been you know graphic plates to experiment, you

Christi Dodge 7:57
know, filmmakers, they love to do things in the vein. They love to add the richness.

Mike Dodge 8:04
See you feel like I’m saying they didn’t do it. All I’m saying is I want to know what guide did they find you?

Christi Dodge 8:10
Behind just that one?

Mike Dodge 8:12
Okay, okay. On Jay Leno Show they have Donald Osborne, the guy who’s an expert at car values. There’s got to be an equivalent guy that was the world’s expert in using Evapo types or whatever it was,

Christi Dodge 8:25
I’m gonna put you in charge of finding that guy out there.

Mike Dodge 8:28
I just asked the question and didn’t want to go on a hunt.

Christi Dodge 8:31
Well, but no.

Mike Dodge 8:35
Although it’s interesting, we’re talking about a Jewish film in the Jews. Do you have a history of hunting people down? So maybe I can get some vague hunt people don’t know the Nazi hunters. Great for me. Okay, maybe he get a guy who’s like a photo hunter. He can help me out.

Christi Dodge 8:49
There you go. There you go. All right. My last bit of trivia is this Seth Rogen first produce film that is not an R rated movie. But you kick us off smarty pants. What is the pickup line for this film?

Mike Dodge 9:04
“In Old Country of Schlutsk, I am ditch digger.” I like it for a lot of reasons. First of all, it establishes in the film that we’re going for a comedy. Right. In case you were confused, and we sat down in the theater and I go oh boy does it. But it shows how poor he is because he has wooden shovels, which I guarantee you there was a point in history where there were wooden shovels. Obviously as he demonstrates they’re not the best choice of material for ditch digging.

Christi Dodge 9:41
As we’ve come out of the last couple of days here in the Pacific Northwest of just cold wind rain. The first opening scene. You feel his misery because he’s out in just the you know, beating Rain, and it’s got to be cold. It reminded me of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. It’s a wet Western, because the whole time practically the movie if it’s not raining, it’s snowing. And so it’s just that same, like just cold, oppressive, you know, just soaked to the bone day after day. That’s, that’s what this gave me.

Mike Dodge 10:23
I think our listeners, including a couple of our superfans who are in the Armed Forces know very well, mud. Right. That was to me the the, that is kind of the difference. Certainly at that time. of rich and poor is your relationship to mud. Yeah. He was right on in the mud. He was in it. So it sets up. Like, what kind of like, like we feel for this poor chap. Oh, yeah. Easy, sympathetic character right from the beginning. Yeah. See his shovel. Snap. Spoiler alert. He’s in the mud and he just has to get on it with his hands at me that is it’s just perfect that

Christi Dodge 11:01
It’s a little Simpsons because then like the third and fourth and fifth thing that kind of happen, right.

Mike Dodge 11:09
And then of course, they roll out the wagon wheel falling off humor. Not very common in today’s cinema. But yeah, good. Good bit. You know, it’s funny, because there’s another bit of comedy that we don’t see a lot nowadays, which is seltzer humor, but seltzer plays a large role. Yes. In the film, without any seltzer humor.

Christi Dodge 11:29
Oh, my goodness, you’re right.

Mike Dodge 11:31
It was right there. They have. Apparently I checked this that I did a Google. That is a SodaStream model I didn’t recognize it didn’t look like a SodaStream I’ve ever seen. But that supposedly was a SodaStream model. Having operated one myself, I know there is an opportunity to spray yourself with seltzer water. So Seth is kind of an opportunity missed there, buddy.

Christi Dodge 11:54
So trigger warning for any of those listeners who do not like vermin. Because the next scene after kind of,

Mike Dodge 12:02
Okay. I want to say, from the category of the people who found a 200 year old camera. Yeah. Did they use real rodents?

Christi Dodge 12:11
Oh, that’s a good question. Because remember, when we did the Irish film know, what film do we do in there? Where was it? Beavers? Oh, is that? Yeah,

Mike Dodge 12:21
It was the curling film. And there were artificial beavers.

