SIO400: Good Will Hunting, Bad Science Thingy

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:17 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 400. 400! Beep, beep, beep! Okay, 400.

0:00:24 Thomas: Thus ends the celebration of the numerology of the episode. No, how's it going? I'm Thomas Smith. Today, I've got a really fun thing for you. So, here's the thing. Seriously Awful Movies 3, which was Good Will Hunting, and we had Stormy Decisus on, Dr. Alan Smirbeck and Omar Najam on to have a good time and roast this movie, but also honestly it's a pretty good movie actually, so we also, it was fun because it was like there's great things about it, there's also really dumb unscientific things about it. Stormy had a great time being the sort of the negatron of this one despite my feeling like it was actually a pretty good movie.

Stormy, uh, Stormy had a lot of complaints, which is good because that's what we come to Seriously Awful Movies for. Uh, if you've never checked it out, that's the goal. It's to have some fun, make some jokes, but also learn about the real science behind some, some Hollywood stuff. Now I won't always turn these into a regular episode, as I'm sure you've noticed, but this one we recorded like three episodes worth of content. Tent.

That's why it took me quite a long time to get the edit done. And so I thought it would be cool to have a normie edit that we put out as an episode. This is still going to be fun standalone, an hour selection of it that you could just listen to as a non -patron. Or if you're so inclined, you could go pledge on patreon.com/seriouspod and go grab the whole thing. Got to be at the second tier and above to get that. If not, no worries.

This starts us off right when we start actually talking about the movie. There's a good like 10, 12 minutes of pre jokes that we do, but I figured, you the main feed, I figured it'd be better to just get right into the movie, so that's why it starts off here. I don't think there are any callbacks, but if there are, sorry, gotta just go be a patron. No, this one is really fascinating.

We learned some stuff about, you about therapy, about, by the the way, about Robin Williams. Stormy tells us some stuff about Robin Williams and the condition he succumbed to and some of that story and why that was very interesting to experts like Alan Smirbeck to kind of witness when that happened. So all kinds of interesting stuff there. Hope you enjoy it. Once again, if you'd like to get the whole thing, just go to patreon.com/seriouspod right now, and you wouldn't have to hear the auto ads. If not, I hope you enjoy this hour selection of it. But think I it stands alone quite well. So I hope you enjoy it.

0:02:45 Lydia: All right. Our story begins. We open up on a poor neighborhood and Ben Affleick walks up to a house. Matt Damon walks out and they drive away. And all we see about the very beginning. It's really scene setting.

0:02:57 Alan: We start with with kaleidoscopic We start mit kaleidoscope math because geniuses have have bug eyes and they see in hexagons and then we see twunk Matt Damon reading a book and turning the pages way too fast. Yeah.

0:02:58 Lydia: Right. Right? Yes. Yes. There are flies. There actually flies. Yeah.

0:03:13 Thomas: Yeah. Why is that part of it? Like, I get he remembers everything he reads, but, like, why does he also read it super fast? Like, he could at least carefully read it and then remember it. What's wrong with that?

0:03:23 Alan: No, that's, that's fucking nonsense. So book twunk is a problem already. Well,

0:03:26 Lydia: Speed reader.

0:03:29 Thomas: Twunk is a new one, I don't think I know that one what's twunk, is that a twink and a hunk?

0:03:31 Lydia: Yeah, what's the twunk?

0:03:33 Alan: I think it's the past tense of twink, but it's supposed to be a portmanteau of twinken hunk, but

0:03:37 Thomas: Twigging

0:03:38 Lydia: Okay. You're right on, hun.

0:03:39 Alan: No,

0:03:38 Thomas: On. Okay, so yeah, wait, but aren't those like opposite things?

0:03:43 Lydia: No, I don't think so.

0:03:45 Thomas: No?

0:03:45 Alan: Like a twink is, is like, uh, young looking, smooth is sort of the thing, whereas you know, so you can be a little muscly and be a twunk. Yeah.

0:03:45 Thomas: Okay, gotcha okay thank you. This is for, for these twunks yeah, it

0:03:56 Omar: 90s was quite twunky, wasn't it? Like, the 90s featured a lot of twunks, yeah.

0:04:02 Lydia: The vibe. Yeah I know.

0:04:03 Alan: Well,

0:04:05 Thomas: Was amazing how young looking he was. I was like, yeah, he is really young, I didn't, back in the day, I didn's, I just thought he was like, yeah, he's, because he's older than me, so everybody older than you at a certain age, you're like, yeah, he's an old, he's an adult, and then you look now and you're like, fuck, he is a kid actually. I

0:04:09 Omar: Mm -him.

0:04:14 Lydia: Sure. So leading a math class of something. I don't know because I never took these advanced math things, so everything is nonsense to me. Okay, and he says that he's putting something up on the chalkboard. I wrote down advanced fury system. Is that something? Is that real?

0:04:29 Thomas: Believe it's linear algebra, advanced

0:04:39 Lydia: Did I get that right or did I getthat wrong?

0:04:39 Thomas: Fury system, yeah

0:04:41 Omar: That's a tie -in to the Avengers.

0:04:42 Alan: It's it's Nick yeah exactly, it's a Nick Fury system. Okay.

0:04:43 Thomas: Yeah

0:04:44 Omar: Yeah.

0:04:43 Lydia: I should have put subtitles on at that point.

0:04:48 Omar: This was a tease, yeah.

0:04:49 Thomas: Stone

0:04:50 Alan: So the professor is is like Stellan Skarsgard and he's wearing a striped shirt that I would associate with a six-year-old at picture day on 1992, and he got a suit coat and he is wearing a scarf from the Jennifer Aniston collection, and he is always wearing that fucking, I call him Scarf Scarred. And he actually tosses a fucking apple, which I find offensive.

0:04:53 Thomas: Scar is good. Yeah, yeah.

0:04:53 Lydia: Yeah.

0:04:54 Omar: Mm -hmm. Yes.

0:05:11 Omar: Skarsgård's good.

0:05:12 Thomas: Scarf Scarred, love It all, right, I know that

0:05:17 Alan: As a professor, I feel like calling it academic blackface is going too far, but I found it offensive. Offensive.

0:05:17 Thomas: Was, uh, okay.

0:05:18 Lydia: That. Was really silly.

0:05:27 Omar: Yeah.

0:05:28 Lydia: Yeah.

0:05:30 Thomas: That's that's I'm glad you said that was going too far, because that would be going too far, but it's still very funny.

0:05:35 Alan: Okay. Maybe, maybe a little too far. Okay, we're good. We're good

0:05:37 Thomas: Yeah. Well, okay, but here's, now all of a sudden I'm defending this movie that I thought I hated. Were they trying to do a, like, oh, they're turning that on its head, because he, like, sees it and then he throws it to, like, the kiss-ass student, is like, all right, man, get out of here, you know, because

0:05:50 Alan: Why does he have a fucking apple? He's lecturing

0:05:53 Thomas: The the kiss ass student put it on his desk, and so he takes it, and he throws it. I know, but I'm, that would be okay. Now you've got a carrot. It, I'm gonna do it. I want to go back to college just to bring my professor different produce, a pumpkin, a fucking a gourd. Uh, yeah, what's the funniest eggplant, full eggplant?

0:05:57 Alan: Nobody does that No one just hands me produce

0:05:58 Lydia: Yeah. Oh,

0:06:07 Alan: And you just be like here have some kale

0:06:16 Omar: The best picks of the farmer's market.

0:06:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:16 Lydia: Full eggplant yeah. Before

0:06:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:18 Alan: Yeah, I know, like, here's a kiwi. And the least realistic part of this is the graduate students who are paying attention. Okay. I have taught grad students that is not what they do, and they clapped at the end of the lecture. I cannot emphasize enough how fucking wrong that is.

0:06:20 Omar: Yeah. Hmm.

0:06:29 Thomas: Okay. I have so many questions. Oh,

0:06:36 Lydia: We move on to that, though I do have a quick aside about professors and produce, because I did give a teacher produce in High school, but not because I was trying to like kiss ass or anything like that. His rule was if you're, you're going to eat in my class, then you need to bring food for me. And so my best friend James and I, James brought mangoes one day. So we just handed him a mango. And we ate mangoes, which are notoriously difficult to cut open and eat. And, and we all just looked really disgusting in economics

0:06:43 Thomas: God, sure. So,

0:06:53 Omar: What?

