204: The Birth of Burlesque

They see us in the minivan. That was great. That's like getting the semi-driver to hop in. This is what it's come to. Not only looking out the window, but interacting with people out the window.

It's an interactive podcast. Jesus Christ. This is Dan Ackman, you're listening to Movie Meltdown, and keep kicking ass, guys! That was terrible. It's showtime.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. Way down among brazilians coffee beans. Grow by the billions so they've got to find those. Extra cups to fill. They got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.

What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. I'm Lucy. I'm Alan. I'm Beau.

I'm Marlena. I'm Greg. I'm Fred. That was the speed run. Why was that all so fun?

I don't know. We got there so fast and we don't know what to do. I just like the way Fred said, like, I'm Fred. Good thing we saved all that time. And it got us nowhere.

Yeah, I didn't have a note of finality because I've never been on the end before. So I'm like. You said it as if there was a dispute about it. God damn it. You're Nick.

No, I'm Fred. No, I'm Fred. I am not the droid you're looking for. Nuh-uh, I'm Fred. So obviously, we're hopped up on caffeine, so it must be another episode of the Caffeinated Movie Geek.

Cappuccino my butt. I still drink coffee. The last fucking thing you need is another cup of coffee. It's time for Decaffeinated Movie Geek. We are coming to you live via digital recording from Nancy's Bagel Grounds where we will get together, act like morons, and drink a lot of coffee.

So, with that, now this one is a very specific one. It's sad that we've moved on. We have a new flavor now. It's not the Oregon Trail? No, no.

We have a new flavor. I was already picking this one out. Based on the fact that it's already such a mess, I don't even think we can make fun of it. It does the work for us. And then Greg had been looking on his own and wanted this one.

I was like, all right, well, it was already on the list. So now, Greg, you yourself were thrilled with this name. I ask you, what blend of coffee are we drinking this week? We are drinking Klatz of Spit. What?

There you go. Clats of spit? Clats of spit. It's on the bag. Label there.

Clats of spit. See? It worked. You can't do anything with that. They named horses.

Yeah. Just random things that are hard to say when you have to announce. Them really fast. Just to fuck with the guys calling the race? I don't know.

So, it worked. Good job. Again, Lucy's face. Yeah, I just feel less enthusiastic. I looked around and I was like, oh, I'm the only one drinking this and maybe I know why.

I had a cup. I drank all mine earlier. I mean, it's cold now, but it's still there. Nothing like cold clats of spit. Don't mind us all staring at you while you drink the coffee.

We're just waiting for the effects to end. Put that away. Oh, God. She looks unappetized. Well, on that note, yeah, we're not going to try to hone in on any one thing because I don't think we could.

We're already kind of loopy. So we're just going to go around and do another. Geek activities kind of episode. And those have actually been pretty popular. I've heard some good responses from those because we just kind of have fun.

So to kick it off, well, I finally saw Frankenweenie. As much anger as we heaped upon Mr. Burton, Lucy, you were guilty of a good portion of it. I don't take it back because I meant every word of it then. He's come back around.

He's found a little piece of that thing that we were like, where the hell have you gone, Tim? I was pretty pleased with it, I have to say. I was not, even going in, I heard good things. I still was kind of like, eh, but it's Tim again. He screws up everything lately.

Dark Shadows was a nightmare. I still like Dark Shadows. Oh, Lord. I don't know. I actually kind of want to see Frankenweenie just because I feel like if he's going back to his source material, that's from back in a time to where he was more original.

He was more good than evil. He was more man than machine. Yeah, it's just I'm a little bit hesitant. I feel like Tim Burton fans are more forgiving than George Lucas fans when it comes to new efforts especially since burton's cranking out so many not. Me i've hated most things lately but yeah and that's why i went in kind of with my guard up i was like no you're not suckering me in again everybody says all of these projects.

Well no he's gonna do it this he's gonna. Be different this time and this time it actually and again i think it does help that it's his own material i think he's drawing from a time when he was kind of passionate about film And he had original ideas and he wanted to make it because he's just stealing from himself now. Before he had to steal from other people's pre-established properties. Now he's stealing from his own pre-established property. And I guess that's okay because somehow it all kind of works.

And on top of that, the animation is amazing, which it usually is for something of that caliber. But yeah, he does a really good job. Actually, was Big Fish the last movie he did that wasn't based on some sort of pre-existing? That was based on an awful book. It was based on a book.

Okay, then what was his last original film? Edward Scissorhands. Ed Wood? Well, I mean, that's based on life. Well, I mean, that's based on life, but I mean, it was the story.

I guess the last thing that was generally original, I guess, would that be Edward Scissorhands? Or is it us? Well, that's a trading card. Yeah, it's a trading card. That might be it.

I don't know. Edward Cezanne always makes me think of Beauty and the Beast, though. It seems to kind of follow the same pattern. Beetlejuice is pretty damn original. There's nothing that you can liken to that.

Yeah. Again, that's back when he was good. And there's a glimpse of it here. I mean, again, I'm still not writing him a pass from here on out. I'm afraid he's going to turn around and make something else Alice in Wonderland-like.

But, you know, for this moment in time... I'm not angry at him and it's been a long time since I can say that. This window I can enjoy. And that's what it was. I sat there for like an hour and 20 minutes and I was just like, oh my god, I don't hate Tim Burton.

I'm okay with everything that's going on here. The few things that he changed and expanded upon are good changes and the new characters he brought in are really kind of cool and are, again, very true to his roots because they're all based in old. Horror movies so it's I don't know, it's. All really good additions and the core material that I always like. I have the old VHS of the original, and I like that story, and he just sort of builds on it, and it still works on its own.

