Talking Pondo: Escape from New York and Buckaroo Banzai with Drew Kallen-Keck

 In this episode, Drew Kallen-Keck joins the podcast. He brings along the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension. Marty and Clif give Drew the movie Escape From New York to watch.

Justice League

Isle of Games

Roll Camera game

The Music Man Trailer

Singin' In The Rain Trailer

Greatest Man Sandwich - Gene Kelly

Weird Trailer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to season two of Making Pondo and Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest. Making Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty talk to people they have worked with and discuss their experiences on set. Alright, Marty. We're back. And we're back.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

Yeah, it's talking pondo, but it's it's unusual this week because we're we're experimenting with the format. It's talking pondo with guests. Which means we picked a movie and gave it to the guests, and the guest gave us a movie, and then we watched that. So that's what the two movies are this week. We gave our guest uh Escape from New York, and our guest gave us The Adventures of Bakaru Bonsai Across the Eighth Dimension, and our guest today is Drew Kalen, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Hey. I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

This is gonna be good, guys. This is gonna be good. This is gonna be good. This is two films that we knew were gonna come up. Two films that we absolutely Marty and I absolutely knew were gonna come up. I was not surprised at all to hear Drew say that this was that Buck Rubog's eye was the film he wanted to talk about.

SPEAKER_05 1:17

Yes. Yeah. One of them has Jamie Lee Curtis and the other has Donald Pleasants, and neither one of them is a Halloween film.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

So which one technically uh uh Escape from New York also has Jamie Lee Curtis. That is true. That is true. She does the narration at the beginning, and I think the voice in the hallway when they're all walking around at the beginning of the movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Is that right? I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

And she's only in the beginning, and you don't I mean, if you watch the you don't see the full scene in Buck Rubanzai unless you get the DVDs. So like the original movie, you didn't really see much of her at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:55

Yeah, she's just like the mom, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah, she was the mom in the flashback, the the film flashback stuff. Um so what do you guys want to talk about first?

SPEAKER_05 2:04

Well well, Cliff, what what is Escape from New York about? Let's let's do let's get that one. You want to you guys want to do Escape from the first time?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Let's let's be selfish and talk about our movie first because that's because it's also the first one to come out.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

That was 1981.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

So yeah, true, 1981. So so in 1997, when the US president crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber is sent to rescue him. And that's basically the plot of Escape from New York. Basically, in the future, 1997, which is oh 27 years in the past now, um crime has gone rampant, four to five hundred percent of you know uh increase in crime. And the only way they can deal with it is to wall off New York, Manhattan Island. They build a 50-foot mile, or I'm sorry, a 50-foot-high uh perimeter all the way around it and uh block off the ports, all the exits, and then they just throw all the criminals inside of it and let them figure it out. That's it. And then and then they just pile up the army outside of it and they shoot anybody who tries to get out.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

It basically becomes Mad Max for some reason, and I'm not entirely sure why. Uh everybody's dressed like they're in Mad Max. As we were talking about, I was watching with some friends, we're like, the the production costume design seems to be let's just go to the thrift store and see what we find.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

It looked it looked like the Warriors to me. Like that's what it looks like. Yeah, a little bit like it. A little bit. There were a lot of Warriors production feel, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Yeah, a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Especially the dude with the hair.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He was interesting. He's a very interesting character. That's that was definitely a choice, I have to say. That and Lee Van Cleef with the earring, which is also a choice, and that really interesting watch with the spikes and stuff. I'm like, that's I'm like wondering how much of that was his actual, like, just what he was wearing. John Carpenter just like, whatever, man, you're Lee Van C. I'm not gonna argue with you. Go with it.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

I I thought that I thought that Carpenter did a good job introducing Snake from like a visual perspective. Like if you watch the movie in the very beginning, you get that whole you know hero walk, you know, where everybody's intimidated and intimidated and getting out of his way, and uh, you know, they're either they either don't like him or they're scared of him. One of the two. Yeah, you know, yeah, and everybody seems to know who he is, and and so you get this right away, you're like, who the hell is this guy? And I see that done in so many movies now. I don't know if Carpenter first did it, but it's that's very early on in as far as that impressive sort of character introduction.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

That movie influenced a lot of things, most notably, of course, these the uh Metal Gear Solid games. Um because you know I guess one of them, uh Solid Snake, calls himself something bliskan. You know. So that was very much an interesting uh thing there. And it it there's a lot of stuff that's it seems to have influenced uh visually, especially those early that that kind of look it reminded me a little bit of if you ever watched The Pilot and the series, of course, for Max Headroom. There was that kind of look to it. Oh yeah, the the not the not upscale parts of that world. Um, you know. Um but yeah, it's a weird, it's I mean it's a fun movie, don't get me wrong. I I you know it's still one of my favorites, and obviously it holds up uh uh big you know for everybody for years.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Um but it is a weird movie, I always say it's got it's got its got its problems for sure. It's probably it's got its few problems. I'll say this also, as far as like iconic, that whole scene where he goes in and the weapons are all laid out and he's going through them and all that I mean that is done in every fucking action movie now. Yeah, every James Bond, John Wick, Rambo pick a movie, and that's what they do. That will show me all the weapons. Okay, I'll take that one, this one, that one. Thank you. You know, well, speaking of the info.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:10

Oh, did either of you uh see the alternate opening that was in the deleted stuff?

SPEAKER_02 6:16

I haven't watched yet that the with the bank robbery where he actually does the bank robbery.

SPEAKER_05 6:24

I can see why they it's interesting to look at it, but you can see why it's like, yeah, you don't need to start there. It's much better with the introduction you were talking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

They had a comic book back, uh, comic book mini-series in 2017, I think it was. I think I have it somewhere. It's at least in digital, if nothing else. Uh, that takes place like right after the end of the movie. And he goes off and does another heist, and weirdness happens. And he comes across a sea captain named Captain Ron, which I can't remember now. I haven't watched I haven't looked at it in a while whether he's supposed to be, you know, the other Captain Ron character. Yeah. Um yeah. But yeah, it's uh I don't know. Um I as I was saying before, we we were noticed noting after we watched the movie last night, it for a guy that's been hyped up to be that scary, he doesn't really do a lot in the movie. Like it's like two times where he punches people, you know, and one where somebody comes up on his blind side and he still takes him out, so that's kind of interesting. Um, and then a couple times where he shoots his stuff, but that's about it. Mostly it's just him walking around with that big gun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

And uh he he does really struggle to take out the big dude with the bats, which I thought yeah I I kind of expected more of an Indiana Jones sort of gunfight, or you know, sort of sword fight, shoot him with the gun sort of thing, but it was still I mean it was okay, but it just I don't know. Expecting him to handle that rubber, yeah. Yeah, well, he's a special forces and all that. He's supposed to be the special forces guy with all these skills too at the same time. He's just not a good hand-to-hand guy. I guess.

