Mandy Kaplan:
Hello everybody and welcome to Make Me a Nerd. I’m Mandy Kaplan, a mainstream mom whose mission it is to explore the world of nerd culture that I’ve been missing out on and afraid of my whole life. If you’re new to the podcast, where have you been? I’ve missed you.
If you’re new, this is what happens. I bring on somebody who’s got some expert energy and love for something, and I grill them with my noob energy. See, I learned the word noob — gaming, I’m trying. And we figure out if this entity is worth your time and energy as well.
So that’s what we’re here to do. And I poached my guest from one of my beloved friends and co-podcasters. You all know the fabulous Chrissy Lenz. She hosts Gank That Drink, a supernatural rewatch podcast, which they make into a drinking game, which we’re gonna do today. And I stole her co-host. Don’t tell Chrissy — just make her look the other way if she’s listening.
Nate McWhortor:
She knows. She’s aware.
Mandy Kaplan:
Y’all, this is Nate McWhortor.
Nate McWhortor:
She’s aware I’m stepping out.
Mandy Kaplan:
He is a Phoenix improviser at the Neighborhood Comedy Theater. And, as I said, co-host of Gank That Drink, a supernatural rewatch podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, Nate McWhortor — drink!
Nate McWhortor:
Hello. Hello, drink? Okay.
Mandy Kaplan:
Do we drink? Oh, we’re doing it already. Here we go.
Nate McWhortor:
We always drink at the top of our shows, so it’s only fair.
Mandy Kaplan:
Full disclosure, it’s almost five o’clock. A lot of my guests and friends and listeners know I record in the mornings and the early afternoons. It’s not nine in the morning, everybody. It is nearly five o’clock. So drinking is fully acceptable.
So before we start drinking — I mean talking — about The History of Future Folk, I want to know what kind of nerd you are, Nate.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, now we can’t —
Mandy Kaplan:
I sense your nerd river runs pretty deep.
Nate McWhortor:
My nerd river runs very wide. I would say only because I am a nerd in a lot of ways, but I’m also — I’m a jock, Mandy. I grew up a jock.
Mandy Kaplan:
You are? Okay.
Nate McWhortor:
I am a total jock. I coached high school sports both through college and after college. I used to work in baseball, in minor league and major league baseball.
Mandy Kaplan:
I love it.
Nate McWhortor:
So I am a sports nerd, which I believe is called a jock.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, I wouldn’t know.
Nate McWhortor:
However, I was the sports jock that was the nerd on the team. I was Squints. I was the guy that knew all the lore about everything. I might not have been the best player, but I held my own. I had the heart, and I was the glue guy, if you will.
Mandy Kaplan:
And an improviser — or did that come later in life?
Nate McWhortor:
I also did theater all through — my whole family does theater. My brother is a musical theater actor, lives in Manhattan.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh Nate, we gotta talk offline. That’s my whole background. That’s my life.
Nate McWhortor:
I knew you’d enjoy that little fact. He does choreography — he’s a dancer — and his wife, they both do it together. It’s really cool. He went to AMDA, super proud of him.
My parents met in theater class. My dad was a sports nerd — his family was all Midwestern sports nerds — but he wasn’t really an athlete himself.
Mandy Kaplan:
I love the blending of nerdery, but —
Nate McWhortor:
Oh yeah. And I grew up — I was the perfect age for Star Wars when the remastered editions were out in theaters, and my parents who grew up with Star Wars were like, we’re taking our kids to this.
Mandy Kaplan:
You’re basically telling me I’m your parents’ age. I just want to lay that out there.
Nate McWhortor:
I could have framed it better. I grew up watching the original versions on VHS, wore out my parents’ VHSs of Star Wars, wore out their music collection. My parents influenced a lot of my pop culture upbringing. My mom’s a teacher — they’re both teachers actually. So I have to give all nerd credit to them, even though I fought it so hard so many times.
Mandy Kaplan:
We keep pulling you back in.
Nate McWhortor:
I kept getting pulled back in. And then I joined improv my freshman year in college and the nerd ship was fully aboard at that point. I’ve been doing improv 16 years now.
Mandy Kaplan:
Great. And are you a musician? Because The History of Future Folk — it’s not a musical proper, but it is a very musical film.
Nate McWhortor:
I would consider it a musical. There are points when music is being played and the instrument is dropped, but the music continues on. I think that qualifies as a musical.
Mandy Kaplan:
We can debate that. I made that note, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
I do not play music myself. I don’t think I’m very musically inclined. I’ve had to learn a lot through improv about music, and I’ve had to literally try hard to have some basic rhythm. I really had to practice for a lot of years to even get there.
Mandy Kaplan:
Should we spin this into a GoFundMe to get you some rhythm?
Nate McWhortor:
I think so. I need some rhythm. I just need to practice more and get more comfortable. I think that’s always been my thing.
