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DigiGods Episode 253: These are the Daze
46 Plays1 year ago
A Bonanza of television goodies, John Wick 4 and Time Bandits make their 4k debuts and tributes to two departed icons of the 70s… only on DigiGods!
DigiGods Podcast, 07/11/23 (M4a) — 49.5 MB
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In this episode, the Gods discuss:
- Criminal Minds: Evolution - Season 16 (Blu-ray)
- Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 16 (DVD)
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams (Blu-ray)
- The Event – The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
- Evil Dead Rise (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (Blu-ray)
- Insidious (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Jesus Revolution (Blu-ray)
- John Wick: Chapter 4 (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Kubrick by Kubrick (DVD)
- The L Word: Generation Q - Season Three (DVD)
- La Brea: Season Two (Blu-ray)
- A Life's Work (DVD)
- Living (Blu-ray)
- Lord of War (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Love and Sunshine (Blu-ray)
- Love, Fall & Order (DVD)
- Magic Flute (Blu-ray)
- Magic Mike’s Last Dance (Blu-ray)
- Maria Bamford Stan-up Spotlight (DVD)
- Matter Out of Place (DVD)
- Medicine for Melancholy (Blu-ray)
- Moving On (Blu-ray)
- National Lampoon's Vacation (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- One Day as a Lion (DVD)
- Parenthood: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
- Pasolini 101 (Accatone, 1961. Mamma Roma, 1962. Love Meetings, 1964. The Gospel According to Matthew, 1964. The Hawks and the Sparrows, 1966., Oedipus Rex, 1967, Teorema, 1968, Porcile, 1969, Madea, 1969) (Blu-ray)
- Quantum Leap: Season One (2022) (Blu-ray)
- Rain Man 35th Anniversary Edition (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Renfield (Blu-ray)
- Rules of the Game (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Seal Team: Season 6 (Blu-ray)
- The Servant (Blu-ray)
- Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
- Sky+Med: Season One (DVD)
- Speak (DVD)
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Taking a Shot at Love (DVD)
- Time Bandits (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- To Her, With Love (DVD)
- Transformers 6-Movie Steelbook Collection (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Transfusion (Blu-ray)
- The Truman Show 25th Anniversary (4k UHD Blu-ray)
- Tulsa King Season 1 Steelbook (Blu-ray)
- V/H/S/99 (Blu-ray)
- The Wedding Veil Expectations (Blu-ray)
Please also visit CineGods.com.
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Transcript
Remembering Alan Arkin
00:00:25
Speaker
All right, we are back, everybody. And it has been a light week on the Obits, or a couple of weeks, but two giants left us. And one of them just recently, great Alan Arkin. Let's talk about Alan Arkin first, Tim.
00:00:42
Speaker
I have no idea why that was still so ludicrously surprising to me. Why that was just, and it popped up on my feed like about four minutes after it was like four minutes. And I was like, Alan Arkin, they got Alan Arkin? And you know, so that series that he was in with Michael Douglas. Yeah, the commission came out.
00:01:04
Speaker
And the last few arcs of that series, I don't want to completely ruin it for anybody. There's an interesting storyline there. And I don't know why, but that came roaring back to me. And I was like, man, that was so prescient. And for whatever reason, he was just one of those guys who was very present.
00:01:26
Speaker
He was never out of the picture. He wasn't one of those guys where you want to wait for 25 years, and then you heard he died. No, he was just on the show right over there. You're getting nominated for an Emmy or whatever the hell it is. It was just extremely surprising.
00:01:44
Speaker
for whatever reason. And, you know, look, I could go on forever about Alan Arkin and all of the great stuff. Bridget, you know, my lovely wife, she loved Wait Until Dark in particular.
00:01:59
Speaker
So good. So uncharacteristic of him. You know, playing that, playing that, playing that guy. And I don't know, I guess it's almost impossible, right? To really sort of work your way back through all of the stuff that Alan Arkin has figured out. You know, what's the most, the Alan Arkin that you love the most?
00:02:15
Speaker
He played Inspector Clouseau at one point, shot in the dark. Everybody forgets that. He stepped in there for a minute when Peter Sellers wasn't there. I mean, it's kind of an amazing, and he did a great job. And, you know, Catch-22, and obviously, you know, Little Miss Sunshine, he won his Oscar. You know, I always think of, there are two films that stand out for me. One is the in-laws. Yes. Where he and Peter Falk are just tearing it up.
00:02:42
Speaker
And I know a good deal about that because you know Richard Libertini very dear friend of mine and my family. The late Richard Libertini plays the South American dictator in that that ridiculous South American dictator. And he plays it broad and it's kind of a descending scale of comedy.
00:02:59
Speaker
Richard is just broad as can be with his little you know senior wences thing with the hand and the paintings and all the stuff he's really brought and then peter faulk is you know a little still a little but he's not that hot and alan arkin has to be straight man to the both of them.
00:03:15
Speaker
Yeah. And I remember Richard just could not, it's one of the great experiences of his acting career was to be able to try to make those two break character and laugh when they were shooting. And man, Arkin just brought it. He was just stone cold in character and it was, you know, he earned everyone's trust. And my other one, not a good movie, America's Sweethearts, not a good movie. Alan Arkin is in it for a brief cameo. He's got like two scenes, but
00:03:44
Speaker
He's hysterical cuz he's a guru with it and you know he's got that long hair and he's he's and you know he's he's got two really hilarious moments where he says to john kuzak he goes there's a very old saying and john kuzak goes what does that mean he goes i don't know but it's very old.
00:04:06
Speaker
Hilarious. And then when Billy Crystal says to him about John Cusick, he goes, he's going to be okay, right? And Alan Arkin's standing there, he's holding like a fern twig and he just sniffs it and he says, life is a cookie.
00:04:21
Speaker
And it's just so ridiculous. It's so funny. And he just owns it. And all of that, but then you come forward, you know, 2020, I guess would be about 20 years from that to the early 90s. And he's like this anchor in like Glenn, Gary, Glenn Ross, you know, this very sort of. And he has a lot of those, you know, where where that whole range is right there in Alan Arkin, although he, you know, he
00:04:48
Speaker
You really can't say though that Alan Arkin ever just sort of like played Alan Arkin. He played characters. He played people. He did. And so effortlessly, so effortlessly, it was just such a, it's amazing. I'm going to miss him, but he left a legacy, a real legacy.
Spotlight on Glenda Jackson
00:05:05
Speaker
And then Glenda Jackson, the amazing Glenda Jackson, you know, speaking of Richard Libertini, his late wife, Melinda Dillon, was part of that same class of actresses in the 1970s. They all came out of theater, and they just came storming into the movies. And, you know, it was a new class of actresses. And it was, you know, it was Marsha Mason, it was Melinda, and it was... It looks like we're gonna feel this.
00:05:40
Speaker
And she was amazing. She was just a real presence. Along with the young, on the male side of that would have been like Hoffman.
00:05:49
Speaker
and all those guys, sense of realism, a sort of naturalistic beauty that hadn't sort of been there before, and that was her. Look, Glinda was an MP during the period that Maggie Thatcher was in. I would not happen to be stationed in the UK during that period.
00:06:10
Speaker
And, you know, when we go to all these guys, I worked for this guy, General Rudolph E. Wacker, and we'd go to all of these events and whatever, I was this. And I would just see, you know, you're standing behind the general holding this briefcase, doing whatever, and I would see all, and Glenda Jackson would be one who would come, her and Maggie were on opposite sides. Like, you know, everything on earth. But these two powerful and interesting women, all that long ago. And I think it's amazing that she made it back, you know, after she retired.
00:06:40
Speaker
from politics or moved out of professional politics anyway, revived her career in theater and a little bit of film. And all of that. Bloody Sunday, man. You know, I think Jackson, I think of Bloody Sunday. You know, there are women in love, but Bloody Sunday when I think of Linda
Censorship and Artistic Integrity
00:06:58
Speaker
Jackson.
00:06:58
Speaker
No, she just, women in love would be my pick, but boy, I mean so many, so many wonderful, wonderful performances. It's just gonna miss them both. Gonna miss them both. They're really, really great. Let's talk just a little bit about, first of all, there was a little dust up over the fact that the French Connection had some racial epithets censored on its criterion collection run, and it's still up there.
00:07:24
Speaker
And some people wrote us and said hey what's going on is criteria and get the soft what's the story and the story appears to be that you know everyone has to understand criterion doesn't do like the license these things so cry
00:07:39
Speaker
Criterion will call up Disney and they'll say, hey, we, you know, could we, could we get, uh, you know, we're doing a thing on, on method acting and Hoffman is part of, or, uh, Hackman is part of it. And, uh, you know, we're doing a little series on method acting and we'd love to put French connection in there cause it's got, you know, some great history and we got some material on it. Could we do that? And Disney will go, yeah, pay us, you know, X amount of dollars and criterion will negotiate and they'll come up with a license fee. And then they, they Disney will deliver them.
00:08:07
Speaker
the old master the twentieth century fox master that they have of french connection and sometimes what they get from a company is amazing and sometimes terrible like during the read their michelle yo series. There is like me magnificent warriors i couldn't believe what a great transfer was it was an unbelievable is phenomenal and then like royal warriors was horrible.
00:08:30
Speaker
It was dreadful it was it was it was like somebody had taken a you know a vhs and transferred it to super eight and then you know it's like it down the toilet and it was terrible. So you just never know what they're gonna receive from the company that licensing it from this isn't criteria and putting their stuff out on desk if it's their own library they'll really go to town but if it's something licensing for a series and criteria channels different.
00:08:52
Speaker
And for whatever reason somebody over Disney got their hands on on french connection and said we're gonna have to clean this up for the kids apparently and so they got a censored version of it it's a little bit of an embarrassment but i don't think it will happen again.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's terrible. And let me just say it's bad in a bunch of different ways. So like the thing itself does the the censoring of the language, particularly racial epithets and whatever that are in the French connection, you if you do that, then you undermine some of the intention of the film, particularly some of the intention of Ernest tightyman. Yes. Right. Who also wrote chef. Thank you.
