229: Flea Market Quip

Because I've got to keep on Searching for the dream That I've been seeking Since I left my Oklahoma. Hi, this is Martha Stevens And you are listening to Movie Meltdown Hey, this is Drifter You're listening to That'd be great Oh, I wish I could be called Drifter It's not appropriate though I'm. A drifter And I've seen the. Rain I'm a drifter And I felt the pain, the pain that comes with loneliness. So I drift from town to town, searching all around.

The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power.

Hey, would you like to buy a monkey? What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. I'm Lucy. And I'm Sterling.

And we are coming to you live via digital recording from a parking lot. We're actually at the Flea Off Market here in Louisville. And I would say sunny Louisville, but it's not sunny today. It's very overcast. And yeah, I wish it would warm up a little bit.

Anyway, we were trying to put together a show this week. And we were like, what are we going to do? And most of our crew are like slackers. And we're like, oh, I have stuff to do. So I'm like, look, we're going to be there.

Lucy and I are already going to be hanging out going, Hey, check out these shirts. This one's got a Yeti on it. This one's got Harry Dean Stanton on it. So it's like, while we're there, let's just bring the recorder and we'll, we'll just do the, uh, actually I just got a, a comment online when we were doing the found footage festival and they were just like, they, they specifically, I won't out the person who said it, but he's awesome. Uh, he specifically said he liked our dynamic when we went out in the world and we were, we were hanging out in front of the theater on the steps of the theater and As everyone else went home, and we were weirdos loitering around in front of the theater.

And we did our whole show and talked about horribly inappropriate things on the steps of the theater there. So, yeah, I'd gotten good feedback on that. They kind of liked us hanging out and talking. So I thought, you know, if that's what we do anyway, we might as well just make that the show. So you're pretty much just asking to have him regret saying that is what you're going for here right now?

No, because we deliver awesome episodes. Okay, never mind. No matter where we are. Like Brian sitting there going like, ah, you think we're doing interesting things. Well, I'll show you.

That is what I've actually been trying to do since day one. It's like as we go all these different places, we do end up at a lot of different conventions and a lot of weird locations over the years now. But what I realized is like I don't want it to be Here we are at this place, and the entire show is going to center around where we are and talking to these people. And I'm like, that's great, but then it all depends on where you are, whether or not it's what you want to hear or what's cool. I was like, I don't want it to be that.

I want the show to be the show no matter where it goes. So it's like whatever situation we're in, I want the basics of the show, the dynamic of the show, to kind of always be there, whatever ridiculous setting we end up at. So we're at the flea market here. And here we are. Uh, yeah, we're sitting, we're sitting a brief distance from, uh, uh, some carved statues of what looked like bears, um, and various other clothing articles.

And of course, you know, the surprisingly large number of record vendors. Uh, it's a thing. Yeah. It always kind of bums me out actually. Cause I always see all those record vendors out there and I'm like, man, times like this, I wish I owned a record player B had more disposable income and C had that level of self-respect where I wanted my music to be something that other people saw, like, you know, sitting on a giant shelf in my apartment.

Um, D I'm glad I'm not that hip and I don't worry about it. Yeah. But you know, you know, as a guy who really identifies very strongly with, uh, Rob from high fidelity, I have to say that, you know, a part of me does is kind of sad that, you know, when I go through a major crisis in my life, I don't have an enormous record collection to reorganize. Um, Like I don't even have most of my books here. You know, it's just like, it's like, it's like, uh, it's, it's one of the perils of minimalist living.

You can't take refuge in your wall of stuff when, when you're, when you're miserable, you go, go back to your collection of wiffle bats or whatever. You know, I don't understand any of this cause all I have is stuff. I don't have people or loved ones or no, I just have stuff. I have, I have tons of the machine, the natal pod that birthed you. No, no, they've all given up on me, but I have, so actually I was shifting things in my house recently and, from one room to the other for reasons I won't even go into but I was finding like the most ridiculous like accumulation of like odd things and I almost started to make a list of like weird things I came across like I'm moving a box and in it is a little scrap of paper and scribbled on it in my handwriting is Reverend Horton Heath's phone number Okay.

I was like, this good thing I lost this in a box somewhere. And then I got to my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles dressed like the Universal Monsters, which they're on my shelf right now. They're badasses, as any geeks know. That was an awesome run. Those are action figures?

They are, and legit. They were licensed through the Ninja Turtles and Universal Studios, and they made the actual Frankenstein, Dracula, in Ninja Turtle form. You know, I'm a geek because I own many of them. No, you know, actually we had, I remember there was on the beach where we used to go for summer vacation, like down in Florida. My family and I would go and they had this store there, which had one of those giant like shark, fake shark mouths that you could walk into.

And it was like, I was like 10. It was like the coolest thing in the world was going to this junk store. And they sold their, like I shit you not, they sold seashells, Like, crafted into Ninja Turtles. Like, Ninja Turtles made out of seashells. And we had the entire set.

And by fate or chance, they all got broken with the exception of Donatello, who sits on my mother's shelf to this day. Nice. Because she fell in love with those things. By the way, again, it probably bears mention that, yes, since we are in a parking lot in the middle of a flea market, like, we're totally exposed. We're not in the safe box. womb of a black used-to-be church.

Again, I'm used to that. A black-walled church. We're exposed to the world, so at any moment now, people might walk up and demand things of us. Yeah, we should also mention that we're shamelessly peddling our wares, so if somebody should come up and even have a glimmer of purchasing power, we're going to drop these mics and start groveling. Figuratively.

Well, you guys totally can. Please don't actually drop these mics, because we're still paying for them. Yeah, I was going to say, you guys obviously can, until I'm part of the union, which I believe we talked about union dues in our last meeting. Yeah, they are due, by the way. Yeah, okay.

Please remind me next time. We'll please remit. But yeah, until I get those in, I won't consider myself a full member of Movie Meltdown, and I won't see the need to hawk your wares. No, feel free to. okay okay uh. You've been abducted like i mean inducted like everyone else so it's.

Great well um in any event though so yeah if anyone shows up then uh we might just talk to them out of the blue like these people hi how are you but just fine thanks yeah live radio live via digital recording yes okay so uh you were doing some research i do believe lucy I was. I didn't know if we were going to be doing a geek activities segment. I was just going to let it roll and we can do like all geek activities and whatever other randomness comes about. Well, the reason why I picked up my computer device was because I saw a movie last night. Yeah.

It's a square thing. I punch it. It brings me information. That's all. I saw a film last night, and it was one of those films that I saw purposefully knowing it would be bad, anticipating it being bad.

But I went to see it at the drive-in movie, which is a venue that I think should be reserved for bad films. A good place to see a bad movie. Right, because there's distractions, and if it's a film you really care about, it's not going to ultimately be a satisfying viewing experience. So we went to see The Call. And I don't know if I need to give background for anybody.

The call is the new Halle Berry movie. She plays a 911 operator. Oh, and that girl in Gothica. Sorry, that girl in Gothica is right. Did you, before you want to get to that.

By the way, I'm sorry, sorry. When Gothica came out, I had to say this. I wrote that screenplay. I shit you not. I wrote that screenplay when I was 14.

Like, I had the exact same idea, like, and I wrote out, like, almost the exact same characters in, like, a primitive version of that screenplay. And when I finally saw that movie, it was I was like cut between like like oh my god these people stole my like they hacked my database and found and then part of me was like oh my god I wasn't made to be a screenwriter like I was like this is not my future I hope. I was hoping there was a glimmer of pride of. They made my movie oh no my story has been told no it's like one of those moments where again like all the stuff you think is awesome when you're 14 and You know, just sort of is shown in glorious Technicolor in front of you, and you're. Like, whoa, whoa, I was off.

I was way off. The good news is enough time has passed. You could probably dust that bad boy off and go to Hollywood with it. Reboot. Gothica 2.

Electric Boogaloo. So. I was going to say, to put it in perspective, before you even get to the Halle Berry, all you have to do is put the logo that comes up at the very beginning of that movie. And I haven't even seen it, but I know. Which I was not aware of this as a thing.

This is a thing. This is a thing. And that's what I was going to say. It should say, what, WWE or something to that? I still try to make it an F, but I forget.