Christi Dodge 12:26
But there were like five beavers in reality, but then they expanded. So was something similar?

Mike Dodge 12:33
Exactly. It was a little bit of both? I don’t know. But right. There were a lot of rodents.

Christi Dodge 12:38
There were a lot. So if you do not appreciate them.

Mike Dodge 12:41
Oh, and I hoped for the road and safe that it was visual effects for the ones who gave their lives that that stunt work above and beyond.

Christi Dodge 12:50
Right. It sets up how he’s in the pickle factory. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a little implausible that nobody would see him fall into the pickle that yeah, I still think it’s a little bit by the premise. If we’re gonna buy the premise that a guy gets grind and preserved in a brothel that for 100 years, then you got to buy that nobody saw him fall in.

Mike Dodge 13:15
Yeah. That no one would try to recoup what little bit they code from the factory by selling those pickles, and draining and selling the building. There’s a lot of premise there. But you know, and I had some questions about the physiology that for a moment, and I’m like, by the premise like, this is a silly film. Once you’re in, you’re in, and then it works.

Christi Dodge 13:38
You said you want to just talk about the cinematography. So Lay it on me?

Mike Dodge 13:43
Well, one thing that I noticed is the entire film, start to finish. Gorgeous lighting. I don’t believe that New York City has a month straight of just cloudy but not rainy weather. Because even the outdoor scenes had gorgeous soft lighting. I loved the look that the cinematographer got for this. You could say indoors. They had a lot of lighting they brought in but even outdoor so I thought that was very interesting.

Presumably, in the streets of Williamsburg for a few weeks, there were giant screams everywhere. they can shoot like that. But it was gorgeously lit. I mean, I thought it’s a great touch because for a comedy you think of very broad and not really artistic not saying that there aren’t well done comedies, but I think for the most part, you don’t focus on the images as much. But I thought this was gorgeous. Yes, a shot very well.

Christi Dodge 14:38
I thought so to the writing. This comes from a story Simon told he was just thinking about his ancestors and he thought my ancestors will probably hate me and want to punch me because I sit in an office in a climate controlled office. You know, coffee at hand or whatever beverage snacks pounding on a computer.

He was just like, if I could meet my great grandfather, he would just think I was the biggest, you know, like, we’ll see. He wrote this, it’s called a sellout. Was the short or the novel? Is it a novel letter? What did they call it with? It’s a short novel. There’s a novella. That’s what it is. That’s what he wrote. It’s based on that he wrote it in 2013.

Mike Dodge 15:29
I have to say, I think every generation thinks the next generation or a bunch of se that couldn’t hack it. Because I do worry about the next generation that they just couldn’t hack it. I think I couldn’t have done World War Two. Oh, my gosh, are you kidding me? Like, they take my butter and give me that margarine with the little red food dye. I think I’d be out. Okay, hit low wins, like, I need my butter. But yeah, I think you’re right. It is an interesting dichotomy, because technology changes so quickly. I think that’s great for the plot here because Seth Rogen is modern character, Ben,

Christi Dodge 16:13
Ben. Yeah, Ben,

Mike Dodge 16:14
He has about the least useful job of imaginable. He writes a web app, a mobile app that no one knows about, and he doesn’t

Christi Dodge 16:24
Do anything. Well, he’s been developing it for five years. Right.

Mike Dodge 16:28
As we find out later on the money from the death of his parents, the life insurance policy. First time through, I just thought, Okay, we have to buy the bit that he can have this insanely large apartment in New York, New York. Yeah. But then after it’s like, okay, well, maybe he bought it with the money from that. He’s just kind of eking along. But that’s like the least productive job ever. And it’s the least like anything that humans did for the rest of human history. It was the app. Do you remember?

A boop bop, it gave you some automated air quotes, ethics, ethics score, which was good writing, because his problem is ethics throughout the film, because yeah, basically, he does evil things to Herschel he is not the kind of person that his app is trying to find. Right. Torpedoes his own his app. I thought that was that was, you know, clever writing on Simon’s part. Good work there.

