Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - News & Nonsense

Thank you. HB's in the house. Hey, everybody. It's HB. I guess we're going to do the news.

This is a new segment, I guess we all do now, weekly. So, I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. Picture, I'm at the table.

I've got an old school newspaper in front of me, flipped out. My feet are up. Hey, Father Malone, let's talk news. It's a fireside chat for the 21st century. Indeed.

We're going to read the comics to you, quite literally. Page by page. All right. HB, number one in the news. Gal Gadot got tricked by James Gunn.

Can you believe it? You're referring to how she received the news that she was fired from the DCU? Well, she's also bitching that she met with them and they were like, oh, we're totally going to do Wonder Woman 3. She's like, I can't believe they did that. As if that isn't the... the modus operandi of every studio forever.

We are definitely making this movie. Oh yeah. It's a go. It's a go. It's a lock.

Are you kidding me? Now here's the thing. Like I, the first Wonder Woman was fine. I didn't think it was the earth shattering sea change that everyone said it was at the time. I thought it was perfectly fine.

It had a terrible ending, terrible villain, but it was good. Whatever. The second one was crap. It was just, Utter horseshit. I think you can agree with me on that.

It's about wishes, and the finale includes everyone on Earth giving their wish back, including small children. I'm sure they were totally convinced by Wonder Woman to do that. It's hard for me to imagine, given the reduction in quality, that she was totally blindsided. By the news that, hey, you know what? We're not going to move forward with Wonder Woman.

Sorry, that's just the breaks. James Gunn's here, and what are you going to do? And she also makes reference to the Henry situation. Yeah, as if they had anything to do with that. Like, they were cleaning house.

He was going. And then fucking Dwayne Johnson stuck his nose in and said, we're bringing him back. And they were like, no, don't do that. It's not Henry Cavill's fault that he was... chosen to be in those terrible movies. Because they are bad, make no mistake.

Man of Steel is bad. Batman v. Superman is bad. I'm no fan of either of those flicks. I think he's a good Superman.

Yeah. That's no reflection on him. He.... It's not his fault. This is like the Good Will Hunting thing.

I feel like, you know, grabbing Henry Cavill and saying, it's not your fault. Another set of filmmakers, another set of circumstances, he would still be Superman. There's a slew of Superman who deserved better. Brandon Routh before him. Christopher Reeve before him.

That sometimes goes unmentioned. The fact that Superman... Talk about Superman 3. As fond as I am of it, because I saw it in the theater as a little kid, it's not a good movie. It's utter garbage.

4 is... Beneath that somehow... Yeah, it did. It was a race to the bottom. Nuclear Man, with Gene Hackman's voice, everybody.

Shadow Stevens. Was that Shadow Stevens? No, it looked a lot like him, though. I had you for a second. I totally believe Shadow Stevens was Nuclear Man.

But you're right, though. We all talk about how Henry Cavill was done dirty and this and that. Christopher Reeve beat them all. Well, the fourth film is his fault. True.

That was his idea, right? The nuclear disarmament? And then he trusted Canon Films to deliver a high-budget Superman movie? Are you crazy? I love that Canon documentary that came out a bunch of years ago.

Was it called Electric Boogaloo? Probably. Yes, I remember it. Yeah, no, that's a good one. The Canon one's good.

That Australian one is good. Yeah, not quite Hollywood. Not quite Hollywood. What a good movie. Great.

HB, in other news, news that concerns us because we're constantly on a fest, on an away mission, the new Star Trek movie. John Francis Daly and his partner, whose name I can't remember because he wasn't in Freaks and Geeks, are writing the next step in Star Trek. They are, and they're focusing on Starfleet. A deep look at Starfleet. Yeah, and it sounds like they haven't watched any Star Trek at all since Next Generation.

That's what it sounds like to me with what they're talking about. They're like, well, we're going to take a look at, you know, there's some bad apples in Starfleet. I'm like, that's every other movie is a bad moral. What are you talking about, you dummies? That was literally the plot of Star Trek Into Darkness, such as it is. which is there's a lot of bad apples in Starfleet.

Peter Weller's character, number one. I don't know. It felt a little bit like, hey, this is news of some upcoming news that we have for you. Like there's really not a lot to grab onto at this point. There is, though, because all Star Trek fans are kind of in free fall right now because we don't know what's going to happen because that new regime has, you know, decided that they want Star Trek to be more acceptable to a wider audience.

Now, I will agree that Star Trek, on occasion, really climbs up its own ass and leaves potential fans scratching their head about where to begin. So I can see trying to do an all-are-welcome type movie, but setting it in the far, far future, are they attempting to next-generation us? Because we've done that. Discovery already did that. We've already gone before the original series as well.

How about something in the next-generation timeline, you fucking idiots, like we all want? It is an interesting conundrum, though, when you really stop and think about it. Because this is... It's always Star Wars versus Star Trek, right? And I think you and I can agree that the far nerdier audience of which we are members is the Star Trek audience.

Because Star Wars. It's harder sci-fi. It's a science fiction show, not a space opera show. Correct. And Star Wars is so much more part of the pop culture firmament that people who haven't maybe seen the last three or four movies... still know who Darth Vader is, or Chewbacca, or Han Solo, but not everybody's going to know who Captain Pike is, or some obscure Klingon that might be known to us, like John Leverick from Star Trek III.

There's a little Easter egg for you Star Trek Fest fans out there. But it's a fine line they're walking here, and I do, the way you put it, I do kind of feel for them a little bit, because how do you make it welcoming without alienating that core nerd audience like us that's been keeping it alive for decades? And they bring up the fact that the television shows are as cinematic as can be at this point. If you watch the latest season of Strange New Worlds, puppet episode aside, and that whole debate, like, the effects are as good as anything I've seen in any of the Star Trek movies in any random episode I'm talking so to justify making a Star Trek feature film you have to have a level of spectacle now it sounds like the path that they're choosing is Crimson Tide it sounds like they're doing a in real time thriller that delves into Starfleet it sounds like a mess.

See, you're saying that, and I'm thinking to myself, I would go see that. That's something I haven't seen. I mean, what you're describing is basically the cat-and-mouse dogfight from Star Trek II. Oh, yeah, no. That kind of movie could be great, but this idea that these guys who don't seem to know what they're talking about are talking about the greater implications on Starfleet gives me pause.

If you guys just want to give us Starfleet members fucking stabbing each other and trying to wrest in control of one ship for two hours. I'm down with that, man. Obviously, a dogfight naval battle situation is a better scenario, but I'm also good with a bottle episode of a movie if it's grand. You could, for lack of a better term, you could reskin Crimson Tide. I could see it easily working as a Star Trek movie.

