What the Hell was Going On in the Bronx?!

Hi, this is Verdon Wells, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. And I have one thing to say. I know where you live, you little fuckers. So listen, or I will come and get you, I will rip off your head, and I will piss down your neck. So remember that.

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. For another, I'd say we're going in a different direction, but not at all for this show in the grand scheme of things. Oh, no, no.

We're going into the future. We're steering into what we've always done, but it's been a while since we've done a ton of these movies. And then lately, we've been talking about, you know, on a recent episode, you brought up, you know, some of these older grindhouse movies, drive-in movies, just weird stuff that, you know, I've always been fascinated by, and we've definitely covered a lot of over the years on this, but we haven't had a good reason to focus on it lately. So that's where we're headed, but we'll get back to that. But beforehand, as our usual to kick things off, have you seen anything interesting lately?

Actually, yeah, I've seen a trio of things. Well, actually, one, well, four things if you count this one I'm talking about. You'd recommended that No Exit movie. It was on Hulu. The girl that relieves rehab and then gets snowed in.

Sort of a thing on a roadside stop. Yeah. You're still snowed in. You don't know who the killer is. She's snowed in at a travel center or something like that.

So it's sort of a Hateful Eight thing. But a little lighter version, more or less. But yeah, I enjoyed it. It wasn't too bad at all. Yeah, it was a good time.

And I liked her, and then the other characters were interesting to mix in. So, it was fun. Another one sitting at home, didn't have to leave the house for those ones. Saw Knock of the Cabin, finally. The Shyamalan.

Still haven't... Again, everybody kind of has issues with him. So, I guess, without spoilers, what's your take on, I guess, him now in this specific movie? I was fine with it. It's not going to be one of his best, but certainly not one of his worst.

But it was enjoyable. I mean, he's been coasting on that status with a few dips into worst along the way. But most of those are a while ago now. So, I mean, the last thing's... old is the only one I feel like I've seen lately. And I'm like, yeah, it's fine.

I liked old. Yeah. It's a, again, a really interesting concept that kind of don't do as much with it as they could have, but yeah, there's fine. Yeah. Well, that's the thing, you know, Shyamalan always loves throwing in his stuff to kind of make you think.

And so they're like, okay, what's the focus with the grasshoppers? They keep, you know, seeing grasshoppers, chicks, you know, the little girls, you know, catching grasshoppers and a little thing she made for them. And, Yeah, all that kind of stuff. But it's like, they never really kind of get into that. It's like, okay, they can't represent the plague.

That's locusts. You know, come on, read a freaking book, folks. Not that book. Nobody wants to read that. But, you know, basically, obviously, the four people led by Dave Bautista and Ron Weasley are, you know, the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Yeah. Or horsepersons, because it's two, you know, we have two ladies in the group, too, so. You got to balance it out. Sure. Yeah.

Horsemen being general, not just male. Anyway, but yeah, so they're the horsemen of the apocalypse. You know, so, but yeah, it's, I enjoyed the movie. You know, it's like I said, you know, there you go. In theaters, I went and saw John Wick 4 because I got my wife caught up on him.

She had realized she had never seen any of them. And so she was, I basically was like, well, here's the first one. And she bought the ticket, took the ride, enjoyed it. So like, let's go. The first one is its own amazing thing.

And then the sequels are just fun after that. It's building upon what they already did. And they had such an interesting concept with that in its own universe thing that that's what they can expand on. Because to me, the emotional journey is all that first movie. And everything since then, he's just kind of going along for the ride as we are.

But that kind of bookends it in its own one movie thing. But then they went, oh, we came up with a really cool concept. Like, how about if we just expand on that for three movies? So, that's what it seems like. Yeah, but basically, as my buddy Tommy said, this is beautiful, violent art.

And it is. I mean, the stunt team, good God, man. Those folks are going to get some nominations, I think. They're just. They outdid themselves.

And there was like multiple stunt teams. And every movie is kind of like, what can we do to make it even more crazy and over the top? And they always kind of delivered. Oh, there's a couple of big scenes, like some just huge action scenes where it's like there's so much coordination going on. There's, what was it?

When they were in, I guess, Paris or something like that, they're like, You know how the traffic circles around the Arc de Triomphe? Yeah. There's like a whole gunfight, fight, fight in the middle of traffic. They're dodging cars and trying to kill each other. Very John Wick.

Oh my God, it's an amazing sequence. But yeah, this is definitely, it does have a post-credit scene too. You've got to wait all the way to the end of the credits. There it gives you a little bit of a possible payoff. Of something they dropped earlier in the movie.

We know they want to leave the door open. This thing has made so much money. Well, that's the thing. It's not, I will spoil this much, it's not about John, the post-credits scene. It's about another character in the movie, but again, it's a kind of a, it's a loose end that basically they kind of left literally for the end of the movie there.

So, kind of give you that. But the is he or isn't he dead, they kind of leave that. Up to the audience. Yeah. And then basically, I guess, for how big of a payday.

They want to get. I mean, we are getting kind of a spinoff character. New series, right? Yeah, the Continental show got greenlit. So we got Peacock, I think, in September.

They did say they were going to do a ballerina show with Ana de Armas. See, I thought that, yeah, I thought the Ana was the one that... Was at least kind of in the works. I don't know how far along. Yeah, I haven't heard anything more about that.

And the weird thing, too, is like, okay, well, if they're going to– I can see what they would do with that because there's a scene, I guess, in the second film when you get to see Angelica Houston's character. And she's basically watching these ballerinas do their thing. But also these girls are also part of the training program, too. So, like, they're ballerinas and assassins. Yeah, so it's like, okay, so I guess Anna is one of those ballerinas.

Like, why didn't they introduce her in one of these four movies and they never did? So it's kind of like, okay, well. See, that's the thing. Now it's become a blur because I'm like, wasn't she? And I'm like, well, no, she was in that last James Bond movie.

Yeah, but now she. And I'm like, I think I'm mixing these into one big action movie. Trust me, if she shows up in a movie, I'm noticing. Oh, yeah, she's amazing. Well, she's a very good actress and she's a very lovely lady.

But yeah, so I'm noticing if she's in a movie, she is in none of these movies. You know, you got Ruby Rose as one of the bad guys in the second one. She's cool because she's like the mute assassin. Yeah. So you get some ASL representation with the subtitles.

That's kind of cool. Nice. But it's probably one of her best roles, but she doesn't speak. So that's unfortunate. That's just extra level of acting.

But it's just, yeah, it was a good performance, though. Of course, she gets to kick some. Ass, too. So that's, yeah. He's John Wick.

I would hope so. But yeah, so like I said, that was amazing. Very recently saw the Dungeons & Dragons movie, Honor Among Thieves. And that was a lot of fun. I mean, the trailer, to me, if you're okay with the trailer, you're probably fine, right?

Because, I mean, it looks like in no way, shape, or form does it take itself seriously. So, like, if you go in with a very hard-set D & D world that you want to commit to, like, they don't seem like they're worried about that. They're just there to have fun. They do a good job of mixing it. Because anybody who plays D & D knows you're going to have somebody in your party that's going to do some wacky, goofy stuff. and get somebody laughing, or, I mean, I myself have played that character.

I had a barbarian character I used for a number of years that anytime he saw, like, when they were going to a tavern and there were, like, gooseberry muffins or anything made with gooseberries, I went to Berserker Frenzy and would devour all the muffins, and anything in my path would get annihilated. Or, like, if we're in a field and there's berries in there, I'm just going crazy. So that was just a tick I put in there. So a lot of times that would harm us. Especially if we're in a royal court and there's food out and we're trying to be nice for the king and talk to them and basically I see a table full of, you know, desserts and there's berries and I just go ham on it.

And they're like, yeah, you know what? Your party might need to cut you loose. Well, I did die twice. So, but they just, you know, they couldn't keep a good barbarian down. But yeah, so, you know, there is a good level of goofiness and seriousness, a lot of fun.

As an old school D & D guy, I wish they would have had like some recognizable characters that we know from like a lot of the books or some of the compendiums or some of the, there's, you know, a handful of really famous D & D characters. Just human characters, not monsters to fight. Well, the human, elf, dwarf characters, wizards, all sorts of various guys. I mean, one elf in particular, a dark elf by the name of Drizdo Erden, probably one of the most famous D & D characters. And the dark elves have a cool appearance.

They have almost like a bronzish-tan sort of skin, but stark white hair. And they live underground. They live in caves and stuff like that. They're typically thought to be bad, but Drizdo's cool. He's kind of against his whole, you know... upbringing and whatever.

Else those evil people so he's a he's. A hero but it's gonna be great whenever basically they start casting dark elves uh folks of color are gonna get all sorts of roles because i mean they can either go with black actors they can go with any like you know brown skin caramel skin actors you know just to play these roles and they you know and you got some solid roles in there too nice maybe but of course there is a lot of fun easter eggs a lot of you know recognizable creatures and locations and stuff like that. You know, if you're a big map fan of your Forgotten Realms, you know, basically there's a lot of towns and known areas you're in. But then also, like, the 80s cartoon gets a little bit of a shout.

Out as well. I think I've seen that, which that is one that, like, it's surprising how much that, like, held its own little spot. Because I do remember watching that pretty much every week. Oh, yeah. That was fun in its own weird dorky way, which again is that same thing.

Like they couldn't just do it straight because it's not going to work for Saturday morning kids. So it was a total modernized trip through time and to your own special little. medieval world. Well, they basically went through like a portal, essentially. Yeah, but you can have modern references. You can have kids being cool 80s kids instead of dorky old-timey people.

So, like, they had to put that spin on it. So, again, it feels like it's not too far away from that. Yeah, but for a show that, you know, hardly lasted two seasons that was 40-some-odd years ago, it has held its own and has a warm place in a lot of people's hearts, including mine. I think so. But, yeah, so, like I said, it.

Definitely, you know, It doesn't– basically, it kind of– it should be– could be like self-contained stories each one. Like it's just a different journey, different group of guys. Could you see them go on another journey? Absolutely. Or mix and match and add some people from this one, bring in some new people.

Yeah. It seems like a good plan as– The grand scheme of making this series of movies. The three-way chemistry between Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Justice Smith is actually really nice. Especially between Pine and Rodriguez. They're kind of like the longtime buddies.

She's a barbarian that's been cast out, and he's a bard. Who's kind of like a bit of a roguish character himself. Hugh Grant gets to have a little bit of fun. And an out-of-nowhere cameo by Brad Cooper. Right?

Yeah. Interesting. Because he's Michelle Rodriguez's ex-husband. But I won't give away that basically there's a bit of a difference between the two of them. Not necessarily that's what kept them apart, but that's kind of what attracted her to him.

But yeah, basically it's. Bradley Cooper like you've never seen him before. And we've seen him as a rodent. Yeah, yeah. We've seen him do a lot of strange things over the years.

You immediately know it's him. Like he's himself, but he's just a little different. But yeah, so it's a lot of fun. Well, it's good to see. I mean, it still had a little mix from different people, depending on usually just D & D people.

Yeah. But it seems like it's done pretty well. So it's interesting to see that something sort of work because they kept trying to go to the actual D & D well and like nothing's really worked over the years. So yeah, there's been several attempts at movies. even the animated thing was just sort of its own little niche audience. So yeah, it's good to see at least something sort of work in a grand sense enough to maybe get another movie out of it if nothing else.

I think so. It did well enough too, I think. So, you know, they could very easily, you know, merit, you know, a whole series of movies. Like I said, you know, they could keep up with this cast. They could go with an entirely different, you know, thing or they could start doing some adaptations of, You know, some of the famous novels or stories or whatnot within the D & D universe.

So they got all kinds of room. To play with this. I just want special appearance by Thora Birch. That's all. That'd be cool.

Let's bring it back around. Oh. Or Marlon Wayans. Yeah. Well, no way.

Nobody wants him in any movie. No, no. That's just me. They keep trying to put him in stuff. It would just be the most infamous stunt cast.

Because basically anybody who remembers their first D & D movie that came out in the 90s was like, Marlon Wayans. Is in this movie? I think that every movie they put him in. Even the Wayans Brothers movies. But only the younger brothers.

I went on a rant recently about it. I was like, it's so weird because the older two are legitimately funny and super talented. I want nothing to do with those younger two. They were fine on the show, but as time went on, they became their own weird brand. And it's obnoxious and I don't like it.

And like, so every time I see, Marlon tries to be serious sometimes. He at least has done a couple of roles and I'm like, all right, if I don't know it's him, I can put that aside and be like, all right, I can watch you in this movie, I guess. But. Yeah, their comedy stylings is just not for me. Well, what was the one spoof movie, the early one that did the night, is the Don't Drink Your Juice.

But that was still Keenan. I think Keenan directed that one. He did. But he was definitely in it. Marlon had a big role in it.

It was one of the main leads, and I loved him in that. But again, that... them on the show was good, too. They could be funny on the show. So if they're being guided by Kenan, they seem to do okay. As soon as he was out of the picture, I'm like, oh, what are they doing now?

