172: You have been Zardozed

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It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one. Million kilowatts of power. Five more cooling in the containment chamber.

To your sentinels, we have a movie meltdown. Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead. 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 Greg. I'm Bo.

I'm Ben. I'm Alan. I'm Lucy. I'm Dave. And we are back.

And it is time for another session of the Caffeinated Movie Geek. Cappuccino 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 Green Room Coffee and Espresso Bar. And as you heard in the lineup there, we once again have suckered Alan from Green Room into sitting in with us. So, um. We will ask you this time, Alan, what blend of coffee are we drinking this week? We're drinking the Sumatra.

And I've tricked you this time with an experiment that you guys already know what happened. Some of it was ground a week ago. Some of it wasn't. And you were supposed to know the difference. It's a trick.

We did taste test it. You know, it all went fine. Mm-hmm. One of them was poison. We won't tell you which one yet, guys.

Iocane powder. So, uh, to do a one-off geek week kind of thing, um, um, Bo, you have something that you've seen recently to throw out there? Yeah, just the other day I saw Hero Dreams of Sushi. It was a documentary about an 85-year-old sushi master in Japan who just runs a small little bar in a, um, Tokyo subway. And, um, At first, I didn't really know, you know, what it was even going to be about.

It was definitely the most captivating documentary I've seen in just a long time because it was not only about the art of sushi, but just about the love of one's job and just discipline one's life as well as tradition within Japan. So it was pretty multifaceted and just a lot of classical music to it where it was just, you know, it's like watching almost sort of an orchestral performance, both, you know, with the music as well as just watching him make sushi to the tune of that. So, I mean, it was... Very enjoyable film. Highly recommend.

And where was this? I called it The Village. But it is in theaters for the moment? Yeah. I mean, it's currently just bouncing around in the U.S.

Regretfully, it only had a week here. Yeah. Most stuff is lucky to get a week in any city anymore. So it's not surprising, really. But yeah, it's...

Especially now, it seems that the majority of the money is to be made in DVD versus... So, I mean, it seems like there's becoming just less and less of an emphasis of something actually having legs in theaters, which is sad. And it's almost everywhere. I mean, New York, L.A., it's the same. You know, they'll get a run, but.

It's kind of what's important. I'm shocked with The Hunger Games. I mean, can you think of the last time something went three weeks at number one? Paul Blart. It seems like he was at number one forever.

Sadly, you're probably right. Yeah. But, I mean, yeah, I mean, after Titanic, nothing did that anymore. And I guess the closest thing would be James Cameron again ten years later. Avatar, yeah.

But that's probably the last time something sat at the top for, I mean, maybe you get two weeks sometimes. But more than that is unheard of at this point. I'm still remembering when we had my big fat Greek wedding at Baxter for almost 11 months. No. It's never going to die.

No. No. There are those weird ones that just hang around. Those kind of films do well, and then they end up killing theaters. The Vogue was murdered by the Full Monty.

It was too popular. It wouldn't leave. And then nobody needs to go there anymore because everybody else in town has seen it already. The Full Monty Theater. Yeah, might as well be at that point.

Talk to Carl like six months in. He's basically, I wish this would end. And that brought a whole new group in to see it. Was that the last thing shown there? Not the last, but they were down within a few months.

I think your friends and neighbors was the last picture. Because I think I saw pie. That was the last, like the week before, friends and neighbors. I think the Full Monty might have been, because when it closed, I was out of town. But I think it was the last thing that I saw there.

Of course, that also. Sort of marks a bigger push towards open-end versus closed-end bookings, too. It's like, no, just let it run as long as it's making money. Yeah, the Vogue was a calendar house. Yeah.

For so long and then couldn't afford to stay at Calendar House. You can't just have one option anymore. No, if you're a. Single screen theater, it's impossible to survive because that money was going to the studios. They were getting a certain amount.

By that time, Baxter was around and then people started to migrate. I hated to see it because I grew up with the Vogue. We tried to make that our ninth screen, but nobody was willing to be reasonable so yeah it collapsed. And on that fun note the death of independent movie theaters all right well well we will take a break and come back with this week's movie. If you leave the theater, folks, please be careful.

Don't let this happen to your car. Be sure to remove. The speaker before you leave. If you should accidentally pull. A speaker loose, please turn it in at our snack bar or box office.

Thanks. The only good human is a dead human. The bizarre world you met on the planet of the apes was just the beginning. What lies beneath may be the end. 20th Century Fox takes you beneath the planet of the apes.

This is the year 3955 A.D. The apes are building a war machine aimed at planet domination. Superhuman mutants strike back with new and terrifying weapons of the mind. In the atomic rubble of what was once the city of New York, civilization's final battle is about to begin. The only good human is a dead human.

Beneath the planet of the apes, with James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, Linda Harrison, and Charlton Heston, Can a world long endure half ape, half man? The answer lies deep beneath the planet of the apes. In color rated G, general audiences. Coming May 26th and 27th, Wonderfest. In this, their 22nd year, Wonderfest is still the annual expo for model and toy collectors.

With a huge display and competition for plastic kits and garage kits. This year, in addition to all the events, they are also welcoming actress Joanna Cassidy from Blade Runner and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as well as Bill Moseley, Julie Adams from Creature from the Black Lagoon, and designer and illustrator Eric Chu, who redesigned the Cylons, Raiders, Vipers, and much of the universe for Battlestar Galactica. Plus lots of other guesting activities, so go to wonderfest.com and check it out yourself. This is William Forsythe and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. That's what we need.

We need you doing other people. That's it, man. That's it, man. You know. Sean Conrad.

This is William Forsythe and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. It's time for Sofa Theater. I try to suppress these thoughts, but they leak out through the head wound of my third death. 20th Century Fox presents a John Borman film. Zardoz.

They make you old, but they don't let you die. It took careful breeding to produce a slave who would free his masters. Zardoz. Vote, please. Sentence, George Satan will be aged five years.

Yeah, it's a bit frightening, isn't it? Zardoz, rated R, under 17, not admitted without parent. All right, we are back, and we are actually recording this on John Waters' birthday, and I believe he was credited with, you know, something to the effect, I'm paraphrasing here, but, you know, get more out of life, see a fucked up movie. I believe that's what they're quoting him with, so I think that's perfect for this week's special movie. So, yes, with that, welcome back to Movie Vault on Sofa Theater.

This week's Sofa Theater feature is Zardoz. The year is 1974. Director John Borman, surprisingly enough, they plot, according to IMDb, in the. I like to clear it beforehand. I am not responsible for these monstrosities.

In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements. Whatever. To an extent yeah that wasn't bad with that spoiler alert um i'd say you should run out and see zardoz but it i i don't know what to think really so you take it upon yourself i don't want to be responsible for the damage that. Zardoz does to people so. Take it upon yourself but just know we're going to spoil it from here on out so where would you like to begin can.

I just say i was looking at the imdb page of this and the one user review at the bottom of the page um Like, these are just some quotes from... It's all from the same review. Like, some of the quotes are, everything but the kitchen sink. This movie is truly awful. Nine out of ten.

Hairy back, leather thong, gun-toting Sean Connery. So, I think those... Those quotes, in a way. Yeah, we should begin with Sean Connery. His man diaper.

And that inspired a thought in me, actually. I know that the Travis haircut didn't work out in terms of a fundraiser, but I was thinking if you promised to wear. The Zardoz costume. For Halloween with the diaper and the pirate boots and the ammunition holster. I don't even want to see that.

No good would come of that. Nobody wants that. I don't think so. People would pay me not to wear that. There's a certain group of males that would probably pay a lot of money to see that.

Yeah, but not me. Some guys, not me. Well, I think, again, before we even get to the Sean Connery look, I think you know you're in for a special movie when, as the credits are rolling, you see a credit that is inflatables buy. When you've got a credit of inflatables buy, you know it's a very strange movie you're about to watch. Yeah.

