143: Not Bad for a Bunch of Humans

Let's rock! Hi, this is Lance Edgerton and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. Listen if you dare. Movie Meltdown. Falling Program is a proud member of the Pallava family of podcasts.

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Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. I'm Marlena.

I'm Lucy. And we are back again with more coverage from Scarefest. Although right now, where would you say we are exactly? We are in the bowels of the Hyatt. This is all we were deciding.

You don't have to leave this building once you get to the city. I mean, it's... They've combined, what all did we say, a bar, a mall, a food court, the convention center, the museum, the hotel. The sporting event. Yeah, you can see a sporting event, concert, Jeff Dunham.

We missed him this year, Marlena. Remember last year we ran into Jeff Dunham? It was a sad day. Oh, for you or him? For us, really.

I was thinking, I was like, I was right next to him. I could have killed him and spared the world Jeff Dunham comedy. But instead, he wandered off, so now we all suffer. You're going to receive like a A letter from Jeff Dunham's, like, agent. Yeah, or Homeland Security.

That guy's a national treasure. He's a terrorist. All of his racist fans will write to me. I actually don't know who this person is, by the way. Be glad.

I was telling someone about him earlier today for some reason. I was trying to explain to my boyfriend's dad who he was, and I was like, he's the comedian that uses puppets. Oh, okay. I know the puppet guy. There you go.

Puppet guy. Okay. Unfortunately, yes, we ran into him last year. Playing here and again because you don't have to leave this facility once you're here you're set so he was like at rep arena yeah and there's some draw the line was out the door when we left that was the sad part it was frightening that the line was probably more than we're at the horde convention and there was a lot of people at the horde convention so yeah it was sad really is what it was so. I don't know.

Anything else we need to cover? The fun-filled place that we. Are right now? I don't think so. I guess we can roll into this week's geek activities.

I've got a minor one, just because it was sort of movie-related. I went to a movie-themed art opening this past week. That's exciting. What was that? Um it was a smaller show it was like i think it's a offshoot group of students from uofl that put together this group and they just decided to do one which i don't know being geek that i am i've already done a couple of shows like this so i remember when i did the movie themed art show i was pretty like hardcore on the attachment you know the the um assessing what movie it was kind of thing like my my rule was like if some random person that knows movies relatively well can look at your art and know what movie it is then that okay it belongs in this this show my show they didn't have that theirs i think was more of the like inspired by kind of thing so there are some of them that that are very specific as to oh yeah that's in there and it's from this movie There are other ones that are like, it's just art, and then you read the little thing on the side, and you're like, oh, okay, it's inspired by this thing.

But, yeah, sometimes you don't know what movie you're dealing with. So, I don't know. I kind of like being more specific. I think that's fine. I mean, you can have an inspired by show, but to me that's a different show than the very geeky movie-themed version.

So, I don't know. That's just me. Have you ever been to, aside from mine? Has anybody ever seen it? Where is this at?

I don't know. But it's, yeah, I mean, I know they've gotten kind of big. We had the Crazy for Cult art book that we looked at on the show a little while back that is all the ones in L.A. That they're doing now. So it's become a big thing.

Yeah. They did a really cool Twin Peaks one in Los Angeles that I was really wanting to go to. Yeah. And then, as I said on that episode, I'm pretty sure I came up with that idea first. Anyway.

But that just reminded me of a piece that I actually saw this weekend that I thought was one of the most amazing pieces I've ever seen in my life. This local guy named Robert Beatty did it. And it was this, it was the whole, the gallery concept was that it was all using found media. And so he took all of the shots from the Fat Albert cartoon series that didn't have characters in them and edited them together. So it's like this.

Familiar cartoon landscape that's just completely desolate and depressing and, like, oppressive. And it was actually a really powerful experience. Is it moving? Like, he made it and animated it? Oh, wow.

No, I mean, it's the actual clips. So it's just like. And I guess. I never really paid attention to the way Fat Albert is shot or remember it because I was a kid, but... It's that super 70s thing where it would sort.

Of zoom in. Because they were living in the ghetto, it's all beat-up old cars, and it's just filth and degradation. When you watch it on the loop, it's really disturbing. I mean, they hung out in the junkyard, I forgot. Yeah, but it was very brilliant.

Anyway, well done, Robert Beatty. That's actually pretty interesting. It's like Gummo and Sanford and Son like each other. Nice. So, yeah, that was interesting.

They did a good job with what they were doing. It's just, yeah, they had a mixture of the two, which I think I just had a. Harder time processing because I had a very specific way that I did it when I was doing those shows. You're doing it wrong. I'm trying not to be that way.

I'm trying to be open-minded. I just had a very specific thing, and. They were a little more open. They were probably a little more artistic. I was like, no, damn it, do it my way.

So theirs was more open to artistic interpretation. What kind of movies were represented there? One did a lot of, what's the Spirited Away dude? Oh, that guy. Yeah, that's his name.

Mikiya Miyaki? It's almost it. I can't say an animation, other than Fat Albert, so I don't have it. You can't say an animation? I can't say an animation.

It's like the one, well, not the one thing, it's not the only thing that I've changed about myself, but it's one of the things. There's no child inside of you. The child inside of you is dead. Miyazaki. Miyazaki.

Hayo Miyazaki. So yeah, there's several, like a whole series this guy did from Miyazaki stuff. There is a couple others that were, the ones, again, the more specific ones that I immediately was drawn to, there was one that was from I think American Werewolf in London, there was one. There was a They Live one. So, I mean, it was very geek-friendly movies, which I appreciate.

And I don't know. There were some other ones that I think were probably more artsy. Yeah, I probably need to look up the directors on those. So, yeah, that was entertaining. I like that.

And then aside from that, are you familiar with the Kuchar brothers? No. Oh, my God. This is the one I told you, okay, you need to come watch this, because probably both of you will appreciate this. I watched a documentary called It Came From Kuchar, and it's about the Kuchar brothers, which started in maybe mid-60s or so, and had this when underground film was really underground film.

Basically, to put it in perspective, these are the guys that inspired John Waters to make his early films. That's how messed up these guys are. These are the guys that inspired John Waters. So, yeah, I mean, it is about them and their, you know, lives in general, but mostly them getting into that, you know, the film industry and how their lives played out and how much they inspired. I mean, they're just, like, interviews with John Waters and, what is that, Montoya?

Yeah, I mean, all these other, like, big-time directors now that were inspired by their films. So it's really interesting to watch. These weird, I mean, I've seen some weird stuff in my time, but their movies, wow, they, and again, it obviously worked, because by the time I was done, I started searching for their movies, so I've already found some of their movies, I'm going to start watching their movies too, because the documentary is fascinating enough. But, yeah, I'm just like, I'm going to have to see some of these because they're. Some crazy, weird underground film, like old-school underground film.

So, yeah, definitely. And it's just an interesting documentary on top of that. And, like, even if their films were terrible... it's really well put together and all the characters in it are characters. I mean, they are some crazy people that were surrounding them. So just the brothers themselves are very peculiar and you get to these other people that kind of fell into their camp back in the day and then people they ended up with, you know, down the line.

So it's, it's really interesting just to watch these two guys and what they were creating and especially being the movie geek that I am that the history of it, you know, doing this in the mid-60s when nobody was doing that kind of stuff yet, really, and certainly not to the extent that they were, so, and they're totally, I mean, super DIY, I mean, stuff is done, like, in a day, and it's, like, done in their house, but their friend's mother plays a key role in it, and I mean, it's amazing the stuff that they put together, and yet they have this very theatrical style, like, I mean, the one has all these title screens that are done over the years, and they, like, They're done kind of, like, you can tell they're, like, amateur, but at the same time they're done in the style that is completely mimicking, like, super big-time Hollywood.

And you can tell. I mean, they mention some of the old, like, 50s melodrama that they're inspired by. And you can see that in their weird movies. So it's, yeah, definitely watch it. It came from Kuchar.

Kind of amazing if you're a movie geek. So, yeah, definitely go find that. It was on Netflix, so, yeah. Definitely need to watch that. I.

I'm sad that it doesn't exist so much anymore because, like, I don't know what it is about the entertainment industry. Like, you can have, like, bootleg movies or you can have, like, eight pounds of cocaine and you're probably going to do more time for the bootleg movies. Probably. But I just... It's sad, like, guerrilla-like movie making almost doesn't exist anymore.

Like, outside of, like, bad horror movies, there's no, like, cheeky, like. Like, funny political, but not, like, overly, like, a Michael Moore documentary kind of style thing. It just doesn't, like, exist. You know, like, fun, campy kind of John Waters stuff, you know, like, let's break into this farm and, like, do this scene and then we'll run away before anyone notices. Like, that doesn't really happen.

I think it's out there, but it's changed, and I think it somehow lessened it when videotape came around. Like, again, I think it's cool that you let that gate open and everybody can now make films, but at the same time, it, like, let a lot of people who probably don't need to. Be making films make films. So, I mean, I think the reason they were so impressive back when it was like 8mm was because it was hard. Like, it was a lot of trouble to get the equipment and a lot of trouble to go through, you know, getting enough lighting to make it work and getting it developed and getting it distributed.

I think that weeded out the people who really weren't dedicated. So you got, I mean, even the stuff that's ridiculous and bad is kind of impressive that, you know, the trouble that they went to to get all this stuff done Whereas once you could go to, you know, your local department store and buy a camera, and now you can upload it the next day on the Internet, you know, it's like you get a lot of stuff. I mean, well, look at YouTube. You get a lot of stuff. That's not necessarily impressive anymore on any scale, you know.

So it's, I don't know, is it just me, or does that seem like a dividing line there? Well, I mean, it's different, though. You know, it's like if you think about, like, the college humor guys who did their own, like, little skits and stuff like that, you know, it's like... as well executed as like a regular movie would be minus the budget. I'm talking about like people who are just trying to do something really fast and like, you know, one take and we're done. Like we don't have a lot of time, you know, almost like flash mob style, you know, just like show up and do this and then like run away.

Like, you know, people make movies at home all the time. Obviously. I mean, YouTube proves that, but like just the whole like hurriedness, the, Like, illegalness of it. Illegalness. I don't think that's a word, but, you know.

There's a little of that. Yeah, because somebody we know put one out that what you're describing sounds like it's... I may have to find this one and see if it actually is. I think they're out there. I think that version is just so lesser now.

I think it's, I mean, it's so underground again, I guess. I mean, you've got so many other mediocre things that are hitting semi-mainstream now. That I guess. it really has taken on that new level of the few people that bother to do that style, that old version that used to happen. Yeah, I'm wondering if actually filmmakers are better now. I mean, there's less camp because people are actually making quality films.

I mean, like this guy that's coming into town this week, Kentucker Audley, he's from here originally, and he's making these mumblecore movies out of Memphis. And he, you know, has no budget. They're, you know, shooting stuff once. But the stuff's really good. So maybe that's the difference.

I don't know. Maybe you're just more talented. And maybe, like, the fact that you don't have to lug around, like, an 800-pound camera and all these, like, heavy equipment. I think maybe that's it. That there's less, like, opportunity for messing up.

Yeah. Really. We don't get to see that anymore. Even if it is just as rushed, it's just, like, better executed. Yeah.

Shoot. Darn it all. I mean, that's half of what makes it so funny, though. I mean, I wouldn't want to watch, like, an hours-long movie of that, you know, but it's funny, like, in those something weird movie clips that you have where it's just, like, you can tell they, like, ran somewhere and filmed this, and it's just so, like, absurd, and the fact that it's, like, awful. But some of it, I mean, again, there's something kind of amazing about them going to the trouble that they did to make those movies.

Yeah. Especially as bad as they are. Like the premise of Cecil B. Demented, where they're just like, you know. Yeah.