SPEAKER_05 8:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Well, and that's the thing. I mean, I think it's also the thing when we're at our age now, right? You you look back at things and they were a lot cooler when you were a kid. Yeah. Because there's a look to it that's really cool, but you forget it's a stylish movie. And you're like, yeah, I mean, this was fine for a B movie kind of thing in the 80s, but this uh plot doesn't exactly hold up particularly well. But it has some great stuff in it.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

I mean, you know, speaking of plot holes, my my first thing was why do you need the tape?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

If you can if you can if you can save the president, who give he can just he can just read the speech live. Why do you need the tape? Why is that so fucking important?

SPEAKER_02 8:53

They're talking about cold fusion.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Well, that makes a little more sense. Okay. Well, and I still think just bring the guy. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, and I still think the band the American bandstand theme is going to do more for world peace than cold fusion ever will.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Yeah, very much so. Uh then you watch Escape from LA and you're like, well, this is practically the same film. Only worse. Way worse. Um with some Hollywood commentary in it, apparently. What did you really do? Escape from Earth, but they didn't.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

What did you think of the effects, by the way? Do you because it's all practical, it's all basically practical effects in the film.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

James Cameron 3D, and I'm doing air quotes for the 3D rendering, which is all models with glow tape on it. Actually works really well. Yeah, it worked really well. I mean, it's pre-tron, so they haven't quite gotten to actual 3D effects. And Tron, though it looks good, still is a bit wonky. So, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

I still I still think the uh the effects I'm watching it back, I was like, these effects, I I would rather watch these effects than a lot of the crappy kind of computer generated stuff I see. Kids, if you're listening, practical effects anytime that you can get away with it, do the practical effect.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Do it. You guys watched the latest uh DD movie that was out?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yes. We did an episode on it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yeah, a lot of fun practical effects in that, but the the monsters and stuff, that weird cat baby. Um, the DD movie.

SPEAKER_05 10:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah, the D movie. Yeah. Uh but yeah, so it the only one that was ever really funky for me is when they pushed the the uh glider off the the world train. Yeah, that shot was always a little bit funky. Yeah. That's kind of weird, but it works uh within that. But yeah, it's it's fun, it's got some fun lines. It's not near it wasn't nearly as much fun lines as I remember it having. Yeah, for some reason. In my brain, there's more to it. But the everybody thinking, oh, I thought you were dead is a nice touch every time they bring it up.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

I have a I have a signed Tom Atkins photo with that quote. Oh. I thought you were dead. Yes. Speaking of which, by the way, Tom Atkins is the nicest man. Oh, he really is. He is the nicest guy you'll ever frickin' meet. Super nice dude. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

I've met a few uh Bruce Campbell's really, really great. Uh I've I had him I I went to his signings for two of his books, and he was there till like three in the morning signing stuff for people because he knows where his bread is buttered, right? Right. Um yeah, so it's a it's a fun movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I feel like the movie I feel like the movie's pace is really good for the first 45 minutes or so, and then it yeah, it sort of drops a little lag. Yeah, it's so it went once he gets captured and then he he goes into the pit and all that, with it just sort of just me a little bit and then takes a bit to get going.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

At least it wasn't as slow as the 70s movies, so there's that. Yeah, very true. Very true. They were I think they were just sort of getting back into getting some rhythm into their films and uh getting some movement going. I mean Kurt Russell that's pretty I mean he was going basically from uh I'm a Disney kid to uh the computer wore tennis shoes.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Yeah, and he'd only done that a couple of years before and in Elvis on TV. I think it was like five or six years before that. Yeah. And then he does, you know, the the one, two, three punch of Big Trouble in Little China and uh well, the first uh Escape from New York and then The Thing and then Big Trouble um you know and kind of shows his range from there. God, I saw big things. My um my my wife gets annoyed by this because I watched Wyatt Russell in Falcon and Winter Soldier and then in Monarch, where he's basically him and Kurt Russell play the same character, but like 40 years apart. And how much he looks like his dad at that age is very because I I hadn't connected it when I saw Falcon and Winter Soldier initially, and then he did some stuff and I went, wait a second- that's Kurt Russell's kid. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. She gets annoyed every time I say that. Like, I know he looks alike. He keeps saying that every time he's in.

SPEAKER_05 13:31

Uh so this is uh John Carpenter's follow-up to the fog, and that's this is probably a bit a little bit better of a pacing than the fog, even though the fog is deliberately slow. It's it's interesting video.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

It's uh it's an interesting fog, especially, because you don't really s see a lot in the fog. Like people just sort of disappear. I mean, you can see the glowy eyes stuff, right? But it's not a it's not uh definitely not a modern gory horror film. But then neither is Halloween. Like when I was working at Suncoast back in the day, Halloween was one of the few movies we could actually show in the store for uh because there is no blood and gore really in Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

It's all just it's all just jump scares and attention and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Yeah, yeah, and then there's no swearing to speak of uh really. Um and uh yeah. Did he do did he do Assaulted Precinct 13?

SPEAKER_05 14:29

Yeah, that one was the one he did right before Halloween, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Yeah, that was a great movie too.

SPEAKER_05 14:34

Yeah, I like that one a lot.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

It was the thing. So I got Carpenter's a master. I got this TV for this, or the Blu-ray for this, and I got the Blu-ray for They Live. Oh and uh my wife was looking at the back of They Live and she's like from horror, whatever, and I'm like, I had to because she's not a horror movie person. I'm like, I could explain that they live is not a horror movie, even though they're touting John Carpenter's horror stuff. But then even then, he did a lot of horror movies, but he did a lot of other stuff that wasn't horror movies.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure. You know, he even poked fun at horror movies. I mean, vampires is a direct kick in the ass to to vampire movies, and that's that's a great little flick.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

So I I'm I'm a big fan. And then, of course, the fun thing, did I mention this before? Uh, the fun thing of listening to the commentary with the two of them on any movie that they've done, uh, is they will go off on tangents, like because they haven't seen each other in like five years, so it's Kurt Russell and John Carpenter, and they start going, Well, how'd your kids doing? Yeah, so and so's in college or whatever, and then oh wait, we should probably talk about the movie again. Um it's fun because it's like two old pals just riffing on whatever whatever they talk about. That's great. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