That's Panda Bears. So, yeah, it's anything at this point. And this just kicked in in the last couple of years. Anything at this point that features a wrestler from that organization, they become a producer. They get their name slapped on like above the title and they are listed like they the organization basically become a producer of the movie.

So does that mean that there was, in fact, a wrestler in the movie that I didn't notice? I assumed it was one of the killer type peoples. But again, I haven't seen the movie. See, I'm waiting for like through some misread partnership deal on some obscure movie in the 80s. Like the WWE will wind up claiming retroactive producership on like all of Disney properties.

If anybody could pull that off, they might. He's the most powerful entity in the world, but McMahon does not mess around with money. By the way, it's true. I like the idea of McMahon trying to take on the mouse. Be a popular t-shirt soon, I'm certain, or a series of webcomics.

Speaking of which, the mouse is the closest thing now to an Orwellian entity I think our world has produced at this point. There should be just pictures of Mickey everywhere going, Mickey's watching you. Sorry, we're selling things. Oh, it's fine. Working with the public is part of why we love this job.

I'm sure. Is it? So back to the call? Yeah. Again, I just assumed there was some sort of killer at the end that just happened to be one of the wrestler dudes.

I would be happy to spoil the entire movie because I feel like it would be a public service, frankly. That's up to you. Mostly because the finale, it's not a twist ending, but it's like a gotcha ending. And it's the worst gotcha ending maybe in cinematic history. Does it involve a suplex at some point?

You're dreaming, man. If I get to see Halle Berry suplex a wrestler, I would pay good money to go. See that, actually. I needed context for that term. I didn't know what that reference was, but now I'm catching up.

Sterling, stand up. I'll show her. Can't we use a customer instead? Like, hey, want to be on Movie Meltdown? Kid, get over here.

Small child. Okay. Oh, Lord. So, the call. The call.

So. At the beginning of the credits, all of a sudden, I noticed that it was directed by Brad Anderson. And I was not aware of that going in. And for a moment, there was this... I mean, I was excited.

I keep forgetting that, actually. And we're about to get a great movie. Or at least a vaguely self-aware movie. At least an interesting movie. Exactly.

Even if you don't like his movies, they're always interesting. List off some of his movies for me again. Well, I'm more familiar with his early career. He made a movie called Happy Accidents, which I think is still one of the great undiscovered gems. It was Vincent D'Onofrio and Marissa Tomei, and it is a time travel romance.

Okay, Vincent D'Onofrio, who's been in many, many great undiscovered gems. That's kind of his entire career, actually. Yeah, I recently discovered he actually made a biopic back early in his career with Renee Zellweger about the life of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan. Yeah, I remember.

Called The Whole Wide World. I still haven't seen it. From what I've heard, he's amazing in it. I'm sure he is, but it just blows my mind. What else has Brad Anderson done?

He did a movie called Next Stop Wonderland. I think that might have actually been his first movie with Hope Davis in it, which is charming. He did a movie called Session 9. Which I love. Now I have a reference point.

I still think is amazing and enough people don't give it credit. Session 9 is for me one of those, like, I don't want to go into a review of it or anything, but I'll just say that, you know, it is a quiet, understated horror film that does a lot more for your brain than you think it's going to do when you sit down. For anyone in this town where we're currently sitting, the day before I saw that, I went the next day after watching it that night, got up the next morning, went to Waverly. It was an odd mixture of things because it made it so much. I think it might have been, but I don't think I realized what I was doing to myself.

Waverly, if you're not from here, is a closed down sanitarium. Formerly, what all was it? Which totally sounds like a place you go to get a bath, you know, my sanitarium. And it's been, I mean, it's been closed for years and years and still sits there and is supposedly one of the most haunted places in the state. So it's like, it is a creepy country.

I gotta go there. World. Universe. Other world. Whatever.

But the, yeah, it's a very creepy place. I have some photos. I can post them at some point if anybody wants. But It's a really weird location, and having just watched Session 9 made it so much creepier, actually. Interestingly enough, by the way, I remember a little interview that he gave about the film, Brad Anderson, now that I recognize him.

He was talking about how they actually did film Session 9 over the course of about three weeks or so, which is the time frame of the film. in Danvers Mental Institution, which was slated to be destroyed and was right after they finished the movie. This was, in fact, everything that they said that that place did in the movie was, in fact, something that that place at some point did and was slated to be utterly destroyed and was shortly after the film was made. That's sad because that building, when they do those shots over top, it is huge. Like it is so massive. It's amazing.

Just as a structure. Sorry. Yeah. It goes along with that, with, with the attitude that they had for a long time to mental health. Like when they first started out in the beginning, they had like these sort of bucolic utopian.

And then they talked about this in the documentary. They had these sort of utopian notions of like, you know, teaching like the, the mentally disabled to, to, to, you know, raise sheep together and like, you know, grow their own food. And like, they were going to live in this, sort of dormitory together and chill. And then by the seventies though, they were just like strapping them to chairs and like, you know, electrocuting them to, you know, and, and drugging them intensely. And it was like, you could tell in this building and just the additions that they had made over the years, that history of the change and the way people had treated mental illness from like this utopian vision to this really awful thing that it had become by the middle of the century.

And, you know, thank God we're getting away from that, you know, now, but, still. Well, and Waverly had such a horrible history. I mean, they built a death tunnel. Oh, had you not heard that? A death tunnel?

Sorry, that sounds like something from Vietnam. This is from. The, I think, tuberculosis days when there were so many people there suffering with it in that location and they were dying so quickly they couldn't even move them. I mean, they couldn't pick them up and carry them out fast enough. So they built this tunnel that they just like shuttled people down that goes it sits the whole building sits on top of the hill and it it's a tunnel that leads straight to the bottom and they had a like a hearse ambulance truck waiting to haul people away they were dying so.

Fast so they had a death shoot pretty much basically. And i've seen it it's it's scary and they've they've done like a movie about it like it's it's gotten a huge reputation over the years as one of the more notoriously creepy things about that building. Oh man as it should yeah it's weird Louisville's a haunted place. We're a creepy location, yeah. Which is why we fit in.

I'm so glad I moved here, yeah. So, session nine. Sorry. Or The Call. The Call.

Whichever you prefer. He was the machinist too, wasn't he? He was the machinist. Okay. See, that's a great film.

He's an amazing director. Apparently that was the last movie he wrote. Yeah. And so, which explains what's happened to him. What's happened.

Because that's why I felt like I had to do research because after watching the movie, I was like, there's no way that's the same Brad Anderson. That's like Brad F. Anderson or something like that. It can't be the same guy. Brad Jim Anderson.

Yeah. W.S. Anderson. Brad W.S. Anderson.

Brad Paul Thomas Anderson. Nice. That's beautiful. But anyway, it was unwatchable schlock. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

It's the end of the story. It's the end of the. Story, really. Oh, man. Man.

So much time rediscovering the gems of Brad Anderson's career and. Well, I can't... Can I just go ahead and spoil it? Throw out the spoiler alert. Spoiler alert.

So Halle Berry plays the 911 operator slash. Okay, basically it's like Silence of the Lambs light. Really light. Really light. And at the end of the movie, there's a, okay, the killer, our serial killer, is a 36-year-old man who had had, and this is all revealed over time, an incestuous relationship with his sister who ultimately died of cancer. and he was in love with her and when she died all he wanted to do was to be able to smell her hair again I think is what was happening so he would find blonde women and scalp them and then when their scalps got old and he needed a new scalp he would find another young blonde woman Like you do.

Right. So Halle Berry is the world's worst 911 operator. And she has... That's the pitch. Somebody calls in and says, there's a man in my house, there's a man in my house.

And she walks her through it and gets her to hide. And then she loses the call. So Halle Berry calls her back. And the phone rings. And then the killer who was leaving hears the phone ring and realizes the girl's still in the house and then proceeds to murder her.

So. Nice. Yeah. So, anyway, it's all about Halle Berry finding this man. But the gotcha at the end is that.

They track him down. Halle Berry's the killer. They track him down, and she's about to call 911. She decides to just go rogue on this thing. And she goes into, like, this underground.

It's a rogue telephone operator. Yes, it's a rogue 911 operator. Her boyfriend is a cop. And I think she was Storm, technically, not rogue. But go ahead.

Oh, I don't know. So now I feel badly that I'm actually maybe spoiling. I mean, the listening audience. If you're listening. Yeah, but there's people around us.

