Talking Pondo: Blue Thunder and Vision Quest with Ben Cheknis

 In this episode, first time guest Ben Cheknis joins the podcast. He brings along the movie Blue Thunder. Marty and Clif give Ben the movie Vision Quest to watch. 

First up is Vision Quest, the coming-of-age wrestling drama starring Matthew Modine. Marty, Clif and guest Ben Cheknis ("The Two Vague Podcast") explore it's themes of obsession, identity, masculinity, and the quiet intensity of high school isolation. From its iconic soundtrack (hello “Lunatic Fringe”) to its grounded performances (including an early appearance by Forest Whitaker) the conversation explores why this 80s sports drama still resonates decades later.

Then it’s up in the air with Blue Thunder, the Roy Scheider-led action thriller about police militarization and surveillance technology. What starts as pure helicopter spectacle quickly turns into a discussion about institutional power, civil liberties, and how eerily prophetic this 1983 action film feels today. The crew digs into its strange dialogue (courtesy of Dan O'Bannon), practical stunt work, and the gritty 80s paranoia that defined the era.

 #TalkingPondo #VisionQuest #BlueThunder #FilmPodcast #80sMovies #CultCinema #MovieDiscussion 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

That pilot cookie is a is a bad shot, that guy. He couldn't fucking hit a broad side of a barn with those heat-seeking missiles.

SPEAKER_07 0:08

Yeah, that's right. Cookie. Hey, cookie. You have a dumb call sign. Does anyone tell you that? Cookie.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

The only one would be like cookie.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Because everybody's munching on me. What, huh? Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 0:28

Welcome to season four 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 special guests.

SPEAKER_05 0:46

Oh shit, Cliff, I forgot to come up with the joke for the week.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Well, that's the perfect opening to episode 105.

SPEAKER_05 0:55

I was gonna say, damn it, Murphy, you won't play by the rules. But I didn't have anything else, so I, you know. All right, guys, catch you later. Catch you later. Loudon says, check you later, won't be seen this week, so we may bring you the following workout. Yeah, I gotta put a little more thought into them, but usually I come up with some kind of goofy joke where I mix both movies together and I stared at my notes and went, Oh, I didn't write one down. Well, he's a he's a gambler, folks. That's the joke in and of itself. I was gambling, yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:25

Yeah, and it'll take you by surprise. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

He only plays the game to win. We're back again. It's uh Talking Pondo. I'm Marty, I'm Cliff. Well, and uh, we're back with two more movies. We got a special guest again today. We got Ben Checkness from the Two Vague podcast. Hello, what's up, Ben? Welcome.

SPEAKER_07 1:47

Thank you. Thank you very much, guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Yeah, we're excited to have you on. It's gonna be a good one.

SPEAKER_07 1:52

Excited to be here.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

It's the interesting 80s lineup this week. Uh heart of the 80s, this stuff. Heart of the 80s. I mean, what did we watch this week, Cliff? Uh, we watched Vision Quest and we watched Blue Thunder. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's some hard. Yeah, yeah. Blue Thunder, 1983, which honestly, I could have sworn came out later than that. I could have sworn that was 85 releases. Yeah, and then Vision Quest was in 85, which is uh just shot in 83, so shot in Shot in '83. I wonder why how it took them so two a year and a half to release it. That's weird.

SPEAKER_05 2:36

Well, you know, it's how things crawled along sometimes back then. It would you'd shoot a movie, take a year or more to come out, and maybe that's what kept things in the pop culture zeitgeist a little longer, and then reality TV came along. And well, I'm not gonna go off on that rant, but yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:51

Maybe maybe it was getting all the licenses for those songs that they played over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

It's a it's a soundtrack-driven film. I'll give you that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it starts with Journey and keeps going and ends with um oh goodness, what's the band that did uh Lunatic Fringe?

SPEAKER_07 3:10

Oh, yeah, Red Rider. Is that you go?

SPEAKER_04 3:14

Yeah, so you starts with Journey, ends with Red Rider. It's a rocking soundtrack, folks. Uh I'd yeah, I'd strap in for this one. This would should be interesting.

SPEAKER_05 3:21

Got a lot, I got a lot to say about both these movies. We're gonna hit a little listener mail first before we jump in here.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

Yes, I love listener mail.

SPEAKER_05 3:30

Okay, so uh Joe Palmer from over at Tuscon chimes in again. I think he's become a regular listener. I really appreciate it, Joe. We got him. He uh really he was reposting the episode, but it was kind of a message to us inside of it. Uh he was talking about the Clerks and Say Anything episode we put out a few weeks back. Uh he writes, Two of our favorite folks teamed up with one of our new favorite folks to talk about some movies, including one with a lot of nerdy arguments. By the way, guys, the official pronunciation of the con is like Tusk. So he references the other Kevin Smith movie, Tusk. I like that. That's pretty smart. If we were calling it Tuscon, like Tuscon. Right. I've always called it Tuscan. So Tuscon. I've always called it Tuscon.

unknown 4:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:22

And strangely enough, that was another Ben. That was Ben Upon from uh Chasing the Whimsy. And we've had yet another Ben on the show earlier, which was Ben Haslar from Reels of Justice. So maybe by some strange things will like do like a talking affleck or something and have all three bins on or something crazy.

SPEAKER_04 4:46

I don't know. I love that. Have all three bins on as guests and do talking affleck, and we'll do our we'll do we'll do Argo and Chasing Amy.

SPEAKER_05 4:54

It'll be hilarious. And so we got another piece of mail here from uh Isabel Turan, who will be joining us in a few weeks. Uh oh the uh It's Bodacious Dude podcast, 80 movies about movie 80s movies from the 80s. Yes, caught caught many of her episodes. Yeah, and so she says here, also responding to that episode about Clerks and Say Anything. Both of these are more recent watches from me. Clerks Last Year and Say Anything was this year. She signed up for an audio play for Clerks Online and accepted playing Veronica before even knowing what the character was. So that was a big surprise.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:34

Still not sure if I should be offended by that or not, she says. She didn't realize that she was going to be engaged to an Asian design major. And Say Anything is cute, and I'm uh what did she say? I'm super glad I watched it before watching Love Song. And what she means by that is Love Song of William H. Shaw, our latest film, which is now streaming on Tubi. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

And the reason that she's super glad is because we do an homage to Say Anything in that movie. And if you haven't seen Say Anything, you won't get the homage.

SPEAKER_05 6:06

And our modern version of it is uh the character holds a uh Bluetooth speaker over his head to play the music to the house. We figured, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

Yeah, we spent a couple minutes patting ourselves on the back over that one, didn't we?

SPEAKER_05 6:23

Um okay, so that'll be the mail for today. I got a little bit more, but we'll save for next time because I don't want to do mail for 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Sure. That's a show an episode. Well, uh, maybe we should let our guest pick the move, pick which movie to talk about first.

SPEAKER_07 6:40

Boy, oh boy. Let's let's go with uh let's go with vision quest.

SPEAKER_04 6:45

Ooh, okay. All right. Vision quest it is. Let me get my pages of notes here. All right. Um let me read this. Uh you don't want me to read this thing right here.

SPEAKER_07 6:58

Matt Modine vehicle.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

Yeah, what is Matt Modine vehicle? Vision quest.

SPEAKER_05 7:02

Very young Matt Modine. I'm here.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Wow. Uh VisionQuest, rated R, one hour forty-seven minutes. Um, your log line. A high school wrestler in Spokane, Washington has trouble focusing on his training regimen when a beautiful young drifter takes up temporary residence at his home. Uh, directed by Harold Becker, uh, written by Terry Davis, who wrote the book, uh, and Daryl Poniscon Ponixen, and then stars Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentine. Oh, Linda Fiorentino. And you got a little Ronnie Cox in there just for five shits and giggles. Um your storyline, Vision Quest, is a coming-of-age movie in which high school wrestler Laudon Swain decides he wants to be something more than an average high school athlete and sets his sights on a prize that many don't think he can win. He then sets out to reach his goal alone without much support from his father or coach. His father rents a room to a young drifter, Carla, and Swain falls in love with her uh as she still helps him stay focused and prevents him from losing sight of his goals. I guess it's not really a great storyline for this film.

SPEAKER_05 7:59

Those IMDB summaries are always kind of all over the place.

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Yeah, kind of all over the place. But yeah, so anyway, yeah, young kids wrestling, he's decided to drop weight classes and and uh go down to a class that's super competitive and has a monster wrestler in it, you know, the monster state all-state wrestler in it named Shoot. And then amidst all this you know training that he's doing and trying to focus on this, this beautiful young drifter has a car that breaks down, and her his his dad moves her into the house as a you know, takes pity on her, moves her into the house, and now he's completely distracted by this woman. Anyway.

SPEAKER_07 8:35

Played by Linda Forentino.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

Linda Fiorentino. Her first role. Um, right.

SPEAKER_07 8:40

I didn't know that was her first.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

Yeah, right out of right out of drama school. She does this and then she does after hours with Scorsese for Christ's sakes.

SPEAKER_07 8:47

I mean, come on. Yeah. When was Dogma in her uh in her repertoire? Where was when was that?

SPEAKER_05 8:55

That was uh 99-ish?

SPEAKER_04 8:59

Yeah, it's gonna be after the last seduction, which um is uh in my opinion, probably her best role. She's she's just creepy scary in that role. Um she's in jade. Let's see. Yeah, of course she does men in black a little bit later. Men in black, yeah. Yeah, so she does men in black in 97, Dogma in 99. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:22

I feel like Kevin Smith must be a fan of this movie. Yeah.

unknown 9:26

Who?

SPEAKER_05 9:27

I just feel like Kevin Smith is a fan of this. I feel like like if he had been making movies in the 80s, maybe this is something he would have turned out back then.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

I completely agree. I mean, I completely agree with that.