You know, if it weren't for the having to watch it for the show, Just the introduction by Zardoz. The floating head introduction. You get not one, but two floating heads in the first five minutes. I just about turned it off. I stopped the movie and started it over because I thought I turned on the wrong thing.

You were on some sort of children's program. In a way, it's kind of like a disclaimer. Like, what you're about to watch is seriously fucked up. And I'm just going to let. You know that.

The drawn-on mustache. Oh, man. Well.... I thought it really looked like, oh, is this going to be completely camp? Like, are we going to just.

But in a darkened theater, the floating head is even more bizarre, because you don't have at least the comfort of, you know, you're watching it in your home, and you've got, you know, all the rest of the furniture in the room. It's just, no, this is you and this floating head, and that is it, and this is where you're going for the next few hours. That's pure cinema. Yeah. Out of context, you would think that the opening scene of that movie is just a brilliant Monty Python sketch.

Right. Yeah. Or Hugh Laurie, or, like, Blackadder or something. Yeah. Well, then when the Brutals are running at the beginning towards the Zardoz head, two of them trip.

And I thought, this is going to be something. I thought, did they trip on purpose? They're Brutals. They're not very sophisticated. You know, it was.

But really, I mean, within the first five minutes, you've got a stone head that comes floating down. You have all these people come running towards it wearing similar masks. and it spews out guns, and it's just, the gun is good, the penis is evil. It's like, how can you not be invested in the rest of the film? I was like, okay. I've got to see how this turns out.

Exactly. What context does this make sense with, then? And I love their reaction. It's like, the gun is good, and everyone's like, yay! And then he's like, the penis is evil, and everyone's just.

Like, okay. They're still learning. If he says so. Well, that's the thing. I kind of avoided this one, And for good reason, as most people probably had.

So, and then I'd had so much built up around it. I'd seen the shot of him in the costume. And I'd seen, you know, I'd heard people describe it as this mess. And at Taxi Driver, we had the trailer, thanks to Bo. So, yeah.

The trailer's built like its own cult following. Yeah. And that's actually a Vogue remnant. Yeah. Wow.

Nice. Nice. But yeah, so even from the trailer, I think the trailer even doesn't do it justice. In a way, it makes it even more of a mess. The thing is, by the time we got into it, I was like, I expected way more of a train wreck than I got.

I was like, it has a real story. It has a basic plot that I just expected a big mind fuck the whole way through. And I was just like, no, this is weird and self-indulgent at times. But it still follows a plot line. It's not as messed up as I expected, really.

No. No. It was made in an era where, you know, there were a lot of trailers kind of done that way intentionally. Yeah. What's the year on Zardo?

73? 74? 74. But, I mean, you know, there were a lot of those Giallo trailers coming out of Europe at the time that had that same sort of format. Tommy or any Ken Russell thing had a look and a really frenetic pace like that trailer.

Kind of got you prepped. And I liked the. Big floating hit. Not the first one, but the stone one is awesome. The stone one, yeah, I made...

I mean, for what was being shot? I'm thinking of building one in the backyard. Okay. One with grain in the. No guns.

I want to see how it works. You know, it cuts out traffic. Exactly. If somebody pisses you off, you just land on them. Actually, you could make a hot air balloon.

That's the Zardoz hit. I would totally ride around in it. If I were to win one of the big lotteries, I would construct the Zardoz hit balloon. And you'd throw guns out of the basket. I'd have a megaphone.

I'd be screaming, you know, the guns are good, the penis is evil. Go forth and kill! The funny thing is, six people would look up and go, that's hilarious. And everybody else would be like, who is that crazy person? And one person would be like, I've been waiting for you.

And start shooting. It's not about how many people get it, it's do the right people get it. And for those six people who would get it, it would make their year. Again, I would be on board with that. If you win the lottery, I'm totally behind it.

I'm totally on board with that one. It made me have a disturbing thought. How much of this influenced. The opening of Aladdin. with the giant tiger head talking, because that's all I could think of for some reason. How many child animators who grew up to be working at Disney were like, I need to, this is something right here.

I need to make this into a cartoon. Well, okay, if we're going to go into the potentially inspiring other people in the industry, okay, we have to assume George Lucas saw this right. Because, I mean, you obviously get the Princess Leia haircut. But then the more I sat there, I was like, all of the Princess Leia haircuts are represented in this movie. You get the buns on several of them.

You get our main co-lead girls kind of got the little braids from Empire. And then, well, Sean Connery's got the slave girl out. I mean, he's got the braided ponytail. I mean, you've got all of them covered there. I kept thinking of a mix of like Princess Leia and Bjork.

Like somehow that whole thing had gotten together and created all those people. I'm pretty sure they would hang out together. This is coming to the time when Sean Connery's trying to break the image of Bond. It's like, I don't think he had to go that far. Yeah, all the way.

But still. I think he was on a wedding dress. Oh, I loved that moment. That was great. The wedding dress?

Just because it was so unnecessary. Yeah, I mean, couldn't they have just, you know, put a mask on him? There were 40 of those laying on the ground around him. That's just an internet meme waiting to happen right there. Just that screenshot.

The fact that it hasn't happened. Yeah. Or that that should be my cake topper at some point. This is why I'll never get married. I feel like Sean Connery agreed to do it where he's like, well, do I get to be around half naked women the whole time and they're like yes he's like well then shine me up the rest is history.

Yeah i heard he fought that but uh obviously not hard enough but yeah i think like you said he was well on one hand he was trying to shed that image at at the same time i think the way uh john boardman put it he was kind of hard up for work you know he was He lost his franchise for half of his career. So that's also why they got him for relatively cheap compared to what he had been making because he just needed direction at this point. His Darby O'Gill residuals ain't going to last forever. Coasting on that. So, yeah, I think at this point he was also just looking for a job and, you know.

A major character like this, I mean, you'll get a string of movies out of Zardoz, right? It sets up a potential sequel, because at the end, there's a son. Go for it. Zardoz Jr. coming this summer. I think the time is ripe for reimagining.

That's the thing. People like to complain about all the impressive movies they do. Nobody would really argue with them if they wanted. They would say you're stupid for trying to do it, but they wouldn't say you're going to ruin it. Somebody would.

Put it in the hands, you know, that's actually a good question. You know, Aronofsky, I could see like a sequel to that or a remake of that. Well, that's the thing. I mean, it's a pretty stock movie. science fiction plot, when you strip off all the weirdness. I've seen these kind of things before.

The Society of Immortals. Or just mankind having divided into two particular sects. I mean, it's a time machine, essentially. That's what I was thinking. It's got a very Morlocks kind of, you know, they're just normal stupid humans, but it's very much broken up into those two societies.

But that's what I was thinking. It's got a somewhat traditional plot going on there, and it's got relatively, like, smart themes going through it. It's got, I mean, basically religion is designed to keep people under control. That's interesting. You could definitely do a whole movie just focusing on that and bringing that into play somewhere around there.

I feel like there's something to be said for sci-fi movies where people ride horses. I feel like we don't see that enough. Yeah, I can see that theme. There were moments that had a little Planet of the Apes. That's what I was thinking.

Yeah. Throwing nets over humans. A big giant head. Yeah. Nobody's screaming at the end.

Right. Yeah, but like the late 60s all through the mid-70s, those kind of films were around. They were kind of dominating. You had a lot of really weird, freewheeling science fiction going on. And you couldn't make that kind of movie now.

There'd be no potential market for it. The market, too. That didn't dominate so much back then. The Zardoz is a very 70s picture. That's what I like about it.

I guess you could almost argue that Kubrick sort of set that tone with 2001, where it's like you could take a sci-fi plot and just make it something where it would be more surreal. He definitely had an eye on 2001 with the music choices and things like that. It's in there. You could get away with being surreal because half the audience was high in the 70s, too. Half the cast was, too.

Obviously. That's another thing I noticed, especially towards the end there. I was like, this was all just designed to be trippy, right? Because this would have messed with your head if you were high in the theater right now. So I'm obviously doing it wrong sitting at home drinking coffee and watching Zardoz.

