179: Lurking in the Dark Shadows

Hi, this is Eric Chu, concept designer for Battlestar Galactica, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. The following program is a proud member of the Palover family of podcasts. Check out all the shows over at palover.com. That's P-A-L-A-V-E-R dot com. It's showtime.

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. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. Provide more cooling in the containment chamber. To your stations, we have a movie meltdown.

It's shadow time, buddy. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. And I'm Beau. And we are coming to you live via digital recording from Wonderfest once again.

We are seated now in the Theater A. Trenches. For you, it's the trenches. I've just been loitering around all weekend. You get to have fun.

That's no fair. I don't know. I just kind of sat there, really. That's what I do in my regular life, so it's not really any different for me. I suppose that sounds bad because yes, it's work, but it's a whole lot of fun.

For anybody who's been working Wonderfest for years and years, this is my 13th year, actually. I've got all the badges of shame going back to 2000 on me right now. We can take a picture if you want. We can share it with people. Sure.

If anything, you should take the photo, because I'm sure Fred would like to see it, because I'm sure he would have fun poking fun at me. Never. Not Fred. No, but actually, you know, with all these badges, you know, it works like chain mail. He wouldn't be able to poke me in too many places without being blocked.

But, no, I mean, from the crew perspective, it's actually... I mean, yeah, it is work, but at the same time, it's more just like a family reunion. It's folks that you only get to see once a year. And, you know, you've all got these in jokes or just stories or, you know, whether it was a great year, whether it was a year from hell, it's like you survived it together. And, you know, those are the types of things to where you just like to look back, reminisce and just, you know, shoot the shit with them every time you see them.

So, you know, it's, I always say it's like the, um, craziest weekend of the year for me because, I mean, you keep waiting for it and it seems like it's going long. I mean, you know, 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. is when I was rolling yesterday. But, you know, suddenly you just turn around and the whole weekend's over. So it's chaotic, but it's fun. Yeah, even me, it went by really fast yesterday.

I was like, oh, we're closing up in here already? Okay, well, now I've got other stuff to plan for. All right, hold on. This changes everything. Yeah.

But, I mean, I think, you know, the whole family feel, I mean, that's very much true because it is more a family show than, you know, other shows. And I don't want to, like, diss any other conventions, but I've been to a few horror conventions. And, you know, they're fun. I mean, I went to Mad Monster Party back in March, and I usually like to go to the local Fright Night Film Fest, and they're fun. But, you know, it's more of like a teenage and up theme.

Whereas here, you know, it's more just the awe-inspiring, you know, stuff that you when you basically fell in love with movies as a kid. I mean, it sort of recaptures that essence. Yeah. I mean, there's, I don't know, it's just so hard to describe. It's definitely a different vibe than, like, normal, you know, the big horror, you know, the standard horror convention stuff.

It's very different here and always has been, really. I mean, I've been coming here about as long as I think I have. I don't have cool badges, but I think I've been here at least, I think I was doing the math, it's like 14 or 15 years or, yeah, so it's like, And it's always felt different than, you know, this was actually a first convention, but it definitely, as I've gone to all the other ones, this one is a different vibe. And I still come back to this. One every year.

Yeah, I think it's just because there's so many returning guests and the crew is the same every single year. Again, it just, it very much has that family cohesive vibe. feel to it and at the same time it's not so exclusive that you know if there's somebody new that they you know feel like the black sheep or anything it's like no welcome to the fold we're all crazy here come join us. That's true um i don't know anything uh interesting unplanned happened this week i mean about. The only thing yeah the only odd thing that we had happened was um it was the best laugh of the day we had john eves um just a production designer with Star Trek and a lot of other shows, he stepped up to fill in for a gap we had in the programming.

And he brought a ton of images of stuff he'd worked on on a thumb drive with him. And he said, well, no, we'll just plug it into any. Computer and we'll be good to go. Because usually the grief that we have from our perspective is Macs. Because Macs are compatible only with Macs and not even then sometimes.

So We're like, God bless you, sir. You just brought them on a thumb drive. It's going to be good. So we plug in the laptop. And at this point, it's about five minutes before the presentation is about to begin.

We've got the screen lit up. And so the whole audience is just there looking at the desktop as we're dragging the contents of the thumb drive over to the desktop just for simplicity's sake. So that way, you know, it will run better. Just an efficiency thing. Well, what we assumed to only take a couple minutes then started creeping up to like 8 minutes, 12 minutes, 22 minutes.

We're like, what on earth is on this thumb drive? And at first, she's just copying over Star Trek stuff and Wonderfest files. We're like, okay. It sounds like trouble. I know.

It led to trouble already because, you know, we were building up for it because we're like, what is on there? We even started joking. We're like, is there some sort of porn on there or something? This is why I don't bring my thumb drive with me. Yeah, at which point, all of a sudden, we just see this file name, nakedwoman.php, some sort of Photoshop thing.

And it's just, lagging for 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes. And we're like, God, that's a huge file. And the whole time the audience is all like looking at this and they're seeing, they're all reading the exact same thing we're reading up on the screen. And the whole time, John Eves, he's in the other room taking a phone call. And so, you know, that is over.

And then there's like another one. And so at this point, I mean, everyone's starting to find it funny, and so the whole audience is starting to laugh. The fellow who's transferring all the stuff over the computer, he's like, God, do I stop it? Do I not stop it? What do I do?

And this panic is ensuing, and it's so funny because John's in the other room, and he knows we're uploading his stuff, and he just hears laughter, and he's like, well, I didn't think it was that bad. And he comes in, and he's like, what's going on? And we're like, dude, what's on your thumb drive? And he's like, what? And he looks up right then.

It's copying over... Heather's wedding. And he's like, I don't know any Heather. And then Korean tacos. And at that point, we're like, is that a dish or is that a euphemism?

It's a cool 90s punk band. You're not familiar with them? No, not at all. And it wasn't that it was just one file. I mean, it was like folder Korean tacos, two folder Korean tacos.

And that went on for like two minutes. And then it was another folder named cheese and then dogs blowing up. And as if that wasn't enough, there was dogs blowing up too. There were two folders of. Dogs blowing up.

Well, you fell up one. And the whole time he's just like, I swear I don't know what any of this is. Likely story. Which, you know, I mean, it's become like the running gag. We've actually, we've, the programming crew, we've got some Taco Bell over there that we're going to fashion into a Korean taco for dinner tonight to give to him as a present.

But I mean, he ended up calling into work and just got hold of a coworker that he works nearby and Um, he was like, by the way, um, did I leave my thumb drive there? And it turns out he picked up the wrong thumb drive because his coworker has it. And he's like, wait, do you have mine? He's like, yeah. Do you know anything about Korean tacos?

Oh no. Does that, he got really panicked. And so now we're like, we're still tempted as to, we haven't opened up the folder yet. Don't do it. I know.

You can never unsee Korean tacos. I mean, I, I shudder to think what could, it could turn into like the ring or something. I don't know. I'm pretty sure. Die in seven days afterwards.

Yeah. But, I mean, it's just, you know, little stuff like that. I mean, it's just, it's no different than going to family gatherings and you just have those crazy moments to where something happens and it just sort of lives. On in legend. We've got tales going back, you know, years now because I think, you know, pretty much all the crew here, we've been here 10 plus years.

So, I mean, it's just, yeah, basically you just get together and you don't really have to say anything. You just start laughing because you remember... where you left off the last time. We've got a couple of crew over here, and we're already laughing, and we don't even have to say anything. It's just. Unspoken people.

Massaro and just, that's all it takes. But, but yeah, it was just, there was another odd moment yesterday that we just found fun to just, um, somebody became very insistent with the, um, tom i can't think of his last night we put on the vincentennial in st louis became very insistent about there being a third five film that had been made and it's like dr fives there's dr fives rises again fives goes to college fives goes to hell it's just like the earnest movies but i scared stupid he became very very insistent on it though i mean you know in the way of the fives movies just it's a fun series in the way of vincent price um I remember reading a treatment where they were wanting to do it. Um, ever heard, it was like fives 80 or 81.

Have you heard of this? Yeah, it was, it was a cool concept where it was like, um, it was supposed to been set in like New York in 1980 and just the clipper ship of Dr. Fibes shows up in the Harbor. Nobody knows what it is. And then this brain trust of just super geniuses, they have been researching fives and know what it is.

And they, go in, crack it open, they realize, okay, the key to eternal life is in either him or his wife, and they accidentally crack her case, and she ages very quickly and then dies, and Fives has a reason to start killing people again. But, you know, it's very, very dark, because I remember, like, in there, and it might have been why it didn't get made, there was one, I think it was some fellow who was, like, 80 or something, but he'd had a schoolboy crush on this girl, and so he had, like, a 12-year-old robot girl that just he kept in his apartment it was inferred that it was doing favors for him or stuff like that i mean it was like all these really bizarre eccentric geniuses and he killed them based on their love so like um i think the robotic girl ended up was supposed to kill that person an expert in germ warfare was supposed to have been covered in chocolate you know just the usual vibes absurdity but.

Were they still attempting to have vincent price on. Board yeah i mean yeah i think I think he was totally down for it at that point, you know, 80, 81. I mean, he was still, I mean, at. That point he'd... He could have still done a movie, yeah.

Yeah, he could have pulled off. I mean, would have needed less makeup to look older, but. Well, yeah. But, yeah, that was at the point where his career was sort of waning. He didn't really have too much at that juncture.

He was just his own personality at that point. He didn't really do. He would just show up to events and be Vincent Price. That's really all you need, actually, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just you want him to be himself, and there you go.

I certainly would. I still want him to just come and hang out. That's one of the few things I scraped up enough money to buy. I got the limited edition Belle D version of Vincent Price this weekend, the one with the ghosts. Yeah, I've got the Tumaligia one, which is just fantastic, too.

And she's said that she's looking at doing either Mask of the Red Death or I was trying to think. What else? She was just talking about doing like a, and Fibes. Yeah. She wanted to do a Fibes as well and just hadn't gotten the opportunity to do so.

But, you know, I love, yeah, she'll. Do the third one. The third one. She will, actually. If it strikes her, she'll just randomly start doing it.

