Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
When was the last time I took a road trip? How many national parks could I hit in two weeks? What about hotels? Wait, hey Erica!
How much am I spending on travel? When your questions about life turn into questions about money, there's Erica, the virtual financial assistant to help you spend, save, and plan smarter. Only from Bank of America. What would you like the power to do? Erica is only available in the English language. You must download the latest version of the mobile banking app, only available on select mobile devices. Your chat may be recorded and monitored for quality assurance. Message and data rates and additional terms may apply. Bank of America and a member FDIC.
Hey everybody, just wanted to give you a quick heads up here. There's something we should all be doing. It's going to improve your life, make every day a little bit better, and that is eat more Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Yes, think about it. All the gurus, all the coaches out there, they've never said the words,
Eat more Reese's. I mean, that combination of sweet chocolate and salty peanut butter. I mean, this is something that brings other people and ourselves joy. That's why there's two in a pack. Shop Reese's Peanut Butter Cups now at a store near you, found wherever candy is sold, and often in my pantry because I love these.
Hey, everybody. Sweater weather is over and sweaty weather has begun. And that's why you need a pair of Bombas socks because they are a premium extra long staple cotton sock that feels light on your feet all summer long. I love my Bombas. Why? Because they support my arch. So get ready to get comfy and give back. Head over to Bombas.com slash bonkers. Use the code bonkers for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-O-N-K-E-R-S.
bas.com slash bonkers and use the code bonkers at checkout. Cybercrime is under the microscope in this prescient tale of the seedy underbelly of hacking. No, it's not. Not at all. We saw hackers, so you know what that means. ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
Hello people of Earth and welcome to How Did This Get Made? I am your host Paul Scheer, joined as always by the lovely Jason Manzoukas. How are you Jason? Oh, hello Paul. And the very manly June Diane Raphael. How are you June? Hello Paul. We are talking about the 1995 film Hackers.
And for those of you who haven't seen the film Hackers, here's a quick breakdown. A young boy is arrested by the U.S. Secret Service for writing a computer virus and is banned from using a computer until his 18th birthday. Years later, he and his newfound friends discover a plot to unleash a dangerous computer virus, but they misuse their computer skills to find evidence while being pursued by the Secret Service and the evil computer genius behind the virus.
such as Hackers. That is the premise of the 1995 film Hackers, which
that we watched this week. And boy, oh boy, this has been a movie that has been recommended to us time and time again. I get why. I mean, it is pretty spectacularly bad in a way that I feel like we would appreciate, which I did appreciate. Well, I will tell you that what I love about a movie like this is it took such a hard swing at what the future is and what computers are. And what the internet looks like. Oh, this is...
And it could not have gotten it more wrong. So what year was this supposed to be taking place in? Well, 1995. Yeah. But what year was it made? 1995. Yeah, it was not a futurescape. Yeah. Wait, did you think this movie took place in the future? No, I didn't. But that's why you're saying it took such a... That's why I'm saying it took such a...
Well, it took a bold swing at being like, that idea of like the, what the, you know, when they're talking about going into the internet and they had to visualize that, like the floating, ambiguous, algorithmic kind of looking things over just space, oh, like empty space. And buildings, too. Buildings of numbers. This movie starts off with one of my favorite openings of all time. He's an eight-year-old hacker, by the way.
Yes. He is eight years... When they show you the reveal of the little boy who, like, took down the whatever, is comedically young. I mean, it... So, the opening of this movie starts...
Almost like a Disney movie because Felicity Huffman is trying this kid who shut down 1,500 facilities or whatever. And the camera's panning from adult head, adult head, adult head, and then space. And then the camera has to go comically down to reveal an eight-year-old sitting there like, fuck.
You, I did it. And it looks like, I mean, when we're saying an eight-year-old, like, I'm talking about Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire. Yes. Like, he looks like that little of a kid. But he's supposed to be 12. Yeah.
Right, because it's until his 18th birthday. Oh, he's 12. He's not 8. No. I don't think so. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, but he looks a lot younger than that. I thought he was 8 years old for some reason. 12 is a little better, but still very young. He doesn't look 12. He doesn't look 12. I think at the end of the day, they keep on saying it was 7 years ago.
would look like or just the idea of like this is the internet now in 1995? I think the whole idea of what hackers did. Like, for example, there's a part in the movie where Johnny Lee Miller, the main character, is hacking and puts on the equivalent of Google Glasses so he can like hack and literally like hit the computer screens in his eye. Like, that's not a thing. And even like Fisher Stevens in virtual reality, he's boxing but also feeling the force of the hit back. Like, it's just...
It's too much. And Penn Jillette and that big computer room. That big computer room is such an amazing idea of like, how are we going to represent the internet? And it is just a big giant room full of like glass boxes with words and numbers flashing across as if...
they are living in the computer. One of the climactic scenes in the movie looks like a scene out of a whack-a-mole game from like a bad amusement park because it's just all these holes in a brightly lit orange panel and Fisher Stevens who's the... Fisher Stevens in this movie, man. I love it. I kind of think of this movie as like if Fisher Stevens' character from Short Circuit went back
This is him. It made me sad for him in this movie. Well, Fisher Stevens does a thing where he's a villain. He's the villain, the computer genius who is... Who's also a hacker. Oh my gosh. He is the plague. He rides around on a skateboard. Everybody is on wheels in this. This movie might as well be called Everybody's on Wheels. Nobody is a pedestrian. Everyone gets to and fro with some sort of wheels, be it rollerblades. And the world is...
is equipped to handle everybody on wheels. Oh, I mean, they go to a club that has ramps built in. It's like Starlight Express style. Yeah. It imagines a world that is not the future in which life exists like a Starlight Express and there are hacker raves, hacker clubs. Hackers are the most secretive people. They are anonymous. But in this movie, people spray paint their front door like, Hackstock!
Yeah. Or whatever. It's like, picture what you know of Snowden and then just go to the exact opposite. It is crazy. I said everyone looks like they're an extra from the Point Break movie. The original. The original. The original, not the remake. I don't fuck with that new one. All these hackers seem to want to do, at least the teenage hackers, is...
be able to make phone calls for free from pay phones. Like, that seems to be... By the way... I never understood what they're... Beyond, like, breaking up the crime that we find out about... Well, they're trying to... Yeah. What they want... They're trying to hack the planet, obviously. Their ideology, though, in terms of hacking it. It's like, it's not for the greater good.
Well, like literally. It's for free phone calls. Well, we. Razor and blade. What do they want to do? I think they want to. Cause chaos? Cause chaos and have their monikers be. Like this is what hackers do. They hack something to show that they could get in. And then they leave something behind to show that they were there basically. That it was them. That's what they're kind of talking about in that weird cafe. That's terrible. But they're like, I got into this bank and I got it to do this and bloop, bloop.
But sometimes they just want to put on their favorite episodes of The Outer Limits. What's interesting about that is it just makes, to me, it just makes them so unlikable and unredeemable. Sure. They're terrible people. Yeah.
