John Carpenter’s Vampires with David Ehrlich

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check

[00:01:02] Stratichoccalon I had to cut a couple lines out from the beginning of that myeloc For the best Yes This man, this character, Jack Crow does not like homosexuals And he lets it be known all the time

[00:01:17] In fact, he almost seems to find them to be more demonic than vampires You could say that it's one of his two personality traits Well, I mean Where's Leather and hates gay people He's afraid You know, he deals with vampires more He's terrified

[00:01:31] He sort of knows what he's dealing with I was thinking though, because initially in my notes I wrote down gay panic question mark at the first line And then immediately had to scratch out the question mark But it then veers so far beyond

[00:01:43] And then scratch out panic for fear It goes so far beyond gay panic It's just outright homophobia I was going to say, it's like vampire hunters It doesn't feel like he's panicking It's like, no, I very confidently know I don't like these people

[00:01:57] I don't respect the way they choose to live their lives and who they love He's most upset because Vlad the Impaler, whatever the fucking vampire's name is Yon Valak Valak Valak the Impaler Whatever This is embarrassing to get out of here Like, vaguely resembles a gay stereotype

[00:02:14] Like that's really, I think, what keeps him up at night The most triggering thing Look, he reminds him of his two least favorite things in the world The creatures that killed his mother And some guys he had to walk past on a street outside a bar one time

[00:02:26] And he never got over it Yeah, which you know, when James Woods found out that he was in this movie Five years later, he was completely unconcerned about it He was like, yeah, no, I was just being much yourself Yeah, James Woods James Woods

[00:02:37] Cool guy that we're going to talk about on this podcast I think it's only the second time we've gone into the woods on this podcast What's the other? Hercules Hercules Which is easier to talk about Also a good performance though Great performance

[00:02:50] I mean, David, I don't want to put words in your mouth But you have said that he's unfortunately one of your favorite actors On Mike before I have always I'm trying to remember when he became Recordably He is one of your favorite

[00:03:03] When I feel like, when was it that he became, was it Trump Or was it like a little before Trump when he kind of It became just sort of publicly evil I feel like before then it was sort of like James Woods That guy's kind of an asshole

[00:03:17] But like I remember seeing White House Down Sure His last major movie Right, and also feeling like Oh, I haven't seen him on screen in like four or five years And at that point it was kind of funny that he was cast that way

[00:03:30] Because you're like, you already know that James Woods is this weird angry reactionary guy I think it all got heightened even more past that point That Trump shit got worse I think Twitter is really what Well, sure, yeah Some of these guys just should never have gotten Twitter

[00:03:45] He was the only person who was a true inner cynicism came out Thanks to the help of social media I have a theory that it was after the Virgin Suicides In which he plays the most mild manner He's incredible An impressive person

[00:03:58] But that he put, I mean I don't think that the Dad and That character is necessarily a great man or great father But he did put like whatever last embers of decency he had In that movie for safekeeping

[00:04:10] It's like the glow drains from his body and goes into that film And then that was it, yeah When was he in that movie Pretty Persuasion Isn't he played a total jerk in the movie? I mean this is my question, he's like a creep, right?

[00:04:21] Isn't he like a fucking adult who sleeps with Evan Rachel Wood? Yes, yes David, can you, I've actually got to David this episode, I'm getting ahead of myself Mr. Sims Would you mind as I introduced the podcast

[00:04:34] Pulling up what James Woods does in between Virgin Suicides and White House Dad I have it for you here Okay Because this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin Which one? Sims And Griffin Newman

[00:04:49] And it's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers And are given a series of blank checks and make whatever crazy passion projects they want Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce

[00:04:59] Baby, man, does this director we're talking about really illustrate that concept He's like a basketball Yeah You know just going up and down Right, sure And these last five movies are very much like we should let him make it That guy made some great movies, right? Spoon

[00:05:13] Right, yeah, it's just multiple bounces But he's John Carpenter I mean this movie made its budget back domestically So I guess By a hair But you know and then like this feels like the kind of movie probably did okay on the old VHS market Right, you know

[00:05:27] They're two direct to video sequels Los Muertos Los Muertos Gotta watch out for that Los Muertos I remember Los Muertos being one of those like always there at the videos right The Joerhem too of its day Vampires The Turning is the other one

[00:05:40] I do not know that one It's weird there's this and then there's West Craven presents Dracula 2000 Both of which I feel like we're mocked when they came out Right, and which also was directed to video sequels Fully came out in like 1998 Right, that's what was so odd

[00:05:52] Please brothers 2000 also comes out in 1998 People were just jumping the gun They were so hyped for 2000 You know who the star of Vampires 2 is right Of Los Muertos Is I think Los Muertos is 3 Am I wrong about this You are wrong, Los Muertos is 2 And it stars

[00:06:09] John Bon Jovi I did know that He's the star He's the vampire hunter Yes, I did know that Natasha Drex and Wagner is in it Hey 10 comedy points That was really good It almost got lost It almost fell between the cracks I didn't let that happen

[00:06:27] Apparently Diego Luna is in it He is Casting Endor himself Right And then in Vampires The Turning Okay We've got Colin Ecclesfield I don't know who that is You know who Colin Ecclesfield is I'm sure you do We all know He was in something borrowed Thank you

[00:06:47] He was in something borrowed He was supposed to be a guy He's in Must Love Dogs But you must You must You must I guess I also get the fucking I guess from Dust Till Dawn Directed video sequels were real Like

[00:07:02] This movie is also like a kind of a dust From Dust Till Dawn like rip off Like it's at least like That movie did okay So all green light Your sort of vampire western That's super violent Weird It's weird Especially because Dust Till Dawn's whole legacy

[00:07:17] Was that like No one knew this was a vampire movie What a surprise Which is I mean It is one of my favorite genres of movies Truly one of the great genres of movies Is the We are not going to tell you what this really is

[00:07:28] Until the end of the second act Right From Dust Till Dawn had two sequels And then a TV series So it's really at a long I feel like no one's really doing that It's sort of incompatible with It really has good subtitles too

[00:07:44] Texas Blood Money and the Hangman's Daughter Right and I think that was a prequel One of them was actually a That would be even better though If that was just the subtitle of one film Is there not It's called Texas Blood Money and the Hangman's Daughter

[00:07:56] It's like a Bob Dylan song And the Crimes of Grindelwald Is there not still the DTV market With the same amount of money That we have Yeah DTV movies as much as I do about the movies That present as one thing and then become another Oh sure

[00:08:09] And I think that in our super transparent Online culture it's hard to get away with that There's only one guy who does it baby Who dad M Night He'll do it Not always But he is capable of doing it I mean Yeah I mean like

[00:08:24] Split is that as a twist ending And I would argue unbreakable in terms of how it was marketed Was that Where it's not until an hour in Like this is a fucking superhero movie Now everyone knows That's a superhero movie

[00:08:34] I think the closest analog that we have on Even a semi-regular basis these days Are the A24 horror movies That they sort of deliberately mismarket But that's the thing That's the difference is I don't think that's those Filming their friend That's A24 being like We can do

[00:08:48] A million people I mean Parasite has the hinge point moment Where the movie totally changes But I don't know if it like completely It's not like I'm from Dostudon Where the genre The genre Right I think is a big But I mean Parasite definitely does have that moment

[00:09:04] Which is so right Where you're like Okay What is this Turning into something Lamb not even knowing You know that it was supposed to be a horror film Yeah I mean that is a movie that Really does beyond the marketing Sort of take its time to

[00:09:17] Play as cards But while you're on the computer You should go I think this could be a Patreon goal for you guys You should go onto James Woods Twitter feed And you should Has he even banned No, no He is back He is constantly tweeting about three things

[00:09:31] One of course is Animals which he loves Oh Two is the American flag Which he cries over There's a tweet from September 11th of this year Which he sees an American flag on a crane And he goes Sorry my eyes are getting dusty

[00:09:44] And three of course is poker But now You can and should Stake him at the World Series of Poker No I'm not going to stake him But I I like Wait a second You don't want to make threats against that guy You might want to get that out

[00:10:00] He is very Bleep it Bleep it Bleep it So there's the implication that I have said Something but no one knows the specifics of it We should say famously James Woods Someone tweeted at him With like ten followers And said Like you washed up Cokehead

[00:10:16] And he sued them saying I've never used Coke in my life And then in The years that the lawsuit was dragging out For defamation The guy died The guy died And they Woods has refused to drop the case And has demanded settlement payout From the family

[00:10:31] One of the many fun entries In the legal issues section Of his Wikipedia page Which is dense Which is longer than you would want it to be for yourself Which is dense Look Here's the thing I want to say about James Woods His poker career

[00:10:44] Moving off of the other stuff The flag in the Twitter He's on a great episode of Was it called Celebrity Poker Showdown The one that David Dave Oly Which was my favorite show One of the greatest television shows In the history of the film medium With cards

[00:10:58] Was so good And my roommate Phil and I Used to watch it in college Religiously And he is a very committed poker player And he's on one of the earlier episodes With four other people Who are celebrities who clearly know The rules of poker Sure

[00:11:12] But are not particularly involved poker players And he's sort of like Yeah, I mean, you know It's for charity Y'all do it And then like One hand in He like busts out Or like very early And he's like Nothing that they were doing was logical

[00:11:26] All of the bets they made Made no sense When I would see their cards I'd be like, wait, why did you do it Because they're all just like Yeah, sure I've got some red ones Right All about a hundred And which is like

[00:11:36] Okay, well clearly you have this Like I know how poker work You know, and like He just was good But it's a very funny episode He's not amused I know how I could be James Woods in poker Where Sunglasses with American flags on the lenses

[00:11:50] We can't see the cards Yeah What do I have? Look, anyway As Griffin you were reading me for Phil But I've said it on this podcast I have always been a huge James Woods fan As an actor when I was younger Not a huge James Woods fan

[00:12:03] As a human being seems No, but your thing you've always said And I think We all have these people for us Right, where you're like I hate the fact that I find him So compelling on screen I wish I did not find him so compelling on screen

[00:12:18] For me There are people where you're Who say He's good on screen He's amazing in hotshots, partner The first time I probably was aware of James Woods Is probably his Simpsons appearance Which is so funny to this day Yeah Yeah Movie So funny He's so game on

[00:12:36] He's done multiple episodes I think he used to be a more game person He's done like 15 episodes of the family guys Yeah, I think he used to be humorless And I think, yeah He's had some whatever He's changed Yeah But if you weren't The first exposure that was

[00:12:50] That probably would have been too Right If you want me to now run down his Sort of early aughts Sure, I'd like to just quickly say This is a me series on the films of John Carpenter It's called The Podcast And our guest today is a

[00:13:03] Blah blah blah Second David Hence me demanding your last name Returning to the show from IndieWire Our good friend David Early He's here I'm here, I'm in the tomb You're in the tomb Yes, welcome to the tomb We're calling Ben's apartment the tomb It's a working title

[00:13:18] Because of the mummy? Yeah, well Has there been a mummy you haven't been able to get Remember something? Do you listen to your podcast? And this is, I was walking over here I'm really behind on my podcast As I am on most podcasts We used to

[00:13:28] David and I both I used to keep up with it We used to be like DeMarco Every night you close down to Far as Pizza Shop You need to try a slice To make sure the product's still good Exactly And I think in the last two years

[00:13:39] Both of us have been like I never want to hear my voice ever again A little bit of that A little bit of that According to the show in real time Gives me anxiety Give me about six months I will listen to an episode

[00:13:47] From about six months ago And often be like, oh, okay, sure But I need a little more distance now Than I did before I've never listened to any podcast Every podcast I've ever been on That I always plug for you Because you always forget to plug

[00:14:00] The sound of my voice Fighting the war around I mean, I'll see it And I know I'm not alone in that But I will say that this is One of the least tomb-like places I've ever been It's a lovely place A lovely home There's a mahogany glass case

[00:14:12] About ten feet tall It's a curio cabinet I mean, it's a place curio It's a lovely antique plate It is easily the least tomb-like place We have ever recorded the podcast And we've recorded And some real fucking tomas I remember when Audie Up and Moved us to that

[00:14:28] Studio B or whatever it was Yeah, that was a real piece of shit And we like short circuited We were like bury this episode Deleted, it's unlistable That's the swing shift You guys did that one special episode We were focused It was totally fine

[00:14:40] Recorded that one episode from the basement From Prince of Darkness We did We did do that I mean, there's the wonder The Wonder Woman episode that we just recorded In my kitchen because the scheduling was so insane And we sound like we're in a submarine Yes

[00:14:51] Yeah, we do Anyway Three episodes where I lost my own audio And sounded like I was in a submarine That's true This is a mini-series called In the Mount Pods of In the Mount Pods of Madcast Right? I wish You know what's the thing I really enjoyed recently?

[00:15:05] Any time there's any mainstream thing With a horribly sweaty title People now just tag me and go Did you write this? So like all the fucking Hulu-ween And Peacock-tober I mean Peacock-tober, that's a safe-loss brand That's a fucking slam dunk Absolutely But what is it?