What was their... They're like, let's bust into. This movie theater and we're going to film this and, you know. Yep. Yeah.

Like that, but. Well, that was pretty much mine, so. Probably was a bad idea. Who wants to go next in the Geek Week? Well, I guess I will.

Friday night, I watched Max and Mary or Mary and Max. I don't know. I can't remember which way it goes. I thought it was Max and Mary, but I wouldn't swear. Either way.

But it was really good. It was a claymation movie. It's animated. You won't like it. Yeah.

I mean, it was a. What. Was that? She said she has no soul. Oh, that's right.

I forgot. Yeah. It was really good. You can kind of tell that it's going to be dark, even in just the shot on Netflix of what you get. It's gray and really dark tones, but it was horribly depressing.

I mean, it was very well done, and it was a very touching and moving story, but I definitely cried. I fell asleep, and then I woke up and watched it, and then I cried. I fell asleep, and then I cried. I woke up and cried. I didn't cry in my sleep.

That would just be weird. I have. I could have. That's fine. I could have.

Yeah, and also, earlier this week I bought Robots for my niece. I think we saw that a long time ago. The movie Robots? Yeah, it's been so long I forgot about Robots. Oh my god, it's hilarious.

She didn't really like, I'm like pushing it on her. I'm like, Jessica, let's make her watch it again so she can love this movie over time. Whether she likes it or not, you're going to love this movie. It's just so, like, I don't know. As far as those animated movies go it's cheeky it has like the right amount of adult humor that a parent doesn't want to like pull their hair out when they're watching it but like.

That's usually reserved for Pixar and. That's about it yeah I don't think this was Pixar though no I. Don't think it was which is unusual but. It had like Robin Williams and Ewan McGregor and like Greg Kinnear I think Halle Berry Amanda Bynes a bunch of weird people like as voices uh but um It was. More entertaining than most non-Pixar movies, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, it was pretty entertaining. I don't know if I talked about this last time or not, but a few, probably like a month ago or so, I got a single man for Netflix and watched that. It was really, really good. I'd heard a lot about the scenery and everyone's obsessed with 1960s period pieces because of Mad Men, and it wasn't like, it was the same style and the same look, but it wasn't like copying or anything like that, which I liked. It was just kind of like existing in a 1960s, like era without, you know, seeming unoriginal, I guess.

But, um, I thought that was really well done. Uh, Colin Firth and Julian Moore were in it. And it was about this man who, uh, loses his partner after 16 years. And it's just like the most touching love story ever. It's really, really sad.

I really need to stop watching horribly depressing movies. That's what I realized last week. I need to stop listening to horribly sad music. So it seems to be a theme we have on this show. You know, like, on Friday night I got home from work and it was just, like, such a long day.

I'm like, I want to watch something funny. And then I watch Max and Mary. I'm just like, Jesus Christ. Good going. I think that's pretty much all I've watched that I know of.

I mean, I've cut clips of stuff on YouTube. Like TNT or whatever, but I wouldn't really count that as watching anything. Oh, I did watch Mystery Teen. Ah, see. That was really funny.

I'm still like, in amazement by that movie. Speaking of people who, like, randomly just threw their. Own stuff together, I mean, that's how they started, was just YouTube movies of them being goofy and doing characters and I mean, he's actually legitimately directing films now. They put a movie out. And every one of them has become successful.

Every time I see Blowjob Girl in something, I'm like, there's Blowjob Girl. I don't know why I have to do that. But, I mean, she was in Bridesmaids, and she was in Mystery Team, but she's in a lot of stuff. It's nice to see people succeed. Yeah.

You know, when they... It didn't really come from anything. One of the guys is on SNL now. That guy's on, what, Community? Yeah.

I mean, he was writing on 30 Rock and then went to Community. He's, like, from one giant paycheck to the other. I know. Which, it's always awesome when people succeed. He's just ridiculously talented.

It's not right. Yeah. They probably flunked out of, like, their film school or whatever they went to, too, which is always the funniest part, you know, when you hear about, like, people being successful that, like, failed at everything. Yeah. Academically.

I don't know. They're all ridiculous. I don't know that. I just made that up, but I was just thinking that that would be really funny if that happened. It doesn't matter.

They won now. Yeah, that's all. I'm going to stop talking. That's what you say, but we'll see. Well, before I start, I do want to add my thumbs up to A Single Man.

I loved that movie and thought that Colin Firth got robbed that. He didn't get the Academy Award that year. Instead, yeah. Took it from Jeff Bridges next year. I didn't really understand that reversal.

But that scene where he gets the news about his partner on the phone, like I thought that was like the strongest five minutes of acting I've. Maybe seen ever. I thought it was just heartbreaking. It's so good. But I saw a movie.

Well, actually, I guess this week. It might have been last week. Is it okay since I haven't seen you guys in a while if I address a movie from last week? As long as it's not already been on the show, it's all new to us. Well, I don't think that this is played Louisville yet.

I don't think it's played anywhere in Kentucky. Have you guys seen The Future? Have you talked about The Future, the new Miranda July movie? Yeah, I've seen. Yeah, it might have started because I think somebody else said they'd seen it and they weren't thrilled with it.

What was your take on it? I loved it. I thought it was fantastic. Who didn't like it? This was someone else I know who that usually is their type of movies.

I had that discussion. Well, it depends. What was their last movie? You and me and everyone we know. Did you like that one?

I did like that one. That's what I've heard. I've liked, if you liked that last one, you're going to like this one. If you didn't like that one, you're not going. To like it.

She has a very unique sensibility. I think it's more her. It's kind of hit and miss. Do you like her or not? So I guess that's what it is.

Because he didn't like her last movie either. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, he needs to stop. He needs to give up. No, really, because she's not going in any other direction, hopefully.

She's going to make animated movies, I think. depressing animated movie. But I thought it was spectacular I mean it played in Cincinnati for a week and that's the closest that it's come I mean it you know played like Chicago and that's been it I think it played Nashville but um anyway so I guess we'll be able to watch it on DVD soon but You know, it's everything that she is. It's quirky and hilarious and maybe don't. I think a lot of people saw it. Lots of people saw it because they love cats and was like, oh, it's a movie about cats.

Don't see it if. You like the musical or the animals. I don't know. Man, I love Andrew Lloyd Webber. Let's go see this movie.

But that was fantastic and then they've been doing a series where they just start revitalizing the series that used to happen here in Lexington called the Rosa Goddard International Film Festival at the historic Kentucky Theater and they just. You have, that's where I met you that's where we began. They showed Beauty and the Beast the original 1946 Jean Cocteau version which was just stunning I've never seen it before Actually, I. Own a copy of it, and I still haven't watched it. Okay, good on that.

I've heard nothing but good things, though. I probably didn't watch it, because I was, like, horribly obsessed with Beauty and the Beast as a child, and I still kind of am, like, a little bit. Again, that's animated. You're just obsessed with things as a child. You never...

I heard a Garth Brooks song the other day and realized, like, I was obsessed with Garth Brooks as a child, and I'm still kind of obsessed. Oh, God, please. Sorry. Just, no, get away from me. You can edit that out, because I don't really want anyone to know that.

You said it, so I don't think it's too late now. Sorry, I didn't mean to jack your feed there, Lucy. No, by all means, don't do that. Please jack my feed. If it's more shocking, Garth Brooks confessions, bring it on.

Tell us what you think about Reba McEntire. Oh, no. I was like singing Reba McIntyre. You're so fancy. Two times in the car today.

You're bringing down your cool stock so much this episode. I heard like the night the lights went out in Georgia and then fancy and Jessica's talking and I'm like, hang on. Wait, I think you actually told me that I could resort to that. And I was like, wait a second. For me?

For my kids. I was like, for you, that'd be gross. Oh Lord. Sorry about my daughter. Anyway, sorry.

Once again, your feet has been jacked. I don't think I know this Fancy. What is Fancy? It's a song about... Her mom hooked her out.

Yeah. Yeah. She's like. Her mom is really sick and they're poor and, you know, her mom's about to die so she puts a fancy red dress on her and turns her out to some old. Fancy, don't let me down.

Yeah. Oh, my God. But, you know, she, like, makes it in life and she's rich and she's happy and she didn't starve to death. She's a happy whore. What year was this song?

Probably, like, early 90s. Yeah, I think so. And. I need to get on this, but I've been meaning to, like, do a mashup of, like, you fancy, huh? You ask for it and nobody has delivered it.

You know, that would be awesome. I can't believe it hasn't happened yet. I would assume that's what YouTube is for, as we've said. Mashups are, like, the thing of 2010. So cutting edge.

Yeah. The world of country music has always been a little foreign to me, and so when I hear things like that, it amazes me. I knew the song, Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town, just by the chorus, but I never listened to it beginning to end until the other day, and I was shocked. I really was. I was a little bit beside myself.

I try to steer clear of it. Specifically modern country, it's evil and it must be stopped. I mean, it's just like if I don't have any CDs in my car, I'll put it on the classic country station and that's just what plays. Yeah. Classic, I don't know if that falls into classic, but okay, anyway.

We should get away from it. I tried to most of my life. I feel like I was going to say something about Beauty and the Beast, but I've sort of forgotten it. I actually came to it from a really weird place. Okay, this is, you really are going to think that I'm soulless.

I had sort of forgotten what the story of Beauty and the Beast was. Like, I hadn't. Revisited it in a long time, and I sort of had a general concept of it, but I really didn't remember. Like, in my head, I was sort of conflating it with, like, other, like, You know, old stories and fairy tales. And then she rides on a magic carpet, and then there's a glass slipper.

No, but I felt really excited. Like, oh my gosh, I'm going to experience Beauty and the Beast, like, for the first time. Like, I'm going to come to this like a child comes. To Beauty and the Beast. That could be interesting.

And then they did an intro, and they said, what happens. At the end? And I was like, no, I was the only person, like. Obviously, it's like ruining a passion play. Everybody knows what happens at the end.

Are they not familiar with spoiler alert? Jesus. But I think they just assumed that there wouldn't be one pathetic, strange, alien creature. I never assume that at our show. I assume everybody hasn't seen Alien or whatever.

Well, then, and that's actually the next thing. I spent this weekend watching the Alien movies because I hadn't seen them. I'm totally, yeah, ruining my credibility. I don't know. You're slacking off.

But then I haven't seen Beauty and the Beast, so I can't talk. So, alien you can talk about. We'll get to aliens later. How about alien? What was your take on that?

I said this to you earlier. For whatever reason, I'd never been able to make it through. And I think the reason, I think maybe I always tried when I was tired. And there's all those space sounds. And I think the space sounds make me sleepy.

Like whenever I get on an airplane and there's just that shh. Sound oh did that like really mess up the mic mess up your levels um I like I always fall asleep any kind of like sound like that and that movie's all about that sound and I think it just sort of lulls me to sleep despite the presence of Harry Dean Stanton and I've seen I think all of his movies except for Rango being an animated film um but I was never able to make it through so this time I made it through and I was like oh yeah that is that is that is I get it. I mean I liked it I liked it as a child Yes, I saw it as a child. This is why I messed up now. I saw it when I was relatively young.

And, yeah, I remember really, like, kind of liking it in that way. And then later, I've grown to appreciate it in many other layered ways again. Like, I don't know. There's a lot going on in that movie that, yeah, especially for the time period when they weren't doing that kind of stuff, especially in mainstream movies. Yeah, it's a lot of weird stuff going on that's, yeah, it's impressive.

Yeah. Yeah, I would have liked Harry Dean Stanton to be in more of the film. He would be the title character. I'm Harry Dean Stanton. I'm the alien.

I think I'm going to smoke for a little while. Then we'll take a break. Work a nap in later. Oh, I love Harry Dean Stanton. But he's never really action-packed, is he?

He's a very subdued gentleman. He's cool. He's cool. That's what he is. He is cool.

