#1 - Welcome to the POD! (Dalts MGL)

Yeah, well much like our episode on the big shores. This is a movie that came out after the 2000s that is set in the 2000s, right? This is the time travel back 20 years nostalgia movie for the 2000s, right? In the 2000s, where are we going back to? Hot tub time machine, the 1980s. So it makes sense that we would get a movie in the 2020s about going back to the 2000s. Yes, time comes for us all. Watching this did make me feel old as shit. The period of my youth is now something so far away that you can time travel back to it in a time travel comedy. Like back to the future, right? 1985, 1955. This is like having a podcast about the 1950s and doing an episode on back to the future. Right, yeah. (funky music) So let's begin by discussing the two characters, the two leading men of this film. We have Matt Johnson, creator, director, author, star. Mm-hmm. He is, and we're using this term very loosely, the brain in their pinky and the brain combo. Yeah, much like picking the brain who always have some scheme to take over the world. The two of them have a scheme to play the rivoli. Yeah, Jordano, I never lived in Toronto. You did, I assume the rivoli is a major historic venue, right? There are two or three stages. One in the back is the one they're trying to play. The joke is that the rivoli would not give your career that much of a boost to play there, even if you had schemes your way into getting a show. I know like small time comedians who have played the rivoli and their career is not great. Yeah, the joke of the web series is that every single episode, they have some kind of scheme to play the rivoli. And the scheme is always comically bad and dumb, but it's usually bad and dumb in a very understated way, where they're like, why do venues book bands? Because of buzz. So we're going to make flyers. And then they make flyers that don't have any information on them. It just has the name of the band. And then they inevitably fail even at this very modest and mid goal. And honestly, of all of their schemes, that one's kind of the most straightforward. Mm hmm. A lot of their schemes are like attempting to blackmail the owner of the venue into making anti-Semitic remarks on tape or there's one where they call a competing venue and they talk to their booking agent. And the booking agent says, yeah, we'd love to book you. And they hang up on him because they just wanted to hear his voice so that they can do an impression of that other venues booking agent when they call the rivoli. And in their impression say, you can't have Nirvana the band. Honestly, great premise for a web series and TV show in movie. Bad band. Yeah. Getting back to our characters, we have Matt Johnson, who I would say the best adjectives to describe him are like that he's manic, delusional, confident, and not shy. This is someone who has no sense of shame, shame, or personal embarrassment. He is always operating with great alacrity in a way that he can't recognize if somebody is looking at him and thinking like this guy's an idiot, right? And I have a theory that I've thought for a very long time that Canadians, they're sort of like Calico Pats. It's like 99% of them, I think, are female and then like 1% are male or the other way around. Canadians, I think, are very similar. Well, 99% of them are like extremely nice polite, respectful, and yet reserved, like Jay, almost, kind of, right? And then 1% of them are sociopaths. And like they don't seem to care what people think of them. And it makes them an incredibly powerful type of guy because you get all of the endearing qualities of being a Canadian in that you're like, yeah, you're light, and like nice. But you also are a fucking asshole who doesn't care what other people think of them. And so like types of guys that fit this mold are like Tom Green, Ryan Reynolds, Jim Carey, Norm McDonald, Nathan Fielder, right? There's a friend of mine that's like this as well. It's an extremely powerful type of person, the Canadian Calico Cat, who's an asshole. Mm-hmm. I think this is kind of what Matt Johnson is, basically. He's the singer in their band. Let's describe their genre really quickly. Bad band is a great premise for any type of show. If you ever saw a flight of the Concords, they would have these elaborate musical parodies of all these different genres, but it's eventually revealed that only exists in their head. When they get up on stage, would you fly to the Concours play who likes to rock the party? That's all they can do. I like to rock the party, yeah. Likewise, because the show is about them failing to play the Rivelly, we only get to see their band practice. And so Jay MacKarrel, the other guy whom we're about to describe in a minute, he will play something on piano and he's quite good. And then Matt improvises, Spoken Word, something. Storytelling, I guess. And it very much fits his sort of manic, delusional personality, right? Just top of mind, Spoken Word, poetry, like fits a guy who's not embarrassed by anything. Yes. Yeah, Matt Johnson, by the way, I did a little gum show reporting for this episode. I went back to Toronto for the weekend. It was to see the strokes, but I also was just walking around. I went to every restaurant that Matt Johnson put out a video on the places to see in Toronto. He names like 15 places to go. 10 of them are ice cream shops. (laughs) I happen to have a couple friends who worked at the ice cream shops that he recommended. And I was like, you must have met Matt Johnson. At some point, and they were