And I feel like it's sad that it's actually gotten that way with Tim Burton. I mean, just because when he started out, he was so unique and fresh, and I think maybe that's what it is, is you know, this new magician comes onto the scene and he shows everyone a couple of tricks and it's like, oh, I've never seen those tricks before. Show me something else. And all he's got is like the same two or three magic tricks you come to learn, which is, you know, disappointing because you can only do that sort of spooky permutation so many times before it becomes a cliche. So I kind of liked, I mean, Big Fish at least felt like a deviation from that.

And Ed Wood, basically with me, I think the two strongest ones are Ed Wood and... Sweeney Todd, and I think that's where he both dabbled a little bit above what he usually does, but at the same time, all of his usual sort of mechanics and archetypes were there, and they worked his advantage based on that. Yeah, it would maybe be the best thing he ever did. It's damn near perfect. And again, the one peak in the middle there, outside, I mean, Big Fish still goes back a ways, but Sweeney Todd, it was better like again it seems so cookie cutter like of course they gave him sweeney todd but giving him that familiar material i'm like well that's yeah that's kind of a good version of it and and he was i mean it did fit him so it was a good move it just seemed so easy.

And that's why at first I was torn on it, because I was like, yeah, it just seemed so easy, but then I thought, well, why not? Because if somebody else did it, and it was just kind of a mess, I'd be like, well, they should have given it to somebody like Tim Burton. He probably could have done something with that. So, I mean, I grew to accept it for that. That's one of the few that I didn't hate.

I still, like, didn't put it way up there, but again, I've only watched it that one time. I feel like I need to go back and re-watch it and try to give him a fair shot this time because, again, I go in so guarded into his movies now. Watching Sweeney Todd, I think the only thing that I missed from it that is present in Ed Wood is just the Burton regulars, apart from Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp. It won't go away. I want some Jeffrey Jones in there because he's not in prison anymore.

I mean, he could have been in there. Anymore. So, I don't know. Yeah, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it and just how. Good the visuals are, just handing it to people who know.

And maybe that's part of it, as I was thinking about it. Maybe it's because now you need so many people to make something like that that maybe all these other people are kind of keeping it on track. Because you can't do it single-handedly when it's something that big and that much hands-on. Well, it didn't help with Corpse Bride, though. It didn't really seem to help with that.

Because that, I remember... really being excited and just finding it so boring. Again yeah visually i thought it looked great and story-wise i was just like i kind of don't care about any of this. Which i didn't have that with this one i think you would feel invested in the characters and i think almost the new characters they bring in are the most entertaining they're a lot of. Fun i mean i didn't hate corpse bride but i've just it pissed me off because you don't really know which girl to like root for you're like i don't know i'm kind of ambivalent like you just end up with one. Of them whatever Well, and that's always like the worst in that type of, even in like bad romantic comedies.

I'm just like, don't we want somebody to root for? Like if they're both lame, like what are we watching this for? So it's the same thing. I like the animation and everything. Yeah, it looked really good.

It was very dark though. Actually, we talked about Blythe's spirit a few episodes ago and it's almost the same sort of storyline with Corpse Bride where you've got like the living girl and you've got the dead girl and both of them want the guy and he's trying to deal with both and Yeah. Go back and watch Corpse Bride and see how similar they are and think about it. Was that based on anything? Or was that original?

I don't know if Blythe Spirit was based on... It feels like it's a play when you watch. Corpse Bride. Okay, it is a play. It's Noel Coward.

But when he's talking about Corpse Bride, I don't know. It feels like Blythe Spirit. I was thinking Blythe Spirit was based on a play. Other than that, I was trying to think of something else, and it goes back a little ways, but I did finally watch The Grey. I can't believe those wolves kidnapped his daughter.

I mean, that just seems really unlikely, I suppose. I don't know why Liam Neeson can't hold on to his family. It's not one of those skills, that special set of skills he has, pulling onto his family. It still amuses me that he waited until he's an old man before he started making action movies. Well, he tried with Darkman.

Harrison Ford created the genre of octogenarian action pictures. Sean Connery. Air Force One was... Sean Connery kept doing them for. A long time.

The fourth Indiana Jones in the long, long nap. But yeah, this one, I don't know. Again, it's just so weird that he's... Actually, it seems less like the Taken series kind of thing. It is sort of its own thing.

Has anybody else seen it? I won't. I can't convince myself to watch it. I've had it cued, and I'm just not going to watch it. Well, this probably won't push it up to the top.

And that's the thing. It's good, but it's so dark. Like, it's just so depressing. Like, before he gets in a plane crash, before there are wolves hunting him down. He's suicidal.

Like, he's depressed now. Terminally before we even get into the storyline it's like a russian play yeah it really like it's just it's so dark to begin with and then it just like the earth opens up and he falls down into these other levels of horror and it's i mean it's it's well done and it's well acted and i like Wolves attacking people? So, you know, I was on board. That happens, though. Yeah.

Which, again, in this one happens a lot. They are all over them. Like, again, in the real world, I think wolves kind of try to stay away from people. Not this movie. There's never been a documented case of a wolf attack, unprovoked wolf attack in the United States.

Even though we eradicated them all. I don't know. They're plotting something, though. You know it. They have to be at this point.

I just looked up if we want to, like, the Corpse Bride is based on Jewish folklore. Everything's based on Jewish folklore. That's true. And in fact, the idea of originality, if you go way back, meant the opposite of what it meant today because people back then didn't want something new. They wanted something that had its origins.

And so writers who actually made a lot of stuff up would tend to attribute it to it was an old Jew. They would just say that so they could write their own stories. But people wanted things to be authentic. Yeah, like whenever you pick apart the entomology of a word, it's no different than like, have you ever heard the origin of burlesque? No.

