Blank Check with Griffin & David - Escape from L.A. with Matt Gourley & Paul Rust

Episode Date: November 14, 2021

Less of a sequel and more of a “next gen video game re-skin,” Snake Plissken is back in “Escape from LA” and this time he’s got a surfboard! The “Gourley and Rust” guys join us to ponder whether or not a big budget is actually *bad* for John Carpenter. On the one hand, we get a Carp, Kurt, and Debra Hill reunion! On the other…those submarine sequences. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Welcome to the podcast. Oh, sure. Like, it's not out of context, but if you've watched this movie, that has to be the choice, right? Yeah, sure. Last line is the first line. Yeah, well, yes, and thank you.

I like that. This podcast is a direct sequel to Escape from L.A. It's finally the conclusion to the Snake Plissken trilogy. It's Escape from New York, Escape from LA, and Blank Check's episode on Escape from LA. What if Carpenter,

now, basically semi-retired, was like, I'm coming out of retirement, Kurt's with me, we're doing an Escape from New York, the third in the trilogy,

this time Snake has a podcast. That's the angle. That's what we're doing now. I'd play that at about like 49%. Yeah. Like basically. I mean, in a full circle trilogy way, having two guys from LA, two guys from New York.

Ooh. And like the hangover part three when they go back to Vegas. Yes. Oh, right. That spirit. That famous scene. I told myself I'd never come back here again. Is that what they do in The Hangover Part 3? I've never seen The Hangover Part 3. They must. Oh, David. David. Right.

I can't believe I still haven't gotten you to watch The Hangover Part 3. Like much of America I tapped out after two. I've spent like all nine years of our friendship trying to convince you like it's not good but it's the only one of the three i like i uh when it the day i could buy it uh streaming online i i did because i broke my heart that i missed it but it came out in theaters because what I was reading in the reviews, I had to get my eyes on it. It's fascinating.

What am I missing? It is fascinating. And if you like the late 80s, early 90s, like action comedy thrillers. I do. Just want to revisit it maybe from nine years ago yeah also but but if you like the hangover or the hangover part two i strongly encourage you to avoid watching it because it's it's the way you described it is it's pretty mad at the existence of these movies right like it's just sort of furious and the audience for liking that.

It's like you fucking pigs, you pieces of shit. You wanted a third one of these fucking suck on my ass. It's a fascinating, self-loathing movie. And look, this is I feel like today we're talking about a sequel that people have had a hard time trying to figure out in various ways right i think a giant question with this movie is uh or has been for years uh did carpenter just totally lose the thread or is this movie functioning as a form of self-parody right i don't think those are the only two ways it could be interpreted but i feel like that's often the question here is yeah they're not necessarily mutually exclusive either. I agree. But I feel like the way I've always heard people talk about this movie is either it fucking sucks,

it's a mess, it's like a disgrace to the original, he totally lost it, or it's like a very kind of savvy, self-aware sort of kind of sequel.

Not a sequel about sequelizing, but it's almost like a Gremlins 2. A quieter Gremlins 2. I do too. Look, I'd never seen this movie before in full. I like it. I don't know if it benefits

from me hearing people shit on it for fucking 25 years. Where my expectations were just in the absolute basement. I liked it too. I think this movie is fun. That's the word I'm going to use. This movie's good.

Come on. I mean, you know. It has Snake Plissken in it. I mean, what the fuck else do you want? Right on, right on. You got to give it huge points for that. You have to say it in the voice I just said it though. Were you like, I like it?

I mean, it's kind of fun. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, it lasted an hour and 40 minutes. It is a good runtime. It had opening credits, a movie and closing credits. Stuff happened. I guess that's how, is that how we came out of Phantom Menace talking? We're like, I liked it,'s it's a different vibe than that

it's not it's not the sort of questioning vibe it's the sort of like come on david also you have to remember uh as as is story lore in our podcast uh when i walked out of phantom menace my initial reaction was best one yet right right you were you you put it right at the top yeah i said absolutely it's the best one yeah it's the best one they made. Whereas I think this movie, people walked out of it and there wasn't that Phantom Menace, like people trying to understand whether or not they liked it.

I think people walked out of this and were like, fuck that. People were very mad at this movie. Introduce our guests. I want to ask them why they picked this one. Because they had the choice of many carpenters. And this is the one they went the choice of many carpenters. And this is the one they went for.

But you got introduced. I want to ask myself why I picked this one. Look, you have about 45 seconds of intro to start asking yourself some deep questions. Because this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Very quick and quiet. Yeah.

You just... Muted. Slipped in like a snake and i'm snake uh it is incredible how quiet he is this entire movie uh yeah and it's a loud movie it's very loud in other ways right that's why he's speaking at the exact same volume as the first movie but the first movie is a lot quieter. Right. Yeah. Look, it's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce. Baby. This is a miniseries on the films of John Carpenter. It's called They Podcast. And today, we are escaping from la and joining us are two legends of the podcast space of acting of comedy of writing of many other things but uh two two of the best podcasters in the game and two of the best podcast guests in the game as well uh from

gorley and rust it's Gorley and Rust. Paul Rust, Matt Gorley. Now, David, as you were queuing up, I feel like Gorley and Rust has become your favorite podcast during the pandemic. It was the thing I heard you talk about the most. And, like, the one podcast I've ever...

No fucking backhand to any other podcast, but it's the only podcast I've ever heard you talk about compulsively watching the movies along with that's right i mean it was one of those perfect confluence things for me where like i was like you know i've never seen a lot of those slasher sequels so here's an opportunity for me to be a completionist and you know have an excuse to watch them and listen to two pals chatting but it's also

that thing of like people will say to me oh I like blank check you know once in a while I'm not bragging but it has happened two pals chatting I watch a lot of the movies I'm one of those people hey Matt get out of here shut the fuck up well not anymore that was rude no no thank you thank you shut the I'm one of those people. Hey! Oh, Matt, get out of here. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up.

Well, not anymore. That was rude. No, no, thank you. Thank you. Shut the fuck up, you hangover three-loving kid. Paul, let's get out of here, Paul. No, and I'll always, you know, and sometimes I even get like,

oh, I wish the episodes were longer, blah, blah. And I'm like, what are you talking about? That's crazy. And that's exactly what I like out of With Gorley and Rust. It's just, you know, nice long convos about a movie I just watched and I want to think about and I want to hear two buds discuss. So, yeah. Thank you, guys. It's a good podcast.

That's very nice of you. Thank you. Thank you for having us, first of all. Sure. To Griffin's intro and David's feelings. Holy cow. That was so flattering. I had a little lump in my throat.

Hey, now. That's very kind. Thank you for having us. The reason I wind all that up is David watches all of the Halloween movies with Gourley and Rust, right? Friday the 13th and the Fridays and anyway, but I think the Halloween series happened before Carpenter won our March Madness competition. I had to pay for Stitcher. Look, we're not even going to get into it. My point here is timeline wise, right? Yep. You've been, I don't want to bring it up for them. I don't want to, I don't want to bring it up for them I don't want to

dig it up for them right now yes we've heard fucking hours of Paul and Matt talking about Carpenter and Carpenter adjacent projects so when Carpenter wins and we know we're going to commit to doing Carpenter for five months like top of the list let's throw it out

to these two guys any movie they want right and we sort of go like assume they won't want to do halloween because it's well torn territory for them but no idea what they're going to pick outside of that now that i've given you three plus minutes to think about it matt and paul as well why was this the selection well now i'm worried because i don't fully remember uh it was a long time ago did i yeah because we set this up like the better part of a year ago because we were originally supposed to record this in july and then i remember we like scheduled that months in

advance so it was early this year but was this my doing that i made this happen for escape from la i can't remember why didn't i pick the fog Fog? I've never seen The Fog, and I've been wanting to see The Fog. Why didn't I suggest that? I don't know. Well, we had a guest who had never seen The Fog and picked The Fog, and then people got upset

and asked why we didn't have a guest who'd already seen The Fog. Well, did the guest watch The Fog for the podcast? Yes, but I don't know. People sometimes, there are constant new calculuses of what a guest should or shouldn't be on any given episode. That's true.

Well, that's not up to the listener. Agreed. The fog was on the list of options. I'll say that. Sorry, carry on, Paul. For me, the appeal to watching Escape from L.A. was that I hadn't seen it before. So I hope for the people who hope and wish for that, that somebody has seen it before so i hope i hope for the people uh who who hope and and wish for that uh that somebody's seen it previously because i get it i love um when gorley has like firsthand experiences

of being in a theater opening night and just getting to talk about the response, especially with, uh, yeah, horror movies or escape from LA type stuff, genre stuff. Uh, but, um, yeah, I'd never seen it before. Have you seen it, Gurley? Yeah, I've seen it once before, but I believe I was, it was, it was a former me. It was Rocky Mountain High. Uh, I think I, my buddy, Jeremy Carter from Super Ego, I had this bedroom that was huge and a living room that was small, so my TV was in my bedroom. And so I had this light two-person couch, and because I didn't have room for this couch in the bedroom, we used to lift it on top of my bed

and sit on this couch on top of my bed and get high. We watched this movie. And so it's as good as i never saw this movie because i don't remember a thing so i'm just gonna quote your email go ahead and then uh fall off when you got up off the couch that's a good question no but the couch was really like soft and wobbly so i don't know how we really stayed up there in the first place, but I did rewatch it for this episode. So I am as fresh as can be on a couch. That was on a bed.

Yeah. On top of a roof. Uh, Matt, it, it sounds like what you just described sounds like maybe possibly, uh, the best year of anyone's life.

Yeah. And I think, I think the prime way to watch this movie, too. Well, that's what I was going to say. Ben asking so many follow-up questions for clarification, Matt. Ben has always been a big champion of the idea that the best way to watch a movie is on a porch. Correct. On a TV VCR with an extension cable running from the porch inside so it could be plugged in with a bong.

That's sort of Ben's ideal movie viewing experience. I think he blew his mind a little bit with couch on a bed on a roof. You're welcome. Yeah. Wow. Try it out. Try it out.

I mean, those days are over for me, but I would love to like pass that mantle to someone who could keep it alive. I'm so honored. Yeah. I mean, I love the innovation, so I'll have to try it out. I'm so honored. Yeah. I mean, I love the innovation, so I'll have to try it out.

Producer Ben's all about innovation. David, you found the email? Yeah. You said if it were me, I'd say escape from LA for surmises. Now, my guess is that that is an autocorrect error, and you were trying to say for shoresies.

Because I don't know why you would say four surmises this is matthew oh my god i in correspondence with me i can't i don't remember that and the fact that i like had an auto correct in there this is this mystery may never be resolved this is the only other thing i want to say this email was sent on april 1st which i you know, I didn't have my fool's screener on on the email. So maybe you were joking and I just wasn't picking up on it.

I was like, escape from LA, throw it on the board, Gourley and Russ. That's all there is. I can assure you, I was not doing an April Fool's joke. You really wanted the thing, but you, as a joke,

said you wanted escape from LA. No, I mean, we should, like, right, we do this March Madness thing to pick a director we'll cover. Carpenter wins at the end of March. April 1st, David is frantically sending out emails because nothing makes David happier than booking 18 episodes in advance within the span of one afternoon. I'm filling out my spreadsheet. It's so good. And we used to be, like, so banked up so far in advance that we reached out to you guys in April. You're like, when will we record?

We're like probably around July. You're like, great. I'm having a baby a little bit after that. Perfect timing. We get way behind. And then now this episode is happening like nine months later. Yeah, because didn't we also, we were going to record right when the baby was coming.

So we had to boot it back again. Or am I making that up? Well, I had, my wife had a baby. So a lot of stuff went on. You know what? The only thing I can think is that I was, my logic, and this is not sound logic, was that we cover so many horror movies that maybe we try something that wasn't horror. I will say, I assume that was your logic, which I thought was kind of cool. say i assume that was your logic which i thought was kind of cool it's like i i feel like when people ask me to guess on other movie shows i try to pick movies that i think don't overlap with

things we have done or would possibly do yeah but was there a dialogue between you and me paul because i hate to think that i was just like answering for the both of us i must have checked in with you you know what i said oh i doubt you're doing that i bet we were talking about it you you said you were gonna use because you're doing that. I bet we were talking about it. You said you were gonna... Because you're saying, if it were me, I'd pick Escape from L.A., let me check with Paul, and then you came back saying, Paul's in, so... Okay, I must have,

because that would be a bold move for someone to just answer for someone, Escape from L.A., like, wow. As a podcast brother, you would never do that. No way. Also, guys, as far as all these, you know, I know we scheduled and planned stuff and things didn't work out, but, you know, if you want to make God laugh, make a plan.

Hey. Hey. And the other thing is, look. He's rolling right now. He's laughing. The other thing is, look, what matters is that it all worked out and we're here recording the episode. What matters beyond that is we spent 10 minutes talking about the saga of trying to schedule this episode, which is riveting podcast material.

It's behind the podcast, man. So, but the other thing, look, and this is why I thought you might be picking it, is this movie is a little silly. And sometimes you guys get a little silly. Sometimes we do, too. Maybe you just thought it would be good energy. I think that's the case, yeah. You know, it's more fun to tackle the silly ones. Yeah, we try to be as solemn and serious

in our analysis of the movies. But it's true. Sometimes we get a little filled with whimsy. Let's keep this serious from here on out and give this movie the respect it deserves. Sure. So this is maybe the silliest fucking movie I've ever seen. That's my serious appraisal.

Certainly from Johnny Carpenter. I mean, there's no question it's his silliest film. It has to be, right? Yeah. And there were like, I definitely saw the memes and the gifs of the silly moments before. Yes.

But I didn't know how deep the trove of the bonkers went. I never saw a meme or a gif of the basketball scene. The basketball to the death scene. Holy cow. the like basketball to the death scene holy cow doesn't that just reek of peak like post peak carpenter who's as we know is getting high and playing nba video games of him just going well if i gotta do another movie i might as well just write what you know you know it is like a nba jam like side game yeah this film is written by John Carpenter, Debra Hill and Kurt Russell.

