Blank Check with Griffin & David - Escape from New York with Karen Han

Episode Date: September 5, 2021

Grab your eyepatches - it’s Snake Plissken time! Karen Han joins the gang to chat Carpenter’s action classic ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK - which was actually filmed in St. Louis! Topics covered include NSFW tattoos, Lee Van Cleef’s badass gravestone, the 90s documentary where Ernest Borgnine just drives a bus, and John Carpenter’s rather pedestrian taste in video games. “Fallout 76”??? C’mon, John! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

There was an accident. About an hour ago, a small jet went down inside New York City. The podcast was on board. The podcast of what? Okay, so that's the one you wanted to do. Yeah. But I was just, I was sort of like, the podcast of what doesn't mean anything. Fine, then, but you, the other one?

What's the other one? It's the survival of the podcast, Plissken. Something you don't give a shit about. That is pretty good. I mean, that's a good line. That's just a great... God, this movie's got such... This movie's front-loaded with good lines.

That is true. First 20 minutes, you're just like, oh my God. Well, because it's Cleef and... Because Cleef and Russell are really gelling. Those are two guys, yeah. It's also i mean like i feel like russell has acknowledged how much plissken is like vocally eastwood right right is him doing his eastwood impression right so there's something about like a young buck with an eye patch is that

true though like has they talked about it at all? Yeah. That it's supposed to be? Okay. Yeah, I think there was some quote from him, I think in the notes that Aron J.J. Bursch put together, where he was talking about all the different parts that went into Plissken.

Yes, he says, Right. He's a mercenary. His style of fighting is a combination of Bruce Lee, the Exterminator, and Darth Vader with Eastwood's vocals. But there's a lot of new wave to him as well. Yeah, exactly.

There's a lot of shine and bounce to his hair, that's for sure. The, like, Lisa says gah pants. His pants are so cool. The gray camo. It's not even camo. It's just like this weird swirly pattern. It's so good. Who are the two people in the dossier?

I know Charles Bronson was the one. And then there was another. Tommy Lee Jones. Right. Amazing. I'd love to see it. Tommy Lee Jones, dare I say, would have rocked the house. No, but here's the only problem.

Can you imagine Tommy Lee Jones with that hair? I mean, and like in like Under Siege, he's got long hair. I've seen, you know. But the only problem is I don't buy that Tommy Lee Jones would go into me. He'd be like, no, I'd be like, yeah, he doesn't want to do that. He just doesn't seem like someone who wants to do that. Yeah, that's fair. Yes.

Yes. Also, there's there's the satirical edge that comes only from Russell playing it from him sort of being a little bit in on the joke. You know? And I think it's aided by the fact that it's like, for audiences, you're watching a Disney star now playing the toughest guy in the fucking universe. It just feels like it would be like

me seeing Tommy Lee Jones in person being like, don't you want to be in this movie? And he'd be like, no, I don't want to do that. Russell was the right choice. I'm just saying Tommy Lee Jones would have fit. Charles Bronson would have been a problem. He would have just been overwhelming. He would have been doing Charles Bronson. Right.

Right. Too old probably to I don't know. He'd be alright. To a certain degree it's like there's the fact that he so fully creates a character for this movie, you know? You think about other like action icons especially of the 80s right and their breakthrough movie is kind of the distillation of their base level persona you know it's like well mclean that's now it's taking all the sitcom

comedy past of willis it's putting him into this underdogs sort of ornery mode right and like arnold breaks through playing barbarians and robots yeah you know and stallone being this sort of like weary underdog this broken guy you know i mean he's he counts his 80s and he's like mysterious right like calm and intriguing which is so funny to think about in retrospect. Yes. That everyone's like, what's this guy's deal? What's going on with him? He walks into a room and I want to know more. What a quiet power to this movie. It's like, I don't, all of those other people where I'm like

with their current personas, I'm like, that still totally jives with what I think of their past personas. But Steven Seagal, looking at him now, I'm like, I can't watch his old movies anymore. It's like that, it doesn't work for me it's it's wild it's wild it's also just what look we did our whole steven seagal episode we did our under siege dark territory episode in the past this is true and i will i'll just jump in and

say i kind of agree it's like i love seagal movies growing up but there's just something about who he has become that's like real sticky our episode was literally and figuratively years ago now long time if not more and i feel like he just gets worse by like the hour oh yeah absolutely like i'm every morning i i open up the laptop and i check uh what's the term for like chemical deterioration rate again like it's like his half-life or whatever yeah sure it's like i go to new york times and i look at the charts and i'm like how's the spread of delta going what has seagal done today you know what has devalued in the steven seagal universe it's just fascinating

that steven seagal is just like oh like hollywood power agents and executives are going to his karate dojo and they're just like, this guy is fascinating. Yeah. He needs to be on screen. And you watch him and I'm like, I think I figured him out pretty quickly. I don't know. He's pretty compelling. He's compelling.

I'm just saying, do you have a sense of calm mystery to him? Very calm. Very calm. This is my point, just Van Damme. I don't think Van Damme ever quite had that.

Correct. And it's why maybe he was never quite the A star. yes star and i like van van movies but i do think there was not that crystallization role for him and that's except that he was like flexible hey but is there a karate actor now do we have like a guy who's good at martial arts and now as an actor yes but they they are stuck in direct-to-video direct redbox i mean it's like michael j white and scott adkins right right right those are not physical it's like either that or they're foreign actors like tony jaw someone who's like right it's mostly i'm trying to think of like i'm saying

the american system those are our two best yeah i'm just generally and they don't get to do big screen if they do it's thank you is yes everything pre-vis yes everything now so you can make anyone look like a you know like they can do impossible physical movements and i don't know yeah it's also just like i mean i i think i've i've thrown out this bullshit before but the fact that like on iron fist they would like show him the choreography 30 minutes before he had to start filming right right it's like not only did they not hire a guy with a background which of course they didn't even like train him right oh i thought of someone ronda rousey oh yeah but she didn't really take off like she was in movies right i think she's good and furious uh no she's not yes she is she's fine yes she is but i do think she was so charismatic

in the ring and in interviews that people were like this is gonna translate right then someone like gina carano who was like physically impressive but was kind of lacking in personality for a while it's funny and then the second ronda rousey like did snl it was like obviously oh maybe there's not a thing here right yeah yeah it's just funny that we're having this conversation when kurt russell probably punches two people total in this movie it was the one fight in the ring that's a little more but like he's not even this is he looks normal funny where they're all sort of slow yeah yeah they're they're you know they're kind of a little goofy too and he looks i mean i think

he's so handsome but you know he doesn't he doesn't have a body that is insane or anything. He kind of looks like a pretty, in-shape dude. He looks good, but compared to some of the guys we've been talking about. He's not a Schwarzenegger type. Oh my God, what a specimen this person is. Stallone starts getting so yoked. All these sorts of people, even Chuck Norris and whatever. It's like when people have veins in their arms, you're like,'t think that my arms had veins yeah sticking out in that way one thing right i didn't

i didn't realize it was ridged in that way i just think it's fascinating and it's part of the key to the success of this movie and certainly its legacy and i feel like despite the fact that yes he does not do a lot of action snake plus can tend to be thought of as like one of the Mount Rushmore iconic action heroes, right? Certainly of the last like 40 years or whatever. Yeah. That it is like a guy who is so desperate to shatter his previous persona that he just creates a full stop character that feels so distant from him. character that feels so distant from him and even what he does with Carpenter later you know

that it is just really like a character and not a movie star persona even though it's driven by movie star energy and that anyone else in this role it's like Tommy Lee Jones if he had done this and it had worked he would have been Snake Plissken that would have been his iconic

role his default. Can you imagine if what Metal Gear would be if Tommy Lee Jones had been Snake snake plissken but even that like the fact that like snake plissken gets ripped off so much more than john mclean does because the key to john mclean is willis it's not on the page yeah whereas like russell and carpenter constructed something you know which is very interesting to me. Yeah, kind of to that point, I feel like this is not a character that is easy to do. In fact, like the whole movie, its tone is like not something that you can kind of do anymore, like where it's very earnest and it's like, yeah, he's doing this voice that's clearly put on,

but it's not supposed to be funny at all. Like it is like this guy is super fucking cool. If someone did this now, you would most likely like be snickering at them almost immediately if they're like i'm tough guy i was sort of thinking about it's like i think the only person who has tried to do this in serious earnestness is like nicholas winding ref and people do laugh they do snicker at it although that's part of the fun much like this i suppose so that's a good call but right like chris pratt chris evans these guys you know they're trying to be a little vulnerable a little personable they're lunkheads they're fun right yeah two-pronged thing

i want to say one i do think cage upheld this for a while certainly in his brookheimer run right now when he's doing action ways half the time but cage right it's the same where you're like is this guy fucking kidding like and you're like i con air performance is absolutely telling that line whereas what's impressive about snake plissken is you know what level russell's on like there's none of that like is this guy fucking up questioning that you get sometimes with a cage con air or at least the public did at the time right right or it's like is this brilliant or is he an idiot right yeah yeah right russell you understand how in on the joke he is without selling it out there that's cool like this is a cool that's what's fascinating wait you think snake puskin's a cool guy

his fucking name is snake motherfucker did you notice that he has a snake uh tattooed onto his chest does the tail go under the dick well i think it goes his tail's a peepee his peepee's a rattle oh that's a good call. His tail's a pee-pee. His pee-pee's a rattle. Oh, that's a good call. Because it's a cobra.

But here's the question. Does the tail just touch the top of the. So it's a basket, Griffin. To use Griffin's nomenclature, pee-pee. The pee-pee. Or has he tattooed his entire penis black? Right. Which, in my opinion, would be a bad move, and I don't think he should do it.

I would imagine just along the top. That's what I was thinking as well. Like, it comes to a point, but it goes down the penis. But, like, if you tattoo your penis. Also, wouldn't you want it to be the head of the snake? Well, okay, well, the head's here. I mean, the head's on his tummy. But just, like, in retrospect, wouldn't you be like, isn't it?

Well, there's a bunch of. I don't know. One, I think he's circumcised. Look, there's a lot of questions. two if you tattoo your penis by the way is physically miming out yeah okay and i don't know the answer to this but i'm sure i could google and i'm sure in the comments if you tattoo your penis let us know what you think how does it deal with an erection like and like is that a conversation you have to talk to you because like because you know how like um mike tyson got che guevara like tattooed on his tummy like a face yeah and then he got kind of fat and then che guevara was like he had this like weird sort of smushed che like a

poltergeisty kind of face now and it was like and then tattoo people like yeah you you know you have to be careful about like body because like your body will change shape and then tattoo people were like, yeah, you know, you have to be careful about, like, body. Because, like, your body will change shape. And then, like, if it's a face. I feel like snake is not too bad, right? Because it's not that detailed if it's a tail. A snake is very, it's just, it's just like a blocky. It didn't look that detailed on the top either, so. But I just, right.

My question is just, is his whole penis the tail of the snake or not, I guess. That's the question. Like, is it. If it was my call as a character designer i would have the tail going down the top that's my that would be that's how i do just the surface just the top or if you're feeling really extreme have the tail go around oh that would be fun coiled here's the more important question that would be fun yes that would be fun that'd be a creative use of space

that also i do feel like would make the erection more interesting. Is that crazy to say? Well, that would be problematic. Exactly. Again, you're stretching the skin, and I don't know what that looks like. Sure. Right. And also, is he a grower?

Is he circumcised? Where's this ending? And too, is he a grower? Because if he's a shower, then you're probably all right. Let's be honest, though. We just got a long dong. What? Plissken's probably both you think like you he takes it out and you're like that's a big soft dick and then

it gets hard you're like whoa there's more yes uh this is of course uh a show where we talk about penises in film it's blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david dog check dog check i this is a podcast about filmographies. In earnest, it's about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear

and sometimes they escape from New York, baby. And this is a mini-series on the films of John Carpenter. We're calling it They Podcast. That that's right i want it to be called pod scape from new cast yeah that's good thank you that's not good okay no it's not good it's good no it's good and our guest is right karen hon thank you very much for returning to the show and validating the right opinion thank you for having me, man. This is Escape from New York, is what we're talking about. Yep. 1981, John Carpenter film,

starring Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken. Now, can I say something? Who has a snake tattoo on his chest and possibly penis, but we don't know. We don't know. I assume he had the makeup people do it onto his penis, even though it didn't show.

Wouldn't it be worse if you saw that guy and and then he took off his pants, and it just faded out, and it didn't go on the day? I would think that would cowardly. I would think that cowardly. I guess what would even be worse is if it didn't even fade out. It's just a severe cutoff. What if you somehow shaped your pubic hair to sort of reflect? Like it's coming out of a thicket? Well, I had said like a basket because it's a cobra.

So I think that would kind of be a fun motif. To someone and you're like, I need basket pubes. I also need to know how to maintain this forever. Right, and then I'm going to need. In perpetuity. Well, you got to get a shape up every once in a while. I just want, Kurt also recently in Guardians 2 of course bragged about the fact that his character

had a penis on screen sure this is a thing I was gonna build a bridge to it but go on your second point it just strikes me as the kind of guy if I sat down with him and I'm like hey you know overboard was that funny he's like ah we had a great time and I'm like so you know Snake like does the does the snake go all the way to the penis

he'd be like yeah sure it does like he's thought about it with snake plissken he paints the underside of the drawers he knows plissken is his guy yeah he loves him so he's probably yeah of course he does yeah come on does it go around or does it go around kurt anyway kurt russell plays of course star lord's father in gardens of galaxy 2 yeah ego the living planet yes and there was an interview with him, I remember reading, where he said, like, you know, I wasn't really into these superhero movies, I didn't see them, and then they send me this

first one after they offer me a part, and, like, from the moment he, like, is picking up the alien and singing into it like a microphone, I went, I get it, this guy's doing what I was doing in the 80s. Now, here's what I think is interesting. As you said... A high compliment from him, obviously.

