Fatal Attraction: Stuck In Crazy
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Smack My Pitch Up 94 – Fatal Attraction: Stuck In Crazy
Transcript at the bottom of show notes
Hobbit and Thandi visit one of the greatest sexy thrillers of all time as they try to suppress their… Fatal Instinct
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Transcript:
SMPU – Fatal Attraction
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Hobbit: [00:00:00] Hello Geeks and welcome to another amazing episode of Smack My Pitch Up, the podcast that reboots remakes does everything. I lost track of that.
Thandi: the things. Yes,
Hobbit: All the things, all the redos of stuff that we have come to it’s all a blend at this point. I love it when it’s like a, it’s a Torch Pass movie sequel reboot. That they do now, where it’s technically a sequel, but it’s also brand new. It.
Thandi: there to make money. Yes. Love it.
Hobbit: Oh, it’s where everything’s got sub categoried so much that they don’t even make sense when you try to explain what it is now. It used to be just a remake or a reboot, and then that’s it.
Thandi: got one of the old guys and Timothy Chalamet, and we’re calling it a re-imagining sequel. What was it? Legacy. Lega Sequel is the big thing now.
Hobbit: Legacy . Yeah, absolutely. And we see it with the Ghostbusters is a good one. Creed is another one oh, a good one was the Ben Stiller Owen [00:01:00] Wilson,
Thandi: Oh Zoolander two
Hobbit: no not Zoolander two, the car one a Starsky and Hutch
Thandi: oh.
Hobbit: where at the end the original guys showed up and sold them the car and it was a, yeah, I don’t know.
2021 Jump Street was the same way
Thandi: Yeah, except
Hobbit: it’s oh, we were in Jump Street. Yeah, that was a really fun film. Speaking of a fun film no, this is a good film the one that we’re talking about this episode, but I wouldn’t go so far to say fun. It’s hitting a lot of fear points.
for for men, I guess. So
It’s definitely morality tale
Thandi: it is a morality it’s a straight up morality play, and that’s fine. Oh, and by the way, The other gentleman is Mike. I’m Thandi. We love you.
Hobbit: Oh, cool. Yeah, the intro stuff that we normally do at the beginning got so excited to jump
Thandi: Yeah. No it’s so, I love this movie. Like I hadn’t seen it in 20 years and I was into it [00:02:00] like I was in the movie theater eating popcorn. I was into it. Like I was talking to myself and going, oh, no, when I had all the anxiety of a dude watching a dude just do stupid shit, making stupid dude mistakes.
Oh, it was awesome. I thought this was a really good movie. I didn’t remember that. It was a really good, like the, I thought the cinematography was good. I thought that the acting was good. The storytelling was interesting. I was all in on.
Hobbit: and I feel they didn’t overexplain anything. It was just the information that you needed to get like through that part of the plot. It. I’m trying to over decorate the movie with a bunch of additional people or side. I was trying to think of side characters that I would need to cast possibly while watching this movie.
And there’s only four other people in this movie, beside the main
Thandi: that’s a, it’s a very small story.
Hobbit: ke Yeah, absolutely. But that’s all it needs to be. It doesn’t detract by keeping it small at all. It actually keeps it a much [00:03:00] tighter movie. And this is just under two hours. It’s not a short movie. It’s a standard.
Thandi: yeah. It’s a full story, but it kept me engaged the entire time. And, you know what and big up to Adrian Lynn for doing the same movie over and over again for 40 years and making it pretty great every time.
Hobbit: I’m the amount of sexy thrillers, that Michael Douglass has been in is just incredible to me. That j there was just a period of time, there was like a 10 year little spot. Michael Douglas was just like onscreen fucking
Thandi: people. Like they don’t do, they don’t do this kind of movie anymore for probably years, but he is manhandling, just manhandling what’s his CoStar’s name? Glen Close. He’s manhandling Glen, close. It is disgusting and awesome.
Hobbit: There is a scene where Glen closed, like pulls down her shirt into her first reveal of her nipple. And I swear in my [00:04:00] head, Michael Douglas went, ow, as he even and jumped on it. Just ready to roll. Just aggressive fucking in this
Thandi: Yeah, no it’s, it is a sight to behold. Like I said, they don’t make movies like this anymore. Sexy thrillers get made sometimes, but as far as like people pawing each other, that doesn’t happen like that anymore.
Hobbit: No I think the most recent pawing at each other sex scene that I saw was in Bros.
Thandi: Oh, do they have something like that?
Hobbit: something, but it was actually playing at the aggressive sex scenes a bit where they’re like, Shoving their feet in each other’s face and not in a sexy way, like pressing their head against the wall kind of thing.
Very funny. Very
Thandi: love.
Hobbit: But yeah. One thing I do miss about these sexy thrillers and something that just like you said wouldn’t play today, is that morality aspect of don’t cheat on your wife, cuz she might be fucking crazy. And the rule that we learned as teenagers from like [00:05:00] the, our older brothers and older friends.
There are some things that come with, as they said, and the time sticking your dick in crazy is that you don’t know what kind of results may come
Thandi: That was the saying, but as somebody from the restaurant industry, I had to, it couldn’t help it. It was part of my lifestyle.
Hobbit: look, everybody at a certain point in their life needs to have a whore phase male or female in between everybody needs. I think it’s important absolutely to. Really explore what you like, what you don’t like, what you’re willing to handle, and what you’re not willing to handle. I think that’s a super important thing.
There’s no shame in it whatsoever. Ever. I’ve had my time, my friends have had their time. Good for fucking them. But yeah, occasionally you’ll run across somebody that , oops, that was a bad idea. And this is definitely that
Thandi: and it’s the, and you knew. once she started spitting her game, and I was like, man, Alex has mad game, but it’s a little bit scary. Before they even got [00:06:00] into stuff, I was like, oh man this is way aggressive. This might not be a good scene for you, man, knowing it’s not gonna be a good scene for ’em, but yeah. Ooh.
Hobbit: When the moment hits where suddenly, and I think it was very deftly written, the turn in the conversation from it being very light. Nobody’s saying anything flirtation to being overt flirtation, where they discuss basically who’s making the call on which way this goes. And Michael Douglas says, that’s definitely your call, not mine.
And I’m like, bitch, you’re married like . What do you mean? That’s her call. She’s got nothing to lose in
Thandi: At that point, I think he was just having fun with it. He was like, oh yeah, we’re gonna fuck. And she’s oh yeah, no, we are, we’re gonna fuck. And he’s okay,
Hobbit: No, he was playing with it like the night before. What you know is gonna be a long day at work and you start playing with the idea of calling out. But you know, in your head you’re eventually gonna call out. Like you’ve already made that determination in your brain, but you haven’t really admitted it to yourself yet.
That’s the flirtation that he is doing with [00:07:00] fucking, like he knows. That’s where it’s going. 100%. But he is no, I’m a, I’m good husband. I wouldn’t do that. But what Would it be like? He already knows it’s happening. He already knows it’s going now even with Glen Close, like I haven’t decided.
Yes, bitch. Yes, you have. You have decided. What do you mean? No, I haven’t decided
Thandi: Yes, she has decided. That’s one of the the thing, the old pieces of wisdom too, is that she knows beforehand and it’s on you to f it up, but in his case, effing it up was actually going and doing the thing.
Hobbit: Yep. And. I was curious to see how it played for me as an adult. The turn from it being this mutual decision to hook up and fool around. That was like, he’s married, he can’t turn in anything and everybody knows to it being this weird stalker kind of story and man for it didn’t age poorly at all.
I feel like there was, it felt very genuine. Once you’re in it, it’s a different story than when you’re just [00:08:00] hypothetically discussing it.
Thandi: Yeah. So for me the thing that was striking because a lot of the movies very naturalistic, except for Glenn Clo, seems like a cartoon character. If I hadn’t engaged with people like Glenn Close, I would be like, man, she’s playing a cartoon character, but she’s playing people that I’ve met. This is a, perhaps not where it goes, but this is a very understandable relationship situation cuz I’ve seen it.
Hobbit: Yeah, I have. and yeah, this is definitely a turned up to 11 version. Great. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility. It works. It’s not like a fast and furious movie where nothing makes sense. The human relationships here fit the way that they should to make sense.
So that being said, let’s ruin it. Let’s let’s take this movie word we’re very happy with that I don’t really see
Thandi: Yeah, cuz I feel like we can only ruin it like the the genre has been done to death at this point. [00:09:00] It was really interesting finding any angle to get a grip on. But yeah. I love this movie enough that I think it stands on its own whether we ruin it or.
Hobbit: This is really one of the top three sexy thrillers, right? There’s like basic instinct of fatal attraction and then maybe what, nine and a half weeks?
Thandi: Yeah. So my favorite before this, because I don’t watch sexy thrillers all the time, I never did was unfaithful, which is also an Adrian Lynn movie from like 2002 or something. It made me have a chub for Diane Lane until now, even as Ma Kent, I was like
Hobbit: diane Lane is aging well. She is. She’s doing a very good job there. And. Yeah, those sexy thrillers. There was a time in my life that I went through all of ’em. I like Jade was watching nine and a half weeks, of course. Basic, like I what was the one Body Heat? Do you remember? Body Heat, I think.
