151: Blockbuster Desolation

Yeah, I know one guy who actually works at a video store. Oh, I'll save it for when we're recording. Yeah, we'll get to that. Oh, he's always recording. Oh, excellent.

The following program is a proud member of the Palava family of podcasts. Check out all the shows over at palava.com. That's P-A-L-A-V-A dot com. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.

It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out. One million kilowatts of power. To provide more cooling in the containment chamber.

To your sentries, we have a movie meltdown. What bus does it shut down? Way down among Brazilians, coffee beans grow by the billions. So they've got to find those extra cups to fill. They got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.

What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. I'm Fred. I'm Greg. And this week we have two extra guests with us.

I wouldn't say first time for either, really. We have Steve, which you have to go back a ways. Other listeners, aside from Greg, I don't know if they'll go back that far, but if you were back a long time ago, you may remember Steve from the Stranger in the Video store. Yes, I'm back, and I'm reformed. We couldn't get rid of you.

And, um. I'm really sorry about last time. I really. Screw it. No, I'm not sorry.

That's okay, because the last time. You deserved it. The last time I didn't post that one, so there. Oh, it was that bad. That's how bad that one was.

But the time before that, slightly more recently, he was actually there for the indie horror films episode. We did a special indie horror double feature. That I don't apologize for that. No. Zombie cheerleading camp.

You ripped those people apart. I hate you. I really hate you. In fact, I want to visit you in your dreams at night and rape you. Like Mantra?

I didn't mind Mantra, actually. Mantra was okay. I liked that. Zombie cheerleading camp really, really pissed me off. You took it upon yourself.

I know. It was all my words. This podcast has nothing to do. It was my personal opinion. And you know what?

You deserved it. Are you talking to the movie or me? I'm actually talking to the movie, particularly whoever made the movie. I don't remember who it was because I've wiped that part of my brain clean. That's actually what sent me into the therapy sessions.

And you cost me money, people. Is that the reason why we don't do independent films from shows anymore? We do, but we... It has many. We've backed off quite a bit, because I don't think it services anyone, really.

I mean, all it. Mantra was... I thought it was pretty good. It had. Again, all I remember was the trailer, but, I mean, it looked like it at least had some work put into it.

It did. It was well thought out. I'm not so sure about the other ones, but. I appreciate that. But, yeah, it's...

I really... I've been watching Walking Dead lately. Yeah. And each time I watch that, I do kind of flash back a little bit to zombie cheerleading camp, and I cry just a little bit. I haven't seen a cheerleader on that show yet.

Wait a minute. I've only seen the first season, so. It's pretty good. Oh, I won't spoil it for you. When they go to cheerleading camp.

Yeah, it was bad. It was bad. And I did have nightmares about zombies the other night when, after I, after I watched walking dead, but then I realized halfway through, they're not the walking dead zombies. They're the zombie cheerleading camp zombies. Because they couldn't follow any rules.

They'd walk in a room, they'd sit down, they'd watch TV and then they'd fall over. But then the next second they'd have super strength. Um, It was horrible. It was really, really terrible. Yeah, the inconsistency.

That was one of your favorite things. I'm done. And the fact is, I still remember that. I don't have notes on zombie cheerleading camp. I'm just scarred.

Okay. Oh, this episode not brought to you by zombie cheerleading camp. Moving forward, we should actually probably stop bashing zombie cheerleading. Camp because I could do this all night. That was Steve, by the way.

And the other side here would be Dave. Dave, you remember more recently, we just talked to you about your book, War Eagles. Yes, which I appreciate very much. Again, we're glad to get the word out, and you've definitely, aside from the book, you've worked with Wonderfest for, I don't know, 30 years. How long has it been?

I guess it's around 96, since we had Ray Harry. I was on the first time with the Vogue. I've been going there pretty. Sadly since 98. Yeah, and like I said, meeting him was such a huge thing, and getting him to work with me on the project was great.

So I'm glad to finally have the book out. I've been working on it since I was, what, 13? That's long enough. I'll try to get the next one in before I die. So for two years you've been.

With me. No, not mentally. I was going with our collective mental age of about 15. After just listening to that episode, I was like, why isn't this something? It just seems like such a great.

Yeah a great story this great ultimate pulp adventure story but i don't know. It's like it's cursed the first time you told me too many people. Have tried to make it and way too many people just run into a wall they're still trying but i don't have much faith so i'm. Gonna have to go back and listen to that episode. It's an amazing story it's yeah it is it is current now.

That you know i haven't even seen avatar. And i'm boycotting mr cameron but There's so much of War Eagles and Avatar that if they made it now, people would just say, oh, you're ripping off Avatar. Yeah. What year did they write this movie? James has got those habits.

Yeah, he doesn't go very deep for his inspiration sometimes. No, Pocahontas is where it's as deep as it gets. Yeah, really? I thought it was like a bag of weed and an old Yes album cover. That, too.

That's pretty much what I got from the movie. He used to be much better than that, but yeah. And a lot of money. He was smoking that bag of weed with hundreds. I'm pretty sure.

I went through a bag of weed myself, and there was an album cover with those floating mountains. I'm pretty sure. I think that was Roger Dean did that. Oh, yeah. He does some classy work on the tech.

Alright, so that is our crew this week. We are back here for another session of the Caffeinated Movie Geek. Cappuccino on my butt. I still drink coffee. The last fucking thing you need is another cup of coffee.

It's time for the Caffeinated Movie Geek. We are coming to you live via digital recording from Nancy's Bagel Grounds where we get together, drink coffee, talk movies, and bash other movies. Bash independent films i'm. Still not sorry zombie cheerleading camp. Not across the board we've said many many good things about many other independent films i.

Actually like a lot of independent films and documentaries i watch them by the score it's just just one movie just push me a. Little over the top. I take plot synopsis very seriously. So we passed this great responsibility on to someone different this week. So, Steve, I ask you, what blend of coffee are we drinking this week?

Thundermuck. Oh, you got it right. Good for you. Oh, thank God. We were taking bets whether or not he was going to screw that up.

Yeah, I'm not going to tell you what I almost said. Continue. I'm sure we've said it before. It's very good. I'm easily bought by coffee.

It's, yeah, it's... Zombie cheerleading camp, you owe me so much coffee. It's one of the classic blends. It's been a while since we've had this one, so I thought we'd go back with the classic Thundermuck. All right, so I guess we can move into this week's geek activities.

Again, we'll break it up this time, so we'll let the new guys sit out this round until next week, and this week we'll let our usual rundown go here. So, if I am first, I've got a few, one of which I'm kind of interested to see what other people think. I saw Captain America. Dave, have you seen Captain America? Yes, I have.

Okay. I thought you... Were you big on Rocketeer? Yeah, I liked Rocketeer. I thought I remembered us talking about Rocketeer many years ago, but I felt it was kind of in that vein.

I mean, he had a lot of trouble with Wolfman, most of which wasn't his fault. I'm one of those people who doesn't agree. I'm one of those people who actually enjoy Wolfman. I think it's a good B-movie, just like the original was a B-movie. I kind of agree with you.

Yeah, it did come out as a B-movie. They seem like they set their sights just a little higher. Maybe. Yeah. It's very stylish.

But yeah, I thought it was beautiful. Yeah. Um, You know, most of the lashback on that was fanboy reaction. It's like, have they watched Lon Chaney Jr. 's performances?

I used to love the guy, but I just thought, you know, this was a comparable film, and it wasn't really a remake. They took it in different directions, which I liked. So I think Joe Johnston as a whole is kind of an underrated director. I think he makes some pretty fun movies. He's kind of like Jack Arnold.

He makes some solid B-pictures. Visually, I think, yeah, the Wolfman, I mean, that's one I never faulted it for. I think it looked great. I had issues with dialogue and some of the performances, but I think visually, I didn't really have a problem with the story and definitely not the look of it. I think it did have a really consistent look and a very good kind of tapping into that period.

Piece sort of thing, which, again, works so well in Captain America. I think he really kind of nailed that, almost like that war films kind of footage, that sepia tone, you know, look to everything, which he did with Rocketeer. Yeah, once again, it's a very stylized kind of film, but I really enjoyed Captain America. I thought it was a straightforward, good comic book movie. Yeah, and kind of old comic book.

Like, it's not, tons of superhero superpowers it's kind of a war movie you know it's like that second half is just him behind enemy lines fighting bad guys and i mean he's got a shield but other than that he's sort of dressed like a soldier doing soldier things so it yeah it's it's surprisingly how much it wasn't a superhero movie for being such a superhero movie so yeah i thought that was actually i'd heard pretty decent things so it sort of lived up to the to the hype before. Yeah, based on the fact that Johnson was doing it and then the casting, I liked, you know, Hugo Weaving, people like that thrown into the mix. So I was there actually first week to see it. I don't get out very often to see movies at first run anymore.

But that's one I actually went out and caught and I really liked it. Yeah, I saw it in the theater as well. I really enjoyed it. The thing that impressed me. The most was.

Their ability to make him look so small in the very beginning. And they really just followed a really good progression of character development all the way through the film. I really appreciated that. And it was believable because there's so many comic book movies that just fall so short of that. There's so many comic books that fall short of.

Of sticking to decent character development, and I really appreciate it. Yeah, that's the problem, is if they can't get the character development that's already. Inherent in a comic book, they're falling down pretty hard. Now that we have the technology to do almost any superhero movie we want. They're still kind of lagging when it comes to the story department.

But I thought Captain America pulled it off pretty well. Most of what Marvel has been doing since they took over Hiling their properties has been a big improvement. Yeah. Yeah. Since they got away from X3.

Yeah. Everything since then has been sort of an improvement. Are we, you know, you mentioned how, um, when you see movies as now, you know, a B movie, are we in that age now where it's harder for a casual fan to even know the difference because so much money can be thrown at it and it can look so technically so well done. And, um, that people almost lose sight of the content or the structure and have no idea what. Well, the thing that came up in my mind.

And I think it falls into that kind of B-movie, sci-fi thing, was Splice. Yeah. You know, because it looked, you know, visually fantastic. For as low budget as that. I mean, for a low budget movie, that's one I can get on board with just visually.

It looked very slick and very well produced. So it can. you know, with a little turn of the script, you know, it can, it could be, you know, alien or it could be, be splice. Right. It could be splice. And so it's almost harder even from just trailers now to even tell what, you know, 20 years ago, you can go, Oh, I can see where this movie, this is going to be now.

It's, it's, you know, visuals are so good. Visuals are so easy to produce now. Like, what was it? Monsters. Yeah.

Which I really liked. He did on his laptop. Yeah. So maybe those walls are all dissolving, although most blockbusters now are B-movies with big budgets. That's what I was going to say.

The lines are totally blurred story-wise because most of the huge movies that they throw money at, I mean, their tentpole releases for the year now are almost all what would be considered years ago B-movie plots. Right. I mean, the stuff that probably was the A movies in the 40s is now like the little dramas that they barely throw any money at anymore. I think it's sort of flip-flopped over the years. But otherwise, what else?

I won't go too much into it because I kind of feel like we could do a whole episode. I really liked Attack the Block. I know it got a little good buzz when it very first came out. It didn't get a huge release. It didn't get a ton of money thrown at it, but.

It's another one that's a low budget, but it's got a good cast. It had some decent character development. I like the effects. The effects aren't like, again, it's not million dollar effects. You can tell what they're doing.

