Pirate Radio (The Boat that Rocked)

H weird. But the problem with this movie is the title of the movie. In other places other than the United States, is not a pirate movie, though it's about pirates, maybe of a different sort, the entertaining kinds of pirates. Because this month has been a fucking wasteland. I mean, from Polanski's Pirates, which we were kind of talking about before we started recording, to Yellowbeard, which is a bad movie of its own variety.

This month so far has not been has not been one worth repeating, may I put it that way, But but but there may be some hope yet because on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am joined by my good friend. He is the home entertainment correspondent for Movie Geeks United. You've heard him here many times before, but you were hearing him here again this month to join me to talk all about Pirate Radio otherwise owns the boat that rocked your friend and mine, Adam Long, Hello again, I'm here. I'm here, folks, you are here. I always love having you on because for the most part, I just say, hey, what do you want to talk about it?

And you always come up with something. And you picked this movie and it's a movie that I had been meaning to watch for a very long time. So without further ado, let's get to the boat that rock. When the British Government band rock and roll from the radio, we're going to shove them to one American DJ and a band of mispace. It took their message to the street from the Greener of Love actually and notting Hill Side.

When I score, I fell in love with Rolling Stone Raves. It's a rolling comedy. I intend to broadcast from this ship end of the day I die, and then for a couple of days after that, Pirate radio ratted All in theaters November thirteenth. So the film is directed and written by Richard Curtis. Its stars will it starts a whole lot of people because it is an ensemble cast.

Philip smour Hoffman's in there, Bill Ny Reese, Iphen's Nick Frost, Chris O'Dowd for like a minute, Reese Darby is in their, Kenneth Brana is in the movie. Emma Thompson stops by, and Jemma Archerton is in there. A very very very very very young Gemma Arterton is in there as well. And the movie is all about a pirate radio group that are sitting in between the United States and the UK broadcasting for the world to hear all about their music that they want to play, and they're not going to have it any other way. So, Adam, I want to know all about your thoughts on this movie and why we're watching it for Pirate Month.

Well, you know, because of the US title Pirate Radio. I guess you were doing your pirate thing and I thought, well, well, this is a you know, it's it's pirating, but a different kind of pirrating of course, not the not the R type of those pirate movies have come up so short this month, they deserve to have the R taken out of them. No, I'm a big music buff, as I've said many times. I'm sure on the show that my father was a vinyl collector from the time he was about four years old. So I know my knowledge of American popular American music and really just popular music in general is pretty wide and vast because of my dad's influence, and so I have to always make mention of that.

And this film is a music centric film, I will say that, you know, And it's it's based on a I guess it's a part. It's a true story but I'm sure they played loose with the facts, as they usually do in these sorts of things. But it was about a you know, boat that essentially I didn't know this that in the British airwaves you were restricted to playing thirty minutes of music a day. I think it was. I think that's what I read.

And to fill in the gaps, you know, because this was during the British invasion and there were a lot of groups that were popping up, not just the Beatles, of course, but you had the Kinks and the Searches, Rolling Stones and yeah, just so many British acts, Herman's, you know, we could go on and on. There's so many of them. And there was a demand for music that wasn't being met by the airwaves as it were, and so that this group of guys just decided to put together a pirate radio station on the on the water, and it was constantly on the move, so they couldn't put a stop to it. That's essentially what it was. And so you get all these colorful characters that are I don't know if any of these actual characters really existed in real life or not.

I'm not sure, but one of them possibly did character. I was going to say the count may have been an actual character. I'm not sure, but and I could believe that, I really could believe that. But the rest of them are probably from the minds of the of the filmmaker himself, who has done this sort of thing with other films such as Love. Actually.

He's really talented at that, Richard Curts were talking about, who's very talented at balancing a large cast. It's it's a real interesting balancing act that you have to do when you're dealing with films of this scope. And he really, you know, I Love Actually. There's kind of a little bit of a backlash on that, and I have a fondness for it, I have to admit it. Yeah, it's trickily in a little overly sentimental.

I get it, but it really I still find it moving, and I find his ability to take that cast and you know, keep them all, keep all their plotlines on track for the most part. And he does the same thing with The Boat That Rocked aka Pirate Radio, and I think he does it very well. I can't say that this is a great film. It's not perfect, because it is just a series of being yet with what's the comings and goings of the people on the boat and the different DJ's various personal lives and all of that. So it's not you know, if you're looking for depth or the answers to life's mysteries, you're probably not going to find it here.

But there are some really genuinely moving scenes in the film. I really loved the scene where Philip zumour Hoffman is sitting there and it turned out to be sadly prophetic, where he's sitting there and he says, these are the best days of our lives and this is and I just want to take it all in because it's not going to get any better than this. And of course he was. He was dead about six years after this film was shot, so I'm watching that and it did make me a little wistful that he's saying those words knowing that he didn't have very long in this world after he shot this film, so you know that that adds a little. And he was still alive, I think when I saw this film the last time, So that kind of adds a little dramatic punch that an emotional punch for me, I should say that was not there before, but this was also the first time that I had seen the complete two hour and fifteen minute version of the film that was shown in cinemas in the UK.

When it came to America, it was, you know, the big criticisms, which is true with a lot of Richard Curtis's films, that it was a lengthy film, you know, and there are a lot of stories to tell, and so focus features it didn't do. It costs I think about thirty million dollars, which was quite a bit. I mean, there's a lot going on. The film kind of ends like Titanic in a way with the ship spoiler alert, but the ship going down, and so there's a lot of you know, effects and all of that business going on. And the music budget of this film must have eaten up god, I can't imagine.

I would say at least a couple of million dollars. I'll get your take on that. That should be interesting to hear what you think it's like if the Forrest Gump soundtrack was good, I mean in a lot of I mean in a lot of ways, like it has that same like we're putting we're putting time, care and attention into the soundtrack, and obviously like you've mentioned, the theme of the movie lends itself to having good needle drops, at least the people who are making the movie cognizant of how the needle drops need to be interpreted, because again, like you mentioned, this is a movie about a people, about a group of people on a boat who play music. So if the needle drops weren't good, I'd be really worried.

However, I think to your point, you know, I've seen I've seen a couple of movies that Richard Curtis has written. I am, like yourself, a fan of Love. Actually, I do not detest it with some sort of misplaced vitriol that I think people feel towards it. I don't. Maybe it's not something I understandand why people hate, but I understand why people love it for sure, And I consider myself someone who, at least on the times I've seen it, I enjoy it.

But I'm also a huge fan of his script for the Bean Movie from nineteen ninety seven, which oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, you know I mean again, like it is what it is. It's a mister Bean movie for good and for bad. But I think it works better than most of those kinds of things and to work. And I mean again, Richard Curtis, I think has a strong sense of not only comedy, but written comedy and physical comedy. And there's some some physical comedy in this movie.

