Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
DigiGods Episode 83: The Shat in the Hat
52 Plays7 years ago
New Twilight Times, an Albert Brooks classic and William Shatner's (second) finest hour!
DigiGods Podcast, 08/01/17 (MP3) — 31.43 MB
right click to save
Subscribe to the DigiGods Podcast
In this episode, the Gods discuss:
- The 100: The Complete Fourth Season (DVD)
- The 100: The Complete Fourth Season (DVD)
- Buster's Mal Heart (Blu-ray)
- The Circle (Blu-ray)
- Colossal (Blu-ray)
- Coronet Blue - Complete Series (DVD)
- The Crimson Kimono (Blu-ray)
- Devil's Domain (Blu-ray)
- Do You Take This Man (DVD)
- Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) (Blu-ray)
- Free Fire (Blu-ray)
- Girls Season 6 (Blu-ray)
- Joe Versus the Volcano (Blu-ray)
- Last Day of School (Blu-ray)
- Lost in America (Blu-ray)
- Love by the 10th Date (DVD)
- The Lovers (Blu-ray)
- Masterpiece: My Mother and Other Strangers (DVD)
- The Missing: Season 2 (DVD)
- Pretty Little Liars: The Seventh and Final Season (DVD)
- Prime Suspect: Tennison (Blu-ray)
- Pure Country: Pure Heart (Blu-ray)
- RAKE Series 2 (DVD)
- Rogers and Hammerstein's State Fair (Blu-ray)
- Running on Empty (Blu-ray)
- S.W.A.T.: Under Siege (Blu-ray)
- Shooter: Season One (DVD)
- Sleight (Blu-ray/DVD)
- Spark: A Space Tail (Blu-ray/DVD)
- T.J. Hooker: The Complete Series (DVD)
- Tom Sawyer / Huckleberry Finn Double Feature (Blu-ray)
- Tommy's Honour (DVD)
- Underground: Season Two (DVD)
- A Woman, A Part (DVD)
Please also visit CineGods.com.
Recommended
Transcript
William Shatner's Iconic Roles
00:00:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, Mark, I love that overbite. We're both sitting here dancing. Did you do the white man's overbite? What show is that from, Wade? That is from the other role for, well, okay, William Shatner.
00:01:06
Speaker
That name alone should just get people cracking up. So William Shatner has had three legendary television parts. Now, that's impressive for somebody who already is typecasting. Once you have one, you are an icon. I mean, you're usually drilled into a part if it's super successful, and no one will ever associate you with anything else. And look, Ted Danson is still Sam Malone, right? That's sort of all he'll ever be known for. So Shatner, to outgrow
00:01:33
Speaker
Captain James Tiberius Kirk and to be able to have two other iconic television parts is very impressive.
TV Stars and Network Nostalgia
00:01:40
Speaker
Now, of course, one of those, we know most recently, was Denny Crane. That was funny. When you said three legendary parts, I didn't even know what the third one was. I'd never seen, was it Boston Legal? Yeah. I'd never seen it. Oh, Denny Crane is amazing. Really? Yeah, he's fantastic. It's truly iconic. He's hilarious. And he's an old fat Shatner, but he's so deadpan and so funny. But of course, the other one, the other one, Mark.
00:02:07
Speaker
It's a jungle out there. Somebody's gotta go clean up those streets. Every week, every week he would give us a lecture on police work and the importance of police work. That show sucked. And T.J. Hooker. Come on, give it up. That show sucked. Come on, look at that, look at that foursome. T.J. Hooker, come on. You know Heather Lockler, yeah. Yeah, that's what it is. Adrian Zamed? Oh please, give it up. It was fantastic. This show was so much fun. I'd watch it every week.
00:02:37
Speaker
Shatter running around in his blue uniform and his toupee and just I was you know What's interesting is that the guy who wrote that not very good theme is still around his name is Mark Snow and according to IMDB Which I'm just trolling IMDB now after this guy studied at Juilliard Yeah, and after studying at Juilliard He formed a band called the rockin the New York rock and roll ensemble which in one of the other members that band was Michael Kamen and
00:03:04
Speaker
No kidding. Michael Kamen, yes. Wow. He laid great Michael Kamen. Okay. Lethal weapon and lots of great movies. All right. Very good. So in any case, Shatner just kills it in TJ Hooker. It's hysterical. It's a little campy. I know. Yes, of course it is. But this was Heather Locklear's coming out, right? This was before she was on Dynasty. This is when the two Heathers were ABC's claim to fame, right? They had Heather Thomas on The Fall Guy and they had Heather Locklear on TJ Hooker. Heather Thomas never
00:03:33
Speaker
Heather Lockley was always more popular. I will never ever forget when they both when they were dunked in the baseball the softball dunk together I was standing about 18 feet away I think it was Rick Schroeder that did that and I've never even brought that I should I should bring that up with him actually someday That was like a legendary moment in my life. That was a turning point. I sat there and I saw both Heathers Drop into the end of it was just it was so special. It was so meaningful
Fragmented TV Market Today
00:04:00
Speaker
I'll never forget it. I was 10 feet away. I was. You were 18 feet away five seconds ago. I was five feet away. Wow. You were in the tank with them. I don't remember. Oh, man. I would have died and gone to heaven. No, I was standing close. I was nearby. You were watching on television. I was close as I could be. You were in Video Village. I went to every one of the Battle of the Network stars for about four or five years when I was in junior high and high school.
00:04:27
Speaker
every one of them. Yeah, every one that they had. They'd have them like, I think twice a year. Well, they used to shoot them at Pepperdine. Pepperdine. Yeah. Yeah. Just drive, you know, 10 minutes and it was an easy park. It was, you know, nobody would ever really go. I mean, there'd be people running around getting autographs, but it was one of the most, I mean, you couldn't do that today. If you did that today. They're doing it today. They launched a new Battle Network stars.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, but it's different. There aren't just three networks anymore, you know? Back then, it was... It sounds like Steve Joe's from Spike TV's, blah blah. Yeah. See, it's not the same. It's not the same. Back then, everybody knew every single show that every single one of those actors was on.
00:05:05
Speaker
because it was only three networks. Prime time was only, you know, whatever four hours. So there's a finite
The Lost Potential of Cornet Blue
00:05:10
Speaker
number of people. Look, look, Netflix could have a battle of the Netflix stars and most people wouldn't know 80% of the people who are actually competing and they wouldn't know the shows.
00:05:21
Speaker
There's just so much product out there. It's all diluted now. Back then it was a big deal, but the stars were accessible. You could just be hanging out on the field and get autographs. There was a proximity with the stars. It was really rather extraordinary.
00:05:36
Speaker
And also because we didn't really know that much about this. There was no Instagram. There was no Twitter. Right. There was a 24 hour entertainment news. You know, to see Ed Begley Jr. in shorts and sneakers running around doing a pole vault or something was big deal. Yes, it was. Yes, it was. So like, wow, they're real people. They wear shorts and sneakers.
00:05:56
Speaker
So in any case, what we're talking about is the complete TJ Hooker, all five seasons. It ran for five seasons. There's more TJ Hooker than Star Trek. You realize that? That's a crime, speaking of the cop shows. So anyway, TJ Hooker.
00:06:12
Speaker
21 DVDs, five seasons, thank you Shout Factory for making this dream come true. There's only two of those shows that I would gladly watch and enjoy thoroughly. The first would be Rockford Files and then Hill Street Blues. I think all these other shows like T.G. Hooker, they're cheesy. They're not gonna hold up, they're cheesy. It's so much fun to watch again. It really is. It's so much fun to watch. Yes, for the nostalgia and cheese factory, yes. James Darren was on this show. What was he doing in that show?