It was apparently during vaudeville. And this was back when a lot of stars got their start in Burl Ives. Apparently had an actor where he would get up and he would sing just his folk songs. And apparently there was like some big heat wave or something. And he took off like his outer coat and he took off like a shirt and just the audience started going crazy over it, just like laughing.

So he started doing it and it became like a shtick. where every time he would get up and sing these folk songs, he would take off his clothes. So by the end of the act, he was just up there with the guitar blocking his genitalia. And so then, if it became like some act where people would take off their clothes, it was said to be Burl-esque. Oh, wow. Nice.

Now, there are people who would believe that. Lucy's over there laughing from the start. Oh, wow. I thought that sounded. I thought that was plausible.

It sounded.... The last thing I need to think of is Burl Ives doing the naked cowboy. Maybe he was naked when he did all the voiceovers for Rudolph. You never know. I like to think about.

That when I'm in the mood for Christmas. I heard the other day that for the first 40 episodes of the Flintstones, what's his name? Barney. The guy who does all the voices. He did.

Casey Kasem? No, all the voices in the world. Bugs Bunny. No blank. No blank.

Was in a body cast on his back when he was doing Barney in the first season of Flintstones. And the last thing he said that was recorded was, that's all folks. And he was in a coma, and he came out of the coma when a doctor came in and said, How are you, Bugs? And he said, What's up, Doc? Yeah.

So these things sound plausible. Oh, wow. So, yeah, it's based on Jewish folklore. Similar plot. So the corpse bride married Gollum is what you're saying.

Yes. I thought you were saying that Bugs Bunny cartoons were based on Jewish folklore. Oh, they are. Oh, yeah, they are. Yeah, they are, too.

They are. So your experience watching Frank and Weenie was basically like, it wasn't like when Flanders woke up and said, oh, my God, I hate Homer Simpson. It was like when Homer woke up and said, oh, my God, I think I hate Ted Koppel. And then he thought, no, I don't. I find him witty and informative.

And he went back to bed. I don't know that it was either of those. You've got to pick one. It's one or the other. Eat my shorts?

Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. The Grey. I don't know.

Again, it's really well done, I suppose. I will say, having watched the movie, it's really odd going back to the trailer. I'm like, what a weird way that they pieced together that trailer and then watching the movie. Because I'm like, this is not. A good way to.

I don't know. The people that make the trailer should not be in charge. They should really... For years I've said that. So they should really let the director make their own trailer.

Because whoever cuts them messes everything up. I hate it when I see a great trailer and I watch the whole movie and the thing I want to see is just not in it. Yep. That happens a lot. Or all the funniest parts are in the trailer.

Or they set it up to be something that it's not. See, I know it would be. In some cases they will splice stuff that was made for the trailer into the movie. Like the arrow going through the woods in Robin Hood. Mm-hmm.

Everybody needed that. And they thought, oh, that's cool. Let's put it in the movie. But what was that Owen Wilson movie where he's dropped behind? Oh, it's Behind Enemy Lines.

Okay. The one with, oh, that's the title. Behind Enemy Lines. But I remember seeing a commercial for that, and he's walking along singing, what, a Doobie Brothers song? Like he's walking along in the frozen tundra saying like, Oh, black water, keep on rolling, Mississippi.

And I just thought that was like a really credible moment, and it's never in the movie. It's never there. And then they did that Coldplay song in the Peter Pan movie. And it's never in the movie. Oh, no.

Trailer music, they'd pick whatever. They could care less. Yeah, but I mean, in the way of trying to encourage variety amongst trailers. I've always wondered, would it work if you actually had an Academy Award for the shorts if you had it for the best original new trailer? Would that encourage diversity, or would it just encourage people to make more cookie-cutter stuff?

That could go either way. There's people pushing for that. Well, I've heard that people argue over what's in the trailer, because sometimes the writers of the property... don't want certain things given away in the trailer but then the marketing people say no and one example of that you need to have that is is the simpsons movie they wanted to do spider pig and the writers like it's no that's the funniest thing in the whole movie we don't want that to already be out we want people to watch the movie and. Which the sad thing is it's not that funny to begin with. Well, it's, you know, it's the Simpsons.

But they said... It was the Simpsons when they probably should have started wrapping it up. Yeah, they said, no, you want people to be getting in line for that movie with that song because that's, like, that's what's going to get them to want to watch the movie. I think that's Family Guy every time someone says that. What, Spider-Pig?

Spider-Pig. I just think that's Family Guy. I don't know. You're probably right. Somehow.

You know, the Simpsons movie, I thought would have been a great opportunity to finish the series, like finish the series with a movie and all of that. But I don't know why they brought back another super villain voiced by Albert Brooks. That wasn't Scorpio. It's like, you know, you could have brought back Scorpio and you could have almost made it like a big James Bond thriller to where like, they're going to just take over, you know, he's going to take over the entire city or world. And, you know, it just ends.

I mean, you could have, I think that would have been a very entertaining way, but it's like, no, we got to just do a movie. Keep doing the show ad nauseum. Did they actually have a dead horse in it that they beat? Because that would have been really funny. That's actually a South Park reference.

See, they should have done that with a lot of TV shows. That's also where the X-Files should have stopped as well. Because the movie's pretty good. Everything after the movie. I heard the second film was dismal.

Well, and I heard why. It's not really their fault. They were contractually obligated to make that movie at that point. It was during the writer's strike, but they'd already greenlit it and it had to be made, and they had nobody to write it. And they're like, we have to have this out by this date, and there's nobody to write it.

So they're just shooting things. It makes no sense because they had nobody there writing it, and they couldn't legally have anybody. Yeah, but if you had a decent director... They could have made heads or tails out of something. Possibly, but again, at that point they should have given them a way out.

They should have made a movie that was nothing but flashbacks from the television show. Scully, remember the time? Dream sequence, dream sequence. Just make the entire movie an extended version of the home episode because everyone who watched that show just remembers how terrifying that episode was. It's the one that stuck with you.

I was just thinking they should just not even make it one of the cheesy X-Files kind of plot. Lines, but just have it like they end up together, and it's just sort of. Them around the house for an hour and a half, making dinner. Want to watch TV tonight? All right, let's go.

The truth is in here. Yeah, it's just them just kind of hanging around. Did you let the dog out? But I thought the point of the movie was like they were investigating all this unknown stuff out there in the world. And they didn't know that they were in love with each other.

That was the whole thing. There was all this... And so I thought to end it, they had to make porn. There was no way to end the show. I told you, they did.

It's out there. The porn is out there. It's out there. The porn is out there. You want to believe it's out there.

But no, I mean, it's the whole show, the whole basis of the show. It's kind of like Deadwood... was about how the scum of the earth comes together and forms a society and they change. It's about order. And so like these evil people who are just coming there to find gold and, and get rich and they're the scum of the earth, but they start to create like supportive bonds with each other, despite their own nature. And so it really can't go on that long.

Yeah. With a lot of shows, it's like... It grows away from the heart of the show. Yeah. But.

In X-Files, it's like, how much do you have to see and still not believe? Because after a while, it becomes ridiculous. Well, after a while, it just seemed dense. Yeah, it makes no sense. It's like, bitch, you.

Know what you saw last week. We all saw it. Yeah, stuff was floating, and now you're going, oh, Mulder, here you go again. It's like, you saw the goddamn. Spaceship, too.

Yeah. I'm only, like, in season four, but I remember... camera if it's in this one or in season three like it really upset me when it turns out that she's all religious yeah and then molder's being all skeptical and she's being indignant. Yeah oh have you seen many of her like her own special episodes where it focuses. On her dad crisis of faith. And science and oh god referring to yeah it's like she's all skeptical except when it comes to like there's evidence for the stuff molder's talking about but then yeah She had a near-death experience.

She's a scientist. She should know how that works. I hate episodes and shows like that where it's obvious that one of the main characters is like, I want an Emmy episode. I want something where people stand up and take notice of it. Yeah, have you seen the one where she's floating in the canoe for no reason?

Like, in and out of the... She's just out there being thoughtful for a while. Are you making that up like I did the. I am not making that up. Oh, but.

Another origin is, I believe, Marvel copyrighted superhero with a hyphen. And I think DC copyrighted superhero as two words. And all the rest of us say it as one word. Just superhero is one word. But I heard that origin story.

That's why you see it in those different ways. It's because it's been copyrighted in different forms. Does that mean one word is up for grabs? Yeah, I believe so. I'm getting on that right now.

Yeah, superhero. You can get the action figure, the turkey-headed thing. I don't think anybody's done that. That was one thing that really, when I went to China... one of the first things I wanted to do is I wanted to go and find, I found a Walmart, the only Walmart that existed, not because I like Walmart, because I wanted to find all the stereotypical chinglish, as they're called, packages. And sure enough, like one that just cracked me up, I remember just standing in the aisle and laughing until I had tears, was it was Scramble Body Action Man with real watchword sound.

And I was like, I don't even know what's going on. Did you buy it? No, actually, later on, I was walking down the street, and somebody had bought one at the end of the package, so I just took the section of the package that had it. I didn't even have to worry about the toy. Have you seen the, like, superheroes?

Speaking of superheroes, the superheroes that they sell. Again, they end up here at the flea markets that are just like... It doesn't even matter. Like, I've seen totally different toys inside the package, but the packaging is... just random like stuff they take off the internet i guess like it'll be like at first i'm like all right it's like a picture of the dc drawn superman and then like batman from the movie like all right well they're both from you know the universe that's. Cool spider-man all right well.

They're all superheroes you're going outside the realm but they're you know it's cool power. Rangers what What? And then the dad from The Incredibles. What the hell is this? And it usually is like knockoff Power Ranger looking toys or like it's supposed to be Superman, but it kind of looks more like Bizarro Superman.

So, yeah, they're these horrible toys. But the packaging is always hilarious because it'll be like. It'll be like live action, comic book, DC, Marvel, random other stuff that doesn't go. That was something else I saw in the toy aisles. I saw the Transformers toys because Transformers is huge over there.

And I kept seeing Transformers Dark of the Moon. I thought that's hilarious. And then I realized, oh, shit, that's the name of the movie. That's absolutely the name. I thought it was like some weird translation thing like Dark of the Moon.

I think that every time I see that poster or the trailer, I'm like, they didn't really call. It that, right? Oh they did oh they did. But yeah i mean transformers is huge over there because um i had this discussion with a couple of fellows at a bar and they were talking about you know what chinese directors did i like and i mentioned i like chung yi mo you know i mentioned i like hero and house of flying daggers and stuff like that and Their basic comment that they made was like, oh, those movies, they're beautiful to look at, but there's no substance to them. And I asked, well, what do you all like?

And they flat out said, Michael Bay Transformers. Yeah. I was like, whew. Did they explain the substance deep? Define substance.

Yeah, exactly. Maybe there's a loss in translation. There are different substances. There are. But apparently it just comes from the fact that only so many American movies can be released over there per year.

The government regulates it, and they also choose which ones are brought over. So anything that could have any kind of political message whatsoever is nixed. So that's why the only stuff they see from America is the brainless stuff like Transformers, because in no way, shape, or form is going to make you think. That's true. Can they download things from the Internet, or is that blocked?