I hadn't thought about them. They aren't paying attention. Look, they've got cool stuff to do. Seriously, do you think people around, someone's going to stop and be like, oh, man, the call with Halle Berry. I really want this.

I love that Halle Berry. Why did you spoil it? Well, the gotcha at the end is, so she tracks him down. She saves the girl from him. The two of them go back up into the world because he has an underground lair naturally.

And they go back up into the world and they start to call 911 and then stop. And then they go back down and the next scene is him tied to a chair. And she says, he says, what are you going to do to me or something along those lines? And she says, well, you're not even here. This girl ran away and we found her. and we don't know where you are.

You ran off. And then they leave. Dun, dun, dun. So the idea being that he's just going to die there alone in the cellar, which is the most selfish decision she could possibly... Okay, so now there's a giant manhunt for the serial killer.

They're going to waste unknown resources trying to find this guy. There's not going to be any closure for any of these families. Like, there were other scalps down there. Anyway, it was just the worst ending I've ever seen. You're not so much worried about the justice more as much as, like, Wasted taxpayer dollars, damn it.

Well, fair enough. That is something to object to, definitely. Halle Berry seems to have a history of being in movies with terrible twists, it seems to me. I almost want to say, either who is your agent, or did you graduate from the M. Night School of script picking?

I don't know what the deal is, but I don't know. That sounds to me, you know, the funny thing is when you first started describing it to me, it sounded almost like it could be a pretty convincing like French art horror film from the 60s of like, you know, well, there's this guy and for years he had an incestuous relationship with his sister who then died of cancer and all he wants to do is smell her hair again. It's like, that's the setup for some really surreal art house. Shit right there. Yeah, actually, I can see that.

Yeah, yeah. Just imagine it all in black and white. It's very understated, very little dialogue. I think we're in the classical music plane right now. Yeah, yeah.

First scene, a guy opens up his record player, drops in some Chopin, and then goes over to where his sister is dying of cancer. And smells her hair. And smells her hair. But then that's just the way it is with so many bad films, though. It's like once you pitch just like certain aspects of the premise to me, it's like, oh, I see how that could be like a good film or at least like an interesting, like I don't know if I've ever seen something like that before film.

And this is how Hollywood runs at this point. You get two thirds of the way into the pitch and go, yeah, we could make this good. And then the rest. Then they hand it to Michael Bay. And then Pain and Gain.

Anyway. Have you seen Pain and Gain? No, but that's the same thing. I'm saying watch it before you trash it. No, that story is amazing.

It's a real story. And had they given that to somebody else... Think about it. Go ahead. But I'm just saying, think about how much better it could have been.

Well, I disagree because, and I'll tell you why, because the movie is all about excess and people misinterpreting the American dream. And who embodies that more than Michael Bay? Actually, I haven't seen this film, but I'll confess, I don't care at all about bodybuilding, and I've hated every Michael Bay film I've ever seen, which, although, except curiously, this baffles even me, one of his most awful films, The Island, is maybe my favorite film of his. I still need to, that's one of those I almost have on the list because I still haven't watched it and kind of want to because I still think it's such an interesting premise. I got to say, like, as a lover of old school sci-fi, but anyway, back to the thing is that this is actually the first Michael Bay movie that I've seen advertisements for that I actually kind of want to see because, like, almost all of his films are about this kind of self-absorbed machismo of Except that it typically is diverted at the last minute into something resembling heroism.

Like, where at the end of, like, you know, oh, I get it. Like, we're supposed to think that all those guys who are holed up in Alcatraz are, like, heroes of some kind or something. You know, like, there are moments of just, like, oh, I get it. Not horrible criminals. Yeah, like, we're supposed to see the main characters of Bad Boys as being, like, heroic figures, not, like, self-absorbed fools.

Who aren't playing by the rules. Yeah, exactly. But pain and gain though, it's like you said, Michael Bay is exactly the kind of guy who subconsciously or not seems to grasp this mentality. And here he's making a film about how stupid it is in a way. And it's like, who better to tell that story?

And also surprisingly, wow, surprisingly self, self aware in a weird way. Like, like, for a guy who specializes in making, this is like the kind of film that people who make fun of Michael Bay movies would be likely to make. Well, we did that. Actually, I remember us talking about this movie like several years ago when we were like reading through the news stories and talking about him. He had listed, it was right after maybe Transformers 2 or something, he got greenlit to start working on his little indie movie.

I was about to say, his little tiny $ 20 million indie movie. No, it was supposed to be like a million dollars or something and it was supposed to have no stars. I was like, ah, no stars like The Rock or Marky Mark. Good idea. Are you live broadcasting?

What's going on? We're recording. We are live broadcasting. Why don't you say hi to the internet? You're recording.

It's live via digital recording. So it's a thing. People do it, yeah. Are you a movie fan? You can contribute.

Have you seen anything lately that you like? Yeah, well. I watched Lord of the Rings again. Sweet. Nice.

All three. And Star Trek. All ten. Nice. Including the reboot.

Are you a fan of the new Star Trek? Oh, I love the new Star Trek. Yeah? Especially the fact that at the end of the movie, the latest one, he comes out and he goes. It does the Kirk.

It's awesome. The Kirk. Yes. And I'm a big fan of running marathons in my Captain John card Starfleet uniform. It is not a costume.

It's a uniform. Thank you, sir. I agree. That's straight. Yes.

All right. Thank you. So other reasons I'm glad I moved to this town in case the bike didn't pick that up. I have to say for the record. That guy just proudly acknowledged that he loves to run marathons in his Captain Picard Starfleet uniform, which is in fact a uniform and not a costume.

Truth. Yeah. I like this guy. Wow. One day I hope to be that same level of pressure-cooked weird.

Dedication. Yeah. That's what you have to have. Yes, exactly. They come from the west and they come from the east.

Peddling the treasures, the stories and treats Yesterday's keepsakes are now on the ground They'll sell them for less, there's more to be found Old boots and buckles. Shackles and snares. Rusty old lanterns. Buckets and pails Good morning to Alice. Harvey and Gus.

Fish tanks and strollers And porcelain cups Fish tanks and strollers. And porcelain. Yes folks it's intermission time so how about taking a break get out and stretch a little and relax before the show begins again And why not make it refreshment time, too? We have lots of tasty, delicious treats waiting for you at the refreshment center. You ever been to a flea market?

Excuse me? You know, buy, sell, trade. I know what a flea market is, but what does that have to do with me? Oh, it has a lot to do with you. Black Jack Belducci thought life in the mall was tough.

After a week at the Mason County flea market, the mafia is a walk in the park. You're going to help me bury these dumbasses. Try scrubbing your stinking ass for a couple of hours next time. Oh, my God! What do you old bastards think you're going to do?

Ah! I'm Black Jack Balducci. Sell. Do you realize there's not one other black person in this town? Kill.

I can't kill an old lady. What the hell's wrong with you, Yankee boy? Buy, sell, kill. A flea market story. You're coming back to me real soon, haven't you?

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And I'm John Wisby. And this is a promo for the Crash and Burn movie podcast. Every episode, we pick a theme and review three films each that we like, but fall within that theme. And then we also take a classic B-movie or some other film that's good for the wrong reasons for our so-bad-it's-great. Slot, and we rip the piss out of it.

So that's the Crash and Burn Movie Podcast. Every fortnight, you can pick it up at www.crashandburnmoviepodcast.co.uk. There you can subscribe to the RSS feed. You can subscribe in iTunes. You can stream or download the previous episodes.

You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. That's the Crash and Burn Movie Podcast. www.crashandburnmoviepodcast.co.uk. Hey kids, it's Brian. So you're listening to this episode and it sounds pretty good, right? That's because we're using our new mics from the Doo-Wop Shop.

We are using the VLH SM2000s that are made specifically for the Doo-Wop Shop. And if you want one, you can go get one yourself. They are actually only $ 65 if you want to buy one, or they rent everything in the Doo-Wop shop, so you can go there and get it for as little as $ 5 a month. So you too can be out there using your microphones to record a show, or interview people, or, I don't know, most people probably have, like, bands and, you know, rent instruments and stuff, which they also do. They have a huge selection of instruments, so...

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Go there. They'll have whatever you need. They certainly did with us for the mic. So yeah, go to doo-wop.com and check it out. What are we recording, man?