There's not a whole lot. I think most of the comedy through this movie is delivered through the dialogue of the characters. But to your point, I think this is a fun movie. This is a movie that's been on my list of things to see since it came out. It's really sobering to think that this movie came out in oh nine.

I thought this movie came out in twenty fifteen. It definitely did not come out in twenty fifteen. But the thing that's funny is like, when this movie came out in oh nine, all the people in this movie, I mean, their careers were in interesting spots. And I think out of the people whose career was in the most interesting spot, it's phillipsy Moore Hoffmann, because it's in this kind of weird low period right before his career picks kind of right back up again. Because again, if you're an Oscar winner, it kind of goes like that sometimes.

But I mean he would go on to be in a you know, another Paul Thomas Anderson movie, The Master, and then I mean all the kind of accolades that would come with that right before he passed away. So it's interesting to see him kind of in a movie where he is in a lot of ways, like The odd Man Out, he's the one that doesn't belong and in a lot of ways he should have been the main character of the movie. But that's kind of beside the point. And it's really funny to see Tom Sturage, Like, you know, however long it is until The Sandman Show on Netflix would premiere, because I kept like looking at him, was like, he looks really familiar, but I can't place him. Was like, oh right, he has his own Netflix show now, so you know, I think you know, a at a thousand yard glance.

Is it a little too long? Yeah, And that might be my biggest immediate issue with the movie is just it is a little long, Like it's two hours and ten minutes, and it feels may I would say, like twenty five minutes, maybe thirty minutes too long. Maybe that's too much of a maybe that's too much to take out of the movie, but like it is a little long for sure. A little long. Yeah, I saw.

When I saw it, I saw the American version. I did not. I had not seen the full length UK version of the film until I watched it for this show that we're doing, so I wasn't familiar with this version, and I felt like this version was like the other version, just seemed truncated. Yeah, you do feel like it could be shortened, but then when it was shortened, you feel like something's missing. I don't know if they just chose to take out the wrong stuff, and which does happen Sometimes they make the wrong choices when they cut stuff, And it felt like a lot of small character moments were completely omitted in the version that I saw previously.

So this one felt more satisfying to me, especially toward in the last hour. I think the first hour felt a little bit like that, Yeah, that could have been shortened little bit, but the last hour seemed to really solidify itself in a good way. I was actually going to ask, because you know, you mentioned that the movie has this kind of Titanic adjacent ending. Of all the things that feel tacked on, that's the thing that feels the most tacked on. And I'm not talking about like the emotional weight of what's going on, because I appreciate that obviously, Like we have to understand that this journey is coming to an end by hooker by crook of no fault of their own, or you could blame them, I guess however you want to look at it.

But I think what was most interesting to me is like the ending is the part that stuck out because it felt the most unnecessary to have this giant set piece of them in the boat and it's sinking in a fake out with Philip seymour Hoffman dying. It's like this is a different movie, Like this is a different movie in the different genre of movie, almost entirely like it felt it felt so strangely out of place. Well, I agree with you on that count. Yeah, I meant the character stuff, Okay, just agree with you on the stuff about the as you call it, Titanic adjacent that's a good way to put it. Yeah, I totally agree.

Yeah, that stuff could have been. Yeah, the ending of it is a little bit out of sync with the rest of the movie, So yeah, I can't really argue with you on that point. But I do like a lot of the character stuff though. During the last hour, though a lot of the little character moments where you find out the one character has has gotten married but his wife is actually in love with somebody else, and so you get all that stuff, and that's you know, and there's a lot of other subplots going on there where they have to walk the plank literally, and there are a lot of subplots in the movie. And again I don't think I don't think that that is a necessarily a negative, but I think it's more indicative of this kind of movie.

This movie I think needed to be two hours almost to get all the character stuff in and in a lot of ways like the you know. And I read a couple of reviews that said, well, you know, Richard Curtis's script is funny, but he doesn't really have anything to say about the characters. And I feel like maybe if we didn't have this like weird Titanic ending, they could have given us more of those character moments without that kind of looming presence of the boat is sinking, because some of the character moments come like right before that, and then you don't get a whole lot afterwards of character moments. It's just them all pretending like they're going to die, and we all know they're not going to. Like, the movie does everything in its power to convince us of one thing, but we know that's not going to happen.

I feel like, as even if, again you don't know the real story behind this, which doesn't do much to inform the story. I don't think there's any way anyone watching this movie would go, oh, yeah, all of our characters at the end are going to die. I don't understand why they have phillipsy Moore Hoffman pretend to sacrifice himself for no reason and then come back like I just kind of takes the emotional weight out of that decision. But the decision made no sense to begin with. But I feel like if they had not done that weird ending, they could have maybe again, I get what they were getting at.

They're trying to show the amount of people that have been listening to their radio station. But I feel like there's a better way to get there than this contrived like, oh, well, we're sinking and we're all going to die, Like, well, why are there steaks all of a sudden? Why are there those kinds of steaks? Really? Like them getting shut down?

I get perfectly understandable. You have a Kenneth Braunack character, you have the Check Davenport character. But like that other stuff of like oh, now the boat is sinking, like it so comes out of left field that it takes away from everything else the movies trying to do. It takes away from time spent with the characters doing something interesting. It's like these weird forced moments that kind of don't work, like when Tom Sturrige finds out who is real that is all right, yeah, or phillipsy more Hoppen pretending to kill himself for the sake of music.

I guess like those like again, like those moments they feel so forced, but every like I just take like the last ten minutes off this movie, and like, I know that the American version of the movie didn't edit the climax out. It edited things out of the movie because there's no way to change the climax of this movie. You're not going to take the boat sinking out of your movie. That's not going to happen. Clearly, they made sure it was in there again by hook or by crooks, Yeah, exactly, Yeah, And I misspoke, by the way earlier it was a fifty dollars budget.

I believe it was a fifty million estimated production cost, and even after it's US run, US and UK combined, it was only thirty six point six million that it recouped. So it did not do well at all, and so that was that was the big concern. It just h I think it did only ten million in its first three months in the In the US actually so or rather, I'm sorry, in the I'm sorry. In the UK it made only what was equivalent to ten million dollars in US dollars in the first three months, and so I'm sure they were panicking and that's why they decided to trim it. Well, my question to you is, in two thousand and nine, who of the names in this film are going to appeal to American audiences other than Philip Seymour Hoffman, like Rees Syphens, Nick Frost, Reese Darby, like even now like I guess maybe of those people Chris O'Dowd and Reese Iphens and Reese Darby now because of things like Fly to the Concords and Jack, I guess Jack Davenport would have had a pretty high visibility then and Kenneth Brauna.

