The Name of the Rose (1986) — "Have you ever known a place where God would have felt at home?"

Weary way. Within these walls. Men come to seek God. He has come to seek a killer. We found the body that are being mutilated underlay.

We know which was. Which was found closed. A man of reason in a world of blind faith. Yes, small blood here you mean that he quitted suicide elementary and a crime. There could not be suppressed in states.

He did not write with his time. By result, I don't like this place. I find it more stimulating. Should we tell him. No, I am most crudicious in the library for myself.

May I do so? No? But what if you should learn it of his own accorde written with lemon juice. Hi, who's that you're overestimates talents? This one I graduate did not commit suicide.

When he is challenged by a man of cruelty and power, the hunter becomes the hunted brother. I did you please? The matter has occurred to the uttermost granity. Hack someone else not chosen to look in the wrong direction. Several men of God might still be with us all.

Along two week up debts here, and they also will have black and fringers and black and town. This time is back, just as brother William for toold. Yes, I was right in you just as I too would have known had I been the murderer. You go, Gore, lock them up. One final murder has been playing.

Pasta pasta how'll we get out? What's some difficulty? And it's his Sean Connery f Murray Abraham The Name. Of the Rose, A story of Unholy Murder. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast.

I am your host, christ Ashu, and I'm joined by my two good friends. All the way from Richard adams Erotic Bookshelf, a soon coming podcast from weirding Way Media. Now he's just from Richard Addams's Paranormal Bookshelf, a podcast you can't listen to on weirding Way Media. You can listen to it over at Richard Haddam's Paranormal Bookshelf. Your friend of mine Richard HadAM.

Hey, oh I'm sorry, hang on a second. I have to put on my lipstick so that I can look like Christian Slater. And all the way from the Projection Booth he programmed this entire month because it's Mike White, May your friend and mine, Mike White. But did you know that when it's noose, my eyes become large and the light that you shine can be seen oh sorry, this is the Name of the Rose, not a Kiss from the Rose. God damn it.

I was fucking that up. It was supposed to be Seal Connery, not Sean Connery, and I was thoroughly disappointed. One might say, yes, by the way, what a good voice Mike. Mike likes to sing. I mean, Mike sings time on this show.

Well, you guys remember my my famous songs for all the rank I'm bond you know? Ooh, no pussy. I thought that was yeah, yeah, oh a pussy, uh two pussy. I do remember that. Oh yeah, yeah, o amos.

It's charting on Spotify right now. I wish it was. Yeah, if you are listening to this episode, then you know what we're gonna be talking about. But if you randomly found it on the internet because someone put it in front of you, we're gonna be talking about a little film from nineteen eighty six based on a novel by Umberto Echo that we have covered on this show before. That film is the Name of the Rose, and we will be replaying the interview I did with Ilia Baskin, probably like.

A decade ago at this point. But yeah, on this episode, we're gonna be talking about nineteen eighty six is the name of the Rose. So the film is directed by Jean Jacques, Jean Jacques Annad and it's written by well a whole host of people, Andrew Berkin, Gerard Brock, Howard Franklin, and Lain Godard. It is based on the novel of the same name by Umberto Echo. I would say, probably his most famous novel as an author, at least at the time.

I think for most people it still is. And the film stars Sean Connery as Sherlock Holmes, I mean as William of Baskerville, totally not Sherlock Holmes, who goes to a North Italian monastery to investigate a crime that has possible theological implications. And like Richard mentioned, Christian Slater's there. And also I think the guy who killed Mozart is. In there, yes, f Mariray Abraham, Yes, of course.

Well, even speaking of ranking on Bond, we've got tracks in here. That's right, And speaking of good where I recognize that guy. And speaking of the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast, William Hickey's in here. Oh well, that's right, yeah, No, he is. Lessing.

I love how ugly this cast is, and I mean that with the greatest affection in the world. These guys have lived lives and their faces are man they tell stories. That's great. Yeah, So, Richard, I am actually going to kick it to you first, even though Mike did program the month. Since you are our guest, I would love to hear your thoughts on the name of the Rose.

I have never seen the movie before. Was very familiar with Umberto Echo. He had a real moment in the eighties between this and focost Pendulum as a sort of weird publishing phenomenon. For some reason, Dan Brown what he kind of predated Dan Brown as like historical even though his were set in the past. But like Dan Brown owed so much to like, Oh, we're going to explore history and show you how it affects today.

Well, it's really weird. I mean, you know, Dan Brown's books were written to be bestsellers. I mean they were pop fiction. Umberto Echo. My impression is that he was more of a philosopher academician who decided to sort of try his hand at quote unquote popular fiction.

By the way, writing. An Italian, he's not an American writer. His books were translated and became international bestsellers. In many languages. But but his books were very, very preoccupied with philosophy and theology and history and were not considered easy reads at all.

The fact that this got made into a movie, I think caused a lot of people who were quote unquote fans of his and fans of who he was and what he was really doing, and who sort of you know, tried to overlook the fact that he was trying to be entertaining. Were alarmed that Hollywood was making this movie. And I think the book was very difficult to translate, to the degree to which not only were four people involved in the screenplay, but the film was referred to as a palumpsest of umberto echoes the name of the Rose, which strikes me as odd and absolutely singular in the history of film credits. Thank you for pointing that out, by the way, because if you didn't, I'm sure one of us was going to I have forgot that the word existed.

Aside from the last time I probably watched this movie and looked it up. And I did not research. I didn't go on, you know, any of the various sights to find out about a thing that perhaps should have. But I decided just to bring a viewer's perspective to this. All of which having been said, I found the movie to be somewhat difficult to watch.

It was hard for me to sort of lock in to what it's overall kind of esthetic or point or point of view was. It took me pretty much until the end to sort of get the idea of the movie, which I think is featuring a character William of Baskerville, who kind of represents a more intellectual Jesuit, if you will, arm of Catholicism, and featuring a story that takes place at a time when Catholicism is perhaps changing, and how does a modern thinker at that time thirteen seventy two, I think, how does he Sean Connery fit in to this large institution that is currently conducting the Inquisition and is perhaps the most powerful religion on earth at this point, but we have a modern thinker. The one really cool thing they did, and I don't know if the book did this, is they overtly make Sean Connery's character a Sherlock Holmes stand in.

He has a young Watson played by Christian sla He signals the audience early on by using the phrase elementary, invoking the name Baskerville puts us in the mind of Sherlock Holmes, so now we get it. Smart, smart guy who maybe isn't swayed by superstition, is in a very superstitious place trying to solve crimes. That's awesome movie. I'm not sure it's so awesome. What about you, Mike Well?

I had seen this one before years ago. It was probably when it was first out on VHS, so like eighty seven, eighty eight, something like that. I never saw this at the movie theater. Love the Drew Strewsen poster, which kind of predates The Last Crusade where we've got another great poster image of Sean Connery. I wish everyone could see Richard redoing the poster stance of Sean Connery, which doesn't match the tone of the movie, by the way.

It really doesn't know. All the characters along the side pointing at each other and looking weird like weird muppets. It does have a very Muppet movie feel to it, because I think Strusan did the Muppet Movie poster as well, right, So yeah, I this might have been my first time seeing Ron Perlman in a movie. I don't think I had seen him before this, and I kind of fell in love with him in this movie. Yeah, I also think that it's not one hundred percent successful.

I think towards the end it starts to get a little muddled. It is interesting, this whole idea that you're talking about, Richard, with the kind of two different ways to approach Catholicism approach religion. One where it's more William of Baskerville, where he's much more of a humanist and a secular type of person. He's okay with science, he's okay with humor, and humor becomes basically the undoing of this movie. And then the other side of it is the f Mariray Abraham, you know, and basically the circus comes to town when he enters into the film, and it's all of the shit of the Inquisition and just looking for you know, demon demonic influences, demonic marks.

I mean, it's basically a witch hunt at that point. And of course, you know, also talking about the different sects of the religion and the whole thing of where Ron Perlman's character, you know, the group that he belonged to, and I love how he you know, speaks when he's like I didn't recognize the language and which one was that He's like all of them, you know, the way that he would bop around between all of the different languages, especially that kind of gut or Italian that he's speaking. I really enjoy this movie. I know that it's not the best movie in the world, but I do have a good time with it. I also grew up watching a lot of young Sherlock Holmes, so this definitely felt akin to that because of these things you're saying with the you know, the opening narration where I've got the older man who's looking back at his life and talking about you know, it took me until just recently to realize that the Rose is the woman and he never did know her name kind of thing.

And it's like, oh, okay, now I finally have the title, because I never really got the title until probably what a week ago. Yeah, it's very clearly supposed to be what is a fairly common modern reflection on religion. In other words, you know, is religion the institution or is it something intensely personal that has more to do with, you know, perhaps following Jesus's more empathetic and compassionate impulses what Mike was talking about, this sort of small sect within Christianity that exists within this movie were a group of people who believed that poverty was the main quality of Jesus, and that Jesus was all about not having material stuff. It's so interesting that there's done in the eighties when when the entire American culture was so much about material acquisition, I mean, dead center in the Reagan era of money and greed is good and rampant capitalism, I mean, just so far away from any human, truly Christian viewpoint you could ever have.

And then this movie ultimately is about that because when f Murray Abraham comes in as a representative of the Inquisition, and you even have a representative of the Pope show up, they're very much more interested in power, control, money, and also obedience. Are not interested in offshoot opinions, you know, and they really don't want to hear about poverty because that works exactly against what the structure of the church at that point is trying to do, which is a mass power. Now why are they trying to do a mass power? Well, to save more souls. So you see, it all works out very well for them anyway.

So we very quickly realize once this specter is raised. By the way, about halfway through the film, that's when you begin to realize that, oh, Sean Connery might be in some trouble. For the first hour of the film, Sean Connery is just kind of bopping around the abbey as bodies turn up, and you know, we feel like we're kind of watching an episode of Colombo from seven hundred years. Ago, and we're not all that worried. It's really the second half of the film where a lot of these themes and the real danger that he's in becomes obvious.