Like I think I initially was, I was watching and I was like, is this something where he kind of farmed out the script? He was like, ah, we should. And it's like, no,

they got together. Yeah. This is the one he chose. It was a meeting of minds. Yeah. No, this is the one where he was like, no,

I better handle this one. Right. And he brought back his ex-girlfriend. Yeah. Right. Who at this point his ex-girlfriend. Yeah. Right, who at this point has become, like, a major fucking film producer in her own right. Right. And the leading man,

who, like, Kurt Russell doesn't fucking write movies. I mean, I guess he was pretty hands-on with Tombstone, right? Yeah, I think so. That's the only other movie I've heard about him, like, getting into the weeds on in that kind of way. Well, it just sounds like he's some kind of like impromptu onset script doctor, like he was with tombstone. And then I believe with this movie,

he kind of fixed the ending or something like that fixed. I used. Yeah. Well, he, he rustled the ending. No, the ending is actually good.

I should, I should like the ending. I like the ending just fine. Um, well we can get into some of the context of how this thing is made. Do you guys like Escape from New York? Is that like a totemic movie for you guys? Or something you've seen like a couple times over the years?

You know, like how much does that movie matter? Oh, I super dig it. I like, it's probably been eight or nine years since I last saw it. It's probably been eight or nine years since I last saw it. But I watched it a handful of times growing up in high school, college, moving out to LA, hanging out.

But yeah, the last viewing has been a while. There were certain things that I saw where, I'm sure we'll talk about it, but are these echoes, homages, tips of the hat, or just like boilerplate, home alone to recalculate, you know, same glass, new drink? the specific quote here because I think it was from one of our listeners on the Blank Check subreddit and I couldn't find it. So I'm going to paraphrase it poorly and credit to whoever made this observation first. But like

this movie almost feels a little bit more like this is the point this person was making. Like a sort of next gen remake update of a video game than it does a sequel in certain ways. You know? Wow. Yeah. I love that. Because it is. I game than it does a sequel in certain ways, you know? Wow.

Yeah, that's I love that. That's because it is. I mean, like it does function as a sequel, obviously, but it does kind of go like beat for beat. And almost everything in the first movie has a direct analog in this movie and not in like an Austin Powers like second movie has second beat of the same bit you know this is like it's just like fucking Maps from the Stars Eddie is

like so similar to Cabby you know yes oh yeah yeah yeah and the Valera Galeno character is so similar to Adrian Barbeau and then you have like the basketball the death sequence is like his weird boxing match sequence yeah but yeah to the right

to the point of the reddit uh or the person who the comment uh like it is just swapping them out with kind of bigger um uh what are those called at the end and guys that's what my friends like bosses yeah it does feel like refillable hit set pieces. It reminds me of the album that Oasis did after What's the Story? Morning Glory. Yes. Where it's just a masterpiece. A new same masterpiece. I love it too, don't get me wrong.

But you can almost track by track kind of see what they were trying to just do the same kind of rock to acoustic. I found the quote here sorry it's it's the username toasted penguin of course uh and the line was very simple but it's just it's more an expansion with reskin map than full-blown sequel yeah that that's right but like imagine if blade runner 2049 like you know where know, where it's like, you're all right, we're finally making a sequel to the thing, everyone, the cult object that is hallowed.

Well, they're not making a sequel to the thing. Let's be very clear, David. He's making a sequel to Escape from New York. Not the thing. No, but like and and it's like this time Rick Deckard is going to have a surfing adventure. Yeah, he's like, you know, if it was just the goofiest like no. He's like, you know, if it was just the goofiest, like, no, it's just because Hollywood now, all the fan stuff, you know, everything is so serious and everyone's like, oh, and we want to be absolutely respectful. And they go out to Comic-Con and they act like they're announcing a new pope. 300 Easter eggs. And like in the 90s, it's kind of like, yeah, let's just do another one. I don't know. Snake will do some stupid shit.

Like it's and I'm not saying that this movie is tossed off. This movie is full of ideas. It's not like they are doing it for a quick buck, but it's just... I sort of appreciate how little it cares about the sort of

tonal expansion, I guess, is the kindest way to put it. Yeah, the full of ideas thing is the kindest way to put it. Yeah, the full of ideas thing is the most appealing thing about the movie. And my favorite thing after watching the movie, I was just like, oh, it was like packed full of a lot of ideas. Like essentially every five, six minutes, you had a new idea or character. And that sort of like enthusiasm. idea or character through and that sort of like enthusiasm uh i mean the ideas are so huge that uh a budget could never meet them that there's like a bulletproof helicopter attack above

disneyland like i love that they thought they were going to be able to pull that off i mean look the special effects let's say in particular the cgi digital effects in this movie are disastrous they are perhaps the worst in the last 30 years of cinema and we will talk about them more but this is far and away his biggest budget ever on a movie ever got that's crazy This is ostensibly the closest he ever came to really getting a blank check and being able to do whatever he wanted.

And even then, he clearly reached beyond his means. But after watching so many movies where, like, to his credit, Carpenter is so good at working within

his limitations and figuring out a movie to make at just the size he can make it and using the power of suggestion and sort of like, uh,

implications of mythology and all that to make things feel bigger. It's nice to see a movie where he's like every idea I have and he's throwing them all out there. Even the ones he can't afford. Do you guys think this movie would be better if it had like say Jurassic Park level CGI at the time where you just didn't question. In fact, you left the movie going,

those effects were amazing. Or would it be worse in a way? It'd be sick if there are dinosaurs. Yeah. That's how Ben interprets your question. Well, the La Brea Tar Pits. I think ideally,

Matt, the effects are like 15% better than they are. Like, I don't think this movie works if it's state-of-the-art photorealistic even for its day right like even if it felt dodgy now you have like watching this movie you're like did this come out the same year as the last starfighter like it feels like like 10 years past it does even from when it came out you know coincidentally i was just going down a youtube rabbit hole and up comes you know like a watch mojo the 20 worst cgi in films and i just put it

on i was bottle feeding my daughter and and here's escape from la with the little submarine sequence flying over universal studios the problem is it's almost which do you pick? Is it the submarine? Is it the surfing? Like, where do you even go? It almost always gets included, though, in any list like that. And we should also say this is a weird example of, like, we've obviously talked a lot, excuse me,

about our friend Kurt over the last four or five months, Kurti Russell. And how sort of A-list stardom kind of eluded him for a very long time. He spends the 80s making these movies with Carpenter, that fucking rule, that all kind of underperform upon release in one way or another. Escape from New York was the most successful

in its moment, but certainly its legacy only grew and grew and grew and grew. And then as the late 80s turn into the early 90s, he finally sort of makes it to being like the guy above the title, right? We talked about there was a lot of him being the second guy in Tango and Cash, you know, or, you know, doing a movie like Tombstone that's more of an ensemble or whatever. He finally got to the point, the late night is this weird moment where he finally gets to be like, Kurt Russell is the star of this action movie above the title. He's not having to share it with Steven Seagal anymore. It's Kurt.

And Kurt has that cachet and he caches it all in on, I'm bringing Snake back, right? It's somewhat similar to like what we're seeing keanu do now which is like john wick gives him this unexpected boost later than anyone could have guessed and he's like great going back to the matrix going back to bill and ted i'm bringing the original people back we're making the the later statements on these characters you know um and yeah you know russell extends that to carpenter and is very hands-on he wants to do it uh you know he kind yeah, you know, Russell extends that to Carpenter and is very hands-on. He wants to do it. You know, he kind of wills this into being. But I think especially if you're someone who's like lived with Escape from New York as this kind of like cult gem for 15 plus years in your

mind's eye, whether you saw it at the time or you were someone who grew up watching on cable or VHS later. And then Kurt Russell has really kind of like grown into his like, you know, populist accessible badass mode by the mid 90s. And then this movie shows up and it's like goofballs McGillicuddy. You're just like, what the fuck is anyone doing here? I wish that was the title.

Goofballs McGillicuddy snake is back um i you know i i think you're right that this the budget is really what's to blame for this movie if you're looking for something to blame because when you look at escape from new york it's just got that carpenter limitation grittiness and when you get to this movie and all the production values, you start to literally see the seams, not just in the set, but the CGI. And you realize that, you know, we all adore a carpenter here, but his strength is kind of his, there's that like DIY feel to his stuff. And when you get a full studio behind him, like in this movie or memoirs of invisible man, some, the magic somehow falls out.

I've said this before on, I think on one of our podcasts, so I apologize, but like Halloween was kind of like lightning in a bottle where, yeah, they did all this, but how much of it was actually planned and how much of it was just benefit of timing where like Spielberg and Kubrick are building a ship in a bottle. Carpenter got in a way lucky even though he had a lot of resources and talent. But then when you get to something like this where he has all the resources in the world,

it doesn't mean a thing. If anything, it exposes a light on some of the shortcomings of Carpenter that can be entertaining in their own right, but they're not necessarily um purposeful does that make sense yeah yeah alex has perry i mean brought this up in our halloween episode which i never uh noticed before but like the lack of extras in that movie which was purely a budgetary limitation gives it this weird it's creepy and haunted no one on the streets right

ever right there's no kids just trick-or-treating yeah right i never thought by halloween 2 there's kids everywhere like suddenly they have a budget like now it looks like real halloween right right and then halloween kills has maybe the most people i've ever seen in a film halloween kills reveals that haddonfield actually has a population of 10 million yeah and they're all living in the hospital. Yes. It's a hotel. It's the Haddonfield Memorial Hotel. And it takes them like half an hour to walk up the stairs.

It just takes them so long in Halloween Kills. It's a 30-story hospital. That's a very fascinating movie. I used to make the joke that when in the early 2000s all the canonical horror franchises were getting remade, I was like, if your horror remake is successful enough that you get to make a sequel, you can't make a sequel to the remake. You have to remake the original sequel. Yes. Wait.

It was always my stupid bit. So like Rob Zombie shouldn't make Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 and sequelize his first Halloween. Oh, right. He should do Rob Zombie's, quote, Halloween 2. And he has to just take that film and remake it. It was always my stupid joke. And then I watch Halloween Kills and I'm like,

this kind of is a remake of Halloween 2. I know it's not one for one. Oh boy, big time. Oh, so Halloween Ends is going to be about Silver Shamrock? Maybe. Do you know what I'm saying? Halloween Kills feels like him being like I made my successful tribute to the first Halloween

and now I'm making my tribute to Halloween 2. How do I stretch out a sequel that starts 30 minutes after the first movie ends? Oh, totally. I mean, spoilers if somebody hasn't uh seen it but like uh uh when the when it picked back up in the home alone 2 1981 world yeah uh or that the end of 78 i had such a flutter of excitement uh uh seeing that and I hoped because it went a little bit longer than just a scene or a single flashback.

I told Matt this. I thought it was going to go into like a Godfather Part 2 parallel storylines of the night after Halloween 78 and the night after Halloween 2018. Paul, that's such a goddamn good idea. It kills me that that didn't happen. night after Halloween 2018. Paul, that's such a goddamn good idea. It would have rolled. It kills me that that didn't happen because when you first said that, I thought about that after and then hearing you say that again,

I'm so sad I want that movie. But you couldn't include Laurie in the recreation stuff without it being dodgy and weird. So that would be the drawback. Right, I guess, right. And then you, that's the thing,

when I was watching it, I realized like, oh, right, they need to clarify The continuity Of their Halloween world Because there's not Halloween 2 So they need to now explain How Michael Myers went to jail

Like, you know I actually kind of like Halloween Kills It's interesting People just really hate that movie and I thought it was Sort of a weird, you know, flawed Interesting thing I listened to your pod, I listened to the pod Paul was positive really hate that movie and i thought it was sort of a weird you know flawed interesting thing yeah yeah i know i listened to your pod i listened to the pod paul was positive but it is it is funny that like like the original halloween too it like starts off right after tries to figure out how to

extend a thing for a couple more hours and then also with the 1978 flashback stuff is trying to like retcon stuff into the previous movie and go like, actually this was this the entire time. Yeah. Your perception of relationships were wrong. People you thought were dead are actually still alive.

Right. And even using footage from the 81 sequel, when they zip up Annie in the body bag, they still had to go back to the supposedly not part of the canon. I mean, this is the most important stuff in the world to me. Well, I agree. And the logo for the hospital

is the same. The masks were in it. They put in the shamrock mask. Yeah. I love it. It feels like they're doing it for the fans. I love it. You gotta give it back to the fans. At the end of the day, you gotta give it back to the fans. Which this movie the day you gotta give it back to the fans which this movie maybe doesn't do i mean that's right that's the thing this movie is not it doesn't know that the fans exist or if it does it does not care

no it's it's like a cut rate the thing that i noticed when you look at snake plissken and escape from new york he looks like the coolest G.I. Joe ever. And in this film, his fatigues are all creased and ironed and everything's generic and flat. Even his hair is a little bit more feathered and long. And he looks like a knockoff G.I. Joe that you would find in a 99-cent store. A corpse or whatever.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so weird because he shows up looking perfect. You're like, that snake exactly as I remembered him

and Russell's maybe only gotten more handsome with time. I fucking love it. And they're like, he's 45 in this. He looks amazing. Insane.

He looks incredible. The two jaw-dropping facts I found out after I watched this that it was a 50 million budget and that Kurt Russell was 45. Yeah, yeah, insane. Insane. But he shows up and he looks fucking immaculate.

And then immediately Stacey Keach is like, take that shit off. We have some new dumb costume for you to wear. Yeah. And you're like, no, get the brown jacket. Like, it's this shitty, like, I don't know. I think we, next week uh we'll get into ghosts of mars but a thing that i found fascinating about watching that movie is just like he's making that like two years before like the textbook of how those movies are supposed to look uh uh grimy

unpretentious genre movies are supposed to look right and there's a very slick cool kind of like post mtv music video aesthetic that takes over these things that he does not know how to tap into and the snake's outfit in this feels like a bad attempt at that kind of thing right it's like this is like a shitty test run for neo in the matrix like he's just wearing a worse version of what neo wears and it's like no to give him the camo pants and the fucking brown jacket and the black tank top like don't make this look all techy and as yes it's like it's creasing weirdly i mean i i think it's very uh uh notable that like i think the rights for escape from new york were complicated for a

while uh because it was independently produced and this was a big paramount movie and they made uh mcfarlane toys early episode merchandise spotlight made a snake pliscan action figure in the late 90s like 99 maybe even 2000 and the only one they could get the rights for was escape from la they had to do la that's hilarious that's like here's your michael corleone action figure it's the part three one with the gray flat top yes yeah he's got a cardigan yeah enjoy but what they did was a glass of orange juice, sorry. They made an action figure of Snake Plissken in the Escape from New York outfit with the tank top and the camo pants.