A high compliment. And that was the moment where... Everyone liked Chris Pratt for a minute there. Right. And it did feel like he was being pretty savvy in his characterization of how he fit into these blockbusters, you know? And even, like, I would give him at the time...

Because that was really like right post parks and rec right he's like literally just coming off parks and rackets we're still kind of rooting for him right and he's having this good like supporting actor run on a money ball zero dark 30 five-year engagement wanted of course he gets hit in the face with the keyboard and his teeth says fuck you come out and it says fuck you that's some opening credits cucking right he definitely has like very sweaty chubby sex with someone waste no time um but yes people were rooting for him right and i think it did feel like oh he's doing this kind of thing kurt russell's doing where to a certain degree he is deflating the action star at the same time that he's upholding it, you know? Right. What I do think is interesting is that Star-Lord, and then this kind of becomes de rigueur for the Marvel movies, it's like you don't have the guys be a genuine badass, right? Mm-hmm.

The entire universe keeps on deflating them. And much like snake plissken it's like oh our biggest action stars they don't really fight that much you know you're like well like chris evans and chris hemsworth fight sure but it's like i don't think about star lord fighting he's not i don't think of him as a great fighter right exactly and likewise iron man it's like i think of a video game character shooting lasers he does his apps and stuff but right i'm not like what a martial expert right like iron man 3 is a movie where he is going in and having like hand-to-hand combat and shit like that but

it's this funny thing where like that has become the type now which feels like the the multiple decades later evolution or devolution of the kurt russell thing where it's like and this is the thing kurt russell said in this interview i interview he was like when i was doing those movies at the time people didn't get it you know and and i like i see that he's doing the same things and taking the same risk i'm getting it's very exciting to me to see that it's like accepted by the public you know but i do think there's a stronger telegraphing of the joke in the Marvel movies versus like a Snake Plissken where, yes, part of it is like, is this guy for real? You know, this is not on topic at all. But speaking of the Russell family interviews, I love that Kurt Russell's like, yeah, I don't really watch those.

But there was like an interview that Wyatt Russell did for Falcon and the Winter Soldier where he went on and the interview, I think it was Jimmy Kimmel was like, so were you like a huge fan of like the Marvel comics as a kid? Because everyone in that series is like, yes, I loved comics when I was growing up. And then Wyatt Russell's like, well, I played sports. So no, it's just incredible.

Wyatt Russell is, he's special. I think that guy is special. Because he has that weird kind of like, hey man, what's up? Like Rick Russell thing going on. Yeah. When he was in... Hodge 49, amazing.

Fuck, Everybody Wants Him. I was like, who is this guy? This guy is magnetic. And then it's like, oh, he's Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's kid. I also think, I mean, I think Falcon and the Winter Soldier totally sells about in the final episode. It's a horrible series. I mean, I don't like that show that much. I thought he good it's a weird role this is what's happening i started out that series you were into it you're more into i started out and i was just like fuck it this is the exact

marvel shit whatever this should be a movie this shouldn't be eight hours long whatever and as it was going on i was like fuck are they like doing this are they pulling it off and then the last episode bailed out everything i thought was interesting about it in a way that totally killed my vibe. But Don Cheadle, though, really good performance by him, nominated by an Emmy. No, I was going to say, White Rush was, I think, genuinely

kind of incredible in that until they sell out his nomination is for Space Jam 2. That's true. Well, Algie Rhythm rigged the Emmys to get him a nomination for Falcon and the Dolphin. He's hosting the Emmys. Algie. Yeah, I heard Pete was also nominated

in 12 categories this year. My point is, I think the Wyatt Russell performance in that is very interesting just because he is playing this guy who is trying very hard to be like a Hollywood action star. The character is interesting.

And it's also like, I thought this with both him and with Florence P action the character is interesting and it's also like i thought this with both him and with florence pugh and black widow where it's like oh like when someone really has charisma it makes a huge fucking difference yeah yeah but i also i i admire how dark he genuinely goes on that show you know um anyway anyway anyway anyway look kurt ross did you introduce our guests i can't remember i did k Han producer Ben's here Griffin David blank check we talked about penises hi you're here I am here in person in person people on reddit uh a great way to start an exchange yeah yeah yeah I'm excited to see where the people on red no I'm very happy we're doing this in person uh we've had a fun run of doing these uh being able to do a bunch of these in person, which has been much better.

And then now we realize like, oh, we booked like 10 consecutive long distance people in a row. But we'll do the Patreons in person. You know, like, you know, obviously there's more in person opportunities. But on the Reddit, Blinkies, as they want to do obsessively, monitor Letterboxd activity and put together that both you and David had rewatched this movie very close to each other. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And you had to be the guest. And then everyone was sort of pointing out like, oh, that makes perfect sense. Big, big KB energy in this movie. Now, I had not considered why you picked this other than that it's a good movie

yes and and you know beyond that uh you know you were one of the people uh we we gave a slot to obviously in march madness last year and then when carpenter won we we went out to most of the people who we had given that sort of a slot to and gave them an early pick on on this or you know an earlier series or whatever but you just immediately wanted this is that the main juice of the movie for you is the is the borg 9 harry dean stanton pleasance i actually like sort of forgot until i watched it again last night where it was like it just is a good movie and it's so the snake is so iconic and it's just a cool movie and that was my reasoning for a pick for it

but watching it it's like oh yeah this is just full of primo dudes he's so hot he's so hot he has a face like an anime villain

does this make sense yes it does where it's like he if he was in Neon Genesis Evangelion it'd be like yeah that's totally correct and like you know

westerns are the anime yes showdown movies of their era with the faces and like you know westerns are the anime showdown movies of their era with the faces and the you know noises everything about him is good he has the coolest fucking name he has the coolest face he nothing he does is bad the earring is oh the most important costuming choice in the history of hollywood yeah why does he have an earring? He's like the police commissioner and he's just like this fucking sexy ass old man with these cheekbones that are at like a 20 degree,

like they're so arched. My father once referred to him as the man with the gunslit eyes. Yeah, he's right. He's got this very, very, very like impressive sort of whatever section of his face like forehead to nose it's the fucking iconic i mean it's like becomes one of the most legendary shots in cinemas that you're able to construct a sequence of him looking out of the tension of him and his eyes just taking

up a widescreen but then he turns and you're like this motherfucker hearing he's a gold hoop in his ear i've always like i wish he was my dad and I would let him discipline me. Do you know what I mean? Or you would be like, yes, thank you. Yes, sir. I would be like, absolutely, sir. I'm going to ask an embarrassing question. Does he have a tiny ponytail in this or do I always just add that in my mind?

He doesn't have a tiny ponytail in there. With the earring, I always think there's a little bow finger ponytail in the earring i always think there's like a little like bow finger ponytail in the back well he's got the sort of and now i'm looking at pictures of him and just having a nice time but you know he's obviously bald yes and he's got this kind of like no it's just longer in the back okay that's a little long okay for a right a bald guy i mean it's also cool that he's kind of what carpenter i was about to say, he basically looks like John Carpenter now with just, Carpenter's hair is not as curly. But like apart from that,

it's like Carpenter's basically cultivated. What are his hobbies? What are Leif Leif's hobbies? What does he like to do? Kicking ass and taking names? Yeah, you're right. He's not with us anymore, right? No, he's dead. What if Leif was still with us and was like 130? He died when? He died in 1989

so he's 64. It's not really that old. He would be very old now. He would be in his like late 90s but yeah, he was born in the 20s. What were his hobbies?

He died younger than I would have thought. Oh, I'll tell you this. Oh, he began a business in interior decoration with second wife Joan as well as pursuing his talent for painting

primarily of sea and landscapes. I'll tell you this, though. He's buried in Hollywood Hills. He's buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, and his grave marker reads Best of the Bad. Referring to his many

performances as villains over the years. Best of the Bad. What a cool fucking guy. He was the bad. He sure was fucking guy. He was the bad. Yeah. He sure was. We love him in this movie. But yeah, he is one of many potential KBs that the fans were identifying.

Because Karen, you like... I mean, do we have to re-litigate this? This is a certain sort of action intrigue. You might be a little sick of talking about it. No, I love talking... Well, I actually haven't had to talk about it for a while because I haven't done my yearly KB video for a while because I just haven't had the time to do it.

You skipped in, I mean, 2020, just sort of a tough year to revisit. That's also true. Also, I would argue a bad year for KBs. I feel like we lost a lot of face-heavy character actors of an earlier generation in 2020. Am I wrong about that? Probably.

A lot of old people died, so I guess just in net balance. I will say that. Obviously, both for COVID and unrelated reasons, I feel like we lost a lot of people of a generation. I think it was a disastrous year for KBs, even though I'm not necessarily thinking of specific ones we lost.

Well, it was also just a tough year for movies last year. Not as many good movies yeah that's true and that's just gonna rob us of opportunities for boy ogle well oh new cables sure yes right well i mean that's always a tough category for new people to enter the people really have to pay their dues and agents oh i mean the last one i did was in 2018 so it really has been a while it's been a while yeah this year could be huge i i mean if i get back on uh what is it backlog i mean yeah what am i gonna do it doesn't have to be three

year retrospective if i do you can do whatever you want you have the power it's sort of your thing it's your category the whole magic of it in my opinion is that it's not defined or codified like people can move in and out it opinion, is that it's not defined or codified. Like people can move in and out. It's up to you. It's very subjective. I remember a while ago, I mean, I always tweet about my crushes,

but then somebody responded through being like, Karen, this is just some man. And I was like, well, yeah, that's the category. Who was the one who was just some man? I don't even remember anymore um isaac hayes kb i guess isaac hayes has became a sort of problematic figure later in life yeah i mean i'm just looking at some kbs but harry dean stanton oh absolutely well right the thing about him is he's looked old for his entire life like if you go on google image search and you see you go harry

dean stanton young it just doesn't exist. Like even the pictures of him when he's young, he looks like at least 45. He sure does. Yeah. I mean, it's the. It's impressive. It's the eyes. It's the sort of sunken eyes he has where he just looks.

He's got so sweet. Like a sleepy boy. Sweet little eyes. Look at him. He does. He's got those King Shark eyes. So we're talking about Escape from New York, right? Yeah, I'm sorry.

I was just trying to clock some KB celebrity deaths. Terry Jones. Yeah. Jerry Stiller. Yeah. I don't think I totally knew Terry Jones' time. That's sad. Yeah, he did.

I love Terry Jones. Yeah. Well, I feel like that was even sadder because then everyone tried to book Michael Palin on their show and have him talk about it because they were best friends. Here's a question. Michael Palin is all time. So, so, so, so, so sweet. My favorite was Max von Sydow a KB or was he too pretty? Oh, yeah.

No, no, no. He was in that. So devastatingly pretty, though. Yeah, he was. Brian Dennehy. Yeah, absolutely. Right. I mean, we lost a lot of KBs.

Yeah. Buck Henry. Sure. Ian Holm. Yeah. yeah absolutely right i mean there we lost a lot of kbs yeah buck henry sure ian holm yeah oh yeah he died yeah but this is the thing and then you'd be like was it coveted it's like no they were in their like late 80s and you're like oh i suppose you're right there was just a certain generational wrecking right there yeah you know they're just getting old yeah i mean harry dean also passed away fairly recently he was was very old, wasn't he? Yeah, 91 years old, 2017. James Lipton?

Yeah, okay. Karen has a glass of water, and I'm waiting for the one that will make her do a spit take. Hugh Keyes Byrne? Yeah. Regis? Regis? I liked Regis.

I agree with that. I don't think we're going to be calling Regis sexy, but we like Regis. Little Richard? Little Richard. I don't think we're going to be calling Regis sexy, but we like Regis. Little Richard? Little Richard. I don't want to speak for care. Escape from New York. Yes. It's a film by John Carpenter.

This is the first one with John Carpenter's in the title. I believe that's right. He is now fully uh marketable as a as a mature he's just a cool dude he's a pretty cool dude i can't deny it he had made the film halloween which was very successful very successful so that's his guarantor if you will and then the fog also while not as culturally then like post-halloween seismic is a big hit he's got the fog which does well he did elvis of course on television which did well and kurt russell's that's kurt russell's sort of transitory project into serious acting right

it's it's that and used cars which we've covered in the past and those are sort of him building the bridge to um adulthood adult movie stardom And then this is the thing that I think finally codifies it. I was checking what year used cars was just to double check. It's 1980. I just put used cars into Google. That's what came up. A bunch of cars for sale. Used cars.

Any good deals? No. Isn't it like a terrible time to buy a car right now? I think so. I think there's like a shortage. Yeah, because all the rental companies, when they couldn't rent out cars cars sold a lot of the cars. But then now they've been buying up

all the used cars. I think there's a run on cars in general. So you should just buy a new car now? But I think those are hard to get because you can't get a microchip because COVID or whatever. You know what I mean? Where like weird supply chain stuff.

Yeah, I've heard that too. Wow. That's crazy. Weird how the world's that too. Wow. That's crazy. Weird how the world's been thrown upside down. I was just going to say, you know, Elvis was the first time it felt like that perhaps a

director had really latched onto what Kurt Russell could do. Right? Because even used cars is kind of casting him as a subversion of the Disney trope. Right. He's a manic, you know, charmer, but who's a shyster and kind of a horned dog. Right. He's got a cute face for TV, but he's not to be trusted. And Carpenter was sort of like people don't realize how fucking good Kurt Russell is.

how fucking good Kurt Russell is. I worked with this guy. He did this major fucking very long TV miniseries movie playing a wildly iconic person and he went so hard, did so much research, nailed it. He should really be taken seriously. But it's a TV movie.

Right? There still very much is a ghetto to those at the time. His first thought, as we said, is going to someone like Tommy Lee Jones, who's an obvious fit for this or someone like charles bronson who uh you know had done too many movies like this well that did you you saw the quote right uh carpenter's like i was afraid of working with him he was a big star and i was this little shit nobody funny to think of carpenter being like i can't i can't you know i can't lick that guy's feet or whatever. As absurd as that is, like, post-Halloween, for him to think. Chuck Bronson was a big deal at this time.

And as you said, it would have become a Charles Bronson. Also, like, just a scary dude. Scary. Yeah. The Simpsons joke, one of my favorites of all time. Which is? It's like where Charles Bronson is like a stand-in on, like, the Phil Silvers. Now I have to find it.

And it's like, all right, I'm going to look it up. I feel like he was notoriously kind of nice but he looks so angry on the Andy Griffith show that's what it is okay don't you remember and they're like what happened to and he's like I shot him yes and they're like what he's like and now I'm

gonna go to like Eddie's fix it to fix Eddie or like the joke is that he's Barney Feist replacement right okay yes he was just a guy who looked so intimidating and certainly if you're john carpenter and you're fairly young and this guy's been a movie star for decades and has his own fucking thing figured out i imagine it'd be a little bit of like what you hear with uh uh you know later period bruce willis where

he's just like i'm not gonna listen to you you know i know, I know what I'm doing. I'm Bruce. I'm Bruce Willis. I'm Bruce. Hey, what lens would you use for this? Huh? You don't understand movies. Okay. You guys, do you know this? We've talked about this on the podcast.

But Karen, do you know this? No. That's apparently the Bruce Willis thing that he like tests them on the first day about how well they know their lenses. And if they get it wrong, he's like, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm never listening to you ever again.

Oh my God. Right. Legend. Because people will be like, oh love that i find that incredibly rude people will be like i worked with bruce willis is a fucking nightmare and then someone like west hampton will be like i don't know i found him a sweetheart oh man and it's just like west nailed the lens test right same with ryan johnson yeah and tumy lee jones steven soderbergh is like oh it's an iphone tommy lee jones uh two shorter walk cameras yeah i think you're confused when he cast russell in this i think a the industry was like really i know you liked the guy and you had a good time with him on the elvis movie but come on this is like a whole different thing and i even

just imagine in terms of marketing for the movie it must have been sort of like he's nowhere on the marketing for the movie right the movie i mean obviously it's a very iconic poster but yeah it's all selling you on what if new york was a big prison which is like an insane concept to open your movie with where it's like minute one he's like uh all of manhattan is a prison island it's like holy shit yeah it's the best yeah it is truly the best those graphics like all of the graphics in this are so great you guys know the wireframe thing right they well i i certainly do maybe maybe you guys are getting like the the computer view of the city as the plane is going i took ben and i went to go see this at a drive in a couple months ago we did a robocop escape from

new york double feature that's great which was a real Ben and Griff night. Yeah, it was real fun. And RoboCop does a very similar trick, but when they are flying the plane over the buildings, he could not afford the CGI for that. That would be way too expensive at the time. That's as expensive as, I mean, Star Trek has the one shot of a hand that costs like a million dollars probably

that they had to license from Ed Catmull. one shot of a hand that costs like a million dollars probably that they had to license from ed catmull um so it is just like a godzilla sized model of a city that was painted jet black and then they put green reflective tape over it and it's completely analog it looks so cool it looks so fucking cool robocop does the same thing when robocop has thermal vision when the the guy who lost the mayoral election is holding everyone hostage. They're wearing body suits that just have thermal imaging painted on them. Now, we should mention who was the photographer in charge of photography for the special effects and Matt and stuff. Jimmy C.

Jimmy C. Our boy. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. But here, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Yeah, yeah. Our boy, Jimmy C. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. But here, wait, wait, wait. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. Okay, okay. So, wait, I think JJ pulled up in the original, I don't know if it was the original draft

or the original conception of the movie. It was only supposed to be six years in the future. It was. He wrote it in the mid-70s, and he set it in 82. Right. This was in that batch. We've talked about it a couple times already.

We're post-Dark Star. Nolan wants to hire him him to direct let me write a bunch of scripts try to get some stuff made so it's this it's what becomes eyes of laura mars that western he was going to do with elvis and john wayne amazing which sounds so cool but this seemed to be the one that he always liked the most and was hoping he would get to do he liked this one the most i gotta say the other one that sounds cool is the prometheus crisis which is a nuclear meltdown movie yeah and whatever you know he couldn't get it going but it's like a nuclear meltdown haunted house that's how he described it a haunted house movie set in a nuclear plant which he had a deal for this this was going to be his thing after the fog right and then it got sort of caught up where he realized like his salary got put in escrow and he didn't believe that they were ever

actually going to make it or whatever it sounded like you had some some kind of uh less than honest upstart producers who bought the rights to this thing but then were sort of just using it to be able to promote his name to get other projects off the ground and then he couldn't make it because he could never get the rights back from them yeah but yes he had this script escape from new york i think it may have initially been called something else or yes new york is i can't remember um nick castle who is the co-writer and of course who plays um michael myers the shame and and who eventually directs movies and so on apparently kind of made it funnier yeah carpenter's quote is basically

like my movie was really grim and he he sort of gave it a sense of humor um which is pretty crucial breakthrough for carpenter because i feel like after this point carpenter taps into his own sense of humor i think he starts to realize the value of adding that layer. Whereas the earlier movies, apart from Dark Star, are pretty not funny. Right. Right. Dark Star is funny. But then the fact that people didn't find it funny kind of terrified both of them.

Escape from New York. So, you know, and then obviously, you know, I mean, the Halloween success, the fog to a lesser extent. But, you know, it just can he can do a movie now i mean this movie is made cheaply but i i brought up the six years thing just because i find it interesting that it it does not sound like his adjustment was oh i want to set it further in the future so that society has decayed even more it's that his original script had this level of decay and he was like six might be a little quick like he just calls it a subtle but significant change right because he was like if i think about 17 years ago that's more of a significant

yeah back in my mind right yeah um anyway and you know whatever he was wrong new york is in a prison island yet it is funny that i feel like the last six months of like the fucking conservative think piece people being like new york is dead it's a husk of what it once was they're all trying to make it sound like it's this now yeah that post like covid new york is escape from new york but we're not wearing clothes right we're all scantily clad yes what a stupid article truly as you know it's bad huh you know what's bad what uh everything so come on now what about this podcast well this movie's good the podcast is okay it's just so funny that he's like uh uh uh new york's a prison island now and uh also the president crashes in there it's like pretty quickly everything at one really it's true yeah and those poor fuckers on that plane by the way we cut to the plane yeah and the president's

like so what are you what are we gonna do and they're like i mean and he's like put me in the pod then and that plane crashes they're all dead all the other ones uh i do find it funny that like he was just like i don't know just felt like a good part for pleasance right pleasance is this guy he's an english guy he throws it to pleasance pleasance is like yes also like arguably the least distinct president of all time like if he was the president and someone sent me in there was like you have to find the president i'd be like i can't do that like i don't know what he's a dude yeah he's like a sort of a big bald dude yeah yeah he's got kind of look kind of looks at you funny i just find it funny like apparently pleasant's got really in his head about like okay so i need to do the character work

to justify how a brick could become president he came to him was like i figured it out 16 pages so maggie thatcher at this point oh my god he tried to explain why a british sounding guy would be president carpenter was like okay i don't care thank you very much none of this is just like i i mean i have no intellectual explanation for why i cast him he mentions his performance in cul-de-sac where he played a victim out of place um but he also says he's one of my favorite actors of all time so it's just he likes donald pleasance likes donnie i also think like his his british accent more generally just kind of like reads as like sounds like this received pronunciation transatlantic but it's just i'm like what fucking nation at war is like this is the guy you know what i mean it just doesn't

strike but whatever it doesn't that sort of makes sense in in that at the end they're like yeah we don't really need him like we just need this thing well but isn't it kind of the thing that i think is another theme that really starts with this movie for carpenter where it's like anti-establishment right and i feel like he is like an ineffective yeah president right and he really embodies that part yeah and i mean the payoff with him at the end is great. I love Donald Pleasance to death. He's the best. He's wonderful.

He's beautiful. He's a beautiful little boy. He's so dirty. And they clean him up real quick. They do clean him up. Well, he's easy to clean up because he's like a fucking cue ball. You just sort of like buff him out.

He's so rad. Get one of those bowling ball claws. Put his head in between your knees yeah that's wonderful alright so wait I'm trying to go you know

there's this right they have this deal with Avco Embassy for the fog in another movie right okay and they had some

other movie maybe they were gonna do and it wasn't happening it might have been the Prometheus one he had sold it to them just as a script and then the idea

of him coming back and saying I want this to be my next directorial project it was some other thing stalled out and he was like why don't we just do escape right why don't we just yeah just let me do it right he had seven million dollars which was his biggest budget ever but it's still not obviously a big big budget sure and they shot it in st louis because they needed a city they could just treat like shit. Where they're like, hey, you got like a few blocks we could just like light on fire.

Right, and they were just like, we're gonna tear all this down. I mean, that's also kind of the fun thing where it's like, this is not distinguishable as New York like at all. Like there's nothing in there. I mean, especially not once they're on the bridge and you're like, what bridge is this?

It's such a funny, like the poster, the poster is so heavy on like Statue of Liberty it takes up more. Which is a great image. And does not occur in the film. But like not only that, you're getting like no New York landmarks and the poster is like starring the Statue of Liberty and Kurt Russell. Also when they're like, oh this used to be

the public library. It's like, no. Which one? No, that's what Forky kept, he's like, are they in Grand Central? And I'm like, yeah, I guess so sure that could be what this is right um but it works just because you're like well i don't know everything's gone to shit carpenter it's like okay and then just coasting yeah st louis looks a lot like destroyed new york this is carpenter in addition to having the architecture of an eastern city they let us shut down the streets set them on fire crash an airplane do anything we wanted i guess they just yeah like you said they just had these few blocks where it's like look these are going to be

raised anyway they're completely delinquent or i don't know where i don't know uh what was going on and then they shot the whole damn thing at night. Yeah, which I love. They weren't doing day for night. They had to develop I believe some new lenses to be able to shoot that much at night without having to blow the budget on lights. The greatest of all time. And he is the greatest of all time. And now we've talked about

so many Dean Cundey movies. Yeah. Although we've never done Jurassic Park. But like that shot where I tweeted it, but like where Snake is in the glider and it's red behind him and shit is the sexiest and it's nothing. Dean Cundey's cute.

Oh, Dean Cundey is such a baby. He is a patootie. He's a patootie. See, we find him cute in like an Ewok way. And I think you find him cute in like a boyfriend well ewoks can be boyfriends yeah i mean like wouldn't you want to give him a hug after a hard day absolutely absolutely just a little cuddle yeah no question he looks very he looks really

nice you're talking love a plush dean cundy i'd love a tickle me cundy they indeed had a panavision 1.59 t-stop lens which could shoot uh low light and large right they had to sort of figure out how to expand the stops on yeah ernie borg nine there's some quote in here he's like boy i'm not used to rolling in at 6 a.m and still being sober every oh my god quote yes just uh what is the light ernie borg nine david i don't know if you know this i'm gonna lean in and just whisper this interior as quietly as I can. So the mics don't pick it up. Yeah, I'm covering my hands around my mouth.

Okay, so the mics don't pick it up. As I say, no one's going to hear this, okay? David, I don't know if you know this, but he liked to masturbate a lot. He's in one of the What's Up With That's, right? Yes. He's so, I remember him being so funny in that. Yes. Even though he does one line, obviously. Yes, it was because Red was coming out. the what's up with that's right yes he's so i remember him being so funny in that yes like even though he does like one yes it was because red was coming out the movie red was coming out

and i think it's him and morgan freeman or him and another guy from red that's incredible yes it's morgan freeman right it was like they clearly were doing some red press junk and they wrote both of them in he's adorable i mean ernest borgnine has one of the cutest smiles of all time. He does. But the reason I think it's so good is the gap. One of the really round cheeks and eyes. Yeah. I like What's Up With That always, but it's the one where he really seems delighted to be part of the fictional show What's Up With That.

And he's loving all the dancers. Every time they introduce a new character, his eyes are filled with wonderment. I'm just watching it right now. And he starts off at 10. Yeah, he's great. great he's already laughing and it's only the title screen like morgan freeman has more of a vibe of like what is this thing that i'm doing yeah i don't like being here and there's he's like this is great i'm gonna jerk off about this like i just think i'm sorry i'm sorry i apologize We all know that if you don't Google Ernest Borgnine talking about his masturbation habits on what was it? The Today Show or something like something like that.

That's insane. Am I wrong about that? He was on a morning show and they go like, Ernie, you're 93. Look great. What's your secret? And he leans in, covers his mouth and then very loudly says, I like to masturbate a lot. It is indeed Fox and Friends. Oh, no.

It's incredible. It is one of the greatest things that has ever happened on television. That's incredible. How old was he when he did this? It was like two years ago. Oh, my God. No, it wasn't. It was his early 90s, right?

It was in 2008, so I guess he was probably like in his... No, he was 91 thank you thank you this is what i'm saying he was absurdly old he was absurdly old and he just threw it out he was married to ethel merman right yes he was like maybe 42 days weirdest hollywood marriage of all time their time together was mostly spent hurling profane insults at each other and both later admitted that the marriage was a colossal mistake. God, like that's the Malcolm and Marie I want to see. You know? Oh, yeah.

Where it's like fun. Right. Just imagine how much fun it was to take this picture. Yeah, absolutely. Just the pure privilege of just taking this picture. David, describe the photo. Ernie Borg-9 in a picture taken in 2004, so he's in his late 80s, is doffing a naval cap. I believe he served in the Navy.

But he's sort of giving it a m'lady tip. It's a doff, you know what I mean? It's sort of half off his head at an angle with just a big old Ernie Borgnine smile. I mean, how else can you describe him? There is no old man who has ever looked older. It's one of those things. Oh, it's on his Wikipedia. He's so old that he served in the Navy

before World War II. And then when World War II happened, he like came back. He was like, oh, sure, you need me. I'll rejoin. Get the saddle, Bernie. Get the masturbation hammock ready for ernie oh my god um i just think there's no old man who looks more like a kindergartner than ernest borgnine like that's

a good call you just showed it looks that looks like a fucking school picture day right no pictures but it also looks like he's about to you know know, set up Elsa and Kristoff in Frozen or whatever. He looks like a little troll. He looks like a little rock troll. Yeah. It's true. Or Elsa and Kristoff. I can't.

Anna and Kristoff. Whoever the couple is. Elsa is lovely. He's just a delight. Look at him. Look at that little man. He's got a hat for safety, Karen. No, I like it.

I know you do. I'm pointing it out. I mean, it's... Oh, my God. Talk about an important decision that Carpenter makes. I believe magazine cover, which is Don't Miss Ernest Borgnine on the bus, which appears to be about a reality show where he goes around on a giant bus. What? I mean, that sounds good.

Is he driving the bus? The pictures are extremely good. Or is he just like like you get on the bus someone's driving and he's going around be like hi i'm on ernie this is my bus he's right we'll be going to fresno today he's riding the top of the bus teen wolf style like he's like hanging tan on the he's like morpheus in the matrix reloaded he's um okay according to a description it says he went around to greet his fans on this bus. And I have found, it seems like he is driving it.

He's driving it. I don't know, Ernie. You're getting old. I don't know if I want you driving a bus. Do you have a Class B license? When was this? This was in 1997. Oh, okay.

And he did it in 1996. He was grandpa age. Yeah, he was a spry 76. Yeah. The pictures are really, really good. I highly recommend you just Google Ernest Borgnine on the bus. I can't believe that show existed. God, you know, he died longer ago than I remembered. Well, he was old.

I know he was old, but I just, his passing feels like it was just yesterday. It was in fact about nine years ago. It's because he's got such spirit. He's such spirit he stays with us he lives in our hearts forever he also worked right up until the very end yeah i mean he was on fox and friends right where you just took it for granted you're like this guy's never gonna die right well he dies and escape from new york it is sad i was gonna say an incredible decision on carpenter yeah uh uh part is to uh make him a cabbie name him cabbie yeah give him a little cabbie cap yeah yeah and a little cab that's just a little a little yellow square really it's it's a real it's a real stout little

car it's a real hat trick of good decisions for Carpenter. Well, it's the same, I feel like, reasoning behind New York's a prison island and the president crashes on it, right? Like, it's the same logical stream. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Escape from New York made, I feel like, in a similar way to his other movies where he's doing the score. Obviously, he's collaborating this time. Score absolutely rips.

Incredible score. Yeah. Collaborating this time with Alan Hoetheth but big difference here is he was saying that like up until this point he did what was sort of the the standard for the time where it's like you know a director tells the composer i have this type of scene i i need 80 seconds of music and you compose something and you time it with a stopwatch and you hand it to him right this was a movie where he was using videotapes he was scoring to the film which was not often done at that point i think he used to just noodle around well yeah he just go like here's my theme and i'll repeat it which is why so many of his movies have these

like very potent earworm like i came up with one ringtone which i can reuse 18 times over the course of the movie you know the line that i like that jj fred is how earth being like hey we should like press an lp of your score and carpenter's like what right it's a cool score man it's the first time he's scoring a picture picture. I didn't get that. He said he still does most of his musical compositions improvisationally. But his process was starting to maybe formalize a little bit at this point as he was sort of accepting like, oh, maybe I'm really going to be a composer of these movies going forward and not just in order to save a little money in the budget. But he's still the self-deprecating. He's like can i tell you you know he right but yeah uh it is really impressive i've had this theme stuck in my head for four months since we went to the drive-in can you give us a little piece Okay, we're back from an ad.

Sorry, that's where the ad went. As Ben mentioned, James Cameron worked on this movie. Young James Cameron. Carpenter called him the resident genius. Right. Everyone was kind of losing their mind over this guy saying he was the future. Worked on the matte paintings and the miniatures and stuff. J.J. Abrams, at a test screening of this film as a teenager,

asked if Adrienne Barbeau's character had died or not because they did not have the shot of her lying in blood. And Carpenter's like, I guess they didn't get that. Get Adrienne on the floor. Cover her in blood. They did it in their garage. It was a one-shot They did it in their garage. Yeah. It was a one shot reshoot done in their garage. Isn't it funny that JJ Abrams is kind of like this Forrest Gump figure?

Well, that's why when people are like, why are his movies so derivative? I'm like, read about his life as a young boy. Like there's a reason. Right. He enacted a change in Escape from New York. He forced them to do reshoots. And then it's like, Spielberg personally hired him and Matt Reeves to restore his, like, 8mm short films when he was a teenager, right? Mm-hmm.

Because he was, like, the resident 8mm kid. Yeah. I'm the 8mm kid. That's what he would say. This just reminds me, there's that thing going around on Twitter today where it's like this 16 year old's interested in cryptocurrency and it's this this very very young looking boy in like a very blue suit and it's ever it's like oh he's not gonna when he grows up it's not gonna be good it's not gonna be good it's not gonna be you don't want to be in a little suit when you're that no you won't be a crypto kid in a little suit

um so just a lot of please don't speak that way about davis oh i'm sorry right like brushing up against this movie a lot of future hollywood royalty yeah and then yeah he just assembles this crew of god character actors right i mean we talked about russell Van Cleef Donny Pleas Ernie Borg Isaac Hayes fucking Hayes he's the duke

he is so fucking good in this the opening credits of this movie are just insane especially set to the score you know as it's building and you're just like him too? he's also in this? It is hit after hit. Right, and then it takes so long. All killers, no fillers. It takes so long for most of the characters to get introduced

but by the time that Isaac Hayes comes in, you're surprised again. Yeah. Like, I've seen this movie multiple times. When I see them in the credits I'm like, oh right. And then when he shows up on screen, I'm like, oh right! Because you just kind of can't keep track of everyone do you like his car in this movie um yeah absolutely do you like

what he's done with it I think he's uh really taken uh like cars to the next level in that he is a fucking chandelier the chandeliers are an incredible I didn't notice that actually I wasn't even thinking about that I'm joking also so funny at the end where you see someone in the driver's POV, and you see how much real estate the chandeliers take up in your vision. Terrible for all practical. Awful idea. I know there's not a lot of traffic on the road in prison Manhattan. Yeah, no.

There's not a lot. Isaac Hayes. I really love, well, I love Tom At atkins we talked about him before he's wonderful um i love the most rectangular man very very he's a blocky man yeah i love frank double day who is the guy who shot the kid in assault on precinct 13 and this is like white sonic the hedgehog or whatever oh my god he's so good what's the character's name? Romero. Because there's also a Cronenberg. They're all named after his horror buddies, but he's

Romero. He looks like a little zombie. But his character really is the first one where he just looks abnormal and you're like, this is a weird, fucked up future. It's funny because no one else really comes up to that level. No, he's definitely punching at a weirdo, a higher weirdo rate.

Most people are just kind of like... Dirty. Right, dirty crime people with a crossbow. Right. Or some rocks. Just got one weird article of clothing that presumably they stole or something. Someone's at the door.

Someone's at the door. This is not an ad break. I don't know, but maybe it is. David, we don't know. David, we don't know. David, we don't know. It very well might be. Who was it, Ben? What'd you get?

It was... Let me guess. She put it in the mail slot, so I'll get it later. It was the wet ransom? One of your worst characters. I don't know what you're saying. Character. It was someone who just showed up when we were recording.

Escape from New York. characters i don't know what you're saying character it was someone who just showed up when we were recording um escape from new york oh it's set in 19 well here it says 19 it's set in 1997 yes all right it's saying that i'm sorry i'm sorry it's saying manhattan was turned into a prison island in 1988 okay who knew um does escape from la come out in 97? 96, I believe. It's kind of a bummer you missed it by a year. Yeah. And something we should mention, too, is New York. Well, it's good, though, because then it's like, hey, who knows? Maybe by 97, everything's fucked. You don't know. But I was going to say, New York is like a shithole, though.

It's not in great shape. Oh, you're saying in 1981. Well, like 70s, yeah, 80s. This is a bad time. Oh, you're saying the real world Well, like 70s, yeah, 80s. This is a bad time. Oh, you're saying in the real world, this is a rough period. But still, Carpenter is still in good enough shape that Carpenter knows New York will not actually be. A prison island. We can't sell New York as bad New York right now.

Well, I think the bigger problem is just like people control. Well, that's true too. problem is just like people control. You're not going to get free reign to lock down this many blocks to limit the amount of people going through. I mean, there's something about how desolate New York is in this that makes it really weird. It brings up a lot of questions of how many prisoners do they send in

at all. Do you go in there for everything? What does a cabbie do? He seems nice. Too cute. I just want to also point out... He broke too many hearts? Australia was a prison island. So this isn't a completely preposterous idea. But the thing about the

Australian prison colonies, which were on reflection a little problematic. They just said kids for stealing bread. They just sent them to Australia. Maybe they should have stolen that bread. Well, okay. They only sent them to Australia. Maybe they should have stolen that bread. They only stole bread because some other kid was like, you've got to pick a pocket or whatever.

You know at the end of Oliver Twist the Arful Dodger is deported to Australia. I'm sorry, who? Is this true? I can't track this anymore. That is true. Yes, at the end of Oliver Twist. Really?

That's the twist? Everyone's like, I love this Oliver guy, but Charlie, what's the twist? He's like, the twist is crime pay. But he's all the fucking way to Australia, my friend. Booked yourself a one-way ticket. Australia is much bigger than Manhattan. Yes. yes you're gonna keep it manhattan will eventually fill up australia problematic for a different reason than converting a current city your place right you can't just be like you know what that place over there

i will say they're gonna love that when we send all of our prisoners over there i always super chill uh sorry go ahead i'm always a fan of this as like a dystopian storytelling trope where we're like oh we just gave up on this place we're just army of the dead style yeah i like that army of the dead i like anything where it's like earth no one lives on earth anymore you know like like oh we fucked it up beyond repair so we fucked up beyond repair and it's just that's just a write-off now it's just lawless yeah right um but yes i do wonder it's like right if i commit like tax fraud am i kicked there or is there like maybe a is there a limit it's like staten island like like sort of like maybe a slightly chiller person i don't know how does it do you ever read i want to say it was grant morrison i'm misremembering but it was a an arkham asylum mini series it's grant morris i mean

grant morrison did the ark i know he did one but i'm trying to remember if this is the same one but it was about like a white collar criminal that's not okay he was a white collar criminal who did some shitty financial crime right and then he pleads insanity. Oh. So that he can receive a later sentence. And the irony is they send him to Arkham Asylum. And it's such a fucking good premise where it's like this douchebag who like fucking, you know, managed to hedge fund and like rip people off is like, great. I'm just going to spend three weeks in insane asylum.

I'll be fine. And then he's in there with like deranged Batman supervillains. That is a great idea. The Grant Morrison one is the Dave McKeon drawn one where it's like super, super impressionistic. I'm forgetting who wrote this one. But I always feel like with... The Sears House and Sears Earth.

Yeah. Amazing. It's incredible. With premises like this, the Escape from New York thing, I always wish they put that kind of thing in there where it's incredible rules yeah with premises like this the escape from new york thing i always wish they put that kind of thing in there where it's like and here's the white collar guy who's way in over his head there is as karen was saying there's nothing like the simplicity of just like map of manhattan i'm like i know what that is and they're like all right all right that's where the prison

is like just draw a line this movie is so good at setting up its like objectives its stakes its risks every dystopia after it is is indebted to its simplicity and just yes just how quickly they set everything up things like that throwaway line where it's like he got a purple heart in leningrad and you're like what was what happened in leningrad siberia like what were you know where it's just we don't need to say anything else. We know we're at war with Russia or whatever. Stuff like that. Total throwaway stuff

that gets it all across. The shot in the neck, obviously, is just, like, such a genius move. Yeah, well, Slipknot improved it. But, yeah. I mean,

they perfected that with Slipknot. Slipknot improved getting killed. Slipknot improved dying immediately. Yeah. In that sense. He improved getting killed. Slipknot improved dying immediately. Yeah, in that sense. He improved fucking up. But I just remember you saying that, Ben, where it's like, right, that's how you solve why this guy does the thing.

Right, yeah. Because like, you're like, while retaining his outsider status. Why would he give a shit? He should just escape. Right, there's no part of him that wants to do this. Right, no, but you have to. But yeah, it is.

It really just, it's forcing him, and it's setting a time. Right, the watch is great. just escape right there's no part of out of jail right no but you have to but yeah it is it really just it's forcing him and it's setting a time right the watch is great it's just giving rules to this kind of like unruly place yeah i love the time thing but it also is so funny that he falls asleep for a little more than half of it yes he just takes a little nappy nap um a big nappy nap yeah that's like a real exhaustion nap he's sleepy yeah he's a little tie tie he's tie tie boy but um we did our our riddick commentaries we did and both the third riddick and in pitch black you kept on sourcing like why can't people just fucking make this like especially pitch black where you're just like it's so simple it's so straightforward it's not over complicating

itself it's within its means all this like this movie is so economic, you know? In every sense, and just sort of just, like, blunt, like, here's the fucking setup, here's the layout, here's the deal, and we're off. But it's also, well, because, and yes, the first 20 minutes, and Lee Van Cleef is crucial to all that.

Yeah. You're selling these lines. Crucial to everything, arguably. You know, there's all this silliness. My father, Lee Van Cleef. Dude, Snake is such a fucking badass he's like sitting at that goddamn desk and he's just like president of

what also when Lee Van Cleef is like I'm gonna kick your ass out of the world it's like what kind of threat is this it's the best threat I've ever heard the two meanest motherfuckers the fact that that

has not entered the lexicon is like a popular thing to say. It should. We should start saying it. I'm going to kick your ass out of the world. They do kind of

belong together. Yes. And they don't really, I mean, Lee Van Cleef will admit it and Snake can't admit it. Hawk is Lee Van Cleef's card. It's just Lee Van Cleef.