Well, the other thing it's talking about too, for me is sexuality and sensuality and just what is allowed and what's not. I mean, I'm surprised that Christian Slater is allowed to continue his monk hood after he has his dalliance. And then you've got William Hickey, who just the way he's talking about that statue of Mary is like, look at the bres uh and that he's petting Christian Slater's head, and I'm just like, Okay, I see where William Hickey wants to go with this. And you know, people, I don't know if they they don't realize that we used to make jokes in the eighties and the seventies about priests, not just in the nineties and two thousands when a lot of this stuff started to come out in the news.

No, we always knew the priests were perverts and always knew about this stuff. So this right here is a pretty prime example. But god, yeah, I've been talking about the poverty. I love that image of the castle door opening up and all those bones falling out, feeding feeding quote unquote the people below, and just the way that they scrabble to get all those scraps, and they're probably ransom. I mean, you can.

The thing I like about this movie so much is you can practically smell this film. Not everybody is dirty, like Christian Slater and Sean Conry are relatively well kept through this whole thing, but so many of the other people, so many locations, who're just like, oh man, I can smell the ransom straw that they're probably stepping on. I can see the dirt on their people's fingernails. And like I said at the very beginning, just how incredibly craggy these faces are. And I hear that the director was just like I want these faces.

I want these incredibly and I'll say it ugly faces. I mean, these people are ugly in a beautiful way. And I'm surprised that the what was this named Daniel emil Fork from like the City of Lost Children. I'm surprised he's not in this movie because he would fit in unless he couldn't get the fringe. But I'm sure they could have put a little wig on him because everybody has their head shaved.

It's nice seeing Sean Connery not wearing a piece in this, which was kind of cool. And yeah, and then he was a little Christian Slater and like Christian Slater was only seventeen when he made this movie. Apparently, like people are now, oh my god, he was under seventeen and he's shown having sex with this woman. Get over yourself. It was nineteen eighty six.

It's so funny. When they first show up, I'm like, because Susan and I watch it together and I'm like, Okay, that's Sean Connery. Who's the chick. She's like, that's Christian Slater, Like who's Christie Slater? Christian sla I'm like, that's Chris.

And then I look and here's The thing about Christopher Slater in this film, he does look like the most androgynous little boy, and clearly he's a teenager, but literally every shot, every time you see his face, his mouth is open. Like this and very sensual performance. Yes, and he's got this lipstick on, and You're just like, this kid doesn't stand a chance in this Abby. This is like, this guy is Abby bait. Yeah, that bald, very pale, fatter gentleman just as always given him the eye and I'm like, oh, good lord.

Yeah, it's like Deliverance in Northern Italy in thirteen seventy two, Chris, what'd you think of this movie? So I went and looked before we started recording, and I talked about this movie eleven years ago now eleven twenty fifteen. So in the early years of knowing Mike White August tenth of twenty fifteen. I think Mike and I had known each other for six months at the time, which you know now she's many moons later. I went back and just pursed through my episode, and I mean, my take then is not too dissimilar now in a lot of ways, I think it's a little bit more nuanced in terms of how I say it, but I think I kind of agree with both of y'all.

At the same time. I agree with Richard. I find this movie a tad hard to watch at times because it seems unfocused in its telling of the narrative and it doesn't necessarily tell the narrative in a way that I think is the most easy to understand. But at the same time, to Mike's point, I love the look of the movie. I love the feel of the movie.

I love the way everybody looks. I love how you took Ron Perlman, a guy who looks very unique, and you made him look uglier than humanly possible, which is, you know, kudos to you guys for that. I mean, taking someone who's already kind of, you know, unique looking, and pushing his kind of look further than that. So I like the look of the movie. I love the feel of the movie, but like the plot of the movie.

It the book has some things that I feel like the movie didn't do intentionally, because the book talks about the characters that they show up and are already murdered. It turns out they were having like a gay threesome with the three of them, so there was like homosexual implications in the book of things going on, less implications and more just like this is. What was going on. So the movie kind of pulls some of that out of out of the narrative, which I'm not a huge fan of, because I think that would like we've already alluded to a little bit like lean further into the things that we know are going on. This film wasn't made in a vacuum.

I mean, it's being made in eighty six, So, like you mentioned, Mike, people already know these things. People are already making jokes about these things. People are already understand that this is possibly part of what's going on with the church, So why remove that from the film is so kind of strange to me. And I'm assuming it's a choice that one of the four one of the four screenwriters involved in the film. And I'm sure Richard, you can speak to you know, more film, you know, more screenwriters on a project, the better, right, Uh, more cooks in the kitchen is never a bet.

This is too salty, No, it's too peppery, le it's none of those things like oh my god, no, just no, oh no. And that's maybe kind of my. Big takeaway this time from watching the movie is the four screenwriters involved. This film definitely feels like a film that had four screenwriters involved, because it does feel like it's being pulled not in two directions, but kind of three, or maybe even apropos it may be being pulled in four different directions by four different people, each trying to get something different out of a story that, to both of your points on the page, is a very rich, deep novel that has a lot more to say than I think the movie does effectively say. And I think the movie tries harder than you might think it would in terms of having something to say.

But I don't think there's a reason in adapting this source material if you're not gonna have something to say. And that's for me. The issue is like it just kind of removes some of the meaning from the book. And I'm dismayed by that because I enjoy this. I enjoy the feel of this movie probably the most, like just the world in setting that it's put in.

I'm a huge fan of cad Fail, which is another Franciscan Friar solving mysteries. It's pretty much just this with Derek Jacoby. If you like that, cool go check that out. It was on like PBS Mystery Hour. I think I don't know if either one of you have seen it, but it's really well done.

But it's very similar to this. It's Derek Jacoby playing a Franciscan monk who is brought in to solve mysteries. He's literally just a monk Sherlock Holm, which is what this movie kind of is. The book isn't so much that in. A lot of ways, I think is kind of my point.

Yeah, you know that there was a twenty nineteen mini series with Ruper Everett and John Tuturo Taturo playing the Baskerville character, and it keeps saying when I look at it on Wikipedia, oh it's on RAI, And I'm like, I have no fucking idea what that is, but I think it's available on Prime now. So a name of the Rose, Yeah it was. It was made for Italian like public, their public Broadcasting, their RAI is their PB was Was. It Italian language? Not what those actors?

No, I think it was English. I mean as much as this has like English and Italian in it, the thing that's interesting is, and I read that, why would you cast John tutorro like, he's not Italian, He's English, like the characters meant to be English, So why are you casting an Italian actor like. Or if you cast him, cast him to be one of the weird looking guys. Right, He's got that down pat. So here's here's what I think happened.

I think the book is cascidly a mystery. And again, talking as a guy who has not read the book, I think it's a It's it's like, I'm going to call this a mystery, and there will be a mystery, and there will be murders and there will be a solution. But mostly I want to talk about this time and history and a lot of ideas, uh, some of them very obscure. But but I can tell a lot of stories here. I mean I can tell a story about about the pull of sensuality and the poll of sexual desire among people who are supposed to be living a celibate life, because that does become a part of this story, and that's that's sort of the Christian Slater part of the story.

And his relationship with a peasant woman from the village who he has sex with, but then because he's very young, is also sort of like oh, I'm these emotions and these feelings are so strong. I think, I think I'm really interested in the plight of these people who are living in poverty. But why is that so frowned upon among these men of religion? I thought that was the whole point, And of course Baskerville. Baskerville has a very interesting background that has to do with, you know, do you basically betray yourself and or your beliefs to save your own skin when you're living in a you know, a context, a community, a time where your life might depend on just lying and going along with things.

And in his background, he did that. He figured out the solution to a crime. But because the church hierarchy wanted an innocent man to die for that crime, an innocent man died. And when they came to William and said do you agree with this decision? He said yes because he knew that if he did not agree, he would be next.

Which is a wonderful context within which to plays this story, because the question becomes what's he going to do now when when this becomes an issue? And it becomes an issue right around the same time in the story, So now you're like, oh, so this is really about this is like McCarthyism, and you know so many moments in history where it's like, do you throw it all away for honor knowing that you're really throwing everything away, including your life? And how far is he going to take his devotion to truth and intellectual you know, honesty. What's strange is the is the mechanism of the plot. I'm still not clear on who the murderer.

Was killing and why. Like, I know who he was killing. The people were dying, we see the victims, but I'm very unclear. Had something to do with an addition of Aristotle's Poetics the second volume, and had something to do with the notion of humor and whether humor is against God or for God. But why this guy was killing people, I don't.

Know, do you guys know? Not exactly sure what his motive is. But basically, anybody who reads this book, this particular volume, which does have a lot of humor in it, that seems to be killing people. It's very much like that muddy Python skit of the joke that they used in World War two to bring down Hitler, you know, and Hitler came back with his wartime joke, My dog had knows how does it smell awful? That's great?

Yeah, but no, wait a second, but I'm asking you. Is he murdering people who have read the book because he's afraid the book has corrupted them? That's what I feel like, people who have read the book. Because they've read the book, he doesn't know what is done. I think it's just the act of reading the book is enough for him to kill them, because he poisoned the pages of the book.

So it's just the reading. I guess it's the in the the parting of knowledge onto oneself is enough, which I think is even more kind of dastardly. It's not even that you're practicing anything. It's just that the book. Read the book, you die.

Yeah, read the book, you die because you had to touch the pages to turn the pages, and at the time you're licking your finger to turn the pages. There's no proof of anything going on. There's no proof that they've gone and done anything with the information. It's just the having of the information in this case is enough. That's brilliant.

That's brilliant because reading is associated with with the acquisition of not knowledge, which at this point is considered very threatening to the church. So the fact that the very intake it's like the eating the apple of knowledge, you know, from the Tree of Marriage. It's like, that's exactly what the Okay, that's brilliant. God, am I gonna ever read this fucking book anyway? But then why is there But is there a guy who's like giving the book to be like to tempt like is there any criminal or is it just people reading the book and dying because they it's the it's.

