Late Night Movie Talk with Adam Burke

Hey, this is Hal Sparks from the Magnum Opus, Dude, Where's My Car? And you're listening to Movie Meltdown. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks.

Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out 1 million. Kilowatts of power. What's up? Welcome to Movie Meltdown.

I'm Brian and we're coming to you live via digital recording from Gallery K. And with us this week is comedian Adam Burke. Hello. So, I guess, I don't know, are you sick of telling your story at this point? Oh, my superhero origin story?

Yeah, your general story, which seems like there was a lot of moving going on at some point. Yeah, yeah, I was born in Australia, and then my folks moved us, when I was a kid, moved us up to Northern Ireland. Then when I was about 10, we moved to London, but I've been in the States since the age of 23, Jesus. So, yeah, I've been in the States for a while, and I'm in Chicago for like 11 years. Yeah, because I started watching footage of you before I knew much about you.

And I was like, I just knew Chicago comic. And I'm like, I've been to Chicago? His accent, that Chicago accent's a little off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

I haven't been able to pass. Well, it is. Do you find yourself picking up? Just listening to you talk about the accent on stage earlier, I was like, do you find yourself picking up weird colloquial things as you moved around over the years? Yeah, no, totally.

Like I said, totally. Totally. No, it's true. I definitely revert back to a sort of Irish, Anglo-type vernacular when my brother comes around. I'm hopefully going to Ireland in a couple of months, and then I know that I'll come back with all those kind of verbal tics, so to speak.

And then I guess, what started you on the road to comedy? I was working in. I was working in Chicago as a writer and an editor, really, and then someone recommended me to do some freelance work, and the first story I pitched, I'd run into a stand-up comedian, and he was talking about how hard it was to get stage time because at the time, the Chicago stand-up scene wasn't huge. It was not as big as it was now. So I said, well, that sounds fun to write about, so I followed him around for a couple of weeks, and then at the end of it, I decided to do, like, you know, it's always interested me, but I never thought I would get on stage.

And then I did like a four minute open mic set and then I just kind of kept doing it. Yeah. It seems, it seems pretty natural at this point. So was there still that getting over the hump in those several years? Yeah.

And there still is, you know, it's still, you still have, I mean, I'm, I'm not the, uh, I don't think I'm quite at the stage where it's like second nature, but, uh, you know, I still have the odd bobble and the odd rough show, but, um, I really enjoy doing it. So that really helps. And, uh, um, Yeah, no, but it's definitely, I mean, I think you're first, I think it's different for different people, but there's always, stand-up is rough because it's kind of easy to trick yourself into thinking you know how you do it, you know how to do it, and then there'll always be a situation to remind you that you don't, in fact. It is, I mean, it's one of those, I've just, from the audience side, it's funny now watching it, how you can see the time logged in, like you watch it, and I went to a show this past year, and it's like, The headliner was somebody who, I won't even name their name, but they've been doing it for like 30 years.

And then the woman who was doing the hosting that night, at the beginning, she said, I've been doing this about six months. And she was pretty rough. She was fighting her way. She was doing decent at hosting, but like her joke, she was really kind of fighting her way to get through them. And then the next guy comes up and he's been doing it for like six years.

And he's just like, well, he's a little better. The next guy ends like 10 years. years, and he was pretty solid. And then you get to the headliner, and it's like, it is effortless. There are no jokes. He is just up there just talking.

Absolutely, yeah. Really good stand-ups don't look like they're doing stand-ups. You can tell when they're logged in that time. Absolutely. Would you like to sit in with us, sir?

Sure, absolutely. We are now being joined by one of the hosts here at Gallery K. Thank you for having us here. Hi, I'm Carl. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for letting him perform here. Yeah. So, yeah, contact us. We just finished the show. It was a lot of fun.

Yeah, for sure. People were real nice. We've been doing a lot of fun stuff with this space, you know, because what else are we going to do in the meantime? So, yeah, it's cool. It's an old building, so it's real easy to, like, feel cozy no matter what you're walking into in here, I think.

Yeah, it's got a good atmosphere. Usually it starts out like kind of, what? But it always ends up like, wow, cool. You know. That's a great description.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Carl, we've had our discussions on movies, and you just on stage had many nice references, so I figured everybody's kind of. Oh, did I? I don't even...

It's weird. I just sometimes don't notice I'm doing it even sometimes. Well, there's one that are pretty deep cuts sometimes, and I'm just like, I always laugh at that stuff, and then I think, The people I know, I don't know if they even get some of the references that people make sometimes. Because I know I do it all the time. There's sort of a generational gap.

Yeah. I feel the same way. Yeah. I used to have a bit, but I really loved doing it. I didn't do it very often.

I didn't do it for too long. I did a bit about the 1950, I'm going to screw up the, it's like 1956 version of Old Man and the Sea with Spencer Tracy. Yeah. And I used to, I just loved doing it. Because I never, I've never read the book, but I just saw the, have you ever seen That film?

No, but it's been a long time. It's really funny because in order to make it look like Spencer Tracy is an old man in the sea, they built a giant tank on a back lot. It's like Matt painting days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's real bad back production and he's in this clearly fake ocean.

But then there's another scene, there's a pivotal moment in the movie where he gets attacked by sharks and he has to harpoon... the sharks through the face. So in order to recreate the effect of a shark being harpooned through the face, what the filmmakers did was they harpooned a shark through the face. Like, because this is like way, this is before. And just cut it in, huh? Yeah, yeah.

And it's like they went out and they filmed like a bunch of footage of like guys killing sharks And it's back when there was no. Have you guys ever been watching a movie like late 80s and you'll see some animal violence and you'll be like, wait, wait a minute. When did that happen? Again, for people who've been listening to this, you can go back and listen. We did an entire episode and it's not even like it's a big Hollywood movie.

It's a documentary and it's the first full-length feature documentary that they did about Jacques Cousteau. And it's like late, maybe mid-60s. It is early. He's still relatively young for him. Because we're all used to seeing him old and crusty.

He's still got the little beanie cap on. The blueprint for Zissou. Yeah, exactly. You're watching it and you're like, oh, these jokes make sense now. He's exactly like Life Aquatic.

Right. So back when we only had shark days. We hadn't made it through the whole week. They were doing a showing of it. We decided, oh, let's all go watch it and then we'll sit down and talk about it.

And none of us had seen it before. So like we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. So at one point they put explosives on a coral reef. Because they need to catalog the fish so they blow it, pull out the dead fish so they can get a good reading of the fish that are in there. That was their method.

That one's one. There's someone with a squeaky knee right now going, that's how we used to do it. And the fact that they blew up a coral reef is also like. It's so much easier. We had so many coral reefs back then.

I remember, you know, you ever been to the Field Museum in Chicago? No. There's a field museum, and it's very strange to modernize, because you go through, they have a thing where it's just like they have just a shit ton of stuffed animals. They try to catalog all of American animals. I think Roosevelt shot half of these fucking things.

They're historic. It's literally bear himself. Yeah, exactly. What's funny about the field museum, it's like you go, and it's just like, I went for the first time with a friend of mine, and we were walking around, and we were getting really creeped out. And I was like, this is just a dead zoo.

We're just in a dead zoo. And what's even creepier is that they have, way more dead animals in storage. There's just crates with a 200-year-old. Taxidermed. Actually, that's going into any Cabela's in the nation.

Or there's one right outside of Butte. No, I'm sorry. It's like Bass Sporting Goods, but maybe they compete. Bass Pro is like that, too. Yeah.

To go up? Yeah. It's Sporting Goods Short. Oh, yeah. It's like a superstore.

It's like a mega. The Walmart of Sporting Goods stores. I went to the Cabela's in Buda, Texas. I used to live in Austin for a little while. And it was a short drive.

And I had nothing else to do. And I had heard that there was like, there's just countless dead animals inside of it. And I'm pretty sure there was like an example of every animal that you were allowed to like kill. And so there was straight up, there was like a polar bear. There was also an aquarium with some live animals, which I thought was maybe them kind of trying to be like, sorry.

Or tasteless, whatever. It'd be great if you could test that. And there was also a gun museum that I didn't get to. Oh, yeah? And an antler rack museum with some of the most impressive dead antler racks that I'd...

And I learned all about how you rate a rack of antlers just by walking around. The points. Yeah. Yeah, so. But yeah, Cabela's, if you're into going into places with a lot of dead animals.

If you like dead things, Cabela's is the place to go. But that's like Hollywood history. From the earliest days, it's like, we need to run this group of horses off of a cliff. So they did. They just did that stuff.

It has to be real. It must look real. Yeah, there's a bunch of people and you watch it and you're like, oh, they probably, that horse is probably fine. It's totally not. Well, and then we just had the Herdian Staten Fest in Lexington here, and they played Cockfighter, which is like mid-70s.

It's about cockfighting, and they filmed real illegal. I'm like, you couldn't even conceive. Of this movie today. I mean, that. Well, because probably it was a common thing to be like, well, I don't know.

You get your paycheck and you're like, well, save this much for cockfighting. Yeah. For a lot of people. That bull at the end of Apocalypse Now didn't walk away from the end of Bull. Right.

Yeah. Go to craft services. That bull was craft services. Who's the inventing the game or what? Who's the French?

I'm sorry. It's a French film. I'm sorry. Now I'm reaching because you invited me onto a movie podcast. What all goes around is.

Something about the oh okay so it's like a group of people convening at somebody's house because they're all old friends and they're all very wealthy and it turns into a big caper but at some point they go out like pheasant hunting and it's all real footage of just people like shooting pheasants just blowing them out of the sky like feathers flying around and you're like what's going on if you've watched it this late in the game but again the word game is in the title it's one of the greatest films ever made I'm sure. Well, yeah, I was going back to the super old taking horses off a cliff. It did make me want to ask you, Adam, how do you feel comedy translates to film? Because I'm thinking in the old days, almost all of it was comedy.

It's other than some westerns and action, like all those early stars were comedians. And it was a different style, obviously, but I don't know, just from that comedic point of view, trying to look at film differently. Well, I guess that's funny, too, where there's less... Yeah, that's interesting, because I really like old films, so I like... You know, Bob Hope was never expected to do his Punch Drunk Love.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, there was never... You didn't have that thing where, let's take a noted comic actor... and let's have him do his serious turn. And they weren't dying inside to be taken seriously.

Bob Hope's like, I'm cashing a check every time, and I'm doing my same skit, and everybody knows that's what I do. I don't know any different. Yeah, and I could care less. I'm making a living doing this. So is your question about how does stand-up comedy translate to film?

I guess just from your perspective, like looking at film from the comedic point of view. There's not too many good stand-up films. Yeah, definitely not. Comedian is great. Jerry Seinfeld's comedian is great.

King of Comedy is pretty good. The ones that really try are terrible. Punchline is... I re-watched Punchline. That is... hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

I don't think I've ever heard a stand-up that liked or couldn't sit through punchline and not be like, lockers! There's no lockers! I've actually never watched it. It's not a locker room. It's written by someone who's never done stand-up.

