MMA Fighting - This Is CineMMA, Episode 2 | Fight Valley | Can Miesha Tate Save This Movie?

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

Miesha Tate, Cris Cyborg, and Holly Holm step into the brutal, unforgiving world of "Fight Valley." What could possibly go wrong? On this episode of This is CineMMA, the MMA Fighting movie review crew gets down and dirty on the mean streets of New Jersey as we follow the harrowing adventure of Windsor (Susie Celek), an out-of-her-element reporter on a quest to avenge her sister's death. A hardened brawler named Jabs (Tate) takes our heroine under her wing, but the clock is ticking and there may not be enough time to prepare her for a final showdown with the dangerous Church (Cyborg). Alexander K. Lee, Jed Meshew, and E. Casey Leydon don their toughest-looking hoodies as they try to make sense of Fight Valley's frantic fight scenes, rank the acting performances of the featured MMA stars, and have a chuckle at some of the best C-movie one-liners you'll ever hear. How much of the film is carried by Tate? Where does Windsor rank among the worst main characters in a martial arts movie? And is repeatedly punching a bucket of rocks a good base for MMA? Step into Fight Valley with us for the answers to these questions and more. Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

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DarkTrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond. Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Greetings. Greetings, folks. Friends, fight fans, knock around girls. I'm your host, Alexander K. Lee. Welcome back to this is Cinema, M.A. Fighting's new podcast where we take a deep dive

into any film that kind of features a mixing of the martial arts. It features combat sports. It's integral to the plot. As we learned last week on our inaugural episode, the Jake Jelen Hall and Connor Action Fest Roadhouse, what is an M.A. movie is open to interpretation.

But here to help me figure that out, just like episode one, I have the great Jed Machia. You. More like episode four, Princess Leia. Look at them headphones, bro. Uh-huh. Listen, she is the knock-around girl of Galaxy far, far away.

I don't apologize for it. We are all dressed as people can see. I'm sure everyone watched this week's feature. I haven't almost said the name yet in preparation for this episode. I'm sure everyone's rocking their hoodies at home. Oh, Jed, was that your... Is there anything else you want to say before we... No.

No, I'm good. Happy to be here. thrilled about watching this. It's just fantastic film. And getting all lumpy, bumpy with it, boys and girls. It was, it sure was 90 minutes of my life that I spent watching this. 90 minutes on YouTube that anyone can watch for free. But first, before we get to that, here's our other co-hosts, the equally great, K.C.

I'm so excited to talk about this film. I'm so happy to be here, you gentlemen. Don't you quote, don't you quote Fingers film. This is a film. This is technically and legally a film. I love the Invicta FC hoodie. Again, anyone who hasn't watched yet, you will understand very soon. One, why we're dressed this way and why Casey is specifically wearing Invecta FC gear.

If you had to watch, if you haven't watched, just pause this video. Go find the full film on YouTube right now. 90 minutes of your life, and come back, and then you can follow suit with them. us. It would be great. You have a wonderful time. Yes. We did not say which film, that film being 2016's, Fight Valley, written and directed by Rob Hawk, guys.

This is an action film. It takes place on the main streets of Camden, New Jersey, which is described in the film as the number one murder capital of the United States and America. I don't know if that's statistically accurate, but it's certainly effective for the film. The basic plot

is we have a young lady named Windsor who goes to this bad part of town to avenge the death of her sister in doing so, she navigates the mythical Fight Valley. I mean, several recognizable faces guys, including Misha Tay, Chris Seward, Holly Holie Hombolk, get into all that. Jed, what is your, please? I want to respond to something because, I mean, we've discussed this off air.

This is a show. We're men of science, not just science, but science. And we can't let unsubstantiated claims go unanswered. And so when you say that the movie says the murder capital of the United States, I took that to heart. I said, you know what? Let me crunch the numbers. Let me Google. And according to Google, that's a bold-faced lie.

There are 20 cities in the United States with the highest murder rates per 100,000 people. Candidon N.J. Not on there. My hometown, not my hometown, but where I make my, my, hey, Atlanta, Georgia is on that list, which means I live in a more rough and tumble city than the women of Fight Valley. Come at me, bro. Wow. It's the real Fight Valley. It's the real.

2016, maybe it was a different time back then. I think it was filmed in 2015. Could have been maybe Camden's cleaned up. Do you have jobs in Atlanta because in Camden, there are no jobs? There's only one way to make $50. and that is the fight. The only job is violence. Mostly women, I think we see in the film.

I assume there's men's fights as well, but I will say in this film, it's mostly women. So with that in mind, Jed, give us your quick little elevator pitch for this 90-minute gym. Are we saying spoilers? Like, no more spoilers.

Are we going? Yeah, I think we... It came on 2016 and it's Fight Valley. I'm going to spoil that out of it, and I don't care. This is Mount Roadhouse, which came out, Thursday, like the day after we filmed.

This movie has been out for almost a decade. Watch it or don't, whatever, homely. So my elevator pitch of this, I tried to keep this, you know, to tweet-length form. And it was very simple. This movie is like Bloodsport meets the outsiders if it was directed by an undergraduate film student and starred all of his friends who are bad at acting. Like, it's, there's the kernel of something here. And we don't ever get there.

You will not be surprised to find that I will be highly critical of this film as this show goes on. Yes, filmmaker Rob Hawke explicitly called the outsiders, the film, I assume the book as well, an influence on this movie. And I think we could all have guessed that without having heard about him say this in an interview. We'll say again, you're right, Casey. Any good parts from the outside. We should tell people, spoilers going forward. Again, this is available on YouTube for free. Just Google, just type in Flight Valley, 90 minutes of goodness,

and then you can come back and watch the show. Or if you don't plan to, let us walk you through it right now. Casey, what was your sort of your first impressions of this movie? Feel free to give us your opinion, your subjective review a little bit. Give a little taste of that as well. You know what people say, like, oh, I like watching trashy movies. I like watching, you know, stuff that doesn't make you think too hard. You know, I just, you know, whatever, those type of movies.

This is, this will test them. This will test if you like watching bad movies. It is a tough 90 minutes, but I did it. I am proud of myself. I consider myself a bit of a snob when it comes to movies. So this was quite the chore, but man, I got through it and I'm so much happier for it. I've, it just learned so much about the fact. Valley, fighting, fighting in the valley, cranberry juice.

Training. Training. I assume you're going to take some of the training methodologies and apply them to your own life as you continue down your own journey as a professional. Yeah. Yeah. I went to the local supermarket and I bought all the bags of ice because that was my real takeaway from this movie that it's not about punching bags, not about having good

mitts or good training partners. is about having just an enormous, infinite amount of bags of ice. If you have bags of ice, you will win the Fight Valley. Is that how it goes?

Yeah, forget, forget about that expensive training equipment and gym memberships are trying to get a sign up for. Just get a few bags of ice and you go to work. Yeah, don't go, don't move to Florida. Don't go to ATT. Don't go to Kill Cliff.