I don't know how deep you go into the Starfleet intrigue if that's the case, because the action is limited to should be limited just to the to the ship in question. Right. But that could be that could be. really interesting i haven't seen that and that would actually be something that might bring in a wider audience because they can understand the the framework. So it's basically if i have to predict i i guarantee you it is the same scenario as Crimson Tide, where whatever this ship is that they've chosen, the USS whatever the fuck, has been ordered to fire or do some militaristic thing. And now there's this debate amongst things like, what are we?

Are we explorers? Are we military? The same debate we've been having in Starfleet since fucking 66. These guys are going to unravel in their two-hour, real-time, probably shaky cam version of Star Trek. That would also have made an amazing episode of the original series or Next Gen.

If they're isolated, they get some kind of garbled order, they're not sure if it means firing on the Klingon homeworld or something else, and they can't communicate, and they have to figure out, what do we do? That actually gets me kind of excited. I know it's not going to be that. Oh, it is going to be that. I mean, I guarantee you that's what we're getting.

And that's fine. I like the idea of the plot of that, and I like the idea of introducing characters that way. If they're smart at all, they will hire some massive star to be the captain and then kill him at the end of the movie and then leave the rest of the crew to continue the adventures. That's what I would do anyway. Do you know what I read recently?

What did you read? It's the making of Mars Attacks, but the making of the screenplay of Mars Attacks. So it's basically like an extended interview with Jonathan Gems, the screenwriter. And it's super weird. And the more you read, the more he tries to take credit for everything, the more it becomes evident that anything good about that movie had nothing to do with Jonathan Gems.

It was like the worst idea he could have done was sit down for this interview. So it was like one of these conversations with type of books? Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, an oral history if you only had one participant. Ah.

That's an interesting way to describe it. I don't know. I've been watching Ted Lasso. It's okay. I still haven't jumped in.

You know, because I don't have Apple or whatever the fuck it's on. The last couple of seasons got very, very much into the melodrama, and it To me, that just turned me right off. It had a rather definitive ending, I thought, with season three. It did. It did.

He went back to America to be with his son and maybe try to salvage a relationship with his divorced wife. Everybody, you know, people got married. The AFC Richmond was under new coaching. And it was, I think, what's his name? Who's the...

Brett Goldstein's character. Roy Kent. I think he was going to be the coach. I don't know. Just to undo all of that.

Having said that, though, the one thing that they did that really can't help but endear them to people, certainly to me, is that this is all about their efforts to make a women's football team. Oh, okay. Which is really nice because It gives a lot of great female actors a lot to do. And they're really funny. And the storylines are somewhat engaging so far.

But like you just said, they ended it already. Yeah. It's hard to get away from the feeling that you're going back to the well one too many times. Oh, I finished Battlestar Galactica finally. Finally.

Finally. Yeah, man. There are a couple of tangential movies that were produced as the series was progressing, like little addenda, like, here's what was happening in this ship kind of movies. And I have not watched those yet, but I don't give a fuck. I made it through 80 episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

Pretty quick time, too. Maybe a month, maybe? Yeah, it was way too expedient. It seemed like if I wasn't at the computer working on a podcast or chasing people around as a monster, I was fucking watching Battlestar Galactica. Right.

So you didn't have it on in the background. You were actively watching it. Yeah, no, because I hadn't engaged with it before. But, yeah, thank God it's done. I don't mean that, like, it was bad or anything.

I'm just glad to be waking, breathing human being again and no longer aboard the Galactica and worried about who's a Cylon and not. Right. Well, it's, I mean, no show or no viewing experience should feel like you're doing homework or should feel like a chore. I'm not suggesting that it felt like a chore to you, but it felt like you were ready to be done with it. I was grinding at the end.

I was like, just let's keep going. I don't care what time it is. We're going to fucking do this. Let's get through this. Let's power through.

And I'm ultimately, obviously, listeners, I'm doing this because we're going to start reviewing the show, sort of not episode by episode, but a couple of episodes at a time, starting in January, I believe. And if you haven't seen the series and want to, I highly encourage it. It's one of the best series I've ever seen, honestly, so. There you go. Plug, plug, future plug.

I'm announcing news of news, HB. It's a fucking trend. What I tried to watch the other day. What was that? I don't know why.

1776. I tried to watch that recently, too. Are you serious? Six months ago, I was looking. This was maybe two months ago for me.

Yeah, I realized I had never really sat down and watched it, and I thought, now's the time, damn it. Me, too. Yeah. I didn't get far. I couldn't even get through the first ten minutes.

But, man, how am I going to get... Because... That might explain why I wasn't really a big fan of Hamilton. Well, you know what? I got to say, like, if you stack them next to each other, because I haven't really seen Hamilton beginning to end either.

I've seen clips and songs. You didn't see it when it was... It was on Disney Plus during the pandemic. No, I did not watch it then. So.

My experience with it is limited, but if you put a trailer for either musical next to one another, I'm going with Hamilton. Watching these fuddy old theatrical actors just prancing around singing throwback type Broadway songs. No, I'm okay. William Daniels was in that cast. I know.

He's the only person I think I recognize in the cast. I keep thinking, oh, well, William Daniels is in it. That should be interesting. And then I, 10 minutes, I'm like, no. Yeah, it's so funny that we both kind of still trying to hammer away at some of these movies and not making any headway.

It's like Zappa, man. It's like Zappa. We talked about the kinks the other day. Keep fucking banging our heads against the wall in certain media, certain fucking entertainments. But when has that ever worked?

Like, when have you ever had that breakthrough? I had that breakthrough with the movie Pennies from Heaven, the Steve Martin film. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I thought you always liked that movie. No.

I fucking hated that movie when I saw it. And then I was like, I'm going to give it another chance. And I went, ah, I hate this movie. And then, you know, five, ten years later, I watched it again. And then I was like, oh, wait a minute.

I'm kind of supposed to hate everybody. And then I re-watched it again, and then now it's one of my favorite movies. Now I finally came around to the movie's point of view rather than trying to force my own on it. That's fair. That proves that it can be done.

It's not just some Sisyphean task where the football keeps getting yanked away from you just as you're about to kick it. You can make headway eventually. Plus there's a scene where Steve Martin... sings with bernadette peters and jessica harper and they're lip-syncing a song called life's a bowl of cherries and jessica harper's the most adorable thing in the universe during that scene i think i might have seen that sequence and maybe that's why i kept giving the movie a chance like like i needed to justify that scene in my head like the rest of the movie had to be good. No that's that's fair that's so i guess this is why we keep doing what we. Do By singing, I should say lip-syncing.

Everyone lip-syncs in Ladies from Heaven. There's no actual singing going on. Well, did you ever see One from the Heart? I did see One from the Heart. That's another one I kept trying for years and years to marinate in and try and figure out a pathway to appreciate it.

