Xanadu: LIVE! w/ Michaela Watkins (HDTGM Matinee)
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If you are a roller skate, this movie is for you. We saw Xanadu, so you know what that means. Now it's time for How Did This Get Made? We're gonna have a good time, celebrate some failure, not just be a hater, cause you know you wonder how did this get made? Let's follow in the mediocrity of some bar art. Perhaps we'll find the answer to the question, how did this get made? Hello, people!

home here at the Largo Theater at the Coronet, one of the greatest theaters here in LA, and we have an amazing show for you. But to begin the show, I need to introduce my co-host. Please welcome Jason Manzoukas! What's up, jerks? June, Diane, Raphael! And our very special guest for tonight, Michaela Watkins! All right, all right. Like I said, this movie has been

told to me that we need to do this movie. I never believed people until I saw it. This movie is insane, and insane in a way that I feel like it was late night art deco furniture, cocaine use...

And I feel like there was a, like, I literally feel like someone was fucking someone as they pitched this idea. And another person was in the room going, yes, yes, yes. That person was Jeff Lynne. Who was like, oh, you want to make a super fucked up roller skating movie? Let's do it to Electric Light Orchestra so everybody can be miserable. Yeah.

I'm about to ruin the Traveling Wilburys in a couple of years. So for now, I will create this tone poem monstrosity. It's weird, though. I have to say, like, I know what the movie is. You do? I do. Oh, my God. But for me... Well, then we can get to this much quicker than normal. June, what is this movie about? Oh, I don't know what it's about. But what I know for myself is, like, there's...

lots of lip gloss, lots of roller skating, lots of dancing. Like, I'm on board. You know, on a very real level, like, I'm just on board. Yeah, it's just, it's from that moment on, wait, was there a moment where you were like, yes. For my sensory experience, it's a good time. You know? I mean, it is. It's a good time. Yeah.

that thing of like I had chills you know when it started and then by the end I was like hiding under my bed so scared so like it all felt like that the whole movie by the end felt like in the shining when he sort of fantasizes the whole room coming alive yeah

Like, that to me was the entire film. Well, this to me, this whole movie could be seen as, as far as I'm concerned, a Jacob's Ladder kind of... The whole movie is just the moment before the main character dies. It is perhaps a fever dream. It's true. People are saying that all of Birdman might be a psychotic break for someone. Yes. This is that movie. Yes.

Well, that's what I feel like. I feel like it feels like one of those things where like some Hollywood executive was like, I like roller skates. Oh, a fat cat? A fat cat. You know what? I'm at, yeah. You know what did great? Starlight Express. We need to do it again. Let me just say, by the way, something about the roller skating in this movie. Flawless? Nobody looks comfortable on skates. No. And nobody ever put on skates.

or took off his skate. But like the camera would pan back to them. No skates. Yep. Skates. No skates. The only, I will say this, the only person who seems to me effortless on skates who is effortless and glides and skates his way through the whole movie is Gene fucking Kelly. Amazing. Who at, at age, I don't know what, 1,000? 1,000?

It shames every other dummy in this fucking movie. It's why it looks bad. Yeah, watching Gene Kelly was like, wow, I feel like Gene Kelly was, he doesn't look like he's aged. I look at pictures of him. He looks like, oh, he just continued doing these movies and they just happened to be kind of a bad one. Or those movies were just bad and we didn't look at them this critically. I don't know. Yeah, I don't remember watching it because I watched it a long time ago as a kid and I don't remember thinking like, I hope Olivia Newton-John fucks Gene Kelly, but this time I did. Yeah. I was like,

You hope he got the girl in the end. You weren't, when you originally saw it, did you see it as a little girl? Yeah. Yeah, because you weren't like, oh, I hope the mom fucks the granddad in this movie. LAUGHTER

But I do hope she fucks the guy from Taxi. Yeah. Who's not the guy from Taxi, but just looks like him. Looks like him. Oh, boy. I'm not going to talk about things like plot and character development. No, please do. Paul, I would love for you to talk about plot. Here's my issue about this movie.

The simplest thing, right? It's about this artist who has no focus, right? He's doing like portraits, he's doing still life, he's doing machine parts. And I don't know, Kassan, but he's still-- - How are we gonna start this movie? We'll start it with someone drawing. - Right, so-- - Action packed. - And he's a frustrated artist. He rips up his art, the art flies away.

seemingly cross town, lands in front of a mural that's not paint. And that opens up a portal for Zeus's daughters to come out. Oh, if you thought this movie didn't have connections to the Greek pantheon of gods, you're fucking wrong. Because guess what, assholes? Zeus is all over this shit.

Zeus makes a vocal appearance in this movie. Not since Clash of the Titans has it been so good. And an uncredited Hera walk-on. By the way, not even in the credits are they called Zeus and Hera. They're just called Heavenly Voice and Female Heavenly Voice. As if they could have gotten sued by the author of Greek mythology.

I do at one point. I wish as a Greek person I could sue this movie. I wish I could as a guy. Just under the subheading, how dare you? Here's what's weird, though. You bring up a good point about the musing of it all. Because you would think that he would be touched by a muse. That she would come to life and inspire him. Which is not really what happens in the movie. Yeah.

Wait, wait, wait. Hang on. Wait a second. Really? Isn't that exactly what happens in the movie? That's exactly. But here's the thing. There's eight of them. There's eight Vanadoos happening. But nothing he does in the entire movie has anything, anything to do with him being an artist. That's exactly it.

His dream that he succeeds in at the end, spoiler alert, has nothing to do with being an artist, which is clearly the one thing he is the most talented in. He is not talented in club owning.

And here's what's really weird, too. Like, why make him a painter who then goes to paint... This whole thing confounded me, but paint replicas of... Yeah, of record covers. Oh, my God, he invented a job. I don't understand why that's confusing. That's totally normal. Okay, so he's going to paint...

A large scale. We can only print them so big. Right. So he's playing. We need humans to make them bigger. A large scale replica. Back in the olden days, they would paint every billboard by hand. By the way, were they even billboards? They hung them on record stores. On the outside of Tower Records, basically. Okay, fine. For advertising of the album, he paints the album, but bigger.

But not, but they don't want, they don't want the painting to be that good though. Yeah. It's not supposed to look good. Don't make it, he keeps being told, don't make it look good. Don't give it your, like, floor issues or whatever. Just paint it, make it look stupid and go hang it up, dummy. And my question to that is, why? Yeah. Such a good question. I wrote that a lot. But can,

I just want to bring up this one point before we get too far away from it. Wouldn't it just, wouldn't it make so much more sense that if he painted that first album cover where the girl was on it, then she came to life? And then, I don't even club stuff, but like, he painted the muse and then she came, not a rant. Who painted

Yeah. Because that guy, like, it seems like that guy needs to be inspired. Or you could argue she is actually the muse of the man who shot the album cover because she first appears in his art. So that's a really weird scene because when Sonny Malone goes to talk to that very guy... Sonny Malone is the lead of this movie. ...to find this muse, the guy, the photographer...

says that she just appeared suddenly. Yeah, he says, I took 100 pictures of only the building and when I was in the dark room, I developed it and there was, in this one picture, there was a girl in it. No, no, he said, didn't he say that she rolled in on roller skates for one shot and then she took off and they're like, hey, we never got her name so we couldn't get her to sign the contract. And then she wasn't. And by the way,

I would say this has sort of happened throughout the entire movie, although Gene Kelly had one moment. Nobody's really crazy fucking surprised to see her show up everywhere. Like, he's always got a chip on his shoulder, like, hey, oh.

well, my boss is really mad at me. I'm like, ah, she just appeared out of thin air. This, okay. At some point, they fly. This is such a good scene. They fly together. This is such a good scene because in this moment, I realized I had a real epiphany, which is the scene in which Sonny Malone is painting in his room. Okay. Okay.