I'm like, this is just weird, and what the hell is this scene for? It's all right if you held your breath every five minutes for as long as you could. And then just watched. That would explain why my brain is like, I. Think because I really had trouble with the tabernacle scenes.

I thought they were, they, they, they felt like, they felt like, um, in, uh, Conan, the destroyer, when he has to fight the wizard in the ice castle, it felt like that scene, you know, and, um, not that obviously not that, because that came 10 years later, but, um, And even that, when I was a kid, felt cheesy. So I guess, yeah, I think the only way that that could feel serious or anything would probably, if somebody were to take some sort of mind-altering... It was. Also sort of reminiscent of Man of the Golden Gun 2. Yeah.

When Bond is running around in the mirror room. Christopher Lee's character, Scarmanga's shooting gallery. Well, that's, yeah, I mean. Enter the Dragon as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That's what I was thinking. It's like, once you get into the quote-unquote tabernacle, I'm like, it's just a deluxe House of Mirrors.

It's a House of Mirrors with video playback, basically. But, I mean, it's not really anything different. More floating heads. Yeah. Lady from Shanghai, too.

That scene went on forever, by the way. Because I had to watch it before I came here, and I was like, okay, wait, I'm pretty sure this scene's going to be about five minutes, so I'm going to go grab some food right now and come back, and sure enough, sure enough. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I think that stretch towards the end is the only thing i really had a major problem with and that's that's the part that like even years later you'll see john boorman is like yeah i would have cut that down even he admits i was being a little self-indulgent here i thought all these shots needed to be here and i mean you could that whole last 20 25 minutes you could have wrapped up in about 10 tops.

I mean it could have been a hell of a lot quicker wrap up There's. A lot of images within that last 25 that could also be the internet meme. Just Sean Connery coming up with all the hands on him and just the projection. That's another one I was thinking. All that stuff that they do throughout the whole.

Movie, that's a lot of effects. But the effects are all practical, obviously, because they didn't have any other option. And they all look relatively good. It's a good looking movie. Yeah, I don't. dislike anything even the floating stone head looked pretty damn good actually i was looking at it going you can't i mean it doesn't look any worse than.

Any other movie at the time and then they get into the. I guess what would be considered the cheap effects of just projecting images on people and like just doing like glass screens and putting images in the in the scene and i'm like if they did this kind of stuff now with cg. It would probably look terrible like it's. It's that weird thing of them being too good for practical effects and not being able to. That's one thing I always liked about all of Barman's films, is he's a very visual director.

He's a very organic director. He tries to do everything in camera, traditionally. Even the heretic in Exorcist II, which is just a nightmare. Which derailed his career. But even more modern stuff like Taylor of Panama, too.

It's even there, but even Exorcist II still has some gorgeous visual stuff in it. It's just a nonsense script. But I've always liked Borman's movies a lot. Zardoz is just that really weird knot that happened in the mid-70s. That's the other thing, is figuring out that he was the director and just going, whoa, wait a minute.

And then write, direct, and produce. It was his. Well, yeah, he'd done Deliverance. I was going to say, yeah, post-Deliverance, he'd gotten recognition and probably money. It was huge.

I mean, it was a huge film. He was nominated for Best Picture. But it's very different. It's a very natural kind of picture. Yeah.

Yeah. But on the strength of that, he was able to do Zardoz. That's amazing. All of a sudden, you have full creative control. You can do anything you want in the world, and this is what he can do.

There's other directors that have done it, like the Coen brothers. Post No Country for Old Men, the first thing they do is A Serious Man, which is just very eclectic. A lot of people just did not get it, but I thought it was a fun film. I think one of the little things I read in the wiki about that was that Deliverance, he had been given full. Autonomy on deliverance by the producers.

They said, do whatever you want. And he did whatever he wanted. It was huge. And so they were like, dude, that was our bus. That'll work.

Do that again. And then probably the scariest thing about all this, or could have been the best, was that he almost did Lord of the Rings. Yeah. He was in talks to do that, and they couldn't get the funding. That was when the Beatles wanted to do it.

Oh, seriously? They were involved. They started out wanting to do an animated Lord of the Rings, post-Yellow Submarine. And then they still wanted to do it, and I guess they were intent on playing characters. And Borman was on board with that for a while.

That happened for a while. Because they own the rights. I think the Beatles actually had the rights for a while. I just found that out just last week. That almost changed the world.

It's like Lynch almost directing Return of the Jedi. That would almost be just as ground-breaking. The bizarro world. I just can't imagine it. After seeing Doom, we can probably say that probably is one of the best.

That's what he did instead of James. Yeah. Although I do hold a special place in my heart for Doom. I like Doom. It's not really Lynch's.

It's an interesting failure. It's not really his fault. It's more the studio's fault. Yeah. Trying to get everything in there.

There's a lot of really cool stuff in there. I love the book. Make it a PG film. It just wasn't going to work. But there's still some great stuff in that picture.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, the Beatles is sort of the problem, but looking at Excalibur, I'm like, he could do that kind of movie. I mean, even this one, he does the action relatively well. I mean, it's still, the basics of this are still done fine.

It's just a weirdo plot, but I mean, it's, yeah, the nuts and bolts of it are actually fine. So I could almost see him being competent to do a Lord of the Rings. It's just they wouldn't have had, well, definitely not the budget or technology to do what. Needed to be done to not make it really cheesy. No, Excalibur, you know, it's a gorgeous movie, and it goes in strange directions at times.

Yeah, it gets those trippy scenes along. The way, too. It's kind of, you know, pure barman. I like all of his pictures. I mean, going back to like Point Blank, you know, very different, you know, film noir, violent picture, very different.

You just don't see that kind of freedom with directors anymore at all. They're expected to make one kind of movie. One after the other after the other. Unless you make millions and millions. If you're Christopher Nolan now, you can kind of make whatever you want.

But even then, I don't know what he's going to. Do after Batman. If they're going to let him do his own kind of movies. I don't know. He's been doing projects in between.

Inception falling between. Which is smart. I'm a big fan of The Prestige. It's a great movie. But I'm thinking that's about the only person now that sort of has carte blanche, go to town, do whatever the hell you want kind of power.

He's about it. There's not a whole lot anymore. They gave it to Jackson after Lord of the Rings, and he did his Kong. And that killed it. It flopped.

Half a billion dollars wasn't enough. And the same thing just happened to Andrew Stanton with John Carter. The same with Lovely Bones, too. They didn't get any recognition whatsoever. Did John Carter flop?

Well, that's what Disney would have you believe. It's very much a hit job out on that picture. Oh, yeah. That's what I felt like. Well, you know, Richard Ross just lost his job Friday.

The CEO. I'm very happy about that. He kind of made it a personal vendetta against Stanton, in my opinion, because the movie was green-lighted before his administration, and it just kept getting more expensive, and Disney wants to get away from live action. Mm-hmm. So this was taking them down a road they didn't want.

So they did, you know, basically non-promotion on it and did no merchandising on the picture. Dumped it in March. And I like John Carter a lot. I'm a fan. I read the books.

Yeah. It helps to be a fan, but it's not a bad movie. But five days in, Disney's calling it the biggest flop in cinema history. They are calling it themselves. Yeah, which is ridiculous.

Which is trying to save, you know, the investors. Mm-hmm. Well, plus, Andrew Stanton is Pixar, and they've never had the best marriage. And that's what happened to Ross. I was just reading about it.

He started pointing the finger directly at Pixar and their style of filmmaking, and that made everybody at Pixar... Everything they touch is gold. And that made everybody at Pixar angry, and they pointed at Ross, and Iger fired him. He let him resign. They just need to remake Zardoz.

They'll do it better than anybody. I want a Zardoz Pez display. That would be awesome. That would be awesome. I've seen merchandising is what he means.

A bottle opener that's just the head. I mean, you could do so many things with that head. You could make a fortune just selling T-shirts. The last, like, 20 minutes. Just scream.

