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Doctor Mordrid
141 Plays5 years ago
In the early 90s, Full Moon was going to make a Doctor Strange film. But shortly before production was supposed to begin, they lost the rights. Instead of scrapping the movie, they decided to tweak it just enough to make it an original story. And it's not half-bad, but like this episode, shorter than you might expect.
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Transcript
Mordred's Mission and Courage
00:00:23
Speaker
The Death's Head will seek you out. Do you know when? No. And if I did, I would not stop it. I understand, Monitor. I wish you well. I took an oath. And when the time comes, I'll meet the Death's Head and beat it back. That spirit is why I chose you for this mission, Mordred. But courage alone won't be enough.
Introductions and Current Events
00:01:07
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I am half of your host, Perry Constantine. And as always, I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How you doing today, Derek?
00:01:16
Speaker
I'm doing quite well, thank you for asking and how are you doing? I'm doing all right but I'm a little, I got a little bit of a bone to pick with you because a few episodes ago you talked about you know what's going to happen next in 2020 and now things have seen, we got like two possible starts to world war three brewing with India and China and then North Korea and South Korea and then and then to top it all off you got
Twitter Feuds and Political Commentary
00:01:44
Speaker
So on Twitter, have you been following the Ron Perlman thing? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Isn't that something? Oh, my god. So Ron Perlman, who, of course, is all right thinking people know is a national treasure. Yes.
00:01:58
Speaker
He's a very progressive guy in real life, and he likes to mock the Republicans on Twitter. So he was mocking Matt Gaetz, who's a Republican congressman, best known for trying to storm a classified meeting during the impeachment hearings, and also for mocking the COVID-19 by wearing a gas mask in Congress right before he contracted COVID-19.
00:02:27
Speaker
You talk about irony, right? And also, apparently, potentially being involved in the death of his roommate and multiple DUIs, which his rich daddy made disappear. So he's known for all those things. So, you know, classy guy. And so Ron Perlman is mocking him on Twitter.
00:02:45
Speaker
And then Ted Cruz jumps in, another, you know, who everyone suspects of possibly being the Zodiac killer and is known for such stalwart acts of manliness as sucking up to Trump after Trump insulted his wife and mother and father. And you know something? That is something. You know what?
00:03:08
Speaker
There's some things that you have to be a man about. I don't care what. That's just how I was raised. You don't let anybody talk about your wife or your father or your mother in that way and not walk up to them and punch them dead in their eye. Right.
00:03:23
Speaker
And the way he turned around and kissed Trump's ass, you know, I have no respect for him. Well, I didn't have no respect for him before, but at least I could, I could respect him as a man. But no, I could not even, matter of fact, I don't even know how his wife lives with him after that. Well, you know what? Apparently, not too long after, she was mad that they couldn't afford a second house. And I'm thinking to myself, like, you know what? She wanted the second house so she could live it by himself.
00:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, probably. Yeah, I would hope so. I would hope so. Because you know what? No woman I know would want to be with a man that spineless. Yeah. Yeah. And then this whole thing is that, you know, he's not even talking about him wrestling Ron Perlman. He's going to throw him at somebody else. Exactly. He says, OK, yeah, you're such a man. Well, OK, tough guy. Let's see. I challenge you to fight that guy. Yeah.
00:04:17
Speaker
Not even climbing the ring with me. No, no, no. When you're such a tough guy, you go fight that guy. And the guy he picks is Jim Jordan, who, of course, is also known for looking the other way on sexual abuse.
2020 Reflections and Comic Controversies
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that guy. You could not pick a bigger bunch of assholes to go up against Ron Perlman. Ron Perlman. Yeah, exactly. But then it gets better.
00:04:46
Speaker
because none other than another national treasure, a guy we both love, we talked about a lot last week, Dave Bautista drags himself, throws his hat in the ring and he says, all right, Ted Cruz, I'll wrestle him.
00:05:02
Speaker
And meanwhile, Jim Jordan's being quiet about this whole thing. He's sitting back there, and he's just like, shut up, Ted, shut up, Ted. Jim Jordan hasn't said shit, which says something to me, because this is a guy normally, if there's a camera anywhere around or a microphone, he's going to get on it. He hasn't said it. Now, Jim Jordan, he don't want no parts of this. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:23
Speaker
He does not want no parts at all, man. Yeah, but you know what? I'm not saying nothing else. I'm not making no more predictions about this year, man. You know, my wife had told me, she said, just shut up. Don't say it. Because, okay, I want to just say this. This,
00:05:43
Speaker
reminds me of some movies I've seen. It does. You know, it sounds cliche to say that 2020 is like a movie, but yet there are some movies I've seen that just keep on getting more back shit insane. And that's what this year is. Just when I think it can't get crazier. Yes, it does. It gets crazier. It's insane.
00:06:05
Speaker
I don't even, oh, and John Bolton's book came out and now they're both threatening, both Bolton and Trump are threatening to sue each other. And also then in comic book, taking this back to superheroes, Cameron Stewart got accused of, he did this award-winning run on Batgirl a few years ago. He got us accused of,
00:06:29
Speaker
uh like sexual um assault a kind of sexual assault where he was like grooming 16 year old girls to date and then while everyone's talking about that it comes out that Warren Ellis used to do something similar back in the day too which is extremely disheartening for me because Warren Ellis was a huge influence on my writing so yeah as a matter of fact I heard you know
00:06:57
Speaker
Okay I read that and I was even more doubly disappointed because I just watched this documentary on Amazon Prime about Warren Ellis and I was like really aw man this guy got a you know reread Transmetropolitan and all this other stuff because I forgot how good he is you know.