So you know you know Kurt, you know, Kurt played baseball in college, right? Yeah, played plays in the market.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

There's a whole documentary, they haven't seen it yet about whose dad is.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Just gonna bring it up. It's called The Battered Bastards of Baseball. His his dad, uh, his dad stuck his dad bought a minor league team. His dad was his dad was the first guy to ever film uh practice training videos for baseball. And he used his son like, here's how to throw to first base, here's how to play first base, here's how to play catcher, here's how to field a ground ball, all that type of shit. And he was the first guy to ever film that stuff, and then because he's a he was a baseball nut, he was a uh he was a ball monkey for the 40s Yankees in Florida. He just you you'll you'll hear about it in the documentary, but he goes and buys this minor league team in in uh out in Seattle, Washington, and takes them from the bottom of the basement all the way to the very top of the league, and then gets the rug pulled out from under him by the Major League Baseball Association. It's a it's a fascinating documentary. You'll love it.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

I have to check that out.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Yeah, you'll love it. It's really, really good.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Not to get off topic too far, but speaking of famous dads, uh Robert Downey Jr. did a really good documentary about his dad.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Oh yeah, what's that called?

SPEAKER_02 16:50

I can't remember what it's called. Uh I think it's just called Senior.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

And it's it's really interesting because it also it deals with his history, but also the fact that his dad was, you know, getting older, and there's it actually deals with his father's death because he's filming the whole thing during that. And his dad's kind of helping him direct the movie while he's doing it. Interesting. Yeah, it's a fascinating documentary. Okay, I'll check that out. And then Robert Downey Jr.'s son is helping out with stuff, so you know wants to help out grandpa or whatever. But yeah. So yeah, Escape from New York is a lot of fun. And then uh there was there was uh what was it? There was some sort of movie several years ago with uh God, I just spaced his name. Uh he played uh the bad guy in Iron Man 3, and my brain just went on Ben Kingsley? No, the other one.

SPEAKER_05 17:44

Oh, yeah, he was the fake bad guy.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

No, you're thinking of the guy from the Pract uh Practice Years. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Guy Pierce, yeah. So Guy Pierce did he did a Escape from New York kind of movie on a space station. That was basically Escape from New York. He has to go save the president's daughter or something like that. He's some sort of badass, you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Well, Ray Leota did it in the escape Ray Leota did it in uh No Escape in the 90s.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

So yeah, yeah. So but I can't remember what the name was Escape from New York.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

No Escape.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Well, they've been trying to do they've been trying to do a remake of Escape from New York forever. Um, and they haven't ever got it to work. Um, I know they've been working on that for a while.

SPEAKER_05 18:28

No Donald Pleasants, no movie.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

No.

unknown 18:31

That's not true.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Well, and so and this film, this film is a six million dollar movie in '81. That's not a ton of money, and they shot it in St. Louis. Oh, yeah. Not a frame of this was filmed in New York. Not a frame of this other than the other than the the stock footage that they used of the New York City. There's nothing. Yeah, there's not a frame of this that's that's actual New York. So yeah. Uh I found that I found that really fascinating because like in the movie, at one point, he's walking by a downed commercial airliner that's on fire, right? What's he's and it's and it's literally just so that you can find it.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

It's supposed to be Air Force One, I think.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Yes, right. That's what I meant. Yeah, sorry. But it's but Air Force One is basically just a modified commercial airline.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Uh so he's walking by it though, and he and the whole reason is so that he can walk by it while it's on fire, stop, talk into a walkie-talkie, and keep walking. Yeah. That's a lot of money to spend for 30 seconds of film. I was just like, damn, that's a that's a ballsy move.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

Running behind you in the background. Yeah. Well, and then the jumps, that couple of jump scares they had, like when he's coming down from the tower the first time and they'd be Yeah. The music, and then they never follow up on that one. Like it's he walks another 50 floors down and then nobody attacks him. Like, what's the deal there? Like, well, you know, there was no point.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Nobody wants to live in the Twin Towers. Nobody wants to live there. It's bad real estate. Everybody knows you want to live, you want to live down, you know, Tribeca area. That's where you want to be.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

So the movie I was looking at, the movie is called Lock Out. Lock Out, okay. Um it was a French science fiction action film. Oh, oui, we plot follows Snow, Guy Pierce, a man framed for a crime he did not commit. Oh, Maggie Grace, okay, in exchange for rescuing the president's daughter Emily from an orbital prison MS1. She's been taken over by its inmates.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

And so it's very it's it's a poor Maggie Grace. Her career has been being abducted. She was she was the girl and taken. Now she's the girl in lockout. Her whole career is just being kidnapped. Yeah. Poor girl. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Um interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

So let's check that out.

SPEAKER_05 20:48

So speaking of trash on the dirt system. Go ahead. Speaking of being kidnapped and jump scares, I think my favorite one was inside the Chock Full of Nuts. Well, remember when Chock Full of Nuts was a more prominent coffee chain? You can still buy it. Apparently, it's a New York-based coffee chain, which is why it's in the movie. But I saw that sign, it just took me right back to the 80s when I remember when Chockful of this was everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Why is it called Chock Full of Nuts if it's a coffee store?

SPEAKER_05 21:13

Well, that was the name the guy gave it. If you're grabbable, you know. I thought that was funny. She basically, like, oh, you're Snake Pluskin, blah, blah, blah, take me with you, and she's through the bottom of the floor within some.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

And she never comes back. Never gonna be seen again. Never gonna be seen. My wife was like, I thought she was gonna come back at some point. Right. You know, whatever. But and the guy in the the guys in the basement, like dancing or whatever they're doing, and then the guy who's just punching on a guy.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Oh, the the casual rape that he walks by where the three dudes are just passing the girl around, and it's just like, okay, this is uh I guess we gotta get the nudity in there somehow.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

It reminds me of uh the commentary for stripes. Uh Ivan Reitman is talking in like the Or a scene where the girl just wanders out without her shirt on. He's like, ah, the 80s, casual nudity. Yeah. Like, you know, it has nothing to do with the scene. Didn't need anything to do with it. Yeah, just take a top off. That's what comedies in the 80s were all about. Uh but yeah, and then they're just punching a guy.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Yeah. Very methodically. It was very weird. And uh doesn't really look like he's been punched, though. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

You actually see him, you're like almost like the dude paid him to do it. Like, all right, come here. Punch.

