Talking Pondo: Hot Shots! and They Came Together with "Cuisine de la 'Pocalypse" Interview

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Hot Shots! to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie They Came Together to watch. In a special bonus to this episode Marty and Clif are joined by two very special guests, Kyle and Zuzu Weingart, to discuss their latest film "Cuisine de la 'Pocalypse".

First up is Hot Shots!, the slick Top Gun spoof starring Charlie Sheen. The guys revisit the Zucker–Abrahams era of rapid-fire satire, debating diminishing returns, overextended gags, and why the film played like gangbusters in 1991 but lands very differently today.

Then it's They Came Together, a rom-com parody that ambushes every romantic comedy cliché at once. Starring Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler and featuring an absurdly stacked cast, the film is discussed as a relentless, meta deconstruction of the genre and dismantles itself in real time.

Bonus Interview: Marty and Clif sit down with Cuisine de la ’Pocalypse writer/director Kyle Weingart and actress Zuzu Weingart  for a wide-ranging conversation about making an indie film at the end of the world.  The discussion covers the movie’s long development, building a creative community, casting surprising names, and balancing absurd comedy with genuine heart in a post-apocalyptic setting. 

Interview start at 59:43

Watch Cuisine de la 'Pocalypse on Tubi now!

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Type thing. This is more like we are screenwriters, we've watched a million rom-coms, we know the formula back and forth, and almost you get the feeling like they were trying to write one and we're we're like riffing it as they're writing it. Yes, yes, and so the movie's meta in a new way that we haven't really seen a movie be meta.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

It's it's insane. It feels like the director and the writer are kind of winking at you, but also kind of giving you the finger.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Without being too cynical.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hey folks, Cliff here. Coming up at the end of this episode, we've got a very special interview with two filmmakers. They released a film this year called Cuisine de l'Apocalypse, and we're going to talk to them about it. So stay tuned as we interview Kyle and Zuzu Weingart coming up after this episode ends.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Welcome to season three of 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.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Summer school and Sunset Park will not be seen today, so we may bring you the following do-over.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I don't uh I don't know if our internal audience or if our audience even knows what that internal joke is, but folks.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

We'll explain it soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

We'll explain it at some at some point.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

This is Talking Pondo. I'm Marty. I'm Cliff. And we're back again. That's right. We got two more movies for you this week. We have They Came Together, a movie from 11 years ago as the time of this recording, 2014. Never heard of it before. Where the hell was this hiding? And the other movie is Hotshots with an exclamation point from way back in 1991. A day I saw a movie I saw the day it came out. Tiger's Blood. I think Kurt Williams was in the same theater with a real deep cut reference there.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

So Marty and I are filmmakers. We like to get together uh once a week, um, give each other a couple movies to watch. I give him one, he gives me one. Um, sometimes we have a guest, and this and in this episode, we were actually supposed to have a guest um who unfortunately just couldn't make it, um, scheduling conflict. But unfortunately, in order for us to keep our kind of schedule for the podcast and make sure you listeners are getting fed with your weekly dose of arguing about what's better and what this was and who's this and how's that, um, we're gonna go ahead and continue with this episode. And we've and I have to say, it's a shame he's not here because boy, do I have notes about they came together.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

Yeah, that was the movie that our guest gave to us because it was one of their big inspirations. And the funny thing is we tried to record with this guest a while back, and the sound didn't get recorded. And this was after trying to book them a couple times and rescheduling. So the universe is trying to keep us apart, but at some point we will get it together. But it is I mean, if we miss the third time, maybe we're just cursed. Right. Yeah, maybe third time is the charm. But it is kind of nice that we did lose the sound for summer school Sunset Park, as alluded to in the beginning, because it allowed him to give us they came together as the replacement movie, and I probably never wouldn't have stumbled upon that one so it's not by the poster and by what it was looking like everything, every the it the sniff test.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

You know how you look at a movie real quick and you just go, you go, oh, that's what that is. And this one, you know, on the shelf at Blockbuster, just looking at the case, you would have been like, another rom-com, I don't want to watch this. It must have been bad because I've never heard of this rom com your first thought, you know. Oh, they buried Paul Rudd and Amy Polar in a rom-com and it in a in and nobody and I've never heard of it, then it must have been so shit that they buried it somewhere in you know, in a in a February, you know, in a October release or some shit, and it played in eight theaters and then went straight to video and you know they hide it on the shelf type thing. But no, instead, um it's quite different.

SPEAKER_04 4:15

And the other room Hotshots. And Hotshots has an interesting history with this show, too, because back when we did the uh pseudo talking Kilmer episode with Drew a few months back, originally it was going to be Real Genius and Hotshots. But then Val Kilmer passed and we switched it to two Kilmer movies. What was the other one we put Top Secret? Top Secret, yep. Which which is another type of Zucker movie, and so now the replacement movie ends up being the replacement movie that ends up getting more hotshots. We'll take you in today and we'll talk about you finally.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

So it's also weirdly got some echoes of in hot shots of top secret. Oh, yeah. There's a few weird little things there. I'll point them out as we talk. But um, you got any any viewer mail this week? Anything?

SPEAKER_04 5:11

I think at one time there was a viewer mail for Jason X. Hmm that about that movie, that episode about that movie from Spooky Season. I do not know where that email is or message. Maybe it never happened. I'm gonna start taking screenshots so I can reference this stuff easier in the future. But probably I think somebody agreed. I think they might have agreed with your double feature with Smoking the Bandit and Jason X. It might have been something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

So that's see, that's a I yeah. Look, folks, seriously, give it a try.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

Or like I'll watch that too or something.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, Smoking the Bandit Jason X back to back. Oh yeah, that's gonna be good. That's gonna be good.

SPEAKER_04 5:49

And so this is the first episode of the year now for 2026. Uh more change of plans. We're nothing if not flexible. I had something in mind for this one, but we'll get to that one in a couple of weeks on episode 104. This is episode 102, so well, this is the first one. This is gonna not matter, it's just fun.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

This is gonna be interesting. We're coming to the end of the season, um, only a few left, and then I think we're gonna increase the frequency of guests for season four. So that's I'm I'm in I'm thinking that'll probably bring a different tone to the show a bit with a little bet third party. I think we tend to be on our best behavior with the third party.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

We have so many people that we'd like to have on and return guests. Let's up the number of guests so we can actually get to them. So we can actually get to them all. Maybe next year I'll get to you, you know. It's like sure. Oh, we can so it's we're doubling up people instead of one guest, Cliff Marty episode, Cliff Marty episode. It'll be guest guest solo, guest, guest solo. That is that should be the trend for season four, twenty-four guest episodes, twelve single episodes, which makes these Cliff and Marty episodes all the more special because you only get a dozen of them. And maybe in season five we might be like, okay, let's find a happy medium and do like 18 guests or something. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Coming soon this year, season four starts next month as the time of you hearing this. So woo. I guess the caffeine's starting to kick in. That's always good. So which one do you want to start with? Which one should we start with? Let's just let's do hot shots first. I feel I I think so. I think if we do that one second, it's gonna have like agreed. Yeah, no, I completely agree. Um okay, so what there was uh a sitcom from about 20 years ago or so, and I think this is the actual pilot origins episode of two and a half men. What is Hotshots?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

I thought I had that reference myself. Uh Hotshots, 1991.

SPEAKER_04 8:09

Sorry, it has an exclamation point just like Top Secret. Hot Shots! Yes, I was disappointed we didn't do Top Secret and Hotshots because they both had an exclamation in the title. Top Secrets We swapped it for real genius. That anyway, Top Secret.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

All right, so so Hotshots. I almost went a little German there. Hotshots? Uh Hotshots, 1991, PG 13, an hour and 25 minutes. Um let's see. Directed by Jim Abrams, writer Jim Abrams, Pat Prof, starring Charlie Sheen, Carrie Elways, Valeria Colino. Let's see. What's your what's your log line here? A parody of Top Gun, in which a talented but unstable fighter pilot must overcome the ghosts of his father and save a mission sabotaged by greedy weapons manufacturers. And then storyline. Topper Harley, a Top Gun fighter pilot, is recalled to serve on the SSS. Topper's mission is to destroy Saddam Hussein's nuclear plants. Unfortunately, Topper is psychologically imbalanced and is sure to crack under pressure.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

Aren't they all Yeah. Every character seems to have something that's going to make them crack and not be able to complete the mission, whether it's John Cryer's eyesight or Dead Meat's, you know, obvious demise that we're just waiting for or mailman or some of the other various oddball characters. You know, these these two movies are kind of the type of satire airplane type movies this week. I didn't even expect the second movie to be one of those. But this one, well, let's see. We talked about Top Secret a few months back, and that's by the same people that made this one. And we said that that one wasn't quite to the level of airplane, because it had gotten a little slicker and a little more chaotic. Uh that was the overall consensus. And then you get to this one, and we're in 1991, and it's really slick we done now. Now, is that a detriment to the movie or a boon to the movie that it's slicker for this type of humor? I feel like it's maybe a little more of a detriment than a boon because it just feels so larger and like diminishing returns. Like falser. Like I'm sitting there chuckling every now and then, but it's not like But when it came out on day one, I thought this shit was hilarious in 91.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

So I I think again, seeing this as a kid in the theater at the time, I think it made sense that it that these movies were getting better looking, right? But weirdly, it's got like a weird. I mean, it it again, if you're aping Top Gun, then you need the camera to move and you've got to tell that story and all that type of thing. It is primarily Top Gun. Uh and you are really aping, just aping Top Gun. Like, right, the opening Top Gun music tells you what you're getting right from the get-go. You're like, all right, I'm I'm gonna be hearing a lot of Top Gun references. And I'm shocked that they score. Yeah. Yeah, I did too. But I'm shocked that we didn't have more of an ice character, right? Like we had the I mean, we had Carrie Elways, but he was he wasn't, he was more like um, I don't know, he wasn't like an ice, I guess. I expect somebody with a little more you want somebody with a little more edge, a little more of a jerk playing that game.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

They went a different route with it.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