That's the funny thing. There's a locker room Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's got to be pretty funny to real comedians, right? Oh, it's hilarious to real comedians. And it's Tom Hanks, am I right?

Yeah, the whole notion that Tom Hanks is supposed to be this. But did Tom Hanks ever do stand-up? I don't think so. He did it for the film. Yeah.

And to me, he pulls it off better than probably most actors would. He's believable as a stand-up. Sally Field, maybe. But she's supposed to be kind of flippant. The way they do Damon Wayans, who has done stand-up, the way they do him is really weird.

But it's so funny because what's funny about it is Tom Hanks is supposed to be like the Richard Lewis. He's like the edgy, troubled guy. And his big bit that almost gets him the brass ring, the big, killer, cutting-edge bit he does is about debutantes. He's really angry. He goes, I don't hate debutantes.

And he's railing on debutantes. I guess that's the most 80s thing. And every legitimate stand-up comedian is watching this going, what the fuck. Is this guy talking about? Who tells these jokes?

But if nothing else, it's funny how much now thinking about it, it does capture that time when it's like, wasn't it like the Carson people were coming that night? Like the big stand-up show. So what they are talking about is a sort of. Five to ten year period in, well, I believe the movie's set in New York, which I don't really think is how that worked. Although, Catch a Rising Star, maybe.

But the big place was the comedy store in the 70s. And so that would happen. That's true. And there were guys who were made stars within a few months. That's what I think is interesting.

That's gone now. Yeah, that's totally gone. The Carson thing. Just made your career. If you got on there and you killed your set.

Which is what King of Comedy is about. Yeah, yeah. So it's like that, there isn't that now. Even, there's a million talk shows now. None of them, if they even have stand-up on anymore, they have no weight.

Letterman didn't really give love to comedians? Because I know that music bands, if you could score Letterman, then that was. A big deal. No, he didn't. No, Letterman's really good for comedians.

But it was never the Carson ticket. He had favorites that he had on a lot, I felt like. But, yeah, he never really, like, made anybody's career. And also Letterman didn't really– well, I don't believe– I don't know if Carson– it's just different. Carson could put the seal of greatness on you.

And there was also levels to go. Carson was a little closer to Walter Cronkite, and Letterman was a little closer to, like– he seemed like he could have come from stand-up. He was such a– Well, he did. He was a stand-up. Yeah.

Okay. He was a stand-up. He was a very weird stand-up. But, yeah, he was– Well, how long did it take him to realize, like, I should just be a host or somebody else. Even he said he didn't like towards the end, he never wanted to consider himself a standup comic.

He's like, this is what I do now. But I mean, he did a couple of years at least. The thing is about the late night monologue though, is the late night monologue is standup. Yeah. And it's a, it's a very peculiar form of standup because you're selling jokes that you haven't written.

Right. Um, and that don't, because real, really great standup, um, bits live forever yeah and really great monologue bits are designed to be forgotten. Have 24 hours yeah yeah they're replaced by another one yeah. Exactly so it's all about the delivery yeah so so in a way i'm gonna say it a good monologist um i don't talk shit about it because i'm certainly on tv but like um um letterman is this outstanding monologist he's really good and he kind of He studied... I.

Already miss him. Yeah. Letterman clearly studied Carson more than anyone else because Letterman... Letterman didn't... Doesn't necessarily seem to care about what he's saying.

Letterman will make it funny regardless. Yeah. You know what I mean? He's kind of just being himself. It's a tone that I think he realizes.

It's totally a tone. Letterman will take a bit... Letterman's sense of humor is he'll take a line from a monologue joke that didn't work, and he'll repeat it throughout the set, and now that line is funny. It becomes the punchline of the night. He will ride the rest of the episode.

So he's doing something totally different from Leno, because Leno's thing, Leno's out would be, Leno would call out riders. Leno would go, I told you that. Wasn't going to work. Well, we've heard from Letterman that Leno was kind of a brat anyway, so that was sort of his. Direct ride out.

But what I think is, the thing about Letterman is, It seems like if you didn't let him be who he was, he would just force it anyway. Because he was just sort of– Well, we saw that on the Oscars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were like, we don't want you to do your stuff. No, you hired me because I am who I am. so yeah you're gonna get you know kind of i don't know like maybe bill murray like his he was on the first episode i think and it seemed like they had a pretty quick chemistry.

Oh totally you know they were kind of. Explosive but they both kind of sort of been like all right this guy. Does well he i've yeah i've re-watched that clip the first clip of bill murray on on the letterman show um Yeah, I guess his first Late Late Late Show, yeah. You can kind of see that someone has gone, perhaps David has gone to Bill, you know, we'll just screw around, we'll have a good time. But there is something in Letterman's eyes where he's like, well, let's build the rails before we go off them.

You know what I mean? You can kind of see Letterman's like, I want to have. He has a little more patience. Yeah, you can see he's like, I'm I want to have fun, but also this kind of looks like I just lost control of the show. That became his thing.

Like all those clips, they just showed that like best of the night before or something. And like all those clips of like him sitting there and it feeling super awkward with Madonna. It's like he let that build for like a half an hour. Have you guys seen his first interview with Madonna in the early 80s? There's crazy sexual tension.

It's really, it's. It just sets the pace. If you watch all of them all the way through, you're just like, man, these guys are old friends in a way that a lot of people don't achieve. What would happen if two people with that pronounced it? of a tooth gap? What if they, if they procreated with their kid.

Just have, have you seen her now? Like she was just, I think she was just on Jimmy Fallon last week or so. Well, her, her standup. She's well that, yeah, that too. I wouldn't even talk about that.

I was just talking about the gap and it's like, I don't think I've ever seen somebody increase their gap. It did not used to look like that. I remember her from the 80s. She had a little gap, but it's like a gimmick now. Well, that was probably record labels.

They're like, we're not sure how it is, so don't play it out yet. It's not her iconography yet. So you're saying she's not gifted in the stand-up field? No, I actually liked her stand-up. I thought it was a real cute thing.

I thought it was fun. Here's what I liked. Some stand-ups got. pissy about it. I'm going, how dare she? That's all nonsense.

What I liked about it was that it's very good. It's very instructional as to how hard stand-up is and how it's a different thing. You can be the most famous person in the world. She has immense amounts of likability and immense amounts of charisma. The thing about Madonna is she attacks.

If she decides she's going to do it, then fuck y'all. That's what I took from it. Were the jokes that funny? Not really. But watching her get up there behind the mic, she did not hesitate.

I'm like, she is first and foremost an entertainer. And she knows how to do that. I also really liked, I mean, I could be wrong, but ordinarily what you would do in a situation like that, especially someone of her caliber, what you would do is like, hey, I kind of want to do stand-up. And then the Fallon people will go, all right, these nine college grads are going to spend the next 24 hours writing a book. you're writing your stuff. Yeah.

And that's clearly not what happened because the stuff wasn't that good. Yeah. And so, which I thought made it better. And it was, she was, it had this real nice thing of like, in that moment, she was kind of, she was just aunt mad. Right.

Maybe she just read it and she's like, this is fucking stupid. Yeah. And I might not be good at this, but I'm going to go for it. It was all pretty self-deprecating, too, which I'm like, for somebody as big and kind of overblown as she is, that was one of the better ones. I'll tell you what that is.

That's showbiz wisdom. She's lived long enough to where she's like, this is probably a good idea. Because I throw myself under the bus before anyone else can. The fundamental premise of the jokes was funny, is that I have all this artwork, but I date men who are too young to know. Who know who these people are.

So that's fundamentally funny. And again, I think some comedians were bratty about it, but I think most comedians were like, that's a good premise. She didn't kill the executioner, but that's funny. That's pretty smart. Just hone that a couple years, you'll have it down.

I can't think of it. There aren't that many good stand-up comedians I don't think there's that many good music movies either, like about the music business. What about people. That have crossed the line? Aren't there like, well, no, I guess I'm thinking of like Eddie Murphy doing that party all the time.

I won't say that was a success, but are there examples of that? There's a lot more crossover now. It used to be kind of unheard of. There's an old song that comedians want to be rock stars and rock stars want to be comedians. I do hear that a lot.

What's his name? Oh. and blanking the thing. Body is Wonderland. What's his name? Oh, John Mayer.

John Mayer has tried to do stand-up. Speaking of monologue jokes. Oh, because he was kind of, well, he did some really great bits with Chappelle. Yes. And it made you wonder why Chappelle would be cool with John Mayer, you know?

I still wonder why anybody's cool with John Mayer. But if you ever have a chance. Honestly, when you watch John Mayer on the Chappelle skit, you're like, I kind of like John Mayer now. Because how is he friends with Chappelle? Because I watched him when he was filling in when Ferguson left.

And those were painful. John Mayer? Yeah. He did like a week. And it was like by day five, I'm like, make this end.

He's too cocky. He is. Camille Langeani has a very funny John Mayer story of John Mayer trying to do stand-up in New York. And, yeah, I can't remember what podcast it's on, but you should be able to hunt it down. Nice.

But it's a disaster. I'm confused. I can picture it in my head right now. It's evolved into weird racist territory too. That doesn't surprise me either from him.

I wonder if there's going to be like, what's the first big podcast movie going to be? Do you know what I mean? They've already tried. Tusk was pretty hitting you over the head with the fact that it was podcasty. Did you see Tusk?

Yeah, I watched Tusk. Actually, I felt really. Honored that a friend of mine reminded me that it was coming out this night. Our hometown's not a big town, so we had to drive out of town to do it. But he was like, hey, did you want to catch Toast Call Drive?

So yeah, we're both old Kevin Smith heads, but we realized that Jersey Girl happened, so we're willing to give leeway on. Shitty Kevin Smith films. Oh, I tried watching Jersey Girl recently. Yeah, it's tough. I watched Jersey Girl three, four times in a row before Tusk again.

Yeah, I had it. I had major. And it wasn't the podcasting hitting you over the head. It was it was so badly done. Just like and again, I loved him when he came out and I think he still is talented.

You see pieces of that that are really well crafted and well put together. And then it will switch. You're talking about Kevin Smith? Yeah, Kevin Smith, I think, started from some very genuine and had a really genuine voice. I feel like in the same sense as Lucas, Kevin Smith tends to do what he wants to do anyway.

And he's okay if he's not really great at it. He's just going to do it. But it hit a new level with this. So I had no idea about the film. I just went and watched it.

But then I later found out that he has a really successful podcast that I recall. And this happened to be like one podcast 45-minute episode that was like, oh, we should make this a movie. And then they did. And my friends were like, well, how was it? And I was like, it sounded, it viewed as if it would have been a brilliant 45-minute podcast.

And it was. And an awful hour and a half movie. Like, what the fuck? Like, it just wasn't strong enough. It was.