But like they are, they actually do seem like they'd probably get along. They have similar worldviews even though hawk is the man yeah i also there's a there's a fascinating thing to me with like i feel like by the 90s things sort of normalize a little more again but like there was such a radical sea change in american cinema at least in the 70s right like new hollywood and sort of the post-Brando generation of the method actors, naturalism taking over,

and movies getting messier, and all this sort of shit. That, like, a lot of these guys, like Lee Van Cleef and Ernest Borgnine, who had, like, a very specific vibe they did that fit into an older studio system or a specific genre that, like, doesn't really exist anymore in the 80s they're

in the zone where it's like what does this guy do now you know and like you saying karen the thing about lee van cleef like feeling like an anime character in this it does feel like that thing where like an anime series takes elements of western culture and then puts it into its own weird like eastern sci-fi sort of milieu where it's just like it feels fundamentally so right and so wrong that this old cowboy is sitting at like a fucking tech console telling a guy he's gonna kick him out of the planet you know and like same thing with borg 9 where it's like this movie gets so much juice i feel like of putting people in like slightly odd ill-fitting positions yeah i feel like of putting people in like slightly odd

ill-fitting positions yeah i mean like from the moment that the cabbie character is introduced you're like what is going on here because he's like sitting at the theater like so happy and then he's like you're snake plus kid he is very chipper considering he lives in objectively a not fun place but this is kind of a movie where every single performer has a different energy. Isaac Hayes in this movie is very much of this moment. But you're like, but he shouldn't be in a movie, right? He shouldn't be playing a part like this. Everyone just feels like they're sort of plucked out of somewhere else.

Including Kurt Russell. And, yeah, yes, absolutely. Including Kurt Russell. Yes. Any dream, Barbara. It made me think of Mad Max 3. What's the musician? Thunderdome.

Oh, Tina Turner. Tina Turner. She's so fucking cool. And she's so great in that too. There's something about like, you know Isaac Hayes, but you've never seen him in this context. And then he's just like super fucking cool already as a person, but he's so cool in this fucking movie. And he's just a fucking badass.

I believe that people would follow him. That's true. this fucking movie and he's just a fucking badass i believe that people would follow him that's true he's charismatic yeah he's got a good hat yeah sort of the john wick method of casting right absolutely where it's like oh we'll just put lawrence fishburne in there john wick deeply indebted to this oh yeah and i'm sure they would admit it and it's you're right where it's like you know what rather than have five minutes of talk about who this person is why don't we just cast x and everyone will get it pretty much right away but i also think john wick the first i mean you and i were talking about this the other day david but like the way now everyone is ripping off john wick right like john wick has become one of three movies that everyone's trying to world building that's what it is yeah there's there's something

very very uh precise about the way they do world building in that movie and the surprise of that film having world building when it doesn't feel like the kind of premise that would support it that now doesn't work when you're sort of replicating it but there's also just something about how much like this movie the setup is so primal and as you said it's sort of like every character is like a primary color it's an immediate match of energy and actor persona we don't need to know much right it's sort of like every character is like a primary color. It's an immediate match of energy and actor persona. But also, we don't need to know much. Right, exactly.

It's a prison island. The Duke's in charge. Right. It's not like the Warriors where there's like tons and tons of factions that he navigates. It's like, now if you would remake this movie, it would be longer. Right. And he would go from X place in the prison to the, you know, like he would bounce to all these locations where it would be really distinct factions.

Yes. Instead, it's like he meets Ernie borg nine right then he goes and meets harry he's a cab his name is cabby he drives a cab right he's a brain he's a big nerd guy right also as you pointed out we're all sort of pointed out in terms of like this would be longer if it was a movie today it's only an hour and like 40 minutes it's beautiful yeah nice short movie yeah it also ends i mean we'll talk about it. Perfect ending where it's just like, okay. All right.

Bye-bye. Cut to black. But this is what I'm saying. Like people try to replicate this so much. They don't understand what a key element of this film is weirdly restraint. You know, and some of it I'm sure is limitations of budget and schedule production and all of this. That's the carpet thing.

But even just in the basic construction of the story, you know? It's not overloaded with too many set pieces, too many action sequences. You know, it is fascinating where you're like, this is thought of as an action classic. It's pretty simple. It's just like, this is what's cool.

Right. And that's it. One big, like, fucking fight in a boxing ring. Yeah. But it's, I mean, it's fair to say, and I remember listening to the rewatchables about this podcast,

and Bill Simmons, who I... About this movie. About this movie, sorry. Who I sort of appreciate as, and this may be a hot take, like, that's like a cable viewing dad take on things that is not attached to film Twitter and is not attached... Like, where I'm like, I am sort of interested to hear the perspective. I think that's his exact value. But where he's sort of like, I really love Escape from New York, blah, blah, blah. But like, it's not quite like the real action movie juice comes a couple years later,

I guess with like the Rambo sequels and stuff, where action movies start to get super kinetic and super kind of just like exciting. But even like They Live has so much more action than this does. Yeah. He's not even putting, I guess it's like a mild critique from him but yeah it's just true like escape from new york is quiet and it's sort of a little more slowly paced and it's a lot of kind of shuffling around and sneaking and like well often it's just sort of like a punch and then like but that's great it's like the rules it's obviously it's not like he barely uses his gun right he has like two scenes where he uses it maybe yeah right it's been like this rule it's obviously it's not like he barely uses his gun right he has like

two scenes where he uses it maybe yeah right it's not like full action movies don't exist at this point right like bruce lee's entire career has happened but i do think there is a purity to franchises where like uh we've talked about this as well but like it's interesting when you watch like old horror movies right like? Like 50s horror movies. Universal, even older. Right. Val Luton movies, German Expressionists, anything sort of before maybe the 70s, you know, and maybe a thousand people are going to come and correct me here.

They're obviously outliers. But like a lot of them, the horror is the premise. Hell yeah. I mean, like the haunting. Rather than its visceral scare. The haunting is so scary you know but like

there's not a lot of scares in it or whatever. You know it's all tension and atmosphere and location. In the same way that this can be an action movie

but it's all about the tension the premise the setup rather than it is about like stunt work. Yeah I mean I think that's pretty well exemplified.

There's that scene where they're driving the car that they stole like through a crowd of people and it's just it's not like they're driving through them rapidly or even everyone's just wailing on the car as they go just throw in some shit yeah like what little action exists in this movie is not visceral it's narrative i feel like those guys are like we live on broadway because i believe they're on broadway when this it's like well what do we do

on broadway if any fucker drives his car down here we throw rocks at it that's the only hint you get of like another faction well they're ventures i mean they're just they're trying to get anything they can get their hands on well also not to mention no one's going to see their shows anymore i mean they're throwing rocks if they want people to pull into the winter garden yeah they got it come on no one mourns the wicked what are they performing at that show? I don't know. It's something really weird. Well, I mean, like, if you go to... It seems like a review of something.

If you go to the train station, you'll see Zangief essentially fight whoever's around. That's what's going on at the wrestling ring. Right. It's a classic two-round fight. Round one, bats. Round two, bats with spikes and a trash can shoot we all know we all know the classic progression of fighting gladiator shit though yeah they they would do that yeah

like that guy's only strength is that he's really big and he's quite large and he only has one move like in his move set it's only this and it's slow you're thinking of it in a video game you way better right here because he also he tosses his shield because he has to do the two hand. But he's real slow. This, of course, is Ox Baker playing the role of Slag. Amazing. Slag is his name. You didn't know that?

Fuck. I did not know. That's so good. I believe he was a professional wrestler. Yeah, for real. Slag. Slag. He's one of those guys who looks like...

My son, Slag. He looks like he looks in this movie. That's amazing. Where you're like, oh, let me see a picture of that guy casual. And you're like, yeah, basically. He just sort of looks like Slag. It's like, you know, like the Santa Claus in the second season of I Think You Should Leave where the actor's name is just Biff Whiff?

Yes. Oh, Jesus. How? How? That guy's great. Oh, he's wonderful. It's just that his real name is Biff Whiff. I. It's like, Jesus. How? How? I love that guy. That guy's great. Oh, he's wonderful. It's just that his real name is Biff Whiff.

I understand these words mean different things in the world of wrestling, right? Uh-huh. But it is just still jarring to look at Ox Baker's IMDb biography

and have it open with Douglas Baker, better known by his moniker Ox, was one of the meanest, most vicious, hated, and ugliest wrestlers ever. Wow. Where you're like, well, when you speak of a wrestler that way, you understand that's part of the appeal. But when it's on IDB and like next to bios like Jeffrey Wright is one of the most undersung actors of his generation.

Ox Baker is so fucking ugly and mean. Everyone hates him. Ox Baker was famous for his Machiavellian eyebrows and his finishing move, the heart punch, sometimes called the hurt punch, after his famous catchphrase, I love to hurt people. I was going to bring up his famous catchphrase. It's incredible.

I wonder how long he worked on that. What should my catchphrase be? Yeah, so he's Slag. Slag. Yeah, I mean, the plot of escape from new york it's because it's really it's like five locations right it's very simple point b movie yeah well i guess lands we should say like the the when he first the first building right because he he crashes the plane right on the goes down he goes to where he meets the cabbie he goes then upstairs finds the crazy guy finds the crazy guy right who has the has the tracker exactly and the briefcase or no no he just has the tracking device okay

because they they shoot him to get the briefcase right um and then that's the first time we actually just see some really scary not it's not it's it's like sexual assault like really scary and fucked up but the whole thing that's magic about snake it's not that he doesn't care but he definitely is just kind of like all right you know like and he just sort of like moving along right yeah yeah and he never seems that perturbed but he doesn't seem like he's into it either he's just like here i am at work and he's not in a rush though either he's not even though he's like his neck is gonna explode yeah yeah he's not yeah and i feel like if i was like come on snake he'd be like don't rush me sorry snake there's something about the fact that snake and

by extension, Russell, seem so unconcerned with trying to impress anybody. Yeah. You know? It's because he's Snake fucking Plissken. He is Snake fucking Plissken. And so I guess then, right, Cabby goes to see the brain. Goes to see brain.

Goes to see brain. And then I guess the only other little thing is there's the underground people. Yeah. Who come out of the sewers. I thought they might have come back later. I think they do. But yeah, that's where we meet them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he runs away. Yeah, Brain. I love Brain. So Brain is the Griffin Newman role here. Well, yeah, it's what I want to age into 50 years from now. Right, yes. But I just love how- It'll take me 50 years to hit Harry Dean Stan at 45.

How immediately he coughs. Yeah, I'm full of shit. I don't know. I suck. It's also nice that he fucking sucks. Leave me alone. Don't call me Harold, please. Everyone knows Snake.

Yeah. Which I love. Which is wild. It is wild. And also him and Brain go way back. He goes way back with everyone in this movie. But the repetition of Snake Plissken, I thought you were dead, just gets better every time. Also, do they get news on the prison island?

Right? Because that begs that question. Because otherwise, why would they know? Does anyone? I guess. My inclination is they thought he was dead before they even ended up on the island. I mean, I like that no one ever expounds on that any further. Which is why it's good. i guess he's a war hero

right so maybe right they just thought he also like his crime is just like robbing a bank yeah well maybe he shouldn't have done that karen maybe you know if you don't want to go to crime island if you don't want to go to crime island don't steal that bread that's true that's true um they shot that scene apparently uh like that they then ended up cutting of like basically how he ended up in jail which i'm so interested to see though i am because i assume that's sort of an opening but i prefer it where it's just oh yeah you just go scary it's just like it's a post movie treat where you're just i just want a little more snake plus again right yeah i wish i could have so much the lack of substantive backstory the mystery of filling in the gaps in your head is so much better and the fact that like

we'll we'll get to it but like the movie ends so abruptly like it's like how your perception of snake plissken is this very small sliver this one mission how everyone else reacts to him you know but it's like where did they fucking pull him from where is he going to now you know yes um brain he's hanging out with maggie it's nice that they do seem to like each other um yes i think to some degree brain weirdly respects the fact that plus can sees through his shit yeah he respects it right and he right he's not going to try and impress snake he knows that battle is lost but it's like he has anyone who believes the line of bullshit that he's selling is an idiot right so it's like plissken can see i'm a fucking moron right the only reason he's succeeding on

crime island is he's whatever he can make gas yeah he's got right he's got a couple trucks there will be blood like things he's got the derrick yeah it's pretty cool it's inside right he drinks people's milkshakes yeah uh he does drink people's milkshakes uh maggie look adrian barbeau she's super quiet in this movie she's super steely but like she kind of works as like not an over-the-top like sort of gangster's mole character, I guess. Yeah. All the anecdotes about the night shoots. Right. Which it really seems like everyone was talking about this as if this was a beyond unusual thing that, you know, a you don't do many movies where it's all taking place at night.

And B, when you do, you almost always shoot day for night. And this was like a complete schedule adjustment for all of them and all of them in interviews were like it's like bizarre you're living like a vampire i'm going to sleep when the sun comes up my entire internal clock is thrown off and adrian barbeau was like yeah i like wake up every morning i go antique shopping oh she was having a chill time it's true like totally she's the one person who seemed unaffected by this. Good for her. She baked a turkey and used the wishbone to like put it in her hair. Yes.

Because she was like, that seems like a good remedy. No, no, no. Oh, yes. No, that's her character's wardrobe. When she died, she had to bake a second turkey to get another wishbone. Oh, my God. Because she was like, well well I need the wishbone again and that made me have a huge crush on her

fair enough she had also silver nail polish because she had imagined that Maggie had melted down batteries to use them as nail polish that fucking rules it does rule we already talked about Donald Pleasance

writing a manifesto about how like Maggie Thatcher had colonized America or whatever to explain. Right. It's like you don't care about that at all. But I would like to see the backstory of Maggie making her nail polish. That's wild. Yeah, that's really good. Obviously, Kurt. This is the first Kurt and Karp.

