Batman and Blade with Ben Haslar - Talking Pondo

 In this episode, Ben Haslar from Reels of Justice joins the podcast. He brings along the movie Blade. Marty and Clif give Ben the movie Batman to watch.

First up is Batman (1989), Tim Burton's gothic take on the Caped Crusader starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Clif, Marty and Ben revisit the film that launched the modern comic book movie era. They discuss everything from Burton's unique style to Nicholson's unforgettable Joker. This version of Gotham City still casts a long shadow over superhero films today.

Then it's time for Blade, where Wesley Snipes slices his way through vampires in one of the coolest action films of the '90s. The gang talks about the movie's influence on comic book cinema, it's groundbreaking action sequences and why Blade doesn't get the credit it deserves for paving the way for the superhero boom.

Along the way: Juggalo origins, Batman movie rankings, vampire fashion, Michael Keaton appreciation and memorable movie quotes.

#TalkingPondo #FilmPodcast #Batman89 #Blade #MichaelKeaton #WesleySnipes #MovieReview #ComicBookMovies 

Transcript

00:00:00.76
Clifton Campbell
All right, Marty, we're back.

00:00:02.94
Marty Ketola
40 Juggalos agree will not be seen this week, so we may bring you the following mouse in the sky scheme.

00:00:11.58
Marty Ketola
Tim Burton, Tim Burton, thank you.

00:00:11.96
Clifton Campbell
40 juggalos agree.

00:00:14.74
Marty Ketola
Thank you for gracing us with the eventual birth of Juggalos. Rewatching one of our movies today, I thought, is this re partially responsible?

00:00:21.46
Clifton Campbell
Okay.

00:00:24.06
Marty Ketola
But anyway, it's Talking Pondo. We're back once again.

00:00:31.06
Clifton Campbell
Woot woot, Marty.

00:00:33.24
Marty Ketola
So, yeah, we're here. It's it's me and Cliff. And what is this? said Okay.

00:00:41.69
Ben
once Someone's been sitting in that chair.

00:00:43.21
Marty Ketola
I'm supposed to.

00:00:43.97
Ben
i can tell but since the last time I was here, someone sat in it.

00:00:45.33
Marty Ketola
I'm supposed to do this.

00:00:49.93
Clifton Campbell
That's right, folks.

00:00:50.12
Marty Ketola
Uh-oh. you know today's guest from his previous appearance on the show, as well as the Reels of Justice podcast. It's Big Ben Hassler, back again.

00:00:58.84
Clifton Campbell
Woo-hoo!

00:00:58.98
Ben
Hey, love that guy.

00:00:59.32
Clifton Campbell
isn't he? Woo-hoo! yeah he's great isn't he wo anyone Welcome back buddy.

00:01:03.86
Marty Ketola
He's back to talk another Jack Nicholson film, strangely enough. and what What are we watching?

00:01:08.63
Clifton Campbell
That's true.

00:01:10.75
Marty Ketola
today What did we watch and now we'll be discussing today, Cliff?

00:01:14.58
Clifton Campbell
So we are going to cover the

00:01:14.70
Marty Ketola
98.

00:01:14.72
Marty Ketola
98.

00:01:19.64
Clifton Campbell
version of batman and we're going to talk about the nineteen ninety i think it ninety eight or ninety nine version of

00:01:21.82
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:01:26.04
Marty Ketola
ya

00:01:27.08
Clifton Campbell
blade ninety eight

00:01:28.25
Marty Ketola
ninety eight

00:01:29.75
Clifton Campbell
with Wesley Snipes.

00:01:32.18
Marty Ketola
her

00:01:32.28
Clifton Campbell
And oh boy, strapping kids. I say strapping a lot, but you should strap in because this is going to be a good episode. I got a lot to say. I get the feeling that Marty also have a lot to say.

00:01:39.38
Ben
ah

00:01:41.54
Marty Ketola
lot of pleather you can strap in.

00:01:41.98
Ben
Marty and are just going to sit down and just let Cliff... ah

00:01:44.86
Clifton Campbell
No, no, I won't. I won't take over the episode. I'm just saying, I think all of us are goingnna have a lot to say on this one. I promise. um

00:01:51.61
Marty Ketola
oh

00:01:52.12
Clifton Campbell
yeah Any fan mail or no viewer mail?

00:01:52.25
Marty Ketola
No viewer mail. No.

00:01:54.62
Clifton Campbell
Okay. No.

00:01:55.42
Marty Ketola
But we're our our hits on YouTube are going insane.

00:01:56.20
Clifton Campbell
Shit.

00:01:59.82
Ben
I'll change that.

00:01:59.93
Marty Ketola
at Well, we'll see.

00:02:00.58
Ben
I'll i'll be especially controversial. you know i want I want to get some mail for you guys.

00:02:02.58
Clifton Campbell
That's, Marty, that's that's that's that's why we brought Ben on.

00:02:07.11
Marty Ketola
It's a stop the flow.

00:02:09.14
Clifton Campbell
Yes, exactly.

00:02:09.94
Marty Ketola
We'll see if it happens, and then i'll I'll let you know when the episode comes I'll be like, you're right. YouTube just died.

00:02:16.66
Clifton Campbell
The Orinoco the oroco flow has died.

00:02:16.73
Ben
ah

00:02:19.29
Marty Ketola
But currently, it's ah it's it's really doing pretty good over there, which is a trip.

00:02:25.37
Ben
Ryan brought you up. I'm here to drag you back down.

00:02:27.77
Marty Ketola
Right. Well, we've got to kind of balance to balance the scales.

00:02:31.92
Ben
That's right.

00:02:32.60
Marty Ketola
And we do Talking Figgy Pondo again...

00:02:33.85
Ben
Equilibrium is where everyone should be.

00:02:36.22
Marty Ketola
ah

00:02:37.94
Clifton Campbell
ah Yeah, talking Figgy Pondo. We'll have to talk that Figgy.

00:02:41.55
Marty Ketola
That'll really make it, you know.

00:02:43.80
Ben
You know, talking Figgy is a lot zippier.

00:02:43.86
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:02:47.57
Clifton Campbell
It's true.

00:02:49.48
Ben
I'm just joking. That was for you, Dylan.

00:02:53.16
Clifton Campbell
Talking Figgy Pondo. Okay, so Batman, Blade, no fan mail, no viewer mail.

00:02:57.94
Marty Ketola
right.

00:02:59.43
Clifton Campbell
Let's just get right to the heart of it. Why screw around, right?

00:03:00.99
Marty Ketola
Yeah. Ben is back and so is Jack.

00:03:02.28
Ben
I

00:03:03.54
Marty Ketola
It's crazy, man.

00:03:04.17
Clifton Campbell
There you go. That's right.

00:03:05.43
Marty Ketola
Uh,

00:03:05.98
Clifton Campbell
So you guys want to cover Batman first? You want to go through, you want to you um talk about Blade?

00:03:09.72
Ben
was thinking we should either go release order or by alphabetical to see who goes first.

00:03:12.82
Marty Ketola
Yeah, yeah. i'm i'm kind of I'm kind of leaning towards that, too. So let's do Batman.

00:03:19.05
Clifton Campbell
Batman. All right. Okay. um You want to read the thing?

00:03:24.76
Marty Ketola
So let me see here.

00:03:29.37
Marty Ketola
what is this What is this birth of modern comic book movies, Cliff, called Batman 1989?

00:03:29.71
Clifton Campbell
You got your little bit...

00:03:35.70
Clifton Campbell
Ah, there you go

00:03:35.82
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:03:37.31
Clifton Campbell
Batman 1989, PG-13, two hours and six minutes. Here's your log line. The Dark Knight of Gotham City begins his war on crime with his first major enemy being Jack Napier, a criminal who becomes the clownishly homicidal Joker.

00:03:51.64
Clifton Campbell
<unk>s Directed by Tim Burton, written by Bob Kane, Sam Hamm, Warren Skarin, stars Michael Keaton as Batman. And here's your storyline. Gotham City. Crime boss Carl Grissom, played by Jack Palance, effectively runs the town, but there's a new crime fighter in town, Batman, played by Michael Keaton.

00:04:09.37
Clifton Campbell
Grissom's right-hand man is Jake, Jack, sorry, Napier, played by Jack Nicholson, a brutal man who is not entirely sane. After falling out between the two, Grissoms has Napier set up with the police, and Napier falls to his apparent death in a vat of chemicals. However, he soon reappears as the Joker and starts a reign of terror in Gotham City.

00:04:27.65
Clifton Campbell
Meanwhile, reporter Vicki Vale, played by Kim Basinger, is in the city called to do an article on Batman, and she soon starts a relationship with Batman's everyday persona, billionaire Bruce Wayne.

00:04:39.03
Ben
Only a billionaire? Jeez.

00:04:40.86
Clifton Campbell
know At this point, it's like he would be, if if they were writing it now, he'd be a trillionaire.

00:04:42.58
Ben
Slacker.

00:04:45.54
Clifton Campbell
He'd be like richer than Elon Musk for sure.

00:04:46.04
Ben
Yeah, for sure.

00:04:47.29
Marty Ketola
Well, yeah. How else could you afford the Batwing nowadays if you weren't really new?

00:04:50.04
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, that's true.

00:04:53.67
Clifton Campbell
True.

00:04:54.42
Marty Ketola
Why didn't somebody tell me he had one of those things?

00:04:57.49
Clifton Campbell
They stole my balloons.

00:04:59.50
Marty Ketola
Those are my balloons.

00:04:59.86
Ben
You know, like this movie is such great one-liners, particularly from the Joker, but it's just like, like every two couple minutes, like, oh man, that line is so iconic.

00:05:03.51
Clifton Campbell
Oh, it does. It does.

00:05:08.85
Ben
Yeah.

00:05:09.50
Clifton Campbell
My, my favorite line actually in the movie is unspoken. And it's the line where he's trying to tell Vicki Vale that he's Batman and she turns away from him and he says, Batman, Batman, Batman.

00:05:16.55
Marty Ketola
Oh, yeah.

00:05:17.25
Ben
Yeah.

00:05:19.51
Clifton Campbell
And he just can't spit it out. And I, I fucking love that. And it's, very Michael Keaton. Like I can't see Christian Bale and I can't see, you know, Val Kilmer delivering that line. And I definitely can't see Clooney doing it, but Keaton.

00:05:33.02
Clifton Campbell
Perfect.

00:05:34.55
Marty Ketola
and Remember when they had announced Keaton for this, Cliff, we back in like 88, and it was the whole, like, what?

00:05:38.59
Clifton Campbell
Uh huh.

00:05:40.91
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah.

00:05:41.82
Marty Ketola
He's the funny guy.

00:05:42.37
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:05:42.55
Ben
Mr. Mom.

00:05:43.29
Marty Ketola
it reminds me of like King Ledger later, you know, and then, well, he proved us wrong.

00:05:43.42
Ben
Yeah.

00:05:43.49
Clifton Campbell
He's the funny dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were all like Keaton's badass by the time this came out, everybody high school, because this is sophomore year of high school?

00:05:53.72
Marty Ketola
Yeah, this came out a few months after we met.

00:05:55.35
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, this is sophomore year of high school.

00:05:57.88
Marty Ketola
home

00:05:57.94
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, and it was just, ah it took the school over. I remember it being a massive, it was everywhere.

00:06:00.70
Marty Ketola
It was everywhere.

00:06:03.42
Clifton Campbell
Prince's Bat Dance was number one, and it was it was insanity.

00:06:05.91
Ben
Mm-hmm.

00:06:06.62
Marty Ketola
I mean, trading cards, ah novels, T-shirts, that Prince soundtrack and that little Batman tin. um mean, you name it It seemed to be the first one that really made comic books kind of cool.

00:06:15.70
Clifton Campbell
Oh, mm-hmm.

00:06:21.69
Marty Ketola
And I think it's very responsible for a lot of a lot of where we are now with stuff.

00:06:21.75
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:06:27.21
Ben
That didn't happen with Superman?

00:06:27.19
Clifton Campbell
I completely agree. No, I think, I mean, I think Superman was still ah the the the beginning of it, but they hadn't like super, you know, George,

00:06:30.32
Ben
Christopher Eep.

00:06:34.70
Marty Ketola
It's the beginning, but yeah, it didn't, it, it wasn't edgy like Batman. Yeah.

00:06:39.96
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:06:40.28
Ben
Yeah.

00:06:40.28
Clifton Campbell
Well, and george George corners the market with the toys and figures out how to do the product tie-ins with Star Wars and all that stuff.

00:06:40.63
Ben
Yeah.

00:06:46.00
Clifton Campbell
And so Batman later, you know, in the 80s, these films are are ready to do that, right? They're ready to market the shit out of whatever hit film they have, you know?

00:06:54.30
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:06:55.80
Clifton Campbell
And so Batman, I mean, they just inundate. I mean, it was Batman everything. You watch Batman socks, you got your Batman underwear, you got Batman shirt on, you got Batman floaties of the pool, you you know, you got Batman sunglasses.

00:07:01.82
Ben
Yeah.

00:07:05.98
Marty Ketola
But it wasn't as bad as it it as it got later.

00:07:09.21
Clifton Campbell
No.

00:07:09.30
Marty Ketola
Because the trajectory is you go from this one to ah Batman Returns, where they let Tim Burton do whatever he wanted. And it just was like, that's just crazy, dude.

00:07:19.50
Marty Ketola
And then Forever and Robin, that's where the toyetic comes in.

00:07:19.86
Clifton Campbell
We may have to talk about that one too.

00:07:25.29
Marty Ketola
Your favorite word, toyetic, where it's like, we got to brand the fuck out of everything.

00:07:25.50
Ben
yeah

00:07:29.21
Marty Ketola
And then that kind of flopped.

00:07:29.99
Clifton Campbell
Bat nipples!

00:07:31.54
Marty Ketola
But then that led to,

00:07:31.87
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

00:07:31.96
Ben
This is his ice suit. This is his fire suit. This is his, you know, it's just too much.

00:07:34.84
Marty Ketola
yeah And and the the the failure of that kind of led to our other movie being able to happen.

00:07:42.46
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

00:07:42.70
Marty Ketola
Blade. And then, you know, Blade beget X-Men, beget Spider-Man, beget Batman Begins, beget Iron Man.

00:07:48.66
Ben
ah Is this the first chapter of of Matthew in comic book form?

00:07:52.28
Marty Ketola
ah

00:07:52.73
Clifton Campbell
Right, that's exactly it.

00:07:53.56
Marty Ketola
In a way.

00:07:53.93
Clifton Campbell
This is the this is the genesis of comic books.

00:07:54.16
Marty Ketola
in a way. Yeah.

00:07:56.41
Clifton Campbell
Well, maybe more to the Deuteronomy of comic books.

00:07:58.65
Marty Ketola
but

00:07:58.94
Ben
Superman begat Batman. Who begat?

00:08:00.47
Clifton Campbell
Exactly.

00:08:01.62
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:08:02.42
Clifton Campbell
And thou shalt have a pantheon of Marvel Cinematic Universes. They shall be phase one, two, three, and four.

00:08:06.40
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. The interconnection.

00:08:09.53
Ben
The 12 tribes of MCU.

00:08:09.59
Clifton Campbell
And we'll kind of... the

00:08:11.01
Ben
Actually...

00:08:11.98
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:08:17.40
Clifton Campbell
So back to the movie. um So we start off by basically recreating the Joe Chill murder, right? That's that's the the beginning of this. it's ah It's a recreation of it.

00:08:28.18
Clifton Campbell
But Batman stops at this time.

00:08:28.18
Marty Ketola
who

00:08:30.18
Clifton Campbell
He's able to save, you know, and so we see him. We see his raison d'etre being on display right away, right?

00:08:37.40
Ben
Actually, if I can, I'd like to back you up. ah Back it up a little bit.

00:08:39.51
Clifton Campbell
Oh, yeah.

00:08:40.86
Ben
um the The first thing is that theme with like the the going down like the roller coaster and ah and like going out on that ah that ah that emblem.

00:08:49.14
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:08:50.78
Ben
i saw that I was lucky enough to see this

00:08:51.49
Clifton Campbell
It's a, it's a brash, huge theme. Yeah.

00:08:54.04
Ben
Yeah, I was lucky enough to see this, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, like perform like it while the movie was playing and just absolute chills the way that this theme just like builds up and builds up until we get that big bomb with Batman and just like you are ready to roll with this theme, right?

00:08:55.15
Marty Ketola
That's score.

00:08:59.83
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's dope.

00:09:07.82
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:09:07.99
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. That's that brash. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very, very good. And then. Mm-hmm.

00:09:14.14
Marty Ketola
home

00:09:14.71
Ben
You just want to fight some crime.

00:09:16.64
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly what we see him do. Right. that And, and recreating this sort of, in my opinion, Joe chill, where it's um the mom, the dad, the kid, you know, the, the, the, the robbers and and stopping that immediately. And I think, uh,

00:09:29.59
Clifton Campbell
ah

00:09:32.08
Clifton Campbell
Burton is very, very smart about this, right? Like he's, he's, he gets you, he gets you, like you said, with the, with the, even with the orchestra thing, he grabs you and throws you into the Batman universe, but also shows you that it's going to be completely different than any other Batman.

00:09:42.42
Ben
Yeah.

00:09:46.14
Clifton Campbell
This is not your fucking sixties Adam West Batman. Get that shit out of your head.

00:09:49.46
Ben
No.

00:09:50.10
Marty Ketola
It's very different, yeah.

00:09:51.22
Ben
It's like a Bond film, almost the way it just like throws you in with the balls to the walls action.

00:09:52.95
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:09:54.88
Ben
I love that. Then it backs it up. It's like, okay, now who are all these characters?

00:09:57.24
Clifton Campbell
Exactly. Mm-hmm.

00:09:58.36
Ben
But like giving a chance to like see who this guy is and what he's capable of on the outset is just the perfect way to start these movies.

00:10:05.94
Clifton Campbell
I look.

00:10:05.96
Marty Ketola
It's shot at Pinewood Studios, so it really is an odd movie.

00:10:08.57
Clifton Campbell
Oh, OK. Interesting. I love it.

00:10:11.56
Marty Ketola
It's in England.

00:10:12.79
Clifton Campbell
You know, that shot at the beginning where Batman's standing at the top of the building and he's listening to the cries for help and he turns and walks in the the camera shoot, you know, high over the building and we see him kind of looking over Gotham and he turns and walks back into the building.

00:10:27.30
Clifton Campbell
That's all just kind of like, I think a hand drawn or some sort of effect. It's not digital, but it's, it's, it's, it is, but, but yeah, but it's one of those things, Marty, that I talk about where it's like, that's one of those things that you expect to sell on the silver screen.

00:10:31.94
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:10:32.05
Ben
Mm-hmm. There's something weird about it. It wiggles, like a shadow kind of wiggles.

00:10:42.12
Clifton Campbell
You don't expect to have it at 10 ADP. You expect it to be on a silver screen where you lose 20% transparency and the image and the, the, the effect sells.

00:10:44.92
Ben
Right. Yeah, no, i agree.

00:10:51.57
Clifton Campbell
Right. Because what you want was just a vague shadow. You don't want to, so you don't really want the detail.

00:10:56.36
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:10:57.02
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:10:57.08
Marty Ketola
But it's...

00:10:57.38
Ben
It's kind of art deco-y.

00:10:57.72
Marty Ketola
it's

00:10:58.74
Ben
It's like, you know, it kind of like feels like 1930s New York, sort of.

00:11:01.70
Clifton Campbell
yeah yeah yeah is this the same art director that did a lot of his other stuff like like um scissor hands or uh do we do you know anybody

00:11:02.01
Marty Ketola
here

00:11:12.70
Marty Ketola
Oh, I'd have to look that up.

00:11:13.14
Ben
we had Ryan on here, he'd know immediately.

00:11:14.39
Marty Ketola
But i think i think this I think this art director went on to do things like Phantom Menace and stuff, if I'm right. so

00:11:21.94
Clifton Campbell
interesting it's a it's a go mean because it's gorgeous it's it's weird

00:11:21.98
Marty Ketola
But he might have worked more with Bert, and I didn't look into it.

00:11:28.63
Clifton Campbell
And it like you said, it feels art deco. It feels very cool, but it's also feels very kind of alien and out of place and, and very of its kind of Gotham dark night, run down, dirty, depressed city.

00:11:34.81
Ben
yeah Kind of weird.

00:11:41.94
Marty Ketola
Deliberate. Mm-hmm.

00:11:43.39
Ben
You know, the sets are kind of weird and off kilter and industrial with pipes and stuff everywhere.

00:11:45.18
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yes. Exactly. industrial as fuck.

00:11:48.87
Ben
and

00:11:49.88
Clifton Campbell
That's one of my notes. It's like, are we constantly always in a factory? Like even when we're in the museum where they're, where they're putting paint on everything, there are these massive like blowers and receivers stuck to the wall, like these big vents.

00:12:02.10
Ben
Yeah, no, I love that. It's just like, you know, this city, that's all they did like back in the 60s or whatever. And like, okay, well, this building's now useless. Let's turn it into an art museum, I guess.

00:12:09.97
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. huh

00:12:12.41
Ben
And it works. I mean, it feels real. It feels lived in when you see that kind of thing.

00:12:16.13
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it was really good. Oh, yeah. OK, so this is the person who did Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It's the same art director that he's worked with on some of that stuff. That makes sense because I was just like, it feels like some of his other movies.

00:12:29.87
Clifton Campbell
not i'm not And I'm not saying like, you know, the dark, creepy stuff. I just feel like that weird artistic exaggeration that he likes to work with, right? Where everything's just a little off kilter, like you were saying.

00:12:41.74
Clifton Campbell
It's like the Coen brothers like to use those, you know, short lenses and get people with weird faces and stick that lens right in their face to exaggerate everything, you know?

00:12:47.70
Marty Ketola
Burton's very similar.

00:12:47.90
Ben
Hmm.

00:12:48.66
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:12:49.94
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:53.02
Marty Ketola
And I think this is about as far as ah pre-heavy CGI technology went. It's kind of a perfect example of like, this is about the limit where the craft is just firing on all levels before we get to like Terminator 2 and it's all about the morphin.

00:13:08.82
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:13:10.36
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll say this. There's a massive if you look at like Dark Knight, for instance, you know, or any of the Dark Knight series that Nolan did and this one, there is just a massive difference in the level of the technology of the toys that he has.

00:13:24.57
Clifton Campbell
Like it just it takes a you know, because there's a you know, this is before the Internet. This is before all the digital shit, all that stuff.

00:13:29.86
Marty Ketola
Oh yeah, it's before the 90s.

00:13:32.21
Clifton Campbell
So all these all these toys that he has, all these gadgets have to be basically kind of analog to a certain extent. Right.

00:13:38.23
Ben
His battling is on a string.

00:13:38.30
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:13:39.63
Ben
What is that?

00:13:40.18
Clifton Campbell
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And so then, but later, you know, later on, you've got Dark Knight Batman, who's like, well, I can just see through walls with my my phone technology that I've infected the world with.

00:13:51.80
Ben
ah

00:13:51.76
Clifton Campbell
I'm awesome. you know, and you're just like, wow, that's a whole different level of fucking Dark Knight here.

00:13:56.37
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:13:58.54
Ben
Don't you knock Dark Knight. I love that movie.

00:14:00.44
Clifton Campbell
i No, oh no, no, no, I'm not at all. I'm just talking about like the the grade level of the, you know, the 89 to 20 or to that level.

00:14:06.30
Ben
Yeah, now I know what

00:14:09.38
Clifton Campbell
Dark Knight's the the probably the best Batman movie if we're being completely honest. um So Tracy Walter is in this. I'm a huge fan of Tracy Walter. You guys know who Tracy Walter is?

00:14:20.15
Marty Ketola
Well, of course.

00:14:20.41
Clifton Campbell
He plays Bob.

00:14:20.86
Ben
mean.

00:14:21.25
Clifton Campbell
He plays...

00:14:22.48
Marty Ketola
We've seen him in at least two movies on this show.

00:14:22.74
Clifton Campbell
place

00:14:22.87
Ben
Oh, I love Bob.

00:14:25.12
Marty Ketola
Do you remember which two, Cliff?

00:14:27.51
Clifton Campbell
um

00:14:32.44
Marty Ketola
One of them should be obvious.

00:14:32.48
Clifton Campbell
no repo man that's what i thought yeah

00:14:33.77
Marty Ketola
That Repo Man. And the other one, he was in Midnight Run briefly, if you recall.

00:14:40.71
Clifton Campbell
oh oh yes he was okay all right i i like i liked yeah bob and yeah just getting shot like that was pretty shitty because it's like how was he to know he had a batwing you know you fuck your balloons

00:14:42.17
Marty Ketola
Yeah, but he pops up on all sorts of stuff.

00:14:43.48
Ben
justice for bob he deserved better

00:14:47.35
Marty Ketola
He had an action figure too, I remember.

00:14:56.70
Marty Ketola
I'm going to need a few moments alone. ah

00:15:00.27
Clifton Campbell
uh this is this is also kim basing her at her awesome like her most pinnacle of her awesomeness like this is where she was untouchable they give you wanted a beautiful blonde you went you know right for that kind of uh lana turner ah veronica lake uh and she's really really pretty decent in the movie

00:15:17.40
Marty Ketola
Yeah, and only about, what, six years after Never Say Never Again? yeah so still, yeah.

00:15:21.05
Clifton Campbell
see yep and she's good in the movie i mean she's a she's a she's a good actress i i i like her part in the film especially uh

00:15:30.49
Ben
Yeah, she's not a complete damsel. she's She has her own interests as far as like trying to figure out who Batman is and sort of...

00:15:32.41
Clifton Campbell
No, no.

00:15:35.51
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, i like I like her team up with Robert Wool quite a bit. I can't remember his character name, but they kind of team up. And and even Wool's not, he's not a wallflower.

00:15:41.50
Ben
Yeah.

00:15:43.03
Clifton Campbell
Like at one point he's got a bat and he's fighting Joker's bad guys to get him to let go of the balloon that's flying downtown.

00:15:49.78
Marty Ketola
His name is Newbaum Turk.

00:15:50.01
Clifton Campbell
I do like that they're all not wet rags. New bomb Turk. And he's and you know what he did to get them to run away and after he lost the bat is he did the Volare song, but he farted to it.

00:15:54.39
Marty Ketola
ah

00:16:01.14
Ben
he

00:16:01.08
Marty Ketola
Yes, if you've not seen the Robert Wool classic, The Hollywood Knights, he's basically the same character, but the teenager version.

00:16:01.47
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:16:11.03
Marty Ketola
But that's more of a Porky style movie. But it's it's early classic Robert Rule. Actually, that was 1980. So he had a very interesting decade. But it seemed like after this, he got what?

00:16:21.83
Marty Ketola
Was that Arliss? And he started popping up and stuff.

00:16:24.44
Clifton Campbell
yeah

00:16:25.34
Marty Ketola
If anybody remembers that ancient HBO show. So I got to see this twice in theaters originally. How many times did you see it, Cliff?

00:16:34.32
Clifton Campbell
at least three, probably, probably more.

00:16:35.38
Marty Ketola
Wow. Okay.

00:16:36.84
Clifton Campbell
I saw it. I was obsessed with it.

00:16:38.65
Marty Ketola
Yeah, I think we all were.

00:16:38.86
Clifton Campbell
I'm, I'm, I, uh, it was an interesting watch. I haven't seen it. I've, I've let, I've left it tucked away for a long time because I, I didn't want to really, i was very worried it was going to be like ET where when I, when I watched ET, I was like, Oh no, it's not the magic that I remember as a kid.

00:16:45.65
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:16:50.35
Ben
Oh no.

00:16:50.63
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:16:55.70
Clifton Campbell
It's fine, but it's just not, it doesn't work if you're not in a theater with 400 people. I don't know why that is, but it just only works when you're crowded in with a bunch of other people and experience it as a group.

00:17:01.37
Marty Ketola
E.T., yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:17:06.92
Clifton Campbell
Right. But to me, but Batman was, I was obsessed with Batman and, and saw it quite a bit.

00:17:11.09
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:17:12.71
Clifton Campbell
Oh

00:17:12.89
Marty Ketola
Even the VHS release was a huge deal. as It came out pretty quick, I think in 90, and then it was one of those early sell-through.

