S4E23.75: Signs

So fun fact: When I was a lad, we watched the first half of Signs in English lit class (I don't know why), and it freaked me out so much I had nightmares and my mum had to call the school to tell them to not show me the rest. Of course, the next week we watched the last half in English lang (different teacher, who I guess never got the message?), and finding out that the alien's weakness is *water* really killed the fear. Hard to be scared of something that can be literally hosed away.

I love how November reconstructed the Hershey Kiss joke from the Scary Movie 3? when they parodied Signs.

I'm very annoyed to still have that Dragonology book bc it's one of the many sources of self-doubt I can trace to my childhood.

Rufallos surgery was for a brain tumor. Apparently he had a dream that he had a tumor, went to the doctor, and it turns out he did.

They have already changed Rory Culkin's wikipedia photo lmao, it's now a pretty normal red carpet photo. But if you wanna see the old photo where it looks like hes coming out of a dark alley at you, I found it in the edit history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rory_Culkin_in_2018_(cropped).jpg

Your thoughts on this and all the corn involved has me really hoping Field of Dreams makes it into Religion Season, it’s got very similar vibes but the alien threat is substituted with a sort of general generational threat of waning masculinity. And it’s from quite a while before this one, I think Signs gets some of its DNA from it potentially

I wonder if it's a Harry Turtledove "The Road Not Taken" situation, where the aliens genuinely discovered a way to teleport to another planet *before* things like guns

As an adult with Asthma I always hated Asthma= panic attack for kid for 2 reasons 1) Panic attacks in and of themselves are valid and can be debilitating 2) as an adult i was so subconsciously brainwashed by the media I saw Asthma as a lack of fitness tried to train out of it and on days it got bad it then triggered parts of my EDS. 3) i spent my 20s poorly managing it, and just breathing through a very life-threatening and treatable condition and unmanaged asthma will likley now lead me to have chronic airway disease if I make it to old age.

speaking of independence day, would love an episode on that. me and the gf recently rewatched it and decided that, in spite of the fact that it's pretty openly propaganda, it would be considered woke in the year of our lord 2025

Reign of fucking Fire. Now that's a fucking movie.

Please do 7 and blues brothers

I haven't seen Signs but I recently watched Eddington and I feel like it could be an interesting one for the pod. It ties into a kind of pseudo religiousity (conspiracist cults)

i went to school with a kid whose dad worked with mel gibson and one year he stole his dad's phone and prank called mel (and a bunch of other B-list celebrities) during study hall. while most of the people did not answer or hung up after realizing they were being prank called by some kids, mel screamed a bunch of epithets and threats through the receiver related to how everyone was "wasting his fucking time" and anyways that's my mel gibson story.

Wait, does everyone else think the pantry alien stayed behind for finger revenge? I assumed it was stuck in the pantry all night, somehow taught itself doors, and found the Culkin randomly, as it was wandering around looking for its ride.

Nova, get a water bottle and carry it around with you. That’s what solved it for me.

Speaking of faith in the united states, u should rly watch polar express

Devon's next movie pick will be The China Syndrome. ... I'll see myself out

As this is religion season... Someone tried to exorcise me on social media this week. First of all rude. I think it was a Saint Maude situation. I happen to have grown up in the religion they claimed to be. I've never been particularly observant but I know when someone's pulling it out of their ass. "You need Jesus!" Bitch I've got Jesus at home. You need therapy!

I remember thinking when I first saw this movie that God doesn't work like that. I felt like if God directly and overtly intervened in your life you'd have to be a prophet or something like that, they have something special planned for you. Which kind of made me wonder why we were watching this movie rather than that one. This was some pretty heavy philosophical stuff considering I was *does maths* 16 at the time. Although come to think about it that line of thinking does have that kind of moody teenager stank to it doesn't it?

I also had asthma as a kid and grew out of it, and I think a big part of it is that as a kid I had no control over either my activity or environment. Getting away from freezing playgrounds, animals I was allergic to, and gym classes I couldn't keep up with, did wonders.

May I submit for your consideration for religion season--Sunshine (2007) directed by Danny Boyle, starring Cilian Murphy, among others.

