The Rewatchables - ‘Total Recall’ With Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Jason Concepcion

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Jason Concepcion head to Mars to try to recall whether this week's episode, on 'Total Recall,’ starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, was reality or an implanted memory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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also brought to you by the ringer.com as well as the ringer podcast network where we're still trying to crank out all kinds of content, even though these are obviously crazy times. Hope everyone is staying safe out there, making the right decisions. Hope you are helping out different charities or whoever you can help if you can, if you have the means. And we're going to, as always, try to give a little more levity right now. Consider that a divorce. Total recall. Rewatch. We're coming up. Please fasten your seatbelt. This summer, welcome to Mars.

Let Arnold Schwarzenegger Quaid. You got a lot of nerves showing your face around here. Who's talking? Show you a side of Mars that no one on Earth has never seen before. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do you think this is the real quaid?

Total recall. It is. Redid R starts Friday, June 1st, theater near you. All right. We've been circling this one for a while. Jason Concepcion is here. Shea Serrano is here.

The 30th anniversary of Total Recall is coming. In a couple months, we couldn't wait. I think this is one of the best action movies of all time. This is just about as satisfied as I've ever been leaving a theater. This is one of those where it's like, my expectations are high. It was at the time the second most. expensive movie ever made, which is incredible. Arnold was at the peak of his

his box office powers, his superstar powers, everything powers. You go to this thing. It's incredible. You walk out happy. It's been going on for 30 years. Jason, your favorite thing about this movie? This is one of, I think, the best Arnold making sounds movie. He makes, he's like,

he's like, he's like, he's like making these wild sounds all the time. When he first has the freak out in recall and the people are trying to, are wrestling with him. Get, oh,

you! All those sounds. That's probably my favorite thing about the movie. Shea? My favorite thing about this movie is remember when Terminator came out and everybody fucking went crazy for the scene when he's like cutting

his cutting him to himself? Oh my God, this thing. Arnie has been one of the people who was not afraid to lean into the special effects part of it. And in this one, they just do so much wild shit. And he is 100% serious for all of it.

He's like, this is real. This is a real thing. I'm really taking this face off of my own face. I'm really pulling this fucking red orb out of my own. no, no, like he's just going for it in every single one. And I love that about it. I think he understands he's not the best actor. So he's just going to be as serious as possible in the most ridiculous situations that you

can put him in. And when you, when you have him doing that, there's nobody better. Let's talk about Arnold. I don't know if we've ever really dove into him on the rewatchables. And I'm happy to do it right now. I wrote, I did the Action Hero Championship belt for Grantland way back. And I wrote how the thing that I love the most about him, he found the perfect balance between kicking ass, but embracing his own inner self-parody. Yeah.

And that's a really hard thing to juggle. And I don't even, like when he made Terminator in 1984, I don't think he realized that he was unintentionally funny. No, by the time you get to Commando in 85, it's like, hey, do some of the stuff. with your voice and do some of the one-liners. People think this is great. Jason, do you, do you think Arnold was 100% end on the joke or like 50% in on the joke? I think he was, I think he was 100% in. I, it was, you know, I was familiar with Arnold's work as a movie star way before I then saw pumping iron, which is like the documentary that kind of put him on the map about like the Mr. Universe contest and just, and he is so.

funny in that? Like, hilarious in that. Yeah. He's genuinely funny in that. Like, making jokes type of funny. Yeah. Like, really, really roasting his fellow competitors, like absolutely brutally roasting Lou Farigno in a way that, like, almost feels mean. Like, he's hilarious in actual life. So I think he got it. He knew. I don't think, I don't think he got it until after Terminator came out. I think when Terminator came out in his head, he was like, I'm fucking crushing this. This is an Oscar performance. And then it came out.

And he saw what people responded to. And he was like, oh, okay, cool. I can't do this other thing, but I can do that. That was such a great, like, introduction for him because he's so good at sort of flattening out the emotional spectrum and just being a thing, just being a fucking hunk of meat. Because he's not very good at fighting. You watch this movie, and you realize, like, there are no karate scenes in here. He's just bigger and stronger than everything.

He's just fucking pushing people. for most of the movie. So he knew he wasn't good at that part of it and he knew he wasn't good at the acting part of it. He somehow figured out this weird gray space to just be better than everybody else at this one thing. So he makes Conan the Barbarian in 1982.

And that's how he enters Hollywood basically. He's this famous, famous, famous bodybuilder. He's a bit of a playboy. He's a guy who's at the Playboy Mansion. There's a lot of Arnold. I think he stepped in pretty liberally a lot of times over the years with some of Hollywood's finest ladies

ends up becoming a movie star and in 84 he makes Conan the Destroyer which is a truly terrible and hilarious movie Will Chamberlain. Is that the one with Will Chamberlain? Will Chamberlain.

He rides a horse in that movie. It's really bad. But then The Terminator happens the first time we see Arnold he's just buck naked walking on the street his fucking dick swayed. It's like, whoa, Arnold.

And he's great in that. But the, I'll be back was the seminal transition moment for him. Because once people started saying that coming out of that movie, it kind of, it moved to another level. And then Commando, a movie that's very near and dear to Shay's heart. That was when he kind of put the recipe. So he goes, Commando, he does raw deal, which wasn't great. Then it goes up another level.

He's got the running man. Red Heat Red Heat And then And then Twins Is where they go Also excellent

Yeah They're like You know Arnold You should do a comedy It's like Yeah I should do a comedy I would be funny

And it was great It was a really good movie And so he's at the peak of his powers And that leads to this movie Where the script Has been kicking around forever We'll go through

In Halfass Internet Research Some of the ways it fell through Arnold finally uses his clout to get it made. And it's kind of crazy. Like, he persuades this company called Carole Co to buy it for $3 million, the script. He negotiates a salary of $10 to $11 million, plus 15% of the profits, plus veto power over producer, director, screenplay, co-stars, and promotion. Wow. He's like, I'm in charge of everything. I will control all of this. And goes against Paul Verhoeven

because he had just done Robocop and Arnold loved that movie and had actually thought about being into it. And so this all happens and then the movie's super expensive. And there's a moment where it starts to get the bust you know, this is going to be at his box office

disaster kind of thing. And then it's the opposite. Did you guys see this in the theater? Are you old enough to have seen this in the theater? I didn't see it in the theater. This was like... I saw it on VHS. I didn't have that experience.

Yeah. I saw it on VHS as well. I rented in on VHS and watched it like as a sleepover event with a bunch of friends and we were just blown away by it. We ended up watching it like 60 times in a weekend. This was one of the movies where it was like my uncle, my cool uncle Brian who like showed me all the movies. He's like, you need to see this movie. There's a woman in it with three breasts. I was like, all right.

I was like fucking 10 years old or whatever. I guess I got to watch this movie now. And we just sat there and watched it. So it's the last movie of this era where they're doing things old school. Like they go to Mexico City. They're building sets for eight months. And they're doing the miniature sets that they film out. Like they're a real movie set.

And it's funny because he does this in 1990. But then Terminator 91, that's when movies change. The shit that they do in Terminator 2. It's like, what is going on? We can do this with a film. So I feel like total recall. like the last of this kind of pre-terminator 2 era, right? Yeah, like the rubber masks and like the the puppet of Arnold's head,

like the way they did in the original Terminator, like all that stuff. Even at the time, it kind of looked fake, but it was done to a level that we had never seen before at that point. Yeah, it was such a big swing that you couldn't deny it. You're just like, I get it. I get it. I can tell that's not.

him, but like, we're going, we're going to go with it. And the makeup, like, the, uh, the mutants are still really impressive. Like, some of the stuff they pulled off. Like, some of the guy with the hand, it looks like an axe wound. Um, though the cab driver pulls out his fucking moving hand. Quato. That was, that was Dean Norris, Hank from Breaking Bad. Yeah, that's Hank.

Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, the guy you're talking about the main, the main mutant. They, what's wild. about when I'm rewatching this movie is I realize they do a lot of talk about like the the different mutants in there and we really only see the three different types of mutants. We see the ones who have like the weird face disfigurations and then out of nowhere the arm guy and then Quato like growing off of the other person. I would like to see like 40 other types of mutants because I have to be.

Are those like is that like the three main ones? You're one of those three if you're. Well, don't sleep on the three boobs lady. I think that's the fourth bucket. And there had to be like a... She should have been the third bucket. Literally the third bucket. There had to be a two dicks, four balls guy that they probably cut out.