No. No. Bags of ice is what you need. Excuse me. Don't forget the buckets of rocks that you also punch. I will not let this bucket of rock ratio stand. More than just ice. Yeah, we certainly had some distinct training montages. This is a martial arts film. Anyone who's seen one of these before knows there's going to be a pumped-up music training montage,

as happens with our main character, Windsor, played by Susie Selleck. We can dive into Ms. Self's performance soon, but first, guys, we talked about the training. We talked about, we didn't quite dive into the actresses yet, but how much is this an MMA movie? Or how much MMA is the movie? I'm not sure how you guys want to phrase this. We're doing our belt ranking? I want to do a quick belt ranking. Jed, you can go first.

I think I gave Roadhouse Brown. I think so. This is purple. It's, it's not really. that MMA-e, it's kind of MMA adjacent and obviously there are a lot of female fighters and there's significant others

in this, but you know, this is it's not not MMA but I think this is a best purple. It's not particularly MMA-E. Casey? Yeah, for, surprisingly, for actually

having a cage fight in the movie and I would at least half a dozen half a dozen fight scenes. Yeah, it's really just bad. Blue Belt, Blue Belt. It wasn't that there was very, yeah, there was very little MMA movie.

There was some creative fighting on a hood of a car, martial arts, but I don't know what that really counts. Do you think that's creative? Just wait till we get to never back down. By the time we actually do never back down, y'all are going to be like, this is the best movie ever made because you're going to have watched a lot

real trash. I think a lot of this show is getting me prepared to fully appreciate never back down. And that's what the show achieves, then, you know, then its purpose was served, I feel. So what I've learned from Roadhouse and this movie is like, in terms of just the casual non-fighting audience, they think basically, MMA is just, it's just judo tosses or hip throws. That's pretty much as about as MMAS as it gets because I think those look good on camera. but was there any actual like real grappling in this movie or it's it's hard to tell it's hard yeah it depends on your definition of real because they certainly on top of the judo stuff which they

love big fan of the the like leaping step over arm bar that just is like always in movies with him in eight fighters. Like anyone has ever done that in an actual form of combat. It's like, ah, yeah, like no, but they love it. And it never gets it, by the way. So it's an incredible maneuver that has a zero percent finishing rate. It's like pro wrestling submission. But there was a couple of that guy in there.

So, you know, there was like a man, like a man of heba's in her head and arm through, you know, just never really worked. I'll be out. So this will probably be a theme of this episode. I'm definitely going a different direction than you guys. Now, I didn't go all the way black belt. I do think that would be ridiculous. It's not a black belt MMA movie content-wise. This movie is objectively less M-M-M-A than Rodehouse.

No, see, I disagree. I disagree. So my criteria, remember, so my big part of my criteria for evaluating how much MMA movie is, is how much of the plot revolves around specifically, like, fighting. Like, is the plot move forward by fighting? And this whole movie is about Fight Valley where people fight too much, to live, literally to live. Like the plot of Roadhouse

You could replace with guys with guns You know what I mean? Like there's fighting in it But it's really It's about this conflict, whatever That could be resolved with guns. I still don't know why there weren't That many guns in that movie.

This movie is strictly about fighting And learning to fight And getting better at fighting To get revenge, So on and so on. Many movies have been that way. So to me, it makes it more of an MMA movie

than Roadhouse. I know I'm being generous But I went brown belt, guys. I went brown belt. And again, there is nothing to do with the quality, the quality or even quantity of the fight scene

because I think there was more fighting in the ending of Roadhouse than there was in the entirety of this movie, maybe. But the plot is driven by fighting. I'm going Brownville. I will give it one... Fighting is not M.A. Yeah.

Yes, that means... That's my issue. Rocky is the M.M.A. Yeah. Fighting is that M.A. They're not doing M.A. They are... They are distinctly mixing the martial arts.

wrote this film. There's punching, a lot of grab, a lot of very hard to interpret grabbing. There's choking. They're pulling weeds. Choking. There's weave fully. Pulling weave is not MMA. That's in fact explicitly outlawed from that is. That is that is MMA. That is a, that is a martial. I will underappreciate. I do. I do, I do, actually, I want to, I want to go back a second. I, I said Bluebell. I will give it an extra two stripes because. Big spoiler. The character that was murdered killed, she was killed by a rear-necked choke, correct?

Was that sort of? Yeah, like a weird- That's why I got a rear-neged joke that was never released. Is that what? I think there's the neck snapping in there? I'm not sure. Could you guys tell did she just suffocate the character or did she also break her in there?

I don't know. She killed her with a choke by attacking the neck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That earns the movie too. Stripes, a H, a chocelated murder. Well, that's the premise of the movie, the choke related murder, on the ground with proper technique,

and there was no ref to break it up. So that's how real fights go. And the other, the ways I get done, we've done two movies and they both have murders. Yeah. Two murders. Two murders. Two for two. And we're not quite sure how the murders happened, but we just know it was MMA related.

And the reason to get another belt, another stripe, is at the funeral of said victim, one of her girlfriend brought a pair of MMA gloves and put it on her casket. So there were MNNN noticed that. Oh, I noticed that. I'm not going to lie to see.

The funeral I checked out a little bit during the funeral scene. I died laughing during the funeral scene. And we do have a cage fight between Misha Tate and Holly Holie Holm. Let's jump. Let's jump right into the bike scene here.

Our first real fight, I would say, is the Holly Home, Misha Tate, cage fight, right? Am I, that's accurate, right? Yeah. They're like scuffles.

There's a lot of stuff. The first real, like there's the, the, the, the, there's the, the girls fighting out

behind the gym scuffle or whatever the hell is going on there, but like, I don't, I don't know what we're drawing the line is fights. There are a lot of fights

if like every time punches are thrown as a fight. They're all bad. They're, yes, they're very chocked up. There's a lot of close-ups. it's nearly impossible to tell what's going on,

probably because most of the non-fighter actresses were not great at choreography and actual fighting. But the first fight between Misha and Holly, or Jabs and Peyton, excuse me. Respect their characters, thank you. Respect their characters. It does happen in a cage. It is the most sort of like sanctioned fight.

I think it's the most well-attended fight we see too. Like this feels like it's kind of a big deal. Holly takes Misha out with a head kick, as far as I can tell her. That's the fight's over there, right? She hits her with a head kick. The fight's kind of over. And then jabs, removes her gloves and then attacks her from behind and starts a frigging brawl.

So you guys like that? Un Sporting. Quite. Casey, thoughts on the, thoughts on that scene? My big takeaway from the original cage fighting scene was the mat. It wasn't like the mat didn't even cover all the area. It was, yes. You have to watch the movie.

They weren't shooting in the other parts of the cage, Casey. No. It was... That would cost time and money that they clearly did not have. The only good fight scene is the last fight scene, which if you haven't seen the movie, I'm not going to delve into the plot mechanics because they are dumb. And honestly, I watched it and I'm still not sure I understand totally how it works. The point is we get to this big climactic battle at the end.

I got to tell you, I assume that the big climactic battle at the end was Sulek, whatever her name, is? Our main character, Windsor. Windsor, yes. Windsor. Windsor. Yes, it was avenging the death of the sister who was killed by Chris Seibor. Very briefly, I would like to say. I was talking about this with Casey All Fair.