[00:15:21] A time in a needle stack What the fuck is that movie called? Needle in a Time Stack Request Everyone's crediting me with coming up With that title You? Yeah, they're like That sounds like some sweaty griff shit That's true It's hot-scape from Newcast Truly sweaty

[00:15:37] It's tough to find Needle in a Time Stack, baby Well anyway, welcome to the tomb Oh thanks, pleasure to be here James Woods is I believe top-build in the Virgin Suicides Yes, which is amazing Which is really in a career That I in my opinion

[00:15:55] Is storied with many incredible performances One of his best Sure The performance that profoundly moves me He was also in True Crime that year The general's daughter And any given Sunday And play it to the bone It's one of those things where like That's a huge year

[00:16:08] He would just take those supporting roles Like he was a fairly You know, like he seemed to accept Like I'm not an A-list star anymore Like fairly early Wait fuck Now there's some other movie we've covered him on That I'm forgetting where you're surprised that he's like Seventh-build

[00:16:24] And he's just like in it And he's not the focus And he's not the end I'll figure out what it is I don't want to give him too much credit Contact Which he was great in But that's one where you're like He's not uncredited in Camino

[00:16:36] Yeah, where you're like I guess he's sort of the villain But ultimately this is just like the eighth lead Right, right I would venture a guest to say that contact Is one of contact and John Carpenter's vampires Are the roles that are probably closest

[00:16:47] To who James Wood is in real life And White House Down White House Down That's why I'm placing Matt as a final pillar That's the point of no return But yeah, I don't want to give him too much credit

[00:16:56] But there is a vague sense when you read off the titles That he was in towards the late 90s The string of high-profile movies That some part of him recognized That he was in the death Of an era where James Woods could get regular work

[00:17:09] It was going to be hard for him to escape the 90s I mean, that 99 burst is him going Like I got to get all the get-ins good I don't know if I'm going to cross over So in 2001 he's in five movies again After taking a break in 2000

[00:17:21] I guess he was enjoying the millennium A one-year break there Yeah Recess schools out Apparently he's a voice in that He's the villain He's actually reading He plays fourth grade Final fantasy the spirits within Apparently he's a voice in that

[00:17:32] I believe he's the villain in that as well Quite possibly I mean, you know Hollywood scene Was Ben Affleck the hero in that or did the guy just No, Baldwin looks like Ben Affleck Right, it's uncanny He's in scary movie too I remember that being a one-scene performance

[00:17:46] Funny, exorcist parody Famously That was supposed to be Marlon Brando They announced that they were paying him Like $7 million for the one-scene Marlon Brando showed up on set It was an absurd salary Maybe I'm overselling a little bit But it was like millions of dollars For one scene

[00:18:02] It was such a big announcement of Like why is he doing fucking scary movie too He showed up on set with the oxygen tank And they were like Marlon, you can't do this So James Woods was the sub in for Brando

[00:18:12] Then he's dead by the time the movie comes out He died right around there Somewhere around there He's also in riding in cars with boys Is that sort of a virgin suicide scene performance? He's the dad Something that his character in vampires would Almost never do That's true

[00:18:26] Well, he rides in cars with priest boys With men With men, yes He's in something called race to space That sounds like an IMAX documentary No, it's like there's like a monkey In a space suit on the cover Okay, okay And then you know, 2002 John Q

[00:18:40] And Stuart Little too He's the voice of a falcon I remember that He's the villain in that John Q, I believe he plays the surgeon Who they're trying to get to perform the surgery Sure, that's one of the few Denzel's I've never seen

[00:18:52] But that's another one where he plays sort of like A kind good Yeah, I don't know You ain't seen John Q In 2003 he's in North Fork Directed by the then celebrated Indie Polish brothers And now kind of like Maga Red Pill

[00:19:05] He's directing the Gina Carano Ben Shapiro movie He's in something called This Girl's Life 2005 Pretty Persuasion and Be Cool Okay, so Pretty Persuasion's him leaning full into creep And Be Cool is coasting off 90s vibes Right And then like after

[00:19:20] Now we're getting into like movies I've never heard of Something called Endgame with Kubigun Jr And Angie Harmon And looks like a bunch of people with guns outside the Capitol Right, and he's like Avi Lerner in Tax Shelter movies Yeah, exactly He was a voice in Surf's Up

[00:19:36] Okay, probably the villain He's in the Straw Dogs remake Oh yes But apparently in a small role Yeah And then it's like White House Down He's in Jobs The, you know We're like jumping ahead I mean there's a gap there No, I'm not jumping ahead

[00:19:51] No that's what I'm saying I've been jumping ahead for years I know not skipping over credits But like White House Down Well, you're forgetting one thing I'm forgetting Shark on CBS's Shark Shark I'm the shark A show that I as a James Woods fan

[00:20:04] When it debuted I was like I'm all in on this show And then I think like two episodes in it I was like this is a bad procedural But I can't let it go Am I misremembering that Spike Lee directed The Pilot for Shark?

[00:20:16] You are not misremembering that You are remembering correctly You directed The Pilot for Shark That's kind of Spike Lee's Doldrum period It's Post-Inside Man Where he's like I had a hit And no one will hire me Exactly where I think he was like

[00:20:30] Why am I not getting major? So he makes a couple of pilots You know, he does stuff He's talked about how Flummox T was Where he was like that was my biggest hit movie I like delivered it Under budget on time It fucking worked

[00:20:45] And I couldn't get the sequel made And no one would hire me to make another big movie Well he did do the Shark pilot I wonder how mad James Woods was That he couldn't play the Barry Pepper role In 25th Hour

[00:20:56] Which feels like a real James Woods type And you get to hold for that But if that movie had been made Barry Pepper, he's playing an asshole Talks about how big his soul is But he's supposed to be like a contemporary But I'm saying this

[00:21:10] How angry he was that that project Didn't exist when he was third He would have been good And you know who else is good? Barry Pepper I hope he's not He's not cancelled right? No, I think he would like Pepper, right? I mean Barry Pepper just seems suspect

[00:21:22] After Battlefield Earth And just the general vibe of Barry Pepper We should have slanted him I don't know I think Barry Pepper is a citizen I think Come on the show Barry Pepper Much like Forrest Whitaker Took Battlefield for the pay And the love He's in crawl

[00:21:40] He's great in crawl Love that movie I'm always happy when he pops up It does not happen very often Does it look like Pepper on the dish Is always Apparently he met Kreich He's in monster trucks Oh boy Rob Lowe's in that Everyone's in that Everyone's in that

[00:21:57] Contellies or rice Everyone's in it Cast everyone With Barry Pepper and everyone Okay, so Yeah, I do I mean obviously I was introduced to James Woods Through the Simpsons and Hercules But you know I need a minute to get over Kreich I'm sorry

[00:22:16] I need to see like a quick Kreich break Did either of you ever meet Kreich? No I did I went at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning For the press screening I stayed Stayed just far away from Kreich I wore a tuxedo

[00:22:27] You guys have both seen the photos Of what Kreich originally looked like Yes, I know I'm aware of the saga Just one of the all-time great stories If I can recount this very quickly Was they make this fucking movie In which a monster lives in a truck

[00:22:38] And a kid Bonds with his monster truck And they screen the finished movie And kids like run out of the theater Screaming It's like bloody murder Cause Kreich Right And Paramount was like We have to fix this Frame by frame And you can see

[00:22:56] If you Google original Kreich design They put that in the fucking movie And screened it for five year olds It's incredible But you know It looks like in the mouth of Madness shit It looks like the wall of monsters Yeah I love him in Video drone

[00:23:12] What's on time in America You know a lot of those 80s movies Which played a Jew In what's on the same Yeah, I mean Cause there was just a time where Hollywood Was hog wild in so many different respects In terms of casting

[00:23:23] Well he also played Rudy Giuliani Does he strike you as Rudy Giuliani? Yes he does No he doesn't In his soul He also played Maybe in his soul I don't want to tell tales He also has Haldeman in Nixon Which he has been passed

[00:23:36] He played a man who I grew up with HR Haldeman HR Haldeman No he played When I was growing up I was gonna make that same fucking joke When I was growing up My best friend was Dick Fold's son Dick Fold was the CEO

[00:23:53] Yeah I got a double back to this as well The man's name is Dick Fold Did you say that? Dick Fold Dick Fold FULD He was the CEO of Lehman Brothers Oh And James He plays him in Too Big To Fail He's really good in that

[00:24:09] He plays him in Too Big To Fail It was very strange for him to say I guess I'm forgetting that he really became kind of an HBO movie guy Right that was the thing

[00:24:16] I think it was surprising to see him in White House down just because you're like He's in a fucking movie I used to go when I was like six years old And I was having sleepovers at their house

[00:24:23] I had no idea who he was or what he did You know I would knock on his door at 6am Or at 6 in the morning No whatever Six hours after I went to sleep At some time in the night Sure When I decided that I was homesick

[00:24:34] And wanted to go see my parents It was like 2am And I would say Hello? Not knowing that he was the CEO of Lehman Brothers And he would drive you home and be like And I would say Everything's going fine but it's a delicate balance

[00:24:45] One fucking jingapiece gets removed Boy he don't want to know And you're like, huh? And he's like, don't worry about it Don't worry about it It's like 3 in the morning He just got a phone call from Tokyo And he's like, oh god But as someone myself

[00:24:59] I grew up to be kind of introverted It's just so funny to me to picture my six year old self Knocking on the door of the CEO of Lehman Brothers Be like, drive me home At 3am I just can't believe it With a name like Dick Fould

[00:25:09] He wasn't a performer in puppetry of the penis It's just like such a layup Well, yeah Anyway, Dick Fould Well, he sure folded it James Woods is the star of John Carpenter's Empire The movie we're talking about today Now Ben

[00:25:30] I know you've been doing a lot of extracurricular work Throughout this main series You can read in your big carpenter tome But I don't know if you read the dossiers When JJ our researcher sends them to us Did you see anywhere

[00:25:45] What the title of the book this movie Is based on is? No Well, so I'm going to tell you the title And you're going to go like Uh-huh Yep The title is Vampires Oh Okay, well that's the name of the book Whatever It's not called John Carpenter's Vampires

[00:26:02] But wait There's a spelling difference here Go letter by letter David A M P I R E I'm going to take a sip of my drink here Okay So far so good So far so good, yeah Dollar sign! Yes! Yes! What?

[00:26:24] The book is called Vampires with a dollar sign Fuck, that's good I think one of my favorite fucking books Bits on this show Of all the guesses I had as to where that was going That was not one of them

[00:26:36] I think the idea in the book is that it stresses that they are kind of a for-profit organization A little bit more Right Whereas this is kind of just like they work for the church Right That one's more like they're a for-profit organization

[00:26:48] And if you follow the money, it goes to the church But it's like all the way up I want to point something out about the title of this movie Because I was doing some of my own research Which is something that people do these days You got it

[00:26:59] And I assumed I'd always assumed That it was simply called John Carpenter's Vampires Because of a long standing construction It's always John Carpenter's block But in reality it turns out that there was just a surplus of vampire-related movies Around the middle-A90s

[00:27:15] And so all of the filmmakers had to put their own spin on it Like what? You had Woody Allen's Vampires You had Merchant Nivry's Vampires You famously had Hoshel Shen's Vampires There is Polanski's Vampires To my point that was earlier Sure

[00:27:30] And so it was really more just to That's Vampire Killers Specify the mad Fearless Vampire Killers To specify it from the other wave of vampire movies People were kind of edging on his territory But I'm glad they did John Carpenter's Vampires No, no dollar sign No dollar sign

[00:27:49] I was hoping it was going to be a Z That would be fun Vampires No, it's a novel by Let me get his name John Stakley Oh! Watch out Uh-oh Who wrote two novels One is called Armor And it's kind of like a space thing

[00:28:10] Where guys fight aliens Yeah And one is called Vampire's Ching Which, and then that's when he did He wrote those two books And John Carpenter made a movie of one of them It's called Vampires It came out in 1998 It's about vampires Right, this book is published

[00:28:26] The studios go That sounds like a movie They option it It's a bunch of people Peter Jackson and Raimi Considered doing it All the obvious people you'd imagine Were offered this Or considered doing it And then it lands with Russell McKayhee Of, excuse me, Highlander fame

[00:28:42] And Dolph Lundgren Which sounds like a very different movie Yeah, probably would have worked You know, been a trash Carpenter is super bummed out It sounds like in a certain way He is more despondent than he's ever been In his career at this point Because I think

[00:28:58] Escape from LA had just bombed Should have been some sort of homecoming moment For him a vindication of like full circle The movies that weren't appreciated at the time Had not been canonized I can come back and make a sequel People want to see

[00:29:09] NBA 2K had not yet come out And so he had not fully Correct Invested himself in staying home Correct Right, he didn't know what to do With himself at home Because Nintendo 64 is 97 96, 97 Yeah, 96, 97 That's a fair point So it's like right around the time

[00:29:24] That Escape from LA is coming out He's like, I could stay at home He's like, I could play a lot Banjo-Kazooie I mean, it's gonna make the same It's a good one, isn't it? Fucking specific Fucking Banjo-Kazooie is so funny It's just fun to say It's not fun

[00:29:36] Well, that one's a late N64 We're a little like Banjo-Kazooie I could fit in a little backpack I'm Banjo your Kazooie Yes, yes I'm just some torping bird And you're like a bear Is like, just let me fucking Kazooie's cool Do my thing Banjo's alright though He's alright

