Prince of Darkness with Keith Phipps

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect Blank Check This is not a dream. Not a dream. We are using your brain's electrical system as a receiver.

[00:00:29] We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interface. You are receiving this podcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9. You are receiving this podcast in order to alter the events you are seeing.

[00:00:44] Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious state of awareness, but this is not a dream. You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of podcast. I put podcasts in there three times.

[00:00:57] I was just waiting for it. I don't know. I didn't know what you were going to do. I don't know either. Frankly, I don't know either. That's okay. You did great. If you'll let me be frank, I don't know either. No, it was good. It was really good.

[00:01:11] I don't know. What if they opened the cylinder and Kevin Spacey came out in the apron and he said, let me be frank? Let me be frank. You said let me be frank. I had to invoke it. No, of course. Talking about the Prince of Darkness after all.

[00:01:24] This movie is about anti-God, so we should mention Kevin Spacey is early on as possible. He has no involvement in this movie, but it's clearly a carpenter trying to weigh in on the spacey shit 25 years early. He's warning us about the future. What happens in 1999? American Beauty.

[00:01:41] Oh no. Keep it, you know. The second... Keep your third eye open. We give that guy a second Oscar. All hell will break loose. Is that post-K-PACs or pre-K-PACs? Pre. Okay. K-PACs is his post-second Oscar. It was like, all right, Kevin, you can play a sunglasses-wearing alien.

[00:02:00] K-PACs is definitely the canister starting to drip. K-PAC falls in line with this analogy. It's on the ceiling. So what's the final manifestation of the evil then at that point? Let me be frank. Okay, yeah. Yeah, no, his most evil film.

[00:02:18] The first Let Me Be Frank, I think, right? Yeah, probably. I don't know. Beyond the Sea? That was pretty evil. I'm trying to think of what... Let me be frank is the final manifestation. That's when Satan has revealed himself. Well, yes, that's right. Exactly.

[00:02:36] There's no pussy-footing around him. He is Satan. Hello. Right, right, right. Oh, what a terrible start to the episode. It's my fault. Yep. Shouldn't have let you be frank. Hello everybody. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies.

[00:02:55] I'm going into full NPR mode right now for some reason, but it is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear,

[00:03:09] and sometimes they slowly seep out of a giant caster in the basement of a church baby. And this is a mini-series we've been doing on the films of John Carpenter. It is called The Podcast because I was outvoted. Oh, get over it. That's enough. Enough. Get over it.

[00:03:28] It's the better option. I mean, all right, just say it. Just tell her guess what you were thinking of calling the mini-series. I wanted to call the mini-series Podscape from Newcast. Terrible. As one does. As one does. Not do. No. No. As one does.

[00:03:49] Guest, I will introduce you in a moment, but I would love to hear your opinion first. All right, I listened to all these episodes that have aired so far and actually, Griffin, I'm not trying to cause up to you, but I actually kind of like that one. Yes!

[00:04:02] Yes! Oh my God. Bad start. We are off to the wrong foot. We're going to have to stop recording and start over. Our guest today is an esteemed film critic, an impeccable taste. Nerea wrong opinion. From The Last Picture Show and numerous outlets, Keith Phipps.

[00:04:25] Hello, it's actually The Next Picture Show. God damn it! Yeah, I got it. Sorry. Well, see, but you still like it there, right? I did the bug Donovich. No, I do. I just thought about the movie you guys are riffing on

[00:04:35] rather than the riff that you guys have done on that movie title. One of the coolest things that resulted from that podcast, by the way, is someone who worked at the theater that, you know, as a theater, put our podcast name up on their marquee.

[00:04:46] So it was like that. That is cool. Keith, it's long overdue. Welcome. Yeah! Oh well, thank you. I'm a fan of the show and I'm happy to contribute in any way I can to this carpenter commentary. And Keith, you are one of sort of the origin story figures

[00:05:04] for the show in terms of breaking David Sims. Yeah, well Emily Vanderwerf deserves credit for discovering David Sims. But we've given her a lot of credit. I'm trying to give you a little credit here. Well, she sent him my way and I put him on the

[00:05:18] as we were discussing. I can find the email. Yeah, we were just discussing pre-pretaping. We gave him the shows that nobody else wanted or were sick of or had toxic fandoms and kind of threw him in the end. Keith and I were just talking about it.

[00:05:34] It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Was that the first one? Do you remember what the very first one was? That was my first one. Okay. At what point? When were you starting to recap that in the run of the show? We're talking 2009. I found the email Tuesday, September 15th, 2009.

[00:05:50] Hi, David. Emily suggested you'd be a good freelancer to cover it. So it's sunny and forwarded me your resume and clips. I agree. Welcome aboard. Yeah, yeah. That's me. And you don't know actually how tough it was at that

[00:06:05] point to get in because I was, I really did not want to hear very many freelancers. Emily was a good person. It was really key to like bringing in some more voices, but I treated that place like a band with a set membership for a long time.

[00:06:17] So you were part of the expanded lineup. I was part of the right Emily's sort of, you know, TV freelancer kind of cabal that came in as the TV, the TV recap online recap sort of culture began right around then that was sort of the start.

[00:06:35] For better for worse, we made our contribution to that. Yep. And Griff, to answer your question, that would have been, I think it's the fourth or I think it's the fifth season of It's Always Sunny. So just to give you a sense of how fucking long

[00:06:49] that show has been on. Yes. It's 16. Is the next season going to be 16 or 15? The next season is going to be 15. Okay. It's the longest running live-action sitcom ever now, right? My entire paid career begins with It's Always Sunny.

[00:07:04] And I'm like, oh, it must have begun with season one. No, season five. And it's still going. Can I fucking sidebar here for a second? Yeah, of course you can. I was recently in Los Angeles City of Stars. Oh, sure. La La Land, yes.

[00:07:20] I went to get drinks with some friends. In fact, writers on Masters of the Universe Revelation, a very non-controversial show that everyone is calm about online. Tim Sheridan, Eric Krasko, D'Amitra, great people. We were at this bar and then it turned out it was a trivia night. Okay.

[00:07:40] Now, David, the cornerstone of our friendship is a trivia night. That's true. That's how we really became close pals as we've discussed. Right. It was the second time we ever hung out. Pila Veruet, another vet of AV Club invites us to trivia. We become inseparable. Right.

[00:07:57] I would get competitive about trivia. Very true. Very seriously, I have very particular taste in terms of how trivia works. This was a general trivia night run by a man who, dare I say, it was a bit of a lightweight. Oh dear.

[00:08:08] And we have specific tastes, I would say. Very. It becomes a trivia master's. Yes. Very specific tastes. He asked the questions. The final round, we were either, I think we were tied for first place at this point. And his question was, name the top 10 longest running US shows

[00:08:32] currently in prime time. Top 10 currently in prime. Currently. Okay. So we start just working on fucking network, right? Assuming those are the confines of what he's putting before us. And then like five minutes into the eight minutes you have to

[00:08:50] work on this question, he's like, just to clarify, table counts, syndication counts. Oh boy. Syndication counts. What, are you saying anything that's in syndication? Are you saying just because things in reruns? What are you talking about currently airing or currently producing new episodes?

[00:09:09] So everything goes fucking caution in the wind. But then we realize, okay, well now we know three of the ones that have to fit in here. Always sunny in Philadelphia, the longest running comedy show, period. That must count. Then we're like Archer. That's in season 12. That must count.

[00:09:27] And Kirby enthusiasm is, it's up to season 10. Okay. So we put those three down. None of them count in his eyes. Oh boy. This guy sounds like he blew it. And this also is a classic griff rant of like listen to this trivia screw up. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:46] Was there a logic to this or what was the explanation? What were the answers? Someone went up to him and brought up curb. I mean, it was like the fucking things you think right? So it was like SVU, the Simpsons, NCIS.

[00:10:01] We didn't get NCIS LA that was stupid. We thought it hadn't run that long. Blue Bloods we missed. And the third one we missed was Chicago Fire. Bob's Burgers counted, Family Guy counted, American Dad counted even though it moved to TBS. But apparently FX doesn't. Yeah.

[00:10:20] I don't think this and none of these shows are like syndication and only one of them is cable or whatever. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Good sir. You're in an industry town. People are going to take the guidelines of this question very seriously.

[00:10:32] I'm forgetting what the other ones were, but it just drove me crazy. And someone went up to him and complained about him not including Kirby enthusiasm. His response was well, it's HBO. Oh, not TV. Tim tagline there actually. So, but FX is TV.

[00:10:48] Anyway, today we're talking about a movie called Prince of Darkness. It's a better jar full of Satan. It's wet Satan. It's basically wet Satan. Yeah. John Carpenter's wet Satan liquid devil. This movie is so good. This will be fucking rules.

[00:11:04] I could not believe to say this right off the bat. Okay. I feel like I need to watch this movie like two more times. I felt very overwhelmed by this movie. Why were you overwhelmed by this movie? This movie is dense in a lot of ways. Sure.

[00:11:19] Yeah, it is. Yeah. A lot of chat. It's a lot of chat. It's a lot of dense text. You're dealing with like metaphysics and with theology. And it's a the movie is primarily made up of academics debating how this could exist and what is happening. Yeah.

[00:11:38] Kind of horny though. Academics right? I watched it this morning. I'm very burnt out. I was paranoid all of yesterday. I had COVID. I don't think I do, but I just started watching this and I was like, my brain is already being pushed to the limits.

[00:11:54] I'd forgotten how long it takes before anything beyond discussion really happens. Very long time. It's long build up so much foreboding detail. And then eventually all hell breaks loose, but it does take a while. Yeah. Quite literally all hell breaks loose. That's true.

[00:12:10] I don't dislike this movie at all. I mean, I just find all Carpenter movies at this point and perhaps I will eat my words when we get to the late 90s, but I find them all very comforting to watch for how unnerving they are.

[00:12:23] They are just so well made and so much well crafted, but I had a hard time processing the actual meat of this movie beyond the visuals, which I love. I feel like this is the four dedicated fans Carpenter. Yes.

[00:12:39] This is like the equivalent of the album that's not the canonical album, but it's the one that people really love. It's like I don't want to hear Highway 61 or visit it. I want to hear Infidels or something like that. This is that.

[00:12:52] I absolutely believe I will come to love this movie, but it was a movie and I have this sometimes where I put it on and I went, man, I can't wait to have seen this two more times. Brains of darkness.

[00:13:03] David, it was your first time watching it and you loved it because you're smarter than me. I'm not smarter than you. You are. You are. You're taller and you're smarter. But I do. It's embarrassing that I didn't really know what this was about.

[00:13:19] For some reason, I had a completely different conception. I knew it was set in one location and I knew that it was... Pleasance as a priest. Right. Pleasance was in it and that it was about the, let's call them

[00:13:31] the Prince of Darkness, essentially, if you will, in some form. Mr. Beazelbub. But everything you're describing, where you're like, yeah, it's a lot of sort of weird chat and kind of an odd, stilted atmosphere. And then things go absolutely buck wild and there's this sort of

[00:13:47] weird crossing of science and mysticism. I'm like, yeah, that's exact... I just wish more movies were like this. It's your shit. I want to make it clear. I don't dislike any of those things. I just felt like I might not be in the headspace to process

[00:14:01] this properly right now. I assume we'll talk a little quarter mass on this episode, which is not something I know well, obviously, but I know is a huge influence on this movie and maybe you really want to watch those quarter mass movies.

[00:14:12] I feel like I'm going to like Mr. Dr. Quarter Mass. I feel like I'm going to be the pedant here, but it's Quatermass, I believe. Quatermass. Sorry, Dr. Quatermass. Our mummy episode just came out yesterday on Patreon and I saw someone in the Reddit complaining that we misspelled...

[00:14:28] Misspelled. Misspelled. Miss pronounced. Frazier. Because we're saying it like Frazier Crane, but he's Frazier? That's one of those things where I'm like, I think the boat might have gone out on that one. It's like everyone calls him Brendon Frazier.

[00:14:44] And it seems like we'd be getting it wrong, I guess. I don't know. He's Canadian, right? Or he's of Canadian descent. I don't know. But yeah, I don't know. Sorry. Yeah. But there's that... If there's a more popular word that looks similar to

[00:14:57] the thing, it's hard not to auto correct in your brain like Quatermass, where you're like, well, quarter. I see the word quarter a lot. Yeah, but I still... I don't see the word Quater. It's Quatermass. Ben, cut it all out. Keep it in. Keep it in, double it.

[00:15:11] Frazier. Brendon Frazier. I don't see the word Quater a lot. Have you seen any of the Quatermass stuff, guys? Have you seen... I've only seen the 19, I want to say, 67 movie, Quatermass and the Pit. Yeah, which is great. That is what I have seen.

[00:15:32] I saw it many years ago. Yeah, there were three TV serials, and then there were three movies, and this is a remake of the third TV serial but not mistaken, but the whole podcast. Anyway, it's really good. And I mean, we...

[00:15:46] You can't really talk about this without talking about Nigel Neal in general and Halloween 3. I don't know how deep you want to get in the weeds. Let's get in the weeds. Let's get in the weeds, babe. Whatever. Nigel Neal. You could call me Mary Louise Parker

[00:15:57] because I'm willing to go deep into weeds at this point. Just in case. Nigel Neal is... was most famous for doing British television, and I think his fame over there is much higher than it is, his profile's much higher there than here.

[00:16:15] I don't know if anyone can speak to this or not on this podcast, but... I don't think so. I can't check all four boxes. One, two, three, four. No, I don't think anyone can unless they want to butt in right now.

[00:16:24] Nigel Neal, it's one of those things where, you know... Britain loves to reflect on its culture. How would you know that? And do constant... Shut up. Constant documentaries and sort of talking head type, pop-cultury things. And it's always a bunch of comedians being like,

[00:16:46] oh, I love Quatermass and they talk about it. And then you cut to this guy, who's this just... I mean, Nigel Neal, he's so cool, but it's like this old guy in a suit is like, yeah, you know, I worked at the BBC

[00:16:57] and I thought it was all a bit of fun. And you just say... It's always the funniest to finally see the mind behind like the twisted sci-fi that changed a generation in Britain and it's this sort of sweet grumpy man. Anyway, Nigel Neal, yes, revered in England.

