Social Media:

This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jesse McAnally: Hello, I'm Jesse McAnally.

[0:02] Andrew DeWolf: And I am Andrew DeWolf.

[0:03] Brianna Jones: And I'm Brianna Jones.

[0:05] Jesse McAnally: And welcome to Musicals with Cheese, the podcast where I try to get Andrew and Bri to like musical theater. And today we have one of our favorite guests, one of our favorite people, in fact. There's no bearing the lead. You read the title. It's Christi from Musical Hell.

[0:21] Christi Esterle: Yeah. Back so soon.

[0:23] Jesse McAnally: Applause. It's been a minute since we've had her on. It's been since Hadestown.

[0:27] Christi Esterle: It has been. It's been, I think, over a year now, hasn't it?

[0:31] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, it's actually been a while. Time means nothing.

[0:34] Christi Esterle: Yeah. Time hasn't meant anything since April, so who cares?

[0:37] Jesse McAnally: Yeah, pretty much. It's a mess. Vote, guys. I don't... This isn't too far from the election, so... Yo, how about that VP debate, guys? That was pretty cool to watch, right?

[0:50] Andrew DeWolf: As we record this, what, two hours before it happens?

[0:53] Jesse McAnally: Yes. Whoa, whoa, don't... No trade secrets here. Looks like those clowns in Congress did it again. You know, the next thing that these crazy, crazy politicians are going to do, they're going to legalize like organ repossession.

[1:07] Christi Esterle: And I know...

[1:08] Jesse McAnally: That'd be ridiculous. I mean, it's not the most ridiculous thing in the world. You'd have to have like some sort of major corporation with lots and lots of money lobbying constantly to get something like that through Congress. And then they'd have to like have this soprano spokesmodel that they can, you know, replace her blind eyes and so that she becomes really popular and that she can sell all the public on it.

[1:29] Andrew DeWolf: And Paris Hilton. For some reason.

[1:31] Jesse McAnally: Yeah. Repo the genetic opera! Cue the music!

[1:35] ♪ Musical number: "Repo Man" — performed by cast ♪

[1:57] Jesse McAnally: It's a dangerous job, but somebody's got to do it.

[2:05] Christi Esterle: Enough of this, you insidious scum of the muscle!

[2:13] Andrew DeWolf: Now, do repo men usually work for the company that's repossessing or do they usually work for the state?

[2:17] Christi Esterle: I think it's like an independent organization. I don't know. I've been fortunate enough never to have a repo man deal with me, so.

[2:22] Jesse McAnally: If you're a repo man, come and tell us, like, what's your day to day life? How many people do you kill per week? But Repo the genetic opera is a 2008 American science fiction, gothic rock musical horror film.

[2:38] Andrew DeWolf: That's enough genres. Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman with a soundtrack produced by Japanese rock star Yoshiki, based on the 2002 musical of the same name, which was written and composed by Darren Smith and Terence Zydunich. The film stars Alexa Vega, Paul Servino, Anthony Stewart Head, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre and Terence Zydunich.

[3:05] Christi Esterle: Repo premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival in 2008, and it was followed by a very limited release in November 2008. On seven screens in Pasadena, Chicago, Charlotte, Kansas City, Toronto and Ottawa, it grossed $53,000 in its opening weekend and a $6,711 average per theater. The film's full 11 theater release earned around $146,000 in the United States and an additional $41,000 internationally for a total gross of $188,000 worldwide.

[3:36] Andrew DeWolf: The film initially received mixed to negative reviews, but gained a cult following similar to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, managing the Phil theaters worldwide with costumed fans performing shadow cast versions of the movie, which Smith and Zydunich often visited quite often to meet fans. And yeah, that's all the background history we need.

[3:54] Jesse McAnally: What more do you need to say?

[3:56] Christi Esterle: I mean, they can't say we didn't do it, though. We can't say we didn't give any background of what this show is. But Christi, you've known about this show for a good long while. How'd you find it?

[4:06] Christi Esterle: Um, oh, geez. I think, you know, it was, you know, being talked up around the Internet because, you know, obviously, you know, I was, you know, on Phantom of the Opera boards and of course, Sarah Brightman has that connection. So, you know, people are like, oh, hey, she's going to be in this movie. So, yeah, I saw it and I'm like, OK, well, that was a thing that happened.

[4:25] Jesse McAnally: Did you see it in a theater?

[4:29] Christi Esterle: No, I saw it on video.

[4:31] Andrew DeWolf: OK.

[4:32] Christi Esterle: So, yeah, I don't think I was anywhere near like the 11 screens where that happened. But yeah, I did that. And then, you know, cut to about four years later, I'm doing Musical Hell. And that was like my fifth or sixth episode somewhere in there, maybe fourth. But it was like in the very first year that I did Musical Hell, I did a review on Repo and it's still out there if anybody wants to see my awful early work.

[4:54] Jesse McAnally: I've watched it. It's pretty good for people's early work. It's really, really up there. It's better than our early work.

[5:01] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah. Dead eyed into the camera. Our early work is terrible. But let me tell a little bit about how I found this because I find it a little funny. I don't know if any of you guys remember a review website. It's now defunct called Spill.com.

[5:17] Christi Esterle: I do remember that one, actually.

[5:21] Andrew DeWolf: But I just go to their homepage and they released a review and it's just Sarah Brightman's face. And I was like, what the fuck? Does she do movies? And then I listened to the review and I was like dying to figure out what this movie was because it's like this weird Sweeney Todd-esque like Rocky Horror musical with Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton. I'm like, I need to find this out. And I had to wait till Blu-ray. The day it came out on Blu-ray, I had to like go to a Meijer or Walmart or something, found it and immediately took it home. And it was an insane experience to watch first time sight unseen.

[6:00] Christi Esterle: It's like terrible and amazing at the same time.

[6:02] Andrew DeWolf: Yes.

[6:03] Christi Esterle: That's a really good way to put it.

[6:07] Jesse McAnally: I feel like I enjoyed it, but hated every second.

[6:11] Andrew DeWolf: Oh, so it's like Cats.

[6:14] Christi Esterle: No, no one enjoyed Cats.

[6:16] Andrew DeWolf: No, I actually, I really don't enjoy Cats. I'll be honest. Every single time I've seen Cats, I hated it all the way through. Whereas this is like, this is like got such a great concept to it and I just want it to work so badly and it just doesn't.

[6:30] Jesse McAnally: This is one of those musicals like Moulin Rouge where it's just unapologetically what it is. It goes hard 100% of the time and you're either going to go along with it or you're just going to be like, nope, I'm out.

[6:44] Christi Esterle: I kind of feel like I want to watch it again because I've only seen it once.

[6:48] Andrew DeWolf: Right?

[6:49] Christi Esterle: But I know the second I start watching it again, I'll be like, wait, why am I watching this again?

[6:53] Jesse McAnally: Andrew, that was the exact reaction I had when I watched this like 10 plus years ago. I finished it and I was like, I didn't like that, but I think I might have. And I immediately turned it back on again, like rewound it.

[7:05] Andrew DeWolf: Well, it turned the Blu-ray back to the beginning and was like, I need to watch this again because the highs are very, very, very high and the lows are like with dinosaur bones.

[7:16] Jesse McAnally: But Mr. DeWolf, I want you to tell me what the plot of this musical is because I feel like I'm going to get some chuckles out of that.

[7:22] Andrew DeWolf: I mean, there's just a lot going on. You got the main character, which is the girl who thinks she's sick.

[7:34] Christi Esterle: Do these characters have names?

[7:36] Andrew DeWolf: Shiloh.

[7:37] Christi Esterle: Her name is Shiloh.

[7:38] Andrew DeWolf: What's the father's name?

[7:40] Christi Esterle: Nathan.

[7:41] Andrew DeWolf: Nathan.

[7:42] Christi Esterle: Okay.

[7:43] Andrew DeWolf: So Shiloh is sick because her mother was sick and she's not allowed to go out anywhere. And her father is a secret repo man and he goes out into the street and murders people to take back their body parts that they got because this whole world is obsessed with surgery.

[8:00] Christi Esterle: I probably should have mentioned that first.

[8:01] Andrew DeWolf: Everyone in the entire world is obsessed with surgery that they don't need at all because it's just cool, I guess.

[8:06] Christi Esterle: Not that I couldn't see that happening. It's kind of an interesting concept.

[8:14] Andrew DeWolf: But for some reason, the father is very secretive about being a repo man. He doesn't want his daughter to know. I guess probably because murdering is bad.

[8:23] Christi Esterle: Murder be bad, Andrew.

[8:25] Andrew DeWolf: But the daughter gets lured outside all the time by this guy who's like the grave robber or something.

[8:32] Christi Esterle: Yes.

[8:33] Andrew DeWolf: Who doesn't have a point in the plot, as far as I can tell.

[8:36] Christi Esterle: He's the narrator.

[8:37] Andrew DeWolf: He's like the MC character.

[8:40] Christi Esterle: And then she also gets lured outside by the CEO of the company that basically runs the entire world, Geneco, who also is the company that repossesses everything and the company that does all the surgeries.

[8:52] Andrew DeWolf: And as far as I can tell...

[8:54] Christi Esterle: And you're forgetting that he was in love with Shiloh's mother and Nathan's wife.

[8:58] Andrew DeWolf: I'm getting to that.

[9:00] Christi Esterle: This plot is way too...

