73: There's Lust in the Dust around the Black Waters of Echo's Pond

The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. provide more cooling in the containment chambers. Kill everyone now! Condone first-degree murder!

Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filter my politics! Filth is my life! What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown.

I am Brian and I'm Marlena and yeah that's it. We'll be doing things a little different this week. Um, we are, yeah, knee deep in the middle of this move and yeah, it's, it's not going speedily. We'll say, yeah, there's no way in hell we were fitting everyone into the studio as it were. We are at least in the new, uh, the new building here.

The structure is here, but yeah, there's just boxes and boxes and it's out of control really. So that, uh, having been said, uh, I'm trying to readjust things and, uh, you know make it work somehow this week so i at least crammed enough space for us to do a one person setup here and brought in marlena so you've climbed over boxes and over the ladder to get to the seat that we've shoved out of the way here so yeah. And i'm not knocking your paint colors because i think they look great when they're done but just the orange the red and the yellow right now it looks like a taco bar threw up. We're not discussing those yet because they're not done sorry. Spoiler alert yeah it's gonna be awesome when it's done you just wait i believe so yeah otherwise uh we're planning on getting somewhat back on track by next week so hopefully this will uh be a nice little bonus episode here this was also a good excuse because um i've been wanting to do the movie we're going to discuss today and everyone else was frightened by it I even mentioned it to Misty today, and she did not have a good reaction, let's say.

Once I described what it was. We'll get to that later. But yeah, everyone else was, I'm pretty sure, just totally freaked out by today's movie. So if there was anybody who was sucker enough to sit down and watch that, I figured it was Marlene. Yep.

I'm a sucker. All right. So to at least keep our sort of normal rundown going here, we can do a minor version of the Geek Activities. uh mine aside from moving and it's been pretty much moving non-stop every day i get up at like daybreak at this point in the last two days anyway it's light out i guess i have to go all shit so yeah moving but i found the only other because i haven't actually sat down to watch anything in weeks and weeks and weeks outside of the movie we watched last week but Short of that, the only thing I've watched, and I found this is, like, the perfect thing to have on during the unpacking mode and the reorganizing mode, because a lot of times you don't even have to pay that much attention.

And I didn't plan on liking this. I thought it was a weird thing when they made a show out of it. But, yeah, this past week I've been watching Glee. Oh, I love Glee. Okay, see?

You're not alone. Okay. I figure many people at home just went, ugh, gay. But. That's the knee-jerk reaction, but I have.

To say, screw you if you think that, because it's pretty awesome, I have to say. It's entertaining on many levels, but yeah, I noticed it was so perfect for the packing thing, because half the time they're just, you know, dancing around and crazy shit, and you don't really have to pay attention. But to balance out, there are a lot of really good, heavy scenes. Like, it's a well-acted show on top of that. I thought they were going a little cliche with the character's They do have everything represented.

Yeah, they're definitely playing off the High School Musical theme quite a bit. But it's like if High School Musical was aimed towards adults, basically. It's a lot more sophisticated and sometimes realistic in ways that High School Musical would be afraid to be. I'm pretty sure the head cheerleader was not knocked up in High School Musical. That's true.

Yeah. Do they work anybody gay in High School Musical? Because, I mean, they need to. I don't know if he was openly gay, but there was definitely a gay guy. There's a lot of closeted guys in that one.

I don't know. I've never seen High School Musical. I haven't either. But the other day, it was the zombie prom episode of Wizards of Waverly Place. Well, that's different.

That's awesome. And then High School Musical came on after that. So I watched the first three minutes, and then Andrew walked in and said. Oh, my God. What is this?

Please change this. Please change this now. But he would get really pissed off when I would watch Glee. He'd be like, can you, because I'd watch it on my laptop, and he would say, will you please put your headphones on, please? Wow.

I mean, as much as I enjoy the show, their music number is not my favorite. It's too, like, modern. It depends. They do some weird weaving of songs that are, like, really well put together. So some of that I like, because there was one this past week that was just, like, two or three different songs and like just sort of seamlessly worked into one new song that was kind of impressive really.

So bust a move no that was an old. Episode god i i guess i haven't seen that's the thing i i had not seen any of the uh the show itself when it started and sort of saw part of one a long time ago and was just confused by it, as most people probably are, and then just picked up, you know, because I could take the laptop wherever I was working and watch it on Hulu. And the one thing that I remember the first time, it kind of annoyed me, and it still sort of annoys me, and this is probably what annoys me about a lot of musicals, the breakout into song kind of musicals. In this one, it's in a weird situation because they're in a, a situation where most of their songs are actually being sung. It's not like a fictional world where they just break it.

Like they're in a room where they practice singing and they really are singing these songs. So the fact that they don't use microphones kind of annoys me because it now makes it not real anymore. Like if they were just like, if it was really just focusing on these kids in like a, you know, a performance type school or, you know, the classes in any high school, And they actually had microphones and it was just, this is these kids rehearsing these numbers. It would be a lot more realistic than them just breaking out into song. I'm going to have to disagree with you on that because I was in chorus and elementary and middle school and we didn't use microphones.

Because when you've got a group of people singing, you don't necessarily use microphones. Yeah, but they all do solo. Like, they've got background going, but everybody does a solo and you can hear them perfectly over the live band that's in the room half the time. I'm just like, no. I was like, this is not... in what little I know of audio obviously I've spent the last couple of years here messing with it knowing you would be completely drowned out now I'm being tech geek so this is definitely a geek activity because I'm being a tech geek now so yeah so for some reason and I guess it's one of the things that kind of annoys me about a lot of musicals but other than that there's still a lot of fun stuff to be had with it so.

I mean the idea that your life can't break out into random song it happens it happens to me Quite often. Sad, really. Yeah, all the time, actually. But that's just because I like to sing, so. But yeah, that was pretty much it.

That was about the only other thing I did outside of moving this week, so. Any geek activities for you? I haven't watched too much. I've started to watch Tales from the Crypt. Starting from, like, season one uh well.

It's supposed to but we actually started at season two just because we have season. Yeah well the season one's only like six. Episodes or something it doesn't matter it's not like it's a storyline that it follows you can watch each episode that's. But they had awesome directors the first yeah i think that was the robert that was back when robert zemeckis was awesome yeah So, yeah, his episodes are always cool. Yeah, there were some episodes by Robert Zemeckis, I'm pretty sure.

He's a producer on all of them, but, yeah, he directed at least three out of the first couple of seasons. Yeah. So, his are always... His is the Santa Claus one. I don't know this one.

Oh, man, it's creepy as hell. I only watched a few of them. The first one I watched had Demi Moore and Jeffrey Tambor. And it took me the whole episode. I was like, I know this guy because he had prosthetics and a lot of makeup on.

And it pissed me off. I'm like, I know who this is. I can imagine what he looks like without makeup on. But I could not think of who it was. And at the end of the credits, I was like, ah, Jeffrey Tambor.

Okay. Yeah. I haven't watched those in forever. I do need to go back. Buybacks has them on sale.

And you can get them online for cheap, too. They're pretty cheap anyway. Yeah. I guess it's been so long they didn't do one of those $ 130 box sets for a season. Yeah.

I didn't realize there was as many seasons as there are. It's one of those that kind of jumped the shark at some point. I'm sure. And I was such a huge fan going in, but after a while I lost track. I was like, oh, did the new season start?

Oh, well, whatever. So I missed the last two or three seasons. I think even I forgot to watch them. I knew it existed, and I know I've seen episodes, but I think it was an HBO or Showtime show, which I never had as a child growing up. So I definitely missed out on a lot.

They must have had regular episodes air on TV or episodes air on regular TV. Yeah, like years later. It was like 10 years later. Somebody bought it. them and edited out all the stuff that they couldn't. They changed the language and took out the nudity, which is what sold it so well on cable television.

They edited it minorly and put it on 10 o'clock at night or something. They put it on one of the off networks. That must have been what it was because I remember it. But One of my favorite episodes, I've only seen like four episodes or so, but it was, I think it was called The Mummy. And it was about a circus freak named, I can't remember.

Okay, I suck at telling stories. Oh. You would have guessed. But is it a funny story? No, it's not a funny story.

Damn. But it's about how the Crypt Keeper came to be. His father was a two-faced circus freak and his mom was a mummy. Awesome. I'm sure I've seen that one and have forgotten by now.

Yeah, it was really funny. I do need to go back and watch those again. Yeah. All right. Yeah, I've been watching Tales from the Crypt and then at work just re-watching episodes of the Antonio treatment.

God. I'm avoiding this show. No. I know you're sold on it. No, you don't understand.

HGTV canceled it, I think, or they postponed the episodes. So I've just watched the ones I didn't get to see on On Demand. And I just, I'm pissed. He's my Facebook friend now. Oh, everybody can be your Facebook friend.

Yeah, I know, but I mean, I don't care about adding bands or anybody really, but I was like, I need to add Antonio because then I will know if a show is coming back on. I will see the update on Facebook and I will know to have someone DVR it for me. What a dork. I mean, it's not like I friended Catherine Murray. Oh, yeah, I did.

Yeah, exactly. Oops. And I was pretty excited by that, too. Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't I like that show?

He likes Italian food and dogs, and he's an interior designer, and he always has, like, black flag shirts and stuff on, which is awesome. That's unusual for designers. He's, like, my hero. Nice. All right.

I guess that will round out the Geek Week. Yeah. So while continuing to do things a little different this week, we are now going to go live, or not so live. To a parking lot at a local Asceneplex, with some of the crew has decided to go see the new movie, The Blackwaters of Echo Pond. So, off to the parking lot?

I guess so. And now it's time for a parking lot review. Check this out, guys. Look at this. Looks like some sort of game.

Each player selects a game piece. Yeah, yeah, it's like Monopoly. You roll the dice and. Move to space. Let's play.

The key to unlock the mayhem lies within the fleet itself. There are those who say the ghoul is still here on this island lurking for his next kill. What's up? We're here, live, in the parking lot of the theater where we just watched, what the hell's the. Name of the thing again?

Dark Waters of Stone. The Horrors of Black Water Pond. Black Waters of Echo's Pond. Are you fucking enjoying that? No, it's a cigarette.

I roll my own. It's like a weed. Oh, I think you need it after this. Jesus, yes. We should probably introduce ourselves.

Oh, yeah. Hey, I'm Brian. This is Roger. And this is Rod at Stony Brook Theater. Hanging out in the parking lot.

Loving it. Discussing whatever the hell the name of this movie is. Echoes of Blackwater's... Blackwater's... Horrors of Blackwater, Daniel Harris.

James Duvall, Drunk Driving Again, whatever the hell we're calling this. This is going to be the most unusual podcast we've ever done because we're basically sitting in the parking lot at National Amusement. Is it Stony Brook? Yeah, this one is Stony Brook if you have yourself a Stony Brook. Cinema Deluxe 2020.

And we just experienced one of the most special theater showings. Yeah, we'll throw out a big spoiler alert. This is sort of technically a new movie, even though it's been sort of done for about two, two and a half years now. But nobody's seen it unless you've been on the festival circuit. About two years ago, we were going to show this movie at Fright Night Film Festival.

Which would have been on a shitty DVD player with about 10 people. Which would have made sense. And the movie would have totally been okay. This is a theater release of something that I see packaged as a straight-to-DVD. Yeah, I have to say, it did feel like I should have hit eject at the end of this.

Well, I've got to admit... Late last week, I saw that the Blackwaters of Echo's Pond was opening wide, and it was playing here in three of the biggest theaters in town. And you think about Iron Man 2 is going to play here in the same theater that the Blackwaters of Echo's Pond plays. And Marmaduke. So anyway, I guess we should set this up.

We're kind of familiar with a lot of the people involved in this film. You guys are. I'm almost glad that I'm not. I still say the entire deal for this movie was made while sitting at Horror Hound Weekend. I mean, everybody that's been at every one of these conventions is all in this movie, except the people that are totally useless, which.

We won't even go into them because I don't remember who they are. The only guy that I've met, that I've at least met and I'm not friends with but have met is Sean Clark. Yeah, I've talked to him a few times. He is a writer for Horror Hound magazine. He does the Horror's Hallowed Grounds column.

And he also does, I think, sort of a podcast TV show of that. And he's kind of a cool guy. Now, he didn't make this movie himself. He's not the director. He was the co-writer and co-producer, but there were a lot of producers.

But he's been pushing it for about two years now. He's been traveling around showcasing it. He sets up a table and just promotes this. The posters are pretty cool. The posters are awesome, actually.

He's got several. The last time we saw him at the last Horror Hound, He had like three different ones, and they were all really cool. So there's a lot of pitching for this movie. Oh, yeah. Right on.

In the indie film circuit. In the convention circuit, really. You didn't hear about it on Any Cool or Entertainment Tonight. Hell no. That would have totally blown my mind.

There's a lot of convention circuit people in it. Primarily Daniel Harris, who everybody here in the show is in love with. Yes. Danielle, I'm really sorry you're in this movie. Because we're about ready to rip this film a new ass.

She is definitely the high point of the movie. And even if I didn't think she's awesome, I would still have to say. Again, watching her scenes, she's a good actress. And it's a shame she's kind of thrown in here with some of these other lesser people. I don't think anyone could have pulled off the dialogue she was given.

So she doesn't. I mean, I'm not going to even go easy on Danielle on this one. Because I don't think anybody could have survived this movie with any integrity intact. This movie also stars the babysitter twins, which are Robert Rodriguez's nieces, I guess. And I've met them, too.

And they're actually really nice. I like them. They suck at this movie. They're terrible. I've never really seen them turn in a good performance, but they seem nice enough at the convention.

And they're cute twins, so you've got to give them that. They are pretty hot. And James Duvall, our hero of the movie. He's kind of like... An indie film hero.

He's been in every gay indie film of the last 10 years. Yeah. And I'm thinking he's got to be 40. But he's still pulling off that 25 look. Because he won't get a haircut.

That's his thing, man. It's like his Samson hair. It keeps him young. This is totally the movie people make fun of when you talk about 30-year-old teenagers. I guess they're not supposed to be teenagers technically because they're supposed to have graduated school.

Yeah, they're all out of college and everything. So they're supposed to be in their mid-20s, I guess. Most of them are close to their age, yeah. It's a five-year range of probably older than they really are supposed to be playing. But they're still playing stupid kids that go to a park and woo-hoo and drink and smoke pot and do terrible things before they get kids.

I mean, it's a very classic horror movie setup. No surprise there. Until you throw the spoiler alert. We should throw a general spoiler alert. It seemed like it was following the natural format until they pulled out the Jumanji board.

It's Jumanji from hell. Even though there are no manifestations of giant elephants rampaging or anything like that. I wish there were, actually. There is. The pan monster, pan demon monster.

Beelzebub thing. The Jumanji board is the MacGuffin of this movie. It's cool. Whoever built that thing is pretty cool. It looks awesome, actually.

It's got functions. It's got mechanical gear driven things that rotate and illuminate, I guess. The movie opens. How many hundreds of years ago? Maybe...

I don't know. I don't know. 18... I don't even remember what the date was. We kind of walked in and it had already started, so we kind of maybe...

Maybe that's the whole problem. No, it wasn't. We missed 30 seconds. No, it wasn't. Anyway, these guys, archaeologists, I guess. have dug up this ancient board game.

Board game. You really have to laugh at it. I mean, it does seem silly when you discuss it on this level. And they discovered that apparently it was... Originally, before it was translated into English, it was written by Pan, I guess, or something like that.

So Pan's writing cards that say, you win second prize in a beauty contest. The whole game is set up so you play it and you reveal all your darkest stuff and you eventually kill everyone. Because I guess what you reveal has to be done. involving the people playing there's got there's got to be. I thought it had something to do with evoking pan or bringing pan in the real world it really never doesn't kind of gets that. What it involves is screwing yourself over in the middle of your friends yeah it becomes the worst game of like scruples or whatever you're playing like you know you get together with these couples and you have this hey it's game night let's all play and then fiction is In this version, it's basically, let's pull out every horrible secret you've had that involves the other people sitting in the circle and then piss everyone off.

Yeah, I want to fuck your wife. I killed your brother. You name it. This is the worst group of ideas to throw into a game. And they keep playing.

Yeah, after every five-minute segment of horror, it's, hey, pass me the dice. All right, next up. Relationships are being destroyed. Relationships are being devastated. But, hey, it's my turn.

It's your role. My turn. Roll the dice. And then the movie has the audacity to promise all kinds of stuff. Oh, yeah.

Lesbianism, nudity from people. You don't get to see anyone you would want to see nude in this movie. Yeah. You get the token chick who looks exactly like. Yeah, like a poor man's Jessica Simpson, basically.

Straight up, like it was almost uncanny. Yeah, but even cheaper, if that's possible. You get the one girl in the movie they hired because she said she would take her top off. You don't get any of the people you want. Yeah, you look at the cast and you go, oh, we're going to see her boobs, and you do, and whoopee.

They're fake, and they make fun of the fact that they're fake the entire movie. So who cares? Roger's dying. I'm sorry. But the breast shot was worth it.

If he says so. She's lame. But I agree, yeah. It promises a lot. It delivers very little on what it promises, except there's good gore.

There is some good gore. The gore is pretty well done in this movie, but you expect that from this kind of movie. Exactly. That's apparently where all the attention went. I guess at some point they turn into the evil.

I guess the pan takes over their mind or their body or whatever the hell goes on. You know this by the eyes turning black. Which they scram from X-Files. While they had Robert Patrick there, they were just going, let's steal some other stuff. From X-Files too.

So yeah, they steal the black eyes from X-Files, which they probably stole from somebody too. And, yeah, everybody becomes evil. The only other person that was actually kind of tolerable, the black dude in the wife beater, he's pretty, like, he's actually, like, as the game goes on, he's a little more believable. Everybody else is kind of, like, you just want to smack him. He's almost a decent actor.

Believable or not, acting or not, unfortunately, this entire cast is nothing but douchebags. Yeah. There's not a single likable character. No. That's the major problem with this movie.

Yeah. It's not scary and it's not suspenseful. And if you want to create suspense, you have to at least sort of like or identify with some of the characters. So you'll care about whether they die or not. This film is filled with absolutely wretched people.

