238: This Clutter of Genre Stuff in my Head

Hi, this is Tom Adkins, or Detective Ray Cameron. You're listening to Movie Meltdown. Thrill me, baby. It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.

It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. Science is real. Monsters are not. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown.

I'm Brian. And I'm Greg. And we are coming to you live via digital recording from Fandom Fest. We've been wandering around... What's your take on it so far, Greg?

Confusing. It's kind of confusing. Yeah. It's spread out. And a map would be nice.

And I've wandered a lot. It's downloadable on the internet. Yeah. I wonder how many people actually did that. Or the rest of us that just wandered around like we did.

I didn't plan ahead. Yeah. We're in a room for body art. We have our own conference room. Right.

We look like celebrities. They have water and tables with tablecloths set up for us. We are kind of celebrities. I mean, you had your picture taken earlier. I had a random person walk up to me and ask if they could take my picture.

I don't know if I should be insulted. I'm not sure. I don't... Yeah, I know. Because for those of you listening, he's not wearing a costume of any sort, really, except the normal dork costume.

Right. But, like, not really in cosplay mode, as they would say. You're just. jeans and t-shirt and a baseball cap yeah yeah and i guess here that's so weird it's like a novelty and they were just like dude can i take your picture he must be somebody. Well you're that guy from movie meltdown right international sensation right. Maybe that maybe they did you know speaking of people recognizing i've got two stories since you know i'm taking over the show.

Please do because we've passed by a few people today but most of the other crew has disappeared or who knows where they are this week so feel. Free they're out they're out doing real things um i am uh i work at a big facility and there's a lot of people there and there's been a couple of times where this individual has that i don't know has kind of waved and awkwardly kind of like said hi all right and um i didn't know where i knew them from like they knew me but i didn't know them and apparently they listened to the show and that's it i said like yeah like um they got one of our flyers at one of the movie theaters and and probably listen to the, it was the, and they listened to the show and then I guess saw picture online or something and knew it was me.

So it was kind of weird, like almost celebrity moments, you know? I mean, it's just, it's interesting because yeah, it's celebrity, but no, far from. So, but I mean, it is, it is the weird world that we live in now that you, and we've, we've brought this up before that like you can, know people and never come in contact with them, you know? Like, I mean, even as simple as your Facebook friends may live on the other side of the country or the other side of the world, but like you might talk to them every day and like you may be way more engaged in their life than your family that lives here in the same town, you know? So there's that aspect, but there's also, especially when you get into podcasting, because it's such a one-way thing, it's like you, like I realize how much I yammer on about my own feelings and stories.

And I'm just like, I think sometimes there's somebody out there that knows way more than they probably need or want to, but like, it's because I do it with other shows too. And I'm just like, I will talk about stuff that happened to this person as though they told me personally about this story. They didn't, they just talked about it on their show. So it does give you this weird intimacy that like, it's also extra weird because it's like one directional most of the time. So it's very strange.

Before I actually started on the show, I listened a lot. And I remember referencing to someone at work about, we were talking about movies, a guy that loves movies. And I mentioned, actually, I wrote into the show talking about this. I think I remember this. I said, oh, yeah, my friend Rod said something about this movie.

And it was this wave of, oh, my God, I'm telling a story. about a person that I've never, and, and you know what? I've still never met the guy. He's downstairs. That's the thing. I still never, never met the guy on the same podcast as he, and, um, and referenced him as my friend, but it is, you get to learn so much about people that you, um, especially when you're listening.

Yeah. And you think you've had these conversations with them and you haven't. You've, you, I mean, you do, you experience them in a weird way. It is something that like we, we, that's why I think our brains are just going to break because I, I mean, there's so much stuff that's happened in these last 25 years that like, I don't know if our brain is designed to handle that. Cause I've brought it up with media before.

I'm just like in media in general, like, you know, when it was a hundred years ago and every once in a while, a newspaper roll around with a story in it, you know? And like, that's all you got. Whereas now if you turn on the news or the internet and like you were just bombarded with information, like, for like live this very second from around the world in multiple places and I'm like it's almost overwhelming like it's kind of too much information and too much horror sometimes for your brain to handle so it's like I don't think on that level we're not really ready to handle that much information also the personal stuff it's like I don't know that our brain like we do have these weird relationships with people that we're not physically in contact with and I'm wondering if in years to come, that's going to have some sort of psychological aspect, you know, some sort of like effect down the line that like something will come out of the fact that you, we, we've lost a certain part of our interaction.

That's like a real world thing. Well, it's preparing us, at least for me, it's preparing me for space travel because. It's preparing me for my cyborg body. Right. Currently working on when I'm traveling, you know, uh, seven year round trip to Mars and back to be the first person ever to land on Mars.

Um, I'm going to be able to, I'm going to want to be able to stay in contact with people. And I can be, I mean, when you say all over the world, Hey, I could be on another world and still finding out what people had for breakfast on Facebook. So, um, it does feel like another world. Sometimes some of these people on Facebook, not you guys, other weird. People, those that don't listen to the show. but that's almost like that overwhelming.

You talk about the overwhelming of sensations and media. That's almost like what it is here too, though, when you do get into the convention. Halls, especially for geeks that don't leave the house very often. And I'd say both of us fall into that category. You have all of this, not only I'm talking about with the vendors and all the material that they have, but just the people.

And you're just getting bombarded with, Oh, that's from that thing. Oh, that's from that thing. I don't know what that's from. Is that from a thing? It, it, it's your, your sensors are kind of overwhelmed.

Um, what was that came up with on the way here? Um, is that fancy Bane? He had sort of a Bane mask on, but like a top hat and a cane. And I'm like, what? I'm not sure what you're going for.

Bane's going out on the town. Fancy Bane. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's a bit overwhelming, um, at places like this. And, um, yeah, you just, I can't take it all in.

I can't take it all in. There's a lot to deal with. But, I mean, we discuss having that weird, like, connection with people on occasion, and sometimes when you leave the house, that actually happens. It happened earlier today, and in a weird, in a way I didn't expect exactly. A little while ago, I talked to Fred Decker, and he's one of those I've kind of, like, thought we should talk to just because we like you know, his movies and we've discussed his movies in the past.

And like, he had such an impact on like a specific group of people, almost that generation. And that, that weird resurgence had had, and it kind of hit the pop culture in a weird way that I was like, you know, if nothing else, just talk to him about that. But there was also sort of a shift in his career that I was always sort of puzzled by. And I wanted to hear his take on it. So as we get into this, like he gets, really honest like and that's kind of what I like I mean we've had that with a few other interviews lately and like people will just that's why I like the show to be as conversational as it is and not to be an annoying interview but like to actually just sit down and talk to people and even if it's just in the middle of a convention like sometimes they actually stop and like have a conversation and like talk about what is really going on in their lives or what's really happening to them in the real world and like it's kind of nice when people do that so that was I was surprised how like open and honesty was about these situations that came about.

So I think we'll take a break here and when we come back, we will get into our little, we're doing that continuing directors thing and we will, we will do our focus on Fred. I don't want to go home. I don't want to leave the floor. Someone turn the lights down for. The kids are locked.