[9:02] Andrew DeWolf: This plot is more complex than you would think it would be.

[9:05] Christi Esterle: This is why I knew it was going to be intense. I'm just trying to figure out how to even lay this out.

[9:10] Jesse McAnally: You're sweating.

[9:14] Andrew DeWolf: Because I kind of understood everything that happened, but it's so ridiculous. Did we mention that apparently this entire movie takes place over the course of a single evening?

[9:22] Christi Esterle: It does what?

[9:23] Andrew DeWolf: If you pay attention, they're always saying that the big opera at the climax is going to be tonight.

[9:30] Christi Esterle: So yeah, all of this stuff with Shiloh getting in and out of the house all the time.

[9:36] Andrew DeWolf: Like three times, I think.

[9:38] Christi Esterle: Her dad's going out and killing people several times. They visit this weird tent carnival that they call a renaissance fair, but it doesn't look anything like a renaissance fair.

[9:46] Andrew DeWolf: And then she's in Hooker Alley with a grave robber and seeing people get shot up with this drug, Zydrate. And this goes all over the place.

[9:58] Christi Esterle: See, I don't think it's all one night, though. I think it's one day, and the whole world just happens to not have a sun.

[10:05] Andrew DeWolf: Still, this is a lot to pack into 24 freaking hours. This is like the first act of Rent where it's like, no way that happened all in one night. Are you insane?

[10:14] Christi Esterle: The whole movie has this aesthetic to it where it's always nighttime.

[10:19] Andrew DeWolf: It's dystopia.

[10:20] Christi Esterle: It's grim and depressing.

[10:22] Andrew DeWolf: Well, you could just say, Eddie, it's always whatever time you want it to be because we filmed indoors on a set.

[10:28] Christi Esterle: Yeah.

[10:29] Andrew DeWolf: So then the father character gets called to talk with the CEO character, and then the father quits because he's told that he has to repossess the blind person's eyes, who is now the spokesperson for the company? Am I wrong on this?

[10:44] Christi Esterle: No, you're correct.

[10:45] Andrew DeWolf: And we've got to add that part of this is because the blind mag, the spokes singer, is a friend of Nathan's dead wife, who Roddy, the CEO, was also in love with and who he secretly killed.

[11:00] Christi Esterle: We need one of those crazy stalker boards with all the lines all over the place.

[11:08] Andrew DeWolf: Okay. And there's also three other characters that are like, I don't even know if they're worth mentioning, but you have to, I feel like.

[11:15] Christi Esterle: The two brothers that are the CEO's sons and then their sister?

[11:20] Andrew DeWolf: Well, that's the linchpin of the plot, which I kind of feel, I can't believe I just said that, but the villain's motivation is that he's got this-

[11:28] Christi Esterle: You got Eric, you got Don Jr., and then you got Ivanka.

[11:30] Andrew DeWolf: Yes, we've got this corrupt CEO and his three worthless kids, two boys and a girl. Does that sound familiar?

[11:36] Christi Esterle: But the point is that he's dying of plot convenience disease, basically, and he doesn't want to leave his company to his kids because they're freaking useless, so he's decided he's going to leave it all to Shiloh.

[11:49] Andrew DeWolf: Linchpin of the plot.

[11:50] Christi Esterle: Because she's the daughter of the girl he loved and maybe possibly his own biological daughter. I don't know.

[11:54] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know.

[11:56] Christi Esterle: How else would he know that she doesn't have the blood disease?

[12:00] Andrew DeWolf: I don't know.

[12:01] Christi Esterle: How did he know?

[12:03] Andrew DeWolf: Everywhere and nowhere.

[12:04] Christi Esterle: He's like an omniscient person.

[12:05] Andrew DeWolf: He's got screens all over his office.

[12:08] Christi Esterle: Yeah. Apparently Nathan gave out the word that his daughter died with his wife, so a lot of people don't even know she exists.

[12:16] Andrew DeWolf: The more I try to make sense of this plot, the less it makes sense.

[12:20] Christi Esterle: It's operatic in the same way as Shakespeare. You kind of just go with it in the same way like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

[12:27] Andrew DeWolf: What?

[12:28] Christi Esterle: Oh, yeah.

[12:29] Andrew DeWolf: Yeah.

[12:30] Christi Esterle: And then it ends in the big genetic opera, Gene Coe's opera, and everyone dies except Shiloh.

[12:37] Andrew DeWolf: Except Shiloh.

[12:39] Christi Esterle: Except Shiloh finds out that she's not really sick after all. It was just a lie her dad told her to keep her weak and dependent on him, which is honestly a pretty decent twist ending, I think.

[12:49] Andrew DeWolf: But we get the bad ending, though, because then she doesn't accept the offer to take on the company and dismantle it, and instead she lets the crazy brothers and sister take the company, which I'm assuming only makes the world a worse place to live in.

[13:03] Christi Esterle: Yeah, the ending, it's like, okay, and then what?

[13:08] Andrew: It sets up for a sequel and a prequel that they 100% were sure they were gonna get. If this thing means anything, it's definitely not a prequel. I mean, they lay out everything in the first, like, five minutes in a comic book form.

[13:23] Christi Esterle: Yeah, and then they do it again by having the narrator tell you everything they told you in the comic book. I think the comic book is the best part of the entire thing, and if they did the entire movie like that, I would have liked it more.

[13:38] Andrew: It's a good device, but they also repeat everything they do in the comic books, like the flashbacks and things like that, so it's like, okay, they don't really trust you to know what's going on in this movie, and after we just explained that, I don't think I blame them. Also, the entire- all the visuals in this are awful, and I hate them. They look like crap.

[13:58] Christi Esterle: It's very oversaturated.

[14:01] Andrew: Well, yeah, the general cinematography looks like Saw, which-

[14:05] Christi Esterle: Well, yeah, it looks like the worst aspects of Saw, and they even do, like, the constant flashes to newspapers. Like, that is just, like, a constant thing, especially near the second half, I feel like. They're just like, oh, all these things are happening, which, again, this is supposed to take place in one day. Why are there all these newspaper headings about everything that's happening?

[14:25] Christi Esterle: I mean, it's still got, like, social media. It's just a newspaper form.

[14:28] Andrew: Yeah, it's newspaper- newspaper Facebook. Now, I want to give the director some credit, because I am a fan of his work and him as a director, Darren Lynn Bousman, and this really was a labor of love between him, Terrence Zdunik, and Darren Smith, and all of them coming together. And almost all the VFX was done pro bono, just because the VFX company loved the idea of the film and wanted to see it all come together.

[14:54] Christi Esterle: Everything was done on a favor. Like, Paris Hilton brought in her entire wardrobe, as well as many of the other extras. It kind of gave me vibes of, like, film school for me. Like, everyone coming together to try to bring this all together, and it kind of brings a tear to my eye that they didn't put work into the story.

[15:15] Andrew: But the concept alone is amazing.

[15:18] Christi Esterle: Yes. The idea of a repo person coming to murder you because- wasn't there a non-musical movie, like, about five or six years ago that was basically this exact concept? People have organs that they have to finance, and then if they can't pay them, some guy comes and kills them and repossesses the stuff?

[15:34] Andrew: Yes. It was literally, like, a year and a half after this movie, and it starred Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, and it was called Repo Man.

[15:43] Christi Esterle: What was it called? Repo Man?

[15:44] Andrew: Yeah. Not to be confused with Repo Man, which was a movie in the 80s.

[15:47] Christi Esterle: Yeah, which isn't the same thing.

[15:49] Andrew: I agree. Yeah, I don't know. I think the concept is great, and all of the best scenes are when he's dressed as the Repo Man and ripping people's guts out. And that's kind of what I wanted the entire thing to be, but then they have all this crap with the daughter, and, like, I don't care about that stuff.

[16:05] Christi Esterle: But you- I think the daughter stuff works. It's the other stuff. It's the comedy relief scenes, and the-

[16:12] Andrew: Yeah, the two brothers are annoying as fuck. I'm sorry. But you have-

[16:18] Christi Esterle: Yeah, but they have to be, because then otherwise the plot doesn't make sense.

[16:22] Andrew: They're very one-note. You have Luigi, who's basically the guy who will stab anyone at no provocation, and then you have Pavi, who is basically an oversexed ladies' man who wears women's skin on his faces.

[16:36] Christi Esterle: As you said, Eric Trump.

[16:40] Andrew: And then you have the daughter Amber, who's Paris Hilton.

[16:43] Christi Esterle: Yeah. You didn't even really have to have those characters. You could have just had the CEO not have any kids, and then that's just it.

[16:48] Andrew: Yeah, that probably would have been a little bit more of a streamlined way to do it, but let's not- Like, we describe this story, and it feels like it should be, like, two and a half hours long. This is a fast 97 minutes. This is a brisk film to watch.

[17:04] Christi Esterle: Yeah, well, they rushed through the plot.

[17:06] Andrew: Yeah, they rushed through a lot of things. Like I said, we don't really know how Roddy knows who Shiloh is, or why he's so interested in her. There's kind of this hint that Nathan has this split personality with the Repo man, but it's never really explored. And I really wish they had done that, because I really think Anthony Stewart Head is one of the best things about this movie. In fact, he was my first Saving Grace on Musical Hell. He's the person who, I think, elevates everything. And obviously, if you haven't heard him sing, he's fantastic.