I would say the same thing with the scary movie movies. But again, you're right. That's under Kenan. As soon as you get away from that, take a look at their sitcom. Jesus.

Just the opening theme song, I was just like, no, no, no, stop, no, stop. Go back to being SW1. Like just, just. Oh, SW1. See, that's when he was, that's when he was cool.

No, but that wasn't Marlon. That was Sean. That was Sean. Yeah. I was like that.

And that's kind of the only other thing I know Sean for. Like at least Marlon's branched out and tried to do dramatic roles, but yeah, he's just SW1. That's Sean. That's all he ever gets to be as far as I'm concerned. That was the last time you were cool.

Oh my God. Well, in stuff I've, I went back a little ways because I was like, since we're doing, I guess I'm going to say an action movie. I'm not really sure what the hell we watched this week. But I was like, let's find something at least kind of along those lines. And there was one that I've known of it since it came out.

At the time, it seemed like a weird move, so I avoided it. I don't know if it was conscious, but I just didn't get around to it. I definitely was kind of shocked how long I didn't get around to it. I finally found a copy of it and went, you know what? Screw it.

I'm going to watch this. I watched The Long Kiss Goodnight. Oh! I don't know if it was just me and everyone else in the world at that point was done with Rennie Harlan. We definitely worry about his next movie.

But, like, I don't know what it was, because I loved Geena Davis, especially at the time. Like, she was on a run of, like, amazing movies. So I was just like, somehow I just hadn't gotten around to it. And, man, it is amazing how of the moment and type of movie this is. Like, it is...

And maybe even more than Rennie Harlan, it is so Shane Black. The credits came up and it was the first time I went, oh shit, this is Shane Black? And you get in there and I was like, this is just the last Boy Scout. This is just that 90s run of Shane Black and action movies and Rennie Harlan. sort of top of her popularity game... Geena Davis?

Geena Davis, yeah. So, I mean, it's like all of those things coming together at that moment for a movie that didn't hit at all at the time. Like, nobody really cared about it. But, like, watching it, it is this, like, snapshot of, like, this specific time and place of action movies and everyone involved. And definitely dialogue in the story is so Shane Black.

So. Well, and also, this is kind of coming off of Sam Jackson's popularity with Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Because. While this may have been shot around the same time as Pulp Fiction or before or whatever the case may be, it was definitely released after Pulp Fiction.

Yeah. It's 96. Yeah. It was definitely after and kind of banking on the popularity of both of the stars. Yeah.

Because this was Gina's twofer with her then-husband, Rennie. Yeah. Because it was this and Cutthroat Island. And Cutthroat Island, which killed all of their careers. We're lucky Matthew Modine's still around at this point.

Well, he has Stranger Things. Yeah. I think that's what saved him. Because really... Like, he kept turning up and stuff.

I was like, is that him in Batman? Huh. Yeah. Okay, still working, still working. And then Stranger Things came along.

I was like, oh, okay. He's back with a vengeance. And then Geena Davis went to TV as well. Yeah. Because she had her, like, was it Madam President or.

That was more recent, yeah. She's had a couple of TV shows. I miss her old TV. Wasn't it Sarah? That sounds far back I'm going with Geena Davis.

Because I always liked Geena Davis. Oh, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, that... She had like a sitcom in the early days when she was coming off of her. other, like, side character role in that, what's that, Dabney Coleman show? She was a side character on.

And then they were like, oh, that got canceled, but we're going to give you your own show. And I don't think it made it like a season. So they kept trying. They're like, we know she's going to be big. We got to find a thing for her.

And then everything fell into place, but it was pretty much all film at that point. So yeah, it was her coming back, I guess, for the president thing. But yeah. Yeah, she's, I mean, she's impressive as always in this, but again, a weird move as the story goes, because it really is a total, she is a different character even within the context of this movie for a good portion of this movie. Yeah.

So you do get to see her be totally different than the badass action hero that you kind of expect from the trailer. There's a lot in the movie that that's not who she is, but she does a great job being the other person. Basically, if The Bourne Identity had come out previous to this, I can expect that the pitch would have been something. Like, okay, it's The Bourne Identity meets Jekyll and Hyde. Because it's kind of, I mean, like, of course, I mean, the book for The Bourne Identity was out, you know, been out since, what, the 70s or something, 70s or 80s.

But, you know, it's kind of that same concept where it's like. She's a secret agent, but doesn't know she's a secret agent. But then once she flips the switch. She's a badass. She's a badass.

Well, I mean, just the line I still frequently quote. No one knows I'm quoting from this line. Because nobody remembers this movie. Nobody remembers this movie. But basically is the one, you know, like, it's like.

Sam Jackson's comparison is like, oh, you used to be like, oh, phooey, I burned the muffins. And then your next line is basically like, oh, you walk into a bar and then five minutes later, sailors come running out. They do. Yeah. And they do a good job with that between her and, I guess, the writing.

It is the slow pivot. It's not a flip of the switch. It's like she doesn't even realize she's doing it in the beginning. Yeah. And, like, she starts, like, doing weird things with knives.

And she doesn't know why. She starts using foul language. And she doesn't even realize it. So, like, it is this slow switch. And then eventually she full on hits, like, oh.

Yeah, when she changed her appearance. Yeah, when she fully goes, oh, I'm back to me again. Let me make sure everyone knows it's me. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's, again, I don't even know how normal people would take to it now. If you don't know that brand of 90s action movie, like, I don't know. I don't know how it would work for people. I was just, like, so thrown into that for nostalgia reasons that I was like, because they don't make action movies like that now. They're very different.

They're still making plenty of action movies, but much like we'll talk about later, every era has its own weird action movies. This was a 90s thing and it feels like it. The movie we're going to talk about today is an 80s movie and comes from a time period and also a period of the world where they don't make movies like this anymore either. I always go into looking at older films like just enjoy it is for what it is. Are you entertained?

In some way, shape, or even if it's bad and you're sitting there making fun of it, are you having a good time making fun of it? Because then you're still having a good time with it. Or there's a couple of kill scenes you like, or whatever the case may be. But yeah, so that's the one thing I love about genre films is that sometimes you get some people that just go completely balls out. And they don't make a corporate, and that's the problem with a lot of today's, action films is that they went too big budget, and so you get a lot of corporate stuff.

Yeah. The John Wick series has been able to toe the line between the both. They've been able to be creative and have some original takes on it, but it's widely accepted, and I almost expected Burger King to put out collector's cups. I think it's because that one is built around... the giant staging of all the fights like it's not like again the beginning was character driven and then that was kind of dealt with and like by the sequel it was like well now we need to focus on the other thing everybody liked yeah and that became the star of the movie almost is like yes we all love keanu but really we're here for these crazy elaborate fights and like that's i think all they have to deliver on now as long as they do that right people are still going to keep showing up.

Yeah. I think that kind of helps them from that angle. And the beauty part is of Keanu's commitment to, you know, his weapon handling, to the fight scenes, to the stunts and whatever else. It's like he just, you know, even more so than how much training he went through for the Matrix films, he looks even more seasoned in these John Wick movies, the way he handles weapons or whatever else. It's been so many years.

I was like, again, it's got to be, way harder to do that now as an old guy than when he did Matrix. Like, he was still relatively young then. It's like, shit, it's gotta be an extra fight now. Like, So power to him, because he is a. He looks like a dude that's kind of maintained his physicality.

Like, he probably does yoga every day. I'm sure, yeah. You know, so he. Because he was always, like, kind of edging martial arts anyway, even when he gets to his, like, samurai phase. Yeah.

And, like, he, again, studied a ton of martial arts for that, for the Matrix, and then going into this, I'm sure. So. I don't think that ever dropped off, but now it's like the movie's caught up with him. It's like now he needs to do that for this role, and luckily he's still in amazing shape, so good for him. It's always fascinated me with his career because he has written this line of, beloved actor by the mass audience, or whatever he'd done.

He's never really done anything that's like, oh my god, why did you do this atrocity to man? I mean, Johnny Mnemonic was close. It's pretty rough, yeah. He hasn't really done anything that's been a real stinker. The only one that people give him shit for, and I still love the movie, is him in Dracula.

And I love that Dracula movie, and I think he does... Again, we had someone on the show bring it up before, and they were like, Jonathan, within the context of this story, I mean, look at Gary Oldman. Look at what he's dealing with. And he has to still go, huh, that's peculiar. So that character is written to be kind of dense.

So like what he does with it is fitting for the story and the character. So I was like, I don't think he does a bad job in that. No, I mean... He doesn't do a fancy accent, and I think that's what people want to make fun of him. He sounds like Keanu, but.

But, I mean, the thing was, this is a couple years removed from people giving Kevin Costner shit for his Robin Hood movie, where his accent changes, you know, multiple times in the movie. He pretty much just sounds like Kevin Costner. Yeah, well, he starts off with a bit of an accent, then, yeah, by the end of the movie, he's just full-on Kevin Costner. I mean, you know, Carrie Elwes made fun of him in the Mel Brooks, you know, Men in Tights movie. That was maybe the best line in it.

Yeah, but. Unlike some actors... Yeah, speak with a proper British accent. Yeah, unlike some actors. But, you know, so I think Keanu kind of knew, like, okay, I can't really do accents like that, so I'm just going to be me.

But you're right, though. He's basically like the ultimate cuckold. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's there just to be duped so that we can get the movie going. And, like, after that, he doesn't have much to do.

Well, I mean, just think of, like, the party of everybody. You've got Van Helsing, who, of course, in this case is played by Hopkins. Yeah, who's going to be the hero of the movie, whether anybody likes it or not. And then you've got Quincy Harker, who, he's the cowboy, he's got the guns. So of the party of the three of them, he is the least effective.

He's the least interesting. He's the least, like, everything about him is just like, oh, yeah, that guy's still here. He's only there to basically introduce us to Dracula because he's got to get him to sign some paperwork and, hey, I got a hot girlfriend. And that becomes the focus of the movie. Like, oh, I want her.

You can get out of the way now, dude. And he kind of does as the plot goes on. He almost dies twice. He's getting sucked on by all the brides of Dracula and they're using him like a soda fountain. You know?

There's worse ways to go, you know? Yeah, that's true, yeah. So you think he's going to die there, and then he almost dies in the fight with Dracula himself. It's like, oh, my God, just kill this dude, Stoker. To me, that's the one he got the most flack for that I remember.

Like, everything else, like, they still, like, make fun of his, whoa. But that went away eventually. Everybody, it caught up to, like, oh, he's actually, like, good at doing what he does. And, like, then everybody sort of realized, In the real world, he's the coolest guy ever. So it's like, we all just came like, okay, we all love Keanu.

Like, that's just, we've decided. Yeah, it's just the whole thing. Like, yeah, we didn't take him seriously. Then we kind of love him. And then we see who he is as a person, too.

It's just like, okay, yeah. And people made fun of him because he was... dumb because he said whoa and he was Bill and Ted but then as you move on it's like oh did you see the documentary he did about cinematography like he's not dumb like he just can play that convincingly when he's younger. Or just listen to him in interviews yeah. He's not he's not at all but but yeah he just got kind of pigeonholed into that whoa and that was killed a good portion of his career really nobody took him seriously at least he still made tons of money in successful films but nobody took him seriously so It's a double-edged sword. What are you going to do?

But at the same time, it's like, okay, so you did two Bill and Ted movies and you were able to spin that off into parenthood and got to work with Steve Martin and Rick Moranis. Which, again, he's that same. Like, I think he's brilliant in that. But he plays dumb so good. Yes, he does.

Those two, that couple, because it's broken up on all these couples. And, like, those two are just dumb kids. And, like, they're so good at it. Both of them. Yeah, I would love to see them do something together still.

Because I'm like, they're so good at that in that movie. So, I think that's the thing. He was too good at being that dumb character for so many movies that we started to buy into it. Like, oh, I think he's just. really kind of not too smart. And he's getting lucky.

And I'm like, no. He knows what the hell he's doing. Yeah. So he's always been impressive. It took a while for the rest of the world to catch up with how awesome he is.

Yeah. We get to our movie we're going to talk about today, which we could have had a big star on the rise. And our young Mark Gregory. Our very young. I didn't realize that young.

He did a handful of movies and then he's gone. Alright, since we're into it, let's fully get into it. It's time for Sofa Theater. These are the weapons. These are the warriors.

And this is the final battlefield. 1990, the Bronx Warriors. They trust no one. They fear nothing. Those who follow them will survive.

Those who challenge them will die. It's a future ruled by the strong. A future where the first to perish. Are the lucky ones. 1990, the Bronx Warriors.

We gotta stand up and fight all this oppression. It's time to organize and get broke. We lost sight of our needs. This place aggression. You gotta wake it up.

This episode's Silver Theater feature is 1990 colon The Bronx Warriors. Woohoo! The year is 1982 when it came out for some people. Yeah. The director, I will attempt this, Enzo Castellari?

Castellari, yep. Okay. Again, I try not to pronounce American names, let alone any time we cross the ocean. And let's get it right. Enzo G.