And then they put the shitty jacket on top of him and they were like, the jacket's removable. But they had to put the jacket in the packaging. That sums up this whole movie. Right, and they were just like, pretend the jacket's the packaging. That sums up this whole movie. Right. And they were just like, pretend the jacket's not there. We admit this was a mistake. There's a good point about the like,

sort of him maybe being kind of behind whatever was going on with MTV and trying to play catch up. Because this does feel maybe like the first time Carpenter, or around this time, it feels like it's the first time he's like behind the curve with culture. Yes. Sometimes it seems like he's got an eye ahead of like where things are going. Right. And I partly this is like too easy of a way to put it.

But just with even with Buscemi in there, this is like the first movie Carpenter made post Tarantino, post independent world. And I wonder if that has to be a some. I mean, all of those independent filmmakers are a half of them. Robert Rodriguez, Tarantino, whoever are like. Influenced by him and now making the movies. I wonder with your guys' previous filmmakers, it is like, does somebody's work change when the younger culture who they're influenced by

now is caught up by them and making movies like them, but differently in the independent world like Carpenter was? Can't you see Carpenter seeing that happen and watching Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and going, nah, I don't like it. I'm just going to do loud. Yeah, I'm going to do my thing. And and then that's when he's left behind. I think you're right. I also feel sometimes you hear with guys like that. They're like, oh, all these young filmmakers, they like this thing I did. They're wrong. It wasn't supposed to be that way. That was a mistake. Like there's sort of the George Lucas thing of like you fell in did. They're wrong. It wasn't supposed to be that way. That was a mistake. Like there's sort of

the George Lucas-y thing of like you fell in love with the wrong thing. In my mind's eye, I wish I'd been making movies like this the entire time and this is what I could make with the resources I had.

It's funny you bring up Rodriguez because during the worst of the special effects in this movie, I was like, what does this look like? Like as you said, Matt, this always shows up on lists and supercuts of the worst special

effects ever, right? It is never, ever safe from any of these compilations. And so I'd seen some of the big sequences, but then like they're interstitial things. They're little things that like you're just like everything looks so fucking bad. Anytime there's any CGI, even if it's just the compositing it looks like like the magic screen sequences from peewee's playhouse like i've never seen less integration uh between you know between elements in a film and i was like does anything else look like this and the only answer i could come up with weirdly and now wonder if it's, I don't want to say it's a conscious homage, and I think he kind of owned it as his aesthetic.

Like, he made it more of a choice. But the era of Robert Rodriguez making his movies, like, all himself, when he had his run of, like, The Spy Kids and Sin City and Sharkboy and Lava Girl and shit where he was like, I do the special effects myself. We shoot the movie in my garage. Like, my studio is in my house. Everything feels handmade. Right. I agree. There was a point where I forget who's in the car and someone's surfing behind him. It's Buscemi. Yeah. And I'm going, he's like driving like this. Right. I'm watching Sin City unintentionally and it looks so much like Sin City where Robert Rodriguez is at least like color desaturating and making it a choice. It did feel like Rodriguez saw this and went, I like that, but I'm going to do it on purpose.

You know, right. That's because like Spy Kids 3 and Sharkboy and Lava Girl and some of the other ones, they have that thing where it's like it looks like color forms. Yeah, I'm not trying to make it realistic. I'm just I have silly ideas. There's no way I'd ever have the budget to execute these ideas realistically. So just everything is going to be stylized. What was the deal with the company

that was doing the CGI? Like they'd never done CGI before and I don't know how they got the work or something. I made David watch a special feature about this. I saw that I was looking at reviews of the Shout Factory Escape from LA.A. Blu-ray, which I didn't own, and that there was listed a 20-minute

special feature called Render Man with the guy who was in charge of visual effects on this movie that was described as something of an apology. And I said, David, do you have this disc? You have to watch this. I hope this is where Slender Man came from. It is where Slender Man came from.

He actually invented Slender Man by mistake trying to do just cgi he was trying to bring me a hang glider an authentic looking human and he came up with slender right yeah momo also came out why is he 10 feet tall i don't know uh like he's like dragging millimeters to inches. I don't know what. Oh, God. No, it's actually a very sweet feature because he's a nice sort of portly British guy with a beard. He's absolutely like, you know, sort of chill and avuncular and mostly is sort of proud of the movie, even though he knows the CGI is bad and is very up front about what a you know what a failure that was and it's a lot of the stuff that you guys have sort of already been talking about which is basically like even with a huge budget uh huge budget by carpenter standards but a pretty huge budget in general for 1996 they just reached way too far they just had these sort of kind of uh you know bold and you know big story ideas and because it was this sort of dawn of cgi age there was a lot

of like and we'll figure it out in in post like there was a lot of that like apparently with the submarine they built a submarine like a 26 foot physical thing and carpenter thought it looked bad and so they were like okay well we'll just fix it in post and then you just see in this interview he's like and you know i mean i thought you know i'd been working and rendering and i i thought i had a grasp on it but uh you know even though it's this very simple object it's kind of it was very difficult and then he kind of starts tailing off like it's a lot of that apparently the company that they uh the whatever the software that they used the company started sending its own engineers to the post-production studio because the stuff they were trying had just not been tried on this software before they had like a special computer that they were doing this on and it was like the only computer you could do this work on right it was built by a specific company and they would

essentially eventually start calling the company and being like so we're trying to do this and we don't know how and the company would be like um we're gonna send the inventor of the computer you know basically you know like to work on that with you because we don't really know either and like it's he's he's a sweet guy uh but his whole thing is like i just we overreached badly you know i we we were trying to make things photo real and there and it was absolutely not ready. The technology was just not there for it. And that's why the submarine sequence looks so bad. That's why the surfing looks so bad.

And I worked on it for seven months, and then obviously everyone was mad. The surfing? The surfing with CGI? Well, yeah. David, you check your facts on that hold on i believe there is some physical element like he is on some sort of wave machine thing i don't know wait so no the physical element is he's on the water in the ocean it's los angeles pacific i assume right right obviously obviously right they just summoned a tsunami and

peter and kurt said hang 10 and then they were ready to go and we're gonna make sure wait so how did they even get hooked up with this company and then my follow-up comment on that is this was what year 97 right this is, this was, what year, 97, right? This is 96. It's the same year as Independence Day. Okay, but Jurassic Park has been out, right? For three years. Yeah, okay.

So this is three years post-Jurassic. Imagine Peter Fonda and Kurt Russell on these surfboards going, don't worry, we're going to Jurassic Park this. And everybody's going like, after Jurassicassic park i bet everybody is thinking like it's a done deal don't even worry about it and thinking like we've got it made just surf buddy just surf do you guys know who was uh peter fonda's stunt double surf double on this movie jane fonda henry obviously he's already been on golden bond he knows water tony hawk what oh that kind of works actually yeah that's good yeah i mean he's our generation's peter fonda but it's one of those things where they they made like one of those uh indoor sort of like wave rider things right that's what that's what

they're that's what they are matching right right you know certainly uh look and and then right for for when it's actually them surfing it's tony hawk and i believe another skateboarder whose name escapes me um i think jurassic park you hear all the stories about how it was like we're doing stuff that has never even been attempted before. You know, they had to put so much thought preparation and R&D and like TLC into executing every single moment. And, you know, it's that stat that gets thrown around where it's like there are only like 10 minutes of dinosaurs in that movie. But they're so judiciously placed and chosen and executed that the presence feels really large, but they bit

off exactly as much as they could chew, and that was Steven Spielberg at the height of his powers with all the best special effects people in the world, not some people who had never worked on a movie before and a computer that even the people who made it didn't know could pull this off. That's the thing. I think this

technology was so exciting. There was so many opportunities presented by it but people were still figuring out the limits like and this is just a classic this movie went up to the limits and i always yeah to put it like yeah three years after jurassic park it does feel like um in cgi years this was like awkward puberty years yes but also like independence day uses like a lot of models and the other thing that roland emmerich used to always brag about is like i like 60 of my movie costs nothing like i i make these movies that have these ensemble casts where 60 to 70% of them are people in rooms having conversations.

And then I make the money shots really count. There is like no shot in this movie that is cheap, right? Like you compare it to Escape from New York where he gets a lot of production value out of just like a deserted street. And yet they all look cheap though. That's what kind of totally impressive. And it's because he's like so overreaching.

But every single shot of it has like a bigger set than you've seen before. A thousand extras or costumes or props or CGI or models are something, you know, there's like always a lot of stuff on screen. But I mean, and we could dive into this. I agree with Paul. I'm pretty fucking won over just by how many goddamn ideas this movie has. Both in this silly little boy on a playground imagining wild scenarios kind of way. But also, it's got some pretty interesting...

I love my Carpenter fuck the world cynicism, like, sober-eyed, I'm going to tell you why everyone's full of shit stuff. And I think in a certain way, this movie has some of his more interesting social commentary. as cleanly and successfully within its narrative, but it's got some ideas I find really compelling. I also think there's the much-discussed Carpenter Apocalypse trilogy, right,

where he talks about, uh, what, it's Thing, uh, Mouth of Madness, and Prince of Darkness. And for me,

I love the Thing, but, like, this feels more like the Apocalypse movie to me. I mean, this movie literally ends with Snake Plissken being like, I'm fucking shutting down society.

Have fun. Yeah. I did think it was, yeah, it also had the look of post-apocalypse. But yeah, when I think about it, it's not until it all gets shut down that it would be a true apocalypse. Right. It's what we think of as a post-apocalyptic society. it's not until the it all gets shut down that it would be a true apocalypse right it's like it's what we think of as a post-apocalyptic society and then snake's like no there's still too much shit going on here i'm fucking blowing out the light it's such a funny way for a movie with

terrible cgi to end as well which is like carpenter's sort of grumpy avatar being like i'm pulling the plug on all this shit. Like, you know, enough. And like, I think that's not the CGI response, but like, it is kind of intentional. Carpenter's getting old. Although we have all these quotes in our research where he's like, I'm an old fogey. Like, you know, I'm over the hill.

I better wrap it up soon. And it's like, he was like 49. He's not that old at all. I feel like you can feel that though and i it almost feels like the ending of this movie is him going like i don't understand we're transitioning into cgi let's just pull the plug if i can't do it no one can he wanted to pull the plug on that weird computer so yeah that was that couldn't like do the effects it was like yeah he got so frustrated they went back and reshot just imagine john carpenter scary imagine hey you want to come to the screening room and uh

see the latest submarine sequence yeah sure and then you show him that like what do you expect him to do i don't know i would be so scared issue with this movie i liked it don't get me wrong but i don't feel like i feel carpenter having fun with this movie and so liked it, don't get me wrong, but I don't feel like I feel Carpenter having fun with this movie. And so his cynicism is present in every movie he makes, but in Halloween and The Thing, he's still bringing his desire to craft. This one feels a little phoned in and that, coupled with the cynicism, it makes me feel a little bit like mommy and daddy are fighting, even though I like to watch this movie for what it is. There's something off-putting to it that doesn't feel right. It does feel like when Carpenter turns, or when Chevy Chase went sour, or Burt Reynolds went bitter, there's a moment that you just kind of go like, oh, I'm seeing vestiges of my old friend, but it's not fully there.

And it just makes me sad more than anything. there and it just makes me sad more than anything i mean we've been talking about as we've been doing these episodes in order that carpenter may be a victim of a thing that has happened to many great artists in hollywood which is just a chevy chase irreparably breaks them like it does feel like something is gone after he works with chevy yeah um but i the fun do they do it to each other I would Chevy was already kind of damaged by that point I would say but but yeah perhaps a little

bit I do the fun for me where I feel in Carpenter is more like can you fucking believe they're letting me make this thing like this just feels like it's like every idea written on a scrap of paper that he had for 25 years that he never had the budget to execute.

You know, not literally, but just, it's like this movie is a collection of all the shit he had to cut out of other movies. And when we've been doing these episodes, you know, JJ and Nick are researchers, often pull things about like, originally his idea was this, and then the only budget he could get was this,

so they scaled it back to this. And this is, like, the one time he gets to work with this kind of crazy canvas, even if the canvas is not as big as what he actually needs to execute. It's the one time he lets himself sort of, like,

write that unencumbered. We should sort of just say quickly, he, in the early 80s, signs his, or mid-80s, his Alive Pictures deal, right, where he's going to make these small-budget films for four of them for under $5 million. And from that point, it was like carve out.

I get to make one big studio film outside of this Alive deal because I want to make an Escape from New York sequel. So this is in like the 80s. This is like five years after Escape from New York. When Big Trouble in Little China is getting ready to be released and everyone assumes that thing's going to be a big hit,

they're like, we're going to fucking use this momentum, finally make the Snake Plissken sequel. When people are asking Kurt Russell on the press tour, so this feels like it could be a franchise for you.

You got plans for where Jack Burton goes next? He's like, I don't want to do another fucking Jack Burton movie. Snake Plissken, baby don't want to do another fucking Jack Burton movie. Snake Plissken, baby. I'm going back to Snake Plissken. Like, it's like so long they keep on going like,

and if the next one hits, then we finally get to make the Snake Plissken sequel. Yeah, I had heard that like the script started getting written right mid to late 80s, so that's right around the time. And it does feel like it has remains of a Reagan-era script, which that's why They Live excels. But Cliff Robertson's president character character it feels very reagan-y yeah and uh absolutely and the fact that the movie is about celebrity and movie stars that

reagan would be a person who could also be exist as a hologram as a president you know uh but there was a sadness watching to it because i mean i love when I watch They Live I'm just like right on this is so cool he's like the only person saying this at the time who has a strong enough voice to be heard making movies right? and then

watching this sort of like Reagan-y thing it reminded me of like 15 years ago Harry Shearer did like a limited series where he was like Nixon. And it made me think like also

maybe like 10 years somebody from our generation, a filmmaker, makes a movie and it's still okay if it was, but like hung up on Trump. There's like a trump figure you're like yes yes right but there's a new demon in 2017 yes yes i mean it is weird it seems like they don't start writing this script in earnest until 1993 like that's when they sit down and finally commit to what this movie becomes i I think it's notably post Chevy.