But I don’t know. Like, I’m not hipster enough to know how accurate that character of Ben was. But I did notice, for example, his pants were really short. I thought that was an interesting choice from the costume department. Because at least when I was growing up, my pants are short because we were poor. Right? You couldn’t afford new pants.

Christi Dodge 17:51
Well, that could be the case, especially guys stereotypically tend to be less into fashion. I think that’s safe to say, yeah. So he probably is wearing pants that he wore like from high school.

Mike Dodge 18:05
Could be but I thought is interesting. Because Herschel asked about how many socks Do you have? Right? Yeah, so to me, I actually expected there to be some dialogue where Herschel’s like you can’t afford long pants. Yes, definitely. That was a thing as a poor kid, that, you know, if somebody could see your ankles, that was a sign of that you weren’t well, so

Christi Dodge 18:26
Fascinating that you saw that because as a tall kid my whole life, it just meant that if I bought like the size that fit my waist, they were like tall, was at least it wasn’t a thing. It’s the stores we shopped like, there was always petite. Right, but to buy a regular pair of pants, then they didn’t come in at all. So all of my pants were short. Although we might be highlighting how out of fashion we are. Yes, because I do think that the hipsters like I have seen guys in what looks like capris. Right. We’re dating ourselves right now we should stop talking and talk about something.

Mike Dodge 19:05
I’m okay with that. Don’t worry. And in five years, it’ll be different.

Christi Dodge 19:10
So but I liked how it set up Herschel’s backstory, and the introduction to his great grandson.

Mike Dodge 19:17
Yes. I thought that was really well done. And I want to take a moment to give credit to both the camera department as well as the visual effects people because it was seamless. There is no point where I you know, realized, Oh, this is digitally manipulate. I just bought that Seth could be in the scene with himself.

Christi Dodge 19:39
I think I have it to talk about during editing, but the feature, which is why I want to include it in the show notes talks about how Seth believes so strongly against fake facial hair, right? He says you can tell and I hate it. I hate wearing it all day as an actor. As a producer, he was able to throw some weight around and say, I’m not wearing facial hair. We’re going to film the entire thing. You could tell I watched one interview with the director. He was kind of like, you know, when Seth Rogen says he’s not going to do a thing you can’t really argue, but it was a challenge to do it the way we did it.

They shot the whole thing with Seth, in the facial hair. Oh, and he had a stand in and bless his heart. Seth gave a shout out to this guy, because he stood in for Ben, when Seth was Herschel, right. And could not talk had to Silent Bob the entire film. Wow. Because they both wore earpieces that fed in the dialogue. That and so the guy just had to react facially or kind of move his body.

That Seth had something to act against. Then but why couldn’t you talk, though, be? Well, because they don’t need his dialogue. When Seth was Herschel, he could hear in his ear, what he will say, as Ben. Then they flipped it. So then when he was Ben, he could hear what he said, when he was Herschel.

Mike Dodge 21:19
Did Seth record that that dialogue itself, I assume? Fair enough.

Christi Dodge 21:23
The guy and that shows him he’s just standing there kind of looking at something totally, like he’s silent Bob did. And so they shot the whole thing. Then Seth cut his beard. I think, I don’t know if there was like a scheduling thing. I don’t know why. But then they waited like three or four months. Imagine this for continuity, had to go back and recreate the lighting, all of the setups, all of the positions, right?

Record, Seth now as Ben, and just the idea of happening to reset up the lighting and the exact three or four months later, I mean, we can’t even when we’ve been on set, and we’ll go like, was this cup here? Or was it here? Because we’re trying to maintain continuity if we move things, right.

Mike Dodge 22:12
I can’t even imagine I saw a movie last night where they shot from two different angles. I saw a big I mean, it got left out. In one one shot. She had her coffee, her Starbucks low. The next one, she was drinking from it. It bumped me immediately. Yeah, so just imagine Yeah, I saw the lighting though. A DP one time article that I read about, they had to go back and reshoot for commercial, just reshoot one, one shot.

