Nathan Rabin's Happy Cast #48: You Don't Make the Best Choices, John Travolta!

We here at Nathan Rabin’s Happy Cast love to keep our finger on the pulse of pop culture, so naturally this week’s episode is about the hit #1 movie everyone’s talking about, the smash hit that’s blowing up the box office… the John Travolta-Fred Durst project The Fanatic!

This week on the pod, we partake in a double-dose of Travolta VOD madness with two of the three projects he’s dropped into video hell this year. First up is his woefully misguided, yet fascinatingly terrible character study The Fanatic (in which characters unironically listen to the director’s music and Travolta makes some Bold Acting Choices as an autistic, toxic fan). After that, we dredge up the convoluted, unexpectedly silly noir pastiche The Poison Rose, co-starring Brendan Fraser as a goofy Foghorn-Leghorn doctor with a lisp and a yellow fedora.

Together, they form a deliciously demented cross-section of Travolta’s career at this point: a series of wigs, tics and scowls, grasping for relevance… or at least his next paycheck. Still, they’re batshit crazypants movies that encapsulate the former star’s descent into demonstrative VOD madness, so listen to Nathan and Clint talk about them!

8:30 - The Fanatic
45:42 - The Poison Rose
1:02:10 - Mailbag
1:05:10 - Happy Places

Follow us on Twitter at @RabinsCast (Nathan: @nathanrabin, Clint: @clintworthing)!

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Theme Song by Jon Biegen