On this episode of the Never Seen It podcast, we delve into the gritty, early-2000s world of Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou's co-directed film, Take Out. We explore its raw, cinema verité style, the palpable immigrant struggle of its main character, Ming, and how this micro-budget movie serves as a blueprint for Baker's acclaimed filmography. Join us as we break down the film's emotional impact, its realistic portrayal of New York City, and the powerful, human stories hidden within a single day of delivering Chinese food.
In this episode, we're cracking open the containers and digging into the 2004 (released 2008) indie gem, Take Out, co-directed by the brilliant Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou. We are the Never Seen It podcast, and we're all about fresh perspectives on films we should have seen by now.
We start by discussing why we chose this film, connecting it to the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the new work from co-director Shi Qing Su. From there, we sink our teeth into the movie's simple yet powerful plot: an undocumented Chinese immigrant, Ming, must pay back a smuggling debt by the end of a single, grueling day working as a deliveryman in New York City.
Our conversation covers the signature Sean Baker filmmaking style—the gritty, guerrilla-style, cinema verité approach that makes you feel the rain-soaked streets and claustrophobic apartments of New York. We talk about how the city itself becomes a character, a relentless force that Ming must battle against.
We delve deep into the film's themes, including:
The immigrant struggle in America and the immense pressure to provide for a family left behind.
The brutal reality of the service industry and the often-unseen hustle of delivery workers.
The powerful social realism that makes the story feel less like fiction and more like a documentary.
The stark contrast between life pre- and post-smartphones, and how technology has changed the nature of this kind of work.
We share our personal connections to the film's themes, from our own experiences in the food service industry to financial hustles that echo Ming's desperate race against the clock. We also highlight the incredible collaboration between Sean Baker and Shi Qing Su, noting her crucial role and continued influence in his later works like Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket.
Tune in for our full Letterboxd-style reviews, Arnold's official "Snooze-a-Meter" rating, and a heartfelt discussion on why this micro-budget film remains so impactful and relevant today. This is a must-listen for fans of independent cinema, social realist films, and anyone who wants to understand the roots of Sean Baker's filmography.
Welcome to the Never Seen It Podcast, The only podcast called Never Seen It that's worth listening to.
With us tonight, as always, Mr. Arnie The
One Man Parte, aka.
Arnold Calgo..
Mr. Daily Dares, aka.
Filipino Ggio, aka.
Alex Calo, the Brothers Calo, Mr. Donnie Appleseed, aka
Donnie Guzman, Cousins Calo.
Mr. Ghost Ner, 88., aka.
Justin Holden, and then there is me.
Boots Too Big, aka.
Adrian Bellator.
And tonight we are discussing the 2004 film
Takeout by Director Shi, Ching
and Sean Baker, who are both collaborators, by the way, and we'll get into that.
An illegal Chinese immigrant falls behind on payments
on an enormous smug smuggling debt.
Ming Ding has only until the end of the day
to come up with the money.
Very simple plot, very complex story
in the sense that there's's so many layers to,
I think, the immigrant story in America and specifically
in New York City, where the main character, main, played by Charles
Zang, has to hustle his way through the mean streets of New York delivering Chinese takeout
And this movie made me so hungry. that I, myself went
to a Chinese restaurant, very authentic place here in town.
Like, you guys may have heard of it, Pan Pandanda Express.
Really good.
Really good.
But no, it wasn't really good, actually.
And, yeah, I kind of want to get, I want
to go to New York City to get an authentic slice of New York pizza and
authentic New York style Chinese food.
Because I feel like I have a feeling that New York Chinese
food is going to hit different than West Coast Chinese food, but that's just my, that's what I think.
But I. water do they use?
It is.
Well, yeah, that's what I hear with the bagels too.
You got get the bagels.. bagels.
But Alex, I believe you chose this movie, correct?
Why did you choose Takeout?
I chose this movie because it's
part of the lineup for the San Diego Asian Film Festival.
And they're showing
a restored 4K version of it on
Saturday, which by the time this gets released, the San Diego Asian Film Festival already passed
But you should, anybody who's listening should
go go watch it on HBO, Max, you
know, as we get into it, this is a very simple story, complex at the same time.
But I also chose it because of Closing
Night Ceremony, Closing Night film
that's being screened at the San Diego Asian Film
Festival is a new film called Left Handed Girl,
and it's directed by She Ching, the codirector of Take Out.
I believe that's another reason why they're screaming
Takeout at the San Diego Asian Film Festival or what we
film lovers in
San Diego and us in this circle of friends, the
NSIP circle of friends known as the Seda.
We're affectionately calling it the Seda..
Nice.
Oh, yeah.
So yeah, that's the reason why I I chose this film.
And I've been wanting to put this.
And also, it's, it's a co-directed by Sean Baker.
One of our, like a fan favorite of ours lot, obviously, we did
Anora.
And our lost episode, Florida, one
of our lost episodes, Florida Project.
Which was such a good discussion, by the way., I remember.
But I can't wait to redo that episode, which we have
several friends who haven't seen it yet, and I think it's
going to be it's going to be a good discussion once again
But yeah, I've never seen it.
You tell you could tell that this movie,
Takeout, has Sean Baker's fingerprints all over it.
Oh, definitely.
Yeah.
That cinemae style, as they call
it, that sort of like almost like documentary style.
The way he
films it in the streets of New York with the camera,
just like, I don't want to call it Shaky cam, but he's, it's very,
like, it feels like improvised filming, right?
And it feels so gritty and realistic.
And he did that in Tangerine.
He did that a little bit in a Florida project of, I remember correctly.
Yeah.
You know what?
You know what I like about that, why it's compliments
his style compliments this movie so well is it kind
of recreates the claustrophobic nature of New York.
Yeah.
He does a lot of close-ups, and I believe he
only does close-ups because, well, not only part of the reason,
I think, is because they sort of filmed a gorilla stuff style, right?
I believe so. you would have real life extras in the background, I'm imagining
probably looking at a person filming. because I noticed
there was one shot where you could almost see like somebody kind of looking into the
camera, but he framed it in a way where you couldn't really fully see their face.
But he did that a lot, though.
He did that a lot during the deliveries, I noticed.
Did you guys notice that he like would have someone open the door and
they would be partially obscured or completely obscured,
you know, as he was handing them like their food and stuff.
And then there were times when
with the more mean customers, he would like fully show their face.
And I'm like,, yeah, like really, he
really wants to show you like, yeah, this person's being an asshole.
But, um, but yeah, who else hadn't seen it besides besides,
uh, I know, myself and Arnold, had you seen it before?
You hadn't seen it before.
I don't think any of us have seen it.
Oh, okay, good.
I've never seen it either, yeah.
So we're all watching this with fresh eyes.
Yeah.
What did you guys think about the the, wow, what's the character?
I don't remember his name, but his co-worker, basically, who like says,
take all my deliveries today.
And you know yeah. that guy just
kind of hung around the restaurant all day and I was kind of surprised like nobody was telling,
I mean, someone did mention it at one point, but I would have thought somebody would be like, why aren't you out going doing deliveries?
Like, what the hell's going on?
that was the only part of that kind of made me feel like, like, would that happen in real life?
I don't know.
I don't know how realistic that would be, but I do a couple deliveries.
Yeah, it have taken stuff you know.
Yeah.
He did like a three and then Ming did like the other 42.
Oh, was it 42?
I don't know.
Was it that?
I mean, I wouldn't believe it because it. 6, seven or 69
That's never going to die, that reference, I think.
We're going to do that on every episode.
If that reference doesn't die, I surely will take my own life.
Well, don't do that.
But anyways, yeah, 2004, such
a year for this type of movie to come out, it takes me back
to high school because I remember making little short movies
and dumb stuff in my film video class.
And
we had cameras at basically the same quality that you see in this movie.
And it just the era also was so
palpable because this was like a few years after 911,
which is referenced in this movie, because a big part of it is like
immigrating to the U.S., from China, and then like the fact that there's no smartphones yet.