00:09:35
Speaker
So and so earnest was there and you're writing that strip, you know, wouldn't freak and all that stuff. So you undermine this intention. And one of the one of the intentions of her to devise the filmmakers was to communicate what they felt to be the truth of the dynamic between the police in various different communities. Yes.
00:09:56
Speaker
They were trying to be realistic and the other films did the same thing at the period, you know, trying to start with Serbico. Serbico is another one. So this is intentional. The language is specific for a reason because what these filmmakers are saying, you know, particularly notice, you know, it was black.
00:10:16
Speaker
is these folks talk like this in these places. Now, at the time, the police didn't care for that. This is what's interesting to me. They're censoring this language in 2023. In 1970, whenever this movie came out, the police wanted to censor the language. We don't want our cops talking like that. Well, they shouldn't talk like that in bars, but they do, and you know they do.
00:10:43
Speaker
So it's really a sort of ironic sort of thing, this notion of censoring, this film that's trying to speak to a truth of a thing. It's, you know, we can talk about the books and the, you know, the Roald Dahl stuff. And I mean, everyone's getting a little bit over over sensitive about trying to preserve the commercial value of old material, which they in an era where they think it might offend somebody. But
00:11:08
Speaker
I think we're kind of going to come back to the center here where people understand that you've got to evaluate these works of art in a context. And there is a, I don't, when I, look, I was growing up, I remember watching the French Connection the first time it aired on TV, heavily censored, and my parents were still really iffy about it. He did one best picture already, but it's like, do we really want him seeing this, you know? They knew what was going on.
00:11:36
Speaker
And even in that context, it was very clear to me that Popeye Doyle was not supposed to be my role model. I was not supposed to be sitting there as a little kid going, Hey, I like that guy. I want to grow up to be just like him. No, this is a crazy man.
00:11:53
Speaker
who takes his police work so seriously that he is willing to compromise the police work to get it done. It is a personal obsession to him. It's not about the law. It's about the victory for him. So much so, it was even very clear to me, during that car chase, this man is breaking the law and putting every human being in that city at risk just
Entertainment Industry Strikes
00:12:14
Speaker
to catch a bad guy. That makes him a bad guy too. You freaking, they want you to feel that.
00:12:21
Speaker
doing all of that, they want you to feel all of that, right? So this, him, Dirty Harry, you know, Clint over there. We are at a moment in filmmaking, in narrative storytelling, in these sort of dramatic, you know, police procedures or whatever, where the creatives are trying to say something true, are trying to say something true.
00:12:43
Speaker
And they're asking us questions about ourselves, too. Look, I'm not going to do a whole film class here. But in my film class, when I've shown this film, these are the things that I tell my students who do question this. So like, you're 19, 20, 20, whatever year old students, when they see this film, they want to know, dude, what's up with this film? I'm like, yeah, this film is a document.
00:13:03
Speaker
of a thing that was true about a dynamic between the police force and communities in 1969, 70, 71, 72. And what I think, and not to belabor too much, but what I think people oftentimes miss about the French connection was that what it was doing in that moment,
00:13:23
Speaker
in 1971, it was 71, that won Best Picture. What it was doing in that moment in 1971 was something that cop films as recently as a year or two earlier didn't dare do. And it was something that was a part already of the very early Blaxploitation films.
00:13:45
Speaker
They were trafficking in it because those were the themes that their audience understood. But mainstream films hadn't yet adopted that posture, and the French connection migrated it in many respects the same way that Easy Rider did. It migrated ideas and attitudes and themes and behaviors from underground films, exploitation films, and brought them into a mainstream audience.
00:14:10
Speaker
The very notion of the anti-hero. You know, I think the term was probably, you created something around it. And by the way, you fast forward again, I guess 50 years, to the wire and to the shield. There you go. That's the legacy. Yeah. I mean, what are you talking about? You know, leave the movies alone.
00:14:33
Speaker
And then, update on the strike. I don't know if we have an update on the strike. SAG pushed things into a little of a few weeks, so we'll see where they stand. I think, well, how do you feel about that letter that came out right before the SAG delayed, I think, to the 12th? From the record file? Well, the thousand are so heavy hitters. Yeah, basically saying to their leadership, hold the line. Yeah.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think they're itching to go out on strike. I think they want to join the writers on the line. I think Fran Drescher and the SAG leadership who are negotiating, who are oddly enough united on this front, it's the leadership that came from like two different factions in SAG and they came together on this issue and now they kind of find themselves pressured by the rank and file. I think they want a deal.
00:15:16
Speaker
And the word that I'm hearing is that it's not close. It's really not close. That they're kind of, you know, ticking things away at the edges, but the real issues remain unsettled, especially for writers. You know, the minimum staffing thing for writers is just deemed a non-starter. I think they're willing to do all the increased pension health and welfare and all that kind of stuff for both unions.
00:15:43
Speaker
you know the the the streaming residuals that's a sticking point in a is a big sticking point you know they they they really are so it's i i don't. I think sag i mean i think stands a very good chance because of that letter of going out on strike.
00:15:59
Speaker
just to finally push it, to push it hard, joining with the writers. And that is a worst case scenario for the producers. I think they were happy to get the directors to settle first, which they always do. And I think they want to pick off the actors so that they can put pressure on the writers and say, look, we've come to a deal with the other two. Now you guys got to bend a little bit. I think that's the idea is divide and conquer. And I think those actors who signed that letter understand that.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's why they want to they want to go out on strike because I think they feel that if they join the writers, they're all stronger for it. It's all leverage because generally speaking, they're more or less fighting for like kind of the same stuff. Yeah. And and and and you know what, look, I this all these things and I think it was a mistake to push. I think they should have dropped the ball. They should have dropped a hammer. The first moment that they could drop the hammer.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah, let me tell you something those teamsters you over UPS. Yeah Did that guy who's lead them? He says we are going on strike one second Midnight on whatever their strike deadline is like and that guy is not kidding He's like I'm thinking you know, they had the strike authorization vote a long time ago. That's leverage
00:17:14
Speaker
yes we will not be pushing this down the road we we we're gonna go on strike we will stop everything moves in a brown truck or flies on a brown airplane in this country one second after midnight you have to be there dude and do you be this is the other hand i know how to fix all of this.
00:17:32
Speaker
I don't know how to fix it. Let me tell you, if I was the god of the writers strike situation, this would probably work for SAG after two. What I would say to the union members is this is what we're going to do, folks. Pensions and this, that and AI and whatever. I don't know anything about any of that. But we're going to start paying actors a minimum rate of $5,000 a day.
00:18:02
Speaker
That's your first job, $5,000 a day is what we're going to pay you, cash money. My point is, I would just throw a ridiculous amount of cash at writers and at actors right up front.
00:18:21
Speaker
When you get hired to work on a show as a screenwriter, no matter what the fuck you do, you're gonna make $50,000. If you walk in the room and sit there and do nothing, you're gonna make $50,000.
00:18:36
Speaker
And if you front-load the process with ridiculous amounts of money, I can promise you that qualms around all of that back-end money, which writers will go away. If I know that if I sell two scripts a year, I can make $600,000, I won't fuck with you about shit that might happen 30 years from now. See, this is the thing that I think the producers have never fully understood. And maybe they understand, and they're just being hardasses and cruel about it.
00:19:06
Speaker
employment in the movie business everybody thinks that you always so much money just get rich so fast rolling it no no here's the reality you got people who will end in the tax structure doesn't favor this either you have people who will sell a screenplay.
00:19:21
Speaker
$350,000. Fantastic. Or they'll work on a show and they'll make $400,000 in a year and you think, oh, that's amazing. You're buying a car, you're buying a house, you're making great. And then you don't sell another screenplay or your show gets canceled.
00:19:37
Speaker
Immediately. And now the tax man has hit your $400,000 for about $180,000. Yeah. So, and your manager and your agent have taken out another, you know, 60,000. Yep, that's gone. Okay. So now your $400,000 is under $200,000 and you don't work for another two years. Yeah.
00:19:59
Speaker
Might not, might not, dude. So now you have dropped into what in a major city like Los Angeles or New York would call low income. Yeah. It is not the holy grail that everybody thinks it is because everybody kind of measures it by the people that they see on TV and they read about in the trades. But for the rank and file, for those workaday writers who just bounce from writer's room to writer's room,
00:20:28
Speaker
who never sell a screenplay, who only write episodes, those directors who only ever write episodes, and those actors who never become movie stars, who never get nominated for Emmys, who just go on auditions all the time and they wait tables, or they do real estate, or they become yoga teachers between gigs. Or even if they become a work-a-day, driven actor. The thing of it is, all of that used to make for a middle class.
00:20:58
Speaker
i am in los angeles in the industry middle class and you can leave yourself alive buy yourself a house put your kids through through through college you wouldn't retire no you weren't rich you just have a life and it was a nice middle class life entertainment industry that life is the life that's gonna go away shot is gonna be fine.
00:21:21
Speaker
And what makes it all so much worse is when people then read, oh, Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings each took a $50 million bonus last year. That's what pours salt in the wound.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, because those bonuses would completely pay for. Yes. Just last year's bonuses, by the way. You don't have to do it every year. You know what? Take a $10 million bonus each. A gigantic whopping $10 million bonus. Go ahead. In addition to everything else that you've got,
00:21:59
Speaker
and take that other $80 million and pour that into writer and actor pension funds and shore up the- And pay, and actually just pay. Look, I'm telling you, man, if you front load all of this with just, when you are working, we're gonna pay you stupid. I've had jobs like this for one thing. I've had several gigs in the course of 35 years where, look, man, there is no,
00:22:28
Speaker
job security here whatsoever. But this job pays $6,000 a week. So what do you want to do? I'll leave it at this, because we could go on this forever. But I'll leave it at this, because my wife, who is a producer, as I think everybody knows, she's been in those situations where people will say, then look at a budget that she's pulled together for a film.
