Episode #724: Safe House (1998)
Added 2024-02-20 05:00:03 +0000 UTC“I think the beauty of [this movie], if there is, is that Patrick Stewart gets to act like a child through most of this! - Chris
On this week’s episode, this one’s a long-time coming as we finally chat about the ridiculous Patrick Stewart made-for-Showtime thriller, Safe House! What’s with this abhorrent Pool Man character and the impressions? How hilarious is it that the so-called villain’s name is pronounced like, “Michael Moore”? How many times has Patrick Stewart’s character almost been sued by maids and groundskeepers for all the ‘drills’ he runs around them? And why couldn’t we get a little more Hector Elizondo in this movie? PLUS: John Wayne tries to order lunch at a Wendy’s!
Safe House stars Patrick Stewart, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Hector Elizondo, Joy Kilpatrick, and Craig Shoemaker as Stuart; directed by Eric Steven Stahl.
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Original cover art by Felipe Sobreiro.
Comments
Thank you, this was so lengthy and fascinating that I briefly forgot I wasn’t on Reddit 🧐😂
Dylan Korta
2024-03-09 08:25:44 +0000 UTCChild of an extreme couponer here with a little "from the trenches" info on both the show and just the overall idea of it! Your average Extreme Coupon person is less the cheapest person you've ever seen and more 1. someone of lower-to-middle class who WAS poor and now has the impulse to stockpile non-perishable things. The post-2008 recession equivalent of people who grew up in the Great Depression keeping shitloads of cash hidden in their house because their generation refused to trust banks. or 2. a stay-at-home suburban mom DESPERATE for something intellectually engaging to do that feels productive. While neither myself nor my mom were on the show, she was immediately inspired by it and went as deep as most of the women A&E shined a spotlight on. Though, it should be said, we never pulled any stunts like the one lady in the show who was in the game so deep she would have the grocery store order an extra of mac & cheese just for her because she was bringing enough coupons that week she'd buy out the store's stock otherwise. Once you get into the rhythm of acquiring coupons and balancing where you shop for certain items (you maximizing the store's rewards program), it ends up being not that hard to maintain. Thus the Extreme Couponer ends up being a sort of walking supply depot. In my college years and most of my adulthood my mom had literal shelves of the basic items one uses every day. I didn't spend money on laundry detergent, soap, or shampoo for YEARS because she was actively trying to get everyone else in the family to take some. For what it's worth, my anecdotal experience is there's a not-insignificant amount of extreme couponers who once they have their dragons' hoard of toothpaste and shampoo built up, they become regular suppliers to local food banks, soup kitchens, and shelters. To share the quick and dirty secret of the hobby/part time job: there are two kinds of coupons: local and manufacturer. Local coupons are the classic "ten cents off a can of peas" ones you see in your junk mail and local paper, the ones with lawyer-level restrictions so you can never get too good of a deal. Manufacturer's coupons are the gold. You often see them in Sunday editions of the local paper as a little booklet of coupons all for one brand and they're oddly good. That's the parent company trying to shift old stock of a limited-time-only item or a discontinued version that's taking up shelf space they need. The second kind rarely has any restrictions about stacking them, so if you combine them with the local deals stores are doing to get rid of their stock of that product, you can get into a rhythm where you're stopping by a CVS once a week and walking out with a cart full of body wash, sodas, and funky versions of popular snack brands for little to no money. When my mom got into it she identified that the big limit to couponing was getting multiple copies of the manufacturer's booklets. Eventually she ended up in a clandestine legally-grey Facebook ring of women who knew a guy who was the guy who put the coupons in the Sunday paper in his town. He always had bundles of extras he was supposed to sell away, but he'd sell them for pennies per sheet. Women across the nation were paying this dude in Florida to send them coupons, some of which would then sell to their local coupon groups for a markup. Capitalism infects everything. And believe me when I tell you these people are STARVING for community and influencers to tell them what to do. My mom, a personable woman but with zero dreams of being an influencer, racked up 20,000 subscribers on YouTube in a few months just filming a table where she'd lined up everything she'd gotten while couponing that day, what she spent, and patiently explaining what store she'd gotten each item from and what methods she used to save the money. They weren't bad videos, but they were single-take unedited vlogs of a woman reading off prices, and her fanbase at it UP. And then one day she got bored of it all and walked away. A move I deeply respect to this day. I can only imagine the god-awful things she'd have to grind out on a regular basis if she'd continued couponing long enough to need to film TikToks and YouTube Shorts to feed the algorithm.