Inside a building. Maybe you don't understand what the fuck is going on in this movie. Because we're saying she's his muse, which they don't establish until much later in the movie. Almost at the end. So early on, all you know, she is a being of pure light.

who arrives in and out of the sky at whim. I wrote down, I want to read the script because the first five minutes is, and then they beam up into the sky. And then they're beaming up the fire escape. This is a horror movie. What this is, is a horror movie because she is some sort of devil.

that has the power to appear at any time. And she just like appears to him and is like, what are you doing? While he's painting and he's, you're right, it's just kind of like painting, walk, oh God. He sort of seems irritated with her. He's a frustrated artist and I think he was cast really bad. You think? You think? You're questioning his casting? I mean, where are they gonna

actor who can roller skate that well? Where can we find a roller skater who can act well enough? Let me tell you two things here that will blow your mind. First of all, John Travolta was offered the role of Sonny Malone. He said no. Probably because he just was in Grease with Olivia Newton-John. He's like, let's not make this a thing. Yet. Let's not make this a thing yet. And then...

Oh, actually, I'm sorry. Andy Gibb was first given the role of Sonny. See, now that... Yeah, and that makes more sense. He said no. It went to Travolta. Travolta said no. And then Michael Beck was just stone cold, offered the part, no audition. And the casting director was like, I know a great guy that looks like Andy Gibb. What about one of the other Gibbs? What about Barry? Barry.

What, the monster Gib? No. We can't have Barry. He's too dangerous. I have a question, though. Here's another thing that I found very odd. So he's a frustrated painter because he can't find the time to do his own art. And I sort of wanted to say, like, well, you are painting in your day job. Like, you are...

Sure, no. He is being paid to do art. He is getting paid to do art. But also, my job did not seem to be, like, I hear what you're saying, like, he was like, oh, I'm so frustrated as an artist, I'm being paid as an artist. Ugh, like, he left his job as an artist to work freelance.

Which, like, the freelance work seemed to be, like, it wasn't like, I have a dream that I'm pursuing when I'm off. He's like, I'm working freelance now. To be fair, his first line of the movie, the first line, the first spoken dialogue you see after eight beautiful women dance and go into the sky...

Oh, yeah, because after the silent drawing opening is a six-minute dance montage on roller skates. Yes. So the first actual, like, when they turned the mic on was the line, guys like me shouldn't dream anyway.

I rolled that around in my brain and I'm like, guys like me shouldn't dream anyway. Good thing he had the anyway on there. Anyway. What were you saying before that? I love a line that starts in the middle of a thought.

Well, and you're right, Michaela, because there is, like, who is this guy? I mean, we find out later on that he's, like, a real cad and, like, really, you know... Later on, ladies love him. Oh, Sonny Malone, yeah. When he goes up to that woman and is like, can I borrow your bike? I'll bring it back. And they're like, sure, take it. Never drives it into... Well, Jane... Oh, he drives it... That's not his moped.

- He drives a moped into the ocean and then, and it was an elaborate chase sequence, an elaborate chase sequence. And then Gene Kelly, who was at the beginning of the chase sequence, just happens to be like, "Hey kid, you fell in the water?" And I thought, oh, Gene Kelly is magic. He's not.

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I just want to talk about the opening montage, the women coming out of the mural, because here's another thing that in the beginning when I don't know what's happening, I'm willing to understand. Oh, they were trapped in there, because I'm going to do this, and if you're listening, you won't understand, but when Olivia Newton-John comes alive, she's like, oh, and looks at her body like, oh, I'm free from this glass prison I've been in. Yes, yes.

the case either. It's like the thing that they put General Zod in Superman 2. It's like a two-dimensional thing floating through space. They appear to be trapped in a mural. But they're not. They're living in Mount Olympus. And they're reacting like, oh, I'm finally free. It's like, no, you're living in Mount Olympus. I'm finally free and I'm so excited. I need to dance. I need to dance because I am not free. I need to dance.

And then fly over Los Angeles in a rainbow light brigade. Because what the fuck is happening? Because straight out of the gate in any movie, you really want to establish the rules. They went out of the gate into the Warner Brothers lot. Like, that just felt

They're like, yeah, we're dark that day if you guys want to use the lot. And then they didn't do anything to make it look like anything other than the Warner Brothers. But what I was so confused at, too, was this record studio, maybe it's time gone by, like, it seems like everything was done there like an office building. It's like, oh, you want to go to accounting? That's on the first floor. You want to go to the music videos? That's on the first, you know, second floor. You want to go, like, everything was in one building and...

it seemingly to me felt like the guy who was like, paint those things bigger was also the head of the record company. Yeah, it seemed like he was also the guy who was operating the music video set. He was. He's the one that showed up and was like, hey, you can't turn this stuff on. This stuff's expensive. You think that David Geffen, when he was running Geffen Records, was like popping in going, are we blowing up the images big enough yet? I want these big...

And he has my favorite line. He's like, I gave up art and now I do this. Run a record studio. He goes, look at that. Guess who did that? And it's a fucking sculpture of a guy playing drums that looks like something you would buy from a homeless person on the street. That took a couple of coat hangers and twisted it into garbage. Garbage art. Can you believe I made that? That was me that did that. Oh, he also said...

He also said, look, I got money. People return my calls. Well, but I did not think he was the head of the record company. Okay, because again, my thought was, if he is the head, the head of a record studio is an artistic position. That's not like you didn't give up art. You're still... He gave up the top four buttons of his shirt. Here's the thing that's... Okay, what we haven't really covered yet is...

Because, guys, this is a movie about two people falling in love. Well, really, three people. Three people? Well, because, I mean, isn't it also... Oh, because of Gene Kelly? Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean, yeah. And romance starts like it always does, with a man walking alone on the beach, a woman running into the back of him on roller skates. When he turns around, she kisses him, turns into light and flies away. Was it a consensual kiss, you might ask? Doubt it.

He had no time to see who was coming at him. He turns around after being bumped from behind, straight in kiss on the mouth. Now again, knowing what we know now, which is the end of the movie, it's more confounding because it seems to me that if he didn't get that album cover where she was on it,

he would never have gone to search her out. Right. Like, he's like, I had this girl kiss me on the beach today. Anyway, I go back to work. And then it just hit this happenstance that he saw her, but it wasn't like in her plan to be his muse. Well, that's, I mean, honestly, maybe that, and maybe that's what happened, though. Because ultimately, she wasn't his muse, Jason. Oh, boy. Okay. Here we go. She wasn't, because what you said, Michaela. Challenge accepted. What you said is absolutely right. He never fulfilled his artistic dream. He became part owner of a

Yeah. Of a roller skating club. Of a roller skating club. That was never his dream. Why not just say in the beginning of the movie, oh, it's my dream to have a roller skating club. And then the movie would be so much more fulfilling. Yeah.

Like, wouldn't it? That's all you would need. In case you're not entirely sure it's 1980 or 79, he says, I'm tired of painting vans and murals and album covers. Those are the only three things that deserve Dakota Payne. I mean, I think there's a different reading of this movie where you could say that he's actually her muse and he touches her with inspiration. Wait, the muse is muse? No.