She could pull it off because, yeah, I mean, you know, it was just supposed to have been Fibes and his wife both going back and killing people. And it would have been Carolyn Monroe and she's done Carolyn Monroe before and a couple of her. pieces so that would be very cool yeah that would be cool i just love the sort of poppy 60s look that she's got the. Artwork it's a lot of fun we'll be talking to her later so anything else you need to get in here other than that no i would just i'm assuming you haven't done anything else but this for the last. No yeah that's i mean you know i've gotten to peek down in the dealer's room a little bit and got to peek down into the model contest for a bit you know it's I always like walking in there because, you know, that's like the heart of the show is that model contest.

And you walk in and, you know, everywhere else in the building can be just a loud mob scene. But you walk in there and it's hushed. It's like walking in an art gallery. And it very much is in that sense. I walk through there.

It's impressive as usual every year. I'm just like, man, they put way too much time in it. Yeah, I know. It's just like these are so good. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, you know, like the... recreation of the blimp from Blade Runner. Oh, that, yeah. With all the moving lights and everything. I was like, oh my God. And the video from the actual, it's amazing.

Yeah. That are the. Replica of the Star Destroyer 2. Oh, I think it was huge. The amount of time, and it's like you either have very, very patient girlfriends slash wives and or no girlfriends slash wives.

Or none, and possibly have never had one. Well, we'll just say a very patient mother who doesn't mind you still staying in her basement. Still staying in the basement. See, now I'm being stereotypical. I'm mocking my own backyard.

Sometimes that's true, though. I mean, my mom doesn't mind me still living in the basement, so it's all good. That's what we covered last time we were here. We finally brought Misty and Jay back in, and they discussed the fact that they were living across the street from a serial killer. If you've heard these stories on the news, that's across the street from them.

So sometimes that guy who still hangs out with his mom is really still doing that. I don't know. I mean, that could almost be like a moving point for a house. I mean, because, you know, it's kind of kitschy. Just be like.

No, this is right next to where they actually had all these serial killings. I mean, some people might find that kind of fun. In this day and age, that might change it. It's a shifting Americana kind of thing now. Maybe it is that pop culture thing of it's so cool to live next to a serial killer.

Or at least in the former house of a serial killer. It's like, you know, I'm going to go build a garden. I don't know what I'm going to find. Well, they already dug up the body out of the backyard, so I hate to tell you. One of them.

One of them. They're still looking, you know. He's confessed to many more. That's just the time to where you ask them, okay, this is where we stage Rear Window. We just recreate it.

Now's the time. All right. Well, we will take a break here. We will be back. We will be talking to Eric Chu, and then we will get to the big movie discussion this week.

So we will be back. I know I'll. Always get my thrill. That house on Haunted Hill. Outro Music.

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House of dark shadows. Where death is a way of life. Good evening, I'm Barnabas Collins. Barnabas Collins, vampire, takes. A bribe in a bizarre act of unnatural love.

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Sounds better. Hi, this is Eric Chu. I'm Brian. I'm Lucy. It's time for another installment of The Art of Being a Movie Geek.

In this session of The Art of Being a Movie Geek, We're going to talk to designer and illustrator Eric Chu, the man responsible for the sci-fi channel reimagining of Battlestar Galactica. I know you're really uncomfortable with being called a geek. No, actually, I. Grew up being a geek. In many ways, I still am.

Just because I work professionally, I'm a professional geek. That's what everyone should strive to be. Because it is, I mean, that's why I've, you know, totally latched onto it with this show and everything is about being movie geeks. But isn't it interesting now, you know, many years ago, being a geek was a negative connotation, but now it's become somewhat positive. It's, well, it's one of those, I always thought it was like, you can, you know, everybody is a geek on some level, the way that I see it at least.

And people who try to be cool and pretend they're not, like, You know, I've said it before. You're like, oh, no, I'm into sports. Well, you're a sports geek. If you're memorizing stats, that's no different than me knowing all the characters in the cantina in Star Wars. You're still devoting that much of your brain towards one thing that you're so hardcore into that you're a geek.

You know, just face it. You're not cool. You're a geek. So we embrace it on this show. So we welcome it.

It actually feeds into one of the theories I have about why comic book movies are so popular now, and that is that a lot of us grew up reading comic books, but at the time it had a negative connotation to it. We were ashamed of it. We were beaten up for it, taunted for it. And now that it's... When Batman came out, it was actually...

It didn't help us at all. It actually fed into that cliche that... you know, comic book movies are ridiculous and silly. Is there more Tim Burton slamming what's happening right now? That's what I was going to say. We've shifted to the Tim Burton Batman.

I think he deserves it. I think he deserves it. But as the comic book movies kind of got more serious and more introspective and more philosophical, I think that it became cool to see these movies. And in a way, for those of us who grew up reading them, it's a vindication. It's like, see, there is something to our passions or all the films or the comics that we read as kids.

It isn't a ridiculous, throwaway, campy, silly medium anymore. It's finally, yeah. And I guess it also showed it could be financially successful. And that's really all the suits need. So it kind of worked on both ends.

It makes us feel better that we're not, you know, total nerds anymore. We like things that are popular now. But, yeah, as long as it's also making somebody in the office money, then they'll keep it going. So in case we don't have this conversation tomorrow, I think we need to get into it now. Okay.

I disagree with you. Because there was a. A special program that was a formative part of my upbringing and it was the animated Beetlejuice. You seem to have a very different take on it than I did so I was going to see what your thoughts were. About?

About your time on the Beetlejuice animated cartoon. Well, the original Beetlejuice movie was, I don't know, it was kind of a middling success. At the time. It found its fan base after the factory. Yeah, and for some reason they decided that it was.

Awesome. Awesome? Did you say awesome? Totally awesome. Awesome idea to do a Saturday morning animated cartoon, which in one sense, yeah, it kind of makes a perfect sense to...

It kind of lends itself to animation. However. not necessarily for a Saturday morning. And, um, it ended up being, uh, a lot of really bad puns. Well, I mean, I mean, I'll give you, they, they took a big leap in it when they readjusted the story because, you know, Beetlejuice isn't a nice guy. So it was, it was interesting that to then make the cartoon, they made him like best friends with Lydia as opposed to Which is.

Kind of creepy when you think about it. Trying to creepily marry her as a 12-year-old girl. So, I mean, it's a very big shift from the movie version of him. But, again, you have to make a kid's cartoon. I think that's why I liked it, because it wasn't really a kid's cartoon, because it was.

The weird. Just weirdness of it. The weird, creepy levels of stuff that was going on was, I think, what I tapped into more. And I know there's a couple of people that I've run into that it was a very, like... Marlena that's on the show has cited it as one of the reasons she's as messed up as she is now.

Thank you. I take full responsibility for that. I would hope so, really. So, yeah, I don't know. What was the, I guess, the situation of how you got involved with it?

I'd already been working for Nelvana for quite a few years, and they had gotten this project, and we just. You know, I don't think that the actual show ended up reflecting the movie all that well. Yeah. It's a very different thing than the movie, which usually I don't like when they do those weird transfer... I mean, they've done so many of those.

It can be done well. Yeah. But, again, you're talking about a Saturday morning cartoon, which I don't know how much thought they really put into. Effectively translating or at least re... or changing it to fit the animated medium. I know that most people...

The point of using animation is to do something that you cannot do in live action. But Beetlejuice, the movie, was already sort of a cartoon already. And so the transition should have been fairly easy. But... though, uh, I think animation and particularly, uh, Saturday morning animation is, is, is kind of thought as, um, uh, bottom of the barrel sort of filmmaking. Uh, and sometimes rightfully so.

It depends on the shows. Yeah. Um, we, I remember, uh, working there and they had some sort of, uh, psychologist come in and, um, to, to tell us, yeah, yeah, to tell us, uh, basically, um, how to structure the TV shows for a child audience. And her opinion was that the stories and basically her idea is that we should talk down to kids. We should make it easy for kids to understand everything.

And I don't believe that. I believe we should be making smarter films so that they have something to learn and move up towards. That I've always said, yeah. And they do, especially now, it seems like 70s and 80s kids' movies were way smarter and didn't play down versus the stuff now is just crap and is making our kids dumber almost. Well, the great thing about the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, you didn't necessarily catch every single joke along the way.

And the filmmakers were making them for themselves. They weren't really concerned with, okay, is the audience going to get this? there were a lot of in-jokes, jokes that nobody else would get. A lot of weird Hollywood jokes, too, from the time that no kid, even now, kids are like, have no idea who those characters are. But as you watch them the first time, you get most of the slapstick jokes. The second time you watch them, you get a few more.

And I think after a few times, I think that's why it has such lasting power. Every time you watch it, you get a new joke. And even if you don't, the old jokes are so well constructed that you can watch it over and over again. However, when you get to Saturday morning cartoons, which is just filled with puns, and puns is like, to me, the lowest common denominator in terms of joke telling. And How many times can you listen to a pun and then laugh at it?

I don't know how many episodes worth. I think... I mean, I will agree, thinking back, a lot of... I mean, maybe the jokes and the dialogue weren't... I think more what I latched onto is that world that it built.

Because most of the movie, Beetlejuice, is still in the real world. And you get those minor little shots into their, the other side of that door and the sandworms and all of that, you get little glimpses here and there where that cartoon pretty much takes place, you know, 99% in that world. And I, I think that stuff that, that sort of fleshed out the, the society that they had there and the other weird characters that were brought in. I think that's what I ended up latching onto and really enjoying is, Maybe more so than the bad puns that I've probably blocked out as the years have gone on. You're sick.

I don't agree. That's true. But, you know, I'm holding other people responsible for the good stuff that was in there. You were the one writing those bad puns, but the people drawing those cool landscapes that I like, that's how I'm going to go with it. No, those scripts were already written before I ever got around to them, so I'm not taking responsibility for that.

I can still blame you, though. You can. Well, again, is there anything in the middle there that you wanted to, that you had? Because there were several. What did you say about it?

Well, I mean, you know, I didn't know if you wanted to go into the other stuff, or I'm sure people are more interested in Battlestar. Galactica, so I didn't know if. Well, Beetlejuice was a long time ago. It was many, many years ago. I've already been trying to block it out.