Yeah, I mean, actually, when I saw a couple films over there, and. The first time I bought a ticket, the girl was warning me, saying that there's no English. I was like, yeah, that's fine. I just wanted to watch it without knowing what little of the language I did and just kind of pick up the plot, which I was able to well enough, but there was a DVD store across the street, and as soon as the movie ended, I went over there and I bought the movie I'd just seen because, I mean, it's just bootlegging. It's that rampant over.

There that you can see a movie and immediately there will be a store built across the street selling it. That's how fast the bootlegs are. Which actually, I have that movie. I could just burn copies for all of us and we could watch a movie that none of us knows the language to and review that. That's actually maybe a future idea.

Just make up our own dialogue. To my knowledge, it's never been released in the States, but it's a fun sort of martial arts movie. What we could do is do a track for the. Movie where we would do the dialogue. We could take a character and just make it our own.

We could do a What's Up Tiger Lily with it. We could do an MXC. There we go. Future idea. And so it was.

And then no one would have access to the show, to the movie, and the episode would be blocked. They'd have to take our word for it. It was great. Just here for us anyway, aren't we? No, just put it on the DVD with the movie and then just start giving it to people.

Be like, no, this is really how the movie goes. Or start doing like... Harmony Corrine just leaving it there. Yeah, just leaving it. Sooner or later, you guys will get it.

I'd be willing to fork up the money for discs to copy that. Yeah, I'm all for this. We can put this together. As soon as possible. You share, you share.

You share. And then after that, we can just find movies in English that none of us have seen, and we just do the dialogue. Yeah, just turn down the volume and we fill in the rest. Anybody that actually wants this, let us know. And we have to do it live without having watched it.

See, that would make it way more entertaining. And make it even better. Let's get everyone back to eat spaghetti while we do. It. Good luck getting them here.

It was hard not getting people here the first time. In the not-too-distant future Somewhere in time and space. Mike Nelson and. His robot pals Have gone to Nasty Place They have to survive the wrath of Pearl She's an evil gal who wants to rule the world From her castle below she sets her sights above Torture all the captives in the satellite of love. I'll spend it chasing the rubies.

The worst I can find. I'll have to sit and watch them all and I'll monitor his mind. Keep in mind I can't control where the movies begin or end. I'll try to keep his sanity with the help of his robot friends. It's intermission time.

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It's part of your problem. You know, you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. Now, on with the show. Changing every day, every possible way.

Though my dreams, it's never quite as it seems. Never quite as it seems. So has anybody else seen any movies? I have. I went to the movies right before coming here, and I realized after I saw it that I had an inadvertent theme in my movie.

Watching this week. And so I saw three movies like pretty close together, which kind of deal with people who had dreams and passions and things. And then now we're in the movie and because of life or whatever, just shit, like it all gets broken down and all the shit that happens with that. And I thought that was a very interesting, specific theme. So it started with the lie, which I watched.

So I could listen to the episode and, uh, which I really liked because. I'm that age and, uh, You're having these issues. Yeah, not quite to that same extent because I'm pretty carefree. I'm not trying to be a musician but sucking at it while having this... I like my job, for instance, but still that kind of thing appealed to me.

Actually, you all were making fun of the organic diapers. That's what my daughter wears. See? The G diapers. I was like, that's fucking hilarious.

You are one of those people. Yeah, so I really like that. Then. The other day I watched I Melt With You. Has anybody else seen this?

I know of it, but no, I haven't seen it. It's on Netflix. It's by Mark Pellington. He did Henry Poole This Year, which I've not seen, but I've heard of. About these four old college friends who every year they go to Big Sur to just kind of reminisce and do all the drugs in the world that they possibly can.

And so for, like, the first hour, it's just this huge, massive drug orgy, and then, like, kind of things from their life start to kind of come out that, like, one of them, he works on Wall Street or something, and he's gotten into some trouble. Another guy, like, his sister had died several years before, and so all these stuff kind of starts to come out, and then right at the midpoint, it gets weird. And it gets dark. It has a very... Weird ending, does it not?

I think I know which one you're talking about. So, I'm Out With You is pretty fantastic. And I looked on Rotten Tomatoes and it only has like a 14% approval rating, which really I can see how some people may not like it and some people may really like it. Yeah, I did not hear good responses about it. This was a while ago I heard about somebody discussing it on another show and They kind of ruined the ending, which I didn't need to know about, but at the same time, they really did not like the movie, so I don't know.

I may have to see it now just to balance things out, because you. Seem to like it. In retrospect, the ending does kind of get a little ridiculous, but I was just really drawn in by the acting and the pacing and just the directing style, the cinematography, everything made it just this really kind of intense experience, which maybe that's just me. Maybe you all go watch something. Is there anyone in it that on the radar, so to speak.

Thomas Jane. Yeah, that's definitely another one. I knew Thomas Jane was in this one. Rob Lowe, isn't it? Sasha Gray, briefly.

Which I had watched The Girlfriend Experience the day before. Has anybody seen that, by the way? I'm dying for other people's opinions on that. So then today, I went to Village 8 to see Chicken with Plums. I want to see that.

Yeah, which is by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paranote, who did Persepolis. This one's not animated, though, and it's about a musician, a violinist, who his wife smashes his prized violin and he can't find no other violin as worthy. He can't get pleasure from it anymore. So he lays down to die. He just decides, I'm going to go to bed.

I'm going to die. And so the movie is about flashbacks, memories, flash-forwards, like what's going to happen to his kids later in their life. And it just turns into this kind of weirdly amusing yet deeply depressing and kind of disturbing and oddly beautiful. Waiting for Godot, but with a violin. Yeah.