[00:17:13] Yeah, and his only real significant foray into Hollywood was his uncredited work on Halloween 3, which he apparently came over to work on in the feature film, The Black Lagoon for John Landis. And that never happened. And I guess Joe Dante put in the direction

[00:17:26] of John Carpenter for Halloween 3. But if you see that movie, he took his name off of it because he didn't like the direction it went in and Carpenter only got quite grumpy with one another.

[00:17:36] But it is kind of in line with a lot of what I also did, which is combining science and the supernatural, ultimately Quatermass and the pit is about how what we think of the devil is just ancient memories of aliens that formed us or something like that.

[00:17:56] And I think probably most relevant, I haven't seen a lot of this stuff, but I did watch and to prepare for this, I watched The Stone Tape. Anyone seen that? The Stone Tape. 1972 TV movie. That's one of his big like BBC specials that is not Quatern...

[00:18:14] Like along with what's it called, The Sex Olympics. Yeah, the year of the Sex Olympics. I've not seen, but the title is very intriguing. I've never seen either. I know it mostly because of its title. It's also pretty, it is a very famous in Britain,

[00:18:26] you know, a very highly regarded piece of TV, which is set in like a sort of Orwellian future where the government controls mass media and blah, blah, blah. You know, like it sounds very cool. I have not seen it. I have also not seen The Stone Tape,

[00:18:43] but it's kind of like a ghost story, right? Or like a haunted house thing. Well, it's very much like Prince of Darkness where it is about a recording company, if I remember correctly, trying to try out a new recording equipment

[00:18:56] in an old house because that's what you do when you're a 70s British scientist. You go to an old manor house and what the gist of it is basically that what they think of as ghosts is actually the house recording old events. But the deeper they investigate,

[00:19:16] they find out that what they're recording, the evil actually predates the house itself, which is another kind of equator mess in the pit thing, which is also another Halloween three thing where it's like this ancient lore being tied to science in some way.

[00:19:29] So, you know, the homage is pretty direct with Prince of Darkness. That's cool. Now I have to watch it because it sounds awesome. Not the side track, but what's your take on the Halloween three? Do you guys like that movie? I love Halloween three.

[00:19:44] Griffin, have you seen Halloween three? No, we keep on going over this. I've only seen the oldest and the most recent Halloween movies. You're a twin pulse, right? Halloween three is the best reason for us to ever do those commentaries because it's such a cool, weird movie.

[00:19:59] But you know Halloween three, Griff. Like, you know the mask. I do. You know some of the imagery of it. It's the one I find most enticing and I've been meaning to dig in and watch all of them now. Because I mean, it is the season.

[00:20:10] It is the season. I should mention that is the season. I recently did The Atlantic likes me to do these sort of like weird underrated movies lists that I do occasionally. And I threw Halloween three on there and that got the most pushback.

[00:20:24] People really still as much as it's now a beloved cult object. Yeah. You know, it's more polarizing than most. Well, I think people still feel tricked by it because it's not, you know, you show up for Halloween three and there's no Michael Myers in it. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:38] I've realized we have to have the most important detail of all, which is that Prince of Dark is his credit to a screenwriter named Martin Quatermass, which is, of course, John Carpenter. Doesn't exist now. Obviously, aside from the cuteness of the homage of that pen name,

[00:20:52] do we know why he didn't take the credit himself on this? It is bizarre. Is it just that he wanted to do that homage? I guess I can. I can tell you, Griff, it's in our research. Basically, he decided he did not want the public to know

[00:21:11] he wrote the script. I don't know why that is. Right. That's my central question. Right. And he, but he did want to pay tribute to Nigel Neal. So he thought it would be cute to, you know, use this pen name.

[00:21:26] And then he wrote a fictional biography for Martin Quatermass in the press kit. Right. That said, like he was a rocket scientist from the British 1950s and he graduated from quote Neal University. Yeah. You know, so like he was being cute.

[00:21:44] And on the film's commentary, apparently he's like, I heard Quatermass retired at the Geeks and Alcoholic. No one wants to read what he writes anymore. Like he, so he's having a little fun, but I don't know why he was suddenly in his head about. That's right.

[00:21:56] That's my question. Getting screen writing credits. I don't know. Yeah. That's funny though, because if you go back and read the reviews, most critics didn't seem to get it. And like, I didn't know there was a press kit because I thought

[00:22:07] one who did was Michael Phillips in LA Times who wrote something like he's the cousin of the British astrophysicist Bernard Quatermass. I thought he was like a little wink thing, but maybe that's what Carpenter was putting out there as a fact at the time.

[00:22:21] I think, yeah, I think it was a, what's the name of the very real person who wrote Logan Lucky? Or they created a fake biography for her as well? Yes. And that movie was probably just written by... Jules Asner. Right. Most people think Jules Asner wrote that movie.

[00:22:39] Rebecca Blunt is the fake name. Interesting. Rebecca Blunt is the fake name, but yes. Jules Asner is the writer. Yeah. Prince of Darkness. Yeah. So Keith, do you know how this movie got made? Because I didn't until our researchers dug into it and it's so cool.

[00:22:56] It's kind of fascinating. Yeah. A little bit because it was his four-picture deal with a live films, right? Right. Which comes off of the back of him doing four big budget quote unquote studio movies in a row. So it's like Thing, his ultimate blank check.

[00:23:13] Then Christine is him trying to recover from the flop of Thing. Starman, him shifting genre a little bit. And then Big Trouble in Little China, which I think was like another... We gave you this much money again and you did something this weird again.

[00:23:30] Like he had just sort of built himself back up and he at that point is even more disillusioned with the film industry than he ever had been before. And it's just like, I'm fucking done. I don't want to play this game.

[00:23:41] I don't want to work within this system. I'm out. It's also funny that there's this quote from him where he's like, I need to take time off. I needed like a long break. I had made too many movies. I want a vacation. I want to cool it.

[00:23:55] He had done 11 movies in 15 years. Which is crazy. Which is crazy, but his break does not last long. But right. But also like an 11 movie run that is pretty creatively unparalleled. Yes. Work intense. Those are not easy films to make.

[00:24:14] It's not like knocking off a quiet little comedy. None of them are big budget. I mean, like even his biggest budget movie, the thing, like even that was a huge pain in the ass to make. Like he's never comfortable and yet at the same time all these interviews,

[00:24:32] he's basically like, look, I always wanted to work in the studio system. And then I did and I realized they suck. Now John Carpenter always comes off as an ornery grump. Like in every interview, God love him. Full respect to the man. He's right to be grumpy.

[00:24:46] But it is that funny kind of careful what you wish for thing where he's like, well, you know, I did everything myself and that was a pain. And then I finally got the money to have other people do it. But then they were asking me all these questions.

[00:24:58] These jerks like they don't fucking trust me. Everything's bad. I just feel like every time Nick and JJ put the dossier together for us, there's a quote from John Carpenter saying like, after making this movie, I realized I didn't like this industry. It makes no sense to me.

[00:25:13] I don't want to be part of it. He just like keeps coming to that realization over and over again. But yes, he's got this fucking quote where he's like, I need to take a vacation. I need to cool. I've been burning the candle at both ends.

[00:25:24] I've made fucking 11 movies in 15 years. Prince of Darkness comes out the year after Big Trouble. And not only that, it's the first film, as you said, Keith, in a four-picture deal he signed to make four movies in five years.

[00:25:36] Like he's right away re-upping and getting right back into the deep end. But the terms of his deal with Alive were all he needed to submit was a synopsis. Like a one-sentence synopsis. And if they like the synopsis, he gets $3 million complete creative control.

[00:25:52] So the budget's never going to go over three. He has to design something that can fit into $3 million. But all he has to do is give them like the one-liner pitch and he's off. This thing is crazy for $3 million.

[00:26:04] I know it's set in one location and that's how he's saving money. But in 1987, like this is a tiny budget for a movie with this kind of, you know, makeup and effects. It does seem like that.

[00:26:20] And Alive is like, you make whatever you want as long as you make it in the parts of Los Angeles that nobody wants to film in. I think that's a big part of it. I think it's like the name guy in this movie is Pleasance, his main dude,

[00:26:32] but not like a fucking A-list movie star, you know, a big genre guy at this point. He's got the cache from being the through line on Halloween. Right. He's got the guy from Simon and Simon. The lesser of the two Simons is a bit of a shitier Simon.

[00:26:46] Lowercase Simon. But yeah, it is not a hot cast of up and coming stars or anything like that even. Yeah, it's a lot of, you know, work of day types. No offense to them.

[00:26:58] Yeah, I think he's just a guy who knew how to use his budget incredibly well at this point and stretch it and understand how if 75% of the movie is intellectual conversations, you could really make the remaining 25% sing in terms of visual effects.

[00:27:17] But like the idea that he just wrote, this was the sentence, something like the devil is buried under a Los Angeles church and graduate students come to fight him, period. And they were like, yeah, $3 million. Someone print out the check. I'll have it ready for you.

[00:27:32] You know, it's not like that log line isn't cool. I want to hear more. Sure. I would probably want to hear more. You don't think Universal's not signing up on that pitch, you know? Well, graduate students, I assume is where many of an executive would be like,

[00:27:45] Whoa, graduate students. Come on. Yeah. We can't, we can't jazz that up. But that's right. That's the big thing is that Alive has a distribution deal with Universal and Universal's going to handle TV and home video. So it's like the movie has a security net,

[00:28:01] but he doesn't have to get the approval of Universal. He doesn't have to go through that bureaucracy. He's left to his own devices. So Alive Entertainment, this is the, sorry, Alive Films, I'm sorry. Apology accepted. What are some other, like isn't... They did kiss at the Spider-Woman.

[00:28:19] Koyan and Scottie? Yeah, they did Alan Rudolph's films for a while. I think they did Betty Blue. So like they were big in the art house, like 80s art house stuff for a little while there. But you know, the deal falls apart eventually.

[00:28:33] I don't know if you want to get into that, this podcast or not. Right. He gets up to the second film, right? They live as the second out of what was supposed to be for and then... Yes. The other two could have been L Diablo.

[00:28:46] He had some film about... His fucking unmade masterpiece. Yeah, every single time it's L Diablo. Right. And then the other pitches were apparently it was like about Vietnam helicopter pilots, which I don't know how you do that on a $3 million budget. No. Something called...

[00:29:02] Let me find this here. Is that victory out of time? Yes. Which all anyone ever knows about about it. Apparently in a tweet in 2011 he put out something, someone asked him about it. He says like, he just tweeted back different take-on time travel.

[00:29:16] So it would have been a different take-on time travel apparently. I will say, I would not be looking in the late 80s to make a time traveling Vietnam helicopter movie when the Twilight Zone is in the recent memory. I understand why...

[00:29:28] I think there was two different movies but yes, it was a good point. I understand. I'm just saying, that's happened in 1983. If I was a studio, I would go, John, get this the fuck out of our office. How dare you even say time travel Vietnam helicopter? Yeah.

[00:29:42] Well also time travel right after Back to the Future, you know, it's sort of... But I do feel like he's in this science scene. Like he's very intrigued suddenly by, you know, breakthroughs in technology, right? And he likes combining that with more classic genre stuff of his youth.

[00:30:03] Like that's where a lot of this feels like. Right. This was like he was getting into theoretical physics and then decided to reverse engineer a movie around what interested him there.

[00:30:14] So it was like, can I take everything I'm interested in the actual hard science of this shit in the theory and then marry it to supernatural so that I can get it made? How do you just get into quantum physics? He's drunk carpenter.

[00:30:30] How does he get into fallout 76? That is a weird thing to just be like, I'm a hobbyist of quantum physics. I mean, I don't know for sure, but it seems like maybe that was the 80s.

[00:30:43] What like chaos theory was to the 90s where somebody was turning up not just in Jurassic Park but some other popular bits of entertainment as well. Interesting. Look, he just wants to do his own research, Ben. Got it.

[00:31:00] He also was allowed to do per this deal a big budget studio film like within the years of this deal, which was supposed to be escaped from LA, which is an idea of how that can see an idea of how long

[00:31:13] it actually took escape from LA to happen that like in the mid 80s they're like, yes. But anyway, Andre play is the executive producer here. Right? He's one of the alive guys and he's like the king of VHS. I feel like this is right.

[00:31:29] This is and Nick and JJ our researchers gave us. It's funny to think about this because now we take home video for granted or whatever.

[00:31:38] But like he's one of those guys who like went to Fox in 1977 and was like, can I buy the video rights to your movies? Like Nash, the French connection, right? You're like, and they were like, what? Okay. Who fucking cares? And he gave them like 300 grand, right?

[00:31:56] And like some royalties obviously or whatever and made a fortune. Right, right. You know, like and a few years later, Fox bought him out because they were like, you're a genius. Come run our video thing.

[00:32:10] But it's just like how Netflix, you know, discovered streaming video almost by accident where they were like, yeah, I guess that could be an option. Let's put that on our website. You know, we're a DVD by mail company.

[00:32:22] But like what if you could just like watch it on your laptop and then like five years later that's their entire model. And similarly, Netflix had three years where literally everything was on their site and only their site. And they got all of it for like $300,000 combined.

[00:32:40] And it fucked up consumer expectations for ever. It also looks bad at first. I remember I was like, I don't want to watch this on streaming. This looks terrible. Bad quality. It did. It looked very bad. Yes.

[00:32:54] There's just I feel like I brought this up before, but it is weird how little this is discussed.

[00:32:59] But the fact that Netflix is big foot in the door with streaming was they signed a deal with stars and that meant that anything stars had the rights to Netflix had the rights to.

[00:33:10] And so all the studios that had made deals with stars did not have to renegotiate deals with Netflix and Netflix for four years just had all every movie that stars had in rotation. And they made that deal for like what less than a million dollars.

[00:33:25] I mean, it was like insane. It was kind of like that early bit of YouTube too where everything was on YouTube. Everything that was a video was on YouTube until like, yes, copyright discovery. Disney had some first look deal with stars.

[00:33:37] So every Disney movie was on Netflix like immediately. It was bizarre, bizarre, bizarre. It fucked everything up forever. I have to imagine alive just crunched the numbers and was like, there is no way we put a video box with John Carpenter's name on it on the shelves.

[00:33:54] And it does not make significantly more than three million dollars. Like this movie can underperform the box office and it's awash. The stats must have been there that this guy like works on home video because obviously that's a lot of where carpenters like legendary status grew.

[00:34:09] It makes sense for them to make this deal. Yeah, it's funny you should bring up VHS. I remember I think Alex Ross Perry is right and what you're reading.

[00:34:18] We're reiterating here is true that VHS is big for Carpenter but I also feel like there's a second wave of appreciation, especially for the second tier films when widescreen home video becomes a thing because I think I know I watched this on VHS and back whenever

[00:34:33] and didn't really think that much of it. But I think it's a revelation like a lot of Carpenter films when you see it in widescreen. I think the first time I really got, I liked Halloween.

[00:34:43] The first time I really got Halloween was I think I watched on widescreen VHS back when that was briefly a thing before DVD. Especially because Carpenter is like such a widescreen guy is always shooting with like Panavision lenses or anamorphic or things like that.

[00:34:57] You're not getting the full idea. I don't know if you saw this in the dossier, David, the other person who sold Carpenter and making this sort of deal was Charles Band.

[00:35:08] At that time the head of Empire Pictures who had released like Reanimator and stuff like that and broke down from the model. Like you keep this low enough, you make a profit on VHS, the film lives on there, all of that. You get whatever limited theatrical release.

[00:35:24] Charles Band later I believe his next company is Full Moon Pictures which then of course creates my beloved Puppet Master franchise. Charles Band, father of Puppet Masters. Oh right. Have you watched any more Puppet Masters since we last recorded?

[00:35:41] No, the last time we recorded then I went on a trip for two weeks and I didn't watch anything. I'm up to three. I'm going to get through all the Puppet Masters. I swear I'm going to push through the Nazi ones.

[00:35:48] You can't push through them because I don't think they've stopped. No, I'm going to keep pushing. I'm going to keep pushing until they stop. What was the most recent revival?

[00:36:00] Well there was Little East Reich written by S. Craig Zoller and then there's a spin-off Blade movie that's also about Nazis. I think it's like a boys in Brazil type. Where did the Nazis go movie? Right, right. Yeah, Little East Reich is repellent.

[00:36:18] I don't know why. It really is one of the most repellent movies I've seen to the point where I know I need to check out Zoller's other films and people I respect love his stuff.

[00:36:29] But this was my first exposure to the mind of S. Craig Zoller and I was like, I think I went out of the mind of S. Craig Zoller. Is that not part of his appeal that he is?

[00:36:38] His films are repellent. You're trying to figure out how much he is repellent? Yes, I agree. He is somewhat repellent or whatever the stories he's telling are at least. But I imagine the ones that he directs, he did not direct the Little East Reich. He did not.

[00:36:55] They are visually enchanting enough to at least guide you through the repellents. Whereas I don't want to speak ill of the Little East Reich, but my guess is it is a little more bare bones. Maybe not. Maybe it's an absolute aesthetic masterpiece. I couldn't tell you.

[00:37:13] I think it was a bit of a budget pump up from the previous Nazi trilogy, which of course is Axis of Evil, Axis Rising and Axis Termination. That's the other thing. You're saying how repellent Little East Reich is, Keith.

[00:37:26] The people who go deep on Pubbitt Master are like, Little East Reich, finally they lighten up here. Oh God. The three Nazi movies before it were apparently worse. And then right, the Blade one is called Blade the Iron Cross.

[00:37:40] They got to get out of this fucking Nazi cul-de-sac. Get back to the fucking puppets, just being puppets. Yeah, it's weird that Puppet Master is the one that got taken over by Nazis. That's not like an automatic.

[00:37:54] You're like, well, I enjoy this movie, but I can just tell where this is going. It's definitely going to turn into a Nazi franchise. In the 21st century, it's just going to be all Nazi puppets all the time. All the time. Yeah.

[00:38:06] I mean, there's like the Toulon, the puppeteers getting... He gets chased by Nazis in the first... He was on the run from the Nazis. The Nazis were the bad guys. At some point, the puppets become Nazis. Anyway, this is an episode on Prince of Darkness.

[00:38:23] Yes, but it is crucial not to talk about Puppet Master, to just acknowledge the boom of VHS that's happening at the time. That's why I'm bringing this up, because you have things like Puppet Master which start around this time where it's a franchise that goes on for 12 entries

[00:38:40] and never gets released to theaters. Keith, you're a little out of the meat. I assume you didn't see Prince of Darkness in theaters, but did you see it, I don't know, on home video more around when it came out? Or was it something you dug up later?

[00:38:55] I'm going to say probably. I had friends who hung out in the high school, we watched a lot of horror films. It might have been in the mix at some point there, or possibly when I was working at a video store later in life.

[00:39:08] But I think the first time it really caught... The first time it really worked for me was when I watched it on DVD or Blu-ray or whatever form I saw it in. This one is also so dark that I feel like the worst the transfer is you're watching,

[00:39:23] the harder it is to process anything that is happening. Yeah, and it's just such a... I think like, surgery early movies are basically incomprehensible in Pan and Scan. I don't think Carpenter's quite that, but there's so much atmosphere that you lose

[00:39:37] if you're watching it in Pan and Scan. He's a guy who very consciously uses every single inch of the frame. And yeah, the more your crop in that, the less you're under the spell of his move.

[00:39:52] You'll lose half the maggots from a frame if you crop this movie. Yeah, you're only going to get a few dozen bugs, not hundreds. Got so many bugs. Yeah, some other context on it. Right, so we're talking Halloween 3.

[00:40:07] Carpenter was asked to make Halloween 4, which came out, I want to say, 88, which is of course the return of Michael Myers. 88, yes. He had no interest in going back to Myers, right? Like he would have kept doing them if they had kept them as anthology.

[00:40:24] Possibly, but yes, he very much sold the sequel rights to someone else and was kind of like in 87 there's this interview in StarLoggy where he's like, I am happy to be rid of Halloween. If other people want to make money off of it, fine,

[00:40:39] but I don't want to be involved anymore. I don't know where that fatigue is coming from, but obviously it would be hard to keep topping yourself and he's got a lot of other ideas. But it is too bad that Halloween 3, which they just never should have called Halloween 3.

[00:40:55] They should have just called it Halloween colon something, right? Like Halloween colon this year. Calling it Halloween 3 was an objectively stupid decision because that makes it sound like it's the third entry in a specific story. I mean, can I throw out a theory?

[00:41:11] Do you think it would have worked had it been Halloween 2? Maybe. I mean, yes, doing Halloween 2 doesn't help, of course, because right, like then you have set the tone of... You do the very literal starting right after sequel that gives people exactly what they think they want.

[00:41:27] And then to go like never mind, it's just about different things that happen on this one night. And also you have Friday the 13th doing the numbered sequels. So it's like there's the expectation of like the mass killer will be back.

[00:41:39] No, I think in theory you might be right, but it's kind of unprecedented. I can't think of another film series that works that way. But maybe it would have been a huge breakthrough, who knows? No, I mean the only example of anything that's even close to this

[00:41:51] is like when you get the fucking like born legacy thing where you're just like can we make it without the star? Never mind. We're going back to the star where you make sort of a sideways sequel, but that's very much in the same continuity

[00:42:03] in the same universe sharing supporting characters building on the legacy. This idea of just like it's a fucking whole new thing. Yeah, Halloween 3 actually takes place in a universe in which Halloween is a film that people watch on television. So it's not connected at all. Right, that's wild.

[00:42:19] But I mean I just remember hearing that as a kid and thinking that was so cool that like, oh fuck there's a movie that doesn't have Myers in it at all. He just took the idea of Halloween as like that's the fucking bucket that we're putting movies into.

[00:42:33] Ben, have you seen Halloween 3? You haven't, I'm assuming. I did a long time ago and I have not revisited. I just know that you like hacker witches. It's sort of about hacker druids. So it's just kind of got something that you might be intrigued by.

[00:42:53] That's also like microchips but also druids. That sounds extremely my shit, but... I don't want to spoil Halloween 3 too much but I just want to tell you that the microchips are made out of Stonehenge. That's all. I'm going to actually, I have to go.

[00:43:10] The other thing that Carpenter was asked to do by ABC was to do a horror anthology series. I guess a sort of more extreme Twilight Zone thing. And I just want to read his quote because Johnny, you're absolutely right when you say,

[00:43:23] they wanted me to commit to one hour every week for whatever I wanted to do but it doesn't mean anything to me. Who wants to produce TV? It's brain damage time man. It's tough. You have to come up with a new story every week.

[00:43:34] I don't want to work that hard. What year was that like mid-87? 87. Yeah, because that was like one amazing story and Alfred Hitchcock presents the anthology series for briefly a thing. Here's another Carpenter quote that is haunting to read today. This is from Starlog Magazine. He said,

[00:43:53] the studios aren't like they used to be. The executives really don't know much about moviemaking. In the old days, the moguls loved making movies. Today that responsibility has shifted to the agents. The studio heads don't develop their own projects anymore. Instead they call agents and ask,

[00:44:07] what have you got? What package can you put together? That quote's from 1987. Packages. Scary. Yeah, this is the thing. He's just sort of sniffing this stuff out and he's like, you know, I don't want to be a content provider essentially. Yeah. I'll package Plaisance and Wong and Parker.

[00:44:28] Grad students. Cylinders of evil. Come on. Alice Cooper at the height of his fame. Dude, Alice Cooper in this movie. Who he met at WrestleMania three. That is how he casts Alice Cooper. They were hanging out. Alice Cooper apparently was part of a match between Jake the

[00:44:49] snake and Jake, Nick Roberts and the honky tonk man. Of course. Carpenter was just there vibing having fun at WrestleMania three enjoying a, you know, a professional wrestling entertainment package. And he got backstage passes and he hung out with Alice. And he was like, Oh, this guy's cool.

[00:45:07] And he just put him in this movie. Right. Then Shep Gordon negotiated for him to write a song for it. I believe that's also how he met Roddy Piper. I think that's why Roddy Piper's in. And they use some of Alice Cooper's on stage devices for this movie.

[00:45:22] I think that's another way they kept the budget down. The impaling thing is apparently from his show. Right. Which I don't necessarily get because it's not like he invented impaling, but I guess, I guess that particular guy was executed. It was from his stage show.

[00:45:36] And I think that I mean, they're literally reusing the devices and stuff. Yeah. So like all good, but I just. What's the closest is Blumhouse sort of the closest thing to this now where it's just like with a few

[00:45:51] million dollars and a sort of basic concept, you can rub some sticks together and maybe, you know, have a hit on your hands, I guess, but like correct. And I feel like Blumhouse has a similar thing where they're just like, well, if this movie doesn't work,

[00:46:03] we'll like sell it to streaming. Like what low risk there's there are buyers for this. Right. Whatever. But like the idea that he's just been like reading a lot of scientific American and like is interested in particle physics all of a sudden.

[00:46:18] And it's like, yeah, I can make all this work. Right. How is this a movie? I don't know the particles are turn into Satan. Like God is anti God. Right. I like it. I do too. To be clear. Yeah.

[00:46:31] And he's also with this, I feel like he's kind of going against the trend of horror in the 70s and 80s where it's like not there's no teens. There's no like hot coeds or, you know, like, you know, all these movies that are about like where it's

[00:46:47] like not only are they teen ish or in their early 20s, but like everyone in those movies is like a type like there's a job and there's a skater and there's a band geek or whatever. And this is just like about a bunch of grownups, you

[00:47:00] know, kind of doing some research who are very sort of nondescript in a good way. I mean, it feels like the lead student having that fucking mustache is a real statement in that way too. Yes. This is an adult. That's such a fucking honking stash. It's wild.

[00:47:18] It's bordering on brimley, but the fact that it's so robust in color. Yeah. My friend, Josh Rothcock, wrote about this in a book called, I think, the best movie for a cycle of musings. Yeah. Yeah. Great guy. And he his whole take on us basically this is his

[00:47:37] the closest he came to to an a inserting himself into a film that character likes for this mustachioed because he's shot at shot at USC where he went to school and there's there's that element to it as well. And it's not the most flattering depiction if

[00:47:53] it is kind of a you know, autobiographical about him being a sexist jerk, which was which was a touch I wasn't necessarily expecting in this film from this era. Not not specific details, but they do seem similar in temperament. Carpenter in this character.

[00:48:08] Carpenter is also good about giving women to get laid in the pushback against sexist shirts, which was cool to see. Right. I mean, that's another you talk about him going against the trends of horror movies at this time. The one sex scene happens in like the first

[00:48:22] 10 minutes and they cut over it. This is another movie also where I feel like the opening credits don't end until like minute 10. They keep getting interrupted by scenes. Right. We failed to comment on this in the fog episode, which is one of my favorite elements of the fog

[00:48:40] is that you keep on thinking the opening credits are over and then they still go on. Another block in. Yeah, this. In fog, they're just super imposed over the image, but there'll be like a minute in between each credit so you forget they're still happening.

[00:48:54] It's the slow seeping feeling with this. It's the classic carpenter like white text on black. So you keep on thinking they're done and then there'll be another insert of opening credits. It does it does lend an ominous vibe, especially because so have so many of his themes,

[00:49:10] his own scores are so relentless. They're just sort of one droning pattern happening over and over and over again. The fact that the credits also don't stop. It does build this dread. It's like we haven't started yet. What's the real movie still come?

[00:49:26] And there's going to be this great really freaky motif of this dream you can't shake that's sort of like being projected into your head and I don't know. Yes, great atmosphere, especially since yes, this is a slow start. But I think slow start horror is usually

[00:49:41] my preferred approach. That's all same here. Same here. Yeah, I like a sort of like even if you're going to take an hour to really get into the banana stuff and then probably have a pretty wild last half hour. That's that's cool as long as I'm engaged

[00:49:59] by the first hour versus sort of balls to the wall thrills, thrills, thrills. That can be fun. I tend to agree with you. This movie is weirdly long by carpenter standards in that it's an hour 45 rather than like 90 and out. Yeah, yeah.