00:17:16.09
Clifton Campbell
ah yeah. Yeah.

00:17:20.19
Marty Ketola
Wasn't it like 1999 something?

00:17:25.37
Marty Ketola
So it was quite the phenomenon. Then Dick Tracy came out the next year and it was not quite the same. And it was like they couldn't Tim Burton almost completely unlocked what the comic book movie was going to be.

00:17:36.92
Marty Ketola
But it seemed like the big studios didn't want to listen for about 15 years.

00:17:39.76
Ben
Mm-hmm.

00:17:41.24
Marty Ketola
You know, we got some interesting stuff along the way, but you know what i mean? It took that long until you get to the Iron Man. So.

00:17:48.89
Clifton Campbell
Well, I think, you know, all credit to Frank Miller and God bless him for creating the Dark Knight and having that idea of this. You know, taking Batman, who was kind of a good.

00:17:58.09
Marty Ketola
Oh, that's largely responsible for this too, right?

00:18:00.06
Clifton Campbell
he Hell yes.

00:18:00.54
Marty Ketola
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:18:01.14
Clifton Campbell
Are you kidding me? I mean, but you take that you take the Batman from being sort of a comic book detective with a with a Joker character into somebody who's, you know, broken and beaten and frustrated and and is willing to kind of kick the shit out of his opposition, right?

00:18:16.70
Clifton Campbell
Where it's a completely different Batman, in my opinion. And so, and and that's where you get this. And then later, of course, you know, Nolan's Batman. Yeah.

00:18:27.45
Marty Ketola
You know, after this one, we really didn't need to see his parents killed again and again and again and in following films.

00:18:33.78
Ben
a

00:18:35.50
Marty Ketola
Why do they keep telling the origins over in these type of films?

00:18:38.10
Ben
They did it wrong. and we got to do it our way. I don't know.

00:18:40.02
Marty Ketola
Yeah, all right.

00:18:40.78
Ben
It doesn't make I hate it. um

00:18:43.67
Clifton Campbell
I do too.

00:18:43.99
Ben
I mean, you do need to ah establish his raison d'etre, which, you know, this one like comes in as first.

00:18:46.54
Marty Ketola
It's true.

00:18:46.87
Clifton Campbell
Sure.

00:18:49.27
Ben
So like, there's no issue, you know, showing any of that. But yeah, that when you do it later, like in, you know, like Batman v Superman or something like that, it seems like, like, I don't like this way Spider-Man did it with like the cutting out the killing of Uncle Ben.

00:19:01.72
Ben
It's like, I don't need to see Uncle Ben shot again, but just to like say that it didn't happen either.

00:19:03.11
Clifton Campbell
Yeah,

00:19:06.16
Ben
And then, you know, like you need to at least, you can you can establish that it happened,

00:19:06.84
Clifton Campbell
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:12.25
Ben
without like show, you know, dedicating like five minutes to it.

00:19:14.07
Clifton Campbell
Sure. You don't have to you don't have to wallow in it. Right. Yeah.

00:19:16.54
Ben
Right.

00:19:16.49
Marty Ketola
You can see the pearls fly over and over and over.

00:19:19.48
Clifton Campbell
Well, it feels like that's a that's been a major weakness for a lot of these comic book movies early on was that they kept trying to retell the origin story. OK, well, we have to see them get their powers, don't we? No.

00:19:30.81
Clifton Campbell
We don't.

00:19:30.94
Ben
No.

00:19:31.45
Clifton Campbell
we We don't. We've seen that. Everybody's established that they have powers. Let's tell the next thing. And that's why I think partially why the MCU, once it got going, was so successful successful. It was like, oh, here's a whole run of fucking superhero movies where there's actual stories and characters and arcs and things going on that aren't how to get my powers.

00:19:52.47
Ben
But you do need to establish who they are and like why they do what they do, which a lot of people skip that.

00:19:54.49
Clifton Campbell
Absolutely.

00:19:55.42
Marty Ketola
You get your part one, yeah.

00:19:57.27
Ben
They're like, if I'm not showing the superpowers, then I don't need to establish why they're doing the thing.

00:19:59.19
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:20:01.78
Clifton Campbell
I completely agree. But again, it's like, I feel like if you, even if it's a different run, like if the, if everybody is familiar with that superhero, do you really need, if you're going to start another series to start there now?

00:20:17.05
Marty Ketola
But you're right. Sometimes now they make the mistake of jumping too forward.

00:20:17.78
Clifton Campbell
No.

00:20:21.40
Clifton Campbell
Yep.

00:20:21.82
Marty Ketola
It's a fine line, right? There's there's a balance. Yeah. This movie is a B-movie cast delight.

00:20:25.93
Clifton Campbell
it's the

00:20:29.01
Marty Ketola
There are so many people who have been in so many B-movies all together under one roof here where it's just like, this is just, i mean, Jack Palance, I mean, alone.

00:20:29.59
Clifton Campbell
No shit.

00:20:29.75
Ben
Mm-hmm.

00:20:38.74
Clifton Campbell
ah The dude...

00:20:38.87
Marty Ketola
He's only in the beginning the movie, but it's like, oh my God, it's hilarious.

00:20:39.38
Clifton Campbell
the

00:20:42.03
Marty Ketola
He worked great on Clark on Angel's Revenge, and now here he is with Tim Burton.

00:20:46.71
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, it's an it's his insane.

00:20:47.06
Marty Ketola
But we knew him as Curly from City Slickers at that point.

00:20:52.41
Clifton Campbell
The broker from Guardians of the Galaxy, the guy that they go they first go to sell the Tesseract cube to, that guy who pushes him out of the store and tells him to fuck off, that's the guy who robs the family at the very beginning of the movie.

00:21:06.55
Clifton Campbell
I'm just like, oh shit, that's...

00:21:06.97
Marty Ketola
Oh. Mm-hmm.

00:21:08.30
Clifton Campbell
It's really weird how this this movie is just buried with different layers of B-movie actors. Let me ask you this, guys. I can't remember the the actor's name, but he's the big the lieutenant who's on the take and is working with the Joker.

00:21:22.36
Clifton Campbell
That guy that that pulls the gun on the Joker and all that.

00:21:23.48
Marty Ketola
h

00:21:26.71
Clifton Campbell
Did they ADR his voice?

00:21:30.57
Ben
I imagine the ADR to everybody's voice at least a little bit.

00:21:33.33
Clifton Campbell
No, but I mean, but i mean its it feels like they Darth Vader'd his ass. like They were just like, we don't like your voice.

00:21:37.16
Marty Ketola
Oh, I didn't notice.

00:21:38.69
Clifton Campbell
We're just going to get somebody completely different. Because he had this weird kind of dark voice like this, where he but he looked like he'd have like

00:21:45.38
Ben
That sounds pretty good. Let's do that.

00:21:46.81
Marty Ketola
ah

00:21:48.87
Clifton Campbell
a... He had that voice, but at the same time, it was like, that doesn't sound like the voice that your face would have. i don't know. I don't know how to put it. other than it just didn't The voice just didn't seem to match the person. and i was like It felt like it was 80 yards.

00:22:02.02
Ben
That's what I said on my last date. and She walked right out on me.

00:22:11.97
Clifton Campbell
Let's see my notes here. What have I got? Yeah.

00:22:14.97
Marty Ketola
You know, both of these movies today are about crime bosses being overtaken and the bad guy killing the parents of the superhero. And then you're the one who did my parent thing and made me. I made you. You made me.

00:22:28.66
Marty Ketola
We did break away from that a little bit as well.

00:22:30.94
Ben
And they they both start out the same way too, if were we're going down that path.

00:22:32.54
Marty Ketola
Yeah, it's kind of...

00:22:33.94
Ben
They both start out with like the superhero just coming in and being awesome and not establishing stuff.

00:22:36.43
Clifton Campbell
coming in and just being awesome.

00:22:37.27
Marty Ketola
a

00:22:38.02
Ben
Yeah.

00:22:38.21
Clifton Campbell
Yep. Yep. That's very true. And then you, then you get the superhero in the backstory. Um, this Batman, I, I, I, again, I love this movie, but this Batman has the aim of a standard issue storm trooper.

00:22:51.70
Clifton Campbell
Like he is a bad shot. Like he's flying that bat wing. He's got optical fucking things like Luke. And he's just, he's shooting at the Joker and he can't hit shit. He's got missiles.

00:23:02.10
Clifton Campbell
He can't hit that, you know? And I was like, bro, bro.

00:23:04.25
Ben
maybe Maybe it's suppressive fire.

00:23:04.28
Marty Ketola
He drops the Joker. Maybe this is

00:23:05.98
Clifton Campbell
Bro!

00:23:07.10
Ben
Batman doesn't kill. you know Maybe it's suppressive fire. He's just like, stay there.

00:23:09.85
Clifton Campbell
He's the Dark Knight!

00:23:11.99
Marty Ketola
But I was wondering how many people died.

00:23:12.17
Clifton Campbell
I'm the Dark Knight, but I don't kill.

00:23:14.26
Ben
He doesn't call himself the Dark Knight in this movie.

00:23:16.44
Clifton Campbell
I know.

00:23:16.54
Marty Ketola
But how many people died when he blew up that whole factory? There were still people in there.

00:23:20.66
Clifton Campbell
and Exactly!

00:23:21.82
Marty Ketola
I'm like, wait a minute. Did he just kill a bunch of people?

00:23:23.45
Ben
There were many players in play in the blowing up that factory.

00:23:25.75
Clifton Campbell
So, okay, so if it's so if it's collateral damage, it's fine.

00:23:26.21
Ben
He wasn't a lone actor.

00:23:29.82
Clifton Campbell
It's when he directly takes them out that it's bad.

00:23:31.45
Ben
Right.

00:23:32.08
Marty Ketola
I just sent the Batmobile in.

00:23:32.25
Ben
Exactly.

00:23:32.26
Clifton Campbell
I got you. Okay.

00:23:33.58
Marty Ketola
I wasn't in it at the time.

00:23:35.35
Clifton Campbell
that will be it's Oh, fuck.

00:23:35.88
Ben
No, and Batman Returns, he does flat out murder some people, so...

00:23:39.70
Clifton Campbell
I wonder if I could see the Batman's rubric. That's what I want to see. Show me Batman's rubric. um That's fucking hilarious. the best One of the best shots in the movie is the Batwing silhouetted in the moonlight comes out through the clouds.

00:23:49.82
Marty Ketola
Oh, yeah, it's so good.

00:23:50.10
Ben
Oh, absolutely.

00:23:52.06
Marty Ketola
People cheered in the theater for that, yeah.

00:23:52.18
Clifton Campbell
I remember seeing that theater. Yes. Yeah, I got chills. The people in the theater cheered. It was fantastic, man.

00:23:58.33
Ben
Again, with that score, like, right then, you know, it's like, timed.

00:23:58.43
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:24:00.06
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:24:01.01
Ben
Yeah.

00:24:02.10
Clifton Campbell
yeah

00:24:02.10
Marty Ketola
Very interesting to have this totally iconic score and the Prince soundtrack simultaneously. It does the music that the hit, the the I should say, the like the pop songs mixed with the with the classical score blends the two really well.

00:24:15.97
Marty Ketola
I forgot that you don't ever hear bat dance in the movie itself, but that wouldn't make sense because that song is just a bunch of of clips from the movie, which is probably why we have so much of the dialogue memorized is that Prince soundtrack.

00:24:27.49
Ben
Mm-hmm.

00:24:30.26
Marty Ketola
We got a live one.

00:24:30.39
Clifton Campbell
This is early. Of course, this is early. You got to call it out. This is early Elfman Burton collaboration as they they went on to make and how how many movies together.

00:24:35.80
Marty Ketola
um

00:24:40.02
Clifton Campbell
And then ah God knows how many movies at this point Danny Elfman's actually scored. It's it's a ridiculous amount of numbers.

00:24:45.56
Marty Ketola
I think that's why it feels so similar in ways to some of the Sam Raimi Elfman work and I don't think the Elfman ever worked with the Coen brothers or maybe did at some point this also Hudsucker Proxy feels like this movie to me a lot for some reason now revisiting it Maybe it's all the industrial aspects of it.

00:25:08.38
Marty Ketola
Steam everywhere.

00:25:11.73
Marty Ketola
Now, this is a weird aside that probably I only think is interesting, but you never know. Some listener out there might think is interesting. So when this movie came out, Nirvana's first album, Bleach, had barely just come out.

00:25:23.70
Marty Ketola
And so you cut them many years later. And of course, nobody knew who the fuck they were at the time. And many years later, something in the way ends up in the Batman.

00:25:29.32
Clifton Campbell
Oh.

00:25:31.16
Marty Ketola
I'm just like, what a weird trajectory the the world takes sometimes.

00:25:31.75
Clifton Campbell
And the Vamiot.

00:25:36.18
Marty Ketola
Because I'm sure when they were on tour with that, they weren't thinking about Batman.

00:25:36.21
Clifton Campbell
Oh, how things come back around.

00:25:39.32
Marty Ketola
But somehow, who knows?

00:25:41.66
Ben
We were all always thinking about Batman.

00:25:43.45
Marty Ketola
You know, they probably were too.

00:25:43.58
Ben
Come on.

00:25:44.81
Marty Ketola
That's right. They're probably going to see the fucking thing. And I feel like Jack is fully channeling his Witches of Eastwick craziness here.

00:25:53.35
Ben
Oh, I love him so much in this movie.

00:25:53.31
Clifton Campbell
Oh.

00:25:54.20
Marty Ketola
yeah I mean, as far as like this free acting, yeah.

00:25:55.23
Ben
um

00:25:55.76
Clifton Campbell
he's ah He's completely off the fucking rails. He's completely just – he's allowed himself to do whatever the fuck he wants to do. It's great.

00:26:02.78
Ben
I don't know. no I feel like the one-liners and all that, I feel like those are all very planned and very, you know...

00:26:07.03
Clifton Campbell
Sure, sure, sure.

00:26:08.06
Ben
um

00:26:08.38
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but he's just – he's just this – yeah, this free, grandiose body movement where he's just – you know, it's it's this – yeah.