All of them. We're rooting for them to die. They're terrible. Which, I mean, again, that's a classic horror movie thing is put a bunch of douchebags together and watch them die. But there's usually a good girl.

There's usually the final girl. Which I guess Danielle's supposed to be. Yeah, but she's a terrible bitch. She's not great either, yeah. Her character's a horrible person.

She's only the final girl because she's Danielle Henry. Yeah, because you want to keep her in this movie. And James Duvall is the only survivor because he's James Duvall. He's recognizable, yeah. Yes, you know.

But the Nova, none of them are decent people. Usually you get a final girl that's kind of a virginal character. It's a classic horror. Everybody here are whores and douchebags. You don't get any good characters, really.

So, yeah, I didn't care about anybody. No. And we actually wanted the main guy. We all wanted to die. Oh, my God.

Mr. Hook. Apparently this guy is one of the producers. Kids or something it has to be what accent. Was that I have no idea I think I've seen this guy before playing violin or something I'm pretty sure he's some kind of music guy but he is wretched.

I thought I was trying to decide what form of Euro trash he was because he's got this weird European kind of accent but it's so non-descript it's just this. Weird basically got Chris Makepeace's hair or like pubic hair on his head yeah what was that. He's an idiot, he's a terrible actor, and he does not die fast enough. We all were rooting for him to die first. By the way, we were the only people in the theater, so we could talk out loud.

Now, invent them and not worry about destroying anybody's, you know. This is another unique thing is, like, since we actually were the only three people in the theater, we actually could just act like it was the living room and just say whatever we wanted. And we did. Which was kind of liberating. It became Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I'm totally respectful. If there was even one other person in the theater, I would have never. I would have shut the hell up. We could all talk about this afterwards. But it was kind of liberating sitting... at at national amusements in a big multiplex being the only ones in there making fun of this piece of.

Shit yep yep oh i i have to say roger you did uh call it out for midway through i did kind of get this feeling and then you said it you were like it's got a real april fool's day. Feel something about it yeah which like you said it's not a bad thing because And I like. April Fool's Day, the original. The major difference is April Fool's Day is a good movie. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Where this doesn't deliver on any of the levels where that one does. I think the only nice thing I can say about this, and I want to say this to the person, I don't know what their name is because I didn't catch it in the credits, the lighting is very nice in this movie. The scenes are very well lit and they're atmospherically lit. If you ever did that, you did your job. And you should thank yourself and get away from it.

But they had no way to capitalize on it, though, at all. I'll even give whoever, if it was the director or just the assistant camera guy who was actually running things. To me, it's shot pretty decent. For the budget they had, it does look good, even lighting-wise, but even shot-wise, it's It's pretty, yeah, it's a pretty decent shot. The print we got wasn't so great, if we want to go into that.

Yeah, I'll go into that. Well, weren't they strategically placed? It looks like it took me about an hour to figure this out. I thought we just got a shitty DVD at one point. Because the image is crystal clear, but it's got these bad video lines going through it.

And then eventually I was able to determine... oh, they're doing a grindhouse kind of thing. I guess. I think. I'm not really sure if they were. At one point there was a green line going up the middle of the screen for like 20 minutes.

I'm like, that's good. That's enough. And there were so many of them through the movie that I had to believe. You said that the posters kind of tried to make it look like a movie that was shot in the 80s or 70s. They're like purposely yellowed and like ripped.

And he went for, I mean, they do look awesome. So the posters look cool and are kind of going for that retro thing. So. maybe they were going for that yeah. It's either the worst grindhouse kind of transfer on the end that i've ever seen or we just saw a really bad print they just made it on their home computer and shipped it out to the stony brook here there's like a dvdr sitting in the projection seriously Oh, man. I don't know.

I mean, it had its moments of fun. But again, it did very much feel like a straight-to-DVD. It felt like when you make a microwave popcorn at home and you sit there and laugh at the kids dying. It felt like an amateur film, though, in every possible way. Definitely.

It didn't feel like it had the people involved. It did. It didn't feel like that level. I have no idea how they got this in a theater. They either know somebody or something.

Because I just can't imagine a distributor looking at this and... And going, oh, we should put this in theaters next to, you know... Anything. The Chipmunks. Yeah, I mean.

Chipmunks 3. But I will say that for me, I think the pluses were the death scenes. Of course, in this movie, this type of movie, that's almost what you're going to see anyways. You're not going to see a great script, good acting, anything like that. It kind of delivers on...

The death scenes. A couple of them, which I don't want to ruin the last one. But the most annoying, you know, foreign guy with the Chris Bates piece here. He gets killed really badly, which we actually applaud. And I kind of called it accidentally.

Yeah, oh no, it was perfect. I was wishing it upon him, and then it happened. Yeah. And it was a pretty far-fetched idea almost. You've got to admit, even with the accent, his performance is appalling.

He was horrible. He wouldn't even pass in a high school play. No. I would have made fun of him there too, no surprise. How is he in the industry at all?

It's got to be somebody's kid. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, look at his name. You wouldn't hire somebody. It's so bad to be in a movie.

You wouldn't hire somebody with that name. Come on now. If that's his real hair. Oh, God. Jesus Christ almighty.

The one thing, and this is something I'd heard somebody that saw it at a convention recently, gave it a pretty decent review, and then they singled out James Duvall, which I. Have to say, I mean, he is kind of like, you were like, oh, he's my favorite one. I like him, yeah. He's like, oh. He's, I mean.

Well, because, you know, the thing that I like about James Duvall in this movie is that everyone else hates him. Yeah. Everyone hates him. Like, everybody hates each other, but they all are on the same team of hating James Duvall. So you kind of get behind him.

But they had described him in that review as the likable stoner. He's going to come back and save the day. And as I'm watching, I'm like, no, he's a douchebag. But you're thinking, okay. He's kind of a likable douchebag.

He's a likable douchebag, so I'm assuming at the end he's going to sort of redeem himself and come back around. Unless someone attacks him and he throws you. He pushes people in front of you. Let's get at that point, because I was laughing so loud at that point. As he shoves the girl he's supposed to be protecting into the coming attacker.

I was like, holy shit, that was the best douchebag move I've ever seen. Just when you're trying to like this person. Yeah, I thought he was going to come back around and redeem himself and make up for his past mistakes. And no, he shoves her into a chainsaw. But she was totally harping on his ass.

She was. She deserved it. Oh, God. Either way, it was so awesomely douchebaggy. I forgive him for that.

Oh, man. You know, I don't think I've ever seen a movie with this low production value in a multiplex. And I've seen a lot of shit. You were saying that people were seeing it at film festivals and giving it reviews. Now, I think you might look at this movie differently if you were in a little room in a hotel where people put 10 or 15 chairs in the room and somebody presses play on the DVD player.

Because you're probably seeing... 20 other films just like that. Well, that's what I was going to say. Probably because the one you watched before was like kids in their basement squirting ketchup on people and going, okay, you're dead now. So, I mean, you see some pretty low-quality stuff at these festivals.

So, compared to those, this is a masterpiece. This would be the top tier of those kind of movies. Yes, and it would be the one that would finish out the night at the film festival. Yeah, you might be going, oh, that's genius. That was great, yeah.

Now let's go get wasted in the hotel. But now, I mean, watching it in a theater next to, like, multi-million dollar movies, it's kind of jarring, really, sitting there by ourselves in the theater. It's a demonic board game movie. It is. That's the part that's crazy.

No, it's great. I love it. But at this point, it's one of those that's kind of hard to do that. Like, I mean, as he pulled it out, I'm going, it says Zathura on it. What's that mean?

Yeah, really. I mean, we've already seen several... Crazy board game movie. Written on the ancient scroll that they enroll. Instead of a title like The Echoes of Blackwater's Pond.

Yeah. Wouldn't they just call it Daimonji or something? That's a little catchier. I mean, it would get the concept out there. It should be, you know, Jumanji from Hell by Milton Bradley.

Yeah. I'm not forgiving for that. I'm okay with that. Then I guess Blackwater's Pond is... It's actually the pond in the center of the board game.

In the game. Yeah. Because they're on some island that. What was it? I don't even remember what it was called.

But it has nothing to do with Blackwater. Well, it was a secret island that this guy owned. Yeah. Which. How did this guy.

Was it his house? Or was it, like, the guy who had all the money? Maybe. His brother had all the money. Was that. his dad's house that he had on the property.

Because yeah i'm trying to understood robert patrick is the most country five like every line and he has like several pages of dialogue by himself as he wanders around the island going where did i put them traps and i set some traps out for him I do. Because reading that kind of expository dialogue, especially when you're talking to yourself, it's probably harder to pull off than anything else. No, he doesn't pull it off. And Robert Patrick's actually a pretty good guy. Again, he's one of the better points in this movie, and that's not saying much because he's playing a yokel, and he's walking around going, we ain't got no shitty fire engines around here, so don't go burning down my island.

And we don't even get to see his death. Yeah. You hear a shotgun blast and then that's it. He just disappears. Yeah, he's just not there anymore.

I don't know. Even Robert Patrick can't save this movie. Maybe he just was like, I'm not showing up to film. He's like, yeah, I'm done. I'm the producer.