[00:50:17] A lot of theory, a lot of theory to impact with this one I think. Yes, yes. So we've got Victor Wong like you said who he'd worked with in Big trouble in Little China and he just loves that this

[00:50:28] guy can like I mean I love the way this guy handles jargon like me too. It's just like he just seems very into it, I guess like you know versus just that he's just like downloading information. He does genuinely feel like a professor rather than an expository device.

[00:50:47] Like I feel like people either get tripped up on dialogue like this or they put too much monster on it and make it too dramatic and he's just a guy who loves talking about the shit has been talking about the shit every day for decades.

[00:50:59] And when he in place on to both actors who you believe what they're saying like they can yes they have their authority and conviction and it's like you know you step back is like this is absolute nonsense but you know while they're talking

[00:51:11] it's like sure the devil's in a jar in the basement that makes sense. Right pleasant sells it more through the sort of like mad eye terror of everything you know the sort of severity of everything but yeah I just it's one kind of just like lets

[00:51:26] the stuff just sort of like roll off. Is it embarrassing that the thing I know him passed from his three ninjas obviously I know he's in big trouble in Little China but I didn't see last emperor. I didn't see those until later

[00:51:39] yeah but like when I was a kid I saw at least three free ninja movies. I think I fell off with you didn't see a high noon a mega up. I never saw high noon a mega mountain that's the one with Hulk Hogan yeah knuckle up is the

[00:51:53] third one. I'm not club is the third one but how mega mountain is the fourth there's four it's a tetralogy correct I guess I didn't realize that he started so later in life I guess isn't dim sum basically his first film of any of any note.

[00:52:09] Yes yeah he was like sort of a local theater guy and doesn't right does not make it all the way to movie work I think he mostly did like San Francisco theater until dim sum which is right at 85 and Wayne Wayne was a San Francisco guy

[00:52:25] it makes sense they would have found him there but yeah he's born in 27 yeah right so he's he's almost 60 by the time he breaks out and yet look Jesus like hit the ground running dim sum you're the dragon same year right then following year big trouble

[00:52:40] little China Shanghai surprise which is a disaster but a high profile disaster golden child is a big hit you're after that last emperor Prince of darkness then he does eat a ball of tea with Wang again tremors and then and then he fucking

[00:52:54] gets stuck in the three ninjas quarter I do imagine if you asked the guy he'd be like three ninjas once I got stuck there I never got out right because then you're the kindly Asian grand pa right and it's like yeah yeah he's in the widely beloved film

[00:53:09] Jade as well yes yes Mr. Wong and Jade he is yeah there's also this he died a day after September 11 did you read this yeah it's upon learning of the events of September 11 2001 Wong and his wife Rose spent the day trying to get news of long sons who

[00:53:26] lived in New York City they were on harm after Rose went to sleep Wong stayed up to continue following the news he died of a heart attack at some point during the morning of September 12 2001 weird I mean he was not a young man

[00:53:37] but 74 is still too young to be you know but like his heart was broken by 9 11 that sucks I really like him that and I really like him in this this is this is I feel like one of his most sort of you know meaty interesting little roles

[00:53:53] yes in film I have seen the last emperor which is a great movie but I couldn't tell you like the actors in it almost you know what I mean like of course I've never seen it yeah it's it's good it is good but you know

[00:54:07] it's a visual feast I don't know Keith are you anti last emperor I feel like you know I you know I have not seen that since I watched on DHS so I can't really terrible format to see it sure I like to the time I got

[00:54:21] the disc somewhere I should dig it out and watch it one of these days no can I say I don't really understand Dennis Dunn's big trouble he shares most of credits for this run of years with Wong where he's also in year of the dragon last emperor

[00:54:39] I like him a lot in big trouble I don't know if it's just this character is so very over the top is that is that your really broad yeah in a way that feels more in line with most horror film performances

[00:54:55] of the era but I have found very refreshing that they are absent from the carpenter films like it sort of feels like he's giving a Friday the 13th performance yeah he's he's near he's near to I think for most of he's the irritant and he's

[00:55:11] the irritant in a way that I feel like carpenter usually has well observed humans with somewhat recognizable behavior so that you get more invested in them and he feels like the irritant in like a teen slasher movie where you're like when are they gonna

[00:55:29] fucking kill this guy you know right that's the it's actually crazy that he doesn't die he's one of the four survivors but part of the problem is that so much of his screen time in the you know back half of the movie

[00:55:41] is where he's stuck in the cause it and he just is sort of yelling like oh my god she looks even crazier this is getting worse we like I've talked about the thing carpenter does so well which is like most people faced with true horror go silent

[00:55:59] they go into shock they don't scream and run away you know and this is like the one character who kind of functions like once again just sort of like a dumb slasher movie character which I love dumb slashers like I don't

[00:56:13] mind this kind of performance in that it just feels totally off from what every other actor is doing no I don't disagree with that I think that mostly the people he's cast here are sort of in line with what you're talking about

[00:56:25] with their you know getting to basically play real people yeah and they are not string too far outside the lines of what you know like no one is sort of trying to steal the show with some kind of you know big character performance but I guess because

[00:56:39] Walter's kind of the wise cracker right he's like he gets to pitch it up a little bit so so aggro though like I feel like he is so prickly where he's not like a fun wise cracker I bet you can guess who my favorite is Dirk Blocker

[00:56:59] it was about to say it has to be Dirk Blocker right just look and vibe alone yeah my second guess was Peter Peter Jason Dr. Leahy a carpenter guy right this is his first pairing with him before he then becomes a stock company player for the next

[00:57:15] 10 plus years and you know Dirk Blocker a long career right you know we love him but he's also like this guy is a scientist yeah well he's got you know there is that kind of scientist right the kind of a white shirt scientist

[00:57:33] he's not a movie scientist he's the real kind of scientist you meet where you're like hi I guess so and Blocker was a cop in Starman right we just saw him in that let me true yes we were just talking about yes he's a cop

[00:57:47] in Starman did he do another maybe not maybe he didn't do another carpenter now I'm not seeing one obviously everyone knows him from Brooklyn 999 I imagine but yeah yeah he's he's a predictable griffin fave you're right yes and then you have Lisa Blount

[00:58:07] who's coming off of Officer and a gentleman right you know a name I guess you know a close closer to a name for this kind of project but she's also done a bunch of TV at the time and you know I guess she's been sort of bouncing

[00:58:23] around I don't know that anyone who says I want to go see the new Lisa Blount movie though it is a fairly anonymous cast after the first couple names it is and you know yeah Susan Blanchard who is mostly sort of a soap star she done all

[00:58:39] my children she was the second Mary Martin on all my children I love I do love that in so it's where there's sort of like there's different actors who have their own distinct fans and like long sort of tenures on soap operas but like Lisa Blount

[00:58:57] got a very very meaningful like promising star of tomorrow Golden Globe nomination for Officer and a gentleman she feels like the only person who was even like arguably kind of being tipped for stardom even if she didn't become a big star why don't they do that anymore

[00:59:15] they should do that they should bring that I know Piazzadora killed it dead or whatever but they should bring it back that was the most fun award they had they should bring that the fuck back I mean I guess they have the Globes anymore

[00:59:27] I was about to say I guess the Globes are dead yeah I also just want to mention Jesse Lawrence Ferguson who plays Calder in this and he's also been covered as Officer Self-hatred in Boys in the Hood right he's the the angry racist black

[00:59:45] officer yeah he's got a good death in this movie I got one of the most impactful he's the you know like the watching someone kill themselves even in a shitty movie like the happening which I know some people I was thinking the same thing

[00:59:59] that the the fucking self harm sequences in that movie are very effective also got a lot of good post death screen time you know yeah yeah that must be so fucking annoying yeah you just like lie there don't move like all

[01:00:17] that God it must be such a pain in the ass so yeah look there's a quantum physicist played by Victor Wong just to give you know and there's a Catholic priest played by Donald Pleasant who we do not know the name

[01:00:32] he's just the priest right he doesn't have a name yeah no his character name is priest yes correct and he's like yeah you know come check out this this monastery in LA where I guess the monks used to talk to each other through dreams

[01:00:46] there's a mere mysterious cylinder let's see what's going on my answer to that would be no absolutely I will be coming I'll be getting myself a nice meal and go in a bed safe and warm I'm still not entirely sure how this becomes a scientific study

[01:01:04] and the combines right who's physicist or what they're hoping to prove what the outcomes supposed to be here but whatever I would just go with it it's so fun you have this abrupt opening with what is his title Pleasances Superior the old man

[01:01:24] who dies with a little chest and then and his journal yeah I don't know his title whatever he's you know chief monk I don't know chief monk but that sort of starts the the spiral right for pleasant digging into what exactly is going on here just

[01:01:48] I'm a fucking I'm a fucking moron the notion here is that they have been preserving this canister because they thought it was holy I think so it's been there since the 15th century so which is probably as old as anything you know Catholic church can be

[01:02:10] in Los Angeles in America yes it got there I'm not sure we ever hear there's the scene with Wong where he's like kind of outraged at the fact that they were not told what they were protecting and why I just I am always drawn to that premise

[01:02:28] which is essentially there's this thing that's mysterious that's been there a long time we should check it out and then realizing at some point oh they were trying to you know keep it locked away like you know you know this sort of flip

[01:02:42] where it's like oh I understand we weren't supposed to find it we were supposed to never find it that's why it's hidden and and he's like angry that he was it was not explained to him that they were not given directions and understanding

[01:02:54] of everything but Wong's sort of defense they didn't have the technology to make sense of it they were trying to make sense in theological ways of what we can now discern with hard data which is that God exists but in a mirror universe and we're in the

[01:03:10] universe where we got Satan in a canister fix so I think that's correct the anti-God right the anti-God I mean anti-God's a great term a much better term than devil and I like devil I like Satan that's fine but anti-God you know anti-God I love the devil

[01:03:28] I love Satan those are all great but yeah I agree not too loudly oh sorry but right they're part of a monastery called the brotherhood of sleep that is based around communal dreaming yeah pretty cool but again that's where I'm like yeah no thank you I'm not coming

[01:03:48] yeah like I won't it's like well what's the deal with the monastery that it's in apparently like the monks used to talk to each other in dreams I'm like okay well that sounds creepy so I won't be investigating their cylinder under any circumstances

[01:04:02] I love sleeping it is my respite from the living I don't want to share nightmares with other people and yes so right it's like if it's the it's the sort of like what if faith and science were two halves of one thing right like rather than disparate things

[01:04:18] so yes to Christians yes maybe there's God and Satan but just like you know how in science there's like matter and anti-matter what if there's you know God and anti-God right that's where the idea is like there is a binding force that is behind the construction

[01:04:32] of our reality on a cellular level but all matter has anti-matter and the anti-matter wants to destroy everything yeah that's a very quater-mass thing too it's like what if you figured out the secret of the universe and it was awful it sucks we were doomed

[01:04:50] but hey at least you figured it out absolutely the ultimate truth is essentially that uh you know humanity once will be wiped out into plague the thing in this canister is not going to come out and be like hey I've got all the answers for you it's just

[01:05:06] good to you know right turn your disarmies or whatever turning the zombies for some reason right we never really figured out what the game plan is Sarah do we no I mean there's just like yeah I don't I don't know what the point of the bugs

[01:05:22] or the zombification or the um the uh possessed homeless people gathering like is except to bring about the you know this guy that anti-god coming out of the canister right like coming out of the mirror or whatever well sure but that's like this is a big recurring carpenter

[01:05:42] thing is he is just like fascinated by the notion of pure evil that has no motivation no explanation no clear game plan whether it's a fucking car or a dude in a shatner mask or a giant tuba goo it's just like there is fundamental

[01:05:58] evil that exists and if you let it loose it will cause chaos these these forces that cannot be reasoned with in any way and this is a movie where there's as you said Griffin a lot of chat a lot of presence and Wong especially kind of holding forth

[01:06:14] on quantum physics and matters of faith and kind of just it's a a lot of chat a lot of like a lot well there's a once again about there's one other about how they were on a BBC series where they debated each other

[01:06:28] and it kind of feels like this is another installment of that series up to a certain point yeah yeah which all of which I like both in theory and in practice I just think perhaps I needed to have three cups of coffee before watching this three

[01:06:44] I don't know you might be pretty jacked up by the time Satan is appearing but yes okay right so Pleasance goes to Wong almost immediately right he senses something's wrong Wong recruits all of his students it does not tell them what they're doing no

[01:07:02] why they're going to an ancient church basement it doesn't give them a lot of choice either it's like this is your extra credit of cyber that's mandatory please show up right it doesn't give a lot choice show up at midnight everyone does it acknowledges the fact

[01:07:14] that they don't know what's going on they are not that worried about it they're more annoyed at anything else it's like one of these things yeah and by the way no one's really keeping an eye on it that I say was their biggest you know

[01:07:28] they should be noticing by the time the liquid is pooling on the ceiling or whatever right like I feel like that is happening for a while before anyone really checks in I get Pleasance just wanting to be like okay time for some answers

[01:07:40] let's get to work I'm not ideally guarding this thing anymore but also when your whole life has been devoted to the idea that your monastery guards this thing maybe make sure one person is guarding right someone should have eyes on it computers computers that are like running

[01:07:58] sort of formulas on the many kind of encrypted books and stuff like that that's great do that work but get one PA to do fire watch on the evil tooth Ben you liked the old computers spitting out numbers oh man it fucking ruled

[01:08:18] come on that shit was great I'm not surprised I live I live I live I live that shit's pretty cool that's creepy once I get that first dream I'm out I'm repeating myself here but it's such a thing in scary movies involving the supernatural

[01:08:40] people love to be like it's just a dream they love to dismiss dreams never dismiss dreams if you're dealing with the supernatural dreams are very important dreams are dreams are warnings I like this movie but I just want to say I think that's a