So is that it for our geek activities? I think that's all I got. All right. Well, we will take a break. And when we come back, hey, do you know who's here this weekend?

Lance Hendrickson. We're going to talk to Lance Hendrickson. You don't believe me? Fine, then. I'll show you.

We'll be back. I love the way that you put it together. She said, here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down. Here's your one chance, man.

You don't let me down. Here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down. Here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down.

Here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down. Here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down. Here's your one chance, man.

You don't let me down. Here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down. Here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down.

Here's your one chance, man. You don't let me down. That was the last time I saw my mother, not to lift that rickety shack. Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby.

Let's all go to. The lobby to get ourselves a treat. In space, no one can hear you scream. Alien, rated R from 20th Century Fox. Don't tell me you don't know.

What love is. When you're old enough to know that's love. When you find strange hands and you're sweating tough. When you dream of turns out. To be, but no, I'm a man with a mission.

And everywhere we've gone, we've sold out all the books, and we've bought 200 at a time, and they're gone on the first and second day. And it's resonating, and that's the miracle of it all, because you write a biography and you don't write a second one. This is the one time, and it really is. It's really done very well, which I'm grateful for. Especially if they reject your biography, they're rejecting you, so you...

I was intending to burn myself in effigy, you know, if it didn't work. It does have a lot at stake, I guess, more so than just a novel. Yeah, for sure. Okay, we are here with Lance, and just kind of wanted to hit a few different things. I know most of all these days you've got a book out and you're trying to get the word out on that and get that out there to people, but I just kind of in general wanted to hit some of the basics and With most people, I try to just sort of get a feel for what led them into their career.

From what I do know, you had sort of an unconventional childhood. I guess everybody has one in a certain way. Mine was a little more, I guess you might say, dramatic than most. Hey, let's talk about something positive. Okay.

Dakota just won the Medal of Honor. He's from Kentucky. And so was Sergeant York. And one of my favorite directors, Tom Wright, is from Kentucky. And it seems like you have a breeding ground for really interesting people.

Yeah, there's some amazing people that come from here. Yeah, that's for sure. Anyway, it goes way back to the first bear hunter. What's his name? Yeah.

David Crockett or somebody like that. But yeah, I guess, again, you've sort of got the new book coming out, so I was going to ask, I mean, you've sort of ended up enacting over the years. Has writing been something that along the way was something you had been becoming more interested in? No, no, writing, I've never been interested in writing. I wrote it with someone, and I would tell the stories, and we would We worked on them together for over a year, and it ended up being a perfect match because I think more in pictures than I do in words.

It just ended up being a wonderful book. We named it Not Bad for a Human because that was the last line I had in Aliens. Ironically, on the sixth, Entertainment Weekly is coming out with a, with the 25th anniversary of Aliens. And then we went a few weeks ago and took pictures, all of us, Jim Cameron and Simone Weaver and Paxton and Michael Biehn, and everybody was there. And it was like, it was a really wonderful day because everyone was feeling like we had just finished the movie yesterday.

That's how close friends we kind of felt about each other. So it was a wonderful experience. So anyway, if we get to see that, that'll be coming out happening. Aliens, by the way, has become such a cult film. I mean, it's lasted forever and over these 25 years, and it still holds up, which is unbelievable because it's, you know, with all the things like CG that have happened and all that stuff, it doesn't matter because Aliens works without it.

Yeah, I think it's better than most CG stuff going on today. Yeah, there's too much of it, you know. I always thought CG should be, you know, like when you write poetry, it should be used in a very limited way, you know, that it's only to be used by, to do something that couldn't be done any other way, but not make a whole movie out of it. It's like too big of a meal. That's when it seems to work best, yeah.

It's a 20-course meal, and nobody can eat that. It's too much to deal with all at once. Yeah, it really is, yeah. Well, James Cameron, pretty early on, had taken a liking to you. I guess, what was your relationship that early, and why is it that you think he kept returning to you over the years?

Well, you know, there's a kindred spirit thing. I did his first movie with him, and we were down in Jamaica, and there was no money, no budget, but he worked his heart out, and I respect people that work hard, you know, that are not, you know, they're not wanting to start at the top. They just do what they, what they do and give it their all. And, and that kind of resonated with me. I like that word resonated, but anyway, it, uh, it, we became friends because, uh, we watched each other work and, and over the years we've worked more together.

And of course, Jim has shot through the, uh, into the outer atmosphere with his work and his ability. And he's a very talented guy. And, and so, uh, You don't need me to tell you that, but anyway, we've stayed friends over the years. I've actually stayed friends with a lot of people that I've worked with over the years because the experience was good, healthy. We did a lot of good work with a lot of different people.

That's why I mentioned Tom Wright. We did half of the Millenniums together. Tom Wright is a director, and when Millennium happened, We did over 60 shows, and I think Tom almost did. Half of them. Wow.

As a director. That's always good, just to give you a good vision for kind of the look of the whole project. Yeah, he was a very talented director. Well, with all your projects over the years, you seem like you've been drawn to different genre projects. You've worked in a lot of sci-fi, you've worked in a lot of horror.

Is it something that you were... interested in yourself going into it or did they just sort of you caught on in those genres and they kept coming back to you. Well those genres are the only ones if you notice they're they're mostly all that's out there you know i mean science fiction fantasy horror i've done a lot of westerns too i've done several westerns six or seven of them and and uh you know i mean i don't I like storytelling. I mean, I really enjoy it, and I think the genre films are all morality plays, and if you notice, Avatar is really a morality play. I mean, science fiction kind of took the place of westerns. Yeah.

But I was born in that era where, you know, where Tales from the Crypt was the comic books, and you know, that kind of thing. So I was raised with it, and certainly the low-budget horror films were around when I was a kid. I saw the thing, you know, the early one in black and white, and I was very moved and impressed and shocked and scared and had a lot of fun with them, with Bela Lugosi and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, I was open to whatever was going to come my way. I've done a lot of different kinds of movies, but But, yeah, I guess I got very, I think Aliens was the pivotal role that changed my acting career, certainly.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It was such an enormous hit that all of us that were in it went on, you know, all of us were still working. And so, it, you know, it, it, it kind of, that's the way it happened. You know, I mean, you can't, you can't plan anything. I've done every kind of budget you can imagine, uh, because I don't have any, I don't do low budget acting.

So I'm not afraid to do a low budget film. Yeah. I mean, we've discussed some of them on the show and yeah, there's, there's, With any of them, even some that are really low budget, you always kind of bring that A game and it never shows in what you're bringing to the screen. Hey, buddy, thank you. That's a compliment.

A compliment slipped out. Thank you very much. Yeah, you've always done good work. You mentioned what you were sort of drawn to there. I always like to throw out, too, just what your interests are.

We always talk about what we watch on the show. What do you like to do? watch or what your your favorite type of movies or stuff like that well. I'm you know what i'm i don't i don't go with the hype you know i mean i i've got a habit of not of not uh watching films when they first come out because the hype distorts the you know the presentation for me i like to see it when i'm when i'm when i stumble on it and and i i i find some great pieces of work you know that people don't talk about there's a movie called hannah that came out and, you know, it went, now it's on television, it's on pay-per-view and, you know, you can get it on, I think you can get it even on Netflix. Yeah. But it's called Hannah and it's just this unbelievably startling, wonderful movie.

And, and, and I, I enjoy movies, but I, I enjoy finding them. It's almost like finding a book. You see, you read the jacket and then you, and you get involved and then you read it. You know, I, I love the, uh, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I saw all three of those movies from Sweden, but before I saw them, I had read the books, Stig Larsson's books, and they're very heavy, thick books. And when I got to the final one, I couldn't put it down for 900 pages, so I read it starting at about 5 in the morning and didn't finish until maybe 9 or 10 at night.

But I get carried away by it all, so it's great, and it's part of what I do. Again, I think in pictures. So I saw it. I saw the movie before I saw the movie, if you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah.

But anyway, I do enjoy all of that, and I'm an avid reader now. But in terms of my life, I do. I make pottery, and I'm obsessed on pottery. I'm not just a potter like a little old lady that paints. You know, paint spots with flowers and stuff.

Or, you know, I'm an obsessed potter. I make 36-inch platters and paint them. Actually throwing the clay and getting. Yeah, I do it all. I've got all the equipment and everything else.

And my biggest thing is I don't sell them. I mean, when I first started pottery, I had to make hundreds and hundreds of cups and goblets. And I stopped one day and said, if I ever have to sell another one, I'm never going to do it again. And of course. My career has given me enough money to where I don't have to.

Which makes me really happy. It is its own art form. It's sort of underappreciated. It is. You come from an area where Kentucky ball clay and all the clays that you've got in Kentucky is some of the best in the world.

I use a lot of it. So I've been to Kentucky. Although I haven't been to Kentucky. You've handled the clay. Yeah.

I've handled your earth. But, you know, that's an obsession that comes out of, you know, I have nobody telling me what to do or where to be or anything else. And it's an art form that gives you meditation and excitement over, you know, over real simple stuff like fire, dirt, water, and air. The basic elements, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, let's see. I mean, occasionally we sort of throw one in there just as a movie, and I was going to throw one out of yours and see if you had any specific memories or anything of it. I've just sort of discovered it in the last few years, and then I ended up talking to William Forsythe a couple years ago about Savage Dawn. What were your thoughts? Oh, yeah, well, yeah, Savage Dawn, there's a good one.

Forsythe and I, again, worked it later in Stone Cold. Yeah, yeah. He was my... Master of Arms in my biker club, the one I did with Brian Bosworth. But yeah, Savage, that was like an early kind of lead role for you.

That was sort of a big step, I guess. Yeah, that was, yeah. In its own way. Anything with the name Savage in it, Savage Dawn, Savage Woman, Savage, Savage Biker, Savage. Whenever you hear the name Savage, I think you might not want to go see that.

Movie, you know. It's epic in its own way. It's amazing. Yeah, even Kennedy was in that. Yeah.

So it was like the director was this real... Anyway, I don't want to speak negative of anybody. He had a particular energy that it's all going to happen by itself, which actually it can't. But it was funny. It was a funny movie to work on.

It really was. I enjoyed it. Yeah, William seemed to like it, too. He still had good memories, even though he talked about breaking his ankle like the first. Day of shooting.

Yeah, yeah, foresight did. And then he did the rest of the movie with his leg in a cast. And I'm sure he was on pain pills because you don't ride a motorcycle with a cast. You just broke your ankle and not have a pain pill or two. He's a good guy at foresight.

He really is. He's a really good guy. But again, you know, this is what I'm talking about. You know, we're all trapped in the same generation. Yeah.

You know, really, you, me, everybody that's listening right now or interested right now. And if you have a good experience, you never forget it. The reason I'm in the business really is keeping me in it. is people, the people and the adventure. I mean, I'm not that concerned about becoming... A lot of things happen externally, out of your control.

But why I'm there is I really enjoy the adventure of it. Yeah. Well, and just to get back to the book, I was going to ask, I mean, you've been working through all this and your whole life experience up to this point. What was it? Was there one. key moment that made you decide to sort of put it all down in written form.

Or well yeah i mean you know inevitably somebody will ask you you know i've been asked three or four times about writing a biography and i and i always said no it's not over yet you know and i and i didn't really have any way of trusting the people that asked me at first you know yeah and and one of the things that happened the reason i wrote this one now at this particular time was Joe Madre is a co-writer, and one of the things that happened was he had written Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue, and it was a documentary on genre films from the beginning, American genre films, horror films from the very. Beginning of our. Making horror films. And he wanted me to narrate it. They called my agent and asked if I would narrate it, and so I did.

And in the process of narrating it, we became friends. You know, we were talking a lot. And afterwards, him and I, after that was done, and it's. Out, by the way. It's a really good DVD.