Kurt Karp combo. Kurt Karp. Elvis is the Elvis is right. And they just seem to absolutely love each other. Every quote is just them like lavishing praise on each other. I mean they both seem like really chill dudes. Where now John Carpenter's

entire reputation where he's like I wish I didn't have to work and I could just play NBA, Xbox and all that. Right. This is true. But I think it's such a thing. Right now Carpenter's like right I just want to play Fortnite and Kurt Russell's, I just want to play Fortnite. Kurt Russell's like, I just want to not talk about politics

and have wine in my winery. His top games lists are so fucking funny. It's almost always whatever new Assassin's Creed game came out that year is the number one. He just likes blockbuster games that are popular. I bet he loves the movie. I wonder if maybe he doesn't.

That's a really good question. Who knows? Maybe he thinks they fucked it up. Yeah. What if he came out of retirement and he was like, I have to course correct. I have to make the actual Assassin's Creed movie. It would be sick though if he did a sequel to the movie.

Yeah. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Like the pirate one. Oh, he liked Assassin's Creed Valh pirate one oh he liked to do a pirate movie too he would fucking kill but they should they should let him do an assassin's creed movie at an escape from new york budget go like you have to figure out how to do this for seven million dollars totally and you have to take a former disney star you have to take like mitchell musso

or someone turn them into uh well okay so they go to the duke's compound do you ever think about how john carpenter is on the record as loving fallout 76 so theoretically you could be playing it online and you could be playing it with john carpenter that game is boring john why are you playing that game it's so boring he just seems like he likes to occupy his time now right that's fair it just eats up the hours for me. I shouldn't diss Fallout 76. Do you like Fallout 76? Well, I haven't really played it,

but here's what John Carpenter said about Fallout 76. John, I almost just read his name out again. Fallout 76 is a glitch-a-thon of a game, stuttering and freezing, but still fun, addicting with its post-nuke open world, a big game with hit and miss missions, despite its flaws, I dig it. Just play the better Fallout games, John. There's other ones. john there's other ones it's also describing fallout it's bizarre

john carpenter's like opinions on video games just read like like game informer capsule reviews there's no real substance to his game opinions it's just like i played it and i liked it stunning graphics but the thing is i would read more of his game opinions i would if you had like a podcast every week him growling about video games that sounds great yeah he's not that the wildest thing is like i know he's probably never going to make another movie yeah we'll talk about this as we go on but like yeah he's younger than like spielberg is or yeah it seems like he just wants to chill out right because it's i think if he right now is like spielberg is or yeah it seems like he just wants to chill out right because it's i think if he right now is like i want to make a movie he could definitely make a movie i don't know if he can make like a huge budget one but he somewhat would like people

would let him make something tomorrow anything he fucking wanted and so i guess he just isn't into it anymore but like maybe something will spark for him maybe i don't know it's been like 11 years now i don't know it was the been like 11 years now. I don't know. It was the one thing that, right, I think he really was miserable doing the ward, which we will get to. But there was like,

so here's a quote that JJ put at the end of the doc about, because there've been for so long, so many rumors about this one being remade and he's been so sort of like, whatever, remake it. I don't care. Give me money. And then Escape from New York is the one he gets a little possessive of

and it's like i really think it should be kurt that's i think the reason is because he knows kurt cares so much about the character right i maybe owe him another movie on the other hand the hito kojima was like i'm gonna name my character snake and he's just gonna look exactly like snake plissken and john carpenter was like he seems cool so i'll let him do it he's like that's a nice man yeah they fucking sued uh they did sue luke basson over lockout which is a great movie which rules lockout rules lockout rules and it's so good i just think that's fascinating because that never fucking happens like movies are ripping off other movies all the time yeah and then you have like people who are like i wrote a spec script 15 years ago and the studio saw you never have like one movie that is

very unofficially a remake of another movie right but i wonder if carpenter is just so ornery we're like right other people be like see that movie they'll be like hey and they call their agent yeah it's like you know what let me call the studio and the studio's like oh you know what i'll just cut you a check for 100 grand right where we're just like sue those fuckers but just while that like they won, he got half a million dollars. And then, yes, as you said, Karen was just like,

well, this is a solid thing, but I like that guy. He's nice to me. The games are good. Lockout is so good, especially when you consider Guy Pearce is being called on to play Snake Plissken. And that's interesting casting.

It's a fun movie. Have you ever seen Lockout? I have not. It's Escape from New York, but with a space prison. Yeah. And it's, that's interesting casting. It's a fun movie. Have you ever seen Lockout? I have not. It's Escape from New York, but with a space prison. Yeah, it's awesome. He has to break into space jail to save the president's daughter.

Totally different. Yeah. Space jail. Interesting. And he's playing a Snake Plissken type where he's like, I don't want to do it. You know,

like it's the same basic vibe. Okay. So it's, it's good though. It's very good. And the guy from This is England is in it. It's quite good. Who's so good. He's so good. He's always good. Gilgan from this is england is in it it's quite good he's so good he's amazing yeah he's always good gilgan is that joe gilgan joe gilgan yeah uh who

is a real ben type and that he looks like he weighs 80 pounds and yeah and 40 pounds of that is tattoos he's wonderful he's a wonderful actor i really love him there's this i've talked about it before i think but there's the shot in lockout where guy pierce is smoking a cigarette and someone punches his head uh-huh and he ducks off screen and then when he comes back up the cigarette is bent at a 90 degree angle it's so good who did that some fucking frenchie but it's not one of the main frenchies who then like it's not olivier megaton it's not olivier it's uh no it's two people sorry steve stefan san leger and james mather and what have they done since i don't fucking know thought about how great lockout was i hope they're patting themselves on the back 24 7 we made one really good one and now i can just

hang it up uh i don't know they did something called they they've worked on Vikings. It's just weird they didn't do like five more Europa Corp movies. Yeah, well, I don't know, Griffin. I can't tell you. I demand an answer. Yeah, it looks like they've only been doing Vikings. Yeah, this guy just does Vikings. Another show that I feel like Ben probably would like, even though he doesn't watch it.

Don't you like Vikings, Ben? Do I like Vikings? Like in the abstract? I don't know about that. Yeah. I don't know how... I don't have a Viking take. I don't. There's definitely an Assassin's Creed game that's Viking, right?

The one that just came out that John Carpenter liked. There you go. Valhalla. It's kind of stupid, but all the Assassin's Creed games are. but they're very fun and i like playing them i should play them i've never played them they're fine i know i wasn't impressed by which one the i played um the pirate one and then the american revolution odyssey is really good that's like the best one so far the pirate one is the one from the meme what's the what's the meme where the pirates of the caribbean music is playing and they're like

oh god no no no no is that from assassin's creed i don't know what you're talking about but now i really want to know uh you know what the pirates of the caribbean theme kicks in i will say i like i thought i was no it's sea of thieves i'm sorry okay that's what i thought uh in the pandemic i thought i was gonna get so much deeper into gaming and i bought like a lot more games and shit because i was just like what else am i gonna do with my time and i never really like fell all the way in and then what have you played so far i don't i don't even know this is the point i'm going to make is that i recently bought a used game boy advance and a bunch of games and i've been playing that non-stop and i'm just like oh yeah games are too complicated for me now. Well, I think this is my take on it.

I also, same thing, like during the lockdown, thought I would get more into gaming. David and Karen just watching a video on Mike now. Yeah, they're watching some silly meme. I've always watched this at CFU's. I've been like, what is this game where you're driving a whole pirate ship? One of my friends is really into this, really I have such a hard time with online games is that it's like you're on some pirate ship

I guess this is the game some other ship is approaching and then you hear the gamers going like oh no we have too much shit oh god oh fuck oh fuck they try to get out of the way and I'm like so is this the game is just like you just like bored it's just you're a pirate that's the part of why I didn't like that game.

I couldn't fucking steer that goddamn ship, shooting fucking cannons, fucking doing all this goddamn bullshit. It's way too fucking hard. That is the bad part of Odyssey, is you do sometimes have to do naval combat, and I could just never do it. This is the problem with so many games,

where I'm like. Naval combat sucks ass. I never want to do it. I love NBA Jam, right? And I'm like, I want to play the modern NBA game. And it's like, okay, to play the modern NBA game. And it's like, okay, so here's how you post up. It's sort of like a shifting motion, but not too hard on the stick.

And I'm like, I don't want this to just realistically be how you play basketball. I have found it so relaxing to play fucking Game Boy Advance games where I'm like, this is so simple. What have you been playing on the GBA? I'm playing the Rat 2 game where you're a little rat. You're in a kitchen. You try and jump up the levels and get cheese. This is horrible. I didn't know that there was a Rat 2 game where you're a little rat. You're in a kitchen. You try and jump up the levels and get cheese. I didn't know that there was a Rat 2 game.

It's good. All right. Okay, and I was just saying when Griffin and I were talking that I think another thing of why I couldn't get into video games because I played Breath of the Wild, which is probably the best game. You're saying that just kind of blew your mind so much that other games you're like, no, thank you. And then I try another RPG like Witcher 3,

and I'm like, this game's for nerds! God, it's boring! Shut the fuck up! Witcher 3 rules! Where I play Assassin's Creed and it's just like, it's not as movable as Breath of the Wild. It's a little bit more like a stringent. Breath of the Wild is really a pinnacle.

It's just, it's a masterpiece. Witcher 3 was incredible. You just need to park your ass in front of it. Make a fucking potion. You don't need it. Well, you have to occasionally make a potion. Fucking potions. Pick a shit off the ground. Yeah, pick up a flower and grind it up. It is true that crafting is almost universally the worst

part of any game. It is never the most fun. Just let me collect money and buy the thing. Griffin likes it. Griffin likes it. He's got some fun cooking. Griffin's like, I have to get a berry or something i like collecting shit unsurprisingly my favorite that's why you like those lego games yes it's all unlocking characters it's all like 100 percenting things yes i like 100 percenting things they're just slightly more advanced platformers but but i think i just want to i want to build bridge here there's like an

analogy here to i feel like uh modern action films especially if you're doing sci-fi this is good genre mashup action shit getting like so over over overly complicated right that's fair whereas like escape from new york it's like every character you understand immediately you understand exactly what the objectives are you understand the clock the spatial relation of where he needs to be. You know what he has at his disposal. Like it's what are what are his moves? What's in his inventory?

Yeah. Like all that shit. It just makes it such a pleasant watch to just feel like there's no moment where you have to be like, wait, who is why did that? When did he get that? What is he trying to do here in this scene? Yeah. Wait, Ben,

I have a Breath of the Wild question. What do you make of the fact that the weapons break? Do you like that or do you not like that? Yeah. I mean, it's annoying. Yes.

This is my, maybe hot take is, I do think Breath of the Wild is beautiful. I think it's a very good game, but I do, I am like a Zelda boy where I'm like,

I want to get the sword and have that be like a crucial plot moment and that's the sword that I have now I am like a Zelda boy where I'm like, I want to get the sword and have that be like a crucial plot moment. And that's the sword that I have now. Not like, you just got like an angel's dick sword. And then you use it for five minutes. It's like, it broke. The master sword exists. Yeah, I know.

But it's a pain in the ass to get the master sword. Yeah, it is a pain in the ass. And yeah, I know. There are definitely times where I'm like, what the fuck? You're like fist fighting a monster. Yeah, you're like deep in the ass and yeah i know it like there are definitely times where i'm like what the fuck you're like fist fighting yeah you're like a deep in like the terminator's asshole and then suddenly like your thing breaks so you're like shit i know it's so like go make a curry yeah to heal or whatever yeah yeah back in my day you smashed a bottle a heart came out yeah that was nice um but sort of to griffin's point like i do agree i i feel that's a major problem with a lot of movies recently not just action movies because the whole idea now is like we want to make something that's a franchise we want to make

something that's really expandable and part of that is trying to build in so much lore yes that you can keep building on it yeah um and i guess also in the sort of video game vein like i played cyberpunk recently and that is kind of the classic example of trying to do too much where they're like oh we can make this world so fucking cool we can do all this shit and then all of it only goes about halfway and you're like I don't and my other problem with Cyberpunk and I should

play it longer because I spent so much time on my character's penis and then like I played it for like 20 minutes and I was like I'm not gripped by this like I don't actually care about the story so much. The world could be interesting, but it felt generic otherwise. I should go back to it. There's just a beauty to sort of the pockets of mystery in Escape from New York, how much goes unexplained.

But also just like I think about like, I feel like a third, if not more of like modern you know hundred million dollar plus budget action films adventure films sci-fi films whatever you'd be hard pressed if you paused the movie in the last act and turn to the person watching it to answer what is going on yeah you know where it's like they like keep you floating on some level of pleasance. But then if you actually not Donald Pleasance, unfortunately, I wish. But if you had to actually answer, like, what are they doing at this moment and why are they doing versus something like this where it's just like, hey, Snake, I'm Lee Van Cleef. I'm the most fucking compelling guy who's ever been on camera. Let me tell you everything that's going to happen for the next 90 minutes. Have fun. Yeah.

You know, and it's just like, you know exactly what the fuck is going on in this. Well, it's very it's a very much a simplicity thing, right? on in this well it's very it's a very much a simplicity thing right where it's like if you have this story and you only focus on that then there's no getting lost and there's it's also it's compelling like start to finish because there's it's you're getting from point a to point b and that's it or it's everything else it's like trying to set up these branches and as a result like the main line is like who gives a shit about that which i also think i think audiences like to do a certain amount of work right you're most engaged in a movie when you're having to put some stuff together, you know? Yeah.