Like this movie came out
a few years before Facebook, a few years before the iPhone.
I mean, do you guys think that logistically things would have worked out differently
is being had a smartphone and a way to like more
quickly navigate to New York City or how do you think that would have shaked out
in today's world anyway?
I feel like he got around pretty good on the bike.
Yeah.
Other than like him getting a flat tire.
Yeah.
That's your thing I was wondering.
So how does it work?
Does anybody know?
Like in New York, a takeout place like that, a day on like,
we only do like within a two mile radius, a three mile radius.
Typically, they do like a certain mile radius.
I remember when our older brother Donnie,
used to deliver for Shakey's back in like
97, 96, 97.
He would like during the summer, he'd come out, stay in Palm Springs, you know, during college
And then, he'd, do deliveries
and they're like, there's a certain radius and then certain neighborhoods,
they wouldn't take deliveries to, you know, like the dangerous ones. neighborhoods.
Bad neighborhoods, yeah.
Like, notably bad neighborhoods.
Well, I mean, that was out of the radius, for sure.
But I do believe it like, I don't
know the the mile radius it was, but I think it was like a five to 10 mile radius.
I'm not sure.
But that's 10 miles is the far away.
I always thinking of like the radius in like San Diego
now where it's like 10 miles is not that far, you know, but
in Palm Springs, 10 miles is pretty far.
Right.
But when you think of New York, it's like it's a lot of it's vertical, right?
They're all live in like Billy.
Yeah, it's all compact.
So I'm sure there's so many different restaurants there that anybody
who's going to work there is a neighbor is a neighbor of the restaurant itself.
And the reason why I bring up the logistics was because is because
Ming seemed so miserable
And I was thinking as I was watching it, not just because he
owes these two lone sharks money was like $800 some dollars or something like that.
Um, and he was able to borrow some of it from some.
Who was that girl, by the way, that he borrowed some money from in the beginning?
I didn't really understand that part.
I think it was just like a friend.
Okay.
Like, I don't know.
Maybe it could have been a fact family member.
I'm not, they don't really clarify it.
At least I don't recall.
So he started off at 500, right?
Like she gave, he only had to come up with three.
Is that right?
350
I think 350, 300.
Yeah.
They gave him a big chunk.
Yeah.
It was a big chunk.
And then he asked his friend for 300, and
then he only had like 150, right?
What was his name?
Young?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then he so then that's, I'm bad at math, so what is that?
What does that bring him to?
150.
Okay.
And then and then he said, the most that he's ever made
in tips in a day was 90 bucks.
And then that's when Young was like, he was just, man, just a homie.
I was like, take all the all my deliveries today.iveries, yeah.
But yeah, I mean, that's why I was saying he looked
miserable the entire time because of that.
And then also because of the fact that throughout so much of the movie, he's just in
bad weather and he's like having issues with his bike and,
you know, he's dealing with all the traffic and terribleness.
Well, he's also in pain, too.. after he got all ended his hammer.
He got a little visit.
Where did he hit him?
Was it on his back or his shoulder?
I wasn't I think it was both.
It was both, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Because the guy in the beginning, the loan shark guy brings out a hammer.
I looked like a mallet, by the way.
I don't even know if it was a hammer.
It looked like a mallet to me.
And he just went
boop, boop, very soft and then walked away. and I was like, oh, okay.
But I don't think they really, they show
him coming down with the hammer, but you don't see it actually hit.
You just hear the the thud.
Right.
And that's why I was I wasn't sure
how much of an injury he sustained from that.
But I'm reading now that this film was
entirely funded by Sean Baker and Shi Chungu.
And as a result of the near- non-existent budget, the dual were unable
to afford actual crew members for the film production.
So they were hustling too, making this movie, I would imagine,
because that's a lot of work, especially when you're filming
in a busy urban environment like New York City
And then they filmed it during actual takeout restaurant operating
hours, which is interesting as well.
So that's. called Sean Baker Nature.
Yeah, he He really has a knack.
I feel like him and the Safty brothers really have a knack for filming this
documentary guerrilla style storytelling,
you know, it was just off the cut, like what looks like off the cuff.
And I also think it's interesting that it's two directors that are not related to each other.
Normally when you have da directors, it's like the Farley brothers, the
Cohen brothers, the Duplace brothers.
And he you have a man and a woman and not related to each other, presumably.
And they did this movie together.
I mean, I find that so interesting.
I don't know how many other, how many movies there are like that out there.
So I thought that was that was an interesting, that alone, wasn't it.
I wonder how they sort of divvied up the work of a director, you know.
So, yeah, so I found that interesting.
But, yeah, I would assume that the
way they div up the work was to like,
you know, the languages, right?
Because it was spoken mainly in Cantonese
at least in in the shop.
And then Sean Baker probably handled a lot of the English language stuff.
That's what I would assume.
And it's interesting also that the main character,
Ming, barely talks throughout the entire movie.
Like it's it's not a dialogue heavy movie at all
And the characters that do talk are like mostly
the customers, the people back at the at the restaurant, like
the staff there cooking and all that.
But me himself, like he doesn't have a lot of verbal communication with the customers.
And then there is that scene. is it the Coborker telling him
teaching him English phrases, I believe.
I forget what the is.
I thought that was, I thought that was funny.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
And teaching him how to see smile smile. which he didn't do.
Iile.
They're like, oh, you know, smile.
I mean, I hate that shit.
The whole, like, oh, you should smile, you know, it provides better
customer service for better tips.
I get that, but at the same time, I'm like, bro, I'm having the worst day of my life.
You think I'm going to fucking smile?
I hate I hate people that are like that.
That's what I'm saying.
Like, he's already having such a miserable day.
And then, yeah, they're coaching him on how, how to smile and stuff.
But the other aspect, I mean, what did you guys think about the fact that
like, it's not a very dialogue heavy film, as I said, and he really knows,
they really know how to counture the vibes of like, because this
felt like a documentary to me in some way, really know how to capture the sort of realistic vibes
of whatever story they're telling.
What did you guys think about that?
Like, did you with the sound design and the rain and the lighting?
Like, did you guys kind of like just get that certain gritty vibe from it?
Well, it can't rain all the time.
Yeah.
I was like,
like during that scene when he was talking about like
the rain and stuff like that, I was half expecting one of them to be like, well, it can't rain all the time.
For real.
In my opinion, this
film is very melancholic, very hellscapish, in a way.
And it's like someone's reality out there.
And it's not even just like a singular person's reality.
It's like more than not.
There's probably a bunch of people, even in this day and age
that are like trying to hustle like this, whether like
they owe to loan sharks or they're just trying to make rent for the night.
You know, I've been in that situation a
few times in my life where I'm like, wow.
Like, you know, I'm going to just share some sad shit.
But
I remember one time when I was in Palm Springs and
I didn't have a job.
I was just doing DoorDash and I was, you know, starting to get a little bit behind on
funds.
So I had the electricity company call me one time and they were like,
hey, if you don't pay this amount by 8 p.m.
tonight, we're shutting off your electricity.
And I was like, oh shit.
And I don't even have that much money to begin with.
And it's like,
at that point, I'm like, well, do I save this money for
rent or do I save this money for paying off electricity?
And I didn't have enough for either or I was like struggling.
I didn't know what I was going to do.
So I just like went out there and I grinded.
I did DoorDash and I believe I did like
Uber and Uber Eats at the same time.
So not only was I picking up orders, I was also picking up people and I was just trying to hustle.
And I made just enough money in just enough time.
I think it was literally like seven
like 30-ish somewhere around there.
And I made enough money.
The other thing that really stressed me out was that the
money didn't hit my account right away.
I was like, literally, I went to do instant transfer
and it was like one of the, it just happened to be one of those days that
the instant transfer didn't transfer like right then.
So I had to wait and I was waiting.
I was sweating
I think I got it close to the deadline.