Well, I actually agree with what you just said. What? I agree with that. You're saying that this movie is about a muse's muse? An earthbound muse? Nope. I will not accept it. Because he convinces her to stop being a muse. To stop her musing. And I think it just rolled around in your head. We'll get to it, but I think a case could be really made for this right here.

Look, the reason sort of she comes to life is to get this other dream. So she is a muse, and I know that. She's brought to life by his failed art. Not real, though. The papers. But she doesn't exist in that thing. The papers. No. But she doesn't exist in that. Jesus. But that, to me, seems like a portal. Whoa.

That's what happens. But it's also a portal. And it's magic, too. That's like the entrance to... Yes. To Mount Olympus? Yes! Yeah, I know! There's fucking columns, bro!

There's columns in the mural that fucking... It's a portal. I know we're taking in your culture piecemeal by then, and you've got to hold on to it, but you've got to... God damn it! You have to admit, there's something very magical about the way that the paper finds its way across all those different highways and byways to land right on that mural. Forrest Gump clearly stole from this mural. Sure, but then... Then it is she that finds him. He was drawing a Viking. I don't know. I don't... I don't know...

- Don't talk about Vikings to me! - He should have drawn her, ripped it up, send it away, then the papers magically form a girl and she's like, "Hey, now I'm a beam of light." Like he didn't do anything. - But because it was Venice. - He didn't do anything. - He didn't do anything. - He had such a chip on his shoulder. I don't wanna be the, I'm not told I'm the best painter, I'm told I'm the fastest.

What if she is his muse, but it is to find what he is truly meant to do, which is not be an artist, which is to be a good partner to Gene Kelly and to run this club and hire his art bros and have them be, because it is artistic in some way. Are you saying, though, that if you're a muse, you don't need inspiration, too? No. No. No, because you're a beam of light. You're a beam of light.

But her dad is like on her ass going, you gotta go make this guy into a great photographer. You gotta make this guy into a great actor. Well, she said, I was sent here to make Xanadu happen. Why? That is her mission. And by the way, she did with the inspiration and the musings.

Of Sonny Malone. Yeah. Of this loser. Of the loser. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. She's like, what I need is a real loser. Oh, boy. Do not do this to me. This is actually, this is like a microcosm for the relationship between women and men in this big sense where it's like behind every man is a great woman. It's a powerful woman. Amen. And so what she is, she finds some loser, right? And then she's like...

And then she's like, you know, I'd really love a club, but, you know, what I need is this loser. I don't... Also, because here's again, Gene Kelly, not magic, right? So the chances, like... I would actually say Gene Kelly is the one who has a very clear...

He, from the beginning, says he wants to open up a club called Xanadu. And he wants to realize it. And so she is brought to him. But what should have happened, again, simple connective tissue should have been like she introduces them. That doesn't happen. He's on a mad search for this girl. He stops to get some popcorn because, look, when you're on a mad dash to find someone, you've got to fill up on some delicious popcorn.

He also along flirts with the popcorn girl. I thought this is the love of his life that he's chasing. Right. Just wants to get some dibs on other action in case it doesn't work out. Then continues on but then it's like oh wait there's a weird flute noise. Let me go check that out.

And then, so it's Gene Kelly playing the clarinet on a rock, and he's like, who died? And so he said, he's like, pick up the pace, kind of, like, who's this asshole? Like, I'm playing an instrument on a rock on a beach, and some guy's like, it sounds like a funeral dirge. And then, so he picks it up, and he's like... You're right, in that moment, I thought, there's a lot of space on this beach. Like, if you don't like what he's playing...

It's a beach. Like, go walk further. And then he says something like... It was 1980. Everybody was criticizing everybody. And he goes, is that better? And then this loser goes, well, it was faster.

And then, and then, when he bumps into him again, goes, hi, clarinet, because that's how inventive he is. His imagination is so big that he, like hot dog guy, he's like, hi, hot dog. To be fair, I only, to be fair, I only referred to Gene Kelly in my notes as clarinet. Hi, clarinet. Oh,

Hi. He also, upon meeting Gene Kelly, recaps the last 15 minutes of the movie for him. Gene Kelly's like, well, what are you doing? He goes, okay, well, I paint art. Real art? So you're an artist? Oh, no. They give me album covers. We've just seen this guy. We know what's going on. Let me tell you about in 1980...

People were leaving the theater a lot to do blow. And they would leave and they'd come back and they don't want to miss stuff. So they needed someone. Because this movie is full of recaps.

Every 20 minutes, there's like a one-minute recap of the last 20 minutes. I just had a thought. That's how confusing the movie is. The first image of the movie is Gene Kelly playing the clarinet. Yes. And then the second image is him drawing. So maybe his art and Gene Kelly's music kind of meshed in the air and hit at the right spot, and that activated the muse. I like that. I like that.

I like that. That's interesting. She brought them together. Yes. She brought both of their needs together. But here's what's interesting. She has already been Gene Kelly's muse. Right, a partnership. In like the 40s or 50s, in the big band days. She knows what he's got. Yeah. But I couldn't figure out why. She's like, let's get the talent. I was confused why he was like, wait, but aren't you? And she was like, I have no idea what you mean.

Does she forget being people's muses? Is she like a Terminator where the Terminator, the one that was in the first Terminator movie? Or in Battlestar Galactica, there's like a million nines? Yeah. You know, there's a whole bunch of nines running around or whatever? I think she felt uncomfortable being two muses to two different men at the same time. She's like, oh, I fucked you, but I want to fuck this other guy. She's a muse slut. She's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But...

But can I piggyback on that for a sec? Okay, so let's go with the theory that maybe she is pairing these two creative souls together to make one giant wunderblast of creativity. Yeah.

And let's just say, it reminds me of, remember in like, the superhero thing where they were like, form of, shape of? Yeah, yeah. Wonder Twins. Wonder Twins. I remember they had to pick up an ice, they were going to make an ice ball to like, throw at somebody. Well, hang on. Zane probably turned into an ice ball. But like, but they're like,

they're like one is like form of a ball you know ice and the other one's like ball and I was like why couldn't it just be a ball why did it have to be an ice ball if you take these two people I can explain that if you need it well hold on I know only one can do Zane has to transform into something with water while Jane but they didn't need they didn't need him they didn't

need him or her or whatever. Just like they don't need they don't need that other they don't need Andy Gibb guy. No they don't. They don't. Like she could have just worked with Yeah. It just could have been mommy and granddaddy. And it could have been a really cool nice joint that actually made some modicum of sense. Sure. But it also seemed like Gene Kelly was like this is perfect. Like Gene Kelly was a little crazy too because he loved the end idea but it

Gene Kelly also, I'm sorry to interrupt, but did he say at one point that he was in the family construction business? Yes. What does that mean? He constructs families all over the United States, wherever they need putting together. He left music to make buildings. Yeah, construction. His family's construction business. Okay. Wait, did you really think it was the construction of families? No.

I did not. He's like, I'm putting mommies and daddies together. I'm giving them children top to bottom. I'm bringing... I'm constructing these families the American way. Just a little background on Gene Kelly. And I'm rich as shit because of it. But here's the thing. Sorry, Paul, but he wanted... He wanted...

to go into business with him because he felt like Malone would know where the hot commercial real estate spots were? Yeah. He gives him, he gives him that, that was the task. He's like, hey kid, you find me a space to run my club. He's like, oh, this guy's making me find, like he's making him a real estate agent. Another thing that he's not equipped to do. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, except that then his muse is like, well, what about this place? You know? And then she puts him on the path. That part actually did add up for me. How? I'm just now realizing. This movie was so cuckoo bananas that this part, I was like, I'm willing to buy this. I've actually...