It's a terrific documentary. It's called Nightmares in Red. White, and Blue. But anyway, we became friends. And after about a year of knowing him, we were thinking of writing some projects together, you know, working on either a film or something for the History Channel.

I wanted to do a kind of blasphemous series on pottery to get people really understanding what it was. And I was going to call it Lick My Bowls. That should usually, I'd say that would get people's attention, yeah. That would get your attention. I think so.

And it was really, you know, the philosophy behind it was when you're eating off of a white plate, which everybody seems to do, It's equivalent to eating out of your kitchen sink or off your toilet bowl because it's not... There are so many beautiful ways of making pottery where the food looks wonderful and everything and everybody settles for sanitary-looking foodware, which I think is hideous. But anyway... Boring. That was the philosophy behind it.

We were going to go travel the world pretty much and show different potters and their eccentric lives. But anyway.... That's still in the process, really, at the back of our minds. But Joe finally came to me and said, would I write a biography? Would I be interested in working with him doing a biography?

And I said, I'll tell you what, I'll do it. But if we get halfway through and it's mediocre, or I'm not telling the truth, or it's full of lies and bullshit, I... Excuse me, I didn't mean to do a curse on your show. Oh, you can. It's fine.

But I said, we'll throw it out. Never look back. We'll just throw it away. And he said, okay, it's a deal. And we worked on it, and we got it. halfway through and realized that this thing is writing itself now.

It took a lot of work to get started, but once we got into it, it turned out really well. So that's how that happened. What was the process itself? You say you were just sort of storytelling? No, we were.

Well, we would spend hours every day and record stories and incidents and everything else, and then Joe would write it, and we'd get together again and go over it and over. It and over it. And it was a wonderful process, and it worked out very well. Look, the main thing is I have no pretensions of being a writer. I am a storyteller, but I'm not a writer.

Because I think in pictures and most writers think in words. That's a different breed. Because of my lack of education, I had no desire to be a writer. There are some things in life that you really don't want to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. In other words, if you don't hold out one thing or two things in your life that you don't do that you can enjoy, you're really... you know, putting yourself into the corner of the room.

You know, it's not. Life has got to feel a bit sweeter than having us all have to do everything. It doesn't work that way. Yeah, definitely. You know, so I was very happy to have that experience.

It's changed me, for sure, to have gone through it. I think everybody should write a biography, whether you publish it or not is another thing, but it would be good to know yourself. You've mentioned having, you know, sort of seen things visually. Has it ever... wanted to take you to the other side of the camera a little more and get into more directing? I think it's almost too late for that for me.

I know there's one movie I'm going to be doing that I will direct and I'll be in it. I want to make a film on George Orr. He was a potter back in the 1800s in Biloxi, Mississippi. And his life was just incredible. I think it is a very poignant film.

So, I will be doing that. There's no doubt about it. I'm working toward. It. It all takes time, but it will happen.

I would like to see what you do once you get behind the camera. That sounds pretty good. It's another adventure. I'm not afraid of anything. There are a few things I'm afraid of, but in terms of the arts, I'm not afraid to indulge in whatever that adventure is.

Definitely. That will happen. I guess in looking back and putting the book together and just everything, is there sort of a grand message? Is it something you've learned from all of this that you would want to pass on to, I guess, just people in general or just actors and writers? My suggestion would be read the book.

Well, yeah, of course. Read the book and you'll know. You'll have the answer to that question. That's a rough question, you know, you just asked. Yeah, it's a huge.

You. Want me to sum myself up? Okay, I'll try. But. But the book really, it doesn't sum me up, but it certainly has some ideas that I'm really happy to pass on.

You know, a really interesting thing happened. I was on a plane flying back from Atlanta, and I got in a conversation. I was flying first class coming back, and a business analyst guy was sitting next to me, and He seemed to be affable, and so we talked a little bit. I told him what I was doing in Atlanta, and I had brought my books. He said, well, what's the name of your book?

And I told him, and he took his. iPad out and ordered the book right. On the plane and was sitting there reading it while I was sleeping. Wow. And I said, And I woke up and he says, you know, it's a really interesting book. He had almost finished it by the time the flight was over.

The guy was sitting there reading my book. sitting right next to me on a plane, a guy that I didn't even know. Now, that's an experience, buddy. And then he'd never heard of it when he got on the plane. No, he didn't know anything about it. It's a different world just in the last five or six years.

It's changed so drastically. Oh, yeah. I mean, talk about being part of a tribe. My God, we're sitting in an aluminum tube. You know?

Where we used to sit around a campfire talking about our lives, you know, and we're on an aluminum tube and he orders it up on a, you know, ones and O's screen and he finds out the most intimate things about my life and looks at me and says, that was interesting. That's his comment. And I wanted to say to him, what do you mean interesting? Tell me what you, what's your reaction? I hope you haven't shit yourself.

I mean, Now that's a drastic reaction. Yeah. Oh, it's really funny. Life is funny, man. Well, aside from the book, is there a future project you want to tell people about?

Oh, yeah. I have a movie that I'm going to be doing called Ambush. An amazing thing happened. We shot the first 20 minutes so that the director. Who wrote it.

Could raise the money to do the movie. And when the script came in, the first 20 pages of the script, my agent called me and said, Lance, you've got to do this. You've got to read this thing. And he got it to me. It all took place within an hour.

The guy sent it to my agent. My agent read it. My agent called me and said, you have to do this. You've got to read it. So he emailed it to me, and I read it.

And I said, oh, I don't care what they offer for me to do this. Let's do it. So we went and shot it, and then he cut it together. It is the opening, absolutely the opening of the film. And so some time has gone by, maybe five or six months, and he entered it into a film festival, a short film festival.

And now remember, this is only the first 20 pages of the movie. And suddenly, with this thing that was almost perfect, it had the titles, it had everything, And we won the festival. And this was only meant to be a teaser to see what the movie was going to look like because of the character I was playing. We won that festival. Now it's going to try to be in Sundance and everywhere else.

And he's going to raise the money for the movie based on this thing. And I was blown away by that. I never heard of it. Somebody doing a trailer and winning a film festival. Starting to see that, though.

There's a couple of directors lately that, yeah, they do a short film that ends up online, and then a year later somebody's funding a new project that's pretty much them. This wasn't online. This was a tangible film festival where a lot of people were involved in it. So that's one that's happening, and the other one is an Australian director. I did a short in Australia called Message from Fallujah.

And it was basically an anti-war short. And we won the Los Angeles Short Film Festival with that. And he got a prize and all this stuff. And we stayed, our relationship stayed during and after that. And now he's come to the States with a movie called Michigan Turnpike.

And we're going to try to be shooting that by the spring. There's a lot of stuff going on. I have Another thing that's happened, and we've already shot it, is called Bring Me the Head of Lance Henriksen. Nice. And it's a movie about ageism in the industry, where it's a comedy, really, and it's all improvised, the whole thing.

And it's about this main character who's played by Tim Thomerson, who every time he goes up for a job, I've already got the job. Yeah. You know, I've got an offer that's already out to me, and I have to decide whether I want to make the movie or not. And it frustrates him so bad he becomes a stalker. Because he wants to find out how the hell I do it.

I can see that coming out of Tim. Yeah, it's very funny. It's very funny. We've shot it. My hope is that it becomes a half-hour comedy series on Showtime or HBO.

Yeah, it's... because it's got language and it's all improvised, you know, Adrian Barbeau's in it, all these wonderful actors are in it, John Saxon, you know, it's about, it's really about ageism in the industry, you know. It's got that inside Hollywood thing that's sort of down the zone, yeah. It's more like the personal stories, you know, the personal frustrations of people and they're really talking about things that, that, here we go again, resonate with them, you know. So, Sounds good, too. Yeah, you've got a lot of good stuff in the works.

Oh, hell yeah. Everybody does, every actor that's ever walked on the stage. Other than that, yeah, I guess after Scarefest, is there any other stops you're going to be making that you wanted to get out there to people or tell them where to look for you later. In the year? I like to do things one at a time.

I'm going to be going to Worcester, Mass., and then down to Orlando, and then... the book tour is over. I'll have done almost 12 shows. By the time I'm done with this, I'll have been across the country 20 trips. That's too much in two months. Yeah, that's a lot of travel.

Yeah, I've been to Toronto and Chicago and all over the country. It's just incredible. And I'm tired of flying, because I'm tired of getting on an airplane and watching everybody reading my book on Kindle, Nook, and iPad. Oh, that's not too bad, though. Get more people reading that book.

Once again, the book is not bad for a human, and tell everybody to go out there, and even if they don't catch you on the rest of this tour, go out and buy it or download it and get reading it. Yep. Yep. We're running the only books I'm bringing are the limited edition they're hardbacks and they're by the way all the art in it are some of the best comic book artists in the world I mean Sinkevich and Ashley Wood from Australia and Eric Powell and all of these you know Mandrake is in it you know all these great artists decided they wanted to be in my book so rather than I wanted to make the book more accessible to fans and to people. So rather than using publicity shots from movies, all of these guys did their choice of the film, and they did a beautiful drawing, and they're all in there.

And oddly enough, none of them picked the same movie. You've got a lot to work from, so yeah. Yeah, I know, and they did beautiful work. You see the cover of that? Sienkiewicz, he did that.

That portrait sounds good. Pretty cool stuff man I have an attitude of gratitude about all of it believe me that's my life. That's the way I live well we will send everybody out there to go look for it so yeah there you go buddy I guess thanks for talking with us today okay my. Friend Potter, hear the clay. Say, mow me in thy way.

That I may share this love and steal in me. With skillful hands perform the task. Just like thee, Lord God. Tweaked Audio, your source for high-performance, noise-reducing earbuds. Available in three styles and seven colors, durable and designed to sound great for both music and those chatty podcasts, like the one you're listening to now.

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This is William Forsythe. This is Sly Stallone and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. That's what we need. We need you doing other people. That's it, man.

That's it, man. You know. Sean Comrade. This is William Forsythe and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. Thank you.

All right, we are back with our special guest this week, Mr. Pat Kilbane. I guess we can do a little intro on you first off. I don't know, where would you like to begin? How far would you like to go back?

Oh, well, most people know me from MADtv. I was on there three years, and I was in a Seinfeld episode, The Bizarro Jerry. I was Bizarro Kramer. Legendary episode. Yeah, I was in the Manhands episode also.

Nice. That was fun. And I've been in a... A handful of movies. There's an Evolution, Semi-Pro, Day of the Dead.

I did an episode of My Name is Earl that I had a great time with. I was a world champion grocery bagger. I remember that. We had the grocery duel, Karate Kid style. I had to juggle apples and all this stuff to show my prowess.

I've recently written a zombie book called The Brain Eater's Bible, which is a book by zombies. By a zombie for zombies. It's kind of a combination of self-help book and instructional manual for killing and eating people. So it's the opposite of the survival guide. Yeah, kind of.

It's how to work the other end. Right. In worst-case scenario, if you get infected. Nice. And that's why I'm here at Scarefest, talking about the book and all that.

Working the horror end of it. Correct. Um you've been doing stand-up too i know you did you have sets last night you. Said yeah yeah i've been doing shows here in town during scare fest so it makes for long days you know you do radio in the morning and tv and then you come to the convention and then at night you know a couple of shows and. Then some idiot makes you do a podcast yeah wow how about that unforgivable that's usually how it goes so yeah so how was the stand-up.

It was great you know i think attendance suffered some from the ball game which was the football game was huge here in town you know but uh um yeah great crowds definitely comedy off broadway is a it's a great independently owned club so i always have fun. There cool yeah did you guys have any random questions or i think we're all big uh jason lee fans how was he on the uh on the set with my name is earl. Very gracious yeah jason was really nice guy and everybody was and it's funny how um you can kind of tell the The attitude on the set always comes from the top down. So if there's a jerk at the top, then everybody's disgruntled. And you know that you're not going to have a good week there.