Are we recording something for your podcast? Yes, we are. And what kind of podcast is this? Movie related. You can tell harrowing tales of the film industry if you'd like.

Harrowing tales of the film industry. We don't have time, man. We don't have time. I'm on a mission. You can do a little promo if you want.

Hi, this is Robert Carradine. That's my name. I'm listening to Movie Meltdown. I'm not actually listening to it because I'm making the recording that you're listening to, which is almost live, except it isn't. You can be listening.

I could be listening to it, but I'll just have to wait until I find it on the Internet. That's available. I'm sure it is. Go to www.moviemeltdown.com. All right, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Come one, come all to our Giant Flea Market, where you'll find bargains galore. Be a buyer, seller, or a swapper, or just come for the fun of it.

You'll find antiques, hard-to-find merchandise, things you've never dreamed of owning. Anyone with a garage or closet full of goodies can become a weekend moneymaker. For the time of your life, bring the whole family for all the fun at our Giant Flea Market. A refreshment stand will be open for your convenience. It's part of your problem, you know.

You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. And now, on with the show. Living rooms, bedrooms, dinettes. Oh, yeah.

You can find them at the market. We talking about flea market. Montgomery. It's just like, it's just like a mini mall. Oh, yeah.

Come shop with us. I said flea market. Montgomery. It's just like, it's just like a mini mall. Hey, hey.

You heard me. Come shop. Living rooms, bedrooms, dinettes. So anyway, we were talking about the press release for this little indie film, which, again, in fairness, I love that Michael Bay is like, it's only going to be a million dollars. Like you know like.

Because in fairness i think at this point for michael bay anything under like a budget of under 100 million dollars is a little indie flick for him. Well the budget ultimately wound up being 20 million and he's still calling it his little indie film because he used his own house he went all john cassavetes on it and was like we'll just do it in my house yeah but did he. Use his wife that's the real question because i've seen women under the influence and jesus christ like that takes some serious cojones to be like yep i'm married to her um No, that's kind of interesting, though, that he would decide to do that. Because, again, that just doesn't seem like the kind of filmmaker that he is. It might be that after a couple more films like this one, if he ever does more, that we might have to actually re-evaluate Michael Bay's career, which is something that no one would have ever said at any point.

Hey, we might have to re-evaluate Michael Bay at some point. I like to say. The way I always say, Michael Bay could have been the greatest assistant director in history. Oh, yeah. He could be the best special effects tech or stunt coordinator.

He could be the best side technical person you could ever have on your team. I've got a friend of mine who is every bit the movie snob that I am, and he actually loves Michael Bay's movies. And he says, you know, two things Michael Bay has consistently in every single film he ever does. One. There is always some new technique that he is showcasing to its best and fullest effect in special effects.

Like, always. There's something that he's doing that's amazing. And two, every one of his minor characters is absurd and unforgettable. And sometimes horribly offensive. Yes.

That was the counterpoint that I proposed. To which he said, well, at the end of the day, he is still Michael Bay. That's what I don't get, though. Just that kind of stuff. Like, I mean, if you want to be, like, completely audacious and over the top I mean that's fine but like some of the like 12 year old bullshit that I'm like really have you not grown up any more than this or just small minded like don't you live in a city with a diverse group of people and you really don't need to pin anybody down like you're weird little side characters because it's kind of bullshit to me.

I don't know. It's difficult to. Explain that kind of mentality or to talk about it because I don't think it's like, I don't think it's necessarily like a reflexive racism or anything like that. Some of it seems. Like it is.

Well, I just mean to say that I don't think he's like I don't think he's trying to be offensive or pigeonholing or anything like that. I don't think he's going out of his way to. Exactly. But it seems to me like he's got some kind of, it's like we said with that sort of, it's like that hacky bad screenwriter thing. I was thinking of actually the poster to one of the Shrek movies had the line, where my witch is at.

And Michael Bay is the kind of guy who's like, oh, that's pretty clever. That is hilarious. I could put that in a movie. As opposed to the rest of the world who just went, oh. But that's the thing.

I don't think Michael Bay thinks about it much after that. He's just like, oh, that's pretty clever. I can throw that in the movie. Because I don't think that that kind of content has... He doesn't think about the content of his films on that level at all.

He sees something that he thinks is kind of cute or amusing, and he'll throw it in there if he needs something cute or amusing. Uh, I would agree. That's probably, I mean, most of what he does seems like he just sort of goes with it and doesn't stop to work on it in an artistic sense. It's just kind of goes with his gut filmmaking. And I mean, it obviously works.

He's made a fortune. I just don't appreciate a lot of it. No, it's, and again, it's sort of surprising. Uh, and we probably don't want to swallow up this entire episode talking about Michael Bay. Um, but it's surprising to me though, uh, I guess, uh, at the end that, you know, for a guy who I've read interviews with him and honestly in the interviews, he comes off as a pretty nice dude.

Like, like he's always pretty like, uh, when, when, when he talks about criticism of his films, I've heard him say things like, well, my movies are just supposed to be fun. And I'm sorry, those people don't like to have fun while they're watching my movies. And I was like, that's a very fair thing to say, you. Know, like none of this nice stuff is what Megan Fox talks about. Yeah.

Um, but that's just it. Jennifer Garner. There's, There's a great old episode. I remember seeing it at the time and being like, this is the balls on this girl. She was on later.

And I think maybe Alias had just started. Like nobody knew who she was. She had nothing to lose. She was just a girl. And she'd been in Pearl Harbor.

And she just talked about how there'd been like one take where they had to do this big boat movement thing. And I guess she had flubbed a line. and that he had just gone off on her until she cried. And the whole episode was just her talking about what a dick he was, which I thought was really refreshing for, like, a young starlet. I mean, Megan Fox gets to do that because she's Megan Fox, but, like, this was, you know, just kind of this young spunky girl who hadn't really done anything yet. Yeah, that's pretty impressive.

Now she can still say whatever she wants because she's married to Ben Affleck. Well, and in fairness, because she's Jennifer Garner. She's, like, for some reason, even without... I've never watched Alias, and I haven't seen most of her films... I mean, like, I've seen Juno and Daredevil, you know, which I think showcase a diversity of sorts.

But the thing is, in a weird way, though, even I have this sensibility that Jennifer Garner is somebody who, like, I can kind of respect. Like, she doesn't take crap, you know? She seems pretty cool, but it is one... I was kind of amazed how much she's seemed to drop off lately. Yeah.

And I really am like, is it just because she's having kids? Like, is she actually putting parenthood before her career? Because in a way, I've got to respect that, too, but... Most people in Hollywood will not do that. She's also working on that marriage.

I don't know if you remember the acceptance speech, but it takes work. The best kind of work. That's not how marriages in Hollywood go. I'm sorry. Regardless, just real quick, I want to put a cap on the Michael Bay thing.

I think that. What baffles me, I guess, like Jennifer Garner, it makes sense that we're sort of like supporters of her. We enjoy her work. We like hearing her in communication because she strikes us as being someone who's pretty neat. Michael Bay, on the other hand, even his fans are vociferous about like, well, his movies are just supposed to be fun or they're just supposed to be entertaining.

Why are there such bafflingly large numbers of them, one, who are so. Obnoxious about the defense of these films like I've met so many Transformers fans who are just like who are just like hey you can't criticize Transformers it's just supposed to be fun or it's just supposed to be entertaining so shut your mouth like you know I'm just like what okay what have you done to inspire these kinds of people to be behind your movies like you know people who simultaneously seem to anyway you get what. I'm saying and when does it get fun is my question Yeah. That's just me. Yeah.

So that would be the thing I'd say about that, just to put an end to it. What is it about Michael Bay? That's why I try to resist whenever I'm talking about him, is to separate him from his fans as much as possible in that regard. Because sometimes I can tell that I'm mad at Michael Bay just because of the people I've met in lines to go see Transformers when I'm trying to see something else. Yeah.

Well, since I won't really go into it because I've already kind of covered it, but I did want to ask your response because I didn't hear anything. Did you see what I posted about the film that I reviewed on the website? Which was basically my tie-in to be like, if you're not paying attention, we're actually putting written reviews on the website. So, you know, MovieMeltdown.com. Written reviews.

Anyway. But my question was, as I got into review... Actually, I was totally... I'd already watched this movie. I had my horrible things to say about it.