My wife plays tons of instruments. She has a music theater theory degree. She can play guitar, she’s working on mandolin, she plays keyboard — she plays all sorts of things. So she is very much a musician, which is one of the reasons I first fell in love with her, because I love music so much and I love being at live music.
In college, someone gave me a very cheap off-ticket to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and that kind of changed my whole life. I had already loved the genre and loved bluegrass and country. My mom was very much a country person, grew up with it. My dad hated country because he worked at a country radio station in Safford — which is a small town in Arizona.
Their music influence really shaped how I went on my musical journey, and I love going to live shows all the time. That’s one of the things I do here in the valley quite a bit. We travel and go to shows.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well, that actually brings us to The History of Future Folk, which you emailed me about and I said I knew nothing about it.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
I watched the trailer and said, sure, let’s do it. Because I think a lot of listeners aren’t going to recognize this title, I’m going to read the logline.
Nate McWhortor:
Please do.
Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. It’s a 2012 movie. “An alien general joins forces with the comrade sent to kill him. Their goals are threefold: save their home world, prevent mankind’s destruction, and book some gigs as bluegrass musicians.” That’s the logline. It’s pretty perfect.
Nate McWhortor:
It’s pretty spot on.
Mandy Kaplan:
In terms of getting me intrigued. How did you come to this movie?
Nate McWhortor:
I’ve been trying to think of that since we decided we were going to do it. I remember when it came to Netflix. I think that’s when I discovered it — it was a bluegrass thing and I was really into the genre already by that point, and somewhere on social media, the algorithm basically sent it to me: “You’re gonna like this.”
What makes it even more so for me is that Dee Snider being in this movie literally makes me feel like someone made this movie just for me.
Mandy Kaplan:
We need to pause, because you mentioned Dee Snider, and we are gonna do Make Me a Nerd: The Drinking Game, as you do on Gank That Drink.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh. Oh, I broke the glass.
Mandy Kaplan:
This is how you do it. Can you tell the people what the rules are for the drinking game so they can enjoy our getting imbibed as we go?
Nate McWhortor:
Why, of course, Mandy. Because I already hit our first rule — we’re drinking for Dee. Anytime we talk about or mention a scene with Dee Snider in it, we’re taking a drink. This is what we do on Gank That Drink: we watch Supernatural and we drink during recordings, during watchings, whatever.
Mandy Kaplan:
Not problematic at all.
Nate McWhortor:
Not problematic. We stay home. We always record at night, we’re always in for the night, most of the time.
We’re also gonna drink anytime we say Hondo, which we have not yet said. So Hondo to you.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, Hondo.
Nate McWhortor:
Hondo, of course, is the planet where General Trius and the Mighty Kevin are from. Anytime we talk about anything that was a budget cut — lasers, costumes, special effects, anything, locations, lighting —
Mandy Kaplan:
Anything. I have other stuff, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
So many things.
Mandy Kaplan:
This movie was made for a dollar seventy-three.
Nate McWhortor:
It made almost as much. And every new song we talk about — I feel like the movie progresses through a series of songs. They’re all very sweet and cute, and I like them a lot.
Mandy Kaplan:
Okay, and what are you drinking?
Nate McWhortor:
I am drinking a Dos Equis because I’m trying to be the most interesting man in the world. No free ads.
Mandy Kaplan:
And I’m drinking a very cheap Chardonnay. So you said Dee Snider — he plays the owner of the club. And all of a sudden the movie opens and there’s Dee Snider going, “All right, our next act —” and I was like, is that Dee Snider?
Nate McWhortor:
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
For those who don’t remember — “Come on, feel the noise, girls rock your boys” — isn’t that him?
Nate McWhortor:
That’s actually Quiet Riot.
Mandy Kaplan:
Okay, so what was he?
Nate McWhortor:
He’s the lead man of Twisted Sister, which did “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock.”
Mandy Kaplan:
I know him. I wrote down the name — Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the dad.
Nate McWhortor:
Yep, with the dad. Both of those music videos have the same characters in them.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, the angry dad in the video. Okay.
Nate McWhortor:
In middle school, I went through a very big classic rock phase, which led me to hair metal. The local rock station had Dee Snider’s House of Hair syndicated every Saturday morning, and I would sit by the radio — I feel old saying this, I’m an old soul.
Mandy Kaplan:
What’s House of Hair?
Nate McWhortor:
House of Hair was Dee Snider’s syndicated radio show. They would air it all over the country and play two hours of ’80s hair metal, with Dee coming on to do his thing. I listened to that pretty religiously, most every Saturday morning. That’s what I woke up to.
The radio station also did Alice Cooper at night during the week. Of course, he’s a local Arizona guy, so I always thought it was a local show — did not realize it was a nationally syndicated show, like Delilah or Adam Carolla or any of those.
So yeah — me and my friends, we would watch Twisted Sister videos on YouTube because YouTube had just come out and started. And Guns N’ Roses, anything ’80s or before.