Again, my whole thing is like, he's a fucking painter. At least when they have the club, he'll go, and you can paint your giant mural here. He doesn't do anything. Or like swirls on the floor. Yeah, you would want him to be like, leather chairs. Uh,

You know, white. He doesn't describe anything. He's not even a designer. He doesn't bring anything to the club on any level. He brings nothing to the club. To the degree that he also, once she kind of accomplishes her task and is like, I know my job here is done. I now have to turn into a yellow beam of light and disappear from the staircase. He's like, I can't go on. I can't do the club.

Yeah. And Gene Kelly has to come to the beach and be like, we're going to miss you tonight at the grand opening of the club. Which seemingly this movie happens in four and a half days. Max. Max. And the club is an abandoned, like weeds growing in front of it, wreck. Yeah. And then it is transformed into a multi-million dollar club. Yeah.

Overnight. Seemingly overnight. If this movie had at the end... And no magical powers were used to do that. It was real construction labor. If it had at the end, like, whatever, all of the music and had pulled back, pulled back, pulled back, and then, like, it had, like, pulled out of his head while he was, like, in a coma, and then it was like, boop, boop, boop. Yeah.

That would have been the most satisfying ending because this movie is a movie or if it had just been like, if it had pulled back and he was just painting and then his workmates were like, Sonny? Sonny? And he was like, huh?

And he was like, oh, I just had the weirdest daydream. What if it was more like a Newhart ending and Zeus wakes up next to Hera and you're like, oh my God, I had the craziest dream about our daughter last night. I would have believed that. I would have believed it. This could have been a movie about a man and his imaginary friend, Olivia Newton-John. Or,

Or Olivia Newton-John wakes up and it's like 2018. Right. And she's like... Still looking for her missing husband? On skates. And everybody's like, ha! Hang on. Hang on. I feel like I lost you guys there. I want to talk about...

I want to talk about the Gene Kelly memory boner scene, as how I call it. Oh, God. Where they make the most bizarre choice. He's listening to an old song and remembering it. And instead of going into his memory, he stays in the left corner of the screen. In focus? The dream is in the right, in focus. And he's just like...

It made me, I wanted to shine my eyes away from it. Yeah. But I rooted for them. That I felt like was directly meant to be like a jerk-off scene. That's what I thought. It was a memory bone. Let me tell you a couple things about Gene Kelly. First of all, is on record as saying he only took the role because filming was a short drive from his Beverly Hills home to the set.

The big dance number between Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John was filmed after production had wrapped as an afterthought. Like, oh yeah, we should get these two together in the movie. You mean this, the boners, the one you're talking about? Yeah, the boners. Because without that scene, you would never know that those two were connected at all. And it's terrific. And Gene Kelly choreographed it, and this tells me something about what he thought about the movie. It's wonderful, of course.

He only would agree to do it if it was a closed stage with only him, Olivia, a cameraman, and two other people. And that guy, Sonny, as far away from you as humanly possible. That's amazing. In fact, nobody can talk about the weather. That's how much I don't want to hear Sonny.

Nothing. Because every time they showed those two in a two shot, it was Gene Kelly and then you see like the back of poor Michael's head. That's the actor's name is Michael. And he's just like, everything's ADR'd. Every single thing I'm saying is completely ADR'd. Gene Kelly being totally charming. And then more ADR'd stuff from that guy. Gene Kelly really, I was enamored with him in this. I was like, wow, he's great. He's amazing in this movie. And it's kind of a sequel.

There's a 1944 movie called Cover Girl in which Gene Kelly starred and he played Danny McGuire. Dancer, dancer, cover girl. Really? I don't know if that was intentional. Ooh, I kind of like that though. Can I just play you a clip of the director? Now, by the way, this director didn't direct any other...

films after this. He went on to be a fantastic documentarian and directed Outfoxed and the Walmart documentary. This director is a very established great director. This is the director just talking about the movie. Here we go. I remember very clearly getting this script. It was like 45 pages. Laughter

It was very weak to be polite about it. And I said, oh, well, I guess they're going to fix it. Universal called me back and threw the thing at me and said, we want you to rewrite it. So now I have an original script, I'm rewritten, I have another script, and I'm rewritten. He did it one more time, maybe two more times. Well...

Lo and behold, the script never got fixed. It became longer than 45 pages. But for myself, there was always frustration that we really never had a script and we never solved the script. My solution was to dream up the most interesting, magical musical numbers, do a great, good old-fashioned musical, only brought up to date. That was it. There was no script.

Shocking. Shocking. I am shocked at that revelation. A 45-page script was rushed into production.

45 pages? By the way, that makes so much sense. Because that's about the amount of movie there is here. If you don't think these people kissed themselves into an animation sequence, you'd be wrong. By the way, some facts about the animation sequence. Done by Don Bluth, that's why it looks like Fern Gully. Um...

But more interestingly, the movie was running a little short on time. Oh, really? And instead of going in for reshoots, it was cheaper to do an animated sequence after the fact. I am not surprised by that in the least. And just to show you the... I just want to show you this one thing.

This is the thing that was so interesting to me was that the animated Olivia Newton-John is wearing leg warmers. This, Paul, can you stop right there? This entire animation sequence, if you watch it, because it starts with them kissing, is the sex scene of this movie. The entire sex scene takes place with magical cartoon characters like blasting each other into flower shapes. And that is real. I watched it again and jerked off.

And it works, guys. It works. It being my dick. I want to throw one more fact at you and then we can get back to talking about it. How much would you say it cost to build the Xanadu Club? $14. How much is a porn set? Priceless.

What's weird, there are so many... That's one thing I walked away with. There are a lot of cavernous, large spaces in this movie. There's the huge space where they shoot the music video or the music video stuff. There's the club. There are just... Big spaces. A couple actors walking into enormous spaces. And would you say that that would mean that the movie was really expensive or really cheap? I...

you know, I think for this time, like 1980, I bet you this was a big budge. $20 million to make this movie in 1980, which is like, I feel like $100 million today, right? Yeah. Yes. $20 million. Oh, to make the whole movie. The whole movie. Okay. The Xanadu set, only a cool mil. They spent a million on the movie and 19 million on just Coke. Okay.

Coke and roller skates. More roller skates! Coke and skate lube. I want these skates lubed up. I need them going faster. I need all these mustachioed weirdos on skates to be unsettlingly uncomfortably on their feet.

I would love it if that director was only like, well, it was 45 pages, so we did a lot of cocaine, and we did the best we could, which was very poor. Joel Silver, producer of movies like Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, he was one of the producers and apparently locked the screenwriter in a room for over three days straight because he wouldn't finish the rewrites. LAUGHTER

That screenwriter that we saw there who looks like an ex-drummer for the Ramones? Yes. And he says, the Joel Silver quote is, that son of a bitch wouldn't deliver, so I locked him in a room. Yeah.

I wish we were making movies in the 80s. So I'm just realizing now, like, yeah, why wasn't Sonny Malone a musician even or a dancer? Yeah. He doesn't dance. He doesn't sing. He doesn't do anything. Act, he doesn't know.

I got to tell you, though, I did love his coworkers at the Art Factor. Oh, that one. They were just wonderful. I mean, this is an old reference, but wasn't that one guy who's like, the sassy guy reminds you of Johnny Miller? Oh. Oh, I don't know. The one with the glasses? Yeah, the guy. I love when he said to him, this is the act out line, like before it would go to commercial if it came on network television. He said, you're going to make it as an actor, you're going to make it as an artist because you're nuts.