Was that Melanie Griffith? Was it, was that? I can’t remember. But yeah, th there was just a series of sexy thrillers and then that kind of [00:10:00] tweaked into it being more of the murdery aspect than the sexy aspect. And that’s where you start getting into Seven and taking lives and suspect zero. And all these like gritty crime thrillers, I feel are definitely a bastard child of the sexy thriller.
Thandi: But you know, the sexy thriller was, it was cheap to make, so it dominated like the nineties. It was this sexy thriller in courtroom dramas and just stuff that you didn’t have to spend a whole lot of money on. Sets or places that weren’t just people’s houses or, yeah it was a good time in cinema because the focus wasn’t on the spectacle.
You had some interesting scripts and some interesting characters,
Hobbit: And that’s why I’m interested to see what we’re exactly gonna do with this. We, if you didn’t listen to the last episode, we have tweaked to the format a little bit where instead of four different takes of the movie we’re talking about, one of us gets the re reboot or remake version thing that we think might actually be the best bet.
For the film and one of us gets the remix version, the [00:11:00] wackadoo, weird, fully out of the box. Take on this. Sometimes those two versions are actually pretty close as far as whether or not we wanna see these versions or not. And sometimes they’re wildly different, but you get the real take
Thandi: I got the real.
Hobbit: So I’m interested to see if you’re going with that sexy thriller vibe. If you’re trying to go more modern. Take what are we doing?
Thandi: So I am going full on sexy thriller. And with that as a thing, I had to find something to latch onto to make it interesting. So something that I noticed in Fatal Instinct, or sorry, fatal Attraction, haha, is that they were really casually racist. A couple times making fun of Asian people, cuz that’s the race that was in the movie.
But and then in addition to that, I watched this other thriller that was from the affair thriller that was from the early seventies called play Misty For me,
Hobbit: Yeah.
Thandi: really, it wasn’t racist at all, but [00:12:00] it had some really interesting relations to others in the movie because it was.
Early seventies, so they were like, oh, let’s put all these people in the movie. But they weren’t people, they were like set dressing. So it had a black person and another black person and a gay person. But they were just so they could have these things in the movie to be like, oh, what is America’s a melting pot?
But they weren’t important or really part of the movie or addressed as individual beings of, they were just people that were set dressing for the movie. So I wanted to address what race relations are like now with the from the point of view of white affluence, because those are the people that are in the original movie.
These affluent white people like living their wonderful lives. So I wanted to have these affluent white people living their wonderful lives, and I wanted to have race as a component that is not directly addressed, but I wanted [00:13:00] to see in real time. Basically having microaggressions, basically being casually racist in a way that people do not like, oh, I hate these people, or whatever.
Just the way people do when they’re comfortable and intimate. That kind of casual racism. I want to see that throughout the movie, but with it never really being directly addressed, just something that hangs over the movie. So in this modern version, this modern. On fatal Instinct. Dang it. On Fatal Attraction
Hobbit: No. Fatal Instinct is a movie and if I remember correctly,
Thandi: a parody
Hobbit: isn’t that like a, it’s a parody movie. Yeah, I believe so. Yeah.
Thandi: So my director for this version is Michael Moen, who directed the Voyeurs. I don’t know if you saw that last year, a really.
Hobbit: Oh, okay. I know what you’re talking. I hadn’t had the chance to see it, but I know what you’re
Thandi: So it is half of a really good movie. If they had [00:14:00] stopped at the Twist, then it would be a really good movie. But at The Twist, there’s like a whole half movie left and it’s stupid after that,
Hobbit: Oh
Thandi: But it’s a sexy thriller and I enjoyed that first half of it. So that’s the director I’m going for there.
And for my story, it’s mostly the same beats, but we bring in some things that are a little bit different. So instead of Stuart PanIN being the. We’re bringing in Michael Pena as Jimmy the Stewart Pan character,
Hobbit: Okay.
Thandi: as his wife Hildy. We have Mabel K, who was Noora in Wakanda forever. And their interaction with the couple, the Dan Gallagher and Beth Gallagher, the husband and wife, the lawyer, couple, the lead and his wife.
What happens inside the circle of trust, which is the casual racism that happens inside of the circle of trust, but it’s not really, it doesn’t look like racism because it’s inside the circle of trust. [00:15:00] Everybody is accepting of what’s going on there. If you watch it from the outs, if you see it from the outside, then it’s yucky.
