No Requiem for Michael Rooker

This is scott wilson i played i played herschel green on the walking dead and this is movie meltdown stay tuned the. Following feature has been rated r by the motion picture association of america it is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power.

Provide more cooling in the containment chamber. To your citizens, we have revealed. To you. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian.

I'm Lucy. I'm Michael. And we're coming to you live from Michael's studio. What's the official name of this studio again? Higgins Memorial Coliseum.

I've heard the backstory and I guess we don't have to make them listen to it, but it's quite an interesting thing. Yeah. I was just trying to think, where did I talk about the backstory for this? Probably on your show. Oh yeah, maybe.

I don't know. I haven't heard the backstory. Oh, I was talking about it with Fred. That's right. Was that right?

Is that who I talked about that with? It seems probably. Because we were talking about made-up names for people, and I explained that one of my friends knew somebody that called everybody Higgins for reasons that he could not explain, and I thought that was an adorable reason to call my studio the Higgins Memorial Coliseum, because why not? We've had that. I won't totally spoil it, because I'm kind of waiting.

It's another one of those movie fan freak show events, and it's one that I'm trying to lure the other party behind. back into town to get the stories out of them. Because there's only like one other person. We've covered a lot of the weirdos over the years, but there's one that used to come in to one of the stores that I worked at who referred to everyone as Cat. Uh-huh. And I'll just leave it at that because we really need to go knee deep into that character because he is a piece of work.

But that's just a little hint, a little taste for you. All right. Hey there, Cat. How's it going? Hey, Cat.

I've got to make sure my cat doesn't think we want him on the podcast because he'll be up here. We spelled it with a K if that helps. Okay. Yeah. He can differentiate spelling.

I would hope so. Yeah. All right. So before we get into our movie of the week, have either of. You seen any movies lately?

Because I really, everything I've seen either was last week's episode or is coming up the next episode. So everything I've seen is for the show. So I don't really have anything else to talk about. So I was hoping maybe you'd seen some movies. None I really want to discuss or even admit that I saw in a theatrical environment.

Well, that sounds incriminating. Do I want to know? I saw The Age of Adaline. Oh. I'd had a rough day.

I decided I needed a treat. And was it? That was not it. It was actually equal parts wonderful and terrible. It was really beautiful to look at the costumes.

And it was all about nostalgia, which you might have noticed is sort of my thing. the hell you say but uh man what a terrible plot it was one of those movies where at the very beginning you're like wow this is going to go someplace really interesting or it's going to go the most obvious terrible place and it went the. Most obvious terrible place man that's a bummer. I know and so shocking right i know we all had high hopes for that. One wow i think i will continuously get the name wrong i'll be like what's that age of Madeline? Yeah, I will probably refer to that for the rest of my life as Madeline with the hat.

Isn't that a little girl with a. Hat or something? The mage of Adeline. Maybe I'll turn it into sort of an old-timey dragon-themed event. I don't know.

I'm not really sure what's going on. But to me, I think I will... It's one of those many... This seems to be a theme in Hollywood in general, is giving them either the most complicated... Or the most forgettable of names.

And I've seen a lot lately that I'm like, if you have to figure out how to pronounce something in your title, that's a bad title. If it's so generic that you do not remember it, even if you've seen the movie, that's a bad title. There's a lot of those out there, too. Yeah. Let's see.

I watched the movie requirement for this show. I did, too. That's why I was trying to come up with something else. Nice. Other than that, I have not seen a single movie, I think, since you and I saw Big Hero 6 in the theater.

Wow, you were behind the times. I think that was the last movie I saw. But that was awesome. It was a pretty good movie. It was pretty good.

I enjoyed it. Let's see. Yeah, no. Occasionally we will spill over into other mediums. Do you have any gaming you can recommend?

It's rare that we do that, so I'm taking advantage of this. Have you any? Recent gaming adventures. I have. I was super late to this too, but I have almost completed the entire Mass Effect trilogy in the past few months.

I'm near the end of the third game, and it's been quite a journey with those characters, but the entire world has played all those games since they've all been out for years now. Except for me. Well, I mean, anybody who's listening to this that plays video games is like, I played that in 2012. Probably. Probably so.

So, yeah. I have so little patience for video games. I've been watching a lot of circa 1996 professional wrestling. That doesn't surprise me. At work, because I can listen to it and not pay attention to it while I'm working.

Let's throw out some of the big names. Let's see. In 1996, there was a lot of gold dust. There was a lot of gold dust. He's scary.

He's scary. I remember him enough to go, ooh. Yeah, yeah. That was the general reaction. There was a lot of.

Actually, there weren't a lot of super big names in the WWF in 1996. That's what I was thinking. It was post, you know, the Hogan Piper era, but like before Goldberg and The Rock. Right. It's sort of a dark time.

A lot of empty seats in those small arenas in 1996. I say the WW. They hadn't switched over yet, had they? Or had they just switched over? That was in 2002, I think.

I'm at least enough of a geek to know that they switched. And that now WWF equals wrestling panda bears. Yes. That's how I see it in my mind. And I have one of those t-shirts that says WWF that has a bear hitting another bear with a chair on it.

It's adorable. Those are awesome. Now that I saw that, because I saw the sticker at some point, and I was like, well, that's how I'm always going to see it at this point. It's just panda bears hitting each other with metal chairs. And you would not be wrong.

Yep. In my mind, that's what wrestling is. It could only be made better if they had Mexican wrestling masks, because that's the only thing I'm really drawn to in any wrestling is the Mexican wrestlers. Sure. For some reason, that still holds up.

American wrestlers, I could care less at this point, but somehow Mexican wrestlers are way more awesome. Agreed. Agreed. I'm glad there's consensus. Yes.

How do you feel about wrestlers, Liz? I'm sorry. I was just taking a brief nap while we discussed gaming and wrestling. Oh, you and every other woman in America. Anyway.

I did, however, during my nap, think of a movie that I saw that I would like to endorse. And that's the new Noah. Baumbach film, While We're Young. I've heard good things. Yeah.

It's really interesting, I think. I'm really interested in his career generally, mostly in his private life and how it manifests itself on screen. Don't we keep coming back to that on the show? Have I talked about this too much previously? No, I'm just saying in general, so many times we'll be like, wow, this sort of mirrors this weird director's life.

And funny how he shoved it on screen and tried to dress it up as something else. But we all kind of see what's going on, right? Well, I've been feeling really badly for Jennifer Jason Leigh because when they were together and they were making movies together and they were co-writing together. his movies were very dark and misanthropic and seemed to come from a very angry spirit. There was always something sort of beautiful at the center of them. Like there were these terrible characters, but you still rooted for them because there was like a really pure character that loved them and you wanted good for not so much the terrible person, but the good person who loved them that you didn't want to see disappointed.

And then he left Jennifer Jason Leigh for his sort of young ingenue, Greta Gerwig. And then they made Francis Ha, which was the most delightful, carefree, like, joie de vivre sort of experience. Teller. We kind of see the wet blanket in this relationship. However, this movie is all about how this, like, 40-something couple is, like, spending time with these 20-somethings.

And you can tell that this is clearly her peer group. And now he's like, what the fuck have I done? And it's all about how they can't actually relate to each other and span these generations. And it's making fun of everything that 20-somethings are into. And then at the end, he is, you know, with Ben Stiller's, with his contemporary.

Naomi Watts, which is also bullshit because Ben Stiller's clearly in his 50s and is not a 44-year-old man. But we won't even get into that right now. Naomi Watts is kind of out of his league. But anyway, whatever. Agreed.

But at the end, you know, he acknowledges how much better it is to be with somebody of his own age. I'm not buying that either. Anyway. Across the board, anyway. So it made me feel better for Jennifer Jason Leigh.

That's all I'm saying. That she's possibly miserable story that, that he's feeling maybe a little nostalgic. Okay. I'll give you, I mean, it doesn't really. Maybe a little regretful about some life choices.