Gavin
2024-02-25 00:12:08 +0000 UTCIf you told me the premise of this film beforehand, I wouldn't believe you... if you then told me it starred Patrick Stewart, I would have called you a fucking liar... but here we are. This was hilariously insane🤣
Deitrich Tennin
2024-02-23 19:26:08 +0000 UTCPatrick Stewart is having a blast in this film because he spends about a third of his screen time in a bathrobe or towel, and when you're that comfy, you're going to commit.
Z
2024-02-22 04:26:08 +0000 UTCgod I hope we get a Bug Stuff month also this is an all-timer of an episode
TJ Guiney
2024-02-22 00:09:57 +0000 UTCDuring high school, my mom and I had a cute tradition where, on occasion, when we both had time off we would do double or triple features at the movies. That is how I ended up seeing both The Cell and Seven with my mom.
Jason
2024-02-21 21:01:52 +0000 UTCThe Listeners choice’s are unbelievably great, I was both cackling and cheering as each one was announced. Perfect caliber of films. Im a follower of the radical “20 year rule club” and am quite impressed by the listeners tastes
RJ Cunningham
2024-02-21 19:33:39 +0000 UTCI can’t help but feel that (similar to recent bomb Madame Web) Patrick Stewart signed up for a different film. I could see this being an intense drama/paranoia film if it had a big budget and Sandra Bullock as the leading lady… unfortunately slashed budget and bad director equals this hilarious miss. Also, I’m not sure if the boys are aware of this but Patrick Stewart voiced a major character in American Dad, playing the head of the CIA who’s unhinged, that HAS to be inspired by Safe House. One episode even features him completely senile…. PS, Star Trek The Experience was the Star Trek ride at the Las Vegas Hilton in the late 90s and I got to ride it as a 13 year old Trek nerd and see Patrick Stewart addressing the riders. Great episode, haven’t laughed this hard in a while 😂👍🏻
Carlos Ramirez
2024-02-21 18:54:01 +0000 UTCAndrew’s “(deep sigh) existence” is my new favorite thing.
Derek Baxter
2024-02-21 14:50:26 +0000 UTCThe Mailbag intro song is so, so fucking good. I’ll often hit the “15 sec back” button and go back relisten. If I were clever I’d use a computer to make it so it’s just that song for 8 hours. Leaving this here since no mailbag on here. Would be a fantastic deathbed song
RJ Cunningham
2024-02-21 13:35:24 +0000 UTCRandom blink-and-miss-it thing I noticed during the interview montage was that one of the interviewees is the leader of the Chang Sings from Big Trouble in Little China
profondo robbo
2024-02-21 11:11:11 +0000 UTCMy favorite episodes are when they destroy wanna be blockbusters like r.i.p.d.
Mark D Myers
2024-02-20 23:29:24 +0000 UTCI loved this totally bonkers movie and your episode on it. Despite her turn at the end of this movie I can confirm that Kimberly Williams is a total sweetheart. She and Brad shopped at a grocery store I worked at and they’re both lovely people. They have a non-profit store of their own here in Nashville where people needing assistance can shop for groceries cost free.
Ryan Horn
2024-02-20 22:11:00 +0000 UTCIf you're gonna do bug month recommend Phase IV (1974) with scientists watching super intelligent ants
Darryl Bowen
2024-02-20 20:42:24 +0000 UTCWhat a way to find out that First Contact wasn't peak jacked Patrick Stewart after all. Anyway, great show as always, it even beat my expectations for more Picard voice 😆
Dave
2024-02-20 19:40:53 +0000 UTCCheck out all of Patrick Stewart’s aids on the set. Guys his own economy! https://imgur.com/EC6zSmg How bad must his vision be to need a special optometrist on set?
