The Big Picture - ‘Plane’ and the Top 10 Sky Trash Movies

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

From the boys who brought you Garbage Crime, Junk Sci-Fi, and Trash Special Ops, comes: Sky Trash. Sean and Chris Ryan break down the latest entrant, ‘Plane' (1:00), and share their favorite examples of the subgenre (45:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, longtime writer with The Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, Plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started.

I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Sky Trash. Earlier this month, saw the release of Plane, the new action vehicle starring Gerard Butler, and it got us thinking it's time for Chris Ryan and I to break down another subgenre of brain-dead, magnificent action cinema. The airplane actioner, the atmospheric thriller, garbage jetways, flying fuckery, sky trash.

Hi, Chris. Put up your seat tray, brother. It's time to podcast. Buckle up, because we are talking about a new one. But you know what? Before we get into Plane, and before we get into The Majesty in the Skies, we should talk about a different kind of majesty. I'm talking about the corporate communication from the Warner Brothers Discovery Company

about the forthcoming slate of DC films that Peter Safran and James Gunn just shared with us today. You're a huge DC guy, as long as I've known you. I've kind of just boycotted Marvel altogether. We did a lot of great work with the Snyder Cut. I'm working now on the Whedon Cut. I see. Bringing it back? Yeah.

Are you restoring it, or is there an additional cut? 8K. 8K. Because what Joss does that not a lot of people fuck with is it's all about the visuals with him. I see. You know? Yes, yes. Well, I wish you luck in that endeavor thanks there was no talk of joss whedon on this call about what james gunn is cooking up i gotta be honest you know as a young boy reading comic

books i i did not i did not fuck with dc i was aware of you know the death of superman run for example is something i read and of course i read bat, but that's kind of where it stopped for me. And so seeing some of these announcements this morning, I was like, I don't know what that is. I don't know where you're going with that. I, first of all, just love the fact that we got to live long enough to be in a world where like Saffron and Gunn are doing press conferences to just be like, the great plan has been revealed. The work begins. Yeah, creature commandos, first and foremost. You know, I think I'm interested in this story for one major reason, which is the idea that this creative partnership

is going to be overseeing billions of dollars of investment across a couple platforms. Because traditionally and historically, up until the Disney Plus initiative of doing these Marvel shows, that's always been like the Achilles heel where you've got like six Batmans are on like the Arrowverse, but then there's two here

and then there's one here and the TV shows aren't, you know, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't really in the Marvel movies. So I'm curious to see like a Viola Davis prestige TV show about Amanda Waller. Are you interested to see that though? I mean, the thing is,

is that what will happen is like, I'm going to be like, I'm too old for this shit. I don't care. This is a waste of Viola Davis's talents. And then I bet I'll see a trailer and be like, this looks pretty cool. So the challenge for me is everybody that I know who I trust on this sort of

thing told me that the peacemaker show is good. Yeah. I have a little bit of time for John Cena. Didn't watch it. And I just didn't watch it. Okay. I just didn't watch it. And so I look at, and that's, and I, I'm a James bit of time for John Cena. Didn't watch it. And I just didn't watch it. Okay. I just didn't watch it. And so I look at, and that's, and I'm a James Gunn fan.

I'm the loser on this podcast saying I can't wait for the new Guardians movie. Right. So I'm trying to figure out what it is. Is it a lack of familiarity with the characters and the source text? Is it the fact that I just don't have enough room in my life for another completely coherent, congealed, extended universe? I don't, I'm not really sure what it is. I mean, it might just be

I'm a 40-year-old man. Can I throw another why you should be interested point at you? This is a little like what if Billy Beane had taken the Red Sox job? So it's like, it's a little bit like this guy who's always been working on the margins,

B-movies, trauma core, then gets Guardians and kind of goes into the majors. But Guardians is still sort of a peripheral, was supposed to be a peripheral Marvel thing. Obviously, he goes on and off like, you know, with his sort of acceptability and on social media or whatever. But now kind of has the keys to a cat kingdom. And I'm really curious to see whether or not the fact that they have to put out four movies this year is going to just

trip this whole thing up in the first place. It's also fucking hysterical that this dude straight up is like The Flash is one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. A film that he did not participate in the creative direction of, although reportedly that film resets the chessboard so that they can do a lot of the things that they want to do.

You're right, there are four DC movies coming out this year. Shazam Fury of the Gods, Zachary Levi can do a lot of the things that they want to do. You're right. There are four DC movies coming out this year. Shazam Fury of the Gods. Zachary Levi certainly did a lot to promote that film over the weekend. Yeah, good job by him. The Flash is coming out in June. The Blue Beetle movie is coming out in August. Which Gunn was just like, I don't really know what to say about this one. He was like, that exists over there.

Good luck to them. And then Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Kingdom which is coming out on Christmas of 2023 candidly looking forward to that one I enjoyed the first Aquaman movie and then after that there's a whole gang

of stuff which I guess in theory if you set aside the Matt Reeves Batman stories the Todd Phillips Joker story

and I guess additionally perhaps J.J. Abrams and Bad Robots Ta-Nehisi Coates and Superman story so those are going to be referred to as DC Elseworlds yes where like you can have Additionally, perhaps J.J. Abrams and Bad Robots, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Superman story. So those are going to be referred to as DC Elseworlds?

Yes. Where you can have Batman there. Robert Pattinson's Batman will now exist solely in that Matt Reeves thing. It's kind of like JMO. Yeah, exactly. It's like JMO is our Elseworld. And we go there when we need to explore the studio space and figure out how we feel about different versions of ourself. Don't you agree?

Absolutely. And then, and yeah, and then he's making like a Batman and Robin movie. He's making a Superman movie. He's making all these things. I don't really, I know what's going to happen, which is one of these, like the first James Gunn movie is going to come out and I'm just going to be Tommy Lee Jones and fugitive. Like, I don't care. But it's interesting to talk about because

I can't remember the last time someone who is a filmmaker and not only a filmmaker, but a person who has some chops and has done stuff has been like, hey, here's $3 billion of David Zaslav's money. Do with it what you will. It is always interesting when a pure creative

is empowered to oversee something big. It's really challenging. It's hard to do this work. A lot of the times what you find are the people like the Kevin Feige's, the guys who have

a lot of creative instincts but don't actually make the thing. They put people in a position to make the thing. With Gunn, you know,

Saffron even in this press conference was sort of like nudging and hoping that Gunn would direct the Superman movie. You know, which makes sense

because Gunn is a very gifted filmmaker who's made a lot of successful superhero movies. But whether or not that keeps getting in the way of getting other voices involved or expanding that world, who knows? Just the list of titles here, though, The Authority, Paradise Lost, which is a sort of Game of Thrones-esque Themyscira story, The Brave and the Bold, which is about Batman and his son, Booster Gold.

Like, I'm not really up on any of this stuff. I've never heard any of this stuff. And on the one hand, Gunn has proven that he knows how to do that. As he pointed out, he knows how to expand

these worlds and get you invested in characters you didn't know beforehand. And on the other hand, this is just a lot of superhero stuff for the next five years. And so,

I'll be very curious. You think it will work? Just gut check? Is this going to, like, do everything that zaslav and the extended warner brothers discovery team wants it to do i think that the batman and robin movie and the superman movies will do really well i don't know whether or not people have the brain space to now track this across multiple live action shows and then into the movies and also get themselves geared up for 2025 to 2027 phase or whatever because that's when these movies are going to start coming out like 25 do you want him to continue to tweet through it that's my question

because this is his hallmark is he's the anti-fie you were kevin feige's like i will do two press conferences a year and answer everything with, like, these are not the droids you're looking for. Jim Gunn is a reply guy. Yeah. Like, he just is like, somebody will be like, when will you answer for your treatment of Themyscira? And he'll be like, stay tuned,

because I am making a Themyscira-like show. As I recall, I asked him if he wanted to speak on this podcast during the Suicide Squad's release. Got a no. Got a firm no. Interesting. Which I don't know. Maybe he just prefers to tweet.

More of a JMO guy, I think, actually, if you look back at his history. Yeah, I don't think it's a good idea for people at his level of success and power and access to tweet through it. But, you know, modern times. As a filmmaker, do you wish tweeted all the time? Well, certainly David Fincher. I mean, he's the person who, you know, modern times. What filmmaker do you wish tweeted all the time? Well, certainly David Fincher. I mean, he's the person who, you know,

when he's cranking it at 3 a.m., I want to know what he's watching. I don't, I'm not sure. Who else? Who else is on your list?

I mean, I could be dimmier and be like, wouldn't it be great if Greta Gerwig had so many fun tweets, but that's not. I wish Kelly Reichardt had like sick takes.

You know what I mean? Like, I wish Kelly Reichardt was like sick takes you know what I mean like I wish Kelly Reichardt was just like how the fuck did Devonta Smith get away with that that's on Shani has anyone asked you on a podcast about the Eagles have you had a chance to talk about it no Bill

like sort of tried to gesture towards me yesterday but when we were recording we were watchables and then like changed the subject really quickly does Bill have a grudge against the Eagles? No, but he is making up fake people who are texting him. He's gotten to the Trump-like

grown man coming up to me on the street point where he's just like, all these Philadelphia fans coming up to me saying, we don't deserve this. Philadelphia fans are saying that? Well, is there...

Like his friends who were from Philly texting him. Is there any part of you deep in the recesses of your heart? No. Are you going to ask me to think that? Let's just, let's just walk through it really quickly. This is important.

I haven't seen you in a few days. I missed you, bud. You know, you rolled over Danny Dime store, you know, you ripped Brock Purdy's poor elbow out of its socket. Yes. He was also Mr. Irrelevant. We pretty much, we might have ended that guy's career because now Brady is going to come

and Brock's going to go back to the bench and then it's going to be like back to being Mr. Irrelevant. I say this with no pride because the team that I root for hasn't been to the playoffs in 12 years. But those are two of the lamest quarterbacks that have played in a playoff game

in the last decade. Yeah, and if we were like some bullshit nine and eight Ravens team, I would totally agree with you. I know, you're on your tiptoes here. Just hang on. Let me get to the end of this. Let's say you steamroll

gimpy Patrick Mahomes. Not only that, let's say Fletcher Cox in the first quarter just drops an elbow right into his knee. We get a lot of chatting. We get a lot of chat. And we get 75 minutes of chat.

Yeah, we get chat. And you guys win. You win 38 to 9. Are you like, we did it. We're the best ever. I'm title town USA. You got to play what's in front of you. I can't help it.

But that's. Health is a skill. You know? Uh-huh. Jalen Hurts' arm didn't pop out of its socket on Sunday, did it? That's true. You know, I don't know what to tell you. Where was Nick Bosa?

He could have destroyed him on the field, and he didn't. He didn't. He failed. Okay. I just want to make sure. You're actually wearing an Eagles hat right now. I am. I wore it on Sunday.

I've worn it the last two times we've played football, and we've triumphed greatly. Who's we? The Eagles. Oh, because I'm slipping into, like, we stuff? I'm happy for you. Better you than the fucking Patriots

or something like that. I'm psyched for you too because you and Zachary Levi are going to be sitting courtside for Aaron Rodgers playing for the Jets. Is Zachary Levi a Jets guy? No way.

Yeah, he's an anti-Vax guy. He's just, he's anti-Big Pharma. That's his thing. Do you think it'd be good if Rodgers went to the Jets? Yeah, I think it would be good for you.