00:26:13.21
Marty Ketola
okay

00:26:17.48
Marty Ketola
He's not holding anything back, right?

00:26:18.25
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:26:19.12
Marty Ketola
He's just bam.

00:26:19.26
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. and And in, and in 89, nobody'd seen anything like this.

00:26:20.60
Ben
Oh, yeah.

00:26:20.83
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:26:23.95
Clifton Campbell
We've seen all the villains now that, that come after this, but in 89, you know, yeah you get maybe like a Travis Bickle type, but nobody'd ever seen this sort of clown that was funny and also really sinister and creepy as shit.

00:26:35.75
Clifton Campbell
And who would just shoot Bob in the fucking face because they stole his balloons, you know, holy shit.

00:26:41.27
Ben
But it is the character that allows them to do that. Like in any other character, like you might have to like rein it back a little bit.

00:26:43.99
Clifton Campbell
Much.

00:26:46.23
Ben
But the fact that the character is meant to be so insane. Yeah, it's.

00:26:49.30
Clifton Campbell
And that's that's what i'm saying is he just allowed himself to go. where He was just like, well, this is for the Joker. I'm just going to go for it and nailed it.

00:26:56.06
Ben
I have to imagine there's other takes of stuff where he's doing you know similar stuff or whatever, like you know breaking down the museum or whatever and and mimicking statues. of It's just oh so good.

00:27:06.95
Ben
This might be my favorite Nicholson role.

00:27:07.50
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:27:09.58
Ben
Shining's great, though.

00:27:09.94
Clifton Campbell
Hmm.

00:27:10.50
Ben
It's it's it's between those two.

00:27:12.30
Clifton Campbell
He's been in a lot of great ones. We did Five Easy Pieces a few months ago. And if, I mean, not not Five Easy Pieces, we did, what's, The Last Detail.

00:27:16.48
Marty Ketola
Oh, we didn't.

00:27:20.02
Marty Ketola
You'll remember it. It was the last detail.

00:27:23.69
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, sorry, is we did, we should do Five Easy Pieces, but we did The Last Detail and I think that's moved up really high on my ranking of of his movies.

00:27:23.83
Marty Ketola
we do should We should do five easy pieces, though.

00:27:26.98
Ben
Thank you.

00:27:31.10
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:27:32.42
Clifton Campbell
It's shot, he's,

00:27:32.53
Marty Ketola
That's where you start to see it the first of the unhinged jacks start to creep out in the early 70s roll.

00:27:39.48
Clifton Campbell
yeah, yeah, really, really good. it it It looks like, honestly, it it was a lot more fun to be a criminal working for the Joker than it was Jack Palance.

00:27:51.16
Clifton Campbell
You get to go to museums and see nice art. You get to destroy it You get to have a parade.

00:27:55.45
Marty Ketola
You get to get shot.

00:27:57.28
Clifton Campbell
you get to have balloons and shit.

00:27:57.82
Ben
A branded jacket with like the Joker's face on it.

00:28:00.12
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, you get the branded fucking jackets.

00:28:01.56
Marty Ketola
home

00:28:02.20
Clifton Campbell
You get the boom boxes and the berets. Everybody's got cool uniforms. You hang out together. It's like a club, you know?

00:28:08.21
Marty Ketola
It's like being a chuggalo.

00:28:08.60
Ben
But you don't know when he'll turn on you, which is like... him

00:28:10.97
Marty Ketola
but go to the

00:28:11.99
Clifton Campbell
yeah there is music There's some volatility to it. Right?

00:28:15.52
Marty Ketola
Let's go to the gathering.

00:28:18.83
Clifton Campbell
Whoop, whoop. its

00:28:20.04
Marty Ketola
Whoop whoop. but

00:28:24.70
Clifton Campbell
Oh, I had the unfortunate experience of actually working sound at Juggalo show once. And it was it was quite a fucking experience.

00:28:32.66
Marty Ketola
I remember that.

00:28:35.15
Clifton Campbell
It was really quite a fucking experience. A lot of fun.

00:28:37.14
Marty Ketola
and That's a podcast episode in and to itself.

00:28:38.58
Ben
Thank you.

00:28:39.13
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah.

00:28:40.11
Marty Ketola
Wow.

00:28:40.53
Clifton Campbell
We'll do some Patreon on that because that was its own wild ass experience.

00:28:43.06
Marty Ketola
a pi So did did you notice the movie poster at when they're doing the whole Bruce Wayne's parents flashback?

00:28:54.17
Marty Ketola
Did you see what the title of the movie was? No, it's not Excalibur. That's that's one of the other ones. But it's this, no, it's some fictional movie called Footlight Frenzy.

00:29:00.09
Clifton Campbell
Was it Zorro?

00:29:05.18
Marty Ketola
One of Frenzy's lesser known adventures.

00:29:08.60
Clifton Campbell
Right, right, right.

00:29:09.27
Marty Ketola
so what

00:29:10.01
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:29:11.16
Marty Ketola
ah

00:29:11.48
Clifton Campbell
Makes sense.

00:29:12.22
Marty Ketola
But I do think that this, well, i no, no, but it has nothing to do with that.

00:29:12.55
Clifton Campbell
That's where we got that, by the way.

00:29:15.77
Clifton Campbell
Well, you know,

00:29:17.00
Marty Ketola
But I do think this movie,

00:29:18.01
Ben
That sounds suitable, Cliff. I'm not sure you want to admit that.

00:29:20.33
Clifton Campbell
I'm just saying, well.

00:29:20.95
Marty Ketola
I think this, I think this movie has a lot to do with us ending up making three movies about a comic book store eventually. I think there's some lean in there. There was ah something in the movie that I think we referenced in one of them that I i should have written down.

00:29:37.03
Marty Ketola
But yeah, this movie definitely has an influence on both us and Kevin Smith, obviously, because in my time you get the mall rats and he's just doing full on parodies of sequences of this movie in it.

00:29:40.61
Clifton Campbell
For sure.

00:29:49.62
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:29:50.27
Ben
Mm-hmm.

00:29:50.22
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:29:54.23
Marty Ketola
Then he would actually have Val Kilmer as Batman in one of the Jay and Silent Bob movies. Are they in the same universe? Bluntman and Chronic? I don't know. what else does anyone have about this?

00:30:07.08
Marty Ketola
Because I just feel like I'm just talking the fuck over everybody today.

00:30:10.81
Clifton Campbell
Same, same.

00:30:11.32
Marty Ketola
oh

00:30:11.77
Clifton Campbell
What about you, Ben?

00:30:14.41
Ben
uh i i love this movie uh it's like a it's a gentleman's eight as my friend ryan would call it but it also gets the heart uh because it just like it well it's flawed in that like i think the last act which also blade has a last act that's kind of out there as far as what the the villain's plan is um

00:30:19.48
Marty Ketola
Hmm.

00:30:29.69
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah, you're peeking over my shoulder on my notes is what you're doing, yep.

00:30:32.12
Ben
um

00:30:35.03
Ben
but, uh, but you buy it because it just gives like the hero a chance to like come in and save the day. yeah And it's just like, boy, you you feel it so, so strongly. Um,

00:30:47.75
Ben
it's amazing. Yeah. I have no problem watching this movie anytime.

00:30:51.38
Marty Ketola
So you give it the four star or Gentleman's eight?

00:30:54.36
Ben
Four star with a heart.

00:30:54.65
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:30:55.49
Clifton Campbell
the four star the four star um you know i i agree with

00:30:56.12
Ben
Um,

00:30:57.50
Marty Ketola
Yeah, I'm right there with you. I give it a four as well. yeah I don't watch it often, but when I do, I'm like, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Takes me right back.

00:31:05.78
Clifton Campbell
yeah i agree i i agree with ben that endings of that third axe problem max a little long because they're they're trying to build a giant crescendo right and and for batman and but

00:31:12.74
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:31:13.88
Ben
And he's like giving people money. He's like, you just tried to kill everybody. Like, why is everyone and all of a sudden on your side? Like, oh, you're giving us money. Oh, cool. You're not such a bad guy.

00:31:22.49
Clifton Campbell
there's but there's There's a point where Batman once again has to like fight through Joker's 14 guys to get to the Joker. And I was just like, that was the point in the movie where i was just like, come on, come on, come on.

00:31:34.88
Clifton Campbell
Beat him real quick. Go, go, go, go. you know It was like, because we've seen him do this two or three times already, right?

00:31:36.06
Ben
yeah

00:31:39.74
Clifton Campbell
so ah But yeah, four stars. I mean, it's a classic for a reason. I think, like like we talked about, Nicholson just is unhinged and and is... Really set the stage and sort of the level for the Joker that everybody else has had to shoot for.

00:31:53.36
Clifton Campbell
You got to clear the bar, man. Like if you're going to be the Joker, you got clear the Nicholson bar or otherwise your Joker is probably shit, you know, to be completely honest with you.

00:32:00.68
Ben
Keaton's great as it's like both the roles. ah Like I love, like, you know, he's just like so human as Bruce and then just like so stoic as the dark night, but he still like kind of has a bit of that personality.

00:32:03.03
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:32:06.37
Clifton Campbell
hmm.

00:32:09.96
Ben
like, like that callback he makes where he's like, you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight before punching him?

00:32:14.21
Marty Ketola
uh

00:32:14.33
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:32:15.40
Ben
Um,

00:32:15.54
Clifton Campbell
I love it. I love it. um My, in fact, my favorite thing in a while in the superhero movies has been that, and I hated that movie, but the flash where he brings Keaton back and it's the Keaton at the mansion and all that shit.

00:32:28.28
Ben
Oh my gosh, no.

00:32:28.36
Clifton Campbell
And Batman, it was, it was fucking hilarious.

00:32:29.80
Ben
I've been waiting for someone to defend that on reels.

00:32:31.58
Clifton Campbell
I was dying. like I was dying laughing. I thought that was just amazingly funny and silly and a lot of fun to see Keaton finally in the suit again. You know,

00:32:39.50
Ben
No, I could not disagree with you more.

00:32:40.38
Clifton Campbell
Yes. Yes. Yes. Anyway. Yeah. Four stars for me too, Murray.

00:32:45.56
Marty Ketola
nice I have not seen the Flash. so

00:32:50.44
Clifton Campbell
Well,

00:32:50.71
Ben
Consider yourself lucky.

00:32:52.44
Marty Ketola
I saw the Flash TV show from the early 90s.

00:32:55.45
Clifton Campbell
I can't defend the movie. Can't do it. I can defend the moment, but I can't defend the movie. Can't do it.

00:33:01.11
Ben
ah

00:33:02.26
Marty Ketola
Could you prosecute them?

00:33:02.71
Ben
They won the battle, but they lost the war.

00:33:04.89
Clifton Campbell
and Absolutely. This is one of those minor victories in a very large loss.

00:33:09.62
Ben
but

00:33:09.84
Clifton Campbell
They're like, well, we held that fort, but we lost the entire county. Sorry.

00:33:16.92
Marty Ketola
Did you have a dear diary or?

00:33:19.29
Clifton Campbell
No, unfortunately not this time, but I will.

00:33:20.06
Marty Ketola
okay. was going say that it was pretty quick to have you come up with shtick that fast.

00:33:24.22
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:33:24.22
Marty Ketola
So. All

00:33:24.70
Clifton Campbell
never never Never fear, listeners. I'm going to bring back the Deer Diary. I know you've been writing in telling me that you missed it, so I'll bring it back.

00:33:28.59
Marty Ketola
right.

00:33:31.19
Ben
Oh, Billy Dee Williams.

00:33:31.22
Marty Ketola
So.

00:33:32.43
Ben
Like how it, it's such a crime that we didn't get to see him as two face.

00:33:33.27
Clifton Campbell
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:33:33.88
Marty Ketola
Oh, yeah.

00:33:35.43
Clifton Campbell
Very, very good call.

00:33:35.63
Ben
Like, like they were setting that up so well.

00:33:36.28
Marty Ketola
oh Oh, yeah.

00:33:37.91
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, very good call.

00:33:38.14
Ben
um

00:33:38.71
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:33:39.11
Clifton Campbell
Very good call. That's a very good call. We didn't even talk about that. And and in fact, like like Marty said, the cast is just in in general, just amazing.

00:33:46.30
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:33:46.39
Clifton Campbell
So good.

00:33:47.28
Marty Ketola
Well, things get weird in Batman Returns and to varying degrees. And I feel like it just ah led to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia because Danny DeVito taps into the grossness of his Penguin character on almost a weekly basis on that show. So there you go.

00:34:04.29
Marty Ketola
Who did he fight last time?

00:34:04.96
Ben
And

00:34:05.58
Marty Ketola
Nicholson. ah Next, DeVito. Okay, we already know it's going be fucking weird.

00:34:08.50
Ben
yeah

00:34:10.75
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:34:11.45
Ben
and Michael Goh is Alfred. like He's in like all four of these films.

00:34:14.17
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:34:14.45
Ben
like He's the one that... like He nailed it like on the first on the first outing. you know like like We can't have any other Alfred until this guy you know ages out.

00:34:21.35
Marty Ketola
He's like,

00:34:22.80
Ben
He's he's he's the guy.

00:34:24.71
Marty Ketola
he's like or Q.

00:34:25.05
Clifton Campbell
I like, yeah, I like that early on where Vicky Vales at the party and walks up to Bruce Wayne and is like, do you know this Bruce Wayne guy?

00:34:25.71
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:34:33.76
Clifton Campbell
And he's like, I'm not sure. And he stabs the pin into the tree and and boom, Alfred appears to take the pin out. And then he puts his champagne dust down and almost falls. Alfred appears to grab the champagne.

00:34:42.30
Marty Ketola
right

00:34:43.16
Ben
but

00:34:43.47
Clifton Campbell
guys like He's a step or two ahead of Bruce the entire movie and in that regard as far as as far as making sure he's taken care

00:34:49.66
Ben
Yeah, he even says, like, I wouldn't be able to find my shoes without him. And you feel that. Like, yeah, Alfred is, like, he's the backbone of, of like, he's... Batman's out doing the fighting, but Alfred's doing all the other stuff to help him do that.

00:34:59.91
Clifton Campbell
Yep. Yep.

00:35:01.17
Marty Ketola
Next week, Night Shift.

00:35:01.28
Clifton Campbell
Yep.