[01:08:54] slight issue with it where I feel like Carpenter is usually very very good at justifying why people stay or how they behave and you don't have people succumbing to stupid behavior but part of the idea that this is this sort of like faith versus science debate

[01:09:10] you have these hard science people who are sticking around when shit's getting really bad as opposed to being like driven by the need to get answers to these things because it's just like this is some fucking assignment we don't care about I am with you

[01:09:24] where like at the first sign of anything going gooey I'm walking out of there I'm going to a sandwich shop I'm getting it to go I'm sitting in the park I'm never going back to that block ever again when we talked about

[01:09:34] Prometheus say you know we've had these conversations now where we're like look there's plenty of evidence that people you know do kind of ignore things in the face of danger and there's a whole obvious sort of HIV metaphor at work in Prince of Darkness obviously

[01:09:48] like in any 80s movie where a virus is spreading or what right like it's sort of hard to ignore and so yeah it's sort of like right life is going on even though like slowly they're getting picked off in this very grizzly way

[01:10:02] this is true it also kind of establishes you can't I guess they don't they don't know that the one guy gets impaled by Alice Cooper's bicycle or whatever but no the movie at least let us know that leaving is not really an option for sure it's

[01:10:16] no if they ever try it's true only one of them really tries but yeah the anti god that the liquid you know getting squirted is very simple and very effective and very unsettling there's an effect that costs you ten bucks and I you know I'm sort of

[01:10:34] like squirming in my seat the second I see it right so someone with a super soaker off camera just yeah I mean the other effect that is very simple and very effective is the goo pulling on the ceiling right the kind of reverse like yeah

[01:10:50] that's so cool that's always good liquid is great right and then you get any speed in any direction yeah that that horrifying that wet evil Ben Hosley's new favorite subgenre that dummy where the green liquid is just like projectile shooting out of the

[01:11:10] eye sockets and mouth is also very effective so to give you some idea right Dean Cundey obviously had worked with him on big trouble Little China they had reunited but he doesn't hire him here because he says he's too expensive and he was

[01:11:24] making who we're frame Roger Rabbit and basically Carpenter is like he costs too much I helped price Dean out of my own categories how he puts it he promotes Gary Kibbe who is his guy for the rest of his career pretty much

[01:11:38] Cundey starts being the guy you hire if you go we want to do something really challenging that no one's ever done before and he's going to be paid handsomely to do that whereas Carpenter is getting smaller in his movies Carpenter he can't get the

[01:11:50] A team make up guys anymore either he's sort of cutting corners on that but it's good like it works Yeah it looks good and I think in a blind taste test I could tell I would I would might guess that Cundey shot this because it has that kind

[01:12:02] of you know slick down wet you know pavement kind of look to it and the way he lights the night and exteriors it's very much like a Cundey Cundey film Gary Kibbe I hope I'm saying his name right had been

[01:12:16] a camera operator on BigTroll my guess is he was kind of like ready to step up right he had worked with Cundey he kind of you know understood the vibes but yeah it's you know it's just this movie looks very very slick and impressive

[01:12:34] for the budget it's at and it's a boring observation about Carpenter but you know the man could stretch a dollar and at this point he could do it better pretty much than anyone else he'd he you know gone to the bigger budgets he's coming back and he knows

[01:12:48] he's not really losing a step it's you know I kind of wish he had done four of these instead of two because the two he did are good yeah and then him going back to you know memoirs and Invisible Man look I haven't seen it yet

[01:13:02] but I no one has come to me with you know I have a defensive in memoirs of Invisible Man like no one's got I've not heard one I've not heard what Lex G might be the only person who has like a strong Lee I'm just guessing

[01:13:14] I don't even know that for a fact it's it's rough it's a rough set I find even you know later weaker Carpenter films pretty easy to watch but memoirs of Invisible Man is well you'll get to it but it's but it's the one no one sticks up

[01:13:28] for basically it's just sensibilities that don't go together and Carpenter very much do and work for higher mode which is not his best you know way to be look I mean we have a great guest for that episode and I'm looking

[01:13:40] at him doing it but I should also for warren that that guest was like I'd really like to be in a carpenter we're like hey if you want to be in a Carpenter that badly how about you do memoirs with Invisible Man like no it didn't

[01:13:52] even go that way it was he was like I'd love to do an episode of Carpenter here are like the five movies I think you know that I remember well and I was like you fool you said you said memoirs of an Invisible Man you said

[01:14:04] four good ones and you said guess who isn't saying memoirs anyone else we have not mentioned yet at this point in the main series I believe but Larry Franco who gets like the first title card in this whole movie right I think is a Larry Franco production

[01:14:18] he is a producer on this he started as producer escape from New York Starman big trouble Prince of Darkness up until they live he was also the first assistant director going back to Elvis the fog he was married to Jill Russell sister of Kurt Russell mm-hmm

[01:14:42] and then after this or I'm sorry they live is his last assistant director movie and then he just becomes a fucking mega producer and he does like begins Mars attacks Jurassic Park 3 Hulk anonymous White House David he even produced your own the Nutcracker in the four realms

[01:15:06] right yeah he did do that we collabed on that one sleepy hollow Jim Manji the Rocketeer Batman Returns he is a consulting producer on Jungle Cruise but just we're bringing up Jungle Cruise again somehow we can't escape it you can't say it's not a bad track

[01:15:26] record really I don't like those later I know I take that back White House Down is like the only role in the game but you know some good titles in there it seems like he had he did 2012 and anonymous as well so he had like a run with

[01:15:40] I guess and right and obviously yeah he's got Jurassic Park 3 and Batman he did three burdens yeah I don't know how these things work but yeah he I yeah it's funny he's and he's uncredited in apocalypse now as a soldier clinging to helicopter

[01:15:54] so that must be a second AD on that as well yeah it is funny how people sort of rise to being a I want to be a producer that sounds fun you just like take a bunch of meetings and then you're a millionaire

[01:16:08] do not want to be a producer I definitely don't know it's really annoying right you have to do all this bullshit deal with all these egotistical jerks yeah anyway White House Down is good Prince of Darkness is good Prince of Darkness so okay to go through

[01:16:24] to continue the plot sure cylinder starts dripping Susan upwards stripping upwards wrong direction Susan played by Ann Howard she's the first to go and she starts you know killing other people off there's a mass of homeless people who surround the building to stop anyone escaping standing there

[01:16:46] like zombies I don't know why anyone's not like calling the cops I guess it's the middle of the night right it's all happening in one night and this seems like a pretty abandoned quarter of Los Angeles too and the survivors are all getting a weird dream

[01:17:00] that is I think one of carpenters like most disturbing and profound images like the way it's presented the weird kind of VHS creepiness of it the figure in the doorway the weird you know stilted dialogue you're hearing it's my background it's just the kind of it's

[01:17:22] it's the kind of creepy that really really pushes my button do you know how they got that they achieved that effect he just shot a television I think he was playing a VHS recording and then shot the television playing it which works great

[01:17:38] he shot a TV on film I've talked about numerous times how I think we lost something when screens became HD because you used to be able to do interesting things with the differing picture quality in movies and screens, cameras and things like that

[01:17:54] but yeah I think he filmed this on video put it on a TV, filmed the TV on film it's cool this is not a dream of course they're dreaming but it is not a dream it's a message from the year 1999

[01:18:06] it's the same way like the ring really gets me just that sort of notion of like fairly mundane images belying utter creepiness well I think a big part of it is hidden, the honey can move it like that but Keith you were saying how this was a movie

[01:18:24] you didn't really appreciate until you saw it in widescreen, you saw it in a good enough resolution there is something creepy and I do think this is a reason why horror and comedy played better on VHS for a long time the movies that had huge VHS second

[01:18:40] lives tended to be in those two genres because A. comedy is broad, it's verbal you're not losing a lot in translation perhaps and with VHS and horror I think some of the abstraction that happened in the limitations of the format and the loss of detail, lended this other

[01:19:00] worldliness to movies you know it's ability or inability rather to like fully showcase fine detail in shadows and things like that you get these weird abstracted images like this like the ring where something that's creepy about it is that you can't see what's happening very clearly

[01:19:18] I can buy that yeah, I'll have to think about that for a while but that makes sense yeah, you know it helps you fill in the gaps with your imagination freak yourself out even more maybe I can see that

[01:19:32] it's crazy to think that we watched stuff on VHS I think it's mad as to go back to it though I keep thinking of that scene and while we were young where they watched the howling on VHS you don't have to do that

[01:19:42] this is how fucking Alex does it yeah, I didn't know he was evangelizing so much nostalgia for the VHS era I worked at a video store like it gives me like a pristine tingle to handle a VHS tape but no I'm gonna watch a Blu-ray

[01:19:56] no way I'm watching VHS if I don't have to someone in the reddit I think posted a picture of like their sort of stack of carpenter VHS and you know they're all a little worn and it's those cardboard sleeves and I like

[01:20:10] I looked upon that with great nostalgia and owning carpenter VHS is a perfect you know I'm sure great match of but come on I whatever I can't go that far to actually want to watch it in that format it's that thing like when

[01:20:28] the Sunshine Theater in New York RIP had their every weekend midnight movie right every weekend there was a Friday Saturday midnight movie that was some revival thing and it would always be a print and you would go there and it would be a

[01:20:42] grab bag as to what quality the print wasn't because they were not dealing with like newly remastered, newly struck prints and sometimes you would get something that was just like beaten to hell and it's not like that improves the movie but it does give you a certain specific

[01:20:58] vibe you know and it is the difference between going to a rep screening where the vibe is oh fuck this print has been in like someone's basement since this movie was in first run theaters 40 years ago versus like someone took time and care and effort

[01:21:12] to make this look as good as it did when it came out I always prefer to see the accurate representation but sometimes there's a nice vibe given by watching something in a weird form. Yeah I had the reverse experience exactly once we did the screening where

[01:21:28] where Alex Wetter came to they screened Death Wish 3 and it was a like pristine print like maybe it had been screened once when it was first released it was the most amazing experience obviously it's not the prettiest movie in very many you know and both visual and thematic

[01:21:50] but it was strange to it was like a time machine Yeah I mean anytime I feel like I go to a fucking rep theater and a print starts as that could I feel like I've won the lottery But there's certain movies you would want

[01:22:04] to see in a grainy, grimy like you know this got played a hundred times Like Death Wish 3 You'd probably Death Wish 3 for example I mean I watched the Fort Grift you have the 4K I assume it's one of the shout factors I can't remember

[01:22:18] I do yeah I have that yeah And I want to listen to the commentary those packages are all very well done Yeah the commentary is great It's always awful because Carpenter does not want to give you a whole lot about his movies but it's basically Peter Jason

[01:22:34] remembering the plot of the movie better than Carpenter does like Carpenter is like I don't know something happened here and he's like no what happened they go to this room and look at this book and then you know it's fun The man made a lot of movies

[01:22:48] okay he can't keep it all straight And this is the one I guess that never got revisited No one ever tried to remake it No one turned it into a video game I'm sure that there are horror conventions

[01:23:00] but you know what I mean like this is not the one with this long a tail so he probably does not think about it as much Yeah I wonder where this sort of sits in his personal rankings especially just because I feel like increasingly since

[01:23:14] we've started this miniseries I've been hearing people say like you haven't watched that yet that's like secretly the best one or that's like the masterpiece that no one talks about like I feel like it's being reclaimed and put towards the top of the pile for him Well

[01:23:30] when Vulture did a ranking in John Carpenter films written by oh who did that, oh yeah me I believe I put it let's see I'm checking now Number 12 so above Elvis but below Christine and Starman

[01:23:46] which I think if I do it again maybe I put it above Christine at least I would not should above those two I would have it below the fog which you have above it you know and escape from New York big trouble

[01:23:58] I would have it below pretty much everything else you have if below but yeah I think I would put it over Christine and Starman which are both movies I like a lot but I guess this is just more There's more this is more of a Carpenter film

[01:24:12] It is more of a Carpenter film and Christine and Starman are really good versions of movies I can get elsewhere I don't know where else I'm getting Prince of Darkness Yeah I think that's totally fair I like seeing Carpenter's take on a Stephen King

[01:24:26] I like seeing Carpenter's take on a more you know family E.T. type you know but like yeah what the hell where did this come from like it's wonderful I don't even know how you remake it in the sense that it has a premise

[01:24:40] but it's not one that is you know I don't know how you reboot it or rethink it you kind of have to do Satan as a jar in a basement which is I think you only get to do that once really every filmmaker gets one Satan

[01:24:54] in a Jar in a basement movie Satan in a Jar that sounds like some weird folk song that like someone plays on a banjo absolutely Satan in a Jar yeah I don't know someone will now try to remake it now that we have spoken

[01:25:10] this into existence I can only imagine right? It'll be announced five minutes from now that you know Warner Brothers is going to do Prince of Darkness movie it's been off TV show on HBO Max and it'll buffer five times when you try and watch it

[01:25:24] absolutely I can see this being an awful mini series like something that's like 10 episodes Jar doesn't even open for the first three Keith the cosmic sigh that caused me I like the Mike Planigan shows right and those are slow the new one's good too Planigan's good

[01:25:46] I can't wait to watch the new one that's what it's called but I did read a review today with them you don't really know what's going on until episode four now it's like I can't believe we're allowed to get away with this even when it's good

[01:26:00] I reviewed that and they need please do not spoil these details list is hilarious because I won't spoil it but it's like the first item is please do not spoil the basic premise of the show Don't reveal the title you know what I really like

[01:26:16] Mike Planigan makes movies well I do too no disrespect to his TV shows but movies are fucking cool yeah movies are cool but the man has made a fair amount of movies in the last 10 years so you know at least he pumps them out no he

[01:26:34] I he is one of those people I do not understand how he space time dynamics a play that allow him to make this much stuff especially because this stuff is a long and intricate long intricate and largely good yeah yeah not easy

[01:26:52] but anyway I do need to watch but it's good keep you like very much recommended I'm a Hamish Linklater fan yeah it is a revelatory Hamish Linklater performance I've always liked him but this is everyone's good it's a good cast his rep players are good