He talked about how much work they put into measuring from all of the corners of the buildings and the things to get it triangulated to get the camera in exactly the same position with exactly the same angle. Yeah. Because he said, Well, you can digitally do it. It’s really hard. It costs a lot of money. Everyone yells at you. Yeah.

So they spent all this time with that, like, you know, the the, like, measuring thing that civil engineers have? Oh, the laser? Well, no, it was like the old fashion came with the rope. Because this was, you know, a while ago, and just measuring out everything. To think that, that sets like okay, everage can go home for three months. Yeah, I’m gonna shave or whatever. And then we’re gonna come back to it. Make it exactly the same.

Yeah, that’s amazing. Oh, my gosh. But that’s the reason I brought this up is because it’s so seamless. And I know this is many years ago, but like in Dave, write the Kevin Kline movie. It’s really obvious when he’s in the same scene or, parent. Yeah. For those. Right. It used to be so obvious that they would use this kind of mirrored thing. And then on a green screen, and now this is just so much so so well, that I think, Seth

Christi Dodge 23:54
Absolutely. We’re filmmakers. And I didn’t even think about it as we’re watching a movie.

Mike Dodge 23:58
That’s how seamless it was so so huge props to the entire cast and crew for pulling that off is incredible. Absolutely. And what’s amazing is it’s for a silly movie about pickles.

Christi Dodge 24:11
We’re not making some Oscar epic.

Mike Dodge 24:13
Yeah. I’m looking at you. Ron Howard, did you need this in Apollo 13 or something?

Christi Dodge 24:17
Well, and it’s amazing because not to dwell on this too much. But I thought it was just so sweet. Because Seth goes, I wish I knew this guy’s name. I’ll put it in the show notes. Hit this stand. Basically, he said if he does his job, right, he’s invisible. So you know, like he gets to tell all his friends. Hey, I’m in the next three.

Mike Dodge 24:37
Yeah, that’s my shoulder there. Oh, that’s my other shoulder there.

Christi Dodge 24:42
there’s the back of my head.

Mike Dodge 24:45
Can you tell me how I do that with

Christi Dodge 24:50
his heart and he just looks like the nicest guy when he didn’t talk.

Mike Dodge 24:55
Hopefully you watched the show method that he didn’t talk while offs.

Christi Dodge 25:00
Anyway, well done filmmakers. Well done. Let’s see, for the writing I enjoyed when Herschel started attacking the billboard workers. I was impressed that Herschel had some skills.

Mike Dodge 25:13
What I was too and I thought, Oh, well actually, that probably makes sense. If you’re like a late 19th century Jew in Central Europe, I bet you gotten a few scraps. On a daily basis, right? You know how to scrap that’s a good question, because I thought back in the day, or around the time that Herschel’s character would have come to New York, I thought we did have some Jewish boxers. Back then they had some pugilistic skills.

Christi Dodge 25:41
Any put them to work. You’re right about been hurting her shoulder because it hurt my heart when he said, Sarah would be ashamed of you. Oh, yeah. Ben,

Mike Dodge 25:53
Ben was a total weenie. He he that was the his arc was. He had to get better. But he went, he went worse first. He said, boy.

Christi Dodge 26:06
Then I couldn’t stop being squeamish over the recycled jars and rainwater and dumpster diving for the cucumbers that Brian used for his special pickles.

Mike Dodge 26:19
But don’t you think that is perfect for the people who now live in Williamsburg? That that the recycled food waste and the rainwater and the recycle jar? There’s some dialogue there where the guys are like, Oh, of course you recycle your so and that’s perfect. But It’s kind of It didn’t turn me off pickles, but I probably didn’t go get one right.

Christi Dodge 26:46
So we talked about the editing, but for writing and editing. Did did you have anything that that I missed?