And while the filmmaking is bonkers crazy cool... And that soundstage is beyond fucking amazing. And look, I live in Las Vegas, and I want to live in that Las Vegas. With all that being said, the most boring boomer breakup story of all time. Was that the first of Coppola's bankruptcies, where he had to then like, do another Godfather to pay for that passion project?

Was that the first? Yeah, well, no, that was. I mean, it was rather famously, like, what kind of destroyed American Zoetrope, and then he had to become a director for hire for the entirety of the 1980s, it seemed, you know? Although that gave us fucking Tucker, and it gave us... Peggy Sue Got Married, man.

I love those movies. A good filmmaker, it doesn't mean that every movie they make is going to be terrible. If they're that good, they should be able to enliven any project they're given if it's got quality to it. I'll watch Peggy Sue Got Married right now. It's a good one.

I'll watch Tucker right now. I love both those movies. The biggest problem I have with Peggy Sue Got Married, though, is the old age makeup. On Nick Cage at the end. Oh, no, I love that old age makeup on Nick Cage.

I hate it. Because he's so young in that movie. Yeah. And it's just so obvious that they just made him up to look like... It just looks bad.

Crazy Charlie. What was he? He's like... Oh, no. I'll go broke.

No, no. He tried to rewrite, she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh, ooh, ooh. She loves you, ooh, ooh, ooh. He couldn't even get that far.

He was so mired in the past. Basically, it's a time travel movie, but with. No consequences. They did it so smartly. There's no technology.

She gets hit on the head, basically, right? Yeah. There's some doubt as to whether she's actually gone back in time, but you don't need a DeLorean to have a clever, interesting, passionate movie about time, or about going back and righting the wrongs or trying to. And it's a time travel movie where no one is worried about getting back right right right there's no level of panic in the movie it's just like okay well i'm gonna see where this goes the. Sweetest thing about that movie is when peggy sue gets to see her grandfather again and she's just so.

No it's she hears her grandmother on the phone. That's what it is. That's what it is. But the grandfather helps her get back to her own time, though. Oh, yeah.

You know? And what is it? It's like the fucking Kiwanis or something. Exactly. Like the water buffalo or something.

The loyal order of water buffalo sends her back through time. I love that it's like just a coincidence, but they think they did it. Like, hey, it worked. Give me a beer. good movie I want to watch that now right that's a great flick it is a. Great movie and it's you know on first glance you don't think of it as a Coppola movie because he was a director for hire you're absolutely right he did um what was that um that that Matt Damon movie with Danny DeVito.

The fucking Rainmaker great. Fucking movie yeah you need to make this has to be like a little thing on Coppola maybe. The unsung Coppola films, because everyone talks about Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Sure. I mean, they're bad.

I mean, need I mention Jack? That was a Coppola movie. That is a dreadful Coppola movie. Terrible. I was so disappointed in him, because that came on the heels of Peggy Sue Got Married.

Yeah. Robin Williams. Who's the... Who was that actress who was in that, and she was also in The Freshman? She was in Adventures in Babysitting.

It's got like a flower name or something. Like a three-word name. Penelope Ann Miller. She was in everything for that period of time. You know who never shuts up about her?

Quentin Tarantino. Seriously? Yeah. Why? I think he is completely in love with her.

Yeah, I don't know. I forget, was there a performance where they focused solely on her feet for a good five minutes? Because that would all make sense. Yeah, was there a scene in Adventures in Babysitting where she falls asleep in the airport or the train station? And someone steals her shoes.

They keep showing her feet getting dirtier and dirtier as the movie goes on, just as a joke. But it wasn't a joke for Quentin. that is so funny Penelope Ann Miller yeah I don't know I saw him talking about Carlito's Way oh yeah and she is terrifically miscast in that film she has no business being in that film not at all and he like goes daggers out like defending her in that flick and I'm just like oh dude you've got it. Bad Just today I saw on one of the socials an algorithm where it was a video of Matthew Lillard at some premiere. And I know it matters. Nothing.

Like, who the fuck cares about Tarantino? But I can't help feeling so sorry still for Matthew Lillard because of Tarantino, what he said about his acting. Yeah, fuck that guy, man. Yeah, seriously. You know, he.

There's nothing wrong with his acting. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his acting. He's not a bad actor. But yet, he was put in this uncomfortable position because of one asshole's opinion. And now that's going to follow him around everywhere.

I don't think it's following him anywhere. I think all that did for Paul Dano and Matthew Lillard was rally everyone around them. And I think they're both working steadily now. No, no, no. I don't mean it's following them like, oh, yeah, these guys are bad actors.

I think everybody has rallied around them, as they should. But, you know, they don't need anybody's pity. You know what I mean? Like, these are professional actors. I don't think it's pity.

I think it's appreciation. I think we are, as fans of those guys, rising up and saying, fuck you, QT. I know. Maybe it's just the bullying aspect of it that I just, it really, it bothers me. Go suck a toe, QT.

Serious. I mean, you know, glass house. Don't throw stones, asshole. Yeah, and The Hateful Eight is garbage. You should focus on your movies, man.

The one thing I love, the bit of trivia about The Hateful Eight is that Kurt Russell destroyed like a priceless 1800s era gigantar. Because he thought it was, it's not his fault. He just thought it was a prop, right? They told him it was a prop, yeah. Which is basically what happened.

I mean, you know, I was thinking about that in the context of the Alec Baldwin Rust thing where someone handed him a gun. And I would presume an actor being handed a gun, they'd need to assume on a set that it's not loaded. 100%. Yeah. Any actor dealing with an armorer, when they hand you the weapon, you assume they know what they're doing.

Yeah. So... as much of an asshole as, as he might be just in, in life. I don't know that he deserved what he got for that. It wasn't his fault. No, of course he didn't.

All of that shit was political nonsense, man. Like, like, cause he's so outspoken as a lefty. And you know what? I agree. He seems like a cocksucker.

I don't care what his politics are. I don't care if he's on my side or your side or their side. He seems like a real jerk. He's also an incredibly talented human being. And we've got to recognize that.

But, um, But he is just an actor on the set. I knew he was a producer on that movie. I don't understand how that changed anything. Like, as a producer, you trust the people you hired, who are the professionals, who know what they're doing, to hand you a pistol. But even the title of producer, that doesn't mean that he hired the armorer.

That could have just been, like, a title that he got in order to get points on the movie or some way of giving him extra... do-re-ni at the end of the day. It doesn't mean that he was actually actively hiring these people. It's like demanding Michael Massey be arrested after Brandon Lee. Like, why? What did he have to do with anything?

They handed him a gun. That was such a freak act, because that was a blank. He was just so close. That's how I understood it. He was just so close to the gun.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. A dummy round had broken off in the chamber of the barrel of the gun. So the blank just fired it like a regular pistol. Because nobody checked the fucking barrel of the gun. Right.