Yeah, if Brauna is in this movie as the legacy actor, just like Bill Nye, Like they're they're in this movie to lend gravitas to it, but they're not the draw. That's That's the thing I don't get about this movie come into the United States, Like who in the United States was going to go see this movie? Who was this floor in the States, Because again, Philip Seymour Hoffman ultimately is not even the main character of this movie. In the advertising for the American audience, it made it seem that way though. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, yeah, that's that's strange. You're right, And I don't know what they were thinking in terms of who the audience would be. That's yeah, And it's um yeah, now we I mean, you know, obviously rhese efans with his appearance and the Spider Man, uh you know, was um, you know, the first the Amazing Spider Man. I'll get it out. That gave him some you know, credibility with a certain set of the movie movie going public.

So he but that was three years after so at this point he was just kind of a quirky British actor that had appeared in some a few things that have a cult following and that was kind of it. You know, the same thing with Nick Frost. You know, uh, there's obviously Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but I'm not sure how mainstream those are. Those kind of appealed to a certain audience as well. So um, I was wondering that myself, Like I met Nick Frost and Oh seven at the premiere the a FI premiere of Hot Fuzz with Simon Peggan ed you're right, and there were people lined up, but not the way it would be now like maybe maybe Simon peg Sure Edgar Wright.

Again, I think Edgar Wright for a certain audience is going to motivate them, and Nick Frost the same way. But like those people were lining up in droves in this country to see this movie. It honestly feels like it's a it's a movie full of English character actors and quote comedians unquote, Like yeah, that's true. It's just weird that they made a US edit of this movie as all I'm saying, it's so strange, like to try and what did they do cut? I guess they probably just cut the British actors out, like because again, like they can't substantially change the narrative of the movie that much, whatever narrative it may or may not have, because again to your point, like it really it really is less a story about all these people and what they're doing and more just like the fuck a ruse that they're getting into on a daily basis, Like what you know, all people are coming to the boat to do this, are their task with doing X, Y or Z, Like it's less oh, one specific thing happening, like even Emma Thompson just is there for a second.

Like most of it really feels like a vignette or a string of vignettes, and not a bad thing, but it's just I'm not sure that the American audience was ever going to be there for this the way that they were hoping it was going to be. Right, Yeah, I would tend to agree, yeah, because it doesn't you know. And a lot of these actors are people who have previously been in Richard Curtis projects anyway, So these were there were a lot of returning faces here. There's some new ones obviously, like Philip Seymoura Hoffman, but there are quite a few that had been in his other projects because he kind of has a stock a crew of stock actors that he uses for a lot of his stuff. And you know, I know Rhys Evans was in notting Hill obviously that was Richard written by Richard Curtis, so you know, he's one example.

And of course Emma Thompson had you know it was in Love. Actually, you know, there's another exam same with Bill Nye, Bill Nye, I was gonna get to that yet. So you know, there are some there is something of a stock company that he likes to bring on board for his projects that really aren't you know, aren't main aren't Marquis names in America. Let's just put it that way. So well, and again like I don't know how I mean again, like I know of how Marquis names they are in the UK.

But there are some people that I was actually surprised weren't in here, like a Noel Fielding. I was glad to see Chris O'Dowd because this is around the same time and stuff like the IT crowd, so it makes sense that he's in there. But you know, it's just it's interesting because all these people, I would say, have you know, for the most part, unless they were already established, have much bigger careers now like Rheestarby, like Chris O'Dowd, I like I would say, a Nick Frost even like you know, they their careers I think are so much further or especially Tom Sturridge, like their careers there's so much further than they were in this movie, to the point where like all these they could never get all these people together anymore the way that they did now, because I mean even Receifens was in one of the main one of the primary characters in the Game of Thrones TV show and we'll be moving forward, so like everybody now has a visibility to them.

That's it kind of makes this movie feel a little bit quaint watching it back, but it's like, oh, all these actors are kind of right before they were all becoming huge because again I mentioned Jemma Arterton, but also January Jones is in this movie in a very minor role as well, so and Talula Riley as well, who would go on to be on Westworld for like three or four seasons. So it's just it's surprising to see all these people in this movie. But all that said, I think they're all pretty fun. I think that the ensemble nature of the movie is obviously the way we're going to judge it. And I think everybody works together pretty well, and I think that the ensemble comedy for the most spart lands.

I think of all the people whose characters I maybe didn't resonate with the most, and I was most surprised by this myself was Nick Frost's character is kind of the one that I'm not I just wasn't the biggest fan of, and he's the actor who I'm probably the biggest fan of outside of this movie. Yeah, I kind of agree with you on that. Yeah, yeah, there, he's just not There's not a lot going on with him. There's nothing really to distinguish him other than he's, you know, a bit of a ladies man, I guess you would say. But I guess like it all kind of comes off feeling a little creepy.

And again, like there's a point where they're going to Tom Sturage and Nick Frost are going to swap places, which is the old Revenge of the Nerds gag. It's totally not rape everybody, but it is, and they're going to do that that gag from Revenge of the Nerds in the movie, I think rightfully and smartly subverts your expectations by having Tom Sturage come in, the lights come on, and he says, oh, it's wrong room and leaves. But like Nick Frost's character is the one who sets up that scenario, and it's just I don't know, Like, of all the characters in the movie, he's he's he's the one that feels the most paper thin and almost like a caricature or a stereotype of the kind of character that you expect to see in these movies.

I just didn't expect it would be Nick Frost playing that character, I guess is the bigger surprise. He's normally a lot more likable, even when he's not, like in something like Shaun of the Dead, where his character is a little abrasive, but even then it's like he's abrasive, but he's still lovable. In this movie, he's abrasive and just kind of a dickhead. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's a good way to put it.

I couldn't have said it better. Yeah, Yeah, I'm not really. Yeah, there's there's not a lot of emotional investment in him, so yeah, except and if there is, it's not the kind of feelings that will endear you to him. Let's just say that. So no, and I think it's interesting.

I'm curious your thoughts on using Tom Stir as kind of the audience surrogate. What did what did you think of that framing device as kind of you know, we get onto the boat with his character and ostensibly we're following his story with all these characters around it. I think that's probably the best way to pull this thing off as far as a framing, as far as a device that would allow us to meet these various characters, because I'm not sure you kind of have to have a character that kind of holds the glue together, so to speak. And I guess he's that guy, and you're somewhat seeing this from some from his viewpoint, I guess. And so I think that works as well, you know, and he's young and impressionable, and so he's going to see things in a nostalgia colored light, I guess you would say, because it's happened at a certain time in his life, and so that that's also going to give these make these people look these actual characters that inhabit the boat, that are the DJs.