00:35:03.58
Clifton Campbell
Ooh.

00:35:04.25
Ben
Dark Knight shift.

00:35:05.82
Marty Ketola
The Dark Night Shift, where Batman and Michael Keaton ah take over a morgue and run a prostitution ring out of it.

00:35:07.58
Clifton Campbell
sure

00:35:07.68
Ben
Oh, yes.

00:35:12.63
Marty Ketola
Directed by, you know, starring, guest co-starring Henry Winkler. If you haven't seen Night Shift, watch Night Shift and then watch Batman 89 in a row and you'll just have your mind blown. If you want to toss in with your mom, you can do that as well. so

00:35:25.97
Clifton Campbell
That's quite a call.

00:35:27.10
Marty Ketola
And Multiplicity, if you're really strapping in for...

00:35:30.33
Ben
I need to see that one.

00:35:31.19
Clifton Campbell
You know, just gung ho. Just go to gung ho. Stop screwing around.

00:35:33.22
Marty Ketola
Gung-ho. Oh, shit.

00:35:34.81
Clifton Campbell
Stop screwing around.

00:35:34.82
Marty Ketola
We got to do Gung-ho.

00:35:35.50
Clifton Campbell
Go to gung ho. right, so the blade.

00:35:38.74
Marty Ketola
Okay, so just before The Matrix, seven months, as a matter of fact, this movie came out before.

00:35:43.47
Clifton Campbell
That's right.

00:35:44.38
Marty Ketola
what is Blade?

00:35:45.17
Clifton Campbell
That's right.

00:35:45.64
Marty Ketola
Blade?

00:35:47.27
Clifton Campbell
Blade. 1998, rated R, two hours. Logline, half vampire, half mortal man becomes a protector of the mortal race while slaying evil vampires.

00:35:58.11
Clifton Campbell
Directed by Stephen Norrington, written by David S. Goyer, starring Wesley Snipes. Storyline, in a world where vampires walk the earth, Blade has a goal.

00:36:07.19
Marty Ketola
in a world.

00:36:08.66
Clifton Campbell
His goal is to rid the world of all vampire evil.

00:36:10.75
Marty Ketola
dun,

00:36:11.93
Clifton Campbell
When Blade witnesses a vampire bite Dr. Karen Johnson, he fights away the beast and takes gennsen Jensen... Jensen? Jensen, sorry. Back to his hideout. Here, alongside Abraham Whistler, Blade attempts to help heal Jensen. The vampire Quinn, who was attacked by Blade, reports back to his master, Deacon Frost, who is planning a huge surprise for the human population.

00:36:33.52
Clifton Campbell
Dun-dun-dun!

00:36:34.80
Marty Ketola
dun. dutantan

00:36:36.06
Ben
So I didn't mean to like have a film that was like so comparable, but i feel like these two films are so comparable.

00:36:39.67
Marty Ketola
It's interesting. Yeah,

00:36:42.26
Ben
ah and but Looking at an hindsight, you know, Batman probably came out first. So maybe they were probably looking at Batman to like, sort of like, not necessarily copy, but sort of like, what's the broad structure that works?

00:36:52.86
Ben
And and can we, yeah.

00:36:52.89
Clifton Campbell
These are these are ten these are ten almost 10 years apart. So, yeah.

00:36:55.96
Ben
Yeah.

00:36:57.43
Clifton Campbell
but I mean, Blade's definitely...

00:36:57.54
Marty Ketola
because what did you get in between? Yeah, more Batman movies.

00:37:00.02
Clifton Campbell
yeah blades Yeah, Blades definitely learned from Batman and figured out from the other other you know superhero movies in between what to do and not to do.

00:37:00.87
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:37:08.73
Clifton Campbell
But it's also, I feel like it's got that matrixx Matrix aesthetic.

00:37:08.82
Marty Ketola
But they...

00:37:13.25
Clifton Campbell
It's leaning into what will eventually be the Matrix.

00:37:14.52
Ben
Matrix owes so much to this movie, like that sort of sci-fi kickboxing martial arts stuff.

00:37:16.66
Clifton Campbell
Oh, fuck, it's not even...

00:37:16.77
Marty Ketola
Well,

00:37:18.36
Clifton Campbell
If you yeah you know if you like leather and techno, boy, have I got a fucking movie for you, man.

00:37:20.16
Ben
um

00:37:21.26
Marty Ketola
it's so...

00:37:24.82
Marty Ketola
They just didn't have bullet time.

00:37:24.85
Clifton Campbell
If you think that that shit's cool, exactly.

00:37:28.15
Marty Ketola
They were right up to that.

00:37:28.38
Ben
ah With martial arts.

00:37:30.04
Marty Ketola
Seven months before, so they were probably making them around the same time, and it's just that this is like the last movie I saw.

00:37:35.86
Clifton Campbell
one One had that technology and one didn't, yeah.

00:37:38.30
Marty Ketola
Yeah, like the Batman, I said, it it was as far as you could go before they turned into CGI. and And Blade is about as far as those action-type sequences go before you end up at the Matrix, and that changes the game.

00:37:51.27
Marty Ketola
So kind of trippy like that.

00:37:52.32
Clifton Campbell
It does.

00:37:52.41
Ben
It does have some bad CGI in it though.

00:37:55.03
Marty Ketola
Well, once again, but when you thankfully it was committed to film, so you know you watch it on a big screen, it's a you know go it's almost charming, because I'm like, that's what they could do at the time, yeah.

00:37:55.10
Clifton Campbell
It does. as

00:38:04.41
Ben
Some of it you can get away with. Like the fact that like vampires, like they're disintegrating into like ash and and and stuff.

00:38:07.40
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:38:10.82
Ben
It's like, well, I guess I don't know what that would look like. So like, maybe it looks like this. ah You could kind of get away with that. But with the CGI blood, like there's, there's no escaping it.

00:38:16.25
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:38:16.59
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:38:18.98
Ben
Like no blood don't look like that.

00:38:19.29
Marty Ketola
of mine yeah

00:38:22.49
Clifton Campbell
That blood shower at the beginning is particularly gross.

00:38:25.53
Marty Ketola
yeah This movie is gross.

00:38:26.82
Clifton Campbell
Ugh.

00:38:27.10
Ben
Oh, I love, no.

00:38:28.66
Marty Ketola
Well, it's gross on purpose.

00:38:28.76
Ben
And I love that it just flu throws you in the same way Batman does. It's just like, what's this world?

00:38:32.47
Clifton Campbell
Very true.

00:38:32.72
Ben
This is so interesting. We're just following this guy.

00:38:33.71
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:38:34.22
Clifton Campbell
Very true. Mm-hmm.

00:38:35.20
Ben
and yeah, the blood shower is like, oh my gosh, what is this world that, like, I'm just like, I'm just, got I sat down. I just barely got my popcorn. Like, what is this thing that I've just been, ah

00:38:43.86
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:38:45.40
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Is that a blood shower? Is that Donald Logan the corner getting head while somebody sits next to him and watches?

00:38:47.03
Ben
effective of

00:38:50.92
Clifton Campbell
What the fuck am I seeing here?

00:38:51.42
Ben
but

00:38:52.32
Marty Ketola
In a Marvel movie?

00:38:54.33
Clifton Campbell
Anyway, yeah, it's it's ah it's a lot of fun.

00:38:55.67
Marty Ketola
no

00:38:58.81
Clifton Campbell
ah There's a point in this early, you know, because Blade shows up and they start he starts ripping through all the all the vampires. And then he ends up fighting in this big, like, round, tiled, tub-like, I don't know, it looks like a Russian room where you take to beat them with birch branches, you know?

00:39:16.46
Clifton Campbell
I don't know, some sort of steam room.

00:39:17.66
Ben
This was like a meatpacking plant or something like that, right?

00:39:17.82
Clifton Campbell
and And it's like, yeah, it's like, why are we fighting in here?

00:39:19.48
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:39:19.86
Ben
So...

00:39:21.05
Clifton Campbell
It's like, oh, don't worry. It's because it fucking looks cool. That's why we're fighting in here.

00:39:23.86
Marty Ketola
that

00:39:24.25
Clifton Campbell
And a lot of this movie is like, don't worry.

00:39:25.40
Ben
Why is the art gallery in Batman in like a big industrial thing?

00:39:27.11
Clifton Campbell
It just looks, yeah, don't worry about it. It just fucking looks cool, man.

00:39:29.46
Marty Ketola
because we need space to fight yeah are they fighting are they dancing isis like some break dancing spinning i'm a jump here and it's like it's like Bruce Lee would be very proud I think

00:39:30.53
Clifton Campbell
It looks fucking dope. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:39:41.37
Clifton Campbell
Mm hmm. Wesley's physicality in this movie is fucking on point. He is obviously martial arts trained. He's obviously in great fucking shape and he's obviously doing a lot of these stunts himself.

00:39:55.32
Clifton Campbell
ah So i I hats off to him. And, you know, I think this is is this right before or right after Demolition Man? Right before. Yeah.

00:40:02.52
Marty Ketola
No, this is after because demolition ends like 93.

00:40:03.96
Clifton Campbell
After.

00:40:04.80
Marty Ketola
So this is five years after.

00:40:05.88
Clifton Campbell
Ninety three. My bad. OK. So, but he's, he seems even, he seems even more physical and more finely tuned in this one than he is in Demolition Man, in my opinion.

00:40:08.41
Marty Ketola
Mm

00:40:15.03
Marty Ketola
hmm.

00:40:18.81
Ben
Yeah, there's like not a miss in like any of this. Like it's all just like choreographed to perfection. ah Like everything looks the way it was meant to be like in in all the the performers and the choreographers ah heads, I'm sure of it.

00:40:32.06
Clifton Campbell
I completely agree. And it's, Very close to that Matrix style of of martial arts. It's very close to the it's not it's not the wire stuff, but it's close to where they're getting, you know, it's so you watch this movie and you go, yeah, of course, the Matrix was six months after this.

00:40:49.21
Clifton Campbell
Like this movie is just knocking on the door of that.

00:40:49.35
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:40:51.97
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:40:52.06
Clifton Campbell
Just hello.

00:40:53.49
Marty Ketola
Right down to the dusters and everything, yeah.

00:40:55.38
Clifton Campbell
Exactly. That's so i'm talking about. You like techno, you like dusters, you like fucking, you know, action movie, martial arts and action movies and guns. Fucking you're going love both these movies. Guaranteed.

00:41:05.29
Marty Ketola
It's 98 saying, here comes the aughts right around the corner.

00:41:08.57
Ben
ah

00:41:08.77
Marty Ketola
Here we go.

00:41:11.00
Ben
The good odds before 9-11 came and ruined it.

00:41:13.98
Clifton Campbell
No shit. No, that's no, that's no shit right there. um the best scene in the whole movie is the rent-a-cop at the hospital shooting at him and him saying, motherfucker, are you, are you getting your goddamn mind?

00:41:25.91
Ben
yeah You don't need your mind?

00:41:27.88
Clifton Campbell
i just, every, I have seen this 25 fucking times and every time a scene happens, I laugh as loud. I'm just like, yep. Cause, cause they, what do they do? They immediately turn and just run down the hallway.

00:41:38.17
Ben
Right. Because he plays.

00:41:39.02
Clifton Campbell
They're just like, they're not fucking hilarious, man.

00:41:41.73
Marty Ketola
Why are they shooting at him?

00:41:42.00
Clifton Campbell
I love it.

00:41:42.80
Marty Ketola
They're going to shoot her. Yeah.

00:41:44.44
Ben
He plays the character so stoically, you know, so like he gets to have like those kind of moments where just like, oh, my gosh, he's like shows a little bit of personality when someone's just like getting in his way.

00:41:44.39
Clifton Campbell
Motherfucker, are you out of your goddamn mind?

00:41:53.50
Clifton Campbell
yeah yeah and wesley's so wesley's a good actor i mean he's especially with the comedic timing he probably pulled that shit off in demolition man so you know he he really like you said jumps into those moments and really makes the most of them that one in particular fucking hilarious

00:42:08.50
Ben
I like when the guy's like, you know, like the entrance is in the fridge and he's like looking at the fridge and like looks back at him like, no

00:42:12.25
Clifton Campbell
yeah i

00:42:19.86
Clifton Campbell
The dude, Kenneth, the dude, Kenneth Johnson, the blonde dude that that Tracy Lords drags to, you know, to the party. um i was lucky enough to meet Tracy Lords, by the way. She is extremely nice, nice lady.

00:42:34.01
Clifton Campbell
I always forget she's in this movie in the very beginning. But um he looks like ah he looks like the blonde dude from Jocks. ah the blonde, the blonde nerdy, the blonde nerdy tennis player from jocks.

00:42:45.88
Marty Ketola
yeah I'd have to watch that again.

00:42:49.60
Clifton Campbell
Anyways. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, Marty.

00:42:51.89
Marty Ketola
Oh, I'd say this is a vampire movie first and foremost. You can always get shelved under a comic book now, but when you watch it, it's kind of very pure vampire story, right?

00:42:57.75
Ben
But, you know, it gets.

00:43:04.47
Ben
But it gets like the modern vampire, right?

00:43:04.45
Marty Ketola
Well, Ben, what are you?

00:43:06.11
Ben
Like so many like like the, you know, a lot of vampire movies that are set in modern times or the future, they don't really work.

00:43:06.04
Marty Ketola
Yeah, yeah.

00:43:12.15
Ben
This one does, you know, like Dracula works like if they're set in like the old times, it works.

00:43:12.71
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

00:43:16.43
Ben
But in modern times, rarely.

00:43:19.67
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, I think i agree with Marty. I think it plays vampire first, comic book movie second. Comic book movie and the fact that it's trying to do this whole like, we're going to resurrect the worst vampire of all time type of thing.

00:43:29.37
Ben
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

00:43:30.75
Clifton Campbell
And that's very comic bookish, you know, the tech using the technology and all that to achieve that type of thing. But for the most part, you're right.

00:43:35.51
Marty Ketola
And he's Wesley's doing like

00:43:37.17
Clifton Campbell
it's It's vampires, yeah.

00:43:38.90
Marty Ketola
And he's doing like the Spider-Man poses before Spider-Man even happened where it's like, that feels like a comic book when he lands in the, you know, or he's still on the side or, you know, all that shit.

