#85 More Crossing the Streams – Bonus Episode #2

CTS Announcer 0:01

Looking for your next TV show or movie to binge? Well buckle up, grab the remote and settle into your couch for this special edition of crossing the streams. We're here to help you tune in and get the most out of those 50 monthly streaming channels you're currently paying for. So without any further ado, here's your host of crossing the streams. Jeff Dwoskin

Jeff Dwoskin 0:30

Hey, everybody, it's Jeff Dwoskin. Great to be back in your ears for this special Thursday episode of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. This shows a little different than the Monday show. This one features highlights from crossing the streams. That's a live show that I do with a bunch of my friends every Wednesday at 9:30pm. Eastern time. I'm sure you've heard me mentioned it on the podcast previously. You're always asking yourself what TV shows and movies should I be binge watching I've got a million streaming services Well, you've come to the right place. Because these highlight episodes are going to showcase great shows that you should be watching can also head over to YouTube watch full episodes and keep up with Us Weekly as we do them live. crossing the streams. The core group is myself comedians Bob Phillips and sal de millio and lifelong friends Ron lippett and Howard Rosner, we get together we just talk about TV shows that we love and we invite friends along to talk about TV shows that they love with hopes when you hear from you'll fall in love of the shows to check them out and fill up your days with amazing television goodness. This bonus episode we've got some awesome highlights from across the crossing the streams catalog we're pulling from episodes 3439 and episode 42. Bob Phillips is going to be talking about deceptive practice the mysteries and mentors of Ricky J. friend of the show, Jeffrey Calhoun is going to talk about squid game and sal de millio is going to talk about the last parody so, so much fun a way to so let's get right to it. Let's kick off with Bob Phillips and deceptive practice the mysteries and mentors of Ricky Jay. Speaking of top 30 Let's get into deceptive practice and mysteries and mentions of Ricky Jay. Now for for those fans that have hung around the show for a while. This was almost the curse of Ricky Jay in the sense that it was Bob was even around last time. I'm like we did this one. No, we didn't because Bob didn't make it to that part of the show. So any almost didn't make it today. It was like oh no,

Unknown Speaker 2:40

this is the third attempt.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:42

Okay, so Ricky j, so hurry up to talk to us.

Bob Phillips 2:44

Okay. Ricky Jay, is one of these people, you you think you don't know him but you know him. You've seen him a million times. But he's always he's a character who was a character actor. But just he was he, he kind of forced himself to do that he was in Boogie Nights he was in. Let's see, a lot of David Mamet films like The Spanish Prisoner, House of games, let me look over here at my the prestige, which is a great movie about magic. And when you see his face now, that particular thing that you saw there, you wouldn't recognize that but if you saw his regular acting headshot, you would instantly recognize him as that guy, who's always interesting, who's just always this guy who shows up in movies at crime. You know, like heist movies like movies about magic movies about? Well, you know, Mamet goes with his movies, but anyhow, Ricky Jay, to me is one of the most fascinating figures of all time, I love. I used to be a magician, when I was a kid, I did you know, kids parties and all that stuff. And, but but Ricky Jay was probably the best close up magician of his generation. And he said famously that he knows nothing of the 20th century and that and literally everything about him, was sort of pulled from the 19th century, every every part of his act, everything that he did, in fact, he didn't really have an act. He was just so amazing. That other magicians were would just bow to him. I mean, these these jokers in Vegas, I mean, Criss Angel, you know, Copperfield, they, they they couldn't do what Ricky Jay could do. It. This guy was right. You were right on top of him, and he was, you know, completely fooling you and other magicians. One of the things I loved about him and it shows up in this documentary is that he has almost zero time for his past. He doesn't talk about, he just doesn't talk about his childhood. He doesn't talk about anything. But these old geezers that he that he sought out in the Flim Flam game and the con man game and In the magician game to teach him how to be this person he became. In fact this is I love this quote I have to look over here to grab it. When talking about his his father This is the only quote he gives about his parents. He said my father oiled his hair with Brylcreem and brushed his teeth with Colgate. He kept his toothpaste in the medicine cabinet and the Brylcreem in a closet about a foot away. Once when I was 10, I switched the tubes. All you need to know about my father is that after he brushed his teeth with Brylcreem, he put the toothpaste in his hair. This is his this is all he says about his his upbringing, his the parents that he was with, he has no time for them. They were completely incidental. He went when he was seven, he embarked on this and you know, and at 10, he made up his mind he was going to be the world's greatest close up magician. Well, people have over the years watched him and you can you can YouTube some of his stuff. And you see the joy that he that he is with which he performs. But what he, what he ultimately says about himself, which I find so fascinating, he says, This is all I am, this is me, this is all I've ever wanted to be. They keep trying to put me in movies. I don't want to be in the movies, but he knows David Mamet. So Mamet says you got to be in my movie. And then Paul was at Paul Thomas Anderson that directed Boogie Nights said you got to be in my movie. He said, I want to be in your movie. He says, You're you're going in my movie. So he's got these wonderful roles but but his life his legacy was just a an amazing body of close up work inventing illusions and freaking people out from coast to coast. But also he is what's kind of funny about the documentary is called deceptive practices. Deceptive Yes, that is what magic is all about. But Ricky Jay was anything but the stuff that he was always upfront. He was always honest about what he was doing. He was never, he never really went into the con game. He never went into being a Flim Flam guy. But he said he was always drawn to it. And he evaded that wound up becoming very wealthy, very well known. And I just, I just think that anybody who's into you know, real real close up magic. Check this out. It's unlike anything you've ever seen.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:36