It doesn't really brighten up her life any, but at least a little bit of like, hi, I told you. Yeah. So I'm all for bitterness. And anyway, the movie, the movie was really good. It was, it was definitely his sort of attempt to go, I think, uh, uh, sort of broader comedic direction.

Um, so it didn't super work on all the levels, but it was enjoyable. And funny. And it had those moments where you're like, that's real. He was always kind of good at that. Yeah, yeah.

There would be some very genuine stuff, even in the middle of the super dark genuine stuff. Yeah. Anything else we've watched? Man, I really do feel in my heart and soul that I've seen another movie since we saw Big Hero 6. I would hope so, just because it makes me sad inside.

What month would you have seen Big Hero 6? That would have been like... The end of January, the beginning of February? Right before it hit DVD, actually. We saw it the day before it got released.

I swear there's got to be something I saw. I just don't. I'm completely drawing a blank as far as what it might have been. I don't want to guess, but no. Yeah, go ahead.

Guess. Maybe that'll trigger what I actually saw. Was it Age of Adaline? No. No.

No, I'm afraid that wasn't it. That's all I got. Mage of Madeline? Mage of Madeline. That was the movie.

I'm going to start pitching that. Yeah. Well, somewhere there's a directed DVD market waiting to put this out. Straight to streaming. All right.

I think we'll take our break here, and when we come back, we will get into this week's movie. If you believe you must be big in order to be tough. Then you should get to know me. I'll teach you other stuff. I'm Madeline, I'm Madeline, I may be very small.

I'm Madeline, I'm Madeline, but inside I'm tall. She may be teeny tiny, two minutes is indeed. But that has never stopped her from being pretty neat. Dummy, dummy, dum. She's Madeline, she's Madeline, we all know her.

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You live in L.A. Long enough, you realize nothing's confidential. And very few people are your friends. I started out in the LAPD, and I played the game for as long as I could. Till it was time for me to say goodbye to the boys in blue and go into business on my own.

That brings me to where I am today. Brown's Detective Agency. And that would make me Fritz Brown. I don't use a cell phone. I don't need a laptop.

And my car's a 63 Ford. And that leaves me, my instincts, and a coat 45. But as most of my friends who know me well will tell you, that's usually more than enough. I'm on a case. No way.

Who the hell would hire you? In a city where the law is for sale. I'm personally keeping my eye on you. You have no idea how excited that makes me. On the streets where justice is negotiable are you about to tell me what it is you want.

What do you want to give me a man looking for the truth you're gonna fuck him up gringo maybe maybe. Not can sometimes become the target don't mess with. Me Now, from the author who showed you L.A. In the 50s comes a detective for the 90s. You stay away from me while I do a job.

All right, so we are back. And this week's Sofa Theater feature is Brown's Requiem. The year is 1998. The director is Jason Freeland. And they plot according to IMDb.

And I'm going to cap it off at the first sentence. Because I love when they just put one in that's like a paragraph and a half. And I'm like, you know. But it also says something about this because it's not like an official IMDb produced one. It is like an anonymous writer put this together.

So it's just some idiot out on the internet that slapped this together. But the first sentence of this says, Fritz Brown is an ex-LAPD recovering alcoholic who now splits his time repossessing cars for a used car lot And staffing his one-man private detective agency. Spoiler alert, I guess. So um yeah this this was your suggestion you'd run across this before michael i had um in 1998 i would say or 99 maybe um. One of my very close friends worked at a Hollywood video near his house, and he was one of those friends that he would bring a stack of movies this tall home with him for free to rent, because why wouldn't you do that if you work at a place that rents VHS tapes, which is what they did at the time.

I played that game a little bit recently. Yeah. Not so much now, since they're closed. Sure, sure. You would have first-hand experience with this behavior.

But this was a movie he brought home in the 90s, and I just... He popped it in and he didn't know what it was and I watched it with him and we both enjoyed it quite a bit. And, you know, I enjoyed it so much that I went directly to a Suncoast video and bought this on VHS without hesitation. Those places. They had copies of it.

It was not hard to find. What I have learned, what we, I think, have all discovered in the past few days since I have suggested this movie is that you cannot find this movie anywhere, which I think is really... interesting and some of that may be because um what i've also learned is it doesn't really people this is like a movie that time forgot right it's like kind of it there's no real information about it out there even though it has michael rooker who's a pretty big star these days i guess bigger than he was in the 90s i would say probably definitely yeah yeah but i mean it's it's weird that it's it's a movie that has people that people have heard of that is just kind of like forgotten especially because I don't think it's terrible even though Metacritic gave it like a straight 50 you know so I.

Have my issues with it okay I'm interested to see if you also have issues Lucy um. The parts I was awake for I do have issues with okay I. Can't totally call you out because it took me a couple times to get through because I was but I do that with most movies so it's okay Well, again, I. Would like to preface this discussion by saying I've seen this movie. I owned it on VHS at one point, so I've seen it a few times.

I will ask you, because this time was the first time I'd seen it, and you re-watching it, do you see it differently now than originally when you saw it the first run around? I do, kind of. Well, the first time I ever saw this movie, I was super stoned, right? So, I was like. No difference there.

I was like, dude, this movie, what? Whoa. This guy's calling everybody shitbird, not to spoil anything. We threw the spoiler alert. But, yeah, I don't know.

I don't think it's a good movie, necessarily. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. But I like it, so... I don't know.

I didn't really have any revelations necessarily about watching it in modern times. I don't know. I'm pretty forgiving if I enjoy something. There's a lot of sloppy writing, and the script could have been tightened up, and it could have been... Parts of the movie feel like dragging sand through molasses.

I like that. And that could have been remedied, I feel. But, you know, who cares? Nobody's going to watch this anyway, right? Very quickly as we got into it, I feel like I was already like, okay, now I got to put my guard up.

Because I feel like, and I don't know if you feel this way too, but I'm like, anybody trying to do a neo-noir kind of thing... I'm already like, oh, this could go one of two ways. Like there's not much middle ground on that when it's either like, wow, that's awesome. Like you did a great job and this really works and you get the sub genre you're going for. And like you made it work either as a period piece or in the modern day or however you go about it or wow, you missed the mark.

And I'm like, this does kind of fall somewhere in the middle. But it reminded me, did you ever see the Mitchum when he did like really late in life? That was still kind of a period piece. But was very like him trying to tap into old classic noir movies. But it's him like really old doing it.

And like it felt very pain. Like pieced together. And like you could see them like propping up every bit of what they were trying to make work. And like trying to reinforce it along the way. Like nothing was working in that one.

I feel like I need to watch it again I guess. I just kind of saw it on. I guess, cable at some point in the last couple of years, too. It's been recent when I was like, what the hell is this? And like, I feel like that's heading towards the low end of that bar.

But and this kind of falls in the middle. But I felt like I already started getting like, oh, oh, no, it's not going to go down that road, is it? Like, I feel like the modernized noir thing can just go really, really wrong. Agreed. Again, I think it's somewhere in the middle.

I do feel like the weak part is the writing, which I don't think was, because it is, originally it's James Elroy, but I don't think, I think the director rewrote the screenplay, so I think I'm going to blame the director for most of the, it's a lot of really bad dialogue, and then there's so much of that voiceover. The dog didn't deter me. The next morning I followed Sully Kay to a liquor store down in Crenshaw Not where you'd expect the Beverly Hills crowd to shop for their booze. But I guess one bottle of Don Perignon tastes as good as the next. It was a rainy season.

Not the ideal weather to be driving around in a convertible with the top down. But it was kind of fun sometimes. Which again is always a fine line on the noir stuff. It's like sometimes it works. Sometimes you're like why are you still talking?

Like we can see. We're fine. We're good. But Yeah, that all checks out. That all sounds like.

I mean, yeah, it's not terrible about any of it, but it definitely is not like a super strong version of how to do this. It's just one that kind of falls in the middle, and you're like, I like Michael Worker. I don't hate this movie. Like, it's just somewhere in the middle for me. In the film's defense, I did not give it an optimal viewing experience.