Mandy Kaplan:
Dee Snider is iconic and a little cheesy. He was always over the top.
Nate McWhortor:
Very cheesy. He also was on all of the VH1 “I Love the Blanks.”
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. Sure.
Nate McWhortor:
The ’60s, ’70s, ’80s — he was on all of those, because he’s such a kooky dude and he gives a good interview.
From everything I can tell and discern, he’s a really sweet guy. He’s done a lot of charity stuff. One of their most popular songs — if you just Google Twisted Sister — is a Christmas song. I think it’s “O Come All Ye Faithful.” And it’s pretty good.
Mandy Kaplan:
Who knew?
Nate McWhortor:
It’s a solid listen.
So when I saw bluegrass, aliens, and then they showed Dee Snider in the trailer, I just thought — and this is before AI is what it is now — who made this movie for me?
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. For you. Yes. We’re gonna dive into the movie right after this.
So we meet Bill — is that his name? General Trius? We don’t know that yet.
Nate McWhortor:
Bill. General Trius.
Mandy Kaplan:
Bill. He gets up on stage in a red bucket — which I think is a Devo homage — with a hole cut out in the face, and a banjo.
Nate McWhortor:
Very much a Devo-esque, yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
And he starts to play a song, and it’s a funny song, but I was immediately entranced with the music. What’s that first song called, so we can drink?
Nate McWhortor:
That first song is — “Impossible Dream” is the first song.
Mandy Kaplan:
There it is.
Nate McWhortor:
And it’s kind of introducing us to General Trius a little bit. The version in the movie is so — because it’s just him — so sad and sweet. Whereas if you listen to the album version, it’s him and Kevin, and it’s a little bit more playful and raucous.
Mandy Kaplan:
His banjo is unbelievable.
Nate McWhortor:
But in the movie, I love how almost heartbreaking it is.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. So that’s how we meet Bill, who we don’t know is anything but Bill at this point.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
We know he’s a struggling musician at a local bar. And then he goes home and tells his daughter a bedtime story about a planet called Hondo —
Nate McWhortor:
Correct. Hondo.
Mandy Kaplan:
His daughter — her character name is Ren. She is one of the cutest kid actors I’ve ever seen. Very realistic.
Nate McWhortor:
A thousand percent. I’m not a big kid actor person, but she nails being a kid in this movie and is so good. And they use her the perfect amount — she’s sprinkled in at the perfect times. She’s really emotive.
Wren — a good Arizona-based name. Cactus Wren is our state bird. Always looking for those Arizona connections.
Mandy Kaplan:
Wait, is this an Arizona movie, or is that just —
Nate McWhortor:
It’s not, but I do have one more Arizona factoid coming up a little later in the movie.
Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. I want to give her her credit because she’s so sweet. Onada April is Ren, and she is to die for.
So he’s telling her the story of an alien from the planet Hondo — drink — and it’s clear he tells her these stories every night. She knows the planet. The story he’s telling is about an alien coming to Earth and discovering music in a Costco where they’re playing music. It is the most charming thing. He’s in the red bucket that Bill wore on stage. All we know is he makes up these stories at night. We don’t know anything yet, am I wrong?
Nate McWhortor:
No, we do not.
Mandy Kaplan:
Watching a man hear music for the first time — not seeing his face, but his physicality — and discovering Costco with its variety of products in bulk, it is so charming.
Nate McWhortor:
“En Normandie.”
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. And then quickly we cut to a chase through the city. This is where I noticed how low budget this movie is.
Nate McWhortor:
I knew this was gonna be the spot.
Mandy Kaplan:
How delightfully — drink — my new friend.
Nate McWhortor:
It’s the people running across the bridge getting out of the way — those were not extras. They were just people on the street.
Mandy Kaplan:
And there are barely any people. And they set this in Brooklyn, which I question if you’re trying to save money.
Nate McWhortor:
So I actually want to bring that up, because the band Future Folk — which is General Trius and the Mighty Kevin, as played by Niles Delaire and Jay Claytes — they started as a folk comedy music duo in the East Village, which is way more what this all feels like than Brooklyn, am I wrong? It feels way more East Village than it does Brooklyn.
Mandy Kaplan:
It feels Brooklyn-y to me. It does.
Nate McWhortor:
I guess, yeah. But the bar to me feels East Village.
Mandy Kaplan:
The empty bar with no extras because they couldn’t afford extras? Unbelievable how unpopulated these streets are at all times.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
So Bill sees a guy in the red Hondo suit.
Nate McWhortor:
Hondo.
Mandy Kaplan:
And the Hondo guy is going pew-pew with a laser gun that looks —
Nate McWhortor:
Very cheap graphics.
Mandy Kaplan:
Very cheap. And then Bill attacks him and kidnaps him, throws him in a cab, and brings him home — which was so shocking. It was like, what is this mild-mannered dad musician doing chasing down a guy in a red bucket?