0:07:06 Omar: This is chaos magic, Wanda, that's what economics

0:07:09 Lydia: Yeah

0:07:10 Thomas: Here's my question about the apple thing, I was wondering about the Good Will Hunting, the stupidest name for a movie of all time, I was also, these 25 years, wondering about the apple thing. Because here's the thing about the apple idea, and Stormy, you're a professor, pretend that that was real, even though it's not, do they decide which one person is going to bring you the apple? Because the apples that I would eat in a day would be from zero to one apples, that would be as money as I would possibly eat, but what if, like, five kids bring you apples and then you're like, cool,

0:07:11 Lydia: Yeah

0:07:43 Alan: I want to be very clear that fewer than 10 % of my students would I accept food that was not hermetically sealed from.

0:07:44 Lydia: Come first serve

0:07:54 Alan: Like, some of them, poison. Very high. I don't know what the hell they're putting in any food.

0:07:50 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, an

0:07:51 Lydia: Listen,

0:08:01 Alan: I would not trust food from 90 % of my students. It doesn't matter how many of them bring in the apple. I wouldn't eat them.

0:08:01 Thomas: Edible in an apple, but I've always wondered in the, in the universe in which that's a real custom, do they draw straws, how do they know, you know what I mean, or is it just, there's always one kiss-ass, Lydia, in a class who's gonna bring It's gonna bring an apple to the teacher, I

0:08:20 Lydia: Again, not a kiss-ass, I just wanted to eat in class, and so there was a way to do that, and that's what I did because I wanted to eat a mango, yeah, and there was like juice, like, all over the desks, it was awesome

0:08:26 Thomas: Can't

0:08:30 Omar: A mango mango, like

0:08:33 Alan: Yeah, like, here's a lobster. Please

0:08:38 Omar: What was it next week like a pineapple, like, it's, yes,

0:08:39 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah.

0:08:40 Thomas: Wait, to bring like a freshly dug out, like, onion or potato or something, like the full dirt, like, all over just every day, I need to go to school now and so we got Scarf Scarred, which is amazing, that is amazing, so selling scarf, scar, again, that this character drives me nuts, because it's a complete stereotype, there's a lot of tropey stereotype stuff in this movie that does make it weaker. But, if you're going to have a professor's trope, Stellan Skarsgård has fucking nailed the casting.

0:08:47 Lydia: Amazing. Amazing

0:08:49 Alan: Take this academic scallion. A

0:08:53 Omar: Here.

0:08:56 Lydia: Scarred. Yeah. He's gonna deliver.

0:09:11 Thomas: You nailed the castings. All the casting is perfect in this film. He's put a problem on the board that, yeah, That Nobody Vince Fury You saw Matt Damon solving it by going like he just gets more mad and holy shit, that janitor's doing an advanced fury system, he's red

0:09:11 Omar: Mm -hmm. And

0:09:11 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Yes, an advanced fury system. That's not an advanced theory system, apparently. Okay, no, no. I spelled it. No, I spelled F -E -U

0:09:23 Omar: None of these, he's he's

0:09:34 Alan: Fucking hulk.

0:09:34 Omar: Punching he's just punching, the punching the chalkboard, he finally did it who

0:09:37 Lydia: -R -Y. Isn't that a thing?

0:09:43 Thomas: The way they know he solved it is there's like a punch hole in the board and there's like, what, my god, somebody did an advanced furry system, uh, oh furry fury, Fourier, or whatever, Fourier probably, uh, yeah Fourier analysis or whatever, is, yeah, yeah yeah

0:09:51 Omar: Punched the board

0:09:44 Lydia: Okay, what is a fury yeah what I don't oh okay I don't know yeah I made something up anyway, so it goes on the chalkboard and and uh, Stellan Skarpskaard says whoever can prove this by the end of the semester, you know, you, you're amazing and you'll win the bragging

0:10:10 Thomas: You'll get a movie be made after you, whoever solves this, we're gonna write a script about you yeah

0:10:12 Lydia: Rights and yeah Yeah. And then we see Matt Damon come in and, and he is a janitor and he sneaks a little peek at that chalkboard while he's mopping.

0:10:25 Alan: Now he's mopping while the students are standing two feet away. So let's start with the fact that he's a bad janitor. Also, his janitor suit says Bob on it. I want to know where Bob is and what Will did to him. Is the mystery of this movie. Who killed Bob?

0:10:25 Lydia: Um, Oh, good eyes. Hmm.

0:10:32 Thomas: Oh that's interesting yeah

0:10:43 Omar: I'll say it's some Good Will Hunting a

0:10:45 Alan: Yeah.

0:10:45 Lydia: Yeah.

0:10:43 Thomas: That's a good question I I can even think of an in-universe explanation for that, I mean, there was the whole thing of like, oh, his, his parole officer got him this job, and yeah, I know, that doesn't, maybe he just got it and so he's using someone else's entire, that feels, feels invasive though, right, when you, if you have a uniform that's like a full-on that covers, that's like a onesie or whatever that's

0:10:56 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah.

0:11:03 Alan: Yeah, no, that's like sharing bathing suits. I don't want to do that.

0:11:04 Omar: One piece yeah no

0:11:04 Lydia: Or Bob retired. Yeah.

0:11:04 Thomas: Yeah exactly, yeah, Stormy's picking up what I'm, like, yeah, exactly, you don't, you don't lend those, you don't wear underwear under those, by the way, you just, I don't know if you know this

0:11:10 Alan: Yeah. Yeah. No, Bob is naked in a closet, tied up, and Good Will Hunting just is wearing his skin suit. Okay? Yeah,

0:11:15 Lydia: Commando.

0:11:16 Omar: No Yeah,

0:11:15 Thomas: Yeah you know when, when Matt Damon has to go to the bathroom on the job, he has to put the whole thing down and then, yeah, it's

0:11:28 Omar: It's romper life Yeah Bath

0:11:30 Thomas: A rough example.

0:11:28 Lydia: Like a romper. Like bane of my existence. You end up naked in a bathroom way too many times. Oh, man. And so we just know that he got a peek at that chalkboard, and then we cut over to him and Ben Affleck going to a bar. But Matt Damon calls it at an early night, he can't hang, um, math on his mind, you know, and so he starts riding on a mirror and he's cracked it, folks, he's tracked it.

0:11:36 Omar: On

0:11:39 Thomas: Oh, he's got math to do, yeah, yep,

0:11:56 Alan: Because all great ideas are best expressed by losing your security deposit. Know, that's his plan.

0:12:01 Lydia: You

0:12:00 Thomas: Yeah, Is paper... like, paper is a thing that I found paper to be quite useful, like, it, it holds up, paper does, um. So here's what I'm trying to remember. There is some send up of this, and I don't know if it's a show. I don't know if it's, it might be a web comic now that I think about it, where it shows this setup, and then the janitor's like, hmm, and he's writing something on the board, you know, and then he leaves, and it's just like boobs. Like, he just, he drew that. It is Perry Bible. Okay, that's funny. I actually remembered it right as I was saying, that's why I said web comic. Perry Bible's Fellowship is amazing, okay.

0:12:06 Omar: We stretched

0:12:24 Alan: Bible Fellowship. Quickly, some actual science on savants and geniuses. They're not magic. Don't just randomly know shit. Matt Damon could have an incredible facility for learning math, but he doesn't just automatically know it. But

0:12:36 Thomas: Yeah,

0:12:39 Omar: Yeah

0:12:47 Thomas: Well, well, well, Stormy, in universe defense, to believe that Matt Damon has read every book that's ever existed, that's his character, he's read all the math books forever, ever, so therefore he can solve any math problem.

0:12:55 Omar: Oh

0:13:00 Alan: You actually have to work at it. They bring up later Ramanujan, who's arguably a fascinating person. And by the way, great story about the importance of paper. Paper. Ramanujan was Indian under the British rule, and he came up with all these incredible theorems. And when he was proving them, he would write the proof on a slate because he didn't have enough money for paper, and He would only write the conclusion on paper. So we don't have the proofs for a lot of his conclusions. People had to go back and work them out later. So

0:13:02 Thomas: Yeah, Oh, yeah, I looked that up.

0:13:08 Omar: Huh?

0:13:09 Lydia: Oh, gosh.

0:13:40 Thomas: Yeah,

0:13:41 Alan: Matt Damon is not appreciating math, and he is not appreciating paper enough. The whole thing about, like, Ramanujan is arguably one of the most brilliant mathematical minds ever to live, but he had to live and breathe math and do all this stuff. Just reading a couple of books, that's not a realistic portrayal.