But yeah, from the beginning, everybody was really nice. Greg Garcia, who's the executive producer, he's the guy who hired me, really kind. And they were all very open to You know, my adding lines and, you know, making suggestions and stuff. And, you know, as an artist, you want that. You want to be able to contribute.

So, yeah, that was fun. A little background noise from the convention. Yeah, really. No telling. There's no problem.

I guess, is semi-pro probably your most screen time? That's a pretty decent role. Well, you know, screen time-wise, probably Meet Dave. Yeah. So I don't know how you want to calculate screen time, like the number of people who have seen it, you know?

That's a different, yeah. Or the amount of actual minutes, you know? But, yeah, in Meet Dave, I played the weapons officer on the starship that. Is this person. That is Dave.

Yeah, Dave is the starship. And after spending some time on Earth, this really straight-laced military type discovers he's flamboyantly gay and gay. You know, it takes on a whole different personality. So I really had to do kind of two completely different characters. And, yeah, so it was an exercise for me acting-wise.

I got to do a lot of stuff and had a lot of screen time. But then almost nobody. Not just nobody almost. Nobody that hit at the point where everybody started to really dislike eddie murphy it's like he had this wave and it's like he hit this lull and it's weird that now they've handed him the oscars because right it yeah within the last few years outside of shrek it's like seems like nothing he's done has been well received so yeah i. Don't know i mean you know nutty professor yeah it's just yeah i caught part of that on tv a few days ago and And he really is really good at it.

I mean, you know, kind of the subtle emotional moments he plays as the, I don't remember what the names are, the fat version. The clumps or something, yeah. I mean, he's really good. And the guy is just a comedic genius, like bonafide. He's got it and, yeah, was kind of doing weird things with it.

But, yeah, even if you watch him in that, like that was my favorite part is him outside of his, you know, wearing tons of makeup, which is almost overdone anymore. Yeah. He's really good at that performance he's really good at just being kind of subtle and this shy character and then when he's himself he's really not likable and great that's supposed to be but it's funny how much you like him as the other guy. Right yeah he is good at that yeah definitely so yeah, I don't know what the disconnect is there. You know, some of the stuff's great and some of it's not.

But, yeah, the magic is there inside somewhere, you know. So hopefully it kills the Oscars. Yeah, right. And then, I guess, Semi-Pro, what was that? I mean, how much training did you have to do going into that?

Oh, that was, um, I mean, I'm not a big basketball guy. You know, I had enough training. I can dribble and I can shoot like believably. You can fool people if you're tall. Right.

And that was, that was most of it, you know, tall plus funny, narrowed it down to a very small field of guys that could play this role. You're going to start specializing in basketball. Yeah. You know, it's funny early on in my career. I think, uh, for a while, like four out of five things that I'd done were basketball and, you know, I, I played a basketball player on Arliss.

I did some PlayStation commercials that were basketball. I did a movie, The New Jersey Turnpikes, that never became even DVD. That's how bad that was. But, you know, that was basketball. I'm like, wow.

I never really played that much to be getting all these basketball roles. But, yeah, so for semi-pro, I think we had three weeks of camp, you know, where we had to learn all the plays that would be shot in the movie. And. You know, they brushed us up on our passing and dribbling skills, just get our legs back acquainted with the hard court and stuff. And, yeah, I was soaking in buckets of ice.

You know, like big tubs of ice up to my knees every night after practice. It's like not a good thing to do, like in your late 30s, to suddenly start running up and down the hardwoods. for many hours a day. Yeah they usually don't take up pro sports that late. Yeah not a good idea plus we wore like when we were shooting we wore the vintage shoes oh nice you know which have almost no padding in them. Chuck Taylor's I think I'm wearing them now yeah right there's.

No padding designed to blow your ankle out. If you happen to play in them yeah it was fun I mean it was like fantasy camp for basketball it's like I'm playing basketball with Will Ferrell and Andre 3000 and Woody Harrelson and a couple of guys from the NBA, and it doesn't get better than that. Are there special rules, no technical fouls on Will Ferrell? Yeah, they did. He was the $ 20 million man, so it's like you're definitely not supposed to go too hard on him.

I think D. Ray Davis, who played one of the guys on the Tropics, the Flint, Michigan Tropics, which is Will Ferrell's team, I checked him, uh you know that you do the what do you call it um picking you know when you pick you know you basically place your body as an instruction in front of somebody and we were we were rehearsing and i just i was too overzealous and i just laid my shoulder right into his mouth and i just felt so bad because it was just rehearsal even it's like you don't do that while the camera's rolling let alone rehearsal I felt bad. He might have even left teeth marks on my shoulder. I hit him that hard. But fortunately it didn't bleed.

I'm really method. I've got to do this. I was playing a really mean guy, so I felt I had to. I had to bring up something extra. Nice.

I don't know. Other than if you had anything else on Mad TV. I've heard different stories from different people that were on it over the years. I didn't know if What your take on it was? Yeah.

Well, I mean, you know, there are a lot of different perspectives. I mean, there are a lot of different subjects. On which you can have a take as far as Mad TV. I feel like quality-wise, it was great the years that I was there and could have been even better. And I think that's something I always struggle with as an artist.

You know, it's like you kind of see where things are and then you see the potential for where they could be. And then. frustration is everything in between. And I felt like, especially. In 1999, when we were really at the peak of our strength, and Saturday Night Live was really kind of in a lull, I thought we could take these guys. We could finally beat them ratings-wise.

But yeah, it's just. From a standpoint of the artistic decision-making at the top, they never wanted to get quite aggressive enough to do that. Some of the more. Wilder sketches, the crazier stuff that would really get you talked about and noticed, they shied away from it. I feel like they didn't fully use the writing and acting talent they had.

That's not to complain. It was a great job. All in all, I felt like the show was great. It's not like it was a failing, but I did feel like there's a missed opportunity, a gold medal we could have had. It seems like the network was almost not making use of it either they they seem like they moved it around or they weren't promoting it or yeah because it's after a while even I was like wait it's still on this year and it seemed like they weren't even promoting it towards the end.

Of the run yeah they really didn't and you know Fox didn't own the show yeah and I don't know what you guys know about how that works but you know there are shows that are produced and owned by the network and then there are those shows that are produced by an independent production company that are then paid a license fee by the network And whoever owns the show is the one that gets all the gigantic residual money when something goes into syndication. So if the network doesn't own the show, they're always looking for something else that they do own that they can stick in there. And they're never fully invested in making that thing soar. So yeah, the promotion was always a little bit anemic. And I'm so tired right now, I almost said amoebic, you know, which wouldn't have.

Made a lot of sense. That would be an interesting show, too. What would that mean? But, yeah, and the budget was cut every year. So in spite of good ratings, you know, you think that if you keep your ratings, you should keep your budget.

At least still. But the budget went down and down and down. It would go the other way the longer you were on. Right, yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, so I guess by the time we were done, or by the time Mad TV was done, they were shooting basically in the wardrobe storage area of the sounds, like the whole rest of the sound stage where we used to do all our live performances. Somebody else was using that. Nice. And then just the hair and makeup and wardrobe area was now where they crowded in a little audience. Oh, God.

Yeah. Yeah. But the crazy thing is that they were talented, the kids were talented enough still to do it. Yeah. And it was still getting ratings.

You know, so, I don't know. It was an interesting beast. Very strange. Yeah. Well, I guess before we get into the movie, I'll let you go ahead and tell people where they can find you.

And what is, I guess, website is the best way to get a hold of you? Yeah. You know, find me on Facebook. It's facebook.com slash the Pat Kilbane page. Or TV's Pat Kilbane, depending on whether you want to be a fan or really be my friend.

That's how the world works. Whether you just want to like me or whether you want to really talk to me. Really be my friend. But, yeah, or patkilbane.com is the site where I kind of post about what I'm doing, science fiction stuff, musings and whatnot. Very cool.

So, yeah. All right. Go find Pat. In the meantime, we'll take a break here and be back with this week's movies. It's time to stretch and fetch.

See what's cooking at our refreshment counter. You'll find your favorite foods and beverages, plus many new goodies to tempt your appetite and add to your evening's pleasure. Everything's the finest quality. So treat yourself now. Music to talk to you about something very important today.

That's outside the cinema. I know a lot of you listening now enjoy the film world. Boy, outside the cinema covers all kinds of good films. If you're looking for the classics, perhaps you're looking for a good old Nazi film where the Nazis torture and rape everyone in sight. Or giant monsters crawl from the sea.

Or perhaps an Italian film where Edwidge Finish takes her clothes off for no apparent reason. Or renegade bikers just do whatever they damn well please. Perhaps even occasionally turn into a werewolf, then Outside the Cinema is your place to go. That's www.outsidethecinema.com. Outside the Cinema, your source for cult movie discussion.

It's time for Sofa Theater. I don't believe this. You guys throw me at the wolves and now you want. Me to go back out there? Forget it.

It's not my problem. Can I finish? No. There's no way. Ripley, you wouldn't be going in with the troops.

I can guarantee your safety. These colonial marines are very tough hombres. They're packing state-of-the-art firepower. There's nothing they can't handle. Lieutenant, am I right?

That's true. We've been trained to deal with situations like this. Fine, then you don't need me. I'm not a soldier. Yeah, but we don't know exactly what's going on out there.

It may just be a downed transmitter, okay? But if it's not, I would like you there as an advisor. And that's all. They're coming! They're breathing!

They're feeding! Aliens. Aliens. Aliens. Aliens.

Aliens. Aliens. Did you make it through the movie? No. What, Aliens?

I don't know what to tell you. I know. I'll just. It'll all work out fine. Yeah.

We'll carry the ball from. The alien denial of the human race. Just go with that. I mean, I've fallen asleep through many of the movies and still had a lot to say. That's true.

Even though I really had no idea. That's a good character. That's a specialty. How did you not make it to the end and just not like it? Oh, I just didn't watch it.

Master of the uninformed opinion. Funny story. There's really only one movie rental place in Louisville, and that's Wild and Wooly. And a couple months ago, Jessica, who wandered off, she rented Dolls. And forgot to take it back for like three weeks.

So now I owe Wild and Wooly like $ 400. Oh, no. Oh, that's so painful. Yeah. You could have gone to the store and bought 20 movies.

I know, I know. Here's a stack of dolls. There. I'm like, four dolls, really? Had to keep this movie for like a month.

Oh, Lord. Well, you can wing whenever you want to. Yeah. Otherwise, we are back with this week's Silver Theater feature. This week's Silver Theater feature is Aliens.

The year is 1986, director James Cameron. The plot, as usual, according to IMDb, and as usual, it's pretty bad. The planet from Alien has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, the rescue team has impressive firepower, but will it be enough? I don't think that does this movie justice.

I'm sorry. No, I don't think it does. I think a four-year-old wrote that. I'm sorry. It's a good thing whoever that person was didn't create the trailer because nobody would have seen it.

Yeah, really. That would be sad. That's the basic information. Spoiler alert, for the love of God, if you haven't seen this movie outside of Marlena, just go watch this movie because it's your own fault. It's amazing.

I'm sure we're going to spoil the hell out of it. All right, where would you guys like to begin? Well, we could talk about... Let's talk about it as a sequel. Yeah.

You know, vis-a-vis the original Alien, which I saw on your list. You guys have already talked about Alien. We did cover that one. It's been a while ago, but it's... Yeah, it's...