00:07:14
Speaker
while watching the documentary. And I was like, oh, man, I've got to get back in the war on Ellis. And which, again, goes back to something that I have said to people. And I kind of preferred it back when we did not know a lot about the habits of writers and actors. And OK, in one way is good to expose
00:07:42
Speaker
uh some of these things that they've done but there was a certain mistake that we had that you know we didn't know every detail of their lives and you know I don't know there's just something disheartening about finding out that people you know that you really like and admire that they got a sleazy side to their but again you know people are you know they're just human beings you know you know maybe
00:08:12
Speaker
we shouldn't put them on pedestals. Right. You know, maybe it falls on us. Maybe we should just say, OK, well, you know what? They do shit I like. And you know, that's it. And just leave it at that. Yeah. Well, we're going to talk about something more pleasant
Dr. Mordred: Origins and Adaptation
00:08:27
Speaker
today. And this is your pick, which was an interesting little movie called Dr. Mordred. Yeah. Yeah. I heard about this movie for years. We talked about it.
00:08:38
Speaker
very briefly when we were talking about the Dr. Strange TV movie, I believe. And like I said, I'd heard about this movie for years, because apparently what it was, it started out as a Dr. Strange movie. Charles Band, he of full moon fame,
00:08:59
Speaker
You know, that's a, for those of you who don't know about Full Moon, it was one of these movie studios like, I believe it was run like during the late 80s, early 90s. Right. And they made like a whole slew of low budget movies. And as a matter of fact, it surprised me when I watched this movie. I did not know they had made this many movies.
00:09:23
Speaker
they made so many that Tubi has its own full moon channel oh i didn't even see that on there yeah yeah well that's where i went to watch it you know because i because who was it somebody told me oh well dr mordre it's you know it's on there it's also on amazon prime but i'm glad that i
00:09:41
Speaker
didn't have to pay the rental fee because this movie is only 74 minutes long. Yeah, for anyone who doesn't know what Tubi is, it's one of these free apps that you can download. And they've got a lot of low budget B movies. And Full Moon, they did the puppet master movies. They did the trancers. Trancers. They did a bunch of other these low budget horror films, basically.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah. And monster features. Yeah. And that's how they made their mark. They did like, but I had no idea how many they did until, like I said, I went to Tubi and I'm looking at it. It's just a whole slew of these low budget, you know, not even B horror movies. It's like C D E and F, you know, budget horror movies that they made, but they had,
00:10:33
Speaker
you know, Dr. Mildred on there. And I watched, and like I said, given the short running time of this movie, because this is more like a pilot for a TV series, really, than it is. I was thinking the same thing. I was thinking the same thing watching it. It felt a lot like a pilot for a TV series. Yeah. Which is what also what the original Doctor Strange movie that we talked about way back when was also supposed to
00:10:56
Speaker
Right, absolutely. So the story goes is that, you know, Charles Band and his father Albert Band.
00:11:09
Speaker
who both were partners in Full Moon, they, you know, they'd gotten the rights to do Dr. Strange. Or rather they had the option. But the option lapsed for one reason or another. And by then they had done so much production, pre-production work on this movie.
00:11:31
Speaker
They even had early concept art by Jack Kirby, according to Wikipedia. So they said, well, you know what? We're not going to scrap the whole project. They just sat down. They just rewrote it. So it was an original character. And you know what? Once again, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at the result. If I had no idea that this had any connection to Dr. Strange,
00:11:57
Speaker
I would never have guessed it because they rewrote it and they rewrote it so skillfully that there's really...
Dr. Mordred: Characters and Performances
00:12:06
Speaker
Who's the writer's name? C. Courtney Joyner. Okay. This guy or girl, whoever he is, he was very skillful at rewriting this so that there really is no trace of Dr. Strange left in this thing, except for him being, of course, a sorcerer.
00:12:23
Speaker
right yeah yeah they make him um like kind of an immortal type figure because there's that one part where uh Cabal mentions like you know you've been around for for hunt for like uh over a hundred years or something like that yeah well he makes mention uh to his neighbor
00:12:42
Speaker
Samantha Hunt, who's a police consultant. That's what she keeps telling us. Oh, well, every time somebody says, oh, you're a police woman. Well, no, I'm a police consultant. For some reason, she really makes a point of that. But they meet you in the hallway of the building, which distinguishes him from Dr. Strange in that he's got neighbors.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that was an interesting twist too. In fact, he owns this building and he's got this big apartment of his own with it's like got all this mystic stuff in it. But he's also the landlord of this building, although nobody knows that he's the landlord.
00:13:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because at one point, the old lady with all the makeup on her face, she makes reference to the fact that nobody knows who owns the building and that they'd never seen the landlord. But he makes mentions when she says, oh, this must have been a nice place to live a couple hundred years ago. And he said, oh, yeah, well, it was. And she says, what? And the way he says it, we should mention, of course, right front and center, that Dr. Mildred is played by the magnificent Jeffrey Coombs.
00:13:47
Speaker
Okay, so I'm like, I don't really, like Jeffrey Combs, I only really know him from Re-Animator, I believe it was. That's where you gotta know him from. Okay, okay. I mean, he's been in some other things, but yeah, if most people know him, that's where they know him from, the Re-Animator. Mm-hmm. I think, because I think it was like two or three of them, if I'm remembering right, and he's been in, and he was in all of them. Apparently he also did the voice of the leader on the Avengers animated series, Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
00:14:14
Speaker
But he also had a long run on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, where he played like a bunch of different characters. Well, the character that he played on there was, he kept getting killed. But since it was a race of clones, and he was cloned, he kept coming back. Yeah, so he kept coming back. So it looks like he had two roles in the Star Trek universe. Because I see in Deep Space Nine, it was like,
00:14:44
Speaker
He had a button, he was like Wayon or Brunt was his name. Yeah, Wayoon, that would be it. But then also he had another run as, beginning with Star Trek Enterprise, as Commander Shram. Well, I do believe, I'm not sure about this, but I believe that Combs, he's one of two actors to have played all of the aliens on sub because he played an Endorian, he played a Cardassian,
00:15:12
Speaker
He played, you know, he's played like a whole bunch of different roles on Star Trek. So he's had an extensive career with them. Oh, also, here's something else. He was apparently the original Captain Cold back on the old Flash TV series from 1991. Oh, okay. All right. And he was also the voice of the question in Justice League Unlimited.