[01:27:10] and Zac Yolford from Friday Night Lights for him but Linklater is amazing at this MS I love him I am such a new adventures of old Christine was like the best assemblage of acting talent you know in a sitcom almost by mistake in the 21st century Dreyfus, Sykes,

[01:27:34] Linklater who else was on that show Clark Gregg is the other big one oh obviously yes yes sorry Emily Rutherford who I think is really funny and Trish O'Kelly who's been around but it's really those four where it's sort of like how did they get away

[01:27:46] with just like all full time anyway Linklater is the wildest one because he plays kind of a doofus on that show he's her dumb bro, not dumb but he's her lay about brother and then I remember seeing him on stage a few years later

[01:28:02] and I was like oh that was against type this guy more plays intellectual yeah intellectual types like who wear a scarf and like kind of you know maybe are authority figures or something like that but then right anyway I like Hamish Linklater come on the show Hamish Linklater

[01:28:20] he'd be good in the Prince of Darkness remake right, in whatever part he could do the plays on that he could play the priest so okay so yeah the disease starts spraying they start killing each other I don't know what's there for us to

[01:28:36] talk about like I feel like it's more like specific little death set pieces at this point and like make up jobs and things like that it becomes kind of a zombie version of Salt and Precinct 13 which was itself kind of a zombie movie already

[01:28:50] right, I'm, no I just have to pull this up you just saying David like I don't know there's a thing in the basement that kills people I don't know what is there to say there was a reddit post recently on the blank check sub reddit that was

[01:29:08] fuck let me find this they were writing parodies of the way you summarize movies exasperatedly can I read a couple of these cause they're really good okay so this was easy to remember CPL I don't know, a kid keeps seeing scary ghost

[01:29:32] until a psychiatrist tells him they aren't scary not a lot happens really that's David does the sixth sense here's another one guy doesn't remember things, wife guy doesn't remember things, wife is dead he's got tattoos, I think they're characters from the matrix and I don't know shit's all

[01:29:46] backwards and then that was a regret popular 997's here, these are really well like you could hear your voice in these the third and final one once again for MeZ2 to remember CPL I mean a guy runs a bar and his ex-girlfriend shows up

[01:30:02] he's kind of inter and I guess not because he runs off with her current guy so Nazi's show up too I mean I don't know what do you want from me wait wait wait what is that one Casablanca

[01:30:16] I was like trying to think of shows, movies we've covered no the first two are in the third one the ending line of I don't know what do you want from me I do often say what do you want from me, what do people want from me

[01:30:28] I guess they want an entertaining show that gets into details they want the world they want the world from me no I just I can't organize the back half of this movie in my brain very well because it's kind of just like disconnected little set pieces

[01:30:44] which is fine it's sort of him going like Boon Well and just giving you fucking nightmare yeah and the idea of course is that the sort of reality versus dream line is getting blurred anyway like where you know it's sort of hard to tell what is going on

[01:31:04] hey what do you want from me what do you want I have a carpenter quote that's kind of the equivalent of what do you want from me he's the best at him this is Pittsburgh Post-Casette which frames it in such a way these days

[01:31:22] at 40 he's a happy man after walking away from the studio system which I don't carbon it was never a happy man the man is not happy it's an audience participation film it's very scary I will guarantee you one thing however it will get bad reviews

[01:31:38] it's too difficult for critics to support something like Prince of Darkness there are loaves to praise a horror film but I always get bad reviews for my films I've learned to live with he is not wrong which is unfortunate like it is true

[01:31:52] yeah it did get bad reviews movies where he's pumping out gold and people were like I don't know John it's a little campy or it's a little derivative it's a little cheesy I don't know what critics wanted from genre movies I don't know

[01:32:10] I think they didn't want them period I think this was a point in time where they were not allowed into the realm of respectability I think people who knew carpenter and had taste respected him but I don't think he really became a revered like condonical figure

[01:32:26] until the aughts no and it's also this bizarre thing where you read these reviews and it's like we're covering these most of these movies were not particularly well reviewed upon release and then you get to something like Prince of Darkness

[01:32:38] and everyone's complaint is that it's not as good as early carpenter movies like it feels like he is being canonized as quickly as they are dismissing the movies that will then be canonized later but that's like that's what must have been very annoying for him where he's like

[01:32:54] you guys didn't like my old shit right and now you're acting like it you did because it turned out that was you know that was very important and a huge hit and all that and now you're like he's kind of rerunning the old shit or whatever Jonathan Rosenbaum

[01:33:10] and Dave Kair gave a good reviews there there are some good reviews you can find of it but it does feel like largely it was dismissed partly also him going to a smaller budget was probably kind of viewed with disdain by some critics you know

[01:33:24] kind of like a hey all right you know he struck out in Hollywood now he's making you know genre crap again yeah I think it also a little footnote here is it came out of not too long after a film called Black Moon Rising

[01:33:38] which he wrote and I think it was like kind of packaged as I think it was an old script that got made I don't know I've never seen it but I think it kind of got packaged as Black Moon Rising and I don't think

[01:33:48] I don't think I was a liked film I think that was a film in the El Dorado Isolura Mars run where he was just trying to write stuff for hire I just want to circle back to something quickly you called out Frank Carasosa who's the makeup

[01:34:02] head on this movie who you know got promoted after all his people that he had been a crew guy and right he's getting to go to the top right that may name meant nothing to me but then I was looking at the dossier he now goes by Francisco

[01:34:18] ex Perez cool name he was the makeup guy on draft day I know him very well he's an excellent dude but it is fascinating because he is not primarily like a special effects makeup guy which I guess they called out that he was

[01:34:32] just meant to be the general makeup artists and they were like I don't know can you do monsters and shit he is like Costner's go-to guy he has a couple of stars he works with every time like that and a couple times he's gotten

[01:34:44] called in to do like special effects he works with Eastwood a lot as well he worked on almost every costume movie during like the glory run so he can gussie up a craggy star is what you're saying an Eastwood or a Costner or a Newman well the crackiest

[01:35:00] of all yes and then he has like sprinkled in a couple ones where it's like oh he did the alien makeups on earth girls are easy you know he worked on Avengers or a lot of Avengers actually it looks like yeah yeah right

[01:35:14] excellent first class but those movies are so fucking big too that like even got a lot of makeup people right right because he was key makeup artists which makes me think one of the 87 cast members might have said like he's

[01:35:26] my guy like he's he's a dude who primarily is a I have my three actors I work with I'll follow them anywhere kind of thing but he does not strike you as someone who is a special effects makeup artist but then every time he's been

[01:35:40] called in to do it he fucking knocks out of the park the makeup in this is extraordinary yes like and carpenter says like the guy basically gave him some sketches and for the big transformations and carpenter was like yeah you're you're in you're the guy just do it

[01:35:54] it's well and he does they live too which obviously has iconic makeup and then yeah I don't know I think I think dances with wolves them pulls him into the like he is an a-list leading man he gets him man's man makeup guy but also Francisco Esparaz fucking

[01:36:10] such a good name let's just call that out for a second I mean to be to be fair it's probably easier to do cost or than to do they live alien it's probably possibly even pays better Keith I mean you haven't seen cost or at 5am

[01:36:24] it might be more looks like a lay-dive alien yeah I just think it's yeah it must be I don't know have it like working with that like the weird sensitivity with those guys were like costner on dances of wolves versus costner on draft day absolutely

[01:36:40] extra work you have to do and how you have to slowly introduce it probably right like yeah hey I'm gonna do I'm gonna do this now right like you have to like do a new thing yeah look I love hair and makeup people and I

[01:36:52] always fucking beeline for them when I'm working on it they got all the goss but I also think they're they can become your like on set mother father sort of like home base sounding board right and you begin and end the day with them and whatever

[01:37:06] and like I just I don't have any goss to spill here but we talked a lot about like his relate like he just has this very close personal relationship with costner for 30 plus years where it is like he to some degree has to function as a security

[01:37:22] blanket for this guy you know not just in terms of like tending to his emotional needs at the beginning end of the day but it's also just like this guy is very you know on guard about his self image and I am the line of defense

[01:37:34] to preserve that and make sure he looks like Kevin Costner every moment and then sometimes I design aliens or fucking anti-god the servants of anti-god I guess but like when one of the creatures is trying to I think it's Kelly right it's Susan Blanchard

[01:37:54] is trying to like get him through the mirror and she's doing her little like makeup mirror right or whatever like the time I don't know what the hell is going on there no one's really explaining what's going on there

[01:38:04] you know I guess that he can't fit through it I guess is that the problem right but like yeah a lot of the horror is fairly abstract in the sort of you know final act of the movie yeah the mirror scene is awesome and it's done just it's

[01:38:20] it's done like John Cactos or Fay where it's so good the mirror is it's mercury and you have to wear a heavy protective you know material to reach through it and or Fay is basically this is you have to put all these special gloves before you go

[01:38:36] to the underworld which is a very silly convention that totally works in that film and here the imagery is just a striking here Cocktooth and Boonwell feel like the two guys he's he's cribbing from a lot once the goo gets loose did you see this additional fact that

[01:38:54] the goo is loose that was the working title for this movie um did you see the additional pack JJ put in that there were 39,000 bugs used in this production I want to actually I want to give credit specifically to Nick because JJ

[01:39:08] I remember I just want to say because JJ texted me being like hey the Prince of Darkness dossier is almost done next just checking one thing about bugs wow 6000 3000 worms and one Emma Stefansky salivating at this tribute the bugs are unsettling I don't I don't

[01:39:30] like it icky yeah yeah when I covered in bugs and then he disintegrates essentially I was gonna say that for me is the most upsetting image in the movie when bugs come out of a man and then the man crumbles

[01:39:42] and turns into bugs in some ways I think the amps on the television is one of the most disturbing images in the film as well because you know TVs are supposed to have ants on them absolutely you nailed it that's how you know something is

[01:39:56] a miss my TV never has ants and that's also that's also how you know that Keith has a keen eye right most critics weren't able to put their finger on what's putting about that image cracks up in the notebook and he's like ants

[01:40:10] on TV unusual and then underlines unusual wrong it's question mark look up later yeah check TV does it have ants or no now I'm watching the bug guy disintegrate again a very simple effect because it's really just an empty suit falling to the ground filled with bugs and

[01:40:32] then the bugs spill out of every and there's just so many bugs yeah god that moment when that when the head just rolls off and bugs are spewing out of it yeah it just feels like it's like with your halloween's your precinct 13th you know carpenters innovating

[01:40:48] like how can I figure out how to stretch a doll now he's coming back and he's like yeah I know what I'm doing right I know how to make like eight incredibly inventive scares for nothing like you know he's the master of horror the master of horror

[01:41:04] this movie also has cool matte paintings apparently should we talk about the end of this movie oh sorry matte the moon over the church it's really cool and you know when you look at it you realize it's a panion yeah the end of this movie okay well

[01:41:20] there's this big mirror and they're trying to get anti god out of it and he's got a big creepy bug hand I don't know how else to describe it right yeah yeah you know yeah it's kelly um the Susan Blanchard mentioned well she's all goopy

[01:41:38] she's trying to pull him out and and Lisa Lisa Blount does the sort of noble thing she she she basically pushes everyone inside including herself uh it's cool I love I love all the mirror stuff again we don't really know what's going on but I get it

[01:41:54] like right I sort of get the abstract it's another place in which I'd like to watch this movie a couple more times not that I think there are clean clear answers I will get from it but just to have my bearings on it a little more

[01:42:06] um yeah uh Keith the ending I mean I guess it's sort of it's sort of interesting and surprising that so many people survive because I think you know Donald Pleasant's Victor Wong survive uh what's this you know obviously um the main guy jen Simon

[01:42:22] and Simon's James Parker that's his name right yeah but we lose Blount we do we we yeah we do we lose some people there's some good much higher body count but yeah that sort of noble sacrifice that that you know in the final twist realize we realize might

[01:42:36] have backfired after all um the payoff for the for the dream sequences is really cool um and I love the I think it's you know whatever like kind of incoherent visual madness this film descends to but at the end I think that having

[01:42:50] that through line of like we're going to give you a little bit more of this dream sequence each time you see it is a really brilliant way to keep people hooked and it's a little different every time like there's a little subtle differences

[01:43:02] to it it's it's very I want to rewatch it just for that and um yeah you know every horror movie of the 80s has that ending of like well you thought it was over but you know right

[01:43:14] you have to have this sort of question mark ending right but this is a perfect way to do that I think this feels less cheap than a lot of those then you know the sort of like oh wait the killer's still on the loose this is uh this

[01:43:24] feels like it's kind of ties into the themes and the plot of the rest of the film I I do like the the quick moment where they they're watching the Tom and Jerry cartoon and you have like the fucking cat in a

[01:43:38] devil suit with the horns and the trident just poking them and he is it is carbon just kind of saying like that's pretty fucking goofy right that we thought about that now please redirect your attention to this vial of goo

[01:43:50] I just could have done with a pleasant death scene and the guy can sell a death scene you know what I mean like just imagine him like finally going wild and you know whatever getting torn apart by zombies are you know transforming

[01:44:04] into a monster so I just that's the only thing I feel little he does carpenter ever kill pleasant off pleasant right yeah it is kind of unkillable in the carpet like this is his last film with carpenter to right yeah it is and you know he does

[01:44:20] to three more halloween but he doesn't even die in the halloween he dies offscreen in the halloween six but right which is the one made after he died right right it's it comes out after he dies okay so

[01:44:34] like wanders off at the end and then you hear him go like that is why that's the right one right yeah that's the right movie is wild to watch now because it's kind of like if you see it as Paul Rudd giving a comedic performance becomes a very

[01:44:48] different film it it's very strange that rut is in it it's like the same year as clueless is that the last original continuity movie it is the last of the films that are going off of halloween two yes right right well right well i mean obviously h2o

[01:45:06] is going off of two but it's ignoring it's the last movie where halloween four is can't hide on fucking though anymore yeah every time we try to parse this we get more confused it's picking up you know halloween five ends with michael miers being freed

[01:45:20] from prison by a guy with a tattoo and six is the one that's like it's all part of a demonic cult let's explain and then that's never obviously revisited that is that is six six exclusive druids and that too but yeah so

[01:45:34] so that's going to halloween three in a way right it does that's true it all comes back around and i'm sure you know david gordon gree will wrap up his halloween trilogy and then some other great director will swoop in and

[01:45:46] be like i really wanted to make an homage to those middle halloween movies with the druids and stuff and it'll all come back well they'll end and they'll be like i want to make a proper sequel to david gordon greens halloween ignoring the other two david

[01:46:00] gordon green halloween movies what if they're like at the beginning of movies now it's just like with the like to explain the continuity this movie is connected to halloween rob zombies halloween david gordon greens halloween nothing else you like wait how is it connected to all three it

[01:46:16] just is okay i'm bringing it all together do you remember what a fucking like brutal it was like a warna brothers marketing to explain the superman returns thing to people and now every movie is like you understand what it's going on so it's

[01:46:30] not in but this is it's sort of direct thematically it's more that and now like people in the general public talk about multi verses it's just something to comic book people came up with to explain how comic books and existed for so damn long and could like

[01:46:46] you know have a functional continuity it's not a good storytelling method. It's just nonsense. My daughter, who is Ted, who loves comic books and loves the Marvel stuff and has a much better grasp of different continuities and intellectual property and who owns the rights.