SPEAKER_07 9:39

Yeah, it seemed I I I don't know about you guys, but for me, um, I wasn't in the whole jock scene. I did have a friend who was big into wrestling, and we would I know this sounds uh a little bit uh I guess uh can I say gay? Not that it but for better or for worse. But but we used to wrestle. We used to have sleepovers, and we used to wrestle, and he would teach us how to wrestle and stuff. So he was really into the whole wrestling scenes, uh, so I could understand some of the things that went on uh in the movie, but it just wasn't I mean, I don't know. I don't know how to explain, you know, like coming of age movies. For some reason, this just didn't connect the second time around. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I remember loving the movie the first time.

SPEAKER_05 10:36

I had never seen it before this week. I thought I had, but I'd only seen the Madonna videos. I guess somewhere in my brain, I thought I had seen this kind of sports movie back in the day, but watching it this week was like, no, this is this is a fresh experience for me. I've never seen this all the way through. Just little pieces. I wasn't even correct with what I thought it was about.

unknown 10:59

Huh.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

That's interesting. I didn't know it was a blind pick for you. That's cool.

SPEAKER_05 11:03

Yeah. So that was kind of refreshing in that way. But it's funny because a few a few months ago we watched Youngblood, which was gonna say that hockey movie from the 80s, and I was picking up on like some subtext in that movie where it seemed like that movie had a little bit of gay coding in it. One of the things that I picked up on on Vision Quest is it felt like it was by-coded, which is very unusual, I thought, because some movies are either either go the straight or they just go the gay, but this one felt like there was sort of a birepresentation. Now, this is just I'm I don't know if it's intentional fallacy or if I'm just reading into things, but I noticed a few things I thought were very interesting that kind of elevated the movie for me. Uh, within the first 10 minutes, we are seeing him get hit on while the guy's teaching him Tai Chi. Right. And so he's like freaked out and he runs out, and then he meets up with his other friend on the motorcycle, and then he's kind of like, Well, nobody ever did that to me before. Like, he's not trying to grab my wad. Yeah, he's not repulsed, but he's not sure because he could tell which way to go he's on his own. Until he's free quest, you see. Like, I think a perfect tagline for the movie, as crude as it would have been, but I'm just making a a silly joke here, is first he pins her, and then he pins him. Because it really kind of felt like there was a little bit of that in-between thing. I'm not I'm not saying there's there's absolutely nothing wrong with this, but I I I kind of like that it was like, look, you don't see that too much in movies, and maybe that gave people something to identify with. But is there anything like that in the book, Cliff? Or is there any no? Because I never read the book. I figured the subtext might be different because of a filmmaker.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

No, in the in the book, it's it's the book's interesting because it in the book, first off, you know, they build shoot. You know, one of the things I like I like about the movie is that they they talk about shoot like he's a monster from fucking Greek mythology, right? Like he's training with the log. Yeah, he's this well, but even before that, he's this legendary character like um Cooch, the uh the kid who thinks he's a Native American, at one point is like, yeah, man, his old man has to hit him with a cattle prod to keep him from fucking the fireplace. Like, you know, he's just all these crazy stories, almost like Jay Mews, you know, the kid of you know, neighborhood legend, right? And so there's this legend built up around Shute. And then of course when you go to when he goes to see him, he's carrying a fucking log up the bleachers, and you're like, oh, maybe some of this is actually true, this guy. In the book, um he and Shute know each other. Like they don't they don't go to the same high school, but they they kind of because it's a it's a uh it's a farming type of community, right? Like a more rural type of community, everybody kind of knows each other. And at one point, at one point in the book, uh the dads and shoot and loudo all eat dinner together at a at a restaurant. I think because they've gone to visit like a college or something for college, like a college scholarship. Um the and in the book also, she is not this hot girl from New Jersey. She's a a woman who is our she's a woman who got in trouble. Uh she's older than he is for sure, but she's got in trouble, she's had a kid, and he talks about like in the book, he talks about the fact that he loves her stretch marks. He loves that she's a woman, he loves that she's older than he is, and well, he does have a body part thing going on, yeah, right. Yes, he does, absolutely. And and uh he does, he writes about them, you know, for the school paper and shit. But yeah, it's the book's a bit different in that respect of how they represent her and this. I think it's fucking that by-coded thing's very funny.

SPEAKER_05 14:44

Um there's that other line where he says she has she has all the qualities I look for in a woman and in a man. And it's like you go, wait a minute, this movie's trying to say something a little subtly here, but I kind of appreciated that because I just you don't see that in a mainstream movie very often, even if it was intentional fallacy. Maybe it's just me watching a 41-year-old movie and picking up things through modern. I think possibly.

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Yeah, you're I think possibly looking at through a modern lens.

SPEAKER_05 15:11

Well, it made me enjoy the movie more.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

The cook, uh the cook is in the is I was pointed this out before that cook is it from the abyss. He's in the abyss. That's why he looked familiar. Yeah, he's uh one of the one of the oil rig guys on the abyss, which I thought's great.

SPEAKER_07 15:24

Um you know what that speaking of that, uh the the wrestling coach. I remember him from the thing. Yes, sir. Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

I I I probably actress name is I don't either, but in fact, now that we're talking about it, the wrestlers in general, fucking Forrest Whitaker is in this movie. All right. I mean, are you kidding me? And the kid from who plays Jake from 16 Candles is the kid who plays his friend Cooch. So it's a and there's there's several other kids who ended up in uh in other 80s teen movies in this film. It's it's um it's it's well cast, very well cast.

SPEAKER_07 16:00

Princess Vespa is in it too. Yes, baseball.

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, she's rich as shit now. She doesn't need us, she owns a baseball team.

SPEAKER_05 16:13

Uh I thought it was interesting. Oh, go ahead, Cliff. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

I was just gonna say, yeah, the old Tai Chi come fuck me maneuver. I mean, I get it. It's you know, that's his tale as old as time. Um, but uh I I I don't I don't know. I I agree with you. I like the way he's not like he doesn't turn around and punch the dude. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't get violent about it, and he's kind of embarrassed about it, and he just and it's more like I just I didn't know what the fuck to do. How do you react in that situation? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to punch Aaron? Am I supposed to run? What am I supposed to do? This guy grabbed my wad, right? Like what a fucking weird thing to have to deal with.

SPEAKER_05 16:48

Well, it leads to the scene, right, where he kind of semi-assaults Carla there briefly, and you go, Man, these fucking 80s movies, they always do the kind of anti-hero thing, like with like in Big Night where you find out he the guy was cheating on his wife or in the border where Jack Nicholson's just a shithead through the whole thing, and it's like, who am I supposed to root for here? But then I go, wait a minute, you have to if you could it's I have several uh feelings about that scene. First, is there anything like that in the book? Does that scene happen in the book?

SPEAKER_04 17:23

It's been it's been a while since I've read it, but I don't remember it. I don't remember the movie work without the scene. I I mean, yeah, but I think you need it takes something like you need something to show that he's fu A, that he's growing up, and B that he's learning how to deal with with relationships and with women. And that he's laughing down pretty good. She flat out fucking tells him, like, you know, you you know, you think that shit makes me horny. It doesn't. You know what I mean? You know, you need to fucking respect a woman and what she fucking wants, and that's how you're gonna get, you know, so it's part of this confusion. This male jock bullshit that you're pulling isn't fucking cute. It's not, it doesn't turn me on, you know, and in fact, you're an asshole, you know. Right. Um and I and I like that. That that for that forces him, I the you know, again, coming of age, growing up, forcing this kid to look at himself and to figure out who he is and who he wants to be is a big part of the movie. And I think so.

SPEAKER_05 18:14

I think we're a little like a guy too, because he doesn't know the difference in a way, you know. He wrestles all the time, and it's like, well, you can't treat a woman like that. Right.

SPEAKER_07 18:23

Well, the I read it as, you know, along with that the Tai Chi scene, that he just was a high schooler that couldn't read signals.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Right people, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 18:35

So so that's kind of where I was at, where he just couldn't, you know, he didn't know. Right.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

So and he he is a I mean, they say it in the movie, and it is in the book that he, I mean, you know, he showed up to wrestle with hay in his hair. You know what I mean? I mean, he comes from a far from farm life where it's probably a little bit rougher. I'm not excusing it, but it's probably a little bit rougher, and he probably didn't have the exposure to people like he does once he gets to this town and he's got he's going to school with a lot of kids and that type of thing, right?

SPEAKER_05 19:02

Yeah, the movie doesn't give us that context really. It sort of shows him as naive, but it doesn't show the farm stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 19:08

And it does show the family as being very open. I mean, you know, I don't know any of my family members who would just welcome a stranger into their house, you know what I mean? Like that. So very true.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 19:20

It kind of gives that sort of hometown open family kind of feeling.

SPEAKER_04 19:26

Doors unlocked, kind of doors unlocked type of thing. Yeah. Um, I love his buddy the cook. So what they've decided to do with this is it's it's kind of a rom-com, it's a coming of age, but there's a little bit of rom-com in there. And and so what they've decided to do, instead of the old best friend giving you bad sex advice trope, they've moved it to the cook, you know, because like at one point he's like, you know where the you know the, you know, do you know anything about the clitoris? He's like, Well, I think I know where it is, sort of. I know he's like, no, he's like, I know where it, I know what it looks like, sort of. I kind of know where it is, you know, and and so he's just you know, he's just gives bad advice all the time, you know. You want to be a Pooh's doctor in outer space? What the fuck? You know, and it's just a I love him so much. I think he's hilarious.

SPEAKER_05 20:11

I think it's interesting that the guy's name is Loudoun. Yeah. I've I met a Loudoun in real life, he's in our first movie, Loudoun Hasper. True marijuanos. And then the other movie that almost ended up on the show today, who's that girl? Yeah, isn't there a Loudoun in that or am I there?

SPEAKER_07 20:32

Yeah, there's the the Loudoun in that and also Madonna in it. Yeah. Wow. So one of my favorite lines, I'm gonna I know this is not something that you know, uh quoting other lines from other movies, but one of my favorite lines from Who's That Girl is we did one of your things. We killed the the pimp and the fat man. Now we do one of my things. So anyway. That would have been my my uh my quote for for the Who's That Girl episode. But but anyway. Yeah, so there's a connection with Loudon. That's the first thing that came to mind to me was his name is Loudoun, and there was that character in Who's That Girl, and then also Madonna's in it.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

So well, there you go. Yeah, so Madonna plays the uh she's a singer, I guess, in a bar that uh which is it's really weird. She doesn't have a part, she's just the singer in the bar singing her two songs during the movie, uh Gambler and Crazy For You, which were written for the movie. They're not on any of her albums. Um and I think what I read was that she agreed to do the movie and do the songs for the movie because she would the the reciprocate reciprocity was that Harold Becker would direct her videos, right? So she'd get a real time director to direct her videos because back then mov film directors weren't directing three minute videos for fucking M T V. That's not how it worked, right? So um Well that's interesting.

SPEAKER_05 21:57

I watched the video for the gambler earlier today. And you can see the Vision Quest uh slate. And I'm thinking, is this just made out of outtakes, or did they shoot a video while they were making the movie? Probably shot some video stuff during the movie. Probably.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Well, if it was me, that's exactly what I'd do, is I'd be like, okay, go ahead and shoot some extra footage because I'm going to use that for her video, right? Like while we're here. I mean, we've already got all, you know, we've got the whole bar, we've got everybody dancing, we've got the production value. Let's shoot it, right? Um, who the fuck puts garlic salt on eggs? Listen to me. If listener, if you're putting garlic salt on your eggs, stop it. Stop it right now. Don't do that. That's that's that's wrong. Don't do that. You're going to need garlic salt. It's like it's the worst delivered line in the fucking movie. And I cringe every time I hear it, mainly because you don't put garlic salt on eggs.

SPEAKER_07 22:50

What about those people who put hot sauce on eggs, though?

SPEAKER_04 22:52

I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. Kencha, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Like garlic salt? Garlic salt.

SPEAKER_05 23:00

So I have to return the Vision Quest cookbook I bought you. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

Well played, sir. Oh, that's good. Um, I I love that they show how obsessed Louden is with his goal. I don't know a lot of kids in high school that were this obsessed with what they were needed to do.

SPEAKER_05 23:17

That's not a real 18-year-old.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

They there are. I mean, they're out there, but they're they're they're driven and they usually end up being high-performing people, right? They usually end up playing in college at some collegiate level really well and they or going into a pro sport. So I I I I do love that he, I mean, he goes to bed thinking about working out. He wakes up working out. This kid, that's all he wants to do is drop this 22 pounds and wrestle this fucking guy, you know, because he's just got to find out, you know, and and that's the that's the thing. He's gotta find out what because he's gonna regret it his entire life if he doesn't. If I don't do this, I'm gonna think about it for the rest of my life. So I'm gonna do it, right? And I I admire that. I really admire that. Because I think a lot of us, a lot of us wimp out and give ourselves excuses why we don't do it and give ourselves excuses and then regret it later in life, right? And go, ah shit, I should have done that. Sorry, man, I cut you off.

SPEAKER_07 24:08

Oh no, no, no, I was gonna say that that's kind of I I did know those people in high school who were really driven. In fact, there was a there was a guy who became uh a center for the Miami Dolphins that went to my high school, uh, but he wasn't he wasn't big at the beginning of high school. We'll just say that. And he just was a monster at the end. But he but that was his thing. It was like, you know, he he got an idea in his head, he he that's what he wanted, and that's what he did. And but that's not that's one of the reasons probably why I didn't connect with it, because I didn't know what the heck I wanted out out of high school. I mean, I had no idea.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

I I admire people who do. Like I admire people who early on focus on a thing and go, this is what I'm gonna do, this is what I'm gonna be, and drive towards that. Whether you're whether it's a chef of 35 years or a guy who played football for 20 years or whatever, or a scientist who's like, I want to be a chemist, boom, golf and running. I I really admire that. Yeah, because I'm fucking all over the place.

SPEAKER_07 25:10

Like, you know, I was more of a I was more of a Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. That was that was kind of me. Except for the rich part.

SPEAKER_04 25:19

No Ferraris. No Ferris.

SPEAKER_07 25:21

No Ferraris and you know, I had a I had a Mercury Lynx. That's what I had.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

Hey, at least you had a car.

SPEAKER_07 25:30

Yeah, this is true. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

When she catches him sniffing her panties, it's it's so creepy and so cringy, but yet also it's so real. It I love the fact that it the movie does that. It doesn't shy away from making him look like a fucking an awkward dipshit teenager, you know. And she just catches him and she just looks at him and fucking holds the basket up and he he tries to shrug it off and smile and you know, and then of course he immediately puts the sheet over his head and starts to choke himself because he knows he's a fucking moron. I just thought it's it's so I I want that scene in the movie. I want to see Loudoun do that. You know what I mean? I want to see him fucking be a dumbass. I I love it.

SPEAKER_05 26:13

Well he's acting his age. You know what I really like about this movie is it hits the ground running. Like the first 10 minutes, it's just wham, wham, wham, it never stops, and you're just off and going. And it takes about until the halfway point before it becomes regular sports tropes where you know he's gonna make the weight, you know he's gonna beat the guy. But it's still a it's it's still fun ride, though.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

I do love that weigh-in where he fucking takes his underwear off and his cooch leans in and goes, think light, and he's all oh, you know, to get the weight, it's fucking great. Um I I it's you know, the when she's listening to Vivaldi, you know, and and and drawing in her room at that one point, it's just it would to me it was so like wanna be grown-up, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Uh everybody listens to classical when they want to, you know, when they want to act like they're being grown-ups. It reminds me of this party Travis and I went to in our 20s. We had a we went to skateboard shop and we were in Norman skating. We got invited to this college party, and we went in there in t-shirts and jeans, all sweaty and nasty. This party, and it's we didn't weren't told, but it's like a dress-up party. Like it's just it's freshmen's in college, and they're all trying to act like adults, so they're just dressed to the nines and like it's you know, and and and holding martinis and shit. And we're like, oh man, what we are way out of place, and like we don't yeah, y'all are really trying to act grown up.

SPEAKER_05 27:41

This is fucking weird. Are you saying that the movie's presenting her because she's supposed to be like 21, right? So she's still a little older, but she's still figuring out.

SPEAKER_04 27:49

She's still a kid, she's still figuring it out. I I totally believe that. Yes, I absolutely I know I know that she knows what she wants, but she's so fucking naive, she thinks she's gonna buy a car and drive across country and just suddenly be an artist, right? Like it worked, though.

SPEAKER_05 28:07

Uh Darryl Tonascan, am I saying his name right? The screenwriter of the movie? He wrote the book The Last Detail. Really? Isn't that weird, Cliff? We covered it. We just did that.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah, we just did that movie a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_05 28:24

And as another aside on the last detail, there's a uh sequel to that that he wrote as a book, and then that was turned into a movie that's not really a sequel, but it kind of is, and that's Last Flag Flying, the Richard Linklater movie. Isn't that strange? That was a rabbit hole that I went down. It's not really related to this, but just because of the screenwriter, and it tied into movies we had covered before.

SPEAKER_04 28:48

So I wanted to sneak that in. The uh cinematographer is um uh guess what he shot? Tootsie. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_05 28:58

Uh-huh. French Connection Network. Yeah, the cinematographer at Blue Thunder did some stuff we covered before too. So nice.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

Yeah, this guy obviously he did some he did some real killer films. I mean, network is considered to be a top, and French Connection, of course, also. So um, those are pretty big. One of my favorite scenes. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 29:17

Oh, no, no, you go. I got a little a little story.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

So go one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when he goes to do some research on shoot and he goes to the to the match to watch shoot wrestle, and he's got his tape recorder with him, and he and the match starts, and the match is about to start, and he turns on the tape recorder and goes, notes on the shoot McLean match. And then the match starts and he doesn't say a fucking word because he's just his just jaw drops as he watches this monster destroy this kid, and he's just like, and he just puts his hand on his head, like, oh fuck, like what have I gotten myself into? What am I thinking? I absolutely adore that because it really drives home that he is really trying to do something big here, you know. Anyway, I thought that was a great scene. Makes me laugh every time.

SPEAKER_07 30:03

Actually, you know what? I okay, so here here is a I don't know. This is kind of out of context. Uh that says, why does the school song sound like the Ewok song? And I I don't I don't remember.

SPEAKER_05 30:23

That's an excellent question.

SPEAKER_07 30:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:26

I'm gonna say 1983 is the answer.

SPEAKER_07 30:29

Yeah, maybe that's it. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

There you go. Is it the same? Maybe it's the same uh sound composer or something. Who knows? Did you know what's the one?

SPEAKER_07 30:38

It's that Wubwub song, that yub yubbub thing at the very end. That's the one it was yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_05 30:46

Oh, that's great. So when we were in high school, Cliff disappeared for a little bit, and nobody knew where he went. And it turned out there were some issues that had happened that we discovered later. But the rumor was well, to give it a little more context, there was this kind of camp for young boys where that was not quite juvenile hall, but it was a disciplinary place where you learned how to do things in the outdoors and stuff, and it was set up in this big tent complex, and it was called Vision Quest. One word. And we were all convinced that Cliff was in Vision Quest for about three or four months. They sent him off to that vision quest thing. We'd drive past it and think maybe he was over there. Turns out that was not the case, but the title just makes me think of that. So that's great. They probably wouldn't have a place like that nowadays.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

That's great. Um, first mention of the word priopism I ever heard in my life, which uh would become a word much more frequently heard of once the uh boner pills came out. Um, because priopism is it was when you have an erection that lasts for a very long time and won't go away. Uh, and of course, you know, in in all of the boner pill things, they say if you have an erection lasting more than four hours, you're just called Ducker.