So I like called the person at the electric company.
And by the way, I also found out that, yes, the
customer service for the electric company, they
do stick around till like after eight, specifically
for that reason, which I later found out to collect money.
Anyway.
That's crazy.
Yeah, so I waited, waited, and then like photo
finished, man, I was able to pay, but it's just like,
I, I managed to keep my electricity on,
and then I had to figure out rent, which was a whole other story,
but it's like, uh, you know, I can understand the struggle.
His struggle is far more than mine because
I don't deal with loan sharks at all..
But, I mean, dealing with loan companies in general is still not fun either.
Well, your story is very, very, very relatable to me as well.
I've been in that almost exact same scenario.
And here's the thing is that most Americans are
one paycheck away from being homeless.
Like the majority of people are one paycheck
away or one medical emergency away from any of up on the streets.
So, and but I was thinking about that and then
also the fact that like as just being born in this country is
like such a huge privilege, you know, like the immigrant struggle is so much more real
Like they have the struggles that your average American citizen
might have on top of like being not from this country,
not knowing the language and all that, and then like, you have family across the sea, like
oh I his character, his wife and his kid were still in China.
And I'm just like, man, like, as bad as I feel like I have
it some days, like, there's people out there, like you said, like, this is somebody's life, probably, even still today.
You know, it might be a little bit easier today with technology, but
you know, I's the struggle's still there.
Go ahead.
I saw this video recently on Instagram talking
about how originally in
the Philippines nurses, they
had that nursing program, right, where they promised like
a better life in America.
They brought these nursing programs to the Philippines
to basically teach them to become nurses
because the need for nurses in America was really big.
And so they had promised this whole thing where like, you come
come here, learn to be a nurse.
We'll get you into the U.S
But the promise of a better life was
like very much a broken promise.
They basically were indentured slaves.
Like if you broke the contract, you
could be sent back to the Philippines and they they held onto your green card and passport and
basically, you couldn't, it was just like an awful time.
Like, you were basically in debt
by the time you got to to the America already.
You already in like huge debt.
And it was just really sad.
And to this day, you still see that sort of stuff.
You see it.
And obviously this is a fictional story, but that's not too far off from like
what a lot of immigrants have to deal this.
It feels It feels so real.
You know what I mean?
It feels so real.
Like the struggle is
so palpable with this guy, you know?
And yeah, like you just feel so bad for him.
And I was wondering how the Lone shark thing would shake out in the end.
Like I thought that we would see them again in the animal.
We don't
But yeah, just the idea that he owes these
people money and they're going to hurt him if he doesn't pay up is, I don't know.
I was half expecting the loan sharks to
be like one of a part of one of his deliveries.
I would have been like I was like, they're going to like order something and they're going to be like, eh, where's your money?
Here's a reminder.
You know, those like cartoony villain type of things, but
Where's my food and my money?
With each delivery,
I kept thinking like, oh, is this going to be something weird that that happens?
Or like, but then it was just like, oh, just a standard delivery.
Oh, that tipped him.
And then onto the next one.
But I kept thinking like, oh, this is a kind of sketchy looking
building, but that's just New York.
Chinatown.
And what do you guys think about the fact that like, there
isn't really a lot of big major plot points in this movie.
It really is just him hustling all day and then they have vignettes
back at the Chinese restaurant with the crew
there and just their sort of day-to-day lives
And the contrast between him dealing with shitty customers and
like Big sister, I think what was her name name, kind of like like
having this back and forth with certain customers or regulars are like giving
her shit about like the price and what did you include napkins or my duck sauce or whatever it was?
I thought that was such a funny contrast between like her, you know,
bantering with the customers while taking orders, while talking to the kitchen.
And, you know, it's like busy, busy, busy, but she like has the sense of humor and all that.
And poor Ming is over here
and some guy's like, you forgot, Mike, whatever.
I ordered beef, not chicken, you guys fucking people.
Like, and I'm like, Jesus, dude.
Like, yeah.
And it was a lot.
I like how she would like talk shit in
Chinese about the customers in their faces.
Yeah.
And you wouldn't understand.
It' accurate.
It was in Chinese.
I thought it was interesting when or
I felt it was kind of dystopian when people were trying to like
barter like a price, like for just like even a a dollar off, I thought that was interesting.
The guy was like, oh, well, I thought this was $325.
And she kept telling him, this is it's $425.
And then and then like, I guess she gave him like a small little discount and anyway.
He's like, oh, you gave me a discount anyway.
You know, I'm like, I'm like, bro, it's 425 for all this food.
I'm like, god damn.
Yeah, I was just say, remember the houseon days of chief lunch?
Like lunch under five bucks?
There's no way you get that now.
It's because there's see you next week.
There's a lot of like street vendors in New York and like you're expected to almost barter with everybody.
So it's like their mentality out there.
Is that is that like a New York thing or an East Coast thing?
I mean, when I went out there, it was like, I was able to barter,
but I saw everybody else doing it. and I kind of read about it.
I kind of did some research before I went out there.
I never barged for anything in my life.
Especially in Chinatown.
Yeah, in Chinatown, especially.
Chinatown in LA., that you had the Santee markets
or or in Tijuana.
Those are not written in stone?
No.
Those prices aren't written down in stone.
Yeah, you go to Santine, you can totally bugger.
But you can't walk into like Walmart and be like, no, I'm only paying, two bucks for this chocolate bar, not two.
No, I'm talking about like small businesses, mob and pop shops type of.
Gotcha.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can't go into a big corporate box store right and be like, no, actually,
go to Starbucks and that your ass.
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's no disresrespect to like the mom and pop shops either, but
it's like, at the same time, everybody else is struggling also, you know?
So I think that's why they're just like automatically like, oh, let me see if I can get a better deal.
Well, you might be able to get water with McDonald's because they'll miss shit.
There was one specific shot that looked like it was an open
container and there was like rice and then she puts like a, well, looked like a big piece of fried chicken
on top of it.
And then she closed.
Did you guys catch that at all?
Yeah, I did.
I'm like, is that just like a thing you can order?
Like a big ass piece of?
It looked good, too.
Like a big piece of chicken on top of rice.
I don't know.
I not.
Also, I remember.. duck sauce because I feel like I've had it, but I can't remember what it tastes like.
Sweet sweet and sour sauce.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
All right.
Mystery salt.
I remember there used to be this one, uh, Chinese
restaurant out here in Palm Springs, North Palm Springs.
And then they had a chicken, um
like roast chicken dish on their menu.
And, um, it was like one of my, the best chicken roast chickens that I I ever had.
I can't remember the name of it.
No, no, no.
It was, remember, um, there's
a, uh, that dispensary just in North Palm Springs.
Oh, kind of close to the coal
Puriah.
Pah.
Do you remember Piraya Islands?
Yeah.
Man.
That was a Thai restaurant, wasn't it?
Yeah, now I'm thinking about it Piraya'sai, right?
Yeah.
They were really good.
They are like one of my favorite Thai restaurants out there.
Some drunken noodle.
Arnold.
I love me some drunken noodle.
Arnold, you know what you should do?
Seriously, you should do like a cooking video, like cooking videos,
but like stuff from movies that we've talked about.
And you can still make it up.
I think that'd be fun as hell.
Like, you can make something from this movie easily.
You know what I mean?
I got fried chicken and rice.
Fried chicken and rice, my friend.
You knowery bean.
I remember I was talking about this and I and I did the
a Cubano.
I recorded the content and everything.
This was years ago.
I still have it.
I'm just a lazy guy, man.
I got, you know, it's all in the head when it comes to creating the content and executing.
Just got to execute.
Just got to do it.
But then I I'm like, oh, but I don't feel like it.
I want I want to just chill.
I never have a chance to it's just like, but I'm always saying that.
I never have a chance to chill.
I never have a chance to chill, but I chill like every day.
You're chilling right now.
You chill You're chilling.
We're chilling right here.