You can tell that it is an effect, but I liked what they did with it. So I think, yeah, I may save that one somewhere down the line. We might have to revisit it because it was pretty good. And then just this last week, I watched Super 8. Has anybody seen it?

I just got around to seeing it. I have not seen it. How was it? I ended up liking it, I have to say. I mean, everybody kept talking about what a Spielberg-esque movie it is, and it has those elements, but you can definitely tell it's an Abrams movie.

Aside from, what the fuck is up with the winds flares? Jesus Christ. I know that's his signature thing, but damn. I don't even understand why it's his signature thing. I mean, it's just so noticeable to me, and it was all through Star Trek.

So I'm not sure why he's so hardcore about doing that. But aside from that, he's got such a good style, and he knows how to pace things. I mean, you can see all of the elements of the Spielberg movies that he grew up with, though. I mean, there's definitely tons of moments from Close Encounters. There's tons of stuff from E.T.

There's some Jurassic Park thrown in there. It's like there's a lot of stuff that covers his entire career, more or less. Especially when you get into the family situation, it feels very 70s Spielberg. You can see the influence there, but I still don't think they Toby Hooper'd it. I don't think anybody's going to accuse it of not being J.J.

Abrams' movie because it feels very much like J.J. Abrams. Yeah, that's one I've been wanting to pick up. I just thought, well, I heard enough good about it, I'll pick it up when it comes out. Yeah, I rented it and then I'm like, yeah, I won't mind owning this at some point.

I'm going to have to go back and pick it up because it's It's worth having. It's impressive. People have issues with the end and the alien. I don't know. I was kind of okay with it.

I've heard it. That's the only negative I've kind of heard is the way that the story plays out. But I'm kind of okay with the way they wrap it up. It's different than a lot of blockbusters would. But that's pretty much what I've watched the last few weeks.

Fred, are you up for it? Yeah. I've actually... You know, with the holidays and stuff, I've watched a lot of movies. but, um, a bunch of them because at work I've been listening to like some of the, the podcasts. I've been listening to movies that y'all have already talked about.

Because we talked about them or, well, yeah, some of. Them were like recommendations and it's like, Oh yeah, there's that movie. I haven't seen that yet. Um, So, you know, I don't have a whole lot to say about some of them, because, you know, they've been covered. We've already yammered on.

Yeah, like, I've never seen Escape from New York, and you're talking about that. I think it's past the point when I can watch it. I just... I can't believe Kurt Russell is a badass. You can't scrub the Disney off of him.

You can put him in an eye patch or whatever, but I mean, I just, I'm not buying it. And I don't know, the whole movie is kind of like, it doesn't really want you to buy it that much, because what is it, it's a futuristic movie set in the present? It's like, Is that what it is? In 97 or something? Yeah.

And so it's like now, wait a minute, now? How's it, okay. The problem would be something a few years ahead. Yeah, yeah. And it's also, But even like everything that has happened to lead up to that.

Is supposed to have already happened in a way. So it was like an alternate reality. And then like any of those movies, I always have trouble when you've got a president. Okay, it's the president. But it's not any president.

It's like President Henderson. It's the Henderson. Okay. I so hope we eventually elect Donald Pleasence. Now, that's going to be harder to do now, but I really want to see him as our president.

I mean, you might as well say President Paul because nobody's buying it. It's not going to happen. You know it's not a real thing. And at one point he was driving around in a station wagon with fake wood paneling. I mean, come on.

That's the future, man. The future is all about wood paneling. That's what dysentopian is. Right there. That's exactly.

Adrian Barbeau was boobalicious, as always. That's their job. So there was that. And then I saw Atlas. Shrugged.

I didn't actually watch it. I just saw it. It was in a box. And you shrugged and we died. Yeah, I shrugged.

Got it. I saw this weird movie. Oh, I saw Scream 4. We were talking about that. I had to see that.

What was your take on it? I guess without totally ruining it in case they didn't listen to our episode. Well, you know, I thought it was fun. It was fun. I wasn't, you know, the ending, you kind of, you know, they're toying with you they have to come to an ending yeah but the thing that made the ending like sort of feel like.

They weren't just jerking you around it's like okay you know the new girl couldn't be the new girl she just doesn't have the looks she could not be the new girl. I thought she was really good actually just performance wise she was very good but you know she just And I'm not saying the actress doesn't have the looks of, what's her name? What is her name? Neve Campbell. Neve Campbell.

I question her look these days. I thought she looked really good for how old she must be. She's got to be like 300 now. Yeah, yeah. In Hollywood years, she is.

But she has like a hypnotic face. I mean, I could watch her face all day. The new girl doesn't have that kind of face or any way they're not showing her that way. They're not making her the new girl. You can feel that the filmmakers are not focusing on her the way they would if she was going to be the new girl.

Which is what I faulted it for. And yeah, I won't go into it. Just go back and listen to that episode. But yeah, that's what I called them out for. I think the first three-fourths of it is a pretty passable horror movie.

It's fine. It's fun. But that wrap-up shows that they were not committed to making a new or interesting movie. They were just like, oh, and then we have to do it kind of like we always do. Yeah, it starts out with energy, and I would say it's sort of like.

They just half-ass it by the end. It's like they could have done something new and original, and they just sort of do what they always do. I think the errors that I saw in it, the first biggest error is that the movie geeks were the cool ones. Not going to happen. What world is that?

It definitely was weird. Right. And that everyone, even the cops, were aware. That seemed over the top. Having one or two characters that were aware of the situation is fun.

When everyone is commenting on, well, what's going to happen if I do this? Well, and everyone was schooled on it, too. Right. No random cop is going to have every cliched 80s movie line in his Rolodex. Again, they were playing for laughs with those two characters.

But still, it does seem a little convenient for their plot to make everybody know all about horror movies all the time. It's another one of those points where they try to combine. Comedy and horror. And the two don't go together. You can't laugh at.

Something and then have that adrenaline rush of fear at the same time. I suppose it's possible. It's incredibly rare. It's rare that it works. Oh, it almost never works.

It might work once out of a thousand times. They give a lot of lip service to that. There's this thin line between horror and comedy, but usually it's rotten. I still have a lot of fun with it. There are good fun horror films.

Again, it was a lot of fun, but yeah, that was my problem with it, the way they wrapped it up. Yeah, it was fun to watch. So then I was flipping around Netflix, and I watched this thing called Lonely Hearts. Have you ever seen that? It sounds like a forgettable title.

It's like James Gandolfini. It's like Tony Soprano and John Travolta. Is he taking care of some girl? Is it one of those recent ones? No, they're like detectives in the 40s investigating the Lonely Hearts killers.

And I was a little scared of it because it said it was a docudrama. And I'm like, what is that? And then another description said it was like a steamy thriller. And I thought, oh, no. Oh, no.

Gandolfini making out with Travolta. But then I thought, wait a minute. No, wait a minute. Actually, it's Erotic Masterpiece is the Kiss of Death. Oh.

That's what they say. That's not good. They've got nothing going for them at all. It's an erotic masterpiece. But this was just like a steamy thriller.

I thought I'll watch it. And I start watching it, and like right off the bat, it's like, you know, it's great. It's okay. It's, like, it's stylish. They've got, like, a good period look.

It's a little noir-ish, but they're not, like, you know, ridiculous with it. And it was really pretty good. Then Jared Leto is, like, is, like, this murderous. Yeah, Jordan Catalano is, like, this murderous gigolo who, like, picks up. lonely women through ads and murders them for their money. And then he runs into, uh, Frida.

Um, Selma. Yes. And she just immediately pegs him. She's like, Oh, you're that. And so they sort of team up and they become like what this was like an actual, uh, Midwestern murder thing.

That sounds interesting, whether or not they do a good job. It wasn't that bad, and there was, like, a little girl actress in it who was, like, super good. I mean, just if you want to get into the horror of, like, a real murder series, the little kid just sells the whole movie, and that's, you know. I mean, it wasn't a great movie, but it was really watchable and it was kind of fun. I was surprised, you know, when you're just flipping around and, and the advertising for it did not do it justice.

The advertising was like, but I think we started to watch something else and gave up. And so our standards were pretty low going into it. Uh, so that was pretty good. And, uh, Then I was watching with my wife a movie called Water for Elephants. Which we have some loving statements on this show in the past episodes.

Really? I didn't hear that. Lucy had maybe one of the greatest lines ever. Yeah, you don't remember Lucy's loving comments about Reese Witherspoon? Oh, I remember the Reese Witherspoon thing, yeah.

It was in conjunction with that movie. Well, that's the kind of a movie that I just can't watch anymore. I mean, I just, it is a kind of a movie because it's kind of a fantasy that takes you to, but the way you get there is just such bullshit that I can't get past like the first five minutes of the movie. Because in the beginning of the movie, there's this kid. He's like, he's going to become a veterinarian.

He's going to take his test. Somehow he's sitting there to take his test. next to his bride-to-be. Is she taking the fucking test, too? Why is she there? I guess maybe she is.

But then, as he's sitting down to take the test, he gets the news that his parents are dead. And that he's a vampire. Or a fiend. Well, yeah, the weird, that was the confusing thing is he was Edward, but everybody's calling him the other guy. What the hell?

He's Jacob. I don't know. He can only make those movies, damn it. I don't know what team this guy's on anymore. Team Jimmy.

Team something. But, yeah, this kind of movie, it always has a bit of the orphan fantasy to it. I'm classing it with movies like Memoirs of a Geisha or... Or even, and I don't know who I'll piss off with this, but Dances with Wolves. Guy had no history, no family, no nothing.

He's just, and then he wants to see the West before it's gone because he's fucking psychic. He can see everything that's going to happen in the future. But it's a little bit of the orphan fantasy. And then he finds out his parents died. And there's no money because his father put all his money into sending him to veterinary school.

And then he says, so I didn't see the point in taking the test. What? What? How can you not see the fucking point of taking the fucking test? You've gone through veterinary school.

You've got to take the test. Your father put everything, his whole life into it. And you're like, nah. And your parents also sold their hair to buy you this golden clip to buy you the test. And then, for some reason, the woman he wants to marry is sitting there at the table where he's taking the test, and it's like, ah, fuck her.

And then he does that to run away and join the circus or something. I don't know. It's not my kind of movie. Like you do in an orphan fantasy. It is not my kind of movie.

There is a scene in it where the bad guy, I swear to God, he goes into a train car with an elephant. Because. It's a. Sentimental kind of romantic fantasy, and the bad guy is cruel to the circus animals. Was this still Water for Elephants?

Yes. Okay. Water for Elephants. He's a Nazi if we're going with our previous movies. Yes, he's a Nazi.

You can't trust this guy. And he's still sort of like, where's the Nazi in this role? He goes into like a stopped train car with this elephant. He's going in there to beat it up? what in the dark he shuts the door. That elephant was talking shit i mean come on is.

This shit that's an elephant i know a guy who was beat. Up at the louisville zoo by an elephant What did he do in there? That's what I want to know. Why would he do it in the pitch dark? You go into a...

I don't know. I cannot watch this kind of stuff. I'm staying as far away from this. I don't know. I'm strangely drawn to it.

Yeah, the way everybody sold it now. Lucy described it as... It was something like. She's much more eloquent than I am, but it was like two hours of tedium, occasionally interrupted by violence to animals. Oh, that's right.

I believe that is how she put it. All about her discussion of this movie. Yeah. What a warning it was. You were not listening.