Are you developing this for TV? I would like to see the further adventures of Xanadu. What happens two days after it closes.

And the idea of Xanadu is the idea of Xanadu. Because, again, the movie's like, well, we're going to have a club that is like the 40s and the 80s. But then it really is just a roller skating club. Well, there's also music. There's a bunch of music being played by the Tubes.

the band, the new wave band, The Tubes. Yeah, but there's nothing, there's nothing 40s about the club. But what's his face? The dummy kid. He's like, I like rock music, man. Yeah. And, but that wasn't rock music. No. He was like, we need synthesizers and six guys in jumpsuits, also known as The Tubes.

Can we get Devo? No, we can get Devo rip-off band The Tubes. And also, another thing this club was kind of missing was any libations. There was no glass. There was nobody having a beverage. There were no spectators. There were only people who were in

in the choreographed dance. But to me, my thought was, is that part of the deal? You are performing when you go to this club. Oh, right. You've learned the numbers. Why else would the club have a curved part of it that goes all the way around like a roller derby rink? Yeah. Like the club is built as if it's like a, what's it called? A roller track. Bicycle. That didn't seem like fun though. Yeah. It did seem like a lot of fun. And I love the dance.

thought he would play clarinet at the end. Yeah, no. No, they didn't really tie any threads. Olivia Newton- Because the real takeaway- Olivia Newton-Jump broke her coccyx by the way on this movie. But the takeaway from this movie really is like if you're an artist and you have a dream to do your art, like you should give that up. Yeah.

You really should. And become a businessman. The person who wins in this movie is Simpson. His boss, who's like, you should take business more seriously. When I do it as a series, you're going to play him. His philosophy is actually the one that is true. Oh, guys, I'm sorry. While you were talking, I just happened to look at one of my notes. I did tell you the budget was $20 million. It was budgeted for four. LAUGHTER

And production costs and delays increased it by $13 million. It went... Hey, hey, so... $13 million over budget. So I just came from Xanadu, and we're a little over. We're a little over right now. Oh, yeah, sure. We got a couple hundred thousand. Okay, no, we are triple the budget over right now. So...

Four million and it went 13 million over. Also, the lead actor murdered someone. Also, everybody has broken legs from the roller skating. So we just have been giving skates to extras. Also, Andrew Lloyd Webber is furious. Um...

He even says, he even says back to his coworkers, I'm jumping back, but he says, you know that dream of mine? Well, I'm finally doing it. That's him when he quits. And I'm like, what? What dream? To be a freelance artist? I don't care that you're doing it. Just tell me what it is.

You might not know this about me, but my favorite candy is Twizzlers. Hands down from when I was a kid, there is nothing better than a Twizzler. It is my go-to treat. Let me tell you something. When I saw that Twizzlers was sponsoring this show, I got excited. The fun never stops with Twizzlers. All right. It's the candy to stretch out the fun. Now look, other candy, too sweet.

Overpowering, but Twizzlers is the perfect level of sweet. It comes with the perfect chewy twist that everyone knows and loves. It is the perfect summer snack companion to unwind at the end of the day and doesn't melt in the summer sun. Oh, I'm walking around with one of those Twizzlers. I'm watching a movie with a Twizzler. There isn't a better movie companion. And Twizzlers have something for every fruity, chewy candy lover.

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Well, I feel like we obviously have a lot of questions, but I want to open it up to you guys out here who might have some questions.

And I'm gonna bring some stuff with me. Here we go. All right, so who raised their hand if you got a question? All right, here we go. Good questions from the people down here. Good people, good people. All right, here we go. What is your name? What you would call this movie? Oh, someone's playing a How'd This Get Made bingo. How are we doing? Let's see. Wait, there's a How'd This Get Made bingo? Jason, say dum-dum. Haven't I already? No, according to this bingo, you have not. Dum-dum.

You're close. You got a very close now to making it. Does that mean somebody is going to scream bingo in the middle of this show? Is this a thing that's happening that I'm unawares of? Question back here. Your name, sir, what you would call Xanadu in your question. My name's Jay. I would just call it what the fuck. And my question is, you guys haven't talked about the scene where they go into the music recording studio that has...

palm trees and a rooftop scene and a wind machine and rain. And the boss suddenly shows up and says, this stuff is expensive. I thought you were going to say we didn't talk about the Gene Kelly makeover scene. His coming out. His coming out of the closet scene. Now we know why it didn't

it didn't work with him and Olivia Newton-John in 1945. Oh, interesting. Well, I was fascinated by that because it was a recording studio that looked like a music video. Oh, no, I think it was for music videos. No, it wasn't. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it's a recording and all that stuff was to inspire them. No. No, Paul. Yes, no. Paul. Paul.

- Paul. - Paul. - My friend here. - Paul. - Paul. - Wait, here we go. - Paul. - By the way, here we go. - Paul. - Paul June's not even going along with this. - Hold on, hold on, hold on. - Paul. - How many people agree with me by applause that I'm right? Because I am right. - How many people agree with us?

All right, don't try and juice it, guys. What are you even saying? He says it. He said when they walk in, he goes, this is our recording stages. We have these things to inspire our artists. No. Yeah. No. Remember, he goes, I don't know how to work this stuff. Beep, boop, boop, beep, boop, bop, boop, beep, boop, beep, boop.

And then all of a sudden they skate and things happen, everything. But wait, I have a question. What do you imagine the artists would do on these things? Yeah, they'd be like, ooh, deserted island. Ooh, that makes me think of something. But that also makes you think. Just go for a walk. But that also, again, it shows no knowledge of the music business because you'd be like, all right, let's get into the studio and just start writing. I mean, is that how it works? You just start writing a song? Also, you know what you don't do? You don't record music in like an airplane hangar full of fucking... Yeah.

Where rooftop scenes drop from the ceiling. Yeah. What? No! Right, that's where you record porn. By the way, they both fly in that scene briefly and he does not react to it. Again, I do believe this entire movie is about someone's mental illness. It's like Birdman where there's stuff that you're like, did that really happen or is he just in his head in that scene? Like that could be this. This is the first Birdman.

Mike, your name, your title, and your question. My name is Brie. My title would be, You Don't Have to Do This, Gene Kelly. And I was wondering if you found in any of your research, what was the impetus for this movie? What was the inspiration? Because it's

When I was watching it, I just kept thinking, they must have thought, let's make a movie where we just piss all over Gene Kelly's corpse, and then they found out he wasn't dead yet, so they hired him on. Because this just keeps mocking all these musicals. So you're asking, who's the muse for this movie? I do, in the notes compiled by our great intern, Nate Kelly, Kylie, I have...

I do have what it's based on. It's based on an older movie, but I can't imagine. I mean, the idea of a muse inspiring someone is a classic tale that could have been executed. That's the thing. So simple. So simple. Have a dream. Make it. Make it.

I love it. I love, too, that in the movie, when she reveals that she's a muse in a section that is, you know, how DVD chapters have titles? It's called Kira's Secret. And she says, I'm a muse. Why don't you believe me? Look it up in a dictionary. Which he does.

They then close in on the dictionary so you can follow along, I guess in case you're a dummy and you need to be explained what a muse is. And then the TV talks to him. No, there's a joke in there. Yeah, there's a joke which is, do you believe me now, Sonny? Yeah, there's a joke in there too. And then the TV, she's like, TV, and the TV turns on. Oh, that was... And then the people on TV talk to him. Oh, I hated this movie. Oh, I hated this movie.

I like that part. I liked everything except him being like, instead of going, holy shit, is going, what? No. Like, he's so sexy. Yeah, he's like, what am I, a real estate agent? And she's like, well, what about my place? It's a real pill.

