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Episode 104: Birdemic: Shock and Terror
87 Plays1 month ago
Welcome to the first installment of Your Favorite Bad Movie Podcast Classics, a series in which we let viewers decide what we’re watching from a choice of classic bad films. Today’s “winner” is Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010). This James Nguyen directed, independent horror film had a hard start, but immediately made waves with viewers upon its eventual release. It’s got everything you’d want: a software company merger, a successful start to a relationship and a strong focus on the environment. Also, eventually people are attacked by poorly animated birds. It has so much that we recall, and so many things that we forgot. It’s a trip down memory lane and you can go there too, even if it’s your first time, so tune in!
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Transcript
00:00:28
Speaker
That you would, that you could, and you know that you should, yes you know that you should be good.
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why is it such a classic? We're your hosts. I'm going to say that I'm... I didn't even put any thought into this. I was wondering what you were going to do. I was wondering what you were going to do with this one.
00:01:06
Speaker
let's Let's say I'm the rod of the show. Can I be an eagle? You can definitely 100% be an eagle. Yes, it's me. It's Greg. Greg Bossy, our wonderful eagle. And of course, that wonderful laugh that you just heard is my beautiful vulture of a wife, Anna Anderson.
00:01:26
Speaker
That's me. that's How are you doing, my love? ah Good. All right. Yes, that's right, listeners. We got an official good from Anna.
00:01:43
Speaker
yay Yeah. ah And we wanted to try something a little bit different this week, doing something that we're going to... I'm calling your favorite bad movie podcast classics.
00:01:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. You know a lot of times we'll have guests come on the show and they'll mention some sort of classic bad movie and they'll say, oh, you guys never covered this one. And we'll say, oh, well, no one ever chose it as their specific bad movie.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah. So we thought maybe this would a good way to to get one of these off of our bucket list. So we each nominated one film and we put it as a poll in the discord listeners. If you want to get in on the discord, it's overly complicated. Message me somewhere. Okay. And what what were the choices? What were our three choices?
00:02:37
Speaker
Well, we each nominated a film, right? right Greg, you nominated Mac and me. I remember that much. I nominated Glenn or Glenda. Okay.
00:02:49
Speaker
yeah And Anna nominated Birdemic Shock and Terror. Yeah. So, Anna, what's your background with Birdemic Shock and Terror?
00:03:03
Speaker
Well, I remember watching it with you in our apartment in Brooklyn. ah And I feel like it was one of the first...
00:03:15
Speaker
like really dog shit movies I watched with ironizing layer of ah Mystery Science Theater.
00:03:26
Speaker
um But I hadn't watched it like since you know around the year it came out. And I was interested to ah to revisit it and see if it holds up if that's even the verb.
00:03:45
Speaker
um i i don't I don't think it does, interestingly. it's Or maybe not, interestingly. i think there are reasons why it hit, and I think there are reasons why it sort of faded away.
00:04:00
Speaker
ah I remember us watching it in in my apartment, or our apartment. I can't remember if we had been living together at that point or not. But i the only thing that I do remember was somebody putting an entire fish in a pot of boiling water.
00:04:17
Speaker
And it's also what I remember. Okay. Yeah. That is just a a classic image from this film. Yeah. And for some reason was the only thing that stuck with me over the years. It's a great way to cook a fish.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, you just throw it in there. You just put the whole fish in the boiling water. You boil it all up together. it's safe because it just sterilizes the whole fish so you can you're not wasting any of Exactly.
00:04:43
Speaker
Greg, what's your background with Birdemic Shock and Terror? so I remember how I know Birdemic. And I remember watching it, but I don't remember the context of how I watched it. This is what I recall. I was a captioner and I really loved watching the soup. It was very cathartic for me if I ever saw anything I captioned appear on the soup. Because it was like, yes, other people recognize that it's just full of shit out there.
00:05:09
Speaker
Um, and they showed clips of birdemic. And as I watched it, the clip that they played a lot was the conference meeting where it keeps swelling with the music and everyone just keeps clapping. And it's clearly just the same thing over and over again, just hilarious. And then they showed the animations and I feel like you and I live together and I ran out of my room was like, we need to see birdemic.
00:05:32
Speaker
Uh, and I think I got the DVD from Netflix. Um, i think its easily possible I think it was at a time when I so managed to have like a vestigial account to Netflix.
00:05:43
Speaker
It was like, well, I might as well get Birdemic. But I remember watching it. i don't remember who I watched it with, but i remember I have memories of there being people I would not normally watch a bad movie with there. And I don't know who it was or how that happened.
00:05:57
Speaker
This had a crossover audience into Norma's. Yes. Yeah. ah This was a yes. And so it was interesting to revisit. I think there's still shine on it, but it, ah it there's a lot of sour in there too. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:16
Speaker
I think, I think it's an interesting one. I think, especially for us, us to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. ah Probably now's as good a time to talk about it as anything. I don't have anything in my notes about it. But I think there. Do we do the synopsis?
00:06:31
Speaker
Oh, no. Good point, Greg. Here's a short synopsis of the film Birdemic. Very important. For those who haven't seen it.
00:06:47
Speaker
A pair young people go on several dates. And then are attacked by birds.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. yeah now Now we're grounded in in the groundedness of the narrative. Yeah, yeah. It's very feasible, this one.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah. i want to say the first 45 minutes are largely... Well, don't know if they're believable, but they're... They're grounded. yeah there's reality that we're but buying into. They're aping believability.
00:07:29
Speaker
They don't throw us into the deep end very quickly. You wade your way out into... Well, and then they push you. Yeah. Yeah, it's a steep drop off. Yeah, it is. it's It's when you're in one of the when you're in one of the pools that like a friend has you're like, I'm in the show. I'm not in the show anymore. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Got to back out we get back house This is slippery.
00:07:52
Speaker
This started sinking. Yeah, no, it's that kind of pool for sure. Exactly. And i think one of the I think there are a couple reasons why it didn't last as a phenomenon. and It was very big when it came out. Oh, yeah.
00:08:08
Speaker
And I think the things that mainly work against it is, one is the sound design. It's terrible. It's grating. This is genuinely, aggressively unpleasant to listen to.
00:08:20
Speaker
Very. And that really hurts its rewatchability. Hmm. I think another thing is that in a lot of movies, a lot of times on our show, we talk about what we admire about a bad movie, what we like about it, what we think that it does well.
00:08:39
Speaker
There's very little of that in Birdemic. Yeah. This is, there's nothing in here that makes you root for Birdemic as a film. You are laughing at Birdemic. Yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that also hurts its rewatchability. I would agree. Yeah.
00:09:02
Speaker
But that said, I do think there are a lot of very funny moments. I could see why it hits on that first watch. It is truly, bizarrely, incompetently made.
00:09:13
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. it it has It has a lot of, it has some incompetencies in common with movies we've seen before. Specifically, like you said, does the sound design is it's just so bad. And then then the camera work, the cinematography is truly like like, I don't want to say that I could do better because I don't know if I well but I think that I could because I feel like I would read a book about it first I feel i know what I mean i also feel like you would understand that it wasn't working and I'm not certain that this director is aware of that I think you would make it and just be like yeah I need help
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, I can tell you for sure that this director is not aware that what he's doing isn't working because I watched Birdemic 2 and 3 in preparation for this episode. Now's as good a time as I need to bring those up. Okay.
00:10:20
Speaker
They were exactly the same. Really bad sound design as well. Really poor sound. got The sound design seemed to get worse, which is impressive. It's hard to contemplate that sentence.
00:10:37
Speaker
In three, there are large passages that are almost entirely silent. Wow. Okay. Where they're on a beach. Okay. You can't even put in the rolling surf.
00:10:49
Speaker
That's crazy. It's really strange. It also seemed, irving ah you can tell, like there's one moment, spec like you can tell that they do not know how to edit.
00:11:01
Speaker
And there's one moment, especially where someone like the mother's like, yay. ah right, dude. You know, like the moves after it's like, you need to cut immediately after the yay. You just cut right after that point.