SPEAKER_05 22:31

Punch. Punch. Can we do this punching thing in the background? Sure, sure. It's fine. We'll just watch that.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

It's good.

SPEAKER_05 22:39

So the the DP on this movie was Dean Coondy, who also worked with Carpenter on Halloween, but we know him for Jurassic Park, Apollo 13, who framed Roger Abbott, Mandalorian. The guy's one of the biggest prominent cinematographers. And this one you can tell is very well shot. Yeah, oh, it looks good.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

It's a good looking movie. I feel like it's a stylish, really, it's a good-looking movie. It just has it has pacing problems and kind of plot problems.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

There's also the light that comes from nowhere. I remember reading this quote uh from I think Lord of the Rings Elijah Wood or somebody is asking. Oh no, I think it was I think it was Orlando Bloom who was asking. I think he was asking me in McCallum, like, where is the light coming from for these fight scenes? Like you know, and he's like, uh, the same place the music comes from. Right. You're imagining it.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

Right?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Magical. Don't overthink it. Don't overthink it. Just go maybe bite. Whatever. You're you're not that smart of a hobbit. Just calm down. Or as as Harrison Ford said after the uh the the scene, the uh uh garbage disposal scene in Star Wars when Mark Hamill's like, shouldn't my hair be wet? Like, because I just came out of this thing and Harrison Ford goes, it's not that kind of movie, kid.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

It's not that kind of movie, kid. Dude, I heard that he I read a thing, I apparently I read an art a rumor about him that he was uh apparently he's a huge pothead, Harrison Ford.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

When he in he introduced himself on some set, this is early on, and he was in the hospital, and the hospital was threatening to kick him out because he wouldn't stop smoking weed in the hospital, and he's just fucking toking up, and they're like, dude, you're gonna we're gonna kick you out. And they they ended up the studio ended up stepping in and being like, look, what do we have to do? Get him a private room, blah blah blah blah blah. I thought that was hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

He did a I I have it somewhere. He did his son, I think, was because he lived in Wyoming, right? And his son, this is back when skating, like snowboarding videos and skating videos were really a big thing. That's some really low-budget snowboarding video, but he has a cameo as like the driver of the snowboard track thing. And they they don't call him Harrison for they give him another name, some so like introducing so and so as whatever, and it's Harrison with a big bushy beard. Harrison Ford the hot dog the movie part two. Yeah, basically he I think it was probably the same era when he did his cameo in young Indiana Jones Chronicles because he had that same beard for that for the the uh one of the episodes they did uh uh uh and end scenes, beginning and end scene with Harrison Ford as older Indiana Jones. Excuse me. Did the flashback thing. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Not that we're getting off topic on that, but oh no, we're we've been we've been off topic for a while.

SPEAKER_05 25:36

Well, back when we uh back when we did our episode about Darkstar and the Abyss, we were like, how do these two movies connect? And well the connector was James Cameron, who worked with both, you know, yeah. Well actually he made the Abyss, but he worked with John Carpenter as the production designer on Escape from New York. So it's pretty interesting, all those map paintings and stuff, and a lot of that he's gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

I just I love that look. I just I love I just I have no problem with that pro the you know I would rather look at that than than a lot of the ridiculously overdone drone shots that are turned into these CG, you know. I just I get so tired of that.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Although I'm always impressed when I see these online, like here's the special effects reels, right? And the ones that oppress me are the ones where they shoot it like somewhere and then they make it like they're just people walking out of the door to a car with a green screen behind them, and then they put in an entire street back there, and it's like those are the young sung hero guys that just have to make it look like it's normal. Like they don't have to put an alien in here, we just gotta make it look like a street with some cars in it. Right, you know, right, right. Uh like that's that's uh interesting job to have to do on that. But yeah, map paintings, the map paintings are always kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Just the old practical effects in general. Like if you can pull it off of the practical, pull it off of the practical. It's it's going to it's it's gonna last forever. It saves you money and it's gonna look great 40 years from now.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

A practical effect is always gonna, it's never gonna, it's never gonna go out of style, it's never gonna need upgrading to 4K to 8k, it's never gonna, yeah, you know, the the craziest thing in that I uh in my entire life is that Jurassic Park still fucking looks good 30 years later. To me, and because so many movies don't. Yeah. But that movie for some reason still holds up no matter what you watch it. And I mean now it's getting a little bit dated, I'll give you that. But Jesus, it's it's held up for so long in comparison to some of the projects.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

What was I watching? I think I was watching a documentary on Jurassic Park and the guys who did the I don't know, it's a documentary on ILM, I think. The guys who did one of the parts was the guys who did the the T-Rex effects on CG, because they weren't gonna do it CG. They were working on their off time to prove that they could do it. And then they showed it and Captain Kennedy was like, uh okay, this is this is the future. This this works. Yeah, it'll work. But well, because the T-Rex kept breaking down, that was the problem. Uh especially in that rain, the rain stuff.

SPEAKER_05 28:11

Just like the shark and Jaws. Jaws is gonna say it's Jaws all over again.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

It is. Well, it was the problem is they made it out of the wrong kind of chrome rubber and it just absorbed all the water and became like ten times heavier than it was supposed to be. But some guy had to get in there and mess with the thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

But he was smart enough to mix practical with CGI to where he sell he sell one sells the other, right? Yeah, one sells the other, and back vice versa.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

You do the practical when you have to interact with it. Yes, you know, and the CGI when you don't, right? When you don't have to see the people, but when the kids are in the car and the thing comes down at them, which that window was not supposed to pop out of the frame.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

No, no, it was not. No. And you can see that was the that that take that they put in the film, you can see that's like, oh shit, that's not good.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Yeah. Um but yeah, uh, there was some goofy stuff in that Escape from New York, but it's still a fun movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:09

This is the first time I ever saw it on a Blu-ray disc, and yeah. Way better than watching VHS.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

It looks really, really good. So those high concept things from the 80s, that's what I don't I don't think they don't really do them as well anymore. No, right, is unique. Yeah. Which is gonna bring us to the other movie, which is I don't know what your opinions are, but I love Buckaro Bonsai as a high concept film.