Speaking as a pet owner, I could get behind that. Yeah. God. Maybe I'll just show it to my animal. Hey, dog, sit down.

I want to show you something. You want to invite Greg some more? Watch this. So I can't watch anything remotely like that movie. I just can't.

I just sit there and make nasty remarks, and my daughter gets mad. It's not good. So then I watched a lot of movies. Yeah, you did. I watched Everything Must Go, which is Will Ferrell.

It's a comedy about a guy who's struggling with alcoholism who loses his job, and his wife leaves him. Oh, it's funny. Yeah, it's so funny. I mean, it really is, in a way, it's based on, like, I noticed as it came up, it's like it's based on a Raymond Carver story called Why Don't You Dance? And I'm like, that's the one where they put everything out on the yard, yeah, and the kids come by and he's like, why don't you dance?

And he's drinking. And it's great. And it's like, how are they going to make that into a movie? And they do. It's not really that much like the story, but they find stuff and it's pretty good.

I think it goes a little off track near the end. There are some things in it that don't quite Make a whole lot of sense. Do you buy Will Ferrell in that role? I do. There are not many people I buy in the world of Raymond Carver.

I watched that Short Cuts, and I was really frustrated by it. But I thought, like, Lily Tomlin and Tom Waits. Yep. Oh man, they were. Believable as the people that inhabit that Carver world.

And Will Ferrell, I did buy. You know, he looks like Raymond Carver a little bit. I'd like to see him do more Raymond Carver stuff. He was pretty good. He has potential to be a good serious actor.

I've only seen it in like one movie, but it's gotten to the point they've built up his career so much on these goofy comedies that He's almost painting himself in that corner that no matter how serious the movie is, nobody's going to take you seriously. Leslie Nielsen. Yeah, straight out of that deck of cards. At the same time, part of me doesn't want to see him play a completely serious role. Yeah.

He is excellent at the weird comedy, the awkward comedy. It's a very niche spot for him to be in. Even if he might be pegging himself into the role, because. He looks like the guy who could be uncomfortable in a lazy boy. Leave it to... man you've seen this movie.

No I have not that. Sounds a lot like this movie. But it's just this is my perception for the longest time I had a big problem with Will Ferrell because of that aspect that he just I watched him and he made me. Uncomfortable in a lazy boy and I'm twitching and maybe it was the coffee but um Dunder Muck. But anyway you just you watch him and you kind of see that and Yeah.

Yeah. That was a great movie. It probably was, but I couldn't get through it. I tried. And yes, he wasn't really completely straight because he kind of had that humor that comes along with extreme depression.

That kind of black humor. That's fantastic. You know the way they say the people in AA tend to have more fun than the people who are like, what's the support group for the families of alcoholics. Yeah and it's not really fair yeah. The al-anon you'd think it ought but no that's a lot worse the people in aa are still kind of having fun and that's there's some of this and he's still kind of a funny guy although you know his life has just turned to crap um And it's really pretty good.

Anything Tom Waits is in, I love. He was in Short Cuts, which was all based on Raymond Carver's stories. And I like the story so much, I don't know if I can see the movie fairly. I really hated the movie. I didn't believe most of the people in the movie.

It didn't feel like the Carver stories. And Carver has these endings, which are sort of unresolved, but they just bring you to it. peak and and they didn't really do that they just they threw in every carver story you could think of sort of meshed them all together and then and this was you know but and then they just had an earthquake at the end and random act of violence and it didn't make any sense to me it was really frustrating The portions of it were... What I love, it was pretty good, and it is the Baker. He's a pretty good actor. He's pretty good, but.

He doesn't get respect for it, but he's good. But mainly it was Tom Waits and Willie Tomlin. I just wanted to see them do the whole movie. But yeah, it's worth seeing. It's definitely...

It's kind of funny in that sort of desperate, alcoholic, messed up... Speaking of that... Speaking of fun... Has anyone seen the movie Wrist Cutters? No.

It's been a while, but I have. Oh, my God. It is wonderful. I love it. But I'm also the type of person...

I'm that. Miserable son of a bitch who just wants to see the hero of the picture suffer and suffer and then suffer some more and then overcome but get back slapped and suffer even more than that. But it's basically the whole story is. This is what happens... when people kill themselves. And they go to a world that's just like this.

You have to have a job. You have to, it's a real happy story. It's like purgatory, but purgatory is pretty. Damn close to hell. Well, the only difference is no one smiles.

That's all. They just can't smile. But, and I really, I watch it and I don't understand why someone can't smile because I'm cracking up. There was this wonderful Russian guy who, I think he was a real Russian, And he drove this piece of shit car with a vortex under the front seat. It was a vortex.

It was a black hole to another universe. And they drive around the entire movie. And the guy, it's his only friend. And he looks at the guy. He goes, where's the map?

He goes, map fell in a hole. And it's just, you look. And then he points down and looks under the seat. And there's this gaping black vortex. And it just kind of goes through the entire movie.

And believe it or not, it plays a point later on. If you've seen the movie, you understand. I can't give that. Away, why the vortex is there, but it's kind of important. And Tom Waits plays what is basically a cult leader in the land.

Of the recent suicides. And there's some authority. What was it? People in charge? Is that what it was called?

Yes. It's been a while, something like that. Anyway, I highly recommend it. It was a wonderful movie. What's the name again?

Wrist Cutters. It's at least an interesting premise. I don't know. I know other people I've heard have had issues with where it goes. But I think, yeah, if nothing else, just the idea of the story is kind of interesting.

Yeah, I enjoy that the ending was. I'm not going to give it away. The ending was good, but I was kind of expecting it to be just a little different. I don't know, maybe I wanted more suffering and blood and tears. I imagine that for me.

Yeah, I need to sharpen my talents on something. Alright, well, one more recommendation from the podcast I saw, Steakland. Which was great. A fun-filled adventure for a whole family. Yeah, that was just a blast.

I really enjoyed it. It's well made. The conversation about it roped me in. It's like, I've got to see that, so. I saw it, and it was like, it's strange to me how, well, I ordered it on Netflix, but Blockbuster doesn't carry it anywhere.

The guy told me none of their stores. Why? It was not a huge release. Release. It's a good movie.

And it kind of has that intensity like a European intellectual thriller. It's like they really get hold of the mood and the atmosphere and the style. And you can tell from the opening shot. It took a while to find a really good opening shot. So, you know, you can kind of trust him and you do.

It's really good. Acting is good. I liked almost the entire movie. I liked everything about it except the voiceovers of him talking all the time about what's happening and where we're going and what we're doing. They seemed to go on forever.

It was a lot. Yeah, I guess they could have taken a few of those out. Yeah. Yeah, some of them were kind of unnecessary, and they sort of like helped you figure out where you were when maybe it would have been better not to. Right.

And I think they were fine with, you know, he would say stuff like, when we had to go look for food, well, you're showing it, so don't tell me about it. And there were so many other characters in that family that were with them that they just rushed over. They just showed them walking with them, but. Never gave them. A few minutes of dialogue, a few words that could have just told us more about them instead of the boy telling more.

But otherwise, it was fantastic. It was a great movie. Especially for virtually independent film. Yeah, pretty low budget, and I mean, again, it doesn't show. Like, they've got such a consistent look and feel to the visuals that, yeah, it's impressive that I'm pretty sure it was made for a pretty small budget.

It's like, if you all haven't seen it, Did you see The Road? Did you see that? I'm familiar with the book. It's like The Road with vampires. Yeah, I said it was a mixture of Zombieland and The Road.

Right. The complete polar opposites of cinema. It's somewhere in the middle there. Leaning more towards The Road. I might have to look for that.

It's very depressing, but it's well-made. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it was a fun thing to watch. So, catching up on some movies. I'd say so.

Yeah, you did. Greg, are you up? I haven't had an opportunity to see a lot since the last time I recorded. I've been working too much. I did see Red State.

I'm not going to talk too much about it because I know Brian hasn't seen all of it. Yeah, Netflix jacked up. It wouldn't finish playing, so that's not my fault. You know, it sets itself up as a movie with kind of a twist. Oh, you think this is going to happen and this happens.

Well, curveball, curveball, curveball, curveball. I don't know if anybody else has seen it. Red State. You wouldn't even think, looking at it, that it was a Kevin Smith film. That's what he said for years now.

I want to make something else. I've made nothing but these same movies. And you can tell that he's... If you've ever had soup by someone who's a chef, and soup by someone who might be a. Well, I was going to say a baker.

They can do baking really well. You can tell he's just, well, I like humans, so I'm going to throw that in. And he intentionally is playing with you. You can see that he's intentionally playing with you. There's things that you're like, I didn't see that coming, or I can't believe you're going down this path.

And he has a lot of fun with it, and you can tell that he's matured. But, yeah, it wasn't what I... I even thought, oh, this is going to be different than what I think it's going to be, and it still wasn't what. I thought it was going to be. What's it about?

I've not heard of it. A couple of guys, high school kids are wanting to have sex. Like any, you know, it's almost set up as a raunchy, you know, team, and they find some woman. a middle-aged. Woman online that lives in a trailer and they're going to go, she said that she's going to, it. Sounds like a great idea.

You know? Yeah. And they, it sounds like porkies. Yeah, it is. I mean, that's what it's set up as.

And it turns out that she is with a, um, a cult. Oh, you know, it becomes fundamentalist. It becomes very heavy, religious, that she was baiting them into coming. And then it, It just keeps going and going. And things happen that you're like, oh.

So it's an interesting watch. It's not perfect. It's definitely not perfect, but it's fun. It would spark a good conversation, several of them, I think. I have to see that.

I did my time in the South. I remember a very similar night that I had that I'm not going to elaborate on. Yeah. We don't want to hear it, I don't think. No, you don't want to.

But it ended kind of the same way. It was really... No, it didn't end this way. It was not good. I'm going to hope that.

I've not seen this movie. Thundermuck. Just keep saying that. Just keep saying that. Let's see, what else did I see?

Um. I'm going to say this just because it's fun to say it and because we do so much horror movies on the show. With my kids, I watched. I don't know if you're all familiar with the Fred movies. This is Fred 2, The Night of Living Fred.

Where he... What network is this? Nickelodeon. It's a kids-themed thing. He believes his new neighbor...

He's the guy from the internet. Yeah, he's the guy from the internet. He believes his new neighbor is a vampire. So there's a lot of fright night in it. There's a lot of, they've done their homework.

They know what they're doing. And there's a lot of, uh, homages to other horror movies. And it, yeah, it's a kid's movie, but, um, they do it right. I mean, they, they spoof the, um, the Twilight films and, and do a good job of making fun of it. Um, even so much so that his rival even looks like Edward Ness.

And it's fun. I mean, and I wouldn't normally recommend it, but for people especially that are horror fans and if you have kids, it's a fun way to introduce that kind of stuff to them. So my kids had a ball with it, and, I mean. Lines like the neighbor has invited him over for dinner. He's going in to slay the neighbor.

And the kid's broadcasting on his website as he's doing it. And the neighbor's having him dig up what they're going to eat for dinner. And the guy, he's screaming that. Oh, I'm going to have to eat dead bodies. And he says, what is this anyway?

And he says, we're going to eat kimchi. And the kids going on and on about this Asian girl that they're going to have to eat. It's a good time. God, that stuff is. Awful.

