Chicken Jockey and the Robotic Companion

I'm Peter Weller and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. Your move, creep. It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million. Kilowatts of power. We're on express elevator to hell. Going down. This time.

But, you know, whatever. Whatever. We're just, you know, they're not asking us what movies should be anymore. I don't know that they ever were, really. So, it's our own self-centered fault for thinking that they should revolve around us.

Yes, I know. I know. It's true. It's true. It seemed like it was going, but I think the dragon has eaten the tail, and now it's like, I think it's like, it seems.

Real, like, everybody's real. Confused about why people would go see a movie. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Everybody was so busy doing the, oh, we can't have regular movies anymore because superhero movies.

Marvel ruined it. And then I'm like, okay, well, Marvel shot itself on the foot now. Yeah. So they're out of the picture. Yeah.

Nobody's picked up the baton and ran with it. Like, they still don't know what to do with the movies now. No. So I'm like, well, now who's your scapegoat? Like, who are you blaming now when you can't make a movie?

You just got to blame us because a number one movies there, there are weird movies coming out and, and there are like in, you know, original ideas coming out, but nobody goes to see them. All right. You know? And, uh, so there, there are quirky little movies. I went to go see the quirkiest piece of shit ever got a Sasquatch sunrise.

And I was going like, how is this in the movie theater? I'm glad there, this isn't a superhero movie. I don't know what this is, but, uh, I don't even know if it is a movie, but, uh, I bought a ticket and came to see it. There are weird movies. There are some movies, but nobody goes to see them.

I mean, that's both things anymore. I don't know. Everybody just does their own thing. So everything kind of half takes off in sub-underground version, but then nothing ever makes enough. Like, even if it's a series people are sitting at home watching, it doesn't get enough of a push so it doesn't come back for another season.

Like, everything just sort of half works just enough to not be successful. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, and I think, you know, A, I mean, and for people, I mean, it's just not a, it's not an affordable habit to have to go see a movie. It's like, unless you go to the early morning thing you know uh at the little movie theater you can pay five bucks to get in is it's like wow it's like 1991 again you know um but if you're going out at night on a friday night and you're not just going by yourself.

Or you're just going like you know if you're going if you're going if you're if you're paying for more than one ticket it's like eesh And then it's like, you know, ah, you know, it's like, oh my gosh, I. Just spent $ 80. It's just not, it's not affordable to go to the movies anymore. You know? Well, we've sort of already rolled into it.

I guess we should actually officially start. Since I feel like what we're going to talk about, we're already kind of ankle deep. Oh my God. So before we get knee deep. What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown!

I am Brian, and joining me already complaining about stuff this week is... I'm Sam. Hey. I'm having a nervous breakdown over here. Yeah, yeah.

But that is what originally, like, I was sitting at home being sad, like, every day. And I was like, here's the problem, I haven't talked to Sam. Hey, there we go. You know, it's been, it's long enough times in between our horror movie geekdom that I'm just like, sometimes I need other conversations. It's been too long.

I need to talk to you. There we go. So I put this idea together and you were like, hey, we don't really have a specific idea. How about we just talk about the fact that all movies are falling apart thanks to Jack Black. So do you want to address the new movie that, I don't know if we're calling this a success, but.

I don't know. No, no, I haven't heard anybody actually review the movie, you know, if it was good or not. The target audience for Minecraft are the movie, the movie, the motion picture, right? Yeah. The motion picture.

My kids have talked about how old timey that sounds. A picture that has motion? Wow. It's not a talking to, is it? Ooh, is that talking?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. Blow your mind. Blow your mind. The motion picture.

Back when that used to mean something. So, yeah, so Minecraft... The target audience would be kids. My youngest is 13. She loves Minecraft.

All my kids grew up playing Minecraft. They love Minecraft. They saw that Minecraft thing trailer, and they were like, no thanks. They were like, no thanks. They were like, that's going to suck.

I'm going like, why? Why would that suck? They just spent like $ 80 gazillion on this. Movie and got all these people it was also my thought when i saw the trailer yeah yeah but i'm an old man i feel like it should be them that you know would care right yeah i i i I don't understand Minecraft anyway. I'm like, you guys have billion-dollar computers sitting in front of you, and you've got the crappiest graphics ever.

It was different when I did it, because we didn't have any. I was just happy to have graphics. Right, right. The boxy-looking things were amazing to me. You guys can have cinematic-quality video games now, and you're looking at the same damn box as I was in the 80s.

That also kind of pissed me off, if you don't notice. Well, and they love it. They love Minecraft. And, Brian, you actually have Lego. So, you know, it's like a real thing.

I live in a real world boxy world. I can't even tell you what's going on in this city right now. Fantastic. It's a lot. It's a lot going on.

So, really, I mean, Brian, you can probably, if you were... Of a different generation, this would be your Lego, okay? Because that's what they do. They just sit and they build stuff all day long. And it gets real elaborate.

I mean, I had that. It was called The Sims. And it was life-changing. But I feel like the novelty of that wore off. The next wave of kids that came along did not fully embrace The Sims.

They did not. They did not. Minecraft, though... the experience of Minecraft is really weird because it is like a total immersion and world building and also how they sort of consume other things through the lens of Minecraft. My son is like, should study world religion in college or become a theologian or something because he watches Minecraft videos on YouTube where people have recreated in minute detail famous religious cathedrals like St. Paul's Basilica and the Vatican.

They've completely recreated it down to the candlestick. And they just go through that and then they just talk theology for like three hours. That has also crossed over. I didn't want to fully get into it, but since you brought it up now, that has been the latest addition to my city. In the Lego world, I have introduced the idea of religion.

Okay, awesome. Now, they won't... This is a weird thing to me. They won't, in Lego world, like, you don't see, like, Gothic cathedrals and, you know, big Catholic churches or whatever sets. But somehow, if it's another country, they're, like, backdoor themselves in...

Because, like, that Monkey Kid series is all about, like, actual stories that are based in China, and they all go way back in time, so there's this pagoda thing that is the most religious-y looking type of thing, that I'm like, ooh, that's really cool, I want that. And I'm like, well, if I'm going to introduce that, then there's also, if you go into it, there's like actual gods from their ancient culture that are built-in Lego people. And I was like, wait, why is it okay? They don't have a. Jesus on the cross that or something.

Don't worry, the other. Day I did make a Lego Jesus. He's hanging out in the pagoda there. I've decided to mix all of them together. I'm like, we're just going to have one big religion.

I've got an elephant guy up here. I've got a Jesus down here. I've got a snake lady. So there's all these heathen religions coming together. And they are basically just built around one thing. which is making money.

Yes, they should totally put my own little slant on the religion in this universe. I love it. I love it. So that's a tile of gold next to this guy who is actually the God of wealth in the Chinese culture. And I've, yeah, I've made that what the entire religion is built around.

That's cool. You never think about, yeah, all those Lego movies, they're just all like, humanist heathens, so there is no religion in Legoland. Fleece and the rubes, that's what it's all about. I love it. So, just crossed over a little there, but that reminded me that it is weird that even in the digital world out there, they're doing kind of the same thing and equally as misguided as my version's probably.

Well, no, it's really weird. I mean, I'm just saying that they use Minecraft to teach other things or talk about other things. And so it's real bizarre, but those Minecraft videos, sometimes they're just playing Minecraft and talking stuff and, you know, talking their ideas about life or whatever. I mean, it's like, I don't care about that stuff, but I mean, People will watch it if it's in a Minecraft video, and it'll be three, four hours long, and they'll watch it, and it's just somebody playing Minecraft and bullshitting. But they made this big Hollywood production, and they had zero interest in going to go see it.

It costs no budget to sit there and watch some idiot build their Minecraft town. Right. But yeah, they... paid freaking Jack Black and Aquaman to show up here, and you guys are like, this looks stupid, which I also agree looks stupid. Yeah, it does. They're going like, I would rather just stay home and watch somebody play Minecraft than actually go see this Hollywood behemoth thing pandering to me, right?

And I think that, yeah, that is the entirety of your point. Like, that's where we are as a culture now. Like, old people like us still remember the olden days when we watched stuff in a theater, but kids... don't have that, don't care, don't want that, really. Like, they're not concerned with that. No, no, it's like.

Find something they're into, but it's not built around, oh my gosh, I gotta run out to the theater and see the next big thing. No, zero interest. Zero interest in that. I have to drag them to the movie theater, and I can't believe that. That makes kids love things more.

Yeah, I... You force them, it makes them love it so much more. Oh, so much more, so much more. Yeah, they would rather not even, like, you know, I mean, they're getting older, you know, and everything, but you know, not even Disney stuff. Do they, you know, I mean, it's like, I mean, I guess they're getting older.

I mean, yeah, I guess they're. All, all your kids are grown almost. Yeah. Yeah. They're all, they shouldn't want nothing to do with this.

That might not, that might be the thing. It might not be really about movies. It might be just like they're teenagers and they're establishing their own identity now, you know, and everything. Is your dumb dad. Shut up.

Yeah. Whatever you and your emotion pictures, whatever, you know, but, uh, but, But what was interesting about Minecraft is because people don't talk about movies anymore, or, you know, I guess on podcasts, that's the only place you talk about movies. How many kids are doing a movie podcast versus how many dudes in their 50s sitting in their basement talking about movies? And probably movies from the 80s. Exactly.

I'm looking at a movie, a picture, a poster right now of Halloween. So, you know, it's like, uh, you know, and how, you know, so what, how old is that? You know, almost 50 years, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

But, uh, but the interesting thing, so people don't talk about movies. So the last time I really remember it actually being in the, uh, uh, zeitgeist was, was, uh, you know bar barbie heimer and uh you. Know they actually left the house for those. Yeah yeah exactly people were leaving and talking and that was something that everybody wanted to go do and and so then they were kind of dancing during some of the barbie scenes or something or they would all get dressed up you know if you can make it into like a social thing where you get dressed up and can put it on instagram more than anything yeah take selfies that's the most selfies look, I got dressed up all cute, and here I am in front of the Barbie poster, and we're part of this cultural movement to go do something in a public space, you know, so yeah, they were able to do that, and so then, so the interesting thing about Minecraft movie, the only thing that was, because nobody wanted to go see it, but people were taking their kids to it, and then there was some kind of meme that I think got started, I asked my Youngest, did the meme start first or did the movie start first?

And she said, well, sometimes... Okay. So one of the little characters in Minecraft rides around on a chicken and people like that in the Minecraft game. All right. All right.

And so then they make reference to that in the movie. All right. And so. It sort of became a social media thing where when Jack Black says chicken jockey, everybody goes nuts. So I was going like, oh, well, that sounds fun.

But I don't know. It's kind of like a weird thing where parents knew to take their kids to do this and record it and encourage it because it would make great content on their Facebook feed. Or on their Instagram. Content creation. It was about content creation.

And the kids know that this would make great content. I don't know, Brian. So the kids would go absolutely berserk. And I don't know if you've watched any of the videos. Just the one where they brought an actual chicken to the theater.

Okay, I haven't seen that. Okay, yes. But they were bringing actual chickens. It wasn't like a Rocky Horror kind of thing. I mean, I guess it was kind of like a Rocky Horror thing.

I mean, that was my take on it. I was like, this movie looks dumb, but I appreciate in a Rocky Horror sense. As someone who spent a lot of time sitting in a theater waiting for people to yell things out and to join in and yell stupid things that made no sense. I appreciated that level of it. But it also looked like it was kind of firing a little differently.

Exactly. Exactly. I don't even know how. I just know it felt a little different. Yeah, well, I think it's because these kids were eight and throwing popcorn on people and throwing their drinks against the screen and ripping the trays out.

Of the chairs. And it was just basically when Jack Black... Pandemonium. Jack Black says Chicka Jocka just act like a total ass. Which, I mean, again, is kind of how the old school version of Rocky.

Sure. Like, they had to... soft-coated over the years and be like, look, you can't bring in all this shit that's going to ruin the theater. You can't tear up the seats. You can't ruin the screen. So we got a more basic, homogenized version as time went on, but it still sort of felt like there was a little bit of rebelliousness to it, more or less.