Apparently the thing that Carpenter that pushed him was like, I want to have fun. I want to work with my friends again. Right. Like, I think that I think that really was the impetus. He'd wanted to work with a big movie star so badly and it burned him so badly that he was like, let's let me get my friend back and my ex-girlfriend creative partner back. And let's just make something that we think is fun. Yeah. and my ex-girlfriend and creative partner back and let's just make something that we think is fun. So like 1993 and the germ of the idea,

as Carpenter says, LA has just been through riots, mudslides, fires, and earthquakes. Kurt had a great idea. He said, all these disasters happen

and we all sit around in denial. We all say, why should I leave? It's great. That was the germ of it. A combination of having a good plot with a little subversive juice

and having some fun. In LA, the four seasons came to be known as flood fire earthquake and riot said deborah hill sometimes you feel like you live in a disaster movie what's next lotus jesus i mean i was born and raised here i don't remember any of this those things i think that's a little bit of a chronocentrism. Yeah. Oh my God, this is the worst time we've ever lived in. I also happen to be in my mid to late 40s right now. And I've gone through like a divorce or something. I mean, I will say this, Tripp, in the research.

Kurt Russell's idea was to, quote, set the film in an even more lethal Los Angeles where a future in a future where danger has become an emotional aphrodisiac that sounds bananas yeah but that sounds funny like I was sort of like I almost like the more sci-fi approach versus

this sort of you know kind of scattershot social commentary stuff. I don't mind the president stuff. I think that's a good update. Like, I think it's a worthy update. Right. And let me say, too, like, I would,

I love it, too, because it's like, yeah, you can still, like, think about what Reagan was and kick him down. You don't have to just make it George H.W. Bush or, I mean, I was thinking it could have been worse where it's like the president is like a Clintonian figure who it's not about like morality. It's like everybody should get their dicks. I really love the idea of like a culture that says

or a government that says like enfor enforces morality yes i love that that whole speech cliff robertson does at the end talking about like red meat you know smoking drinking women unless you're married you know all the things that are banned right and it's like meanwhile the world is on fire like i love this balance of this guy being like, we have to keep up appearances. This is a civil, moral country that is decaying. I'm surprised he didn't do more satire on the entertainment industry, because there's just kind of a throwaway line,

like, it's done now. It doesn't exist in Hollywood anymore. But I felt like there was an opportunity for a roving gang of movie execs that have kind of banded together and like warrior style that would be good i mean then there's such a this is the thing represented this is what's good about escape from new york obviously is that it's vague enough that you can read a lot into the whatever the future is right this movie is not really no big. We don't really know. This movie is very black. When you have the Surgeon General of LA

and it's Bruce Campbell and Carpenter's going like, bigger! Bigger! Yes. So there's stuff like that. Right. Whereas that's what I was sort of...

The political stuff, I think, is like fun on target broad satire. Some of the other stuff, could have used some finessing maybe or, you know... and it's the same my question is this is sort of my philosophical question is like if john carpenter had 50 million dollars for escape from new york would that movie also be goofy like is it good that he had no money i think i definitely i think that we lesson we've learned with carpenter is he has to have

limitations and find shortcuts and stuff. It's not like Escape from New York doesn't have goofy little touches. And I love those touches, but it's nice that they are sort of sprinkled in. And I like a lot of the goofiness in Escape from L.A., but it's a very sugary cookie. It's a little, and it's got m&ms and sprinkles and yeah like when we're like meeting pam greer's character like 20 minutes before the end of the movie like carpenter's like yeah i think we need one more sort of complete like curveball sequence like you know what i mean like why isn't that happening 20 minutes in? Like, that's it's just a lot that he keeps throwing at the audience.

It's a lot of characters in this thing. Yeah. Yes. I was watching. I was like, I remember thinking, like, isn't Pam Greer supposed to be in this movie? And then it was like 15 minutes later after that, that she showed up. Yeah. Big cast.

It's an ensemble. It's a who's who. big cast it's an ensemble it's a who's who i mean i do i i love that because that's my favorite element of escape from new york is just having this deep bench of character actors and having all these like fun colorful characters coming in for little pops and little sequences and dipping in and out um but it's a lot it's a lot i missed because wasn't donald pleasant supposed to be in this and then he died wasn't he gonna play this the president or did i that would be good i that not that i know of but i mean that would be i mean i would i love donald pleasant's in anything and it would be fun me too if he was still yeah, that is, at least that's rumored

That that was definitely true It would be fun if it was the same guy And he's just swerved to the Christian right To just kind of like keep up with the electorate Or whatever And the twist is that, yeah, he's Oh god, and also that late stage Donald Pleasence Was just, he was unchecked

And it would have been incredible Yeah, because that was Halloween 6 time, right? And he died, that movie's 95 or what is it? It comes out after he died, right? Yeah. Yeah, so they might have even, Fate was like, no, Donald, don't be an escape from LA. I mean, I'm just looking here. The budget on this, as we said, was 50.

So 96, the same year. Independence Day is 75. Mission Impossible is 80. Those are like the two biggest films of that year. I mean, they're the two films that look the biggest and still hold up and all of that. And all that money, a lot of that money is going to those stars in those movies too, which is

not happening in Escape from L.A. Well, other than Kurt, yeah. How much did he get? I don't know how much he got. I mean, right after this, he does... It was 10 million or something. Oh, wow. Right. Right after this, he does Soldier where he gets 15. And it was like a big deal that he got that big of a paycheck and the movie flopped

so hard. But he's coming off of Stargate and tombstone where apparently the two specific things that boosted his stardom that made him finally seem like bankable at a higher budget like this and but neither of those movies he is the sole guy right like both of those films have a team um and and that was the thing they wanted him and Russell obviously had wanted to do this forever but also went to Carpenter and was like I want to get while the getting's good like they're finally letting me be the

guy in 50 million dollar movies I'm in my late 40s I want to run this as far as I can and they go to Paramount I mean because they write the script independently they go to Paramount. I mean, because they write the script independently. They go to Paramount and they're just like, yeah. And he's like, no rewrites?

And they're like, no, no, no, this is fine. And it's like, how much are you going to give me? 15? No, 50. The blank check, perhaps, huh, boys? Yeah, I know. Is that the most classic example of a blank check? Yeah, yeah.

I guess you said that earlier griffin yeah astonished that they didn't give him any fucking pushback on anything and he was like they paid me a lot they paid deborah a lot they paid kurt a lot we had top of the line everything they didn't want me to rewrite anything uh it was like if not the most expensive at least at the tier of the most expensive things that Paramount made that year. And it was like an incredibly bad year for Paramount. Well, the year before it, they had Virtuosity, Jade, Vampire in Brooklyn, and then Braveheart, which lost money.

What? Because they sold international rights on Braveheart. They fucked up on Braveheart because they did not realize it was going to crush in Europe, like, foolishly. In America, it only did okay. It was like one of those George Lucas situations

where they didn't sign off the merch for kilts. Yes. Yes, they gave up the kilt rights. So Mel was making those kilt billions. I do think and again I am basically positive on this movie because it's sort of the thing with Carpenter where like the worst shit he makes for one he still basically knows where to put the camera

you know better than anybody and all that like which is huge but like yeah you know I do think we ever in this miniseries we have always come back to the time like he just functions so well when he has to stretch every dollar and seems to struggle when, like you say, Griffin, the studio is just kind of like, yeah, thumbs up to this script.

It's about what an invisible man wrote some memoirs. I love it. Like, get to work, you know, and maybe it's just so crucial to this creative process to have to think about every single element to death like have to like really really put it through the sort of mental crunch you know i i think uh john carpenter is the man and kurt russell is the man and so the fact that those two, the mans, made movies together is just like bliss. Movie bliss.

I'm so happy that happened. With the bigger budget, though, what you're saying, David, I partly like how it gets out of his hands when it's bigger budget. This gets into armchair psychology. Oh, boy. We're guilty of sometimes it happens go but if he gets i feel like he has a healthy fuck you attitude towards hollywood and

i'm not gonna say it's like self-sabotage but if he gets a budget and he is behind the driver's seat, I say this with love, but I do think John Carpenter's relationship with Hollywood has always been like, if somebody didn't get asked to go to the prom and then the attitude is, I don't want to go to prom anyway. That feels like a lot of times. You can't fire me i quit mentality yes yeah so maybe when the boss says hey you can do whatever you want there's no beast or whatever to like fight and then creatively something uh loses juice i don't know i think yeah i think he works off of friction i, too. And I think this movie is a case of him throwing the prom and realizing, like, oh, I'm way better in a garage band on prom night with my buddies than I am going to my own prom. I guess this is what I like about this movie. And then we should dip in the plow of two quotes I want to read.

What I like about this movie is if he's going to throw the prom prom one time i just want to see what that's like yeah yeah you know you got it yes it's just fun to see maybe it's not a functional prom i'd go to this prom are you kidding i'd go to it it'd be an interesting experience you know and then he still gets his carpenter ideas in there but i do i do think he's someone who like we've been reading these sort of ornery like fuck them this place is full of scoundrels quotes for the last five months but it's so clear he cares so much and a lot of that i think is not even self-defensive but self-protective but it's also him trying to like stay hungry and on edge you know and? And I think in the 90s, he got just a little tired. Like, I think he just got so run down by the whole thing

that either he wanted to take the things that he thought would give him the path of least resistance, whereas resistance had always given him the juice, or he just was like, I don't know, maybe it's something like this. I don't know. Here are two quotes I want to read about what we've been talking about. One, the numbers are Kurt Russell got $10 million,

John Carpenter got $5 million, and Deborah Hill got $2 million. The three of them would split 20% of the film's box office profits. So 17 of the $50 million goes to the three of them sort of cashing in off half of, you know, 25 years of making movies that were undersung at the time for which they were underpaid. Wow. I mean, doesn't it feel like we've all probably paid $5 million

for a carpenter? Okay. The other quote I want to read here in opposition everything we're saying this is a deborah hill quote from fangoria when the movie comes out she said we've had to make many compromises in shooting this movie for the amount of money we had jj our researcher put this in bold it's not like somebody suddenly handed us a blank check ah Yes, he does. He does clarify. It is amazing. This is Debra, I believe, said this, but I think we're delivering a film that's way beyond

the budget and it's going to look even more expensive on the screen. That's where they fucked up. Well, that's why this movie should be his best movie ever because they still thought they were working beyond their means at such a high budget. You want this to be Mad Max Fury Road. You want this to be like, finally Road. Like, you want this to be, like, finally, the culture has caught up with him. He can

do the fever dream that only existed in his mind's eye before. But it's like, you watch movies like this, and it's shit that, like, the more and more we go back to it, it's not the best movie we've ever covered on this show, necessarily, but it is, like, Fury Road is kind of the fundamental blank check movie ever covered on this show necessarily, but it is like Fury Road

is kind of the fundamental blank check movie in the sense that it absolutely should not fucking work. Every other example of that happening has been a guilty pleasure at best and a disaster at worst.

It's like the filmmaker waiting 20 years to make a movie that seems so ill-advised and somehow pulling it off perfectly can i ask you guys as far as blank check films go like if every director has their blank check what's the percentage of good ones versus bad ones you're the experts sort of a 50 50 proposition that. That's interesting, though. What is the blankest check of each filmography? Did it cash versus...

Did it clear versus bounce, baby? I mean, I love all of the film brat. Late 70s, early 80s, they all got huge bloated budgets and made insane movies that

most of them didn't work. Right, like for Scorsese, it's New York, New York, which is absolutely a bounce at its time. Right? 1941. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Coppola is just like five of them in a row.

Yeah, one from the heart is like a big one, and then, yes, Apocalypse Now. I, not to make it like a generational thing, but I thought like it's interesting that none of the generation after that, and I don't know if it's just growing up in the late 70s economy where you had to like tighten your belt a bit but none of the stalwarts of that have ever come close

to making a huge budget movie that doesn't make it is just a colossal failure that because the budget was bloated and they made a visionary piece of shit. No, it is interesting that I feel like the movies that have that kind of reputation are not made by auteurs in the same kind of way. You know, when you look at shit like Waterworld or whatever, you know, it's like, oh, like Kevin Reynolds directed that, you know, and it's like, well, Costner kind of goes director or whatever you know it's like oh like kevin reynolds directed that you know and it's like well costner kind of goes director or whatever but like if we look back i'm just running in my head through like the directors we've covered to try to figure out what the ratio is and it's like cameron clears right uh uh george lucas essentially bounces when he comes back. Shyamalan largely bounces. Nolan clears.

You know, like the modern people, even their disasters are not as disastrous as the thing that you're talking about. Yeah. But yeah, none of the like Soderberghs or... Soderbergh's biggest disaster is Solaris, which is not on the same scale as the things that we're talking about. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for one, it's just right.

It's harder to trick Hollywood into letting you do whatever you want for whatever amount of money. You know, like in the 70s and 80s, people, you know, things were a little looser. And now the blank check movies that we obsess over things like lady in the water like those sort of rare circumstances yeah where hollywood was like i guess that you've only had hit i mean okay right you know like even though the pitch is so straightforwardly ridiculous right that they're here we go we're gonna do it um or it's like a

sequel like the matrix sequels where hollywood is like matrix 2 sounds good like and the wachowskis are like yeah sure we got a lot of ideas though you know like that's often how you sneak a blank check by these days i don't know we don't think about the core concept of our podcast enough kind of ignore it sometimes um yeah I mean I just it's what you guys are saying it doesn't scale like Carpenter making a five million dollar movie look like

a forty million dollar movie does not mean that he can make a fifty million dollar movie look like a two hundred million dollar movie and it's partly just CGI if he's making this at like total recall time right just like five years earlier where you're gonna do more matte paintings more practical stuff you're not gonna have much if any cgi maybe it's a different kettle of fish maybe it is just think about what you're saying how much would you love to see that sci-fi world of matte paintings of this film and models and preach heavy it's so good

and preach and yeah well yeah the spirit wouldn't be broken but i also think it's like a very specific language of knowing how to direct digital effects you know yeah i mean i i talk about them way too much but my beloved quarter crew digital guys who do those VFX artists react videos, and they are really good at breaking down. And they've done, like, the surfing sequence for this movie, right? And they're like, why does this look bad? You know, they really, like, get into it.

And they talk about, like, the number of different things you have to consider when you're doing digital effects that cause your brain to just reject the images on screen, you know? And it is about the light diffusion or the physics being off

or like the spatial relations, you know, or whatever it is. There are a lot of like scientific things that go into it, whereas I think when you're dealing with things like map paintings and models and optical effects and stuff like that, you can get away with being more painterly about it and just going like,

that's an image. And it's a static shot or just a slow zoom so your mind is not being asked anything but to look at a landscape and it's way different than fully functioning, interweaving things. So should we, Matt, you have to take off.