[00:29:51] Banjo Or guitar or something He's always taken out Anyway Nick and JJ broke this down In the research They're like, the quotes you get From him in this era Are either the kind of Grizzled bet who's like Eh fuck it This industry's chewed me up

[00:30:04] And spat me out so many times Or the kind of like Look, you know I had not a penny to my name I'm a country boy I got to make movies You know, this kind of like I got any complaints I'm John Carpenter

[00:30:16] It was a nice lot in life Like, let me like I'm trying to find some good ones One day the IFC Center Is gonna make t-shirts That have my name on them I mean this is pretty good I turned 50 in January This is a cliche

[00:30:28] And people don't understand this When you're an older man Adrenaline and coffee You don't do it anymore That's what young kids get That's what That's what young kids get by On or drugs Okay John You can't do it over and over again A director has no lifestyle

[00:30:41] Your personal life suffers terribly This stress is terrible on you So he's basically kind of like Look, I quit because fuck this Right And like, he might feel differently If escape from LA had made 200 million dollars You know, maybe he wouldn't be so Embittered

[00:30:56] But it sounds like more than ever This was the point where he's like I might be done directing I find no joy in this anymore He definitely is no longer like I gotta make another one If one does better Absolutely And after being a movie a year guy

[00:31:08] The gaps are getting longer I mean, this one's only two years But like He's comfortable not making a fucking movie It seems like increasingly And then he gets sent the script And he's like, well this is a Western Like that was the one thing they could do

[00:31:21] To fucking lure him back at this moment In theory is Yes I wonder if there are any quotes that They sourced for you about Him having a similar feeling to the James Wood thing That we were talking about earlier Just recognizing that his particular skill set

[00:31:34] Was gonna be out of vogue soon The horizon aren't limitless for me anymore But I've had a hell of a good life It's a lot of that stuff No, but there were I mean, it's like yes You can scan for these But I'm drunk

[00:31:45] But JJ did pull up a whole bunch of quotes from him Where he was ragging on how post-screen Everything had become post-modern Yeah Winky, tongue in cheek I'll bring this up So this is the thing I play it straight This movie is 1998

[00:31:59] Also in 1998 we have the film Halloween H2O Which some people get mad at me For calling it Halloween H2O And they're like, no it's not It's Halloween Water 20 But it's not It was marketed as 2O Which is why everyone made fun of it

[00:32:13] You have to remember that like H2O We lived through this fucking trailer Where they announced it Like they said it out loud It was called Halloween H2O It is 20 years later I mean that is of course why the letter 2

[00:32:24] Of the number 2 and 0 are next to each other That's the joke and it's funny And we give them comedy points for it So he was offered that movie Perhaps unsurprising But he was like very anti The whole Williamson sensibility Right And it feels like he wasn't alone

[00:32:40] As far as like men of a certain generation Exactly I was just watching On my way over here The Ciskel and Ebert review And one of the things That people fucking love Ciskel loves it and says Chance what should win best actor

[00:32:53] And I think he went on to do that But the thing that he Sites as his favorite thing about it Is that there are no teenagers in it Yes That's a big sticking point And Ebert who didn't like it is like

[00:33:04] You know but I like that there were no teenagers in it He calls them teeny boppers Oh that's a darn Teeny boppers always burn They're deely boppers Makes my skin crawl But yeah I mean this was A real change of pace from the screams

[00:33:16] And I know what we did last summer At this point like Wes Craven's On top of the fucking world right He's like reestablished himself As the biggest name in horror And he like has launched a new franchise Sure And he's now gonna get to make his like

[00:33:28] His violin movie yes Right his like fucking Miramax Oscar bait film And not be pigeonholed into the genre anymore And also get to make his sequels and whatever But to some degree You wonder if Carpenter's looking at him Like a scantz going like

[00:33:43] Yeah but you sold all of us out You know like now none of us can make The fucking feminist thing anymore Because you had to have the fucking last say No but I think Wes Craven is like Was always kind of annoyed by Freddie

[00:33:57] Like he makes this incredible movie The other difference between Craven and Carpenter Is Craven very openly was like I was never a guy who liked horror It was my way in and then I sort of ran it as a business

[00:34:07] And it was cheap to make and it was how he got in theaters And like he was like you know His Freddie movie is so good and it's not that related To the rest of Freddie No no no no Not even talking about Nightmare on Elm Street

[00:34:19] It's a wonderful movie but I'm saying like Where they take Freddie from there There's only a little bit of that in his movie And I think he doesn't like particularly like the sequels He thinks they're goofy even though they're Super fun and Freddie's in them and he's bad

[00:34:31] And then he comes back with New Nightmare Which is a movie that has like two kills in it Total And has lots of scenes of Wes Craven As himself being like Freddie came to me in a dream And much like Scream is him

[00:34:43] He's like he's constructing the thing that he did Right but with Scream Kevin Williamson is like But the movie should be like really fun Like you know on rails It also works It also works I love New Nightmare It's just a very strange

[00:34:59] It does not function properly as a genre movie It's not scary I think that was the Scream Scream is super scary The thing with Scream And I bet you feel like that new Have you seen the new trailer for the new Scream Like

[00:35:15] I ride or die for Hayden Panettiere's haircut And Scream 4 After that I close the book of Scream Well it's got this It's clearly trying to do the Drew Barry more sequence from Scream But now there's like an app That locks the doors

[00:35:29] Or whatever it's trying to update it And you're watching it and you're just like Oh right, like Wes Craven killed it so hard In the first 10 minutes of Scream Which is so scary and so clever And it's kind of like why make more Screams

[00:35:41] It kind of did it there The 8th grade dance that fall that Scream came out Wearing the Scream mask like a friend of mine Like sprinted up to me In a crowded room And I remember that feeling of like mortal terror Like I had never felt like

[00:35:55] Scream has to be the last time That like a horror icon Was actually Scary in that kind of way You know where like the mere presence, the iconography Like a certain point, Scream movie comes along And it becomes silly Scream mask

[00:36:11] It was genuinely scary for a couple years Sort of seems like Ben's energy Yeah, I think I had the mask I think I went You ran up to me in my 8th grade dance That might have been a shadow novel I'll just say I always still

[00:36:25] Think about the joke Liver alone From the movie It's such a throwaway mind None of you guys remember that He's taken place, what's the Lillard It's his character And he's like making basically like a bad cheeky joke He's like liver alone

[00:36:43] Like joking that her liver was removed from her body Anyway, love the movie You have big Matthew Lillard energy I was like Marie yesterday said you are shaggy Or the way we do guys Like in the same way that James Woods is mad

[00:36:57] He couldn't be Barry Pepper in 25th hour I think Matthew Lillard is kind of mad That he aged out of playing Hosley and Ben Hosley by That's true Landry Jones came in shanked But you could play like old Ben In like a sort of Old man Hosley

[00:37:13] Oh in the western that they make Here's Kevin Williamson On Carpenter declining That the Halloween age show job He wasn't interested in all at all It's silly, he's a wonderful director John was on some vampire movie Brood

[00:37:29] And he said you know what I'm not interested in doing the same movie again And it's funny because that quote reads to me like Williamson is like Can you believe this guy? I can believe that He just fucking made the slang Plisken movie

[00:37:39] That people had demanded for 15 years And then no one liked it So he's like why would I fucking go back to the well on any of this shit And then This thing also we should mention the other part of it is

[00:37:49] That his deal on Halloween was so shitty And he never made as much money on Halloween as other people He had a lot of resentment Where I feel like I've had other times read quotes from him When they were trying to lure him back

[00:37:59] I think even maybe for resurrection as well His attitude was always like I will do it if you give me like the reparations pay And they were always like what no My salary has to be making up for the fact That I didn't have profit participation

[00:38:11] Right God I would love to see him direct Resurrection with everything else The script, Buster Rybes Everything else has to be the same Only Junker and to see like How much of an improvement would occur Yeah Here's Carpenter's quote And it's in every movie now

[00:38:29] And the horror movie has it now with scream It's a postmodern style where the filmmakers Acknowledging to you, you're watching a horror movie And things are borrowed from everywhere And you refer to things and wink at the audience It's playing to the perceived cynicism

[00:38:41] In the audience out there today It's in action movies, it's in everything And this movie Vampires has None of that I mean there are like four quotes Like the one you just read That JJ was able to pull up

[00:38:55] The links that like that's why I took the screenplay I opened it up, I went oh it's a western It's guys hunting vampires They're adults It's just that, it's just that There's no fucking bigger twist on it And whose name does he bring up

[00:39:09] When he reads this script Howard Hawks, it's like he just always is like It's like a Hawks movie and I'm like yes John Yeah sure He finally sort of gets to be in the west And it's gunslingers like this is like Closer to being a western

[00:39:23] Dare I say it, in terms of patina Then anything he's made before Where he can say like assault on precinct 13's a western But it has the trappings of a modern Crime movie you know I'm just thinking like if you dug up Howard Hawks

[00:39:37] And showed him this movie Do you think he'd be like my legacy is Finally, yeah I wasn't with you until Mark Boone Jr. was split from Crotch to shoulder And then I was like I see Where you're pulling from I mean that is the shot that

[00:39:53] It's the thing I remembered most from seeing this movie Look if we were doing this episode over zoom All four of us would have come on with that as our Virtual backup My body would be positioned in the In the middle of the V

[00:40:05] You know and it's funny because That's a trick that's been played in many A horror film right you sort of like The slice and then someone goes like And you're like what Is gonna happen Chopped in half, cubed Right you know head Lopped off and like but the

[00:40:23] Specificness and the nastiness The way it kind of like topples I would say it was a lot to samurai Cinema which is like Really a whole genre built around that moment Of David Is miming being attacked I would also argue cartoons Because you know when you get clobbered

[00:40:41] In the head with the mallet And then your teeth kind of crack apart And fall out into dust And then you have a piece of cheese Or you have the bump in your head That grows six inches past your skull Or you've fallen to become an accordion

[00:40:55] But that shot was If we can go into like When I first encountered This movie You called dibs on this I know where I am in the food chain I knew that men's zookas and Sheer were coming in for whatever they were doing

[00:41:11] They were gonna get a curf Yeah I'm not gonna throw out for the thing 20 favorite movies that were made But even if it was a strategic pick It's not like we said we have three movies left You very quickly were like You gave me a short vampire

[00:41:25] This was the first John Carpenter movie I had never seen I must have been on cable tv Right when it premiered on cable tv There used to be a channel called stars 2 Which formed about 40% of my personality Are you telling me this movie played in rotation

[00:41:39] Deep cable in the early 2000s Not even then In the 1990s it went straight to stars 2 Which was a channel that would only play The same four movies on an endless repeat For a week It's why I saw Magnolia 10 times a week For a couple years

[00:41:55] And it was no worse to wear for that And would occasionally watch vampires a lot And this movie has everything That a 13 year old boy Could possibly want to see in the movie John What's it Mark Boone Jr A lot of arcane talk about the Catholic church And

[00:42:13] James Wood saying chocolate Briefly glimpsed up with a brass Yes, some mild nudity It also has some mild nudity And a lot of gore in the first 15 minutes And I just remember watching it on repeat Mild nudity and a lot of gore

[00:42:27] It is definitely more gore than it is Trashy From Dust Till Dawn Probably a little more equal There's a lot of gore in the official brand You're really in it For the violence You're fucking right there At one point when he's stabbing someone I mean

[00:42:47] And it's just like so close I don't know, it's so disturbing I mean As book ends Ghost of Mars we will talk about Next week was supposed to be Escape 3 Escape from Mars or whatever Right And then Escape from LA is notorious for having

[00:43:05] Some of the most poorly aged CGI The era and Ghost of Mars obviously Has a lot of CGI This feels like his last proper Rubber movie Like Visceral, just sort of like Red Corn Syrup and rubber Yes, which is great Running up against this fucking thing

[00:43:23] We read the reviews from the movies at the time And they're like we get it Carpenter You can put some rubber on screen But where's the story And he was always sort of pushing off Like I'm not a rubber director I'm thinking like I don't know

[00:43:39] They always use that term You know I mean it's the way we talk about CGI Listening to that Siskel and Ebert thing The way they're talking about teenagers Is the way that we might talk today About not being a superhero movie The rubber director thing of just

[00:43:55] All these gags And you watch this movie and I think I like this movie less than the rest of the group But undeniably David stabbing you with a steak I'm turning into flames David is shooting you repeatedly in the face As you're pulled out of a building

[00:44:11] He's yelling strata trucolata I am not But There's something Kind of sentimental about this movie And you're like this is like the end of the rubber era And man does he go out In like a blaze of glory And he really just knows how to shoot this stuff

[00:44:29] Better than almost anyone It's so classily made He hires the right people, they design it well But you just watch all these gags And all of his movies and you're like He lights it better than anyone else He knows where to put the camera

[00:44:43] He knows how long to hold the shot And when to cut Where you just don't get that thing where you're like Oh the shot looks good until this moment That we get with most movies of the sort Absolutely You know I've never been a big John Carpenter guy

[00:44:57] Like the thing is one of the greatest movies ever made I appreciate but don't really do it for me My thing is that his biggest contribution To culture beyond the thing Is Metal Gear Solid And for all of the Seeds that he planted for that

[00:45:11] And I hope there are long sidebars In the Escape from LA episode About Psycho Mantis and all that fun stuff Because in Solid Snake I'll bring up Psycho Mantis But he is a One of the most unpretentious Of American filmmakers who has ever been

[00:45:27] That's a good way of putting it And it's kind of And he's proud of it I think the number one thing that has made him Age so well Whereas I am One of the most pretentious Americans Ever been and I'm aging poorly You're aging beautifully You're hot stuff

[00:45:47] But I got my Polywall in the tear since I was like 25 You wear your socks I've gotten jealous of people I just watched in my Re-watch I just got to the Italy episode Of The Sopranos And the moment when he says like

[00:46:03] Can I just get some macaroni with gravy And he's there like eating the squidding pasta I know This is, I think this episode is coming out after Halloween So I can say it safely because I know the world is Waiting with bated breath for this

[00:46:15] That Asa is going to be, my son is going to be Tony Soprano this year And I'm going to be Pauly and my wife Is going to be Furio I don't know if the costume is going to turn out Especially because I think my velour tracksuit was stolen

[00:46:25] Off the front of my porch But anyway Also, I mean in your journey of Going through the various life stages As represented by different Seth Rogen movies you're finally fulfilling this Sort of promise of neighbors Oh that is we are very conscious of the Neighbors credits

[00:46:43] That were real inspiration for us No but you know I've been Struggling to verbalize this Properly in a bunch of half form And in various episodes we've done recently But the sort of like lack of subtlety In Carpenter combined with The The Unpretentiousness, right?

[00:47:03] And how I think so often people Nowadays bump up against Tonal weirdness and things like that But I was reading all these quotes Him bagging on screen and all of that Did kind of crystallize for me Why I think Carpenter is like More well regarded now

[00:47:19] Than he ever has been Because he is a very Literal director Like there is not ambiguity in that And there is not the pomp and circumstance of it He's just like telling you what he's telling you Very straight and also very concerned

[00:47:33] With entertaining you at the same time And I think his sensibility Has more And more whether it's because of his influence Or just the way that people's Brains are broken lined up with the way People like to process genre movies And I think that he thinks, reminds me

[00:47:49] Especially listening to you talk about it just now A lot of Soderbergh Had the absolute opposite of his Skill for being Malleable and adjusting To the climate If he could not change his ways And was just pissed off at everything Just dug his heels in the sand

[00:48:07] Like they are Similarly I think pragmatic In a certain way But it's not like a blue collar It's like alien It's just an unromanticized vibe This is what this movie is And it goes back to the quote that you Had at the beginning of the episode

[00:48:25] It's just vampires minus All of the romanticized Flowery bullshit that's been put on to them And that unfortunately manifests In a lot of homophobia in this movie But just because James Woods really picks up That ball and runs with it But there's a feeling of

[00:48:41] Like this is not your daddy's Vampires like this isn't about The stakes and the garlics and all that shit And then it is of course also about all that shit But they really make a song and dance And it feels like the very premise of this

[00:48:53] Movie as like a commercial proposition Is like imagine what John Carpenter does With vampires Like calling the movie John Carpenter's Vampires is like holy fucking shit Like what does this take gonna be Right it's not called John Carpenter's Like steak Stabbers or whatever It's very direct

[00:49:13] John Carpenter has vampires What's he got and he's like They're like trashy roadies You need to stab like 80 times But it's also like James more Interested in vampire hunters Than in dramatically Ending the tropes of the vampire Which he's just sort of stripping it away

[00:49:31] And returning it to basics No gothic stuff They're just feral monsters They're not romantics They live their nests are essentially Meth-thens And you just have to drag them into the sunlight And they're like eugh But let's say in terms of Energy And mythology and what have you

[00:49:53] They're not that different from say Like near dark Minus the punk element Even in near dark They talk and they go to bars And they're kinda cool Except for Valak who you know Is a little player He's kinda fun But the rest of them are just like

[00:50:13] They're kinda just like drug addicts They're just, yeah They're just low life Somewhere where he's talking about how Like his vampires wouldn't have time To intellectualize any of the things All they need to do is eat and tear shit apart Right And what a life

[00:50:31] The vampire movie started out as a gothic romance Bramstroker's Dracula is about a tragic figure His vampire kinda became a friendly uncle And now we have cute little Buffy He clearly doesn't like Buffy This is 98 so it's like early Buffy But Buffy's also falling into that post-modern

[00:50:45] It is Right And her fanged friends in her living rooms each week My vampires are savage creatures There isn't a second of brooding loneliness in their existence They're too busy ripping humans apart They'd have torn Buffy's liver out Another liver reference Before she knew what happened

[00:51:03] Root to Buffy, super strong Yeah I mean no joke intended But it's like he wanted to get the bleeding heart shit out of vampires Yes And like of course also in Buffy it's like She hits you once And it's like she's hitting the putty patrol

[00:51:17] On the center button and they explode Where as this you really just gotta You know, you make sure they're dead Right, he's a little more interested in The process He also doesn't like the Anne Rice type Vampire Misunderstood lonely vampire

[00:51:33] I do, I mean we I'm sure we will talk At length about the jet Fuel fucking explosions That come out of the vampires But there's a great shot towards the end where you see James Woods with the stuntman Something good for him like rolling away

[00:51:47] Out away from the explosion Which is the opposite of the Buffy thing Where it's like as soon as you stab them in the heart They sort of cease to be a physical presence It's just like hit the fucking deck Cause I'm gonna get caught on fire

[00:51:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah I mean that monologue Is him like Eliminating all of the supernatural Elements to killing a vampire And just reducing it to like you just gotta Fucking hack them to shit Sure do, watch out for those fuckers Yeah with this really antiquated object

[00:52:17] It doesn't entirely line up With the mythology involved With the Catholic Church and all of that Because inevitably you have to get into that use of symbolism Yeah, and things of that nature And I wonder if John Carter, John Carpenter John Carter? They both have Mars in common

[00:52:35] I liked it There's something there If like this hadn't been the John Carpenter thing Of oh the budget is gonna be Sliced to ribbons the night before the shoot Which at this point you would think you would just expect It was like two weeks before filming

[00:52:49] It went from 60 to 20 million dollars And he rewrote the whole screenplay There had been two different drafts written by different Men in the development period of this film And when they cut the budget He was like I'm gonna take both those drafts

[00:53:01] I'm gonna take the book and I'm gonna pick and choose And find the things that are cheapest to execute I think he kind of I think that the book is maybe a little more Expansive and he was like we're just gonna have four characters

[00:53:11] For most of the movie Well really it'll be James Woods We haven't even talked about him But Mr. Daniel Baldwin Esquire Cheryl Lee and Tim Gunny Is he related to Roman You imagine the 60 million dollar Version of this movie is the first 15 minutes for the whole movie

[00:53:29] Instead you know I put on my monocle and check it out And at some point it was supposed to be It would be cool The beginning I am so fucking in When they open The door and that crew comes out And they start assembling their fucking gear

[00:53:45] I am just I have mahogany I love how they I love how they Look like roadies They've all got their Crate of shit Maybe Prince of Darkness notwithstanding He just doesn't seem super interested In the religiosity of it all That feels like a burden

[00:54:07] Prince of Darkness he was Prince of Darkness he's also kind of like I've been reading a lot of Scientific American And it's kind of like what if religion is He's sort of high On like molecule I don't fucking remember but did we counterpoint

[00:54:21] That there was some movie after Prince of Darkness Where the church is like the one Benevolent force that actually gets things Right? In Prince in the film No in a different there's a different God's not dead There's a different Carpenter post

[00:54:33] Prince of Darkness I'm forgetting where it was Like the framing of the church is the exact opposite You imagine that he'd be like I don't know That's what the story needed Wait you're right And what is it now I'm going crazy I know

[00:54:43] Were you not talking about vampire because the church Is seen as the only thing that's sort of Is a bad boy Yes I mean It was one of the ones right after Wasn't memoirs Of an invisible man No

[00:54:53] Church didn't play a big role in it Oh it's they live Yes It's they live where The church is secretly this counter Of redistributive Right But it's a specific church I mean the church does Not come off you know smelling like roses

[00:55:05] And by the way No and I do think Even if they weren't bad guys Sure Their hiring of James Woods might reflect On them yes Prince of Darkness is a very specific church As well it is just passing those two movies are back to

[00:55:15] And both have a specific church and specific You know and as we said it's not one of those Things where I would take that to carpentry and be like I don't know Right Whatever The square had a church This movie is more Interested in like the Catholic

[00:55:27] Church With like a capital T Those robed Motherfuckers Right With Jeweled crosses and you know Secret bank accounts It's kind of crazy It's this really really old institution What is Secretive Wait what? What are you talking about? You know like who knows what like

[00:55:43] Hide it What are you talking about? The Vulturi Well I'm just more saying The Vulturi Yeah fucking Vulturi I'm just saying one of there's like a Secret society You know of like Assassins Okay Wait wait there's nothing to do with the Apple Yeah they're looking for that Apple

[00:56:05] Original sins Kind of a part of it No I had So dark the Cono man The Da Vinci Code Young Carpenter should have made the Da Vinci Code He would have kicked ass Or Assassin's Creed should have made a game about vampires Or John Carpenter should have made

[00:56:25] Assassin I mean that's actually He would love that That's my take That's what he should do They should get him to direct the episode of the Netflix show Oh god they should Random episode Yeah Four Which one do you want John? I don't know four Alright

[00:56:43] Is there a TV show Is it a TV show? So far all they've done in two years is release a Logo and it's the Assassin's Creed one I mean I see today Big A But it's like redder than you think Because it's Netflix and it goes to dumb

[00:57:00] The Catholic Church Yes John Carpenter like you said Gryff, he wrote the script He wanted it to be Story He wanted the movie to Be pushed to the limit And it sure was it got an NC 17 And they had to cut like 20 seconds

[00:57:18] Which I think is now restored I feel like the Blu-ray I'm watching probably has it back in You bought the Blu-ray I shh Absolutely it's a shout factor Scream Factory But surprise surprise He wanted Clint Eastwood Did he He did

[00:57:40] I want the type of guy you never expect At the center of a picture like this You know not teeny bopper kids Gotta be Clint like every fucking time He just wants Clint Clint's pretty I'd watch it

[00:57:54] Clint would only do it if you could sing a song of the In Credits The studio wanted Casper Van Dien That was who the studio was at He's from Starship Troop That is so They wanted a hunky young leading man I guess it just must have been

[00:58:12] Yeah and at that point in time Everyone's just like That's maybe the beginning of The fucking Blond handsome pretty boy has to be Center of a franchise even if he's ever been in a movie before Thing where they're just sort of like

[00:58:26] Get a guy who looks like a kindall He needs to look like an action figure That'll convince the audience Whereas Carpenter correctly was like This guy needs to be Like someone who's you think has been fighting Vampires for a long time He needs to be grizzled and older

[00:58:42] Orly Irmey Can you imagine Orly Irmey is very chill Right What I read is that everyone else Carpenter Suggested past And then the studio was like under No fucking circumstances Is this movie gonna start Orly Irmey He had considered Clint Eastwood Kurt Russell

[00:59:04] Bill Paxton, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci Ooh maybe Oh man Fuck this motherfucker I gotta stab him in the chest The thing is that like I could picture Joe Pesci In the lead role of this action movie Which is not a thing you can say about many action movies

[00:59:18] No I think that's what's interesting about it The quote was he wanted to avoid Having quote Just another muscle bound meat Head Orly Irmey was the one guy who would have done it And Columbia was like No fucking way And then James Woods

[00:59:36] Was sort of like a good compromise for everybody Right where that's still a known actor He's got Oscar money, he's got put him above the title Not something I've heard said about James Woods In a while The other element of this It was supposed to really be framed

[00:59:50] As a two-hander of course Between Woods and Baldwin and I speak of Alec Baldwin Was supposed to do this fucking movie And I think that probably made them more comfortable With James Woods being the lead Right and then well that's how Daniel Baldwin

[01:00:04] Got all his roles right they'd be like Alec You're here right and he's like it's me Alec And then he like signs his name Daniel And they're like he's like it's too late I signed the contract You have to hire me now

[01:00:14] I don't want to be too fucking mean here But it is wild how much Like when you watch A Billy Baldwin or a Stephen Baldwin You go they have their own thing going on They have their own thing And you watch Daniel and Daniel is just Like Walgreens

[01:00:30] Suda fed Where it's like compare two I mean that's what you could say It's more like you see Billy Baldwin And you're like hmm no this guy's got Too much credibility trash here You know what I mean right it's like Billy Baldwin Isn't good enough for you

[01:00:46] Daniel Baldwin is the Tom Saiz more of Baldwin Wow I think of like the SpongeBob meme but of course like The version of that which is like the Mr. Shake Yes But he feels like a compromise between Alec and Stephen because James

[01:01:02] Must have wanted Stephen so they could talk about Their early neocon beliefs And then Alec is just sort of the happy Medium I mean Daniel's I will say Daniel just feels Like a guy you hire to play Alec Baldwin At a birthday party where your budget's pretty limited

[01:01:16] I will remind people that right At this moment he was on homicide Life on the streets which is not a Show exactly but it's a very well-regarded Show and he's good on it But this is also like the moment he leaves the show

[01:01:28] It's right around when he leaves he probably was like I just got the vampire movie see you fuckers later This is the moment like his life starts By rolling out of control Like he's having his second highly publicized Rehab stint I believe when this movie Is being released

[01:01:42] He looks a little worse for wear I'll say in a nice kind way He looks like Alec Baldwin 15 years later I feel like He's the best actor who ever lived No, whereas with Tom sighs more You know a notoriously Horrible person whose life is Constantly in chaos

[01:02:00] But he's very compelling on screen Everything that all the demons Of this guy are registering On camera in a way that is Like man there's like a fucking storm inside of this Dude and you watch Daniel Baldwin You're like is this guy like doing Okay you don't have

[01:02:16] The juice of like man he's like a fucking A wild animal you're just sort of like Is this guy gonna forget his lines This is Tom sighs more Every time I see him on screen Knowing full well about his offscreen struggles You always want that character

[01:02:30] To turn out well You want some goodness to emerge from there And from Steve with Steven Baldwin You just don't have the sense that there's anything happening Daniel Let me shoot The Baldwin challenge at you Griffin Can you name the four Baldwin actors In order of age

[01:02:48] Who's the oldest to the youngest Yeah, Alec is the oldest Correct born in 1958 I want to say Then it is Steven Daniel born in 1960 Second oldest Number two that's why when Alec didn't get it Or he couldn't do it he was like

[01:03:10] By the laws of the Baldwin brother It's first right of refusal Then Steven then it's Billy Then Billy 63 Steven's the baby Steven reads as the baby which is why I thought he's deceptively older He is the youngest of the Baldwin brothers

[01:03:26] But of course he's the baby I was overthinking To reference the Sopranos Griffin You do not know yet possible Currently on season 2 of There is a later season arc in which A movie is made and he is In the movie Daniel

[01:03:42] He's a joke being like it's the kind of Direct to video movie that he would be in He's well cast There's a line I think where Tony says He's a tough motherfucker and I always thought If I was Daniel Baldwin I would take that home with me

[01:03:56] That's good It's a really thankless, yes he's on the best show That has been made at best But he's playing someone where you're like They only got Daniel Baldwin They had to do him a solid to make it worth as While showing some love

[01:04:10] He's in the film he plays Tony Montoya Can you imagine Can you imagine if fucking Alec Baldwin Was in this movie? It would be better I would love Like maybe even 5 years younger Alec Baldwin I'm trying to think where's Alec Baldwin in 98

[01:04:24] Or 5 years older he's in a weird spot At this exact moment But you still have to imagine He's a big carpenter fan He always wanted to work with carpenter He like actively sought out this movie And then it was scheduling problem

[01:04:38] The edge because that was one of those movies That's 97 Park the Bear does not adjust to schedule for anyone Exactly, he had just been In Ghosts of Mississippi with James Woods So they're a double act This movie like two weeks before it's about

[01:04:52] To start filming is suddenly like Your budget is a third of what you thought it was And the Baldwin you have is a third of what You thought it was Alec we're replacing Alec with another Baldwin Alright I'll take Billy It's not Billy

[01:05:06] I can take a pass at the screenplay Is it one of the Baldwin's that has that hair Yes Oh shit Yeah Alec you know he's in Mercury Rising this year which I think he's The sort of second lead in He's sort of the Colin Farrell

[01:05:22] To the Minority Report It would be better with Alec Baldwin I'm not going to say that everyone In this movie is you know Everyone else is pretty good Cheryl Lee is well cast I mean not the greatest role The problem regarding cast of this movie

[01:05:38] Is not the caliber of the actors they got But how poorly they use some of the great Actors from here I think the problem is You would rather that someone like Mark Boone Jr stays around for the rest of the Rounding Time rather than the rest of the

[01:05:52] Movie being hinged on Daniel Baldwin And Tim Gunny, I don't want to be Mean about that guy either Gwynny however you say his name Carrie, Hiroyuki, Tegawa Nice and he disappears Yeah But Tim Gunny you know he's okay It's just all of these good people

[01:06:10] Being sort of misused or underused Makes every time they cut back To Montoya a little more Irksome because you're just like I'm not really interested in this guy For me I would say that I I'm only interested in him So far as I'm trying to figure out

[01:06:28] To what degree he should be put in jail Like once And we'll get there with the plot But when his decision is to Tie, Cheryl Lee, nude in bed Butt side up as if sheets Weren't invented until the early 2000s Is a choice Particularly for two characters who

[01:06:48] In their five minutes of screaming together are supposedly In love Well and James Woods has that Faustian thing where you're like This guy's a piece of shit I don't like anything he's fucking doing on screen He's compelling and then when Daniel Baldwin is playing a guy

[01:07:02] Doing equally unsavory things You're just like yeah I don't want to watch this anymore Don't put this in front of me I don't like this there's no Yeah it's also the thing that he's abusive But then Kind of Eventually starts to warm up to her

[01:07:18] And it's like just You know the Typical example of like Abusive relationship and it's just As much as you're like oh well actually Maybe he has a little heart You can't remove yourself from like He was just they're treating her like

[01:07:34] Basically she's just like a piece of trash Yeah Well they're turning into vampires Well right she's about to turn into A vampire therefore she's dead But also she is still Live technically and they're Dragging her around on the fucking street Yeah it's all true

[01:07:52] I think there's sort of Does not play in a way That registers as humane at all But I think they're sort of going for this idea That they've been hunting vampires for so long And James Woods character himself has seen Such grisly things in his own family

[01:08:06] That they have sort of lost any sort of compassion For other people And in the way that That is channeled in his late 90s effect It becomes that they are basically The most misogynistic people alive Wait as much as this movie Is not post modern

[01:08:22] Have that like post-terrentino cynicism To it I must read this quote from Cheryl Lee About preparing to play this character I would like to meet someone now Who thinks they were a vampire In researching them for this film There was a lot of comical stuff about them

[01:08:38] I need the serious stuff But yeah it's kind of freaky to go Yeah I'd like to meet a vampire So Cheryl Lee I don't think she succeeded No But probably made a phone call and was like I'd love to talk to them

[01:08:52] I have met people who identify as vampires I'm surprised it was that hard to find Maybe the 90s were just a harder time Well you know internet Who have you met who identifies as a vampire You know those fucking comic conventions I've gone to in my life

[01:09:06] And they're like hello My name is Vlad Where you're like oh nice teeth And they're like yeah I hired a dental surgeon People who are just like pot committed And yet they still went to a comic con convention During the day Wow Did they have a black staff

[01:09:26] I cannot conjure a specific memory I definitely in the various fucking nerdy Spheres That's one of them Wesley Snipes Because that would explain why they were able to go out with the son Everyone just wants to be the day walker In these movies

[01:09:40] It's always the plot, what if I could be Wesley Snipes He's the only one who can walk both worlds Well and it's worth noting of course That's the same pretty much around when this movie comes out Which doesn't help this movie I was thinking about that a lot

[01:09:52] Vlad really just goes like And this is the vampire movie that everyone wants to see in 1998 That's the thing I think John Carpenter's like yeah I'm going to give you a gritty western Where the vampires are just kind of like trash creatures

[01:10:02] And Vlad's like we're going to give you like a fucking MTV Movie where Vlad's got a cool sword And the vampires go to clubs And people are like One ticket Not only that it's the movie that casts And the story is like Everything's going to superheroes

[01:10:18] We're taking a fucking horror premise And we're yanking it over the line to superhero And then everything is going to get pulled in this direction I'd say the only middle ground in that Venn Diagram Is with the villains With Thomas Ian Griffith and Stephen Dorff

[01:10:30] Are basically giving off the same energy But in very different Different vibes I like Blade I do too We talk because you rewatched them Fairly recently We could do them We're always dancing around What was fucking ruled in the lead role of this movie Is Chris Christopherson Sure

[01:10:54] I mean I think James Woods rules in that It's just you're thinking of all these guys who are that energy Where it's like they've been around the block They used to be hot Now they're Whatever Pesci is the version of this movie

[01:11:10] I just would have liked to have seen Because it just would have been such an interesting object You just want more Pesci in general The advantage of Woods in this is that Woods has such Good comic delivery Like Woods has that thing where I'm just like

[01:11:22] Why am I fucking laughing at this That I think Pesci was able to pull off as well At his peak where he's just like This guy's a fucking psychopath Let's go on fishing I think he was still fishing when they made this That was part of the issue

[01:11:36] But more like inscorsese dramas Like dammit why is this guy fucking winning me over He's a monster And obviously the script plays a large part of this But when you cast James Woods this becomes a movie About what if the most

[01:11:48] Loathsome person alive was all that stood between Us and the apocalypse Right You're not really rooting For him You're rooting against the Catholic church You're rooting against the church who seem bad And vampires who also seem Bad but it's sort of a dark world out there

[01:12:06] Is the reader of vampires This is the guy who we are counting on And he's kind of the like I'm the guy who fucking takes care of the things You don't want to think about type guy I've seen things you wouldn't believe

[01:12:18] It's the lack of romance up it Being a vampire hunter Sure you get to have these Orgiastic parties if you do the job right One night that don't always end well And the local sheriff is just totally chill With a spine Absolutely

[01:12:34] The job is not a romantic one You get weapons He's got no love interest There's a little bit of the Fucking you're never really Hear thing of just like This guy's life is committed to a thing that sucks That he hates that's draining The joy out of him

[01:12:52] He's like a husk of a man Who just exists on cynicism alone I feel like there's some other movie we've talked about Where you have that kind of character Where the guy is just A little defensive sarcasm Because it's just like He's just seen too much shit

[01:13:08] And he doesn't believe humanity is capable of good anymore I mean my favorite line delivery in this entire Movie is James Woods at the end to Maximilian Shell Saying like you know you're a real pilot Dog shit carcinal Which is just like such an incredible straight shot

[01:13:22] And I was just like fuck And then he follows it up with like two more homophobic Slam because I'm like a pole smoker And a fudge packer and like the next Like a run on sense but just You're a real pile of dog shit carcinal

[01:13:34] It's such a good thing To have James Woods say To Maximilian Shell To like this August The Reverse Heal Turn whatever that the character takes In this movie where he just hazes The new Padre to hell and back For the better part of an hour

[01:13:52] And then as soon as You're a pretty good kid You're a pretty good kid There is not a line of dialogue in this Movie there is no scene Where two men are speaking to each other Or a man is speaking to anyone else

[01:14:06] Where they are not measuring dicks And the scene that epitomizes that Iconically for me is when Daniel Baldwin is checking into the hotel There should be no aggression here He's like slightly harried about the fact That Cheryl Lee is turning into a vampire

[01:14:20] In the car but like he's got no problem with this guy He goes in and he's just like hey And the guy's like oh yeah we got a room and he's like fuck you Give me the fucking key They're all just like yeah so Everyone relaxed

[01:14:32] They're all so hair trigger You know they're a little worked up because they're vampire hunters They are Do you think they get vacation time? You don't have to pick it up with either James Woods or the Catholic Church Right I'm just wondering if they have benefits

[01:14:48] I'm guessing Ben The obvious benefit they have Which I imagine is your favorite part of the movie Is their vampire hunt Van They got a classic van full of weird Silver Aluminum tech Dude the design of all of their shit It's beautiful doesn't it

[01:15:08] There's like obviously just the Classic like wood Stakes that look amazing But like that huge Like staff or whatever With the spike on it And then James Fucking harpoon gun Very cool I was like searching You can buy a harpoon gun But once again it's like

[01:15:32] You can get a crossbow There's a space for it in your beautiful cabinet Full of antique plates You have 15 minutes of a 60 million dollar movie Right where it's almost a little more Ghostbusters E In the sort of process of how The game operates And the equipment and everything

[01:15:54] And then it becomes The argument is Might it just be more fun to have a vampire hunter movie Where it's just a bunch of guys hunting vampires They're just the best of what they fucking do I mean I believe the book has the same premise

[01:16:06] Where there's the early setback Valka up here People die, they have to chase them or whatever But I think Carpenter had to make the setback more devastating This movie certainly slows down I'm not gonna deny it But it's also anytime the vampires are in sunlight It's like

[01:16:22] And then they explode But do you remember that? I do, and if you stab them you have to be like Ahhhh I really enjoy it, it really feels like A jetliner is taking off In someone's arm every time They are exposed to sunlight Which is a great look

[01:16:40] And Ben if you could incorporate that into Like day to day fashion Just plumes of Fire It was in effect they worked hard on We want the combustion to be unique If anyone can do it I'm sure it's you I think I could come up with something there

[01:16:56] Workshop that for later But this is a movie when you look at the budget That they ran with, the 20 million dollars I have to say I'm like Where is it? I don't even see the 20 million dollars On screen here Was James Woods 15 mil for this

[01:17:12] Was he at the Shinkari numbers? I think Carpenter has gotten I don't want to say sloppy But he used to be so good at maximizing Every dollar and putting everything on screen It's very easy If your movie costs More than 6 million dollars To then cost 20 million dollars