00:15:36
Speaker
Oh, and here's something else. Oh, okay. You remember on Twitter earlier today, I was asking about the hundred. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you said, I must've got that confused with another show. Right. Yeah. Cause you were talking about, I got to confuse with the 4400, which also in. Oh, okay. That makes, that makes, that makes sense. Yeah. I was wondering, like, what are you talking about? The hundreds only been on the CW and it's like, they don't only been around as long as the flash.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, I totally got to confuse with, so I said, wait a minute, hasn't this show been on for like forever? But no, I got to confuse with the 4400, which has...
00:16:12
Speaker
I'm looking on the thing now. Jeffrey Combs was on. He was on that show, too. This also has Brian Thompson, who went on to, he's played the bad guy in a bunch of different geek-related stuff. He was in the Buffy premiere. He played the master's head vampire in that. He played Shao Kahn in the god-awful Mortal Kombat Annihilation movie.
00:16:42
Speaker
And he had a run on the X-Files as like the alien bounty hunter. Yeah, he was in the first Terminator too, I believe.
Plot, Production, and Comparisons
00:16:50
Speaker
He was one of the guys, that old Schwarzenegger, he took their clothes. Which is funny because the first thing I thought in this movie, the first thing I think every time I see Brian Thompson is he looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, especially like in this movie, when you see him, you say, oh yeah, man. Especially because he's wearing like the exact same sunglasses that Schwarzenegger wears in Terminator. Yeah, and he wears his hair the same way too. Yeah. But Bryan Thompson is one of them guys that's like been around forever. And he's very good at playing
00:17:25
Speaker
big, big tough looking bad guys. Right, yeah. But here he has a level of, he's a little bit more articulate than I'm used to seeing him, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. I was actually surprised. I don't think I'd ever heard his voice as much as I did in this. Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's what I'm saying. I mean, I've seen him in other things where he has like a couple of lines, but in this one, I mean like he actually has speeches, you know? Yeah, yeah. And he gets to act.
00:17:52
Speaker
I mean, we're not talking about the level of, I don't know, the Marvel. Right, this is not like Mads Mikkelsen and Benedict Cumberbatch here. No, but I mean, for this budget and this material, he acquits himself very well. Speaking of budget, I really wish that they did have a little bit more money
00:18:20
Speaker
for this movie because there's some stuff in here that's really very good that I enjoy. Yeah, they have that big battle at the end with them animating the dinosaur skeletons. Yeah. And they use like a stop motion animation for that, which it's not bad, but it does, in retrospect, it is one of those things that nowadays you can kind of see the scenes.
00:18:50
Speaker
Yeah. And it's kind of anticlimactic. Because what you want to see is that you want to see Mordred and his arch enemy. Because these guys have been waiting for hundreds of years to fight each other. You want to see them go at it. You don't want to see them animating dinosaurs and, you know, dinosaur bones and having them fight each other, you know. You want to actually see them fight. Right. You know what I was kind of getting the vibe on early on when I was watching this movie is not Dr. Strange, but Dr. Fate.
00:19:19
Speaker
Like the outfit he wears, it was very much making me think of Dr. Fate and that scene where he first talks to the monitor. I don't know, for some reason I just got like a very Dr. Fate vibe for that. And you know what? Okay, the outfit that he was wearing later on, cause he's wearing like that, like gray kind of turtleneck and those black pants and everything like that. I said that's a better outfit than the one he was wearing earlier, the all blue one. Yeah, that thing just like did not look good at all.
00:19:49
Speaker
Yeah. Especially because this movie is very much grounded, right? Just like the original Doctor Strange movie, which was also very grounded. But so when they have them in these pretty stupid looking outfits, it really pulls you out of it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they really don't need the outfits. They really don't. No, because this isn't really a superhero movie, even though it was based on Doctor Strange. This is much more of like an urban fantasy thing.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. This is, as you say, it's a ground, but it's not that grounded because they have the part where Dr. Mordred, he invites Samantha because she thinks that his apartment is on fire. So she calls the police and she calls the cops and they come and he opens up the door.
00:20:34
Speaker
And okay, what are you doing? Oh, I thought your apartment was on fire. Well, no, it's not on fire and everybody goes home and he invites her in. And now see, I live in New York, so I know that the first thing any real New Yorker upon seeing the size of his apartment would say, she would ask him, who do you know to have that apartment like this? Because this guy has got an apartment, like Madison Square Garden. And I'm wondering, I said, well,
00:21:03
Speaker
Is this kind of like the Doctor Who type of thing where the inside of the apartment is bigger than, you know? Well, you know what I was thinking is, because I actually saw something like this here in Japan where
00:21:18
Speaker
My ex-wife, one of her relatives, I think it was her uncle or someone, owned this apartment building and rented out most of the rooms. What he did was, it had two sides to it. There were three apartments on one side, three apartments on the other, stacked up one above the other. And what he did was he had taken the three apartments on one side and he had just taken them all for himself and he had remodeled it so it was like a tiny house inside the apartment building.
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, she walks in and she doesn't blink her eye at the sides of this place. I mean, the guy's got an ancient map of the world across one whole wall. He's got bookcases going 10 feet up into the air and all this arcane memorabilia that's all over the room. And she just walks in and it's like, oh, nice place. I said, what? Yeah.