Dead people? Because I beg to differ. I'm not a big fan of Soylent Green myself, but kimchi is delicious. It depends on how you spice it up. It's all about the seasoning.

And then last night I went to a midnight showing of the Addams Family. And it's been. Since, you know, 20 years since it was released that I've seen it. Wow. I guess it has because Christina Ricci is pretty old now.

Yeah. And the comedy is still good. You know, the guy that I went with, we remarked afterwards that it was a lot darker than I had remembered it. Mm-hmm. You know, it's a pretty dark movie.

It very much is. And I think it would have been much more slapstick, much more stupid had they released it now. Yeah, probably. Back then it was, you know, the worst part of the movie is the MC Hammer stuff. Oh, of course.

But.... I don't remember being as thrilled with that one. I liked the second one. Family values. Because they focused that whole.

Trip to the summer camp thing again because it's Christina Ricci and she's to me the funniest thing in that movie in both movies really but it focuses that whole other plot line on her and that part is hilarious like that makes me like that movie way more than I even liked the first one. Yeah I love Christina Ricci in the first one but I was so disappointed in Morticia every time they did that it's like first they did Angelica Houston who's a great actress but she doesn't have the sex yeah And then they, Daryl Hannah? Yeah. What? That's why those were straight to DVD.

What? Yeah. I mean, they needed that chick Lilith from Cheers. Oh, yeah. I mean, she was her.

Yeah, she was. Yeah. Well, Julia. Wow. He was at the top of his game.

He was wonderful. He was great. He was doing his best work. That is perfect casting, man. And again, my favorite part, I don't know why I even forgot about it, but when they put on the play and.

Hamlet. Oh, I remember that. That, you know, I don't know why I even forgot about it, but I was. giggling. I had tears in my eyes. I was laughing so much.

Most of my childhood trying to recreate. That, but yeah. So, I think it might be because, you know, when I saw it, I was in high school. I had classes on Hamlet, you know, We had an entire semester of him in college. And so, I don't know.

Having kids really, and I think maybe having kids now myself, I can see all. Of that happening. I wish he hadn't brought that up. I just have one question about Adam's family values. What did she do with the boyfriend at the end?

They left it up. They left it kind of up in the air. It's really your own personal interpretation. Did anybody else get that? It's been a long time since I've seen it.

I don't remember. Because I think she killed him. Which is funny. Yeah, exactly. Well, there was that brief.

They. Didn't completely show it, but there was just a moment where after they all meet back up and they've gone trick-or-treating and it's a happy ending. And they all depart from Wednesday. And then this little Jewish boy. Yeah.

And then she just does a small. Movement in the graveyard. And the hand of the stepmother comes up and grabs his leg. Cut. Right.

Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Well, it would follow. I was surprised.

And this is another reason why I said it was so dark. You know, the two kids are standing in the graveyard at the end, next to the graves, and the accountant and the mother both fall into the coffins. And, you know, it's a funny scene. But he says, are they dead? And she says, does it matter?

And they start burying them. You know, that's dark shit. They killed them. It doesn't matter. They killed them.

And it's all a big deal. We made it. We won. We killed them. Yeah.

You know, speaking of Hamlet and kids, I blocked this out. This was a traumatic event. I tried to watch Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet with my kids. Hamlet Fest. Tried to.

I tried to watch it, and I was so looking forward to it. I was like, oh, this is awesome. All these kids are coming over. We're going to watch Hamlet. It was like I wanted to kill somebody.

Right. 10, 15 minutes into it. I'm just, well, you know, you watch something with somebody, you kind of do that Vulcan mind meld where you become an audience together. And like, if you've ever watched like a movie that you think is like really funny with somebody who's just not getting it, you know how you just start feeling hostile toward them. What's the matter with you?

This is fun. You're ruining it. So I'm watching Hamlet with my kids and they're like, My daughter's boyfriend is like playing a game on his phone. He's angry birds. And then they're like talking through the speak the speech.

And I'm just like, what's the matter with you people? What is wrong with you? You're idiots. And they're like, but I can feel how it's coming across to them, which is like it's complicated. They can't follow it.

It's like, it's going to, they don't, they're not getting it, and they're sort of bored. If you don't love Hamlet before you see that, you're going to hate it. It was just disgusting, and I just wanted to kill somebody. Did anyone know they made another Macbeth movie? And I believe it might be an Australian production, because, well, my wife is a school teacher, and she was cruising through their library and found this new copy that the librarian had just ordered of Macbeth.

And they kind of did. It the way Baz Luhrmann redid Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio. And there's guns, it's modern times. Oh, was it Ethan Hawke? Yes.

Yeah, I remember that now. And, well, the only problem is witches are really hot. And kind of naked through half the movie. Which it should be. Well, that's true, but that's really good when it's not at a high school.

At a high school's library. So I think after she saw that, I don't believe that movie will be seeing the high school. I don't think she can watch the old one either, the 70s one by, what's his name, the girl raper guy. Oh, yes. As he's known now.

He illegally changed his name. Exactly. It was like that's a list by Playboy and there was just something sick and smutty about it. It was weird. He had it really rough.

Charles Manson kills his wife. Then he gets sent off for raping children. Yeah. He said he, yeah, he had it kind of rough. Not that I'm reaching out to child rapers by any stretch.

Of the imagination, for the record. Although, if they want to sponsor the trial, they've got money to spend. I don't know. I'm a pretty big whore, but I don't even know if I can get on board with that one. Sponsored by Child Rapers Union State.

Do you ever just type in people's names, you know, in the National Sex Offender Registry? Anybody have that hobby? I don't know. I'd rather not. It's not forfeit.

You knew where I lived already. What the hell? God. I'm actually his parole officer. You were legally bound to be here tonight.

I think if you were going to show a Shakespearean... I think Richard III would. Work well for, you know, late teens. I love that one when I saw it. Brown is like a great one because it's the full thing, but then they splice in those, like, little smooching scenes.

Like, you know, they want to be sure you get the idea that Ophelia's probably pregnant, which, you know, is kind of, at least it's sort of in the text, unlike, you know, that Oedipus stuff that. What's his name? Lawrence Olivier didn't like me. I was like, oh, it's Oedipus now. But I never found anything in the play that suggests anything like that.

It's just Freud. Me and Freud. So does that round out the geeky? Yeah, I think thoroughly. We think we should at this point.

We've been talking for over an hour now. Get used to it. We don't shut up. I know. I've listened.

We'll give them a break. We'll take a break. And we'll be back with this week's Grand Question of the Week. So there was this dude named Hamlet. He was fancied quite the guy until his big fat jerk-faced uncle metaphorically punched him in the eye.

That he took a vial of poison and poured it down his daddy's ear was the butt of all of his suspicion and the source of all his fear. He was doing kind of okay until this ghost came by one night and said, Hey boy, I'm your daddy and your uncle killed me. Don't let me go without a fight. So with a couple of friends in the forest and his sword stuck in the ground, he swore he'd kill his uncle and turn it all around. Mr.

Projectionist, stop the show. Here's great news you ought to know. We've just got a shipment of taste-thrilled treats, all tip-top quality and delicious eats. There are hot. Dogs and popcorn and candy galore.

There's soft drinks and coffee and a whole lot more. So direct your steps to our refreshment stand to enjoy the finest snacks in all the land. Imagine the perfect video store. It would have a great selection, right? Right!

Over 10,000 videos. Three evening rounds, so no rush, no hassle. Fast checkout. 24-hour quick drop return. Open late every night.

Well, the perfect video store. Welcome to Blockbuster Video. Is popping up all over the country. There's one near you. Blockbuster Video.

Wow, what a difference. Listen and understand that Metal Mikey is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear.

And it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are an Action Attraction fan. Action Attraction. Your home for all things action.

To find out more, visit MetalMikey.Lipson.com. Or search for Action Attraction in iTunes. It's intermission time and it's fun time here at the Garland Road Drive-In Theater. Raise your right hand. And repeat after me.

We are drive-in mutants. We are not like other people. We are sick. We are disgusted. We believe in blood.

In breasts. And in beasts this is joe bob briggs and you're listening to movie meltdown as long. As one drive-in remains. On the planet earth. We will party like jungle animals we will boogie till we puke The drive-in will never die.

Amen. All right. It'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. I don't care what it costs. This changes the world. You can watch a movie as many times as you want from your house. What?

People want to be able to pee. During Braveheart and not miss the battle scene. That's what we're offering. You can't hit pause at a movie theater. We guarantee your movie will be in stock.

You have three copies of the Mr. Bean movie? Hundred. Three hundred copies. Magnetic Video's been doing this long before you.

I invented the home theater empire, you thief! Do you know what's cooler than renting a video from a store having been delivered to your house? How is that even possible? Barry, these are movies, not pizza. You can't charge someone $ 236 for a $ 10 movie.

You can't. Return Clueless 10 months late without a late fee. Math doesn't lie, Daryl. Blockbuster doesn't have any money. What have you done?

All right, we're back. And it is time for the grind. If you're not familiar, this segment we discuss a specific topic or question related to movies. And as often as possible, we'd like the suggestions for this segment to come from you, the listener. Sometimes you're slacking off.

But if you have any things you would like to throw out there for us to discuss, email them to geeks at movie meltdown dot com and we'll throw them into the mix potentially for a future episode. Now, this week's question for the grind comes from, well, me, actually, because you guys are slacking. But, actually, mostly it's based on a real-world incident that just happened a couple of weeks ago, and it sort of made me want to address this. So, basically, this fell into a really bad situation that I try to avoid, which. Is going to a blockbuster.

So... First of all, I was looking for a movie specifically for an upcoming episode of the show, so I kind of had to find it, and I was trying to go. About it the best possible way, so I was going with our. We do have a pretty awesome local independent video store, so I went there first, as I usually would go, and... they didn't have it after looking for like a half an hour through all the different sections. I thought it might.

Potentially be because this movie falls into a lot of categories. Um, I found out they at one point had. Had it, but they sold it off because they're doing that now. Because at this point, if somebody will give them money for a movie, take it and give us some cash because that's how video stores are kind of going at this point. So, I was like, all right, I don't blame them.

You take the money when you can. So I was like, damn it, I guess I have to go to Blockbuster. And we're, I guess, one of the few places in the world left that still has a functioning Blockbuster. I can't understand why, but there's still one down the street. So I went there.

Oh, my God, it was so sad. Has anybody been in one? Again, I didn't actively go in them for a long time because they kind of suck, but wow, it was... desolate it was just empty like their their shelves like. I remember when we first started. Getting dvds in the in the vhs world and you'd have that little rack of like tan over there it was kind of like that only at your whole store everything was sort of like faced out and flipped over.

And like there was just there was no stock. Of anything I mean, all they've ever had is new releases, but again, I was looking for a movie that was 30 years old, and I was like, yeah, I knew it was, I walked in, I was just like, oh, this is a waste of my time, and yeah, they didn't have anything. Like, granted, it's Blockbuster, I didn't expect much, but It was amazing how just empty and sad that place was. It's pretty bad anyway just being in a blockbuster. The time I would still go to blockbuster is if you're looking for the movie that just came out this week and they have like a dozen of them.

Yeah. Which is what they started to bank on as years went by. That's all they stocked was 50 of the newest movie and didn't bother carrying any older movies because who would watch an old movie? God forbid. So.