[01:17:30] Which is just sort of like Bloat and sort of laziness And lack of oversight or whatever Where I just think it costs more money Because it costs more money It's this type of movie Where I can't let things go Rather than being very strategic

[01:17:46] Where can I save a nickel here And reapply it there I wonder if all the money went into the fire In which case? Worth it I forgot to mention this And this may reflect poorly on John Carpenter But whatever His quote is

[01:18:04] One of the things I like the most About making vampires Is I was hanging out with the bad boys Three years after the original bad boys I'm very relieved that That quote ends when it does Yeah, it's not like you said

[01:18:18] We would go to bars and get in a lot of trouble Like it's not that bad But he is sort of like those are some bad boys Cause when I watch this movie It's no question about it Jeffrey enjoys his personal life It's not bad

[01:18:32] I mean it just feels like the toxic energy That was wafting off of this set To me it feels like I would rather be on the set Of like fucking Heart of darkness Or like her son's La Soufière But I would say that what you're describing

[01:18:46] I would say adds to the Je ne sais quoi It is a movie that feels like it smells terrible Exactly The bad boys It smells like cigars It smells like your uncle I'm just picturing like Brendan Fraser and B. Devoldt Being transported

[01:19:04] He's like I wish I could be on a John Carpenter set The vampires and the weapons And he's like yeah it's amazing And then he sees James Woods walk out And he's like no Elizabeth Hurley you foiled me again Daniel Baldwin They should have just run with it

[01:19:18] And had this poster be Woods Baldwin Cause the poster also all the guys are kind of in silhouette They might have been able to trick them Just Woods Baldwin No first names I'm looking at what he's got going on He's well boss baby He's considering the source

[01:19:34] He's considering the source Apparently he's in something called Super Cell Okay It sounds like a disaster movie He was in Doctor Death That's the thing Now actors will be in whole mini series That appeared on some That one's Peacock Where like a friend of mine will be like

[01:19:54] Did you watch Doctor Death and I'm like What are you talking about And then like Alec Baldwin Christian Slater And I'm like what person Which one Jackson He's Doctor Death And it's about a real guy Who killed people This all happened

[01:20:12] Every time I walk by one of those subway ads It feels like threat level midnight Or some shit Feels like something that came out Or was supposed to come out at the start of the pandemic And then just left the posters up and became Vaporware It's so bizarre

[01:20:28] Baldwin would be better We agree with that Yeah I think he would have relished Not having to be the The dude Imagine Baldwin playing this With the energy of Married to the Mob Which was the movie where everyone went like Who the fuck is this guy

[01:20:49] And then when they put him into the leading roles He got a little dulled Marrys to the mob, he has the charisma He's got the danger He plays his death really well Imagine him being I don't know Your chest representation is increasingly rare these days

[01:21:05] And it is something I appreciate Especially God I love Daniel Craig I think he's great I've been so happy to see him play James Bond He's smooth like a fucking shark And then you throw on Tomorrow Never Dies And there's a forest on Pierce's chest A beautiful forest

[01:21:21] Is for the next James Bond to be Dan Hadea Yeah I think I've told I've thanked him on the podcast I realized deep in the pandemic That Dan Hadea lives like two blocks away from me Shit And I was at this little hole in the wall

[01:21:37] Sort of take out place Like sitting outside on a park bench And Hadea I saw him walk out of his apartment building From the front door And I was like is that Dan Hadea He got closer, he walked in He picked up his lunch, he walked away

[01:21:53] And I was like holy shit Dan Hadea I fully recognized him immediately From across the street While wearing a fucking face mask But he was shirtless So that's what gave it away Erlich, he had two layers on He had a tight collar but the way

[01:22:09] The hair was spilling out You always see it It was incredible There was no doubt in my mind that it was Hadea And it was because of the fucking It was the necklace Coming around the collar and the eyebrows It was unmistakably Dan Hadea

[01:22:25] We can never lose him He's 81 years old I won't let him go He should donate his hair to Jerry Orbach's eyes You can see an ad on the subway That someone now is walking around with a full hair of head He's one of our great Jews

[01:22:39] One of our great Jews Who plays Jewish people sometimes But plays Italian people all the time The totalis Exactly, you're like oh that guy's Italian But he's not David, you have a hairy chest A wonderfully hairy chest Add it to the blank check wikipies

[01:22:57] You told me the other day What your son likes to call your arms Oh yes What does he call your arms? So we read Pat the Bunny Which is a phenomenal book And there's a page in Pat the Bunny that makes me laugh every single time

[01:23:13] That my almost two year old son obviously doesn't understand Where it says like it asks the child To touch daddy's scratchy face And if you say To ace the touch daddy's scratchy face He will stop whatever he's doing And run his fingers across my face

[01:23:27] It's like a fucking nail file Right? Like the texture in the book itself Which is how my face feels For half of every week Much to my wife's great chagrin And then you can say touch daddy's scratchy arms He calls it daddy's scratchy arms

[01:23:41] I just found that very true Although my arms are more fluffy than scratchy I just like calling it daddy's scratchy arms That could be the name of a fucking hipster bar Ace is so cool I watched the video of him declining to hug you And taking the keys

[01:23:55] That's the one you're having to say too It's so funny Keys and you're like can I get a hug and he goes no And give him the keys Only once the keys Kids man gotta love them Something that I agree Jack Crow never got the chance to have

[01:24:11] Is that the character from Vampires What a great name Jack Crow is It's James in quotes Jack It's John actually And team crow It's a fact they call themselves team crow I mean pretty cool name for a team You asked me for a vampire hunting team

[01:24:27] We're not gonna go into the plot of this movie Here's the plot of the movie The fucking Catholic church Is like this vampire is really bad Then they realize They didn't find like What do they call it the grandfather of the group or whatever The master

[01:24:43] So they go on this larger mission But the master kills like fucking most of his men And they assign him This junior priest Who tells him that the problem is that he's got a cross Yeah he's trying He wants to get a cross that will make him immortal

[01:24:57] And able to walk during the day He's trying to become a dude He is Valak, he's the original vampire I just wanted to say that every time he meets somebody He beats them up and like Throws them out of a car like immediately

[01:25:09] The scene with the pet scene is amazing It's fucking crazy, he just met this guy It's because everyone keeps accusing him of doing cocaine The other funny thing is he's called Valak Which is like a demon name From the Lesser Key of Solomon

[01:25:21] Which is then the name that the conjuring Two uses for the nun And the crooked man Like the villain of that movie But it's like both times They're just like that's a cool name Nothing to do with vampires or nuns

[01:25:35] I also love that he just had a trading card Made in the 1300s Of himself He was fucking cool Yeah he was ahead of the game He was making merch He's played by Thomas E. N. Griffiths Who is very tall and fairly imposing

[01:25:53] Is that not the same name as the kid from Thomas E. Nichols Thomas E. Nichols is the rookie of the year He was our rookie of the year He was a kid in King Arthur's court

[01:26:03] And then he of course is the most compelling character in the American Pie saga I can't tell you how many times I deliberately broke my arm As a 12 year old just hoping that I would Magic in the year Wait in American Pie Is he with Tara Reid

[01:26:15] Correct and he is very much the character That you can tell was intended to be The lead of the movie and everyone else Pops more than him and he just sticks Around the whole franchise and never really has anything to do I think they drop him in three

[01:26:27] He may not even be in three, I do remember that because Tara Reid, he's in three Klein has dropped him Oh Klein has dropped him Wow, Street Fighter Legend He was too hot. I watched all four of them In one night recently What's the four? Union baby

[01:26:43] Oh three is wedding And I believe they made Direct to video ones in between Three and four Correct But Thomas E. Nichols you can tell Everyone else has their role and he's supposed to be The center force The reason that he's the one who gets the advice from

[01:27:01] Casey Affleck And he's a boring character And by American wedding They're just like we have no idea who this guy is Like we have nothing to do with him From what I remember of American Pie Of course the four boys want to lose their virginity

[01:27:15] They do that is in fact the central conflict And Jason Biggs loses it to Shannon Elizabeth No To Allison Hannigan Right, sorry He blows it with Nadia Finch? He loses his virginity to Jennifer Collins Chris Klein loses it to Nobody they decide not to Him and Mina Suvarie

[01:27:37] Lay in each other's arms and watch the sun rise And realize it's not And here's what I was getting to Thomas E. Nichols loses it to Tara Reid But their sex scene is that they're kind of lying Awkwardly on each other and he's like does this hurt

[01:27:49] And she's like yeah a little bit And it's like a honest depiction Of teenage virginity Which is also supposed to be the straight man Protagonist And he's like, I'm not gonna fuck your friends mom on a pool table It's just gonna be kind of like you okay

[01:28:03] And she's like yeah The whole movie is the hand bringing of I don't know if I feel this way and this and that Obviously I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with him And after they sleep together there's like this

[01:28:13] Moment that I think is actually executed very well Where it becomes very clear for both of them Of just like we're never gonna date ever again This is the end So that's the whole thing where I'm like that And our friend Chris White's dreaded that word

[01:28:25] It's the white sensitivity Number one guy Guy who fucked the pie, guy who fucked Stipler's mom The sort of guy from election he was okay And those with main characters Stipler's good It's just funny and then he exists Eastern European lady

[01:28:41] Right and then his role in the second movie is That he and Harry Terror is dating someone else now That they still like each other or something Well it's no way to The man is the follow through of You are way too Hot and advanced for me

[01:28:57] And now we're gonna see the real world implications Of that when you come back to this party with the college It's funny that he just becomes less and less centralized Who's the one Sherman He sleeps with Nadia I watched all four of them

[01:29:11] Five months ago when my gallbladder was exploded Shermanator was an icon, the same actor Stole the gumball machine at the end of Can't Hear the Weight He's fucking incredible Angus Angus my beloved Angus I've never seen Angus David Have you seen Angus? Yeah I lived Angus

[01:29:31] Yeah I mean that was real Deep in the pocket I wish I could remember that actor's name His face will forever be etched in my memory Angus or the Shermanator His fucking name is If he was in something Chris Chris Owen Aside from Eugene Levy

[01:29:51] Eugene Levy the only actor To appear in the Directive video Spin-off American Pies In any of them What's his character's name again? No, no Eugene Levy Jim's dad Are you implying that the Directive Video American Pie sequels were just a one Man movie of Jim's dad

[01:30:11] Well he's in all of them And then there was just one other actor and it was Chris Owen One of them is like Secret Hunter One of them is just Jim's dad From whatever job he does He's got an old copy of Jim's penthouse

[01:30:23] And his office spiraling out Dealing with being an empty nester Talking about his uncle Norm He used to whack it six times a day That's another weird thing They make the parents be divorced In reunion That they split up at some point

[01:30:39] So that Jim's dad can fuck Stiffler's mom That's like the big Was his mom Jane Kazmarek or am I making that up? No, no I want to say it's Molly Cheek From its Gary Shandling show Jane Kazmarek is the mom in Pleasantville Yes, let's see Jim's mom

[01:30:55] Is played by Molly Cheek What did you say? It's Gary Shandling show And then Harry and the Henderson Yeah good, pull grip Now, quick I watched that whole thing the other day And I never had a doubt in my mind I mean no disrespect to Josh

[01:31:13] I didn't know what a Shmo Down was I had to watch it while I ate dinner And Gryff just dismantled That dismantled Josh Like he was a piece of IKEA furniture He was ready to put on the street I didn't feel good about it

[01:31:27] Yeah you did a great job Can you, much like the Baldwin challenge The American Pie Directive Video Challenge Give me the American Pie Directive Video Sequels in order Fuck, okay I'm going to try And this of course is a very very focused episode On James Carpenter

[01:31:43] You have more to say I got on Carpenter's Okay, American Pie, American Pie 2 American Wedding Then I think I think the first Directive Technically this is the American Pie Presents series That's what it's called I think the first Directive Video 1 is Bandcamp Correct, this one time at Bandcamp

[01:32:03] Then I think the next one is Naked Mile They dared run it So then is 3 Book of Love No of course 3 was The most outrageous slice of pie according to this video cover Beta House Wow I have an envelope right here And then They dared

[01:32:25] Bug Hall is the star of The Book of Love, they opened the book That's the one, it's the book that fucking Casey Affleck Hid that tells you how to have sex Apparently someone gets sodomized by a moose In that one and then of course finally What? American Pie

[01:32:39] Girls Rules Wait a second, so girls have rules? This was the post No it was the post Yes, I swear to you this was like fucking 2 years ago It is, it's 2020 This was not even 2 years ago I thought the Me Too thought was like

[01:32:55] We're not just gonna not make more American Pie movies Eugene Levy, the phone rings He lets it ring He's like I got that shit screen quality now He hasn't been in They thought Reunion was gonna restore It to fucking theatrical Grace And then like 3 years later

[01:33:13] They give up and go like let's just do the book smart version Of American Pie where now it's nerdy girls Trying to lose their virginity But I think someone weird Either directed or wrote that movie There's Clint Eastwood Mike Elliott Directed, does not look weird Written by

[01:33:31] David H. Steinberg Who wrote this screenplay for American Pie 2 I don't think it's that guy And Bleen Weaver Maybe this is completely in my head Might be in your head, I don't know Not getting anything here anyway back to vampires