00:22:49
Speaker
And they'll say, boy, you know, I mean, we see movies like this that get made for, you know, a lot less. I mean, can't you make this budget less? And her answer is always the same, which is no, because I believe in paying people. Yeah. And if you pay people, you get a good product. You get a good product. Yeah. Yeah. Working hard.
00:23:09
Speaker
at that job. I've always done the same thing myself. So anyway, that would be my solution.
TV Series Releases and Critiques
00:23:17
Speaker
If anybody out there is listening, just front-load it with cash, man.
00:23:24
Speaker
All right, let's hit some TV real quickly. We've got a couple of big season, like all series, complete series box sets here that are insane. So Bonanza is finally, and at long last, thank you Paramount and CBS, is at long last out on DVD, the complete series.
00:23:44
Speaker
excuse me the complete series in four it's just a giant this thing is so heavy i think you could you could bench press it uh it is 14 seasons in four of these big old keep cases in a sleeve it is heavy it is gnarly very smart they got you know each of them on each of them stuck on a on a each of the three sons and then lauren are all on a
00:24:06
Speaker
a volume. Seasons 1 through 4, 5 through 8, 9 through 11 and 12 through 14. You know, I have a weird connection to two of these guys. Well, Dan Blocker used to actually live in a house across the street from my mailbox.
00:24:24
Speaker
Because your mailbox is at the bottom. It's the bottom of a road. And yes, it's far away from it. But he used to live in the house on the corner. Not when I was around. It was like before I was born. But he used to live in that house. Dan died a long time ago. I'll say all three sons are like big fixtures here in town because Dan Blocker lived there. And then the beach further down in the city, just past Pepperdine University, is called Dan Blocker Beach. Oh.
00:24:51
Speaker
And the community center over at the ball fields is the Michael Landon community. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew Michael was and and then Purnell Roberts actually lived just up the hill from me all the way through when I was in high school and I used to see him driving his car up and down and up and down all through the like the Trapper MD days. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah, he literally lived across the street from Linda Lavin. We had a few celebrities here on the hill. It was Linda Lavin and Pernell Roberts and Olivia Newton-John and then a couple of screenwriters. So it was a little Hollywood thing going on when I was growing up.
00:25:34
Speaker
But man, Pernell Roberts was the meanest dude. He was just the meanest dude. And I don't know if anybody knows this, but there's that moment during Bonanza where he just disappears from the show. And you're like, oh, well, where'd he go? And every episode, they're like, I wonder, have you heard from him? Is he, oh yeah, we just got a letter from him. He sent a telegram and he's doing this and he's doing that. And they're making up excuses literally every episode as to why he's not there.
00:26:02
Speaker
Truth was he was just being a jerk. He was he was in a contract renegotiation. I'm not going to come to work until you meet my terms. And he held the show hostage. But the here's the thing about Bonanza, which, you know, I don't I think it's in some respect, it gets a little too much credit in some respects, not enough. But, you know, Gunsmoke and the Big Valley and a lot of the shows, Big Valley was kind of a rip off of Bonanza a little bit. But but here's the thing about Bonanza.
00:26:29
Speaker
Bonanza drew an audience on Sunday nights, year after year after year, that today dwarfs the total number of people who watch all television on a Sunday night. Everyone who watches television on a Sunday night, the total number of Americans now watching is dwarfed by the total number who watched just Bonanza in 1970.
00:26:59
Speaker
Yeah, it was a 30 plus share all the time. And there was a smaller population there. Yeah, that being because we owned, and that was just extraordinary. Anything like that was extraordinary back then, but Bonanza did it for year after year after year.
00:27:19
Speaker
I'll say this it should be sure to come out of the blue it's gonna be like another year and a half before they come out of the blue ray and they've been coming out with the volumes of bonanza now for like fifteen years people waiting for this for you other kids are gonna graduate high school it's ridiculous it should happen a long time ago. Four hundred and thirty one episodes fourteen seasons and there's a couple hours of bonus material here that's really really sweet nostalgic and if you're a fan just get this don't wait for the blue ray cuz it's gonna take just freaking forever.
00:27:45
Speaker
If you happen to know just because they're on some press or whatever, what's the retail on that? Oh, boy. I have no idea. Is it three digits? Yeah, it's three digits for sure. I mean, you go to deepdiscount.com and find whoever has it cheapest, but I think it's around 130, 150, something like that. Okay.
00:28:10
Speaker
And then we also have Parenthood, the complete Parenthood. A bunch of episodes here directed by my friend Larry Trilling. Some good stuff. And Parenthood, you know, not like the movie. The TV series was a totally different thing, but ran for six solid seasons. It's on Blu-ray and comes from Universal. And a lot of, you know, it's a really sweet cast. I'd forgotten kind of what an endearing show this was. And they did a pretty good job.
00:28:40
Speaker
Good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lauren and Monica. Jason Jason Catoms was the the central factor on this who co wrote Matt Reeves directing debut the the Paul Bearer. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember all that very, very well. It was an interesting moment. Criminal Minds evolution. You know, season 16. This is now two seasons longer than Bonanza. I
00:29:10
Speaker
It's a little too much true-crime profiling for me at this stage, but you know, you tell me. I don't know, dude. These things, all of them, sort of excuse me, eventually become, frankly, just sort of modeling, you know what I mean? You're digging into these sort of criminal, these profiles, are they?
00:29:32
Speaker
Ultimately, I don't think they're truthful at all. The thing about all of these shows, the NCIS, the Department of the Mind, the idea was we're going to take you into the real way. These things are dumb. We're going to show you how the cops are actually doing it.
00:29:46
Speaker
And you know what? I don't think they are. I think you're making this crap up. I don't think any of this works this way. And so that's, you know, it's interesting sort of thing to me. So, but anyway, whatever criminal. Uh, we've also got, we've also got the event. Um, you know, this was, uh, I don't know. This is from Mill Creek. It's on Blu-ray. The event wasn't, it was an interesting, um,
00:30:15
Speaker
It was an interesting attempt at something that I think kind of didn't really ever catch fire. They got 22 episodes in. It was all kind of geared toward like a mystery thing. It was sort of, it was trying to be a little bit like lost in some respects, but it was really, really, and I think it just became too much of a tease and without any payoff. It was all an itch and no scratch.
00:30:38
Speaker
You cannot have a television series called The Event. And never get to The Event. Never get to The Event. It's just a conspiracy. I felt like, you know what?
00:30:52
Speaker
They didn't know where they were going. It was like a framework, an idea, and you got Jason Ritter and all these people. But no one ever really knew what they were doing. And there was no event.
00:31:08
Speaker
Jason Ritter is very good. Blair Underwood is very good. Everybody's very good. Well, anyway, it's an interesting curiosity. This is the thing about any sort of, particularly a show like this. The X-Files did this to me. The X-Files got to a moment of when you realize they were actually making it up. I mean, I know that they're actually, I know it's all made up, but you're actually making it up.
00:31:37
Speaker
I think some of this you made up today, you know, and that's not actually storytelling. Yeah. So we got a bunch of single season deals here. So let's start with the season one, the new quantum leap. Your your your dear Bridget was in the
00:32:01
Speaker
It's kind of interesting. I've enjoyed it. It was renewed, by the way. And I've enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Although it is, relatively speaking, not connected to the original Quantum Leap. Other than what they're doing jumping through time. At all. Just at all.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, which is probably good. Just do your own thing. Skymed, which is not on Blu-ray, the quantum leaps on Blu-ray, Skymed is on DVD from Paramount and CBS. Have you seen Skymed? Yes, one of these high stakes medical rescues is what they call it. And look, here's the thing about that.
00:32:47
Speaker
You've seen one of those. You've seen them all. I know. You can only drag somebody into the sky or you can get the plane. Can the plane land on the extremely short runway? Yeah, it's gonna land. I grew up on emergency. I grew up on emergency, you know? And that was like a whole thing. Oh my gosh, it was like Adam 12, except they're saving people every week, you know?
00:33:07
Speaker
ways of crying isn't burning. Oh, help me, help me, dislodge them. And taking that show and sticking it in remote Canada and giving them a helicopter, it's the same show. It's the same show with a big dash of Baywatch because all of these people are just fine as hell.
00:33:28
Speaker
I'm like, really? Every one of you extremely fine people decided what you wanted to do. Now, here's the thing. They have a really... I mean, I say helicopter. They have a really swanky plane in this thing. It's a plane, yeah. It's a plane. But I know some pilots who watch this show who could not care less whether anybody gets saved. They're just watching it for the plane.
00:33:55
Speaker
So we got another season one, which I never thought I'd see the day that Sylvester Stallone was on a TV show. But here it is, Tulsa King.
00:34:07
Speaker
You know, I guess it was inevitable, but, but, uh, you know, I know what they're doing, doing, getting there. Yeah. You know, man, I just, uh, it's a weird thing. So, you know, Stallone is this guy who's gotten out of prison and it all takes place in Oklahoma. Cause I guess they got tax credits and it's a whole, it's a whole kind of, it's like, uh,
00:34:32
Speaker
It's like the Sopranos set in Oklahoma, maybe? Is that a good way of putting it? Yeah, look, it's the joke being that he's just sort of, you know, out because he's been away in jail. He doesn't know that we... The joke doesn't play for an entire series, right? Because come on, dude, catch up. First of all, if you want to be savvy on what's going on in the world, go to prison. You'll be caught up on everything in the world.
00:34:58
Speaker
But nevertheless, that joke just can't keep playing. What I like about it is that Dana Delaney's in it. And she's Dana Delaney. Thank goodness for Dana Delaney. Now, Stallone's not bad. He's fine. But it's just, I don't know, it's set in Oklahoma, no offense to Oklahoma. I got a lot of good friends who come from Oklahoma, family in Oklahoma.
00:35:21
Speaker
Don't really want to watch it every week. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they're going for it. They were going for the Ozarks thing. But the writing isn't that clever. This really is Guido in Oklahoma. Old, old Guido in Oklahoma. Yeah, it's very soprano-y. Yeah. And it's also on the prairie by punching people or, you know, shooting them. We got a season two of La Brea. Oh, my goodness. I just think this is the dumbest show.
