Tara and Andrew Versus The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide

When you really think about it, more movies would benefit from cameos from Hulk Hogan. And I mean REALLY think about it.

In this episode we watch the semi-autobiographical made-for-TV movie written and produced by Michael Landon in the mid-Seventies about bed-wetting. Anything else we could write here about that would just be gilding the lily. The entire thing is available on YouTube, and we’ve linked to the first part of it above. Go ahead and click— you know you want to watch it. What were you going to be doing in the next seventy-five minutes, anyways? Curing cancer? We don’t think so.

That aside, in this episode we also discuss the fine, frightening works being put out by the people behind Everything Is Terrible! They’re a group of people who have spent the last ten plus years scouring the dredges of the forgotten VHS wasteland, among other things. If you’ve seen the video of the lady instructing viewers on the proper technique to massage cats, you’ve seen their work. They take stuff that is weird to begin with, and distill it down into its weirdest, funniest, most disturbing components, and it’s amazing. The amount of content they’ve produced is pretty staggering, but here are a few of our favorites, just to give you all a taste:

In this episode:

Cat raising tips!

Thorough (?) analysis of Hitman/Contract Killer!

Insight into young Andrew’s plans to become a superhero!

We talk about Running Man, our favorite Korean variety show!

Wherein we watch a compelling, at times unsettling documentary filmed right as the 1989 revolution in Romania was taking place. Like, *literally* right as it was taking place. It is intense.

it's definitely not a quick and cheap cop-out for recording a proper episode after losing all of the audio for the episode that we had intended to record. What would ever give you that impression?

In this episode we watch the documentary (*mostly*) that helped make Arnold Schwarzenegger a more recognizable face and/or body. As a result, we are now both super into getting pumped-- have you HEARD what he says it feels like? Sign. Us. Up!

We talk about the 1949 adaptation of the Robert Penn William novel of the same name which TOTALLY isn't about Huey Long you guys, and how could you ever come to that conclusion in the first place? Also, and more excitingly, we talk about the 1970's tarantulasploitation classic (?) Kingdom of the Spiders. Who's in it, you ask? Oh, we don't know, have you ever heard of WILLIAM GODDAMNED SHATNER?

If there’s anything that we can all agree on in these divisive times, it’s probably that the person who put this trailer together should be forced onto a barge and shipped out to sea for the rest of their lives #bargelife.

The Taste of Others is a French film from 2000 that focuses on the goings-on in the lives of six Parisians, their tastes, and the romances and whatevers that transpire between them. It’s better than that makes it sound, we swear. It’s largely dramatic, but teeters on the edge of being funny— there’s no knee-slappers in it (although honestly, if you’re involuntarily slapping your knee when you laugh too hard, you might want to get that checked out by a doctor), but there are enough amusing moments in it for it to qualify, if only just. Nominated for an Academy Award in 2001 in the Best Foreign Language Film category, the main criticisms you’ll find about it online these days are that it’s going to be fairly light fare for anyone who needs their movies to convey deeply profound messages, but hey, not every movie can be Joe Dirt.

Also in this episode, we talk about about InfoChammel, and look, it’s the sort of thing that defies any attempt to be described verbally, so just take a look at this weird shit, will ya?

In lieu of linking to a trailer like we would normally do (mostly because one doesn’t seem to exist), here’s the movie in its entirety. Merry fuckin’ Christmas!

Goodbye, 20th Century! is a Macedonian film that is comprised of three stories— one about an unkillable man in the ravaged, post-apocalyptic world that just happens to take place in the year 2019. Also, as a heads-up, the movie does get quite a bit incest-y towards the end of that story, and very incest-y for the whole second story (which is, admittedly, only about three minutes long, but STILL). The final section of the movie is about the deranged Santa that you see up there in the movie’s poster, and we think we can all agree that nothing says Merry Christmas quite like a guy in a Santa outfit going on a murderous rampage… we think. You know the saying, “don’t sweat the small stuff”? There is NO need for concern on that front with this movie. It’s worth noting that, as always, this movie was picked entirely at random, and somehow managed to be both Christmas-y and (partially) set in 2019. It’s nice to have Fate on our side of things for once!

Also in this episode, after talking about Goodbye, 20th Century! we seamlessly transition into talking about The Best Show, which is a very funny podcast/radio show that everyone should listen to. Here are a couple of our favorite clips from previous episodes:

Boy oh boy, if you like episodes of podcasts where the hosts stumble their way through a discussion of the plot of a movie, hampered by iffy translations and the movie’s assumption that its viewers are familiar with the cultural norms of the country it’s set in, do we ever have a podcast for you!

Once Upon A Time In China is a 1991 Wuxia film starring Jet Li that is based on events in the life of Wong Fei-hung, a real guy whose exploits made him into a folk hero of sorts. For those who aren’t familiar, Wuxia films are historical martial arts movies, for lack of a better way of describing them. Our primary reference point for fighterman movies are from the Steven Seagal or Dolph Lundgren œuvres (and when we say “our”, we really mean “Andrew’s”), and this is definitely not one of those movies— no one makes witty rejoinders when someone gets shoved into a furnace towards the end of the movie, for example. Whether that’s a good thing or a missed opportunity is subjective, except it’s totally not and fuck Steven “S-Dawg”* Seagal. Not literally, though. Never literally.