Yeah.
No, but you know what?
It's fine.
If you ever just get the wild hair, make,
just make the video, send it to me, and I'll put it together.
I think that would be so fun to see you because you're a good cook for when I
can tell, and I think that would be just a fun project.
So let me know.
I was I was wondering, how do the, you
know, the rice, the fried rice that they were, how did
they, how did like Chinese restaurants, they get it so like yellow like that.
I mean, is it turmeric?
What What they do is
they use egg and they also use
what do you call it, the chicken base.
Okay Yeah, Okay..
What do you call it?
The Nor?
The Nor seasoning...
The chicken bouillon.
I have to imagine that the craft services on this movie was Bomb.
Like, they were making that food for real
and they were probably serving into the cast and crew.
Well, I guess the very small crew. was a real restaurant.
It was a real.
Yeah, it looked super real.
But yeah, what else?
Because I feel like there's so much more..
Yeah, the movie, like I said, that there's not a lot of in
terms of plots, but it still works because you know what the stakes are.
And that's one thing you always learn about in writing is having good stakes.
And the stakes for this guy are pretty high, right?
Well, one of the things, too, that I really liked about this movie is they really utilized
New York.
We always talk about like New York and like cities becoming a character.
And New York was really, they utilized New York like as a character.
You didn't really have to
do a lot because you see Ming
traveling through the city and you see the harshness of it.
the harshness of the reality he's living in, you know, having
to like like navigate those streets.
And, you know, we were talking about like, oh, how how would we have done this before?
Because I feel like we think about this all the time with like cell phones and everything
But, you know, he's lived there for a little bit, but I
feel like back then we adapted to that way of life because
we just memorized streets.
We just, you know, we utilized maps.
You know, if we didn't
we weren't familiar with an area, we would just drive
around or walk around or ride our bikes around and learn the area.
And I believe that's what he did, you know?
They probably even had maps at the restaurant.
I remember Donnie, who was saying that like when
he was working for Shaky's they had a map of Palm Springs and
Palm Springs area, like where he would have to go and like, okay, this is where it's at.
Then he would write sometimes write down the directions
You know, Alex, he reminded me of a story.
We all have a mutual friend Christina, Christina and Donald.
But one time, whenever we were in high school, I drove to LA.
Donald mentioned.
Sorry, go ahead.
The other Donald mentioned, yeah.
I drove Christina's parents' car because they were coming home for the Philippines and they had luggage.
And so we took two cars.
I drove one car and we got separated because of the crosswalk.
And this is pre- cell phone days, right?
And so I literally couldn't find them for three hours.
They were searching for me and like we would both be going in circles and we couldn't find each other.
And there was no way to contact each other.
They finally found me after like three hours just standing
on the hill in LAX just just parked on the side of the road and they were finally like, oh, I see Donald.
And then they would drive off and then by the time they'd come back, I'd be gone because I'd get like impatient.
But we finally, after three hours connected, but they were like, well, thank God you're okay.
Like, we didn't know how to contact each other.
It was so crazy
I imagine like, like that scene in Life Aquatic
where they're all standing on hill and they're all pointing.
You know, like Steve Z scene was like pointing Yeah.
That's funny.
I' got a question for you guys.
Because I was like trying to do some research on the side.
So actually, there's two things.
One, I don't know if it's me or,
okay, so this film has like two different dates
because, okay, I noticed that somewhere it says like 2004
and then somewhere else it says 2008.8.
I in 20081.
Yeah, because the one that's on HBO Max, it's 2008,
but it shows that it's also.
Wikipedia was it originally premiered
at Slam Dance and January of 2004
and did not see a wider release until 2008.
So that's your name.
There you go.
Okay.
Interesting.
It was made for a bunch.
Well, that $3,000, guys.
Three years.
What?
Because like what's that?
The Toxic Avenger was released
in 2024 at some other..
They premiered it at a certain film festival.
I can't remember which.
I think it was like, I can't oh, I can't remember.
I'm not going to try.
I remember you mentioning you that, yeah.
They were they finally released it this year.
So it was premiered debuted like actually
first screened in 2024, but debuted in 2025.
It was nominated for the John Caseetti Award at the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards.
It also won the grand jury prize
at the Nashville Film Festival.
And it filled a box office hall, by the way.
It was $69,816.
From a $3,000 budget, That's not bad at all.
Yeah.
You use that 80DV?
Like, that's crazy.
Yeah.
That's Time to Del Taco.
Back in those days, man.
second question is,
does anybody, because I was trying to look up, does anybody know what a restaurant they
filmed at and if it's still around?
Because I didn't see anything.
I just shows.
It doesn't say on Wikipedia.
It just shows that like there's one thing I search and it
said, like the restaurant no longer exists due to bankruptcy in 2008.
But it give me, it didn't give me a name of the restaurant.
And so like, and it ended up saying, like a place
called Benn's but I'm like, that doesn't sound right at all.
No.
It doesn't sound like a, like a Chinese restaurant
So I don't know if anybody knows, anybody
knows like if that restaurant's still around or whatnot or
what the name of it was or because it's a real restaurant,
but like, I want to know if like it's a place that you can still visit or not.
My only three sources are IMBb, Wikipedia, and ChatGPT
and they're all struggling to pull information tonight.
yeah, I don't know what the name of the restaurant is, but is Sean.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we'll have Sean Baker on the show.
We'll out this agent..
Let's talk about the ending, though, because I really want to talk about the ending.
The ending is the most disheartening, one of the most disheartening things I've ever seen.
And a Sean Baker film or otherwise, where I mean finally,
you know, he goes on on one last delivery of the night, for
the night, and he gets the cash and he gets in the elevator and two
douchebags, as I like prefer to them assters
get on and they rob him.
They have a little dialogue exchange like, oh, who's going to pay for the bus?
So I thought you to and then they just turned to me and they fucking rob him.
And yeah, I mean, what are, what are our thoughts on that?
Arnold, how did that scene make you feel?
Because I was going to ask, what's the emotional high point?
And I feel like that's the emotional high point in this story.
Yeah, for sure.
How did that make you feel Arnold?
What was your
reaction to that?
The Asian dude, how he wore his hat,
like backwards, but then it was covering his eyebrows.
And then and then he said the N word more than the than the black dude.
I was going to say, what's up with that?
Because he was Asian and he was dropping that like it was going out of style.
Excuse me, my voice out of style.
What was up with that?
From New York.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, I don' thing, I guess.
I don't know.
I went to school.
I mean, I had to say, like back then,
it was, you know, people wouldn't like, hey, no, you can't say that.
You know, we would I would even say that to like, like back then
to other black people, but but like as a term of endearment.
But like, I don't know, you know, the cultures change and and like now we don't do that.
But like I
last night.
You're like early 2000s, late 90s Berling.
Right.
Back when, you know, we wore tall tees and super baggygy pants still.
I don't want to get even into this.
But here's the thing.
Are Asian people, in some shows
and movies, modern shows and movies I've seen, they're referred to as being people of color.
Do you guys guys
see it that way?
Are Asians considered people of color by and large?
Or do you have a different take on that?
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
We're absolutely.
We're absolutely people of color.
Okay.
Well, no, I'm glad you're That's why I'm asking you because like in
the mini project that's come up in like, um
what's that show with Ssa Rey?
I can't remember the show's name.
But it comes up in these more modern TV shows and movies.
So is that I don't know why you think it was acceptable?
Good.
I think what it is is people like have placed
this sort of like, you've heard the whole term of
uh, Tokken Asian, in circles,
you know, of friends or I used to be a Tokken Asian.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, of course.
I haven't tooked in a while.
You set that right up from, Alex.
You know you did.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
Go ahead, though.
Go ahead.
But yeah, he was, it
was it was this thing, you know, Asians
are always seen as this, like, the example.
But then that's the thing about like
the plight being of being Asian.
We're seen as, oh, the model's immigrant, you know?
Right.