I think it would be amusing. I think it would be good content. There's a huge difference between those two things. I think it would be good if Rogers went to the Jets? Yeah, I think it would be good for you. I think it would be amusing. I think it would be good content. There's a huge difference between those two things. I think it would be good content for you. You've had Mike White and Zach Wilson are not the ones. Like you need a story, you know? Okay. To sink yourself into.

Speaking of story, let's talk about Plane. It's a new film from the filmmaker Jean-Francois Richer. You familiar with his work? I'm not, but I am weirdly familiar with the co-screenwriter's work, Charles Cumming. Well, tell me about Charles Cumming. He is an espionage writer. He's a novelist who's written, I think, 10 or 15 books over the last decade and a half.

And they're really good pop spy novels. So I'm currently 200 pages into box 88. And you would not think that this writer is the guy who was like we got to put gerard cut dry butler in in a plane and crash that into the job because they're elegant yeah they're just like yeah they're and they're not they're certainly not like let's get some guys with machetes running around yeah so this is this film centers on a commercial airline pilot who effectively say his name.

Captain Brody Torrance. Brody Torrance, yeah. I mean, another in a long line of magnificent Gerard Butler title characters. His plane that he's flying, I guess out of Singapore? Yeah. Trailblazer Airlines.

Is he headed to Hawaii? Or is he headed to Japan? He's got a couple stops. Okay. So it's the New Year's Eve flight out of Singapore. He's got to go Tokyo and then they're going on to Honolulu,

where he will meet with his daughter, who he's had with his late wife. So it's their first New Year's together in a while. There's a big weather advisory. Gerard Butler's character is looking at the iPad. He's like, this don't look good. Things are tough out here. But they're bean counters. The fucking hacks who work at this cheapo airline.

The deep state. They're like, you're flying through it there's 14 passengers on this plane and you're gonna get those passengers to Tokyo before the clock strikes midnight

on New Year's Day and so they get in the plane they go up in the sky and then lightning hits the plane yep didn't know I had to be

worried about that honestly is that a thing? we're gonna get to this but there's a bunch of things that happen in this movie where I was like I was not aware that this was something I had to put on my checklist. Have you been on a plane when lightning has been striking? No. Not to my knowledge.

I'm trying to think if I have. I feel like I have. Typically, they're like, we're going to avoid this, go over it, around it, whatever. How many times have you emergency landed on a plane? Only once, and it was not like a brace yourself. It was we're running out of fuel. So when I was coming back from Ireland when I was a... I thought you were going to say come back from NAMM. No.

Taking heavy flack. Lost a lot of good men that day. No. When I was coming back from Ireland in 1999 for some reason like we couldn't land at JFK and they kept circling and circling and they were like, we're out of fuel.

So we got to go to Maine. Oh, did that start your love affair with Maine? You don't love Maine. That's why. Did you just discover? Did you meet Phoebe there? No, they wouldn't let us off the plate. Dudes were like losing their mind.

They were like, we got to sit here on the ground. Interesting. And it was 99. So cats were still like, I'm about to, I need to light a dart. You know what I mean? Way too much dart talk from you.

I was fine, but other people were like, yeah, I need a cigarette. Is light a dart like smoke a pole? Like,

what does that mean? No, it's a lung dart. Okay, I got it. Got it. Okay. I was,

I was on the plane like, I got to smoke a pole. You guys don't know that one? So anyway, Captain Bernie Torrance's plane is struck by lightning and it depowers. It's been completely, there's a massive electrical failure on this plane. And he's got to figure out what to do.

And he lands the plane. Yeah. Looks like he's going to have to land it in the South Pacific, but then he finds a small island in the Philippines. You know, I think it's debatable how much a movie like this can be spoiled. It is very much a...

What's on the label is what it is. A lot of it is in the trailer. Yeah, it's in the trailer. It's very clear. The plane lands, and they're in the middle of nowhere. They're actually on Jolo Island, which is a sort of, you know, a very dangerous place, a very inhospitable place to strangers, to foreigners.

I look forward to your research. And not only that, but one of the 14 passengers on this plane is a convicted murderer who's being transferred to where? I'm not sure. Why is the murderer going to Tokyo? Back to the States, eventually.

Like Honolulu, maybe they go on to Lompoc from there. Right, and so he was a member of the Foreign Legion and he murdered someone? This is- Louis Gaspar is a character. He's played by Mike Coulter. I feel like we could have gotten like a minute more exposition on what's going on with him. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves,

but are we sure that the movie shouldn't have been Mike Coulter's movie? That would have been sick. Like, shouldn't it have been like 20 minutes of, you know, a little bit of like speaking of Sky Trash like Con Air like showing us what the before time was

yeah and then we jump to he's a prisoner wouldn't that have made more sense or I mean they just didn't really spend very much time on him at all like they were just

kind of like he gives him this little explanation in the jungle where he's like yeah you know like the French Foreign Legion doesn't ask any questions which is that true

I don't know but like and then so he joins this army and then finally gets arrested in Bali for a murder he committed in his teens which we didn't really find out very much about unless I missed it during the bathroom run I feel like Mike Coulter is underutilized in general he has he's like Jim Brown or like Lee Marvin where I'm just like I just want to see that guy hit people yeah and he does hit people in this movie and and he's effective at that. But he was pretty good. You know, he was pretty good as Luke Cage on the Marvel series.

Excellent in the Good Wife, Good Fight series. I've never seen those shows. I've literally never seen one second of those shows. But you're a fan. Yeah, especially Good Wife. So there's this passenger who is a convicted criminal on the plane. And that sows a little bit of anxiety but i would say candidly the the passengers on that plane were having a little too much fun at

the expense of the convicted murderer i have a ton of questions about first of all like like one of the big things i want to talk to you about is your relationship to flying and how it affects your your feelings about these movies but um this is almost a ghost flight. So they only have like 14 people on an international flight. Do you get unnerved with empty flights? Have you ever been on one? I have. I've been on a few flights in the past.

I flew about five years ago on a commercial flight that had just the sort of the two rows. It didn't have that big middle row. So what is that? Probably like 70, 80 seats total. There were four people on the plane. And the plane was clearly older and had not been like the seats had not been reupholstered. She was very much like we're smoking butts on this plaid carpet of a long, dark airlines.

It didn't feel that way. Um, but I've never felt so free. I feel like nobody was looking at me. I felt like I could move my elbows in whatever direction I wanted you know my wife sat in one row I sat in the other row

we were like look at us we own this plane and I had a good time if that plane crashed I wouldn't have been surprised I was like this doesn't feel right

that would have been fun if I was on that flight with you and I just was like insisted on sitting right next to you and was like we're gonna go through

all the upcoming James Gunn DCU movies I gotta tell you really quickly just reminded me of. I went to a screening of a film, not the one I saw today, but a film last week, a very highly anticipated movie coming out later this year. Screening room, six people, dude sat right next to me in the background. Was he like, what's up? I'm a fan. Just sat down. No, no, no, no. Definitely did not know who I was. Just sat down and just sat, just, and I was like, what is my move here?

Do I get up? Do I slide over two seats? Like, what would you have done if you were in my position? Well, in the age of reserving your own seats, this is a big anxiety for me. Because it's not like I don't give a shit if it's a full theater. Like, we're all here elbow to elbow supporting Hollywood. But when it's just like, look, man, we're going to see Plane on a Friday at 5. And there's five of us.

Do you really need to sit next to me? So if you were seated next to Gaspar on this flight to Tokyo and he was, you know, manacled, would you move your seat? I would try to get as just much of his point of view as I could. JMO guest? Yeah. Okay. Let me ask you this. Did you like Plain? I wanted to like Plain so much more than I did. And I think the thing, maybe I went in with a little bit of a White House, you know, like Olympus has fallen prejudice where I was like, this is going to be fun, right? This is going to be, it's White House down.

Olympus has fallen. Wait, which one? I always get the Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx one confused with the Gerard Butler one. I believe the Has Fallen franchise is Gerard Butler. Right, Has Fallen. And White House down, I believe, is Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx one confused with the Gerard Butler one. I believe the Has Fallen franchise is Gerard Butler. Right, Has Fallen. And White House Down I believe is Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. My apologies to everyone involved in both films.

That seems very sincere. I just want to say I thought it was going to be a little bit more fun. And it's like a pretty serious movie. It is a serious film. Yeah, and then i think that um a lot of the action that takes place on the island is supposed to be like raid-esque there's like

these long takes of really intense physical hand-to-hand combat and it's not that i don't appreciate that it's just that i felt like vibe-wise they were leaving a lot on the table and they also needed like one or two more like fun character actors to be passengers on the plane. Yeah, when I saw Joey Slotnick get on the plane, I was like, yeah. Yeah. We're at home.

They didn't let Slotnick cook. Why couldn't he cook? I know. That was very strange. I agree with you. I thought missed opportunity with the two young women who were like hot

but also like laughing about how there was a prisoner on the plane. I thought that was very confusing. Agree. There was missed opportunity there. Who are these people who are flying on New Year's Eve to Japan?

What is that flight? I don't know. Where are those people going? It seemed like three backpackers and four hedge fund guys and then one YouTuber. Have you ever flown on New Year's Eve? Yeah. Back to LA, I have.

You have? From New York, yeah. You don't really care for New Year's Eve. I just don't care. I'm happy to do stuff on New Year's Eve? Yeah. Back to LA, I have. You have? New York, yeah. You don't really care for New Year's Eve. I just don't care. I'm happy to do stuff on New Year's Eve, but it's not like a clear out my schedule. Is it the dawning of a new year and that means one more in the devil's favor?

Like, is that what you're concerned about? Well, I really do like the Christmas season, as you know. Okay. So New Year's Eve typically signals like the full end of the holidays, you know? I don't think I got a feedback report on your Christmas this year. There's nothing out of the ordinary about it. Didn't I ever just, I wasn't just like, yeah, I was in Philly and then I was in New York.

I can't recall our conversation. You polished some darts. What'd you do? I did smoke some lung darts in New York. That's good. I'm happy for you. Endorse. No, outdoors.

Outdoors, okay. No, I've still adhered to Mayor Mike Bloomberg's ban on all indoor smoking. You've been consulting with Bloomberg. Is that true? I heard as he looks at 2024 and what he wants to do. After seeing plane, I was like, I think there's a space for cheap, long distance international flights that allow smoking. And it's the ultimate zag for Bloomberg. After years of trying to get us to stop smoking is to be like, we're bringing it back. Speaking of consultation,

there is a consultant figure in this film. In fact, when the plane goes down and it cannot be located because the transponder has been blown out. The redeeming factor in this movie and why it's worth the point of entry. It's Tony Goldwyn halo jumping into this movie doing entirely Tony Gilroy dialogue.

It's pure crisis suite. Yeah. And he is extremely angry at everyone around him. They got him for two days. He was like, here's my motivation. Here's like, my character is pissed. And they're like, why? And he's like, shh.

And he comes in and he's just like, I've already hired mercenaries. I want to know how that works. So you're a fixer. You're a crisis guy, right? You're an elevated Michael Clayton figure. And that's what Tony Goldwyn plays in this movie. You have... Mercs.