The old blind guy. He's the one who's so anti humor. To people so that they'll die tests them. I think it's just in a library. It's just there and poisoned, waiting for anyone to find.

And it just happens that there is a conversation that is now happening amongst people where more people are being pushed in the direction of going and reading. So I mean, to the point of the blind monk who's killing people, that knowledge is spreading even if no, like even if nothing tangible from the source material is to his point, more people are going and interacting with it. So yeah, he's not wrong. I guess it's like when you ban a book and now suddenly everybody has to read what the banned book was why is this considered so bad? All right?

And now you're getting the word out there. I mean, I would probably be pretty honored if I wrote a book and it was banned, because then I would know more people to read it. So, Chris, did you read the book? Did you read I read the book when it I read the book last time when I did the podcast in twenty fifteen, because most. The book is better than the movie.

But the book is a lot different than the movie, because the point of the book is, to your point, it is more of a conversation about things that are going on than juxtaposed paralleled with the things that were going on then when the book was published, and the mystery is almost not secondary. But like you've alluded to, it's that framing device that they're using to talk about the other thing, and the movie can't do that. I mean, the movie just can't do that because it's a it's a movie, so it has to be leaning into the narrative of it all, which I assume is why they're using that term at the opening of the film, that they're using the palampist because this is a retelling of the story from the book, but without most of the implications, conversations, ideas that are being thrown out by the author, you know, and his kind of feelings and philosophizing on the things at the time and the things in the present.

So it's just it would be harder to do. I mean, that's not impossible, but it's also nineteen eighty six. You know. If this were somebody like Brady Corbett who did The Brutalist, I would expect it to be a little bit more in line with the source material because there's a little bit more subtlety that audiences can get from film now when it's something of a big budget nature like this. At the time, I mean, at the time, Mike and I talked about this on the last episode.

Sean Connery's casting in this movie Calls caused umberto Echo to leave the project. He was like, I'm out of here, because Connery at the time was perceived as having no box office like value. He had taken a hell of a slump, so it was like, I'm out of here. Yeah, Oh, that's so weird, because I was like, thank god they got Sean Connery. I mean, he's the one sort of filmic element that gets you through this boy so how many authors just hate Sean Connery.

Ian Fleming. It's just like you cast Sean Connery and authors just I mean, it's just you know, dust clouds and tumbleweeds. So obviously then the child, especially in the eighties, especially when this is going to be made as a commercial film, not some obscure independent even a merchant Ivory film. The idea of that, it's like, we've got to really lean into the murder mystery. I think they did a couple of really smart things, again not having read the book, by by saying this is Sherlock Holmes, the audience can go, Okay, got it, I can, I can.

I will hang on to that, and then giving him a protege who can ask all the questions, but master, why did they say to that, and why are they doing this? Or why we can have Sean Connery. Explain a lot of stuff, which he does, which is very, very helpful, And I think that's a great device. I think that there could have been a way to two more skillfully, Uh demonstrate how how kind of repressed and you know, how dangerous early on sort of how oppressive it is to be here at the beginning, it just seems like, this is an abbey filled with insane people, Like it really is, just like why is everyone here literally crazy? I mean, is there something in the water too much mercury?

I don't know. Yeah, and it does. It does give a very uh what was that one with the Stacy Keach the Ninth configuration? It feels very much like that where they're all stuck in a castle and they're all crazy people. Yeah, I'm like, maybe it's more like an insane asymumer sort of thing.

I don't know, it's a. Little of the hill, like the the guys are off on their own in the wilds, like intentionally and if you want, if you want to go deal with them, they don't come to you. You go to them, which is you know, part and parcel a problem for your safety apparently if you go to them, which I mean. Is there a single character in the abbey? I mean, is there a single character outside of Sean Connery and Christian Slater that we relate to as Okay, this is a reasonable person, their sort of their voice can be trusted, even if maybe we don't agree with our point of view.

They are not out of their mind or actively trying to undermine Sean Connery. Is there anyone in the abbey who represents that? Is it Ilia Baskin? I think it's Ilia Baskin, and that's about it. Yeah, and I can't who's Yeah, well, what scene do we see where that guy proves that he's not an asshole?

Because isn't he the one who comes in swinging about humor is the worst thing in the world. No, no, no, no, that that's the blind guy, right. That's the blind that's the one that you can see one. That he's the one that just gets murdered because he finds the book hiding behind the Grecian right. Yeah.

I think he helps with the autopsy, doesn't he. Yeah? Yes, so he helps with the very first autopsy that we see. Okay, the guy who they find him face down in the vat of pig's blood, which is quite a way to go. Yeah, okay, I guess I.

No, one sort of got lodged in my brain as Okay, here's the one person in the abbey who seems semi reasonable and who can now sort of help us contextualize the other people, because it would have been great to have a character sort of go, okay, here's what you need to know about the abbey. This guy, here's his deal, William Mickey, here's his deal. The crazy Salvatore, here's his deal. They're all, you know. Let me, you know, contextualize everyone.

So now we all know the playing field as it were. It is missing something like that, and I think maybe for me the closest we get is Michael Lonsdale link the first ten minutes of the movie and that's about it, which, by the way, Michael Lonsdale unfortunately not in this film enough, which is a shade because man to the rank and on bond of it all. Getting to see Connery opposite Michael Lonsdale was very fun. Yes, just the two of them on screen together. I think the guy, the mister French character is somewhat benevolent as well.

And Richard, you know exactly who I'm talking about. When I say the mister oh uh yeah, the guys the and who's sort of like, oh okay, he's. Just any kind of protect salvatory Hell Waltinger I believe is the Hector stuff. Of course, yes, we all know how much Qualtinger. And apparently it was because I know had just done Quest for Fire with Ron Pearlman.

And was just like, hey, come on over and do this. Was it like last minute casting. I'm trying to remember what the story was around that where it was just as soon as Pearlman got the call, he's like, okay, yeah, I'll do this, like whatever it is, I'll do it for this guy who you know. I remember Quest for Fire coming out and being like, okay, this is a pretty fucked up movie. Ironically, Chris, the movie before that was a phone called Hothead, which was written by our friend Francis Pepper.

This all ties together, sir, Yes, there you go. Well, Ron Pearlman is great as amazing. Yeah, and for one of the more insane characters, is enormously sympathetic, the. Most sympathetic character in the film without it anybody getting burned at the stake pretty sympathetic as a character, because more often than not they're not there justifiably. See a film that you and I watched, Richard many moons ago, The Devils, where you know, I was thinking, unjustified.

When was the last time someone got burned at the steak justifiably in a film? I'd love to know, like make up make the people being put to death by fire? Are you gonna say, Cyrah, there was those three witches and hocus Pocus. That's fair, that might be it. Yeah, I mean Bett Miller really deserved it.

I mean she was eating children. Yes, that's very true. But yeah, no, Peerlman is, like I said, a phenomenon, and I think he is just so great. And yeah, to take him and make him look even stranger, to give him a fucking hunchback, that hairdo where it looks like it's just kind of you know, he's got the mange almost that looks like he is. Oh, it's so good.

And just that the way he kind of bows and scrapes and just like oh you know and just like throws in the Italian all over the place. It's so good. Yeah, he just he goes for it. Oh yeah. And it's it really is.

It really is great. Even even to be the first time you see him when he's you know, pretty scary and weird, it's you like him, you know, so that. He starts to start sticking out his tongue, like the the gargoyles and the things that are on the in blaze and the walls and stuff like, and I'm just like, oh, this guy's great. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, and there. Was there was a lot of uh, you know, sort of the Da Vinci code stuff in this in the movie about figuring out the puzzles and and and there's riddles that will lead you into the labyrinth and this secret thing.

I mean, here's the thing. I actually think that there was a lot of great stuff in the look of the movie and what the movie was trying to do. I almost think the big failure was the direction. I think there was a lot to grab onto here. I'm just not sure it was rendered and translated to us visually as effectively as a could have been.

I don't necessarily disagree with that. Yeah, it feels that I would be interested, like you, in reading the book. I would be interested in seeing that other mini series. I mean, there are a lot of great things that it does, but yeah, it just doesn't necessarily hold together as well as it should. And yeah, I can't really necessarily put my finger on exactly why, because it just feels and I'm trying to remember if it was Mark Kromode or somebody who's just like, yeah, this movie works until it doesn't.

That's like the most apt way of putting it, though I can't exactly pinpoint where it doesn't where does it go off the rails? Well, once sort of comes and goes. I mean I found my attention sort of ebbing and flowing, like just when I thought, you know, I'm done, because I was watching it again last night with Susan, and I kept reaching points where I'd be like, it's okay, we can stop now, I'll finish it off tomorrow. Don't worry. I have to do this.

You don't, And weirdly, Susan was one going, no, no, You've got to watch this. We can keep going. I'm like, you do want to? It is. It's like, I don't think you're gonna see Christen Slater naked again, honey, if that's what you're hoping.

For, Connery naked. Instead, we didn't see Conrie, did you know? I wish No, No, don't even get see that big Harry chest. Oh my god, he's looking so can we just talk about he looks so good in this movie. He's just like he's like he's got to be what in his fifties early sixties at this point, and he's looking good with that beard.

That comes to a little point. I mean, obviously we're we're a couple of years before Last Crusade, so he pretty much looks the way he's going to look in Last Crusade. It's like, what one year before Last Crusade, I believe, like you know. No, it's three years after this he does the Untouchables Presido one called Memories of Me. I think that's the other Lumette film that that we've mentioned a few times, and then uh yeah, then Last Crusade after that, and this was right around the time he was doing Highlander.

I'm not sure which one came out first. I just guess for some people, this is the most iconic way Sean Connery will look other than as James Bond. Is this kind of balding, gray, bearded man and you know, like gray with a little bit of the darkness still in it because he's still not portraying super old yet he's supposed to be like a good looking silver fox in his fifties. Yo. Can you know that's the thing?