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Use the Meltdown code. That's all I'm saying. Usually with this segment, I kind of try to sit down with directors and just sort of get into... Usually I like to start at the very beginning and see what was your cinematic inspiration. When you were a kid, what was it you were drawn to?

My dad was a big movie buff, so I didn't have a problem like I think young people do now with watching old black and white movies on TV. So I discovered the original King Kong and... mostly fantastic films, the Universal monster movies. I didn't have a problem with watching old movies. I also fell in love with a lot of the great comedians, W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello.

And I remember learning about Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein and And then seeing it and that being kind of the holy grail because it combined those two genres in one, the great comedians and the universal monsters. It planted a seed you didn't even realize. That's right. I don't know. Was there stuff you started looking at as far as like visually that sort of made you want to go into it from, you know, the directors that somewhere down the line you wanted to actually direct like from that? cinematic standpoint well i think.

There comes a point for every filmmaker where they where they make that transition from the the viewer to wanting to kind of kick the tires and see how it's made for me that was actually jaws which remains my favorite movie to this day i i went and saw that movie the first time and i was just blown out of my seat Because it was the first time that I saw, that I could see the fingerprints of the director. That I felt like there is a vision and a voice here. And that's what I want to do. Because I'd already been making my little Super 8 stop motion animation and getting my brother to have a fake, you know, carry this gun and run down the street and you're a secret agent. I'd done that since I was 11 or 12 years old.

But Jaws, suddenly I went, oh, you know, it's not that different from being a novelist or a poet or whatever. You actually control the recipient's experience. And that was really revelatory for me. So that's when I became really interested in shots and how you use the medium to tell a story. It isn't just setting the camera up in a wide shot and having the actors act.

It's like a close-up has a meaning. There's a reason for using a close-up. There's a reason for moving the camera. There's a reason for editing quickly or editing slowly. A wide shot is different than a tight shot.

So that vocabulary became interesting to me. And then the door opened and I was a goner. It is interesting with Spielberg that that's such an early movie in his run that he was already that established. I mean, that's almost his first real feature. The other one sort of went out in theaters, but that was kind of his first big movie.

Well, I'm a Spielberg nerd, so I have to take issue with you. Sugar Land Express is amazing. I do. It's an amazing movie. I always put Duel before.

That, but I forget. But even Duel is kind of a miracle because it was only made in, like, 12 or 14 days, and compare that to any thriller of its kind, and it's shocking how fully formed a vision and a talent he was at that time. So I was aiming pretty high. I'm sure the generation before me was looking at Hitchcock and Orson Welles and guys like that, so that's a pretty high watermark. When you watched, with sort of a Spielberg tie-in, when you watched Super 8, did it seem a little nostalgic for you, running around with the camera like that?

Sure, absolutely. That was my life. That was exactly my life for quite some time. Well then, I guess, at what point did you get into it as looking at it to be sort of a profession, or taking it somewhat seriously, at least? Just before I started looking for colleges... you know, what college are you going to go to and what is your major going to be?

So I immediately gravitated towards LA because I knew I wanted to do it for real. And to make a career, I'd have to probably start there. So I applied to USC and I applied to UCLA and I wanted to go to the film schools there. And neither school accepted me into their film program. Both universities accepted me, which was you know, frankly, kind of a coup for me because I'm, you know, it's not like my GPA was through the roof.

So I ended up going to UCLA and I was an English major, but I started making my movies and making the friends who I still have to this day, many of whom are in the industry and just sort of started carving my way. Well, that was that boom. I mean, it probably was impossible to get into because after Spielberg hit and Lucas hit and Coppola and like Once those guys all became big, then suddenly. It became the thing for everybody to do. From what I heard, yeah, the USC and UCLA, the film schools were just impossible at that time because that.

Became the thing to do, and everybody wanted to do it. So then, I guess, at what point do you start writing exclusively, or were you doing simultaneously, like planning to direct somewhere. Down the line? Well, it's a little known. Actually, it's a well-known secret... among those close to me, I've never wanted to be a writer.

I was never interested in it and I don't enjoy it all that much. But at that time, that was the way in. Yeah. Guys like Larry Kasdan and Coppola, as you mentioned, and Paul Schrader had carved careers as directors through being screenwriters. Nowadays, if you're in the effects business, if you own a little digital effects house, that's your way into being a director.

In those days, it was writing. So I started writing in college, and everything I wrote was terrible, and I threw away the first three screenplays that I wrote, and I would really strongly encourage anybody listening to this who wants to be a writer, the first or the second or the third, they might suck, guys. gals, just accept that and be willing to accept that and say, you know, but the third or fourth or fifth might be good. So my third or fourth or fifth, it was actually my fourth, was, I'm not saying it was good, but I felt like, okay, I'm ready to show this to somebody. And I was out of college and I showed it to a friend of mine, Ed Solomon, who had just broken in. He's since written Men in Black and directed Levity and written Now You See Me.

And I mean, he's a big deal on the Bill and Ted movies. And Ed had just broken in. He was writing for Laverne and Shirley. And I said, I need an agent. And he had met somebody who he liked who he hadn't signed with.

And I said, great. So I just followed that lead. And that became my agent who I'm still with to this day. So which number was house? As far as just coming up with stories.

Because I guess really that wasn't even screenplay, was it? House came from a period when myself and my college buddies were very enamored with the Twilight Zone. And the Twilight Zone movie had come out and we said, hey, let's all, each of us will write and direct a little segment. So my contribution to the group's effort was this story of a Vietnam vet who was having kind of post-traumatic flashbacks. And is it real or is it not real?

And that kind of was the seed for what became House. And then I said, I want to be a director, so I'm going to make a real cheap movie. And what's cheaper than shooting at your parents' house with one actor? And my parents actually owned a Victorian house up in Marin County in the San Francisco area. So I said, okay, guy goes into a house at the beginning, comes out at the end, and in between is just the scariest shit I can come up with, and a Ford.

So that was the idea, but I never wrote the script. And Steve Miner hired me to write a Godzilla movie. He had the rights from Toho to do Godzilla, and he wanted to do it in 3D. This is how forward-thinking Steve Miner was. 1984, he wants to do a 3D Godzilla movie, which you'll see in theaters next year, by the way, that he didn't make.

The 85 mini-comeback before he bastardized it again. Right, exactly. Godzilla comes in cycles. But it was a very exciting first opportunity, and I met some great artists. I met...

William Stout and Dave Stevens and Doug Wildey, who were doing storyboards and designing the movie. But it was never made. But Steve was my boss. And my friend Ethan Wiley, who was my college roommate, said, listen, if you're not going to write that house movie, let me do it. So he wrote the screenplay.

I showed it to Steve. Steve said, I want to make this. And they made the movie. So that was my first screen credit. Very cool.

So were you already at that point working on Night of the Creeps? Yes. In your head? Yes. On paper?

Yes. Was it fully formed as what it became, or did it sort of change as you went along? It was much like the movie, kind of a hodgepodge. I've only recently become interested in cooking. I was never much in the kitchen, but lately I've become interested in it.