And so the less that's explained or sort of dumped on your lap, the more invested the audience is going to be in trying to do some of that work themselves. And so anytime a new character is introduced to this movie or a new wrinkle, you're sort of like analyzing it the way you do in a video game

where you're like, what do I need to figure out in this room? You know, like, why is this either going to be an imposition or an aid to his ultimate goal? Right. Which it's just like, right. Then you can just have these weird they don't feel like side tangents when you suddenly end up in a new space or interest to a new character or new role, because all of it feels like what's either going to help or hurt. But it's not going to take or hurt but it's not going to take away from what we're ultimately

working towards. But it's just also it's brilliant if you sit down and map it all out you're like oh they only meet like six people and do like three things in this movie. Like not that much happens. The fight in the ring is the one thing where you're like oh this is sort of blown out. There's like a lot of people around

but mostly it's just sort of some tense conversations yeah like the big chase on the bridge i mean it's part of the car magic the carpenter score too where it's like less is more with everything right you know so it's like a lot of silence and very quiet music okay just one thing i want to make sure we as we're like getting through towards the end i just love that isaac hayes and his crew like you know just like i love baddies right yeah they're so fun they are fun okay and i love that they're just recklessly shooting at the president and doing target practice i'm just like yeah i just think that is so fucking crazy and badass like man you just like however how rude everyone is in this that's what you like

you like how rude snake is you's what you like you like how rude snake is you like how rude the bad guys are totally as we were talking about lee van cleave i just went on google image search just to look at some pictures of him and you know that they will provide like related links up in that biz one of them is just lee van cleave funeral which i'm very concerned about and curious to click but not sure sure if I should. What do you mean? You don't want to hear about his funeral? You don't want to see the image search. It's not a Google related search.

Well, it may, it may just give you his very cool, uh, uh, gravestone that we talked about. Right. That's true.

Um, it does seem like this is just a picture from a movie because from the thumbnail, I was like, did they just show him? It looks like an open casket, but no, I think it's just from a movie, but like there are those very sweet pictures of him and

kurt russell like they're very having fun strangling each other on set yeah the one where they're both smiling as they're both like choking each other is cute man look at this fucking leaving cleve on johnny carson wearing like the biggest medallion yeah i just opened that it's so good he had just come from a rating that like your fucking tomb of the lost ark or whatever it's just something about like leaving cleave in the 70s or 80s you know or it's just like this guy fundamentally doesn't feel modern you know which is why he worked so well in like uh the leonie movies and everything and then when you put him in any other milieu it like immediately

gives you this like interesting charge you know like this polarity yeah so they go to the uh one of the world trade center uh buildings right to escape the glider does not work out i do love those little fuckers who are just like, they just don't, they just don't. They're like kids, like two year olds having a tantrum. They have no idea what they're doing. Yeah.

So useful. And they're just like, um, yes. So instead they, you know, snake thinks fast. We obviously,

the plot has presented an alternate route, the mind bridge, the quote unquote 69th street bridge, which is, I guess supposed to be the 59th street bridge um there's mines but it's again it's small scale like there's a few explosions and they're pretty little you know what i mean i like all this the whole less is more thing the final showdown is great i you know like you know isaac hayes like wailing on people with a machine gun

the president getting to finally cut loose that's pleasant having fun yes when he's like finally gets it you're right number one the duke like that yeah yeah yeah griffin you're looking something up no i'm i'm looking for uh additional uh trivia facts here i mean just a tiny thing but not to go backwards here but the eyepatch was a Russell thing which I also think is so telling where a lot of people would have been like I don't want to fucking cover up my face and he was like I need to look different like I need to make a different

guy I don't think this movie works without the eyepatch I don't either no it's kind of like 10% of the movie right there I kind of agree I mean if he's just like some guy he'd probably be pretty cool right the eyepatch. I don't either. No, absolutely not. It's kind of like 10% of the movie right there. I kind of agree. Yeah. I mean, if he's just like some guy, he'd probably be pretty cool. Right. The eyepatch is crucial. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I've considered getting an eyepatch. I know you have, Ben. Yeah? Absolutely. Style, color? I mean, just classic black leather.

Skull and crossbones? I was going to say. Skull and crossbones. griff do you like the ending yeah rules i mean this is like another thing i like the deaths too i think they're all kind of impactful i thought you were talking about the very end yes of course the final final this movie's like perfect it's just one of those things where it's like the thing with the tape is so good yes that's what i was talking about And the sort of irony of Snake being like, I got you the president.

Right. Like, I did my job. I did the thing you asked me to do, and I also figured out what you really fucking wanted, you rats. Which, by the way, maybe put your nuclear info on not a cassette tape. Yeah. Maybe slightly more advanced technology. An incredibly easily destroyable piece of technology.

At least put it on a mini disc or something. A laser disc. Got a harder shell. Giant laser disc. He's carrying with two hands. I also love that they're more dealing with the president. He's like, come on, my neck is about to explode. Yeah, I love it.

You motherfucker. Doing it down to the wire, too. Yeah, him dropping from the rope before it lets him down little little things like that yeah yeah i love the look of the little uh the little doctor guy no no i well yes but i was gonna say the little ship oh yeah yeah yeah the doctor guy's on the level from the i like the little doctor another griffey role yeah yeah Because he doesn't want to kill Snake. No. He wants to be honest. Yeah. He's a good dude.

Perfect movie, I think. Well, pretty perfect. Yeah, I think so. I don't really have an objection to this movie. I don't either. It's a little... No. No, right. I don't.

Yeah. I don't. I mean, just what I'm sort of fascinated by, and I keep on repeating myself here, but it's just like how much it is cited by so many people as an influence and how often people get it wrong by over complicating it you know i mean that's i feel like that's such a common pattern though even with like john wick where it's like that became popular and then

everyone tried to do it but they completely missed like every copy of it is bad yeah yeah i mean the first time i remember reading serious talk of a remake to this was post 300, when everyone was trying to figure out what Gerard Butler's deal was. And that got set up very quickly. And I remember Kurt Russell was very critical of it and saying that only an American should play Snake Plissken, which seemed kind of sort of a weird objection by him jingoistic but then i it makes more sense if you just consider his kind of like possessiveness of the character not want to see someone else play it and then i know the rock is now supposed to do big trouble in little china but at one point he was going to do escape as well right i believe those things happen though yeah i mean that just feels like we've talked enough about The Rock but like you know it's like it's not surprising

anymore to see The Rock as like a sort of off center badass he's done that so many times The Rock would be look I don't think he should do either of these I don't think these things should be remade in a literal fashion but he'd be better in a Jack these things should be remade in a literal fashion, but he'd be

better in a Jack Burton type role than he would in a Snake Plissken type role. He's going more for Jack Burton. Yeah. Right? Right. That's kind of what he's... Jungle Cruise. Jungle Cruise is more... Did you see Jungle Cruise? I did. We could talk about it. Did you like it? I thought it was

fine. Sure. I thought it was a nice, fun movie. Who cares? I thought it was fine. Sure. I thought it was a nice, fun movie. Who cares? I thought it was fine. Here was an immediate thought I had. This isn't a very immediate thought. No, not quite. No, I'm trying to figure out how to frame this.

How much better would that movie be if it was Oscar Isaac? I mean, a lot of movies would be better with oscar isaac i thought i had because that movie does not actually require a lot out of that character as an action star right in a certain way the blunt character is more physical than he is yeah no i know i know he's and the main thing you want is like fucking salty like oil and water chemistry and that movie's like well he's the rock he has to do some action and the action some his action feels a little perfunctory sometimes. Right. And also the sort of supernatural stuff. The twist is, like, insane. You can't see that coming.

The twist is insane. I mean. Which I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, although it's been out for whatever at this point in time. The twist would have made more sense if it was Oscar Isaac, for example, in a number of ways, right? I also think he's better at playing that sort of anger and having a subtle sweetness to him underneath it.

Poe Dameron style. Right. Right. Like, that works if him underneath it. Poe Dameron style. Right, right. Like that works if he's just in Poe Dameron mode. That movie also works a thousand times better if it's Idris Elba. Idris. I mean, you're naming actors I like. Right.

I just feel like there's, that role is actually kind of deceptively complicated in terms of how many things they're putting on that character and also wanting him to become iconic and i feel like he delivers every line in that movie like he's presenting a kid's choice award well like there's a little bit of his just kind of a vuncular i'm the rock even when i'm being an asshole i don't really mean it and and like all the groaner jokes i'm like

you're not selling them hard enough like you should be more embarrassing more of an asshole more horny more sweet like everything's kind of just in the middle with him and i wanted someone who was a little pricklier yeah that's fair that's totally fair did they go on a jungle cruise though they did okay so what's your fucking objection it's you know i i like i like the beak honey beak and kiss the door yeah the bee guy the bee that's a good idea the three elements of course i mean look it's clearly like rejected crash mccreary designs right from dead man's chest but i like that they're like three conquistadors what are their things uh snakes uh poo-poo mud and uh honeycombs and there there's the wood the wood one the like tree one yes yeah right there's four of them yeah the tree branches not that this is important uh

jungle cruise corner yes i just lemon's horn but i was just gonna say so good both times when the rock has talked about doing these fucking movies he goes like well we're like really trying to use those films as a starting point really ask larger questions about the world and it's like no one as a starting point and really ask larger questions about the world and it's like no one cares everyone is indebted to carpenter and doesn't understand how much of an asset it was that a he was sort of no bullshit and how he approached things and b studios never let him go that deep up his own ass not that i think he ever could even go that deep you know yeah uh but that these things are just like i don't know what's like a compelling story like well told and it's the difference between like people are now trying to make

john carpenter movies but john carpenter was trying to make hawks movies and they're losing the hawks lineage and they're just going like well what's the carpenter thing yeah yeah anyway let's play the box office game let's play box office game this movie came out this movie was a hit it was a hit uh cost seven million dollars and it made 25 i don't know pretty pretty good the fog was kind of a not well received did okay yeah it was it was successful it was profitable i mean he's doing both these at a low budget neither of them are hitting like the blockbuster levels of halloween he hits that again. Nothing is the stunning. Right.

But yeah. These are like successful movies. Yes. This film came out in the middle of summer. 15th of June, 1981. It opened number three. Okay.

Number one is, my guess, one of the biggest movies of the year. A sequel. Sequel. It's a sequel. 1981. Not as many sequels back then. It's a two? It's a sequel not as many sequels back then it's a two

it's the third most successful film of the year wow it's a number two can you tell me the genre I'll just give it away as broad as you can is it a serious franchise is it a serious franchise is it a comedy franchise

it's a serious franchise but it's for families and kids and everybody to enjoy it was this film was made sort of back to back with the first one is it Superman 2 I can't say comic book and I can't say this but anyway there's nothing I can say Superman 2? It's Superman 2. I don't know. I can't say comic book and I can't say this one.

There's nothing I can say. Superman 2. Yeah, I like it. Before Zod. Yeah. Do you like it? Yeah, I did all the Superman movies recently. I really enjoy them even for all their wonkiness. I mean, yeah.

Yeah, I like it. It's good. Dickie Lester. Dickie Lester recently died, right? Yeah, pretty recently. Wait, or is he still alive? No, I think he's... He's still alive.

Really? When Richard Donner died, Jordan Hoffman texted me and was like, did you know Richard Lester's still alive? And I was like, no, but okay. And he just hasn't made a movie in like 30 years, right? He's like 90 years old. I know, but he retired fairly young all considering um yeah yeah have you ever seen

because i've never seen the donner cut uh the donner cut because i've been told it's so weird because it's like cutting in like sort of unfinished stuff and screen tests yeah yeah it's it's like right it's it's a reconstruction project to just give you an idea of what it would have been but there's no way to actually make that and Donner didn't even supervise it. But it's interesting. Yeah. I mean, I like both. I like the Lester movie. It's weird. I kind of just wish they had let Donner finish shit.

Related to the Donner party? Any relation? Okay. No. Superman 2, number one. Number two is the most successful film of 1981. Okay. The most successful film of 1981 most successful film of 1981 would have been do do do do do do do do do do do

it's not Kramer vs. Kramer that's 80 right nope not a best picture winner although it was I believe a best picture nominee oh it's Raiders of the Lost Ark yeah of course that's like a good week yeah it's a good movie Raiders of the Lost Ark? Yeah, of course. That's a good week.

Yeah, it's a good movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well directed. I would say. Cool characters. Number three, Escape from New York. I'm just like, you know, go to your multiplex. Three good movies playing. That's awesome.

It's also just wild that Ra, uh, raised the last art, got nominated for best picture, best director, whatever. Cause they were just like, I don't know what we can't deny this thing. Really? I guess.

Right. We got to admit. Uh, yes, but then it doesn't win. I think this is the chariots of fire year. I can't remember. It's still there.

No, they're not gutsy enough to give Spielberg the win in the eighties. That's the whole thing for the pulpy stuff. Right. And then so Spielberg's like, do you want the serious stuff? And they're like, no, you're a phony. It takes so long for him to like. It's just funny that this is his pulpiest movie up until this point.

It's almost like him being like, oh, Jaws and Close Encounters were too heady and ambitious. I want to make something that's just fucking popcorn. And they were like, goddammit, here's a Best Picture nomination. It's so weird in retrospect that he was like, he does that. He's so successful. And the Oscars are like, we'll give you the nom, but not the win. You're successful. We think you're kind of too cartoony.

Then he's like, OK, what if I made a movie about Japan in World War II? They're like, no. He's like, what if I made a movie about the experience of black women in the 20th century? They're like, no. And he's like, oh, I made a movie about the experience of black women in the 20th century? And they're like, no. And he's like, oh, I should make a movie about the Holocaust. I'm Jewish. I'm Jewish. It's just so weird that he comes to that later.

Yeah. I know he talks about how he was afraid of making a movie about the Holocaust. Of course, it's weird that he first, he was like, what if I make a movie about black women? It's very odd anyway anyway um number four is a james bond movie fuck uh which is enough of a clue that there's still it could be so many things so is it late more it's mid more we're in the middle of more i believe this is the third more i want want to get that right. So it's like Demi Moore? Oh, I take it back. This is the fifth more. Wow.