Sean Connery good looking guy. I think that's maybe the other thing. It's like, Sean Connery is almost too good looking to be in this movie because about ugly everyone else is. But that's obviously the point him and Slater are like the two the two good looking guys, and everybody else is just like all different forms of fucked up, like or just like genuinely bizarre looking character actors like who I mean, vulgar, prectal, I mean, Jesus go look what he looks like on Wikipedia if you click on his thing to take to his page. It's a sculpture that someone did of his head and took a picture of it, like because of how like just unique he looks as an actor.

Like it's I really love the look of this movie, probably more than anything else. This might be one of those movies where you just mute it and put it on in the background because just the vibe of it is so kind of enthralling, But a lot of the other things just kind of fall flat, which I don't I think. I don't know if it's the director as much as maybe the screenwriters. I know, I know a screenwriter would say it's the director's fault. Wink wink.

Richard's simular throwing the screen actor, the actors and the directors, it's all their fault. I just think it's unfortunately, it's just kind of unfocused, like it's it's unfocused in a way that like something like this shouldn't be And I'm assuming at least somewhat probably that a mini series adaptation would hopefully give some of those things a little bit more room to breathe, not being bound by you know, a two and a half hour movie, or. If there's a way to sort of tie them all together, to tie in, just to line up everything against the line of what is considered within orthodoxy and acceptable and what is just over the line, and then you can have your stuff. Like obviously in nineteen eighty six, I'm sure there was a lot of skittishness about how do we really approach homosexuality in this movie where it's mostly men and a lot of them are dying, and we've got the gay rights movement and we've got AIDS, so it's like, okay, that's the most challenging issue.

Now they address it early on. They they're talking about, oh, is the question was the victim engaging in this unnatural act? And the answer is no, and it's it's sort of like asked an answered. Now we can move on. Keep all your gay questions now have been resolved.

We're not going gay anymore. On to the next. But it would have been nice if there was a way to figure out like who is considered transgressive and who is not, what is a transgression, what is not and are of those the people who are being targeted and then and then follow that line of thinking all the way up to oh yes, As it turns out, the most transgressive thing you can do in this community at this time is is educate yourself. Take advantage of literacy and broaden your notion of the world by reading about all academic fields, science and philosophy and literature. And you know, that's the most That is what threatens the church at that moment more than anything, and that is the ultimate you know, heterodoxy, and and that is what links all the deaths.

Like I honestly think there's got to be a way to sort of push all this stuff in in an organic way so that an audience is living with this question for two hours, so that. When the end finally comes. It it feels like like we're getting closer and closer to a predetermined destination rather than just we're wandering around and this is kind of where we've ended up. I love, Yeah, you're talking about what's orthodox and what's not. I mean listening.

I listened to a lot of books by bart Erman, who's a religious scholar, and I just am always fascinated about, you know, the Schism and uh, you know, the Reformation and those kind of things. And it's just like people would be put to death for the simplest you know, uh heretical point of view, where it's like, you know, does does the does the wafer turn into the literal body of Christ? Is just a symbol for the body of Christ. I mean there were much more simple things like and just the idea like you were saying, as far as the Ron Perlman character of like, hey, you know, Jesus says we have to be poor, let's give away all of our wealth. Well, that's going to cause some big waves in this Catholic church.

Just big money making machine. There's no fucking way we're going to do that. But just simple, stupid little things could cause people to get thrown out of fucking windows. Back then, it's just like oh, yeah, here we are what was it the council worms or whatever, where it's just like, yeah, you don't agree with us, We'll put you to death and whatever. It is like oh yeah, no, the crown of thorns.

Those thorns were off of this type of bush. No, they were off of this. Yeah. It's like, okay, we'll kill the people that we don't agree with. Yeah, I'm so glad.

That's so funny you brought him u because I'm like Bartnerma, I do know that name, and I'm like, I know. I read a book of his. It's called Misquoting Jesus. Yes, yeah, and was published decades ago, but it's it's so it's such a great title because it speaks to how people, you know, can can use quotes from the Bible to support or demonize almost anything. Yeah, his books about the Gnostic Gospels, his books about the books that didn't make it into the Bible.

Because that's something that some people forget is that the books that are in the Bible now were chosen by men. Sorry men, however many you know, hundreds of years ago. It wasn't always just this is the thing, I mean, some people still think that God wrote the Bible. It's no, there are many authors, many languages. Yeah.

Yeah, like the book was found somewhere and it's like, oh my god, this is a supernatural article. When in text, Yeah, it. Was written over the course of decades. And and what's funny is the Apocrypha, which is the you know, the books that didn't make it into the Bible, the deleted scenes, special features. Uh you know that includes all the you know what what about when Jesus was a teenager, like it's in there.

Yeah, yes, all those is that the Gospel of mus I can't remember, but yeah. I believe he was called teens when he was. Yeah, that whole thing where he killed the kid because he made fun of him and stuff. I mean, I'm not making shit up. That's in that book.

So oh yeah, all the all. The little kids were making these clay birds and then Jesus came up and like, yep, we're them been real birds, and he was like a young magician, you. Know, exactly voila. It's like when Jesus goes to a rest rat and orders water all around and gives everybody a wink. You know.

But and you said decades, I think more like centuries because I think like the original Gospels were written like in the fourth century. Right, and then the New Testament ruled out and there was more. I mean it took for the King James version, which is what you know, the Western world, or what we know of as the Bible. Yeah, was written over a long, long period of time, and many of the later portions were written by people who, you know, generations had known the earlier versions. You know, they the people who wrote the later versions of the Bible had access to the earlier versions as this church was sort of putting together these texts that they knew within their own world but had not been disseminated, and they were written, of course to the Greek narrative style.

You know, the story of Hercules and Zeus and all the Greek gods had already been written and were currently you know, the best sellers of the time when the Bible was being written, and so those techniques and those structures were adopted. If if Jesus seems like a superhero, sometimes that's why, because that's what that's what they had access to in terms of how do you tell it a narrative. I mean, if you look at the Moses story, and obviously if you look at Superman, but if you look at the Moses story and you look at the Jesus story, there are so many fucking parallels. I mean, it was just like that was the you know, here's the text. Now we're going to rewrite the text and just kind of do a finer replace.

From what I understand, the last couple of books have actually been written by Ai Ai. Jesus yes, exactly what is wrong. It's that whole THHX eleven thirty eight fit, you know, Jesus Ai that all of the the bald men are talking to the bald people. It reminds me of those jokes they always have, like in they're not even jokes, they're tropes in science fiction films that take place in the future. There it's like, you know, well, this is philosophy like your Plato or Nietzsche or zanthrax.

Zilbouzion. Yes, yes, yes. It's like when they when they gave fucking Elon Musk a shout out in a Star Trek movie. It's like, oh no, no, no. No, we don't need this, we don't need.

No, it's not gonna age. Well, it's funny, you know, like how many times now we hear Trump's name in movies from like the eighties nineties. I'm just like, oh, yeah, no, he was just all around like that. Yeah, yeah, he was all around and considered the absolute butt of every joke, a living joke. You watch these movies, that's like, yeah, that's what he is.

Okay, got it? Yeah? Well guess what. Guess who embraced that? Well not all of us, but some of us did it.

I vote have for them all four elections. I voted for him all six. Wow. Now see, you're a true maga fact. I know I am.

I'm a true maggot, as they call me. I was gonna mention the other thing about this movie, the Dan Brown of it all. I think if you're gonna do what they did, which is remove like the homosexual overtones, undertones or explicit things that were going on, if you're gonna remove it completely, the least you could do is lean into the more of the kind of mystery solving of puzzles and other things of it all. Like, I think you really could have. Leaned more into that and made a more interesting film if you're going to kind of ignore some of the more heady things to go after anyways, because I just went and kind of scanned the new one, at least the synopsis of it, and they reinject no pun intended, the gay things back into it.

I mean it is also ironic that Rupert Everett is playing the F. Mariy Abraham character. Everett openly gay man has been since like the late nineties. It was one of the first actors to ever come out publicly. Yeah, I bet he'd like to F Murray Abraham.

Whoa hey, oh wow, apparently every or Abraham, Yes, exactly. I was reading stories. Now this is from the trivia, so I don't know, probably don't believe it, but I was reading stories that F. Murray Abraham was being a total asshole on set and kept talking about his Oscar he just won for Ramadas. And Rick isn't isn't he kind of a prick?

Supposedly Maybe I don't really absolute absolute reputation. Okay, Okay, I wasn't, but asking about a reputation. His reputation is not good. Yeah, and so yeah, apparently he was like really lording that over Connery. And so I'm reading all this stuff and it had been years since I watched the movie, so and you know, he's like, what one of the first, you know, not top build obviously because of Connery, but just like way up there, and I'm like, oh wow, cool, F Murray Abraham and the movie keeps going on, the movie keeps going on.

I'm reading this stuff where it's just like, yeah, he won his oscar and then was lorded and over Connery and then Connery won for the Untouchables like the next year or whatever. I was like, well, that's cool, and I'm reading about this. I'm just like, well, wait, isn't he in this movie? Like where where's he? And then finally what I see show It was like, what ten minutes before the end, it felt like like the third act reveal of f Murray Abraham.

He feels and then really tacked on to the film. He does Yeah, he comes in, does the I'm the evil Magistrate of the Chart and I will make you admit I'll torture you until and of course he does yeah. And then and then at the end it's just sort of. Like, okay, we we got to give the audience something, all right, right the action sequence, everything's on fire and then uh, his carriage flips over and there's a cliff and some weird farm implement that's just a bunch of spikes. As try a tiller for those of us in the know, Richard for the land as they.

Say no, no, no, I just go to the supermarket. But man, let me tell you his his fields got tilled. What's funny is that I didn't see that. That's all added, Like, that's not in the book like the books, the books, no, but the book's ending is the book's ending is essentially the baddies get away with it. Like the book's ending is not like any sort of upbeat anything.