Castellano. That is how he is built. Yes. And the plot, according to IMDb, and I will immediately have issue, but we'll get to that. In a post-apocalyptic New York City, a policeman infiltrates the Bronx, which has become a battleground for several murderous street gangs. spoiler alert we're about to ruin the hell out of all of this so uh hopefully you've gone to see it you've watched it in your home you own a copy of it i don't know did they even make physical copies of it oh yeah is it out on criterion at this point uh i probably not but.

I know they've got a box set of all three of them yeah i did. See that when i was looking into this so yeah there you go it's out there in many formats it was streaming when i watched it so it's not hard to find Go watch it before. We ruin it. Yeah, the whole series is on Prime and Tubi and Pluto. Yeah, I think Tubi and Pluto had it.

So, yeah, you don't even have to pay anything. You just got to watch dumb ads. So, yeah, this is another one of those. There's so many movies I know by reputation. A lot of them I've gotten to.

Then there's the other half that I'm just like, ah, I'll get to it later. And then this was one of those. As you were throwing out options, I was like, okay, I know this by reputation, by title. little else and then um that was one of the things that was gonna be my first thing because even when you mentioned it i was like oh well i do love a good post-apocalyptic movie especially bad cheesy low budget ones those are kind of the best so as we start this i'm like. This is even a post-apocalyptic movie that one little area has become a fucking war zone but i was like other than that anytime we cut back to like new york it's regular old everyday new york so i'm like. This isn't post-apocalyptic.

This is just, screw the Bronx, we're not going to deal with you anymore movie. So, yeah, right there I want to argue, it's not post-apocalyptic. We just said, screw the Bronx. Also, the synopsis says nothing about the character of Anne, who's kind of like the principal protagonist in this movie. The character kind of gets things going.

No mention of her whatsoever. Well, again, she has little to do in this movie. Although, a lot of our characters have little to do in this movie. There's a lot that goes on, and yet, I don't know what anybody's really, what are we going for here, people? But we can get to all of that.

Of course, yeah. And of course, this is, if you're a person of a certain age, you remember going to the video store. This was box art you saw all. The time back in the day. Oh, yeah.

Because it's a killer cover, good old painted, you know, bunch of just badass looking dudes on bikes and, you know, carrying weapons and the bikes are all decked out with skulls and all kinds of weird shit. You have to have blades poking out so you can stab people while you're driving. Yeah, it's a badass cover. And it does look post-apocalyptic there. Again, kind of feeding off which we can get to.

So much of this is just of the time. It's just throw all these things that are going on now in a hat. Let's pull a few out and make a movie. And that's kind of what we get in this movie. This movie is a three-way derivative.

Definitely of Escape from New York. See, one of them didn't even occur to me. And that's what's weird. Because as soon as I got to the plot, I was like, so like Escape from New York. Immediately.

Immediately. And then once I'm watching it, I get to what I'm assuming will be the third one of this. But, yeah. Well, it's Escape from New York if Rob Morrow is a reverse Snake Plissken. Which, well, yeah.

He is going in to get somebody that's in the Bronx, but he's the bad guy. And then he has a turn in the third act that basically goes from he's like, okay, he's Johnny Badass in sunglasses sneaking through the Bronx and killing gang members to full-on, like, Cartoon villain. Cartoon villain. Mustache twirling. Big ridiculous laugh.

It's like, where did this shit come from? He might have just tied a woman to train tracks at this point. Because it's that over the top. villainous behavior stuff. But I guess when you decide to put on like a leather sport coat with giant shoulder pads and a captain's hat that suddenly, you know. When he becomes the leather daddy from Village People.

That's pretty much his finale outfit. Actually, he's like the leather daddy from Star Crash. Yeah, really. You know, it's not even that. But yeah, it's...

For me, aside from the Australian genre cinema, the Italians just got it. Um they or didn't in the best possible way. But you know they rip off also because this is definitely kind of a little bit of a mad max rip off see that's the. One that didn't even occur to me and like i feel like every movie that came out after that the look of the character sort of stole from it but like plot wise again because it's not post-apocalyptic because i mean other than i guess them on bikes that look. Post-apocalyptic when you get to the second one that's definitely mad.

Maybe that's way more because yeah this one i'm like all i see is the setup is escape from new york and then once you get into the middle part of it it's like okay now it's the warriors yeah exactly which again i was doing the math here i'm like okay warriors is 79 so that's already out we're obviously fully stealing from that one yeah and then 81 was escape from new york so it's like. We're stealing from that one too so and then uh and then uh basically the road warrior was released in 82 but they had the previous one yeah max had already become a while it did well, it had already become a hit in America. But yeah, I feel like it's way more of those other two. Mad Max is just a little of the outfits and the ridiculousness of the characters, maybe.

But plot-wise, yeah, I didn't get much of that. It didn't even occur to me until I started reading all this. And I'm like, well, I guess a little. But I was like, the plot is just total rips off of those other two and then meshed together in a big mess. Oh, yeah.

But yeah, the Italian genre cinema is just To break everything down, this film, its sequel, The New Barbarians, a.k.a. Warriors of the Wasteland, and then the third film, Escape from the Bronx, were written, prepped, and shot in six months. So they were all shot at once or back-to-back-to-back? It had to have been, yeah. Of course, all three of these movies were released a year with each other.

So they had time to edit them and post-production and stuff like that. But yeah, these were all written, prepped, and shot. It's just amazing. And of course, with Italian cinema, the tax laws were a certain percentage of the movie has to be. Shot in Italy.

But it's all the stuff not on the streets, so it doesn't look like it. It's all tunnels and crap. All the interiors. Yeah. All the interiors are in Italy.

Anything exterior, they actually were in the Bronx. And you can tell because it's old-timey times when you had Twin Towers in the background. Yeah. I mean, I know they're there. I watched them in movies for so many years, but it's still weird now.

I'm like, oh, look. Oh, yeah. Remember when those used to be there? And, of course, this is a time in New York when the Bronx is basically a complete shithole. It was the ghetto of ghettos.

There's buildings that are blown out. All kinds of just nastiness. Of course, you can definitely tell they've only got maybe about a half a city block to work with for their exteriors. And they're doing the. Helicopter shot, too.

And I'm like, are they looking at the Bronx there? Because it really does look like a war. zone. Like there's so many burnt out buildings. I'm just like, what the hell was going on in the Bronx in 1981? Well, and there was a lot of, basically you'd had a lot of, you know, construction projects that were going to happen or buildings being rebuilt and And then they were abandoned or whatever else.

So you basically got like partially demolished buildings. You had all kinds of crap like that. Did you read how the idea for this came together? No. It was basically one of the producers.

It sounds a little Italian. Fabrizio De Angelis. Oh, yeah. Yep. So he missed a subway train stop for his Manhattan hotel that he was going to and ended up in the South Bronx.

Yeah. And within that time, he came out of there and started walking around and he's just like, oh my God, what is... He was like frightened and yet fascinated by what was going on because it was every type of criminal and junkie and like everything looked like it had been bombed out and like he was... He literally, by the time the end of this happened, he already had guys come up to him with switchblades. And he ran away and made it back to his fancy hotel.

So he just had this window into the horribleness that was the Bronx. And he went, well, that's it. We're making a movie. His real world experience inspired this. inspired film. So I did not know that.

That's great. Yeah. That's he just wrong. Stop on the old subway and look where he ended up in a post-apocalyptic world. That is 1990.

The future. That's right. The, the, and what's, what cracks me, of course, as the, the series rolls. Along 1991, uh, is the year for the next film. While it does, the thing is, they use a lot of the same actors in all three movies.

Because, I mean, they're all shot very close together. Very typically, Italian directors and producers had a certain pool of actors, especially American actors who may have been well-known at one point, in their posse of like, I want you for this movie, and. Yada, yada, yada. That's what's weird, looking at the rundown of this director, and I'm like, there's Fred Williamson again. I'm like, did you owe him a favor?

Yeah. he just needed some work, but like. Oh, Fred Williamson spent a large amount of his career just living in Italy doing Italian films. I believe it. Cause yeah, he just sort of shows up at first. I thought he was just going to have that one off scene at the beginning.

I was like, Whoa, was that it? They just cashed in that one favor. Luckily by the end he gets a good amount of screen time. So he's, he's, and he's really fun as he always is. But yeah, I was just like, what a weird out of place moment for you.

And it's like in the middle of this Italian production and he just rolls up and His scenes weren't even in Italy either. I think they said his stuff, he was in Rome at the time. So all of his fancy little area of the world where he was laid out was all in Rome. And the final scene was in Rome too. Interesting.

What a world. He's in the second film as well as a protagonist. He's one of the two main protagonists. but doesn't show up until almost halfway through the movie. Yeah, which again, that's when he had that one little moment, and then I was like, that's why I thought maybe he's just done already. That's what I love.

I've talked before about Blind Rage, which is basically another genre film that was, I think it was Mexican made, I think. But basically it was five blind guys, some were vets, some were other things, but five blind guys pulling off a bank job. And then Fred Williamson's supposed to be like the super cop that takes them down. But he literally shows up in the last 15 minutes of the movie. Again, I'm cashing in this favor.

Here we go. Yeah, he answers a phone call. All right, I'm on my way. Puts down the phone, gets in the car, shows up at a scene where they've already busted the dudes. He gets out of his car, punches two dudes, and then end of the movie.

I mean, who doesn't want Fred Williamson in their movie? I'll take it. I would like him in more. It's like they made great use of him in From Dusk Till Dawn because he's in a large chunk of the movie. I would like Fred Williamson more.

In my movie. He's a great persona. He's always fun. He has a lot of charisma. He chews some scenery.

Vic Morrow is Hammer, the snake pliskin guy who's supposed. To kill men. He's definitely very snake pliskin-y. Without the charm. No offense to Vic Morrow, which this is its own sad little movie because this is the last completed movie of his life.

No, well... Completed. Yeah. Completed movie. He's in another one right after this.

Well, that's why they said... It's not that everybody wasn't going to have bad dubbing done, but his was totally done by somebody else because he was gone by the time this movie was getting dubbed and getting finalized. He was already not with us anymore for a reason you might have heard about. I guess we don't have to get into, but it is weird that there are some decapitations in this movie. Some mention of bringing her in on a helicopter.

There's a lot of weird things. I don't think they knew, but it's really weird listening to it now going, huh? Yeah, we do have one very distinct decapitation in this movie, and there is a usage of a helicopter, though it's not involved in the decapitation. And the, whoever the suit guy is, every time they cut to him, I'm like, do we care about these old men? But the one says, if you don't bring her back to me, I'll have your head.

Oh, that's an unfortunate line in this point in time. But what are you going to do? And if you don't know who we're referring to, folks, check out Twilight Zone the movie. Yeah. Yeah, which actually you won't see that scene.

But it does not... It's amazing to me the stuff that ends up on the internet. Because I ended up back down that rabbit hole again. I've seen it a few times. And every time it's disturbing.

Yeah, it is. You can see the footage of what went down on the Twilight Zone set. And it's horrifying. Like, way more horrifying than anything that goes on in the Twilight Zone movie. And I don't hate that movie.

But it is not near as disturbing as what goes on in the actual footage that. It is rough. On Shudder, the series of Cursed Films, they do an episode and you see some of that footage. Yeah, they show that. Well, I'd seen like a long time ago they released one that was like from a distance.

Like it was one of the cameras up on a pole or something from really far away and you get a wide shot of like the helicopter coming down. But the one they showed on the Shudder one and the one that's now on the freaking internet, it's up close. Like it is right there where they were filming and like it is disturbing. Yeah. So Yeah, it's...

So, not good times for Vic Morrow. I don't know how much fun he had making this movie, but by the next movie, things are not good. Yeah, it's not happy times, yeah. But yeah... Rest in peace, Vic Morrow.

No kidding, yeah. He did not deserve that. So, but yeah, Hammer, not really a charmer. Not really a... What?

Because Snake has his own, like, Charisma. He's still a bastard, but you kind of have to love him. Right. You don't really have that with Hammer. Hammer's just a dick.

He's just a dick. He's just a dick. And the thing is, it's so complicated with who Anne is. Because at first, you first meet her, and I love the opening credit sequence. Was that just like the costume tests?

They just decided, we'll string together all the costume test footage. I'm watching that and I'm writing it down. I'm like, what's up with these weird close-ups as our intro to the credit scene? There is a real reason why. If you don't know, would you like to know why they have those intro credits?

Because in true this movie and probably every other one he shot for him, It was raining that day and he didn't want to lose a day of shooting. So they shot all of those weird close-ups inside so that they'd have a day of shooting done. So that's why we have those weird opening credits. Which is funny because there are things in it that you're like, why the hell are we looking at this? And then later it actually comes up like the weird blade in the boot thing.

I'm like, why are we looking at it? And that's just a weird... And then later it shows up and you're like, oh. Well, yeah, I guess I knew that was there because I watched the credits. So there's several of those weird little moments.