like, yeah, he's in there all the time. And they were like, he is exactly like that in real life. He has the phenotype of a guy who loves ice cream. Which is appropriate because his character is like, someone stuck in pre-pubescence. So of course he loves ice cream. A middle school boys favorite thing. We should say that both of these characters are kind of like boys. They're like 12 year old boys, basically, right? Yeah, because the obvious first step in making a band is to make music. And all of their schemes are about everything around making music. And the music is just improvised stories about, I don't know, the supervillain creamed corn. (laughs) - Do I have a driver? - No, I'm driving myself. - Where do we cut to? - He's on his way there. - Oh, okay. - Actually, no, let's just cut right to the fight. - Okay. (upbeat music) - You're on your last legs, creamed corn. You should have thought twice before you crossed your can opener. For God's sake, my name is your arch nemesis. (upbeat music) You should have thought twice before you crossed me, creamed. - Yeah, I asked my friend, I was like, give me an example of something he's done in the store. And she says, like, he'll come in and talk shit about the people that weren't working there that day, but be like, what's up with that guy who's normally working here? I don't think he likes me very much. (laughs) But every story, even like when I didn't know somebody working there, I'd be like, Matt Johnson recommended this place and they'd be like, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, he's in here a lot. He's crazy. (laughs) But yeah, Matt has, I find a very funny look. He has these black eyes, like the shark size. And I'm sure you would appreciate the 80s blockbuster reference, but there's something to his completely black eyes that are so devoid of expression that are, it's just so fucking funny. - Very compelling kind of a figure. I'd look in duck. - Guys are almost entirely black. - Coupled with his extremely expressive face, right? - Mouth often a game. (laughs) I'm thinking of his mouth a game. And he still has like teenage hair, you know? - Yeah. - The kind of like 2000s. - Swoopy. - Yeah, exactly. - He's got the swoopy hair and the character Matt, not the guy Matt who's been making the rounds on various podcasts and whatnot. The character Matt always wears a fucking fedora. And it just gets funnier with each iteration of this piece of media. In the 2000s, there were fedora guys around, I suppose, but he still looked kind of stupid. You flash forward to 2017 and 2025. He's in his 40s. He's still wearing the fedora. The bit just gets funnier with time and doesn't really overstay its welcome. - Yeah, he said that the only thing limiting shooting of Nermana the Band the show at this point is the fact that his jeans have had to be repaired several times because he's still wearing the same jeans. Okay, let's move on to our next character. Mr. J. McAerill, this is going to be much faster because J is the foil to Matt. He's much more reserved, he's shy, he's quiet, he's a follower, he's also more musically talented. - Correct. - I mean, they each do roles that the other cannot do. Like Matt can't play the piano. J also couldn't do the weird spoken word. There's a web series episode like this where they try to do each other's jobs and they can't. J, I would also say is like far dumber. Well, he's dumber in a different way. Matt is dumb in this delusional way where he thinks his crazy plans are gonna work. J is dumber in an oblivious way where he just goes along to get along 'cause he has no idea what's actually happening. He can't interpret the world, but he also can't think for himself that well. Like, in that scene where he gets an open mic, Jiggs, he doesn't understand what an open mic is. - Yeah. - He's a musician, you know? He also doesn't know how far Ottawa is from Toronto. He's a Canadian who is 40. And has seemingly never made the four or five hours drive to Ottawa. (whistling) - Ready to talk about themes? First theme, very appropriate for a movie about going back to the 2000s. Postmodernism, how about, this is like our drink thing for our show, right? Where it's like, Like, okay, what percentage of our episodes mention the word postmodernism? I think it started with family guy, and it's just kept going. - Yeah, here, let's do a little experiment. Let's give you from the outline for a second. I am looking at the Google AI overview for postmodernism in TV. But I'm gonna read some traits. If you could tell me if these tick the boxes. Self reflexivity and meta-fiction, that intertextuality and pastiche. (laughs) - Yeah. - Irony and parody. - Check. - Yeah. - Fragmented narratives. We don't like linear storytelling with beginning to end structures. - Check. - Like literally a flashback. - Check, that's right. - Yeah, that's true, that's true. - Hyper reality that is blurring the boundary between reality and simulation. - Gigantic, check mark, big check. - Yup. Rejection of meta-narratives. Postmodernism approaches sweeping traditional narratives. Like the idea of a perfect nuclear family with heavy skepticism, often replacing them with flawed anti-heroes and cynical plotlines. - Check. - Yeah. - That's all of it, that's all of it. - They did it all, folks. (laughs) - Yeah, in both its style and content, it's extremely postmodern, which syncs well together, right? Style in the sense that, yeah, he's speaking to the camera and breaking the fourth wall and then also content in that they're doing a parody. They