It’s it’s like you hanging out with Steven or me and saying some things that are, it’s funny in the moment because it’s us, not racism. And not inappropriate in that moment, but if somebody from the outside sees it, it’s yucky. I’ve had this conversation about just being in podcasting. Is that something you have to be considerate of, is who’s listening your audience? It’s the clarity of message is that there are jokes that, yeah, like you said, we could make with one another because the intention is incredibly clear to one another.
Hobbit: We know each other well enough to know where the line is and what is meant by what is
Thandi: Yeah, I’ve had the circle of trust conversation with women where I’m like you, where I’ve said, where I’ve said things in front of people that I would say in front of a woman that I’m very close with. That’s completely inappropriate to say under that context. And it’s just something you have to learn. But we’re seeing this as [00:16:00] observers and we’re like, eh, and it’s just part of the That’s something that’s happening in modern day with social media, with the. Remote based relationships that we have is people are starting to misunderstand like where that line is as far as comfort level and what you’re should be able to say in mixed company versus close
Hobbit: That there’s some things that you need to change your clarity a little bit depending on your
Thandi: Yeah. Every conversation’s not for everybody.
Hobbit: exactly, that’s why you should, there’s some places you can’t say fuck it work and that’s reason.
Thandi: Yeah,
Hobbit: My job’s pretty okay with it, but But for my leads for my affluent white couple, we have Jake Gillen Hall as Dan Gallagher
nice.
Thandi: as Beth Gallagher we have Bree Larson, and as Alex, we have Lupita Nego, which brings in like just a whole bunch of. Not in your face, [00:17:00] but like implicit racism because Leedia Nigo is the one who Jake Gillen Hall cheats with.
I also wanted to change the dynamic of that a little bit, where Jake Gillen Hall is. Not just an innocent dummy. He’s actually he’s trying to pursue a thing. He’s trying to see how long he can make this go, not realizing that this person’s crazy and then it’s too late. It’s not two days.
And he is oh, this bitch is crazy. It’s like a couple weeks maybe where he is trying to like, oh, I can make this, I can make, I can juggle this, I can make this work. Oh no, she’s crazy. and In the scene, like it’s gonna have a lot of the same beats. So when the scene, they’re gonna sell their, oh, we’re gonna try ourselves to sell our house.
And when Alex comes to the house and Beth meets Alex, and after Alex leaves and she sees that that Dan, Jake Gillen Hall is very uncomfortable, she’s she thinks it’s because it’s a pretty black girl. She’s I know what you did in college. I know that you were into that in college or whatever.
And when she’s talking about what [00:18:00] he was into in college, he does this. This mock black woman accent, Adam.
Hobbit: No. Oh, no
Thandi: In inside their home is part of the circle of trust, but stuff that people don’t see and you don’t really see in movies like that either. But I want to expose that kind of thing, not as not as a pointed part of the movie, just as an uncomfortable background element that goes through the entire. then most of the story beats are going to be the same. Beyond that one thing that I will change is that her parents will be a little bit more involved as affluent whites. And when they find out that Dan has been cheating with this black, this African black woman the level that they’re unpleased and the way that they express that is going to be
Hobbit: Ooh. Yeah. Oof. A fog. Like a fart in a room. Just hover it in.
Thandi: so so because her parents are more intrinsic to the plot there I’ve casted [00:19:00] them for Beth’s mother, I have Michelle Pfeiffer, and for Beth’s father, I have John Corbett. And if you don’t know who John Corbett is, he was Aiden from Sex in the City. Chris from Northern Exposure, which is how I knew.
And then Ian from my big Fat Greek wedding, and he’s just a tall, handsome white guy, even it’s in the sixties. He’s a tall, handsome, white guy. Michelle Pfeiffer is still beautiful and older, and I wanted to like you to see the affluence just as like looking at these people. Oh, affluent whites, so
Hobbit: Yeah I love trying to differentiate between being a white myself understanding that I do differentiate myself between that and affluent white, which has a why at the beginning, the white. White. Yeah. That it’s a slight different inflection there. That does mean a lot . It does quite a bit.
Thandi: And that
Hobbit: and in, yeah, that’s
in the circumstance? Yeah, in the circumstance. I think it’s just the idea of [00:20:00] who grew up at a level of maybe income or status that they. Need or maybe desire hung out with non-whites, like actually have experience interacting with people that didn’t look exactly like them or have the same experiences as them.
And so don’t have that like absence of experience that creates awkward social situations on occasion. Just out of. Lack of depth of knowledge of how to act around people, which is literally just like yourself, but don’t try to cater to, and then you become more awkward. That’s like the white affluence things like in Get Out that I voted for Obama three times.
Why was that relevant to this conversation? Like why is that something you just blurred out? Brother, man. Yeah. That If you wanna see a perfect example of this, look at early television interviews [00:21:00] with Quentin Tarantino. When there’s a black cast member with him during the interview he starts talking
Thandi: starts to code
Hobbit: like he, yeah, he code switches my man.