SPEAKER_05 29:37

Well, my last note here for uh Escape before we transition. And of course we rate the movies on a five-solid scale. We rate the movie on a five-solid escape. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yeah, I've been trying to say that for like two minutes.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

The stunt people on Escape from New York, because I'm such a horror movie freak, I'm watching the in-credits of this of in Escape from New York, and I noticed the stunt crew had three Michael Myers and one Jason Voorhees in the movie. That was pretty fun. Yeah, that's nice. One of them is Dick Warlock, who was Kurt Russell's stunt person for many, many years. Yeah. I give this movie a three on a scale of one to five, because it I like it. It's got its issues, so it's not like it's perfect, but it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

So yeah, I'd do like a three and a half, just give it a little bit extra, just for the nostalgia effect, I think.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah, I'm I'm with Marty, solid three.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

The little problem it if it if it if the pacing didn't drop off in the last 30 minutes of the movie, I'd give it a solid three and a half. It just once once we meet the Duke and it started sort of it just mmm, just but boy, that that first 45 minutes, man. From the minute we meet Snake, get them get the thing, get into New York City, meet the girl, she gets swallowed up by the creepies, they're running, all that stuff. We meet Ernest Borgnine, it just moves and moves and moves.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

It's a good performance from uh Harry Dean Stanton. It's a little bit different than usual. Right, right. Yeah, it's usually playing these everyman kind of things. I mean, I love him and alien. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

I I feel like Ernest Borgnine was a big pull for that one. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

I feel like Ernest Borgnine is a big, you know, this is yeah, he's great.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

I was making I was making the joke about hey guys, I got this helicopter uh out in the the desert that we could uh use. Uh sure, me and Jan Michael Vincent. Um we're gonna go 80s some more.

SPEAKER_05 31:34

We'll figure it out. I thought it was interesting that the president saved Snake Pluskin's life.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

He didn't have to do that, but he wanted to kill the Duke, so I guess only after stopping the winch so that he could dangle like baby and then kill the guy. You know, I mean uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

My wife is like he stopped the winch. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

He could have just kept letting it go and then shot the dude, but he was like, hang on a second, Snake, you need to see this.

SPEAKER_05 32:03

I have a little introduction for the next movie.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 32:06

Uh go for it. We've we've watched about how many movies so far? 30, 40 movies. Yeah, yeah. The upcoming movie ties in to so many because we've seen so many of these actors before in movies like Road Games, uh Maximum Overdrive. You know who's in this from that movie, get crazy, uh, Running Scared, the Manhattan Project, uh, and then movies like Scarface and of course Jeff Goldblum, who's been in everything. Yeah. And not to not to even mention that Perfect Tommy is the Heavenly Kid.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:42

We have this prototype for they live, right? Because you can see the aliens if you get the thing, like the glasses. Yeah. And this movie is rated PG. It's got so many neck snaps in it. And the full title, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai Across the Eighth Dimension, which I had the Marvel Comics adaptation back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah. Yeah. So I have the Marvel Comics. I have the uh I still kept the VHS because it's hard to find. I have the um the adaptation, the novel adaptation, which is brilliant. If you haven't ever read it, it's written like it's a part of a series, and so there are references and footnotes to books that don't exist, and a lot more backstory to all the characters and you know, references to all sorts of stuff. Um because the conceit of Bakarubanzai, if you guys don't know, is that he's a real person. And then this movie is just a dramatization of stuff that actually happened to him. Um that's Earl Mack Raush's conceit. Um unfortunately, Earl Mac Raush tends to take things a little too far because he wrote a sequel to Bakarubanzai a couple years ago that none of us uh fans can actually get through. Um because it is just I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. It's horrible. Anyway, he needs an editor, like badly. Um that was my one of my big disappointments with the DVD slash Blu-ray releases is the commentary with him and WC Richter. He does he does the commentary as Reno Nevada, not as himself. And and I'm like, I I want to hear about how you came up with these ideas. I don't want to hear about a fit you as a fictional character. Why is Watermelon? Buckaroo did this and Buckaroo did that. I want to know where you can do this stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, don't don't ever for for people out there that are actors or directors, or if you're making a movie, don't ever have your character do the commentary, have the actor do the in fact. The only time I think that's ever worked is when Robert Downey Jr. did the commentary on on uh Tropic Thunder. Yeah, because in the movie he says, I don't drop commentary, I don't drop character till the DVD commentary. Yeah, and he goes into the commentary as Lincoln Osiris and then drops it halfway through and becomes Robert, you know, Robert D. Jr. Other than that, we just want to hear you talk about the movie and how you made it and the awesomeness of it.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

This isn't even the actor, this is the writer. I'm like, what? I don't know. But no, I it is it is one of my favorite films, and I know it's influenced a lot of it's one of those things that it's not directly.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Oh, it's there's there's so many elements in this that have been picked up by other things everywhere. It's you can you can just point at them in the movie.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

That, yeah, that yo-yo dine, that yeah, yo-yo dine's everywhere. I mean, Enterprise D was built by Yo-Yo Dine Instries, if you look at this. Yes, you know. So there are so many people that that are influenced by this film. And then, of course, it is in and itself is influenced by like Doc Savage and you know that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_05 35:45

Um so what's the plot of this movie?

SPEAKER_02 35:49

Well, that's that's where things get interesting. I can read the IMDB interpretation if you'd like. Sure, go ahead. We'll see what they say.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

They say adventurer, brain surgeon, rock musician Buckaroo Bonsai, and his crime fighting team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, must stop evil alien invaders from the eighth dimension who are planning to conquer Earth.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

That's that that's not a bad uh thing. Uh find love on the way, maybe, you know. Yeah, fine. Yeah, pretty much Penny Pretty. Jesus, what a terrible name. Yeah. She is she is an exact uh duplicate of Buckaroo's love that died.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Well, she's for some reason she has a twin sister, but she doesn't know that she has a twin sister, but he knows that she's a twin of his wife who is now dead.