I'll be the one bringing it up every time. A lot of sessions and a lot of, yeah, no. Okay. So Battlestar Galactica was more of your, you know, you were a lot more important in that process. I mean, how did, did they come to you with, you know, wanting to redesign things, or how did that happen?

Yeah. It very definitely was a case of knowing the right people at the right time. Yeah. And I happen to know the Super Effects supervisor. Super Effects?

Did I just say that? We made up new words. We get credit for that. Special Effects. Supervisor.

I'm going with Super FX. That's cool. Super FX. And he asked me if I wanted to do Battlestar Galactica. And at the time, my experience has basically been animated cartoons, and I really hadn't done spaceships and robots.

But I said yes. I'll do it. That's the way you do it. Yeah. Just blindly jump into stuff.

And then I started to have a nervous breakdown because I... No, really. Actually, it was a childhood dream of mine to do this sort of thing. But I really hadn't done a. Lot of it.

Had you watched the old show ever? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Up in Canada, the first episode made it to the movie theaters. Wow.

I don't know if they made it here, but. I just kind of remember being on TV, and I really just liked the robot dog. I liked the Cylons, and I liked the robot dog. And you know how they did that, right? They had a chimpanzee on the inside.

That's how all good effects are, right? In my mind, that's how everything runs. My feeling is that when they came around to do the reimagining, I figured that's what they should do with Lorne Green. They should have a monkey inside a Lorne Green suit. A monkey in a Lorne Green suit.

Selling dog food. Bring him back. I'm all for that. I would watch that. I would watch that.

That's pretty awesome. Um, but yeah, but anyways, yeah. So the opportunity presented itself. I told them, yes, I could do it even though I, you know, inside I was, uh, lying through my teeth. Uh, but, uh, uh, basically, uh, what happened was I locked myself in my room and I drew spaceships for two weeks until I got to the point where I said, I think I can do this.

Wow. And, uh, so they gave me the, the, the job and, um, And, you know, this is 10 years ago. And being an artist or somebody who draws, it's an ongoing process. You don't actually suddenly one day become an artist. It's not like I dropped out of the womb and bang, I can draw.

So nowadays, when I look back at those drawings, yeah, it's pretty painful. I look at them and go, wow, I can't even look at these. But if I, you know, in the wider picture, when I consider this was 10 years ago, and I hadn't really drawn spaceships before. I think a good artist always does that. You're never really pleased with it.

You're hopefully happy with that at the current time, but you'll look back 10 years ago, you won't like your stuff. 10 years from now, you won't like what you just did. That's the way you learn. That's the way you become better. When I learned to paint, I did one painting.

I didn't go to school. I didn't learn from a book. I just said, okay, I'm going to buy some paints and I'm going to do a painting. And it took me two months to do. And it wasn't the fact that I was painting for two months.

It was the fact that I was dabbing the paint onto the canvas, three seconds, and staring it for 20 minutes, going, what's wrong? What is wrong? And that's the way you learn. I like learning to draw or learning to paint almost like a game. And when you do it this way, it's almost like playing Where's Waldo? you're, you're, you're trying to figure, you've got something in front of you and you're trying to make it look a certain way, but you don't know exactly what's wrong.

And, and, and you're trying to find it, whether it's perspective, whether it's a lump in the wrong place, whether it's the color is wrong. But once you figured out that puzzle, you are that much closer to becoming a better artist or a better illustrator, whatever the case may be. That's, I mean, yeah, I've, actually done a lot of pieces with different artists and stuff and i've noticed over the years it's the ones i'm usually drawn to and the ones i seem to like the most are self-taught and i think there's something about that i think there's something to learning the basics officially but i think people who have that you know that they take it upon themselves that i just want to create there's something about their work that's a little different that kind of makes it i think it'll stand out a little more from from.

The other people yeah yeah and and Learning to paint or learning to draw is... Yeah, I mean, I do believe that the word talent is overused. And I think drawing is pretty much like a craft. I know a lot of people who come up to me and say, you know, how do you learn how to draw? And it's very simple.

You just practice. It isn't something that was... given to me. It isn't like a magic elixir that I took one day. I sat down and I decided I wanted to draw. It's exactly the same as learning to play the piano as it is learning to speak a new language.

It's a craft. It's a skill. And it wasn't something that was handed to me one day. This all sounds like a lot of work. I don't know.

Well, exactly it is. Where's that magic pill at, Dan? Chuck Jones, the animator who did a lot of Warner Brothers cartoons. Amazing. His quote on learning to draw is that every artist has about a thousand bad drawings in them.

And the sooner you get them out, the better off you'll be. And that's absolutely true. There is no secret way to learn to draw except to do it. And it may not happen today. It may not happen tomorrow.

But every time you do a drawing, you get incrementally better and better. And. I can't count how many bad drawings I've done in my lifetime. I've got a landfill with my name on it somewhere. And it's true.

It's true. How old were you when you did that first, I want to paint, you know, when you had that moment? I don't even remember. Basically, my mom just gave me a stack of paper and a pencil and just said, go to it. And, you know, you may go through hundreds and hundreds of just scribbles, but there's a certain worth in that too.

You're learning how to hold the pencil. You're learning how to hand-eye coordination to move that hand to make the mark that you want. And so, yeah, for people that want to learn how to draw, I think that, number one, don't get discouraged. Number two, if you're drawing, don't feel that you have to make a great drawing every single time. Nobody has to see it.

You can throw it away. Nobody has to know that you made a bad drawing. But just keep doing it and keep... trying to figure out that problem. It's a challenge. It's a problem.

It's like a puzzle. It's like Sudoku or crosswords or whatever. And the beauty of it is that once you've mastered one level, you can go on to the next level and the next level. And by the end, or actually there is no end, but after a few levels, you've gotten to the point where you've got a skill that is useful in life. You don't actually have to become an artist.

You don't have to use it as your profession. But in any... anything you do in life, the skill of drawing is useful. It isn't something that you can ignore and throw away one day. You can pass it on. I'm going to date myself, but it seems like a lot of the newer generation are spending a lot of time playing video games and hours and hours on video games.

And what do you get out of it? you get sore thumbs. I got a new high score. Yeah, exactly. Or, or carpal tunnel syndrome or, uh, but, uh, uh, if you're learning to draw, um, that's something that is useful, you know, whether you realize it or not. Um, um, and it's, it is not with, it is not beyond your reach.

Anybody can do it. You just have to spend the time and, practice. I figure to get to a professional level, if you really work hard at it, you can get it done in about a year. And that's not... When all is said and done, that's not too bad for a skill that's useful and... you know, uh, you can use, it's a party trick.

Yeah. Drawing people will come, you know, look at what you're drawing. And then you just build on it from there. It's like the more you do it, you know, you build up and get better. Yeah.

Yeah. What, what is it, um, cause you say you started with drawing and you learned painting. What is it that made you move into like animation? Um, it wasn't necessarily a conscious move. Um, I, uh, always loved the, the, the, um, art on one side and film on the other.

But the combination being animation was something that I had not seriously considered going into. One of the reasons being is that animation is such a long and tedious process. For those of you who really don't know how animation is put together, it's essentially a handmade film. At least at that time. This is pre-CG.

It's slightly changed now. But at the time... But at the time, you had to draw every single frame. And that's a lot of drawings. And it is very tedious.

And when I was going to art school, I initially wanted to get into illustration. But they didn't have illustration. All they had was animation. So I took that instead. And I discovered I hated animation.

I hated drawing essentially the same picture over and over again. It was magical when you got to see the movement. But getting to that point... was incredibly tedious. And so I went on to find another art school which actually had illustration, which was in Toronto. And before I even got to my first class, I was hired by an animation company.

Nice. Yeah. That's it. That's good. Whatever way took you there, it ended up working out.

Yeah. The bad thing was that during those years, there really wasn't anything that I would consider something that I'm terribly proud of. On the other hand, it got me drawing every single day. Yeah. And that is invaluable.

Regardless of how much I was paid, regardless of how many hours I spent working, the fact is that the simple act of drawing every single day was something that was. I guess it. Gave me the discipline to pick up the pencil every single day and really practice and keep going. And, yeah, even though there was nothing I was really proud of, over the years I improved. I improved significantly.

I'd say so. You got a couple good ones over there. Oh, thanks. Screw you, too. That's how most of my interviews end.

And we're done. Hey kids, it's time again for the Fright Night Horror Weekend, coming June 29th through July 1st at the Gold House Hotel and Convention Center in Louisville, Kentucky. This year's guests include Bruce Campbell, Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, John Rhys-Davies, the fifth Doctor himself, Peter Davison, plus James Marsters and Nicholas Brendan, as well as Tyler Mayne, Deborah Foreman, Andy Barclay, Christine Elise McCarthy, Sid Haig, Caroline Williams, as well as a Monster Squad reunion, and an Evil Dead 2 reunion. Plus, as usual, this is not just one, but two conventions, so when you go to the Fandom Fest convention, you'll see a Beverly Hills 90210 reunion, Featuring Jason Priestley and Luke Perry.

And a weird science reunion. Plus a wide array of filmmakers, artists, and vendors will be on hand. Including a special appearance by your friends at Movie Meltdown. So remember, that's Fright Night Horror Weekend combined with Fandom Fest. Two conventions combined to bring you all the pop culture action you can cram into one weekend.

That's June 29th through July 1st at the Gold House Hotel and Convention Center in Louisville, Kentucky. So just go to FrightNightFilmFest.com for all the details. Mummy? Yes, dear? Mummy, I want to hear some of Nick Tan's wonderful songs.

Do you, dear? Yes, Mummy. What can I do? Well, dear, you can go to www.nicktan.co.uk. Will there be details of his gigs there too, Mummy?

Yes, dear. Will there be pictures of him and his instruments? Yes. Oh, Mummy, please say yes. Yes, dear.

Will there be widgets, too, to click on? You know, those ones that link to his blogs. And his podcasts? Yes, dear. And links to his friends' websites, too?

Yes, dear. Mummy? Yes, dear. Are there links to simply everything that Nick Tan does there? Yes, dear.