I think... It's weird to me how it does sort of, like, impressively follow suit, and you do sort of feel like it's the same universe and the same style and look, but takes on an entirely different feel and personality and... almost themes, I mean, it really becomes a different movie, and it becomes James Cameron's movie, but it's funny having to follow in the footsteps of, you know, a pretty impressive director in its own right. Yeah. Yeah, he really found a way, especially kind of an up-and-coming director at that time, to really make it his own, which was pretty impressive. Yeah, it was really brilliant, I thought, you know, and And I guess if you think of it like if there's a house with different rooms that you're decorating, and you want kind of one theme in one room and another theme in another room, they still have to go together.

They're different rooms, but they still have to kind of match enough that they don't feel like they're from a different house. And that's kind of what it seems like what he did. He carried enough threads through in terms of the look of things and the way it was shot and the colors. Yeah. But, you know, obviously made it a very different kind of movie.

You know, a much faster moving, kind of larger than life characters. Or, not unbelievable characters, but, you know, bigger characters, I think, than the very organic kind of types that you saw in the movie Alien. Kind of the opposite. I mean, they're all so subdued in Alien. And everybody is just like, another day on the job.

They're just sort of trudging along through space where this is, you know, kick ass, ready to... Chew up the scenery, Bill Paxton. Right, yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, you get some very big, yeah, personalities thrown in there. Right.

Yeah, I found that interesting that, you know, he did do some of it with, you know, the Marines, the Colonial Marines were kind of complaining about the day on the job and it's And the truckers in space thing that they did with Alien, you know, these just regular blue-collar guys kind of complaining about life. And he made sure to kind of include that, you know, the food is bad, everybody's tired, you know, all this stuff that's consistent with the military. You get a little of that. But, yeah, compared to, I mean, it's like half the movie in Alien, where this is like, you know, the first ten minutes with them, and then they're knee-deep in it. Right, yeah.

But, yeah, just awesome. I was really impressed. You know, I felt like he brought it up. just the right amount. Like you can't just, you know, he said he didn't want to just do the same thing again. You know, you have to escalate.

And yeah, going at them with firepower, you know, is kind of the next logical step. And it was exciting to see, you know. And the adding, you know, the pluralizing of it. I mean, it's like we've already seen the one lone alien on this, which again, it really is more of a horror movie. It's a haunted house in space with a monster waiting to jump out and get you the first time around.

This one becomes a battle, and it really is. I mean, by throwing all these other aliens into the mix, it changes the scenario. It changes the way that the horror element works. I mean, it really is more of you have to play on the suspense of, you know, the attack more so than just this one thing lurking around the corner. Right.

It changes that whole dynamic by adding all these other aliens to it. Yeah, James Cameron said that he basically, or maybe it was Gail Ann Hurd said, it's basically. A combat movie. That's what they wanted to do. And I think that it was 45 minutes before anything really happens in the movie.

But it doesn't feel like it. No, not at all. I mean, there are things that happen story-wise, but in terms of action. And anybody who's seen the first Alien knows how indestructible and deadly these things are. And so you're nervous waiting to see what happens when they first encounter them.

And there's that. Amazing chilling moment when Sigourney Weaver says to Newt, these people are soldiers, they're here to protect us. And she says, it won't make any difference. And it just chills up your spine as a viewer because you know how bad those aliens are. Yeah, just watching that, don't you think you'll be safer here with us?

She just shakes her head. It won't make any difference. It's frightening. Yeah, just awesome. Anyway, in a nutshell, it was exactly what a sequel called for.

And I think that was the failing of subsequent sequels. They tried to go backwards then. I think that's what hurt Alien 3 is you've got a battle with hundreds of aliens and then you're back to one again. It's like, well, we saw this. You can't just make it creepy again that.

Was in the 70s we've gotten past that now so yeah it's like we need something even more ridiculous so yeah then we get to aliens versus predators. But um yeah i think uh you want to talk about uh like production design a. Little bit yeah not visually yeah and and. Uh this is you know where i love james cameron is his attention to detail is just insane yeah and i i guess he's a gun guy you know and he likes to shoot guns and all that stuff and And the. Guns were just awesome.

Yeah. You know, I mean, the under-barrel grenade launcher, you know, so you've got an automatic rifle with a pump-action grenade launcher under it. It's just so butch. Or just the size of someone. Like, the one Vasquez is carrying is as big as she is.

Right, yeah. And she's still badass enough to carry it around. Right. But that thing is massive. Right.

Basically, it's just, you know, a squad machine gun. Usually it's manned by two or three people, you know, but just. That's the one Latina chick's carrying it around. She's a badass. Yeah, totally.

But, you know, if you look at something like, if you look at Halo, I mean, if you look at the dropships in Halo, if you look at the marine armor in Halo, the rifles, I mean, it's like James Cameron should be getting a residual check for all that stuff because he so nailed the idea of the military in space, a recognizable military in space that. it's been imitated many, many times thereafter. That's what I noticed even years ago was just not so much that it's a sci-fi movie or horror movie, but just how military it is. Like it, it plays almost better than a lot of like modern day war movies. Like it's almost a little more realistic in the way that it, you know, plays within the military mindset and the way that they operate than a lot of real movies.

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that, um, Yeah, and he's the kind of guy who would make sure that that's the case. Yeah, definitely.

He said there was some kind of ode to. Or a reference to the Vietnam War, and this was in the special features he talked about, how in Vietnam there was a technologically superior force that was invading the terrain of a technologically inferior force, but still the natives kind of won the day because they had the determination, they knew the terrain, and And that's kind of what happened with the aliens. But, well, he just did a hell of a job. And you know, that movie was, you know, it wasn't Star Wars in terms of, like, the box office that it did. Yeah.

But to this day, there are, like, colonial marine groups that make their own armor and they get together and have meetings. You see him at this place? Yeah. It's just, it's that cool. I see him walking around.

He really succeeded. Yeah. Yeah, totally. It's held up through the years. You know, another thing, I think, you know, we talked a little bit about the characters and how they're, you know, kind of bigger than.

What was in Alien. Yeah. But I still think he succeeded in making it organic. And, you know, everybody in the movie Alien you believed was a person, you know. Nobody was like soap opera actor guy.

You know, everybody looked like they were in the working world. And I feel like also with aliens, like, I don't know if you remember the woman who was the corpsman that was taking care of Newt and diagnosed her as having mild malnutrition and stuff. It's like she looked like a Marine. Yeah. You know, she wasn't some model chick, you know, that they hired and put armor on.

You see that happen a lot. All of that, yeah. They put, you know, people who are not believable in these roles. Or the pilot. The pilot behaved like a pilot.

She was kind of like a little badass. Even among them, she's like, yeah, I'm flying this ship. She had the shades on. She behaved very much like a pilot. It was pretty true.

And I can't help but believe that in someone else's hands you would have had people who just look like actors out of central casting or soap opera casting, like I was saying. Yeah, I guess for the sequel of The Thing, lots of banging doors here. You'd think a door would shut once and the noise would be done, but there's all kinds of special things happening. But, uh, uh-oh. The power tools come out.

Jesus. Here we are on the deck of the Sulaco. The power loader's coming out momentarily. We need to remote pilot the drop ship and get the hell out of here. But, yeah, I was just saying, with the movie The Thing, it was the same idea that they used people who were just really believable, organic, everyday people.

And I saw with the sequel, you know, I saw a couple of people they cast listed in the Hollywood Reporter, and I thought, no, you know, these people, you know, they're just beautiful people, but they just don't look like Arctic. Scientists, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it just didn't look like a fit. Well, for Aliens, yeah, that's what I think is another one of those things that's so impressive is the dynamic between everybody.

How quickly. I mean, with a lot of them, you're not even around them that long because they don't make it very long. But, like, between Vasquez and Drake, it's like there's the... I mean, you immediately pick up this chemistry that they have, and you kind of understand it without even having to spend, like, an hour building story or anything. It's just they found a way with almost all of them.

Like, you get who Hicks is right off the bat. You understand... how ridiculous Hudson is, right? And it's like everything sort of falls into place very quickly with those guys. And that's the beauty of great screenwriting is everything serves two purposes. They're giving you information about the story and they're telling you something about the people who are saying the words.

James Cameron really is really good at that. He doesn't waste any time. And I think it's the same with the power loader. It's like. That moment served two purposes.

When you first see Sigourney Weaver in the power loader, it demonstrates that she is looking for a way to fit in and that she is capable in trying to prove herself. But then at the same time, it introduces this piece of equipment. But because it served the first purpose, you're not expecting necessarily you're going to see it later, but lo and behold, this awesome piece of gear has a role to play in the last act of the movie. But, yeah, it so sets up and fits in with her character because she's never one to sit on her ass. And you see that as she gets thrown into the mix.

It's like as Gorman shuts down, like she immediately takes control. And really from that point in the movie, like even when Hicks is still technically in control, she will just start telling people what to do because it needs to be done. And, yeah, she's just– that is her character. And it does build such– a strong female lead that a lot of times you don't see, especially in sci-fi, that, yeah, Cameron's kind of known for, but, yeah, it's really well done through Ripley. You better just start.

Dealing with it, Hudson. Listen to me. Hudson, just deal with it because we need you and I'm sick of your bullshit. Now, I want you to get on a terminal and call up some kind of floor plan file. Do you understand?

Construction blueprints. I don't care. Anything that shows the layout of this place. Are you listening? Yeah.

I need to see air ducts. I need to see electrical access tunnels, sub basements, every possible way into this complex. We don't have much time. OK. I'm on it.

Hudson, just relax. Yeah, that's interesting. And it's a similar kind of an arc that she has in Alien, you know, where initially she's not the highest in command, but, you know, she's got these opinions, and eventually she's the one who's got to take matters into her own hands. And, yeah, she's, again, put in a subordinate position at the beginning and has to sort of. Rise to the occasion.

But, yeah, she takes control of the situation and kind of the screen. Like, watching how much she sort of just really, yeah, I mean, there's a reason she was nominated for that role. I mean, she really is amazing when she's just laying into Paul Reiser. Right, yeah. Like, that, good Lord, like, that is a harsh scene.

And it's like, oh, man. Yeah, she does a great job. You know, it helps that, you know, that she, I mean, she's six feet tall, I think. Yeah. You know, so talking to Paul Reiser, you know, you believe that she could pin him to the wall the way that she could.

Yeah, totally. That's another one of those that came out of nowhere, Paul Reiser. Like, again, somebody who, known for, even beforehand, and since has done not a whole lot of serious roles but is so good in that like yeah you want to be like oh no he's not going to work and like you're midway in and be like this guy like he's the most you know weasley you know company you know slave that you know doing exactly what the company wants him to do every turn and he's so good. At it it's like you know what's interesting i i don't know if he's a new york comic i think he's kind of out of that New York state. Yeah, things started in that area.

Yeah, with Jerry Seinfeld and those guys. Around that same time, yeah. But, yeah, there's something about being a comedian that, you know, you're two things at once. You know, you're likable in some ways, but you're not entirely trustworthy. You know, there's a certain mischief or an undercurrent of, you know, ulterior motive.

It's all a put-on. Something going on. Yeah, exactly. And I think that... that the. Comedian in him really transferred well into the insincerity of, like, this corporate guy.

And, you know, it's funny. I remember thinking that watching Boogie Nights, too, that Burt Reynolds in a lot of the roles he had played before then was kind of cheeky, you know? But it was kind of his undercurrent of insincerity that made him the perfect, like, paternal, like, porn producer. Yeah. You know, it's like he would say it sincerely, but there was something about him that just was like, wow, I don't trust this guy.

There's just something else going on here. That's a good producer in general, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, man. I think Burt Reynolds' Undercurrent of Insincerity is my next band name.

Oh, yeah, sweet. Lord. I guess going through some of the other people, Carrie Henn as Newt. And then I was just, I guess everybody at some point went, what happened to that kid? That was it.

Looking it up today, it's like that's the only thing she was ever in. It's the only movie she ever made. She's a school teacher now in California. Interesting. She's so good in it.