00:06:39
Speaker
Well, he was, you know, he was like the elder. Was he like the elder states? Yeah, he's kind of older. He's still kind of young at the time. He's part of the team. He's, you know, he's like James Darrin. I think of like 50s teeny bopper music when I think of James Darrin for some reason. It's just the joy of this show is James Darrin still around. The joy of this show. He's 81. Look at James Darrin. He looks exactly the same. Oh, he's fantastic. Good for him. His real name is James William Ercolani.
00:07:05
Speaker
So here's the thing. James Darren, fine. Heather Locklear, delicious. Adrian Zamed has a haircut that would never have been allowed in the LAPD, but who cares? And it's not the LAPD, it's the LCPD, right? They would, you know, make up a thing. Liberty City or something? Los Angeles.
00:07:26
Speaker
It's all shot in LA. We recognize all that stuff. Shatner is just so much fun. He's so much fun. He just chews the scenery relentlessly, more than on Star Trek. At what point did Shatner realize, I'm no longer an actor. I'm a caricature of an actor.
00:07:47
Speaker
I think the first Star Trek convention. Because I remember going to Space Con 4 when I was... But he was in Judgment at Nuremberg. Shatner was in Judgment at Nuremberg. Like arguably the best Holocaust film ever. Yeah. So I think it was probably at the first Star Trek convention when he realized these people are nuts and they just want me to overact and all right, I'm going to give it to him. I'm dialing it up to 11. And I remember very, very well Space Con 4. I was a kid. I was about five years old, something like that. And I went to Space Con 4. A good friend of mine.
00:08:16
Speaker
And his dad drove us down there and dropped us off at the LA Convention Center, and we were
Cancellation of Underground and Historical TV Trends
00:08:20
Speaker
in there, and there's people walking around with tricorders and outfits and the whole things. We're like, yeah, there's only a few years after Star Trek's off the air, right? It's already gone cult wacko. And Shatner comes out. DeForest Kelly, I think, was drunk. He read a poem, and it was like, really, his speech was slurred. But Shatner came out, and they, you know, packed convention center, and he goes, no, thank you, quiet, quiet, please, please, quiet.
00:08:44
Speaker
Everyone's going nuts. It was crazy. It was insane. This is 1970s. And finally, he says, the captain says quiet. And everybody shut up. And in that moment, I thought, I mean, I'm just a kid. And I thought, wow, that's some serious power. That's when it went to his head.
00:09:04
Speaker
That's when it went to his head. He can command a room of strangers so thoroughly. That's when it went to his head. That's the ego went to his head. That's when he became TJ Hooker. You know what's funny? That's when Kirk became Hooker. Okay. I was watching last night because I stayed home. Yes. Right. On a Friday night. Because I'm a loser. Yeah. Who hates his job and would rather sit home and be miserable than go out and do something. Yep. I watched a mock time. I really, this is a true story. I really did sit home on a Friday night and had a mock time on TV and I watched it.
00:09:29
Speaker
And is to praying as hot as we thought at the time? You know what? That's actually one of the better Star Trek scripts. Yeah. It's a good script. Written by... Theodor Sturgeon. Theodor Sturgeon, that's right. A science fiction legend. And it's like you're looking at the tricorders and the communicators and you're like, at the time, a communicator looked like this amazing thing that we would never achieve. Now you look at the communicator, you're like, this thing has three buttons and a little round knob. If there was a real communicator in the world, it would not have three buttons and a round knob.
00:09:58
Speaker
Like they seem so, like the design, we don't know what we know, we didn't know what we know now. So the idea that a communicator would have a little tiny round thing and three tiny buttons, seemed like the height of science fiction. Now we look at that and go, you know, come on. Or the tricorder. Or that little knob thing that Dr. McCoy would wave over people, and then he would look at the, it was like a little lipstick looking thing. He would wave it over people, look at the other end of it and say, well he obviously has Diodoroticulitis.
00:10:26
Speaker
How do you know that fucking tiny little thing? Does he give you a number and then he has the chart with the numbers remembered? It says 17. You have diverticulitis. How does he know that? A little wavy thing. Because it's in the script,
Future James Bond Casting: Idris Elba or Tom Hardy?
00:10:40
Speaker
that's why. It was the size of lipstick. Yeah, whatever. That's fine.
00:10:45
Speaker
So, in 1967, there was a show called Cornet Blue, which has now been released by Keno Lorber, courtesy of CBS, who had this in their library. Normally, CBS library stuff comes out through Paramount, so this appears to be part of that same arrangement that Keno, you know, they license a lot of that stuff for their studio classics from studio libraries. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What? Hold the phone. What? Do you know who James Darren's son is?
00:11:13
Speaker
James Darren's son. This is not that interesting, but I was just surprised. I'm trolling him on Wikipedia. Jack Black? I don't know. Jim Moray, the guy from Inside Edition. You know Jim Moray, the entertainment reporter from Inside Edition? He's done... Looks like him. That's James Darren's son. Why is his name not...
00:11:33
Speaker
James Earl, Earl Kalani. Yeah. Oh, why is it not Jim? Why is that? Well, because then you have the same name as his dad. OK. Maybe you want to get away from that. All right. That's really weird. I didn't know that. Wow. That means nothing to anybody who's listening to this. It's nothing to you. I thought you would go at least go. OK. Wow. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, you know, it'd be better if it was Jack Black. Actually, Jack Black is James Darren's father. Oh, see that. Now I'm confused. Wow.
00:12:03
Speaker
So anyway, Coronet Blue from 1967, part of the CBS library. It looks like this is something that Paramount was never going to release. So as part of their ongoing licensing access, Keno Lorber went and snatched it up and released it. And it's a good thing, too. This is one of those 60s series. And before television became ubiquitous and too many shows to keep track of, back when TV Guide was still on the stands and TV Guide would have their
00:12:32
Speaker
fall preview every year and you I used to read that every damn year wasn't it and you'd go through and you'd see all the new shows and it was it was digestible and it was accessible and you could you could sort of figure out what you were gonna watch on what nights and what could you could forego and then there'd be two shows that were on at the same time my grandfather got upset because we didn't have you know VHS
00:12:51
Speaker
My grandfather used to actually know that this was the New York Times TV listings. He used to sit in his rocking chair with the New York Times TV listings with a pen, and he would circle everything he was going to watch that night. Yeah. That's what we all did. We rolled. We're doomed. Fantastic. It's amazing we haven't blown up the world.
00:13:07
Speaker
So from that era, there were a lot of shows that ran for one season, maybe two seasons, a season and a half, you know, stuff that ran a few episodes, things that just didn't play with audiences, that didn't get the ratings, that got canceled very early on.
TV Show Reviews: Hits and Misses
00:13:20
Speaker
But still, they resonate.
00:13:24
Speaker
What's interesting about Coronet Blue is this is created by Larry Cohen. We love Larry Cohen, right? Larry Cohen's the man. Larry Cohen, who directed so many great exploitation films, including, you know, Q Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent, to Black Caesar, who was a big part of the Black exploitation era, and whose sister was the publicist who was murdered just a couple of years ago.
00:13:51
Speaker
So, you know, Larry Cohen, really a Hollywood fixture, great screenwriter, wrote the phone booth. You know? The phone booth. That was supposed to star Jim Carrey initially. It was supposed to be a Hitchcock film. He wrote it for Hitchcock and then decades later it becomes a Joel Schumacher movie with Colin Farrell.
00:14:06
Speaker
So Larry Cohen created this show, and it's too bad that it didn't run longer, because he would have become a big TV person. 13 episodes is all this thing ran. And it's basically, it sort of fell in between the cracks with all the other espionage shows at the time. It wasn't quite The Saint, it wasn't Mission Impossible, it sort of wasn't I Spy, and it didn't have time to sort of grow its own identity amid all that stuff.
00:14:34
Speaker
But it's still really, really interesting. Frank Converse, who plays this double agent who's lost his memory and he's trying to sort of work his way through it, really, really interesting. Very good performance, and in many respects this feels a little bit like The Prisoner.
00:14:52
Speaker
You know, it feels like a cross between Mission Impossible and The Prisoner on some level. A little bit of The Saint. It's got all those vibes. Really interesting show. But really, the reason I'm glad Keno Lorbert picked this up again is what a list of guest stars. I mean, seriously. This thing has 13 episodes. It's amazing who shows up on this thing.
00:15:09
Speaker
Alan Alda, Dick Clark, Sally Kellerman, Juliette Mills, Candace Bergen, David Carradine, Billy Dee Williams, Brenda Vaccaro, John Voight, Roy Scheider. I mean, it's amazing. Every episode is just a cavalcade of some of the great actors that we all remember growing up. This show got some amazing traction with its casting.
00:15:34
Speaker
so uh... you gotta check out cornet blue it's a great rediscovery it's uh... it's a show that sadly just did not really take off but it's it's a cool show well that's a cool show man it's a cool show what else we got in the tv land uh... well so we have underground season two this thing uh... has been canceled by uh... wg n it's a you know it's a great it's a great idea here's the thing with underground you know it's obviously based on the uh...
00:16:00
Speaker
the Underground Railroad in Georgia. And it's such a fascinating story. And there was a great book written about it recently. You know, I kind of sometimes I kind of bump against these kind of shows that I feel like it's taking advantage of this horrible thing for ratings. I don't know why.
00:16:23
Speaker
Like, for some reason, I never felt that way about Hogan's Heroes. Even though Hogan's Heroes was about a goddamn prisoner war camp or whatever. You know, underground. I mean, what these people went through was so horrible and their journey is so worth telling that somehow when I feel it's like a WGN show,
Films and Nostalgia: Colossal and Slight
00:16:40
Speaker
I just kind of bump on that. So here's the problem that I have. And this goes right to the present day, too. Something happened.
00:16:48
Speaker
And it was largely precipitated by 12 Years a Slave. But something happened with 12 Years a Slave, where a lot of people, rather than seeing that in a Schindler's Listy kind of way, like, this is the movie, the defining movie about this particular point in history, that gives us that cathartic release that lets us say, okay, we have now cinematically finally reconciled ourselves to this moment.
00:17:15
Speaker
A lot of people misread that and they took it to mean, oh really? We can do slave stuff now? Sweet! And now we get a remake of Roots and we get Underground and now the people who did Game of Thrones are going to do a new series with Confederate, which is like Man in the High Castle alternate history stuff where it's in America where slavery never went away.
00:17:39
Speaker
And I kind of feel like, OK, you know what? If I'm a black actor, which I'm not, but I'm trying to put myself in their shoes, the last thing I really want is to think, oh, great. Now I'm going to be auditioning for slave parts again. You kind of want that to go away.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, that seemed as if we had gotten beyond that. I'd like to see black actors auditioning not for exclusively black parts, but for all parts. Like, let's get the best actor available, irrespective of race, right? And the more we have stuff like this, the more that people are going to think of black actors for black parts, and black actors are going to be playing slave parts, and it's time we really let that go. I just really want that to go away.
00:18:21
Speaker
I can't I so Underground may be a good show but I I can't I just subject wise I can't I can't wrap myself around it. I just want Idris Elba to play James Bond.
00:18:31
Speaker
He's too old. He'd be awesome. He's too old. He's too old now. He's too old now. How about Tom Hardy? I want Tom Hardy or Idris Elba to play James Bond. Tom Hardy may very well be it, but he's got a lot of other things going too. Look, Idris Elba is the same age as Daniel Craig. He's too old. They want somebody who's going to be able to give them five-some films. And it takes three years for each film. So to plug somebody into James Bond, we don't want a 65-year-old James Bond unless he's going to have a body like Daniel Craig.
00:18:59
Speaker
Typically, they like somebody to play Bond who's, you know, early 30s. That's where they like that to be. Yeah, but Idris Elba. He's great. Tom Hardy. But Idris Elba's also in the Dark Tower. Idris Elba plays the Gunslinger in the Dark Tower. Don't care. You know, I miss the whole Dark Tower thing. Okay.
00:19:15
Speaker
People love that thing. It was like 17 books. It was like Lord of the Rings. Okay, we gotta move this. We gotta move this along. So we got some British TV stuff. Mothers and Other Strangers. World War II is, of course, making a big comeback. We're talking about Dunkirk and their finances. What was the name of that Underground Railroad book? Everyone's talking about Colson. I think it was a woman, Colson.
00:19:40
Speaker
Gary Oldman is going to win an Oscar for playing Churchill. That's all I'm saying. You know what? When he was nominated for a Tinker-Taylor-Soldier spy, which I loved, he had never been nominated for an Oscar. I know. And it was the most... We all talk about actors who we cannot believe have never won an Oscar. Gary effing Oldman, are you kidding me?
00:19:56
Speaker
This year. This is it. Or next year. But this is the year. That
Contemporary Film Reviews: Shooter and The Circle
00:20:00
Speaker
Churchill performance is going to win, hence down. There's nothing else that's going to come close. You look at that, and it just has Oscar written all over it. It's unbelievable. So Mother and Other Strangers is a PBS masterpiece, takes place in Northern Ireland, deals with a family during World War II, right next to where a US Army Air Corps base has been set up. The Army Air Corps is, of course, the predecessor to the Air Force.
00:20:24
Speaker
This is one of those solid British period World War II legacy series with some wonderful, wonderful performances. The idea of this culture clash, the Americans and the British, World War II, all of it, it's really good. It's a really, really good show. Looking forward to many, many, many more cool episodes.
00:20:44
Speaker
Also from PBS Masterpiece, Tennyson. This is a prime suspect production. Tennyson, A Life of Crime Begins. This is on Blu-ray, and this is basically a prequel to Prime Suspect that goes back into the 1970s and deals with, it started as Stephanie Martini as Jane Tennyson, and it's really interesting. Even if you're not a fan of Prime Suspect, you will,
00:21:13
Speaker
You'll really appreciate this. This is quite interesting. Stephanie Martini playing, of course, the part that Helen Mirren played in the regular Prime Suspect. And it's quite interesting. It connects perfectly. It sort of gives you some really interesting backdrop on Prime Suspect. It'll make Prime Suspect an easier and better show to watch as a result. Very, very smart. So Tennyson, life of crime begins. Very, very cool.
00:21:41
Speaker
There's a cool Australian show, Rake, now in series two, thrown up from Acorn with Richard Roxburgh as the very, very cool solicitor, Cleaver Green. Roxburgh is one of the, he's just, he's such a great actor and he just continues to mature in really, really interesting ways. Very clever writing.
00:22:01
Speaker
Really interesting character, some great casting here. It just continues to be a really, really interesting show. So highly recommended Rake Series 2, which also features a lot of really great guest stars. I mean, we forget just how many really, really great actors there are down under. Toni Collette shows up in this as well. What happened to her? I love Toni Collette. Oh, she's still doing all kinds of stuff. Toni Collette works all the time. She's getting better and better and better. And I just watched Muriel's Wedding again the other day. Gosh, I love it. Really? Yeah. Does that hold up?
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, totally. It's on filmstruck. Oh, you love your filmstruck. I love my filmstruck so much. How much do people pay for that amount? It was like 90 some dollars for the year. It was like your subscription was like 99 bucks for the year or something, 100 bucks for the year. It's fantastic. It's totally great. And do you have anything else? The 100, complete fourth season of the 100. So the thing is, it's set 100 years after a nuclear apocalypse and all life on Earth is wiped out. And this is the continuing voyage.