I was up very late last night, and I knew I had to watch it today. So when I woke up, I went and got my laptop and I brought it into bed with me. And I started watching and I really did hang in there for like probably 80 minutes. And then I dozed off a couple times. So I've got to be honest, I'm not super sure I understand the plot.

Neither is the screenwriter. Okay, just checking. Because I didn't think I slept that long. I don't even feel like it gets super because some of these and especially now, like there's the more modernized ones that are like making fun of the fact that these old plots don't make any sense. And they purposefully there's one this past year.

We don't have to name it, but please name it. Isn't that how what's the freaking Joaquin Phoenix thing? Oh, Inherent Vice, which I do think about a lot during this movie. Isn't that how Inherent Vice is, like, they specifically went out of their way to make sure the plot really doesn't make any sense. Like, they're making fun of how complicated those plots were to the point that they don't really bother to make it work on its own.

But the beautiful thing about Inherent Vice is it's great to look at and the performances are incredible and you just kind of let it wash over you and you just fall into sort of the psychedelic spell of it all. Whereas this movie didn't super have that going for it. Brown's Requiem has what I like to call Simpson syndrome. If you watch any episode of The Simpsons, it's one episode for the first half, and the plot is completely nothing that they were talking about in the first half in the second half. The issues they resolve at the end are not the issues they start with.

Which I always thought was really a bad idea for any show, because I feel like you've only got so many plots you can make work on any, especially a sitcom, that you're going to have to knock out so many in a season. Especially for that show, 25 years or however many years later, the fact that they're doubling up on their plots. There's a reason you guys have looped around and you're covering the same scenarios over and over again. I just always thought that was a bad idea because then Family Guy upped it, and now they do five plots that they've already kind of covered in any one episode because they can't focus because Seth is kind of hyper, I guess. I don't know.

Yeah, so I always thought that was weird even from the writing standpoint of a Simpsons episode. Right. So where were you going with what happens to this plot? Well, I was going to say, the plot, the first half of the movie is about him investigating this thing that's happening because a guy pays him to protect his sister. And through protecting his sister, the plot is, okay, I'm unraveling this mystery that's happening because this guy's sister is into some stuff.

And so the first half of the movie is him unraveling this mystery. At some point he figures out that one of his old nemeses from his past life is a major player. So the plot completely abandons the look after this guy's sister and solve the mystery and becomes get revenge on my old ex-boss. Yeah. So that happens somewhere in the middle of the movie.

And... And I feel like it almost plays up all the stakes more than they really are. Like some of the stuff we don't even know 100% what the stakes were, like what he's protecting her from exactly. I guess by the end we kind of do, but even then it feels like it doesn't have that much weight to it. It's just like, oh, and then so that's what was going on with her.

But I'm like, okay, but we built this whole thing up. Like you were doing this great thing trying to protect her. And like by the end he just sort of, as you said, changes direction. And then we just sort of gloss over it. thing, which I'm like, but wasn't that supposed to be, like, a big major plot point? A major, like, stakes in this game that he's playing is that this is an important thing.

And I feel like a lot of the way is through. Like, most of our characters midway in. Like, Fat Dog, which, first of all, let's address that. freddie fat dog yeah the fact that not only is he okay with it but then that's the part i was like when he was in the scenes i was like all right he said he's okay with it he likes when people but after spoiler after he's dead i'm like he's still going around going so that's what fat dog was doing right and i'm like is it really cool to still call him that he's he's not even okay with it anymore because he's dead like somehow it made it more offensive after. He was dead to call him fat dog Well, I don't think it is because Fat Dog referred to himself. He would be like, so you got any information for the Fat Dog?

Hey, the Fat Dog wants to know what's up with you. So anybody who refers to themselves as the Fat Dog, like I'm the Fat Dog. What's going on with the Fat Dog? Then it's all right. They can have a bullet in their head and you can still call him Fat Dog.

It's sad talking to people who were more or less his family and referring to him as Fat Dog. And by the way, Fat Dog just died. It all seemed very coarse and unfeeling. um but yeah for I mean to me like that again that whole first half like he's kind of supposed to be the main reason that we're going on this but also like a character that we're supposed to be invested in somehow and then he's gone and I'm like so wait what why did we even go down that road it'd be different if I think if it were a more well-structured plot you could kill off that character and then that becomes what sort of spirals him into this crazy mystery and why he really keeps digging into it. But I feel like none of those stakes are set up right.

So it just kind of feels like he's going along with this other half of the plot because he read the script. I don't feel like it's compelling enough that we feel like his character really should keep going. It's just like he's like, I don't know, this is what it says on page 63, so I'm just going to keep going. I have a question about that. And this is a question that very well may have been answered if I had, in fact, maintained consciousness.

So I apologize if this is a terrible question. But for people who haven't seen it, maybe this will walk people through it. I don't know. So it's an act. It becomes a journey of revenge.

Yes. Ultimately. Yes. About 20 minutes from the end, maybe. The whole rest of the movie, not so much.

He mentions that when he gets beaten severely. And he's like, you would think that I would stop now. And as a viewer, you're like, yes, I would. He says that a lot. Every time something happens, he says, I should have stopped right there.

It's like, you've already said that six times. I have no sympathy for your dumb ass. We're all sitting at home thinking the same thing. I should have hit stop right there. But I kept playing.

I was too invested. So I didn't really understand exactly his plan of a revenge. Ultimately, it seemed like he had all of this to really nail the guy he was after and to really take him down in a very public way. But instead, he decided to creep into his house and kill him. Why didn't he just do that at the beginning?

I guess because he didn't feel like he had a strong enough case against the guy who he wanted to kill, maybe? It didn't seem like he had his mind made up that he wanted revenge until Fat Dog's death, which Fat Dog's death triggered him to go on a drinking bender in Tijuana and hold... And be holed up in a hotel room for a few days while he drank until he got tired of drinking. Like you do. And I feel like somewhere when he was drunk in this hotel room, he decided he was just going to kill people or get revenge.

Whatever his end game was, he decided he would execute it at that point. Okay. Because I couldn't even make up my mind. And again, I don't know that the director did either. Like, I feel like he kind of goes into it like, I don't really care.

Like, I don't care if I get killed along the way. Like, I'm just going to take this guy out. And whatever happens, if I go to jail, if I get killed, I don't care. All bets are off. But then he bothers to wear gloves.

So I'm like, okay, so now it's a plot that he's trying to murder him and get away? Yeah. Which seemed like more of the plan as he went through. Because then he was like, well, the cops weren't coming. Like.

He thought he was going to get away at first before the other guy's gun went off. And then, oh, the cops are going to come now and I'm going to get busted. So I guess the plan really was to just kill him and escape and frame him. So it looked like he did all the stuff he actually did. And I don't know.

I guess that was the plot. But he also went in as though he was like, I don't care. Guns blazing. I'm going to take this guy out regardless. But he wore gloves.

I'm just like, again, I'm like, I don't know how we're supposed to feel about this guy. Yeah. Well, let's talk about the good things. All right. That scene, that two-minute scene with Brad Dourif, was maybe one of the greatest scenes ever.

Like, just from an acting standpoint. Michael Rooker and Brad Dourif in a motel room is maybe the greatest thing that ever. Happened to. Me. All right.

Let's make this fast. I don't want you here when Eddie shows up. All right. Well, I just. Want to ask you a couple of questions about the Club Utopia.

All right, what about it? Well, you owned the place, didn't you? That's right. How did you put the money together to get a club like that anyway? I saved up.

You saved up. Bullshit. Bullshit. I mean, those tracks on your arm tell your life story. You've never had a pot to piss in except for maybe, just maybe, when you were fronting for the real.

Owner of the club. Well, things were different back then. I had my shit together. Don't shit a shitter, okay? Look, I just want to die in peace.

You can dick that king. Then why don't you tell me what I want to know, and I'll get the fuck out of your hair. What do you want to know? See, that's what I wanted to go through. I was like, this is just like a character actor's role call.

Yeah. I kept thinking, like, I wonder which role they wanted Harry Dean Stanton for. I know. I was like, he didn't. He refused.