I mean, just walking around there looking at that system falling apart basically prompted this week's session, which is just a general discussion about the changes in the system, the home video market, specifically the effects of the actual brick-and-mortar video stores disappearing, what's taking their place, and the effects of all of that on the industry and on the geek culture that we're a part of. So, I mean, the. crew that we have on hand here, I think everyone sitting here actually remembers a time when there were a lot of video stores. In fact, a lot of mom and pop video stores. Some even remember a time of yore when maybe there weren't video stores. And God forbid you couldn't even find a movie, but we won't even acknowledge that time ever existed.

So.... We'll pretend like all we remember is this era. So again, a lot of us grew up in that time period or at least spent a good portion of our lives exposed to this outlet of this being able to go and get a movie at the store. It was part of our lives. So in general, I guess, what do you think about the disappearance of this part of your life?

Well... I like it that we still have Wild and Woolly. Yeah, that is our local independent video store. It's great to have. I remember sort of a midway point.

It wasn't really as far back in time as you might think, but it was like a little bit outside the sphere of civilization. Like when we first bought our house for a haul, we were living outside of Louisville, Texas, while I was working on the house, and we had little babies and stuff, and I was, like, doing the floors. But this was when I started to, like, form an idea of the earmarks of civilization, the signs that you're living in a civilized terrain. And one of them back then was that they had a video store where the videos were in alphabetical order. Because this place, they weren't in order.

They were just all over the place. They made no effort. Later they instituted categories, and I found Hamlet once in action pictures, and I just pictured the kid going, well, it was probably an action picture when it came out back in the 1500s or sword fight. This has Mel Gibson in it. Action.

Yeah, definitely. And it was right next to a bakery that– Never had chocolate donuts. And I know there are all kinds of other donuts. There's stuff with jelly and cream. But, you know.

If the chocolate donuts are gone every day by the time I get up, because I don't get up at 7 in the morning to go out and get donuts, wouldn't you at some point start baking more of them? No. You just have to get up. I would think if that's, you know, you can sell those. Those are going to be gone every day.

At what point do you say, I'm going to chase what the market wants? But that's, I guess, what this discussion is about. It wasn't that long ago when people would just not pay for music. But it was like really the delivery system made it viable that people will pay if it's convenient enough. So I guess my thought on it is like, I don't know.

I don't know what's going to happen, really. I'm a little distressed. I love the convenience of the movies that I am able to get. I know I've talked about it, and I know, Brian, I've heard you talk about the loss of being able to go into a place and browse. That's gone or will be for the next generation I was just talking with a friend of mine last night that went to grade school and stuff like that and we would ride our bikes to the movie store and we would just look through during the summer we would look through and have it.

It was a mom and pop movie place that was I never had to go past a major road or near a major road to get to it And I could go and browse forever and find something that I'd never heard of and look to meet on the front box and I would take it home and watch it. And that to me was the epitome to me of what movies were to find something I've never heard of. And just by reading the back or the recommendation of the guy at the counter to find something good. And that's part of the reason why I worked at a, specialty movie store because. I had access to that.

I had access to the Bible of films that we could get in that other people couldn't. And we could get it in and buy and use my. Employee discount on to get a movie. Back when you would special order something for someone because there was no other way to get it. There was no other way to get it.

There was no internet or what it was was so, you know, a mess and in its infancy at that point that you couldn't just go order something. Even that seems like foreign to kids now. I mean, to have to go order something. And now it's either something that they've released that you can get for nothing. Yep.

Or something that you can get at Redbox, or something that you have to special order. And it's getting harder and harder online to even special order those things because nobody's putting them out anymore. So there's a void of film. I remember people coming in, and Harvey was a film that people would come into the video. Store that I worked at, and they would tell me about it.

And I was like, this sounds fantastic. it's not in print. This sounds, you know, and they would, they would, I had four and five people that would once a month come in and is this going to, is this going to be released? And what do you mean? That's not in print. And nobody could understand.

And nobody can understand. And, um, I want Hondo, damn it. Where the hell is my Hondo? God, that was a big release when they finally put Hondo out. And it just, um, And we, you know, in the mid-90s were able to.

Everything was coming out on DVD or VHS. And if they didn't have it, it was a rarity. Now, how many movies are lost that kids, you know, younger than me, my nephew, 16, he loves movies. Can't see anything. Hasn't seen anything.

And I don't know if they'll be able to see anything. Yeah. That's the part I'm distressed about. It's like, when are they going to have access to it? Yeah, for me, it's like we're teetering on the edge of a dark age.

I mean, it really is that way. I mean, I don't know if it'll stay that way. You know, I'm from that era before. VHS, before movies, where if you wanted. To watch something, you had to string up the Super 8.

It was this little condensed digest version. wait till they played it on the late, late movie. You would see a strange movie on TV at three in the morning and you would never figure you to see it again because it was just on. TV Guide was kind of a Bible. I mean, it really was a lifeline. You'd scour those listings and see those movies.

And like I always point out, there was actually more interesting on when there were four channels. Yeah. Because almost everybody derived their programming out of movies back then. Yeah. Well, I actually came home the other day and, um, My wife was watching.

Something on television. It was Adam Carolla putting in a swimming pool. And I stopped and I said, we have 900 channels. And the best thing that you can find on television is Adam Carolla puts. In a swimming pool.

This is a sad state of mind. It was horrible. That sounds fascinating. What are you talking about? You know, I've watched so much more good television now since I got rid of cable.

I haven't had it for years. I just think you never had cable. Now they have Bounce TV and MeTV and this channel. And those are all old, and they're not always great, but they're always old movies that I've never heard of. Every single day, there's three channels open air for free.

That I get to watch, and almost every day, if I have time, I can find something worthwhile watching. I spent all of last night watching MeTV because it was a flashback to my childhood. It was just TV shows I grew up with and then movies I grew up with. For God's sake, they had a horror host. He's showing The Mummy's Tomb.

This does not go on, but it's back. Sven Gulli. And I keep wondering if it's not just a generational thing, since we had experience of these other ways of living, Is it just nostalgia? Are we going to just miss it on that basis? Yeah.

Because what do kids do on the Internet? Well, they browse. That's what I do. I browse for things I'm interested in. But it's not the same as walking into a store or a bookstore or anything else.

And gradually, all that stuff is disappearing. You know, this makes me wonder. Because is anyone familiar with the Music Genome Project that Pangolo is doing? Anybody? No.

Basically, what they do is they– and they're doing all this electronically– is they're breaking down– songs into the most very basic elements. And what they do is. They kind of pick up on your personal preferences just by you can click like and dislike on this play stream and it will actually go in and it'll take the elements it knows about the songs that you like and it will pick other songs that it thinks you'll like and as you tell it, oh, I like this, I don't like this, it will read out those things so that you're only getting things that pandora thinks you like good and bad but um i'm really curious about. The possibility. I don't see it to be too far-fetched of a movie genome project.

Well which i think there there may be like you know spotify is doing uh like it posts on Facebook whenever somebody's listening to something. And so they get kind of promotional, uh, viral promotional mechanism built in to their model. And I think people are talking about doing that like peer to peer movies so that you rely on your friends and, and by liking something, other people see it. And so, uh, I don't know where all that's going, but I think people are talking about the cloud computing thing, because if you download a movie, then it's on your computer, then you have to transfer it. And then the nice thing about a disc, you can take it into the next room or take it in the car.

So with the cloud computing, it's like, well, you can have, you have it in whatever format or you're at a friend's house, you can, you can get it. But, um, But I don't know that everybody has, like, Internet strong enough in all those situations that, you know, downloading is kind of a hassle. You know, it's like you get impatient. And then I found out, you know, just from traveling, like in... In other countries, the walls of buildings are just so thick that they don't really, you know, they're not accustomed to everybody having the Wi-Fi signal.

And then I think, I don't really understand the mechanism, but as more people around you get their networks going, it seems like it kind of interferes with yours. Because I remember I used to be able to go out and get in my kid's tree house, and I had internet. But now I go outside and it picks up like seven different networks, and mine isn't one of them. It's a waiting line. Yeah.

Well, you were talking about, Greg, the stuff disappearing. I think that falls into two categories. I think you're right in the way that it is officially happening, Like the studios aren't backing stuff that they don't care about, stuff that's not. New or stuff they're not putting their money in. But I think with this internet, there's this new undercurrent of unofficially available stuff.

Right. That in a way it's like, I know, I know it's sort of damning to even mention that these days because Hollywood is so against it and it's so. Not politically correct to do that. But I think there's a lot of stuff that's, Out of. Print, like we used to look for that almost has been lost by the studio system, that once it leaks its way out into that undercurrent of just geeks sort of passing stuff back and forth, it's out there forever.

And I think that's kind of a good thing. That almost keeps stuff alive that would be lost in a vault somewhere or, you know, some... If it all gets out into the world, you know, it's like you don't have to worry about the vault fire at the studio and you lose stuff for all eternity. You know, it's like once it's out in the network, you can always go find it again because there's always some geek sitting in a basement somewhere downloading everything, passing it off to his friends, finding some other website. To put it on.

That I think, again, I'm not for any of the, you know, current releases. Let's just download it. Screw going to theater. But I like the stuff that's ancient and nobody cares about, public domain, that's totally out of print, nobody's going. To bother to ever put it back in print.

I kind of like that that stuff has found its way out there and found its way to the people that care about it. And that's the way it's meant to be. Copyright law was never intended to constrain the free flow. flow of information. That was just not the purpose of it. But the reason it's so gray and everybody's like, well, I'm not sure I really want to, is because just what the free flow of information could mean is just so changed.

Like nobody could have seen it coming. So now it's like you don't know where to draw the line. It's like, well, it's like in the old days, teachers are like, well, can I Xerox this stuff out of the book and pass it out to my kids? Like if you're teaching a lit class, can you just like, Xerox somebody's short story and hand it out so all the kids don't have to go about it. And you would go, yeah, you could because it's an educational exercise.

It's for official purposes. And then there would be like legal statements that overstate the case, like you can't do this whether it makes money or not. It's like really the law says whether you make money, it kind of is a big deal. That's a big factor. Which is kind of what I feel like this is too.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a matter of how long will the accessibility be there. They keep trying to add new laws, new censorship, and that's a big factor. I wish, and I, you know, we have National Archives for everything. I don't even know if there is, but I wish there was some kind of national...

I would give money. To it, archives, full film, so that things that were borderline or things that were falling out, somebody could just literally dump a file somewhere and say, we're going to back it up eight places and make sure it's on servers and know that it's there. It's a juried system. That's such a fraction. And the National Archive is too, but the way they jury it is they just have to go by whatever people ask for because they've got all this stuff on old formats and they can't keep up with it.

And I read that they moved the National Archive to those caves under Kansas City like a decade or more ago in just truckloads, just truckloads of them. And they took them to like the geographic and population center of America. And I've been down in those caves. I've driven a truck down in there and drive in. and your truck is on a turntable, and then they turn you so you can drive the way you need to go. Well, I don't know.

I'm not comfortable with leaving it up to someone. Else in charge because, again, then they pick the high-end stuff. Again, I like the anarchy of leaving it to geeks. Once you throw it out there on the Internet, to me, that– has more of a chance of surviving than... Because those guys are.

Hardcore, and they're going to have everything. That's where a lot of material exists. And when it comes to the studios, which are just sort of ghosts of what they once were, they're going to go with whatever is new, whatever is popular, whatever is most. Accessible, whatever is going to be fun. I mean, this bleeds into the whole area of the disappearance of 35mm, which I worked at Baxter for a dozen years, too.