[17:37] Christi Esterle: Well, the split personality thing was something that he came up with on the set. It was not supported by the script. Like, if you actually read his lines, it is literally just a straightforward thing. But he's like, no, the Repo man is a different person than Nathan. They walk different, they act different, they speak different, they sing different. And they were like, whatever, man.

[17:57] Andrew: Apropos of nothing, has he ever done Sweeney Todd? Because this is a very Sweeney Todd performance.

[18:01] Christi Esterle: He would have knocked Sweeney Todd out of the park. Imagine if they made Sweeney Todd on a smaller budget, a little bit more realistic and grounded and casted.

[18:10] Andrew: Well, Anthony Stewart Head is in Sweeney Todd.

[18:12] Christi Esterle: Yeah, he's in it for one second, because they cut his part.

[18:16] Andrew: Yeah, he was supposed to be one of the ghosts that show up and haunt Sweeney Todd throughout it. He was supposed to get a shave later and haunt Sweeney Todd.

[18:21] Christi Esterle: Yeah, that was back when they were actually going to do the ballad, which would have kicked ass because it would have had Christopher Lee in it.

[18:27] Andrew: Yeah, I've read the script of how it was going to be. It wouldn't have worked, but I would have been happy to see it. Like, these throat slit ghosts following Sweeney Todd around and forcing him to slit the throat of the next person. Like, that was what they're... I'm like, that wouldn't have worked. That wouldn't have been good.

[18:43] Christi Esterle: Yeah, I don't think you can have Sweeney Todd, you know, manipulated by actual ghosts. I mean, it's his own crazy. That's what's driving him.

[18:49] Andrew: Yeah, and I feel like it took the power away from Sweeney Todd. And also, like, seeing him seeing, well, what happens then? Well, who's to say? And I don't want you to give it away. Like, it's a weird line for a film.

[19:06] Christi Esterle: Well, I kind of want to talk very briefly about Paul Sorvino, who I think is also another saving grace of this movie.

[19:12] Andrew: He's okay.

[19:15] Christi Esterle: Who's this?

[19:16] Andrew: I mean, he's obviously enjoying his role.

[19:19] Christi Esterle: Oh, he loves it.

[19:22] Andrew: His singing is, you know, it's not terrible.

[19:25] Christi Esterle: He is the basic tenor man.

[19:27] Andrew: Yeah. And he puts on this weird Italian accent for some reason in about half his songs.

[19:34] Christi Esterle: Is that not his actual accent?

[19:36] Andrew: It's close to his actual accent. Because, you know, he's like the Goodfellas guy or the whatever Italian movie. But the only relation, really, I have to him outside of this and The Devil's Carnival and The Devil's Carnival 2 is a segment in Patti LuPone's biography where he replaced Haim Topol as the baker and the baker's wife halfway through, like, the worst, like, preview and, like, rehearsal process in the world.

[20:06] Christi Esterle: Like, Topol was kicked off for, like, sexually assaulting women, which is fucked. And then he comes in and he's, like, super full of bravado and be like, come on, guys, let's pipe up, let's do better. And they're like, fuck you. You don't know what we've been through. Get out of here.

[20:22] Andrew: You all need to read Patti LuPone's memoirs if you haven't yet, by the way.

[20:26] Christi Esterle: Yes, please.

[20:28] Andrew: It sums her up pretty well.

[20:29] Christi Esterle: I feel like that is a very unbiased portrayal of most things that happened.

[20:37] Andrew: Sarah Brightman, I think, strangely, she is the most iconic part of this.

[20:42] Christi Esterle: I don't know if her screen presence is, like, incredible, but she is iconic.

[20:49] Andrew: I have a theory that Sarah Brightman was hired about 60% for her voice and, like, 40% for her eyes because she has big eyes and, you know, they are, every scene she's in, they have got, like, these huge-ass eyelashes or, like, shadow for years on them.

[21:08] Christi Esterle: They are really drawing attention to her eyes.

[21:11] Andrew: And so, yeah, but...

[21:13] Christi Esterle: I thought she was wearing contacts or something.

[21:15] Andrew: Well, she is.

[21:15] Christi Esterle: Those are her real eyes.

[21:16] Andrew: Well, she's got, like, cyber eyes, so she does have contacts in, but, yeah, they do everything they can to draw attention to the fact that she has these weird, freaky eyes.

[21:25] Christi Esterle: Bree, pull up a picture of Sarah Brightman right now so we can see what her real eyes look like.

[21:30] Andrew: Because I feel like that's super important.

[21:32] Christi Esterle: But Sarah Brightman has never been the best actress, let's be honest with it.

[21:36] Andrew: No.

[21:37] Christi Esterle: Her death was amazing in this, though.

[21:39] Andrew: It's a very fittingly operatic death, so...

[21:44] Christi Esterle: She pulls her eyes out.

[21:45] Andrew: It's amazing.

[21:47] Christi Esterle: Stabs herself in the eyes, watches the blood come out, and then yanks them out violently. It is absolutely brutal.

[21:54] Andrew: And then Paul Sorvino cuts her fly wires and she falls onto a broad iron fence and dies.

[22:02] Christi Esterle: Yeah, in front of an audience that doesn't even react.

[22:05] Andrew: Yeah, this is the ultimate all-part-of-the-show audience.

[22:09] Christi Esterle: In the movies where some crazy shit is happening in the production and nobody does anything, it's like, oh, it's all part of the show.

[22:14] Andrew: They just sit here through all this crazy shit that's happening.

[22:17] Christi Esterle: You know, Sarah Brightman dies, the repo man gets hamstringed, there's blood all over the place, and they're like, oh, cool, popcorn.

[22:31] Andrew: The only thing they boo is when Paris Hilton's face falls off.

[22:36] Christi Esterle: That's the only thing boo-worthy.

[22:38] Andrew: That wasn't part of the show.

[22:41] Christi Esterle: Boo, get her off!

[22:43] Andrew: Yeah, oh my goodness, two people just died? Oh, whatever.

[22:47] Christi Esterle: Yeah.

[22:47] Andrew: So good.

[22:48] Christi Esterle: Now I'm thinking of the ending of Coco, where you have the big climax at the show, and then at the very end you have the guy coming in with the churros.

[22:56] Andrew: Did I miss anything?

[22:57] Christi Esterle: I want that guy to be in this movie.

[23:00] Andrew: Have you guys ever watched that end scene and just looked at the people in the audience?

[23:05] Christi Esterle: You have the strangest story.

[23:07] Andrew: This is what Sarah Brightman looks like in real life.

[23:10] Christi Esterle: She's got insane eyes.

[23:11] Andrew: Yeah.

[23:12] Christi Esterle: Sorry that took a minute. I was denied access.

[23:16] Andrew: Denied.

[23:17] Christi Esterle: I was denied.

[23:18] Andrew: Yeah, yeah, so beautiful.

[23:22] Christi Esterle: So beautiful.

[23:23] Andrew: But yeah, her face is 80% eyes.

[23:25] Christi Esterle: I think she actually grew into her voice as she got older.

[23:28] Andrew: I mean, you wouldn't put her on the Met, but it's a pretty decent classic pop sound that she has, and it fits the songs they gave her pretty well.

[23:38] Christi Esterle: Paris Hilton, though, she's been in the news lately about her early aughts behavior and how it was all an act.

[23:44] Andrew: Yeah, I went hard for her when I did a review of this, and I kind of feel bad about it now because it turns out that there was apparently a lot going on behind the scenes, kind of like Britney Spears. In fact, I think every young pop star that we made fun of for being oversexed and kind of dumb, I think we need to apologize, too, because they were obviously being abused at some point.

[24:09] Christi Esterle: But I want to talk very briefly about the stigma that the cast and crew had about her before she came on and then after she came on because she like did commentaries for this movie that this is like one of the most stacked Blu-rays of any like musical film I ever have.

[24:27] Andrew: There's like commentaries on every deleted scene. There's two commentaries on the movie. There's like behind the scenes features all the way back to like how they wrote the musical. Like it is a great Blu-ray, and it's shocking that they don't make good behind the scenes, but she was doing commentaries and she comes off very smart. She comes off as very aware of filmmaking and just down. She doesn't feel dumb.

[24:49] Christi Esterle: And then on every commentary, they're like, no, Paris is like one of the coolest people we've ever met. And she's like down for everything. Like the stigma does not live up to who she is.

[25:03] Andrew: And we don't quite know where that came from, but we were super against having her on until we met her from the people who thought that she could make a lot of money as the stupid rich girl.

[25:08] Christi Esterle: Exactly. It was branding.

[25:11] Andrew: And I think she does well in this role like and she does a lot of things that make it work for her, if that makes sense.

[25:18] Christi Esterle: Yeah.

[25:19] Andrew: All right. Is there anyone else we want to talk about in this?

[25:22] Christi Esterle: I don't know.

[25:23] Andrew: I talk about the cartoon sound effects during the gore.

[25:26] Christi Esterle: Oh, geez.

[25:27] Andrew: The heck was that about?

[25:28] Christi Esterle: Yeah, there's like the scene where the two brothers are arguing and they're throwing around like brains and body parts and stuff. And you're hearing this.

[25:35] Andrew: And I've never been a fan of stupid cartoon sound effects in live action movies. And it's like, OK, I'm done.

[25:41] Christi Esterle: Someone didn't like Inspector Gadget.

[25:43] Andrew: If you're making like Roger Rabbit, then you can do it.

[25:47] Christi Esterle: If you're making Roger Rabbit, go ahead. But that's Roger Rabbit.