But that's far from the case,
you know, there's like so many of us who actually don't care to be
this like person who like follows the
rules and wants to go to college.
And I certainly wasn't that type of Asian.
I didn't care to go to.
I hated school, you know?
That was the last thing I wanted to where I wanted to place where I wanted to be
You know, I just wanted to play guitar.
I wanted to like, like do fun, interesting
things with art, music, or whatever it was.
And you didn't, you couldn't learn that from school.
And that certainly wasn't the typical token Asian.
We talked about it in the, when we talked about that movie DeeDee, right?
The kid, he was growing up and he wasn't a token Asian kid
His mom wasn't trying to be the
tiger mom, but she was being, you know, she,
she had this pressure, societal pressure within Asian
culture to be the tiger mom.
But she wasn't.
She was like an artist as well.
So she knew the plight.
So that's a different movie, but that's the thing with like Asians in general, you know?
Right.
And, and I I asked these, and I forgive me if these questions are stupid, by the way.
I just, I, I don't know fully.
So I'm curious.
And Arnold mentions that about growing up and how
that was considered just fine in his social group.
So I just wonder, like, yeah, like, what is the, you know, what is the connective tissue there, I guess?
Well, I think Arnold didn't use the heart of R in the when seeing it as well.
Yeah, no.
Right.
But besides
that, because you're right, he says that a lot, Arnold.
He drops it.
But yeah, like, what was your initial thoughts?
Like, how were you feeling during that, during that scene?
Oh, I was just thinking like, oh, man.
Okay.
So he was keeping his money in that jar
and then he he went through and he counted all of it and it was
like, oh, he got a, he got enough and he was good.
But then they get that one last call and
and it's like, okay.
So he's like, or was it big sisters all like, oh, we're closed, we're closed.
No, we're closed.
Okay, how many?
How many are?
And then, and the all of a sudden, Ming takes the,
goes and delivers it, I couldn't help but
think of a time.
Now, I didn't get robbed of money, but I did get robbed of sleep.
So
one time, when I used to drive for Uber,
I was like, I love driving in downtown Palm Springs
because I was like, you know, you get the party crowd.
They're wanting to get rides to different places, and they're like, half a mile away.
They don't They don't know where to go, but like it was like one after another.
In an hour, I get like eight, 10 rides.
And then I'm like, okay, cool, cool.
Okay, I'm just going to, I'm getting tired.
Okay, my I'm going to take this last one.
It was like 115, 120 in the morning
And then I didn't even, this was before, it
would alert you, like, okay, this is a ride that's going to be out of town.
I just like hit it.
Oh.
I was like, okay, because I don't want anybody else to get it.
It was kind of different back in the day.
It was kind of a little bit more Wild, Wild West, kind of Uber days.
And so I tapped it and not, not even realizing what it said.
I was just like, oh, Palm Springs sweet.
And then I pull up to the house and then there's a girl, she's, she's wheeling out her
like, like a luggage.
And then I look at my my phone.
I'm like, shit.
I'm going to LAX.
Oh, fuck.
And then I had to make a pay, by the way.
Do you remember?
Well, I had that before.
Like $220 bucks.
You took the fare?
I took the fare.
And I was like, okay, I'm tired.
But I was like, okay, well, it was either.
I know two-hour drive going there.
One way, yeah.
Without traffic.
And then, and then it was really stupid because I didn't even have a phone charger.
You know, imagine being an Uber driver and you don't have a phone char charger in your car.
And so then I kept on, like closing
like the screen.
So that way it would I would lock it so that it doesn't use up the battery.
And it was like
nice that I got, yeah,20 bucks,
but then by the time I actually got home, I tried like hitting up different people.
I tried hitting up our cousin land to see if I can crash
at his place.
But then he's like, oh, I'm at work right now.
I'm like, oh, because he was working in the graveyard shift.
I'm like, damn.
And I was end up hitting, getting stuck in traffic because there was an accident.
I was so tired.
By the time I actually got back home, it was like almost eight o'clock in the morning.
Oh, shit
This was Saturday going into Sunday,
so I get home and then my day is like all thrown off.
And I don't want to like, I could have slept until like four in the
afternoon, but if I did, I wouldn't be able to fall asleep that night and I got to work the next day.
So then
I didn't feel normal until like Wednesday.
And then by then I was like, that20 bucks was not worth it.
I got robbed asleep.
That's me now.
Anytime I go out, I'm like, fuck, this is going to throw me off for 48 hours.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
I did that one time, Arnold, and I never did one again.
Actually, no, I did.
I did do it two times, actually.
I did one from Palm Springs to
like San Diego, like the Bay Bay Area of San Diego.
And then another another time I did one
from Palm Springs to LA. as well.
Why is the app doing that at all?
The app should not be doing that.
Well, like Arnold was saying is that like,
there's a point in time where they just didn't tell you where you were going.
They don't even tell you like how much the right is worth.
You just had to take it or whatever.
They should still geock you within like a certain radius,
about two hours outside of your.
You many people pay for that shit.
That's crazy.
Yeah, and mine was like $50 for the San Diego trip.
That shit was crazy.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, dude.
It like the payout was cool and all, but it wasn't, it definitely wasn't worth it.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow, wow, wow.
Yeah.
I'm surprised this movie this was movie then didn't have a scene of me taking Chinese food to Connecticut or something, you know.
That's crazy.
That is crazy.
I go to New York.. 14 day ride.
Oh, Shit.
But.
But the scene made you feel remorseful, right, Art?
Yeah.
It was like, you know, so much like, oh, if
they didn't take that last order, if, if he gave it
to Young or he taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
Although I don't know how my up he was, I have been burnt.
Wow.
But shout out to, you know, the homie, the
cook, who knew that he
can tell, oh, and he saw it like his bruise, which, which I,
uh, there's a part that I fell asleep on.
And like right before the recording, I fast forwarded to the part that I
that I noticed that I had missed, and it
was a part when, um, when he se, when he peeks
through the door and he sees Ming looking at himself, uh, checking out his bruise.
Oh, yeah.
And
it was that part.
But man, yeah, that helps him out.
Well, he just like, how much you need?
And like, like he just knew, like, man, good guy.
I thought it was going to end on a sour note, but yeah,
and his friend, his coworker came in clutch
and he wasn't even his friend, though.
He like got almost got in a fight with him.
And I think that's the whole thing with like that whole like
relatability and compassion, the empathy that like is created when you are
an immigrant.
You see other immigrants struggle, and so you might
not get along with them, like, but for stupid reasons,
but you see what they're dealing with. and you see, you start
to like connect the dots and like, okay, they're they're going through the
same struggles that I had when I first came to America.
And he was even saying, like, I remember in that in the the,
what do you call it, the lunch scene, they were saying like, this,
I got here before 9-11.
So it was like, the circumstances and all the,
the legal stuff that she had to deal with is like way more complicated after 9-11.
And, and yeah, and even with
or without 9-111 and even being a factor, like, it takes, it could take decades to
become a citizen.
I think it's a little bit of a fast track if you marry somebody who's a citizen, right?
But even then it's still like, you know, takes time, it takes money.
And it's it's a lot of money.
I mean it's it's cheap.
Yeah.
It's cheaper.
It's one of the cheapest ways to get your green card, I guess.
Yeah.
If you just like pay for a marriage.
Yeah, because my parents got married in 85 and
my dad didn't become a citizen to like early 2000s.
So
you know, it took some time.
And that's crazy to think about now because like, what the hell happened in 2000s?
Like, I feel like that was just fairly yesterday., is like, if you pay for a marriage to, it does take time.
It's and also, you may split the payment.
It's a $10,000 fee.
I know this, Don't ask you me why.
I's like, hey, you see Barry formed.
Arnold
Donnie, shut up.
But if you do a
paid marriage type of deal, arranged marriage, it's it's
$10,000, Five at the beginning, up frontont, you get paid $5,000 up front.