They went a different route with it, but um it the guys carrying into the bombs in the beginning and running into each other, that's a classic gag from the trailer. I remember as a kid just I remember my hearing my grandfather just die laughing when he saw that in the trailer. That's why we went to see it in the theater, you know. What the hell is Christy Swanson doing in this? Like, no. She's she's a Kowalski. No, put your shirt on. No. Her character's name is Kowalski. That's right. Oh my god. With an L. Um, you can tell that the aircraft carrier is just a fake like thing that they built. Like, it's just it's just built next to the to an ocean so that they can shoot the camera at certain angles and and have it look like there's water around it. It's not a real boat. There's no way that's a real boat. There's no way that they paid money to get on a real boat for this thing at all. It's like the flying stuff. It's like the flying stuff. It's like they have these planes that they're obviously using for the flying stunts to a certain extent, but the stuff in between, the cat, it's all just kind of it's all just kind of stock footage of people taking off and landing on aircraft carriers and the guys and they'll they'll intercut, you know, the the the guys on the deck doing the weird stuff to make it funny. It's just like you can it's see right through it. Whereas Top Secret, like you were saying, felt more play-like. It felt like a it felt like a play where everything, each set piece was a stage set piece, but it would they were all contained and they all work. And this thing's much more kind of cut together to make it all work, and so it's very weird at times.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

It's a bunch of uh just I don't know, random, slower-paced skits. Like airplane and top secret, when you first see them, it you're you can't catch your breath. You're laughing so hard because there's so it keeps pummeling you with another after another. And this one, you get some stretches in between the the loud laughs. When they hit, they're they're there, but they're fewer and further between. And I think it's because of I guess the dem once again, the diminishing returns of making the same movie like five or six times, and the technology's getting better, and you're not figuring out how to do those jokes. The quality streams. What am I talking about? This thing made a billion freaking dollars, but looking at it now, compared to our second movie today, which is modern, and somehow manages to do that humor again and make it fresh. So it's a very interesting comparison. Oh, and they do credit the movie that they took it from in the end. I can't remember what it's called, but something I noticed today is when they look back when he's got the missiles on his tail, you can see it's shot where it's just these two missiles are kind of like dangling.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

And then they just, you know, flip the camera upside down to make it look like I'm like, no, that's fun. That's fun. You know, I can see why our our guest brought us this movie because it seemed to inspire one of the movies that they made a lot. And it was like, oh well, this one and the other. There's there's hints of top of uh I almost call it top secret of uh hotshots and one of his flicks, and then there's hints of uh they came together.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah. So$26 million budget grossed to$181 million worldwide. So yeah, you're right, it made quite a bit of money. Uh worldwide, this played well. Interesting. Half, I mean, it made half of its budget back opening weekends, so you knew it was off to something good. So July 31st of 1991.

SPEAKER_04 15:26

Ah, they released that just in time. You release that a year later, it doesn't make as much money. But you're in 91, so like I've said before, it's like you're in the 11th year of the 80s, so you can still kind of get away with that because the switch hasn't happened yet.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Well, and I I also think that when we talk about diminishing returns, we also talk about like you know, this is also right around the time where um the naked gun series is starting to take off.

SPEAKER_04 15:57

Or to because uh, you know, the window went away because they'd already had their first two.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Well, the naked guns in 88, and then you've got the second one in 91, right?

SPEAKER_04 16:06

Yeah, I guess two is doing well around then, yeah. The third one was when we worked at the theater, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yeah, two comes out in um, I think the same summer, right? So you've got you've got two of these coming out right around the same time, basically. Yeah, June 28th for for naked one. Two and a half. So these are a month apart. Wow. Right. And I I haven't seen two and a half in a while, so I couldn't honestly tell you surprisingly, both with about the same budget. Two and a half did eighty six, uh, did twenty-three million dollars for a budget, eighty-six million worldwide.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

So I remember that one being all right. It was the third one where I was like, okay, it's kind of run its course.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

But again, diminishing returns. It's it's that same thing where the jokes, you just can't either the joke has finally run its course, or you can't find something fresh and new to say about the joke or to create these new jokes. I mean, every I mean, look, there's some great every one of them's got these great pitter-patter one-liners, but what happens is you get into these set pieces of comedy that drag out and they're not funny. Like the leading lady does doing the gymnastics meet cute bit is a good example of of my problem with these m movies, these later ones. It's just overkill. Like they just keep it's like you have not only driven that joke into the ground, it's completely fucking dead. You can't, it's unit's indistinguishable anymore. I don't even know where it started. Like it's that Simpsons meme of stop, it's already, he's already dead, you know. Enough. Like, stop with the joke, you know. Yeah, whereas it whereas it used to be, airplane one is rapid-fire jokes with callbacks, right? Like the two kids who sit down and they have coffee, and you know, I take my coffee like I take my men, you know, it's it's just like what the fuck? And then suddenly, you know, we've got a line of people because the woman's uh freaking out and they're in line smacking her and all that shit, and then you've got the jive stuff with you know, it's just it it's cut never ending. There's never these long bits, hardly ever. Ever. And they're usually at the end to kind of wrap the movie up.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

Yeah, it's like maybe there just wasn't enough to mine from just top gun alone. And it it doesn't have a whole lot of pop culture jokes. It has a few random ones, but it is more of that uh isn't this a uh a funny joke we're doing or a funny pop culture reference we're doing. The second movie doesn't have any of that. They steered away from it, and I think that's what makes that one better in a way. But this one has like random Brady Bunch joke out of nowhere. Yeah, yeah. But it doesn't do a whole lot of that, but the Top Gun thing partially freezes it in time, but also makes it timeless because Top Gun's relevant again because of the second one.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

So Yeah, well, and at times I think some people would say Top Gun's game. Top Gun never went away. One of the greatest gay-coded movies of all time, they according to some.

SPEAKER_04 19:06

So Hotshots Part 2, 1993. How how much money did that make? Probably not as much because they certainly didn't roll into part three. But I remember part two were was at the theater when we worked there. And as an aside, I actually met Charlie Sheen a couple of years ago. He was just totally chill. It's so funny when you see media's uh presentation of people being completely out of their fucking mind, and maybe he very well could have been back then. But I met him when he was sober and he was just like totally chill. So it's just weird watching this again and going, oh look, it's Part 2 did about the same.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

It did about 30 million less worldwide, but it did$25 million budget, made$10 million opening weekend, and gross about I think the gross for US was a bit higher overall. Um but yeah, basically the$69 million gross for the first one, and then 38 million gross for the second one. So yeah, so actually didn't do as well half the gross, but it still made money. But then it went worldwide and did did its big money too.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Do you think Charlie Sheen was more successful with how this movie came out, or Emilio Esteves and Loaded Weapon 1?

SPEAKER_01 20:23

I was about to I was just about to mention loaded weapon. I was literally just about to mention loaded weapon, man. And that's the problem is that these things became they kind of became their own kind of joke. Like it it went from something being really fucking like I remember in the 70s, late 70s, early 80s, when airplane was around, it was like, man, when you'd quote that or do those types of things, it was it was like the unknown comic or something. It was nobody else was doing that. You know what I mean? Uh but now you've got uh everybody, now you've got the Wayon Brothers with their terrible, you know, scary movie ripoffs and all that type of shit that they're doing. I'll get more into that with the next one. Then you've got National Lampoon again on the, you know, it it's really devolved into kind of just a bargain bin of uh movies. And oh shit, it's drawn crier playing washout. Mm-hmm. Name's Pete Thompson that everybody calls me dead meat. It's your origin point of two and a half men. And the the uh the Pfaffenbach gag is another example of what I'm talking about, the drag it out and just kill the joke, run the joke into the ground until it's dead. Well, the Pfaffenbacher, I was my mother was a Pfaffenbacher, you know. My cousin's a Faffimba. We're all Faffenbach, you know, just oh Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

You know at least it knew to not wear out its welcome too much. Both of these movies are short. Shit, the other movie's shorter than this movie by like a minute, which was one of the first things I noticed. And I was like, What?

SPEAKER_01 21:59

I think it's

SPEAKER_04 22:00

The first two weeks we've had both movies come under three hours. Yeah, I was like, oh, two short movies. This is nice for a change. And two movies that are fairly modern, too, which is good too. We've been watching a lot of old stuff lately, which is good, but the variations are always nice. But uh what I noticed about both was about 45 minutes in, both movies start to wear out their welcome, and one of them handles it a little more gracefully than the other one. They both have decent pacing, though. I wouldn't say Hotshots is a bad movie. It just doesn't, you know. For 84 minutes, it drags.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

It's shockingly drags. You get to you get to about 65 and you look up and you go, all right, okay, only 20 more minutes left. And then at about 75, you're like, how much more time?

SPEAKER_04 22:50

Yeah, how is this not over?

SPEAKER_01 22:52

You know, how is this not over? You keep dragging this out, and they do, they keep dragging the gag out, the f the whole big you know, sequence out, even after the the the ridiculous jet plane fight with, you know, no missiles or guns.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

You get a plot at 27 minutes. That's nice. They finally decide on some sort of story about people sabotaging the plane.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

That's right. That's true. What's that whole uh washout sequence where he ends up landing in Vegas? Out of out of everything in the movie, that made no sense.

SPEAKER_04 23:28

Like I guess somebody thought that was funny because it's nonsense, you know. I guess I think the other movie today does nonsense better.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah. Uh and people sitting on dogs in this movie, they decided that was gonna be a thing, and I counted four attempts to sit on dogs in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 23:48

Oh, because that chihuahua's everywhere and they keep not seeing it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 23:55

It's like, well, what is the dog doing in the jet? And the one guy's taking his groceries out of the jet, and there's all sorts of like just it's it's you you chuckle a little, but it's nothing laugh out loud, you know.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah, I like the Garfield cat stuck to the inside of the cockpit window. That made me laugh. Um, I didn't remember a Fabulous Baker Boys reference, but there she is in the red dress. Right? I call it dancing on the and I had to look it up, and sure enough, Fabulous Baker Boys is about two years before this, and I'm like, oh my god, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 24:25

Yeah, yeah. So I guess that was still So yeah, they are it's mostly Top Gun, but they do pull in a few other things to riff on as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Ver just barely.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

While as the second movie, genre in general.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

The second movie loses its fucking we'll get there. Let's not yeah, let's not make it.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

Um I don't have much to say about this one either.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

So the actor who played Dead Meat also played a good Christian white boy in a movie called Bull Durham, which I found hilarious. It's what a kind of a weird stereotyping. Uh Wendy, I can fly is one of my yeah. And and then suddenly he's lip-syncing to only you. And that's the that's the part I think is the call back to Top Secret where it's kind of riff riffing itself where he sings on stage and all the girls are crying and all that stuff in in Top Secret. I kind of feel like it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 25:26

It's not organic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

No, it's just it it's kind of out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_04 25:31

And we just cram in a few more random movie parodies.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

And then we blow Saddam Hussein out of nowhere. We're just like Cyanara, Saddam, you know, and then it's weird.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

It's it's strange how they are similar, the two movies. They even do some of the same type of humor, but one works and one doesn't. I guess the reason I don't care for Family Guy a lot of the time. Where they're like, oh, remember the time when this pop culture reference happened? And it's like, that's not really that funny. I I lived through it. I never had a context for that being hilarious because somebody had a big mustache or something, you know. I mean, it can be funny a bit looking back at old styles, but boy, they act like it's just like comedic gold. This movie doesn't do that that extreme. But, you know, like the random gone with the wind thing, and it's just like, well, huh, what are we doing? Now we're in Rocky, and yeah, that part is that's the weirdest part of the movie, I think.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I think my two favorite quotes from the movie are Great Helium, where they're because that's the dances with wolves referen thing, is that he shows up to the Indian reservation and fucking that's where he's living, and he has to get into the knocks on the teepee and fucking rings the doorbell on the tee, and they go in and they they inhale helium instead of out of a peace pipe, and I'm just like, Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

Another current reference. It's it's like something straight out of Mad Magazine.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

It's so great helium, you know, it's like whatever. And then the other one is um, I'm a virgin, I'm just not very good at it, which I thought was uh a pretty funny line.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

And there's uh the funky incest jokes in both movies, too. Yeah, you're right. You're right. There are.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Yeah. Boy.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

It's like, what? What is going on? Why?