00:11:12
Speaker
And then you move on to the, you don't leave her yeah realizing that the yay is done and kind of walking off the set. Really bizarre, really bizarre. Yeah, and I think that's the same thing with that applause scene that you were talking about with Greg, where he'll just sort of use the entirety of every take. He's like, well, I want to have a scene that shows everybody applauding, and I wanted to show that there's a lot of applause.
00:11:37
Speaker
So I'm just going to get a shot of every single character applauding, and I'm going to use that entire shot man for all of them. So it will be the most longest applause because that's how much applause I want there to be And that's how you get up to feature length. That's right. Yes. But you also, if you want your applause to sound continuous, you need to make sure that the sound effect is continuous as opposed to comes to a stop and then starts back up again.
00:12:01
Speaker
It's kind of a key feature of how that works. I'm comfortable there being lulls. Sure. Good for you. Do you guys want to talk about the making of Birdemic? I would love to know more about that.
00:12:29
Speaker
I wish I had some context About the background of the film Script director, actors on set What was going on on screen I wanna hear some details Concepts can do all that shit Canon match it all good
00:12:57
Speaker
So, Birdemic, Shock and Terror. That's the full title. There are a couple of arguable different release dates, but the one that I'm going to go with is February 27th, 2010. That's when it had its first theatrical showing.
00:13:13
Speaker
The director is one, James Nguyen. The tagline, Who Will Survive? All right.
00:13:25
Speaker
Ooh, indeed. The main characters, actually. Turns out. That's good. yeahp Yeah. That part's nice. So James Nguyen was born in Da Nang, South Vietnam in 1966, and his family fled the country when he was about nine, right before the fall of Saigon.
00:13:47
Speaker
He was a software salesman by trade and near as I can tell, never went to film school and never worked on a film that wasn't one that he was directing.
00:13:58
Speaker
Okay. So a complete autodidact in terms of filmmaking.
00:14:05
Speaker
His first film came out in 2003. It was called Julie and Jack. It's about a computer chip salesman falling in love with a software designer, and they're both in VR.
00:14:19
Speaker
o Oh. they really This director really goes for big concepts. Yeah, big swings. Yeah, real big swings.
00:14:30
Speaker
and I appreciate that. I tried to track down Julian Jack. I've seen it on DVD before. I know it's gotten a release. I know Riff Trax put out a version of it, but I could not find it yet.
00:14:42
Speaker
Listeners, believe me, those three birdemics were more than enough. I can't believe you watched them. I mean, I'm glad, but also, whew. I mean, the good news is they have short running time. the bad news is it's a completely pointless exercise.
00:14:58
Speaker
ah He followed Julian Jack up with Replica in 2005, which is about a computer chip salesman who falls in love with an experimental biogeneticist that gives him a new kidney.
00:15:13
Speaker
He's a k Cronenberg. He's a k Cronenberg-esque. yeah Yeah. Yeah. And he loves to have his director surrogate be a computer chip salesman. That's another thing that we're seeing.
00:15:25
Speaker
Yeah. You write what you know. So neither film really made much of an impact. I think Replica didn't officially get released until much later.
00:15:37
Speaker
ah But that didn't stop and went. ah He went to work on his next feature, which would end up taking him about four years to complete. He started on Birdemic Shock and Terror.
00:15:51
Speaker
Birdemic cost roughly $10,000 to make, qualifying it as a true micro-budget picture. And it's all on screen. Oh, yeah. Every single of of those $10,000 show up there. There's a lot of production value here. Yeah, definitely.
00:16:08
Speaker
There's a lot going on. You're not just sitting in a room with two people talking across a kitchen table. Yeah. who Did we mention there was a whole fish?
00:16:18
Speaker
Not just a fillet. a whole fish.
00:16:25
Speaker
It took four years to make, though principal photography was mostly completed in seven months over nights and weekends. Wow. Wow. That really explains her her wardrobe. even ah Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
h What do you mean? Expand on that. Oh, that her wardrobe of is is four years out of date by 2010, but it's intensely mid-aught. She's got some...
00:16:58
Speaker
some little going out tops, you know what I mean? yeah yeah Yeah. A lot of fluorescence.
00:17:06
Speaker
Very MTV's next. Yeah. Now for casting, Nguyen hired Alan Ba to play his male lead Rod after meeting him in an acting class. They took an acting class together.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yep. Smart. He cast Whitney Moore after meeting her in a parking lot. Mm hmm. They filmed it without permits, guerrilla filmmaking, just like we had with the last horror film. You just say that's very easy to tell.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah. You definitely get the feeling that they're not comfortable where they are and they want to keep things moving.
00:17:43
Speaker
It's also very funny that they're supposed to be in some sort of bird apocalypse, but there are just a bunch of other cars driving up and down the road any given time. And not in any like fashion where we're like, oh, we got to get away from the birds. It's like, a they're just driving. It's regular traffic.
00:18:00
Speaker
Can't believe I forgot the milk. I mean, that's California, am I right?
00:18:08
Speaker
It's commentary. Yeah, you said it. ah cast members would often have to fill in for different crew duties, holding microphones between their knees, lugging equipment around, things like that. Whitney Moore did makeup after the first two makeup people quit.
00:18:27
Speaker
o Bad sign. Still, it eventually did cross the finish line. Birdemic features a lot of special effects and computer-generated post-work.
00:18:43
Speaker
That's a way to describe it. tech There's a lot of it. It's on screen. It definitely took a computer to do it. yeah This is not hand-drawn. This is not cell animation. This is not claymation. These items are animated by a computer, and thus it is computer animation.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah. These are no puppet tunes. Nope. ah To do this futuristic computer animation, Nguyen would hire students from the Academy of the Arts in San Francisco.
00:19:19
Speaker
And he would do the work piecemeal. He'd be like, oh, I got 200 bucks. Can you make ah an animation for me of an eagle getting shot and falling to the ground?
00:19:30
Speaker
got Yeah, sure. There you go. Eagle getting shot, falling to the ground. OK, here's another 150. Can I get a flying V of eagles just going from right to left?
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah give me eight give me two weeks. And then I'm going to say he has, if I had to guess, less than 20 of these special effects shots yeah that he then uses repeatedly throughout the film.
00:20:00
Speaker
You can't tell. I mean, it really stretches that budget. It really, all of the money is on screen. Yeah.
00:20:13
Speaker
The results were arguably inconsistent. Sometimes more effective than others. Rarely truly effective. i was going to say, I think you can say that some are more effective than others, but I think that's about the extent Reasonable.
00:20:34
Speaker
ah But it did keep him within budget.
00:20:39
Speaker
So upon completion, Nguyen started sending Birdemic to film festivals. And as you might expect, none of them were particularly interested. Eventually, he took matters into his own hands. He rented a venue during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and drove his van out there, covered in misspelled signs and fake dead birds, and handed out flyers to anyone he could. he Basically, he rented it out at a bar in Telluride.
00:21:09
Speaker
All right. One of the people he gave Birdemic a shot was somebody who was working for the distributor Severin Films. So two months later, it had its L.A. premiere at the Silent Movie Theater hosted by Tim Heidecker and Eric Warheim, and which kicked off the Birdemic Experience Tour.
00:21:34
Speaker
So it went around playing in a tour.
00:21:38
Speaker
Riff Tracks released a riff track for Birdemic, as well as Replica and Julian Jack. And everyone thought that pretty much they were getting another The Room. It had been shared seven years since The Room, and everybody was ready for a new The Room, I think.
00:21:56
Speaker
Everybody thought that Birdemic was going to be that.
00:22:04
Speaker
But yeah, for some reason... Or another, it did not ultimately have the staying power that the room did. I personally blame the near constant screeching of birds that play in the second act. Oh, I forgot I had birds on the soundboard.
00:22:19
Speaker
Oh, good. Yep.
00:22:23
Speaker
Oh, the good news is they're not that loud, and I can't overlay them because I didn't do the settings right.