Mercs on speed dial who can get their hands on half a million dollars in cash? Yeah. Like that. Also, the guy who owns the airline, who apparently runs a piece of shit airline where they're like we got to save 12 000 gallons of fuel is like i'll get you satellites i'll pay a half a million dollars for this private army to retake jolo island and rescue captain

brody torrence and his guys you haven't said whether you like this movie or not um i definitely like it more than you okay i i agree with your criticisms you're talking about paul ben victor the great character actor who's the owner of this airline the greek right or one of the greeks from the wire yes he was he was the greek monster from the wire he was uh vandis yeah um i think that we need movies like this and so i you know here's what happened you saw the film before i did i wish i could have gone with you it didn't work out you you reviewed the film on letterbox i read your review you noted in your review that you couldn't get your hands on a bud light i lost my wallet a week and a half ago i lost that you left it in the possession of someone you paid for their

services to what like how did you what happened tell us what happened i was using um like a really slim credit card full like holder like not like a wallet wallet yeah and i just dropped it somewhere do you remember when my chiropractor told me to stop sitting on my wallet and then my back got better i know but now i always know where my wallet is okay even though i've already taken it out of my pocket and left it on this table did you get your license back no it's coming. But like the point being is I went to this theater

and I was like, you know what would go make plane go down real well is an ice cold Bud Light. No free ads. And I walked up to the gentleman at the counter

and he was like, sir, do you have identification? And I was like, respectfully look at me. Did you say that? I was just like, can we level with each other here? Do I look like I did you say that I was just like can we level with each other here do I look like I'm 19 and he was just like I can't it's like a thing I have to like verify that you're you're you're of age have you since followed up and had that man fired yeah I actually bought regal cinemas and I'm driving it into the ground

uh so you couldn't get your hands on a bud light you noted this in your view I did which I think frankly more film criticism should feature details about the viewing experience. I think it has a huge amount to do with it. I'm also not entirely sure that this theater that I went to is actually a good cinematic experience. It's easy to get to and has good parking. Okay. But it's not, I don't know. I wouldn't be like, hey, Damien Chazelle,

like, what did you think of the way Babylon is being projected here? So I saw your review and I thought to myself, Chris had the right idea. This is a Bud Light movie. And that's a fair way

of describing it, you know? It goes down easy. It's uncomplicated, but it gets the job done. Gets you across the two-hour mark of the evening. Yeah, and like about 30 minutes in,

as the Bud Light releases the tension from your shoulders and this plane crashes into jolo island you're like i'm right where i need to be yeah but instead i had a a dasani oh god and i was just like yeah i was just like i guess i'm allowed to buy water at this place dasani is the jolo island i totally ungoverned and who knows what's just swimming around in there you know i know it's violence um so i read your review and i i went to the local i pick which i have not been to in years yeah so you eat chicken tenders and i had chicken and i had no i had a bud light in your honor okay i had a but i actually had two bud lights and i had chicken fajitas and i had a sour patch of watermelons. And I was like, plain rule. It doesn't rule. I thought it was good though. I

thought it was like what I wanted it to be. I do wish it had a little bit more of a sense of humor, but this is a challenging thing as we talk about this sub-genre. How funny is too funny? Like how far do you want to push the limits of credulity? And not that I believe that this was really happening, but I want to be invested in the characters and what they're doing. I think there's also just a critical factor here. Gerard Butler is just

great at this. He's so good. He's such a safe pair of hands as a movie star. I almost thought he was like it needed it honestly needed to

be directed by Rick Roman Wall who is Gerard Butler's Don Siegel and is the guy who directed or wrote Den of Thieves I believe. And then has directed

a bunch of that stuff. Obviously, Guttagest, our guy, directed Den of Thieves. But it felt like it needed a little bit of wink to it or a little bit of kind of self-awareness. And instead, this is actually

a pretty serious disaster and rescue action movie. It is. I think one of the great successes of in the film world in covid times was the film greenland yeah the the butler movie which rick roman won directed and that was a very serious disaster movie and played like like hard emotional strings and i think worked well in part because of the period of time when it was released and kind of people were prepared to have something a little bit weightier like that even in the face of uh um gerard butler's acting range sure um and i it felt

like a direct like follow-up to that in a way where it was sort of like this is the this is the speed he can play at it's not this Cop Shop. This isn't Den of Thieves. This isn't Big Nick, you know, chewing on gum and talking a lot of shit. It's a different kind of character. I thought that the Brody Torrance character was like charming enough. Well, you know what it was, is that in the trailer

and in the beginning of the action of this film, you wonder whether or not Brody Torrance is like actually like a secret assassin or something because he's been in the raf and you're like oh this guy's gonna be a fucking commando but then they show us what he really is which is just like a guy who knows how to put people in chokeholds because he dealt with air rage incidents before and i was like okay but like slowly choking out a jolo terrorist is different than like john wick you know yeah and's true. It operates in that middle ground.

Just as a follow-up to the Rick Romanois point you were making. They got another one coming, right? They got another one coming. Kandahar. Yeah. Which is about

an undercover CIA operative. This sounds like some spy shit. Yeah. Stuck in deep, hostile territory in Afghanistan. And it's Gerard Butler and Olivia Mae Barrett.

Don't know who that is. What is she doing in deep Afghanistan? She plays Ida Harris, British actress. Okay. Not familiar. Should be a banger. I think Plane is not as fun as I wanted it to be,

but also not as bad as it could have been. Yeah. And that is kind of sort of a hallmark here. Speaking of my letterbox, a lot of the homies really like Plane. They were mad. They were mad. They were mad at your review. They were just like,

damn, dog. Thought we knew you. You know, it's a time where these movies were dime a dozen 25 years ago, but now we got to appreciate what we got.

Literally that, because a lot of my movies from this list that we're going to do are from right around 05, 04, 06. Like, that was when we truly made things.

We put them up in the sky and we blew them up. It's ironic that we're having this conversation in the aftermath of Maverick's Best Picture nomination. But I think that tells us a lot that we've changed the way we view some of this stuff. I think... Are all movies prestige movies now? Well, that's definitely part of the conversation I want to have.

I feel like part of my challenge with Plane is that there was not enough time spent on the plane. I actually just wanted more Plane in my Plane movie. Yeah. Now we do part of my challenge with Plane is that there was not enough time spent on the plane. I actually just wanted more Plane in my Plane movie. Now, we do get some redemption on the Plane story as we get to the end of the film, but it's really only 30 minutes.

And then that plane is on the ground and then, as you say, it turns into this, you know, kind of riff on a raid-style fight movie. Yeah. And some of it works

and some of it doesn't, but... Had you ever heard of Jolo Island before? I had not, but then I did a little bit of digging myself and it seems like a pretty hostile place. What did you find? Just kind of surprised that there are still places

like that in the world, I guess. I mean, like I shouldn't be, but just like that you can have a unrecognized rebel pirate state in 2020. Yeah, with a history of murdering hostages. I mean, there's some really awful things that have happened in that space.

And the other thing too is in light of, say, Top Gun Maverick, which kind of depoliticizes itself by nature. This is a real place that they just put in this movie. They didn't make something up.

They could have just made up the name of a movie and othered that country and said, oh, it's so weird that they went to this place. But, you know, they made it real.

Yeah. So I guess, shout out to Jean-Francois Richer. Can we do one spoilerific bit about plane before we move on? Sure. If you don't want plane spoiled for you,

please fast forward a minute. I'll make this quick. How funny was it that like safety is like 50 feet away from them? Like they're in the air for like eight seconds. I thought that was pretty bad. I thought that was pretty tough.

And then when they get to the next place, it's full of emergency services and doctors yeah i was like wait a second this is just like a landing strip on a rural island how do they have like an orthopedic surgeon yeah that was confusing and also why could they just not send a rescue team from that island i know very confusing yeah we can't We can't assault Jolo, but if you guys can make it here, we have a suite of the finest Western medicine. That was definitely a flaw in the film.

The film has flaws, but most Sky Trash have flaws. I mean, these movies, by their nature, are not... Well, I'll just say, here's something that occurred to me as I was thinking about this kind of movie. Top Gun to me is pure sky trash.

It is a movie that is made to tantalize and titillate audiences. It is thin on story. It is high on action. Characterization is minimal. Charisma is at a premium. High on jargon, low on reality. Yes. Top Gun Maverick is the opposite.

Now, it does feature all of those things that I just mentioned but it also features this deep reservoir of feeling that it is channeling yeah and this relation this long relationship we have not just the characters but to the performers and to the idea of making a movie like that so there's a there's a distinction there Top Gun is not the first example of this I think I'm kind of curious if you think that this subgenre exists between the boundaries of movie history. To me, if you're talking broadly about our ongoing project of discovering garbage and trash cinema,

I think what you always need is for the subgenre to be reacting to something. So it has to have a more prestigious, i guess i don't want to use that high toned but like yeah a high toned other that it is now saying like this is the trashier version than that it's funny you should say top gun because one of the movies in my honorable mentions is iron eagle which is a movie that famously came out the same year as top gun and essentially has more or less the same plot i mean not, not exactly. It's a little bit more far-fetched where a bunch of teenagers from Bakersfield launch an attack against Libya to free one of their fathers from captivity. But that to me is the Sky Trash version of Top Gun.

So Top Gun by proxy is better than that. But definitely Top Gun Maverick is the prestigious version of Top Gun and Top Gun is trash to Maverick, if that makes sense. When we throw garbage and trash around here, it's with love. This is not diminution of the work that is done. It's also not necessarily an indicator to me of budget, because there can be very expensive movies that are garbage, and there can be very cheap movies that are high art even in genre yeah and so like i'm trying to figure out what the forebearers of this are because the point you

make about top gun and iron eagle at the same time is is astute but there's also this long history in fact like some of the most um kind of important and groundbreaking movies are are born in the sky you know like wings yeah one of the great films of the 1920s, is kind of sky trash. Like if you look at the outline of that story and the outline of the stories that you'll see 60, 70, 80 years later, it's not that far afield. And during World War II, we saw all Air Force and Fighter Squadron and all of these patriotic propagandistic films. If Howard Hawks wasn't directing it, it was probably sky trash.

Exactly. Even if Howard Hawks was directing it. Yes. And then even going into the 50s and 60s you get Flying Leathernecks, Bridges of Toko Ri. You get a lot of movies that use a lot of the

or sort of like building the formula that the movies that we'll talk about are going towards. It's a little hard to know without looking at contemporaneous reviews

how those movies were regarded because they weren't like pure celebrated purely as an artistic achievement they're they're popcorn movies but they also have this patina of specialness because they're made in black and white or they're made by filmmakers who made other great films or you know they have star performances that are not that are one level above the gerard butler's of the

world but there's no doubt that audiences and even if you think about like Howard Hughes and the aviator and the way that he saw flying as this kind of cinematic experience, like audiences want to be in the sky. Absolutely. 80s once you get into um the reagan era i think that there's a reflection in the movies of the possibility of hijacking and terrorism in the sky which leads to i would say probably eight out of the 10 movies that we've picked to talk about today yes it's some sort of like hijacking of a plane which is like clearly the thing that was like a preoccupation of americans for a really long time for good reason. Yeah. And I would say between the multiple versions of the Radon and Tebe story and D.B. Cooper. Yeah.

Those two things like activated a new, I don't want to say a new sense of creativity, but like got people thinking about what was possible in those kinds of stories. Now, in this conversation, like there's this, you know, big know big ugly aspect of it which is 9-11 is something that happened in the real world and so like i was thinking about the movies that uh i really liked in the 90s including some movies that are on my list and those feel like movies that you wouldn't dramatize the events in them anymore because of the kind of we talked about so much with die hard 2 it's just like first of all like not only like it it's hard to even explain to people who are maybe like 25 years old or younger, but like the relationship we have with airports is totally different,

right? Like you're the airport used to be like when my friends and I, before we could like even buy beer and stuff, but we had licenses. Sometimes we would like go to the airport to do what message, just mess around, walk around. Really?

