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Episode 67: Popcorn featuring Larry Brown
51 Plays1 month ago
Friend of the podcast Larry Brown has brought something tasty for the panel, it’s Popcorn (1991). Mark Herrier directed this meta-horror film that had a cast of largely unknown “teens” with veterans Dee Wallace, Tony Roberts, Tom Villard and Ray Walston rounding out the roster. Ostensibly the story of a killer stalking a film festival, it also contains segments of four other fictional movies that make light of classic horror films and audiences. It all adds up to a heady mix of horror, comedy and commentary, if that’s your thing. And you’ll only find out… if you’re brave enough to tune in!
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:14
Speaker
It's bad to be bad It's bad to be bad And I guess it's understood That you would, if you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast, the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
00:00:54
Speaker
We're your hosts. Something stinks in here, and it must be me, the stench, Chris Anderson. And, of course, with me as always, i have the most electrifying man in show business, the amazing electrified man,
Guest Introduction: Larry Brown and 'Popcorn'
00:01:10
Speaker
Mr. Greg Bossy.
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello, Chris. are you doing today, Greg? I'm feeling rested and bright, so it's great. Yes, wonderful. We do not, unfortunately, have my own personal mosquito.
00:01:24
Speaker
My lovely wife, Anna, unfortunately feeling under the weather this week, but we do have a man that has certainly brought us a film that has possessed us all, our own personal lanyard gates, Mr. Larry Brown.
Overview and Personal Experiences with 'Popcorn'
00:01:39
Speaker
Larry, how are you?
00:01:40
Speaker
I am great. like I guess if I'm lanyard gates, I'm the weight hanging around the neck of this podcast today. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:51
Speaker
I mean, well, we can all have our own individual feelings about the possessor and the possessed in this film, but you brought us, I want to say it's technically five films in one. You brought us the movie popcorn listeners at home. If you've not seen the movie popcorn, here's just a short summary to hold in your mind.
00:02:19
Speaker
A group of film students organized horror movie marathon to raise money for their school, only to get killed off one by one by a master of disguise with a longstanding grudge against one of the kids.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah. Is what effectively happens. Yeah, yeah. I think that that's a good, yeah, good summation. Thank you. Another home run from Chris. Right over the fence.
00:02:51
Speaker
Why did you choose Popcorn for your favorite bad movie? Well, it sort of recently entered my my little pantheon of favorite bad movies. I saw it first about a year ago.
00:03:03
Speaker
ah wow. Absolutely fell for it. Like, Hook, Land, and Sinker gave it like four and a half stars on Letterboxd, which I'm not a high rater in general, but...
00:03:15
Speaker
It's weird that it, like, I'm in my mid-50s, 1991, this was like prime movie-going years for me, and I'm really surprised I didn't catch this, because I was definitely into slasher movies, and e um but i whether it didn't play in my small town or whatever.
00:03:33
Speaker
But, yeah, it was... just a wonderful discovery. It's got some of my favorite actors in it. Oh yeah. Great the older cast and the younger cast, like some people that I was familiar with from other stuff.
00:03:46
Speaker
I, it's just fun. yeah It's an enormously fun film. if you're, if you're willing to engage with it on that level. So Yeah, absolutely.
00:03:59
Speaker
but but what What about you, Greg? Had you seen popcorn before? no So I had heard of it. Okay. And I know that people like it to some degree. And that was the extent of it for me. Interesting. really Yeah, this one really was under my radar completely, basically.
00:04:16
Speaker
Okay. I remember this was one of the first DVDs that I ever bought. And I bought it because when I was working at the video store, it was, it came in used and i was like, Oh, nice. I can pick this up nice and cheap, especially with my employee discount. I get it for like five bucks.
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah. And I took it home. And the first thing I remember was that it had like 12 different trailers on the DVD. And I was just amazed at this, that there were like these 12 slight, like minute,
00:04:47
Speaker
variations on this same trailer that was so much fun to watch. And the movie itself is just such a love letter to the movies that, you know, you, you can't help, but have
Production and Background of 'Popcorn'
00:04:58
Speaker
a good time watching it.
00:04:59
Speaker
And i fell in love with it then. And it's always been like one of those sort of low key faves is like yeah, popcorn's good. Okay. So this could have been an employee pick.
00:05:10
Speaker
is This could have been, especially because we were not allowed to pick movies from our auteurs section. Those all had to say, the auteurs had to say stat sacrosanct and no big director involved in popcorn.
00:05:24
Speaker
Not a big director here. Well, the if you want, we can just dive right into context. We can talk more about this director. I see. Yeah. Perhaps I should say directors.
00:05:37
Speaker
Spoiler alert. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, then here we go.
00:05:53
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 want to hear some details.
00:06:04
Speaker
Gossip stream to all that shit. Can't imagine all the time again.
00:06:21
Speaker
So Popcorn came out February 1st, 1991, just in time for Valentine's Day.
00:06:30
Speaker
And the director was ah Mark Harrier, but uncredited, did a lot of the directing, was Alan Ormsby. And we got two taglines here.
00:06:43
Speaker
Tagline number one. one of This is one of those long taglines that like takes up half the poster and explains the whole thing. Oh, great. The Possessor.
00:06:55
Speaker
Fifteen years ago, he murdered his family on stage and burned down the theater. Tonight, he's back for an encore. Okay.
00:07:06
Speaker
That is a lot. That's a lot. that It seems like they're trying to make the villain into this, a guy named The Possessor. Yeah. That you're supposed to be like like yeah Freddy, and it doesn't work.
00:07:18
Speaker
it doesn't The other one is, of course, the classic popcorn tagline. Buy a bag, go home in a box. Yeah, no, that's great.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, that one worked much better. That one's a home run. And that was one of the things when I watched those 12 trailers in a row hear that phrase repeated over and over in the announcer's voices.
00:07:42
Speaker
Buy a bag. Go home in a box. Like 12. He's like, yes, yes. Made me so excited to watch popcorn. Listeners, I recommend watching the trailer to popcorn 12 times in a row before you watch popcorn.
00:07:57
Speaker
It's a strong choice. It's the only... That's what I'm going to do when we screen it in the Discord. We've decided this is going to be our Discord movie. That's very exciting. ah So, okay.
00:08:10
Speaker
To start the story of Popcorn, we've got to start with a guy named Howard Hurst. Howard Hurst was a Canadian real estate magnate. yeah ah He and his wife, Sophie, in the 80s started investing in theater.
00:08:25
Speaker
ah For example, in 1988, they funded a Broadway production of Shenandoah. Okay. Sure. yeah there' Their son, Elliot, at around this time, got the acting bug.
00:08:39
Speaker
What a coincidence. So soon they decided they could branch out into film. they got a hold of a pitch or a story from a writer named Mitchell Smith for the movie popcorn and went about looking for a director.
00:08:55
Speaker
Their initial choice was Bob Clark, who was working in Canada at the time. Uh, Bob Clark said he was not doing any more horror, any more horror pictures, but he agreed to produce and he recommended his buddy, Alan Ormsby for the director's chair.
00:09:12
Speaker
they assembled the cast in America, with the exception of the aforementioned Elliot Hurst, who plays, ah Leon and is Canadian. ah but the film was shot, not in the States, but in Kingston, Jamaica for tax reasons.
00:09:28
Speaker
Gotta do what you gotta do.
00:09:32
Speaker
And it's almost like Kingston's a character. Oh yeah. Definitely.
00:09:38
Speaker
Uh, the only real issue that this caused was that, uh, when the time came to cast extras to fill the movie theater, almost all the extras that showed up were black. And with almost all the leads being white, this made for sort of a weird vibe.
00:09:53
Speaker
so they had to put out a casting call to get more white extras and they would put like the white extras in the front. Okay. This also explains the band. I think. Yes, that's also why there's a reggae band and several reggae songs on the soundtrack. The crowd going wild.
00:10:08
Speaker
The soundtrack's is really bizarre. For Pokomania Day. Yeah. Yeah, beautiful. ah Now, ah the production, it soon ran into trouble.
00:10:18
Speaker
Oh. Ormsby was apparently much more interested in directing the three or four films within the film that play at the Horror Film Festival within the movie. They were taking too much time and going over budget.