00:22:30
Speaker
So you just get one at a time, and it's not that loud. I should also point out that when I'm talking about how annoying the sound was, it was actually in the first like 10 minutes. you like the way that it is also the dialogue is really poorly recorded they don't understand how to record things and they don't understand how to edit it together in a way that makes the sound sound consistent so it's a lot of like loudness and then quiet and the loudness and quiet and loudness and quiet and it's really grating it is i had an easier time with the bird shrieking than i did with that section oddly enough
00:23:06
Speaker
I'll confess the constant bird shrieking for the last half an hour did a number on me. Yeah. No, I mean, I see how it could. I think what it is is birds wake me up every morning, and so I'm just accustomed to hearing birds and just being like... Every morning, it's... I'll tell you what. I'll tell you I'll tell you what. It's a lot louder around here than you want it to be. I'll tell you.
00:23:31
Speaker
I'm sorry, brother. that's It's awful. You need to one of those fake owls and put it by your window. That's not a bad idea. What
00:23:41
Speaker
was I saying? Anyway, James Dwen, he did not give up. He produced two sequels to Birdemic. Birdemic 2, The Resurrection, ah and Birdemic 3, Sea Eagle.
00:24:01
Speaker
Birdemic 2 came out 2012 Sea Eagle 2022 so we had a long gap between 2 and 3 perhaps someday Birdemic will fly again who knows and ah other horror movies of 2010 what else could you go and see if you wanted to get as spooked as you were at Birdemic shock terror
00:24:27
Speaker
Well, you can go see Insidious Okay you
00:24:34
Speaker
It's not a ghost It's a demon A demon's worse than a ghost Sure Yeah It's like a double ghost And As I explained In our episode on Amityville 4 It's okay for Catholics To believe in demons Yeah yeah Demons are real Yeah You could go see the reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street.
00:25:02
Speaker
For better or worse. Probably for worse. Hate that movie. You could go see Paranormal Activity 2. Okay. Boo to you. You could go see Puppet Master Axis of Evil, which might be the one that's directed by Brian Trenchard Smith. Let me double check that.
00:25:24
Speaker
What else did they do? They did Stunt Rock. Check out our recent episode on yeah Stunt Rock.
00:25:37
Speaker
I know you did a puppet master. I thought you did puppet master. I think maybe he did four. You know what? You know what? He didn't. He didn't even do that. I'm going crazy. And he did Leprechaun four. That much know.
00:25:54
Speaker
Leprechaun four. Best of the Leprechauns.
00:25:58
Speaker
Uh, anyway, sorry for that listeners. Maybe I'll even edit that out. Uh, he, we also got saw 3d coming out this year. Not a bad saw this time in 3d.
00:26:09
Speaker
You got a Tucker and Dale versus evil. Never seen it. I hear good things. And of course you got piranha 3d. Check out our episode about piranha 3d.
00:26:20
Speaker
A very fun movie, a very fun episode. yeah With that, you guys want to talk about the plot of Birdemic?
00:26:32
Speaker
Listeners, it's we got another situation here.
00:26:53
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm going to give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:27:05
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:27:19
Speaker
So we open on a California highway. An ominous score that was clearly not written for this movie plays as a Mustang...
00:27:31
Speaker
hurdles down a two-lane road. It's also about 15 seconds long, and they play it on a loop, and it drove me insane. Because the loop goes on for so long. Yeah. They take forever to do the credits, and again, it's like tension, tension, and release.
00:27:50
Speaker
Tension, tension, and release. Tension, tension, and it's like stop it. Stop it. Pick a different song. Do sound effects. Just do the ocean and some birds.
00:28:03
Speaker
Don't show all these names at the front. It's fine. Because he shows a lot of names up top. He really wants to give everybody their flowers. I'll give him that. Yeah, that's nice. Although I think a lot of these people are also made up.
00:28:16
Speaker
Because as I said, the cast did do a lot of the work. Well, that's intriguing. And also this does, obviously Nguyen is a big Hitchcock fan.
00:28:28
Speaker
You know, obviously this is very influenced by the birds. He described what he does as romantic thrillers and he'd in the vein of ah a Hitchcock. And this opening credit sequence to me does feel like an attempt to be Hitchcockian. Sure. Like if you had a good score and a car driving down a highway, you'd like, okay, we've got more momentum. It's building tension. But obviously none of the craft is up to that.
00:28:55
Speaker
No, no. It's a shame. And I'm going to say that this is as close to Hitchcock as we get. Hmm. So the driver of the Mustang is a 20 something named Rod played by Alan Ball.
00:29:12
Speaker
and a Rod pulls into a sleepy tourist town called Half Moon Bay and orders breakfast at a small diner. The sound in this scene is awful.
00:29:24
Speaker
Truly terrible. Yeah. It immediately sets you back on your heels and you know instantly this is going to be a cheap as shit movie. This is always the biggest tell It screams student project to me, like entry level student project. It's like this is a good first attempt at making something, but you have a ways to go.
00:29:48
Speaker
And I'll tell you, in the subsequent films, he doesn't really get there. Yes, ah that only makes sense. This is also how the other two Birdemic films start.
00:30:00
Speaker
They start with someone driving somewhere and there's a score and then they get somewhere and they get out and then they see a beautiful woman. And that beautiful woman becomes the love interest for the film. In this case, Rod sees Natalie, who is cutting up toast with a knife and fork. She's having a lot of trouble with it.
00:30:20
Speaker
Yes, she's really doing a very loud job with her knife and fork. But to be fair, a lot of people don't really cut their toast. You know, overly crispy. Maybe it's a little dry. Needed some butter to soften it up.
00:30:36
Speaker
ah But then Rod chases her out the door. And asks, didn't you go to such and such high school? And it turns out she did go to that high school.
00:30:48
Speaker
And then they exchanged business cards and agreed to stay in touch. So now it's also become clear that James Dwen does not really understand human interaction. No.
00:30:59
Speaker
No. And so there's going to be no soft purchase for us anywhere in this film. There's nothing, nowhere for us to sort of land. We are going to be bouncing off this film. We are at odds with the movie.
00:31:13
Speaker
This is a movie you are at war with. Yeah.
00:31:18
Speaker
So the next day, Rod goes to work at his job as a software salesman. He immediately gets a $1 million dollars sale. So things are going great for Rod. the pitch, which I didn't write down, but it is just incredible. Because it's just like, with this software, you will double your productivity. Are you interested?
00:31:39
Speaker
Great. How many can I put you down for? Hangs up the phone. Yes. Yep. Nailed it.
00:31:51
Speaker
Meanwhile, Natalie finishes up her photo shoot at a strip mall one-hour photo marked. And... But then she gets a phone call from her agent, and it turns out Victoria's Secret wants her to be their next cover model.
00:32:05
Speaker
So things are going great for Natalie, too. Everything's looking up. What a wonderful movie. Yeah. Everybody's happy. Where are the birds? Don't worry.
00:32:19
Speaker
They'll pop up eventually. Yeah. So Rod calls Natalie and invites her to dinner. Then he goes and he shoots some hoops at the park with his buddy Rick.
00:32:32
Speaker
He talks about the hot date he has planned. Then Rod buys some solar panels. Yeah, it's a big point. It's a big point of this movie that he. Yeah, there's a lot of environmental talk in this film.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yes, you could call all of the Birdemic's message movies. That's also something that carries throughout the franchise. They are. ah they I mean, like, well, I agree with Birdemic.
00:33:05
Speaker
There's a part of me that was like, can you just lay off for a little bit here? Like, yeah I get it already. Can we just stop talking about it for a while?
00:33:16
Speaker
Can we move this along? don't need to hear this from you. easy You are preaching to the choir. And you're doing a bad job. Yes. And the choir is very tired and would love to leave the church.
00:33:31
Speaker
I could preach this better than you. Sit down. um So, yeah, the good news is Rod is able to use his salesman skills to knock the price down from 20K to 19K on his solar panels.