Then I might like, he totally changes his inflections and it’s jarring like it’s so bad. I’m really glad that he got outta the habit. It’s really bad. Yeah, it’s. So, yeah I love those moments that speak to that. That’s great.
Thandi: And the uh, the only other thing I want to put in here for that pitch is that I want it to be old school sexy, and I want Jake Gillen Hall to grab two big pans of la Pita NGO’s Sweet, juicy can, and focus on that is like an objectification of that sweet, juicy can.
Much different than what his wife, Bree Larson has going on.
And yeah, just as part of the the underlying discomfort, he’s objectifying this big black ass [00:22:00] as part of his thing. But I want very little of it to be spoken out loud. I just want it to be like, felt throughout the.
Hobbit: I think that’s gonna really translate better anyway than trying to work in dialogue to explain that. No I think showing it is gonna work a lot more effectively For sure.
Thandi: And that’s the pitch.
Hobbit: sweet. I’m into it. It’s taking aspects it’s almost like an homage to the classy, sexy thriller the classic sexy thriller without trying to re.
Modern take with a nice deft handoff from the classics so great into it. I am not doing that. I am being way more overt in the way that I’m approaching not just race, but also otherness, I guess in this conversation. With Fatal Attraction being the starting point I was interested to.
Something that was troubling for me with Fatal Attraction [00:23:00] is rooting for anyone. The only innocent here is the wife. Like she, she didn’t do anything. She didn’t deserve this. She, for everything we’ve seen in the film, is a devoted and loving wife that appreciates her husband and doesn’t try to start fights.
Isn’t a banshee or terrible or hasn’t driven him into the arms of another woman. He’s just a scumbag that took advantage of an opportunity. And of course Alex the character Alex is a psychopath. So I wanted to
Thandi: She’s so
Hobbit: to like, change the direction on who we’re actually rooting for, have one of the main characters as somebody that we root for.
But to do that I had to really just determine what would give us that reason to root for a person. And I think it would be th this idea of otherness. Is discussed a little bit in Fatal Attraction. This is a single woman that is willing to sleep with a married man.
And so therefore she’s treated as disposable by the married [00:24:00] man and she calls him out and She did make assumptions that weren’t there for sure. But what I wanted to do is flip it on its head. Actually, this was inspired by. News about what is it Matt slap the conservative icon that there’s reports and text messages that back it up that he apparently groped a man in a car couple years ago and was called out for it.
And this is like hard. Yeah. And this is the story he told time and time again. So I thought maybe inspired. Switching the lens that actually Dan Gallagher is a conservative politician
Opposed to a lawyer. And his friend Jimmy played by Stewart kin, is actually just his lawyer that works on the campaign and stuff with him.
And, Dan is a closeted gay man. He has a wife. Didn’t want to put a kid in, in a dangerous position in this situation. So, and also gay man with a beard, they got [00:25:00] a greyhound. So that’s crazy was the random person picking your kid up from school scene by the.
Yeah, that Talk about a fucking power move. Power move. It was like, your kid is completely safe. Had a great time. Took her on a rollercoaster. She kissed me on the cheek like this.
Thandi: But also that’s a scene that would never work in modern movies cuz you couldn’t get into the school to get somebody’s kid just random.
Hobbit: Hell, that’s one thing that immediately flipped in my brain when that scene came up, is that, how did she just come and grab a kid? It’s oh, it’s the eighties. That’s, yeah. They weren’t checking IDs and shit at
Thandi: And the kid was like, okay,
Hobbit: the kid. The kid being like, come with me. Sure. Great. And the eighties parents just wanted to get rid of their kids, take her great.
Thandi: More time to drink for us.
Hobbit: Yeah, right. So Dan is a closeted conservative politician. His wife Beth is. It’s not openly discussed [00:26:00] between them, but it, she’s pretty aware of his proclivities. She just chooses to ignore them. She appreciates the lifestyle that she’s been given is completely content to have her own trists outside of the marriage um, and let him have his, and it’s just an unspoken kind of thing that they have between the two of them.
That the core thing is to make sure that they’re not caught. They are seen as a core family value type.
Thandi: Hillary and Bill action.
Hobbit: A little bit kinda a little bit of that energy. And then we have let’s see. The Ellen, yeah the daughter that’s a Greyhound, that’s just a dog. So instead of picking up the dog from school, it’ll be from like the kennel they kept it at while they were out of town, like doing politician stuff.
And then took the dog to the dog park, , like doing doggy fun things.