But it's... You couldn't have planned for that to happen. No. It's a perfect storm of awful. It's awful.

I was thinking about that just the other day, about what... Because you know, the guy who directed, I think, was it the John Wick movies? He was Brandon Lee's stunt double in that movie. So a lot of the footage that they did after the fact, they rotoscoped his head onto this now director's body. But man, another incredible what if.

What could he have done? He was just starting out practically. You know he'd been around a while. He'd been around a while but this was really this should have been it was his entree into you know a new universe of of movies you know he wasn't doing like you know showdown in little tokyo this was a bigger picture this was a genre picture That's true. It was still an independent movie, though.

And I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but he was limited. But I think he had the ability to make interesting movies nevertheless. I'm not suggesting he was Marlon Brando. Yeah. He's really good in that movie.

He's okay in that movie. I think he's really good. That might just be part of it. I think he does the job. Yeah.

What more can you ask? He does the job. He does it well. I don't know that he does. You know what I think about every time I think about his performance in that movie?

I think about the flashback where he's burned the supper and he's holding her and he's like, take out, like that. And then he's like, like that. And it's so fucking forced frivolity that that's his actual performance. The rest is all just brooding, whatever. You know what I mean?

People are shooting guns in your face. You know what I'm talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about. It's a quick cut montage of them In love. Yeah, their love montage.

Yeah. I never had a problem. I didn't have any truck with that scene, but now I'm never going to watch it the same way again. Right? It feels like straight out of 90210 or something.

Did you ever see a movie called Memory, The Origins of Alien? We were talking about Alien earlier. I did. It's like a four-hour fucking movie. Is it four hours?

Something like that. Okay. The only reason I mention it is because the same... filmmaker did a movie, another movie about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which sounded interesting. I think I've seen that as well, actually. I think this is, I don't know if it's today, but it's the 40th anniversary of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

I just read an article about that. Wow. That's sobering. 40 fucking years. You were just talking about canon films earlier.

I snuck in to see Texas Chainsaw 2. Did you really? Twice. Twice. Twice.

I eluded capture. Interesting. I couldn't even get into the gate. No, no, it was lethal weapon. I got carded and they wouldn't let me in.

So that's when I saw the gate. Yeah, I rented Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I had my friend Steven from Hebrew school, actually. We would, you know, sleep over or whatever. And that was the movie we saw that night.

And that was, I think I definitely saw that before I saw the first one. What a crazy fucking movie that was. Chainsaw 2? Yeah. Oh, it's fucking great, man.

But the article was interesting. I just read it today. I wish I remember where I read it, but this idea that, and I didn't think of any of this at the time, that Toby Hooper could have just as easily just retread the first one, and it would not have been a good movie probably, but he chose to make it as a sign of the times. So now that movie's a vicious fucking satire of capitalism, right? Of, of, of Reagan era capitalism.

Exactly. And I, that never occurred to me as a, whatever I was like a 13 year old kid. Yeah, no, it was just a, it was just a great horror ride at the time. But yeah, you rewatch it and you're like, Holy shit. It's all about this young business, the little businessman and getting fucked by the bigger corporations.

They, they go into business. Like, The Sawyers, this fearsome family from the first one, this nightmare of a group. Suddenly, they're selling chili, world-famous chili, basically. They're winning awards with this can of chili. How many years in a row have they won the award?

Everyone loves their chili. They love the chili. The scene I remember about that was they're at a contest, and someone's eating the chili, and it kind of goes like this, and it's a tooth. But the guy's like, oh, that must be one of them hard shell peppercorns. And he like throws it so the guy doesn't see it.

It's just so bonkers. It was probably one of the first movies that really had a sense of humor about it. Like this is really what became the stock in trade for the Evil Dead movies, right? The same idea where you're the horrific and like the. If you add slapstick to Texas Chainsaw, you get Evil Dead.

Right. Yeah, yeah. The Three Stooges aspect is what Sam Raimi brought into it. Because there's no elasticity to the violence in Texas Chainsaw 2. When he's beating L.C., I believe his name is.

You're talking about the program director guy? Yeah, he's beating him with a fucking hammer and then they cut his face off. And then he's alive with his face off and she's wearing his face. Jesus. H.

Christ. And, by the way, the movie's also irretrievably funny. But that scene is harrowing, man. It's stuck with me. That is a horrific scene.

And it's like this, you know, she basically holds. Spoilers for Texas Chainsaw 2. She's holding the guy as he's dying, but at the same time she's wearing his face. And then Leatherface comes in and makes her dance with him. It's insane.

Yeah, literally. Just to say it. And it's 40 fucking years old. And Dennis Hopper is running through these tunnels with a chainsaw. It's chainsawing down this abandoned Terry Gilliam-esque set fucking theme park that's Texas battle land, by the way.

Yes, Texas battle land. Everything is like neon, garishly lit. And at one point he sticks... The chainsaw through Leatherface, and you see the thing whirring on the other side as they continue to battle, and entrails are going everywhere. Practical effects.

Tom Savini, we love you. This is clearly a high point for Tom Savini, right? Yeah, because that moment you mentioned where the chainsaw has gone through Leatherface, they took pains so that Dennis Hopper pulls him to one side and then the other. So the camera sees the chainsaw like from different angles and you can see that it's running. Yeah.

Oh, so good. It never struck me at the time as being a low budget movie. I mean, it was a Canon movie. So how much could it have cost? But we didn't know what Canon was.

We just thought it was another studio. But my point is, even my memory of it, it looked like every dollar is on the screen. It didn't look cheap to me at the time. Do you think it looks cheap now? I mean, I haven't seen it in many, many years, but I don't recall it looking cheap.

I thought it just had a really effective dark. Basically, this feels like Rob Zombie probably watched this movie 100,000 times and said, that's what I want to do. That's my aesthetic right there. Let's go. That's it.

This is the alpha to the omega right here. Gee, I agree with you. I hadn't even thought of the influence of Texas Chainsaw on Rob Zombie, or Part 2 specifically. But yeah, it's immeasurable, I think. Because of just some of the silliness of it, the humor, the dark humor of it.

I'm not suggesting that he didn't progress or that that's all he can do. I don't really know because I haven't seen a lot. He's never even gotten close to the success of Texas Chainsaw 2 as a movie, any of his films. Texas Chainsaw 2 is a perfect little movie, man. I like it better than Texas Chainsaw.

I would recommend it over Texas Chainsaw, honestly. If you want to enjoy yourself while watching a movie, if you want to go through the experience of being trapped by a family in Texas in the early 70s, well, I'm not going to dissuade you from going through that. I knew it was going to be something special when I looked at the box art for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and I recognized it as... a parody of the breakfast club. Them like, you know, like kind of like all posed with the, you know, with the corpses. Yeah.