33:38 "this could almost be a movie about racist americans driving themselves insane" that's because... that's literally what the film is about ? the tinfoiling, the omnipresence of infotainment news, all of this happening to a geographically secluded christian family whose entire understanding of the situation is based on assumptions of what they perceive actually means, THE GRANT WOOD PAINTINGS ON THE WALLS, LIKE THE GUY WHO MADE AMERICAN GOTHIC ?

In This Corner of the World is a good movie about civilians in war time also

I'm sick and tired of people calling the aliens dipshits for going to the water planet when they are allergic to water, who's to say they knew?! I assumed their planet didn't have water and they didn't think a planet capable of sustaining life would be covered in liquid death!

Not only is the invaded planet covered in skinburning liquid, it falls from the FUCKING SKY every so often, without warning some of the time. How awful is the alien's planet (for them), that here seems like an improvement ?!

Legitimately very surprised that the gang has never heard the theory that the aliens are demons - three cities in the middle east figuring out a way to drive them off, water in the priest's house burning them, kidnapping a handful of people (presumably sinners), that sort of thing

This movie asks the REAL questions, like: Why aren't I getting my toes licked by beautiful women...?

Weird that you guys didn't land on the popular interpretation that the aliens are analogous to demons... Hence the 'holy' water around the place, being defeated in the birthplace of abrahamic religion, striving to rip Big Melson's last shred of faith away from him. Also makes it easier to digest the obvious logistical flaws in their plan

Please god watch Michael Mann's Thief

I never considered that the alien at the end of signs could be a woman, maybe I'm a bad person.

Walkietalkix is my favourite Asterix villager

'Are you hearing this, folks? China! They're making Culkins. They're doing it! China, making beautiful Culkins, Culkins like you wouldn't believe. They don't want me saying this, but I'm gonna say it!'

Getting rug pulled by white noise thinking November was on about the 2006 horror movie. Also Rory culkin great in scream 4

Still utterly crestfallen that it wasn't all actually just a hoax perpetuated by a highly coordinated team of female Scandinavian Olympians. Missed opportunity.

Listening to this with my 6 girlfriends toes in my mouth 😁

Experimental corn music is a great way to describe Arthur Russell https://youtu.be/MUYeNQQB5cc?si=eZFw1mh3XRmg2_VN

If you want to continue the aliens/religion theme, you could do enders game, which is a bad movie but I'm sure the pod would like because, well, you know. It sure isn't about 9/11.

Devilman for religious season?

Aliens and religion... Does that mean Battlefield Earth is next?

On the subject of aliens and bad miracles, the obvious follow up is Jordan Peele's Nope (2022) This movie rules and Trap is also great, but the other movie to follow this with would be Shyamalan's other fantastic classic Sci-Fi homage that extracts a fantastic performance from a deeply evil lead actor: The Happening (2006)

I was watching the film and as soon as I hit the military recruiter scene I knew it was going to be a good podcast

Second pod in a row and no call out in the outro? What have I done to piss off Devon?

Very fun listening to this when all my cultural knowledge of the movie Signs comes from seeing Scary Movie 3. Repeatedly going "Oh, i remember that scene they're describing, but i remember it being very funny actually."

This movie is a great example of "Schrodinger's Script Doctoring" when there are simultaneously too many and too few rewrites.

Anagrams: big solemn/lemons/melons Limbo gens Bong slime Limbs gone Blog mines Me goblins

I went looking to see what other Culkins there are and found Bonnie Bedelia - Holly Gennaro McClane in Die Hard - is one of them too. Aunt of Rory

Nope would be a really good follow-up to Signs, and also asks “what’s a bad miracle called”

Glad this episode finally dropped. I worried you'd all gone on permanent dome leave.

And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people Need not apply"

i really really like when you all leave in your laughter over the intro track

It's not that cancer is always masculine, it's just that masculinity is often cancerous

Rory Culkin looks like he’s in Boygenius

"Big Melson" ejected his actual name from my mind for a solid half hour. absolute cognitohazard [positive]

every time nova references food house i gain a year of life

Actually, one of the least recognized Culkin superpowers is Poland. See True Pain for explanation.