I'm gonna say he's in Deadwood.

Bob Phillips 7:39

Yes, he was in Deadwood. That's right. Where is it streaming? This is on Netflix. Oh, Netflix. Okay. Yeah. So 2012 documentary? I think it died. He died in 18. Yeah, it's very interesting.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:54

So I don't know why every everything today is triggering a horrible memory of mine.

Ron Lippitt 8:02

Don't mean to laugh preemptively. But what No.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:05

No sale and Bob would know this one. So this is funny. So we knew a magician who was also comedian his name was off this. And also Scott Loftus was a magician. And I remember they said they'd been seven or so years ago. I said, Yeah, I am. Oh, you should do my daughter. Birthday. So this should have been maybe 14 or something at the time, a young young girl. But just the right age. For a guy who then ends up in a sexting, like, you know, like, what is a common Dateline date? Yeah, where you think you're going to pick up and have sex with them? Yeah, so just just it's just you know, it was it was such big news in the local area. That was it best it was a Kevorkian. It's hunger strike in jail. But here's the best part of the story one, I never told my wife and she should have to watch this to find out. I never told my wife I had hired a pedophile but to be in my daughter's party. And to win the news put his dating myself again. MySpace page on the news. I was in his top eight

Ron Lippitt 9:28

Yeah, that's right. Bring it home. You really attract some interesting characters, Jeff. I got a nice guy.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:41

Wow. And somehow never had therapy. You're fine. I have a podcast. Yes, I have a podcast. Cool. Now you know, I bought I gotta tell you I thought this was some murder. mystery about some weird deviant when I looked The thing and now I can't wait to see it.

Sal Demilio 10:02

Yeah, he's a really cool dude. Let you recognize him.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:06

I didn't recognize him from the poster.

Bob Phillips 10:07

Yeah, I don't know why they made the poster that way. It's strange. It made him look McCobb or something.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:13

Lisa Wow.

Ron Lippitt 10:18

Sorry, what's the end Carson? Or was he what? Was he on Carson or Letterman or anything? Yeah,

Bob Phillips 10:24

he went on Carson a lot. And I don't know if he was on Letterman. But he was beloved. out in LA, the comedy and magic store and it just just,

Jeff Dwoskin 10:37

he died when you went round. 2018 Yeah. Yeah. Really cool, dude. Very cool. That was awesome, Bob. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, John. Nice job.

Sal Demilio 10:48

To watch everything we've talked about tonight, our

Jeff Dwoskin 10:51

guy. That's the whole point of the show, Sam. If you do watch or have watched deceptive practices, the mysteries and mentors of Ricky Jay, let us know at Jeff Dwoskin show tweet at us. Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from ya. Up next, let's jump into squit game with Jeffrey D. Calhoun. And we got a new one coming up. This one I'm really interested in hearing about squid game this, a lot of talk about this one. So I'm really interested to hear what you have to say Jeffrey.