00:33:46
Speaker
So everything's going great deal. 5% discount. He really, he got them. Then it's off to his dinner date with Natalie, where he tells her that his big dream is one day working at a tech company that gets bought by a bigger tech company.
00:34:04
Speaker
Boom. They go for a walk after dinner, and they run into some CGI parrots up on Telegraph Hill. Yeah, the classic flock. Yeah.
00:34:16
Speaker
You might think, okay, CGI birds. It's time for the birdemic to get going, or at least to be hinted at by perhaps some odd behavior from birds. But these birds are harmless, and you probably have, I'm going to say, at least another half hour. So this that is at 2230 that this moment occurs, roughly. Okay, so another... We have another 25 minutes.
00:34:43
Speaker
okay so not halfway there yet The next day, Natalie meets up with her mother, as played by Patsy Von Ettinger, who's the executive producer. She is fantastic.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yes, she's probably the best actor in the film. I'm going to say right now she's not probably the best actor. I'm going to say she's the only actor in the film. i think there might have been I think there might have been one other person that I was like, I feel like you've had some training and or experience, but she is actually acting. I'm not saying she's doing the greatest job I've ever seen, but I am saying that she's the only one doing a job.
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, she is by far the least embarrassing performer. Yes. She is a diamond in this rough partially because of how rough the rough is. And to be fair, these actors do not have a lot to work with. No, of course not. The script quite bad. It's very It's very poor. It is not good.
00:35:46
Speaker
it is not good ah But yeah, she is the executive producer on this. She also was the executive producer on Julie and Jack. And she had passed away by the time Birdemic 3 had come out. That's a shame. But it was dedicated to her memory.
00:36:05
Speaker
So very important to Nguyen. I know you haven't seen it, but do you think Julie and Jack was meant to evoke Jules et Jemme?
00:36:18
Speaker
Or Romeo and Juliet. Or both. I think it's supposed to be in those. Could be.
00:36:29
Speaker
Now, ah they talk about ah mom and Natalie, that is. They talk about how Natalie met a boy. And also how Natalie is about to be the face of the biggest lingerie brand in the world.
00:36:42
Speaker
Mom is excited for exactly one of those things. Classic mom, am I right? Mm-hmm. We then cut to a woman named Mai, who is making out with Rod's buddy Rick, while a sound-alike version of John Lennon's Imagine plays on the soundtrack.
00:37:04
Speaker
She gets a phone call from Natalie. It turns out they're friends, Small World. Natalie invites her on a double date with her and Rod. That ought to be fun. um Also, the scene begins with the close-up of a poster that says ImaginePeace.com. Did any of us check out ImaginePeace.com?
00:37:23
Speaker
That is Yoko Ono's website. That's Yoko Ono's website. that's intriguing. That's Yoko Ono's website. Okay. I'm surprised that that was... He wanted to draw more attention to Yoko Ono.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah, I guess. ah Yeah. Wow. That is not what I expected you to say. Just kind of taken aback a little bit.
00:37:49
Speaker
What did you think it was going to be? I don't know. I expected something like the Hot Damn website that we found. oh I love HotDamn.com. HotDamn.com was just a picture of a dog with a with a tracker for how many people had visited.
00:38:06
Speaker
and like every time we would check, and be like, went up one more. I don't think it's us, but I can never be sure if it's us checking it again. It's hard to tell.
00:38:17
Speaker
hard to tell. ah where was I? ImaginePeace.com. ImaginePeace.com. Yes, and they they're going to go on a double date. The next day at work, Rod's boss announces that his dream has come true.
00:38:33
Speaker
A bigger tech company is buying their tech company, and they're all going to be rich. Everyone applauds a lot. Mm-hmm. Hooray! And individually. And in small groups. That's right. yes Yes. The 12 of them are going to get a billion dollars or whatever. So, yeah, very exciting stuff.
00:38:57
Speaker
That night... They go on their double date to go see the classic Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. And they all loved it. And they all recommend that we, the audience, go watch that movie. Another advertisement for something else that I'm pretty sure was not cleared in any way, shape or form.
00:39:17
Speaker
No, no, just a genuine endorsement. ah As they're leaving, Rod and Rick have one of the best exchanges of dialogue I've ever heard in my life. I hope it was nobody's batty award. I hope I'm not stealing anyone in thunder.
00:39:31
Speaker
ah Rick says, May and i we got to get back to work. at To which Rod responds, work?
00:39:41
Speaker
And Rick says, yeah, you know, sexual work. I thought he said sensual work. I also heard sensual Either way. Yeah, either way it works. Yes. I definitely wrote that down and underlined it. It was just like sensual work. going to name a Dark Souls character that.
00:40:04
Speaker
That's a perfect name. I heard sexual work. Again, either of them works. Yeah. Next thing we know, Rod is pitching investors in his new solar company, which promises to generate solar power at roughly 2% the current cost.
00:40:22
Speaker
Pretty big advancement in solar power generation, needless to say. The investors are interested and they offer him $10 million. dollars So everything's going great.
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah. Everybody's happy. Yeah. And that's always a sign of a good movie. When everybody's just happy for the first half hour, everything's just good and happy.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:47
Speaker
Natalie and Rod go on their third fucking date. This time they go to a pumpkin festival. And in my head, I was like, this is where the birds. Obviously, the birds are going to be at the pumpkin fest. They're outside. Right. Now that now they're vulnerable to bird attack. Right. go.
00:41:08
Speaker
So one would think. They go to the beach. They stumble across a dead computer-generated seahawk. And this is again, you think, okay, so here's the birds. So it's the bird. a bird No, no, no. One dead bird. Yeah. Uh, Natalie introduces him to her mother and then they go to an Irish pub where they dance together. They're the only people there. In addition to a live singer,
00:41:40
Speaker
who's singing a song about how fun it is to hang out with your family. Obviously that's going to be our close. I was just saying, I was like, this had better be the closing credits. This song is amazing. He shouts out Jill Scott, a name I haven't heard in years. And I gotta be very thankful for Jill.
00:41:58
Speaker
Good job, Jill. Uh, and is it at this point I wrote all in caps, where are the birds?
00:42:08
Speaker
Very valid question Hang on I gotta make sure I've got this guy's name I know it's here in the credits somewhere That's Damien Carter Damien Carter's sings just hanging out I'm thinking about making that my ringtone Well I think that's a great idea
00:42:29
Speaker
Now Let's see Third date song Dancing with your family This is where they go back to the hotel room to consummate. For some reason, they go to a hotel room. Yes. Why do they go to a hotel room?
00:42:44
Speaker
Who can say? Maybe his place is dirty. he prompt and Maybe she's a hoarder. Maybe. I guess we don't know about their lives.
00:42:56
Speaker
He lives in his car. oh No, we've seen his place. Or at least the kitchen. Yeah. ah he ah His apartment is actually underneath a prison.
00:43:09
Speaker
a deal. But...
00:43:13
Speaker
oh but Yes, they do go to a hotel where they do ah they do make out. Apparently this scene was filmed a little bit too often for ah our our lead, Whitney Moore? Whitney Moore?
00:43:31
Speaker
Whitney Moore? Yes. Whitney Moore, yes. they They apparently did this scene like eight times. They didn't need that. But she didn't have such a ah bad relationship that she did not return for Birdemic to three years later. So maybe water under the bridge.
00:43:51
Speaker
um
00:43:54
Speaker
And then, yes, they make love. And this will be their last moment of happiness together because when they wake up tomorrow, the birdemic has begun. And this same moment happens in each and every movie. In each and every one, the lead couple who has been on the protagonist for at least 45 minutes, going on several dates together, have gone on their last date where they dance alone as Damian Carter sings.
00:44:22
Speaker
And then they go to a hotel. and they make love, and then the next morning they're attacked by birds. Every single time. I feel like the movie's trying to say that it's invite this the environment that's causing the birdemic. It's clearly the consummation of the relationship of the main characters. Clearly this is an anti-sex film.