00:10:34
Speaker
And on top of that, he was allegedly not doing a great job of directing the modern slasher part of the movie.
00:10:43
Speaker
And on top of that, the hearse were not pleased with the performance of their lead actress, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids star, Amy O'Neill. Hmm. Just a few short weeks into production, both Ormsby and O'Neill were fired and quickly replaced.
00:11:00
Speaker
ah They kept all of Ormsby's movies within the movie footage, but they brought on Mark Harrier to take over, presumably under the watchful eye of Bob Clark. Harry and Clark had worked together previously when Harrier starred in the Porky's franchise.
00:11:18
Speaker
Okay. So Bob Clark directed Porky's and Mark Harrier was in it. Yeah. Yes. He was one of them the the boys. Yeah. Any of you fellas seen Porky's? I've never gotten around to them. I haven't actually.
00:11:31
Speaker
I am that age. So yes. so Several Are they worth visiting? Uh, i they have ah it It is kind of like a perverse American graffiti.
00:11:44
Speaker
um Okay. it does the It does a thing well that Bob Clark tended to do well, and he did brilliantly in one instance, which is Nostalgia.
00:11:54
Speaker
um It captures and ah tone of the 50s, just like you did in A Christmas Story. okay yeah i mean the guy had But it's hornier.
00:12:07
Speaker
Oh, my God. I mean, it's as Mark Harrier himself said, you know, just that close to filming a porn. Like it's it's. Even by eighty s teen sex comedy standards, it is wrong. Yeah, this was supposed to be like the next level one. This was the one.
00:12:25
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Well, i could I could see myself enjoying that on the right mood on the right evening. You know. Young Kim Cattrall is in it, so you know yeah it has its charms for sure. That explains how she wound up in Police Academy then.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yes. Huh. Uh, now, uh, they replaced Amy O'Neill with Jill Sholin, who just had like one day's notice. She showed up after everybody else that had been like, they had not only been shooting, but they had two weeks of just rehearsals.
00:12:55
Speaker
So the rest of the cast is really bonded. But I think since this character is sort of an outsider to the rest of the crew and she's sort of inward looking, I think that almost serves the dynamic a little bit.
00:13:07
Speaker
just say, it's not something you notice when you watch the movie. No, it doesn't feel troubled. yeah you know ah Now, both of them had to really hit the ground running, joining a film that was already in production.
00:13:20
Speaker
ah They reshot all of the Amy O'Neill footage, but they didn't reshoot all of the reaction shots. So some of those reaction shots are reacting to Amy O'Neill. ah Still, at the end of the day, the movie did get done.
00:13:34
Speaker
It was not a financial success in its initial box office run. It only took in $4.5 million on a $9 million dollars budget. It did develop a cult following among horror fans once it got home release, though, mostly due to Ormsby's films within the film, which all feature references to the films of schlockmeister William Castle, the beloved horror icon.
00:13:58
Speaker
He was the guy that the movie matinee was about, I'm assuming. based on yeah Based on. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
Popcorn also could be read as a precursor to the more self-aware horror films of the nineties. Films like Wes Craven's new nightmare in the mouth of madness and scream are all sort of horror films that are also referencing the history of horror films or horror as a genre.
00:14:27
Speaker
Now, the other thing I wanted to mention is ah bit of a bummer.
00:14:34
Speaker
Bummer alarm. Bummer alarm. This next bit is kind of a bummer.
00:14:42
Speaker
So our villain Toby was played by Tom Villard, who was living with AIDS when he made popcorn. Oh, wow. He was openly gay in Hollywood and he made sure his coworkers on set knew what was up.
00:14:54
Speaker
ah yeah Even if he wasn't completely open with his diagnosis until a few years later, he died in November, 1994 of AIDS related pneumonia. And I think that he's fantastic in this film.
00:15:05
Speaker
No, he's incredible. He's great. He always was. um yeah what i said about the the younger cast that i i knew and and loved like tom's a big part of that i don't know if you've ever seen heartbreak ridge the clint eastwood movie about the invasion of grenada but no i haven't seen he he has a fantastic comic relief role in that as a sort of young goofy marine but it really really works I think he's so like charming and tragic and scary. He really gets a lot to do in this film, and he does well with a lot of it.
00:15:42
Speaker
So other horror films of 1991. You got Freddy's Dead, The Final Nightmare.
00:15:51
Speaker
I think an underrated entry into the franchise.
00:15:57
Speaker
The People Under the Stairs. I remember the title and it freaking me out as a child. I was like, I don't want there to be people under the stairs. And which, which also starred one of our co-stars in this Kelly Jo mentor.
00:16:11
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. And yeah, it's like, it's very fairytale. Like I think you might actually dig it. I'm sure. Yeah. i'm I'm not eight anymore. Whatever. 10. Yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
yeah That probably does help. ah yeah Yeah. Child's play three. Okay. Okay. You got subspecies. Hmm. It's got poor Angus scrim in this big white Afro wig in the first 10 minutes. I feel so bad for them, man.
00:16:39
Speaker
um Okay.
00:16:42
Speaker
Puppet master three. Okay. And also ah nothing but trouble. Check out our episode with bitter Corella on nothing but trouble.
00:16:55
Speaker
Well, that ah Larry, was there anything that you like gleaned from that making of that you watched that that I would have left out there? Anything valuable? um No, I think that's like they they definitely discussed um the direction of it, like beyond just Alan Ormsby being being let go.
00:17:16
Speaker
quick into the production but bob clark was a very hands-on producer i think he's in the credits as a second unit director and doing some special effects work but a lot of the cast were sort of under the impression that he had a very close eye on the proceedings because i don't think mark harrier had done too much you know but on the in the director's chair up until that no i don't think so either So, i mean, Harrier's take was that if nothing else, he edit it edited it by himself. Therefore, it's his movie. And I would tend to agree with that.
00:17:52
Speaker
Yeah. the And it's so actually was really good editing, like cross editing between... especially in the beginning with the dream sequences and the, uh, the, the possessor, the sort of Kenneth anger pastiche. Um, yeah.
00:18:06
Speaker
And he's got, there's a lot of balls in the air in this movie. You got to keep a lot straight. This is not an easy thing to cut together. Absolutely. Um, so yeah, some, some of the cast were sort of, yeah, it's kind of co-directed by Bob Clark and others were, he was there and it was his project. So he was watching it.
00:18:25
Speaker
right. The interesting thing that came up in the making of sort of skips ahead to the end is the marketing of it. They were working with ah um a marketing company that was sort of doing a whole new business model. They weren't involved at all in the production. It was strictly marketing and distribution. Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
And they saw the film and thought, this is fantastic. This is going to be great for high schoolers. It's fun. It's not gory. mean, there's a little bit of gory, but it's not long viscera.
00:18:56
Speaker
um And so they they built their marketing campaign on that basis of like, it's a spooky movie, as opposed to, know, the possessor will get you.
00:19:07
Speaker
yeah And then the MPAA came back with an R rating. and And didn't give any kind of like tangible feedback about that. They just said, it's too intense.
00:19:21
Speaker
So they had to kind of scramble to re-market it for an 18 plus audience, which which is probably where those like grimdark, the processor is coming things come from because they're sort of desperately trying to change, didn change streams halfway through their marketing campaign.
00:19:40
Speaker
um So that, yeah, that was pretty interesting. it's It's too intense, which I guess I can see in some cases, but it's so leavened by humor. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:51
Speaker
I mean, I could see the burn makeup maybe being like a little bit much, but that like PG 13, this ought to be fine. Maybe a little less blood here or there, but.
00:20:03
Speaker
So it's weird for me to try to think, cause I didn't even notice the rating. I'm trying to think what rating I thought it it would be. and I guess it just kind of assumed R.
00:20:15
Speaker
and Fair enough. I mean, I'm not saying that it couldn't be toned down yeah take get down to something like, I don't know, like the gate, you know? Yeah. But to just say too intense, I don't think. No, that's, that's vague and strange.
