Another in our series of election year chats about movies about presidents. By patron request, Daniel and Jack watch and discuss 1999's neo-screwball teensploitation 70s-nostalgiafest Dick, in which two teenage girls - Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams - accidentally find themselves befriending Richard Nixon (Dan Hedaya) and becoming entangled in Watergate. It's terribly fun. Full episode exclusive for Patreon subscribers. Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent. Patrons get exclusive access to at least one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's (Locked) Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ Jack's Bluesky: @timescarcass.bsky.social Daniel's Bluesky: @danielharper.bsky.social IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1
Be prepared for difficult application process and stressful work environment.
Challenges?
Many.
Rewards?
Numerous.
Failure?
Possible.
Your employer?
The American people.
The few chosen have been the presidents.
Welcome back to another edition of IDSG bonus episodes.
The presidential movies run up to the election edition, and the election is racing towards us.
Daniel, how's everything doing out there in nearly the election time, America?
It's getting there.
We've got about three weeks to go at this point, and boy, the yard signs are multiplying.
You live in a swing state, it's just delightful.
I'm sure, yeah.
I love how just impossible it is to find anything like any kind of consistency in the polls.
I just think that's wonderful.
I mean, this really is a toss-up.
It should not in any sense be a toss-up.
This should be a very obvious decision for people.
But, apparently, it is still a toss-up.
Yeah.
Well, it always is, isn't it?
American elections are always decided by fractional differences.
They're always decided by percentage points within the margin of statistical error.
And...
Ultimately, I suspect they're generally very little to do with the personalities of candidates.
I really do.
Which is why, you know, an election, it seems to anybody rational, looking at it like, whatever you think, Kamala Harris, you have, on the other hand, literally an insane, senile fascist.
But, yeah, it's still going to be...
I was going to say, actually, on that subject, you know, if I run out of things to say about this movie, which is a possibility...
I'm just going to start playing songs, and I'm just going to stand here swaying for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, however long it takes.
Because apparently that'll do now.
Yeah, no, that's all it takes.
I don't know how well that's going to play in an audio medium, but we can certainly go a little avant-garde with these.
These are the fun ones.
These are the bonus episodes.
While watching Donald Trump bop to Sinead O'Connor in Guns N' Roses and Ave Maria, I wish that had been just an audio medium.
Yes, yes, yes.
I'll be honest, even though I live in a swing state, previous cycles have been much, much worse than 2024 for me, because I don't watch TV anymore, and what I do watch is streaming.
And it's like pay streaming, so I don't see ads.
I don't listen to the radio.
I listen to podcasts or I listen to whatever.
And I pay for YouTube Premium, so I don't see ads on YouTube.
So I don't see political ads.
I just don't see them.
They just don't play for me, unless I see them in other people's coverage of them.
But I remember, I think it was 2012.
It was just like every 30 seconds they were just playing, even like the local ads, you know?
Some of those are still burned into my memory because they just get played over and over and over and over and over again.
But, you know, now I've set up my life in a way that I just don't, you know, other than the yard signs and, you know, just people talking about it, I am not inundated by the fact that an election is coming in three weeks.
So, you know, it's a good life.
It's a good life, is what I'm saying.
It's a better way of doing things, yeah.
I confess that I am unhealthily addicted to a couple of the YouTube channels that make gargantuan amounts of money just from basically reciting the latest stupid thing that Trump has done or said, you know, and showing some footage of it.
So I get my Trump news mainly via cynical, centrist, liberal YouTubers.
You're moving right in your old age, Jack.
That's what's happening.
Pretty soon you're going to be wishing Biden was still around.
Why didn't we have the sense to vote for Romney?
He was a reasonable socialist.
It's just, it's as with any addiction, you know, you just have to have your fix and you don't care how you get it.
No, no, I get it.
You know, you don't have to like your dealer.
Let me put it that way.
Yeah, that's fair.
That's fair.
Yeah.
No, I hear you.
So, yeah, what we're actually here to talk about is the, in line with the series that we're doing, which is a very, very loose series of bonus episodes about movies about or increasingly just featuring presidents, you know, in line with this being president season.
We're talking about, and this is by listener request, isn't it?
We're talking about 1999's Dick.
One of my Patreon subscribers.
One of my long-term Patreon subscribers.
Because we talked about maybe doing this one, like you were just joking around, because we both had an obsession with Richard Nixon.
And he was like, no, no, yes, please, do it.
So, you know...
Yes, the same person actually is also a Patreon subsidizer of mine and got in touch with me as well.
So, you know, clearly this is something that's very important to them that we should talk about.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, I think...
I don't know how you feel about this.
I guess we'll talk about that here in a minute, but I'm expecting some people are going to expect that you're going to loathe this, and I think that might be.
I think there's a fanbase for us just completely shitting all over this, which I don't think I'm going to...
I don't feel that way about this, but we can get into that.
Well, just spoilers straight away.
I love this movie.
Okay, awesome.
Awesome.
So my history with this basically is I watched it at the time, which was 1999, as I say.
So I would have seen it in 99 or 2000.
Do you think you saw this theatrically?
Do you think you saw this theatrically?
I didn't see it theatrically.
No, it would have been a VHS rental.
And the reason that I watched it was, well, I mean, partly even at the time I was interested in Nixon, you know, because even when I was 23, 24, I was a weird politics nerd.
But the main reason that I watched it at the time is that it features two cast members from the kids in the hall, which...
I absolutely loved.
It features both Bruce McCulloch and David Foley, who are Kids in the Hall members.
And I got into Kids in the Hall from the showings of that that were on Late Night Channel 4 here in Britain while I was at university, which is roundabout just before this came out.
So that's why I watched it at the time.
And I remember really liking it at the time.
And I'm afraid that's all you're getting of that, at least for the time being.
If you want to hear the rest of it, you'll have to give myself or Daniel as little as $1 a month on Patreon.
When you do, you'll have access to this episode and all our previous bonus episodes, the entire back catalogue.