[01:47:03] I didn't understand any of that stuff at Ted. I didn't have to, but she's got it. It's a bummer that she has to understand who owns the intellectual property rights, though, which is unfortunately very crucial.

[01:47:13] Well, and it's now... I mean, it's fundamentally important if you want to keep track of what's on what streaming surface. Yeah. Because it's no longer about what aired where it's about who ended up retaining the rights.

[01:47:27] Can I can I grab something for one second off of this tangent? You're going to gripe, OK. I have seen people who complain about the masters of the universe show I'm on. And their their complaint is I would actually like it if it was a multi verse

[01:47:48] story, it just bums me out that it's mainline continuity to which I say then it's a multi verse story. What do you mean? Who cares? Any of this stuff is whatever multiverse you want in your head. Exactly. Also, that's how you should interpret everything,

[01:48:02] which is this is one group of people with their interpretation of how to do this thing and everything is going to be negated or retconned or reestablished later by someone else. Like just think of everything as whatever it is.

[01:48:17] This to have to worry about a large corporation telling you that something is canon or not at this point, like it's OK. Make your own can. It's OK. Make your own canon. Make your own.

[01:48:26] I know we're not the only I know we're not the first people to say this, obviously, still if you like the thing more, if you don't think of it as being literally tied to the other thing, then that's how you should watch it.

[01:48:35] Watch it the way that you enjoy it the most box office game. Before we do the boxers game, Keith, any other Prince of Darkness things you want to hit? Anything we missed? Oh, I had a list. But I think I think we got through all of them.

[01:48:50] Has anyone ever seen a film with Amanda Playson today? Oh, no. She's good. She's a good actress. But it's a straight and she it's a strange thing because she's a lovely woman who looks like Donald Playson. It's it's it does.

[01:49:03] She does. Your brain can't quite process these two things at once. Fast. I'm seeing apparently she has a small role in Gangster, New York. Woman accomplice. Hmm. I know that isn't she the one who liked Carpenter's Escape from New York?

[01:49:19] The other one because he had a daughter who was a musician, who was part of a punk band. I believe right. Right. I think that's the five kids. So I just know one of his three other ones that I'm ignoring. Yes. How dare you ignore them?

[01:49:34] Yeah, he actually had five girls, all daughters, five kids, all daughters. Anyway, it also looks like she currently works as a psychotherapist in London. That's cool. If her she wanders around in a trench coat with a gun trying to seek out her past patients, who she couldn't fix.

[01:49:51] I can stand away, child. There's that one day we'll watch Halloween, two in which Donald Pleasant's murder someone really quickly without asking a lot of questions. He really gets really trigger happy in the later ones. It's Michael Myers. Like it's a lot of that anyway.

[01:50:07] Box office game, this movie came out appropriately October 23rd, 1987. Came out right at scary time. Sure. And it was, you know, for what? Three million dollars made 14 million. Yeah. Who's mad, right? He's he's back in being, you know, thrifty, being able to turn a quick

[01:50:26] profit. He's not lighting the world on fire, but everyone's happy. But number one at the box office in its six week of release, still number one is, is it the highest grossing film of 1987? If not, it's right up there because it was a huge smash.

[01:50:45] It's the second highest grossing film because, of course, three men and a baby was number one. Of course. OK, so we always have to acknowledge this is a weird fucking year. We always like to say three man and baby is being the oddest

[01:50:57] number one of a box office year ever. Is this the movie that would have more conventionally been a number one in surprising the three men and baby beat it? Or is this a movie that also is surprising to have become that much of a blockbuster?

[01:51:10] Well, it's an R rated movie. It's an adult thriller. You know, like it's just surprising. Fatal attraction, but it's fatal attraction. Number two highest grossing film of its year. It was a phenomenon beyond compare. Every grown up in the world had to see fatal attraction.

[01:51:26] I think that's how that movie did it. Do you know who was offered fatal attraction? Was John Carpenter John Carpenter was on. It makes sense. It makes sense. I mean, he probably would have done a good job with it. I don't know. Yeah.

[01:51:39] He would have done a job with it. I assume he just turned it down because whatever. If he was out of the studio, he was done with the studios at that point. It's right. Yeah. Fatal attraction number one, but also Griffin.

[01:51:50] It's sixth week. So it and it's growing. You know what I mean? Like it's it's just. Crazy. OK. Number two is Prince of Darkness. Four and a half million dollars as it's opening. Number three is another new movie. But look, he beat the entire budget opening weekend.

[01:52:05] Like exactly. Yeah. It's pure profit. It has to be a happy phone call. Right. Right. Like no one's no one's like, you know, that's why he makes another one. OK. Yeah. Not this is not a movie I know. It's from Peter Yates, the director Peter Yates.

[01:52:21] OK. Who made that? I'm telling you that because I feel like you don't have Peter Yates filmography, you know, on your brain. Sure. Right. You know, the hot rock, Prince of Eddicoil and also like crawl breaking away, you know, right? It's a legal thriller thriller.

[01:52:38] It's got a major Oscar winning star, although maybe she won her Oscar this year. Yes, this is the year of her Oscar win. 87. But not for this. And it's got this very bland title that is a title that I guess is appropriate for a legal thriller.

[01:52:57] The title ends in a T and the T is a gavel. I may know this if Griffin does fucking holy shit. It's not Jessica Lang. No, it's not just going to a major stars who win their Oscar in the late 80s. I'm stumped here, Keith. What's your guess?

[01:53:22] It's suspect, sorry, in share, right? Correct. The film suspect. I've never seen it in 10,000 years. Share. Can you tell me the male lead? Anyone tell me can tell me the male lead? Quaid. Quaid. Dennis Quaid is the male lead and Liam Neeson,

[01:53:41] a young Liam Neeson is playing the suspect. John Mahoney is the John Mahoney is the judge. Look, it sounds good. Fuck this cast. I mean, Joe Montaigne, Phillip Bosco, Fred Millimet, Bill Cobbs, Michael Beach. This is great. Gates is a filmography, that's for sure.

[01:54:02] Yeah. But apparently, I don't know, people don't like it. I don't think it was a big hit. And I just it's just funny to think that share made this the same year as Moonstruck, like, yeah, that's you don't share as someone who was in a lot

[01:54:16] of movies as much as she was a good actress. No, no. And especially like Moonstruck, they were like, fuck, I guess we finally got to give it to her. She's a movie star, but they were like pushing against it so much. But in 87, she did suspect

[01:54:31] witches of Eastwick and Moonstruck. It's three movies. It's kind of amazing because one thing that happened when she showed up in the trailer for Silkwood audiences would laugh. And like it would be right. She was I mean, that was just four years previous to this.

[01:54:46] Right. Well, it's like she does three movies. She does three movies in the 60s. She does nothing in the 70s. And then it's come back to the five and dime 82. Silkwood 83 first Oscar nomination. She silences the critics. Mask 85 and then 87, the three movies we cited. Yeah, it's well.

[01:55:05] And then Mermaid's 1990 and she pretty much does cameos after that. Yeah, Mermaid's is kind of tea with Mussolini. She did have tea with Mussolini. She has tea with Mussolini and she has burlesque. I don't know if she drinks tea with Mussolini,

[01:55:18] but that's like the player cameo, Predor Porta cameo stuck on you playing herself zookeeper. She plays a fucking giraffe or something. I'm sorry, she's a lioness. She's a lioness more appropriate for her to play lioness her install on.

[01:55:35] And then, of course, she finally comes full circle with a mommy here. We go again. Only other thing about suspect written by Eric Roth, a younger we are your roles. Maybe it's good. Let's check it out. Number four, the box office is an enduring cult classic.

[01:55:50] A comedy fantasy adventure film that I think was a reasonable hit at the time, but, you know, has become a bigger beloved princess bride to the princess bride. Yeah, which has never been one of my movies, but it's obviously good.

[01:56:07] If I find charming and I'm still to this day somewhat surprised that has become like the thing. Oh, come on. I love that movie. I like it. I like it. I got zero complaints.

[01:56:18] I think there's a lot of those 80s cult classics that I was a little too young for. I really like the princess bride, but like stand by me. Sure. Another Reiner movie. Goonies. Goonies, right? Where I have no nostalgia for it.

[01:56:32] It just was sort of already presented to me as a nostalgic movie. Keith, do you like the princess bride? I do. I was never I was I think might have been honestly

[01:56:41] might have been a little too old to fall in love with it, but I do like it. And I took my daughter to see it at like a, you know, a fathom screen or something. And she liked it, but she hated it.

[01:56:53] She was younger than she was terrified of the sword fighting for some reason. Like the creatures didn't bother her, but the sword play. Sword fighting is is pretty good too. It's a pretty nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I find sword fighting scary.

[01:57:07] I don't know. We don't need to do that anymore. You're out on sword fighting. I get it. I agree with your daughter. Why are we doing this? Number five at the box office on this October, this chilly October weekend, scare is right.

[01:57:23] Is a film I don't know at all. Let's see. Let me look it up. It's a 1987 film, of course. Oh, no, I do know this film. Of course, I know this film. It is a body swap comedy. Oh, OK. So is it vice versa? No. Is it?

[01:57:41] Is it the George Burns one? No. Is we're exposing how many body swap comedies there are. Is it like Father likes on? It is like Father likes. OK. Dudley Warren, Kirk Cameron. I'm trying to remember which one it is. It might be vice versa,

[01:57:57] which is the judge, Reinhold Charlie Schlatter one. Is that right? There's one of the body swap movies from this era. Siskel and Ebert went to their graves contending was better than big. They were perplexed that big was the one that broke out

[01:58:12] and that whether it was either Dudley Moore or Judge Reinhold, whoever played the adult gave a better performance. Let me tell you, it wasn't like Father like son, because is the Wikipedia page will tell you Ebert called it one of the most desperately bad comedies I've ever seen.

[01:58:28] And Siskel went further and said it was a cheap marketing decision masquerading as a comedy. So Siskel did not play good cop. He was he was angrier. I think it was vice versa then maybe. They must have loved vice versa. I mean, I don't know.

[01:58:44] I think there's one that critics kind of went for because it's all pretty big and big. Put them all well unless you're since school or Ebert or whatever, you put them all to shame. But there's one that kind of got decent reviews.

[01:58:54] So I couldn't tell you which one. I mean, it's also just bizarre where it's like like Father likes on eighty seven, eighteen again, eighty eight vice versa, eighty eight. Right. It's all happening at once. What's the one with the hams in it? There's one with the hams.

[01:59:12] OK, but eighteen again is the one that's Charlie Schladder and Burns. Roger Ebert loved vice versa. OK, thank you. Three and a half out of four stars. And he says like, I know, I know it's another body swap comedy and yet it's all so well done.

[01:59:29] Yeah. The body language from Reinhold and Savage is wonderful. I don't know. It's not like he's saying like he has some sort of galaxy brain take on it. He just seems to think it's a well done version.

[01:59:38] But part of his sake was better than big Reinhold, better than Hanks. Sorry, I said the hams when I met the Cori's and the game is dream a little dream. Sure. Although I'm not sure what the plot of is. I think it's a body swap thing.

[01:59:51] Dream a little dream with Jason Robards, Corey Feldman and Piper Laurie. Yep. Is a body switch between four characters. Four way body switch. Well, at that deep into the cycle, you had to help the ante, right? Yeah. Jason Robards. What's the swapping?

[02:00:09] And then there's a dream, a little dream, too. There was a direct video sequel featuring the Hame, the Cori's, you know, Feldman and Hame, but no one else. That has ordinary sunglasses that let someone manipulate the person wearing them. I don't look guys. I don't fucking know.

[02:00:25] We got to pull out of this tailspin. It's just amazing that there were like five of these within three years. I guess it's a Patreon series. Oh, boy. Other movies in the top 10, you've got Baby Boom, which we've discussed the Nancy Meyers. Sure. Child Shark.

[02:00:44] Kind of Nancy's breakout. Yeah. Well, I guess no, probably Ben Jones happened. I'm an idiot. I'm a fucking moron. Go on. You've got the Sicilian. You're not an idiot. Michael Chamino flop that's based on like a lesser Mario Puzo novel,

[02:00:59] right? That's kind of like, you know, Italian Godfather, which is loosely connected to the Godfather of films, I believe, or at least the book is. Well, Keith, I don't think so. I like to think of Sicilian as a multiverse story within the Godfather universe.

[02:01:12] You've got Ridley Scott, someone to watch over me, probably one of his least well known movies with Tom Berenger, Mimmy Rogers. Can I just also call out Boiling Hatay, Christopher Lambert, kind of weird casting for a Sicilian. Yeah. Hollywood of the 80s really had broad definitions on ethnicity

[02:01:32] on everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You've got a movie called No Man's Land, which I've never heard of. Oh, it's written by Dick Wolf with Charlie Sheen. Rookie. You've got D.B. Sweeney and Randy Quaid, Guy investigating a string of Porsche thefts.