There'll be no film. a new release within two years, it will. All be gone. Yeah, it will be. And I don't really have a problem with digital. As a projection medium, it's fine.

It looks good. As long as you can get a hard drive, as long as these films get transferred to hard drives and are safe, I have no problem. From a business aspect, I remember how expensive it all was, the shipping and the damaged prints. The Fading Prince and just how frustrating that whole film is. We're still in every story.

The other night they ran Clockwork Orange up there, and that's the last time. Probably that film's going to be run at 35. Wow. It's a strange thing to think about, but I can understand the progress from a business point of view and even from a quality point of view. So no real issues as long as they can preserve, as long as they can get that stuff onto archives and keep it, as long as it doesn't get wiped somehow.

This doesn't mean they're going to burn all prints. It doesn't mean they're going to burn the original negatives. That stuff's going to be around. It's just a matter of new film. You're not going to see it go that way.

Kind of like the passing of the new films. There's no new films being put on VHS. No. Yeah, and they've stopped making movie cameras. There are no 35mm motion picture cameras being made anymore.

They're gone. Digital. That's a weird feeling. Yeah. What is the exact name, does anybody know, of the film institute that, I don't know, a new...

The AFI? Yeah. Yeah. And they have those little things at the beginning of several DVDs now, or like Clint Eastwood. Yeah, that's all I got.

And then Scorsese talks about, I think, The Red Shoes, when you first saw The Red Shoes. But he doesn't name it. I just thought how sick it would be to edit in, like, the trailer for the Twilight movies and then have this guy say, oh, it had a different grandeur and a sweep, and we have to preserve.... Now, YouTube videos would be. Ernest Garrett's stupid.

This needs to be a YouTube video, if nothing else. Well, I think, I mean, there's, again, there's a lot of negative. Aspects mostly for for nostalgia purposes for us between you know losing vhs losing video stores losing 35 million but there is like i have noticed an upside to like the filmmaker aspect of it. Before we get to that i just have one question When was the last time each of you was in a brick-and-mortar video store? Aside from this week.

This week. Yeah. This week, yeah. Does the library count, getting movies from the library? I think that can count, yeah.

Recently. Yeah. But, like, roughly, though. I'm talking time periods. A month.

A month, okay. Much longer. It's probably been... Almost a year. I know with me it's been at least a year.

At the very minimum. So I can totally understand how. Like I have just made a declaration just yesterday. I am not buying any more DVDs because they sit on the shelf. And there's a little baby can pull them off of the shelf and put crap on the shelf.

But we don't watch them anyway, I've noticed. So I've come to the point where, you know, if I'm not watching, it's just accumulation of more stuff, which I really don't need. But I... I used to love Wild and Woolly. I lived up the street from it.

I'd walk up there all the time. I saw some great movies there that I never would have seen otherwise. And more and more, you have to kind of take into account, are we phasing out that element of our own society? Because we are kind of changing, not kind of, we're changing. As a society with instant delivery and, um, different expectations and as we kind of move into, and I hate to think of phasing that out, but as we move in that direction, we're just, everything is coming right in and we're becoming more isolated, really.

Living a hive. Yeah, you don't have to even go out of the house. One of the upsides to not going out of the house is you can make an entire movie In your living room, granted, writing restrictions, you know, unless you're a zombie cheerleading camp where. You don't have to go anywhere. You just dress your friends up as zombies and turn the camera around in a circle.

But you just. Part of the thing that I'm starting to miss is those gatekeepers. Those. Which the studio execs that say, oh, this can't be a movie. This is horrible.

Granted, they did produce Ernest Scared Stupid. Hey, Jim Varney's a great actor. He's a thesmian. That's right. He is.

Was. Yeah, was. And believe it or not, I liked Ernest. It's funny. I heard Coppola talking on the radio.

I was traveling somewhere. He was talking about. How he got started and he wrote the script for Patton. And they had somebody else was going to play Patton. I can't remember who.

But they didn't like his script. There were elements they thought were sort of bizarre. And so they shelved it. But then later the actor fell through and they got George C. Scott.

And somebody remembered there had been this other version of the script. And they went back and they found his script and used it. And that's, you know, how he got his foot in the door. And the lesson that he said for people in film is the same thing that they fire you for is the exact same thing they give you the Academy Award for. Innovation.

So, yeah, the gatekeeping, it's fluky, but at the same time, it's kind of energizing. I mean, yeah, there is a downside to opening up the floodgates to letting any idiot put out a movie. Because we do get a lot more stuff, especially not to be indie bashing, but in the indie world now, there's 20 times more than there were in the 70s when it was hard to get a camera and make these things. Strictly, they have access to the technology. They're all making the same movie.

Yeah, that too. There is that sameness. But then it's also even like no matter how good something is, just the availability of it makes it less special and people just don't care. I mean, it's kind of both. To me, it's good that it's opening up these new avenues that, again, you as a filmmaker were very limited before all this took place.

But now, I mean, not only can you completely make it on your own, if you can come up with the funding and buy a camera, you can shoot it yourself, you can edit it yourself on your laptop. But now you can also completely bypass the system and find avenues on like on demand or go straight to Netflix or distribution. You can distribute directly. Through your website, through digital downloads or go to iTunes. I mean, there's all these new ways that you can find your audience that is good.

Again, it opens up those floodgates that there's so much out there that it also makes it. a million times harder to find that audience because they're completely. Overrun with bad zombie movies. But in a way, I still think there's a good side. They're entering the industry in a guerrilla format where They can make a movie, have it distributed, and then get hired by a studio. It's all completely backwards compared to that.

And exceptionally talented people can get a career out of it. That's good. I know a lot of people like to call that sort of the punk ethos. It is kind of odd because it's not really the 80s punk aesthetic, but it's like that do-it-yourself. I don't know.

I see people in local music, they always call that a a punk thing, no matter what it sounds like, it's just that they're doing it themselves. Which again is, I mean, there's something to be said for that approach. And it is, I mean, as much as you see what happens when you have studios that totally control your project and end up ruining your projects. I mean, there's, It just quite nearly happened to the wolf man. There's an upside to having them throw that much money at you, but at the same time, you lose your freedom.

So it's a balancing act. But I don't know. I thought that was one aspect that's kind of, I mean, it's different than the nostalgia we have for losing the physical place, but the opening it up to the Internet world kind of throws that in there as well, which essentially is good as an option, Again, we're overrun with stuff. But there's a flood. Yeah.

There's so much. Yeah. And then the real danger, I think, is losing the intensity of attention. Yes. That people will pay to stuff because I just don't think you can have viable, good stuff that people don't really watch.

It drives me crazy. Oh, my. My in-laws and people I know will watch a movie, but they don't really watch it. They're like having a conversation. It's like you didn't see that movie.

You don't know anything about that movie. And then they ask you to tell them what's going on. It's like, just read the freaking synopsis. You don't need me to watch this movie for you and narrate it to you. Although I'm very good at that.

What did you say? I was texting while you were talking. I wouldn't pay attention. They're just consuming movies. They're ingesting them.

And that's something I see at all ages now. It's a matter of the age of the person. It's become so omnipresent that it's like TV. But see, I blame kids. I'm guilty.

Oh, I've done it too. Hello, my name is Steve, and I am a movie consumer. Is that the word we're using right now? Right. An abuser.

I like that one. I do that with some things. Some things I just can't really seriously watch because I watch a few minutes. It's like this is not going to reward that level of attention. It's just not designed to, you know, if I'm paying attention, And some things, you know, they let you know, you're going to have to watch this or you're just not going to get it.

And it's a good thing for them to do because everything gets intense. And, like, the Coen brothers are great with that. They'll just let you know, you're going to have to keep your eye on this because stuff is happening. You're going to be lost in it. And that's when it really draws you into the world of the movie and you just lose yourself in it.

And it's epic, you know. And I don't know, I think there are some people who just don't get into movies that way. It demands too much of them. It demands them to actually watch a picture. I think in Exhibition I saw that so much.

When I'm working in a studio, I tend to put on movies. But I'm not going to gravitate. Towards putting on something to have in the background that I'm really going to have to pay attention to. It's going to be earnest, scared, stupid. Or it's going to be.

I can't really think of anything but Ernest. Getting stupid right now because he's just that awesome. Well, I do that with TV. I've always, especially in more recent years. I mean, as a kid, you just watched everything because you were a kid.

But since then, I've gotten where I just haven't. Well, I think TV has gotten to the point it doesn't garner respect. Most of the time, with minor exception. Now, there are really good shows being made out there, but there's also, as we said, 900 channels of just terrible stuff. I love to tell my wife, can't we watch something that employs writers?

Or something with a writing staff, please. So to me, when. I'm not going to be paying attention, I mean, sometimes, again, I'm just sitting there, I just want something random on, some sort of noise in the background. That's what random TV is. Stuff that I don't even want to pay attention to.

Like I know going in, I'm not going to pay attention to it. I'll just put it on. But I never do that with movies. I've never been one to just turn on a movie and then walk off. I put on certain films, you know, the term comfort movies that I know so well.

Like The Godfather. And I'll have that running and I might be doing something neat. I love that movie, but I've only seen it once for that reason. Really? Maybe twice.

But it was for the reason that it's fantastic, but it is such a commitment. And it's something that it's one of those movies that, whereas you would put it on because you know it, I would. Not because I could not award it that kind of attention. It's in that class. Yes.

Yeah, for me, I've seen it enough that I can see the movie just by hearing the dialogue. There's a part of my brain. That's picking that up while I'm doing something else. That's fun. In theory, the Simpsons popularized the expression mad, but I believe it comes from Godfather Wong.

It's right after Johnny Fontaine leaves the room. Brando turns around and goes, I love Brando. So, I don't know. I mean, we've got that aspect of it. I did want to go back to the video stores themselves and be like, just pose the question.

I mean, we sort of touched on earlier how much a community was built up within physically going somewhere and having to physically interact with other people and physically holding boxes. I mean, it very much changed the process. Yeah. I think the blockbuster thing, I mean, I remember them switching from VHS to DVD, and so they lost a lot of their odd movies that weren't even. On DVD yet.

And then they always had that weird thing with the line at the cash register. They had, like, these stands with a ribbon, and there was a sign there, and it said, line starts here. But then there was an arrow pointing over there. So it was hard to know how to interpret. Line starts here.

Am I at Disneyland? And so people would come in from both sides. And I asked him about that once because I noticed the same sign at the zoo in front of what the concession said. It said, enter here with an arrow pointing over to the other side. So nobody...

It was worse than not having a sign at all. Because then people. Were responsible to be civilized. But with the sign there confusing everybody, everybody felt like they were doing the right thing and the other people were doing the wrong thing. And the people at the blockbuster told me they had fistfights there with people coming up to the counter.

And so then I asked at Wild and Wooly, I said, I notice you don't have like a sign up here telling people how to form a line. Is that a problem? No. No, our customers aren't idiots. It's an issue there.

It's not a hard thing. Because the people that don't fall into that category don't go to get movies. That's the thing. I've never considered Blockbuster to be a movie. It's not of that community.

Because, again, several of us here worked at a geek-friendly store. It was corporate run, but the people at the store were very geek, very hardcore into it and could actually tell you stuff about movies. When I was attempting to find something else at that place, I tried to get on. In a blockbuster. I was there for about four hours.