RJ Cunningham
2024-02-20 19:06:19 +0000 UTCNot just groceries. It's for Captain Crunch. 😁
Justine Prudhomme
2024-02-20 16:09:43 +0000 UTCI loved watching this with my fiancee. She was so incredibly confused. She also informed me that the gun that Patrick Stewart assembles at the beginning is a 1911. It's single action only, and does not have a decocker. So if the hammer drops on a loaded chamber, the gun will go off. Movies and tv getting gun details wrong like that drives her crazy. Lol.
Justine Prudhomme
2024-02-20 16:09:03 +0000 UTCEpisodes like this, Live Wire, and Stone Cold are WHM's real cash money. Salud.
MarkNM
2024-02-20 15:57:50 +0000 UTCWell, not gonna be able to go to the Belly Buster sandwich place nearby with a straight face for a bit...
G Goldhar
2024-02-20 15:41:02 +0000 UTCMan this was an amazing (in the I can't believe this exists sense) movie to watch in preparation for this episode. I think mostly it's just that we're so used to seeing PS in more dignified, stoic roles that seeing him acting like a kid is most of the appeal. Some bits I wanted to point out: 1. That Star Trek Klingon Encounter was tied to the Star Trek Experience at the old Las Vegas Hilton which was pretty dope. I went when I was 11 and still have a bottle of Romulan Ale from a six-pack my dad bought from there. Funny enough that joke about it being overgrown is sort of accurate because while it closed in 2008, the building facade with the Starfleet delta is still there hidden from street view behind the tram station at the hotel. Interesting video on it if you want to see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDMk8DO4wJ4 2. That final kill is unintentionally hilarious, but it gets funnier if you watch the scene on YouTube and slow the playback down to 0.25. The "AAALLRRIIGGHHTTT ANNDDIII" kills me everytime. https://youtu.be/KQhjWNog8Mw?si=o4dAasT9M9ug86yJ&t=56
Daniel Hood
2024-02-20 15:18:30 +0000 UTCOf the million complaints I have about this movie: I don’t understand why they keep showing Patrick Stewart in great shape, working out and shit and then try to tell us he only eats Combos and twinkies… if he looks like that he’d be 100% into the healthy diet the lady suggests
Felipe Sobreiro
2024-02-20 14:00:50 +0000 UTCAlmost got beaten to death by the mob for snort laughing in the Quiet Car of my train during the “click on all the bicycles” discussion.
HockeenightsCT
2024-02-20 13:36:36 +0000 UTC"It's the most expensive pot luck in the world Eric"
James C Harris
2024-02-20 13:22:32 +0000 UTCFree full version (in beautiful 720p) on YouTube if you done wanna see the Tubi commercials
RJ Cunningham
2024-02-20 13:10:24 +0000 UTCLiterally saw an ad last night for what I believe is the final episode of The Good Doctor and marveled that that shit was somehow still on.
HockeenightsCT
2024-02-20 13:07:18 +0000 UTCMy favorite late-90s "white savior" moment in this film occurs early in the 1st Act, when Stewart is having breakfast and as a "bonus" for the maid -- lets her have extra grocery coupons for her son, Javi. You know, to help her income status... Come on! 😄😄
Cody Downs
2024-02-20 06:44:28 +0000 UTCI would kill to get that life-size mannequin of Patrick Stewart.
Paul
2024-02-20 05:13:44 +0000 UTCWow I KNOW I'm devoted to you guys when you can get me to actually watch entire Saw sequels and THIS! 😆 It was something for sure, Patrick Stewart's GOING for it....and it's free on YouTube.
Geoff Gershon
2024-02-20 05:10:16 +0000 UTC