Not a lot of subtlety in this film. They named the rich girl Windsor. This is the only reason I remember her name as a character. So she is, I assume that this is she's supposed to fight Chris Cyborg to avenge her. This is Bloodsport. That woman killed my. my sister, you know, fighter. But then it's just a free-for-all.

Like it's the whole, like, big fight valley, whatever they call it. I can't remember at the end. It's like not just a marquee one-on-one fight. It's all right, all these people are just going to mash each other and we'll see what happens. And then in the middle of that, Cyborg and Windsor find each other and fight.

And the reason that this film, that this fight scene is good, is because this movie is awful. And it gives you the, the training montage and Rich Girl Windsor has spent and they say it it would have been better if they didn't but they say in the movie

four weeks that she was training for four weeks Oh I missed that, I missed that, okay. I wrote that four weeks. It says explicitly I've trained you for four weeks you're ready which is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard

and by the way she goes to fight Chris Seibor By the way Jack, can we say she's actually not also not really preparing her to fight Chris Seidt she's kind of explicitly saying I don't want you like seeking revenge.

I'm training you just like to protect yourself around here. It's, it's very confusing. It's because I don't want you to go to Fight Valley. This is just so if you plan to hang around here. Yeah. It's classic martial arts film of you shouldn't use the great power I'm giving to you. The weapons. But the thing is,

you don't have to fight. Ah, yeah. But the thing is when you train for four weeks and your training is almost exclusively punching buckets of rocks. and ice. You actually don't know shit about fighting. And so I was like, I can't believe they're going to end this with this, this, this rich girl beating up Chris fucking Cyborg. And then she just gets wailed on.

And I was like, oh, shit. They at least did the right thing. It's not like she comes in and like completes the hero's journey. She just gets smashed. And I was like, okay, you at least did one thing right. So this is by default, the best fight scene in the movie. You enjoyed the realism of it, Jed. You enjoyed that.

It subverted your expectations. The only time this movie reverted anything was that. But you don't even get time to let it sink in because the movie just ends like right after that. It is so clear that they ran out of budget. And we're just like, and it's over now because we can't afford to shoot anymore. We do get Misha and Church. Scrapping. Misha kind of has to come in and save the decimated Windsor.

And yes, we get another very quick fight scene. Many of the fight scenes are broken up. That's pretty much the theme in this movie is the people. Was it always the same guy breaking them up or was it a different guy? Stacks, is that his name? It wasn't always because the first legal scuffle wasn't, but that one dude who was like friends with whoever the girl was to like Hispanic Latino dude.

No, he was the sister. was Jamie's sister. I'm sorry, Jamie's brother. Oh, is that it? Sure. Come on. Come on. I don't know who Jamie is.

Jamie is the girl trying to kiss Windsor. Okay. Got it. We haven't got to that part of the movie yet. I don't know if we should. I don't know if we should. I would like to keep my... I will say that one of those scenes is the only thing of this film that was like

marginally redeeming, but I'd also like to keep my job. And so we need to tread real. carefully about talking about any of that part. We'll dance around the gender politics of this film. Casey, did any other quote unquote fight scenes as they can loosely call in this film? Jump out at you.

I did for you. How about the Brian Carraway cameos? Yes. In the original cage fight scene, it was Brian Carraway that actually pulls back Jabbs from the fight. Because everyone rushes the cage, you know, after

Jabbs loses the fight, then she throws a sneaky uppercut. after the fights over and then hip throws Peyton and then everyone rushes the cage and then it was Brian Carraway that brings a little piece in order to the scene

so I was like oh wow that's so real again this was 2016 when Brian Carreyway and Major Tate were a couple he was very much part of her life this feels like it dates the movie it really dates the movie when you see Brian Carraway in there one other fights scene I'll point out again involving

our girl Windsor so Caitlin you Kate Ginnis also in this movie was not I think I don't think was particularly famous at the time was definitely in the UFC already she's not particularly famous now hey disagree disagree I think she's one of the leaders in the straw weight wins all time so top three that's that's fame to me buddy but she is essentially after the aforementioned four week drawing wasn't she was never a straw weight I don't know that she's sorry She's a flyway. You're right.

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From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, welcome to our turf. Anyway, she is Windsor's test in this film. After all this change, training. Misha Tate takes her to this parking lot and kind of surprises Windsor. She kind of sees Caitlin Chakian's character, who does not have a name, so we'll just call her Caitlin Chukagian and says, go pull her out of the car, Serbinar.

Serbinar. Now Serbanara, then Chukagian. So we'll stay with Chakian for now. But Caitlin goes and pulls Windsor out of the car, and we get a very brief fight scene, which, again, lasts maybe eight seconds. You can't really tell what's coming on if Windsor's doing well or not, but Misha calls Caitlin's Tegian off. But she does do well. Because Caitlin goes... I couldn't tell. No, because Caitlin goes, she's ready.

She's ready. Yes. Because if there's one thing we know, it's that beating Caitlin Chukagan gets you prepared to fight Chris Seibor. She's even a gatekeeper in the movie. If you want to fight the best, you got to beat Caitlin. I think she went to a decision. I think she went to a decision and that was enough because we don't see...

I think, I guess she lands a couple of punches, but yes. And then she says she's ready, ready for a way. what? I'm not sure, but she's just very clear that that woman cannot even fake fight a lick. And they had to work around that. If she, maybe she was acting like she couldn't fight because her character couldn't fight. Maybe there's some incredible acting. I don't know. But Jed, you don't sound convinced.

Oh, she was awful. She's really bad. And I don't know how to make this. Look, I got, I got some heat from a couple of individuals from my roadhouse takes. Yeah. and how mean I was to Roadhouse. And I got to tell you, there's no way to be. One, I thought it was kind to Roadhouse, frankly.

And two, there's just no way to be kind about a lot of what's happening here. Here's where I'll be kind. Misha Tate's pretty good in this movie. Yes. Like, it would honestly would have been a way better choice to have Misha Tate be Windsor because they made Misha Tate act a lot, which I was stunned by. Like, Holly gets like four lines and the whole thing. and pretty clearly they're not invested in her acting.

But I thought that's where Misha would be as well. But instead, she's like, she's the emotional linchpin of the film because Windsor is such a bad actress that you can't feel any connection to her at all in what's going on. So she's terrible. And I don't think that she can punch

because she looked like she super couldn't punch even in the scenes where she was supposed to. So to answer your next question, Okay, no, Windsor could not defeat anyone in this film. Windsor could, did she just the way she's sidekick that block of ice? Oh. Block, block of ice don't hit back. Okay.

If she were to face like Michael, Michael Keaton's Jack Frost character, he'd be in a lot of trouble. But that is not the case to it. He would be cooked. That's scary about Keaton and Jack Frost would be annihilated. Let's go to the performances, because this is normally where we were. would discuss best moves and things like that, but there weren't really any moves in this? So let's go to the performances, specifically talking about, yes.