Thandi: Who frolics with the side piece in public.
Hobbit: Yeah, that’s, ooh, that’s rough. So this story is less so about [00:27:00] the cheating aspect and more about the realization that Dan and Alex, I don’t even have to change the name for the man that he has a trist with, doesn’t realize that Dan is a conservative politician when they have this experience.
and it’s shortly after this experience when Dan’s in town in DC has this tryst, with this dude. He lives nearby, maybe like Baltimore or something, relatively close, but not in DC. And then he sees Dan’s face on the TV as he’s elected, like he’s a, been elected or or his position. That’s where Alex decides to have some fun with this man that he had real feelings for and is against. Gay marriage calls it an abomination, gays are grooming that whole fucking party line shit. And it’s infuriating. But he also like, still has feelings for him. So it’s this confliction.
So he’s threatening to out him, to tell the press and all this stuff. And he has pictures of them together on his phone and all this stuff. And so Dan is a [00:28:00] mess. This can ruin everything, can ruin his political career ruin this very intentionally curated marriage that he has. Oh, let me name these people.
Actually. This is directed by John Cameron Mitchell,
Thandi: Who
Hobbit: who is best known for headwind in the angry inch. Also the. Movie How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which if you haven’t seen, is based on a Neil Gaiman and Short Story, and it’s a sci-fi weird piece directed at episode of Glow and a bunch of other TV shows as well.
Great director. I really wanted a queer director to speak to, like the experience of this closeting and like this whole story really. And Dan Gallagher is gonna be played by Matt Bomer if you are unfamiliar. He was the super spy in the Chuck TV series. Back in the day. He’s was also in Magic Mike one and two he was in the magnificent seven Nice guys boys in the
Thandi: Hold on. I thought that Chuck was Shazam.
Hobbit: Chuck is Shazam but his college roommate that was the super spy [00:29:00] that is who he gets mistaken for.
He he shows up and then gives Chuck the thing or whatever. That’s Matt Bomber. He’s the smooth spy guy that, yeah, the actual spy. Yeah. . Then we’ve got Alex. I wanted to really punch the otherness of this story by not just having like a queer actor and visibly not code switching.
Very clearly gay, but also I wanted a Latino actor as well, so I went with Wilson Cruz, and if you’re unfamiliar, he’s in. Star Trek Discovery as one of the doctors. He was in Party Monster as Angel and he was Ricky in my so called Life way back in the day as well. Great actor I think would nail this role as just like a kind of vindictive scorned lover that is trying to get back at this conservative politician that he had a tryst.
Thandi: Him being Latino works for that whole kind of [00:30:00] thing too.
Hobbit: And just the whole party line in general would be also just another condemning factor, and I want a line like that as it’s bad enough that you slept with a man, but he had to be, he had to be Mexican. He’s no, he is Puerto Rican, whatever. Just dismissive kind of energy from Beth Gallagher, the wife who’s played by Amanda sef.
Thandi: Nice. She was actually on my shortlist for wife.
Hobbit: yeah, I think she can play like waspy mean affluent white woman very well. And I just, great actress. I think she would have a lot of fun in that role. Jimmy is the lawyer friend that he goes to that has some experience in like family law stuff, and he’s Hey, how does this work out?
There’s no baby nobody’s pregnant in this version. It’s more about some information about his governmental dealings that he let slip during the tris that he had and how liable he would be if that came out if that was protected in any way.
And so he’s going to his friend who’s played by Jared Carmichael, who I was not very familiar with [00:31:00] until the Golden Globes this last Sunday where he host. and was brilliant wonderful and said super fucking edgy shit that like pissed off a lot of people and have a lot of respect for that.
And I would I was like, you know what? You get in my movie cuz you were
Thandi: he came out. So I’m sure that he would be all about something, a project like this.
Hobbit: absolutely. And he’s very funny as well. And I want this, and in that same conversation of otherness is that there’s this conserve. Politician that’s relying on what he considers a friend is really employee that this black lawyer that is one of the very few people that knows that he’s gay because Jared Carmel, Jimmy is also gay and is openly so like it’s fine, but it’s also like they work together.
It’s like one of that’s the comfortable in the room conversation that this conservative dude feels like he can be. More gay in the room with Jimmy than he could be normally, because that’s the [00:32:00] one connecting factor they have with one another, but he’s also still racist. So it’s like they, they never really get to a point of actually being friends.
Cuz Jimmy is like, no, I know you’re a racist. We’re not friends. It’s just I’m not gonna out you because I know how fucked up that is. I’m not gonna do that. So you’re safe. But then there’s a, the boss. Arthur from the original was played by Fred Gwynne, and I wanted Kyle McLaughlin to play the boss.