SPEAKER_05 32:02

Well, what's prior in Vision Quest for it? Where do how are they using the word?

SPEAKER_04 32:06

He's talking to me. He passes out and he's talking to Tanneran. Tanneran's giving him water, and he goes, Oh, I've just I'm just low on iron and and possibly I'm suffering from priopism. Oh, okay. Because he's slowly talking about this girl who's moved into his house and how hot she is, right? So you know he's walking around with a heart on all the time.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

No, he's always bleeding out his nose too, because he's losing that weight. I guess not the most healthiest fashion, right? I wouldn't probably.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

I mean, uh, you know, wrestling and per, you know, they a lot of these wrestlers are they purge, you know, they eat and they throw up to to get that weight where they're supposed to be. It's not a pretty thing. It's not especially if you're not if your body isn't naturally you know geared towards that weight, right?

SPEAKER_07 32:50

Yeah, and you know, one other thing that I picked up about the character of Loudoun is you know, he he was I don't know, he wasn't a standard jock for some you know what I mean. He he he did have you know this this thing about writing that I think you know he he also narrated, right? Loudoun narrated a lot of this too, as well. So he his whole pinchet for writing and and speaking and using words like probism. It's it's like you got the impression that you know he was uh this was just kind of uh what an experience on his way to wherever he was gonna go next, right? It wasn't like he was gonna be a wrestler for the rest of his life or go to the Olympics or anything, it was just a thing that he wanted to experience.

SPEAKER_04 33:41

It's a mountain climb, it's a goal, it's it's it's an achievement, it's a thing bigger than him that he's trying to achieve. And I completely agree with you. I think that's one of the reasons the movie resonates a lot with me, is that he's not a typical jock, like you said. He's he's not doing, you know, you never see Loudoun bully anybody because he's a wrestler and he can, you know. That's that's auto. That's what Otto, the asshole, does, right? Is he bullies fucking kids because he's a big tough guy wrestler. That's not Loudoun's bag. And the practice, Loudoun could probably fucking take Otto if it really came down to it, right? So I I I really like that. I like that about Loudoun, and I like that about the movie, that they make him way more than just muscles and you know wrestling. It's it's it's it's a it's a you know the whole thing is that whole thing is just a metaphor for what he's like you said, what he's trying to do, this achievement and what he's trying to go through.

SPEAKER_07 34:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 34:36

Would it play?

SPEAKER_04 34:37

I loved your article on the clitoris. I showed it to my mother.

SPEAKER_05 34:41

I'd like that you record at the end, but uh would this movie play for a a modern teen audience? Not like I would know, but I think so.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

I think universal stuff, right? I I think it's pretty universal, you know, and if it is, it you know, if there is bycoding in it, I think the new generation probably picked up on it, and so there you go. It might might hit for them.

SPEAKER_05 35:03

So many 80s movies, you get that 80s cringe where there's those moments where you're like, oh, but this isn't like you know, what people argue about Revenge of the Nerds and stuff. It this one does it in a more humanistic fashion, more realistic, like a young adult novel would be, maybe. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:19

And I can't recall clearly from the book, but I don't I think the nosebleeds are also a device for the film. To to add, you know, to add a bit of danger to the you know, his possibility of being disqualified and not even getting to fully wrestle shoot, right? Um it's nice to know that Coach Cooch's dad gets a second chance at life by managing the Cleveland Indians baseball organization later. That's nice. Did you guys pick that pick up on that?

SPEAKER_07 35:48

I did not.

SPEAKER_04 35:49

So you remember when remember when Loudoun goes to pick up Cooch for the wrestling match and he's in and and he he accidentally sees Cooch and his old man, you know, his old man's telling Cooch what a fuck piece of shit he is and he's smacking him, you know, and all that. That's that's the manager for the Cleveland Indians in Major League. Oh, and the so that's nice to know.

SPEAKER_07 36:13

Interesting, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

Cleveland Indians, any look, guys, it just gotta stick with it, and anything in life is possible.

SPEAKER_05 36:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 36:21

That was I mean I didn't know where you're going with that for a second, but then yeah. Sorry. I should have known by that voice, though, that he's got a very distinctive voice.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

He does. The minute I heard it, I was just like, oh wow.

SPEAKER_07 36:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:37

Like, where do I know this person from?

SPEAKER_07 36:42

And for each win, they're gonna reveal a bit of the guy's uh uniform. No.

SPEAKER_04 36:49

That's one more young one. With each with each pen, we're gonna pull one more piece of Loudoun's uniform off.

SPEAKER_07 36:55

Yeah, exactly. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

I you know that that scene like you you talked about earlier. Uh I might I have a note here that you know, the the scene where he forces himself on her, and she she like you said, she doesn't she doesn't she explains it to him, right? She said the only reason she isn't coming off on him is he's still a fucking kid. He's a kid who says stupid shit, not a man.

SPEAKER_05 37:16

And so the scene describes what as an example to people. Yeah, I really like that. That Loudon is an asshole as a character, it's showing don't growth.

SPEAKER_04 37:26

And growth, like like grow the fuck up. You know, um, I like how she goes to see him wrestle and then admits it wasn't what she thought it would be. She thought it was gonna be, you know, this jock sort of experience, and she's like, it wasn't. It wasn't a macho violence trip, and she didn't she's admitting she doesn't really understand his world and is trying is starting to kind of see that he's got a point of view too, right? Which I thought was pretty good.

SPEAKER_05 37:50

Now we watched Fighting with Your Family a few months ago, and that was about WWE. Now, how do you do you feel any kind of what is the the difference here in these two movies, you think, Cliff? Because they're both kind of similar in ways, but they it's different, right?

SPEAKER_04 38:08

Yeah, I mean I think they're both about trying to you know push yourself to be better and accomplish a goal, but I think Loudoun's thing, like Ben has pointed out, isn't really about wrestling.

SPEAKER_05 38:18

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

It could be almost any damn sport or something that he's trying to achieve, whereas she is definitely trying to follow in her family's footsteps and be a professional wrestler.

SPEAKER_05 38:28

Yeah, she's trying to be you know rocky.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

They're both goals that need to be, you know, they're seem insurmountable and everything, but you know, Loudon, it could be, I mean, it could be, I don't know, it could be fucking cross-country running, whatever it is, right?

SPEAKER_07 38:44

I also think there are more Greco-Romans in uh Vision Quest, too.

SPEAKER_04 38:53

Anyway, that's as bad as my fucking Cleveland English joke. Um the the trip to Grandpa is the one part of the movie that kind of stands out to me. It slows the film down a bit, it it almost to a halt.

SPEAKER_07 39:08

Um it's a really strange pacing thing.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

Thank you. Exactly what exactly on my note. It's such a weird and then also on the way to grandpa's, why do they stop overnight and have a campfire? Like we can't condense all this shit down and just go to grandpa's and then have the kissing scene and then maybe have a little sex on the way home or something in the field, and then you know, why do we have to? I mean, I know why we're stopping for the for the thing so we can have the sex. We got to do the sex, and we can't do it at grandpa's house because that's fucking weird. So we have to have this stop on the way to grandpa's where dad isn't there and grandpa's not there, and we could do the humble, you know, the the hunk of chunka. But it just it it's weird, it's I don't know, it's weird. It fucks the pacing up, and it's just weirdly done.

SPEAKER_05 39:51

It felt like a reshoot to me because when they're driving back, she's got a really bad wig on, and it looks so than her hair does in the rest of the movie. And I was just looking at it, like, am I just imagining this? Or I'm like, maybe they came back and were like, we need a shot of them driving back, or make a note of that. I mean, I'm speculating here, but maybe that's why it was so awkward, like they were trying to fix a part in the middle of the movie or something.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Sure, sure. I mean, that makes sense. Well, I mean, again, it it didn't come out for a year and a half, so they're you know, maybe that's part of the reason. Maybe they had to do some reshoots.

SPEAKER_07 40:27

I I've taken a number of road trips in my life. I've never stopped on the side of the road to go camping. Well, I don't think that that's not the first thing that pops into my head. I would rather sleep in my car than go camping.

SPEAKER_04 40:42

Well, and I mean, where are the fucking where are the you know, highway patrol that's like, hey, you can't have an open fire on the side of the road? What are you doing? Stupid ass kid. Um, this is a very good representation of an 80s soundtrack. Okay. Um, the Don Henley song on it is fucking terrible. Uh and it reminds me for some reason of summer school. Um but other than that of Don Henley song. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's on there. I must have been on the show. Yeah, it's on there. Um, but the rest of the soundtrack is fantastic. There's some really good stuff in there and uh uh excellent 80s classics that I really enjoy.

SPEAKER_07 41:21

Berlin's No More Words is one of my favorites off of that.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. That I I have to be honest, that that uh lunatic fringe while he's while he's warming up, and the that's iconic. The song and the shot is iconic and it really works perfectly. And the film's also a complete circle. He starts where he ends, right? He he starts the film working out, he ends the film working out. It's a complete, you know, revolution.

SPEAKER_07 41:46

Now now here's the here's the thing that I picked up with the soundtrack. The soundtrack is great if you just listen to the soundtrack. The thing that that I didn't necessarily I don't know, it it kind of maybe it threw me off a little bit. Um I didn't appreciate them repeating the same songs. Like those were the theme songs of you know, like the the the Louden theme or the wrestling theme or the romance theme.

SPEAKER_04 42:15

It does happen with the Sony's movies, you know. It's it's a it's a classic trope of those 80s movies.

SPEAKER_07 42:21

Yeah, and and that's the you know, I just I don't I don't want the track over and over and over again. What I what I want is, you know, yeah, and it's okay if it's a musical theme. I don't know why in my head it works with just like an orchestral thing, but not when it's Red Rider seven times Lunatic, just like I got six time, yeah. Exactly. I know he's wrestling now. Okay, yeah, Lunatic French. I got it. And then you know, crazy for you. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

Is it the song, maybe? Because like like to point out, like uh Oh yeah, by Yaz in fucking Ferris Buller's Day Off. That one feels more carchestral in a way, even though it's not true, but it's used constantly, but maybe it's because the song's a little less annoying upon repeater. You you know, I don't know. Maybe is is that part of it?