00:35:51
Speaker
This is an absolutely stupid show. I mean, it really is. So the big joke in Los Angeles is that when you say, oh, let's go to the La Brea tar pits, La Brea means the tar in Spanish. So the, as the very, very funny humorist
00:36:14
Speaker
Stan Freiburg once said that when you say the La Brea Tar Pits, you are literally saying the, the Tar Tar Pits. The Tar Tar Pits. Stan Freiburg did Mary Puma and Looney Tunes. Anyway, so this is season two of this weird show that's kind of like Outlander and it's- The time, the land of time forgotten.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, I mean, when you when you decide that you're going to go to 10,000 BC, you've got to make an effort to make me believe that we're in 10,000 BC, as opposed to Oh, look, they went and dug up some costumes from, you know,
00:37:02
Speaker
some old gladiator movie from the studio wardrobe department. It's not convincing. It's hokey and it's very silly. But I guess people are watching it because this thing is, it's coming back for season three, isn't it? Yeah, people watch a lot of really terrible television stuff. Sherman, our homie Sherman, right? There's a character in this that Sherman actually got the part.
00:37:26
Speaker
But he turned it down because he also got the part on Into the Badlands. Yeah. Much better choice. Look, this is still going. He's on Stranger Things now anyway, so it doesn't really make any difference. But I'm like, Sherman, you dodged a bullet. Because between the Thaniel Moon on Into the Badlands and the guy in this, oh my gosh, it's just, there's no, it's the thing.
00:37:51
Speaker
Season three, we got a season three of the L-word, Generation Q on Showtime. I'm not sure we needed this, but they can't come up with anything new anymore. I know we didn't need it because our good friend, my great lesbian girlfriend, Baya, who I went to see this past weekend, I told her about this and she's like, but why?
00:38:17
Speaker
the the
00:38:33
Speaker
That's too funny. Everything that's old is old again. Then we've gotten to a season six on Seal Team with David Boreanaz. I've got to give credit to David Boreanaz. I think he sustains this. I can't believe this thing made it to season six, but there it is. Dude, David Boreanaz.
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah. Along with, I think we talk about this occasionally, along with Scott Bakula. Yeah. Are some of the, a couple of the wealthiest, got these guys. So David, David was, was, was angel on button. Angel on angel. Then he was angel in these bones. Then he was on bones for like
00:39:15
Speaker
10, 12 seasons, just six seasons. Let me tell you something. Any person who's just a movie star during that period of time, maybe other than Tom Cruise, has not made as much money as David. He's an executive producer of all these shows. Scott Backlist, he was the first Quantum Leap, then he was captain of the Enterprise.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah, Scott. And he's been down there on one of those NCIS. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, five, six, seven, eight, you know, it's like literally 40 years of television, these guys. It's unreal. It's unreal. I mean, yeah, and it's not a bad show. It's not a bad show. It's a little bit redundant, a little bit repetitive, but
00:39:59
Speaker
You know, they've got a woman on it, so it's not completely testosterone, but, you know, SEAL Team Season 6. There it is. From Showtime, we got Speak, which, you know, with Kristen Stewart,
00:40:21
Speaker
I don't know. I didn't see this. Yeah, this is one of those teen angst movies that kind of just faded away on Showtime at one point. I don't think it ages terribly well, but they've released it. There's a party and things go wrong and Kristen Stewart gets to act all angsty and teeny.
00:40:47
Speaker
In the Me Too era, in the moment that we are in where these things have almost saturated the media, I guess there's still some resonance to something like this, but it really does feel a little bit exploitive, despite her otherwise decent performance.
00:41:05
Speaker
Ozzy and Harry, it's season 11 and 12. This crazy show just kept on going. It's more Ozzy and Harry, and I don't really know what to tell you, but it's nice to have it out. This was kind of the original nuclear family show. The 50s were defined by all the nuclear family shows, Ozzy and Harry, and Leave It to Beaver, and the Donna Reed Show. And then in the 60s, everybody got divorced, and it was- Of course, we moved to his father.
00:41:33
Speaker
and Family Affair and the Andy Griffith Show and on and on and on. And the Brady Bunch, right? Yeah, so it's a little funny how that happened. There's really a social trend there, but the original nuclear family show before everybody got divorced was Ozzy and Harriet. Of course, this was weird because they were an actual family. Yeah, exactly. You wonder, like, did they have any family time?
00:41:56
Speaker
Yes. All right. And then I'm just going to make quick work. Ricky Nelson. Yeah. I have these twins. Yeah. And they were like rock stars in the 80s, maybe the 90s. I can't remember exactly. My wife was in high school with them. I think they were younger. Yeah. Younger. They were younger. I think her younger brother
00:42:24
Speaker
Who you know yeah i think they were in his grade. Okay yeah i think they were in his grade i think they are better anyway they all know that they didn't have a long hair then but everybody knows the nelson twins yeah yeah nelson yeah that's what yeah nelson never nelson may they have that song and they're like rocking their hair all around turn the hair hairband they will sing there for a second yeah.
00:42:45
Speaker
So, got a bunch of Hallmark stuff here. I'm just going to make quick mention of it because it's all basically the same. I saw a joke the other day that the goal for the Hallmark channel in 2023 is to come up with another plot.
00:43:01
Speaker
Something like that. Anyway, they're all, you know, sweet little romancy things. Find a couple of pretty people who work for scale. So there is, got an original Hallmark movie. Oh my gosh, a Hallmark Channel original movie? Another one? Really? They make them like every six days. So this is called Taking a Shot at Love with Luke McFarland and Alexa Penavega.
00:43:28
Speaker
I'll let you guess what that's about. Got one that's a holiday themed here. Didn't come out during the holidays. I don't know why. It's called Christmas Waltz. And this one is with Lacey Chabert, who we all love, and Will Kimp.
00:43:43
Speaker
And then we have another one with Lacey Chabert. This one is Lacey Chabert with Autumn Rieser and Alison Sweeney. It's called The Wedding Veil Expectations. A few of these wedding veil movies. They're all basically the same. Not sure what makes them different from the non-wedding veil movies, but anyway. And this one is called Love and Sunshine with Danica McKellar and Mark Declan.
00:44:09
Speaker
And I just want to point out, I really don't think that after all these movies that there are any white actors left in Hollywood. I think it's truly unbelievable. It's hilarious. Another Christmas one. This is with Candace Cameron-Boer and Tim Rezaan. It's called Christmas Town.
00:44:32
Speaker
This is going to help us all. Sign sealed, delivered, the complete series. This is a series, Tim. It's Canadian. And I think there were maybe like five episodes of this thing.
00:44:51
Speaker
Same deal. We also have now on DVD because these were not good enough to actually put on Blu-ray apparently. Color My World With Love, a Hallmark Movies and Mysteries original movie, a Hallmark Movies and Mysteries original movie. It's fascinating. And this one is like a romance between two people with Down syndrome. So it's sweet, but it feels a little exploitative at the same time. No, very exploitative.
00:45:20
Speaker
Then we have one called Love Fall and Order, which almost looks like a parody of itself. There's a dog in the picture and I don't know. It's got a whole Thanksgiving fall festival theme. Oh my gosh, Tim, are you looking? Can you see what I'm showing you? There's black people on that cover.
00:45:48
Speaker
Wow. Hallmark. What's going on? Hallmark movies and mysteries. To her with love. Part of their mahogany line? Are they serious with that? Billy? Are you serious?
00:46:04
Speaker
Hey. Hey. Yeah. Hey. Black folks want to get some of the Hallmark money too. That's cool. That's cool. Oh my gosh. Oh no, we're fine with Hallmark. Knock it out. They have a role to play.
00:46:23
Speaker
Because you or I have been around long enough particularly doing that first the early VHS run Yeah, when if it were in a VHS store It was it was a perfectly worthy movie to watch because there was a movie
00:46:41
Speaker
And then, you know, that kind of went away. And then when DVDs came around, there was a hole that first straight to DVD sort of run there. There were a lot of decent movies in those runs, you know? But there wasn't very much theatrical releasing and people would... So, you know, and so there's, you know, this space for all this kind of stuff. The audiences are very specific and they generate enough dough to keep these movies coming.
00:47:03
Speaker
Very true. Very, very true.
Film Releases and Impact
00:47:06
Speaker
What should we hear? We got we got new movies, we got Criterion stuff, we got a whole ton of stuff here. We got four 4Ks. Let's look at a few 4Ks. I see that John Wick chapter four is there. I gotta tell you, I dug John Wick chapter four. It was too long.
00:47:24
Speaker
I was that actually they had Keanu and chat to Hellsky were both there for Q&A afterwards. Yeah, it was great. I took the team and it was it was hilarious. It was like Keanu is so loose now, you know, he used to kind of be a little intimidated by the fame and didn't didn't like to do press and stuff, but he is so loose now he comes to these things.
00:47:45
Speaker
And he just starts riffing and he's, he's, he's, he's ribbing Chad Stahelski. He's telling stories. He goes, I'm not supposed to tell this story, but let me tell you about this guy. And he's just, he's laying it out there. It's really fun. And he's loosened this thing too. And he gives all the props to the scene where he's rolling down the stairs and over and over and over.
00:48:07
Speaker
And he's just brutal. And he goes, yeah, that was my stuntman. And he lays out, he goes, you give that guy all the props, man. He just took it over and over and over. He's given all the credit to the stuntman as opposed to Mr. Cruz. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it.
00:48:24
Speaker
And he was even making some Tom Cruise jokes. People were like, you know, did you hear him stunts? He goes, yeah, it's Tom. I don't do that. I'm too old for that. It's very funny. And I just love that look. Tom's getting mission impossible. I guess we'll be out by the time this drops. You know, look, God bless Tom. But Tom racked his nuts up. Back there a while ago doing this. So Keanu was like, nope, I like walking.