0:13:41 Omar: Ooh.

0:13:47 Thomas: Yeah, right, so you're telling me he wasn't also reading the entire history curriculum so that he can embarrass one poor student at MIT or Harvard, yeah.

0:14:10 Lydia: At Harvard. Yeah?

0:14:07 Alan: No, things, but basically, like Like, this is not even a realistic portrayal of the most incredible mathematician in, the last couple hundred years.

0:14:19 Thomas: So, frustrating.

0:14:20 Alan: So this is insane. Then he the subway like a dejected Backstreet Boy.

0:14:27 Thomas: Should have just drawn on the subway window. Like, why not, you know, screw it, why, you know, that's probably another reason I hated this movie so much the first time, I, I, it is, I have always hated the stupid lowest common denominator portrayal of genius that we do as a society where they read, they just memorize, I love the worst thing, we're gonna get to it, but when he cites a page number of the history book that he read as though that would be anything, anything meaningful, oh really, it's page 98, which, which fucking printing is it that you're saying page 98 is that the fucking first edition or the seventh edition that I paid way too much money for because college fucking cost like 400 a piece, you know, it's just stupid, it's stupid stuff like that, but, but I really do identify in a weird way, the fact that I hated this movie so much as a kid and then now I like kind of appreciate it, is sort of like the, the journey that he takes. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm identifying with this too much.

0:14:30 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah."

0:14:41 Omar: Right.

0:15:19 Lydia: Will

0:15:19 Thomas: Like I was bothered by all these like things that are like nitpicky, you know, like, ah, this is dumb, you're dumb. And now I'm just like watching Robin Williams portray and just crying the whole time and just being like, this was a great movie.

0:15:27 Lydia: Hunting would say that. Yeah.

0:15:36 Thomas: Oh, good. At least we have Stormy to the me I used to be.

0:15:33 Alan: It's fucking awful. Well,

0:15:40 Omar: Keep us anchored. Yeah.

0:15:41 Thomas: Yeah. All

0:15:42 Lydia: Get the most Boston accents in the next bit, right? We go to the batting cages peak Bostonian.

0:15:45 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, we can skip it. We can skip this, yeah.

0:15:50 Alan: That's when he's throwing baseballs at Ben Affleck. I'd like to stay on that for just a minute. It by the way maybe you people who play sports do you go pitch at the batting cages man

0:16:00 Omar: A

0:15:59 Thomas: Yep, nope, nope. That's not a thing.

0:16:01 Lydia: Even I knew that, hun. I was like, yeah. I was like that's not what you do. And so I started writing batting cases and I was like, wait, am I wrong? Aren't these supposed to be batting pages? Like why is he in there with him I know

0:16:04 Thomas: Oh, good. If you were going to... Wow, I'm really, wow, hon. I'm very proud of you. That's, that's you call it a base bat when you were...

0:16:15 Lydia: Yeah thank you no I did not. How dare you. Oh god it's

0:16:20 Thomas: Like we've told the story, but... Well, we don't have to embarrass Lydia on her birthday. It's Okay. Okay, so it's fine

0:16:24 Lydia: Okay no it's funny I'm I'm fine if people laugh at me, it's fine.

0:16:26 Thomas: No It's just a one of those brain fart moments that was one of the funniest things ever because, like, Lydia knows nothing about sports whatsoever. She famously does the George Michael from Arrested Development. If I throw anything toward her, like, no matter what it is, how softly it is, she does, she crumples. And does the still doing that, huh, yeah she, she does, then it's the Smalls from from, uh, yeah from Sandlot yeah, she does, those are her two modes. She either cowers if something is thrown toward her or walks it to you if you want her to throw it to you. I can't express to you -sports people apparently how much I love a good throw of a thing. Like I would love nothing, if you got keys to throw at me, oh my god,

0:16:32 Lydia: Yeah yeah well and then like you want me to throw it back to you and I walk it over yeah yeah from Sandlot or dangerous

0:17:13 Thomas: I want to go long. I want you to throw those keys 50 yards. It's my favorite thing.

0:17:16 Omar: Real Dukes of Hazzard guy

0:17:18 Thomas: It is ah, It's just so satisfying. I need Heath, I need my good buddy Heath on this show. I a kid at heart, if there's an excuse, oh hey, toss me those keys, I'm like, oh yeah hey baby, I'm gonna, I'm gonna run, I'm going to jump, I'm to catch them for fun, and then Lydia, you, instead of all that delightful fun, just walks them over to you and you're just like, ah, thank you, great, that's I have I have the keys yeah that

0:17:14 Lydia: No

0:17:18 Omar: Over here.

0:17:37 Lydia: Of your life yeah I'll just hand it to the kids and then the kids can throw it at you, yeah so

0:17:45 Thomas: Don't work, yeah but I apologize, I hon, I was going to give you credit, uh yeah No, that's, that's absolutely right, right. You either go to the batting cages for a pitching machine to pitch really hard at you and you hit, or you go to a fucking baseball field. If the thing you wanted to do was throw the ball, he says you're crowding the plate. There's no plate. You're not like, I mean, technically you could say, yeah, you're crowning the strike zone, but it's just, you would be much better doing that out at a fucking, like an old Boston -y fucking, you know, beat up baseball field? I don't, doesn't make any sense. I'm so glad that my non -sports wife, even my non sports wife who cowers when you throw something in her direction was like, this doesn't makes sense. You, sports strong.

0:17:50 Lydia: Sure, right, right. Field, yeah.

0:18:07 Omar: Yeah. It's

0:18:17 Lydia: Yeah, called a bat a base bat one time. Yeah so, yes, so we go to some sort of alumni event. Stellan's wearing a jacket. A lot of people are wearing jackets. And a student approaches him saying, like, I got to talk to you. And he's really gross here, right? And he said, it's Saturday. Leave me alone unless you want to have a drink with me tonight.

0:18:28 Thomas: Damn right.

0:18:42 Thomas: I know, I know.

0:18:46 Lydia: And that was really gross.

0:18:46 Alan: Yeah, remember when that was funny? No? Okay.

0:18:49 Lydia: Yeah. Well, and that's something that comes up as a joke several times throughout the movie.

0:18:54 Alan: Yeah it does.

0:18:54 Thomas: But it's not a joke.

0:18:56 Lydia: It's not.

0:18:56 Thomas: It's not. So here's, here's the thing, I his character sucks. Like he's actually a a shitty guy, and in 1997, like, I actually kind of feel like this shitty character would have been doing exactly that and getting away with it. So in my mind it's like, you know, I I don't I think you it is, you know, that's a shit thing to do yeah everyone sees. I've got some notes.

0:18:57 Lydia: Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

0:19:12 Omar: Representative yeah no

0:19:14 Lydia: Especially with Harvey Weinstein at the helm. Yeah yeah, hey, this line's worked for me before, like, maybe we should add it to the script or

0:19:21 Omar: More no gay stuff.

0:19:19 Thomas: Uh, yeah, but it is shocking how casual it is, like, like, literally, it's so casual and so quickly inserted that you're like, oh god, that felt violating, that you just I

0:19:25 Alan: Some misdemeanors? Yeah.

0:19:33 Lydia: Like like the Mini Driver bit later on, when she answers the phone and it's silent and she's like, "Professor so-and-so," no,

0:19:39 Thomas: Know, but does she say his name? Okay.

0:19:41 Alan: No.

0:19:42 Thomas: Thank god yeah, I think she said so, there's more than one per professor on this campus, yeah.

0:19:41 Lydia: I don't think so, no. No, no, someone from Harvard, yeah, yeah, um, essentially, student the has come to him because she wants to let him know someone's already proved proved the problem that was placed on the chalkboard, and they all rushed to the building on a Saturday, and no one knows who proved it.

0:20:00 Alan: I don't think you can prove a theorem in 10 lines of text. I'm matheologist, but I'm aware that that's how that works.

0:20:09 Omar: I feel like I'm getting treated so well in the show, uh, is of no surprise, because the last episode I was on was Armageddon, and this is Goodwill Hunting, and they both, while they're very different films in many regards, they both have sort of this Americana of just, like, but what if the guy just solved it, but you smart guys, you think you could solve it? What if they guys just solved, maybe you're not that smart, maybe you should pick up a broom and learn something, you mathematician, huh? Like, maybe, oh my

0:20:15 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:20:25 Thomas: Yeah he's a janitor, he's the fucking he's fucking janitor, bro.