They were like, America's not ready for this. Double dick guy. Double dick. Yeah. We'll get to it when we talk about the movie, but when they get to Venusville, the movie really goes up like seven notches. It's like, what is that?

There's a sharper image. But then there's a mutant bar. Like, what is happening? Where are we? The cast is, it's got Sharon Stone. Yeah. Right before her career, she becomes an A plus lister with basic instinct, ironically with the same director, but not ironically because he saw her in total recall.

I was like, wow, we should build a crazy sex movie around this person will work. Ronnie Cox, just staple 80s, that guy who became Ronnie Cox. Do you, is he, is he Cohegan to you or is he Bogumill from the cop movies? If you had to go one or the other, where do you go with Ronnie Cox? He's Coahagan. Just because of the name, Coahagen. And he is, he does so many little things that are hilarious and over the top in this. Like when he invites them all to the, to the cocktail party, like towards the end after like

reaming everybody out and then he gets on his elevator with his guards and he just like puts his two fingers up and does this like little pointing gesture. He is so evil. He is the shit in this. He just goes for it. For me, he's the guy in Robocop, Dick Jones. That's like the one I go to first. Did you know that he's like a singer-songwriter?

What? When I was working at the-Ronding Cox? Yeah. I might have this mistaken. I feel like I don't, though. When I was working at the Houston Press, I was covering like different nightclubs. and I went to one nightclub, like a little indie type bar, and he was there performing, like playing a guitar and singing.

I'm almost certain that's true. I just went to his wiki, and he's in his picture, he's sitting there holding a guitar. So, yeah. Boom. That's him. That's my guy. You need a bad guy.

You need a bad, rich white guy in the 80s. You fucking, that's the first call you, man. Go get Ronnie Cox. Yeah, he's, if you look at his IMDB, he popped in a few of them. We also had Michael Ironside. Another classic. That guy from this era. I've never seen anybody go harder for the Vincent Hanna they knew award than he does in this movie.

He has seven, seven, eight different moments where he's just like, I'm dialing this up to 13. There are maybe like five or six people who when you see their face, you go like, oh, you're a bad guy. You're just a bad guy. Like fucking Chongli, just a bad guy. for all of your career. Like, imagine if Michael Ironside is your dad. And that's like the guy who walks into your room at night. He did play a good guy one time that I remember.

If you recall, if you recall the 80s miniseries V in which aliens, lizard aliens, disguised as humans come to Earth. And then the Earth like rises to rebel against him. Michael Ironside was like one of the leaders of the resistance, if I recall correct. But that's like literally the only. time that I remember that he was a good guy. I feel like him versus... He was a good guy and Starship Troopers too.

Oh, that's true. Yeah, yeah. My guy. Him versus Neil's dad in Dead Poets Society, who ended up being on that 70s show, another evil bald guy. They must have shown up at the same casting calls for like 15 straight years. They probably just rode there together. They were like burning magic, just going head to head.

For every title. Then Rachel Tickerton. Oh, yeah. Is that how we say your name? I thought it was Tiketian. Sure. I just called her Rache in my house. In the Serrano house, she's Auntie Rachel.

She's Tia Rachel. That's who she is. I texted you guys this as we were playing in the pod. Greatest half Puerto Rican, half Russian Jewish actress ever? Ever. You have her number one? Ever. She's number one on my pick.

She is also, so good in like everything that she's in. She's a man on fire. Oh my God, you're a man on fire. She's great a man on fire. That's actually, yeah. Like if you're putting together a string of three action movies that you're in and you can say I was in man on fire, con air and fucking total recall, that's an automatic.

That's an automatic seat at the at the table. What a run. A lot of good stuff. It's going to be her and then whenever Mero, from Dissus and Mero, whenever Mero's kids grow up and going to acting, they will then have a chance at being the greatest. But they're Dominican. Half Dominican. Have Dominican, half Jewish actors and actresses from the Bronx.

They have a shot, but right now it's great. Well, whenever they disgrace the original Total Reiki by doing their third remake of this, maybe they could go. We, we, let's just, let's just say this right now. Let's just get this over with. I like Colin Farrell. I support him. He was a fun podcast guest.

I was outraged that when they did the Total Recall remake, I don't feel like movies should be remade unless the original is either so dated or you have an opportunity to kind of remodel, refashion, modernize a movie that had a great idea, but then couldn't, you know, in 2000, whatever is just going to be better now. Them remaking total recall was inexplicable. this movie is still kind of perfect. I don't know why they did that. It made me angry. That's exactly what happens. This is 2012 and they're like, oh, somebody watched that movie and go, oh, we can do that, but with better effects now.

And then it just lost all of the charm. It just wasn't nearly as interesting. Well, Verhoeven really injected the whole thing with a real campy, like subversiveness, like the bright colors, the humor, the wild character design. He's not like trying to make it be like the. this gritty, you are on Mars watching the rebellion on Mars kind of movie. And I think that was, I think you're exactly right. Shea.

People saw it and were like, oh, we can make this more realistic. We can take out the camp and make it more of a gritty, like, war, psychological, sci-fi thriller movie. And it just kills like all the vibe. It takes out everything about what's fun about that movie. Yeah. It would be like if you took the scene in Kill Bill when Beatrix Kiddo slices everybody's arms off

and the blood is just spraying everywhere and you're like, we should do that but like turn it down a little bit. It's not as fun when you do that. That was the main problem with that one. There's only one actor if you're going to remake Total Recall, which nobody should ever do again. But to not go to Vin Diesel there

and just be like, at least he's going to give you some of the unintentional comedy that Arnold gave you, you know? Like there's only one choice. I love Vin Diesel desperately. I don't think he can pull this off. I don't think we've had an actor who could do what Arnold can do. Like, you try to picture the rock in this role,

and the rock is just, he can't quite get there. Yeah. I don't know. Well, one of my favorite things with Arnold, well, two things actually, that I just think nobody has been able to really replicate. One, when he tries to be funny and he knows he's being funny, but it's somehow, it's funny two different ways.

It actually is funny, but then it's funny that he knows he's trying to be funny. And then, and when Arnold tries to act, when he's really like trying to act, it's just wonderful. It's spectacular. Like even him trapped in the chair, like going, oh! This is actually some of my favorite Arnold acting, like legitimately ever. He, when he first arrives at Venusville on Mars and then the mutant little girl comes up to him and is like, can I tell your future? And then he...

He rubs her face. He rubs her face. He becomes this like really warm and charming guy and you immediately through his reaction to her like, oh, that's the side I need to be on in this movie. He's the mutants who are being oppressed. He's like, he crushes it in this. He sells it. Like when Sharon Stone is like, you know, it was still fun, Doug, even though it was all

implanted memories. Like, some of it was still funny. He was like, oh, I think. He's like, he's really got to. some nice quiet moments in this. Yeah, he's, even when Sharon Stone turns on him the first time in his reaction, it seems authentic. Lori.

What do you, Lori, what are you doing? Like, he's, like, genuinely hurt by it. He wasn't expecting her to do that, like, in real life. He was like, wait a minute. What's going on here? I love, I really, really love that scene so much because they get in, like, a real fight, like an actual fight. Yeah.

She fucking. slices him across the chest with a kitchen knife, and then 15 seconds later, they're just sitting there talking. She's like, my bad. It's just part of the job. You get it. You get it.

I love, Shea looks like he's filming a Nike video for like some seminar for billionaires. I love the background of Shea. As soon as I sat down and I saw you all with your, you've got like he's very professional setups, and I'm just holding mine like a fucking open mic comedian. It's like open mic to do to recall. I need a stand.

So the film was loosely based on Philip K. Dick's short story, we can remember it for wholesale, which got knocked around Hollywood for years and years. The budget was somewhere between 50 and 65 million, which it made it was second most expensive movie at the time, 1990. Can you guess what the number one most expensive movie was ever in 1990? The answer shocked me. You won't guess it.

It's Rambo 2. What? Rambo 2? Part 2. There's no way that's true. There's no way that's true. Until 1991 Terminator 2 became the most expensive. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. A lot of stuff blowing up. Somebody got rich off of that. Somebody been embezzling money of that production. My only thought was maybe they paid Sly like $30 million back then to do it. I don't know. The movie made 261 plus million worldwide, which is a crazy number for 1990. I don't even know what that is now. Our guy Roger Ebert coming off a career ending loss on the Tommy Boy podcast, he gave it one out of four stars and put it on its most hated list. It's been tough.