I was so creeped out by the disconnect. Nobody there cared about movies. It was hard for me coming out of that hardcore geek crowd that we. All worked in. Then I went in there and it was boxes on a shelf.

It could have been product X. They could care less. It was just consumption. It was. It was exactly just, especially the manager end of it was just like, here's the new releases.

He couldn't have named one of them. He couldn't have told you he was in any of them. He gave a rat's ass about anything. And I had to get out of there. I was like, I came up with a.

Reason that I couldn't work there because I couldn't work there for that reason. Before Wild and Wooly, you know, the Highlands Video Vault was the Cutting Edge. That's where I worked for about three, four years. It was super cult-related. It was all cult-related.

It was a great store. And our ownership was not that great, but they understood that was the particular appeal of that location. We would generally have a good time dealing with customers most of the week until Dollar Wednesday would come around. And then it became that scene where. We'd have six registers going and it would be backed up 20 feet in all directions.

And they were just taking anything they could get off the shelves. And the store would clear out. You know, a huge star would clear out on Wednesday, especially the porno section. Yeah. Those are always your best customers.

I think my friend Aaron worked there, and he had a guy come in once who was, like, renting a bunch of porn, but then he said, I can't remember if I've seen some of these before. It's like, So can you check my account? And he had to read off. He had to go over to the computer over here and read off the titles. And then there was a lady with her kids behind the guy in line.

And so he's going, Happy Scrappy Hero Club. Wasn't that a scene in Clerks? That's straight out of Clerks. Which again is why all that stuff is so funny because everything that happens in Clerks has happened to somebody who's worked retail before. Yeah, that would happen all the time, especially with the Parnox.

Generally, they were your best customers because they were very good about taking it home, using it, and getting it back, especially on Sunday morning when the kids and the wife were off at church, the guys would come in. Within two hours, you'd have most of your porn back. And it would all be rewound, and there would be no late fees because they didn't want anybody to know. Occasionally, it would be that mysterious late fee that the wife would see and they'd want. To see, and I would just turn the monitor.

Well, this one. 3408, that's the one. Mm-hmm. My mom lives in Bowling Green, and there were two video stores there. And she would sometimes go to one, sometimes go to another.

But she didn't like walking around the store and looking at movies because she just liked looking at a list. One of the stores had a list of all their movies, and she would just stand there at the counter and flip through it and look through the list. That's such a generational thing. We all love the walking around, but, yeah, she's from a different era. Walking around and encountering things.

But she went in one time to get a movie, and she asked for the list, and there was some guy there she'd never seen before. He said, I don't think we have a list. She's like, no, you do. It's like a printout of all your movies. No, we don't.

I'm sorry, man. She's like, I've come in here a thousand times. You have a list of all your movies. And he goes in the back, and he comes out in a minute, and he gives her this book, and she looks at it, and it's porn. Right.

And then she, you know, while he's in the back, she remembers, oh, it's the other video story. And so now she's made him go to all this trouble to bring out the list. She feels like, do I have to rent one of these now? And how do I choose? All right, on golden blonde it is.

I do miss that. I mean, it's that. Geek camaraderie interaction that when you find somebody on the level of whatever your. Tastes are and you can go to, you know, like they had on, um. Seinfeld where Steve's recommendations or whatever, I've never even met Steve, but I've got, you know, exactly.

And so, you know, that was the best part of a movie store to me other than browsing movie boxes was you knew the guy that worked on Tuesday and always had a great suggestion for you and you. Would go talk to him about it. And he'd say, well, have you seen this? Why have you seen this? And you can read a review online or talk to your friends or look at the, how many stars people have given it, but none.

Of those recommend it. Or even, you know, like on Netflix, it says recommendations for you. Well, most of the time to me, because I, We have four members of the family that all use the Netflix. It's some amalgam of crap. Like, what?

There needs to be different users. None of us want to watch this. My kids' friends have so fucked up my recommendations. Right. See, it's funny if it's, like.

Completely condensed because I realized how frighteningly accurate mine is because I'm the only one that uses it. It'll bring up 10 and I'm like, damn, I want to see every one. I hate you. Get out of my head, Netflix. Actually, they pay people a lot of money to come up with those.

Those little amalgamations of movies. Yeah, there's your movie genome project. Yeah, that's it. That's what Netflix is using. Actually, they were offering Netflix like a year and a half ago.

They were offering a million dollars to a person that could more accurately predict people's taste based on their recommendations in the past or what they liked and didn't like. And it was all math. It was all math that were doing it. Yeah. So I'm sure they have.

I mean, yeah, there's definitely something to that. You know, they've gotten really good at that. But I think there is something. Well, there is something you said about the community. And I can reference one from this show specifically.

The store that several of us used to work at, someone that came in as a customer that I just sort of knew. I don't even think we talked very much. Just sort of, hey, how's it going? And we'd see them regulate. It was Jay.

Yeah. I knew Jay before he ever got involved with the situation or Misty or any of this that goes on now. I knew him from 12 years or more ago because he used to come into our store. And I would always see him back there, and it was right after he had the kid. And I'd be like, oh, yeah, there's that guy.

And now, flash forward years later, he's on this movie geek show. Whether we realize it or not, it is that circle of people. It is that community that... I don't know if it exists the same way without that physical place. Where's it going to germinate?

Where's it going to spring from? It'll go somewhere. Well, I was going to say, there almost is. You're going to find something, wherever there's a need. Now, it might even take the form of a fight club.

I don't know. But you might even see. Movie geek, well, what is this, like a movie geek support group? Is that how I can see? That's where this is going.

Is this, because wherever there's a need societally, oh, we'll fill it. Service economy. It's funny, like in the 1800s, people would blow into Louisville. and, like, find other people. I heard somebody was here, and they would go to, like, places, and they'd have to, like, talk and ask around, but people would make connections. Heaven forbid, I just can't do that.

Yeah, we don't do that anymore. Well, that's what people used to do. And then they did that study, like, it was in the 60s when they did the six degrees of separation study, and they found that it took about six links from some people living out in the Midwest, to find a stockbroker in New York. And that was the experiment. How many people does it take?

And so they did that study, and it was about six. But then somebody else studied it and found out, no, it just bounces around aimlessly until it hits one of those people who knows everybody. And then it goes straight there. And there's this phenomenon, some people are hubs. They just know everybody.

And then they studied the Internet to see if it made us closer. And it was like, no, it was still about six links to find anybody. But I haven't heard if they studied how things on the Internet act as hubs. And that's the question. I do know there's like a folk music site where they collect references for people who are folk music geeks.

And if you can't find something... there's like a guy in Japan who knows everything, and he's on there. You ask the question, people will guess around and say, it sounds like this, it sounds like, until this guy gets on there. But it's not like other sites where stuff just comes and goes. Like if you wrote something on there 10 years ago, it's still there. It's still there.

I think it has changed. some of it, I think it's very different, but I think some of that world has shifted and moved onto the internet. And I think we've seen a lot of that in just what's popped up around the forum community and. The podcast community. Like we, there's tons of people that I've now known online and have ended up meeting in the real world. And it's all because of, you know, this little hardcore group of movie geeks that, the only way they know each other is because of the internet.

And there is a level to that. It's different. It's very different, but it does like open up that we all have the same interest kind of thing on a worldwide format. All of a sudden we're, we're throwing it out there to you. You know, we occasionally we're talking to people in Australia and we're talking to guys in England that like the same movie.

So it, it's i don't think that it's the same interaction but it definitely gives you so much more access to so many more people out there that you you end up finding a lot of people that have the same interest as you or similar interests that you would have never run into obviously physically would have never. Run into but even then it's like it's just such a higher number of people that you end up finding so much more via the. Internet now i don't think i would have known you if it weren't for the Internet. That's true. That is how we ended up hanging out.

There are people that either call into a podcast or sit in on one that I've listened to several other times that I would take their recommendation on a movie and before. My best friend's recommendation on a movie. Because I've listened to them, you know, have the same arguments that I have about a movie or the same perspective that I have about it. And a lot of times I'll disagree with them on a movie. But at the same time, I know if someone's, no, you have to see this, then I know, yeah, you're right, I have to see it.

And I appreciate that, especially the hours that people put in after seeing this into doing that, that those are the best recommendations. I can get. Well, that's the thing. I think when you're like an online... persona, some people like to say, oh, I'm the same online as I am. You have to make a little.

Extra effort to like, you know, put out what your interests are and to be a resource for other people who might, it's. Kind of a little bit of a little bit of work, you know, but when you're talking about things that you're into and excited about, it's just sort of what you naturally do. It's like, I remember when I first started meeting younger people who were just like Johnny intellectual property seed. They just wanted you to see the stuff that they liked and they'd go copy it for you and bring it to you on disc. And it's like, oh, I've got this thing, you know, because it's what you do.

You want people to like know about the stuff you like. So, yeah, without really forming a definite plan there. people get out there and spread around the stuff that they, they love. Yeah. I think, I mean, there's definitely that aspect of the internet society, but I think we've also seen, and I think a lot of this is, I don't know if it's conscious that it's going on, but we're starting to see the same thing happen just in different places. So I think the.

Fact that nobody gathers together to go get a movie or sometimes even to go watch first runs that much anymore is the fact that places like Alamo Draft House have taken off because we still want that interaction. We want a place to sort of have a group of people that. Has similar likes or at least is there to have the same experience as we are, but nobody likes the way that it's being run anymore and nobody wants to go sit there and do that. So I think we're starting to see people congregate to the draft houses or even, as we've seen, the conventions. I mean, there's a group of people that goes to conventions that– only goes to conventions, would only know each other because of conventions, may not even like each other outside of their convention world.

But, I mean, we've seen and know so many people because of that, and the film fest is kind of the same thing. It's sort of sometimes they cross over, sometimes they don't. Deprivation only breeds intensity. I mean, you definitely, I think we're starting to see people shift to that. And maybe it's because we're losing.

That part of our culture that we don't have that physical place to go and hang out and talk about movies but we've got this place over here and it's kind of the same thing and you know it only happens once a year but There's one going on every month. So, you know, we, yeah, the convention circuit has become a pretty big business. And it's grown at that same level. It's like as video stores have. Dropped off and people have lost that outlet, it's like conventions keeps bringing up one after the other.

Just like there was once a glut of video stores. There's a glut of conventions now. There's going to be some dying off. Yeah, definitely. Well, you know, lost a local record store.

Which was huge. Yeah, which was huge. It was a nationally known record store. It was so successful. I know a guy who said he was in Brazil, and he said that a bartender just asked him, is your ecstasy really closing?

I mean, yeah, it's another one of those that I kind of saw it coming. It's the way the system is working. I can't help wondering, like, couldn't they have morphed it into more of a hangout where that would bring in dollars? Because wouldn't people do that if it was something like... I mean, people will pay anything for coffee to have a coffee place to go to and hang out.

And that's what... I don't know. It just seems like it needed to become what. It needed to become. That's what I've said.

I've said it needed to change. And I don't know how to do it, but. No, I think what it needed to do, and this is... It still kind of ties into what we're talking about here. I think that it was a record store.

It was hard to find stuff. It was stuff you had to special order, same as our movies. But as times changed, everybody could get whatever. What it needed to do was shift into performance. I mean, they had a huge space there.