0:20:39 Lydia: Close

0:20:39 Thomas: Yeah, and they're both from like the same year, I think, roughly, yeah.

0:20:42 Lydia: To it, right? Armageddon 98? 98, yeah.

0:20:44 Omar: Yes mm

0:20:45 Thomas: Know is, Elliot Smith was nominated for an Oscar for the song and lost to "My Heart Will Go On."

0:20:48 Lydia: To Celine Dion, yeah, yeah.

0:20:52 Thomas: And so, yeah, I guess this would have been the year before Oscars wise, right? So, yeah. Okay. I that Armageddon won, those were Armageddons swept the OscARS in 1998.

0:20:53 Omar: -hmm clash

0:20:57 Lydia: Yeah the '98 Oscars yeah and right, right. Oh my

0:21:05 Thomas: Obviously. Come on. I've done some looking up of the math of this just for fun, because I love math, but it happens to be an area of math I never got into I was never into the linear math, like, all these matrices and shit. But like, let it suffice to say, this isn't really that difficult of a problem. They did they did actually, do, as far as movies go, they probably did a better job than most movies, like, most of them are so fucking dumb with this stuff. But they went in and they actually asked, like, the actual MIT professor, of you know, or like a Columbia University professor, uh, like, "Hey, what's a hard one that would, whatever," and they they took one of the answers they gave them, which was this, and by all accounts, it's like, well, this isn't really that hard of a problem. Like, this would have been on a quiz, like, yeah, you know, like, so it's kind

0:21:06 Lydia: God yeah it's

0:21:06 Omar: 1998 yeah

0:21:49 Lydia: Wouldn't

0:21:50 Thomas: Of funny

0:21:50 Lydia: Get a whole semester to work on something

0:21:50 Thomas: No yeah it would be like, this could have been a quiz, and like a first or second year probably would be able to do it, and it's not really a proof, it's just like you're solving it or whatever, so it's kind of funny, but it's Not That Bad.

0:22:01 Omar: Yeah

0:21:52 Lydia: Yeah interesting well I I do appreciate that this movie, at least, considered, you know, listening to the experts that they consulted with, as opposed to Armageddon, when we got the rockets going off next to each other, that's true, that's true.

0:22:02 Thomas: Yeah, well

0:22:11 Alan: Mean they They didn't listen to experts about psychology. We'll get to that.

0:22:16 Thomas: Or did you listen to Armagedon, I forget

0:22:17 Alan: Listened to your Armageddon episode.

0:22:19 Omar: For four Oscars, by the way, looked it up, Armageddon nominated for four Oscars, had nothing to do with the story, nothing to do with the acting, it was all sound mixing, editing,

0:22:30 Lydia: Of course,

0:22:25 Thomas: Were they all technical, though? Or yeah Yeah, there you go. Stormy, if you had to evaluate evaluate Armageddon Butchering Space versus this movie Butchery Genius and Therapy, which is worse?

0:22:33 Lydia: Of course.

0:22:41 Alan: One, because it has Ben Affleck.

0:22:43 Thomas: They both have Ben Affleck. Yeah, you can't get out with that.

0:22:44 Omar: They do I'm so sorry

0:22:44 Lydia: Yeah, Affleck. Oh my God, this is the Ben Afflick show.

0:22:46 Alan: So Ben AffLEck

0:22:47 Thomas: Yeah, it is.

0:22:48 Alan: Cancels out if I remember how to do algebra. You subtract Ben AffLeck from both sides, and then you divide by that fucking accent, and I still am fucking furious.

0:22:50 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Cancels out in a furrier system. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And way they portray genius is so fucking frustrating. It is it is up there with launching a his and hers rocket, which is my favorite thing that's ever happened, which was on Armageddon. So anyway.

0:23:10 Lydia: Yeah. So meanwhile, we don't know what's going on there, but we get a little cutaway to, the audience obviously knows who did it. And so we get to see a little bit more more of what his life is like. And Matt in the car with all of his little friends and they pull over because, yeah, they

0:23:24 Alan: No, before that, they are drinking and cheering on Little League, like, when they don't have children in the game, like non-sex criminals do, let's just start there in

0:23:35 Omar: Yep.

0:23:35 Lydia: Really like baseball.

0:23:36 Thomas: Movie was over a little over two hours, and I think they could have trimmed quite a lot. Lot of it, like I get that we want to have the like Southie personalities, but there's a lot of that that it doesn't really matter. It doesn't fucking matter at all, yeah.

0:23:41 Lydia: Yeah. And we get plenty of that in

0:23:51 Thomas: It's like we get it, man, like

0:23:51 Lydia: The bar scenes. Yeah, But they do pull over in their car at the end of the Little League game. They're driving on and then they pull over because Matt Damon recognizes somebody, and they jump out and beat everybody up intensely in slow motion in slow motion

0:24:06 Thomas: You do, that's what everybody in Boston does, yeah.

0:24:09 Alan: Front of a bunch of 12-year-olds who are playing basketball and I want to point out that one of the 12-year-old's is wearing a shirt that says security, which is presumably a reference to the job, and not his favorite level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but given the level of subtlety in this movie, I honest to god think that Ben Affleck and And Matt Damon thought that that was, like, a brilliant allusion to Will Hunting being insecure.

0:24:10 Lydia: Yeah yeah um oh Man, oh my gosh, wow.

0:24:28 Thomas: Yeah uh He's beating up security, he's okay yeah brilliant

0:24:38 Alan: Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:38 Lydia: But

0:24:39 Omar: I Then, like, they form a group, and then that security person's, you know, know sort of within that group, which kind of makes that a little bit of Matt Damon having to face his insecurity and that is poetry Tennyson

0:24:48 Alan: Yeah, no, I honest to God think they think that this is fucking poetry. Oh my god, I wanna... My god, this is awful.

0:24:52 Omar: Level

0:24:51 Thomas: Know What, I'm glad you're here, Stormy, because Because you're converting me a little bit back to how I used to feel about this movie. And I do appreciate it.

0:25:02 Alan: Yeah. Well,

0:25:03 Lydia: Matt Damon, uh, gets arrested because he just attacked somebody

0:25:06 Thomas: Okay. Sorry. And here's the thing about this writing. He says, he bullied me in kindergarten. Hey, buddy. Remember me? We went to kindergarten together. Why kindergarten? Kindergarten, that, like, pick any fifth grade, yeah.

0:25:07 Lydia: Yes Yeah. Seventh grade.

0:25:18 Thomas: Like nobody remembers oh, like, oh, he remembers everything, I guess, but, like, like there weren't really bullies in kindergarten, they're so young that, like, there's, they don't know, there's no bullies really, I mean there's

0:25:16 Omar: Wild yeah yes

0:25:18 Lydia: Yeah. Also. Exactly. Exactly

0:25:28 Alan: The other kid was a genius at bullying. So he was six and he was ,like, bullying at an eighth grade level. Level, yeah.

0:25:33 Lydia: Advanced

0:25:34 Omar: Yeah

0:25:29 Thomas: Yeah he's the Moriarty he's he's a Moriarti to uh, to his Sherlock, if they were both like the

0:25:37 Omar: That was his, yeah his special interest yeah

0:25:40 Alan: No he he was six, and he was like drawing bullying on a chalkboard, and it was just fucking amazing, yeah.

0:25:45 Thomas: On the mirror, yeah.

0:25:46 Alan: I mean he was doing it in crayon, so it wasn't amazing, but yeah.

0:25:47 Thomas: He was He was drawing up, like, amazing your mama's so fat jokes on the mirror, and they're like, my god, this is a bullying, uh, they

0:25:56 Omar: You can only see it when, like, it's steamed, yeah. It's like really he's like going through extra levels of

0:25:59 Lydia: Bullying

0:25:59 Alan: Yeah yeah no here's a bullying prodigy see

0:26:02 Omar: Mm

0:26:03 Lydia: Then we cut back to MIT, and they still don't know who solved the problem up on the chalkboard. And so the faculty have all come together, and they've put up a new one that they said took them two years because they all want to know.

0:26:15 Alan: And there's about 50 extra people in that grad class, I want to be very clear that would not happen if I offered cocaine cane and puppies. Okay. Like that's not, and I just, this little thing, there is a ceiling mounted projector and there is the projector screen, but the projector is not pointing to the screen. Just, yeah, exactly.

0:26:21 Lydia: Yeah.