Mike Dodge 26:51
Well, I thought, you know, obviously, I made the joke that Simon sounds like he’s a Jewish guy. And I believe he is, of course, Seth. But I thought this was a good Jewish film in that. They. It’s not a stereotypical, but they just kind of that was a plotline right that Herschel was defined by his Judaism, that the Cossacks came to his wedding and killed everyone.

Which by the way, that’s what makes me a little hesitant and put the Ukraine sticker on my car, because in the Ukraine, they to just like the Russians have a strong history of anti semitism. But so to Herschel, this was a kind of all he was it was his culture, his identity. He was persecuted for it. Then just a few generations later, you’ve got this guy. He barely remembers his bar mitzvah. That contrast of a thing that was so important, but then we see, and I thought they had some good humor about that.

But I love to Herschel’s pride. There’s this great line, you put you on this, you will fix this. He was he was so proud. So proud immigrants get the job done. Right. Yeah. And then then kind of Ben was like, yeah, like, it was just the thing you did, he didn’t really have any thought about it, kind of taking his heritage almost for granted. Right? Just not not valuing it. I think it serves a different role in probably modern society, even for Jews who are much more identifying with it.

And that was an interesting thing, you know, just to kind of again, see that difference. It was cute at the end of the film, when Ben was inadvertently against his will undercover at Herschel and the guys back in Schlitz, include him. So to show kind of that there is that connection. Even though I myself do not worship at a tabernacle, I felt good for Ben that he was included as he had a tribe finally, yes, yes, that was part of his arc.

Christi Dodge 28:55
I think it’s, it’s so I don’t know if ironic is the word. Another word is sad to me that I remember being a kid and not appreciating your relatives, and you go to different family reunions. You see all these older people that you only see once a year. You’re just like, yeah, yeah, that’s aunt whoever. But and then you have kids, and you hit about, I don’t know, like, mid 30s to 40s.

Maybe. You start to all of a sudden go, oh, my gosh, I mean, that’s, I’d love to know the demographics of ancestry, like what are the ages that people are drawn to ancestry? It’s probably in your late 30s, early 40s. Can you see right? When you start to be curious about who came before you, and it’s too bad, we don’t come to it earlier, because by the time you come to it, people are dying, and the people who hold the stories and the people who you would love to kind of give some reverence to are gone.

Mike Dodge 29:51
So it’s interesting because I think part of that journey maybe is unavoidable. But it goes from when you’re younger you into We’ll actually know that the old people were once your age, but it doesn’t really connect. I think that’s a part of getting older and having the children where you begin to realize, oh, like at one point in time, grandma was this age and dealing with this.

And I would argue, perhaps the cultures that have the older generations living, the family might have an advantage here, because would that help the, the young kids to realize that I’m just thinking of on on I think it’s called Family karma. But like the old guy who just wants to drink vodka, that’s like in a 20 year old, you would expect that, but when it’s like the seven year old, it’s hilarious. He was probably like that when he was 20. Yeah and then, which is great, because it ties into this because Herschel hates vodka, because it comes from stupid Cossacks. Right. So see how I did that. Wrap that right back around.

Christi Dodge 31:00
I like it. I like it. He wants a good Manischewitz.

Mike Dodge 31:04
Yeah, that’s true. The Jews have good wines, but not as much distilled spirits, because they, they’re not so much into the drunkenness. Right,

Christi Dodge 31:12
It’s good. I, I like this intergenerational play. And I’m really glad that Simon rich wrote this, wrote the novella. And then this film.

Mike Dodge 31:25
. And everyone involved, but especially Seth put the time into actually doing this. Yeah, yeah. But you know, I couldn’t help but think that if they couldn’t get that computer stuff working, yeah. They could have had Seth play Herschel, but then have Jonah Hill play Ben, I think that would have worked well. And

Christi Dodge 31:43
they did. Actually, it’s funny, Seth said, because he didn’t want to wear the fake beard. He was kind of like, couldn’t somebody else play Herschel? Seth was always going to play bet, okay. He was like, couldn’t somebody else play her show? Right? They were like, No, it needs to be you.