Scream stealth. Just, you know. Or just take the, just make a faux painting of, like, A family portrait of Connery. Skeletons on the chair. A mockery of American Gothic.

Right. Sean Connery just slipping into the prison. Like, whoa. What, that was smooth? What are you talking about?

Oh my gosh. That was one of the best. Parts. That fall. Yeah, at the. trailer last week.

That was the one spot that everyone laughed. Everyone laughed. The thing that kept me going through that whole movie, though, was that it got in my head at the beginning. This is why Superman's parents sent him away from Krypton. Because this is Krypton.

Immediately after they got rid of their kid. It just felt like that. It felt like all the Krypton stuff out of the first movie. This is a terrible place. No wonder.

I thought the only thing that I felt was just, you know. really kind of pushing it on plausibility level and almost unnecessary. It was the whole revelation of the twist at the end where it's based on wizard of Oz. I was like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Who made that decision? Wizard of Oz. Night Shyamalan. Yeah. Yeah.

Well then. I didn't quite get that. I wanted to reconnect that. Zardoz. Zardoz.

Yeah. I was trying to think, cause then it reminded me of like, I know I've seen that version of what, else have we seen the giant head and somebody inside operating it pretending to be a god like what how many other and i'm trying to think of some i remember there's like a futurama episode like that and there's i mean but what i'm trying to think is there other like movies that we've seen or what else is there that is stolen that idea because i've seen a lot of that it seems like i can't. Remember anything specific but it's i know. It's always a trope yeah Maybe Prometheus, twist ending. That giant head.

Oh, God. Not no way, not no how. He'll just show up. I don't know. I swear.

But I kind of like that angle, but again, it's almost... I mean, I guess. which is worse, to steal it from Wizard of Oz and not acknowledge it or just go, oh, and he read. This book and stole the whole end of Wizard of Oz. It helped me as a tool to remember the name of the film because I've been calling it everything other than Zardoz for the last two weeks. Yeah, I was calling it Zardoz.

So I was grateful for that. See, that's the meme right there. Xanadu. Man, Zardoz. Just any movie that works itself up to a twist revelation.

For the better part, I'm usually like, eh. I don't know. I didn't even think that was a twist so much. I didn't feel like it was a twist. I feel like they were shooting for it to be like a big twist revelation.

I was just so. Surprised by everything I saw that I wouldn't have been surprised. I thought the whole thing was just a twist. No, the hilarious, you know, him poking his head out through the books, you know, when that's revealed. That cracked me up.

Those weird shots. I'm trying to think of that actor who's playing the Zardoz character who's manipulating the whole thing. He seems familiar to me. If it weren't for the drawn-on. Beard, I'd probably recognize it.

I'm sure had Victor Buono still been around. He would have been ideal. What is it you want? Sweet death? Oblivion?

For yourself? Or for the whole vortex? For everybody. An end to the human race. That has plagued this pretty planet for far too long.

You stink of despair. Fight back. Fight for death, if that's what you want. I thought at first you were the one to help. But it's hopeless.

All my powers have gone. Do we want to go through the. breakdown of the groups of people because there's it's weird once you get into it and start realizing how much of a society to have in these different levels and Once they start assigning them all specific names, then. I just love how terrifying the rest home, or whatever you want to call it, is, where everybody's been aged, and they're senile, but they're still horny, and it's just so weird. And they're in a perpetual school dance. Of all the places, of all the groups that I would willingly join, that would be it.

You know, I mean, they're surrounded by crazy people, but they all were a little bit more sane than the rest. Of them, I think. Yeah, I like that. And Fred made that reference at some point where he was just like, these are the only. What did he say?

Something about these... I'm starting to identify more and more with these people. Yeah. Well, you get to do your own thing there. I mean.

I don't know. Yeah, but... Yeah, go ahead with starting the list. Because I'm sure we have something to say about each of them. Well, I was going to say, the other. option you know the apathetics you don't have to worry about doing much once you join that group no i like the the that was just a weird thing to throw in there because really they barely factor in but there's those couple of scenes of creepiness going on and.

Well the apathetics we're gonna have a pretty big apathetic chunk to our society you know given a number of years. I don't know i think half of them. Are already there i i just loved um you know, when everything starts to go to shit at the end and they're finally waking up and, you know, realizing that they're going to have their orgies or whatever with everyone, but they have to explain it. To you as you're doing. We enjoy this now or whatever they said.

I, you know, we're going. To educate him. Like what's that show where like the black and white silhouettes are like putting the two like pieces. Of the word together. Yeah.

Yeah. Electric sardines electric sardines yeah right yeah but yeah that just seemed awkward i mean they were awkward anyway but but. At the same time do you feel like everybody grasped all of what's going on in this. Movie no they felt the knee and i did that's the thing i think he felt the knee like he could already tell midway in people aren't gonna know what the hell's going on because he borman said he tacked on that intro with the floating head the first part Because he was already afraid. People did not know.

I don't know if they did test audience, but he already said, you know, people are going to be confused right off the bat. I need to at least lay out the fact that, you know, who this guy is and that this part of it, you know, he's not really a god, sort of, kind of. Yeah, he already felt the need before the movie came out to start explaining himself. And they still practice today. But uh i mean it's it's a little gratuitous but you can tell watching it that the intent is for something to be there versus you know like watching the last half hour of mulholland drive where it's like.

No you're just yeah exactly you're. Just throwing shit up on the screen it's like you didn't get it well that's your problem yeah yeah No, I know there's nothing there. You're not fooling me, Lynch. I love you, but you're not fooling me. We've got, what else?

We already covered the renegades. They're our favorites, I suppose. Crazy old bastards. And those were explained to be the elders and the scientists and all of that. They were just people who weren't going along with the system, basically.

You were punished, almost. I did kind of like that, that you were like your punishment was age. You know, you were saddled. You still live forever. Yeah, but you get to be old.

That's kind of interesting. And again, that's almost its own entire movie right there. Like if you just made a plot around that being sort of the key, that's a movie right there. They almost threw way too much stuff at this one plot. Like there's three or four different good movies in the middle of this mess that if you sort of fleshed it out, you could have.

Some interesting stuff there. Yeah. There's definitely science fiction show connections. I can think of 15. Episodes of Star Trek that start from some part of this movie that definitely scarred some.

Like we were talking about earlier. Like a director. went on to. Be successful, but he was scarred by this, and he had to get it out. That was one of the ones I did think of, was how many times in Star Trek have we, let's pretend to be a god in this plot line? Two of the movies, the original cast are, let's pretend to be a god.

So I was like, in several episodes, in both series, I think. That was the episode that was on last night on Meet Me TV, was Who Mourns for Adonis, where Apollo is there demanding to be worshipped. Yeah. So it definitely works its way into sci-fi many, many times. What does God need with a stone head?

It looks cool. Spits out guns. There's no downside to this. It's the coolest possible God. Why wouldn't that be a t-shirt?

Like a heavy metal t-shirt? A big stone head spitting out guns? I'm working on that. That would be an album cover. You wouldn't even have to have music.

You could just sell the band with the t-shirt. I'm just making that our t-shirt. What are you talking about? Well, there is a website that's up that actually you can print out the face. And it's basically almost like a folding sort of origami head that you can make to wear on yourself.

Very. I'm going to spray paint it red and wear it around on Halloween. Did somebody come. Out to Baxter last Halloween with a Zardoz hat? Yeah.

Oh, nice. Scared my little girl badly. He's asked to intro the film. He's like, can I intro the film to Zardoz? I'm like, sure.

You bet. I'll give you carte blanche. That's like 15 minutes you want. As long as you keep it frigging weird. Does he have to wear the outfit?

Please no. I'll slip him some acid beforehand. That way he's just spewing out nonsense as he talks. It'll work well. As long as he says go forth and kill.