So, yeah, you should definitely go see that. I do. I really love Persepolis. It's probably one of my favorites. I like the graphic novel, too.

Yeah. And this is based on a graphic novel as well by Marjorie and Cedric. So, yeah, that's... That was my thing this week. Also Birdemic, but fuck that.

I hear you love that movie. And refuse to acknowledge the existence beyond this point. It's funny because I've had people tell me I need to see it, but to me there's a difference between... laughing at something because it's unintentionally bad. And I watch that and I'm like, you can't tell me just based on the trailer and the clips I've seen that that is unintentionally bad. That, to me, is blatantly and purposely bad.

It is. It has to be. There's no way. There's no excuse. The director does seem really clueless because I've seen interviews with him and he does seem like he's out.

Of it in some capacity. But still, I think he's conscious enough to know He's not putting together a multi-million dollar movie. The funny thing is, when I started showing The Room, it was at midnight. They have a few stipulations. The first time you get it, you have to show it so many times, which was fine by us.

You have to hang the posters by a certain date when you book and all this. But one of the other things on there is, this film cannot be double-billed with anything, especially Birdemic. It's like if you... They won't let you book the room again. Nice.

So this was like the first run of the. Room before it really found that audience or like since it's become the weird cult thing? I guess because since it's become the weird cult thing, I almost interpret that as the people who own the room recognize that this is trying to ride on the coattails of make something that's funny bad. Yeah. I don't know.

And they want to protect that? Well, I think they would cancel each other out, right? I mean, you can't have both that bad at the same time. Yes. You're only going to pull in one audience or the other, I would think.

If Birdemic was unintentionally bad, then there's no excuse for that level of laziness. There's no way everybody involved was that clueless. And if it is intentionally bad, then they just went so over the top it was just, again, lazy. So it just ended up pissing me off. Not one to watch by yourself.

If you're all smoked up. Like, I thought it was the perfect time. It's like, I don't know. It's looking great. I was like, no.

So I went on Facebook and just kind of did a live commentary of how much I hated it. Yep. Yeah. Which it was just a series of, fuck this movie. Fuck these exploding birds.

Fuck this. I didn't say fuck. I just said the birds explode. The birds explode. Yeah.

Way to spoil it, dude. Yeah, spoiler alert, the birds explode. But only in that first scene. Later, they just crash into things. See, I remember joking about that when I heard Michael Bay was planning on, and maybe still is planning on, remaking the birds.

Oh, God. You didn't know about that? Exploding birds. It was back when I was reading about upcoming remakes that somebody else was going to remake Don't Look Now. I was like, oh, yeah, that'll work.

That'll go great. Somebody needs to stop Michael Bay. I'm not saying anything should happen, but. So I decided I would talk about Birdemic tonight, and then after this point, I am not acknowledging his existence anymore. Like, I'm just not going to.

So that's it. You've gotten it taken care of. Anyone else seen anything? Last night I saw Samsara. Oh, we've got to clear out a couple hours here.

Yeah. You're pretty taken with this movie. I was taken with this movie. And actually, I think so was everyone else, because Doreen, I mean... I actually kind of polled the audience before we even showed it.

And I just flat-eyed. I was like, has anyone seen this movie? This is the first time out of all of our midnights that we've done that no one had seen the movie we were getting ready to watch. And from beginning to end, you did not hear, like, the crinkle of a popcorn bag or, like, the rattle of ice in a drink or anything. I mean, it's just everybody in this audience that was pretty packed was just focused on it.

We're demonstrating what it was not like. Thank you, thank you. None of that. And, I mean, for those who aren't familiar with it, it's the follow-up or companion piece to Baraka, which Ron Frick did in 92, and it's just music and image. It's the same fellow who shot the, he was the DP for the copywriter, trilogy, Quintus Cotsy and Paolo Cotsy and Nikoi Cotsy, but it's just music and image shot all over the world, and it's just meant, I guess you could, I mean, it's open to interpretations to whatever you want, but for the better part, it feels like just sort of allegory as to what humanity started as and what they have now become it's almost like the story of humans on the planet but i mean for me it's the best movie i've seen in theaters this year because it goes beyond i like it whenever a movie goes beyond telling a story and it's just trying to convey an idea and that one it is it's just the best way to describe it is it's cinematically hypnotic i mean because it's the experience once you start it you're just hooked, because it's just absolutely gorgeous from start to finish.

And it's just, there are a lot of things where he shows you, it's not a documentary in the sense they tell you where the stuff is shot. Instead, again, you're just seeing all these images from around the world, and you're just like, where's that from? Where's that from? And the point is to just kind of invoke the feeling that we live in a very, you know, almost magical place, even though we take it for granted. You can be very embittered about it sometimes.

It's like a five-year span... It took him five. Years to shoot it just because he would wait for certain religious ceremonies that only took place every couple years to happen, or he would wait until the positions of stars and stuff were right. It was very obsessive filmmaking. If you like any kind of time lapse with music, it's very much so.

Very trippy. Lisa Gerrard, right? Lisa Gerrard and Michael Stearns, yeah, they paired up and worked on that because Michael Stearns had done His other two. Yeah, Lisa Gerard also was the other person on that. But, yeah, beautifully shot.

So that's one. I can't recommend that enough. Yeah, I've seen a few things, but they mostly fall into the range of stuff we might wind up talking about. Yeah, I had another one of those that I was like, I kind of want to go on about it during the Geek Week, but I kind of just want to do a whole episode. So, yeah, we can.