00:48:51
Speaker
But yeah, you know, this should be the last chapter, but they keep, you know, as long as they keep making money, they're going to keep making these things. No, there's a lot of fun stuff in this thing. And I think Skarsgard is a good heavy. You know, we saw that already in the IT films, but he's not a clown here. He's just, you know, the whole the whole mythology of John Wick is really what makes it so much fun. I mean, it all started with a guy who got pissed off because he killed his dog.
00:49:16
Speaker
Yeah. And the whole mythology of this worldwide assassin network where quite literally almost like, yeah, if I'm watching this, I'm thinking, am I the only person who's not getting a piece of this assassin money? Because I'm feeling really left out. Everybody seems to be an assassin. Everybody seems to be in on the bounty. Yeah. And everybody also seems to be willing to kill each other.
00:49:41
Speaker
That seems to be a perfectly socially acceptable sort of thing to do. Anyway, it goes way, way over the top. One of the last films of the wonderful late Lance Riddick. Yeah, I'm so good. He was so good.
00:49:59
Speaker
Yeah i'm gonna miss him and that's the fine actor and the heart and soul of the series because he was he was the only. He was the only guy who really seem to have a moral center you know. I'm actually doing this for real you people seem to think this is the only one who never betrayed john he never he never turned on him.
00:50:24
Speaker
So that's very sad. But anyway, beautiful Ultra HD transfer. You know, we'll probably get a bigger box set, a complete box set with the whole 4K thing. And the first three had their own box set, but they're going to come up with a new one in the holiday season. Just wait for it. We'll get this in another one. So you might want to wait to upgrade. But yeah, you know, it's kind of...
00:50:43
Speaker
share of extras and stuff on it, exactly what you'd expect. It's all kind of behind the scenes stuff. And Donnie Yen is terrific in it. Donnie just keeps on going. Jackie Chan and Jet Li, their careers are more or less long since expired. And Donnie, their contemporary, is having a lease on life like nobody's business. So those stunts caught up with Jet and Jackie, all that big stuff. You know, Donnie always kept it sort of tight and close and you know,
00:51:12
Speaker
I see you got the Transformers, uh, bot. Yeah. And of course, you know, Rise of the Beast is actually doing pretty good. I did. Yeah. They're making a few bucks out there right now. I'm super duper surprised, but you know, among the, among the, you know, your Raiders didn't, didn't know so well, uh, rise there, your rise actually made more money than that.
00:51:32
Speaker
Fascinating. That is really fascinating. Yeah. I mean, they keep trying to squeeze the, and they reinvent the Transformers thing every so often, right? I mean, the only thing that's constant between these are the Transformer films. Martin Wahlberg isn't in here and they gave up on Shia LaBeouf a long time ago. You ever see that compilation stuff of Shia in all of his Transformers movies? And it's just, it's a compilation of every moment where Shia is running and going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
00:52:04
Speaker
It goes for like seven minutes. It's a shy little bit of running going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, being chased by robots. It's hilarious. I love that. Anyway. Yeah. Six Transformers films in this big old box set, 4K with digital code, Blu-ray, Ultra HD combos. And, you know, I don't care for these films at all, but
00:52:30
Speaker
You know, a lot of people love them, and if giant fighting robots is your thing, then just knock yourself out. Much more my speed, if we could just go there for a second. The 100th anniversary 4K release is coming out from Warner Brothers, I think are pretty sweet. There's a lot of really, really fun stuff there.
00:52:50
Speaker
Two of them this week, we've got a newish film, Evil Dead Rise. This is kind of in the vein of the original Evil Dead, not nearly as good. I guess for fans, it's fine. Movies anywhere code on this thing. It's OK. It's the same mythology. It's a little silly. It's a little scary. But much more my speed, Tim. Vacation.
00:53:17
Speaker
National Lampoon's Vacation Chevy Chase, written by John Hughes. Absolutely. I love this movie. I love it more now than I think I ever have in my life. Harold Ramis directed it just beautifully. I mean, you think about that, John Hughes, Harold Ramis, Chevy Chase, National Lampoon branded crazy movie where he's not anybody's idea, a good dad.
00:53:42
Speaker
Boy, what a funny movie this is. John Candy has a little brief cameo in it. The image in Koka's grandma. So funny. So unbelievably funny. That was fantastic. It was just wonderful. And look, so many guys who are gone now. William Hickey. I'll walk around this where he's just going to Doris Roberts is walking around this movie. Randy Quaid is still around, but he's not still around.
00:54:11
Speaker
It's just a really, really fun film. And it's silly. We don't have silly comedies like this anymore. Johnny Galecki played Rusty because they swapped Russkies.
00:54:36
Speaker
They changed Rusty's for after this one, yeah.
00:54:40
Speaker
after this one. So that was Johnny, man. Johnny's done well. Johnny's still around. Big bang. A new film, Dungeons and Dragons, Honor Among Thieves on 4K. Absolutely ridiculous. Just as bad as the previous Dungeons and Dragons movie from about 20 years ago. Absolutely stupid beyond belief. I don't even know why they keep trying. They just wanted to brand this thing. It's a whole lot of actors who should have known better.
00:55:07
Speaker
You know it's it's a mythical quest something's going on and you know there's a whole thing where.
00:55:18
Speaker
Where, what's his name's daughter, Chris Pine's got a daughter and he's got to leave her behind. And when he becomes a fugitive, and then he's got to put a team together to get her back. And, you know, Michelle Rodriguez is like playing tough, which he always does. You know, then the hot guy from the
00:55:42
Speaker
show shows up for 16 seconds and you know, smiles and it's just, it's just dumb. It doesn't make any sense and things turn into dragons and I hated this. I hated every second of it. Thankfully bad sometimes too. Really? There's a whole sequence when they were supposed to go on trial. They're up there and they're doing this whole joke about it because he's waiting. Oh, it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be a joke, but it's just not fun.
00:56:09
Speaker
There's like this race of witches who are double crossing. I couldn't keep up with any of it. It just didn't, you know, it's, I'm too old for that stuff. The Creep Show. We got a 4K of a Creep Show collection. 1982 Creeps though, the old 1982.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah. George Romero. Strange factory shout factory release. Pretty great. A ton of extras on here. Huge amount of extras. The fantastic scan from the original camera negative is just gorgeous. George Romero and Tom Savini commentary is just fabulous. Got another commentary with the director of photography and a third commentary with the construction coordinator and the first assistant director, which is okay.
00:56:53
Speaker
But it's really the Romero and Savini commentary that you want to listen to. That's the brilliant one. And you know what? This is a really sharp film. It's a fun, it's not scary at all, whatever it was intended to be, but Stephen King, the story in here with Stephen King and probably the only thing that he's ever acted in is hilarious.
00:57:13
Speaker
Yeah, when he turns into the... Yeah. Still so good and so funny. Anyway, tons of interviews and featurettes galore. It's a fan's cornucopia of goodies. Definitely check it out at a really, really great 4K transfer. Terrific 4K transfer.
00:57:32
Speaker
Did you see the Mario Brothers movie? Super Mario Brothers movie? I did not. It also made money though. Among things that are doing well, you know, comparatively speaking, Mario Brothers movie doing good. I did not see that coming. I really didn't. I mean, I'm usually pretty good at getting in front of things, but man, this thing just blew the doors off.
00:57:56
Speaker
As opposed to the one from what, 30 years ago? Yeah, with the live action thing with John Leguizamo, who's all who, you know, I got to say this, look, I love John Leguizamo. But but let he's apparently really, really pissed off that they didn't bring him back to play to because he says, I thought we're in a diversity moment. It's like, dude, you're
00:58:21
Speaker
You're Puerto Rican or Colombian, he's like half Colombian or whatever, but these are Italian plumbers. They're not Italian. What are you talking about? You weren't Italian the first time either, by the way. Not it was Bob Hoskins. No, but he also played Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge. What are you whining to stop?
00:58:45
Speaker
You have a great career. Don't be that guy who just whines at every job you don't get. You get great jobs. He's like a Zamo. I still agree with him about, what is it? That's true.
00:58:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. This movie made money. Yeah, Chris Pratt, I don't know, it's just really weird. You know, what is doing well. And yeah, and what is I agree, it's not this, it's the spider verse, you know, both animated, obviously, but completely different audiences, I think, I guess I don't
00:59:24
Speaker
I don't know the audience for this Mario Brothers movie. Is this a hero movie? This would not be hero, would it? No, it's just a big video game, man. It's just a big 3D video game. But I mean, hero, your daughter, would she? No, she wouldn't get near this. Yeah, right? This is the movie for grown-ups, I think.
00:59:43
Speaker
She's 10 years old. She says last night, this is the funniest thing. I'm like, oh no, is this what I've raised? She says, and she loves all things Disney, at least as far as the parks are concerned, but she says, they've got to stop making sequels. They don't have any new ideas.
01:00:05
Speaker
And I thought, Oh, Disney, you're in such trouble. If I'm 10 year old to say that you're in trouble. That is so sharp. So sharp. They don't have any new ideas. She's very disappointed. They don't have any new ideas. Well, she should be very sophisticated, very sophisticated.
01:00:22
Speaker
Also, from the wonderful people at MVD Visual, we have a 4K of Rain Man Academy Awards, including Best Picture, which may be one of the best performances Tom Cruise has ever given because you've always pointed this out.
01:00:39
Speaker
I thank you for it. Everyone's always like, oh, Dustin Hoffman, Dustin Hoffman, oh, Dustin Hoffman, so amazing. You're the guy that was always saying, you realize that Dustin Hoffman is doing a shtick. Tom Cruise is the one who's really acting in this.
01:00:56
Speaker
He's carrying this whole movie. He carries a whole movie. That's just just standing over there with that bit he's doing. Yeah. And we love the bit, but it's a bit. And and, you know, you pick a bit and he picked a good bit and then you just do the bits like my left foot. You know, I love that. But basically homies just going to lay there on the floor. Yeah. And I swing that foot around and it's a thing and it's intense, but it's a bit, you know. And and meanwhile, everybody else in this movie is acting their asses.