0:26:21 Omar: -hmm now

0:26:32 Thomas: Well because you got to get the quad chalkboard thing going, right? Because that's that signals genius more if, love to, like, okay, correct me if I'm wrong, if he's saying this took me and my fucking math buddies two years to whatever, I mean, then somebody could just go look up that paper, right? They just be like, okay, so this is published somewhere, I'll just look how it was done, yeah.

0:26:38 Lydia: Right.

0:26:55 Lydia: And write the answer up on the board. Yeah, so Damon is released. And where does he go? Straight to the chalkboard. But this time he's caught. Lot Skarsgård comes up with his buddy, and they think he was doing graffiti because, you know, no person who's a janitor could have a brain, I guess. And so they assume that he's just, you know. Riding all over the and he starts running away. And then Stellan comes back, and um, they find out actually he's the guy, he is the guy

0:26:55 Omar: That's genius thinking, though. You

0:26:58 Thomas: Can we

0:27:27 Alan: Actually trying to find Bob and

0:27:29 Thomas: Yeah, we talked about the um, the proper word here, can we talk about the little, the, the gimp mathematician who is the, who's the one that's like the little, like the sex gimp thing, like he's the like the the sub

0:27:40 Lydia: Yeah

0:27:43 Alan: Think he's supposed to be like a doctoral student or something and yeah, no. He's he's absolutely just sitting there, like, in jealousy.

0:27:45 Thomas: Yeah but he's like the there's a

0:27:48 Lydia: His his name is Tom Will

0:27:51 Alan: Yeah, being, being like cucked by Matt Damon and

0:27:55 Thomas: Hundred, there is a, okay, I didn't want to get weird, but there's 100% a, like, like Stellan Skarsgård is the dom, that guy's like this, and he's wearing a full gimp mask the whole time, and he is like constantly jealous of Ben Damon, and it's uncomfortable, like, it's really, do you have one of those? Stormy, as a professor, are you issued, like, an understudy that, like, worships you and follows you around and gets you coffee? You have to tell us the rules, are you have to tell us if

0:28:19 Alan: I'm I've been advised by my lawyer to say no, no.

0:28:22 Omar: Have to tell us actually uh-huh

0:28:28 Lydia: Though the guy who plays Tom, so his name is Tom, everybody, he has a name and um

0:28:33 Thomas: Doesn't he doesn't have a name

0:28:34 Lydia: The guy who plays him is actually a Canadian mathematician which fits, um, don't know. I liked him. I thought he was funny in a weird way.

0:28:39 Thomas: Funny, it's just sad like

0:28:43 Lydia: Yeah, that's

0:28:44 Thomas: It's just a weird sad, abusive, like, he's obviously like he wants to be like Mr. Math, math, like the the best boy Mr. Math to sell a scarf card, and then it's like other

0:28:44 Lydia: True. Yeah. He can't be. Yeah.

0:28:53 Alan: He, he's so pathetic that I am now looking at the fanfiction website for Good Will Hunting, fanfiction, there are more, so it has it listed like by characters, there Are more fanfictions that contain the characters of Supernatural than contain that guy. Sam and Dean Winchester are in more fan fictions than the Cuck doctoral student.

0:28:54 Thomas: Oh my god

0:29:00 Omar: Uh -uh yeah

0:29:04 Lydia: Yeah. Interesting.

0:29:17 Thomas: I don't know what that means, does that do you mean they're in fan fictions of this movie somehow? Oh,

0:29:19 Omar: That makes sense yeah

0:29:23 Alan: Someone wrote a fanfiction that is a cross between Good Will hunting and Supernatural. And there is

0:29:27 Thomas: I see what you're saying I was like yeah, you would expect it okay, there's more guest appearances from an entirely different thing than there are fan fics written about, which is sad, because I think he would make a good fanfic, like, like, GIMP character.

0:29:28 Alan: Yeah no, so I'm just letting you know how no, you could definitely write some, like, you know, a little offbeat, you know explicit

0:29:47 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. That's a different show. We'll tackle that at another show.

0:29:48 Alan: Exactly

0:29:50 Omar: I'll say this, I mean, folks, change, um, if you're not seeing, if you don't see enough Tom fanfic, uh, is always open, the door never closes

0:29:59 Thomas: Stormy will take you up on that.

0:30:00 Alan: That's that's what I'm on right now and I

0:30:01 Thomas: Yeah, Stormy will take me up on it. Oh,

0:30:00 Lydia: Oh,

0:30:00 Omar: What

0:30:01 Alan: Think we need to start a new podcast where I read, um, an entire Neil Gorsuch Brett Kavanaugh porn thing that I think we could I

0:30:09 Lydia: My God.

0:30:09 Thomas: God. Do they both die at the end? Because that's the only... If they both get in a car accident at the End, and the car accident is they both ran into Clarence Thomas. That's the Only Fanfic.

0:30:11 Omar: What

0:30:13 Alan: Mean is also a character in this, I can tell you that the the tags on this are monster fucking, dark crack, cock and ball torture, interspecies sex post row, um, no, that's Neil Gorsuch Brett Kavanaugh porn, yeah.

0:30:24 Omar: Iconic

0:30:30 Thomas: Sure. Or what, oh, are

0:30:37 Lydia: Go ahead and go to a bar, but now it's a Harvard bar. And Affleck approaches Minnie Driver. He sees her and her friend across the bar and wants to go hit on them. And while he's trying to hit on Them, you seem like they're having an okay time. A Harvard guy comes up and decides he wants to prove himself for some reason to these women that there's no, well, there's an indication that he knows Them.

0:30:54 Thomas: Perfect casting, what do you mean for some reason what

0:31:04 Lydia: Like, he hasn't approached them yet either, okay.

0:30:58 Omar: He

0:31:04 Thomas: Do, what do he talk he okay this nerd

0:31:07 Lydia: Tell me everything, yeah.

0:31:07 Thomas: Well what do, come on, like, this nerd, this is his one chance to shine this over there, so Ben Affleck is clearly an idiot in this movie, and my favorite bit of writing in this part is him saying, like, oh yeah, what class was it, yeah, history, just history, you just were just taking history at Harvard, that's interesting, I love that, and so we try to embarrass him with all this, like, boring manufactured, like, like, oh, the agrarian economy of the Southern colonies. And then Matt Damon, who is a superhero -esque, like a Marvel comic genius, is like, I know what book you read that's that. And now the next book you're going to read is this. And then the next look is this and

0:31:22 Omar: Had

0:31:24 Lydia: Yeah yeah and then Matt Damon jumps in, he intervenes yeah is this and then it'll evolve to this, and I can predict everything you're gonna think

0:31:49 Thomas: He says, page 98. It bothers me so much. Oh, yeah. Page 98 page. You could have at least said chapter. That's a universe like, yeah, no, it's chapter seven. Page 98. That's as stupid as saying history. That's a stupid as when he said the class was named history. That's that dumb.

0:32:01 Alan: This is, and and again

0:32:07 Thomas: Page 98,

0:31:50 Lydia: Yeah yeah right

0:32:08 Alan: Real stuff about geniuses, they're not geniuses in everything, that's like, that's saying, you know, oh, what are you good at, all of them, yeah.

0:32:18 Thomas: I'm pretty good at sport though. But have you heard of one?

0:32:20 Alan: No, I'm I'm sure you're fucking awesome on the parallel bars, literally no is

0:32:24 Thomas: You heard of one Bo Jackson? Exactly. So I don't want you opining on sports, Stormy, until you go do some homework.

0:32:32 Alan: He also amazing on the the parallel bars, okay.

0:32:34 Thomas: Jackson was a pro in two sports. Amazing Not very many people in the history of time have ever, there's only a couple who've been pro in two sports. But anyway, uh, I guess technically speaking, he was, he was triple a ball which is pro yeah Well, It's it's technically it's Pro, but not like major league, so like Bo Jackson was literally major league baseball player and NFL football player. He's like one of the best athletes of all time, uh, probably was, yeah, let's

0:32:36 Alan: So

0:32:42 Lydia: Michael Jordan, yeah. Yeah. That's what I was referencing. Crazy.

0:32:45 Omar: That baseball career in space jam, yeah. Yep.

0:32:57 Alan: Was also great at archery, at

0:32:56 Lydia: Um. And so we get, we get a of that back and forth and and many drivers into it, so she approaches Matt Damon and gives him her number, and Matt Damon's super, uh, about it, to the point where he sees that Harvard douchebag at a at a restaurant.