Raj, coming back strong here, three and a half stars. Adaway Raj. The total recall. Out of way, Raj. Good comeback. He said it was one of the most complex and visually interesting science fiction movies in a long time and argued that it demonstrated Schwarzenegger's talent as an actor by showing more confusion and vulnerability. Yes, I got previous roles. I 100% agree. Jason, give us the science fiction grade for this movie from you. You've been known to dive into the science fiction realm from time to time.

How good, how accurate, how groundbreaking? Well, to me, the whole thing with genre, especially sci-fi, is like, does the setting, Mars, memory wipes, memory implantation, does the, like, the tech and the setting and the, and the, and the, and the, 2004 earth context overpower the story? And it really doesn't. Like, I think they really do a good job of making it about. this character, Doug Quaid, who is caught in a really confusing situation, thought he was a construction worker. Turns out he's like a spy who switched sides. I think it's really well done.

I'd give it a, I'd give it a eight out of ten on the sci-fi scale. I mean, that's part of the reason why that's part of the reason why the, you know, the effects are campy and you can tell they're fake and all that stuff, but it doesn't really matter because it's about Arnold and his acting performance and about the characters that he's involved in. I think that's a trait that all of the very best science fiction movies have is like, in the worst science fiction movies, they're doing weird stuff just to do weird stuff. 100%. And in the very best ones, everything serves a purpose.

There's a reason that we have this weird thing right here at this one weird moment. Like, it all fits together. And it just is, it's super entertaining to watch. We're going to take a break and then we're doing the categories. Hey, we all love escaping reality and right now we need it more than ever. Good thing. There's a new incredible way to escape and be entertained. Quibi, a new premium streaming service designed for your phone with movie quality shows

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Download the Quibi app now to enjoy a free 90-day trial. All right. I have a lot of categories. I didn't even really know how to handle most rewatchable scene. Just a lot of candidates. And if I'm going to rip through them. And then if I left anything out, you can throw them at me. First one, Arnold goes to recall. He just on a whim. He's like, hey, you don't be fun. What should I do in my lunch break? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to have a vacation, a vacation Save the World experience, planted in my brain. And then I'll go back to work. I like when he when he picks his female to accompany him on the journey and he's starting to get he's like hetero

athletic slim athletic voluptuous athletic demure aggressive aggressive

sleazy be honest sleazy just great sleepy Arnold then he freaks out in the chair. It looks like we've got another it looks like we've got another

schizoid embolism. I don't even know what that means. You blew my cover! You blew my cover! He dials it up to 19 other levels and I'm going to throw that scene combined with when he gets into Johnny Cab and then gets in the airport fight.

I feel like that's all one giant scene when he runs into the old fat guy from the construction site. and all of a sudden the four guys are jumping him and he's got to kill him. So anything else from that scene? Just you bringing that up. There's really like, I was reminded of the fugitive in the way, like, especially like the middle act of this movie is just absolutely balls to the wall never stops. Once he's on the run after recall, it's like scene after scene after escape after escape after fight after.

It's just like constant action. It's great. Shea, any other thoughts before we move on? The main thing I like about that one is tied to what Jason is saying. It sets in motion, all the stuff that's going to happen immediately afterward. And at that moment, you feel like you have an understanding of what's going to happen in the movie. And then it just fucking goes in the complete opposite direction you're expecting. And not only that, but it goes in the complete opposite direction you're expecting.

And when you get there, everything makes. perfect sense. I had not rewatched this movie in its totality. In probably 10 or 15 years, I sat down and rewatched it last night and I couldn't I couldn't quite remember exactly how everything played out, so it felt like I was watching it for the first time again. And then when you get the

reveal that Arnold actually was the bad guy, and I was like, oh, fuck, what the fuck is going? This is fucking incredible. I wanted to bring everybody, my family, to come sit down and watch it with me again. It's fucking fantastic. Also, Arnold, almost

like, you know, Eddie Murphy and the nutty professor playing different characters. Arnold doing the arrogant, arrogant guy from the past character. He's got that little smirk on his face. Now that you've found my thing. Next one. Arnold goes back home and Sharon Stone realizes that he knows. And they have an awesome fight scene. There's some good research in this on she realized that this, you know, she was somebody

that had kind of bounced around in Hollywood for. eight, nine years there. The first time I saw her was a movie called A Reconcilable Differences, which is a Mount Rushmore divorce movie for the child of divorce kids like myself. Ryan O'Neill and Drew Barrymore. So she's on the map. She's in the adventures of Alan Quartermain, whatever that movie was called. Then Action Jackson.

It really feels like it might happen. She's in there. Classic. But then total recall she knew was going to be. Arnold's the biggest star in the world. This is going to be her movie. And there's all this research. She got in like amazing shape,

learned jiu-jitsu and all this stuff. So when they do this fight scene, there's a reason it looks like she could kick Arnold's ass. I think she could have. Because as She put it out, Arnold can't fight. He's just kind of like brute strength. That's it.

Well, the thing was, that was kind of the style in the 80s. Like, we're so used to like the, the kind of bornification of action. action movies now and the John Wickification of like action movies now that we forget that in the 80s it was all about being huge. It was like Stallone and Schwarzenegger and John Claude Van Dam, you're supposed to be big and you just kind of like overpowered people. Like there's all these scenes in all of Arnold's movies, but especially in this one where Arnold just like breaks through restraints. Like he's strapped down but then just like pulls his huge steel restraints.

Straints like out of their housings and just like because he's just huge and strong. So I think that was kind of the style. And then that's the best fight scene in the movie because she comes at him like with a whole technical angle and her stance and everything. She really seemed like she knew how to fight. Yeah. It's like a king cobra versus a grizzly bear in this and this thing. Between during the 80s, Arnold and Stallone, between the two of them, they put out 19 different

action movies. And that was really them putting their stance. on like what an action hero needs to look like and sound like and feel like. We saw Tupac do the same thing when he got out of prison and he became like the version of a gangster rapper that became what a gangster rapper is. Like that's what they did in the 80s. And I don't know. You just watch it and it's fucking, I don't know.

I'm just going to keep saying how much fun it is to watch. That's all that it is. You know who might have advanced it even before Sharon Stone a year earlier? A guy very near and dear to our hearts, Mr. Patrick Swee. crazy in Roadhouse. Because that was the first action movie where it wasn't brute strength.

And you could even, if you want to get super technical, it's like the center position in the NBA in like the 90s. Where Arnold, Arnold and Sly was just like low post game, brute force. Like Arnold was like Shaq. I'm just going to do a drop step and try to dunk on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the John Wick era, it's like I'm moving out to the three point line. I'm spreading the floor. I'm giving you different looks. I'm going to play with more pace. And John Wick has no correlation of this movie. When you watch this one, did you feel like, I felt the same way when I watched Speed and you saw Sandra Bullock. And you go like, oh, that's clearly a superstar.

And when Sharon Stone shows up on the screen and she's just everything about her has so much gravity, and you're like, oh, I get it. You have to be a superstar now. It's weird, though. I'm telling you, she had that the whole decade. And this was the first movie that really hit it. And she, coming out of this movie, she was a star. Like, there were stuff written about her, what's next for her.

And it led to the basic instinct thing. We're going to get to Deanne Waiters in a second. She's only in three scenes. And it feels like she's in the whole movie. Each scene, she is just doing 90 different things. And, you know, just incredible job by her. Um, next scene, Arnold arrives in Venusville. Oh, man.

A couple of the, uh, couple of the places there, you could eat or drink. You could, you could drink at the Sleez Bar. You can have lunch at Marsburger. Uh, you can stay at the mutant hotel. That was another one. And then randomly just there's a sharper image and jack in the box and there's Pepsi advertising. I'm not really not sure what was going on in Venusville. Shay, why was Pepsi even advertising in Venusville?

What were they trying to get there? There's always one fast food restaurant that survives through time. Again, Demolition Manor was Taco Bell. And she's like, oh, I get like over here is fucking Pepsi and Jack in the Box. You have to have one. I read a story the other day about like they're sneaking KFC in the Eastern European countries, like through some underground tunnel. You always have one.

It was filmed in Mexico. Mexico subway station, which they refashioned. Apparently, there was some Mexico subs. I forget the name of the city. Jason, was this basically Venusville and the mutant, the sleaze bar? Is this one of Stefan's bars from S&L when he would talk about? There's some great stuff going out of the mutant bar. It's got everything.

Mutants with heads that look like vaginas. Women with three breasts. Three boob, ladies. Children who can reach your fortune. I would watch, and maybe we should just do this on the ringer, I would watch like a 20-minute video of people freeze-framing the different parts of Venusville because it's so much so fast you can't even. It's like basically Disneyland for mutants.