I mean, so brilliant. And I can't say it was unheralded in its day because this article tried to make the point that it was not understood well at the time. And it took all these years for people to come around to it. But I remember it being outrageous and, And kind of accepted in its day, but then again, I guess, like, Siskel and Ebert hated it. Yeah, you remember it being accepted because you hung around with other people who accepted it, and we've read things like Fangoria, which lauded it to the heavens, and you're like, yeah, everyone loves this movie.

No, nobody loved that movie. Huh. So that's just culture catching up now. I mean, that guy's right. But that's fine, whatever, I can wait.

Yeah, but it's amazing that 40 years on and this movie has only aged like fine wine, really. Just as relevant. Well, the culture has caught up to it. I mean, this is, you know, it kind of, in a weird way, reminds me a little bit of, it didn't take quite this long, but like in its day, Starship Troopers was people, I remember this because I loved that. Movie when it came out.

And then everyone's like, What is this jingoistic crap? Verhoeven... People... That was the point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was a satire, everybody. It was a satire. It was every bit the satire that... RoboCop was. And even that was misunderstood in its day.

All these fucking beautiful Teutonic people are like the representatives of Earth. They're all from Argentina. You didn't get the Nazi vibes going on? Like, look at the fucking uniforms, everybody. Seriously.

Seriously. But the great thing was it had its cake and ate it too because not only was it a bang on satire, but the action was really, really good and the effects were really awesome. They sucked out his brain. He's afraid. He's afraid.

The Nazi uniform that he's wearing. I mean, how could you not see him in that uniform with the hat and everything? Well, that's the thing. I think that's when people finally went, oh, wait a minute. I've been rooting for the Nazis.

And that was the problem. They realized that they were on board as this action movie and not realizing who we were rooting for. The bugs are the heroes of that flick. Yeah, the jokes. And they even, like, there are little mentions of it in the movie.

At one point, like, there's a news reporter, and he's like, but what about the reports that the bugs are only retaliating because we fired first? That is basically it. The bugs are just fighting back against us because we threw an asteroid into their planet or whatever. Yeah, exactly. We're the aggressors, idiots.

HB, Michael Keaton's making a Western. Yes, it's got me excited. Reunited with Morgan Freeman, his buddy from Clean and Sober days. Clean and Sober, a movie that you and I saw in the theater in high school. What were we thinking?

I was always going to fucking dramas in high school and in before. I remember my mother shaking her head when I asked her to take me to go see Amadeus, and I needed her to go in with me because it was rated R. It was rated R, yeah. So she brought me in and then went and sat in the car. Having said that, Clean and Sober was a perfectly fine movie, and Keaton was great in it.

That's a really good movie, and that's a great performance by him, actually. It is, it is. And so Morgan Freeman was his sponsor. at Alcoholics Anonymous in that movie, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And now he's playing a wizened old outlaw, and Keaton is a marshal who has spent his entire career trying to track down the man who killed his wife, and Morgan Freeman is losing his mind and might know, or might be. I love that idea. And Michael Keaton is directing. Yeah. I think that's a great idea.

Just imagine for a minute that he is the man responsible for killing this guy's wife. But at the same time, he's now dementia-ridden. So now Michael Keaton, the character Michael Keaton plays, has to make this choice. Like, what do I do? Because this is the man I've been chasing for forever, but he's a shell of a man.

I just think it's an interesting spin on the, you know, revenge sort of a Western. Yeah, because it's in the Old West. And it's Michael Keaton in a cowboy hat. I cannot wait. Remember Michael Keaton in Shakespeare when he did.

Yeah, he was. He played Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing. Much Ado About Nothing, that's right. He was kind of like... The phrase isn't stunt casting, but he was kind of like, hey, you know, you don't expect it, but there's Michael Keaton.

Well, that whole movie is that, though. Well, not necessarily. I mean, you know, Keanu Reeves was kind of stunt casting. Yeah. Because he wasn't very good in it.

Exactly. But the rest of them were all English. Or, well, I guess, no, Denzel Washington was in it, too. It's all stunt casting, my man. And then the regular sort of stock of Kenneth Branagh players.

Sure. Including Brian Blessed, who's having a riotously, uproariously laughing good time from frame one. Splashing water, you know. What is this give. Me the remote control.

Love brian blessed maybe he's in this i'd love it if he was in this western that'd be fantastic. He is not unfortunately no in other news hb ridley scott is going to save the alien franchise again i didn't know it was foundering i thought i thought People were all on board for Romulus and where we were going with it. That TV series everyone seemed to enjoy? Well, you sort of figure maybe... He's saying, well, I just figured I'd help, so I'm back in.

You figure they just said, look, here's all the money in the world, Ridley Scott. Come back. Because, I mean, cinematically, it's not been doing great. I know the TV show, the most recent one, was well-received, but the movie's... have been kind of hit or miss, no? I thought Romulus was a big hit.

Was that the last movie in the theater? Yeah. Okay. I think that was a hit. It was a big hit.

The fucking Black Panther. Is in it. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't see it, I admit.

This does not sound like anyone saying anything to Ridley Scott. This sounds like Ridley Scott saying, I want to make another one. I want to finish my Prometheus story. You guys interrupted my Prometheus trilogy, so now I'm going to retake over everything and piss all over the good work you folks have been doing. See, how do you feel about Michael Fassbender coming back for this?

Well, if it has to happen, then I would appreciate his return, at least, because he's a major character in those two movies, Prometheus and fuckeroo whatever that second one was that oh let's let's go into the airlock and have sex with this alien loose or that or the first one where it's like hey look at this snake creature let me take off my helmet and go kiss it like what what Ridley somebody take the camera away from from grandpa. Well let me ask you this let's turn it around a little bit what what is the last non franchise movie that ridley scott made that was successful i. Think that i think there have been successes i just think they've all been garbage like they've been beautiful failures.

Dramatically like what i that's not an answer. Napoleon is a terrible movie did. That do well i don't think it did well i. Think it did well how about that house of gucci it. Was terrible And that didn't do well either.

What about that one where they replaced.... Oh, All the Money in the World? Yeah, that thing. That didn't do well. That was Oscar nominated, but that didn't do well.

It was also garbage. My point being, HB, why are we listening to Grandpa? He no longer makes anything of value. And that's partly my point is, you could look at it like, look, this guy hasn't had a non-franchise hit in forever. Maybe he just wants to revisit his glory days a little bit.

Oh, okay. Take it outside. I don't care. Nobody cares. This is the movie business.

It's a business, first of all. It's not the sentimental Ridley Scott machine. I don't disagree. I've said this before. He directed that movie.

He didn't write it. He didn't design it. He didn't chart the fucking life cycle of an alien. He just made pretty pictures. I don't know why anyone is turning to him creatively.