And then at the end, I think it's if you're going for the full,
like, I'm going to get my citizenship, you get more money if
you would like wait like eight years.
But if you just do the three years for the green card, it's like, you get 10 grand total..
Five grand at the beginning at five grand at the end.
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a process for sure.
And that's a big part of this movie.
But yeah, at the end ending
was disheartening, obviously, but then, you know, like at
the end, his Coborker comes in and helps him out. and it
ends in a, I guess in a happy note you could say, but I still feel like
there was something there that even though he got the money in the end, there was still something there.
I felt that, like, what is the next thing he's going to have to deal with, right?
Just being.
Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
Yeah.
Like he Because I don't think that see him paid off his debt.
Yeah, yeah, he didn't No, you don't see him?
He was just paying.
Yeah, no.
He's just talking about paying off that.
Yeah.
That he had, like.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
That wasn't even the whole balance, I guess, right?
No, no, no.
So we'll work out a payment plan after you've paid
what you need to owe now.
Yeah.
So he just made it through today.
His lights gets turned off.
I
That kind of contextualizes a lot.
Yeah.
Damn.
Yeah.
That's the movie.
That's takeout.
I was going to go around the room with asking you, but I think we can just do that in final thoughts now.
If that's okay with you guys unless there was something else you wanted to touch on, anybody?
Or are we good to start wrapping her up?
How do we feel, gentlemen?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I'm good with that.
I don't feel anymore, Adrian.
I'm Chinese.
What's that Arnold?
I'm just craving some Chinese food now.
Okay.
No.
Yeah, same.
Yeah.
But yeah, let's do final thoughts.
Justin, I'll start with you.
Final thoughts on Takeout.
Yeah.
So I hope you don't mind.
I'm going to go to the Adrian route this time and just read what I wrote on Letterbox.
chargege you a fee for that.
I just said, a fee, 425?
Anyway. 6, seven.
Oh, God, I'm going to kill you tonight.
Anyway, I'm just going to read my letterbox review.
Anyway, so I said, I've
had a short time working in the food industry and spent a
lot of time as a delivery driver
I know the struggle of needing to hustle, to make a payment on something I owe.
If it was rent or a phone bill,
that feeling sucks and it is somewhat relatable to me.
I've never in my life had to deal with loan sharks
I am also not very good at math, but 30%
interest on anything is insanity.
I guess in the wake of disparity, logic goes completely out the window.
Why do these bad people in movies always say, we're not running a charity?
Maybe that is just saying we are not empathetic to your situation.
This film is very melancholic Hellscape,
but through the veil, there is sunlight, even though it rained the entirety of the time.
His friends and co-orkers were willing to help if
you were in trouble, taking care of one another in the bleakness of this rotten city
I love the Sean Baker filming style.
It makes it seem like I worked a full shift alongside Ming.
This film makes me want to go support a small Chinese restaurant.
And, yeah, I mean, that's pretty much my review of this whole thing. thing.
I give it a three and a half stars.
Honestly, I would probably watch this movie again.
I may even just go through and
do a whole Sean Baker marathon.
So this movie inspired me to do a Sean Baker marathon.
Nice.
Where do people find you?
You can find me, Ghost Nerd 88
or Shib a Zombie on social media, go
and click the links and my, you know, about me or my info pages.
And you can kind of see all the things that I'm doing.
I'm not really doing much except for this right now.
But hey, you know, who knows what the future will bring?
Love it.
That was a great, thank you for that, Justin.
Really appreciate that.
Donnie, I'll go to you next.
What are your final thoughts on?
Takeout?
Yeah, so, you know what?
I didn't like the movie when I first started, right?
It's so crazy.
I think it was just one of those
bents where I wasn't really in the mood to watch a movie, right?
I know and so I didn't really get into it.
And it wasn't until the end until
I realized how invested I was in this character, right?
And I started really understanding the whole purpose of the movie.
And so it kind of changed my whole perspective.
It actually,
like you feel, you feel empathetic and connected to that character.
And it's the the movie itself is thoughtp provoking.
It encouraged me to really like revisit the story of my family.
since my parents were an immigrant family that moved to America, right?
I think this movie really gives a platform
for anyone who has a language barrier.
Honestly, we don't really see or understand
the struggles of these people, right?
Because it's hard for us to
to relate or even understand the story because they can't communicate it properly.
So I think Sean Baker did a really good job, or both directors
did a really good job at giving us that platform to help understand the life and struggle of an immigrant.
That's chasing that American dream.
And they're willing to do anything and everything
for their family., you know, and at the same time,
they have to do all that while staying under the radar because they're legal.
So they have that struggle as well. on top of that.
So, you know, that, that was like the highlight for me,
the movie and really like changed my perspective on it.
But again, like at the beginning, I was like, oh man, this is going too slow for me.
Like, I'm not really feeling it.
And then once that happened and it all came together and I realized what was going on
it like, it really pulled me in.
So at the end, of the day, I give this movie a 3.5.
I thought it was a really good watch.
I would definitely watch it again.
You can find me on Instagram, underscore Donnie Appleseed.
Also 125 photography, all spelled out, also on Instagram.
Nice.
Thank you for that.
That was a great.
Yeah, 100% on everything you said.
All right, Alex, let's go to you next.
What's your final thoughts on Takeout?
Takeout was something that I was encouraged
to watch, not only because of the
the tie to the San Diego
Ocean Film festival, and Sean Baker.
But I remember watching an interview with Mikey
Madison on the Criterion channel
where she goes to the Kairion closet and she
pulls out a copy of Takeout
and she talks about how this was Sean Baker's first film.
I was like, that, that I was much as, because I really loved Honora.
I thought that was a really great film.
And the fact that
Sean Baker said you should go back and watch my first film to see what you think.
I want to hear it of you you think.
Because in Anora, it
takes place in the big cities as well.
So they use the city as a character, same way as like in
takeout.
So I can imagine you, you see the, uh,
that's why I saw the fingerprints of Sean Baker all over Anora.
He has that really amazing quality of
being able to take the place that a
movie is set in and turning it into
a character.
You see that in Florida Project.
You see that in an Anora.
I haven't seen a lot of his films, but
I would imagine that's how he. had that as well in LA.
Yeah.
It's a two trend genderender prostitutes and a day in their life.
And it's amazing.
I wish, yeah, I recommend that to anybody.
Watch.
That's That's been on my list for a while.
I've been meaning to watch it go back.
But I think overall, you see
he's also able to delve into the nuts and bolts of it all.
You know, like you see
just how a restaurant works.
Like, I was watching this, this movie and
I was seeing it from this perspective of running a restaurant.
Like, I've been in the food industry since 2019. right?
And seeing how they order like bulk
items and seeing their, the struggle
having to carry up that big old barrel of MSG
the stairs.
Oh, It just reminds me of like the
first time I had to deal with a very recently having
to deal with handling a big
gigantic, it was like 150 pounds
worth of coffee beans.
That was the first time I ever had to like handle like that much
coffee or coffee roasting in general.
And the first time I tried I did that, I
did the stupid thing and I drug the whole bag.
It was like dragging a dead body across from one
side of the store to the back back of the room.
I was like, why my boss was like, uh,
next time just take the buckets out there and just pull it from out there.
I was like, thanks.
Thanks for telling me.
But yeah, that's part of a struggle of like what
bees people have to do up day in and day out, you know, the restaurant worker, the fact that
people just treat them like trash, you know?
Yeah, it's manual labor.
It's not digging ditches, but it's still manual labor dude.
That's crazy.
See, the thing is, like, not just not manual labor, but the customer facing part of it.
You know, you look at Ming, he's he's
technically front of house, right?
And they have they have the shit job.
People, servers, counter- serviceice, people, you
know, busers, bartenders, they got the
shit shit end of the deal because if something back
goes wrong with the food in the back of the house, they're the ones that are getting yelled at.
Like, he goes, he delivers the food.
He had nothing to do with the making of like that stir fry that he wanted, that guy.