00:44:41
Speaker
Right. Yeah, they are being, but they also, they survive.
00:44:46
Speaker
But I feel always survive. Maybe it's an anti-premarital sex film. It's like if they had just waited, there'd be no birdemic. It could be. It's tough to say. Maybe, yeah, it's ah more of a venal sin. They just have to be punished, but they don't have to die. It's sort of tough to say what the first half of the movie has to do with the second half of the movie. Maybe somebody else did something bad, and it just happened at the same time. Right. Yes. It's just a coincidence.
00:45:13
Speaker
And the birdemic begins at 4704. It begins with some of the loudest war sounds I've ever heard, which is ridiculous because it's it's birds.
00:45:25
Speaker
But there's like, mayor and it's just like, wait, what has propellers us going down? Why does an eagle hitting something make it explode?
00:45:37
Speaker
Because later you're going to show us an eagle hitting something and it's not going to explode. It's just going to fall into the sidewalk upside down. Well, some things aren't explosive, but, you know, it's like if you shoot an explosive barrel, the barrel explodes. You're shooting them with an eagle.
00:45:53
Speaker
All right. it's it It makes sense. That's, that's i think, that's i think the logic. yeah So, yes, they are woken up by very loud, very high-pitched shrieking of birds outside their window. They look outside, and we see very cheaply animated eagles crashing into things and exploding.
00:46:15
Speaker
More than than one of them are attacking the window of their hotel room. The birds are attacking. Do we have any more thoughts just on birds? Let's check in on birds. So finally see the birds. So the, for those who've not put themselves through birdemic, we have to explain the animation a little bit. It's like the back of a bird with like two or three frames. So it's just like wings up and down and that's it.
00:46:45
Speaker
And then I think they might shake the bird a little bit. So it looks like it's moving, but it's basically just kind of hovering in a spot. in any animation, quote unquote, that any of the birds are going to do, which is sometimes just picture of bird moves from left to right.
00:47:02
Speaker
It's just going to be that repeated over and over. There's not a lot of depth or nuance to any of the animation. And I would also say that the, uh, the, the,
00:47:18
Speaker
All of the bird wings are wrong. Yes. They're all too skinny, and that makes the angles in them really too sharp and upsetting to look at.
00:47:31
Speaker
All of the birds look like their wings are broken. Yeah. They're really low resolution. Yeah. They're no texture. They talk about how it's eagles, but there's definitely some vultures in there. And I don't know if they're supposed to be or if they're just supposed. Like, I don't know if the idea is several types of birds are attacking or if it was just eagles.
00:47:59
Speaker
Because they bring up the eagles a lot. They're like, i got the eagles got them. But it's like, so are the other birds not involved? Is it just eagles? I think. And why are there vultures?
00:48:10
Speaker
But I feel like vultures and eagles are the more dangerous birds. Like you're not getting worried about getting attacked by a robin that much. You should be. and And obviously it never occurred to him how frightening it would be to have somebody like covered in 200 starlings. And how disturbing that would be. You know, it's funny. You just say that right now. And I was immediately like, oh, it's like that would be pretty easy to pull off, frankly. Yeah, it's a shame it didn't occur to him. Instead, he's got basically five CGI eagles coming in different angles.
00:48:43
Speaker
Sometimes they might be circling. so Sometimes there's one that's in a close up. They might exist in the cloud of birds that just kind of hover and move as a unit.
00:48:54
Speaker
yeah Not as individuals within a unit, mind you. Not like the Blue Angels like all making a V. It's like if the Blue Angels made a V and then that V just moved everywhere. It's definitely like a steady cycle that he's clicking and dragging across the screen. yeah yeah like ah Like the Ray Smuckles motorcycle over the mountain from Akewood.
00:49:18
Speaker
If anyone here has seen any Neil Breen, think that, but just really drop your expectations and talent level. Yes. Which is insane to say. There's a big difference between Nguyen and Breen. And I think one of the big differences is is is that Nguyen is chasing the high. Nguyen is taking the feedback from his audiences and chasing it, whereas Breen ignores his audiences.
00:49:43
Speaker
Yeah. And stays true to himself. That's a good point. That's why Breen is able to be fresh, whereas Nguyen's always chasing his own tail. Yeah. Now, okay, okay, okay.
00:49:55
Speaker
Where was I going? Yes. Now, once the noise dies down, they make a break for the next hotel room where they run into Ramsey and Becky, a former Marine and his girlfriend. They decide to team up.
00:50:09
Speaker
Ramsey, fortunately, has a van parked outside. They just need something to defend themselves with if the birds attack. And in one of the most iconic decisions of the film,
00:50:20
Speaker
They grab coat hangers from out of the closet and use those to fend off the birds as they make their way out to the van. This is a classic scene from Birdemic, something that all Birdemic fans loved at the time.
00:50:33
Speaker
Allegedly, the thinking behind it was they looked kind of when they didn't have anything and they were just sort of waving their hands around. It didn't look like anything. So if he gave them a prop, they had something to do. That was Nguyen's thinking. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
00:50:47
Speaker
Either way, they're clearly not responding to anything there. And the CGI is in no way correlating to the motions that they're making with their arms. yeah I do like that the guy that plays Ramsey is the only one that isn't taking a coat hanger and waving it. He instead grasps the hook in his hand and then uses the coat hangers like a pair of brass knuckles.
00:51:09
Speaker
i like that. That was really awesome. I got to salute Ramsey for thinking outside the box.
00:51:18
Speaker
once they're in the van, they start spraying bullets into the sky. Because he has an assault rifle. Oh, yeah. He has a bunch guns in his van. Luckily. In his shitty van. It's a really shitty van.
00:51:30
Speaker
But he has at least three guns, one of which is an assault rifle. At least two pistols, maybe a shotgun. So they start spraying bullets into the sky.
00:51:41
Speaker
From here on out, the film is going to have more or less the same scene happen over and over until the movie is over. They're going to be in their van. They're going to see something by the side of the road and investigate it. And then they're going attacked by birds. And then they're going to run away. This is also what happens for the last third of the other two Birdemic movies.
00:51:59
Speaker
Okay. So we start off after immediately leaving the hotel. They see some corpses and abandoned cars by the side of the road. And someone says, hey, let's check it out. They find a pair of children, Susan and Tony, in the wreckage.
00:52:14
Speaker
And then they shoot some birds that come and attack them. They save the kids and they drive off.
00:52:20
Speaker
But soon they're driving along and the kids are hungry. And they see a convenience store by the side of the road. Hey, let's check it out. This to me was the only decent scene in the film. This is the only thing that felt like an actual scene.
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah, and it's kind of lifted from 28 days later. Oh, it's definitely lifted. It's definitely lifted from that. And maybe that's why it actually functions in any way, shape or form.
00:52:45
Speaker
And yeah, they they grab some snacks and a lot of water. And Ramsey finds the shop owner with his eyes clawed out. And then they get attacked by birds.
00:52:56
Speaker
They shoot a few of them. They hop in their van and they drive away. So then they're driving along until they see a beach and they say, hey, let's check it out. And they pull over and they have a picnic.
00:53:09
Speaker
So weird. and Yeah. but Well, they got to eat and they've been in the car. I know. but it's it's It's just very funny where it's just like we can't go out. there There's all the birds. Oh, hey beach. Let's do a picnic.
00:53:21
Speaker
there are birds, we'll get back in the van. don't see any birds. don't see any birds. You see any birds? this Let's boil a fish. Let's have a picnic. No, no. It says sandwiches. That's right. Sandwiches. Yeah. Sandwiches. The convenience store. They definitely just had this as lunch for people. They're like, we're just going to film you eating. That's what I feel like it was. Yes. Yeah.
00:53:42
Speaker
ah So Rod and Natalie, after lunch, they go for a little walk where they meet Dr. Jones. Dr. Jones is an old man wearing a face mask who is looking over a little trail bridge at a dead bird.