Should we just kind of sorry about that guys no no it's fine oh uh all good do you have final uh notes that you want to leave us with matt uh as we continue on for another four hours probably in your absence no not four hours wait a second here three and a half three and a half that's okay with you paul three and a half sure yeah yeah cool cool um no it'd come in two vhs tapes right yeah exactly nothing specific other than this was a blast i'm so glad to finally get to do this podcast and i hope to another time when i don't have to leave early, but what fun. Buddy, we understand.

Say hello to your baby. It's not about my baby. I just want to go take a bath. Say hello to your bath. Okay. Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. That's a common mistake. Not supposed to do this. I just thought it was cute that we were going to say the same thing about such an old

idiom that's a good idiom though and you're both wearing gray t-shirts wow look at you too yeah we are i almost were like i pretty much the same glasses and i swapped glasses when i saw that you were wearing these ones see now we're wearing like the same glass yeah oh wow well griffin you tell me have you i had this experience and tell me i've had this experience i was once in new york and uh somebody walked up to me and and whispered in my they helped grab my arm a guy and whispered in my ear like i'm cool and we're in the know he was like i love you in silicon valley i was like, no. Yeah. Different guy. No, I want to be with you in Silicon Valley. That's where I love you.

My goal is to love you in Silicon Valley. Yes. No, I've done that before. I've also gotten people on the street going, hey, Big Bang Theory. Oh. Yes. Yep. That's another one.

Oh, it's so insulting. But the Silicon Valley one, you just want to go with those cases. You want to go like, which one? Yep. That's another one. Oh, it's so insulting. But this is a valid one. You just want to go with those cases. You want to go like, which one? Or are you just saying I look like a human embodiment of that show? Or are you just reminding me I auditioned for that show and didn't get it? Yeah. I just agree.

Agree. Yeah. And then I say, invite me over for dinner. Matt, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you, guys. It was my pleasure. It was really, really fun. It was lovely to meet. Bye.

Bye, Matt. Sorry the last thing you heard me say was the weird invite me over for dinner thing. I will. Bye. I love you in Silicon Valley and every other territory of these United States. And beyond. Thank you. You too. Bye, guys.

Bye-bye. Okay, now let's get into it. I'm still here. I'm still here. I'm still here. That was a little quick. That was a little quick. All right, I'm leaving now.

Hi, my daughter. Oh, God, it's so good to be off that dumb podcast Matt no Matt you didn't disconnect you gotta press leave meeting it's a two step process oh no

is it just me or is Matt getting more and more handsome oh he's already logged off I was hoping he was gonna hear that now he's gone I'll never hear it. There's no way for him to ever hear this. Okay, Paul. Time to really fucking cut loose.

What do you really think of this movie? Hot seat time. If Matt called me up and FaceTimed with me beforehand being like, you got to have my back about liking this movie, man. And I'm like, okay, okay. They're gonna be coming at us like buzz saws, okay? We gotta be united front here. We're representing Los Angeles for this escape from LA.

No, no, yeah, my feelings continue to be the same. I do not mean to be anti-LA when I say this. And I think I've sort of made this complaint before. But I remember at the time, even as a kid, I think I was 10 when this movie came out, being like, escape from LA? Really? That's what they came up with?

And it's the same way I feel every time they announce a spinoff of a crime show where they're like, you love NCIS. And I'm like, yeah, I love NCIS. They're like, what if they were in Los Angeles? I always am surprised that they just brazenly do an LA

spinoff. Yeah, where you see everything already in every show. All the shows are in LA. Crocodile Dundee. Crocodile Dundee got brought to Los Angeles. That was important. And we did that on the Patreon.

We did cover the Crocodile Dundee franchise on our Patreon. The trilogy. And I will say, it's an improvement to Croc 2. It is. I actually think it's the second best Crocodile Dundee movie. I don't know if that's a controversial opinion,

but for me, of the cd3 oh my god um yeah we should we should go through some of the plot a little bit or just at least yeah no definitely this is a segment of this movie a plotty movie although it has that escape from new york thing of like it's just little vignettes it's like right and then he goes here and he meets this guy and then he goes here and he meets this guy do like character by character which i think would be fun to do but i just want to read this carpenter thing from starlog where he's talking about um uh how much women have had told him over the years how much they love snake plissken it's like one of the things that women have said to me over the years about this movie is that what got them really attracted to this character was the fact that

he's inaccessible to them and didn't try to get them snake doesn't care about anything but staying alive for another 60 seconds he doesn't care about hurting you he doesn't care about helping you he doesn't care about taking you to bed all he cares about is moving on wow he's the ultimate bad boy and i do think that is a thing this film retains right like i think a lot of times this you know decades later sequel when the the filmmaker and the star in very different places in their career they kind of sometimes can misidentify what the core defining aspect of the character is. And I do think that's what works in this movie's favor, is it is still

this thing of Snake Plissken being like, fuck you. Or he didn't try to soften him by like, he's got a daughter or a son or, yeah, yeah, yeah. You find out a little more about him than you did in the first movie, but barely. He's still pretty much a mystery.

And he's just he's like he just has to keep moving. He's like a shark. Yeah. You know, and that his motives are always very unclear other than the fact that, you know, that he doesn't trust anybody. Right. Is Snake still cool in this movie? Or is it just that Snake is so cool in Escape from New York and Kurt Russell is cool so there's enough residual coolness

is he like newly cool in this movie I think he's still cool in this movie I think the difference is that Escape from New York the movie is as cool as he is and in this it's a little bit of a like if you're so cool why are you at this party you know

I asked myself that question a couple of times watching the movie last night. I'm like, is Snake cool right now? When I saw the Now in that year, 1996, seeing the snake tattoo on his stomach, I kind of thought, like, that's a little dorky. That'd be like if a guy's nickname was Tugboat

and then he gets a tattoo of a tugboat. You're like, yep, that is your nickname, dude. It's almost like the framing of this being the movie that he's in turns him into Wooderson. You know, where you're like, why are you hanging out with high schoolers? You keep on telling me how cool you are.

And he's wearing that kind of like long black duster there's points where i was like just complete the ensemble snake and put on a goddamn fedora if you want to look yeah and hang out in a certain corner of the library well even the music it's bad rock music that like people listen to. Yes. Like the fashion is so corny. Like he's so out of touch. He really is.

It's when that those drive by those people driving those gang members driving by in a car shooting at each other. Yeah. And I was like, this is 2013 at its worst and the the cutting edge music they're listening to is like late era grunge yeah i mean it's like it's the problem of i actually think the score to this movie rips and you have carpenter bringing back his original theme and then working again with uh shirley walker who did the memoirs invisible man is able to give it this sort of like full orchestral sweep and magistrate but then anytime they

do a needle drop it's like a fucking like Ozzfest reject that really sticks out like a sore thumb yeah and isn't cool to answer David's question really uncool Paul you have to weigh in on the thing

we talked about in the escape from new york episode which is where do you think the snake tattoo ends very important do you think it covers his whole penis some is it coiled around it does it not touch the penis is it just kind of you know cut off and i'm so glad that matt's gone because this but this is the kind of thing we couldn't ask matt oh but matt has his like amazing hr geiger impression so i feel like this is a geiger area would be like this snake tail wraps around i think it yeah it goes from midsection, down, past the genitals, across the tank. It wraps underneath! Oh, all the way! And then completes with a final stardust sparkle on his asshole.

Wow. Yeah, that's good. Now, here's the thing. Did you guys notice in the beginning when what's his name is reading through all the info on plissken right you're kind of getting like yeah exactly yeah you're getting like an update on like kind of where he's been at since the last movie and he his full name is listed as sd bob plissken yeah yeah which i'm assuming is short for Snake Dick Bob Plissken. He's got definite snake dick energy.

Yeah, I think it's in the name. Yeah, it's right there. How silly of us to even ask. You can just tell from how he walks into a room that he has big snake dick energy. You can hear the rattle on this man. From a mile away. So, right, that's the, I mean,

it is Jamie Lee Curtis doing the narration again, right, at the beginning? Yes. Which I think they do a really good job of setting up. Yeah, yeah, she's uncredited narrator in both of these. You set up this sort of like moralistic America. LA has become, what, disconnected from the United States. It's a hell zone.

And then you have Cliff Robertson as this Reagan as president and his daughter utopia played by AJ Langer. A legend. A legend. Right. Honorable countess of Devon. Is that true? Previous.

Yeah. She married the Earl of Devon in 2004. So if you go to A.J. Langer's Wikipedia page, it correctly identifies her as the Right Honorable Countess of Devon. Wait, the Earl? What's an Earl?

It's like a kind of lord. It's a fancy British landowning aristocrat. Well, he's above a lord. It's better than a lord. Yes, she is the Countess of Devon. So just congratulations to A.J. Langer. Rayanne from My So-Called Life, obviously. Yes, and I know her mainly from,

because I was in a so-called life head, but the people under the stairs is what I know her from. Yes, yes. That was is what I know. Yes. Yes. That was her debut. Right. She does this. She does Meet the Deedles.

I believe she's the female lead in Meet the Deedles. I think she plays a park ranger or something. And then she takes like a 14-year break from acting and then did private practice at Grey's Anatomy. Huh. 14 year break from acting and then did private practice at Grey's Anatomy. Huh. But I guess she had the business of the manor to take care of, right? Yeah, she's the freaking Countess of Devon, okay?

I have to say, she's not the actor I would have predicted had buried into royalty, but I guess I wouldn't have put money down on Meghan Markle either. It's just funny when someone who's like the fourth lead on a TV show is like, oh, they're royalty now? Yeah, it ain't no Grace Kelly.

Wasn't Caspar Van Dien also married into royalty? He's royal. He's like Dutch royalty or something. I don't know. Anyway, look, Griffin, take us through the plot for crying out loud. I'm sorry. He was married to Catherine Oxenberg,

who was the daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. All right. But they're divorced and remarried. Okay, so the movie opens with this Jamie Lee Curtis intro setting up the rules of this fucking broken society. Earthquake shatters Los Angeles, turns into an island. He declares,

the president declares Los Angeles to be sinful and punished by God. And then he's elected president for the rest of his life. He relocates the capital to his hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia. Why could I not get the word Virginia out there?

But his daughter falls for Cuervo Jones, who is the sort of Che Guevara figure of this world. I guess there's also a little bit of a sort of Patty Hearst idea going on here, right? Mm-hmm. Definitely. Because she makes the video where she's like, I'm with them now and all that. And so they've stolen a weapon, like a

satellite weapon that knocks out technology. Snake's job is to get that. It's not to rescue the president's daughter. Right. That's the subversion is you think it's like, I have to save my daughter. She's been brainwashed by these terrible people. And the president's like, find my daughter so you can take this fucking weapon from her and then shoot her point blank.

She's a fucking hassle. That's his mission. Wow. Now, Snake, of course, doesn't want to do it. He is, at least for everything in the world, is being called out to go on missions. This guy hates that. And he knows the trick.

They bring you in for the meeting. You say you don't want to do it. Then they inject a thing in your neck. So he's like, too bad. I'm not going to let you hit me in the neck again. And they were like, actually, too bad for you. We scratched you five minutes ago. I have to admit, that's infinitely less cool.

The flashback to just a nail scratch on the back of his hand. Yeah. Although I do appreciate the... They're trying with this sequel. They're not just gonna... I like that it's... It's not as good as the last idea. I like that it's a virus.

I like that it's a virus. And I like that it's too late. It's already in there. Yes. Here's the antidote. You got 48 hours, whatever it is. 10 hours. he's got 10 hours you're paired up with eddie murphy and i always think people only have 48 hours to do

anything it is the best uh ticking clock he's got 10 hours i apologize you got two two nights two days sure yeah perfect you get you get one night to compare to the other night to see how the characters have grown and changed right exactly you can have the ability to compare to the other night to see how the characters have grown and changed. Right, exactly. The ability to compare and contrast. And you can have two kind of like before bed sort of quiet conversation scenes that way. You know, it's like, eh, you know,

it's getting real low. Two rise and shines. What's that? Two rise and shines. Yes. That reminds me of when, I guess when Owen Wilson did I Spy and read the script. He was like, I love the script, but where's the bathtub scene?

And everybody's like, what's the bathtub scene? It's like in Shanghai Noon. When they have the bathtub scene and they bond before they go into the final act as buddies i was like that's how he thinks i it is a really when i watch movies i go they didn't have a like a a satisfying enough bathtub scene or they ignored the bathtub scene the bathtub scene shanghai noon fucking rules it's the highlight of the movie it's like like the thing that clicks the whole film into next year. It's the Shang highlight. It is the Shang highlight.

I like this opening sort of cat and mouse thing of Snake thinking, like, I've been through one of these escape room movies. I know how to fucking end this thing. Shooting them and Stacey Keach being like, we gave you a clip full of blanks. We fucking, we've watched that movie as well. We know the snake Plissken rules, you know? He drops down into the sewer. The people there have the guns pointed at him. The holograms. I like the hologram trick.

The hologram thing is fun. And they use it the right amount of times. Yes. Yes. Right. Because you use it a lot at the beginning and then you let it like dip out of your mind for fucking 80 minutes.

So when it comes back in the end, it's slipped away. There have been so many other ideas since then. And beyond that, Griff, we have to mention Stacey Keech, who's sort of playing the Lee Van Cleef role in this movie. He has the hair that he has in body bags, basically. And you very briefly bring back Robert Carradine as well. He brings back his two body bags leading men. Paul, have you ever seen body bags? The Twilight Zone-y ripoff that Carpenter made for Showtime in the 90s?

Yeah, that's sort of his throwing his hat in the ring of Tales to the Crypt for Showtime. Where he plays a corpse who also works at a morgue. I saw it once, and it was on its premiere night in a hotel room with my family. And my parents are into thriller, horror, suspense stuff. And so it was like, this might be a little too intense, but let's sit and watch it. And the thing, I haven't seen it since. I remember the car lowering on the guy.

Oh, yeah. And splattering him and his like blood shooting out of his, like an overhead shot of blood spraying out of his mouth. And I like John Carpenter as the like crypt keeper. I remember thinking he was, like, funny.