Isn't that enough to deal with? Just scrub me out some way, somehow. Yeah, I mean, he is sort of responsible for this movie. Do you think that was his house they were shooting at? It could have been.

Oh. But, yeah, I never did figure out, like, how does this guy who seems like a yokel with no money own this island? Yeah. According to him, if you're buying his story, this. Is my island.

Why do you want these douche kids to do that? Yeah. It's like, how much was his dad paying him to come here? Because I wouldn't want these douchebag kids ruining my house. Because they did.

Yeah. Even if they didn't kill people, they just would have, like, thrown up on everything. Oh, yeah. And had sex everywhere. I don't want that either.

Get the fuck out of my house. They're J's. Really? God. So.

How do we wrap this thing up? Run out and see it. I'm trying to think of sides to the lighting. I don't have any positives other than that Danielle does get some good close-ups. She's gorgeous.

She's gorgeous. Yeah, the other black guy looks pretty. He's a formidable villain once he crosses to the dark side. The guy in the white theater is a badass. He's the most frightening, like, physically.

His scenes, yeah, when he's got the black eyes. He's, you know, he is kind of creepy looking, so I'll give him... No, because the nerdy black guy was a doofus. Oh, he's a doofus. I don't like that guy.

I'll kick that guy's ass. Fuck that. The twins were not frightening at all. They're giggling, like, pincer attack moves. For anybody that really...

Guys, look. You know, we just spent nine bucks on this. Yeah. Don't do it. This is a public service announcement.

I'm going to screw the ending of this movie. This. The ending of this movie is a dick in the ass of Cinemago. Yeah. I mean, it literally goes for the, it was all just a dream.

Yeah. Oh, we were just playing a game, and oh, I just woke up, and oh my gosh. It's your turn. Everything that just happened was a dream. Can you believe that?

But almost, it was a dream, or do you want it to be a reality? Yeah, then it pulls the, ha ha, now it could all be happening for real. I could just be evil and kill all of you. Anyway, that device of it's all just a dream. Any screenwriter should know there's nothing that pisses an audience off more than watching an hour and 45 minutes of something only to realize that, oh, none of that really happened.

I've had dreams and they've been fucked up and they've been better than this that. Was the point where this movie totally lost me I was already lost I was still looking at it like gosh this is a little indie movie they didn't have any money and they were working hard and I just wanted to be nice to them and then they threw that shit at me and there was no save from that point. On well I mean that's what horror movies like to do anyway like if any movie does that twist the twist as a genre it's horror movies I mean they love to do that haha fake out so it's no surprise I'm like nothing about this was surprising really it's It played on all the conventions of your standard kids getting knocked off one by one.

Only it threw this weird game angle in and pan that they don't make use of. There's a great pan. They have this great monster. This is what we should talk about. Whoever in the effects department built this pan creature, that thing's great looking.

It's really creepy looking. And it's on screen for like three seconds. It peekaboos out of the fucking curtains once. They could have made an entire movie with that thing. And it would have been.

Good because for as much as they look like they didn't have a ton of money, they look like they spent a lot on that costume and the makeup effects and whatever all they used on that because he looked good. There was one scene where they used it where I wish they would have used it the whole time where it's kind of whispering into one of the chick's ears. You can tell it's influencing her from behind the shadows or whatever. And even if they had him in the background kind of doing that, whenever anybody's going nuts and, like, killing their best friend or their fiance or whatever, that would have been better. There would have been, like, a tic-tac of points up right there, you know?

But. They had this great costume. Its eyes lit up. It was creepy as shit. It was.

And they didn't utilize it at all. The weirdest thing was there were two movies I wanted to see this week. This one, because Danielle's in it, and because it's opening in the multiplexes. And where else are you going to see this movie? And the other one was The Runaways, which actually stars Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart and actually has stars in it.

Okay, Blackwaters of Echo's Pond opened in about five theaters here in Louisville. The big multiplexes. The Runaways opened in one theater. And like two or three weeks later. And it's a little art theater, too.

It's not even one of the big mainstream theaters. Who would have guessed that? What the hell is going on? Who could call that happening? Nobody.

Nobody. Oh, man. And I still haven't seen The Runaways, so my week is totally screwed. I'm going to cleanse my palate and see The Runaways because I need a palate cleanser after this. I'm going to try it to you later this week.

Yeah. Man. Don't do it, folks. You never know what you're going to get on these. Don't do this to yourself.

I mean, really, I think waiting for DVD would be more of an appropriate choice because for DVD, it seems like it'd be fun sitting around with your friends. Yeah. I think sitting in the living room making some microwave popcorn, you know, throwing it at the screen. It's kind of fun. If you were watching three shitty horror movies and this was one of them, it wouldn't seem probably shittier than the other half.

It wouldn't faze you. I mean, to me, this is not near as bad or any worse than a lot of crap I watched on cable. And it's kind of the same storylines. I mean, it fits that. At least April.

Fool's Day did it good at the end when it was like, ah. I don't know, man. I saw parts of Mega Piranha last night. I like that better than Blackwater Shells. That's harsh, and I kind of agree.

I definitely got more enjoyment out. Of Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus. The terrible thing was with Mega Piranha, you know there was no effort put into it. No, never. And this movie, probably people worked hard on.

Somebody did. For years. I mean, he's been pushing this for years, and you finally see. It, and this is what it comes to. Wowzers.

It's kind of sad, really, but what are you going to do? Wait for DVD, I guess. Yeah, wrap it up with a, you know, wait to see it in real life. As the car pulls away, I guess we can tell you, yeah, watch it at home. Yeah.

Is that it for this segment. Of parking lot review? I guess this will be a parking lot review. Yeah, this is a one-off kind of show because only three of us are here. We're in the middle of a parking lot.

People are trying to leave. People are giving us looks. I've already gotten a couple of looks. I kind of enjoy that. I don't care.

We're trying not to get hit, you know, as we're doing the show. So, Siri, you have to roll again. All right, well, there you have it. Our first parking lot review. Exciting, yeah.

I like the ridiculousness of the idea. So yeah, I, I, no surprise. I pitched that. Yeah. Most ridiculous things that go on in this show are usually my fault.

So of course I take the blame, but I thought it was a fun idea. All right. Well, we will take a break and be back with this week's feature. Intermission time, folks. So hurry, hurry, hurry.

Step right over to our refreshment center for the most extravagant array of refreshment. Goodies ever assembled under one roof. Enjoy breathtaking, mouth-watering goodies. Everything from a snack to a delicious full meal. At our refreshment center, you'll find a large variety of goodies to satisfy your hunger, your thirst, or your sweet tooth.

So hurry, hurry, hurry. Visit our refreshment center now. The show starts in ten. Minutes. Hello.

Are you looking for reviews of the minute details of fine cinema? What does that mean, Daddy? Are you looking for knowledgeable discussions of directorial decisions? We don't do that. Are you looking for profound and deeply insightful critique of film as an art form?

Dad, I don't even know what you're talking about. Then hello, everyone. I'm Dr. J, and this is my daughter. KK!

And we're here to bring you Family Movie Night. No, we don't offer you all that, but what we will offer is movie reviews that will help you to make viewing choices for what to watch with your children. Nephews and nieces. Or the kid down the street you have to babysit for the weekend. Are you tired of endless reruns of Hannah Montana?

Hey, I like Hannah Montana. Then join us for. Family Movie Night. You can find us on iTunes or at our website, www.fmnpodcast.com. Bye!

Hey, this is Danielle Harris from some of the Halloween movies, and you are listening to Movie Meltdown. It's time for Sofa Theater. Madre de Dios! What are you doing? Who are you?

Where do you come from? I said, who are you? Put that down. What do you want? It's me, isn't it?

You're going to take advantage of me. You're going to have your filthy way with me under the hot desert sun, aren't you? You're going to ravage me like I've never been ravaged before. Your hot sweat sliding over my body as we roll in the dust. As you violate my innermost parts.

As you pound against me in orgasmic animal passion. Oh, God. You're disgusting. You're disgusting. In the hot desert sun, a man's heart grows cold.

Sand-filled winds rust his soul till his heart, like a rock, would nowhere roll but aimlessly. On and on. When life's been nothing but a dirty deal, And the dirtier it gets, the better he feels. Then he's gone too far, he'll plant no seed. He's just a tarnished tumbleweed.

Welcome to Movie Meltdown Sofa Theater. This week's feature presentation is the infamous Lust in the Dust. But this week's installment also crosses over into one of my other favorite features. It's time once again for... Yes, our running feature where we head into the vault and dust off an old film from someone's career and actually ask them what they thought of making the movie.

So this time we hear from actor Courtney Gaines again, who was in Lust in the Dust as Red Dick Barker. ah so yeah let's see what courtney thought about being in less than the. Dust less than the dust was was a really interesting experience for me it was my third film uh things will stand out are we shot in uh santa fe new mexico which i'd never been to which was i wish i'd bought property you know it's god's country and beautiful all right Um, but I was just, I was just surrounded by all these veteran actors, you know, and, um, so I, I actually worked on it a couple weeks and I stayed a couple more weeks just to watch people work, you know, to watch, you know, people who've been around, you know, for a long time, you know, who really knew their stuff.

I felt like I was really fortunate and, uh, you know, Cesar Romero, I mean, he was, that. Guy was a huge star at one point, you. Know, and, um, this guy who played Hardcase Williams, he's great, he's in Devil's Rejects as well, Jeffrey Lewis, you know, I mean, I grew up watching him doing any much of what he can, any much of what he can, he had a TV show, you know, so I was just like, I thought he was hilarious in that film, you know, he was my favorite actually, but so I stayed to just watch guys that got work and soak up what they were doing, you know, so, and then Divine, I mean, that's just, you know, Divine was great, really loved her, and Paul Bartell, the director, was really wonderful too, so that was a really good experience.

Yeah, I was going to ask about Paul Martel. He did a lot of interesting projects over the years. Yeah, very much so. For me, he was just super encouraging. You know, he was like a cheerleader when you were shooting, and, you know, he'd laugh and really just egg you on and give you confidence.

And, you know, it's nice that some directors just don't, you can't tell whether they like what you're doing, they don't like what you're doing. You know, they don't give you much, and it leaves you kind of in the dark. He wasn't that way at all. You know, you knew what he was liking and what he wasn't. Liking, you know.

All right. All right. So, Lust from the Dust. The year is 1985. Director Paul Bartel.

The plot is the shortest IMDb option here is a group of unscrupulous characters seek buried treasure in the Old West. That's about as basic as you can get in this one. So, throw out the giant spoiler alert because I'm assuming we'll ruin everything along the way here. Yes. So, with that out of the way, yeah, where would you like to begin on Lust in the Dust?

Yeah. Well, I was pretty impressed with the opening song. Classic. Yeah, it kind of wrote me in right then and there. Yeah, I don't know what the thing is.

All these songs in this are very special. Yeah. I'm sure we'll work them all in as we go. I actually am a little disappointed that there weren't more songs. I was expecting it to be pretty much a full-blown musical, which would have been awesome, but towards the end, you know almost the middle of the movie there were no more songs.

Yeah again it never really fully crosses over into musical territory it's much like you know we were discussing earlier everything is within the performance realm they are like in this saloon and they're playing the piano and doing their song and dance numbers so it never fully you know turns out you know busting out like it's oklahoma or something but yeah they work in a good number of songs. Yeah There were a few. They were pretty ridiculous. I wasn't sure where this movie was going to go, having pretty much the entire cast of a John Waters movie. I expected it to be a lot more over the top, and I was kind of surprised.

It pretty much followed the normal pattern of any Western movie, and it definitely had its funny and ironic parts and things like that, but it wasn't extremely absurd. Which I was kind of impressed with, really. I think that's sort of why I ended up liking it. And again, this is probably more of the time period it came out. Because I think if they made this now, it would be completely over the top and slapstick.

And it would fall into what most categories of comedy are at this point. Most comedy is just Have become, you know, scary movie stuff, which I complain about a lot. But I think this one, yeah, there's no way they could have done it with that just backing off. It's like it's silly and it has moments where it's ridiculous, but it's never over the top. Like it's not hitting you over the head with the joke. there's still some subtlety to the humor really yeah.

It was no like Mel Brooks movie. Which even those I mean if you go back far enough were kind of subtle but yeah and that's what disappointed me on his career as the years went on is he got more and more into that and his stuff you know post Naked Gun turned into trying to be you know that same thing where everything was like really ridiculous and really just completely slapped you in the face with the joke it's like there was no subtlety to it at all where this still sort of plays it like if you weren't paying attention if you weren't looking at the female lead you'd almost think this was just a regular western on tv on a sunday afternoon it's like it still sort of plays almost straight no pun intended i guess there but it yeah it's I don't know.

I guess that's your main difference is Divine. Yeah, Divine was definitely the wrench, though. Yeah. But it's funny that you say it did sort of feel like a standard Western because it's a parody of Duel in the Sun, which is what the name came from. I think it was Joseph Cotton that was in that that used to jokingly refer to it as Lust in the Dust.

So then Tab Hunter, years later, decided that he wanted to make Lust in the Dust. And it was actually him that brought in Divine. He had worked with her in Polyester and decided, you know, this is what I want to. Be my female lead. I want Divine.

Tab seems like a very strange guy. Good call. Good call, Tab. It worked out in our favor in this movie because, yeah, Divine's pretty awesome. Yeah.

If you like Divine, it's one of those things. Yeah, I'm not sure it can fall into the middle ground on a lot of people's range. I think. Even for people who don't like divine and are like, I mean, it's, it's pretty understandable that someone could not like divine and like pink flamingos or something like that. But I think even if you didn't know anything about divine and you weren't like previously like disgusted or whatever reaction someone could have, you could have, your opinion would, just be different.

If you could get, if you could get over that, you know, I think this one, he still plays it again, kind of straight. And, and it's, it's still just played sort of like a normal role. Yeah. They never really bring up, you know, his whole situation, which I guess they never really do. Even the John Waters movies, when he plays a female character, it's a female character, but they fully, you know, commit to it in this movie.

It's a woman who, We get to see that several times. More than you probably wanted to on a few of them. But yeah, so it's definitely played to that character, and she is the lead, more or less. Well, it sort of split between her and Tam, I guess. Yeah, I think it's interesting because it could have been a lot funnier.

I mean, it was funny, but it could have been more over the top. But it was a really... subtle punch of humor just in casting devon in the first place because it would have just been a totally different movie had it been any other yeah. You know like been a silly. Western yeah why not a regular woman to play the part of the main woman in the movie so. Because tad hunter's kind of strange yeah.

I guess so i don't. Know what to think of him his acting style it's i mean. In this one He's definitely like from from the second you see him on screen, he's doing his version of the man with no name. I mean, he's got the full Eastwood outfit on. He's got the hat.

He's got the whole look going. So and he doesn't speak for like the first 20 minutes he's on screen. He doesn't say a word. So he's definitely, you know, drawing from that kind of jokingly. But again, it's not that much difference.

But then as it gets further into the movie and he does have speaking lines and he's, you know, doing his thing, his acting's very, I don't know, how would you put it? I don't even know what to call it, really. I was, I never fully understood his character. I don't think the characters, aside from Devine's character and I can't remember the other. Margarita.

Margarita, yeah. Most of the characters weren't developed that well. I don't think they really are in Western, so that's pretty standard. Yeah, they didn't spend time with him, so they didn't bother to give him backstory or anything. I don't think his acting was what was inconsistent, but his character was inconsistent.

To be what is essentially the co-lead, I mean, they really didn't put any extra work into his character, which I guess he's supposed to be mysterious. He definitely is in the beginning, but they never really... expand on it at all even as you get to the end of the movie you still don't really know anything more than you did in the beginning yeah i. Think it's pretty it was pretty ill-defined on whether or not he was bad or good i mean because he wasn't really he was kind of both and then neither one at the same time. Which that's another thing i noticed is this is specifically as you get to two-thirds of the way into the movie you don't really have any good guys left like Tab becomes probably the closest thing, but, like, all of our characters have crossed the line and double-crossed each other and totally, like, kind of do a 180 on a lot of the characters.

Even the ones you were sort of behind and thought, oh, well, maybe they'll... Everybody just stabbed each other in the back, and you come out with no real good guys. I mean, I guess Big Ed's probably the closest thing to our real hero of the movie, but... Yeah, which we can get into her. That was actually originally, again, since you said supposed to be the complete John Waters cast, it was supposed to be Edie Massey, who is the egg lady from all of, you know, the one that's in all of John Waters movies at that point.

So, yeah, it was supposed. To be her. I think the director and probably the producers didn't want, like, they were still fighting the John Waters movie thing anyway. Yeah. So they were trying to get away from that, and I think at that point, Edie was already not doing so well health-wise, so they ended up not going with her and bringing in Nedra Volz, who I'm trying to figure out what else she was in, because she looks really familiar.

She's done a ton of TV work and turned up in a few other movies along the way, but not really a huge amount of stuff, or not big recognizable stuff, just a lot of mainstream TV shows, really. But yeah, you'll... You'll definitely recognize her when you see her. She's been in a ton of stuff and is really likable in that role. Yeah.

And becomes pretty much the only likable character in the movie as it goes on. Yeah, I agree. I knew it. Just give me one excuse to kill you. Just one.

All my life I've been running around Santa Fe with a strange birthmark on my butt. You could have advertised in the paper or something. I figured if I hung around Chili Verde long enough, the other half would show up sooner or later. But I never imagined it would be on such a low life. Sleazy, no good.

Shut up! I mean, everyone had their charms, I suppose, but yeah. You weren't really rooting. By the end of the movie, you weren't really rooting for anybody. You're just kind of like, oh, let's finish watching this and see what happens.

And it does wrap up in kind of a weird way. I guess we won't totally go into it, but it does come down to like a standoff. But it's again, that's what is sort of making fun of of Duel in the Sun, I think, at one point. But it also just well, every Western movie kind of comes down to this big standoff at the end. Only there's just gets kind of silly and everybody shows up with guns and they're like, all right, well, make make room.

We got more people coming in with guns to point at each other in it. So it's sort of, you know, before John Woo and Quentin Tarantino kind of stole this idea of everybody in your finale pointing guns at each other, this one was already kind of making fun of the fact that Western's always sort of in that way, too. So that's kind of funny. That's what men want. That's the way they want to see movies end.

Even if it's like. People shooting each other. Even if it's... he's just not that into you or something like that, that their girlfriends drag them to. They leave the movie theater thinking, son of a bitch, nobody pointed a gun at anyone else throughout that whole movie. That movie, I think I would have liked to have seen everybody shoot each other.

And I haven't even seen it yet, and don't really want to right away, but we'll put that way down on the list. But if there were anything that would move it up a couple of notches, it would be in the end, everybody shoots each other. That would be kind of awesome, actually. I actually saw that movie in theaters. I don't know why.

It is definitely not something I'd normally see, but I'd read the book. And that's normally not a book I would read. I think I must have been going through a hard time or something. But actually, it was a guy that suggested that we go see that movie. So I was kind of like, don't you want to?

Watch something a little bit more manly. Sometimes that's a maneuver. You've got to watch that. Guys start suggesting chick flicks. They're up to something.

Yes. I did want to go into the director. They went through this whole thing. They actually at one point asked John Waters to do it and he didn't want to do it because he didn't write it. He has and has always done pretty much I do my own projects.

He doesn't really cover other people's work. So he specifically, and I think they didn't, I don't know if they set out with it as, you know, him in mind. I know Tab was the one that actually conceived the project and worked on it for several years and he brought Divine in. So I don't know if it's something that they wanted or they were just kind of going with that at the time. But I think as soon as it hit that point, they really wanted to get away from it.

That. So they actually went with Paul Bartel, who actually directed one of my favorite movies of all time. He is the man who directed Death Race 2000. Oh, I didn't know that. Man, I love him.

It's so well done. And it's exploitation way it's definitely got roger corman's hands all over it but um yeah definitely it you can tell he he's got he spent his career basically making these these weird off the beaten path kind of movies and everything he did i mean i guess the most mainstream thing he was known for is uh he did eating raul it sort of crossed over see he directed that one too So he's done nothing but weird projects his whole career. So it's no surprise that he's involved in this one. And they did say, talking to him, that it was one of those that they offered it to him, and he kind of thought about it, and he was like, well, it's my chance to do a Western. A Western in widescreen format.

That's a chance of a lifetime. So even if it's one with Divine in the middle of it, you've got to go for it. And it sort of fits his sense of humor in directing sort of fits the way that this movie came together anyway. So, yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting. And I do want to go back and watch a lot more of what he did because everything he did was very strange and took its own weird little paths.

I definitely want to check out more of Paul Bartel's stuff. Oh, yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of, through the shadow of Death Valley. Oh, Christ, I used to know it. Well, from the beginning of the movie, going in, the initial theme song, which I was so impressed by, which was, I think it's worth watching just to hear that theme song to either agree or disagree with me. But in my mind, I'd already expected it to be a lot like Cannibal the Musical, or anything by Trey or Matt from South Park, just because of the initial theme song reminded me so much.

Of Mostly Trey. Yeah. Trey's a genius. Yeah. Matt's lucky.

Yeah. Matt has a good friend. Yeah. I don't know. I can't explain.

I can't put my finger exactly on, well, I mean, just the ridiculousness of the song. And I think what it is really is how, like, they're so clever and uncanny at imitating something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Trey is, and I've said this before, he's a genius at mimicking other people's music.

But to me, he's so good at writing songs and writing them in ways that work. Work on this pop culture level that you don't even realize it's a joke. It's that close to the real thing. Yeah, that's what I always like about them. They're joke songs, but they're not exactly parodies.

Yeah. And I mean, I think... an average person wouldn't really understand what's so funny about it. It's parodying the style, not like ripping off specific songs. It's parodying the cheesiness of a general style of song. And like he pinpoints it every time.

Like there's so many different versions of that, that he's done. And yet it's like so accurate every time. And the opening song on this one is really, really close to that. It's again, kind of making fun of the, the old Westerns, but, but it does it, just. To shade off.

It's like, you're listening, and then, like, the lyrics are silly, and the style that they're singing it in is a little over the top, so that sort of, that tips you off, but at the same time, it's like, once again, if you're not paying attention, you're just like, what's this weird western coming on? Yeah. Yeah, it's very, it's a fine line, really. And the whole movie was, I'd say it followed in line pretty close to, like, the one I kept comparing it to, probably, mostly because of the western style of it, but Cannibal the Musical. There was less musical numbers in it, unfortunately.

It's not near as over the top. Cannibal is very in-your-face-with-the-jokes, where this is a lot more kind of... It just takes it back a couple of notches. Yeah, it does. But it's just like I can imagine that maybe somewhere along the lines I'd seen that.

It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, we know Trey's sense of humor, so I'm sure this was something he probably was... Would have gladly watched Daddy Knot, but I'm sure he did, knowing the way he is. I was just trying to think of some of the other weird things they work in. We get our motley crew of cowboys at the beginning there.

We get the group of everybody. We've got the main, I guess, sort of villain. We start off with one that could be the villain, and then it switches gears, really. There weren't really, I mean, we've already said this, but there was no. Well, the way they set it up.

I mean, playing on the Western theme, you know, the bad guy. As he gets into the town, it's Henry Silva, which, you know, genre favorite that he is. And basically, it's Henry Silva doing his best Ricardo Bantoban. His, like, accent was very, very typing into the Ricardo style that he did pretty much his entire career. That's better, huh?

You ride in here with your woman? We hardly know each other. So yeah, it sort of starts. With him and he seems like he's going to be the villain and then switches gears and we get back. To the character they introduced earlier is Jeffrey Lewis.

Who's been in everything. Like he's, but yeah, lately you'll recognize he's in, um, devil's rejects and he's in the band that they, uh, break in on at the motel. So he's been in a million other things before that, you know who he is anyway, but yeah, he's sort of the leader of that group. But then you've got like the Mexican guy, you've got the, the Chinaman, I guess that they would have thrown out that title then not so PC now, but As many as they brought in to work on the railroad. I guess that's our excuse why we get the Chinese guy there.

We get a black guy, which that too was recognized. That's Woody Strode, who we just saw in Kingdom of the Spiders. He's another one that's in a ton of genre stuff. But yeah, Woody Strode's wearing a fur coat, which I thought was awesome. You got the brother in this big pimped out.

Fur coat the whole time out in the West in the sun wearing a fur coat all day. And then we have a midget on a horse and on a midget horse too. I didn't notice that. Oh yeah. He's, he's the, the fifth member of the crew there.

Awesome. Oh, we also, uh, they also had Caesar Romero is the, uh, the priest, which was kind of huge. Like that was their real name and, and sort of their claim to fame at that point. I mean, it's, it almost legitimized this project. It's, Everything else up until then could have just been written off as a weird little B-movie and some sort of Waters kind of movie.

But bringing in a pretty recognizable name like Cesar Romero is pretty awesome. And it's funny that Divine was, like, really, like, so starstruck almost. Like, his mother loved Cesar Romero. So, like, he's sitting there and the quote from him is like, I'm an amateur compared to this guy. You know, how could I even be in the same movie with him?

So... It's funny to think even Divine got that way about somebody, you know, so sitting there with Cesar Romero being kind of freaked out. That's so awesome to think about. Yes. Oh, Rosie, I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you.

You are gorgeous. Save the speeches, honey. I am Juliet, and you certainly ain't Romeo. Ooh, what a body. At least you're awake.

Oh, Rosie, you got everything a man could want. Well, let's see if you have what I want. And then we have Courtney. Courtney has red dick. Yeah.

I think he, I mean, next to Big Ed, of course. Probably my second favorite character. I mean, I really hate to say that. I always want. You know, if Divine's in a movie, that should be my number one favorite character.

Divine's not really likable in this. And most movies, really. It's funny. Divine's a weird character because you... Well, I guess Divine in and of itself is a character, really.

Yeah, of course. But, yeah, when. I almost, it's a shame that, you know, he has passed on now, because he's one of those I kind of would have liked to have seen him, like, sit down with him for a little while and talk to this guy, because he seems like a fascinating person. Like, what I've, you know, gathered over the years of hearing about him, it's like, everybody that talks about him when he's himself, when he is, you know, in his normal character, he's, like, soft-spoken and almost shy and very intelligent and just... It would be so amazing to see him in that mode because, I mean, you get pictures, but you don't see a lot of footage of him not as divine.

So it would have been kind of interesting to actually see him in the real world in that mode. But it's funny how much it turns on. And that's what they said. It's like when he got in the costume, he was just loud and obnoxious and became an entirely different character, which I know for a lot of guys that, you know, when you do the cross-dressing thing, it is you're tapping into some sort of character that's inside of you, so it is very much, you know, that's kind of how that works, but it is funny to see just what a difference it was, and he always kind of plays that version, you know, and I mean, he still is divine, basically, that's just, and that's does play a character whereas you get in the early john water stuff he's he's just divine he is himself.

Well they were just kind of winging. It yeah i mean john water stuff He just turned the camera on. Go over there and do something. Go do some crazy shit. Seriously.

Stuff that no other human being on the face of the earth would do. You go out. There and you do it. And Divine gladly did it. That's a friend.

That's a fucking friend. That is, yeah, definitely a trooper as the actors go. Because most people would not put up with the kind of shit that he had to do in those early movies. No. I mean, as much as I love, love, love John Waters, I don't think I could be his friend.

That's going a little too much. Oh, once again, I think I want to hang out. I want to go to his house. Mostly I want to look at his house because his house seems awesome. You know, it does seem awesome.

And actually, it's really funny because this movie made me think of this. I did this project once for school where I had to pick a celebrity and design their bedroom. And I picked John Waters. And everyone in my class is like, I don't know who. What?

John Waters is, I mean, there were like five people in my class, but no one knew. And I was like, he directed Hairspray. They're like, oh, and I'm like, not that Hairspray, different Hairspray. And then my teacher, of course, he's like, oh my God, yes, I know John Waters. I loved his films in college.

Of course, he's like this tiny, adorable gay man. So of course he knows who John Waters is. Yeah, sure. Yeah. But he was like, didn't he direct Lust in the Dust?

And I was like, no. Which is what everybody says. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I mean, it's funny how much, you know, they were saying Paul Bartel, like, went out of his way to make it.

He didn't want to be seen as, like, this movie to be a ripoff. It's like he really wanted to go out of his way to make it his own movie and just to make it something different than the John Waters thing, which I think it is, really. I mean, aside from those two actors. Which I guess at the time was really weird because I think this was the first time Divine had worked outside of a John Waters movie. He did later as years went on, but at this point that was the only thing he was known for.

So it was going to be a weird transition for people, but... I'm just trying to think what else we had here. We had many, many shots of Divine falling off a horse. There were at least three different. That became its own little running gag of watching Divine ride a horse, which is funny in itself.

I don't think it. I think it was a double. I think most of the time. A lot of that stuff. The fight scenes were completely a double.

Oh, yeah. Well, they said that. It was funny. It was like they were talking about how Divine really is sort of fragile. They were like, you know, you wouldn't necessarily think that.

He's a big guy. Yeah. But then, you know, just, I guess, you know, as his... personality comes out he's still very you know delicate and you know he doesn't want to do that and he you know he gets really upset about stuff it's uh it was funny i'm assuming shooting this had to be really difficult because they are out in the desert they're shooting fight scenes and scenes on the horseback and all this other stuff so they probably did have to work around a lot of his his weird little idiosyncrasy yeah what else we do have a chick fight kind. Of sort of sort of Well, I guess if you count. Character-wise.

Yeah. Well, it was more than just one chick. There were actually four chicks. They worked in a couple, yeah. At one point.

So you can count, like, the fight between Marguerite and Big Ed. Yeah, there. Also, what was the. The bartender girl. Yeah, what was her name?

Nima or Niva or something. I think what it was. Yeah, Nifa. Nifa. Nifa.

Gina Gallego. again i've seen pictures of now she's held up really well actually surprisingly but yeah marguerite is a laney kazan who's been in a ton of stuff as well originally it was supposed to be again as tab came up with this grand scheme it was supposed to be him divine and chiquita rivera that would be awesome that's what it in his mind is how the third in the cast should have been but i think she was on broadway at the time so they brought in laney instead so Again, that's not too far off, really. She actually almost plays it probably better than I can picture Chiquita. Because the Lainey is a hell of a lot tougher, I can see. She really does. She's in there.

She owns a bar. She's drinking and smoking cigars and fighting the whole time. So she definitely plays it as a pretty tough chick. And I think it would have been kind of hard imagining Chiquita in there. Okay, it's pretty obvious from the get-go.

So I'm just going to throw this out there. Spoiler alert. But, you know, towards the end of the movie, when they revealed that Marguerite and Rosie were sisters, I was, you know, like in my mind, I was like, that's totally believable. And not just in the context of the movie, but in the real world. You actually said something to that like early in the movie.

You were like, they look just like each other. Yeah. And they kind of i mean they set out to kind of make them that way obviously but it is it's funny they were talking just makeup wise they brought in like one of the big makeup producers and how he had worked on like maryland and all these other stars and they were like okay now make divine look like. Her that has to be like a really fun challenge i. Guess so especially since he has narcolepsy they said he would fall asleep in the chair So his head would be resting on his fake bosoms, and they had to devise this, like, sling to keep his head in when he was in the makeup chair so that that way when he falls asleep midway through, he could still work on his face.

You know, it's like earlier I was saying what a good friend Devon was to John Waters for doing what he asked, but then again, it's just like, who else is going to hire Devon? It kind of seems like a handful. Yeah, kind of. But again, I think that's probably the make or break on this movie is Divine. Because it's one of those.

Watching Divine over the years has grown on me so much. I think the first time was really the first big movie for Waters was the Pink Flamingos. I think that was probably the first time I'd seen. I. Don't remember if I actually watched Hairspray.

So probably the first time was going back and in the theater, frighteningly enough, seeing Pink Flamingos. And. since then seen a lot of other stuff and I've really gotten the light. Like I really liked divine and it's weird again because it's divine herself is not really a likable character is kind of obnoxious and over the top. I think, I think she was able to refine her character and her, and definitely her acting. Cause I mean, if you think like by.

Hairspray, Well, I was thinking back to the one I really liked, because I was comparing it with the other tab hunter, which was Polyester. She's kind of likable in Polyester. She really does become more of a regular character. In Pink Flamingo, she is just chewing up the scenery. That was still so early.

It was just, turn the camera on, Divine, and go. But yeah, by Polyester and getting into this, she was starting to... He was developing... her as a character and him as an actor and kind of, you know, meshing the two into this new version. So I think, yeah, definitely got better as the years went by. But to me, there's just something about him, I guess, as an actor, because I still haven't seen the later stuff.

Like the very last role, he was actually playing a man. And so I kind of would like to see him playing himself. Yeah, I'm picturing Devon as a man, and I can't remember what movie it is. What movie is it? Uh, the last one he was in, I know he played a man, and it is.

I mean, in Hairspray, he did both, right? See, I haven't watched the first one in so long. I mean, I might be wrong. I'm probably totally wrong because it's been a long time, but I'm thinking he played Tracy Turnblad's dad and mom or something. Yeah, maybe.

There were, like, arvin yeah he. Was the person that uh ran hefty hideaway yeah. He's listed as arvin and edna but yeah out of the dark was the movie right the year after hairspray and the last one he did he plays a detective and was you know a man but yeah i think just in general he became i don't know there's just something about him and i i guess again it's whether you like it or not and i think over the years he's become very just i don't know what it is there's some sort of mystique about him that you know if you tap into it it really is sort of what sells this movie and it's the one thing that sort of divides it from just being another random western that was trying to be a comedy which there were a few at that point that you know were trying to cross that line and be comedy and western so it's you know there were Trying to think what else.

What would you call that? Since everyone has that weird obsession. I'd do it too. I don't know why. When you like mesh two words together, would it be a question?

Yikes. I hate when they do that. Because I mean, yeah, that's as good as I can come up with. I'm running on not very many hours of sleep. Though so i was trying to think what i mean they had several i think it was the outlaw that was the one that had like kirk douglas in it and schwarzenegger and it was like completely like tapping into the cartoon end of it and then you had like blazing saddles right before this i mean there was definitely a run of ones that were you know kind of trying to go into that territory but yeah this this is definitely its own breed and i think that's what it is is the divine part of it because i If it were just Tad by himself and a couple of actresses, I think it would be a very different movie.

It definitely would. Westerns always make me really hungry. I don't know why, but I remember going to friends' houses when I was younger and their dads would be watching Westerns and I would have to sit there and be subjected to it and I hated it more than anything. And I would just think, oh my god, I'm so hungry. Which is why I had to order a pizza to watch this movie.

That's true. I did. Midway through, we pause for. The pizza guy. I can't explain it.

That's very strange. I know it's so weird i don't i have no it's some weird psychological thing i associate westerns with food. Oh yeah so yeah it's the villain greg douglas and uh arnold schwarzenegger yeah that's the one i was thinking oh yeah rc gorman did the tattoos really yeah southwestern artist like that's kind of huge in that in that uh world why he would do tattoos on their ass and they're not even good really they're badlies it almost looked like you know you got an extra standing around to go draw on their ass yeah yeah oh which by the way we as stated earlier we do see divine's ass a lot and in theory her boobs but i'm pretty sure that was a double. When were their boobs i don't remember uh see that was the midget you weren't.

Paying attention you were multitasking. I believe that's the term yeah yeah You have attention deficit disorder. I do. I do. It's just developed lately.

I don't know why. I blame iPhone. Yeah. Yeah, I can't do anything without, like, playing Scrabble or doing something. It's absurd.

Yep. The bastards at iPhone. I blame them all. Yeah. I mean, soon...

I mean, I think it might be good because then people will be able to lead more productive lives or not. Because in my mind, I'm like, look at how productive I am. I can watch a movie and text at the same time. But, you know, those aren't really two necessary things. So it's not like I can, you know, do trigonometry and. solve world hunger simultaneously.

So it's really just in my mind that I've become a more productive person. I'm sure it's the opposite. Yeah, I think really we're just eventually going to be cheating ourselves out of every individual act. We're not going to have any that are actually satisfying or doing what we set out to do, really. We're just going to have like five things going at once and they'll all be kind of half-assed.

So that's what it's coming to. And then robots can take over. That's bound to happen anyway. But I mean. The Robot Revolution will be welcomed, at least.

Fire up Skynet. Yep. All right, so is there anything else to round out the Lust in the Dust discussion? I don't think so. I think that's what it is.

I think if you're okay with Divine, that's probably the dividing line. If you like her sense of humor, really. And Paul Bartel. I mean, I still think just directing-wise, it's pretty funny, and I think the fact that it backs off and doesn't really... try to go towards the John Waters part. I think that's almost, again, kind of creative on his part, and finding a different way to do it is really cool.

So I just think Paul Bottell does some cool stuff, so I want to seek out more of his. But yeah, it's an interesting Western, to put it mildly. So yeah, check it out if you feel you're up to it. I could tell, I definitely knew we made the right call by not... bringing this one in on everybody because i could tell about 30 seconds into the movie that misty would have been ready to kill people i. Really just think misty dislikes westerns even more than i do oh.

Yeah she i know she doesn't like westerns but even then like i could just once it kicks into the voiceover and it's doing this silly little rambling thing and i was just like she would already be just seething so yes we picked the right week to do this and it wasn't accidental let me tell you yeah I've figured out our crew relatively well at this point, and we're working around the landmines here. So if you fall on the right side, hey, you know, feel free to watch it and get a hold of us and let us know what you think of it, because I would like to see how many people out there have seen this Divine in a Peckinpah film, which is, again, how Tab went into it. That's what he wanted to make. So if you haven't seen it, check it out and let us know what you think.

If you hate it, don't blame me, you know. All right, so we will take a break and be back with the rest of the show. Give me another bottle. Rosie, don't you think you've had enough? I know when I've had enough, I fall on the floor.

What is it a tarnished man wants within his tarnished hand? His bony fingers holding fast to lustful things that never last. Driven on by endless. Greed, this tarnished humble weed. He's a tarnished tumbleweed.

The female. The Female, the most controversial film of our time. So starkly realistic, the New York Daily News and the Dallas Times Herald said, The Female makes I, a woman, look like Mary Poppins. The Female offers sophisticated male and female moviegoers the most adult, award-winning quality picture ever made. Critics throughout the country have acclaimed The Female.

Now you can decide for yourself. Decide if you feel compassion for this female. This is strictly adult film entertainment. If you will be offended by the scenes of The Female, please don't see this motion picture. The Female, a startling screen experience.

PopSyndicate.com. Your one stop for all your unhealthy obsessions. Breaking news and in-depth reviews on all of your favorite movies, music, TV shows, podcasts, comics, books. PopSyndicate.com. 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. Let me take you South of my border Just north of my garter Where everything's on order for you Wear it sweet like a potion.

Feel the heat, feel the motion. Margarita's hot from head to her shoe. Oh. By the way. This is yours because it has buttercup on it.

Oh, cool. I didn't know it had a VCR. Oh, yeah. Cool. That's been yours for quite a while.

Yeah, probably since like 1999. Yeah, pretty much. Awesome. Oh, cool. I can watch Dead End Drive-In.

I can watch my two VHS tapes that I still have. Yeah, I know. Sadly, I brought boxes and boxes of VHS tapes in. I really need to do something about that. I remember I used to get really mad if someone would try to stick a VHS tape next to your DVDs.

It doesn't go here! They're different. They have their own area. As you all can guess, Brian's DVD collection was grouped by genre and director. Sadly, I did have them grouped.

Yeah, pretty much. Definitely by director. Yeah. Since then, since the disheveling of my collection, now they're just thrown in there at this point. So we'll see if.

I go back and reorganize them. Who knows? But yeah, that's okay. I always did that too. It's no shame in that.

Oh, no. All right, we are back, and we very well may have feedback, but we're. Again, I think we're going to postpone it till next time around, at least till we have more of the crew to listen to it, so it wouldn't do much good to go over it anyway at this point, so we will probably hang on till next week and see what sort of feedback we've got coming in, but until then, keep the feedback coming in. Don't be shy. We'd like to hear from you.

So give us a call at 502-365-5565. Or you can email us at geeksatmoviemeltdown.com. And just stop by the website for our frequent updates. That's moviemeltdown.com. And while you're there, click on the forums link and go to our message boards at Pop Syndicate.

Or go to popsyndicate.com and go to the forum sections and look for Movie Meltdown. Okay, kids, get out your decoder pins. Was that what I was supposed to do? That's good. Go for that again.

Okay. Now tell me it's time. It's time! Time for the Movie Meltdown Secret Circle reveal of the next two features! Or random stuff that may or may not happen, depending on how things go.

Set your pins to V2. Here is the message. I'll tell you now, we've obviously strayed this past week, and I'm surprised the week before worked out as well as it did, because yeah, Sam and I were fighting just to get the previous week's episode up and running. Mostly I blame Skype, because it kind of sucks a lot of the time, but We pieced it together. It came together. really good after the fact.

So, yeah, you never can tell what's going to happen week in and week out. So that having been said, I'll tell you what I'm thinking at least next week, and we'll see what really pans out. Next week, once again, is supposedly the release of Kick-Ass, and I think we need to go see that and talk about, you know, Hit Girl beating some people down. So in my mind, that's where we're going to go next week. We'll head out on the town and see Kick-Ass.

So we'll see if that actually happens. In the real world. And hopefully by then we'll have pieced together at least a workable version of this studio that we're now in. It sure as hell ain't going to be done. But at least I can clear out enough stuff that other people can get into the room and we don't have to climb over boxes to get there because that's pretty much what happened this week.

Oh, and the following week, I think, is still open, so I guess we can try to round out the Wraith, come back around to it. We'll see. What's that one about? Oh, Lord. It's a car movie and a supernatural movie and a Charlie Sheen movie.

Yeah. I actually had somebody complain about that when they wrote in and said, the Wraith, really? Come on, guys. live without the charlie sheen well this was old charlie sheen this was back when he was still a star doesn't mean he was any better but he was a star he was. Like shooting kelly preston in the arm with a gun. Um before that actually.

Wait maybe that was in the 80s wasn't it or was it the. 90s i was thinking kelly preston yeah i. Think it's whoever's married to john travolta isn't that kelly preston. When was that wait what was they were engaged. And he shot her in the arm, and then they broke up.

I only know this because she was in an episode of Tales from the Crypt I watched last week, and I had to internet movie date IMDb her, and that's what it said. It could be wrong. Someone could have just put it on there to, like, fuck with me. It wouldn't surprise me. But that's what I read on IMDb, and if it's wrong.

I think he was doing a lot of coke at that point, so it wouldn't surprise me. Allegedly. I don't really know what Charlie Sheen does, but, I mean, really, look at him now. I just think, wow, she has horrible taste in men. Horrible.

John Travolta was big back in the day. You know, when she got him, he was almost at the edge of not being lame, so, you know. You could plant a potato farm in his face, Dimple. Well, I won't argue that, but, well, allegedly, you know. We'll have to test that theory and see if it works out.

Oh, Lord. So that's, I'm assuming, we're throwing it out as a possibility for the following week. I know Rod's all fired up to watch some of the raids. So, you know, we try to throw some in for everybody. I got to watch Lust in the Dust this week.

So we'll see what everybody else is up for. Forbidden Zone for me. See, now I want to watch Forbidden Zone. I'm still working on that one. I've been working on that one for a while.

I was thinking the other day how badly I need a Forbidden Zone soundtrack. So if anyone can... magically send me a Forbidden Zone soundtrack, that would be awesome. You know, if you just have one laying around. Yeah. We do have an address on the website.

Yeah. Or if you can download it and, you know, MP3 it on over, hey, send it to the email address. Just saying. All right. I think that pretty much wraps up this week.

I guess we can go out with the musical stylings of Ms. Divine. Hell yeah. Why would you not want to? She is divine.

Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Bye.

Bye. This is a little song written for me by a very dear friend of mine. It's a story. Try to. Sing it, honey, before any more of us dies.

What'd you say your name was, sugar? Red Dick. Hit it, Dick. These lips. We're made for kissing these hips.

We're made for bliss in these arms. We're made for squeezing you tight every day, only every night. These lips. We're made for selecting these hips. We're made for connecting these legs. were made for rapping around you so tight.

Olé! Every night when you. See me dancing on the floor, you'll agree I'm classed to the core. When you see. Me dancing with the boys, you'll agree you've never seen such poise.

These lips were made for tasting my time. Wasn't made for wasting, so I'm Gonna show you how it's done just for fun. Anyone wanna come? These lips were made for kissing. Take a sip.

And you'll know what you've been missing. You'll flip when this tamale wants to make you stay. Every day, ole, every night. What you say? Every day, ole, every night.

We can play every day, ole, every night. Well, all right. Honey, you sing. Like you look. This show is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by Brian Renfro, with opening music performed by The Empires.

To help support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com for ways that you can contribute or advertise with us.