I'd written two-thirds of the review, at least. And then in going back and checking stuff, I just kind of once again noticed the name and clicked on the director's info. Did you see what I posted about the Kiss of the Damned? No. No.

Because I posted it directly to you because you're the main person I know who would care. I couldn't follow that link, and I didn't know. I saw the picture of Zan Cassavetes, but I didn't know what it corresponded to. She is the writer-director of Kiss of the Damned. And what is Kiss of the Damned?

Oh, God. Again, for the full rundown. It's got a fabulous poster. I'm sorry. It makes me think of those old horror movie posters from the 70s, and I'm like, that's awesome.

One of our people, I posted the picture of it. One of the guys on the Facebook page said that. He was like, wow, that poster's awesome. I'm like, Yeah, I think my favorite thing about the movie is this poster. Yeah, is that...

Oh, wow. It really is kind of my favorite part. Is that Catherine Deneuve on the... Because that's what it looks like, you know? It kind of looks like her.

I'm not familiar with the other two. But it looks like one of those, like, you know, English or maybe French, like, actresses in one of the Hammer films, you know, or something like that. The whole cast, except the main male lead, seems very Euro-trashy. But the. The Milo of Amiglia is sort of our main guy.

And to me, he's like the only real recognizable person. The rest of them, I'm not, I'm sure they have fine careers too. But yeah, I got midway into it and like was writing that review and like clicked on it and went, wait, wait, wait. The daughter of John Cassavetes made this. The daughter of Gina Rowland made this.

I was just like, what the hell? Haven't we already suffered that realization with Nick Cassavetes? I mean, no, let's be really honest. That's kind of why I wanted to ask you about your thoughts. There were never two more perfect people to meet and procreate.

And you would think that their children would be these super geniuses of just limitless talent. Which she very well might be, but it's not coming through in this movie for me. She seems pretty. Yes, she's pretty, and she means well. I mean, again, I'd already written the whole review, and then I started reading this thing of like, well, okay, I mean, she seems like she was really interested in this.

Like, she seems to really like the genre, and she was interested in this idea of, like, vampires trying to find some sort of humanity in, like, searching for this ideal life because I guess they have eternity to do so, which it's a little too Harlequin romance-y for me. She was a very good child actress. I mean, you have to keep in mind, Nick Cassavetes directed The Notebook. Wow. I mean, the man that directed Woman Under the Influence and Minnie and Moskowitz and Love Streams spawned something that made a movie called The Notebook.

Wow. A movie that you get the feeling that, like, I mean, I don't know, of course, how his dad felt about that, but I get the impression that, like, Cassavetes, when he was younger, was the kind of director who wanted to haul out directors who directed things like The Notebook and shoot them. Like, literally, like, haul them behind a theater and shoot them. And Lucy's nodding. She agrees with me.

Again. Like, I imagine... Did he keep this project a secret from his father? Well, he was deceased at that point. Oh, yeah, yeah.

If not, that would have killed him. But that's just. I know, but the thing was, is, like, was the... was he like, it was his dad like, so what kind of movies do you want to make son? And his son was like, uh, art films, you know, or, or some spiral bound movies, please. Well, the first disrespectful thing that he did, and I actually feel badly speaking ill of him because I've, I've heard nice things about him as a person.

And I'm, I'm sure he's Cassandra seems very nice. And since I drove Reese Witherspoon to drinking, I don't, I don't want to ruin more lives. I hope you're happy about that. That was your fault. But, um, The first thing that he did that rubbed me the wrong way was when he made that script.

And I've already forgotten the name of the film with Sean Penn and Robin, then Wright Penn, that was the unprecedented. Film that John Cassavetes was going to make. And actually, Harry Dean Stanton's in it, and I still thought it was terrible. I thought it just completely missed the spirit of all of his father's work. I'm talking now because Lucy has to be a storekeep.

You can have one of those if you like. You're very welcome. Man has porpoises all over his shirt. I liked that very much. Yeah.

I think they were actually killer whales. They were killer whales all over that shirt. I liked it a lot. I was going to compliment him, but then I felt like giving him stuff and then complimenting him would be too much. Now you're just suckering him into something.

You're going to try to get him to invest in your real estate. You can still chase after him. Hey, hey, I wanted to say I really loved your killer whale shirt. And I have some Swampland. I'll meet him in the food truck line.

I mean, I don't want to seem like I'm desperate or anything. I just wanted to tell you that I like your shirt. So now I'm picturing you in the line behind him in the food truck being like, hey, so remember me. I wanted to tell you I really like your shirt. All right, all right.

We have to pass beyond the part of the show where we're embarrassing Lucy. Because that part of the show will come later as well. We don't want you to think you're off the hook, Lucy. We're just giving you a temporary reprieve until we can find another advantageous moment. Like if that killer whale shirt guy walks by again.

We'll whistle at him and be like, just point to you for a few minutes. So, yeah, I don't know. That's the thing. I won't go too much into the whole movie. The reviews on there, I have issues with it.

And I think it's mostly writing. I think visually, what is your version of how she says that? I think it's actually Cassandra, isn't it? That's her birth name. Is it Cassandra?

Okay, I thought it was Alexandria or something like that. Or maybe it is. Is it Alexandria? I think it's Zan is how she says it. Zan, okay.

Zan Cassavetes. And yeah, she was in a lot of her dad's movies when she was a kid. I mean, when they would need kids, they'd throw in their kids, the Seymour Cassell's kids, and whatever kids were lying around. So that's her only work I know. Well, I mean, yeah, and this is her first, like, story-based feature like she did a documentary and then she did this and like again i think visually she's got she's got skill like i think she really does she she delivers these like dreamy gothy romantic you know visuals and that's the kind of thing she was going for in this movie so i think visually she can do that kind of stuff but i have a lot of issues with the writing.

How is it on emotional truth I asked. I know that sounds like a very, now you're just cracking up. But I found, I mean, I almost feel like Nick Cassavetes is a sociopath. Like, I feel like, now's where I just start straight trashing him. I was like, no, no, no, let's hang on a minute.

Gloves are off. I mean, what makes John Cassavetes' films so amazing is just how human they are and how he can just see through all of the bullshit and he can make films that resonate so much. And I feel like Nick Cassavetes is just surface notebook bullshit. I mean, there was nothing about those relationships that felt real or tender or profound. I know with Fierce, 13-year-old girl, they do.

But there's nothing actually nuanced about those characters. The interesting thing to me is that. You know, you spoke a lot about Cassandra, is her name, her technique, her... Alexandria, we can't decide. Whichever, yeah.

We'll go with Zan, because that's how she... She even on the poster bills herself as that. Zan Zelda, whatever she is, said, Zan Zen Zelda, my new character name. She. You talked about her technical skill, and I want to support what Lucy said about Cassavetes.

One of the interesting things to me is how he was able to achieve, like, I think back to some of his early work like Faces, which is a film of great stylistic ability, but in the surface of more or less pure emotional response. There is a lot of stylistic manipulation, like dropping off of sound and really interesting raw camera technique. But at the same time, never do we feel emotionally distant from what's going on. It just brings us way closer. And that's kind of the neat thing about Cassavetes is that You can watch some of those really experimental films from that period in Europe or the United States, and sometimes they feel kind of sterile, or they feel kind of disconnected.

And that's sometimes part of their message. The New Wave guys definitely had their weird relationship with emotions and how to register emotions, but Cassavetes was, no, no, it's going to be raw, it's going to be to the bone all the time. Whereas Nick seems like, I don't know, he's mastered the romantic blockbuster, which is, of course, its own sort of style now. And that's The Notebook. It's this very straightforward Hollywood film.

And then simultaneously we got Zan, who apparently has technical skill but not the depth of her dad. I just think it's interesting because their dad had married those two so very, very well. Yeah. But you've got to keep in mind, too, some of the stuff about those early films of John Cassavetes weren't choices that he made. A lot of it was just, you know, we're a bunch of friends.

Let's make a movie. Hey, you play the guitar. You want to be the sound person? Like, you know stuff about audio, right? You know, I think that's fair to say.