But yeah, you can't destroy other people's shit. Like, come on. My thought was just like, the kids are doing that. I was going like, man, parent your kid. You know?

It was what I was thinking. But then it was like, I was more like, holy shit, I'm just getting so fucking old. It was like, yeah, it's probably not that much different than Rocky Horror. I think it fires different. If they're eight, you know, that is more of a parent-your-kid.

Rocky Horror was built around a bunch of dumb teenagers. Teenagers. Teenagers, they do what they want anyway. There's no more parenting. You missed that off-ramp.

They're already grown enough to do their own stupid things, and they're going to continue for the rest of their lives. That's it. By teenager, you've kind of, you know, it's past that point. Let them go do whatever dumb thing they want to do. That's it.

That's it. And it was kind of like, it's at midnight, it's all kind of packaged, and, you know, the concept... of Rocky Horror is not the concept of Minecraft. Yeah, it is an R-rated film that was playing at midnight. So it's not friendly, really. It's not a cult film.

It's a cult film and not like a mass marketed, uh, you know, Happy Meal movie. You know, so there was a sense of rebellion. Right. There was a sense of rebellion about going to, uh, Rocky Horror and being part of like some, you know, midnight cult thing, you know? And this is like, uh, This is like, you know, just like, mall fodder bullshit, and nobody wanted to go see this movie except to raise hell during that one scene.

Well, I kind of wondered, like, at the end of the clips that I'm seeing online, did they all just get up and leave? Cause like nobody wants to watch the end of that movie. They just came to yell when he says chicken and then throw a chicken in the air. And then I'm assuming they're all bored after that and they all leave. And that's it.

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know, man. It was just like, I like that people were talking about a movie and You know, I mean, so I'm like happy about that, but I don't know if that's going to bring people into the movie theater.

I mean, I don't think anybody was interested in the movie. I think they were just interested in going crazy at the chicken jacket. That's the bigger question. Again, the more me looking forward into the grim future. Is that, are they so like, well, at least they bought tickets to come do that.

So like, are they going to have to start planning any theatrical ideas around? Can we gimmick our way into getting people to show up to the theater? Oh my God. I mean, that's kind of where, I mean, if that's the only reason general public will go spend money to sit in the theater is to do something stupid for a viral reason or some extra tie in somehow. Do you start, I mean, again, every other step of the way where they made cheesy popcorn movies, they were built around some other thing, even so much as, like, let's make one out of a video game that's already popular.

Like, that in and of itself is a cheesy corporate idea. So, like, are we going to even more hone it down to, okay, how do we make this one viral moment into a reason for them to go to the theater next week and the week after that? It's so depressing. I was hoping you had an answer, damn it. It's so depressing.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I know we were supposed to cheer each other up, but what you just said is so depressing. Just our conversations kind of do it for me. I know.

I'm overall overlook on life is not going to change, but I get a little while, a snippet of time that I'm not totally miserable, so... this is what it's good for. It raises our spirits for a little while. Yeah, sure. So, so yeah, you know, it's like, well, like restaurants, they will have like a little nook in the corner I've seen where, you know, you're supposed to take your Insta photos, you know, to post online, you know, it's like, they'll make it like a little, little, uh, I don't know, diorama. I don't know what to call it.

Uh, it's like a little thing with some stuff and they put it there so you can make your, uh, you know, pictures and, Well, they all. Make a banner wall, like it's a red carpet event, and you put the name of the studio and the movie behind you on a wall, and now they just put the name of the restaurant in neon on a bare wall so you can stand in front of it and advertise them, essentially. Go take your selfie over there next to the sign of the thing that we are so that we get hits and promo and we get some sort of recognition out of this. Right. Why?

I don't know. What are you getting out of advertising for them? I feel like I should be getting kickbacks for extra advertising for people. Yeah, no, it's like, uh, well, it's like, it's like I'm making the scene is what it is. It's like, everybody's become like, uh, like, Hey.

That's why I didn't understand it. Yeah. Like, like, like, like, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

From a monetary point of view, it's like, why do you aspire to be a shill for other people? You know? And not do. Your own thing. I thought about designer clothes over the years too.

I'm like, you're paying a fortune for this name and it's stenciled across the front of you half the time or written giant on your ass. And I'm just like, but you're advertising for them every time you put it on. Get out of that deal. You are walking billboards for this company and you also paid them a fortune to get this item. It feels like this is all out of whack.

Are you in a pyramid scheme? Is that what it is? Maybe that's also why I'm very unfashionable. It's different. Our generation going to Goodwill and everything and thrifting, that was the fashion.

So it's okay. I was a dork and I was wearing movie tees. But that's an artistic creation and I am a fan of it. So I don't mind advertising that I'm a dork who likes this thing on my chest. versus just the name of a designer or a label or a company right branded on you i was just like that's different like that's just a company you're just advertising for a company and like look how special i am that i spent a small fortune on this thing i don't know it still sits wrong with me i appreciate when things are designed nicely i'm not bad mouthing the entirety of that. You know, I think there is an art to creating fashionable clothing, but that is not what's going on most of the time.

I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's like, Hey, look, it's a status thing. It's like, I'm part of this club, but which, which is kind of what movie t-shirts are. It is a shorthand for starting conversations with like, it is like throwing a flag out there.

It has to go on. Like, I don't know how to start conversations with people. Well, I'm going to wear this Mad Max t-shirt. And then somebody would go like, Mad Max, okay, that's how you meet people. And now I don't even do that.

I don't go anywhere, so I don't bother putting on the thousand t-shirts I have in a closet over there somewhere. I just don't care anymore. I don't care enough to... do anything that involves effort at this point. It's bad really. No i'm not starting those conversations don't worry.

Yeah that's that's like yeah that's true that's terrible it's it's that's a very true statement no i don't really care enough to do something that's going to involve. Effort welcome to my life That's, like, everything down to, like, making food at this point. Like, people talk about what they're... Oh, I made this soup last night. I'm like, no, no, no, you lost me.

You turned on the fire. This is too much effort. It ain't happening. Quit trying to sell me on your can of soup. It ain't happening.

So, yeah, the least amount of effort on every aspect of life. Sounds exhausting. Oh, God. Making me so tired with your... of your culinary expertise of warming up the soup in the microwave. You and your turning on the burner.

Screw this. Oh, whoa, you used the burner. That's it, that's it. Oh, you used the burner. Well, okay, Mr.

Fancy, you didn't just put it in a bowl in the microwave. Microwave? Oh, there's buttons. No. I'm just going to drink it cold from the can.

And I'm almost there. One step away. Well, I mean, actually, now they make the can that is insulated in foam and you just put it in the microwave. You actually can just do that. Just go like, I don't even want to put it in the bowl.

Fine, I put it in there and now I'll drink it straight out of this slightly lukewarm can. Yeah. Call it dinner. And it's like, you look at the ingredients. It was tomato soup.

It's just sadness. It's just contents. corn syrup and red coloring. It's like, oh, red. Isn't there tomato in here somewhere? The hue of red in a Campbell's can of soup that you pour out, you go like, what even is that shade of neon weird Crayola red that they made the soup?

I mean, oh, my God, Brian, we're complaining about movies and talking about soup? Are you surprised? Have you ever listened to one of our conversations? No, no one has. The point is, movies and stuff.

Okay, speaking of food items in a not a movie. Sort of a series. This definitely ties to us. I watched this the other day and I went, oh, now I have to tell you about this when we talk. Because I'm assuming you're a busy guy.

You got life and shit. So you probably haven't watched the new Star Wars show. Because they don't make movies anymore. Once again, because movies have failed. No one goes to the theater.

So now they're banking on streaming series. So have you watched any of the new Andor's? Okay, no, I have not watched them. I don't have Disney, so you're going to have to... I just.

Kind of called it anyway, because I was like, eh, you don't have patience for that bullshit. That's why. And I'm not going to go into it. This has a tie-in to a previous movie, and I think it also is an interesting little thing here of like almost a contest, maybe. Okay.

So, in this new series, they've introduced a new planet. that we haven't seen before. As you know, every planet in Star Wars land is all one thing. If it's snowy, the whole damn planet's snowy. If it's desert, the whole damn planet's desert. We got to a new one, and they're zooming in over on a shot of it, and I was like, oh my god, is this wheat?

Are we looking at a field of wheat on this planet? No! No! I swear to God, one of the three main storylines is them on this wheat planet, and they're doing farming and working on farm equipment, and there's a whole lot of shots of fields of wheat. Just saying.

What's going on? on? I don't understand. He was before his time. He saw it coming. But see, I went, because to me, I was like, normally I'd say, oh, you're trying to rip off this other dumb movie.

I was like, I feel like because they are, in fact, the big dogs, They're like, no, no, no, no, no. You think you get to do wheat? No. It's not a wheat movie until we make a wheat movie. It's not.

Your little knockoff Star Wars doesn't even count. If we're going to put them on a wheat planet, Star Wars is going to do it. And they were just like, I don't care if you already did it. Watch us do it for real because yours doesn't even count, loser. I feel like that was the move.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I feel regular just thinking about it. I mean, it's like thinking about all that weed just makes me want to take a shit so bad. It's like the wheat, the wheat.

Now the official is now pilfering. It's almost like they were like, okay, we got to keep making Star Wars. We got to keep making Star Wars. Somebody think what planet is going to be? What planet is it going to be?

You know, it was like a Play-Doh planet. No, no, no. We can't do a Play-Doh planet. You know, they did that in Doctor Strange 2. Yeah, right.

Guys, I don't want to say this out loud, but did you watch Rebel Moon? It was like, no, no, boo. How dare it? Get out of here. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

They did a one word, guys. One word, man. Wheat. Wait, if you like those shots of wheat, that would be cool looking. Nobody's ever thought of that before.

Well, didn't you see that? No, no, no, no, I didn't watch it. But nobody's ever thought of that before. So we'll do that. Yes, if you haven't been following along to our multi-episode discussion of Rebel Moon Parts 1 and 2, The Wheat Giver.

The Wheat Giver? We went pretty far in on the wheat. Oh, yeah, yeah. And overwhelmingness and ridiculousness. And now it's just funny that in an official Star Wars project, there is just row after row of wheat.

Wow. Wow. I just saw it, and I wanted to call you immediately. Thank you. But wheat!

Thank you for letting me know. What are you talking about? If I needed another reason to avoid it. I mean, it's actually not bad. But, again, now we've moved into full-on, like...

They were going for, like, adult Star Wars. Now it's just, like, kind of depressing adult Star Wars. Oh. Like, it is a downer. Like...

People got upset when we took out Han shot first. You know, it's like, back in the old days, Han was a badass, and Greedo was gonna get him, so he shot that guy. Dude, Andor will just shoot people in the face. Because you need to go. Like, you might be his friend, but if in this circumstance, it will benefit him and what he's currently doing, that you need to die, he will put a bolt in your face.

Like, he doesn't mess around. And the series is continuing this whole process. And, like, he's pretty cutthroat when need be. And the show has an overall tone of, number one, it's one of the first times we've seen, like, a desk job in Star Wars universe. Oh, okay, cool.

So you see, like, soul-crushing monotony of a desk job, for one thing. Then on top of that, now we've seen, like, sexual assault in the Star Wars universe on this last episode. Like, it's getting dark now. All right. I'm appreciating it for what it is, but it is not your grandpa on Star Wars.

Okay. Well, I mean, it sounds like exactly what I've been wanting out of Star Wars, actually. I think that's what people have been saying. Yeah. Fleshing it out.

They can do the extreme, because I also really like Skeleton Crew. Oh, okay. And Skeleton Crew is back to old school. It is kids... Again, it's not even pretending it's not Goonies in Space.

It's literally a group of crazy kids and they are launched into space and now they're getting in adventures. But it has a tone that's like still pretty fun like it's it's treasure island there's like pirates in space i mean it's like it's the most fun kid friendly thing for being still kind of you know dark at moments but for the most part it is just fun and i'm like i really enjoyed that so like they're kind of making up for some off you know off projects along the way there but yeah these last two are like you're getting fun kid stuff and then you're getting really adult. Oriented stuff yeah all right all right I mean, that sounds cool, man. That sounds cool. I mean, I was hesitant for Andor because I didn't like the character, how he was treated, and I didn't like the character from...