00:53:56
Speaker
ah Dr. Jones explains that global warming gave birds the bird flu, which made them start attacking people. He also says birds used to attack cavemen. This comes up in the other three movies It's a beautiful little moment.
00:54:10
Speaker
Dr. Jones also does come back. Oh, good. He's a recurring character. Rod is the only one that's in all three films. Okay. When they get back to the picnic area, Becky has to take a shit. hu I love that. They phrase it like what's making it. She's taking a shit.
00:54:29
Speaker
Okay. This is the only movie I've ever seen where someone says, Hey, where is female character? And a male character says she's taking a shit.
00:54:40
Speaker
I've never seen that anywhere else in my life. No, I've never seen that either. So hats off to you, I guess. Fair enough. Then on top of that, we immediately cut to Natalie standing guard while Becky picks a good spot to drop drow and take a shit.
00:54:59
Speaker
Fortunately for us, a bird swaps down swoops down from the sky and kills her before we had James DeWen film a woman taking a shit on the beach.
00:55:12
Speaker
This obviously freaks everybody out. And they all run away, shooting at birds, and then hop in their van and drive away.
00:55:21
Speaker
Then they drive along until they see a double-decker bus being attacked by birds. And they say, oh, hey, let's check it out. They pull over, and Ramsey rushes out, trying to save the remaining bus passengers and also get revenge for Becky, who was killed when she was about to take a shit.
00:55:43
Speaker
Unfortunately, as they run back to the van, a group of vultures swoop down and vomit acid onto their faces. It's incredible. Yeah, it's really good.
00:55:55
Speaker
Yeah. ah Yeah, they fall to the ground and they die as their faces melt off. So then ah Ron and Natalie hop back into the van, start shooting birds and drive away.
00:56:07
Speaker
They drive along until they see another convenience store and they say, hey, let's check it out. and So they they stop for more water, and the clerk there charges them for $100 a gallon for a gallon of gas.
00:56:22
Speaker
Luckily, Rod can put it on his card. Credit cards are still working fine. That's perfect. Yeah. And it's really weird to ah figure out in Birdemic 2 and 3 that the Birdemic is actually a very localized phenomenon. Oh.
00:56:36
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Birdemic basically just happened in this one town. oh Right. Okay. So it's like it's it's like it's like how 28 Days Later only happened to Britain, but even more so.
00:56:51
Speaker
Right. yeah This just happened to Half Moon Bay, California. If they had just driven west for an hour, or I guess no, west for an hour would be the water. East for an hour, they probably would have been fine.
00:57:01
Speaker
Yeah. ah Now... Let's see. Rod, ah yeah, pays for the gas with his card. And then ah birds attack the gas station. So they hop back in the van and they shoot at some birds and then they drive away.
00:57:20
Speaker
So they're driving along until they see a cowboy stranded by the side of the road. and they say, hey, let's check it out. And they've already failed their first test in the apocalypse. Yes, absolutely. Never help anyone. in No. Yeah.
00:57:32
Speaker
No. But also, there's a very localized cowboy hat. Yeah. No. Guy in a cowboy hat's going to be packing. You don't want to fuck with him. Keep moving. But instead, they pull over to help him.
00:57:45
Speaker
He pulls a gun on them and tries to steal their gas. But then a bird swoops down and slits his throat. So they start blasting birds out of the sky before they hop back in their van and they drive away. Without the gas. They leave the gas. And it makes me so angry. it's an enraging decision.
00:58:08
Speaker
Yeah. Absolutely. they even leave his gun on the ground as well. Really frustrating. Yeah, it's $100 in gas and a gun just sitting on the ground. It's like, just, it is four feet away. Grab it and go, my friend. Yeah, really blew it. They failed the second test of the apocalypse.
00:58:26
Speaker
So they're driving along and soon they see a creek. So they say, oh, hey, let's check it out.
00:58:33
Speaker
For the third time today, they collect several gallons of water for their journey.
00:58:45
Speaker
I don't know why that really stuck with me, but they really got a lot of fucking water. yeah This has only been going on for like four hours. Yeah. Uh-huh. the third time they've secured several gallons of drinking water.
00:59:00
Speaker
While they're pulled over, they run into a ponytailed tree hugger. Tells them that global warming is bad for the trees. And then he runs away because he hears a mountain lion.
00:59:12
Speaker
Then it turns out that the birds have started a forest fire because they can fly into things that explode. so yeah So they run back to the van, shooting at any birds they see, and then they drive away.
00:59:25
Speaker
yeah It was a very brief forest fire. Yeah. That has no larger consequences. That's really tree man's problem. What are they going to do? Yeah. They only have like 40 gallons of water in their van. Exactly. what Exactly. Exactly.
00:59:42
Speaker
So they're driving along and then they see Rick and Mai in car by the side of the road dead. and they say, oh, hey, let's check it out. Yeah.
00:59:54
Speaker
Maya is wearing her ImaginePeace.com shirt, and the knockoff Imagine plays on the soundtrack again. Yeah. And then birds attack, and they get back in their van, and they drive away.
01:00:08
Speaker
At this point, the kids who are still there, Susan and Tony, they're complaining about being hungry. And also they've run out of gas because for some reason, Rod left that gas by the side of the road about a half an hour ago.
01:00:21
Speaker
like something doesn't It probably doesn't get very good gas mileage with about, I'm going to say, 400 pounds of water in its trunk. Yeah. Now, luckily, they're right by the beach and there's a fishing rod in the back.
01:00:35
Speaker
So Rod goes fishing while Natalie, Susan and Tony collect seaweed to eat. They throw fish and all the seaweed into a pot of simmering seawater to cook.
01:00:49
Speaker
Once again, truly an inspired thing to be happening on screen. Yeah.
01:00:57
Speaker
The kids both insist that they would prefer Happy Meals to poached fish. But before that can be resolved, the birds attack again. They run back to the van, blasting all the way, but this time they run out of bullets, and they're already out of gas.
01:01:13
Speaker
They can't run away. The birds start flying into the van, attacking it. But then, for no reason, they stop. Yep.
01:01:25
Speaker
For no reason. For literally no reason. I think there was a sound effect that may have played, but I'm not certain if that was like a bird being like, hey, we're done, everybody.
01:01:37
Speaker
or if it's just something that they had that was there that they felt was needed. I don't know if there's a way to get an answer to that. I don't think we should try to answer that.
01:01:49
Speaker
For no reason. Yeah. ah And this is also how the other two Birdemics resolve. I mean, hey. Wow.
01:02:00
Speaker
They need stop for no reason and then the movie is over. Who needs an ending when you can just stop?
01:02:08
Speaker
I mean, at this point, I was certainly glad that it stopped. i Yeah, me too. I was ready to say goodbye to Birdemic. Yeah, that's fair.
01:02:21
Speaker
Final thoughts. Five star ratings. Greg, why don't you kick us off? What did you think of Birdemic? So, it's interesting to revisit it again. There's still some, like, truly hilarious things in this film. i think that...
01:02:39
Speaker
There is a reason why it appears on lists of like so bad it's good movies. But I think I think you're right when you say that it's not one. it's not one that you can easily revisit. It's charms are lost kind of the first time that you see it.
01:02:56
Speaker
I think if you see it with a group of people and you're all drinking and you have the right attitude and you're like a bad movie person who has watched a lot of stuff already, like you should check this one out.
01:03:10
Speaker
But I don't think it's for the average viewer or even the average bad movie. view There's a long list of things to watch first, I think. ah So that left me a little torn on watchability. I would say that if you can get past the shrieking, the bird attacking section has like a watchability of maybe four because that's where the vast majority of the wow kind of laughter comes from.
01:03:35
Speaker
But the rest of it is pretty trying at times. So I'm going to give it like a two and a half overall for a watchability. Weirdness I hadn't really thought a lot about.
01:03:51
Speaker
I'm going to say three because I think what's weirdest of all about it is that someone would look at this and say, yeah.
