Podcast: Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

This time around on the Your Stupid Minds podcast we present Episode 0: the secret lost podcast pilot. We originally recorded Lucky Number Slevin as our first episode back in February 2012, but ended up recording a WHOPPING 35 minutes instead of the 20 we were originally going for, so we shelved this one for a rainy day.

One of our most loathed movies, Lucky Number Slevin tells the needlessly complex and Tarantino-esque story of Slevin Kelevra (Josh Hartnett), a bath-toweled man with an impossible no-way name who navigates the machinations of two themed mobs, one led by The Boss (Morgan Freeman), the other by The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley). Slevin smugs his way through the misadventures, along the way courted by Manic Pixie Dream Girl Lindsey (Lucy Liu), and his own elaborate ulterior motive. Bruce Willis’s hairpiece also makes an appearance.

Some Notes:

• You'll notice a bit of a tonal difference between this episode and more recent ones. We originally planned to be more conversational and analytical before ultimately opting to tell more jokes about duck titties and dogs playing banjos.
• There's also a bit more initial exposition about why we started the podcast and our background in bad movies. We may be a little overly-explanatory but we wanted to make sure people knew what a podcast was and how movies exist.
• We really hope someone will write a fanfiction for The Warriors explaining the rift in the Softball Furies.

Direct download.

Podcast: Gigli (2003)

By listener request, it's 2003's epic Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez flop Gigli! Two low-level mobsters kidnap the mentally handicapped brother (Justin Bartha) of the District Attorney and house him in Ben Affleck's lush Los Angeles condo.


Meanwhile Jennifer Lopez goes on long rambling rants about how great her vagina is, and Justin Bartha sings "Baby Got Back" in mentally handicapped blackface. We discuss Al Pacino's descent into acting madness, the unrealistic stage-y nature of this film, its (possibly exaggerated) reputation, and eerie casting parallels to Tommy Wiseau's The Room.

Some notes:

• The IMDb synopsis, in its entirety:
• Gigli, a lowly and inept hitman, is assigned a job by the mob to kidnap a mentally retarded brother of a California district attorney. Gigli abducts the brother from his mental hospital and holds him hostage in his apartment. Ricki, a "lesbian assassin", is sent to oversee Gigli's job and make sure he doesn't screw it up. Comedic high jinks ensue as the two go on the lam and start to fall in love. 
• Inspired by the Batman/Superman movie, our casting choices for Gigli/The Room crossover:
• Ben Affleck = Johnny
• Jennifer Lopez = Lisa
• Justin Bartha = Denny
• Gigli's Boss = Chris-R
• Gigli's Mom = Claudette (role reversal)
• Christopher Walken = Peter
• Al Pacino = Steven (a.k.a. "Guy Who Replaced Peter")
• Crazy Lesbian Girlfriend = Mark

Narrative Folding

Brad Pitt as Jesse James in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007).

Nick and I have both mentioned the term "narrative folding" on this site and in other contexts and we're often asked "what does that mean?" The short answer can be hard to describe because the man who we borrow the term from is Ted Goranson, an MIT grad and scientist who is not always easy to understand. His blog, and accompanying links to his thousands of IMDb comments, can be found here. The term "Metafilm" is more common for what we're discussing, but this is generally used only to refer to films whose story is about film. In addition to this, Ted's term includes what is often referred to as "intertextuality" when it's used in a text context.