00:20:29
Speaker
Oh, that's what they said. If they've been told, can you snip out the you two seconds of the impalement scene? Yeah. Easily done. Absolutely. yeah I'm used to, I'm used to hearing stories about the MPAA being like,
00:20:41
Speaker
Make it two humps, not three, and we'll yeah back it down to a PG-13. Like really finite, granular, specific feedback, not just like really intense, man.
00:20:52
Speaker
And I could see that really eating into the box office. Yeah, definitely. I could see that. that makes That makes more sense to me now. This context is making the movie make more sense to me.
00:21:03
Speaker
That's why we have this segment. That's right. Well, with that, do you guys want to get to the next segment?
Plot Summary of 'Popcorn'
00:21:09
Speaker
Yes. Sure. God, I'm so good at transitioning.
00:21:22
Speaker
Wrong song. was just gonna say, wait a second.
00:21:43
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:21:55
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:22:08
Speaker
So we open on a shot of latex masks floating in a pool of liquid. Strong beginning. Strong beginning. Yeah, I love it. And it's just sort of abstracted. You can't really tell what you're looking at, but it's unsettling.
00:22:25
Speaker
We then cut to a dream sequence composed of a series of jarring images. Fire, a head on a silver platter that's talking to you. A long wavy sword.
00:22:38
Speaker
and a little girl in a white dress. Then the alarm clock goes off and we meet our beautiful dreamer, Maggie, played by Jill Sholin. What did you guys think of Jill Sholin? thought she did great.
00:22:50
Speaker
Yeah, good good, you know, feisty. um Yeah, I think she fit it perfectly. Yeah. Did she go on to do anything else? Nothing that I was super familiar with.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of surprising to me because it seems like she's a pretty strong actress in this. And yeah, she's kind of surprising. she she She had been the daughter in The Stepfather.
00:23:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. But that was quite a few years. Like she was a kid at that point. Yeah. yeah Yeah. And but i yeah, I think she's very charming in this. And she has the sort of vibes of like the Winona Ryder next door.
00:23:29
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:23:32
Speaker
So it works that she's also like she does have sort of an artsy vibe. And probably part of that is just being a brunette with bangs. But, you know, it makes sense that she's in film school. You buy her in this world. Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
up So ah Maggie is indeed a young film student. And so she narrates her dream into a tape recorder before wishing her mom, D. Wallace Stone or D. Wallace, goodbye and rushing off to school.
00:23:59
Speaker
ah There she runs into her himbo boyfriend, Mark, who wants to fuck. But Maggie says that she won't until she's finished her movie. It's a weird, the whole, that, that is weird to me in a way.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, that part rung less true to film school, I feel like. Yeah, it was also just like, when my film is done, it's like, that's going to probably be years. Years.
00:24:24
Speaker
That's kind of weird. Yeah. I think they had good chemistry, but the way the relationship plays in the narrative, like, are they off again at the moment? Yeah, so I really struggle. Ten minutes he's showing up with his hot blonde date, and Yeah.
00:24:41
Speaker
I struggled with were they actually dating? I was like, I wrote it was like, are they dating? Like, because it's like... I think maybe they had gone on dates. Yeah, my guess is like maybe they're dating, but they're not dating in that they're boyfriend and girlfriend.
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah. They're not official. Right, right. They're not exclusive. Yeah. And I think Mark's really dropping the ball. I got to be honest here. He's...
00:25:10
Speaker
He's got lost in the sauce. Yeah, sure. But you can tell they're not going to like be together after college. This is is a sophomore fling. Now, we then cut to class and we meet Maggie's fellow film students.
00:25:26
Speaker
You've got Bud, the comic relief in the wheelchair. You've got Joanie, the bubbly, zoftig, bleach blonde. You've got Cheryl, the sassy black girl without a lot to do.
00:25:40
Speaker
You've got Leon, the guy who was in the movie because his parents produced it. You got ah Tina, the TA a that's fucking the professor. The professor is Mr. Davis, played by Tony Roberts.
00:25:54
Speaker
And last but not least, you've got Toby, the lanky, other goofy guy, ah but this one loves B-movies. Was he ah professor?
00:26:06
Speaker
I thought he was another student. I thought he was like a senior. Oh, yeah. No, Toby's a student. i never thought of him as a student for some reason. He's 39. That may be why. and i But I do forget that at college you can have 39-year-old students.
00:26:21
Speaker
It's true, look you look at yourself, you're in college. Yeah, so um yeah, that makes some sense. But I guess, I think it was also where he was standing, because it's like you had all the students kind of in a like a bleachers. and Yeah, and he was dressed in the class.
00:26:35
Speaker
And he's like, here's what we're going to do. So I just was like, professor. Because I was like, a lot of people dating professors are wanting to date professors. And this was kind of weird. ah But it turns out only one.
00:26:47
Speaker
But even that's still a little weird to me. Yeah, it's one too many. yes Well, it's it's mostly just like I don't see them with any kind of interest in each other whatsoever. so when she's like, yeah, we're going to do it. It's like, wait a minute. Whoa, this is weird.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, not a lot of time built on establishing their chemistry. No, no. Yeah, that felt like it was there so that we got the scene that immediately followed. Yeah, yeah, Which was a great scene, but is also out of nowhere.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, but if you just had, like, one shot of them in that classroom, like, making eye contact or a hand contact. Yeah, something. Yeah. Well, anyway, anyway, that's the cast.
00:27:27
Speaker
Toby. the amazing number one student has come up with a fundraiser to help out their underfunded film department and all night horror thon of old B movies.
00:27:39
Speaker
Everyone's very excited. Hmm. Next thing we know, we're at the old dreamland theater, a beautiful theater, beautiful marquee, uh, apparently has since been torn down at the time when they went there to film it, they had to clean it up because homeless people were living there.
00:27:57
Speaker
Okay. ah So the gang all gets hooked up with supplies that they'll need from the mysterious Dr. Menezin, a memorabilia collector played by Ray Walston.
00:28:09
Speaker
He has a really great monologue about the magic of the movies, and then he sort of just disappears for the rest of the film. Really a shame. I liked him, but yeah. They almost could have used him as a misdirect.
00:28:22
Speaker
yeah And I wonder if it was written in the script that way. I was wondering to like for the first while I was just like, is it him? It was he like, he's the one with the props.
00:28:33
Speaker
So maybe he's the one, you know? Yeah. Like even if he's not lanyard gates, he's one of Gates is right. Right. Right. Yeah. yeah So nope, nope.
00:28:44
Speaker
no Never. Just never see him again. No problem. Cause then we get a montage of the gang cleaning up the theater. with some previews of the William Castle-style gags they'll be using in the three films in the Horror-Thon.
00:28:59
Speaker
For Mosquito, we get a giant mosquito to fly over the audience on some cables. For The Amazing Electrified Man, ah you've got electrified theater seats.
00:29:10
Speaker
And The Stench has an assortment of stink bombs to hit the theater with that smell like a rotting corpse or a body odor or what have you. And while setting things up, they also find an unmarked film reel.
00:29:29
Speaker
They decide to spool it up and check it out. And the movie is very strange. We, the audience, quickly recognize a lot of the imagery of this film from Maggie's dream.
00:29:43
Speaker
And while the rest of the class think that this movie is pretty goofy and dumb, and it's really funny to hear them like riffing on this movie that was you know maybe 20 minutes ago, this girl's ominous dream. you know It's a funny contrast between two readings. it like You're playing the same footage, but in a completely different context, so you read it in a different way. I think that's a cool trick this movie pulls off.
00:30:05
Speaker
They do it a couple of times, too, I feel like. Yeah. um But seeing the movie freaks Maggie out so bad that she passes out.
00:30:16
Speaker
When Maggie wakes up, everyone is very curious about the short film that they just watched. Professor Davis says he doesn't know very much about it before literally telling them everything that there is to know about it.
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, Long story short, it was made by a guy named Lanyard Gates 15 years ago as the final work of a sort of film cult that he had started that the professor was in briefly.
00:30:44
Speaker
Yeah. Which is a weird little admission to make. Yeah. it's Do you know anyone who was briefly in a cult? I don't. don't think so. I knew people who met in a cult and then decided to leave. And it was like, good for you.
00:30:59
Speaker
yeah that's made the right choice. You made the right choice. It's weird to think about. Yeah. What a life. So he was working on this sort of mixed media piece where he was going to play the film and then kill his family live on stage at the finale.
00:31:16
Speaker
But his sister-in-law stormed in at the premiere and shot him. And then the whole theater burned to the ground. Yeah. It's a pretty powerful bullet. Yeah.
00:31:27
Speaker
Well, you know, that old nitrate stock and you got these curtains everywhere, a spark. who cans There were candles that could get knocked down. Yeah. yeah and And the incendiary rounds in her Saturday night special.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. She shot him in the chest with a flare gun. That's right. Now, that night when she gets home, Maggie asks her mom if she's ever heard of Lanyard Gates.
00:31:53
Speaker
Mom's like, no. Lanyard who? No. And ah so Maggie goes to bed. Then mom gets her second prank call of the film from somebody who this time now claims to be Lanyard Gates and daring her to come down to the Dreamland movie theater and shoot him again if she's so tough.
00:32:12
Speaker
And it is scary that he's like, bring your gun. Yeah. Bring. I want you to bring your gun. I got to say his name being lanyard is not that scary, though.
00:32:23
Speaker
There's a lot times are like, oh, God, it's lanyard. It's like, yeah, that thing you wear around your neck. I mean, the the villain. ah Kind strange. Lanyards were less of a thing then. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. And it's just I'm sure it's like troll. Everyone just says Harry Potter over over and over again. It's just really hilarious at this point.
00:32:45
Speaker
I never got into lanyards. I don't like them. I had to wear them for a job, and I was like, I really have to wear They're like, you have to. i was like, okay. I just don't like the feel on my neck.
00:32:57
Speaker
At a film festival or convention, but otherwise, no Yeah, yeah just it just ruins the look of whatever you're wearing. Anyway. That night, Mom ah does go down to the dreamland to hunt down Lanyard, which is outside.
00:33:13
Speaker
All of the letters come flying off of the marquee. yeah The marquee spells on its own possessor. And you might be wondering how this happens. Is she dreaming? Is this all a dream?
00:33:24
Speaker
And I say to you, movies are a dream. Sure. She gets captured. Somebody reaches through a movie screen and grabs her.
00:33:35
Speaker
The next day, it's time for the film festival. And there's a packed crowd. Everyone is psyched for the horror-a-thon. There's lots of people in costume. All the costumes that you see are great.
00:33:46
Speaker
yeah There's a two-headed man and one of the heads barfs. That guy was played by the original director's brother. Okay. Okay. I noticed the last name. I didn't know if it was son or...
00:33:58
Speaker
yeah Yeah. ah There's a dude in a giant skull head that when they're watching a 3D movie has a giant pair of 3D glasses. Yeah. They also got a lot of masks. Most of the masks that they got, they put on black people to once again, make the crowd look like it was not 80% black.
00:34:16
Speaker
Yeah. Weird thing to do in your movie, but I guess that's the way the dice roll. ah Now, The film festival does look really fun. Everyone looks like they're having a great time. yeah. Looks like a blast.
00:34:31
Speaker
I think that's half the fun of Popcorn is imagining you could go to this really fun film Oh, God, yeah. So Maggie is working the box office, and things are a little less fun for her.
00:34:43
Speaker
First, because Mark shows up with another woman on his arm, a blonde bimbo named Joy. And then also a creepy old man shows up, calls her Sarah.
00:34:55
Speaker
And Maggie is pretty sure that this old man was Lanyard Gates. Yep. But then it's showtime and the first movie starts and it's Mosquito and it was filmed in Projecto Vision.
00:35:08
Speaker
What'd you guys think of Mosquito? Loved it. Yeah, I'd own that for sure. I'd be getting the Vinegar Syndrome restoration of that day one. The same with all the others, but but yeah, that's fair too much fun.
00:35:23
Speaker
Yeah. it It comes out of the gate strong. It's obviously a parody of like old Jack Arnold's giant bug movies. I love that at one point they fend off the mosquito through prayer. Yeah. that's right And they're like, drop the A-bomb on it.
00:35:41
Speaker
And they're like, yeah duck behind this wall. And it's just like, this is really great. Yeah. Like it's doing, it's not like doing the most subtle jokes, but this is basically like a Futurama gag.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah. this is great ah So Maggie tracks down Toby up in the projection booth and tells him that she thinks she saw a lanyard. Toby says that ah he'll go investigate if Maggie keeps an eye on the projector.
00:36:08
Speaker
Meanwhile, Mark has left his date to go get popcorn, only to find that a giant dude has taken his place when he gets back. That guy looks so familiar to me for some reason, but I forgot to look into this guy.
00:36:20
Speaker
ah He's just got that kind of face, I think. Maybe. Maybe. Who knows? So Mark tracks down Maggie in the projector room, and this whole thing was mostly just to make Maggie jealous anyway.
00:36:36
Speaker
Or possibly have sex with Joy. I think Mark didn't really care which way it goes.
00:36:42
Speaker
Backstage, Mr. Davis is getting ready to launch the giant prop Mosquito that flies over the audience at the stirring conclusion of Mosquito.
00:36:53
Speaker
Unfortunately, someone else also has a remote control from Mosquito and sends it flying back towards Mr. Davis, running him through with its proboscis. Then, Lanyard Gates emerges from the shadows to drag his dead body away.
00:37:10
Speaker
Maybe it Lanyard Gates using the remote control. Maybe.
00:37:16
Speaker
Meanwhile, Maggie has told Mark about Gates at the box office, and he does not care or believe her.
00:37:26
Speaker
Toby then comes back to start the second feature, The Amazing Electrified man This was my favorite of the three, I think. Yeah. I think I'd probably like mosquito maybe more. It's tough to say actually, because I'm remembering bits of this one now, andm particularly the conclusion, which was really, yeah really wonderful.
00:37:46
Speaker
It's, it has the most pathos. Yeah. It's, it's great stuff. ah So Maggie goes back to the box office only to find that lanyard has left a message on her tape recorder.
00:37:59
Speaker
Now Maggie's convinced that he's definitely there, and she has proof. So she goes on the hunt for Tina, who was covering for her at the box office, who might have seen something. Instead, she finds Bud, who is just now getting ready to start using the zapping machine on the crowd.
00:38:17
Speaker
He tells her that Tina went backstage to find Davis, and indeed that is true. But what she finds instead is a Davis doppelganger. It appears that the two of them have been having an affair that has not been particularly well telegraphed to us in the audience.
00:38:33
Speaker
Maybe it's meant to be a surprise. But when she goes to kiss him, his latex mask gets stuck to her face. And it's really gross. And you don't know what's happening. Yeah, really terrifying scene.
00:38:47
Speaker
I could see this being too intense. I could see that being, yeah, that part, i for like, that part was just like, holy cow, like, i this is pretty wild. oh yeah, like, body belt level, body horror.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:03
Speaker
It turns out that this is no Mr. Davis. It's Lanyard Gates. Maggie, now rejoined by Mark, almost stumble upon this murder that just happened.
00:39:15
Speaker
but Lanyard fools them with a little weekend of Bernie's style puppetry with Tina's body. Love seeing a corpse used as a puppet being directly manipulated by the killer.
00:39:28
Speaker
You don't see it in a lot of movies. This is only the second one I can think of, but I love it. Was the other one Mindhunters? No, but I guess- no, that was a giant marionette. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm thinking of ah Killer Clowns from Outer Space.
00:39:44
Speaker
Oh, right. Love killer clowns.
00:39:50
Speaker
Now, where was I? Yes. Using her in a weekend at Bernie style. Uh, so now they go off looking for Davis. Tina's like, you should find Davis.
00:40:02
Speaker
And so they go in, uh, but then they get locked out of the theater while they're outside. Maggie begins to piece together that maybe Gates is some master of disguise.
00:40:13
Speaker
Maybe. Maybe.
00:40:17
Speaker
Inside, disguised as teia disguised as Tina, Lanyard gets the jump on Bud, tying him to his wheelchair and electrocuting him to death with the shockoscope machine.