[02:01:51] As two guys who have spent time in the TV review trenches, we're either of you aware of the third universe Dick Wolf currently has going of the FBI's? No. There are three FBI shows that are about to cross over

[02:02:07] in addition to his four Chicago shows and his law and order universe. He's three fucking universes going. I somehow seen about four episodes of Dick Wolf television over the many years that it's been on. The three FBI's, of course, are FBI, FBI Most Wanted

[02:02:25] and FBI International, which is sort of weird considering that I feel like FBI. The whole point is that they're not international. Absolutely. But I guess they have some international division, but it's just that thing where Dick Wolf is sitting in his chair

[02:02:39] and being like, I could use an extra 50 million dollars. And I don't know these shows, but I'm guessing they probably have actors who you'd rather see a really good actors who you'd rather see as like that's not an. Love these actors, Missy Peregrine, Connie Nielsen, Cilla Ward,

[02:02:53] fucking Jeremy Sisto, He's the Castle Hughes. Jesus Christ. I mean, I'm glad this is my thing. I got I got some fucking ad that was Dick Wolf saying it's finally happening. All three FBI's are crossing over. And I was like, I didn't know there was one FBI motherfucker.

[02:03:10] And you're telling me finally all three. Just the sheer laziness to have CBS being like we gave you like the extremely complex things like, you know, naval cops. Right. It's like, but you know what? Now we're just doing the FBI. You ever heard of them?

[02:03:25] It's just called FBI. Really? Really? I also I just like that thing I read was that NBC passed on it. What is the line of thinking after Dick Wolf has created the Lawnmower universe and the Chicago universe where he's like third universe? I don't know, FBI.

[02:03:42] And they're like, Dick, we're going to pass on this one. We don't think there's any juice to it. Now we're televisions doing so well right now. So well, you're right. Turner turns, you know, someone else have this short thing.

[02:03:51] So well, I mean, maybe maybe he was coming to them with like, I see three shows here and they're like, Dick, we've got three of these fucking Chicago shows. We don't have space. But I just like if Dick Wolf came to me and was like, I don't know,

[02:04:03] here's the pitch. Cup of coffee, cup of coffee. I'd be like, great, cup of coffee. And we'll have like cup of coffee, Louisiana on backup. They're just finally launching NCIS Hawaii. Cup of coffee, Cyber Division. Yeah, I know that's not a Dick Wolf, but still.

[02:04:22] They've always got space for that. Always space. Anything else in the box office worth mentioning? Dirty dancing. Oh, a big hit. Was this late? This is late in the run, right? Very late in the run. But another massive, you know, word of mouth.

[02:04:40] The played all year type movie. I'm forgetting the specifics and the names of the companies involved in this, but that movie was supposed to go to direct a video. There was a very cheap deal for it. Then they decided to give it a little theatrical run

[02:04:53] and then the people who had paid nothing for the video rights when they thought it was only going to be a video movie made like hundreds of millions of dollars. This became one of the biggest VHS movies ever. Pretty cool, dirty dancing. Anyway, yeah, that's it.

[02:05:08] That is the Prince of Darkness. We can close the canister. Mm hmm. They should have tried closing the canister to be honest. That's the first thing they should have. They should have found the guy with the strongest wrists in the group and just said,

[02:05:19] do a reverse pickle jar on this bad boy. Keith, thank you so much for being on the show. Long overdue. Oh, yeah, of course. Anytime. I mean to ask you all episodes. You are wearing a thing shirt right now. Is that correct?

[02:05:33] I'm wearing a thing shirt from the comic book artist, Erica Henderson, who is a best known for Squirrel Girl. It's Kurt Russell at the end of the thing. Nobody trusts anybody now. We're all very tired. I had to stop wearing this shirt for a while

[02:05:48] in the middle of the election because my wife said it depressed her too much. But I thought I broke it out for this occasion. I will say things really fucking been haunting me in the three weeks since we recorded it

[02:06:00] where I just keep on going like, yep, that's the closest analogy to every single thing I feel on a daily basis. It just all we're just living in a fucking carpenter movie now. He knows. You know, everyone listen to the next picture show.

[02:06:14] It's not the last picture show. It's the next one is going to keep going forever and ever and ever. Can I do a quick plug to please any plug? Plug everything. Plug anything and everything. OK, well, I'm a freelance writer. I'm all over the place.

[02:06:25] I'm going to be a GQ and Vulture and TV guys. Sometimes at the ringer on Twitter at K-Fit 3000. But it's always a pleasant surprise when a new FIPS byline pops up under any tree. I'm always excited to read it. I do my best to excite the fans.

[02:06:39] But you're going to actually this is actually good timing because by the time this episode airs, my longtime collaborator and friend Scott DeBuy and I are launching a newsletter on Substack called The Reveal at the URL will be the reveal substack.com.

[02:06:55] And it's kind of like our attempt to keep going with some of the stuff we used to do at the A.B. Club and and the dissolve and kind of like just kind of follow our own instincts in terms of film criticisms.

[02:07:07] We like reviews and essays, historical deep dives, lists, that kind of stuff. If you like what we've done in the past, you should sign up for it. It should be it's going to be fun. I just found out about this. I'm very excited. I will sign up.

[02:07:17] I mourn the dissolve on a daily basis. Whenever I see another stupid fucking argument going around based on click baity headlines, I'm like, I wish I wish I wish. It was it was nice and I'm glad. And you know, we had like a nice community there.

[02:07:33] People who are actually smart in the comic section was good. And the archives are remain up there. They occasionally disappear and I have like sent out panicked emails to people at Condé Nast. At some point, I'm afraid they will disappear forever, but it's there for now.

[02:07:47] I both reread old dissolve pieces on a regular basis and discover old pieces I had missed at the time. It's always fucking worthwhile. It was the best. Well, we want to keep that spirit alive with the reveal and some name a little bit. So, yeah, yeah, good.

[02:08:00] We also mentioned your book Age of Cage is coming out early next year. Yeah, did you guys get copies? You're supposed to get copy. We did. OK, good. I mean, I did. I did. Yeah, it was supposed to come out in October

[02:08:10] and then COVID production delays pushed it back. It's going to be March 29th. It is 40 years of Hollywood through the career of Nicholas Cage. And so it's about Nicholas Cage movies and like big changes in Hollywood as reflected through his career.

[02:08:24] And I hope it's I hope people like it. If you like Nicholas Cage films, I write about every single one of them to sometimes just a Senate, often a lot more. So you have watched every single one now?

[02:08:35] I have, except for that Christmas Carol film from the early aughts, the not to jump carry one, the other one that no one's seen. Yes, yes, the Jimmy T Murakami Christmas Carol, which is Kate Winslettson as well has a weirdly stacked cast. Yep.

[02:08:48] And Kate Winslet did a pop song for it that charted in Britain. Oh, wow. You know what? I need to stop the presses. I'm going to go back and do a whole chapter on this. But no, I watched everything else up through,

[02:08:58] including all the Red Box era stuff. So this is my fucking thing, Keith, is like 10 years ago, my friend and I tried to watch every single one for a magazine that went under before we got to publish our thing on it.

[02:09:09] And we watched I watched at least all but five up until 2011. Right. The Christmas Carol was one of the ones I hadn't seen. There's what's called the boy in blue, the like the fucking rowing drama. It is about. Yeah, it's about a famous Canadian rower.

[02:09:24] Right. It is not good. There's firebirds I hadn't seen like it was. Firebirds is bad. There's only five. It was only five I hadn't seen out of what was like 40 at that time. So you saw. Yeah, you see, so you saw Zandali is absolutely. West.

[02:09:40] Absolutely. Zandali is incredible. Yes. But I was I like I had a near comprehensive view and the moment that ends is like the next month seeking justice comes out. And it's like now he's going to do 12 movies a month

[02:09:55] and most of them go straight to fucking Taxi TV. Yep. And I watched them all kind of in a mad rush to finish the book. It's interesting, though, because there are some decent movies in there. This is my question I want to ask you quickly

[02:10:09] not to cut off your stream here. Sure, sure. Of the post 2011 Red Box Run, right? Discounting legitimate quote unquote legitimate films he's made in that time. What is the best and what is the worst in your opinion?

[02:10:23] OK, well, is mom and dad too big a title for this? I would say by a hair. Yeah, so, you know, people well, it's good. It's actually quite good. I like mom and dad. Yeah. Yeah, it's good.

[02:10:34] So the best one that you probably haven't seen is The Trust, which co-stars Elijah Wood. Yes. Yes, I've heard things about that one. Really stylish review by this film making team that I don't know. There's anything else but but, you know, it's Las Vegas.

[02:10:48] High Spelm. It's really nasty. And Jerry Lewis plays Nicholas Cage's father for a scene, which is not like an amazing scene, but it's just kind of cool to see that because, you know, Lewis was one of Cage's idols and yeah.

[02:11:01] So that's that's there's some other decent ones in there, too. The worst one is a film called Rage. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you see that one? I have not. I avoided that one. So you avoid that one.

[02:11:13] It is the you know, he does a lot of revenge movies because those are easy to make and easy to sell. But I refer to this as kind of like a mad libs period where it's like, where is this revenge happening?

[02:11:25] Is he a cop or is he a gangster? And who is the bad guy? In this case, he's a former gangster in the budget friendly location of Mobile, Alabama, the site of so many thrillers that you love.

[02:11:40] And it's it's it's it's, you know, he doesn't really phone it in that often. I know people say he phones it in, but there's always like something that is usually something to latch on. I think he literally did not phone it in once until 2011.

[02:11:54] That's when like the financial trouble stack up and like two out of every eight movies are just sleepwalked. It's rough watching his filmography just expand like a year by year, five a time. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like that's really 2011 is when the sleepwalking happens.

[02:12:10] And there's usually and like there's usually something going on in those later films and sometimes like I'm going to make sure I get the title. There's so many of them. But it was it was a film called No, not not Looking Glass.

[02:12:24] That's actually one of the better ones. So called Between Worlds where he was obviously just giving full license to do whatever he wants to, including, you know, it's fairly graphic love scenes for the first time in a while in Nicholas Cage's interesting.

[02:12:39] But there's including like one point he's reading a book whose author is Nicholas Cage. It doesn't necessarily hold together, but it's a lot of fun that movie as fun as a movie in which choking plays a major role can be.

[02:12:55] Wow. I just want to put a ball in this by saying, Keith, you you questioned what the promising filmmakers behind the trust have done since then the Brewer Brothers. And it seems like they have primarily done music videos for the chain smokers. Sure. Why not? Hey, it's money.

[02:13:13] Smoke those chains. I mean, it's also that the pig is amazing. I'm sure you probably discussed it. Well, a pig is incredible. It is good. You know, it seems to suggest him emerging possibly from this dark phase.

[02:13:25] But he's had a couple of I mean like Mandy, he's had like every year he's had one movie where he's clearly giving a shit and working with an iconic classic filmmaker. Right. Right. And people like The Prisoners, the Ghost Land movie,

[02:13:37] but not universally that one sort of more of a tweener. Yeah, it's it's it's it's fun. I found it kind of a little weirring after a while. But right. But it's worth it. Is is Willy's Wonderland worthwhile?

[02:13:48] It's worthwhile to watch Cage in it because it's a wordless performance and he's really commits to it. It's a movie where it's basically a ripoff of Five Nights at Freddy's best I can tell. Yeah, right. Right.

[02:14:00] And it's a movie where they do not have a budget to make the movie they need to make it seems to take place in two black rooms, you know, almost entirely. But he's fun. It's trying a little too hard to be a cult classic right off the bat

[02:14:13] and doesn't quite get there. No taken. And I'm very excited to to rip in the book. And thank you so much for sending us copies. I enjoy it. Actually, it's not I need to have a little extra time.

[02:14:24] So I'm going to write about pigs that you're getting a rare. Oh, I'll give you a good button. Not a big addition. Yeah, right. Clutters item. And and next picture show like you said, you guys take a new movie.

[02:14:37] You take an old movie that's thematically linked in some way. Right. You pair them up. It's a lot of AV club and dissolve. Right. Yeah, it's me as Scott Devias and Genevieve Kosky and Tasha Robinson and various guests. And we never had you guys on.

[02:14:49] Maybe maybe we need to figure out the perfect episode and have you on. Sure. Any time. Happy to happy to do it. And I got to say a key thank you for doing the show. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.

[02:15:04] Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media, Lane Montgomery and the great American novel for our theme song, Joe Bonaparte rounds for artwork, JJ Birch, Nick Lariano for our research. Aja McKeehan, Alex Barron for editing. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit.

[02:15:24] Go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features where we are now still doing the mummy. I believe so. Yes, still got plenty of money. We still got plenty of money left. I think we're getting ready to do the Tom Cruise mummy up next.

[02:15:40] Is that possible? No, no, you get you get to the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor first and then and then the Tom Cruise. Got to get there. Did you do the old Universal mummies? We would split that into its own thing because there are enough of them.

[02:15:53] That's one of the few universal franchises that like actually had multiple movies in one strict continuity. And it gets it gets the cut. Yeah, it does. It gets weird. It's kind of fun to watch in order. Frankenstein and mummy are the two I'd really like to do.

[02:16:08] And I'm pushing very hard to to do one of that. I say pushing hard makes it sound like David's resisting. He's not, but it's a pet project of mine that I'd like to do one of the Universal Monster series next year.

[02:16:18] And perhaps doing modern mummy as a prelude to that. Maybe. Yeah, maybe we do it at great at Halloween time again. I don't know. Right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be fun. Tune in next week for they live, which they do. Yes, they live. They do live.

[02:16:33] And that's the titular movie to be a good episode. It's going to be a good episode. It's going to be a good episode. We're not going to say the guest service is going to be a good episode. And I did say, yes. Plurals.

[02:16:47] Guest plural and yes, you listen to our Patreon and that's it. We're done. Yeah. Take us away. Yeah. That's that's it. We're done. And as always, what that's it? I don't know what you want from me.