Yes, dear. What was the address again, mummy dearest? www.nictan.co.uk Oh, thank you, mummy. Thank you so very much. Oh, okay. Did y'all know this back door was open?

Mm-hmm. Okay, you did know. Okay. Oh, okay. Well, I just wanted to let you.

Know so somebody didn't just walk in because I don't have a key or else I'd lock it because I reprogrammed all the locks and he's got the keys to do it. Okay, okay. I will check with him and make sure he knows to lock everything up before we're done. Thank you. But yeah, it's definitely a very different...

Are you okay? I'm so used to having that happen. The part of the security guard was played by Wilford Brimley. He looked more like Martin Mull, actually. Anyway.

With Wilford Brimley's mustache. Are they still alive? Wilford Brimley is, surprisingly. I believe Martin Muller is. It's all that oatmeal, I think.

Yeah, that oatmeal and diabetes. That keeps him alive, I suppose. Instant Quaker Oatmeal. It's the right thing to do. Hello, this is Caroline Munro, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.

Get more out of life. Go out to. A movie. My name is Barnabas Collins. Two centuries ago, I made Collinwood my home.

My love. Until a jealous witch cursed me, condemning me to the shadows. One of you die! For all time. What the hell is this?

He's coming. He's coming. Hear me, future dweller. What is the year? 1972.

1972? My beloved Colin Wood. Collins family. Who the hell is this? I'm a vampire, madam.

Yeah. He'll just stay with us forever, is he? I like him. Welcome home, Barnabas Collins. How soon can the horses be ready?

We don't have horses. We have a Chevy. What sorcery is this? Reveal yourself, tiny songstress. Hello, Barnabas.

Remember me? Which? You cursed me to be this hideous creature. You may strategically place your wonderful lips upon my posterior and kiss it repeatedly. What if I made you love me?

With what, a spell? With this. I must admit, they have not aged a day. Is she for real? Indeed.

If I can't have you, I'll destroy you. And your family. I shall restore the family business to its former glory. Burn, baby, burn. Fight on, Barnabas.

Fight on for us. And fight I shall. Love me. Never. Was a regrettable turn of events are you.

Stoned or something they tried stoning me, my dear. It did not work. It seems like only yesterday I embraced. The eternal flame. I want to know if I have only ashes.

If the sun should shine on me. I want a taste for your life. I call it war, I call it war Feel the wind grow. Stronger, see the fall come right Casting its dark shadows, the beast will be tonight Feel the wind grow stronger, as the war. Grows Since I made you watch this movie, we should probably talk about it.

And I hate you for it. We all suffered. You chose this movie. Actually, the party who's not here right now chose the movie. It was a setup.

We have been duped. This is a scam, if ever I saw it. So with that, yeah, we rarely do we actually leave the house, the geeks that we are, at least on this end. I don't know about you, but, you know. This time, because of the request, we decided to go with a newer movie, which rarely happens as well.

And we went out on the town, actually out in the world with people. It's kind of scary. And so, yeah, this week's out on the town feature is Dark Shadows. Hmm. The year is 2012.

Director Tim Burton. The plot, according to IMDb, an imprisoned vampire, Barnabas Collins, is set free and returns to his ancestral home where his dysfunctional descendants are in need of his protection. You're reading from notes. No, I'm reading the IMDb. I didn't memorize that.

My brain barely works, period, let alone memorization, so... That having been said, spoiler alert, I'm sure we will not only spoil this movie, but certain parties might trash it. Yeah, we didn't do the spoiling. It was spoiled the day it was released. If you want to see it, feel free to go watch it now and then come back and listen to the rest of this after you've seen it.

Okay, are you back? You poor bastards. All right, so let's get into it. Where would you like to begin with Dark Shadows? Cue the crickets.

I can go with it if you want. I don't know. Again, we can start with just a General Tim Burton, and it's interesting that someone who's sort of somewhere down the line worked for Tim is here. You got your paycheck signed directly by him, right? Yeah.

Okay, there you go. See, that counts. So, and it gives you a reason to be angry at him. Everybody hates their boss. So, I mean, I was a big, as I previously mentioned, a big Tim Burton fan and really latched onto a lot of his early movies and think he put out some really impressive stuff in that first half of his career.

And This is very different. He hit the midpoint in his career and it changed drastically, I think. That's the thing. I don't... I can't...

I'm challenged to think of another director that has higher highs. And lower lows. Yeah. I mean. Yeah.

The best of what he does is the best of what can be done. And the worst is just so beyond pitiful that. It's... It's just mediocre... Heartbreaking.

Mediocre mainstream studio crap. And. Which. is fine with a lot of directors out there. You get a lot of people making these big-budget nonsense kind of movies, and you expect that, but he is an auteur. You know, he can deliver amazing work, and he just doesn't most of the time now, and that's frustrating, I'd say.

Yeah, and I don't even know where to put the blame. I feel like he sort of surrounds himself with his friends, and they're just sort of their own lowest common denominator at this point. Like, I feel like he and Johnny. Depp just don't, it just has become so self-indulgent at this point. Somebody needs to separate those two.

It's like a Siamese twin thing at this point. They need to stop, so. I don't know. I agree, and I've said this about a lot of other directors as well, and that's usually why a lot of times you get their best work right out of the gate, you know, because they don't have, they're not surrounded by yes-men. They're not having people just tell them everything they do is amazing, and more than likely, they've got really tight constraints on financial situations and equipment, and it makes you be more creative, and it makes you put together a better movie, whereas when you have carte blanche to do whatever the hell you want, you see what happens.

And there was a comeback. I mean, for me, Big Fish, when that film came out, that was such a beautiful, perfect. Movie for me. That's the one... in the last, I mean, he's, he's turned in a few that are more acceptable, but that's the one that I really liked in the middle of, once you hit post Planet of the Apes, everything from there is a downward slalom, but there's this one little spike in the middle with Big Fish, and, and, uh, yeah, I think it's, it's still, and I think the difference with that is, it was an original idea. It, I mean, it's back to, like, when he did stuff like You know, Beetlejuice or Edward Scissorhands.

These were things that, even Nightmare Before Christmas, these are things that he had been working with in his head forever and he really had a love for them. And then you see when they hand him, you know, franchises, when he's got to do Batman and when he's got to do Planet of the Apes. it's a different movie. And Batman was a little more acceptable for me. I think you disagree here. But again, I still liked what he was doing at that point.

But it's different. You can definitely tell when it's something that's a personal thing and when they just hand him a franchise and go, here, you've seen Alice in Wonderland before. Put something together kind of like that. Yeah, and I don't know if it, because Big Fish was a novel. So I don't know if that was, if the source material was just so much better and when it comes.

But it's still like, again, dedicating it to his father in that story, it's like, it's a very personal attachment that he had to that story. So I think, again, I mean, you watch people, I don't know, even if it's not your material, you can see directors do stuff from another screenwriter and still have a real, you know, it really does feel like it's their movie. Yeah, I think that movie more than any other is, he was more restrained than, I mean, he didn't just go wild with his, With his Tim Burton-y visuals. And I think when you restrain him, I think that may force him to concentrate introspectively on the characters rather than. okay, let's get them wild hair and eyeshadow eyes. That's just Johnny Depp.

He comes with that stuff now. And here's Johnny Depp. He walks in from going to the grocery, and he's got wild hair and eye makeup on. And that was the thing. I mean, I always have enjoyed that as part of Tim Burton's aesthetic, and I wanted it to be accompanied by a story again.

I think that's what I've been missing. Like, I actually sort of like his vision. I like the wild hair, and I like the crazy sets. At times it works. But it does need to be anchored by a story and not just his interpretation of a classic childhood story.

Characters that he wants to destroy. Like the problem with this I mean honestly I was so resistant to this film being adapted because I do have a soft spot for the series I mean it was a part of my childhood. And they do a very different take on it which is what worried me if he was going to take it as granted they took it a little too seriously sometimes on the show but they at least were you know serious about what they were trying to do where that first trailer made this look like a big slapstick stupid kind of movie and Even more so than it is. I mean, actually, that first trailer made it look really bad. It reminded me of...

It was almost like Beetlejuice 2. Yeah. Well, I wish it was Beetlejuice 2. All which they're trying to do, unfortunately. But, yeah, we won't even go there.

Was it Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian? Yeah, I believe. Beetlejuice Goes to College. He follows Lydia there, and they... It's the college years.

That's creepy. He's a party guy. Come on. Beetlejuice Goes Shoplifting. Not Beetlejuice.

He's a nice guy. Well, I was going to say that... I think that if we're going to get into our issues with it, I think that's the main thing with me was I got, I'm still sitting in there. It wasn't even over yet. And I'm sitting there going, that's what's missing in this because the aesthetic is still there.

He can still come up with his crazy visuals. And occasionally he still shoots some good stuff that the shot of him up at the beginning on the cliff, that's a good shot. And it's like, there's some stuff there that, essence of who he is is still there, what's missing now is relationships, you know, it's like, that's what was so good about the early movies, is, you know, that relationship of, it's not just Beetlejuice being wacky, it's the fact that we meet Lydia, and we actually get to know her, and the ghost, and her family, and all of that stuff seems real, and grounded, and edward scissorhands you know it's not just you know about the crazy edward hands it's like he's a real character and we spend a lot of time with them and that family and it all feels real whereas this there's no relationships built at all in this movie i think it's that's my main problem with it is it's just throwing wacky characters at it and then half the time they don't even connect on screen.

Yeah there's no story And it's very poorly written. And for the first half hour, I didn't hate it. I was like, oh my gosh, this might actually surprise me. This might not be a terrible movie. I thought the setup was there.

It's all visuals and it looks good. And the sets were phenomenal. And then it just completely, I mean, there was no story and it totally fell apart. And it was just the same terrible That 70s Show joke over and over. And they didn't even go someplace interesting with it.

It was all lava lamps. But the 70s are so funny. Come on. They're hilarious. There were one or two that was funny.

Again, my geeky Scooby-Doo thing, this is a very silly play, was a funny line. I'm sorry. I'm like, he's got a point. It's a pretty silly show. That's strange.