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Uh I hadn't seen that in shit. I hadn't seen that since probably it came out. Since maybe a couple years after it came out, where where it was maybe playing on cable or something. So it's been I can safely say since '95, since I've seen that movie, so 30 years.

unknown 27:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

And um it does not hold up. No. It's not bad, but it doesn't hold up. The best part about it is, like you said, the pre-two and a half men John Cryer Charlie Sheen type stuff, where it's like, oh, these guys, these guys worked before in a movie. That's hilarious. Um, but I think that's all my notes.

SPEAKER_04 28:10

Yeah. Didn't have a whole lot to say about it, but it also is a short film, too.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

So Yeah, not not much there.

SPEAKER_04 28:17

It drags yet its pace is quick. So and opening day, that crowd loved it, man. They laughed at everything.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:27

It played so well then.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I mean, it made$181 million in 1991, so it did it definitely did its job. It was a hit, you know. People enjoyed that. But what do I give it now? I'm sure I laughed. But yeah, what do you give it now? I give it a two now. I'm right there with you. I give it a two.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Yeah. It's not not bad.

SPEAKER_04 28:50

No, it's it's bad. I like knocking my socks off though. Because there's some parts that are funny. And if you like that type of humor, if you're attuned to that exact one, then yeah, this might still play well for you. But I'm just like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

I like the others more. Yeah. I'm giving it the two for Lloyd Bridges because without him, I think I'd probably give it a one and a half. But I I kind of enjoyed him being just this insane person who's just off to the side doing all of his grandpa bits, and they're really funny. So I enjoyed that. But that leads us to our next movie. Lost my sense of smell. The handkerchief through the ears is is a good one. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. I love the one where he gives him the earplugs, he goes, Here you go, sir, because he's like this for your ears, and he just immediately takes away pills and it's fucking Jesus. That was funny. That was actually funny. Those are those moments that are. That's those old moments. That's the yes, that's what I mean. That's what I mean. They they st it's still there and it's still funny, but they keep doing these long gags that aren't just don't work the same, you know? Anyway, twos all the way around. So that brings us to that brings us to They came together.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

They came together. What an odd title. But what is this movie that's already over a decade old and it's shorter than hot shots? What is it?

SPEAKER_01 30:29

They came together, 2014, rated R, one hour and twenty-three minutes long, directed by David Wayne. Uh writers are Michael Scho Walter and David Wayne. Uh it stars Paul Rudd, Amy Polar, and Bill Hayter, and my god, so many others it's not even funny. We'll we'll go through that list in a bit. Um here is your log line. Sorry. Molly owns a quaint little sweet shop. Joel works for a gigantic candy company threatened to shut her down. How they meet, fall in love, break up, and get back together is hilariously recounted in this rom com spoof. Uh Storyline. In New York City, couple Joel and Molly are having dinner with their couple friends, Kyle and Karen. And the general discussion of their respective relationships and how they met Joel and Molly in telling their story, say that it's exactly like a corny romantic comedy. The story they end up telling not only has every romantic comedy cliche thrown in, but it is told in the style of a romantic comedy, complete with crazy characters who should be smarter to figure out a smoother path to a happy ending for Joel and Marty. But that one romantic comedy element that is the big payoff may not be reality. Or perhaps it is. He came, she came, they both came.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

Tagline. They came together, dressed both as Benjamin Franklin. One of those few jokes where you're like, well, she's gonna be dressed as Benjamin Franklin too, and it cuts over, and there she is. And then the other perfect moment is the football, and I'm like, he's gonna throw that football directly at her face, and that's what happens. But you expect those perfect parody moments in there. Yeah. It's um I did not know this was a parody film. It doesn't it lures you in. Like we're just gonna tell you the sweet story about how we got together. Next thing you know, she's knocking all these boxes down and falling on the stairs, and you're like, what is the tone of this? Oh, this is silly. Okay, I'm with this. I'm with it.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

If you don't know that this is a spoof, you go into this thinking you're gonna be watching. I went into this thinking I was gonna be watching some rom com that did that that did some sort of twist that was worth a, you know, like, oh, this one never caught, but it did this cool thing. You should check it out, right? No. You and like instead, it what you get is like a you you're going on a date with some blind a blind date with some dude, and halfway through the dinner he's got his hands all over you, and the date's just getting worse by the minute. This fucking movie just, I mean, it just continues to, it starts off like this sweet story, like you're saying, and then suddenly it slowly begins to devolve into Fairley Brothers and movie 43 by the end of it, where you're just by the end of it, you're just like, Jesus Christ, no wonder it's a minute, an hour twenty-three, because you can't put any more into this depraved motherfucker. It's insane.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

What they do is like like you said, it's it's it's a rom-com told through the deconstruction of all the uh in the dis dismantling of all the popular rom com. It's every fucking trope. I mean, it's unbelievable. It makes it so much fresher of an approach than hot shots with the hey, isn't that a funny joke type thing? This is more like we are screenwriters, we've watched a million rom coms, we know the formula back and forth, and almost you get the feeling like they were trying to write one and we're we're like riffing it as they're writing it. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

It's it's insane. It feels like the director and the writer are kind of winking at you, but also kind of giving you the finger. Like, yeah, without being too cynical. This is all the shit in these rom-coms that you've seen that you like. Like, oh, we cut to the they the meet cue, right? Where they're both dressed as the same character on Halloween and they run into each other, and of course they have a thing, and they get off the bus, and they're of course they're heading to the same apartment, and of course they're at the same party, and you know, it's it's so stupid. You know, it's it's funny, and but yet, and then we cut to what's he doing? Playing basketball with his buddies. Oh, yeah. And one of them's it's it's like fucking so I'm laughing because I'm like, you assholes, don't even you don't even care. You're it's like you're you're putting effort into it, but you're not putting effort into it, and it's it's really funny and it's really dumb at the same time, and it's so expected and unexpected.

SPEAKER_04 34:56

I switch, switch, I thought the figure would have been moving the ball back and forth. That's the that's the perfect send-up of what those scenes are. And then the other friend comes in, and the other friend, well, I'm the blue Mr. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yeah, you got the black guy who's like, I don't know what you're talking about, you know, being the voice of reason, and you got the this the crazy white dude, the crazy white friend who's you know, I've had sex with everything, and here's what you should do, but what do I know? You know, you shouldn't listen to me. It was the dude from 30 Rock shows up first. Yes, yes, Colby Smolders is in this just all of a sudden. The the dude from Jason um Matsukis, I think his name is. He's from uh the League and others. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. He's in this. I mean, this this cast is so deeply stacked, it's insane.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

It's what a perfect cast that everybody understands exactly what they're doing, what kind of movie they're making. Any different cast doesn't work the same. What I really like the most about this movie is it it's a very earnest film, and it's very clear about what it is, it sticks to what it's doing, and it lives within its parameters, and then it's out. And so many movies try to be everything to everyone, and this one's just like this is what we are, and we're never gonna jump the shark. We're gonna stay the course. Like I said earlier, you get about 45 minutes into both movies, and you're like, Okay, okay. What happens in this movie is the couple that are hearing the story decide they want to get up, and the other couple are like, You shut the shut the fuck down, you better hear the rest of the story. And I'm like, Yeah, that's they're talking to us because they know we're getting a little burnt, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:44

They started laughing so hard.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

And there's a few more great moments saved for that last half hour, like the in crazy, the crazy silhouette sex sequence where they're like, I didn't tell you any of that detail. Oh, I guess I was just imagining that from what you were telling me.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

So good. The the cast is um let me go through the cast here. So you've got Paul Rudd and Amy Polar, Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper, Kobe Smolders, Jason Mansukis, Noreen DeWolf, Michael Ian Black, Michelle Watkins, Randall Park, Christopher Maloney, Ed Helms, uh Jack McBrayer, Keenan Thompson, Ken Marino, John Rue, uh Melanie Lynx uh Linsky. Uh it's it's insane how Adam Scott, John Stamos, uh Michael Murphy, Maureen. It's it's insane. Jeffrey D. Morgan, Michael Shannon. Michael Shannon, remember the boyfriend who shows up at the end and gets punched out, and just like, you've got to be kidding me with this.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

Yeah, it's kind of everything Fool's Paradise wanted to be. Yeah, very much so. Pulling in everybody and making the thing, and it's like that this gelled, but that one didn't. But it's the same level of talent going in, crazy enough.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

And it just it walks through those rom-com tropes as fast as it can. Every almost even every scene can sometimes have two or three tropes buried within it quickly, easily.

SPEAKER_04 38:10

And it's using them to propel the story at the same time. And it's it means the brother that doesn't amount to anything, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah, yeah, but but yet he's the one giving the advice. Uh-huh. Yeah. Of course he's giving the advice, you know, and and uh the um the what was I gonna say, the uh with the tropes and them and moving fat through it so much, it's like the the exposition from these other rom-coms you've seen. It's they use that that exposition, they use those lines. I've literally heard lines from other movies, just those simple kind of like exposition lines that move things forward. It's the only thing that's original in this movie are the fucking jokes. Yeah, that's it. The only thing ever everything else is just literally pulled from other movies, stitched together with expositions so that they can lay these this mocking tone throughout the film, and they just mock the piss out of this entire romantic comedy process. It's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

I'll have what she's having. We're all having the exact same food.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Trope the rom-com is what they should have called this.

SPEAKER_04 39:21

Um but they bait and switch you. They do that cover and you think it's something else, and you put it on, and it's like, what? I saw some reviews that people didn't like it, and they're like, I lost me within the first five minutes. I'm thinking, well, it would if you're if you're not down with this. But you you compare this to things like you were talking about like the scary movies and the epic movies, and most importantly, date movie. Yeah. This is so much better than me, than things like date movie and stuff, because those are just gross out gags over and over again. This movie doesn't really do a lot of that. The guy shits his super his superhero costume, but they do it in a way that's really funny, too. It's not just that hard. Somebody else did that. And then put a robe on and come back out. No. No, I'm wearing my guy who just took a shower costume. And then he leaves, and then the guy turns, he's like, I wonder who did it.

unknown 40:22

I wonder who did it.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

It's so dumb that you know they had to be very clever to come up with it, because otherwise it doesn't hit you like I should have seen that joke coming, and I fucking didn't, and it got me. Yeah. It's so asinine, but it's so perfect at the scene.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Yes, yes. And that's that Farrelly Brothers movie 43 thing I'm talking about, where it's you know, you're doing the kind of gross thing, but it's still it's sort of still undeniably funny, you know, the the semen in the hair or the the chins for the ball, balls for the chin, you know.

SPEAKER_04 40:58

For a movie from the 2010s, very little of that type of humor like uh permeates that get into the Greek or something for that. They they stay in their lane here and they they there's a little because you can't help but be representative of the time you're in, but it's it's very like you almost have to look for it, any of that gross out stuff. Like nothing like in date movie where there's like a bristle pad pubic hair on the guy's face or something. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people probably think it's hilarious, but I think this movie's a lot more clever than that.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

It does, it it does so I mean it it does some of that in the end. Again, we know when we get to the end and and Paul Rudd's going to his grandma for help and he's finally turns to her and goes, I want to fuck you so hard right now. It's just like, holy shit. What? That's when I just started, I just started laughing because I was just like, this movie at at it as it gets farther on, it goes, watch me lose my mind. Yeah, it finds little spots where it can get on tangents. And part of me, like one of my notes is I feel like this movie, like I'm what like I'm like I'm on LSD when I'm watching this movie. Like the movie's intentionally trying to make me trip and go, Did I just see that? Did that just happen? Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, yeah. And it like, especially the last 20 minutes. Oh, I mean, constantly, constantly building that up, building it up, and it was just or the part where it becomes the music video for the movie. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 42:27

And they show up as themselves now in the movie, hanging out at the jam session for the soundtrack or the movie. It's a new type of meta.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

I I and I get why people wouldn't like this film. Like I it's it's like even more. I mean, I mean, I've said it, I think we said it talked about before about um I think I said it with Top Secret, where I said, you know, if you're into that type of humor, you know, you'll you'll like it, but if you're not, you may struggle with it.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

They're both very specific.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

And they came together is even more like that. Where it's like, look, if you don't like it's much like like a Farley brothers, if you don't like gross out humor, you may not like this, right? But with this one, it's like if you don't like literally no just relentless one thing after the other after the other, and just obvious tropes and obvious winking at you constantly while they're doing these fucking jokes, like you're not gonna like it. You're not gonna like it, you're not gonna get it, you're not gonna like it. But if you like that, you probably think this is hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

You said hey the same way she said hey, and little things like that. You know, you like fiction? Oh do you like fiction? Like q-tips? There's ones like the cotton on both sides, that's the only ones I know. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

The little crashing crashing Brent Ben Franklin's, and that's your meat cute, of course.

SPEAKER_04 43:52

You know she's trying to put on the fucking outfit while he's outside practicing.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

his apology and she finally comes out in the fucking he's gone the suit of armor suit of armor and he's gone he had to wait so long yeah I it reminds me of those 80s films where you'd you'd pack all this talent into a movie and and somehow it it would end up being less than the sum of its parts you know what I mean like you know you get like uh you know you get I mean stir crazy's not a good example but you'd get a movie where you had like a a lot of people like you know it's like a super group they rarely put out the hit song exactly and but this one's working pretty good this one yeah they knew what they were doing yeah I have a few problems they didn't have interference so well I I mean I don't think the budget was that big so they were probably left to do whatever they wanted because it feels like it right it it feels it definitely feels like they were able to do whatever they wanted to do. Yeah I don't have a budget for it unfortunately but it doesn't feel like it was much of a budget.

SPEAKER_04 45:01

Mm-hmm I bet everybody worked real cheap because everybody's friends they wanted to make the project because they knew it was good not many sets you know you could probably pull that one in for still a couple million I bet but on the lower end of most movies.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

Yeah I would imagine so um how do you sleep at night?

SPEAKER_04 45:22

Well I usually jerk off and then sleep pretty soundly I mean this movie it just If you think that's very quote funny you should watch this movie. Yeah that's a good litmus test.

SPEAKER_05 45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

It's just clever nonsense. It's not like isn't this a funny pop culture reference it's just clever nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

It's it well it's like so he went down on me and I came in like one second.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Good morning Melanie oh my boss is here I'll call you later by dad you know it's just it's that's that tone where you get the other incense incest joke later you go oh it's already shown me that it's gonna go there. So it's playing within its parameters.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

But you go what what the fuck yeah I know why don't you just take a jerk you hike you know it's over and over and over again uh I I just guy who shitting his superhero yeah really it's oh my god talk about movie within the movie with in the movie and they juggle it really well yeah they do they do and and it's it's it's sharp it's sharply written it's a good I like the banter quite a bit and I like you know it's yeah it's one that I would recommend to people because it's just so different.

SPEAKER_04 46:46

You know it's like oh they hit it right especially during the the teens when every movie was just well not every but most were trying to be disgross out comedies at that point it's nice that something different slipped in.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Yeah you've got the whole you've got the whole coffeehouse Nora Efron shit in there you know you've got it's it's like uh Friends Meets a Christopher Guest mockumentary with every rom-com that you can think of trope thrown in to to to play off of you know it's it's as if the director literally was just kind of enjoying flipping people off by throwing all these types of movies and and just making kind of a mockery of all of it. But in again in a really funny like much like Spinal tap where they're just making a mockery of heavy metal and you know in a fresh way.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

You know it shows that you can still do a movie like this now. And it doesn't have to be the hotshots format like they didn't grow necessarily they kept doing the same joke.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Yeah yeah the pole up his ass joke is that's the airplane where it's just that's an example of the older style airplane reference dude it's so so good. And then the destroying the apartment to um there's there's there's hints of fever pitch in this it's it's an i I don't know. I I mean if if look here's what I would say if this movie came out today here's what I would say I think AI wrote this movie. Like it it feels like a like a something that you would put out that AI would wrote because it doesn't make but but in a but AI wrote it in a serious manner. It's not a spoof it would just be like the new rom com that AI AI could never be that clever to the intricacies of of the parody yeah yeah literally I one of my notes is I feel like I'm on acid and fucking Judge Judy what the fuck that's where I was just like those where you're like what okay yeah rare example of current pop culture reference in the movie which is good but again make this movie age well along with all the rom coms yeah it's definitely one I would recommend to people um I again got a hell of a cast it looks pretty good it's funny as hell it just keeps moving it's very very funny oh yeah I laughed out loud many times for the sheer dumbness of it the audacity yeah yeah it's it's um I would also say if you like things like you know maybe it's always sunny things like that you'd probably find this funny Tropic Thunder that's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 49:24

Wet hot American summer maybe oh yeah didn't they make some of the same people a lot of a lot of the same people were in it yeah so um you could probably say I I'm shocked it gets us you know it's like five and a half stars on IMDB that's just shocking to me much like local hero I don't think people have seen this wild absolutely insane okay well I I have oh he oh same director who did role models okay that's right and that's totally different type of movie in a way it's it's like a normal story it's it's wacky about those LARPing kids but yeah and they did on American Summer one and two okay so that makes complete sense that feels just like right up their alley so it's that comedy troop exactly they're somewhere between like what the uh oh go ahead go ahead I also did a feudal in the stupid gesture which was pretty good. Oh that's right so were s were some of them from like was it like the state or yes I believe so yeah because I know they come from it's like there's so many different 90s comedy troops that you know the people that did the broken lizard 20 yeah 27 episodes of the state too so yeah probably all of them that makes sense that was a pretty sharp show in the early 90s yeah yeah it was good very sharp but um and it's good to see that they've they've I mean again I uh I get that that this didn't do what it should have but I man I think it's kind of like you said a little lost gem I don't think people have seen it no everybody should yeah yeah you probably should see this one you don't necessarily have to watch Hotshots again if you don't want to find it we highly recommend this one I think I think it's on some of those fast channels those free streaming services so it shouldn't be too hard to find a copy of I've ever seen a DVD of it probably and just thought it was a generic rom com oh it's on hey it's on Pluto TV so okay it's on Tubi Pluto the Roku channel CWTV so it's out there CW fancy yeah oh I love it when he hits her in the face with the football breaks her nose that's great I knew that was gonna happen you just you already know because it's so it has to you wouldn't expect it to but then they do something different with it you know they start kissing when she's got all that blood running down her face I don't think that's happening so what do you give it?

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Uh three and a half yeah I'm you know what I'm gonna go three and a half myself I think um no I I'm gonna go three I'm gonna go three I think it I think yeah I think it struggles just a bit here and there but I I agree even with a three like this is something you should watch and you'll probably rewatch eventually because it's it's goofy as hell Ed Helm Ed Helm is just a weirdo in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 52:40

Oh yeah Eggbert Eggbert yeah Kenan Thompson and his yeah it's it's an insane movie anyway so it was a lot of fun I really really enjoyed it was uh so um to our guest who unfortunately couldn't make it thanks for sending us a great movie we really enjoyed it at least we got that out of it it was very good and I understand how it influenced uh some of uh some of his work there's one of his movies that kind of makes you feel like you're tripping too it's like okay but he does he takes it in a different direction where you see the jump jumping off point but then it's like do a twist which is I appreciate as well so but you know we'll just keep you anonymous because you know I'm not gonna call anybody out because they couldn't make it or something well you know maybe they happens yeah we're we're busy people podcast podcasting isn't just magic you gotta you gotta put up more people and schedule and people have jobs and things they do and it's it's hard to find time to do it. We're recording this one on a non-normal recording day not like you would know listening to it but we're doing it for you the listener because you gotta get a fresh episode every week from us.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

We know you love it.