And my kind of take on the part with f. Marie Abraham, and again, the book I think does a better job of it. It's almost like Sherlock Holmes versus Torquemada, which is how the book kind of gets into it, and the movie never gets there because the movie is again like it tacks on f. Marie Abraham way too late into the film for him to feel like a threat. And also he's not really a threat in the same way that the guy.

Who's murdering people is. It's it's a threat based on his like religious zelotry versus I mean again, it's religious zalotry of two different kinds, but his is a lot more of the stock and trade religious zelotry, Like, well, you know you're a witch? How do I know? I saw you communing with a black cat okay, you're a witch. The end, like Ef Mary Abraham's style of religious zealotry is much more I would say, uh, fascistic in nature, as in, you know, it's very like by the books.

You know, it's like the Nazis they were using, you know, Nazis. Ultimately, yes, they gassed people, but as they point out in Room two three seven, ultimately the real weapon of the Nazi machine was the typewriter, just writing out all the people and putting all their names on things and getting them to the camps. Like what happened beyond that is unimportant because just getting them there was a just bureaucratic process ultimately, and it's that bureaucratic evil in this film that's again a religious version of it, that's Ef mariy Abraham. It's like it almost just feels like unnecessary in this film, like the other things going on were much more interesting. No offense to Ef Mariy Abraham and his acting stylings, but it's just the movie is long, and it needed another forty five minutes for his character to act feel like he has some stakes to what's going on.

Because yes, it's unfortunate that Ron Pearlman and his like handler are the ones who go down for everything. But you could have gotten so much more weight out of that moment even by just giving Emery Abraham time to truly be a villainist, just bureaucrat, a villainous, just paper pusher essentially. Well, and that's what that feels like. He is. He feels like a politician, you know.

And I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but the whole idea of the Inquisition is like, Okay, who can we safely get rid of? Right? And is William of Baskerville too well known for us to do this? Because really there's a danger of riot going on, Like, you know, you keep putting these people to death, and at some point you're going to put the wrong person to death and then the crowd's going to go after you. It's very you know, when when the tide started to turn against McCarthy.

Yeah, And I just I wish that there was more of that because to Richard's point, the way the film ends just kind of I wouldn't say it comes out of nowhere, but if it feels markedly unearned and tonally kind of bizarre compared to it's not that the movie's violence lists, but all of the violence happens off screen essentially, like we see it's kind of like seven. We kind of see the aftermath of what's happened, not the crime itself, like, Oh, this guy got stuck into a pot upside down, or he fell out of a you know, fell off of a high parapet and the window wasn't open, like we see all those things. I mean, we don't even we see a wide shot of Ron Perlman on fire. We don't see him like a closeup of him on fire like we do with the Blind Monks.

So the movie it's just I don't know, like it's trying, like you said, Richard, to have this really unearned like moment at the end that feels like it's from another movie, not this one. Yeah, did did Christian? I did watch the movie twelve hours ago, so you can't expect me to remember anything. But did did Christian Slater? Was Was he instrumental in saving the woman from being burned at the stake?

Totally? No? I mean you could say you was, because the tower was on fire and that stopped them and forced them to go back. But he didn't do anything. He didn't even stop F Maury Abram from getting away.

He literally made it so they couldn't chase after F. Murray Abram, Like he's. Literally at the gate going, oh it closed too late. In a lime start, right. Yeah, it's it's so I don't know, it's so strange.

It's just like the film. It almost feels like, oh, the test audiences didn't like the ending, so we gotta go do resheets. I know that's not what happened, but it just feels like we need to have a quote happy ending unquote when the source material had nothing of the sort remotely. The peasants rise up and cause a problem with the carriage, it seemed like yeah, yeah, and then the carriage got stuck in mind, and then it fell off a cliff and then it gott pale. Yeah, that's one of the four writers of it really feels like it like, Okay, bring in the last guy.

Okay, I'll fix up these last few things. Oh yeah, I. Mean, because you do get the sense that it probably was a case of like, Okay, this particular draft was much more true to the book. Then the next one kind of leaned into a whole different character, and then this one was about this relationship, and I wanted to be more excited about Christen Slater and the girl, but I just I just couldn't get that just didn't feel like a real relationship to me. It felt very tacked on and just like she didn't seem to have any sort of feeling.

Well, not that people have to have feelings for each other when they have sex, but it didn't even feel like she had been around them enough to be like, Oh, you look hot, let's get to it. Yeah, I mean, I love that idea. I mean it's it's always a compelling story when you when the story you're telling is about religious devotion, and then the drama is can a human being ever be as devoted to their religion as they want to be considering that they are still flesh and blood. I'll buy that's that's a story, and that was Christian Slater's story. But even that, in the two hours given did not seem that it had a lot of time to really make us care and be concerned.

We understood by proxy that he was concerned by the way. Christian Slater gives a great performance, as does Sean Connery, as did really most of the people in this film. Some of the monks are a little over the top, which again makes it feel like an insane asylum. But okay, I guess I don't know. Oh I agree with that.

Yeah, there are some very utra performances. I mean, not everybody can be Michelle la Ground where he's just like so calm throughout so much of this and just he does a great job of kind of you know, I know that there's a lot of bead shit going on around here, but I'm just trying my best, you know, talk about bureaucrats. It feels like he is really the middle manager between all of these monks and God, and just like I'm try my best. I'm doing my best here with what I've got. These guys are pretty heretical, but I'm really trying my best.

So umberto Echo. In twenty eleven gave a review of this film which said, a book like this is a club sandwich with turkey, salami, tomato, cheese, lettuce, and the movie is obliged to choose only the lettuce or the cheese, eliminating everything else, the theological side, the political side. It's a nice movie. Yeah, yeah, he's right, He's yeah, it is a nice movie, but Yeah, Like I said, I would be very curious to actually read the full thing. I downloaded it from audible, but it was twenty hours, and I just there was a.

Good too, But it's it definitely digs into the world more and if that's what you want, like I think, i'd look, if I'm gonna watch something like this, that is kind of what I want. I want to see the world of it all and the surroundings. And that's why my assumption is with that mini series, I mean it's eight episodes. It's eight hours of television, which is four times as long as this, So you've got to assume that there's much more time given to certain things that the film just kind of ignores because two and a half hours is a lot of time, but it isn't, especially when, like you mentioned, Mike, the book, if you listen to it is twenty hours long, which is a long time. I mean that's a lot of a lot of a lot, And so I feel like what they wanted was something that this wasn't, and they kind of made this into something to suit the audiences of the time.

But my hope would be that something that adapted it only a couple years ago would have understood and seemingly does the ramifications of actually adapting a work like this, one that has something to say. And I'm not saying the film doesn't have anything to say. I'm just not sure the film knows what to say. Yeah, clearly there was some power at the studio level, at some level that just kept saying no, no, more entertaining, make it more fun, some sexy, have a somebody throws in. For the poster, make it look like a fun Indiana Jones style realm.

Yeah, this has to be entertainment. And if it had just been allowed to be what it is, you could have made a two hour version of this that I think would have been better and maybe more entertaining or at least maybe more comprehensible as a unified work, which this does not feel like, which is why I pointed the director, because four. Screenwriters are not. Ultimately, the director has the last chance to try to impose form to the function of what has been put on film. And and you know, God bless the guy, he probably bent over backwards and then at a certain point just said, Okay, look, here's your fucking movie.

Hopefully this makes you happy. The two things real quick one. I was very disappointed that William Hecky isn't the narrator of the audio book, because I think he really would have done a good job with that age. I do not think you would listen to that for more than five minutes without tearing your fucking hair out. I would be so happy to try to listen to that.

That would be great. And the other thing was just like going back to the Conery of it all, It is just yeah, like this actually helped start the Connery revival, which is weird, Like like Columbia refused to finance the picture when they cast Conrie. It's like I could I know, I lived through this period of time. Yes, I even went to see Never Say Never Again in the in the theater. But I just the idea of Sean Connery being quote unquote box office poison is pretty fucking crazy.

Who did they want? I seem to remember it was it? What was it? Burt Reynolds? Was it?

Oh? I like I'm thinking, well, it had to be a British actor, but maybe not. I don't remember who it was, but yeah, I mean I don't know who. I mean a lot of actors could have done this, obviously, but Yeah. I just I that my problems with this movie do not start and end with Sean Connery.

I don't think he even You want some names? You want, let's hear some names. Give me some names here. Chris, Chris is the first one? Please?

Is the first one? Dudley Moore? Boy, wouldn't that have been fun? Yeah? Roy Scheider?

Oh? Okay, Marlon Brando, Wow, Anthony Perkins, Alan Bates, Paul Newman and Yeves Montaigne. See those last four again? Who Eve Montant? And who somebody else?

Jerkins, Alan Bates and Paul Newman. I could see baits doing it. Oh but not well Alan Bates, of course, I mean again British actor, but no Anthony Hopkins. Other names, Michael Caine, Albert Finney, Richard, there you go, Jack Nicholson, there you go, Robert de Niro, Donal Donald Sutherland, Maxwan Seedau, sir Ian McKellen. Well, wait are you looking at?

Did you? Did you type in actors that were considered for this role? Okay, because Michael Caine totally gets that. I'm still stuck on the British thing and it has to be. British, right, I mean, that's fucking part of it, like I Albert Baskerville has the such a big part of it, you can't.

I feel like that has to be the choice you make, right, Yeah. I mean I don't know. I mean obviously, yeah, you know. Or John Tatorro's you know, if you want to. I mean, Richard Harris would have been freaking amazing in this, or even Ian McKellen and though a little short, and also you know, I don't know if they would have cast him in the Fifth Element if he had played a monk twice.

But box office wise, was was Michael Caine on a roll? Had he done? I think he was. This was right around the time he was doing death Trap, which we were talking about by this this episode of Steveton Lumette. Even though we're not talking out.

In eighty five, eighty six, eighty four, we have blame it on Rio Water, Uh death Trap, like Mike said, uh, he Whistleblower, Half Moon Street. So yeah, like you know, I mean, he's he's only one year removed. He's only one year away from making Jaws the Revenge. I was trying to figure out if this came out before or after John Boy. So he could have used the money.