[25:50] Andrew: If you're making the musical version of Saw, you probably don't do it.

[25:56] Christi Esterle: Yeah, but it kind of works in some scenes.

[25:58] Andrew: Like I think they work a little bit in the thankless job scene.

[26:02] Christi Esterle: No, no.

[26:03] Andrew: The thing that works in-

[26:04] Christi Esterle: That's actually the scene I was thinking about the most when I was thinking it didn't work.

[26:07] Andrew: I actually like that he does the ventriloquist with the corpse. I think that's fine. That's like weird and demented and exactly.

[26:16] Christi Esterle: When he pulls out the intestines and is like, I am NOT a fan of Alexa Vega in this movie. I mean, she's not given much to do is kind of a thing like what she is given. She's not the worst; I can see a lot of people doing worse. But she's not the best singer, and the problem is that this score is actually a lot harder than you might think it is. There's a lot of dissonance, there's tonal stuff, there's a lot of difficult intervals going on, and when you have somebody who knows what they're doing like Anthony Stewart Head or Sarah Brightman or Terence Zdunich, you know when they're singing it sounds fine. But when she's singing it sounds like a mistake.

[27:02] Jess McAnally: Yeah, that's fair. In her first song, you know, it's "I am infected," and it's like, what are you doing? And it's like, I know it's written that way, but at the same time it's like it doesn't sound like it's written that way if that makes any sense.

[27:17] Christi Esterle: Who would you choose? Like in 2080 times, who would you pick to be the perfect?

[27:25] Jess McAnally: Oh jeez, I don't know if I would. I mean, the only person who's coming to mind is Lea Michele, and I hate her.

[27:33] Christi Esterle: My first thought was Sarah Michelle Gellar, 'cause I feel like that would be like getting that TV crowd, and she could probably get it.

[27:40] Jess McAnally: Geez, oh, who was the girl who played Tara? She actually has a pretty decent voice. Oh, shoot, I don't remember her.

[27:51] Christi Esterle: Yeah, or even I agree with you to some points, but when it is working, I think she pulls off the teenage aspect like 17.

[28:02] Jess McAnally: That's fair.

[28:05] Christi Esterle: And I think the last song, which kind of has this Alanis Morissette "Jagged Little Pill" quality, I don't think she's good at performing in song 'cause she did do Broadway before this briefly. She was a replacement as Penny in "Hairspray" before this, and so she basically plays the same way she played that, which is screaming directly middle-center to the camera 'cause that's what that role called for. But I see what you mean, but there are worse players here.

[28:37] Jess McAnally: Bill Moseley.

[28:41] Christi Esterle: Yeah, that's pretty bad. And which one was he? Was he Luigi? I think he's Luigi.

[28:47] Jess McAnally: Yeah, he's not great, but sometimes it works really well. His voice is funny to me, like when he's like screaming "Kill him!" in the audience in the end. I can't help but laugh, and I love these horror-like people just being in this weird musical. It is the dissonance of everything I was into in 2008, to be honest, like all these B-movie horror people. Like at one point, George Romero was supposed to have a cameo as like the Reverend in it. Like there's a lot of weird shit in the background.

[29:23] Christi Esterle: She's Joan Jett as Joan Jett. I love that when she like passes out and like has these fantasies of everything that's happened in the movie, you get a shot of Joan Jett. 'Cause fucking why not?

[29:36] Jess McAnally: But now, now that we've talked about all this for around 30 minutes, it's time for our wonderful favorite segment and Bree's 100% favorite segment of the show.

[29:47] Christi Esterle: Previews, where we compare our opinions to the opinions of New York theater critics and for this one, film critics. Kyle Smith of the New York Post concluded there probably aren't enough futuristic goth rock musicals, but "Repo! The Genetic Opera" is weak on a couple of things a musical needs: music and lyrics.

[30:08] Jess McAnally: Bring it, bring your top-notch there, Kyle.

[30:13] Christi Esterle: Mark Olsen of the LA Times says the film is bad—not good bad, tacky bad or fun bad, just plain awful and nearly unwatchable.

[30:23] Jess McAnally: Nathan Lee for the New York Times declared the film feels destined to please a campy Kotya, Kotya, Kotya.

[30:30] Christi Esterle: It's a fancy, fancy term.

[30:37] Jess McAnally: Right, yeah.

[30:39] Christi Esterle: And criticized the music, saying a few catchy melodies, some clever lyrics, or even a sense that the score wasn't just one long unmodulated track might have energized this singular inert tale.

[30:54] Jess McAnally: Tasha Robinson for the AV Club said one of the main issues with "Repo! The Genetic Opera" is that nearly every aspect of it goes on too long. The songs are generally overextended, which is a particular problem given that most of them are also atonal and dull, either chanted or seemingly assembled from a series of clunky, ill-fitting, barely rhyming lines. And ultimately, I spent the vast majority of the film either bored or squirming with discomfort over the cheap gore, the arithmetic songs, and the phenomenally bombastic performances.

[31:32] Christi Esterle: Bring in your best thoughts, folks. Yes, Jay Holberman of the Village Voice says the grim finality of the—I'm so ready for these weird words. I picked this one specifically for you.

[31:47] Jess McAnally: Specifically because it had stupid like I could mess up the words. Yes, and suing Utah, okay.

[31:53] Christi Esterle: It's basically the image of Mary holding the dead Jesus, okay? Suggests the last act of Hamlet, or rather Hamlet 2, so embarrassing that for the first time I want to avert my eyes from the screen. Although that might have also been because "Repo!" appears to have been shot with a cell phone, and this was in 2008, so that was a real insult. It does look like shit though.

[32:28] Jess McAnally: You know what? I'll suggest it to Jacob; he loves garbage.

[32:36] Christi Esterle: I love to say that something wasn't made for the critics, but you know, this was a movie that was definitely not made for the critics. Not even a single one gave the benefit of the doubt that maybe it was intentionally this way.

[32:48] Jess McAnally: Yeah, they knew what they were doing, and they knew that a lot of people weren't gonna like it, and they did it anyway. I feel like critics are never nice to horror films of any kind.

[32:59] Christi Esterle: Yeah, unless they can like, you know, have some kind of, you know, social get out to throw in there.

[33:05] Jess McAnally: Yeah, you got your "Get Outs" or, you know, whatever. So what was the one with the bride? "Ready or Not"? Oh, I love that one.

[33:14] Christi Esterle: Yeah.

[33:15] Jess McAnally: That movie, maybe if the horror movie is like over 30 years old, and then they can finally go back and be like, "Yeah, this one's good." "Candyman's" good now.

[33:24] Christi Esterle: Or if it's by Guillermo del Toro and it can be all artsy and stuff.

[33:30] Jess McAnally: Yeah, you can fuck a fish.

[33:33] Christi Esterle: Now "Crimson Peak," that's like, you know, vibes.

[33:34] Jess McAnally: That is like my—those type of movies though, if it's like a good horror movie, they don't call it that; they call it a thriller.

[33:41] Christi Esterle: Yeah. Yeah, this one's not a horror movie; this one's a thriller. That's why it's good.

[33:46] Jess McAnally: So is this a horror musical or a thriller musical?

[33:52] Christi Esterle: No, yeah, this is like a gore fest musical.

[33:57] Jess McAnally: Before horror is really hard to do as a musical, but this is better than some attempts.

[34:03] Christi Esterle: Oh, what me and Andrew are doing next week is another attempt at a horror musical that I think fails very, very hard.

[34:10] Jess McAnally: I was shaking in my boots, my man, 'cause Frank Wildhorn always makes you shake in your boots.

[34:21] Christi Esterle: But I really don't know if I agree with any of the critics. Like, I don't even get where they're coming from most of the time. It's like atonal? No, there's like very variety here. Like there's an entire song done in Italian; there's variety. It's not—

[34:37] Jess McAnally: Sarah Brightman stuff is a lot more melodic, and as you write, her big climactic thing is obviously very Italian romantic.

[34:44] Christi Esterle: You know, you have like "17" is very punk rock, and let's see, there's a lot of stuff going on in here, and it is atonal, but it's very dull.

[34:57] Jess McAnally: It's deliberate. I mean, maybe we should do is hit the mid-show, and we can come back and do the music like we usually do.

[35:03] Christi Esterle: You're right, you're right, you're right.

[35:06] Jess McAnally: Sounds like we're about to get into that.

[35:15] Christi Esterle: Yeah, let's put a pin in that. We're gonna talk about people giving us money, all right? Let's go into a mid-show.

[35:19] Jess McAnally: All right.

[35:26] Andrew Clark: Tell us a little bit about Patreon and who's supporting us.

[35:29] Andrew Clark: Well, Patreon is where you can go if you'd like to give us money and get some perks like extra content. We do commentaries; we're doing the Fosse/Verdon podcast now, which actually might—I think we've been saying that for like nine weeks that it's almost over.

[35:46] Christi Esterle: It's never-ending, Andrew; it's almost over.

[35:54] Andrew Clark: And I mean, I guess you can request musicals and stuff like that, and we have all sorts of stuff you can do.

[36:01] Christi Esterle: Yeah, you can get requests from us, or if you pay a certain amount, you can be a host with us and talk with us. Oh man, I can't wait for that.

[36:11] Andrew Clark: Andrew, who's supporting us on Patreon?