Just, yeah, we need the list. I don't know how fast we'll ever get to anything on the list. But, yeah, we just need to keep track of what. All these are. Can I pose a question to the group?

I've seen a lot of recommendations for the film. And I decided, okay, I'm going to go ahead and watch this. And I. Only got, I had to restart it. My second time to try to finish watching it, and I still haven't finished watching it.

And it's Beyond the Black Rainbow. Yes, yes, yes. I want to know why I can't. You did? I fucking love that movie.

Great. Please tell me why I need to finish it. Well, if you weren't. Hooked immediately then I don't know what to tell you yeah I just see. That's like high on my Netflix queue I should be getting it probably this week just because everyone's recommended it to me but you know I don't even know what it's about.

Right well I'm not entirely sure either. It's hard for me you know because I'm so tired most of the time and I don't have I have little time to really sit down and watch an adult film or not an adult film but an adult a movie where you don't necessarily want your children. In the room and you want to be awake for this one well here let me ask this then is it a release of something older or is it something new that's the one thing I just had people recommend. It looks it really has he's almost obsessed with early 1980s look and feel yeah it's set in the 70s oh I thought it was set in the. Oh no you're right early 80s because.

He and I even read the story. Gosh the name of the director is even slipping me right now Panos Cosmodos yeah Yeah. And he said that he was obsessed with like his mom or his grandma would take him to the movie video stores like all of us. And he would look at these cases of things that he was too young to see. And he always pictured in his brain what they would look like, you know, or think about what they would be like.

And so that's really an homage to. what he wanted to, wanted those movies to look and feel like. It's an interesting idea. Right. And, and I get that. And I even read that before, you know, before I started watching it and it's got, it's got an extremely unique feel.

It's got a lot of stuff that I, I think I get what he's trying to do or what he's even doing. It's just that I'm not necessarily enjoying it. Yeah. It drags. The shots are long.

Just the tone of the color. And because he really has this knack for a tactile and yet sterile feel to this lab or facility that they're supposed to be in, don't you kind of feel like you can almost feel the tension and sterility of this. place that's. Why i loved it like i watched it the week leading up to halloween on like a rainy afternoon so the setting was kind of perfect yeah and i didn't i'd watch the trailer it looked really interesting um so i watched it and i just felt like this tension almost bordering on a fear the entire time just because the mood that he was creating with the the coloring like the color scheme is fantastic and just i don't know the the guy who plays a psychologist you His voice just kind of got into me.

How far did you get into it? Did you get to the weird flashback? When they're going back into the 70s or whatever, and he is. The weirdly black man. The black, yeah.

You stopped at that point? At that point, I was just like. I think they're. About to throw down, don't you? Yeah, I know.

It is so avant-garde. To me, I'm like, you've got to get on with the movie. You know, I knew that there's supposed to be some kind of, well, it centers on a girl that's in the facility and you know there's some special qualities to her and you know that she's got some kind of ability and he's trying to control that or tap into that or learn from that or pass it on, something. Oh, you didn't get into any of the reveals. Yeah, I suppose not.

You didn't get into the reveals. But it was almost like um, well, you know, last episode, it was almost like, uh, the, uh, yeah. Uh, blood freak, blood freak. I was trying to, you know, it was almost like, Oh, I remember that. Such a freak.

And that, okay, get to the point where he's going to start killing people or get, get to something. And so I don't know. We spent so long in setting up, um, and, and establishing mood that I, I was, I was turned off. I, I. This sounds so much like the way people talk about House of the Devil.

It's got that very dated feel to it, and it's a super slow burn, but the people that loved it, loved it, and everybody else was just like, fuck this movie. Well, having not seen it, actually, what he's describing is more what we were talking about last night when we were just commenting on Samsara, trying to think, when was the last time something like that came out? At first we thought maybe like Winged Migration or Microcosmos, but then we said, well, Tree of Life kind of falls in that category to where it is just music and image. But I remember people like that was out of the most recent movies we've had at the Baxter, the most walkouts we've ever had out of a film. And people would say, I can't get through.

They wanted like, it's like enough of the surreal stuff, get onto the point of the movie. And I guess that's just the difference between preferences. It's like, is it something where you can just let yourself immerse into the, experience or whether it is just plot driven and i guess that's just i watched. Like three minutes of melancholia and felt that way i was like. You've got to get through that that opening you yeah you've got to get through the opening first hour like melancholy like the first hour.

Awesome how can you not be hooked on melancholia after i mean that opening sequence is beautiful the only time i remember just when we when i saw that at the village like I mentioned this on a previous episode, just as soon as like that whole opening sequence ended, just someone, some old man leans over his wife, just goes, this is weird. No, I, I, I was hooked right away with that. I, and I was like the opening to Antichrist. I mean, the two kind of worked as companion pieces in that setup. Well, speaking of that, he does systematic trilogies, uh, Europa.

Yeah. Europa. Yeah. Um, Idiots, Breaking the Ways to Answer in the Dark, and I felt like Antichrist and Melancholy are kind of the first two. And he's going to do something to third, yeah.

His next one's the Nymphomaniac. I don't know if that's going to be part of that. I love Europa out of the three. The crime trilogy. Well, it's not the crime, it's the Europe trilogy, I think is what it's called, isn't it?

Yeah, the Europa trilogy, actually. Is it Europa trilogy? Well, I guess it is just sort of the surreal post-war environment. He's still not finished the USA Land of Opportunities trilogy. Yeah.

Dogville, Manderley. He's got one planned called Washington. Mm-hmm. And I'm assuming it's Washington, like, it may have been a typo with the H cut out, but it was called Washington. Of course, after he burned some bridges on his promotion of Melancholia, who knows?