But at the same time, I think that, you know, sorry, having been in that situation a couple of times, I feel like I can say that, weirdly enough that I remember that convinced me thinking that like and seeing like clerks and and you know an early like new wave films and stuff I was just like yeah I'm gonna get out there with like handheld black and white camera I'm gonna make a masterpiece. Like, you know, cause, cause I don't got nothing. And so I'll of course come up with all these and it's like, no, no, like there, there has to, no, no, I really don't got nothing. You know, John Cassavetes, like, I guess my point is, is that no, what you're saying is absolutely right. He was definitely control.

He was definitely constrained by his resources and whatnot. But the point is that he had that eye and that vision and, to bring together those elements in. A way that worked really well. Absolutely. And he had that style from the beginning.

He had that rawness from the beginning. And it's just interesting because the combination of the two, like technical ability and the ability to really direct people, is not common. Yeah, that's true. And I think his background as an actor as well, I mean, knowing... what it takes to bring something out in a person. I mean, his ability to work with actors and then to have those actors be his friends and his family and the people that are closest to him.

I mean, all of those films have just such a great, just, I mean, there's so much love in them because they were made by people starring people that were a family. Yeah. And maybe that was the situation with Ryan Gosling and Nick Cassavetti. I can't, I can't speak to that. Who knows?

What I think is just based on these last two conversations, it's sort of the perfect balance. Like, the notebook is transformers 2 i mean it is it is exactly the same thing because you can't argue that movie doesn't work for somebody and a lot of somebody so it's like it may be in in many people's mind like devoid of anything useful or real but same with transformers 2 and they both made a fortune to like the opposite ends like here's what the guy went and saw and here's what the girl they had split up in the lobby and met back up at the end and drove home and like I don't know. Had a great night. It works. Yeah, I mean, they work for somebody.

It's funny that, like, we have so many issues with them, and most people, probably most people listening to the show will have issues with both of those things. They don't want to watch Transformers. They don't want to watch The Notebook. But, like. But they probably have watched them.

Oh, yeah. Because they have definitely been in a time where they were surrounded by six or seven friends who were all like... the notebook is happening right now. And i'm enough of a geek that laura broke. Up with her boyfriend we're watching it again god damn. It i don't want to talk about this stuff if i haven't seen it so i watched transformers i saw that first one in the theater until i learned my lesson and didn't go back to the rest of them but like it's one i feel like i need to watch the stuff before i start talking smack about it but but yeah it's just funny that like there's such a divide in Not just this country, I would say this country, but probably more so in the world because those ridiculous movies like Transformers work so well once you leave this country that like they have an appeal that I don't understand and I can't really put my finger on, but like they make billions of dollars with this kind of nonsense.

Well, you know, this is one of those situations where the easy thing to say is that critics or those of us with critical, who consider ourselves to have critical apperception of films, you know, you really need to be wearing more clothing if you're sick. I mean, what are you doing out here? It's just You make it. Sound like I'm naked. I'm wearing a sweater and a skirt.

You're wearing a sweater with holes in it. You're wearing a sweater with holes in it that doesn't even go up to your wrists. It's a capri sweater. And that's it. Just that sweater.

That's all she's got. You really should come out to our live shows, people. Yeah, yeah. They're a lot more exciting than you think. And Brian's wearing nothing but his hat.

I really like his hat. And I'm just wearing my assless chaps. Like always. But the point is that the easy thing that people say about those of us who claim to have critical apperception in films is that we're detached from film. We don't actually understand anything about film.

We just like to talk about film. We're also usually detached from normal society. Well, that's just it. To sort of walk away from that attitude, let's let's face it, I remember it was a big revelation for me. No, seriously, like this only happened like a couple of years ago when I realized that, wow.

So, I listen to music, like all music that I listen to, I listen to because I kind of want it to change my life. No, seriously, like I rarely put in a CD where I'm just like, where I'm not asking myself, okay, how's this going to change my life? And then after like, you know, it's a lot of pressure yeah well it. Is but you know it's also how things are it took me a while to realize that wow when people put in cds sometimes they really just want a sound playing around them while they like get dressed to go to work you know and i I know you're staring at me like I'm a weirdo here, but it's true. I was baffled when I discovered that sometimes people just watch movies just to have something on.

They're not watching it like, okay, how is this going to be awesome? Or something like that. They just kind of, what they say, want to be entertained. I rarely approached my entertainment that way. I'm actually one of those people.

I think if a film aspires to be important. And it fails and it just winds up being trivial but mildly entertaining, then it's a failure and I don't like it. But as long as the movie's just like, let's have this be fun, I'm all about a fun movie. No, excuse me, I don't want to sound like I never listen to anything that's fun or I say in the most dour voice I can. Or watch like a fun movie.

Like actually that's one of the ways in which I try to defend John Carter to people all the time. Cause that's a, that's a movie that I think could have been so much better. But at the same time, I kind of just want to say people watch that movie. I like that movie. Yeah.

I like that movie. Uh, uh, in fact, I think in some ways it's, it's comparable to what the prequels should have been. You know, it's also comparable to what the source material, like it was a pulpy story. Yeah. And I read, I read pulp sci-fi like, like, like Edgar Rice Burroughs all the time.

And you know, I, I think that that's great. And I, and, but it's, there's a weird mentality though. And maybe it's the transformers fan. Uh, I don't know what, what it is, but there's a weird mentality that's very resistant to certain films being criticized and, because they are quote-unquote fun. The Notebook is one of these films.

People will defend that movie to the death for whatever reason, and that's, I think, one of the reasons it earns our ire. It's because what has this movie done to earn so many people's devotion? I mean, I gotta say, I saw it opening weekend and hated it before anybody liked it. But that sounded really hipster. I was hating that before it was cool to hate that.

Yeah, you can't see it right now, but she's totally wearing a fedora on top of her fedora. But it was just, I mean, it's schlocky, like, I mean, it's a terrible movie. It's silly and it's... trite and it's just lots of swelling music and. I'm one of those that will allow people to like what they like and like again. I don't know you're not allowed to like the notebook.

But i like i like a lot of crap and i realize that and i'm just like you know i will disagree with you guys with your transformers and your notebooks. See i take a i take a different stance i say you can like what you like but you shouldn't ever let other people like what they. Like see the thing about the notebook. Is it is the kind of film that offends me because it does aspire to something no this is it aspires to actually it's pretending to be a good movie it's I'm gonna work out a really good metaphor in my head and I'll come up with it by the end of the show but I mean if it was just like oh here's the romance but it wants to be iconic and powerful and somehow is just by the weight of its own assertion I'm sorry I I'm suddenly thinking back to another movie, Dances with Wolves.

Which I've never actually seen. Okay, well, I often think of it, Lucy says she's never seen it. I think of it as a. I like how you said it like it's a claim and not a role. Sorry, I was trying to repeat it.

I was trying to repeat it for the mic. But anyways, allegedly, she's never seen it. Lies, it's all lies. But really, of course, she's seen all of Kevin Costner films like five times in a row. But the truth is, is that.

I think that movie is pretty much like the prototypical 90s historical wannabe epic film. It's got the swelling strings and all the appropriate scenes just to tell you that this is the moment where you should be feeling emotional and things like that. And there is a style of filmmaking that really seems to play into that. People show minor interest in our wares and then wander off. I always feel like the girl at the dance that's just sort of like sitting up a little straighter when people come by and pick me, pick me.

I know better. I just go hang out in the corner. Well, you are surrounded by the two slouching guys who are still not dancing. So, yeah, this is a reproduction of that experience for all of us. We're selling more stuff.

Oh, yay! You're a real Harry Dean Stan fan. That's fantastic. It's pretty exciting. Awesome.

I didn't know. Yeah, third year. It's in Lexington. It's a little drive, but worth it. A friend of mine delivered a pizza to him one time.

No way! In Los Angeles? No, in Los Angeles. Hang on. It's beautiful.

He was at the hotel where the... Do you mind? Wait, can we have this story on the air? So this lady says that. It's actually right over there.

I can't even come over here. But he delivered a pizza to Harry Dean Stanton. That was your. Probably in the early 90s. Okay, so yeah.

Come over and tell the story. Yeah, your brother, sorry? My friend. Your friend. My little friend.

Friend delivered a pizza to Harry Dean Stanton. I know. Right over here. That is my Harry Dean Stanton. Come here.

Tell. Come and tell your story. Oh, this friend is here. Yeah, he seems like a friend. Okay.

I've made this story my own. I actually delivered a pizza to Harry. There you go. At this point, you might as well own it. Oh, fuck him.