He actually was in a movie based on tiger King, , Joe versus Carol. He played Howard Baskin in that, and John Cameron Mitchell played Joe Exotic in that movie. So they have a connecting. But the twist, the main twist of this is that at the end or the midway point where in the original he tells his wife that he had an affair, that she’s pregnant, that she’s stalking him, and it’s this whole ordeal.
That’s the turn where now Dan isn’t the [00:33:00] aggressor in trying to get Alex to fuck off. It’s the. The wife takes this role of that’s the surprise in the story. The twist is that she’s known all along, he’s gay. She doesn’t give a shit. Don’t take away my quality of life. Don’t ruin this for me. Yeah.
And those, so she gets way darker and way more fucked up about trying to get this stranger to leave her family alone. And that’s where the, it almost like a tag team in a wrestling ring, like your turn and she goes after him.
Thandi: Yeah that’s beautiful. And actually I think in a practical marriage of a power couple marriage, I think that’s how it works. The face doesn’t do the public assaults. It’s the other shrew person who actually goes out and takes care of business.
Hobbit: Yep. So at the end of it, this is a love affair gone wrong. A conservative politician that is trying to cover their tracks. As a hypocrite, that is what they pretend to stand against. [00:34:00] And a trophy wife, beard wife that is willing to kill to keep her comfort. So I’m loving this. I’m actually, I’m loving this. How does it shake out?
It shakes out basically that the final scene in the original movie where she sneaks into the house to to kill them and stuff.
It’s. It’s actually that, oh, how do I put it? The vital proof of their tryst that was on his phone was stolen by the wife and brought back to their house. So Alex isn’t going in for revenge, is going in to get their phone that they have the locate feature on, and that’s how they find out that it was taken to get their phones.
So they have proof to try to blow it all outta the water. That’s the way that I’m safe is to. Tell people about this. So then if anything happens to me, they know who to look at. And so then it’s the fight to the death in the house. And I don’t want this to necessarily be like I think as unfortunate as [00:35:00] it is, cuz we are rooting for Alex at this point.
I’m making Alex the person that you want to succeed. I want the reality of the situation to be that’s not how it works. And that like during the struggle Alex is killed in their house and they try to play it off as a burglar like somebody that came into the house. Yeah, exactly.
And then you throw that otherness around as a final fuck you. At the end of it is that like even after all this shit, you can still just throw out ads, just some Puerto Rican and then the police will be like, yep, that we’ve heard of that before. And dismiss it is exactly that. Don’t look into it that.
But I would love to have something at the end where the phone gets into the right hands. So even though Alex dies at the end, the information, the outs, Dan and his wife for being pieces of shit gets recovered and actually gets out or it’s alluded to.
Thandi: Like the end of the Watchman movie.
Hobbit: A similar kind of vibe to it.
Yeah, for sure.
Thandi: I’m really into that pitch. I like [00:36:00] that.
Hobbit: I’m actually really surprised there aren’t that many. There, there just aren’t that many stories about conservative politicians that are closeted, trying to protect their image. There’s just not a lot of that out there. And it’s such a every like six months or every year, we have another story of that happening.
Thandi: Yeah, I think mostly it’s just a tacit agreement because these male sex workers make a lot of money off of these guys and if you’re a professional, you keep your secrets.
Hobbit: Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. But in the circumstance, I thought about the sex worker ed vibe as well for this, but I wanted it to be genuine, not he fucked me so good. I love him. Now, can I like ? I’ll give a, like in, we just saw True Romance recently where Christian Slater. Fucks her so good that she’s only three days into being a call girl.
And she decides I quit. Let’s get married. I didn’t want to give the conservative politician that kind of energy at all. But yeah, so that’s my version [00:37:00] of fatal Attraction is that the fatality was actually to the person that made the mistake of hooking up with a conservative.
Thandi: Which is how that works
Hobbit: That’s how that works. Yeah. . And also moral of the story is be with somebody that considers you, they’re equal. Not somebody that looks down upon your station.
Thandi: or is just fetishizing you.
Hobbit: Ugh. Yeah.
Thandi: was somebody who has not worked through their own issues. Ugh.
Hobbit: Ugh.
Thandi: I guess if that was the thing, we’d never, none of us would ever be with anybody.
Hobbit: Or for clarification, or is working through their own issues. Like it’s a constant, continual process. But yeah, you gotta put the work in though. So great. Yeah, I think these are both really actually possible versions of this. Mine is almost not fatal attraction anymore, but it’s still hitting those main beats.
It’s like the dawn of the dead remake. The only thing that, the only thing there is the mall is
Thandi: For the fun pitches inspired by is what we’re [00:38:00] going for, just generally.