I wanted beef, not chicken
And you know, it's like, I'm sorry.
Don't yell at me.
He's like, like, I get that that they made the
item wrong, but it's not my fault.
And I the guy who've never worked in the service industry don't get that.
Don't get it.
You know?
They don't't understand.
Like I like that's one of those things that frustrates me.
Anyways, I don't want to get too much in the weeds with that I
could stand at my soapbox about like food
the food industry and like You could talk about that people just need hours.
Yeah.
Like, don't ever like, like, my advice,
if you're a customer and you're yelling at it,
like, you need to like check yourself.
Yeah., don't mess with people people who are handling your food.
I like by that.
I live I will never, ever yell at somebody who's handling my food.
I don't care.
I've seen waiting.
I know what happens.
You tip.
You tip them something.
You don't.
At least 80%
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don't go below.
Yeah.
But either tip them or you fucking pay
them a living wage so they don't need tips.
Anyway.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's a whole series of documentaries right there.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Again, I love like how
they show not just the adaptability of restaurants,
but like especially Asian, like minority
groups, immigant groups adapting to an area.
Like they're a Chinese restaurant, but they're serving
like French fries, banas, fried bananas, you know,
Mexican squid was more dishes.
Mexican squid.
Like they're a Chinese restaurant and they were serving Mexican squid.
Okay, but that just shows the innovation,
like a willingness to adapt to things that..
I don't know the Mexicans had squid, so that's neither me.
I mean, I'm sure it was just like jalapenos with like hot sauce or
with squid, you know.
I think they showed that scene where he's like tossing a bunch of like jalapenos in the walk or whatever.
I did catch that, yeah.
Yeah.
But overall, it's, again, I
could, there's so many, you could love this movie on so many different levels.
It's, it's like, you mentioned Adrian.
It's a simple plot
very simple story, but the complexity lies in so many things.
Like the immigrant struggle, you know, race struggles, you know?
You know, you know, this is a simple,
everyday human relatability of it all.
For me, I gave it, because of that and how like
well the story was told, I gave it a four out of five.
And you can find me at Daily Dares on all the socials.
The adaptability thing.
You're so right about that.
And that's the thing too, is like, we're so privileged to be Americans,
even when we leave our country to go to other countries, you know how many countries
have English signs in English, people like talking in English to you.
It's like, it's like the world wants to cater to us because of the big American dollar.
But it's like, do we appreciate that as a nation?
I don't know who we really do.
You know what I mean?
Anyway.
Can I make a quick thing because it came to my mind?
Absolutely.
I actually, something about that restaurant also that
I greatly appreciated was that it was actually very
well taken care of and very clean, except
for one scene, except for one scene.
And I don't know, maybe it was just because it went by so quick, it just looked like it, but
they were like using the tongs to pick up like raw meat
and then they put the tongs into something else.
I don't know if if that was if it was like an empty thing
with water or what, but I was like, immediate cross-contamination.
Oh, no.
No I don't know if you remember seeing it's in the scene where they're eating at the table.
They talk about that.
And he' one of the other one of the cooks
is complaining to the other cook, like, you did it wrong and they're
like, you, you don't put like certain things with certain things.
And he was just talking about how his cleanliness wasn't bare.
Yeah, yeah.
But other than that, the restaurant was very clean.
I just wanted to point that out.
Very well kept.
Thank you.
I do notice that.
And I found their cleaning.
Interesting because I saw them cleaning
the walk with the chemicals, but they were, I don't know.
It looked weird the way they were doing it, but maybe that I just don't understand.
I' never. worked in the restaurant.
I know what you see you're talking about.
Those, like Those Chinese restaurants, like those
walk burners, they're just kind of like set up way differently than like normal
restaurant burners.
Like the way you clean a
walk is you don't just put it in like in a dish pit
and like clean it off with soap and water because you can't it would
ruin ruin what they call the seasoning of the water.
Oh, that makes sense.
Because they would take all that out and actually even
remove the non-stickability of the wok when you wash it with soap and water.
So you just wash it with.
That's why they have that faucet that leads into the woks.
You just pour water directly into the wok.
They scrape it out with like that brush
And then there's like this pit behind it.
If you notice, that's why when they were washing the wall,
they were just taking the water from the walk and washing it from the wall because everything just like.
That's what it was.
I was like, why are they doing that?
No, it was just like hot water.
They were just using hot water.
It's all.
Oh, okay.
Wow.
Yeah.
Well, you learn something to you every day.
And I did you, well, this is really a dumb aside, but
I did go to Panda Express, which if you guys have never been there, I highly recommend it, by the way.
I've never been.
Is it again?
They have an auto walk.
They have like a machine in the back that It's got like a robot arm and it's got a walk and it's.
I've
You mentioned this a couple episodes ago.
I'm fascinated by technology, man, and
that's why I need to think and use my own brain.
Arnold,
let's get your final thoughts, my friend, and then you know what comes after that, but let's get your final thoughts first.
So Laughing already.
The way it started., you know, how
the two guys are looking for Ming and they roll up to the, was it an apartment?
I believe so, yeah.
And then the apartment, they got like 10 people up in there.
And I was like, you know With guckroaches.
Yeah.
That's legit.
I mean, it's legit.
That's, yeah, very real.
I know, I have a friend who was telling me about
a local Asian establishment out here that has a
where he is like the owner.
And then a lot of the people who work there,
they live at at like one of his houses, one of their houses.
And then but then there's like 16 people in there.
And then they're all, you know, they come here and
they pay like very low rent, but then like their families are back home
and they, they make money here and they send them
back Dude to the family..
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah, and they just, and they just work and they work like all day.
But um We have one of those in our neighborhood.
Like they all work at the Asian buffet, and every morning you see them take their bicycles.
They all. ride their bicycles and they all live in the same house.
There's like 10 of them.
There's actually, there was actually a house.
I don't know if they're still there.
Right down the street from us.
I remember I'd always see a bunch of like, I don't know if they're like Vietnamese
or Thai or Chinese, but I remember one day they
had their garage door open and I saw like bags of like
all the dry goods that they need to like a restaurant.
They had like sugar, they had like rice.
I was like, dang, dude.
And then I remember, I realized like, oh yeah, I always see
a ton of people like, like Asians just coming out of there.
So, yeah, that tracks.
Over there in San Diego?
Yeah, right, right down, like the street from, like right in the our community.
Oh, oh, wow.
I don't know if they're still there. but I haven't seen them in a while.
One of my old roommates is from New York and I was
talking to her one day while we were eating and she's like, you should convert
your living room into like a bedroom and put like five bunk beds in there.
She's like, you can make a killing.
I was like, this is not New York.
I was like, I'm not doing that to myself.
You don't want to be a slum?
That's basically slum conditions, right?
Anyway.
But she was like serious.
She was like, man, you can make so much money.
She's probably right, too.
The sad thing, she's probably right.
She said when she rented out a bunk in New York,
she would pay $500 for the bunk.
And then you, what?
Crazy.
She said it now was cheap.
Tell us more about your thoughts on on capitalism, though.
No, I'm just kidding.
Imagine all, like, what, sharing like one bathroom?
Damn.
No, that was my first thought.
And
watching it was like, oh, I think I
kind of talked about it where like, you know, you see him just delivering food one after another.
I keep thinking like, um, okay, is there something
that's going to happen when he's delivering, but but
no, he just keeps, you end up going through like his whole entire day
start raining and stuff like that.
And, yeah, at
first, I was kind of like, uh, damn, that
was kind of a boring movie, but talking about it and thinking about it more, like,
he really, Sean Baker, he really made
the most out of such a simple story.
Simp plot.
Definitely.
And, and it was it was something
about it, especially the way how it was it was filmed.
It really felt like it was a documentary or something.
And when I turned it on again, I don't know.