Geoffrey D Calhoun 11:25

Oh, squid game is awesome. So it's a Korean drama with a horror element to it. And essentially is about desperate people who are an exceptional amount of debt. And they are approached by someone who offers to give them money. If they agree to play a game, they have to sign a contract and they sign the contract, they can play the game now they get in. And the end, the promise is that they're going to make so much money, they'll pay off all of their debts and more. And so everybody takes it very lightheartedly. They get in there, and it's kind of weird, everybody shows up for a van, they're captured and then taken into a warehouse where they have to play the game. The squib game is in something you see until the end of the show. So it's actually a series of kids games, and I don't mind spoiling the first episode, they play red light green light, which is that's what you're seeing right there. And that poster you showed us, and so no big deal until somebody says red light. And then someone takes a step. And they get drilled in the head by a sniper. And you go, Okay, this is, this is next level stuff. And it's really great. What I really appreciate about this is the main character, this is so hard to pull off the main character, you do not like him at all, there is no likeability. And it's actually very difficult to sympathize or empathize with him. They did that on purpose, they did see it in little moments where like, the guy steals from his mother, and you're like, oh, I don't like this guy at all. But then you realize he steals from his mother, because he is so broke, he's playing an arcade grab machine to try and win his daughter, a gift for her birthday. So just really intelligent writing like that can make you hate a guy. But then like a guy and can manipulate the reader, the audience at that type of level is really difficult to do in the size, pull it off. So you get to watch this guy who's really at the bottom of his barrel grow throughout the entire series of it's fascinating. And they pepper, all kinds of amazing side characters in there from a deranged old band with Alzheimer's who is having the time of his life, by the way as he's playing these games, and everybody's being killed to him who's who's scared shitless and then his best friend who was this entrepreneur funereal businessman that everybody really respects but there's something hidden about them. And then you realize the the inner monsters within some of the characters versus the inner angels. It's actually it's a really great show, and it pulls you I mean, it had me by the end of episode one, it usually takes about three shows to grab me with Netflix did their metrics, they said it takes about three episodes to hook an audience and create a binge watch there. Because your your your brain actually releases the happy chemicals that make you want to keep watching so binge washings can actually kind of become a form of addiction. So but they had me after the end of episode one. Wow.

Ron Lippitt 14:27

Are you Are you sensing that there is a a strengthening of the of the Korean moviemaking and show making capability because I'm seeing so much great content out of Korea over the last just wow. Couple years.

Geoffrey D Calhoun 14:42

I wouldn't say it's just Korea. I mean, I would say it's Japan me and Alison Borderlands is a fantastic show. That's Japanese Norwegian shows your picking up I think it's called dark. So I think what I'm hoping is that American audiences are becoming more open to Foreign shows whereas before, what we would have would be like the office, right, which was, which was a remake of a successful British show. Same with House of Cards, which was another remake of a British soap show. So I think instead of having to remake the shows for an American audience now we can really enjoy the original versions of these shows. Yeah.

Tony Berardo 15:20

Which are, which are usually good. I mean, I enjoyed, you know, Ricky's Ricky's office I enjoyed that a lot. So you know, I wouldn't know it for without companies like Netflix doing stuff like this. So it's Yeah, exciting to see like,

Geoffrey D Calhoun 15:34

well, like that utopian show that came out on Amazon. It lasted a season and then it was cancelled. While that was originally a British show, and Amazon released the original show, which you got two seasons on. I was like that that was a good show. I went back and watch shows like as a way better than than the American version.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:50

So if there's a new show coming out, called ghosts that was based on some UK thing out a real quick friend of the show. We're going to test to see if somebody on fireside that I brought up Briony there.

Bryan Green 16:05

Hey, guys, how are you? Oh, fireside

Jeff Dwoskin 16:09

this Brian Brian Green from the commercial break podcast everybody, man. It's a show been on the show a couple times. Brian, welcome to W K. Do you have a story about a shoelace gone bad.

Bryan Green 16:26

I actually just bought a series of shoe laces that are very colorful. They're brightly colored with patterns and my wife said you will never put those on your food. If anybody needs any brightly colored shoelaces let me know. Book Marketplace

Jeff Dwoskin 16:43

awesome. I Oh, that's fireside How cool is that. So that's coming through my phone through the road caster into the studio with you. We can hear them they can hear us. This is a revolutionary new approach. Brian Greene is instrumental in helping me set this up. Thank you. So I'm

Sal Demilio 16:57

glad you got it done.