01:01:27
Speaker
I'll tell you, watching this again, when it gets to the big emotional payoff at the end, and it gets you, it really does. I mean, that's why this won best picture. This won best picture in a year where Mississippi burning was expected to be a runaway hit until somebody raised their hand and said, the white FBI guys are not supposed to be the heroes of this story.
01:01:47
Speaker
Then everybody got guilty and was like, oh, what else is there? Rain Man. And everybody turned their attention to Rain Man. And there is that emotional payoff at the end, which is, it's a kicker. But you know, it's not Dustin Hoffman who earns that emotion. It's Tom Cruise who earns that moment. And it doesn't think that movies knew to do Barry Levinson, obviously. It doesn't
01:02:11
Speaker
thing that it's interesting that it knew to do way back in 88 that the Hollywood forgot about later when you get to things like Beautiful Mind or whatever. Barry, he knew, you know what, the love of a good brother is not going to fix what's wrong with Raymond. This is Raymond, and he will always be this way.
01:02:36
Speaker
And Tom Cruise, he loves his brother, but he realizes he's always going to be this way. And just because I love him, that ain't gonna fix him. I'm gonna have to deal with this shit. That's all there is to it. True. True. 25th anniversary. I hate to make us feel old, but 25th anniversary of the Truman Show. You know what, Tim? This movie holds up.
01:03:01
Speaker
It's kind of faded a little bit. Peter Weir working at his maximum capacity. Everybody was involved in this. This is a classic Hollywood studio film like they just don't make any more. Late 90s. Just killing it. Scott Rudin producing. Andrew Nickel wrote it. Peter Weir directed it.
01:03:22
Speaker
And it has got Jim Carrey in an amazing dramatic performance. It's got Laura Linney, it's got Ed Harris, it's got... Oh, Alan Taylor and Tasha McElhone. This movie today, this movie... Paul Giamatti. There's a black mirror, it's a black mirror drop. Yeah. There's a black mirror.
01:03:48
Speaker
And that Black Mirror is holding completely a reference to Truman Show. Now, now, now, if you never, if you would know that, unless, you know, what do you say? 25th? 25th. 25th anniversary. Yeah, because I don't know. But I can think of at least a dozen, either other movies or television programs or references to things that speak to the Truman Show.
01:04:13
Speaker
sometimes by simply just having in dialogue the word, the phrase, Truman Show. And you know, I guess you gotta be a certain age, but you know what they're talking about. It happens at least once a month that I will hear somebody just casually, and they're always somewhat of a certain age, but someone just casually go, man, I feel like I'm in the Truman Show.
01:04:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, right. It's become for a certain generation part of the vernacular. Of course, if you don't know what we're talking about, then you need to get this. He used to watch that movie, yeah. It's just, and it is a great, great 4K transfer. Paramount doesn't always do the best with their 4Ks, but man, they really did a great job here. Peter Weir, who should still be directing a lot of movies, but is very frustrated, by the way, the state of Hollywood, but man, really great.
01:04:59
Speaker
And it's an original screenplay, too. Again, back then, you could just have an idea like this, you know, write a really, really great screenplay, and Hollywood, at the biggest level, would take this really forward thinking, sort of high concept, that's what they call this kind of stuff back then, high concept, and let you make it. Today, you can make this film because it would have to be based on a graphic novel. Exactly. Or a book or something, but before they would let you do it.
01:05:28
Speaker
I don't know why Andrew Nicoll doesn't have the same kind of career as a Tarantino or as Christopher Nolan. These are the guys who are sort of our big auteurs of the moment because Nicoll's every bit as visionary and writes just as well, if not better.
01:05:50
Speaker
Like, uh, dude, yeah, you know, yeah. Let's, let's, we also have a steel book coming right here in my hand. Best Buy exclusive, um, Lord of War, which he wrote and directed, uh, with Nicholas Cage and one of his last great real performances as an arms dealer, an international arms dealer. And this is a, I mean, this film loosely playing that guy. We traded loosely. Yes. Playing that guy. We traded, um, yeah, for, for somebody. I don't know. We traded with the guy with Victor Booth.
01:06:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, this is such a prescient movie and 4K just kills it. It's beautifully done. Some great performances in here by people we forget were even in this thing. You know, Ian Holm is in this thing. Ethan Hawke is here, you know, from Gattaca. Jared Leto is in this thing. I mean, this is a really, really rock solid film, beautifully shot by Philippe Brouselot, just beautifully shot.
01:06:45
Speaker
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful 4K transfer. Great audio. I mean, it just kills it across the board. So that's a Best Buy exclusive if you want to get that. But, man, Andrew Nickel, I miss him making bigger movies. I wish he'd kind of get a second wind at some point. And then lastly on the 4K front here, Insidious is on 4K in a single book. I got a movie. He's a new Insidious film for the radio show this week, next week. Yeah.
01:07:10
Speaker
The red door, something like Insidious, the red door. Help me understand the appeal. I just don't get it. Me either, so I'm kind of with you. The original one, 2010. I guess the thing, Patrick Wilson, is Patrick in all of them? I think Patrick Wilson is in all of these things, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, he is. He's in this one, at least.
01:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, they sort of like like like like karaoke. I don't know. I'll say this. James Wan is a very, very good director with these kinds of films, whether it's the the whatever it is, the the Harkening, the Awakening, whatever the the the you know, the that other one. Yeah. Yeah. The Conjuring. The Conjuring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, with that or the Saw films. I mean, James Wan has this down. He's a very, very adept director with this kind of material. I just don't like the material.
01:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, I've never been into this particular kind of stuff, but I understand what a spiral. I think he's one of the producers over there on Megan. Do you see Megan a little bit? Yeah, totally. It's what they do. That's what they do. Yeah, for sure.
01:08:24
Speaker
Let's see what else we got. You know, a few docs in a concert thing here real quickly. Let me just mention the comedy specials that they are releasing now from Mill Creek. They've had a few of those. And they got a new one, Maria Bamford, Stand Up Spotlight, two comedy specials. Very funny. I love Maria Bamford. Those who don't know Maria Bamford, she does this thing with her voice.
01:08:46
Speaker
which is just surreal. It's like when she turns it on, it slays. It absolutely just kills. And no human being should be able to reproduce that sound. So it's truly, it's hilarious. I think she's great. I love her. I think she's really funny. And this is a good disc to have. Some docs here real quick. A Life's Work from First Run Features is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful documentary. And it's basically looking at a group
01:09:15
Speaker
group of people who have dedicated their lives to doing specific things that are just off everybody else's radar. One of them, for example, is Jill Tarter, who directs the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, the SETI Institute. You also have the people who founded the Champion Tree Project. You've got music archivist Robert Darden, who founded the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. All these people,
01:09:45
Speaker
they are inspired by things and they inspire others. And it's a really, really interesting subject. The topic is about people who are passionate and passionate about things that maybe a lot of other people wouldn't be passionate about.
01:10:01
Speaker
And things that can't be completed probably in their lifetimes can't just literally can't be completed. And there you are doing this thing that you almost by definition can't quote unquote succeed at. And my question is, it's very interesting stuff.
01:10:24
Speaker
And then we've got Muhammad Ali aka Cassius Clay Blu-ray of this, which is kind of a sort of a strangely forgotten film, but you know, really,
01:10:41
Speaker
If you don't know this history, and a lot of people don't, a lot of people grew up just knowing him as Muhammad Ali, but there's a really fascinating trajectory and a duality to his life. In many respects, it's almost a counterpoint to that of Elvis Presley. I've always looked at the two. I think maybe because my father always
01:11:02
Speaker
made that a point of reference. Admired the hell out of them both but always underlined that each one had a very, very different attitude. One of them served voluntarily in the military and the other one said, I don't want to go kill people who haven't done anything to me. Very, very interesting life and this is a really great
01:11:26
Speaker
a great look at the, not just the man, but at the phenomenon that surrounded him. I guess maybe the better way of putting it. So yeah, a lot of aspects of Muhammad Ali's life that are illuminated here. And I think this is a really sharp film. Let's see, last two here, Matter Out of Place.
01:11:52
Speaker
which is from Icarus. This is a strangely poetic kind of essay documentary film about garbage. And it travels all over the world and goes to the most far-flung remote places to see and to poetically photograph how they dispose of their waste. And you forget that
01:12:22
Speaker
everybody's gotta get rid of their trash no matter where you go in those beautiful places they've got trash and they gotta get rid of it somehow so this shines a light on a very very interesting topic in a strange problem that we don't often think about we like to pretend it doesn't exist so.
01:12:39
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's a little too pretty, but what a fascinating film and a fascinating topic. And then last one here is Kubrick by Kubrick, which is a from documentarian Gregory Monroe. This was a Tribeca a couple of years ago, three years ago, and the Michel Cement book.
01:12:56
Speaker
on Kubrick, which was revised just at the very end there to include some Eyes Wide Shut stuff. But that Michel Simon book was my Bible growing up. I read that thing, I looked at every page of it, the photographs, the comparisons, the essays, the analyses, reading the interviews. And Michel Simon, whom I've actually met, I met him at Cannes some years ago.
01:13:21
Speaker
conducted some really amazing interviews, and they used those interviews as the basis for this kind of essay study of Kubrick in film form. And this may be, for my money, the best movie about Kubrick and his films ever made. And I would highly recommend it. It's only an hour long. It should be longer.
01:13:44
Speaker
But in this probably a better movie to be made at some point in the future. But for now, this is the best we've got. And I wish it was on Blu-ray. It's not. It's on DVD. But on the absence of anything else, it's pretty great. Most of that good chunk of that hour are things that I simply have never been heard. Recordings of Kubrick, mostly audio, but nevertheless, and have never been heard before. So it's a worthy hour just in that you will not have heard most of this before.
01:14:14
Speaker
Yes, very, very true. Let's hit some new films and then we'll probably call it quits after that. Let's see. All right. You got an X there, which I thought was really good.