Out of? Seven. So he's getting a little long in the tooth at this point. Wait, is Demi related? No. It is a pretty mediocre one, I would say. It's pretty mediocre. The Man with the Golden Gun?

No. That one stinks, even though Christopher Lee is great. Yeah, and he's got a golden gun. He does have a golden gun. It's pretty cool. That's the second more. The first more is Live and Let Die, which is the sort of one that's very Blaxploitation influenced. And he's a lot of fun, but also ridiculous.

Second is Man with the Golden Gun, which sort of stinks. Third is I Love Me, which is sort of the perfect Roger Moore movie. Fourth is Moonraker, which rules, but is so silly. Fifth is this. It's kind of an anonymous one. It's post-Moonraker.

It is. I'm trying to just fucking run through the titles in my head. Yes. Topol is in this one. Wow. Oh, fuck. I believe the villain is played by

Julian Glover Wikipedia a lot lately Well here I'll tell you the other ones Then after this is Octopussy Which is a film that's called Octopussy I've never seen any of the Moore films Moore is like a total blind spot Do you like Roger Moore?

He's alright And then the seventh is A View to a Kill Which is the one with Walken and it's the one where Moore is like visibly in his like late 50s and is sort of like what the fuck are we doing here you know but they can't quite let it go yeah Walken very good at that really good at that this is one of those things where people are yelling

I guess so it's got a very generic Bond title to it as well like it's not the one where they were like let's get pussy in the title what's it called to it as well. It doesn't make sense. It's not the one where they were like, let's get pussy in the title. What's it called? It's called For Your Eyes Only. Oh, yeah.

Good movie. Or no, it's fine. I don't know. Right, you said it was mediocre. It's the one where I don't even remember it. Who's the villain in that? Julian Glover. Oh, you said.

Sorry, yes. He's like a guy in it. He's like, I need to make some money. Yeah, you know, he's not crazy. He's not like Moonraker where the villain is like, I'm going to replace Earth with a Master Race. And you're like, you are? That seems complicated. Anyway.

Number five, Griffin. It's a comedy starring one of your favorite comedy actors. It's one of his early hits. Is it a Murray? Is it? It's not Meatballs. No. Is it a Murray? Is it? Is it? It's not meatballs. No. Is it stripes?

Sure. Stripes. A movie that is only one hour long. First act. Number six is an animated film that Kurt Russell's in. Fox and the Hound. Same weekend. Wow.

That's incredible for how much this movie is about Russell trying to shed the dim. He's also like, I'm a cute dog. Is he the dog? No, he's the fox. Yes. What's his name? Mickey Rooney is the dog. Oh, wow. He's Todd the fox. Also

got The Great Muppet Caper. Famous Blake Edwards directed Flop SOB. Oh, oh yeah uh you got cannonball run sob is the one where uh julie andrews is is nude shows her boobs and people like got like people were like this is the screen yes like they were like you just can't do it i think she had this thought of like i need to yeah but you know i need to not be right right right and then they got really mad at her doing pulling a snake yeah they got mad at blake edwards i think everyone was just like yeah this is just

not allowed wow yeah uh cannonball run a movie called the four seasons which i don't know with alan alda yeah yes yes yeah one of those movies where the poster is just alan alda and carol burnett yep having a drink sometimes that's all you need. I guess so. Let's get lunch. Here's to old friends. That's the fucking tagline. Your Alda sounds very Kermit the Frog. Yeah, I can't do Alda. I wish I could.

Yeah, that's Escape from New York, baby. Wow. Wow. How are you feeling about it, Karen? It's a good movie. It's a good movie. What does it end up at again? It's like 25. Yeah. You know, everyone's happy.

But it's more of a cult hit. Carpenter's whole thing was like, oh, these don't break out, but they're profitable. Yeah. He's a return on investment guy. Except, well, the thing is, I think he's had enough of those. The next movie can be more expensive. Yes. And then as amazing as the thing is,

it's a flop and it's hated, which is so crazy to consider. But people are like, fuck this. Because it rules. And that's next week. I will say, I probably will rewatch this

and bring it up a lot in the next episode. But I know it's probably on youtube or whatever i know it's on the criterion videodrome there's like an amazing like hour-long tv panel show where it is um carpenter landis and uh who's the third one i'm forgetting uh and cronenberg obviously it's on the videodrome DVD. But it was like, oh, Universal's letting these three guys make sort of a new era of Universal monster movie.

Right. You know, it was sort of like, these are the young upstarts and we're giving them a bigger budget after impressing on smaller scales to make their big creature features. And it was The Thing, American Werewolf in London, and Videodrome. Good movies. Yeah, and it was the thing american werewolf in london and videodrome oh my gosh and just well

yeah and it's also just absolutely not what the studio must have been looking for right because it's like well carpenter's doing like a remake of like a real b movie right landis is doing sort of his weird modern version of like one of the classic monster archetypes and then cronenberg's doing a movie about like fucking your chest vagina with your penis gun yep and they're just like new monster movies coming to you dr brian oblivion yeah one day we'll do cronenberg we must well he's got you know what he's making a movie yes right now right yeah he's remaking uh what is it crimes of the future or whatever it is basically right like that's what it is yes he goes in it you guys aren't pointing out that my head just exploded when you mentioned that we were gonna do oh yeah ben's head explode i think

we all hang peen again i think he would if someone asked him to do you think he'll have a peen uh a cobra on it though just to bring it back i think you're gonna ask do you think he'll have a cobra on it, though? Just to bring it back around. Do you think he'll have a peen? You think he'll have one this time? I think he would, but the art would be different. It wouldn't be all black filled in. It would be the outline of it and the art filled in. It wouldn't be just a solid black snake. Sure, fair enough.

That's fine. That's my opinion. I can dig that. How many times has he hung peen now? At least two or three. A couple times that I can think of. Indian many times has he hung peen now? At least like two or three. A couple times that I can think of. Indian Runner, which is... David just pulled a piece of paper out from...

Do you have a peen list? Parchment. I definitely have a peen list. Captain Fantastic. Oh, he does? That's right. Remember when he got an Oscar nomination for that? Bad movie. Bad movie.

I guess he's good in it. I think he's always prettycar nomination for that bad movie bad movie i guess he's good in it i think he's always pretty good he's always pretty good he's always pretty good especially the thing about bigo mortensen is he was in green book he was i've never seen it it's mind-blowing i think i blacked that out of my memory. The further you get from it, you're like, right, Viggo Mortensen, that wonderful sort of genre actor who's mostly an arthouse guy, so beautiful, so poetic, really arresting screen presence. You're like, wait, didn't he also play a talking sandwich in a Best Picture? In Tony Green Book? Famously folded a pizza in half and ate it that way. It's just weird.

He's like, I think I know what this character is hey i'm a racist italian guy like that's what he did the oscars were like nomination for you good job no it was like slam dunk cakewalk nomination also people were like this is the funniest performance in years people were treating it like can you imagine like his body of work and then you get nominated for green book like what does he think about it's also i think he thinks it's great i don't know that's what i'm gonna say the whole campaign trail like it always felt like mahershala was kind of like a little weary of green book and a little embarrassed by it and vigo was like this movie is profound i mean that explains captain fantastic yes that's a movie i feel like he thinks is beautiful it is such an odd uh casting in every single way is green book vigo's fourth highest

grossing film behind the lord of the rings probably has to be like this is the other thing is he's a guy who so largely avoided becoming a Hollywood leading man and then he's the fucking star of Green Book. The breakout comedy sensation. The question is, Green Book did so well overseas that did it maybe sneak

past Fellowship? No, no, no, no. Green Book was fucking huge. I was being ridiculous. The difference is 891 to, no, no, no. Green Book was like fucking huge. Okay, it didn't. I was being ridiculous. Wait a second. The difference is $8.91 to $2.02 or whatever. $3.20. $3.20.

Green Book is his second highest grocer. But if you go domestic, sorry, it's his fourth highest grocer. But if you go domestic, it's behind Crimson Tide. Interesting. Oh, okay. Because Green Book actually kind of, quote unquote, underperformed in America in terms of like the hype it got. It actually didn't crack 100. But then it kicked ass worldwide.

It bombed so hard when it came out and everyone was like, it's done. And then it like sleepwalked its way to 80 whatever. And then people were like, huh, good result on Green Book. And then it opens in France and they're like, ah! But China loved it it was huge in china everywhere yeah every other country just lost their fucking he's got a weird box office his sixth most popular american movie is a perfect murder oh sure it's hidalgo worldwide but in worldwide also daylight is higher than oh wow crushed worldwide and did terrible in america

someone was recently on our reddit like pulling up how surprised they were that vigo got above the title on a perfect murder he was a thing yeah and this is the thing i had to sort of like i don't think i wrote this but i was i drafted this in my head then decide to close my computer instead smart very always smart it's a method of self-care i've been practicing a lot lately i I'm so proud of you. Thank you. There is that thing that happens sometimes where Hollywood's like, we're putting this guy above the title, not because he's been a lead yet, not because he's proven, but we're so confident this guy's

a movie star. Because he's so hot. He's so hot. He's so good. It's got to happen, right? We'll just put him there and everyone will say, I guess that belongs. He should be this. And then he's sort of just like... He was like was like no i want to do my poetry and photography yeah like actively avoid it until lord of the rings a movie he got hired on to like five days before filming started and then everyone was like great you're vigo mortensen now and he's like yeah no

thank you pass like does he'll doggo it is like Yeah. Anyway, he's got a good penis. Yeah, he does. Great penis. I don't remember it. It's fine. I don't mean to be rude. It's good. It's good.

It's good. David, don't. Don't. Well, in the Eastern Promises scene, obviously, he's rumbling with some fellas in the bathhouse. Flapping and flipping. It's a lot of flapping. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

That's good. Anyway, this, of course, has been our episode on Escape from New york beginning and ending with extended penis conversations we really took it full circle we really did i don't know i was gonna try a pun there but i don't know i really have to be what was i don't know full circle i couldn't figure it out uh karen is there anything ben's making a face you have or want to plug um i don't think so. You can follow me on Twitter at Karen Waihan. I'm trying to think about what I'm allowed to talk about. You should watch Karen's boys 2021 video that'll be coming out. Oh, wow.

You're putting so much pressure on me. Okay. Well, sorry, 2022. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I don't know. There's stuff that I'm working on, but i don't know if i'm allowed to talk about it so i'll just say go follow me on twitter i will probably talk about it there yeah uh keep your eyes peeled and i i mean i thought i just had now i don't know if this is

too bleak but you could make the next kb video and in memoriam because i mean we're realizing how many kbs we've lost in the last three. And that might be a way to change the format. I feel like I have to do. Well, this has been a question, too, where it's like I did it two years in a row and I use the song Boys both times. Yes. Do I keep using the same song? I don't think I'm allowed to use that as an in memoriam. The tone is not right. How can I live without you?

Here's my question. I want to know. Can you do like a sad piano cover? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Right? Is this disrespectful? No, it's the opposite.

You're paying the utmost respect. Okay. Right. Because it's like you were so hot when you were alive. Right. And now we miss you so much. Right.

Something to think about. Something that KB has been lost. I'll submit it to the Oscars and they'll be like, yeah, we'll play this instead of our In Memoriam reel, which makes everyone angry every year. Yeah. Didn't they do something weird this year? I think it was just so fast because so many people died. Jesus.

Yes, it was. Right. And it was. They played Flight of the Bumblebees. No, but they played that fucking Stevie Wonder song. That's so fast. No, but they played that fucking Stevie Wonder song that's so fast. They played a Stevie Wonder song that was very propulsive, and it was genuinely fast. It was like a peppy song.

It was not right. It was the... What's that song called? I can't remember, but I know what you're talking about, obviously. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I do remember that the song was too fast and it seemed it was that it was timed with the people too so it was kind of like you know like names every second yeah it was like it's the end of the world the rem song i don't think it was stevie wonders um as right okay right it was just too fast it was not and then they were like well a lot of people died yeah so like we and but then they all

ended up of course they always do like missing a couple people and everyone was mad which made it more egregious also like especially this year's ceremony i'm like you're in memoriam you could have given me 15 minutes i would have been fine with that yeah would have made for good television um anyway we're done yeah wrap us up you gotta go gotta get the boss baby's blowing up your phone demanding you get back to the office are you kidding me yes uh thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe thank you to marie bardy for our social media big shout out to marie uh uh getting that bardy bump on the old episode oh yeah went straight to the top of the charts the public loves a bardy party um thank you to alice baron and aj mckeon for editing jj birch nick lariano for our research

layman comery and the great american novel for a theme song joe bone pat rounds for our art work go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit and you can go to patreon.com slash blank check where now at this point we're in the mummy right we're in those tombs we're getting wrapped up in the mummy what let's see it looks like we are no well no no no we're gonna have somebody's watching me on the 11th okay another adrian barbeau film a little before this one and then the mummy will start okay on the 21st okay and uh chronology's a little off, but Elvis, much mentioned today. We'll do Elvis as well. We're peppering in those TV movies as bonuses.

Yes, and I think we're going to do body bags as well when we get to that. Scorpion King might have to take precedence, but we'll see. Maybe we can sprinkle body bags in somewhere else. No, it is, but it's just how many 11ths we have left in the year. You know what I mean? How many 11ths we have left sprinkle body bags. It's later, but anyway, no, it is, but it's just how many 11th we have left in the year. You know what I mean?

How many 11th we have left in our lifetime. Wow. That's just a series of 11th, isn't it? It sure is. That's right. It sure is. Uh,

tune next week for the thing that thing. And as always, I just remembered my plan for the end of this episode was to solemnly read off a list of KBs we lost. But now I feel like it would be stepping on the pitch i just gave you to do it no no you can do it i no no no no just i'm not gonna do it just say something about peens yeah just say snake bliskin snake dick