00:23:00
Speaker
of the massive space station called the Ark. And, you know, they got to get back to Earth because whatever. You know, this is a real kind of guilty pleasure thing. And of course, it's, luckily, the only people remaining on Earth because this is a CW show are the hottest people ever. Only the hottest girls and handsomest dudes survived
Classic Cult Films: Lost in America
00:23:20
Speaker
the apocalypse. Unbelievable.
00:23:24
Speaker
Anyway, so the hundred, if you know it, you already love it. Girls final season, this thing finally kind of limped into the corral. This thing probably ran, you know, maybe a season too long, but interesting to see what Lena Dunham does next. You know, she's doing American Horror Story.
00:23:46
Speaker
the new season of American Horror Story. And of course, Allison Williams wound up in the hit, the terrific film, Get Out. So somebody's making a move off of the show. And so Girls is, I think Girls captured the zeitgeist of 20-something friends in New York for a little while. Then I think after the end, it just kind of was running on fumes. But this is the final season on Blu-ray from HBO.
00:24:05
Speaker
Now, you know what's even better than girls? Because girls, I just find it acceptable. A show that I will confess I would never really watch much of. But since one of the stars I just spent a week with in Jordan, I figured, yeah, I'd better, I looked at this, I was like, pretty little liars. So, because Shay Mitchell, who's on the show, Shay Mitchell and her boyfriend Matt Babel, who is a total mensch, an awesome guy, he's on an entertainment tonight quite a bit, right?
00:24:34
Speaker
So anyway, Shay and Matt were part of our team in Jordan, and they were both amazing and just so awesome. And we all rode camels and mules together. So I saw this, and I'm like, Doug, I really should walk. Because I've seen Shay in other things, like Mother's Day and stuff like that. So you know what? This is actually not a bad show. I really kind of want to catch up on all the stuff that I don't really understand, because there's a lot of backstory here. But Pretty Little Liars.
00:25:01
Speaker
really some really good drama here, some really well-written stuff. This is, of course, an extremely feministically-oriented show, but it's not pushing buttons the way the girls does. It really gets into these characters. And sadly enough, this is the seventh and final season. So I am kind of coming to this thing probably a little too late, but I'm going to dig up the other seasons and catch up on this. So Shay Mitchell and the rest of them, really good job on Pretty Little Liars.
00:25:28
Speaker
And here's hoping they all go on to bigger and better things. We also have Mark Wahlberg and Steven Levinson's TV series, Shooter, season one.
00:25:40
Speaker
this kind of went beneath the radar as well this uh... was a u.s. a show and i don't really pay much attention to u.s. a but uh... you know what this is ryan falipe and uh... omar epps uh... do a very very solid job of uh... holding down the action on this show which uh... here's the psychological entree of the show so you have a veteran who uh...
00:26:04
Speaker
It has to, played by Ryan Felipe, he plays, you know, a war veteran. And this is based on a novel, I should point out, too. This is a TV show based on a novel by Stephen Hunter called Point of Impact, which I was also completely unfamiliar with. So, basically, somebody's trying, a little 24-ish, too. A little 24-ish.
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah, 24, what happened to that show? That reboot died. Yeah, it sure did. Everything has its zeitgeist moment, but here's the deal. So, okay, so Ryan Felipe is a veteran, really, really skilled special forces kind of guy who is drawn back
Woody Allen's Humor in Film
00:26:40
Speaker
into action by his former commander, played by Omar Epps, to try to stop and take down a plot to kill the president.
00:26:48
Speaker
And there are other little tentacles to this story and it is, it always surprises you. So I'm really curious to see where they're going to go. There's only a featurette on this thing. They don't really give you much else, no commentaries or anything. So it'll be interesting to see where they take this thing because it's obviously commentary, it's obviously offering commentary on recent wars in the Middle East. It's offering commentary on our divisive politics.
00:27:14
Speaker
It's offering commentary on the social disconnection that we have and veterans especially have. And it's going to be interesting to see where they take this show. It's got some juice. It's got some places to go. And Mark Wahlberg is a really, really smart judge of material. So I take nothing away from him. Who knew that Mark Wahlberg
00:27:36
Speaker
would become a producer of, you know. Who's the Brett Ratner? I think Brett Ratner as a producer and Mark Wahlberg as a producer and an actor. Yeah. Would actually be two of the more interesting people out there. I hear you. Well, I know you do, Wade. Are we almost done with TV?
00:27:52
Speaker
The Missing, season two from Stars. Not terribly fond of what I've seen of this show, which isn't too much, but it just feels like one of those mysteries within a mystery, wrapped around a mystery with a mystery in the mushy center.
00:28:10
Speaker
What's the one, the OA that was on? Yes, with the... Yeah, no. That just goes nowhere. They're all kind of following a lost template. They want to just inundate the audience with itches and scratch none of them.
00:28:23
Speaker
And you can't do that. You just really can't do that. So I don't find that template quite as engaging. This is a little bit like that. You've got a woman who was abducted much earlier, and she comes back 11 years later. And all this mystery and whatever. Yeah, I don't know. The missing.
00:28:50
Speaker
It's a little too self-serious and I wish it weren't just so wrapped up in its own sense of self-importance. But, you know, Starz is doing interesting work and maybe they'll continue to fund something. I don't know.
00:29:05
Speaker
Wade Colossal is Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis, and this movie is definitely worth checking out. It's a weird plot. It's a little weird. Somehow it doesn't... My sense is that it doesn't quite take advantage of what it is it's actually trying to achieve, because it's really about a woman trying to overcome a particular trauma, ultimately.
00:29:32
Speaker
That's what it's about. In the film, she plays this former party girl, dumped by the boyfriend, runs back to her hometown, where she realizes that she actually has the power to control this gigantic monster who's been destroying Seoul, South Korea. So whenever this monster appears in Seoul, South Korea,
00:29:54
Speaker
If she stands in this particular part of this particular park in this little town, if she waves her arms, it waves its arms. So you're like, well, where is this going? And I don't know, again, that it really had the focus to really become what it wanted to be. But I think that it gets there just enough and goes into enough surprising places.
00:30:17
Speaker
And actually kind of becomes about something just enough where you're like, okay, maybe this, maybe they didn't quite slam dunk it, but it's refreshing and clever and different. And it does have something to say, even if it doesn't say it in the cleanest way. So I would definitely, it's a good, this is one of those Saturday night rentals I would definitely consider.
00:30:41
Speaker
Colossal with Jason Sudeikis. In a very serious role, Jason Sudeikis. Yeah. Slight is being trumpeted as from the producer of Get Out. Donald Trumpeted? No. So Slight, S-L-E-I-G-H-T, is an okay film. It's more well-intentioned than it is successful. It's an okay film. Stars Jacob Lattimore.
00:31:03
Speaker
as a street musician, he's a street magician, sorry, a street magician who, he's taken care of his sister, their parents have died, and he winds up having to sell drugs and there's a whole, you know, downward spiral to there just trying to get by, trying to scrape by, trying to take care of his sister and how
00:31:24
Speaker
He's eventually able to sort of redeem them through the use of his magic. It's an interesting idea. It's not quite as, again, this is a theme now, as fleshed out as it should be, a little bit like Colossal. They don't quite integrate their themes in a way that really makes them resonate. But it's got some good performances, and it's otherwise well done. I've seen a lot worse in recent weeks.
00:31:52
Speaker
Give it a look. It's probably a better rental than anything else. Sam Jager, Adrian Palicki, and Michael J. White in SWAT, under siege. Oh my goodness. SWAT is now a franchise, a straight-to-video franchise. Sony is pumping these things out. They don't care who's in them. They just throw SWAT on top of anything, and now it makes it a straight-to-video franchise. It's kind of bizarre. Everything here we've seen before.
00:32:20
Speaker
A lot of decent action. Tony Giglio is the director. He'll probably do a lot more of these. But otherwise, you know, it's drug cartels and raids and actions and shootouts and whatever. There's nothing here that's really, you know, unless this is your thing and you just like to watch dozens of hours of this every week, it's really not going to happen. I do. Yeah. Well, there you go. It is what it is. Pure country, pure heart. You know, no one loves country music more than I do.
00:32:48
Speaker
Um, but I do love cherry pie. Actually, I don't like cherry pie. Um, I don't really, I don't like fruit pies, but, uh, pure country, pure heart. The only thing I can say about this is that it features the ageless and, uh, totally awesome Willie Nelson. You know, I once gave up a chance to go on Willie Nelson's, uh, bus and smoke pot. Really? Willie Nelson was on later with Greg Kinnear. And why would you do that? Why would you miss such a great opportunity? I was an effing goddamn stupid idiot.
00:33:12
Speaker
And I thought that it would piss off my boss or piss off the show, that I would be invited on to the buzz to smoke pods. So Willie was like, come on to the buzz. And I said, hey, I don't know if I can, man.
00:33:22
Speaker
And I regret that so much that 30, 25 years later, I still remember it. All right. By the way, there was a lady with Greg Kinnear reunion. Oh, really? Yes, we had it at a hotel in North Hollywood. Greg, by the way, was supposed to show up. And he didn't. We were told later with Greg Kinnear reunion without Greg Kinnear. Well, we were told he was going to show up because one of the people who came and was a crew member on the show was Greg's best friend. OK. So he shows up and says, yeah, Greg's not coming. He had a meeting with the director.
00:33:49
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, he didn't have a meeting with the director. Terrible. That's no excuse. Exactly. All right. Devil's Domain. In world. With Michael Madsen. Let me tell you, Michael Madsen just is a scary dude. He's a wonderful man and a great actor. What a fine dancer. But when you meet him and you look into those cold eyes and you hear that,
00:34:14
Speaker
You just, you just, chills go up your spine. It is true. It really is true. So when you see Michael Madsen in a movie titled Devil's Domain, and the tagline, the tagline for this thing is great. First of all, this is how you market a Blu-ray. This is how you market a straight-to-video Blu-ray. So, Mark, tell me, what do you see? What's the image?
00:34:37
Speaker
Yeah, OK. But it looks Guillermo del Toro-ish. So here's the thing. I'm going to describe it because you're not going to. So Michael Madsen in a movie called Devil's Domain, it's a silhouette of some devil-looking type thing. You can see the horns. You know it's the devil. You don't know anything else about it. It's very mysterious. And you see a couple of satanic symbols. And then the tagline. The tagline is the kicker at the top. What's the tagline?
00:35:03
Speaker
Never meet a stranger online. Oh, no, the devil is trolling for dates. So without a means. No, I did.
00:35:12
Speaker
What I'm saying is, this is great marketing. No, it's not terrible. No, it's great marketing. For its audience, it's great marketing. It's not a great movie, but it is, for people who sort of see evil in every nook and cranny of social media, this is a total millennial social media gone wrong movie. It's ridiculous. It's silly. But it's really, really good marketing in terms of the packaging. And yeah, you know, she winds up chatting with the devil online.
00:35:41
Speaker
Be very careful. I'm saying, I'm just saying. So here's the movie that made me take a hiatus from all social media for a month. That movie would be The Circle. Did you see The Circle? No, I did not see The Circle. You should have seen The Circle because it would make you- But was it good or just so stupid good that it made you think somehow? Between the two.
00:36:07
Speaker
So here's the thing. Emma Watson is a college grad, needs a job. A friend of hers hooks her up at The Circle. And here's what The Circle is. The Circle is basically Amazon meets Google, meets Apple, meets Microsoft.
00:36:25
Speaker
all of them mashed together. It's this hyper tech company on this huge campus with Tom Hanks is the the lovable Steve Jobs character and everything is interconnected and everyone is plugged in and everybody is you know texting and this and that and the other thing and they have cameras that are going to democratize the world because you can see everything and you put this thing on a tree and of course we all know that this is you know this is just this horrible, horrible surveillance culture gone run amok and when she decides to go clear
00:36:55
Speaker
and let her life become a social media phenomenon, that's when everything goes off the rails. It's called Go Clear? Clear. Is it transparent? Transparent. Sorry, clear. I know clear is the Scientology deals. Transparent. She goes transparent. See too many movies, it all mashes together in my head. So she goes transparent. And of course Tom Hanks is not all that he's cracked up to be in.
00:37:16
Speaker
Patton Oswalt plays his little henchman who sits there with this really evil smirk on his face every time he shows up. It's very funny. But is it a very good movie? No. It just gets a little bit ridiculous at a certain point. It just becomes preposterous, the level of social media transparency that these people are willing to do.
00:37:39
Speaker
At a certain point, it just blows credibility out the window. However, it was effective enough that I went completely on a social media cleanse for 30 days. So how was that social media cleanse? It was fantastic. I got so much done. It was unbelievable. You sit there in a Facebook hole all day. Yeah. The lovers with Deborah Winger and Tracy Letts. I love both of them.
00:38:04
Speaker
Do you like Tracy Letts, you big Tracy Letts fan? Tracy Letts gave the best performance I've ever seen on Broadway. See, I've never seen him on stage. He played, he was in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. He played Richard Burton part. Really? And he was, I have never seen anything like it ever in my life. And he wanted Tony for it. And you will absolutely never see anything more ferocious and powerful and manipulative than I saw this guy in this in this play. Unbelievable.
00:38:29
Speaker
Well, this is the antithesis to that then, and I wish I'd have seen him in that, because maybe I'd have more appreciation for this. I thought this was fine. This is on Blu-ray with Ultraviolet. Essentially, it's about a couple, Tracy Letts and Debra Winger, they're, you know, getting to that who's afraid of Virginia Woolf moment, and then things change.
00:38:50
Speaker
And it's about how they rediscover the romance in their marriage. And it's sweet, and I guess it's, you know, I can appreciate the performances, but I wish I had a little bit more currency to appreciate Tracy Letts generally as an actor. I think Debra Winger has done better work. I wish this was a little bit darker in some ways, but it's perfectly fine, two fine actors, but now you have me curious. I want to go see Tracy Letts on stage.
00:39:18
Speaker
Well, I can't vouch for if he plays a... Postman? He's a postman. I don't know if he's gonna play that type. Anyway, Tommy's Honor is a film about golf, but it's not just a film about golf. Wait, it's a film about life. Anyway, this film is about... There is a father-son team back in the day in Scotland, and they were the ones who were kind of...
00:39:42
Speaker
He got the credit for sort of making Scotland what it was in terms of golf. Sure. Right? They were the ones who kind of launched the Scottish golf industry. I'm always amazed at golf movies because somehow there are quite a few good ones.
00:39:58
Speaker
There are good ones, and this is one of them. But here's the thing, though. There's two reasons why this one is good. One is because it's not just about whether he's going to sink the final putt on the final whatever, right? That's not what it's about. It sticks to character, which is good. And the other reason it's good is because one of the characters is played by Peter Mullen, and anything Peter Mullen does is cool.
00:40:18
Speaker
We love him. I love Peter Mullen. Also, the film was directed by Jason Connery, who is of course the son of one of the world's biggest golf fans, Sean Connery. So get this. I tell you this.
00:40:34
Speaker
I was in New York for the Fourth of July, right? Yep. And when I go to New York, I always try to go to the Bertelsman Bar, the Bartelsman Bar. Yeah. Whatever it is. You know what? Why am I so old now?
00:40:49
Speaker
Um, it's the bar at the Carlyle. So, Bemelmans. So, I always go to the Bemelmans bar, and I get a green, I get a, um, Earl Grey Martini. Why, I'm ruining the story. Anyway. So, I always go to Bemelmans bar at the Carlyle Hotel, and I get an Earl Grey Martini. It is my favorite martini in the history of the world. It is $21 for a goddamn martini, but it is worth it. And sometimes I'll have two. And I go there, last July 4th,
00:41:17
Speaker
over the weekend. Yeah. And I talked to the bartender. He goes, you could never guess who was sitting right there this morning at the bar. Who? Sean Connery. Oh, nice. But Sean Connery, who we just assumed was like just some doddering old man running out of his days in Scotland, was in New York at the Carlisle Hotel over the 4th of July weekend. That's pretty great. That's great. Sean Connery. You missed him. Yes. You know, Sean Connery was also at Cannes in 97 when I was there. And I remember talking to some, this is why American tourists are the worst.
00:41:46
Speaker
I was talking to some, in Paris it was a strike. I guess they're always at the airport. Now we're talking to some other Americans who were flying back and were like, oh, we were just in Cannes. They're like, oh, we were there too. We didn't even know we were just vacationing. We didn't even know the film festival was going on. I was like, yeah, yeah. I was down working it. And my wife came along because one of the films that she was working on was, you know, the VIM vendors film. It was in competition.
00:42:08
Speaker
And they're like, you know, we thought it was just so great. We saw so many other Americans there, like Sean Connery. And they went down. And I just thought, oh, no. See, you didn't just say that. You didn't just say Sean Connery was an American. It's bad enough if you call him an Englishman. OK, where are they from? Are these people from, like, nowhere? No, they're from LA. They were flying back to LA. Oh, that's terrible. They should have known better. They just should have known better. I just thought, oh, come on. Did you correct them? No. See, listen, bitch. It wasn't going to happen.
00:42:37
Speaker
So a couple of cool little genre-ish movies, and I'll ramp up. I'll start with the lowbrow one. The Trauma one. Lloyd Kaufman, he just does not give up, man. This guy just loves what he does, and he does what he loves. Lloyd Kaufman, Last Day of School. A film by Sonny and Michael Mahal. Two people who probably had never made a movie before, but Lloyd Kaufman said, here, here's $18. Make a movie.
00:43:02
Speaker
and uh... he is the corpsman of our era and uh... last day of school is absolutely terrible but you know what it's terrible in a really fun way in a revenge of the nerds kind of uh... be making fun revenge the nurse it what you know what it's just it's not that it's just it's it's fun in its badness uh... the idea is that they're these guys who were you know on the last school these guys were cheating on the final exam and uh... that is an excuse to
00:43:31
Speaker
give them this obstacle course of tasks, which is absurd to complete. It's just really, it's an excuse for just, you know, a lot of raucous trauma madness. But trauma has fun with these things. They never take them seriously. And God bless Lloyd Kaufman. He is what he is. I get his emails all the time. Do you realize every single time there's any kind of a controversial thing in the news?
00:43:53
Speaker
whether it's Trump or Iran or North Korea or whatever, I will get a press release from Trauma. Lloyd Kaufman says he's the man to take on Kim Jong Un. It has nothing to do with it, but it's just trying to grab your attention. He is really a marketing genius. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the best. He's the
00:44:13
Speaker
And Roger Corman. Lloyd Kaufman has better tweets than Trump. It's all that kind of stuff. It's hysterical. He just piggybacks on whatever it is. Love it. Did you see Free Fire? I did see Free Fire. Why did that not take off?
00:44:26
Speaker
Why do you think? Why did that not take off? You know what? It might have been a little too sub-terrentino to really take off. I don't know that it had that real distinctive directorial oomph that you need. Yeah, maybe. I thought this would be more of a cult favorite than it turned out to be. The problem is that it wants to be a cult favorite. I don't like it when movies want to be a cult favorite or they're striving to be a midnight film.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah, and this one really is. Well, here's the thing. So this takes place in the 1970s in Boston. It's about an IRA arms deal gone wrong, and it goes really wrong. And it's an excuse just for a lot of really indulgent directing. And Bree Walker is the one who's kind of trying to orchestrate this.
00:45:13
Speaker
Sorry, Brie Larson. Brie Walker is the... I used to work with her years ago. Brie Larson is the... which is a weird thing for her to follow up an Oscar with. Anyway, she's orchestrating this and she gets to be a little tough and show some chops. And that's fine. I thought it was really fun and rather... and nicely referential of a certain Grindhouse kind of film. And the 70s setting is very cool. But I just thought it would do better.
00:45:38
Speaker
Well, yeah, I know. I mean, here's the thing. Does Ben Wheatley really want to become the next guy, Richie? Is that like his thing? I don't know. I don't know. And, you know, I have to say, I'm not a fan of Armie Hammer. I don't think he's that great. I don't either. I mean, he's very handsome, but I don't think he's that great. So, I mean, the thing is, you know, especially for Ben Wheatley, this is, I hope this would be like a coming out party because he's done so many great, cool, independent British films.
00:46:01
Speaker
Like a field in England, right? And high-rise didn't really work out for him. That's the thing, like, high-rise to me didn't really work 100%. That thing was a mess. It's a mess. So I was hoping this would sort of be his shot. And I feel like he's still floating around. Like, what does Tarantino bring to this sort of thing that Ben Wheatley doesn't? Is it the music? Is it the script with all the referential stuff? Because in Free Fire, it's just a bunch of people shooting and
00:46:28
Speaker
It's cool, though. And yelling at each other. It's cool. Well, I did like the fact that the violence was realistic. I mean, when you got shot in the leg, there was a little spurt of blood. You got shot in the leg. Yeah. You know, I like that. Well, anyway, a really great cast, fun movie, ultraviolet, Blu-ray, the whole schmear. Thank you, Lionsgate. What else do we have here? We have a Buster's Mal heart. Now, people who like that guy from that show,
00:46:52
Speaker
what got from what uh... uh... rami malek oh yeah from uh... mister robot yeah and i'm gonna check this out is there really is more to this guy than just uh... uh... being a robot beans and coffee more to him the beans and coffee
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah. What, what, what, what, what, what? Is that a? No, it's not. It's made just non-sequitur, total non-sequitur. I thought, I thought in Mr. Robotty. No, there's no, no reference whatsoever. Anyway, in Buster's Malahard, this thing, it's, it's a, it's a, it's this very, it's this kind of confusing and odd psychological riddle of a film where Malick plays, he either plays three characters or he might play one character dreaming of the other two. We're not really sure. But for one of them, he has this great idea, which is he plays this, is kind of,
00:47:36
Speaker
homeless drifter guy in montana and he's on the run from the law and this whole thing is that he breaks into um vacation homes where nobody's in them and he stays in them which by the way i'm gonna do that
00:47:47
Speaker
You do that. I'm going to tour the world. You do that. Breaking into vacation homes in the off season and just living there. Anyway, so from there it becomes like, is it a dream? There's some biblical allusions to Jonah and the whale. And so it's definitely got its own little wavelength. And if you can vibe to it, you'll have a good time.
00:48:06
Speaker
The takeaway is that Malick is a real actor. He's not just a one-trick pony kind of a guy. And so Bunch's Mel Hardt, it's a bit confusing, it's a bit out there, but it's worth a shot, especially if you like him. Really only if you like him. I got a bunch of, I'm going to burn through these real quickly here because we're getting close to the end of the show and I want to hit some of our classic movie titles and hopefully maybe even some foreign. We have some criterions that we really need to get to as well.
00:48:30
Speaker
spark a space tail. Oh my goodness, what a terrible animated film this is. There's some decent voice casting here, Jessica Beale, Patrick Stewart, Hilary Swank, Susan Sarandon. But really, this is just one of those CGI animated things that should not exist anywhere in the universe. And by universe, I mean our universe or the universe.
00:48:48
Speaker
In this movie, which is all about a space-going monkey, I gotta tell you, this is... Yeah, space-going monkey. No, no, this is like... It's just not right. It's not right. So, yeah, maybe if you fixate on the voice casting, if you like the actors, but otherwise, you know, this is a waste of Blu-ray and ultraviolet.
00:49:09
Speaker
A Woman Apart is a really interesting strand indie starring Maggie Siff, who has done some very, very good work on television on shows like Mad Men. And here she is a woman who is, she's an actress who just finds that her life is going nowhere and it's empty, and she quits her job.
00:49:31
Speaker
And goes back to kind of start a new life with some former partners. And it is, as far as midlife crises movies go, I think this one rides much more strongly on the performance than the others. The script may be a little bit thinner, but she is still terrific. She's really, really good. Do You Take This Man? is a movie by Joshua Tunic from Breaking Glass. And this is about a gay marriage, two men who are getting married.
00:50:00
Speaker
and what transpires with their friends and family when the intended wedding does not quite go off as intended. So that's my way of cryptically not giving anything away, which is good, because this has some very, very good character work in the performances, and it's actually a very, very clever script, a much more clever script than I probably did justice to at that time.
00:50:30
Speaker
Love by the Tenth Date, the race is on for real love. I really wish I could be kinder to movies like this. This is a Lionsgate movie. It seems to be another one of those movies that thinks that if you just get a bunch of black actresses together and you throw them together and you have them do some sister-sister dialogue that it somehow makes a movie. This has been an unfortunate sub-genre ever since Waiting to Exhale was released, which is a really good movie, by the way. You remember Waiting to Exhale?
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, directed by, uh, by, uh, Forest Whitaker. It's a terrific movie. It's a really terrific movie. And, uh, unfortunately, this is not waiting to exhale. The actresses in here do some good work. They just don't have a very substantial script. And, um, you know, the whole...
00:51:17
Speaker
I get it. It's a tough world for black women. I'm not a black woman, so I don't really understand their dating and relationship prevails. I try to. A good movie will communicate them to me. Waiting to exhale did communicate that to me. This one does not. So I root for the actresses, can't really necessarily root for the movie. And then lastly, black butterfly. Did you see black butterfly? I did not.
00:51:41
Speaker
Black Butterfly is one of those, you know, we always get the Stephen Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Robert De Niro, whatever, Grindstone movies. Grindstone makes a lot of, you know, really tough, high-octane cop and crime junk that Lionsgate distributes through Lionsgate Premier. And this is another one.
00:51:59
Speaker
This is maybe the best one I've ever seen. Really, the more I think about it, the more I kind of like it, even though the conceit is fairly obvious at a certain point. But Black Butterfly is an interesting little character thriller with Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Rhys Myers.
00:52:17
Speaker
uh... let me see how i can even uh... how i can it's based on a french film by the way it's a remake of a french film that started eric cantona and i know you're a big fan of cantona he's a soccer player yeah and a good actor too he was an elizabeth and he's been another film so the the original of this the original black butterfly was an eric cantona film this is the american adaptation of it and it's it's a rather smart adaptation so uh... uh... antonio benderis is a failing screenwriter
00:52:45
Speaker
living on his little ranch in Colorado and he's having real money problems. And meanwhile, there is a serial killer at work in the area.
00:52:56
Speaker
That's right. That's right. There's a serial killer going on and Jonathan Reese Myers is this really really violent guy that Banderas runs into one day in a diner because he sort of there's a confrontation that Banderas has with somebody else and Jonathan Reese Myers is the guy that you know basically puts an end to it.
00:53:22
Speaker
And so Antonio Banderas feels like, okay, I'm going to give this guy, you know, he's an interesting guy and he just saved my bacon. So let's, why don't I try to repay the favor? Of course, Myers just got out of prison and he's, is he the serial killer? Is he not the serial killer? All these questions swirling around and their relationship becomes interesting.
00:53:44
Speaker
And I will leave it right there. The twists and turns of this thing are a little bit mechanical, but it's a smart film. It's a surprisingly smart film and well-directed and well-written and certainly incredibly well-acted by the two. Jonathan Rees-Myers hasn't been that good in a long time, even playing Henry VIII on TV. So it's pretty sharp.
00:54:04
Speaker
All right. Wait, come on. Just talk about that. Talk about which? The one on the bottom. The one on the bottom. Hold on. Let's get it over with. Do it. The one on the bottom. Okay. Go ahead and talk about it. Lost America. Let's do it. Yay! You love this movie. You've been wanting to talk about that all afternoon. How could you not love Lost in America? I do love Lost in America. It's one of my favorite Albert Brooks movies. What's funny is that when Lost in America came out, we're talking 1985. I know.
00:54:29
Speaker
The whole thing about the dissatisfied yuppie who decides to throw it all away. Because we're talking about that post World War II, post Eisenhower era thing where we're getting into the 80s now and everyone's making a lot of money and everyone's got the kids and the successful career and the dog and the picket fence.
00:54:49
Speaker
And the idea that maybe there's not a whole lot of satisfaction in that and there might be another way to live your life. And in the film, Albert Brooks and Julie Haggerty, who you remember from the airplane films, they decide to just throw it all away. They're going to discover America and discover themselves by getting into a camper and just hitting the road. And of course they realize that just giving up your entire life and hitting the road is
00:55:16
Speaker
Harder than it seems. If Ben Wheatley had made this movie, they would be serial killers. They'd be dead. But he actually did make that movie. Exactly. So this thing is just flat out hilarious. I love this film. It's pretty great. It's pretty great. This is Albert Brooks' vision of, and I'm so sad that he kind of, he bonked his career with finding comedy in the Muslim world. He hasn't made a movie since. No. No one's going to let him make a movie again. And that's sad because I think he still has these movies in him.
00:55:45
Speaker
Well, now he's doing some serious roles. He did, you know, he played, he was great in Drive. People thought he might be shortlisted for an Oscar for that. Came in, came in just out of the wire. And his Twitter accounts, I mean, he's, I've read a lot of his tweets and they do make me laugh. Really? Oh yeah. Yeah. I have to say, I'm not a big Twitter guy, but his tweets do make me laugh. Patton Oswalt is another one of those. He's, Patton Oswalt is a machine on Twitter and he's just outrageously funny all the time.
00:56:12
Speaker
But here's the thing is that even 30 years removed, this thing is still totally relevant. Sweet. Because people still are tired of the lack that they're living, and they dream of throwing it all away and going off and living an adventure. And although that seems very freeing and exciting at the time, throwing it all away and living an adventure has its consequences. And so it's just as relevant today. And so this is Brooks at his best. Love this film. All they need to do now is just release
00:56:40
Speaker
Defend your life on blu-ray. Yep, and I'll die happy. Yep It'll come out it will
00:56:47
Speaker
And apparently, there is, in fact, a criterion release until the end of the world, the inventors thing, the director's cut. That's the offing as well. So real quickly, some other recent vintage titles, classic titles, a couple from the Warner Archive collection on Blu-ray. Warner Archive is doing a lot of Blu-ray these days. They've really upped the output of their Blu-rays. And they've got a couple of great ones here. Running on empty.
00:57:15
Speaker
with River Phoenix and Judd Hirsch and Christine Lottie is a really, really good movie. Sidney Lumet directed this. It's a fascinating look at a family where the parents were radicals and how they're kind of reconstituting their lives some years later.