There are a lot of really respected directors out there who have a singular, unique vision, and we applaud them for taking a bold stance. But for Tim Burton, I'm actually kind of tired of of seeing the same tim burton style over and over again and it just seems one note. I've said that for years i was like everything that you know you'll you'll be reading through the movie news and every week it's like of course he's doing dark shadow you know it's like oh tim burton's gonna do uh what was the one before uh alice in wonderland the uh tweenie todd which isn't even bad that's probably one of the other more watchable things he's done lately but again it's like Well, of course he's doing Sweeney Todd.

I mean, is there anything? Guess what? It's going to have Johnny Depp in it. He's going to have crazy hair. It's like everything he's done for the last 10, 15 years, of course, he's going to do Alice in Wonderland.

You know, it's like it all fits his M.O. so perfectly that it's just like, for God's sakes. M.O. Or E.M.O. That too. Both.

It's like, for God's sakes, take a chance. You know, it's just like do something. That's why, you know, well-respected directors are well-respected because they do something that pushes the envelope and they do something that's maybe out of their comfort zone and that's why it gets a little better you know when they keep making movies where he is so phoning it in at you know Alice in Wonderland point and god help us Willy Wonka that I yeah it's like all of that is it just feels so lazy at this point he's just it's paint by numbers you can Insert Johnny Depp, insert Danny Elfman. You can build this movie on your computer. You can put a randomizer on it and make your next Tim Burton movie.

But that's what I'm. So frustrated about because I do feel like so much care and time and effort was put into the costumes, into the sets. Yeah. And everything's so beautifully done. I don't understand why they couldn't just, you know, maybe.

Take some time. But that's it. He's purely a visualist. Yeah. He concentrates on the visual aspect of it. and I don't think the characters are his strong point at all.

No, definitely not in this one. That's some of the ones I was going to go into. The main problem, I think, with this movie was essentially, as it goes on, it doesn't start out this way, but essentially it's supposed to be this love story between Barnabas and Victoria. It should be, really, I guess, if the way that it wraps up, that's what it should be built with, especially with the setup in the beginning, like there's some sort of, you know, reincarnation or something, who knows, but, I mean, if you're gonna sell it that way, then that should be a big arc in the story, and it goes nowhere, like, I mean, she's barely on screen a lot of the movie, and by the end, I mean, it's like, I don't know, it's like we get, we don't have any scenes of them getting to know each other, it really should be some sort of building of a relationship, we have nothing, we don't see them getting to like each other, all we know is he likes her hips.

That's a fun, which I'm sure she has fine hips, but childbearing. Yeah. Well, fine childbearing hips. I'm sure she has, but we really should have seen a little more building in there between the two of them. If that's going to be a major point in the story.

And then that, yeah, towards the middle there, she just disappears for a good 20 minutes. And then she comes back and all of a sudden he professes his love for her. And I'm like, where, where did that come from? Why is she not like freaked out by that and pressing charges in this day and age? So, I don't know.

It's just like that seemed like a major hole in the plot. That like, if this is going to be an important relationship, we should be brought in on that and it should be important to us too. We should get to see that relationship. No, no, no. We just need more 70s jokes.

Well, okay, I'll give you if you want one of those. I'm saying that's probably what he said. He probably feels uncomfortable dealing with relationships and looking the way he is i i i can't blame him. Maybe that's because he's hooked up with a homewrecker but she is i'm sorry we brought it up on the show before she's a homewrecker she's done it twice now oh i forgot about she's done it she's been in a movie with a director broken up his marriage and then the the first time then within a short amount of time left him got in another movie with a director, broke up his relationship. I don't even think they were married, but they'd been together for like 10 years and then hooked up with it.

Now, granted, she's settled down now. She's not quite as much of a homewrecker these days, but she's got a track record. I'm just saying. I've got issues with her. I've got issues with Tim Burton, too.

So, I mean, I just feel like I should equally throw a lot of blame in their direction. They're a power couple, and I don't like their power. I do often reference them, though. I like the fact that they have separate homes with a tunnel, the subterranean tunnel that connects the two. I think that's a really good.

Okay, I do want that. I know. That's fucking awesome. It kind of is. I mean, if you have the means, I think that's the perfect domestic situation.

Underground tunnel, this is like a Freudian thing. Ooh, wait a minute. I see where you're going. I think when Tim Burton was at his best was when he was doing his short films early, early on. Vincent is brilliant.

Vincent is brilliant. And his ideas, I think, you know, it fits the short film. It fits that, God, what's the word? Medium. Medium.

No, not medium. Let's just sit here. Format. Format. There we go.

It fits that format perfectly. However, when you give him two hours, I think he runs out of steam very, very quickly. Which maybe is him coming full circle because the other one I really love is Frankenweenie. And that's such a movie geek kind of movie. You can see what a big movie geek he is as a young filmmaker because it's him loving all of those old cheesy horror movies. and now, again, going to turn around and make a two-hour version of it, and a huge, big-budget version with stars, and, I mean, it's just...

I don't know. Does that idea support a two-hour movie? Yeah. It works so well in that. It's kind of cute and quaint, and it's like...

I think the short film, that's perfect. You don't need to go any bigger than that, but I'm not sure I have any interest to see a two-hour version of it. Yeah, I mean, as much as I love the original one, it's... right at that middle point. It's like, you know, 30, 35 minutes, I think. And that's pretty much what you need.

You know, it's, I don't know what you're going to do. You're just going to have to drag in weird subplots going on with badly drawn characters more than likely. And then that's just going to muddy the waters. And I don't know that, that bothers me a lot that he's trying to now rip off himself. You know, it's like, As if you're not messing with other pre-existing properties, you're stealing from your own pre-existing properties.

He's raping himself. That's an interesting visual. I don't know how the hell you do that. So, I don't know. Just back to the relationship thing.

With all these characters and the lack of development. Like the Dr. Hoffman, again, one of our Helen Bonham Carter kick here. What is that character really there for? Like, she doesn't do anything.

She's supposed to be there for the kid, right? We never see them interacting. We never see her helping the kid. She just is drunk all the time, which, again, if she was just there to be one of those side joke characters, like the old lady, you know, the old lady bits are funny. All right, she's just there, and that's what she does.

But she's, you know, Dr. Hoffman's supposed to be a character, and yet she doesn't really do anything. The only thing is that weird blood subplot thing, which really doesn't, at this point, turn out to be anything. Let's just cross our fingers for the sequel. Dark Shadows 2.

Dark Shadows 2, Electric Boogaloo. So, I don't know. Dark Shadow-ier. Now with more shadows. Book of Shadow.

Oh, wait, they already did that as a 2. So, I don't know. I thought that was sort of a wasted character. Like, she really didn't do anything with that, which may not even be her fault, I guess, if it was written that way. I don't know.

Bling on her husband. How do you feel about Johnny Depp going around in, like, my makeup for the whole movie? He's dead. I know. That's what he does in every Tim Burton movie.

What are you talking about? Well, that's another. And that's what he's going to look like in the new Lone Ranger movie. Yeah, exactly. He can't get away...

Again, I'm starting to question him. Crazy hair and white makeup. He's lost it. I mean, he's another one of those that, like, veered off at that pirate's point in his career. And it's like, everything since then has just been crazy over the top, you know, it's like he can't reign it in, he can't do a normal performance anymore, everything has to be falling off of things, and chewing on the scenery, and I don't know why, he like, he's such a good actor, in his, somewhere in there, hose off all the makeup, there's still a good actor in there somewhere, and I don't know, I don't understand why he's done that with his career either, but with, I don't know, with his character, that was one I was going to ask you guys too, He's technically supposed to be our hero in this.

How do you feel about him? I mean, I got midway in. I'm like, I don't know that I like him, but he's not really like an anti-hero either. He's so middle of the road. I'm like, I don't even know what I'm supposed to think about him.

You know, he's not like a bad guy, but I really love what he's doing and it's fun. But he's not really a good guy either because he's off in random, you know, people in the cast. And like, he's sort of... Some of the choices he makes, like I really... Don't understand him shipping off Johnny Lee Miller's character.

Like, what was the point of that? You want to make this child an orphan now? I mean, yes, he's a bad father, but he's not... Like, we don't see him do anything horrible. It's like, he's having sex with some woman.

All right, well, his wife's dead. It's not illegal, I suppose. He's stealing some wallets. But again, is this enough to make the child an orphan for the rest of his life? That seemed like a very selfish act, too.

And I'm like, he didn't seem like he wanted to be a surrogate. He didn't seem like he was stepping in. He's going to be a great dad. So, I don't know. I just had issues with him as a character.

He didn't really bring one thing or the other to it. He just sort of did his goofy thing and walked through it. But, I don't know. Did anybody else have problems with him as a character? Yeah, but I think I had issues with all of the characters as characters.

But, I mean, he's supposed to be our hero in this story, which. Yeah, I guess he was supposed to be complicated or conflicted. Not really. I don't know. Just kind of a jackass.

And I'd already forgotten that Johnny Lee Miller wasn't even in it. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And the little boy, I mean, I think he's supposed to be sort of the heart of the story, right? And he was just. Forgotten halfway through.

He, again, disappears for about 20 minutes. And I'm like, oh, look, there's that kid again. I was just like, where did he go? Well, and then that's one of those that I wasn't sure either because we also get those, like, he just inserts that same kind of character in everything because when we get to the beginning, I'm like, so is Chloe Grace Barrett supposed to be the new Lydia? Like, she's the teenage girl.

Nobody understands her. She's, you know, she's totally different than everybody else and a very different version of it, but it's kind of jamming that same idea that he's so familiar. Again, not that he likes to be super original. So it's like, I don't know. I thought that was a weird character, too.

And it's like, for a while, I was like, are we supposed to be on board with her? Like, is she the one that we're supposed to be, you know, seeing it from? And then, again, she just has nothing to do. Like, she is just, and that's, like the Johnny Depp thing, I don't understand why. Because she can be an amazing actress.

So here I have to blame Tim Burton again. I'm like, is his instruction just act stone 24-7? You're angry. you're kind of pissed off, but you're more stoned than anything else. Like, she just seems out of it for 98% of the movie, and then she has one scene that also makes no sense at the end. Yeah.