I'm looking at his IMDb. I think the last non-franchise alien movie that he made was probably The Martian. And that was. That was a pretty big success, though. That was a very big success, but that was also 11 years ago.

Wow. That's a long time. He has a movie out right now that got laughed by a coyote. Oh, The Dog Stars. Yeah.

Yeah. Josh Brolin, who is no stranger to odd quotes, had a really funny quote about working with Ridley Scott, how he almost quit the picture. I didn't hear it. You didn't hear it? Let me see if I can find it.

Basically, it sort of made reference to how reckless his method is, Ridley Scott's method. Really? Because I think he doesn't rehearse much, if at all. And it's all, I think, you know, someone like, I would assume someone like Josh Brolin, who's probably a pretty method kind of an actor, probably panicked him. But it was an interesting quote.

I wish I had it in front of me, but I don't have it. Well, who cares? Anyway. That's enough. It's a bad movie.

H.P., are you excited for The Moneypenny Diaries? Not really. Look, I'm not a huge, look, I like 007, I like the James Bond movies. I honestly can't say I've seen every single one of them. In fact, I'm positive that I haven't.

What? But I like the franchise just fine. I got the most recent video game, and that was awesome. Moneypenny's in that, too. It was, you know...

But don't you want to see Moneypenny kicking ass and taking names and then serving tea? I'm fine with that, but I... I don't know. It feels like a lot of these movies, they have, like... It's like seeing a movie where...

Like Alfred from Batman becomes like the hero, the unsung hero. You mean the television series Pennyworth? Right. There was a comic book. I think there was actually a book series about Moneypenny already.

But my point is like that idea tends to leave me cold. It's like, well, you just thought that they were just set dressing, but no. There's a history behind Moneypenny that no one is privy to. I just, it's okay. I mean, it'll be fine, whatever.

Florence Pugh's going to be in it. See, that's the only interest I have in it. Like, I read the headline, Moneypenny Diaries, and I was like, are you kidding? Are they already breaking the Bond franchise into pieces to make as much money off of it as they can? How ridiculous.

And then I scrolled down and saw Florence Pugh, and I went, well, I'll give it a shot. She was one of, I mean, in a movie that we universally loved, Spider-Man, she, for me, was one of my biggest surprises i thought she was delightful in spider-man. And she'll be delightful here too even even though we're totally uninterested in the subject. Matter you know that's that's rather harsh i don't mean to come off like that but it's just not it's it'll come out and i'll see it and it'll be fine but i'm not gonna i'm not waiting with bated. Breath are you waiting for the thundercats movie.

I'm even less interested in the Thundercats movie. I couldn't be less interested in that, Father Malone. But it's moving forward. They've got a script. Did you watch Thundercats.

When you were a kid? Thundercats! Mumra! They had a mummy for a villain. Of course I watched the Thundercats.

Even then, I looked at it with a very cynical eye. Chitaro! Panthero! I just, I don't understand why people like, why it's such a cult. Like, why is it still such a cult thing?

Like, people go to Comic-Con dressed as the Thundercats. It feels like a Smigel's TV funhouse, like, before its time. Because the designs of those characters are fucking awesome. You gotta admit, they're really cool looking. You're talking about the wrong tree, sorry.

Look, the designs are awesome. Okay, I'll take your word for it. And there's a generation that was actually sort of, that was their thing, you know? There was an entire group of people clamoring about this Masters of the Universe nonsense forever. Sure, and I was not one of them, but I admit to really enjoying the movie despite that.

It was a good movie, that's why. You can make a movie based on a property that I have very little interest in, and it can delight me. I would be interested, I mean, you know, Thundercats could delight me, who knows? Why won't you give Thundercats a chance, HB? I will.

That's what I'm saying. It depends on who's involved, who's making it, who's directing it. I don't know any of those things. But I'm sure it's going to be great. How much are they paying you, Father Malone?

I'm on the take, payola. All right, it's time for sequel news. Are you ready? Oh, no, before we get to that, I watched that extended look at Grand Theft Auto Part 6. Yeah?

What'd you think? I was expecting more, honestly. And in what way? I had no expectations of Grand Theft Auto 6. And then all I heard for two days at work was everyone fucking ranting about it.

And then you recommended it. And I thought, well, this is just going to knock my fucking socks off. And it seemed like a really good version of Grand Theft Auto 6. There was nothing, like, new other than improved gameplay, improved graphics. There is that.

And maybe part of it is I've been soaking up as much info as I can over the last, what, 12 years? Yeah. Since the GT... I mean, that is absurd that it's taken this long to get Grand Theft Auto 6. Is that how long it's been, really?

It's been forever. Forever! When did Vice City come out? I will find that out for you. That's my favorite Grand Theft Auto game.

Really? You didn't like 5 with the cab driver? No, 4 with the cab driver? In New York? Yeah.

Yeah, I liked it. Something about, you know... 80s Miami. That was 2002, by the way. Oh, my God.

That's so long ago. Almost a quarter century ago. Man, I heard so much Phil Collins playing that game. Yes. And just to give you some insight, GTA V came out in 2013.

So 13 years ago. That's absurd. I guess that's just proof of my point because I was expecting it to be literally cinema. Quality. I'm sure the functionality is absolutely insane now.

Obviously, there was this whole bit of him going down this hallway in this tenement slum. You could go in any door. The detail is absolutely insane. Yeah. I mean, you kind of have to understand that their last, Rockstar's last biggest game was Red Dead Redemption 2.

I'm not sure if you played it or not. I did. I loved that game. I got the expansion pack with the zombies. No, that was the first one.

That was Red Dead Redemption 1. Oh, well, I did play the sequel then. But I did play both. So Red Dead Redemption 2 is a massive game. This game is, I think, two to three times bigger than Red Dead Redemption 2.

That's... crazy to think of that. Now that's not something that is going to be readily apparent in a 26 minute preview, but just understand the scale of this game is huge. There's, there's going to be a million things to do in, in, you know, you'll never get bored. There's all sorts of advances in like the morality system. Let's say, um, you can actually, one thing I read, which I thought was kind of interesting is normally when you get into a shootout with the cops, that's, you know, there's, there's no way out, but apparently like there's, behavior changes where like you can fire above the cops and Distract them long enough to get away so you could actually have non-lethal Police interactions which Wow, it's it doesn't sound like much.

No, that's actually a big deal I get that. But there's you know, there's a this relationship system between the the main characters you can you can play them as being like, you know lovers and Or you can just play them as partners in crime that you can have other relationships and it'll impact how they react to you and stuff. You're right. It's not like you're putting on VR goggles and all of a sudden you're in Grand Theft Auto. Yeah, that's kind of what I was being sold, I thought.