But yet there's also like brothel and there's drugs and it's just a lot going on. Yeah. And they don't explain any of it. They just drop it. you in. Like, good luck. Let me pitch this right now, right? Ten episode season series, Venusville, it's cheers meets total recall. So it's just like the bar and the, and the neighborhood in Venusville and all the characters. And you just live with them. We'll make it like a half hour sitcom. And it's just the aliens and the mutants, rather,

and the humans trying to make their way in a tough situation where error is being sold to them and they're living under cheap domes. I mean, that was the total recall remake that should have happened. Instead of just remake in the movie. That's basically what they did with the Karate Kid franchise

with Cobra Kai, where they were just like, let's take something that already existed and create something new out of it. Venusville, if that was like, like if you saw, hey, tonight on Netflix, Venusville premieres. It's the spinoff of Total Recall at the mutant bar.

I'm like, what? What does that start? Next one. Next rewatchable scene. The bald creepy guy from recall coming back to visit Arnold on Mars with Sharon Stone

trying to convince him that this has been all dream all along. Were you convinced? Did he convince you? Was he able to get to you? I still have questions. Let's save that for the end of the movie.

Yeah, save that for the end of the movie. Or the end of the podcast. Because I think I have a lot of thoughts on that. The sweat drop is iconic from this. It's iconic. And Arnold's like makes that confused Arnold's face and he's like, well. And then he realizes what's going on. Now you did it.

And then Sharon Stone kicks his ass again. She kicks Arnold's ass twice in this movie. And it seems legitimate. it. And then we have we have Stone versus Richard Tickettin which Verhoeven says in the DVD commentary apparently

which I did not watch that he believes it was the first time ever in a feature film where two women had an actual fight versus just like a cat fight like they would have on dynasty. This is like an actual like real fight that's fun to watch that has you know we just did Fast 7 with Letty fighting Ronda Rousey

Like, this is the Jackie Robinson of awesome female fights. And then it ends with Consider a divorce. Incredible line, too, from Ticketon, which gets overlooked. Is that your wife? That was your wife. You're right, right. Rachel was there. They do the whole, this person walks so that person could run.

Rachel walks so Michelle Rodriguez could run. I really respect. Oh, yeah. Rachel, like, there you go. Yeah. And then it has the ender with that, Consider That a divorce, which brought the house down if you're in the theater. We're married.

Consider that a divorce. This is a phenomenal seven minutes. It's really like everything about that guy who's only in one scene, the sweat drop guy, Arnold trying to read the situation. It moves a couple different times. You have the second fight after the first fight. It's really good. Next one, Cuado, which... No, thanks.

I just I just wanted to point out like how unbelievable this was in 1990. Yeah, it was like, still unbelievable now. You were not ready for it.

It looks real. It looks real. First of all, the guy turns around. You're like, is that, is he jerking off? That's what I thought. What's happening right now? For the record,

I was not thinking, is this guy jerking off when I watch the movie? Well, he turns around. He starts like pulsating. It's like, what does this guy doing? I remember thinking like, wait, what is, what is? I think I saw this around the time that I saw Silence of the Lambs.

So the Miggs thing was kind of still in my head. And I was like, oh, my, I was like, wait, is it happening again? What's happening? Right. He must wet Miggs. Great special effects. Yeah. This was the part of the movie where you just were like, all right, I'm going to stop

trying to guess at what's going to happen because I have no idea anymore at all. It's so hard to watch. Watch now the little guy is just so ugly and slimy for some reason, and he talks weird. You are what you do. A man is defined by his action, not his memory. And the, like, the puppetry or whatever that is, it's like, it's a lot. It's a lot. Marshall Bell, the actor who plays George, also did the voice of Guado, which is a wild, yeah.

I hope he got paid twice for that. Double threat. It's so hard. Listen, whenever we do one of these rewatchables or whatever we're talking about movies, I always will have this urge to bring my kids in to watch the movies as well. Like when John Wick, we're talking about John Wick and I was like, oh, I brought the twins in, they're 10 or 9 or something. And I'm like, we're going to watch this movie.

I knew what it was. I know I was going to watch 47 people get shot in the head. And I'm like, yeah, come with me, nine-year-olds. But when we said we were doing this one, and I remember the Quado scene, I was like, nobody can watch this. I'm not going to allow you to see this because it's too disturbing. I don't think you need to see this at your age right now. And they're almost teenagers now.

I'm stunned that 30 years ago they were able to make that look that realistic without CGI. Apparently they had like a bunch of puppet people and it was like a whole thing. But you watch it now and you're like, how the fuck did they do this? Now they would just CGI it. I don't think it works if it's CGI either. There's just something about like the text. of the situation that there's a there's like a slimyness there's a sliminess to him like a

greasiness that meat that is part of the way you react to that character is how slimy it looks and how like the light actually plays across the texture of the skin of it it is yeah weird to look at it is gross when you rewatch it now and you see the guy walking around and they're shooting just a lot of them from like here up yeah and a couple of times you see like far away shot And he clearly fucking gets big like an umbrella at the bottom of him. I mean, like, oh, my theory is it was, the look of him was like influenced by garbage pale kids. This is just my theory. Yeah.

That's a good theory. I buy into that theory. I throw it in rewatchable scenes only because I just can't believe they pulled off that entire, like, four minutes that they had the technology in 1990. Andy. And do they, is that an official Siamese twin situation? What's going on there? Yeah, I don't know. It's very tough to figure out like what it is. Like what, what's the head doing? What's the head doing during the third of the day? Like just at like three o'clock. Like they don't need, they don't need Cuato. Like is he just hanging out? Is he napping? What is he doing? Yeah. Like is he always there? And then he does he emerge? Is he just like kind of. unconscious, like the way that George goes unconscious when Cuado comes out?

Like, what, how? Yeah, I think he's like in a state of comatose whenever he's not needed. And then he sort of presses his way out each time. That's what I think, that's what I think the guy was doing when he was turned around making the noises. I think he was letting him out. So he, so Cuaddo's in a coma.

But then when the guy needs him, he does the whole thing. He has to turn around and basically gives birth to him every time. He's summoned. He passes out. He's out as Quado's kind of taken over. So it's almost like bipolar crossed with Siamese or schizophrenic crossed with Siamese twins? There's a lot.

There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. Great idea. The last one, the final fight sequence to the ending. I just think it's hard to separate any of this where you have the guy, the cab driver who all of a sudden turns into the bad guy. He's got a tank. He's trying to kill them. Arnold kills him with the scrooge.

Travis, screw you, yeah. And then he takes on 25 people at the same time. All of a sudden he has hologram access. Yeah. Puts the hologram in the middle. Not sure where that came from. Kills another 25. That was in the thing. The suitcase. The suitcase. He got it earlier. When he pulls a thing.

So, yeah. So again, total recall ahead of its time. Seeing the future with like the Tupac hologram, all the stuff. Then the see-you-at-the-party, Rickda. Ronnie Cox, the bulging eyes death, one of the best bulging eye deaths ever. And then Arnold somehow surviving and that whole thing. I feel like that's all one scene, right? We can't like really separate

that. Anything else we left out before we pick most rewatchable? Any other scene? This is not my pick, but this is a scene I think you have to include because this is the one scene that I would pick to show somebody what we're dealing with if we're talking about the total recall. I think you have to have the custom scene when Arnold is dressed up as the woman and he's standing there and we see because we get to see Arnold being like serious but also goofy. We get this really great special effects moment when the head comes off and we see like the weird sort of stop animation of it. We got the bad guy in it sort of realizing something weird is going on as they're walking away.

I really, really enjoy that scene. Also, it's just funny to think about like an Arnold takes his head off and then he just throws it to like a security guard who's probably making. 27 credits a day or whatever they pay you on Mars. And he's just like, and then it talks shit to him. It's like, get ready for a surprise and fucking explodes. It checks off a bunch of like things I'm looking for in total recall. I think we have to include that one.

Well, it also checks off the box, which was a staple of that era of 20 people pointing guns at him. Somehow nobody firing during the entire sequence. Yeah. He's shaking his head off. He's looking at it. They're all guns on him. I think most rewatchable scene is when the guy from recall goes to visit him with Sharon Stone.

I think that's my favorite seven minutes. What do you guys have? Yeah, that's the one that I pick. Because in almost all these situations, you have to pick the scene that has the line that everybody remembers. And consider that a divorce line is just, it's up there. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the scene where you just begin to question everything that you're seeing in this, in this film and begin to wonder, like, is he still in the recall chair?