SPEAKER_05 36:37

Yeah, I wish she had been more of the team rather than just a damsel, but it was the 80s. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. She was very much in a couple of times.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

She didn't more in the book, but um, you know. Um yeah, so that's that's not a bad uh many summation. I mean, there's a lot more happening in there. And there's a lot of fun stuff like, you know, the scene where he's getting tortured and there's just TVs everywhere. And it's like one of those things like, you know, they're just gonna put a wall of TVs up, guys. Let's just do that. It's very clockwork orange to me. It's very like it's you know, type of thing. Well, part of the thing was is the producer had no clue what was going on. That's what the watermelon scene's about, quite frankly. Right to see whether or not the producer was paying. Because they were just filming stuff and he wasn't watching the movie, the the rushes or whatever. He didn't get the movie, he didn't understand. That's why part of the reason why it's never had a sequel, because the rights are kind of tied up like at a billion different places. Because he didn't understand the movie, he didn't really get it. It was not you know, the guy button the money just didn't understand what this film was gonna be or what was going on. And so, you know, there have been attempts to do things with it. Kevin Smith was gonna try and do something, some sort of TV series at one point, and that never came about. There's gonna be some sort of weird thing where Buckaro was like a talk show host, kind of Bill Nye kind of a thing that they were gonna do. I don't know. That sounded a little weird to me, but um but yeah, the performances in this, John Lithgau just Well, yeah, that's Lord John Warfare.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Well, it's it's just hey John, do you want to play an insane person? Sure, go for it. Boom. And he just takes a lot of it. The biggest Italian actor that you've ever heard. Speaking of which, uh, here's a nice piece of of trivia about that. His his Italian dialect coach was a tailor on the 20th century Fox lot. And he basically just told the guy, he just said, read these lines, and he recorded them, and he would just practice repeating them, and that's the the dialect that he came up. And and as a favor, he gave the guy a dialect dialect coach credit in the movie. The dude was just a tailor with a heavy Italian accent.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, yeah, man. And then uh Clancy Brown, I love Clancy Brown. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Oh, dude. I mean, that guy goes from Buckaroo Bonsai all the way to SpongeBob fucking square pants. That guy's had one of the best careers. Somebody should make a documentary of the Mandalorian fantastic. Also in the Mandalorian, yeah, and the Kurgan. So good in the Kurgan. I mean, so he's been in so many good things you don't even realize. You start talking about it like, oh yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah. That dude can seriously act. He's one of my favorite character actors. You put Clancy and Louie, you're gonna get that strong.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Did you guys ever watch the Goldbergs that that sitcom about the 80s? And he's he's in an epic he's in it as the the shop teacher. He's he's got a couple episodes perfectly in his shop where Adam Goldberg is Adam Goldberg is making a Highlander club. And then somebody else starts a Highlander club, and they're clancy. There can be only one Highlander club. That's great. It was so genius. Um anyway. Um yeah, so I know it's a weird movie, and I've showed it to a lot of people, and some people get it, some people don't. I am a big fan of movies that don't hold you by the hand too much. Yeah, that's they just drop you in this world and expect you to catch up, and that's one of the things I love about it.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

You're 30 minutes into this movie before they give you any explanation as to what the fuck is going on at all. Yeah, bizarre, but at all. And even that explanation is kind of like meh, things blow up, atomic, go through things, go. Look, he plays and he's brilliant. Go.

SPEAKER_05 40:28

Inside the mountain.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Just don't be mean.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

I'm not, I'm not. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

No, no, no. That's the quote from the Oh, that's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

We don't mean to be mean because no matter where you go, there you are. I'll say this about the film. It's what I call an it's what I like to call a Nexus movie, which is just this cross of all this talent that is, you know, and there's a bunch of them. They're all over the place. But the Nexus movie is the movie where all the talent crosses before they get big, right? Yeah. And this damn thing has got everybody. The fucking cast is amazing. Lithgal, Christopher Lloyd, Clancy Brown, you got the guy who played, you know, like you said, uh played the Heavenly Kid. I mean, you've got Jeff Goldblum, you've got the um the the the uh guy, the the guy with the Jamaican accent who plays the the the aliens and a bunch of shit. Everybody's in shit later on in this fucking movie.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

He was in uh he was in alias uh one of the he also played in the um the recently he was uh playing a Martian in uh Supergirl, I think. Yeah, Martian Manhunter's father. Yeah. Um uh and then uh what's his name? I forgot his name. I'm looking it up now because I completely screwed up.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Vincent Schiavelli's in this Ellen Wall. Yeah, there we go. Christopher Lloyd Christopher Lloyd, Rosalind Cash isn't there. I mean, it's it it's ridiculous how many good actors are in this friggin' movie. Matt Clark is the Secretary of Defense, is fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 42:03

This one surprised me. You know, the guy who, and it's I guess his grandkid who hook up with them later. Well, the older guy, he's one of those part of that blues band and get crazy.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

It's like, jeez, who isn't? Yeah, yeah, you have the little oh, the little the little kid with the gun and his uncle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's in a bunch of shit, dude. Good lord, he's in a bunch. I mean, yeah, it's it's just hey, let's get one big name actor, Peter Weller, and a fuckload of character actors.

SPEAKER_05 42:30

Like you were saying, really do the job. Peter Weller was still kind of coming up in four, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:37

This is pre it's pre uh pre-RoboCop. Robocop, right? Yeah, like three years, yeah. Yeah, so there's just too many. By the way, there's a very good documentary on the making of Robocop. I think it's on Netflix. Really good. Check that out. It's like a four-part one.

SPEAKER_05 42:54

Oh, is that the films that made us?

SPEAKER_02 42:57

No, though that's a really good one. But there's an actual like four-part. Maybe I downloaded, I don't remember. There's a four-part documentary on the making of Robocop that gets really deep in the weeds.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Yeah. For me, for me, the the movie is wildly weird and super creative. Yeah. But at the same time, it's just really dumb.

SPEAKER_05 43:16

Like it just, it just it does a few things that are just where I'm just like Well, the big booty thing, even as a little kid, I was like, what is going on with this? This last time I did think it was funny they were all named John and they all registered for Social Security at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Yeah. I have a note, I literally have a note here on my page that says, is he saying big booty? And he is. Yeah. This is not a movie that I watch a lot, to be honest. I mean, I know this is a favorite of yours, but for me, this isn't one I visit a lot. Um actually made sense to me this time. I I just I never I have I have honestly just never gotten it. It's just it's just it's like to me, it's like a like a Python skit I don't get.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

And and I'm not sure if you're not going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

Like I said, it's not and then and then I've never mocked people for not liking the movie or or getting it the same way I get it because different people get different things from different things, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah, yeah. And I'm not and I'm not pooping on your your your joint at all. I'm just thinking, dude, for me, I'm not getting it. Like I don't, I'm not seeing it. Like there's one point where you know the big pod that crashes down with the alien inside of it, and the other three aliens are like, we gotta open it. Their answer is just to beat the shit out of it with metal. And it's like, you guys, you don't know how to open this. You're aliens, you don't have technology. What the fuck is going on?