The more non-sequitur, the better. Yeah, watching this, I had to stop and remind myself several times, like, okay, yeah, this was back in the 70s where you could have a character like... telepathically like attack someone and like hold like point their fingers and just hum really loudly and the audience. Would go whoa look out like back intimidated like that's intense i swear that and it wasn't at all cheesy i i kept getting uh you talk about lucas i kept getting a lucas vibe like oh that's darth vader choking a guy three years. Before it was beneath the planet of the eight yeah why is this people at this table are just like like you know it's a lot like it's like you're supposed to be actually i mean that too i mean there's a lot of um Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Zardoz.

It still goes back to that traditional sci-fi plot where it's like you've got the alleged perfect society and the other society that's just gone off to the wild. I mean, that is a classic sci-fi scenario and leads to good arguments, I suppose, of what to do with it. And I think that's why he went into this is that once you've got that perfect society, once you live forever, what the hell do you do with yourself? I mean, it, It is kind of a big question that, you know, after. A few generations, what the hell do you do now?

It goes back to the question you were posing earlier in the way of a society worshiping something odd. And these Planet Apes, they're worshiping, you know, the atom bomb. The bomb, yeah. You know, I kept having almost a flashback in this. I went to Catholic school as a youth, and in fourth grade we had an assignment to talk about what, the afterlife would be like, as described to us at that point.

And on my paper, one thing, we had. Like 10 minutes or whatever, and it would be, I would blank, was how you were supposed to, and I wrote, I would be bored. And she came around after about 10 minutes, and she said, do you have anything else? I said, so far, no. And she said, Well, that can't be it.

And I was like, but that's kind of how I feel about it. I think you're probably the only kid that got it, really. And for the longest time, I kept asking that question. At some point, aren't you going to get bored by what you're giving me of the way they see it? And that's kind of how they were.

They had reached the end of where their minds could take them or where their science could go, and they just wanted to die. So how did your exorcism go after that? Yeah. The power of Zardoz compels you! So we also.

Get into the Eternals, and I did at least want to address the men. Has there ever been a girlier group of men than. The Eternal men? Well, they were impotent. Yeah.

Obviously, that starts to take its toll, because that, oh my god, the clothes, the hair, that... it's the weirdest group of guys you ever did see. And yet the women totally took over and we're on top of things and we're in charge of science and we're, yeah, it's very interesting the way that society played itself out as, as that weird thing went on. Yeah. I guess May was the rogue scientist, but what typically would be the male and then what was the other one has ends up being his wife's name. Um, Consuela.

Consuela. And Claudia. She turned into the, you know, to the hunter. Yeah, she becomes. And so the male roles are with the women in that.

It's very interesting. And again, that poses, again, this is a lot bigger questions. It poses that, like, once you live forever, you don't have to procreate. If you don't have to procreate, do you lose that entire portion of it? Like, is there then no need to have physical intimacy?

If, you know, is there something so genetic about us that if we're not procreating, you start to lose interest altogether. Again, there's a lot of cool things thrown in there. It's just got a lot of other stuff piled on top of it. It's also a Star Trek episode. I think that's where half this stuff ends up.

All sci-fi comes from Star Trek or Twilight Zone. I think all sci-fi has already been hit. It's kind of like that episode of South Park where they talk about how the Simpsons. Have already done that. There's already been a Simpsons episode about that.

Yeah, the Simpsons looped back around on themselves about 15 seasons in, and they still kept on going. Simpsons guys have to tell themselves, oh, wait, Simpsons did that. Yeah. Remember last year when we did this story? Ah, keep drawing, whatever.

If you go any further back, I could just say everything comes from Burroughs and Bradbury. Well, yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay, I think I have to say the best quote in the movie was, was it some, like, where Sean Connery says, he who fights dragons for too long becomes a dragon himself? I was thinking, like, in 20 years down the line, he's going to eat those words.

When Dragon Talk comes. Out. Nice job. That's all I can think of. Seemingly decaying flesh.

The sweet scent of putrefaction already in the air. He's a fine, strong beast, dear May. What exactly do you want to do with him? A full genetic study. Break its DNA code.

See if there are any structural or evolutional changes since ours were analyzed 200 years ago. Discover any new hereditary disease factors that may have emerged, which might result in broadening our immunization spectrum. Study its emotional and psychic elements in relation to its sociology. That all sounds respectively scientific, but what is May's underthought? Not long ago, she was asking for new births, although we have no death.

We are perfectly stabilized. We said no to May. Now she wants to bring in this animal from the outside. Think about equilibrium. Remember the delicate balance we must maintain.

The presence will dismay our tranquility. May is a great scientist, but she also has destructive tendencies. I was just thinking... weird the the green bread just is that the future green. Bread that they had that they had an old you know mill lining up everything and next to it had this like space baker space oven if you have that why why why do you have the two Where'd you lose the technology? Yeah, if you've got the space oven, then why is it you're pulling a rickshaw around?

And then he's the bread paper boy. That was my favorite. For some reason, just as he got there, everybody. Just trembled over bread like he's checking on the daily news. Surprisingly lovely moment where he hands the love to the one lady, and he says, I used to be in love with that girl, and they keep going.

And it's like, oh. I think the one guy that he just shoves it in his mouth. And he goes through the rest of the scene with the bread just in his mouth. There you go. I don't care, I'm not pathetic.

That guy's kind of a jerk, but he's more, he's like the most entertaining of any of them. He's just, as he calls him, monster every step of the way. Yeah. He just constantly talks down to him, but yet, he's his friend. Literally, you know.

We can't think of anything else to call this guy. He'll be your friend. Yeah. I was like, really? Was it just me, or was the bread dough green?

Yeah, it's green bread. That was the future. I don't understand. In the 23rd century, it's just how it is. I feel like he did that kind of stuff on purpose, like all the incongruities, all the stuff that doesn't make sense.

It's just like trying to beat you into submission in this movie. So that you stop asking those questions. Accept my reality. It's like being in a sensory deprivation tank, just like the opposite. One of the few things he did that I thought was interesting, you usually get a very futuristic world and everything's futuristic.

He had these remnants of all the old stuff. and then futuristic jammed in there. So you did have the like busted apart house with giant inflatable bubbles coming out of it. And you did have the mill with the space oven. And yeah, I don't know. He, he sort of had that leftover, which again is very kind of planet of the apes.

You've got this leftover dead society and then, you know, the future world still sort of trying to push it out of the way. But this is sort of in that middle step, which you never see. You always get super, you know, they've knocked down the old stuff, built nothing but new. And you You rarely get this in-between stage where it's both jammed together. It's kind of like Star Wars in that respect.

It's kind of like Tatooine. It reminds me of that. So Lucas probably was keeping an eye on that as well. Once again. Because you've got a lot of very primitive structures with occasional bits of technology thrown in.

And that concept also reminds me of what Julie Tamar did for Titus, too. Because you kept that old Roman structure, but you had modern vehicles in that interacting. I thought that was kind of cool. You actually do get that kind of. Thing in Shakespearean movies recently or plays in general.

They'll play it in some kind of weird historical setting that just sets you off. It's like you have the Richard III of Ian McKellen where they just made his whole monarchy almost like this allegory for the Nazis. That was always a fun adaptation. They always take place in an alternate universe where that kind of version of English language is still like there in the 20th century. Yeah, they're kind of true to the text, but they changed the whole setting.

Yeah, my kingdom for a horse, something completely different, which is a great line, or a great interpretation of that line, if you remember. Going back to Star Trek, they worked plenty of Shakespeare in Star Trek VI, so I guess we can throw that in. It all goes back to Star Trek. And Sherlock Holmes, you know, all that. Yeah, just one thing about Zardoz that personally is funny is that my grandmother... after not going to the movies, you know, probably since the 50s, decided to start going back to the movies in the early 70s.

And the movies she would pick would be the strangest things. And the first film she saw was Rosemary's Baby on a re-release. Then Deliverance. And then Zardoz. Because she liked the stars.

And she would come out more and more confused every time. Because I knew about Zardoz from reading Famous Monsters. I was a little kid. Yeah. And the fact that my grandma went to see it just freaked me out.

