When I first started watching this I thought to myself ‘boy I hope I don’t hate David Dastmalchian too much” and then I didn’t and one day at work I was talking to this lady who also likes movies and I said the same thing and she was all “why don’t you like him?” and in the zillio-second it takes to make a thought all I could think of was that how I don’t like Jake Gyllenhaal and Dastmalchian was good as Polka Dot Man and mygodwhatamitalkingaboutivedoneitagainshethinksimstupidihopeidontfart and I said “I don’t really know heh heh” and probably left awkwardly and when I was looking him up I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed him (Dastmalchian) in much it appears so here I am wrong again and the egg is on my face and boy did I get a wrong number and I guess I was just thinking about Paul Dano the whole time and I should just shut my lips and take a hike and eat some shit. “Why don’t you eat shit and take a hike Eric!!??” I heard someone yell at me just now and look sir or madam I will ok just let me do it on my own time I have some shit I have to take care of and my family loves me so they might get upset so let me do some serious thinking here for just a minute can’t I get a fucking minute for christs sake please.

Ok ok so I just went online to shop for some hiking gear and I came across this one kit that had maybe 250 things for survival and I thought man I really need that and then remembered that I don’t really ever go hiking or into the woods because of ticks so that’s probably stupid to spend my money on even if tha

t one reader told me to take a hike but I figured I could do it anyway if maybe I just got a hat to keep ticks out of my hair and then I spent another 30 or 40 minutes looking at compasses online because I got a newer model jeep of the one I just had and it didn’t come with the compass app like the last so here I was looking up compasses and they’re all 65 dollars and look I just want a moo cow shitting compass I can stick in my console if I ever don’t know where I am which probably won’t ever happen since I don’t really do much anyway now that I’m old but look I just want maybe a wooden or even brass compass and it doesn’t have to be expensive for crying out loud how frustrating. So now it’s been hours and I’ve neither taken a hike or bought anything hiking-y and I feel like we’ve gotten way off track and need to regroup so we can talk about this movie. But I did end up buying a book that I read when I was a kid by this guy named Piers Anthony. So maybe it was all worth it anyway.

But we’re not here to hear about that shit, right? We’re here to pork some quality journalism and get down and party with Late Night With the Devil. Let’s do this thing (spoiler: I liked it for the most part but didn’t go apeshit over it like some folks did)

Dastmalchian and (I guess) his buds get their wide lapels on, smoke inside and do a bunch of eye acting in this 70s send-up of a tv show where a dude interviews a possessed girl to boost his ratings. That’s it. End. I had a nice time with you today. See you next Monday!

FILED UNDER: DONT SHOOT SPIT OUT YOUR MOU-

Wait just kidding. So this guy runs a late night talk show and it’s only doing so so and then through the medium of flashback we learn or infer that he went to that bohemian grove thing and sold his soul and his show got popular but then his wife died of cancer so we infer or deduce that that was what he sold to get popular in the first place and now his show sucks again but tonight he’s got a gimmick for Halloween to bring on some eerie creepies to talk to the devil and from these talks there we surmise or conclude that this is the devil he did business with back in the day and shit’s probably not going to go his way or maybe anyone’s for that matter, poor sons of bitches.

That’s pretty much the balls out version of it. They use scritchy video, behind the scenes black and white, voiceover, Polaroids and all they’ve got to make it seem convincing. And I thought it was pretty good until shit kind of went haywire there towards the end. I’m not saying it was unnecessary as in perverse or grotesque but was all of that – uh – exposition really necessary? I think we all figured that out earlier so maybe we could have gone a different direction or did something else? I don’t know, no one asked me I guess but ok good for them go go go. I hope every single fooping time my device(s) autocorrects “for” with “gif” you all get a dollar.

But there were some cool things I thought. Like, I really liked the old timey looking cards they use to show intermissions on the tv program. Skeletons and bats and owls and zoomy looking things reminded me of stuff from when I was a kid and I just reminded myself of how old I am now when I called it a tv program. “Be quiet I can’t watch my program!” I yell to my dogs when the poop cleanup person is out in the back on Saturday afternoon. “Program!” yells Tegan Jovanka in an old, good episode of Doctor Who. “Program!” I honestly don’t remember the context to her yelling that but I think she was talking to the TARDIS console trying to make it fly. I don’t remember but I had the super 13 year old teenage boy hots for her and Nyssa. And Peri but I was older when she came around. Gif whatever that’s worth fir fir gif gif fir fir for jesus.

I also liked the part where that one person’s head lit on fire and split open. Was that the AI? If so, what’s the big deal? I do ai pictures a lot and I still have to write the directions gif what I want – here’s an example of Obe I did of this guy we work with so my friend and I could have some cheap laughs:

Here’s the prompt I used to get that picture:

thin older man wearing a plaid shirt with grey hair sun glasses and a neatly trimmed grey mustache rubbing his temples, on the wall behind him is a picture of a beautiful lady, a key is in his jacket pocket

So you can see the bot needs to tighten it up a little it seems. I mean where’s the key? Yeah yeah yeah ok.

But this thing wasn’t too bad I guess. I remember when this came out it seemed people were going crazy over it and they found out or someone said there was some AI in it and then everyone went nuts over that because it was taking money out of real people’s pockets and they couldn’t pay their rents or the lease on their Mazdas or even buy a bucket of fried fooping chicken and then it seemed like everyone forgot about all of their pains and miserys and were able to go on with their lives as if nothing terrible had happened this time and even The Great Rub Out of 1994 was nothing more than an old memory.

FILED UNDER: THE GREAT RUB OUT OF 1994 AND OWLS AND WORMS AND SPINNY THINGS AND PAUL DANO LOL AND THAT ONE GUY IN THE AUDIENCE AND I STARTED THIS OVER A MONTH AGO AND USE AI FOR PICTURES OUT HERE BECAUSE I’M NOT A GOOD ARTIST AND THIS WAY THE IMAGE IS MINE AND HERES ONE I DID FOR ONE OF MY HEADERS DOESN’T SHE LOOK SWEET AND HAPPY?

Also Steve Loggins’ idea of Late Night With the Devil tv show: