Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Tank Girl (1995)
277 Plays2 years ago
Ashley Thomas of The Nerdy Blogger and Podcast-616 joins Perry this week to talk about the cult classic, Tank Girl! We discuss Lori Petty's wonderful performance, how this movie was ahead of its time, and why it deserves more love.
Visit The Nerdy Blogger or listen to Ashley on Podcast-616
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
Patrons get to listen to episodes before everyone else, no ads, and they also get access to my exclusive companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. If you want to join in, please consider supporting us through Patreon!
This episode is brought to you by BlendJet. Use my special link, zen.ai/supercinemapod12, to save 12% at blendjet.com. The discount will be applied at checkout!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Personal Reflection
00:00:02
Speaker
I'm not as young as I used to be, which means I can't treat my body the way I once did. In fact, last year's medical checkup didn't turn out the best, so I decided I needed to change things up and start eating healthier.
Exploring Healthier Lifestyles
00:00:13
Speaker
One of the ways I do that is by making smoothies. But smoothie shop prices can be pretty high, and making them at home always seem like a pain. You gotta pull the blender out, find the right attachments, set everything up, and then cleaning everything is annoying, making it difficult to quickly whip up a breakfast smoothie in the morning.
BlendJet 2: A Convenient Solution?
00:00:29
Speaker
That's why I'm glad to tell you about the BlendJet 2 Portable Blender. Like I said, it's portable so you can blend up a smoothie at work, a protein shake at the gym, or even a margarita on the beach. It's small enough to fit in a cup holder, but powerful enough to blast through tough ingredients like ice and frozen fruit with ease.
00:00:45
Speaker
BlendJet 2 is whisper quiet so you can make your morning smoothie without waking up the whole house. That's especially important to me because I wake up before the rest of my family, and once my kids are up, my morning work routine is pretty much shot to hell. And best of all, BlendJet 2 cleans itself. Just blend water with a drop of soap and you're good to go.
00:01:02
Speaker
BlendJet 2 has over 30 plus colors and patterns to choose from, so if you don't like one design, there's definitely one that suits your personality. So what are you waiting for?
BlendJet 2 Promotion
00:01:11
Speaker
Go to blendjet.com and grab yours today. Be sure to use my promo code supercinemapod12 to get 12% off your order and free two-day shipping.
00:01:20
Speaker
No other portable blender on the market comes close to the quality, power, and innovation of the BlendJet 2. They guarantee you'll love it or your money back. Blend anytime, anywhere with the BlendJet 2 Portable Blender. Go to blendjet.com and use my code, supercinemapod12, that's supercinemapod and the number's one, two, to get 12% off your order and free two-day shipping. Shop today and get the best deal ever.
00:02:16
Speaker
Good morning. It's really hard for me to play with myself in this thing. That's a shame. Look, you want to play, I'll play.
00:02:44
Speaker
No, not if it's Monopoly, because I really kick-ass a ducky. But I get to be this you. I'm going to ask you just one more time. Do you want to work for water and power? Oh, yeah, that sounds groovy. I get to work cute while I feel like yours.
Superhero Cinephiles Podcast Introduction
00:03:09
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine. And welcoming today, a new guest, but a fellow podcaster and a fellow superhero podcaster, no less. And that is Ashley Thomas. Ashley, how you doing today? Hey, good. Thanks, Perry. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good. Like we were saying off mic, I almost forgot to watch this movie, but luckily I remembered before it got too late. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad.
Discussion on 'Tank Girl' Movie
00:03:35
Speaker
I'm glad. Otherwise, that'd be a late night for me.
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, and it would definitely be an interesting show if we had to do it without me having watched the movie. So we're going to be talking about Tank Girl, which we'll get into later. But before we start talking about that, why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself?
00:03:54
Speaker
Sure. So I am, as, as you said, I am a fellow podcaster. I am one of the hosts of podcast six one six, which is podcast dash six one six on the, we made this podcast network, which is a Marvel universe podcast.
Ashley's Podcasting Journey and Comics Passion
00:04:11
Speaker
So we are mainly talking MCU stuff, but we also talk comics, a Marvel adjacent
00:04:19
Speaker
Things like we just had a couple guests on to talk about Marvel cosplay a few weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. We also have been known to do some comics episodes, which I am a big fan of because I've been reading comics since I could read. So which is most of my life. Yeah.
00:04:39
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I've only started listening to it recently. I just listened to your Guardians episode and really dug that. Yeah, a lot of similar thoughts about it. And I'm glad that you guys touch on the comic stuff too, because usually with a lot of podcasts, you get a lot of people who are maybe focused on one or the other. It's
00:04:59
Speaker
or sometimes with some of the comics book podcasts, maybe they're not as interested in the movie. So it was nice to see someone, listen to someone who has a little bit coming from kind of the same angle that I do, where it's, you like the comics, but you also accept that the movies are kind of their own thing too. So that was fun to listen to. Oh, thank you. Appreciate it. But before we, let's talk a little bit about how you got started with podcast 616.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess it was in late
00:05:32
Speaker
2020 maybe or maybe late 2021. I don't remember which. I was brought in through a friend of mine from grad school. I am a graduate of Sigma University which is a cool place to get a master's degree in literature but you can also focus in
00:05:56
Speaker
different concentration areas and mines in imaginative lit, which is effectively a masters in science fiction and fantasy.
00:06:05
Speaker
So I wish my master's program offered that.
Growth of Podcast 616
00:06:10
Speaker
I know, right? You can also get a master's in things like Tolkien studies and linguistics. And it's a pretty cool place. So check it out if you're into that sort of thing. But anyway, my husband calls it, I have a master's in nerd. And so anyway, one of my grad school buddies, he had done a little bit of podcasting with the We Made This podcast network.
00:06:32
Speaker
And they had just started a Marvel podcast a few months previous. They were looking at bringing in more women to talk specifically about the upcoming Miss Marvel TV series.
00:06:47
Speaker
And he tagged me in a tweet and said, hey, Ashley, podcasts. Why don't you talk to her? And I'm like, oh, OK. So tell me more. And I was brought in to the network. And at that point, the Ms. Marvel show had gotten delayed. But it turns out we made this does a lot of podcasts about
00:07:10
Speaker
a lot of different things, which happen to be areas of interest of mine like Star Trek and film. So the very first episode I got to record for the We Made This podcast network wasn't actually for podcast 616. It was for their current film podcast called Real Talk. And I got to talk about Candyman, the new one, which was fantastic and I love it.
00:07:38
Speaker
So much big horror fan. So anyway, that was how I got it. I got started podcasting with them. And eventually at the time podcast six one six did not have like a regular host. It was rotating hosts basically who within the network was interested in whatever MCU thing was coming up next.
00:07:58
Speaker
And then people would rotate out and have guests, whatever. And so the podcast kind of was struggling, I think, due to the lack of consistency. And so our network chief, Tony Black, was like, hey, we either need to get some folks in here to run this steadily, or we're going to need to drop it just because it's not doing what it should.
00:08:24
Speaker
for a Marvel podcast. And so, Hugh McStay, who is my co-host, he and I both said, hey, we would be interested in hosting, but neither of us can do it on our own. So, we teamed up together. We formed our own, I mean, to use a DC term, we formed a dynamic duo. And started,
00:08:48
Speaker
hosting podcast 6 1 6 together in earnest last summer so summer of 2022 and it's definitely thrived a lot under our new management which has been great so you will always hear at least one of us most of the time you'll hear both of us on on a show and we have a series of guests come in you know we'll do news roundups talk about MCU stuff we'll talk about
00:09:16
Speaker
comics, we'll talk, you know, whenever there's a new movie. Of course, just today we recorded our Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 episode, so if, I don't know when this one will air, but you can go check that out if you've seen it.
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 Episode
00:09:32
Speaker
Definitely get into spoiler territory if you'd not, so, you know, tread with caution. But anyway, so we, you know, we cover the movies, we cover the shows, and give you all the Marvel news you can use, usually about once a month, so.
00:09:45
Speaker
Awesome, very cool. Yeah, like I said, I listened to the first episode. I'd actually been talking with Hugh before actually you and I started talking about him coming on. So although, so we got him coming on. It was tough because he's in the UK, I'm in Japan. So the schedules are a little bit less compatible than with someone in the US. So yeah, we're finally able to work it up. So we're gonna have him coming out. We're recording this at the beginning of May, Hugh's coming on
00:10:15
Speaker
June to talk about Dr. Strange. Oh, these. Yes, I'm looking forward to that because we've covered the the multiverse of madness and we've covered actually the original Dr. Strange movie, which most people probably didn't even know existed. Oh, no. It was actually I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I was actually surprised by how much I kind of dug it. Awesome. Yeah, it's on my to watch list. I I've been having a hard time tracking it down. So
00:10:45
Speaker
Yeah, you may have to go through some illicit means to procure it. Well, I know Shout Factory over here did a really great Blu-ray release a couple of years ago, and it's unfortunately out of print, so I'm probably just going to have to go through the secondary market to get a copy, but that's OK. It's OK. I can find it.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, I had to find other means to procure it here in Japan. Yeah, it's one of my big things that I talk about a lot on the comic book show and also on other podcasts, just like I wish they would keep more of the stuff in print. It's just annoying when that happens. But anyway, that's a rant for another time. So how did you get into superhero stuff?
00:11:29
Speaker
Oh gosh, I remember being about six years old and where I grew up, you're in Japan, I'm from the States as well, I know you are too.
Ashley's Comic Book Origins
00:11:45
Speaker
But I am from a little tiny town in East Tennessee.
00:11:49
Speaker
where it takes about five to ten years for culture to hit my tiny town from the rest of the world. I remember when I was a kid going to the grocery store with my mom and I would go and look at the magazine rack and they happen to have comic books.
00:12:11
Speaker
And I remember thinking, well, that looks kind of interesting. And, you know, it was drawn to the art. I already kind of had a proclivity for superheroes because I was a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But the comics were really what sent me over the edge with superheroes. So I asked my mom, I was like, hey, can I get a comic book? And she's like, yeah, sure.
00:12:36
Speaker
And at the time I found these comic book bags. They were three comics for a dollar. So they were all like back issues from like the 80s or whatever that somebody had put together to quite literally make a book. So.
00:12:51
Speaker
you know i could get one comic for about a dollar at that time or i could get three comics for a dollar and i was like oh let's go let's get three and so i would go through the bags of three for a dollar comics that they had there you could see what was on uh either side for two of them and then whatever was in the middle was a surprise so
00:13:11
Speaker
I would check all of them out, pick one that looked interesting to me, and that was better than me asking for a candy bar or something at the grocery checkout, because comics aren't going to rot my teeth, so there we go. Might rot your brain, but that's it. It might rot my brain, not my teeth though, so we good there. It's a little more expensive to get the teeth fixed, right? So I started reading comics, and I just became enamored with
00:13:41
Speaker
superheroes and superhero stories. But one of the first comics that really, really got my attention was the 1984 run of Marvel Superhero Secret Wars. I happened to get issue number two in one of those three for a dollar comic bags. And that just introduced me to all these different Marvel heroes. And I was enamored. So
00:14:08
Speaker
From there, it was kind of like, oh, we got her. We got her. So several long boxes later and watching all of, you know, this was the early 90s. So I'm in like the heyday of the, you know, Marvel X-Men cartoon. Spider-Man 1994 is the main reason I love Spider-Man. Yeah. Just so many different,
00:14:37
Speaker
superhero things just gotten my DNA at a very early age. So I kind of jokingly
Comics and Progressive Views
00:14:45
Speaker
say, because just in general, I feel very strongly about justice and how governments should take care of their people. And if I see something that feels unjust in the world, I
00:14:59
Speaker
pointed out and say, no, no, we're not gonna do that. I kind of jokingly say, blame the comic books, but really blame the comic books. Because that was where I really got that kind of principle instilled in me, was reading comics. I had very much the same thing, right? Because it's funny, I grew up in a very conservative minded family politically. And my grandfather thought Reagan was the greatest president of all time, that kind of thing. And I ended up becoming like the most progressive,
00:15:29
Speaker
you know, democratic socialists, very, very, very, very, very progressive. And we're to the point where I think I'm disappointed that Joe Biden isn't more progressive type of thing. And so so I'm like the complete opposite of my family. And a big part of that was because of comic books, because of especially like x men stuff. And now this is gonna sound weird. So you said you came from a small town in East Tennessee. What was the name of that town?
00:15:56
Speaker
because my brother used to live in a small town in East Tennessee. Oh, really? Okay. So it's spelled Maryville, but if you're from there, nobody says it that way. It's Merville. It's outside of, yeah, it's from, it's outside of Knoxville. Okay. Okay. My brother was in a small town called Hampton, I think it was like in the outside Elizabethton or something like that. Okay. Elizabethton's about an hour and a half north.
00:16:19
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I heard small town in East Tennessee, I'm just like, no, that'd be too weird. Yeah, I've been to Elizabethton, and I think I've heard of Hampton, but I haven't even been there, I don't think. There's not much there. It's just like you drive through really quickly. Yeah. It's just like a small mountain town up there.
00:16:39
Speaker
Anyway, so today we're gonna be talking, well, before we jump into Tank Girl, is there anything you're interested in these days? Anything that's kind of grabbing your interest, comics wise, movie wise, anything that's not necessarily specifically for the podcast? Sure, yeah. So, I mean, not for the podcast, but obviously very interested in MCU happenings. My current poll list at my comic book store is actually very much
00:17:09
Speaker
Like the only two Marvel titles I've got on there right now. Actually, no, excuse me. I have three Marvel titles. I'm reading the current She-Hulk series by Rainbow Rowell, which is fantastic. Everybody should read it. Great art by a local artist. He does the colors over here, Rico Renzi. And I say local to me.
00:17:29
Speaker
He lives in my town, so that's pretty cool. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah. He does the colors, and then Jen Bartel is doing the art for the book. It's all really good.
00:17:43
Speaker
I'm also been reading I'm and I'm about a year behind I keep it in my pull list because it's based on my favorite movie But I I've not gotten to stay up with it is alien Marvel's had a couple different I don't know if they're different but they a couple new volumes of alien right, but those have all been fantastic and I love the artwork and those so much that I have requested specifically and
00:18:06
Speaker
May I please have all the variant covers that you all get? So I get like four or five different copies of the same issue, but I'm just enamored with all of the artwork for that. So if you're a horror fan, if you're an alien fan, that's a book that's really worth picking up. So give that a look. And I've also got Avengers on my poll list, so. OK. Yeah, I'm all trades now, and I usually only get them when they come on sale, especially because
00:18:35
Speaker
When I when I started getting into Comixology a few years back, I started getting into single issues again and getting them all digitally. But it's just it's just man, there's just so much stuff, so much good stuff out there. And it was so hard for me to keep up because I read like 10 issues a month or something. And then I check out and I get to a new issue. And I'm just like, fuck, what happened before? I can't remember. Well, the the other. Oh, sorry. Good.
00:19:02
Speaker
So now I just get trades now, it's just easier on my wallet and easier on my memory. No, no, fair, fair, fair. The other stuff I'm reading right now, I'm reading, there are tons of different Star Trek titles right now from IDW. And those are fantastic. I am also one of four hosts on the We Are Starfleet podcast, which covers
00:19:27
Speaker
varying different Star Trek series, the current ones, so that's pretty fun. And the comics for that have been excellent. I've been really impressed with every title I've read. I also have been reading the new Gargoyles series. I don't know if you ever watched the Gargoyles animated series back in the 90s. I did not. I missed the boat on that. Ah.
00:19:53
Speaker
Because I think that was a Disney afternoon thing, if I'm not mistaken. It was, in fact, a Disney afternoon thing, yeah. Yeah, and it came on, I think, right after I, in my mind, grew out of the Disney afternoon. And even though now I know in hindsight that it is much more mature than a lot of those shows were. Oh, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I just, I slept on that whole thing. It's one of those things that now that it's on Disney Plus and everything, I've been meaning to check it out, but just haven't gotten around to it
Impact of 'Gargoyles' Animated Series
00:20:19
Speaker
yet.
00:20:19
Speaker
Well, I will tell you, Gargles is my all-time favorite animated series. It is at least 50% of the reason I have two English degrees. So it's very literary. It's very intelligent. I will argue that it is the best thing Disney has ever done, full stop, period, end of line. So the new comic series that is out right now, it's put out by Dynamite,
00:20:45
Speaker
it's actually being written by the showrunner for Gargoyles, Greg Wiseman. So he's also the guy behind Young Justice. Yeah. A lot of folks like quite a bit, but I have personally have not watched. So anyway, Greg is brilliant and great storyteller. I'm really enjoying what he's doing with this book.
00:21:05
Speaker
I've fallen behind on the last season of Young Justice, but especially, man, those first two seasons were just amazing, especially that first season, just amazing stuff. And I think he also did Spectacular Spider-Man, didn't he? Yes. There's one other comic series show that he did that was really good, and I was blanking on what it was, but yes. God, that was amazing. It was in fact Spectacular. I need to go back and finish that because I started watching it.
00:21:31
Speaker
I'm one of the five people on earth that still gets DVDs from Netflix, at least until they end that in September. And so when I started watching it, I started watching it through DVDs through Netflix in like 2010 or 2011. And I've not gone back to it because there were only like four DVDs out at the time. So I know there's more episodes than that, but I loved it. It was very, very good.
00:21:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, it's a total of like 24 episodes, something like two half seasons, basically. Yeah. Such a crime that it didn't last longer. Yeah, especially because it was funny because you mentioned the 94 Spider-Man series. That was really kind of like my big introduction to Spider-Man as well. But it was I tried rewatching it when it came on Disney Plus, and it's it's and it was comparing to my mind spectacular Spider-Man. I'm just like, I know
00:22:17
Speaker
This one's got nostalgia and everything, but man, Spectacular Spider-Man's a lot better. I like both, but it's been a while since I've watched it. Yeah, it's been a while since I've watched either one. And I kind of feel like there are more apples and oranges.
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah. Also, when you read the stories about all the censorship behind the scenes on the 94 series, it's pretty funny. Oh, really? Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because that was like in the post Power Rangers parent freak out. So Fox News, Fox Kids was like incredibly scared about offending parents. And the creator, he used to go on to conventions and he used to go with the notes that the
00:22:56
Speaker
that the network had given me used to read them on stage and it was stuff like when Spider-Man lands on the rooftop, you have to make sure that there are no pigeons there that he could conceivably harm when he lands or something like that grief, weren't able to show like punches connecting.
00:23:11
Speaker
You could never say that Uncle Ben died or was killed. It was always the burglar who got Uncle Ben. It's why Morbius drained plasma and threw like these weird mouths on his hand instead of draining blood because you couldn't say he was draining blood and apparently they thought that
00:23:29
Speaker
biting someone's neck and draining their blood was too scary for children. But I maintain that the little freaky, you know, clawed mouths on the hands was far creepier than draining blood. Yeah, I remember thinking like, Oh, that's that's that's a little. But yeah, well, and there was a whole thing in the 90s where it didn't matter what cartoon you couldn't say you you you killed or you were going to kill something or kill someone. Yeah. Like you could not even say the word. Oh, yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
It's funny because I just did a guest spot on my buddy's Power Rangers podcast, Summoning the Zords. And we talked about comparing it to the Super Sentai series that it was based on. And one of the things in that is they're constantly talking about death and putting kids in peril. And I'm just like, you never saw that shit at the Power Rangers show. Parents were freaking out enough. But if they had mentioned the possibility of characters dying, they would have pulled out the pitchforks.
00:24:28
Speaker
But anyway, all that's pretty nice preamble to get into talking about Tank Girl.
Discovering 'Tank Girl' Movie
00:24:35
Speaker
So I remember seeing ads for this, like talking about comic books. I remember reading comic books in the 90s and always seeing like these one page ads for this movie. But I never watched it until you brought it up. I was actually kind of surprised I was able to find it in Japan, but luckily my video store had it.
00:24:56
Speaker
What is your history with this movie? Why did you decide to pick this of all the superhero movies to come and talk about?
00:25:03
Speaker
Well, after looking through your extensive list of what you have covered, I'm like, I don't know that there are any superhero movies I can name that you haven't already covered on the show. So I had had Tank Girl on my radar for a little while. I have made it a habit, you know, since I was a teenager and superhero movies really became a thing at that point.
00:25:29
Speaker
to go and watch. If it was based on a comic book, I want to watch it. So I've had this pretty long extensive mental list. And while I was maybe about 10 when Tank Girl came out and so I missed it, also there is no way my mother would have ever let me watch Tank Girl, full stop.
00:25:51
Speaker
definitely would not have gotten in the video rental card as a kid. But I heard about it and I knew it was based on a comic and I've still I've never read a Tank Girl comic, but I was like, okay, I know the character is kind of iconic. In some circles, she's very much considered like a powerful feminist type icon. So I
00:26:20
Speaker
You know, I'm like, okay. Well that sounds interesting to me. I'm a woman. I like that. That's cool. So I want to check her out. I Am a contributor to the sci-fi five podcast. So if you've not listened to it, you can listen to our full archive on your podcatcher on our website but sci-fi five gives you five minutes of science fiction history five days a week and I
00:26:47
Speaker
I was assigned Tank Girl for March 30th of this year. So that was my first time watching the film. And I was expecting it to be a little edgy and every, I kind of took a glance at the IMDB page and it's a very divisive film. People either love it or hate it. So I'm like, well, we'll see how I feel.
00:27:15
Speaker
I am not put off by quote-unquote bad movies. I tend to find enjoyment in them or at least like I understand, even if it doesn't work for me, I can understand why it would work for other people. But at any rate, this was literally part of my job to watch Tank Girl. So I watched Tank Girl.
00:27:38
Speaker
And I was shocked by how much I loved it.
Unique Style and Strong Cast
00:27:43
Speaker
From the moment the credits started rolling, or the intro title started rolling, you get this artwork, which is from the Ten Girl Comic. And the song is The Girl You Want by Devo. And I'm like, oh, I love this song. This is a great song. And I was just hooked from as soon as I pushed play.
00:28:09
Speaker
Um, so that was, that was how I, I, I started watching tank girls. And that was just a couple months ago. And, uh, after I finished it, I was like, I liked that a lot more than I thought I would. So, um, I was looking through your list. I was like, Oh, Perry's not covered tank girl. Let's go with that. Cause I need to process this movie a little more. So, uh, so I got to write the script for, uh,
00:28:33
Speaker
for the podcast, which I said to you. So I don't know if you want to include that in show notes or whatever. Yeah, I'll make sure to include that. I unfortunately, I meant to listen to that. But like I'm saying off mic, I completely forgot that we had the schedule today. And then so that I'm like, oh, crap, I forgot to listen to it. And I forgot almost forgot to watch the movie.
00:28:51
Speaker
No worries, no worries. It'll only take you five minutes. Quite literally. But yeah, that was how I got started with Tight Girl. And then the more I read about the film and some of the folks in the cast, I just like, wow, this is like...
00:29:06
Speaker
almost like lightning in a bottle because you have a really great cast. You have folks that this was kind of a I knew you win sort of deal like this is a very young Naomi Watts as jet girl. Lori Petty is from Chattanooga, Tennessee. And so she sounds like me, which I'm like, yeah, yeah, very relatable. But my context for her was she was the whale trainer in Free Willy. And that is the only other thing I think I'd ever seen her in. So.
00:29:34
Speaker
You never saw Superman in the animated series? Oh, that's right. She was in that, wasn't I? OK, so no, I I I am familiar with Superman, the animated series, but I was more of a Batman girl. OK, so I watched the heck out of Batman, the animated series. And I think I've seen like the occasional episode of Superman, the animated series, but not with life wire. So.
00:29:56
Speaker
OK, yeah, so she did the voice of Livewire on that. Sweet. And because I mostly know her. Like, I've seen her in some other stuff, but I mostly associate her with her voice because she's got such a distinct voice. And I know it so much from Superman the Animated Series. So so when I saw the cast, I'm like, Laurie Petty, I know that name from somewhere. I'm like, I can't remember where. And then as soon as she starts speaking in the opening narration, I'm like, holy shit, it's Livewire. Oh, OK.
00:30:23
Speaker
And then I was looking up her filmography and I saw she was in a bunch of other stuff that I'd seen. Like she was in point, she was in the original Point Break. You're right. She was in Free Willy as well. Orange is the New Black.
00:30:37
Speaker
But the thing that kind of surprised me, I completely forgot about was, and this is a show that, there's this meme going around on Twitter lately about like, you know, I'm the only person who watched this show. And for me, that show is brimstone. I'm not sure if you know about this TV. No, I don't.
00:30:54
Speaker
It was on Fox for about one season. It was like aired on Friday nights. Was it a sci-fi show? Because that's the story for the lot of Fox. It's like more of a fantasy show. So the story is that you've got this cop who he died and he went to hell. And then because he had killed his, because his wife had been raped and he killed his wife's rapist. And so then he dies, he goes to hell and the devil gives him a job. And the devil says, there are,
00:31:22
Speaker
I can't remember, like a hundred some souls that have escaped from hell. I want you to go back to earth and find them from me and send them back. And if you do that, then I'll let you, I'll restore your life. I'll let you go back and live a life on earth. And then he returns into earth like five years later or something like that. It was only one season. It was really cool. John Glover played the devil and he was amazing.
00:31:46
Speaker
And it's worth watching just for John Glover as the devil, but also Laurie Petty was in it and she played like the cops, like landlady slash like, you know, girl in the chair, I guess, because she was always teaching about the internet and how to look stuff up and all that kind of stuff. And I completely forgot she was in that until I looked up her credits last night and saw that she was in that as well.
00:32:09
Speaker
John Glover was Lionel Luther in Smallville, correct? Yep. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. I could totally see him being the devil. That's funny. That was my first encounter with John Glover. Well, no, no. The first time I knew that it was John Glover. My first thing I ever saw him in was actually Gremlins too.
00:32:26
Speaker
Okay, fair. So when he popped up in the first episode of Smallville, I'm like, John Glover, I did the DiCaprio thing. I do that a lot watching movies because my superpower is retaining the information from every IMDB profile I've ever looked at. Yeah, exactly. It's only helpful on trivia night.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yeah, my wife every now and then she tries to quiz me on stuff with like Marvel movies and she's like, what year did this come out with? I'm like, oh, that came out and blah, blah, blah. She's like, how do you know this? I'm like, I don't know. I can't remember my own birthday, but I can remember when Captain America, the Winter Soldier came out. Yeah, yeah. Winter Soldier came out. Now you're putting me on this one. No, no, it was 2014. Yes, I believe that is correct.
00:33:15
Speaker
So anyway, I went to, I was really excited just from hearing her voice right at the beginning. I'm just like, oh, okay. Because I knew Malcolm McDowell. I wrote, obviously, Malcolm McDowell. So I'm like, okay, yeah, but he's been in a, he's been a bunch of stuff of questionable quality. So I wasn't sure what to expect from that. And then as soon as I heard, and I saw Naomi Watts' name in the credits, I'm like, really? Naomi Watts, okay. And then, and then as soon as I heard Laurie Petty's voice, I'm like, okay, I'm definitely much more into this now than I was 10 minutes ago.
00:33:46
Speaker
And yeah, it was a lot of fun. It's a pretty bonkers movie. I think one of the biggest problems this movie has is it was released in the wrong year, in the wrong decade. I think if this movie was released, now people would have a much more positive reception to it. Yeah, yeah, I agree. In the episode of Sci-Fi 5 I wrote about the podcast, or excuse me, I wrote about the movie.
00:34:14
Speaker
I described it as, imagine if Harley Quinn from the Birds of Prey, the 2021, or no, 2020 Birds of Prey film, had a baby with Mad Max Fury Road, and that baby drove a tank. That's Tank Girl. And that was like the most succinct way I could think up to describe this film. Every time I say that, anybody that's seen it is like,
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah, that works. Yeah, exactly. Well, as soon as you went to Margot Roby's Harley Quinn, I'm just like, yep, OK. And then you just kept on building. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's it.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, so definitely you can see, it really feels like Margot Robbie just, she had to have drawn influence from this particular film. Just the aesthetics of like Tank Girl's outfits, they're all like
00:35:14
Speaker
you know, haphazard. It seems like, you know, and this is like a post-apocalyptic type film. Right. So I mean, she's kind of wearing whatever's handy, which, you know, might be half of a leg warmer on her arm or whatever. And so I really got Harley Quinn vibes from her and she's always doing something weird with her hair. Again, very Harley Quinn vibes. And she's like,
00:35:43
Speaker
manic and giggly all the time. Even if she's in trouble, she never stops with that cheese all the time. She's always grinning, always smiling. And for me, I think her real power is that she's not afraid of anything, no matter what dangerous situation.
00:36:10
Speaker
She finds herself in, you know, there's a point in the film where she's kidnapped by the bad guys and she like makes fun of them the whole time. And I feel like that robs them of their power because they know that she's not afraid of them. I love that, love that.
00:36:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, I mean, all of that was so much fun. I did think it was a little bit, I thought it kind of pushed the credulity for me at some of the points, like when she's going to save Sam in the brothel type place. And then she spends all this time to like play around with the outfits. And at that point, I'm just like, this might not be the best time to play around with different clothing outfits. No, I loved that because I mean, that was such a,
00:36:57
Speaker
you know, in the area in which I grew up in, there was a very rigid way that you're to be. If you're a man, you're as a very rigid way to be if you're a woman. And I love that scene because the voiceover is telling her how she needs to dress. You know, if you don't have your ears pierced, your ears will be pierced for you. And growing up as somebody who,
00:37:24
Speaker
a girl with a tomboyish nature. And I hated wearing dresses. I hated having to do anything that made me wear anything other than a jeans and a t-shirt and a baseball cap. So watching her just say, nah, I'm just going to do what I want, was actually very empowering. So I love that scene, actually.
00:37:47
Speaker
No, that's a good point. Yeah, I could definitely see how if you come from that background, that would definitely speak to you in a different level. Just from the story point of view, it felt like not the best time to be doing it. It definitely, I can see that point of view as well. And like many things in Tank Girl, it kind of leans on the absurd or borders on the absurd, but I kind of love the absurd. So that worked for me.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that really works for this, which is why I think it came out in the wrong decade. Because the 90s was the time when, especially comic book fans, were trying to escape the associations with camp.
00:38:31
Speaker
Everything, we were so, I think we were kind of shell shocked by the reaction the world had to Batman 66 still in the 1990s. And it was kind of like, cause I've said this before and I'll keep saying this, but like every newspaper article that had some connection to comic books back in the 90s was like, bam, bif, bam, zap, comic books aren't for kids anymore. Or some ridiculously lazy shit like that. And so a lot of people,
00:39:01
Speaker
that I knew and of my generation, we were just kind of like, we had almost like a visceral reaction, negative reaction to anything campy. And it was, it's only in later years now. And like in the past, like, you know, 20 years or so, that's like started to fade. And now we're just kind of looking back. No, actually, man, that stuff was kind of fun.
00:39:19
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I love dark gritty comics, but I also, you know, I love the Biff Bampow. I, you know, grew up watching Batman 66, so, you know, ain't no shade on that. And I got to meet both Adam West and Burt Ward at conventions. So I can happily say I've met both Batman and Robin. So anyway, it was, it's, I can appreciate both sides.
00:39:46
Speaker
No, I agree I like like I said like that was this it was this phase that I think a lot of our Generation went through where we're just like sure comic books are better than this comic books are more adult. They're serious Look, we've got watchmen. We've got dark knight returns comic books aren't campy and it was just like this over defensiveness that I think a lot of us had and and it's only in
00:40:07
Speaker
the past 20 years or so, I think a lot of us have loosened up a little bit and they're like, actually, yeah, you know, Batman 66 was kind of fun. And that's what this this movie feels like. It feels like, you know, if you had like Bill Dozier and you gave him like a bigger budget and a bit more progressive ideas, I think probably would have made something more like this.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, cuz the humor is definitely like absurdist. It definitely leans in the biff bam pow direction. But the content, there's a lot of sexual content and bathroom humor.
Lori Petty's Role in 'Tank Girl'
00:40:53
Speaker
And Tank Girl is very much perceived as like the sex symbol. She's the hot girl or whatever and everybody's trying to get with her.
00:41:03
Speaker
she's just kind of like laughing at them. It's like, nope. And makes fun of them. So definitely kind of more edgy humor while also maintaining the Biff Van Pout. Yeah. You know, it was interesting to me about that because I'd never, and all the other stuff I'd seen with Lori Petty, because she always tends to play that more like tomboyish type character. So I never associated her with like the
00:41:29
Speaker
the the sex symbol type and then seeing her in this movie it was it was an interesting contrast because you see like obviously she's very attractive and but then you also see that mixed with like the way she she's owning it in a lot of ways that you don't see um and and then combine it with as well like her her tomboyish nature too so it's all these weird not not weird but all these different things that aren't the norm especially at that time mixing together to form something that's really unique and interesting
00:41:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, watching Tank Girl again the other night, I realized, you know, why am I so drawn to this film and this, at least Lori Petty's portrayal of her? I'm looking forward to digging into some of the comics now that I've watched the film a few times. But what I love about her portrayal, like I already mentioned, is that
00:42:21
Speaker
She kind of swoops in and she saves the day, and she's rescuing other women. She kind of fends off the guy who's harassing Jet Girl. And Jet Girl, who is played by Naomi Watts, she's very...
00:42:43
Speaker
She's a little bit mousy. She's very intimidated by the situation she's in because they're imprisoned.
00:42:52
Speaker
forced to work for this big evil company. And she's almost resigned to it too, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's that thing. Yeah. Like when, when, when Becca's telling her, it's like, you know, I'm going to get out of here. And then, and Jekyll is saying to her, it's like, you can't, there's, there's no way out of this. You just have to kind of accept it. And, and Becca doesn't.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, no, she doesn't at all. And so she kind of swoops in and she kind of takes Jet Girl under her wing and is almost like this big sister type character to her. And then, you know, she does the same thing for Sam who they have to go rescue. That's like kind of the
00:43:37
Speaker
climax of the films, you know, trying to rescue Sam, not only from the brothel and then and then, you know, she, you know, and for context, if you're not seeing the film, Sam is like a 10 year old girl. So, you know, she's very young and you know, Rebecca, you know, 10 girls looking out for her. And so
00:44:02
Speaker
I feel like that's it because I am the oldest in my family. I'm the oldest kid and I always wanted an older sibling. Most of the time I wanted an older brother because I was a tomboyish and I felt like I would get along with a brother more than I did my sister.
00:44:23
Speaker
wanted to have that big brother, that big sister kind of character or that kind of person in my life. And watching Tank Girl, it was hitting that part of my emotional need for a better terminology. I was like, oh, wow. This is why I love this character is because she swoops in. She's like the big sister that you always wanted. She helps you to be brave because she's not afraid of anything.
00:44:52
Speaker
And her true power lies in just mocking the bad guys. There's this quote from Martin Luther, where it says,
00:45:11
Speaker
if the devil is bothering you and you can't fight him away with scripture or prayer or whatever, jeer and flout him because he cannot bear scorn. This is the quote from that C.S. Lewis used at the beginning of the Screwtape letters. So that's why I remember it. But I'm like, oh, yeah. But that's literally what she does. Like, anybody who's the bad guy or is getting in the way that, you know, she just makes fun of them the whole time. And I just I love that about her. So, yeah.
00:45:41
Speaker
Okay, so yeah, one of the things too that I thought was interesting about this was the fact that it's directed by a woman, which is something yes, even today, you don't see a lot of and, and so I didn't wasn't I didn't realize that when I started watching and then when I got to the director's name, like, Oh, cool. It's directed by a woman. And then the, and then when we see the scene when we're introduced to Rebecca and her boyfriend, and it's like,
00:46:06
Speaker
they completely invert the idea of the male gaze. And here we're focusing the camera in on him as he's stripping. I'm like, oh, wow. It reminded me of comparing how Wonder Woman, like how Patty Jenkins filmed shot Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman versus then how she was shot in Injustice League and just seen like the, and that was the first time when I realized, you know, crystal clear. I'm like, oh, I totally get what they talk about when they talk about the male gaze now.
00:46:34
Speaker
Yes, yes. And that really drove it home in that scene too, when I saw it. And I'm like, this movie did it even before Wonder Woman did. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, Rebecca Tallulay, I think is how you say her name, but she's actually directed some Doctor Who and a bunch of other things. So her directorial catalog is definitely worth checking out, so. Oh my God, she directed Freddy's Dead.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yes. So one of the things I cover in the Sci-Fi podcast, I give you like a kind of like a historical rundown of like, how did this film get made? And so when she was directing Freddy's Dead, that was her directorial debut.
00:47:17
Speaker
Her Daughter or stepdaughter, I don't remember which somebody had given her a tank girl comic to read while she was on set and She read it and she's like wow, this is great. I love this III need I need to get the film rights to this because I want to do this movie and
00:47:36
Speaker
And so she shot the film around to a bunch of different studios, actually got an offer to do it from Disney, but she declined it because she was afraid Disney would not let her make the Tank Girl, like a true to comic Tank Girl film. Right.
00:47:54
Speaker
And so the film did eventually get picked up, I think, Universal did, or Paramount, one of the two, I don't remember which. But the studio that did pick it up, I mean, unfortunately, she feels like part of the reason there was mixed reception on the film is that
00:48:13
Speaker
the studio got pretty ham handed with how, you know, certain things were shot and they made her cut a bunch of things that she wanted to keep in. So she didn't, by the end product, she didn't really feel like it was her movie anymore, which is, you know, that is very frustrating from a creative point of view.
00:48:31
Speaker
Well, yeah. So it looks like it was MGM. MGM. Thank you. And here's one of the things in the trivia on IMDB that says that insisted on cutting a scene of Tank Girl and in Booga reclining after sex after they'd spent $5,000 on a prosthetic penis for him.
00:48:49
Speaker
Yes, yeah, yeah, so yeah, you know, studio's like, nah, nah, nah, nobody's gonna do that. So definitely a lot of studio interference with that, which is, you know, unfortunate. There's also apparently a scene of them together in bed in the theatrical cut, but it was cut from the video and DVD releases. Oh, interesting, yeah. Where I watched it on streaming, I mean,
00:49:17
Speaker
You kind of see them reclining together. They're semi-clothed, so I assume they've been busy. So that's what I assumed it was. So having not seen the theatrical, or having not seen it in theaters, I don't know if I saw the theatrical cut or whatever was released for home video.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yeah, so anyway, so a lot of studio interference with the film, which, you know, the director believes, you know, hampered the film's success. Yeah. In fact, this is, yeah, Jamie Hewlett, who was one of the co-creators, he talked about some of this too. And it was mostly cut after the test screenings. So subgirl got cut to just one scene, even though she was originally supposed to be an integral part of the film. And played by Anne Cusack as well. So. Yeah, yeah.
00:50:09
Speaker
And Hewlett said that the very last shot had Tank Girl burping into the camera. And he had said that it's ridiculous having a bunch of snotty little 14-year-olds deciding how a film should be made. They were probably just snogging their bird or pulling each other's hair throughout the whole thing. He also revealed that a seat, oh, and then also the high-tech prosthetic cock. And he said the whole scene was very romantic, but MGM took it out. To B-Siao. We were going, it's innocent, like seeing your mom and dad in bed together. MGM disagreed.
00:50:38
Speaker
And also Steven Spielberg was asked to produce it and he declined because he felt he wasn't hip enough for it and this led to the tagline, too hip for Spielberg.
00:50:48
Speaker
Yes Yeah, yeah, that's a fun tagline to hit you Spielberg. I love it. I love it Yeah, and you know, one of the other fun points of trivia is three Spice Girls auditioned for the role of tank girl Yeah, you know posh baby and sexy so Yep, so could have had a Spice Girl, but instead we got Laurie Petty
00:51:08
Speaker
And Laurie Petty, oh, go ahead. I was gonna say, this may have been what you were about to say, but Courtney Love was also offered the role of Jet Girl, but this filming started around the time that Kurt Cobain committed suicides. Then she pulled out because of that, although she did work as the music supervisor on it. Yes, yes. So if you like the soundtrack, thank Courtney Love. So there you go. Yeah, and Hole has a song on the soundtrack. The whole soundtrack is great. Yeah. It's really like a good,
00:51:38
Speaker
time capsule of mid-90s angsty alt-rock. I really, really dug it. Good stuff, good stuff there. It's a really fun soundtrack. Yeah, like there wasn't anything that I particularly clued into as far as like, oh, I remember that song, but it definitely works for the film's benefit. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Very thematic. Yeah. And let's talk a little bit about
00:52:05
Speaker
Malcolm McDowell, what did you think of how he played the character? Oh, he was great. Like just this crazy mustache twirling psycho villain, a lot of fun to watch. I have not seen Malcolm McDowell's most famous work, Clockwork Orange, mostly because from what I've read about it makes me think, oh, that's going to like kind of push my boundaries a little too much. Probably not.
00:52:33
Speaker
probably not emotionally prepared to watch that. Yeah, it's, it's not an easy movie to watch. I mean, it is a very good movie, but it's, right. It's tough. It's kind of like, maybe not quite as extreme as, but Requiem for a Dream has that kind of feel to it too, where it's like, I've watched that a few times, I own it even, but I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna watch it willingly again, unless someone wants to see it.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah, no, I get that, I get that. Yeah, so I mean, I've seen him in lots of other things, you know, Star Trek, the, I'm blank, sorry, it just left my brain. What is the other thing that he is?
00:53:17
Speaker
Well, I mean, something that I because I I was I'm not sure how well known this is, but I was I picked up I got the hero's TV show and he was the villain in the first well, not the villain, one of the one of the I guess one of the antagonists in the in the first season. So that was one thing that stuck out to me in my memory, but also another Superman connection. He did the voice of Metallo on Superman, the animated series.
00:53:42
Speaker
Oh, cool. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Oh, um, it's funny. The other things I know him for are kind of random. Uh, he was a grandpa reg in Finneas and Ferb. I don't know if you ever watched the Disney cartoon Finneas and Ferb, but, um, much better than it's given credit for among adults. Um, really good stuff there. Um, and, Oh shoot. What was the other one?
00:54:08
Speaker
I'm not sure, but while you're looking that up, one thing too about, cause Ice-T's in this too. He plays one of the rippers and he was on a hip hop show and the host was making fun of him for doing Tank Girl. And Ice-T's response was like, hey, I was paid $800,000 for that movie. And then the host moved on after that. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I remember that. Cat People, that was the one I was thinking of a 1980s horror film. Oh, okay.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah, which is definitely like, oh, great. Like it leaned into the, oh, that's, that's kind of gross. I don't want to watch that again. Well, that's why I said it's kind of funny that, that, you know, I love Malcolm McDowell, but when I saw his name in it, it didn't inspire confidence because he's been in a lot of stuff of questionable content over the years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:54:58
Speaker
I mean, The Man's is certainly not afraid to push boundaries. And Tank Girl, it was definitely a film that pushed boundaries for the time, for sure. Yeah, but I liked him as this villain who's kind of sinister and, you know, a little bit mustache twirly, but also still pretty
Elizabeth Banks in 'Power Rangers'
00:55:20
Speaker
intimidating. I thought he was good. I love, yeah, I love scenery chewing villains. So like, I was thinking,
00:55:26
Speaker
One of our recent episodes, we did the 2017 Power Rangers. And one of my favorite things in that was Elizabeth Banks. And just like how she's just, there is not an ounce of that scene of scenery in that movie that she does not have her teeth marks in.
00:55:41
Speaker
Oh, that's awesome. I missed that one in the theater. I still haven't gotten to watch it, but I saw that it's available on 2B right now here in the States. It's definitely gonna watch that. Yeah, it's a mixed movie. I'm gonna quote, this isn't the guy who came on to talk about it, but my buddy Mark Baskett, he had written a review on Letterbox and what he said of it was his review opens up with the line, Zack Snyder's Breakfast Club is a very odd movie.
00:56:12
Speaker
I love that. Well, I, as soon as I heard that she was going to be Rita Repulsa and my, at that point, my main familiarity with her was a Effie Trinket and the Hunger Games. I was like, Oh heck yeah. I'm going to watch that. That's going to be fun. And you know, even, you know, being a big Power Rangers fan back in the day. So she takes that performance and she knocks it up to like several, several degrees, Rita Repulsa was pretty over the top anyway. So I'm, you know, I, whenever I get out of a meeting or something that I don't want to do, I like after 10,000 years, I'm free.
00:56:44
Speaker
She's easily the best part of the movie because she got the assignment. She understood what she was supposed to be doing. The rest of the movie, including the director, not so much, but she understood.
00:56:54
Speaker
And I get the same kind of vibe from Malcolm McDowell in this, like that first scene when he's in there and he's telling the guy, he's smashing all the screens and he's telling him to walk across broken glass. And then he uses this bizarre, because one of the things that's going on in this movie is water is at a premium because of post-apocalyptic world.
00:57:18
Speaker
Yeah, this takes place in 2033. 33, yeah. Yeah, so as of last year, a comet hit the Earth and basically wiped out all the water on the planet. Yeah. And so getting hydrated is tough. Yeah, and I'm not sure how well the science on that works out. Yeah, I kept having questions. But, you know, just roll with it. It's fine.
00:57:44
Speaker
Yeah I mean because water scarcity I mean like I don't think you really need to reach for a comet striking the earth to pull that up but but anyway they do it and one of the things that is so this water scarcity and so his company develops this machine that sucks the blood out of people and
00:58:01
Speaker
and converts it into water. There's this henchman where he kills him and he's by stabbing him with this machine, drains all his blood out. You see the guy's skin shriveling up and it converts all this blood into pure water and just takes a drink from it. It's perfect. It's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Fun times.
00:58:24
Speaker
And Naomi Watts was pretty impressive in this, too. As soon as I saw her name, I was keeping an eye out for her. And at first, I'm just like, no, she's not the little girl. She's not that much young for when this movie came out. And then when she pops up as Jekyll, I'm like, oh, OK. Now I know where she is. Yeah.
00:58:42
Speaker
Yeah. Jet Girl, I think, is my favorite character in this. I just like, oh, buddy, I get you. And so I'm a somewhat casual cosplayer. I don't sew or anything like that. I have friends who are much more talented than me that help me with such things.
00:59:05
Speaker
Jet Girl definitely made my cosplay list after this movie. I'm like, oh, I love Jet Girl. She's so cool. I want to especially when she kind of later in the film like kind of comes into her own power and especially the scene where they're they're in the the chopper or the plane and
00:59:23
Speaker
they're trying to sneak past enemy lines for whatever reason. And she just gets on the radio and yells at the person who's trying to clear them for landing and just lets them have it. And they're like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can do it. And I'm like, oh, that was great. And- Also the scene with the guy that was harassing her in the prison, he gets his comeuppance when he's- Absolutely. And when he's like, oh, fuck me. And she's like, how many times did I have to tell you no?
00:59:52
Speaker
Yes, exactly. No, I love that. That was so good. So good. Like I said, as a lady, this was a very empowering film. I haven't heard it straight from the horse's mouth, so I don't know, but I've read that Naomi Watts is kind of embarrassed about this film, but I don't think she has anything to be embarrassed about at all.
01:00:14
Speaker
It's weird, it's not her usual thing, but come on, it's great. I mean, even still, even if you're going to judge this movie too harshly on its critical merits, even based on that scale, she still does a great job. She's still one of the standout performances in this movie.
01:00:33
Speaker
And Naomi Watts certainly has a history of weird things in her resume. I mean, my introduction to Naomi Watts was in the ring in 2002. For me, it was Mahalan Drive, which is... Oh, okay. Yeah. That's David Lynch, isn't it?
01:00:51
Speaker
That's David Lynch, yeah. Yeah, and so I recently just finished Twin Peaks, The Return, and she was in that. So Girl likes herself some weird stuff. So Naomi Watts, if you're listening, please don't be ashamed of this movie. If you ever show up at a con, I want to talk to you about Tank Girl. And if by some reason you are listening to this, send an email, and we'll have you on the show, because that would be amazing. Yes, yes, yes, please. Yeah, she did a great job.
01:01:21
Speaker
Also, oh, the scene when they confront the madam. And just to show you how wacky it is that when they've got her nailed down, got her basically dead to rights. And Tank Girl's idea for what she should do, she's like, what do you want me to do? She makes them sing, let's do it at gunpoint. And then... Yeah.
01:01:44
Speaker
and it turns into this and this is one of the times because like I said I was watching this late at night I dozed off at a few points and this is one of those points I'm just like did did I dream that?
01:02:00
Speaker
And apparently that scene was a much, much longer in the original cut of the film and they made them trim it back. I was like, that was great. It was so silly and weird and I loved it. But yes, let's do it. Cole Porter, 1938. Great song.
01:02:19
Speaker
Also, you know, James Hong popping up as Chet Tsai, the cybernetics doctor with some nice little, nice little cameo here. Or for a more modern audience, he was grandpa in everything, everywhere, all at once. I still haven't seen that. I still gotta see that. Oh, bro. Best movie of the year last year. I know, I know. It came out, it only just recently came out in the theaters here. So I've been, and I have been able to, and so I have been able to get to see it in the theater.
01:02:47
Speaker
Definitely worth a theater experience. I know, I remember you saying on a previous episode that in Japan, people don't emote in the theater, but I have not laughed that hard or cried that much in a movie like ever. So yeah, just brace yourself. Yeah. I think I might have to wait until it comes out on DVD here, unfortunately. I will say, even if you have to brace yourself, watch it in the theater if you can. It's definitely worth a theatrical.
01:03:17
Speaker
theatrical experience.
01:03:19
Speaker
Good to have you on that one. Also talking about the feminist themes in here. Oh, plus when you're talking about Rachel Talalay, I was looking up some of her other credits. She's got a lot of comic book stuff under her name. Like she's directed episodes of The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Superman and Lois, Doom Patrol. It's not a comic book, but American Gods written by, created by a comic book writer. Supergirl, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Iron Fist. Yeah, she's just done a ton of comic book stuff.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, really, really great genre work under her belt, for sure. And talking about the feminist themes in here, because this has been, it's gotten a lot of second looks because of the feminist themes in it. Like, this is some of the academic stuff in it. So in the 1997 book Trash Aesthetics, Deborah
01:04:12
Speaker
Cartmel states that while the comic showed her to be unheroic or even accidental antihero, the film sets her up with this Western generic kind of ideas, like the classic Western hero. And it calls her a post-feminist icon, where she displays dominant female sexuality and knowing coolness of outlawed modes of sexuality, like masturbation, sadomasochism, and lesbianism.
01:04:40
Speaker
And unlike a lot of other comic book adaptation films, this is in the modern Amazons, they say it stands out as being stridently feminist. And then in a 2011 book called Cult Cinema, they talk about
01:04:54
Speaker
They compare it to cult films that are said to be feminist and whether or not they really are feminist or just the effect of the performance of feminist attitudes. And so they said that Tank Girl is a real feminist cult film as opposed to stuff from like Catherine Bigelow and Catherine Hardwick, which they say are too masculine and too eager to cater to heteronormativity.
Feminist Themes in 'Tank Girl'
01:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:05:18
Speaker
So just some interesting- Yeah, so go ahead. I was just gonna say, those are some interesting things that jumped out at me when I was doing some research for this. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely very unique for its time. As you said, I think it would be much better received if it was released today. Even like 10 years later, I think the film would have done a lot better, but definitely now, I mean, the film is almost 30 years old, so.
01:05:46
Speaker
you know, now it definitely would have been much better received for sure. But I'm glad it's out there. I'm glad it exists. It's definitely worth, definitely worth a second look if you've seen it before you're like, wow, that was weird. But
01:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, and definitely some points of it are like, wow, that was kind of a fever dream. Like, you know, the whole let's do it dance number, but it's a good romp for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I would like to see it. Oh, so you were talking about the birds of prey because Megan Carpentier said that it had a strong influence on the aesthetics of birds of prey.
01:06:33
Speaker
And that's not surprising at all. Yeah. And you know what? Yeah, I would like to see like a director's cut of this, because it sounds like there was a lot of stuff left on the cutting room floor. And I wonder if that would be a possibility to see what this could have been.
01:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, about 10 years ago here in the state, Shout Factory did a really cool Blu-ray release, which is tragically out of print. And if you want to get it now, you're going to drop anywhere from like $140 to $200 on the secondary market to get it. But it had director commentary from Rachel Tallulay and Lori Petty, which was really cool.
01:07:18
Speaker
And I forget what else was on there. The main reason to get that film on that Blu-ray, if you can, would be for the director commentary and the commentary by Lori Petty. So yeah, it's...
01:07:33
Speaker
Definitely worth checking out if you can find it. Also, well, this might be some hope for it because apparently Margot Roby's production company has optioned the rights to a remake of it.
Potential 'Tank Girl' Remake
01:07:49
Speaker
Yes, yes. Yeah, and she did that in 2019. Yeah. And then, you know, COVID happened. So I don't know if we're going to see it happen at any point in the near future, but the rights have been optioned, so it is a quite literal option.
01:08:10
Speaker
at some point in the future. I do hope they give it another shot. And I would, I would love, I don't, I mean, Margot Robbie, to me is the kind of the ideal casting choice for that. Because I mean, again, it's very clear that her Harley Quinn portrayal is influenced by Tank Girl, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So she, for me, she's kind of the ideal choice. I don't know who else I would pick to play Tank Girl, but
01:08:31
Speaker
Oh, I agree. I think she would be perfect. But I'd also say that I hope if that does come out, maybe we could get a new release, possibly even a director's cut. I hope so, yeah. But even still, there's a lot to like about this movie.
01:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't sure what to expect because it does it because you know, it doesn't have the best Popular reception and like you said opinions very divided on it. So But again, once I turned it on and as soon as I heard Laurie Petty's voice, I'm just like, oh Okay, I think I think I'm in good hands here and I turned out to be right
01:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's definitely a good time, especially if you're a fan of cult cinema. You like movies with strong feminist themes or strong female characters. Honestly, I even hesitate to use the word strong female characters because I feel like that phrase is so overused it doesn't mean anything anymore. But if you like women who are strong in their own power,
01:09:30
Speaker
then yeah, Tank Girl is a good film for you to check out. Also this, as we mentioned, we already talked about Naomi Watts quite a bit and how much I love her portrayal of Jet Girl. And this film is kind of almost like a who's who of genre actors who weren't quite as prominent then, but you know them now. The main one for me that as soon as I saw, I was like, there he is, it's Doug Jones.
01:10:00
Speaker
who brilliant, brilliant character actor, probably known a little better these days for being the creature in the shape of water. Got an Oscar for that and rightfully so. Also Abe Sapien in Del Toro's Hellboy movies and- Right, right. The Silver Surfer in Rise of the Silver Surfer.
01:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, and these days he spends his time being Mr. Saru on Star Trek Discovery. And I got to meet Doug Jones very briefly in 2015 at a con. Incredibly kind human. Love him to bits. Very, very sweet man. Just is very generous with his time.
01:10:44
Speaker
uh is a good hugger if you like hugs you gotta meet doug jones he's a very sweet guy um but uh uh just uh he he's always he's and like he's like this very dapper very like well put together uh guy and every time i see him on on screen he is a critter uh or a monster or an alien or like in crimson peak he was like a ghost woman in the bathtub uh so uh he's always uh
01:11:14
Speaker
playing some kind of character. He's a positively brilliant character actor and he's the ripper in, he's wearing like the bow tie and the suspenders. But as soon as, once you know what Doug Jones actually looks like, he's actually pretty easy to spot. But yeah, he was, he doesn't have any lines, but I'm like, oh, there's my man Doug, he's cool.
01:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, I'd seen his name pop up in the IMDb credits before I watched this. And then I said to myself when I saw it, I'm like, oh, I got to keep an eye out for him. And it just completely skipped my mind when I actually sat down and watched it. Anyway, any other final thoughts you wanted to mention about Tank Girl?
Appreciation and Conclusion of 'Tank Girl'
01:12:03
Speaker
Uh, I don't think so just uh, you know, if you if if you're still not sure about tank girl, uh, you hear me, uh, I I wrote about it in depth. Uh, Yeah as much as in depth as you can get in five minutes, uh for the sci-fi five podcast So, uh, give that a listen if you're still not sure. Uh, but I I stand by by my description it's uh
01:12:25
Speaker
Harley Quinn from Birds of Prey 2020 meets Mad Max Fury Road. And that particular baby those two movies had, she drives a tank. So it's a good time. Well, there's something else I found really surprising about this is just how much story they cram into us. Like the plot does not stop. There's like not a moment of wasted space in this. It moves from like, so calling it tank girl is pretty apt because it's constantly moving from one thing to the next.
01:12:55
Speaker
Like I was kind of surprised we go from, in the beginning, we go from, so we see her in this commune that she's living in and then they get attacked by the WP folks and then she ends up getting captured, she ends up breaking out, she ends up going and finding the tank and all that and then, and that's like only the first like 40 minutes. Right, yeah. Action definitely does not stop.
01:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I was, thank you for suggesting this. It was definitely fun to watch. Movies like this can be a mixed bag when someone says like, oh, I want to watch this obscure cult movie. Sometimes it's, yeah, it was a lot of fun. Other times it's just like, ooh, that was not good. This was definitely the former over the latter. I really got a kick out of it. I'm glad.
01:13:42
Speaker
Yeah, I suggested it, I was like, oh man, I hope he doesn't think it's trash. Because I had a really good time with it. And if he does think it's trash, well, we're gonna have a really interesting discussion. Okay, but in the meantime, why don't you tell people where they can find you?
01:14:01
Speaker
Sure, yeah. If you want to follow me on social media, you can hit me up on the tweets, at least until it implodes, at The Nerdy Blogger. You can like my Facebook page, facebook.com slash The Nerdy Blogger. You can read my words on my blog, nerdingblogging.wordpress.com. You can also read my words on fangirlish.com, where I write about film and television. Right now, mostly Star Trek, but I do the occasional film review. I definitely have written a good bit about horror.
01:14:31
Speaker
and comics and things like that. So definitely worth checking out my work there. You can also hear my words being read on the Sci-Fi Five podcast, which is five minutes of science fiction history, five days a week. And you can also hear me on the podcast 616, as I mentioned, which is my Marvel podcast that I co-host with Humic Stay. And you can also hear me on We Are Starfleet, which is a Star Trek podcast, all on the We Made This podcast network.
01:15:01
Speaker
Awesome, yeah, and we'll have links to all that stuff in the show notes, so please make sure to check those out. Also, our website, Superherocinephiles.com, SuperCinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. Also, if you subscribe to our Patreon for as little as a dollar a month, you get these episodes a week in advance, no ads, and you also get access to the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. We're about once a month or so, we talk about comic books and graphic novels.
01:15:27
Speaker
I'm not sure where it's going to fall in the schedule, but Ashley is going to be on at some point in the near future. We're recording next week. I don't know when it's going to come out, but she's, her and I are going to be talking about the Charles Soule and Javier Polito She-Hulk series from a few years ago. So keep an eye, keep your eyes out for that. It'll be a lot of fun. Looking forward to it. And that does it for now. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you next time.
01:15:51
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:16:11
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comments and don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash SuperCinemaPod and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:16:54
Speaker
Thank you for listening. And as always, good night. Good evening. God bless.