And she could not really explain what was going on. She shook her head a lot. I can imagine if it was my grandma, she would have come out and said, I'm never going to. That was close to the end for her, I think. And may have locked herself in her.

Home for the rest of her life. One of mine, I think I told you, it was when I was first getting into like Lynch stuff. And I was just, we were up at the rental store. and I was looking at a copy of Blue Velvet, just casually, and she's like, oh, we should get that. And I was like, really? And she's like, oh, I love Dennis Hopper in that.

I was like, okay. It's just the most awkward thing to sit there and watch with your grandmother. What's that scene in the movie The Squid and the Whale where he, like, Jeff Daniels takes his son, and he's like, Blue Velvet's supposed to be interesting, and just cut to them in the multiplex just awkwardly sitting. Isabella Rossellini's just screaming nude, and he's just really uncomfortable. He's there with his dad.

Oh. It pretty much was like that. Yeah. Frank Booth screaming, I'll fuck anything that moves. Granny sitting there watching.

That's weird. It just makes her happy. I don't know. A few days later, I get this call from her. She's like, do you go on eBay much?

I was like, I do. She's like, I've got some nude photographs of Burt Reynolds. I'd like to know what those are. The first call I get in the morning is this. Can she sit in on the show?

Laughter She was kind of, didn't she date? She dated Warren Oates. Wow. She's like this wild woman. She was a preacher's daughter.

And Freddie Blassie, too. Yeah, Freddie Blassie. No. Yeah. Because I remember I was like, Freddie Blassie.

She's like, yeah, the wrestler. I was like, yeah, I know who you're talking about. She's like, yeah, you know, he liked to wrestle outside of the ring, too. I was like, no. I can't hear this.

Please stop talking. Wake up two in the morning screaming. I don't want to hear this. She's a stressful woman. Well, on that note, did you hear who was originally supposed to be in this movie?

Burt Reynolds. And you can see it. You can see it. It's definitely that look still, and it seems odd on, and that's why every time I looked at it, I'm like, what the hell is Connery doing? From years ago, seeing that photo of him, I'm like, first of all, that outfit's horrible, but on top of that, the ponytail and the mustache and But you can totally see it on Burt Reynolds in the 70s.

It's like this iconic image, and I don't know if it's because we show the trailer a lot, but just today I was working and these two girls were showing up to see, oh God, what's that Zac Efron thing? Oh, Get Lucky or something like that? The Lucky One, the Lucky One, that's what it is. It's the new notebook. Yeah, that insipid thing, but they were buying tickets and All of a sudden, this girl sees the picture of Conner.

She's like, oh, that's from Zardoz. I'm like, whoa, whoa. Impressive. Do you want to give your ticket back? You don't want to go to that.

Somebody seeing this movie that knows what Zardoz is, that's interesting. Very bizarre. Once you see the image of Connery and you know what film that is, it sticks with you. Whether it's good or bad. About Burt Reynolds.

I've pictured. You know, Sean Connery is, you know, I figured he was a hairy man. But there was one. Spot where I was watching it. Kate was kind of not watching it.

She not watches a lot of movies with me. Especially the ones we tell you to watch. You're right. And I said, that is the most amount of armpit hair I think I've ever seen. And I said, I think he might even rival Burt Reynolds.

It's funny. There you go. It's basically the same person. Because I thought, I was like, that's got to be an armpit toupee. My legitimate question is, why wasn't it Burt Reynolds?

He got sick. Was it? It was that. Because he was set to do it, and there was some sort of illness involved, and it fell through. And again, Sean Connery was hard up trying to make a name for himself still, you know, post-Bond.

So, yeah. And Burt goes out for Han Solo, and you can't look either. It all is supposed to be a certain way. That, again, would change the world. I believe so.

So is this before or after Smokey and the Bandit? Before. Before, yeah. So it could have been Burt Reynolds as Zardoz and Sean Connery as. Wow.

I just can't see. Let me tell you, Trans Am. There you go. Let me tell you, Smokey. I can see this going down, yeah.

I don't know. I mean, it's up there. The image of Connery like that, it's up there. I've got the teaser poster for the Avengers. Just Connery dresses August the winner with his kilt.

Speaking of movies that are, well, that one's got a lot of cool visuals. That's just bad, bad. There's nothing much redeeming about that. So bad I never watched it, and I'm a huge fan of the show. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

It's just, God, that movie is just so absurd and so incoherent. I mean, it's got tons of great visuals in it, but there is no plot whatsoever to it. I think I might be the only person here at the table. No, the weather machine. I just didn't want to admit to it.

That's what it was. I feel like I should see it, but I just can't. I can't do it. The thing was, I'd seen it and I forgot Sean Connery. Like, I'd blocked out the fact that.

He was even the villain in that. I still kind of remember the image of the stars there, but I kind of blocked him out. I was kind of giving him a pass. I was like, run, run, Sean Connery. Get out of this movie.

You know, like Ray Fiennes. It's like, really? Yeah. Is that hard up for a role that you need to do in this film? Very strange.

And up next week, no. Maybe. Maybe. That would be a challenge. That would be interesting.

I'm a big fanatic about the show. But yeah, I put myself through that. Speaking of which, I heard they changed the upcoming Avengers, the Marvel Avengers, to Avengers Assemble in the UK, and I wonder if that's the reason? they already have the Avengers I wonder if that's like such a British staple up there but maybe not. I would say so it's pretty it's pretty sad over there it could be do you know. Where you are the vortex you come from the outlands you were told about.

The vortex Zardoz says. What does Zardoz say. Xardos says if you obey him, you will go to a vortex when you die, and there you will live forever. Happily? Yes.

So you think you're dead? Am I? You're an exterminator. I kill for Xardos. You came here in.

The Stone Head. I don't know. It is the only path and passage into the vortex. You will show me how you come to be here. So, several of you seemed sort of traumatized by this as we showed up here.

So, does anybody have specific traumatic moments that they want to hit on this? I mean, Sean Connery in a cage? The very first time I watched it, I remember sitting here, actually... made a comment to my friend Bob. I said, I watched it and I thought, what the hell did I just watch? He said, you watched Zardoz.

You have been watching Zardoz. You've been Zardoz. It's its own description. I do think, I mean, I don't know about anyone else here, but I really think that after the first time you watch it, you're like, what the fuck did I do? I think pretty early in I had this onslaught of ideas loosely working.

Which is fine. All my movies don't have to be the same When. You step back, and what we've been talking about, there's a seemingly coherent plot, and there's lots of cool ideas, but when you're just in the throes of watching it, especially for the first time, there are just so many different visuals and so many ideas and concepts coming at you. It's hard to. Sift through it.

So for that sense, I like it because it's less about telling a story, and it's more about just giving you an experience. And that's what I enjoy about it. Exactly. It falls in that category of just. A movie where the director is just basically going, ha ha, I just made you watch that weird thing.

There's a lot of that. You know what I mean? You can't unsee it. There's a lot of that. In all fairness, it might have been intentional, too, to where he wanted to have the audience experience the same sort of bewilderment that Connery did when he stepped out of the head.

Because suddenly he stepped into this very bizarre world, and it's like, well, no, I'll just put the audience on the level of him. It's got those visuals, yeah, the plastic rat people. And, again, Connery in a zoo and green bread. And when he goes to the old folks' home there and they attack him like it's a zombie movie all of a sudden. I like that Sean Connery's essence has to be transferred via an open-mouth kiss.

That's a great concept. I'm pretty sure that's true in the real world. He demanded that scene. He still sells that to women now. But yeah, I.

Think that's... He's just approaching women today even though I'm shooting this little draw dog. Would you like some of my essence? I think even though he's almost 80 now, he still has that charm because I saw him on a talk show not too long ago and they were taking questions from the audience and I wish I could even find this clip on YouTube because it cracked me up so much. Just some woman stood up in the audience and she said, could you just please say take off your panties, and he's like, take off your panties.