01:14:51
Speaker
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01:14:55
Speaker
film, this film looks like a film that was made in the 70s, right? And then when we see this footage of the little porno that they're making, it looks like one of those pornos that they made in the 70s. You know, they changed the framing and all color. So both of them, it looks like the film, it looks like it's set when it's set. And then it looks like it's doing what it's doing. And then there's this creepy couple and becomes a horror movie.
01:15:21
Speaker
And then we've got transfusion with Sam Worthington, whom nobody recognizes anymore because he's always hidden behind Blue CG in those Avatar movies. Yeah, man, I'm glad he gets paid well. I hope so. Because they have really checked up his career. Yeah. Well, you know, he was originally supposed to be Mad Max in Mad Max Fury Road. He was the original guy cast. I don't know why he fell out. He's Australian. You would think that.
01:15:48
Speaker
I don't know. Oh, I don't know why, but don't go on. So this is just a generic, this movie is called Transfusion. It's generic, you know, action thing. He's a special forces guy. One more mission. You know, one of those movies. It's a payday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like the guy who plays in this though. He's just a dad.
01:16:10
Speaker
Yeah, you know, he's got this kid and and his kids like posing completely not like him. Yeah, but he's kind of okay with that. Yeah, you know, takes his kid out to go to go to go hunting in this one scene, right? And it's a scene.
01:16:25
Speaker
When you think about it, the kid has a gun, the deer is over there. The kid's supposed to shoot the deer. The kid can't shoot the deer because the kid doesn't have a person who can shoot the deer. And he says, you know what? And he tells his dad, I can't do it. I don't want to do it. And I'm just not strong like you. And his dad says, you know what? You told me no. That's pretty strong.
01:16:47
Speaker
And that was a dynamic that you just don't see. They could just go the ordinary way, you know what I mean? But they didn't. He wasn't that guy. And then this whole movie is built around the fact that he's really not that guy. He was trained to be that guy. And he just does what he has to do. But he's really not that guy. Interesting stuff, but you know, it's a payday.
01:17:10
Speaker
Well, here's another interesting one. A little grueling little indie film, but you know, Willem Dafoe is always worth watching. Animorph. Willem Dafoe plays a detective.
Unique Films and Performances
01:17:19
Speaker
Deeply disturbed detective. One of those really detectives who just brings his work home and try to catch a killer.
01:17:25
Speaker
and the case just gets darker and weirder and deeper and turns out the killer is watching him while he's trying to watch the killer. It's a really interesting psychological thing. It ultimately doesn't, I don't think it totally all hangs together if you think too much about it, but you don't worry too much about it. The foe is fantastic. Scott Speedman is really surprisingly good and I think it's a sharp little movie. Did you see one day as a lion?
01:17:53
Speaker
I don't think I did. What a great surprise this is. I really is. This is like, you know, there are a lot of these kind of faux Tarantino wannabe films, and this is kind of one of them. But it's, I really thoroughly enjoyed this. It's a fantastic vehicle for Scott Kahn, who wrote it.
01:18:14
Speaker
and basically wrote it for himself, but it's, um, it's about a guy. Frank's in it. Frank Rillo. Frank Rillo is so good. I mean, so good. And he's, but you know, he's back to being like that, that ruthless criminal guy. I mean, he's the heavy in this thing.
01:18:29
Speaker
But it's so quirky and so fascinating. Basically, Scott Kahn, he's a reluctant hitman. He's not as an assassin, but he's doing this basically to satisfy a debt. And he can't bring himself to do it or to do it right. And he's supposed to kill J.K. Simmons, who's almost this crazy urban cowboy guy.
01:18:57
Speaker
And, you know, Frank Grillo's the, Frank Grillo's the heavy. He's gonna make him do it. If he doesn't do it, then they're gonna kill him. And, you know, the mechanics of, you know, the hit don't really make sense. If you're gonna kill the guy that you hired to kill somebody else, then why didn't you go kill the person in the first place, right? It's just, you know, there's just too, there are too many steps between killing the person that you need to kill.
01:19:21
Speaker
It didn't like a hit is not supposed to be that complicated but you can get over that i'm cons character is so fascinating and he takes a hostage this waitress and that becomes a relationship and a thing and her mom and there's all this stuff.
01:19:39
Speaker
going on and it's very kind of blood simply, it's very kind of Tarantino-y in some respects. It's a sharp little movie and I give Scott Kahn all the credit in the world for a script that is unusual. It's genre but yet it's very, very
01:19:56
Speaker
of its own thing. And he wrote it for himself and it's not vain. And, you know, this is one of those grindstone movies, again, that we make fun of. But this one is really sharp. Now, hey, look, J.K. Simmons, Virginia Mattson, Garrett Manning, you know, there's some weight. There's some weight in there. Virginia Mattson plays the mom. She's so good. She's so good. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda have just got to stop it. This thing that they're doing, this shtick, it's dead. Baby for brain.
01:20:24
Speaker
Yeah. Moving on. What can you say? I don't know. Did you see this? Oh, you know, what are you going to do? And do a Sally Fields. Not in this one. This is just the two of them together. Paul White's wrote it, who's a better writer than this. But I mean, it's just that, you know, they're just kind of
01:20:44
Speaker
They're overdoing it, and I don't know that you can re-reign the two of them in. It's a shtick that they're doing. It's an old lady shtick. And, you know, Malcolm McDowell is along for the ride. And Richard Roundtree shows up here for some reason. I don't really know what the point is. He deserves a better movie. But anyway, there it is. If you want to watch the two of them kind of do their thing, and by all means, go for it. Magic Mike's Last Dance.
01:21:13
Speaker
That was surprisingly good. It was, wasn't it? And as opposed to the second one, which I thought was, you know, the first one was very good. And Soderbergh came back for this one.
01:21:28
Speaker
Yeah, and what's good about it is because he knew, just gonna wrap this thing back around to the first one so we can wrap up Mike's journey here. You know, and, you know, he sort of didn't make a joke of it. It's kind of serious. And while still being a film that's, you know, very, it understands that we are here for the ladies.
01:21:50
Speaker
Selma Hike is just one of your hires. Give her a special dance. Yeah. Yes. And then he winds up basically choreographing a big Broadway, a big West End show in London. Goes from being a stripper to choreographing a show. Let me tell you my analogy. Forget about the second film. Just erase that from you. Magic Mike's last dance is to Magic Mike as staying alive is to Saturday Night Fever.
01:22:20
Speaker
I love it. I love it. I love it. It is. It is. And I am very forgiving of Staying Alive, which I still think is Stallone's best directing effort. And for all the flack that that film takes for its, you know, very 80s-ness, I actually think it's a really fun film. I think it's a whole lot of fun. Cocaine Bear, dude.
01:22:40
Speaker
That was just nuts, that movie. I talked about this on the radio. Christy loved it. I hated this movie. That was just nuts. Great seat you got.
01:22:53
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, but Ray Liotta, is this literally his last film or is it second to last? Good question. I'm not sure. What do you say? Yeah. Kerry Russell. Basically, here's the thing. They go based on real events. I hate it when they do that now. Here are the real events. Somebody lost some cocaine, dumped out of an airplane, and
01:23:18
Speaker
Apparently, a bear got into it at some point. That's it. That's literally- That's all of it. In this movie, the bear goes on a rampage and is eating people and tearing people apart. It's supposed to be gory and it's supposed to be funny. It just goes so far off the rails.
01:23:40
Speaker
It really does. It's just, it's too much. It's just too much. I know it thinks it's being funny. Anyway, it's the maximum rampage edition. Whatever. There isn't even maximum extras on it. It's just, you know, it's gotten movies anywhere code, if that matters to anybody. Oh, let's see. 80 for Brady. Speaking of, you know,
01:24:01
Speaker
There we go. Tom Lynn and Lily Tom Lynn and Jane Fonda again, Rita Moreno and Sally Field and actual Tom Brady. Four old ladies got a thing for Tom Brady. And that's also based on the true story as I understand it, you know? Yeah.
01:24:18
Speaker
I mean, it's just it's one of these, you know, old age wish fulfillment things. I just think these actresses deserve something better. Anyway, it's on Blu-ray if you want to see it. Let's see what else we have here. Roland Emmerich, executive produced this. He did not direct it, but it sort of has shades of his sensibilities all over. It's called The Magic Flute. It's got a great cast. F. Marie Abraham and, you know, Asha Banks and, you know, some
01:24:48
Speaker
Amir Wilson. I mean, it's a good, solid little cast. Kind of a sort of Harry Potter-esque thing going on here. It's the Mozart All-Boys music school. And there's like the library at the school.
01:25:11
Speaker
is some kind of a star gate that it has connects with you know the magic flute of the Mozart opera and it becomes like kind of this weird musical eyes classic very classical version of allison wonderland or maybe the chronicles of narnia.
01:25:30
Speaker
I'm not quite sure which. Like most things, Roland Emmerich has his fingers on it, doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. But I guess for a certain set that wants its Harry Potter derivation, it's scratched, it's meaningful, I don't know. Yeah.
Thematic Film Reviews
01:25:48
Speaker
Yeah. Did you see Jesus' Revolution? I did not. It's really good.
01:25:54
Speaker
It's really good. Like I go on radio and I routinely will rip on faith-based films, not because they're faith-based, but because they're all the same. Yeah. Very often. Yeah. Well, it's a formula. It's like somebody's got a dead end life as an athlete or a rock star or something. And then somebody close to them says, well, have you found Jesus? And they go, you still got a Jesus freak. And then they find Jesus and their life improves.
01:26:19
Speaker
lose their career, but they gain happiness and the story. And they're all, it's like all of them. That's the trajectory in all of them. And that's not this. This is a really good movie. They went, they decided to tell a story for a change, which I think is fantastic.
01:26:36
Speaker
So this is, this is too Kelsey Grammer, Kimberly Williams. This is a real, this is legit real movie. Yeah. This is from basically the Irwin brothers. Um, and in this case, John Irwin, they've, they've been kind of a force in making the faith based genre more legit, getting real actors, real production value, real money. So this is all about that moment in the seventies when
01:27:02
Speaker
evangelicalism was suddenly infused with a hippie element. And there was a movement of hippies all kind of centered around this one particular preacher and they merged with the kind of waning moment of old evangelicals and it created a whole new explosion in the 70s. And it's a really fascinating thing and there are some very famous evangelists who came out of this.