Like, is this all happening in his head? How much of this is real? And then to end it with an iconic line is just the best. I wonder if that was like a scene during, I mean, like, if that was a moment during the meeting when they were all like, what if we do end this with him having been in a dream the whole time? Like, wouldn't that be weird? I'm glad they didn't pick that. I'm super glad.

But I wonder if that was a conversation they had. Jason, would you believe me if I told you that the original line was consider it a divorce? And Arnold workshopped it. Pretty adamant. And that maybe it should be considered that a divorce. And they tried it both ways and went with Arnold. Because that happened. Yeah, let me do.

I'll do yours and then let me just roll. And I'm just going to go. I'm going to try a couple of things. After that, after we get this one, we just roll it. Paul, keep it going. I want to try one thing. I have, if we just change one pronoun. Somehow I sound like Loufragno now.

What's age the best? So the opening credits, which are terrible, but I love, this is like a classic 80s action thing. It has Mario Casar and Andrew Vajna present. It's like the producers back then, I don't know if they were real people or they just were these pseudonym. that made it sound like more of an action movie. Do you think Mario Cassar and Andrew Vajna actually existed?

Or were they just pseudonyms to make it better? I don't know. I don't know if you noticed this, but Arnold has that, he's in the airport. He's being chased during that fugitive section. It's going up the escalator. And he grabs some poor dude who's on the escalator and puts the guy in one of him who gets shot. The guy gets shot 20 times.

Arnold's human shield. He turns him around and gets shot that way. And then throws him all on the bad guys. That guy was just like going to the airport. It was, first of all, amazing that none of the bullets went all the way through, but also like so gross. There's also a moment in that where you see Richter,

like his feet step on the body. Like it's just like. Like on the bullet hole. There's no reason for this shot. It's just in there to be like, let's take this over the top. It's them stomping on the dude's bullet-ridden chest. It is so gross. And there's like a squishing sound.

It's like, it's crazy. So this was one of the first movies that did that because mostly in the other action movies, they would get shot a hundred times and fall down and there was not a lot of like splatter or anything. And this one, they're just throwing it out there. There's a real quick shot when Arnold comes up to escalator and they look back at it. And there's just blood. all over it, all over the whole thing. And I can't remember having seen that before in any of the action movies.

The last rat that got shot, that's another one. It was just way more blood than you would have by killing one rat. It splatters up on the screen. So when I was doing the research, I didn't even know this. Originally it got an X rating because it was so gory. They actually had to scale it back. But I think Berhoeven was like, look, I'm not getting rid of the human shield getting stepped on.

Yeah, we need that. I don't care. You can give me the X rating, but I have to have that. Another Wood's Age the best. Some of the futuristic stuff, which the movie said in 2004, which apparently it's not said in the movie, but there's a VHS tape. It's said and stuff like that. Plasma wall TVs. Yeah.

They kind of saw that one coming. Just the ability. I feel like this movie invented FaceTime or somebody just pops on the screen. And now you're talking to them? I don't know why there are two screens right next to each other, like in the car. And it's both just the same person each time. Like, I don't know what the fuck is going on here. But all right.

Johnny Cabs, maybe, maybe, um, looking ahead at the Uber, the Uber across with Tesla auto drive. Maybe that, maybe that I don't know. The virtual reality tennis clinic Sharon Stone's having, I think they actually have that. They have that now. Really good. That's my favorite Sharon Stone moment in the entire movie. movie because we catch her.

She's not doing it. She's just living her life. She still thinks she's undercover. She's just fucking exercising. That's all she's doing. Get better at tennis. And then they have, there's an ESPN commercial. When in near the beginning when he's watching the news, they throw it to ESPN.

You hear the announcer go, tonight on ESPN, the fifth game of the world series live from Tokyo. So I don't know what. I think this movie assumed that in. 90 years later that it really was going to be a world serious. I think that might have been off on that one. But I enjoyed that they went for it. Co-Hagan raising the price of air. Yeah.

Price gouging. Classic evil guy move. Like such a subtle, this guy's evil move where it's like, you know, it's going to cost more air. How to charge you guys to breathe? How does that, how do they figure that out? Like, is it just the amount of air that gets pumped into like the public area or is it the air in your home? Like, how are they billing it?

I think it's, I think it's, they handle it by like taxes and you pay like a dome tax or something. And as long as you pay your sort of property tax, we're going to pump the air in. We're going to give you a certain amount of air. And the better your dome, the better your air quality. But like, let's say I can't pay my air bill. Does that mean every? everybody's air gets like diminished or do they just cut off air to my apartment? No, everybody would still get air, but you would be like a homeless person, like their

version of a homeless person, which is basically what that bar was. They just had a bunch of people sort of trying to hustle to get by. Like Coahagan, does Cohegan really need? This is the thing. Coahagan, come on, man. You said it yourself as long as the Tullarium or whatever the stuff is, the Tubinium. As long as that stuff keeps flowing, you're good. You can do whatever you want.

You don't need to nickel and dime a bunch of people over air, man. what do you do it that's what that's what that's what bad guys do and what what's so great about this guy as a bad guy is uh there are only a few times where somebody does an evil thing and you go like oh that's evil outside of like being physically violent right and watching him do that watching him just pump up the the the price a little bit on something as essential as air is this is the same as like if i can throw in a kid off of off of the roof of a building like we're talking about the same level of villainy here but we're just seeing it differently and I really like when movies do stuff like that. It would almost be like if Trump during a pandemic was trying to figure out like the best way to make more mass that he can make money from or something. Almost like that. Coahagan, unfortunately. Coaghan, like, better at his job, unfortunately. Coaghan versus Trump, compare or contrast.

That also leads to Arnold with one of my favorite. it Arnold just delivering an Arnold line. Give these people air. He takes air, which is a one-syllable word. It makes it three-syllable sub out. Give this people air. It just really goes. Anything else age the best for you in this movie, or should we move on?

I like the tech. Specifically, I like the fingernail polish thing. I forgot that they did that. And it's just like, dook-do-do-do. That's fucking. Oh, that was cool. I forgot about it. about that one.

Yeah, I really like that. To me, it's just the humor. The humor of this movie, like, still carries. It's, it's funnier, if anything, now. There's a line in this one that they ended up lifting for Terminator 2, I believe. When the guy comes on the screen and I wrote it down, he says, if you want to live, don't hang up. And I like that they sort of started verbalizing that because we saw it before with,

like, Commando or whatever. Like, if you stick around with Arnold, you're going to stay alive. but they don't really come out and say it, and then they just start being like, all right, this is what it is. And Sharon Stone is age the best. She's unbelievable in this movie. What's age the worst?

The opening credits are truly awful. 83 to 90, they just couldn't figure out the whole opening credits thing. They're just like, we're just going to trap people in the theater for three minutes with bad music and poor computer graphics. And this is how our movie's going to start.

Yeah, what was the idea behind this kind of, like these kind of red, bars, these like melted red vertical bars? Like what was, what were, what were we trying to convey with that? It's terrible. It's an illusion to the classism of Mars. Oh, okay. Is what it is.

Oh, there you go. Yeah, it was bad. I was try, I was, that was my best Sean Fantasy impression right there. It was a good. That was a good, it was a good run. I don't really have a lot of what's aged the words. I guess it's age the worst for producer Craig's girlfriend who couldn't make it through the movie. But I really feel like this movie has aged wonderfully.

And I don't have a lot of complaints. Do you guys have any other what's age the worst? No, I really, I think I'm finally aligned with you on this. We're together. We're just watching it. There was no part where I'm like, oh, they could have done a better job of that. One of the things that I didn't notice the first few times of watching, I noticed this one, It's just like, I love how open-minded Arnold Schwarzenegger is in this movie, the Quaid character.

He's just walking around like none of this stuff affects him at all. He's throwing jokes at people. I love when Hank from Breaking Bad, he's like, you got a lot of nerves showing your face around here. Luke who's talking. He's great. He just seemed like friendly with everybody. I love that of him. One thing that age is the worst, maybe, I don't know, or maybe this is just a silly thing.

but they give Arnold the shot in the neck to put him to sleep when they're going to do it and then he wakes up and when they try to get control of him again the nurse or the doctor she just freaks out and she just fucking she hits him with eight of them trying to get him to go I'm like you probably killed that guy

like you know telling how many people you killed with your fucking eight at once machine shots we're going to take a break then we're doing casting what ifs Hey, we hope you've been enjoying brilliant sound your way on Sonos. Every Sonos speaker designed from the inside out for incredibly detailed sound and deep bass, fine tuned by Oscar and Kramming, winning producers, mixers, and artists. True Play puts the speaker tuning capability of the recording pros in the palm of your hands,

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I've been home a lot. I bet a base how much Sotos has been in my life. You know, it's been pretty good in a quarantine. It's been good if you're just watching things with the mute. You can pop it on your one speaker, however you want to do it. Also great for movies to accentuate. especially like some of the more modern movies where they really cared about sound.