It's gonna make them probably a little bit different than what they really are in real life, having seen them through his eyes. So I think that I think that works. I'm not sure how else you would have been able because there's so many characters. I'm not sure how you would have been able to put them all together in this film without some sort of one mainstay that kind of is right there in the middle of all of it. I don't really have any ideas as to how they would have solved that problem otherwise, So I think it works for me.

I think I would have preferred, maybe if philipsy Moore Hoffman's character had been the main character of the movie. I mean again, I know that that's a little I guess American centric of me, but I feel like there would have been some things to mind from that. Yeah, And I'm not saying that the Tom Sturage story of like, oh, he's on the boat to find his dad, I'm not saying that that doesn't carry some emotional weight, But the movie doesn't really give it a whole lot of emotional weight it. You know, there's there's a moment where Thick Kevin played by Tom Brook, who's one of the better kind of just esoteric characters, in the movie, who really is just given funny lines to say in very little else He's like, why are you here?

Are you? Are you here? Because your dad's on this boat and it's like, what the fuck? Movie? Like dause x mockina all of a sudden, It's it's just it's so strange because it's effectively like three or four scenes in the movie, and that's it.

In a two and two hours and ten minute long movie, the main character's main problem is given four scenes and that's it. And again it's not given a lot of emotional weight. And it comes back later in the movie during the climax when the boat is sinking because Tom Stridge has to save his father, who is obsessed with his vinyl collection to the point where he's going to drown with it. Uh. It's it's it feels kind of ultimately throw away.

And that's why I was kind of like, well, I was curious what you thought, because it almost felt like a little bit of that. And he's kind of an afterthought in the second half of the movie, like we were used as he's used as a character introduced as to all the characters in the first half of the movie, but in the second half of the movie, where he should kind of be the focus as opposed to sharing all that time with everybody in the first half, he kind of becomes an afterthought for this the boat is sinking and you know, you've disgraced my honor, Like he should have been the main character, and he ends up getting lost in the shuffle to the point where why did we need a main character to begin with?

Like maybe it's just the American who's out of sorts with all the Brits, because that's kind of a more interesting direction to go than my dad's maybe on the boat and I'm the good looking guy, Like I don't know what I mean again, Like I'm not saying he doesn't have a character. I'm not saying that Tom Sturrige isn't talented. He's fantastic on Sandman, but he's not given much to do here, like and they kind of forget that he's the main character in the second half of the movie. Well yeah, and you're getting need to rethink this, and you're exactly right. I can't argue with anything thing that you're saying.

I just think that if they had made Philip Seymour Hoffman the main character it would have been a completely different film, and as you're alluding to, probably a better film. It would have been interesting to see him as kind of the ringleader of this ragtag group of disc jockeys who were defying the or just thumbing their nose at society or the government or whatever. That would have been an interesting take on it, and just eliminate the Tom Sturage character. But it would have been a completely different film, and and yeah, probably a better one now that I think about it. So yeah, I can't argue, well, it's you know, I'm not saying that a lot of the issues come from the idea that, you know, Tom Sturriage's character is the focus of the movie, but they have certain moments in the movie that they take time out to kind of have him doing something specific, like the evening he loses his virginity to Telulah Riley, or the whole thing with him and Telulah Riley and Nick Frost, Like if that were another character and not Tom Sturridge, I don't think we as the audience would care that much because we're not We understand that this is not the main character of the piece.

I think maybe even if you don't want to have Philip Seymour Hoffmann as lead. Maybe just have it be a pure ensemble without a main character. And that's kind of again where it ends up going towards the end of the movie is you see every character kind of get that little moment at the end, so you feel like you've seen every character get at least some sort of conclusion. I guess maybe the only one is Kenneth Browna's character. You never get to see him, I guess you get you get to hear him swallow it, but you don't get to see him really quote get his moment of kind of feeling like a big dummy, which is fine, but I think again the movie ends up feeling like such an ensemble piece that Tom Sturriage just gets lost in the shovel, which is unfortunate.

But I mean, you know, if I think about Love, Actually, the another ensemble movie that Richard Curtis did, that movie doesn't really have a main character. It has several main characters, but not any one main character. Obviously different storytelling convention, but it's still a complicated story to try and land, and so is an ensemblecast. Ensemblecasts are not easy to write, which is why you write it with one character that you can kind of give as the outsider that everybody else has to play off. Yeah.

Yeah, And again that's a testament to Richard Curtis's talent, the fact that he's able to do that sort of thing and do it fairly well. Yeah, that that's one of his strengths. As I said earlier, U, but yeah, I mean, I did find a list of the songs the songs scenes cut from the film that are available in at least some of the film's home media releases. There's a long scene of a late night sabotage order competitors vessel and the Count's so homage to the Beatles delivered in front of Abbey Road Studios. There's Gavin in a flashback dancing in a Latin America bar to Latin American bar to get off my cloud.

I don't remember that, and the version that I saw maybe maybe it was there and I just don't remember. And then there's Simon lip Sync's Lorraine Ellison stay with Me and it's entirety. And then there's Midnight Mark entertaining thirty naked women. I did see that in the film, that that was not an original version that I saw, So that's that's there for sure. So and I think that I liked that scene.

I mean, again, a character that's given very little to do throughout the movie is given one scene where you understand his character entirely, like you you get it. They come into the room and he's with all those naked women. It's like, all right, I get this character and I don't really need to see anything else. Yeah, I did not remember that, but yeah, so that that must have been different for sure. When this movie is set.

I understand why they choose the music that they choose, and some of it is not period specific because let's dance is eighty three. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's a long time after this film takes place. I see. The one that I was thinking about was Father and Son by Kat Stevens.

That's it because that was nineteen seventy five. And although you know, there's the father and Son in the film, and I see what he was getting at. You know, he wanted to, you know, kind of underline what was going on in the film, and it's you know, it's a nice touch, but I just when something's anachronistic kind of gets under my skin and that was, and that one did because I know that that's from from seventy five, so that's the little ways out too. But other than that, all of this stuff was it looks like they did the research pretty well because it's all period specific that would would have been during the time that the film takes place, and that's impressive to me. Really.

A lot of times you see these types of movies and they get it wrong, and that just that was a big complaint of mine with Bohemian Rhapsody, for one example. Recently, you know, a couple of years ago, and I saw that, and they got that all wrong, right from the beginning of the movie where they showed them playing fat bottom Girls at their nineteen seventy five US debut concert. And that's a song of course, that wasn't released until nineteen seventy nine. And so when something like that happens once, it just takes me out of the movie, and then I'm on hyper alert looking for that sort of thing to happen again, because if it happens once, I'm thinking, Okay, what else have they not? Have they been lazy about with their research?