But it was loaded with Kevin Smith jokes. Justin Long? Yeah, Justin Long. So he was pretty spot on. But also, he got Michael Park's Because he was able.

To get him. Michael Parks was good. Michael Parks. Because Michael Parks is always going to be good. He's always good.

Is Kevin Smith at the point now that... Hasn't he had more misses than hits, though? I don't know that he's... I don't even mean enough financial. It depends on who you're asking, you know?

Because his entire, like, base is cult people, so. Yeah, I don't think he's ever had a legitimate hit. Then he's... Really? Yeah.

Like, nothing has made money as far as studios are concerned. I don't know, but I... No, I don't know if you guys are Kevin Smith fans, but I re-watched Clerks, and that is a rough re-watch. A re-watch? Oh, really?

I love it every time. I probably go right back to, like, 10th grade or whatever. It's rough in the filmmaking part, because he will call himself out for being like, this looks terrible. I didn't know what I was doing. But from a writing standpoint, for as young as he was, I feel like there's still some pretty genuinely funny stuff.

Well, and I hadn't seen anything like it when. I watched it. That's true. You know, that is true. I hadn't seen anything like it.

Yeah, I think it's weird. I think there are certain... 90s movies, which are like. There was a groundswell of movies like that at that era. There's a great book called...

I think it's called Slackers.... Are you Slackers and Dykes? Yes, yes, yes. It's a good book, right? It's about the guy who basically got those films into theaters.

It was almost all that one guy. Everything filtered through him. Yeah, and it's just. You can't... Well, Jay and Silent Barbara were reading that book in Mallrats just because it was like the– what was it?

Mike? Which one? It's like all four of those names are references to specific people, and one of them is Kevin Smith, right? He's the– I think he's just the slacker part. Yeah, yeah.

Because there's also Slacker that came out right around that same time. To me, that's the difference. It's like you see somebody that came out at the same time, an equally small budget film like Slacker, and now he's up for Best Picture. He's pulling in these huge movies. Kevin Smith's not going to do that.

He, by his own hand, will not do that. He just doesn't want to do that. He decided he didn't want to put the effort in anymore. He was going to stop filmmaking. Totally.

That's been a weird 180 degree turn because now he's got seven different movies in the works. Well, but they're all movies based on a fucking 45 minute podcast. And it's like, come on, dude. That's what I was going to say. That's almost more interesting.

By the time I got, because I watched, I don't think I saw Tusk until it came out on DVD. And I watched the movie and I was angry. Like I was, those scenes with Johnny Depp are perfect. Johnny Depp's in tough. And you won't know it because they won't credit him by name.

He's in a secret, hidden, horrible makeup job. Probably because Kevin Smith asked him, hey, I can't afford to pay you at all. He's doing a bad, very fake accent. Just because I'm Kevin Smith, being cool. Well, and now their daughters are friends.

So they hang out because their daughters. Because of that scene. Which is always the thing about Kevin Smith. You're like, this movie's terrible. And then you realize... oh, here's a scene based in a convenience store.

Fuck, he's referencing himself already, and he's using his offspring in the same scene as Johnny Depp's offspring. And they're turning that into a movie now. Those two girls in a convenience store. That's Lucas-style shit, man. It's just like, yeah.

In its own tale at this point. But then after that, he does this, almost as long as the movie, this little documentary thing on the disc that's starting from Clerks, and going to Tusk, and it gives the breakdown of what he was doing. Oh, that sounds awful. No, actually, that was 10 times more interesting than the movie Tusk, because by the end, I was like, I totally supported his reasoning to make Tusk. It's like realizing at the end of the documentary why Jar Jar Binks was such a good idea.

Yeah, really. Oh, man. But don't you think Kevin Smith fans like Kevin Smith more than they like Kevin Smith movies? Probably, because that's what sells it at this point. I feel like there's a lot of defensiveness.

I can see that. It's kind of like, yeah, but it's his style. I don't know. I don't think Dogma's good. I think I also, and this is one thing you're not allowed to say to Kevin Smith fans.

Again, this all under the thing, I've never written a movie and I've never made a movie, but I don't think his writing is as good as people say. I think Clerks has got some clunky shit. It's very simplistic. It's a lot of characters. It's a lot of It's a lot of characters saying their motivations.

It's very on the nose. There's no subtlety to a Kevin Smith. I'm not even supposed to be here today. But here's the thing. It got to midway into that run.

I'd kind of written him off. Again, that's why I didn't run out and see Tusk. But I started to have faith in him again. Did you see Red State? Yeah, Red State totally turned you back around.

Red State was awesome. I don't think I even know that one. Red State's amazing. Red State is so not what he does. Instead of releasing it and busting prints and releasing it in theaters, he made one print and he toured with it and he spoke before.

I saw him in Austin with Red State and I mean, you know, my dad bought me the Evening with Kevin Smith DVD, and I was like, oh, I would, you know, this guy looks like he'd be a fun time even if I wasn't watching his movies. He's fun to listen to and talk to. He is a fun guy to listen to. Yeah, and so he did that for a few minutes, and then he played Red State, which everyone had talked about, but nobody had seen, and it fucking blew us away, and it ended with a dick, like a total Kevin Smith-style dick and fart joke, like, I just made you get all dramatic. And then I'm just Kevin Smith, dude.

And then he came back out and spoke again and said some really profound shit. And I was like, all right, I'm back on board. He could fuck up a. Couple more times. Well, it was just so it like not only was it not his genre at all, but at the same time, visually, like he'd never done anything visually interesting.

He'll be again the first one like I sat on a tripod. I pointed at the guys talking and that was it. Well, that's the start of it. That was the first time I'd really seen him kind of be a director. Like he wanted to shoot specific scenes.

He had movement in his scenes, which he never really did before. So, yeah, I had faith in him again. And then he goes right. Maybe he was just doing it to be like, oh, you guys are all worked up about me being a movie maker and I can do it. But it's not what I want to do.

All I want to do is tell lame fart jokes, man. I haven't really watched it, but I remember liking Chasing Amy. I remember that. I remember that. I was like, okay, there you go.

I think that's possibly his best thing. I mean. Not even possibly. Clerks freak people out because it was just what they would do with their own video camera. And that blew people's minds that it was a big secret underground hit.

And then Mallrats hurt everybody's feelings. And then I guess Chasing Amy was right after that. And it had this cultural... Like, whoa, what's going on? And then Dogma went on a bigger level.

So I actually, when you said you didn't like Dogma, I really liked Dogma because I was like, dude, this is the kind of movie that it's supposed to be cheesy, lame humor, but it's totally plucking a string all the time while you're watching it about something that we're not supposed to talk about. Dogma, I think you start to see him tripping over himself because I think Dogma would be really interesting and smartly written, but without Jane and Silent Bob. If you take that without forcing his Kevin Smith universe into it, the rest of the characters are pretty interesting. You don't get Kevin Smith without Jane and Silent Bob. That's the whole point.

There's a line in Dogma, which I was like, again, I was like, nope, you can't do that. That's not how you tell a story. At one point, George Carlin is playing the bishop. That's the very beginning of the film. I just started laughing as soon as that happened.

I was like, But he's having an argument with someone, and I think it's... I can't remember which character it is. Dogma, by the way, it's just a fucking dream cast. I mean, it's got fucking Alan Rickman in it. It's Metrotron.

That's him pulling strings, man. He was a name. He was on the list. Fiorentino, who's always overlooked for good roles, and like, damn, she's good when she's on it. Yeah, so someone's having an argument, and then someone says...

They're having a theological argument, and someone says something like, yes, but what about the... what about the Catholic Church's tacit approval of Nazi atrocities? And someone says that, and the person who says that would not have said that line. So at that point, just write yourself into the movie. Just walk through with a sign around your neck that says, Director Kevin Smith. Yell that.

And as you say, let's be honest, he's probably gotten closer than anyone else at doing that. He puts himself in every film. And he makes himself that character that we all have to fucking put up with no matter how serious he gets with his ideas. Well, and he started off that way because if you watch Clerks, who has all the good lines? It's all Randall.

He was supposed to be Randall. He was supposed to play Randall and couldn't be behind the counter. That actor's atrocious. He wasn't as good as Randall. But he has all the good lines, all the funny stuff.

Dante just whines the whole time. All the smart-ass lines are Randall's. Oh, sorry, sorry. Randall's actually quite good. Dante's terrible.

See, that's what I think. Dude, I went to a screening. Would you like to jump in? Dude, Daniel, come in. No, dude, we're talking about movies and you're an important movie friend.

But that's the thing. If you watch that, and maybe that's why it's so good, Randall was not an actor. Randall went to high school with him. And he was like, hey, I can't direct the movie and be here. Can you just go ahead and sit behind the counter and say these lines that I wrote?

And they're all the smirky lines that I wrote for myself. because I wanted to be the cool, funny one in the movie. And then he knocks it out of the park. He's got his own dance by the end. Do the Randall, dude. Come on, do it, please.

He's so genuine because he's not an actor. He was just that. Guy, obviously. Who's Amy in Chase and Amy? Joey Lauren Adams?

Joey Lauren Adams. She used to be married to him. She was dating Kevin Smith. She was married to him. I don't think they got married.

Yeah, they were close. But it was during that movie, and I believe they broke up during that movie. I always view it as like Kevin Smith is like you gotta view his career arc as like Clerks genius low budget independent movie Mallrats it was the studio's. Fault it sucked It was. I love Mallrats.

Chasing Amy, brilliant social commentary. Dogma, brilliant religious commentary, and then Jay and Silent Bob, huge nosedive. Steady on, steady on. Dogma is not brilliant religious commentary. I completely agree.

It's got scenes that could have been. It's a variety magazine. If your brilliant religious commentary involves Matt Damon pulling off CGI wings, you're not going to be taken down to church at any time. You're not fucking Martin Luther. My mom goes to church every Sunday and goes to Holy Hour.

She watches over the Eucharist to make sure nothing bad happens to it. Once a week. She loves darkness. He's like, I love to fuck with the clergy, man. You're just like, that's so Kevin.

Smith, dude. Yeah. So what's Amy's name? Jennifer Lauren what? Joy Lauren.

Joy Lauren. What's happened? Has she been in on the thing? See, that's the thing. Doesn't she look like Jennifer Tilly's stunt double?

A little bit. Kind of. She's got some tele- She was in. This really cool film called L.A. Rules.

It was like in her, I guess, early, in the 90s, there was like a shit ton of indies because indie was a new alternative. Yeah, totally. That was where all the money went. As long as it was billed as indie, it was a good idea. LA Rules is a small film, but it's pretty good.

She's got a small role in it, but it's just one of those ones you find on video. I'm a massive VHS head, I'll just say that, because I want all my tape heads to find me. There's not a lot of us out there, man. We've got to put the beacon out. It's getting to be a bigger following.

My love for BHS will go. On I missed my. VCR for so. Long We used. To play and play but no more It's intermission.