SPEAKER_02 44:37

They're not bright aliens, and that's kind of a point. That's two two. That's a good point. The red, the red, like the they're not smart people. Like that that's that's evidence. Yeah, I mean, there's uh and there are a lot of concepts, like I said, some of them show up in the in the novelization, and I guess that's partly why some of it makes more sense because if you read the novelization, then there's some backstory stuff in there that yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Well, I and I think that's part of the problem, is like d during as the movie's progressing, you have characters that weren't in scenes with other characters meeting up with them, and they're all aligned with like what's going on, and there's no like uh what do you mean, huh? What you know, oh okay, we have you know that they're just like hey, so-and-so's in trouble, off to the rate, you know. It's very serious in that respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But having more of that backstory would have me would have explained that a bit more, I think.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

It's it's feels like you're dropped in the middle of something because you are dropped. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

It and it is kind of weird because it does feel like I guess if you watched it enough and then you have all this, then you you're able to fill in a lot of the gaps. Um, but yeah, if you just dropped in, I mean I showed it to my wife and she thought it was amusing, but you know, uh doesn't quite get it the same way I do. But that's just because I watched it a lot. Like it was a big film of my group. That in Big Trouble in Little China, which was supposed to be because the guy who uh directed Buck Ruban's dye is the guy who wrote Big Trouble in Little China. Oh so yeah. Really? So originally, yeah, originally it was actually supposed to be a Western set, you know, and this weirdness happens, which is why it's got a very western kind of feel to the whole thing. But at one point they were gonna make reference to he also wrote body snap, by the way. Yeah. So at one point they were gonna have reference to Jack Burton being a blue blazer regular, but they didn't figure that out because they weren't gonna you know fix it together. Um but it does you know, big Big Trouble also has that kind of feel to it uh that you just kind of dropped in. But that one has a little more of a contained story, right? So that one makes a little more sense uh along those lines.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Um yeah, this guy's had an interesting career. He wrote Stealth from 2005. He did the screenplay for Needful Things, yeah. He he wrote the screenplay for Brew Baker and came up with the story, and then also did this the screenplay for Body Snatcher. That's he's that's a pretty good career, man. That's decent films in there.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

And listening to his his commentary is kind of fun because you can kind of feel his frustration with Earl Mack Roush playing this character and not just like leaving him to have to do all the actual commentary. Because Earl Mac Rousseau says Reno is not nearly as loquacious as Reno in the movie is, right? He's much more attached, he doesn't really talk like like for me, like I said, it's frustrating for me as a a fan. Like, I want to know what's in your head, but you're not letting me in. Which maybe is a good thing after reading this book that he wrote later, and like it just makes no sense. The comics at least, there were uh a comic series in the the 2000s somewhere uh that they did which were pretty decent for that. But those of us that are fans have always wanted more things, but I I just don't know. I don't think they can catch that feeling again, right? I mean out of this nexus of people, and I don't think you could pull off the same feeling.

SPEAKER_05 48:03

Well, out of all the movies that had sequels in the 80s that didn't need them, this one should have had we should have had four or five of these before we had gotten to like 94, you know. Yeah, because there was potential for more weird, untapped because this is so a strange, unique mashing of ideas. Only in the 80s does something like this get greenlit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Yeah. See it's to me this movie is like a it's a creative festival, right? Like just every scene is like every scene is what else can we add? What we okay, great, what else? Okay, great, what else? Okay, great, what else? And it it turns into chaos. It it it needed to be it needed to be reined in and kind of refined to the if this story had been told kind of like a back to the future type of like linear with a product with a bit a little bit more this fucking thing. Oh, I know what you mean, yeah. Would be spitting out sequels left and right. It just yeah, it was chaos. It's like throwing everything on the wall and just going, well, look, whatever doesn't fall off, we're just gonna keep.

SPEAKER_05 49:11

It's like and there was too much competition in 1980. But it was so wildly creative.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

84 was a bad year to try to co-op.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Very true, very true. But I kept I kept pointing at things throughout the film, going, influence. I see that influence in other films, I see that influence in other films, I see that influence in other films. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, what the fuck? Yeah, some some some small concepts were made into whole films. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

So I mean, from that aspect, that aspect, it's very wildly successful.

SPEAKER_05 49:42

Well, that's why you don't write part two coming soon and you're in credits like so many 80s movies did, and they never had a part two, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Yeah, yeah, very true. Well, that's because once again, nobody that there's it's all tied up in weirdness with the producers, and every time they've tried to do stuff, like it's one of those weird nobody's quite sure where the rights are. Where the rights are, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Yeah, and that's again independent filmmakers, make sure you know where your rights are. You don't want to get into that situation where if your your film actually hits and it gets an audience and you can't do anything after that.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

That's a terrible idea. You let you let it go somewhere wrong. But yeah, it's just it's just one of my favorite films because of that that weirdness. And I know it's it's I know it's chaotic, but it's fun chaotic. I see that, yeah. And I like I like I said, I like movies that don't feel like they have to spell everything out to you, let the audience figure things out in some. But I do agree in you're you're right, it is chaotic, and and I agree with that. I think for me it holds up mostly because I've seen it a billion times, right? And so you begin to find the order out of the chaos, right? Yeah, yeah, and you're able to absorb things and go, okay, this makes sense with this. And you know, when you watch the first time, you're like, I don't know what's gonna be watch it, you see little things pop in there. And then once again, reading the novelization I think does help on some level. It is one of my favorite novelizations for movies, and there were a lot back in the 80s. Alan Dean Foster wrote a movie.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Oh god, Alan Dean Foster wrote so many damn novelizations.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

And and he did a really good job. My favorite of his was one he did for The Abyss, because the first three chapters before you get to the actual movie are a chapter on each of the three Maya characters. Okay, there's a chapter about uh Ed Ed uh uh Harris's character and what he's doing before the abyss happens, and then a chapter on uh Michael Bean's character, and then a chapter on um uh what's her face? I forgot her last name a little sudden.

SPEAKER_05 51:42

Uh Lindsay's John Thomas. Lindsay.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Yeah, that's John.

SPEAKER_05 51:46

Yeah, it goes back to the face again. Her character name is Lindsay.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Yeah, and uh so that that's that's really good. And of course the novelization has the entire plot, not the chopped up version they put it in the movie theater where they chop 30 minutes off the end of the movie and that makes it go, what?