Yeah. I was like, I'm pretty sure he was the caddy at the end of the bar. That's who they wanted Harry. Dean to be. The guy that knew Fat Dog and knew where he was?

Yes. Was that guy? Yeah. Yeah. I totally see that.

I'm going through, though, and it's like, okay, so young Will Sasso, but then Harold Gould, who's been in everything. Who else did we have? I believe this was Brian James' final movie before he died. Also, there's something you want to tell people. That's sad.

Yeah. I love Brian James. I think he plays a good, slimy, ugly, terrible person in every role he's given. He excels at that role, I think. Yeah, like Brad Dourif, Tobin Bell, who had been, he wasn't even like known for what he is now, but he'd already been in a thousand movies at that point.

That Valerie, what's her last name? Perrin? The one that's the stepmother or the adopted mother. Oh, I didn't recognize her. That was one of the scenes I fell asleep to.

Yeah. And so I didn't understand how he pieced together that old dude was the dad. Did she tell him that? She, yes, she did tell him that. Well, and he went and got a, I guess, like a blood test kind of.

Like at some point he's waiting in that office. Whoa, I might have slept a lot longer than I did. They called the name of that guy. He went to the public records office to get all the public information that was available on Solly Kupferman. So maybe it was on the original birth certificate or something.

Wow, I missed that. Yeah, and the lady told him, yeah, we were foster parents for these kids. They didn't have any parents, and this old guy said we needed to take care of them or something. And that's when he discovered that the old guy was really the girl's dad, and they were having a sexual relationship. It's so badly pieced together, because we're all like, oh, and the old guy is him.

And it's like a minute and a half later. He goes. can you tell me that old guy's name? I'm like, okay, we've all known who it is for like a long time midway into this conversation. So I'm like, the fact that they still had to, just in case you're not following along, we want to spell this out for you. Okay, so speaking of spelling things out, so Fat Dog knew that that.

Was his father? No, all Fat Dog knew was that the guy was into some bad shit because Fat Dog had done some shady business that involved bombing a nightclub that that guy was affiliated with. So he knew of him personally. by his reputation for being just a general scoundrel. So all the anti-Semitism stuff wasn't self-loathing. He just really did hate Jews.

He didn't know he was Jewish. Correct. Or half-Jewish or whatever he is. Nobody knew anything beforehand. Putting it together.

Yeah. All right. Except the parents, I guess. Can anybody explain to me the reason why Walter existed in the movie? No.

Okay. Just checking. Which one is Walter? He's Kevin Corrigan. Is that the guy's name?

Hold on. He was, I think he was supposed to represent Fritz Brown's moral compass, moral center. He's the cousin. Yeah, nephew, cousin, whatever. He's the one thing in his life that he can look towards.

Otherwise, he's a completely unsympathetic character and has no moral compass. Yeah. I did like that Kevin Corrigan was sort of the stand-in for the lovely lady. Yeah, because they didn't have that at all, I was thinking. Yeah there was a lovely lady she was just uh underage but no there's not his relationship.

Yeah like she was probably more the femme fatale character in the noir rather than the like sweet little gal i got at home which was walter. Which is usually how these go is that he's caught up with the girl but he never is really caught up with any girl Even our female lead kind of disappears really early in the movie. And I didn't really understand the point of having her be 17 until I looked at the director's oeuvre and realized the only other movie he's made is also about underage girls. I saw that too. I was like, they're all 15 in this movie full of young girls.

Huh, does seem to be a theme he's got going here, doesn't it? Two for two. I think making her 17 makes her relationship with her romantic interest slash father a lot more striking than it would if she was an adult. I would be like, eh, she's 20, but she's an adult. It doesn't matter.

She's with this old dude. But if you make her underage, it just makes the whole thing a lot grosser in a way that I could appreciate. Well, I mean, it makes it, again, I guess it makes you lead into it a little more that like in the beginning, if she was 20 and with this old dude, you'd be like, oh, well, who cares? But. That's the only reason you'd be like, oh, well, she's underage, so I guess I have to pursue that.

Because by the end, it doesn't really matter. You're like, ew, gross either way. It doesn't matter if she's 17 or 25. But then it confuses me about the timeline with Fat Dog, because it seems like he would be old enough to remember who his family is, because he was firebombing places years previously. True.

Unless he was a child firebomber, which I guess is a. I just don't understand. Twice? I didn't get the impression that he wasn't a child firebomber. Because didn't the other bar just get bombed that week, though?

So is this something he was continually doing? I don't think he had anything to do with the second firebombing. I think the first firebombing... Then what. Was the point?

Again, that just seems sloppily put together. Yeah, I don't know. I think both firebombings. Because they had the, when he goes to his desks and he picks up the weird bottle of gasoline. Why wouldn't you just have like a gas can of gasoline?

Why would you need a weird little like. And how would you see it across? Probably for huffing purposes if I had to guess. He does seem like he was on several things. Yes, he does.

It would be more effective to huff gasoline from a mason jar than it would be from something with a nozzle because you could. I don't know. You seem to know a lot about this, so I will take your word. Never huffed gas in my life. If I were to huff gas, how would I do it?

Hypothetically speaking. Yeah. Yeah, I feel that the actress that played the 17-year-old was too grown up to be a 17-year-old because until she said, I'm 17, I assumed she was just a full-grown adult. Because she wasn't 17. No, yeah, she was, what, 25, maybe 26?

They tried really hard because she had a lollipop in one scene. She did. I was like, is that really? That's as far as you're going to go in this? Because, yeah, she did not seem like she was 17 at all, really.

Which, again, is why I was like, why are we making her 17? Yeah, so much of it I just didn't understand. I'm glad they gave him the line where at some point she's explaining to him that she had a relationship with the baseball player, but it was years ago. Yes. She made a point to say, but it was several years ago.

And he said, several years ago? You're fucking 13. You were 13. I'm glad he said that because everybody was thinking it. And if he wouldn't, that would have been a real faux pas.

Just kind of makes it her thing, I suppose. Yeah. I like really, really old guys. Yeah. Adults, when I'm a child.

Some would say, sure. So, I don't know, that brings me to my other main question as I went into, well, more by the end. I'm sitting there and when I'm kind of watching, I'm like, first of all, because very early on, as I said, I got a weird feeling of just sort of the quality of it. Like, do the budget limitations are kind of visible here? So I'm like, this to me feels very much like a made-for-VHS market.

And it came a little later, looking at the numbers here. But I'm like, it still kind of felt like a straight-to-VHS kind of a movie. Which, again, this is to the point where people probably don't even remember that mode anymore. But yeah, I mean, it was like that mom-and-pop video store thing hit. And then not only were people just looking to rent more stuff, but the mom and pop video stores were like, we only have so many VHS tapes.

We need more titles. So they released a lot of stuff and started producing stuff just to put on VHS because the mom and pops would buy it. I remember getting those promo copies that I was supposed to watch and review. It would have this whole big push at the beginning that was like, It would list off, like, here's the films of Tobin Bell and how much money he's made. You should buy 28 copies of this movie.

So I feel like it very much felt like it was made for a, like, sell-through-to-video market kind of a market. And it seems like that's essentially what happened to it, whether it was intended for that or not. Yeah. For the IMDb box office opening weekend, $ 3, 077. Gross, $ 3, 077.

But it came very late, too. I mean, it was almost to the point of edging its way out of that market and into the straight-to-DVD market. Because to me, it felt dated. Like, I felt like, okay, so this was, what, 84? I'm just looking at it going, it feels like about 85.

Yeah, when they made a reference to like 88, I was like, wait, that's the future. I was like, no, that's, yeah, that can't be right. It did feel dated in a way, like not dated to its time, but dated to a time that it didn't belong to. Previous to when they shot it, it felt dated. Like accidentally, not like they were trying to make a retro.

Thing, even though. It just felt like some of those just feel dated, and this one definitely did. But then I started looking, I'm like, okay. Then I started looking at the marketing, and I was like, okay, now. Now I see why this got made.

This came out in 1998. Do you know what came out in 1997? L.A. Confidential. Yeah.