SPEAKER_07 43:19

I don't know. I don't know. I didn't if it if there were if there were songs repeated in in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I didn't I didn't recognize them because it was, you know.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

Because Chuck Us is a fucking master filmmaker.

unknown 43:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:34

I'd look at it like uh it's like, oh, the music video's on again for this song, you know, and and music videos were all the thing at the time, and the movies got that kind of a cut of like, here's the here's the Madonna song for the fourth time.

SPEAKER_07 43:50

Also the yes, he's realized something song, which is only the young. Yes, he's learned a lesson. Here's only the young.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

He's getting ready to work out. Here comes Lunatic Fringe. All right. Oh, shit.

SPEAKER_05 44:09

I'm flipping through the channels. Oh, it's this part of the movie. Cool. I'm gonna watch this five minutes of this song and keep flipping.

SPEAKER_04 44:16

Um so at the end, I'm gonna talk about the end real quick. So it he wins the match and and he stands up victorious, and and there's this great moment on his face where you can tell whatever question he has has been answered. He's gotten his answer. He's he's he's he's done the thing that he needed to do, and it's a really great moment. I really like that moment. And you hear the coach say beautiful, beautiful, and it just kind of drives it home. And I just I think it's a great, great moment in a film. Um and I also like it right before when Carla shows up and you know, at the very end when he's in the locker room and they have that conversation and she's about to leave and he says, you know, I'd do it all again. And you know, she says, Well, so would I, and then comes back and goes, Oh yeah, kick his fucking ass. You know, I I absolutely so great. That's so good. Um but you know, for me the movie's about you know showing up, you know, putting in the work, putting in the fight, you know, figuring out who you are and and who you're gonna be, growing up, you know, trying to become the person that you want to be, and and also testing yourself and seeing what your limits are and seeing what you can and can't achieve, you know. Um because sometimes the only big blocker a person has is themselves. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 45:36

It's not like Loudon never ends up in the hospital or anything, you know, it doesn't go that extreme. No, it's just training.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

I do like that Pele speech that the cook gives him.

SPEAKER_07 45:46

You know that's pretty much a good that was a good scene. That was a good scene. I like that scene.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

Yeah, it's a real quiet moment where you get to kind of get it, you get an understanding of who this this cook is. There's a lot more to him.

SPEAKER_07 45:59

Yeah, he's got more depth than he initially you know gives off.

SPEAKER_05 46:04

Yeah, I like that a lot. And it's just a good explanation as to why people like sports so much because you're hoping to catch that moment of human brilliance of how wow, did you see that person do that? That's crazy that they pulled it off. Whereas Malcolm McDowell would say, that's impossible.

SPEAKER_04 46:21

Well, and it's just it's why it's why people watch sports. You know, I mean that's people watch sports to see people do things that they can never do and you know physically do themselves, you know, and it's quite the achievement, you know, and and for other reasons. But I think a lot of people watch sports for those types of reasons, you know. I could never do that.

SPEAKER_07 46:39

And and I think one thing that this movie did also was the supportive parent, you know, or Ronnie Cox, right? He he was yeah, it wasn't like you got the main character who's whose parent says, you know, you're chasing rainbows, you're you're not doing, you know, it's you're never gonna amount to anything or whatever. No, he was a very supportive, yeah, you know, in a in a in a hands-off kind of way.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

But yeah, yeah, trusted his kid, trusted that you know what he was teaching his kid was like, I mean, you have to trust your kid to move a grown woman into your house. You know, a 17-year-old boy, you gotta trust your kid pretty well, or at least know him, know him well enough. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_07 47:20

Um, and so I think that's a but that's that's one of those traps that a lot of movies fall into. It's like the parent, you you gotta have someone you're going against, and and this is you're going against yourself, right? You're going, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:35

So yes, yes, and and Ronnie Cox does a great quiet job of that. He, you know, he you know, Ronnie Cox has been in a ton of movies. He's you know, great actor, and and he he knows exactly the right level to be at for that film. You know, not too much, not too little. Just the right amount.

SPEAKER_05 47:52

Supportive grandpa, too. Yeah, oh, very supportive. I love grandpa. Okay. Love it. Um, you got any other notes? Um, I've said everything on that one. Yeah. I team too.

SPEAKER_07 48:11

Likewise.

SPEAKER_04 48:12

Um, this is I'll I'll I'll I'll uh say unabashedly that this is one of my favorite films of all time. I I I've gotten really lucky this season. I've gotten to do or the last few weeks, I've gotten to do two films that are if I these are literal like desert island type of hey, you got dropped around with 10 fucking movies. I'll take Vision Quest and The Commitments, please. And I got a few others I want to watch. But this one, this one constantly delivers for me. Every time I watch it, I get something out of it. It makes me uh feel good. I I I enjoy Loud's journey. I enjoy the way that they handle the relationship between him and her. I just I think it hits on a lot of a lot of awesome stuff. I will also say I was fucking 11 or 12 when I saw this, so the nostalgia's really doing its job too on this, but I'm gonna give it five stars. Oh wow, okay. Wow. Yeah. I don't and I I I I feel fine doing that because other than one really bad piece of fucking ADR, there's nothing technically wrong with this movie. It looks good, sounds good, the acting's good, the dialogue's good, it's well written. It, you know, you either like that type of story or you don't, but technically it's hard to find a lot of flaws with it, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_05 49:18

Well, I've been thinking about it all week. It you know, unlike Blue Thunder, which I watched and kind of like, oh, I guess I got all my thoughts on that right away. But this one was a little bit more of a it stayed around. I thought about it for a few days. So I'm gonna go through.

SPEAKER_07 49:30

Why are you dissing on Blue Thunder? It's like right off the bat.

SPEAKER_05 49:34

I still like it. We gotta go give some clock holes. You said you said three and a half?

SPEAKER_04 49:42

Three and a half, I'll say. Yes. Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 49:45

I was gonna go also with three and a half. Um probably back in the day, though, I probably would have given it more of a four. But but now on a rewatch. Yeah, yeah, it just didn't connect with me. The nostalgia was there, the memories of my you know, my friend who was into wrestling and stuff. Um, but yeah, it it just didn't there are other coming-of-age movies that connect with me more than this one, but it wasn't by bad by any stretch of the imagination.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

We have a favorite coming of coming-of-age movie, like you have one that Ralph's actually had that's really like.

SPEAKER_07 50:23

Jeez, I don't even know if it's coming of age movie, though, too, but it because it's like those those are nostalgic to me more than I mean Ferris Bieler's Day Off is cut probably pretty pretty close to the one I think of. Um more recently, though, um I guess it's not so much a coming-of-age movie as it is a going to going to a high school reunion movie. Gross Point Blank is also one of those kind of perplexing, you know, like well, you know, I'm I'm still kind of young. What am I doing? Kind of thing. Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

So uh we did that one in funny. We reviewed that one too. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 51:07

Yeah, fun funny story with that too is is um I wasn't gonna go to my tenure reunion, but I rented from Casa Video Gross Point Blank and Rome and Michelle's and watch them back to back. And I was like, Maybe I should go. Maybe I should go.

SPEAKER_04 51:26

You definitely should at least to see how everybody turned out, right?

SPEAKER_07 51:29

Yeah, and maybe maybe Janine Garaflo would be there at my high school reunion, which would be totally cool. I had a kind of a crush on Janine. Anyway, me too.

SPEAKER_04 51:37

Actually, me too. When in her cats and dogs face, she was a pretty pretty, pretty cute. Um, in fact, I quoted her the other day. We were talking about um the cable guy, and somebody made a medieval times reference, and I said, uh, there were no utensils in medieval times, hence, there are no utensils at medieval times. Come on, dude, just order, please. You know, I love that anyway. So that brings us to Blue Thunder. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:06

So speaking of the border, uh, Warren Oates, once again. I guess this might have been his last movie because it had a dedication to him at the end. But what is Blue Thunder from 1983, a movie that I have strong nostalgia for.

SPEAKER_04 52:20

Blue Thunder 1983, rated R, one hour and 49 minutes. The cop test pilot for an experimental police helicopter learns the sinister implications of the new vehicle. Directed by John Batham, written by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jacob Jacoby. Yes, and the Alien Sky. Uh Roy Scheider, Warren Oates, Candy Clark. Uh, your storyline is Blue Thunder is a specially modified helicopter. It is for police work, but it is armed and designed to counter street insurgencies. Its makers want to show what it will do, but have to train Los Angeles by a police pilot Frank Murphy to fly and use it in order to allow it to operate in the city. Murphy and the project pilot have differences going back to Vietnam. The conflict between them continues to heat up as Murphy begins to suspect that Blue Thunder is more than has been disclosed. Is that what happened? Basically. I read that I read that Roy Scheider took this so that they could not fucking cast him in Jaws 3. Because he was like unavailable for Jaws 3. Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_07 53:26

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 53:27

He did not want to do another Jaws movie. Put me in the air. Enough of the ocean.

SPEAKER_04 53:36

So five minutes into this movie, hey kids, you want to know how the LA Riots and Rodney King happened? Just take a listen to this police dispatch unit describing a blast black suspect. Just like a male Negro, like right off the bat with the most casual, just like, holy shit, this is 1983 for sure. Like, good God, dude.

SPEAKER_05 53:56

Mm-hmm. And we're or anti-hero yet again because they're peepers.

SPEAKER_03 54:02

Oh, yeah. And then I go, well, we're I don't know about they. Or Boomer.

SPEAKER_07 54:08

Daniel Stern definitely wants, you know, Daniel Stern is the peeper.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

It's an initiation thing, too. It's always take the rookie over and let him see the lady bend over and show her who ha.