They couldn't open half of it up to just shows. Brought people in, charged five bucks a head. Every kid that hangs out in that trendy little area. Would have paid. Just to hang out there, sell coffee, still have a little area where they can sell like vinyl or something that nobody else is going to stock, obviously.

They could have saved it, I think, by doing that. They just didn't. And, again, he'd been doing that for, like, what, 25, 30 years. I'm not going to knock John a lot. No.

Yeah, if it's a matter of being immobile, I don't think. He could do it. Did he want to? I don't think he would relinquish it to someone else. Yeah, I don't think.

Just tired of doing it, too. It's on Facebook today, my friend in Nashville. Grimey's down in Nashville. Of course, it's Music City, but it's thriving business. There are plenty of thriving record stores that you can.

You can point your fingers at the e-revolution, but it really isn't the reason. You've been static, and you can't move, and you can't adapt. And that's what happened to Borders. Borders died on a corporate level. It did not die on a per-cap level at the stores.

They were making millions. But yet we're robbed. Suddenly there's not a lot of bookstores here. There aren't at all. Nothing near me.

I have to drive 15 miles to get to a bookstore now. Give it time. I'm hoping, you know, once again, there'll. Be a flow where other stores and smaller businesses will move in and fill that gap. Yeah.

I've seen one or two little indie bookstores pop up lately, one of which is across the street right now. Well, Borders kind of killed that. Yeah. Well, Borders, you know, Holy Cook was always sort of a Borders business plan, but it was a local store, and they went under Borders. Borders saved them, but then when Borders went through it all.

Well, they bought them, and they just assimilated. That's what I think is funny, is they almost cashed in at the best possible time. That indie bookstore that had gotten kind of huge sold out to them, and now the book system has gone under completely, really. Well, it was all because of bad business decisions, like Borders buying a stationary company. Everybody just uses email.

Well, and it was the same. It's like, why did you do that? You know, the record store starting its own music label. And it's like, after a while, you start... And then.

The typewriter repair service. It's not really. Not going over so well. But no, I mean, to me, that, like talking about the record store changing its format, I think that's the same thing. The video stores are gone forever. but doing the Alamo Drafthouse thing.

That's the exact same thing. It's like turning it into a venue, turning it into an event more than selling you something, but selling you the act of going there, the food and the accessories that really makes money. Just the fact that you can have a beer and watch a movie. A lot of the bigger cities, like when I was in Toronto and Chicago, Both of them were having big movie, like in the middle of the summer, they would have, they'd come out with a projector, project like a classic movie, like War of the Worlds, or it came from Planet Nine, I think, is the one we watched in Toronto. Like on the side of a building.

Toronto and Chicago and my backyard. Nice. Only when it's not really hot. I had a bunch of kids over and they watched Planet of the Apes, the original pilot. We were going to do more, but the summer was just so hot.

A lot of times you just couldn't do it. It wasn't fun. It's funny how far people will track those folding chairs. It really is. But I think that's what it's come to.

I think we're losing that, but people still want the event. That's the only way to save it is to turn it into an event, is to make it something else. Because there is no place for that world anymore. There is no reason to have a video store. I hate to tell the few events that are still out there.

In some ways. I don't know. I feel like coming together to watch some movie that you love projected on the side of a building with a bunch of people is kind of. A better way to intermingle with people in a lot of ways. To actually get out of the house, drag your foldable chair and beer cooler down to wherever, and just sit down and watch something that you've seen a million times before with 60, 70 other people.

Yeah. I think that's what I'm kind of taking from it. I mean, as much as I will miss the experience itself, I think it's, it's inevitable. I mean, there is no reason to keep trying to. Do it that way.

It's just, again, it's, it's like borders and money. You're just, you're going to close eventually. It's just a matter of time. And now most of them already have. So I think it's more of just that act of doing something.

I think it is, you know, just, You have to have some place to do that. It's just changing it and finding a better way to go about it, a different way to go about it. Well, it's the fight between convenience and experience. You can have access to almost anything you want now, but there's something kind of missing. Which is why these little things spring up.

We have people that keep doing these little, hey, we're doing a showing of this, and Or the midnight show, Adam's Family. That was my thing. It's like, well, I've seen Adam's Family, but how many people showed up there? I give Bob a lot of credit up at the back. He's trying to keep the midnight movies alive, and they've been thriving.

It shows that people want to do it. It's still that aspect. I thought it was dead when he started that. We worked together. I thought, my generation did that.

I don't know if you can If you can make it work, it did. Yeah, but it's our people, our age and older, that are showing up. Yeah, we have a memory of the Vogue. It's the same crowd. Yeah, he met last night, mentioned the Vogue, and people just, oh, you know.

And I was a child of the Vogue, and that was a social hub, and that was a social center. We tried very hard to make Baxter that way from the beginning, but it was just too big a business to. Yeah, that was the last of the independent movie theaters. The one screen set up, yeah, we lost that. Single screen theaters can't survive that.

The Charlie Varick of theater. Last of the independent. What was the last movie in the last picture show? It was the last movie at Sam's Place. I can't remember.

It was a John Wayne movie. It was Red River or something? Yeah. And then there was the kid who swept the dusty street every day. The one thing all my life that has stayed the same, though, while all of this has happened and everything has changed, is bagged ice.

Bagged ice machines are still exactly what they were when I was a kid. You still go and get your bag of ice from a machine that has ice ice in block letters with maybe a little snow drip on it. Or a polar bear. Yeah, or a polar bear. They haven't really done a whole lot with it.

Although the elements are really just water and coal. And we get. Better and better refrigerator freezers that make our own ice, and yet... People still are buying bad guys. Have you ever run out of ice, though, when you have a bunch of thirsty people?

It's a terrifying moment. Tough luck. Drink it hot, Jackie. And for that matter, I would like to say I classify society based on ice. My entire worldview is based on ice.

And it is simply this. How many of you can tell, are any of you, are your ice trays full of ice right now? Yeah. Do you fill your ice trays? I don't use them right now, they're not.

I would get a divorce if I didn't. You empty it, you fill it. My wife would get a divorce. You don't mess around. Yeah.

You don't mess around. You're civilized. My wife says to me, this man is savage. Yeah. I have sense enough to put the drink in the refrigerator.

It's already cold. I don't need ice. It doesn't matter. If it were up to me, those machines, those big freezers. Would go bankrupt.

Putting it in the freezer, and I hear my wife saying... Oh, Fred has this theory about ice. And I'm like, yeah. My theory is you have to put it in the ice cube tray and put it in the freezer if you want ice. That's my theory.

When I met my wife, she didn't even own ice trays. That's what I'm saying. I came over with an ice tray, put it in the freezer, and I said, fill it or you're a savage. And eventually, after I called her a savage so much and I bought her that loincloth, she started filling the ice trays. I say damn you and your culture.

I'll have none of it. Exactly. Precisely. Another thing, if you work at an office, there has to be a pot of coffee all damn day long. Or you're among Visigoths.

I worked this place, and they all just drank water from the little water cooler. And when the guy would bring the bucket of water and put it on, they'd go, ooh, let's go taste the water. It's new water. What's the matter with you? Did somebody make some fucking coffee in this place?

God! All right. Obviously, we've spiraled out of control here. So, to wrap it up here, I don't know. I just wanted to sort of acknowledge this passing.

I mean, it's kind of silly. I mean, there's plenty of people who aren't movie geeks. They'd be like, it's just a fucking video store. Get over it. There's truth to that.

I mean, it's something as silly and simple as going to a video store and renting a movie. I don't know. It's not that big a deal to a lot of people. But. If you stop and think about the fact that it's kind of going to be...

That process will be lost to the ages. That really, kids from this point on, this next generation coming. Up, are not going to know that ever. And only their ISP will know what porn they look at. See?

Yeah. You won't have somebody behind the counter snickering at what you just read. Exactly. They don't have the power anymore for people. But, you know, I'd like to.

You don't know what's going to happen. Something's going to twist it. Something's going to put another spin on it that we can't see coming. Probably because they're going to set some sort of rules. I do like that.

The computer world, as it were right now, when we were talking to Emma Caulfield. Recently, she put it as the Wild West. And it is. Right now, there are no fucking rules. To anything, which on one hand is good because it led to, you know, this show wouldn't exist if This weird system hadn't sprung up and there was nobody saying that I couldn't say it's the fucking wild west.

Obviously, when FCC steps in and the government starts taking over a little more control over this, I mean, there's laws going up right now that are trying to limit what freedom you have on the internet. I think that will be the deciding factor is if somebody steps in, really bad if the government steps in and. Starts deciding things. What we can have access. To, what we can put out there, what we can do on the Internet.

I think they will overtly say this is what you can't do. I think what they'll do is they'll just pay the. Providers, five providers. Like with me, I have options, one or two, of who I can get my internet through. They'll just say, you're going to filter this.

And it may very well already be that. They're filtering stuff that I don't even know about. Much like the world in general, it may not be the government we have to be worried about, but the corporations. The two or three corporations that are going to own everything. It's not going to be so much a matter of morality.

It's how much money can we profit. And If you can cut something off and make a profit, that's where it's going to go. And that's what we'll have to see. That's where it's all gone so far. It will continue.

Taxation. Amazon just tagged on that little tax the other day. How much does that change everything at the end of the year, at the end of 10 years? It's going to add up a lot. Yeah, so it's, I think it all, it's that penny per transaction from Superman coming back to minus.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, once you get into that many people, again, we're talking worldwide, it's like. Forget office space. I just saw something else, too, the exact same thing, and I can't remember what that was, but. It was, yeah.

Either way. You were making an actual point and actually tying things up. I think that's what it's coming to. I think it really is the Wild West now, and there are no rules, but I think all of this could very. Well change, like you said, Brad.

Once something shifts in it, I think maybe it'll all fall apart, and it'll be Planet of the Apes, and we'll all go back to watching VHS and going to video stores, and Dr. Zayas will ring you up at the counter. Screw it. I'm strapping on my Guy Fawkes mask and going for the future. Yeah.

So, dude, is there anything else we need to get in there on this or have we thoroughly wandered around this stuff? We are lost in the wilderness. I think we are. Let's move on. Let's wrap it the hell up.

So with that, I will say, okay, kids, get out your decoder bins. For you members of the Secret Circle. And this is the week coming up that you're going to need that big brass thing. Fanfare? Yeah, exactly.

But anyway. To work in the next upcoming feature. Yes, next week's feature will be the universal classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Should be pretty epic. So, to round this thing out, musically, sadly, and accurately, we're going to go with this Bubbles-inspired song entitled Internet Killed the Video Store.

Frighteningly accurate. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening.

I saw you on the cathode back in 92 699 is what I paid a week for you If I was young, it didn't stop you coming through. Oh, oh. They took on the information superhighway. Faster than walking, driving, or 56K. And now I understand the fears that you would say.

Oh, oh. I'm not your children. Oh, oh. What did you tell them? You're the biggest star.

Broadband came and set the score. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And now we meet nostalgic friends from long ago. The stock, the Sony player, hi-fi stereo. And you remember the playback used to go.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And in my core Analog. Children are no more Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And in my core analog children are no more Rodman came and set the score put the blame on the next I'm one with your soul. I'm one with your soul.

I'm all about more coffee. All this prostitution for Thundermuck is making me. Right. Yeah, we get no money for it, by the way. This prostitution is making me thirsty.

I'm just talking about another cup of coffee. I never claimed to be inexpensive or. 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.

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