The hair pull was an effective battle strategy, a couple of times. But, you know, that's it. That's all I got for best move. Yes, Susa's not great. Misha very solid. Casey, he was impressed with Misha's performance because she does have a ton of dialogue in this,

and I think she gives us a good old college try and, like, isn't too bad. she she tries her best she tries her best of what she was given i'll i'll say that it's it's not an embarrassing acting performance for me should take at all but uh it's still looks like someone who's never acted but trying trying yeah but like i absolutely agree but we talked about doing and she and she's a better actress than susy windsor she's way better than susy she's she is much better than connor and like Thank you. I think we're doing the ranking thing.

Connor is given one note and he plays the hell out of it. I think he plays it poorly. I've actually since heard from other friends of mine outside the M.A. circle who were more tolerant of the thing. But pretty clearly in the making of that film, they're like, we can't give Connor anything else. We're just going to have him do the one thing he can do and it will be okay with however that goes. and that's fine.

It worked to the extent that it did. Misha Tate, I expected to get the same thing. And instead, they gave her stuff to do. It did not always work. But she had a much higher degree of difficulty in this performance than Connor McGregor did. And frankly, I think she had a lot more success with it. I think she was the best actor in the whole thing,

which is, you know, not saying a ton, honestly, but still, if we're ranking, MMA fighters turned actors based on the films we have currently covered, Misha moves to number one spot. And honestly, I might even put Chikagiun above Connor. That feels a little unfair just because Chukagian literally

has three lines, but she does her three lines, fine. She is absolutely acceptable in that role, whereas I think Connor was net negative on Roadhouse, so kind of hurts him. I will say this. Connor deserves an Oscar

compared to Chris Cyborg, who should never be put near camera again. I cannot believe they, I cannot believe they put film on her and we're like, we can work with this. This is okay. Now, now let's,

it is unfair for Cyborg. This is not her native language. And this is also, I don't care. This is also eight, nine years ago, too. This is not a Portuguese movie.

If it was, maybe this is better. No, no, like, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's,

that is on the director to choose. Yes. To have. Absolutely. Yeah. I agree. That's why I said. I can't believe they filmed her and said, we're a boy.

I got you. Cyborg does way more talking than... Church? Church, excuse me. Well, I mean, I'm talking about the actors here. Oh, okay. Cyborg does way more acting than fighting in this movie, which just sounds insane. When you have physical presence like her, it seems like a pretty obvious idea of how you make

her a silence killer. Oh, church. What do they call a church? I don't know. We've got to find out. She's only in two fight scenes. one, the flashback. We see the flashback where she does kill the main character's sister. And then the end where she kind of fights Windsor and she kind of fights Misha, but not even really.

We don't get to see Cyborg do her stuff. That's what we, when you see cyber in a movie, that's what you want. Instead, she has to deliver an emotional piece of dialogue in the finale where she reveals kind of the whole, she turns the whole plot upside down of the movie. And she says, oh, Misha, Jabbs, you knew all along how her sister died and you helped me hide the body. and it's like, it's supposed to be this moment, but the delivery, again, not Cyborg's fault. Why are they giving her this piece of dialogue? Not great. Not great.

So, Jed, I agree. No, she's not a great performance. She's the actual worst actress I've ever seen. I still, you know, no, you know what? I think she's better than Holly Holme. I don't, Holly Holm wasn't good, but I, dude, Cyborg was that and the first scene where she had to talk to where I was like,

what is, I literally was like, what is happening? How, I get it. Cyborg is somewhat famous, but like, pick anyone else. Just anyone else than what we are doing here. I have home at the bottom. Casey, I don't know, I don't know where you're sitting with it. Well, I want to give a compliment. I thought, I thought there needed to be more screen time for the Serrano sisters.

I kind of like them. I kind of, I kind of, I don't know who they were affiliated with, but they just seem to start fights randomly on the street. Yeah, I think they were mercenaries. I think they were mercenaries. Is that what all right? All right. Okay. Okay.

Fair enough. This is Fight Valley. There's no sides. You're on the side of the streets, okay? That's the only first three on the side of it. Oh, God. My personal rankings are Misha, Connor, Holly, sideboard.

I'm not even ranking them. I have fine. I would put them probably above Holly, but who cares? Listen, this movie was not, it's not meant to be an acting tour to force. I guess it really wasn't much of fighting toward a force either. Well, I was going to say, I want to shift over to talking about

the fighting performances of the non-fighters. Again, we've kind of gone in on poor Susie Salick already enough. Just not, again, her character doesn't even win a single fight. She's very weirdly, she's supposed to be like a rich girl, but also a successful reporter or something, right? because when we first see her. I thought she was a journalist, right?

A journalist, yeah, a reporter journalist, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Which I would be like a composed person. Like, I feel like, but she is so unprepared for like every situation that comes up. Her attempts to infiltrate Fight Valley are hilarious. She just goes around this bar. She just goes around this bar and like, hey guys, like Fight Valley. What's up with that?

How do I get there? What are you to meet my friend at Fight Valley? But she had a text to me location? Do you think you go with you? Maybe she's not an investigator. Can I go over that? Are you guys? Are you guys going to fight Valley? I need a ride. Like, I think everybody being like clandestine and weird about it when it's

ostensibly just a location for people to fight? It's like, don't know what you're talking about. Never heard of, never heard of the Valley. What are we doing? Let's let's rate, you know, okay, then let's tie this in guys with our rating. I don't think you'll be as enthusiastic about rating their character's potential as fighters. Here's my tier list. You guys can tell me if you disagree. S-tier, I thought the best fighters were clearly Peyton and Javs. That's the Holly Holm and Misha Tate characters.

Is this like a broad S-tier or an S-tier in the confines of the film? In the film, in the universe of the film, compared to other characters, not compared to in the... I mean, you think you've got to put church in the S-tier as she killed the girl. She killed Tori Coro seemed pretty... I don't know. They talked about Tori like she was a badass.

I do. So I do have Tori B. tier. So if you kill a B tier fighter, does that make you an S-tier fighter? Is B-tier your second tier? Do you have an A-tier? No, I have church in A-tier. So I have just a not-low-payment-hance. I would say, I would say Tori is an A-tier fighter and church's church's next tier. Oh, I put Gracie and Torey on the come-up. She's a prospect worthy of note. Oh, Tori?

Yeah. Before she was killed. Yeah. She just needed some money. Sometimes you run to a bad stylistic matchup, actually. If you die, if you die, if you die. If you die, I am bumping you down Because I can't remember, I don't know if we rated What was Jay Harron's character's name in Rhode House again? Jet.

Jack? No. Jet. It was like suit. Jet, I think was his nickname, something like that. I don't think we rated him because he was dead. So maybe I shouldn't even rate Tori. Does Tori not get a rating?

But she was a character. Jay Harron wasn't a character. He was just kind of there. He's a plot device. Yeah. We didn't, we'd even know they, I don't know. Although theoretically, Tori was a plot device too. Yeah.

We just saw more. I'm okay. Actually, I'm okay with you putting her B tier as a death penalty. Yes, yeah. I'm still putting Cyborg in S tier. She murdered somebody.

Tori was like a freaking shit. Tori was like a straw weight and cyborgs are freaking heavy weight. Yeah, the weight class is a little question. There are no weight classes in Fight Valley. There is this.