And it immediately gave me the idea that this movie is very hard to predict, which I love. When you don’t see it coming a mile away, when you’re not waiting because you know the big twist — this movie doesn’t follow rules. It just does whatever the hell it wants.
Nate McWhortor:
Every time you think it’s gonna go right, it doesn’t go completely away from what you expect, but it kind of accomplishes what you thought it was going to do in a different way than you thought it would. I think that at almost every turn.
Later on, when Kevin gets distracted and goes on the salsa dance — that’s a moment where it’s like, I thought we were getting close to wrapping this thing up, and now we’re just going on this little detour — but then it pairs up well. We’ll get to it.
Mandy Kaplan:
We’ll get to it.
Nate McWhortor:
I agree with you that it seems like it’d be very simple — on its face it is — but they go about it in a little zigzaggy way.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. And you mentioned the lead actor, Niles Delaire. I went on IMDB to find this is his only credit — not an actor.
Nate McWhortor:
He’s a musician.
Mandy Kaplan:
He’s a musician and a damn good one. Jay Claytes, however, is a prolific actor. I expected Niles Delaire to have other credits as an actor. Nothing. I mean, maybe he knits. I don’t know.
Nate McWhortor:
It’s like a Simon and Garfunkel thing — you’ve got maybe one that’s got a little bit more flair, out there, and one that just wants to be about the art. Not literally Art Garfunkel, but yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. So what do you know about Future Folk? Because a lot of my questions in the beginning were, who the hell is writing this amazing music? Where do these guys come from and why do they sound so beautiful? They are almost like a male Indigo Girls in their harmonies and their lyrics. It’s just fantastic music.
Nate McWhortor:
Honestly, I didn’t know about them until the movie. The movie comes out and you’re like, here’s this quirky movie that this folk bluegrass duo out of New York made about themselves. Because they presented the whole time as — much like in the movie — they didn’t come up with the name Future Folk until after they had done some shows. They were playing shows in the East Village, and they eventually met doing off-Broadway stuff. I think the show Niles was in had Wilford Brimley in the title. And so they meet in New York at a time when — in music, in roots music and folk — it’s post-O Brother Where Art Thou, which is very transformative for the genre.
You’ve had your newgrass, you’ve had your Nickel Creek through the late ’90s and early 2000s.
Mandy Kaplan:
I love Nickel Creek, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh gosh, yes. I love Chris Thile a lot. And then O Brother really popularizes the genre, and from that you have so many bands born. Some of them get bigger than others. That leads to the 2010, 2011, 2012 era — what I call the stomp-and-clap era of folk music. Your Lumineers, your Mumford and Sons.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, sure, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
Those kinds of bands.
Mandy Kaplan:
“Hey ho,” yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
So this movie could only really have been made in this stretch of time, where you have these bands that have become really popular, especially in North America, and they’re kind of riding off that mainstream success. And I think this is one of the more pure and beautiful things to come out of it.
What makes Future Folk and this movie kind of great is that this is kind of it. They aren’t doing anything right now. They’ve teased something — I read a 2021 mention of maybe something was in the works. But I’m fine with this being their legacy — like Firefly. Part of what makes Firefly so beautiful is it only had one season and then a movie.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. Two shows I have to do on this podcast because I hear that all the time.
Nate McWhortor:
Chrissy would be a great person to do Firefly with.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. I just make up excuses to have Chrissy on my podcast. It’s pretty obvious.
Nate McWhortor:
She’s incredible.
Mandy Kaplan:
She’s wonderful.
Nate McWhortor:
She is my best friend. Humble brag. Humble brag.
Mandy Kaplan:
How do I get in there and break that up?
Nate McWhortor:
I don’t know if I’m her best friend, to be clear.
Mandy Kaplan:
I’ll figure it out. Did you hear what she said about you the other day?
Nate McWhortor:
No, I did not.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, yeah. Oh, well, I’m not gonna say it on the air, but it’s really shocking.
Nate McWhortor:
Oh okay. It’s all good.
Mandy Kaplan:
One thought I had — it’s just a random thought — but I wonder if Steve Martin has seen this movie and what he thinks, being the banjo aficionado he is. Which came up on the Bo Burnham podcast. I thought Steve Martin must have been an influence for Bo Burnham.
Nate McWhortor:
That was something I wanted to bring up. Not only did I miss out on seeing Bo Burnham, but I actually did get to see Steve Martin. I got to see him play bluegrass with his bluegrass band, the Steep Canyon Rangers, in Telluride one year.
I would imagine Steve Martin has seen this movie. It won Fantastic Fest in Austin.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh. Huh.
Nate McWhortor:
And it also won, I think, the Philly Film Festival. So it won a couple of small festivals. And it made it to Netflix, which is a feat — being a person who made a film that didn’t make it to Netflix.
Mandy Kaplan:
It’s hard to do. And then it got booted off Netflix, but I read it’s back on. So I don’t know.
