This week we watch To Die For, the astonishing new film from the wildly reactionary mind of Duke's of Hazzard's John Schneider. A green-screen, anti-teen fever dream, the movie chronicles Quint North (John Schneider), a veteran of some war, who is intent on triggering the local high school quarterback after he takes a knee during the national anthem. Quint's Native American neighbor, Wes, is the avenue for our main character to reel off Gran Torino style racial slurs at a flag-hating libtard, but this Native American Democrat will eventually come to respect the "crazy old white man's" fight against the modern world. Quint also faces: a daughter filing a restraining order against him on behalf of the high school, the same local quarterback threatening to kill his dog, and a young female cop who orders a vanilla latte. Will sanity prevail? Will the American flag truly be... To Die For? Help us do the show for only $3.11/month and get instant access to this bonus episode and hundreds others right in your podcast app or browser. Sign up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult
So he goes back outside just in time to get mad at the newspaper delivery boy, just another kid he hates.
Because the newspaper wound up behind the flowerpots that are right next to his front door instead of literally on his welcome mat.
And so he says something like, if you can't pitch, get a better job.
And I'm just doing Clint Eastwood now, but that's not how he delivers it.
The thing is, is like, He's going through this movie doing, like, a roguish, boyish, sassy charm.
You know, he's a handsome guy, he's got, like, an easy smile, and so he thinks he's being, like, roguishly charming, right?
And he is, like, more charming than, like, Clint Eastwood was in Gran Torino.
Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino was just a gravelly mean son of a bitch who like never, literally never smiled throughout the whole movie.
John is doing something totally different.
Where he's trying to be like a like a good old boy just setting his ways and like he's kind of rough around the edges or whatever but he tells it like it is he he has like fights all the time with his friends I guess all the time yeah but they never like come to blows really but what he's actually doing is way more insane than what Clint Eastwood ever did in Gran Torino absolutely so he's trying to be more likable
Than Clint Eastwood and Grant Torino, but he's doing crazier things like shooting, actually shooting kids, unarmed kids in this movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Also, mind you, he didn't just, he didn't just put the flagpole back there.
He also has like a speaker system back there.
Right.
And that's one of my favorite aspects of this.
Cause like, yeah, he, he is, he is a pest.
He's a deliberate pest.
He's, he is like, Trying to trigger people and then acting like, why does everybody always get so offended so easily?
Jesus Christ.
And it's like, you're trying to offend them because he looks at the paper.
The paper is called, by the way, The Progressive.
Yep.
The headlines, the top fold of front page story is NFL applauds high school QB for taking a knee at Friday's game.
And we get a shot of like, you know, a little, a little white kid.
Oh, he's white.
Oh, they did a really good job at that.
They did a really good job with the race stuff in this movie.
Don't even try to call him a racist, Clint or John, because this QB that he hates, this child that he hates, is white.
He's a white kid.
So yeah, he says, and then to himself, I believe he says, he's looking at the kid and he says, shove your knee right up your ass.
Shove your knee right up your ass which I love because like how does that even work?
What does that like look like?
Because I mean you're supposed to you could use like not real things you know you can say like shove your protest up your ass that makes some sense but shove your knee up your ass like That's probably one of the better things to get shoved up your ass if you're gonna have to get something shoved up your ass.
I don't know about that, but I do like it as a saying.
I think it makes sense.
Totally.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was like a pre-existing let's go Brandon type phrase, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Shove your knee right up your ass, he says to the child.
In the newspaper.
Okay, and then yeah, John, so he gets in his El Camino to take his daily trip to the cemetery, I guess.
While he's driving, he says to himself, why the hell not?
Takes a left turn.
You're like, what?
And so he drives to the local high school where he knows that that fucking bastard QB will be.
Drives, this is key, into the high school.
He drives into the high school parking lot.
You know how there's like a roundabout at schools where buses pick up, parents pick up and let off?
There used to be a flagpole in the center of that fucking roundabout.
Oh, there's a flagpole!
There's a flagpole.
No American flag, though.
No flag, though.
I don't consider it a flagpole.
That's just a pole.
Yeah, that's just a pole.
He flicks a switch on his dashboard That begins playing.
It's just the national anthem, right?
Yeah.
I think so, yeah.
Yeah, it's the Star Spangled Banner.
He starts bumping the Star Spangled Banner out of his El Camino bed.
And instantly the kids start throwing eggs at him.
So, but then, aside from the slapping of the feet and him counting to 2,000 for sure, you start to hear something else.
Uh, We cut to other shots of him doing pull-ups with a busted knuckle, push-ups, etc.
And in the background of this montage, you hear soft music playing and you hear a voice begin whispering the Star Spangled Banner.
Like an acapella performance of the Star Spangled Banner as the score for this scene.
And it's his voice, but it's not while he's working out, it's just running through his mind while he's working out.
Which implies, because it shows several different exercises, and that implies he was saying it over and over and over again.
It's like, what, at best, like a four-minute, five-minute song?
Yeah.
It's all he thinks, this is all he thinks about.
It was at this moment where I was like, oh, okay, this movie is Taxi Driver, but instead of women, he likes the flag.
Instead of being obsessed with Jodie Foster, he's obsessed with the star-spangled banner and will kill and die for it.