[36:13] Andrew Clark: We have Melissa Goldman, Terry Needleman, John Donna, Max Lunig, Benjamin Lear, Lily Ackles, Peasant Chick—that's a new one. Who's that?

[36:20] Christi Esterle: I think it's an old Patreon patron who changed their name.

[36:25] Andrew Clark: All right, just the stampede, Ewan Cassidy, Taskier, Fire of September, Monica Thoreau, Mina Manieri, Brent Black, Haley Murray, Alice in Wonderland, B-Way Flicks with Daniel, Stacy Coombe, Joseph Evans Green, Carrie Hern, Irigale, Drew Whiter, Christine Malmedel, Cole Birchfield, Mary Lou Showcat, John Van Al's, Holy Stickality, Russ Walker, Musical Hell, who is actually here with us, right? She's here. We have a patron.

[36:53] Christi Esterle: She didn't pay the money; we just like her.

[36:57] Andrew Clark: I'm sorry, guys. Andrew Van Barsen, Emily Stack, Blam, Kyle Summers, Janae C, Kyle, Jess A, Skylar, Liz Lim, Cory Wilmar, Allison Stuller, Nothing is Certain Except Beth and Taxes, Elizabeth, John Van Al's, Thespian, Ren Cullen, Alex, Jamie Holland, Wait in the Wings, Lady Malvolia, Spectacle Machine, Will, Laurie, Jacob Stroop, and oh man, Raphael Martinez Salas. They'll give us a little extra financial support that helps us keep the lights on here at Musicals with Cheese.

[37:34] Christi Esterle: If you'd like to join them in supporting us and get tons of fun perks such as what Andrew's listed, come join us. And also while we're in the mid-show, I do want to give a shout-out to someone who wrote like this really incredible email to us. This is the second really nice email they've sent us.

[37:45] Andrew Clark: Her name is Rebecca Nelson.

[37:50] Christi Esterle: And the first one she wrote us was about like a lesbian interpretation of our "Fun Home" episode, and it was really sweet. This one has to be like at least seven pages on how she would adapt "Legally Blonde" into a movie, and I think it's wonderful. Like she takes all the critiques we put into the show and like her own critiques, and I think it's like one of the best emails ever, and I wanted to just shout her out. And the one other thing is we have the merch store, which is on our website.

[38:19] Andrew Clark: Yeah, I think it's just a link that says merch, and if you look in the bio here, just click the merch link, and you can buy it. We got a bunch of new stuff coming up there soon.

[38:29] Christi Esterle: I'm not sure if it'll be up yet, but we got some cool funny stuff.

[38:32] Andrew Clark: Yeah, there's actually a lot of stuff coming up.

[38:34] Christi Esterle: So yeah.

[38:38] Andrew Clark: All right, let's get back to the show.

[38:40] Christi Esterle: That was way too long.

[38:44] Jess McAnally: All right, let's talk about "21st Century Cure," which is the fake opening number.

[38:50] Christi Esterle: Why is it fake?

[38:56] Jess McAnally: Because "Genetic Repo Man" is basically the redundant song.

[39:04] Christi Esterle: That's cool. Like you tell us all about the Repo Man after telling us a prologue all about the Repo Man. It sounds cool, it looks cool, it's a cool scene. We don't need it.

[39:24] Christi Esterle: But best to be punctual is making your payments, lest it be you on the concrete b indoor. It's quick, it's clean, it's pure. It could change your life. Rest assured, it's the 21st Century Cure. And it's my job. It's like they start off with this comic strip prologue, and I love at the very beginning, the very first caption is "The Not Too Distant Future." I'm a huge Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, so it's like la la la. But anyway, yeah, they have that prologue, and then you have this prologue with the grave robber that tells you everything that you've just seen in the comic strip opening. But it's so cool, he like stalks a girl and cuts out her heart. It's so goofy, I love it. And actually, this is, you know, this is kind of, this is actually a pretty good scene.

They actually could have opened with this, and I think it would have worked very well. Well, here I'm giving the fun facts: the movie did open with this, and then they added the genetic repo man scene, and then they added, then they restructured and added Roddy's scene where he finds out he's dying right before that. So there's a lot of restructuring in editing. Uh, it kind of shows. I mean, no, really. Um, but yeah, I agree with you, "21st Century Cure" is an actual opening number, and it feels like an opening number, and you get, like, this character in this awkward situation and learning all the stuff that we need to learn as well from the grave robber. I feel like having a ridiculous amount of exposition for this is not a bad thing though, because I don't think I would have gotten it.

[41:35] Emily Clark: Yeah, well, the exposition is uneven. You're not seeing things that have been restated three times over. You're in the middle of a scene and you're like, wait, what? What's going on now? This is the scene where they're, like, trying to hide from the police that are going to kill the grave robbers, and then he just kind of does this death metal scream right in the middle of the graveyard. It's fucking great and ridiculous. It makes no sense, but I love it. I really wish the grave robbers had more of a purpose. It just really feels like they show up at the beginning to do narration, and then they show up in the middle to do nothing.

[42:15] Christi Esterle: Explain drugs that don't even really come in later on. Yeah, this is a subplot that I'm not sure what the purpose is. They have this painkiller, Zydrate, that a lot of people are hooked on because everybody's getting surgery now, but apparently there's a lower quality version that you can get out of injecting this neon blue stuff out of dead people's brains. What I thought it was is that the people would die during the surgery, and then they would extract the drug from their blood off their corpse. That was what my thought was, but I guess maybe that's not what it is.

[43:01] Emily Clark: It's a human element we have in here, and I can tell you exactly why the Zydrate plot is in here, if you guys care.

[43:05] Christi Esterle: Okay, lay it on me.

[43:07] Emily Clark: It was supposed to be a bait-and-switch where, when Shiloh goes to the opera and she's, like, in that backstage area, she was supposed to go through a couple trials, and it was supposed to imply that her cure was Zydrate. So she had to take the Zydrate out of her mom's corpse with the grave robber who was, like, guiding her through it, and then it all was supposed to build and build and build until we found out she wasn't sick.

[43:29] Christi Esterle: Okay.

[43:31] Emily Clark: So instead of just coming right out with it, I don't think I should need supplemental materials to understand what the fuck is going on in this movie. That was from the three-hour edit, the director's cut, as the director said.

[43:37] Christi Esterle: Can we get the three-hour edit? Where is that?

[43:39] Emily Clark: He's been dying to release it, is the thing. Release the director's cut.

[43:41] Christi Esterle: Honestly, I want a director's cut of this movie because it's, like, apparently, like, almost two hours were cut out of this, and I feel like that would have explained a lot. I can't imagine it would make the movie any better.

[43:49] Emily Clark: I don't think better.

[43:51] Christi Esterle: I do not think better. I think longer.

[43:53] Emily Clark: This movie would be, I think, too much to release it three hours because it is very over-the-top and very 100% extra. There's already stuff in this that you could cut out, and it's only 90 minutes.

[44:11] Christi Esterle: Yes, there is. "21st Century Cure," I think it's great. The one effect that I think kind of works in a goofy, like, way is the pounds and miles of bodies that they go into from just the wall they break. I think that is, like, disgustingly effective imagery for this story. And the graveyard robber's, like, oh, cool, because he's, like, sitting on this Zydrate jackpot. He's like, yes, I did it, finally. So, like, is it implied in the world that there are more deaths happening because of the Repo Man or because surgery, like, surgery failures?

[44:43] Emily Clark: I got the impression that, well, the backstory is that there was this huge epidemic of organ failures for some reason or another, and, you know, millions died, and that's where Gene Co. came in and gave everybody all their organ replacements and saved everybody. But I think, you know, the impression I was getting was that the city was, like, built on all the corpses from this apocalypse.

[45:09] Christi Esterle: Oh, okay. My damn. Alright, we gotta talk about the I Want song, if you could call it that. "Infected."

[45:15] Emily Clark: I'm infected by your genetics. What hope has a girl who is sick? My dream of life has this fence. It really makes no difference, 'cause I know that I'll never be fixed. Tell me why, oh why, am I genetic such a bitch?

[46:01] Christi Esterle: Oh, I want to go outside, outside. Oh, I want to go outside, outside.

[46:17] Emily Clark: I do not like this song.

[46:19] Christi Esterle: You know the one where she's just like, I hate my mommy?

[46:21] Emily Clark: Yeah, my mom made me sick, and my dad's keeping me in my room, and I'm so miserable. I'm an emo teenager. "Mother, can you hear me? Thanks for the disease." That is literally a lyric, people.

[46:33] Christi Esterle: Yeah, I don't like this one. It's shot so terribly too.

[46:37] Emily Clark: Or the "17" one. I don't like either one of those.

[46:41] Christi Esterle: It is kind of shot badly, which is a shame because I think there's some really cool stuff going on in Shiloh's room. They kind of got this gilded cage thing going on. She's got stuffed animals, she's got posters of Blind Meg, she's got this magnificent bed with her oxygen tent on it, and a piano. She's got bugs all over the place. She's a real bug head.

[47:07] Emily Clark: Yeah, she's collecting bugs, which is kind of her creepy fun girl side, but at the same time it ties into the whole being collected and stuck in a jar or on a shelf somewhere. What is up with the picture of her mom? Is that of her mom?

[47:21] Christi Esterle: It is of her mom. All over the place in their house, they've got these weird semi-holographic images of her mom, and I guess there's something behind a window in the hallway, and I'm not sure if it's a mannequin or her actual mom's body.