And this movie posits them as like the good guys. They're not. Who are like, who are breaking federal laws, like almost like you would root for a movie that was about kids doing graffiti. Yes. You know what I mean? Like street kids doing graffiti. Well, they're like. Even though they're breaking the law and damaging people's property, that's, there's an artistic merit. I feel like this posits the idea that the hackers are like that.
Well, let's hear what Fisher Stevens, as his character, thinks hackers are. Let's take a listen. You wanted to know who I am, Zero Cool? Well, let me explain the new world order. Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai, the keyboard cowboys, and all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. I need your help. You need my help. Let me help you earn your spurs.
Enjoy the laptop. Cool? Tell me where it is. Oh, my God. So that is Fisher Stevens describing, I guess, but basically not saying anything. I still don't understand from his point of view. Well, he's just in it for the money, though.
That's all he wants. He's committing a huge crime by creating a worm that is siphoning money off of whatever that weird company is that he works for. Yes, which is named Gibson, which is a tip of the hat to William Gibson, who invented the term cyberspace. Oh, that's true. But yeah, I didn't even really understand the premise of this movie. I want to get into the right. So it's a bunch of hackers and there are these elite hackers.
hackers. Is elite a word that hackers use? Because it's used a lot in the movie. They go, don't worry, he's an elite hacker. Yeah, he's elite. But meanwhile, there's a kid who's trying to get into the elite group, and they go, why don't you break into Gibson, which has not really been established at all. And it's like a mining company or something. Why are they like, oh, Gibson, you should hack Gibson. And Gibson, to me, seems like
A very important giant company because they have multiple tankers out across the world that can easily be flooded. That's basically what's happening in this movie, that tankers are going to flip over. But the budget of this movie never shows you any of those tankers in distress. Well, I also doubt that these tankers, you know, one of the big points that Fisher makes is that these tankers don't have any manual, like, abilities anymore. Like, their entire, and I just don't. Which is interesting. Yeah.
How could that be that there's no way to... You should have some manual... You should have some... Well, this is the whole conversation that people are having right now about these Google cars. Oh, Google cars. Google cars, or self-driving cars. Tesla is now a self-driving... All these self-driving cars, should you be able to manually override it or not? Yeah, because we are more fallible by far than the machines. The only problem they've had with Google cars so much...
So far, rather, is that people driving keep hitting the driverless cars. But Jason, I think this comes back to an issue we've talked about a lot, which is do you fear machines or not? I'm listening. Do you trust them? Yeah. Well, people did. Hackers did hack Jeep. They hacked a moving car. Oh, wow. Fuck that. They were able to take control of a car's computer system and take it over. Wait, and what did that car do? What happened?
No, no, they did it to show they could do it. I'm sorry, they didn't do it remotely to somebody who was driving. They did it to show, hey, this is a weakness. This should be dealt with because we were very easily able to just hack this car. So hackers like that are working in kind of an altruistic way where they're trying to blow whistles and show... Snowden. Yeah, of course, but did they come forward and say they're just completely anonymous? Those ones, I'm not sure.
I mean, the hacker group Anonymous, they are like the, you know, they are the elite hackers. And they're probably gathering around watching Razor and Blade do their hacker show. Oh, my God. That was the thing that was so crazy about it is that this supposedly elite group of hackers get together to watch a TV show with these two characters, Razor and Blade, and
who open up their show, which we don't even understand if it's a public access or if they're also hacking into a station. I don't know. To then basically say,
Talk about how to get free phone calls. I mean, that seems like a very low level. That's a low level of hacking. But by the way, that's a different – that's to me a storyline in this movie that in some ways wasn't exploited enough, which should have been that – Free phone calls? Well, these are teen hackers. Yep. So what do teens really want out of their lives that they can hack? Handjobs.
Sorry. Go ahead. And that's like kind of interesting to me, but to, for them to just be happy and hacking for the sake of it. But that is hacking that I believe. And I mean, like the internet is to show that you are so good. You could beat the security system of this big company or the government or whatever it is that is that you can show like, Oh, I penetrated their defenses. Uh,
that's how good I am. I found a back door in a loophole. It's like winning, I mean look, any hackers out there that are listening, I'm sorry for our Yeah, we're doing the best we can. But it's like winning a race. It's like having a medal. It's like I did that, I did that. It's accomplishment based. It's like it's unlocking who did the what.
Like, if you brought down a company— And then, of course, that's—I think that's the kind of hackers that are meant to be represented in this. I also think there are malicious hackers who are trying to steal credit card information, who are trying to steal information in order to make money off of it, in order to profit. Well, like, yes. But I don't think that— So they're just doing it for the love of the hack. I think this movie is about kids who are doing it to show that they're good, to impress each other. Right. They're not—
They're not evil. I mean, at the most, they're messing around with TV stations. Yeah. But they're not doing like a flap gear or whatever. I would say that at the end when they made all those stoplights go haywire, I mean, that seemed to be incredibly unsafe. Yeah.
True. People could have been hurt. Absolutely. It seemed people were. It kind of seems like you're on the side of the Secret Service. You don't, we want to shut these hackers down. Yeah. Of course. I thought you would also want to be a hacker, though, too. Because you would want to. It looks so tedious. Yeah.
It looks like a terrible way to spend your day. Oh, I mean. It looks horrible. Can you imagine, especially back then, and I would love it if people would tell us on the message boards or whatever. Like back then, everything moved so slow. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're connecting to pay phones. Oh, by the way, they're looking at a modem. They're connecting to pay phones because pay phones exist. They're excited about a new modem and they're looking at a modem like, whoa.
And the modem is also eliminating, sorry, not eliminating, emanating a light at you. Everything in this movie is reversed projected. If computers were shooting that much light into your face, we'd all be blind by now. Everybody's face is...
It really is. It's that thing where they get into trouble a lot in movies that try and represent computers and working at computers. You know, what's it called? The Net is another one. Which I thought we should do after this. I remember enjoying The Net.
Really? Yes. Oh, we got to watch that. I'd love to see it again. I remember liking it. Things that are truly dependent on the most mundane and boring activity, which is typing commands into a keyboard. And so this movie goes so out of its way to give us
interesting visuals to go along with that, all of which is nonsense. I mean, he's literally in a plane looking down at New York City and then New York City turns into a big microchip and he's like looking at all the connections. I feel like I spent the entire movie in the brains of a computer.
Like just in the innards of a fucking computer. You're always in the innards. And that must have been horrible for you because you have such a firmly entrenched fear of computers. I don't like computers or machines in general. And I felt I was inside of a machine the entire time. Really? Wow. Yes. You didn't identify with any of the human characters? Honestly, no.
Honestly, not really. Really? At all. So you wouldn't say that Serial or Nikon or Freak or The Plague or Razor or Blade. No, but first of all, I never understood why the two of them, Kate, Angelina Jolie, and Johnny Lee. Miller. What's his last name? Johnny Lee Miller. Who married after this. Which is interesting. But I didn't understand why they didn't like each other in the beginning. No, and I felt like that. Because they're rival hackers. She was also trying to program the TV station. So, but when she, he arrives at high school.