That did so well, made so much money, got so much critical acclaim that somebody in Hollywood went, give me everything James Elroy's written, and I need to start producing stuff. So this was the next thing that came out. Technically, I think his other book, that was turned into the movie Cop with James Woods, came out way a long time before. But basically it was like L.A. Confidential came out, he got a ton of acclaim for being the writer of this book and them turning into this movie and they were just like grasping at anything else they could get with his name on it.

This was his first novel and I feel like maybe that factors into the writing some too, that like he wasn't quite as polished even when he wrote the original source material. So even the basic overall plot might be a little more hokey compared to as he went on and continued writing, and then the fact that someone else totally rewrote it anyway, but, so there was that, I feel like that's probably why it got greenlit right there, was the fact that L.A. Confidential came out, and they wanted to market on James Elroy's name. Then I started looking at the other marketing, the other thing was, it didn't come out till the very end of 98, and that was at the, wait, let me make sure, the, um, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, where it took the prize, I believe.

It did win the jury prize, which is a reason to maybe never go to Fort Lauderdale. Put that on your poster. But it was, so I'm guessing it didn't really hit any real theaters if it ever did, as we saw by your box office there. And even if it did, it probably didn't hit video for several months after that, which, by the way, in March of 99, Cruel Intentions came out. And suddenly Selma Blair was in the most talked about scene.

Like, for anybody who even kind of likes that movie, that's still not, you know, it's not even about the main other actors. It was that scene with Selma Blair, which really isn't that big of a deal if you ask me. Having watched it since, I'm like, we really... That's all we got worked up about. But it's funny how much press that scene got.

And suddenly Selma Blair was a name. And then looking at the rest of her run, when did she really make good on that name? Because she got so much buzz off of that role as a sub-character. She's not even one of the main really plot-involved kind of characters. The main three, none of which are her.

So I'm like... It took, what, like Hellboy before she was even in kind of a signature role after that? Like, there's a lot of other little bit roles in her kind of climbing her way up. But it's funny that they, I guess, latched onto that, too, because then the marketing, I'm going back and looking at the, what I think was one of the releases after that, is just a big headshot of Selma Blair with Michael Worker off in the back top corner area. That's what was on the VHS, I'm pretty sure.

Yep. And that's the marketing scheme there. It's like, oh, remember this girl that was in that hot movie? Here we go. And I'm like, it's all, like, you can see all the pieces falling together.

Why this got made, how it got marketed, like, everything kind of comes into play now. And I'm like, yep, this is how we got this movie. Yeah. It all starts to kind of make sense from a business standpoint. Maybe not an artistic standpoint.

Oh, on that note, yeah, one of, On that one with her head on it, it says, from the creator of L.A. Confidential, up above the title, I believe. But the other one I saw that was a different re-released version said, and I quote the box, if you loved Blood Simple, this thriller is for you. Oh, that's a bold statement. This is not Blood Simple, let me tell you.

There's a pretty intricate, well put together plot. This not really so much. So we haven't really addressed Rooker. Yes, I would like to posit a thesis. Okay.

Michael Rooker is our Warren Oates. They're both kind of crazy. I think they look so similar and they have this quality that's sort of like a little tough, but sort of inherently charming. You kind of root for him even though there's really no reason to root for him the way he's written. It's just all charisma.

Yeah. I feel like he works better in the more extreme roles he gets. Like watching him try to be a normal guy is kind of hard, but like watching him on like opposite ends of like crazy spectrum, you know, it's like, he's kind of brilliant in Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. You see him doing his crazy, over-the-top Walking Dead character. He's pretty damn good at that, too.

But you see some of the normal guy roles in the middle. There, and you're like, he's okay, I guess. It's hard to sell him as a normal guy. Where was Michael Rooker, where was his career in 1998? Because I feel like when I saw this, the only two things I had ever seen him in up to that point were uh henry portrait of a serial killer and jfk which he has a pretty minor role in but he's fine in it i think everything he's one of uh kevin costner's he's got like two little toadies that follow him around in the movie he's one of the wacky yeah he's one of those guys.

And by the way everyone's in jfk yes there's a roll call of hollywood in jfk yes but um i think it was pretty early on this was one of his probably big lead roles that he gets you know because you get Again, he goes for years and years as character actor, which is why they put him as, like, king of this roster of character actors. But, yeah, I mean, you go through. I then later remember him from, like, Cliffhanger. He's pretty good. That's about as normal a guy role as you get with him.

He's pretty awesome in that as a, you know, just for all the dumb fun that Cliffhanger is. But then you get to like, I guess for the longest time, I knew him more from Mallrats, unfortunately, because he's again, that's one of those that I'm like, he's one of the main reasons I feel like that movie is so silly. Like there's some decent writing that could have made that a pretty fun movie and like his role and they're like Jay and Silent Bob wacky antics, like make it such a ridiculous cartoony thing that like you kind of lose any of the decent writing that he put into dialogue stuff. But yeah, so for years he was finning to me and finally he started coming back and getting real, even though he's doing like Mississippi burning and like really important roles along the way.

But again, he's just, it gets overshadowed by some of the big sillier stuff that he. Did in the middle there, but it. Took a long time. I mean, I think, I think his career still wouldn't be where it is now had walking dead not come along for, for, somewhat I mean in the grand plot there he's a semi minor as far as screen time he's a pretty minor character actually but he's so like overwhelming in those scenes that he's in that like it kind of upped his ante and I think he's getting much bigger roles now and he's probably got a way bigger asking price than he ever would before Walking Dead came along yeah so yeah I think this was again probably one of his big starring roles this was him Really making it.

I got my own movie. I forgot he was in Mississippi Burning. Yeah. Mississippi Burning's a good movie. He's an impressive actor when you give him the right stuff, but it's kind of finding what fits him perfectly.

Yeah. Regular guys are hard to do for him. Should we talk about the late, great Brian James any? Since for some reason I have an incredible soft spot for him. All right.

So let's talk Tango and Cash. Brian James, ponytail, tied to a flagpole, drop a grenade down his pants. Great scene. Great movie scene. Another fine writing offering for Hollywood.

Tango and Cash. Tango and Cash was within the realm of possibilities when you said, just think of a movie. Because I actually own Tango and Cash in a double set with Cobra on DVD. Another epic film as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, we could talk about Cobra all day.

Sadly, I believe we brought up both of those on the Oscar campus. I think we did. As we're watching the Oscars, we're talking about Cobra and Tango and Cash. I talk about Cobra and Tango and Cash kind of a lot. Well, then you came to the right show.

Yeah. We need to make those happen. Yeah, but I don't know for sure if this was Brian James' last movie, but I think I remember hearing that it was at some point. Which means I heard something about Brown's Requiem that somebody said something about the movie, which is interesting. And you're like, hey, I know that movie.

I'm the only person. I'm one of $ 3, 000 worth of people that have seen that movie. You were a huge chunk of that. Let me. I can't believe that I was able...

I have very, very clear memories of walking into the Suncoast video in the Green Tree Mall in Clarksville, Indiana, seeing this movie on the shelf and buying it and taking it home. That movie was available to buy. There's probably a whole big end cap of them because there was only one guy that took one off of it. They were like, what the hell's wrong with that guy? Probably.

Oh, I don't know. I wanted to go into some of the dialogue choices. All right. Some of the voiceover nonsense that he says is odd. Some of it's just, like, so run-of-the-mill.

I'm like, what are you even telling us this for? Yeah. But then we also get, like, the fat dog, why I love golf courses discussion speech, if you will. Well, tell me, why do you sleep outside, man? You dig pussy?

Sure. You ever wanted a girl that could give you everything you ever wanted? You didn't have to worry about? I mean, you didn't have to worry about this chick fucking other guys. Her body is perfect.

You know? Just like the one you've always dreamed about. She's even nice to. Be around after you fucked her. That's how I feel about golf courses.

They're fucking... beautiful. I don't know. It was kind of painful. I was just like, what are you telling us? And why do we have to hear this right now?

Where he explains that a good golf course is like a lovely lady. That's not how he worded it. A much less gentlemanly way than I just put it. Yes, yes. That part was a little painful if you ask me.

That part was painful. I thought there were moments of brilliance peppered into... I'll give you that. I really enjoyed the part where he tells the guy when he's wearing the brass knuckles, he's like... Now, this is an unknown.

You might walk out of here today and somebody might kill you. That's an unknown. But I'm here and I'm going to kill you. That's an absolute. I was like, right on.

See, that's well written in it. In a different movie, that could be like a really good scene. But I feel like it kind of gets lost in this one. Because, yeah, when you mention it, yeah, I was like, I remember that scene. That was pretty well done.

Yeah. So, yeah, it's a shame that there are, again, that's probably something taken straight out of the novel. I did feel that way. I was like, oh, that's from the novel. They just picked that right out.

More than likely. I didn't understand. They never really explained why the Mexican guys were after Fat Dog and why they beat up Fritz when Fat Dog went to get the money. I don't think they ever explained that. Who are we claiming killed Fat Dog?

They were trying to get the ledgers, right? No. Why? Why were they... I don't think they were connected to the Ledgers in any way.

They were hired. No? Yes? Which person are we claiming actually killed Fat Dog and working for who? Because he just ended up dead, and I'm like, I don't know if I feel like retracing this.

I got the impression that the guy that told Fritz where to find Fat Dog at the Blue Church, you'll find him there. I got the impression that he killed him. Maybe those guys killed them, but again, working for. Which one of our... Probably not the guy he kills at the end because he really didn't seem to have that much going on with the rest of the plot.

So the other main guy, the old guy? I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, which person are we pinning this murder on? The voiceover narration said that they were looking for the Ledgers and wound up killing him and then he found the Ledgers. Yes.

Okay, yeah. That did happen. He did. The Ledgers were hidden. I was awake for part of the movie.

Again, we saw the ledgers. I'm just like, but who was so after them that they killed him? Which person are we pinning it on? I thought the two Mexican dudes did it and then maybe came back later to look some more. But again, what did they have to do with it other than being hired?

I think they were hired by the baseball player. Okay, so that's what I'm saying. Is it we're blaming the baseball player or the old guy or the dirty cop? There's so many people you can pin it on really up the line, but they... I feel like, again, I just don't know if I cared enough to trace it back.

What was weird was the two guys beat him up after Fat Dog ran away when they went to Long Beach to get the money, right? Or Venice Beach or wherever they went. And then those same two Mexican guys were sitting in their car across the street from Fritz's apartment the next day, which necessitated him leaving out the back so that they wouldn't see him leave, right? So then when you get to Mexico, when he finds Fat Dog's body, While he's in the process of discovering this, he hires somebody else to come dig. I was very confused about that.

He hired a guy. He was like, in Tijuana, you can find anything. So it made it sound like he just found a guy off the street to come dig a hole to bury Fat Dog in. That does seem sloppily. While that was happening, two Mexican guys that were clearly not the same guys that beat him up in Venice Beach.

I assume they were totally different guys, which also makes no sense. They were completely different actors. They were not the same guys. Yeah. They came in with a gun and he ended up killing them both because they were going to shoot him.

So they were not the same Mexican guys. So were all four of these Mexican guys, were they affiliated with the baseball player or were they affiliated with Solly Kupferman? Which I got the impression that Solly Kupferman was not the person behind all these killings. Because his clubs were the ones blowing up. And I got the impression that his main.

Villainy was that he was sleeping with his daughter. In the end. I feel like a better written. And structured plot would. Either.

Really spell it out nicely. Or would want to make you figure out. And I kind of just went. Well he's dead now. And I don't remember really worrying about him.

Like well that's happened. And now we're moving on with the rest of the story. But I don't remember being all that. Concerned about. Which way to retrace the mystery?

I'm like, I guess I'll get to it later. I don't know. I just feel like that's the part I'm like, I don't feel like any of the stakes felt like they were high enough or we were drawn into the plot enough to care about a lot of what was going on in this somewhat intricate plot. I don't know. Yeah.

There is no emotional resonance anywhere along the line. There is no reason to invest it. Yeah. I guess that's why they inserted Cousin Ira or whoever. I was trying to decide if he was the Cousin Ira from Mad About You because I felt like he was.

I was like, wasn't he Cousin Ira? I'm pretty sure that's the same guy. I don't think it is. But I was just like, he kind of felt like he was that role. It's like, well, we need him to kind of have a friend, but a friend that's, I mean, nobody's going to put up with this guy.

So I guess he's got to be kind of related to him. And so I was like, I do feel like that was just sort of jammed in there. And then like, even the way it wraps up is so like, Well, we need something to be sad. Like, because there's really, I don't know, a game with the stakes thing. He died very unceremoniously.

Yeah. And for no real reason other than we needed something to be sad so he could be telling this sad story at the end. How did he die? He just OD'd? Is that?

I don't know. See. It got worse, and then he died two weeks later. Yeah, see, he visited Walter in the hospital, who it appeared that Walter was in a coma or something, right? Yeah, but he didn't seem to have, like.

I was thinking if they were trying to suggest that he'd been beaten so severely that there would still be bruising or. He was not bruised. It looked like. There was probably some sort of drinking-related mishap that he had. Maybe he drank himself into a coma or something.

Yeah, hit his head on the coffee table. But they never said what happened to him. He was just in the hospital and unconscious. And then away from our viewing experience, Walter died at some point. Badly put together.

Also, Walter died. I feel like that was maybe the line. In the movie. Attacked on. I want to pose the theory that he died from venereal disease from that woman that he dumped him off with.

God knows what happened there. Then he would have married if she weren't a whore. If she weren't a whore. Also didn't understand that. Relationship that was never explored.

Also, why was Sully in the hospital? Why was he in a wheelchair in the hospital? No idea. No clue. He felt so guilty about sleeping with his daughter and it made him almost die and he had to go to the hospital.

And then we're supposed to understand that Selma Blair knows or has known that. He's her father. I don't think she did. But then she found out. I guess after his little interaction with her.

But then maybe he had a stroke off screen. I guess. And she felt so badly for him. She was going to take care. I feel like there's deleted scenes.

Sloppy. Slop together. And this is my, I don't know, as we get to the end, like, that's my main thing, and that's my thing with, like, them just sort of structuring it for the sake of structuring it, because this is how film noir is supposed to be, is we're supposed to have this sad story. And he's like, oh, and that's how, you know, doesn't he have something to the effect of a guy like me who has nothing to lose loses everything? Or he says something like, really, noir-y?

Yeah, how does somebody with nothing? Nothing, lose everything. Yeah. Yeah, something like that. But I'm like, so by the end, I'm like, okay, I'm like waiting for all this horrible stuff.

Nothing to lose, lose everything. I'm waiting for all this horrible stuff to happen. And by the time we get to the end, I'm like, okay, with the exception of the very forced in Cousin Iridine. Walter! With the exception of that.

I'm like, okay, number one, you aren't arrested. You saved the girl in whatever theory you're doing here. You killed the bad guy and got away with it, not arrested. You now have tons of money. Oh, yeah, the money.

I'm assuming kept all the money because where else is it going to go? Why would he not, I guess? Shouldn't he have given it to the widow of the person who, like, that was a dick move. We don't really know, actually. Which widow?

The one who was the foster mother of the... Hadn't her husband died and he was the partner of Fat Dog? And so she told him about the motel room. Yes. So rightfully isn't a great.

Deal of that. Does that seem like something he would do? I'm just saying. As the character he is, he'd probably just rather drink it all. Yeah, we don't know for sure.

He might have given her some money. I would like that to actually be on screen. But again, not really a sad part of this tale, as I found tons of cash that no one needs to know about. But see, I feel like they kind of made her unsympathetic too because even though her husband had died, she answered the door holding a beer and then she said, by the way, I've been sober for three weeks or something, but she's drunk. That's because her husband just died.

That's what the movie's about. Terrible experiences make you go back to the bottle. True, but I don't feel like they made her. I don't think she was a celebrity. It wasn't a celebratory drunk.

It was a I'm sad, now I'm drunk. True but they didn't make her they could have done that in a way that made her more sympathetic given her circumstances but she was just kind of like fuck it i don't know my husband died we raised these kids i don't take this goddamn key i don't want it like that's that was her attitude it didn't look like she was really sad about any of it. And that leads to my final awesome thing that happened in his life he now can start his own golf ball business look at all those golf balls he's sitting on top of the guy's selling them like a pocket full at a time as he goes along and getting by so like that's after he drinks away all this cash that he's sitting on he can probably get by pretty far selling golf balls he's got a pretty sweet life other than cousin.

Ira dying right and the two uh there were two caddies and one caddy that we were introduced to that new fat dog and two other caddies that uh one was married to the lady And then there was a third caddy that I don't even know if he had a name, but at some point these three caddies are murdered with a shotgun, apparently. Under an overpass, if I remember correctly. For no real purpose. Well, I think that was to frame him, right? I guess.

Yeah, because he had a shotgun. But even as they brought him into the plot, I was like, what is this guy with the guitar doing? I'm like, it just didn't even feel like that was going to go anywhere. And it kind of sort of does, maybe. I don't know.

It just felt like he just kept bringing in other characters. Like, well, we already talked to some weird guy at a bar about Fat Dog. So now we have another weird guy at a bar. It just felt weird. Disconnected, if nothing else.

What I'm wondering is, at least in Mexico, people were familiar with Fat Dog's golf ball smuggling ways. Because they referenced, I don't know, Big Harry Vato smuggling golf balls. Like the dude at the golf course in Tijuana says something along those lines? Everybody knows what Fat Dog does. So we know that... we know that people know that fat dog had this weird relationship with golf balls.

And we also know that people know that fat dog was affiliated, had a partner in this golf ball smuggling situation that ended up also killed along, not with fat dog, but he and fat dog were both killed at some point. So that leads me to think that somebody probably would have been onto the fact that this dude and fat dog had golf balls somewhere, right? Warehouse full of golf balls. Wouldn't you think that these two people that are clearly troubled, troubled enough that they need to be murdered, executed, maybe we should follow their golf ball trail back? Because at the end of the movie, when Fritz goes in, when the lady's like, fuck it, take this key, I don't ever want to see it again, and she just nonchalantly hands him this key, which is a key to a hotel room full of golf balls and with as far as we know thousands or millions of dollars buried under the golf balls why did why was this just a oh take this key i don't want it anymore and fritz freely walks in like why weren't these two executed characters why wasn't their stash of golf balls found by people who wanted them dead that's.

What i was gonna say like how is it that nobody had gotten around to going to check out that i could care like i know the mom type character could care less but like everybody else was investigating what he was up to like it seems like they would have seen him coming and going out of that place or like everybody seemed to know that guy like wouldn't they be like hey this really big dude that smells bad like i always see him going over there like for all these people that were following and like involved in this it seems like somebody would have been like let's figure out what was in that room that he used to always stash stuff in Like a lot of cash. I don't know. I also didn't understand, speaking of following people and effective measures thereof, I didn't understand the Mexicans and why they were like, okay, we need to find Fat Dog, so we will find the guy.

That Fat Dog hired. But now we can't find that guy, so we'll find his cousin to find out where he is, to find out where. Fat Dog is. Everyone in this movie is a bad detective. Yes.

As we find out, like the very first time he's tailing her in the beginning and he waves at her and introduces himself. Like you're a terrible detective. Tailing her in his vintage convertible. And there was also a thing that happened twice that I really enjoyed when he walks in and sees her playing piano and she was like, oh, so you're here for piano lessons? He was like, yeah, I'm here for piano lessons.

She was like, So you play, and he stares at her blankly and says, no, no, I don't play piano. No. And for some reason, that made me giggle. And then she was asking him these questions. He was like, well, I'll see.

And he made up this big elaborate lie. That story is ridiculous. And then later, he's talking to Fat Dog. He was like, you've got to help my sister. There are people chasing me.

He's like, whoa, wait, what? There are people chasing you? And Fat Dog gives him the same blank look and says, What? No. There are no people chasing me.

You just said there are people chasing you. No, there aren't people chasing me. Why would you say that? Again, it's written like this is supposed to be a different type of... If that were a comedy, those would be hilarious on purpose.

But it feels like this is supposed to be serious. But they put in these beats that are like... Wait, is that a joke? Are you now coming back to it and doing it again? It's so uneven.

I just like the idea of telling somebody something and then when they want me to expound upon it, I deny that I ever said anything about it. Let alone that it was like 10 seconds before. And I'm like, you know, so I do a podcast and it's cool. And you're like, oh, you do a podcast? What's your podcast about?

I say, I don't do a podcast. What are you talking about? I've never heard of a podcast. What a podcast? Is that like an internet radio show thing?

I don't know what that is. You just quoted the rest of the world. What's a podcast? So, okay, of our weird readings into this movie is it just me or i don't know much about this writer director but do we feel like there's something weird in his past that everybody had some sort of suspicions about somebody being a pervert everybody was doing something with young kids whether it be a 17 year old girl or young boys or it just comes up what at least three maybe four times in this movie For no good reason. Like, for no conceivable reason other than it keeps...

So, I don't know if that's in the novel or not, but I feel like it's very forced into this movie, and then knowing what he did the next movie around, many years later, he's still beating this topic. It was a lot of gratuitous pedophilia. Yeah. Again, for no real reason. Like, if that really was a tie-in, because I feel like it's so minor in her role, because she's so minor...

That it's not really a major part of the plot as we come to know it by the end of the movie. So I'm like, why do we keep bringing this up again? Like, it's very odd. Yes. Yes, it is.

And the unnecessary racism that happened. Like, I get it. It was the late 90s. Pulp fiction made it cool to say racist shit on screen because it's edgy or whatever. So, I mean, I get that.

But, I mean, it was just kind of shoehorned in where it didn't belong in any time. There's unnecessary swearing or unnecessary offensive stuff where you could be fine without it. It makes me suspicious. Why does this need to be a thing? But I like that Michael Rooker cut it down.

He was like, no, I like... Jewish people as well as African Americans. Let's not have that talk anymore. Yes, yes. And also, I think along those lines, it's important to note that of all the characters with their weird pedophilia shit, Michael Rooker did not have that.

He was not one of the characters. He didn't even care about girls. So far as we know, the only romantic relationship he ever had was with a hooker that he set his cousin up with. And we didn't even see that he just referenced it yeah and truthfully he probably didn't i don't know we got that he just was in love with her he may have never had sex as far as we know. No at the beginning i've this is this is an interesting detail at the beginning uh uh he asked his boss at the repo place he's like so how are things going with so and so and he's like oh no big deal i'm just fucking your wife ha ha ha and and which uh the way it was worded made me think that uh Michael Rooker's ex-wife had a wife at some point, but she left him for this guy that he now works for.

And I thought that was interesting, but that's really the only sense that he ever had in any sort of romantic relationship. other than with the prostitute that he doesn't seem to really care about when he talks to her. That he passed off to some other dude, which maybe that's what you do with prostitutes. I don't know. I thought you were supposed to find the one with the heart of gold, but that's just me. You read too much Catcher in the Rye.

Oh, that's it. But yeah, as to that first scene there, that was my first red flag because the back and forth between them is so awkward that I was just like, whoa, which way is this going to go? Because it already, at that point, was just like, those two like the lines back and forth and the car dealer guys not the best actor i don't know who he was but i don't know i felt like that was already like trouble from the very beginning there and it gets better as it goes along and then it gets worse here and there but i don't know i i thought that scene was very weird there's a lot of weird scenes in this. Movie no but the scene with brad durif golden who's brad durif He is the former. Heroin addict, now alcoholic, who's dying of cancer.

Yeah, he had to go into his bathroom and spike up before he had the conversation with him. Brad Dourif's kind of always awesome. He's amazing. Is there ever a bad performance? Yeah, he's always pretty damn cool.

And he just commits to this movie. I was gonna say this terrible movie but i don't want to say that you chose it and i feel badly i. Am not going to argue you that it's terrible i can enjoy something and recognize that it's probably not the greatest movie i. Do that too and i will do that in like the awesomely bad way i don't feel that this is that it's just like i said it's in the middle like it's just like it's got a lot of problems but it's watchable like i don't hate it i'm like i can't stand this movie like it's just kind of like yep, I saw that movie. It's just somewhere in the middle of all this mess.

What endears me to it is that it really does feel like it's a movie that a guy made with his friends. And they weren't really as concerned about how it turned out as he was with like, let's just do this thing. I read this book. It's pretty cool. Are you guys free on Friday?

Could you come over and do a movie? And that's how it came together along with what you were saying before. And I think that gives it a charm that If it didn't have that kind of feel to it to me, I would just be like, well, this is garbage. It's probably all of those. It's probably one of those.

He read that book years before and was like, guys, we should really make this movie. He'd been planning it forever. And he'd been bugging some guy at a studio. He's like, we're not going to make your dumb movie. And then LA Confidential comes out.

He's like, hey, did you buy the rights to that book that nobody wanted? Yeah. So it probably was all of those things put together. Yeah. And I think that gave it a charm that it wouldn't have otherwise been. had, probably.

Probably. And for Michael Rooker fans. I mean, it's... If you like him in any sense, you kind of gotta go all in and be like, alright, he's still pretty fun here. Him trying to ramble and make up the lie about the piano is pretty damn entertaining.

I don't know if it makes any sense in the screenwriting aspect, but his performance is pretty fun along the way. You kind of gotta like it for Rooker. Yeah. Anything else? I think we've definitely given the...

We've. Almost talked about this movie for as long as the movie actually is. That's how movie meltdown goes. That's how we operate. And we included more plot points than the movie did.

We did. And I think we fixed a lot of the things that might have been wrong with it, too. So when the three of us are ready to sit down and reboot Brown's Requiem. It's about time. You know, we could probably...

If we actually did that, we could probably get Michael Rooker to come back and do this same role again and... It wouldn't really make... He hasn't really aged a lot. I mean, he's older, clearly, but... He doesn't look that different.

But he always kind of looked... As a young man, he kind of looked like an old young man. He was never a young man, yeah. I think that's it. So we could probably make this happen.

Yeah. Get Michael Walker on the phone. Yeah. Having just seen him recently, he's... I don't understand how he makes any of his roles work, truthfully.

Because at that last convention-y thing we went to, I've seen him several times over the years. Last year, we talked about how he was just, when we were set up at that one convention, he had a table there, I'm using air quotes, because all he did, we never saw him at his table. He walked around the entire time. He was only there like one of the two days he was supposed. To be there.

He was just wandering around indoors with sunglasses on, At one point, somebody walked by with a pizza that I don't know if it was for him or not, but he just grabbed a piece out of it and kept going. So he's got a coffee in one hand, sunglasses on, a slice of pizza in the other, just walking through talking to people, right? We have bad, like, in motion photos because he wouldn't stand still long enough to get an actual photo of this happening. So there's like a half blurry photo of Michael Rooker with a pizza slice in his hand, like walking around, just like constantly talking to people in the, hey, honey, how's it going? Hey, like, it's just, he's, everybody that goes by knows he's Michael Rooker.

So everybody's like, and so he has to respond to everybody because he's Michael Rooker. Oh, my God. That was funny enough. But in this past time, they did a Guardians of the Galaxy panel, which at this convention, there weren't really a lot of people from Guardians of the Galaxy. So it was mostly the Michael Rooker show and watching him up there, like he's just an insane person.

Like he's just, he's on constantly, but he's on in the Michael Rooker way. Like everything. Like a weird dad way. It's just Michael Rooker mode. Like if you know him, you get it and you love him.

And everybody else is just like, what is wrong with that man? He's on in an off way. Yeah, he's just. he is Michael Rooker. That's why I say, like, he kinda, if you like him, you're probably gonna be at least okay with this movie, because he's just, he's, he's so Michael Rooker, and he's so entertaining in his own weird Rooker way, so, yeah, having seen him several times in the last couple years, I, I don't understand how he focuses enough to get a movie out, especially, like, some of these really, like, Mississippi burning, and, like, making these really serious, like, heavy performances, and kind of work. I don't know how he does it, but more power to him because when he's good, he is damn good.

If I ever meet him, I'm only going to ask him questions about this movie specifically. And I believe his response will be, what? Yeah. Nobody's ever asked me about that movie before. He's notorious for not knowing the movies that he made on another show out there where they did nothing but ask questions about movies on his IMDb lineup, and he got none of them.

They're naming people. They're naming years. He couldn't remember any of them. So I get the feeling you'd be the one that knew way more about the movie you're asking questions about. Yes, I think at this point the three of us are experts on this movie.

We're the only three experts on this movie in the world. Maybe more so than the director. Yeah. All right, have we rounded things out here in the worker land? I think so.

I think I said everything I came here to say. I'm going to leave you guys and you can. Hang out here while I'm gone. I guess. As you do that, give them another plug for your show.

Uh, you, the, you ate it podcast, www dot Y O U E I G H T I T dot C O M. Uh, listen to it. People seem to listen to it. People just don't want to be on it. So that's, that's the problem I'm having.

It's a, it's a show that re that, uh, requires guests to come on and talk about things they enjoy. And people seem to like listening to it. They just don't like to be on the show, apparently. Not everybody, because we're going to remedy that in the near future. Yes.

There may just be an episode that Lucy and I show up on. Maybe. You know, I don't want to commit to anything this late in the game. I don't know. We'll see if you can win us over.

But for, you know, Movie Meltdown fans, there's a pretty recent entry that has Fred talking... In his Fred way. Speaking of people that are like Crazy Michael Rooker, Crazy Fred is his own crazy thing. And movie meltdown fans love him. So go.

There's not just one, but a two-parter episode with Fred. Yeah, we talked for almost. Is there any other way? Yeah, we talked for almost four hours. Because Fred knows what he's doing.

He knows how to tell Fred stories. Fred stories are my favorite. And there's a whole bunch of them on Michael's show. So go check out previous episodes, including Fred's episode. One and two.

Yes. I'm going to do a prequel with him someday where we talk about things that happened before his first episode. Fred can do that. Okay. He's that skilled.

Duly noted. All right. I think that wraps it up here. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time.

Same Geek Feed. Thanks for listening. There's a government whip cracked across your back Where the order of the day is don't listen, attack See the blood run down in your bushwhack town Revolution is the gimmick of a jokerless clown You're the volley system for the taxman's gun. Talk, don't talk, give you nothing. To say Walk, don't walk, if your feet don't roll away Refuge our war with the sun that lights the day.

Bridge the darkness and the prize of another great shame. But with you, my love, with you, my love. With you, I will return. In requiem for a dying soul. Grab the barrel.

By the face, shoot the auto-release. Shoot the bullet in your pocket, turn away and retreat. See the terror in the eye of a bloodshot child. He rubbed a lady's belly and the promise of a loss. Operation Liberation, tell me you can decide.

Oh, talk, don't talk, give you nothing to say. Walk, don't walk, keep your feet, don't blow away. Requiem for a dying son. Here to shoot me in the shameful. The prize of anonymous shame But with you.

My love With you, my love. With you, I will return The grip we have for. A dying soul Agony From every corner and every street Ignite your lost self with the fear of this explosion. Don't listen and attack. Talk, don't talk, give you nothing to say.

Walk, don't walk, keep your. Feet on all the way. And not a great shame But with. You, my love With you, my lover With you, I will return. In requiem for a dying soul With you, my lover With.

You, I will return In requiem for a dying. Soul So tell me your story, fat dog. I was amused by that. I don't think anyone else got it, which is why I was amused by it so much. I was like, the three people who recognize this is the same person will love that.

No one else cares. You're writing for the writers there. Oh, yeah. That's everything I do at this point. It's all just, what can I do?

No one else cares. What can I do to amuse myself? That's right. I mean, if you didn't have that, you would have no show. 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.