[47:41] Emily Clark: That's her actual mom's body?

[47:43] Christi Esterle: Yes, because later they were supposed to find it, and she was supposed to extract the Zydrate from it and use it as the cure. Because there's a shot later on where it's smashed and the body's gone because apparently Roddy wanted her to wear that dress, which is another level of gross.

[48:01] Emily Clark: Yeah, it's weird. I have no idea. There's some just strange things happening. We should also note that the mom's name is Marnie, which is Anatta, the famous Hollywood ghost singer, Marnie Nixon, which I think is pretty cool.

[48:15] Christi Esterle: I agree. I do want to talk about how, well, one last thing about "Infected." It's an I Want song where we don't get the clear idea of what she is asking for until the final line of the song where she's like, "Oh, I want to go outside."

[48:33] Emily Clark: Yeah, and that's one of those parts. It took us four minutes to hear that one before. That's where it's one of those parts where it's kind of deliberately dissonant, but at the same time it sounds like, is she singing that right? Why would she want to go outside in this nightmare world?

[49:01] Christi Esterle: Yeah, look out the window! It's dark and grim and creepy, and there are drug dealers and corpses everywhere. But you've also got these people in weird funky costumes too. It's kind of like if the Capitol Hunger Games went ultra goth.

[49:13] Emily Clark: Yeah. Let's talk positively for a second. What do we think of "Legal Assassin"?

[49:15] Christi Esterle: "Years roll by without you, Marnie. Seventeen have come and gone. I raised our Shiner with the best intentions. There is something I can't tell her. I am lost without you here. I am only living out a lie. I am the monster. I am the villain. What perfection. What precision. Indian incisions. I deliver unscathed organs. I deliver repossession. I deliver. I am the Legal Assassin."

[50:15] Emily Clark: Again, this is Nathan's opening number, and it's a really good character establishing moment because it explains why he's overprotective of his daughter. You know, he misses his wife, but at the same time he's got this dark side as well, and it basically summarizes the whole character very well. And like I said, Anthony Stewart has the best thing about this movie.

[50:39] Christi Esterle: It actually feels like a song where I agree with some of the thoughts that none of these songs really feel like songs, where this has clear points. I think that musically it works very well. Lyrically, it feels like an insane person, like, Shiloh can never leave. She is my everything. I'll bring you back.

[51:03] Emily Clark: Yeah, and then it like shifts into this melodic "Years go by without you, Marnie, dada something something, Seventeen I've come and gone." And so where's the best intentions? And there's obviously a lot going on in this guy's head. And him slowly becoming the repo man at the end is like pretty cool, and I'm glad they didn't try to frame that as a twist, which from the trailers felt like, oh we all know what the twist is, but oh no we find out like five minutes in we're good.

[51:39] Andrew: Yeah.

[51:41] Christi Esterle: Hey you out.

[51:45] Andrew: What's up?

[51:47] Christi Esterle: Anyway, I was gonna ask your opinion on this song, but you just didn't follow me there. Um, I don't know. I feel like this one is fine, but I really like it more when he's actually killing people, like "Thankless Job" is more fun.

[52:01] Emily Clark: Let's talk about "Thankless Job" then.

[52:03] Christi Esterle: Yeah, there's nothing in between now. Let's go there.

[52:07] Emily Clark: Not really, I mean, well there's "Mark It Up," but it's a really awful song, so we don't need to talk about that one.

[52:11] Christi Esterle: This that doesn't exist.

[52:13] Emily Clark: Yeah, let's forget about it. You'll be happier, trust me.

[52:19] Christi Esterle: Okay, "Thankless Job." No one ever thanks me when I'm done. How self-absorbed people can be with a slice.

[52:31] Christi Esterle: A snip! Yee me me my name! With a cut! And a stitch! Returning organs, good as new!

[52:44] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Hahahaha!

[52:56] Christi Esterle: This one's, like, goofy? But he's murdering people, so it's, like, funny. It's very black humor, and it is, you know, fun. He's talking about how nobody appreciates the job that he does, while he's got this terrified guy tied up and he's ripping his guts out.

[53:10] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And yes, at the end, he, like, sticks his hand up the guy's chest cavity and, you know, plays ventriloquist on me for a bit. It's funny, though. It's just, like, you know, why would anyone thank you for this job? You're literally just going out on the street and murdering poor people.

[53:24] Christi Esterle: Well, yeah, that's the joke, of course. My question is, what is the day-to-day job of a repo man? Because some days he's acting like Batman, grabbing people and flipping them upside down, and then other days he's just got a guy in his basement.

[53:42] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Well, I assume it depends on whether or not they've been caught already. Like, it seems like he's part bounty hunter and part surgeon.

[53:48] Christi Esterle: Yeah, and I'm not, you know, his cover to his daughter is that he's a doctor. I don't know if he actually, you know, has this day job practice as a front, or, you know, if that's just what he's telling her.

[54:00] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Also, the name Knight Surgeon is, like, way more badass than repo man. We should just kind of use that.

[54:08] Christi Esterle: Yeah, I agree. Knight Surgeon would be a great band name.

[54:10] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: That's, like, kick-ass. I'm thinking, like, 80s hair metal. You know, you have a cover with, like, this, you know, big-haired girl in a, you know, sexy nurse outfit with a huge-ass needle or something.

[54:24] Christi Esterle: I mean, you got a marketing problem here, you know? Repo the Genetic Opera? Cut that shit. Just call it Knight Surgeon and put the Repo Man on the cover.

[54:32] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: What is a genetic opera, anyway? I'm still unclear on that.

[54:36] Christi Esterle: I think it's supposed to be a pun on generic opera?

[54:39] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: I don't think so.

[54:40] Christi Esterle: Maybe? I don't know. I think that they just thought it sounded cool.

[54:43] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: That feels about right. Let's talk about probably the most iconic song in this show, Zydrate Anatomy. A nursery rhyme about doing drugs. I love it.

[55:13] Christi Esterle: Drugs!

[55:16] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And Amber Sweet is addicted to the knife. Addicted to the knife? Addicted to the knife.

[55:21] Christi Esterle: And addicted to the knife, she needs a little help with the agony. Agony.

[55:26] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And a little help comes in a little glass vial and a gun pressed against her anatomy.

[55:31] Christi Esterle: And when the gun goes off, Miss Sweet is ready for a surgery. Surgery.

[55:37] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: This is like the most...

[55:39] Christi Esterle: This is the most iconic song in the whole show.

[55:41] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Well, it's the call and response, I mean. You know, this is one of those things, it's like the dance magic dance thing in Labyrinth. You start it off in the internet and somebody's gonna come back with it.

[55:50] Christi Esterle: Exactly.

[55:51] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Zydrate comes in a little glass vial and...

[55:53] Christi Esterle: A little glass vial?

[55:54] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: A little glass vial.

[55:55] Christi Esterle: And a little glass vial goes to the gun like a battery.

[55:59] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: I love it. It's great.

[56:01] Christi Esterle: I hated this one.

[56:03] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: You suck, Andrew.

[56:04] Christi Esterle: You suck, Andrew.

[56:06] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: It is stupid.

[56:07] Christi Esterle: It's stupid, but it's catchy and fun. And this is, you know, it's actually plot relevant because this is where we find out that Mag is going to, you know, lose her eyes and get killed if she leaves her job at the opera, at the JNCO.

[56:21] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And in the magazine he's got, Mag looks like fucking Michael Jackson. It does not look like Sarah Brightman.

[56:27] Christi Esterle: And if it is, it's Sarah Brightman after a night of heavy drinking. But like all the pictures in this are like weird and oversaturated and stylized, so it's really hard to tell what the heck's going on.

[56:41] Andrew: What were you saying, Andrew?

[56:43] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: So why does Amber have to come to these like black market Zydrate dealers when she is like the daughter of the owner of the company that makes the real one? Why not just, you know, get it?

[56:54] Christi Esterle: Because her dad won't give it to her.

[56:56] Andrew: I don't know either that or, you know, it's the rich kid slumming.

[57:00] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Well, I thought it was like, she was like, because in the opening scene, it looked like she was caught with it. And then she had to like stay on the down low and she started the support network. And so now she's stuck. She has to go get it from the grave robber now.

[57:16] Christi Esterle: There's this thing, you know, they tell us that Amber is addicted to surgery and that, you know, every time, you know, she's always, you know, getting stuff changed about her face and her look and stuff. But every time you see her, it's just Paris Hilton in a different wig.

[57:29] Andrew: If anything, that other guy has like, he has like a permanent face thing clipped to him.

[57:35] Christi Esterle: Yeah. You know, Pavi's got like his, you know, little face mask, you know, literal face mask going on.

[57:41] Andrew: So, yeah, I don't know if that was like, you know, a budget thing where they couldn't, you know, do as much as they wanted to with that character. But it's like, yeah, she doesn't really look like you would what you think somebody who's been through a dozen different surgeries looks like.

[57:56] Christi Esterle: They look more like Tammy Faye, don't they?

[57:58] Andrew: Yeah. You know, you got the people like that. And you got people that look like they had a thousand surgeries in like the background.

[58:05] Christi Esterle: Or like the lady in Brazil whose face is like all, you know.

[58:09] Andrew: Oh, God. That gave me nightmares as a kid. That thing is terrifying looking.

[58:14] Christi Esterle: But Dietary Anatomy. Andrew hates it. Me and Christy see the fun in it because Andrew hates fun and he claims to love cheese. But as soon as something cheesy happens.