Did she know that? No. Why is she automatically angry with him? Oh, she's just... She's just that way? Yeah, she's just that way. Couldn't you tell? But why is the cool girl... Couldn't you tell? She dresses like she's an extra in Logan's Run. I'm ready to talk about her sideburns whenever...
Wait, wait, wait. When were rash guards as normal wear in? She was wearing a fucking surfer shirt through a majority of this movie. She also at one point is wearing just like a one piece futuristic jumpsuit. Yes. Inexplicably. Yeah.
As if she truly is like, oh, I'm going to start dressing like I'm from a super futuristic sci-fi movie and ride around on this motorcycle. But yet she also is the person that the school is deemed to initiate the new students. Yeah. And why were there so many new students that day? There's like when she plays a prank on him, there's like a pool on the roof and it goes up and there's no pool on the roof. There's like 25 kids up there. Are there 25 new students at this school? Also, by the way, I had an issue with that pool prank.
Everybody can't wait to get a look at that pool. I know. Can high school kids can't resist the promise of an Olympic-sized pool? Also, come on. There's no pool on the roof, right? I mean, there is a pool out here at the Earwolf Roof, though. We should maybe stop there. Should I head up there? Yeah.
It wasn't like, ooh, there's a naked girl. The Earwolf Pool? Come on, you guys don't know about the Earwolf Pool? No, how long has it been there for? Oh, it just opened. Is it nice? There's a lemonade stand. All right, let's go up there and take a break. There's a bocce ball court. Oh, it's so great, the pool. The Earwolf Pool, where all your money is going.
I knew it. I knew that's what they were doing. I gave them $100 for this show, and they're making a pool. It's a really nice pool, though. You guys can come visit it anytime you're out here in LA, suckers. We're looking at you, England. Screw you, dicks. England, we apologize. I'm still going to war with England. We have no dates on the book for London shows. I'm sorry that we falsely promised that to you.
We would love to go to London. We will come to London. We will come to London. There are no dates in the book. So you can yell at us in person rather than just online. You bastards.
Today's podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I love Squarespace. I'm in the middle of trying to balance my business life and my real life. This work-life balance, it's tough. But Squarespace has been helping me by giving me the tools to reach my goals and have time to celebrate. That's right. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. With the guided design system of Squarespace Blueprint, you can select from curated layouts to styling options optimized for
every device. Get your website discovered fast with integrated, optimized SEO tools. Plus, make checkout easy for customers with easy-to-use payment tools. You can accept credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, plus with Squarespace AI. You can explain what your site is about. You choose your tone and enter what you need to get auto-generated.
perfect text. Anyway, I love Squarespace. I've been building sites with them from the beginning. And when I launched my book, I said, I'm doing it all myself on Squarespace. And I'm very pleased with it. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash bonkers to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
This back to school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon. Now, here's the thing. I love back to school season, but I'm going to be honest, it's expensive. Every year I'm getting a new backpack. I'm getting new scissors. I'm buying so much stuff and back to school season. I need a little bit of help.
But back-to-school shopping doesn't have to break the bank. And here's the thing. With Amazon, you get great deals and everyday low prices on everything that your kid needs for a successful return to the classroom. Now, I was one of those kids whose parents would go back-to-school shopping too late. And then I couldn't get the cool folder with ALF on it. But don't worry about that because Amazon's got a whole wide selection of back-to-school items. Get it now. I just bought...
my kids' stuff on Amazon in July. And then when September comes rolling around, I am the hero. You'll find quality products at Amazon that your kids will love all while sticking to your budget. Shop Back to School at Amazon and spend less on your kids. Visit amazon.com slash back to school to get started. That's amazon.com slash back to school.
I don't know about you, but I am a person who always is thinking about the safety of the people and things that I value the most, especially when I'm away. And that's why I trust SimpliSafe to protect my home because I will sleep better at night when I'm not at home, knowing that SimpliSafe's 24-7 monitoring agents are standing by to protect me and you. So if someone tries to break in, they can send emergency help when you need it most. Best of all, they have this thing called
the live guard protection. That means that SimpliSafe agents can act within five seconds of receiving your alarm and even see intruders and warn them that the police are on their way. You know, I recently read about a break-in in our neighborhood and my initial instinct was to get worried, but then I remembered I have SimpliSafe, which means I don't have
And by the way, Angelina Jolie, they are all dressing, like these hackers are all dressing like...
Almost like clowns. Like the outfits in this movie, like Matthew Lillard's outfit. Matthew Lillard. Those braids. Okay. Those braids. Okay. Hold on. Talk for one second. I just want to find what I wrote. Matthew Lillard is doing something with this character that I can't figure out. I think he's adopting a slight...
transgender motif. I think he's also adopting like a stoner motif. It's too, it's like a jacket on a jacket on a jacket. There's so many. But you have to remember the early 90s, the style was disgusting. Yes. This is New York City. Like this is, I kept forgetting it was New York City, by the way. New York City. It's like these, and it's with high school kids. Like they should be at the cutting edge of what's going on. And I think they were. And it's disgusting. He,
Matthew Lillard, I wrote down it in the middle of the movie, Matthew Lillard is, I believe, basing his entire character's look on Rayanne from My So-Called Life. Ha ha ha ha ha!
He is dressed identical to the female best friend in my so-called life, 100%. The braids, the outfits, every, he's wearing, I believe he's wearing women's clothing the whole time. And it is fascinating everything he's doing. He was by far my favorite character in the movie. Yeah, he was amazing. By far. He,
definitely made a choice and he was fun I don't understand I don't understand if he was homeless I don't understand he references not having a place to sleep a few times it doesn't make sense that he's a hacker he seems like their dumb buddy but is instead just another hacker with them and he seems like on their level he's elite um
The one thing I wanted to bring up about his wardrobe, too, is that he is wearing a shirt, and Averill actually brought this up, too. His shirt is of a young girl holding Jesus' hand, and it says – and the young girl is saying, what happened to your hand? Because there is a nail mark in the hand. That is the shirt that he wears in the AP English class. Well, it's interesting, though, because –
The 90s to me, the early 90s was all about like, it was not about looking good. No. No. It was about like men dying their hair that horrible shade of blonde. Yep. Or red or whatever. Yeah, like Claire Danes and myself. I mean, I thought she was beautiful, but like it's not great, that color. It's also a movie version of these things because I also yesterday, after I watched this, I watched a bunch of High Fidelity. Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is wonderful. Yeah, great. But it also has the gang of skateboard kids who hang out out front of the record shop are similarly dressed in 90s era crazy clothes, crazy weird hair colors that are so beyond what kids did at that point. It's almost like the same person who cast everybody in Back to the Future 2 when they're in the future did all the art design for everything. It's like people are so trying to
pick a trend and they just, like again, like a rash guard is a bold move. It's a bold move. Especially for someone, it's not like it's a California movie where she's wearing surf clothes to school. It's a New York City movie where she's wearing like a quick silver rash guard shirt to school. I don't know what's going on. It's a rash guard. It's bold.
bright blue, and then she seems to be wearing, like, evening pants. This is Angelina Jolie, by the way. That are high-waisted over it. Yep, yep, yes. But, like, evening wear, and then, like, a nice, like,
A nice ankle boot. It's baffling. It's baffling. It is like a combination of high-end sportswear, high-end couture. Like slacks. Yeah. She's like, I'm going shopping at the surf shop. I'm going shopping at Bloomingdale's. I'm going to stop up at Ann Taylor. And then my friend is going to throw scissors around my head, and that's what my haircut's going to be.