Time So how about taking a break, get out and stretch a little, and relax before the show begins again. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is Alfred Hitchcock. I must apologize for inconveniencing you in this way. However, this queuing up and standing about is good for you.

It will make you appreciate the seats inside. It will also make you appreciate Psycho, You see, psycho is most enjoyable when viewed beginning at the beginning and proceeding to the end. I realize this is a revolutionary concept, but we have discovered that psycho is unlike most motion pictures and does not improve when run backwards. That is all for now. You may continue to amuse yourselves by staring at the back of your neighbor's neck or watching the tactics of that forthright lady who seems determined to elbow her way to the front of the line.

Want some music for your ears? Doo-Wop Shop makes it easy to rent for any event, business meeting, or special occasion. From PA systems to karaoke machines to just about anything that makes noise, you can rent it from the Doo-Wop Shop. In Louisville, find them either at their Highland Store at 1587 Bardstown Road or in the East End at 2915 South Hurstburn Parkway. And look for them online at DooWopShop.com.

Doo-Wop Shop. We're serious about music. Doo-Wop Shop. Hi, this is Tom Kane, the voice of Yoda. And listening to Movie Meltdown, you are good.

Tweaked Audio, your source for high-performance, noise-reducing earbuds. Available in three styles and seven colors, durable and designed to sound great for both music and those chatty podcasts, like the one you're listening to now. Tweaked Audio earbuds come with a one-year warranty, and now there's a special deal for Movie Meltdown listeners. Just go to tweakedaudio.com, and when you check out, enter the discount code MELTDOWN. Then you'll get 33% off and free shipping.

Tweaked Audio. Sounds better. What's part of your problem, you know? You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies.

And now, on with the show. Which was worse? The 90s boom of let's all get a 16mm camera and film our friends talking endlessly or the 90s boom of shitty Tarantino knockoffs? The Tarantino knockoffs. Things to do in Denver when you're dead.

I love Tarantino. I think there were way more Tarantino. Again, because Tarantino was successful at doing it. Smith was only successful in his little group. Smith was successful in terms of ratios.

In terms of how much money the movie made for how much it cost. It's a very high ratio. Ultimately, the movie didn't make that much money. But he was smart to move fast with his popularity in multiple directions. He had an MTV thing and he hyped up his comic book store really quick.

I mean, he was the Gen X. Although, you know, Linklater I mean Linklater must have been kicking himself yeah He was probably. Closer to Spielberg in the sense that he was like a filmmaker and he just wanted it. And he got there. So, I mean, it just took him a longer road to do it.

But, like, now he's a respected filmmaker. What's that movie? I've seen that movie called Kicking and Screaming. Not the Will Ferrell one. Who's that by, Kicking and Screaming?

Although I do think another episode should be focused on the Will Ferrell film. Yeah. Noah Baumbach, I think. Which was a classic. I think it's early Noah Baumbach.

It was Noah Baumbach. So, I had friends when I lived down in Dallas, Texas. I had friends. They all went to... quintessential college town called Denton. Denton, Texas?

Yeah. A lot of musicians come out. Yeah, there's a mountain goat song. And Polyphonic Spring come out of there. Polyphonic Spring come out.

Yeah, lots of bands. And Shocktree. Yeah. So, I had a lot of friends who went to college in Denton, Texas, and they loved the movie Kicking and Screaming. And they showed it to me, and I fucking hated it.

I didn't hate it. No, I didn't hate it. I didn't hate it. It was the kind of thing I could... sit there, and I would go, I see why that is funny. I see why you think that's funny.

I see why that's funny. I didn't once laugh, but I was like, yeah. It's kind of predictable. There was a boom, and at the time, I loved it too. I loved all these movies too.

Still, Reservoir Dogs is probably my top three Tarantino movies. It's amazing how well it. I think Slacker's also... Sorry, Slacker and Dazed and Confused Yeah. Slacker's a little more loose.

Yeah, Slacker's a bit more loose, but Dazed and Confused actually holds up very, very well. It's so polished for only being five or six years later. Dazed and Confused is one of those movies that I feel like across the board, anyone enjoys it. Yeah. It's a modern American TV comedy.

It's right next to American Graffiti. For different reasons, too. I feel like everybody kind of takes something different from it. Oh, absolutely. Sometimes it's super nostalgic.

Sometimes it's just like, I like these films. funny jokes. Sometimes it's like these actors are hot. There's so many different things to pull. The cast is like, wow, all these people leapt forward. Oh, yeah, McConaughey's in that, right?

Yep, Matthew McConaughey's in it. The mysterious Ribisi sister who's had a lot of things that everybody loves her. Beck's sister, essentially. And Parker Posey. She's a cult girl herself.

Sometimes it's in terrible movies. But I still love it. It's my favorite. A great Jason London, Kevin Smith connection. Dazed and Fused is my favorite Adam Greenberg, Matthew McConaughey vehicle.

Out of all of them. They go to the Moon Tower, and I lived in Austin for a while, and I was like, those are real? That's a real... Moon Towers are for real. Yeah, I think that...

See, I know it's apples and oranges, and I know that Dazed and Confused definitely had studio backing and all the rest of it. But to me, a little bit, you can kind of go... Clerks was the thing where people were like, we can do whatever we want. Actually, Slacker was like that a lot to me. Slacker's really loose.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, I feel like Kevin Smith became the poster boy. And then there's this other guy called Richard Link. Oh, if you might like those. But if you look, I'm sorry, in terms of the quality of the writing and the whole thing, even if you take all the production, if you look at the quality of the writing, Dazed and Confused is doing stuff that Clerks isn't.

Clerks is trying to do. And there's that moment where Adam Greenberg has that moment of just complete rage-fueled impotence. And it's just like that's something that no matter... I didn't go to school in America. I would never have to put up with that whole paddling thing.

But that moment was like, I'm going to fucking murder them all. That was universal. That's more so, I think, in a way that Clerks doesn't do. You know what I mean? Well, first of all, Clerks is across the counter, which is based on capitalism and just fucking buy shit, consumerism.

So, yeah, I'm sure it doesn't strike quite the chord in other countries. I mean, it's almost also like Slacker was just kind of that first kick-down-the-door thing. Like the Sex Pistols come out and do the, just kick down the door and the Clash write the actual songs. Yeah. And it's like.

Yeah, I was, so I remember watching Clerks recently, like last year, and I was watching, came back on, and I was, because I was trying to reconnect with the thing that I thought was great about it. And it's got some stuff in it. But I remember. But they're all sort of Kevin Smith-y stuff. Exactly.

I remember watching the bit. They don't really get that. Outside of the Kevin Smith realm. Where they have the Star Wars thing. conversation. That's what I was just going to say.

And I'm like, you didn't have the balls to just go and do stand-up, you fucking cunt. You just put a stand-up room in your fucking movie. That's the one thing I was going to say that I think still holds up and is possibly the most impressive thing that he did in Clerks. are those conversations. I love his dialogue. Because I'm sitting there in the theater at the time.

I love his dialogue. I worked at a video store, and we all left the video store and went and saw the showing of Clerks that night. And I'm like, we've had this stupid Empire's Better conversation. We've had 28 times in the last two months. And listen, Tarantino's dialogues are awesome, but nobody has ever said that shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're watching. They're like, this is why I love this man. But the one in Clerks is like, same reason, but it's like, this is nice. Well, yeah.

Absolutely, yeah. Kevin Smith is quoting things that his friends have said about movies. Quentin Tarantino was just quoting movies. Yeah, right. Sometimes word for word.

Which I didn't realize until I started doing my homework and going back and going, that exact line is in this movie from 1976. When you watch it, all references. All total fights. He's like the, what's the girl talk? He's like the girl talker.

Yeah, I was just about to say. He's like, it makes you think about like, You don't like sampling. Do you like Quentin Tarantino? If anyone listening doesn't know what we're talking about, do this. Again, one of my favorite Tarantino movies, but watch Reservoir Dogs and then immediately watch Kansas City Confidential followed by The Killing.

And probably a few Japanese movies. That's all Lucas, actually. What's that? Lucas is all. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, but it's... Well, again, it's funny. If you are of the generation where you saw Star Wars before you saw Lawrence of Arabia, and then you watch Lawrence of Arabia, and they do those full-screen wipes across the desert, and you went, oh, so you can just take shit. That's cool. Yeah, exactly.

But I will say this. I still really, really appreciate the fact that before Star Wars. It was commonplace to show all your credits at the beginning, give credit to all these people at the beginning, but Lucas was like, fuck that. I want to dive into my weird. Space disco film.

I heard it was The Miracle Worker. I heard The Miracle Worker was the first film to ever have things before, no, to have things before the credits. The Helen Keller-like movie, The Miracle Worker, because there's this long thing of just like, I don't know, some shit of her being blind. I don't remember. But it was like a bunch of stuff that sets up the whole movie.

And then they're like, the miracle worker. Right. And then it all kicks in. Like The Departed. Yeah, yeah.

Essentially The Departed. Like a whole chunk of movie. And then like, boom, The Departed. And you're like, oh, that's right. Scorsese started this journey for us.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Kind of smart. But also, yeah, but again, Lucas is a great example of doing something, of lifting something which worked perfectly for his movie. He used. He used something that wasn't meant for movies.

It was meant for serials. So this is what happened last week with Buster Crabb. You need to know this. But you'll be back next week. So he said, I'll just do this like these are serials, right?

So we'll just have, I mean, it's crazy to think about it now. how well that movie works. And I have to start my big space adventure with fucking four minutes of reading? You asshole. What the fuck are you talking about? But there are so many movies now.

I watch them, and they all went, especially 80s movies, and they'll start with fucking a crawl, an expositionary thing, and it's terrible. It's shitty, shitty storytelling. It's awful. They still do it to this day. Or every fucking superhero movie.

Yeah, or like the second Thor movie is four minutes of telling me about some bullshit. Can't you tell me that while the story's happening? You know what I mean? Again, Lucas got away with it, but people didn't realize that he got away with it. It's like people went, Oh, that's how you tell a story.

No. Well, I think Lucas just was like, I don't give a fuck how you tell a story. This is just how I want to do it. Here we go. In that first movie.

Yeah. That's what I... And I've said this a few times lately. I'm like, now that he's not involved, I don't have to be angry with him anymore because I know he's done with it. Finally, some classical ideas of storytelling can come into play.

I can go back and look at the first three movies there and be like, oh, you know what? He was actually doing some really impressive... Especially that first one because it's all him. Mm-hmm. But you look at how unconventional Star Wars is.

Well, no, I mean, the fact that just like structuring, it's like 15 minutes or so before you sit, like it's almost all robots and guys and costumes like you don't see people are. Confused that was one thing i was fascinated going back as an adult because we'd be in college and we'd come home and it was like kind of like this ongoing thing we come home we put in we got we scored three vhs tapes of the original trilogy and we just put them in like it was like a rule you come over to the bar you put in the star wars tape until like we passed out and um and we just watch it we were always like there's so much like backstory like all of these begin with so much like slow tone setting backstory and then you watch like um the first, like, episode one.

Episode one. And it's episode one. It's like, the real crime there is just they did too much backstory. We don't need any of this backstory. They forgot that people have been festering 30 years of their own backstory.

Really? We had such a better idea in our hands already. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You forced us to do that. Now you're going to take it away by giving us this fucking shitty backstory.

There's always. I thought that was my answer all the time. You need more neck. You need more neck. That was, I always thought it was very telling about disease.

I saw some photos online of George Lucas directing the first one and Irving Kirshner directing the second one. Doing a much better job. We were just having this conversation. I was recently having this conversation. Yeah, and it's amazing how much you can tell just from the photographs.

Because it's photographs of George Lucas out in the fucking desert fixing a stormtrooper's epaulet. And all the actual actors are over there and he's like, look, and he's fixing... Some shit that no one cares about. He's trying to get so attentive to details. But every shot of Kirshner is him talking to Carrie Fisher, laughing.

You know what I mean? It's him having conversations. I want to. Drag people through the emotional rollercoaster. Yeah.

How can I tap into your sadness or darkness? Yeah, it's like night and day. This is The Empire Strikes Back. They can't be bright. Yeah.

It is really interesting. But I think Lucas had some pretty interesting stuff early. Again, that was his last good movie, I suppose. I mean, he had two. One was American Graffiti.

So it's like that one, though, you look at the visuals of the weird, interesting visual that they put together for the Death Star. Or again, back to the structuring. Aside from not having hardly any humans in the first 15 or 20 minutes... It's like 45 minutes in before the story really gets going. Before they even start going to Mos Eisley, it's like 30 minutes in.

It's the midway point in the movie when they get to the Death Star. That's what everybody thinks of as the movie. It's halfway in before we even get to that story. But the thing is, people loved it. People lined up around the block to watch it.

And I guess maybe nobody had done that before. Maybe nobody had done like a movie where it's like, you know, you're halfway through because I've been dazzling you with like plastic face masks and spray painted cardboard tubes for an hour and a half now. As a director, I think George Lucas is a really good film student because what he did say something that I thought is always very telling. Everyone tried to replicate the success of Star Wars and he said, well, what everyone did was they went and made movies with a bunch of special effects. But like my That movie, it's all Greek archetypes.

It's all this very old shit. So everyone thought they were watching something new, but they were all watching something very old. Yeah, a bit of it, really. Well, I think the difference between, again, I think the difference between Lucas and someone like Kirshner as a director is I think if Lucas, you ask him, well, what's this scene about? He'll go, well, it's because the Federation has an embargo on this planet and you're using the THX-1138 to get in here.

If you ask Kirshner, he'll go, well... he's about to die and you're really upset. You know what I mean? He's thinking like stage play theater sort of, so it's like, that's his classic storytelling. So things are going to get real dark. That's what I always thought was good about taking Lucas out of the scenario.

He had some good ideas, but don't let him get bogged. Down in the minutia of all this bullshit. Which is what the prequels became. But yeah, you watch Kirshner and he is just, like you watch that second movie even compared to the first one or the third and I'm like it is so visually impressive. I was thinking about this earlier today this kind of takes a weird sidebar so I don't mean it okay I was thinking about this earlier in terms of Lucas having other people this was literally earlier today which was.

Lucas having other people direct Star Wars and I was like I wonder if it literally came down to Lucas being like I don't want to have to be there to set up every fucking shot I mean like I could just hire someone to set up the actual shots and like talk to the actors and And meanwhile, I can just be there to do, like, all the big picture things. Yeah. And he's like, I bet that would just make me happier. And I could do, like, more things. Uh-huh.

And I wonder if at a certain point he decided that. That's kind of. And then I also. Wonder if, like, maybe more people should work in that way. Because, like, that second Star Wars is so amazing.

Why did he... No, why did he direct all three... Of the prequels. I think it's because he had no respect anymore. I think he wanted to win himself back as a filmmaker.

He didn't do it. But I think that's what it was. He had not done a movie what was his involvement was he just a writer on uh indiana jones yeah yeah. I don't even think he was screened he was a wingman he was story so he's like still he's executive producer uh i had star. Wars but he still hadn't really.

No he yeah that's all if you watch those first three. Well he came up he called up spielberg and he said i've had an idea for james bond but better And then, um, he's kind of right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was going to be, especially with Raiders. He's really right.

Yeah. Again, he's again, as a filmmaker, he's a great film. Yeah, he really is. But he was, yeah, it was going to be Indiana Smith. And I can't remember the name of the, it was a comic book artist.

The guy worked for Marvel. He, they called him in and they explained to the characters. And that guy came up with the hat and the bullwhip. And they went, it's an old Charlton Heston. I'm sorry to say that.

I've watched that recently. It's like, it's, phenomenal how much is stolen from that. He has the jacket. He has the hat on. The entire opening sequence of Temple of Doom is Casablanca.

It's like you think about someone still had to have that in their brain as a child and pull that up to be like, that is the perfect tone for this movie and the perfect thing for this time period. And the perfect thing to rip off. That movie still holds up. Before Tarantino was doing that. Yeah, that's true.

Lucas was kind of biting on all the sweet history. To me, that's what you do. No, that's not who it is. Yeah. Kira Kurosawa.

Kira Kurosawa does all the shit Lucas ripped off. The Haunted Fortress. The Last Samurai. I don't know the name of anything. I'm really calling my own bluff here.

What is the Haunted Fortress? The Hidden Fortress. The Hidden Fortress. It's Star Wars, right? It's Star Wars, yes.

Well, but he's also ripping off Wizard of Oz. There's very early stuff. Wizard of Oz. And there's the whole Triumph. Of the Will thing.

Yeah. Who's the philosopher who was a teacher to Joseph Campbell or whatever? He sort of jumped aboard that. The hero's journey. Yeah.

They were like, he was teaching when Lucas was listening and Lucas was like, I'm going to instill some of these ideas into my movie. Would you like to be famous because of that? Yeah. It's one of those things like people like Lucas, they're kind of, I don't know if this is at all true, but I feel like in my mind, they're kind of like the first generation of people who studied like film as like a thing. Oh, no, absolutely.

New Hollywood. It was Coppola. The whole New Hollywood thing. Yeah. So it's almost like Lucas is probably the first person who had to grapple with the fact of like, Where do I draw the line between creating my own things and just taking things.

That aren't existing? Well, the one who's probably closest to him, I think, in that time, is probably Brian De Palma. Oh. He's definitely rooted in old films. Yeah.

For sure. Because they were all in American Dota, right? It was him and Coppola. But I think they, like.... Scorsese.

There's a handful. Kind of all over the place. Yeah. The Deer Hunter fella. For sure.

You can't list all of his other movies. Yeah, I think Kubrick's interesting because I think Kubrick was a guy who's like, I might be wrong on this. I think what's interesting about Kubrick is that he stole a bit from film, but he stole a lot more from everywhere else. Kubrick's like a guy who's like as much influenced by like, photography and opera and all this kind of shit. He started as a photographer.

Right, right, right. I feel like Kubrick, if you know his life story, he's always just been one of those dudes who knew he was right. He just had a natural talent, and somehow he got away with the confidence of like, no, I'm just some amateur fucking photographer, but I happen to take this amazing photograph that these people noticed and so right away he got some praise and he. Just sort of there's a movie of his that doesn't well I mean I know it's well known but I feel like a lot of people when they talk about it don't talk about it much but Paths of Glory I remember watching that for the first time and the way that movie ends I feel like you can watch Paths of Glory and the way it ends you can feel American movies change because it ends in a very specific image where it kind of ends on something which seemingly has got nothing to do with the story.

And it kind of ends somewhat similar to the way Cabaret ends, where it kind of says, you've been following these characters, and now let's just go over here and watch this, and this is the end of your movie. And again, if we take someone like Kirk Douglas and you put him in this incredibly cerebral position, Where he's playing a different kind of action star. Where he fights with his mind kind of thing. That movie's so great. It's so good.

That's right at that time, too. Because I feel like you do watch Hollywood take this hard turn. And there's a 10, 15 year span. What else is going on around that? Because to me, I think that's right at the end of the 60s.

Yeah, sort of mid-60s. But you get to Easy Rider and you watch it take that turn. Did you guys feel like a lot of foreign influence was coming in in the 60s? Totally, yeah. Probably only with those filmmakers, though.

Middle America could care less about that. But you're watching these guys take it and then filter it into their work. Those guys watched Truffaut and a lot of Europe was coming. Bergman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, you mean with Michael Keaton? This just popped my brain out. No one ever throws Woody Allen with any of those folks, but I feel like in terms of the types of influences they were pulling, they were totally pulling from the same general areas, but they just kind of went two different, I guess maybe it was an East Coast, West Coast thing. I don't know. Scorsese was East Coast.

Oh, yeah, you're right. Scorsese. Kubrick was a Brooklyn boy. Woody Allen is, yeah. It is weird that he never gets lumped in with them.

He never gets lumped in with those, but he was also totally pulling from Bergman. He jetted to England. Kubrick was global at a pretty. Oh, yeah, Kubrick. Kubrick was his own thing.

He was sort of outside the Hollywood system and the studios. He just sort of... How he got his films made is kind of amazing. That was the thing. Growing up as a Kubrick fan when I was 14, I remember it was like a... thing of like, oh man, he's American.

Like I always assumed he was British. It's like when you realize jazz is from America. All these documentaries take. Place in America. Jazz is American?

Yeah, his films do not feel. Like American films. They really don't. They all feel like American. Even the later ones.

He never really felt like an American filmmaker. Which, yeah, and again, almost because Shining is all shot in Britain, isn't it? Yeah. You got Shining shot in Britain, then you have a um, Clockwork Orange shot in Britain, Barry Lyndon shot in England, which. I had never seen Barry Lyndon.

I've heard it's like, I just recently found it for pretty cheap for a quarter. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of those that's like, it's supposed to be just beautiful. It's the hot, that's the hot deep cut.

There's a, there's a really great documentary about Kubrick's life. Do you know the name of this documentary? I think it's called a life in film, Stanley Kubrick. Um, but it gets into this, uh, this quirky story and I'm probably going to tell it wrong, but he, Kubrick was like smart enough to have gotten in deep enough with this dude at this studio who was old, you know, and he was kind of at the end of his career. And he's like, he realized that the cameras they were using, they had quit using this kind of camera and kind of tucked all those back into this room and started using this new kind.

And so he calls him up and he's like, what are you going to do with those old cameras? And he's like, well, she, I don't know. Like, I guess not much. And he's like, well, I'll give you this much money for those things. And he took those cameras and then he took these different lenses and he had them retrofitted.

He hired people to design something that would put this lens on this camera. And it's Spielberg explaining it. And he goes, so what he did is he dropped the f-stop to way farther than is kind of the standard. And he goes, he made the entire film look like every frame is like a painting. Because there's no depth at all.

Yep. And he's like, only Stan and Kubrick would premeditate that that far out and realize what he can do with these cameras. That's Orson Welles stuff. And scam a deal. Yeah.

That's like, I don't know how the technology doesn't exist, but I'm going to create it so I can make my movie. Lucas did that too. Lucas did that multiple times. Absolutely. All you Jar Jar haters, you can just stop and realize this man was not good enough.

It's those things that happen, and then from that point forward, you can't really see how much of an influence it was. Ken Burns invented that whole thing of taking a still photo and zooming. In on it and doing movement on it. Ken Burns invented that. Like, he was the first person to do that.

Yeah. At least, it's possible. People do it. I don't know. Well, Japanese animation was doing that.

And there's also some of that in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, when you start off real close, you come wide. In 2001, Space Odyssey, you know the pan, when the pan is floating, the guys are like that, you know, interstellar line or whatever. And, you know, the woman, you're the, Space stewardess, I guess.

She walks in a circle. Space air flight attendant. And then he plucks the pen out of the air and then signs. Again, I love shit like this. They just taped a pen to a pane of glass and just made sure the glass was real clean.

And it looks amazing. You can never tell. From what the documentary said, there had not yet, it was before we made it into space and were able to take photographs of what the Earth looked like from space. So he had to invent this himself. yeah and he just made a really good guess. Yeah looking at it you're like he's pretty much right on.

It it's kind of crazy same thing with um because he probably put science into it and hired someone the uh the cockpit of the plane he did yeah they uh it hadn't been like declassified at all and he had just seen one picture from like a newsweek article yeah. And then he just did that and then he talked to other people and he recreated this thing that the u.s government at the time was like they kind of did a feeler of who leaked this shit to Kubrick. And then Kubrick was like, no, I just guessed. And they were like, you nailed it. You 100% nailed it.

Well, that's why they say if you fake the moon landing, if Wag the Dog was real and you're going to pick a director to do it, it's Stanley Kubrick. Because 2001 feels more authentic of a space movie than a lot of space movies that came after. And I saw that. I was in my 20s when I saw that. And I grew up with Star Wars.

And there was shit that I was looking at. I was like, That looks just like Star Wars, but this is almost a decade before. 2001 really captures that awe and we don't know what's going on. That we all should feel this space. Because it opens up with such a mental piece.

You're just like, what does this even mean? And closes that way. It's bookended very nicely. Like, wait, what? He liked doing that to people.

I watched it again recently. I actually screened it for people at a gallery in my hometown in Pueblo, I guess a couple years back. That was the last time I watched it. But the psychedelic scene, I guess I don't remember it being that long, but I was just like, oh, okay, we could take a few of these colorful frames out and get to the point. But I don't know, maybe it makes me wonder, like, maybe he pushed it for a reason.

Maybe he wanted me to be uncomfortable or whatever. You ever see that documentary about, it's about The Shining and all the different interpretations. Room 237. It's one of those things, it's like you really watch that and they talk about, there's this part where they talk about you play 3D chess, but it's one of those things they never quite attribute. And they're just like, they just throw it in there.

And it's one of those things where you watch it and you're like, If any director is going to make a horror movie that actually is talking about this and actually talking about this, it's Stanley Kubrick. That's what makes that documentary so believable. And there's definitely points where you're like, this is a little bit Ancient Aliens. We're reaching a limit here. But maybe we're not.

There's some great takedowns in the movie, in 237. There's even... I mean, if you want to fall down this rabbit hole, don't. Online, people go to incredible lengths. They've written their thesis statements about it.

Yeah, explaining how they've tried to map the hotel. It's great because it doesn't work. It doesn't make any sense. Those people have way too much free time. Which many Legos?

I'm watching that and I'm like, all the other theories, I'm like, whatever. Some of this they're kind of reaching. The stuff that I'm watching, I'm like, that's real. is just the stuff where he starts messing with the audience, and in a weird subliminal way, like the office that they go to, where it's like you walk through the building, it's all like big open areas, and there's no way there could be a window in this next room that they immediately walk in, there's a window right behind the desk. And you're like, within the context of the story, there's nothing mentioned about it. Was he cheating it, or was he thinking about us thinking about that?

But I think he's messing with the audience, going somewhere in the back of your mind, something's going wrong. that room's not right. I feel like that's all real. That's Kubrick being a weird genius that he was and being like, I want to mess with them. I want to keep them off. Do you think somewhere the ghost of Stanley Kubrick is just blushing and being like, these people really.

Thought I was good. Wow. They finally get me. These people thought I was a genius. Well, he thought he was a genius too.

He definitely thought he was a genius. I mean, apparently he was, yeah, there's some great, you know, shots of Jack Nicholson just fucking losing his mind because Stanley Kubrick is the Jack Nicholson character fucking pounding away at this typewriter writing new pages when everyone's like. And then you hear the like almost mentally and kind of physically amusing Shelley Duvall at some points. I'm like, he's, I mean, he takes it a little too far. But how smart is that?

You ever see a thing with his boxes? His insane catalog. How he would just catalog all these things. You send people out to like, like a, there's like a documentary on like Vimeo. I don't know if it was actually, it was just called boxes.

Yeah. I think it's called like Stanley Kubrick's boxes, but he sent out people to take like, um, for eyes wide shut, like some red door and he sent out and he had people take like hundreds of photographs of all these red doors all over like Europe and America and Canada. And all these different places. And then he ended up just building a red door. Here's what he's really good at.

He's like Damon Alburn from the, the, from blur in that sense. Like he's, He's so full of himself and so smart that he'll record an entire album and go, no, sorry guys. None of you get to be famous. Sorry, this is junk. Gone.

That's what's in boxes. There's all these movies that he did years of research for that he then scrapped. And they're just sitting in a box going, he never made this one. He's so good at doing a thing where he creates a version of something that's so authentic. Kind of what you were talking about, the airplane cockpit, where it feels more real than the real thing.

So if you... If somehow the Department of Defense took you into their war room and it didn't look like the war room in Dr. Strangelove, you'd feel kind of let down. You know what's crazy? Gentlemen, you can't fight in here.

This is the war room. You know what's crazy about that? When Bill Clinton– there is no war room. Right, right. And when Bill Clinton– I think it was Bill Clinton.

When he was elected president, he was like– they were showing him all the facilities and he was like, I'd like to see the war room. And they were like, that doesn't exist. Here's the VHS. No, the war room. It's got all the maps.

And they were like, no, that doesn't exist. That's like a fictional thing. I made it this far. There's no war room. Where do they keep the Whopper then?

So that was a black and white film. And you knew it all along. It was going to be black and white. He made a green table. Because he's like, it should be like a poker table.

That story is kind of who's actually asking for the whore room. Oh, he found that. He found the whore room. The whore room. I found the whore room.

That was easy. The toughest thing about Dr. Strangelove is Peter Sellers is very, very funny in all three roles, but he's still not as funny as George C. Scott. He's got to suck.

You can't touch that. It's got to suck. It's like he's playing his heart out. Maybe that's why we got– that was a couple of years before Inspector Clouseau, so maybe. He was like, fuck George C.

Scott. That's the thing with. Sellers, though. He was kind of brilliant, but he was always trying so hard. George C.

Scott was just George C. Scott. And if you gave him the right material, he was amazing. Yeah, I wouldn't say we wouldn't get our hair must. The way he chewed that gum.

The gum. Everything he does is so funny. He grabs his hair. He's so funny. When he trips, apparently that was an accident.

When he trips and rolls out of it, it's so funny. It's so crazy that you could do something. That's just one of Stanley Kubrick's films. That's fucking... He made more?

You could talk all night about that movie. Yeah. But I think that's like you're watching people who know how to make use. We found this with all these movies. It's like Kubrick knowing how to make use of George C.

Scott. Because you watch George C. Scott and stuff later and he's kind of that guy in so many movies. but it doesn't always work. Sometimes it's like he's just doing his George C. Scott thing, and it doesn't click, and it's not that.

Who else does that with movies now? As far as what? Finding the right person? Does Tarantino let Samuel L. Jackson be exactly who he's supposed to be?

He just takes it up a couple notches, because Samuel L. Jackson does that in all of his movies, but when you watch him in Django Unchained, you're like, oh shit, you're like. This is real. I think the Coen brothers do that. I think they're very good at going, they're going, let's write something for John Goodman and then Walter from, you know what I mean?

I think they're like, your DNA is going to be so hard and fast in this in this role that people are going to have their socks blown off. But I mean, it really. You watch like, Oh brother, where are they? And you're like, everyone in this movie is perfectly cast. Like I can't imagine them writing.

I can't imagine anyone else being imagined in this role. They're like, well, what if it's a, the lead is George Clooney? Like what if, right, right. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

But you can see that again, taking that actor and going, this is what you need to do. We know you had the lead in King Ralph. But you know what? We think you can do better than that. And they just take it up a couple notches.

And you're like, these directors understand why this actor is so good and how to use it. You look like you want to be this, but we want to put that encompassed in this guy. It's like, that's fine. How's that sound? We can use some of this.

It's why Steve Buscemi is so good in The Big Lebowski is that They were almost like, for a couple of movies, like, well, I mean, you'll be the modern-day Peter Lorre. You'll be the creep. But what if... Because, again, Steve Buscemi has that sort of like just working Joe, regular guy part. He's not real big on the spotlight.

Yeah, so let's just do that guy. And then Donnie almost steals the movie. Especially because at that point he was known for being this fast talking. And like, he'd come in, you look at, you know, Mr. Pink, and like, that's all he does is talk, talk, talk.

So then you get him in Big Lebowski and you're like, shut the fuck up. That's every scene. He just barely gets a line out before they tell him to shut up. Again, using what you're known for and then kind of tweaking it a little bit. Real quick on Kubrick, do you think he set out consciously to try to make...

Who else has as many movies in the top five of each genre as Kubrick. Because Bilberg can get up there because I at one point I was writing a review for a film that I was gonna show and it was I wrote the line blah blah blah blah Kubrick but would we even have Kubrick without Hitchcock yeah and you know like ever since I wrote that funny movie The Trouble with Harry. But it's not going to be in the top five in the way that. Because Kubrick, it's like you've got Strangelove. Strangelove.

Hilarious. You've got Shining, like really creepy. You've got Sci-Fi 2001. Sci-Fi 2001. You've got Clockwork Orange.

I don't even know what you call it. Sort of ahead of Tarantino in the sense that he chose a genre and. Knocked it out of the party. That's the thing I find fascinating with The. Shining is like an angle you kind of take with it is like a Stanley Kubrick who's accomplished everything.

Barry Lyndon is like, I will make anything I want come to be. And then he's like, I guess I'll just take horror. I haven't done horror. Let's knock out horror. That's part of that changing times.

I think you see... You see Kubrick break out of that in that 60s, 70s era when the rules went out the window. Hitchcock was older, and he was part of that studio system, and he hated the studios, but he was like, again, it was back to the work ethic. This is my job. This is my genre.

I am the master of it, and they have named me that. It's going to be more about how I do it rather than me doing whatever I want to do. I will say his sort of crossover period, the sort of Gaumont into Hollywood- The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Those pure Hitchcock. I'm going to entertain your fucking dick off.

Those are... I love Rebecca. Rebecca, yeah, all of those. And he hated Rebecca because he fought with Selznick the whole time. But he was like, I'm going to do, like, you know, Vertigo and stuff.

Where he started kind of believing his own press. I'm tapping into Deep Psych. Those are all great movies. But when Hitchcock was in pure... you're going to have a fucking great time for 90 minutes. It was that period right when he came over from England.

And just started getting back into America. It's like the Beatles moved from England to America. He was like, wow, we came here for a reason. I can never remember which way he went. He made tons of movies in England, most of them silent, but he still was kind of revered as a great director there.

But when he came here, He took it up a notch, and then studios gave him money, and they were like, go ahead and make your thing. He became his own genre. He started making his. He still is. He was making movies in Britain under, with a, Gaumont was the name of his production company, and what he was doing, he was making British movies that were making money, like a lot of money, which was unheard of, and the ones, like Foreign Correspondent, 39 Steps, Lady Vanishes, you all watch those.

Those are just, A fun fucking time at the movies. They're just really fun. So then what was weird is, I think it was Selznick, you know, goes, oh, let's get this guy over. He lured him over. He goes, let's get him over and let's give him this, give him something that can't fail, which was the DeMario novel, Rebecca, which was, you know, it's basically, basically filming, not that it's as bad as this, but you're basically filming, you know, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Because it's already that big. It can't lose. It's huge. It can't lose. Everybody loves this.

And so he was like, Hitchcock came out, Hitchcock demanded all of the money. And Selznick was like, well, we're taking a chance on you. He was like, no, I'm fucking Alfred Hitchcock. I'm making money in Britain. No one is making money.

And he also, yeah, as you say, he hated the thing. And Selznick was really annoyed. Have you guys seen the biopic? I haven't seen it, but Apparently, he's a fucking can of worms. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah, he was hard to deal with, but again, to me, he didn't cross the line of actually, because Kubrick gets kind of iffy there, but he was kind of a dick to his actors, and he said that. He is like, actors are just cattle. Actors are what I bring in to make my movie. I've already written the movie. Actually, I've already shot the movie in my head.

I know exactly what I'm doing. All you have to do is stand there and say my line. Someone asked him about that once. He said, did you say actors were cattle? He said, no, I did not say that actors were cattle.

I said they should be treated like cattle. Exactly. So, I mean, he had no problem being a dick. Talk about toilet humor, you know, before Kevin Smith at all. Like, if you watch his little, when he started to, like, He was definitely popular enough in America to host his own whatever shows.

And the beginning is really just him trying out his trashy humor. It's pretty much across anything he put out. Like the Afro-Hitchcock theater or whatever. The silhouette thing. Toilet humor.

Psycho is the first toilet in an American film. Oh yeah, Psycho is the first. They couldn't show it before then. It's very weird. Well, I mean, Psycho is the one.

I'd give it another checkmark. First and last. Only toilet ever been shown. Mr. Mom suffered.

Do you know how hard it was for them to do Mr. Mom without a toilet? I had actually never seen Psycho up until a few years ago. I've never seen it. It's one of those great movies.

There's very few great movies where you kind of go you'll go and you think you know it because it's so in the zeitgeist. I had the same thing with The Godfather, actually, which I only saw within the last 10 years. And try not to read anything about it before. When you go and see it, it will actually surprise you. It actually doesn't matter what you do before you watch Psycho.

When you watch Psycho, you'll know that you watched Psycho. It still works and it still surprises you. It is to me, it's sad that the main twist is It's ruined for everybody. It's just pop culture at this point. Everybody knows what's coming.

But that first audience that went in there, think how much their mind was blown. Can you imagine not having the previous position? The way it is set up, If you didn't know anything about Psycho, you would have no idea what this movie is about. The first 20 minutes of the movie, it's telling a completely different story. That's actually kind of full circle of what we were talking about earlier, right?

Sort of telling a story before you even get into the story. But see, again, Hitchcock was like, he knew the rules so well that he was like, I'm going to fucking break them. Well, he made half of the rules anyway. It's like he wrote them to begin with and then went. That's what I call a MacGuffin.

It's like, now we're going to change it. Hitchcock is the greatest. I was thinking about this about Bob Zemeckis, but Hitchcock is so good about objects. He's very good at showing you something and going, remember this key. It's going to be very important later on.

Like the top in... what's the, you have to have a token in that, what's that movie? Inception? Inception, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's, in Notorious, there's a key that they need, you know, there's a sort of a spy espionage movie and there's a key that they need.

I thought you were talking about the Biggie biopic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one in there too. Hitchcock was also in Notorious. Particular microphone.

So there's a, there's a, there's a scene at a ball and Ingrid Bergman is in the ball and he starts the camera on the balcony and the camera comes up And, like, falls down. And then you just see her with a key in the back of her head. There's no fucking dialogue. And you're just like, and then you're like, okay, so I just need to follow this key. You know what I mean?

He's brilliant. He's the master of making you care about things. Well, and he was just doing, like, again, inventing the shots. Like, watching those really early movies of him where he, like, zooms in. Is it Lady Vanishes?

Then he comes in on that hotel and it's all a miniature. He built that and nobody was doing that kind of stuff then, but he zooms in and then it cuts into a real scene of a real room. Nobody did that stuff. All that early, the Lady Vanishes, he does it a lot. There's a lot of that in 39 Steps.

That's all that Wes Anderson's referencing in Budapest. It's all that. Speaking of another one who's taking pieces from other people's stuff and then recreating it in his own weird version of it that is sort of all his own. I'll tell you what, he can do that only once because I love Wes Anderson. That Budapest movie.

I think he's getting better and better. I think that one's kind of the best thing he's done. That's almost where he's gone the other way. He started off in the Hitchcock thing of like, I'm a genius and I know all these things about film. I'm going to put them all in now.

And now with Budapest, I'd almost say like the Fantastic Mr. Fox, he's like, What happens if I just try to fucking tell a yarn? You know what I mean? Like, what does that look like? And I can still do all my stuff.

I thought Fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love all his movies. Because by now, people just want to see his sequence. You know what I mean?

They want to see a little bit of animation. They want it to feel like a 90s music video. You know? But the plot, the fundamental plot of Budapest is just great. And it's so much fun.

And I feel like he doesn't get caught up so much. Because in some of those other ones in the middle there, he gets so caught up in his own little quirky for the sake of quirky and like, characters doing things just because it's a Wes Anderson movie. And I feel like none of that, like. Give me an example. There's all of them.

Like they all, like I got in the middle run there where I was like, I, You're telling a good story, but I'm not connecting with these characters because they're so quirky. And by the time you get to Budapest Hotel, I'm like, I care about these people again. I really care about these main characters. I cared about Zissou. I felt like that was a hard one because hardly anybody liked that.

I'm in the beginning where I like all of his movies. Tenenbaums and Rushmore was all the splinter characters. I watched Rushmore as a 14-year-old. I got it from a VHS from the library. I watched it.

I got it at like 3 p.m. coming home from school from the public library. I watched it that afternoon, and then I watched it that night before I went to bed, and then I came home from school the next day, watched it, and then returned it that afternoon. I watched it three times in 24 hours. So I think there's almost a leap between the Moonrise Kingdom and Budapest. I forgot about Moonrise Kingdom.

Because Moonrise Kingdom is like, do you see how I've done this sweeping dolly thing and all the rest of it? And it's kind of like, again, you're like, oh, that's nice, but I don't know what the story's about yet. But with, I remember watching Budapest and I was so into the story. I remember like two-thirds of the way into the movie, I realized that he was using the ratio when he was flipping back between times. He was using the ratio.

So like the modern part of the story was in 70 mil. The old part of the story was, yeah, three, four. Like he was using all three of them. And then I hadn't noticed it. And then when I did notice, I was like, motherfucker.

Like that's cool, but it doesn't matter. Because the story, like, that's a cool, nice thing. Because that was my thing with Moonrise Kingdom. I was like, I like it all. And I was really kind of drawn to the kids.

The kids are pretty entertaining. But I'm like, all the adult characters, I'm like, they just seem like a caricature, really. And they're funny. Do you think he did that on purpose, though? To make you focus on the main characters?

Maybe. But I feel like there's so much of his other ones that are like that. In my memory, I think I've only seen it once. I only saw it the first time I saw it. I think I just saw it that one time.

And I think it was like, I feel like it was just so much of the motions. Whereas Budapest, he was like, I'm going to make a kick-ass movie. I'm going to use all of my skills and my classic Wes Anderson-ness to make an awesome movie. Did he just throw my cat out the. Window?

I mean, Pat Finney, man, he just nails it. I just want to watch another movie all about that guy. What's so great about Budapest, too, is that it's the bit where he gets his fingers taken off. Yeah. It's not really that gory, but I've watched it with multiple people, and if they have never seen it before the first time, it freaks them the fuck out, because it's so unexpected.

It's all delivery. And he builds that, like, he builds his own tone, and then within his own tone, that is ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, the style we're used to is so non-violent, that the even. Suggestion of that is crazy.

And then he just moves right past it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've still got more story to tell. Why are you so worried about it?

Yeah. It's like a weird children's book that you're flipping through at inappropriate speeds. Did anyone notice the Clooney cameo the first time they saw it? I don't know. I don't even know that was a thing.

He's one of the, because they keep cutting all those different guys. No, it's ridiculous how small his cameo is. The shootout in the balcony, he comes out of the door and he shoots and then that's it. No. It's literally a second.

But he likes being that, I think, because he's also, I mean, he's the dog on South Park. Clooney did the barking noise for the dog on South Park. Because he's so smooth, people liked him, and because people liked him, he just took advantage of being a normal dude and just said, Yeah, I love those guys. I like to watch that show. I want to be in that.

He's just a yes man. It just seemed like he was like, they must have said, would you want to do a thing? He was like, how funny would it be if I was in for two seconds? Yeah, yeah. I remember watching it at the time.

It goes, Jesus, that guy looked like George Clooney. And it's literally, he comes out. Of course, he judges himself immediately. He comes out. He's kind of known for that, though.

Does that, and then it's. Yeah, that's what I think is kind of cool about him. Because immediately he became the hot male actor. And they were selling him as this big, smooth suave. And he's like, yeah, I don't really want to be.

I mean, he is. But I'm like, the fact that he was like, I don't really care about that. He's like, I'll be completely unseen in this. I'll be the most unlikable character here. He just does what he wants to do.

He just wants to be part of it. Which one? Tomorrowland. Not yet. It looks.

Such a letdown. Is it? Yeah. See, that was my thing. I was just watching that first trailer.

I'm like, this could really work or it could go way off the rails. It looked like there was no middle ground there. What's the genre? It's a Brad Bird sci-fi movie. Which that also gave me a little hope.

He's a good director. It's one of those, without giving too much away, it doesn't spend anywhere near enough time in Tomorrowland. It's a weird movie. Again, it's a movie based off a Disney attraction. But they found kind of a clever way to do it.

So again, I was like, this could be promising. It's sort of the notion of this 1950s hugely optimistic version of the future where we all have jetpacks and we're all working together. Like Epcot Center. What's that? Epcot Center.

It's kind of like that World's Fair thing. Like the future. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's all about that. And then you never go there in the movie.

And it's like, what the fuck? Why am I here? That seemed like a missed opportunity. Tomorrowland. And that's a new Clooney film.

Yeah, well, by now it's probably on DVD. It's been three weeks. It's definitely a red box. It's a red box. Yeah.

It's too bad. Have you seen anything else recently? I did just see Jurassic World. That's all Lincoln. How was that?

A few years ago. That's as recent as you've gone, Lincoln. Oh, yeah. Dan was just talking about how long it's been for. I've got a bunch of catching up to do this summer.

I think the last thing I saw in the theaters was Mad Max Fury Road. Which kind of held up to the hype. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And that was my thing. I think it got so much hype in the beginning that I saw it that first time and went, okay.

Like it was good, but it was like, it's almost sold to be more than it is. And then later after I was done, I thought about it. I'm like, well, it's just an awesome action movie, but I'm. Like, it's also, it's also, I mean, I suppose you could say there's a bit of people might, but I don't think that many people, I know lots of people want to see it. They loved it, but they weren't actually familiar with the other movies.

Yeah. Mad Max Fury Road. The, um, the exposition is something like a voiceover that goes, my, my world is, um, pain and fire, whatever it is, and staying alive. That's all you get. You're never told why there's been an apocalypse.

You're never told. Everything is done, like, diegetically. It's all done with, you know, you kind of have to piece it together for yourself. You really don't get that in the other sequels, though. Like, even Road Warrior, if you hadn't watched that, you're just thrown in the middle of insanity for.

An hour and a half. But again, I think that's like, again, it's kind of like Lucas got away with doing it in Star Wars, but he did it wrong. Yeah. You know what I mean? Every other week, so many other weaker sci-fi movies go, 40 years from now, there's been a shortage of honey, or whatever the fuck it is.

You know what I mean? Wait, write that down. We need to make this movie. What about my tea? We need the poo.

The movie. Yeah. Yeah. All the Waterworld, they all do. If you're telling a good story, I'll figure it out.

I don't need to know. Yeah. Yeah. I've said that with a lot of them and I keep bringing back the, you brought up superhero movies. I'm like, that's my thing with like the beating the origin story to death.

I'm like, you don't have, like, if you just give us a good story, we'll figure it out. Or, or if you don't, you're just pandering to stupid audiences. I'm like, just, Make them do a little work for it and you'll get a better movie and you'll bring in smarter audiences in the long run. Studios don't want to hear that because it's not going to make money. But in the long run.

That's what the trim masters do. They're like, oh, where can we trim the fat? And then they go like on a cerebral level. They're like, oh, no, we don't even have to explain that. You don't see that with Bay.

Let's just trust people's imaginations. They're two and a half hours long to drag it out more and explain every stupid thing to the stupid audience that they bring in. Then we could spend more time on what decor. It looks like. Yeah.

Are you comic book guys? Yeah, I would say so. I watch more of the movies now. Than the reading. More classically, yeah.

I don't want to say it because I don't want to get it wrong, but there's a great run of... I'm not really a huge superhero comic guy anymore, but there's a run of Superman called All-Star Superman. And the first page of that is, I think, five panels. And each panel just says two or three words, and it's Superman's entire art. It just says, a dying planet, last hope... a fleeing ship, and then adoptive parents.

It's four panels. If you don't know this, you'll figure it out. It's fucking Superman. You know what I mean? Right, and it's like, dude, how old?

From the 50s? How do you not know Superman? How is it that you picked up a Superman book and you don't already know a lot. Of his details? They keep rebooting Spider-Man, and I'm like, Go watch the animated show.

The theme song tells you all of the backstory you need to know. You don't need the rest of this. And in a much catchier way. that someone got paid to write. The jingle for. Use the Ramones cover.

You're all good. Maybe it's Oingo Boingo if you're lucky. So we just got done showing cartoons for this because the art show has been Saturday morning cartoons this month. I've been every Saturday morning. I've been just watching a big box of my old VHS collection.

And the thing about being a VHS collector is, for a long time now, you realize that you are able to buy them much faster than you're able to watch them. And, you know, they're so cheap that I'm just looking for reasons to actually watch some of these tapes. And so, a Saturday morning cartoon regular marathon for a month was a good idea. And at the end of it, which was last Saturday, I came to the conclusion that I was like, man, the 80s were fun and I remember them fondly, but the things I remember the most about them are mostly just like idiot shit, like sugar and bright colors. There's not a lot of substance.

This is Saturday morning. If you go back and watch these cartoons, they're super entertaining. They're really effective in that sense. But if you watch cartoons that are made currently, they're not only going for multiple audiences, they're going for children, which is their base demographic, but they're also children. want to impress the parents who have grown up on cartoons because parents have to watch cartoons no matter what now that they have kids. So they're going to pick the ones they're entertained by as well.

So it's two generations. And on top of that, you learn Spanish or you still get really good morals instilled instead of He-Man saying, don't do that. I'm the good guy. Well, am I wrong? No.

Strangely, they're less about selling toys now. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's way less marketing. Well, it's because kids don't buy those toys anyway. The only people that buy toys now are grown-ups like us that are being super geeks and, like, leaving them in the package.

Well, this was the 80s, though. It was a massive influx of buy shit. Right. But that's what those toys were for. It was for kids, you know, and you played with those then.

Mommy, can I have an app? Yeah. That's true. That's where kids are. Because I was watching that today.

I'm watching kids watching videos on YouTube today. And they're like six years old. And they're just like entranced by this. YouTube is about as much attention span as any of us have left. And I sat there watching because there's two kids.

One of them is like three and one of them is six. And they're both watching separate little iPads. And they're both watching their own weird little videos. And I'm sitting there and I look across and I go... This generation, I'm like, I want to see what becomes in 20 years.

Oh, no, you don't. I kind of do, just out of morbid curiosity, because I'm like, we're already messed up enough coming out of, like, 80s and 90s and all of that. Yeah, but none of us have the drive, because we were pampered by our. How long is it before, like, an 18-year-old goes into an art gallery and just swipes right on the canvas to sit on it? Yeah.

I'm done with this one. God. Next artwork, please. And none of it sells, right? Because who's going to buy it?

We don't have time to pay for shit like that. You can just download it. Yeah. You can steal it off the internet. That's also killing our entertainment.

So I will say this. One of the videos that I bought because it was She-Ra, and I don't have any copies of She-Ra, which is, you know, she's He-Man's sister. Oh, yeah. And I was just psyched to find a VHS tape of She-Ra, but I didn't realize it was until I put it in and watched it, it was a golden book release of She-Ra, which instead of being the cartoon, I'm pretty sure this is a video made by the same company that before they made the video, they made books, like children's books based on the cartoon. And so because they own the rights to the images that they had already marketed and sold in these books, all they had to do was pan across some of these images and hire some voiceover actors.

Oh, that's crazy. And now they're in the cartoon business as well. So I'm watching this video going, I've seen the She-Ra movie, and it's awesome, and I'm looking forward to when she realizes He-Man's her brother. I'm looking for cartoons here. And it was like, do you guys remember when they finally put out the movie version of The Watchmen, and Zack Snyder was like, listen, I understand everyone's going to be worked up about this, my goal is really just to keep it from being a complete piece of shit rather than to actually try to make this a movie.

And I get that we're not going to be able to do that. Black freighter stuff. Yeah. But so then what they did was they, I have a feeling that they realized that there's no way they were going to make a live action impact that the, that the comic book was. So as a sidebar, let's, animate let's motion these already still images and that was the last time I saw like an example of this quote unquote animation now I'm watching it on She-Ra and I was just like like I'm sitting here like trying to figure out why a company would even make this because it's cheap you know I.

Was like wow and they already own the material. And then I was like what kind of patience does it take to watch this as a child what if if I was me and I had already seen a fully animated She-Ra there's no way I'm going to put up with this shit wow You know, but that's just me. Like, this is still the 80s where it's like, just put it in and set the kid in. Front of the TV. Bright colors, lots of movement.

They're going to recognize the images, and there are only three, so they're into it. And now we could, you know, now we could call our friends on the phone. That's very good. We were the beginning of the generation raised by the tube. We've spiraled all over the place in these conversations, which is what I like.

I like just getting people together. Thanks for inviting me. Talking movies and where it all goes to. Just let it be what it is. Yeah.

So thank you guys for sitting in. Adam, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. This was fun. Yeah, this was great.

If nothing else, tell people where to find you and what all you've got coming up in the future. ATPBURKE on Twitter. AdamBurkeComedy.com has all the details. I'll be around. You got, like, tour dates and stuff?

Yeah, mostly in Chicago at the moment, but, yeah, I'll be performing around. This is cool. Definitely. Thanks for sitting in, man. Thank you, guys.

Yeah, man, thanks. Come to Gallery K for, what is it? What's the next show? Wednesday, June 24th, Max Fine from Atlanta, Georgia. Oh, too soon?

Too soon. Upcoming? Just come here in general. How about that? Gallery K at Facebook.

All the events are listed on the Facebook page. Thanks for listening. Thanks for having us. No problem. Otherwise, that about does it.

We will return next time. Same geek read. Thanks for listening. I was raised on television. I had no supervision.

A delinquent kid, no matter what I did, I didn't. Need no one's permission. Now TV is our prison. It helps us make decisions. We sit and stare with dilated pupils.

While they teach us what they want us to know. Well, Nobody wants to be. Free Where did the people go? The child inside our TV screens There's no one getting out of here. People's misconceptions are changing the direction.

The evolution is my institution. I'm losing my direction. We're sitting there, staying up all night. Like the walking. Dead coming back to life.

In a state of comatose, it looks like you have seen a ghost. In a cell block. With remote control. The one is a talk show host. I was raised on television Raised on television Raised on television Raised on television.

Where in the world are we? Nobody wants to be free Where did the people Where did the people go? Tapped inside all TV screens. There's no one getting out of here. Raised on television Raised on television.

And they have no attention span for more than a 12-minute video clip, if that long. At this point, it's also like you're... What are the different apps they have? Tinder. Not for kids.

Don't try that at home, kids. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!