Right. Yeah, you'd think that, I don't know, any other kid would probably want to capitalize on that somehow and do something else. And she probably could have worked, you. Know, another couple of years doing stuff, but Um, yeah, I got to admire that really. You know, I feel that same way about Michael Schaeffling who after doing 16 candles and vision quest and those things, um, just said, you know what, man, I think I want to be a carpenter.

You know, I think I want to make things with my hands. And I remember seeing him being, seeing him interviewed and he said, you know, if I want to make a movie, I have to go and I have to audition. I have to get a part in this and that. But if I want to make furniture, I can just make it, you know? And And that kind of spoke to his inner artist, you know.

And so, yeah, I definitely got to give her props for, yeah, not thinking that being an actor is the greatest thing in the world. Because sometimes it's just not. That was probably a pretty tough shoot, though, too. She may have just been like, no, Mom, sorry, I'm out. Like, no more in the water, no more, yeah.

Right. Sliding down shoots and having to throw an alley. Covered with dirt. Totally, yeah. Having dirt.

Hudson yell at me Bill Paxson why don't. You put her in charge it's funny the dynamic between them because they're like at the same level it's like he behaves like a child she is a child but yeah he pretty. Much exactly the same character as the brother in Weird Science? It's just like they lift him out of that movie. And wasn't he like in a military branch?

They recruited Chet. Chet, we need you to be a colonial warrior. All right. Okay, we'll kick some butt. I can totally see that.

Oh man what else yeah they did a nice you know Jeanette Goldstein I guess uh who played Vasquez yeah um and apparently she was a bodybuilder you know at the time or a gymnast or something to where she already. Had that yeah she's got the look and um yeah. It's funny that I guess she's she's red-haired and Jewish and has light eyes so it's like contact lenses and hair dye and learn the accent and that's and all that stuff but Yeah, I know that part of what they're up against in England, again, this is all from watching special features on the DVDs, was that they need people who can do believable American accents. So they had to find people who were from the United States or Canada, oftentimes, to be able to do a convincing accent.

But what a treasure she turned out to be. She's so good at that. Just a badass. You really could. And then that's probably why I don't remember, because then I remember looking at her list, and it's like, she's in a ton of stuff.

She's done a lot of TV, and she's in Terminator 2, she's in Titanic, and she's the new foster mom for John Connor that gets taken out. Yeah, totally. But yeah, when I thought back, I was like, yeah, that's her, but God, that doesn't look anything like her. Right. It's interesting.

Yeah, exactly. The molecular acid oxidizes after the creature's death, completely neutralizing. Bishop, you know, that's very interesting, but it doesn't really get us anywhere, does it? Trying to figure out what we're dealing with here. Let's go through it again.

They grab the colonists, they move them over there, and they immobilize them to be hosts for more of these. Which would mean that there would have to be a lot of these parasites, right? One for each colonist, that's over a hundred at least. Yes, that follows. But each one of these things comes from an egg, right?

So who's laying these eggs? I don't know. I guess the, the main theme I noticed, I mean, again, that first one is so much just, you know, the isolation and playing on that. And then there's also the weird, and I've seen a lot of people go into this lately of how much blatant sexual overtones there are. And even they talked to the writer of the original alien and how much, a lot of that really was put in there on purpose.

That there really is a lot of, of, sexual overtones and and you know the whole violation of it and the violence that is involved with it so it's like that was a kind of a lot of weird overtones in that first one where this one it's almost all this like maternal instinct thing that like runs throughout it like you get that backstory of of ellen and her losing her child then because of this stupid mission and she ends up you know that's why she can't be a mother anymore they've killed her child thanks to this The last aliens basically did that to her. Of course, that's just in the extended version. Yeah. Well, she mentions it. I think in the original cut, she still has that line with Newt, and she still mentions it.

But, yeah, they put that... I was watching the special edition. Right. The special edition, and they actually do put that scene back in where they bring up the fact. But, yeah, she mentioned that she had a daughter, I think, even in the original cut.

So you at least know that that's there. And then how much... deeper it gets as she meets Newt and as she gets into that whole relationship and I guess even more so once you start tying in the queen at the end and you get this sort of mirror of both mothers protecting their children in this big battle and I don't know it seems very deep seated in this whole storyline of her maternal instinct and how she uses that to kick people's ass. Yeah that is interesting and you know if you think about it as an extension of the first movie of You know, if the first movie is about, you know, getting your ass kicked, you know, if it's about, you know, having, you know, your crew decimated and fleeing in panic.

And then, you know, then the second film is about, you know, it's about revenge, it's about fighting back, and it's about rebuilding, you know, like rebuilding in terms of your family, rebuilding in terms of. Making your psyche whole. And, yeah, you're right, that maternal, you know, that really is the nucleus. Of that, you know, protecting new people. Which makes it all the more crazy that Newt is just summarily killed at the beginning.

Of the next day. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. So I spoiled the next one. Well, again, nothing makes any arc sense by the next one.

You realize they went, oh, we've got to change all this. Because even if you follow, not that this has anything to do with the movie, but the Dark Horse comics picked up right where the movie started. the second movie left off just and continues on and newt grows up and becomes a badass alien killer and hicks is this like wounded one-eyed badass from back in the day killing alien and it's like this really cool story arc that i was hoping they were going with and you know for many reasons they couldn't do that so they had to like oh let's get rid of this and this so i mean again all these like pains that she goes to and this like ridiculous amount of trouble she goes to to save All these people, specifically Newt, is just totally useless by the next movie, in the first few minutes.

So, yeah, that's not really their fault in this movie. And again, even in the next one, a lot of that was out of their hands. It was just, let's work with what we have to work with. Yeah, it keeps spinning out into weirder places, for sure. But yeah, it does sort of change the story arc of the whole run of the series, which gets crazier as you go down it.

You want to talk a little bit about the. Aliens themselves yeah you know i think uh um you know one of the things i i think makes the movie timeless is that there isn't computer graphics in it yeah you know and um you know back then they didn't even have the technology to paint out cables for a stunt i mean there was nothing it's like what you shot is what you got and um i think it's just amazing that they're i mean if you think about the queen and the egg chamber and i mean the flamethrower and the explosions All of it practical. None of it created digitally. And I think that I still believe that work. I still believe Stan Winston's monsters are real.

And I think that a lot of stuff from the years that followed that used a lot of computer graphics, it doesn't hold up. I think that is what makes it still seem so. And I've said this before because I remember talking to the guy who did one of the suit monsters, like the main lead monster. And he's kind of like talking about being in the suit and being on the set and working with all the other guys, you know, all in suits. And I think it does make it feel real.

You get that sense of space that there is something in the room there with them. And I think that's what makes it scary. Right. Whereas you go to buy the third one, they just got into that point of CGI, and the third one has scenes of CGI running around Alien. Right.

And it's the first time you start to go, oh, and it doesn't feel real anymore. It feels like they're fighting a cartoon in this scene. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I think that is why it holds up so well, is there really, there's a presence there with them, and they are fighting against something in the room.

It may be fake, it may be a guy in a suit, but it's still, I think it makes it hold up a lot better that you've got something physical there to deal with. Yeah. I think that's true of The Thing as well. You know, all those amazing monsters, it's all practical and the stuff just looked great. I don't know, are they CG in this new remake?

Probably, yeah. I'm sure they are. It's going to be terrible. I don't doubt it. Oh, God.

I crossed my fingers the first one was so amazing. Yeah. But yeah, the design itself, I mean, I'm like a huge Giger fan anyway, so just the fact that drawing from that already gives you this look that nobody else has. It doesn't look like anything else that has ever taken place in science fiction before. And that's hard to do.

You know, I mean, you look how many years back to like the serials they've been doing sci-fi that after a while, everything starts to look the same, but this weird Giger biological look that comes into play is just, yeah, it's, it's, very different. And you see it copied subsequent to that yeah of course a lot of them species. And they bring him in to do it sometimes but oh that was his work species yeah they did at least hire him to do species yeah but it's i mean it still pales i mean she's a cool creature but it pales in comparison to the alien design so yeah i think that is another thing that sort of set it apart that had it looked like normal a different type of alien had these you know the visual effects look different in that first movie I don't know that it would have taken off and found its following for this one to sort of continue.

I think that's what set the first one apart was just going with that Giger design. Yeah, for sure. Get away from her, you bitch! One of the other weird scenes. I mean, we sort of touched on it.

I mean is that power loader fight not one of the greatest. Scenes of all time yeah just amazing I mean just amazing oh my god yeah you just don't I mean it just it takes the fist fight up to a whole yeah another place you know the idea of leveling the playing field with this awesome kind of effect you know thing that they created I mean just yeah just fantastic and I guess James Cameron designed that himself as one of the early things that he he drew you know and with his idea for the. Movie And then use it again in Avatar, essentially, right? Kind of, yeah. Oh, with those, yeah, yeah.

My question is, why aren't we using those now? Why don't I see those unloading docks? I mean, that's awesome. Seriously. I think they're getting close.

I saw on YouTube there's some guys in Japan who created some kind of a big thing like that. And I think it's completely without, I think it's all human-powered, too, so there's no. outside power source. I need to be walking around in one of those. Yeah, definitely. Oh, some guy just working at the grocery store, putting away like big boxes.

You need some soup, ma'am. Yeah, I could see that. And then from there, it's funny. We get the, almost that fake out ending thing that I've just, it's funny. If anybody should have known better, right.

Ripley, were you not in the last movie? Yeah, it almost follows suit. And like, just check the shit for god's sake but i mean it leads to that that awesome scene but it's funny that we get sort of that little moment of oh okay yeah it's good so yeah we we didn't learn anything from the first time around because we had that then too right but yeah. It's yeah and it does make you wonder okay you know how could they have succeeded with the third movie it's it's almost like you know godfather you know part one and part two it's like you know the there's almost nowhere to go from there unless you really kind of start over with a whole other idea. Which, again, they really didn't do.

By the third one, it's just sort of remaking the first idea again. The third one's okay. I mean, it's, again, got its strong points, mostly visual, because, again, each time they brought in amazing directors. Yeah. There's never, okay, until The Predator got involved, they've never done one that was not amazing to look at.

They have their problems, but they're all better than most bad sci-fi movies out there. Strong actors. Yeah, it's always kind of amazing what they put together, even the misses as they go on from there. Three and four or less, but still amazing directors each time. Right.

Yeah, totally. So there are some Aliens alums here this weekend, right? Oh, yeah. We talked to Lance. Did Jerry talk about that?

We talked to Lance. Did you talk to him about aliens? He brings it up a little bit. He talks about pottery more. Okay.

He really likes pottery. He's kind of a Zen guy. That's great. You've got to love that. Equally as much he talked about pottery as he did aliens.

But, yeah, he talks about it a little bit. And, yeah, it's funny how much he's known for that. I mean, he named his book after the line of the movie. He's still, like, he's made... probably a hundred movies at this point and he's still Bishop is like his main role which again I mean he's amazing like watching him try to be a non-human trying really hard to be a human you know it's like you can see there is that almost this like Pinocchio aspect thrown in there of him trying to be a real boy so hard and yeah it's interesting it's yeah it's funny that he he pulls it off so well that obviously it's yeah it's still following him around now that yeah all this time later, it's still the main thing people kind of know him for.

Yeah, he's, you know, he's got an incredible quality about him that seems, it's like a knowing quality, you know, and even if you watch him, even if you watch him back in Dog Day Afternoon, when he's not just a cop or an FBI agent, you know, when he, you know, dealing with the hostage situation, there was something about him that just seemed very wise and knowledgeable, and he was probably a pretty young guy back then, but, But then, you know, again, as Bishop, you know, you feel like there is some, he knows something I don't. And it's not just information. It's some kind of a philosophical understanding. Yeah. You know, and yeah, he was just a perfect choice.