But this probably wasn't a place he went into vacation. So right, I already did that one foot of Bahamas. Yeah, that's what he's fucking it. What an ass like I just like viewing movies because they'll send me somewhere, which is fair. I mean, he's basically the Adam Sandler of his day.

So did you guys ever read any of his autobiographies, which are super entertaining to listen to, because he reads them so basically his his whole sort of his The way he looks at his life is that up until the age of thirty five, his life was absolute shit. He was in the Korean War, like he thought he was going to die. This was very like impactful and sort of you know, he had PTSD from the career in war. So everything was like really bad and shitty in his life, and nothing really worked until he turned thirty five, and then he got a job and then suddenly he was an alphie and then suddenly he's a movie star, and suddenly he's got money and he's opening restaurants and he's like, after thirty five, everything was great, so plenty of money, all my famous friends, I opened a restaurant.

All we did was sit around and Drake. I literally turned on the TV one day and saw the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen in a commercial, and I tracked her down and I married her, and we're still married thirty years later, and it's just like, this is insane. All right, Good for you, Michael Caine. I have to listen to those books, so I'm looking for them. Oh, any person narrates one, Oh, I want this one.

I want Blowing the Bloody Doors Off and Other life Lessons by Michael Caine. It's that one in the one right before it the Thing of the Elephant, something to the Elephant. Uh yeah, the Elephant to Hollywood. Yep, the Elephant. Yeah, that's the one.

I think that's those two. That one and Blowing the. Bloody Doors Off are like the portion of his career that we're familiar with, and like those are two. It looks like he actually wrote a fiction book called Deadly Game, which is also narrated by Eddie Marson. No, that's an international, it's sorry, an explosive international thriller.

So if you read that book, it might actually explode in your. Hands, mission impossible style. It's very funny, you know, because recently the film had a four K screening of I guess it was a can a couple of years ago or no, is it the Loumier Film Festival? And yeah, name of the road this. Mass and I guess Connery was at the time.

On Node was was warned that Connery was going to be the problem and Connory was not the problem, which is weird because I mean, we've heard about Connery and you know, his feelings towards the producers of James Bond, but I've never heard anyone else talk about Connory and negative terms, which is strange because Connery just seems to be like, I. Mean, just just the women he's punched. Well yeah, well yeah, that's who believes women anyway. Right, reason man in Hollywood is involved. Exactly if we believed women, we wouldn't even be worrying about seeing the rest of the Epstein files, That's right true.

I think that this movie is worth watching for the setting alone, but outside of that, I'm not sure that re watching this replaces the book. And rarely is that over the case, but I think that this is one of those cases where the it's not a puddle between the book and the movie. It's a late it's a huge disparity. Between the two, and I think that that works in the favor of the book as a reason to still search out the book and read it, because the movie just doesn't do a good enough job at getting to what made the book important and what made the book popular and successful and you know, translated to English and became a worldwide bestseller like that, that's not a given. This was an Italian language book that was then translated and became immensely popular like.

It's but yeah, but Chris, you are saying you read it and you enjoyed the reading. You were like, oh, this is a fucking stow. The book's great. The book's great, Like the book is what you want from the movie. That's what you want from the movie is what the book is.

I think, you know. Mike's point of it being twenty hours, like, it's not Dan Brown where everything is fast paced, but it's not disjointed and jumbled like the movie is. It has multiple points and I think it actually makes them rather well. And I'd actually be interested in read, listening or rereading the book because I remember enjoying it and like I said, it, you know, it leans into the kinds of things that I like because I'm a huge fan of murder mystery novels. And that's why I mentioned CAD fail at the beginning of this, because I think CAD fail is kind of the if you just wanted a Franciscan monk solving mysteries, that's what that is.

And you know what, it's pretty great. And you're a big fan of homosexuality. So this now so that in secret, not out in the open as it should be. Yeah, don't you ask, don't tell every time you're saying. Every time you say CAD fail, I just keep thinking of, uh, the computer aided drawing and like like a computer shorting out someplace, like cat fail, what is it?

Oh? Okay, I'm always stating that prompted on my computers as cat sale, cat fail. Okay, really I need to get something's wrong with my cat cat fail, cat fail. That's when they try to jump up on the counter and they miss, and then they're like, I didn't want to out there anyway. Yeah, is there anything else we want to talk about with the name of the Rose Richard?

Have you have you read fucos Pendulum, because I actually bought the physical copy of that, but I once I got it and it was the size that it was, I was like, okay, I'm going to wait for a little bit. Now. I may have started it and then just just got intimidated and stopped. Actually, I think the place to end this episode is the place we've started so many episodes, Richard. Even though we talked about Bond, what are your feelings on Connery as an act and what role for you is the Connery role that you grabbed?

Well, you know, I'm not sure there is, I mean beyond Bond, and I do like, you know, several of his Bond movies very much. I think I just like him as an actor. I find his presence to be very welcoming and engaging. I mean, I think he's a better choice than Michael Kaine, and I love Michael Kine. But I think for this movie, you really do need someone that is the audience surrogate.

Every time he's on screen, I think the audience feels like, Okay, I've got someone I can stand next to and relate to. So as long as I'm with Connery, I'm gonna be okay. And I think for the most part that is true. Until the movie itself just sort of gets too far out over its skis, but that's always the way I feel with Connery, and so I would I would say that. I just I find it would be incredibly engaging interesting to watch.

And I haven't seen the other movies that you guys have covered in Mike white May, but I do, I do want to go back and see them, because the ones you guys are watching are ones I've never heard of, so I am interested. Well, I hadn't seen most of them either, other than I think this is the only one. And I guess we're talking about the Avengers from nineteen ninety eight, but that's that's not a high point for a lot of you. I mean, again, I love that movie because I watched it as a kid. I don't really remember it since maybe I was like nine or ten years old.

But I'm kind of surprised you didn't just say Indiana Jones. I mean, I like that role, but I don't love that movie. And I've rewatched it recently and I like it, but I'm not like, oh my god, he's so great. As that character. He is, he's good, but it's almost like I don't I don't need that.

Well, and you're not the only one to feel that way. Are there are more? It's it's interesting there are more people that feel that way than I think. Don't with the Indiana Jones last Crusade, because I've heard that same center before. I think we've actually, Mike and I have heard it on this show, even as recently as the last episode with Spencer.

So and we'll probably be talking about it when we cover it. Right, Yeah, that's right, exactly, that's right, I mean, wink. We've never we haven't publicly mentioned that anywhere. So no, no, so Richard. So we'll let you guys just sort of try to figure out what it is we're talking about.

That's right, See, Richard gets it? Anything else we want to talk about this movie? Or can I move on to the plugging and the ads and all that good stuff. If I were to pick one role for me with Connery that I go back to all the time, it's Outland. I go back to that movie probably more than any of the other Connery films that he was in, more than The Rock, more than The Untouchables.

I mean, frankly, I think I've seen The Rock twice, but I've seen The Untouchables a shit ton of times. He's fucking fantastic in that movie. But I just I watch Outland probably the most, and it's just so much fun. Him and the doctor in that one, their whole relationship, him and James b sicking him and named Peter Boyle. I just really love that.

And then I guess otherwise Highlander. I fucking love Highlander. I love Ramirez. I think that was a really nice, almost cameo role. The way he also doesn't take anything seriously and Highlander to the Quickening is pretty great.

And then. The man who would be King is probably the other one I watched the most of his and otherwise I guess it would be it feels like something more recent would be one of the ones. Oh, I know, hunt for Red October. I absolutely love him in that, and I love him at the end with that fake quote from Christopher Columbus and the way that the music swells, that Basil Polodoras score just comes up. And that was such a movie.

That was such a fun movie to clean when I was an usher because you got to hear that like Russian joyous music as the credits rolling, and it was a lot of fun to be able to clean that theater. What about his uncredited appearance at the end of the summer blockbuster period piece Robin Hood Prince Prince of Thieves. Yes, which was nice to get him, like kind of that Robin and Marion thing that he did with Catherine Hepburn. That's one I haven't seen, and I haven't seen what was it the wind in the Lion or what what was that of a lion in winter? Yes, the one with that Milius wrote.

I mean, that's got to be very manly, right to have Millius writing and Sean Connery starring. Oh maybe, No, then it's not. I don't think it's the line of winner. And hey, how ironic is it that in Robinhood? Christian Slater's in that movie as well?

Exactly, Scarlett. We we just rewatched it a couple of months ago. That is a fun movie that I mean I remember, big fun but kind of weird. But it's it's super fun. And Alan Rickman is then, Yes, he's the.

Best part of that movie. Because man, I'm just gonna say this because it feels like twenty fifteen all over again. I don't like Kevin Costner and I never have and I'm not sure I ever will. And yet weirdly like I agree, I'm not, I don't. I wouldn't cross the street.

But but but good performance. It's like, oh, this is working, this, this works. In that accent. I mean you can always argue accents in movies like that or movies like this, because it's like, well, shouldn't shouldn't all the characters we just saw have Italian accents? Sure?

You know? Okay? Okay, Robert Eggers. I mean the accent thing with Connery it always drove me crazy when people people are so crazy about him in Hunt for at October, where it's like, oh my god, this Russian guy has a Scottish accent, or in Highlander, oh my god, this Egyptian guy has a Scottish accent. Or the one that really killed me was the in Touchbowls where they go, this Irish guy has a Scottish and I just go, you can tell, you you can really tell?

Okay? Good, I mean I can tell, but I'm like, really, the great Unwashed you can. Tell, all right, wash the unwashed messes. Yeah. I think the thing I've seen of Connery the most is probably Last Crusade.

I wouldn't say it's my favorite thing that I've seen him in. I'm not sure I have that movie yet. I watch The Avengers, a movie re covering as a bonus episode so many times as a kid, but I couldn't remember a damn thing. So I'm excited to watch that because maybe that'll be like maybe, right, I. Can watch them and done to myself so angry that I have to talk about it, and I'm so angry that I'm doing research about it too, And it's just killing me that I'm spending a minute of time on The Avengers.