SPEAKER_05 54:21

Well, it's the part of that 80s trope again, right? Where you have a lot of this of this peeping thing going on in these 80s movies, and it makes me think, were boomers into this on both sides of the equation a little bit because you're putting it in the movie so much? I mean, maybe that's why it didn't bother them because they liked it or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 54:37

Ten minutes into this movie, and we established the institutional racism of the LAPD and that they're a bunch of creepy fucking pervs. Like we're right, I mean, we're 10 minutes into this thing.

SPEAKER_05 54:50

But at the time you watch it in 80s and you're like, oh, it's just funny, you know, and then you look at it now and you go, oh, what? Oh, it's still funny. I mean, it's just funny. Yeah. Damn it, Murphy. You won't play by the rules. It's like, oh, it's gonna be one of these, where it's a one of these.

SPEAKER_04 55:05

And then even Warren Oates at one point says, if I stand up and I don't have an ass, it's because the guy fucking, you know, I'm tired of uh defending your antics to the your screwball antics to the commissioner McLeod. You're out of here, you know.

SPEAKER_05 55:21

Fucking Jesus. Which is my whole thing with the movie is okay, he's the wild card, Roy Scheider. Why are you putting him in letting him have access to the helicopter that he's going to then unravel your whole thing?

SPEAKER_07 55:38

You know, okay, so he so here he there there are a number of things that I'm thinking here because he's grounded, right? Yeah, and he and he wants to just well, he's he's grounded for for the you know the the whole thing with the the um what is there the uh alderman or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 55:57

Yeah, well, because he freaked out, right? Like they talk about how he had an episode in a helicopter and freaked out.

SPEAKER_07 56:03

There is that, and then he was busy showing the peeping tom stuff to to Lymangood when the carry got shot. Yeah, when the lady was who had all the information on the right um what was going on with Project Thor. Um, boy, do I know too much about this movie.

SPEAKER_04 56:25

Anyway, you really follow this plot, man. Good job.

SPEAKER_07 56:28

Well, I I I I just it's a it's it's a nostalgic movie for me, and it's probably one of my favorites too. You said that that was like your desert island movie.

SPEAKER_06 56:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 56:37

Um that Vision Quest was. This is kind of along those lines. It's not the best movie, but you know, as far as the film editing, as far as you know, there are enough characters that I can connect with in it, and it's just very nostalgic for me. Um, but I recognize that it's not yeah, it was a really amazing helicopter stuff, which we'll get into. But um, but anyway, what was I saying? What did you say?

SPEAKER_05 57:06

You're explaining why they let him why they actually clearly didn't want him to do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 57:13

Right. And the thing is, it's like, okay, so first he had some sort of an accident, right? Or some sort of a thing, an episode. He was back in the air.

SPEAKER_04 57:22

Probably a flashback, Vietnam flashback, right?

SPEAKER_07 57:24

Right, right. He's back in the air, relatively, you know, um, somewhat recently. He gets paired with Jaffo.

SPEAKER_06 57:33

Jaffo.

SPEAKER_07 57:34

Right. Um, he gets paired with him. He misses this whole thing because he's over showing the peeping Tom thing. The guy grounds him, not only on that ground that he was, you know, doing that when when this person, this government person was getting quote unquote raped, or you know, which he wasn't, but anyway. Um so he's just trying to, so he doesn't, you know, it's kind of a cover his own ass maneuver by putting him into this project that no one really wants to deal with. He's just gonna, he's he's gotta find somewhere for him.

SPEAKER_04 58:15

So he just kind of so he hands him the vehicle with m with all the new technology to kill people with. Uh infrared and silencers and fucking six thirty a six-barreled 30 millimeter Gatling gun, and the only thing he doesn't have is fucking missiles, for Christ's sakes.

SPEAKER_07 58:31

I mean But the thing is, what does he care, right? He's he's just he's just the police guy, he's just the the guy who runs the police department, and the military has asked the police department. So there's I I think there's a little bit of a play there too, where it's like the military saying this is what we're gonna use the thing for, the police officers don't necessarily agree with that, and that's part of the whole you know, the crowd control. You're gonna use this for crowd control, and that's that's the point.

SPEAKER_04 59:03

That's not very you know it's like rush hour, right? So the FBI asks the LEP do you send somebody over, and what do they do? They send over they send over Chris Tucker, right? Because because he got into a bunch of trouble and he's an he's an idiot, and so they send him over, right? So it's kind of the same thing as what you're saying. Well that makes sense. Not exactly they're just fine, they're just trying to not that Schneider's an idiot, but that, but that right, okay. Well, here here we here's a person who we don't want to deal with, and you can deal with them, and yeah, this blows up. We're not really concerned about giving you the most qualified person because we don't agree with what you're doing.

SPEAKER_07 59:38

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_04 59:38

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_07 59:39

I mean, it it seems like they they both found out about it what it was designed to do at the time. They, you know, it was it was a it was a hush-hush kind of thing. So it's like he was just like, You got the special project, I don't know what the heck's going on, we'll find out about it, and then that's when they find out about it, and you know, he's not gonna he can't really necessarily pull him from that just because of that. It's like so anyway, I I I'm I'm overthinking this too much, I think maybe.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:11

But it makes sense to me the way you explained it is like he got in trouble. We got to find somewhere to put you for two weeks. I don't know what this project is, but here, go do this. Oh shit, now you're involved in this, and Malcolm McDowell's like, not that guy, and then the next thing you know, he's just walking in and getting in the Blue Thunder and taking off in Act Three. I love that where he just walks in, gets in it, and flies away, like no problem. It has like a serious tone, and then the second part of the movie, it kind of turns to a little bit of a cartoon. But I go, it's just kind of fun. You're just kind of don't pull at the threads too much because like Malcolm McDowell shooting at the Blue Thunder as it's flying away, that thing's bulletproof. You can't hurt that thing. And I'm laughing. But also when Malcolm McDowell goes after him at the end, he's the one who knows how to disable the Blue Thunder, right? He shoots at the right place where even the fighter jet guys couldn't do. But then if you think about reality, the shock of these explosions would be killing pedestrians all over the place. But I also like how it shows that Roy Schneider never kills anybody, like how the Terminator would do later in T2. You know, I'm just I'm just blowing up their helicopter, it lands, they run away, then the helicopter blows up. See, because Roy Scheider's the good guy. We don't want to show him killing anybody, but it kind of became more of a a ride towards the end. Like the first part felt kind of gritty and serious, and now it's just we're gonna show off our cool helicopter stunts in the last part.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Oh well, it's definitely a film, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:44

There were films in the 80s. Again, this is during the Cold War, right? So there were films in the 80s that were kind of specifically not, it wasn't their exact purpose, but one of the things that the military loved to do was shove their technology into fucking films, right? Because they knew the Russians would say that shit and they go, look, look what we can do, look what we got. We got fucking helicopters you can't hear, bitch. And we got fucking we got machine guns that track with the head movement of our pilots, right? So if you start to run, all you gotta do is look at you and fucking boom, you know. So it I mean, Iron Eagle's a great example of this. Top gun's a great example of this. Yeah, these examples are just like sure. Firefox is another great one, exactly what I'm talking about. And of course, Airwolf was another one, right? Where it's like, hey, we got this television show, right? Um, so I that's definitely where I think where that last half of the film comes from, where they were like, let's show the capabilities of this thing, let's show the barrel roll or the 360, let's show the shooting down the F-16, you know, and I love how my one of my favorite pieces in the movie is when he's avoiding the heat-seeking missiles, right? And he's just like raining shit down on people. Like, I don't know what the fuck Amos's barbecue did to deserve that, but the only crime they had was a being delicious, like poor Amos.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:01

It reminded me of WKRP in Cincinnati when they dropped the turkeys from the plane on Thanksgiving because you still have the humanity, you know.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:09

At least these were cooked, at least these were cooked chickens.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:13

He puts the damn helicopter in front of a giant office building and lets a missile just fly right into it. Like, wow. Okay. So uh anyway, it one of the things I wonder about this.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:26

Helicopters, helicopters don't kill people. People shooting at helicopters kill people.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:34

This is your brain on helicopters. Any questions? Um this is your brain. This is your brain on helicopters. Any questions? Um, the other thing here. It it's uh where did it go? Where did it go? Where did it go? Like and subscribe. Oh, the mat. So part of this I wonder is did they did they shoot mats for this? Is this m is this helicopter stuff matted or are they are they shooting, are they are they hanging hell you know, cameras outside the helicopters? It looks super real.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:04

Yeah, the helicopter things are real. I think the mats they did with uh the F-16s.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:10

Yeah, I think a lot of that looks like that looks like the shit from Real Genius. That's definitely right.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:16

Yeah, but but the stuff that with the helicopters was actually done. I think uh I think I I think I believe I saw some sort of behind the scenes thing and they were really serious about making the helicopter stuff all real.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:29

Definitely for the stunts, but I was one I was thinking maybe for like the cockpit dialogue and things like that, maybe they went to a mat. Oh yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:37

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. It might be that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:40

But they look great. I mean, the the if they did go to mats, those mats look clean because at one point, even you get you get the curve of the cockpit window, uh, the lights off the city on that curve of the cockpit window. It's really well done if it is a mat. Yeah, probably some of the best matting I've actually actually fucking seen in a movie to be completely honest with you. Because it just looks clean, it looks super, super clean.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:02

They did get nominated for film editing. I don't know. I don't think they won anything, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:07

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:10

The unsung hero, the film editor. I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:13

No, you know, I was just gonna say I always forget Malcolm McDowell. You're you're right about it, the editor, and I'm always uh forget Malcolm McDowell's in this fucking movie. He just shows up, but I'm like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:24

I never forget him because catch a later is just that's just etched in my brain from this movie. Catch a later.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