But I can't find too much fault with this movie. I really can't. And I just I think they you know, obviously, I think Richard Curtis came up during that period. He's about ten years older than myself maybe maybe a little older than that, fifteen years maybe, so you know, he would have lived during those times, and so he probably remembers this stuff quite well. But yeah, good, good, good choices, I would say, for the most part.

And there's some in here that were, you know, that are not that were huge hits, but just as is the case with a law of pop songs, huge hits that once they were gone from the charts, you just didn't hear them anymore. And one is The Happening by the Supremes. That was a number one record, sold a million copies, and it was the theme from a film from nineteen sixty seven called The Happening, And it's probably one of the least known songs of the entire career of Diana Ross and the Supremes, and yet it was a number one record, and I thought that was interesting that they included it in here. It charted in nineteen sixty seven, So that is one example that I had of things that they picked that wouldn't have been the obvious choices.

You know, there's something here that you know obviously have been played quite a bit, like a wider shade of pale and these arms of Mine. But then you get something like The Happening or ninety eight point six, which was a group called Keith had a hit from it with it in the United States and that was a minor chart hit as well. So yeah, there's there's some good, good choices here. So I have to admit, well, and you you said it, I mean you put it perfectly, like, you know, they do have the Who and Jimmy Hendrix, but and procol harem and otis reading. But they're not always using I mean, I guess in some of the cases they are, but you know they do have the Who show up multiple times, and it's not just for my generation, thankfully.

Like there are plenty of those kind of eye rolling groners of needle drops that you've heard and everything else or has been used a million other times, but they're like you said, there are other ones that aren't that way. And the diagetic ones throughout the movie I think are all period. The stuff that's not diagetic is right, because I don't is Kat Stevens technically diagetic during the movie, because this is one of these movies where there's lots of diagetic music and then there's non diagetic music, and it's sometimes it's hard to keep it straight because it's like, I don't think this movie is quiet at any point. I think there's music underscoring literally every moment of the movie. I know that this, Like the playlists are like sixties songs.

I think is almost how many like songs there are, so it's it's it's a long playlist of music from the movie that they use. And it's again like the movie has the Beach Boys and the rolling Stones, but it doesn't feel overwhelming. And this maybe this is just me feeling like a little bit of a reprieve from the Forrest Gump soundtrack that felt just oppressive in its needle drops. I would agree. Yeah.

And the problem with Forrest Gump, which I you know, another movie that people like to kick, but I have to admit I kind of like it. And the movie is fine, Like the movie is the movie is better than the soundtrack. That's yeah, that's what I was gonna say. The problem I have with Forrest Gump is that the films in the soundtrack are just so worn to death, and they were worn to death when the film came out, because there was a proliferation of sixties only stations that played sixties in early seventies around the time Forrest Gump came out. That's that's a thing of the past.

Those stations started phasing out around the early two thousands, but there was a time when that was a hot radio format probably for a good fifteen twenty years, I would say, from the early eighties all the way through about two thousand, there was this demand for you know, sixties, fifty sixties and early seventies. I think the cutoff point was like around seventy three seventy four, and it was it was a hot format. And eventually, you know, I guess the people who started dying off or whatever, and so that that format is pretty much extinct at this point. But at the time that Forrest Gump came out, it was still a pretty viable format, and so a lot of the songs that are on that soundtrack were being played in heavy rotation at the time of Forrest Gump's release.

So it was, you know, it's like could couldn't you have been a little bit more creative with some of these tracks, you know, because we all know how radio programmers do it with the you know. And this was a practice that started in the you know, in the late eighties, when there was the loosening of you know, where companies could only up until the eighties, I guess it was companies could only have one AM and one FM station in each market, and then the laws loosened up where they could have multiple stations, and so then it became a big corporatization of the radio business. And so they would literally get about I don't know, four or five dozen songs, and they would get a group of random strangers off the street and just bring them into a movie theater and play the songs and ask them which one sounded familiar to them.

And that's how they programmed these oldies stations. Because I heard a wolfman Jack talking about how disgusted he was when he heard about this practice and all the songs that didn't get played that sold millions of copies but did not get played just because the public didn't remember them or whatever, or the group of people that they did the radio research on. So it was an interesting practice how they that this is a whole other you know, but it ties into these songs that are on this soundtrack because there's a lot more creativity going on with the songs that Richard Curtis chose for this film. That's not a long way of getting to that, but I was, like I said, he mixes it in with some of the some of the moral worn out stuff, but then there's there's some real good stuff in here.

So so yeah, that that helps me with my U. It helped my enthusiasm for the film because it kind of just gives you a good feeling. I guess you would say while you're watching the film, you know some of the needle rocks. So anyway, I say, I don't know, I don't know how many more times I need to hear wouldn't it be Nice by the Beach Boys? Yeah, we could do without that anytime something serious happens, It's like, what Beach Boys song can we use?

Yeah, well, wouldn't it be nice because we need to be wistful for a moment. Yes, And we could probably do without Dancing in the Street by Martha Reeves and the Van Dalos. We could. That's another one that we could, like, there just needs to be like a podcast, like all the songs that need to be retired from pop culture because they've just been Like they're just like that character in the Simpson's like no, stop, it's dead already, Like you're just beating it to death. Like I just thinking about the commercials from the nineties and the two thousands, and those songs are still here.

Like I'm not saying that they don't need to be listened to, but like I'm not even sure I could listen to some of these songs. I'm not sure to bring it back to something like Forrest Gump. I'm not sure I can listen to Buffalo Springfield anymore. Like I'm not sure I can and not think of like every Vietnam movie ever made, you know, or like Jimmy in a lot of ways, like a lot of Jimmy Hendrix's stuff is the same way for me. It's just like, oh, it's the psychedelic part of the movie.

Let's try Jimmy Hendricks out. And it's like, God, damn you people like fucking come on, agreed and another repeat offender and a great you know, great, a great musical group, and they can't help that their stuff's been played to death. But I'm sitting there watching Calling Skull Island a couple of years ago. In the first thing on the film, as soon as it starts as going up around the Bend by Greed and Sclearwater Revival, how many times CCR and Vietnam Baby, they're like, it's like bread and butter at this point, Like god, yeah, they're shameless, Like it's just shameless, Like it's it's an easy needle drop. There's no creativity whatsoever behind it.

Yeah, because they're like I said, if that's a great idea for a podcast, I would love to participate in that, because that is a pet peeve of mine is the fact that there are thousands and thousands of songs that charted that sold a lot of copies when they came out. I'm not talking about obscure stuff that just don't get played. And I really get into it with people all the time. They every year they have the one hit Wonder Day and they're always promoting that on social media. It's one Hit Wonder Day.