And what I found even interesting was that her fashion sense went into her dreamscape. Because when she dreams about Johnny Lee Miller, am I right or wrong? Is he wearing like a fully plastic or like a leather? Leather. Yeah, bodysuit. Like Eddie Murphy from Delirious bodysuit. So her fantasy of him is in this leather. Well, but that was an interesting moment, that fantasy, because –
I thought – because at first there's a shot of a woman – it's clearly a woman in like that red leather spandex, latex, whatever that is.
Like a jumpsuit, like a bodysuit. Yeah, yeah. And there's a finger like, you know, going around her thighs and then they pan up and it's him wearing it. Yes. Well, there's definitely like... What's going on? There's a bunch of like gender fluidity going on. Also, you know, not just Matthew Lillard's wardrobe, which again is all based on Raeann from My Self-Called Life, but also like...
Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie have the bet about whoever loses, whoever's not the best hacker has to wear a dress on their date. And then he is, when they have their date at the end of the movie, wearing something that is in between, uh,
Everyone's wearing something in between. I feel like... Men are dying their hair. I feel like that was it. I feel like the people who made the movie were like, boys or girls? Girls or boys? Gender mix-up? They're hackers! Who knows? Hackers! They hacked their sexuality! June, can you talk about your... Yeah, go ahead. One of June's most...
It was fun to watch your reaction to it. I don't even want to bring it back to your memory, but what Matthew Lillard did to himself. When he licked his own nipple? Yeah. He didn't lick it. He just touched it. Yeah. Sexually, I was really upset. You were. It was disturbing to me, too. Were you more upset by that act of sexuality or the fact that Fisher Stevens and Lorraine Bracco were involved? Okay.
I've never seen two bodies not want to come together more. Not make any sense. Like two magnets, two magnets pushing each other. They did not line up right at all. I know. It took me so long to realize they were meant to be love interests that when they finally made it so explicit, I was like, oh, no. Oh, no.
Oh, no, we can't do this. Please don't. This doesn't work at all. I have to say, like, I like Lorraine Bracco. There is something, though, in her voice that computer jargon in her voice is not, it does not work. So much so that her lines became, like, commenting on that. She was like, hard drive, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. What are we talking about here? Can't say.
Listen to, this is a montage at the end when they're trying to explain to Lorraine Bracco how the guys are getting in. And this is the most techno babble. It's great. Just take a listen. There's a new virus in the database. What's happening? It's replicating, eating up memory. What do I do? Type cookie, you idiot. Like a Pac-Man. I had him off at the pass. We have a zero bug attacking all login and overlay files. Run antivirus. Give me a systems display. Die, dickweeds.
It's like it's a video game. Yeah. Someone talk to me. Cancer? Cancer? It's...
Here, hold one more second. Multiple GPI and FSI viruses. They're going for the Colonel. Colonel who? The system command processor. It's the brain. Cancer, brain, brain, cancer. What's going on? In short, Duke of shit. Okay, great. I mean, poor Penn Jillette, who is...
In this movie, as like Fisher Stevens is like right-hand man in the computer room. Literally, if we can break down Pendulet's role, he is a security guard of the computer. Like it would be as if you put someone inside your computer. And then Fisher Stevens goes inside the computer with him. And the whole, all of it.
All of the computer, this is what we just listened to was the scene where all the hackers are attacking Fisher Stevens' company. Yes. The Gibson company. They're inundating them with viruses. And all it is, it sounds like, is video games. Oh, and they literally- And he's like, I'll head him off at the pass? What do you mean I'll head him off at the pass? And they literally have a Pac-Man icon.
eating code. And a rabbit jumping around. It is gobbledygook nonsense. And it also combines a lot of different things. It's like, in this world, hackers are gamers, and gamers and hackers are skateboarders slash rollerbladers. Yep. Slash motorcyclists. Yes. It's like everything is all in one package. It's kind of what, I mean, I guess what they do in the Fast and Furious movies, they just don't do it as aggressively. Yeah.
Oh, absolutely. Like they're all. I mean, ludicrous in those movies and the woman in the most recent one, the woman from Game of Thrones. Yeah. They are able to effortlessly access anything from like an old Motorola Razr phone. They can be like, I'm in the NSA immediately. You know what I mean? Like.
It's crazy. This is just like that, only much stupider looking. I have a question for you guys. The movie opens up with a slow-mo montage of SWAT coming in. By the way, any time in this movie anyone's hacking...
SWAT descends. Guns. Guns on children. Multiple guns on children. And if they did any research, especially for the Johnny Lee Miller character, that kid was eight years old or 11 years old. He didn't need to come in with a full complement of a SWAT team. Nor did he need a federal trial.
He's a minor. Nor did I need to see his butt when he gets arrested. Oh, yeah, when he fell down. There's like a bunch of little boy butt in this movie that I did not, I was like, what is going on? We see Matthew Lillard's butt. We see this kid Joey or Johnny's butt. Like, I was like, wow.
Why are we looking at this kid's book? The kid who oftentimes is smoking two cigarettes at once. It's like, this kid's story is bonkers. I did love the actress who played his mom. Yes, great. She was just on fire. All right, you're not grounded. Joey was great. Joey was amazing because Joey was wearing, and I don't know if you caught this. I caught it only on rewatching it.
in the shower that had Ziploc bags on them. So he could sing his song. Not the idea of just playing a radio in there. He had to be wearing his headphones in the shower. That's what kids did. They wore their Walkman. Absolutely.
And I also thought that Johnny Lee Miller gets too soapy in the shower. When they cut to him in the shower, his body was almost covered in soap. And he had just gotten in the shower. He lathers quick. He lathered up quick. I love when Joey is, after he's busted and he's put in the apartment, and the police are staking out his place. The guy goes, it's all ADR. There's so much terrible ADR in this movie. But you hear the agent's voice go, no.
uh, suspect is still inside. Uh, suspect is still grounded by his mother. Who else grounds people? Asshole. And he's like 14. The FBI didn't ground him. You fucking dick. Well, sometimes his mother does like the condescension in his voice is amazing. But also I would argue that in this movie, uh,
The penalties are kind of ridiculous. When Johnny Lee Miller does his whole thing about a crashed 1,507 systems, what does that even mean? He can't use a touchtone phone or a computer until he's 18, which is crazy. How do you enforce that penalty? You can't use a touchtone phone. You can't use a touchtone phone. What do you think happened between his mom and dad? I was really curious about that, too. I don't know.