You got pay rent to get out and there are no weight classes. Gracie and Tori B tier. CTR, I clumped a bunch of people together. Duke, Yanni, Jamie. Vivian and Sydney, those are the Serrano sisters playing Vivian and Sydney. D-Tier unnamed parking lot fighter, played by Caitlin Chulgagan, mainly because she did not convincingly put away our only F-tier fighter on this list, the main character, Windsor.

I disagree. Hylian-Theragin doesn't put anyone away. Deaf taxes and sermon are by decision, baby. This was a documentary. Honestly, it's a great argument. Do you guys think I'm being unfair to Windsor? No, I mean, four weeks to learn fighting. And again, one of two good things in this film was that they did not make it so she became a superhero and won the fight at the end.

She's a tall woman. So she would likely be like a woman's featherweight. We don't think there's a chance she could scrape up a couple of fights and wins in the 145 pound division. I would just say if you're trying to make the argument for Windsor, if you're trying to make the argument for Windsor, if you're trying to make the argument for Windsor, I think it goes, you had Tori and B tier, and Windsor didn't get killed by Cyborg.

So, MMA Math says she might at least be a B-tier fighter, you know? Damn, I was I say, I mean, she probably would have been killed if the fight wasn't happening during her all that. Plus, didn't she beat Caleb Chukagian or like, no, no, no, she should at least be in Caleb Chukagian's tier. She did nothing in that fight,

and then Chukagian just goes, she's ready, she's good. I'm like, we didn't do anything. She should at least be in Kela Chukagian's tier, I think. She does have very hard. Maybe we need to re-evaluate where Tori goes since Windsor didn't die to decide on. I'm happy to hear. If you want to bump Tori up to A tier, I mean, she got a lot of pep.

She got a lot of pep. I do like, yeah. I don't want to discuss these people anymore. But we have to, Jen. We have to. This is why we were here. All right, we've broken down the fight scenes. We've broken down.

We didn't do best. move or, but let's, we can start sort of picking up individual moments. Do you like the hair pull? Hair pull is the best move by far. Oh, let me let. Other than the murder choke. Misha did a sweet Gator roll into a full

mount a couple of times, but Casey did anything. If not, let's go for it. It's just not possible. That was the thing. It was like we do the realism bit. It was like, yeah, that's not how that works. I saw it and see it, believe it. That's the world I live in. Casey, any move or let's go, we can go to moments too.

Let's start talking about moments in the film too. Any moves or moments? Fight related, hopefully. Fight related. Just the new training techniques, the two bags over the shoulder and throwing them over the shoulder and just catching bags of ice. Apparently that is a training technique. I'm not sure what that.

Did you fit? That's, yeah, does keep you fit. Yeah, it was just, I was just, I was just, I, I, I couldn't get past the just the infinite bags of ice in this movie. Let me say. Was this around the spilled bag of ice era in the UFC? I hope so. Maybe that happened during the same time.

And Rob Hawk was just like, I'm on to something. I got it. Yeah. Respect, respect to spilled bags. There was a lot of spilled bags of ice because Windsor could not actually catch the bag. She dropped like three of them. And then Misha just punches her in the face, which is hilarious. If you ever say no or I quit, I'm going to punch you on the face.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me read this. Let's get to some quotes. Oh, can we do quotes? Can we do quotes? I'm very excited about quotes. Okay, let's go right to it. Yeah, let's go right to it.

Her exact line is every time you say no, every time you say you can't, every time you stop because you're out of breath, I'm going to punch you square in the face. Casey, you've trained pretty regularly. Jed, I know you've trained kickboxing once in a lot of time. It's good, good training technique here? good good mentor sure i one one of one i think it is in the context for for the valley like that's not optimal training for you know mma or life but to to get hardened up in the ways you need to be to be a knock around girl in fight valley i think that that's i think we're doing something

right there four week training camp sure and a four week training camp i'll go in and say yes that these are extreme measures for extreme times. Honestly, too, when you factor that in, like, this is a girl who's never been in a fight in her life. Half of fighting when you're bad at fighting is just being willing to fight. And so the more you get punched in the face, the more acclimated you are to the, like, getting punched in the face. So legitimately maybe that actually wouldn't be that bad of a methodology.

There is some truth of because I actually tell people why, when I started training is like, well, when I first barred, I got punched in the vase hard, I realized, oh, that's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. You know, it doesn't, it's not fun. Getting hit is so much worse in your head than it actually is. Yeah. Let me, let me read. Maybe just wailing on her a couple of times a day is good for her.

Builds character. It's good for Windsor. You're welcome, Windsor. Well, let's, let's continue on that. Let's read, let me read another line from Misha, who again, had a lot of dialogue to do here. Oh. Like, she had to do, like, she's playing a tough girl for a lot of us. So like, okay, pretty easy.

But there's moments like, she has to express like guilt, compassion. And I'm like, Misha's kind of doing okay here. She had multiple emotions. Yes. Conner had none. Negative one. Connor had avarice.

So during one of the, shortly after that scene, there's the, my father. So Misha says, my father taught me a lot about street fighting. I remember one day when I was in our garage, I had my gloves all wrapped up and I was beating away at the heavy bag. And I thought I was so tough. And he said to me, if you're going to be punching girls in the streets and where the hell are you hitting a soft bag? I had no idea what he meant at the time

but a few years later it clicked and I realized I didn't need those fancy gloves and beautiful heavy bags I needed to condition my bare knuckles to break bones now push the car The car was a great Thank you I was like wait a minute What does that have to do with what you just said

Like that is no Misha pushed your hell out of that car too Yeah Japs could push your car She just said like Why are you doing this pointless training things you're just trying to touch you now push the car and i'm like okay that's weird uh so i there's so much good dialogue in here guys uh kisi what was your fit did you manage to pick out one line we're gonna go for a lot of lines there's a few good lines um yeah uh i i like the the when's just trying

get trained she goes are you going to train are you going to train me to fight and jab says no i'm going to train you to survive quality yeah quality uh and i think you my favorite line though is um i'm not looking to change anyone i'm looking to kill someone so good that was a good one bolded in my google doc my friend so good that is the line i'm not looking to change anyone i'm looking to kill someone jed i assume you are also a lover of this piece of dialogue support for this show comes from the audible original the downloaded to ghosts in the machine The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer,

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you call 1-86653310 or visit Comexonterio.ca. I have three quotes that I've worked down. None of them are good. My number three is going to be win. Inexplicably during this, Windsor comes up with 50 grand cash, which she wouldn't give to her sister to help her sister get out of the hood Untalked about plot point

Before her sister Before Torrey dies She calls Windsor and is like Hey, me and my girlfriend want to move out of the fucking hood Can you give us a couple grand To put a down payment on a condo And Windsor

Moneybags McGee or whatever the hell The last name is like No, you chose to live with dad And then three weeks later her sister dies and then that we have a thought device. So she wouldn't give her sister two grand to move out of the ghetto, but does have 50 Gs to drop to give to stick. I think that was his name.