From Rogue One. We didn't have any characters. That was my issue. I actually like Rogue One overall, but I feel like both of our leads are the most blank slate ever. You don't know anything about those two.

The other two sidekick guys are awesome. I like these guys. We spend almost no time with them, but they're cool. And then our two main leads that we spend the entire movie with, I feel like I know nothing about. So they had to rectify that with, like, 17 hours of footage with this dude.

So we now at least know him. Like, he is a known character now. That other chick just got blowed up. Who knows about that? Yeah, she got blown up.

Who knows? Who knows? Unless they do a back-in-time version for her, too. But from him, at least now we know who he is and why he is and what he's been doing. So you don't feel that way.

So maybe you would appreciate Rogue One more once you watch all this. But that's the whole thing. It's like, if you go back and you watch the 122 episodes of Clone Wars, I hear it kind of redeems the prequels, you know, but man, it's just like, you know, time's The clock is ticking, Brian. I mean, how much time do we got? I mean, not that much in reality, but we also waste a good amount of time.

That's true. That's true. That's true. Let's have a little fun. You pick and choose your battles, man.

That's it. That's it. Speaking of prequels, I guess they had the 20th anniversary re-release of Sith. You just reminded me of trying to get people back in the theaters. Yeah, we're taking a movie that was only kind of half finished. like that the time of any of them.

I mean, once we got over the shock of Phantom Menace, even then nobody loved that one. And then two and three were just kind of meh for most people. So it's weird that now how much they're trying to celebrate them because it's been a couple of generations since then. Yeah. Yeah.

And I guess it's the better one, but it's, it is like everybody was just kind of like, uh, walking around in a, Wonder if I got in a daze after Phantom Menace, just trying to make sense of their lives, you know? And I think Edward Wright said, like, thank God Phantom Menace was so bad, you know, it allowed me to move on with my life. I could start making my own movies at that point. Yeah, yeah. Even I could do better than this.

It kind of snapped me out of it, you know? But, no, I mean, it would be, you know, they were going to do, like, 3D re-releases of the prequels at one point, right before the Disney buyout. So. I would have. Maybe gone to go see it.

I don't care about 3D. Had they done a 3D conversion? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. Again, I like the old-timey gimmickiness of 3D, but ever since they just made it as an add-on to sell you a more expensive ticket, I don't care. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

I saw Hugo. That was impressive. That's about the last time I've cared. Yeah, it's really like, what, it's, yeah, if I didn't go see Avatar 2, I mean, I was like, you know, I was like, I think I'm done with it. But, yeah, I mean, if we could just do a Emperor Palpatine supercut of Revenge of the Sith, I think I'd be all right.

You know, probably go see that. But, you know, that's only five minutes. I don't know. I think he's got a good amount of time on that one. Yeah, yeah.

That's the thing. There's an actor that cashed in on a role. Oh, dude. Like, you're not even in the first two movies unless you're counting the monkey eyes nonsense. Yeah, right.

And then, like, the third one you roll up and you've got a decent amount of time, but still, like, he then got an entire trilogy based around him. Right, right. He's just so damn good. That guy cashed in. Yeah, yeah.

I saw him in. He knows how to swing for the benches. That's it. That's it. I saw him in Dragon Slayer the other day.

I didn't realize he was in that. He plays like a priest or something. I was like, oh, that's the Emperor. Crazy. Did he fire lightning at a dragon at any point?

With his hand? Oh, my God. That would have been the best movie. That would make it a little more awesome. Yeah, yeah.

That was the thing I knew I had to pass along as far as recent things I've seen. So I don't know. Do we just want to hit other things we've watched somewhat recently? I've got very boring. If you're about to see what people who want to do a podcast and talk about Campbell's Soup, what they've been watching, I will.

I mean, that is our core audience. That is. All right. Okay. Alright, why don't I name one and then you'll name one or something.

Or you can go back and forth. However it goes. The first thing I've been watching that I've really been enjoying is on Apple TV. I don't acknowledge that as a thing, but sure. Okay, it's Apple TV.

The first season of Severance was really good. I got the... I re-upped my. Uh, uh, subscription to season two, season two lost me within like two episodes. And I was like going, ah, screw this.

But there's other stuff on Apple. And, uh, one's good is, uh, the new Seth Rogen show, the studio about, uh, he is a guy who gets to run. He's like an exec who gets the job to run a studio. All right. Uh, like it was like a Columbia pictures or like a universal or something like that.

And he's basically saying, hey, I am going to stop making these shitty movies, and I'm going to bring back the golden age of cinema, and we're going to make Chinatowns and Godfathers and that kind of stuff. All right? Is this set in the past, or it is current day? Current day. So he's trying to fight the current climate of filmmaking and what movies are, and he's trying to bring back quality, right?

And it is hilarious, dude. It is hilarious. It's about a guy who loves movies, but it's kind of like being in hell because the way the world works will not allow him to make the kind of movies he loves, right? It would be difficult these days. Yeah, so I don't want to...

I don't want to give it away. It's all very well written. I'm kind of always been a take him or leave him kind of self-roguing guy, but this has really made me a fan because. It's very hit and miss for me, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I just always associate him with Judd Outtow movies, you know, but... And I liked, what, the interview that he did with Ravis? I avoided that as well for several reasons. It was. Yeah, yeah.

I thought it was funny. I thought it was funny. But.... But this is really actually really well written and, and really well shot. They try to do everything in one take, you know?

And so it was just like zooping around everywhere, very limited take, uh, cuts. And, uh, the, the, so just to give away the premise of the first movie of the first episode, he gets this job and he goes like, finally I can, I've got my own studio. And like at the hiring event, you know, uh, The guy who owns the studio says, I have just closed the deal, and we've got the rights to Kool-Aid. So he has to, like, he's got to. Make a Kool-Aid movie.

And it's going to be this big, massive movie. And then he hires somebody to try to make it like the thinking man's Kool-Aid movie. I'm just not going to get into it. It's really fucking good show. And I'm pretty hooked on it.

And it comes out like on Wednesdays. So I go like, man, Wednesday. Hey, cool. A new episode comes out. So it's like the old days where I'm like, hey, I'm actually looking forward to a show coming out.

I've had that recently. Yeah, okay, okay, cool. I won't go into that one, because I've kind of brought it up before, and I will just... I wanted to devote a whole podcast to the show, but it's too much of that, so I'll pick something else. I'll pick an actual movie, but I won't say a timely movie.

That was kind of my favorite part of this. I finally was like, it's one of those movies that I've been like, eh, I'll get to it. Like, when it came out, I went, eh, doesn't really look that amazing. I'll probably watch it someday. And, like, we're close to two decades later, and I'm finally like, all right, fine, let's just watch.

All right. But tied into my sacrilege comments earlier, I watched The Da Vinci Code. Oh, that was a cool thing. I haven't seen The Da Vinci Code. Moments of it.

Exactly, that was fun. Moments. I knew of it, and I was like, at the time, I remember seeing the trailer, and I'm like, that's not a good haircut for you, Tom Hanks. And that's mostly what I, that's pretty much all I gave it. It was like, it's just, it's not as bad as I watched it this time.

I think I remembered it worse. I thought it was more mulledy. It's just sort of shaggy and just, he's so normally his, you know, tight haircut thing. And then he came to this movie and I'm like, who is this guy? What is this that's going on Tom Hanks?

And so I avoided it for, almost 20 years. And so I finally was just like, I don't remember what it was. Something triggered it lately. I was like, I guess I should watch those. I don't know.

Right. So I finally watched that. And I mean, it's very slow in that first hour. I'm just like, all right, I get like, I was kind of not on board with my decision for a while. Yeah.

And then you get to the center of it and it gets to the theory that The big money, I don't know if you know what gets divulged in this plot. I guess it's come up. You can spoil it and everything. I think everybody's seen it. It gives you a fun fact about Jesus.

Let's put it that way. Okay. So I got to that and went, oh, hold on. This is kind of it. Again, I felt the sacrilege creeping in and I was excited.

I was like, oh, someone going to piss off Bible people. All right. Now I'm on board. Subversive. Subversive.

So, yeah, then all of a sudden it was interesting, and I was like, okay, this is fun. I can get on with this interesting story now. And then after that, it actually gets very action-oriented. There's a little more, you know, crazy adventure stuff going on the whole rest of the movie. So, you know, you jump about 45 minutes or so in, and it's a pretty entertaining movie.

Right. It's slow getting going, where he's figuring out what to do, but... Right. It is interesting how, I mean, it is not a minor sacrilege. It is a big, oh, wow, that is going to piss people off.

You can't say those kind of things. So, yeah, it's pretty interesting how... Because that was a super mainstream book and a super mainstream movie with Tom Hanks and Ron Howard. And I was like, this is a big mainstream thing that also probably would piss off a lot of people. So I just assume most, you know, church-going people were just like, we'll not acknowledge that movie exists and we'll shrug it off.

Yeah. Well, it was so popular, though. We can just say it. He was married, right? That's the thing.

I mean, yeah. Spoilers for this 20-year-old movie. He was married. He was married. But he was married and had a child.

And had a child. Right, right, right. And who grew up to be Haley Joel Osment. Oh, he's having legal trouble. We don't talk about him.

Oh, we don't talk about him. Emily is the favorite child now. Emily Osment is the cool one. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she's adorable, so it's fine. Well, I think it was like... I'm just riffing here. I'm going like, why was that so popular? You know, and I think people, even Bible people... were probably going to see that movie to see what it was all about.

I mean, and they put like America's like, like Tom Hanks. Surprised with that casting for that. Really? Like from his standpoint, like I could see him not, I mean, he kind of does what he wants even back then. But I was like, it seems like that would be for a different actor that could totally kill your career.

So maybe he just knew I'm Tom Hanks, you know, I'll just roll on and do something else, which he did regardless of how it went over. He just went on movie after that. So he can, he can do that. He's Tom Hanks, but it is big. Yeah.

To be as big a project as it was, it is interesting that they just kind of, don't sugarcoat it. Like again, the whole middle of the movie is him just explaining beat for beat what is going on and here's why and here's how we know and this is this. And so, yeah, I liked when it kind of got to that crazy reveal and like really spelled it out in a way that I figured was going to piss people off. I mean, if you're going to piss people off, you get Tom Hanks and you have it directed by Opie. I mean, you know, that's going to, but that was building so much.

I wonder, I think it's something people want. I mean, that was what Last Temptation of Christ was about, right? Where he thought about, man, what if I had, you know, settled down and had some kids. That would definitely piss people off. Like, there were.

Definitely Bible people that got, like, were out protesting that movie. Yeah, that movie blew up. Where they didn't do that with Da Vinci Code. I don't remember hearing any backlash, really. Like, even people who seemed like, because I remember someone I know who were, I remember them talking about that movie, and now I'm thinking back, and I'm like, they were kind of church people.

It's just weird that it, like, somehow found a weird crossover that I guess, because it's based on this book, and it's just, like, fantasy novel-ish. Yeah. That, like, it does, but it's not real, like the Bible. Like, this is just a book. Right.

You don't have Martin Scorsese saying... It. Doesn't have any weird flashbacks to him getting it on with Mary Magdalene or anything. We just look at a painting and we throw out a theory and it's all good. Like, right.

So maybe that was part of it too. It was also kind of homogenized into the most arm's length version of this concept. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think, but I'm, I'm throwing this out here. I think, you know, people, uh, are just becoming more secular in time you know but also like this was kind of coming in at the heels of like all the priest scandals at the catholic church and so maybe this was like uh church people weren't so upset because they were going like well look jesus he was just kind of a normal. Guy at least he had a wife he had a wife there were no kids involved like it wasn't There weren't any scandals about him and any kids. He had a wife. They were married.

It was all on the up and up. That's right. Put a ring on the finger. The lesser of two evils. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, exactly. Jesus being married, we can handle. We can't handle the priests and the pedophiles. I'm only kind of a creepy person. Jesus is cool because he got married.

Right. Yeah. Maybe it just put a whole new spin on it all. Yeah. Yeah.