00:22:16
Speaker
mentioned here. I don't know I'm blanking on what I wanted to, oh you know what I did like how, well also he mentions the when he's in the questioning he talks about the alchemy so I'm thinking that also has something to do with you know how he's able to afford this kind of lifestyle because you know he's probably able to make gold for himself or something. Yeah yeah he mentions that and you know
00:22:44
Speaker
He's been around, like you said that he mentioned he makes mention early on that he's lived for like a long time so you have to assume that in that time. He's, you know, like accumulated.
00:22:56
Speaker
a vast amount of wealth, plus he's getting rent. Yeah, yeah. He's getting rent, which to me is a nice touch in that they didn't have to say that, but she picks up an envelope. She's in the apartment. She picks up an envelope and she looks, she said, oh, wait a minute. This is my red check.
00:23:16
Speaker
He said, what are you doing with it? And he just says, he just shrugs his shoulder. And she said, oh, shit. And she said, oh, you're the landlord, and everything like that. It's a nice little touch that even though he is this sorcerer with infinite power and everything like that, and he knows alchemy, a proper turn lead in the gold, he still collects the rent. I mean, personally, what I would do is I would just convert that whole building from my own place then. Well, yeah. Yeah. But again.
00:23:45
Speaker
you go back to the thing about this being a grounded movie. He's not like Dr. Strange who wants to live in isolation. He wants to live around other people. Even though he's not that sociable because again, the old lady says something like, well, I invited him to join the tennis association and he didn't want to do it and everything like that. But I think he just likes the proximity of being close to other people. Yeah.
00:24:12
Speaker
And it's also interesting in that he doesn't shy away from, he doesn't try to hide the magic stuff. Nah, hi. I thought that was kind of interesting touch. Like even when he's being questioned by Gaudio, he doesn't, he never tries to hide any of it, right? He's just like very open with it.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah. And I love how he just, you know, because they got the handcuffs on him. I like how he just so, you know, matter of fact, he just takes them off and hands them to Samantha. Like, you know, you know, I mean, yeah, well, I could have got out this shit anytime, you know? And then he puts them back on. After he finishes, you know, talking to her and he's telling her, you know, his whole history and how him and Cabala destined to fight. And after they finish with all that, he says, OK, well, listen, I need you
00:24:56
Speaker
I need to go get my amulet because I really need that. Because if I don't have that, I'm vulnerable and he could kill me. And while he's saying that, he's putting back on the handcuffs like, okay. Yeah. I think that was probably the biggest thing that came from when this was still a Doctor Strange movie is the amulet. Because that was very much like the Eye of Agamotto. Yeah. And he's even got like an orb.
00:25:23
Speaker
in that box, because he opens up the box when he goes to talk to the monitor, who has never really explained who or what the monitor is. All we see is a pair of floating eyes in space. Right, yeah. But apparently, this is the being that has charged him with protecting Earth. Right, it's basically the ancient one. Yeah, we just never see him, yeah. Right, which I thought was kind of an interesting touch to take this character who was supposed to be in a Marvel movie and give him the name of a DC villain instead.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we're not, oh, wait a minute, monitor? Yeah. Okay, well. Maybe that was part of why I got the Dr. Fate vibe when that happened. No, I mean, you know, not that you mentioned it, yeah, I mean, there is, it does, it does have that kind of, you know, future, especially when it goes out, I like that, um,
00:26:15
Speaker
floating prison he's got out and out of space someplace. And he goes out there, and he visits the guy that he's got there. You know, the blind guy, and he restores his sight. Right, yeah, yeah. Because he's got all these demons in there locked up and everything like that, presumably all the demons over all these years. And he did have Cabal locked up on this floating island, but he escaped and got to Earth, which is where all this shit starts.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah, the one survivor, he's the one who basically is the guy who just tells him, look, oh, he went that way. Yeah. Yeah. Where'd he go? He went that way. By the way, thanks for the new eyes. Yeah. Yeah. I was also getting kind of a Highlander vibe when him and Cabal are talking in the apartment, especially when Cabal's talks about the, you know, you've been around waiting for like 150 years.
00:27:09
Speaker
And it felt very much like kind of the relationship. A lot of what he does, it feels a lot like Christopher Lambert in Highlander. Because just like Lambert played kind of a recluse-type character, but he had amassed all this money. He had this really nice place. He was kind of like this quirky, mysterious guy that this woman takes an interest in. So there was a lot of Highlander vibes, I felt.
00:27:35
Speaker
Hmm. You know, not, you know what, now that you mentioned, now that you bring it up. And yeah, he, uh, cause we see there's one quote where Mordred, he's actually giving a lecture. Much like when they're seen in the, in the first Highlander with Christopher Lambert, he was giving a lecture. Oh yeah. Clancy Brown gave tons of lectures. Like he just, he just ate everything. He just ate all that scenery. Mm-hmm.
00:27:59
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, now that you mentioned it, I can definitely see the Highlander vibe in this. Yeah, it's pretty good. Like I said, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this, because I saw Jeffrey Combs. And also just like in Highlander, the woman in Highlander, she was also a cop, or like connected to the police department. She was a forensic scientist. Right, yeah.
00:28:23
Speaker
So yeah, they seem to model, like, you know, forget Dr. Strange. In some ways, this seems more like a remake of Highlander. It's more like Highlander, right? I know now that we're going over it, okay, forget Dr. Strange. This is all Highlander. Yeah, okay.
00:28:44
Speaker
Oh, you know what else kind of struck out to me is at the beginning, was it just me or did the music at the opening sound a lot like the music at the opening of Batman Returns? It did. It was a very, it was, let me put it this way, it was not appropriate for, that's not the music I would associate with a sorcerer. Right.