Hobbit: Yeah. Let’s, if we got just a little bit left, we’re talking about our trailers that we gotta do now. So yeah I actually wrote out my trailer this time,
Thandi: I did not. So we’ll
Hobbit: Oh, nice. Nice little flip here. Okay, let me get us queued up here. We decided we’re gonna use the same track for both of ours cuz it’s a perfect, like sexy thriller back backtrack here. Here we go. Tandy, with your version of Fatal Attract.
Thandi: Happy wife, happy life, but he’s gotta have it. Lawyer Dan Gallagher, played by Jake Gillen Hole has everything except that. Sweet. Sweet. Can he craves. So he meets Alex Force, played by Lapita Nego, and ruins his own life. Join Bree Larson as his wife, Beth Gallagher, Michael Pena as his buddy Jimmy, and as best mother and father, Michelle Pfeiffer and John Corbett as they [00:39:00] try to navigate a crushing affair.
He gave it all up for the nookie that sweet nookie. And it will destroy him unless it destroys her. First, it’s Michael Moens, fatal Attraction. She will not be ignored.
Hobbit: Yes. Excellent. . All right. Let’s see how much I can screw up mine here. So I’m using the same backing track. I tried to use some punning in here so I apologize and ahead of time for how stupid it
Thandi: Make it fun.
Hobbit: Woo. this is definitely a more fun version with John Cameron Mitchell at the helm.
You can’t help but have it a little bit more. Ridiculous and big and a little silly. So here we go, man. Lives by the rule of law and his own morality. This March, Dan Gallagher wrestles with both as he [00:40:00] tastes forbidden fruit. Little did he know this fruit bites back with his political career on the line.
Dan will do anything to stop this fatal attraction starring Matt Bomber Wilson Cruz and Amanda Seyfried.
Thandi: So, so was the the double entendre Attentional or
Hobbit: Yeah. Th this fruit bite’s back definitely was part of it, and I was like sitting there being like, ah, it’s a lot. No, I, it’s the self ownership, it’s like I’m allowed to say it like it’s okay.
Thandi: It’s awesome.
Hobbit: Cool. So yeah, this is this is.
Really fun take on Fatal Attraction. I appreciate all the listeners for sticking around for it. Two episodes in a row. Who knew we’d be capable of
Thandi: a possible thing. Yes.
Hobbit: Yes. We’ll be trying to make it a threepeat here next week with another episode of smack My Pitch Up. Thandi, thank you so much again for joining me on this fucking escapade.
Here
Thandi: thank you, sir.
Hobbit: Make [00:41:00] sure to rate reviews, subscribe all the things you do for podcasts. Check us out at GUIpodcast.com for links to our social media and other shows on the network. You can hear coming I believe last week as of when this drops the final regular release of Geeks under the Influence we’ll have dropped.
And yeah, that’s gonna be a tear jerker for sure. And a lot of drunken revelry as well, so
Thandi: Yeah. Yeah. But you know, Bigger and better things. Bigger
Hobbit: There’s a whole lot
Thandi: everybody’s still here. We’re all still playing.
Hobbit: also playing and there will be occasional releases on the main feed. Still that’s not, we’re gonna every so often meet up and have our hahas. And and do a little like free play or something or special event kind of thing. So definitely keep, subscribe to that mainstream as well.
But yeah, also check out TeePublic for the new smack. My pitch up design or newish smack my pitch up design. The lethal weapon inspired design with Thandi and I
Thandi: look great.[00:42:00]
Hobbit: That’s a fun design. I’m really happy how that turned
Thandi: pretty inspired.
Hobbit: So, so inspiring that you almost didn’t get into an amusement park with it.
Thandi: Yeah it’s Danny Glover. Don’t you recognize Danny Glover? Yeah.
Hobbit: I wish I was a fly on the wall to hear this. The reasoning with the security that it’s just a picture of a gun on a shirt. It doesn’t mean that you’re like aggressing
Thandi: I had to pitch the show. I had to pitch our show to the people at the amusement park. I pitched it well enough. They let me in. So
Hobbit: pull it up on Spotify. No, see it’s real. It’s right here. Oh, that’s so
Thandi: I don’t get it.
Hobbit: So, yeah, you try your hand at getting into an amusement park with our shirt and let us know how it turns out. Pitch smacked on social medias for the most part, hashtag us pitch smacked, and we’ll see you next time.
I’m Mike the Hobbit,
Thandi: and I’m Thandi.
Hobbit: and you just got your pitches smacked all up and
Thandi: It’s a swing and a pitch and it’s smacked out of the park.
Hobbit: Well done. Well done.