He's not going to come over here and tell the story. That's right. Fuck him. That makes the story mine, right? Exactly.

You are all the stories that you own for yourself. So go ahead and take that one, too. Oh, wow. Yeah, and we have a new doc... The one I'm most excited about, this documentary, Partly Fiction, that just came out.

Well, it hasn't actually come out. It's a pre-release. It won't come out until later in the summer. So we're one of the first... festivals has gotten to show it in. America is it where people tell lies about having a whole.

Pizza section family and friends you could be one of the friends i feel like if he doesn't want his story then i should probably yeah i could get some more details about what kind of pizza it was oh i actually really do want to know whether he was. In his pajamas or not there are things we want to know do you. If you can find out and report back. We'll be here all day. Just in a towel with cowboy boots.

That's how I picture most of the time. Good work. Keep up the good work. Lucy, you were on that. That's a tie in here.

I think I was born to own the store. That you work at and sell stuff. I confess, I forget everything I say immediately after I say it. People sometimes accuse me of like, but you said this like months ago to me. And I was just like, I was a different person.

It's my standard bullshit line. Well, I've been through a lot of changes since then. My cell structure is very different than it was at the time. Coping with all these changes right now. I've listened to a lot of David Bowie.

And he has changed your life. Yes. You can call that my Ziggy phase when I said that to you, and now I'm more in my Berlin period. So we probably want to get back to something to talk about. Did we exhaust all the things we were ranting about?

I don't know. You finished your notebook rant? Yeah, I think we were kind of doing a sort of, movies we've seen lately thing. Well i was gonna throw one out there just because it's actually recent while it's still sort of a current thing uh and see if you saw it which uh i i did go see iron man 3 me too have. You seen i have not okay okay.

We won't ruin anything two for three but i again i was done and i'm just like well um and it's the same thing i said like the first movie like i'm just like there's one thing that sells this movie it's called robert downey jr He just owns that, and specifically that role. Tony Stark is him. And it's funny that it's become that, because I've said this before. I was like, that first movie, that's not true. He's not this super successful, cocky jackass that's king of the world.

That first movie, he was down on some hard times, and he was making that comeback and fighting to get back to that point. and actually rose bigger than he ever was in the 80s. But it's funny that now, watching him in 2 and 3, he's almost just playing Robert Downey Jr. at this point because he really is that A-list Hollywood superstar. He's got money again. He can do whatever the hell he wants in that town. It's funny to watch him play that on screen because it's actually come true in the real world.

We can talk about Robert Downey Jr. 's career as an entire episode. I wish, honestly, I was more acquainted with it Because most of his early stuff I still haven't seen, and I really want to. But the Iron Man movies are an interesting paradox to me as Marvel movies. I mean, on the one hand, they are a lot of fun.

I really do enjoy them. But on the other, when I look at them as films, I'm almost invariably underwhelmed. I find them workmanlike, but not particularly inspired a lot of the time. I would not say that about the first one. I think the first one's really good.

It's a different kind of superhero. No, no, no. I would agree with that. I'm just saying, even so, I find them typically... Typically, it's Robert Downey Jr.

's performance that really blows me out of the water more than anything else about the film. But the big paradox in the movies, I think, for me, as a comic books fan, is the fact that They made a bunch of Iron Man movies that are that embody kind of a paradox both of production and of storytelling which is the paradox of storytelling is the iron man movies are all about the armor you know like he's not really iron man until he puts on the armor and there are all kinds of metaphors and themes that are bound up in that but the production paradox is that you can't have a movie where a guy named Robert Downey Jr. spends his entire time with his face covered. Yeah. So what are you going to do? Right?

Like, so of course the, the, the conflict, and I feel like this is actually really interestingly handled in the third film is the difference between like, what are we going to do about the armor, not armor question? Like, like, uh, how are we going to handle this issue of making a movie, which all the major scenes of which he has to be in this thing that covers up the fact that he's Robert Downey Jr. Yeah. Um, so that theme I think has been pretty well explored. Uh, I don't think they've had, I don't think they even worried about it as much in these other, I mean, they obviously did as an issue just making the movie, but I think it really comes into play in this one and I like the way it comes.

Yeah, no, that's, that's kind of what I wanted to gesture as that, like the other two films, like the first two films, I, I feel like that was in the background. That's one of the things that made the first film such an interesting film is like watching him, developed the suit of armor as like an extension of himself. And he says at the end of the first film, I am Iron Man. Like he, he pronounces it like it's always something he owns. Like, you know, it's something he's really big about.

Um, but then that sort of goes in shades through the second film and then the Avengers. And then back to this third film where again, they're confronted with the question of how do we make a movie about a super hero named Iron Man and and yet have him in his armor as little as possible through the movie or something without looking like we're trying to have him in his armor as little as possible. And this one definitely finds that way to do it. Yeah, so I think that's just really interesting. Anyway, so that was sort of my take on Iron Man 3, at least as far as that theme is concerned.

I don't know. I think that was the bulk of it for me. I think it's so much based around how he... plays Tony Stark, and how much of his character comes through, and how they, the way they, again, this one's, I think Shane Black came in to do this one, and I like the way it's written. It's written in a way that, like, is not, again, a not a normal superhero movie. It's not a schmaltzy little, oh, here's the kid angle.

We're going to work in the kid, and we're going to have heartwarming moments. He has one of the several of the best lines in the movie are made to this small child, and he's a complete and utter bastard to this child. And I'm like, that's the Robert Downey Jr. I know. By the way, it bears noting, though, this is, again, I think part of the brilliance of this film, these films, like where it is, is with sort of Robert Downey Jr.

's performance, and I know that they wrote a lot of the lines there because they, or I, sorry, I assume that they wrote a lot of the lines in that film because they knew that he could deliver them in the right way, because there's The thing is, when he first meets that kid, there's an instant connection. You see that when he first looks at the kid's little workshop. He's just like, oh, I get it. This kid's kind of... And they're both.

The thing is, yeah, he's a total bastard to this kid, but also the kid is a little shit to him constantly. The kid tries to blatantly emotionally manipulate him at every turn. And Tony Stark's like... Well, I'll manipulate you back. Screw you.

It's two small children talking amongst themselves. That's why you never feel like it's bad. It's because at no point do you feel like Tony Stark is the adult who's abusing his privilege with this small child emotionally. No way. No way.

They are totally on the same... Anyway, sorry, Lucy. I'm going to stop with this. But the point is that, yeah, what brilliance there is in those films definitely comes from the fact that Without Robert Downey Jr. 's performance, you couldn't make such a unique character.

And you couldn't build... And the films would not be unique without that unique character at the center of them, is my thing. Because what I mean about the workmanlike thing is the conflicts, the struggles, the resolutions, everything else kind of plays out the way I'd see it in any other film. With Robert Downey Jr. though, at the heart of it, it always feels real fresh and kind of unexpected. Well, and what I always thought was cool, especially in that first one, is how grounded it is.

Like, that first one in particular is, like, such a real, like, again, it's so different for a superhero movie. Like, it's not, hey, I'm, you know, fighting supervillain. Again, they get to that later, but, like, so much of it in the beginning is, like, he gets abducted by terrorists, you know? I mean, it's sort of centered in the real world, and, like, he's... he ends up, like, you know, building this big clunky metal thing that, like, is actually a real world kind of thing in the beginning there, and then it becomes this weird, you know, CG polished thing later, and it becomes a little more of a superhero, but it starts off in such a real world, you know? It's like, he's not, he's dealing with selling arms to other countries, you know?

It's like, it's something that they don't normally get into in, like, you know, the DC universe, when you get a big happy Superman movie, and, you know, it's all about these ideal situations and Superman's always, you know, defending the honor of America and the rest of the world. Yeah. Where this is just like, it's like, it's very down in the dirt dealing with him selling arms to other countries, kidnapped by terrorists, you know, kept hostage. You know, that's, that's, that's one of the things, the advantages that I think Marvel has over DC in some respects is that the DC heroes that have continued to maintain their popularity. And this is not by the way, a knock against DC.