And kind of the red herring of the whole thing. I mean, after the first movie, you're going in and Ellen, very much so, is like, I don't trust this guy. You know, the whole, you know, it is almost like her having her prejudice, their whole type prejudice. are bad and I can't trust them and yeah so it's him sort of redeeming the the synthetic world for her and kind of yeah showing that you know that was a one-off and due to the company so yeah it's. And you know that's another quality that uh that Lance Hendrickson has is he's he's definitely I mean um yeah there's there's something definitely and I'm trying to use a A gentle word. I don't know.

There's something potentially menacing. There's kind of a potential darkness that you see. But at the same time, there's a gentleness. So, you know, it would have, I mean, putting anybody else in that role would have been tough because you wouldn't have been able to do the double duty. That comes through massively.

I remember watching Pumpkinhead at one point. And at the beginning, you see him with this little kid and being a dad. And it's like it's one of the few times I'm like, wow, like he's really convincing it just being this loving father and like getting along with this child. And then by the end, he's just in vengeance. Yes.

So, I mean, yeah, he does play both of those so well. Right. It's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. And so he has those two, and then Paul Reiser kind of has those two.

Yeah, duality going on. Yeah, and they just swap in terms of what our expectations are, and who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. And then, I guess, working in both of those, I think it is one of those things that I think is most interesting, and not just a, I noticed in the first movie, and it becomes the theme of the whole series, really, is that the aliens aren't really the ultimate evil. company yeah people basically become like and she says it there i mean you don't see them fucking each other over you know for money right so it's like no matter what as evil as these creatures are it's like their basic again like they say their animal level of evil like the most devious ultimate evil is still the company the man that's like running everything and pulling all the strings and every time out, it seems like, finds a way to kind of screw over Ripley, usually, so.

Right. Yeah, it's funny that that becomes the ultimate evil, more so than the alien in the title role. It's the ultimate evil. Right, yeah. And, yeah, and the alien, too.

I mean, initially, wow, what an awesome thing that was with, you know, Mother and the computer, you know, kind of giving the order to go there, waking everybody up, you know, just. All in the name of money, risking lives, whatever it takes. And this time we get a human face doing it. Then you've got Burke that specifically told the colonists to go there. You've got him riding along like he's face to face with these people that he's just selling down the river and at some point killing, setting up traps to kill them.

He plays it almost, when you think about it, he's even more evil than he comes off sometimes. He just seems weaselly at times, but By the time you get to the sabotaging, the freezers, and let loose the alien facehuggers so that he can sneak them back through quarantine, I'm like, this guy's horrible. Yeah, just completely amoral. Yeah. Just wants money and wants to save his own skin, and that's it.

Yeah, he's such a bastard. And plays it so well. Yeah, for sure. Gotta give him credit. It's inside the complex.

No, no, it ain't you. You're inside, inside the perimeter. They're in here. The signal's weird. Must be some interference or something.

There's movement all over the place. I think it's just amazing the way that it plays with tension. I mean, the scanners is an addition from the first one. Right. Oh my god i mean if ever there was something good that got worked into it that they found a new way to take something that's already kind of scary of something coming to get you right and then have this like digital readout telling you oh they're almost here they're almost ready to get you we can't see them yeah even more so when you can't see them which is pretty much always the thing i mean they they blend into the the walls they're under the ceiling tile i mean it's yeah they always find a way to not be in front of you and yet be right there and it's Yeah, that's kind of amazing, the way that they play with that tension.

Yeah. It's unbelievable to me, really, that whole story about whichever reel of it it was, whichever film reel they cut completely, which basically showed the infection spreading on LV-426. And they decided to make it really just kind of like the thing where they're exploring the aftermath and having to figure out what happened. Yeah. And, yeah, that tension, it just would have been completely gone if they hadn't have cut that reel.

Because, yeah, the special edition, they put that, like, you get Newt before she's, you know, you see a normal Newt. You see her dressed in her regular clothes with her brother that she talks about. Yeah, that all got cut. I remember it was gone. But, yeah, when I just watched the special edition version, yeah, all that's back in.

And it does change the dynamic. Like, it really, it does almost play better now. there's stuff i like seeing as like a film geek i love seeing that footage but at the same time sometimes i'm like yeah i kind of like where it cut the first time you know i kind of like where i saw it in theater that's still almost the best version really i like the other footage even the things with the automatic guns is kind of cool but you can see why they took it out it just adds another 15 minutes in there that you probably don't have to have so yeah just. Yeah it doesn't serve enough yeah It slows things down. So I think you're right. I think that probably works better not knowing.

Having seen both of them now, I think it does play better with that just being thrown in there like the Marines are and just sort of like, we don't know what we're up against. Yeah. So it's interesting. And I think, you know, it also adds a, you know, there's that layer of, it's like what I call now me or me now. You know, if.

Somebody else has met a terrible fate and now you're sort of, in that place or investigating their footsteps and now those things are happening. There were all these bunkers. There were barricades that were built in the hallways and they were destroyed and the colonists were killed. and now the Marines are building barricades in the hallways, and it's like, oh my God, now that, or now me? Yeah, they're like, oh look, this is where they welded the door shut, this is where, and then 20 minutes later they're doing the same thing. They're welding the door, yeah.

It's like, you know this didn't go well the first time, right? Probably not going to hold well for you guys either. Yeah, exactly. Otherwise, yeah, that's probably it, so I guess that will wrap up Aliens. Anything else you need to pass along?

Tell people where you'll be again? Other than what you already did? I'm not sure where I'm going to be. I'm disoriented. But I know I'll be at Long Beach Comic Con at the end of October.

And again, that'll be with the Brain Eater's Bible. So, yeah. Awesome. Yeah, that'll be fun. And if you haven't seen Aliens...

See it. You should have already watched it. What the hell are you thinking? Sorry about that. But yeah, if nothing else, we'll find Pat online and get a hold of him, see where he's going to be next, and go get the book and watch him on the next project he's got coming up.

Thank you for being here. Thanks for talking with us. Sure. Can I get a hammer on? For Jim Cameron The greatest director in the world Can I get.

A hammer on? For Jim Cameron The greatest director in the world He gave. Us Turbinator It. Was hotter than a radiator Switched to the highest temperature setting Then he made a monster smash. With aliens all over the Gap And Sigourney Weaver kicking lots of ass Can.

I get a hammer on? For Jim Cameron The greatest director in the world. Can I get a hammer on for Jim Cameron? The greatest director in the world. Don't be shy.

Just let your feelings move on by. Don't be shy. We'd like to hear from you. So give us a call at 502-365-5565. Or you can email us at geeksatmoviemeltdown.com.

And just stop by the website for our frequent updates. That's moviemeltdown.com. On by, on by. On by, on by. That's part of your problem, you know.

You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. And now, on with the show. Out of the darkness and into the light Alien presence in sight How do. We stop them?

What can we do? No one is safe here tonight Why do they want us? What do they need? Maybe they can't. Even breathe Resistance in Newtown, there's nowhere to run Maybe they want us to bleed Demons have risen and took to the air They have us all in their sights.

We have to stop them, there's no turning round. We have to put up a fight Help all the wreckers in flying machines No one is safe underground Divine madness pervading the world Fire and death all around A.M. Aliens come here Aliens Aliens come here Aliens Aliens inside Aliens. All right, we're back. I would say, what do you think of the festival, Marlena, but you didn't really see any of it this weekend.

It was exactly like all the other festivals that I've been to. You usually sit outside of them at a table while they turn the lights off and make a lot of noise. All right, well, you had a special experience. Hey, I didn't get to see that big creepy thing with the bloody jaws and the person inside it. It's like a hover around with like a monster on it.

Missy took a picture with that this year. I love that thing. It's a critter, by the way. Oh, okay. It's a giant motorized critter.

But it's got a hover around. I guess, but it's just a big version of a critter. Yeah. It's a very large critter. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, I like it. So you were actually in there at some point. What was your take on the festival? I love it. I'm a Scarefest junkie at this point.

This is my second year. I think it's fantastic. I think it's an amazing thing for Lexington. Yeah. And they put together a show.

That's what I was telling one of the guys that runs it earlier. I was just like, you've You know, you put together a good show, especially to be where we are. It's like it's kind of hard to compete with other. Cities out there. I mean, there's a lot of them, especially in this area.

There's a lot of shows out there. So to put together something that. can compete with those and can bring in real names and can run a really good show. It's a big challenge at this point. So they've done a good job. And plus there's so many of these things now.

There's one like every month in a different city. We keep going to them. I mean, essentially, like, they're pretty much the same. Pretty much the same vendors. Like, I know the vendors just by looking at them.

I do too. Like, I see them walking and I'm like, oh, hey, it's the guy that sells like the decapitated head things made. Out of clay. Several of them I talked to today. I'm like, hey, how's it going?

You going to be there next month? See you there. Yeah. It's just like I see these people more than I see most people in my family, which is okay. But, you know, it's true.

It's true for me, too. It's our lifestyle now. We wander the countryside and talk to movie people with the same other random gypsies that travel around the country. Hey, you know what. We should do?

We should invest in a movie meltdown like Gypsy Trailers. As long as you pay for this thing, I'm all for it. I've been trying to convince, like, Jessica and my boyfriend and everyone I know that we need to chip in and get, like, a 1960s Winnebago. I want an Airstream. And, like, redesign it.

Well, Airstream is really expensive. I know. That's why I want one. A Winnebago is, like, within our, like, range, I think. Well, I mean, not really, but if we were to save up for it over time.

But, you know, and, like, redesign it. That could be. Our, like, meltdown. No, all I want now is a van. Just a big, creepy van.

Because after we were recently compared to the, our meltdown gang was compared to the Scooby gang. I was like, oh, my God, I need a mystery machine. I need a meltdown machine. Did you used to have one of those that you had to, like, put a rock behind the tires so it didn't roll away? No, that was a rental that I had.

But, no, this one, yeah, I had a big creepy murder van, and it almost killed Misty one time. That was a funny story. She doesn't think it's funny, but I think it's a funny story. And, yeah, so I want one of those again, and I want to be able to paint it with the logo on the back, and we can have the Meltdown machine. And I need a Hanna-Barbera cartoon about it.

If we can, it's animated, I know. But see if we can get that put together. We'll see what we can do. Kickstarter. That's how you do things now.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, Kickstarter. Okay. Okay. You guys get on it.

Let everybody else pay for it. I've got to edit all this stuff together. You guys work on this part. You work on getting us a cartoon in a van. That's what we need.

Oh, Lord. So, with that. On segue, thank you to Scarefest for letting us loiter around, which. I did a lot this weekend, mostly behind me and Thompson. But anyway, that wasn't my fault.

I had to stand back there until... Anyway, never mind. It's a long story. So, yeah, we had a good time and got some interesting interviews out of it and got a really cool segment with Pat. So, yeah, I enjoyed myself this weekend.

So, thank you to Scarefest. Go to thescarefest.com and you can... Plan for next year, and you can probably stay at this hotel. That we're loitering in right now. Probably get yourself a deal on next year already.

So go ahead and plan ahead. Anything else we have this week to round things out? No. I would tell you to get your decoder rings out, but I don't even know what the hell is coming next week. So we'll see what happens.

There's actually something in the works. Could be awesome. possibly a special guest, but I'm not going to commit to it yet. So we'll see how that works out. Maybe you'll get lucky. Otherwise, that about does it.

We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Bye.

DUMMIES! We still have our power with the sound here. Yeah, we're batteries, so we're all good. Yeah, we're going to play some music. No, I remember the scene from the movie.

Oh, yeah. They cut the power. They're just animals, man. You can't cut the power. Okay, we're all going.

To die soon. Game over, man. Game over. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown. Produced and edited by the Oddity Studios.

With opening music performed by the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!