Do we want to go there? Do we need to address that? I guess, because I was just like, again, it's one of those building kind of issues. I'm just like, where did that come from? If you were going to bother to work it in there and make it important, why not at least plant that seed somewhere else or show us that she's dealing with this?

And again. build some character but just oh we need some more cg monster effects in the finale here throw this in here out of nowhere and then have somebody walk up and give an explanation out of the blue oh and guess what i did that too. Yeah remember are we gonna mention what the that is. Again again we threw out the spoiler alert so yeah go to town. By the way she's a werewolf yeah by the way and that's how it was actually delivered in the movie by the way i'm a werewolf. Deal with it I believe is how she actually put it.

And wolf. It was such a throwaway thing, and then I couldn't even wrap my head around it. How long of the film was she supposed to have been a werewolf? It was when she was a baby, wasn't she? When she sent the werewolf in and bit the child in the crib.

It's like a huge cheat. Yeah. If you don't put that into the story, it's totally cheating at the end to show it off at the end there. Oh, by the way, I'm bulletproof. Oh, by the way, I can fly.

Did I forget to tell you that? Oops. Forgot to set up the werewolf subplot. Oops. Oh, well, we got the CG done.

Just put it in there anyway. I don't know. That I found really disturbing as well. There were a few shots of Johnny Depp where he, anytime he hits light, he burns. But there's scenes of him in the daylight on the beach.

Yeah. With a hat and sunglasses. Come on. Boy, that one time he had an umbrella. I mean, come on.

It's totally plausible. I got sunburned under an umbrella. Come on. Yeah, there's a lot of weird holes in the science, if you want to call that science. I think when.

He becomes so in love with the visuals, he's like, I need him with an umbrella and sunglasses, but I. Also need him being burned by the light. And he just kind of just went with all of it without caring about any sort of narrative repercussions. Yeah, pretty much. Like, let's not worry about it.

What about the macrame subplot? That needed to be expanded upon. I really like that. What the hell? I wanted to know more about that.

They should have broken into like an hour lesson in the middle of it, how to make an owl out of macrame. But that was just another lazy 70s thing. And by the way, macrame. Hilarious. Lava lamps and macrame.

It's hilarious. Holland's family have always held the biggest and the most wonderful balls. People don't throw balls anymore, stupid. No, they're not. They throw happenings.

And how, pray, does one throw a happening? Well, first things first, you'll need a mirror ball. Whatever that is, we shall have it. And booze, lots of booze. Carolyn.

We shall have spirits enough to fill a schooner's hull. And Alice Coopers. I seem to recall an Alice Cooper from my youth. Does she reside in Collinsport? Not exactly.

Okay, this was just, and I normally don't get so, like, fired up about this. A lot of people like to bitch about this in movies. But I usually don't care because it's real, the product placement. I'm like, well, their products are all over our world. I'm kind of used to that.

But what the hell was the McDonald's? I was confused about that when they first showed the map. Like, in the text there at the beginning, I was like, okay, they're setting up a big joke. This is going to be funny, and then it's going to play in somehow in the way that they wrap this up. And it's like, I'll let you skate by on the McDonald's tie-in money if you actually work it into the plot, and it's funny, if it legitimately is a good joke.

What? It's just gone. It's just a big shot of the M, and then it disappears, and they never bring it back. It's never. There is no joke.

They just set up a joke that doesn't happen, and then you realize, oh, it's just there to remind me to get a Big Mac on the way home. Is there any other reason for it to be there? No, I can't speak to that at all. All of that fish-out-of-water stuff just didn't work. It was all throwaway.

You could have easily excised every single joke there, and it wouldn't have made one bit of difference in the story. Yeah, but that one is so obvious, but then I was like, well, really, is this all just plant again I don't normally bitch about that but we got the Chevy line we got the Shell station sign thrown up there 20 or 30 times I'm just like he really is working in these companies isn't he normally that doesn't bother me but for some reason in this one it just seemed really showcasing the I don't know that's strange too again when you're dealing with multi multi millions of dollars I guess that has to come into play I don't know. You'd think he'd want to push something like Revlon. Actually, I would like to see Johnny Depp be chosen as the new face for CoverGirl and get some sort of big makeup campaign, ad campaign out of it.

I think they really need to get on that. I think they're missing the boat there. Nobody does more for makeup than Johnny Depp. Then again, who's that guy who does House? Hugh Laurie.

Isn't he the face of some cosmetics company. Is he? He is. Oh, God. He is.

I've seen ads, you know, just the face of house, right? On, you know, Cosmo or something. And it's, I don't know what the point was, but. He needs a little pancake is what they're saying. So, yeah.

Sure, why not Johnny Depp then? Yeah, I have a good touch. Yeah. Again, on the, on the forcing in things that are sort of familiar. Does anybody feel like the, Angelique could have been.

Lisa Marie? Does she not feel like a stand-in because I can't really work with Lisa Marie anymore? She really has that look. If he would have made this in the early 90s, that part would have been played by Lisa Marie. And she does a good job.

She's definitely... Again, she's an over-the-top villain, but in that movie, she's fine. I mean, she doesn't do anything out of what's going on around her, so she does a good job, but I just thought, again, that's kind of creepy because I've seen a few other times where he works that in, and it's a weird relationship anyway, as I previously mentioned, so it's very strange that now you're with your current wife working in, or I think they're just engaged. I don't even know if they ever got married, but with your current woman, you're working in sort of this weird ghost of your previous woman. It's almost as if Tim Burton has a collection of action figures, and each time he changes the scenario, he just dresses them in different clothes.

Kind of. Because there's been a few other times, and I'm like, well, this would have been... Yeah, he just sort of inserts the same people in there. Even if I can't work with her anymore, I'm still going to insert that same character in there. It's just not going to be played by her, but you know.

Oh, okay. If we want to give it credit for something, I like Alice Cooper in there. I like Alice Cooper in there. Maybe it's just because I like Alice Cooper. And 70s era Alice Cooper is amazing.

But didn't they stay on him a little bit too long? Yeah, but you've got to give him the ugliest woman ever line. It's pretty funny. And I like that they don't even bother to change it. It's just Alice Cooper now.

Alice Cooper 70s, whatever. He looks the same. It's like pretending like Alice was never younger. He just always looked like that. And yet he kind of pulls it off because he's Alice and he's awesome.

But again, just sort of a random, hey, here's a couple of minutes for a song. Like, it doesn't have to be there except for that one joke. Like, other than that, it's just another weird. It's like a Bollywood movie. It just suddenly segues into a.

It's a weird distraction, if nothing else. But, so yeah, if we're doing little cameos, I guess we can throw out Christopher Lee. Mm-hmm. Again, he's got to work him in. It's like a checklist now.

He's been doing it ever since the changeover. It's like now, you know, well, Christopher Lee's still alive, isn't he? All right, let's get him in this movie. Even if it's for two minutes. What is the Tim Burton playlist?

Or checklist, sorry. Johnny Depp, lots of makeup, crazy hair. Someone that sort of looks like Lisa Marie now that I can't have Lisa Marie. I have to work in my favorite old horctors like Vincent Price, but when he dies, I guess I'll have to get Christopher Lee. What am I forgetting?

Is Martin Landau gone? Is he? Okay, never mind. Juliet's still around. He can just work her in now.

The next generation will have to be worked in. But yeah, I don't know. I'm sure... In our romantic interest, we've got to keep the life partner employed. Oh, yeah.

That's a given ever since. Well, again. And I use life loosely. Afterlife part. No, that's a definite...

The tortured, angst-ridden teen. That's another thing that, again, in my bitching about her, Not only did I say she busted up a couple of marriages, but I also kind of blamed her. That's the jump the shark moment is when he started working with her. Yeah. The first time they worked together was Planet of the Apes.

Everything went downhill from there. And also the point where the two girls were in the same movie. Creepy. So that, yeah, that's the change. And like from that point on, Lisa's gone.

Helena Bonham Carter's in every movie. Kind of playing a very similar role usually, so. Yeah, so much of it is just a checklist now, and I think that's a lot of the problem. And again, if we're complaining about wasted talent, Jackie Earl Haley has nothing to do. He's just drunk the whole time.

I don't get it. Yeah, that was disappointing. And again, I'd completely forgotten he was in the film. I've really forgotten this film over the course of two weeks, which is. A blessing, I suppose, in many respects.

Well, hang on. Jackie. Earl Haley played Freddy Krueger in The New Nightmare. And Freddy Krueger could be a stand-in for Edward Scissorhands. You're doing a lot of math on this.

Okay, I guess we can. Okay, can we start now? Let's start from the beginning. So we can welcome Belle into the mix here. Hi.

Yeah, I'm here for five more minutes. I've got to leave. We're about to do tag team and trade out here, so... Yeah, you have been listening to Eric Chu. We're now changing up parts.

Belle D. One thing is, like, should I worry about spoilers? We've already thrown out the spoiler alert, and we've viciously jumped in on it. Can I end language? Am I allowed to?

Oh, we, yeah, I've already thrown out a few. I've already thrown out a few, so, yeah, feel free. So, yes, if you were around last year, we talked to Belle. And I was trying to come up with a good way to, you know, have us all sit down and do something this time. And I already placed the blame on you.

You were like, hey, let's watch Dark Shadows. So there was a little cursing your name earlier. I thought it was a. Setup where you tricked us all into watching it. Yeah, we were pretty sure.

Never should. Yeah, I think that's what it is. It's like, damn it. We got scammed. So, um, yeah, we are all, you know, up to our waist in complaints about it.

So we'll give you the floor now to, to go with your, uh, your take on it as well. So to defend it, that's, that's, that's your role. You have to defend the movie. I don't really have any particular defending to do. It is not something that I would recommend that people run out and see, uh, However, that being said, there was enough in it for me to enjoy, like as far as the makeup, the costumes.

I'm a big Elfman fan, and I really like the score. I like 1970s culture. So it's, I don't know, I likened it to the Wolfman movie that came out in. 2010, which is kind of... I had a lot of problems with that one.