That performance is great. But the reason David brought it up is Stacy Keech's segment in that, which Carpenter directed as well, is he's a bald man who cannot get over his baldness. Keeps on looking for solutions. He finally finds a radical miracle treatment being advertised on TV that ends up being like an alien transplant. They put alien worms into your skull and they take over your head. And then Stacey Keech in this movie essentially has the exact same toupee.

It's pretty funny. Except tied back and he's got a ponytail and all that. Yes. But good casting. Like, Lee Van Cleef gone. You need a modern analog. Stacey Keach is a fun choice. He does the job well.

Also, speaking of the outside, I the the outside his theatrical release stuff like body bags. A couple of weeks ago, I watched because I was jonesing for a Halloween

fix, but not Halloween. I watched that Lauren Hutton Someone's Watching movie. Holy. Oh, my gosh. I loved it. I mean, I bought it on like a box set with like other Warner Brothers horror 80s releases. Watched it then, but then rewatched it. Yeah.

A couple weeks ago. Holy moly. It's really strong. It's really strong. It's a clean, Hitch strong hitchcocky kind of thriller just really watchable it also goes back to like everything that uh matt was saying which is just like jesus christ that guy did that with like fucking 14 days of filming on like a tv movie budget and three sets you know like that's where carpenter's amazing where it's like how could you possibly make a compelling movie out of that and then this is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum not in terms of quality but in terms of like what if you let the guy do anything he wanted

whether or not he had the ability to pull it off um yeah okay so then the first proper person he meets when he gets into the L.A. of it all is Peter Fonda, really, right? Yes. Because his submarine watch is on shore. Peter Fonda's just there being like, hey, man, what's up? Welcome to L.A. Yeah. Peter Fonda, of course, playing a character named Pipeline. Yeah.

Sick. Who's a surf dog. Christian name. playing a character named Pipeline. Yeah. Sick. Oof. Who's a surf dog. Christian name. What is his Christian name? John Pipeline. He's, of course... This is a year before Ulysses Gold. Yeah. Before the comeback.

Yeah. He's covered in acid rain burns on his face. Yes. But he's just always looking for a tasty wave. Yeah, I like Peter Fonda showing up and stuff in general. I like a little dash of Fonda. I like him in 310 to Yuma. Because it's never going to happen again, David, unfortunately.

Why? He's dead. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, you put present tense. I like him showing up in things. I'm just thinking of like post this, like the limey 310 to Yuma. There's another one I'm thinking where it's just like just a little Fonda. Nothing crazy.

Wild hogs. Yeah. Wild hogs. Sure. That's definitely the other thing I was thinking of. Does he do like an easy rider wink? I've never seen a wild hog. 2007 is ghost rider and wild hogs.

Like it's like two different bites at the apple of like, oh, I'm commenting on the fact that I'm the easy rider guy. And one, it's wild hogs. And he's like presented as like the platonic ideal of what these guys are trying to be. And then ghost rider. He's like, I'm the platonic ideal of what these guys are trying to be. And then ghost writer. He's like, I'm the devil on a bicycle. He's messes, messes,

doffleys or whatever. Right. He is the devil. Uh, anyway. Yeah. So he meets Peter Fonda, but really just to say hello,

I feel like the first person he really meets is map to the stars. Eddie, right? Yes. Which is much like cabbie it's sort of like a quick meeting a little color from a guy who's going to keep on popping up again every 15 minutes or so

yeah and who is just I guess on a meta level or whatever I'm not using that word right but whoever does but like he's like a Mark Zuckerberg he's the one guy who uses that correctly no we don't. He uses the word meta correctly.

A character, like a very beloved character actor. Like, it's also slotting an actor for an actress. Harry Dean Stan, Ernest Borgnine, who are the equivalents of the 90s. Yeah, that's the thing. He's sort of a combo Of cabbie and brains because obviously He's a little more of a bad guy Or whatever he's a little more

Slimy than cabbie is Because cabbie's just like I'm the cabbie I love this I live in the apocalypse It's great look at my hat I masturbate A lot And so right so he's kind of yeah he's kind of a combo of those two things he sells he sells

I don't know he sells like audio guides he sells audio maps of the stars his gimmick yeah this is also when they're starting the whole like everyone knows snake and kind of recognizes him right and also kind of tracking his career as a criminal like he was an

athlete kind of and they're all referencing cleveland all the time i felt like that um was a funny riff on hollywood and los angeles like it's focused on celebrities so it's like i know that guy who's that up even including the joke of twice somebody says you're shorter than i thought you would be which is like the classic thing kurt russell and stallone has to hear right like yeah yeah i don't know if that was just i liked it because it added lore to snake but it also seemed like a funny uh ribbon hollywood i agree i agree buscemi also is just like this is when he's just like cruising right so many yeah everyone wants a little buscemi in there yeah i mean uh this is fargo it's the same year as fargo right and then trees lounge he makes his like

directing debut the same year kansas city is the same year this is coming after the year of billy mass and living in oblivion things to do in denver when you're dead desperado what a career before that hudsucker proxy arrowheads pulp fiction like he's just kind of unstoppable right now yeah and the year after that this is con air but it's the thing with con him being in con air is the year after that this is con air but it's the thing with con him being in con air is the year after is when he goes from being the guy you see in every art movie like every american indie movie to the guy you suddenly see in every blockbuster to you know do a little comedy like that that's that's the big the big jump he makes. There is the guy who, right, when it becomes not just film fans,

movie lovers recognize this person. Like when, you know, my parents are movie lovers, but like Steve Buscemi is somebody who when they come on screen, they love the scene now because they love Steve Buscemi. I mean, it is just like such a great magic trick.

Someone in our Blank Check Reddit was talking, someone started a thread going like, can you define what the difference is between character actor and movie star? And they were getting sort of confused about the way we use those two terms and when we sometimes say like, someone like Colin Farrell is a character actor who is misinterpreted as a movie star

or someone else is vice versa or whatever. And they're like, what are these distinctions? And like, who gets to be an A-list movie star based on bankability when there are other people like Steve Buscemi who like everyone knows and loves but isn't considered a leading man in that kind of way outside of Boardwalk Empire? And someone in the comments said, like, I used to work for like, you know, like a test focus company or like a market research company. And we would like chart Q ratings of different actors and stuff. And Steve Buscemi always ranked as high as anybody. Like it was kind of incredible where you'd go like, well, like Tom Cruise, of course, you know, like Harrison Ford, whatever.

And it was like Steve Buscemi. Everyone knows Steve Buscemi. He transcends all ages, all races, all socioeconomic classes. Everyone loves him. Everyone has a good association. And not just that guy. Everyone's like, oh, Steve Buscemi. They know him by name.

That's true. As you said, Paul, he shows up, everyone gets excited. And whether it's in a fucking Coen Brothers movie or a Sandler comedy or a Bruckheimer action film, you're like, we're getting a Buscemi bump. a Sandler comedy or a Bruckheimer action film, you're like, we're getting a Buscemi bump. I mean, he got a song with the, remember the, she likes me for me. Yeah. Not because I look

like Leonardo or the guy who played in Fargo. I think his name was Steve. He knows his name. He's just looking for a rhyme. I know. It's actually Root. Do the work to rhyme with Buscemi. Yeah, you could have figured it out. David, I love when you're like a dash of Buscemi or a dash of Fonda.

I imagine like a sprinkle, like somebody getting like a cheese grater and just having like a block of Buscemi. And they just kind of like. You don't want too much. Buscemi. Say what? Just a little Buscemi. He was just kind of like, you don't want too much. Buscemi. I guess they're sort of like, say what? Just a little Buscemi. He was,

okay, that's enough. That's enough Buscemi. Thank you. Like early 2000s, gun to my head, Steve Buscemi is my favorite actor. No hesitation.

Sort of ghost world, Steve Buscemi. I just think at that moment when I'm like, you know, like really coming into my like, film, nerd boy shit. I'm'm just like this guy's the best he's like the best through line between every type of movie i like and he's always good

i'll uh only uh do this because we're celebrating the man and talking about him uh he did a directed episode of uh love so i got to work with him for like a week to like 10 days and he was amazing because yeah when you think about all the directors he worked with you do have sort of a moment where you're like well what he's doing in some ways

is the sum total of all of his experiences working with these directors and knowing what works for him but also what he sees works for others. And the thing I noticed, and this isn't like a, a, and everybody else is bad because they don't do this.

It was just the unique thing he would do when he would direct, he would walk over and just like have such a soft spoken conversation with the actors that only the actors could possibly hear right it was very cool he actually knew the frequency right to speak at almost yeah he did the magic castle episode i'm look i looked it up that's such a good episode yeah oh yeah thank you yeah but uh i just uh just going back down to his work and acting like i do think that sort of like gentleness is something that's like he's not just cast as the creep scumbag well he's filled with contradictions that's the thing it's like when you cast him to play sweet there's something a little creepy about him when he cast

him play creepy there's something kind of sweet about him you know he's simultaneously scary and funny i mean it's like that thing of just being like he was like a fire man you know like there are all these things about him that are like hard to reconcile i mean it's also i'm just looking at his fucking imdb here as a director but you forget like oh right he directed leap day williams like maybe my favorite episode of 30 rock right he did pine barrens which i haven't seen yet but i know is the one that everyone cites as being the best Sopranos episode. Oh, Sopranos, yeah. It's one of the best made episodes of Sopranos beyond anything else.

Right, like not only has he directed on so many big shows, but in many of the cases he arguably did the best episode ever. Wow, good point. Yeah, he fucking rules. He's the best, and I love this character and my fucking Zoom background, which we spent five minutes talking about

before we recorded, is a model, which I wish there was more of this in the movie, a physical model of Buscemi in the hang glider that looks somehow both exactly like Steve Buscemi and like Buster Keaton. With his little pork pie hat. But yeah, I'm all in on Maps the Star, Eddie.

I think he's like a fun character and I think it's a good, what we're saying, like good analog. Steve Buscemi is like the Ernest Borgnine, you know, Harry Dean Stanton. Like he occupies that same sort of legendary tier. And then he also meets Taslima, played by Valeria Galino.

The heart of the book. Who is... She's the heart of the book. Right. In the interviews, they really talk about her as being a really crucial character. And it's not like... She's good. But she does die before the third act even

begins, really. Look, it's similar to the Adrienne Barbeau character, but she makes even less of an impact, I would argue, and it's not Galeno's fault at all. It's a little... Gordley talks about this on his James Bonding podcast, that with every post-71 Bond film, the press and promotion for the Bond girl always is,

but I'm a different Bond girl. My Bond girl always is. But I'm a different Bond girl. My Bond girl is blank. And it sounds like that's what they were trying to do, a little bit of trickery in the promotion there, too, of like, she is the heart of this movie, as Griffin said.

But like, as we point out, Snake doesn't fuck, right? Snake doesn't have time to fuck. And it's the same kind of thing of finding someone who's a little more vulnerable, who he's maybe starting to open up to a little bit or at least seem to show some level of, if not affection, appreciation and respect for who then gets like killed off pretty unceremoniously. She's goodness.

I mean, there's that wild stat with Valeria Galeno, who I incorrectly in a previous episode said was, I believe, the girl from Better Off Dead. I always get her and Diane Franklin confused, who's one of the medieval babes in Bill and Ted. Because Valeria Galeno is hot shots and big top peewee. But do you know that she's one of only three actresses to have one best actress from the venice film festival twice holy whoa yes absolutely uh that's cool i i want i want to get the the three here it is uh this is what's wild about it uh whatchamacallit uh it's uh betty davis won for two movies in the same year marked woman and kid gala had wait no am i i wouldn't even count that because that just means they had betty davis i'm sorry the three that the three that count are shirLaine, Isabelle Huppert, and Valeria Galeno. And the Galeno movies are...

Because they're not... They're Italian movies. A Tale of Love and Amor Vostro. Yes, a movie called Anna, which has a different name in Italian, right? But she was just in Portrait of a Lady on Fire and she killed it yeah uh i feel like i just saw her in something else maybe it was escape from la is the thing i

just saw her in all right she's in the morning show she plays really uh yeah she plays like the new girlfriend of steve carell when he like moves to europe uh in the morning show season two check it out apple tv plusvplus.com. Whatever, however it is you, check that out. She is also playing a Muslim in this movie. She's like, I was the only Muslim in South Dakota or whatever, like it's kind of her line, you know. It's all weird. Everything about her in this movie,

you're like, I have so many questions. And the movie's like, too bad, she's dead. Snake's got a movie, he's got to play basketball. I really love her as an actor I have so many questions. And the movie's like, too bad, she's dead. Snake's got a movie. He's got to play basketball. I really love her as an actor. And I think she's really great as a comic actor, especially in those Hot Shots movies. But Big Top Pee-wee as well, just playing something so straight and genuine.

There's no winking. It's really spectacular and i my heart broke because i never knew she was in a movie around this era i would have watched it like so i saw her name go by on the screen at the beginning i was like wait was that really and then when she popped up in this like joan jett hairdo uh as this like uh yeah i guess it was like a two and a half three scene character there was something strange too about how she would like she was kind of like following him like a

feral cat that was falling in love no it is like after this she almost exclusively goes back to Italian films like she'll make like one English language film every five years maybe that's where I lost touch yeah you know i'm going to a multiplex in sioux city iowa what the fuck am i gonna see there um but we should not

gloss over i know we've we've referenced it but bruce campbell as the surgeon general of beverly hills in sort of uh frightening makeup right because valeria Galino is with him for that. That's right. She's a part of that set piece. Right. That's sort of what Matt was talking about, about wanting more, like, L.A. shit in the movie, like the roaming band of executives. I like that sequence because of this idea of, like, what

happens if society has collapsed and people are still, they're not going to be able to kick their addiction to plastic surgery. So they essentially become zombies needing to harvest new parts for new surgeries. I love that sequence. And then like, I thought there was some real like gross, grotesque stuff that just like was going by quickly on screen. I was like, hey, respect.