Stakes. To make the fight. Whatever. Sure, whatever. To make the fight with Cyborg. And Stakes is being offered this money and he's like, I got to, I got to confer with whoever. And the dude is sitting next to him.

It's like, I got to sit down and talk with my people. And the guy sitting next to him. I was like, we're sitting down now. 60 G's, take it. I do like that one. I was like, I'm moving for. Absolutely excellent stuff. I did like those characters.

That little sight, I don't know like. They had some personality. Yeah, it was something. Yes. My runner up is when they were talking about, Casey did not have the full quote, but I know Casey wrote this down. So talked about it off air.

They're talking about getting Windsor ready to go into the valley or whatever to be uh you know to blend in instead of standing out and they're like oh look you got you know like all right you're starting to look the part and then i think it was bandana girl's like it ain't no hood ass though just actually referring to uh her bottom which is just a ridiculous fucking line but the winner there could only be one winner and it was the only thing I remember from the funeral scene, and it's Windsor making her big dramatic moment. And I need you to imagine this being read by someone who's really bad at acting. So I'm honestly going to read it better than she did, which is tough because it's not like

I'm a great actor. As tough as you were, someone still took your life. I'm going to find them and take what they took from you. I was just like, oh, my God. when Rob Hawk wrote this, he was convinced he had a banger on his hands and he could not have been more incorrect.

So that's the kind of movie we're dealing with folks. Go watch Fight Valley if you have it. It's great time. And second place that, oh, when Peyton was in the bar, Peyton being Holly home, and Peyton says to the bar

kind of loudly, I guess, she's like, what is this? A litter box? because all I see is shit. So good. Got them. We kind of have been joking about this in our slack about lumpy bumpy. Oh, yeah.

Early, very early in the movie, Misha goes to her truck driver friend. It's like, Kate's in trouble. Got to do a little lumpy bumpy you win. And I was like, I've never heard this term before. That's not a thing for starting a fight. Because you don't know about the mean streets of wherever New Jersey. If you are listening to this in Camden, New Jersey. wherever the hell it is.

Lumpy, New Jersey. And this is a common phrase out there. You tell me, and I will apologize immediately, guys, I don't speak. If you're listening to this from Camden, then you must be one of those

richers like Windsor. You're not out there fighting for survival. Windsor and her mom who's like maybe five years older than her. And who's just like, guys, we don't need to go down this rabbit hole.

This is a movie about women. written by a dude. And it's the most obviously written by a dude should I've ever seen for all this. There are sadly no women credited on the directorial or writing side and it suffers. The movie suffers slightly for it.

This movie thoroughly passes the Bechdel test and is somehow still like misogynist. It's a wild time. destroys the Bechtoe test. Like absolutely obliterates it and is still pretty tough. Like, it's pretty tough. And the funny thing is, so that scene, let's talk about that scene for one second with the mob. We are introduced to Windsor in the scene.

We learned she's a reporter. She's learning about profiling. And it's a scene they flash back to a couple of times. I think once, there's a couple of that. One, they do a flashback about her avenging her sister. and that's right before, like, Cyborg knocks, oh, she's just chokes her. Like, she's like, oh, this is the,

we think this is where Windsor's going to, like, fight back. And then instead, it's like, it's immediate. And then Cybor's like, no, goozle, and then beats the crap out of her, again, which is hilarious, but also very sad. And then she flashed back to the profiling book. So she can be like, I think it's like, oh, I can tell that Jabbs means when she's apologizing for covering up the death of my sister. It's really, really strange.

And she can tell that church means it when she says she thinks about Torio. free day. Yes, yes, that too. Every morning, every morning. She profiled them. Jesus. She profiled them. See, there's no, there's no wasted dialogue in this film. No. Everything, everything comes back. Everything's a circle. There's a lot of, there's a lot of wasted dialogue. There's a lot of unnecessary nudity as well. Hold on. Well, hold on. Jet, you brought up, no, now we just got to get into it. Again, we're trying to keep our jobs here. We will just say, we should have warned at the beginning, by the way, for anyone who...

So for anyone who hasn't... who didn't stop the show to watch the movie and is planned to watch the movie after, not for the kids. There are a couple of nude scenes. The character of Duke, played by Aaron O'Brien, is the lover of our main character's sister,

and we are shown that explicitly when there's a sex scene or in the film involving some full frontal nudity. And then later on, she's also just fully frontal nude to shock Windsor. Windsor's like, oh my gosh, like you guys just change clothes around each other?

And I'm like, I don't think it's the most, it's the most useless scene in the entire film. She is both repulsed by the fact that they would change in front of each other. And then when her friends, when the girl Jamie tries to kiss her or even suggest that she's a lesbian, she's like, what? You're going to kiss me? She says, ew. She says, her sister is gay. She knows, I'm pretty sure she knows her sister was gay. And yet she seems disgusted by the concept of.

of these women being less, it's very strange. It's, and again, she's also a pretty, a reporter. I imagine pretty worldly. It's very weird, very weird scene. But yes. I will say, if there's one scene in this film that is like kind of okay shot, it is not the gratuitous nudity, which is absolutely unnecessary to plot or story. But like the intimate moment between Tori and whatever that girl's name is,

I was like, oh, there's like, you have held a camera before. Rob like Rob Hawk has filmed something before because prior to that I was truly unsure than he ever had but it's like oh there's like there is a tenderness and like I see the point of this and it was it was an oasis in a desert of useless it was super weird to like that to be like oh that's like almost okay what are we doing here? Rob Hawking may surprise you has had experience I think

doing music videos before this so yeah he can do kind of punchy, sexy stuff. You know, actually pacing a movie may have been out of his realm of skills, but he's actually still involved in producing TV and movies. So, you know, maybe just writing and directing wasn't for him. So Rob Hock is out there. We haven't talked about this enough guys, but Windsor goes, what's the same? Once a knock around girl?

Always a knock around girl. I don't think they ever say that in the movie, except for that one time. And again, another, much like Lumpy Bumpy, I'm not familiar. with it, but I believe it. I know we're going long already. We didn't even talk about, we didn't even talk about the two detectives, the cops

in the movie. I totally forgot about that. Remember when they break to the family, we found your sister murdered and didn't mention that she was raped. Dude, that came out of nowhere. I'm not crazy. They don't say that. They don't mention that at all.

It just comes out of the end. If you haven't watched it. Yeah. If you haven't watched it, it comes out of nowhere that like Torrey, everyone knows Tori got deaded or unalived or whatever. But then at the end, Cyborg is just like, you made it like a rape. You helped me hide the body.

It was your idea. It was fake that it was a that bad activity. I'm not going to. Yeah. Yeah. It was okay. It's not so bad when they said it. Yeah.

I was so confused. I was like, of the rest of the movie. I did not remember that detail. Okay, thank you, Casey. I did not remember that being brought up earlier. And I thought I just missed it. What did all?

Again, poor cyborg at the end had to do a real exposition dump. And they're like, poor cyborg was responsible for giving a lot of information in the last like three minutes of the movie. And it goes exactly as you'd expect, guys. Again, anyone else doing it. And real quick, when you say poor cyborg, her name is church.