[58:21] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: This isn't cheese. This is dumb.

[58:27] Christi Esterle: All right. Can we talk about, does anyone have anything to say about Night Surgery or can I skip it?

[58:33] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: I just like the title. That's about it.

[58:35] Christi Esterle: Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. The titles of this are confusing. That's the one where they tell him that he has to kill Meg.

[58:42] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: And they like throw him into a set literally made of like paper bags on the walls.

[58:48] Christi Esterle: Yeah, it's like plastic sheeting and they have a warm up victim for him and everything. And he just says, no, I'm not doing this. Except for he still kills the warm up victim.

[58:56] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Well, yeah. I mean, he didn't like have a wife that was best friends with that guy.

[59:00] Christi Esterle: Well, of course, yeah. You gotta have standards.

[59:03] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Yeah. If you don't personally know them, it's fine to murder.

[59:07] Christi Esterle: Damn. But I do want to talk about Chase the Morning, which I think is like a very high point in this, like the highest songwriting point. It is equivalent to Light My Candle from Rent of storytelling that is both a song, gets a lot of plot across, gets character across in such a short amount of time. I think the song is perfection. Not the best lyrics in the world, but it works.

[59:38] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Honestly, it's too late for me.

[59:45] Christi Esterle: Don't look back till you're free to chase the morning.

[59:51] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Chase the morning.

[59:56] Christi Esterle: Chase the morning.

[1:00:00] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Chase the morning.

[1:00:09] Christi Esterle: Yeah!

[1:00:11] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Jump in!

[1:00:24] Christi Esterle: It does work. You know, it's a dialogue between Meg and Shiloh finding out, you know, Meg was supposed to be her godmother. And then, you know, she's trying to tell her, you know, don't make the same mistakes I did. Live your life. You know, kind of that generic inspiration stuff. But the neat thing is the hook is actually Meg's got this recording of Marnie singing on her eyes, and she projects a hologram of it. And it's, you know, actually a pretty cool moment visually.

[1:00:53] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Yeah. Why did she go there at that time, though? Like, plot-wise?

[1:00:57] Christi Esterle: I mean, I don't know. I think she was just done singing.

[1:01:01] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: That's what I was trying to figure out. You know, I think Meg kind of has this impression that, you know, she's not going to live through the night one way or the other. So the most important thing is to talk to Shiloh.

[1:01:16] Christi Esterle: Well, she's kind of making her amends and trying to make her peace with that.

[1:01:21] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: No chance for peace!

[1:01:23] Christi Esterle: Well, yeah. Anyway, but also, you know, Shiloh sneaks out, and Roddy introduces her to Meg. And so Meg sees her, and then she, like, wants to go back and talk to her, I think.

[1:01:34] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Was there something I missed, though? Why did they want to kill Meg? Was it just she didn't pay her bills?

[1:01:39] Christi Esterle: That was it? They didn't want to kill her because basically she was their shill, and she didn't want to do it anymore. And her contract said that she had to keep doing it as payment for her surgery.

[1:01:51] Andrew: So that was effectively defaulting.

[1:01:53] Christi Esterle: Okay. So they created a contract where she literally had to work for the rest of her life.

[1:01:59] Andrew: Essentially, yes. Because this is a dystopia, and there are no human rights.

[1:02:05] Christi Esterle: Apparently not. I want to talk about a few lyrical things in this that I feel stand out in a way that they don't in other songs. This has the Sontimian idea of clarification, which I love in Sondheim's work, where they'll say one thing and be like, wait, no, I mean this. Where here it'll be like, state your business. Business, what do you want? I want, like, that is where it kind of feels like you don't need that, but it makes it feel a little bit more lived in, a little more alive, and it melodically works. And you don't get that much in here because they're often just writing cool-sounding songs.

[1:02:37] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Yeah.

[1:02:38] Christi Esterle: All right. There's not much to talk about unless we want to talk about gold chromagia at the opera tonight.

[1:02:45] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: We're going to talk about it at the opera tonight.

[1:02:48] Christi Esterle: All right. At the opera tonight. I'm sorry. I live for this trope. We're all going to the big climactic event, so we're all going to sing about what we're doing and what we want out of it at the same time, and we're all going to do it together, and it's going to be awesome.

[1:03:03] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: It's weekend in the country.

[1:03:05] Christi Esterle: Yeah, it's weekend in the country. It's nonstop. It's tonight.

[1:03:09] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: It's one day more.

[1:03:10] Christi Esterle: One day more. You know, I'm sorry. That's my heroine as a music theater nerd. Inject that shit into my veins.

[1:03:17] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: That's her kink. Her secret kink is the quadruplet.

[1:03:21] Christi Esterle: Yeah.

[1:03:23] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: There's no axe, though. It's a movie.

[1:03:52] Christi Esterle: One more hit of the globe for tonight. Tonight, I set the stage.

[1:03:59] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: We set the stage.

[1:04:00] Christi Esterle: My greatest praise.

[1:04:03] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: My greatest praise.

[1:04:05] Christi Esterle: My greatest praise.

[1:04:07] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: All gifts are made at the opera tonight.

[1:04:14] Christi Esterle: I think this song is great. I'm very glad that they have Mag's part in there, which kind of frames what she's going to do in the second half or in the last third of this.

[1:04:27] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Yeah. I think that's where you kind of get the impression that she's made her peace with the fact that she's going to die and she's going to go out on her own terms.

[1:04:36] Christi Esterle: So fun fact, she was not originally in that song in the first edit, and they had to pay a bunch of money to get Sarah Brightman in for that one line where she's like, I've made my peace, blah, blah, blah. Originally it was just Nathan saying, no chance for peace and all that. So they last minute wrote that other part.

[1:04:54] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: It's good that they did because then you've got this kind of neat little call and response going on between them, and it works much better. I think it's great.

[1:05:01] Christi Esterle: The only thing I don't know if I love is just everyone getting involved. We could have not seen what Javi and Luigi were up to.

[1:05:10] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: Javi and Luigi aren't even characters.

[1:05:13] Christi Esterle: They could have done without the kids again. Man, Don and Eric just got to put their ass in everything, don't they?

[1:05:22] Jesse “Jess” McAnally: No, I love that song. I agree. You're right. We had to talk about that. But we're all over an hour, so let's end on I didn't know I loved you so much.

[1:05:29] Christi Esterle: Ah, yes. Sometimes I wanted to cry when the people on TV were not quite the way we were.

[1:05:38] Christi Esterle: This is actually a surprisingly moving song for what we've just gone through. I mean, you know, it's Nathan dying and saying goodbye to his daughter and, you know, them reconciling, and it's actually a very moving moment, you know, especially, you know, where he says, "Shaw, your mom is calling me." And it's just this beautiful, sad moment there in the midst of all this insane, over-the-top gore. And I think that's actually, you know, what makes this work for me better than it might have is that it actually does have a moment or two where it pulls back and says, okay, we're going to be honest and emotionally real now. Especially like when we've seen them literally do nothing but fight. Like, they don't have one really nice moment until that, and that it hits harder because of that.

[1:06:51] Andrew: Yeah.

[1:06:52] Christi Esterle: Because their relationships aren't perfect. Because a lot of times when you have this overly maudlin song in a musical, it's like, these relationships that were great, the Mufasa and Simba, oh, they had a good relationship. And oh, it's sad that he's gone. Here it's like, our relationship was so fucked up and you lied to me and I lied to you and we didn't get along. And I still love you though. Literally the last thing she says to him before this scene is, you know, "Dad, I hate you. Go and die."

[1:07:19] Jess McAnally: Yep.

[1:07:22] Christi Esterle: And then he did. At the hands of the man he cucked. So I feel like.

[1:07:27] Andrew: Well, that's, you know, that's the dramatic opera part of it. And then, you know, Roddy dies right after that because the plot convenience disease kicks in. I feel like the actual ending kind of ruins this moment a little bit just because it just cuts from this to the grave robber just going, "Oh, everything's still terrible though. So, haha."

[1:07:46] Jess McAnally: Yeah. It's a very, at best, ambiguous ending. Like I said, it's one of those things where you finish up and it's like, okay, huh? And then what?

[1:07:57] Christi Esterle: Amber takes over the company with her two insane brothers.

[1:08:01] Andrew: And she promises to make the company better.

[1:08:04] Jess McAnally: Yeah. Pinky swear.

[1:08:07] Christi Esterle: But anyway, yeah, there's kind of a, there's almost kind of a Knives Out thing between the three kids at the end because, you know, they've been bickering this entire movie, but you know, when it's their stuff, you know, being challenged, they kind of join ranks.

[1:08:22] Jess McAnally: All right, guys, I think that's all we have to say about that. Um, we got to wrap this up. Um, so Christi, what is your overall thoughts on REPO! The Genetic Opera and your cheese rating?

[1:08:30] Christi Esterle: My thoughts are, this is, uh, again, I think I'm going to say what I said in my episode, which is that's neither as bad as it might've been nor as awesome as it wants to be. Um, it has its audience and it's going for it. And I really respect when a movie can go this hard and be as, you know, have no, um, you know, have no reservations about what it wants to be and do and fuck what anybody thinks about it. So I really respect that. It's got some great moments and I know there are people out there who love it. So I am going to say that this is goat cheese. Goat cheese has a very strong, distinctive taste. And if you, if it's not your thing, you are going to hate it. You know, if it's your, if you're not sure you're going to taste it and you're going to be like, uh, I'm not sure what to make of it. And if it's your thing, you are just going to, you know, down that like it's down that like popcorn.