That's awesome. You're just like, you know, this thing holds up and is weird and gross. Yeah. Thinking about it, though, with that being like the sole sort of like high culture correct me if i'm wrong but that might be the only target high culture target about los angeles not saying los angeles is filled with high culture it's just its shots are kind of coming at street gangs. I'm not saying John Carpenter is a toxic

bad whatsoever. I'm just saying like the targets in this movie are like, oh you could do I guess you have the big baddie president but you could do like what is kind of the like questionable sources of power in Los Angeles. yeah yes this movie could

do more la specifics especially being directed by a guy who's gotten so burnt out on the industry you imagine he has more sort of like pointed barbs he could have thrown at the culture the the story i just want to say very quickly is that they both Carpenter, but even more so, Kurt Russell wanted Bruce Campbell for this because they loved the Evil Dead movies. They were like fans and they were like, he'd be like a fun addition to this world. And as Bruce Campbell tells it, when Bruce Campbell showed up on set, the first thing Kurt Russell ever said to him was, Hey, Bruce, say work shed. And he was like, what? And there's this weird cut in Evil Dead 2, a movie we'll never talk about on this podcast, where because of the edit, he says work shed weirdly.

And Wyatt Russell, now movie star, apparently was like an Evil Dead fanatic as a kid and got his dad really into the movie and i think wyatt russell was on set with him and kurt was like i'm gonna get him to say work shed for you but bruce campbell was like blown away that he not only was like that big of a fan of his work but that he knew sort of like the esoteric of the fan the sort of like sort of like a little love it it was like a meme right an early meme was that that word delivery yeah you know i will say this about early meme you made me think of like um one thing about this movie is it's good to remember that people probably well i guess vhs existed but like fans wouldn't wouldn't have been as deep no with move you know like this is the whole thing about

the movies now it's like the fans just re-watch things and so everything's on youtube it's easy to like see clips and have this total recall for so much stuff and back then it was sort of like people remembered the vibes of escape from new york and the vibes of snake but they they don't need i guess all of the crazy callbacks that like a legacy sequel would do now and i wonder if it's because it's from the maker himself so you're a little you're maybe put the brakes more on the self-referential stuff whereas a jaja abrams uh like feels like he has to do fan servicey thing because he's not the holder the keeper of the well the jedi texts yeah but i also feel like nowadays the guys fall into it sometimes you know still where they're just like i guess i gotta play the hits that's

the expectation i mean i i see so much weird like language around that of like oh this filmmaker proved that they're a real fan they put the things in to show us the real fans that they too are a real fan and they get it. And it's like, movies are trying to pass this test with like the, the fans who have appointed themselves guardians of, of the property or whatever. I mean,

there's this whole thing that like JJ dug up about how badly Isaac Hayes wanted to be in the movie and Carp and Debra Hill were like, you died. And he's like, I don't care. I want to be back. And they're like, no, you're dead. There's no way around it. You got shot by the president. You're done.

And he was like, well, maybe he didn't have to die. He comes back from the dead. They nursed his wounds. He comes back in a dream sequence. And like, Hill and Carpenter are both like, no. And it's like, it would have been so easy to just go like comes back in a dream sequence. And like, Helen and Carter are both like, no. And it's like, it would have been so easy

to just go like, he got a lot better, you know, and bring back Isaac Hayes and get a true pop from it. A year later, they'd be, bring Ripley back

in Alien Resurrection with some cloning. Right, right. And it's just like, he had no interest in playing that game. I'll come up with new characters who are fun in their own ways,

which the equivalent to him in this really is the Pam Grier character, which we can talk about is the least successful aspect of this whole movie, even more so than the special effects. He wanted to play this character. He lobbied to play Carjack. Okay.

Which would have been even worse. Yeah, that wouldn't have worked. I don't think that would make sense. He wanted to fucking play Hershey LaPalmas with a wig on or whatever. Well, I'm glad that didn't happen, I guess. Like, I'm trying to think of what's a sequel where they're like,

we love this character so much, this actor so much, we're going to have him play a second character in the sequel. City Slickers 2. Oh, sure. That's the example that immediately comes to mind. For the brother. That's how you do it.

Right. I rewatched City Slickers 2, or City Slickers 1 recently. Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. David just gave me the most disgusted face I have ever seen. I was like you re-watched city our near decade of friendship i re-watched city slickers one recently jack

pons is in like nine minutes of that movie i had forgotten that he dies within the first hour of the film and that he's introduced late and that he essentially has three scenes. Like he has the one big monologue. I forgot how little of it he's in. The one big monologue. It's like the one thing. The one big monologue. But it is. It's that one scene and that scene happens at like minute 42 and then like five minutes later he's dead and then

the main plot kicks in. I always remember his death being like the big act three thing. Yeah. Same. I haven't watched that in a maybe he dies very very early in that film anyway the pam greer thing's a fucking disaster uh it is just like you know it's look i love pam greer i like watching her in the movie it's it's the whole fuck and we don't need to go down this rabbit hole, but it's like so much of the stupid, alarmist fucking shit that happens from transphobes still to this day, I think, is rooted in how trans people were depicted in the 90s more so than ever, I feel like, where they're always treated as like con artists and tricksters. tricksters you know when people go tie themselves in knots over this idea of like a guy's putting on a wig so he can sneak into a woman's bathroom and see them peeing and shit which is like not a real

life thing i think it's always because these comedies and these action movies always present it as like some comedic device some dishonesty you know someone trying to like it's their sort of own version of like that's a good witness protection or whatever uh you know they're often villainous uh i mean even something like the crying game which has you know a comparatively a far more sympathetic portrayal it still is a movie that is hung on the twist you won't believe this fucking twist the twist is the misrepresentation of this person you know um so it's like you know fucking obviously judging it through the modern prism it's not like this movie is solely responsible for this entire phenomenon but it's like it's one of those things that just like i'm watching this movie i'm vibing on a pair of sillies it is bums me out we get to that fucking

sequence especially when he's like feeling up her legs and making dick jokes and stuff. It fucking sucks. It sucks. No good. And also like, I think a sophisticated audience member in 1996 watched that would have been like, this sucks.

It's like, it's not interesting. Obviously there's a zillion movies from this era that have that kind of like, the move of the sort of like, well, wait a second you know but i do i do think as much as it's easy to say like hey you know it's like 30 years ago 20

you know yeah at the time there were plenty of people who saw that and rolled their eyes like it's sort of worth noting you know oh and i wasn't i'm sorry i wasn't saying griffin uh wasn't saying no i know i just meant like i I know he wasn't I'm just saying like the defense that a lot of people and it's not untrue obviously that mores change and the way that movies and culture deals with things change obviously that is true

but like this the whole sequence the voice you know like the whole way everything is executed is just off and just like it's i know and i think you're making a good point david which is like you know aside from the the the social ugliness of it it also i think by 1996 was pretty fucking hacky like this isn't an interesting thing a move for a movie to play, you know? And if you go to like the 70s,

you have more interesting portrayals of trans people in Dog Day Afternoon and shit. By the 90s, you're in this corridor of like Ace Ventura and this movie. Yeah, I mean, there's movies like Flawless,

like not that they're like entirely, you know, there's movies that are trying. Flawless comes after this, but yes, Flawless is an example I thought of as one of the few movies in the 90s

that feels like it makes a real effort. know like there's a episode of er that's sort of famous that like you watch it now and you're like this is 80 of the way to basically you know like you know there's things like that but flawless is like a 70 movie yeah sure i do think that this movie it's just like la future la is crazy man we've got you know x we've got you know and then this is just trying to sort of be on that energy and it's and it's a bit silly oh yeah the attitude of like los angeles is a city full of fruits and nuts yes exactly that's like the final punctuation mark of that idea is that scene right you've got you know what if valeria galeno was a a muslim and uh pam creer was a transgendered you know

super spy or whatever the mind of john carpet right but yeah i mean, this, this, the fucking Pam Greer sort of pat down sequence is sandwiched in between the surfboarding and the hand gliding. Yes. Yeah. Oh, right. That's like when the movies can be in the basketball. Really? Yeah. Can be really strange is when they're in relief to some just like truly bonkers.

Bonkers imagery. Yeah. Like that because the movie I feel like is maybe that's why it felt like the brakes kind of got hit there because it was it's such a. I mean, it's a it's an anti-authority movie, but it's pretty giddy and it's like anti-authoritarianism. Like it's having fun. Yeah. You have three kind of like roller coaster sequences there regardless of how well they are or are not executed you know it's like yeah do you guys notice that funny like pg-13 eyes version of the line from the thing when the head walks

away and he says you got to be fucking kidding me, which is amazing. So funny. And this, when they're like surfing down the ravine, Buscemi drives by and he goes, you gotta be kidding me. It's like, Oh yeah. Brought it back and made it worse.

It is weird. The Buscemi is just casually driving in that scene when there's a tsunami like he doesn't notice he doesn't look behind him until uh snake i mean surfs up like you'd think you'd be like oh shit there's a column of water coming towards me the spatial relations make like no sense but i just i just like that he keeps on like like he's a little bit like fucking benny and the mummy where he just like keeps on showing up right and you don keeps on like he's a little bit like fucking Benny and the Mummy where he just like keeps on showing up again and you don't know whether he's going to fuck you over or help you

right but he's indestructible he's like a cockroach the only sequence we haven't really talked about is the basketball not that there's like a ton to talk about there's just a funny little like moment for the movie to slow down in a way right you know what I mean like did you know yeah did you know what i mean like

did you know yeah did you know that like during that like because that's obviously like a the coliseum gladiator fighting i didn't know this but apparently that basketball gladiator kind of in the round or the coliseum scene is what inspired ridley scott to make Gladiator. Really? He saw that and he was like... No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We took you at fucking face value. Slick Ridley all over again. No, but it is.

It's like you're doing the slag fight again, right? It's like you need another, the equivalent of this. But it's just weird that it's like, ha ha ha ha ha ha, you're doomed. Now here are the rules. You have 10 seconds per shot.

It's just weirdly specific, even though there's like machine guns trained at him. The rules are really funny. It's like, you do want somebody at that, like at every, you know, cocktail party or a friend gathering where you're playing a party. You want somebody who's like, okay, here are the steps and directions because he really does uh command authority um so but yeah i do like that

i just i i like that it's sort of hard in a mundane way that i guess that's what the problem you know it also i've just realized i love the comparison you made earlier about that that it is like a video game where you have the 10 second, you get the hand. And as long as it leaves the hand. But it also reminds me of like a basketball, a kid, a group of kids come up with the back in the backyard. Where they're like, okay, you get 10 seconds. The ball can leave the hand on the 10 second, but then you have to run back. Yes, it feels like basketball rules.

I also, I think Russell plays really well without betraying the thing that Carpenter talked about of like St. Plissken only cares about making it through the next 60 seconds. The scene where he finally like comes face to face with Utopia and he she realizes that not only was he not sent there to save her but that he was sent to kill her there's like sort of the silent exchange where you see snake doing the calculation of like well i don't believe in

this person getting killed and i cannot believe how cold it is the president wants his daughter assassinated but I also don't want to die and there's this little like glimpse of humanity in him in the fact that he sort of lets her survive yeah I admired that moment a lot because I did think like it helped me understand how

much restraint there had come before it that I wasn't necessarily clocking like I said earlier like oh they didn't give him a son or a daughter or an ex-wife who's got to get his marriage back on track by the end. But being pretty decisive with that one moment, yeah, it felt good. It felt good to see Snake just be a little

kinder, gentler. Anyway, he blows up Cuervo with a rocket from his helicopter. This kind of Disneyland-esque... There were so many... Which I guess is a little bit of the late 90s thing and to this day, like the multiple climaxes. But I just, I kept thinking like,

well, this has to be the moment they top out. They top out at Disneyland and then it kept going. Right, the happy kingdom is what they call it. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Happy kingdom. You get to the sequence, which is like, well, he's bringing it all back around

to like the same ending as Escape from New York, right? Like now we're just down to the like last few players. He's completed his mission. They reveal that they fucking punked him pretty goddamn hard. That blue toxin seven was just a minor head cold.

It's right. It's the flu. It's a minor flu. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds a lot like what we've been doing with two years.

Something fake that they put in us intentionally. That they're just yeah right yeah sounds sounds a lot like what we've been doing with two years something fake right in us intentionally just telling us about to make us bad the news trying to make us angry but yes I'm just warming you up for next week's guest

we had to have I mean I But yes, I'm just warming you up for next week's guest, Jim Brewer. He's coming on. We had to have. I mean, I said no until I saw that clip of him on stage. And I was like, oh, well, this is a no brainer. We got to have this on. Well, look, I always believed in science. I was always someone who thought we should listen to our scientists. But then I saw Jim Brewer do a savage takedown of people who listen to scientists

by making them sound like parrots and doing a little parrot walk on stage. I mean, I think he might have played like a lab scientist in some Monkey Boy sketches. Oh, sure. The Chris Catan ones. And Goat Boy himself.

Goat Boy himself, a scientific experiment gone awry. He understands the evils, the ills of science, the slippery slope better than anyone. He was Goat Boy. Guys, we're literally bigger than Jim Brewer now. Do we have to, like, we're actually

giving him a platform, right? Are we punching down? Yeah, exactly. Does this actually count as punching down? Is that how bad it's gotten for Jim Brewer? Have we crossed the the threshold that's so funny 10 10 years ago i think it was around like 2011 10 i remember somebody checking my jim brewer punching down really down wasn't the word yet but somebody was kind of like yeah i think uh you don't have to be thinking about Jim Brewer. I wrote a Jim Brewer tweet last night, and then I screencapped it, and I sent it to David and our friends, the Doughboys. And I said, I'm just sending this so I don't tweet it out.

I have a very mean Jim Brewer thing I want to tweet, and I don't want Jim Brewer fans in my mentions. So I'm just posting this for you three. And then thank you for letting me get it on my system. For you three. And then thank you for letting me get it on my system. Anyway, this final sequence of the movie, you're like, what's the snake double, triple, cross, reverse he's going to pull? Right? Because we've seen him swipe out the tapes in the first movie, destroy the other one after the president passes his moral test.

They do like six fake outs here. Right? He gives the wrong remote. He's a hologram. Yes. Yes. There's been a switcheroo. Right, yes.

Yeah, he just maybe had a big list of switcheroos that he wanted to get through. And then there's that moment that most of these movies build up to where the president goes like, shoot my daughter! Shoot her right now! And they go like, sir, you're still on camera. And you assume that's going to be the thing, like Coco style, that takes him down. And he's like, sir, you're still on camera. And you assume that's going to be the thing like Coco style that takes him down.

And he's like, I don't care. Everyone in America should watch me shoot my daughter on camera. Like, it's such a good choice for just what the level of rot is here. And his whole argument about like, I'm holding morality together with my bare hands. Snake, if you don't listen to me, this whole society will fall apart. And this is where. I just got so amped. And I was like.