[01:33:47] Can we talk about Cheryl Lee for a second There is Ben's putting on a jacket Ben's out of here There is Ben's leaving his own home In protest In the naked mile American Pie presents Ben Leaves But she is really tapping into some of

[01:34:03] The fire walk with me Energy here of like being Expressing the trauma that was instilled I don't want to That same sort of like jaw Unhinged internal scream Energy to her performance here That I think John Carpenter must have keyed into Knowing that she could

[01:34:21] I will read his line about her He had seen Twin Peaks She has a really unique quality about her I like people who are not exactly on the nose They are a little tweet The producer puts it as She looks like an angel with dirty wings

[01:34:35] She is a mature woman These days are just girls Cheryl is all women I like how John put it She is Sandy King But she is haunted And that's why she is so good in Twin Peaks She feels haunted It feels like you are like

[01:34:53] What's going on with this person Beyond like oh it's the prom queen You should tweet that Cheryl Lee is all women She is all women I'm sorry Last thing I need to say about this I was just trying to figure out why I had a weird memory

[01:35:07] About this The story is that The green light American Pie presents It was supposed to be called East Great Falls And it was just like back to basics Four dudes trying to lose their virginity The twist is they all like the same girl

[01:35:23] Then they do American reunion instead They are like put those fucking DTV movies on a shelf And then when American reunion Underperforms They bring it back but now they are like It's post me too We have to rewrite and flip the genders

[01:35:37] That's an incredible premise for a movie though The idea that like a high school movie About four guys who all like the same girl I actually don't know if I've seen That movie especially if you put it in a modern context Of them trying to accommodate

[01:35:49] For each other's feelings of being somewhat gracious But also being horny teenagers But now it's four girls who all like the same guy The scripts are right What are they saying? Pie that's a movie You never forget your first slice You never do

[01:36:07] That's a great film I saw it at the sleep Review I literally had in my calendar American Pie 2 Circle the day that it came out In August few years later these were very He glues his hand to his dick we all went one

[01:36:19] I mean I'm a couple years younger The filibustering I did for a full year And theaters and I failed The fact that Chris White's is sort of like In this greater circle is as if like a god Had drifted down

[01:36:31] We ask him all the time and he clearly Is just kind of like I don't know Guys I made it was like a 22D I really wanted to just have a film Be produced This is what fucking Richard Brickman tells me

[01:36:43] Every time I knock on his door and I'm like Can we talk risky business Mr. Brickman And he's just like go away That was the funniest thing when we Like our first time ever meeting him Right? Possibly yeah Man this movie I just can't believe

[01:36:57] Like the amount of sex scenes I wouldn't know what to do I'd be so awkward on set with all this and you're like You directed American Pie And he was like oh right I kind of blocked that I had to direct Pie fucking And shit multiple takes

[01:37:09] There's two kinds of plot points Like eight sequences As retrograde as those movies seem now I will say speaking to our earlier point That nothing stuck with me more From that movie than That sort of emotional Core that bittersweet feeling between Kevin and Vicky

[01:37:25] I know the first one has A little bit I think that first one holds up Surprisingly well all considered The Shannon Elizabeth stuff does not hold up There was stuff that holds up So much of that movie does not hold up But imagine it's all gonna be that

[01:37:39] And instead there's like 50% of it That plays pretty well still And then the rest of them are absolute dog shit I assume Yeah Wedding or reunion But they're bad Cool Chill Yeah Yeah You can't even point to certain incidents in the original American Pie

[01:38:01] That sort of passed the smell test now It's just sometimes an overall flavor There's a sensitivity It's dialogue scenes and right There's set pieces stuff that people are members The stuff that ages less well and the sequels become all What could end up in this

[01:38:15] Who could put that there by accident You know it's like It's all reverse Where's Jim's dick going Who can walk in on what What's Jim gonna fuck next That could have been the direction for it but it was really more Just like it isn't about

[01:38:31] The vagina's we meet It's about the friends we make along the way What if you just make it Pie fuckers And that's the whole thing That's to be the re-chart carbender's Pie fuckers American Pie presents The one that got carbender's Pie fuckers

[01:38:47] He wrote the script and he went This is a western it's basic It's stripped down Some men roll into town there's some pies They need to be fucked I think Hawks would this it's all over then Someone's gonna fuck this pie I wanted Pesci to play the lead

[01:39:03] Are there any other I wanted Pesci I got fucked this pie Can we get Pesci he's gone fishing Yes he's making a movie called gone fishing It was written by J.J. Abrams He couldn't dirt it down yes go ahead No I'm just thinking back to

[01:39:19] John Carpenter's Vampire We really did cover the bases Maximo and Sheld we should talk about The final reveal which I like Which is that this I mean what is his title He's a cardinal Right of course he's a pile of dog shit

[01:39:35] He is a pile of dog shit as well of course He has made a Faustian bargain deal with the devil He's afraid of dying Because as he's getting up there in age And death is creeping around the corner He realizes that the epiphany

[01:39:47] Is not coming the word of God The sign, the light He has a total crisis of faith and decides I'm terrified of death what I want is to never die And if Volek turns into this Super vampire he can turn me into

[01:39:59] A super vampire or something like that Right I don't have to worry about Sundowning And luckily Tim Guiney has a great idea That shoot him in the back with a shotgun The bullets explode his back And blood goes everywhere But no I agree with you I like the

[01:40:15] The double cross and I like that James Woods Is the one with integrity but he's also This totally poison person I also like that it's rooted In this sort of like there's nothing Like the existential terror of I see now there's nothing

[01:40:29] This is it what have I committed my life to And I also like that James Woods Got strung up on a cross And almost burned I think that's cool Yeah Did you like David the like And they don't do a lot of this

[01:40:45] But I felt like this was something I was assuming you would have vibed with Is like the priest Like alludes to like there's like Archives Of vampire hunter History I found that to be really an interesting thing I love that idea in general

[01:41:03] Big books exactly all that nonsense But that he's gone through and there's like This whole tradition It almost kind of seemed to me like Especially when part of the ritual for the Vampires is they needed to get a hunter's Blood it's almost like

[01:41:17] It's like in his blood that he's a vampire Hunter or some shit I love that shit too Well no go on cause I am coming into this Conversation midstream Chance to Helski place Hey come on what are you doing this is on my floor

[01:41:31] Hey it's the old nice run Don't cross him I know it's a tomb but come on Chance to Helski plays one of the masters at the end Sure does The one major Beef I have with this movie major Almost a deal breaker Is that when they talk about

[01:41:49] The Like concentric circles that the vampires have been Hunting in looking for something There's no shot of that They don't do it like 40 million When they fucking invented They could only afford a rectangle Edison and Eastman Not inventing but at the real beginning of it

[01:42:09] Got together and they were like we have one hard And fast rule For this medium which is that When you talk about something hunting in patterns You have to realize slowly When you look at the pins in the math Pull out and you see the shape

[01:42:23] That it makes is a fucking pentagram Or whatever Here's the effect I did Like though it's very simple Coming out of the ground All covered in dirt Dude that is cool It was a nightmare to shoot Because they just like buried All of their genes are buried Really

[01:42:45] You're actually 100% true Also their DNA is buried Those genes But it's part of the unromantic Character which is like they're literally spending their daytime Either in a decrepit Cellar or in the earth Now not to nitpick But how do you bury Your cell I guess that's true

[01:43:09] You're right Yeah Settle I feel like a lot of production meetings with Carpenter Went just like that They have claws They're like gophers You know what I'm saying? Like they're digging themselves in like a little fucking gopher But then how do you bury yourself

[01:43:29] And make it look like this I don't fucking know how to gopher's there Guys, test it out at home Tell us how it goes I do love this summary Of the Ciskill and Ebert review Ciskill showered woods with praise You've got James Woods spouting off

[01:43:45] He jacks up this picture so that it never lags Ebert considered that the movie May qualify as a guilty pleasure So I'm just imagining Ciskill Just absolutely like firing a gun in the air And Ebert's like yeah, it's okay Well and it's like one of the last episodes

[01:43:59] That Ciskill ever, ever did Was he sick at the time? Yeah cause this is the big pig in the city here He sounds very online He dies beginning in 99 One of the last episodes he ever did was their annual memo to the academy

[01:44:11] Where they say here are the things that shouldn't be forgotten Where he made the impassioned plea that James Woods should be considered for best actor That was not a joke we were making That's one of the final statements Gene Ciskill left us with

[01:44:23] Big Pig in the City is the best woman I tend to be And James Woods should get nominated for best actor Goodbye It's on his tombstone Here lies the James Woods Oscar hopes for 1998 Should have been considered

[01:44:37] But there is a feeling that I get with some Carpenter movies Where it's so close to having a little bit more meat on its bones Which seems a little antithetical to the Carpenter approach Like had this movie been

[01:44:47] I don't know maybe a 5 million dollars more than it needed Or 15 minutes longer in some ways They could have leaned a little bit more into the mythology around it They should have had more of an arc of woods At sort of the end of the series

[01:44:59] I agree with you and I haven't felt that way about the other Carpenter movies Where we're watching Especially watching them on the order I've just gained a greater appreciation But this is one where I'm like Could have gone a little harder A little deeper, a little more specific

[01:45:13] It's a very fun movie It's entertaining It's cool There are interesting ideas in it And it's that carbonate thing of like Yes, we're sort of like we'd like it to go deeper But you do sort of admire the purity of like

[01:45:27] You know what he told a genre story Beginning to end And there's more goofy fun to this obviously than like Village of the Damned There's a lot more energy As much as the movies feel stuck between Having a mythology And really just being very paired down and straightforward

[01:45:43] Can you imagine a modern Film even if it weren't a part of a larger Franchising of franchise Having this much mythology That it encapsulates in five minutes With Maximilian Shelby and like Yeah, there are vampires, you heard about that

[01:45:57] And now I'm one of them, I'm going to be one of them now Like it's really Here's 600 years of history That we're going to condense into like Oh the cologne cell was wiped out I mean that's a thing, I found this movie a little

[01:46:09] I mean just because we've been spoiled by watching all these Fucking great carpenter movies for the last couple of months But I did run the thought experiment about like What if screen gems Released this in January I would fucking lose my goddamn money

[01:46:21] Like have you seen this fucking thing This rips, if this was just like A lion's gate dump And I'd like him, I mean he can do whatever he wants But we're coming up on the ward And I'm not excited for the ward Me neither

[01:46:34] And I would like him to just actually sneakily make a movie called like Blood dudes John Carpenter's ghost, like just picking that up John Carpenter has blood dudes You just came up with that I did, I literally just came up with that

[01:46:47] That's like the heart in his eyes Super And it comes out in January Could the dudes, could the S have a Could it be a dollar sign David, is that okay? Sure, alright Well if you need to do Blood Dude as the original

[01:47:01] And then Blood Dudes with the dollar sign as the sequel For the Carpenter's like No involvement It costs $200 million Yeah, but that's the exact thing You wish they just let him make a little A little Blumhouse A little Blumhouse or at least sit in the winter

[01:47:17] And let's all just have modest expectations for it But let the guy have some fun I like Halloween kills more than most people Because people really hate that movie Whereas I am very, you know I think it's a movie with a lot of problems

[01:47:29] But I have to imagine that Carpenter watches it And he really wants to know what he thinks while he's like Doing his school scores He had a quote like two years ago When it was originally supposed to come out where he's like

[01:47:41] I really like it, I think it's really gnarly They really went for it For kills Well it is really gnarly, I do think he likes that To that effect where he was like I like that this is the hardest anyone's gone But there's a subplot in Halloween kills

[01:47:55] But maybe that's him trying to find something nice Exactly, maybe that's him being nice But there's a subplot in Halloween, have you seen Halloween kills? I haven't seen the previous Halloween Evil dies tonight Where it gets a little more highfalutin

[01:48:07] And has a bit of a sort of comment to make On current society And I just wonder if Carpenter watches that And was like Is the moral you shouldn't stab people to death? The moral, there's just a whole thing with a mom

[01:48:19] Don't ruin it because I'm going to see it He has some justice Are we the real enemies and I'm like Michael Myers is out there gouging people's eyes Sure, evil Maybe you should form a mom I will also say I heard

[01:48:33] That David Gordon Green shot a very different ending And Blumhouse had to like sit him down And go like, I see what you were trying to do It's very interesting It doesn't work You have control over the rest of the movie

[01:48:45] But you have to shoot a more conventional ending I am very intrigued to hear Do you know what the other ending was? I know nothing about it I just know that that was the thing where he said The ending of it is a little jarring

[01:48:57] All I know is that Blum's time down Was like, I really respect what you were trying to do But it doesn't work And you need to do something that delivers Traditionally, I appreciate the ambition But you didn't execute it

[01:49:09] And I think whatever that ending was going to be Is going to be on the eventual I would check that out I would be interested to check that out But it does feel a little bit like a movie Where it's like, are you trying to make a gnarly

[01:49:21] homage to Halloween sequels That's just violence and Michael Myers Is going to tell me something here Don't try and do that I think Blum was just like Do the gory, scary ending It's also very concerning That all the recent interviews David Gordon-Greens, like yeah, the third movie