SPEAKER_04 54:00

We know you want to hear it and we love you we want to hear from you so right in so uh hit it you know hit that like and subscribe button and hit us up on our socials and like subscribe uh other stuff that has to do with following us share the link star review you know yeah five star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify supposed to make the show more visible and we never plug that type of stuff but maybe we will start asking you to do that a little more every now and then you know couldn't hurt it could be just to remind you and if you have already thank you so much. Alright and say do it again but it will only let you do it once so like and subscribe oh what do you got for me next week? Okay since everything is mixed up again next week will be this week next week will be the guest episode that we were going to record this week but we'll we'll book the next person on in line and we'll find out what that is at that time. And then Oh shit really well I guess since we decided that this is that one now I have to tell you what the episode after that is don't I yes yes you do. That's how this works okay so episode one oh two this episode you're listening to right now episode season three episode thirty came out on January 5th 2026 so beginning of the second year of the show. Now of course we had our two year anniversary here pretty soon like next month I think but last year first movie of the year was my chauffeur well this year we had a little we had a little mix up and we switched to the Hotshots one to start the year with so I'm giving you the party animal for episode 104 it is the talking Pondo movie to talk of them all. See how it was gonna I was gonna kick the year off with that but I realized we can go we can go on episode 104. We're going back to where the hell did Pondo come from holy crap it should be a fun analysis we already did the Star Wars trilogy so let's do Pondo to cap that one off. So that'll be in two weeks wow I didn't even realize I was gonna have to reveal that today but wow well the party animal yeah I mean well a beard as the on the I mean he's done only a few that we've really yeah you know follow closely and I thought that's gotta be that one.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

I'll give you past the ammo or it takes two um okay so I'm gonna dig deep into the collection here I want to get the rear started off right um so yeah I'm gonna give you uh Bad Day at BlackRock that's from 1955 I believe the old movies again and uh it is um Spencer Tracy something I haven't seen so Spencer Tracy uh Robert Ryan and uh supposed to be really good all right oh you you haven't seen it either uh I have not so okay all the way blind starting to throw these at you a little bit more nice all right so yeah the continuing trend of movies about generations from people far before us hey sometimes you find interesting things in that and then we also have quite a few people who are also older than us doing things in college that they probably shouldn't be doing but it's fiction people and we like fiction it's completely fiction why did they write it down if it never happened that's right do you like fiction that'll be that'll be do you like fiction that'll be a nice uh double feature for you there and then then the week after that for season three episode 33 that's two year anniversary of Talking Pondo from the first episode that we put out so if you want to come up with anything special for that now you have a warning at least nice nice nice okay all right the party animal I think I think I got I think I got something for you on that I mean I could do something goofier if you want something goofier than Bad Day at BlackRock it's there it's it's it's it's it's there now so then no no it's there you've already said it and it's out there in the in the world and you can't change it it's just how it is I'm not using veto power on something I've never seen you want to get out of here on a quote yeah um I got one wait a minute why are you mad at me? He's the one who ate your father well you came in here looking like crap swish I'm not gonna do the whole they did the joke and the you can say that again you came in here looking like crap well you came in here looking like crap you can say that again well you came in here looking like crap okay we get the point smells more like chocolate than lemon swish swish later and as promise folks here's that interview with Kyle and Zusu Weingart talking about their film Cuisine de l'apocalypse which released in 2025 of this year.

SPEAKER_04 59:50

We hope you enjoy it all right and we're back it's uh a very special what would you call this making pondo where we're not special making pondo and I'm talking with people that we've made movies with ourselves but we're talking with people who've made movies and we're talking about those movies. So I guess it kind of falls under that format.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

Okay so what are we making on today whole new whole new whole new thing. So what we've got today is an interview with two filmmakers we've got a new film out we're super excited about it. The film is called Cuisine de l'Apocalypse and we have um let me make sure I get your names right Zuzu Weingart and Kyle Weingart. Zuzu is the one of the stars of the movie and Kyle was the writer and director if I'm not mistaken is that correct? Yes sir welcome guys thanks thanks for having us happy to be here yeah we're excited to have you so cuisine de l'apocalypse um let's start off with uh wow um there's a lot there's a lot going on in that movie there definitely is and it was uh uh that same energy was felt the whole time on set because it was like oh yeah um and we got zombies today and we got the chef bringing in food so um right chef bringing zombies and we're gonna do some robots we're gonna do some fake we're gonna do some robots too just in case we're gonna do a TV head on top of a robot body and inside of that TV we'll be Tachilagero. You know, why not?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

Oh by the way Sorbs do this sure why not bring in Hercules yeah um yeah yeah in the beginning I thought oh okay so the zombies get him and he's he's he's just a day player he's just been there for a day they they they got they got enough money to bring in Sorbs for a day and then they you know they're just like well you're the sheriff couple scenes get eaten by zombies but no folks that's not the case I mean I've watched the trailer I watched the trailer and I'm like where's the scene where he's fighting these zombies so I don't know if he's gone yet and then he came back and I'm like ah there we go okay I think that's why he did it because I like really pitched to him I'm like dude yeah you you get schmucked pretty easy but in the end man you come back like uh like the Hercules etch R, you know um and uh scythe that was his idea that was his idea we were like dude what do you want to come back with what kind of weapon and he I was like he's like I don't know and I was really hoping he was going to say battle axe because I really love Call the Conqueror you know that he did. Oh yeah and uh he was just like I pitched him a couple things he's like how about a scythe and I'm like okay now I got to think of a reason he has a scythe um and we had a reason you know me and him went over it character wise but that whole explanation doesn't really make the movie um I mean it's in the movie but um just the remnants of it because we didn't have time to go into his other adventure that's for the for a sequel type thing I guess yeah gotcha gotcha um okay so let's talk about how I I always as a filmmaker one of the things that I'm most interested in is how you got it off the ground right where's the where's where's the genesis of it start?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:02

Where'd the money come from? You know how did you get how did you how did you start stacking these boxes to eventually get to the height that you needed to actually make the production and and get it out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

Yeah well I mean it started um back in 2017 we did a proof of concept um it was more of a short film at the time um and then uh we just kind of kept adding to it and um we kept the same cast the whole time you know uh was something that was really important from us from the beginning that if uh you put in the time and helped build this world that you'd be there when we did it for real. And um we just there was a lot of listening and hearing people's ideas and it was a really big collaborative effort honestly. And uh yeah it was just one step at a time we made our first short film and then we decided uh to kind of go another like Gilligan's Island route you know where it's kind of campy and fun. The first take on it was actually kind of serious. Um I mean it was still funny but the world was more serious. Yeah yeah and then um once we did that we're like well we gotta in order to pitch this we need a proof of concept that says this. So then we created another proof of concept um brought in actors like Douglas Hall who plays Wallace in the film and um a couple other actors and then we had that proof of concept and we took that to investors and um we just found investors that um we knew this idea would resonate with um and they were actually private investors never had invested in film before but had kind of toyed around with the idea a little bit and um just they wanted to bring something they've always been very community based with everything they've invested in. They've done a lot of like positive things for the communities and stuff like that. And this film in itself is is an kind of like an exploration of what if the apocalypse happened but we still got to keep living and hey we can have some fun with it. And um just kind of that whole aspect of um positivity even in the end of the world they really latched onto and they just kind of thought it was funny and um kind of all the tones and stuff we were going for were things that they had always loved like we brought up Gilligan's Island we brought up MASH and those were just so happened to be some of their you know favorite shows. And uh even at the beginning of it we're like and we want to have a zombie dance fight thing with uh Kiss Me Deadly by Lita Ford and he's like dude that was me and my daughter's favorite song or you know something like I don't know if it's their favorite song he's like but we used to jam that all the time in the car. So it was just kind of honestly all lined up in a way that he was just like dude don't bring this to anybody else um don't um I we want to be the only people to invest in this so that you can do whatever the heck you want and uh there's nobody gonna be telling you what to do. And it was amazing. Yeah. Um and it just kept growing and growing and then we got bigger cast Numbers that we could ever have dreamed of getting, you know, Sorbo, um, Natasha Logero, um, Emilio Rivera.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

They were all just like a pull, man. That's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

Oh man. Yeah, and he was such a gentleman, and he was, yeah, uh such a he was so awesome to work with. He was when we wrapped him on set, he like people started walking up to him asking for autographs, and he's like, Well, let me find a chair. And by the end of it, it looked like Comic-Con. People were just kind of lined up having to sign everything. And yeah, he just went for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

I mean, dude's been on Sons of Anarchy and all kinds of I mean, the minute you see him, you're like, ah, it's okay. Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:37

So that's fascinating. Um, I always wonder how you, you know, where the uh because I think for indie filmmakers especially, the biggest hurdle is how do you find the money? Right? Like I've got the idea, I've got the script, I've got the people. How do I find the money? Where is the money? Um, and that's I think uh so it's interesting to hear you guys talk about how you how you how you found that. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

Um and about how they were like, just don't go to somebody else, come back to us, because we're the ones who want to do this. I thought that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

Yeah, definitely sounds like you had some invested, very invested uh invested investors. Hey, look, what I did there. Look what I did there. Yeah. Um, but like you were saying, it's about you know positivity in the apocalypse. And I one of my I I I like to quote lines from films, so I always write them down when they hit me, but people are saying it's the end of the world, but I'm living it up is uh I think a good indication of that's a good line from the film. Totally, yeah. One of my favorites along with I make a mean shakshuka, which I always a big fan. Are you guys food foodie people? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:45

Yeah, I like to eat good food. Kyle cooks good food, he's a he's a really good cook, so um the much of the story stems from his love and knowledge of uh fine dining and food, and I just appreciate that he loves that because I get to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

My wife's the same way. I was a I was a line cook for years, so my wife's the same way where she's like she doesn't she's just like, Well, you just cook, and I'm like, Yeah, it's fine. I'll cook whatever you want. Well, and we'll depend on the stencils.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:14

She's got a few.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:15

No, go ahead, buddy.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

I was just gonna say, um, we both worked in the restaurant industry for years, you know. Um so I could kind of tell. Yeah. Yeah. And then also just kind of the collaborative thing. Um, so like when um Chef John talks about the Chateaubriand, like the only reason that line is that way that it is is because um Kevin Jack works worked with Zuzu at this restaurant that served amazing Chateaubriand, and just the way he would talk about that dish, I'm like, okay, I want Chef John to talk about this dish the way he you talk about it. So that's I mean, so much of his dialogue just came from knowing him and how he talks about that kind of stuff. Um, and uh yeah, funnily and funny enough, after we wrapped cuisine, um, two weeks later, um Emilio Rivera came into Kevin's restaurant and he served the table. And he's like, yeah, who's the chef? Um, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:18

