There's No Escape from the Bronx

Hey there, I'm Joanna Cassidy, and I am listening to Movie Meltdown. It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power.

What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. And I'm George. And we're coming to you live via digital recording from the Oddity Studios. Back. to round out the trilogy.

What trilogy is it? Star Wars is Lord of the Rings. No, no, no. We'll, we'll get to that in a minute. So before we, uh, ruin your lives with that, we'll address the usual semi usual question.

Um, have you seen anything interesting lately? Uh, a few things. Yeah. Um, let's see. I went to theaters, uh, to actually go see Dune part two.

Uh, All right, right to the important part. Popcorn bucket? No, no popcorn bucket. Fine. A, my theater was sold out, and B, those things are going online for upwards of $ 100.

So it's not worth finishing in there because you'll never be able to sell it. Well, you might be able to finish in the popcorn bucket. That's entirely your own business. I mean, that's what it's good for as far as I can tell. I just rewatched.

I forgot about the SNL series. Yeah. And it was on last night. I was like, man, that is good. Because they just build up to it before you know it's coming.

It's like, there it is. They totally commit to the... flesh likeness of it all I mean as soon as I saw the damn thing like somebody is going to stick their penis in there well I was. Like it's what I keep thinking when these kind of ridiculous things come up and I'm like they're in every business now there's a boardroom there's a committee over every stupid little decision somebody sitting at that giant ass conference table didn't go um. Guys know what and Really. I mean, just somebody.

That's why you need to bring in some regular weirdos like us to sit at the. Table to be like, you know what's going to happen with this? Let me tell you. Anytime I was working in the news business and we're talking headlines or stories or whatever else like that, Everything we talk about in these meetings and preparations, we need to have past the 12-year-old boy. Yeah.

Like, can you sit there and tell this story or relay this headline to a 12-year-old boy and he won't giggle because he'll find something naughty about it? Yeah. Basically, because you're just getting yourself in trouble after you've thrown it out there and it's too late. Can't take it back anymore. Yeah.

Nobody's ever going to think about Dune 2 without that being attached to it. Exactly, yeah. So distractions aside, myself to blame. How was Dune 2? It was a fine film.

The cinematography is beautiful in it. Denis Villeneuve, I really like his take on things. He's impressive. Even if you don't like this giant-ass story that he's telling, just as a filmmaker, he's really impressive. That second hour drags like a bastard, though, I will say.

First hour is very exciting. Third hour is magnificent. That second hour, I'd dose off twice. I feel like there's an asterisk on every Dune. Welcome to Dune. settle in you're gonna be here for a while you're probably not gonna need all of this bullshit but here we go like.

Yeah i mean that's like i mean i know this story really well i've seen every iteration of film i. Don't because i can't ever really make enough sense of it like again i always love the visuals i always think some of the concepts are cool and then i'm like we get into the weird space politics and spice minds and i'm just i I don't care anymore. It's just too much. He was making an allegory for us going into the Middle East for the first time. And kind of trying to colonize and explore that area.

And, oh, they got a whole bunch of oil and stuff like that. Everybody needs oil. And so now that's the most important place in the world now. And that's literally everything about Dune. The Fremen are basically, you know, the Afghanis or the Iraqis or the Iranians.

Or if they're even terrorists, you wouldn't even want to call them. You know, Al-Qaeda or, you know. Whatever else. That's all the original run. I know as time went on, all of the fans, and I know I was just listening to a show that went into the whole overall story of Dune, and they were basically saying eventually it gets a very religious take on it in the book series.

But they were like, he didn't even have that in that first book. It's like that comes into play more as he wrote the sequels and stuff. But that first story was kind of just that simple, if you want to use the term simple for Dune. But it was. A way more concentrated version that didn't have near as many overarching thematic sort of religious overtones kind of stuff that comes into play way later.

Because I think he just needed something else to write about. And David Lynch, his version in the 80s kind of he kind of jumped ahead a little bit too. So he kind of fast-forwarded almost into the third book with getting some of Paul's godlike abilities and basically bringing in the sister earlier than she needed to be. Because that's the one thing I like about the Dennisville news. You see visions of his sister when the mother goes through this specific ceremony without getting into too much detail.

She's already pregnant. And so when mom goes to the ceremony... this daughter essentially also goes through it as well. So basically this child is already able to telepathically communicate with her mother and brother. And, you know, it's like, she's, she's going to come out of the womb, like talking like, Hey, how you doing? You know, you know, kind of thing, but with crazy powers.

And all kinds of complicated. Um, But, so they're already telegraphing for the next movie. Yeah. And Anya Taylor-Joy has a built-in role because she, they already threw her in, like, as basically saw, like, the adult version of her and that was who she was. Just solid planning.

Because, you know, she's taken over, like, from being kind of a new up-and-coming actress to she is the go-to now. She's... just behind Zendaya. They kind of came out of nowhere and just took over the industry. Exactly. And more power to them because they're both impressive.

Yeah, I would say right now Cindy Sweeney is coming in a solid third. I would say almost daring to tie Zendaya. Which is really weird because she, like all of the stuff, I was looking back because up until again, I think when she was on, no, I saw the trailers for that new dumb rom-com. And I was like, who is she? And then she was on SNL.

And I was like, how did she get to host Zendaya? And then I look back and I'm like, no, she's in all this stuff. I just have not watched any of it. She came from a lot more dumb stuff that I didn't care about. Yeah, and there's a heavy rumor that there's going to be a Barbarella remake and she's Barbarella.

I can see that. Yeah, because she keeps saying she wants to do like a sci-fi or fantasy kind of thing. And so there's a big heavy rumor that's going to be. I was like, that's a great casting choice because Barbarella in the French stories and the sci-fi and the comics, whatever else, she's bang. So I'm just going to say, and she enjoys the sex.

That all kind of comes into play with her adventures is sex and nudity and all that kind of stuff like that. It's also a bit of a parody on the sci-fi shit as well. So it's almost kind of making fun of that sort of thing. They definitely teased that in the original movie, but it was also like 60s, so there's only so much they could do at that point. It was pretty tame, except for the thing where they put Her and the orgasm machine, essentially.

And so you're like, okay. I'm still disturbed by the dolls, really. I'm like, all the sex is not near as disturbing as the weird little creepy dolls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some weird stuff going on there.

But, yeah, still, you know, in the grand scheme kind of tame compared to stuff being thrown at us today. Yeah. And, of course, she's got a new movie that's out in theaters right now, some horror movie. If anybody decided to put her in a nun habit, I mean, it's almost like its own joke, basically, for knowing the things that she's very famous for. Like, no, no, let's cover you up completely.

Well, it's like she's like a nun that gets possessed so she becomes a sexy nun or something. I can't remember. I've actually heard good reviews. Yeah, and like she's very like willing to lean into that. Like she knows that's kind of the joke of it.

Like she's almost, well, again, I didn't have much faith in her coming into this. And then she's pretty solid on SNL. And then after that I've seen some interviews and I'm like, She seems like she's in charge of these things going on. She's not just being used for her attributes. She's kind of smart enough to be like, no, I know this is how I look.

I know how people are going. To see me. What if I play with that? What if I use that for my upcoming projects? And I'm like, that's smart.

Yeah, if she's in control and that's her play, then yeah, that is very smart. That makes it fine, yeah. It's like you've got a very. Limited window of how you're going to look like that because time will catch I mean you can work out as much you want you know whatever else time will eventually catch up with you so you won't be As gorgeous as you are, things will start to droop and sag, and things happen. And even that aside, you just won't want to do any of that anymore.

Sure, yeah. You're like, everything hurts now. I don't want to make more than one movie every couple of years. I'm 45. No one wants to see my titties right now.

I'm tired. So yeah, she's smart for doing it now. I love the whole gag she had on SNL. It's like, do this, this, and if it doesn't work out, show your boobs. It's like, here you go, hon.

I do like that they bothered to write a Hooters sketch. I was like, it's a knockoff version, but basically, yeah. I love that. Everybody's bringing stacks of hundreds. It's like, here, I took out my kid's college fund.

Here you go, here's your tip. The other girls are coming up and being like, no, we don't want you. Go get her. I was like, wow. That is how stupid men operate.

So, yeah, I get it. I get it. So, yeah, I've been actually more impressed with her as time's gone on. I came into it not really knowing much about her. But it's promising.

I like that. It is, yeah. And then going back, I've seen a couple older things. Well, in line with Dune, probably my favorite iteration is the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune. I do feel like I watched that when it first came out.

And again, what I've seen of his work is about as insane as everything going on in any version of Dune. So if anybody could have done something interesting with it, kind of right up there with Lynch. But you'd have to let Lynch be Lynch, which they would not do. And he wasn't really. I mean, at that point, he wasn't really.

I mean, he was that weird guy who made a movie that almost nobody saw. Then he made a relatively straight movie. And then they handed you the biggest budget movie ever made. So. And then wouldn't let him make it the way he wants to make it.

So that wasn't really his fault. But yeah, the other version there, the one in the documentary, seems like the kind of thing that I'm like. All right, I would watch that. I still don't know that it would be successful. The thing I love about the documentary is, of course, Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Yeah, he's weird. He's out there. But man, the dude's an artist. He's got some integrity. And he's so damn charming.

Yeah. He's a lovable guy. He really is. Which is so weird when you look at the things he makes. They're so insane and weird and perverted.

Like, he's a creepy dude, artistically speaking. He's very creepy. But then as a guy, yeah, I've seen interviews, and I'm like, wait, that's the guy that made this? Yeah. And then, like, when he was younger, he was a very dashing and, you know, good-looking Italian guy.

Yeah, yeah. Wait, no, he's not Italian. He's, oh, shit. I got a man's nationality wrong. Anyway.

He's a crazy person. But yeah, very dashing young man or whatever else. But yeah, that movie would have been insane if it had come out. Oh, yeah. The thing I love, the man never read the book.

Never read the book. He just heard basically a friend of his kind of give his review and tell him about the story. And he's like, that sounds fascinating. I want to make a movie about that. I mean...

I don't want to read. That's how I'm going to make movies, too. Yeah. But it's also, like I said, it's fascinating that, like, you know, he grabbed Mobius. He grabbed Dan O'Bannon.

He grabbed, oh, what, the alien guy, H.R. Giger. Yeah. You know, all the technical people and artists that Alejandro, you know, recruited to make this movie, Dino DeLorenzo, got them to make his movie. Speaking of the highest quality.

Yeah, and they didn't want Alejandro, but let's get Lynch. And then basically, like you just said, they completely. And again, didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Completely neutered Lynch. One of my favorite parts of the documentary is he goes to see the movie, Alejandro goes to see the movie, and.

He's like, it was awful! I loved it. It was fantastic. He's like, but it was also, it made me sad because I know that's not Lynch. Yeah.

That's the producer that did that. And Lynch will tell you that. That's the difference. Guess who didn't go see the new Dune movie? David Lynch.

Yeah. They ask him, he's like, I don't want anything to do with Dune. He's like, I'm not going to see that movie. I'm not going to watch my, I don't claim that movie is one of my movies. Yeah.

It is still, of all these years later, a sore spot. Yeah, because he claims everything else he did is all the other stuff, some of which were way more involved with studios. But Dune is the one he's like, nope, that is not my movie. Nope, not even close. Yeah, and I still get some intrinsic enjoyment of the 84 film because that's the one I grew up on for.

So many years. Visuals are amazing. Like, again, you at least see what was going on there, some of which maybe was rescued from that other version, you know, visually, concept-wise anyway. Yeah. And then just Lynch still has such a flair for that that, like, you see part of it.

It's just, it's a bastardized version of what it could have been. But, you know, it's, yeah, I think it's still so visually amazing. It's cool. Yeah. But since now that, you know, there's interest now in Dune Part 1 and Part 2's out in theaters, Alejandro's, or Jodorowsky's Dune is actually on Max currently.