themselves are aware of, right? The fictional characters break the fourth wall to acknowledge their own parody of something that existed our world. And to say, this is going to be a copyright nightmare. - Yeah. - You know, if you're seeing this in theaters, this is the last time. - Mm-hmm. - The fictional character speaking about the release of the movie itself. - Yes. - Extremely meta. - Matt watches Back to the Future and gets the idea to do the plot of the movie he's watching. (laughs) And then Jay is also copying the theme song to Back to the Future, sort of taking the essence of it. They play, I think, less than three seconds of the Back to the Future theme, to go with the fair use idea, which is so funny when that stops abruptly and you realize, 'cause for a second, you're like, "Oh, they got the right." Oh, nevermind. (laughs) A lot of parody, obviously, a key part of postmodernism. Remember, because postmodernism relies on existing culture and movies to make sense, right? Will Smith slapping Jay doesn't make any sense unless you're already aware of the Will Smith incident. - Of the reference. - Yep, he's doing Carpool karaoke and a parody. Like, they're talking about the feasibility of the plot and even kind of commenting and making fun of it, saying stuff like, "We've already established that time travel is possible. Why couldn't it be the orbits?" - Mm-hmm. - "Talking about the structure of the jokes by saying you're missing a great visual gag." - Yes. And I do find that sometimes, meta-shit can overstay its welcome. I loved community back in the day. Sometimes it got a little annoying. I found the op-ed character to get a little bit annoying, but I found that this hit like a perfect balance of yes, it's meta, yes, it's fourth wall breaking. But it also is a sweet story about the power of friendship. Like, it still has characters in a way that op-ed from community, not always the strongest character. He's a pretty good character, I think. Yeah, I mean, go listen to our "Shoot 'em Up" episode for more on like parody versus pastiche. I think we talked about on Sean of the Dead, potentially as well. But I think this operates both as a parody, but also like a standalone movie. Like, I think our biggest complaint on those scary movie, epic movie, you know, the super bad guys who we've gotten knocked up or whatever is that those are just parodies. They're not pastiche in the sense that like, it's not really its own story. Yes, you know. This is its own story. A fundamental emotional crux of the movie, which is like a story about friendship, that doesn't rely on anything else. That is really just about Matt and Jay. Yes. You don't need to know about Doc Brown and Marty McFly for that to hit. Yeah, 100%. Okay, so let's talk now about nostalgia. I think another major theme of the movie, right? It is a movie about going back to your younger self. I've noticed by the way, every time travel movie about taking a middle-aged guy and having them go back to their formative years, right? 'Cause this is really what everybody wants. Mm-hmm. And so this is a movie where yeah, you know, they're 40 going back to visit their 23 year old selves. Yeah. And I think it plays a lot with the idea of what is 2008. Yes. Right? Part of the reason back to the future works is that in between the 50s and the 80s, we're the 1960s. We're like culture changed very radically. When he goes back and invents rock and roll stealing it from black people, everyone's mind is blown, right? 'Cause he has all of this cultural knowledge and history in his mind, his underwear, his shoes. Everything about him is different. Yes. You need that fish out of water nature to make a time travel film work. I once remember thinking that back to the future was unremakeable because unless we had a similar social reckoning in society and culture like the 1960s. Matt Johnson has mentioned this in interviews where he's like, yeah, because of the end of history, all of a sudden it's much harder to go back in time 20 years and have it even really be that noticeable. Yes. Exactly. Like you have different iPods and iPhones. There are people who weren't canceled yet. Yes. There aren't that many differences in the same way that like in hot tub time machine, they go to the 80s or with back to the future. They play, let's get it started. Mm-hmm. Or they play Johnny B. Good. It blows people blinds. There is no song from 2025 that you could play in 2008 and have it blow people's minds. Yeah. I can't think of a single one. No. I mean, we had Taylor Swift back then. [laughs] And like in 2010, they're going back to the 80s and playing modern hip hop pop, right? Which existed in its infancy in the 80s but wasn't really as developed. I don't think there's any kind of genre from 2025 that didn't exist at all in 2008, right? No. I mean, what could you play? What could the bit be? Like you could play dubstep and people would be like, "Wow, this is terrible." Oh yeah, this sounds like something that's going to come out in like two years. Yeah. You know. I guess you could play like levels by a Vici. But even then, that song came out closer to 2008 than it did in 2026. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah. I know some of our modern pop artists speak in that kind of breathy whisper. I know some people have said Billy Eilish's "Plyat vocals" are because so many people are listening on headphones now as opposed to speakers. You could play nice guy maybe. Bad guy. That's the Canadian version. Yeah. But yeah, I don't think Billy Eilish would be this earth shattering recognition for people in 2008. No. I'd be like, "Oh, this is like understated for a pop song." So I think that this is one of the major themes of the movie is like, what does it even mean to be in the future now? And it actually means very little in terms of culture because of capitalist realism. There are however, some explicit differences that are pointed to for comedic effect. The first is the outfits of like the Goth girls, right? There are some scene stirs walking around in 2008. You wouldn't see people dress quite like that as much anymore. Matt says in the movie, "I forgot that that's a great way to score girls way out of your league." (laughs) I wonder how you could dress today to go back to 2008 and freak people out. Maybe like a sort of dime square style guy. I mean, they would just be like, "Oh, that's like a late 90s guy." Right? 'Cause like the dime square look is inherently sort of retro. No, you could go back wearing men's shorts, which would be shorter than they were back then and then get called a homophobic slur. Right, yeah, yeah. Matt Johnson talks about in interviews how the looking at footage of 2008 is so weird because people have like a much more effortless way of being in public. I believe our his words in the sense that you're not on your phone. You're not expecting a picture to be taken of you. And so you're just doing everything like a little bit more sincerely in the way that you're out in the world. You know, people had phones, but it's not this thing where you're like instantly reachable by anyone, you know? Yeah, the camera on your phone sucked back in 2008. You weren't taking a thousand selfies and Instagram didn't exist yet for you to post it. Yeah, and you could probably just do T9 texting unless you were like rich and had like the first iPhone. I think like the other major difference that he points to, which we mentioned up top is the comedic sensibilities. Like this is something that's really changed and something that he'd be acutely aware of given that he has so much footage of him doing comedy in 2008 when like it was a lot edgier, you know? Maybe I'll put a clip in here of episode eight of the web series where he goes back to back using homophobic F-sler and then doing an impression of a slave. Yikes. And again, like I think it kind of works because the joke is, oh, Matt is an idiot. Yes. It's not like his cruelty is inherently funny. This is my new plan, vocal blackface. It's in character for this guy who's manic and amora. So this concept of culture not changing, like arrested culture is fitting for Matt and Jay because they are stuck in time in the same way. They have a sort of arrested development themselves, right? They have never really grown up. No, they have a single-minded pursuit of playing at this mid-tier Toronto club. Like they are Captain Ahab chasing the white whale. And they have just done nothing but fail at doing that. Yeah, their goals haven't changed. Their cultural references haven't changed. Like all of their pop culture tastes are frozen in the 80s, like when they were kids, right? Always referencing back to the future Indiana Jones. Yeah, the difference between the present in 2008 is canceled people, like we see with Bill Cosby, Subway Jared, for the one for the Canadians in the house, Jean Gomeshi, big laugh line for me that my American roommate did not understand at all. Yeah, how do we explain who Jean Gomeshi is to an American audience? Imagine a worse version of the bear naked ladies. They have this awful folk band. I listened to one of their songs. I was not familiar with them. I didn't know he was in a band at all. Yeah, it's so bad. I got through about a minute of it before I turned it off, but he actually got canceled in like 2014. Yes, he is a podcast now, of course. Yeah, he was a CBC personality who talked about music. He was young, he was happy, was cool, and there were allegations of sexual assault in 2014. And he tried to just claim that he was a BDSM guy. He really tried to pull the "You are kink shaming me." after he was accused of sexual assault. But yeah, the biggest differences are like, there's canceled people and like different products, right? Like the iPod has become the iPhone. Keith Ledger, Joker, dead. Right. The other like really big difference that I think you see and has never explicitly talked about, but it's definitely noticeable is like the concept of gentrification. Toronto in 2008 looks vastly different from Toronto in 2026, right? The Rivoli for example is still there. And Queen Street is like the coolest street in Toronto. It's fucking rocks. I used to live on Queen Street, Queen in Bathurst, best street in the city. It's all these brown brick buildings and it used to be very hip. Unfortunately, like it's been hip for long enough, 15, 20 years that it's all flagship stores now kind of like what happened to Soho. But like next to the Rivoli now is a brandy maleville. It's actually hard to get into the Rivoli because there's like a lineup of girls in front of it. And okay, Garage Inc., which is like another retailer. They're a famous red door that's next to the Rivoli, the old apartment is now painted brown because red is too garish for a brandy maleville or whatever, right? And so actually I noticed, I went up to it, I put a sticker on it if you're around, but the male slot still has the red door behind it. If you push in the male slot, something that I think came up in our hipster's episode. It's just this concept of gentrification being a major part of the 2000.