Nate McWhortor:
I watched mine on YouTube, so I hope it’s back on so you don’t have to go through commercials.
Mandy Kaplan:
As did I. Steve Martin, if you’re listening and you haven’t enjoyed this movie, please.
Nate McWhortor:
It’s up your alley.
Mandy Kaplan:
Please. Yeah. The level of violence in this movie — Nate, you don’t know me — is my exact level that I can handle and I adore. Let me list: face punch, karate chop, and headbutt. And every time the person just crumples to the ground with no blood, no gore. It’s all such sweet, innocent violence, and I love it so much.
Nate McWhortor:
Everything, every bit of violence feels like it should have an Adam West Batman sound effect after it.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. A “blam,” yes, yes.
Nate McWhortor:
For budgetary reasons — oh, budgetary reasons, whoop! — you can’t have too much extra. They couldn’t have afforded continuity with blood and all of that. The beautiful part about them being aliens is you can justify it by being like, oh yeah, they know secret chops that just put people to sleep for like five minutes — old ladies registering people for salsa dances for two minutes, and then we’re done.
Mandy Kaplan:
Right. Well, at this point we come to learn that Bill is General Trius, and he was sent from Hondo to Earth to destroy the planet.
Nate McWhortor:
Hondo.
Mandy Kaplan:
And he has abandoned his mission and fallen in love with his lovely wife and had a daughter, and he’s trying to make it as a bluegrass singer — and that’s what he’s chosen. So the planet sends Kevin to spur him on or get him back or make him finish the mission, right?
Nate McWhortor:
The other thing we learn about Bill is that he is posing at his job. His job at an aerospace sort of museum is where he works. So we see him go through security, and the security guy gives him a hard time and says, “If this guy’s wife calls, you give her a call on the radio, send her up to floor three. Ain’t that right, Doc?” — gives him that kind of “I know what you really are” deal.
We find out he’s a groundskeeper, a janitor. But he wears a shirt and tie to work —
Mandy Kaplan:
So his wife thinks he’s a researcher or something.
Nate McWhortor:
He fakes it all the way from home.
In this first introduction to his job, they pass by a tour, and the tour is talking about the Titan missile that is housed in this museum. The museum, by the way, is actually only about 30 minutes from Brooklyn where they filmed this. I have the name — it is the Cradle of Aviation Museum, in a town in New York.
Mandy Kaplan:
Okay. Well, they’re not sponsors of the show, so I don’t want to give them too much love.
Nate McWhortor:
And here’s where I’m gonna say it’s stolen valor. The Titan missiles were used during the Cold War era — if the Russians attacked, we would send our big missiles at Russia. The Titan Missile Museum — which is where the only remaining silo with a missile in it in the whole country exists — is in Green Valley, Arizona, just south of Tucson. I’ve driven by it but never been, though you can do tours.
There’s your last Arizona connection to this movie. They clearly borrowed the imagery of the Titan missile for the whole exhibit, and the missiles are like three stories tall — they’re huge.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well played, Nate. And they do it like Chekhov’s gun — she’s like, “This missile —” and then we don’t think about it for an hour.
Nate McWhortor:
Of course. But you’re definitely thinking, it’s gonna come back.
Mandy Kaplan:
It does come back, yeah. Pete, play some ads.
So at this point, I was completely beaming from ear to ear and charmed by this movie. I have to tell you that I went in dubious, because it seemed like maybe it was going to be weird for weird’s sake, which is something I bristle against. And it is weird with complete heart and complete motivation and charm and humor at every turn.
That’s still 20 or 25 minutes in when I was just like, I can’t stop smiling. I can’t wait to see what’s coming next. This movie hooked me in such a meaningful way. A lot of my favorite movies have to do with just a few people who are trying to do right by each other but keep messing up — like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Spitfire Grill. I like those small movies about well-intentioned people.
Nate McWhortor:
Raising Arizona.
Mandy Kaplan:
That’s not one of my favorites. I’m not a Coen Brothers person. Check out my episode on The Big Lebowski if you want to hear my thoughts.
But I was so grateful to you for bringing this movie to my attention.
And then we get to Bill on stage in his red bucket — because that’s his character for his banjo act, but now we know it’s his alien suit from Hondo. He does a monologue on stage that is so meta and smart and funny. He says to the audience, who is now starting to dress like him: “Well, you guys must like flesh-eating viruses more than most life forms I’ve encountered.” And they’re all like, “Yeah!” It’s so meta, and they don’t get it. And I couldn’t tell if Bill was trying to confess or if he knew it would be funny to call it out. What are your thoughts on that?
Nate McWhortor:
I think he’s definitely trying to confess. And I think we see Bill, as the movie goes on, start out with a lot of pep in his step and a lot of verve and life. As the movie progresses, he gets very worn and tired and exhausted. We see less of Bill and more of General Trius.