Oh, that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:34

And it's hard not to say that in you know, not as Malcolm McDowell. I I maybe for me. That's probably my problem. That's a me problem, but catch you later.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:47

I love how Malcolm McDowell has no emotion during that crash. Like, oh, he crashed, whatever. It's he are gonna play it up a little bit, like, oh shit, he crashed.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:57

He just doesn't yeah, no, no, that's That's all part of his character, right? It's like we've got to downbird in the Watts area. That's my Malcolm McDowell. It's it's pretty horrible, but sorry.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:12

It's not bad. It could be worse. It could be worse.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:14

In the Watts area.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:16

This movie definitely deserves an award for weirdest dialogue for 83 for a film in 83. You've got stuff like the moral of the story is if you're walking on eggs, don't dude! You've got my quote. You've got a hot mince pie under each arm. What the fuck? What a hot mince pie under each arm? What the fuck does that even mean? No smoke. Yes, Frank. This is just a weird dialogue movie. It's just weird.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:45

Oh, but then of course, you listen me, or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:50

Yes, me tell you, you listen me. The dialogue's just fucking weird.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:53

Well, that's the that's uh Dan Obama probably, right? I mean, yeah, he brought us the wackiness that was Darkstar and Alien, of course.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

Malcolm is great at playing a real shithead or an asshole. He's really good at it. He's really, really good. He's a good actor.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:12

You know what? I was gonna mention, I was gonna mention this earlier on with the when we were talking about the the beginning part of the movie, the presentation. I didn't quite understand who that was for. You know what I mean? There was like a lot of military there, yeah, and there was the police.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:30

But it felt like a sales pitch, didn't it?

SPEAKER_07 1:07:33

Yeah, and it's like, well this little lady. Yeah. Well, let's see if you can figure out what's going on the bus.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

I see the little lady has 20 millimeter cannons, selective firing, and armor plating, but can she cook? Huh? Huh? Can she? Huh?

SPEAKER_07 1:07:55

Also, with weird dialogue, it's like um there was that whole thing uh where he goes, uh, you know, oh, it's we we we uh we this is a weapon of uh, you know, this is to we, you know, a weapon of I don't know, whatever. And he goes, except, you know, unless you're the civilians. What do you remember that that whole thing?

SPEAKER_05 1:08:18

That whole exchange from says uh one out of ten civilians isn't isn't bad. Oh yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:25

It's like except you're one of the civilians.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:30

Um I this movie also again, just weird small things in this movie. At one point, she asks him if he wants ketchup on his sandwich. Why would I want that? Why the fuck would anybody want that? What kind of fucking sandwich have you made me where you I have never put ketchup on a sandwich in my entire fucking life, and I have no plans to do so? Now a hamburger is not a sandwich. Let's let's get that out of the way. First off, but like do it, hey, I made you a tuna melt. You want ketchup on it? Get the fuck out of here. What anyway.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:09

Is this like a condiment-centric podcast? Is that what this is?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:13

Today's movies just we had some garlic salt in one and we had ketchup in the other. I it's just A1 Steak Sauce. Oh gosh darn it.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:24

Can't I can't, I can't I can't I can't sit at a table with somebody who's gonna put that on a steak. I just we'll have to sit at separate tables. Um the old car sawn and half trick, we get to see that. That's pretty great. Before James Long said it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

Yep. Old car saw and half, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:41

Yeah, there was a you know what the trailer, I don't know if you watched the trailer, but the trailer had something, thank goodness it wasn't in the movie, because it would have totally ruined it, I think. You know, her crazy driving was crazy enough. Um, but there was a scene where she was apparently doing uh James Bond thing where she's on two wheels.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:03

And in the trailer, she goes down the hall, like the alleyway and goes up along the wall and uh to get around a car, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:13

But it's not in the movie, thank goodness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:16

Because that would have been that's just like well, and I and I love how they're like I you can hear the writers literally working the scene out, going, We can't make her a crazy fucking driver in the driving scene unless we establish it earlier. Okay, we'll have a scene where she misses the trains depot and have her turn around and drive headlong into fucking traffic. That'll do it, you know. And so you get this weird scene in the first what 30 minutes of the movie where or 40 minutes of the movie where that's the cartoony thing I said, you know, where it's like, Yeah, hey, it's fun driving down the one-way street.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:47

We're gonna be okay. We're stars being there.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:50

Yeah, that was that was kind of an odd thing. It's like, oh wait, I missed the turn. Yeah, uh one of my notes here is wow, Kate is a crazy driver. That's one of my that's one of my notes. And she puts ketchup on sandwiches. Of course. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:06

Disgusting. So it takes 45 minutes to get into the helicopter to get into Blue Thunder. We I mean it takes not I mean, we have other helicopter stuff before that, but it takes a good 45 minutes to get to the actual helicopter the movie's about.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:21

They stretch the rubber band out as far as it can, and then they let it go and it flies out for the rest of the movie. It's very, you know, it's a genre action piece, but it has these interesting concepts draped over it, right? Makes it a little more special than your average, you know, bad guy trying to do stuff movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:41

And that pilot cookie is a is a bad shot, that guy. He couldn't fucking hit a broadside of a barn with those heat-seeking missiles.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:49

Yeah, that's right. Cookie. Hey, cookie. You have a dumb call sign. Does anyone tell you that? Cookie. Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:06

Anyway.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:08

Um, here's another thing I have in my notes with unnecessary exposition, which it really gets, you know, I didn't notice at the time, but I mean, you see, in a riot situation, we just want to get the bad guys and protect the innocents. It's like uh isn't that the goal all the time? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

So, like every other time.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:36

Right, exactly. But maybe that's because they they wanted to convince them that that's what they were trying to do because Project Thor was not for that, it was for something more nefarious.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:48

You remember at the end where she's driving around in that I think it's a Vega hatchback and Blue Thunder's, you know, kind of covering her, you know, making sure nobody fucks her. Um, if I had a backup like Blue Thunder, yeah, I'd haul ass around the city too, man. That would be awesome. Taking out cops that dare to throw throw their lights on behind me, you know, it'd be fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:11

Yeah. You know what another thing, the I think the character's name was Kate, right? Yes, she that was a really good, like realistic kind of you know, girlfriend partner character, which was polar opposite to anything that you would expect, you know, the Roshatter's character to to actually connect with. But it was it was an interesting, I mean, that to me was the one of the more interesting things was was that whole relationship. And I thought she played it pretty well, pretty realistically. I don't know, some some might have called it bad acting, but I think she did an excellent job of that. No, it's the character. Especially, yeah, yeah, especially across someone like Roy Scheider, who just has this kind of you know, just gravitas, I guess, about anything he does, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:10

So that's that's Candy Clark. Oh, she's uh she's from Norman, Oklahoma. She's from basically she's right just 10 miles from my hometown.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:19

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:21

And she was in some other excellent stuff The Man Who Fell to Earth, American Graffiti, Zodiac. Um, she's she's a pretty good actress. She shows up and stuff. She doesn't, she's like kind of reminds me of um Karen Allen. You know, she just kind of every now and then you go, you get a you get a movie with Karen Allen and you're like, hey, where the fuck have you been? Right on. I'm watching this. Karen Allen, right? Like, you know, it's one of those things.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:43

Yeah, when when she shows up for work, she does a good job of what she's showing up for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:49

I love me some Karen Allen. Um a lot of civilian casualties in this, which I I think is hilarious. Cookie being a bad shot, poor Amos and his barbecue being blown up for the crime of being delicious.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:02

What about what about what about Jaffo? What about his death? I've got a guide too. That was brutal. Right. Lyman Good.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:11

He represented himself though pretty well. I mean, let's let's admit, he he got away from those two guys that broke his fingers with some pretty necrotic kicks.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:19

And and he hid the he hid the tape and he and he put that recorded message in the helicopter and all of that stuff. Got a motion Lyman Good. Yeah, he was MVP. MVP. Secondary MVP is crazy drivers. Crazy driving Kate.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:39

I, you know, I I I I have to tell you, I I enjoyed rewatching it. I haven't seen it in probably 10 or 15 years, but I really enjoyed the watch. I I I had no problem with it. The pacing's a little slow, and in certain points, I I could probably cut five to seven minutes out of the movie and not lose much to improve the overall pacing of it.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:57

But did you get nominated for film editing? I think not.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:03

No. Anyway, but uh and you know, that's that's funny because it yeah, it's me calling out a movie that literally got nominated for an Oscar for pacing. But but but yeah, it's a personal preference.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:14

It didn't win. It didn't win, so you've got a point.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:17

I I still think I mean I still think it's a great movie. It's a fun watch, you know. It's um you're right, it's got that 80s just all over it. It's so 80s, it's so ridiculously 80s where it this is the 80s where the 80s are trying to be futuristic, but they haven't really nailed it yet. You know, it's still vector graphics and fucking computer fonts.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:38

It's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:38

Yeah, you know, and um what's the uh Buckaroo bonsai type shit?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:42

You know, oh right, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:43

Yeah. And then because by 85 or 86, we get that slick sci-fi.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:49

Didn't this director make war games?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:52

Uh he also made Saturday Night Fever, so this guy's got a very interesting track record.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:58

Uh let me see here. John Batham?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:02

Yeah, let's see. Saturday Night Fever, Nick a time, short circuit, and war games, sir.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:07

Wow. I'm standing here beside myself. I am standing here beside myself. Wow, short circuit, crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:14

And stakeout and American Flyers. Wow. Okay, Saturday Fever. Oh, he did Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, too.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:23

No, the DP was John A. Alonso, and he was the DP on Zoro the Gay Blade. Does that movie look anything like this movie? It really shows you what the directors make the difference sometimes. Have you seen have you seen Zoro the Gay Blade Ben?