It's taking different flavors and different foods and combining them in an interesting way. I had this clutter of genre stuff in my head. whether it's zombies or sorority girls or two-fisted gum shoes. And I just started putting things into the stew. And actually, the Tom Atkins character was the first thing I came up with. And his line that everybody loves, thrill me, that was actually the first thing that I wrote.

I said, that's a real attitude kind of guy. Who is this? And I decided he was a detective. And I just sort of built from there. Like, okay, now he needs a reason that he's a detective.

So what's he detecting? So then I came up with, well, I want to have college kids and have, you know, I was very influenced by Animal House. Yeah. And it just sort of came together, all these disparate elements. And I'm actually shocked that the movie's coherent at all.

Well, I do remember when I went back and watched it in recent years that I was like, it is amazing how it kind of hits so many different genres. Like it really does kind of like, it's a little of everything and it does tie together nicely. So yeah, I guess we're all impressed that it worked out. Because it actually does work. It does.

It's kind of coherent. Yeah. It comes through. Well, I guess, did you get funding for that at that point? I mean, that was the first real feature going in.

Well, Hollywood was totally different in those days. Nowadays, it's all based on, is it based on pre-existing material, a video game, a toy, a bar of soap? Is it a brand name that everyone recognizes? A. B.

Can we market it? C, can we spend as much money as possible? That's the way movies are made now. In those days, just an interesting script you could send to a studio and they'd go, oh, hey, maybe we'll make this. Now I'm just throwing off on your idea.

I'm just picturing the trailer for Lifebuoy this summer. Exactly. That's pretty much what it's come to now. It has. The Quaker Oats guy, you know.

It's a prequel. How did he get on the Quaker Oats box? Bill Paxton is the Quaker Oats guy. Exactly. I can see that.

Well, then I guess you get into that one. Does it seem like it's going well at that point? Well, I wrote that script. I was being paid as a writer. I was in the Writer's Guild.

I wrote that script, and I was incredibly full of myself, wanted to be a director, threw it to my agent, said, I'm directing this one. That was the deal? It's on the market, but they have to let me direct it. Nice. And a wonderful guy, a producer named Charles Gordon, who produced Die Hard and Field of Dreams and a lot of great movies...

He really liked the script, and he took it to Jeff Seganski, who was running TriStar Pictures, and he said, you've got to read this. The way Chuck tells the story is, you've got to read this tonight because we have a lot of offers from other studios. Of course, he hadn't shown it to anybody. That's how they work. And Jeff loved it, and he said, has Fred shot anything?

And I had a little 16mm film I'd done that wasn't even finished. It was only like five minutes. And we sent the film over, and they said, let's go. Let's do it. I guess, how did you get to that cast?

Did you have your detective already mapped out as far as who you wanted or dream casting? You know, no. I was interested, I loved Hal Holbrook because he had done a couple of movies that I loved and I thought he might make a good detective Cameron. But I think what I've learned and I kind of knew then was even though it's a star-driven business and the actors are the most important thing in the movie, you can't go in assuming, like being too preconceived about about the performer because someone may surprise you. You can't close yourself off to surprises.

In the case of Tom Atkins, he walked in and he read the lines and I went, that's him. I turned to Eileen Starger, the casting director. He left the room and I said, that's him. We're done now. We're done.

That doesn't always happen. In fact, it happens rarely. So that was a no-brainer. And we auditioned a lot of people for that movie, but we finally cobbled together the cast we have. Well, did that one lead directly into?

Because it's a pretty quick turnaround on Monster Squad. Did they just, one kind of flow into the next one for you? Yes, because I was starting, I was prepping to shoot and I had this crazy idea that we talked about earlier about the little rascals meet the universal monsters. And I had a dear friend in college named Shane Black who had never written screenplays. He read a lot of crime novels.

He was interested in like, books. He read a lot of books. And he said, what's this deal with screenwriting? I said, it's pretty easy compared to writing a novel because you don't have to get inside characters' heads. You just write where they are and what they do and what they say.

And I said, and I have this idea for Little Rascals Meets Monsters. You want to do it with me? And he goes, great, okay. So Shane basically wrote the first draft of Monster Squad while I was making Creeps. And towards the end of production, we were finished and I'd taken a pass at this script and Shane turned out to be a fairly gifted screenwriter as it turns.

Out as it turns out now. So I can say I discovered him because he wasn't doing it until I asked him and we we set it out and because Creeps had yet to open and fail I was hot the script clearly was pretty good I have to give Shane his due he really made it sing and we made the deal before Creeps was even finished so I went directly from one to. The other Did you come up with, like, designs and stuff as far as, like, that Gilman is awesome? Like, did you sort of come up with those in your head beforehand, or did that get done in, like, production? No, that was very me being a director in that case.

It's like, who's the best guy we can find to do this? And at that time, there were guys like Dick Smith who wouldn't do it because his arena was different. He'd already taken off at that point. There was the Rick Bakers, and there was this guy named Stan Winston. Who we.

All just kind of loved. And he hadn't quite broken out. He'd done The Terminator, and he'd done some great makeups for television, and he'd done some stuff, but he also happened to... be, as it turns out, a big Monster fan. He loved the old Jack Pierce Universal Monsters. So we said, how can we make them different enough so that we don't get sued by Universal?

That becomes the plan, yeah. But still cool. And so we hired Stan. And, you know, once you've hired Stan Winston and his incredible team, it's kind of not a lot of, there's not a lot to design or think about. You just let them do it.

He'll show me pictures and I'll go, that's great. And then he'll show me more pictures and I'll go, that's great. And I didn't have that much to say because everything they brought me was so fantastic. Yeah. Well, then, I guess as both of those come out, were either what you expected as far as box office?

Because, I mean, you're putting together two good movies, but then, I don't know, it seemed like they didn't take off at the time the way they later would. Creeps, for reasons I'm not entirely clear about, had a regional distribution in the United States. So it didn't open in L.A., but it did open in New York. Uh. it opened worldwide it was a big hit in germany it was you know there were parts of the world where it was really responded to quite well uh... but it was spotty spot only released in the u s and was largely a disaster and monster squad was a, as opposed to a, what did I call it, largely a disaster, Monster Squad was a crushing disappointment. I mean, they both tanked.

These movies both just hit the pavement directly out of the gate. That's got to be rough for you. I mean, putting that much of yourself into it. Oh, my God. I mean, my heart is clearly in both of them.

I think Monster Squad hurt more because we all knew that there was a sweet spot. that you aim for and rarely hit. And we felt like we had hit it. And it's such a beloved thing. Like, you can see it when you watch the movie. It really is part of you.

And I think everybody in the cast and crew, I mean, it really does hit that part of, you know, we were all those kids that love monsters. And it really does feel that way when you watch it. It's a very sincere picture, but it also, I think, works as just an entertainment from that era in the Amblin mold. Yeah. It might have been marketing.

I think more than that, it was timing. It was not the time in the world for the Monster Squad to appear. Because you can make a great movie at the wrong time and nobody will see it. You can make a lousy movie. There's no predicting.