Her character's name is church. But yet in the final fight scene, she is wearing a very distinct t-shirt that says Chriscyborg.com all over her back. It's like one of her affliction shirts or whatever. Yeah. It's insane. So Cyborg is a real person in this universe as well. Church and Cyborg are separate entities in the Fight Valley universe. Casey, anything else jumped out of you from the credits?

Oh, just the fact that usually for credit scenes, they don't show. It was just like the making of in the credits. There's a lot of photos and stuff to kind of prove that, look, we had cameras and we had a boom mic. This wasn't just shot on, no, an iPhone four. So I, and then they showed like when they were rehearsing the fight scenes. And you were like, oh, wow, they actually rehearsed this. That makes it kind of worse. So I don't know what they were trying to prove.

You didn't want to see behind. You didn't want to see how the sausage was made. It didn't make it better. No, does it make it better? You're wondering how the sausage taste so bad. Yeah. After seeing the, after seeing how could it be so many talented cooks involved and the final product was very, yeah, was very unsatisfying.

I think we guys, we can sort of move on. Oh, I will ask real quick. We kind of normally bring up a recasting question. I want to make a note. I thought that the girl who played Duke would actually would have been better as the lead, so the sister's girlfriend, Duke. I think she would have better as the lead. Yeah, literally any lot of human body would have been better than Susie Selle.

She is a better actress, and she is also smaller, smaller. Because it's weird because the main character is so, she's actually quite physically, like, larger than most of the characters. So you kind of thought that she'd do better as a fighter. I think if you go with a smaller woman, you sell up the underdog thing, kind of like hoist fighting in UFC 1 instead of Hickson, you know what I mean? So I, not that I'm saying, Susie Selle. like six and crazy.

My ballet is the UFC one of movies? What? I mean, in many ways. And the second thing I want to ask you guys is, so Rob Hawk, I don't know if you could tell, not actually an MMA fan.

He wanted Rousie. He wanted Ronda Rousey to be one of the main characters in this film. And when he couldn't get Rousey, I think she was blowing up in Hollywood at the time. He found out about Misha and Holly and Chris Siber. I don't think he was super familiar with these women before and just ended up casting them.

So my question is, Would Rousey have been better in any of these roles? Could Rousey make this movie better if she was church, if she was Windsor, if she was Jabs? Rousey would have been better as Windsor because literally anyone alive would have been better. You're not a big city celebrity except for Chris Cyborg. Chris Cyborg is Windsor. I want that movie. I want to see that version.

I want to see no, no, no, no, no, no. I want to see Chris Cyborg as Windsor. If Ronda's attached, then they have more than $30 of a budget because I truly think that this film could not have been made for more than $100 grand. And six figures might honestly be high. And so if Ronda's involved by definition with her stardom, like some studio would have thrown some money into this and maybe just by having any money thrown into it at all,

it couldn't have been, would have been better. But I mean, we know that Ronda's not a great out. actor. But when Misha Tate's the best actor in your film, I think objectively she was the best actor in this film, it's not like Rhonda would have really brought the level down, you know? But I think you, see, now you've got me thinking of Chris Cyborg in a lead role. I think you nailed it. That's the recasting that you're talking about. Jed, you nailed it. I flat out refused to do an episode if Chris Cyborg is the lead actor. I absolutely refuse to do it. We'll find something. Tap in Shaheen because I'm not doing it.

I think it's time to break out the fists. All right. I think it's time to break up the fists. Drum roll. What would we do last time? Drum roll. Yeah, I got a drum roll. Hoodies up, hoodies up.

Yeah, hoodies up, hoodies up. I mean, hoodies up. Fis up ready. Hutties up, all right. All right. Are we ready? Ready? Here we go.

You're giving it a fist. You can't see this. My fists are in my pockets. and I'm trying to make more room in my pockets. I'm digging my fists even deeper into the denim jeans I am wearing. Proudly, proudly giving fight value a fist. I enjoyed this more than Roadhouse. That's insane.

I can comfortably say, Oh, my God. That is an insane team. Oh, no. Oh, no. Now, there's a bit of grading on a curve here. There's a bit of grading. Yes, yes. Roadhouse is a more polished products just by the nature of it having actual money in it, an actual director.

The real director. You know, an actual cast. It doesn't cost money to write a good script. This is true. Nor to direct or edit or properly, you know, sound, sound editing as well. I agree. We have seen many independent movies with probably even less of a budget than Fight Valley. you know, become a well-regarded classics.

That's not what Fight Valley will ever be. But I enjoyed it. I mainly because I think the difference in this in Roadhouse is I did find this movie so bad at times that it was funny. I laughed more thinking about this episode and watching Fight Valley than I did Roadhouse. Roadhouse, by the end, I was exhausted. I don't know. I was exhausted.

I wasn't entertained. Probably disappointed. Probably the expectations were way different because we did have quite a few people saying like oh, Conner's like kind of good in this. And then you guys know when we all watched, we were like, what the hell are people talking about? So there's, I'm grading on a curve, different expectations for sure,

zero going into this movie. And probably again, giving it extra points just for just for having a heart. And having, you know what it has? It has a voice. This movie has a voice. I love Doug Lyman. I love a lot of Doug Lyman movies.

You could not have, you could have given me 50 guesses as to who directed that movie, I would never have guessed Doug Lyman. And that's not his fault. I have a feeling there's all kind of studio stuff involved in Roadhouse. And by the end of it, the finished product wasn't even like, I don't know, what he set out to do.

That's my guess. That's my guess. I don't know who Rob Hock is, so obviously I couldn't have guessed here either. But by the end, I felt like I knew who Rob Hock was and what he was trying to say. And I think there's... What's he saying about women's sexuality and fighting in the Valley? That was not great. Listen, those scenes I am choosing to omit from my memory.

Rob Hawk, maybe don't write those kinds of scenes. Maybe if you plan to include them, have a woman on your staff. Have someone help you with the script? I know this is a Rob Hoff. I've spoken to a woman just once in the house. Maybe run the script by a few people who might know this material a bit better than yourself. I thought you were an ally. I thought you were an ally.

I mean, this movie isn't like, this movie isn't anti- LGBTQ. No, not at all. But it's just written by a fratty dude. Yeah. He's like, yeah, this is how a straight woman would react. If someone tried to kiss her, she'd be like, ew, gross. It's a strange scene.

But putting that aside, this is why I'm putting that aside, I really have to put that aside, way, way, way aside where I'm pretending it doesn't even exist. It's shorter than Roadhouse, which is good. It's half an hour shorter, which is fine. That helps. and for the most part of it I enjoyed laughing at it

I enjoyed laughing at the amateurishness of it, excuse me, but also that the people involved I thought really like in Misha we talked about already man does more than I would have expected from her I think Misha is a pretty like good interview in real life but that doesn't always

translate to acting and I thought she did okay of course there's scenes that were out of her element nothing too crazy because the script is I don't know like great school level drama but she did fine with it and I thought We said even Chukakin, her small role was pretty good. I thought the other actions were okay. Everyone except the lead who was just an atrocity.