Who's the so uh so there it was there a real chef, or was the guy sorry? So was the guy um the the lead is actor, is he an actual chef?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:31

No. Um he will even say he can't um he can't even make a PB and J. Um so we had a chef on set, and all the picture food was just as delicious as it looked. And um that was my next question. Yeah, he was out there cooking for us in the haunted forest at 3 a.m. And we would like, okay, that's a wrap, and then before anybody would move on, including the crew, we would all just kind of gather around the table and all eat all the food. Um because it was it was delicious. Um, everything except the um the paella at the end that had been sitting out for a while, so we did not eat the seafood.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:16

I'm sure it wasn't it it was really good, but we didn't get to enjoy it because you know my first thought was muscles in Montana, and I was like, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

Oh yeah. Oh no. Um yeah, it's it's a great movie title.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:32

Uh Muscles in Montana.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

I mean Muscles in Montana. That's the part two, it's the sequel to Cuisine de l'Apocalypse, Muscles in Montana. Um it's like a magic mic, but it's set it's in the apocalypse. I'm just giving you a word for your end of the world of um so that was my next question. Was was the how was the the um the catering? How was the craft services? But I'm assuming I guess that's the chef was there all the time. It was pretty darn good. It has to be on a movie called Cuisine de l'Apocalypse, right? Right. You would you would think uh we didn't feed them granola bars for real, did you? No jelly.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:11

We had a we had a different caterer actually than was doing the picture food, but um the last week of production, um our picture food caterer or picture food chef brought his catering guys with him and they they catered for us last week. So we were eating really good. Um and he also made all the food for the rat party, which was great because everybody was yeah, very much enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

That was good. Um being obsessed with like fame in Hollywood even after the apocalypse, I thought was a really kind of fun idea where he's you know, because he doesn't seem to be really the chef and the the the main character in the film doesn't seem to really be perturbed about the fact that he's surrounded by zombies or the fact that it's the apocalypse or where that beef came from. Where's the beef coming from? Um however, he's very upset about not being able to broadcast his show, not being able to record it, and also this idea that he may get to go to Hollywood, right? And be so he's like he's still even after the apocalypse obsessed with being famous and obsessed with being a famous chef, which I thought was really funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:25

Well, you adjust pretty quick, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:28

Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:29

Yeah, yeah. After about a a year, the zombies kind of move off to the side and you gotta get back to real life, which is what your dreams are.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:37

Which is I like the 8-bit transitions quite a bit too, Kyle. Um, how did you guys do those? Did you cry um contract us out?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:46

Do you know I actually did those? That was one of the few VFX things that we're gonna do. Yeah, thank you. Um we um, you know, I purchased at some of the assets, but then a lot of the assets um I built uh just in Photoshop and um a lot of time, and then I took all the character sprites were kind of uh inspired by some of my um favorite games growing up. So if you ever played like Chrono Trigger, um a lot of the uh characters were almost frame by frame. Just I would take um like the character Chrono and um alter him enough to where um that's what made the Andy Sprite. Um I was like, okay, he's got funny hair, this guy also does. And so I would just take a sprite gif file and bring it into Photoshop and just kind of go block for block, altering altering it a little bit, you know, but it was yeah, um Andy's definitely Chrono. Um and if you play the game enough, you'll kind of see that.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:52

Uh yeah, the the um Kiss Me Deadly needle drop was quite a surprise. You don't you don't normally expect that, you know, and and um it was a good choice, I thought. Very good choice.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:04

Yeah, between that and the 8-bit, it it made me think, oh, they gotta be around our age because it's all these references that that we know, or at least was part of the household for an old.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:16

Yeah, I'm 13 years old when that came out.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:18

Oh, and girls thick hair are the best. And that that song hits too. And I you know, like in film school and making indie films, they always tell you you're not quitting Tarantino, you can't write in specific songs into the script. Um exactly. I did it anyways, and uh we uh luckily it was just we kind of hit it at the right time where it was affordable, and um, it hadn't been used since Captain Marvel. It was in the movie Captain Marvel, and um yeah, it we budgeted kind of perfect for it, and um that was one of the things I did not want to um compromise with, and uh luckily it all just kind of lined up for it to be what it was, and um yeah, I love that song. We jam it all the time. Especially now.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:06

There's a famous um well not famous, but there's a uh well-known scene from Clerks 2 where uh Dante comes running out of the back of the restaurant and Jay is is in his overcoat and has got it spread wide open and he's naked and and goodbye horses is all over. And uh Kevin said that it cost him$17,000 to use goodbye horses in the film. And I was just like, holy moly! And he and they have an extended scene in like the in like the uh the making of stuff of that scene, he goes, You're not gonna hear the music because I'm not gonna pay an extra 17 because you have to pay for each instance that you use it. Yeah, and so he's like, I'm not paying another$17,000 so you guys can hear goodbye horses, which I thought was pretty funny. But I also think it illustrates how expensive that stuff can get, like using a song can get very expensive.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:55

Well, and then the rest of the film.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:58

Yeah, and you gotta kind of plan for that, and uh, you know, like by using that song, you know, we had less days to shoot on on set, you know, um, and all those considerations. And luckily, a lot of the rest of the music in the film, because we had other needle drops, but they were all um local Missoula artists, you know, that I had kind of grown up listening to and was just just as big of a fan of them as I am Lita Ford, and um I know the guys, so um, yo, can we do this? And this is all I have to give you. And they're like, Yeah, man, of course. And um, like they when there's the scene in the what we call it's never called this in the film, but we we called it on set was the Lava Land Cantina. Um, there's the band playing, and that's the actual band that plays the song in real life. And um, yeah, but we had a lot of that good stuff, like the honky tonkin in the 21st century, you know, kind of song that plays quite a few times. That's original Montana artists, you know. Is that the one about Kill Me? Um, that's their other one that I love, but that's the the intro song. That was actually the Kill Me song was supposed to be played um more than that. Um, but then once we kind of got permission to use their entire catalog, um my editor found that song, and he was just like, dude, I love this song so much, and it's so relevant to what's going on. Um, so then actually in Lava Land, we were planning on using Beach Boys uh Barbara Ann, and we were trying to switch the words to Lava Land, so it'd be like Love Lav Love Lav Lava Land, you know. Um but the Beach Boys are really hard to get their permissions to use. So my editor suggested, because he was editing along with it, he's like, dude, we need a different song just in case. And we he's like, please look, can we use this song? And um, I was a big fan of that song as well, so I was like, Yeah, and then yeah, so we could afford the song that Lando sings to um when he finds a guitar.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:56

That that one's also three-year-dog. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:01

Um a lot of it feels like there's like there's these hidden references to other films throughout the movie. Like you guys are film lovers, and so you're kind of like, let's call the car Eleanor, gone in 60 seconds reference. Let's, you know, let's let's do that. And Marty and I do that too. We like we bury kind of, you know, we're like, uh, you know, I mean, hey, let's take this scene from Ghost and let's remake it and make it our own, right? Like it's not really lifting if you kind of make it your own, right? And it's an homage, it's an homage. And and uh we I was so I was kind of like I was kind of chuckling to myself and kind of thrilled to see another indie filmmaker doing that, burying these references in the film, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:38

Yeah, well, and oddly enough, I think you're the first person to call out Eleanor being from Gone in Sixty Seconds. Um, even on set, nobody really called it out. But I'm like to me, it's yeah, it's a Mustang GT, you know. Um uh but yeah, um nobody has called that out yet. So um 100% lifted. I'm a big Nick Cage fan.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Did you see, by the way, just uh randomly out of nowhere, did you see his uh the documentary on him almost doing Superman with Tim with Tim um Burton? Tim Burton.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:14

I've never seen a documentary on it, but I I knew that was a thing. Um The Death of Superman or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:20

Yeah, yeah, it might might be on Tubi, but you can literally see Cage in the Superman outfit. He tries it on and all that with the long hair, and it looks like it looks wild. It looks like Conair Nick Cage in a Superman outfit with a cape, which is just the weirdest thing you'll ever see. So worth a look. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:36

We actually used the Conair um score for the temp tracks in the film. So as we were editing it before we brought in our composers, yeah, we used so much Conair. Oh, yeah. Um another fantastic Nick Cage fan film, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:52

Why couldn't you just put the bunny in the box? Yeah. Um let's see. So water, sun, desert drinking. I immediately had our had a uh flash to one of our movies because we have a character that's in the desert, and it's almost the same shot, below the shoulder, looking up, raises the water bottle, sun behind him. Only our guy is on a lot of heavy drugs, and rather than a water bottle, it's a rock, and he's and he holds this rock up and water begins to pour out of it, and he drinks from the rock. But I just was immediately like, oh man, cool. That's like a shot that we would have done.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:25

Yeah, there you are. Yeah, anyway. Did that on purpose just for you, man. We just thanks, man. We appreciate it. We were gonna do this podcast, and we're like, what can we put in here? They found us.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:35

They had already found us, right? They they see they found us, and then they made the movie so they could come on the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:40

See, well, that's pretty clever.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:44

You guys are good, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:45

I mean, I've certainly never seen another movie like this. This it's a one-of-a-kind, it's a zombie robot apocalypse foodie movie. I think I think you you hit on something fresh here, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:58

It's it's Mad Max meets iRobot meets uh uh Top Chef in the rear or or or uh you know something like that. It's it's it's a lot of fun. It reminded me of have you guys probably maybe not, but there's a movie called Onyx the Fortuitous and the Souls and the Lost Talisman of the Lost Souls. Yeah, it it now subject matter-wise, it has nothing, but it has the it echoes the same sort of it's got this great sort of indie vibe to it. It's very well made, it's well put together, but it's also super creative. So there's your film's always throwing something at the audience. Every two or three minutes, there's something that's being thrown at the audience, some new thing, some new creative thing. And it reminded me a lot of that. It's hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:42

Yeah, we'll have to check that one out. Um, but it was you know, was something when we started making this. As soon as we kind of opened the Pandora's box of, well, every apocalypse you can imagine is what happened, you know. Um, we kind of just knew that there was so much that we could draw from, and just setting that rule up early, we kind of knew that we had permission from the audience to it's not crazy if all of a sudden they get hit by micro asteroids because it's the apocalypse, and we've seen those movies a million times.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:15