So I'm like, ah, good. Major platform. Let's get it. Yeah, so. Like I said, just a very charming documentary.

And also, it's interesting, at the end of the movie, they're like, okay, so since Dune came out, here's all these other sci-fi action fantasy films that... heard about Jodorowsky's Dune. Because basically this whole story, even sometimes the script and the ideas were all passed around for like 30 years throughout Hollywood. It was like, these are mind-blowing ideas. And nobody can do them. But so many other movies took parts.

He wanted to begin Dune with basically, we're starting here and then we're at the furthest point of the universe and keep zooming in, zooming in, zooming in and traveling throughout the universe. To get to this one point, and that's where our story begins. This is mind-blowing, traveling through the galaxy sort of thing to begin your film with. And what film did that? Contact.

Or with the slowing down of time and dodging things and doing superhuman things. Feats in the real world. What was used that later? The Matrix. After they stole it from Blade.

Yeah. You know, so it's like, you know, or like the visuals of, you know, Blade Runner. Definitely. You know, basically you wouldn't have had that without having Jodorowsky's death. To me, the most go-to is like. even the elements of Star Wars.

Like, Lucas was a big Dune fan. Yes, he was. So why are they talking about spice? Why are there spice wars? Why is there a giant snake skeleton there?

It's like he didn't have the visuals to do all of that, but. He's like, I want a touch of that. I want just a little bit, because I'm a big Dune geek. So, again, even the most successful sci-fi movie of that time, like, was still kind of, you know, riding a little bit of the Dune... you know, ideas at least. Yeah, even the documentary's director, you know, people kind of basically pretty much say, like, the entire lightsaber fights in the original Star Wars were lifted straight from Jodorowsky's Doom.

Yeah. Because the sword fighting, like, the way everything was, you know, storyboarded out. It's like, that was lifted straight from that. So, there's so much stuff that's borrowed from this idea so that, in one way, Jodorowsky's vision does live on, you know, in this documentary through other films that have used his ideas, whatnot. But yeah, I was like, I.

Would have really have liked to see his version. That's the only reason I knew there was a previous version years and years ago, because I was such a Giger geek that like I had, I was buying those books as like a teenager, just like looking at his weird ass artwork. I love that guy. Speaking of another crazy old bastard, he's a weird dude, obviously just looking at his artwork, but you get in there and it's like, before you even get to the alien concept art, here's these Dune things that got sketched out and just like nothing came of them. So yeah, I remember having a book that had the couple of different.

Sketches that he did for it. And I'm like, where's this movie? I just want to see these vigils come to life. So yeah. And this would have been, you know, it was like they started developing this like 74.

So this would have been like, you know, midway through the seventies where this would have come out and if Paramount had actually put it out too, that's like they approached Paramount with this. It was like, yeah, they were like, no. There's no, again, like even now you're. Pushing it to be able to do the technical stuff. And like now we have freedom to kind of do anything.

It may or may not look good, but we can do just about anything now. But like mid-70s version of sci-fi was, again, just to get to where Star Wars was, was pushing it. Well, the thing is that, you know, 2001 inspired everybody. And with its technical achievements and whatever else to. Be able to do. pretty real world about.

It and like we're trying to not do anything too fantastical because he wanted it kind of hard science and ground out as best as it could so again it's it's more impressive because it looks as realistic as. It does yeah but again it was still no one had ever seen anything like yeah before and so that inspired everybody so basically you know yodorovsky's like okay uh 2001 was amazing i want to make a movie that's further out than 2001 you know So, basically, it makes this look completely tame. And it would have been. It sure as shit would have been. He made a lot of crazy-ass movies.

So, you can go watch his other stuff and be like, yeah, these are insane. So, who knows what Dune... You might not have even been able to piece together a story of Dune based on... some of his other insanity. Well, that's the weird thing is that for a guy who didn't read the book, he had the story down really well. There was a lot of stuff he added and there was much more.

Of the God stuff thrown in later on, even in, like, the fight scene between Paul and Fade, Fade actually kills Paul, but then Paul immediately is resurrected right there, you know, as God version Paul, and so then, you know, like, He turns fade to dust, kind of shit like that. So it's like immediately he kicks into the weird shit. But for the most part, he had the story. And how long was his movie going to be? Because it's so impossible to tell this story even in a two-hour version, let alone as.

We see now. When they originally approached Paramount, it was going to clock in somewhere around five hours. Yeah, that does not surprise me. and i feel like paramount would have been like not a chance in hell is that happening yeah and he and he was and he didn't want to split it he's like no well you know. It's an experience you're gonna sit there for five hours like i mean there are a lot of movies out there like that now i guess it's a lot easier to do in digital format versus dragging prints around with. You but yeah i keep i don't have patience for most of that but i do hear like so many especially from other countries that they're like Well, here's this documentary that's nine hours long.

Jesus, what? But it's still a movie. It's not meant to be like a series. It is a go sit in the theater for nine hours and maybe we'll. Take a break midway through.

And I'm just like, that is a lot to deal with, man. That is. I mean, you know. Sometimes 90 minutes is rough. Yeah, I mean, you know, in the 60s and the 70s, you know, when you had your big epic, you know, your L.C.

And the Ten Commandments and, you know, Ben-Hur. Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence of Arabia, like there were intermissions. Yeah, they gave you a chance to go get some more popcorn. Go hit the bathroom.

Hell, Monty Python and the Holy Grail gives you an intermission for God's sakes. If nothing else, just because it's funny. Yeah, it's funny. Because their movie's like barely two hours. But nonetheless, it's like, why don't we have.

I mean, granted, that was a device to basically change out prints. Yeah, it was real world more than anything. Yeah, but in the digital world, we don't have to worry about that anymore. But we still have to piss for God's sakes. Well, and we keep making these three, three and a half hour movies sometimes.

And it's like, what? Guys, really, we've got to work on something here. Yikes. To go, though, from that to what we're about to talk about. Well, I've got one, and I was trying to think of something I'd seen lately, and then I was like, well, how do I...

Sometimes we'll try to find something that's sort of fitting with what we're talking about. Other times I'll, like, counterbalance and go the other way. This one's kind of both. It's... It's the opposite because it's a giant, big studio movie, but it's also a disaster all on its own.

So I will go back and say I have brought up many a time on this show one of my go-to movies as a kid, one of the reasons I am the dork I am and I love big, cheesy Hollywood movies. As a kid, I could not get enough of the Poseidon Adventure. Ah. I don't even know what it was. Because I didn't get into that many other disaster movies of the time, of which there were quite a few.

And some of them, I'm still going back going, wait, I don't think I've even seen this one. But that one hit, and I saw it on TV, I'm assuming. Yeah. And then I saw it. Every time it would be like, Sunday night movie, The Poseidon, and I'd be there every time.

I'd be like, yes, flip that bitch over, let's go. So I just thought it was the coolest freaking thing, and I still do. There's no joke. Yeah, the original's a classic. I will certainly defend it alongside you, yes.

It works on both. It's popcorn, but at the same time, it's really well made. It is. It's surprisingly well, and as I'll find out, really well made. But the funny thing was, and I feel like somewhere along the way I watched the sequel and it's fun for its own cheesiness.

But other than that, and when they rolled around. In 2006 and decided to do a remake, I just never, I was like, eh, whatever. And I hadn't paid attention, which was a little weird, mostly because I actually knew somebody, and technically they were on the show many, many years ago who worked on that movie. And actually, I remembered I knew them at the time when they left town to go for a couple of months and they were doing production work and set design. And so it's like I had a specific tie-in to it, and I still just kind of went, eh, whatever.

So what's funny even more, dorky on my part, is what pushed it over the edge finally was I saw, once again, rabbit hole off of this show. I'm looking for something 10 steps over and somehow got to the trailer for this most recent. One and went, wait, is that Emmy Rossum? So that's what won me over. I knew the other big cast.

I don't think I even knew. She's sort of our, I guess if there's a female lead, we'll get into that in a minute. But yeah, I've been, I always, I got a weird thing for Emmy. I always had a thing for, and when I started watching Shameless, and then I moved and didn't have cable, so I missed a lot of the tail end of it. So I went back and started re-watching it, and I'm just so obsessed with their horrible, horrible family.

So I'm midway into that. So I saw this, and I was like, that's what pushed it over the edge. I was like, oh, well, there's a good reason for me to see how they did on this remake, and I can see how Amy comes out in this. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, the sad thing is, it's Wolfgang Peterson. that I mean he's a legit director and not just a regular old director he's done a ton of action like it should work perfect plus the cast is great I mean Kurt Russell Kurt Russell is our lead it's Kurt Russell other than Emmy Josh Lucas Kevin Dillon Andre Brouwer Richard Dreyfuss for God's sakes I'm like you've got the cast you've got the budget you've got a huge director that knows how to do action why is this so bad Like it's not, it's not even like depressing bad. It's not even funny bad. It's just soulless. It's so, yeah, it is. There is no, and that's what I say.

Like when I was like, let's get back to the characters. There are no characters in this. Like, and I'm thinking back and I'm like, you know, that the old movie is not any longer. It's just structured. Cause I feel so connected to those characters in that original seventies version.

And we get to this and I'm like, Couldn't tell you if that one's got a son only cause he's here. I see him over there. Um, that's her dad. I know that much. She's getting married to that guy.

I feel like you'll die before the thing. So like, I'm already putting money on who's going to die. Yeah. So I'm like, there's just, I, you, the most basic caricatures and like, they don't even try to elaborate. It's just like, this is it.

And like immediately, like, first of all. We get a big, and you can tell it is, we've moved into the two thousands because I'm sure. And he still built a lot of stuff for this as a sad thing. Cause I watched the behind the scenes and I'm like, they built that huge set that ends up being like the, the main room that they're in that flips upside down and there's still fires and people fall in. And sure they built all that.

That's legit. But like the very. First thing you see is, is a big 360 zoom around the boat that is not effing there. It is a hundred percent cartoon. Yeah.

I'm just like, and it again looks 2006 version CG. So if they didn't know, you might not be able to tell if they had a big enough budget, but like then I'm like, it looks, it looks really, I mean, and he's trying, like, I like the movement that they're doing. They're following this dude, like running on the deck. So it's a, Interesting shot from a director who kind of. Knows what he's doing, but...

It's a video game. Those effects look pretty rough. Yep. Now, again, they get further in, and a lot of the stuff is practical. It's real-world stuff, but that.

Does not help the fact that there are no characters that you give a shit about. No, not a one. It is so dumb. It's almost like if you like the actor, then you're attached to them, but you're not attached to the character. Even then, I'm just like, I kind of don't care about Kurt Russell.

Kurt Russell is freaking awesome. Like, I can't tell you a movie. I don't think Kurt Russell is amazing. And even when it's a lesser movie or he's not the main person, but I'm like, he's so like, no, like that's why I was like, I'm here for Emmy. She has nothing to do with that movie.

Like she, that's why I'd like, didn't even hear about her being in it. Cause nobody would even know. You can insert any random girl and like, okay, now scream and you're going to fall. And that's on fire. All right, good.

Brent, let's go. It is so useless. Yeah, I've only seen it the one time, and I've never revisited it. I just go back to the OG. It's so bad.

I mean, there's so many moments. Like, you know, Ernest Borgnine's great in the original. Gene Hackman's great. Gene Hackman's amazing. Fucking Shelley Winters.

She's just nailing it. This elderly woman who, yeah, she used to be a champion swimmer, but she's an elderly woman now. And was a big. Lady at that point. When she was younger, not so much, but she got to be a big lady.

But that moment when she saves the day, but then she still dies on us, that is an emotional moment that never fails. And the other, to me, I was like, there's the big, in the original film, that Gene Hackman moment at the end. Yeah. I'm like, it is epic. Not to spoil it, but it's just an epic moment of like, you guys are gonna die this needs to be done i'm gonna do what i need to do and i'm just like it's so freaking good it is amazing and i'm like okay where's the equivalent maybe it's not the same person maybe like you want to mix it up a little bit but i'm like so we get to the sort of the same moment in there with the the boyfriend slash gonna be your husband and Kurt Russell.

And it's like, oh, somebody's gonna have to do something about this. And then we get to that and I'm. Like, this is the most lackluster version of that decision I've ever seen. Like, it's still like, oh, and there it is. Alright, well, that's really how we're gonna...

Okay. I was like, wow. Talk about dropping the ball when it comes to that big epic moment of like, nope, that's it. So, yeah. I'm at least thankful that they retitled the remake yeah so at least it's not a full remake it's just kind of the same situation.

We just moved ahead in time and look, it's another big boat and shit's going to go wrong. Just avoid the remake. Go see the original if you haven't. Even the sequel's more like, it's fun. It's ridiculous.

It's not the classic that the first one is, but I'd love to go back to that compared to this thing. That is true. That is very true. I haven't seen the sequel in a number of years either. It was the same thing.

I remember watching it because it was one of those trying to remember which... wait, I've seen this one a million times, but isn't. Telly Savalas show up? And I'm like, no, no, that's the sequel. Yeah. Was, was the sequel theatrical release or was that made for TV?

I think it was. I think it was. And it just didn't, it was like not near as well. And they just very quickly shuffled it to Sunday night movie. And like, cause that's where I think I saw it, but I'm pretty sure I remember it being like an.

Actual theatrical release, but. Who knows? I just remember it still being better than this. But that's what shocked me. Because I totally forgot about all the details of that movie.

I was like, I think Kurt Russell's in it. That's about all I remembered. I had no idea who directed it. So watching that, I was just like, man, what happened here? Well, I mean, there always comes a certain point where a director becomes basically, if you're still, if you're not, Constantly going out there and innovating and trying something new and pushing the boundaries or whatever else.

You eventually become a journeyman director. You become a seasoned director. But you also become a director that is basically a cookie cutter. Yeah. You go through the motions.

You make a film. You complete start to end. But it's not going to be anything great. And you have to eventually, if you're going to continue working... you have to start to lie to yourself because again, I watched that behind the scenes and half of it is Wolfgang Peterson talking to the camera and he's like super excited about what they're doing. And I'm just like, really?

I was like, do you know that this is, I mean, cause you have to read the script. There are no characters. Like, is this not cause it isn't that way in your older movies. So why now are you okay with just being like, ah, whatever. And then stuff catches on fire.

Like, I don't know. That's the part of watching him talk about it. Like he thinks it's the greatest thing he's ever done. I'm just like, are you aware? Or is this just something you have to do that?

Like, you're not going to do this project if you don't convince yourself it's worth doing. So this is part of the. Process, but I mean, maybe it did break him because that's the last big budget English language movie he's done. Yeah. Since then I looked, he did do something.

It was the, The only other time he's gone back to German language. He did one in 2016 that does. Have Til Schweiger in it, which is almost reason for me to check it out if I wanted to read, which, you know, that's not normal for me. But he is... Til's pretty awesome.

So, like, I would watch him. It's like some sort of... I think the English language translates to fight against the bank. So I think it's some sort of heist movie that involves him as a... And it's all German language.

And, like, again, I watched. part of the trailer and it looks like a pretty low budget thing comparatively so i was like i don't know maybe that killed him certainly in the hollywood system because i mean that's the thing he did das boot and never went back like he didn't do an ever immediately moved into hollywood movies yeah never did another german language film didn't like all he did was big budget hollywood stuff from there on out and then just killed it for him i guess because he was just like well i'm done directing now and eventually they lured him back in germany and were like here We got Till. We'll make this movie. Come on. Yeah. But even then, he hadn't done anything since 2016.

Well, karma caught up to him for the never-ending story for basically scarring all of our childhoods. No joke, man. I am still not recovered from the swamps of sadness. I think I live in the swamps of sadness. Wait a minute.

This is all making sense now. Art Thacks. It's not funny, man. Nope. Entire generation traumatized.

It's even more traumatized when you hear the truth of that scene. Oh no. Do I want to know? It's as bad as you think. Is it Milo and Otis level?

Yeah. Let's put it this way. The horse didn't make it either. Essentially, in the movie, the horse is drowning. This is pre-CG.

The only way to really. Mimic that Is to actually drown the horse. Wolfgang. Seriously, get it together, man. Yeah.

Yeah. I believe the horse survived that scene. It did not survive the shoot. Wouldn't you at least have a riser under him or something? And the second you get that shot, pull the whole thing back up and get him out of there?

Doesn't matter. This is an animal that doesn't understand what the fuck is going on. That's true. It's kind of hard to explain. Just kind of like, what's that old west trick, the flying W, where basically you get, you know, like the horses are running at full speed and basically suddenly, you know, like if they get shot and they have to like, something pulls them back and they fall face forward.

That's a natural movement for them as well. Yeah, they're going to react the way they would. It's not going to be good. So this is why that's the time it's okay to use CG. Because the alternate is running horses off of cliffs and shit they did in old Hollywood.

Or throwing cats off of cliffs into the ocean. Or drowning cats one after the other. Yeah, stop doing that shit, Hollywood. And or whatever weird German country. If you grew up on Milo and Otis and you know nothing about the making of the scenes, keep it that way.

Keep it that way. You don't want to know how many Milos there were. I think Otis was good the whole time, though. Otis was fine. Milo.

Which is crazy, because they were both in horrible situations the whole time. So why he. Was that much luckier and or smarter, I don't know. Probably because Otis didn't get thrown off. The fucking cliff.

Yeah. I don't know, man. Milo sure did. Stop doing these things. This is when it's okay to be like, wow, that horse looks CG.

Oh, it's all right. They just killed him, so let's go with it. I'll forgive bad CG on that. That boat was no excuse. You can sink a boat and it ain't going to hurt nobody's feelings.

Exactly. You can CG all the animals you want so none of them get hurt. Fuck a bunch of boats. Spaceships, giant monsters that don't exist. Go ahead and make those as practical as you can.

So that was my recent outing into what I was not fully prepared for. I expected to at least have a good time. And yeah, it wasn't even again, if it would have been like cheesier, I could have gotten into the dumbness and enjoyed it on some level, but it's just so run of the mill. And, I just don't care about any of these people. And it's a shame because I like so many of those actors.

Even though it's completely opposite side of the spectrum, but still it's a remake and they went full cheese, was the Piranha remake. Oh, yeah. And that's so much fun. Again, working in a Richard Dreyfuss tie-in. It's like one of the two.

I can't remember. Was that the first one or the second one? First one. But they definitely went with that joke, and that's kind of here. I'm like, well, here's another horrible water situation for.

You, Richard Dreyfuss. Have fun. But he's in the whole... That's the thing. I thought maybe he'd be the big star that they'd kill off quick because he's like, look, I gave you about a week of shooting, and I'm out of here.

He's in the whole damn movie. He paid for Richard Dreyfuss this whole time and gave him nothing to do. Way to go. Yeah. But yeah, Alexandra Aja's Piranha remake is so fucking fun.

That's what you do. Lean into it, man. Yeah, it's like we just, yeah, they leaned hard into the cheese. And I haven't seen, I know he didn't do the second. It was not bad, as I remember.

I remember watching it, but it's been a while. That's why I was like, at this point, I don't even remember which is which. I just remembered some of the nightmare imagery in the first one better. But I feel like I watched the second one. Because isn't the second one like a Piranha 3D, but it's like 3DD or something?

3DD, of course. To extra lean into the cheesiness of it. But like we skip Piranha 2 and just go straight to the 3DD. Because it was in 3D, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so that's what. So to me, I was like, that's a pretty good lead into today's film. Sure. A giant train wreck just with a way bigger budget versus where we're about to go. So I guess it's time to get into this episode's movie.

It's time for Sofa Theater. The authorities declare the Bronx a high-risk zone. There's only one alternative. Destroy it. Attention!

Attention! Abandon all buildings. This is a final warning. The Bronx is a public disgrace. The Bronx is a plague.

Who the hell wants to live in New Mexico? They're all lies! People are being slaughtered in there! Exterminated! You know what they're calling your methods? genocide.

The technical term is disinfestation. Escape from the Bronx. Ain't on my cruel or happy face. I'm happy behind it. It takes me inside another place where no one can find it.

Escape. I get out when I can. I escape. It's all escape. I'm crying in my bed.

Come on, let's escape. Just get me out of here. So, this Silver Theater feature is Escape from the Bronx. We'll get to other titles later. The year is 1983.

Hey, wasn't that the same year as the last one? Yes. Yes, it is, if that puts into perspective what you're about to discuss. And the director is Enzo G. Costarelli, once again.

Mamma mia. And the plot, according to IMDb, a ragtag group of people must fight extermination squads amidst the ruined city. Yeah, that's pretty much about all that goes on. So, spoiler alert, we're going to ruin this, but how much is there to ruin? So, anyway, more importantly, it's free on some streaming service more than likely.

So go look for it. You've got no money invested and you'll have a good time. More so than that Poseidon movie. I at least enjoyed this way more than that. Where would you like to begin?

Well, we gotta go with the title first. Because there is some confusion. See, of course, you know, exploitation movies always would get retitled. Sometimes they'd go to different countries. So, of course, the Italian.

This is very Italian. Yeah, the Italian title is Escape from the Bronx. It was released... as. Escape from the Bronx in the U.S., and also it was released as Escape 2000. In the U.K., it was released as Bronx Warriors 2, which actually makes a lot more sense.

Makes more sense, because this does, to jump ahead slightly, but as we mentioned in the last movie in this trilogy, it has nothing to do with anything. So that one's maybe, if it were in the same timeline, off in the distant future somewhere. But yeah, this is a total sequel to that first movie we watched. So it picks up... Almost right after.

I mean, even then, I was trying to figure out time-wise. I'm like, maybe six months? A year at the most? Like, it's pretty close follow-up to where we left that first movie. So, yeah, this is a direct sequel.

It is. Really, it's even much more of a direct sequel than, you know, Warriors of the Wasteland was. But the confusion lies in here. In 1982, an Australian exploitation film by the name of Turkey Shoot, directed by Brian Trentridge-Smith, starring... Steve Railsback, and Olivia Hussey.

I know of that one, yes. Basically, it's kind of like a prison camp kind of movie. Basically, the prisoners are essentially kind of like tortured, and people are trying to escape. It's a decent action movie, but it's got some rough scenes in it, too. The thing about that movie is that when it was released in other countries, it sometimes kept the name Turkey Shoot, but it was also retitled Escape 2000.

So when you're looking for it online, you can't find it under Turkey Shoot. You find it under Escape 2000. But if you're looking for Escape from the Bronx, you can find it under that. But Mystery Science Theater 3000 did an episode spoofing Escape from the Bronx, but they grabbed the Escape 2000 version. Which is really funny when you see the title card.

Because the title card for Escape from the Bronx... It feels like a natural part of the movie. Yeah. When you see the Escape 2000 title card, it literally looks like someone's put a fucking sticker on the goddamn movie. Somebody stepped in front of the camera holding a cue card.

Escape 2000! Oh my, it's so bad. I mean, in a movie, it's already bad enough as it is. But, yeah, so there's a bit of confusion if you're looking for this online. Yeah.

Just, if the movie stars Steve Railsback, it's not a state for the Bronx. You're doing it wrong. Or you're watching a better movie, actually. I mean, yeah. It depends on what you want in this situation.

Honestly, yes. I mean, we need to do some Australian exploitation because that's some really crazy shit, but it's also highly entertaining. Especially 70s version. Yeah. Yeah.

About all we've done is really 2000s. Yeah, even 80s stuff. Yeah. 80s exploitation, especially the Australia's Word, really kicks in. I mean, hell must.

Well, anything post-Mad Max, yes. It's a different game at that point. Yeah. Even 70s stuff was weird. Well, either you had stuff like Picnic at Hanging Rock or you had sex romps.

You know, basically the Australians doing their own version like Porky's or something. Cars That Ate Paris is the one I always go to. Or that one, yeah. I was like, I went and saw that and I was like, I'm not even sure what's going on here. I love that car.

I love that car. Other than that, I'm not even sure. Like, again, it's almost like original Mad Max level of inconsistent. It's like, well, so is it? Are things falling apart here?

Because it seems like everything is just taking place in this one tiny little town. I'm like, but what the hell is going on in this? So, yeah. It's another one of those. Australia is insane.

Yeah. But the thing I love about this movie, of course, it's poor budget shows literally from the first frame. Because when you watch some streaming... You get a still frame of this sign that basically is like, we're clearing out the Bronx. Everybody evacuate your buildings.

You're being relocated to sunny New Mexico. I was going to ask if you have one of those signs up at your house. Because the thing is, I was like, I want to get one of those. I was like, really? It's the most generic stenciled thing.

Yeah, you could just make one. You could just make yourself one with no money invested. Yeah. That would be funny. Have that right in front of your door as you come in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it holds. Yeah. On this shot for a few seconds for a few seconds for a few seconds you're going start start are you sure we start start and then finally boom the movie springs to life and things move and you have people speaking now like holy shit this is how the movie begins. That guy was off getting his coffee he's like just the camera's running it's like somebody forgot to push the button for the first few seconds you know And he just comes back and is like, that's right, we're shooting a movie, alright.

Yeah, Luigi fell asleep at the wheel. So that's literally how our movie begins. See, that's the sad thing, is to me, watching this, I was like, I feel like this is even more low budget than the first one. Oh! And the first one wasn't a blockbuster budget.

They, I mean, definitely by, it's funny, it's weird. Blows my mind. It's like the second movie has nothing to do with the first or the third. Nothing whatsoever. Not at all.

Not at all. It has similar actors. That is the only thing. It's the only connection. The crew, the actors, the directors, and the writers, the only commonality.

Yeah. Because the story has nothing to do with it. It's set in a totally different time, set in a totally different place that has. Nothing to do with the Bronx. Right.

Nor our lead character, who is the only thing that comes back around on this one. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we can't even get Fred Williamson back for this one. I know. He's in the first two.

Can't get him in this one. But God bless it, we get Henry Silva in this one. And I love me some Henry Silva. He is his own special, special thing. Sort of taking over.

Once I saw him in the outfit, I'm like, so he's sort of the new Vic Morrow. Yes, he sure is. He just sort of stepped into that new role. Yeah. But God, I just.

When you have any kind of exploitation film and Henry Silva's in the movie, A, you know he's playing a bad guy, and B, he's going to chew up the scenery in ways that, it doesn't show off great acting talent, but it shows a real gusto for the job. And it eases in. Because for a while, I'm like, he's just kind of phoning it in for a while. And then eventually we get to, oh, no, there we go. Once we get to the coffee scene.

Yes! Yes! I made a note of the coffee scene. I was like, wow, what are we even doing right now? Is this from a different movie?

Like, did he even know the camera was rolling? Is he just pissed that Luigi got him the wrong coffee? Yeah. I don't know exactly. But yeah, so we're getting our movie.

People are being cleared out of their homes. And we've got guys wearing shiny silver suits with either astronaut helmets or biker helmets. I already have a question. Yes. Why?

Because at first I was like, okay, is there like some sort of biological or some sort of disease going on? And that's why the Bronx is locked off. And like, at least then, if it was more of an outbreak kind of a movie, that would make sense why you would be wearing your space. Suit while you're patrolling the streets. But no, it seems like there's no...

I was like, then why the hell would you be dragging... Just to be a knockoff stormtrooper? Because that's kind of what they feel like as the movie goes on. They are definitely the wish versions of stormtroopers. But my only other.

Thing is that, well, I mean, you know, there's some dudes with guns, but then, like, every third soldier has a flamethrower. So it's like. Are we wearing fire retardant suits for everybody's safety because the flamethrower guys are so bad at their jobs? That was my original, like my only attempt at putting some sort of reasoning behind this bullshit. It was like, I saw that and was like, well, okay, if they're able to breathe the air, there's no reason for them to have that giant suit on with a helmet.

But then as we went on, and there were lots of dudes with flamethrowers, I was like, okay, well, at least if it's a flame-proof suit, it's protecting them as they're carrying this. Giant torch around. Yeah. But not to jump to the end, but at the end, one of the guys in the suits gets burnt up. So I was like, okay, it's nothing.

It does nothing. It does nothing. Why are you wearing this damn suit? Oh, that's actually made of lycra. That went up like a tinderbox.

I know. I was just like, okay, the only thing I was trying to give you, you just burned to hell. Yeah, yeah. Way to go. So yeah, I don't understand that part.

And with the. Exception of the first guy, the first homeless fellow who gets torched, who was obviously a stunt actor and is used to. Full body burn. They did a couple of those this time. I was like, those are impressive at least for this budget level.

Aside from those guys, everybody else who gets torched from it, you see the guy with the flamethrower and he hits the thing. You see a shot of flame hit out towards the person. You can obviously tell that A, the person is standing way far back, is nowhere near the flame. And basically the second cut of them getting burned is obviously a cut. I mean, really, that's a good thing.

Because knowing their budget and safety skills, odds are they would. Have just burned these people. Well, of course, yeah. They would have all become Milos in this movie. That is true, yeah.

Let's just give them a little pat on the back for like, thanks for not killing anyone that we know of. So that's surprising in its own right when you watch this movie. Yeah. We do get to, basically, Mark Gregory does return his trash, and we get to him very early in the movie, bringing him back, just kind of casually hanging out on his motorcycle in a construction yard with a lot of pipes. That is a slightly different, I don't remember the big piece on the front of that motorcycle.

It still had the skull. Well, it had a better skull. But it had, yeah, it had a different light-up skull, which is awesome, don't get me wrong, but I was like, it was like a big front piece on it. Right? I don't remember that being on the old one.

It's been a year later. He had a different bike. He got a new bike. He got a new bike. I got an upgrade.

I'm just making sure. Yeah, yeah. But it seems like he's running supplies for other people. But he comes across, basically, we get a helicopter that's scanning the area. And they find trash.

Of course. And so you've got a sniper guy in the passenger spot shooting at trash from the helicopter. So one would think if you're in a helicopter with a high-powered rifle and you're aiming down on somebody, that's. A good scenario to be in if you're trying to murder people. Exactly.

What we don't expect is that basically you miss your target entirely. A few squibs go off literally in front of his face, kicking up dust and like, How did you miss him? He wasn't like behind. You got a clear shot. That's not the part I had issue with.

Because to me, that is every one of these movies. Once again, these are our stand-in stormtroopers. None of them can shoot for shit. Very true. That is your job in this type of dumb movie.

Yes. But when he turns around and with his tiny little revolver makes an entire helicopter explode in like one or two shots. I was like, I don't know. He fires five times. He fires five times But still I don't.

Think it explodes Well, my also favorite is if you notice the G.I. Joe figure that's basically flying from said exploding helicopter. Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple of times we get some nice mannequins dropping, falling, lighting on fire. I mean, yeah, there's certainly mannequins and shit like that, but no, this was literally...

Oh, yeah. They took a three and three quarter inch G.I. Joe figure that was in that model helicopter. When it blew up, he's flying like the arms and limbs aren't moving. He's just like just tumbling.

In like an L shape. You know, he's like. special effects uh but yes uh yeah uh trash's magic revolver does come into play in many occasions in this a. Couple of times but yeah that one i was just like i don't think that's how that if you're really good you can take down a helicopter midnight run style yeah you gotta be precise with your one shot but you can do it That's not how you do it. A standard issue police Smith & Wesson revolver cannot take out a helicopter, even if you shoot it five times. You've got to hit.

You've got to go for the propeller. There's a shot you can do, but that's not what he was doing. And it doesn't just burst into flames. And also, he didn't get a lot of gun training because you notice anytime he fires that revolver, when he squeezes the trigger, there's a lunge forward. That's the best way to get the most precise version of your shot.

Jerk yourself a lot. Every time he shoots that damn gun throughout this entire movie, he's always lunging forward. He shoots every shot. He's like 18. They picked him up at the gym.

He doesn't know nothing about no fire, no guns. That's where the technical crew comes in with safety training and weapons training. Okay. Think they had any of the stuff you're mentioning. Oh yes, that's right.

Yeah, that was it. So, we cut to the parents. Yes. The poster is a little much. I was going to address the poster.

A giant full length black and white poster of your son. It's like at least one sheet. Maybe larger. It might be your subway poster. It took up the entire wall.

It is a huge poster. Floor to ceiling. It's just the hottest shot of your son you can find to put on your wall. Black and white. Artsy, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very artsy. It'd be classy, yeah. But it's like, do, I. Mean, parents always have photos of your children in their home.

But it's like an 8x10 on the mantel. Sure, or something on the wall. Not like a 16-year-old girl's wall poster of the guy that they're into. Then I would give you, but mom and dad, no. Yeah, it's like.

And where did they get that? Like in this future world Bronx, they're printing out posters of the freedom fighter that may or may not have gotten killed in the last movie. But yeah, what press is running off like revolution posters to give to... Can Walgreens even do a wall print of that size? Not back in those days.

If you jump ahead a few decades, yes, you could go get at least a good 24 by 36 version of it, I'm sure. But... Yeah, I don't know. That's why I was like, what? Is he the Che of this world?

And they're just printing up t-shirts with him on it? Like, what is going on? And it's not even addressed. It's just there. You just see it there.

And also, it's like, I love the whole, like, his dad's going to stand tall. We're not going anywhere. And mom is just constantly like, let's leave. Let's get out. Also, do you notice that his parents are just like, unusually attractive people well.

Obviously that's how you get him i mean but you know sometimes two uggos make a pretty but like his parents are like really attractive they're also pretty old so it's like how old were you when you had him well you know it's the future it's rough i guess but uh they were actually 32 they just look like they were in their mid-60s. Yeah, but the wish stormtroopers come busting in and torch Ma and Pa trash. Dad gets a good shot. We get a head squishing. Yeah.

There's at least two head squishings. We got some head squishings, yeah. And it looks super realistic. Yeah, Dad ain't going out like a bitch, but... He holds his own for an old man.

And then, like, mom does the stupid thing of, like, she traps herself in a room and is constantly cowering lower and lower and lower into a corner thinking, maybe they don't shoot me if I'm crouched down this far. They won't see me if I'm behind this over here. And, like, now they're just going to torch you. Torch you. Yeah.

And then when Trash finds the bodies of his burnt parents, he's like, are those different actors? Because they look like different actors. Yeah. And then he. I guess moved them because originally they were in two different places.

But when we cut back later, he got them side by side. So he hauled their burning carcass over to lay next to each other so he could creepily hold their hand. I mean, it was as sad as you're going to get in this type of movie. So I was like, all right, that's a sad moment. But the logistics of it are distracting me.

I'm like, well, how did he? And now I don't know. But then our boy Henry Silva is introduced. As our resident... Resident wacko.

Floyd. Leader. Who names your villain Floyd? Floyd. Yeah.

It's not like he's Mr. Floyd or Colonel Floyd or General Floyd. He's just Floyd. Yeah. Well, he's a wrangler.

I'll give him that. I was like, at least that one makes sense. He is out there wrangling the bad guys from their perspective. And I love it too that we do get, oh, was it a Neo-Girlami or. AKA Thomas Moore?

Which is the worst. Back as our corporate president. Yeah, yeah. And he gives a name now. He's Clark.

Direct sequel action here. it totally picks up where the bullshit from the last movie. Left off but he got a name now because he didn't have a name in the. First president you know he was he was. Just he was like the president of the corporation's like does the man not have a name you bothered to cast him. But yeah the president um He.

Doesn't pop in until about halfway through the movie, but we get Gene Carlo Preet back in this, who is Scorpion in Warriors of the Wasteland. And since we like one-name S-words, he's Strike in this one. Yeah, Strike. Do we know. Because I kept looking for it.

Do we know who did the voiceover? Was that the same actor? Nope. Because it's so familiar. I sat there the whole rest of the movie going... know that person who the hell do so do.

We know it was not it was not the same actor i don't know who did the voiceover it sounds so familiar you're right i'm like i know i know this actor from american movies damn it yeah i'm like which one is it i agree i kept looking for it online and i could not find it they specifically say this person did this and there was a voice actor that had done a bunch of other italian stuff that did different characters yeah but nothing specific on him i. Was like damn it this is frustrating um i. I will say though the the child sidekick Strike Jr., that's actually his real son. Well, within there, he did say it was his son, so it was just art imitating life and vice versa. That's why their chemistry was actually so good, because they are father and son.

Which is weird, though, because looking at him, I was like, that doesn't really look like his son. I was like, I wonder what mom looks like, because he doesn't really look that much like him. Well, see, the thing is, I think this, again, this is about, what, a year removed from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Yeah, yeah. So it's like, ooh, that kid kind of looks a little Asian.

Maybe we could get him as our little Asian child, but then he becomes slightly murderous. And it becomes like a running thing, because our last movie had a dumb sidekick kid. Right. So I'm like, we already kind of did that move. So now it's just a different sidekick kid that likes to blow shit up.

Well, that was a white blonde kid. Yeah, yeah. And he was kind of an old man, but seemed like a kid. Right. Never figured out why.

Right. So, yeah, he's just a regular kid now. Whereas this is just a child who's apparently really good with explosives and murdering people. And sets them up everywhere. Everywhere.

Like, every few seconds he's just. Boom! And then it goes off. And I'm like, dude, how do you even have time to put these all everywhere? Yeah, and he's really cocky, too, about his placement.

Because he's just sitting there making a little explosion sound effect right before the one goes off and kills three people. And very casually, as they're walking around later, he's like, eh, tripwire. And just ducks under it. And I'm like, how many times a day do you have to do this? And if you don't, you blow yourself up because you've put them.

Everywhere, kid! Yeah, that seems complicated. I tell you what, the kid serves a purpose. He at least does something in this movie, more than a lot of characters. But let's not forget a character that is in the movie, is presented as somebody important, but literally does nothing.

That's a lot of them, actually. I'm specifically talking about DeBloom. The Pirates of Penzance? Yes. Where is his outfit from?

Because that's another one. I'm like, I have seen that exact outfit somewhere. Ice Pirates. Well, see, that's what I thought. Eventually, I came to it.

I looked up the one he's wearing at least half the time is like a different medium brown. It's not like that black studded. But it looked exactly like, in my head, I was like, isn't that what he's wearing in Ice Pirates? Yeah, yeah, it looked totally like Ice Pirates. So yeah, once again, just lifting stuff right and left.

Or vice versa. Maybe they saw this movie and went, ah, that's the costume I want. Put that on me. Costuming, get on that. And for this role, we cast the great Antonio Sabato, who would many years later give us Antonio Sabato Jr.

He's at least fun in this. He is. He has a good time on, again... A little scenery chewing going on. A lot of scenery chewing.

But he's at least entertaining, which is, again, more than you can say for most of the characters, including Trash, really. Yeah. He's the most boring leading man ever. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Mark Gregory, like, what happened to him between the first movie... And the third movie, because he looks older, and it's literally a year later. It's a year later, yeah. It's a year later. But all these movies were literally shot within a nine-month span.

Shot, written, produced, everything. So it's like. What the fuck happened to this guy? Because he looks older. He looks tired.

He looks like he's got giant disco coke nostrils. He made that first movie and that was enough to almost kill him. I mean, holy shit, this guy looks better. Well, I noticed he didn't have the impressive I'm going to take my shirt off moment like most action stars would of this era. Yeah, that shirt stayed on for the whole movie.

And most of it, the jacket. So I was just like, he is covering up for something. And I couldn't see a major. He didn't look hefty. It only been nine months.

I don't know how he could be that bad off. But the fact that he just wouldn't even take his shirt off, I was like, you certainly didn't in the first movie, so I don't know what's going on now. Yeah. Speaking of the jacket, I did want to address the patch. Uh-huh.

I guess this is just because, again, this is one of those like now you wouldn't touch that. I guess this is just a very rebellion going against the system kind of a mode because it is a stars and bars kind of a thing. It is a rebel flag on his jacket, which, again, in the Bronx seems like a weird pull. But I guess they're just going for the general rebels, rebel against the system kind of a thing. But I'm like, you can't ignore it.

It's there in the whole movie. And I was like, well. We had a little of that the first time, if you remember. I know somebody had one on their jacket. Somebody had one on their bike or something.

It was the guy who kept turning on everybody. Yeah. The glasses, leather jacket. Yeah, he definitely seemed a little more like a slimy bastard. He would be into that.

Yeah, it was Evil John Denver. Yeah, yeah. So that made sense. But now we've even got our hero wearing it. So I'm like, again, at that time, you could still have that and it wouldn't necessarily be the Kiss of death that is now become in anything you use it for.

Yeah. So just addressing that it's there. It is there. Yeah. But again, at that era, you could get away with it.

I watched, uh, Countless episodes of Dukes of Hazzard. Do I think they were thinking about that as they jumped in the car every time? No, it was just, yay, this is where we live. This is what we do. That was a bit of symbolism.

Yeah, you can still get away with that. And it worked at that point. It made sense. Well, again, it made more sense for them, let alone the dude in the Bronx. Right, yeah.

It doesn't really make sense at all. Yeah, the Italian guy in the Bronx didn't quite fit. It didn't make any sense. But again, at the time, you could still have that. It didn't necessarily mean anything officially.

It still kind of did because this is the country we live in. But I don't know. Just addressing it. Yeah. One scene I also kind of really enjoyed here.

You start to get some fighting back from Trash and his people against the Wish stormtroopers and Henry Silva's character. But my favorite is there's basically a scene where you got... A bunch of people are just kind of sitting around on a street corner or whatever else. And the death truck rolls up and the guys pour out. And they're like, all right, we're going to clear these guys out.

And the guys are just standing around casually in a large cluster group. And then suddenly the hobos open fire and attack. And then the Wish Stormtroopers fight back. And then a majority of the... Dudes standing around in the cluster all get killed, surprisingly enough.

It wasn't the best plan, we'll say. It was like, who's strategizing this shit? Yes, you might want to spring that on them, but you need some cover or they're just going to murder all your guys. If trash is our general, he's kind of dropping the ball. He sucks at what he does.

Another thing, too, I hadn't noticed about our strike character. Did you notice the giant leather holster for the gun? Like, his pistol? Yeah. That's way oversized.

And it's, like, in the wrong spot. Like, normally it's on your hip. It's, like, way up here on his thigh. It's in his crotch. Yeah.

I was like, that's not how you wear that. But, I mean, whatever. It's the sort of post-apocalyptic. You just wear whatever the hell you want in those movies. I mean, it's a German machine pistol.

It has all those little pistols. It has, like, a little clip on it. But, like, the size of the pistol versus the size of the holster... does not match. Well, and he's always carrying it, so the holster's just kind of hanging there most of the time. It's like, do you even need that?

Because you're just carrying it around the whole time. And then we have our stalwart reporters. We have the crusader lady and her camera guy. I didn't expect the arc for her the way it went down. There was probably a message that was completely lost.

Well, just in general, the fact that I mean, I guess in these movies you get, once again, our hero move, like, I assumed she would at least get to the end with him on this little journey, but she made it halfway through and was like, I'll go distract him. I'm like, well, she did distract him as they murdered her. Yeah, it's like she's busting out her anti-corporation speech. Fortunately, it's around a crowd of people, and there's media there, and then she's basically gunned down on live television, and then basically the media crew are apprehended. And absolutely nothing happens because of it.

And then prior to that, her camera guy who's taking photos of things going on, he gets burned to death. Well, I was like, did the... camera survive again i was like after every step of the way i'm like trying to make something out of this i'm like so did at least he get because he was getting pretty damning footage there i was like if we're trying to get it out to the world i was like but we don't see her pick up the camera like we don't see like it ever served any purpose it was just Eh, let's kill that guy now. It's just time for him to go. And did you notice that the cameraman, he's actually been in all three movies. Because he was one of one's bad guys.

Basically, he's playing a bad guy in every other movie. But he also has another very infamous film that he was a part of. Oh, Lord. He was in Troll 2. Oh, God.

He's the Preacher. Nobody wants to claim they were in Troll 2. Yeah, basically there's the guy that's dressed like. A priest or a preacher the whole time. Yeah, that's him.

Same dude. As soon as I said it, I was like, oh, it's the Troll 2 guy. There's no hope for that guy. The whole time I was thinking that guy got burned. Like, that guy was somebody's nephew.

Around that time, we also get to the point where they blow up the building. Oh, yes. And if we're talking about the G.I. Joe, man, oh, man, that building was just a train set building. Dude, they destroyed Mr.

Rogers' neighborhood. It was like, it was impressively put together, but I was like, that was a miniature, dude. Like, sometimes it's so good you can't tell. That is not one of those times. It was literally, it looked like the opening of Mr.

Rogers' neighborhood and then somebody hit the detonator and you blew up Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. It was like, ooh, HO scale, cool. Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that, too.

And there was also a moment where a car gets exploded. I think it's like there's a scene where there's basically like they're all looking for trash throughout the city. And so you got like a bunch of like soldiers running around doing things. But there's also like these like unexplained Goombas in suits and sedans, large sedans. standing around like they're like mafia guys and you know and basically oh yeah we gotta go you know and then like of course they get attacked and I love it there's a couple guys standing by a car and somebody throws a grenade and the next thing you see is two obvious dummies standing in front of said car getting blown up and getting tossed it's like like. I said some of those mannequin shots are pretty impressive not in the way they wanted them to be but from my end they were very entertaining.

Yeah that out um And, of course, we can't get past any of these movies without somebody throwing in a backstabbing. Yeah. There's always got to be a backstabber. A pretty running theme. And in this case, it's President Clark's corporate stooge dude.

The vice president. The vice president, yeah. You got to watch your vice president because that's how they move ahead. Yeah. It's like, oh, well, there, you know, it's like, you know, he's got this plan of, you know, basically the whole idea is like, we're going to clear all the people out of the Bronx and then we're going to raise everything and build up new buildings and shopping centers and apartment complexes and Starbucks and everything else.

And it'd be nice and pretty. I mean, that's kind of how they operate in general. Yeah, I mean, it's gentrification. That's how gentrification works. It's gentrification, yeah.

That's exactly what they want. They just get rid of all these homeless people and these trashy bastards and build up a nice Starbucks and a couple of high-end condos and... Yeah. But I love it when basically president Clark gets kidnapped. It's the big, the reason why they get strike at the big plaza.

We're going to kidnap the president and make them do what we want. Cause they'll want him back again. Once, once again, the very stealing from other movies, that's the escape from New York of it all. Yeah. Except it's like from the opposite side.

I know it's doing it the other way. Instead of going and get the president, it's you go kidnap the president. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's still kind of stealing that same. Absolutely. Yes. Uh, And so the corporate stooge is a little like, oh, the kid at the president. Well, tough shame by him.

What a shame. And then literally it's like looking at the model. It's like, why is he taking notes? And then you realize he's. Writing the fucking obituary and relaying it to the secretary after he's done writing it.

The guy's not even dead. It's like, that's a nice moment. Too bad they got the president. Yeah. Yeah.

There were a few quality lines. I do like that I specifically bothered to write down, I'm worse than anybody. It says a lot about this movie. Yes. I'm worse than anybody.

Oh, also... Let's not forget because, of course, Trash has the magic revolver. Strike has the magic shotgun. Because apparently one shotgun shell can blow up a large van. Anything, really.

Yeah, there's a few times when I questioned. Because there was one, I think it's a little later. But I'm just like, this is just, again, bad on you as the bad guys in this. Because. He comes around the corner.

There's at least two guys there with at least semi, if not fully automatic weapons. He has a shotgun. Right. He gets the first one off, kills the one dude. That's fine.

But he takes enough time to bring out another shell. I was like, that guy should have killed you by now. Like, for you to have time to re-cock the thing and get it reloaded for you to take out the other guy, this guy standing there with an automatic weapon should have mowed you down. But no, no, he just stands there waiting his turn. I'm like, no, that's not how this is supposed to go.

And also there's another scene where a single shot is fired from said shotgun and blows up a car. But when the car blows up, it is obviously a Matchbox or Hot Wheels car that it's getting blown up. It's a shame. I want to play with it. Yeah, you cannot dispute that.

It's like, oh, my God. You could tell, man, they just had no money for this movie. Well, and most of it, again, just comparing, we had a good amount of they at least spent a week or so next to New York, getting some scenery. Like, we've got a few shots at the beginning, but after that, it has all those underground shots of nothing but the same tube back and forth that is definitely in Rome somewhere because they shot all the interiors in Rome. It's probably the same interiors from the first film.

Yeah, I'm sure. But that's why I was like, I feel like there's so much, and even that street, that one street that the big finale's on, I'm sure as they closed off street somewhere in Rome. So they knocked out their day and a half of shooting shots of New York right away. And we're like, nope, heading on over now. We're done.

So it feels so more contained and even more low budget than that first movie. Exactly. There's one effect shot that I think is probably where all the budget went. Because basically, Stryker eventually runs out of shotgun shells. And so he's like, you know what, fuck it.

He grabs the thing and basically uses the shotgun like a club, which is the correct choice. I mean, in that situation, that's what you would do. And also, he did it correctly. He basically grabbed the barrel and was using the handle as the club part. And you get a great shot of a dude getting his face smashed in with helmet and everything like that.

That's the second head squishing. Yeah. That second head squishing was the best shot in the fucking movie. That's the thing. I was like, both of them look very fake, but they look like they spent a lot of time and money on them.

So I was like, yeah, that was fun. I liked that. I was like, I rewound that shot. I was like, that was really well done, guys. He's like, I gotta give you your flowers on something.

Yeah. I was like, that one worked pretty well. Ugh. And then, well, we get like a whole bunch of deaths in a row here. It's the whole movie.

Just an endless barrage of people getting shot. Occasionally burned on fire. Because the evil Floyd, a.k.a. Beloved Henry Silva, he kills our President Clark. So he just shoots him cold blood.

What a bastard. What a bastard. And then also kills Antonio Sabato. A pirate guy. So he gets killed in dramatic fashion.

And so you're like, yeah, you killed Antonio, you bastard. But then trash. Ends up blowing up Floyd. So it was like he gets his comeuppance. I think that was already past the point of my other line that I wrote down, which once again is very, very puts you in the mindset of this movie when we got a line that says, nobody would sit on a john full of dynamite.

That was spoken in this movie. It was. It was, yes. I think that Stryker, what's his name? Stryker.

I think he said that one. But yeah, that was another one of those that was like, you know, sometimes you're just writing yourself into this hole. It's like, you made that line up, so it's on you, man. I'm just watching this dumb thing. But yeah.

It always amuses me with this third film. It's like, they had no money for this. You can tell the piss was out of it. There's not even a hint of any kind of romantic lead. That's why I was like, they killed her off halfway through.

I'm like, so it's just these two dudes wandering through the sewer now. And then, like, you know, basically the bad guys are all killed. The, you know, the. Corporate president's killed. The vice president who's trying to overtake things.

Everybody gets killed. All the bad guys are dead. Most of Trash's companions are dead. And Trash is kind of like, gives a look to the camera, shrugs, walks away. End of movie.

Am I done with this bullshit? That's like what he's saying. So, okay, I guess he's still in the Bronx and he's gonna live in squalor. And that was my not to jump all the way to the end but that was my takeaway we got to the end and I could tell the credits were about to roll and I was like what did we accomplish with this movie nothing I was like nobody nothing moves forward like it just we watched people get murdered for an hour and a half and that's pretty much it like other than that Nothing really happened. No, it's like we didn't take down the corporation in its head or anything.

Or again, her like rousing speech and the gets back to the press and then the people in the outside world are like, oh, we can't destroy the Bronx. Like we don't know what's going on in the outside world. We don't know why the Bronx is the way it is, why we're getting rid of it other than they don't like poor people. And then like they don't change that. They're still going to.

I guess bulldoze the rest of the Bronx and blow it all up and put in their condos. I'm like, what did we accomplish here? You actually got to think like, okay, so President Clark was killed and then we got the vice presidents taking over. But then basically they had to essentially appoint a second to that guy. So then that guy wasn't around.

Some third in command somewhere just became president. Yeah. I mean, there's another corporate stooge is now in charge. Like things keep rolling. And they're not going to, again, they've got a miniature built in the office.

They're not going to change their plan. You got to get rid of these losers over here in the Bronx. That's a very nice. We spent a lot of time and money on that miniature. That may have been the whole budget right there.

Yeah, because that was a very impressive miniature of the city. Those were nice miniatures. They went to somebody's office and stole those probably. Yeah, there was that architectural firm had a really good idea for a city and they're like. Let's use that for the movie.

And they found it and broke in at night. Stole all their stuff. Stole it, yeah. But yeah, that was maybe the most impressive thing. So yeah, that was, once we got to the end, I was like, what did we do? this was pointless I'm talking to you movie and me maybe I was like what am I doing these are the movies I choose to watch no these are the movies I choose you to watch don't get me wrong I enjoy it but it does feel like by the end I was like we didn't even accomplish anything with this one At least the first one, something kind of happened.

It's like, we solved no problems. Nothing was really done here. We just killed time and people. That's pretty much it. Yep.

Yep. That's about right. I know. That's something I love about these exploitation films. They entertain you for various reasons in the 90 minutes or less that they're on, but it's like...

When you look back, it's like, what exactly did we accomplish? We wasted 90 minutes when we did. Pretty much. And they wasted months of production and money. Let's see.

The other random stuff... Because then we get to them trying to get there to go get the president. We're in the sewer-ish. I'm like, what is it? Because it also has bars everywhere like it's a prison.

So I was like, is it a prison they turned into a sewer? Or a sewer they turned into a prison? But the thing is. There was a moment where like, okay, we're doing like a photo op with the mayor or the governor or whatever else. And we're doing it outside one of these burned out.

It's kind of almost like Trump showing up with the Bible outside the church saying, look how Jesus-y I am. Look, I made my trip all the way over here for this. Yeah. So it's like we got the corporate president. We've got the mayor, governor, whoever the fuck he was, you know, showing up in front of this burned out building, which they said was a church.

That church looked like a fucking castle. Yeah. Or a stronghold of some sort. Again, this is in amusing quotes, the Bronx, not Rome. So basically, our heroes are sneaking around this burned out building and then just waiting for the moment where the president is standing by himself up against an unfortified wall, just completely oblivious of his surroundings.

Where is his secret service? They're terrible. Literally is grabbed from behind and pulled into the building and all his guards show up 30 seconds later going, where. Did he go? Yeah.

Yeah, but that whole set, it was like the whole rest of the movie. I was like, what is this supposed to be? Like, what sewer system can you lock people in prison cells? Or vice versa. What prison has a sewer grate running through the middle of it?

I was like, this makes no sense. It looks cool in your post-apocalyptic world, but it makes no sense logically why either of these would be crammed together. And that's about when they. after they kidnap him, he's also doing that little trick with the water, which he has not even like a full-size, like, five-gallon gas tank kind of plastic. It's like a tiny little thing that he's dumping into the water, which is this huge stream running through the middle of this place with tons of water in it. So this little couple of ounces of whatever the hell he put in there, then suddenly, as soon as he throws.

The match in there, like... boom the whole thing goes up i was like so the water is now flammable from that tiny little diluted amount well if this is a post-apocalyptic sewer maybe maybe all the water's maybe it's just the bronx and all the water is flammable yeah it's like i don't drink bronx water i don't know if you live in the bronx let us know if you can drink the tap water right It may have gotten better now. Yeah, hopefully by now they've got some sort of system in play. At that point it was all flammable. Yeah, I love that too. It's like tiny canteen of flammable liquid being poured into running water system and the flames.

And a lot of running water. And the flames will stay there and not float down. Okay. It filled up the entire... Not even like a stream of it down the middle.

The entire thing just burst into flames. The whole room. Even in spots where he didn't pour the liquor. Yeah, like on the side where it wasn't like water. It's like just fire.

Or deeper into the room. This thing, it should have been like a wall of fire along this. In that one spot. No, it was just everywhere. Fire.

This was like an 18 square foot section of fire that sprouted. Again, from your guy's standpoint, that was a pretty cool fire effect. Yes, it was. Does not make any sense in this movie, but it looked very cool. I will give you that.

Oh, yeah. Or other things that don't make sense. Now, why does crazy blowing shit up child, why does he have the power to hook jumper cables up to your train car tracks. And somehow it makes an explosion? Because the two different times we saw him do that, it wasn't like the other ones because the other one looks like he's got C4 or something that he's strapping to the wall and that explodes.

That makes sense. But the other ones, he kept just hooking up wires to the tracks and that just explosions happen. Well it's science i don't know if it was supposed to be like those guys were supposed to be getting electrocuted when they because like it was still a big explosion what happened like three times in a row where like guards are coming and then they step on something and then like two of them go up in a poof and we're so it's like are they being exploded or electrocuted or what the hell is going on i. Don't know but they should at least give a again our our guy doesn't know what the hell is going on so they could explain it to trash and then we would know what he's doing yeah No, he just hooks up some little mini jumper cables and somehow it makes the magic explosions.

I don't know. And again, it should be noted that the character with the highest body count in the film is the child. The child. He kills like ten to one versus everybody else because he's blowing up like two or three people at a time. And he does this multiple times throughout the film.

And he's only in half the movie. So he catches up to Trash by the time he has his first fight scene. For all the people Trash has killed in the first part of the movie. He's already offed more people than Trash. I mean, it's like, Jesus H. this is like a 12-year-old boy who's killed like 87 people.

He's really good at his job. I don't know what his job is other than blowing people up. At the same time, it's not like this child is evil or sinister or you're scared. His performance is very sweet. He's just a skilled assassin.

To him, it's like a game. He's having fun. It's probably as realistic. Kids growing up in a war zone, that's kind of how they turn out. It's like, man, this kid's going to be demented as an adult.

Yes. Oh, yes. Like I said, there's just so many facets to this movie. That's what's so fun about picking apart exploitation movies. Like, there's so many facets that you can just get enjoyment out of this.

But it's like, you're just gonna... If you really, really dig into this like we are, you're like, oh my god, why? Well, that was, yeah. That was, I guess, one of the things it's known for is the body count. So I was gonna get, because they do the rundown here.

And let's see. Because that, I think, is a lot of the reason that they made different cuts of it. They started editing out some of the violence. I'm sure the head squishings. Yeah.

Because I thought one of the reasons it was Escape 2000 was that was one of the American. Releases that they cut out a bunch of the violence. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, according to this, it's like the full death toll in the uncut version is 174. Wow.

110 shootings, 40 explosions, 9 flamethrowers, 1 stabbing, 1 off-screen kill, 4 unknowns, 6 electrocutions, which. May have been the guys there. I don't know. And 2 bashed faces through the helmet. So, yeah.

Yeah, 174 in a movie that barely has like five characters in it. There are almost no people in it, but yet a just nonstop supply of knockoff stormtroopers just getting... mowed down and blown up. It's either homeless people that you never see their faces or stormtroopers. That you never see their faces. We don't care.

Yeah, so it's probably the same five dudes getting blown up over and over and over again. We don't recognize you when you're wearing that helmet, so that's why they're wearing the helmets. We've only got 12 guys. We've got to make this work. Yeah, we've got to make it work.

Yeah, it's not like in Aliens where we had only three suits. Like, we got six suits. Well, and then once we get to the little scene at the end where it's on the street, more or less. First of all, I guess the Italian version of the Bronx, they think the biggest, most cool thing they have is ice cream. Because there's like two or three different places selling ice cream.

I'm like, there's one that's an ice cream shop, but there's another just stenciled on the wall with a big ice cream. I'm like, that is the wonders of America. We have ice cream here, man, and they are thrilled about it. So there's a lot of ice cream. Unfortunately, none of those places were open.

No, I know. That was the sad part. Because I wanted some ice cream at that point. Yeah, I really wanted to get a bomb pop and blow some people up. But the other thing I thought was so funny was the visual of what looks like, again, this looks like footage off the news.

It just looks like a street in the middle of a war zone that we could have now. But that Porsche driving down the street. I was like, this seems oddly out of place and doesn't seem like it's going to go well for that guy. Because if I'm aiming something to blow up, look at that nice porch going by. Let's take that out.

That was the producer's car, probably. I'm sure it was. And then I love that they, probably the reason why they had that, because they also had a Hot Wheels replica of said car. So when, you know, corporate backstabbing stooge gets blown up driving away from the scene... Also, again, Magic Shotgun comes in place once more.

It's a Matchbox car that gets blown up. Well, he probably had that sitting on his desk. He's like, oh, that's like my car, and I bought this one. And they're like, well, okay, you won't let us blow up. Your real car.

Can we have the Hot Wheels? He's like, I guess. Mama mia. Fine. You owe me a Hot Wheels.

Yeah, you owe me a Matchbox. That'll be 37 cents. Oh, yeah. I don't know. See, I get it.

That's what's so fucking fun about these movies. It's like you can pick it apart as much as you want, but it's just going to get worse. If you keep picking, it's never going to heal. Oh, we're not going to heal from these movies, I can tell you that. So, which country's exploitation do you want to go into next?

I don't know. That's what I was going to ask. Now that we've gotten to the end of this, and my only takeaway was, what have we accomplished? We have to figure out where we're going next. So, we've rounded out this trilogy.

Yes, we have. That wasn't really a trilogy. It was three movies. It wasn't really a continuous trilogy. That did not stop us.

There were two movies that were different sequels. There were a duology. No trilogy, really. But there were three movies. There were three movies, yes.

So, yeah. I was going to throw it out there. Or... In general, as we're moving ahead in this overall plan of nonsense, I was going to say if anybody has any suggestions, feel free to throw them out there. But otherwise, it's just up to you and I to come up with some other nonsense for the next round in this.

So we can pick a specific country or we can just go random and start pulling crazy ass movies. I mean, we could do that. But I mean, if we're going for a country next, we. Have to go Australia. I mean.

We can definitely go with Australia, but then where do we... Do we start doing it, like, chronologically or just random picks of the weirdest shit? Well, I mean, it all kind of depends. Like, do you want to talk about comedic sex romps or, you know, like, weird comedies that American audiences really don't understand because it's all Australian kind of ideals and humor and whatever else? Which, granted, some parts...

Like. The southern parts of this country and Australia would be good friends. Rednecks and Aussies could be good friends. I think. I realized that at some point.

I was like, there's rednecks everywhere. I'm sure somewhere in the backwoods of France, there's somebody with a fancy French accent that's still just a terrible redneck. I'm sure. I'm sure. As much as I've been exposed to the Australian culture and media and whatever else, it seems like for every great redneck we would have here, there's at least five Australian people.

Doesn't have to be men. People. Oh, no. Yeah, I can think across the board. People that say, hold my fucking beer, mate.

Yeah, I mean, they would laugh at whatever thing you just did that you think makes you look cool. It's like, yeah, that's what passes in your country. It's like, okay, yeah, take whatever we do here in the States versus what they do in Australia and also add in the fact that there are at least 27 varieties of creature that are designed to kill you. That's what I was going to say. Because living there, you have to realize everything is there to kill you.

Everything they have in their country is meant to kill humans. So it's a little different than hanging out, even in the Bronx. But they seem to live in harmony with it. People pick up poisonous snakes and have no problem with it. Roll with it.

Don't worry about it because they're drunk. And they're built with sterner stuff. You go hang out at the bar and you step over a crocodile that's about to eat you. Yeah. You just don't worry about that shit.

That's fluffy. Don't mind him. I don't doubt people of Australia. They are hardcore, man. Yeah.

But their cinema, God bless them. Because like I said, if you start in the late 60s and the 70s, yeah, you get a lot of like, you know, weird, you know, like I said, you're picnicking, hanging rock kind of shit. You're lots of, you know, like a lot of comedy sex romps or a thing like that. And you start to get like a little bit in the horror stuff like that. But then we start like in like the late 70s going into the 80s, we start hitting.

The action movies. Yeah. And God damn, for every crazy Italian, Chinese, Hong Kong, whatever kind of fucked up genre of foreign movie. Aussies, Aussie, Aussie, baby. Because, man, it's so beautiful.

And I'm sure they could make it for so much cheaper. Because you've got the visuals built in. It already just looks like that. Absolutely, yeah. So you don't have to set up anything.

You just pay a couple of people to go hang out there and shoot some crazy stuff and blow up cars. But the thing that adds a lot of the flair and the flavor to Australian exploitation cinema is... is that there was a lot of artistic chances that were taken in this genre. Across the board, it doesn't matter if it's a horror movie, a thriller, an action movie, an adventure pic, whatever the case may be. There will be artistic chances being taken. And also, there are safety measures that are non-existent.

Especially at that time. I don't think they even considered safety measures. Of course, the most famous independent Australian film of all time will be the original Mad Max. There has not been a movie that has since trumped its cultural, financial, whatever else, impact, its influences, everything else. But there's at least two scenes in that movie where you can watch someone die.

Great! And they die in vehicular combat. But yeah, there are two specific scenes in that film that is captured on film like, that guy died. What a fun movie. At least we got a movie out of it.

I don't know that that makes it okay, but they did their job, damn it. They blowed up that car and rolled it 78 times, and it looked awesome. And God bless him. The mastermind himself, George Miller, is giving us yet another Mad Max film coming this summer, and I can't wait. Speaking of, there's your girl in it.

Yep. Which was an odd move. I was like, she's not that much older. I know mathematically she's a little older, but you can just get Charlene to show up, and. Nobody would have any complaints, so...

It was interesting to pull somebody different just to do a little prequel version. Either way, I'm going to watch it. Yeah, they wanted to get somebody obviously a little younger than Charlize. But I think Anya Taylor-Joy, her body type also, it's much more believable that she grows up to be Charlize. You know, sort of thing.

Like, especially when you get towards like the end of the movie, you see like in the trailer, like she's starting to look like Charlize did in Fury Road. Yeah. So it's like, okay, that, yeah. But I think what's going to steal the show is freaking Hemsworth. Yeah.

It's like he's playing the bad guy in the movie. Obviously, you know, it's like the Immortan Joe character that we meet in Fury Road works apparently, seems like to work for Hemsworth's character. That's kind of what you need to make these things work. That's what made Fury Road come together was having that insane through line of him, basically. But yeah, Hemsworth, like just the two, like the teaser trailer and the first full trailer, like just seeing his performance in that trailer, I'm going, he had a last with this movie.

You can tell. I mean, this is Chris, right? Yeah. That's the thing. Like, if you give him a chance to do what he needs to do, like, there's he's just been, like, stuck in so many specific things, not just blaming Thor, but like he's got a very narrow window.

Like we've got one good Thor movie and like other than that, like he's stuck being kind of blaming most of them. So it's like you see him do something and like in a movie everyone didn't like. He is the treat of Ghostbusters. That version of Ghostbusters, I'm like, it's a shame this is an all-female cast because this guy just stole your movie. He's so good in that movie.

The Vacation remake. Oh, see? I don't even remember. Again, there's all those other things that he shows. Because that's the thing.

The El Royale movie. Oh, the showdown or the bad night, the ill night. Yeah. He is so good. If I didn't already know who you are, I'd be like, who is this dude?

And how is he not the huge star? And like, that's the thing. He's a huge name, but like, you just didn't get enough of those performances. So when we're giving him the chance now, it's like, He just steps up and he can do it. You just need to give it more of these roles.

If you have not seen the Vacation remake, it's got Ed Helms and Christina Applegate. I know of it, I just never. Again, it was one of those remakes that I never got around to. Dude, it's actually worth seeing. Because, of course, the plot line is this is Rusty, grown up as an adult now, trying to emulate his dad.

One of many, many Rustys out there. Yes. But you've got Ed Helms playing the adult Rusty. And we do get a cameo from Clark and Ellen. That's the only Griswold cameo we get.

Well, that's how it always works. It's always Clark and Ellen and some other Rusty and or other child. They wanted to get Randy Quaid, but he was still having his crazy in Canada phase. Yeah. I don't know that that ever goes away.

Maybe not Canada, but I don't know that crazy ever goes away with Randy Quinn. See, he's on the convention circuit. I've seen him showing up now. So I wondered how much he's reigned in or if it's one of those, you just show up and who knows what's. Going to happen.

Yeah. Well, I'm curious to see, but yeah, but they're the only group that yeah. Clark and Ellen showing up. The only Griswold's in there, but like Audrey, you know, basically is, you know, shows up later on the film and she's married to Chris Hemsworth. And he's basically like, It's hilarious because you get to their place and she's living in.

Very high lifestyle. She's rich. And you find out that basically they're living in Texas and Chris Hemsworth is the number one weatherman in the city. I can see that. Well, I know a lot of large. market when it comes to media stuff and you can have somebody that has like a lot of money as an on-air talent they still can't afford that place.

Not that i was like i can see him being pretty looking in front of a map somewhere going yeah well coming in over here i can see him being a weatherman and being like people being. Like oh this guy but of course the the running joke that the entire movie is basically like he's like this perfect manly you know like you know beautiful looking dude and like you know rusty's basically at home you know he's always playing off the you know, the, the shnibly little weak dudes like that. But the, the great thing though, is that there's several scenes in, I mean, cause Hemsworth's not in very long, but he has at least two scenes where it's like, he's just basically standing there in his skivvies, And just, like, parading around with his cut abs and huge dong.

And there's even, like, a point where, like, he's just standing there talking to Rusty and his wife. And, like, just literally, like, cocks a leg up so you can really see that package. Really, like, front and center. And you're like, why am I looking at your dick right now? That's exactly why.

But, yeah. But it's just... Oh, yeah. It's like... Yeah.

The vacation remake's worth seeing. But, like, it's just. Just seeing those bits of Hemsworth in the trailer playing the bad guy, it's like, man, he looks like he's having a blast. The big fake nose. I'm telling you, if you give him a chance, he can deliver.

And he's leaning heavy into the weird part of the Australian accent. When he's in his normal Aussie accent, he doesn't talk like that. It's pretty minimal, yeah. He's leaning into evil Crocodile Dundee kind of thing. And I was like, I'm there for it.

Yep. I'm sold either way. Yeah. So. What you're saying is we're not going to watch anything near that level.

Oh, I'm sure we'll get something close. I mean, they're not going to be that level of budget. Not budget-wise. They'll still be murdering people on set. Oh, yes, yes, very much so.

That will happen, don't worry. But budgetary, not quite that level. Yeah, so we mentioned Turkey Shoot earlier, which, again, definitely would be one I'd want to put high on our list of watching. That's the movie that almost killed Steve Rails back. Jeez.

Actually, there's a great documentary called Not Quite Hollywood, the story of Aussie exploitation. I remember when it came out. I don't think I've seen it. If so, I've forgotten so much of it that I obviously need to watch it again. I grew up on exploitation cinema.

I was one of those weird kids. The worse the movie, the better. I'm all about it. I've seen more than my share. When this documentary came out, it gave me a whole new love and also introduced me to a handful of movies I had not seen.

There's a lot of them from that era that I have to have slipped through the cracks because there were too many of them. The documentary is so damn fun. It's a rock concert set to the tone of a documentary about a film industry of a certain country. It's a blast. It's fun.

The soundtrack's a lot of fun. It's all Aussie bands that aren't ACDC. It's everybody but ACDC. They even get to pull out Rose Tattoo a couple of times. Like, hell fucking yeah!

Because Rose Tattoo is basically ACDC that never left Australia. So it's the same band. They stayed in the bars. They didn't go into the arenas. I think that's a little early because for a while there I liked a lot of bands and then after a while I kept going they are all from Australia like it wouldn't dawn on me only later I was like wait all of these are from Australia but they were post that I think so.

Yeah but yeah so there's just yeah there's some it's a lot of fun last time I saw that documentary was on like freebie or 2B or something like that so it's running around free somewhere so yeah not quite Hollywood the name of the documentary see it It's a blast. And pick out which one of the horrendous movies you want us to watch. So if not, we're just going to pick our own. So let us know if you have suggestions that we may or may not take you up on. We can always watch Stunt Rocker.

I'm sure you want to watch Stunt Rocker. Give me an excuse to watch Stunt Rocker hell yeah Stunt Rocker will be a movie that will surprise you of the level of quality because it's not really a movie so much as it's a bunch of cut scenes of stunts being performed by the world's most premier stuntman who happened to come from Australia also set to the tune of the Southern California knockoff Iron Maiden band called Sorcery. I know the whole pitch of it, yeah. It's its own concept. If you spent any time in Wild and Wooly for a long period of time, you probably saw some.

Parts of Stunt Rocker. It was going on in the background. Yeah, there was a couple folks there that loved some Stunt Rocker. That's how I. Basically discovered the movie was through Wild and Wooly.

So God bless them. The classics never die. Rest in peace. But yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Stunt Rocker and Turkey Shoot would be my two top picks.

Throwing something else in there, but yeah, those would be my two offerings. Because I would want to avoid Mad Max because everybody's seen it. Yeah, and I feel like. It's a classic, but everybody's seen it. Let's discover...

And. We discuss it every time we get to one of these because it had such an impact on everything. Both that and maybe even more so Road Warrior, where every movie that came after that, you see the ripple effect of that coming along. Yep. Yeah, we will still reference them, I'm sure, but we don't need to necessarily watch them.

Yeah. George Miller is on my short list of directors I would love to meet. Because you have done so much for me, sir, and you still continue. That's the thing. He's a director that has been working for decades now.

And he's still doing it. He's still at it. And he's weird. And he'll take a break. And then he'll go in a whole new direction.

And then he'll come back. If you've not seen the film, have you at least seen the trailer for A Thousand Years of Longing? I do remember seeing the trailer. And again, I was like, and this is where he went next? It was so weird to follow up the last movie with this one.

He is a fascinating director. Yes, he is. He wanted to make something for his kids, so he does the Babe movies. Which are quality. They really are.

They are. That's the thing. I remember watching them when they first came out and playing them. Again, that was back in the video store days. You could play that all day because it's for kids.

But as we watched it, we're like, this is really well written. It's not like it's just a slapped together. Just put something on there for kids to look at for an hour and a half. Like, it was genuinely well written. And then they got good actors.

Like, it's surprising how good the movie as a whole functions. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, I was working in movie theaters at the time when both films came out. So, I mean, my ass is standing in the back of the theater waiting to clean up popcorn in that movie, crying every time James Cromwell says, that'll do, pig. Oh, yeah.

Goddamn, baby. James Cromwell delivers in that movie. And again, in something that shouldn't be that good, really, but damned if it is. God, yeah. Son of a bitch.

Yeah. It's like, he's like, I want to make something for the kids. And so you make Babe. It's like talking pig, cute stuff, well done. It's like, God, I hate you.

Even the movies I don't want to watch, I have to watch because it's you and it's good. Yeah. He is a fascinating man. He really is. Yeah, he's on my short list.

Of my short list of five, I've only met one. I don't know. I try not to even set the goal anymore. I'm like, if it happens, that's good. We'll roll with it, though.

Yeah, and for anyone's edification, the other four are Carpenter, Sam Raimi, which if I got out of the house and went to Lexington last year, I. Could have met Sam. I hit that one, so yeah. Though I did manage to have a Tarantino autograph without having actually met Tarantino. That's probably the best version.

No, I want to meet him. Don't get me wrong. I'm fascinated by him. I think he's a fascinating director. He is a lot to deal with.

I know. He's my kind of a lot to deal with. I want to talk to this man. I want to hang out and watch movies and just hear him randle on about shit. I was going to say, you won't get a word in edgewise.

Good. But you'll get to hear a lot of stories. If I'm sitting with Tarantino, fuck what I got to say. I want to hear what he's got to say. He's got a lot to say.

Yeah, that's why I listen to the man's podcast. That's why I buy his books and shit. It's like, I'm all in. Actually, Rodriguez would kind of be a tie. He's another fascinating dude.

It's far more normal, but yeah. You could have a conversation with Rodriguez. Yeah, definitely. He seems like the most down-to-earth guy ever. Also a good cook, too.

Well, that's the thing. He does everything. You look back at those old movies, he's not only like... Like, he's doing the stuff nobody else does. Not only is he writing, directing, like, he's editing it.

And he's running catering. He's, like, working the music end of it. He's making food for everybody because everybody on the set's his family anyway. Or friends. He just kept hiring everybody in the family.

Like, you watch those early movies and it's just Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Rodriguez. And it's like, it's not just a common name. Like, he hired everyone he knew. Because why wouldn't you not? Like, why would you not support your own family?

So, I liked... I like that move. It was pretty cool. But yeah, he's another just fascinating, weird choices over the years. Yeah.

But yeah, John Carpenter and George Miller would be the others. So yeah. Yeah. Those are definitely, that's my, that's my short list. Like I said, I've only met Romero, but God, that was a wonderful experience.

They always say never meet your heroes unless that hero is George Romero. He was cool. That was very brief. I had a, I got, I got to have a nice conversation with him when I had the signing and, and then later on he was I was going into the lounge bar he was coming out and some people were talking and something like that and so I kind of glommed into the conversation basically kind of joined in the crowd and got to have a couple of you know things to say and listen to what he was saying so so technically I had a. Conversation with him he was another that seemed super down to earth he was yeah.

Came from nothing essentially and like had a way bigger impact than he ever had the success to meet it but well and at the time i met him. Too this was basically like 10 years before the walking. Before it hit so well before he started doing that kind of stuff like if it's the same time i met him it was like it was wonderfest it was it was before they were even doing conventions on that like he hadn't done a convention like that ever and didn't expect anybody to show up for him so. That's that's that's my my favorite part of that story is when he's telling the the organizer of the convention like oh no one cares about me in these movies yeah he's gonna show up and the whole damn weekend there was a line around that hotel.

And then fast forward to 10 years later it's like he did every convention because like it became an industry by then but like that early on the the The convention circuit wasn't as big as it was, and there wasn't a push for him and zombie movies and everything else. Right, yeah. So, like, all of that changed in the span of, like, ten years. Like, so much. It was insane.

Yeah, but the thing I love, too, is that entire line of people, it's like, It wasn't like those were like, oh, I occasionally like zombie movies or Walking Dead's kind of fun. I want to meet the guy who kind of inspires me. Those were all Romero fans. Those were hardcore Romero fans. Every single one of them.

I stood in line with friends. I made friends when I was in line with people. You didn't mind standing in line at the time because you knew at the end of this you were going to get to meet Romero and everybody that was coming back. was having smiles on their faces. So it's like he had a fantastic weekend getting all the flowers. Savini was there.

So that was even more icing on the cake. So that's trouble right there. That was even more icing on the cake because I got to meet fucking Tom Savini and get his signature. And he was cool. So it was just a tremendous weekend.

So I was like, if I can have an experience every time, I need to go to one of Carpenter's shows because he's got a new record coming out again. He just seemed like he was doing it because he said he'd do it. And he was just trying to get through. Because I had a very brief interaction with him. And that's what it was.

And I tried to explain. We had a weird connection to him. And I tried to explain that to him. And he was like, uh-huh. He was just like, all right, move along.

We're done. So, again, I don't blame him for that. He was just anybody that gets stuck at one of those tables with a line around the building. You're just like, okay, whatever. Move along, weirdo.

I feel like he would be a little more prickly to deal with. It depends. I feel like, yeah. Yeah, granted, he's older now, too. He's always been a little surly.

That's what I always loved about him, very matter-of-factly. At the same time, I was like, okay, well, there's a lot of the same things that we're into. He's a big video game player, so am I. So I was like, I could talk to him about that. So if I could talk to John Carpenter about.

Video games, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, I give him more credit for impact than a lot of people. So, yeah, what he did is so phenomenal. Yeah, I mean, obviously, the video game. Of when I really started noticing directors in our tours as a young film fan, Carpenter was the first guy because he's the dude that put his name on top of every movie.

And he's still my go-to like without even thinking about it. Cause I was so many times people like normal people are just like, Oh, what's your favorite movie? What's your favorite? Like specifically horror. Like, My go-to.

Like, I immediately just knee-jerk reaction go to him. It's like, Halloween, Thing, take your pick. They're both masterpieces. So, it's like, either way you go, he was there at the very beginning of that run of 80s horror and, like, just knocking out the best stuff there was. You know, so, yeah.

I mean, my top three of his will always be Thing, Escape from New York, and Assault on Precinct 13. Yeah. With, you know, basically with honorable mention of number four being Big Trouble in Little China. That's like its own special place for me. I love that one.

But again, it's like, that's just so weird. Like, again, to look at like, okay, Halloween, the thing, and then that. Like, I love it, but man, this is a weird offshoot. It's an action comedy. I love it.

It's a chop-socky movie. It's a supernatural movie. It's ridiculous at many points. It's also an anti-action movie because your main hero is a doofus. And basically his sidekick is the badass.

Oh, yeah. And never gets credit. Yeah. So it's like, holy shit. It's so amazing.

But, yeah, so not what you expect from the guy who brought you these other masterpieces. Yeah. Like, yeah, I love it, but it's so weird comparatively. Yeah. So, yeah, all these guys, pretty awesome.

Yep. So there you go, folks. We've given you a bit of an assignment there. So if you don't want us to travel to sunny Australia for our next venture into exploitation cinema, then give us something else. Throw something out there.

Otherwise, we're just going to pick some random Italian. We're going to throw some shrimp on the barley, baby. Australian nonsense. So, yeah. Yes, sir.

All right. I think that about covers it. I think it does, too. I think we've done enough damage today. Yeah, I think so.

So we'll save the rest for next time. Indeed. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening.

Y'all take care now. We'll be right back. On my own. They just can't see No need to hear the things that they say Life's for my own to live my own way guitar solo. Things have to change.

So much. So much. Nonsense. So little, really, on the screen, and yet a lot. Yep.

That's the glory of exploitation. It's like it's a whole bunch of bullshit. But it's fun bullshit. Sometimes they really deliver and come up with something amazing for no. Budget, and then other times it's just, eh, let's kill people for.

An hour and a half. 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! This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.