[1:09:29] Andrew: Yeah. I agree with that to a certain point, but also like if you're in the mood for goat cheese, my God.

[1:09:37] Andrew: Um, well I'm very conflicted on this one because I, I almost want to like it and say that it was great and you should watch it, but I really can't in good faith do that because I don't think I liked it that much. Um, I love gore and I love horror and I love the goofy songs and it just doesn't work though. It feels like a, it feels like the worst Saw movie that's ever come out, but with music added in.

[1:10:00] Christi Esterle: Uh, you haven't seen the Saw movies.

[1:10:05] Andrew: This is a lot of those.

[1:10:05] Christi Esterle: Yeah. You're probably, you're probably right. You're probably right. Uh, but it looks like a Saw movie in like all the bad ways in like, I don't know, it looks like a, it looks like a two thousands horror movie, which just, they didn't, they weren't good. Um, and I guess I'm going to give it a from cheese.com of course, abundance cheese, which is a French cheese. And I just like the name and I feel like that kind of fits.

[1:10:26] Christi Esterle: That's fair. That's a good answer. Um, our, our queen of the cheese, Juliet Antonio, um, write that down and be sure to shame Andrew for not putting more work into it. Brianna, why did you think of our discussion? What is your cheese rating for what we had to say?

[1:10:41] Brianna Jones: Um, so I would say that, um, there was catty and crass and, and, um, and Christi was here to sprinkle in some positivity. Um, yeah. Um, but for my cheese rating, I'm going to give you a gorgonzola for all the gore you mentioned.

[1:11:14] Jess McAnally: Beautiful.

[1:11:14] Jess McAnally: It's my turn. All right. All right. Thank you. That catty and crass.

[1:11:18] Christi Esterle: Yeah. We try is become, we, we, we are owning it because that is what, um, someone's publicist referred to us in an angry email.

[1:11:26] Jess McAnally: Once that publicist has watched every quote for you, catty and crass. I love it.

[1:11:32] Christi Esterle: Exactly. Exactly. But I kind of love this movie. Um, I'm very glad that it exists and there's no other time period that something could come out like this aside from the pre Iron Man world of like 2007, 2008 ish, where they were putting money into these weird little indie projects that might become something one day, the faith that they have, like the low risk, high reward value of these things don't exist anymore unless they're on Netflix. And then they're like, you know, rubber stamped to death and like becoming like these boring, everything the same, like there's nothing like REPO! and we aren't going to get anything like this unless it's done by an independent company and something like that.

[1:12:16] Christi Esterle: So I am amazed that we have this film. I am grateful this film exists. Does it work all the time? No. Do I enjoy it thoroughly every time I watch it? Hell yes, I do. This film is so much fun. It's so goofy. That's some of like the greatest ideas I've had as like, if you would just pitch me individual scenes from this, I would be like, yes, yes, this all works. Like the drug dealing, like nursery rhyme is hilarious. And like a great, like, um, comparison and the scene where Shiloh calls her dad while she's snuck out of the house and he's murdering a guy pretty funny scene. They're like, that's the best scene in the movie. He says, "Dad, what's that?" "I've got a patient." "Will he live?" "It's doubtful."

It's fucking great. If the movie had more of that, like the dark humor of Thankless Job, if all of that had been like pulled together and they had streamlined all the rest of it out of it, this would be actually a fantastic show. Right now. It's a fun cult thing in the same vein as Rocky Horror. It's a breeze to watch. So if you got something you want to watch this Halloween.

[1:13:18] Jess McAnally: Oh yeah. It's a Halloween episode. Cue the thunderclap and the music. He thought we weren't going to do it. We did it. Let's play it.

[1:13:31] Christi Esterle: All right. So my cheese rating at the end of all this is a cheese called Largo. Um, it is a triple cream cheese made with pasteurized cow milk cheese produced in Dante dairy in California, United States. Very similar to a French cheese. Um, this cheese is a combination of the rich Jersey milk and the cream fresh. When fully aged, the Largo is nutty, smooth, and soft in the tongue with hints of mushroom. Flavors are pleasant and sweet with a delicious long finish because you keep thinking about this right long after it ends and also roti lago.

[1:14:08] Andrew: Um, yeah, so that's it. Like that's great. Right, Andrew?

[1:14:13] Andrew: It's great. You know, I really feel like this could come out now. There's so many indie horror companies that probably would latch onto something like this and make it.

[1:14:17] Christi Esterle: Blumhouse wouldn't make this.

[1:14:22] Andrew: They may not, but they also might. And if they did make it, they may not make it look like a shitty 2000 Saw movie.

[1:14:27] Christi Esterle: Well, the thing is, this is a very gore heavy thing that came from like the gore, like you cringe horror. That was like a thing in the early aughts.

[1:14:33] Andrew: It's really not that it's not in that genre though. It just isn't.

[1:14:39] Christi Esterle: I feel it feels crowbarred in because like in the commentary, the director was told by the studio, um, don't put in anything you can't edit out to make it PG 13, which is a ridiculous thing for the movie we got.

[1:14:51] Andrew: Yeah, I don't know. But you know what, who does know Andrew?

[1:14:56] Andrew: Our patrons.

[1:14:56] Brianna Jones: Our wonderful patrons. Thank you guys for listening. Um, Christi, why don't you tell everyone where they can find you? Like they don't already know.

[1:15:07] Christi Esterle: All right. Um, musicalhell.com. I'm on YouTube. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Tumblr. I'm on Facebook. Um, you know, I've got stuff coming out whenever this is usually, uh, first and third Mondays of the month, depending on what's going on in real life. Uh, so come see it.

[1:15:26] Jess McAnally: She's also one of our patrons. We mentioned that in the mid show, but thank you for supporting us and making this show so give it a give and return. You are one of the wonderful people keeping Bri out here employed.

[1:15:38] Brianna Jones: So we thank you very much.

[1:15:43] Christi Esterle: Yes. Thank you. I'm happy. I'm happy to pay Bri's paycheck. I received a full-time position today. So yeah, we did it guys.

[1:15:54] Jess McAnally: You guys kept me in my house until I could find a full-time job.

[1:15:59] Andrew: That's yes, but it's a scary podcast.

[1:16:04] Jess McAnally: Yeah. Yeah. You're not leaving. You're, you're, you're in for this until we, we die. You're not allowed to leave ever.

[1:16:12] Christi Esterle: She signed away her eyes. So if she decides to leave, we're going to cut them out.

[1:16:18] Jess McAnally: And then you can buy them or you can get them if you subscribe to Patreon.

[1:16:22] Christi Esterle: Yeah. You get Bri's eyes if she leaves. So just know that.

[1:16:29] Jess McAnally: Um, thank you guys for listening. We went on way too long, but we love y'all. Anyway, we're on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher at Musicals with Cheese. Please leave us reviews. Um, we, we need them reviews to be more approved and more liked and more seen. And that helps us a lot. Follow us on Twitter at cheesy musicals, our patron Musicals with Cheese, our Instagram Musicals with Cheese, our YouTube page Musicals with Cheese. We have a patron only podcast, um, currently about Fosse Verdon. And I think after that, we're going to be covering the Muppet movies. So we're just going to go through all the Muppet films.

[1:17:00] Christi Esterle: Christy, would you be interested in guesting on one of them? It's behind a paywall, but it would be a lot of fun.

[1:17:05] Christi Esterle: Absolutely. You know, Muppets, Muppets, uh, musicals. I'm there.

[1:17:10] Jess McAnally: Oh, okay. You got that to look forward to like all the Muppet movies and Christy's going to join us for at least one episode, maybe more. Um, if you got an email, just like, um, the wonderful email I described in the mid show, please shoot us an email at musicaltheatrelives@gmail.com. Our title card is created by the amazing Jolene Casco. Go send her some love on Instagram at Jolene Casco. This show is produced by the wonderful, the incredible, the perfect, the now fully employed Brianna Jones.

[1:17:29] Jess McAnally: Yeah. Impossible to do it without her.

[1:17:37] Christi Esterle: Um, a special thank you to the Broadway Podcast Network for having us on the platform and for not kicking us off for saying some of the horrible stuff we say.

[1:17:41] Jess McAnally: It's awkward when we criticize a musical and then realize like one of the people in that musical is on the network with us and no one has called us out for it yet.

[1:17:46] Christi Esterle: Yet.

[1:17:46] Jess McAnally: Yet. We're allowed to be rude.

[1:17:51] Christi Esterle: We're catty and crass. That's why they bought us.

[1:17:57] Jess McAnally: We are catty and crass. That is our catchphrase.

[1:18:02] Christi Esterle: That's our tagline now. Buy the t-shirts kids.

[1:18:10] Jess McAnally: It's funny now, but when Jess got that email, he was like literally panicking.

[1:18:16] Christi Esterle: Like I was really, really sad. It really, I felt really bad.

[1:18:24] Jess McAnally: And now it's a running joke on the show. So yeah, I guess time.

[1:18:30] Andrew: All right. We got to get us out of here. We've got to watch the, the democratic debates or whatever's going on. We'll see you next time.

[1:18:40] All: Bye-bye everybody.

[1:18:46] Christi Esterle: It's a thankless job, but somebody's got to do it.