0:33:17 Thomas: This is the stupidest thing that anyone has ever it's

0:33:20 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, yeah, you're

0:33:18 Alan: A Duncan not a restaurant at a Duncan donuts I

0:33:21 Lydia: Right. You're right, it was Dunkin'. You're right.

0:33:23 Omar: Donkeys

0:33:23 Thomas: Out of Duncan, that part's, that part's good, I like that part, the fact that it's at a Duncan is good but this is the stupidist thing I have thought about this for fucking 20 years since I've seen this, whatever it was, because this is the dumbest thing ever, like up to the window where that guy is and goes, Hey, do you like apples?

0:33:24 Omar: Yep

0:33:26 Lydia: It's accurate, yeah.

0:33:41 Lydia: Yeah.

0:33:42 Thomas: Kind of a question? Imagine somebody just comes up to you and says, do you like apples. The guy's like, yeah, of course I like it. I'm a red blooded American. I like app like what? I'd just be like, shut up, fuck you. And then what if he, what if he answers anything other than yes, like what is Matt Damon's plan after he asked him, do you like apples, he's like, fuck you. Well, if you had said that you like apples, then I had a really good one, that was, how do you like them apples, which is still not even, is that anything, did this movie invent that is that a phrase

0:33:59 Omar: Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:19 Alan: Mean no, that is a phrase but I feel like Matt Damon has like a learning disability in the area of bullying, yeah.

0:34:21 Thomas: Yeah Oh, well, this is one weakness

0:34:26 Omar: I see.

0:34:28 Alan: No we had like the other person who was the bullying savant, and he's just shitty at it. He

0:34:28 Omar: It's a balance. Yeah,

0:34:28 Thomas: Yeah no you're right yeah There's a deleted scene where that guy, he's all beat up, still, still, he's got like a black eye. He's like, no, you're doing it right here, let me help you. And he like does a way better bullying thing because that's his gift.

0:34:40 Alan: Gives him like a noogie and Matt Daman like tries to do a noogie, but he just ends up styling his hair. Yeah, no, it's all fucked, like

0:34:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:41 Omar: That's really funny. A person who's genuinely terrible at bullying. It is like, hey,

0:34:48 Thomas: That's really good. Yeah. He keeps accidentally like making him better, like lifting him up more with his bullying.

0:34:56 Omar: Yeah,

0:34:55 Alan: He Tries Nagging But it's actually a compliment, like, you know, hey, that sweater would actually, you know, compliment your eyes. Like, no, man, That's fuck No, Shit

0:35:02 Thomas: Fuck. God damn it. It's my one weakness.

0:35:04 Alan: Yeah,

0:35:05 Omar: I your homework. It looks like you did it. Yeah

0:35:09 Lydia: How

0:35:09 Alan: Then he's like charged with breaking and redecorating, like he just breaks into your house and spiffs it up.

0:35:15 Thomas: Like Writing this movie, or if I am, uh, you know, one of the many people went over the script to probably make it better, I'd be like, hey, um, cut the whole apples part because that's fucking stupid. That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Nobody would answer a question. Do you like apples? That's not a question a human would ask. It's not question a human would answer. In this context, they would just give you the middle finger right away. And And then your whole plan of how do you like them apples, which is, that even a gotcha? You like apples? Sure, I like it. Who doesn't like apples? How do you like them apples? That's a, you got her number. Okay, but that doesn't really, does that own me? Like, damn it, I should have said, I don't like apples. Cause then he wouldn't have gotten her. Like, what? Doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. I, I, this bothered me for 20 years. I'm glad I finally get to say

0:35:26 Omar: Why

0:35:30 Lydia: Yeah.

0:36:01 Lydia: Two

0:36:01 Thomas: Piece.

0:36:02 Lydia: Things. How you like the apples is from World War I, apparently, um, anti-tank grenade was called a toffee apple because it looked a bulb-like appearance on a stick, so um would like taunt the enemy with it, how do you like them apples, and throwing grenades over. Right, then the other thing is, I want to just say, you said a restaurant, you guys said it was a Duncan, but I want to speak in my defense because apparently, apparently it was filmed in a restaurant made to look like a Dunkin'. So, just want to say that real fast. I don't know. And it was in Toronto for some reason.

0:36:13 Thomas: Okay. I do like that.

0:36:30 Omar: They go to Dunkin' Donuts?

0:36:30 Thomas: You got us. Yeah. This was all filmed in Toronto. Right. So there's a lot of driving. A lot of, he's in court. We can skip this. The defending himself in court is kind of funny.

0:36:35 Lydia: Yeah.

0:36:41 Alan: No. He's a fremen on the land, he's just making shit up up in court, he's just like, well, according to freedom I have, um, right to No, it's okay, I'm gonna let it go, you'll

0:36:47 Thomas: It is pretty funny. I Now in jail, they're like the judge is throwing the book at him because it's like, you've been been here so many times your rap sheet's huge, and then the next scene is Professor Scarves Guard coming in and being like, I've spoken to The judge, judge.

0:36:57 Lydia: Rap sheet's crazy. Yeah, if you

0:37:06 Thomas: He's agreed to release you if like I personally, yeah, if you take my math class and

0:37:10 Lydia: Take my math class.

0:37:11 Alan: He was sentenced to math, I don't know the law but I, I know you do not get sentenced to numbers.

0:37:15 Omar: And

0:37:17 Lydia: Yeah, for

0:37:19 Thomas: Therapy. Now that I think about it, Stormy, if you got sentenced to math and therapy, that would actually be better than our current legal system. So I think criminal justice system would be massively improved if you got sentenced to math and therapy, actually. I think all men should get sentenced to therapy, be if there was a one strike you're out rule for that, calling

0:37:41 Omar: We're

0:37:36 Lydia: Sure. That would probably help a lot. Guess Matt Damon agrees to it, because next thing we see is him in Stellan's office, and they are...

0:37:48 Alan: Stellan's absolutely enormous office. It is bigger than my entire house. It is covered in identical old books, which means they're not actually useful books.

0:37:49 Lydia: Yeah.

0:37:59 Thomas: In nothing, yeah.

0:38:00 Alan: Yeah, no, and it looks like it was decorated by an 1800s earl. It is bizarre.

0:38:00 Thomas: Exactly. If he is supposed to be at MIT, is that plausible, though? And also, I should remind you, Stormy, he has a Fields Medal. Do you have a Fields Medal for that?

0:38:09 Omar: The tom

0:38:11 Alan: No, I can tell you that I can afford a better scarf than that. In scarves?

0:38:20 Lydia: It

0:38:20 Thomas: Do they give a field spell for that Is there like a Fields Mental Sky? Yeah. It, I don't know. Yep.

0:38:22 Alan: Yeah. And Then he puts his arm around Matt Damon and ruffles his hair.

0:38:27 Lydia: Was, yeah, it was a weird dad -son relationship.

0:38:28 Thomas: That was So fucking weird

0:38:31 Lydia: It was very weird.

0:38:28 Alan: Yeah,

0:38:31 Thomas: Because it, they did it way too fast, like, it, maybe they cut a bunch of deleted scenes where they were, like, developing this dynamic, but it doesn't work. Then, and it also doesn't make sense for the rest of the movie, like, no part of their relationship is this adorable, like, father-son relationship. But in this first scene, when he first gets bailed out of prison and goes and it becomes a math god for this guy while the, um, gimp character looks on with jealousy, he, like, rubs and tussles his hair a little bit, and you're just like, what? Yeah.

0:38:33 Lydia: Yes.

0:39:03 Lydia: And then they're canceling stuff out from that fraction, right? Like, it felt like they were playing catch, but for math nerds, they were, like, racing each other, you know, who could cancel out all the things faster. It is very weird, very strange.

0:39:08 Thomas: Highly math, by the way, canceling terms, uh, on the numerator and denominator that's, uh, you only, you don't attempt that on your first day of math, I'm just saying. You gotta, it's very advanced stuff. And so he goes through the therapist stuff, the rule of threes therapist. This is kind of funny, like, you got the first guy and he's such a genius.

0:39:19 Lydia: Yeah, yeah exactly.

0:39:34 Lydia: Outs him, right?

0:39:35 Alan: So, first of all, they, they don't understand the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist. So many movies miss that.

0:39:39 Thomas: That's, that's for sure.

0:39:41 Alan: But they also don't understand the different between a psychologist and psychology professor. Those are two totally different things.