It’s funny because Abby — we watched it last night, because she had already watched it with me but we were watching it again — she goes, “Why is he not the best actor in the second half of the movie?” And I was like, I don’t think it’s that. I think he’s making a choice to play more exhausted, tired — like, “I just want to live my earth life and be Bill. I don’t want to think about the people I’ve abandoned and all the General Trius part of this.” Because he does seem like a stone cold killer. Kevin says it: “General Trius, you’re the most badass general, the most badass soldier there ever was, everyone loved you.” And my thought is, he probably came to this tiny little rock, found this music that he loves, has a life he loves — and he just wants that. But now he has to deal with this.
Mandy Kaplan:
I do wonder if it’s chicken or the egg — if Niles isn’t a great actor and they just said, let’s justify it and say he’s an alien who doesn’t process human emotion very well, or if he made that choice.
Nate McWhortor:
I think it’s column A, column B.
Mandy Kaplan:
But either way it works. He’s not the best actor, but I don’t hold it against him for one minute.
Nate McWhortor:
Not at all.
Mandy Kaplan:
He has very weird hair. That’s neither here nor there.
And then Kevin meets Carmen the cop — that’s her name, right?
Nate McWhortor:
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
When Kevin meets her, he gets this look — they might as well have played a sound effect, like, “zoink.” It is the dopiest, cartooniest look of adoration, and it made me fall in love with the actor. It was so adorable. And I just think in most movies you can’t get away with something so over the top and pure. And it was precious.
And then he kidnaps her and holds her hostage.
Nate McWhortor:
If any part of this movie doesn’t hold up, it’s that scene. We could have done this a different way. He could have gotten this very silly song in — “La La Luna Extranjera.”
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, did you just bring up a new song?
Nate McWhortor:
And I believe Kevin first meets Carmen — or when he kisses her — is after they play. I don’t remember when he kisses her. Is it after the show? Did we already go over the first show when he comes through the audience with the guitar?
Mandy Kaplan:
No, I skipped right over it, but —
Nate McWhortor:
I just want to bring up the song “Spaceworms.”
Mandy Kaplan:
Did you just bring up another song? Pete, if you could play a little of “Spaceworms,” I’d be grateful — because it’s fantastic. There it is. You’re welcome, everybody.
Nate McWhortor:
If that doesn’t get you hooked on the movie — and it’s in the trailer — you’re gonna hear “Spaceworms.” It’s such a good hook. It’s such a good bluegrass song, it sounds so good, and Jay sings it so well. His voice is so good. I didn’t want to let us skip past “Spaceworms.”
Mandy Kaplan:
No, it’s a great song, thank you. I did go out of order.
So they realize they’re magical together on stage.
Nate McWhortor:
That Hondonian connection — Hondo — between the two.
Mandy Kaplan:
Hondo. And Jay plays guitar to Bill’s banjo, and it’s phenomenal.
Nate McWhortor:
And they harmonize instantly. They know all the same words. They clearly have a telepathic thing. Again, everything in this movie — if you start to question the logic, you just go, they’re aliens. We don’t know how they work. They look like people, but —
There’s a brilliant line at the beginning of the show where he says, “I was so glad that Hondonian — the language on Hondo — is the same as English.” He says that at the top of all his shows.
Mandy Kaplan:
Justifies it. Yep.
Nate McWhortor:
And of course you’re just on board with it. If you were watching a Future Folk show live, you’d be like, great, I’ve got my bucket on, I’m ready to go.
Mandy Kaplan:
Their outfits are quite Michael Jackson-beaded, but they really look like they’re wearing Halloween costumes from a Halloween superstore with the buckets — which I think is a budget choice.
Nate McWhortor:
It definitely is.
Mandy Kaplan:
So low budget.
Nate McWhortor:
I love the variety of interpretations the extras bring with their own unique buckets — which honestly may have just been people from their actual shows. Because people will dress up. If you look up footage of Future Folk shows, there are people that wear the bucket in the audience. If you go on their website, you can buy a bucket — not one that’s already made, you still have to make it and accessorize it yourself.
I love the weird little movement. It’s such a little cult — though I don’t think it even got to cult classic status.
Mandy Kaplan:
But it made me so happy for these characters that people loved them and came to their shows and wanted to emulate them and wear the buckets. I felt joy.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes. And that’s the ethos of Future Folk in general. That following and that love — this movie brings it out perfectly.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes. How did they get Dee Snider? You’re welcome — drink.
Nate McWhortor:
That has to be a good chunk of the budget. Or he donated his time. I don’t know.
Mandy Kaplan:
I didn’t know if you had inside knowledge — whether he was a fan of the group, or friends with Niles, or we just don’t know.
Nate McWhortor:
I have no idea how they got Dee Snider or what the thought process was behind it, other than just — he’s a fun guy. It has to be a somebody-knew-somebody situation. Either the director knew him, someone knew him through someone and just asked. How long do you think he was on set? Maybe two full days, with all the bar scenes and then the car scenes?