01:04:05
Speaker
It's ready. It's done. Yeah. It's like, this is bird. Like it's, um, I need people to see this. Yeah. So the entire time you watch it, it's like watching a student film. And if a student gave this to me, like if this was probably going to be a first or second year project, better not be a second year project actually.
01:04:25
Speaker
ah But if someone gives me this first year, i'm like, this is impressive in a sense, but we have a lot to talk about. Like we have a lot to talk about. And there's a lot that you don't understand despite the fact that you seem to get something. And it just doesn't have that, whatever it is, the room and Neil Breen is able to bring to things, not the rest of Tommy Wiseau's catalog, just the room specifically.
01:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think comparing it to Wiseau is valid because, ah you know, they obviously were both, this was chasing the room phenomenon. And that and they both fell into that same trap, I think, where Wiseau tried to ah do more with Neighbors and he tried to do the same thing. If you remember the TV show that he did called Neighbors. Oh, i do I remember.
01:05:17
Speaker
And that just, he was trying to do it, and so it didn't work. Yeah. And that was a little bit of what he was doing with Birdemic 2. Yeah. But also, he was just trying to do exactly the same thing as much as he could. It was a really strange watch. Yeah.
01:05:34
Speaker
Anna, final thoughts, five-star ratings. ah Final thoughts. I did want to mention, i didn't really watch Birdemic 2, but I was in the room for a lot of it being on. And I did like, I did like that they brought back the boy, but not the girl and said that the girl died because of a parasite from the fish that Rod cooked. That was actually, that was a great payoff.
01:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. It's like they only pay off in the movie. um I would give the watchability, yeah, ah about an overall two...
01:06:20
Speaker
um but But it is a good, I think it is a good first watch, especially if you're, yeah experienced enough in bad movies to be able to put up with, you know, a half hour plus. That's really very boring. Yeah. Very, very boring. Yeah.
01:06:45
Speaker
um As for weirdness, honestly, I do think it is still pretty weird. I would give it, I'd say, a three and a half. ah Because the the script both... I don't know.
01:07:02
Speaker
you really does evoke some hitch these Hitchcock tropes while also demonstrating that... ah The script writer really doesn't understand The the relationships in In those movies um and Or relationships at all possibly Yeah yeah in general um And that is that is weird And also also again a man cooks an entire fish Just yeah in some boiling water
01:07:35
Speaker
That does happen. I want to say ah in Birdemic part three, where Alan Ball returns in the third act, he's a friend that they meet after the Birdemic has started. He's not the main character this time we around. But Whitney Moore does not come back. And he explains to his new girlfriend that ah they broke up, but it's fine. And they're still friends. Oh, good.
01:08:01
Speaker
Oh, that's good. I'm glad they were able to make it work. They separated amicably. Uh, But for watchability, I give this one three stars. This is sort of rent-don't-own situation. Yeah.
01:08:15
Speaker
ah It is worth watching. It is not worth watching twice. ah It is really bad in a lot of funny and interesting ways, but it's also bad in a lot of boring ways. And I do think that bad sound design really is the killer. Back when I was in in film school, that was always the ones that were the hardest to pay attention to where the student films where the sound design was bad. yeah And this definitely suffers from that.
01:08:41
Speaker
But for weirdness, I gave it five stars. This is a movie that was made by someone with no fundamental understanding or instinctual knowledge of how to make a movie. This is like going to a restaurant, ordering a hamburger and getting a brandy snifter filled with raw flour and disc batteries.
01:08:59
Speaker
you to bring it back to our food metaphor yeah this is just fundamentally on many levels not a movie yeah think that's that's kind of weird oh yeah uh but with that do you guys want to hear about uh this week's segment yeah yeah okay because this week we're talking about this great score oh all right
01:09:40
Speaker
Let's talk about the score, score, score. This movie's got a great score, score, score.
01:09:52
Speaker
Time to talk about the score, score, score. This movie's got a great score, score, score, score.
01:10:08
Speaker
All right. So a lot of people might think that I'm going to be talking about Damien Carter and his classic song, Just Hanging Out. But I'm actually going to zig on you a little bit because I wanted to find out more about who did the sound alike version of John Lennon's classic ballad, Imagine, film.
01:10:26
Speaker
right It is credited as Imagine Peace in the... Dot com. ah Yes. And also imagine peace.com. ah So ah specifically imagine peace appeared in two scenes featuring the character may, who is either wearing a t-shirt promoting the website, imagine peace.com or making out in a bikini near a poster that reads imagine peace.com.
01:10:50
Speaker
he Imagine peace is Yoko Ono's website. So maybe this is an apology for ripping off her dead husband's music for this song or for this film.
01:11:02
Speaker
What do you guys think about the song Imagine? Just give me your your broad thoughts. I like it. I think it's sweet. I think it's fine.
01:11:15
Speaker
All right. So we've we've got all types of views represented on the panel here. Regardless of what one thinks of Imagine, I think we can all agree that it's an odd choice for a makeout scene or we are a discovering dead bodies scene. Yes.
01:11:30
Speaker
Yes. I can't genuinely decide if using a sound alike is less or more distracting than using the actual song, but it is funny to imagine him shelling out the money for i imagine for both of those scenes.
01:11:45
Speaker
I did want to find out more about who recorded the sound alike. Maybe find out if he recorded any other sound alikes. And it looks like he didn't. His name is Andrew Seeger. Andrew Seeger appears to be sort of a jack of all trades.
01:12:01
Speaker
I went to his website where he had his resume uploaded. So was able to read his resume. How convenient. He did not include Birdemic on his resume for some reason. Wow. Ouch. Wow.
01:12:14
Speaker
Yeah. It does look like he recently left his job at homes.com last year. and so if anybody is in the market for a senior art director and contract ah content leader, he is available.
01:12:28
Speaker
ah He lists among his core skills, generative AI and automation, as well as generative AI concepting and versioning. In case you were wondering why he calls himself a content leader instead of an artist.
01:12:43
Speaker
Yeah. Still, he's not all bad. In 2018, he directed 55-minute documentary called We Exist Beyond the Binary about a bunt non-binary person named Lauren. Okay. but Near as I can tell, though, he did not do the score for that movie. I did see that he did do art direction for 10 episodes of The Whitest Kids You Know. He seems to be just a guy that gets jobs.
01:13:12
Speaker
Huh. I just work if he can get it. I guess it lasted for a little while anyway. But he also wrote the a imagined sound alike that appeared in the feature length film, Prodemic.
01:13:27
Speaker
That's ah all of, um what, 12 seconds maybe? Yeah, probably probably looped 12 seconds. Would you guys want to play a game? Yes.
01:13:38
Speaker
Yeah. All right, we're going to play a little of this, that, or the other.
01:14:10
Speaker
ask myself, what will they answer? Will it be A, B or C?
01:14:21
Speaker
A, B or C? And each time I ask you question, there's one thing that I want to know. Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:14:37
Speaker
Is it this, is it that, or is it the other?
01:14:49
Speaker
That's right. We're playing a little this, that, or the other, and we're doing it with the stars Birdemic Shock and Terror. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read you a title of the film and a brief description.
01:15:01
Speaker
I want you to ring in and tell me if that film featured Whitney Moore, who played Natalie, Alan Baugh, who played Rod, or Rick Camp, who played Dr. Jones.
01:15:17
Speaker
Everybody ready? Sure. Yes, I am. All right. Question number one. I got what you want. A young prostitute struggles for a normal life out of the game, but a ruthless thug and a crooked cop stand in her way.
01:15:37
Speaker
Did that star Whitney, Alan, or Rick? Greg. Greg? Whitney.
01:15:46
Speaker
All right. No, I'm sorry. Anna, can you steal? ah Rick. That's correct. You're on the board, my dev. Rick played Lieutenant Hal Sims.
01:16:00
Speaker
Question number two. Evil Bong 888 Infinity High.