Because it seemed like, you know, that opening shot of the SWAT team arriving at their house and you, like, they sort of turn around the corner of the house and you see her. I did love that. And then the dads seem to be very present at the trial. Well, look, they... And then they head off to Grimsville, New York City in this, like, one
bedroom apartment where she's sleeping on the couch. Remember, they reconcile for a little while. They split up, then they get back together. We only know that through... We don't know why. What happened? To add that detail that they had a moment of... Getting back? I mean, do you think that this kid broke them apart? Did Dade slash Zero Cool break them apart?
Well, I think what we do know is that all divorces are the kid's fault. Yeah, I mean, I think so. That's true no matter what you're talking about. If people split up, it's because of the kids. Well, of course, because it's like... And he's an only child, so it's for sure his fault. They put a pressure on the marriage. Amen, they do. Amen. Amen. You just wait, Jason. Why are you guys giving each other the finger? Yeah, just wait. Why are you guys just giving each other the finger? What's going on? The thing that was so...
I think that was so confusing to me in this movie was I thought for sure, like they repeat, uh, Johnny Lee Miller's backstory a million times. Like not only does a movie open with his backstory, uh, they keep on telling you that he crashed these systems. And at a certain point when they're calling him an elite hacker, because I guess he knew how to identify different workbooks. Uh,
That's the red book. What? I mean, it's a book with a red cover. Well, and he changed his English class in school. I mean, that's it. Oh, yeah. They were impressed with that. He was able to hack into the AP English class, which also Matthew Lillard hacked, or he didn't hack into. He just showed up in the AP class for no reason. Why did he show up to write something on the blackboard and then be like, oh, guess I'm out of here. Like, oh, that hacker. There were so many strange details, though. Like Angelina Jolie's mom being a self-help guru and writing these books. I mean, that's never...
Called Bat. I mean, there's just some details in this movie that are...
Well, there's some funny moments, too, because that idea, like, they're all writing quotes from literature on the board. And, like, you know, Matthew Lillard writes, like, of all the things I lost, I miss my mind the most. It's Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy Osbourne. And then Johnny Lee Miller is writing a quote about, oh, it was a good quote. Ginsburg. Ginsburg, right. And then Angelina Jolie is like, the only reason why they gave men bigger brains than dogs is so they wouldn't hump your leg at parties. Right.
Cocktail parties. At cocktail parties. And then they're like, who wrote that? She's like, my mother. And he goes, well, we're looking for somebody who is actually a contemporary of this age. And she goes, her last book sold two million copies.
And it's like, that's like a crazy, like, all right, so what are we doing here? What are we doing? What are we doing? It's all great stuff. It's just whatever. But these comebacks and like in the same thing when they call the plague Eugene, she's like, okay, Eugene. Goes, I'm the plague. And then rips a piece of paper in half. Like people are like very defensive. I feel like this movie is like if you told me somebody,
If you told me an alien wrote this movie thinking it would be like, oh, this is what Earth teens are like. Or if you told me at this era, the Cold War era, the Russians wrote this movie. That would make sense, yeah. It feels like someone else's idea of what youth culture was then.
You know what I mean? It does not feel like it's at all in touch with anything real. The way that like John Hughes' movies were or the way that other teen movies get it. This feels like very tone deaf to both hacking, which is startlingly tone deaf. Are you a hacker? How do you know that? Don't worry about it.
Were you at Hackstock at Nikon? But then especially like teen stuff, it doesn't make sense at all. Oh, no, it doesn't feel like there's anything. Because again, the story about him and his mom is sort of interesting and feeling like, you know, he's been displaced because of her and had to restart his life. It's got like the Karate Kid opening. Yeah, it has the structure of that, but then...
And she's also used as a threat at one point, but then it's just never really resolved. I also don't get that Angelina Jolie and him are, like, they don't, it's like it's there because it has to be there, but you don't feel like it's really there. There's no real chemistry between them. No. No.
How about the scene where he has computer disks tucked into his belt like a gun? Like a gun, like a guy, like a gangster's got a gun tucked in his belt and he's taking, he's like pulling it out like quick draw style as if he's going to be called upon to have like a showdown, a gunfight at the OK Corral with computer disks and the first, the fastest draw of pulling a computer disk out of your belt is going to win.
What the fuck is going on? That blew my mind. I was like, this is not important. And it goes up to my next thing, which...
can we all agree, all of us out there listening, all of us in here, that never again do we ever need to say on film or in movies, are you talking to me? Yeah. Like, I think, like, when he did that thing, are you talking to me? Yeah. Like, what is, like, he's doing, like, he's doing the Robert De Niro scene. I feel like I've seen that Robert De Niro scene so many times and for him to pull out a disc and say, are you talking to me? Really upset. Really, a real bummer. I don't want to see it. I mean, I,
I don't know if I want to say I never want to see it again. Really? Yeah, if it's interpreted well, I mean, I'm open to it. Here's the scene I want to talk about. When Fisher Stevens is... When everything's going down, where he's waging war... Which, by the way, like, what...
I don't know what's happening, like how viruses are attacking other viruses, and I have no idea what's going on. But at one point, he pulls out a scallion or a— What? He pulls out a long green snack and starts eating it. Oh, yeah. I remember what you mean. What is that? He's definitely eating a candy bar in one scene. No, it's not the candy bar.
You guys. I know. I remember what you mean. It looks like a vegetable, but it's brighter green than that. I feel like it's like a long piece of taffy or candy. Because he's eating candy throughout the movie. It probably is taffy. Like hackers do. Or maybe it's a Jolly Rancher.
It looks like an asparagus. It's so long. It looks like an asparagus. They used to make big Jolly Ranchers, though, like long, thick Jolly Ranchers. Really? Yeah. That sounds delicious. What are you talking about? No, they were like a candy bar, but even bigger size. They were just flat. I do remember, but they weren't that big where your hands are. All right. They were this big. Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember. It was like a score bar. Yeah, exactly. Right? Exactly, yes. Exactly. Does the score bar still exist?
I'm sure. I haven't been really to a candy place. I used to love. Remember going to the candy store? Oh, my gosh. Loved it. I got myself a symphony bar. I like the symphony bar. Really? Yeah, I like the symphony bar. Oh, interesting. But I mean, yeah. I used to get a whatchamacallit. A whatchamacallit. Or a $100,000 bar. Those are my two favorites, too. Before it was called 100 Grand. Yeah.
No thanks. I would get one of those magic tape dispensers, which was just bubble gum, and I would pretty much put the entire thing in my mouth and chew it. Which is still your problem to this day. You do not take more. I chew way too much gum. Yeah. At the same time. At the same time. I must have. It used to be I could. I would rather have no pieces of gum than just one. Really? Yeah. Because one piece of gum to you is. It's not enough. It's child's play. It's child's play.