Mandy Kaplan:
Two full days, yes.
Nate McWhortor:
So yeah, I think it was maybe a small ask, but he rocks it. He kills it.
Mandy Kaplan:
Sure. He’s fun. It’s random — when he came back, I was like, why is he there? But it works. I was just wondering if you knew how it happened.
Nate McWhortor:
Nope. I wish I did.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well, you mentioned the bar, which was empty because they couldn’t afford extras — drink.
Nate McWhortor:
It is called the Trash Bar. I’m out of drink.
Mandy Kaplan:
Nate.
Nate McWhortor:
How dare I!
Mandy Kaplan:
How dare you? And then their high-tech alien equipment and gadgets look so adorably silly and ’80s. They might as well be using a Teddy Ruxpin. It’s consistent with the tone of the movie, but it’s also budgetary — they couldn’t afford things that looked cooler or actually seemed high-tech. So I’ll drink for both of us.
Nate McWhortor:
And all you had to do was rent out a storage unit for a couple of days.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah. It was inventive the way they used their time and space. I keep questioning Brooklyn — it’s gotta be so expensive to film there. And they were on the streets, they had cars, they had public shots, not just in homes where you can get away with whatever.
Nate McWhortor:
I think a lot of what seems obvious on the budget constraints — and it’s very evident — I still think it’s a very beautiful movie. I think it’s very well shot.
I hadn’t watched this until a couple weeks ago. I hadn’t watched this in probably ten or more years. And I was kind of unsure, like, I really like this movie, but I’m not sure how you or everyone else is gonna feel about it. And then as I’m watching it and I’m just seeing how gorgeous some of these shots are, I’m like, oh, this is really good. And yes, there are some obvious budget things, but for what they had to work with —
It’s very SNL Digital Short in the early days, Lonely Island era.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yes, good call. Yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
And I think it is a love letter to New York at the same time. There are these great shots of the skyline and the city, and when they go to sleep on the other side of the river. New York is a character in this movie, as people like to say.
Mandy Kaplan:
They do like to say that. So it was directed by John Mitchell, who has few other directing credits, and a guy named Jeremy Kip Walker, who has 78 producing credits — major, major productions. So perhaps he was behind getting this made, getting Dee Snider, calling in a ton of favors. He’s the high-powered one in the relationship.
Nate McWhortor:
The cloud.
Mandy Kaplan:
So maybe that’s how this got accomplished. But you’re right, it does look good.
Nate McWhortor:
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan:
Mission accomplished on every level. So I’m not complaining when I say, oh, I could tell how low budget it was.
There’s some bad guy that comes down from Hondo — or is it Hondo, or a different planet?
Nate McWhortor:
Right. He’s not from Hondo, but Hondo sent him.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, Hondo.
Nate McWhortor:
He’s a mercenary hired gun. That’s why his line is so funny, where he says, “Your poor-ass friends on Hondo couldn’t afford for me to kill you.” So he’s like, “I’m just gonna leave you here. I was only paid to do this bit.”
Mandy Kaplan:
He is dressed like Ross from Friends as the Hanukkah Armadillo.
Nate McWhortor:
I’m so glad you put a name to it, because I was going to say something I think was too harsh — I was going to say it’s like subdued Power Rangers. The Power Ranger villain outfits were always so outlandish and cartoonish. This is not as cartoonish, it felt a little more adult. But at the same time it kind of seemed like a Power Rangers background bad guy.
Mandy Kaplan:
Oh, it was ridiculously not scary, not real, nothing. It was just a dude in a suit, probably someone on the crew chasing him around. But he looked like the Hanukkah Armadillo.
When Kevin finally claims his love, Carmen the cop, after he seduces her in a tango that’s adorable, and she sees him play — hubba hubba, he’s great. And then they’re getting together and she says, “You’re really from outer space?” And he says, “I hope that’s not a problem.” And it’s so sweet.
That bad guy I just mentioned disappears. I did not see him go anywhere, but he claims he was only paid enough to rough up General Trius, right?
Nate McWhortor:
To enact the virus. The only thing he got paid for was to start the virus to kill everyone on Earth so the people from Hondo could move there. And that guy was just a mercenary hired gun. That’s why the line is so funny: “Your poor-ass friends couldn’t afford for me to kill you.” So he just leaves.
Mandy Kaplan:
This is what you get.
Nate McWhortor:
“I was only paid to do this bit.”
Mandy Kaplan:
I only have one complaint. And it’s not really a complaint.
They are on stage singing something about the moon —
Nate McWhortor:
“Over the Moon” is the name of the song, yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
“Over the Moon.” Beautiful song. Everything’s great. Bill sees his wife. His wife takes off and he goes to follow her. So he takes off his banjo and leaves it. He goes up to the roof to chase her down. Yet the banjo is still heard completely through the song, and Kevin’s alone on stage with his guitar, and yet you hear the banjo.