I've never seen your place. I heard you. You have sisters. I get it. He was such a jerk. He seems like... I'm like, you're going to leave your amazing life where you get to travel time and be with all these people and do all these amazing things for this guy? Are you kidding me? I still want to crack into the end at one point, too, because what exactly happens there? Yeah, is that the crux of the movie, that she has to make this decision to...

To be with him or to go back to being immortal? She made the decision, but Zeus is like, you gotta stay. I need them all my muses. You know what else just occurred to me? That's when they blew our minds, I think, with that. If she was Gene Kelly's muse in the big band era, right? And he's like, I got my own band, blah, blah, blah. Why...

I guess maybe she was just his muse only in as much as he had the success that he had because I guess when she disappeared, he didn't play clarinet anymore. But I'm also confused about... Well, he says... Doesn't he say, though, that when she left, he stopped... The music went out of him. Yeah, that's when his dream died.

Isn't that antithetical to being a muse? Yeah, it is. When she left. When she left. It's not mused like at all. A muse, I believe, is like, she's like, I changed this for the best and now, or unless, again, she's a business muse because it brings him into the business of constructing families. Yeah, like stop being a good clarinetist

player, go be a great constructor of families. Hang up your paintbrushes, be a club owner, be a construction worker. Everybody stop trying to be artistic. By the way... It was the 80s. I think we figured out the best title for this movie. Business Muse. But there was a... I also had an issue with him because he also seemed like he was a singer and I don't know many clarinet players who can... He sang.

Gene Kelly did, yes. How are you a clarinet slash singer? You're like, I play the clarinet and I sing. That would be a real hard combo to pull off. But I think that's why, to answer that young woman's question, is that that was the impetus for the film, is to show that Gene Kelly can do everything.

And he really could. Like when he was dancing, especially in the scene, the one with Olivia Newton-John when his boner fantasy comes to life. But yeah. That was transformative. Like that was phenomenal. He is effortless and so, and he, I don't know, how old is he when this is done, someone? 70s. He looks great. 68 years old. He died in 96. And he's shaming everyone else. He was alive for 16 more years but said no more movies after this one.

Oh, is this the last one? Yep. 1980. This was really his last one? Yep, and then he died in 1996. It's like, oh, he must have died right after. Even when he's doing the horrible makeover montage, it's still, he transcends what's going on. He's terrific. He's really quite wonderful. The only issue I have with that dressing up montage is he's like, I gotta get new duds, but his new duds look like his old duds. Yeah. He looks like an old man at the end and he looked like an old man at the beginning. He didn't look bad, but he didn't really get new duds. He looks deep into his eyes.

and said, I never had a partner before. Take me shopping. And I just... All right, your name, your title, the movie, and your question. My name's Ben. Title will be Xanadont. Boom! Whoa, there it is. You should just sit down, Ben. It doesn't get better than that. And I'd like to know, marry, kill, fuck, the three main characters. I'm still confused.

Okay. Marry, kill, fuck. Okay. I'm really going to think about this. Marry Gene Kelly. Marry Gene Kelly. I think everybody agrees. Oh, guys, this is so easy. Yeah, it's so easy. Kill the bad guy and I'm going to fuck Olivia Newton-John. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no, no. Of course. That's why we all. And then I'm going to fuck Gene Kelly for the rest of my life. Wait a second. Guys. Great. You guys have it all wrong. First of all, fuck the guy who yells at all the painters.

That guy is wild. Second of all. You're going to fuck him? He said the three main characters. Oh, three main. Okay, I was going to say penis pubes, Mary. Definitely Mary. Speaking of random characters, though, what about that guy that Sonny runs into as he's searching for his muse who offers to show his... Lou? Lou?

Lou, that was disgusting. He's like, hey, you're single. You're single. What about my daughters? And he unfolds his wallet. Oh, yeah, Lou. Pictures? Lou, that was called exposition. We got to show that everybody wants to set him up. He's real hot to trot. Yeah. I will, but to be fair, and I will say as a single man, men offer me their daughters all the time. All the time. They're just like, please, Jason, fuck my girls. Mm-hmm.

No, they don't because that's a lunatic's behavior. And what to me was really disturbing about it was that he was pulling out like wallet-sized pics. Yeah. I don't think they were his daughters. Yeah. They were like high school senior pictures. They were like these are my girls. It was 1980. Tall girls, short girls. This one's got a lisp. Come on, Sonny. All right. Here we go. Another question. Your name, your name of the movie, and your question.

My name's Caitlin, name of the movie is Career Killer. And I was just curious if you guys noticed when...

Sonny Malone meets Gene Kelly outside of the record store. He's putting up this large stupid record and he just walks off, leaves the ladder there, leaves the rest of the pictures there. Oh my God. So many things. And he puts it to his house, this mansion, huge mansion. By the way, thinking about that as well, leaving all of his equipment there, that's a big no-no. But secondly, why is he even putting it up? This is a real full-service job. I'm just kidding.

Like, he's hanging them up as well. You finished painting it. Now go hang it outside the record store. For this, you get a Tara Reade sticker. That's a really good question. A really good... Who has faith in their question? Oh, this guy in the front. Oh, you got one too? All right. What's your question? Your name, your title of the movie?

Joe, can I sing the title? 100%, Joe. Shit-do-do. That's pretty bad. I liked it, but I wish you would have just continued it on. That was good. All right. Shit-do-do. Here we go. Your questions. Given the sexy short shorts and the radical roller skates, who would be more likely to be recast as Sonny Malone, yourself or Jason? Oh, man.

Me or you, Jason, as Sonny Malone? To be cast as Sonny Malone?

Gosh, we both have so many qualities. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we, you know what? We could both probably do it together. Yeah. You know, it would be the combination of both of us that would be the true embodiment of Sonny Malone. I mean, if you think about it, Gene Kelly is the original Sonny Malone. Yeah. And then, you know, so I'll be the older guy, you be the younger guy, and we got a whole new movie. Sure. June, you want to be the muse? Yes, please. All right.

Is there anything for Michaela? I was just going to offer Michaela the great big casting role here. Zeus played by a woman. Boom. Nailed it. And I can say... Zeus in a Tron-like world. I wanted to be one of the painters in the office at the beginning who's always... Those ladies are the best. We always believed in you, Sonny. Not to upset the boss and, you know... I'll make an excuse for you.

Your name, title of the movie, and your question. You seem very confident that you have the best question. My name is Dave. Title of the movie, my friend thought of it, Graffiti Girls from Greece. Oh, I like that. Graffiti Girls from Greece. And I like that you gave your friend credit. Friend, do you get a sticker, but not the beast sticker? My question is, when they're talking to Zeus, Zeus is a Greek god. Why does he have an English accent? LAUGHTER

Great question. And his daughter has an Australian accent. Yeah, his daughter is Australian. Let's actually, let's maybe play that scene just for a second. And is she, I have a question while you're getting that ready. Was she Australian the whole time? There was like, the first 20 minutes I was definitely sure she wasn't Australian. Yeah. And then she was very Australian. Here we go. This is the Mount Olympus scene. That was before they paid for the dialect coach. This is Mount Olympus in a Tron-like world.

We need to be together. All right, that's enough. You're leaving. Kiera's staying. No more discussions. Those are the rules and that's all there is to it. On the other hand, dear, rules were made to be broken. We'll talk about that later. Which is later and which is earlier? I keep forgetting. Just a minute. Isn't anyone interested in my feelings?