You know how like there's that period right when you're like mobile, but right before you start partying really hard where it's like, I guess we'll go to the gas station or I guess we'll go to the mini golf course or I guess we'll just- Would you pick up chicks? What'd you do? No, but we would like get something to eat and then we would like do a lap around the airport and just like people watch and then we would take off. I've told this story before and everybody looks at me like I have a third head, so I guess it's not that common of an experience. Philadelphia airport was also not very difficult to get to. And you could just park.

And I don't even think they charged for parking. Well, you lived in a proper metro area. Like you grew up in one. And many people did. You can't go to LaGuardia. I can't. No, that would be a very painful way to spend some time getting Chick-fil-A. I don't know what I would do there.

But you're right, though, that now airports are these domes of security. Just to get into the doorway you have to show who you are and explain it and once upon a time when we were kids obviously there weren't quite malls but they weren't not malls they there was an openness with the terminal when you get off the plane or something like that you know like so that changed that the way that some of these stories are told and it certainly changed our relationship to this stuff it's interesting that i don't want to say these stories are coming back but i wonder if our attitudes are loosening just a little bit on this topic i think they are and i think also like

frankly our technological leaps and that we make in movie making every few years i think you get a crash plane to be like see what we can do yeah that's interesting um zemeckis kind of like threw down the gauntlet a few years ago. Planes crash is pretty good. I don't think it's like on the flight level at all, but all the stuff that's happening

inside the plane on plane is like pretty decent. I liked it. The shots outside of the plane were like not particularly convincing. Agree, a little cheap. This is a lower budget,

mid to low budget movie. And so there's only so much they can do. But the interior of the plane, I feel like is a critical part of some of this, whether it's inside a fighter jet or inside of a commercial airline. The prestige part is tricky because there are a couple of movies that I feel like are really on the fence. Yeah. But have a kind of cheesiness to them that I appreciate. Like Sully and Flight are the two that I'm thinking of in the last 10 years, where those are movies that have huge movie star lead parts,

are from extremely celebrated filmmakers, Clint Eastwood and Robert Zemeckis. I think were both fall releases and were pitched as prestigious. And as like Oscar, like Oscar bait for the main actors. And I still think Denzel got robbed. And in some case, like in some ways, they both do kind of accomplish what they set out to do. But there is also

something kind of like just genre, you know, just just like programmer about them, you know, where it's like it's a thrill ride. Yeah. And even though one is

based on a true story and one is about addiction and recovery, there's still like I hope this plane doesn't crash. Like that's the whole point of the movie. I mean, flight flight is

like the ultimate like that movie peaks in the first 19 minutes, and then you have to spend two hours watching Denzel Washington hungover. Except when Robert Zemeckis presses play on Feeling Alright by Jerry Cocker, and Denzel dives deep into the minibar. That's right. That's one of the funnier scenes.

Remember in Sully where they tried to make it like everybody was against Sully? Yeah, they adjourned some kangaroo court that never actually happened. That was a total fiction. remember in Sully where they like tried to make it like everybody was against Sully yeah they like adjourned some kangaroo court that never actually happened that was a total fiction

this dude was just like 100% approval rating for the second anyone heard of him and was on every talk show and people were

like this guy is a fucking hero my take on that is that Clint Eastwood went to one city council meeting when he was the

mayor of Carmel and everybody yelled at him and he was just like fuck this can't build a golf clubhouse in your backyard that will block my view of the ocean do Sully and Flight qualify as Sky Trash to you I think Flight does I don't think Sully does

interesting why do you say I would have gone the other way I would have flipped it too really so you think Sully is Sky Trash is that because of your views on uh the Captain Sullenberger no I think he's a hero and a great man. Are you sure? Why isn't he answering simple questions? Remember Aaron Eckhart's performance in that film? Yeah. When he was just a dutiful friend and colleague? Yeah.

That was all he did. There was no color or shade. Who was the person who prosecuted Sully, though? Wasn't it a really good performer? Because it's Melissa Leo in Flight is going after... Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Was it Nick Sirianni? Yeah.

No? It's Nick Sirianni. I think Sully strained credibility by some of its kind of real life choices that it made it feel like more hyped up, more pumped up, more genre. Whereas Flight felt like more of a character study with a couple of really, you know, big set piece moments. Yeah, there's something about like how addled Denzel is that makes it feel kind of like trashy, I guess.

The plane crash in Flight is one of the best sequences, air sequences ever shot. But then everything that happens after with like Kelly Riley and John Goodman doing that crazy accent. Everything Kelly Riley does

I think is excellent. Because John Goodman's like I'm like Cajun. Right? I can't remember. Yeah. Why don't He's like oh man

we Austin Butler. Oh mama. Mama I'm gonna crash this plane. Say I love you under the black box, Trevor. We're missing something with John Goodman coming in for eight minutes in a film like he did in The Gambler.

Remember when he came in in The Gambler with his shaved head? Remember he was in Hangover 3? Yeah, that was sick. Why did he stop doing that? Because he was doing The Conners? Yeah, I think so. Did The Conners get canceled? No, I think he has to work for like nine hours a week.

How many times have you guys recapped The Conners on the watch? You know, a lot. It's had an impact on our numbers. For the good. For the good, yeah. We're going to be leaving the ringer for Fox Nation. You'll be beginning the Connors-verse? In 100 meters, turn right.

Actually, no. Turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage, bacon, and egg. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage, bacon, and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm.

A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing, too. Ah. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax.

At participating McDonald's restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. So what about... I feel like movies that have incredible plane sequences, but that are primarily not set on planes, do not qualify. Yeah, so the number one thing, you wrote down a bunch,

the thing that jumped in my head immediately is one of the great plane crashes of all time is in Peter Weir's Fearless. Yes. Not Sky Trash. No, definitely not. Although entirely about the aftermath of a plane crash. A film that has a lot in common with flight, actually.

Yeah. In terms of like the trauma that comes in the aftermath or something like that. What do you make of it? How does somebody become a hero? What does that do to them? That kind of thing. What about Dark Knight Rises? I was hoping that Bobby could cut Aiden Gillen going,

Where's Bane? With Harrison Ford saying, Get off my plane! Get off my plane. Tell me about Bane! Why does he wear the mask? Do you think you're well suited to yelling on a plane that has had its doors blown off? You were asking recently what should we do as a watch-along.

I think we should do Dark Knight Rises. Oh my god. I think we should. Because of Bane. And just because... Bob is so in. Wow. You'd rather do that?

Perhaps he's wondering why you would shoot a man before pushing him out of a plane. Is this on HBO Max? Because if it is, I'll agree to do it right now. I want to say for the record, I do not like Dark Knight Rises. I do like the opening sequence set on the plane. I think that scene is really funny. It's really, really good.

It's really, really well executed, but also not being able to understand Tom Hardy. This guy didn't talk. Who's next? Really loyal for a hired gun! Do people love Dark Knight Rises? I know that they love the Batman films from Christopher Nolan. That's not what I'm asking.

Dark Knight Rises. I think that they love Bane. Yes. And Bane has now, like, eclipsed how nonsensical Dark Knight Rises is. It's like an all-time lost the plot movie. Oh my God. I have no idea

what's going on 35 minutes after it starts. It's so crazy. Like where they're like we have to like Christian Bale Morgan Freeman floods the building.

He's like in the pit all of a sudden with like 30 minutes left and he has to climb out of it and then somehow get back to Gotham. He's in like Afghanistan and then he gets back

to Pittsburgh. Isn't that from Batman Begins I thought? No. That's from that one to Gotham. He's in like Afghanistan and then he gets back to Pittsburgh. Isn't that from Batman Begins I thought? No. No. He's there both. He gets his back broken and then he gets

repaired. That's right. And then he learns to climb out of the hole and then as soon as he gets out of the hole he's like I'm back in Gotham. Wow.

Sean blocked that out because back pain reminds him too much of his past trauma. My trauma of sitting on my wallet. And remember when we saw the trailer for it

and it was like, this is the Bernie Batman. Like, this is about, like, class war. No, it was Occupy. Yeah. It's Occupy Wall Street. That was so crazy.

She was like, the storm is coming. Gosh, it was so hard. Were you into, what was her name? Talia al Ghul? Oh, Marion? Yeah.

Talk about sky trash. Marion's got some takes on airplanes. Unfortunately, and steel beams as well. Are you familiar with the cartoon Asterisk and Obelisk? Yeah. You want to talk about this? Do you know about the film? It's like the entire French film industry is writing on whether this movie is a success, right?

Yes. The name of the film is Asterisk and Obelisk. I used to read these comics when I was a child. The Middle Kingdom. I read them as well. And I stumbledisks I used to read these comics when I was a child. Colon the Middle Kingdom. I read them as well. And I stumbled upon this for some godforsaken reason on Twitter last night.

Here are the stars of the film. Guillaume Canet, huge movie star and filmmaker. Vincent Cassell, Marion Cotillard. They all star in

what looks like a fake movie. Yeah, when you look at pictures, it looks like the movie like Judd Apatow was making in that Netflix COVID movie that came out. It looks like a fake movie. Yeah, when you look at pictures, it looks like the movie like Judd Apatow was making in that Netflix COVID movie that came out.

It looks like a movie that Alan Partridge would make. It looks ridiculous. And they're just huge movie stars. But it's amazing because all of the articles about it are just like French film along the domain of artists

is making its big swing. And if Guillaume Kenne strikes out on this, we'll never get another French movie. They'll just stop. That's just a real shame for, I don't know, Claire Denis? Does Claire Denis have to retire if a Asterisk movie doesn't succeed?

What's Aidan Gillen's character's name? The CIA agent? What's his name? In Dark Knight Rises. We're going to save it for the pod territory. You're going to do all your material. DKR, I'll leave it. DKR, that's like,

is that movie like three hours long? Yeah. And Heinz Ward is in it? It's just also like hilarious to do to Amanda. She's going to be really mad. Bobby is excited though.

I'm glad you're into that one. You want to do that over like Elvis or, I don't know, what are we, Women Talking? Should we do Women Talking Watch Along? Oh my God. Oh my God. you're into that one. You want to do that over like Elvis or I don't know what are we women talking? Should we do

women talking watch along? Oh my God. Oh my God. The shadows betray you because they belong to me. Okay. I think Elvis would be less fun

than I think and less fun than people think it would be to watch. I agree. Because it's kind of just like visual audio garbage for a lot of it.

It just has to be a movie that people can actually watch along with us. And I can't- DKR, two hours and 45 minutes. Jesus Christ. Okay, let's go back. World War Z.

You were a huge World War Z guy. Yeah. I was not. I do think this movie has a sick plane sequence though. It's dope. Is it enough to get it into Sky Trash? It's not. Okay.

And I just want to clarify that this is the dumbest the corniest thing I've ever said. I'm a huge World War Z the book guy. Okay. That book rules. Is there a lot of plain action in that book? Do you know what it is, right? Yeah. Is it like a diary? No, it's an oral

history of the zombie wars. But it plays it so straight. Is this book written by Mel Brooks' son? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Max. Is that your guy? For writing World War Z is my guy.

Okay. That's cool. Yeah. Have you seen Hobbs and Shaw? Does that have a lot of aerial stuff? There's really good stuff with Jason Statham. Or they haven't gotten to space yet. They have.

They went to space in F9, which I did not enjoy. F10 coming very soon. Yeah. Not directed by Justin Lin. It's directed by Louis Letellier. Oh yeah, he's the Now You See Me guy. The Now You See Me guy. He was formerly the guy who made the first Hulk movie.