So you're an elite gum chewer, would you say? And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to always need two. And then I crossed the threshold, and now I must have three, if I'm going to have any. So I have to buy her those, like, tubs of gum. Gum tubs? Yeah, like, they're those giant ones that are, like, 150 pieces. You guys go to Costco just for gum? And I don't chew gum all the time, but if I'm going to, I have to have that amount of flavor. But by the way, you will power through. Like, I was amazed that you powered through the 150 pieces of gum. Yeah, yeah.
In how long? A week? Yeah. A month, maybe a month. 150 pieces in a month. And is it sugar-free? A week. What are we talking here? If I know it's in the car, I'm going to power through all of it. Okay, I have a question. How long do you chew those three pieces of gum for? Right until the flavor's over and then I start up again. Which is how long?
Like five minutes. I was going to say, is it, I don't, cause I, wow, you really get it. I am the opposite. I do not chew gum with you. Oh, ever. I think it's gross. Why not? Uh, I don't, uh, a, I think it's gross and B, uh,
It makes me hungry. Yeah, it makes me hungry too. It does the opposite. People oftentimes are like, oh, I chew gum. It quenches my appetite or whatever. I don't chew gum because the minute I do, it's like Pavlovian, like, oh, the mastication motion makes me feel like I must be eating now. And I get kind of hungry. And then it's like, oh, no, you're not eating at all. Oh, interesting. You're just having a dumb piece of gum, you asshole. I think for me it's about –
I don't smoke anymore, but I miss that experience, that ritual and the sort of oral fixation of smoking. Right. And now that that's gone, it feels like it's something that I can do that is safe for me. Well, you should start like just really hardcore vaping.
Yeah, you would look so cool. Just really hardcore e-cigarettes. You would look like so sexy with a nice vape pen out there. Yeah, just like puffing away on your vape pen with those giant clouds of ridiculous smoke. So could I vape right here? Yes. I believe you could. That's crazy.
It would be insane if you did. By the way, I would like it if you really adopted a vape lifestyle. Like a real, and it's not like you're not putting marijuana in there. No, just straight like tobacco or whatever they are, whatever the E-E-E tobaccos are or whatever. And yeah, and you were just like a hardcore vapor with it like on your belt.
I do. I appreciate sometimes I'll see people with a pretty intense vape pen. Oh, yeah. It looks like a lightsaber handle. But sometimes coming out of – have you seen the vape pens that are like – they look like an iPad or an iPod and they have a stick out of it too. Yeah, that's another one. It's very like – You've got to start vaping, June. I've never tried it. I would be open to trying it. Really? Absolutely.
Yeah, of course. It's healthy for you, right? It is actually healthy. No, it's not. It's healthy for you. It is like taking vitamins. Vaping is like vitamins. That's why they call it vape. I'm definitely going to do it. The V is for vitamins. You know what you should do? Because a lot of women that I know now are doing prenatal vape.
Oh, yeah. Those are great. Just the prenatal vape. Just get used to it, their body. Yeah. Their hair looks great. You got to get that vape in. It's got all the, yep. Their skin looks really good for the baby. Also, and after babies, too, there's a lot of placenta vaping going on. They just grind that placenta down into a vapeable substance, and you just vape that center, bro. Got to vape that center. And by the way, they can get that on the black market. It is expensive. Get it on the dark web, hackers. Did you guys notice? I don't know.
I love that we have ground this talk to an absolute halt to discuss candy bars, gum, and vaping. Snacking with the How Did This Get Made crew. Oh, yeah. I love that segment.
This back to school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon. Now, here's the thing. I love back to school season, but I'm going to be honest, it's expensive. Every year I'm getting a new backpack. I'm getting new scissors. I'm buying so much stuff and back to school season. I need a little bit of help.
But back-to-school shopping doesn't have to break the bank. And here's the thing. With Amazon, you get great deals and everyday low prices on everything that your kid needs for a successful return to the classroom. Now, I was one of those kids whose parents would go back-to-school shopping too late. And then I couldn't get the cool folder with ALF on it. But don't worry about that because Amazon's got a whole wide selection of back-to-school items. Get it now. I just bought...
my kids stuff on Amazon in July. And then when September comes rolling around, I am the hero. You'll find quality products at Amazon that your kids will love all while sticking to your budget. Shop back to school at Amazon and spend less on your kids. Visit amazon.com slash back to school to get started. That's amazon.com slash back to school.
Pulling up to Mickey D's just for drinks. Oh yeah, that's me. Nothing extra, just perfection and a straw. Coming in hot for the coldest cups on the block. Because there are drinks. Then there are drinks from McDonald's. Mix things up with any size lemonade or sweet tea for $1.49. Perfect with our classic fries. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.
Did you guys remember, did you guys notice the character that was in another How Did This Get Made movie? It's the same exact character. If you haven't noticed it, maybe you just didn't catch it. It was the robot that holds a gun from Runaway was also in this movie. Oh my God. Another robotic arm holding a gun. Another robot with a handgun. I'm glad that guy's getting work. By the way, what is Angelina Jolie shooting when she shoots that scene?
Oh, it's like a flare gun. But that seems to me more violent than a gun. Have you shot a flare gun at close range? Yeah, he's 10 feet away. And he is lit on fire. That is like what she did would literally be like, I believe, a federal offense.
Oh, huge. Like shooting a flare gun at people? A person. Yeah. No, I'm certain that is. Ten feet away. But it was so cool. Oh, man. She's the best. I was going to say, this is the most conspicuous group in Chinatown. When they're around the phones doing stuff. They are trying to, like Matthew Lillard looking out. The other guy is looking out the corner. They are literally, like you would look at them and go, hey, what the fuck is going on over here? They are not conspicuous.
They are not smooth. They are not subtle. But I feel like the movie is like positing this idea that like, oh, that's what the world is. Groups of hackers clustered around public phones just hacking the planet, man. And I love Wendell Pierce in this movie from The Wire. Bunk from The Wire. He's so great. When he gets – he did something that made me laugh. They kind of like –
focus their hacking attention and I thought that actually was the best use of hacking in this movie like they did like a whole thing where they kind of wreck his life and they make him look like he has a little excessive 137 driving violations and a DUI which I thought just seemed a little bit ridiculous they also made him register for a sex hotline and
And they cut his credit card. Oh, right. They turned off his credit card so much so that the waiter came to the table and cut it with scissors in front of him. So defiantly. Isn't that a thing that used to happen, though? Yes. I thought about that, too. Because I remember, I believe I saw my mother's credit card cut in front of her. That was the thing. They used to tell you to cut the credit card. Now I think they have better systems to be like, yeah, cut it.
But yeah, they cut it. Oh, boy. But I was going to say, my favorite moment with him was when the sex line, he's getting all these phone numbers calling him like, oh, I want to fuck you. I want to suck your feet. I want to come on your balls. Wait, did somebody say I want to come on your balls? Yeah, it's in there. It's in there. It's as low. I want the stuff that comes out of my balls to land on your balls. That's my new shirt. I want to come on your balls. Balls to balls.