00:40:31
Speaker
I really thought that the chairs were going to kill audience members. And I was like, do we have Chekhov's electric shock chairs? But we didn't. No. No. Weird thing is Bud was really into it to begin with.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, he's definitely. What was that? That the Milgram experiment? yeah Well, oh, oh the yeah. i mean, he's in. He's certainly loving, shocking the audience. But no, when Lanyard, when he thinks it's Tina and Lanyard starts tying him up, like, oh, that makes it's his lucky day.
00:41:02
Speaker
Well, I mean, Tina's no slouch. I'm going to say all the women in this film are beautiful. I'm going to throw that out there. But in any case, Bud does die and ah the fuses in the theater are blown.
00:41:18
Speaker
Everyone's favorite dynamic duo, Joni and Leon, rushed to the stage and set up a generator to put on a local reggae band who were scheduled to play it this evening.
00:41:29
Speaker
Now probably would have been a good time anyway between the second and third feature. It actually works out perfect. Yeah. But i I also love that this is the second horror comedy we've done in a month that has a diegetic music number.
00:41:42
Speaker
Like yeah got a music number in it that you can cut away from and cut back to like, no, they kept going during that because obviously the song is continuing and playing in the world of the movie. Yeah, it's fantastic.
00:41:54
Speaker
um Mark and Maggie, they try to find a circuit breaker. They get separated in the dark and instead Maggie runs into lanyard gates and who insists that Maggie is his daughter, Sarah.
00:42:07
Speaker
She freaks out and runs away. And as she runs, memories start flooding back in a way that to me felt very Dario Argento. Sure. Yeah. You know, sort of a lot of hazy dream footage.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah. You know, a brunette in a white dress running down a hallway. Sure. In slow motion. By the time she runs into Toby at the end of this hallway, she's running down.
00:42:33
Speaker
She remembers everything. Gates was her father, and her mother is actually her aunt. Toby says, that's cool, but we still need to go turn the lights on.
00:42:45
Speaker
ah So they head downstairs to find the circuit breaker. When they're down in the basement, Toby gets the drop on her and ties her up. And he reveals that he was Lanyard Gates the whole time.
00:42:59
Speaker
bu Bum bum bum. What a twist. You're getting it. He was also in the film cult as a child, but he didn't escape the fire unscathed and is now horribly burned and his mother is dead.
00:43:14
Speaker
He has since perfected the art of the latex mask out necessity. And as we're seeing him in this scene, he has like his face, but they make it look like a mask that is peeling off.
00:43:26
Speaker
So he has these sort of floppy ears. Oh, that's so good. It's very festive. And Tom Villard makes so much hay out of those ears and like shaking his head around and like doing a lot of business with him. That's just really fun.
00:43:42
Speaker
And they play him really well, I feel like. Like his whole logic, he's like he's like, my life has been terrible. So if I just recreate it but finish it, then maybe it will undo everything.
00:43:54
Speaker
I will be normal again. Sarah's just like, that makes sense to me. And there was something about that moment I thought was really beautiful because it's like not saying the villain is a crazy person. It's just realizing the villain is crazy and what can you do about it?
00:44:09
Speaker
Yeah. It makes sense that he's crazy. Right. This is what he wants do. Right. And it makes sense as a victim to just be like, well, let's not stir the pot. Let's just be like, yeah, seems like a great idea. Let's just keep it going until I can figure out how to get on it. Like really nice scene.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah. So yes, Toby does reveal that his plan is to recreate the premier possessor at... Jeez, that's a tough sentence, I gotta say. That one's on the sentence. Let's take this one again.
00:44:36
Speaker
Toby reveals his plan to recreate the premier of possessor at midnight. Only this time, he will kill Sarah slash Maggie, and everything will be fine. Mark, meanwhile, thinks that Maggie has left with Toby, and so he goes to Toby's apartment.
00:44:53
Speaker
While he's there, he finds out that Toby is a psycho. I love the landlord. the landlord steals the scene. Yeah. And I love that. He's like, he's like, he's got all this weird. She's got bones in his, in his tub. It looks like human bones is going take me forever to clean it up. It's like, you just need to call the police, man.
00:45:12
Speaker
You need to just call those police right now. Yeah. But first do you want my headshot or my resume? Yeah. We can do lunch.
00:45:24
Speaker
Now, meanwhile, Toby dresses up like Leon to go kill Leon in the bathroom. And he's about to kill Joanie.
00:45:34
Speaker
want you learn that Joanie has had a crush on Toby this entire time. And this they they did telegraph. They did show her making some goo goo eyes at Toby. It was very cute.
00:45:45
Speaker
I thought Joanie was very cute. Yeah, and also they mentioned earlier, like, she's one who knows where he lives, and she's like, she's the foremost ah authority on Toby. Yeah. It's just like, yeah, you get it
00:46:00
Speaker
so when Toby finds out that Joanie likes him, he really freaks out, but he does forget it and he doesn't kill her. So that's good. ah Instead, she, goes he goes and he grabs Sarah slash Maggie and mom slash aunt Suzanne from backstage to set up possessor.
00:46:18
Speaker
By the way, the stench has already started. The stench has been playing. The stench, I think, is probably our least impactful movie. We spend the least time with it. Yeah. yeah I kind of wondered if Ormsby got fired halfway through fussing over the stench because there's really not much to it.
00:46:33
Speaker
It's like two dudes outside a cave going, yeah you smell that? And that's yeah it. That's the whole thing. And I think that's probably more of what the producers had in mind for the other two movies. Yeah, I could see that, actually. So you could see when he's turned in what he did, and they'd be like, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I think we're getting a little lost in the sauce here.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah. So the stench is interrupted by the possessor and the crowd hates it. They're all booing because it's it's way over their head. It's too artsy fartsy.
00:47:07
Speaker
ah And they hate it. That is until Toby mounts the stage and tells them if they want, he will kill these women on stage in front of them. Then the crowd goes wild.
00:47:18
Speaker
And this is. This is a sort of hidden fourth William Castle gag. This, I contend, is a reference to the movie Mr. Sardonicus.
00:47:28
Speaker
Have you guys seen Mr. Sardonicus? No, I don't even think about that. this is an incredible scene, so I'd love to know more about what you're talking about. well Larry, talk ah talk us through Mr. Sardonicus.
00:47:39
Speaker
Mr. sard Sardonicus, it's it's almost like the man who laughed. like it's It's about a man whose whose face is frozen in a rictus grin, commits various atrocities through the movie. But the the gimmick at the end was the you know heading into the final reel.
00:47:59
Speaker
the The lights would go up and something like I don't know if it was so you know an employee or something on the screen would would say, Should Mr. Sardonicus live or die, you, the audience, must vote now. And they'd all been given thumbs up, thumbs down cards.
00:48:16
Speaker
Okay. Okay. And i do remember reading, I think maybe John Waters said, William Castle admitted that, they didn't actually bother to film a scene where he lives because they knew the audience would always vote to see him get killed. That's so fascinating. or not but that I mean, Castle was a smart enough guy that, yeah, quite possibly he predicted that.
00:48:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's what he made the whole rest of the movie to lead up to. It would be bizarre, totally bizarre if they're like, ah, nah, he's fine. um But what I was more referring to is the idea like that he's saying, should I kill these people? And they're like, yeah, because they think it's a show.
00:48:58
Speaker
but that adds tension to it because you know that this audience is egging him on to actually literally commit murder. And they're going to literally watch a murder, but they don't know that that's what's actually going to happen.
00:49:08
Speaker
that tension, that's great that unhidden tension and or that hidden tension in there was absolutely incredible. Like I really, really love that a ton. Well, cause the whole thing yeah around the movies has been theater up to that point. All of the kids are being dressed up, you know, another William Castle references is Joni dressed up as a nurse, which I can't remember if that straight jacket or what, one of the movies where he had a actress dressed as a nurse, uh,
00:49:38
Speaker
Had them sign releases? Yeah, and if you're too weak to sit through this movie, go and report into the nurse in the coward's corner. And then Joe Dante used that in Mant.
00:49:51
Speaker
yeah that's That's part of Lawrence, can't remember the last name, hit that's part of his gimmick for Mant. Right. Yeah, we got to do some William Castle on here. Those would be fun.