0:39:40 Lydia: Right yeah yeah

0:39:46 Thomas: Yeah, yep. Well, hold on. Movie's defense. I believe that he's out of options. So he goes to his friend, Robin Williams, who is just a professor, but like, Hey,

0:39:52 Lydia: Interesting

0:39:55 Alan: No, the first the first couple I think are professors too, yeah.

0:39:57 Thomas: Oh, they are too.

0:40:01 Alan: Because Yeah, there's plenty of therapists in the world. By the way, I don't know much about the law, but I know that if you are sentenced to therapy, you have to see a therapist, a licensed therapist, psychology professors.

0:40:01 Thomas: Oh, okay. I didn't think so, but yeah.

0:40:01 Lydia: Oh

0:40:11 Thomas: Yeah yeah. Well Well, this, I feel like this was a handshake deal with, uh, with Stellan Skarsgård.

0:40:15 Alan: Psychology professors are generally not licensed therapists. It costs money to maintain your license. You would not have a therapy session with your math guardian sitting in there, like Especially if you're like trying to talk get him to admit he was sexually abused and here's the spectators.

0:40:26 Thomas: Yeah, I know. Yep. Yep.

0:40:28 Lydia: My gosh. Yeah. Right. The hypnosis piece. Exactly. Well, and Tom was there too, right?

0:40:34 Alan: Yeah. Let's bring along your angry younger brother to hear about this shit.

0:40:37 Lydia: Yeah,

0:40:37 Thomas: Yeah, I know and Tom is here and love it because obviously they can be there. It's one of these bad writing things where it's like, yeah, but you don't understand it doesn't work out. So they're there to kind of witness that it didn't. Well, what if it did work out? Like what if he had been hypnotized and he's going into this like deep trauma and you're You're like, oh, should my math professor and my little math brother be here right now? No!

0:40:42 Lydia: Yeah,

0:40:53 Omar: Yeah

0:41:00 Thomas: So dumb.

0:40:59 Alan: Yeah, no, it could it could have gone to like, and that's when my uncle murdered my mom, and like, oh, oh, oh, this is not good.

0:41:07 Thomas: Yeah. Why am I here right Now? Is not how the scene was written. Why am I a math professor in on your therapy session?

0:41:09 Alan: Um,

0:41:14 Lydia: Very, very strange, so

0:41:16 Alan: Then it picks up again with Robin Williams, where they have—what he's teaching makes absolutely no sense, and he's—

0:41:22 Thomas: Oh, Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me class... This is almost Armageddon-esque, where it's like, okay, they've blown through the usual suspects. He's gotten this, like, really amazing psychiatrist and, you Hunting, because he's such a genius.

0:41:23 Alan: Yeah,

0:41:28 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:41:38 Alan: Is he supposed to be a psychiatrist? The

0:41:40 Thomas: I think so? The first guy, right? I'm

0:41:42 Lydia: First

0:41:42 Alan: One that he says is gay?

0:41:42 Lydia: Guy that he outs. Yeah and

0:41:45 Thomas: Yeah, I thinkso.

0:41:46 Alan: I mean, he doesn't do any psychiatristy things, and it—and—and

0:41:50 Lydia: He also calls him a loony on his way out.

0:41:52 Alan: MIT—and, well, and MIT doesn't have a medical school. School. So and neither.

0:41:55 Thomas: So I, think we're to believe, I

0:41:59 Alan: So why would they have anyways, this is fucking insane.

0:42:01 Thomas: Think we'RE to believe that scarf scarred has these connections from undergrad or whatever, you know, like he's got all, that's how he knows Robin Williams. I think he has these connections, you now he's, I think they're just different stereotypes. Like, you don't have to you know when you're, you have a Fields medal, you definitely went to college with several different stereotypes of professors. So I think that's what it is.

0:42:06 Lydia: Yeah right.

0:42:21 Alan: Okay.

0:42:21 Lydia: We got that the elbow patch Professor.

0:42:23 Thomas: And Yeah, yeah. He's like, let me go through my elbow patch Rolodex. And it's like a Rolotex that has like an elbow patch on it. And he's like opens up. And so we go through rule threes until like that. Then we got to go to the essentially the Bruce Willis. It's like the Armageddon thing where he's He's like, all right, the usual stuff isn't working. Let's go find Robin Williams. And then he's teaching a class. So, Stormy, how's this class portrayed?

0:42:24 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah,

0:42:25 Omar: Okay

0:42:38 Lydia: Got to go to the oil rig in

0:42:48 Alan: Okay, well, he's at a community college, which is fine.

0:42:52 Thomas: Okay, fine.

0:42:53 Alan: But he's teaching what appears to be an applied clinical class, like for people who are in training to be therapists, that's something you have at a master's degree or a doctorate. You definitely wouldn't have it at community college. The writing on the chalkboard is just random psychology words. It would be like if it was a math thing and it just said triangle, also x-axis, like it's just making shit up. And then he's lecturing on the importance of trust in a therapeutic relationship, because these are some real subtle authors who wrote this fucking screenplay. Although then he makes a joke that you need to get your clients' trust so they'll sleep with you. And

0:42:56 Lydia: Community. Yeah right.

0:43:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:33 Thomas: What?

0:43:33 Alan: He goes, you gotta nail them when they're vulnerable. So, you know, I think it's really great that he encourages felonies in his class.

0:43:41 Lydia: Was that to try and get their attention back? Is that what it was?

0:43:42 Omar: Mm -hmm, Mm-hmm.

0:43:44 Alan: Yeah,

0:43:41 Thomas: Okay. Okay, yeah, I thought that was the joke was like no one's listening.

0:43:44 Alan: I mean, he's joking, but it's still not a great... Like, when I'm lecturing, I'm not like, and by the way, you should absolutely murder a cat.

0:43:45 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:43:47 Lydia: It's still gross. Sure. Yeah, I

0:43:49 Omar: Yeah.

0:43:54 Thomas: But what if your Columbia, college class that also seems to be like high school students, but also like a really old student, what if they're not paying attention and then you got to do something crazy to get their attention because they're rapscallions.

0:44:07 Alan: Well, then I throw an apple at them.

0:44:09 Lydia: Was gonna say he didn't have any apples to throw so then he had to go to the off color, yeah.

0:44:10 Omar: There you go.

0:44:12 Thomas: But then he also says next week is going to be Freud.

0:44:16 Alan: Insane. And then Scarfscard walks in during the class, and Robin Williams is happy about this. There is no one I want to see enough that if they walked in during my class, I'd be delighted.

0:44:21 Lydia: Interrupted.

0:44:22 Omar: Mm -hm.

0:44:31 Alan: Like, if Barack Obama just showed up and was like, hey, you know, I want to give you a high five, I'd be like, okay, fucking wait.

0:44:31 Thomas: What if they had a Fields Medal, though?

0:44:40 Lydia: You oh, Man, I don't I don't know about that, man.

0:44:40 Thomas: Well, now you're just wrong. Yeah, OK. Sorry, Stormy. That's a that's a hell of a take.

0:44:45 Omar: I'm on your side. I'm not walking

0:44:45 Thomas: Obama can interrupt any class anywhere, any time that I am teaching as far as I'm concerned. If you're listening.

0:44:52 Omar: Into his job making him happy to see me.

0:44:53 Thomas: Yeah! Walk into the Oval.