It was that bad. Oh, it was so fucking pithy, just the way that they go back and forth with these little innuendos and Fukanuma Thurman's speaking of accents for British accent. Oh, it sounds like you're getting a little piffy to say. I'm very pissed off. Maybe we should have picked The League of Extraordinary Gentleman instead.

I think I actually would like that movie better. That's different movies. Yes, yes, good god. Well, on that note, let's take a break and we'll play a preview for the next Culture cast. We'll also play the interview I did eleven years ago with Ilia Baskin.

From weirding Way Media, Cambridge and with Shawn is a podcast about two guys obsessions, passions and hobbies. Those two guys are. Mark Bigley, host of Wake Up Heavy recollection of. Horror, and Ronald Zuriggian, host of the Skelevator YouTube channel. Each month, we talk about the toys, comics, movies, books, TV shows, and other cultural phenomena that captured our imaginations and helped shape who we are today.

From Masters of the Universe to Saturday Night Live Star Wars, to Harry Houdini the Muppets to The Elephant Man. Ronnie and Mark dive deep into the recesses of their minds to pull out treasured memories of things lost but never forgotten. Join us on the first Tuesday of each month over at Weirdinwaymedia dot com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Join me Jamie Benning on the Filmermentaries podcast, particularly if you enjoy stories like designer Nila Rhodis Jamiro convincing George Lucas to push him around to help gain the support of his crew on the Ailing Howard the Duck. Plam, The Door opens, It's George, Everybody Gas.

George makes a B line to me, I'm literally back against the wall. Well here puppet tier Rose's emotional story behind that iconic Admiral Acbars shot in Return of the Jedi. I believe it or something to be proud of, but not the Celburg. Or how Star was. Editor Paul Hirsch tackled cutting so many successful films.

The thing that I learned from work with the Palm is that tension depends on a clock. You need to have the sense that time is running out. Maybe Oscar winning sound designer Mark Manngini's insightful chat about his work on Blade Runner twenty forty nine. Not a single sound from the original Blade Runner in the new film, A great deal of inspiration. That's the film you Menary's podcast with me Jamie Benning.

Hello, Twisted Humans. Do you find yourself wanting to know more about the latest murder, conspiracy, cult or haunting than this is the podcast for you. In nineteen fifty two, there was a record high of UFOs reported fifteen hundred sightings. There has been evidence of human sacrifice, double worship, and it is haunted by more spirits than can be counted. A family of two adults and two kids reportedly saw a giant flying thing with glowing red eyes.

And meanwhile, the family's nanny that helped Veronica to care for her and Lucian's children, was found bludgeoned to death in the basement of their family Hope, I'm Alicia and I'm Sierra, and this is twisted and uncorked. What drew you to that role? Oh, so many things. It's just a combination of a great director, a great writer, being in a project that's life once on a lifetime opportunity and medieval mystery and who it's It's a dream for any actor, and especially especially with my background where I came actually from another country and an accent, and all of a sudden, the direct tressed Geral was everything through pet to throw right. Of course?

Had you had you heard of the book prior to starring in the film, Yes. I did. I hear of the book in Barrectors like everybody. I mean, it was a very hard book, and I'd be honest with you, I didn't read it before, but I heard of it, and then when I got started talking about me being in the film, I started to read it and it was impossible. I couldn't do more than the ten pages and it's a very very difficult read, and really you need to so so when I got the script, it was much much simpler, and for me it was easier.

But I didn't I couldn't, I think altogether read about fifty page. Wow, Yeah, I had. I had never read the book before I watched the movie. But one of my grandparents actually read it, and you know, I talked with I talked with him about it, and he was telling me how great it was, and I tried reading it. And did you succeed?

What did you succeed? No, I read it. I read it like maybe twenty five pages. It's dense, and. I know, I know, and that's the same thing.

And that's why it was so much easier to work with the script than with the book. Right with me, I mean I need to use a dictionary to go through so many words. I didn't know. I'm talking about the book, not the script. Right when you were when you got the part for Severinus, was with Sean Connery already involved with the project.

Yes, yeah, had you had you worked with Sean Connery prior. To the film. No. Never. I met for the first time in Germany.

Actually, the mayor of a little town of what was Russell's him my name of the town made a welcoming party for us, and that's where I first met Sean Connery. But my very very close friend of mine who worked with him on several projects, and so I had aligned to approach. Paul Malanski says, hi to you. And what is what is Sean? What is Sean Connery like?

What is it like working with him? You know everything about this man was? I mean, first of all, you you know that you're with legend, and you think that legends behaved differently, and you are like not from Dessers, which is totally up from what Sean Connery was. It was very down theirs and one the nicest people I worked with, even even I mean stars of his statute don't have to give you lines when they're on the other side of the camera. And he was very kind and always asked me, if you want to read it, I'll read it with you.

And he was absolutely and just We were all in very small town and we were I don't know if it's the right word hanging out together, but we spend a lot of time together, not only me and Sean, and like a group of us at Christ and it was nothing hard knows about him. You know, he was very very downtairs and very I mean I had only the best experience with the best feelings. One little thing. I mean that I might know that any conversation will you will start with him on any subject. In five minutes he'll be talking golf man.

Yeah, he's an addict, and I mean it's all we would end up talking about golfing, right, But other than that, only the best feeling and truly throughly very nice man. And so when you were brought onto the film, from what I've read, a lot of the film was a lot of the exterior shots were built. The exteriors for the film were built in Europe outside of Rome. What was that set? Like?

I mean that was that was a truly massive set. Yeah, it's not exactly like like you say, what happened? We filmed the name of the other filmed onto locations Manos in Germany, eurousso time and it was a real thirteenth century monastery called Cluster Eberbach and that's where and the copy of it or some parts of this monastery was built outside Rome because it had to be burned, right, So we did film in a real monastery. And we had absolutely fabulous set designer Identifer, who did such a magnificent job and apple place Jan Jacana before we started filming that not a lot of people know about it. He took us to the set and what he did he invited extras and put them in costume.

So when we when the castle went to see the set, it was like uh over in a different century. People walking, there were goats and the chickens running around, and that was all in the real monastery. It was really freaky and fabulous. I don't know what words to use to describe its contacts and especially I mean every extra that was chosen for this film, it was he picked up individually. I mean, if you remember the film, there the most fantastic faces.

See yeah, they all seemed to reflect the time period the film. Is set in. That's right. That's why I said, when when when we just came to see the set, we were like freaked out because it was like unreal and. You know it.

Right right, I can only imagine. I mean, you know, the fact that they spent the time to build an exterior set of that magnitude is impressive in and of itself. Obviously. Oh yeah, yeah. So I'm curious, you know when you when you got the script and you got the part, were you told was it were you told ahead of time your character was was going to die in the in the later half of the film.

Was that was that kind of was that something you were aware of? Right? Well, I mean, you know in this day and age, right with kind of the internet and people leaking information, stuff like that is kind of sometimes intentionally left out of scripts. No, it was in the script and the internet wasn't. That popular, right of course.

Yeah, so uh yeah, yeah, you read the script, you knew that the characters guy, I could ask him to let me live too longer, but then you'll have to talk to Comberto Echo and then he'll have to write another book. So once you got the part and you were, you know, on set, what was it like working with Jaka know and kind of just what was what was filming like on a daily basis for the film? It was first of all John jack and I was a very unusual director. I mean he uh, in addition to dining as the script, he gave us a lot of material related to the time when so we had he knew that the actors are lazy bastard and wouldn't go to the library too three years. So he provided as with a lot of material and his that we read it and we knew it, and that was very very different from any other experience I had before that or after that.

And as far as just working every day, it was very very challenging, very interesting. He's a great director. I feel very fortunate that chosen by Janda cannot to be part of it. And as far as working every day, it was very interesting working something that you wake up and you look forward to doing. Do you enjoy working on period pieces like the name.

Of the Rose? I think they're the best. Yeah, I mean it all depends, you know, it's I mean, you can just I mean it's interesting, of course to do this up and could costume of a different area. But it could be a fantastic experience and it could be probably it could be dreadful experience if if director doesn't know what he's doing, and I mean the crew and kats don it along. But in this case it was everything was just like flowed very very nice in the cast I mean, but the great cast there was, I mean all the great German actors Austrian actors, French, my Michael Lonsdale, it was a very very Italian actress.

It was an international cast. Was fascinating people. This was wonderful work work. Yeah, the film has a really diverse cast. I mean it has, like you said, Michael Lonsdale.

Also William Hickey, who is yeah, Ron Peerlman, who at the time was not you know as Yeah, it was big, but he was not the famous Yeah, not like he is now obviously, and E. Fbury Abraham as well. Obviously f Mary Abraham was bigger than them now. Yeah, Oscar which he was dragging that all the time about. So it's kind of a question for you, you know, looking through your IMDb credits and your credits in films, obviously you know, uh, you're a you know, a Russian actor.

You were you were trained in in Moscow, you know in In the Name of the Rose. Your character is not Russian, inherently not Russian, no Irish, right. Yeah, I had I had a dialogue coach, Michael, not Michael, Chris, Chris Black was coaching me on a dialogue. So I don't know how successible I was, but I mean nobody said that was not real. I needed to have a dialogue coach.

Right, Well, my question to you is is it refreshing to you to be cast in a role that you don't play to your inherent strengths of your Russian background. But that's what I'm looking for over too, because they know so many Russians in Asia and Europeans that every time I get a part which is not I mean, it's very hard to give because the cast and directors think like only I mean, they cliche us, you know, you know these guys were and even my agents they send me out for the parts that are wrong for me just because it says it's Russian or it's Ukrainian or Polish or whoever. And they don't send me out for parts which are which I am right for because it doesn't mention the background. But that's that's, that's what it is, and I have to live with it.