Let's do Now You See Me 2. Watch along. You know how many people have seen that? I get requests for that for the rewatchables all the time. It's really weird. Great, great, great

airplane sequence in Bridesmaids. Yeah. To me, that was when the Melissa McCarthy thing, I was like, oh, I see. Yeah. That's an amazingly funny person. And also, Wig, is she drunk or on Ambien? She's on like muscle relaxers or something.

Muscle relaxers, yeah. You take a muscle relaxer on a plane? That's the baseline of what I take on planes. What else do you take? Just a cocktail of... Yeah. I take Ozempic. What is that?

I have no idea what that is oh you haven't damn it they just did a plain english about it it's like the diabetes pill that people are taking to lose like 20 pounds immediately so you take 15 of those i take those so i don't need to eat yeah okay so that i when i arrive at my destination i'm looking real slim my best self right but you also you'll bring like a a Nalgene full of gin martini with you too, right? I just treat like airline travel as if it's like the interstellar flight where like time stops for me, but keeps going for everybody. It's been like that for years with you. Yeah, I just drink gin and take Ozempic on flights.

Okay, that seems healthy. You don't eat at all. No, I love, I actually really like airline food. What about Midnight Run? So there's one scene in Midnight Run. First of all,

Midnight Run, just great because like dudes are just doing lung darts in the plane. But second of all, there's one point when he just turns to Grodin and he's like,

why don't you get the steak and I'll get the lobster and we'll just do a little surf and turf. We've never shared a meal on a plane together. No. I'm not really good

at sharing food. I can't see you as a big airline food guy. In a pinch. Yeah. In a pinch, I'll get in there. I like snacks. I'm pleasantly surprised

when they're like, here's a veggie lasagna. I'm like, I wasn't even thinking of veggie lasagna, but here we go. I'm not really into hot food, but what I do like,

like on a plane, I don't like hot food. I'm not really into hot food, but what I do like, like on a plane, I don't eat hot food. I won't eat any hot food. All I do is eat astronaut powder. Well, when I'm in the sky, I'm like, how do microwaves work? Do they work in the same fashion? Because I feel like the food

tastes weird every time. So we're getting dangerously close into the gas oven debate. I don't want to talk about that. But can I tell you a true story? You took away the ovens? This is completely 1 million percent true. The day that that controversy took off on Twitter, I guess, and amongst, what, the far right?

How did that start? It was just like, you'll pry my gas stove out of my cold, dead hands. The day that that happened, my gas stove broke. And it is still broken. And the part that I need to fix it is in China and has not been sent to me yet. Why won't they get to the bottom of this? It's been two weeks, two plus weeks

since that started. Have you thought about going electric? I thought about flying to China with Brody Torrance so I could get that burner that I need. Great time for China trips. Twilight Zone,

the movie, you seen that movie? This is a controversial selection by you. Well, there's an entire sequence that is set on a plane. I'm not talking, of course, about the, you know, controversial and very tragic sequence that happened in the John Landis segment.

I mean, the George Miller segment, which with John Lithgow, that's, you know, the gremlin on the plane. It's, I mean, I often still look out on plane wings just to check. If there's a gremlin. Yeah. Have you encountered a gremlin in real life? No, but after Skinnamarink i'm starting to wonder like every once in a while and i'm like did i just see something i'm like did i just see something

i feel that the kids from skinnamarink should be cast in plane two they should be brody torrance's grandkids and then everybody on the plane has like ozempic fueled breakdowns and little children have to learn how to fly a plane that like who who says no? It's kind of amazing you haven't been hired in development at age 24. Plane to colon skinnamarink to colon the kids are flying the plane. I want to fly the plane. When do I get to go home soon? Did you see that bird? The lightning strike has caused total avionic failure.

Okay. has caused total avionic failure okay um what are some things that happen in these movies these like a pure a true blue sky trash movie how do you know you're watching it what are some things we should look out for well um if someone screams brace for impact obviously but i also love uh when pilots are put in impossible uh like situations and they're like we don't have a choice so it's like we can't you know if you jettison your fuel we won't have enough to make it back or like if you do this then this has to happen and i love when pilots are so pressed that they're just like i gotta do it you know like we don't have the landing gear fuck it let's go what is your version of that in your life? Like,

have you ever been put in a Sophie's choice? Oh, like of like, I just don't have a choice. I got to do it. You watch the Eagles game or episode five of the last of us. What am I going to do? There was,

there was, uh, the time where it was my wife's birthday, but Bill was like, come over and watch football. I have a special guest here for you. And I thought like Allen Iverson was going to be there

and it wasn't. Who was it? It was like World Wide West. Which was pretty cool but I was so like the way he said it was like only you will like get this and it's a secret

and it's special and I told my wife and she was like well you don't know it could be like fucking Steven Spielberg. Bruce Springsteen. Bill has been in the same house as Tom Cruise watching football. So I was like anything can happen and she was like well you don't know it could be like fucking Steven Spielberg. It could be Bruce Springsteen. Bill's been in the same house

as Tom Cruise watching football. So I was like anything could happen and she was like you can come back in a couple hours and still be with my birthday. She was cool with it. Remarkably. I can see it in your face that you're having a hard time processing that. She's not the most easy going person I've ever met.

Birthdays are tough. If it was my wife that would be no fly. But if you were like, guess what? David Fincher's at Bill's watching football. She'd be like, eat shit. That'd be a tough beat. I don't have a choice! Okay, that's a great one. What else? What else should we look out for? Gosh, so

I think losing countermeasures is often a signal that things are gone bad. I feel like I never really thought about countermeasures this much. But since Top Gun Maverick, it is such a quickly deployed, not to put too fine a pun on it, like plot trick in movies where it's like missiles raining down on a target and like deploy countermeasures and a couple of like firecrackers come out of the back of the plane and they totally escape annihilation yeah what are the i was watching one of the movies on my list and they kept referring to them as shrikes which are of course little birds but i

don't know is that is that a maybe it's just a term for what those things are um yes loss of countermeasures yeah basically and you just you located, which is there's really two classes of sky trash. There is, we're in the military and we're flying around a lot trying to blow people up. Yeah. And there's, I'm just trying to get this commercial airline on the ground safely. Do you have a preference of the two? Commercial jet. Why? Because I can put myself in that.

I think that commercial, I think, so the reason why these movies are so good in the first place is not dissimilar from submarines in that it's an enclosed space. It's inherent drama. There's tension because you're not really supposed to be that far underwater. You're not really supposed

to be that high in the sky. It's not like a natural thing to be doing for humans. And then you get people who obviously, as we've seen over the last few years in our society anyway, but like tensions run high

on airplanes somehow. It's funny to me because I am a very calm flyer. So I find it relatively enjoyable and kind of miraculous that I can just be in Los Angeles in the morning and then be in Philadelphia in the afternoon. I mean, all that gin and... It's a great weight loss time for me. But I've never really been like a jumpy flyer.

I had one bad experience recently that I think probably knocked me down from like a 90% flyer to like a 70% flyer. But for the most part, I'm really chill. And so I can watch these movies and like the worst shit possible can happen to commercial jets. And I'm like, damn, couldn't be me.

Are you so comfortable that you would watch one of these movies on a plane? Have I ever done that? I feel like I've done some weird shit. Because you're about to take a big journey to a new land. Well, you know what I always do? I'm always like, this is where I'm going to get. Either I'm going to just get my criterion out, or I'm going to watch all of Berlin Alexanderplatz,

or I'm going to get some serious work done and then I just watch fucking Interstellar well but I mean the Interstellar is kind of a interstellar sky trash you know yeah it's cosmic trash yeah uh so do I ever watch plane crash movies on a plane god that would be

kind of creepy if I was watching flight did they looked over and I was watching flight do you know if they disallow those films from being shown on airplanes? That's a great question. Anybody at the FAA listening, hit us up. Most places do not allow films like that. How do you know that? Is that true?

I know that because some of our podcasts are on Delta and they make sure to specify that there can be no references to plane crashes in the podcast. So this podcast is not going to be available on Delta. Of commercial airlines. I will not be silenced by the FAA.

God damn it. I'm not sure if this episode was really in the cards for our friends at Delta, but some of our narrative shows. Kevin McCarthy, do your job. Should we retitle it Top 7 Plane Crashes? It literally says no references to commercial

airplane crashes are allowed. Dag. So I wondered if they would be able to put Top Gun Maverick but that movie is just too much

of a smash. Top Gun Maverick is on planes. Yeah. It's everywhere on planes. I think the fighter jet movies are different from the commercial airplanes.

I think also there's something about watching Maverick where when you're on a plane and you watch Maverick like you want to salute the captain when you walk off the plane?

What's your, that's a great question. What's like, good flying. This is good for both of you. Like what, do you guys want to chat up

the captain? Do you have, what do you say when you're exiting the plane? I always say, I say some, I really kindly greet the flight attendants

on my way in. Let them know. So they treat you well. Yeah, but it's also just like we're in this together. You're not going to have any problems from me.

Do you have a little Jimmy Conway? Take care of him? That's right. Okay. You too. Don't you work? Do you salute the pilot

as you exit the plane, Bob? I pull my jacket open and show them my wings from my time at Top Gun. No, I just say thank you. Have a good day. You know what Bobby does? He goes up to them and he does the Don from Newsroom. He's like, I'd like to let you know that our

armed services tonight killed Osama Bin Laden. And then he salutes the guy. That episode doesn't formally qualify for Sky Trash, but we should probably do a watch along just of that episode. That's one of the finest hours of television. It's really great stuff.

It's my honor to inform you that tonight, our armed forces captured and killed Osama bin Laden. Bob, any final additions to what qualifies for a Sky Trash movie? No, but I think you have an important point here about Snakes on a Plane. Yeah, because when we announced we were going to do this, everybody was like, Snakes on a Plane, Snakes on a Plane. Snakes on a Plane, of course, was a viral phenomenon before it was a movie that was released in theaters.

The title itself does a lot of the work. I got to tell you, I took the bait. I went to go see the movie Snakes on a Plane in a movie theater. It wasn't very good. You know, it's funny that Sam Jackson actually said, you know, get these motherfucking snakes off my plane.

Yeah. But like, the dubbed version of that movie is the best dubbed version of all time. I'm sick of these monkey flying snakes on this Monday

through Friday plane. That's what plays on cable on TV. That is good. That's almost worth the price of admission. It's so good. But the movie itself,

you know, like, there's got to be some charm. We want more for each other. We're just going to, we're going to push a little harder than snakes on a plane we can do better as a movie making society

so we put together these lists truthfully all the movies on your list rock all the movies on my list rock these are just things we want to share

there's honorable mentions like I also tried to challenge myself to be a little creative here it's easy to put this list together with just like snakes on a plane

and passenger 57 or whatever but passenger 57 is is fun it's easy to put this list together with just like Snakes on a Plane and Passenger 57 or whatever but Passenger 57 is fun but not good to me that's like way more of like a Wesley Snipes

action movie than it is a plane movie even though it has like always been on black yes which is iconic yeah what's your number five?