Mike Dodge 32:01
Well, actually, I don’t know if Jonah Hill could play him now because you get so many dang tattoos.

Christi Dodge 32:06
That’s very nice. Jewish by the way, everybody watch

Mike Dodge 32:09
it’s not Putz. But I want to Stutz.

Christi Dodge 32:12
Everybody watched Stutz on Netflix. It’s fantastic. was good to have a little side note there.

Mike Dodge 32:18
Right? When it comes also to the writing I have to say this maybe is marginally indie couldn’t be made today, even though this was made very recently. To your there’s a line in here where Herschel says you are stupid or than Polish person. They are the stupidest. Now. I’m curious if people from Schlitz Actually had that view? Or is that just from our generation was just made fun of the Polish kids?.

Christi Dodge 32:42
I mean, you don’t hear him today. But I feel like growing up growing up every time. Sorry, family, but most of them are deceased. Every time my family got together, somebody had a pull up joke. And it was i Ah, and you found out that it happened. Those those jokes are common in areas where there’s a rivalry. So for example, like you said, is Arkansas and Missouri.

Mike Dodge 33:09
Well, kind of every state that borders Arkansas uses Arkansas years as the idiots

Christi Dodge 33:15
right. And so there’s, there’s a version of that, and in many regions in many countries, that one community, let’s say is perceived as the idiot. So basically, a Polack joke works there. I don’t know why the polls angered so many people in like the 80s.

Mike Dodge 33:35
That part I hadn’t figured out. But I did talk to a friend who grew up in Minnesota, and he said there are these Finn and Ollie jokes. Who are these two Swedish idiots? That was an immigration thing. So it could be maybe a but we didn’t have a Polish immigration to

Christi Dodge 33:54
post you know, who else got kind of thrown under the bus?

Mike Dodge 33:57
Richard Gear?

Christi Dodge 34:00
But blondes blonde. I feel like dumb blonde jokes were Oh, their rage in the 80s. So apparently, we just like to make fun of Oh, the 80s was full of making fun of other people. Right. But I’m saying of like ignorance.

Mike Dodge 34:14
Which I have to say I think ignorance maybe is still suitably to make fun of. It’s not a good thing. All right, back to the film back to the film. But I did miss one thing on cinematography that I did want to talk about some makers. I thought it was very interesting. So this is the second viewing. I watched it before. It’s our second time it starts up and I’m thinking, Gosh, I don’t remember that.

They shot this in four by three. That’s going to be odd to watch the whole film that way. But they didn’t. That was when it was back in the old country. And then when they went to modern times, it went back up to 16. Catch that? It was it really is. It’s so good. I don’t think they’re the first people who’ve done it, but it is neat. I liked I mean, I noticed that this time I didn’t know For the first time, that’s awesome.

Christi Dodge 35:02
Thank you for pointing that out. All right. Let’s see, we talked about sets they for under my sound notes, I just have that they won for outstanding sound at the Hollywood post Alliance. So woohoo, shout out to their sound team because they did a good job.

Mike Dodge 35:19
Yeah, they did. Again, kind of like with standing, they were unnoticed. So they did it right. Yes, yes, yes.

Christi Dodge 35:25
Oftentimes in cinema, and all the jobs that go with making films, if you do your job, right, nobody sees that you did it, which is kind of almost like a little bit of a double edged sword. It’s like pride at one level, but then nobody knows how hard we were. That’s what they said about kind of mirroring this, like, it was so seamless that nobody stopped to think like, wow, this was probably, I mean, they’re so proud. Because they know, I mean, they put four months plus into this.

Mike Dodge 35:55
So his apartment in New York, could have been in is a set somewhere like in LA, in a warehouse. That’s easy to get it. I mean, you could even leave it. But you can put it back together and light it. But then when they’re running in like upstate New York trying to get to Canada. That’s out of doors. And I know from reading the trivia that it was shot months apart. Yeah.