It's like chemistry. You never know what the chemical alchemy is going to be. I mean, it is sort of that idea, like it hits or it doesn't. And even looking at an example like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie didn't do that well. Big bomb movie.

A few years later, that's all it took, and it hit. And that same idea people love. Exactly. Yeah, it must be all timing, really. Well, then I guess what led you to RoboCop 3 after that?

Well, these two movies bombed. I was basically... Out of work and the phone wasn't ringing. And then I got a call from Joel Silver, who I had sold a script called Ricochet to. Which I really like, by the way.

I love the story for that. Yeah, that was actually originally a Dirty Harry movie. I wanted to do Cape Fear by way of Dirty Harry. What if Harry sent somebody up the river and they were pissed? I saw that in the theater and I like it quite a bit.

Well, so I had a relationship with Joel and Shane at that point had written Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout. And he had a relationship with Shane. I mean, with Joel. And Joel called me and said, Bob Zemeckis wants you to write the first story in an anthology show we're going to do called Tales from the Crypt. Nice.

And I dropped the phone and fell on the floor because I'm a huge Bob Z fan. Yeah. And so I wrote the very first episode of Tales from the Crypt and then did a couple more after that. I directed one and I wrote, I think, five in total. And that kind of kept me going until the call from Orion Pictures came. who were trying to adjust RoboCop for a wider audience.

Because the Verhoeven movie is a very dark, it's a comic book, but it's a real grim, dark, satirical, bitingly satirical comic book. And the second movie was even more harsh in a way. It's more violent, and it doesn't seem to have the focus that the first movie had. It's just violent for the sake of being violent. Yeah.

And it loses some of the satire. It loses the satire, or it's misguided satire. And what Orion found was, well, kids are watching these movies on video, and they're making toys, and you know what? Maybe we should refashion this character for a family audience if we can. And in retrospect, it was a fool's errand.

It was a suicide mission. But I also couldn't say no. They offered me Robocop 3. As a director, at that time, I was like. This is a real great opportunity.

And, I mean, he is a great character, and it is a great idea. I mean, how much control over what they wanted to do with it did you have? Well, I think the notion of trying to make him more family-friendly was the fatal mistake. I also feel that the character's arc was completed in the first movie. If you know the movie, he's a cop who is murdered, and who is resurrected as a cyborg and solves his own murder and at the end of the movie says my name's Murphy which is the name that he was when he was human so he's come full circle and reconciled so the truth is it's not like he's James Bond or Batman or these characters that can you know repeatedly be you.

Can't tell that same story at that point it just becomes a one-off kind of tale. He's just a guy clanking around shooting things and doing you know wisecracks but the truth is as a character he's kind of complete. You've told the important story in his life yeah yeah so i don't know does that what does that do career wise because it seems like after that you you change things up quite a. Bit the movie actually i think did better in in its initial release than anything i had done but it was sort of universally loathed and i'd always had a pretty good defense mechanism with emotional stuff and that one i just I think I just kind of sucked it up and went, okay, let's move on. And I continued to write and I made a deal with Fox, an overall deal.

And I wrote more scripts and tried to reinvent myself. But the truth of it is I was deeply depressed. And I only realized this years later. I was really depressed. It's like I put my heart and soul into these movies.

All of which, like them or not, are sincere. They all have a heart to them. Yeah, they definitely. And I got the shit kicked out of me. So, in a way, I've been struggling ever since.

But. Just to find the drive to do that, or to find the right story, or. To redefine myself. Because in retrospect, I think apart from Monster Squad, I probably made the wrong movies. If I had my first movie to do over again, it probably would have been a romantic comedy, or something American graffiti, coming of age, something that... allowed me to be to go in a cameron crowe direction instead of what i did which was kind of a george romero john carpenter direction and even those guys will tell you it's it's a pigeonhole.

It definitely yeah i mean as you find out at these places like that that your hardcore fan base loves you but it's a very limited little window exactly it does not always cross over in the mains. Exactly and and my heroes are guys like spielberg and robert wise who who did one of. Everything zemeckis exactly. So I've been a bit hampered, but I've always had something kind of in development. I wrote something that I was kind of pleased with that Jim Cameron's company was interested in producing.

And then I went from him, from Lightstorm, to another company that wanted to do it. And that one nearly came to be made... many times over about a 10-year period. So, you know, it's luck, it's timing, it's the right place at the right time. And in a way, I kind of had too much luck when my career started. Yeah.

So maybe I'm paying the piper now. Well, I guess, I mean, as rough as that period was after that, like, you hit that era, I guess, maybe DVD, or at what point was it? But, I mean, at some point, all these people rediscovered your movies, and, like, this whole new wave of I would assume, you know, from what I've seen, these movies, you know, Monster Squad and Night of the Creeps have just become fan favorites. Yeah, no, it's very gratifying. They found their audience 20 years later.

So I don't know, I guess, what is it like, you know, for stuff that you worked on, you know, 20 years or more ago to have people that then all of a sudden discover it and love it is... It's got to be kind of weird. It's depressing in the sense that I haven't made as many movies as I could have because those movies weren't commercially successful and Hollywood's very mercenary. What have you done for us lately and how much did it make? But I've always believed that film is an art.

I've never thought of it as something that's disposable and that's based on pop culture and based on the flavor of the minute. I've always felt that a movie is something that you can go back and look at it again and again and if it's good it will continue to reward you all my favorite movies do that so it's very gratifying to watch these movies and I see all the mistakes I see all the the bumps and warts but but I also see them hitting some kind of note that everyone responds to and that's really great because that's what I see in the movies that I love and I'm happy that I managed to pull off in a small. Way I guess that keeps sort of driving you do you have stuff that you want to sort of Do you have anything to get out there as far as stuff you're working on that people should look for?

I don't have anything that I can mention right now, but just know that I'm behind closed doors noodling and trying to come up with the next thing. And I'm pretty certain, I'll probably regret saying this, I'm pretty certain it will be completely different than anything I've done before because that's what I'm interested in doing. I mean, you definitely have such a love for it that you need to be doing it. It's all I've wanted to do since I was 12 years old. So the last 20 years has been really hard.

But I'm determined to get back on the horse. Yeah, I'm all for it. I say don't count you out. Thank you for your support. All right.

Anything else you need to pass along to people or any.... Um stop going to remix stop going to remix because the more you go the more the studios go oh people are going so let's keep making. Them or just badly written stuff like i just look. Well but you don't know it's you don't know it's badly written until you. See it trailers and i'm just like i'm like i don't see any good especially comedies comedies are so bad now and i'm like i don't see anything good in this trailer like if you can't come up with a good joke in like a three or four minute trailer like how is the movie gonna be any better than.

I'll tell you this I mean this seriously here's my here's my advice to to film goers just take some time and think about this what if you went to movies that you would never otherwise go to movies that challenge you that are different that don't have anybody that you want to see in and that don't have special effects that actually are the opposite of what you would normally go see Because that will change the paradigm. The problem is that we're all sort of in this Lemmings, you know, rats following the Pied Piper. And when Sony markets a movie, they're going to jam it down your throat and you're going to go, I guess that's what I'm going to go see. Ignore that instinct. Find the little, you know, multiplex that's playing the independent films, you know.

Look for, you know, the Brit Marling movies and the really obscure little dramas and things like that and stuff that they make in england and i think you'll end up stumbling upon stuff that's more rewarding to you than the big budget temples well. And that's what i think is interesting now in the film scene is the fact that because of the technology shift in the last 10 years i mean everybody is making movies and on the one hand it i mean there's so much stuff out there you'll have to wade through a lot of stuff that's not so great But it also gives so many people the opportunity to make a film that's not overpowered by the studio, that they really do have the freedom to make what they want to make.

So, yeah, I think that's the way for people to go about it. Because once you do that, once you start paying attention to the Little Engine that could movies, they're going to take off. There's going to be more power there. The giant apes are going to start to die. And you'll hopefully reboot the whole movie business.

Yeah. So if they threw a remake at you for any of yours, you're not okay with that? You know what I want to remake? I'm serious. I want to remake Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

They're working on a wild bunch, I hear. Yeah, sadly. See, if a movie's perfect, don't remake it. Don't remake it. If it's a great idea and has great stuff in it, granted, you can't replace Warren Oates, so that's a terrible idea.

But no, I would not remake one of my movies. I only made three movies. That would be pretty pathetic. I can see not even you, but if the studio comes at you, hey, we want to remake Night of the Creeps, we've got these people signed on. Do you still have rights to tell them no on something like that?

Do I have the right to tell them no? Well, first of all, they're probably not going to come to me. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying. I wonder if it had been passed on at this point.

And if they did, it would have to be either a lot of money or some compelling... Really compelling reason. I mean, the main reason that I would consider making a sequel to Night of the Creeps is to work with Tom Atkins in that role because I think that was so special and cool that that would be reason enough. Well, we're changing him. I mean, he's James Franco now.

You know that. I actually like Franco quite a bit. He's a lot of fun. He's a very good actor. He seems like a good guy.

All right. Well, I think that was the bulk. I think we got into a lot of really good stuff. So I do want to thank you for sitting in with us here. It's been a blast.

Well, yeah, anything you've got in the works, let me know. I'll be glad to forward it on to people and help get the word out. Perfect. I'm looking forward to what you have coming in. Cool.

Thank you. We'll be right back. I'm Dangerous Jamie. Joining me as always is Sarah. And we're going to talk to you about why you should be listening to the Gold Press broadcast.

Let's do that. Let's indeed. Why should they be listening to the Gold Press broadcast? Well, firstly, because it's awesome, obviously. Obviously.

I mean, that's a given or a given. A given, yeah. You can expect nonsensical puns like that. Yeah, with zero context. Absolutely zero context.

But also, we review horror films. Mostly, we review horror films, I would say. Well, yeah, that's probably the bulk of what we do. We also look at new releases, top five lists. We cover theme months.

Yeah, we do some horror news. Yeah, tell us about the theme months that we've covered. We have done Horror Behind Bars. Yeah, we did Clown Town where we looked at clown movies. We did.

We've done Trash Kings. Trash Kings where we looked at the films of Fred Olymbray, Jim Wynorski and David Ducato. Yeah. We've done a bunch of stuff. We've got Revenge Month in the works, Trauma Month.

So yeah, loads of stuff like that. Loads of stuff. So if you like horror films you should probably listen to the Girlfriend Scorecast. Absolutely. We're here and we're ready to believe you.

So that's not all you can get. You can also get Extra super bonus content when you subscribe to the feed. Tell them about it, Sarah. Tell them. Tell them now.

We do the. Gorepress Gorementry, which is basically us shamelessly ripping off Mystery Science Theatre. Yeah, basically getting drunk, chatting over the top of. A film, and hopefully being quite entertaining, I think. There are two ways to find the show.

You can find us over at iTunes by searching for the new Gorepress Gorecast. You can indeed. Or you can go to gorepress.com. And read all the great reviews, news, interviews, and everything, all there alongside the podcast. So come on, subscribe to the new Gorepress Gorecast.

Tune in, drop out, stay spooky. I'd recommend this show to anybody. Anybody who's into smut. Hello, creeps. It's me, the Crypt Keeper.

And you're listening to Movie Meltdown, the greatest movie geek show on Earth. 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.

All right, we are back. So thank you once again to Fred. That was an awesome interview. I have to say, I really kind of liked how cool he was about it all and just was so open about it. So that's, yeah, very cool.

And we'll look for whatever he has on the horizon. So now let's roll into some geek activities. All right. Aside from the fact of hanging out at a convention. And the...

And a tugboat going by. That would be the steam engine. Yeah. Boat yep steampunk yo steampunk boat all the they should put all the steampunk on the steam engine boat that would be awesome they really should i mean that's where they belong right they're like. Oh this is dirty yeah then they get there be like this is messing up my outfit.

Maybe i don't like steampunk i never intended to make fun of them i'm sorry I did, but I make fun of everybody's stuff. I don't mean anything extra to make fun of you guys. I mean, essentially a lot of that stuff is cool. I think it's just the... It is.

It's a lot of work is what kills it for me. I'm like, that's awesome, but I don't have the patience to like put that together or even put it on probably. Like it's just. I think the whole attitude... kind of gets gets to you eventually but i think everybody's beat that into the you. Know it depends i mean that's true of any of the costumed people is how seriously they take themselves like i understand being super serious and dedicated to what you're doing like that's awesome but like if you then take yourself so seriously once you put the costume on.

I'm like, okay, now you're going a bit far. That's just me. I know people have different takes on their costume characters. And do they see the Wild Wild West as their Holy Grail film? They're the only ones.

Right. I don't think anyone else is bothered to work that into their favorites. There was an episode of Doctor Who where they had a whole steampunk Cyberman. And that episode kind of was just kind of. Ah, the review of Wild Odd West once again.

Yeah. It was a thing. It was a thing. There was some mechanical-y stuff and some high-paid actors. Anyway.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Geek activities. So, did we decide we should go ahead and bite the geek bullet and talk about Pacific Rim?

Yes. I decided that this was the The big, loud, obnoxious film of the summer that I was going to take my kids to. Have they been to those type in the past? They've never been into a theater for the big release. It's always been, you know, I took them to the 3D Phantom Menace, which was horrible.

I mean, it's bad anyway, but 3D is not going to make it any better. It was a chance for my kids to see Star Wars in the theater. Even though it was the worst one, it's still Star Wars in the theater. So we went to that. I get it.

And my kid, six at the time, he loves the pod racing. I don't get it. He loves it. So anyway, we went to this. And um there were they were the only kids in the theater wow that's sad i had waited for the online reviews to see if there's anything that's the new one oh that's not yeah not star wars okay pacific i was like that's sad if no kids went to see star wars yeah no uh this was pacific grandma.

Pacific grandma i would think even at least some younger maybe not a kid a. Kid about 12 or 13 because. To me that seems like that's a perfect target audience like It is a 12 year old brain through and through. I think the PG 13 scared people away. Maybe, maybe.

Well, I mean, that's not a great trailer. I'll be the first to say that trailer kind of makes it look dumb. And I mean, some will argue that maybe it is, but like, I think it makes it look worse. Let's put it that way. I think the trailer dumbs it down a whole lot more than even the movie ends up being.

Yeah. It simplifies it too much. It is simple. I told them ahead of time, I said, it's going to be loud, it's going to be fights, but it's going to be fun. That's all we really need to go into it for.

It was loud. It was really loud. There were a lot of people that thought, hey, I think they thought, I could see it on their faces, like, why are you bringing a seven-year-old to this? But See, I wouldn't think that with that one. There's so many, like, other movies that I feel would be inappropriate.

But, like, I don't know. The three-year-old at Predators that we went and saw. That was fine. Or the kid that was at the Friday the 13th remake that we went to. There were a couple of those.

That was the same family, by the way. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of other things that I'm like, what are you doing? But, like, that's not true of that movie.

Like, that's just a big, dumb, fun movie. Like, kids should be able to enjoy that. It really should have gotten a PG. It's not a PG-13 movie. It's not really, no.

There's no sexuality in it. There's no... There's some cursing, but that didn't even have to be there. They could have probably taken out one or two words, and it easily would have been... Maybe it was graphic...

But it was cartoonish. Yeah. I mean, to me, robots and very unrealistic monsters, they're awesome. But, I mean, they're not like it's any sort of life form in the real world. So, like, to me, that makes it all very cartoony.

And, like, it seems like it's something that no kid would really have a problem, no kid I know would have a problem with. It really isn't much more than Power Rangers. That's what I was just thinking. I mean, it really is just like them– becoming the big robot and fighting giant monsters, which is what they did pretty much every episode. But the only thing is there are deaths, real deaths.

And, you know, I was traumatized a little bit in Star Wars. I mean, not Star Wars. Man, Transformers. When everybody was dying. That's true.

You didn't see that coming in the old school Transformers. Not the new horrible thing. He's talking about the animated one. Yeah. The others don't exist.

I mean, Michael Bay's Transformers don't exist. I'm talking about Star Wars. Yeah. 1986. Transformers.

Transformers. What? Star Wars? What is wrong with you? I don't know.

I don't know. Transformers. Not Star Wars. Yeah, 1986 Transformers. And Bumblebee cursing, that kind of traumatized me a little bit.

I mean, to me, that one did seem like it was pushing the envelope. Like, it was almost trying to be like, hey, kids. It was almost flaunting it. But, I mean, I kind of expected what I got out of Pacific Rim. Yeah.

Like I said, I knew it was going to be. I wasn't disappointed in any of it other than it might have been a tad long. To me, it did seem like there was a part in the middle where they did stop fighting for a while. And like, that's kind of what you were at that movie for. But like, I don't know.

Like if there was one thing I think it could have used, it could have had a little more like characterization. And I mean, we have kind of one backstory and one sort of relationship thing going on. But like the rest are kind of glossed over. Like so many of those side characters, like the other robots, we either don't know anything about them. Or we know the most basic thing about them, you know?

So, I mean, they just fall into the categories of, oh, we need this person or this type of person here. Well, really, they fall into stereotypes. We're going to have the high-technology Japanese brothers working together, and then we're going to have the low-technology Russians. You know, it's we're going to put this up, and you're going to fill in your 2D characters with your 3D racism. Yeah.

Which again is kind of what happens in movies that are sort of dumbed down. I mean, I didn't expect that kind of stuff going into Del Toro. Like he's just, he usually puts a lot of time into his character. So I think that's the only part I was sort of let down with was just the fact that nobody really has much character. I mean, I guess our female pilot has the big backstory and has like the arc sort of.

And because even our main guy, like, I don't know. It doesn't seem like it puts any effort into him. Like he just seems like he's just there cause they need a guy. And right. They already covered the brother story in the first opening scenes.

I mean, it's like, I don't know. We just don't get much from most of the people in there. Now the, the, um, and I can't remember his name. The, um, the head, uh, guy from, yeah. Idris Elba.

Yeah. Idris Elba. There we go. He's, uh, his backstory is a little bit. That's what I was going to say.

Like, he's the only other one that has a little like, but his comes into play with hers. And like, at the same time, he's so good. Like he's just acting wise is amazing. But like, I wish they would have gave him more. I wish they would have given him more to go into.

Like, he just seems like he's so busy being like, I don't want to talk about my past that like. We don't get any of it. So, I mean, I guess that is his character, but it seems like they're, Could have been more with him, and he definitely could have made it work no matter what they did because he's just– anything I've seen him in, he's amazing. Another thing I was very happy with– I always pay attention to how the female character is treated in these stories, especially when I'm showing my nine-year-old daughter. Yes.

And I really appreciated that they introduced her as– Really the smart one. The intuitive one. And then she basically can kick the lead character's ass. And so, hey, we've got a triple threat. Oh, yeah.

And she's beautiful. All at the same time. And then they copped out. Yeah. And they had to have the big fight between the two blonde guys basically over the girl or in defense of the girl.

Yeah. When. I kept going, okay, just have her step up and kick the guy's ass. Have her do it. Have her do it, please.

And then you have to go into her backstory where she was, again, saved by another man. I was okay with the backstory because, again, that's more of the history with her and the other guy. So it's like I was okay with that, but it does sort of– when you add both of those into the same character, it does kind of weaken her a little more than she needs to be. Right. So I was like they had this kick-ass female– And then pulled the rug out from under her and made her weak in a sense.

And even when she went into their fight, they kind of almost made it like, oh, well, is she really going to have trouble with this or not? And, again, it all works out in the end. But it's those things that are just planted in there that they feel like they have to. Oh, well, we gave her this much power. We we can't let her, you know, get through.

Without, which is also unusual with del Toro because he's so well known for like, not only like he works a lot of children into his stories and a lot of females and like, he's usually makes them very strong characters and like very independent characters. And like, it's, it's weird that this one seems so conventional for him and I don't, I wonder if because it's become such a big project now and because there's so much studio involvement that these are like notes coming from them or if maybe he just wasn't all that concerned about that and was busy designing kick-ass monsters because they are. But yeah, it seems like it's at the expense. It just gets a lot more mainstream cinema than I have ever seen him do before.

Even in his most popcorn kind of movies like Hellboy, he's still– does things very differently. He seems like he goes out of his way to put his own spin on everything and add his own personalization to the characters and a lot of that felt like it was missing in this. I still liked it. I still felt like it did everything it needed to do on the giant robots versus monster part, you know, and the effects are good and the monster design is awesome and There's so many good things about it, but there's still kind of that hole in it that it feels like it just needed to be fleshed out a little more character-wise. A little more depth, yes.

Yeah, it had that opportunity. I will say this. The report from my kids, their favorite part was the kaiju birth. That was kind of fun. It was pretty cool.

And I thought it was a good death to a good character, too. I thought that was. Sort of. Did you hang around? Oh, no, we didn't.

So, see? For those of you at home, if you haven't seen it yet, hang on to the end of the credits. Well, we tried to hang out, and they got too bored. That's the problem with having children. They get bored and need to run out quickly, so they can't sit through full credits.

Well, at the end, spoiler alert, Samuel L. Jackson shows up, and the Kaiju have a mission. They're taking them in on our side now. We're going to send them off as, you know, When the world has no one, the kaiju will come together to do this. Oh, God, I hope not.

I did see The Avengers, finally. I haven't been on here since I saw The Avengers. See, that's a good tie-in because I've watched it again, and I've watched it again since then. Wow. So I would like to get your take on it since we haven't discussed this.

It sucked. See, I am totally on the opposite side. I have major issues with it, but I love the writing in it. And I love the character development. To counterbalance Pacific Rim, I think that's what, to me, it's the opposite.

I think, like, the big grand story with the villains and all that is pointless. Like, it's just there to fill in a hole. It's just there because we need an end point. We need this. But along the way, I think everything that Joss Whedon does with the characters and with the dialogue between the characters is amazing.

I think it's good. No, okay, here. Let me put it this way. I, I enjoyed, um, the Whedon part of it. Yeah.

I'm very much, I'm a very strong. Yes. No. Um, he probably made it as palatable as anybody, but. I definitely think he saved it.

Like it hadn't been handed to anybody else. Probably. It might've just been a train wreck. Like it really could have gone down horribly in flames. And like he, not only made it successful box office wise, but I think he did add a lot to it that nobody else.

Would have done. But I think, I think to me, there's a certain amount of what is on the line. Um, and granted, yeah, I know the world could be destroyed, but your heart is really with the superheroes, not really the world. Because if you were concerned about that, all of the bodies being thrown around should be the concerning part. so, but, and people just, the, The people, all the millions of people that died in the film, those are the concerning parts. But I think it's when we've already established that Thor is pretty much unbeatable and that the Hulk is pretty much unbeatable.

The Hulk steals that damn movie. He does. For having two unsuccessful movies, it's amazing how much that character comes in and steals this movie. popular movie away from everybody else got a good actor finally they do that's that's one of my favorite things i love his portrayal of banner and then they actually do it is funny how much they actually still make him look kind of like him like they really you can tell they did use the cg like i thought maybe they just you know cartooned the whole thing in like they could half-ass it and like not really use him with the dots they could just insert the image in there but they really did like put the dots on him he's in those scenes doing it and it does kind of look like him.

Like they kept just enough that you can see that it's really the actor in there. So again, technically there's so much good going on too. I think the problem I have with it is that there's so much that has to be forced into the film to make it an Avengers film. Because you have to have all the characters and all of them have to have a role or a reason to be. Like Captain America, him even being in it, like at one point he has to save something, push a button for Iron Man.

That's his only part of the story at that point is he has to push a button so that Iron Man can save the day. Um, and it's just, it's just weak. I thought I, I, I, Which part? Just the trying to force him into that? Trying to force him in.

Because I think, I don't know, to me, I like the way that they work everybody into this scenario. Like, it does, and re-watching it, that's what I realized. I was like, I forgot it doesn't just happen. Like, it really is, they pick up these guys, and then this happens, and then this, and like, it takes them, you know, two-thirds of the way into the movie before everybody's really... especially once they steal one of our characters. And like, it really is the end of the movie before we get the whole team together.

So it, I don't know. I thought that happens natural enough that I was okay with it. But I mean, it does, it is weird trying to mix superheroes together in the same, like it's, I mean, it's what always annoyed me with the DC world is the fact that. Superman can do whatever he wants. Batman is just a dude with a plane.

And like, he just feels so like grounded to the real world where Superman's like a God and, So I think that's what I was, like, I was never all that into Thor because it kind of felt like that same thing. I'm like, why does he just get to do everything? Right. And, like, you know, Captain America is a guy in a suit, you know? I mean, granted, I mean, Iron Man is really the Batman of the bunch, but his suit is so badass.

Like, it kind of puts him par with most of the other guys. But, like, Captain America, like, he is a super soldier. Like, he is a superhero, but it is funny how much, like, he just doesn't have– all these other powers that these other guys do. I mean, he holds his own, but yeah, I was just like, and then it's funny, like mixing in like the two humans, like, you know, Scarlet has a gun. Like, you know, the Black Widow is sitting there like firing tiny little bullets and like everybody else is like using massive superpowers and like she's just unloading a clip on these guys.

I mean, she's like the Jason Bourne or Tomb Raider. But yeah, her character is not. See, I disagree. I really like her character in this. I think it like again and going back to like having a good. female in there i mean she's the only girl to represent girls in this movie sure and thankfully joss really liked writing strong women because her character is especially as you go back and watch it and watch how much she really is in control of every situation that she's in with the exception of that hulk scene like she is never not in control of what's going on around her and like she doesn't totally rely on the fact that she's super hot, but she uses it when it's necessary because it's an attribute.

And it's one more, you know, thing in her arsenal there. I mean, she's badass and she's strong physically, but she's also like smarter than half the people, you know, in this movie. So it's like, I think they use her really well. I would almost like to see like a movie of her. Like we've got all these other side movies that some of which I'm not all that thrilled with, but I would love to see a Black Widow movie.

Yeah, it would be too much of a... What was that Soderbergh... The one with the boxing hero. Yeah. It would be, okay, that's probably selling her character short.

Yeah. But that's, or, you know, like a Tomb Raider or like a. I don't know. I think, especially if you gave it to Joss. Like, if Joss was in charge of it, I think it would work.

Right. It could go horribly wrong, you know, once again, if you just hand it to any old director. But, yeah, I think if you let him be in charge of her character... You would have a great movie there. And I don't know.

I was annoyed by it. Samuel L. Jackson looked like he barely even woke up to play it. Well, he's done a lot of these movies now. Right.

He's got to turn up in every damn one of them. Right. So I don't know. And I wondered why Robin Schabowski's character was even in it. She just seemed– it's almost like they– she had a– a contract to be in a big movie or something.

Some of that. Um, but it didn't matter, uh, to the movie to have another character. It didn't have to be her. And it didn't happen. And I think what it is, I think with some of that stuff, I think they're just setting things up.

Like maybe down the line, she becomes a way bigger part of the next movie or a spinoff movie or the TV series, which he actually just is putting together now. So, I mean, there could be a lot of other ways that they're just, again, I mean, they're not stupid up at Marvel Studios. They've mapped out. so much of this plan that like you do go back and look at a movie from three years ago and you're like, oh, they really were setting this up to be part of Avengers. So like maybe they really do have it mapped that far down and they want to get somebody in there that they know is a recognizable name that they can hand another franchise to or something. It could be on TV.

You could, yeah, you could bring in an audience with just the person, you know, the recognizability of this character. So, I mean, that may be what it is. Cause I feel kind of the same way. I'm like, she has a scene at the beginning. And then after that, she just sort of stands around and tells things to Samuel L.

Jackson. Right. So I don't know. I, I think there's way too much good. In there.

I think the only thing that's a weak spot for me is, is that like the villains just don't matter. Right. But like almost in a way that I, like I don't even, it's not even a strike against it. Like we needed a villain who cares what it is. We need that big battle scene at the end.

And it's awesome. It's weird, faceless aliens that do not matter at all to the plot, but like it still works. It makes for an awesome battle scene regardless. I couldn't even describe to you what they can. Now that I think of it, I couldn't even describe to you what they looked like.

If I saw a toy from it, I wouldn't know. Where it was from. No, it was. A generic insert alien you stole out of a video game, basically. Maybe that's part of it.

Because the one thing my kids always notice is with my old toys or old cartoons and stuff like that, they're always like, Daddy, you like the bad guys better than the good guys. And if you don't have really cool... Like, Loki was lame. If you don't have really cool bad guys and charismatic bad guys, it kind of detracts. That might have been... that's one of the reasons why that's.

Part of the problem is, yeah, it's, I mean, they had to come up with a main evil force and they had to find a way to get it here. And like they, yeah, they totally were already pulling the strings and Thor movie to be able to use Loki. But Loki, again, really doesn't have that much to do. And like, I, and I don't blame that guy. I think he actually gives a really good performance as him, but Loki's character is always been weak.

Like he's weak in Thor and, And he's not really... If you have a big force for all of these guys to come together against, it doesn't seem like a Loki. He's just not a formidable enough villain to really bring this whole team to their knees. Which, by the end, he's not. In a way, that leads to some of the best jokes of the bunch.

You get Robert Downey Jr. just kind of putting him in his place. Or you get the Hulk scene is priceless. It has its moments that are pretty fun, but Yeah, I mean, he's not the grand villain that you need, and maybe that's still coming. Like, maybe that's part of where it's going. So, yeah, again, he's not the big villain we need for that movie.

But, again, like, that's the fill-in-the-blank part for me. It's like we just, we needed a villain, we needed a battle at the end. Doesn't matter who it was, doesn't matter how it happens. It's like as long as we get everything else awesome along the way, so. To me, it all makes up for it in the writing and the character development.

I think it was buildup for me for over a year since it was released, though. So many people said how good it was. And so my perspective was, I'm going to sit down and finally get to watch it. And I was, you know, it's another superhero movie. Yeah, I'm drawn to the part that nobody else is.

And maybe that's what makes me even more weird, even amongst weirdos. It's like everybody else. And I mean, that battle scene is awesome. But I am like, so, and that's what sucked me back into that second viewing. Like I was just sitting around and I was like, I kept thinking about that whole part in the middle.

And that's the part I even heard people bitch about is once they get on the ship, it's like this big long scene and there's no fighting. And like, I'm like, no, that's my favorite part. Like when they get on the ship and all the like dialogue starts and all the scenes between everyone and everybody kind of gets their little conversations back and forth. It's like, that's my favorite part of the movie. And like that, I went back specifically to watch that again.

Within a week, I turned around and watched it, which I never really even get a chance to watch a movie again. It's like usually we're just doing so much for the show. I'm just like, all right, got to watch this for the next thing. And like that one, I was like made a point to go back in because I just like that dialogue and those characters as they play together. And Robert Downey Jr. is so damn good in that.

Like he just is Tony Stark now. Like you can't– he's such a smartass. And, like, makes it work. He has just become that character now. And the fact that he, like, I mean, it is, like, such a juggling act for Joss to put that together because he should have stole that movie.

And it's arguable. Like, I mean, he definitely steals a lot of the scenes. But, like, you know, again, Hulk kind of does. But, like, everybody else sort of has their moments. Like, I think, you know, Chris does a good job with Cast in America.

It does, you know, it is harder for him to sort of hold his own against some of the other superheroes. But, like, I think he has some really good scenes. Along the way. And like I said, Scarlet is sometimes not really, you know, a. She's been much worse.

She's been, that's the thing. Like she's been in stuff and I've been like, oh God, what is she doing here? Like she's done some stuff that doesn't hold up to, you know, the caliber that she's at now. The A-list roles that she's given sometimes, occasionally she'll turn in a pretty rough performance, but like. this wasn't it. Like, I think she stepped up on this on a, on a silly superhero movie, you know, but she almost brings more to this than some of the way bigger, you know, high end properties that as far as like more dramas and stuff like that, I think she brings easily as much depth and character to this than she has in a lot of other roles.

So I don't know. I think it's, it's got so much there in that, that it makes me like it more now, the more I've watched it. Maybe I need to watch the second time. Yeah, forget the villain part. Just sort of cruise through.

Just gloss over the villain stuff because who cares? Yeah, just gloss over the whole reason to have them together anyway. I mean, it's true. All you want is to get them together. Who cares why?

Just get them together. We don't need a reason for a party. We're just going to have a party. Damn right. We're throwing our own damn party.

We'll tear up the city all by ourselves. We don't need aliens. That's right. Okay, kids, get out your decoder pins. For you members of the secret circle.

All right. So we will be back next week with a movie and this is your chance to go watch it now because it's, it's worth the end next week. We will be back with the film sorcerer from director William freaking. Oh, okay. It was, yeah.

One of those I needed to see anyway, they need to check all those off the William freaking list. So, one I've heard of, didn't know much about. So it will be an interesting conversation. So this is your chance. Go watch it now.

Don't complain later that you didn't know it was coming because you just heard about it. And we may, we just may have a special guest sitting and talking about it. So come back next week. Oh Lord. All right.

I think we've probably hammered on about superheroes and giant monsters and robots. And I guess we're definitely at the right place for that. So, um, I think that will round out this episode. Sounds good to me. Otherwise, that about does it.

We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Many times I walked the line, I rolled the dice and questioned my life. Many times I sacrificed and dealt with the pain.

I've been down this road before where the dead ends are, it rains. And it pours. I've been down below and it's the past that I paint. Well, I know. How it feels when you have to start again.

Now there's no one to save me. I know how it feels. When the world is gonna end But they'll see I'm gonna make a comeback I'm gonna dig six feet up tonight I'm gonna get it all back. I'm gonna make a comeback this time. Looking to my eyes to see a graveyard filled with dirt and defeat Looking to my eyes to see the weight on my soul Where the fallen angels sleep, the crooked hearts and the crossroads meet Where the haters say my name and carve it in stone I.

Know how it feels when I haven't got. A friend Even. When they're standing beside me But they'll see I'm gonna make a comeback I'm. Gonna dig six feet up tonight I'm gonna get it all back I'm gonna make a. Comeback this time.

Risk it all, I'm gonna. Risk it all I'm gonna break my back and risk it all I'm gonna pick my. Spot, take my shot Swallow my pad and risk it all I'm gonna risk it. All And I won't look back I'm gonna. Pick my spot, take my shot.

Swallow my pad and risk it all. The lights on the last round the dark horse keeps on fighting. I'm gonna make a comeback I'm. Gonna dig six feet up tonight. I'm gonna get it all back.

I'm gonna make a comeback this time. I'm gonna make a comeback. I'm gonna dig six feet up. I'm gonna. Make a comeback this time.

I'm gonna make a comeback this time. Yeah. Comeback. A comeback. Make a comeback this time.

I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna come back. I want to come back. I'm digging up six feet tonight. This summer.

Lifebuoy. I told you not to use Lifebuoy. 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!