SPEAKER_07 1:17:38

Yes, yes, I have. What'd you think? In in the theater. Um I was probably a little too young.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:45

That's epic.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:48

I'm dude, I am I am old. Um as are we. To give you an idea, my first movie ever was Star Wars.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:57

So at the drive in at the drive-in four years old, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:00

Yeah, for me it was uh I was seven. So nice six, six, seven, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:05

Yeah, so we're right, we're right in that age range, right there.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:07

Yeah. But I do remember seeing Zora the Gayblade. I don't think it connected with me at that age. Um, but I do remember it. I do remember it. I probably should re-watch that one as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:20

Well, yeah, if you do um go back and listen to our episode on it, it's pretty hilarious.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:24

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:25

Um, it is pretty hilarious.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:27

You know what Thor stands for?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:30

I've already forgotten.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:32

Okay. Uh Tactical helicopter offensive response.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:37

That's right.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:38

That's right. Which is how you know it's nefarious because it's offensive.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:44

Oh, okay. This is the other thing that's very weird about this movie that it always confused me. Scheider's got the watch, right? And he times himself driving, right? He times himself different things. But the fucking watch never counts down. It's got the little dial that goes, but it just says double zero the whole time. And it always threw me. It's like, shouldn't it be 20 seconds, 19, 18, 17, 16, you know, as the little as the little analog, you know, dashes click off the round dial, right? And it's every time I look at them, I'm like, why the fuck is it zero zero? It's just blinking zero zero. Anyway.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:19

Because he doesn't want to cheat. That's why he doesn't want to cheat.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:23

All right. He's very tempted to look at the digital reach out. Doesn't really have watched this movie. That's how brilliant of a helicopter pilot he is, man. He had a watch special made, so he can I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:37

You read the book, didn't you?

SPEAKER_07 1:19:39

No, I I did not. I I just enjoyed the movie a lot. Here here's a okay, so here's a question to you guys as movie guys, right? Movie makers, lovers, uh, whatever, what have you. Um so the big the quote unquote big reveal that um that the colonel was the guy who let who pushed the guy out of the helicopter that was kind of the whole PTSD sort of thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:11

What were your thoughts on that reveal?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:13

Oh, I just think that I can see that coming from a mile away.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:17

I thought why did they wait so long to show it? But I kind of understood why at the same time, you know. Yeah. Because not everybody's gonna catch it and go, oh, it is it was him, or maybe he's suddenly remembering now after all this time that it was him even.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:32

From a storytelling pacing wise, it's perfectly placed. I think it's it's a it's in a good place, right? You get to see the you get to see him thrown off, you get a little bit more with each flashback until finally you get the face, right? But I but as a filmmaker and storyteller, I'm like, I can see that coming a mile away.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:47

You're like going, oh wait, now he's an asshole. Okay, God.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:51

Okay, I got it.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:53

He's kind of established that pretty pretty pretty consistently throughout the entire movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:58

He's like the real super asshole now. He's the cause of it all. Yeah. I love the use of three-quarter inch umatic videotape. It reminds me of the days of public access where it's just like, look at that old Rickety video tape. Wow. Love it. Love it. But that was the highest.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:15

I heard there's I heard there's a story involving how you used to shoot in an alley.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:21

Is that something that uh we did an alleyway show? Andrew was actually on it a couple times. Yeah, that was the mid-90s.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:28

Yeah. Yeah, this dude was this dude was crazy enough and desperate enough to be on TV that he would shoot in an alley in the middle of the fucking night on Saturday night from like 12 to 4 in the morning.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:38

Oh, it was it was uh it was electric. Sometimes until sometimes until the sun comes up. There's footage. It was 10 to 8 a.m., but we did the 3 to 6 a.m. part. We're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:48

But there's footage of you guys. I remember there's during a during when the monsoons came, there's footage of those guys, and they've they're they've moved out of the alleyway and under like a inside of a business, like not the entryway, but like the just the roofed over part, and there's just water flowing down the road, like a foot of water, it's really insane. And we kept broadcasting, so yeah, we kept broadcasting because they're crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:13

Fun times.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:14

Okay, not not to get this thing back on track really quick. Uh pun intended. The train train versus helicopter. What what any thoughts on that kind of resolution? Well, it was quick. It seems like an it seems a little extreme. And you know, if you're if you're not really caring about the train, I guess. I don't know, man. That like how else is it how else is it gonna destroy the helicopter?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:47

But yeah, that train doesn't give two shits about that train kept rolling after it hit that helicopter.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:52

Yeah. But I mean, did you think of it Yeah, did you did you I mean, did you think that was a satisfying conclusion after he'd done all this stuff with the Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:03

I mean, I I think he definitely needed to destroy the helicopter, and I can't really think of another way that he would have done it other than you know succoring the government into blowing it up for him. You know what I mean? By like by like having an F-16 shoot it down finally or something like that, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:17

If it had been the 70s, he would have been inside it still when the train hit it.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:21

Oh yeah, you would have gotten that nihilistic ending where he'd have died along with the helicopter.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:27

Well, that's because he was timing himself on his specially made watch.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:31

That shows no actually no times. Yeah, it just says double zero, and he has to fucking count it in his head like a genius.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:37

So they turned this into a short-lived TV show. It only ran for one season, and then Airwolf was the ripoff show, and that ran for a very long time. But I never saw the show of this, but it seems like they must have rebooted things a little bit because you got Dana Carvey in it. I'm guessing he's probably the Daniel Stern character, and they're flying around in the helicopter doing missions again, so maybe it's like an alternate reality where is isn't Dick Butkus in it too? I think Dick Butkus was one of the we need copies, listeners, if uh you can find it on the Internet Archive or something. I'm kind of mildly curious. I'm sure it's probably what 13 episodes or something, if even that.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:19

James Farentino and Dana Carvey.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:22

Farentino.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:23

Yeah, this are the pilot and uh co-pilot, the Jaffo. Dick Butkus is definitely the captain. Wow. Bubba Smith is in it.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:32

Yeah, I was gonna say Bubba Smith, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:34

Yeah, Jeffrey Lewis is in it. Um so yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:40

You know what would make this movie better or this television show based on a movie better? Football players. Right? No, ex-football players. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:51

Who doesn't want to see an ex-football player try to act? That sounds good.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:56

Uh work for OJ. Oh, wait. Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:59

Yeah, yeah. Uh, I'm gonna give this one, I think I'm gonna give this three and a half stars. I was gonna give it three, but but thinking and talking about it more, and and I just really enjoyed it. I, you know, I really, really just kind of liked it. It it it flew by, it was fun to watch. I didn't have any problems, any major problems with it. I didn't, you know, I like you said, I love the whole warm motherfucking oats, man. Just doing that whole, I you know, I have to defend your screwball antics to the commissioner bit just made me, I just loved it. I just fucking loved it. It was great.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:31

Yeah, I'm right there with you.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:35

I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:36

I'm right there with you. Three and a half, yeah.

unknown 1:25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:38

Okay. And I'm gonna take the uh vision quest approach uh and and say four and a half, strictly, strictly based on the helicopter work and uh and the nostalgia. Um those they just it's one of those movies that you know not everyone would uh love it as much, but for some reason I've got a great deal of nostalgia for it. So I and I still do. I mean, that's the thing. It's like just you know, it was it was a very it's it's in my collection, and I watch it whenever I can.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:14

So this is also one um this is during the 80s. Uh uh this is kind of the height of like stunt work, right? I mean, I I think the height the stunt work kind of is uh hits with like T2. You get a lot of that, you know, the crazy helicopter onto the heli, you know, the crazy motorcycle out of the window onto the helicopter, that type of shit. We don't get that without this, though. Yeah, but you exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. But this is there's a great stretch of the 80s where that they just kept pushing the stunts and pushing the stunts until finally they you know were like, hey, this is getting so dangerous, we're gonna start working in CGI and green screen and some other things to accomplish this because we're gonna kill somebody if we don't, right? Um but I I think these helicopter stunts in particular were awesome, really well done.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:56

That whole trend pissed off Colt Seaver, I can tell you that much.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:04

Um well who is definitely not a dude. And since Colt Siever is based on Hal Needham.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:11

Oh yeah, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:13

Yeah, yeah, he's based on an actual scut man. Uh that's that's interesting. So you guessing you want to plug anything in?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:21

Yeah, you want to plug something, gotta plug your show instead of show, yeah. Let's figure out what it is.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:25

Yeah, yeah. Um, so yeah, my uh my my television show. My uh podcast, audio-only podcast is called the Too Vague Podcast. Uh we talk about a word and uh basically storytelling around the word, trivia, very freeform conversation, and then in the second part of the show, I connected to video games, which is my passion. So I'm combining my late father's passion, which is words and reading and stuff, with my passion, which is video games, and that's kind of what I've been doing for the last four years. So Check it out. Episodes. I used to try and release them weekly, but now uh I just release them whenever I have timely. That's that's basically the deal there. So check it out. Let uh and let me know what you think. I'm on all the social medias and stuff. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:21

Right on. All right, great.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:24

Um and maybe next time we can have Andrew on, who's who's usually my ride or die for a lot of the podcasts.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:30

So yeah, I'd love to love to get a talk get a chance to talk into him.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:34

It'd be very fun to have him on with and do Jurassic Park because the three of us have horror stories of working.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:40

We worked that summer. We worked that movie that summer. Four fucking screens. That movie started every 45 minutes, and it was non-stop hell from the day it opened until the day it left the theater. It was unbelievable. Yeah. Um, but anyway, so you guys want to get out of here on a quote? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:59

Uh let's see here.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:01

Who's gonna start?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:03

I'm looking, I'm looking. I I I I had mine and then oh, I got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:07

All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:09

Marty, take it away.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:11

There are no paranoid schizophrenics on active duty here. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:18

I loved your article on the clitoris. I showed it to my mother.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:24

I like morals, don't you? And the moral of the story here is if you're walking on eggs, don't hop.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:35

That's it. Ben, thanks so much for coming on, man. We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:39

Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Maybe we can do it again sometime. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:43

It was a lot of fun. All right. Until next time, guys.

unknown 1:29:47

See you there.