DC has a, enormous roster, actually, very interesting characters that don't get enough love. I always grew up with more of the DC thing, so it's funny now that I'm sort of discovering all those. Yeah, to my mind, DC, like, DC had an occult sort of line of comic books, a bunch of, like, characters that come off as, like, these weird left-field superheroes, and I don't know, they've had some interesting stuff, but the ones that have survived are so archetypal, like Batman and Superman, that making a film about them is sort of inherently complex. Okay, we got the story guy again, the guy who delivered pizza to Harry Dean Stanton walking by. I will not tell this story.

Anyway, he's not telling his story. Anyways, though, but you're right, is that the Iron Man films have such, it's like, The first film and the third film really belong in the trilogy. The second film is kind of a, eh, it's a throwaway. Who cares? Yeah, I had issues with the second, but again, I don't even blame...

Yeah, it's not even a bad... I don't even blame Favreau, really. It's like, that was the machine. Like, that is why we had Avengers. Yeah.

And Avengers works, but I don't think they could have put all those pieces together. They couldn't have tied everybody in. without doing something like Iron Man 2, and the thing is, it kind of ruined Iron Man 2 in the process. Yeah, no, it's, Iron, yeah, no, and I'm sympathetic to that view, but the thing is, 3 concludes what we saw in 1, or at least it brings it to a new place, which is, in one you know you mentioned he's abducted by terrorists so what's the first thing that he does i mean this is of course his way of getting out was building the suit but the first thing he does when he gets home safe alone oh hell no he's not safe alone he immediately goes down into his little cave and starts building another suit of armor and then going out to get him and it's like and the funny thing is about that is of course yeah sure then he goes after him but but does he like no he's like He's cocooning himself.

And that line is. Used in the in the in the third film is like he immediately retreats into his world of machines and weapons and like technology. And he builds a cocoon which will keep him safe and everyone else, too, because, you know, I can't let this happen to other people. And he totally like the film never really brings this up. in the first one, but he totally goes into post-traumatic lockdown. That's what half of that film is, is him going into egotistical post-traumatic lockdown, and then the third film deals with the fallout of that plus the Avengers.

The Avengers. I like that they... And again, most movies, especially sequels and superhero kind of stuff, don't have that through line where they're like, okay, not only do we acknowledge what just happened in the last movie, but... He's still dealing with what just happened. Oh, no, no.

That was wonderful. Not to mention the fact that they did something which I was afraid they were actually going to do with the Avengers movie when it occurred to me because I realized, oh, crap. Like, out of all those movies, Iron Man was the biggest movie. Yeah. Like, they could.

I've seen the posters, man. They could very easily make the Avengers movie... the Tony Stark movie. They could make it the Iron Man 4 or something. And it's arguable whether. He, I mean, he does still kind of steal the show.

Well, sure, but I would argue, yeah, I would argue it's more because it's Robert Downey Jr. Again, it's his performance. I wish that he had, as much as I love Mark Ruffalo, I wish that Edward Norton had been around because I would have loved to have seen those two go head and head. Kind of, yeah, I was so impressed with Mark Ruffalo. Well, that's because it's Mark Ruffalo and he's an incredible actor.

But still, I'm a huge Edward Norton fan. That's also why I say that. Giving more stuff away. But anyway, finish my thought there. The funny thing is, to me, after Avengers, they could have made that the Tony Stark movie.

They didn't. And then in Iron Man 3, what's one of the first things that he says is, I was just up there with gods and heroes from World War II, and I'm just a dude in a tin can. He's totally melting down. I was like, dude that was such a road they didn't have to take and they did and that was wonderful like of showing like iron man in a weak place because of the people he was just confronted with and tony stark in that place you know. That's what i've always sort of respected about that that situation with with batman like he's he's a real guy and especially once you get into that dc universe and he's dealing with you know you're a god from another planet who can fly and do whatever you want and I've got a gun that shoots things.

Really, in the animated series, they do some really impressive stuff in those straight-to-DVD releases where they're just kind of like, he's dealing with people who all around him actually have superpowers, and he doesn't. So it's funny, I hadn't paid that much attention to Iron Man, and as I watched that first movie, I was like, he's just kind of the Marvel Batman. He built himself into a superhero. He's a guy, he has no superpowers, he just has a lot of money, and he turned himself into a superhero. That's an interesting aspect, because it makes him a real character. where I don't feel that with Thor.

I can watch Thor, and I'm like, he's a demigod from another planet. Why do I care? Funny enough, I still have this weird love with the Thor movies, which, by the way, the Thor movie was being made in... new mexico and i was living in santa fe and like you know that the crew and everything was hanging out around the town because they built that entire set that town does not exist in new mexico i'm sorry the small well-kept up little town in new mexico populated by 90 white people does not exist. Uh, in New Mexico. Um, it, uh, with, with selling scars guard, just hanging out and no one's like, Oh, that's weird.

Uh, and a Starbucks across the street. Hell no. But, uh, but, uh, yeah, no, actually, yeah, it's funny. My friends in a, also in, in a scene, I, I basically, when, uh, when selling scars guard takes that, it takes a Thor out to get a drink in that film. That's actually a, uh, uh, a.

Titty bar in Santa Fe, like the titty bar in Santa Fe called cheeks. Um, A friend of mine is in that scene like she's like dimly glimpsed in the background or whatever. And yeah, anyway, it's like it's like when I see that, I'm like, oh, wow. So he took Thor to Cheeks to the strip club. Oh, man, that's kind of gross.

You don't want to lean on that bar, dude. That's the thing. I didn't hate Thor. It was it was like the last one I got to, though, in that run, because I was just not all that impressed with it. I think, you know, he gives a good performance and the story is more interesting than I expected, but I think there's still that disconnect.

I think because he's this super-powered character that I'm just kind of like, you know, it distances him where Tony Stark's a guy and, like, he's... It's funny that they cast Robert Downey Jr. and didn't really go into this because then as you read the Marvel storyline, he's dealing with alcoholism and he's dealing, you know, it's like he deals with, like, real-world problems and, like... It's funny that, yeah, they cast Robert Downey Jr. and didn't really go into that because I expect I was like, if anybody can bring some depth to that, I think Robert Downey Jr. is the guy. So if they continue making these with him, it'll be interesting if they go down that road. But yeah, I think that's why I'm a little more attached to Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr. is because he still plays it. human being in these unreal situations.

But at the same time I can see why that's why they cast or sorry why they grabbed Branagh to do the original Thor movie was because you know they were like okay if anyone can make a convincing film about like a bunch of gods like spouting you know epic dialogue at each other like it's no big deal and then segue straight into a real world situation from that Probably Branagh. It's that weird Branagh character. Yeah, and I only wish that they had had a slightly better script for Thor, even though I found it enormously entertaining. I felt like there was a lot more to be wrung from that scenario. But yeah, because that movie is weird in so many ways.

But I will say this, though, is that I wasn't actually all that excited for Iron Man 3. I wanted to see it. I was going to see it. But no, I was much more excited. I'm much more excited about Thor 2 and Winter Soldier.

Winter Soldier I'm really excited about. Again, it'll be interesting just from this franchise to see where they go with everybody. Okay, let's wrap it up so she can eat. Yeah, she's freezing. She's been antsy anyway, but now she's throwing a tantrum.

Well, I was just thinking if you guys are going to talk Iron Man, maybe I could go get some food and then come back later. Like 15 minutes into our Iron Man conversation. Only half an hour in. We talked about the notebook for a long time. Yeah, right.

But derisively. That didn't make you sick or need to eat. You just like trashing movies more than enjoying them. I see where you're going. Lucy's just a negative personality.

Yeah, especially when I'm hungry. So I think we're going to, again, this place is overrun with food trucks. So I think we're going to go see what there is to eat. So we'll leave it at that. We actually will be back.

Uh, this is another one. This is sort of getting us out into the world because when we come back next week, we will be at Wonderfest and, uh, we're, we're planning some, some cool tie-ins and, um, we're supposed to be bringing in some guests, some new special guests, a returning special guest that I, I'm interested to see, uh, what he thinks about coming back on the show. And we'll be unveiling lots of new stuff. We've got the new T-shirt that we will be doing our official unveil next week, and a new poster, too, both of which are done by some pretty impressive people. So all of that and more coming next week.

Anything else to add on this one? Go get some food? All right. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next week.

Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. I don't want anything from the flea market. I don't want. Anything from the flea market.

I don't want anything from the play market. Thank you. Wow, that's a big truck. Yes, sir, we are impressed. 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!