This also followed weeks and weeks of this conversation. someone leaking all this footage from the game and even some, and maybe, and some of that stuff I've seen. And like, it's just crazy to see, like I watched a video clip of somebody riding a bike on the beach, which sounds like nothing. But when you see the number of people on the beach, the different body types on the beach, like, cause you know, these games, usually there's a repeating, uh, template for these characters. I did notice that in what we saw, because there were so many people without their shirts on, and they were glistening, and you could tell, like, it was wildly varied in body types from starting now, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

And there's people, some people are on their phones, and the phones themselves cast this realistic glow over them, and it all happened at sunset, and it just looked beautiful. And I'm like, that's this environment I get to dive into and play with? Please, yes. Again, I get it, and maybe it was a little overhyped for me to say to you, oh, you've got to see this thing and have your friends at work clamoring over it, but I think maybe there's a lot that doesn't appear in the balance sheet that will only be apparent if you play the game or have played some of the older games. Well, I'm going to play it.

In my usual manner in like three or four years from now. Right. By then there'll be a DLC pack that'll be part of the main game and all that stuff. Exactly. Now it's time for sequel news, except we have to say goodbye to Mr.

Peter. Well, that's a sequel. You know, Grantham thought it was a sequel. That is a sequel. But, well, I didn't want to get into movie sequels until we talked about Peter Cullen and said rest in peace to the. the voice of Optimus Prime and so many others, so many movie trailers.

What an amazing voice. Incredible. I mean, you know, this has been a very, very hard, let's call it, really it's been in the span of a month, but we've had a lot of high-profile celebrity passings. We have Kim Curry passed, Dolly Parton, obviously, but Peter Cullen. Shelley Fabare.

Shelley Fabare. Peter Cohen was and is a giant of the voiceover industry. It's a really big loss. Odds are, even if you're not a fan of Transformers, odds are he has voiced some of your favorite characters growing up. And that's not even an exaggeration.

It's true. He will be missed. And I was just so pleased when they... brought him back to do the voice for Optimus Prime when they made the movies again because there was a real possibility that Michael Bay would have just gone no let's get whoever the latest star is right now to be the voice just like he did with fucking Megatron they went and got Hugo Weaving which is like made no sense at. All no but you know Peter Cullen is Optimus Prime I there's just no way you have him without having I don't know what I mean I'm not sure what they'll do going forward. I guess they'll just have to either use AI despicably to recreate his voice.

Or they can just find somebody to do the voice. That's been a tradition for years. True. Did you know that he did the voice of the main villain in the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon? Yes.

I didn't know that until I looked into his work a little bit. I did. Well, he has that, no matter what voice he's doing, he has that weird timbre to it that kind of gives him away, you know? Right, right. He's got that weird, that vibrate-y thing that he does, you know.

No, rest in peace. I mean, this is sort of like on the scale for me of like a Kevin Conroy when he passed. Because to a lot of people, Kevin Conroy was Batman. Yeah, still is. So, yeah.

All right, sequel news. Are you ready? All right. We got a title now for it. This is a direct sequel to a movie you and I were just talking about on the last roundup, which is The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth, the sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, featuring the continuing misadventures of stuntman extraordinaire Brad Pitt.

What do you think? I'm excited. You excited? I'm very excited. Look, I just got through telling you on another podcast that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is... for me, maybe my most rewatchable Quentin Tarantino movie.

And a big part of that is Brad Pitt. I think he's wonderful, despite the fact that if you really stopped and thought about it, he's a really bad guy in the movie. He killed his wife. He killed his wife. And I never read the book that he put out behind it.

It's not a novelization of the movie, I don't think, but I think it goes into a little more detail. Yeah, I tried to read that book, yeah. I tried, like you, I tried to read it and I said, this is not readable. And I stopped reading. But, look, it's Brad Pitt doing Cliff Booth things and David Fincher is directing it.

David fucking Fincher is directing the movie, man. I keep forgetting that. I mean, think about it. This should be just some. It's a Steven Soderbergh move, you know?

Just like, and I'll just do this random thing. Yeah, totally. This project had every right to be a quickie Netflix thing dashed off with just some rubber stamp type director. From Dusk Till Dawn 3, The Hangman's Daughter. Seriously, the fact that David Fincher's doing it gives me so much confidence that it's going to be really, really good.

And Peter Weller's playing his dad. Is that right? Yeah. Interesting. Peter Weller not looking so good these days.

He looks like a corpse, man. But he will talk your ear off about artwork these days. You know, he's got a degree, if you haven't heard. Look, don't talk to him or touch him if you're making the movie Firstborn, because he will bite your head off. That's true.

You know that story? Yeah, we found that story, yeah. Corey Feldman, yeah. I had a friend who was a prostitute who used to. No, not Corey Feldman, Corey Haynes, sorry.

Sorry, say that again? I was a friend who was an escort. She was a prostitute, and she used to... He was one of her clients, and she said he was the... He was the most egotistical person she'd ever met.

He would scan around the television looking for movies that he starred in. And then if he came on screen, he'd be like, shut up, shut up, shut up. Allegedly, let me say that. Allegedly, yep. So he plays Mr.

Booth. Who else is going to be in it? You are in the prologue. I can't wait. I'm in the epilogue, so you've got to wait.

Looks like Scott Kahn is in it. Carla Gugino. Oh, my God. I love Carla Gugino. Italian girls, man.

Wonder Man himself. Abdul Mateen. Yeah, I love that guy. Still haven't watched Wonder Man. Neither have you.

What's wrong with us? I need to. I really need to. That's a real problem. Failure of mind.

You're watching old episodes of Taxi for some fucking reason. No, I'm not watching Welcome Back, Cotter episodes. Oh, God almighty. It's probably more egregious. It is, because we don't even podcast about that show.

Do you think that DiCaprio is going to make a cameo in this? In Further Adventures? Yeah. Misadventures? No, in Welcome Back, Cotter, of course.

No, Breakdown. I mean, that would be a great secret for them to... Yeah. Yeah. I imagine there'll be like a one quick phone call.

Like a split screen and like, what do you need? Like, oh, nothing, blah, blah, blah. Because this takes place years after the events of the original. Movie, right? Well, it would only make sense to...

I mean, Tarantino wrote this, didn't he? I think he did. But then there was some pretentious quote I read about how he was just so unenthused by the project that he didn't want to direct it. You man he had just done that he just done that he just made that movie. Jesus Christ this is the same guy who said he was gonna he was finished he was gonna make his last movie and then he was gonna be the critic and then he decided that wasn't gonna be it and now he's I don't know what he's doing.

Who cares hang it up man hang it. Up soon but if he but if I will say if he does hang it up Hollywood is a big high note for him to go out. On oh yeah Well, I think he wishes he had held that in reserve now. That should have been the final. He knows he can't top it.

No, that's... That's why he's fucking writing novels and plays and entire seasons of Bounty Law. Yeah. Aye, aye, aye. Okay, so that's that.