Bryan Green 16:58

And you guys, I just want I want to let you know that I know he wants to test me coming up here. But everyone sounds great. You're coming through picture. Perfect. And congratulations on your first cyber fireside. I'll let the show continue without further interruption.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:10

I'm gonna practice now taking you off this. Don't kick me. Okay, very cool. All right. Cool. How cool is that guy?

Ron Lippitt 17:16

That's pretty awesome. That's pretty awesome, Jeff, that we have majorly upped our game at this point. Big time.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:21

So yeah, that's, that's super fun.

Tony Berardo 17:24

Let Jeff do in that is successful moment.

Ron Lippitt 17:28

So I just keep just getting back real quick. Because I do I do believe, to your point that, you know, show us from other countries shows from different cultures have found their stride in streamable platforms. I think, you know, under traditional theater based models, I don't know that people are willing to make the investment or the risk the time on a Friday or Saturday night to try it out. But when you're on your couch, and it's sitting there and Netflix and the algorithm says you're gonna like it, it might be worth the fly around it. And I think that drives participation and some of the changes. Yeah.

Tony Berardo 18:02

And you know, just to add on to that what cuz I have a couple buddies that are in Cali that are actors and filmmakers themselves and it a lot of people kind of are scared of the the streaming phenomenon that's happening right now. Because, you know, they think it's gonna be the end of making movies. And I think it's the the complete opposite, I think, you know, we're gonna see a lot of countries that we wouldn't have the opportunity to go into like an AMC or Regal Cinema, because now these people are not going to invest money into selling those movies, to these big movie theaters to get it in the United States. They're just going to up the production value of the actual film, and go to service and all that from their own country where the UK are trying to career so I think it's gonna up the ante for movies and it's gonna make you know that that pleasure of watching a movie at home even better so it's exciting. It's exciting to see that's a quick game looks awesome. So I'm going to check that out. So good review. Yeah,

Ron Lippitt 18:50

check it out as well.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:52

Although to Carmen by the way. Hello, Chairman, Adam, and lead Nick. As the as always, Leo was actually early today, but she's Haley. I know squid game is a hot show right now. If you've seen it, tweet at us at Jeff Dwoskin show, let us know what you thought. Or if you haven't seen it. Let us know that you did see it. After listening to the show. You heard Brian Green in the last segment. Joining us live on fireside on Wednesdays at 9:30pm. Eastern time. You can do that too. If you have an Apple phone, you can download the fireside app and listen along And I'll bring you on stage and you can talk about the show that we're talking about or any of the ones that we've talked about in the past. So definitely check that out. You also heard friend of the show Tony Berardo on there. It's a live show. You never know what voices you're going to hear who we're going to talk to you from the audience. It's live. It's crazy. I right up next. Sal de Emilio can't wait to talk to you about the last parody. So okay, all right. Well, this is the exciting part of the show where we where we turn it over to Sal we never know Last parody, so

Sal Demilio 20:03

this another movie probably Zack hasn't seen. This is the last parodies of this is a foreign film. This is an Italian Foreign Film. Let me tell you who it's directed and written by I don't want to ruin their names because they're more Italian than me. It's directed by Rocco Rika. Dooley, who plays the lead characters father in the movie, he directed it. And he also co wrote it with Ricardo Scarah Nuccio, who plays Ciccio and he's the main main character. So when to give you that so this takes place in Italy, it's a small town in Italy, it kind of hit home to me because that's where my parents are from. So don't picture Rome or Milan or one of the picture like a small town, in the middle of Italy, this might have been filmed in, in Sicily, but I'm not sure I could not find anything on where this was filmed. I don't know why. But anyway, so think a small town in Italy. And basically this, there's probably 2000 People live in this town, maybe not even that, and they're farmers. So just picture their farmers are our farmers. And then there's a there's a landlord on the land that owns all the land. And then he's the rich dude, and everybody works for him. So it's that kind of field, which is very similar to my mind. And my my dad did that they plowed fields early early in their life. So it kind of hit home to me like that. But basically, obviously, the rest of it has nothing to do with my bond debt. Because the shit that happens here, it's kind of a romantic, Italian drama film. And so basically, there's, there's the premise of it, or there's the location. And then the lead guy Ciccio is he's a guy that kind of sleeps around the town, sleeps a lot of women in the town, and he's married with three kids. And he's one of these olive farmers. And he's kind of like the the lead of all the other farmers. So he's like, more educated than them, he speaks out, and they don't get paid very well. And one night in the bar, he kind of goes up to the landlord who's like this domineering character, and just tells them that, you know, we need to make more money. And, you know, we don't you know, we work all year and you're paying us for like, three, four months worth of work. And you know, I'm going to, we're just going to sell the house to somebody else, and he's caused a lot of havoc. Now he's sleeping with this guy's daughter, he falls in love with this girl named Bianca, even though he's married and his wife knows he's sleeping with her. And the whole town kind of knows. And he's just falling in love with her. He wants to marry her and his wife Posey sleeping with her whole town kind of knows. And he's just falling in love with her. He wants to marry her. And there's one going on. Is there something going on? Can you guys hear me? Yeah, I felt like I heard myself back. Did you guys hear that? Okay, I