Yes, exactly. There's a lot of problems there and it's definitely not something that I would recommend, but it's got, I don't know. There's like enough in it for me to actually be interested to rewatch it. Um, I would definitely not recommend this movie. It's packed full of problems, and it's bad because every time a new Tim Burton movie comes out, it's like, I keep holding out that hope that this one's going to be different every time.

It's going to be great. This one's going to be different. This one's going to be different. He's going to come back. He never is.

It's never different. Unfortunately. Yeah. I feel the same way about John Carpenter. Well, he just went on that big jump for a while there and didn't do anything.

He hasn't come back from it since. I was okay with that one, but yeah, I want to give him credit because he's done some of the best movies ever, in my opinion. Both of them, really. They've done some amazing work. This is odd, comparing Tim Burton to John Carpenter.

Not necessarily. They're both very. Visual and very like they have their thing and they and made classic works in i don't know i think in a way they had that same moment in their early career and then it's it's definitely changed at least carpenter just kind of took a break and like didn't keep cranking out these terrible movies and he never did anything horrible to willie wonka so you know you're Yeah, I. Think that's a problem. I would have seen a John Carpenter's Willy Wonka.

That would be cool, actually. That would be cool. I think on Facebook in the comments, Tim Lucas from Video Watchdog actually said that, made some comment about Dark Shadows should have been directed by John Waters, and I was like, yes, that would have been perfect. I would watch that. I would watch anything John Waters does at this point.

I love that guy. But he hasn't made anything in years. Again, he's just awesome on his own. Even if he doesn't make movies now, he's just awesome. I just want to hang out with him.

He's apparently writing a book about hitchhiking right now. Did you see that? Yeah. He just randomly was out on the side of the road. Yeah, he's apparently writing a book about it.

That seems like him. Can you imagine picking him up in your car? They did. They showed somebody the other day that was just a band full of kids that are in a band, and they were just like, that looks like John Waters. And they picked him up, and they were like, so, John, what are you doing?

And they immediately were like, hey, it's John Waters. And he's like, yeah, just thought of going on an adventure. I love that guy. So, back to people we're angry at. I think more actors should do that.

I think. Christopher Walken should go hitchhiking. I think you should force Tim Burton to be out on the side of the road and people will just blow past him. I'm not picking up that bastard. Not after what he did to Planet of the Apes.

I think, too, that's like... It's just like... I don't know if he's even... actually trying anymore because it just kind of seems like people, there's a certain group of people that will go to pay to see the Tim Burton brand. It's like, okay, you know, here's this thing. Tim Burton-ized.

And I completely skipped the Alice in Wonderland thing. I still haven't seen it either. I'm going to take pass on that. But I kind of hoped, and there's even still this part of me that hopes that the Frankenweenie that's coming up this fall is going to be good. But I just, you know, Corpse Bride was like a huge disappointment for me.

And a lot of people, I think. So, and there again, it's amazing. Especially the Necrophiliacs. Wow. Very disappointed.

That's because there's so much better stuff out there. I'll send you the link, don't worry. And on that note, I've got to. Because you're going to go look for it. I know it.

Where's the Google? That's what I thought. Thank you to Eric for sitting in with us. See you later. I'm really sorry about like suggesting dark shadows.

I really did not mean it to be like a burden upon everyone. It's like, how can I unsee that? I've seen worse. Believe me. That's true.

And that's kind of where I was going to go with it. Like as many problems as I've had and as much stuff as I've just thrown out on it. By the end, I was just kind of like, and this was the thing. There was like this, I was sitting there in the theater and there was this, it was like a threesome if you want to call it of of um like 50 ish people it was like two guys and a woman and they were sitting in front of me and the the credits were over and they stood up and she went well that was entertaining it was just like you know i guess it was i mean i didn't hate the you know i'm not crying for my hour and a half back i mean it was like I don't know. What is it?

Two hours, 60 years, whatever it was. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't upset that I'd seen it, but I was just kind of like it, it could have been so much more, you know? And I think that that's the part where you're let down. But at the same time, I was just like, again, I, it could have been worse, I suppose.

Like it, it's got its giant problems and holes in it, but, The. Thing, it's like after I saw it, I think I spent a lot of time sitting and thinking about what exactly went wrong. What I was going to do to Timber. I mean, it's... And like I said, it's like I didn't really think it was all that bad.

It was kind of like, well, you know, and I think probably I was prepped for it by the fact that it had gotten so many terrible reviews before I went. To see it. I was like, okay... people think it's bad. So I kind of went into it like, okay, this is going to be bad. And then it was like, well, that wasn't that bad.

You know, it was like, there were things that I probably would have done differently. It's like, they're like the whole relationship between Barnabas. Or lack thereof. It's like, they. Did not really like, it's like, I don't give a shit about her at all.

I mean, she's like. Not even, Part of the movie, as far as I'm concerned. Let's see, the whole ending where it's like, let's just, like the big fire, it's like a big fireworks display where it's like you have fireworks, fireworks, then it gets to the end and then it's like all the fireworks. Oh yeah, and more fireworks. Here's this, and we're just going to throw it all at you at once, and it's like, oh, okay.

That's what I was thinking, it's like it has to be overkill. It's like it's not enough to blow up the factory. Now let's go burn down their house too. I was like, we really want to leave this family with absolutely nothing. And, and, and bring out this, like the Carolyn secret, like, yeah.

We already bitched about that. I think like trying to just cram too much and then just like making, like just dragging out, like what could have been, I don't know. It's like the pacing is, is bad. It's wrong. It's like, I don't know.

Seriously, I sat and, like, tried to think about, like, what would have, like, probably made it better. On the upside, we have, like, tons of magazines that have come out where they, like, focus on the original show and talk about, like, the original source material. And then a new box set, which I can't afford, that is, like, $ 600 worth of Dark Shadows back episodes, but. but the original Barnabas was so disappointed he had died. He's like, that's it. I'm out of here.

I can't, I can't exist in a world with this movie. I gotta go. Well, I will say that, that I'm also no fan of the 91 series and I. Don't know if you've seen any of that. Very little.

Yeah. I'm not a fan. And there's, this was coming from like when I originally saw it, which was back in like 91 or 92 or whatever. And I, I've had this kind of half desire to go back and watch it to just verify that it's absolutely true. I don't like it.

But I just haven't been able to get the energy together to give it another go. Yeah. I only remember seeing maybe an episode or two, and even then I was like, this seems a little off. It's playing up like, Granted, the old one was a soap opera, but it's playing up like a bad 90s soap opera. It's coming off like the kind of soap operas I don't want to see.

I don't know if there are good ones I want to see, but certainly not what they were doing. I remember, to the best of my memory, I remember being soft and glowy like a glamour shot or something. Super cheesy, misty, romance pictures. Just like... Yeah, I don't like that.

That's what the gothy people want. I guess. It was 1991, so I guess that was what they were doing back then. We've got to fuel Hot Topic somehow. Get those kids turned on to that so they'll come buy our stuff.

I don't know. What else have we forgotten to bitch about? covers this. Possibly. I think it speaks to all of our affection for Tim Burton that we both want good for him and from him except for our previous heads. Eric who wants to beat him with a tire iron but you know whatever.

But I mean the very fact that we're saying well it's not that bad. It's one of those. It might be worse. We've seen him do worse. I think that's what it is.

I think we still have that affection for him that we had in you know the late 80s. in early 90s, and we're just kind of like, we're still clinging to that little piece of nostalgia that's like, it's not good, but at the same time, I see those little pieces of what I used to love in these other movies, and that's still there, and it reminds me of that, so I can't out and out hate it, but I guess I have to be honest with myself and go, yeah, these relationships are bad, and this story structure is messed up, and I don't know if I even like this character, so yeah, I mean, you But there's that part of you that can't just be like, screw this movie. It had nothing to do with it because there's still a little piece of that Tim Burton that we love.

Remember what we used to have, Tim? Rekindling that old romance. Oh, Tim, where are you? What has Helena Palm Carter done to you? Oh, wow.

Yeah, I think if this hadn't been directed by Tim Burton. I mean, yeah, it could have been a lot worse. It could have been, like, you know, Michael Bay or something, you know? It's like, and the cast could have been a lot different, bad, worse. I mean, for the most part, like, the cast was, you know, pretty good.

Again, they're all good. That's one of the few things I took from it was I'm sitting there going, man, Michelle Pfeiffer should be in more movies. Like, where the hell has she been? It's weird that she took that big break and why she's just now coming back in in this. Movie, but.

I'm like, she's turned in some really good performances in the past. Why isn't she making more movies? I really liked Eva Green. That was probably the highlight for me of that movie. I thought she was really good.

I like her in it. Again, it's a weird way that they put that together. Yeah. I really liked her broken face effect. That was kind of fun.

Yeah. It was one of the few things I was like, I like what they've turned her into here. It's kind of fun. Kind of Death Becomes Her-ish. Yeah.

I was like, that's kind of, but I always liked that there, too. So it's a fun little touch to it. I think probably, like, even though it wasn't, like, a big thing, one of the, it was kind of disappointing to not see, like, the roger character played out as he was on the show or. Like or played out at all yeah. Yeah i mean that was just kind of like okay he's just kind of there and originally i had read that uh somebody had seen an early screening and had referred that elizabeth and roger were married and i was like oh god please not don't let them do that like i mean go that way and be like rather than have them be brother and sisters which is part of them being collinses yeah you know that they're gonna be married now it's like.

Please they were married but now they're both still hanging out in the house yeah well it's. Like they i only they explain like in the movie like what happened to uh the other roger's wife and they don't you know I've seen the show, so it's like I kind of know what happens to... Or, I don't know. But this is supposed to be a whole different universe. And supposedly there's going to be another one.

They've already green-lighted a second Phantom. Did it even do that? Well, I mean, I guess it's a... I mean, that's what it takes, is that marginal opening. Everybody hated Clash of the Titans, and they did another one, so...

If you get just enough money for them to, all right, we'll throw some more at you to do a second time, which I don't understand, really, for studios, that all they want to do is make blockbusters now. They're really not in it for anything but a huge opening weekend that they still want to do these, take these movies that deliver a mediocre opening and then throw a sequel at them. That seems weird. Yeah. And, Liam, I mean, the amount of money, I can't even remember I read how much money they sank into this.