What do you mean, feelings? Oh, you remember, Pett. We learned about feelings in our mortal history class. Yes, feelings. I guess that's what you call them. $20 million spent on a movie where they're both in black. I've never felt this way about anyone. $20 million. I've never asked to leave here. Not ever. Not once in the whole time I've been here. No, it's true, dear. She hasn't. Not in all these centuries. What is it, minutes?

This is what the movie looks like. Somebody should go buy a light pipe. Oh, and then Sonny gets put into like... Alright, so this scene is garbage. Um...

It's almost like Hera has dementia in it as well. She's like, I don't remember what's earlier and what's later. Oh. That's when I was just like, this is so heavy. She's right. Because she says, I'll see you in a moment. Or centuries. Yeah.

And, all right, there's a couple more. Well, you know what? They're like, let's not answer those. See, in a moment of centuries, let's not answer those weird, hard questions. Now, obviously, we have an opinion about this movie, but there are other people that have a different opinion. It is now time for Second Opinion. Second Opinion.

Second opinions! These are five-star reviews called from Amazon, real people talking about a classic film. There are so many of them. The one thing that we noticed in compiling these is there's quite a few, more than ten, that the review was five out of five stars, my wife loves this movie. LAUGHTER

Things like, I'm gonna get some brownie points for this one. My wife loves it. But literally, my wife loved it, my wife loves it,

Like, 20 reviews of my wife's love of this movie. And it might as well be, my wife loves this movie, and I love blowjobs. But, like, why do you need to write a review on Amazon? Because, like, in case anybody's like, why are you watching it for the 20th time? My wife. Here's... I wanted him writing. There are so many great ones in here. I'm just going to kind of give you a sampling of them. This is from Jay Trillo, Miss Mustang Mary. And she writes...

I need this so that I could do a drag number for a show. But the show was canceled. I love the movie. Five out of five stars. This one was kind of great too. Okay. All right.

I'm just gonna cut to the middle of it. This film was created to make you dream, for your mind to be mesmerized by the colors, the music, and the beauty of its entirety. The music was great, the plot was cute, and while many may laugh at the roller boogie of the last scene, it takes me back to my high school years, going to the rink, that was the thing to do! All in caps.

Thank you, Olivia, Gene, and ELO for making a movie and music that I still enjoy to this day! Five exclamation points. T. Johnson, North Potomac, Maryland. Five out of five stars. I like all that specifics. Come find me if you've got a problem with it. North Potomac. I'm here, and I'm ready to defend myself. I'm on skates.

I love this movie. From Mandela. I don't know if it's the same one. Guys. I hope so. It's him. I hope so. This movie should not be seen for the first time if you're over the age of nine. But if you're under the age of nine, it is simply fantastic. I am buying it for my fiance's nieces.

Weird, weird, weird. Signed, nine and a half year old. That is super weird. I'm buying it for my nieces? Cool. I'm buying it for my fiance's nieces? I'm a creep. Now, as Mandela puts in brackets, I'm buying it for my fiance's nieces. Being raised by two older sisters, he knows the words to all these songs.

So we don't know what's going on there. But Mandela goes, this is a great intro to the Gene Kelly musicals of yesteryear as well as classic mythology. So just take it for what it is and share it with the little girl in your life. Five out of five stars. Oh, that's so creepy. See, you guys weren't on board in the beginning when I thought he was a creep.

But at the end, 100% fucking creep. And little did we know, Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela had a lot of time in prison to write good Amazon reviews. It's one of the only movies they had in prison. I guess we're going to watch Xanadu again? Yep. That was in the movie. Idris Elba was like, are we watching Xanadu? They were like, yep, we're going to do it. But no other movies from yesteryear? Nope, that's it. Just Xanadu.

My favorite one here, this is from Malia. My three daughters have been watching this for the last month from Netflix, and I'm gonna buy a copy. They are now roller skating and singing and having a great time, just like I did when I was their age. Yes, this movie won't solve the world's problems.

I disagree. I do. He does not like most movies. That's what it aspired to. I disagree. I absolutely think it will. It won't solve the world's problems, but it's good. It's clean fun. No sex. No risque anything. And a few chaste kisses. One woman in a bikini. Lots of music and dancing.

I counted. Just a heads up, there's one two piece in it. Goofy? Yes. Worthless? No. Because those are the two things that are in opposition to each other. Watch it, have fun, find a roller rink, and take your kids skating. Leave the cell phones at home and have some real fun. Five out of five stars. Five stars.

I think, June, you'll probably agree with me on this. I think they did have sex in the animated thing when they both jumped into that flower and the flower closed around them. Yes. It looked like it. That animation sequence was the sex scene. That was sex. It was birds. It was bees. It was flowers. It was humping. It was sex. And also, just to point out, the movie was based on a 1947 film called Down to Earth. Yes.

I think you'll be surprised. We get it. You do. And I've saved this kind of for the end of where the movie's inspiration came from. And here, we'll just play this for a second. All right, so here we go.

I live in Santa Monica or the Palisades and I was a writer, producer, and a friend kept bugging me about doing a story on what had started as a small little thing of Venice Beach and just kept growing and growing, which was roller skating. The friend was Brian Grazer. I think he's emerged a little bit bigger than the assistant that he was then.

I built the storyline to go toward a big rock club at the end, which I called Xanadu. And I took it, yes, both after the house that Orson Welles named in Citizen Kane, and of course he took it from the Coleridge poem. In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure-toned decree.

That's it. So Brian Grazer, in passing, said make a movie about a club named Xanadu, and that is it. Brian Grazer, not a producer, but inspired the entire movie. So he was the muse. He was. That's what I was going to point out. Brian Grazer is the muse of Xanadu. The Xanamuse. Um...

In summation, I'd like to respectfully ask this movie to go fuck itself. Oh, God.

You were not inspired. I did not find it inspiring, although Gene Kelly was amazing. I thought Olivia Newton-John was great, too. Yeah. Yeah. No. Wait, you're saying no? I thought she was fine. I just, I just, she had very, I felt like she had very little to do, actually. She was just roller skating and was kind of positive vibes in the Tron universe. That's enough for me. But, like, Gene Kelly, I was like, wow, this is fantastic. Yeah, he was incredible. Yeah.

I would say you have to watch this. Like, I feel like this is the most important movie ever made. LAUGHTER

Because we take for granted, like we see movies like, oh, I hated that movie. Most movies do the job of creating a cohesive plot that goes like, uh-huh, got it, got it, got it. This one disregards that. We should be thankful. This makes me thankful for every bad experience. You're right. You're never ahead of the movie. You're never like, I bet I know where this is going to go. Yeah.

You're never like, you're never trapped in that thing of like, oh, I bet in 15 minutes there's gonna be like a nine minute dance montage in a costume shop. Oh, yep, here it is. And I,

I really love at the end the way they move into the Xanadu song with the whole like dancing and the clomping of the roller skates. I like that too. I had a question about that. So why, when she's, when they're in the Tron universe and they're like, no, you can't go back to Earth, you can't whatever, but then when they open Xanadu, she's there. Yeah.

Because Zeus is like, all right, kid, take the car. They give her a moment or centuries. They forget. Okay. Zeus and the wife kind of continue the talking. Yeah. And they're like, you should let her go. And he's like, oh, all right. And he lets her go with all the muses, and they all perform. I guess that's true, yeah. But then here's the trick. What?