It was the funniest thing ever. She was like. I just want to ask him, just be like, yeah, I have a question. Zardoz, go. He'll be like, well, I'm glad you asked.

I'm more than happy to just go into it. Of course, at the same time, I don't know. He might not have known what was going on, because I've heard rumors that he was allegedly... to be tapped for Magneto, but didn't get X-Men. He didn't get the whole premise. And then he was allegedly going to be, not Gandalf, but Saruman, before they got Christopher Lee, allegedly.

And it was the same deal, that he didn't get it, and that's why he took League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Oh. And apparently even that he didn't get, but he went ahead and did the movie anyway because he didn't want to seem clueless. To keep turning down movies that he didn't understand. And I feel like if you watch League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

That's the. Weirdest of them. Yeah. If you watch it knowing that Connery kind of didn't know what he was doing, it sort of makes sense there. Yeah.

Speaking of aging Connery, when they did the age acceleration at the end, I thought they actually did a really good job. And it was like four Connerys out. It was like, oh, oh, there's our Connery. And then Connery later, he's like dust. And I was like, uh-oh.

Which I want to know, why has that not been parodied in anything that. I can think of? I mean, that is like one of the funniest movie. Endings to be parodied. It's like pregnant, kid, go away.

It's kind of the opposite of 2001. Yeah, exactly. Regressing him. taking him forward it's some kind of transcendent moment but you know what is it there's a lot about also when I look at Zardoz it reminds me of comics a little bit from the period it reminds me of Jack Kirby yeah because it's got all this iconic weird imagery and Kirby was into that whole post-apocalyptic thing when he was writing Commandee and comics and weird societies I mean that was happening every issue it's just part of the 70s. You do see all those different elements that it's pieced together from not only other you know sci-fi but even like that scene where the one we were talking about where they're you know they they all want some essence and they start you know it's this like hippie orgy going on around him but that that totally felt like every version of the the jesus story i've seen when the lepers attack him i was like he's suddenly become this like you know savior to them and it you know save me and all we have to do is touch him and it all felt very much, so again, stealing from the Bible, that's the oldest trick.

In the world. Yeah, this movie steals a lot. So yeah, you can definitely see all these different pieces sort of thrown together at this thing. It's interesting. Yeah, but I guess one could argue too that, I mean, it's one of the more arty of his films too because it's totally open to interpretation.

It's just a lot of the time about just dazzling the senses. It's like, I don't care if this has nothing to do with the plot. I'm going to put it in here because it looks cool. Yeah. So when I thought just, I guess to wrap it up, I mean, that that's kind of the way they do it too, is by the end, they're kind of like, Oh, and it's all been a joke.

You know, we, we've all been amused and abused. And then like, do you kind of felt like that was meant for you as you were sitting there watching? It was like, yeah, yeah, kind of. It's like, I've been all of these things. You're right.

It does sort of feel like a joke. And yet it was an arty joke and it, it has, it's good points. And, but at the end of the, It even feels like he, as a director, was just like, yeah, we were just fucking with you. Yeah, like you said, I think the biggest, most, it made, after seeing the trailer, and this is obviously my first time seeing it, I expected a lot worse. It's much more coherent than I thought.

It makes sense. There's a lot there. Yeah, it is pieced together a lot better than I expected. I'll actually argue that if it was more pieced together and less visual, I think it would just be kind of lost in the shuffle with a bunch of other generic sci-fi films from the era. Yeah.

I mean, it does feel like those. As we've referenced all these from that same time period, it doesn't feel that different than what was going on in the 70s. It's just a little more, you know, it does have those weird visuals thrown in and for way. Too long at the end. But other than that, I don't think it's all that different than a lot of the stuff that was going on in 70s sci-fi.

One thing that we haven't mentioned, and maybe I'm talking too much, but it was when the brutals come in at the end and start shooting everyone. That was a little bit more traumatic than I thought. I agree. I was just going to address that. It was, and them, you know, going after them, you know, kill me, kill me.

It's pretty brutal. It was really disturbing. And then to be punctuated by the funny lines, it felt like the tone was so strange that it was sort of discomforting. And I actually looked up to see, I predated Jonestown, but it sort of had that vibe. And so I immediately was like, oh God, what year was that?

Yeah. Of course, that too also was the most Beneath the Planet of the Apes moment for me, because the apes break into what has become the present day, the mutant society, I can't remember what they call themselves. But I mean, they're going through, they're killing all the mutants, and they're smashing all the idols and everything, all their artwork and that. And they go to pull down the bomb. Yeah, very, very similar there.

For some reason, this, the thing about the brutals coming in, just made me think of a movie called that I saw a couple years ago. It was made by a Scottish guy. It was called Apocalypse. It got kind of a big release, but it was very much that kind of end of the world. It had the guy from Clockwork Orange.

Malcolm McDowell? It had Malcolm McDowell. That doesn't narrow it down. He'll do anything at this point. Well, it was.

Yeah, I can't remember the name of it, but it was actually... You know, it was actually a cool, like, apocalypse, you know, Mad Max killer hordes kind of movie. Oh, really? It wasn't Doomsday, was it? It was Doomsday.

Oh, yeah, I love that movie. Yeah, it was. I saw that in theaters. It was Doomsday. After, like, because I was such a huge fan of Descent.

And I was like, oh, it's the same director. And, me and my friends saw it. Yeah. And it's just like this, I don't know if you've all seen it, it's like this 80s bargain bin. This movie, it's everything.

It's Mad Max. It's Escape from New York. It's a horror movie. We don't know what it is, but it's just... It's kind of trashy.

It's kind of a zombie movie, too. It's a mess. The editing is sloppy, but it's kind of on purpose, and it's just a really fun movie. It's really long, but it was good. I enjoyed it.

I liked it the whole time. I wish more movies were that exciting. I was going to say, anytime somebody refers to something, it's a mess, but it's fun, that actually is a selling point for me. It's going back to that kind of filmmaking. It's like this, yeah.

It's just kind of wild and like, you know. Like, you can tell. He could do whatever he wanted, and. He made that move. It changes up, like, every ten minutes.

Like, I've never seen a movie actually just change its premise so many times. Like, it's kind of amazing. Well, that's, yeah, I think that's the perfect way to wrap up Zardoz. It's a mess, but it's a lot of fun. Right.

Because this is one of those that's like, I don't know what I just watched, but I kind of want to tell other people to go watch it, too. Yeah, precisely. Like, you were going back to, you know, How Sue is another one. Yeah, definitely. That movie's an amazing movie.

That movie's an amazing movie. And I can't recommend it to normal people, but anybody I know who would get it, I'm just like, oh, yeah, definitely watch it. Yeah, you want to be there when they're watching. You want to see exactly how they react. I want to see how people react to dog tooth when they see it.

Oh, that matters. I mean, it's one you can't explain it. You can't just experience it. Those Greeks, man. When they make movies, they're not like anything else.

But yeah, I guess that rounds out Zardoz. Zardoz Tweaked Audio, your source for high-performance, noise-reducing earbuds. Available in three styles and seven colors, durable and designed to sound great for both music and those chatty podcasts, like the one you're listening to now. Tweaked Audio earbuds come with a one-year warranty, and now there's a special deal for Movie Meltdown listeners. Just go to tweakedaudio.com, and when you check out, enter the discount code MELTDOWN.

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Like the time I pushed Steve McQueen in front of a moving car on the set of The Getaway because he was macking on my lady, Allie McGraw. But I've made one great friend, a boffo friend if you will. Since I retired. It's called Show Show, and it's the best fucking movie podcast ever. It's even better than cocaine, which I would know a lot about.

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Zardoz speaks to you, his chosen ones. You have been raised up from brutality. Kill the brutes who multiply and are legion. This ends. Zardoz, your god, gave you the gift of the god.

The god is good. The god is evil. The penis shoots seeds and makes new life to poison the earth to the plague of men. As once it was, the gun shoots death and purifies the earth of the filth of ruthless. Go forth and kill me.