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Yeah, I knew what I I I th Alan Dean Foster wrote so many good novelizations, like uh just on on a side note in the middle of this podcast, like he really did some great novelizations, man.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

He he was the guy, he was the go-to guy in the 80s for that kind of stuff. That was that was the deal. I spent a good portion of my uh middle school years at a used bookstore that was near my school, between my school and my house in Billings, Montana. And I just like I I I kind of treated it like a library. I just sort of sit in the back and read books and then you know buy some. So I have I am steeped in weird 80s uh sci-fi trilogies. Did you read his uh Spellsinger novel? Yeah, Spellsinger series is a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

I forgot I still would love to see that as a film. I still think the idea of a guy that can sing lyrics and turn them into a spell and a magical.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

Well, my favorite when he sings Sloop John B. Yes and uh and the uh the otter but best friend turns up drunk because it's the line that the first mate he gets drunk. You need a boat. So he sings Sloop John B so they can have a boat. And then he doesn't pay attention to the lyrics that he's singing. So halfway through the voyage, first mate, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

First mate he got drunk and he broke into a captain's bunk. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

Yeah. Yeah, there's a bunch of books like that that I'd love to see. Um, one of my favorite uh sci-fi series is uh Sector General by James White. It's a whole bunch of short stories and then some novels, and it's about a hospital, uh Space Station hospital. And it's just a fascinating series. Um the the species he comes up with, the ideas that he's gotten there would be but it would be really expensive because there's only one other species that's vaguely humanoid, and then like three-foot-tall teddy bear looking people. So there's a lot of humans, but there's a lot of very alien aliens. Um so it would be not just.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Yeah, you gotta pay for those, yeah, you gotta get those costumes or effects going and figure out how to present that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

But anyway, yes, so I love that movie.

SPEAKER_05 54:05

And any discussion about it would be what's the word, remiss without discussing the music video-esque end sequence where they're just walking around. Uh the end of the thing.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Which is very ripped off from Reservoir Dogs, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

Yeah. Yeah. Well, my uh, my ringtone is that section of the book. Is the is the that's that's my ringtone on my phone. Nice. Uh that's a lot of purposeful walking. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_05 54:38

It's all those costumes are so 80s.

SPEAKER_02 54:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:44

And Clancy Brown is alive because it was just a movie about Guru Bonsai. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't he wasn't actually that oh he's acting like Tommy. Give her a jacket. Why? Because you're perfect.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Because you're perfect, you're right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

Penny pretty. Still the worst name ever. Uh it's kind of like very, but also very it's it's it's very uh last night or whatever. The it's very Marvel, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

It's very Penny Pretty is a very Marvel type name. It is. It's alliterative. Yeah. I mean, Buckaro Banzai is not exactly not alliterative either. So yeah, right. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Oh, and that's my that's my last my last little ding on this film, and I'll just bring it up.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Is the the the professor who raises him, the Japanese guy. Yeah, like I get it in the beginning he can he's got a bad accent, but 20 years later, when Bunk Buckaro is all grown up and he still talks like a fucking fortune cookie, it's like, dude, come on, dude. Give him some American, you know, yeah, but it's the 80s.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

But anyways, that was my that was just me, that was just me being picky and being funny. Yeah. That's perfectly fine. So three out of five. What do you think, Drew?

SPEAKER_02 55:54

Oh, I'm giving it a five. Sorry. You guys give it a five or not, I'm giving it one.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

I think that's our first five-star rating we've ever had on this show. Well, I gave Animal Crackers five. Oh, that's true, you did.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

That's true. Animal Crackers is worth a five. I would agree with that. Yeah. Um, no, it's just part of it's a nostalgia. I mean, on a purely critical basis, maybe a four. But in its effect on my life, right, I'm giving it a five. So, you know. I'm I I I allow myself to be uh unbiased or very biased in this particular instance. So there you go. Five it is?

unknown 56:32

Martin?

SPEAKER_02 56:33

That's what I say. You guys can rate it however you want. It's not gonna change my mind.

SPEAKER_05 56:37

So I give it a three and a half. Sure. I like it the more I watch it throughout the years. Uh I've seen it enough times that it finally all makes sense in my head as a whole. I don't forget parts like how is this gonna end? Now I remember, you know. Uh he he goes in the rock, he lets the aliens out of the rock, and then the other aliens show up to get the aliens who came out of the rock. So it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

But yet those, but but yet those aliens have been there since 1939 when Orson else did the recording. So that that's yeah, but we won't we won't go there. But anyways, yeah, for me it's it's two. It's two stars. I have not watched it enough to understand it.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Uh I don't want to and you have enough time, you have enough things to do in your life.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

It feels like it feels like there was some coke ingested during this film. It feels like a little bit of a coke movie. It's very possible. Just a little bit, it's got a little bit of a neighbor's John, John can't or John Belushi. Here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

I don't think you necessarily need to love the movie, but you should have somebody in your life who does. So there you go. Yes, that's good. They can point out to you like, hey, this is you should take this from a Grubante.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Everybody needs a little bit of frenzy in their lives, right? Yeah. Very much.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

Very much.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

Well, all right. Well, Drew, thanks for thanks for being our first guest in our in our hybrid little um experiment.

SPEAKER_02 58:00

Anytime, anytime you want me to jump in, I am happy to do so. Cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

If you've got another movie you want to bring to us, we'd be happy to do it.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

Sure. Well, I'll I'll come up with something. We'll give you a bit of time though. Too much. Can't promise you all of it. Yeah, but it's great.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Oh my god. I yes, that's the one with um that's the one with the kid from um Yeah, with the eyebrows.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

I can't remember his name. The kid from summer school. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of movies that we've talked about movies with music in them. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

There we go.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

There you go. There you go. Rocula. And uh Wilder Napalm is another one of my favorites. Oh wow with uh Dennis Quaid. Well, that's Glenn Gordon Kerron, who did uh uh Moonlighting, which is part of the reason that I think the movie's as good as it is. And Arles Howard, who I always got mixed up with um uh uh what's his face from uh usual suspects my brain just left me. Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey. Oh yeah, yeah, but it's Arles Howard, and it's like kind of similar to like Endeavor Winger, of course. Uh and freaked. Those are freaked with Alex Winter. Oh, uh yes. And Randy Quaid, Styro Cup.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

This guy, this guy, this guy back on again. He's got some eclectic tastes.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

I have a lot of weird movies. There was a section at uh Harkin's, that was it, wasn't Harkins, it was some sort of used bookstore thing we had in buildings, and they had movie rentals, and they had a whole section of cult movies, and I watched a bunch of those, and those were all in that section, right? Yeah. So there we go. Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_00 59:37

All right. All right. All right, thanks, Drew. We appreciate you. Thanks, guys. No problem. All right, see you soon.