Uh even though we assumed it was last of Elon Starlink coming down. That's what I assumed. Yeah. Last of Elon Starlink coming down.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:23

We didn't have the budget for that. Yeah. I mean, that sequence in particular with the micro asteroids um was all thought of kind of in the post-process because we had um initially shot it um with our VFX supervisor. Um that was one day he couldn't be there, and we had talked about it, and I it was supposed to be an acid rainstorm, actually, um, where it's actual acid rain. Um and it's just melting to the roof and getting okay. Yeah. And then he was just kind of like, what does wood look like? What does it look like when a building melts? And I'm like, uh, and we started working through it and um talking about budget, and then uh yeah, we problem solved on that one for a long time. And then I was re-watching the film and saw that line where Lando references that his um supply guy got hit by a micro asteroid, and I'm like, oh, there it is. Um, we're doing micro asteroids because we can't but we had actually literally did talk about a satellite falling from the um sky, and there's even yeah, we have like reference photos where those were like yeah, where there's a satellite on the ground out front and all that stuff, but yeah, um, I mean making indie films and stuff is just an exercise in uh what you have, you know, and um what you can do with what you have. Yeah, so um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:49

Well, and like you said, there's a lot of um collaboration that goes on, you know, because you have to rely on other people's talents and you really you know you gotta draw those talents out of them and give them the space to to you know create their own art and you know make sure it fits in with the whole that you're doing. There's a lot to that. It's not uh it's not as easy as just hey, come why don't you just show up on set and do this? You know, there's a lot to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:14

Well, and especially when you're paying the crew not what they're worth as well. You know, you kind of have to give them that freedom to be excited about what they're doing. I mean, anybody will just do it for a paycheck, but there was um not a single person that worked on this movie that did it for a paycheck. Um so they all they all had to be artists, and we kind of had to let them create, you know, um, so they were proud of what they did.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:37

So basically the robots in this movie want a three-star gluten-free chef, is what they want. Exactly. That's what they want. And they need it. That's what we all want, I guess. Yeah, we're all robots. Um, a John Carpentry film, Michael Baileaf. Oh, that was how you saw those. I loved it. I loved it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:54

Of course I saw those. I watched your movie, sir. I know there's a lot of things in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:00

Uh Michael Baileaf was kind of perfect, especially with the theme of the film and everything. I was like, yeah, that that tracks. Yeah. That definitely tracks. Um the I liked I th uh one of the things I wanted to mention was I thought that the visual effects in general were really well done. I mean, um when you get into these indie indie productions, I've seen, you know, again, I'm an indie filmmaker, I've seen a lot of indie productions, and usually it's with the effects that let you down. And this film, I didn't feel like the effects let me down. I mean, uh it's an indie film, so you're not gonna get that super top level, but these were really, really well done and and very passable for the film. And uh, I like the robots. Um, I thought they were really well done. And like you said, micro asteroids were really well done. There's a lot of great effects really well planned out and and executed.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:49

Yeah, uh, it was a lot of work. Um, and a lot of uh yeah, and you know, luckily we had um a uh really good mocap artist who had never actually done mocap, but he was just he's actually a career mime. And um, so I think a lot of that having him on set um to do these motions to capture him, but then also giving the cast something to react to because I there's so many things that go into selling VFX, and a lot of it is how the cast reacts to them. Um, do they feel separate from you know what's actually in the scene? But the yeah, having somebody there to play off of was a big aspect of it. And then obviously the bringing in the VFX guys that are like, uh, what do you want us to do here? You know, and um being willing to work with them on what was achievable with what we had, and then also um yeah, what makes sense and what yeah, using the things that they'd had done before as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:52

I imagine that was a decent amount of your budget.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:56

It was, yeah, it was, yeah. And there's a lot of like hidden effects too that kind of ate into it as well, like set extensions and um, you know, uh when they're doing the dinner scene and sweet Melissa's like looking out the window. Um we shot that all in the studio, and there was a window exists, but it goes to other parts of the studio, and we knew we had to have her looking out this window. And so, like, I think that was one of our most expensive sequences was that scene where um you know we're trying to hide the fact that it's visual effects. There's no robots or anything like that, it's just um screen replacement in a very dark, dimly lit room. Um, and uh yeah, it's the silly things.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:43

Um did you guys did you guys do stand-ins for your robots, or was it all just just are you are they acting against tennis ball type of thing, or how did you it was a mix?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:52

So, like there's the scene where Kevin Sorbo is just kicking ass against all these robots, and um there's the Zombies that are getting beat up in the background. Um, that was one of the scariest things I've ever had to do. Was like explain to Kevin Sorbo, I just want you to kick a bunch of invisible robots' asses. Are you good with that? You know, because I was questioning myself. I'm like, this is this a stupid ask, you know? Um, but he was like, okay, yeah, no, I can do that. I can handle that. Yeah. He's like, I've done this before. And um, so those were just like we took the best take on, you know, we did like three or four takes, and we're like, okay, I feel like this one is gonna be the best one to insert robots in, and then we just um led it up to our animator and uh composite, you know, to animate these um robots doing you know what they do best. And uh he played with it like there's a he ended up again giving him freedom. He was like, dude, I want I added this in, what do you think? And he had like one of the zombies throw a chair and a hit to take one of the robots out. And uh I was like, I love that. That's really the we kind of had a rule on this movie. If it's the dumbest thing we've ever seen, then we got it. And we were just like, Oh, dude, that's so dumb, love it. Like, you know, it goes in.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:06

But then at one point one of them's carrying like a trash can lid as a shield and a stick, and he's just running the robot in the background. I was like, ah, look at that, he's picked up weapons for him.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:16

Um really, really silly. Um, but then we did have, you know, we had our mocap artist that they played off of a lot, and then we just got plates, you know, so we were able to cut him out. And um I think the biggest hurdle was once Melissa, the robot, transforms into this taller, bigger thing, we had to kind of put a um in hindsight, it wasn't the best solution, but we had like a flag going up about I think we decided it was eight feet, and um, so that Chef John was looking up at this eye line that was um correct. Um, the problem was the flag was like as the our mocap artist would move, the flag would wobble back and forth, and Kevin's like, you know, looking back and forth. And uh we yeah, we just have to be like, dude, uh it's right there in the middle, you know. Um yeah, but he was a pro and um yeah, made it work.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:14

What was the um what was the shoot time? What was your uh what was your production shoot time? It was 24 days. That's not bad. What was your post?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:23

Um 24 months. That took a while. About um, because a lot of the post was done like just with what we had time for. You know, we were still we were on other shoots, working other jobs, um, trying to survive. And um, we were paying our VFX guys and stuff like that, and our editor, but like everybody, our editor especially deserves so much more money because he put so much more time into it. Um, because uh yeah, we'd have to he'd have to cut these scenes in as they'd come in, and um then I'd have to sit, you know, there and um we just have to approve everything, you know. So there was so much time put into that. And our VFX team was um at one point one guy, and then we ended up bringing in more um as a total of like once once he broke down. Yeah, no, and I remember when I first gave him the VFX um breakdown, he was like, dude, 350 shots. Uh and he's like, Well, sorry, yeah, I'm like, okay, I mean, yeah. Um, you said you said you went robust. Yeah. Um so uh yeah, it was it was a long um process, one that I will do again, but I will always be more thoughtful as I work to be like, what can we do in camera? Um, because it is a it is a long road doing the effects like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:52

Yeah. Post is well, I mean, I I've we've done, I think our last two films, the post took way longer than production ever took. And if you're doing anything tricky, you know, if it like you said, if you're not doing practical low-camera effects and you're trying to do something tricky, you're probably gonna be in post long way longer than you would shooting it, you know. Because then you've got to go through audio post and all that kind of stuff. I've got a buddy right now, he's trying to get a short film done with his partner, and he basically just backed out of it because he's so frustrated with the audio post. He's just like, you take this over before I literally kill everyone involved in this production. Like we fit our audio guy fixed five things and then broke five things. How does that work? You know, and so it's post is always a nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:30

It is. Um, and you're like describing exactly what this post process is like because it's like, wait, why does this look like this? Am I blind? Uh I didn't ask you to change that. Why did you change that? Why would you why would you change that?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:42

I don't understand. I thought it looked better. I well, we didn't ask you to think. We asked you to do what we were asked you to do. Come on, what are you talking about? Anyway. Um, one of my other favorite lines in the film is uh where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Is that your goal to sound delicious? I don't I just thought that was a goofy ass line. I love I loved it. I thought it was really good. Is that your goal to sound delicious?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:05

Yes. That's you don't like cheese? Yeah. Um so silly. Um, a lot of uh there was so much dialogue that was kind of improv. Um, I'm happy to say all your favorite lines so far have been scripted, but um, some of my favorite lines were ones that um the actors just kind of came up with. Um Lando in particular, Neilo Butler, he would have a he would give us a different take every time.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:31

Um and oh we've had we've had that actor.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:34

Yeah, and I will say 80% of that made it into the film. Um, because I was just like, oh, that's better. That that is better. Um, that's funnier, that's dumber, you know. Um and uh Zuzu had the pleasure of being a screen partner a lot and trying to keep it together when he'd throw random things out.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:52

Um it was always something different, and it was always hilarious, and it was very hard to keep a straight face.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:58

He did a good job. He did a very good job keeping a straight face. Um what about you, Zuzu? What was that what was the production like for you? Was it um I mean you did you do any besides the acting and do any med did you do any emergency medical technicianing on anybody or no?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:14

I I did not. We had a separate medic on set. Um so I'm also a producer on the project. Okay, um, but I so I I was heavily involved in the producing side of things, uh you know, in the project development phase. But once we once we started filming and and shortly before, I took my producer hat off and just focused on the role because Laura was a pretty big important role. Uh, and I wanted to make sure I I did it justice. So um yeah, I had I had a great time on set and the whole the whole process was fun. Laura, her character in particular, was kind of a bummer the whole time. She was always everybody was like having so much fun, and she was like, Okay, guys, come on.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:04

You're gonna be like, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:06

Yeah. So I feel like a lot of the times I was like, I get to come in and be the bummer. Everybody else is having a good time. Um, so it was a different experience than I think some of the other cast members had.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:17

But it was like do you feel like they treated you like a bummer off camera where they were like, oh, like you're in your camera, your character kind of carry over? You're like, why does everybody think I'm such a bummer?