I do not care what season it fits into, I NEED you to cover Madame Web. PLEASE.

Can't believe I was in China (and in many of the same cities) at the same time as Devon and had no idea

Bucks County shoutout let’s fucking goooo!!! 🎉🌽💪🐴

But here’s the thing: these people (American christians) _don’t_ believe things on no evidence. They believe things on bad evidence, faulty evidence, made up evidence, insufficient evidence, but they fucking crave the certainty of _proof_ because these motherfuckers _have no faith_! They profess faith all fucking day but they have none. First I thought that people would be better off being secular, realizing that there’s nothing out there; then I saw how fucked people got, how many people lost their fucking minds when they stopped going to (local) church, and I thought “okay, so most people can’t handle non-belief, they can’t handle the uncertainty of believing in nothing beyond the material world, they’ll replace it with something (something we don’t normally think of as religion but is) or go insane, so maybe it’s better for people to have faith,”; but now I realize that they can’t fucking handle faith, either , they make all these fucking things to “prove” god or provide evidence for god, because they have no faith! I guess what I’m saying is, American christians are heretics (this is hyperbole)

This was partially filmed in my hometown of Newtown PA! It’s more of a yuppie stronghold, don’t let the quant ascetic fool you. They literally had to cover up the star bucks.

I can recommend No One Will Save You (2023), a film that is both better than and highly derivative of Signs.

Isn't an anti miracle a curse?

Considering all the things the manosphere says are gay, having a tumor removed probably counts as feminizing surgery. Oh you're getting a tumor behind your ear removed? Why, so a man can tuck your hair behind it while you kiss?

My Midwest-farm-raised father told me that you cannot get lost in a cornfield: just pick a direction and walk until you find a road. It’s all straight lines. This was before the consolidation in the 80s, though. I think he’s still right, but now you might be walking a hell of a lot longer

The biggest argument I ever had with a particular friend of mine revolved around the "primitive" line; he took that to mean that the aliens were actually nice all along, that they only wanted to help humanity, and Mel Gibson's recovery of his faith at the end signals that he's 'given up.' His only evidence for any of this was that "they got driven out of the backward regions first."

My wife's dying words were, "Renegade... Interrupt"

Catechism: "Prayers to the Virgin Mary are Never Known to Fail" Me: *prays* Virgin Mary: "lol no, not that one."

Turning into a Black Templar the second a dog is harmed and launching a crusade against the foul xenos

This movie was better when it was also The Ring and 8 Mile and was being directed by David Zucker with Leslie Nielsen as the President.

The idea of a bad miracle is also referenced in “Nope” which has a similar premise.

Much like every other fascist, Mel loves the aesthetics of farming, but hates the actual work. That corn ain't ever getting harvested

Another pick for religion season/aliens is the 1976 movie "God told me to".

I have presh lost medes mems of an early yt supercut of big solemn saying paranoid things with diegetic klezmer. Holding up the walkie talkie becomes so much funnier. Space lasers could never.

Even as a non-sports enjoyer (brackets North American), listening to 3 British people try to explain why a baseball player swinging at every pitch is bad, is incredibly funny.

Wild that two of my favourite podcasts did Signs episodes within a month of eachother

The nickname November gives to Mel Gibson (booooo!) made my partner and I laugh for a solid minute.

This film is definitely about 9/11

Prediction: two of them will think this is an incredible movie and one person won't get anything out of it During the 20th century, spending time in Hong Kong before going back to Britain would have been like a depressurization chamber, or like making sure you didn't get the bends Re bodies weird and sigma: I became allergic to avocados and kiwi in my 20s. I met an old woman who became allergic to peanuts in her 60s. Also, "three cities in the Middle East found a primitive way" means that Christians, Muslims, and Jews each did something religious/had faith By the way I actually watched this movie for the first time AFTER hearing the whole "the aliens are actually demons" thing, looking for anything textual to sway me in one direction or another, and (someone correct me if I'm wrong) we never actually see the spaceships, they just mention lights in the sky. Of course the faith allegory works no matter if they're textually demons or aliens, but still. I watch the movie and my interpretation is that they were textually demons.