So he literally picks up the phone and he wipes his hand off as if the handle is dirty. See, that I get because if I ever am on a phone call with someone who's sick,
It makes me feel like I have just been exposed to that illness. I feel like, oh, it's such craziness. You have an issue. Oh, absolutely. Don't worry. I'm talking about in therapy, guys. This happens in movies a lot where someone's getting a gazillion phone calls and they frantically try to answer all of them on that phone. Yes, all the phone lights are blinking. I have to imagine that if I was getting that many calls on a phone like that, I'd just pull out the plug. Like something's...
There's no way to handle this. I want to say again that the character that is Johnny, Joey. Yes. The kid who is repeatedly smoking cigarettes in both hands. I didn't notice that. In between, in both hands like this. As if like that's, I was trying to figure that one out. And then he's in the addicts meeting and he's like, I'm not an addict. I don't.
Yeah, he's not an addict. I'm not an addict. And they're all like, boo. And it's the point. He's smoking a cigarette and drinking, chugging coffee. And he's like, I'm not an addict. I'm going to go get more coffee. He's like, all they're doing is showing that he's constantly addicted to things. It is so stupid, and I could not figure it out. And then the other guy who has a photographic memory.
Well, first of all, I didn't like him repeating that woman's address and all of that. You didn't think that was totally normal that the girl who doesn't know how he knows her name, he knows everything about her photographically? But he seemed to be offering that information like, hey, guys. Yeah, yeah. This is where she lives and what time she's going to be home at night. Well, again, the other thing I want to – there's a couple things I want to talk about. We'll get to second opinions in a second. But the –
I wanted to talk about the passwords that they say are the most common passwords. Love. Yes. Sex. Secret. God. God. Were those ever? No. Nope. The most common passwords are like 1, 2, 3, 4, 0, 0, 0, 0. The word password. Really? Yeah. None of these are the most common passwords. No. What are you talking about? The most common password is secret? What? No, it's not. What?
Fuck you, assholes. That was super lame. And then I didn't understand when Johnny Lee Miller walked around and he was seeing old clips of movies. Oh, yes. Like Dream On. Like that's not a hacker thing. That's the other thing. Like when he's hacking and he's hacking and he's hacking and then he like – and he gets – he closes his eyes and it's like quick cuts through like, yes, old movies and TV shows as if that's what's going on in the mind of a hacker. Like Dream On.
And it wasn't there all the time. Well, Dream On, though, is also, by the way, a reference that 90% of people... No, no one gets this. Yeah. The people watching or listening to this podcast are going to get it. But it is like channel surfing old TV is what they're saying is a hacker's brain. But I did imagine, though...
Well, I wonder if something does happen to their brains. I mean, they're spending their entire days looking at these numbers and data and all of that. Yes, but I can't imagine what they see when they close their eyes is like a clip from His Girl Friday. I don't know. All I'm saying is their brains might be different.
Well, I would say like a nine. Their brains, June, you're right. Their brains might be different. They're just hacked into the old 1950s films. There are things that have happened to our brains after staring at screens for so long. Things happen to our brains. June, I really, like, your, not animosity, but your legitimate fears of technology are compelling. June, tell Jason what happened when I brought home BB-8.
Oh, you brought home BB-8, the robot? The robot from Star Wars. I got the little remote control. First of all, I didn't know what the fuck it was. You just brought it home. You didn't know what it was, but you say that in a way that is like, even to look at it, you wouldn't conceptually understand what it was fundamentally. I hoped that it was some sort of character figurine. As if he brought home Gizmo, the gremlin.
All I know is he placed it on a floor and started roaming about. And I didn't like it. You didn't like it? He said to me, what was the first question? Yes. I don't remember. What's its mission? What's its mission? What? What's its mission? What?
What is it here for? Oh, my God. What's its mission? Did you, Paul, did you go to the book to be like, oh, boy, let me look at this? No, I did the worst thing, which is like, don't you worry about it. It will monitor our house. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's just here to take pictures. Oh, my God. I think I have a healthy skepticism. And then you told me immediately as I took it off the floor, what did you say to me? I don't remember. You said, get the fuck out of here. I'm going to throw it in the garbage. Oh, my God.
It is now hidden from June. BB-8 cannot be out in public. Oh, my God. I love that. Let me hit you guys with some... What is its mission? It's crazy. Let me hit you with some truth here about the movie. Some things that you may not have known about the movie. Katherine Heigl was offered the Angelina Jolie role. She had to unfortunately turn it down due to Under Siege 2, Dark Territory. Oh, wow. So that was interesting. Could have been a... I didn't realize she was...
working that much at that point. Other actresses that were out for the part, Hilary Swank, Heather Graham, and Liv Tyler. Liv Tyler would have been interesting. Ed Norton was supposed to be the main lead. Oh, I like that. At one point. Now, here's the interesting thing that is kind of great. The screenplay was written by Ralph Moreau,
who is highly inspired by hacker and cyberpunk subcultures. Like he went deep and he was interested in hacking. Is he Dr. Moreau's son? That's what I think. No, but this is his, he basically did a, he went to a meeting, went to hacker conventions. So maybe at this point,
This is what the culture of hacking was like. I don't believe it to be true. I think probably he, I bet he wrote something that was more subtle and people were like, we have to be incredibly explicit with this because people are not going to understand. Yeah, I guess so. I think the director made choices. I mean, like oftentimes what they show in hacking is like as if a helicopter is flying through skyscrapers made of math equations over shredding guitar. Yeah.
You know, like flying through buildings made of motherboards while it's like. What may have been true, though, is they may hackers may have been more communal in like 1995 than they are now. Right. There were there was definitely a hacker convention.
Here's the little final piece of truth. And you can read more, you can hear more about the film. You can hear everything about it from Blake Harris's article on Slashfilm. Go check it out. It is out today. It's a great read about this movie. He got the director, everybody involved to talk about this film, which just celebrated 20 years.
of the anniversary. Wow. Yeah. So here's the thing. MGM UA set up a website for hackers that was then immediately hacked by hackers. I love it. So the Internet Liberation Front hacked it. And on the front page was a photograph of Angelina Jolie and Johnny Lee Miller. And then the words were,
this is going to be an interesting, fun promotional site for a movie. That was what was on it, which was kind of meta. And then it was replaced with, this is going to be a lame, cheesy promotional site for a movie. And that's what the hackers did. That's awesome. This movie is going to be lame. So that's, I think, the level of hacking back then. Like, just putting up, like, this is lame. Like, I feel like that's it. They weren't having, like, fully animated, like, cartoon discussions back and forth between hackers as this movie posits. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't think it was. And I also don't think like what they were doing when they were hacking was what is represented in this. I mean, in terms of like...
making rabbits jump along and eat code or whatever, Pac-Man invading, blah, none of that stuff. But I do think, like, they were doing the kind of attacks that they are talking about in the movie, like, you know, trying to get hold of banks, trying to shut down security systems, trying to find back doors into blah, blah, blah, all of that stuff. Well, I guess what I'm saying is I feel like the majority— Worms and viruses, I think, were very prevalent. Yes. Oh, we didn't even talk about the da Vinci virus. Oh, isn't that amazing? We didn't talk about the da Vinci?