00:50:05
Speaker
um But, yeah, fantastic scene. The crowd all starts counting down to Sarah slash Maggie's death. Counting down from 30, which feels little bit extraneous. It's a lot. But I guess it it's supposed to add tension for the bumbling Mark to now finally try to make his way in, you know?
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah, I liked how much of Mark was sort of a a bumbler, a ah Jack Burton type. Yeah. Like, he was always a little bit in over his head. He was always sort of one step behind. i do love his, like, constantly being, like, falling over, getting hit with things. Like, that was a little bit that I really enjoyed a lot. I sincerely hope he got medical attention at the end of the movie.
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's like four concussions, man. Yeah. Yeah. ah So he does, ah but Mark finally shows up to be a hero, right guy at the right time. He zip lines from the balcony down to ah the stage on the old mosquito rigging.
00:51:06
Speaker
And at the sight of a hero, the crowd turns on Toby and starts chanting for Mark, which causes perhaps in a sly comment on the death of the auteur, Toby to start telling the audience that they're ruining everything by ignoring his intentions.
00:51:20
Speaker
Really beautiful moment too. Yeah. Then ah the giant mosquito falls on him, impaling him, and Toby dies. And that was pretty intense. the sort of Oh, yeah.
00:51:33
Speaker
Flopping on the end. Like, that wasn't being played for laps. That was a nasty piece of business. And again, i take the whole audience is like cheering for it. They're like, yeah. It's like, that is a man impaled dangling. It's a corpse now. Like,
Final Thoughts and Cult Film Discussion
00:51:48
Speaker
incredible scene.
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah. Very, very bizarre. Mark and Maggie, Mark and Sarah slash Maggie kiss. And then the movie ends in the best way a movie possibly could end.
00:52:05
Speaker
The credits roll with pictures of the characters and the actors who are playing them. And you get to hear a rap movie about the movie you just watched.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yep. That's a number one best type of credits there is. And bonus, it's not Will Smith. No, yeah it's not. So with that, final thoughts, five star ratings on popcorn. Where did you fellows land?
00:52:35
Speaker
Greg, take us home with your watchability and weirdness. Okay. Well, I got to give some final thoughts here before I get into watchability and weirdness. Cause for me, this was a bit of a strange one. i am not a big fan of horror comedy.
00:52:49
Speaker
And the reason why is I feel like horror is trying to build tension. in comedy is trying to cut tension. And so these two things do have a tendency to be, uh, kind of going at each other in a way. I think there's a way to make it work.
00:53:09
Speaker
And I do know that there are a lot of people who like horror comedy. And so I'm not trying to poo poo it. I'm just saying that it's not. I'm just going to interrupt you real quick. Yeah. It does sound like you're saying, I don't like lemonade because it's got the sour in it and it's got the sweet and it feels like they're fighting. That's what it sounds like you're saying to me. a little So I guess what it is, uh, so in that trick case you got to get the balance.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah, you got to get the balance. And so that's what I was going to say. i think that um Killer Clowns from Outer Space for me is like a prime example of a horror comedy that I like. And this is one where I feel like the horror and the comedy are at tension with each other.
00:53:47
Speaker
And I think a large part of that are the other movies in the fact that what they do to the pacing, because it's like you watch the other movies and then ah Maggie's just got to give you this big info dump and you just have to accept it because we haven't had any time to establish anything or do anything. So she just has to keep telling you what is going on.
00:54:07
Speaker
Um, Again, I'm more like an Evil Dead 2 than an Army of Darkness person. And I feel like that's another like horror comedy kind of a thing. I don't think it's wrong to like horror comedy. It's just not my cup of tea.
00:54:21
Speaker
i And I do think that this one has some pacing issues a little bit in some of the scenes, I think were not great, but I could see them being some of the stuff, maybe being shot by someone else or with some of the production problems causing some amount of like, iness with some of the delivery of certain things, but there's other stuff in it that was absolutely incredible.
00:54:43
Speaker
So I'm like really torn on this one. I'm going to give it a watchability of three and a half. I think it's probably going to be higher for other people, but just for me, um, yeah, it's a, I'm not a huge horror comedy person, but again, there's so much in it that really into.
00:54:58
Speaker
and I don't think it's that weird if you've seen other horror movies. And I think the fact it's very self rental or self, it's very referential. I sometimes have trouble with that too. I don't mind references, but this is like literally saying the names of movies. It's like, I need it to be a little more cloaked and veiled than that.
00:55:14
Speaker
Um, And, but because it is referencing other things, I think that cuts into its weirdness because a lot of what you've, it's like doing callbacks to certain things, making points to certain things. And so it doesn't feel that weird to me.
00:55:28
Speaker
It feels more like an homage to the past.
Films within Films Discussion
00:55:31
Speaker
So for weirdness, I'm going to give it like ah one and a half. Okay. Fair enough. What about you, Larry? Where did you wind up in terms of watchability weirdness? You got any final thoughts?
00:55:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, watchability, i mean, I picked it. I'm going to go high. I'm not going to go five, like and and that's partly because like anticipating, like greg i I completely get it.
00:55:53
Speaker
like it's It's a tone that isn't going to work for everyone. Um, so I, I'd probably come in at four and a half allowing that gap for, if it, if it's not clicking, it's gonna be fairly painful at times. Like there is some, some real light, you know, uh, teenage teen comedy or TV teen comedy acting in it.
00:56:17
Speaker
Um, not just poor Elliot Hurst, who we've picked on a little bit already, but, um, but But on the other hand, like, i I'm a big sucker for those homages. I kind of, you know, wish ah the stent should be expanded on a little more.
00:56:35
Speaker
But I mean, for me, the amazing Electrified Man is just, yeah, i I'd watch that all day. And a lot of that is down to Bruce Glover's performance, like,
00:56:46
Speaker
Yeah. Bruce, father of Crispin Glover, and we just lost him this year. um And then, you know, sort of once once you realize he's Crispin's dad, it's like, oh, of course he's Crispin's dad. No, that makes complete sense now.
00:56:59
Speaker
um And yeah, I liked Most of the performances really loved Tom Villard. It was nice to see Tony Roberts without having Woody Allen standing next to him.
00:57:11
Speaker
Yeah. um Ray Walston stealing his scene. um and And I just, it looked like, that Midnight Madness show would have been like the highlight of your entire college years. Like what a great night out that would have been in real life.
00:57:28
Speaker
um At least for my cup of tea. So yeah, I just liked hanging out with it. Weirdness. Yeah. I think I'm with you, Greg. It's not a particularly odd movie. It's, you know, it plays it pretty straight throughout.
00:57:41
Speaker
So yeah. One and a half, two.
00:57:44
Speaker
yeah That's fair. ah i landed pretty much in the same range as you fellas. I gave this one of four stars in terms of watchability. I think it's got a great cast and all the the movies within the movie are pretty fun. Even if once again, the stench just is like two shots that are just guys being like, do smell that? wish there had been more. I wish there had been more. Yeah.
00:58:05
Speaker
But hey, better to leave me wanting more than to give me too much. It's true. um Especially since they were also doing like a a dubbing over a Japanese film gag. and And if you went with that the wrong direction, like maybe it's best just to leave some of that one in the can. Admittedly, I was thinking in my head, i was like, the stench is probably the one to do the less of if you're going to.
00:58:26
Speaker
I'm really glad we didn't go. What's up, Tiger Lily with it? Like exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, and every now and then it gets a little turned around. you know, I think a lot of my watching it this time is that I can enjoy it because I've seen it, you know, multiple times. It's something that i have internalized. So it's very easy for me to follow.
00:58:44
Speaker
I also kind of have a feeling I might rate it higher after I've seen it multiple times. Yeah. On a weirdness scale, I gave it about a one and a half. It's sort of more unique, I want to say, than it is weird. There aren't a lot of movies like Popcorn. yeah There is, at times, a sort of otherworldly quality to it, but part of that might be ah that the dialogue got ADR'd badly.
00:59:07
Speaker
yeah And part of it might be the sort of like alienness of Kingston, Jamaica, a city that I like know nothing about. So anytime they're like, before they get into the theater, all those locations are like unfamiliar in a movie that feels like this should be in l LA. I should know what l LA architecture was like, you know?