My mood was different
today than yesterday. going
back to watch a couple parts, I
was like, man, this looks like some old Anthony Bourdain sort of
video or something, like the way that it was a shot,
like some shots of Young in the restaurant and he's just chilling
there, eating some chewing on some carrots and br broccoli stems or whatever.
But
yeah, after talking about it more, I really
enjoyed this, uh, this movie, I thought it was very good.
And I was talking with Chris about this movie
at work because he he didn't watch it,
but initially I was like, oh yeah, you're going
through the whole day, um, his whole day of just delivering food.
And it ends like the climax
to me at the was at the end where,
you know, he he makes his money and then he gets robbed.
And um
But there's a lot more to that, especially now that we're talking about it.
And I was initially thinking that I
was going to give it a two and a half, but I I have to buff it
up to a three, um, a Letterbox three score.
And I told her, I think you guys had mentioned,
I didn't, I didn't realize that this was a Sean Baker movie, um, or
that Sean Baker also did Honora and Florida Project.
Man..
I like I like his style.
I can't quite describe it, but I like it.
He has a very distinct raw styleaw that I mentioned earlier.
It reminds me of like the Safi brothers as well.
Yeah.
Right?
It's that green raw Hyperrealism.
From what the internet calls it, they call it social reality. style.
I saw that.
That's fascinating.
I' never heard of that before until tonight. look into that movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
like Where can people find you, Arnold, by the way?
Well, You can find me Arnie Calgo everywhere on all the socials.
Trying to be more andive.
It's that time of the show.
At that time of the show, we give us the Arnold's News meter.
Okay, go ahead.
That was kind of a real yawn, kind of. going
to actually add a soundbite for it.
I need to actually do that because I've done that in past.
I'll do a voiceover for it.
I Well, if you want
to, actually, I might be able to utilize that.
So we'll talk about that.
We'll talk about it.
Go ahead.
You're like a little star.
That's it right there.
I'm going to clip that.
Arnold, you just cut a promo.
Huh?
See?
See?
I'm learning now.
Go ahead.
Well, last night, I did watch this movie
last night, and we also recorded last night.
Yes.
And so, I thought I fell asleep for
a good chunk, but then when I, before
jumping on the recording tonight, I fast forwarded.
And I think it was probably only like five minutes that I fell asleep.
And it was the part around the part where
Mingue is looking at his br
bruise on his back. just around there and then I caught up.
And so
with, I mean, everything, consider how late.
But then, Donald, you kind of call her.
You're like, oh, dude, you haven't watched it?
You're going to fall asleep.
Because I was falling asleep.
That's why I said that.
But then, you know, like I said, you know, later it down in the line, I was like, okay, good movie.
I think I'd give it a half a Z. I, a Z rating.
Yeah, not too bad.
Not too bad.
Well, I like it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like it.
And I'm, I'm
curious to hear from you, BW.
Bow, TZ too big.
Do you like it?
What's your final thoughts?
Yeah, I will read my letterbox review, which I wrote right before we started recording.
What a time capsule of the early 2000s.
No smartphones, no social media.
Just post 911 New York.
and a guy named Ming trying to survive a brutal day of delivering Chinese food.
Two loan sharks rough him up for cash, and he spends the rest of the
movie hustling across the city one soggy takeoff bag at a time.
Sean Baker and Ching keep it raw,
you can practically smell the fried rice and sweat.
It's not about plot.
It's about the grind, the constant motion, the tiny indignities,
the people who make the city run, but are never get noticed.
And then Ming finally gets close to making his money, he gets
robbed in an elevator, which is a total gut punch.
But there's a spark of humanity at the end.
His coworkerer helps him out, not because he deserves it, but
because that's what you do when you're trying to survive.
Under 90 minutes, it moves fast, never boring.
Baker's early fingerprints are all over this.
It's a gritty, empathetic and real story,
and you can see the road leading straight to Tangerine, Red
Rocket, the Florida Project, and Anora.
Small, sweaty, and kind of heartbreaking, a working class odyssey through the city
that never tips.
And that's my review on Letterbox.
I gave this movie four stars out of five because of
the gritty realism and the gritty relatability,
knowing personally as well that the struggle is real.
So there you have it, folks.
Yeah, I want to thank really quick the chat, Mr. Ghost ner.
Oh, sorry, that's just Mr. HLP, who join us tonight.
Chris, friend of the show, he was in the chat tonight, too, for a little bit.
And yeah, so thanks to the chat for that.
Was somebody going to say something I heard someone say something?
Yeah, I forgot to mention, so you guys mentioned,
so they did a movie called Tangerine.
Yes.
Which was shot all on on an iPhone
It's six or five or whatever it was at the time.
And that was in LA?
Yeah, that took place.
I believe they shot it in LA.
It took place in LA.
It follows the day of two transgender
prostitutes in L.A and just kind of it's very similar to this
in the sense of just like the date day in the life of
of these people.
It's really well made, so I highly recommend it.
Go ahead.
Because I remember when I was looking for hotels to stay at
during the Saturn Awards, one of the
hotels in Burbank was called the Tangerine
And, um, it was, uh, I wonder,
I tried looking it up now, but I didn't, um, see
anything, any connection, but it's it's somewhat of a
I mean, it hasn't been there for like decades, but it
was a newly remodeled hotel, I think.
And but when I remember looking into
it, it has kind of like almost like an art
vibe.
I just thought wonder if there was a connection there.
I don't think so, but you should check out the movie.
It's great.
Also, let's not forget that this
is a cod-directed film and Chi Chingu
that's definitely not forget that she
was part of this team.
And for those of you who are watching this film, go watch
her film, her new film, Left- Handed Girl.
It's coming out.
I don't know when it's coming out, but I'm going to go see it this Saturday,
which, like I said, it's probably going to pass the San Diego Film
Festival done and over with by the time this gets released
But if you're watching this or listening to this now, keep like make note of that.
And if you're listening to this in the future, go watch this film.
If it's I'm hop it's probably been released by the time this
podcast comes out.
Let's not like overlook her involvement.
No, definitely.
And I'm glad you say that because I wanted to mention that she's a collaborator with Sean Baker.
She's served as a producer, executive producer on his other films,
including Tangering, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket.
So she's she's worked with him on four films and obviously has her own projects coming out.
So, yeah, left-tanded girl.
Is that, do we know, Alex of that?
Is that going to be on a wide release or is that going to be released on like Netflix as well?
I feel it's going to be a release in Netflix, I think, next month
Oh, yeah, you're right.
Well, Wikipedia says November 28th, so this month..
Shortly.
Actually, just in time for this episode to come out.
That's perfect.
Okay.
Thanksgiving weekend.
Let's good.
You can find me on Letterbox at Boot too.
You can find the show all over the internet.
Guys, we're everywhere.
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Have you seen Takeout?
Have you worked in the restaurant Biz?
Do you have a life that's kind of like the Bear or something?
I don't know.
I haven't watched The Bear, but I'm told that it's a good show.
Alex, right?
You're a fan.
tell us about that.
Comment, you know, leave us a comment of love..
Why not?
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Big thanks to Mr. Kyle Mason or Burn cycle for our intro and music.
You can follow Kyle on Instagram at selfies underscore underscnderscore
Thanks for listening.
Any final thoughts from the gentlemen?
I I have a quote to share with you..
You know, it's a quote from the movie, and I
found it quite inspiring, and I feel like it would be a good way to end this show on.
And the quote is, a boat straightens its course when it gets to a bridge.
Everything is going to be all right.
I like that.
I love that.
I remember that.
I remember that.
I forgot about that.
Now I remembered now that you said it, thank you for that.
They're honestly like
quite a few.
I don't like memorable quotes.
I wanted to go and write them all down.
I was like, oh man, that was good.
That was one of the good ones.
I really liked that one a lot.
Yeah.
If you weren't going to say anything, or if anybody wasn't going to say anything, I was just going to reiterate again.
For me, I at least tip 20%.
Tip.
So much.
On the original..
I tip a head of time.