The Da Vinci virus is basically like this surfer dude who is, oh, the Da Vinci virus, was literally Leonardo da Vinci. But they kept on going, that's Da Vinci. But Da Vinci's drawing of man, right, that image of the multi-armed, multi-legged guy, that's not Da Vinci. That's not a self-portrait, is it? I don't know. Oh.
Oh, we're going to have, you know, if we're going to figure this out, we're going to have to go to Hudson Hawk. Oh, yeah. We got to get. All right. We're going to get back to you. We'll go and revisit Hudson Hawk. Well, this is going to be another one of those things where people freak out that we don't know something that everybody's like, this is universal knowledge. Oh, I got slammed because someone wrote in on the podcast last week that it's
that Super Nintendo made a video game of Life Force, and I referenced that on the mini-episode, and that's not true. It has nothing to do with Life Force. It's just a game called Life Force? Yes. It's been full. How could you make that kind of mistake? I don't know. I trust our listeners. What I don't understand is...
A, how are you so stupid to not know that offhand? I know. B, are you not doing all of the research necessary to record all of this information? Look, I'm going to tell you one thing that some guy wrote me on Twitter and goes, let me just tell you, your knowledge of NES is lame.
And I was like, thank you. Thank you. I'm quite comfortable. I'm producing this free podcast for you. Yeah. And also, I'm comfortable with my knowledge of NES being lame. Like, in the grand scheme of things, I'm fine with it. Okay. Obviously, we had an opinion about this movie, but there are other people out there that had a different opinion. It is now time for Second Opinions. Second Opinions. Second Opinions.
Now that was from Michael Ficus, who I apologize, we've never given him credit for his song. Thank you, Michael, for making that song. But seriously, trim back that Ficus, Michael. Nailed it. Hey. All right, so these are five-star reviews cold from Amazon. Here we go. From S. Adkins.
Finally, I can enjoy hackers on Blu-ray. What a masterpiece. Of course, I don't even have a Blu-ray player come to think of it, but maybe one day, and when I do, I will play this disc that I purchased. Wow. Until then, I will continue watching the ripped version from the DVD that I purchased years ago. Five stars. Oh, my God. That was written September 19th, 2015. What? Yes. Whoa. Okay. This is a great one here. Okay.
100% accurate movie is written by Jacob Wallace. I wasn't allowed to use a touch-tone phone until I was 18 because of this movie. 100% factually accurate.
Five stars. Why are they making such a distinction between a touch-tone phone and just a regular phone? I guess because you can do the beeps. Yeah, a touch-tone phone is like you could hack stuff with just the tones. Just the beeps. That's how they're getting free calls and stuff like that. Oh, I see. I'm going to go. This one's a little bit long, but it's worth it. This is by Lynn.
This has been one of my all-time favorite movies since I saw it the first time in 1995 on a blockbuster rental. Loved it then, loved the dub I made of it, loved everything I rented, and loved it when I bought it, and will love the Blu-ray and the special features that come with it. Wow.
First paragraph done. Sought the first time just after I did an analysis in film class and recognized it as a well-made film. Everything about it was good. Acting, script, casting, each of the characters, even though it's not up to today's standards of what hacking is,
because that's funny, is a well-made film with good to excellent actors, and all of them make up an ensemble that shines even today. Look, I can't address the music or the other things, but the characters are delightful. Each of the hackers had a different character so they could play off the others without interfering with their acting or personas. They were obviously having a good time. Well, here's what I mean. Yes. And I want to say, like...
Like Matthew Broderick in War Games is a more compelling hacker than in this movie. I want to make sure to be clear, there is something inherently counterculture and interesting about hackers. That's not what's on display really in this movie. Or like the TV show WizKids.
Yes. Was a more interesting version of hacking kids, you know. I would say that Mr. Wizard is kind of even more interesting than hacking because he's at least giving you like little science hacks. Yeah. These guys didn't show me anything about that quarter thing. Here, I want to finish with review. Oh, sorry. I didn't even realize we were mid-review. Oh, no. I wasn't a kid when I saw this film. I was probably 50 plus and had classes in film school. Since I've been seeing films since my mom carried me in the womb, I'm a film buff. Wait a minute.
You cannot see from inside the womb. I'm particular about what I see. This one made me laugh. It caught and kept my attention all the way through. The characters were an ensemble. I've come to learn. And each was well cast and played off each other and were funny and had good comic timing and took direction well.
How does she know? I don't know. This took direction well. I mean, this person really knows the term ensemble. The plague was great, as was God, who would become Tony Soprano's therapist. One of those amazing films with breakthrough parts for actors like Johnny Lee Miller, Elementary, and Angelina Jolie. And that was written also in September of 2015. By the way, what was Lorraine Bracco's role?
role in this. She was kind of the head of the company. She was the head of Gibson PR. Oh, she was the head of PR. And she was standing to make a lot of money. Half of $25 million. Yeah, she and Fisher Stevens were skimming money from the company. It was basically the same scam as Superman 4. They were skimming fractions of a penny off of each transaction and it was going to equal $25 million. And then they created the Da Vinci virus to cover up
that. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that. So much stuff. So now it makes much more sense, right? I liked it. Well, guys, we're all one over. Would you guys recommend seeing Hackers? I would. Sure, I guess.
Not particularly. Well, there you go. I think it's worth the $2.99 or whatever. But here is a couple things we're just going to get out in front of the way here. A big shout out to our friend Lawrence Marcy who wrote us a really nice note about the show. And we are glad that you are enjoying it. We appreciate that. June, what do you want to have? I don't really have any plugs. Okay. That's fine. Jason, any plugs? I mean...
Not really. I mean, follow us on Twitter. Yeah. H-D-T-G-M. Oh, I've got a small part in the movie The Night Before, which is out right now. Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie, Joe Gordon-Levitt. Very funny. Yeah, funny movie. Go see that. And you do play Santa in that movie. I play a Santa in that movie. And did they use your real beard? Yes. Oh, really? No. I thought for my own pitch.
You said it so matter-of-factly. I'm going to think about what is its mission, like, all the time. Oh, what is its mission is never left me. It's the best thing of all time. Big shout-out to Avril Halle, who pulled all of our clips, Nick, Kylie, Marissa Zeitz, everybody here at Earwolf. Thank you guys for listening. And just one word to everybody out there, hack the planet. I'm just going to be Earwolf.
Be warned that once you pick up a refreshingly cold drink from McDonald's
and people see just how refreshingly cold that drink from McDonald's is, you may create drink envy. Because there are drinks. Then there are drinks from McDonald's. For a morning brew that really creates a stir, get any size iced coffee, including caramel and French vanilla, for just 99 cents before 11 a.m. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer or combo meal. Ba-da-da-ba-ba.