Jeff Dwoskin 22:48

was so good. We had to hear three times.

Sal Demilio 22:52

So I was hearing myself review it. So anyway. So basically, he's sleeping with this with this girl. And the father finds out father eventually finds out because the whole town knows his wife knows, spoiler alert, like Tony said, basically, the father, the father murders and says, Hey, I want to meet you out in the field and talk to you about maybe doing some business. And he just, he tells him the soil is great. And the guy leans down Ciccio and he hits him over the head with a with a shovel kills him. I gotta tell you all this, because it's part of the movie, anyway. And it's early on in the movie. So you're like what I mean, I was blown away, because I thought this guy was going to be in the movie the whole time. Well, he is because now he's dead. But his brother who they never show lives in France, he kind of moved away. And it's the same actor, and he's got like a mustache makes himself look a little different. And he comes to town to kind of place revenge on the man that killed his brother. And then and I don't want to spoil. I don't want to tell the rest of the world, but that's kind of the gist of it. It's in subtitles if you want like somebody said earlier, I loved it in speaking Italian because I understood it. And I watched a little bit of it in English. And I'm like, Nah, it's not it wasn't that good in English. But in Italian, I think these actors did a great job. And a great cast on the cinematography was great. The location, the scenes, and all that were great. Not Enough jokes. Not Enough jokes. Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:19

No, never. They're never

Sal Demilio 24:21

jokes, no jokes, but all in all, I thought it was good. I'm going to give it up for a foreign film and a Netflix film. I'm going to give it for tomato sauce jars. Oh, it was a very, very good film. Um, only about an hour. I think it's our 47 minutes. I read some reviews on it was very hard to find reviews on this. There was a review from digital mafia. talkies. I don't know if you guys ever heard of that. Mafia talkies. They reviewed it and they kind of felt the same way I did. They said it was good acting, but they thought that the premise was great, but it kind of could have used a little bit more like a little bit more to it. Almost like it kind of reminded me of the talent Mr. Ripley in a way, the way it was, the way it was, just shot everything, but I thought it needed a little bit more as well. But I mean, overall, I thought it was a really good movie. If you're into the foreign films and you're in the subtitle films, I thought it was really good. I highly recommend it. If you're a Netflix

Tony Berardo 25:16

subscriber, hey, sound sounded like it. It needs a little bit more of a Scorsese twist to it. Just a little. A little Yes.

Sal Demilio 25:23

Yeah, a little more killing. Or more killing. One guy dies, and that's Ciccio. So there's no deaths in it. The actresses are absolutely beautiful. Bianca is beautiful. His wife is giving his great great actors and actresses. Very well done very well goes to these guys. For for tomato sauce shows.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:42

That's awesome. And I just want to point out Scott Curtis has been trolling us. Thank you, Scott. All right. Sal always picks the most interesting shows to talk about ones I've never heard of. I've never heard of love that guy. Also, you never know how many tomato sauce jars he's gonna give. Sometimes he's generous. Sometimes he I know. He doesn't love him as much tune in live. And you can hear his reviews as they happen. So that completes this bonus episode. Three great things for you to check out full episodes are all available on YouTube. We have over 50 hour long episodes on YouTube you can dive into or you can just wait for the bonus episodes to feed you these smaller chunks. Either way, we're here for you to make sure that you are using your TV to its fullest potential. Today's episode was squid game the last pair of detail and deceptive practices. The story of Ricky J. All great shows. Check them out. If you have a show that you want us to review that we haven't talked about. Tweet us at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. Please visit us during our live episode, chat along with us. Until then go across your own streams and don't let anyone tell you can't see it next time.

CTS Announcer 27:13

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