01:16:07
Speaker
When he's finally given a chance to go legit by opening a restaurant... Rabbit can't stop himself from sliding back to his old ways. And with E.B. as his master chef, weed is definitely on the menu.
01:16:23
Speaker
Let's start. Whitney, Alan, or Rick? ah Greg. Greg? Rick, that's Dr. Jones? Yes. Yeah, that guy. No, I'm sorry. It wasn't Rick.
01:16:38
Speaker
Anna, can you steal? Alan.
01:16:42
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. Whitney Moore was in that one as a waitress. Okay. Question number three. Jackson Bolt. Jackson Bolt is an emotionally distraught detective who must clear his name in the death of his partner.
01:17:02
Speaker
Did Jackson Bolt star Whitney, Alan, or Rick? Greg? Greg? Rick. Rick.
01:17:11
Speaker
Correct, Greg. You're on the board. It's all tied up, but there's plenty of game left to play. Question number four. Oh, and Rick played commentator.
01:17:22
Speaker
Oh. oh
01:17:26
Speaker
ah Question number four. Ghost Shark 2 Urban Jaws. Okay. When Ghost Shark returns to terrorize Auckland, Mayor Broody calls in an expert Ghost Shark hunter to finally defeat the creature.
01:17:45
Speaker
That feature Whitney, Alan, or Rick?
01:17:49
Speaker
Anna. Anna? Alan.
01:17:55
Speaker
You're correct, my heart. Whoa! Shouldn't have hesitated. Yeah, yeah, he Who did Alan play? He played Charlie Fox, Scenes Deleted.
01:18:07
Speaker
ah So no wonder it might have tripped you up a little bit. Yeah. Question number five. God damn. When a city dedicates a park to God, they immediately start to destroy it.
01:18:23
Speaker
God returns to Earth to punish them, and only Jesus can stop him. Did that star Whitney, Alan, or Rick? That's wild concept, Greg. It is, Greg. Whitney.
01:18:37
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, Anakin, you steal. Alan. You're correct. a
01:18:48
Speaker
Question number six.
01:18:52
Speaker
Another Yeti, a love story, life on the streets. What? Another Yeti, a love story, life on the streets.
01:19:03
Speaker
Three titles that go together like peanut butter and jelly. You said it. Peanut butter and jelly and more peanut butter.
01:19:15
Speaker
After moving to L.A. to start anew, Adam, an out-of-the-closet single father with a Yeti baby, is dragged into the underground sex trade when his child is kidnapped.
01:19:30
Speaker
Did this star Whitney, Alan, or Rick? Anna. Anna? Rick.
01:19:41
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. It wasn't Rick. Greg, can you steal? Alan? Oh, no. I'm sorry. That was Whitney. I'm sorry. What was the name? It was Yeti 2. Yeti again. It was... yeah again
01:19:57
Speaker
That was another Yeti, a love story, life on the streets. ahha Text me that later. I'll try and track it down. Okay. Whitney played Linda.
01:20:11
Speaker
Question number seven. Satanic panic. A pizza delivery girl at the end of her financial rope has to fight for her life and her tips when her last order of the night turns out to be a high society Satanist in need of a sacrifice.
01:20:30
Speaker
That star, Whitney, Alan, or Rick? Anna. Anna? Whitney? You've got it, my love. yaay
01:20:44
Speaker
Question number eight. Cyborg X. After X Corp, a radical weapons manufacturer, is taken over by a cyber virus, a group of survivors fight to save humanity.
01:21:02
Speaker
Did Cyborg X star Whitney, Alan, or Rick? Greg. Greg? Rick?
01:21:11
Speaker
No, I'm sorry. That one wasn't Rick. Alan. Anacosteel.
01:21:17
Speaker
My God, my love, you're unstoppable. I don't know. Maybe I'll catch up with this one. Yeah, this this one can make all the difference, Greg. This one is worth 20 points. Question number
01:21:32
Speaker
Limbo Lounge. After encountering gridlock on the highway to heaven and hell, Recently deceased con man attempts to work his way down the ladder by corrupting an innocent person.
01:21:49
Speaker
Did this star Whitney, Alan, or Rick?
01:21:53
Speaker
Anna. Anna? Rick?
01:21:58
Speaker
My God, my love, you've done fantastic. Wow. Wow. Congratulations to Anna. Gadsoup. Oh
01:22:14
Speaker
yeah.
01:22:17
Speaker
Six to one. Really fantastic stuff.
01:22:22
Speaker
Uh oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:22:31
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Congratulations to all the nominees.
01:22:53
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. The awards we give out to those little wonderful moments in a movie that make it so delightfully batty.
01:23:07
Speaker
yeah I'm working on it. I'm working on it, listeners. Greg, do you have a Batty Award? Yeah, so this is, I think I'm going to do my first tie. ah This is for responses to questions. The first question was, ah you want to go on a double date with me?
01:23:25
Speaker
To which Mai's response is, don't know, why? and I just find that to be really hilarious. Especially the why part, where it's like, why would you want to go on a double date? It's like, probably because she met somebody.
01:23:40
Speaker
You know, if you think about it, be fun there's that. And the other one is like when they are introducing themselves, maybe it's not a question, but like they meet somebody and they're like, who do I have here? It's like, oh this is and he points to the boy and says his name and he points to the girl and says her name and points to Whitney and says her name. But he's pointing with a gun.
01:24:01
Speaker
At every one of them. and So he just keeps pointing the gun at everybody. It's like, that's so-and-so. It's like, don't do that. Don't do that. Not appropriate. Inappropriate. But I loved both of those moments. It's just responses to something someone said. It's like, these are inappropriate.
01:24:16
Speaker
These make no sense. Beautiful. Fair enough. Anna, do you have a Batty Award? ah Yes. ah We've talked about musically. We've talked about Damien Carter's contribution. We've talked about Andrew Seeger's contribution. I think we'd be remiss not to speak of the contributions of Smart Sound Software, specifically their royalty-free music.
01:24:45
Speaker
And I'm going to give it to the selection called Lover's Touch. courtesy of Smart Sound Software. ah That's how you know it's sexy. That's right.
01:25:00
Speaker
Oh, my God. I'm definitely going to be putting that one on later tonight, listeners. you know right I'm not certain I know what you mean. I'm going listen to it with my wife.
01:25:16
Speaker
I'm going to give my baddie award to my personal favorite moment the you never see this in a movie moment and you might think it's the woman taking a shit a but since she doesn't actually take the shit I'm going to give it to the scene at the beginning where ah Rod is driving to work and they specifically show him pull into a gas station ah put gas in his car and leave And nothing else happens. And so now, you know, for the rest of the movie, he's got gas.
01:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. And he mentioned specifically later on that it's a hybrid. So he's not going to need gas for like another month. It's a shame he got stuck in this van. He had been in his Mustang this whole time. He'd be still have been going.
01:26:02
Speaker
He could have gotten out of the war zone. He got to the next town over. But yeah, I'm definitely giving my baddie word to that gas station scene because it stuck with me the whole movie.
01:26:14
Speaker
you Listeners, we hope that you'll stick with us next week. We should be having, knock wood, haven't gotten it confirmed yet, but we have on the schedule cocktail with Brian Quimby.
01:26:30
Speaker
Very excited to talk cocktail. Very excited to have Brian Quimby on the show. So keep an eye out for that. Give us that five stars. Find us on Instagram. Find us on Blue Sky.
01:26:44
Speaker
Join our Discord. If you were in the Discord, you could have voted. We might do this again sometime soon. You could make your voice heard. Yeah, I got a whole list of movies.
01:26:56
Speaker
Yes, and let's put together a wonderful list of classics. We have a fantastic resource. So come and join us. And come back next week. And...
01:27:06
Speaker
Until then, be good. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. It's so good to see you.
01:27:17
Speaker
It's so good to hang out with the family.
01:27:37
Speaker
Hanging out with my family. Having ourselves a party. Just hanging out. Hanging out.
01:27:48
Speaker
Hanging out with my family. Having ourselves a party. A cool summer breeze.