00:29:06
Speaker
you know, this was like da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da
00:29:22
Speaker
a high octane action movie here, folks. So don't get your hopes up. It actually is pretty low key through the whole thing. Jeffrey Combs never raises his voice about a normal speaking tone, I think. No matter what happens, he just maintains this chill through the whole movie.
00:29:41
Speaker
Well, same thing with Brian Thompson as Cabal. Even with all his speechifying, he doesn't raise it much to that kind of supervillain-y type level a whole lot.
00:29:56
Speaker
Supposedly, it's the fate of the human race is at stake.
Marvel's Licensing Challenges
00:30:00
Speaker
And these guys are talking like they discuss an recipe for stuffed cabbage. Right, yeah, yeah. You know, it's on that level. They just never really, like, get really worked up about, you know, the stakes that they're fighting for. Right. So, which is to say, which isn't to say that it's a bad performance. Jeffrey Combs
00:30:24
Speaker
I actually like the fact that he is kind of low key. This is a guy who's been around for hundreds of years. So very little can stress him out at this point. Yeah. It works. It works pretty well for, um, for this, uh, for this movie. Yeah. And it makes sense because, you know, he is, like you said, he's been around for all this time. So obviously it's kind of like a scene at all, done at all type of thing.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you know, nothing. The only time he gets kind of upset is when he's accidentally, when he, well, not accidentally, but he's arrested for murder. And even then he's upset because if he's not out there, he knows more murders are going to happen. Right. And he's pissed at the cop.
00:31:06
Speaker
who is an enjoyable character because every movie needs a lovable asshole. And that's what, you know, this cop. Yeah, he's Jay Acavone, who's also been in a lot of different stuff. He was apparently, he's a regular on Beauty and the Beast, which with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. Oh, okay. He was in, he played the DA, Joe Maxwell, over all three seasons.
00:31:32
Speaker
And he's also been in a few different other things. Like he was in, he was in a few episodes of The X-Files, I think. Yeah, just like playing minor character, two different characters in that. He's apparently in like the Dukes of Hazzard TV movie or something like that in 2000. He was on The Pretender, he was on Sliders. So yeah, he's been in a bunch of things like here and there.
00:31:59
Speaker
Well, he's a lot of fun here because he's a typical bonehead cop. He gets everything wrong. He arrests the wrong guy. He has no clue as to what's going on. Don't tell him nothing about magic because he doesn't know.
00:32:17
Speaker
that we see him in, he's talking to Samantha and he very clumsily, you know, like hits on her, you know, which of course she sees through, I mean, you know, like right away. Right. So, you know, but he's the guy that provides a lot of the liberty.
00:32:33
Speaker
you know, here, because we enjoy seeing him bumble around. At least until we get... The other guy, I don't ever think they gave him a name, is one of Cabal's disciples. He has two of them. He has a girl who he sacrifices, but he has this other joker... Oh yeah, Adrian. Who's just like... No matter what, he's down with it. Yeah, yeah. Cabal, he says, yeah, don't worry about it, man. I got you, I got you. And yeah, he was not...
00:33:04
Speaker
He felt really out of place in this movie. Like he just felt like his bumbling felt like it belonged in a more... I'm trying to think what I want to say. It doesn't feel like it fits this tone. Yeah, and while usually, you know what, I don't have a problem with...
00:33:28
Speaker
you know, language, it doesn't fit the tone of this movie at all. When this guy just, and he's just like dropping F bombs, you know, left and right for whatever reason. I have no idea, you know, just to be doing, I guess he was trying to show how tough and bad-ass his character was, but you know, I felt that this movie didn't need it. Yeah. Same thing.
00:33:54
Speaker
But overall, I thought it was, it's not a bad movie, especially when you consider what other Marvel movies were coming out around this time. Because this was the era when we got the 1990s Captain America, which was also direct-to-video. And Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, which was never completely released. And all these other really low-budget Marvel films that were being cranked out at the time, because Marvel didn't really know how to manage their brands back then.
00:34:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, this was around the time that they were, which is why they had such a hard time getting back all of their, you know, copyrights, everything like that, because they were like scattered pretty much all over the place. It was all different, you know, different, which is why
00:34:42
Speaker
The common myth that people like to repeat ad infinitum is that the reason why they had Herbie instead of the Human Torch and the Fantastic Four cartoon was that the producers of that cartoon were scared that kids were going to light themselves on fire trying to
00:35:02
Speaker
you know, like imitate the human torch. Such was not the case. The human torch was, the option for him was licensed out to a movie company who wanted to do a human torch movie. Right. Right. And that's why, and the people that did this particular Fantastic Four animated series couldn't get the right to the human torch back. So they created her. That's why they had Herbie. Exactly. Yeah.
00:35:26
Speaker
and what ended up being introduced in the comics afterwards as well. Yeah, exactly. He brought Herbie into the comics, which was okay with me. Listen, I liked Herbie. I had a problem with him. Yeah, I had no problem with Herbie.
00:35:40
Speaker
And, you know, it was kind of a nice little thing to have him in there in the comics. It was a nice little, I mean, I never really watched that cartoon, so I don't, because that was way before my time, but I do still kind of like chuckle when I see his appearances in the comics. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I watch, you know, I didn't watch it regularly, but like, if I was flipping through the channels and it was on, I wouldn't turn it off. Right.
00:36:06
Speaker
OK. But anyway, getting back to what we're saying, yeah. So Marvel at this time, like, had their characters was scattered all over the place. Right. It was, you know, everybody had a different, you know, the Marvel universe was broken up and it was scattered to the Four Winds in Hollywood, which is why you had all these different studios doing different Marvel movies.