Are they gonna fucking do it? Are they gonna fucking do it? And Snake's like. Yeah. Good. Everything sucks. Bye. Yeah.

Boom. Exactly. Yeah. That's the whole thing. Of like. Things have gotten bad enough. That like. Come on Snake.

You wouldn't end. All technology. I would. It's like. I think we should. I mean. He doesn't say it like that. And they just do like.

Snake. Do you understand what will happen. If you push the button he's like yeah gonna push it welcome to humanity welcome to the human race welcome to the human race final line snake plissken fucking

finds a cigarette lights it up that's the only light on the planet and he says look into the camera I love the finding the cigarette pack and point it up i think i probably grade this movie on a curve because i like the ending so much but it reminds me of the terminator 3 thing where you spend this whole movie being like how do you get around the unavoidable cynicism and inevitability of doom baked into this premise and you just go like you don't you end the movie with

I guess we fucked up everything has to be ruined like that ending of Terminator 3 where they're like yeah no it's impossible the robots are going to take over no matter what anyway enjoy the next 20 years in this bombshell it's like my mind was blown when I saw that and I couldn't believe even after

spending months watching Carpenter, that this movie just fucking ends this strong. Truly. Truly. It's so good. It's a great ending. I don't know. Carpenter's like,

it's 10 times better than Escape from New York, which I do appreciate. He's rough. It's a fun, silly, absurd movie with a great ending. Yeah, and I think that chase through the market was my favorite of the middle of the movie. Because that was one of the ones I felt like the ideas did coalesce a little better that it wasn't...

It seemed like what it was getting most at, like, what is, like, Los Angeles, which is it wasn't just two things in opposition with each other, two time periods or two lifestyles. It was just, like, that marketplace and the chase through it with, like, motorcycles, horses, cars. collapsing of eras and time that I was like, oh, that would have been a really cool thing to explore, that this island is almost just like centuries of pop culture crap just getting dumped onto this island, and that's what Snake has to wade through.

Give me more Marilyn Monroe murals, James Dean statues. There was a video game announced for like pretty much every system that was never released. It was announced for Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation,

Panasonic M2, and PC. And was not released for any of them. There was a comic book. Can I just read this very quickly? Yeah.

They released one issue. A one shot. Marvel Comics in 1997 called The Adventures of Snake Plissken. I'm just going to read exactly what it says here on the Wikipedia. The story takes place sometime between escape from New York and his famous Cleveland escape mentioned in Escape from L.A.

Snake has robbed Atlanta's Centers for Disease Control of some engineered metaviruses and is looking for buyers in Chicago. Finding himself in a deal that's really a setup, he makes his getaway and exacts revenge on the buyer for ratting him out to the United States police force. In the meantime, a government lab has built a robot called ATACS, Autonomous Tracking and Combat System, that can catch criminals by imprinting their personalities upon its program in order to protect

and anticipate a specific criminal's every move. The robot's first test subject is Snake. After a brief battle, ATACS copies Snake to the point of fully becoming his personality. Now recognizing the government as the enemy, ATACS sides with Snake. Snake punches the machine, destroys it,

reasoning, I don't need the competition. Yeah! Snake, my man! That sounds fucking bananas uh i yeah the the when you were saying the center of the disease control stuff i was thinking like oh the stuff this movie um and i don't care like if a movie that takes place in the future predicts things or not it's just maybe a fun question to ask later when you watch it but uh the thing I thought that they got totally wrong was that Disney would be bankrupt as

opposed to the thing that owns everything. Also, I thought with that Disney stuff, it's interesting that Kurt Russell was a Disney kid. Yeah, Disney factory kid. That's true.

On Walt Disney's the. On Walt Disney's, the last thing Walt Disney wrote, Kurt Russell's name is on the list that was next to his bed when he died. I know. That's more interesting than Rosebud. So he's biting the hand. It is. Why did he write that down?

Walt Disney had to sit up and write it with was like Kurt Russell and then like lay back down I said more interesting than Rosebud I just like I can't crack that one I think about it a lot I'm like what was the implication there Right now a little Like 8 year old Kurt Russell is getting thrown into a

Like a oven Beard burt I'm saying we play a la Rosebud no we're with ya we're with ya the other one other thing just a factoid I really want to quickly share about

They Live cause I would've Gorley and I did a commentary about it and I had a couple hunches one I couldn't remember the title but later guys do you know they live came out the same month october 88 as gnome com skis manufacturing consent that movie is about manufacturing that is pretty bad i can't it's mind-blowing to me the other thing uh uh um about they live i'm now just thinking of you this whole episode just sitting I can't. It's mind blowing to me. The other thing about They Live.

I'm now just thinking of you this whole episode. Just sitting on it. I gotta get that out! Believe me, I was trying to find an opening and I never could. So I just yeah, I needed to Oh, and the other thing about They Live

was I think you know he used to work with Dean Cundey, of course, the DP. There is a guy, the guy who plays Red in the Back to the Future movies. Yes. Who's like the turncoat. He looks like Cundey. Interesting. And that exact same time,

Cundi made the jump to the Hollywood machine. And that whole character is about, just come to our side. It's so much easier. Anyway, just something to chew on. I think he's subtweeting Dean Cundi, basically. This is George Buck

Flower you're talking about, right? Because he also plays the guy who kills himself with the broom in Village of the Damned. Yeah. Very interesting. She's in many carpenters. Very, very interesting observation. Paul, thank you so much for doing the show. No, what are you doing?

Griffin. Box office game? Yeah, you can't take us out of the show. I wasn't trying to end it prematurely. My brain was just burnt. Let's play the box office game yeah you can't take us out of the show I wasn't trying to end it prematurely my brain was just burnt let's play the box office game just gotta play the box office game then we're done this movie

came out on August 9th 1996 Griffin summer release okay opened to 8 million dollars number 3 at the box office not very good nope would this have been the release Paramount's subsequent release to Mission

Impossible I guess this was like their number two summer movie yeah yeah let's see what else do they have even in the they've got Harriet the Spy Mission Impossible and Primal Fear kind of a light summer for them yeah Primal Fear a classic summer blockbuster

yeah people love it. So, it's not number three, Griffin. Number one is, I believe, your least favorite film of all time, opening this week. Oh, Jesus. It's Francis Ford Coppola's Jack. It's Jack. It's my go-to answer for my least favorite film. This movie got

housed at the box office by Jack. I know. Jack is one of those movies, though, where they really sold the premise of, like, it's, like, big, but with Robin Williams, and then you watch it, and it's like, no, it's like Bill Cosby telling him he's gonna die. I mean, he is gonna die. They sold the comedy really hard,

which there's not much of. Right. I wonder if, like, somebody could do, like, a... like a Mark Harris style book that's like reverse of Pictures at a Revolution, where it's like in 1996, every film brat like death in the 70s. Yeah. All of their death rattles came in that six months. That is an interesting like to weigh their relative like 96 you have like

De Palma's making his biggest most successful movie ever. Coppola's making his worst. Yeah. Spielberg took that year off. He's working on Amistad and Lost World. Casino's 95. Does Scorsese not have a 96?

Isn't Kundun 96? Maybe it's not. I think Kundun's 97. So he took that year off. But the Lost World, I mean, if you just did calendar year or whatever you call it, the 12-month span of 96 to 97, you could make an argument, I think Spielberg might feel it,

that the Lost World is like a... You could have an argument for that being a low point. And Amistad's the same year. Yeah. Okay, number two at the box office. It's a good idea, Paul. Number two at the box office is

a courthouse thriller. It's not Primal Fear. No, Primal Fear. No. Primal Fear is lower at the box office. Sort of a star maker. Is it the

Time to Kill? Sounds like Primal Fear. It's a Time to Kill. Yeah. McConaughey. Matty Mac. One of the sweatiest movies ever made. Like, not in terms of

it's working hard to convince you something Just everyone is sweating so much In that movie In the literal sense Time to kill Yes he deserved to die And I hope he burns in hell Not a good movie

But very watchable Yeah because you did a big I watched all the Grishams And that's a lower one for you They're all middling Well the firm rules You did a big Grisham rewatch. I watched all the Grishams. And that's a lower one for you. They're all middling, right? Well, the firm rules. Except for the firm. The firm is so good.

I mean, David, you have referred to those types of movies as, quote, like drugs for me. Yes. Like, either one, you don't like them. You're like, that shit's just like drugs for me. Right. I would say The Rainmaker, which is actually coppola's follow-up to jack is very underrated and basically excellent the others are all middling to bad i mean the pelican brief is like denzel and julia so it's like yeah it's pretty fun but it's kind of overlong uh a time

to kill is like it's joel schumacher and uh john grisham and Akiva Goldsman trying to grapple with racism in the South. It's just like they're overmatched. We've joked about doing the Grisham miniseries on Patreon. Right. Yeah. At least do like five of them. Pick and choose. I mean, the run is firm Pelican Brief client time to kill.

The chamber doesn't exist. The Rainmaker. Altman's gingerbread man. Which isn't the worst thing in the world i mean in all all those kind of do pick at your filmmakers though it's like every autumnal like gotta bite at the grisham right uh they're two shoe mockers coppola and altman uh runaway, which would step on our Gary Fleeter miniseries. Yeah, that'd be tough. That would lead into our Fleeter time. And then it's like, oh, he does a fucking

there's a baseball drama called Mickey with Harry Connick Jr. And then, of course, we all remember that John Grisham wrote the novel that Christmas with the Cranks was based off of. He sure did. Yes. Who directed that? That was produced by... that Christmas with the Cranks was based off of. He sure did. Who directed that?

That was produced by... Joe Roth directed that. Chris Columbus, right? And Chris Columbus wrote it, yeah, and produced it. Yeah, so that's... Joe Roth, one of the few exec slash filmmakers, somebody who bounces back and forth. Please let me make another movie, please. And then he does, and you're like, this is bad.

He's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Next one's going to be better. I promise. Just make us another Coupe de Ville, you asshole. Freedom land.

Yes. Okay. Time to kill number two. Escape from L.A. Number three. Number four. Griffin is the summer's biggest hit. Of 1996. It's not Mission Impossible or is? No. What am I? Oh, it from L.A., number three. Number four, Griffin is the summer's biggest hit. Of 1996.

It's not Mission Impossible, or is it? No. What am I... Oh, it's Independence Day. Independence Day. Of course. We were talking about it. Today we celebrate.

Yeah. Of course, because it's late August. That thing has made $256 million. Number five, a children's book adaptation. Very good. Harriet the Sparrow? No, although that is in the... See, I'm trying to go for the easy guesses of movies

you've just already mentioned. No, it's better than Harriet the Spy. Matilda? It's Matilda. Danny DeVito's Matilda. Good movie! The Spy is very good, though. Matilda is kind of great. Yeah, Harriet the Spy I remember being totally solid. It's very good.

Those are all very much On the cusp of a second Clinton presidency And we got the wind at our back And the sun on our face Some other movies Phenomenon, the Travolta Film

Chain Reaction The Keanu Morgan Freeman Chemical Reaction drama The Keanu Morgan Freeman chemical reaction drama. Courage Under Fire with Denzel and Matt Damon and Meg Ryan. The Nutty Professor. Griffin.

And Kingpin. Kingpin's a good movie. Wow. Two comedies. Two very funny comedies that summer. Have I ever said that when i was a kid the classic muppet show sketch uh monomena which was obviously a a major text for me uh in my in my growth as a person i thought he was saying phenomenon and so when i saw the movie phenomenon i was like why are they naming a movie

after that Muppet Show sketch? I think my parents told me that. Like, I think I was like, what's he saying in Phenomenon? And they were like, I don't know, it sounds like he's saying Phenomenon. And I was like, what's Phenomenon?

They were like, a bizarre occurrence. And when that movie came out... It's like a movie that's coming out in 10 years, yeah. Right. I was like, why is this very serious movie sharing a title with the funniest Muppet Show sketch ever? Phenomenon.

Now I wish that John Travolta movie was called Phenomenon. That's the swap I'd like to do. The sketch is Phenomenon. The movie's called Phenomenon. Hey, I said it before. I'm going to say it again.

Paul, thank you so much for doing the show. Oh, thank you guys. Thanks for having me and Matt on. No thanks to Matt. He fucking bailed early and he didn't survive. He failed the test. No, it was so much fun. I really thank you so much for having me on.

So happy we couldn't do this miniiseries without you guys it was inevitable it was top of our list and we fucked up with scheduling and then weren't able to record until after Matt and his wife had welcomed a baby so we're appreciative of any amount of time that he was able to give us it all worked out yeah

and then so what's next for you guys oh you said Ghost of Mars. Ghost of Mars is the next episode, right? That's his next movie? Wait, is there not something in between? Oh, Vampires! Vampires!

That's right. Vampires. Oh, okay. Vampires with David Ehrlich is our next episode. Hey. Yep. Everyone should listen to from Gorley and Rust.

With Gorley and Rust. And subscribe to their Patreon. Why did I say that? Oh, it's okay. It's okay, Griffin. They're both prepositions. Here comes a recommendation. Listen to with Gorley and Rust.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. No. And hey, guys. Hey, guys hey stay cool yeah definitely do that hey love still on netflix oh that's right that's right yep yep hashtag love on i'm a big believer in continuing to plug uh ended shows that are still on streaming services yes yes and not in any sort of effort to bring them back or anything. No, they still exist.

They're good. Yep, they're still there. They're still there. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, Pat Reynolds and Joe Bone for our artwork, JJ Birch and Nick Lariano for our research,

AJ McKeon and Alex Barron for our editing, Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. You can listen to their new album, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Online, wherever you find music online. I don't know what you kids do these days. Next week, Vampires with Ehrlich.

As we said, you can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features or defranchise commentaries like, obviously, the Santa Claus trilogy. The trilogy of films about Tim Allen murdering Santa Claus

and living to rue the day. Right? They keep on finding new clauses to fucking get him all mucked up in the works. What else to say?

I don't know. Blankies.com for some real nerdy shit. And as always, I do think we should now canonically accept as our inner blank check lore that Snake's tattoo goes

all the way up into his bottle thank you thank you all right unimportant to this record but just because I was talking about it Matt and Paul this is the current state of the animatronic baby from Starman I put it in the chat if you want to look at that oh my god it's one of the best things

I've ever seen it looks just like my newborn daughter oh my dear it's incredible my dear it's incredible my dear yeah there's there's no better way to say it than my dear okay