01:27:30
Speaker
And it's this is based on the book written by Greg Laurie, who was one of them. He was like this young kid and he was a thing and and he eventually became a very famous evangelist because he came out of this moment. This was where he kind of found himself.
01:27:46
Speaker
And anyway, you know, Chuck Smith is the other big pastor that's played by Kelsey Grammer. Chuck Smith was the guy who was trying to figure out a way to sort of make his Christianity relevant to young kids. And suddenly, you know, this crazy, you know, hippie guy comes in and says, hey, man, you know, let's let's just love everybody. And next thing you know, it's like flower children showing up and revivals. And it's a really fascinating moment because I lived through this. This was all here
01:28:15
Speaker
in Southern California. It was a big moment here. And I remember those hippies on the side of the road holding up the signs, you know, Jesus loves you. It was like, are you hitchhiking? Nope. Just want everybody to know Jesus loves you. It was, it was, it was, this came after it, but, but it was the same sort of ethos that came out of, uh, what was that there? Yeah. Jesus Christ superstar. Yeah. Kind of a little bit. What is that sort of thing that was going on? Yeah.
01:28:43
Speaker
Yeah, anyway, really, really quite a good movie. And it's it's it's warts and all, you know, it is warts and all. It really these are these are well-rounded characters, a really fascinating story. Living with Bill Nye. I really loved that movie. And it was like, I thought it was just lovely. You know, who is it? It's by way of Kurosawa, if I'm not mistaken. It's based on Kurosawa film.
01:29:12
Speaker
Yeah. It's actually based on, I think, of Russian- Ikiro. Ikiro is the Kurosopho it's based on. But it's its own thing. I mean, what I love about this, and it was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote the novel that remains of the day. And, you know, Ishiguro himself is a fascinating bridge between these cultures because
01:29:32
Speaker
he is you know of Japanese extraction but you know raised in England so he's very very very British so he's the perfect guy you know I mean remains of the day if you look at I one of my favorite films of all time it is one of them is the most British of British films.
01:29:50
Speaker
written by a Brit of Japanese extraction, adapted by Ruth Parjavala, who's German, and directed by James Ivory, who's American, and produced by Ismael Merchant, who's Indian. There are no Brits involved in that thing other than the cast. But it's so British. And Ishiguro is this guy who can look at Akira and say, you know what, that very Japanese film is also very English.
01:30:19
Speaker
And next thing you know, you have this wonderful Bill Nye movie. And it is, I just think it's one of the great performances of last year. He was lovely, which was wonderful for him to be nominated. He never had a shot. But I thought it was lovely for him to be nominated. It's a beautiful film too, by the way. This great story about this guy who finds out
01:30:42
Speaker
that he doesn't have long left and realizes that he hasn't spent much of his life, quote unquote, living and kind of goes for it. He fixes his sights on doing this one particular thing in this community. I love that setting of London in the like 50s or something like that. I think the 50s. And so it's like post-war, but it's before the sort of British pop thing. All the men, it's that moment where the men are,
01:31:08
Speaker
are switching from wearing bowlers to wearing Homburgs and fedoras. At the beginning of it, everybody's still wearing bowlers and those really, really wonderful set pieces and conversations. It was just a beautiful film. It was a score that's just absolutely magnificent. I love the score of that film. So, yeah, I'm living. Check that one out.
01:31:30
Speaker
got a steelbook of the shutter film VHS 99 VHS goes to hell. Too many people too many people they don't don't even know what VHS is anymore. But you know, this is this is this is not bad. It's it's kind of a
01:31:50
Speaker
Oh, an homage of sorts to a certain kind of VHS slasher film. And, you know, the VHS was like the gritty people who could get hold of a VHS camcorder could, you know, make their own movies for the first time at a time when that was just like the most novel thing in the world. Those camcorders were, you know, they were the size of a backpack.
01:32:13
Speaker
I mean, it was ridiculous. I go back to the ones where there were two pieces. You had the camera piece and then that. Oh, yeah. So the cassette piece, which was which was wired. And then, of course, you know, somebody had the idea of I figured out a combine those together. It was this one big ass camera. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:32:31
Speaker
Well, I mean, these are, you know, these are five little films all tacked together. And it's, it's an anthology. It's, it's a little bit like Creepshow, but it's, it's low budget and it's, it's a, it's a fun throwback. It really is. So it's, you know, Shudder is right to, to, is the right home for something like this. And it's on a steel book and it's, it's a whole lot of fun. It's good fun. Not so fun. 65 with Adam Driver. Yeah.
01:32:57
Speaker
Yeah, not work at all that hit that hit that hit the wall hard. Oh, man, did it ever. Yeah, and it's from the writing team who did Quiet Place crashing back down to Earth here. Well, you know, I mean, there's something kind of.
01:33:18
Speaker
How would I put it? I mean, it's not it's it's a little like it's it's somebody wanted to smash a little bit of Jurassic Park with a little bit of predator. That's fair to say. Well, yeah, with maybe a dash of what was it? Yeah. Yeah.
01:33:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway.
01:33:50
Speaker
Anyway, let's see, let's wrap it up here. Let me see, Renfield. How about Renfield? Man, oh, man, oh, man, oh, man, oh, man. Look, Nick Cage was having a whole lot of fun playing, you know, Dracula. Nicholas Holt as, you know, Renfield. And he gets these, he's imbued with powers when they reach those bugs. And then he can go out and he can do basically superheroes. So there's a way that you can, they figure it out a way.
01:34:16
Speaker
to create a superhero within the Dracula myth and lore. And they basically make it a dysfunctional relationship between Renfield and Dracula. And then you run it around and it's just, you know, the police department's all crazy. And look, this movie is so gory.
01:34:38
Speaker
I didn't see it, but people told me that. It's just so, so, so, so, so gory. And there's this new thing that they can do that they've been doing in all of the sort of horror television shows where they can basically blow, you know, an organic, you know, a person, a cow, whatever it is.
01:34:56
Speaker
blow it into all the pieces. They do it on Stranger Things all the time so that everything is just coated with the bits and pieces. They do it like 10 times in this movie. I'm like, okay, I get it. I get it. You can realistically blow somebody up. But you really only need to do that once, if ever, in a movie. They do it like 10 times in this movie. Come on, guys. Come on.
01:35:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, anyway, and then one other new movie here and then I'll just take us into some criterions real fast. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. Hello. Jake Gyllenhaal and kind of a Gulf War thing, you know, he's got a translator and he's got to save the Afghan translator's life to get him out and, you know, it's a whole brotherhood thing. Not much of a Guy Ritchie movie, to be honest. It doesn't feel like a Guy Ritchie movie. It's not bad. I don't know.
01:35:55
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Jake made a Jarhead adaptation of that way back. You know, you're early in his career back there. So, you know, he already had one of these. So I don't really know why he's there.
01:36:11
Speaker
Well, so we also real quickly from Arrow, we've got a boxed set of, as long as we're talking about VHS, they've got a very strange box set of, it's called Arrow Videos open till 11pm box set. It's a bunch of VHS kind of
01:36:34
Speaker
80s era VHS era movies that I guess they have in the library and they couldn't figure out how to make money off of them. They all threw them into one box set. It's the Dungeon Master Dolls, Cellar Dweller, Arena, and Robot Jocks. Robot Jocks? Actually, I love Robot Jocks and Cell Dwell. I think I reviewed Robot Jocks back in the day, early 90s, right? Yeah, they're all thrown together in one box set. They make no sense together.
01:37:04
Speaker
So anyway, really quickly then, Criterion has an unbelievably great set of stuff.
Cinematic Masterpieces
01:37:11
Speaker
First off, we have medicine from Melancholy, which is Barry Jenkins. This kind of amazing debut feature from 2008. Most people have not seen this, but if you want to know where Moonlight came from,
01:37:25
Speaker
This will show you this is a this is a great directing debut. This is really it's low-budget, but man It's really poetic and it's just wonderfully wonderfully put together a lot of great extras on here audio commentary Where he just goes and you know really lays it on the line We've also got the servant which I recently picked up in a forte from the UK But a nice blu-ray from criteria nonetheless of the Joseph Lozi film from 1963 really kind of a seminal classic
01:37:55
Speaker
beautiful black and white genre was rules of the game on 4k genius film amazing movie from 1939 kind of opened up French cinema to the world in the sound era really great tons and tons and tons of extras you've got to upgrade for this it's really great at 4k
01:38:14
Speaker
And then Time Bandits in 4K, Terry Gilliam classic, beautiful lenticular cover. Also loaded with extras, really fun stuff. Audio commentary with Gilliam and Michael Palin and John Cleese is fantastic. Really, really great. A lot of fun. And the movie totally holds up because it's not CGI effects. It's all practical effects. Terry liked mill stuff.
01:38:35
Speaker
He did. And then lastly, Pasolini 101, which is nine Pasolini films, not including Solo, very wisely, because that disgusts people. But these are these are nine great Pasolini films that establish him really is one of the great Italian visionaries of that moment, a very troubled figure, if you know anything about his life, his death, kind of like the
01:38:59
Speaker
the Italian Fosbinder in some respects. But the films are Acatone, Mamaroma, Love Meetings, The Gospel According to Matthew, which is really fantastic. It's a Jesus biopic done from a very political perspective. The Hawks and the Sparrows, Oedipus Rex, Teorama, which is wonderful, Porcelli, and Medea. So, you know, get your pocellini on. He's a controversial figure, but really worth checking out.
01:39:25
Speaker
Didn't, uh, I think it wasn't the foe played him and something. He did. He did recently. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll be back in a few weeks. I think I'm looking at your TV back there. You got Godzilla on.
01:39:46
Speaker
That's probably common or something like that Alright everybody see you next time
01:40:52
Speaker
Bye!