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So a couple bizarre casting what-ifs with this one and this has to do with the history of the movie in the mid-80s, Dino D. Laurentis, which might be another fake producer name. I don't know if all the producer, in the 80s were just pseudonyms. He had this project.

Attached to Star as Doug Quaid, Richard Dreyfus. What? That doesn't work. That doesn't work. Richard Dreyfus. As Doug Quaid. Harry, what are you talking about?

I've never been to Mars. That's really good. That was really good. I don't know. Understand it? Richard Dreyfus in a tank top, like working like a construction site, like, like, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Harry, I'm thinking I'm not going to recall.

It was right around when, uh, when he was making stakeout. So it was like kind of Richard Dreyfus trying to become an action guy. Great movie. I actually like stakeout. Yeah. Yeah, steak out's good. Um, then David Cronenberg was given the script by Dino D. Laurentis. And he decided he was going to get William hurt.

and he envisioned it as Spider-Goes to Mars, or Spider-Man goes to Mars. That didn't work either. And then eventually Arnold was like, I'm taking the Zolva. Thank God. Thank God for Arnie. So two people turned down the role of Richter,

one of which was Robert Davy. Remember him? Oh, I love Robert Davy, big fan. The other one, ironically, since we joked about this before, Kurt Wood Smith, Neil's dad from Dead Poet Society. The guy at the bird.

makes sense. So he turned down this role and Ironside stepped in. I guess maybe they had an honor system. I don't know. And then after Sharon Stone's performance as Lori in this movie,

Verhoven decided he would cast her in basic instinct once he got that movie due to her ability of playing a character that could change from a timid, charming sweetheart to a diabolical person and back again in a moment's notice. And he says this on the director's commentary.

He also stated that this, is the way Sharon Stone is in real life. Wow. Okay. Well. All right. Tough Pete for Sharon Stone. All right.

All right. Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award. I have a good one here. I mean, there's a lot of that guys in this movie. Michael Ironside, a.k.a.

Richter. His lead henchman. Oh, that guy. The bleach blonde guy. Yeah. That guy. Helm. Michael Champion.

Helm. He was in Beverly Hills Cop. I looked through his IMDB. It looks like he was the bad guy in 50 movies over the course of 10 years. His name is Michael Champion. Perfect. So I thought we'd give it to him. Vince and Hannah, they knew a word every single Michael Iron Side C.

Yes. Yes. Dialed it up to 15. Sometimes he's at 13. Other times 17. But it's dialed up. I just want to say like you learn some. much about his character through in so few scenes.

Like, it's all about how jealous he is that his wife was put into this deep cover operation where she's fucking Arnold Schwarzenegger for God knows how many weeks. And he, it's just, you can tell right from jump, it's been driving him crazy. Like when that one guy comes in after the first fight with Sharon Stone and Quay goes on the run. Yeah. And he goes to help her, right? He's just like, get away from her. Don't touch her.

And it's like, in that one second, you're like, oh, I get it. This guy has just like been driven insane because his wife is getting railed by Arnold Schwarzenegger all the time for work. It's a tough one. Tough beat. The Dean Waiter's a word. just a couple nominees before we get to the obvious winner. But the three boob lady coming in hot, put up some points and rebounds and assists. Quato.

Two scenes for Quato. He was fucking freaky. But Sharon Stone, this is a quintessential Dionne Waiters Award performance. She's in three scenes. She kicks Arnold's ass twice. she's super sexy in the first scene. You leave this movie thinking that that person is going to be a massive star.

I don't know what else we would want from a Diane Waiter's Award nominee. Doug, there's something I want you to know. You were the best assignment I ever had. Really? I'm on it. You sure you don't want to? Just for all timesake.

Come on. If you don't trust me, you can time me up. I didn't know you're so kinky. Maybe it's time you found out. She has to be the winner here, but I think you have to also include the woman who pretends to be or has to be Arnold Schwarzenegger in disguise. She's really, really going for it. She's great.

If you only focus on her in that scene and she's just sort of standing in place, shaking her head and doing her eyes and like pulling her mouth apart. Have you brought any fruit surveillance? vegetables onto the planet. Two weeks. Excuse me? Two weeks. Two weeks.

I'd love that she was so hardcore in this moment. Jason, does this movie have the highest percentage of people who are vibrating like they're having a seizure or their eyes are bulging out of their head over the course of two hours? Has there been a movie with more eye bulges? I mean, we have, we have Co. Hagan. Ibalch. We have Quaid, eyeballed, in the beginning of the film.

And then we have... Three. There's three of them. That's right. Teakotin. When they try to get them again? Right. Yeah.

Eye bulge. Cheeketon. And then we have... And then we have Arnold in disguise with the kind of tremor and eye bulge. Incredible eye bulge work. And then the seats as well. Yeah.

And airport lady. Airport lady. Yeah. The recasting couch. So... The guy, how do we feel about the guy who works at recall who talks Arnold into having the vacation? Couldn't that have been like a really nice early Bill Paxton kind of role? Bill Paxton.

Bill Paxton would have been great. Do we need somebody a little more famous in that spot? That's such a pivotal role. Would you want like a future star there? I think Bill is, Bill would have been too young at this time because you're talking now, this Bill Paxton. This is like aliens. This is around aliens. So he would have been, you really need like that kind of sleazy, 40-something-year-old guy who is putting down that energy of like a used car salesman.

I think Paxton, you know, when they start talking about schizoid embolisms and like what happens if like your brain just gets fried, I don't think that Paxton would have necessarily had the gravitas to convince Schwarzenegger that, yeah, strap yourself into this chair. I disagree. microwave your head. You slide, you could slide him in there. I think he's, I think he, that tenor of his voice that he has, when he just gets to talk in, he seems like somebody who could convince you to do a thing. If you're like on the fence, you talk to Bill for a few minutes, you're like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to do the thing.

I have two more nominees for you for that. David Caruso. Wow. No, thanks. That's more of a sinister, that's more of a sinister vibe. Yeah. Then I'd be really like, I'm not getting in this chair. If it's David.

Yeah, I think, yeah, he's a little too, he's a little too evil. I really like in that scene when the guy's like, hey, you want to do an upgrade, you could be like, take a vacation from yourself in Arnold. It's like, absolutely not. I'm not interested in that. And he goes, you could be a spy. And he's like, fucking, I'm going to be a spy. Yeah, Caruso would be wild.

Doug, we call it the ego trip. Let me ask you something. Let me ask you something, Doug. what's the one thing that's always the same when you go on vacation? Okay. Last nominee for this. Judd Nelson? Ooh, that's a weird one.

Yeah, that's a little too weird. Bill is the right move here. Yeah, he's, yeah. All right. Half-ass internet research. We hit most of these. Paul Verhoeven, he signed on the film Autumn, 1988. 500 people worked on the film and built.

45 sets that tied up eight sound stages in Mexico City for six months. Wow. Out of way. Oh, I had it wrong. The most expensive film in history up to this point was Rambo 3, not Rambo 2. Oh, that was the Afghanistan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes a lot more sense.

Did you know to coincide with the movie's release, Sharon Stone Pose nude for Playboy, showing off the buff body she developed? To coincide with the release. Are we sure that wasn't on the books already? Remember when people did that? That was the thing. This will help. Yeah, that was a thing.

The cover of the VHS edition mentions that the film takes place in 1984, which was also confirmed by Paul Verhoeven, but it's not actually in the movie. And then, wow. This is among my favorite half-ass internet research pieces I've ever unearthed in 110 podcast. I'm very excited. The three-boobed hooker, whose name was Mary.

Perfect. Was originally supposed to have four breasts. Damn. But the producers thought it looked too much like a cow's breast. So they went back to the drawing board and went back to three. Which I think was the right move. Yeah, they're going to do two and two. I like that probably like 20 people were working on this though.

Hey, Paul, we have some mockups of the four-breasted hooker. It's like, oh, no. Can you give us? No, we need some notes. Three. Yeah. Of the 500 people you mentioned who worked on the movie, there's like 63 of them were only doing this part.