So, yeah, that was, and the fights, while none of them were actually good, especially the finale, which is just hilarious. I think I'm with Jed, and that the subversion of what I expected kind of at least had me thinking, like, why did they do that besides the fact that they ran out of money? And that was-closed that was compelling to me. That was compelling to me. So I proudly give this movie a fist. It's the worst take you've ever had.

I can't wait. I genuinely can't wait for the rest of the people on our staff to realize you've, you've fisted this film. And they are just going to, because look, I'll give you mine. As I said, this means they have to watch it. This means they have to watch it, though. I had to watch it. You said one thing that we talked about offline that I do think is true.

This film has a perspective, right? It is attempting to tell a story. and to that I actually do want to give it a little bit of credit as like one of my first iterations of an elevator pitch was this movie is better than Roadhouse except for in every single aspect because unlike Roadhouse this is trying to tell a story when we talked about Roadhouse one of the questions was legitimately like what was the purpose of this film because as far as I can tell the purpose was keeping IP alive and putting Conor McGregor in a movie and seeing how that goes it's not trying to tell him any sort of thing. This was at least sort of trying to tell something, even if what I was trying to tell at times got confused or was bad, it was terribly acted. But this is a bad student film. I mean this with absolutely no hyperbole whatsoever. I legitimately think we could make a better film than this. Like just us, the three of us writing something and having Casey shoot and direct it, hunt like with half the budget they even got like I'm super confident in that it is

maybe the worst film I've ever seen that feels like a bold statement is I've watched some real ship bombs like I enjoy watching bad movies I couldn't even really enjoy this because it was so disconnected and bad and just like all the parts were weird and then there were just other times where I was like, why is, why is this, I'm assuming, cis white dude trying to tell this part of this story and what, what are any of the purposes going on? It was just too awful in every respect, but for Mish Tate. Honestly, my biggest takeaway from this film other than it being out and out bad was give Misha Tate an opportunity, not to be like a real actor, not to have a Gina Krono lead Nassadber. I'm like, no, we don't need to do any of that.

But like let her play a bit part in Jumanji 4 or whatever. Like let her get involved because you give her some time. She might not suck at this. She was, oh, she carried this film, which is a low bar, but still pleasantly surprised by her. And the fact that they gave her more to do and she didn't totally wilt under it. So a horrible film. If you listen to my, that's why I said at the beginning, pause it, go watch. because at this point, I will now tell you, I got you if you did that.

I would never tell anyone to ever watch this film. Save 90 minutes of your life because unless you're a real weirdo, sicko like we are, you don't need this in your main brain space. So yeah, it's not going to go above Roadhouse for me because while I did not like Roadhouse and thought Roadhouse was bad, I didn't have an awful time watching Roadhouse. I had a pretty terrible time watching this. You know, it sounds like, though, Misha was what people told you Connor was in Roadhouse, because people told you Connor saved Roadhouse.

I think Misha saved Fight Valley. Is that fair? Save what could be saved. What there was that could be saved? He did the best part of it, which is good. Whereas Connor, I was told was the best part. And I still assume that I am taking crazy pills because I still people like, oh, he's the best part of it. Like, he's clearly the worst part of it, and clearly the movie gets real bad when he joins.

So I don't know what I didn't see that everyone else did, but in this instance, Misha was not the worst part of it. And honestly, they probably could have spent more time with her. Would have been better than with Susie Selleck. Rough, yeah, Susie Selleck. By the way, did not do a lot of movies after that. I don't think she did any movies after this. Casey, I thought you, I thought you hesitated for a second there. I thought you considered, if you could have given it half a fist, I feel like you were

almost there? No, no, no. I was, I was, I was actually grabbing a knife and severing my fist off. Oh, okay. I was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was offensive filmmaking. Wow. Just to my eyes to, to, to the art of film. Um, yeah, um, I understand. I understand they had, I don't know, they, they, they had a budget. There was some money involved. And it was just very bad. It was just very bad. Not very, it was just bad and not bad, good, just bad, bad. And, but I did enjoy the quote.

I'm not looking to change anyone. I am looking to kill someone. Yeah. I do like that quote. Really something I feel like we could all learn from going forward. If we take anything from this movie, I think that quote is something we should may all apply in our own lives. This is just a lie. I have found a thing online that says the people.

production budget for this film was $20 million. No, there's no way. That cannot be true, right? Zero chance, zero chance. I don't know. Where is this? What website is this? Robhawk.com. On the numbers? I, there's zero. There's no way. It's the, it's the thing that's right under IMDB when I Google Fight Valley budget. It would maybe have to count marketing, but there's just no way. I mean, I can't even imagine

how could you spend a million dollars marketing this thing? If this has a $20 million budget, I am saying, and I don't care that this is probably legally actionable. This is absolutely a money laundering operation. I want to see this budget sheet, Rob Hawk. This is.

You know what? If it is a money laundering operation, that is very MMA. So I, you know. One out of six fists, guys. One out of six fists. I think we can kind of gloss over the rankings. I think we can comfortably say

Roadhouse still number one, the greatest martial arts video vaults. time. It made me appreciate Roadhouse a little more. Fight Valley, nipping at its heels at number two, though. You know, number one and number two, it's neck and neck.

It's neck and neck and neck. It's neck and neck. But Roadhouse, two out of six, the math doesn't lie. One out of six for Fight Valley. So, to, Conover Greger doing something he's never done before in his career defends his title as the number one.

The number one MMA movie of all times. He's never done that. Yeah, the guy's a movie star. But he held it. The IMDB estimated budget for this film is $27 million. There's no way. 27 million?

There's no way. It's estimated, but there's just not a world in which that's true, right? Well, are they possibly calculating the budget of Fight Valley 2? No, I'm on the Fight Valley page. Fight Valley 2 colon lockdown.

This is a movie that has not come out yet. We're not doing that. It is supposedly in post-production. It continues the story with Duke and Stakes, Cyborated. Duke and Stakes, Cyborg is also supposedly in it, and of course, Tito Ortiz. So hopefully we will see Flight Valley 2 locked down soon.

But otherwise, yes, guys, I think we can get out of here. Next week, though, we're staying in the low-rent district. I believe the plan is to watch the Michael Jai White martial arts film. Blood and Bone. You've seen it. Jed, you've seen this. No, but I love MJ. MJW.

So Michael J. White knows him to do bad good. Of course. I believe Bob Sapp and Kevin. I've also seen several scenes of this film. I just haven't seen it in its entirety. People watching the U.S. It is on U.S. Netflix, I'm told. Those of us in other countries,

maybe watch the movie through nefarious means. I mean, go buy it or pay $2 to another streaming service so you can rent it. But, yes, blood and bone next week, guys. Thank you for another great episode. Thank you. Knock Around Girl number one, Jen Mishu. Knock Around Girl number two, E. Casey Leiden.

Again, my two favorite knock around girls. Once Knock Around Girl, always knock around girl. We will see you guys in Fight Valley sometime and definitely see you on the next episode of This Is Cinema next time. AK, you got a hood ass. It ain't no hood ass. Love you. Oh, lumpy, bumpy.

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.