And I actually had some radio programmer he actually put up a never Gonna give you up a link to the video by Rick Astley, and he said it's one hit wonder day in it, and I just could not stop myself, I said. Rick Ashley had five top forty hits, three of which were top ten seller, top ten million sellers. I mean, what the hell are you talking about? Also, can we just point out Rick Astley as an immensely talented singer like he is. I don't care what anybody says.

There are three great songs off of that album where never Gonna Give You Up came from, and never Gonna Give You Up as one of those songs. Yeah, but Together Forever is a better song in every way, and that was a number one as well, I believe. And then there was It Would Take a Strong Strong Man, which was I got the number eight, I believe. And then the following album had She Wants to Dance with Me, which was another top ten hit, so hit wonder Rick Astley bro I don't know. Yeah, one I'm just and these are radio programmers saying this type of stuff or another one is m men without hats um the safety dance and the rap on that is, well, it's one hit.

One to no, it's not three years four years sorry. Five years later they came back with Pop Goes the world, So it's like, come on, guys, do your research well. And I think another band that it always gets leveled against that I'm a huge fan of his Men at Work tons of years. Yeah, like Men, that's the one that personally bothers me because I'm a huge fan of theirs as like I think too yeah, and like, oh the down Under that's not even a good song comparatively, like and I bet for their financial for their financial situation, they probably wish they had never written it, given given how they ended up getting sued for writing the song. But it's I don't know, like needle drops this year have been something that have really been sticking out ever since I watched Forrest Gump because I don't know, like if it felt like such an affront to good needle drops And when you watch this movie, it's like, Okay, it's not so much, but I mean even this movie can't help itself.

Like even this movie can't help itself, which I totally get, but I feel like we're in a day and age hour like people like maybe it's just a James Gunn thing. They're just availing themselves to try harder. But even his stuff isn't trying that hard anymore. Like, well, you know, I will give him credit. There were some creative choices that he made in the Guardians of the Galaxy films, Like I remember being really shocked when he pulled out Wambam Shangalang by Silver, which was a top twenty five he had in nineteen seventy six.

It was not a big hit by any strength of the imagination. It was in volume two, I believe, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and I was very shocked. I thought, Okay, that's that's being creative. That's good. It's just it's it just feels.

It feels. I mean again, like I'm sure in a lot of cases, with a lot of films, it's a decision made by committee, not even by the director. Yeah, but you know, I mean this movie, that's not the case. And I like to see the representation here because again, it's a movie about music. I will say, though I wish there had been more of the music can ness to the movie, if that makes sense, Do you know what I mean?

Like I will, I'll say, one of my favorite movies about music, and maybe you could level this against that movie. One of my favorite movies about music is high fidelity. Oh, I totally agree. Yeah, And the people in that film are somewhat like myself because I'm I'm I'm a lot like Jack Black when it comes to having definitely strong opinions about music, and I'm a little bit in that camp. So I could definitely identify with him in that film.

That was one of the reasons why I loved it so much. So yeah, absolutely, And like I kind of wanted more of that. And I'm not saying that I don't believe that, you know, Nick Frost and Recipens as characters are into music, but like I would like to get a better sense of that, because that seems to be just a little bit of kind of a dimensionality that the movie is missing a little bit. For all the things the movie does successfully, that is kind of a failure. I agree.

Yeah, it would have been interesting to have a character who's just a walking, talking, breathing encyclopedia of music. That would have been a character that I would have been interested in, you know, just he's constantly spouting trivia or something like that. I would have enjoyed seeing a character like that personally. And we don't really get that, No, and and and that's weird because that's normally the kind of character that's in these movies. I mean, that character shows up all the time in these ensemble casts, the kind of the guy who knows everything and maybe doesn't know the right time to say it, but he knows things anyways.

Like that, I don't know, like they had all the other they had the kind of the nebbish guy there with Reestarvey, they had they I feel like they had the I feel like they had the like ladies man character represented too many times almost because it's Nick Frost, it's Receifens, it's the other character, the one who has the thirty women with him in the room. Like there's that's that's three. That's that's three characters in the movie that are all essentially the same. So it like it was that was weird and of itself because again, Nick Frost, I think would have been a perfect like vehicle for that kind of character, just playing like a total weirdo like he did in Space, but instead of about being like obsessed with military stuff, he's obsessed with music stuff and that would fix his character in the movie.

Absolutely. That would have been Yeah, that would have been the answer to the problem with his character. That's a good point, and then he would have been instantly in Deary. You would have been endeared to him instantly because of that. Yeah, I would.

I really miss and not having a character who spouts musical trivia because you know, you used to be a thing that people would go to work for radio stations because they love the music, not because they were looking to get rich, but because they just were music nerds and they just wanted to be, you know, near music, and so that it is kind of weird that we don't get a character like that, And that's a good point. So yeah, that would have been riched the film greatly. So yeah, yeah, that's sorely missing. Well, they all just seem like personalities like which I mean, I guess is fine, and it speaks to I think the expectation, but I don't think it's like you said, it's maybe not the inherent reality.

And I'm not sure the movie's worried about hewing close to reality, But I don't know what it feels like. The movie is just a little bit fuller with a certain kind of character than others, and it doesn't add anything to the overall movie. Frankly, again, it's just like, okay, so there's not one, but two, but three guys who are just constantly getting it on the boat, and it's like that's there. Like Receiffens is the most developed of those three kinds of characters in the movie. And that's still saying something because he's he's not I mean, as much as I love him, he's just not given much to do.

But it might might be even the issue with this movie is everybody is given not enough to do because it's spread too thin, it's too big of an ensemble cast. Maybe maybe that's it. Yep, yep, I think that may be part of the problem. Yeah, I think you might be onto something. But yeah, yeah, if there's a failing of the film, I would say that is we do need that character that would have been reached the film greatly.

So yeah, but as it stands, you could do a lot worse than Pirate Radio. I would recommend seeing the UK version The Boat That Rocked because there are character moments that I do think are missing in the American version. Even though it's it's shorter and it's an easier sit um, it just it feels truncated. And so if you know people are going to seek it out. I would say, try to find the UK version because it's it's worth it.

It's a little bit longer, but in the end does like you said, it kind of overstays. It's welcome with the riff on the end of Titanic. But and I will say, you know, the other thing I do appreciate about the movie, and there was the thing I was kind of worried about going into it. I actually find Kenneth Brouna's character to be maybe the funniest part of the movie. He's such a just unrepentant shit head in this movie.

And I I mean, I look, he never interacts with our characters on screen. It was probably an easy couple of days of shooting for Kenneth braun realistically, but he's great in this movie. He plays that kind of stodgy dickhead that is concerned with taking down a group of people only because he doesn't like them. He plays that character really well. I actually really like him in this movie.