I went with something a little more recent so little story 2018 I think my wife and I went with something a little more recent. So little story. 2018, I think my wife and I went to Seattle and then we visited the Orcas Islands, which Orcas Island, which is, you know, an island off of Seattle. To get there, my wife does not like flying and she especially doesn't like flying in small planes. So to get there on the way there, we drove from Seattle like 90 minutes and then took like an hour long ferry ride, which I don't think was the most efficient way of doing it when there is plane travel available to Orcas Island in Seattle. So I convinced her to take a plane back. I think it was like 60 bucks a ticket or something like that. And it's like a 35-minute flight. How many seats are in this plane? Like eight. My wife, who's very scared of, historically very scared of flying,

gets to sit in the cockpit, essentially, or in the co-pilot seat. And the reason that she does this is because she wants to study the pilot in case he has a stroke or heart attack and dies mid-air so that she can at least have some basic knowledge

of how to keep this plane airborne, I guess. I thought that this was ridiculous. And then in 2020, Alison Williams made a movie called Horizon Line where this happens. Now, in this movie Horizon Line, Alison Williams, this is post Get Out pre-Meghan. So right in that sweet spot. And Apex Mountain, if you will.

I don't want to interrupt you, but one thing I failed to recognize when we did our Oscar nominations podcast last week was that Alison Williams and Riz Ahmed read the nominations. And I just want to say that their performance was magnificent. Do you think that they should host? I would be perfectly fine with it. And my continued standing of Alison Williams

ever since the first time I saw her on Girls continues apace. She is great. Our culture is better because of her and yet i have not seen horizon line please continue so uh she plays she's she's going to a destination wedding uh she's a hard-charging corporate person but she's got uh you know she she had a vacation in this this island before she's coming back to the island for a destination wedding of her friend when she gets the island her ex-boyfriend, this guy she had a fling with, is there and he's like, I'm going to the wedding too. They get on a plane with

Keith David. What? Keith David is like the flight guy, but also like her instructor and her friend. And she's taken a few lessons but doesn't know that much about flying. Love it. Spoiler, Keith David fucking dies. How does he die? Heart attack mid-air midair love it and so now

Allison Williams the autopilot is damaged they've got to fly through a storm and they've got to figure out some place to get this plane down if she can learn how to fly meanwhile they're getting like running out of fuel there's lightning there's injuries there's all this stuff it's it's fucking ridiculous I think it might be on Shudder. I'm not sure, but it is super enjoyable and I'm glad we still make movies like this. I got to watch this. I was looking at it and I was like, what is this? What movie did he pick? What if your pilot died is something that I don't think we talk about. Would you step up? I've seen too many movies. I really do think I could. You could do it. I think that if I had a guy on my cans telling me what to do,

I could be like, oh yeah, right, throttle or flaps. I don't know. And the coolest shit that I would know what to do is like, if I had to fire an engine one, I'd know to cut engine one. Well, that's kind of how you host the watch, right? Kaya just tells you everything to say. That's right. It's really Kaya behind the watch.

Kaya is just like, no segue. What is it that Gerard Butler's character is doing in plane when they're landing? When he's like reverse what? Thrust. Reverse thrust. So like basically brake because they're landing on like a small street. I will not be volunteering to fly an airplane anytime soon. But would you rather die on an airplane?

Wouldn't you die? You know, here's something I've thought about before. Wouldn't it be amazing though if I did that and it was like actually autopilot worked and Chris took over? I was just thinking, if I'm going to die, like I want to be incinerated.

Like I don't want to like slowly go over four days because I've got a weak heart at 87. Like I want to burn up. Oh yeah, okay. I want to be in the newspaper. I want to be like this guy. He loved fucking movies and he died in a plane crash. In like the plane lingo though, would you rather have died in a plane

crash than been on Jolo Island? Oh wow. Well no because what if my pilot was Brody Torrance and what if they sent those mercenaries? What if your pilot is like, you know, it's like Captain Chris Ryan, Ozempic addict. No military training and we're not transporting a convicted french legionnaire killer that that um that that would

be problematic uh as much as i believe in you and i walk out and what's the dude from the the jolo island gang that greets them datu datu yes and i'm just like, you guys. What up? You guys like the watch? Fan duel credits for everybody. Sirianni? No? Yes? Million dollar picks? My number five is Flight of the Intruder.

I haven't seen this movie since I was a little kid. I picked it because I want to just give a shout out to John Milius, who is one of my favorite directors and who only directed a handful of films. He's well known for his screenwriting gifts, including his writing of Jeremiah Johnson and some work he did on films like Jaws and Apocalypse Now. This movie is incredibly weird because it is a Vietnam movie. It is set during the Vietnam War,

which some naval pilots are trying to bomb Hanoi. And the only way they can do that is by flying the A6, which is this very, it's sort of a pre-stealth bomber. And the flight of this plane is sort of critical to the story. And in the opening segment of the story, a co-pilot is killed by stray gunfire into one of the planes. And so Brad Anderson, who's the star of of the movie is sort of like on this quest to find a co-pilot to bomb Hanoi together.

Comes across Willem Dafoe who is going to join him on this flight. Right. That's all fine. That's the setup for the movie. There's some great flight sequences. The thing that is weird

about this movie is that it's like basically the movie cocktail. Like the tone of the movie is so goofy and like fun even though these guys are in NOM in 73.

Doesn't Danny Glover's character have like an Italian name? Camperinelli? Yeah. So shout out to Milius you know colorblind casting even in the early 90s. This is the last

I think the last feature film that he directed he did direct the 400 minute Rough Riders miniseries five years later. Oh yeah. Which is pretty good.

Teddy Roosevelt I think was Berenger Teddy Roosevelt? Yes. Which is pretty good. Teddy Roosevelt, I think, was Barringer Teddy Roosevelt? Yes. I think he was. He was. But he made some of my favorite movies of all time.

Big Wednesday, Conan the Barbarian. Awesome filmmaker. This movie is like kind of pretty schlocky with great flight sequences and perfectly... Here's how I was thinking

about this. This movie was released the same year as Nirvana's Never I was thinking about this. This movie was released the same year as Nirvana's Nevermind. Oh, yeah. Forever interlinked. And they just have nothing to do with each other.

You can't talk about Kurt Cobain's legacy without talking about Flight of the Intruder. But I love that our culture can happen in simultaneity like that. You know, like,

Flight of the Intruder is made by, like, a weird war-happy boomer who has no idea, like, what young people talk like, who has no idea even what young people who served talk like,

but he wanted to make a fantasy. All of his movies are these sort of masculine, macho fantasies, and they have a little bit of melancholy. They have dramatic stakes. They have a lot of specificity

in terms of how the action plays out, and this movie is at its best when they're up in the air or on the aircraft carrier but it feels like the end

of an era in a way to me it's like it's kind of the afterglow of Top Gun extending five or six years and then it's kind of over all the way up until almost now

like now is kind of when it's coming back it's like oh we've got like yeah there's like this, there's this basically like this revival after a few years after 9-11

where I think it would have been pretty tasteless. And then it's like 05-06. There's a few really cool plane movies and now we're getting back into it. Okay, what's your number four?

My number four is Stealth, which features Josh Lucas at a point when people were like, Josh Lucas is going to be the next Robert Redford.

What happened? I don't know, but now he's incredible in Ford vs. Ferrari. He is. He's quite good in that as just the bad guy. Yeah.

He's the American executive. He's like Lee Iacocca's sidekick who... No, he's Henry Ford's sidekick who keeps knocking Bernthal back a peg or two.

When you look at the complexion of the ringer, do you think I resemble the Lucas character? No. What do you think I resemble? You're fucking Swole Iacocca. You're like, I want to build a dream. No, you're Swole Iacocca. No, I'm Old Man Ferrari. I'm tinkering away, spending all my lira.

It's Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, and Jamie Foxx. And they play stealth bomber pilots, I think. You know, I think they're called like Talons or whatever, but they look like stealth bombers. But guess what, man? A little prescient. They're being phased out by an AI stealth bomber developed by Joe Morton and run.

This program is run by Sam Shepard, who wrote Fool for Love. Among other things. He's in fucking stealth. At one point in this movie, if I can spoil it, Jamie Foxx slow-mo flies a stealth bomber

into a mountain headfirst. And it is like, it's so amazing. His character death is incredible. There's also an entire subplot where Jessica Biel has to eject out

of a stealth bomber into North Korea. This movie with a different director would not be Sky Trash. Yeah. If Michael Mann made this movie.

Yeah, Rob Cohen made this. Rob Cohen, who's not good. Yeah. W.D. Richter wrote this movie. Yeah, he wrote Big Trouble in Little China. Big Trouble in Little China,

Buckaroo Banzai. Yeah. He wrote the Kaufman version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He's really one of the best screenwriters of the last 25 years.

The idea for this movie is super cool. He sold it in like, I think like 10 years before it got made or something like that. This movie is pretty stupid. I think we may have to do

a podcast of like, what's a good 2B movie? Yeah. And this is like on 2B and I was watching, so I was watching it for bits. I was like, oh, I'm going to go find like,

like what does the AI sound like? And you know, Josh Lucas at one point says, give me permission to kill it or I will make the decision myself. Like shit like that. But I was watching it and I was like,

I'm pretty entertained. That's the thing is all of these movies that we're talking about are at a baseline entertaining. The Tubi thing, you just, you ripped a bandaid off of something

like a wound that hasn't healed yet because here's what's happening. HBO, no, no, HBO, Showtime, you ripped a bandaid off of something, like a wound that hasn't healed yet. Because here's what's happening. Can't find news anywhere. No, no. HBO, Showtime, all these companies are sort of like removing these series from their streaming services. We're infringing a little bit on the watch territory. My apologies to Andy here. Go for it.

They're removing those shows and they're selling those shows to these services where they can generate advertising revenue and get new licensing fees. So now, Westworld, for example, will be going to Tubi and Roku so they can generate funds anew off of the home streaming service. Because what I always wanted with Westworld is to make it longer with some ads. It's like the perfect experience. But here's my concern.

If this becomes the new strategy for Tubi to scoop up these discarded properties, are they going to start discarding like Richard Lester's Juggernaut, which is the movie that I want to watch on Tubi? Or Rob Cohen's Stealth. Yes. I want that place to stay. This was never supposed to be like a zero-sum thing though.

Like these libraries, like theoretically should be relatively infinite right like i don't i don't understand i maybe i'm sure all of these movies basically come with a contracted like a term amount of time that they're going to be on any given service and then they're up for bidding again that's how you make your money anyway but it's not like 2b is like we don't have the bandwidth to support westworld and stealth. I just, I fear that our precious Sky Trash, among other programmer genres, is going to be pushed off.

We'll wrap up this, this whole chapter of our life. And you and I are doomed slash, it's our dream. We'll just open a video store. God, that'd be so great. And it'll be CR and Feni's sports and shrimp and videos.

Sounds good. Which actually sounds pretty illegal. Bud light on tap. You don't need your license. And weBCR and Feni's sports and shrimp and videos. Sounds good. Which actually sounds pretty illegal. Bud light on tap. You don't need your license. And we have stealth on loop. Yeah.

Just playing. Yeah. I'm not sure I'm up for that. Would you if you opened a video store would you have the little porn corner

like you got to have like a swing and saloon door that lets you enter the adult section. Yeah. But in there is only girl with a

dragon tattoo. It's just venture movies. That's good. My number four is a little movie called Executive Decision. Currently streaming on HBO Max. This comes to us from Joel Silver, producer extraordinaire who is really specialized in this kind of entertainment. Kurt Russell is the star

of this movie. He plays, I mean, I guess he's like a military man and an advisor to the president yeah there's a hijacking it's kind of your standard fare it felt like between 1995 and 2004 planes were just constantly being hijacked in films i do think it's a little bit of that db cooper after effect tom clancy it's just like tom clancy absolutely robert ludlum like those the big influence of those authors on our American films. This is,

it actually feels more like a modern movie because it's a little too long, takes itself a little too seriously, but also features John Leguizamo and Steven Seagal trying very hard to sell the story. It also features a B-2 stealth bomber attaching itself to a commercial plane

in order to stop a terrorist plot. Yeah. Just amazing stuff. My favorite parts of it are actually pre-flight when the plane is being hijacked and that sort of terrorist activity is underway. And Kurt Russell is at like a gala event and he's been called away from the gala event to a meeting in the Oval Office. Right.

And so he's still wearing his tuxedo and there's like a lot of stormy dialogue amongst unidentified politicians. A lot of Situation Room stuff. Yeah. Almost all of these movies feature a Situation Room. I feel like we could use more. Yeah. Like I don't,

Joe Morton is also in this film I want to let you know. Joe Morton. Also, Oliver Platt has a huge part in this movie as does Halle Berry who plays a stewardess. This won't be the last time

a really gifted actress in a sort of early stage of her career plays a stewardess on a movie like be the last time a really gifted actress in a sort of early stage of her career plays a stewardess on a movie like this. The last thing I want to say is I was watching the trailer to this movie last night

because I was like, how did they market this movie? How did they sell it to audiences? It's a twist, right? There's a twist. The thing that I loved about the trailer and that I miss,

and I feel like we used to be a proper country. Here's one way we were. You know, in the trailers in the 90s, we had voiceover. I don't know why we don't have voiceover in movie trailers anymore. We need to bring it back. Oh my God. Here's one way we were. You know, in the trailers in the 90s we had voiceover. I don't know why we don't have voiceover

in movie trailers anymore. We need to bring it back. Oh my God. Here's one reason why. They show the whole sequence of the movie. They set up the plot. They show Kurt Russell.

They show Steven Seagal in his military garb. They show the hijackers. They show Halle Berry serving a drink on the plane. Show John Leguizamo cracking wise. And then the voiceover says,

this summer, Warner Brothers invites you to fasten your seatbelts for executive decision. First of all, how genteel that the movie studio would invite us to come to the movies and have a rip-roaring time with Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal. What happened to that?

Why won't, like, David Zaslav, invite me to your movie? We should just bring the inner world guy back. There's no downside. Yeah. Would people scoff at that? No, because look at what they fucking say in trailers now, where every, it's like the title card is like,

the saga continues, the saga's conclusion, the birth of the origin of the story. You think TikTok movie guy could get that via work? Oh, yeah. That would be good. This weekend, you're invited to a destination wedding. But what happens when your pilot

dies of a heart attack? Hope you can fly. That would work. See you at VOD. So depressing. So depressing. All right, what's next for you? Incidentally,

this movie, Passenger 57 didn't make my list, but I did ask Bobby to clip something from the Passenger 57 trailer, which speaks to what you were just talking about, the voiceover. So maybe we can play that right now.

They finally captured the world's most dangerous hijacker. Now they're bringing him back for trial on a plane. I'm like, this is great. Okay, my number three is, this is going. Okay. My number three is, this is going to be an interesting conversation about procedure because this is Flight of the Phoenix from 2004 starring Dennis Quaid.

This film was written by Edward Burns of Brothers McMullen fame. This is a script that Joe Roth, I believe, or Tom Rothman bought off of him or like had him write. This is, I think it's a re- Was it a Fox 2000 production? It's a remake of a jimmy

stewart movie this is so they had brothers ever burns do this when brothers mcmullen was like about to come out and he's like i did like three passes on it and then fucking scott frank wrote the rest of it or rewrote it and scott frank obviously is queen's gambit and out of sight and and logan uh this movie is dennis quaidicky Fingers from Onyx, Tyrese, Miranda Otto, better known as the Horse Lady of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings movies. Let me interrupt you for a second. I saw a horror movie at Sundance this year starring Miranda Otto

and I was like, this is a CR movie if I've ever seen one. It's an Australian film. It's about kids who discover an embalmed hand that is possessed and if you shake hands with the embalmed hand, you see visions of the other side. Holy shit.

And do the kids go, I want to shake your hand. Skin and Meringue. No, it's called Talk to Me. You're going to enjoy it. Okay. I can't wait. Miranda Otto's great.

And this is just an era in American cinema when they were like, not really thinking about casting. They're like Hugh Laurie, Dennis Quaid, Tyrese, Sticky Fingers, and Miranda Otto. And then the cherry on top of the sundae is Giovanni Ribisi plays like an albino incel. They are all working for an oil company,

and they're on a transport plane that goes down in the Gobi Desert. And they're like, fuck, we're dead. But they're alive. But they're like, we're going to die. And Giovanni Ribisi is like, I know how to rebuild this plane. And so they rebuild this plane out of the parts of the plane that's crashed.

They build like a new plane while also facing drought, extreme heat, some like nomadic militias, and a lot of infighting, you know? And there's some great twists. This movie, though, takes place mostly on the ground. It's got a really good crash. I love a sandstorm crash.

But what do you think about allowing a mostly land-bound film into this Hall of Fame? I'm glad you asked. I'm going to come back to this. Okay. Because my number one is potentially a qualifier for this big concern. Because you have to think about do the

sequences in the air dictate the drama on the ground yes yeah and if they do maybe we allow it my number three is uh non-stop which is just straight up one of the best movies of the 2010s i just i can't say it any other way scoot is so good in this movie uh it is one of the most star-studded films of the last 10 years. Yeah. I'm going to read you the cast list for this film. Certainly, it stars Liam Neeson

at the height of his post-Taken run of man-alone hero thrillers. It also stars Julianne Moore, Academy Award-winning actress. The aforementioned Scoot McNary, one of our great character actors. It also features Michelle Dockery

at the height of her Downton Abbey fame. In addition to that, it features Lupita Inyango as a co-stewardess alongside Michelle Dockery. It also features Corey Stoll, just as House of Games was pumping. Also, Linus Roach,

the acclaimed British actor. Corey Hawkins, just a year before Straight Outta Compton. And Shea Whigham ugh this is from Yom Kolet Sarah this is a really good movie it's just a really good

thriller it's a in my opinion it is the best modern version of what we're talking about here which is it is a no more and no less movie

you watch the trailer you're like that looks exciting you sit down and watch the movie you're like that was exciting then you leave and you're like what should we do now should we get more watch the movie. You're like, that was exciting. Then you leave and you're like, what should we do now? Should we get more

Bud Light or should we go to sleep? Like it's uncomplicated, does its job, very entertaining. I didn't think about the future of air travel when I watched it. I didn't think about where Liam Neeson's personal life is. I was just like, entertain me, take me away on this journey. It has a couple of nice twists. One of the very few movies that I think has communicated texting well oh yeah to its audience it's like this and Zola

are the only two movies I've ever seen where texting was effectively communicated in a movie that would be an incredible film comment essay just hit me up

I'm happy to write it it's also you know Yom Koletzer is he's down bad right now like we got to celebrate him and get him back so he directed black adam okay so here's what he did from 2005 through 2018 here are the movies he made house of wax orphan unknown which is one of these neeson movies non-stop a neeson movie run all night and neeson movie all three that trilogy is awesome then the shallows which ruled yeah and then the commuter he re-teams with neeson for a pretty

good train version of this movie have we done we haven't done the train pod yet no um paris what's the eastward joint 1517 to paris not a fan of that movie um here are the three films he's made since then jungle cruise we just take a second and We need to talk about the fact that Clint was like, I'm getting those guys. Yeah. We're coming back to Clint, I promise you. He made Jungle Cruise and then Black Adam. And then next year he has a film called Carry On coming out.

Carry On. Is it also with The Rock? No, it's Taron Egerton. Okay. And Jason Bateman. Oh. And Logan Marshall Green. Interesting. Interesting. And Daniel Deadweiler. And Dean Norris. And Andrew Erasbro. and Jason Bateman and Logan Marshall Green and Daniel

Deadweiler and Dean Norris and Andrew Erasbro I think that Air Marshals are among the most underutilized characters that we've had in the last 20 years. I can really only think of two off the top of my head. One from Nonstop another from my number two movie

which is Flight Plan. Love it. Did you know that Flight Plan made $235 million? Did not know that. It is a Hitchcockian thriller set on an Airbus. Jodie Foster plays the designer of said Airbus. She is a single mother in mourning for her recently passed husband. She gets on this flight from Germany to America with her daughter. When she wakes up from a nap, her daughter is gone,

and nobody seems to have remembered the daughter boarding. They don't have any record of the daughter on the plane. There's no evidence of the daughter ever being there. They start to question Jodie Foster's sanity. Peter Sarsgaard plays the skeptical air marshal. Sean Bean plays the skeptical but somewhat heartfelt pilot captain. It is pretty great I wish this was like

a regular feature of movie theaters they gotta do more shit where they're like let's take this other kind of thriller like this sort of like

am I losing my mind thriller let's put it on a plane it's a great segue to my number two which is the exact same thing which is Red Eye which is the movie

from Wes Craven which is a sort of slasher conspiracy thriller that I think would pair quite nicely with Flight Plan. They came out in the same year, 2005. I don't know what that was speaking to. What do you think that was speaking to in our culture that we were like, am I being duped?

It's hard not to think about like where aviation was as an industry. So it's kind of recovered maybe from 2001 but now we are starting to have those anxieties that come out of like there's more security measures at the airports there's more kind of you you have like air marshals you're aware that the cockpit door is like fortified like all these things they don't think you really thought about before 2001 and now i wonder whether they bleed into the anxieties of these movies I think that's astute and the fear of danger on a plane lingers over these mid-2000s movies uh Red Eye is a movie

about it starts out like a me cute yeah it starts out like a rom-com and that's like a stalker movie basically yes right well it's even deeper than that Rachel McAdams uh plays a young woman who is running late for a flight and she arrives at the airport. And in fact, her flight is delayed. And she's like, shit, what am I going to do? Waiting online to figure out what's going to happen with her flight, she runs into Killian Murphy. And Killian Murphy is just a charming fellow. And they strike up a conversation and they learn that their flight's going to be delayed a few hours.

And so they both happen to meet each other again in the cafe in the airport. And they strike up a conversation here. Like, wow, this is fresh off the notebookachel mcadams is going to have a charming airplane romance yeah and then it turns out killian murphy um is a serious criminal and not only is he threatening her life but he is in contact with people who are threatening the life of her father okay and her father is a very important man and she must do things on this plane if she wants her father to survive and so it becomes kind of like a cat and mouse thriller on an airplane that also feels like it could at any minute turn into like a pure west craven like nightmare on elm street style horror movie right

incredibly effective movie hard to watch this movie now on your couch and have it do the same thing that it did in 2005 in a movie theater where you didn't know many of the beats at all. And we didn't even have a huge relationship

with these actors. Sort of like post-Scream, Wes Craven, that was really all you knew about it. I think I remember this movie coming out and being like a little bit like, this is a little intense for planes. I remember when this movie coming out and being like a little bit like, this is,

this is a little intense for planes. Like I remember when this movie came on, like not, not that I was like, uh, scandalized by it, but if I remember correctly, what years did this come out?

2005. 2005. So this would have been right around all those other, like this would have been around flight plan. But for some reason, this movie, I remember when I saw it in the theaters, I was like,

fuck, this is really unnerving. It's really, uh, killing Murphy is really menacing. Yeah. But you know, part of the appeal of it is it's, it's like, it's almost like Saw. They're trapped. They're stuck together on this plane. And if she freaks out and tries to communicate with the flight staff, they're going to kill her father. Yeah. So she has to go along with everything that he's saying. It's anyway, it's, it's really well-paced. It's really slick, it's really smart. Typical Wes Craven really good movie, Red Eye. What's your number one?

Air Force One. Now you may say, Chris, Air Force One stars Harrison Ford Gary Oldman and Glenn Close It's directed by Wolfgang Peterson who did Dust Boot. How could this be trash? And I would say to you respectfully watch the end of this movie

when the Secret Service agent who has been betraying the president crashes with the door open and you can see him go, as Air Force One crashes into the ocean. Because right before that, the president has ziplined from Air Force One onto another plane. That makes it trash. Do you, as a citizen of the United States, want your president to have sort of the silhouette of an action star? Do you like that there is something like, you know, part of the appeal of this movie was the ass kicking president. Yeah, it's get off my plane. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I would just go for anything sub 70 at this point. It doesn't, it doesn't even have to be in the, in great shape. Is that why you were calling for Trump to be cast in the predator sequel? The one set in native America, like native American times.

Yeah. Um, I think he would have been brought a lot to that part. Yeah. As predator. Yeah. Yeah. As the predator.

Um, I like air force one a lot. Yeah. We lost Wolfgang Peterson. He just made a lot of Predator. I like Air Force One a lot. Yeah. We lost Wolfgang Peterson. He just made a lot of bangers. One thing that is really cool about Air Force One that when you rewatch it, it's very apparent, is that he makes the interior of the plane

the size of the Houston Astrodome. There's just huge dining rooms on Air Force One. And it's really cool. He takes advantage of all of the nooks and crannies. You know, my dad and my stepmom were in town this past weekend. Did they take AF1 out? They did not. But we were having a discussion about this.

I don't even know why we were talking about this because we were not talking about my podcast. They could care less. But my stepmom said, one of my life's ambitions is to fly on Air Force One. And I swear to you, this of my life's ambitions is to fly on Air Force One. I swear to you, this is my reaction. Why?

Did she say it was because of a particular president? No. Just to know what it feels like? I guess it was to know what it feels like, but what's on that plane that is cool? I've always wanted to take a plane that has stairs. Remember they used to have double-decker planes? I do. I don't feel like they really rock those anymore.

No. Air Force One, it seems like it's more about the security of it. And as proven in Air Force One, the film, it has countermeasures. It's basically impenetrable to missiles. Like it's impregnable. Impregnable? Impregnable.

Yeah. But if you let Gary Oldman on your plane, you're fucked. That's what I learned from this movie. Also, there's an incredible scene in Air Force One. Do you remember this? When the F-16 pilots were doing security for AF-1, a bunch of MiGs are chasing them down, and the president's out of countermeasures.

He's out of little flares. And the F-16 guy's like, we've got you, Mr. President, and flies his plane into the missile. Would you sacrifice your life to save the president? For this president? Just for Harrison Ford. Oh, yeah, for Harrison Ford, for sure.

Yeah, because I got to see what happens in Indy 5. Well, I guess I wouldn't. You'd be giving up on that. But you would. Would you sacrifice your life for Hunter Biden? How do you know what happens um okay my number one is firefox i haven't watched this movie in a long time i watched it last night here's what firefox is firefox was released um the month that i was born it's uh sweet directed and produced by clint eastwood who's essentially your father. Who certainly has the stark outline

of certain masculine tendencies that my father exudes. This is what the movie is about. Mitchell Gant is a veteran American pilot who becomes involved in a top-secret mission to steal a high-tech Russian fighter plane known as Firefox. Covertly entering the Soviet Union,

Gant receives help from dissidents within the country, most notably a group of scientists who have been working on the plane. As Gant reaches his goal of heisting the aircraft, enemy pilots are quick to follow. So here's the thing about Firefox, both the movie and its installment in the Sky Trash Hall of Fame. The missiles and weapons on the plane are controlled by your mind. This is a techno thriller science fiction movie. And the only way for Clint Eastwood, who is his character in this film, Gant, is the son of a Russian woman, which is why he has been selected by the US

government to steal this super plane, is because he can speak Russian and not only that, he can think in Russian. If you do not think in the Russian language, the plane cannot read your thoughts to fire the missiles. But if you can,

you can fly this plane. The fight, so the first, this is a two hour and 20 minute film. The first hour and a half of this film is basically just Clint Eastwood

wandering around in the dark in Russia. And then it's like 50 minutes in the cockpit, right? But then he's in the cockpit for the whole third act. Yeah. And the critical sequences are him basically just closing his eyes and thinking in Russian. And then firing missiles. It's fucking amazing.

Can you tell me who wrote the screenplay for this film? Because this is one of those movies from the 80s where you'd be like, what a bunch of claptrap. And then it would be like written by Horton Foote. Well, it's based on a book by Craig Thomas, who wrote a lot of spy thrillers. The screen writers do not even have Wikipedia pages.

Alex Lasker and Wendell Wellman are the two screen writers. Wendell and Alex, get at us if you'd like to update us on your work. If you want to appear on the show, feel free. This was like a modest hit at the time. it's certainly in the post dirty harry pre you know in the line of fire bridges of madison county kind of revival certainly pre-unforgiven where clint is just making like one action movie a year and then

every other year he's making like a complicated drama that is interesting to him like a bronco billy style just like the best career i I mean, he had the coolest, yeah. His run in the 70s and 80s is fascinating. This movie is like kind of bad, but also perfect. Like, it's a real Cold War relic. It's a real KGB thriller actioner.

Every actor who's not Clint Eastwood is a British guy talking about science, which I just, I love as a character trait. And Clint, I think, has like maybe, maybe 30 lines of dialogue in the whole film. And it's an extremely long film. Do you think he only did one take of thinking in Russian? Without question.

Yeah. I mean, he literally looks like you trying to come up with a joke while watching me talk. Like, that's his performance. I'm translating my jokes from Russian. That's why sometimes I stutter. It's just pure, it's pure genre junk,

but it's very, very special. And it's directed by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. So, how do you feel about Sky Trash? I think we nailed everything, except we have to talk about the movie that may encapsulate Sky Trash the most that neither of us picked,

which is Die Hard 2. Yeah, okay. So,, which is Die Hard 2. Yeah, okay. So the problem with Die Hard 2 is that it is airport trash. Now, I personally wanted to have more plane action. You have the whole, you know, Holly McClain and Dick Thornburg stuff up in the air in Die Hard 2,

but almost all of it takes place you know in Dulles do you think that it's sky trash or do you think that it's too much airport spiritually it definitely is sky trash I think it definitely is

because one it features one of the most traumatic plane crashes of all time which we talked about in the rewatchables the cold mini one

yes that is deeply unsettling and amazingly rendered. That's another one. I had a whole list of things that I had never worried about before I saw a Sky Trash movie, and it was like bird strikes, avionics failure,

pilot heart attack, and radar saying that I'm 400 feet higher than I actually am. Right. I think there's enough anxiety in the sequences between Bonnie Bedelia and William Atherton that basically makes it

qualify yeah and also just the pure threat of more crashes I will say there's a movie coming out very soon that is not sky trash and is not set on a plane but the the fear of falling

planes is an aspect of the storytelling. And it's... Is it not going to cabin? I don't want to spoil it for the audience, but it's just amazingly rendered. Is it Killers of the Flower Moon? It is. That's why it's been taking so long.

Kelly Reichert's new movie, Showing Up. Is that the pottery one? No. Sky Trash is good. We didn't mention Turbulence as well, which I thought was good, and then I watched it and it was not good. It's Ray Liotta as a crazy psycho killer.

And Lauren Holly as the flight attendant. Flight attendant, yes. Passenger 57, Turbulence. Do you think Broken Arrow counts as Skytrash? I do not. Because it mostly takes place in national parks. That's true. That's true. That's true.

Although we do know that John Travolta loves to fly. We do. What do you think about, you know, I was thinking about Brad Anderson when I was watching Flight of the Intruder and he made his bones in Always, the Steven Spielberg film. Would you consider that sky trash? Well, it's a different, there's not enough action in it, right? Okay. But what about Richard Dreyfuss incinerating?

I guess that that counts as action. Okay. But it's more of a bummer than it is like Sky Trash. Where are we going next? We've been spies. We've been criminals.

We've been, we've been in space. In science fiction. I know where we're going. Where are we going? Subs. Oh, yeah. Wow.

Yeah, I love it. The deep sea? Bobby, what do you think? I think that sounds great, but I wanted to ask you guys before we wrap this up. I was thinking, I feel like there should be

an adaptation of Speed, but for planes. Right. So, a plane that has to keep... However, Speed was inspired by a television TV movie from 1966 called The Doomsday Flight,

which if it landed, it would explode. Intriguing. Let's bring that back. But I don't know, how do you refuel? I think that's the problem. Well, I mean, you yourself have witnessed some incredible achievements in these Sky Trash movies. A stealth bomber could attach its stealth to the top of a commercial flight

and refuel it right there. Executive decision was based on heart science, as I recall. I, man. So subs, what else could we do? Well,

river was something. I was listening to you guys talk about deliverance. Oh, yeah. And I was like, river movies is an untapped resource here. I like river movies.

Not ocean. Ocean is different. The river, being on the river, a lot of great stuff can happen there. I mean, Kevin Bacon alone could take up an hour of that conversation. I was also thinking of courtroom trash. Yeah, there's a lot of that.

Garbage law. Because I think Amanda could get involved there. Oh, I like that. That's fun. It would just be like, there's got to be like a nice like band of sub-firm, like sub-the-firm,

sub-A Few Good Men courtroom movies that kind of suck but are also awesome. Did you watch the film Where the Crawdads Sing? No, I didn't. Certainly some absolutely

terrible courtroom scenes. The movie that I was thinking of, the movie that I was thinking of that made me think of courtroom trash was Fracture, the 2007 film with Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins. One of my favorite movies. Yeah.

It's absolutely wonderful. Ryan Gosling needs to go back to making B-minus thrillers like Murder by Numbers and Fracture. He needs to stop being a cuck and go back to Place Beyond the Pines town. Well, that's a whole other subgenre, right? Is my daddy hurt my feelings? Yeah. Action thrillers? Trash dads.

Yeah. That's what this podcast is basically about. Trash dad sounds good. Thanks so much, Bobby, for your help here on this podcast. You're the producer of the show. CR, what else are you up to? You're going to be rooting for the Eagles? I will be rooting for the Eagles.

Can I do a plug for, what is this, an you, what else are you up to? You're going to be rooting for the Eagles. I will be rooting for the Eagles. Can I make a, can I do a plug for a, what is this? An hour, a hundred minutes into this podcast. I'm playing a live show. Oh, exciting.

In London with James Alcott. We're going to do Ringer UK. We're doing a bunch of shows over in King's Cross in London. You can find it on my Twitter account. Stadio, Righty's House, Flo Lloyd Hughes, me,

James Lawrence Alcott. Oh, that's wonderful. I love how you keep calling it playing a live show. Like, that's how you keep introducing it. Do you say, I'm doing a live show?

I mean, I like how you're doing it. I like how you're bringing the sort of 90s hardcore. I didn't say I was doing a podcast. I'm going to be playing Fusion Jazz. I was going to say,

it's like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer coming to London. This is great. Don't shy away from it. You're going to do the full Babylon soundtrack on trumpet, right?

Justin Hurwitz will be opening for you. Me and the elephant. If you enjoyed this podcast, I really appreciate you listening. Tune in later this week. M. Night Shyamalan will be joining me

on the podcast. You're doing big things for Philadelphia these days. Huge week for him as well. Knock at the Cabin is coming out soon and we'll see you on Friday.