00:43:42.81
Clifton Campbell
Oh, so many of them.

00:43:47.45
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:43:49.98
Marty Ketola
But this is a very adult film is what I was leading towards is kids would probably love it, but yeah, They were like, well, Batman Forever didn't do that well, so let's do, why Blade in 98? Because it's low risk. We can sneak it out as this kind of action horror film, and then boom, it should explode it. They didn't know it was going to go that well. And strangely enough, the person who wrote this wrote Batman Begins, so go figure. Right.

00:44:18.47
Clifton Campbell
$45 million dollars budget, did $70 million in US, and then $130 million worldwide. So definitely a big hit.

00:44:25.21
Marty Ketola
Game changer, man.

00:44:26.24
Clifton Campbell
and

00:44:26.61
Marty Ketola
Game changer.

00:44:28.50
Clifton Campbell
I remember it being a big hit on DVD back then.

00:44:28.95
Ben
I imagine the DVD sales are just incredible.

00:44:30.61
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, I was going to say, i remember it being huge on DVD. Absolutely huge.

00:44:34.16
Marty Ketola
it's little paper case, they'll snap thing on the side because it was New Line Cinema and they hadn't gone to plastic cases yet.

00:44:37.50
Ben
Oh, I hate those.

00:44:41.88
Ben
Still bought it, but I hate those some cases.

00:44:43.31
Marty Ketola
Right. Yeah.

00:44:45.53
Clifton Campbell
I like the ah I like the gadgets in this one quite a bit. You know, he does have his own personal kind of cue. You know, that's basically what Chris Christopherson's role is, is to be his personal cue while he runs around being the James Bond that kills vampires.

00:44:58.92
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:44:59.77
Clifton Campbell
And it's a lot of fun. You know, he's got all these weird, you know, he's got the UV light that he burns that big, big fat Pearl with. And and by the way, speaking of which Pearl. That is some fantastic makeup.

00:45:09.81
Clifton Campbell
The appliance is just great. I like the whole, it's just so, it reminds me a bit of Seven, kind of that gluttony, that grotesque sort of, you know, thing.

00:45:16.92
Ben
Sort of, yeah.

00:45:18.04
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:45:18.76
Clifton Campbell
And it's really well done. And Pearl's kind of just gross and kind of weirdly childlike at the same time. And burning him with that UV light's kind of creepy and fun at the same time as well.

00:45:29.37
Clifton Campbell
Anyway, but yeah, he moved.

00:45:29.50
Marty Ketola
He moved.

00:45:31.86
Clifton Campbell
I like those gadgets a lot. I think he's got a lot of cool, you know, vampire killing gadgets and different things that he can use. Kind of fun. Like kind like Batman.

00:45:39.78
Ben
Although how many ways does he need to kill them in the same way? Like they all explode like in one shot. Like, why don't just like make a million of the one thing?

00:45:48.48
Clifton Campbell
That's a good point.

00:45:48.82
Ben
ah

00:45:49.85
Clifton Campbell
Do they ever explain why his sword works? Like he just stabs.

00:45:52.84
Ben
It's silver.

00:45:53.92
Clifton Campbell
It's over. OK, gotcha. All right. All right. I maybe missed that. OK.

00:45:58.30
Marty Ketola
Why do they keep running behind things? The vampires, you look at, I saw the Komara, they're running back there. And they run they like to run around a lot, and then they attack, right? It's like, well, you're giving yourself away.

00:46:12.31
Clifton Campbell
Maybe they're using their speed to confuse their prey.

00:46:14.75
Marty Ketola
Yeah, they're skittering.

00:46:16.69
Clifton Campbell
They're skittering. Yeah, that's what they're doing. Vampires, they skitter.

00:46:20.15
Marty Ketola
So the ending of the movie, I got a lot to say about that, but I thought about it. Wait a minute. If everybody's a vampire, well, then what?

00:46:31.67
Marty Ketola
Because what's like he's like, Stephen Dorff's character is like, to turn everybody, you blah, blah. I'm like, well, is there going to be humans left? Or is it just going everybody's going to be vampire, then it's sinners, right?

00:46:41.54
Ben
Didn't he just want to become the vampire god?

00:46:41.80
Marty Ketola
Then we're all peaceful and happy together. Yeah.

00:46:44.57
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, it's like, yeah i get it. I mean, it was kind of a i did have a, it was kind of a plan with a few plot holes in it, right?

00:46:48.52
Marty Ketola
Don't think about it too much, right?

00:46:51.78
Clifton Campbell
Where he was just like, I don't know, what I just want to do is be the vampire god.

00:46:52.60
Marty Ketola
He didn't think it through.

00:46:55.30
Clifton Campbell
We'll figure everything else out afterwards. All right? Just fucking get the first part done.

00:46:58.81
Marty Ketola
Never a good plan. You know.

00:47:00.60
Ben
And he's not always being truthful either.

00:47:00.60
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:47:00.75
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:47:02.04
Ben
Like, you know, he he has his own like Bob there, Quinn, his own little sidekick there that he's just like sort of like, oh, i'm going to be naughty. I'm going to be a vampire god. And he's like, yeah, sure you are. And I'm like, no, no, I'm going to betray you for his chance I can.

00:47:12.21
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. Sure, Belloc, don't open the arc. But, you know, I mean, how many times going to see these movies where they put everything in a circle, the artifact, and artifact go boom?

00:47:16.90
Clifton Campbell
Thank you.

00:47:22.75
Marty Ketola
mean, we've seen that happen in so many movies. But this was still before they kind of cracked the code where they were like, well, this is kind of how it's supposed to end, right? Because it's kind of, and it's also at its core, it's an action movie.

00:47:35.98
Marty Ketola
So it's supposed to hit those kind of beats too.

00:47:36.70
Ben
Yeah, it's contained there.

00:47:37.98
Marty Ketola
so

00:47:38.45
Ben
Like they're not building up to like, oh, what's this big plan?

00:47:38.99
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:47:40.89
Ben
It's like, no, no, let's just get it over with.

00:47:41.69
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:47:42.53
Ben
Let's just contain it to the third act and get it over with. Kind of like the Joker thing.

00:47:46.92
Clifton Campbell
it's a It's a very cool movie.

00:47:50.07
Ben
Oh, absolutely.

00:47:50.36
Clifton Campbell
looks It looks cool, feels cool. Blade is cool. Doesn't put up with any any shit.

00:47:54.52
Ben
You can wear sunglasses all the time because he's a day walker.

00:47:56.37
Clifton Campbell
here's fucking Yeah, exactly.

00:47:57.18
Ben
It makes sense.

00:47:58.05
Clifton Campbell
He's a fucking badass. It makes sense. Smacked the shit out of Cops shoot him and he looks at him and laughs at him and asks him if they're fucking crazy. You know, he's cool, right? um And that's that's usually vampires about like sexuality, right?

00:48:10.75
Clifton Campbell
And things like that. And instead...

00:48:11.45
Marty Ketola
Well, there's that's in here too.

00:48:11.67
Ben
And this is, this is, yeah.

00:48:13.27
Clifton Campbell
This is, but but they lean more into the action and more into the the coolness and sort of that invulnerability of a vampire that's that's, you know, kind of fun.

00:48:16.15
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. huh

00:48:23.98
Clifton Campbell
And I feel like they drag her along so that you can be in her place and kind of watch Blade fucking do what he does, right, and be a part of it.

00:48:24.73
Ben
Yeah.

00:48:32.34
Ben
so So Karen versus Vicki Vale, who do you think is better as like a, ah like the female counterpart?

00:48:39.22
Marty Ketola
Karen's more durable. She can be thrown across buildings and lethal weapon style, snap the shoulder back in. and

00:48:45.11
Clifton Campbell
there a Yeah.

00:48:45.24
Ben
It really feels like she contributes more, doesn't it?

00:48:45.51
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah.

00:48:46.20
Marty Ketola
the little

00:48:47.29
Clifton Campbell
and But Vicki Vale may not surprise you.

00:48:49.27
Marty Ketola
in cheese

00:48:49.87
Clifton Campbell
There's no telling, you know, she's does a lot of jazzercise and aerobics and, you know, there's no telling. There's no telling.

00:48:55.30
Marty Ketola
But can she cure vampirism?

00:48:57.21
Clifton Campbell
so

00:49:00.09
Clifton Campbell
Uh, the one,

00:49:00.06
Marty Ketola
Wait a minute, that you're a bat, you're a vampire. but oh

00:49:04.22
Ben
It also does a really good job of like crafting this world like with the glyphs and and everything.

00:49:04.35
Clifton Campbell
the one,

00:49:08.22
Ben
like you You feel like this vampire world is very lived in with the the familiars and and and all that.

00:49:13.24
Clifton Campbell
I like the hanging Bible texts.

00:49:16.47
Ben
Yeah, yeah.

00:49:16.73
Clifton Campbell
All those.

00:49:17.05
Marty Ketola
Oh, yeah.

00:49:17.21
Clifton Campbell
Those are very, very fucking cool.

00:49:18.58
Marty Ketola
Just smash them up.

00:49:18.81
Clifton Campbell
I really like that.

00:49:19.37
Marty Ketola
Who cares? you know

00:49:20.02
Clifton Campbell
and And in fact, I like the idea of like the vampires having a Bible.

00:49:20.82
Marty Ketola
what

00:49:23.14
Clifton Campbell
that may that's that That kind of lore building to me is very cool.

00:49:23.51
Marty Ketola
whom

00:49:26.40
Clifton Campbell
Like, oh yeah, that vampires would have a Bible maybe.

00:49:28.60
Ben
course they would.

00:49:28.68
Clifton Campbell
you That's kind of neat.

00:49:29.20
Ben
Yeah.

00:49:30.10
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, it's fucking crazy. At one point.

00:49:31.99
Ben
Probably written by their grandfather instead of their like great age and ancestors, but still.

00:49:39.45
Marty Ketola
surprised Leonardo da Vinci wasn't in there somewhere, you know.

00:49:44.44
Ben
That you know of.

00:49:44.47
Marty Ketola
Well, you know, Quest of the Delta Knights. Hey, Ancient Artifact. Boom. like Like we were saying on Hudson Hawk. Boom.

00:49:53.52
Clifton Campbell
Boom.

00:49:53.53
Marty Ketola
oh what Fifth Element. Boom.

00:49:57.56
Clifton Campbell
My, my big, did you really?

00:49:57.66
Marty Ketola
i saw this at the drive-in. Yeah.

00:50:02.22
Clifton Campbell
can't remember.

00:50:02.59
Marty Ketola
I think I saw it with Scream 2. Hmm.

00:50:05.05
Clifton Campbell
think I saw this.

00:50:05.14
Ben
I was too young for it. i had to see it in college on on DVD for the first time.

00:50:06.86
Clifton Campbell
I may have, I may have waited until DVD. Uh,

00:50:11.58
Ben
Blade Trinity was my first Blade theatrical movie.

00:50:14.78
Marty Ketola
Oh, isn't that your favorite of those movies?

00:50:15.48
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's my that's my favorite, actually. Yeah, I like that one.

00:50:18.03
Ben
Is it really?

00:50:19.00
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, just because it's got it's got the smart aleck. It's got the hot girl. it's like the It's the group, you know, kind of like a D&D quest type of thing, right? I really enjoy that one. I think it's fun. It's one where i just unplug it, don't take it seriously, and just kind of enjoy its its silliness. And it's like it's got Parker Posey in it and she's fucking great. so

00:50:37.57
Ben
I'm kind of with you. I don't like it, but you know, I do, I don't hate it the way other people do. Like other people treat it like it's just garbage.

00:50:43.10
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, no...

00:50:44.73
Ben
It's like, you're right. It's, it's, true it's fun.

00:50:45.21
Clifton Campbell
I will absolutely.

00:50:46.29
Ben
It's, it's

00:50:47.53
Clifton Campbell
it's It's just popcorn fodder, right?

00:50:49.59
Ben
right.

00:50:49.57
Clifton Campbell
Like, just, you know, it's nothing, anything I'm going to, like, fucking no hill I'm going to die on for Blade Trinity by any stretch of the imagination. But if you put it on at the same time, you're like hey, man, pass on popcorn. You know, I'm not fine with that.

00:51:01.46
Ben
watch it as a, as a trilogy on a, on a rainy Sunday or something.

00:51:03.93
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, fuck yeah. Sure. ah My...

00:51:06.20
Marty Ketola
I don't even remember Blade 2.

00:51:08.95
Ben
Oh, Blade II is awesome.

00:51:09.20
Clifton Campbell
it's the It's the one where they try to bring the fucking dude. The dude from the Middle East, the ancient vampire shows up and he starts coming back. Isn't that the one?

00:51:17.17
Marty Ketola
Isn't that what we just watched?

00:51:17.46
Clifton Campbell
Or is that playing Trinity?

00:51:19.44
Ben
That's Trinity. That's Trinity.

00:51:20.66
Clifton Campbell
Trinity.

00:51:20.88
Ben
um

00:51:21.06
Clifton Campbell
Which one's two then?

00:51:23.02
Ben
That's the one Guillermo del Toro did where like there's like that virus that sort of infects vampires. So like it's vampire monsters eating vampires and now vampires are kind of the the prey.

00:51:32.15
Marty Ketola
I think I have to watch that again because I don't remember it.

00:51:33.01
Clifton Campbell
that's right.

00:51:34.39
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:51:34.94
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, I've forgotten about that one.

00:51:36.37
Ben
It's awesome.

00:51:36.70
Clifton Campbell
Holy shit.

00:51:36.85
Ben
No, it's just as good as this one, in my opinion.

00:51:37.15
Marty Ketola
Hmm. Okay.

00:51:39.39
Clifton Campbell
Okay. Interesting. Interesting.

00:51:42.71
Marty Ketola
What about the Blade TV movie?

00:51:42.77
Clifton Campbell
My...

00:51:44.31
Marty Ketola
did I never saw that. it was

00:51:46.36
Ben
i saw it. I do not remember it. It did not land on me.

00:51:48.50
Marty Ketola
Okay. What about Deadpool vs. Wolverine? Is that another Blade movie?

00:51:53.72
Ben
Hate it.