You're like, oh, the claws from the witch lady. Yeah. Same thing. It's like, oh, she does have those. We saw those at the very beginning.

Like, so they all come into play. Yeah, she's Fred Williamson's second-in-command. Did they even give her a name? He just kept calling her Witch, I think. Yeah, you're right.

Because I kept calling her Sorceress. I was like, look out, Sorceress! Yeah, she's Witch, and his name is The Ogre. The Ogre. Why would you call him The Ogre?

None of these... Yeah, everybody has a dumb, made-up name. And I'm like, it's fun again for what it is. But after a while, I'm just like, really? Well, a lot of the writers, guys, like, you know, are Mark Gregory, our lead dude.

He's trash. It's like, okay, that makes sense. What a charming name. And then, like, the conniving general guy who's, like, a cross between John Denver and Bill Pullman. Yeah, yeah.

He's ice. Ice. You know? And why is it, do we have two double crossers? Because they got the hot dog guy who's driving the semi truck through town, which why is he driving a semi truck through the Bronx?

And is it just me? Or does the other guy refer to him as hot dog when he comes up and like they get in the truck, but I'm like, they've never met before. So why would he know his actual name within the context of this movie is hot dog. Exactly. Cause he read the screenplay.

I was like, did you just call him his actual name again? i was just like i kept waiting going did they know each other but i don't think they did i think they just were ahead of page and went oh yeah that guy's hot dog I thought he was just calling him that being a smartass. But then later I'm like, no, that's what Hammer's calling him too. That's his actual quote unquote name within the context of this movie. So I feel like that was a little off in the writing. Maybe I'm wrong.

But then this movie has the pleasure of having two of my favorite genre actors who did a ton of Italian movies. One of them being George Eastman, who he's only got a small role in this one. In the next movie, he's got a much bigger bad guy role. He's only got a little bad guy role, but he has his. Moments where he's Gollum.

He's definitely chewing the scenery himself. Yeah, and then he gets a fight with Fred Williamson that's pretty tight. But then the guy who's kind of like the... I don't know, the lead suit, that's... He's billed as Thomas Elliot, or Thomas.

No, Thomas Fisher. But he's really a Neo-Girolami, and he's always got, like... His mustache is very distracting because he's got blonde hair and a blonde mustache. Anybody with a blonde mustache is always very distracting to me. Yeah, it's an odd look.

But when you. Especially the way he's used in the second film. He has got, like, the most gorgeous hair. In the second film, the character plays Shadow. But yeah, so he's just, he's a great Italian, you know, genre actor.

Like, he just looks bored for the entire movie he's in. You don't necessarily, like, he's kind of in charge, but he still answers to the vice president of what? I don't know. Well, again, everything in this is so, like, just grand, made-up nonsense. Like, the, what is the, she's gonna take over the Manhattan Corporation?

I was like, So the most generic made-up name ever for a corporation that also controls the weapons of the future and the world as a whole. I was just like, what? It's so basic and made-up and generic. Yeah, you're thinking like, okay, maybe she's like the mayor's daughter or the governor's daughter or the president's daughter. The president's daughter.

Something along those lines. The president of a made-up corporation. No, no. She's basically an heiress to the world's biggest corporation that essentially runs the country. So she's the richest woman in the world or about to be.

And she's only like in the movie, she's only supposed to be 17. She looks like she's like 27. That's what I said. Cause she's like, I'm about to turn 18. I'm like, you look easily 26 at best.

Like, which again, real world, her connection. Pretty sure that is the director's daughter. Yeah. I think they pulled a Godfather three. I think he had somebody in mind.

It fell through and he went, well, here you go. You get to be in my movie. And much like that, she said she enjoyed it, but not so much, you know, worried about being the star of the movie, but on her days off, she got to be assistant DP and got to do behind the scenes stuff. So there you go. She's the little Sophia.

We didn't even know. Yeah. Actually, she's the producer's daughter. Yeah. Uh, but it, Jumping way ahead towards the end of the movie, the scene where Fred Williamson's character brings out the big birthday cake, which I guess is like a giant...

Okay, it's a post-apocalyptic sort of. Kind of, maybe. Unlike Escape from New York, where the entire city of New York City is cordoned off from the rest of the country and all the prisoners put there, they just did that with the Bronx. Like, okay, we just cordoned off the Bronx out of the rest of New York. But everything else is fine and normal-ish.

Right. All the shitheels are in the Bronx, and then everything else with the rest of the city and the rest of the boroughs are fine. You know, business as usual. But, yeah, there's no problem with getting resources. Because apparently you can get this giant elaborate birthday cake that looks like the city of New York.

That was very elaborate, by the way. That might have been half the budget right there. And then everybody starts singing Happy Birthday to her. It's kind of like, did we... Did we say it was her birthday anywhere?

Or was this literally a moment, like a candid moment where it was the actress' actual birthday? It might have actually been her birthday. Because it almost seems. Like everybody kind of breaks character when we're singing happy birthday. It's a very intriguing scene.

And I don't know if the ogre could afford that cake, but I bet her dad could. It might have been one her dad had made up. I mean, the ogre had a whole band. Hanging out, playing music for him. Not very good music.

She was way better by the end. Yeah, she was. But yeah, his cheesy, sort of jazzy, but not even as good as jazz. I was just like, why don't we play in here? Fred Williamson, I expected better music from you.

Well, I will say, though, that the score for the film, I love it. Oh, yeah. Walter Rosati did the score. He did tons of Italian movies. But especially the main theme.

Love that theme. Great drums in there. You know, just hit it. And speaking of drummers. I was going to say, if we don't bring it up.

There's a scene basically towards the opening of the movie where once we've picked up and we've saved Anne from these other hooligans and she's hanging out with the writers and trash. And they get back to their home base. And there's some dude just playing the drums by himself. Like he's... playing the solo in Santana's Soul Sacrifice, but the rest of the band isn't with him. So he's just going ham all by himself.

I don't think he was part of the band because, again, looking at the behind-the-scenes stuff, they said that guy was just out there. And the director went, all right, we'll use him. So he wasn't even part of the production. He was just a weird dude out on the waterfront playing drums. And they were like, Production value!

Let's go with it! Because, yeah, they don't explain them. And that's why it's not explained. Because it wasn't explained in the real world. Just a weird, crazy dude playing drums on the waterfront.

Yeah, because it's a little confusing because all the guys get up back to their home base and one of their own is dead. He got impaled on a log on the waterfront. Which, again, they don't explain that either. You're just like, oh, a dead guy. All right.

And he's upset about it. And then it turns out, oh, maybe this guy... was an informant. And, of course, we find that later in the movie that it actually was Ice, and Ice was just covering. His own ass. And, again, why we have.

Okay, so the hot dog guy is an informant for Hammer and helping him throughout the thing, but then also Ice is trying to help out Hammer... Only because he doesn't like that his, basically his boyfriend, Trash, is now hanging out with this girl. And she's all rich and whatever else. And that's not us. He wants to take over his group.

But at the same time, he's also working with the Gollum guy. And by the end, like, he's screwing everybody over. He's screwing everybody over, yeah. And just like, this guy sucks. And then he does have a knife in his boot.

A knife in his boot. Yeah. Along with it. And this was my weird, like. Sometimes I think, and maybe it didn't help that it was Italy, but I feel like Italy more than anybody would understand World War II references.

But the fact that one of the guys in the group at the beginning has a swastika on his old time military helmet. Yeah. And then Ice's outfit is essentially just a German military outfit from World War II. It looks kind of SS like. And I'm like. do you guys know what any of that is?

Like your, your band of guys is the most mixed race bunch of dudes. So like, that's cool and all, but you shouldn't be into the Nazi thing. I was like, unless they just don't even know what it means. Like it's post-apocalyptic times and it's just a symbol and they don't know what it means anymore. But I feel like ice would know what it means.

So yeah, I don't know. That was just like mixing our symbolisms. Because I was like, every race and group of people is in your little gang. Yeah. If you were really into Nazism, I don't think you'd be comfortable with everybody that's there.

Well, again, it's the thing about the swastikas. The swastika is a symbol that's like thousands of years old and has meant a multitude of things before Hitler and the boys got a hold of it. But in 1981, you know better. Yeah. Or 1990, whatever world we think we're in at this point.

I just thought that was weird. It's only there for a second. They don't reference it. But I was just like, that just seems like bad planning on your part behind the scenes. You will find as you go throughout the rest of the trilogy here, there is a lot of confusing points that basically like concepts are brought up in some points of the other sequels.

And like a person claims, I don't know anything about that. And it's nowhere near possible for that person to not know anything about that because it's been like less than a generation. Yeah. Basically, a nuclear war happens like less than a year later from the first film to the second film. And there's people explaining concepts to each other.

Like, I don't know what that is. Like, dude, that was like last week. You were just here. You're 40 years old. You should have remembered what thing, unless everybody's memories got wiped when the bomb hit.

It's a new fancy bomb that also wipes out your brain. Yeah, but there's a lot of stuff. Like, it makes sense if you don't think about it. You just have to hold that precept throughout all three of these movies. Yeah.

That was just a weird, and I could almost give up the jacket because if he just wore it because he thinks it's a cool looking jacket and he's in a motorcycle gang because no, again, it bothers me that the SS outfits look so damn cool. I'm like, damn it. Don't be cool. But I mean, those gray outfits are fucking awesome looking. So I'm like the all black shit and got.

Skulls on them and shit. And I'm like, okay, if that didn't mean what it means, I would think that's cool, but fuck you guys. So yeah, I was like, I can, and ice is an asshole. So like, yeah, I can understand that one. I would always get just like, take that shot of the helmet out.

And like, it's not as confusing, I guess, but that was a weird moment of like, what are you doing, guys? And let's talk about the biker gang. There's a couple of gangs I really want to talk about, but let's talk about our biker gang. First, the Riders. First we get to the opening credits.

One of the things you get to is action sequences are brought to us by Rocky's stuntman team. Yes. And the Hells Angels. Yes. So, these are actual Hells Angels mixed in with our actors.

Oh, yeah. And you can kind of tell. A lot of them look like Hells Angels. Yeah, there's ones that are very... What's kind of funny, they almost kind of pull the same thing with the Warriors.

Because, you know, in the big. gang meet scene at the beginning of the movie, there are a lot of real gang members. I mean, I don't think you could get that many people together there and not have a bunch of gang members. Yeah, but they literally went out and recruited, you know, for that. And so, you know, some of the stars of the movie would tell you, like, oh, yeah, basically, like, you're standing around talking to somebody, like. Oh, who's your agent?

Who are you represented by? You know, it's like. No. No one? I've run with the such and suches.

I'm in charge of this one because I killed a guy. So that's how I got to be where I am. Yeah. I took over the gang after I murdered the other guy. Oh, I'm going to craft services.

Bye. So you kind of get reverse of that or a bit of that where it's like, oh, you got actual Hells Angels and the biker gang. But let's talk about those bikes for a second. Because, for one, those aren't Harleys. Well, yeah, there's a big close-up of that Honda, and I'm like, are the Hells Angels okay with Hondas?

Yeah, they're all riding Hondas. I was like, that seems weird. While Hondas are effective as a motorcycle. They're fine. I know plenty of people who swear by Honda versus, you know, Harleys.

So, whatever. But if you're talking about a vicious-looking biker gang, you're seeing them on... Honda motorcycles that have basically Halloween decoration skulls mounted on the front. They couldn't even get real skulls or fake skulls. They're glowing Halloween skulls.

That sold it more for me, actually. I saw it and was like, I want to bike with a skull on the front of it. That lights up. That's awesome. But again, I'm not in the Hells Angels.

Surprise. The only cool aesthetic is at the beginning of the movie when Anne is being accosted by the other gang members and the writers are coming up and you see an imprint on the wall of a skull. Yeah. Bust out like an old school Spider-Man thing. He used to do that back in the day, like a little thing from his belt that had projected an image.

Yeah, that was cool. I was surprised it looked as cool as it did. And they only did that once. But here's the thing that, while we're on the skulls, the thing that made no sense is it also wasn't on everybody's. So I was like, was it just...

Only the leader types get it? Because then there's, like, they're going down that lineup, and it's like, okay, our main people that have, like, speaking roles all have it. And then, like, nobody, nobody... Wait, that guy's got one. And then nobody, nobody...

Like, it's a bunch of regular old bikes. I was like, so... Pick one. Like, which is it? Like, everybody gets them?

Or only the hierarchy that runs this gets them? But, like, why is it like, oh, and that random guy over there that says nothing, and we never see again after they ride off? Like, it just seems sloppy? Or just not planned out at all, one or the other. And I love, too, you basically, like, you know, aside from Trash and Ice, you've got two other biker gang guys who have larger speaking roles.

They're not named. So, basically, you've got Beret Guy and Mustache Sunglasses. you know and mustache sunglasses like looks like you know a leather daddy who they picked up from the bar and said hey you want to be in this movie. And there he goes and probably yeah and of course like that's where they got it and I love too because apparently his death like Trash gets really upset when this guy dies or gets like he gets tortured and gets to Have a moment of talking to trash before he passed away. Did you notice, too, like, one of his. Like, his hand was broken at the wrist.