Nate McWhortor:
That’s what makes this a musical. That scene right there.
Mandy Kaplan:
Well, I disagree, but I did think that was pretty funny.
Nate McWhortor:
Budget cuts — drink! It plays underneath the whole scene and underscores their conversation so nicely. Just like the fight in the tango scene — the bad guy trying to get Trius and Kevin dancing with Carmen, that back and forth. That’s a way of — we know where this story’s going. We know the love story is gonna happen, we know everyone’s gonna find their place. We know this movie has such a heart, there’s not gonna be a sad, somber ending. But the way they go about telling this story — okay, let’s have this back-and-forth dual action montage where fighting is like a tango and these two were combative at first and now they’re falling in love.
And then — Dee Snider locks the door to the bar so no one can get in or out. And that’s what drives Bill’s wife up to the roof.
Mandy Kaplan:
Yeah, yeah.
Nate McWhortor:
It’s very strange. I’m always like, why is he doing that? And then when she goes up, I’m like, oh right — so she has to go to the roof.
Mandy Kaplan:
Justify it, yeah. There’s a lot of reverse engineering with the plot where they’re like, well, we can justify it if we add a shot before — it’s fine.
Nate McWhortor:
I also love all the conveniences in the destruction of the asteroid. They’re too early and it’s gonna be a miss — but wait, Kevin’s gotta play. Oh yeah, take all the drinks.
When they fire off the Titan missile, all the cops are chasing them away from the museum because Kevin stun-guns all those guys. That whole chase scene with Dee Snider and all that. We see the cop cars chasing them and then the Titan missile just going up. I don’t think they would get to just keep living happily in Brooklyn after this ordeal. I think someone would want to know why the missile was missing.
Mandy Kaplan:
True.
Nate McWhortor:
But I love the convenience.
Mandy Kaplan:
They saved the planet. This is the world in which everybody just accepts they’re from another planet, and they saved ours — good on them.
Nate McWhortor:
How convenient for Bill in his romantic gesture moment to look at his wife and say, “If my calculations are correct, that star right there is gonna go kaboom in three, two, one.”
Mandy Kaplan:
Yep.
Nate McWhortor:
Thank goodness Dee Snider locked the door and we came up to the roof.
Mandy Kaplan:
Is that not how you seduced your wife?
Nate McWhortor:
No. Is blowing up a comet — you want a comet? I’ll give you a comet.
Mandy Kaplan:
That’s how it went down for Jeremy and me.
This movie is utterly delightful. I cannot thank you enough for bringing it to my attention. I recommended it to my sister. She already watched it and liked it. If you’re out there thinking, well, you just told us everything about it — we’re not capturing the warmth, the humor, the charm. It’s so freaking charming. Please get a glass of wine and play the Hondo drinking game because I’m wasted.
Nate McWhortor:
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan:
Make Me a Nerd is a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by the peerless Pete Wright. My song is Wonderstruck by Jane and the Boy. If you want to reach me on socials, it’s on Instagram @Mandy_Kaplan_Klavens, both with K’s. Please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts — that helps more people find the podcast and helps me keep doing this. And if you’re feeling extra supportive, please go to makemeanerd.com/join. Hitting that button will get you your episodes ad-free and early, and my eternal gratitude.
You are delightful, Nate. Tell everybody where they can find your podcast and follow you.
Nate McWhortor:
Please go to Apple Podcasts. It’s called Gank That Drink. It’s a supernatural drinking game — we watch the beloved show Supernatural and play drinking games with all the episodes. We are about to embark on our final season of the show, so get it in while you can. Go listen to old episodes. Very fun. I host it with Chrissy Lenz, who’s my best friend — I don’t know if I’m hers, but —
Mandy Kaplan:
Will you ever have a guest?
Nate McWhortor:
We did have a guest. Mandy was a guest on it.
Mandy Kaplan:
Woohoo!
Nate McWhortor:
We talked about an episode — “Twihard.”
Mandy Kaplan:
Twihard.
Nate McWhortor:
That’s right. Have you watched any more since?
Mandy Kaplan:
No. Not because I don’t like it, but I just haven’t.
Nate McWhortor:
Okay, that’s fine. It’s a fun show. I love Supernatural.
I also want to plug — if you are in the Phoenix area, come to the Neighborhood Comedy Theater in downtown Mesa, Arizona. We do improv shows on Fridays and Saturday nights, sometimes other times. We’ve got sketch, different shows at different times. nctphoenix.com.
Mandy Kaplan:
All the links will be in the show notes.
Nate McWhortor:
They’ll be in the show notes. Sorry, I’m so unprofessional.
Mandy Kaplan:
Pete’s got it. Pete’s the best. I love you, Pete. Okay. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on, and thank you all for listening. And Hondo!
Nate McWhortor:
Hondo.