00:51:54.38
Marty Ketola
Yeah, because I know you don't like that multiverse stuff, but did you enjoy Wesley coming back?

00:51:57.98
Ben
I love multiverses when done right, but nobody does it right.

00:52:00.19
Marty Ketola
When done right.

00:52:01.30
Ben
they're just like, let's just bring in every character we can just say, yeah, it's a multiverse.

00:52:01.27
Marty Ketola
Okay. Okay.

00:52:05.98
Ben
Hate it. um No, and Deadpool, I hate too. It's just so lazy to look at the screen.

00:52:10.67
Clifton Campbell
What are you talking about?

00:52:12.18
Marty Ketola
Well, it's Ryan Reynolds in Trinity as a different character.

00:52:12.44
Clifton Campbell
Come on.

00:52:12.79
Ben
Deadpool?

00:52:17.05
Ben
Yeah.

00:52:17.05
Clifton Campbell
but You know, he he is kind of Deadpool in Trinity.

00:52:20.36
Ben
He's Deadpool in everything that he does.

00:52:20.52
Clifton Campbell
It's weird.

00:52:22.97
Ben
has one note.

00:52:23.09
Clifton Campbell
Eh. Eh. I'm not even going to, again, not a hill I'm going to die on is Ryan Riddle's acting by a stretch of the imagination.

00:52:31.22
Ben
Sorry, Marty, you you triggered me by mentioning that movie.

00:52:33.93
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, right?

00:52:35.10
Marty Ketola
you know, it's part of, you know, there's Wesley Snipes' blade again, so it had to come up.

00:52:35.72
Clifton Campbell
That's hilarious.

00:52:39.48
Clifton Campbell
That's

00:52:40.38
Ben
Yeah, but it was meaningless.

00:52:40.48
Clifton Campbell
It's a new tech...

00:52:41.66
Ben
It was so meaningless. It's just like, well, he was a...

00:52:43.40
Clifton Campbell
It was fun.

00:52:45.88
Ben
who says

00:52:45.94
Clifton Campbell
was fun.

00:52:45.91
Marty Ketola
right

00:52:47.54
Ben
oh see

00:52:49.21
Clifton Campbell
and this is... See, we got to start...

00:52:50.26
Ben
Reels, shall I see you guys in our other show, Reels of Justice?

00:52:54.07
Clifton Campbell
Right? We're going to we're gonna have to to keep bringing them on and trigger them like this, man.

00:52:55.74
Marty Ketola
That would be a crazy episode.

00:52:57.92
Clifton Campbell
It's a lot of fun. Just keep poking at their weaknesses.

00:53:00.12
Marty Ketola
Oh, maybe it'll lead to another Wesley Blade flick at some point. Who knows?

00:53:03.64
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:53:04.46
Marty Ketola
Couldn't think it

00:53:04.66
Clifton Campbell
I wouldn't be... I wouldn't be a i would it would not be

00:53:08.82
Ben
I wouldn't mind, they would have to do old man blade.

00:53:09.62
Clifton Campbell
Completely opposed.

00:53:11.02
Ben
They would have to do it under that framing.

00:53:11.77
Marty Ketola
would happen.

00:53:12.70
Ben
Don't make them like this, like do an old man blade.

00:53:13.59
Marty Ketola
Because he does age because he's human, yeah.

00:53:16.93
Clifton Campbell
I would like to see a Blade Gambit crossover movie. That's what I would like to see.

00:53:20.63
Ben
No, like Logan, do Logan, but blade, like something like that.

00:53:24.34
Clifton Campbell
That would be all right, too.

00:53:24.63
Marty Ketola
Hmm.

00:53:25.96
Clifton Campbell
I'd be okay with that. i I really want them to start trying to focus on some of these other Marvel characters because they like they keep bringing up like a lot of fringe or farther outs.

00:53:38.15
Clifton Campbell
Anyways, not not part of what we're talking about.

00:53:40.63
Marty Ketola
But that is what they were doing before this time period, though.

00:53:41.17
Clifton Campbell
here's my one

00:53:43.93
Marty Ketola
Go ahead.

00:53:44.42
Clifton Campbell
here's Here's my one problem with this movie. ah It's the bad over cranking during the chase scenes and with the car.

00:53:51.06
Marty Ketola
Yeah, that's of its time. Yeah.

00:53:52.98
Clifton Campbell
It looked terrible, but that's the only bad special effect in the movie, in my opinion.

00:53:57.72
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:53:57.78
Clifton Campbell
Like everything else.

00:53:57.89
Ben
it's like 15 seconds of terrible it's over it's over before you know it

00:53:59.60
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, i got to call it out because we're talking about the movie's good spots, of bad spots. But for the most part, the movie is even in 98 from 98 still holding up really well.

00:54:10.26
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:54:11.26
Ben
yeah no the third act and the cgi blood like those are like really the only big flaws in in it

00:54:11.26
Clifton Campbell
You know, I think it's really holding up. It's fun to watch.

00:54:16.95
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That over cranking again. I just, but for me, over cranking is a sore spot. That's one of my like top. Yeah. Things.

00:54:24.82
Ben
Yeah, you wonder, like, what's the point of it? Like, are they supposed to be driving super fast? No, it's just like style, you know?

00:54:28.82
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. It's, it's, it's, I guess you're trying to show how fast it looks to blade when he's doing it or something, or I don't know. It's weird.

00:54:36.14
Marty Ketola
Or just, you know, you can punch slow and then we speed up this two seconds ago, make it look like you hit him real quick. You know, and you lose like every other frame, that type of look.

00:54:45.62
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:54:46.78
Marty Ketola
I'm like, 1998, you're taking me back

00:54:51.70
Clifton Campbell
To be fair, the movie comes up with some really fun and creative ways to kill vampires, which I always appreciate. If you're going to have a vampire hunter type of movie, you should have a bunch of different ways to kill them. It shouldn't always just be a stake through the heart. That's boring.

00:55:03.13
Clifton Campbell
You know?

00:55:03.24
Ben
He's got his own Batarang thing. He's got a sword.

00:55:04.97
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah.

00:55:06.00
Ben
He's got the garlic.

00:55:06.26
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:55:07.16
Ben
He's got a, like that zip line thing. They just pulled out and beheaded the guy. That was cool.

00:55:11.80
Clifton Campbell
he got the flash He's got the flashlight.

00:55:12.11
Ben
Uh,

00:55:13.64
Clifton Campbell
He's got the garlic waters. all the but you know it's It's great. It's a lot of fun. to to you know And again, all these gadgets that his personal cue has made for him to go out and kill vampires.

00:55:25.88
Marty Ketola
So yeah, this was the...

00:55:26.20
Ben
And a lot of great one-liners for him too. Just, you know, some motherfuckers always trying to skate up, skate uphill.

00:55:28.52
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:55:31.44
Ben
And even like, even ones that aren't one-liners, but like the thirst always wins.

00:55:32.76
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's good one.

00:55:35.44
Ben
Like that phrase just sticks with you.

00:55:39.06
Marty Ketola
So stay thirsty, friends.

00:55:40.98
Ben
Stay thirsty.

00:55:41.03
Clifton Campbell
Stay thirsty.

00:55:41.70
Ben
Stay thirsty, my friends.

00:55:42.07
Clifton Campbell
Stay thirsty, my friends.

00:55:43.19
Marty Ketola
but

00:55:43.66
Ben
That's funny. ah Frost is kind of interesting.

00:55:45.23
Clifton Campbell
There's a...

00:55:46.54
Ben
He's like a little young, ah like he he hates like the old guard. So he's like sort of like almost what Kylo Ren maybe should have been, you know, like sort of like ah a little rebellious, but a little hateful in everything.

00:55:54.42
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:55:56.39
Marty Ketola
Now, The old guard, were they completely useless because they didn't fight back?

00:55:58.35
Clifton Campbell
hes He's a...

00:56:03.21
Marty Ketola
They didn't seem to have any powers, but we're the pure blood. We run everything. But yeah, you never do anything.

00:56:09.79
Ben
I think, you know, a lot of old guards like think they have more power than they do until like they they make everyone mad and they just rise up and take stuff.

00:56:13.10
Marty Ketola
That's what it's supposed to represent. Oh,

00:56:16.31
Ben
It's like, oh, I thought you just respected it.

00:56:17.23
Clifton Campbell
it's it's very yeah It's very communist, right? Like, you know, once the workers seize the means of production, you know what i'm saying?

00:56:22.14
Marty Ketola
um they end up in Russia.

00:56:26.17
Ben
Right.

00:56:26.30
Clifton Campbell
So it's like, you know, all all these guys that think to all the people that work for them, you know, they have him under their boot and they finally go, fuck this guy. And the next thing you know, you're not that powerful. you it's one of the It's one of those things where they talk about billionaires building these survival bunkers and shit and they're going have all these guards.

00:56:41.78
Clifton Campbell
And everybody's like, what's the stop the guards from just killing the billionaire and just taking over the bunker with all the food? Like what what's the incentive?

00:56:48.92
Ben
It always happens. You just got to push them far enough or to the point where it's like, yeah okay, why am I doing this?

00:56:52.24
Clifton Campbell
what's Yeah. What's the fucking incentive? Exactly.

00:56:54.42
Ben
i' like

00:56:54.72
Clifton Campbell
What's the incentive? Yeah. Anyway. um So there's a scene where ah it's later on. it's It's as Blade's trying to go into that vampire club. Right. And she's going with him. she He gives her the gun. And as they're walking up, they're like 75 feet from the club. He starts explaining to her how to kill vampires. And it's like.

00:57:14.94
Clifton Campbell
maybe five minutes earlier, this conversation would have been a better, you know, fit than right before I'm 20 feet away from a living fucking vampire where you're like, shoot him in the head or you're fucking dead.

00:57:19.81
Ben
Yeah.

00:57:25.70
Clifton Campbell
and i' like, Oh, well, great. Okay. That's good to know. Okay, good. Anything else I should know? Don't get bit. Okay. Awesome. Anything else?

00:57:31.35
Marty Ketola
Well, it's a refresher course because Chris Gerstofferson kind of told her the basics and he's giving her the refresher course.

00:57:33.59
Clifton Campbell
Oh, nevermind. They're here.

00:57:40.02
Ben
yeah

00:57:40.09
Marty Ketola
Why?

00:57:40.13
Clifton Campbell
Gotcha.

00:57:40.49
Marty Ketola
Because it's better to do it in a walk and talk because it's an action movie.

00:57:44.25
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, no, I hear you. it's it's and that's And he's funny it's fantastic.

00:57:45.69
Ben
Which isn't he great too, Chris Christopherson? Like, he is he is Whistler. Yeah.

00:57:50.02
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:57:50.20
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah, he's fantastic.

00:57:50.53
Ben
ah

00:57:51.32
Clifton Campbell
He sells that shit really well.

00:57:51.93
Ben
He's so gruff and mean, and but like has that kind of heart but beneath it all. um

00:57:56.92
Clifton Campbell
there's, there's such a great bro moment when a fucking blade has to take the medicine, the anti-venotoxin or thing. And, and he straps himself in and bites the thing down and injects himself and and Whistler grab, they have that bro fucking, you know, handhold thing where he's, while he's just strapped into the chair and going through all the things, it's such a great, and just total bro moment. A lot of fun.

00:58:22.49
Ben
maybe he's the Alfred of this movie he's

00:58:22.93
Clifton Campbell
What a, yeah Running poor Donal's face along the train, that's that's not nice. That's some Looney Tunes ass shit. You shouldn't do that.

00:58:30.13
Ben
a vampire he's a vampire

00:58:30.69
Clifton Campbell
That's not nice. I hear you.

00:58:34.64
Marty Ketola
They'll regenerate, you know. And the regenerating vampire, that's a unique thing to this too. you know' Usually in most movies, you stake them, they're gone. But this movie, they just keep regrowing.

00:58:46.39
Clifton Campbell
Keep regrowing. Yeah, I do love the fact that they're trying to cut him open and he pops up and just bites that dude in the fucking neck and then he's off and running. you know and and i i thought that was dope really really cool you know yeah real horror movie type shit exactly that's what i mean you know you get all this comedy and this action and then in middle of it there is some actual kind of moments of like oh like like the blood coming down on everybody's faces and that dude's just surrounded by him and starting to freak out as they're leaning in you know at the blood party it's fucking dope dude it's really really good you know

00:58:59.22
Ben
real horror movie sort of yeah moment.

00:59:00.89
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:59:01.06
Ben
is just...

00:59:09.34
Marty Ketola
It'd be longer.

00:59:15.62
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:59:15.94
Ben
Oh, it's iconic. It's so iconic.

00:59:22.94
Clifton Campbell
But yeah, i'm I'm with you. I think it's a little long. If it was me, modern day, if it was coming out nowadays and and like I was in a studio, be like, man, find 10 minutes. Just go 150, find 10 minutes.

00:59:30.86
Marty Ketola
it'd be longer

00:59:34.56
Clifton Campbell
Or yeah, or make it five acts and show me another 30 minutes worth of shit, right? But I think this movie is, a if you just find that...

00:59:43.64
Marty Ketola
More Udo Kier.

00:59:45.59
Clifton Campbell
Get a little, wouldn't mind a little more Udo Kuder. Also the dude from that plays Khan's second is Khan Noonien Soong's second is in this movie.

00:59:52.32
Marty Ketola
Oh, that's right. Yeah.

00:59:54.27
Clifton Campbell
Hell yeah. But I'm sure you could find a little bit to trim off just to get that pacing a little bit tighter. um But that's just a minor complaint for the movie. Like, I think it's a lot of fun to watch.

01:00:07.67
Ben
Just that over-craking thing and you got it.

01:00:09.69
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, go and fix that shit. and yeah, that's a half a star I'm taking off of that, man. I have to. don't choice.

01:00:13.81
Ben
What? A whole half? No, it's not worth half a star.

01:00:15.32
Clifton Campbell
A whole half a star.

01:00:16.09
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:00:16.82
Clifton Campbell
whole half a star, man.

01:00:19.29
Marty Ketola
So the success of this allows Fox to finally figure out how to make an X-Men movie.

01:00:20.02
Clifton Campbell
yeah

01:00:24.50
Marty Ketola
And then we start getting more ah minor characters things pop out, like Daredevil and Elektra. And what was the last ah mainstream superhero movie before the release of Iron Man?