I mean, they built it. Yeah. And they built the town. It's like it's insane that. Yeah.

I mean, that shot of them just building the house. I was like, that looks like they're really building the house. And can I live there now? Can you ship that on over to me? Yeah.

I don't know. I can see where the money went, especially in a big budget project like that. I'm sure plenty of it was wasted on stupid things, too, the way they do. But, I mean, it's on the screen. The visuals show you it's a big budget movie.

But, yeah, I don't know if it warrants a sequel. Yeah. Just more Helena Bonham Carter. Have we rounded this thing out then? Our love for Dark Shadows.

I miss Jeffrey Jones. Tim Burton should start putting Jeffrey Jones back in his movies. I think everybody's a little weirded out by Jeffrey Jones now. He's a great actor. He is.

I can't argue that. I don't even know the rest of it, so I don't want to speculate. And I really don't want to speculate. But, yeah, I think everybody's just a little creeped out now. And I don't know if he could come back and be given a fair shake.

I don't know. Yeah, well, Paul Rehmans hasn't really worked for him either in face. He's done voice stuff for him. Yeah, which I don't understand because he has nothing. You know, it's like at least Jeffrey Jones' problem is real.

Paul Reubens just got screwed over. He got, he got, yeah. I've gone on up on that before too. That is uncool what they did to him. But yeah, again, it's like he occasionally throws off some of his checklist and moves on and picks up new people.

So, I don't know. Well, we can always look forward to more Johnny Depp in the future. In bad makeup and crazy hair. Yep. Chewing on the scenery.

Yep. That's what he does now. Yep. Oh, Lord. Well, I guess while we're here, we can do another...

We can just move on. It's been a year since we talked to you. Have you seen any movies since then? Let's do a little geek activity. Roll into the geek activities here.

Oh, boy. I was trying to think if I saw anything, like, good or interesting. I know that I have. I just. We went to see Dark Shadows.

And it's wiped all of your memories since then. We had to go see Cabin in the Woods earlier in the year, and that was a lot of fun. I've heard good and bad things on this very show. I've heard somebody with a lot of bad things to say about it. I liked it.

I thought it was a lot of fun. That's what everybody else I've heard kind of likes it. I know there's been Netflix viewings where I've done chunks of, like, Old movies that I either knew about and had never had a chance to watch and movies that I'd never heard of that I just kind of sat down and watched. I watched Humanoids from the Deep, which I'd never seen before and really enjoyed. I remember that on cable as a kid, which again explains why I'm like I am now.

That's the kind of stuff I watched as a child, so. And not long after that, we rented Corman's World, which is the Roger Corman documentary, which was also really good. He's pretty awesome. Yeah. And that also got us all kind of fired up about, like, oh, we need to get that movie The Trip and the William Shatner intruder movie that they made.

So it's like, yeah, we need to get some more Roger Corman movies to watch. He does turn out some entertaining movie. Speaking of entertaining, he makes some entertaining movies. Oh, yes. So, other than that, like, I'm sure there's something that just blew my mind over the year, but I'm having a difficult.

I got into Doctor Who, and. It's taken over. I started watching BBC's Sherlock, and that's... I watched that, too. Yeah, I watched the first one of them.

That's a weird one. Have you seen the new Americanized thing? I'm not sure what to think. Speaking of Jenny Lee Miller, I'm not sure what to think about that. Have you seen that ad, Lucy?

Yeah, I don't really. I don't know that I have faith in it, but I like Lucy Liu. I'll watch Lucy Liu in something. I'm not a fan of Lucy Liu, and I think that's probably why I won't go see it. But Johnny Lee Miller.

But I like Johnny Lee Miller, too. Actually, when I get back home the week after, they're re-showing the Danny Boyle Frankenstein live broadcast, and I'm going to try to go catch both of those, because I've heard really good things about them. I want to see the... Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller, they switched roles. So I'm going to try to go both nights so that I can see both versions of it.

I have wanted to see that, but he's, I mean, he's turned in a lot of good, dark shadows aside, he's turned in a lot of really good performances and even like working on TV. If you saw that run of him with Dexter, he's really good on that. And he, he totally buy him as that character. And, it's something a little different. I mean, he's, he's turned in a lot of different variations of, of, you know, types of characters over the years.

And yeah, so seeing him do that and then imagining him trying to do like a Sherlock ideas seems kind of interesting. Actually, you just got to work around the Lucy Lou, I guess, if you're not down with that. Yeah. I, I, I don't know. I, I guess I'll probably wait.

I don't really watch a lot of TV and when I do, it's usually like, streaming yeah it's like i don't sit watch commercials and you give me a whole season that i can sit watch then i'm good i. Don't know sometimes that's too much of an undertaking i it's there's a handful that i will watch on like actual tv but yeah sometimes the the netflix entire seasons are a lot of. Time when it's like five or six seasons yeah because that's i've worked through like i've Yeah, which, from what I've heard, is that kind of how you do it. You don't really have to start at the beginning. That just started the reboot, more or less.

So I'm at, just now, like, I had watched, like, the first Matt Smith, who was, like, I guess he's, like, the 12th Doctor. Or 11th Doctor. I'm getting confused. I'm tired. I'm disoriented.

Don't crucify me. My doctor's gone. Doctor nerds, just settle down. It's okay. But Matt Smith, like, I just started, like, the first episode of that, so I'm going to have to, when I have maybe... this upcoming week when I have some time off, I'm going to try to watch some more of those all the way through.

But, like, things like Boardwalk Empire, which, you know, we don't get HBO, so we'll go and we'll rent. And I watched, we sat and watched, like, the entire season of that. Yeah. I think, like, there's another season of that coming out soon, which we're looking forward to getting. Don't get excited about that one.

Really? Yeah, the first season was fantastic. The second season I thought was terrible. Okay. I don't know if we've ever discussed that.

Anything with Steve Buscemi? I feel the same way. That guy's awesome. I wanted it to be fantastic. It was like every single episode was written by people that had never seen an episode.

Like, every single episode, the characters made these choices where I was like, wait, they. Wouldn't do that, have I? That's weird. Did they change writers? I don't know.

I don't know what happened. Weird. And it seemed like there were all these, like, setting up these sort of, like, sort of scandalous moments without, like, taking into account, like, everything we know about the. Characters from the first season. Very nice.

Anyway. Just managing your expectations on that one. Again, dark shadow it up. Go in. I think that's what we took from that.

Just lower your expectations. That's a good life plan, frankly. And that's a shame. It kind of is. Just don't expect much and you'll be alright.

Ah, the motto for life. It kind of works, actually. Yeah, it'll just all be good surprises if things work out. Nice. Oh yeah i.

Brought that one down i think we're already down um so have you been working on i know you've been working on a lot of stuff lately artistically speaking um so is there anything you need to tell people that they should look for or oh um. I'll be doing a cover for Horror Hound coming up in, I think it's August. So you can all look for that when that comes out. And otherwise, I'm doing Crazy for Cult this year. Yeah.

Which, that'll be something that I'll have to work on when I get home. I was like, now it's time to get out the movie and start... pausing and getting reference photos so yeah uh and that's that's all of like my main public things that oh i will have some original dark shadows illustrations appearing in video watchdog magazine next. Month no depth stuff come on man. Actually, I do have a depth drawing that I did. I wasn't, like, brave enough to post it on Facebook, but it was before the movie came out.

It was, like, after the trailer came out, and everybody was so angry, and I just did this kind of, like, super 70s, like, the shooting bats and stars of, like, him all pimped out in the middle. Nice. With the purple and, like, blue. It's like. I just can't help it.

It looks like an iron-on transfer. That's pretty entertaining. That's probably more entertaining than the movie was. So look for that. And that fabulous new Movie Meltdown t-shirt design.

Yes. I've said it now. Now it's got to happen. Well, I wasn't going to say anything. I wasn't going to let that cat out of the bag on the radio.

But, again, it's an awesome concept, so I'm looking forward to that. Start placing your orders now. But, yeah, did you get the official site set up? Uh, no, I still have the blog. Okay.

Um, so it's just, uh, you can type in do whack a doodles and it's the do whack a doodles blog spot. And, uh, it's still there. Um, I haven't like officially moved up to official websites, just the blog. It's a lot to deal with. I'm pretty content.

Yeah. I'm, I'm, managing the blog is a chore unto itself, and it's, I can't imagine, like, having to maintain the website on top of that. Ours looked terrible for, like, four years, so I just revamped it, and I'm pretty pleased with it now. It's way more tolerable. It's certainly not impressive, I'm sure, for most people who actually know what they're doing, but for me, it's a leap forward from that mess that it used to.

Be, so. I think that's another thing. It's like, I'm not, I don't know how to build a website. I've never tried. I'm not really in the mood to learn right now, so I'm just going with, like, what I can get free on the internet.

That'll work. Yep. Oh, well, I think that will do it for another episode. So, once again, we've had a lot of fun here at Wonderfest, so we will definitely say thanks to everybody here who's let us hang around and loiter in this room right now where we're recording this. It was That was nice of Dave to let us in here and hang out and do the show.

So thank you to everybody at Wonderfest. Again, plan for next year. Go to wonderfest.com. Book yourself a room right now, I guess. I'm assuming they'll do that.

If you're giving them money, I doubt they'll turn you down. So go for that. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed.

Thanks for listening. My baby's gone away. Where to she didn't say. Now what am I gonna do? Cause I just can't hide.

My foolish pride. Baby, I'm still in love with you Why don't you drop a line They tell me you're doing fine My days are oh so blue Cause. I just can't hide. My foolish pride, baby. I'm still in love with you Why did you leave Why make me.

Grieve Am I to suffer this way. Will i ever breathe a sigh please. Darling won't you try to believe me. When i say i was wrong Nothing but misery I can't escape It's so true. Cause I just can't hide My foolish pride Baby I'm still in love with you.

Guitar solo. Dark shadows harden me Nothing but misery. I can't escape, it's so true Cause I just can't. Hide My foolish pride Baby, I'm still. In love with you.

Midget porn! I wish Tim Burton would do more midget porn. You know what was missing from Dark Shadows? Midget porn, that's what. 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!