SPEAKER_06 1:35:26

I'm actually a really fun person. I'm super fun, guys. Come on. And the fact that Kyle wrote this role with me in mind, I'm like, what do you think about me?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:35

Oh, yeah, that that was probably a whole conversation. How many directions from Kyle did you just ignore and keep going for when you're like, I don't think that he's my husband, I'll just ignore him.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:44

No, I think when we get on set, we we try to um it's a good collaborative team. Yeah, it's I we're we get into work mode, he's the director, and um yeah, I think we work well together in that aspect. I listen to what he says. Good most of the time. You should listen to your director, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:06

Sometimes when he's right, you should listen to him when he's right.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:09

If he's wrong, he's wrong. But yeah, Zuzu's really easy to work with. I will say, Zuzu, you said that you were able to take your producer hat off. Um, but I will say there was like she was pr produced throughout the whole thing, too. I mean, like putting out random little fires. I mean, there was one time I remember getting a phone call from her on set that um I should have thought about this before I said it. Hopefully I don't embarrass you, Zuzu. Um but uh you're like, hey, I just I just got word we're out of toilet paper. What do we do? You know, and I'm just like, and we're on, I'm like sitting there with you know dealing with zombies and stuff, and I'm like, uh, and then we had to like figure out how to get toilet paper into the studio. Um you didn't you didn't say use the leaves in the forest, did you? Because that's that's no good. In hindsight, that's what we should have.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:00

It wasn't exactly it. There was like a specific type of toilet paper that we were supposed to use for the studio, and Kyle knew that's why I was a shaman. It wasn't. There were certain size. It was a whole thing. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:15

But like me and Zuzu were the only ones that could put that fire out, and we're like, okay, um trying to direct an act here. Find that toilet paper. It's important. We figured it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:28

That's funny. Um, you know, we're we're big uh again, shot a lot at like you get like you guys. We don't we we don't pay the going rate, we can't pay the going rate, so we end up trying to compensate in other ways. Hey, you know, at least you get a good decent meal, at least you're having a lot of fun, you get to collaborate, put your own input into the project. Marty and I are not tyrants, we don't believe in that type of stuff. So our sets are usually a lot of fun to be on. We usually get a lot of actors who have raped that are like, Can I hang out? And we're like, Yeah, go ahead, whatever. Um, but it's one of those things where it's like when you run out of things, you run out of things. And one of the things I think that even Marty's made fun of is ice. Like, I'm I need ice, we gotta have cold drinks, right? So I always tell Marty, I'm like, what do I say, Marty? Two bags of ice, not one. Get two bags of ice. Don't get one bag of ice, you get two bags of ice, all right. And if you don't get two bags of ice, you go back and you get another bag of ice.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:19

And hopefully the next movie we have somebody else to go get the ice instead of one of us because we need to still have two bags of ice campbell over here.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:26

You get the budget and you'll be like, I want three bags of ice. That's right. Get the budget, I'm gonna I'm gonna sit on an ice block for the entire shoot. It's gonna be ice block. Um that's so funny. Well, guys, I I really I I you know I appreciate you guys coming on. Um it was a lot of fun to watch your movie. We don't get a chance to talk to a lot of filmmakers who have made a film and and so on. What's what's uh what are you doing with the film right now? I noticed that it's on Tubi. Um so I I guess it's obviously had premieres and gone through festivals and all that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:56

Yeah, we you know, we did uh a small theatrical run in Montana. Um and uh yeah, we had a lot of fun with those. Um it was awesome to see, you know, the moments that I wanted to hit hit. You know, we were pretty much at every first showing that happened for some sort of Q ⁇ A session or whatever. Um, but yeah, now it's on streaming, so people can watch it. And um we're just uh with a film like this, it it is kind of its own thing. Um so hoping it finds its audience. Um we from the beginning just didn't see this as much of a festival film. Um like as we were even building it, we're like, this movie's so quirky and and silly. Um, even though I do truly feel it has like a really important message to say, it just didn't seem like some sort of you know sundance film, you know, because it's not um it's uh it's kind of a children's film in a lot of ways, you know. Um so we we didn't really explore the festival route that much. There was one local Montana festival that asked us to submit um because they wanted to screen it, and so we were like, yeah, sure. And lo and behold, we made it into that festival, but we kind of expected that. Um but yeah, we're just really searching for our audience and um just like Chef John, you know, and uh hoping that um it develops a following. We really want to take this into um kind of a show layout. Um and uh, you know, just like a serious serious Bible for it and all or anything, or you get an idea where you're where you're going. We're yeah, um a lot of just talk so far. We haven't really put it all together. We're really just um not to contradict myself, but trying to take it one step at a time, you know, like we have a lot of things that we've talked about, um, but I just really trying to focus on it's finding an audience. You know, we have like a uh a TikTok channel that we actually have um exclusive content, if you want to call it, that um we shot post the film of just Chef John in his kitchen, um, and it's just inspirational kind of videos and nostalgia. And uh just yeah, trying to find an audience um and build it up kind of grassroots style in a lot of ways. Um, and uh yeah, um it's funny with this film, it's either um not to call it like polarizing, but there are we bump into some people are like, yeah, yeah, that was something, you know. Uh um, and then there's other people who watch it and just um love every second of it. And uh we have like some pretty obsessive fans in a lot of ways, um, obsessive in a good way, that are just um yeah, follow us. We had people going to every showing in Montana, driving to go to these showings, and uh oh man, it gets better every time. And uh so yeah, we're just kind of looking for those type of people. I just feel like it's uh um it's just such its own unique thing and it's a it's its own world. So um trying to find people who love it for that and uh love kind of a positive message, you know. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:11

Well it's definitely a pot, I mean it's definitely takes a positive spin on being, like you said in the in the beginning of the interview, kind of a very positive spin on being in the apocalypse, right? Like Chef John is a very uh he's a very uh uplifted and motivated and positive individual, right? Kind of singular focused, and he's got a very positive outlook about where he's gonna be with it, which is uh you know the very opposite of the situation that you're in with the end of the world and so on. And again, where is he getting all this beef? I just want to know where he's getting this beef. I don't get it. A lot of cows in Montana, yeah, but you figure the zombies would eat them, right? Or maybe they just like human flesh. Maybe robots, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:53

I mean, they are mean-free. It's true. So I did um think about that stuff, by the way. Um we uh throughout the film, if you listen to the recipes, everywhere he goes, the recipes are based of that region. Um and uh I just love the implications of that. Like he goes, he's in Idaho, and so he's you know cooking potatoes, and um he brings up, oh, there's roasted venison. So I just love the implication. That means he went out and shot a deer. Um, you know, uh, but um the beef, yeah, it was definitely a Montana thing. Um, beef is a huge industry up here. Um and uh I'm just gonna defend it and say, uh, zombies don't eat beef. They're about the brains, bro. Okay, all right, okay, all right.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:43

So the truest thing in this movie, I just want to say this is the last as we as we're uh winding down here. The thing that hits the most true in this movie more than anything else, more than anything else, is the chef eating frickin' spaghettios while he's serving top-level food to his guests. That is I I have worked in kitchens and that's how cooks eat. They'll they'll literally make here's fillet, mashed potatoes, all this stuff, boom, send it out, and then turn around and eat chicken fingers. Like I've seen it more times than I can count. Right. And not that they have bad palates, it's just that you know, a lot of them don't want to cook for themselves and a lot of them don't have the time. So they end up eating canned spaghettios while they're you know, while their guests are eating Chateaubriand and broccoli rob and you know, all that type of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought I was just like, oh, I feel that in my bones. I just don't feel that you nailed that.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:34

Yeah, for sure. Definitely uh had seen that too many times in the kitchens to be like, yeah, this guy, everybody else has eaten, and he's uh is kind of in the background, um, hiding behind the counter, you know, eating the scraps or whatever the heck it is, you know. Um something. The only way it could have been better is if it was in one of those like I don't even know what to call them, but the the things people drink out of in kitchens that aren't cups, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:58

Um, the uh the deli the deli cups.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:01

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:02

Um that's the only thing you were missing was a pint deli cup full of ice water and him just holding the lip of it and drinking while he's working. That's the exactly that's a good call, cow, yeah. Yeah. I have I I my about five years ago I bought a whole bunch of those off. I was like, Amazon has these deli cups in different sizes, and they're like twelve dollars for like a hundred pieces. And my wife's like, what are you gonna do with those? And I was like, Oh, just watch. And now everything in my freezer and my fridge is labeled and dated and rotated. It's like my kitchen, it's like like commercial kitchen all over again. It makes me very happy. And it's fine because I do all the cooking anyway. So it's good. That's what's good. Yeah, um guys, I again thanks for coming on. Uh thanks for letting us watch the picture. You know, thanks for having the interview with us. It's been fun. Uh Zuzu, I feel like we just we we've we kind of uh rolled right over you. Do you have anything that you wanted to talk about or contribute, or did we miss anything from you?

SPEAKER_06 1:45:56

No, I don't think so. I I enjoyed listening to everything. And I said some stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:01

I just want to make sure you got your chance.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:04

Yeah, no, thank you guys for watching the film and taking the time to do this with us. It's yeah, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:10

Yeah, absolutely. Um maybe so maybe we'll have you back on the podcast if you've got time. Um the format of our podcast is that we give you a movie to watch, you give us a movie to watch, and then you come on and we talk about them.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:23

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:24

So yeah, so I we give you three three different choices. You pick one, and then you send us three different choices. We pick one, and then you come on and we just talk about what was good about them, what was bad about them, and then we rate them one to five. So if you'd like to come on as a guest, we'd love to have you.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:39

Yeah. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:42

All right, cool. And now we have to figure out what they're gonna watch. All right. Um, well, guys, again, thanks so much for for coming on and um we h wish you all the best of luck with the film. Again, I enjoyed it, and um, I think it's definitely gonna find an audience. There's a there's an audience out there for that. You just gotta you just gotta advertise enough to get it in the in the front in the front of the faces of the people who are gonna watch it. So I think you'll have some success with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:09

And we're looking forward to your future projects too.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:11

Absolutely. I'm really yeah, I think as a series, that'd be a lot of fun to watch. Like Top Chef meets Dawn Walk Walking Dead meets iRobot. Yeah, I'm all about that. Let's do that. That sounds like fun. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. All right, guys. Well, until next time, uh maybe we'll see you on the on the program. But um all the like like Marty said, all the best of luck with your future deck.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:32

I appreciate it. Nice meeting you guys again. Yeah.