01:00:39.15
Ben
Hulk?

01:00:39.07
Marty Ketola
Ghost Rider.

01:00:40.82
Clifton Campbell
Ghostwriter.

01:00:40.98
Ben
Oh.

01:00:41.56
Marty Ketola
And so it's interesting to see how Blade kind of... It's like, well let's make let's make a whole bunch more try to be Blade, try to capture that Blade magic before the the Switch was flipped. yeah

01:00:53.08
Clifton Campbell
Was Jonah Hex before or after book Ghostwriter?

01:00:57.21
Ben
Feels like after.

01:00:57.14
Marty Ketola
That's probably after.

01:01:00.25
Clifton Campbell
was that Was that during the MCU run or was that interesting?

01:01:00.38
Marty Ketola
i think that's a post-Iron Man world, I think.

01:01:04.79
Clifton Campbell
Okay, gotcha.

01:01:05.34
Marty Ketola
Because didn't you work that? Wasn't that at your theater?

01:01:07.47
Clifton Campbell
Oh, yeah. i they we're go it Yeah, and it ran at the theater for sure.

01:01:09.40
Marty Ketola
Well, you probably ran Iron Man before it, I'm guessing. right.

01:01:14.22
Clifton Campbell
I can't remember where they order.

01:01:15.35
Marty Ketola
Well, we're not going to look at IMDb in the middle of the podcast, so you can just write in and let us know.

01:01:16.98
Clifton Campbell
I'll look, I'm gonna look it up. I'm look it up, man. So go ahead. 20, yeah, 2010. There it is. Yep. 2010. Um,

01:01:22.52
Marty Ketola
I'm thinking it's probably like a year or so after

01:01:25.50
Ben
It feels like that to me too.

01:01:27.26
Clifton Campbell
so.

01:01:31.10
Clifton Campbell
twenty ten um so

01:01:32.22
Ben
Boy, Jonah Hex, man, that is a stacked cast, but just like, they do nothing.

01:01:36.95
Clifton Campbell
It was not good. That was not good. The last thing I'll say about this movie that was kind of one of the things that I i kind of like yeah is ah Stephen Dorff at one point makes some faces that look like... ah you know, his orgasmic faces while he's got the blood on him and all that stuff. And just like, don't want to see his even door make that face. Like, don't want to see that.

01:01:57.14
Clifton Campbell
But other than that, he's, he's a great actor and he's really fun to hate.

01:01:57.30
Ben
He does though.

01:01:58.55
Marty Ketola
yeah Yeah.

01:02:02.41
Clifton Campbell
He's, and he's one of those guys that he's really fun to dislike.

01:02:02.62
Ben
Yeah.

01:02:05.29
Clifton Campbell
And, an and as a bad guy, you know, he really leans into it and you can really sort of be like, yeah, kill this motherfucker. I don't, I don't like this guy at all. ahead and take him out. I feel no, I have no sympathy or no empathy.

01:02:16.10
Ben
He's overconfident. Yeah. He's, uh,

01:02:17.96
Clifton Campbell
I just don't like him. He's terrible, you know. And he's real good at that.

01:02:22.42
Marty Ketola
And I guess another reason this this was part of, no, not not a reason, but it's part of that late 90s vampire renaissance. you're First you get your interview with a vampire, and then after Buffy and all of that. we were very obsessed with this type of stuff around this time period, so this fit really nicely into that.

01:02:43.19
Marty Ketola
I think. Yeah.

01:02:48.18
Ben
Underworld. Sets up Underworld for all that.

01:02:49.73
Marty Ketola
Oh, that's right. Yeah. You don't get Underworld without

01:02:51.67
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's ah that's a really good call. You definitely don't get Underworld without this for sure. That's a good call. I really liked that first Underworld too. It's been a while since I've seen it. But I liked it. Much like Blade, I feel like that's very cool, has a very cool aesthetic, and it's a very cool kind of movie when you watch it. You know i mean

01:03:07.93
Ben
Yeah, no, i I'll stand up for that movie any day.

01:03:10.84
Clifton Campbell
what mean? We need to revisit that one at some point. Well, anybody got anything else on Blade starring Wesley Snipes from 1998? Rated R two hours?

01:03:21.30
Marty Ketola
yes

01:03:21.62
Ben
ah

01:03:21.79
Clifton Campbell
He does.

01:03:22.27
Marty Ketola
Steven Dorff really likes to smoke.

01:03:22.65
Ben
Like that.

01:03:24.73
Clifton Campbell
He does. this

01:03:27.35
Marty Ketola
He was even doing vaping ads when vapes were brand new. We could switch a new way. We could still be having our cigarettes. you know wonder if he's still smoking. so

01:03:36.50
Ben
Those lungs regenerate, right? So why not?

01:03:38.68
Marty Ketola
Right? He's like Wolverine. He's smoking those cigars all day long.

01:03:42.52
Clifton Campbell
one of the things I told my wife is that if I make it to 75, I'm going to be, umm you know, i I'm starting to take care of myself, working out a little bit more, you know, and even build it better. Cause I'm getting into those years where, you know, you got to pay the, pay the, pay the toll.

01:03:53.50
Clifton Campbell
And, but if I make it to 75, I'm to start smoking. Just fucking my birthday.

01:03:57.56
Ben
Yeah.

01:03:59.26
Clifton Campbell
a walking to seven 11 and be like, guess what today is motherfuckers pack of Marlboro red. Let's go.

01:04:03.80
Marty Ketola
And then he'll take one hit and be like, oh, I

01:04:05.36
Ben
Meth, I've never tried that. let's Let's give it a go.

01:04:06.74
Clifton Campbell
yeah Fucking get some meth. Let's do that shit.

01:04:08.73
Ben
oh

01:04:09.66
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Fuck.

01:04:10.04
Marty Ketola
want to get freaky with it.

01:04:10.18
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:04:10.58
Ben
You know what else I've never done?

01:04:10.66
Clifton Campbell
Let's go.

01:04:11.62
Ben
ah Motorcycle racing.

01:04:13.50
Clifton Campbell
exactly exactly powerboat racing let's fucking do this shit you know I don't give a fuck

01:04:15.44
Marty Ketola
So you're going to turn into Danny.

01:04:19.51
Ben
i don't want to be in a nursing home, so this is the time to just like try all that stuff that I was like, well, you know, that might hurt.

01:04:19.92
Marty Ketola
the

01:04:22.84
Clifton Campbell
yes fucking you know shot down in a blaze of glory sir why the fuck not you know

01:04:25.31
Marty Ketola
Well, that's, that's,

01:04:30.19
Marty Ketola
That's what the Danny DeVito's character on It's Always Sunny is doing. You know, he's like, oh, I get freaky with it.

01:04:34.14
Clifton Campbell
okay

01:04:35.59
Marty Ketola
I only got a few years left, you know.

01:04:37.94
Clifton Campbell
that's I kind of feel like that's so much preferable.

01:04:38.17
Marty Ketola
think

01:04:40.58
Clifton Campbell
But anyway, um yeah and Ben, we cut we cut you off. Did you have something else you wanted to say?

01:04:45.88
Ben
Oh, no. I was just going to wrap it up.

01:04:48.44
Clifton Campbell
Okay. So what do you give it?

01:04:50.68
Ben
Same. Same as Batman.

01:04:51.93
Clifton Campbell
Four?

01:04:52.24
Ben
This is an eight star or of our sorry, a four star movie with the heart.

01:04:52.78
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

01:04:55.76
Ben
It sets everything up so well. It's a well lived in universe. The hero is frigging cool. The villain is compelling enough for it. Everything just moves. Nothing feels not.

01:05:06.60
Ben
Well, the the third act could use some work. So that drags it down.

01:05:09.21
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, it's it It's not wholly broken by any stretch of the imagination.

01:05:09.60
Ben
um Maybe maybe some trimming, like you said, a few left few tweaks, but nothing major. Yeah, I love these movies. No.

01:05:18.27
Clifton Campbell
No.

01:05:19.61
Ben
So yeah, I love these movies just about equally. I'll watch them anytime.

01:05:24.95
Clifton Campbell
um I'm going to go Gentleman's 7, 3.5. Got to take it off for that overcranking and for Stephen Dorst vinegar strokes. i don't want to see any one of those.

01:05:33.78
Ben
yeah

01:05:34.10
Clifton Campbell
However, other than that,

01:05:34.71
Ben
but Those are two half stars. That's down to four. What's you what's your third one?

01:05:39.80
Clifton Campbell
Well, I started at four and I gave each one quarter. That's what uh, that's what i've already said last time we were talking about this, but anyway, so three and a half, I think in three and a half for me is imminently rewatchable, imminently enjoyable.

01:05:43.32
Ben
yes

01:05:43.67
Marty Ketola
That's what I did.

01:05:51.59
Clifton Campbell
I'm going to watch it again and again. It's one of those things that you put it I'm just past the popcorn. Let's watch that movie. Marty.

01:05:58.17
Marty Ketola
I definitely enjoyed it more this time. I haven't seen it in a very long time. But 1997 and 1998, I'm not very much fans of pop culture from those years. Two and a half stars. I do like the movie, but it's just a little dull for me.

01:06:17.08
Marty Ketola
Sorry. I still like it, though.

01:06:18.45
Ben
Marty, Marty, Marty, Marty.

01:06:18.74
Clifton Campbell
a I love it. I love it. I love it. Oh my goodness.

01:06:24.78
Ben
I'm going to find a list of good 1997 and eight films and be like, make you justify every single one of them.

01:06:24.98
Marty Ketola
It's very important movie, though.

01:06:30.25
Marty Ketola
Well, we could. i'd probably have my reasons to.

01:06:35.75
Clifton Campbell
Oh man, Ben, thanks so much for coming on, man. It's always a pleasure.

01:06:38.36
Ben
a pleasure, guys. No, I love what you guys are doing over here on Pondo.

01:06:39.48
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, man. Absolutely.

01:06:41.67
Ben
ah It's a great time. I'll come back anytime you want me.

01:06:45.14
Marty Ketola
Awesome.

01:06:45.40
Clifton Campbell
Absolutely.

01:06:46.48
Marty Ketola
You got anything you want to plug?

01:06:46.68
Clifton Campbell
Absolutely. Yeah.

01:06:49.40
Ben
Oh, well, I'm on a little ah podcast called Reels of Justice. Marty and Cliff here have been on ah a handful of times, sometimes together, sometimes independently. So definitely check their episodes out. It's sort of ah a courtroom where we decide if a movie is guilty of being a bad movie. So arguments are split entirely between good and bad sides. ah You know, obviously we kind of probably find the film in the middle somewhere, but we're forced to argue that it's it's either all good or all bad. And the jury gets to decide that you, the listener, also get to be the jury at home to see which side um struck a tune with you the most. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun. And ah yeah at least check out Marty and Cliff's episodes.

01:07:29.66
Marty Ketola
I wonder what it's like to be a jury member.

01:07:29.84
Clifton Campbell
It's a great podcast, yo.

01:07:31.53
Marty Ketola
That

01:07:33.04
Clifton Campbell
Ooh, I want to be a jury member.

01:07:33.18
Ben
You can do it.

01:07:34.60
Marty Ketola
would be interesting.

01:07:34.76
Ben
We've had guest jurors.

01:07:34.80
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, that sounds cool.

01:07:35.56
Marty Ketola
Yeah. if I remember hearing a few of those.

01:07:36.42
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:07:37.28
Marty Ketola
I wonder what that experience would be like.

01:07:38.00
Clifton Campbell
That'd be fun. Yeah.

01:07:39.08
Marty Ketola
I'm just listening to the case.

01:07:40.06
Clifton Campbell
I don't know.

01:07:40.25
Ben
Well, it yeah.

01:07:40.79
Marty Ketola
I get to decide their fate. Oh my God.

01:07:42.93
Ben
Oh, I mean, as as someone who's like doing something, has stuff to promote, like you do have to sit back for a bit while the trial happens. But as long as you're okay with that.

01:07:48.66
Clifton Campbell
Right. Right.

01:07:50.33
Ben
Yeah, it's ah um we've definitely had it.

01:07:51.92
Marty Ketola
be fun.

01:07:52.03
Clifton Campbell
Oh, it's fun.

01:07:52.44
Marty Ketola
Yeah. Yeah.

01:07:53.17
Ben
And we like them on the show because it gives us a chance.

01:07:53.74
Clifton Campbell
It's

01:07:55.25
Ben
We have like these ones that we want to do, but the guest usually picks the movie. So a guest juror gives us the chance to sort of like, yeah, let's do one of these that we've always wanted to.

01:07:58.71
Marty Ketola
ah

01:07:59.32
Clifton Campbell
on

01:08:02.81
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, well, call Marty or i for any time for that. we're We're happy to jump in on that. That sounds awesome.

01:08:07.42
Ben
yeah You busy next week?

01:08:09.98
Marty Ketola
ah

01:08:12.44
Clifton Campbell
I would time what do we what but talk after we'll talk after.

01:08:13.91
Marty Ketola
but

01:08:16.61
Clifton Campbell
So, OK, so great. um Awesome. Ben, thanks for coming on. We're going out of here.

01:08:21.08
Ben
My pleasure, gentlemen.

01:08:22.52
Clifton Campbell
You guys want to get out of here on a quote?

01:08:25.46
Marty Ketola
Wait till they get a load of me.

01:08:28.70
Clifton Campbell
Ben.

01:08:29.62
Ben
ah I love him already.

01:08:35.19
Clifton Campbell
Never rub another man's rhubarb.

01:08:37.37
Ben
That one's good. That one's good.

01:08:38.39
Clifton Campbell
all right, guys, we'll see you.

01:08:39.83
Ben
no actually, I want to change mine to he moved because that is just so funny.

01:08:42.78
Clifton Campbell
you move He moved.

01:08:44.05
Marty Ketola
Where is it? Wonderful toys.

01:08:46.74
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's a good one, too. He stole my balloons.

01:08:49.00
Ben
There's like get out on a line. in These movies both have like so many lines.

01:08:52.51
Clifton Campbell
don't Yeah.

01:08:52.68
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:08:54.52
Clifton Campbell
All right. Well, that's why I'm just going to cut us off right here.