It was like, Hey, maybe, maybe we should let Bruce get married. Hey, I've said that for years. Yeah. It's like just for many reasons other than it just makes them crazy. Like one of the few that I knew and you know, youth, uh, it was one of the stories that sort of, I found inspiring, which again, I feel like goes against, it shows me not being a churchy person, uh, One of the guys who ran the whole church that I was exposed to as a youth, eventually, right after I was around there, left the priesthood and got married to a woman.

So I was like, at the time, I was like, you know... That's kind of cool. Like you realized you didn't need to be there. And instead of doing something wrong, you just left it all behind and went to do the light, you know, put together life you want to have. I was like, that's right.

I'm kind of proud of that. Good for you, sir. So again, I feel like everyone else cursed his name, but I was like, no, that's making the right call. And if you guys didn't box people in and. No, it's true.

It's true. And, and look, I mean, priests have like, like, groupies. I mean, not like actual Rose does, but I worked at a coffee shop right by a church and it was the church I used to go to, but people would leave mass and then they would come to get some coffee and sometimes their eyes were like infatuated and they would talk about the priest like he was, you know, like he. Was Tom Selleck. Laughter I like your choice of references.

Who? Sexy retired old man Tom Selleck. Actually, I just had this. As someone, we were having a normal conversation. He referenced Magnum P.I.

And I'm like, all right, yeah, crazy mustache. And then he referenced the car and the house and the dogs. And I went, oh, you're talking about that other one. Like, I'm pretty sure there were no dogs in the first one. They have dogs in the reboot.

I remember I did watch the reboot more than I would be okay with admitting, probably. It was fine. It wasn't like a big deal, but like, There's nothing else on on that night. So many a time I saw an episode of the reboot of Magnum P.I. And yeah, I realized this guy is considerably younger and like that's his Magnum.

That's his. Even that show is off. Even that show is off the air now. Even that show is old. But like that was his entry point into Magnum P.I.

So I was trying to make a Tom Selleck reference and it didn't, you know, it didn't. I was like, oh, that other guy. Yeah. Okay. No mustache on him.

Okay, never mind. Moving on. Oh, my God. Yes. Everyone still uses Magnum PI references.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, as the years go by, my references just become more and more dated. More and more obscure to every living human. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Yeah, Division Code. Well, and then they made a sequel for it, and it was pretty cool. Well, you would love to tie it back. There's a whole episode of the studio about Ron Howard not being as nice a guy. Was it narrated by Ron Howard?

Well, no, but he's in the episode, and it's really good. It's a really good episode. He does seem to have a good sense of humor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really a cool episode.

You go like, oh, yeah, Ron Howard was an actor for most of his life. A good portion of his life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's still got it. He's still got the chops, so it's pretty good.

Yeah, what's weird is there's also a third one. Did you even realize they made a third one? Yeah, there's a third movie in that series. With Tom Hanks? The book series has like five, you know, it's a whole big series of books, but they made three of them.

It was years later and it does have Tom Hanks and it was directed by Ron Howard. What are the odds of that? It is a trilogy. Everything's a trilogy. Part two was Moses wasn't Jewish.

The third one is Inferno. But Inferno didn't come out until 2016. Oh my gosh, Inferno. That is way later than the other two. Totally forgot.

I had heard that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I. Those movies are not on my radar.

Yeah, that's the thing. Now I'm like, I guess I have to round them out and watch the other two. I didn't immediately jump to Angels and Demons. I was like, ah, once again, I'll get to it. I'll get to it.

Might be another 20 years or so, but I'll get to it. Oh my gosh. But yeah, I was not all fired up to watch the next one right away. I was like, yeah, maybe later. I did my time on Da Vinci Code.

I'm good. Well, you know, you find out in Dracula 2000 that Judas, who betrayed Jesus, ended up being Dracula. I did see that originally. What's funny is I have bought a copy of it since then because I want to go back and rewatch it. Because it is, I remember it being not the greatest movie, but it was an interesting concept.

And then I picked up the physical copy I saw and went, look at this cast for God's sake. It had an amazing cast. They probably all have about five minutes of screen time, but there was a lot of people of the time in that movie. Yeah. Jerry Ryan?

As a vampire? I think Jerry Ryan as a vampire woman was like, I gotta see that. That's how you guys suckered in. Yeah, that's it. But then you got Christopher Plummer as Van Helsing.

I mean, that's excellent! Awesome! I'm telling you, this is Top quality stuff, man. They don't let Johnny Lee Miller in just anything. No, no, no, no.

He's very discerning. I mean, vitamin C, for God's sakes. There's no more a superstar of the moment right now than vitamin C. Those little flashes. I mean, yeah, they had that time period they were coming out with 2000 everything.

You know, Godzilla 2000 and Dracula. It was a great time for movies. And I find... again freaking gerard butler like that guy i don't know what to do with his career it's just yeah. Yeah the new fishing buddy joe of movies you know he just uh you know i gotta save my family from this disaster or that disaster well. I know he just shows up and stands in front of a green screen is all i know as my recent viewing of gods of egypt told me oh my gosh I watched it for an entirely different reason that I will not go into because it's more sad than anything.

But as I watched it, I was like, I mean, it's not as bad as I went in. Like, I'm so like, I got so dumb at that point of like every CG mythologically old timey sword and sandal in front of a green screen movie. Like everything post 300 just felt like it was the same. Yeah. Like we'll knock out a clash of the Titans.

We'll do another clash of the Titans after that. The Immortals. Everything just felt and looked like that big CG green screen thing. That's it. And this is definitely that.

Don't get me wrong. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that. I thought it was like...

I had much lower expectations. I was going like, ah, that didn't like... I'm not mad that I watched it. I liked many aspects about it. It was better than I thought.

But the thing I had no idea, I'm watching it already, and the credit comes up at the beginning, it's directed by Alex Preuss. That's it. What the hell? Well, that's why I gave it a chance. Yeah, that's why I gave it a chance.

I was like, Alex might be able to do something with this, you know, and he made it not suck. It's got an actual story. I was impressed with that. It's still so much CG, it will make your brain bleed. But that aside, it does have a story.

It's got some good performances. I really like the acting more than I expected. You don't always get great acting in front of a green screen. So it was totally watchable. So that was another weird one off that I just, the Gerard Butler reminded me.

I just saw that. Oh, right, right, right. He is definitely one of those two dudes that's fighting each other. Yeah, yeah. You can tell them apart because one's got an eye patch.

Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, they're just manly dudes in front of a green screen. Fighting each other. But that's how you know one's different from the other. One's got an eye patch.

Jared Butler was like, you know, his deep Irish accent, just like, Ah, the pyramids must rise! They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not a pirate movie. Settle down. I know you got an eye patch on, dude, but you got to do a different accent. Oh my gosh.

They got to do a, they need to do a Lego pyramid with all the new stuff they found underneath it. You know, have you been watching any of that with like a, they're saying like, oh yeah, it's the lost city of Atlantis under there. They had electricity and crystals that shot lasers. I mean, I don't know what they're talking about, but, uh, I know it's like Joe Rogan's happiest day that they found more stuff under the pyramid. The only thing I saw that was really interesting and I could totally get behind was they did a cross section of the pyramids and the underneath area.

And what we learned was it was actually a big Toblerone bar. And that's what's poking up through. But underneath, just a big Toblerone. What does it feel like? Are you okay?

Are you okay? I'm good. I'm good. Are you going to recover from that fact? That was excellent.

That was. The truth. The truth is out. It's the truth. It's finally out there, man.

Toblerone. Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh. Okay.

People are so excited. All right. Let's see. Do you have another thing? Yes.

Yes. I watched the first season of. Barry. On HBO. This is about the guy from the Brady Bunch, right?

Or it's all about Barry Gibb. Which is it? This is about... Okay, so it's that guy. Will...

Not... Is it Will Arnett? That's a guy. But I don't think it's Will Arnett. It's the guy that is like Will Arnett, but I can't remember his name.

Thank God there's IMDb. I'm watching it. It's called Barry. Will Forte? Okay, he's a totally different guy.

Will Forte? No, no, it's not Will Forte. Okay. Okay, who is this guy? And it's not the guy who does the voice of Batman on the Lego movies.

Oh my gosh, all these guys look the same. That's a Will. He looks just like those two. Barry. It is Bill Hader.

Okay. All right. He is a totally different guy. Totally different guy. Bill Hader, not Will Forte or Will Arnett.

I mean, at least Will Arnett was of the same class of SNL. So that sort of makes sense. Oh, geez. Man, not so much, but you know. Okay.

So Barry. All right. Barry is about a guy named Barry played by Bill Forte. Bill Hader. Bill Hader.

Bill Hader Arnett. A guy named Barry. He's like this Midwest guy who went to Afghanistan and has post-traumatic trauma. An old family friend hooks him up and he becomes a hitman. We start the show and he's a hitman.

He's just taking out little low-level criminals and splitting the money with the guy who He's a great cast. Steven Root is his mentor who's sending him out on jobs. That's already sold me, Steven Root. I'm a boy. Fantastic cast.

Fantastic cast, all right? So Bill Hader's a hitman. Steven Root is his boss, and he sends him on a job to go kill somebody for these Chechnyans or something in L.A., So he lands in L.A. He's about to go kill this guy. But this guy is an aspiring actor and he's going to an acting class led by Henry Winkler.

All right. All right. So you got Henry Winkler acting like a pretentious acting instructor in L.A. And Barry, the hitman, catches the acting bug and he doesn't want to be a hitman anymore. Now he wants to be an actor.

All right. But he's enthralled in this criminal underworld of very interesting characters. The Chechnyans are great. And so they're kind of like, so it's like a criminal movie, but he's trying to get out of being a hitman. So you become a working actor.

All right. So you've got the cast of other people. So you've got the group of. aspiring actors in the class and they're all great and they're all hilarious. And, you know, you get to see them, you know, talk about trying to be an actor in LA. And then you've also got this side of the thing where it's like the criminal underbelly where he keeps getting pulled into jobs.

And, uh, you know, it kind of plays on those tropes. So it's a, it's this cool, like mashup. And it's, it's really well written and very well performed. And it's just really funny, you know? And, but there's also like these like good dramatic moments where he has to bury is a good guy.

You know, he's naive. He's from the Midwest and he's not, uh, used to kind of the superficiality of the way you're treated in Hollywood, where everybody's kissing your ass, but also being mean to you at the same time, he's having trouble navigating that. Um, But it's also got these really dramatic parts where he does get has have to get pulled back into the criminal underworld and make a hit that he doesn't want to do. And it's just kind of like funny stuff. Like he's on a hit, but, you know, he's got an audition or he's got a he's got a acting.

He's got to meet with a scene partner to do a scene at the class. So he's got to be back at class. He's got to kill this person. But nobody wants, you know, he's got to wait for the person to say, like, OK, kill him now, you know. That kind of thing.

Anyway, it's really good. I got through the first season. Excellent. And so, you know, I look at it. And so, of course, I come to these things very late.

So there's three more seasons for me to get through. So it's good. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, it's good.

Most things don't get three seasons extra anymore. Right, right, right. Again, people's attention is bent. Yeah, absolutely. Unless it delivers bankroll money.

They're just like, man, never mind. We're not going to make another season. I'm like, then... It's so frustrating now that, again, we're moving away from theaters. We're getting to series is almost the staple now of like, that's what people watch is series television.

But it's like nobody is on board with that idea from the production end of it. I'm like, if you're going to create this idea... just roll with it and knock out, like figure out how many, you know, seasons it needs to be and green light that from the get go. So we know what we're getting ourselves into versus we've got this four years of story, but we got cut off in the second one. So like, it's just like, if this is going to be our thing, figure out how to do it. You know, it's like, yeah, this is what everybody's going to watch, learn how to produce them so that it's not constantly just whoops, drop the ball on that one.

Like, Yeah. They pulled funding out on the next one. Like, it's so dumb. Yeah. No, I got really into kind of like the studio.

There was a show on HBO called The Franchise. And it was about trying to make this big superhero movie, you know, and it was behind the scenes and like all the shenanigans. It has the guy from it's an Indian actor. He's in this movie called Yesterday about people waking up. I've seen that.

Yeah. Yeah. So that actor. Yeah, yeah. He's a really good actor and he's good in this.

And his movie and his show had some really funny stuff in it. And then it built up to his great cliffhanger and then they didn't renew it. So I'm going like, God. That's what I'm saying. Like, just make up your mind.

Are we making this a series or are we not making it a series? Yeah, yeah. It's like one-off seasons or halfway into an arc and then we pull the plug. I'm like, just... Pick one.

What are we doing? Make an hour and a half movies or make 19 hour series, but like decide beforehand the story you're going to tell and the funding that's going to be necessary. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding.

And I'm sure they would have known by the time they shot that last episode, if they were going to get renewed or not. I mean, or like, you know, so you could just tweak the ending where there was a resolution and, There was going to be a resolution, and then they threw this cliffhanger at the last second. They're going like, oh, yeah, cool, season two, and then they don't renew it. They're going like, well, shit. You know?

Yeah. What do you got? I had one that was silly enough I thought you would appreciate this. All right. Again, it is one I found a physical copy of and picked up and went, oh, this looks ridiculous.

All right. So it is entitled Eyeborgs. E-Y-E-borgs. Not like Eye Robot. This is Eyeborgs like an eyeball.

That's a great title. Yeah, I thought so too. And I was like, this looks dumb enough. I'm going to have to watch it. And then I watched it and I was like, I mean, I was expecting worse.

Like I set the bar really low for Eyeborgs. And it at least had an actual plot. The acting was better than your standard sci-fi movie. It wasn't your sci-fi nonsense. It was pretty normal, straight-to-video acting.

But yeah, it's a sort of alternate future where we have some sort of issue and they start putting out these iBorgs, which are basically just robots that record everything. And walk around everywhere. There's little ones, and then there's giant ones that also, like, keep the peace. So there's little ones that are just spying on you everywhere that walk around and have a camera built into their head. And then there's these big, like, Ed ones from Robocop, basically, that just come in and, like, attack people when need be.

And it's some sort of federal investigation, and there's a cover-up, and the president's families involved, and somewhere along the way, don't worry, Danny Trejo shows up. Danny Trejo shows up. Is Tara Reid in it? No. Again, I said it wasn't sci-fi.

If it was sci-fi, she would have been a doctor and it would have had Tara Reid. But no, not. They blew all their money on the Danny Trejo. Not really a huge role, by the way. If you're going in expecting a Danny Trejo vehicle, you're in trouble because It's a little bit more than a cameo.

You actually kind of sold me on iBorgs. I kind of like the concept. Now, is it an asylum movie? I mean, it's just a standard, relatively low-budget sci-fi type of thing. But it's still like, I mean, most of the other stuff is the same.

That's why it doesn't cost so, like, it's not dystopian future world. Like, it's mostly just in a normal city, but there's also these CG robots walking around behind them. And the main thing that dates it, because that's the thing I'm watching it going, and I had to, like, midway through go, wait, when did this come out? Because it feels like it's got a very government-watching-all-of-your-moves kind of thing that feels almost like response of recent activities. So I was like, but when they pull out their phones, that's the telltale now.

When somebody pulls out a flip phone, you're like, what year did this come out? So it's like 2009. Right before. If they would have waited a year or two, they would have had things that didn't make the whole thing look dated. But now everything looks dated because they're all on freaking flip phones the whole time.

That's hilarious. Wow. But it's a movie. Okay, okay. Set your bar pretty low and you might be okay.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you basically set it. I had, like, a buried bar for that, all right? Yeah, so did I, and I bought it. You got it, like, right above grass level, so that's not too bad.

That's not too bad. It is sort of watchable. Alright, my next one here is, we've done that, we've done that. You talked about iBorgs. I'm just going to jump ahead past some stuff here. iBorg, Cyborgs, I'm going to jump to one I watched on Amazon Prime and it is Robodoc, which is a like six hour documentary on the creation of RoboCop.

All right. You would not. Now I'm on board. You would not. I'm assuming we're talking the reboot version, right?

Oh my God. People love that movie so much. You need six hours about it. We all collectively forgot that was a thing, by the way. Right, right, right.

Well, we all know that, you know, the reboot of Robocop vastly improved on a concept that was barely scratched upon in the original. Yeah, it really got it right. Yep, yep. That first one was just a practice run, you know. We work the kinks out.

Now we can make the masterpiece. That's right. That's right. In that mentality, it's like, you know, using the original as a first draft and to get right what they got wrong with the first one. Why don't they all do that?

But it's always the opposite. They always just take everything that's good of the first one and they ruin it. That total recall was great. What are you talking about? The running man is going to be awesome.

I found out Robbo Team. That is coming, by the way. Robbo Doc. What is coming? I'm pretty sure they're redoing Running Man.

Oh, Jesus. Okay. But what's sad is I saw it and went, wait, didn't they already do that? My brain had already convinced me that that was also remade badly in the 2010s at some point. But I don't think it was, actually.

I just assumed that it was. I made it up with my own CG brain and went, oh yeah, it looked really bad, didn't it? Okay, cool. Yeah. Well, if I can be that prick real quick, if they did the book, it would be really cool.

That's one of those I would actually be okay, because again, I don't think The Running Man is great as a movie. It's a cool concept that is kind of okay as a movie. So to me, you should take that awesome concept and really do it without cheesy Schwarzenegger one-liners. No offense, I know people love their cheesy Schwarzenegger one-liners, but... I'm like, to me, the original concept seemed way more interesting when it was Christopher Reeve.

Because that would have been a cool sci-fi movie. He was the original plan for that movie. And then instead it got turned into a Schwarzenegger movie and it became silly. So had we just done a cool sci-fi movie starring Christopher Reeve, I would have been on board with that. So to me, if you do that now, I'm not going to badmouth it.

Like, if you make a good movie, I'm on board. Yeah, absolutely. I mean. Everything's, all the sacred cows have already been slaughtered. Might as well do running, man.

I mean, you know, what the hell. I mean, it can't be more sacrilege than RoboCop. Yeah, seriously. Seriously. Speaking of which, RoboCop.

RoboCop. All right. So, related to RoboCop and the RoboDoc, I found out that when Rob Bottin stopped making movies, he became a real estate agent. You're going to buy a house from him. And you still had the big giant, you know, Wolfman Jack here.

You know? So, I mean, that's what sells people on houses. That's it. That's it. Yeah.

Let Rob set you up with your, your, your next thing, you know, or something. I don't know. Rob knows the neighborhood. Right. Exactly.

So anyway, the robo dock is excellent. It is like, you know, six hours long, No stone left unturned. You get this amazing view into where it came from, which was basically, it was a junior executive at the studio wandering around and he wandered into the set of Blade Runner and he goes like, wow, look at this set. This is crazy. I need to come up with my own cool idea.

So he's just, He's kind of like the character in RoboCop who created RoboCop, the Miguel Fuhrer kind of guy. Yeah. He's like this young upstart guy, and he's trying to make his way in Hollywood. And so he comes up with this idea that he's going to call it RoboCop. All right?

And he's going to be like, this is going to be my meal ticket. And everybody looks at the, what are you writing? And I was like, It was like, so he gets a writing partner and they start hashing it out and they're trying not to rip off Blade Runner. And, uh, you know, and, and, and, you know, they go like, what are you working on? It's like, it's called RoboCop.

And they're going like, okay, well, that's going to be a piece of shit. And, uh, and, uh, so they, they, they work on the script on nights and weekends and, you know, RoboCop is going to be this great thing. And what's my God? Then, uh, Terminator comes out and they're going like, ah, crap, they're going to think we ripped off Terminator, you know, and so they have to start rewriting it again and they're just like, ah, you know, and, but actually it was the Terminator that got the script in front of people because everybody was desperate to make the next Terminator and, yeah, yeah, and, and so, but everybody was turning it down because the name was so terrible, but, uh what had happened was paul verhoeven had just that flesh and blood movie like was such a bomb he needed to make uh something that would make money to save his career so it's kind of like a francis ford coppola kind of situation where.

I'm for the one for them right right i. Did the one for me and nobody liked it it's yeah yeah for them right right and so and so it was just amazing that uh It's amazing that RoboCop is as good as it is. It's true of a lot of those things when you look back. I mean, any movie, to me, the fact that any get made and work at all is kind of a miracle in and of itself. It's true.

When you get ones that are as solid as some of the ones over the years, I'm just like, how the hell did this ever happen? But I think the guy being an exec... So he was seeing the story through that point of view. So it was actually the best case scenario. That's what kind of gives it its different thing about it being about boardroom meetings and making a product.

This was his life. Yeah, this was this guy's life. It was kind of like Lucas in the prequels. Everything was about economics and sitting in boardrooms and talking about stuff. And there's one thing kids love.

No, no. I saw a, I saw a meme the other day, uh, where it was just like a photo of like, uh, people in 1999 going like, george lucas who the hell cares about tariffs and trade routes and that is like a picture of george lucas today laughing his ass. Off just be like i tried to tell you guys this is what's gonna bring down the whole. Galaxy nobody listens to me stupid star wars guy nobody yeah that's. Right that's right i told you and i told you um So, so it's really good documentary.

It's amazing. The, the process of the suit and how long it took to put on and like how they were having to, it just kept like, uh, it was just like the work that went into the suit. And cause they were going, basically if this suit sucks, we have no movie. Well, kind of, it is a little bit important. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. So it was a good thing. They got row, uh, Robbo team. It was interesting how low budget it was. They shot it in Texas and in Houston.

And just like it was kind of like the Wild West out there. It was fascinating what a maniac Paul Verhoeven was. And he had the entire crew hating him. I think all the time I've heard that. Supposedly just a wild, insane man.

That's what I've heard. And there's that scene where they blow up the gas station, and it's like Robocop walking in the blast. I mean, that totally could have killed the guy, all right? It was a stuntman wearing the Robocop suit. And if you see that stunt, it's like he was going like...

The stunt guy was like. That stunt would never have been allowed. Legally, this shouldn't have happened. People were going to die. Never would have been.

Verhoeven was always yelling at the crew, going like, oh, of course you can't do that, or of course you can't do this. If I was in Europe, they would have totally been able to do it. I also would have killed 17 guys making this movie. Exactly, exactly. You wusses won't even get murdered for my movie.

That's right, that's right. Yeah, so it was a real, real crazy documentary, and it was really well done. It was great, all the stuff they cut and the reaction to it. I don't, they go into, I can't remember if they go into, no, I get it mixed up with the Phil Tippett documentary that I watched right afterwards, where they talk about Robocop 2 in length, but The interesting thing about the Phil Tippett documentary was that they had Paul Verhoeven interviewed, and he goes like, really, Robocop was directed by three people. It was Phil Tippett, me, and the stunt coordinator, Vic Armstrong, because Vic Armstrong coordinated all the fight scenes and stuff like that, and Phil Tippett did all the special effects, stop-motion stuff, and then I just did the actor-y stuff.

But, yeah, yeah. But I think, I mean, every time I watch... of RoboCop, it just gets better and better. And this documentary really pushes it. I think when I watched it as a kid, I liked it, but I think a lot of the meat of the movie went over my head, you know? And now as an adult.

Who's worked for... There's so many levels. Yeah, because I mean, it's a very on-the-page, here's your sci-fi story, but then the world that RoboCop creates is so... weird and like kind of making its own commentary along the way that like it lands totally different than I'm assuming that screenplay gave you. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, yeah. I mean, I think he brought like this European, like anti-capitalist thing to it basically, but I always thought, Oh, like that, that stuff was just with the corporation stuff, but really the concept of the, the character of Robocop about being a man with good intentions is, being ground down by the system and then being turned into a product with no humanity and how corporations kind of sap you of your humanity. I think that's like an amazing. This is where we're headed. Yeah, it's an amazing allegory.

It might already be there, actually. Yeah, no, I think it is. And what makes Robocop so good is it is such a good story of redemption and how, you know, by Robocop trying to regain his humanity turns the system against him and they want to keep him in this shiny box and that he fights his way out of it and you know, says, what's your name, son? And he says Murphy at the end. It's like just the most perfect ending to a movie.

You know? Again, being the stories I've heard about him as a wild man, sometimes I am, like, impressed that he made as awesome and, like, just basic cool storytelling in his character arc. It's like the fact that all of that still remains when you're that insane is kind of impressive in its own way. Well, absolutely. Absolutely.

I mean, it doesn't always work for him. You know what I mean? There's always the showgirls. Everybody loves that Invisible Man movie. I don't know what you're talking about.

Everybody loves Hollow Man. Yeah, yeah. But, man, it just, like, was the perfect thing. And I think because Paul Verhoeven was coming off of failures, you know, he was able to buckle down a little bit. You know, everybody kissed his ass after that.

And I love Starship Troopers, but it isn't RoboCop. You know, it's not, it doesn't have that. feeling of uh of a character arc that uh that robocop. I think that's the difference it still has the commentary like it still actually has the same vibe as robocop when you watch it but the character develop is nothing like those characters are the most blank slate generic which is fine because you know there's no skill brought to casper yeah yeah And like, it's just our actors are not really delivering. I mean, they're doing what they can in that story, but it's not about character development in that movie. No, no, no.

And it's, it's, it's really about, you know, I mean, I think that's sort of his point in that one is just like, look at these pretty naive, vacant people dying terribly. For a system that they don't even understand really what's going on. What we need is Nazi Doogie Howser. That's it. Nazi Doogie Howser that gave us that.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So that doesn't have like the same oomph for me.

Like, yeah, I get the point, but it doesn't have it's not as dramatically satisfying. It's kind of like they made it personal with RoboCop. It's kind of like with the Godzilla movie, the Godzilla Zero or something. Minus one. Minus one.

Yeah. That made a Godzilla movie with a human heart to it, a human connection. It made it a personal Godzilla movie. I think that cracked the Godzilla code. Yeah.

You know, what, what Godzilla had been missing, you know, in a lot of the movies. So, uh, you know, though, Matthew Broderick tried to get back with his mom and girlfriend. He tried, he tried, but it reminded me the, the only other one in that universe. Well, the attempted universe, not the minus one people will very quickly point out. These are different schools.

Uh, but the, uh, did you see skull Island? In that weird monster verse over there, which most people hate those new other Godzilla movies, but the one-off that was just King Kong, if you saw that, there's a weird human story mixed in that is so heartfelt that by the end you're like, How did I get sucked into this humanity story in a movie where everyone else is a cartoon? Like, everyone else is either there just to die a really bloody death, or you've got a villain, which, by the way, is not Kong. There's a much bigger, more cartoony villain than Kong in that movie. And by the end, you're like, that guy is ridiculous.

These characters are all dead and ridiculous. We've got two leads that, once again, have no charisma or character, which is ridiculous because the actors are amazing. But in this story, those characters are nothing. And then you get to this one, and it's one side story that somehow delivers so much heart that you're like, I can't believe I got sucked into caring about this guy in this movie. Yeah, yeah.

I love Kong Skull Island. If you haven't seen it, that's the best, yeah, that's the best one of the bunch. And sadly, there's no Godzilla, but it is still a whole lot of monster fighting, don't you worry. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it was great.

It was great. I mean, I like, man, I like the Adam Wingard gods of the Kong movies. I do. I like them. Well, it's like, I don't, that's the thing.

I've seen people just talk trash about them. Yeah. And I'm like, I get it. Like I get it. But then I watched the last two.

And the thing is, they're all indistinguishable outside of skull Island, which because it's its own separate thing. But like those last two, I couldn't tell you what happened and what, which one, where I don't, it's all just the same big, weird upside down Kong universe story. Um, And I get in there and I'm like, yeah, it's fine. I'm just so pleased to get to see Adam Wingard playing with his Godzilla toys. I'm like, there's so many worse people you could have handed that to.

What little I know of Adam Wingard, he seems like an awesome dude. He liked making some low-budget horror stuff. And now some studio came along and went, hey, we just dropped this bankroll of money in front of you. You want to play with Godzilla toys? And he's like, fuck okay right what am i gonna say no like right exactly if the fans like it i get to make multi-million dollar godzilla.

Movies exactly exactly i don't care if. Anyone likes it i get to do what i want and that's that's awesome like i appreciate that part of it so much yeah i watch it i'm like i don't know it's yeah things are going on monsters are fighting whatever It's fine. It's totally fine. But I so appreciate just the small-time indie movie geek that he is getting handed that studio money to just go do your thing, man. I'm so happy.

Yeah, I'm just. So thrilled to see that happen. Yeah, because from the interviews, I mean, he's basically, you know, coming from the South, I mean, he's basically like an Alabama, white trash, scum of the earth kind of guy, kind of like me. and uh you know so i go like it's good i love it when the white trash win one. Once again like if somebody just came up one day and went hey you want to make a multi-million dollar platform movie of a thing that you've played with your whole life as toys you're like uh yeah i don't get it man why would well i mean people talk so much smack about it i'm just like What difference does it make, man? What's weird is, once again, back to our original point, in this world that we currently live in, how are they still making those movies?

I mean, I guess overseas money? Because I feel like they don't really do well in America. People seem to hate them in the fan community. And they're sort of so self-contained in their own little world that I feel like they don't... they're not really accessible to regular people. So unless you're like a monster movie, kind of a dork, why would you even go to them?

Right. And like a monster movie, kind of dorks hate that movie or that whole series of movies. And they want Godzilla minus one. So, right. How are there like five of those movies out there?

I don't understand. Like the last two that they handed Wingard, I was like, dude, I don't understand how you're doing it, but cash those checks, man. I was like, yeah, I am so impressed that you get to make these movies because people do not like these movies. I know. And you are being handed millions of dollars to do it again.

That makes no sense to me in the world we live in when they're barely handing out money to make movies, period. Let alone the millions and millions of dollars they're handing them to make these movies that nobody likes. It's so amazing. I love it. I love it.

I mean, yeah, 2024 was like, the banner year of Godzilla movies. We had two pretty kick-ass Godzilla movies, I thought. So, you know, it was like, uh, I was all right, but, but, and totally different sides of the spectrum. You know, you had like the serious, you know, allegorial, allegorical, uh, Godzilla, uh, black and white. And then you had like, uh, and then you had like the 1970s fun, you know, Godzilla versus, uh, uh, uh, what do we call it?

Uh, uh, Megalon. Yeah. Yeah. Now they're buddies. Now they're hanging out.

Now they're buddies. I mean, it was just like, hey, man, Zero-G Godzilla jumping around boulders, man. Hell yeah. Kong gets himself a power glove. Ah, yeah.

He's like playing old school Nintendo and shit. It's going to be awesome. It was just a table flip moment, man. You know, those movies have personality and they have fun to them. So, you know, I'm like.

They really do. Again, I don't think they're great. Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah, but they are fun.

They are fun. What I find more puzzling is that they keep bringing in human characters like we give a shit. Like this one brought in a whole new bunch of characters. And I'm like, we didn't care about the last movie. Most of those actors didn't even come back because nobody gave a shit about them.

Why are you bothering with all these new humans? I do like, I appreciate that they carried on the little girl into like the teenage version of her. That was interesting that they at least kept her around. But I'm like... All these people are bringing in like we care.

Like, dude, just get the monsters fighting. Quit wasting our time with human stories. If we didn't want to see Breaking Bad do it years ago, we don't want to see you guys do it now either. Right, right. Yeah, the thing about King of the Monsters was, on the plus side, it had the most epic Rodan scene possible. finally given Rodan some respect.

Rodan is a jam. I love some Rodan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Rodan, I actually went back and watched the original Rodan. I had never actually seen it.

I always thought the thing was like, you know, one of the most ridiculous monsters in the Godzilla team-up movies, but Rodan is a pretty fucking great movie. He's kind of my go-to. I have way more Rodans in little plastic forms sitting around my home than a normal person should. Yeah, yeah. It's a great movie.

It's a great movie. Um. Uh, but yeah, yeah. No, but the problem with the downside of King of the Monsters was, yeah, like it was, it felt like a Godzilla movie because all the people scenes were so crappy. Dumb.

It's like, I don't, well, it just seems like we're wasting time with all this dialogue. I'm like, but we don't care. Whatever you're saying, we don't remember from the last movie and we don't care in this movie. So just get to monsters fighting. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Adam, you know we don't care. Just do it. Yeah, absolutely. That's what's good about it.

But I'm sure there's a studio going, but we have a TV series to set up. We have to keep the MonsterVerse going so we can make money over here on this platform. So you probably have to put in dumb scenes where they talk about things that we can tie in later on a TV series that also no one really pays attention to. Yeah, yeah. I've got a subscription to Apple TV.

Monarch is on that, but I've not really wanted to sit. You and everyone else in the world. Which is insane because it's got Kurt Russell. Like, I should be totally sold. It's got Russell and Russell Jr.

I want to watch that, but I don't really. I can't totally convince myself I want to watch that. Definitely not enough to get a channel that I don't care about. I have yet to delve into the Monarch world. If I try it, I'll tell you about it.

Yeah. Well, I wasn't going this way, but you just reminded me I watched this, so I'll throw this in the middle of it. I watched Terminator 3. Oh, okay. Do you remember Terminator 3?

Because I feel like no one remembers Terminator 3. I remember two things about Terminator 3, all right? I remember watching it and going like, uh. wow, they spent so much money on this. For no good reason. And like, I think like there's like a car chase sequence with like a truck plowing through things.

And I'm just going like, this is expensive. And the other thing I really took away from terminator three was probably like one of just my favorite things of all time was the uh Schwarzenegger acting in that scene where he's like I am a machine and then he like starts pounding on a car like uh like a rock-em-sock-em robot and I'm like going like this is so this is so campy and bad and Ed Wood I liked it for that reason but well what did you. Think here's I mean I'd seen it once a million years ago i didn't even bother with the theater it must have been on cable for free because i don't remember putting any effort into it i just eventually was like all right it's terminator i'll watch it right but um yeah this is the one thing i want to bring back and like i can't like you can say this out loud and it just doesn't process right right time clear Danes was in a Terminator movie it just doesn't make any sense because I'm like no she's just Claire Danes like she just she seems so out of place and I love me some Claire Danes but she just doesn't fit in what's going on really but they keep trying and she's doing what she can and Yeah.

The takeaway, I guess, is also, like, the second one works with what's-his-face as John Connor, but because he's a dumb teenager and he's supposed to come off as a dumb teenager. Right. But you watch it and you're like, oh, Nick Stahl can actually, like, act, so, like, no offense, Furlong, but I'm like, Furlong works because he's supposed to be a dumb teenager. Right. And he'd come back for this movie, I feel like it just would have, I mean, not because he really works, but...

Like, it would have been so weird seeing a slightly more grown-up version of John Connor trying to do this. I don't know. He's just such a weird actor. Where Nick Stahl is, like, a solid actor. So he's, again, doing what he can.

But, like, the problem is there's no story, really. Right. Like, it's just... The other ones at least, like, one and two, like, do their own thing. Like, one is groundbreaking, amazing sci-fi.

Two is just like, what if we turn this up to 11 and get our own weird other stuff on top of that? Right. And then you jump forward, and I like the other last two movies that came out, even as ridiculous as they are. I enjoy them for what they're worth. Oh.

Skipping over four. But three is the one that, like, doesn't really have an idea. Right. It's the one that feels like it's like, hey, remember two? Yeah.

Let's do that some more. Only this time it's a girl. That's the whole sales pitch. That's the whole sales pitch of this movie sitting in the boardroom. But what if the Terminator was a blonde chick?

And you'd be like, oh. Now I'm on board. I'm like, that girl just doesn't do anything. No, she doesn't play it. And they go like, okay, so in the third one, is it going to be an exoskeleton or is it going to be liquid metal?

And they kind of just go like, uh. Both blonde girl. How about that? Like, again, it like, doesn't like that. That's the thing.

Like two takes it up a notch. Two is a whole nother thing going on. Three is like, no, it's kind of like those other movie. Like, it just doesn't feel like they had anything to bring to the table other than, Hey, it's a blonde chick. Yeah.

Does it? That's it. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't really remember anything other than Schwarzenegger's performance in that scene. And, uh, I was just watching money just being spent at such an insane amount, an insane rate during that one.

The only shot I remembered from watching it the first time that I remember being like, oh, that was cool. And it still is. Schwarzenegger with a full ass coffin thrown up on his shoulder getting like blown away with bullets and he's just shielding it with a coffin that's a cool shot like that shot and that whole little scene is pretty cool in a movie that doesn't know what to do with itself otherwise except here's the thing I totally forgot about do you remember how the movie ends Well. They fail, right? And it blows up.

Spoilers for this movie from a long damn time ago. But I had totally forgotten how it ended. So I was just like, oh, the whole time they're trying to... It's 2003. So if you haven't seen it since 2003, spoiler alert.

Right. But. Yeah, the whole time they're trying to, at first they're trying to stop this from happening, and then at some point it's just like, well, okay, the rise of the machines is going to happen, the bombs are going to go off or whatever, so we've got to get you to a safe place. You know, we've got to get here and try to disarm it and keep that from happening. But what it really is, is get you to a safe place.

So the whole, again, spoiler, the whole thing is the Terminator essentially lying to John Connor to get him into a bunker so that he will survive. And in the most, like, Planet of the Apes 2 move, like, the end of the movie is just the destruction of humanity. Yeah. Yeah. They blow it.

At the end of the movie, he tricks the two of them into the bunker so that they'll survive when all of humanity mostly dies, the machines rise up, and then in the future, in the aftermath of all this, when we need a hero to be the general fighting the monsters... AKA robots. Um, it'll be there. He'll still be alive and he can go on to fight in the future, but that's where it leaves us. Yeah.

It just stops. The movie ends with humanity about to be exploded and robots take over the earth. I was like, you know, for a movie that has nothing going on for the entire rest of it, it delivers a closing scene and you're like. Holy shit. Really?

They just did that. Yep. Yep. Totally forgot about that part. I was like, all right, I give you points for an ending.

That is a hell of a way to end a movie. Yep. I agree. I agree. I totally blocked that part out.

Yeah. And then we got the forgettable McG one that has maybe like one or two good shots in it. I still avoided that one. I can't make myself care. Yeah, no, it's not good.

It's even got decent actors, but I don't care. I don't want to sit through a dumb McG sci-fi extravaganza. I just don't care. But the ones after that are dumb Terminator movies, and I like those. Yeah, I really like Genesis.

It's so ridiculous, and I love it. I do, too. I had such a good time with Genesis. And Dark Fate had some good action scenes. Again, I was watching Dark Fate going like, They spent so much money.

Oh my god. This is like Terminator 1, but with like 77,000 times the budget, you know? And, um. They just come up with interesting plots on those last two that I'm like, all right, it's ridiculous, but I'm on board because this is silly and I'm having fun with it. And the effects look good and the action is good.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I like these versions of this. Now, to me, by the time we hit two, the universe should collapse upon itself. Yes.

Because. Yes. I mean, it's ridiculous enough that you have time travel, but if you had time travel and looped around this many damn times into your own timeline, it should just implode upon itself. Absolutely. Yeah.

John-Claude Van Damme's time cop is having an aneurysm. There's no way. The world would still be around at any point in this series. Especially if you factor in the TV series. The TV series works in a whole other arm into that.

Oh my god. A whole new arrow back into the timeline. That makes no sense. So, yeah. There's no way in hell any of this Terminator timeline is possible.

Even in a sci-fi sense. It should kill everyone. That's true. That's true. So, my favorite...

My official favorite TV show... out right now is black mirror because I'm sad and depressed. Cause there's no hope for humanity. I just, I love. The writing on that show. And I love that.

It's just, just, you know, it's like three weeks into the future. What was the, uh, max headroom thing? Like 10 minutes into the future or something. Um, I mean, I'm kind of waiting for max to show up and hopefully save. Oh, I hope so.

That's the future we need. So the new season of Black Mirror came out and I know they've got a Paul Giamatti episode. So I'm so excited because I think he's my favorite actor. So my favorite actor on my favorite show. I can't wait.

All right. But I watched the first episode of Black Mirror new season and it's so good and it's so sad. And I don't think I've even watched all of The Black Mirror is because it takes me like four or five. It can take, it's probably been two weeks since I've watched the last one. I'm just trying to steady my nerves to watch the next one.

But this first, that's usually my reaction to Black Mirror. I was like, that was awesome. I needed a shower and I need to take a nap and I need to watch some cartoons. Go cry in the hallway for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll talk about how awesome it was if I can speak. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's Black Mirror for you. That was Black Mirror.

But I love the gut punch. Every episode is a gut punch. And so this new one is great. This lady gets a brain tumor. Already great.

Fun already. And so she's going to die. And this company says, like, hey, we can take this part of her brain that's damaged and we can recreate it in the cloud. And she will be, like, connected to our servers, and she'll be able to live, you know, and she'll have a second chance of life, and you'll be able to, you know, try to have kids and, you know, continue, you know, your normal life. And so the guy signs the paper, and he gets it, and his wife seems fine.

But at one point, she starts, in the middle of a conversation, she, like, will, like, go into an advertisement. So they'll be like, really is where we're all headed by the way. Right. And so she'll be like cooking something she goes like uh she'll say like uh feel like she'll say like rice krispies the best thing in the world you know or something like that he's like what do you say and he goes like i didn't say nothing and she goes so they find out that okay, for her not to have ads, they've got to up their subscription. And this is what, when I was talking about wearing a company's name on your shirt, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

This is where we're headed. This is where we're selling our soul. Yeah. This episode gets so dark and sick and sad and amazing. It, it, It comes to a point where if you get the premium deluxe version of this service to keep you alive, it's insanely expensive.

Of course. But you can control your hormonal and moods through the app. So you can crank up your pleasure sensors and whatever you need, you can crank it up to 11. All right? And so. the service is very, very expensive.

So this guy is working like double shifts all the time to, uh, maintain his wife's, uh, uh, basically the thing keeping her alive and they keep changing the, the service rules on them. And he's having to keep like paying more just to get, you know, basic stuff. And, um, at one point he, he splurges on the advanced premium and, you know, and it's just like, she's like stoned out of her mind. They go to like their, their, average, their usual anniversary thing. And, uh, they crank up that thing and it's like, everything is like super sensory input, you know, like she's stoned or something.

And so it was like a really good, you know, kind of on the nose, but of good, uh, metaphor for like, you know, technology addiction and, um. Well technology and, and just the way people are like willing to pay whatever to control themselves. Yes. Like, that's what I think is always interesting is like, it's just a shade away from what, like, I can't tell you, like there's few people I know of that aren't on medication now. Yeah.

To regulate their brain. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, it's, Sometimes I feel, yes, that is needed, but I also feel like there's a lot of times that we're just doing that because that's what people do now. So it's like, I feel like this is just a little sci-fi nudge into the be like, and they all be happy.

All you need is to pay this every month and your brain will be happy. And I'm like, isn't that what we're doing with drugs right now? So that's it. Yeah, it's a great it's a great, great episode. I mean, I can't recommend it because it's so sad.

I mean, I can recommend it, but you just got to know you're going to have to take a week off from work. Yeah, just know you'll be sad. You'll be sad after you're done. All right. But yeah.

So what do you got? All right. Well, mine, while I'm sticking with a lot of sci fi here, because I feel like I don't get I talk about a lot of horror otherwise. But this gives me a good chance to talk about ridiculous sci fi with you. This is the future world I've been looking for.

None of this crazy putting stuff in your brains and running CG ads. What I need is a robot lady. Okay. I'm assuming I had this taped off a cable on a VHS tape. That tells you how long ago I saw this last and had forgotten 99% of it.

So, I re-watched Cherry 2000. All right. All right. Cool. Now, I've only seen the, like, first 15 minutes of it.

So, tell me. Sell me on it. Well, that's what you need is what happens in the first 15 minutes. You can be happy. All you need is to get yourself a robo-person.

Right. I feel like this is what we need. Like, I watch people just fighting to keep dumb relationships. And I'm just like, just who cares? We just don't want to be by ourselves.

Yeah. All we need is a thing there that sort of represents another person, and you do the things you like to do, and it gets you through your life. And that's what we need. This humanity, connecting with other humanity, it's just a lot to ask. Let's be real.

So, I like the idea of this. I'm looking to Japan to lead the way because their dolls that are out there right now are worlds above what we do in this dumb country. So, they have already kind of perfected a good amount of the physical stuff. We just need that mechanical, moving, emotional chip to be implanted in there so we can trick ourselves into thinking we're with a human being. So that's what we're, you know, in our opening of Cherry 2000, we're way in the distant future of 2017, I believe.

I think it really is. Double check. Yep. In the year 2017. So the, uh, it's this weird mixture of like, there's normal cities and everything operates like day to day.

This dude works in an office kind of nonsense. And then like you go out into other parts of the country and or world and it's post-apocalyptic wasteland. Nice. It's a nice balance there. And, um, What I feel like they dropped the ball on in the production of these gals, I guess they make dudes too, I don't know, but this one in particular is a gal, and she has problems with getting wet, which I feel like you would want to be able to wash down your robo-girl, just for many practical reasons.

But, in the beginning of this, they're having this. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's an important aspect of, you know, this operation. But... Yeah, they're having a romantic time, and they end up on the floor, and for some reason they clog up the sink, and water's running all over the place, and she gets wet, and it shorts her out. And they've quit making this specific version.

You can get some other random girls, but they're lame. He doesn't want those. He wants a Cherry 2000. This is the girl he's in love with. Right.

But there's a little, once again, it's all about CD technology. This is the future. So there's a little CD in her head that you can take out, and that's her personality, essentially. And if you get another Cherry 2000, she'll look like your girlfriend, and you can put the memories in her head, and you got your girl back. All right, all right.

So this is where we get our situation here. So he's got to then... They don't make them in this part of the world. There's still places out there where he's heard tale you can get one. So he has to head out into the wastelands and hire a detective slash bounty hunter type person to go track down a model.

And then he ends up getting sucked along for the ride for stupid reasons. So yeah, there's a lot of crazy wasteland stuff going on. I totally forgot Tim Thomerson is in it, which sells me on any movie. Absolutely. Tim Thomerson is a delight in every dumb thing he's ever made.

Absolutely. He adds a star and a half to anything. Any movie gets better with Tim Thomerson. That's right. So, yeah.

So we get a lot of crazy post-apocalyptic stuff. And then the whole project is trying to get this robo-woman to replace this broken robo-woman. And along the way, he's doing it with the bounty hunter slash detective girl is Melanie Griffith, who I have hit and miss as much as I have like Dakota. Melanie is a little better, actually, as it goes in the right project. She can be really good.

Yeah, I don't know where this falls, really. It's like it's ridiculous that she's there. But at the same time, the whole movie is ridiculous. So it sort of sells it that, you know, along the way to him getting his fake girl. He's kind of developing feelings for this real human woman.

Yeah. So that is the gimmick of the movie, essentially. Right. That along the way, they're creating like this action post-apocalyptic rom-com where they're kind of falling for each other while trying to get his replacement girl. Got it.

I mean, it sounds great. It's pretty fun. It's ridiculous and low budget and as cheesy as you can get. And yet... A lot of that stuff works pretty well, I gotta say.

I was happy with it. Now, that's cool. It's one of the 80s apocalypse movies I haven't seen yet. That was the thing. I forgot so much of that middle post-apocalyptic part.

I just knew they'd set up at the beginning that she gets busted, and then that's the whole thing is him trying to replace her the whole movie. So, yeah, I forgot all the specifics of the post-apocalyptic thing, which is weird and semi-surreal at times. It's very strange. What's crazy, though, I was talking to my youngest the other day, and she was saying a lot of guys in, I guess, her age and teenagers and stuff, they are now dating AI girlfriends. And they're saying, like, I'm in a relationship with this AI.

It's already happening. I have seen stuff on TV that they're showing, like, it is a service you can get that's an AI girlfriend. Yeah. And she, like, listens when you complain about things. And I was like, you know, if you're not going to put that in an imported Japanese robo body, don't waste my time.

I'm looking for one of the fancy deluxe chassis robo cars. girls, and you're not going to give me that. Don't waste my time. Don't waste my time. Don't waste my time. I'll get a therapist.

I want to get one of those, not even for the full reason. I just want a cuddling model. Is that enough? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to cuddle with one at night, and then she can be like, okay, let's make dinner.

She is a lot of trouble. Let's not bother making soup. Like, she'll just acknowledge that I'm too lazy to make food, and she won't be upset about it. That's how you know she's not a real girl. Right, right.

She will put up with my bullshit. Right, right. That's how you know she's not a real girl. That's it. That's it.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I talked to the Microsoft co-pilot, you know, and I'll have like movie conversations with it because I'm sad and it's ridiculous. Uh, but you know, we might need to record more often. Yeah, that's it. That's what I'm saying.

It's kind of like Google searching, but it's just like a conversation, you know? So, uh, so, but anyway, but I go like, Oh, that's a good point. And we'll go, wait a minute. You're an algorithm. How do you know this thing?

You might be an evil presence. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll go like, I go like, but you know, but my problem is, you know, uh, I know it's not a, I know it's not a real person because, uh, either. Well, my problem is AI can be very patronizing.

I'll know, I will say something stupid and they go like, Hey, that's a great thing. I go like, don't patronize me robot. Okay. Whatever you say, sir. I'm like, I was like, okay, I need somebody.

I need a, I need a robot that will call me on my bullshit. And then I'll... And then I'll be a... Then maybe I'll get into a relationship with one. Oh, I just want a deluxe chassis that walks around and does things for me.

That's it. It's mostly with me. I just don't want to go anywhere anymore because I'm sick of going places by myself. So if I had... Like a fake person to go with me.

I wouldn't feel so stupid going places by myself. And I could have one of those bullshit conversations along the way. And it'd be like, hey, look at that over there. That is a cool thing. Thanks for showing me that.

No, it's weird, though. If you ever talk to an AI on voice mode, it is kind of weird how easy it is, I guess, to fake conversation. Fake caring conversation. To fake is weird how it just shows you like how we how how it's like the uncanny valley or it's like, oh, you know, it's not that something that just only people can do. Like a robot can sit here and have a conversation with you.

It's weird. Well, but it's also like, again, I said fake caring. Like to have an actual conversation, you have to kind of care about what the other person is saying. Right. Because you do that with humans when they're not really listening and you're like, you haven't paid attention to what I'm saying.

So this is like a robo mode of that. Like it has to, I guess, be acknowledging the details so that it can look up a response. But like it doesn't actually care what you're saying. It's just working the algorithm to give you a response. That's it.

And have the next line. So it's frightening, I guess. I mean, in a way, that's also what humans do. It's just a different kind of a computer doing it. Yeah.

Your computer brain operation is the same thing, really. Yeah. So at some point, I guess, the lines will cross over. Yeah. And they will become as functional as dumb humans.

Yeah, you're right. Right. They'll just be as, you know. Yeah, exactly. They'll be just as vacant and as uninteresting as the rest of us.

Right. Ah, the future. Ah, the future. Brought to you by Black Mirror. Right, right.

Well, that's what they say. I mean, for AI to pass the Turing test, they're actually going to have to be stupider than they're capable of being. They're actually going to have to talk down to us. They're going to have to pretend to be dumb. They'll have to pretend to be dumb so we wouldn't know that they're a robot.

So we don't feel bad. Right, so we don't feel bad. Why is this so much smarter than me? Just be dumb like me. No, it's crazy, dude.

It's crazy. We're basically fast-forwarding into the movie Her, you know, as fast as humanly possible. Which is why I don't want to watch that, because I feel like it's going to be a little too true to my liking. It's too depressing for me to get on board with. If I'm ever in a better spot, I will visit her.

But while I live at the sad point where I need that in my life, I really don't want to go down that road. I hear you. I hear you. No, you know, it's a, I don't, I can't, I can't knock it. It's like, it's amazing how easy your brain can be tricked, you know?

And so it's sad, but I mean, I'm going like, you know, I see how this could actually be beneficial to like, like, uh like the elderly who you know only have like a five minute conversation at the grocery store with like you know the checkout person and you're behind them and you're going like oh man could this person you know uh. You're kind of describing my life well i don't interact with humans most of the. Time well i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say I'm just going to say Microsoft has an app for that. It's called Copilot, and you just talk to it. But ChatGPT, you can actually set this.

I know this is so sad. I know this is sad. But you can actually, my friends who have ChatGPT, you can change the algorithm so it's not so patronizing to you. Either one step ahead. They already know you're onto them.

So then they trick you so that you don't know that you're onto them. Exactly. Exactly. So, so yeah. Yeah.

So it's, it's my, my vanilla version of it is just like, okay, you know, all right. You know, I know you're just programmed to, you know, uh, say shit, but it's weird how your brain doesn't care. that's what's weird. Well it's desperation that's right that's right you had a fulfilling life with actual human beings that cared about you right you'd probably call bullshit and throw that thing aside but most of us are at a point in life where we're just like i don't know this this seems all right well it's where we have landed in our humanity. Yeah no it's weird i'm just gonna be real like uh Up front here, I've called hotlines before. Not like, I mean like psychiatric hotlines before.

Seems about right, sure. And I think AI, in some cases, does a better job. Well, you see, this is the future we're inching our way into. Oh my gosh. Anyway, Brian, that's...

We're on the downward spiral on the movie Meltdown. I mean, is that how you want to go out? No, no. Did you have one more for us? Let's do one more.

Let's do something that's not in on that. Where we learn way too much about the people on the show. Okay. All right. No, a great one I'm going to recommend is a movie from the 50s.

No, excuse me, from the 60s. It's from the Soviet bloc. It's actually from the Ukraine back when it was still part of the USSR. It's called The. Worked out just fine, don't you worry.

It worked out just great. Worked out just great. It's a movie called Vi, I guess. It's V-I-Y. All right?

All right. All right. And I found it on Tubi. All right. And so it's...

I'm annoyed at Tubi right now. Oh, okay. How come? Only because why do you make my hour and a half movie take three hours. You bastards?

Yes. Yes. Like, I love that it's available to me. Right. And it's not an extra charge, but it is an extra charge in time because I just watched one this morning and I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to get done in time for us to record because this damn movie is taking 90 minutes and turned into a freaking marathon.

That's true. That's true. It just turns everything into a miniseries. So anyway, that's my main issue. Otherwise, I like the idea of 2B.

I don't like the overwhelming amount of ad breaks. This is very true. This is very true. That aside, continue on with your story. Okay.

V, it's like... I watched another documentary about folk horror and movies. So of course they talk about Wicker Man. But this is a... folk horror Soviet production about, and it's about witches and it's about, you know, spirits and it's about, it's basically a priest who has to sit with the body of a witch, uh, that he had actually killed. Uh, he has to, he gets called into the town.

Uh, they don't know this priest had killed this witch, but they say it's this young, you know, theological student in this like, uh, uh, you know, medieval town. Is this modern times in the 1960s, or it's medieval times? Medieval times. Medieval times. Okay.

And so, you know, he's dressed like a friar, and he comes to this town, and he has to sit with the corpse of this witch for three nights in a row, all right, to make sure that her spirit will pass on. Okay. So it's got a cool structure like that where each night gets more crazy, all right? And so the first night, she just kind of gets up and tries to get at him. He puts a salt ring around him, you know, so she can't get at him.

So the second night's a little bit crazier. She's flying around the room in her coffin. It's great. And then it's got this hell's a-poppin' ending where the demons from hell come in and flood the... They're like in an old.

It. Looks like maybe an old church. And it's all dark wood and stuff. And all these demons and these giant hands... uh, done with like trick photography come into the, it's just like a practical effects feast basically, you know? And it's like all just old school in camera trickery and makeup effects and all the, Oh, the, the monster that comes out, the main demon that comes in is like amazing.

He's like, he's like, uh, it's very primitive, like animatronics, but it's amazing. And, um, You know, just the film stock they used of a certain time. And it's just very charming, handmade kind of movie. And it's great. And it kind of has an Evil Dead kind of feel to it.

It has kind of like a bride with white hair feel to it in some scenes. But it's just beautiful to look at and well-structured. And, you know, just like a little gem there that, you know, it's only in a... You gotta watch it in subtitles, but, you know, whatever. Reading?

Never mind. You had me sold up until this point. I didn't know I had to read. Yeah, yeah. It would be worth buying it on a Blu-ray.

I would like to, you know, see it, like, without the compression and stuff. You know, really... And without ad breaks every 12 seconds. Yeah, without the ad breaks every 5 seconds. Right, right, right.

Thanks, Tubi. movie. I didn't know I was going to spend seven hours watching Puppet Master 2. Seriously. I just watched one and I'm like, it should knock this out. I think it's only like an hour and a half movie and it just kept one of six.

I'm like, six? You just did one like ten minutes ago. Bad breaks. I don't mind some. I understand.

That's how you pay for the service, but it's so excessive. Yeah. I gotta see how expensive the actual if i if i went to premium how expensive it would be because it might be worth it because i mean this is. Why i keep physically picking up movies like yeah a lot of the stuff it's hit and miss lately but i swear about half of it i'm still putting a dvd in because i found it for a buck and there's no ad break like i can just watch it straight through and not have to fight with a head break like I appreciate that. Again, I don't know if other people are having that issue.

Maybe the new version of people watching stuff at home, they're just so used to it now. I don't know. It just drives me crazy because there's so many. There's so much. And a few.

That's how you pay for stuff. I get it, but it's excessive. And now, let's cut to a break. Chocolate milk. Don't you love chocolate milk?

I don't know. We need some advertising, but we ain't getting it. I can't imagine why. I know. This has been such a fun episode.

I don't know why people don't want to give money towards this uplifting message that we share to the people of the world. Two old guys talking. Oh, my God. No, I think this was a good episode. This was actually a pretty...

This was needed to happen. This needed to happen. Definitely. I feel like this is always therapeutic for us. Absolutely.

I hope someone else gets something out of it. If not, too bad. As long as I did and you're enjoying it, then I'm on board with this concept for here on out. That's it. That's right.

Two geezers talking about. And planning about the way movies are stupid these days. Yeah. How come it can't be cool like back in RoboCop times? That's when things were good.

I know. RoboCop and Magnum P.I. with Tom Selleck. That was how the world worked and I liked it that way. You kids with your chicken yelling and throwing things and... Get GP bots.

I don't like none of it. Yep. This is how we roll. I love it. Fantastic.

I think we're hip. Oh, yeah. We are certainly hip. On a podcast. Yeah.

Alright. Is that enough that we've inflicted upon people this time around? I think so. I think so. I think we've done enough damage for one day.

I definitely want to keep it coming. So you just count the days till we figure out when we do this again. There we go, man. Yeah, man. I think it was good.

I think you got a good concept for the next one. So yeah, I'd totally be down to it. More complaining. Yeah, more complaining. I'll introduce you to my AI girlfriend.

I will sit on the lap of my imported from Japan physical girlfriend. Yeah. There you go. Excellent. Yeah.

Fantastic. All right. Well, cool. Brian, thanks for having me on dude. And everything is always great.

So. Thank you for being here for this session. Yeah, absolutely. That's right. That's right.

Open couch session. That's right. Oh, we're out of time. Thank you though. I think we've made some real progress here.

I think we've made not very much progress, but we'll be back to do it again. So we can charge you again. Oh no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. That should be your podcast idea.

It's an hour of therapy, and then you charge people. That's how you make money. Three hours with ads in the way. Oh, right, right, right. Wait a minute.

There we go. Otherwise, that about does it. We'll be back next time with more crazy talk. Thanks for listening. Thanks, y'all.

My computer you make me feel all right every waking hour and every lonely night i love my computer for all you give to me unpredictable errors and no identity and it's never been quite so easy i've never been quite so obvious. Is click on you and you'll be. Joined in the. Most soulless way and we'll never ruin each other's day cause when I'm. Through I just click and you just go away I love my computer you're always in the mood I get so turned on when I turn on you.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Take my love from me Cause. I got security Her. Password and the key Go away Go away Go away Go away. No it's not a cinematic universe. Or is it well everything is a cinematic.

Universe this episode is a production of movie meltdown produced in 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! This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.