Well that yeah, that's that's that's kind of my My question really is is when you get a role like in the Name of the Rows, do you enjoy those more than just your role where you have to be Russian? Yeah, of course, of course, of course, much more challenging. Is much more angine, because I know a lot of you know, American audience says will recognize you from you know, your your roles as as Russian characters Spider Man two and three, you know in Transformers thirteen days, I mean all. Those not Russian, but in some some Thursday Days it was a Polish guy, right, But I did the same thing. I mean, it's the Eastern.

Europe Unfortunately, the American audience won't know the difference to some extra right, that's right. Yeah. The thing is the thing is that it's as I said, it's much more difficult for me to get parts of which are not described as particularly Eastern Europeans because my agents they just want to submit me for them. Every time I go and meet with them, we have this conversation that you say, yes, yes, we have to be more creative. We have, but it's nothing happens, or rarely something happens.

Right, Well, and you've kind of become the go to character actor in Hollywood for portraying Russian characters. Unfortunately, or maybe four you. Know, I can I can imagine it gets a little monotonous just playing Eastern European characters over and over again. It's not only that, you know, I don't mind playing Europeans. It's just the pie is much bigger, and I get a little small piece of the spid.

There are so many parts that I could audition for, I mean, not necessarily I will get, but I can't even get the auditioned because my ancients think that because it doesn't say Russian in a breakdown, or Polish or many. I just I asked this primarily because I am three quarters Ukrainian and so yeah, my last name is stock you so so yeah, I just I asked that because I can imagine it getting monotonous being cast in these kind of same, genetically similar roles. Yeah. Usually usually I get other roles when a director particularly likes my work, and I did a couple of years ago. I did a film called Jimmy p which is called Ak Jimmy Picard, which was it's it's a period piece right after the Second World War about psychiatry, and it was a French director who looked me up and that's how I get the party where I'm not a Russian.

Well, you know that was kind of you know, surprising to me watching the name of the Rose that you know your character. Is not is not Russian. He's like you said, he's Irish. So that was refreshing for me because I really enjoy character actors and I like seeing character actors doing things that aren't what we would normally associate them a role with them. So, yeah, take a look at this film.

It wasn't released in the state. I mean it's it's it's a athlete. It's called Jemmie t and it's with a dol Toro, right yeah, right, yeah, and wonderful French actor Amereric the Matthew Amaleric Gina McKee. It's a very very interesting film there. I play an Austriam, but at least it's not.

The Eastern right right. So yeah, getting back to the Name of the Rose, what what was your kind of what's your favorite memory from the set or something that sticks out to you from your time filming the film. Well, of course I told you about the whole atmosphere that we got into this excursion to the set with was being surrounded by such a great actors. You feel that you're a like exclusive club, and especially in Europe by that time, the book was very, very very famous and the world went out about the filming, so everybody was looking at us as it's like very rare creatures, you know. I remember when we were filming in the built set a near Rome, we had to interrupt filming quite often because they had a blimp flying over with stories showing the set and of course you cannot shoot the thirteenth century mystery, but the blimp flying over it all the time.

So that was a great part of it. The part of Another part was that we were not as much in Rome, but in Germany we were staying all staying in a little town and we had to be with each other, see each other all the time, and just getting to know each other. It was fabulous, absolutely fantastic cinematographer. When you go to the set, you see the set and it has certain colors, and then you see it on the film in the colors are totally different, much much more interesting. How should I say, You don't see it when you're there, but on the film you see absolutely magnificent colors and stuff.

It was the feelings DP Delacholi, the memories about funny stuff. I know, I have to like think a little more about the Christians. Later was sixteen years old and always in love with somebody, and it was finding him like becoming a grown up in front of our eyes. And I had to shave how do you call this thing in the middle of the head than the. Little the friars circle?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was funny when people were looking at it just when I was walking, because it looked like very strange. I mean, uh, I don't have I don't have any funny little stories at the moment. I mean I have to like concentrate a little more on that. Maybe i'll fact many years ago.

Of the scenes that you're in in the film, which one are you personally? The most proud of. The scene that I liked was the scene where we where we had this dead monk and I did the autopsy and uh, and that's when I explained that he could be what was it flash according to Nature and Against the Nature? It was a scene with Sean Connery and Christian Slater that was I think a very nice scene. I don't know if you remember it.

It's when when uh trying to remember his name. I think it was Michael habback when he died and I do the atit. Right on the on Berengar. Yeah, yeah, I I I enjoy everything about the movie, but I really enjoy the fact that there are a lot of what would be considered in a lot of films smaller parts. But even those you know, quote unquote smaller parts, they're given a lot to do.

I mean, your character is one of the driving forces in the film later on, uh, and you're given a fair amount to do in the film, even though it's a it's a smaller part on kind of the grand scheme of the film. Prince medium sized bot, it wasn't very He actually is the one who discovered the book. Right. Another thing that to mention interesting things it was working with further shut up in junior. You know who who who I'm talking about?

Right? I think the guy who the blind guy who was killing. Europe right right right. And he is the son of one of the greatest Russian singers, opera singers, further shadappin them. And he was by then he was almost eighty years old, and he was very close to my how should they say, acting god, Michael Chekhov when they lived in California.

Now he lives in Rome. I mean he passed away, but at that time he lived in Rome. But before that he lived in California and worked with Michael Chekhov all the time. So just being together with him and listening to his stories about Michael Chekhov, who, as I said, is my acting God, was absolutely incredible. I can imagine.

So after the film comes out and you get a chance to see it, what were your kind of thoughts in the film. What did you think about the film once it came out. I thought that it deserves more than you know. It was a huge hit in Europe, right and here it played on a couple of weeks. I think it was a really ease.

It played in teachers, but it was like when we came in and went, I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a big thing. Later people said when they started showing him a cable and people started more and more more people saw it. But but in teachers. I don't think we did very well in America. But in Europe it was like the greatest hit for several years.

Right, Well, yeah, I mean it. I think the film inherently is more tailored to European audiences in. Some respects because of the pace. I also think. That yeah, I think also that you know, some of the themes that the movie talks about might not be something that American audiences are inherently interested in, because the film has a little bit of philosophical musings somewhat towards kind of the end of the film when they're talking about, you know, the the purpose of laughter in regards to the church.

Yeah, and it's about the church, a lot about the how church reacts, to how oppressive the church was at that time, and how difficult it was for somebody to go against the Green right. And you know, I think that in the eighties, the American audiences maybe just didn't have an interest in that. Unfortunately, Yeah, I was. I was, be honestly, I was a little bit disappointed because I thought that having this kind of cast and the subject and the quality of the film, I mean, it's really it was brilliantly shot, it would get more attention. But unfortunately they didn't.

My last question for you is is there anything you're working on now that you want to talk about. I did the film, which uh, I think it's my second horror film, which which I don't know what's happening with. It's called The Hive, uh, and it's not really something I want to talk about. Uh. And I'm not a fan of not a fan of horror.

No, it's kind of strange. It was a very string it was a little budget film and not before I see it that I don't want to talk about. I understand the laity. I was doing mostly television. No, nothing, not nothing.

I can talk about it about something that I'm trying to make it film myself. But that's another story. Are you are you writing, directing or just directed? I wrote it. I don't know if I if I'll be directing it.

But we're talking about uh producing it with one company, and there will be a couple of my friends, Richard Dreifus probably we will join us Leanna Douglas. But it's a little bit too early to talk about a big feeling the works. Hi. I'm Susan and I'm Sharon, and we're the hosts of Eighties tv Ladies. Check us out wherever you find your favorite podcasts, and please like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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They say it's Rod three Ling to Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod to Las Night Gallery. It's somebody else's. Oh, we know, we talk about it a lot. Your curators at Midnight Viewing are the projection Boots, Mike White. What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion.

And culture casts? Chris Stashio small boy Incased in the Crystal. Ball, and I'm Father Alone, the kind of thing that usually infest nightmares. Join us monthly at Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com. Doesn't remotely belong to me.

I have no proprietary interest in that at. All, So I guess this is the last episode of Mike White. May if you want to listen to that Avengers bonus episode that we're doing. You can find it over at Patreon dot com slash culture cast. But that is it for Mike White May Mike White and I are now going to do an episode every now and then for the next rest of the year, because that's the way it works.

That's the way it works, Folcus, because we both have our own shows. Shockingly, it's not like and Teller, but it's not too dissimilar. Speaking of that show, Mike, where can people find you when you're not here with me doing my show together? Well, Chris, it's so convenient. They can find your show here and they can find my show here here being Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

All the good stuff is there except for Richard's show. And you can find mine here also, which is basically anywhere you're listening to a podcast, which is probably Spotify or Apple and if you're listening anywhere else, just come on. Why why would you do that? That's that's always my appeal to people. It's like, just just go one of those two places.

Please. You're getting an option. It's not a great option either way, but you do have an option. Or I guess if you want to listen on YouTube, just kidding. Quote, We don't make money on YouTube.

That's why we don't provide speaker integration anymore. I think what we should just do from now on is just do like the Simpsons does and just rag on spreaker on every episode. We do like the Simpsons do with Fox, just to see if they'll actually do anything, because at this point we've never been anything. But what's the term an open wallet for them to take money out, So you know, maybe it's time for us to piss down their throat for a second. But yeah, if you want to listen to our podcast, find it on iTunes and Spotify.

That's where you can go to listen to it, because anywhere else is just not as important. Richard and Mike, thank you so much for joining me. Richard for joining us, and Mike for programming a rather successful month apparently other than the movie I picked, which, okay. Maybe maybe I'll read something tonight and I'll just fall in love with the movie. What are you gonna read a book that drives you?

You're gonna read the Necronomicon tonight and lose your mind. I'm gonna lick my finger and turn the page here, and yeah, yeah. I'm gonna read something tonight that tomorrow prevents me from having to talk about this piece of shit fitho. I will talk as much as Eddie Izzard does. In the film Good Lord Boy signing up for that huh and uh yeah, as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.

By the Bist students of The Boss. Books peopless Steps in the Blings to the BS in the Boss for the Books cost