00:59:26
Speaker
yeah And, uh, but, Oh, I forgot another thing in watchability. I really liked that. It almost entirely takes place in one night in one movie theater. yeah I think that's a really fun, you know, a bottle episode, uh, quality to the movie.
00:59:40
Speaker
ah Anyway, anyway, with that, let's move on. Talking about movies within a movie, let's talk about movies within the movie.
01:00:10
Speaker
Trends in film, they do happen. Trends in film. Trends in film, that's the segment.
01:00:21
Speaker
Trends in film.
01:00:35
Speaker
All right. So as we've talked about at length here, one of the highlights of Popcorn is the four films within the film. ah So I just wanted to make a quick list of films within films.
01:00:51
Speaker
And, you know, any ones that leap out at you, feel free to talk about it. Obviously in Popcorn, we've got Mosquito, The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man, The Stench, and The Possessor.
01:01:03
Speaker
Last Action Hero. You've got Hamlet and the Jack Slater franchise. So I just watched Last Action Hero recently after we talked about it. um Oh, okay. Yeah. i um He spends a lot of time in the parody world, and they talk about how nothing can really happen to the kid because he's a hero, so it robs itself of a lot of its own internal tension, which is sort of strange to do.
01:01:26
Speaker
But its sense of parody is really great. And his Hamlet is just hilarious in that thing. Yeah, that was a highlight of that Yeah, it's pretty much the highlight.
01:01:38
Speaker
Alright, in the Scream franchise, you've got the Stab franchise. I never watched any of the Screams past the first one. The first one was so good, I didn't care. ah So I don't have any opinion on Stab franchise.
01:01:52
Speaker
I don't know if I've ever seen the first movie, really. Oh, you should see the first one. I've seen the first one, and the second one, and i mean, if it if the quality continues to drop like that, it did between the first and second, it really wouldn't be worth yeah going on with it.
01:02:11
Speaker
Fair enough. Matinee, you've got Mant.
01:02:18
Speaker
Jingle All The Way, you've got Turbo Man. Love Jingle All The Way. that may be That may be my Christmas movie pick, but we'll see. Okay. Okay. Very exciting. Tropic Thunder. You've got a bunch of them. You've got Simple Jack.
01:02:34
Speaker
You've got Satan's Alley. You've the Scorcher franchise and the Fatties Fart 2. Okay. That probably has the highest number of any of the movies on the list.
01:02:46
Speaker
so Is that movie any good, Tropic Thunder? I remember being funny. It's funny. I mean, it's, there's, if you have a problem with Robert Downey and meta blackface, yeah that's, that's never problem with it that's a little strange.
01:03:03
Speaker
Yeah. Your results may vary. All right. You got in UHF, you got Gandhi too. And Conan, the librarian.
01:03:15
Speaker
And the three amigos, these ones are only mentioned by name, but they're all such great names that I wanted to say them. You've got the dueling cavalier shooting for love. Little Nettie grab your gun.
01:03:29
Speaker
Those darn amigos. Little Nettie goes to war and amigos, amigos, amigos. Really great names. Those are all names that I would pull up for the game segment if I was having to come up for game for amigos.
01:03:47
Speaker
ah Anyway, anyway, let's see. Scott Pilgrim versus the world. You got, you just don't exist.
01:03:57
Speaker
In home alone. you of course have angels with filthy souls and home alone to angels with filthier souls.
01:04:06
Speaker
uh uh in uh inglorious bastards you got stoltz der nation oh yeah that's the um and obviously tarantino has like a bunch of things like this yeah you've got you know like a half a dozen of them in once upon a time in hollywood uh you got uh was it fox force five which i guess was a tv series but that was in pulp fiction Well, it was only a pilot, so it's a singular and entity like a movie.
01:04:37
Speaker
There you go. but And obviously, the there are many
Movie Title Guessing Game with Dee Wallace
01:04:42
Speaker
more. Are there any notable ones that you guys were thinking of? The only one I could think of off the top of my head was Thanksgiving, which was a fake trailer in the Grindhouse double feature, but then got turned into an actual movie. and And Hobo with a shotgun. And Machete.
01:04:59
Speaker
And Machete. some interesting ones that it's interesting to me that they'd be like, we saw the trailers and we decided make those into movies. Cause usually you wouldn't think that would turn out great, but I hear good things about all of them and I've seen machete, I think, and enjoyed it. So yeah, I like Robert Rodriguez. i got No beef with robert Rodriguez.
01:05:21
Speaker
But I think sort of functionally, these sequences serve a similar purpose to dream sequences, ah you know, in that they allow you to mix up your visual language a little bit and maybe ah explore themes in an indirect fashion.
01:05:39
Speaker
the egg which I think is fun. The example that jumped to mind for me was Pee-wee's Big Adventure in Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Oh, yeah yeah. Which is definitely a ah dream sequence of Pee-wee reimagining his his journey, except with James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild.
01:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's Pee-wee from Pee-wee's point of view. yeah I think it's it's not a movie, but I feel like in Twin Peaks, isn't there a soap opera that everyone is watching? Oh, Invitation to Love. Yes. Yep.
01:06:12
Speaker
Well, you guys want to play a game? Hell yeah. Let's play a little Guess the Title.
01:06:27
Speaker
Let me tell you about this brand new game. Where you guess the movie's name. You just tell me what the title is prove you know about showbiz.
01:06:42
Speaker
Guess the title. Whippa, whippa, whippa, whippa. Guess the title. Gooby, gooby, gooby, gooby. Guess the title. Guess the title.
01:06:52
Speaker
Come on, honey. Guess the title. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh,
01:07:00
Speaker
whoa, whoa. Ooh, ah.
01:07:04
Speaker
That's right. We're playing a little guess the title. ah So what you're going to do is I'm going to read you a description of a film that featured the actress Dee Wallace or Dee Wallace Stone.
01:07:18
Speaker
And then I'm going to read you three possible titles. I want you to buzz in and tell me your guess for the title. ah You'll buzz in by saying your own name. D. Wallace or D. Wallace Stone alternately has over 276 credits over 50 years, including E.T., Critters, The Howling, Cujo, The Stepford Wives, and The Hills Have Eyes.
01:07:43
Speaker
Wow. None of those are in the quiz. What's funny is earlier i was going to be like, she looked familiar. What else has she been in? And then here we are. You name it. Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:54
Speaker
So everybody ready? Any questions? Sounds good. All right. Question number one. Three girlfriends go back to Kalamazoo, Michigan for their 10-year high school reunion.
01:08:07
Speaker
Is that American Reunion, Kalamazoo, or All Grown Up? Greg. Greg? All Grown Up.
01:08:21
Speaker
No, I'm sorry, Greg. Larry, can you steal? i will try American Reunion.
01:08:30
Speaker
I'm sorry. It was Kalamazoo with a question mark. Oh, interesting. Fun little side note. Last summer I was in Kalamazoo and heard Ben Folds play the song Kalamazoo. So everybody just names things after that town for some reason. Oh yeah.
01:08:43
Speaker
It's a beautiful name. It is the song where he's got a gal in Kalamazoo. No. Oh, well, there's a lot of songs about Kalamazoo for some reason. It's a very musical name.
01:08:56
Speaker
Question number two. A desperate young couple hides from the mob in a small desert town called the Nautilus, only to learn that the wacky residents there might be even worse than the mafia.
01:09:09
Speaker
Is that fish don't blink, lizards don't run, or bones don't die? Ooh, Gary. Larry?
01:09:21
Speaker
Lizards don't run. I am doing very well. and so This is a tough one. was it Was it Fish Don't Blink? It was. Yeah, that's the one.
01:09:34
Speaker
You're correct. Greg's on the board. Bones Don't Die. Did you make that up? I did. You need to write that or you need you need to write that down more places. That's a great title. I'm just going to circle it here in my notes.
01:09:49
Speaker
Question number three. Carol Sherwood tells her husband that she wants a divorce and then imagines what her life would be like. She had married three different men. ah that sounds fun.
01:10:00
Speaker
Yeah. Is that three little pigs? Anyone else? Or i take these men. Greg. Greg? I take these men.