And he plays it's a it's a villain role, I guess, inasmuch as like politicians are always villainous characters for the most part in movies like this, But I think he's pretty good. It's funny to see him cast in this kind of role because in a lot of ways, like he's a lot higher profile of an actor than you would think would be playing that kind of role in this kind of movie. Yeah, that's true. Yep, I agree. Yeah, he's good, Right, he's fun.

Oh knows what he's he knows what he's here to do for the movie. Let's just put it that way. He hams it up, and you know, I think maybe Jack Davenport is the one who kind of is left out of sorts. I'm not like his character is again a one note joke. You know who his last name is twat, Like wow, putting it on the nose, a little bit on the n Yeah.

Yeah. The only thing we don't get to see Kenneth brand I'll do is trols mustache. So that's right, the only thing that he leaves undone. But you know, yeah, it's it suits what the film is calling for. I think I think it's Yeah, he gives it what it needs.

Yeah, we say so. Yeah, But yeah, I think this is a good, solid film. Like I said, I can't say it's a great film, but there's a lot of great moments in the film, if you'll take the time to find them, And I certainly didn't deserve the fate that it that befel it. There are a lot a lot of films that made ten times more than this film made that that shouldn't have that we're released around that time. So yeah, I know, I'm with you.

You know, I think you could. You know, fuck this month have done worse with the pirate movies that I've watched this month. I mean, they've been shorter than this movie and had less to say than this movie did. But yeah, no, I enjoyed it as well. You know, I get I think the length of the movie is kind of hinky, and I don't know if it really has anything to say in the way maybe it thinks it does, or maybe it's not interested in having anything to say to begin with, but it kind of felt like it maybe wanted to.

It wasn't all just fun. In games. There are these, like you mentioned, kind of dramatic moments between characters that are not just there for laughs, like philipsy Moore Hoffman's monologue, like his moment at the end of the movie where he kind of has a monologue about music and what it means to him and you can kill us, but the music will persist like that. I appreciate all of that, but it's to what end because the movie, the movie never feels like it lands in emotional climax. But no, I'm with you.

I actually really enjoyed it. I'm glad I finally watched it. So before we close this episode out, I wanted to ask you pirate movies, where do you come down on them? And do you have a favorite one that isn't named Pirates of the Caribbean. That's everybody has said this.

Mother's like, what's your favorite one? Pirates of the Caribbean? Not fair, it might be the only one. Like, I don't know, gosh, that's a good question. I've seen so many over the years, but I can't.

I don't know what a favorite would be. It's just a genre that I've not really been, you know, too enamored of to be quite honest. It's just, you know, I get it. I've seen some of the movies now that made up what people were seeing in the seventies and eighties. They're not good, Like you don't watch yellow Beard and Go.

I'd like to see more of this please, Like you're like, get this fucking away from me and far away please, Like say what Polanski's Pirates' is, Like, maybe we don't do this kind of movie for a while, Like, yeah, I do enjoy the one. I think. I don't want to make sure I get the title right because there's a Disney Yeah, it's The Light at the Edge of the World. Yeah, that's a pretty effective pirate film with Kurt Douglas and You'll Brenner. And that was one that I was had actually was not really all that familiar with until it was mentioned on a recent Video Archives podcast they did an episode on that.

I really enjoyed that. It was a Kurt Douglas was a lighthouse keeper and basically your Brenner shows up leading a group of people who just go from island to island, stealing all the riches from each island. So he has to defend the island against these these uh pirates that just go from place to place, and it's pretty violent. It's it's has a I don't know. It reminded me of Diehard in a way where you know, he's the guy that's Kurt Douglas has got to save the the the inhabitants of the island from these marauders, I guess you would say.

But there's some pretty tense stuff going on. And for a film that was PG, it's pretty pretty violent, pretty dark. There's a rape scene in it with Samantha Agar and there's and there's, like I said, a good cast here. As I said, your Brennan Fernando Ray from the French Connection turns up. It's that's probably one of the better pirate films that I've seen, and not just because I saw it recently, but just because it was it was it was quite entertaining.

I thought, so why at the Edge of the World from nineteen seventy one, which was produced, interestingly enough by the soul Kinds who would later do Superman the movie. So that's one of my favors. It's one of those movies that on Wikipedia it doesn't even have a poster for the movie. Yea, that's wild. It's pretty good, it really is.

It surprised me and how you know it's it's again not perfect, but it certainly holds your attention. And your Brenner makes an excellent villain. I'll tell you that that's great casting. Brow. Yeah, I would that's probably at the top of my list of Pirate films.

I'll have to check it out then, because I didn't know what you were going to say, But I wouldn't have been surprised if you had mentioned kind of a Golden era Pirates movie. But I'm glad because this movie came out in seventy one, Like that's that's right in this kind of ballpark of the last forty fifty year as opposed to you know, sixty seventy years. So I don't know. Maybe I just picked all bad movies this year other than this one, like you picked this one, so I can't even take credit for it. Everything I picked this month has been Look, I knew yellow Beard was not great.

I knew Polanski's Pirates was not very well received. But to hear about how bad a movie is versus experiencing it yourself are two vastly different things. One is two minutes of your time reading a review versus two hours of your time sitting and watching it. So I will probably check the movie you're talking about, the Light at the Edge of the World out before I ever even contemplate spending two more minutes of time even thinking about yellow Beard. Or Polanski's Pirates, because Polanski's Pirates again, just like it's just a movie that, like it kind of set the tone for this month in a lot of ways, like a not a good movie, not even a fun movie.

But this movie was Pirate Radio was. This movie is so far redeemed the month I watched a movie that came out in two thousand and nine finally, which again is the most horrifying part about this movie. It really is, like it kind of mind boggling. This movie came out in two thousand and nine, movies thteen years old. Like I know, I know, it's it's scary to think about that, but it is true, I tell you.

Yeah. But yeah, a lot of the edge of the world would solidly recommend that for sure, if anybody's looking for a pirate movie that I feel like delivers the goods. Are you a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean? I thought the first one was fine. It was you know, it was nine, it was it wasn't rightly know what I am.

It was a lark. It's a fun lark. Yeah, And my kids were at that age, you know, for that that was their thing that was in their wheelhouse because they were at that perfect age when those films came out, and so I had to go to every one of them because they were, you know, whether I wanted to or not. And you know, none of them are really terrible. I guess the second and third one are obviously of lesser quality and certainly bloated.

You know, there's still things to like about them. And oh the fourth one, you know, that was a little bit, it was interesting. We just forget that there's a fourth and a fifth one fifth one, yeah, and they're talking about possibly a six who knows um. But yeah, but the first one is obviously the best, and even it's not what you would consider a great film, it's it's entertaining enough for what it is, but it's disposable pop. For me, it's just like, well I saw at once.