00:36:26
Speaker
Well, it's funny because I may have told the story before, but back in the early 2000s, me and my best friend at the time, we were talking about different Marvel movies that were coming out because this is like the era of like X-Men and Spider-Man were coming out and all these other properties have been licensed to different studios. And I asked him one day, I'm like, do you think we'll ever see an Avengers movie? And he said, no, it's impossible.
00:36:50
Speaker
Right, because the idea was because all these characters were owned by different studios. So we thought it would never be possible to have an Avengers movie. And then, you know, fast forward 20 years later and we've got, you know, the Avengers is like the biggest thing in Hollywood right now. Yeah, yeah.
00:37:06
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, listen, I never thought we would see it either, really. If you had asked me, I would have said, nah, they'll never make an Avengers movie. Well, you still owe people your retirement savings for all the people you bet that there would never be a Black Panther movie. Oh, I'm still sending out checks behind that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm still waiting for mine, by the way. Yeah, well, listen, I just got to the B's.
00:37:33
Speaker
From the time Black Panther came out till now, that was the A's. I'm just for the B's now. Oh man. Yeah, every Saturday I devote three hours just writing and mailing out checks. You know, the people I owe money to. All right. Is there anything else you want to mention about Dr. Mordred?
00:37:59
Speaker
Well, to be honest, there is not a lot to mention because, like I said, the movie is only 74 minutes long. Right. When I saw it, I said, wait a minute. This has got to be something. And as a matter of fact, what I did was that I said, OK, well, before I start watching this, let me go to Amazon. And I went to Amazon to see what the running time of their version was.
00:38:21
Speaker
Because I thought, well, maybe this is a truncated version that's been edited. So if it was longer, I was just gonna go ahead. I was just gonna pay $3 in rent.
00:38:31
Speaker
But nope, the one that they got on Amazon is the same thing, 74 minutes. So, and then I did a little bit of research and I found that, yeah, this movie is only 74 minutes. So I said, Oh, okay. So, uh, yeah. And that's another thing that lends to the feeling of this just being a pilot for a TV series, the extraordinarily short running time.
00:38:55
Speaker
But yeah, yeah. We know what's interesting too is his, like I was just looking up the writer, C. Courtney Joyner, who is a man it turns out. Turns out he's mostly like a Western novelist. Really? Yeah, he's got like a ton of, he wrote like, what is this?
00:39:13
Speaker
He was a contributor to a few Western anthologies. He wrote two novels that looked like they were in a shotgun series. A bunch of short stories. He even wrote like a few graphic novels. The saga of Billy the Kid was one and then he wrote
00:39:29
Speaker
wrote a story in a weird Western anthology, it looks like. And in addition, he had done, you know, some, you know, B movie acting, some like, you know, kind of like, you know, uncredited type or like background type characters, extra type things. And then wrote a lot of scripts for Full Moon, it looks like. Well, it just goes to show you one thing that I've always maintained, that if you're a talented writer, you can write anything. Yeah.
00:39:57
Speaker
Because I would have never guessed that it was a guy that wrote a Western, you know, wrote this thing. Because it does feel a lot like somebody who is familiar with superheroes and the concept of, you know, superheroes, you know, that's who wrote this. Yeah.
00:40:15
Speaker
You know, this wasn't written by somebody that, you know, felt like they had to, who, let me see, what's the word I'm looking for, who was embarrassed by writing this material. This was written by somebody who said, well, you know what, I'm going to write a story. And that's what he did. Because, I mean, this is a good story. Yeah, yeah. It's a very good story.
00:40:36
Speaker
Well, you know, I was I was nervous about this because I had the same feeling going into it that I had going into the original Doctor Strange that we talked about before and that I thought it would be like the other early 90s types productions or like with Doctor Strange, like the 70s type productions back when people did not take this stuff seriously.
Dr. Mordred: Potential and Recommendations
00:40:55
Speaker
So I was pleasantly surprised in both cases when it turns out, no, they actually the writers and the directors, they did actually take this stuff seriously.
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the acting, I had no problem with the acting, except, like we said, that one guy who was like kind of goes a little bit overboard, to say the least. But for the most part, the acting in this is very well. The production values, especially, I mean, the apartment. I mean, my god, that apartment is why I would love to live in that apartment. Yeah, oh, yeah, me too. Dr. Mordred lives in, yeah. He's got that cute little raven, Edgar Allen.
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah. Which I thought was kind of cute, you know. I did, it does kind of feel like the, but like we said, it does, I think the, not really a failing, but just like an observation is that the production values and all that, it does feel like something that was supposed to be for the pilot of like a syndicated Saturday afternoon TV show.
00:41:57
Speaker
Yeah, because it sets it up with the cutesy neighbors, you know, the old guy with the dog, the old woman bickering back and forth. Right, yeah. You've got the cop who, you know, says, well, yeah, well, I'm going to get Dr. Mildred. I'm going to get him. You know I'm going to get him. Yeah, yeah. Set him up as kind of like an antagonist, you know, kind of thing. Right. The girl, because Dr. Mildred, he tells right then, he said, well, you know what, wherever they send me, I'm going to need help.
00:42:22
Speaker
And she says, okay, well, you got it. So, okay, well, we got these two going off and battling various, you know, mystical menaces. So yeah, it's a very, this is the sort of thing that I like to call a TV pilot on steroids. This is something I could easily have seen being with like, if they'd made a TV show about this, it could have easily been like a Saturday afternoon hour block with like Poltergeist the Legacy.