That’s amazing. So again, how much effort I can’t even imagine how people work very, very hard. And like you said, and no one even know and just has no idea. But that to me is this amazing thing because it was so well done. That we forgot that it was the same flippin actor in the scene talking to himself.

Christi Dodge 36:42
That’s incredible. So high five to all the cast and crew live from these filmmakers. We appreciate you. All right. Did we have any head trauma in this film?

Mike Dodge 36:52
Well, we had a lot of head trauma. Okay, so first question is do rat heads count for head trauma because there’s quite a few. They do to PETA and their mothers. So I didn’t keep account but there’s a lot of punching in the head in the fight with the construction workers a lot. Herschel gets hit in the head with the fruit while he’s running from the mob after the debate.

He’s right he says some controversial things and they’re chasing down the street and then from the screen left a fruit comes in and beans and right in the melon. Melon been trips and falls on his face when they’re trying to get to Canada. I think that counts right face is part of the head. Then Herschel punches been in the face after Ben admits what he’s done, which I actually don’t condone the use of violence to solve problems, but I think that was pretty I’m okay with that one.

Christi Dodge 37:46
Should Have Been Nicer Ben. How about a smoochy? smoochy smoochy smoochy get one we Ben doesn’t have a love interest.

Mike Dodge 37:56
Herschel does not actually kiss saw her his wedding. Maybe that was accurate for weddings at that time, and the Cossacks arrived so maybe that impeded they were gonna kiss later but

Christi Dodge 38:09
love that scene that I mean, not love is not the right word. But it was It was amusing that they’re standing amongst all the rubble that the Cossacks and it was like, why didn’t the Cossacks kill them?

Mike Dodge 38:22
Right? They have plot armor.

Christi Dodge 38:25
I’m glad they didn’t. But good visual.

Mike Dodge 38:30
Those two need to be an act to touch them.

Christi Dodge 38:38
Okay, so no smoochies that, you know, Ben doesn’t have a love interest, right?

Mike Dodge 38:44
Whoa, who

Christi Dodge 38:45
was I said to female names. Clara, who was Molly Evanson? Clara

Mike Dodge 38:53
Clara Oh, no, she’s the she’s the intern. She’s the one I love that was his intern when he’s making pickles in the park.

Christi Dodge 39:03
Ah, so yeah, no

Mike Dodge 39:04
love interest for Ben I love interest from it.

Christi Dodge 39:07
So Oh, how about a driving review?

Mike Dodge 39:11
There wasn’t much driving so they went to the trouble of having a generic Yellow Taxi Company that’s like Yellow Taxi and check your cab but legally distinct from yet they put a Zip Car in there later in the film with the logo right on the side. So maybe he’s it paid them a little money. And my last automotive note was when he went to schlocky in the modern era, I noticed that the blue honda accord that was the first car I drove was in the background to represent crappy poverty ridden area. Like, oh, here’s my. So getting back to short pants, meaning you’re broke. I think that was it.

Christi Dodge 39:59
Are you having a whole new feeling about your childhood? Or did you already know all that?

Mike Dodge 40:03
Oh, I knew that about my childhood but I actually have to say, I wouldn’t mind getting a hold of one of those to just you know, take his spin. See what it was like, you know, relative. You know, River. Can I get the tires? Just smoke again?

Christi Dodge 40:18
Right. Get you one for your rally race.

Mike Dodge 40:20
There you go. Have a boy at 100 court hatchback would be a hoot for rallying. Yeah, for sure.

Christi Dodge 40:28
Let’s see, shall we go to the numbers? Let’s

Mike Dodge 40:30
go to the numbers.

Christi Dodge 40:32
Okay, this film came out in 2020. It cost $20 million.

