Movie Hypotheticals Pt. 2

Let's answer some more questions

It’s always the ones you aren’t really thinking about. About a month ago, I was sitting down to write this newsletter and didn’t really have anything to say. We were (and still are) in the throws of a bit of a theatrical movie wasteland and I wasn’t in the mood to do a deeper dive on a subject or genre so I decided I’d do a fun little mental exercise and answer some questions posed by movies I’d watched. Movie Hypotheticals Pt. 1 was created out of that lack of ideas. It’s easily the most viewed and well-received edition of this newsletter that I’ve written, which is honestly sick as hell to me. I think putting yourself in the position of movie characters is something we all do and it’s fun to know that other people think about this stuff.

I find myself in the same position as we head into the holiday weekend. I have some ideas for deeper dives that I’m going to do (more on that at the end of this newsletter) but nothing that feels urgent. So, we’re going to do another edition of movie hypotheticals and I hope many more editions to come. This newsletter (much to my disbelief) continues to find its way into more and more people’s inboxes. For that, I’m grateful.

Enough sappy shit. Let’s get to some questions about movies.

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Question: Do I think the cars in the Disney/Pixar franchise CARS fuck?

Answer: Let’s look at the FACTS. In CARS 2, Francesco Bernoulli waves to his mother, who is watching the race he’s competing in. If a car is waving to its mother, then that inherently implies that the cars in CARS have human-like reproductive practices. We also know from CARS 3 that baby cars exist because we see one and Cruz Ramirez tells stories about her childhood. To me, this all adds up to a simple conclusion. The cars fuck.

I will grant you that this is not a “hypothetical” in the sense that I didn’t put myself in this scenario but you would simply not catch me fucking a car. Sorry to all my autoerotic asphyxiation folks out there ( I have not looked that word up but I assume it’s a car thing and I will not kink shame).

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Question: Who would I be in the OCEANS 11 (2001) crew?

Answer: There is literally a guy named Saul in the crew but 1.) That’s too easy and 2.) that character is so old in this movie. I might be over 30 and a bit washed but I refuse to think I give off the same vibe as an octogenarian (with all due respect and flowers to the late, great Carl Reiner). Let’s dig a little deeper.

Let’s do this by process of elimination. I am definitely not the leader, so Danny Ocean (George Clooney) is out. While I am certainly always eating, I am not as handsome as Brad Pitt, so Rusty Ryan is out. I am the least flexible person in the world and I cannot do a backflip so The Amazing Yen (Shaobo Qin) is out. I do a terrible cockney accent with the best of them, but I don’t like digging underground or fake jumping motorcycles and I’m also white so Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) is out. I’m not a smooth operator by any means and see also the aforementioned caucasity so Frank Catton (Bernie Mac RIP) is out. I’m decent with a computer but I don’t have my own van so Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison) is out. I have too much of a guilty conscious to be a pickpocket (but not enough of a guilty conscious to not rob a millionaire) so Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon) is out. That leaves us with either Virgil (Casey Affleck) or Turk Malloy (Scott Caan). I am a huge, loud dumbass that somehow lucks his way into cool shit all the time, so I think I can say without hesitation that I am Turk Malloy from the Oceans 11 crew. Just happy to be here.

Followup Question: Who would I cast in the 2022 OCEANS 11 remake?

Answer: Pedro Pascal, Oscar Isaac, Jonathan Majors, Daniel Kaluuya, Danny McBride Timothée Chalmet, Dev Patel, Lakeith Stanfield, Adam Driver, Walton Goggins, and Michael Caine. They are robbing a casino managed by Tom Cruise.

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Question: Would I want to find out if I was living in The Matrix from the movie THE MATRIX?

Answer: Everybody always thinks they’d run into the burning building until they feel the heat of the fire. It sounds cool to question the nature of your reality but then the next thing you know you’re living underground while machines are constantly trying to kill you. Sure, it’s sick as hell to learn kung-fu by just downloading it into your brain, but at what cost? Keep me in the human soup goo-pod. I’m like 96% certain I’m living in one right now because the reality we live in is insane.

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Question: Would I join the fight club from FIGHT CLUB?

Answer: No, because I would talk about it immediately and their whole thing is that you don’t talk about it. It would literally go something like this:

Co-worker: Hey dude. Good to see you. How was your weeke-

Me: It was sick. I got my ass kicked at FIGHT CLUB. It’s a club where we fight. I go almost every week. It rocks. Again, that’s FIGHT CLUB. Here, let me actually write it down for you.

I also hate getting punched in the face, so that’s strike 2. Strike 3 is that Jared Leto is a member.

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Question: Would I go to the midsummer festival from MIDSOMMAR?

Answer: Yeah, probably. I have the same amount of knowledge about it as the people in the movie have so I’m probably just assuming it’s a fun festival where we eat outside and do some shrooms together before finding out it’s actually a Cult Thing™️. At that point, I’d just hope to die in a cool way and not in a “burned alive while stuffed inside a bear” way, but who’s to say? Let’s get some stamps on that passport!

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Question: Which of the games from SAW do I think I’d make it through to save my life?

Answer: None. Kill me immediately, fam. I’m clearly a bad person if I ended up in one of these situations. There’s no need to play this out. I had a good run.

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Question: Would I use a peach to masturbate like Timothée Chalmet’s character does in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME?

Answer: No, simply too sticky for me, but I respect my man for going for it. I have never been that horny in my life, but you gotta recognize game here. If you’re gonna fuck a fruit, peach seems like the way to go. You could probably also do a pineapple if you have the tool that cuts it into those rings with the hole in the middle but I digress.

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Question: Saul, you just rewatched all the Daniel Craig 007 movies. Can we get a quick power ranking of those movies to close this out?

Answer: You bet.

1. SKYFALL
2. CASINO ROYALE
3. NO TIME TO DIE
4. SPECTRE
5. QUANTUM OF SOLACE ( this movie isn’t as bad as people remember it, but it’s still the worst of the 5).

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A quick recommendation and programming note before I go.

Recommendation: At the end of the day, this is a movie newsletter, but I’m going to break the rules a little and recommend a tv show that is streaming on Peacock called The Resort. They just put out their season one finale today and I was can’t recommend it enough. I really loved it. It’s a crime dramedy with a nice touch of surreal, Twilight Zone-type stuff around the edges. It’s only 8 episodes and the episodes are 30 minutes each. Throw it on over the long weekend.

Programming note: Next week, I’m going to write the first in a Working Title special series called Good, Actually. I’ll be taking a look and going to the mat for films that may not have the highest critical appraisal or cultural standing and tell you why they’re good, actually. This will be the first of many in a series style format much like the Movie Hypotheticals and I hope to eventually turn Good, Actually into a podcast.

As always, thank you for reading Working Title! The fact that so many of you enjoy it keeps me motivated to keep writing it and I cannot express how much fun I have sending these out. Please continue to share these if you feel so inclined, it’s super helpful in helping me find new readers. See you next week!