00:42:48
Speaker
Oh, I'd have watched it. Oh, yeah, definitely. If this was a TV series, yeah, I'd have watched it every Saturday. No problem. Matter of fact, I would have looked forward to watching this. Yeah, yeah. Is that good? It's one of those things where it's not like one of the big prime time things, but it's one of those like syndicated shows that you just can't stop watching.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, you know, like during the big syndication boom, that's usually what I was doing anyway on Saturday afternoon. If I wasn't, I was sitting in front of my TV watching all of these half hour syndicated shows that they had. Yeah, I could easily see this as being, you know, as you say, Saturday afternoon, this would have been a great Saturday afternoon show, you know, to watch. Well, I remember, I mean, Poltergeist Legacy, I'd only seen a few episodes of it, but I remember really liking it.
00:43:38
Speaker
You know what I really like? I don't know if a lot of people remember this, but there was a Friday the 13th TV show. Yeah. There were, they did, it was, wasn't it an anthology show or something? No, this was the one where they were looking for the curse. It had nothing to do with Jason at all. Oh, okay. Okay. So the anthology was the, the Nightmare on Elm Street one, Freddy's Nightmares. Right, Freddy's Nightmares. That's what you're thinking of. Yeah, that was the anthology one. Right.
00:44:04
Speaker
The Friday the 13th, it was a guy with his two young assistants, and he ran a curio shop. And he was running around getting the cursed objects back to put them back in the shop. It had nothing, it had absolutely nothing to do with the movie at all. The only connection it had was that occasionally they would show you a shot of Jason's mask was in the shop. Yeah, and it's funny because it was originally supposed to be titled the 13th Hour, but the producer was like, no, we gotta,
00:44:32
Speaker
he's got to get the Friday the 13th name on it to get an audiences, which for me, if I was a, you know, if I was a Friday the 13th fan and I turned in to watch this series, I'd have been pissed off and I never would have watched it anymore.
00:44:45
Speaker
Well, you know what, I think that that's what happened. It turned off a lot of fans of the movies who won, of course, they expected to see I mean you know Jason stuff like that. But for people like me who didn't particularly care for the movie anyway. Yeah, I actually, I liked the TV show. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was a strange thing. Yeah, it was, it was made.
00:45:05
Speaker
It had the name of one of the most popular horror movie franchises of all time, but it was not made for fans and franchise. Yeah. And that was actually both this and Poltergeist the Legacy. Well, this was on back in like 1987 to 1990, it says here. But it was a huge influence on like the later supernatural TV shows that come out like Buffy and Angel and X-Files, Warehouse 13, like a bunch of stuff like that.
00:45:34
Speaker
Oh, okay. So it did kind of create the mold for those things. And David Cronenberg even directed an episode of it, it looks like. Of what? Of Friday the 13th, the series. Oh, really? Okay. So I'm curious about these. I'm going to have to see if I can track this down.
00:45:55
Speaker
Listen, nowadays, nothing is lost. I'm sure with a little bit of research, you'll be able to find this. You might find it on this damn Tubi. Yeah. Well, this is probably, well, I mean, it looks like they got the whole thing on sale on Amazon for like 20 bucks. Really? Yeah. DVD is still not the digital stuff, but yeah, I got it up on there for like 20 bucks. Oh, okay.
00:46:23
Speaker
And that's pretty good for all three seasons, so. Yeah, for all three seasons, yeah. Listen, that's not bad at all.
00:46:29
Speaker
All right. I think we're kind of like moving off the topic anyway. We kind of stopped talking about Dr. Muldred. But like you said, there's not really a whole lot more to talk about because it was so short.
Ron Perlman and Hellboy Anticipation
00:46:41
Speaker
But it is, you know, it's free to watch. It only takes about a little more than an hour of your time. And all you got to do is you download the 2B app and you can watch it yourself for free. So there's really no risk to this. Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know,
00:46:57
Speaker
You guys have been listening to us talk about, you know, Dr. Strange in both the big budget version and, you know, the TV version. And I recommend this, you know, first of all, because of the connection with Dr. Strange that it started off as a Dr. Strange project. And second of all, it stands on its own. Dr. Mordred is a character that stands on its own. And this is a movie that stands on its own. Right.
00:47:27
Speaker
The best recommendation that I can give is that when I finish watching this, I wish there had been more Dr. Mildred movies or a TV series. That's the best recommendation that I can give. Yeah, yeah.
00:47:40
Speaker
Okay, so last one was your pick, and now it's back to me, and I actually did not come prepared this time, so I'm looking through my list. All right. I'm not the only one. No, you're not the only one. I don't know, whatever it was, I was just kind of scattered this week because I forgot to even create the Zoom link until like 20 minutes before the epic. We were supposed to start recording. Well, you know what?
00:48:06
Speaker
I understand because it's been that kind, you know what, like the last couple of weeks with everything that's been going on, is it any wonder that we're all kind of discombobulated? Oh, no, not at all. Because I actually, because I had to ask my wife two or three times, I said, today is Wednesday, right? She said, what's wrong with you? I said, I don't know. It's just like,
00:48:27
Speaker
I'm not you know sure and then you know like we used to have a set schedule where with certain things that we did like on certain days and of course with the coronavirus we don't go out like we used to to do you know those things that we used to do you know so yeah sometimes I do lose track of days I mean yeah honestly I do lose track of days
00:48:49
Speaker
Uh, okay. I got one here. All right. So because of all the Ron Perlman stuff, I thought we might as well do a Ron Perlman movie, show him a little bit of support. So, uh, so yeah. So next week, I think we should talk about Ron Perlman's big superhero role, the role which a lot of people say he was pretty much bored to play. And that's Hellboy. Ah, Hellboy.
00:49:12
Speaker
Yeah. Hell, boy. I actually saw that movie. I went to a sneak preview. That's where I met Tom DJ. Oh, really? We met. And guess who I sat next to? Ron Perlman? No. F. Paul Wilson. That name sounds really familiar, but I'm pleased. He's a writer. Look it up. Some kind of people out there now go, what? Yeah.