On to the next sequel. You ready? I'm ready. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Yeah, which is still two years away.

And the other movie is 32 years ago. What I find fascinating about the news behind this, I just learned this, is they've already pre-filmed Terrence Stamp's scenes. Yeah. Terrence Stamp, who obviously died a year or two ago, he apparently already banked his footage for this movie. So good for them.

Yeah. It's mainly he comes out of his house and then he picks a flower and then he smells the flower. And then he looks around. And then for the rest of the movie, Terrence Stamp is played by his chiropractor with a cape. With his hand over his face.

What a ghoulish idea. I read this interview with Guy Pearce, and he was talking about the fact that it was really, it was apparently Terrence Stamp's idea to do this because he was somewhat fearful that they would use AI to create a fake Terrence Stamp to do all of this stuff. Maybe 10 years ago that might have seemed rather fanciful, but now when you've got this Val Kilmer movie where he's being played by AI, it's not so fanciful. How pivotal is he to the plot that he knew that they were going to make a CG version of himself? That's a good question.

I don't know. Maybe it's that important for him to be involved. Weird that's a weird move yeah it's also weird that the that that script from two three years ago is the one that they're making now usually that would change you know. Yeah but it's just they haven't even started filming it. Yet no so this isn't even news at all no it's not it's a failure on my part this is news about news and here's some more news about news they announced the days of thunder sequel are you stoked.

Well, you know, I was thinking about this just. Before we got on the call. Cold trickle. I am not what you would call a big fan of Days of Thunder. It was fine.

I think for me, it just, I don't know, it just didn't really resonate with me somehow. It was all the worst instincts of Tony Scott. Yeah, it was. Just sweaty people and whirring engines and men being men. You know, lots of cigars.

But Robert Duvall is quite good in it. Because he's Robert Duvall. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree.

But he is good. I mean, he elevates that movie. That's a cliche, but he really does. So. initially I kind of I greeted the news with a shrug and I said well whatever but then I remembered I greeted the news of a Top Gun sequel once upon a time with a shrug and then I actually saw Maverick and god damn it it was a great fucking movie So, I guess, in Tom Cruise, we trust? No, we don't, because the original Top Gun was a good movie, and Days of Thunder was garbage.

So you got a good sequel to a good movie, you're going to get a garbage sequel to a garbage movie. This is like a mathematical equation. Just ask Randy Quaid. He's been vocal. What a weirdo.

He's calling out Cruise for not bringing back Nicole. I kind of don't. Blame him. I think that would be an interesting exercise if they really want to do this. But you're assuming that she would do it if asked.

I don't think she would. But I'm just saying, if you wanted to actually wow me as a viewer, they should pay her any amount of money to come back and be that character. And if their characters hate each other, all the better. More drama. What, like they brought back Meg Ryan for Maverick?

Yeah, like that, man. Only less plastic surgery. I mean, they brought back Val Kilmer. That was good. Yeah, but, you know, I don't know.

I don't imagine... First of all, Anne Hathaway is in it, so automatically my interest has plummeted by 50%. And then I just have memories of that mellow, yellow fucking mobile riding around in circles like, I don't care how impressively it was shot. I was so bored by that first movie. The only thing that I actually really enjoyed about that movie was seeing that Michael Rooker was in a big studio movie after Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer.

I was like, oh my God, that guy's fucking doing it. Good, good, good. That was my feeling watching that initial movie. I totally forgot that he was in that. That is between him and Duvall.

Those are the reasons to see that movie. You're right. It was... The biggest crime was it was boring. To me.

And to you, it was boring. The fucking outsider walks up and takes off his sunglasses. Like, I could do that. And jumps in and becomes the best ever. It's like such a late 80s, early 90s action-y idea.

Did you see F1? No. It's good. Was it good? It's...

I liked it. It wasn't boring, I'll tell you that much. And it's got, obviously, one of our favorites lately, Brad Pitt. He's quite good in it. Put it this way, I feel like, without remembering too much about Days of Thunder, it's a really good Days of Thunder.

Okay, well, Brad Pitt was also in Bullet Train, and that was not so good. It was okay. It was fine. It was okay. It was more of the same.

Yeah. No, no. We talked about this offline. It was okay. I don't have any, you know, any great animosity towards it.

I'm just saying, I don't trust Brad Pitt just being Brad Pitt. He's good in this. He's good in everything. The thing is, you can tell when something is like a passion project for him, he puts a little bit more mustard into it. This is very good.

And it's shot really, really, really well. And it's the guy who did... This is not going to be a great recommendation. He did the Tron sequel, the first Tron sequel, Legacy. Joseph Kaczynski.

Oh, no, the same guy who did Maverick. I was going to say, yeah, what are you talking about? He did Maverick. Yeah, yeah, he did Maverick 2. So the car stuff is really good.

Who's going to make the next Rambo movie? They already were making it, I thought. It's going to be Young Rambo. Oh, that's right. They've got a Young Rambo movie.

Jesus. I was joking, but yeah, you're right. So prequel. No, it's a real deal. And then like Stallone said that he wanted them to do Rambo, but to CG his face onto another younger actor's body, which is horrifying.

Well, that's par for the course with the man who told the author of the book that Cobra was based on, you should just take your name off of it and put my name on it. He's been continually beating the drum about this notion that In the 60th anniversary year of Star Trek, there are really no active films in development, which is a real shame. Well, it's in development. It's just nothing being put to lens right now. Right, but this is such a big anniversary year.

They should have planned for this. They should have, but there's a bunch of monkeys running the company now. Pretty much, but it's interesting because the thing that you're most excited for is one of the few that is not, a sequel or a retread or an adaptation of an earlier property. God forbid it. My taste is evolving.

Well, no, it means that, you know, we need more of that. Moviegoers need more original programming. We need more original ideas. I mean, this is not a new idea that I'm espousing, but it's true. Do we really need another, like a, another, Thundercats-type movie or another sequel to something.

We don't. Got to raid all the IP. Got to squeeze every drop out of it. Whatever works, whatever it works. And if they tell you they're going to make Part 3, they're not going to do it.

HB, where can people find you when they're looking for you? All right. I co-host the Night Mr. Walters Taxi Podcast with my erstwhile co-host, Father Malone, here. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast when time and effort allows.

And I have a Bandcamp site, hpmusicplace.bandcamp.com. As for me, you're listening to it at midnight viewing. We're on twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. And I've got a Patreon channel and a bunch of shows over there, too. We've got a brand new show this Monday.

It's called Button Switches and Consoles. We're looking at old tech. Old movies starting off strong with The Net by Sandra Bullock. That's the new show I'm doing with Laura Grillo. Check that out Monday.

Until next time, everybody, try to enjoy the daylight.