00:57:35
Speaker
And this is one of the better Sidney Lumet movies of his later years, for sure, running on empty. Worth pointing out, too, it was written by Naomi Foner, who received an Oscar nomination for her screenplay, and Naomi Foner is the mother of the Gyllenhaals. Jake Gyllenhaal and the sister. Yes, she is the, and Maggie.
00:57:59
Speaker
So, Running on Empty on Blu-ray is a wonderful, wonderful edition from the Warner Archive collection. Also, Joe versus the Volcano, which is so unfairly maligned. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in what I... I like this movie. I love this movie. This was written and directed by John Patrick Shanley. It was his directing debut right after he won his Oscar for Moonstruck, and it pretty much tanked his career as well.
00:58:20
Speaker
as a writer-director there after. Which is really not fair. It's not. It seemed, you know what, I think at the time it just seemed like this big bloated Hudson Hawk type thing. It did. Nobody, and by the way, Hudson Hawk, which is kind of funny too. I thought both, I love both those films. Anishtar, another big bloated thing, which is funny too. I love that too.
00:58:37
Speaker
These movies all belong... You love bloated... That's why you love Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World so much. I love bloated comedy. But here's the thing. Joe versus the Volcano was deemed to be a whole lot of fluff about nothing. It's not. It's a fascinating quasi-fantasy about just struggling to find meaning in the modern world. And it's a really, really interesting movie. And it's a lot of fun. And for crying out loud, come on, Tom Hanks does the funny little dance on the raft.
00:59:05
Speaker
And Abe Vigoda is an island chieftain. How do you not love a movie that stars Abe Vigoda as an eye-rolling island chieftain? Come on. What kind of sourpuss are you? We need to reevaluate Joe versus the volcano. We really do. Joe versus the volcano is so charming and so funny. And it's just so original. And John Patrick Shanley really got a shaft on this. I'm thrilled that this is out on Blu-ray. It includes a behind-the-scenes documentary and a music video. The documentary will give you
00:59:35
Speaker
Not a great deal of appreciation for the movie, but it'll certainly help. Twilight Time.
00:59:42
Speaker
has come out with a bunch of great new titles as well. The four titles from Twilight Time this month are just really, really continue to be just the best. Twilight Time just really, really hits it out of the park every single time. They've released Rodgers and Hammerstein's State Fair. Not one of my favorite Rodgers and Hammerstein movies, but you know what? It's a really, really beautifully photographed movie. And it is noteworthy because it was directed by Jose Ferrer.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah. And that's worthwhile. It has an isolated music track, which is also fantastic. And here's the thing that makes this really, really great. They went and they somehow got Pat Boone to do an audio commentary. And it is awesome. It is awesome. There are so many anecdotes. And Pat Boone is just such a great talker. It's a wonderful commentary. You've got to give it a listen. So this is not the best Rodgers and Hammerstein movie, but it's a great Blu-ray. And it's really, really worth a look. The Crimson Kimono.
01:00:42
Speaker
Somewhat forgotten. Nice to see this one rediscovered. This is from 1959. It's one of the lesser known Samuel Fuller films these days, but it was kind of more noteworthy in his body of work at the time. I don't know why it kind of fell off the map a little bit, but it is
01:01:03
Speaker
It's a really, really cool noir-ish, but not entirely a noir, movie that also deals with some very interesting ethnic issues that weren't really being dealt with at the time in 1959. Specifically, it's about a murder that takes place in Little Tokyo, which of course in Los Angeles is the center of Japanese culture. There are a few other locales that are where Japanese culture and where Japanese
01:01:31
Speaker
families took root, but Little Tokyo is the tourist attraction, right? It's where the mall is. It's where all that stuff is. And it's the one part of Los Angeles that was never really a part of noirs. So it's like Chinatown in that sense. They went and found some aspect of Los Angeles that had previously not been subject to a noir, except in Chinatown. Chinatown is never actually in the movie.
01:01:55
Speaker
It's, you know, a spiritual place. Here it's actually, you know, Little Tokyo, and it's really quite cool how this all executes. It's a really good Samuel Fuller movie.
01:02:05
Speaker
Then we also have a double feature of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. These are a little bit mismatched. They were made in 1973 and 1974. And neither of them is terribly faithful. Johnny Whitaker, you know, is kind of not the best casting here.
01:02:27
Speaker
And perhaps my bigger problem is the musical nature of this. You know, the Sherman Brothers
01:02:37
Speaker
We're trying to do something interesting after believing Disney, after no longer being contract songwriters at Disney. And I'm not sure that Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are the best projects to sort of hang themselves on. It's a little strange and misbegotten, not really faithful to Mark Twain.
01:02:59
Speaker
But some people have a nostalgic attachment to these movies, and obviously Twilight Time recognizes that and has put them out in a double feature. So if you do have a fondness for these films, if you grew up with them, by all means, it's good that you know it's there, but I don't have that fond attachment. And then lastly, and we're going to wrap the show out with this today, Woody Allen's Everything You Always Want to Know About Sex,
01:03:24
Speaker
asterisk, but we're afraid to ask. That's the complete title to this thing. Mark, tell us why we should appreciate Gene Wilder in a Woody Allen movie that everyone else has long dismissed as one of Woody Allen's worst. Because it's part of his earlier funny ones.
01:03:43
Speaker
And even the lesser of his earlier funny ones. Now this one is very, it's episodic. It's still funny. Come on, he runs around like a sperm. They're in the little white chamber, all dressed as sperm, and then they gotta go. It's very clever. It's funny. It's very clever. It's one of his best that is not. Yeah. It's a very, very clever movie. Especially when you consider it in the arc of his career.
01:04:07
Speaker
Yes. Because he was getting ready to transition, man. He wanted to be taken seriously. Literally, he'll do everything he always wanted to know about sex, where he dresses as a sperm. And within a couple of years, he's doing interiors. Yeah, exactly. I think it's a very important film in Woody's body of work. And it's not just Woody doing sexual revolution schtick, which is what a lot of people sort of dismissed it as. It's like, oh,
01:04:33
Speaker
Now you can talk about sex in, you know, cute little ways in the movies, and so Woody's gonna take, uh, you know, he's gonna take that to the wall.
01:04:41
Speaker
Well, it's more than that. It's very, very personal. Woody, as we all now know, Woody's sexual history is not that of a normal, average, ordinary human being. His relationship history, his family history, it's a little bit askew. And when you look at this movie now, in hindsight, through the prism of all of that, it's a much more personal film than I think anybody gave it credit for being.
01:05:09
Speaker
He's had way more sex on his brain than anybody that short and ugly would ever really deserve to have. It's really true, you know. So, yeah. Anyway, all right. Well, that's it for this week's show. And we will be back next week. We're getting pretty close to the fall season. We're going to start getting gobs of television, probably.
01:05:27
Speaker
And some real movies. And some real movies. Thank goodness. It's about time. And I'm telling you, man, Churchill, Gary Oldman, mark that one down. Sight unseen. I would say that I'm going to predict right now. So you have not seen the film? I haven't seen the film. All I've seen is the trailer. It's all anyone has seen. If the movie stinks, then no, he's not going to have a chance, no matter how good the performance is. But I'll tell you.
01:05:46
Speaker
That trailer is
Gary Oldman's Transformation into Churchill
01:05:48
Speaker
on. Pull it up right now. You're gonna be blown away. Can we stop the show? Then I'll do it. No, do it after the show. Do it after the show. You are gonna be blown away.
Will Gary Oldman Win the Oscar?
01:05:55
Speaker
It's unbelievable. Gary Oldman absolutely becomes Winston Churchill in the most uncanny way I've ever seen. It's an Oscar. Clean off that mantle. He's gonna win it. See you guys next week.
01:06:36
Speaker
you