#38: The Sandlot

Patrick Renna, played by a young Matt White

The Sandlot. Part baseball love story, part sexist manifesto for young boys. Perhaps even the root of the male perception that has prevented girls from playing ball for years. These hermeneutics are largely accepted as the limits of this 1993 film. 

Darth Vader in The Sandlot

But on today’s episode, we travel beyond the limits of these hermeneutics and unpack just how American this film truly is. From a Mexican kid named Benjamin Franklin to a neighbor named Darth Vader, this film serves as an allegory for the young psyche developing beyond the fears that contain it. Our collective dreams, captured in “this magic moment”, mystically intertwined with America’s (sexist) pastime and the progression from primitive culture into industry: it’s all here, packaged together in a film that stars both Patrick Renna, Private Cowboy, and Babe Ruth (aka John Goodman). And all of it stands before the great Hercules, the most powerful archetype of them all. 

Join us, listener, on this wayward adventure through a classic American film. Let us never forget Scotty “Smalls”, nor let us forget the grandiose stache of Benny “The Jet” in the wake of his stealing home in the big game. The big game for us? Life, my friend. Let us live it. Let us all retire into the tranquility of The Sandlot, with Hercules, Vader, and John Goodman at our side.   

The Jet's 'stache, after he stole home

#37: The Patriot and Heidegger: Dasein in a Cinematic Universe

Cue a soft score by John Williams. And now, idyllic shots of the American South. And next comes, almost there, here it comes, Mel Gibson butchering men!

                                   Dasein Getting Angry

All men are created equal, according to the Declaration of Independence (Day). But some men have a Cherokee tomahawk.  Our man with the 'hawk is Benjamin Martin, widowed father of seven, rocking chair enthusiast. All he wants is to live the simple life of a non-slave owning plantation cropper. Sweet as Carolina tea! But whispers are afoot. The cantankerous whispers of revolution. 

Because of fucking dickheads like Colonel Tavington, Benjamin Martin is forced into war, where he becomes almost as full of rage as Mel Gibson. Out to avenge his son and usher in a new era of democracy, Martin goes on the warpath.

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   Early Footage Of William Wallace, Star Of The Patriot

Aided by his French buddy Jean, his son Heath Ledger, and Harvard graduate Donal Logue, Gibson turns a rag tag group of brothel patrons and church goers into such a ghostly platoon that Tom Wilkinson nearly shits his fancy British man dress.

The rustics in this movie might be inept, but guess what isn't? The filmmaking. Our personal friend, Roland Emmerich, once again proves he understands the American psyche as only one steeped in German philosophy could! With a brilliant score by John Will and a fun screenplay from a man who is not Randal Wallace, we get The Patriot.

 #Heidegger, Primary Influence Of The Patriot

Listener, open Sein ears, lend them to me. You will actually laugh at parts of this movie, and you might cry too (just as Gibson does so well (not a joke, the man can act-cry)).  So plug those earphones in and ready your bayonets, for many laughs are on the way!

#36: The Shining: Scatman Crothers Nearly Saves The Day

Jacky Nick Nick Going Crazy

Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining is about a guy who loses his mind in a really big hotel. It's also about a woman who loses her mind in a big hotel, a child who has pretty much already lost his mind, and Scatman Crothers. Scatman plays cook Dick Halloran, a source of light amidst ever-increasing darkness, until that darkness, in the form of Jack Nicholson, swings an axe into Scatman's chest. Then Scatman dies, and there is no more hope. 

This is a movie that frightened us both as children and adults. It is difficult to say why, apart from the fact that it's really scary. Why did Kubrick make this movie? Did he just want to scare the bejesus out of everyone? What does the word "bejesus" even mean? Is Kubrick a sadistic jerk? A man with profound insight into the uncanny? A devotee of Carl Jung? The man who staged the moon landing? The Shining asks these questions and many more. 

The One True Scatman

Join us for this snob that meanders throughout the Overlook Hotel, through its strange geometry, through Room 237, and even through the entity known as Scatman Crothers. We hope that you don't become terrified of the two little dead girls wearing dresses and standing still, or at the thought of them currently standing right next to you and staring at you. We all know that's the certain path to total madness.