Did you see, like, a bone sticking out? And it was very gross looking. I was like, they really went to a little extra trouble to make his hand look all jacked up. But the rope was still tied around his hand. Yeah.

It's like, your wrist. Literally, the bone is barely. Like, one of the bones is not attached. There's one bone... that's left hanging on, and why is he still tied to the... It was a very weird marionette-looking thing.

I was just like, why is he like that? But it looks weird. It was good makeup. It looks horrific, but at the same time, I'm like, I don't know practically why it's like that. But Trash gets all upset when this guy dies.

Well, the thing is, I guess the unnamed couple that get shot by Hammer... Towards the beginning of the movie, too. They get a whole funeral scene with that bizarre funeral music, too, by the way. And another really long drive. It takes a while for this movie to get going because we get a lot of dudes in suits talking that barely factors into what's going on.

And then we do the ride at the beginning with the drummer. And then two scenes later, a whole other lengthy ride back to the waterfront. And I was like, this is a lot of driving around for the fistful of funerals. They all throw a handful of ashes that I feel like if you just randomly burn some people, they wouldn't turn into that pulverized ash. That's like they went to a funeral home and got the actual goods versus what would happen if you just lit someone on fire.

And why is it, too, that when they, okay, I could see the whole significance. Like every gang member has a handful of ash and they're going to go throw it into the river. But the way they did that, they barely pull up to the waterfront. They throw their ash while still on their bikes. And basically all the ash blows in the next dude's face.

Yeah. It becomes sort of that Big Lebowski thing. I'm like, oh. You're dusting it off of yourself. It's a Big Lebowski thing 14 times.

I know. You just watch every person go, oh, that didn't go well. Oh, that one didn't go well either. Oh, this is it. Who came up with this burial at sea that doesn't make it to the sea?

Oh, my God. Burial on your neighbor's face. Oh, it's... It's awkward. Very awkward.

It's brilliant. Again, that's what I love about movies like this. There's stupid shit all around, but you just buy the ticket, take the ride. I mean, it is why I've been so drawn to... Well, hell, before the show.

As a kid, I remember just watching... these kind of movies and just being like this is amazing that this thing exists yeah and that's still what brings me back to this day like we've done so many weird ones on the show and like just getting to this one here i'm like it's the same thing i'm like what the fuck what is going on in this movie and like it just does not disappoint when it gets to so many moments of How is this a thing? And how did this become a movie? And I'm still watching it right now, and I'm enjoying the hell out of myself. It's weird. But, yeah, we've got to get to our star, Mark Gregory, here, who plays Trash.

Now, this kid, like, this was his second movie that he did. The producers really, they loved it. In this first movie, he looks great. He's got a great fit. He is ripped.

He's got a ripped physique. The dude is ripped. There's a reason he's not wearing a shirt. He's got the good hair. He's got a vest.

Yeah, he's pulled a swan in this one. Yeah, in true warrior's form. Just a vest. And I'm ripped. Look at me.

Well, shit. If I look like Michael Beck in 1981, I would wear a vest. Yeah, no shirt for me either, dude. Just be walking around all day. So he's very much like he's got the good hair.

This dude just looks great. By the time you get to the third film, which is really only two years later... you know, when it was released, but this was like at the end of six months, for some reason, he looks worse when you get to escape from the Bronx. He's got a beard gut at that point. No, it's just, it's, you know, the physique is still kind of there, but like, it looks like he's tired or strung out. Well, maybe so.

Yeah. I mean, cause Gregory, you know, like he did nothing you all have heard of. This was probably his biggest film to date. He, there was a, Action series called Thunder, where he did like three movies of those. He did a bunch of other action movies.

Was it Delta Force Commando? When you're a stellar actor like Mark, I mean... Yeah. Ultimate Mission. Just a Damned Soldier is another one.

Oh, and then his last movie in 1989 was Afghanistan, The Last War Bus. Well, of course. I mean... Yeah. And then he...

Yeah. But the interesting thing is that I think like on the box set of the trilogy, there's a documentary that somebody did called Looking for Trash. Yeah. It was probably like about 10 years ago or so. They went looking for this guy because he was this kind of genre star for a little bit, kind of a young up and comer and had basically about a six-year career and boom, gone.

And he died of cancer, I think, in the early 2000s. Was living abroad or whatnot. But, yeah, I just, you know, don't know what happened to this dude. But I was very curious to see that documentary. They, again, I was trying to figure out because I knew they brought up why, like, he just.

Because, again, his acting is a little. Forced. Nonsense. We were born dead. Life means nothing.

We live with death every single day. Death walks with us. Death rides and sleeps with us. We carry its smell under our skins. So don't go blaming yourself.

What's the real reason? And I. Was like, where the hell did this guy come from? According to the internet, which, believe what you will on there, but it says they, like, They found him at the gymnasium. That I believe.

Look at him. But he frequented in Rome. And he was known for being very quiet and stood out due to his physique. And he was once a worker at a local shoe store. And his fiance played a prank on him and sent his photos in to this film company.

And they called him in for an audition. And he wound up beating out 2,000 other applicants to play trash. Yeah. So, again... He was, and the other thing that's crazy, he was 17, according to this, at the time.

I was like, dude, you look like that at 17? Jesus. So, yeah, to be 17 years old, never acted according to this. He worked at a freaking shoe store and have somebody be like, look, we're going to put you in this movie. And so, I mean, I guess he does what he can.

But yeah, his, some of those lines, and not just him, I mean, The daughter almost is– again, I don't know if she'd acted before this either because their dialogue back and forth sometimes is the most broken, disconnected, unenthusiastic delivery. I was just like, what is going on? But again, when you pull people that aren't really professional, this is kind of what you get. Absolutely. But it's– Odd, too, because, you know, for the most part of the movie, Trash is the main guy.

And then about midway through the movie, when he hooks up with Fred Williamson's character, Fred starts kind of taking over. Yeah, because he's way more charismatic. Yeah. And then so basically by the end of the movie, you're following Fred Williamson's character and Trash is like hanging out in the corner. Well, and then you don't know where you're supposed to be in the middle there because in the beginning they're already talking about Hammer.

And again, if we're like, well, if this is the Escape from New York ripoff, like that's our hero. So we get into it and like, well, he's not really in it much. Now we're watching Trash. So it's like he's not even in it for a long time. Then when he does show up, you're like, this guy kind of sucks.

Yeah. Where are we supposed to be with him? Are we following him? Are we following Trash? Then Fred Williamson comes in and is like, who's our character in this movie?

And why do we care? And you're slightly sympathetic to Anne because she doesn't want to be the richest woman in the world and do all this corporate stuff. And she wants to stay with Trash in the Bronx. So she willingly wants to go to the Bronx. Yeah.

I like that. They make a point of like, what the hell? This woman has everything and she goes to the Bronx. And I love to like, okay. So when we first see her, she's running across the Brooklyn bridge, I guess, or whatever else.

So she's running across the bridge from Manhattan going towards the Bronx. And she's in like this, like white leathery kind of looking outfit, hair looking disheveled, whatever else. The next time we see her after she's rescued by the writers, they haven't got back to their base yet. They just picked her up. She's had a wardrobe change to where she's wearing a denim shirt and a black vest that she has on for the rest of the movie.

And her hair has obviously been touched. Well, I like that we also get to, once we get to the more, the middle part where we get to the more Warriors-esque. Yeah. Where, again, and the most ripoff thing about it is not just that we got to get from here to here and we're going to run into people, but they also have their own ridiculous thing. So in the very beginning we meet our, like, group of extras from Starlight Express.

Then I'm like, okay, this goes back to one of my running themes of, like, The future is roller skates. There is a weird from the mid 70s into the early 90s where futuristic world had to have roller skates involved, especially if it was a bunch of crazy kids. So, yeah, after I had a back to back era of watching Solar Babies and Prayer of the Roller Boys. Or prayer for the roller, whatever the hell it was. And like, I was just like, okay, this is it.

This is your post-apocalyptic future revolves around kids wearing roller skates. And then let's not forget Rollerball. And of course Rollerball. So, I mean, yeah, it's like, so in building my post-apocalyptic world out of Lego people, which of course I have done, I did do a whole group of teenagers and they're all wearing roller skates. So, again, this was just more reinforcement of that.

Once we get to the very first thing, I'm like, of course this is the future of 1990 and a bunch of weirdos are on roller skates. So, again, sort of stealing that one little moment in Warriors and be like, what if we put a bunch of guys on roller skates and give them these weird football player shoulder pads that look a little more like Starlight Express than football players. And they're carrying hockey sticks. And they have hockey sticks. So, again, they really...

It is Starlight Express all. Of a sudden. But. Burying the lead here because you've got that gang, you've got the scavengers, which basically those guys hang out in the caves and they are wearing rags and have cake paint on their face. This was very Broadway-esque for me.

And I don't have a lot of Broadway ties. I'm not overly Broadway. But I'm like, oh, you mean the group of leftover lepers from Jesus Christ Superstar? Because they're all wearing rags and they've got horrible looking faces. And they're one shade from a zombie, but they're not quite there yet.

They just look like lepers. So, again, we've got Starlight Express. We've got... The cast outs from Jesus Christ Superstar. And then we get to the big Broadway group.

Because there's basically outcasts, I guess, from a chorus line. They are so a chorus line. It's ridiculous, isn't it? Because, okay, you've got a gang of people. It's not a very large gang.

You see about four people in this gang here. But a gang of about four or five people here who are in gold top hats, gold vests, tap shoes, and canes. But they also have their faces painted up somewhere across between the Legion of Doom and KISS. Or, once again, the other thing everybody remembers from the Warriors. Guys in makeup in a gang.

So I'm like, this is a weird mixture of that, too, mixed with fussy. Yeah, literally like when they get in the scene and the whole fight scene is choreographed, timed to the music. It's like a. Yeah, and like the writers are getting their asses kicked by the chorus line people. By the Broadway babies.

I mean, so it's a great moment for theater kids. Like, hey, guess what? You can be badasses and know how to flatball change. You know? I mean, if at any point in this movie you're going to say, what the fuck is going on right now?

That's it. And there are many other times to say that during this movie. But that may be the peak moment of, what are we watching? And it's such a brief scene. It's like, I want more of these guys.

I know. I was like, why is there no story? Why are they like this? And why are they kicking our guys' asses? There needs to be more of an explanation as to why they're here and what they're doing and why they're such badasses.

But no, we don't really get any of that. And here's another thing that doesn't make sense either. Okay, so the people in the cake paint and the rags, they're known as the scavengers. But Fred Williamson's group, who basically he's the ogre, his main chick is the witch, and they got a couple other people in there too. They're known as the zombies.

Which that's what I kept thinking they were. Every time they referenced them, I'm like, oh, the ones that almost look like zombies. And then later I was like, wait, no, that's not who they're talking about. Those are the scavengers. Yeah.

It makes no sense. And I was like, why isn't Fred Williamson's group the scavengers? Because he's like the king of the Bronx. He has all the resources. He took over everything.

He took over. He has all the resources and delves them out as he needs to. Mm-hmm. And none of his gang... Basically, they all look like they jumped off of Guys and Dolls, and they're driving ZZ Top's car.

They all look like they're rich people hanging out in Rome. Oh, wait, they were. Yeah. I think those were just people he was hanging out with in Rome. I don't even know if they were cast.

Yeah, but it's like... So all the zombies are in, like, you know... I don't know what those, like, dragster cars are, but basically it's like the cover... Off the cover of Eliminator from ZZ Top. Yeah, pretty much.

They did four fucking videos of that car. Yeah. Anyway. You know, so. That sort of thing.

So they're the zombies, and then the scavengers are the guys who look like zombies. But aren't zombies. Aren't zombies, yes. I still think they might be lepers. They probably are.

I mean, they're effective because they take out a couple of our guys. As creepy and animalistic as I guess they are, they become the most deadly of them because... They keep coming, much like zombies. They attack in mass droves and start taking people out. Yeah, beret and mustache sunglasses both get killed.

By the zombies. So, yeah, they're not a joke. It's just weird that, once again, we have no explanation, no backstory. It's just like, this is what happens when you venture out into the Bronx. And I love it, too.

You run into zombies. And I love it, too, because no one is surprised when I... is discovered of being the, the turncoat for everybody. No one is surprised by this. Everybody already like, Hey, he is an ass. He is an asshole, but I guess it was kind of like, okay.

But when hot dog is found to be an informant as well, the guy they didn't know at the first time you made them, but you know, there you go. It's so weird. It's like, you don't know this guy, but there's apparently some sort of familiarity between him, both groups, but you're shocked and surprised. And this guy's a turncoat too. And it's like, And at the same time, when you're chasing Hammer from the very beginning. when you find out he exists he jumps in his truck and he's driving him around so you should know he's in cahoots with him he was giving him a ride to escape from you like why is any of it a shock like you know he's working with him And.

Of course, there's not a lot of justice in it either because Hot Dog realizes the errors of his ways and he's like, I'm done with all this crap. And then Ice ends up killing him with the boot knife because we knew that was coming somewhere. Or we didn't and went, oh, that's why they showed that at the beginning. That's what my take on it was. I was like, oh, there it is.

Yeah. So evil John Denver gets to kill the other informant with the boot knife. But then, of course, you know, then Trash and Ice get to have a fight, and Ice ends up getting impaled. I love it, too. Trash's weapon gets thrown away, and then Ice gets knocked off the same ledge that the weapon was thrown away that just so happens to be sticking a pointy end, and then he gets impaled on it.

That was a lot of convenience. Another running theme through it. I was like, because I knew our shirtless dude had this, but then I was like, well, they all have, like, bedazzled pointy sticks, like, I want a special pointy stick to stab people with. But all of our main, again, about the same ones that have glowing skulls also get to have the same weapon of choice. Yeah.

And they all get a pointy stick that has rivets sticking out of it. It's very fancy looking. It's some kind of, like, everybody gets fancy walking sticks. Ogre's got a fancy walking stick. There's a sword cane.

Yeah. He's just pimping. I mean, that seems very fitting for him. But, yeah, it's like, there's so much in this movie that's fun. There's also a lot in this movie that's like, what the fuck?

What are we watching? Yeah. And that is the glory of Italian genre cinema. Yeah. Yeah.

But there's just... There's so much along the way that I don't understand. Oh. Wait. I'm telling you.

I really want to get to the other two films. Especially because. I'm game. I do want to... I don't know if we want to do one.

I mean, we definitely have other stuff coming up in between. Oh, sure. As far as this series... Do we want to mix it up with other things and then return to it? Or just knock out three in a row?

Well, because I have recently seen The New Barbarians, a.k.a. Warriors of the Wasteland, very recently. But it's been a long time since I've seen Escape from the Bronx, so I'd have to brush up on that one. So, yeah, we'll definitely work in the other two somewhere in the semi-near future. Yes, but just so brilliant.

It's a. The Italian genre cinema was like blatant rip-offs and I don't give a shit production. Which is a magic combination. And it really is. It somehow is still charming.

There's some levels of entertainment in there. Whereas the Australian cinema. What's fun about their genre movies is how insane everything is. Oh, yeah. Like, take the original Mad Max.

That movie was like full on within the... Great period of Australian genre cinema. It started like, I guess, kind of in like 69, and it went all the way to maybe like 93, 94. Yeah. Just all kinds of, you know, you got sexy rock comedy movies with plenty of boobs in it.

You had horror movies. You had thrillers, action flicks. And almost every one of them had something horribly offensive in them. Stuff you couldn't get away with in today's markets. You would have PETA.

You'd have human rights people against you. Oh, yeah. Not even thinking about that kind of stuff. Which I have one for this, too, but continue. Oh, but yeah, Turkey Shoot.

Let's, I mean, Turkey Shoot. That's fine. Sure, we can do that now. Watch that movie and see if you can get away with anything in there. Like, even some of the, like, Steve Railsback has played one of the leads in Turkey Shoot, and he talks about, like, I look back at that movie today, I'm like, how.

Did I survive? Because there's a couple of times where there's a prisoner escape or something like that. Because the whole thing. With Turkey Shoot is you get, it's kind of a deadliest game, hunger game, sort of thing like that. Prisoners on an island made to fight their way to freedom, sort of thing like that.

But there's a scene where prisoners are trying to escape and the guards are shooting at them. And you see the rocks kind of exploding and sort of things. No, people were actually shooting at them. They were just missing on purpose and hitting them. It was like, there were like a couple inches, if not maybe less than a foot away from us.

That seems fine. I'm sure the producers would be okay with that. Well, I was trying to, because yeah, that's my go-to for that crazy period. And I was trying to remember what the year was because I thought it was pretty early. 74.

Have you ever seen The Cars That Ate Paris? Yeah. So weird. Because it's, again, poster. One of the coolest posters ever.

Yep. And that car is the most Mad Max car ever. Yep. And it exists years before Mad Max. And also doesn't match anything else in the movie.

Like there are a bunch of dragstery cars, but none of the others are crazy Mad Max cars. They're just dragster cars that are going to, you know, go run over people, which is what's going on in this crazy ass movie. But again, it's the cars that eat Paris in Australia. Yep. Because it's a small town in Australia.

And like, it just, I knew of it by reputation and went to see it at a showing. And I was just like, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It is so weird. But again, Peter Weirds, like early Peter Weird. And just the craziness of Australia back in the 70s.

And well before we even saw a Mad Max version of crazy. Yeah. They're just a weird place, and we all know it and love them for it. And going back to our Italian trio of the Bronx Warriors movies, when you get to New Barbarians, if you ever wanted to watch Mad Max on slow-mo to see how it actually might be as a movie, let me introduce you to the New Barbarians. Oh, well, that sounds fun.

Again, this one drug its feet at early parts of the movie. Yeah. No, this is basically like, let's have exciting car chases. Like literally in slow-mo? Like they just figured out how to use that technology and were like, oh man, we're.

Going to make use of this. There's a lot of action scenes that happen in slow-mo. There's a couple of kills that happen in slow-mo that shouldn't have happened in slow-mo because it totally betrays the lack of budget the film had. Yeah, that works when you have a really impressive thing, but if you're trying to cover your... Lack of impressiveness.

Slow-mo is not the way to go. And that's why George Miller is like, hey, what if we made everything fast and sped up the film rate? And especially as you go on, by the fourth one, I'm like, no, everything is impressive. You can run it at whatever speed you want, George, because everything in that one is insane and practically done. And yeah, you can look at it however you want because they're all impressive.

That's the interesting thing is that there was so much turmoil. filming Mad Max Fury Road. And it's a modern day film with modern day resources, modern day money and effects and whatever else. But of course, Miller, God bless him, decided he wanted to go as practical as much as he possibly could. He's kind of insane. By that movie, you should decide.

As if Babe didn't convince you first. He's kind of insane. But that's the thing though. It's like for the guy who gave us the Mad Max series and so many other wild and crazy movies, he's also responsible for the Babe movies. Happy Feet, The Witches of Eastwick.

He's out of his mind. Witches of Eastwick, though, still feels like a George... It at least seems sort of fitting. It feels like a toned-down George Miller movie because there's still some craziness that happens in Witches of Eastwick. But the children's movies, it's literally like he literally has said, I wanted to make movies my children and grandchildren could watch.

It's the Robert Rodriguez rule. It is. Like, I'm going to make crazy over-the-top gore fest here, and then a bunch of kids' movies. Because I got, like, 14 kids. And, like, they got to watch movies, man.

And I want them to see what Dad does. Yeah. And those are both fun. So, yeah, kind of the same thing for George. He doesn't disappoint.

Crazy as he is. But the. The production for the original Mad Max, the lack of resources that they had and what they chose to do with that. Oh, yeah. Created a genre and made him a superstar director in one of his earliest movies.

On the animal note, and this is not, I don't know if... They would have had issues with it for animal rights wise, probably. But just as a general idea, even within the universe, if you're going to bring out a bunch of flamethrowers, do you want to be on horseback? No. I feel like horses are not going to take well to flamethrower.

No. Do you want to come out on like motorcycles with flamethrowers? Sure. You can do that. But horseback?

And where did those horses come from? Because the scene where all the, you got the basically the invasion of the Bronx from the The police force. The leather daddy crew. Yeah, the quote unquote police force. Oh, yeah.

The one, the suits are running. Yeah. See all of them coming into the invasion. And so like, it looks like the invasion of Normandy because they're coming in on boats and like tanker cars and whatever else. And so everybody's coming out on foot.

I know. And then all of a sudden they're riding into caves on horseback with flamethrowers. It's like, where did the horses come from? That's kind of what I thought. I was like, when did we see horses?

Yeah. We didn't really. And who exactly the same because you could literally see a few scenes where all the dudes are doing the flamethrowers the horses were like what the. Fuck is that exactly that's what you should think when somebody's firing a flamethrower right near your head or you could see like the horse some of the horses sweating really. Profusely it's like they're nervous as hell those poor things.

That's why I was just like even if it's not yeah even if Beto wouldn't have shut you down On top of that, I'm just like, I feel like they would just, like, rear up and throw you off and run the hell away from you because you got a flamethrower. Yeah, because, of course, there's, like, a couple, like, traditional horse stunts you see where, you know, a rider gets tossed off or, you know, whatever else. That's fine. That just hurts the person. As long as the horse is okay.

Yeah, but it's just like, but, yeah, the flamethrower thing is like, ugh. And I love, too, we can't, We never get, like, a great scene of somebody getting caught on fire, and they're flaming, and they're spinning around. Because everybody, like, the flamethrowers are four feet away from the person getting hosed, and all they do is bring their hands up in front of their face and yell, and then they drop. They couldn't afford, like, body burns. Like, those are expensive and pretty dangerous, especially at this era.

Except for the one. If you didn't know what you were doing, you could just kill a guy, so... Except for Trash, who. Okay, so for the most part during this big fight, he and the girl are hiding. They're hiding in the columns.

Fred Williamson's going out kicking ass. Again, because he's not really much of a part of the movie at this point. Yeah, Fred Williamson has become the hero of the movie. He's ready to go mano a mano with Vic Morrow's character. But it looks like he's going to face off with him.

But then he never makes it. He gets shot like 14 times and drops and goes to hang out by his throne and gets burnt up in flames. Whatever else is looking dramatic. It's like, Okay, so we never get that showdown there. And then when Trash does have his showdown with Vic Morrow, it's a little like he just throws a grappling hook or shoots like a grappling gun and impales him with a grappling hook.

That was my favorite when we get early on, like when the cops come rolling out. And I'm like, so they have horses now. And Batman gun? Like, it's so Tim Burton Batman gun. Yeah.

And, like, several of them have it. It's not a one-off. It's like they all got issued a Batman gun. And I was like, okay, whatever. But he doesn't even fire it through him.

Like, if it had that much force, wouldn't it have, like, impaled him? It would have gone, like, completely through him. It just barely sticks to the front of his chest. Yeah. It's just like, what the hell is this?

Yeah, and then he falls and there's like a. It's a prolonged thing. But most of the fire just usually looks like a very practical, okay, we're going to put a fire in front of the camera. You go stand four feet behind it, and then we're going to shoot through the fire, and you can do your thing. Because that's also the funeral fire, pyre.

They basically like, here's some bodies laying there. Here's the fire in front of the camera as we shoot from way over here, these dead bodies. Yeah. We can't afford to burn real actors. But Trash, he's hiding for the most of this fight, and then he decides to finally, well, you get one guard that finds them.

He kills him and takes his gun. He's like, okay, now I got a gun. Now let's fight. Like, oh, okay, so whatever. Well, he lost his pointy stick.

What do you want? He could have got. Another weapon amongst the hundreds of others. That was my annoying, and. Again, this was with a lot of action movies or anything.

He impales the dude in the tunnel with it, and then they just walk off. I'm like, you don't want to pull that out and keep your weapon? No. You've done nothing but kill people the entire point in the tunnels, so you want to leave it there? Yeah.

Yeah, granted it's got blood on it. Okay, gross. But you might need it again. Yeah, that was just annoying in a general, but they do that in a lot of action movies. I'm like, you might want that weapon you just used.

Yeah. And then for whatever reason, they decide, you know what? We're tired of this Ann chick. Let's kill her off. And so you get this no moment of like somebody's about to shoot trash in the back.

And then she jumps in front of it and takes the bullet for him. And then I could barely make out what she was saying. But I was like, I'm betting she's saying the really possibly the most awkward exchange between the two of them at the beginning. I think now she's going to like echo it back. And I was like, oh, yep, that's what she's saying.

Yeah. It's like, okay, so the richest woman in New York or the world is going to supposedly take over this thing, and now she gets shot. So it's like. She sacrifices herself for our trash. But at the same time, it's like, so basically, if that dude survives, because like I said, not all the bad guys get killed.

Yeah. And all the good guys, with the exception of trash, get killed. Yeah. That should have been the outcome we were wanting was she survived so she can go take over and then do good for the world instead of being an evil weapon producing whatever the hell they are. So did that dude get like fired?

You know what I mean? It's like you killed the heiress to the company. Oops. Sorry about that. But yeah, but for whatever reason, you know, Trash is killing some people and then like two writers come out of nowhere and do like a...

You know, like, they both, like, one shoots a flame in front of him, one shoots a flame behind him. And he's like, ah! And then you see, like, little, like, red spots on him. And so then he doesn't have his vest in the last scene. That's the most important part.

He's like, oh, this is a good excuse for me to take this vest off. Yeah, so he's 100% shirtless. Check out my shirtless form as I pick up this Batman gun. Yeah, and then so, okay, so you managed to survive a third-degree burn instantly? Okay.

Well, his vest protected him. You know, because the vest covers so much anyway. It covered three quarters of him, but one quarter was getting burnt. His arms and chest were open, but whatever, sure. But yeah, so basically our movie ends with everybody's dead.

The heiress is dead. Trash ceiling went alive. He shoots hammer with the grappling gun. And again, it would have made more sense if the grapple thing would have went completely through him. Because...

The dude. Falls and then Trash ties him to the back of his bike and is now dragging the Hammer's corpse through the Bronx. And that's how our movie ends with him being drugged. But wouldn't that have fallen out real quick? Maybe he's not really dead.

Maybe Vic Morrow will be back in... No, wait, probably not. I don't know why. You never see him working these days. I don't know what happened to him.

Yeah, so I guess that's the end of Hammer. Yeah. But what a weird way to end. Like, yes, I get the insult to injury of dragging him behind your bike now, but... And it just freezes, and that's the end.

I was like, but weren't we going to do something else after this? Like, we're going to wrap up some other part of it? Yeah, but there's no other repercussions that now the wealthiest, most powerful woman in the world is now dead. Is dead, so who's running things when she didn't get to have her birthday celebration post what the hell's going to happen now? So...

I guess the only significance. Of why Trash was dragging Hammer through the streets is because they kept making this point that Hammer is also from the Bronx. Yeah. And that he got out of the Bronx and he's now on the other side of things. But they didn't...

They mention it a couple times, but I guess, like, is that so much of a point of pride? That, like, okay, well, this guy turned on us, so I'm going to drag him and embarrass him. Through the streets. But everybody else is fucking dead. Yeah, it's like everyone who knew who he was is dead.

So this is a show for no one? Just ran that junkie guy that was like, hey, get my letter. That guy will see him and be like, hey, and that hammer. Yeah, that's pretty much it. He wasn't a junkie.

He was a drunk. Because he had a can of beer in his hand. Yeah. He was the worst performing drunk I've ever seen since Otis from the Andy Griffith show. But yeah, he was an over-the-top drunk.

I only assume he also was on drugs. But hey, I don't know. You do what you want, man. Well, he may have been, but you just. Assume he's...

We know he was drunk. You just assume he's a drunk because he's got a beer in his hand. He had a prop. It was doing all the acting for him. Yeah, he was doing a lot of acting himself.

But I think as an extra tie-in, and maybe that's how they suckered him into this, I think Vic Morrow was from the Bronx. So I think that... I don't know if that's why they made the hammer from the Bronx in such a big key point, if you want to call it that. But yeah, I think that was a weird little extra tie-in. So maybe that's how they lured him into this lovely movie.

He was... think he was from the Bronx. Yeah but I you know a great recommendation I wouldn't say my highest recommendation there are better there are other better genre films but man this one's a ton of fun. Yeah again as a movie it leaves a lot to be desired yes as a what the hell am I watching it delivers so yeah it is impressive in its own it is an experience yeah weird way it definitely yeah yeah it fits. That bill more than anything but But again, disappointingly, the soundtrack is not streaming anywhere, but someone was kind enough on YouTube to post it. It's all in one clip.

But I think somebody in the comments has the track listing of what each. Song is in there. But yeah, so if you're so tickled with the Walter Rosati score, you can find it on YouTube. But yeah, it's... Like I said, they just don't make movies like this anymore.

And maybe there's a reason why. Maybe it's good. Maybe it's bad. That's what I always come back to. And that's why I love watching these kind of movies then.

And I've said this many a time on the show. But I'm like, and that's why it's hard for me to watch modern day bad movies. Because they're not horrible. to do like think how much work it took to make this bullshit like it's ridiculous but good god what an undertaking to even do something as low budget as this was compared to hollywood movies i'm like it still was so much orchestration and effort and costumes and getting extras and like finding locations and finding locations in three different places around the world and like so like all of that where now it's just like a lot of bad acting in front of a green screen and a lot of bad cg and it's just it's not hard to do plus you can shoot digitally like just getting the film for this is it's an ordeal back that far but like now it's just like you can shoot it digitally barely cost you anything Hell, now you don't even have to have a set standing in front of the screen option that we just got in the last couple of years.

You don't even have to build a set anymore. If you have a treadmill with a green screen. Yeah, if you've got enough money to buy the basic equipment, that's it. That's all you need. So your bad movie can take place in one warehouse somewhere and look like it and probably be terrible.

But it doesn't have any character to it. It doesn't have any of this amazing... ridiculousness like it's just a bad movie but these are epic in their own weird way and like that's what anything that was 70s 80s and even well into the 90s you were still making stuff that was this level of what the hell is going on here. Well there's still there was a lot more of a creation i think being done than what we have today yeah you still had heart and passion going on You still had a group of people that wanted to do something. Maybe their intentions were lofty. There's a lot of times you find that with a lot of these.

Sometimes that makes it better. Sometimes there's times I'm like, just the... arrogance to like i say that with a lot of like this era of science fiction movies i'm like do you know how hard it is now to make a decent looking science fiction movie to do it in like the late 70s as a knockoff star wars with 14 i'm like what are you thinking why why would you even try and yet they do yeah and i'm easily as impressed so same thing post-apocalyptic movies like all of these grand scale ideas i'm just like Shouldn't you just make like an indie drama? Because those are easy to make. You just go find a place and you shoot it and you hire some actors. No, I mean, I give them the nerve of like, no, this is what I want to make.

All right. Points to you, man. And that's the thing is that sometimes with these genre films, you get gems. Like this one, I keep saying the score is great. The cinematography is actually really good, too.

There's some really good shots. throughout this movie, especially when you get the exteriors and you can see the New York skyline or see, you know, little things of New York you may recognize, you know, whatever else. So, it's a well-shot movie. On occasion, some of these movies, you'll get great performances or you've got, like, you know, it was early and a director or cinematographer or a writer's career and, like, okay, you can see there's some talent there and then they go on to do other things. They leave that genre behind or they may surpass it or whatever else. You know, whatever the case may be, but Yeah, there's some level of a gem or something of worth in a lot of these movies.

Well, you get people, and this was my tie-in. I will say this because... If you, I think you said you listened to the Comic-Con thing that we went to last time. Yeah. When I said at the end, I'm like, okay, I'm going back in there.

I was, and I did, specifically, the main reason I went, Sam Raimi was there. Yeah. And that's one of those, I'm like, okay, I want you, I mean, no offense, I like your Spider-Mans and all, which a lot of people are there with Spider-Man stuff. Sure, yeah. But I'm like, I want you to sign this Evil Dead.

And I'm like, that's one of those. I'm like, if you get the right talented person, that lack of budget... does not affect you like that first movie i still say is one of the best horror movie like it is so damn good yes and i like the silliness of the sequels and stuff but that first one is just a solid horror movie and he had no money and he had a bunch of unknowns and he had like just nowhere he found a set and he and like just giving that kind of talented person the the right things and there's like alchemy there and i'm like all of a sudden you're like oh this is a real movie like this is amazing and yeah so it's that same thing of like he didn't have more to work with than these guys but if you give it to the right person sometimes you came out with something amazing other times you get these but again i at least give credit when they take on this big undertaking and come out with something to show for you even if it's crazy and ridiculous Something to show for it.

But, yeah, sometimes you get amazing films that come out of that. Yeah. I mean, just think, too, of the production on the original Evil Dead. So, you're like, movie with no money, unknown cast. Basically, their set is an abandoned cabin in the woods.

They had to turn the power on. There was no running water. There was no toilet facilities. And it's in late August. And they were there for a week.

Yeah, that would be great. But did you get to actually talk to Sam? Yeah, and he was super nice and was very cool with everybody that was there. And again, a good mixture of people coming for different reasons because he's had such a long career. But yeah, I figured everybody's going to be like, I love Evil Dead.

So I was trying to get a very minimal amount of time. They were on top of things, though. As much of a line as he had, his like guy that was running it, like they were on top of that stuff. And like everybody kept moving them. The line moved way faster than I expected.

So I was surprised how smooth, I mean, more power to them as a convention, they were on top of things, but you got about 60 seconds worth of time there to be like, here, sign this. You're really cool. So yeah, I, mine was, um, going into like coming from his roots and, And then going into making things like, you know, Doctor Strange, like one of the biggest budget things in the world for the biggest company in the world at this point. Yeah. So, yeah, I just kind of gave it a few seconds of like, you know, I liked how much of yourself and your style that you've had since day one that you brought to us. this huge Doctor Strange movie.

So yeah, and he gave the best... I was like, he's not going to be like, yeah, fuck Disney. I know he's not stupid enough to... So he gave the most strategic answer that he could, which was something like, basically, I just wanted to do justice to what they're letting me do. They let me come on and make something in this huge Marvel Universe now, so I really wanted to do justice to them and to the story itself. you know, and if I can bring some of my stuff with me, that's good.

But like mostly I wanted to take care of, you know, the product, which again is the most safe and awesome answer you would want to give when you're working for the biggest company in the world. So I agree. And yeah, I assumed that's kind of where he was coming from at this point, but he was very cool. Awesome. Yeah.

I'm not sure if he was much of a comic book fan, but he's definitely old enough to remember when, you know, Dr. Strange came out, like when he probably in the sixties, when he was a little kid, uh, Basically, that was a very trippy guy, but it was very mystical, very weird. So, yeah, it was just totally in his wheelhouse. But, yeah, you're right. We talked about it on the show before.

That was definitely a Sam Raimi movie, even though you were smack dab in the midst of the Marvel Universe. And have so many things to tie together that are nothing to do with you. But, again, he just very solidly handled that and still brought a whole bunch of Sam Raimi with him. Absolutely. But yeah, so he was awesome.

But that's a perfect example of give this to the right person and you get these amazing things. Yeah. Every actor, writer, and director has had a first... Especially of a certain age. At the beginning of their careers has had small, low-budget movies, but the talent still shines through in some way, shape, or form.

You could tell... that person or whatever who was responsible for this thing, they're. Going to go on and do other things. And this is kind of making my point from earlier. And again, bonus points to Sam Raimi. You know what your resources are.

And you go with a movie that works. And that's why that movie doesn't suffer. I said, don't make a big giant science fiction epic when you have $ 14. But when you've found a cabin and you've got this groovy guy that's your best friend that you think is probably going to be a pretty good leading man, you take the handful of things that you do have and you know how to work them. So a horror movie set in a cabin, that's not going to cost much.

That's just knowing what you can do And doing it right. You know, it's basics of, you know, not to just harp it all on Raimi, but same thing with even as much as I have issues with Kevin Smith, that first Clarks movie. Like, this is what you have. This is what you have to work with. You're going to go in debt for this much money.

What are you going to do with it? Right. And he made it work. So, again, it's those guys of that, you know, 80s and 90s. And, like, you see them using their, you know, limited amount of And knowing what to do with it and kind of using it to their advantage of like, okay, but I'm going to focus on these things that I have and can do instead of going to make a post-apocalyptic movie set in the Bronx.

So, again, it's knowing how to make the right thing when you have a limited budget sometimes. But. Again, points to the guys who are like, fuck that, I'm going to make this movie anyway. And with varying success sometimes, but I give them credit at least. Yeah, and our director here, Enzo G.

Castellari, Of course, he did tons of other genre films. He does the other two in the series, even though each one has different writers. But it's the same director, same producer. But most notably, Enzo is responsible for the original Inglourious Bastards, which Tarantino adapted and did his own thing with. Yeah.

But yeah. So, again, it's where some of my love for Italian cinema comes from. It's because I'm a big Tarantino fan. He's a genre guy. And so he...

Kind of ends up being the guide for me for a lot of the genre cinema that I've grown up loving. As we've worked our way through this series, I also might need to go back one because the only thing he made before this movie was Warriors of the Wasteland, which is post-apocalyptic and does look crazy over the top ridiculous. Warriors of the Wasteland is the second film in the series. It is a sequel. It's weird that they put it in.

That's just how they listed it here, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, Where's the Wasteland was what it was named in the States. Over in Italy, it was the New Barbarians. That makes sense because you said then there's a war in the sequel.

So that's why this one really is post-apocalyptic as opposed to Escape from the Bronx. Like I said, I don't know how much you want to talk about the second film. We will get to it. Timeline-wise, it takes place less than a year after the first film. But a nuclear war has happened, so that's why we're in a wasteland now.

I don't hate when that happens. I will say, like, okay, again, six months was the timeline that all three of these films were shot, written, and prepped for. It seems like the second film has the least budget. There's no stars in it. There's a lot of recognizable actors from Bronx Warriors that...

Like Fred Williamson is back in it. George Eastman is. Back in it. All the dead people are back. Enzo, what's the guy, the blonde mustache dude, he's back in it with beautiful hair.

So those guys all come back. But then they're not playing the same characters. There's no connection whatsoever to the first film. But then you get to escape from the Bronx. Guess what?

Trash is back. Well, they found him again. He probably disappeared. They found him again. He went back to the shoe store.

And literally, Escape from the Bronx is a direct sequel because it's basically he's now leading a guerrilla group against the Manhattan Corporation. So it's a completely direct sequel. Maybe they did shoot him backwards. Maybe that's why none of it makes any damn sense. I mean, the only thing that would have made sense is if Warriors of the Wasteland was the third film.

Yeah. Then it's set in the future, but no. But it's like, okay, but the timeline for Escape the Bronx takes place after Warriors of the Wasteland, New Barbarians, but it's back in the Bronx. It's not a desert wasteland anymore. There are buildings again.

This makes as little sense as The Mad Max show. Where we jump from one to two, and it's like, what world is this now? You can blame war all you want, but this is a crazy-ass movie that doesn't match the last crazy-ass movie. Yeah, obviously we knew things were getting bad. They went south real quick.

Yeah, I guess maybe that's a little bit telling for American society. It won't take much for us to get Lord of the Flies with each other. That's true. It won't take long at all. But yeah, but this...

The timeline for this genre does not make any sense. It should have been Warriors of the Wasteland. It probably should have been the third film. But it's the second. Looking at the lineup of Enzo's other stuff, the one that I was like, oh, look, he made a Sinbad movie.

He didn't just make a Sinbad movie. He made Sinbad of the Seven Seas, the Lou Ferrigno one made for canon. So if we need to start working in some sword and sandal or whatever the hell that Sinbad movie is. Somewhere down the line. What a crazy trip that will be.

You know, in a world where we have Coney and the Barbarians and Beastmaster and a lot of those, you know, the good sword and sandal movies. You also have the Barbarians, which those two twin guys, remember them? Even as a kid, I was like. This seems too cheesy for me, and I watched a lot of sword and sandal movies, but. Then you had, like, Lou Frigno did a couple of Sinbad movies.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. You would think, like, okay, it's Lou Frigno. He's a big, muscled dude. Oh, wait, he can't act. He also can't talk.

There's a reason the Hulk worked, because he had no lines. And you covered him up so much, and he had an appearance of about five minutes tops every episode. And then it went back to David, and David was a good actor. Yeah, Bill Dixby was great. All you had to do was just growl and.

Be painted green. And slow-mo, break some styrofoam shit, and then go back to being David Banner. Yeah, it was all good. But there's a reason that role worked for him, and then other things he tries doesn't really. Yeah, I mean, granted, you know, Is it probably because of his hearing loss?

I'm sure that affects his voice and whatnot. But he just didn't have that kind of charisma when he spoke. Yeah. But yeah, there's all kinds of really shitty barbarian swords. I know.

I thought about potentially adding those to our run. There's one or two that I've thought of because... They were ones I remembered from back in the day and didn't get around to seeing. Okay. So I'm like, maybe that's a good excuse to start working this stuff.

There are many of those in that. Because that was like as much of like the action, post-apocalyptic, the horror stuff. When I was a kid, like the sword and sandal barbarian kind of movies, that was my jam. And it didn't matter. I saw Ator the Fighting Eagle.

Yours is the one. I saw a copy of lately and went, do I need to get this? Yes. Maybe I need to get this. Yes.

Because I feel like we're going to have to watch that one. So bad. It looked pretty bad. And that's why I was like, maybe not. Maybe this one's so bad I don't need it.

Do you know how much Keef is in You're the Warrior for the Future? Miles O'Keefe. That's how much Keef is in this movie. That's too much Keef, man. Too much Keef.

Sorry, I had to rip off MST3K for that one joke there. But yeah, they're like warrior queens, sorceress. There were so many I saw at the time as a kid that was not being supervised what he watched on cable. I watched so many, I don't even remember which was which a lot of times. Like, I remember the big ones.

I remember, obviously, Beastmaster and Conan. But, like, once you get into the other knockoff ones, I'm like, I kind of remember this scene, but I have no idea what movie it took place in. Deathstalker. Deathstalker 1, 2, and 3. Deathstalker is one I remember us talking about millions of years ago, but we never really did an episode on.

So we can start... Adding those to the list. And that's what I love about the Deathstalker movies. The first one had a little bit of buzz because David Carradine's playing the lead role. The third one had a little bit of buzz, not because David Carradine reprised his role.

No, no, no. He didn't make it past the first one. A penthouse playmate is in the third movie playing the damsel in distress. Cool. Can she act well?

No. Has that ever stopped anybody from making a bad movie? Does she get naked? No. She's scantily clad.

I was going to say, that was kind of a selling point of a lot of those sword and sandal movies. At some point, they're going to work in some nudity. She's wearing like a Princess Leia slave bikini kind of get up to the whole movie. Again, for every 12-year-old boy watching things on cable, that was still a selling point. But you would think like, oh, are we at least going to see some boobs?

No. Considering she was a playmate, you'd think she wouldn't have issues with that, but I guess they didn't have enough money to shell it out. Okay, well, we're going to have you in as little clothing as possible, but she may have been wearing a sarong or something like that. Oh, God. I can have a lot of fun in this particular part of the genre.

Oh, yeah. We have our work cut out for us. I'm glad we've started down this road. We have a long way to go and a lot of Probably horrible movies to discuss. At least your has a good theme song.

It's good that we can come back to those. We can jump around, though, because I'm assuming the next time we'll be back, we have to watch some Guardians. Yes, we do. They're coming very soon. Their final flight.

So to speak. I'm definitely interested in that one. Some of the other ones lately I've been hit and miss on, but I'm definitely wanting to see where they're going to go with the Guardians. I'm assuming that will be our next Oh, I'm sure. But as we're wrapping up, I was going to say also let people know about your show because I did just watch this last one and you were on remote.

You were like out in the world doing things. I've done a few of those. Yeah. Yeah. My podcast Fanatic Forum.

It's on Fridays at 7 p.m. Eastern. So if you want to watch us live, I'm live on Facebook and YouTube. So you can join the show wherever the subject happens to be that week. I go to comic book stores.

I've gone to local arcade. Most of the time I'm in my house, you know, doing Zoom, talking nerdy stuff with other people or guests or whatever else. um but if you don't want to join us live uh you can find us wherever you listen to audio podcasts doesn't matter i'm i'm. Everywhere all right i'm like i'm like a virus yeah if you haven't had enough of both of us you can at least get more of him on that one. As well and you won't come on my show because you you don't like being on camera. I could consider it, I suppose, if you really wanted it.

But I don't want to have to look at me. I don't know why anybody else would. That's why this audio format works so well. Nobody has to see me. God help us all.

But we could talk movie geek stuff. We can definitely talk movie geeks, as we do every time. I don't think we have any other option, really. No, not really. There's a lot of people in the world I don't even try.

Like, I just know the regular people of the world, and I just don't even go down that road, because it's going to go badly. And then there are other people that I don't think we could not talk about movie geek stuff. Like, there are so many, mostly people that are on this show, that I'm just like, it's not going to go down any other road, probably. Probably. The only thing we're going to lock in on is movie geekery, so.

Even though it may be a logistical nightmare for you as the producer and, you know, the tech thing, but I would love a super show to have, like, you know, me with, like, you know, Nora and Phil talking about a movie with you, or was it Tracy and Boyfriend? The most recent is Misty and Jay. Oh, Misty, yeah. Yeah, Misty and Jay, yeah. Okay, yeah, that's right.

I don't know who the hell Tracy is. But yeah. She can come on too if she wants. But yeah, they are old school. They've been there forever.

So whether they like it or not, they keep getting roped into more episodes. Yeah, but we need a super show to somehow bring all the various guests together. I don't even know what would happen. There's a reason I separate some of these people from others. Sometimes it may come to blows or explosions or I don't know what would happen.

So sometimes it's by design. So if you go down that road, I don't know what's going to. Well, and I realized, too, that actually I know Phil through proxy because basically we know a lot of the same people. Oh, yeah. He played in bands and I watched him perform, you know, whatnot.

I've seen him back. I think he was still in high school when we were hanging out. Yeah. I've seen him in bands that far back and that was a long damn time ago. I've seen him perform in a dude named Roy's house.

Yeah. Amongst other venues. I saw him in Justin's backyard. Okay. Yeah.

One of several shows I've seen. But that was, yeah, the most low-key, I suppose. Yeah, there was a dude a bunch of us went to high school with in Floyd. We went to Floyd Central. And there was a cat named Roy who was, you know, it was kind enough to basically he had like an unfinished basement.

Well, it wasn't his house. It was a folk's house, but nonetheless. But it was an unfinished basement. And so we were able to play down there. And you had all ages shows.

And it was, I mean– You had sometimes upwards of over 100 some odd people. Most towns had that house shows. We certainly didn't in this town. We had a lot of that that I really didn't make use of. When I look back, if I knew what was going on at the time in this town, I would have loved to have made more use of it.

But even then, I didn't go anywhere and hang out with anybody. Most of the time, I missed a lot of it. It kills me when I look back at some of the shows that were going on. in this town in particular, there was some awesome stuff. There really was. Yeah.

Back in the, the, the late eighties and the nineties were a glorious time to be in. The, the music scene in general, but the punk scene and the kids were just out of control and, and epic stuff was going on and nobody in the town had any idea. Well, it was, it wasn't just the punks. I mean, it was just, it was just the overall feel of the, the, the creativity of the city and, There were certain areas of town where your freak flag could fly proudly and no one would. Bat an eye.

I kind of mean punk more in the attitude, not the music. Just in that indie do-it-yourself, who gives a fuck what's going on. This is our little group. Anti-establishment. And it was all, yeah, it was metal bands and it was punk bands and it was weird artsy bands.

As it went on, it got more and more polished, too. And it still had that same attitude of like, Yeah. Screw you guys. We're going to go play in a basement and nobody's going to, you know, nobody as the town knows is going to show up. But these 28 kids that are here, it's going to be the best show of their life.

So, yeah, I wish I would have done more of that at the time. Yeah. And basically geeks of whatever genre you were, if you were. You know, a comic geek, if you were a music geek, if you were a movie geek, there were places for you. There's a lot of crossover on that, too.

Like, everybody kind of was in... If you were in that little underground crew, like, everybody was kind of into all of those things. Sure. Sometimes they just excelled or focused in one area and did a better one. Or, you know, you maybe knew everybody at The Great Escape, or you were a regular Air Ecstasy, or when Walden Woolley opened up, you were so happy because.

Going back further, you were hanging out at the Vogue every weekend. Yep. So it's like there was all these little pockets of geekdom that, yeah, was pretty hardcore. Yeah, and basically like instead of bars being littered down Bardstown and Baxter Avenue, it was coffee houses. Good God, folks.

There was so much java being brewed on a– you know, a couple of miles of strip. But that made it even better because they were willing to have shows and the shows had kids that couldn't even play in bars because they were all underage most of the time. So like you couldn't even play bars, but they were still fine in plays again. That's why they were in basements. That's why they were in coffee houses.

Cause like their band was already awesome and they were freaking 17. So, And then you had a place like Tooligans, which now was Cahoots, and I'm not even sure what it's called now. It became several different things, but yeah. Back in the day when it was Tooligans and it had no decorations, no furniture, no nothing, they could have an all-ages show or they could have a show with alcohol. And, of course, I went to all the all-ages shows.

I feel like these things don't happen anymore. No. I mean, you can't go to an all-ages show now and have a Hare Krishna serve you bean curd and green tea. You know, because there were no other refreshments, but the Hare Krishnas brought refreshments. Thank you very much.

I don't know. Somewhere out in this weird world, maybe there's a weird mixture still going on. Like, we can hope. I hope so. Yeah, those days were great.

So, we will try to tap into that weird underground world and bring you more episodes of us talking about forgotten movies that are probably forgotten for a good reason. But they should need to be unearthed. Sometimes it's okay to dig up stuff from the ice. That's mostly what I do at this point. Other times it's a disease that went dormant millions of years ago and we brought it back and it's going to kill us all.

That might be true with many of these. Either way. That's the plan down the road. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time.

Same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Later. Later. On the streets of the Bronx is where I want to be.

Standing on the corner singing good old harmony. I'll be waiting for the man. To come along and discover me. My father preaches. So please get a job.

Ooh. Oh, but I don't want to. Be a singing star. I'll drive up and down the Bronx in my. Brand new shiny car.

Doo, doo, doo. On the streets is where. I want to be. That's where I want to be. Singing in harmony.

On the streets is where I want to be. That's where I want to be. Go away, don't bother me. On the streets of the Bronx is where I want to be. On the corner of Belmont and 187th Street.

I'll be waiting for. The man to come along and discover me. Standing on the corner saying goodnight. On the. Streets of the.

Bronx is where I wanna be, where I wanna be. Music of the heart oh yeah a school teacher struggled to teach violin to inner city harlem kids starring maelstrom yeah directed by wes craven figure that one out. So, it might as well be Sam Raimi in a baseball movie. I guess maybe, you know, I don't know, somebody asked him, like, who have you always wanted to work with but you're never been able? Meryl Streep.

I can't get Meryl Streep to do these slasher movies, but. Well, you know, would you like to do this... Story about a music teacher who teaches kids to play the violin and Meryl Streep's the star? Okay! 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.