[01:49:39] Is going to touch on COVID And the election fraud I'm not concerned about that Michael Myers goes to the January 6th No, I think this one is going to be really topical We're going to be able to talk about things that have happened

[01:49:51] Since the last one came out Because I'm like, sure, are you going to make Just another movie where Michael Myers kills people I'd go see it, okay But I'm like, do you want to make some kind of wacky Shit that will probably suck

[01:50:03] But at least it'll be like, remember that one I'm kind of into it It is just wild and obviously it was just too much Fucking money, but like I think Everyone would have been pretty comfortable With that being the last Laurie Strode movie

[01:50:17] And that works as a legacy Even the people who like it less are like It's such a huge hit that they're like We're coming back baby And now he's just making these two more Weird Continuing women's glory I know we don't have to keep talking about this

[01:50:33] But the weirdest thing is that all three were supposed to take place On the same night This one takes place on the same night as the last one But now he's like, because of COVID We couldn't shoot the third one

[01:50:43] So now it will be set four years later And you're like, okay, that's pretty different What's your plan He frames it as which is great because now I get to talk about The corona About COVID and I'm like, all right What an opportunity

[01:50:57] Mike Amir's mask compliance through the The guy wears a mask True, I honestly don't know how he breathes But he breathes pretty heavily He also often keeps his distance Until he doesn't He's right on you He's like 40 feet away or he's like Two inches away

[01:51:15] He likes to watch Vampires That's what happens They go away hunt vampires They have their last stand I like that they call the underlings Goons, that's a fun specific It's really good, I like that it's like a workplace Like, you know what I mean

[01:51:33] This is a short hand for that kind of thing It ends with him Letting fucking Daniel Baldwin Cheryl Lee get a 2K head start On him That is all incredible And It's unbelievable and I do not honestly Believe what I am watching There is a shot that is

[01:51:53] Chef's kiss In the worst way With Daniel Baldwin driving Their open air jeep While Cheryl Lee is full fangs out Like stretching Getting ready to fight him She's like, here I go And he's just sitting there eyes on the road Completely oblivious as if the actor himself

[01:52:13] He might not have been paid to watch It might be a little glassy It's also, it's like maybe his best moment as an actor In the movie is when she finally does Bite him and he kind of plays The sense of relief of like

[01:52:25] I can stop fighting against this Would you call that relief? I think he is Clearly coming Like that's his eyes Like he is doing a Saturday night live caricature Of someone having an orgasm The little death is the big death Look at this I mean

[01:52:45] There is a very erotic quality The way vampirism is presented in this movie And you see that In the way that Cheryl Lee is made to act Like she's orgasming When she is going through that And they go through the sort of like Rapy sexualization of how

[01:53:01] Her body is splayed on the bed Very bad And then yeah there is When she is sucking his blood You know He's been edging for years He's finally letting the thing happen I wandered off the blank check Reddit one day into a whole Reddit about that

[01:53:19] And he was posting a lot This character Tony Montoya About His cross-eyed edging moment Where his entire body just like Collapses in the back It's like an acrobat getting the ghost blowed up He also before he turns Towards the end He takes a machine gun

[01:53:39] And just shoots it into the air and screams Yes I felt that Are you consulting notes? I wrote down a couple of things What does he do that for? Well I was like laughing at that And then Carpenter man He turns that beat on its fucking head

[01:54:01] And makes it practical He uses the gun And he teed it up to solder His wound Sin that mug That's awesome I was just there for the You know just emotional moment While you shoot an automatic gun On top of a hat I love that

[01:54:23] I actually might have just another little hat Be very cool I ain't to pee really badly Rather than pulling an earlick and going on the rug I'm gonna use this as an impetus to play the box office game This film opened on October 30th, 1998 A Peacock Toberween

[01:54:39] I'll say this too The Peacock Tober selection I guess by the time this episode comes out it will be gone It's fucking good They have like the best selection of horror movies of any The streaming service is right here Peacock Scott stuff

[01:54:53] And it's the only streaming service that lets me select Dominic Toretto as my avatar He's also my avatar Well and that's why we're friends It's the only streaming service that has like 73 seasons of Below Deck That's true And every realist Raymond remaster

[01:55:09] Also your avatar should be the boss baby No more at the box office No one at the box office on this weekend was a film called Vampires Opening to nine million dollars Back when October was kind of a bed time

[01:55:25] In Hollywood not now when it like you know I remember an Entertainment Weekly article Probably right around this time 98 or 99 About how October Had the least The fewest hundred million dollar grosses Of any month That at that point it was like only three movies

[01:55:43] Have ever opened in October and made a hundred million dollars Why can Hollywood not make this month work Now they make it work Vampires simultaneously open on screen gems Plus as well Yeah we'll write that That did cut into its profits yes

[01:55:57] And that's why we're here at the box office Is a film that I truly love Big fan of this film at the time I've watched it recently and it It had been number one the last weekend It's not maybe as great as I remember it

[01:56:09] When I was a teenager but it's good No not rush hour that's a film you love And that is number six at the box office Wow it is a Very high concept comedy Drama D Sort of satire social Commentary It is Pleasantville Pleasantville I watched it recently

[01:56:33] In covid It was one of those movies my wife had never seen And I threw it on and I was like this is still good And the technical The technical thing is still so incredible But I was like it's a It's a little obvious

[01:56:47] I think I was the It's a mindblower when you're a fucking tween It's really the third eye I've been into the hoakiness of the whole town Turning into color and becoming This broad metaphor for Race relations is pretty close But the first half rule

[01:57:03] Joan Allen and his incredible in it Joan Allen and the Oscar for it Toby McGuire was born for Tobian Racer Grey Jeffy Boy Daniels Paul Walker's performance ever He's so funny Hold on I'm consulting the record books here I see she's all that Listed prominently

[01:57:25] I would say he's even better in Pleasantville She was a fucking bat I'd be curious to rewatch it I probably haven't seen it in like five years We watch it It's also very long I watched this on video all the time

[01:57:39] Joan Allen would have been my supporting actress She's certainly on my last year I can probably check the 5 Number 3 is another film I saw in theaters And loved and rewatched recently I was like this is even better than I remember Whoa! It's by your namesake Griffin Dunn

[01:57:57] Oh it's your fucking favorite It's not my favorite It's not addicted to love Oh that's your favorite It's practical magic We got witches and vampires at the top of the box Yes we do Practical magic Sandy and Nick Eden Quinn Absolutely Great movies

[01:58:21] He has Alec Baldwin with the hair He could be a bald man He's a her suit man That head of hair is beautiful Number 4 the box office it's a cartoon starring Someone unusual It's a cartoon unusual for them to be Starring in a cartoon The actor

[01:58:39] You know what it is It is the movie ants It is well written by our dear friend Ants with the dollar sign Dreams with the Z Dreams with the Z Can you play some film magic ants These are just movies I was there opening week Absolutely

[01:58:57] Have you asked why it's about he did ants with the Z And then in American Dreams it's all about dreams with the Z Did he write American Dreams Paul? But he still got some intel Sure It is fascinating though that ants was viewed as this big fucking hit

[01:59:11] And it's like oh it tops out at 80 Like nothing could get over this hundred hump In October Joe Nelon is also my winner for pleasant fill that year Laura Linney Shroom and Shoe, Kate Beckinsale did Last days at disco Lisa Kudrow

[01:59:23] Is it a sex for Zaria Dawson he got game It's a good five but Joe Nelon is kind of undeniable Number 5 the box office Is a sequel in a horror franchise But it's a little It's got a new twist on that Is it a little sideways?

[01:59:37] No it's not Jason Eck Right that's later A bit of a sort of comical and kind of Self aware Film move on That is of course called the Bride of Chucky Bells are ringing That's number 5 You've also got Rush Hour You've got Soldier with a very grumpy

[01:59:57] Kurt Russell Yeah that's the moment where they're like they paid him $15 million For this and he seems like he hates it Not a bad one But he also famously has like 11 lines of dialogue in that movie Which is Which he got paid by word and it was

[02:00:11] Quite a lot Beloved Yeah Which we've covered on this podcast And what dreams Make one of the most depressing movies ever made Yeah great Did that director ever do anything ever again Like that's Is that because he's the director like a visual effects guy or something

[02:00:31] No I feel like he was some European It's Vincent Ward He's the only film director Did Vincent Ward direct that He did That feels like a real blank check movie But we're never going to cover it That was Robin Williams post Goodwill Hunting

[02:00:49] I'm going to be a serious actor for And Cuba's post Jerry Maguire It's like big post Oscar movie for both of them For life There is more It wins the visual effects Oscar And he did Probably the best film in 1998 I just think that's one of those movies

[02:01:07] That was like derided Everyone hated it But we got to give it the Oscar for visual effects The whole thing looked like a Monet painting At least in 1998 CGI It was capable of Also there's a Bernhard Herzog cameo Where he plays like a half buried

[02:01:25] Like flower or something Ben that's another idea, buried Herzog Don't bury him though We need him He's the head above Give him a straw Okay well that's the box office game We did it David's finishing a piece Any final thoughts on the movie Vampires

[02:01:47] I would love to see Yeah it does, I would love to see more filmmakers Just put a possessive spin On the concept of vampires Why not John Harper just got them Couple of A few things I wanted to say A couple of few things

[02:02:05] That I have left here in my notes There is a moment Where James says God damn Three or four times Basically like kind of back to back Where it's almost incredible And I kept trying to find the scene After watching it later

[02:02:25] And I was not able to find it But it's something where he's just like God damn And then they say something back to him And he's like God damn It's just over and over and over again And he's so good at it

[02:02:39] It's kind of amazing how many times James Woods Can say God damn in a row And it's still interesting and entertaining Lifetime full of experience Right? Yeah That and then I just wanted to say At the end of the movie when They're designing the system with the elevator

[02:02:55] And how they're gonna drag the vampires out It's such a dad moment and I was like I have no fucking idea what a winch is I don't know what they're fucking talking about It does have big like The boys getting together on a Saturday

[02:03:07] And deciding to like do a project energy Yeah, yeah They're like laying out this whole thing And I'm just like this is Really weird Yeah, yeah It's a weird movie God damn It's good You love that I do love it, it's total trash

[02:03:25] Like you say it's high end trash You would praise it now It's like a car hanging over the edge of a cliff And seesawing back and forth Right between Carpenter being in control of his craft And the trash that follows It is kind of a reflection point

[02:03:39] But he's only got two movies left after this I wonder I mean I just can't imagine the words Gonna give me much but Go Samaras I'm excited Go Samaras is a movie I've only seen parts of on cable That I've never actually watched in full

[02:03:53] And I'm excited to watch it because it feels like That's my kind of silliness Hey David, what if Mars head goes You got my money You have my attention What if Mars head goes is good I'm into that Good tagline What's the tagline? What if Mars head goes?

[02:04:12] Alright, but Griff needs to be I need to be My pleasure as always A nice in person record Yeah, in the tomb I haven't told you guys this yet But I'm not gonna be here on the next miniseries But the miniseries after that

[02:04:28] I'm slotting in, slotting myself in No, no, denied But you'll be on one soon, don't worry Brutal, there's one movie We'll talk to you off Mike The plans got warped a little Things have been messed around Oh that's the issue It's not a personal dig

[02:04:46] Well always my pleasure to be here For whatever the case may be And if I don't promote Fighting the war room Fighting in the war room with Katie Rich David Erlich, Matt Patches Dave Gonzalez There's gonna be some real fighting in the war room

[02:05:02] If you fail to plug it Yeah and you can find me At the playground With Aisa Chillin' He's the one screaming about stuff Daddies for your arms yelling about keys Scratchy arms Well for listening, please remember to rate, review and subscribe

[02:05:21] Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media AJ McKinnon and Alex Barron for our editing Laymon Garmin the Great American Novel for our theme song You can listen to their new album Extremely loud and incredibly online Where albums are found Joe Bump, Pat Reynolds for our artwork

[02:05:38] JJ, Birch and Nicolariano For our research Every time I'm just so worried I'm gonna fuck it up Just that run of what's now become 18 names You're gonna get there though I'm getting there, I'm getting less scared every week Right Next week tune in for Ghosts of Mars Right

[02:06:00] You'll see You'll see And You can go to patreon.com.com. Where Santa Claus is coming to town We actually got Mars Oh shit, rarely gives podcast Right Santa Claus is coming to town We're doing Tim Allen's Santa Claus trilogy on Patreon Are we sure? It's premium

[02:06:26] We couldn't do that on main feed The costs are too high You guys have definitely already done If not an entire episode then at least an episode long Sidebar about the Santa Claus 2 Because much like my watching all four American Pies While fighting and exploding gallbladder night

[02:06:40] When I was very depressed on Christmas 2020 Alone in the pandemic I watched all three Santa Claus movies in a row Waiting for Sol to go up on Disney Plus And then could not stop talking about how weird they are Elizabeth at Mitchell She was my supporting actress pick

[02:06:54] She's good in that movie She is weird I'm excited to see Elizabeth Good in that movie Anyway, yeah, I don't know I don't know if I can just go on out Go blank his area, I can't put some real nudie shit And as always

[02:07:10] James Woods has never done Cook Hame in his life