It's enough. So I will say this movie has a connection to the second parts of the Caribbean Movie and that Bill Nye plays Davy Jones, and that's right, that's true. Yeah, which for one of the frequent co hosts of this show, Father Malone, that's enough to put the second movie above the first one. And I mean, in a lot of ways, I kind of get it. Because like Bill Nye is one of those actors where when he's in something, he's normally steals the show, and in this movie that's not the case.

Surprisingly, he's actually very understated in this movie in a way that is not that I'm saying he's always over the top, but like he's understated in a way that it's not normal for him. He's he's sharing the screen with everybody, so he's normally just he's always a scene stealing, chewing the scenery big time. So yes, yeah, yeah, that's that's usually him. Yeah, I would agree, So so Adam. Final final thoughts on Pirate Radio, Well, like I said, I not perfect, but certainly I enjoyed seeing it again and especially the UK release version was a little bit of a revelation to me, and certainly enjoyed it even I mean, I didn't hate Pirate Radio.

I thought it. I was on a kick with my kids with Richard Curtis Films when we watched Pirate Radio about ten years ago, so um, you know, and I thought it was okay then and I kind of feel the same way now, except I think The Boat That Rocked was a little bit better in terms of some of the character stuff. So yeah, and like you said, there's some good dialogue there with Philip seymour Hoffman, and it's a little sad to see him knowing that he's gone now. But but yeah, I generally liked it. I may return to it at some point.

I can't say that I want not anytime soon, but I think I could see myself maybe going back and watching this again, maybe in five years or something like that. You know, I'm gonna echo the positives and yeah, you know, for me, this is a movie that I had seen previews for when it was being talked about when it was coming out. I mean, again, not a movie I would have had any reason not to watch, but not a movie that you know, ultimately, it didn't draw me in the way Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, did, you know, because I don't know. Again, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are two movies that I have seen more times than I can count, and this movie verged on being there, and it just it came maybe a year too late for me.

So I mean, like you said, I'm glad I watched it. I'm glad I've seen the best version I would think of the movie. At least the version that's the most complete version of the movie. Maybe not the director's cut, but the director's probably original vision or close close enough. So yeah, I think it's fun.

It's it's a fun movie. Don't take it too seriously because it doesn't take itself too seriously. And yeah, maybe know that it overstays It's welcome by fifteen minutes, but it beats watching the version of the movie that's fifteen minutes shorter but feels truncated. So take the take the good with the bad. So Adam, thank you so much for picking this movie.

I'm glad I finally watched it in it more or less didn't disappoint. So well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm always on pins and needle hoping that something I recommended didn't, you know, because that's the worst when you recommend something and then they're like, boy, that was a stinker. Well, well, I know it's a stinker, and you suggest it and you want me to see if it's a stinker. Not.

That's one thing, But if you like it and I say it's a stinker, yeah, that might that could present some problems. I totally get so. So until the next time you join me, Adam. Where can people find you on the internet. Well, I'm still doing my movie Geek United.

Once a month we do our Blu Ray Report, which covers all of the latest physical media releases on four K and Blu Ray and all that stuff. We do those and you can find me at Focus newspaper dot com every week where I round up all of the latest theatrical releases and some of the streaming releases and most of the physical releases as well that have been issued. And so that, and I've got a few bonus interviews that are coming up. Just finished we talked before we started recording here. I just finished interviewing the director of Dragonslayer because the new four K edition of nineteen eighty ones Dragonslayer has been issued, and so mister Matthew Robbins spoke with me yesterday and that's going to be a video interview that I'll have up.

So we in a video chat via zoom. And also recently interviewed um Net Sagalof, who is a great writer of books about film history. I would recommend anybody getting some of his books. He's done some terrific ones and he's got a new book out about the making of The Towering Inferno, which was just issued, and so I interviewed him. That'll be that'll be up soon.

So those are a couple things in the pipeline. And uh, you're you're always, you're always getting to talk to somebody or reading or watching something. So I I I I always you know, I always appreciate that you're you're you are in a lot of ways keeping movie history alive every day on your Facebook. So I always appreciate it. Sotterly, the Academy is, man, holy fucking shit.

This year. Oh yeah, that was that was a shit show, as they say, more so than normal. It felt like like how do you forget Paul fucking Sorvino? How how bad? And hash Yeah that's bad.

Uh, there's some really real glaring omissions this year, and so you know, even Robert Blake, you know, obviously had some serious problems. Uh, we don't have to get into those, but he contributed some major performances in some films that are fondly remembered, like Electric Gliding, Blue and in Cold Blood, those Highway Lost Highway exactly. Some people like phone is ringing, It's for you, Yeah, I mean you know, I say what you will about the man's personal life, but he did. If you're going to honor film history, he needs to be represented. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is.

So yeah, you know, I'm with you. Like I said, I appreciate that you're keeping that alive better than the fucking Academy. Every even gave a ship too. So well, the thing I do, and it's on Facebook, I do a daily remembrance of somebody who's passed away on this day. And I always like to clarify that I don't do that out of a sense of morbidity or because what will typically happen is I have, you know, lucky, luckily, I have a big enough group of friends on Facebook, many in the industry who knew these people personally, and so that will prompt some personal remembrances of the people who passed away from people who worked with them, and so you get some interesting stories from people that actually knew them, and they'll say, oh, well, this happened or that happened.

I mean, for example, a couple of years ago, I posted a remembrance on Charles Darning on the anniversary of his death, and one of the guys who did the makeup effects for the Hudsucker Proxy, one of the Burmans. I can't remember which one it was, but he came on and posted a comment and he said, yes, I remember doing the makeup for Charles Darning for the Hudsucker Proxy. When we measured him, his circumference and at his height were exactly the same. Holy shit. And so it's those kinds of things, the things that you get from people you know giving you their personal stories.

I just love it, and so I do that every day to try to get people to tell the stories, to keep these people's memory alive. So that's what I do because at this point that is clearly all that all that we have left. So yeah, this is true. Yeah, So there we go. And as for me, Weirdingwaymedia dot com is where you can find this show in so many other shows, including multiple episodes of this show where Adam and I talk about all kinds of other movies.

We have a What's Up Doc episode coming out at some point we have and the other episode coming out, but all the other things that you can find over at Weirdingway Media, like this show, Bollywood Cinema Club where Adam joined me a while ago to talk or in the future, in the future sometime it was recorded in the past and it'll er in the future. It's mad. All that can be found over at weirdingwaymedia dot com. As for this show, culturecast dot com and Patreon and all those places you can go to help us out would be much appreciated, but like rate end review, wherever you get the show on the internet. Adam, thank you so much for joining me.

As always, it was my pleasure. I appreciate you having me on and as always, will catch you on the next episode.