Mike Dodge 40:39
That’s cheap. For all that what I saw the effort that went in visual effects and otherwise,

Christi Dodge 40:43
exactly. And it I don’t have stats on whether they made it back because this was supposed to go into theaters and then obviously because of the pandemic and the lockdown. It was released through HBO max. I don’t know we got a payment from HBO. But we don’t know what it we don’t know what it is. And then worldwide they only made half a million. Well from our release. So yeah, they probably just did that to be eligible to get it out there. Yeah, I’m, I wonder what it would have done in theaters because

Mike Dodge 41:14
I’m not too optimistic because 1000 Ways to Die in the West are million ways. Sorry. Seth MacFarlane so Sats are funny. It didn’t do fantastically well. I think it’s a little cerebral for the average theater going crowd. Yes. For a comedy that is

Christi Dodge 41:30
In the scores kind of speak to that. So it got a 5.7 out of 10 on IMDb. Very low.

Mike Dodge 41:38
I don’t think that’s fair.

Christi Dodge 41:39
I totally agree. Especially on the second watch. I enjoyed it as much, if not more, and rotten tomatoes. The critics gave it a 72%. And the audience’s did not respond and didn’t really care for it at 44%. So I believe that’s rotten. And I disagree.

Mike Dodge 41:56
I disagree. I would also agree with your statement. I liked it more the second time around.

Christi Dodge 42:00
Yeah, yeah. And it’s just an hour and a half. It’s like the perfect length. It didn’t feel too long. It didn’t dry in spots. So Good Job Editor. And

Mike Dodge 42:08
I actually think this may be speaks to why it didn’t find an audience. But it’s not strictly funny. It’s not like a 2122 Jump Street, which are just silly humor, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh. There’s, you know, there’s an arc there that I really did care. And I the second time around, even though I knew what happened. I still got angry at Ben in the middle of the movie. How dare you do that? To Herschel?

Christi Dodge 42:32
Yeah, yeah, we’re totally rooting for her. So yeah, so it’s,

Mike Dodge 42:35
it’s not? Yeah, it’s not just your standard broad comedy. So people maybe didn’t know what to do with it. Yeah.

Christi Dodge 42:42
And I mean, I love certain Adam Sandler films. But were people like another comedian playing themselves twice in two different roles. Like, right now. I don’t want to jump in jail. Meet the clumps. Exactly. So but go, you know, check this one out, especially if it you see it popped back up on a streaming service that you already pay a subscription for, like, or if you use, like I said, those delayed delivery days, and then you know, use your credit for to give it a spin. It’s PG 13.

So you can watch it with the whole family. I think I think tweens would love this. I think kids would get bored like grade school kids. Fifth, sixth, fourth, fifth, sixth grade probably would be okay. But there’s nothing. There’s I can’t think of anything objectionable.

Mike Dodge 43:29
That’s why it’s his first non ra to Yeah, exactly. It’s

Christi Dodge 43:33
it’s not your average. Maybe that’s okay. You know, people with kids that oh, we can’t watch a Seth Rogen film.

Mike Dodge 43:39
Yeah, maybe maybe? Well, I mean, I think people should maybe be a little less uptight. You know, he’s got silly humor sometimes. Yeah, world’s not gonna end if your kid sees Seth smoking a joint.

Christi Dodge 43:52
Let’s see it is listed as a comedy fantasy. And it is put out by Point Grey pictures, which is Seth and Evan Goldberg company, and then in partnership with Sony and Warner Brothers pictures. I think we have made a good case for an American pickle. Enjoy it this month as we celebrate Hanukkah and all of our Jewish friends. Enjoy this month. Many blessings. Happy Hanukkah. And we’re thinking of you and we’re here, right? Right there with ya. Yeah. Oh, boy. And never forget,

Mike Dodge 44:29
dodgers never stop and neither do the movies.

Brennan 44:32
Thanks for listening to Dodge Movie Podcast with Christi and Mike Dodge of Dodge Media Productions. To find out more about this podcast and what we do. Go to dodgemediaproductions.com. Subscribe, share, leave a comment and tell us what we should watch next. Dodgers never stop and neither do the movies.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai