Warriors… Check your Brain at the Door

This is Calvin Reader, and you are listening to Movie Meltdown. I just can't go on. 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. To provide more cooling in the containment chamber. To your stations, we have a rebound. Warriors, come out to play. Music 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, where we are back to make good on a threat. Oh, yeah. In a recent episode, we threatened.

To continue our. Let's see. At least the grander scale, more like drive-in grindhouse movies. But if nothing else, our post-apocalyptic series that we're midway into now. The triology of post-apocalyptic nonsense.

So we will get to that. But before, to ease our way in, have you seen anything interesting lately? Let's see here. I've seen a bunch of stuff, but I'm trying to think of some things that stick out. So much over the Halloween season, I was trying to catch up on a lot of stuff.

So I was watching a lot of found footage movies. I went through all the VHS series. Which, basically, I can't pick a single one that I like, but I like that segment, I like this segment. They're all hit and miss, yeah. It's like you could combine segments from all of them and make an epic, great version.

But each one is like, eh, that one's not so great. But I really enjoyed As Above, So Below. I did not see the quality of that one coming. I've heard decent things. I still haven't gotten around to it.

Yeah, from the... And the cool thing is from the trailer and some of the ads and stuff like that that were out for it when it was released at the time, it's misleading about what it's really about. Yeah. So it's a cool flick. Sometimes they shoot themselves in the foot on that one.

Sometimes they sucker you in that way. And then other times they just do it the wrong way and then nobody goes to see the movie. Yeah, but people think, oh, it's kind of like a ghost thing or a zombie thing because they're down in the catacombs in Paris. Like, no, it's more kind of like if Indiana Jones was a horror movie. I mean, moments of it are, sure.

Yeah, yeah. That's kind of a, yeah, that's a feeling of it. But yeah, yeah, so I dug that. The one, though, that, have you seen Skink-a-Marink? I've heard people talk about it many a time.

I've even seen it come up on the listings and I was like, all right, need to get to it and haven't done it yet. So I guess I should. Yeah. It's a viewing experience. I will definitely put it down as one of those like badge of honor kind of films.

Like you need to see it. You don't want to rewatch? No. No interest whatsoever. Not because it's necessarily a bad film.

I think its execution is way overblown. This could have been a short. That gets in troublesome areas sometimes. This literally is the equivalent of the company meeting that could have been in an email. I saw what they were trying to do.

I kind of got it, but still at the same time, I found myself very bored and i fast forwarded through the movie which i never did. Doesn't sound too good maybe it's getting itself kicked a little further down that list yeah i'll get to it. Eventually but it's one of those like you need to check it out just like yeah like i don't recommend watching all of the um oh what's the uh the human centipede movies but if you at least see the first one to kind of get the flavor of what's going. On i feel like if you've seen that diagram you're good Also, yeah. Or the South Park episode where they spook you.

There you go. Yeah, I've definitely seen the South Park episode. But if you're like me and a glutton for punishment, like, you know, you always heard all the years about, you know, cannibal holocaust. Oh, you got to check this out. So, like, you know, years ago, I'm like, yeah, let's see.

And it's like, okay, this is going to be one of those movies that I torture newbies with. I do have that, yeah, I need to get to that eventually mode in my geekdom. You know, I feel like that's part of being a geek is like, yeah, I have to see. You know, the funny thing is, is that if you know any of the behind the scenes stuff of Cannibal Holocaust, if comparison to like a more recent cannibal movie, Green Inferno, the Eli Roth flick. No.

Cannibal Holocaust is way more uncomfortable because of like the animal abuse in the movie. Yeah, that's the main part I've heard about over the years. And the main reason I'm like, yeah, I'm not real in a big rush on that one. Because it's all for real happening. You know, it's like they're not murdering real people.

They are murdering real animals, so that's a little more bothersome for me. People, you can eat people, kill them, I don't care. Yeah, but I'll say, when you get to Green Inferno, it's like, yeah, every one of those people deserve it, so you're cheering for the cannibals in that movie. Yeah. You know, most movies, aren't you?

I really, yeah. I will say, completely on the other side of the spectrum, though, for a comedy, probably one of the best ones I didn't see coming, even though I like their stuff on SNL, but the Please Don't Destroy guys, the current video dudes. I watched the trailer for that recently. I was like, you know, as crazy and over the top as this looks, I might have to watch it. I haven't yet, but.

It is a riot. It is nonstop with the jokes. It does give you some breathing room. But it doesn't slow down. A lot of comedies will peter out by the time you get to the end.

Maybe they let their heart out a little too much, and so they're getting more wholesome and less funny. And so you're feeling good by the end, but you're not laughing by the end. This movie doesn't fucking stop. Tip of the cap to these guys. Well done.

Well, if we're easing our way in with a comedy, and then I'll get to my bigger question that leads to our other discussion. I did watch, this sort of ties in more of our old-timey superhero series. I've seen the original a couple of times now, but I finally found a copy of Once Upon a Deadpool. And I was like from the moment I heard what it was. I was like damn it I'm gonna have to watch that and I finally found a copy because like they don't really do it streaming the whole purpose of it was we're going to put it out we're going to make it a PG-13 version how do we do that and they found this wraparound way that I was like, damn it, I'm going to have to see that.

So it's everything I expected it to be. And super bonus points to Fred Savage for being a sport because he has just fully committed to this ridiculous premise. I mean, we know Ryan. Reynolds is a dork and he will do anything and comes up with the most ridiculous ideas. So that didn't surprise me.

But the fact that Fred was like, let's do this. And continually had the better jokes of making fun of Deadpool making fun of Marvel. Massively, Sony Marvel even more so. He's like, this is why I like Marvel movies. We are Marvel.

You're Sony Marvel. So those are really the best digs in the whole thing. Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen it, but oh yeah, it is brilliant. I am grateful that the new Deadpool movie coming out next summer will be a R-rated Deadpool movie. As was too, but this is a version of it.

But yeah, well done on that one too. In the comics, there are times they'll go back and forth. Depending on who the writing and creative team are, they will do some funny... accessible Deadpool stuff that you would be fine with your children reading these things. And then they also do, you know, like the recent, um, they did a recent one shot called, uh, seven slaughters where the storyline was Deadpool is hired to do a job where he has to kill seven people a day for seven days. So it's quite a challenge.

He's been issued. Yes. He was given a basically, you know, for like 80 kajillion dollars and all the chimichangas in the world, uh, You know, this is your job. And so I think he had like a certain list of people he had to do. And some of them were going to be a little difficult because they had high security or whatever the case may be.

But yeah. And so the fun thing was that each day a different creative team does the day. So it's like a $ 10 book. It's like 80 pages, big, big thing, you know, volume there. But it's really cool.

You get like seven mini stories in this thing. And it's all around the same overarching plot. It is. Uh entertaining it does remind me that there's so many of the elements of two i like more than the first like i i feel like i wasn't as impressed with the first one i feel like i came to it late everybody already built it up as like because it was the anti every other superhero movie yeah And super R-rated, which is what they were going for. So I finally watched it and I was like, eh, it's fine.

It was fun. But there's so much more that comes into play in that second one. And once again, Josh Brolin is a badass. Like he always is. I'm like, how can you be the biggest villain in two different Marvel movies?

Well, I mean, one's Sony Marvel. But still, they're kind of Marvel. There's actually a funny story about that. Oh, Lord. He had, Brolin had a recent interview where somebody asked him about that.

How did you end up getting two Marvel roles almost like at the same time? Almost back to back, yeah. And he's like, well, he says, I was cast as Cable a while back. And so that was in production and we had to halt for a little bit like that. But then the Avengers thing came up and they wanted somebody just to do a voiceover.

And like I was available, yada, yada, yada. So they just had me do the voiceover. And then all of a sudden people like, oh my gosh, Josh Brolin did the voiceover. And then they realized their main plot is like, we're going to do the, basically once they were finished with the first Avengers movie. Feige and all them behind MCU knew, like, okay, we're going to do the Infinity Gauntlet storyline.

Yeah, because the old post-credits does not look like him. It's just a generic Thanos-looking image, and that's all we get. Yeah, we get a big guy in a gold armor with a purple face. Yeah. Yeah, it's a different Thanos.

So he was kind of just a footnote. He was like, let's just throw this in here as a fun thing, but maybe or maybe not, we'll do some, we'll see how it goes. And it went well. So they're like, oh, yeah, okay, we are going to do an Infinity Gauntlet. Hey!

Josh, what are you doing later? And so he did not expect to end up doing Thanos. Being the biggest villain ever since Darth Vader. So, yeah. So, basically, technically, even though Thanos was released, the Avengers was released first before Deadpool 2, he was technically Cable first.

Yeah. Well, and then the other thing I forget every time. And I get into it and I'm like, oh, man. Whew. Sassy beats.

I forget every time. I'm like, good God. Anyway. Anyway. I do like the character, but on top of that, I'm constantly distracted.

Yeah, she's hot. Yeah. She's so attractive. Anyway. And the Brad Pitt cameo literally was because his kids love Deadpool.

And so they were like, wouldn't it be fun if we got like an ultra big celebrity to just come in for this one shot. One flickering image and that's it. Yeah. And so somebody throws out, well, hey, what about Brad Pitt? And Ryan's like, I'll call him.

I can do this. I'm Ryan Reynolds. And so Ryan personally called, and he's like, dude, my kids love Deadpool. Yeah. He may have done it for a case of Funyuns or something.

He didn't do it for hardly anything. See, what's funny is. Since now we're talking about the Once Upon a Deadpool, like Deadpool 2 makes that joke and that's its own joke. It's like, but that was him. And then that's it.

They don't address it. Because of the cutaway portion of Once Upon a Deadpool, then we get to play a whole other joke. You get that second and then it cuts to Fred Savage going, was that? Was that Brad Pitt? So you get, number one, they call out exactly who it was for the one person in the audience who didn't recognize Brad Pitt.

But then also we get a whole extra joke that ties into everything that would only be possible after the movie was done. Because then his, not to spoil it, but again, it's Deadpool just making dumb comments. So he's like, how the hell did you get Brad Pitt? And he's like, How did you willingly? He's like, well, I didn't say willingly as he's kidnapped Fred Savage.

Right. So then the joke is he has, and again, he rattles it off as only would make sense to you as the audience member. He has Brad Pitt. matt damon and celine dion tied up in his basement and i was like okay the last one would only make sense well after the fact because i'm sure it took him a while to secure that song so i'm like that joke can only be made well after the movie's over with so i i like that we get an extra joke out of that even though it's super like one of the most memorable moments in that movie the first time around but now we get like a second pass And a whole other joke thrown in. And see, I almost think they need to kind of revisit that in the third one because like, okay, obviously he released Fred because Fred played his part, did his thing.

Selene was released because she did the song and he was in the video and all that kind of stuff. Where's Matt Damon? I mean, he was there. Unrecognizable almost. But he's there.

Like in every movie out there. There's secretly a Matt Damon hiding somewhere in your movie. Yeah, but I don't know. If I'm going to have Matt Damon in a movie, I'm going to be like, you know, It'd be like playing a Brad Pitt. It's like, I'm going to make it known.

Like, hey, that's Matt Damon. I mean, technically, he shot that dude. So he can't play that character again. But he can come back as Matt Damon. That's true, yeah.

Zombie Matt Damon. So there's our comedy. But the other thing I saw, and technically, I mentioned this on the last episode. So not to repeat myself, but because I wanted to address kind of the bigger thing as we get into this. Mm-hmm.

Because I just recently watched Leave the World Behind. Oh, okay. Have you seen that? Not yet. I want to.

It's definitely worth seeing. Again, if you're not. And this is the thing. I feel like people on the internets, surprise, they're whiny. Or upset because it's like it's not pinning down exactly what happened.

It doesn't give you the entire freaking story and wrap it up with a bow on top of it. Of why the world changed. And hand it to, not even that, like by the time you get to the end, like don't expect everything to be wrapped up in your whole story because then you're going to be like the rest of the internet and you're going to whine the whole time. But I like the ambiguity. Yeah, if you just are there for here's what happened in this amount of time, here's what happened.

So I'm like, that's the presentation of this. And I'm like, I kind of like that. And it's sort of making a. Couple of different points along the way. So I'll leave those for you to discover.

Cool, okay. But the thing as I got into that and mentioned it last time, because I was almost selling it as like a sub-genre of horror now. Yeah. Which it kind of is. It's not really a horror movie once you get in there, but.

It's its own. It's a paranoia thriller. But they start to cross over and they bleed into one thing. So it's like anything that's, the world falling apart, it's like can go any different direction depending on what the incident is that starts this process. Okay.

So I was like, cause. Then I was going down last time I was running off like some of the other, like the last of us kind of thing. Like that was huge. Same sort of thing. One little thing gets messed up and guess what?

The whole world goes to hell. So we're coming off of like walking dead. But then there was like all those other ones that were big, popular, like bird box and a quiet place. And like, Then we get some sort of creature involved and like now there's a whole new problem that you're fighting with. But I was like, these are all pretty big budget and like pretty giant stars being thrown into them now.

So it's like, is this its own? I mean, it's definitely its own subgenre, but it's like several of them crammed into one because you've got like the... post-apocalyptic you know roland emmerich version of let's watch every disaster kill the world or you've got the some incident has happened and now things are going to hell we have to deal with it it's more of a slice of life version which is kind of more of leave the world behind yeah okay um and then you get ones that are very specific that are like a monster or something so like there's many variations but they're all kind of in this bigger picture of the world's falling apart And this is how we're going to deal with it. And each one kind of picks a different way of this is how we're going to deal with it.

So, I don't know. What did you think of this? Because it's a very big popular. Like, we're, in a while, going to be talking about a much smaller subgenre that I feel like not everybody came in contact back in 1983. But now I'm like, you know, you got Julia Roberts and...

Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt in these things. And I'm like, this is stuff your mom's going to watch, you know? Right. So, like, it's appealing to a much bigger audience now that I'm like, this is an interesting thing that, like, normal people are on board to watch, you know, Squid Games is another one. Sure.

Hey, the world's kind of falling apart, financially speaking, so how about we deal with it in a weird way that creates its own dystopian universe? So, there's all these different varieties, but they're all kind of... leading to the same end of the world place. Sure. And that's what's brilliant about that whole end of the world dystopian or extinction level event or a post-apocalyptic or a Mad Max sort of world. The possibilities are endless of what you could do with it, how it's going to look, what your gimmick is, that sort of thing like that.

So that's why you can get a very classy... Like I said, I need to see this movie because it's in my queue. But, like, I mean, you've got, like, you know, Julia Roberts, Mashallah Lee, Kevin Bacon. I can't remember who else is in this movie. Ethan Hawke.

Oh, that's right. Ethan Hawke. Yeah. So, I mean, you've got, like, you know, top A-level actors here in a very classy-looking movie. But, like, this is still, like, an end-of-the-world kind of thing here.

It is. It's weird because it's very subtle in how it gets into it. It's very measured of, like, okay, we're just going to ease our way into this situation. Mm-hmm. And then, like, things start to change.

And then you're like, okay, how do you deal with that? And then, like, bigger things start to change. You're like, okay, now what do you do? So it's like they're very segmented almost. But at the same time, it's like this small scenario, this small group of people.

And, like, they're dealing with what they now are, like, it's slowly starting. to dawn on them that this is a much bigger worldwide problem right we're certainly taking over our country again it's almost a little more that's what i said last week it's almost out of today's headlines kind of a thing because at that point they don't know what's going on so they start blaming other countries and like things were being attacked and so like it's a lot of things that could be which again is even more weird that people are like signing on to be like yes i want to watch this movie i was like well this is your everyday life i hate to tell you. Yeah have fun with that sometimes though that kind of works out man just you know a movie that's literally you know talking about the times that we are currently living in sometimes goes over well sometimes they're kind of lost to time but they're rediscovered later.

Sometimes they're frighteningly accurate yes they are Looking at you, Idiocracy. But yeah, I was like, okay, this has never happened before. We definitely had our 70s big budget run. I was thinking, I was like, Mega Man, Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green. And I was like, what the hell's going on with Charlton Heston, by the way?

He's a very dour guy. His pulse on the end of the world that was the 1970s. Everything is going to die. That was my Charlton Heston. Thank you.

Thank you. Don't clap to steal money. Almost as good as Wayne's World. Anyway. Ah, Gordon Street.

Bye. I don't know. That's the thing. I was thinking like it seems like it left that big budget. We didn't have near as many like 80s, but we had a ton of cheap ones in the 80s.

Oh, yeah. Thanks to our old pals in Australia. We had a million knockoffs that came along and did a bunch of cheap into the world. In many different ways, for many different variety of reasons, with a lot of different cars. So...

Sort of cars? There's at least one car in this movie. On that note, I guess we should roll into this week's movie. Yes, let's do. It's time for Sofa Theater.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the nuclear holocaust had come to pass and civilization vanished. It was a time of chaos and violence until one day there appeared. The new barbarians. But only we, the Templars, are the ministers of revenge. Run!

With all the Templars around, you women are getting rare. What are you doing? I can't stay. In one place for long. So many people are.

Running after me. But I would have handled it without your help. Use that anger. It's a trap! What are you here for?

I'm here to kill you. The New Barbarian. My damn taxi's gonna break my back. I'm in the wasteland. I'm in the wasteland.

I'm in the wasteland. I'm in the wasteland. I'm in the wasteland, mama. You know it's true. No motherfuckers gonna tell me what to do.

I'm in the wasteland. This seventh-eater feature is Warriors of the Wasteland, a.k.a. The New Barbarians. The year is 1983. The director, Enzo G.

Castuelli. Mamma mia. And the plot, according to IMDB, which I think they just pulled from some random person who felt like writing it. Two mercenaries help wandering caravans fight off an evil and aimless band of white-clad bikers after a nuclear holocaust. I guess.

As much as you're going to make a story out of this, sure, that's close enough. That describes 20 minutes of the movie. So with that, spoiler alert, we're about to ruin the hell out of this, but... I don't know how much you're going to ruin. I mean, if you get the concept, you're there.

You're along for the ride because there's not a whole lot of other story beats that you're going to get blown for you. There's some moments you're probably not prepared for. All right. Now, on to the future of 2019. Isn't that technically the past?

No, this is the future. What are you talking about? We're in 2023 and it doesn't look anything like that. 2019. It's almost like they were wrong.

Well, then again, you know, they were in 1983 and they said, let's look ahead to a, you know, the far distant future of 2019 of 1990 or well, the, yes, the first, our original Bronx warriors in 1990. And so this is basically barely 20 years removed from Bronx warriors. So, um, Well, from the opening of this film, literally the opening credits, we get a cityscape that is definitely a model. I don't know what you're talking about. That was real.

No. And it also might have been the Troma logo. I'm not sure. I think if Lloyd didn't sue these guys, he should have. Because it looks exactly like it.

But a white fireball hits the city center, and then the world's worst smoke effect proceeds over the next couple of minutes and credits. What the hell are you saying? Not bad effects. Because we're... my wife and I've subjected my wife to this movie twice. That poor woman.

Well, and she has a, she has a certain enjoyment of it for many different reasons as well. We'll go into, but I was going on about the smoke effect in this most recent rewatch. As we're talking about the movie, I was like, notice how like the smoke starts from the top of the screen and then eventually pours down and then fills up everything. And then you can't see anything because the smoke's over there. It's like someone didn't know how a bomb works.

Or the smoke. Came from space and this is actually aliens taking over. They're just going to, let's just make them crazy and weird for a while. And then when they kill each other off, we'll take over their dumb planet. But yeah, so basically it just, yeah, it's like, no, the smoke would have come from the explosion and gone up and then spread out.

Oh, no. So if we're going by their, I'm using quotes, math, I guess technically that should be taking place in 2010. Because it's 2019 when we start, and they give this nine years since this all happened. So I guess we went from 1990, things were just bad in one part of the world. Everything else seemed to be normal in our last movie of this triology.

And then we jump ahead to, I guess, 2010 when the bomb decides we don't know where, we don't know why. They really do not go into backstory on this one. They do not. It's just things blowed up and here we are. You know, the thing that always puzzled me about this, because it's, even though the filmmakers sometimes will say, no, Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx, they're the movies that are there.

But then basically people want to lump in New Barbarians as no movies. It is a trilogy because you filmed three movies in a very short period of time using almost the same cast for all three films. And you kind of stuck with the same locations and yada, yada, yada. So it's a fucking trilogy. So it's your fault, Enzo.

I'm just saying. Yeah. You just should have released New Barbarians after you released Escape from the Bronx because then it would have made more sense. Yeah. Yeah.

And still none of it's not really going to make sense. Of course not. No. Because we still have at least two of our main actors in this movie that are playing entirely different characters from the last movie. Three.

Even though they're kind of the exact same characters. But they have a different name and don't acknowledge that any of that stuff in the first movie happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, Fred Williamson's character is, you know, he's still a bit of a scoundrel, but he's less of a scoundrel and more of a hero, but doesn't show up until halfway through the movie.

And then the other hero of the movie doesn't show up until like a good 15 minutes in. So you're like, who is this about? I'm still not sure. Because you're like, is it about the Templars? Are they the good guys, even though they're obviously the bad guys?

Because they're the only people we've seen so far. And then we get Scorpion. Scorpion. Before we get too deep in the movie, another thing that always strikes me funny is we get the terrible explosion, we get past the credits, and I love the theme music, too. Because the theme music almost sounds like it's offbeat and then catches up kind of part of the way through.

Which seems about right for this movie. Yeah, because it's very synth-heavy, but it's like a... There's like, oh, wait, wait. Okay, now we're back in syncopation. Is it that same guy that was playing down on the waterfront in the last movie?

No, because that dude was good. That guy was actually just. Hanging out on set as we found out then. So maybe he just showed up in the post-apocalyptic future. No, that cat was good.

He probably would. never use sense. But by then, he had gotten hit with a lot of radiation. So his rhythm was a little off. And one of those arms was falling off. So that explains it.

Maybe. I don't know. But yeah, it's questionable theme music. We're getting shots of our wasteland here. We see smoking craters and all kinds of stuff.

So apparently the half-life is still going on. People are above ground and they probably shouldn't be. And let's not overlook the radiation suit with special bubbles. Yes, booby bubbles. Why did we miss that scene is what I want to know.

I never missed it. Well, no, I want to see the before. I don't want to see these skeletons in there. You lose the effect of the bubbles. Technically, we are going to get more booby bubbles, but this time it's on the other side of the spectrum.

Of course. I'm not looking for those. I wanted the good ones that seem to be in that first suit we saw. But apparently in the far future of 2010 to 2019, whatever kind of time frame we are, We were big fans of concave, clear, plexiglass stuff. And I don't understand the one on the top of the car.

Yeah, why do you have the dome on top of your car that's well lit? It lights the inside of the car so when you're driving at night, how do you see out the windows? Snipers can hit you from a mile away because you've lit up your car. But it doesn't even serve a purpose. If later in there she got up there to run a turret gun and could see out the bubble.

I'd be like, well, there you go. That's why that's there. But it serves absolutely no purpose. So I'm like, if you took that off, this car is badass. It's got the skull, which I'm pretty sure they get like a bonus every time they cut to the skull.

Because there were 487 times we cut back to the skull for no real reason other than just so you know this is his car. Well, if you remember in Bronx Warriors 1990, we had skulls on the motorcycles. But the skulls looked like they were like cheap Halloween skulls. They were. They were, yeah.

So this one, at least they painted chrome so it looked like it was metal. So maybe that's why they were so proud of it. They're like, look, it's actually metal. Let's show it a lot more time. And let's also not forget the unnecessary tubes.

That started in the hood and went nowhere. The tubes at least seem like they fit the concept of like, here, look, this is a crazy future car. So the tubes in the skull I was all good with. Otherwise, your car is obviously a muscle car. It's badass.

But does it need a giant clear dome on the top? Not really. But yes. But yeah, early on, like I said, we establish our main villains, the Templars, led by one, which is... Which one?

The one one. Which one? The one. Let's do our Evan Costello. Yeah, the one guy.

Which, frankly, George Eastman in this role, I love George Eastman. He is one of those unsung heroes of Grindhouse and drive-in cinema that always ended up playing bad guys, but usually was probably the best actor in the movie unless they had some obvious star in there. If you need to have some scenery sitting around that needs a little gnawing on, you bring George in, you'll be just fine. Yeah, he was just the master of that stuff. So anytime he's a villain in a movie, I'm like, okay, we at least have one good thing.

We'll be entertained at some point. Yes. But the thing that really always kind of tickles my fancy is Anil Juralami, who basically is credited as Thomas Moore in this movie, which... If you're Neo in the first movie and then you credit... Why do they think we're not paying attention?

But whatever. Obviously we're not because all of their characters have different names for no good reason. So in Bronx Warriors 1990, he was the president of the corporation. Not the United States, but the president of the corporation. Which is even more powerful, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. Corporations running. His daughter was taken, all that kind of jazz. In this movie, he's basically the... The Starscream, essentially, if we're going to make an analogy here.

The Starscream of the group here. He's the second in command. Always wants to overthrow. Thinks he knows better than one. Under the moniker, his name is Shadow.

Which is really... Actually, that's very clever. That's at least. He's got a cool name. Not a cool enough voice to be Starscream.

No, not a cool enough voice. Still, he's... He at least seems a little more level-headed than one who seems kind of like an egomaniac and sold on his own crazy whatever. We'll get to that later, I guess. Yeah, he's mad as an owl.

Yeah. But the great thing about Shadow in this movie is the hair. Because that hair is like fine, shiny silk like Hulk Hogan from 1984. It is just. Faker than a football bat.

What the hell are you saying? It is just glorious. And that is one of my wife's favorite parts of the movie. Anytime this dude's on here, it always looks like the wind machine's blowing. So his hair has got a slight flow to it.

It's glorious. What is the upstart that gets killed with the. Reject flock of seagulls? That's Mako. There we go.

He's the one I. Was like, yeah, you got kicked out of flock of seagulls, dude. You're close. You're almost there, but you didn't make the cut. He was Massimo Vanni is the name of the actor.

Because that's the one that steals the hair thunder first. And then luckily, you know, shadows around the whole rest of the movie get to admire his very special do. Well, Mako goes into business for himself and tries to, you know, be a little overambitious. And I'm going to go take out this guy first. I'll impress my dad.

Yeah, I'm going to impress dad and he ends up getting himself killed. Uh, but yeah, so, but yeah, like we established very well the hierarchy of the Templars and we got our villains down. Like this is odd because we have no hero right now. Is there anyone else in this movie? And then we get Scorpion, uh, and hero protagonist, I guess.

I'm not so sure about hero. Sometimes I guess. Uh, the actors, uh, Giancarlo Preet, I guess is how you pronounce his name in a But also, fake-ass name, Timothy Brent is how he's credited in this film. Of course. The dude's a good-looking dude. striking features.

In a 70s sort of way, which is weird because this was 1983. But they spilled over. There's a lot of 70s leftovers in the 80s. But no, he's kind of like a Starsky kind of look to him, with curly hair and whatnot. He's got a good physique.

He's a good looking dude. To me, he looked like the kind of guy who maybe just did a little bit better and didn't end up in porn. Because he kind of looks like the kind of guy who would have been in those early 80s. He could have been, yeah. And I'm like, yeah, maybe.

You didn't end up there. You know, I didn't really check into it. I would be fine if you took my mother out for a steak dinner. That's all I'm going to say. But anywho, so our hero shows up, the lone drifter in his muscle car with the unnecessary dome.

And you find out later on eventually that he's a former Templar that left him. So you're like, okay, well there's your backstory of why one hates him. That's as much backstory as we get, basically. That's all you need. That's why one hates him so much he left the fold.

He disobeyed dad. We get a rescue of our fair maiden who's Alma. That's her screen credit. Anna Kanakis, I think was the actress's name. And I spent the whole movie going, why do I know her?

And then I looked her up and I'm like, I have no idea. She looks familiar. She's definitely a a fetching italian lady but oh yeah and and then got to the end and went man she just passed away like no kidding in the last month just passed away wow yeah i had no idea but then i looked i was like trying to look at all the other stuff and she hadn't done a ton recently but there was like one like thing in the last you know 10 years and then i was like and then the death date was like whoa like that just happened so that's that's sad you know because she's she's She was one of the ones I actually was interested in. She didn't really have much to do, unfortunately, but I actually liked her. Or to say.

Yeah. Didn't have a lot of lines either. Not a big speaking role, but she had a cool outfit that we didn't get to see enough of. And also, this movie's got hair. Because her hair is just super poofy and full of body.

If 1983 had a hairdo and a lot of Aquanet.... It was almost, yeah. But, I mean, it's like, how do you... I'm just confused by this, because everybody else looks like shit in the apocalypse, and then you have this, like, amazing hair. Because she's a supermodel.

She technically was like Miss Italy, I believe. Yeah, I can believe it. Like I said, she's gorgeous. But yeah, it was just like, again, just the crazy hair. I can buy it with the Templars because, okay, they're the bad guys.

They steal from everybody, so they have resources. They probably have. We don't really know where she came from either, like who that other dude was they offed at the beginning. So where did these two random loners, because they weren't with our other group of weirdos and they weren't with the Templars, so they were off on their own. So maybe they just, you know, heisted from the Aquanet factory.

Who knows? I mean, I think we find like there's like these, you know, the beginning of the movie, we have one pocket of like a caravan that gets attacked and wiped out by the Templars. And then like later on the movie, there's another caravan that our heroes come upon. And then the Templars are coming after them. And so they basically do a last stand, you know, with those people sort of thing like that.

But. yeah, it's like, okay, so this is random. There's no actual civilization. There's no cities. It's just pockets of caravans. The only hope is they're still all– because the first one is trying to find that radio signal.

Yeah. And then our next one is also trying to find this. So somewhere out there they think there's a radio signal somewhere. to some piece of civilization that's still operating. Yeah. But as far as we know, that's not really there.

Yeah, that's never followed up on. They get radio noise that we think might be it and is never confirmed or denied. It's just kind of like, yeah, this might be something here. And then we drop that note like a bad habit. Yeah.

One of the most hilarious things about this film, obviously we are, you know, Aping Mad Max big time in this movie. Or Road Warrior more appropriately. Yeah, definitely more Road Warrior. In this movie. But Road Warrior, of course, George Miller is very well known for his photography.

His edge of your seat kind of shooting here. Because you're like, oh, my God, it looks like somebody's, you know, in Mad Max, somebody actually did die. It looks like someone almost died. Oh, wait. Yeah, one dude in Mad Max actually did die.

But in every scene you watch of his, like, you look like somebody's about to die. Don't do that. Don't do that. Whereas this film, every car chase scene, every car battle. Car chase.

We're using quotes again. Yeah, car quotes. Yeah. Is literally in slow motion. Well, and at best, like when you see them on the road, they look like they're doing about 25.

Yeah. Like this is not the fast paced future world I'm used to. And then when like, you know, the Templars are like circling the wagons basically, you know, sort of thing like that. They're going probably like 15 miles an hour. Yeah.

And as we sort of alluded to earlier, we've got one badass muscle car and a whole lot of golf carts. Yes. As I was referring to them, the golf carts from hell, because they are future apocalyptic looking vehicles, but they're also more or less golf carts. And occasionally you get a fancy dune buggy. But that's about it.

The only real car was his, more or less. Yeah, golf carts with a whole lot of additions and pieces and parts added to it. But not even cool ones. There's so many in more Road Warrior-y kind of movies that are like spikes to stab people. But the best we get is a fan blade, and it's barely sticking off.

I was like, the arms almost... You could almost just run them over. The fan blade's not going to do you enough good. You might as well just swerve over that extra six inches that you've got range on that fan blade and just mow them over with the car, really. Also, it's like if you're going only about 15 miles an hour, is it possible to slice anybody?

They wouldn't cleave someone in half with this fan blade thing. It's just going to be like a red mark on their neck. It's just like, no, don't do that. Uh, there is a shitload of silver paint that was used in this film. Yeah.

Because all the Templar stuff is painted in this shiny silver. You see cars in the background unnecessarily painted. Like, there's a station wagon. That literally has like a porthole, like a slot. Like a tank.

Yeah, I did see that one. Because I was like, well, that's almost functional in a battle world. But they don't really call attention to it. They don't use that one much. But it's just paint.

Like I said, it's not like it's supposed to be like the entire car is covered in armor. No, it's paint. If you don't look real close, it might be metal. No, it's paint. Don't look real close.

Very obviously. Squint and look over there. If you would have put some chrome on it. But no, it's just flat silver paint. I had $ 4.

What do you want? Yeah, so there's a lot of that in this movie. And then our. We don't get Fred, basically our big star, Fred Williamson, you know, the darling of blaxploitation in Italian action cinema. Seems to be, according to this director.

We don't get him until halfway into the movie. So like, I love it. They have like a pair of drifters of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, they're not a pair. They know each other.

Maybe they were counting the girl as the other drifter. And then he's like a random third that shows up. Yeah, it's like, no, they have these guys as the heroes. Like, okay, first off, like, they're not a pair. They obviously know each other.

They bicker the whole time. Right. It's like they don't like each other very much, you know, but they somehow do get along against the Templars, but it's kind of like they're the common enemy, but if the Templars weren't there, maybe these dudes would be fighting each other. Could be. I think both of them don't really care enough.

If they weren't about to be killed by the Templars, they'd be like, eh, I'm just going to go get laid over here. Yeah. But yeah, so we get Fred Williamson way late in here, and his whole gimmick is he's got a bow and arrow with explosive arrowheads. But this is obviously done by somebody who, A, has never fired a bow and arrow until this movie. Obviously, he practiced.

He knows the basics of what he's doing. He's able to fire it off without looking stupid, but everything is in sleaze. Motion. By the time we get to his bow and arrow, we've already passed the point of like from the very beginning, one of my first things is like, these weapons. Because I'm like, number one, the weapons don't make sense with what you're doing with them half the time.

Yes. They definitely don't match the sound effects. No. Because we've got a slingshot that makes gun noises. I don't know why.

Because it is just a slingshot. We were watching him use it. It's just a slingshot. Yeah. but it sounds like a bullet ricocheting around a canyon. I don't know why.

Okay. And then we get to the, from the very. Beginning, we've got the bad guys with their big machine guns. They just look like regular old military issue, like firing bullets, machine guns. And yet they make laser noises.

They make pew pew noises. They kind of make a flash like maybe they're doing something else, but I don't know what they're doing. And it doesn't seem like they're firing bullets, except sometimes it does every, I mean, at least the, pistol guns look like laser guns yeah what those they're like there's two or three different ones you see that i'm like that at least looks like a futuristic kind of a gun that might make lasers so i'll let those slide. Yeah george eastman definitely has a laser pistol yeah like it looks like a futuristic. One even scorpions kind of looks like yes scorpions looks a little so like our main villain gun or our main character guns kind of look like future guns When they're the pistols.

Everybody's rifle doesn't make any noise. Yeah, the dude in the caravan, protecting the caravan with the M16, that doesn't make pew-pew noises. There's one that's. Kind of Uzi-like that also makes the same pew-pew noise. I was just like, these, no.

And this somebody literally has like a six-shooter, like a Saturday Night Special, you know, snub-nosed. 38. and it's making pew-pew noises. No! At least if you went to the trouble to paint your car silver, like if you painted the gun silver, I'd be like, oh, well obviously it's some weird variation that makes pew-pew noises. Or just put some kind of unnecessary attachment to it.

Those extra tubes and stuff, and be like, oh, it's a future gun. Now it makes sense that it makes laser noises. But no, they're just regular old firing guns and rifles and M16s and shit. It's like, think G.I. Joe.

You slap like... An arm brace, an unnecessary scope, and something to the barrel. Boom. You don't longer have a regular. Pew pew gun.

You don't question why they're firing lasers. Obviously, it's a laser gun. It is. Yeah, it looks like a laser gun to me. So then eventually we get to our bow and arrow, which is kind of that same ridiculous concept.

Because my main thing, and we see the worst of this by the end of the movie, so I'm kind of jumping ahead, but I'm like, dude. Wouldn't you have those arrows already set up? Right, yes. Have you not watched Hawkeye? I mean, he's got a magical quiver.

It does it for him. Like, you don't set it up in the middle of your battle. Like, I think I'm going to. Screw this arrowhead on now. Buddy, what are you doing?

I mean, even Rambo, like, in the second one, like, he's busting around his regular arrows. Then when he has to bust out the explosive arrows... Okay, well, I'm going to set this up. I'm going to make these up. But he at least makes those up ahead of time.

Gets it all ready to go do the new attack run. Yeah, but like, okay, this is the big fight. I've got to bring out the big guns. So he does some prep work. But yeah, every single time he has to fire an arrow, he has to attach an arrowhead.

Time to put an arrowhead on him. Like, really? Is this your first time firing a bow and arrow? And why are they color-coded? They all do the same shit.

They do the same thing. He's got red, yellow, green, blue. And they all do the same fucking thing. This one explodes. This one's a smoke arrow.

This one, you know, again, Hawkeye's got all kinds of crazy shit. But no, you are no Hawkeye. They all blow up. Yeah. So that was one of the many weapons issues.

I was like, what is going on with all of these weapons? Because none of them make any damn sense. What I had talked about before, but it seems like everything is in slow motion. There is some truth behind this. Our friend Enzo, our director extraordinaire, decided that it would be a good idea to shoot every scene simultaneously in 24, let's see, was it, hang on, 24, 55, and 96 frames per second.

So three different cameras shooting at three different film speeds. For a guy who has obviously little money, this was a lot of wasted money that he, I guess, felt like he was investing in the quality of this film when we run it back. In super slow-mo. Because his idea was, oh, well, like, of course, if you're shooting something in 96, that's going to be super slow-mo. And 24 frames per second, that's fast speed. where it almost looked like it was, like, on, like, videotape as opposed to film, right?

And so 55 is somewhere, like, right in the middle, right? So you would think, okay, we're going to see a lot of, like, sped-up stuff and then some slow-motion stuff. We get a whole lot of slow-motion. There's never anything. See, that's more the George Miller.

Like his stuff is fast, seems fast, and then he cuts it to seem even faster. Like it's made to be like, oh shit, this is too much. This is the opposite. The only time there's some any given elements where they seem like it's trying to give some quick pacing are quick edits. That's it and it's sometimes really bad quick of course.

Yeah but i mean there's there's a lot of quick cuts especially towards the big scene at the end yeah but it's like good god it's like no it's like everything is so slow and boring like you know we get like a one of the go-karts jumps a barricade and unnecessarily wrecks inside the that's the thing i love too this thing you know at 10 miles an hour jumps a ramp goes maybe a good two feet above the ground lands with the thud in the center of the caravan and like he doesn't have like a bunch of guys on there and they all file out and start firing everybody no it's one dude on there he's got like a pistol and he just starts shooting randomly it's like why didn't everybody just like turn around and open fire on that guy I like that.

I mean, again, we're assuming all of this is shot somewhere in the wastelands of Italy. There's just a lot of hills was my thing because every time we'd have a golf cart go over a hill and then just rolled. And I'm like, Where is this hilly countryside post-apocalyptic world that you guys are living in? Because every car that they had, every golf cart, would end up just rolling down a hill. This was shot outside of Rome.

There you go. A very hilly area outside of Rome. So we can roll some cars down the side of it. A lot of black sand and all that kind of stuff like that. So there you go.

There are also some. If there is a nuclear apocalypse and a bomb drops... Or wind. Or wind, yes. Or a large megaton bomb drops in a city center, it will wipe out the city center.

But then there's outlying areas that will be affected by maybe the blast radius and radiation, all that kind of jazz. But in outlying further areas, smaller cities that were outside that stuff, there would still be buildings. There would be something. Yeah. Some sort of structure.

It could be bombed out, ruined out, whatever else. It doesn't have to be 100% intact, but we would see a building. We get a lot of that in 1990 Bronx Warriors. There are no buildings. Yeah, they just found a neighborhood that was falling apart in that one.

Yeah. This one, we had no neighborhood. There was no buildings. Yeah. It's just nothing but flatlands.

Just desert. Well, most of them desert, again, until you get to a car chase. Chase, once again, using quotes. So we could roll a car down the side of it. And then suddenly there were hills.

But then we were back to just a wasteland of desert-y looking stuff. So we discussed the car. Now how about the special feature on his car? Whereas you hit a button and it jettisons your door. In case maybe someone put an explosive item on your door.

Because that happens. Many a week I've been riding to work and have to jettison my door because somebody's placed an explosive on there. I mean, we know he's got a lot of bells and whistles on his car. That one just seems specific to one thing that happened to him right there. And then it never happens again.

And we don't go back and get the door. He just doesn't have a door. The door got blown up by the bomb. So, yeah, for the rest of the movie, you are Sans' door on the driver's side. Yeah, sliding himself in there.

Yeah, um... And also, we've got to talk about our young mechanic here. Oh, God. Because you can't have a post-apocalyptic movie without a weird, creepy kid. He is a weird-looking kid.

No offense, weird kid. I looked him up. He did a few other things around this time, so he was an acting kid in Italy then. Giovanni Fraser. He is a weird-looking kid.

Yeah, it's like this perfect blonde-haired, blue-eyed... He looked like the little kid, Brian Bonsal on Family Ties. He always reminded me of that kid. But the voice, I don't know if that was his voice or that was a dub, but it was a weird voice. Of course, George Eastman did his own lines because you could tell it syncs up.

Fred Williamson did his. everybody else is dubbed. I'm sure. So I'm sure this kid may be dubbed too. But just the voice actor they chose for the young mechanic, that's all he's named. Yeah.

They don't give him a name or he's not like, you know, spark plug or, you know, grease stain or something like that. No, he's just young mechanic. And then i kept trying to figure i was like is he just a kid or is this some weird thing that he's like 60 years old and just happens. To look like that yeah he's like he's like a benjamin button they. Never yeah they never address it he's just a weird kid that knows how to fix cars and drives and like does everything else like he's a grown-up he's.

Apparently an inventor because of course he installs the corkscrew device on scorpion's car that is oh so useful It's like, why? It's not like it's on the side. It's like we've seen car movies where you've got blades that come out of the wheels and they shred the other car's tires. It's not like that. That's a functional thing, sure.

It's literally like we've got a unicorn horn attached to the front of our car and we're going to joust with somebody. But once again, much like the fan blade, you've got to be pretty damn close to them for it to actually come into play. At that point, can't you just ram into him and run him off the road or something? Do you need a giant corkscrew? I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, at least it does have its one use. It does get used before the movie's out. I mean, he creeps up behind. That's the great thing. It's not like I ram into behind there and then the corkscrew comes out and drives and feeds him further.

No, it's like I creep up on him and then slowly drive this corkscrew through the back of the car, the back of the chair, and then eventually into Mako. It's like... If I was the Mako guy driving the car and I could see the thing coming, wouldn't I either... Get out of the seat? Drive faster or get out of the seat?

Jump out of the seat? Tuck and roll? I just hang there and wait to be gouged. Again, one of the many bad decisions in this movie. But our gun mechanic apparently appears to be a whiz with invention.

I guess. It's good to. Have a gimmick, but he's still weird looking. He makes a clear plate like, oh, he's making some bulletproof or explosive proof armor. Cool.

Okay. What are we going to do with that? Are we going to put it on the windshields of the car? We're going to do this? No.

That would make sense. No, let's not do that. No. We're going to straight up rip off a fistful of dollars, but we're also going to make it really uncomfortable and Very Italian. And slightly homoerotic.

Oh, yeah. Most definitely. Yes, sir. Erotic of some sort. I guess depends on what you're into.

But that's, I mean, we've already well past that road. By the time we get to the dome suit. Yeah. We'll come back to that. Because there is a lot of homoeroticism in this film.

You got, you know, the relationship of one and Shadow. It's like, okay, Shadow wants to overthrow him, but Austin kind of wants to fuck him. It feels that way, yeah. And then you've got also the homoeroticism between Scorpion and what's Fred Williams' character's name? Nadir.

Yeah, I mean, they're more bros, but like almost in competition because each of them are hooking up with some girl while the other's like hanging around half the time. So it's like, it's a weird and we don't even know what to do with this relationship. Yeah, but there's definitely a bromance. And let's talk about the hookup scenes there that our titular heroes get. Because Fred Williamson, they get to another caravan place, and the lady he hooks up with has a nice tent house.

Yeah, it's a good setup. It looks like she had walls. And definitely some hanging... frilly lace curtain thingies. She's a lady. She wants it to look nice.

It was a nice looking bedroom area. I'm like, okay. Then we got Scorpion hooking up with his lady in a clear... It was the shape of a tent, but it looked more like they were going to go tubing. Well, and once again, we need to make everything clear.

Yeah, why? Why is everything clear in this movie? Because it's the future. The future is clear. So, yeah, there's nothing more handy than going in the tent to have some privacy so that then everyone around you can watch you do it.

And we have the most awkward shadow sex I think I've ever seen in an 80s film. Yeah, that was weird. And, like, once again... oddly intercut of just like but what are we yes why why are we intercutting with other things this is just you're trying to make a creative choice well but it's coming out awkward more than anything. Well basically we're probably pressed for time yeah instead of having the sex scene and then we have the scene where we sit around the fire and get to know each other and express deep feelings because we've now had sex and whatnot. No, no, no.

We're going to intercut those. Piece that together. So while we're having sex, then we're going to interrupt it with talking scenes around the fire, then go back to the sex, then back to the fire, back to the sex, back to the fire. Weird choices. Many weird choices are made.

Again, that's what I love about these movies. Half the time, none of this shit makes sense, but you just kind of keep going with it. And that's my thing with the Fred Williamson hookup. I was like, because they just get right to it with her. He just met this girl, and we're specifically talking about.

A group of, well, I mean, everyone. As it turns out, in the surviving group and the Templars are kind of weird religious-y. So, minorly, they don't really get into it, but there's certainly an overtone of, like, religious craziness. Mm-hmm. Definitely in the Templars.

But the other one, like, he's Moses, for God's sakes. I mean, he's specifically, like, they treat him like he's a priest. Yeah. He's wearing a collar. Like, so it seems like this is also run by a religious group.

Mm-hmm. Now, what religious group out there doesn't have some sort of weird rule about having sex? Because she immediately is like, well, I need to be practicing. I need to. Get to it on this, I guess, having more offspring or something.

But I'm like. anywhere that there's any sort of religious anything, that's the first thing they start making rules about and or abusing. It's something to do with sex. And not a one on this one. They're like, oh, let's get to it. And they do.

Well, you got to think, though. It's like, this is an Italian-made film. And in their sensibilities, maybe they don't have creepy religious sex cults. Maybe that's true. I don't know.

Certainly everywhere else seems to. But Italy is its own little place. Yeah. The world itself and since. You brought up the topic of religion in this film let's talk about that for a second here because it makes sense with the Templars because the history of the Templars definitely they are religious knights you know you had the Templars and the Hospitallers you know the two different knight groups there the Templars always kind of brought up a lot because yeah they did bad things The Hospitallers were a little better, but not much.

But the Templars did a lot more bad things. It's kind of everyone in the olden days. Yes. Everyone kind of sucked. The Templars were a larger organization, so they ended up being more corrupt at times.

But anywho. So they have their own little iconography with like one is their somewhat religious leader and they have penance for when people are bad and sacrifices and burnings of bodies and all kinds of stuff like that. makes sense. Sure. You've got the pocket of people, you know, the second caravan group there that's led by your Moses character, which I love this guy's outfit. He's got the old school kind of priest hat, he's wearing the Roman collar, and then everything else is camouflage.

But he's not a military looking dude, he's not like a buff guy, he's an old man. He's just a dude wearing a long coat. That happens to be camouflage. And here's a great question, why are you wearing green camouflage in a black sand desert? The answer is, because it was 1983, and that's really.

The only camouflage we knew then. We didn't get, I mean, popular-wise, it may have existed, but nobody ever saw brown camouflage before Desert Storm. So it's like, we only knew the Vietnam camo, and then as 80s kids, I can't tell you how many. Now I wouldn't be dead in. It because it means a very specific thing when you're out in the world wearing camouflage that I do not want to be associated with.

But in 1983, it was the coolest thing in the world. I was freaking Rambo when I had a sleeveless muscle shirt that was also camouflaged. which I'm pretty sure I had more than one of. Oh, yeah. I had an entire camo head-to-toe outfit. I had pants and a jacket that went over it, and then a t-shirt to go under that, and I think a baseball cap that was also camouflaged.

Again, anything camouflaged was super cool in the early 80s. Oh, I had a cover, and thanks to free giveaways with G.I. Joe figures, I also had camo face paint, too. Because later on, they would give you, like, here's the green and black, or here's the The blue and black for urban warfare, kind of stuff like that. You know, things like that.

So, yes, I had a good amount of camo face paint thanks to G.I. Joe figures. Again, that's the answer is 1983. It was super cool to be wearing your green camo. Yeah, anyway, back to our subject of religion.

So there's a bit of a religious iconography with the preacher, and he's got his group of flock and whatnot, but he doesn't seem to be a creepy dude. He's a good leader. And surprisingly, not overly religious. Like, he's not pushing anything on anybody. He just happens to have the collar on, and he seems like he wants to take care of his people.

So it's the one of the. Few times a religious person comes in and isn't the villain. It seems like, oh, he's actually here trying to help people. Good for him. But then... when we get, you know, Scorpion and Nadir and Alma show up there and then basically Nadir is essentially doing some exposition for us here to Scorpion that what this God thing is.

So you're trying to tell me that in less than 20 years from movie one to movie two, an apocalypse of nuclear bomb drops in there that in less than 20 years, we have completely forgotten the concept of God and, Even if the fact that all three of the adults having this conversation would have been old enough to remember the before times. Well, again, before times are nine years ago. It's not even 20. Yeah. It was nine years ago when this happened.

So you can't remember back nine years ago when God still existed. No, no idea what that is. Yeah, that's just like, okay, no. It's like, I was fine with everything. And until we get to that conversation, like, no.

How can we forget a major religion in less than, you know, in less than 10 years even? Yeah, we'll go with even that, in less than 10 years. But. There's no way. It's not like I'm stumping for Christianity or anything like that, but it's literally just kind of like, there's no way we've forgotten this at all.

But there's something else that made no sense. Like that next scene, he's referencing something from those times that he obviously did still remember. So I was like, it's not even being consistent. Like if everyone just, if the smoke from the beginning gave them all amnesia and they started over from year one, nine years ago, maybe. But like then he's referencing stuff from...

Back when that would, I don't know. It's like, again, inconsistency. There's a lot of that. There's about two or three times, aside from the God conversation, there's about two or three times where we reference, you know, buildings and cities and things before and whatnot. But it's like, wait, so you remember that, but you don't remember.

Yeah, but you don't remember what God is. Not saying you have to buy into it, but you would at least know what the concept was. That's like saying, you remember that thing called television where we watched shows and things on, you know, and it ran our lives? At least then you would have your, like, telling the story version. Like, you would have the new...

Yeah. modernized old timey version, which is you'd stand in front of everybody. And don't they do that? Like the third bad max, when the kids are out there telling the stories of the olden days, like it's their TV show. So that's what it would be. Yeah.

But no, we don't, we don't have that at all. Yeah. No, it's yeah. Apparently they're spotty memories of the past, uh, interspersed with our, our future. And the thing I love is like, okay, so all of our bad guys are taken out, uh, And Scorpion is like, all right, I'm going to go wander the wasteland again.

And Chick's like, I'm going to stay here. And Fred's like, yeah, I'm going to stay here because I got a side piece over here. I got this going on now. So later. And then the movie ends.

No, literally. Bye. Three times. It's another wonderfully written scene. Yes, yes, yes.

Bye. Just go. Trying to get another round here. Get out of the room. Go.

Yeah, Fred Williamson predates Ferris Bueller telling the audience to go home. Yeah. Where he's like, just go. Go. Go.

Got stuff to do. Get out. Laying cable here. Let's go. So, yeah.

So this movie just sort of ends. I mean, you've skipped over the capture of Scorpion in the middle there. Oh, yes. I feel like you have to address that. Okay, yes, yes.

I certainly did skip over that. Because what exactly happened in that scene? I mean, I thought that's what happened. They do not, which doesn't make any sense to me. If you're going to write that into your movie, just go ahead and go there.

Yeah. Especially, it's freaking Italy. I mean, their rules are way more lax than America at this point. So if you're going to make that happen, make it very obvious that's what's going on. I mean, that's going to be a big defining moment for your character if this is what's going down.

Yeah, so I think that's what happened. If you follow up on the internet, this is how people describe it. That's what happened. So I don't know. Do we want to.

Spell out what happened. It's not pretty. And it's also not 100% clear either. So our hero, Scorpion, is captured by the Templars. He's beaten up, you know, browbeaten some.

Then he's basically tied up to this device that we previously saw Mako burn his body disposed of previously. But he's tied up to it on a different side of it. In a different way. In a very different way. You know, arms outstretched, you know, kind of, you know, basically, you know, hanging sort of thing like that.

So you think, Okay, he's going to get whipped, beaten, whatever else. He's going to get something. And then they do this thing where he basically is forced to lunge forward. They bend him over, we'll say. Literally bending him over at a 90 degree angle.

Okay, whatever. We going to do here? They're looking good. And then one basically proceeds to speechify a little bit here, do his things and stuff like that. As he gets his giant Superman crystal out.

Yes. But he doesn't bring up special images of his dad. He uses it to from that half second Slice open his pants. Yeah. You barely can tell.

Like, I literally went back and was like, is that what I'm looking at? Is that what it looks like happened there? He uses that to slash open the backside of our pal Scorpion's pants. Yeah. So we are meant to assume that basically your punishment for leaving us and defying us and killing your former brethren and stuff like that is that I'm going to bugger you.

Mm-hmm. On this contraption. On this contraption. With everyone watching. The whole audience of people, even flowy hair buddy Shadow is looking on and kind of, this is going in his spank bag.

Wasn't he working the lever more or less? He was. He was pulling the thing that bent him over even more. He was, but this moment's definitely going in his spank bag. So this is going to be used for later.

But nonetheless, so we are meant to believe that. It's a lot of edits. A lot of editing. A lot of editing. We see the bug-eyed, surprised look on Scorpion's face.

We see the look of evil delight amongst the Templars in one. What we don't actually see is the actual raping. Well, again, it's the same thing I call out for most regular old movies that do this with just general sex scenes. It's like half the time there's logistics that just don't happen. That I'm like, but if you're going to write this into your movie, make it so that this could physically be happening.

Because, yeah, it's like, okay, maybe you slashed that open. You didn't take your pants off. You've got a freaking codpiece on, genius. You're not coming through there without some maneuvering, which we never see. So really, it just seems.

Like he's dry humping him back there with a giant metal codpiece on. Yeah. Yeah, because even when you do a shot back to Scorpion after the fact is over, he's still wearing his pants. They're not like around his ankles or anything like that. And they never do a cut or never do a shot from behind him to see that they're slashed open again.

It's that one half second that you see something that was like that kind of maybe. And then we come back to it when it's everything from the front at that point. We never see the pants again except him laying down from the front where we can't really tell what the hell just happened. So in a movie that basically spells everything out for us in tremendous detail in slow motion, this is the one part we got to fucking think about. Yeah, they got a little like, I don't know.

Suggested? They were worried. That they were going to, because that's the thing, there isn't an edited cut. Like I went looking, I was like, is this the dumb American cut that we can't handle? No, they were like, contrary to popular belief, this isn't edited.

Like I think later video releases- They might have cut a little of that out for America, but the one we're watching, I think, is the way that they edited it together in Italy. So, I don't know. It doesn't make any damn sense to me. I know, especially in a world where deliverance already exists. It's like five, six years old.

By the time this movie comes out, and that scene was way more graphic, you knew exactly what was happening to poor Ned Beatty. So again, I'm not saying you want this to be in your movie, but if you're going to write it in your movie, just go ahead and put it in there, or don't put that in there. Have him tie him up. And beat him with a whip and send him off on his merry way. Like, why work that in unless.

You're going to go ahead and just address that, that this is what they do. And literally this is not brought up any other time in the film. Nope. Or even like what would have made like a great poetic justice if like, This gouging spiral thing that was attached to his car was used to kill one. Like, you buggered me with that, I'm going to bugger you with this.

I've got an attachment for you. Yeah, but no, we don't even get that. It's wasted on the third in command. But, yeah, so there's that. But the one thing, though, we haven't talked about is the body armor.

Okay. That's, I guess, is like, I'll show you. After you do that to me, I'm going to show off my hot bod behind some plexiglass. Yes, because our young mechanic, apparently he's created bulletproof glass or plexiglass or whatever else. It looks like cheap plexiglass.

Yeah, yeah. We're throwing tacks and darts at it and it's going pop, you know, like those little snap pops. That's what it looks like, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we're doing that. uh but so instead we decided we're going to make some plate armor for you kind of literally ripping off this full dollars because the fucking scorpion is wearing a poncho yeah he was previously not wearing.

We've never seen him in one he's got the the weird green coat with like turtle shells on the on the shoulders yeah they're like fabric-y but they're shaped like turtle shell so the whole time i'm just like that coat i don't He's got turtle. Not bad, but it's a weird look for you, man. It's turtle power, man. Yeah. If your name was Turtle, that would make more sense.

But you're Scorpion. This jacket doesn't match your animal gimmick, but whatever. Yeah, yeah. So he's had that on the whole rest of the movie. But now suddenly when we need this gimmick to work, he does a full man with no name ripoff and comes out with his poncho on and starts getting killed.

And we're like, oh, he's dead now. What a shame. Oh, nope. Flips it open and we're supposed to be going, great freaking flick. Oh, I love this stuff.

Yeah. And he's wearing basically bubble, clear bubble plate armor. And again, clear. And he's not wearing a shirt underneath it. See, that's the thing.

There's no reason he couldn't just be wearing his clothes. Right. And then put the armor over top, except it's not hot that way. So if you want to get something, you know, hey, check out my muscly man body. Yeah.

Then you take your shirt off before. You put clear armor on, obviously. Yep. And so he's running around in this uncomfortable bubble clear armor. Where the shoulders still flop around every time he moves.

Yes, the shoulders still, they're not very firm on there. Other than just at the top. But the other connection just kind of flops up and down every time he jumps over something. Yeah, yeah. That's going to be problematic probably in a little bit.

But yeah, so he's running around the rest of the movie with basically no shirt on and his plastic armor. Fighting the bad guys. And then he does get... one in the end, but it's like there's no kind of like poetic justice. Like even like the way one is killed is kind of like there are other henchmen who die in much more fantastic ways because their dummies are blown apart in slow motion fashion. Wait a minute.

There were dummies in this movie? Oh. Because I think that decapitation towards the beginning was a real dude that did not at all seem like a mechanical twitching dummy. Okay. Yeah.

Well, I do assure you that the first time Fred Williamson shows up and fires off an arrow that explodes at the guy, what does fly apart off there with basically like kind of off to the side with like one leg attached and you can see the stuffing in the guts, that's dummy. The hell you say. The one thing I will give him, there are a lot of explosions in this. So if you're there for explosions... They do at least deliver that.

There's a lot of things they drop. The ball on. There are a lot of explosions. But there are a lot of explosions that you watch something roll really slow first and then explode. But eventually they do make things explode for you if that's what you're thinking.

Yeah, there are explosions. There are attractive women but no nudity. Yeah, yeah. There's almost a little with her when the. creepy not a doctor dude is helping her oh yeah we get almost a little second of look there you go that's it so. Yeah i love that i'm not a doctor i'm a guy that just builds things and puts stuff together so i can do it with people so let me uh let me take your top off i don't have any training or ever had any training But, yeah.

Go ahead. Get undressed. I'll be your doctor. I don't even play a doctor on television. Yeah.

That was an odd reveal, as he's already in the middle of fixing her, in quotes, once again. Yeah, it's like, wait, you're not a doctor? You've been doing what to me the whole time? He's like, I don't have any medical training, or training of any kind, really. I was like, well, glad they gave me to you.

That's a great move on my part. That's awesome. But, yeah, that's just it. Again, I love my drive-in, you know, schlocky grindhouse fare. And this one definitely, it delivers on so many levels and gives you so much more intrinsic value.

But good God, it is also like, check your brain at the door. Well, and of all things, like we don't have a big epic death for one. Mm-hmm. And then we don't really have the two couple get together. You'd think that's the way most of these things end.

Yeah, like she's going to ride off. She just kind of is like, oh, well, I'm not dead. That's cool. But then instead, let's hold the hand of a child. What is the final thing?

Like, what is that shot? Yeah. He's just, that's like the big dramatic moment. I'm like, well, if it was him and her, like, they're like, we're going to go start a family and bring this world back together. Yep.

No, instead he's going to hold the hand of the. Weird looking child that's been hanging around him with slingshot noises and all of that. What is that? Why? It just seemed random as hell like everything else in this movie.

Yes, and of course, like so we get that you know shot and then it just you know zooms in to scorpion's face and then basically we get the still of scorpion's face while the credits roll it's like can we fade out on that why do we have to still. Keep no what the hell is going on here like why is that your big closing shot and where are we going with this i'm sure it will all be cleared up in this third movie in this trilogy nope I'm sure Scorpion will return in Dude from the Future 3. No, no, no, no. I know, I checked already. No.

I'm pretty sure all of, that's the weird drop in the ball on this trilogy is like all of our repeat characters from this movie then. Don't come back. Is that true? All we get is the return of Trash, right? Yes.

And everybody else who's been in the other two now disappear. Right. Yeah, no George Eastman. What the hell is going on? Yeah, no Aeneo, no Fred Williamson.

What the hell, Aeneo? And literally, like I said, these were all shot within, what, six to nine months, something like that? Yeah, pretty much. And the difference between Trash and the first one and the third one, like, ooh, somebody partied a lot and then they said, roll. And you, wow, dude.

I mean. You should have like went to sleep for a week and had some water first. You're in a country loaded with pasta and wine. What do you think he's going to look like? He's a superstar after that first movie, obviously.

And then just loading him up with pasta and wine and you see what's going to happen. Yeah, he just looks a little, you know, road hard and put away wet by the time you get to the third film. And it's like, that was like, How much time passed between shoots? Like, good God, dude. I don't know, because this one came out within a year of the first one.

Yeah. That's after they crammed this middle one in, maybe. I don't know what order they actually shot them in, but... Within one year's time, all three of these movies are listed, so... No, they.

Actually did shoot them in order of film. That's literally why no one except for... Basically, Trash was not... Like, for whatever reason, he was not available. They didn't work him into the second film.

And then they bring him back for the third one with no other cast. And also, we went back in time when we get to Escape from the Bronx. Because it's a direct sequel to Bronx Warriors 1990... Still in the Bronx. Yeah, it's not 2010, 2019, post whatever the hell happened.

Yeah, we're going back now before the nuclear holocaust. Enzo, you make my brain hurt. So it's like, why couldn't you have just held on to New Barbarians and then. You know, did escape from the Bronx, released that. And then for the third one, we do New Barbarians.

And maybe cast somebody other than Fred Williamson so it's not weird and confusing. Like, George Eastman, you can kind of, like, you might not even notice, really. You'd be like, he looks kind of, eh, whatever. But, like, Fred Williamson's very obviously Fred Williamson. Excuse me, they gave Fred Williamson a headband for this movie?

He's in silk blouses. He obviously rolls up in both of these movies. I'm like, look, I'm Fred Williamson. I'm here to make this movie. He's in silk shirts and sword canes and Bronx Warriors and in New Barbarians.

He's in no shirt and a headband. It just makes things extra confusing. I'm just saying. I'm not confused. The headband is all we needed.

It's like Clark Kent in Superman. Where's Ogre at? That's what I want to know. Ogre died. No, he's fine.

Saying ain't so. Ogre dad, this isn't a deer. He's got a headband. See, that's the difference. Is he at least the offspring of Ogre?

I feel like Ogre probably got around too, so there's probably a lot of mutant children that came out 20 years later and look just like Ogre. Okay, if it makes you feel better, then Nadir is the son of Ogre. There we go. It all makes sense now. There you go.

Everything makes sense. That's why he looks exactly like Fred Williamson, because, yeah, it is. But no, see, in this movie, he's got a headband. Yeah, totally different. It's like explaining Pac-Man versus Ms.

Pac-Man. See, she's got a bow on her head. She's got a bow. It does make a lot of difference. And I can't wait until we get to Escape from the Bronx.

I was going to say, we've already set up where we're going on this trip. Just let me tell you, that's the awesome thing, too, is that New Barbarians was so awful that it needed two titles. Because in Italy, when it was released in 83, it's the New Barbarians. And then when it comes out in the States in 84, it's Warriors of the Wasteland. That's the thing.

It's not like it's wrong and didn't work like you could have used either like why i like warriors of the wasteland a little better a little more fitting than yeah because new barbarians just sounds like you're gonna get a conan. Knockoff exactly that's probably why it was changed because we had so many of these sword and sandal flicks going on in the 80s especially in the states that people would have thought we're gonna get like a sword and sword i certainly would have if i just went by the title yeah yeah so it's like okay we gotta throw in wasteland in there so we know we're not dealing with Swords and shit. We got pop guns and cars. We got golf carts from hell. Golf carts, yes.

Piss golf carts. And one sweet dude buggy. And then I think that may have been like a challenger, like a late model challenger that was Scorpion's car. It was definitely like a GTO kind of V8 sort of muscle car kind of look to it. It said, but I didn't check the accuracy of what they said here.

Let's see it. It's one of the few. That's the thing. There's not a whole lot in IMDb on this. No, there isn't.

Surprise. There was a box set that came out in Italy that has all three movies and a lot of supplementary stuff. The people who put it together also put a documentary together called Where is Trash? Or Looking for Trash or something like that. They do the documentary because he was the star.

He was in several movies. In the 80s. And then literally by the 90s, he'd fall face to the earth. And no one knew where he was. Well, so the documentary ends unconclusively.

And then they kept the website going. And then finally. Resurfaced. No, the director found out that basically he died in 2013. He committed suicide.

But he found his grave. That's not cool. And the ironic thing that his grave was like two miles from where he lived. Because he lived overseas and like, they may have been in Italy somewhere. But yeah, he's like, yeah, like literally this grave site was two miles from my house.

But yeah, it wasn't like a big, like a little plate and stuff like that. It wasn't much. But yeah, he apparently died in 2013. According to this, I like even on here it says appears to be. It says, Scorpion's car appears to be a 1967 Pontiac Firebird.

Oh, okay. Firebird. All right. Yeah. I was like, all right, if you say so.

Yeah. Again, like the skull, like the random tubes, not the dome. Well, it makes sense why I thought it looked like a Challenger, because basically every car Pontiac released basically was a ripoff of something that a larger company did. Yeah. So it's very fitting for this movie.

Yes, it's very fitting. It's the perfect car for this movie. We couldn't get a real Challenger, so let's get the Firebird because it was probably $ 1, 000 cheaper. Oh, Lord. Well.

But it did have that pop-off door feature. That sure came in handy that one time I needed to pop off the door. Sure did. You can't repeat it. You've got to get a new door, but hey.

It saved them that time. That's all that's important. If anything was important in this movie, I don't know what it was, but we can pretend like it was that. I think this did a great job for hairstylists in this movie. That's where most of the money went, I think.

Hair and art direction, we put a lot of thought into this movie. Not so much the script. Screenwriting, not so much. Dialogue, not so much. Cinematography.

Editing, not so much. But man, that place looked like a wasteland and those people's hair looked fabulous. Yeah, it was 80s hair gone crazy. Yeah. Well, at least now we already know where we're headed.

Back to the Bronx. If we need to take a break in between or we just come back next time, we can decide. But at least you know where we're going eventually. We'll be back in the Bronx. Back in time.

Back in time. Back with Trash. Yay, Trash. Until then, I guess, go ahead and let people know where you are when you're not doing this ridiculousness. You have your own show.

Oh, I thought you were just like, I'm at my house. That's where I'm at. You don't have to give out your address. That seems like probably a bad idea. I mean, you guys want to come visit.

I have my own podcast, Fanatic Forum. I am live Fridays at 7 p.m. Eastern on Facebook and YouTube. Or if you don't get to join us live, then you can watch on Facebook and YouTube. Or you can listen to anywhere you listen to podcasts.

I talk new comics, all things geek. Lately, I've been doing a film series where I've been talking about favorite films. I try to pair films together. So what I'm doing this week is my final in the series. I'm doing some kind of some neo-noirish stuff.

I'm going to talk about Rian Johnson's Brick. Brick is amazing. Brick is amazing. And then another odd noirish film, but I'm going back to 1972, the Michael Caine lesser known film Pulp. I think I remember that title.

I might have seen the video box, but obviously have not watched it. It was basically kind of taking a noirish crime film. film, basically a crime writer getting involved in his own sort of stuff, but adding a lot of black humor into it, and also letting the world know that Mickey Rooney could also be not just America's sweetheart, but also America's badass. Are you sure? Yes. I've seen him.

He can be offensive. He can be obnoxious. He can be a sad old man eventually. No, not the Mickey Rooney from 60 Minutes. I'm talking about the cherub-faced guy who played against Judy Garland in lots of films.

I'm just thinking of him by the time you get to his older films. Yeah. He kept acting all the way up to the end. Sure did. But he was just a weird old man.

By the end. And he would... Do some strange films before he was done. But he basically kind of... This was a film that basically discovered he could play bad guy roles and be very vicious.

So you've never seen Mickey Rooney like this before. Michael Caine looks suave as hell. Michael Caine was in a lot of stuff at this point. Yes. Before he broke through over.

Here anyway, he was just knocking out a lot of those movies that are like that mid-range. It's like they had a decent budget. They had good acting. And like they just sort of flew under the radar because there's ones I keep finding. And I'm like, this is like a starring role for Michael Caine.

And it was right before he became Michael Caine in this country. Yeah. Yeah, he did a lot of stuff. This all came out around the same time you had the Ipcris files and Get Carter and the Italian job. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

He was just churning them. out in the 70s. He had a lot of stuff. Yeah, but Pulp is one that flew under the radar. It does have its fan base, mind you, but yeah, it's one, it's like, you know, it was billed as very kind of, the trailer is a little misleading because it looks very hip. You think it looks like a crime kind of sort of thing like that, but then like there's some comedic elements that pop up in the trailer that kind of throw you out.

In the movie, it makes sense and it kind of goes on, but in the trailer, it throws you off. So like, that's kind of why I think it didn't do well or isn't talked about because it kind of did mislead the audience in the, in the advertising for it. Well, on some of those, again, eventually when they find their audience, that's great. But initially when audiences just don't know what to do with a movie, sometimes it stops right there. Like that first wave goes.

To see it and goes, wait, what, what the hell is this? What, what is this movie? And what am I supposed to do with it? And that word gets out almost immediately. And like, it seems to stop the rest of the audiences from coming and it drops off the face of the earth.

And, Till it resurfaces and finds its fan base. And also, fun fact, the British alternative rock group Pulp, that's where they got the name from. Well, all right. That was the inspiration for their name was this film. Very pulpy.

All right. Well, there you go. You know where to find him in between now and then. And then we'll be back eventually. Oh, yes.

Back at the Bronx. Rev up those motorcycles. With that, we're going to try to recover from this movie and prepare for the next. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time.

Same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Litter and fetch my Aquanet. And then light it on fire. Diamond mine to the factory.

Everybody's doing what you gotta keep on doing for society. Making this world a good place to be. Let there never be a diamond to be. Making pants work. Is what I'm saying.

Working for the world around. The battle cry don't mess with me. I'll travel this world for eternity. It seems to me that the powers that. Be have Make this a world a good place to be.

Michelle was just so fascinated with that dude's hair. She's like, the first time, she's like, oh my god. I'm like, isn't it fabulous? I'm way more impressed with hers. There's just so much volume to hers.

And it doesn't move. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Aquanet, it is hardcore shellac down. I mean, it is giant and amazing. The amount of work she must take every day to go out into the wasteland with that hair is just like, hats off to you.

Think how many bugs are in there. 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.