Imagine like, so we got some notes back from studio on the breast. They don't like the four. They say it looks too cowlike. Let's try three. But like just to give them something to look at, let's go up to seven. Right. I mean, that was an actual argument in Paul Verhoeven's office. Apex Mountain.

I wrote this about Arnold in the in the Action Hero Championship Belt I did. This wasn't an Apex. This was an A-Fucking Pex. In two years, Arnold, this is from, he does this, he does kindergarten cop, and he does T2 in the span of like 14 months. He does science fiction, action comedy, summer blockbuster. on top of like all the special effects corners, the unintentional comedy quarters, the one-liner corners,

this is it. I don't know whether the apex is here or T2. What do you guys think? I think it's T2. Yeah, it has to be T2. Terminator 2 is the first movie, either Terminator 2 or Terminator 1.

That's the one that has just been attached to Arnold forever. This is the movie that you bring in when you're like, oh, but did you, forget about this one, and you realize, like, holy shit, Arnold has got like deep, deep cuts. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think, I think if you're going a fucking pecks, I think it's probably, it's this stretch, and then it kind of culminates with T2. Yes.

But the fact that he had enough sway to get paid what he got paid for this movie and control every single veto power aspect of it and get a percentage, 15% of the profits. I mean, he probably made $100 million. from this movie. That's unbelievable. And this was not even the most successful movie he ever made. So unbelievable job in.

Rachel, Tickatin? Tickotine? I think this might be... Be a Rachel. I think this might be her apex mountain. I think this might be our api. This might be it. My personal for her is man afires.

Man on fire is my personal apex for her. I thought she's really good in that. That's probably like a better acting performance. Right. But. when I think of Rachel, I think of like an action star and in this one we get to see her fighting

we get to see her shooting, we get to see her eyeballs exploding out of her head almost. I think this is the move to make. Sharon's don't know because it's based against like Michael Ironside? I mean it's close for him I might go, I would

pick Marshall Bell, George and Cuado, over Ironside just because like he's He's only in the one scene, really, and he plays two characters in it. Well, you can have both. If it's the apex of their career, they can both have the apex. I think this is the apex of both of their careers, yes. Iron Sederator.

For some reason, in my head, whenever we do Apex Mountain, the way that I seem to assign it is, like, what's the very first role I think of when I think of this person, which is like for Arnold, okay, Terminator, for Stallone, Rocky. For Ironside, every single time, maybe it's because this was the one I watched in the theater, but I go straight to Starship Troopers without question. That's, that's fair. He's probably more valuable in that movie, too. Yeah, I'll accept that. Ronnie Cox? Robocop. For me, for me, it's this for Ronnie Cox. For me, it's Coagin. Yeah, I would say Coahagan as well. Mars? No, the Martian. The Martian. The Martian.

Well, yeah. There's a case that this is Mars' Apex Mountain. Here's the thing. In a scientific sense, the Martian, fine, okay? Because it's all about Mars, trapped on Mars.

He's growing potatoes in his own shit on Mars. It's Mars, Mars, Mars all the time. In this one, it's like, it's the idealized Mars. There's this alien engine that creates air that's been just, they never turned it on. It's been under there for half a million years.

I think that this is Mars's Apex Mountain. The Martian is about, that's about, that's Matt Damon's vehicle. That could have been, it could have been the moon.

This is, this is Mars's movie. It's about Mars. That was what, 64 years from now? Yeah. I don't think we're going to make it. I don't think we're going to match

the timeline in 64 years. I don't think we'll be living on Mars just yet. Movies set on Mars. The Martian, the last day on Mars, mission to Mars, recall, John Carter, Red Planet and Doom are the first ones that come up. Yeah.

I think the Martian, but total recall, sure, go for it. I say total recall only because in 1990, it still seemed conceivable that someday we could live on Mars. That was a thing, that was a thing in the air at the time. Like, yeah, maybe someday we'll get there, but now it's obviously not happening. Here is my final pitch for this being Mars's apex mountain. the way people say Mars in this movie is just more fun than the Martian. First of all, you've got Harry going, hey, hey, Quaid, how was Maas?

And then you've got, and then you've got every time Schwarzenegger says, Ma's, Mar, what are Harry? What are you talking about? I've never been to, I've never been to, miles. What? Like, there's just the way people say Mars in this movie is much more fun. That's my argument. And Venusville.

Venusville. I would say three boob ladies and four boob ladies, Apex Mountain, because we've never seen it before since. Picking Nits. I only have a couple. So, because you can either pick Nits with everything or you just kind of ride with that. I think this is one of those. I'm just going to ride with the premise. These movies, Escape from New York did this too, where you shoot something.

in the side of somebody's neck and it just magically is going to do this stuff. Go where it's supposed to go. Yeah. I've never really seen the science of this. Like, I don't know. I'm feeling my neck right now. I just feel like things would hurt. Would it be that easy?

Would you still be feeling it 12 hours later? Everybody seems to be fine when this happens. Oh, that the tracker. Swept under the rug. The tracker was huge. Yeah. That he pulls out of his nose was gigantic. Yeah, that was another one.

Yeah. He doesn't know that's in there the whole time. It was like a ping pong. ball size. It was like an air pod case. Arnold ends up really punching Sharon Stone

during this movie, which has not aged the best, but she did try to kill him over and over again. She's fine afterwards. There's no mark. She gets right up. It's like she just takes it.

They kind of gloss over that one. I feel like if Arnold punched any of us? We'd be down for like an hour? My guess is he hit her in the jaw, not in the fate. Like, he hit her here. You get a hit right there. You're not going to get marks.

You know what I'm saying? You stay away from this area. This is, as always, Shane, valuable punching expert. Yes, thank you. Nobody has more punching. Houser, the Quades Altarigo. Cocky Arnold, I guess we could call him. So he explains, he used to work.

for Coahagan, but switch sides after learning about an alien artifact on Mars and then underwent the memory wipe to protect himself. Jason, what? I, that's not, yeah. What? I don't, I, that's, I, that's, I was under the impression that, that Coaghan wiped him and then stashed him on earth to like get him out of the way. he's too valuable for some reason to kill.

I don't, yeah, I don't, that made my brain hurt. But then, but then, Hauser's saying he's the one that wiped his memory? It just doesn't make any. First of all, Coaghan, just kill Quaid. Like, why are you making this so comfy? I just fucking put a bullet in his head. And then for Hauser, like, what does he want to wipe out his memory?

It's like kind of like a half suicide almost. Shea, explain this. Okay, there are two. plot lines that are that are happening here there's the one that we see and we believe is going on where we have uh michael ironside is trying to he's like legitimately trying to kill quaid because he hates him because he hates him also because he's not in on the master plan the master plan was set up by cohagen and and hauser and they said okay what we have to do is we have to wipe my memory after i've already tried to go in and and like go undercover with the mutants they

sniff that out. So wipe me completely, put me down on Earth. We're going to like push Earth Arnold toward going back to recall so that his memory can get jogged and he can come to Mars. And now he's going to be able to like work his way in with the mutants and we're going to use that to kill Cuaddo. And then after that happens, we bring Arnold in and you rewipe him and I'm going to be back. That's why Coahagan doesn't kill him because he knows his job at the end is to like reset Arnold so that Hauser can be back. You know what I'm saying? I think Jason almost did the bulging eyes,

Ronnie Cox thing during that. That was a good explanation. I think that was really good. One of the flaws in that whole premise is, Arnold, pretty recognizable guy, the 6'3, 280-pound guy. I was like, let's send him back to Earth. Nobody will notice this guy.

This giant fucking dude who's a hero on Mars. And why give him the last name Quaid, which seems very close to Quato, the guy he's going to kill? Why not just call him like Doug Johnson? Yeah. Seems like the Q thing is a little strange. Best quote, we've named all of them. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Jason just cracked that one.

Okay, probably unanswerable questions. This is one my buddy Jim Grady from high school. We actually debated this in high school. A, is it okay to be attracted to the three-breasted lady? And B, the three-breasted lady is... And B, could you date a three-breasted lady? These are conversations we had at four at the boarding. She's getting a lot of...

The answer is yes. A lot of air time on this. I was not expecting this much... What are you talking about? How are you not expecting it? I was expecting like 40 seconds. And we've done 24. five minutes.