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah, Tom introduced me to him. Oh, okay, okay, yeah. Yeah, but that was, that movie was where I, you know, me and Tom met in person for the first time. Oh, okay. But yeah, Hellboy, yeah, and matter of fact, I'm glad, you know what, it's been so long since I've seen that movie, it'll probably feel brand new. Well, it's one of those movies that's consistently entertaining.
00:49:59
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah, I have no doubt. And I remember I had never read a Hellboy comic before I saw that movie and I came out of it loving it. In fact, when I actually did end up reading the Hellboy comic, I was actually a little bit disappointed because it wasn't as good as the movie. You and me both. I'm glad you said that because yeah, when I saw it, I knew nothing about the character.
00:50:19
Speaker
I didn't know anything about it. All I knew was that, well, this was a free movie. It was a free book. I would say when I came out of it, I said, holy shit. And yeah, and I went and I read. And yeah, I was kind of disappointed because I loved the movie so much and the movie was so entertaining. And, you know, the comic book, I was like,
00:50:40
Speaker
Well, this isn't like the movie. Right, yeah, yeah. And I think that might be, it might have just been like, because that was the early stuff I read, so maybe he had to grow into it. Yeah. Because I heard from Hellboy fans who have read the complete series that the movie was a perfect adaptation, so. Yeah, which is what I think led to the huge success of the movie, because, you know, I mean, I really can't think of anybody that I know that doesn't like
Podcasting and Community Interactions
00:51:10
Speaker
Hellboy. Even people don't read comic books or something like that? Oh, yeah. I don't see Hellboy. They love it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And a large part of that has got to do with the performance of Ron Perlman. Oh, yeah. I didn't know Ron Perlman by name, I want to say that. But I had memories of watching Beauty and the Beast when I was a kid. So I remembered him from that. But I didn't really know who he was at the time. And then after watching that movie,
00:51:40
Speaker
you know, like pretty much everybody else who understands that Ron Perlman is a national treasure, I fell in love with the guy. Oh yeah, he's the man. I love Ron Perlman. I love Ron Perlman. Yeah, so we're gonna do Hellboy. Yeah, so next week we'll do Hellboy. We'll talk more about how amazing Ron Perlman is so you guys can hear us talk about that. And yeah, it's gonna be fun. I'm looking forward to it. Okay then.
00:52:02
Speaker
All right, that does it for us today. Head on over to our group, Superhero Cinephiles, join the conversation. I don't think I mentioned this on this show, but the two true, you talked about Tom DJ a few times here, and he does a podcast, the Two True Freaks podcast, man, that's kind of a Tom Twister. Yeah. And he's been doing this thing where he gets a bunch of different podcasters to come on and do a comics draft.
00:52:30
Speaker
So we're like each round, we were picking a different character to be on our superhero team. Then we picked like the villain and the creative team and all that. So this is the first one he's doing, and it's the Justice League. So I've been contributing to that as well. Oh, you've been doing that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've been contributing to that. So you can go over to their website. You can find out about that. Again, I'm not doing it because as we were talking earlier, folks,
00:52:59
Speaker
You know, this is stuff that you don't hear. I am cursed Lee lazy. So yeah, I'm thinking like he they're talking about doing a doing a second season and doing another one. I think I'm going to have to bow out of that just because it's it's these short segments, but it is it's it's tough to find time to even do something short these days. Tell me about it.
00:53:20
Speaker
Yeah, so I got Tommy Hancock sending me messages right now asking when I'm going to turn in the next pro se project that I got to finish formatting for him. Oh, okay. It's not my book, is it? No, it's not your book. If it was your book, I wouldn't be lazy on it. Oh. Because I know you're accountable, because I'm accountable to you. You know where I live, so. Yeah, you're right.
00:53:49
Speaker
No, but I know he sent me a cover a while back and he said, oh, well, how do you like this cover? I said, oh, I said, oh, pretty good. I said, well, who's going to do the logo? And I told him, I said, well, if Perry's not doing nothing, I said, ask him to do the logo if he's not doing anything. That's for Diamondback. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we talked about that a while back. So whenever he gets around to doing that, I'm going to be doing that cover. OK, cool.
00:54:15
Speaker
you know, how things get delayed a lot with- Yes, I do.
Conclusion and Listener Thanks
00:54:21
Speaker
Okay, so that does it for us. Head on over to Superhero Cinephiles, join the Facebook group, join in the discussions. I actually just posted something, do you see what I posted there? That this guy had done these like unified cover arts for all of the Infinity Saga MCU movies.
00:54:40
Speaker
No, no, I haven't seen that yet. Oh, you gotta remember I told you I was having problems with my computer earlier. Oh, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I've just got it back online, you know, before we, about an hour before me and you started. So I haven't seen anything yet, but I'm going to go take a look at it right now.
00:54:56
Speaker
Oh yeah, he did all these covers. They're all basically very similar to the Infinity War poster, but each one is specific to each of the MCU movies. And it's amazing. This guy put a lot of work into this. Oh, okay, good. I'm looking for, okay. Like I said, when we're done here, I wanna go right over and take a look at it. Okay. All right, so that does it for us. Thanks so much for listening. Come back next week and we'll be talking about Hellboy.
00:55:23
Speaker
Okay, good night, God bless. And remember, the coronavirus is still out there, so wash your hands, use your hand sanitizer, wear your mask, be safe, be careful, and above all, be smart. Absolutely. Good night, God bless.
00:55:43
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superheroescinephiles at gmail.com, or you can also visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com.
00:56:03
Speaker
If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners. You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of pheasantudios.com.