They all blast up into heaven. No one reacts as everyone, no one reacts ever. There's nobody in the club anymore. Everybody's gone. Oh, yeah, I guess you're right. Everybody appears to be gone, but then he's like looking at the empty stage, but then he walks over to Gene Kelly and it's crowded again. It's crowded again. He's wearing his Xanadu jacket. Worst. It's like got the elastic around the waist. You gotta brand it. You gotta brand it, guys. And Gene Kelly's like, someone's waiting for you.

And it was her. As a waitress. And she... But it's not her because she doesn't appear to know who he is. Right. Well, now I'm thinking, though, that... Do you think, like... Okay. What do you think, too? Well, I don't know. I'm thinking... Work it out. Do you think she...

Be like, who wants to be a millionaire? Hear it out loud. Say what's going on out there out loud. Did she come back as a moral? It's just tricky because I don't know who she is. Who the last girl is, you mean? The waitress? The waitress girl, you mean, right? I guess what I'm saying is maybe there's a world in which these men, these weak men, start to see the same woman. They're not really seeing...

All women to them are Olivia Newton-John. That's all they see is Olivia Newton-John. None of them are her. None of them are her. All of them are played by her, but none of them are her? Yeah, none of them are Kira, is what I'm saying. They're all sort of like... Vaginas that talk. Wait, so Kira is... Yes, vaginas that talk. By the way, such a better movie.

So, like, it's Kira just, like, a form that is sent. So, like, that Kira that, like, Zeus kind of threw him a bone and was like, take this soulless Kira. Like, she looks like the one that you love, but she's not. See, I think it could have been answered if he acted the last line of the movie. He says, like, can we... The last line of the movie is, can we go somewhere and talk for a while? Okay? Now, she's the waitress, right? Olivia Newton-John is playing the waitress, but is not the character she has been playing the whole time. We don't know, because if he said it to her, like...

Can we go somewhere and talk? And then he looked at her and gave her like, I know who you are. And she gave him like a... Yeah, how would you not? She's not in disguise. Then you would go, she became immortal. But if he's like, hey, you look, in his mind, telegraphing on his face, you look like that girl that I was following around for the whole movie but not really that impressed to see her all the time. LAUGHTER

Can we go somewhere and talk? Then it'd be like, oh, you met the mortal version of your muse. Wait, so they can be like, they're immortal versions of it? Yikes. Because now I'm confused too, because if she's immortal, she should have said like, hey, I did this for you. I gotta say this, okay, if she did become immortal at the end. Amortal, not immortal, right? Amortal person. If she became immortal, then it sucks that she's just like a waitress at this club.

Again, my point, why would you leave your amazing life for this guy and this job? But she just was performing on stage and looked nothing different. So if they put her in a black wig at the end, you're like,

Yes. There you go. Interesting. But she was just performing and then two seconds later, like, ma'am, martini, please. Maybe what they're saying, you guys, maybe what they're ultimately saying is that this whole thing of like, I was touched by Muse, I was inspired, like we're looking to these outside things to inspire us. Ultimately, that comes from within, really. Wait, wait, wait. No, you're going to go in a different way. Wait, I was going to say this. Say here.

I was going to say this. We're so busy looking for our muse that we don't notice one right under our nose, the cocktail waitress. But he does notice her and says, let's go talk for a while. This is what I would argue. They don't even have drinks at that place. Because the dummy guy is watching Olivia Newton-John and the other muses. They're dancing and they're doing a whole thing and then they all, boom, go into the sky, right? And then it appears as though he's alone in the club looking at the stage. Mm-hmm.

Would you think, would you be surprised to find the rest of the patrons of the club didn't see any of those people dancing on that stage? And that only he saw that, that it existed only in his mind. Gene Kelly wasn't like, whoa, what a great show. Let me get you a drink. Gene Kelly was like, go talk to that girl over there. I want to jump on your theory about how the movie should have ended. Yeah.

He's a homeless guy who lives inside that place, that abandoned club. And this has all been in his head the entire time. So when he sees her, let's go talk, everything just goes away and he's just in the corner with like a bottle, just drinking. A pet rat. A pet rat named Gene Shelley. A blonde rat that he touches. I think I have a theory that marries all your theories, which they got to the end of the movie. And then they're like...

We don't fucking care how it ends. Just end it because we're $13 million over budget right now. Yes, and also more coke, guys. We need more coke. If you want an ending, you got to give us $5 million more. And you're not going to like it. And get real comfortable with being shamed.

Oh my gosh. So I think we're mixed on whether or not we would recommend it. I mean, no, watch it. I do think watch it. For sure. For sure. The music is amazing. I love Yellow. The music is actually really good. I fast forwarded through any scene that Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John were not in.

Really? It's only like 80 minutes? I fast forwarded a lot in this movie. You watched 15 minutes of the movie. Every time the guy was talking to the dummies, the artists that he worked with, I was like, buzz, buzz, buzz. No, thank you. Do we know what he's doing now? Do we have any... Yes, I actually did a little bit of research on my own. Whenever I'm watching one of these movies, I'm like, I wonder what they're up to now. Two things always come up.

They've never worked again. And they were in the movie. He's right there. Say hi. And they were in The Warriors. This guy. So those are the two kind of runners that happens. This guy actually, though, has surprisingly, not surprisingly, he works constantly and is continuing to work. He's pretty much an episodic guy. Like he's been on every single cop show. Since 2004? Yeah.

That's like the last thing I saw on IMDb. Oh, I thought he was in something like... Just like, yeah, I thought he was in... I looked him up because I was like, what's he up to? But then I thought when you said you know what he's doing, you're going to be like, oh, he's got a vineyard. Oh. He makes great wine. Warrior's wine. Braves come out and play. Come out and chardonnay. Can't do better than that. By the way...

McKayla is right. He has not worked since 2004, but he did a lot up until 2004. I think you might want to check. Did he die in 2004?

He is 65 years young. All right, great. Michaela, you have a brand new, well, not brand new, but a very new show that's hilariously funny out right now, Benched. When is that on again? It's on Tuesdays at 7, sorry, no, Tuesdays at 10.30 on USA. So watch that. I'm not in it. I know, but it's your show, right? It's my show. I mean, come on. It's mine. It's mine. I want to give... Are characters welcome on it?

I'm just curious. You know what? Thanks for asking. Yep. And the answer is they sure are. Oh, that's so great. They come on over anytime. I'm going to wrap, well, we'll wrap this up in the studio, but my question to you guys is who here is from the furthest away? Who thinks they're from the furthest away? Raise your hand. Ooh, where are you from, sir, in the front? Edmonton, Alberta. Alberta, Canada. Where are you from? Miami, Florida. Miami, Florida. Where are you from? Anybody international? Detroit. Detroit.

Back there. Have you... Did someone drag you here or did you come here intentionally? Great. All right, so out of the people who do know what we're talking about, we got Detroit, Pittsburgh, Scranton. Really? Did you... You live here. Anyone else? Miami, New York, Moscow?

Anchorage. Really? That's pretty good. Did you come here for this? All right. You're going to get a T-shirt. Come and greet me. You're going to get a T-shirt with Hulk Hogan on it that says, Sad Doll Hair. Sad Doll Hair T-shirt. Thank you so much for coming from Alaska. I love all the TV shows that are based on your home state.

And, well, I think we've done it, guys. I think we did. That is the end of our show. Thank you guys so much for coming. Give it up for Michaela, Jim, Jason. Back to the show. Good night, everybody. Pacifico is a Mexican lager brewed to be discovered. It's like fresh tracks on a powder day. Like that uncharted trail a stones throw away.

Like the perfect wave on a sunny day. Pacifico. Find your own way. 21 Plus. Drink responsibly. Imported by Crown Imports Chicago, Illinois.

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