01:10:14
Speaker
You're correct. Yes. I can't believe that was actually it. What a title. Question number four. ah father and son head to New Orleans to overcome their woman trouble.
01:10:29
Speaker
Is that the jazz funeral, the Bourbon Street Boys, or somebody kiss my dad, please? Wow.
01:10:41
Speaker
Larry. Larry? The Bourbon Street Boys.
01:10:47
Speaker
I'm sorry, Larry. Jazz funeral. Yes. You're correct. I want a jazz funeral. I'll see what I can do. Thank you.
01:10:57
Speaker
Hopefully we won't have to worry about it for a while. No, I hope not. Question number five. A video game designer finds out that his new company is sneaking mind control into their games.
01:11:10
Speaker
What? Is that radical rat trap, subliminal seduction, or the controller? Ooh.
01:11:24
Speaker
Greg? Greg. Subliminal seduction. You are on a hot streak, Greg. I'm sorry, Larry. You ran into Greg on a night when he is on.
01:11:36
Speaker
i yeah Yeah, this is pretty wild. feel like I owe Dee Wallace an apology here. I'm just going based on what
01:11:45
Speaker
he's crackling. 276 credits, Larry. I'm sure you've seen more than a lot of people. I have seen many. The ones you named and said wouldn't be in the quiz. Yeah, yeah.
01:11:57
Speaker
Well, I couldn't make it too easy. Well, exactly. Question number six. A girl takes her friends to a house with a dark past for a research project. They unwittingly summon an evil entity with planes of its own who makes the house part of its sinister game.
01:12:15
Speaker
Is that Fright Party? Don't Open the Door? Or Ouija House? Hmm.
01:12:27
Speaker
Larry. Larry. Might as well make this a complete sweep. Ouija house. Larry, you're on the board. Wow. That one was Ouija house. I would have never guessed that.
01:12:40
Speaker
Well, question number seven. Larry could still stage a dazzling comeback, Greg. You need to watch out. We'll see what happens. Or not. A tormented man embarks on a journey to a small town to reveal the truth behind the disappearance of his wife.
01:13:00
Speaker
Hmm. Is that unburied, this old machine, or the nothing husband? Huh.
01:13:11
Speaker
Uh, Greg? Greg? This old machine. You've got it, Greg. Greg. Okay. All right. I've got a real knack for this for some reason.
01:13:24
Speaker
you're You're seeing through to the heart of the cards tonight. Question number eight. An artist with psychic abilities and her brother battle the demon that destroyed their hometown 20 years earlier.
01:13:38
Speaker
That sounds fun. Is that voodoo moon, blood children, or the demonomicon? Hmm. Larry.
01:13:50
Speaker
like just like the Demonomicon.
01:13:54
Speaker
oh That one's still up for grabs. What was it what was the first one? Voodoo Moon? Yeah, we'll do Voodoo Moon.
01:14:04
Speaker
You're correct, Greg. It was Voodoo Moon. You can't miss today, man. Yeah. Swish after swish. All right. Maybe this next one will jam you up. We'll see. Well...
01:14:17
Speaker
Jianhua Chang is wandering the country. He is hit by a van driven by two college students. While being nursed back to health by a secluded artist, he is also protected by the ghost of his brother, Weigo, from the college students who have returned to finish the job.
01:14:35
Speaker
Christ. Is that Vanishing Sun 4, Vanishing 3, Vanishing Sun 2? or vanishing sun too
01:14:50
Speaker
Where in the Vanishing Sun franchise do you think... Greg. jump Greg? Vanishing Sun 4.
01:14:59
Speaker
You're a fire! I can't believe I got that one. I want to track this one down. I need to buy a model ticket. You do.
01:15:10
Speaker
And you need to split the winnings with with Larry and myself. Maybe I'll skip it then. yeah Well, but I guess it'd be more money for me than I've got now, so that's something. Do all of the Vanishing Sun movies involve a van?
01:15:23
Speaker
like is Like the van dash ishing sun? The van squishing sun. ah that's what that's what I would have called it in my scathing review. That's right.
01:15:35
Speaker
More like the van squishing sun. Part four. Uh-oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:15:51
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Congratulations all the nominees.
01:16:15
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all the nominees. Congratulations to you listeners. You've made it to the Batty Awards. Here we go. Greg, do you have a Batty Award?
01:16:25
Speaker
I sure do This one goes to my favorite joke in the movie. Oh, right. when There's like a sound maybe. or so But like Toby is talking to Maggie and he's just like, I've still got a little time to kill.
01:16:41
Speaker
And I just really, really love that joke a lot. And the way he he's so good in this movie, he's really amazing. And he delivered that just so well. Like he is a beacon in this. Not that the movie is bad or anything, but just like he's so good in this thing.
01:16:59
Speaker
He absolutely slam dunks us. Oh, yeah. You know, it's it's just such a shame we didn't get to see more of him. Larry, do you have a batting award? ah Yeah, I mean, we've already spoken about Bruce Glover's performance, but I'm going to narrow it down to my favorite joke in the in the whole movie.
01:17:15
Speaker
It's right at the beginning of The Amazing Electrified Man when the scientist is as visiting Bruce in his cell and says, now, i can't remember the character's name.
01:17:28
Speaker
ah Vernon. now Now, Vernon, do you know what electro-kites and leuka-kites are? Well, gee, Doctor, aren't those white and blood are white and red blood corpuscles?
01:17:42
Speaker
Yes. Yes, they are. yes As most guys on death row yeah would know. Yeah. Just a beautiful piece of exposition. If only every film could handle it so smoothly. Exactly.
01:17:55
Speaker
Smoother than me. ah My award is also going to go to Bruce Glover. It was going to be in general, but I'm going to knock it down to my specific favorite line. We're all handing out flowers to lines. And mine comes at the end of ah the adventure of the amazing electrified man, where they've brought the electrified man's girlfriend there to like lure him into a trap.
01:18:16
Speaker
And he says, I'm high voltage these days. Like you can tell the amazing Electro-Ride man is so far gone, but he's still like, baby, he's still got that sense of humor. ah Fantastic stuff.
01:18:32
Speaker
Fantastic movie. Larry, we had so much fun watching it. So much fun talking about it. Thank you so much for coming on. Oh, my pleasure. Yeah, this was a ton of fun. Thank you guys.
Larry's Summer Project and Episode Wrap-Up
01:18:42
Speaker
Now, do you have anything that you want to plug? Are you doing anything these days?
01:18:46
Speaker
I'm gardening, but unless you all want to drive up here for some cherry tomatoes, that's that's my big project this summer is I've started a garden on my balcony. Oh, God bless.
01:18:58
Speaker
ah And I've seen those pictures of those tomatoes. It looks like they're coming along. They're coming along beautifully. yeah Fantastic. Well, ah you know what I'm going to do, listeners? I'm going to plug us Absolutely.
01:19:10
Speaker
I'm going to plug that you come back next week when we're going to have you not a blue on to talk about the devil's advocate. Ooh, that'll be fun. Uh, you know, I'm going to work out a very half baked Pacino impression that I'm going to all be working on that one. Who are? Yeah, yeah for sure. We got to warm up. I got to get a cup of tea.
01:19:34
Speaker
I'm the devil's advocate. Yeah. But listeners also, while you're here, why don't you give us that quick five stars? Larry, if you listen to the show later to check out your guest appearance, make sure you give us that five stars while you're there.
01:19:49
Speaker
Will do. Yes. Another host. and three Another five stars. This is my new strategy. It's working. It's working.
01:20:00
Speaker
Don't forget to find us on social media. You can find all the links on our link tree to our YouTube, our blue sky, our Instagram. And you also come hang out with us in the discord where we're watching fun movies every month.
01:20:14
Speaker
We're going to be watching popcorn this much this month. um We've also been watching the oval every Tuesday. Come and watch the oval. It's a lot of fun. It is the craziest show that I've ever seen in my life.
01:20:29
Speaker
and ah until next time be good and goodbye goodbye bye
01:21:01
Speaker
i alsoman paint scorees go to lie
01:21:09
Speaker
I love it. I still have little time kill. Hey.
01:21:27
Speaker
massacre the