I'm just, all those movies. You know, Captain America and Thor and all that, I'm not kind of burnt out to where I'm not that excited about the Avengers. I think this is it. This is the make or break. Like, if the Avengers is awesome, it was for something, and if people are just kind of, meh. then it's like, why the hell did we invest the years here?

I don't see it going on past this, these characters. I mean, if you grew up in the era I did, you know, reading those comics in the 70s, it's a dream come true to finally see that stuff done pretty well on screen. But after that, you know, I don't know. And I grew up in Marvel Kid too, but it's just, so many of them just follow the same formula. Just where it's just, let's do an origin story, let's do another origin story, another origin story.

It's like, you know, I think people would be able to catch on if you just did a plot and just, figured it out as you went. They're going to keep making Iron Man movies. They were already casting three. I think it was just the ending that Captain America had to end in modern day and he's getting recruited. This totally takes away from everything else.

But it happened in the comic. It was a setup. I felt like it peaked after the first Iron Man because all the Marvel movies to me that came out after the first Iron Man, which I thought was great, I went away after seeing them like, that was solid. Yeah. And, like, I forgot about them the next day.

You know, they're good. It's just, you know, you can compare them to, like, those, you know, abortive versions that they pulled on TV and, you know, back in the 80s. Yeah. And there were a lot of messes in between, you know, with Daredevil and all that stuff. But, I mean, you had X2 and you had the first two Spider-Man films, which were pretty solid as well.

So, yeah. I mean. Lots of proceeding. Yeah. I mean, those Marvel movies, they're real fun.

I mean, they're well-made and everything. But they just, I mean, don't particularly, I don't think they have the same, like, transcendent powers like, you know, the Batman films. They're pretty disposable like a comic book. You read it and wait for the next one. Exactly.

And I think that's just the thing. It just depends on who's in charge of it. Which actually, I still haven't seen Thor, but I just want to see it because Kenneth Branagh directed it. You can see it in the Asgard stuff. It's got that sense of mythic quality.

I like Thor. It gets boring when they're in the desert. Now he directed it. Yeah, he has like a sense of humor in his movies. Yeah, he was a very likable guy.

Yeah, I mean, I like his movies. Even Frankenstein. I really like that. Do you like his role in Wild Wild West? Yes.

And funny enough, here's the thing. I grew up on that movie. I was seven years old and went to see it. And only now, this was like an epiphany. I had the middle of the night.

I was just like, it's on my phone. I was lying in bed. I had to go to sleep. I was like, IMDB. And I scrolled through the list.

I'm like, Kenneth Branagh played the bad guy in Wild Wild West? Oh, my God. I could not believe it. My mind was blown, I guess. Yes.

Being cut in half and having the long black stringy hair that threw me off but I just I never made the connection but I still can't like it's kind of surreal I think that's. Kenneth Branagh like that whole time there are elements to Wild Wild West that I like too just because I like Barry Sonnefeld as a director of course I mean I think really with the Addams Family movies and Men in Black that's where he hit his peak and of course now he's doing Men in Black 3 this year but you know he hasn't really done much since shit The second one, which was abysmal. Yeah, the first one was entertaining. The second one I really wanted to walk out of. It was pretty bad.

This one actually looks like it might be interesting again. They show the creatures, the previews on television, and my kids see it, and they know it's coming now. And they're going, cool! Every single time, they think those creatures. That's all you need.

I mean, if you've got a kid to think that the aliens are cool, because, I mean, my kids see a lot of aliens, you know, or zombies or monsters or whatever. And so if you can hit them in a second and they react to it, then it might be something. Of course, it's sad that we've gotten to a point in our movie culture to where you can say, it looks like it might be interesting again. Yeah. Right.

But, yeah, you say Rick Baker. I mean, he's done all sorts of cool background characters. Like, he did a Roman from Robot Monster. Yeah. And he did another Man from Planet X.

Apparently, none of them made it in the background. Really? Like, they all got cut because the studio wanted to do, like, CG characters. Apparently, I found out. Yeah, there's a great shot of him, if you can find it, where it's just Rick Baker sitting with all these characters from, like, the old Outer Limits episodes.

And he's got saucer men, too. I mean, it's just a great compilation of the who's who monsters from the 50s and 60s. I mean, I feel like he's like a national treasure. I mean, like, didn't he work on the last Hellboy film? I think he did.

I mean, I remember just watching it. I think Rick was a consultant or a designer. Okay, I just remember that whole, I don't know if you've all seen it, that whole, like, Troll Market sequence, which was like half of why I thought that movie was awesome. And it's all practical. Yeah, and I'm just wondering, like, why aren't there more movies with this kind of amazing practical effects?

Like, everyone, all my friends. Del Toro loves practical effects, and so he'll stick with it, but other... people know. No. And del Toro, I mean, he's in a position where he can't even do what he wants to do. He wanted to do.

Which is depression. He wanted to do The Mountains of Madness, but he couldn't do it, not even with James Cameron and Tom Cruise on board. Universal would not spend the money. Yeah, it sucks. He's kind of just stuck in producer limbo for the past several years.

I mean, his new movie, which is supposed to be amazing, it's like super expensive, like giant robots. It's a giant monster movie. Yeah. Yeah. But he didn't write it, but I mean, just the fact that he's directing it, I'm looking forward to that.

Because I like his smaller stuff, too, like Devil's Backbone. Or Kronos is amazing. I love him. Oh, man. You know, Pan's Labyrinth is a brilliant movie.

I can't watch it a lot. It just gets to me. It's become the canon. It's so great. They're at the mercy of the studios and the producers, and they have to do remakes.

That's the thing. You look at Kronos and Pan's Labyrinth and that, and he's making stuff and I'm assuming Spain at the time or something, you know, as opposed to having to subject itself to the American producer scenario. So, I mean, did he have time to actually make a movie? Because over there, they give them time to make a movie, whereas here, it's greenlit. Where is it?

It better be on, you know. Yeah, they've got the release date on the calendar, and you've got to deliver, and it doesn't matter what it is. And it's all about making the money the first three days, and after that, well, who cares? Next big release. Okay, so with that...

Okay, kids, get out your decoder pins. Nobody did it last week, either. You guys are useless. I could tell that tonight's message was really important. So....

This won't be next week, but we did want to throw it out there. Again, even within the group, we're going to have to start finding copies of this, but we've been... This episode has been a year in the making, is the sad thing. We've jokingly said six months or so ago hey maybe we'll do it for the second annual and now we're actually doing it so we're planning ahead for the uh harry dean stanton fest and we're going to uh in the middle of that mix in a a full-on discussion. With the group here of paris texas so in in the near future we're going to be doing that when we cover our uh our harry dean stanton fest episodes so uh between now and then go find yourself a copy it is definitely worth seeing so Go get yourself a copy.

That's Harry Dean Stanton's favorite Harry Dean Stanton movie. As he's programming the festival now. You should play that every night. Oh, Harry. I'll start tomorrow and get a copy.

And plan ahead for. Oh, Dean Stockwell's in that? Awesome. So you'll just be thinking about Quantum Leap the whole time. My dad and I watch Quantum Leap every.

Let's go back to Blue Velvet. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm used to. That's the best. You know, that's another part that was disturbing to me, is because I, you know, watched Quantum Leap forever and ever, and then I see Blue Velvet after I've seen it.

That's my favorite scene in the whole movie, is that Dean Stockwell, he's abducted a woman and a child. He's got all these fat women just sitting around, just essentially doing nothing. And they're listening to music, and this is just what they do on a Friday night. It's a weird scene. Very weird.

Singing into a light bulb, not a microphone. Like, what? It works. Yeah, sure. Totally works.

Highlight of the film. Yeah. All right. Other than that, I think that about rounds it out. We will return next week.

Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. We'll be right back. Thank you. Nothing is mine I don't need a toy to believe in time God doesn't need each of my.

Names No more important numbers Nothing must follow the stars. Go forth and kill. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!