There's no answer to that. Co-Hagan versus Trump compare and contrast. Maybe we can do that on a separate podcast. Did Arnold in real life at some point make a run at Sharon Stone with all the time they spent together? I'm going to say a 100% lock knowing everything. Arnold couldn't even be a run as made for a couple months without like making a run at her. I think the fact that we have not ever heard a rumor about this.

leads me to believe that yes, that happened. Shea? Arnold, horny guy. Yeah, he took a swing. He took a swing. He took a swing. And she was like, nah, no thanks. No thanks.

Or she was like, maybe, maybe this is, this is a fun idea. Because he's Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's a handsome muscular, I don't know. There's some story that hasn't come out of that. So, let's get into, um, was this, real. Was this real? No.

Wait, wait. Wait, wait. What part of it was, yeah. What, was this in his head? Or was this actually happening in the way that we think it was because of the way it was depicted in the film? So I'm going to lay out all the evidence for this was all a recall fantasy that he's signed up for that then becomes the movie.

Verhoeven said he wanted to make the movie completely ambiguous. So the audiences would not know even at the end if it was just a dream. But he did say he believed the ending was a dream, but then the casting of Arnold suggests it was not a dream. And that people who would go to see an Arnold movie would be in favor of a reality ending versus a dream ending. But if you actually like pay attention and you watch this movie 75 times. So the guy at the beginning who should have been played by Bill Paxton

He pitches the secret age And Ego trip to Quaid He tells him Quote By the time the trip's over You'll get the girl Kill the bad guys And save the entire planet

We see him picking Who he wants They go with 41A He does a demure athletic They have her face on the screen They have her face When Dr. Lull tosses Ernie a computer chip

he looks at it and says, that's a new one, blue sky on Mars. That's what his trip was called. The scientists say that. And then when Quaid goes to shoot the doctor with the sweat drop, the doctor actually describes all the events that will happen subsequently in the movie, like the things get almost collapsed, blah, blah, blah. So I think the answer is it was a dream from the moment he's at recall. that's my that's my official answer i think i think if you're going to make the argument that it was a dream

then it can't have started at recall because the movie starts with arnold already dreaming about rachel it's that's already in his head so if this is a recall thing that means he did the recall well before then and we're just remembering it oh interesting yeah you know what i'm saying so the the cases against it being a recall are he has the dream he's He's doing construction and the guy gives like side eyes him, the guy who ends up eventually trying to kill him when he's like, yeah, I want to go to Mars and that guy gives him like a really evil look. Yeah.

And then Sharon Stone does the same thing. She gives him kind of an evil, suspicious look too. So that would insinuate that this was not a dream. Yeah, I don't think this was a dream because of those exact things you're mentioning. He has, he's already dreaming about Rachel, which means he's already seen her. And we know that he's seen her because when he goes back to to Mars. they're like, what are you doing back here? All of that stuff has already happened.

I think it has to be a real thing for sure. Jason, what do you think? I think that it is part of a brain damage delusion. And I think that he's running this memory back in a loop, which is why he dreams about Rachel in the beginning. This is not the first time he's run through these memories. This is, who knows how many times he's been doing this. So he's just stuck in this loop that's happened to him because he's had his

brain fried by this process. I disagree. That's a depressing version of this. Yeah, I think here's the thing. I think we're all kind of right because I think Verhoeven makes the movie and he's like, ah, fuck it. I'm putting everything on the table and we're not solving it. And he says in the director's commentary,

I wanted to make a movie that was completely ambiguous on what actually happened. And now we're sitting here debating what happened. and he's probably laughing if he's still alive. He's like, look at these fucking guys. Debating whether this is real or not. I specifically went in two different directions at the same time. There is no answer. But I think there's more evidence that it was a dream that it was real.

But I think you could go either way. Who won the movie for you guys? You know who won the movie for me? Not Arnold, not Rachel, not Sharon. Eye bulges. Oh, wow. Best eye bulges in movie history. There's something...

whatever. The entire movie is like almost the entire movie is set on this alien planet and the entire movie is set up like in a future that we don't know, we don't quite understand. But when you get to whatever scene you're in and there's eye bulging happening, you understand sort of implicitly

how painful that must be. I can't remember another eye bulge scene in a movie like this. The only other eye scene I think of immediately is in hostile when the girl's eyes. hanging out of her head and again it's a cut it but as far as the eyes go in movies i think i i think i boulders won this movie that's that's my pick i'm going to kind of take shays and take a different angle with it i'm going to say this is like the most mainstream version of of like the david

kronenberg body horror style like the the mutant designs with like dean norris with the vagina face and the three-breasted lady and quadto and then the eye bulges and all like the gross things that happen to people's bodies in this. This is like one of the most gross mainstream action movies. It just in terms of like disturbing you with the human body that's ever been made. And so I'm going to, I'm going to say that. I'm going to say body horror. I'm between Arnold and Paul Verhoeven.

Wow. Because, because, I think this was a really hard movie to pull off. And I didn't really fully realize it until I was researching it. To do this movie pre-1990, basically, their filming's done in 1989. And all the things they had to do that now they would just CGI three-fourths of it. It's hard not to say he won, but then you think like Arnold to buy the script and to craft it in a way where he's going to make all the money if it does well.

And then he crushes it. and it leads to this three movie apex for him where he's honestly one of the five biggest movie stars of my lifetime coming out of that three thing where it's like that 12-year run he has of box office, reach, stardom, all that, like the way he kind of reshaped action movies. And this is like right in the dead center of it. So I'd probably lean to Arnold.

But I really think he's one of the five biggest movie stars we've had since I've been alive. And I don't know who the other four are, but he's definitely one of the five. Yeah, when I was talking to my youngest kid about this, who I'm super big fan of the rock. Every movie that The Rock is in, he's like, when I'm talking to him,

I'm like, this guy here, this is my version of the Rock. I care about this guy the way that you care about this guy's movies. You know what we didn't mention? I've neglected to bring this up. And what's age of the best, I'd do it very quickly.

The scene when Arnold goes to the whole, and he has a, the guy's like, oh, you left like a message here for yourself or something in the safety deposit box. I love in a movie when there's like a cryptic message in a safety deposit box. Yeah. I can't think of a time when that was like a bad twist in there. I just love to open it up and see like a marker and a police badge and like $7 in cash. Right.

It all means something. And you're going to find out later on what it means. I really love that. That's like such a fun little trick. It's true. It works 100% of the time. I think the difference between Arnold and the Rock. other than his movies have just been

kind of, I think, bigger and better. There's no point in Arnold's career from 84 through 94 where he's going to like hop into Vin Diesel's movie as a supporting character. And I think Stallone was like that too. Both of those guys hit a point where it was inconceivable

they were going to be not the number one guy on the poster and basically the Michael Jordan of the movie. This was like the action ball hero era or hero ball era for action movies where you've found the one guy for the poster and then you kind of built around him. I think it's changed now with that. It's almost like the ensemble has more power now. Like the way we've seen Fast and Furious kind of reinvent it where they just keep adding famous people and like, but the totality of the stardom is the star. And back then, you could really, Arnold could have released any movie and it would have made $200 million. It's so true.

Well, the rock is really, you know, his career is cast in the mold that Arnold created, which was like this gigantically swole action hero with lots of one-liners who wins every fight. That's Arnold's bag. And the rock is really just kind of living in the shadow of that as huge as a movie star as he is. Well, we saw, you know, this was the heyday with him and Stallone and Van Dam and Roadhouse and just this is an unbelievable run for action movies. And then it definitely shifts a little bit. Nick Cage tries to keep it alive for a few years. But by the time we got to the early 2000s, it just ended up in a really strange place for a few years.

And then I do feel like Leon Nieson would take and revived it in a lot of ways. And that led to like whatever this wave that I think we're still in now. But like when I remember seeing Taken, I felt like a starving person in the desert being given a sandwich. Like, oh, a real action movie. Thank you. Like just a conventional one guy kicking ass for an hour and a half. Thank you for this. I appreciate it.

Now it's been a little smarter. But this is a classic. Jason? Yeah. Shea. Yeah. I'm glad we did this. we did it for Arnold

we did it for Mars thanks for listen thanks for listen to the rewatchables give these people air okay thanks to State Farm and thanks to Sonos remember every Sonos speaker design

from the inside out for incredibly detailed sound and deep bass True play puts the speaker tuning capability of the recording pros in the palm of your hands plug your speaker

and open the app connect all your favorite streaming services you can also connect your TV or even a turntable, and listen to everything you love. Go to Sonos.com to learn more. We'll be back with one more rewatchable this week. Enemy of the State, if you want to get ready for that one.

A classic. I'm glad we're doing a couple great action movies this week. See you there.