0:44:57 Lydia: I miss Robin Williams though, nine

0:44:59 Thomas: Know, I really do too. I have the weirdest relationship with Robin Williams because I thought his stand-up comedy was so bad, it is the least funny thing I've ever seen in my life, and yet any he's in that's scripted, I actually really like, and I I also just fucking I love that man so much, I miss him a lot and so what right, when I saw him I was like, oh my heart, oh I was like crying because it and it's such a it's a really good performance, it

0:45:01 Lydia: Years, you guys, isn't that crazy crazy yeah I know I felt the same yeah yeah oh

0:45:00 Omar: Yeah. Wow. Mm -mm. Mm -huh. Mm -hum. Little Rob Williams thing I can throw in here is that I saw him perform, uh, stand up, uh, San Francisco, uh, want to say maybe the year before, uh, he passed away, and he was just at this like stand-up fair that they throw in, uh, in Golden Gate Park that anyone can attend, and he's just there going off, he, he started doing material, and then some birds flew by, and he went, oh, Alfred Hitchcock, and then he did an hour of just and

0:45:37 Lydia: Wow

0:45:53 Thomas: That's that's not a bad impression, actually thank

0:45:55 Omar: Then he did like an hour, and I was like, this is a form, you know, like there's a lot of talk, these a lot of conversations about like how like athleticism is a form of genius, because your brain is performing such a quick and high function that if we are to look at definitions of genius instantaneous I mean, it's like instantaneous parabolic, you know, calculations and stuff that are happening that you're just acting on, um, to to watch a stand-up comedian perform that quickly and just to synthesize material, material, um, had a rhythm that had sort of like a and payoff, I was like, this is brilliance, okay, this is like, and sometimes it wasn't even funny, people just laughed because they're like that was a callback but

0:46:10 Thomas: You now we got another sports person here, okay yeah yeah not funny I'm sorry it's Not It's Not Funny, I've watched a bunch of he's, he was, his brain went a mile minute at linking things, but without a punchline, it was was just the punchline was, I have linked two things, it's a reference, and then people will be like, ha, I get that reference, but there's no joke, like it's just, you've referenced the thing

0:46:38 Omar: Right yes yeah

0:46:42 Lydia: So quick yeah

0:46:52 Omar: That's I think that's very fair, it's it's vocal jazz like in a way where you're just like, it's pop culture jazz and you're like, whoa that's yeah

0:46:59 Lydia: Yeah this

0:46:56 Thomas: Yes yeah it's interesting and this is not a popular opinion, I have, like, I've genuinely lost friends over this opinion, like I just I I fucking hate this, his comedy, it's so bad, there's like, here's the thing. As much as I can't stand this comedy, I genuinely love his acting so much. I think this performance is genuinely brilliant, like, I I love it, I his character has lost his wife, and it's very very key to the to the plot and to the character, his wife, who is his love of his life, has died of cancer, and let me tell you, I don't know how many people here have suffered depression, but there is a look in eyes Robin's, this entire movie, that I I just feel it, like I feel the look, it's this glazed-over tired look

0:47:05 Lydia: And weird l

0:47:19 Omar: That's -hmm, yes

0:47:43 Lydia: Through

0:47:44 Thomas: At all times that I think is so perfect, I with it so much that it really got me, and I love this performance, and it was, ah, what, like, I just was crying so much during this movie because I miss, miss that man so much, and I thought he was brilliant in this, and it really got me.

0:47:44 Lydia: The motions yeah yeah

0:47:47 Omar: Oh

0:47:59 Lydia: Right

0:47:59 Alan: Have a little sciencey thing to share about Robin Williams that is my my favorite example of why we shouldn't do armchair diagnoses, because, you know, when he, when he died, um, lot of people started saying that he probably had bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a huge risk for suicide, um, much more than than unipolar depression, and was well known that he had depressive episodes, and people so were basing that on his stage persona where where he appears to be extremely manic, but it turns out that was strictly a persona. There's no evidence he was ever like that in regular life. That was just an act, because he was an actor.

0:48:02 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:48:09 Omar: -huh mm -hm

0:48:25 Lydia: Yeah

0:48:38 Alan: Turned It out that he has something called Lewy body dementia, which is to Parkinson's disease, and it causes massive changes in emotions and behavior. Behavior. But that's my favorite example of, man, if you watched his stand -up and you assumed that that was what he was like, it'd be very natural to think that he had bipolar disorder. But he didn't. That's why armchair diagnosis is not a good idea.

0:48:38 Lydia: Right

0:48:38 Omar: Right

0:48:42 Thomas: Yeah.

0:49:02 Thomas: So that was very interesting because I'll tell you as who suffered a lot of depression around that time. And I remember my brother as well. Was He really affected. He wasn't even like a Robin Williams fan, but like for some reason that really affected him just seeing somebody like, cause people thought, like you said, armchair diagnosis, a lot of people thought like, Oh, he lost a battle with depression. And that really effected my brother. It affected me. It affected a lot of people. And then weirdly, like we didn't find out, I don't think until a while later, or at least it wasn't clear. Like it was a very different thing, which is the thing you just said. I already don't remember the name, but that was in a weird way. It was kind of a relief to me. Like, it like made a little more sense, you know, like, I dunno if that, yeah.

0:49:25 Omar: Uh -uh uh

0:49:45 Alan: We could do an SIO sometime about media portrayals of death by suicide and they can be helpful or harmful. There's ways to talk about suicide that really helped spark a good discussion, um, the rapper Logic did a uh song where the the title and the refrain were the suicide hotline number, and that is actually credited with um decrease in the suicide rate among people of the ages that listen to that song um no, it, that's, it was a really big thing, but then there's other media portrayals. And so after Robin Williams' death, some media outlets did exactly what you're not supposed to do. And there are ways to talk about it that seem to worsen things.

0:50:05 Thomas: Oh, wow. Oh,

0:50:05 Lydia: Yeah I heard about that like saving a lot of lives yeah oh

0:50:12 Omar: Really mm

0:50:28 Thomas: That is a good SIO. Yeah.

0:50:29 Alan: And I don't want to get into it too much here, but I think that'd be a good SIO sometime to talk About. One is 13 Reasons Why, which I consider criminally negligent. Um,

0:50:37 Lydia: God, right.

0:50:30 Thomas: Sure. Sure, sure. God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Okay, 100, that's a great idea. I did want to ask you, um, what is the thing he actually had? I mean, you don't have to do a whole episode on it but because

0:50:39 Omar: -huh.

0:50:46 Alan: It's it's called Lewy body dementia. Uh, it's, it's a very uncommon kind of dementia. It tends to strike in like late middle age, like 40, like 50s ish

0:50:56 Thomas: He wasn't that old, yeah. He was like 60

0:50:57 Alan: Yeah. Um, so these, these little growths in the brain called Levy bodies, um, they're also seen in Parkinson's disease, but the, is that in Lewy body dementia, so Parkinson, there's the characteristic motor symptoms. You have the shaking, the rigidity. Lewy body dementia, you have quite severe changes in mood and behavior. And they're quite rapid. Over a span of just a couple of years, you can have pretty severe irritability, pain, depression, impulsivity. Hallucinations are, are quite common. It's a rapid, rapid moving, and it's a devastating disease. So they, wife wrote a beautiful essay that was published in a neurology journal about it and about his experiences with it.

And they were really pretty sure he had it even before his death. But it was confirmed on autopsy, because then you can actually find these these bodies in the brain yeah I mean, there's... there's all kinds of, so he had, I know, a history of depression, also of substance use, um, the, the and irritability and, um, lot of the other symptoms, uh, you see with Louis body dementia really weren't consistent with any mental health problem he'd had before. And then once you can autopsy the brain, you can find the Lewy

0:50:58 Thomas: Oh is it the kind of thing, you can't tell Okay.

0:51:58 Lydia: Right, CTE.

0:52:23 Alan: Bodies and see them.

0:52:23 Thomas: Is it almost it's almost like the concussion stuff with a, with players who like they, they can't tell, right? CTE.

0:52:28 Lydia: Yeah,

0:52:27 Omar: Yeah, yeah, with football players right, yeah, it

0:52:29 Lydia: Yeah,

0:52:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:31 Alan: Except there's, there's really no, I mean, there are causes, but there's not, there'S nothing really to blame for it. But no, it's, it'S, it's one of those, those onset dementias are, devastating. Are, And

0:52:38 Omar: Just Happens. Yeah.

0:52:35 Thomas: Right. Sure. Is that, yeah. Is it the kind of thing that there's really no like cure? There's no, you're just kind of a ticking time bomb or what?

0:52:48 Alan: I mean there's, there's ways to make the person's life more comfortable. There's a real difficulty in treating dementia with psychotherapy is that psychotherapy is about learning new skills. When you have poor memory, it's really hard to learn new skills, so we tend towards medication, but medications don't always work the same in older people, and so I know very little gerontology. I don't know a lot of that stuff, but yeah, there's certainly no cure or anything like that. That are, there if it's diagnosed properly, ways to help the person lead a somewhat more comfortable life. We can give...

0:53:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:53:22 Thomas: A weird way. I know it brought, brings the mood down, but that honestly made me feel better when I learned that than like, it just was like, oh, okay. So he, you know, he had a disease that, that, it made more sense. Anyway.

0:53:32 Lydia: Yeah.

0:53:32 Alan: He had a disease that you don't have. And so you can separate yourself from it a little more.

0:53:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, it's like, ah, yeah, you know? Yeah, exactly. It's