As Good as it's Gonna Get

This is Zach Galligan, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences, and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I am Brian and joining me via the magic of the internet is. It's Sam. How's it going?

How's it going? Hey, buddy. How you been? We are back. It's been a little while.

I'm going to pretend to ask you a question in a minute. I know both of us have had the last half of this year has kind of sucked. So I'm going to pretend like we don't know those things. And I'll just be like, hey, how's it going? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And you can give the fake answer that we both give to random people on the street when they're like, hey, what's going on? How's it going? I'm like, nothing.

Fine. Whatever. Live in the dream. i don't know that i lied that much i'm just like no here's the one i keep giving people with no matter what it is whether it's like how's it going today how was your christmas you know any of your random ass questions i get from people i'm like it's as good as it's gonna get and they usually are like oh oh okay okay i'm gonna go away now thank you mission accomplished. Uh it's uh it's uh i the guy who goes like i do not want to dive into that. Right now i guarantee you don't you know okay excellent as good as it's gonna get that's pretty great where do you land on that scale oh yeah what do i say usually to people i say like uh oh man you know just making it happen you know you are as far as i can tell you are making it happen.

I mean making something happen you know not. Sure what but something not usually what was on the plan but uh something is happening and i i am sometimes if not the cause the uh horrified witness so. Uh that is our lives yeah witness to the horrification. Somebody has to bear witness to the horror so you know i mean i feel like sometimes that's that's my that's my. Main purpose that is our rule that's our lot in.

Life describe describe to view and just jot it down on a post-it you know for. A document this nonsense that's going on yeah that's kind of what this show is really it's like i just check in every once in a while and document what we're going to do. And then it goes off the rails immediately. And then we've documented that off the rail catastrophe as it happens. So yeah, that's, that's kind.

Of how we operate. Yeah. Yeah. Man plans, God laughs. So, you know, it's, it's, we should just let, let what needs to happen, happen, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Cool.

All right. We have survived thus far. So as, as, Kind of always with ours, but I mean, every once in a while, we'll almost make a plan by accident, possibly. By accident, right. But this one was just more of like, you just want to hang out and do that thing we do?

Yeah. And we're like, sure, why not? Yeah. So, I think we have some general movie viewings. I'm sure we'll stumble upon many larger questions, as we always do, but...

I guess, where would you like to begin on this crazy journey? Well, you know, I do have something I got to get off my chest and everything about the Christmas season and the viewing of Christmas. I'm just going to get into it, if you don't mind. Oh, please do. Okay, so....

Yeah, I feel like Eric Boghossian or something. I feel like we're on talk radio or something. I mean, we kind of are. We kind of are. This is kind of cool.

I feel like that's how it works. We just get in front of the microphone and say a bunch of crazy nonsense. I was wondering why Oliver Stone was in my shed here and setting up a 360 dolly track around me. Is there a. Grassy knoll near your house?

I would be aware of that if I were you. Just, you know, I think he's documenting something else right about now. I think so. What happened to Oliver stone? I mean, do you remember the nineties when he was like, uh, the peak of, you know, artistry of, of cinematic achievement and artistry and.

Everything kind of pushing the envelope, like not real technically, sometimes technically, but definitely like trying to make a statement, whether you agree or disagree with it. Like he was making a statement with every movie. Absolutely. And I don't know. He made Snowden, didn't he?

Like, yeah, but even my recently, but that didn't even feel like he was pushing the envelope anymore. Isn't that weird, though, that his movies like a Snowden, which is a well-made film or World Trade Center, which is a well-made film? It doesn't. There's something oddly missing about those movies or they don't have the. impact or were we just so media saturated back in that time that we actually thought these things were more important than they were. And now that we're kind of like grownups, you know, an Oliver Stone movie comes out and, you know, you go like, oh yeah, an Oliver Stone movie comes out.

But when we were younger and Oliver Stone movie coming out was like an event. It was like, this movie is going to rattle some cages. This movie is going to provoke some people. Uh, this movie is going to, uh, you know, win all the Oscars. And, and now they come out and they're like, you know, uh, I'm not provoked or, you know, I'll see it when it comes out, you know, later.

I think it's a little of at least two different things, maybe more, but I'd say definitely one, even back in the nineties, which to me doesn't seem that long ago, but I don't want to do the math because it's scary when I do. So in the, just a few minutes ago, nineties, uh, even that short an amount of time in my brain, there was way less stuff. So I feel like, and everything, it was one direct channel. Everything came rolling out into your movie theater and there were only a handful, you know, this month, these four big releases might be coming out, you know. Each weekend you might.

There was less. So there was less. So, you know, they could, they could present these things with more buildup and give it more of a showcase. Now it's like, let's make as much stuff as humanly possible, send it out as fast as we can, and just keep filling the pipeline so quickly that, you know, even if Oliver Stone made something as the caliber of a platoon, it would just get buried instantly because Oliver Stone is A, old news, and so nobody wants to hear about Oliver Stone. You know, John Woo just came back, you know, and made this movie that I hear was amazing. you know, I don't even think it's in theaters.

Anymore, dude. I mean, it's just like, I think. That's part of it. I think half of it is the pace at which things are thrown at us now. And also just for the specific Oliver Stone one, I think the same thing that's going on, you were asking like, are we older and more mature in our viewing habits?

He's also an older, different filmmaker now. So it's like he was making and focusing on very different stuff when he was 35 years younger, you know, it's just like it, it moving ahead. I'm like, now maybe he's not as hungry as he was to get stuff out there. And now maybe they're a little more polished, but they're not pushing the envelope anymore. Right, right.

They're poor polish in that, in that they're just, uh, he, everybody knows what they're doing at a certain point and they sort of know what they're going to get out of it. I think when you're making those first films, you know, you think this is going to be the one that I can, you know, it's like everything after up to the thing for John Carpenter, you know, then it's like, then it's like after the thing, he's got like, I got nothing left to prove, man. I can basically be on autopilot. I can be on autopilot and do big trouble little China. So, I mean, it's like, uh, it doesn't really matter.

Still epic, but in a very different way than the thing. Right. Right. And just like, you know, he goes like, okay, I swung, I hit a home run. There was no crowd.

Uh, To appreciate it. So, you know, I pretty much just got to I've got to reset my expectations of what I'm going to get out of this. It's going to take me quite a few years to reach my true masterpiece, Ghost of Mars. Ghost of Mars. That's right.

That's right. Which is which is basically a greatest hits album for John Carpenter. It's just another one of those like after like the escape from la which just became segmented things of like okay every 15 minutes we're gonna do another thing right ghost of mars kind of fell into that too of like here's some other stuff that's gonna happen Okay, well, let's change it up and do some other stuff in 15 minutes. It's just, I don't know. It's a weird delivery system that he came up with as he got older.

It truly is. It truly is. And yeah, you know, I mean, you just start these movies. Actually, I find age well, like what you would call it. Mouth of Madness was, I thought, pretty second tier Carpenter, maybe lower second tier into the third tier.

That movie, though, I keep going back to, you know. I need to revisit it. It has been a long time. I have forgotten most of what happens. Yeah.

Yeah. So and and some of these movies also even Escape from L.A. I haven't revisited it, but it is such a. I feel like it's burned into my mind. Yeah.

Whether I want it or not, it's burned into my brain. Of like a, it was kind of like an appetizer for the disappointment of Phantom Menace. You know, it was kind of like the late nineties. Oh, here's this thing you really, really, you know, hype for, and it was a disappointment. So, you know, you didn't realize, you know, it was a omen for disappointments to come.

Actually, it reminds me just yesterday, another member of this cast and I were discussing movies and it reminds me very much of the similar pattern. We were talking about Gremlins. And how awesome Gremlins is. Right. And Dante wanted it to be a goofy comedy with a bunch of wacky little Gremlin characters doing silly things.

Right. And you had the other end of it of like Chris Columbus and Steven Spielberg going, no, this is going to work because it's a horror movie. Like, go ahead and make it sort of, you know, a little silly every once in a while. But for the most part, make it creepy and scary. Right.

And it hits and it works. And then he has license to do whatever the hell he wants. And he's like, oh. Well, I'm going to make a sequel and I'm going to do it my way. Right, right.

And the studio went, great, go for it. And it's like a silly comedy version of the same movie. Yeah. That's Escape from L.A. It's like you get the basic concept.

You get that same character come back. You get it's just a goofy comedy version of the same story. Right, right. Yeah, it's a weird thing that sometimes they give these directors license to almost remake their own idea. And they're like, I'm going to make it funny this time.

I'm talking to Sam Raimi. Yeah, totally. I'm going to make it funny this time. I was just thinking. I was just thinking.

Yeah, I mean, that was sort of the odd thing when seeing especially, you know, Evil Dead 2, but especially Army of Darkness, just how they progressively lean more and more into the comedy. A lot of, even Texas Chainsaw 2 is more, you know. Definitely way more comedic. Comedic, right, right. It's very obvious that it's a comedy, whereas you don't get that from that first movie.

The first movie is traumatizing for a lot of people and doesn't, almost never winks at the camera, cracks a smile within its own facade. Like it is set in, no, this is what's going on and it's horrible. You know, it's like, that is not the tone on that second one. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Yeah, so I think, what I think is, I think Joe Dante's case, you know, I think, I think all that sense of humor, yeah, definitely, as you said, comes from Dante.

From what I have read, it was once he got the gremlins on the set and realized what they were and what they did best, he goes like, well, we can't do this serious, you know? I mean, we gotta, we kinda gotta make this fun, you know? And, uh, And, and he's really just such a smart ass and kind of like from a different generation of bite the hand that feeds you. And so, you know, it just like, don't, you know, just, you know, maintain some dignity while you're catching this check, you know? I mean, it is coming from that.

He's coming out of that late sixties. Yeah. Easy rider format of like, okay, we're the new kids. We're going to make movies our way and screw the studio system. And so he does have sort of that little, sort of hippie rebellion attitude of like, damn the man, I'm going to do it my way.

Like, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. And to, you know, just to, to, you know, to, you know, take some punch upwards, you know? And, uh, and so, you know, that's, what's, that's, what's, uh, cool about the vibe of those, those things, uh, that, yeah, they, I don't think they really, I don't know. I don't see as much as I used to. So, I mean, maybe there's something going on out there right now that has that kind of spirit, but you know, My wife and I were just talking the other day is like nowadays, you know, people are there is none of that.

It's like, how fast can I sell out as quickly as possible? You know, whatever. But it's that. But it's also hitting on like totally different formats that like doesn't even register with the old system. Yeah, this was again, this was last night.

They were rerunning an SNL from like. not that long ago because it's since it had a Chalamet pushing for the new Wonka thing, which we can go down that road if you want. But he did, he, he did the, the, I think he did this character the first time he was on where he's like the, the Tik TOK star more or less. Okay. And like, he's sitting there with like, he's supposedly like got a trillion followers on, you know, his social media. And he's sitting there with these, like, it's like the rap legend.

So it's like, I don't know. It has all these like, established old school, like mass media, like people that have spent their lives building a career in the sound and putting together this, you know, entire system that they built through the studios and like, Then you've got this idiot over here that's just spouting nonsense. Because hip-hop is more than music. We spend our pain into poetry. Yeah, yeah.

And that energy resonates with people all over the world. Yes, and moreover, its precious history empowers the people to express, invest, and progress to a better tomorrow. Yeah, me, I don't know, man. I guess I'm just like chilling, you know what I'm saying? Okay, first of all, I'm going to need to see your face, young man.

You're in a museum, so. Oh, yeah, my bad, miss. So, like, when they discovered hip-hop, what, like 2014? What? No, 50 years ago.

That's why we're all here. All right. Yeah, because to me, like, if it slapped, like, yeah, the opps going to slide, but the ends be popping regardless, you feel me? I don't know what any of that means. Yes, expound on that, please, brother, to Smoke Chat.

So, like, peep, right? I do mukbangs, right? I eat noodles on stream. And, like, my DMs be all cheese. I'm talking blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, sheesh. And has... a massive following and like they don't understand they're just like i don't know what any of that means like he's just saying nonsense like it doesn't matter because there's people to back him up no matter how stupid it is as long as enough people show up to view you and get you funding to do these things it doesn't matter you don't have to build a career anymore you just have to build an audience and you're there so i think it's that kind of stuff that's like same thing with film. Like you can be working your whole life, trying to build something through the old school studio system. Doesn't matter when some kid comes along with a whole new format that you don't understand.

It just blows you out of the water. Pretty much, man. Pretty much. So, I mean, my hat's off to them and everything. I mean, that's, that's freaking great.

You know, it's just, I guess it's, I guess it's a lot. I mean, sure. You got to talk about a potato chip every 60 minutes, but, but, you know, I mean, I guess that's just the way it is. I mean, Luckily, there are a lot of new crazy flavors of potato chips. So, you know, it gives you a lot of new material there.

Yeah. Thank God. Thank God for Frito-Lay, you know, feeding the cultural discourse. I do like that other countries have started just odd tangent, but they've started like pulling our nonsense off their shelves. Oh, really?

Britain has pulled Mountain Dew off the shelves. Because the stuff in it is so harmful that they're like, whoa, we can't sell this to our citizens. Oh, man. Maybe Doritos. Like there were several other.

There was definitely like candies that they pulled off the shelf because they were so horrible. They're like, we can't sell this. This goes against our standards. Meanwhile, back in America, we're down in two liters of Mountain Dew. Be like, yeah, this is awesome.

That's the breakfast of champions right there. Hell yeah. Mountain Dew get you through. So, you know, no, during the holiday season, you know, you go to like one of those swanky places like Publix or like Sam's Club, you know, and they got walking around are fancy. I'll do Publix.

I don't I don't know about Sam's Club. All right. But you go you go into a Publix or a Sam's Club, a fancy place, you know, for fancy people. And the people are out there with their little tables giving out samples, right? And it's usually a Swedish meatball or some kind of frozen entree that Publix will be cooking there and will give you a sample of a ham sandwich or something like that.

I think all of these are run by Big Toothpick, by the way. By Big Toothpick. I mean, they're the ones coming out ahead on all these free samples. Oh my God. The guy who invented the toothpick, he nailed it, man.

Nailed it. There has been no toothpick innovation yeah. Where's the robot that comes along that's stealing your your toothpick jobs. Yeah right where's where's my bluetooth uh enabled toothpick actually. Don't don't invite that because it'll.

Happen oh it's. A hand-free toothpick now it's like it just hovers it's got a little built-in drone action that brings the appetizer up to your face and fires it in. Fantastic. Brian, you're a visionary. I keep telling people that, but they always disagree.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's gold. That is gold right there. But anyway, so you go to those places, you get fancy. They actually tried at my local Walmart, went in to get some stuff. They actually had people with little samples, little sample tables.

The samples were the latest flavor of Dorito, and Dr. Pepper. I've never heard of these things. I better have a sample. Dr.

Pepper, you say? It's more like, it was like, who doesn't know what a Dorito, I mean, I don't even know how new the thing of Doritos were. I just saw Doritos in little cups and Dr. Pepper in another little cups. And I was like, are these samples or is this like a refilling station, kind of like marathon runners?

I mean, are they just trying to keep everybody hydrated? They throw Doritos at your face as you go by? Yeah. Like, there you go, buddy. Catch a few in your mouth as you keep going.

All right, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going. Go buy more stuff. Must buy more stuff. That's right.

That's how consumerism works, damn it. That's how it happens, man. That's how it happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the Walmart sample stations were pretty much like, they know their audience.

Yes, yes, they do. Mistake number one, going to Walmart. So yeah, they definitely know their people's. Right. And they were telling me, sir, just one cup, sir, sir.

You've downed six already. What? Huh? I just see these. I start.

You can't keep me away from them. That's right. You got to go in fast. You got to go in fast before they realize what's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Man, so holiday season. So, yeah, about holiday viewing. All right. So, you know, everybody knows. In 1983, I think it was.

Yeah, my grandmother took me to see Christmas Story. So that. It's been in my brain since, you know, 83. It's all downhill from 1983. Right.

Pretty much. We reached the pinnacle of Christmas story. And that's it. It's all downhill. Yeah, that's it.

They haven't made one to replace it yet. You know, Polar Express is for like dead eyed automatons. I mean, I don't really know. It's weird because I keep hearing kids that like. still like that and every time i look at him just like oh like i just get a shiver up my spine as i'm like i'm all for the robots taking over but they don't need to look like that i mean come on right at least make them look like cool robots. Exactly lifeless soul dead-eyed yeah tom hanks and that's not what i'm looking for that's that's not doesn't spell christmas for.

Me tom hanks is a national treasure how do you make him dead-eyed and creepy like what's wrong with you. It's almost like george romero's polar express i mean it's just Very messed up. And everything that's evil. But I think they probably showed it in the public school system, you know, that last week before Christmas break, you know, when everybody's had their tests and nothing else to do. So we'll watch Polar Express, you know.

I guess they probably don't wheel out the VCR and TV tray thing. In my head, that's what they do. But it's probably not that anymore. Coming down the hallway, you're like, yes! Yes!

Dude, it was like Christmas. There was a fist pump there if you didn't hear it. Oh, dude, I heard it. I felt it. I felt it in my soul, that fist pump.

And so, Christmas movies, right. So anyway, so Christmas story, everybody knows it, everybody loves it. Even if you don't like it, you probably end up seeing it three times a year. Yeah, you may hate it, but you still quote it on a daily basis throughout December. Right, right.

Begrudgingly, maybe, but you still kind of do. Absolutely, absolutely. So, in the probably five years ago. I don't know, before Corona, I guess the networks were desperate to get people to tune in to NBC, you know? And so they were doing that spat of live musicals.

I remember watching more of those than I really planned to, probably. Sure, sure. They were kind of like events. It was kind of like the last hurrah of the vent television. Get everybody to tune in at the same time.

Watch this special thing. We're going to bring back live television and They did a handful. I guess, I mean, now it's probably been eight years ago or so since that's all been going on. But anyway, so have you seen the Christmas Story live musical? Again, dork that I am, I... think i watched that one on tv but i actually if not last year the year before went and saw it in person well i i knew someone involved in a production and they were like oh you should come see this because you're a dork you love the movie i'm sure you'll want to see this and so i saw a live presentation of it right in front of me so i and it's all kind of based on that same version i think so okay i think i'm familiar with it at least to some extent.

Okay okay all right so Here was my take on it, all right? So it starts off like, oh, wow, they're really going for it. Look at all this production value. I mean, this was the live version. You appreciate the effort and the work and the choreography and everything.

You're going like, man, they really laid into this to try to make a quality product or a quality piece of entertainment here. And I'm going like, oh, I'm lowering my guard. I'm going like, hey, you know what? This isn't bad. And sometimes, kind of like the Beetlejuice musical, it kind of fleshes some stuff out.

So you're hoping for that. You're hoping that it's going to flesh some stuff out. They also sort of take advantage of that because... theater gives you so much more freedom. Like there's so many things you would see in a play and not even blink. But if they did it in a movie, you'd be like, Oh, what is this?

Like you would just immediately be put off by it. So like they have that freedom to also like take something that's just a minute within the movie and then turn it into a song and dance number and just expand on the concept. Like the thing that was the most specific of this type of thing in that was the, uh, the major award. Like just the mention of it in the movie, but then we get an entire dad song and dance number built around it with all these women and their fancy legs. And I'm just like, this is a cool concept.

But again, it's like, if this were in the movie, you'd be like, what the hell? Like, there's no way you would be okay with it. But because of the live production aspect, like it, it opens it up and you're just like, yes, this is a great new thing they've added. So. Okay.

All right. That, that, Okay, that brings me to the point of this thing, all right, that they made, all right, that it starts off great. My wife actually said, I think I like this better than the movie Christmas Story. I think I like the vibe of it. That's almost crazy, but I know people think that about a lot of live presentation things versus, you know, the regular version.

Right, right. So it starts off fine. And you're going like, I'm really enjoying this. At some point, it starts to turn on you. And at some point, a Christmas Story live musical becomes an act of torture, an act of brutality that is almost, you know, inhuman.

I mean, it's almost like, it is almost like, you think they probably show that at Guantanamo. Because, I mean, it's... It starts off so, like, happy. And then at some point, you realize that you are trapped in a room full of theater people. And they're all so precocious and alive and eager to please that it becomes obnoxious.

And then you can't get out because... your recliner's laid back and you're really much in the remote is just out of reach. So you're kind of like Malcolm McDowell in Clockwork Orange. It becomes, it becomes incrementally so painful to watch. And then because they, it is almost three hours long and they do have a 20 minute dance rehearsal for, for, a major reward award. It's like, Oh my God, get to the point.

Every second they keep stopping to do another dance musical. And at first it's like, okay, I'm okay with this. But at a certain. Point it's, it's, uh, I remember I, I never do. Like there was such a backstory for like the teacher, you know, I mean the teacher has like, that.

Has no backstory whatsoever in the movie. She's almost like a primary character she's given so much everything every story beat is given such equal attention and gravitas that it pretty much just becomes a loud screeching mess And by the time it was over and it just still wouldn't end, they were trying to wrap it up. And everybody's coming out and bowing. It's like, dude, you shouldn't bow. You shouldn't bow.

You should not be proud of what you've done here. Because you basically have anybody who may have been interested in musical theater, you just ruined it for them. And they're going to cite this thing as the thing that made them hate musicals forever. Forever. Forever.

I feel like you've chosen a side. Well, I'm like, I like. As you're talking about it, I'm like, I'm listening to your story about this specific Christmas story, but I am applying it to the entire season. Well, we start with, you know, it seems like such a good vibe and everything's going to go great. And by the end, it's like torture.

And I'm like, Merry Christmas. Can we move on? Can we move on? Can we just get this over with and move on to the new year? Please.

That's how it works. I like it. I like it. And then also it's, yeah, I think it's also just that musical thing. If you're not a musical person, be it live theater or film production.

Like I, I think the most, cause I went for most of my life and just didn't really fully connect with it at all. So the most specifically perfect thing in my mind was, I believe James Belushi of all people. Okay. In the middle of Little Shop of Horrors, he goes, hold it, sorry, don't mean to interrupt. If you two kids could just stop singing for a minute.

And I'm like, where's that character in every musical? Yeah, right. We've actually got to move on with the plot. If you two kids could stop singing and dancing for a minute, let's move on with this movie. So I kind of like that as a slap in the face.

Here's reality for you. Let's move on. So yeah, I feel like that. you're either for it or against it. It's rare that you balance yourself on both sides of that. I think you nailed it, Brian.

I think that's the problem with, uh, I mean, I, there are musicals I like and I get into, and because, you know, a, the music's, you know, if the music sucks, you know, what's the point, you know, but I mean, if it's the music's good and, and the plot moves forward, but that's the problem. It's like, you got to stop to sing. And sometimes it's organic and it flows and it furthers the characters and it makes, But sometimes it's just like, it seems so indulgent, you know? It's like, so like, uh, so like, uh, as much as I like, we'll say like Mary Poppins, you know, that whole sweet street bird dance routine in the middle that just stops the movie dead cold. And you're going like, you gotta stop and feed the birds, man.

I mean, and I'm going like, all right, all right, let's, let's move this along. And then it was like 20 more minutes of, uh, them dancing on the roof. And I'm going like, all right, all right. What you need is an opera. Yeah, there we go.

There's a nice rock opera. It is just built in. So there's no stopping and starting. Right. You start the story and every song continues on through the story.

Right. Right. That's, that's more of what you're looking for. I think so. Maybe so.

I love, uh, I mean, I guess when it's, it's weird, it's just how they kind of weave it in, you know, like, uh, oh man like uh like uh i did see phantom of the paradise recently and that's that was uh that's i guess considered a rock opera but you know you're not like pissed off that they stopped to see i mean it's more i guess it's handled in a different way it's not in a broadway kind of way you. Know yeah it's definitely not broadway right right right although i'm surprised they haven't done like they've taken every movie and turned it into like a broadway musical type it's true the fact that they haven't done Phantom of the pair, at least to my knowledge, if you're out there in a production right now, I guess right in and let us know.

But to my knowledge, they have, I mean, even of all the evil dead, the musical and so many horror themed and Beetlejuice and stuff like that, that doesn't seem like it would lend itself to that, but yet they, you know, clever people find a way. So that's right. Yeah. I'm surprised they haven't done a Phantom of the paradise, the musical. Right.

Right. Yeah. I'm, it, it, I think we put it out there. Now it's, now it's, it's for me. It's for me.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Yeah.

We, we can, anyway, so that was the tirade about that, but yeah. So, I mean, we could, I'm going to, I'm going to take a breath here. So, so yeah. Did you finish most of your thoughts on a Christmas story? I'm done.

I'm done. I was going to say, I have one. that I specifically watched recently because I wanted to discuss the subgenre with you. Okay. And I didn't know it was a Christmas movie. So I know we're out of Christmas now.

So for you, you know, listening in the future here, we've escaped from Christmas, but we're still sort of wrapping up our thoughts. And again, I didn't see this movie till after Christmas considerably. So I was just like, had no idea it was a Christmas movie. And I feel like that also ties in as I continue the discussion. Excellent.

But, um, Have you seen the ads for Family Switch? Uh, no. And I'm kind of like, is that a movie or a TV show? Take your pick. It sounds like it could be either, right?

Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds like, what, wife-swapping the show? Thankfully, we don't go down that road, because I don't know that I would be prepared for that. But it is some swapping of sorts.

Okay, please explain. I have no point of context for this. Well, I saw it pop up as a future advertisement on Netflix, and I was like, oh no, what is this? And then, as I saw what it was, I was like, okay, now I need to see it just for the continuing subgenre. I don't know if I've ever seen one that goes on as strong as the concept of body swapping, but now think about it.

Every few years they do another one. Yeah. And it's like with minor exception, there's been a few that have done well, but for the most part, they all kind of fall flat and people are just like, Oh, that again. Yeah. And yet every couple of years they'll bring big stars in to do another one.

Yeah. Like that's, that's so weird to me that like a thing that doesn't exist. It's not like this is an actual thing that takes place in your day-to-day life that I know of. Once again, if you have swapped bodies with someone, let us know. But to my knowledge, this is a fake fictional thing.

But it's become such an ongoing thing in film that it's a sub-genre of its own now. It's true. It's true. I guess you would consider the glory years being the... uh, Armageddon deep impact one, two punch of the Kirk Cameron movie. And then the, what the George Burns movie, this is like 1989 or something.

Maybe the high watermark. Yeah. Plus like, well, 88, you're coming out of big, which is almost like its own offshoot of like the solo body switch movie. Like you're switching with your future self. which is rare. Like usually you switch with someone else and you get the freaky Friday of it all.

But instead, yeah, you get big, which is sort of a little offshoot version, but still totally falls in there. Yeah. So that's probably the most successful and maybe the best done. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

Penny Marshall kind of hit something there that even she never really fully got back to that level after that. So no, no. Once again, using national treasure Tom Hanks to do it. Sure. Sure.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's it's just some people have so much charisma.

They could basically be reading the phone book. Yeah. They, you know, they put they put Tom Hanks alone and on an island talking to a volleyball. And people love. Right.

Right. Right. I mean, we'll watch Tom Hanks do anything. One of his most beloved films. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Fun at parties. So usually there's like two people and they Freaky Friday it and they swap bodies and then they have to like live in each other's bodies and it's a whole different crazy wacky thing. So the way that this is different.

And as soon as I saw that trailer come up, I was like, oh, I see what we're doing here. This is. We are treading new ground. This is going to be a whole. New plateau of intellectual property here.

We usually have two people. This is an entire family that switches bodies. It's like alien versus aliens. That's awesome. The entire family switches bodies.

Are you comprehending? I'm trying to. I don't know how they're going to set that up unless the devil is involved. That's a whole other thing. We'll get to that.

But there's mom and dad, two kids, and then there's also, here's the best, worst part, also including the baby and the dog. Okay. So the baby is going to be destroyed. All right. It's going to psychologically destroy the baby.

All right. Oh, no, no, no. It's going to run around like a puppy dog. Oh, wait a minute. So wait, what?

So the baby goes inside the puppy? The baby and the dog and the family dog swap. So the dog walks around on two legs like a toddler and the baby runs on all fours and tries to run away and chew on things and drinks out of a bowl. Hey, are you messing with me right now? You think I'm making this up.

It's a sad thing. Wait, okay. So it's not a family. Wait a minute. So it's not a family switching with a different family.

No, no. It's within the own set family. Every personality switches. But not that far off because it's basically they don't change genders. It's just the parents swap with the kids and the dog and the baby swap.

That's pretty much it. All right. Are you OK? Did you have an aneurysm? I'm not.

I'm trying to. I really I. I've known you for a little while, so I know you're not into the practical. I mean, you've never punked me before. I don't need to because Hollywood delivers stuff way dumber than I could ever make up.

So the baby's brain goes inside the dog. Yes. And the dog goes inside the baby. Exactly. And the baby is old enough to toddler, I guess.

It doesn't really have speaking lines, so it's not a talking baby yet. But it is a barely walking baby. Yeah, that's so messed up. You see what I'm saying? That's so messed up.

Insanity. That's so messed up. So, I mean, and they're leaving money on the table with like transgenderism being such a topic nowadays. It seems like there's way more opportunities they could have had if they also switched genders. But this one, I think they're focusing more on the put yourself in my shoes of it.

So that's kind of more of where they go. Okay. Okay. So the dad is going to realize that it's really... man my wife works really hard keeping the house going and managing a career like Sarah Jessica Parker and you know packing the sandwiches I think. You're in a different movie because they stick within the same gender so it's teenage son swaps with dad teenage daughter swaps with mom so it's You don't understand what my life is like.

It's so difficult being a kid in high school. You don't understand what my life is like because I'm a working mom and I have a meeting to go to and I still have to pack your lunch and make sure you kids get your homework done. And like, yeah, it gives us a good amount of time of like, look how complicated their lives are. And then we swap. Wow.

OK, so this would be this would be terrible. All right, because immediately. You're having this as a real life thing now, not not the movie. You're saying this as a thing that would happen to you would be terrible. Well, I'm just saying, well, I mean, of the movie, which is everything is going.

To be terrible. This is all this is going to be a litany of terrible things. OK, because, OK, a. If this was a movie and you say like, hey, write this terrible movie. All right.

I mean, my gut first idea instinct is the teenage son will go into the father's job and basically quit within like 10 minutes because jobs are stupid. Jobs are stupid. This is not what I'm meant to do. I'm supposed to be a recording artist. And this is I can't believe these people are sitting here doing this.

What's weird is you you went the right road, but the opposite way. OK, the dad was going to be a rock star and he gave all that up to be a dad. So now he's like a boring high school music teacher. So he gets a chance to be cool again. Oh, no.

Because all the things he does as an old man just makes him look lame. But if he does it when he's like 13 or 14, he's a cool high school kid again. Dude, guess what? Guess what? Going back to being a high schooler in a high schooler body would not make you cool all of a sudden.

All right. You have been beaten down into the lame person that you are and you switching bodies isn't going to change that. All right. They almost get that right because the high school boy is so traumatized by being in high school. Like he barely leaves the house.

He goes through this like mission impossible, like trip through the hallway to avoid coming in contact with pretty much all kids, but definitely you're like bully character who looks like he's in his mid thirties. So, I mean, yeah, it's like such an ordeal for him to even go to school. They kind of get that right. That's how, to me, high school is that traumatic on a regular basis. So that part seems accurate.

Okay. So, but okay. I think that, okay. So I think the dad would be shocked to find out that in his life full of compromises, that he's just not that musician anymore. Oh, he's probably not.

Don't worry. He's got a dad rock band, though. The kids, if it's not Midwest emo, as my kid tells me is the popular thing, if they made this movie the way they should have made this movie. This, this would be, this would have the same effect of making you appreciate what you have, but it would, they'd need to tell this honestly. All right.

It is not at all honest like that's the thing we don't even here's what I think is funny in any body swap movie is like the second it happens you're just gonna be messing with your junk like. Let's be real as a human being like you're just gonna be like what the hell is going on here especially if you gender reverse that's when it really should get interesting like whoa what the hell is going on here the untold story of these gender swap movies. We do not go down that road at all. The closest we get is the daughter swaps into the mom and then is looking at her butt in the mirror and is like, hey mom, look, you got a giant butt. That's awesome.

That's as close to that as we sort of graze by. It would pretty much have to be the plot would have to be saved for the sequel. And this would be one of those movies that, you know, it's just like, oh man, it was all buildup to them actually doing, leaving the bathroom. But it did it. You know, it never got there.

Days worth of all of them standing in front of the mirror. You'd have to see the, you'd have to see, Have the superimposed calendar days flipping by on the flip calendar. Flip, flip, flip, flip. Tech talk hands going by, you know, like a Sam Raimi montage, you know. And then finally, three weeks later, then we can start.

Three weeks later all right right i mean you get the there's ones that attempt to do like a forgotten one i always think the all of me where we get lily tomlin trying to use a urinal right it's like okay that's that's a moment you would be like what the hell is going on here and how do you even do this every day what the so there's moments when they kind of go down that road but yeah Family switch, that is not the road they go down. Now, don't think it's because... I mean, thank God. Don't think it's because. They're taking the high road.

Because that's what, as I got into this, I was like, wow. This is a checklist of every dumb modern comedy trope that you could ever have. It's like, you know, can we... get some fart jokes in there yeah definitely we're gonna have an extended one of those can some dude get hit in the nuts of course we'll get that in there can we be driving down the road and a car knocks the door off while you're oh yeah we can get that in there don't you worry like every cliche thing that happens in a dumb comedy totally comes through here so don't you worry it does not take the high road at all. Yeah. So, so why are you making this?

I mean, if you don't really have like a real fresh take on it and you're just, it's like fart jokes. I mean, I get it. It's entertaining, but why are you not trying to like, why would you make something? I mean, I don't want an R rated, but. I would like, you do really.

I would, I was kind of, I mean, but you can't, you can't be like, you got an opportunity here. I mean, give us something honest, you know, just give us like an honest take on the story of what it would be. I would watch that. But this thing that you're talking about, I mean, it might be like a train wreck kind of viewing. That kind of thing.

At moments is. Again, I think it switches gears. Like it takes the low road quite often. And that's the thing is like, I feel like the drama part of it isn't that bad. If they would have just given.

In and been like, okay, we're going to focus on this family drama thing and like have some comedic, you know, fish out of water moments. But for the most part, just deal with them kind of coming to terms with each other's lives. And like, if you just went ahead, okay, it's going to be sappy because the sappy moments kind of work. That's the disturbing part. all right there's a moment in both storylines of like the dad and the son and the mom and the daughter having this moment after you know two days of this craziness they're like wow i really didn't understand what you do to get through your life. And like, there's moments when they had that, that I'm like, wow, this is kind of genuine.

Like I'm buying into this moment. This is a cool moment. And then it's right back to some sort of pratfall bullshit. I wish they would lean one way or the other. If they were just nothing but dumb stuff, I could just avoid it altogether.

But there was enough promise there that I'm like, all right, I kind of want to see what they do with the premise. And then I get suckered in with the moments and there's decent performances, but they just, Within a few minutes, they will go right back to some sort of cliche comedy nonsense. All right. All right. And this is on Netflix?

It is created by Netflix. By a Netflix film. And who is in it? So this is the thing. It also has a pretty impressive cast if you're a modern comedy kind of a person.

You're pulling in the big guns here. It's starring as the parents, Ed Helms and Jennifer Garner. Okay. Which, by the way, is star of one of those movies. popular movie yeah 13 go out on 30 right. I don't know that i don't know that i don't know yes you do i don't know they.

Pulled that in as and that's what's funny it gets to a point of being self-aware that like when this happens and they're all standing around the kitchen like talking at the same time trying to figure out what the hell is going on they make these comments Like one of them's like, oh, people don't just get big overnight. Look at me. I'm 13 going on 30. They say that? They say it out loud.

Ryan, this is terrible. You got brainwashed by the sentimentality of like two scenes. I'm telling you. It has here's what suckered me in though because i don't really know the son that much but the daughter is emma myers who is the adorable werewolf girl from wednesday and i saw that in the trailer i was like she is awesome like i kind of want to see what she does next so okay this is where it led me oh my god like again she is solid in this like she is just a good actress and like she's She's a sporty kid and she's into soccer and like she's not a fancy girl. So it's like she lays into that stuff and is really good at it.

Yeah. And it's a shame it's in the rest of this ridiculous nonsense. Yeah. But but as far as pulling in the rest, like I'm not Bradley Noon is the son, which he looks familiar, but I can't name the other stuff he's been in. But it's also an excuse to just work in as many other like.

I've got friends in Hollywood, so I'm going to make the weird, mysterious character that might be involved in all this craziness, Rita Morano. Rita Morano. Okay. Classic Hollywood actress. Who's that?

Uh, wasn't she in like West side story? Like, I mean, she's old school. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

Got it. Got it. Got it. Recently come out of retirement. Cause I know she was in that rebooted one day at a time.

Okay. Like, okay. She's kind of back in action. So they pull her in as like old Hollywood royalty. Yeah.

We got some big, but then you work in again, any random comedy, you got to work Paul sheer in there. Um, my God, I think the biggest showcase of, um, look, I've got famous friends. As I said, Dad's a past rock and roller that's still kind of living the dream. So he's got a dad band called Dad Are Alive. Yeah, go ahead.

All right, that's funny. No, that's funny. Oh, and they have an awesome logo, I'll give you. The cool logo, when you watch this movie, which I know now you're going to, the logo behind them when they play is pretty badass if you're going to have a dad rock band. But at the beginning...

They come like running up to him like, oh, we got this big showcase we get to play. And I'm like, that guy runs up to him from the band. I'm like, that's the dude from Weezer. What? The entire rest of his dad rock band is Weezer.

What? No joke. I'm I'm I don't even know. Right. Exactly.

That's what I'm saying. But don't you think? Don't you know? Okay, don't you resent that a little bit, that they're pandering to people of a certain demographic because they know they'll watch this terrible damn thing because they got Weezer in it? I mean, don't you know, don't you hate it when they, like, make some terrible piece of freeze dried crap.

And that they put somebody that you really respected it because that person needed a paycheck. And so, God damn it. Now I've got to watch this damn thing. I thought more. It was the other way of like, it was Weezer just admitting to themselves that they're a dad rock band that happened to become successful because now they're just a bunch of old dudes.

They make a ton of money playing live shows. So, right. They're just a dad rock band that happened to catch on when they were a little younger, but now they're just dad rock, so. Yeah. Oh, well, that's actually a good take on it, Brian.

That's a lot better. That's a lot better. That's probably why they signed on. They were like, well, I mean, that's pretty much what we are, so okay, I guess we'll do it, so. You know what?

It's really weird. I would not like my parents' music just on principle, okay? All right? And my kids... listen to some of the same bands. I mean, and we're like Weezer is still popular amongst people of a lot of ages, not just old fuckers like us.

Well, that's the thing. There is no grouping anymore. Like everything that sort of changed when you had like a regular delivery system, much like movies. The music is the same way. It's like there's not regular radio rock.

It's still out there, but it's all run by one big clear channel, if you will. And they like, they own all the stations. So they play the same 10 songs. So if you're going to find anything else, you're going out on your own. So kids are just sort of left.

Cause we used to sit like in front of MTV and like the new 50 songs that were out there were fired at you all day long. Cause they had a lot of room to cover and they, people were making videos all of a sudden. So they had like, cool, let's get all these on the air. We want to get more stuff out there. Whereas now it's like the only thing that's popular is like mainstream wise is like the, they play the same 10 songs over and over.

So I think kids are smarter than that. And they're just like, Oh, well there's other stuff out there. Let's go find it. So now they're just on their own and they just search the internet or where they hear music on fucking tick tocks. And they're just like, what's that?

And then go down a rabbit hole and figure out, Oh, they use this song from 30 years ago. And that's right. This is kind of cool. So, cause I agree. Over Christmas, I sat there with my nephew, who is now kind of a grown dude, and it's really disturbing.

But it's funny because he almost skipped a generation. He listens to the crap my dad was listening to. Yeah, right? And he's into classic rock stuff. And he's asking me about Beatles songs and Dylan.

And I'm just like, you know you're a teenager, right? And it's not the 1960s. Why are you into this stuff? But that's, you know, that's the thing. Kids deep dive and they come to the same conclusions that parents did years ago, I guess.

When you find stuff that resonates with you, you just stick with it. But yeah, it's really weird because kids just don't have the specific things served up to them in a little way. box like they used to back in the day. Everything was like, oh, you're into this type of music. You're a metal kid. You listen to these 10 bands.

You're an alternative kid. You listen to these 10 bands. You're into rap. You listen to these. You know, it's like we don't have that anymore.

Now everything's like just sort of free form. Go find whatever you want, which I guess is better, really. But it's so much better. It doesn't. It doesn't. give you a specific like it's going to be hard looking back because now I can be like listening to a song and be like man this so sounds like the 90s you know this is such an 80s song you're not going to be like oh this is so 2020s because it's just going to be a mess of stuff like all our influences now are just a big pot and it's all boiling together I.

Guess that's great though right I mean in a bigger sense I guess it is yeah yeah I mean I think that's right I think they follow a rabbit hole And they pass through bands. And because I think the cost prohibit, it was so cost prohibitive to be a real music eater, you know, I mean, to like get a album was like 15 to 20 bucks, you know, and so you really had to be real selective about the things that you bought. And, you know, when you went off a wing and spent 20 bucks and it sucked, you know, you felt like, God, I wasted my money and you can't return it. You know, I'll go to the secondhand store and get a dollar back for it. Maybe, maybe lucky if it's a brand new and I'll get a dollar back.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or you follow a band and they have the, you know, the $ 20, uh, you spend $ 20 on their first album. It was great. The $ 20 of the second album, you got about, you know, two good songs on it, you know, and then. If you pay for the third one, it sucks.

It was more expensive to really follow those rabbit holes back in the day. And you couldn't really sample things other than what was on the radio. So if you wanted to be all in on it, you just had to go buy the album and sit there and listen to it. Whereas now, everything's essentially free. Not really.

It's part of what destroyed the music industry. But essentially, you. Can go on just freaking YouTube and I can find damn near any song I want, listen to it for free. Maybe I skip through an ad. But for the most part, I'm listening to it with no money invested as a kid.

And I can pick whatever. i like what i don't like and i don't have to like deep dive into it i don't have to throw a ton of money into it right you can kind of create your own thing that you're into so again and in the end it's better it makes more of a well-rounded person but right it's just so different from how we grew up Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. So, yeah, there are probably some things on my playlist that are more recent now than for a while before I had a Spotify account, you know? But my kids, I mean, they...

Well, you're talking about influences. They were playing something, listening to something the other day, and I go like, are you listening to REO Speedwagon? Yeah. You were dorks if it was the 70s. What the hell?

And she's like, no. And I'm like, no, this is like this band. And I go like, is this new? And she's like, yeah. And I go like, listen to this song.

And so I played I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore. A classic. A classic. And I was going like, you see what I mean? And she's like, yeah.

And I'm going like, weird. And she's like, uh-huh. See, I'm the unusual one, especially for the old man that I am, because I do still... I'm definitely not in the loop as far as knowing all of the stuff, because there's way too much stuff out there now as well, much like the movie industry. Everybody just puts out an album.

Not even an album. Shit. You don't even do albums anymore. Nobody even releases albums anymore. You just do a song, put it out.

Everything's a single. Everything just gets dropped on the internet. But I will be like... I'm the one old man that's also... sitting at a party talking to my teenage niece about Olivia Rodrigo. So I'm dork enough to like, there's still some current things that I'm totally into.

And I think she's a great songwriter and like, I'm impressed with her as a performer. And like, I still, I'm not so old man set in my ways that I don't like new things. I think I like a lot more than most people of my old age era. But yeah, I still feel like there's so much new stuff out there that you can't even scratch the surface now. Like, even kids that are immersed in it, there's probably tons of stuff they're missing because there's just so much out there now.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, these all sound like positive things. I think so. So, once again, this movie has brought you joy, is what I'm saying. Yes, again, basically, this sounds like a life-changing movie that I'm about to watch here.

This amazing body-swapping movie filled with lots of dumb comedic moments. Yep. Yeah, and that is an interesting sub-genre. Now, I think... I really think the baby and the dog switching places is probably a step too far.

Well, see, I think even they realize that because... Within a few minutes, they're like behind the scenes. They're like, oh, except babies are pretty boring. So let's get them out of there. So like almost immediately and almost for the rest of the movie, the dog and baby are totally sidelined so that we can focus on these other four characters that actually are like living lives and interesting.

So they get some random weirdo neighbor to babysit and or dog sit at the same time. He doesn't know what happened, but he's seeing these things and somehow is like, confused by it but not like freaking the hell out and running away. He's just watching well yeah the dog you know like he keeps sometimes they'll do it behind his back like he's turned around and the dog the kids running around a really bad cg kid running on all fours behind him and then they'll turn around and the baby's just sitting there so it's. Like sometimes he's out of the loop other times the dog's asking him to put a diaper on him and he's like sort of okay with it. Well that is a phenomenon in movies that people go with situations that in real life would stop people cold, you know?

Yeah. You should be screaming, running from the house, but instead you're like, you want me to put this on you? Okay. And then you put a diaper on a puppy and like, yeah, that's fine. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I, I don't know, Brian, the more you describe it, you keep, I keep swinging the pendulum of like, uh maybe this will be fun to watch or maybe this would be infuriating and that's pretty. Much how it operates too got it as i watched it every moment i'm like well maybe this is redeemed nope nope another pratfall here we go and then i realized why like i got through this entire movie and i'm like this thing is all over the place and it's kind of a mess but it's trying real hard over here and it's trying to do this thing and Who the hell put this together? And at the end, the credit comes up. Directed by Mick G. What?

Mick G. Mick G? Oh, my God. I was like, oh, God. Every time I forget about him, then he makes something else.

I keep thinking we're out and he pulls us back in with body swapping families. Wait a minute. Does it have the style of like, you know, the babysitter movie? Is it like that kind of thing? I was like, cause I was thinking that's the last one I remember seeing of his were both of those babysitter movies, which are pretty fun.

Like those as again, they're not perfect, but they're a little hammy, but at the same time they're fun. Yeah. So again, I feel like this is way more, uh, traditional slapsticky bullshit that's to me like that's why I didn't immediately recognize like who the hell it is tons of needle drops which is also one of his things yeah of super recognizable popular songs like he never digs out a forgotten relic he's always just like yeah here's the 10 songs everybody already knows and. I'm gonna put them in. My thing I hate that so yeah there's definitely a whole lot of Christmas needle drops that you weren't necessarily missing but there they are anyway so But yeah, to me, it's not near as entertaining or interesting as what the babysitter was doing.

So, or the second baby, even the second one was pretty fun. I kind of better because it brought in a new cast member that I like a lot more. So yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen the second one yet, but it's fun.

Yeah. Now what is, what, um, does it have though? Like his, you know, the visual panache he brings to most of his projects, you know, like, uh, the energetic camera work and the, fourth wall kind of breaking. I feel like, again, I feel like this seems a lot more traditional. That's why I said I didn't recognize it as one of his through the whole rest of what I was watching, so.

You would expect something a little different from him, but it feels like it's super traditional, random comedy that comes on cable that you're like, eh, whatever. And that's kind of how this plays out. Again, I feel like the only thing that elevates it is the performances. Everybody's committed and does a good job as far as the actors, but production-wise, it just feels like a random made-for-cable streaming service kind of movie. So that's the thing about the Netflix streaming movies is they've got so much resource and power and money to throw at something, but the movies do come off very try hard, you know, very, very, that we are going to entertain you to death with this movie.

All right. And TV, which is what it's funny. Like looking, I was trying to be like, what else did he do? But he's done so much TV work. Then I'm like, maybe this is just more of his, maybe the movies are his weird offshoots because he's done way more TV than feature films.

So maybe this is just him falling back on his TV roots here. It's real weird. It's real weird because, okay, so I'm about to say something that, uh, would actually get me kicked out of many film circles, but I was crapping on this movie. And then you said directed by Mick G. And my first thought was I'm in. and so that makes me probably not qualified to talk about movies.

Maybe possibly he also i forgot he did rim of the world which i think was another streak to netflix thing that was the post-apocalyptic kids trying to save the world i think from aliens but again the sad part is i don't even remember what it was. From i think it was aliens I can't guarantee. I watched it. It's only like 2019 and yet by now I can't even tell. You what the hell it was about.

That was 700 movies ago. That says a lot about the film, I feel like. Probably so. No, I think McG when he's cooking on all cylinders makes good energetic movies, you know? Now he.

He's done it before. Yeah. Also, it's very to just like sometimes falls right into here's some random crap on TV. Right, right. He can just fall back and coast through projects.

This might be one. I think it I think it was. It sounds like it sounds like because I mean, if he if he brought that a game, I mean, I think even if even with a baby and a dog's body, I mean, maybe I could. uh, get behind it, but it, it, it sounds like a paycheck and, uh, uh, and, and yeah, you know, I mean, he, he, I'm not going to defend, I mean, he basically showed how easy it was. was to make a terrible terminator movie i mean and and uh and like how how no amount of effort can make a good terminator movie uh and christian bale whoever you got in it you know yeah you're. Pulling in big names but yet it still doesn't salvage it if you're just yeah Boning it in. The one thing I got out of Terminator Salvation was Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese impersonation.

I was like, hey, that kid's got... He nailed Kyle Reese, man. He's a good impersonation. I love Anton. I miss him.

I wish he was still making crap. He was always fun. I love that kid. Yeah, he was cool, man. He was cool.

Okay, so we sidetracked ourselves from what led us to this movie. Okay. And here's the thing. All the things I've said about it, all these different things that have annoyed you. Yeah.

Has any of them sounded like Christmas to you? Like Christmas? Christmas. No. Because this is also a Christmas movie.

Oh my God. What the hell? Right. So it feels so tacked on. Like so much so I started thinking, did they just add that in after the fact?

But then I went back and I was like paying attention. I was like, no, there's all these Christmas decorations everywhere. And like, again, all the music that comes in, like 90% of it is Christmas song. So it's like, it really, by the end is trying to play the Christmas movie card. But I was like, that seems like a different genre.

Like why would you take your already well-established body swapping genre and try to cram it into Christmas? Or vice versa. I was like, it just, it feels so tacked on. So, it's like, had it been, had they worked it in where, like, there was a gift swap, you know? And, like, whoever you gave that gift to, you ended up switching personalities with.

Then it would be- Baked into the plot, it would make sense. Baked into the plot, right? Yeah, we don't have that at all. Yeah. Because that's the other thing.

With all of these body-switching movies, there always has to be a dumb gimmick that does it. Like, you can't just... I guess the most without a gimmick is, like, our original Freaky Friday run. Right. They're always just, like, at the same moment, they say a thing, and then they swap.

Right. And that's it. And they don't question it any more than that. But then there's other ones that are like, is it one of them? There's like a magic bowl and your soul goes into a bowl and the magic bowl gets spilt.

And then the soul goes into another person. Like, Oh, magic metal bowl. You know, there's gotta be a magic metal bowl. Okay. So this, yeah.

Each one has to pick what's our weird magical thing that makes this happen. Do I have a Zoltar machine that I can talk to? You know, you gotta have a, whatever it is that does it. So this one, The kid is super smart, the boy, and he's into astronomy. So they go to this once-in-a-lifetime lining up of the planets, and that may be what does it.

Maybe. Possibly. There's a flash of light and wind blows, and suddenly things are switched. I don't know. Whatever.

Because then by the end, they also play it off like maybe it's not that. Like maybe there's a Santa Claus element that was there the whole time. And the planet thing wasn't even what did it. It was our magic Santa Claus character that's like, you guys just needed to find yourselves and become better as a family all along. And it's the magic of Christmas that made that happen.

What? I hope you're happy now. So the ancient druid ritual was just a smokescreen to... Say like, oh no, it's actually this. It's actually this religion.

In actuality, you just need to appreciate your family a little more. And then maybe that's the magic. And then it'll switch all back when you come to terms with the fact that your family's pretty awesome. Got it. So Santa Claus...

So Santa Claus and the aligning of planets... Is what led us to this family swapping. So. So Santa Claus is aware of like ancient dark arts and is maybe in league with Cthulhu. And then like, so Cthulhu's purpose now is to bring families closer together.

Yeah. You've already gone way more interesting than McG. So I think we're handing the McG reins to you from here on out. All McG movies have to go through you. All right.

All right. All right. It just seems that seems to be the obvious thing because we're dealing with like ancient magic. We're dealing with people with magical powers and and, you know, knowledge that has been forgotten to time. Yeah.

So, I don't know, dude. I don't know. This sounds like a really good movie. I come back to my. Hiding inside a really terrible movie.

My entry point and my takeaway was the same. Emma Myers is pretty awesome. Yeah, sure. Other than that, I'm just like, ah. I mean, Jennifer Garner, God love her.

She's trying. Yeah, man. She kind of commits. She delivers a pretty good performance. But I'm just like, it is just so...

Let's work in a spit take. Ready? Go. Yeah. It is so traditional comedy nonsense.

Like it's just. Yeah. These movies get trapped inside the genres that they're in. Sometimes, sometimes there's a good movie there, but they've got, they got to play by the rules of the genre. You definitely could take those touching moments and like rework them into something a little more interesting and clever and then have a good movie, but it falls back on slapstick bullshit.

So yeah, yeah, sure. Sure. And, you know, there is a time where you want to be challenged as a viewer, and there is a time where you just want to watch some random thing on Tubi and not be challenged. And I was like, hey, I've got a grocery list of things that I need to see in this movie so I can get through another day. And if that's the case, they deliver in this movie.

They deliver. They hit that grocery list hard. Yeah, yeah. It's like the algorithm knew that. how to make this movie. And that's, I mean, because it's made for Netflix, like it literally feels like they took all the most popular searches and views on combined to the comedies together.

And like, okay, what's the top 20 things that are in all these movies, the collective things that are in all these movies, we're going to take all those and make sure they're in this movie. McGee, get on it. And then it, this is it. Like, this is the amalgam of what comes together when you, take a bunch of modern dumb comedies and like, here's what people like. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not good. It's not good.

That makes that now I'm depressed. Now I'm depressed about thinking about the current state of, no, no, we told you it made you happy. As long as we told you it made it, that's all that matters. This, this discussion has been an emotional rollercoaster. That's what we do.

It's so, so terrible. So terrible. Does this, um, But this... It makes you long for films that were made by people who didn't know better. And I've been...

In our kind of pre-discussion, I've been diving into these Tubi, or at least free streaming service selections. And they seem to have everything on the planet. And a lot of what I'm finding are things from the 80s that are, you know, very low budget, but very made by people. Made by people, not, you know, I'm not trying to say made by people, not committees. I'm just saying there was no market research.

There's definitely not an algorithm at work. There is no algorithm here. It's almost like uh, community theater, uh, movies. And I, I love these things more so because as they say, they just don't make them like that anymore. Uh, because yeah, uh, this, the craft work has gotten so good on even low budget things that, you know, they don't make them like that anymore because, you know, a foam rock, you know, or, I don't know what I was, you know, just, these are just terrible, uh, You know, exploitation movies from the late 80s, you know, 80s, late 80s, you know, and that they used to show on like USA Up all night.

And they're all on these free services. And you watch them and you go like, this is so charming. Because I remember they were kind of like smutty back in the day. But now they're just kind of like lighthearted. Nobody's taking anything seriously.

Those robots are obviously papier-mâché. But nobody cares. I mean, this is actually... uh, you know, objectively a bad movie, but because it's such a, uh, a handmade piece of theater, basically, it's basically, I guess I'm talking about slave girls from beyond infinity. All right. So I'm just going to.

Say, you're starting to get specific. We might as well name it. All right. Slave girls from beyond infinity. All right.

So, you know, you're sitting there just watching it going like, yeah, I have i am like a skeezy old man watching this stupid movie all right but. Uh anyway not really as you go on because that's that's the thing it's like you you we were throwing out like do we even pick a topic and the only thing you mentioned a couple of movies and one of which was slave girls from beyond infinity. And i was like Okay. I was like, I'm not even going to comment to you anymore. I'll just go ahead and we'll wait till we get to the episode.

But what's funny is I have this movie on VHS. Oh, okay. Okay, cool. And I bought it for the title and the cover art. I went in completely sight unseen here.

Here I'm dating myself. I'm pretty sure I just make up these memories sometimes, but I'm pretty sure I bought this at Camelot. Okay. Yeah, man. Camelot music had a, as they got bigger as a company, had a ton of movies.

And I'm pretty sure after a while, they also, because it wasn't their main business, they would just mark them down and clear that stuff out as they got, you know, here's a whole bunch of VHS tapes or a ton of my laser discs came from that because they just be like, get this out of here. $ 1. 99. Good enough. Let's go. Go, go, go.

I saw this on the shelf and went slave girls from beyond infinity. That sounds awesome. And then you pick up the box and the box art is amazing. Incredible. And I was just like, obviously I need this movie.

Yeah. So I watched it back in the day on that VHS tape. And the thing is back then I was like, eh, I didn't think it was that great a movie. Like I just threw it on the shelf and it's still sitting there now. It's been there ever since.

Yes. I haven't revisited it until you mentioned it. And I just went back and rewatched it the last day. Okay. So we now can address it as the old men that we are.

Right. Right. But that was my entry point is like, I owned this and specifically bought it based on title and poster art. Right. And there is nothing there's nothing wrong with that movie.

All right. That movie is actually I thought I loved it. I think had I seen it in 1988 or something like that, I would be like, oh, it's not very good. That was where I landed at the time. Right.

Whatever. But again, I'm also in the middle of the 80s watching the most epic 80s movies ever that I still hold as classics. So, you know, when I just finished watching the thing, and then I watched Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, I'm like, wow, man, this isn't very good. This is barely a movie. Compared to some of the crap streaming now, I'm like, you know, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, it's got its good points.

You know what? I like how it just looks like three sets. And, you know, two bikinis and, like, two papier-mâché robots and some really terrible acting. And just, like, I was just going, like, man, this is... I didn't realize this was going to feel so throwback.

And, you know, this was kind of like a Skinemex kind of thing where you, like, you hope nobody catches you watching it, you know? But I'm going, like, compared to the stuff that people... have access to now. This is like a sports illustrated swimsuit. That's what I was watching this. Like, I remember this being like, Ooh, do I even let people know I.

Have this on my shelf? It's so scandalous. Exactly. This movie. And then I'm watching it now.

I'm going, do you know how much, like not just nudity, but full on hardcore pornography is, is at anyone's disposal right. kid or adult right right moment of their lives as they're carrying the supercomputer in their pocket all day. Yeah exactly whatever horrible. Thing they want yeah but when i go back and watch this like it is almost refreshing i was it is you know what i saw a couple of nipples. Right And that was it. Like that's, you don't, they're in their underwear most of the movie.

But other than that, like there's barely even any actual nudity. There's a couple of moments of like, oh, she took it up, up. And then it goes away immediately. And I was like, you know, the sad thing is in the 80s, that was, it yeah like you were so amazed that you got to see that girl take her top off like this was one of my favorite movies for the rest of my life absolutely some girl took her top off for 12 seconds and i changed. My life right right five seconds of side boob like like redirected by the course of my existence right right yeah i was like.

But now like that shouldn't even phase. This any kid out there i was. Like you've seen so much stuff like this shouldn't even register as being not only nudity but even in the naughty category right silly that you just be like what is this this is dumb and they turn it off probably but. Yeah yeah this is boring this is for me revisiting it it's the whole new world yeah yeah always going like man this is really not that smutty the girls are obviously in on the joke everybody's kind of in on the joke And, you know, they take their tops off like once, but it's like, it's not like super, it's not super exploitive. There's one blatant version.

And then the other two are kind of in the middle of doing something and they're naked for a second. And that's pretty much it. The rest of the time they're wearing underwear and, you know, scantily clad bikini t-shirts. stuff yeah raquel welch yeah dinosaurs gear you know they're wearing a rabbit skin bikini and right good. Enough right right right and so and i was going like yeah well this is really this is what they call i guess sex positive now you know it's just kind of like it's not like degrading it's just kind of fun and it's just like you know i mean and if you're like uh you know 14 years old it's fantastic, you know? And the girl is the hero.

She's the one that ends up kicking everybody's ass. That's right. He's the one that decides, oh, this guy's kind of a loser, but I think I want to get laid. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, there is some attempted rape by the villain, but he's the villain.

He's the villain. I guess you let that slide because of that. But other than that, the only time anybody has sex, it's of her choice. Right. Right.

So I thought this was a very empowering movie. I thought this was like a fun kind of light kind of thing that I go like, you know, this was seen as like evil and everything. But I guess, you know, it was just so more puritanical at the time. And, you know, like I'm sure like our, you know, our dads like had like, you know, whatever, you know, which was even probably funny. you know, tamer, you know, uh, uh, you know, jet magazine. It was just like a girl sipping a martini and a bathing suit, you know, uh, whatever.

And, uh, you know, or like, what is it like, uh, uh, nudie, uh, nudie documentaries, you know, where it's just like, uh, nudist colonies. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like nudist colonies, you know, and stuff and whatever. But it's also shot on a super rate camera from across the street. street.

From across the street! That's how they used to do it. And even then, they were like, oh my gosh, they're naked! They would get excited. Yeah, they're four miles away.

It's a different world, but... Right, right. Or they put it in, like, a bucolic, you know, kind of like a garden-type thing, and they shoot it from behind a tree, and, you know, and so it's, like, tasteful. I was going, like, this is compared to what you get nowadays. This is, like, very tastefully made smut, you know?

And to put it in perspective of how evil this type of stuff was I'm assuming maybe you know this but I didn't know it until I looked up after the fact this film specifically by name was brought up on the floor of the US Senate Are you joking? Senator Jesse Helms in 1992 referenced this as like people, old guys sitting around flipping through the cable channels and they come across a movie like this, which he in quotes is referring to as indecent. Wow. And he wanted to put into play like a, a, a law of sorts that like would stop this sort of stuff from coming into your homes. And you had to like sign a waiver more or less to be able to have access to this type of indecent material coming into your home.

This movie. I can't. A couple of nipples. I'm shocked. Indecent.

I am shocked. By the US Senate standards. I can't understand things of such. That's what I'm saying. Think about the.

World of 1992 where this was the worst thing they could come up with of indecent material to discuss in the U.S. Senate. Oh, my God. Taxpayer money at work to limit access to slave girls from beyond infinity. Yep.

Think about that for a minute. I'm shocked. I just don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to say. I did not know what a political bombshell this movie was.

I didn't until today, but lucky I went down that road. Yeah. Indecent is how it was described. Wow, dude. Wow.

Well, I mean. So as as as absolutely soul crushing, misogynistic filth that it is, it also has just a. feeling uh that they don't have in movies anymore these direct to netflix movies are so market driven calculated there was a market there for the slave girls beyond infinity they go like pretty girls and robots i was that was their market reason i. Mean they go like in already yeah. I mean pretty girls and robots i mean there we go that's it that's it and we'll work. In some dinosaurs and monsters like i don't need anything else Jeez.

We're so we're so that's all the market research we need. I mean, it just at a gut level, you know, that there's going to be an audience for that. And then, and then with the meager resources, the meager talent and the meager forethought, they pulled something together and it's all, you know, very kind of Ed Wood, and it's kind of, you know, very rickety sets. But there is that kind of, man. They.

Knew sort of, there was just something there. There's something there about a small group of people that would just shake and bacon up a movie, you know? Which you don't see in these extravagances, you know? You know, I mean, things are fine, but I guess it's just, they're not like that anymore. And I like the community.

I like the acting that is acting, and it's not realistic. Well, you know, you guys watched the Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. Y'all got into that pretty deep. Oh, we did. And that was, you know, but it had that kind of feeling of, it felt like for me, like some small town, the community theater director really liked the first one, and he just kind of put together, he's like, I'm going to write a sequel to Silent Night, Deadly Night, and we're going to put it on for the Christmas patches.

Well, I feel like that guy was a much worse actor than what we get. What we get usually in community theater. What we get in this movie. Oh, yeah, yeah. At least here.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. I think what's funny, and I think what you said is them being in on the joke, because it's almost like the entire script is written with that tongue-in-cheek nonsense. Everything is said so overly proper and overly explained in a way that even normal people don't talk. Let alone girls running around in their rabbit-skin bikinis.

You would not expect to talk like this. But it's so. I'm picking up something. Not far from here. A beacon.

Out here? Let's check it out. It's coming from. That small planetoid. You know, there's something odd about this.

That signal isn't just a safe channel beacon. That beam is transmitting astronavigational landing coordinates. We'd be lucky to find a rock out here big enough to set down on. And you're questioning an invitation to a habitable world with a landing strip? Unlock the beam of the directional grid into the hyperdrive system.

Yeah, the way that they speak is so... just loaded with extra words and descriptive ways of putting things. That I'm just like, that's awesome. Is this for real? And then like, as it went on, they all did it. And I was just like, this is the whole screenplay.

Like they literally were like, this is the joke is like, everybody's going to talk like this, even though nobody talks like this. So I think the fact that those girls like delivered while still doing their bikini shots is like. Pretty impressive actually. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, there's just something there. And it's only 72 minutes long. That's a bonus. Perfect time for a movie. But there's a lot of those movies on these services.

And it's really nice to have such easy access to them. Because it really is like counter-programming to the glossy stuff that is on the mainstreamers. And I watch that stuff. I mean, it's fine, but sometimes you just want to see something, I don't know, that's just not as competent, you know? And has something that those Netflix shows can't have, you know?

And uh something where things just don't match up sometimes yeah like she's flying a ship and she's wearing a gold michael jackson glove yeah and then the next shot it's just gone it's just gone and it never returns and they never mentioned why it was there or what she was doing with it on it was just there for a minute and then it's gone yep or we fast forward to the the much discussed taking off of the top Where she takes her top off, goes walked out in the ocean, comes back. It's magically on again. It's like, hey, can you bring me my towel? Cut back to the robots fighting. Cut back to her.

Tops off again. She's like, never mind on the towel. I was like, are you just constantly taking it on and off in the cutaway scene? What's going on here? You don't reshoot that.

You're just like, eh. She took it back off. Who's going to question that? Obviously, it's good enough. She ended up with it off.

Right. You all win. It's good. It's fine. It's fine.

And so the, the, yeah, exactly. That's exactly it, Brian, that kind of stuff. You just don't get it anymore. You know, bad filmmaking is harder and harder to come by, uh, with these services, but I mean, I don't know that that's true, but that type of bad, that type of bad film, there's. Definitely some new bad filmmaking, but that's a different story.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. But yeah, they, they, they kind of have a, a bar on these, you know, big services where, you know, they're, they're putting their name on it. So they're going to like, it's going to be at least, you know, Hallmark channel quality. Um, that sets the bar pretty high.

Exactly. It was pretty much, pretty much that's criterion and the, um, but yeah, these, these are, uh, They're, they're, they're interesting movies, you know, like all these barbaric sword and sandal movies from the time period. The best are sword and sandal movies, but they said it in the post apocalypse. That's, that's. We're delving in.

That was kind of our last one that I don't think you've even gotten to yet, but yeah, we're, um, we're doing that only. It's even more insane because it's in Italy. Okay. Yeah. It's actually shot in Italy, but it's post-apocalyptic.

At the time, the first movie was post-apocalyptic The Bronx. Yes. In Italy. And then we just did the sequel to that one, which is post-apocalyptic wherever now, because it's gone into the future and like, there's nothing left but desert essentially. Yeah.

Yeah. I love them. Those are always amazing. Yeah. I haven't seen, but yeah, I haven't seen the second one yet.

So I haven't, I saved the episode until I seen it, but. Yeah, we'll, we'll pin it down for you because it has two titles. Of course, God forbid they pick one. So got it. Right.

For real, for the U S titles, different from the Italian or wherever else they released it. So, but yeah, those are, those are insane in an entirely different way. And again, I think it's, it's the almost like complete detachedness of it from those. Right. Like as you're watching it, like, So this, this guy in the future, not to jump ahead on an episode you hadn't seen yet, but this guy in the future has a piece of clothing that is made of clear plastic.

Yeah. Clear plastic bubbles. So they're giant bubbles over his manly man chest. And then these two big round bubbles above each shoulder, like shoulder pads that are sticking up and flopping around big plastic pieces. And I'm like, they, they, put it together.

Like they built this physical thing for him to stick on himself and walk around and deliver lines in. And I'm like, I don't feel like they would do that now. Like anybody now would just look at this clear piece of plastic on this shirtless dude and be like, what are you doing? We can't put this in a movie. This is not the, you are not at the level to be working on professional films.

I feel like that wouldn't fly now. Like it's just too ridiculous. Right. That like now it would have to be like a super art house project. Yes.

There'd be like a reason behind it. Right. They would come, they would come up with weird stuff, but it would be for a specific pretentious reason. Right. Not just, I thought it'd be cool if that dude had his shirt off, but like there's some plastic bubbles sticking up on, cause it's the future.

And in the future, plastic bubbles. Duh. I mean, of course. Yes. So that was all of the reason.

What's the future? Plastics. Plastics. So yeah, that's the thing. I was like, I feel like there was just an obliviousness to the 80s movies that like you just can't reproduce in today's world.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, also, you know, we're dealing with, you know, like two people making the decisions on those movies. You know what I'm saying? That's okay.

If you're lucky. Sometimes it's just one. And if it's not good, you have no backup. So you just have to go with what you got. I saw a great example of this.

Now, this is a big budget version of that, where it's just basically one or two people making the decisions and just kind of letting it fly. The mind-blowing movie that has the same charm. And this is not going to rattle any cages. This is something well-known to everybody. But I just got it on 4K. disc and we put it on and flash gordon from 1980 is just all right just it's just there's nothing there's nothing like flash gordon 1980 i mean.

Just like it's all charm like all charm because you're not buying any of the visuals none of it again it looks like they're putting on a play Exactly. It's crazy over the top. Not believing that this guy actually has wings and is flying. Yeah. But you love it anyway.

Yeah. The commitment of, you know, you've got commitment to that character. Right. And this action that is going on in front of you, no matter how silly it looks, no matter how crazy and over top everything is, it's just like, it doesn't matter. And somehow that's the charm of it is just like, everyone is so involved and so like immersed in what they're doing that you're just like, how can you not love this to some extent?

Precisely. It is just almost like, it is like almost like this art project and it is almost like theater and it's a puppetry and ridiculousness like layered on, but with like Dino DeLaRanta's money going into it, you know, which wasn't infinite. Cause I mean, I said like, this is like what I was like, this is like star Wars is, um, disco cousin or something like that. Yeah. You know?

And, and, uh, somebody said like, yeah, this is like star Wars is like trailer park cousin, you know? And, and I go like, I mean, kind of trailer park, but I guess she meant just like the, cheapness of it she said it looked you know it looks cheap you know compared. Well that's the thing like now they will have you know giant companies behind them that they really do have unlimited resources and money dino damn near bankrupted himself with every movie like every movie you go back and look through that he produced and it's like oh this almost shut him down and yet somehow he'd like drag it back out and start collecting money to make another big budget nonsense movie and like It, it, he continued on, but like, it's not like it was, it was unlimited resources.

Like that damn near killed him every time. I was watching the, uh, I was watching the behind the scenes stuff on it and it really was, they got this production designer that was world famous or super famous in Italy, like their top production designer. And they got this guy to do the costumes, the sets, the art direction. And that guy is basically the second director of the movie because he did not read the script. He just would, he got the gist of it and just started designing stuff.

So stuff that was supposed to happen in the trees, they would show up on set and it's all a cave and all. He didn't read the script. He just sort of went by his gut. And so there's something. To be said for that.

Actually, artistically speaking, there's something to be said for that. So he said the director, The director would say, I never knew what I was going to get from this guy. So we would show up on the set, see what the costumes looked like, see what things happen. And they just had to kind of improvise and pull that movie together. But it wasn't like the director was dictating what these things should look like, you know, or saying like, hey, I'm going to go in for this style.

It was basically the costume. The production designer ran that show. And the director just struggled to swim and keep it all light. And, you know, I feel like that seems about right. I mean, look at the movie and it seems like they're driving this bus.

Yeah, exactly. It's all amazing visuals. It's the gold leaf paint on everything. You know, I mean, it's, it's, um, those skies. I mean, it's really like, you know, and you know, another dealer, I think the dealer ran us also did Barbarella and it's really just kind of like, How awesome that Star Wars was so popular that they just gave that there was the market to put this amount of resources into that kind of thing, you know?

And they actually, you know, get their money back on it. So, I mean, the ink cloud skies and the plastic models and, you know, things blowing up and sparks, you know, blowing up a piece of plastic, you know? Uh, and that's like a special effect. I'm going like the, when that floating city blows up at the end, I'm going like, man, this is really pretty beautiful. I mean, nowadays this would be like a 40 minute long, you know, super realistic shot from, you know, a million different angles.

Uh, cause you could, cause it didn't exist. Cause it's all a computer model that's put together. You can shoot it from wherever you want. Cause it's not a real thing. That's right.

That's right. And, um, and then the, but in the back of 1980, it was enough to have some, uh, silver spray painted towers, you know, go up with some fireworks and it was fantastic, you know? And so I'm going to like, man, these movies, these handmade movies, these photochemical movies just become more and more precious as the years go on. And they're, you know, the, the, the modern. wonderful ways of filmmaking, you know, just starts crowding out, you know, these handmade things, uh, more and more every year. And, uh, so to go back to some of this old stuff is just like, uh, it, it becomes more, it just becomes more, uh, these movies become better.

Even something like slave girls from beyond infinity now has like its place because it is such a time and place in the cinema, you know, that just, you know, that that's over now, you know. And you start to appreciate it on a different level. Cause that's the, that's the other thing I didn't realize because I totally forgotten even what the plot was from when I watched it on VHS. I get into this rewatch a few minutes in and I'm just like, So this is just the most dangerous game. Exactly.

Right. It was so long ago when I watched it the first time I hadn't seen him as dangerous. Right. So I didn't know they were stealing from it. So I was just like, what is this weird, dumb story?

And now I get it. It's like, Oh, it's like any countless number of adaptations of the same story over and over again. So it's like, Oh, well now it kind of fits into this larger picture too. Like movies that have tried to take on that subject matter. So like it, it, kind of gives it a little more cachet too, because it's like, look, it's, it's taking from this, you know, big traditional story and doing a bigger, different space thing with it.

I mean, is it bigger or lesser is your, your call as the viewer, but it's definitely taken a swing at it. And don't you think when you realize that that's what this movie is, you go like, thank God that the filmmakers had enough sense to like, at least tell a good story, you know? I mean, Or to break it up with bickering robots, which is really what was missing from a most dangerous game. Pretty much it. Pretty much it.

That moment of bickering robots is so damn funny. It is. It is. I mean, it's obviously kind of stealing from the bickering C3PO and R2, which they do a version of that too. But it's so much more petty and silly in this one that makes it a lot of fun.

It truly does. Yeah. So. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of cool that out there, there's this classic story, A Most Dangerous Game, and there's all these great different types of adaptations.

But in the late 80s, they made a Cinemax version of it. A space version of it. A space version. With girls in their underwear. Right.

Who decide the best thing to do when, you know, going to investigate the mystery around the big castle is to wear your lingerie. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because that makes sense.

Right. Right. That's what you do. That's right. I'm in my pajamas.

I'm going to stick with that plan. The guy next to me is fully clothed. Right. But I'm going to stick with the PJ action, which is just a nightie. Thanks.

Hilarious. But isn't the world kind of a better place that we do have that adaptation of a most dangerous game out there? Is that just like add to the patina? I feel like it makes it a stronger story because it's had this version thrown out there. That you can do basically anything with that story.

And it works. How you dress it up. Even with robots that are. This is my favorite. Well first of all.

Why do they call them androids? Because that's not what an android is. They're just robots. And then why is it that. Which by the way she's my favorite.

The girl in her underwear. In the see through robe. The completely sheer robe. She's the. What is it?

Tisa. She's my favorite. She's got the best 80s hair. Okay. Right.

Right. I like that she comes down and she's trying to distract the robot from going up to the rooms and finding out the right there. Right. Right. So she starts pulling the, if you'd like to come down to the beach with me, I don't have my bathing suit.

And I was like, but why does the robot fall for it? Right. I was like, so wait. Even robots. Even robots.

Yeah. I was like, what? What's going on here? Are you just robots? And if so, where is this going?

Why would this work on you if you're just a robot? So they don't really answer that question. It's like 2001 A Space Odyssey. There's just certain things they just don't answer. Hal, would you please stop looking at naked girls?

I can't do that, Dave. I really like naked girls. I don't even fully understand why or where this is going to lead to. but I can't do it, Dave. I can't stop looking at this girl on the beach. This is so funny.

This is so funny. Yeah, I mean, even the robots couldn't resist the allures of these 80s director's cable actresses. There's some great. Well, and again, we had like the most recognizable of the bunch. Bring Stevens.

Yeah. She's one. If ever anybody's in on the joke, because she was kind of always in on the joke on her movies. Cause yeah, I remember talking to her and like, that was the thing I was blown away by. She is so freaking smart. yeah and like so like i'm i'm sitting like i came into it and i just kind of knew she'd done a ton of horror movies and then start talking to her and she's like well you know at the time i was in school for marine biology yeah and i was like wait what i was.

Like she's like this like genius level person that decides like this seems like fun i'm thinking i'm gonna do this so like she's definitely way smarter than all material that's ever given to her but yet she's just like eh, this is fun. Let's go with it. Let's have fun. And that's what you feel from this movie, that they're having a good time. They're all having a good time.

They know half this stuff doesn't make sense. Again, why am I walking around in my underwear when I'm investigating this? Because the audience is wanting that. That's right. You're doing this.

All for the audience. We're here to entertain. Yeah. Do they want robots and girls in their underwear? Yes, they do.

And that's why we're doing it. That's it. So it's like they're fully. Aware of that as they're making the movie. So I don't feel like they're being... put upon no no no this girl showed up and be like yep this is what we're making let's go and like again that's almost kind of empowering.

Really absolutely yeah every you can tell they just have a sense of humor about it and they're not you know yeah they're like going like hey this is a lark this is fun we all know this is silly we all know this is silly you know i'm making money it's a movie you know um yeah i got paid you know i got lunch out of it you know so hey it's uh it's a good time, you know? And, uh, yeah, no, but it was funny. The, the, the other girl that's, that's, that's my favorite one. The, uh, Elizabeth Hayden. And I've, I've seen, I've seen too many of her movies recently.

I'm on a, I'm on a, I was. Like a ridiculous, you know, let's watch her filmography. I know you gave a shout out to her beforehand. Yeah. I was just like, Oh, her buddy.

Cause that's like, then I got into this and I'm like, no, I'm so Tisa. No, I'm totally on board with Cindy Beal, who, by the way, did like nothing. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't look her up and like she's got almost slightly more than a cameo in my chauffeur.

Right. Right. Back in the 80s there for you. And then did a voice on like Dragon Ball or something. Like, oh, my God, a decade later.

And then that's it. Nothing else on her IMDb. Went back to Omaha. Somewhere she's out there, yeah, just hanging out, going to a regular old job now or something, I guess. I don't know.

But I was just like, how did you make Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity and then just disappear? It just sounds like a small town girl kind of story. You know, I went out to this big city, ended up in this movie Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity, decided I didn't like the industry and went back home. You know, that kind of thing. Can you imagine being like the the kid it's like mom i found this old poster in the garage what is this she's like oh yeah i was in a movie one time yeah yeah you probably wouldn't like it it's pretty dumb.

Yeah yeah right right um okay yeah right. How do you process that in your kid brain like my mom was in a weird b movie with robots right right she was naked through half of it you know so Just in her underwear. Most of the time. Just in her underwear. But it was classy.

It was classy. It was definitely classy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, but yeah, so these, these actresses, they seem to have a sense of humor of it.

There's Elizabeth Ketan. I've seen her a couple of other movies. She's always, you know, it's just kind of fun. You know, it doesn't, you know, whatever. It's just like, I don't know, it's just something so unpolished and kind of approachable about these kind of stories and these B-movie actors that, you know, you know, just seems real fly by the seat of your pants kind of stuff, you know.

And, you know, Slave Girls Beyond Infinity is should be put in a time capsule. Oh, I definitely think. If time and place. If there's things that need to be preserved in the Smithsonian somewhere, this is one of them. Put it on the registry.

People in the future will not believe this was a thing without you showing it to them. They won't. They won't. Yeah. Yeah.

Man. Man. Well, I have a much... Like from one extreme to the other, I have another movie that I think you've seen lately that I kind of want to hear your take. Okay.

If you have more time to invest in this nonsense, I think, I think test to not overwhelm everyone. We should wrap up this episode and then we will come back and delve into a whole different. We'll, we'll change gears into a whole different movie. Okay. Sort of type of movie, but not really.

We'll bring up that question as we go on. All right. Cool. But yeah, for now, I guess we can let them go on about their lives. Okay.

Have you return next time to hear us go into a different mode of cheesy sci-fi movie. Yeah. Excellent. Sounds good. Sounds good.

They are free. More now. You're free. You must return. Right.

Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time. Same geek read. Thanks for listening. Don't we all feel so much smarter having played a.

Part in this? It's a nice hat, it's a crown. Out of all the hats I wear, it's easily the heaviest. I know that everything I build here will burn. Won't you understand the problem?

Let it out. Used to have opinions. You still probably have more than you do. But if it's free, I like it less. But if it costs me flesh, I like it best.

You won't regret, so I got a few. I know that everything. I build, it will burn. Once you understand the problem, you can learn how to be part of it. So listen, I'm unlikely to learn.

Oh, I have been so afraid, down and out, and planned to stay in the God. Once you understand the problem You can learn how to be part of it So listen, I'm a light reader Now my veins are full of rust And it's worse than I thought Now my heart is pumping dust But my body won't stop. No, I figure they'll just be like, well, I see there's some sort of entity living inside of you. And I think it's tired of you and it's time to take its exit and rip its way through you now. Right.

Did you know that you had an absorbed twin, Brian? I do. I named him. Why? Right, right.

Exactly. Well, he's regained consciousness after these years. 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!

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