Oh, the can. Yeah. But he does that just for attention. Anyway, so I would say that if by the end of the first five minutes of Beyond the Black Rainbow, you're not just hooked, then I don't know what to tell you. It may just not.

Be for you. Maybe it might have been i've not had the best week so maybe that you know a lot of times it's what i bring to the table. With a movie i yeah i don't know. I i was just told you know i guess hoping that it gets better i you. Know it it doesn't i mean it doesn't it stays kind of the same thing like you have the weird black and white sequence and it goes back to what it was before except then you have i don't actually i really liked the trailer the trailer i think is a beautifully made trailer, but it has things in it that don't happen until the last ten minutes that are kind of spoiler-ish and turned out.

Maybe I wish I didn't know that this was going to happen going into it, but it's in the trailer. At this point, I. Was waiting for something to happen. When it starts happening, you don't realize it's happening until you're already in it. It's like, oh, something's happening now.

I loved it. You got me excited for season I've gotten recommendations. This movie, Beyond the... Valley of the Dolls, Black Rainbow. Which is a fun film.

I've never seen that before. It's the only movie Roger Ebert ever wrote. Really? Oh, yeah. I've heard of that.

Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Russ Meyer directed it. But it's... I mean, it does have...

You know, just as most Russ Meyer films do, it's... peppered with big-breasted women, because that's what he likes in his films. It's a very silly movie. Is it a peppering, really? Depends on the movie. I guess.

But, I mean, it's basically making fun of the types of movies like Blood Freak, to where the point of the movie is supposed to be like a moral. You know, warning against going out and getting involved with the wrong crowd and going down the rabbit hole drugs and all that. Except, um, I mean, it's kind of a, it has a lot of different musical numbers to where the music in of itself, it's like the music and spinal tap to where it's like, this is a parody of a genre of music, but at the same time it's catchy or Phantom of the Paradise. But, um, no, I mean, I've, I've read tales where just like, um, apparently Roger Ebert was just like laughing wildly while he was just typing up the script. And so Russ Meyer said, and, um, I mean like the whole, like, um, you've seen Austin powers and he makes the whole comment at the beginning of the first one.

It's like, this is my happening and it freaks me out. I mean, that comes straight from that film to where it opens up with these girls going to this, um, party to where just their drugs everywhere. And, um, Strawberry alarm clock is actually playing at the party. Very much it captures that essence of, like, 70s. It's a lot of fun.

I still think Russ Meyer doesn't get credit for visuals. Everybody's distracted by the other things. He's done some amazing visuals that he never gets. That movie, visually, is pretty damn cool. He never gets credit for it, because they're distracted by a pre-prested one.

Or dialogue. I mean, dialogue in his films is usually a lot of fun, too. I mean, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill was a highly quotable movie. But it's ridiculous. But again, that one, like, visually, I think, like, it does some really good stuff, and, like, people don't give him credit for that, because there's silly dialogue, and they're...

Well, you've seen them. That's... takes the spotlight away from anything else he does. But I think the visuals in Lorna are amazing. And nobody's even seen that movie. Nobody gives it any credit.

But it's one of those other ones he did that was in black and white. And I think the visuals look great in that. See, if you don't like Beyond the Black Rainbow, if you don't like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, just check out the Beyond. It's a good Fulci film. Just keep going on this theme.

I can't watch another Fulci movie after Zombie. I was so bored. I just will not do it. Faulty films, if I had to recommend one that actually is pretty good, I would recommend Don't Torture a Duckling. I don't know if the name gets you, but it's a really good giallo film.

I like it a lot. Zombie, faulty films in general are just so trying at times. To me, it almost feels like when we're watching Blood Freak. You feel like just the movie itself is just so dirty and grimy because of the camera stock that it's shot on and the costumes of everyone. And the dirty people.

Yeah. And just on the end of itself, it's like it's utilizing hues of like browns. It's like the whole color palette is the color palette off of a Waffle House ceiling. It's disgusting to look at. And that can only take you so far, but yeah, Don't Torture a Duckling is a good one, and The Beyond is actually a really cool one, too.

Very Lovecraftian when you compare it to some of his other stuff. I was really just bored out of my mind. I actually liked the zombie scene. I'm not a huge fan of zombie. I'm not going to lie.

Because that's one where you hear about the infamous... I being torn out. With the spike, which is cool. And the scene with the zombie fighting a shark underwater. And that's kind of cool.

But apart from that, it's like. That's classic. This. It does. It drags.

It very much. Oh, she stopped. Oh, hi. Hi. Hello.

Hi, Lower League. We have made contact with the outside world. We've been waving at people all night. Yeah. See, look at that.

Yeah, it's amazing. You should have invited her in. She's got a dog. She's got Lulu with her. Did you actually know that person?

Yes, I did, actually. He's just making up names to the dogs and the ladies. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. Whenever somebody waves at me, I just say, Hi, Bo. We're alive.

Hey. I mean. Is there really that much of a stretch when we have waving at strangers all day? But she did say Bo. I didn't hear her say Bo.

That's what I. Really appreciated, too, was the fact that we've been doing that all night and finally someone comes by. And then Brian is over there shaking his head because we've totally just. There isn't a show at this point. No, there isn't.

I didn't hear her say hey, Bo. Sorry. I didn't either. All right, I think we're getting out of control on this. We will shut it down for now.

And continue on with this insanity next week. So otherwise, that about does it. We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening.

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger Traveling through this world of woe And there's no sickness No toil, no danger In that fair land To which I go. I'm going there To see my mother I'm going there. I don't want Alan's sloppy seconds. No, if I'm going to do it, I at least want to be first. Somehow I've lost the thread of this conversation.

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!