WEBVTT
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Bye.
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Welcome back, Midnight Viewers, to Button Switches and Consoles. It's
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a series about old tech, or new tech, or prescient
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tech in this case. We're talking about the granddaddy, really,
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of all computer technology thriller in suburbia. while dealing with
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the end-of-the-world thrillers. Are there a lot of those? There are, actually.
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There are a few, right in that decade. But I
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can't talk about war games alone. It's a duo situation.
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And as always, my co-host Laura Grillo is here. Laura,
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how are you?
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Hi, Father Malone. I'm great.
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Great. Laura, you're like me. You're a Gen X-er. Did
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you grow up with the constant threat of nuclear war
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absolutely raining havoc upon your brain?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I did.
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I mean, not like they did in the 50s and
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they'd have to go under the classroom desks or anything
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like that. Yeah, it was a nice, healthy Cold War.
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Can I just say, now that we know how the
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boomers turned out, aren't you glad that happened to them
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and don't you wish worse did?
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That's a question.
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Another podcast, perhaps.
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Yeah, can we table that one?
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Yes, but we will get back to it.
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We will, yeah. I enjoyed the Cold War. There was
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a lot of good movies.
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Ruskies.
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Sleeper agents.
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Rocky IV. Apollo Creed. Come on.
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That's not Rocky.
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He was living in America, though. He was fighting that
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Russian in full Uncle Sam regalia. Got killed, certainly. Nevertheless,
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that was a Russian-American battle. And who had to win
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it for us, Laura? An Italian. Does that make you proud?
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An Italian-American.
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An Italian-American. He defeated Russia for us.
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He did.
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And ended the Cold War.
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He did.
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It wasn't long before the Soviet Union collapsed after Rocky
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did that.
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And he took his girlfriend at the time.
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He took his girlfriend?
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Brigitte Nielsen.
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Well, that wasn't his girlfriend in the movie.
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No, I know, but after the movie they started dating.
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Yeah, you see her towering over him like a Lilliputian
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in Gulliver?
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I bet he loved every second of it.
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Oh my God, climbing her like a tree.
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Until the 80s Coke. Took over that face.
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America's front line of defense is this computer. It is
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totally secure. Or is it?
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You're really into computers, huh?
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Yeah.
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What are you doing? Dialing into the school's computer. Are
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those your grades? Yeah. I don't think that I deserved it.
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Do you?
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You can't do that.
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Already done. You can go to jail for that.
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Only if you're over 18.
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This computer company is coming out with these amazing new
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games in.
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A couple of months.
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I want to play those games.
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Wow.
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What?
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We got something. Games refers to models, simulations, and games
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that you have tackled on strategic application.
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Greetings.
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Game time is near.
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Shall we play a game? Love to. Let's play. Global
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thermonuclear war. Fine.
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All right.
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We have a launch detection. We have a Soviet launch.
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What the hell?
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Missile warning, no malfunction. Oh, my God. I repeat, confidence
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is high.
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Mr. President, this is Mary Jane Norris.
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Is this a game, or is it real?
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What's the difference?
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War Games.
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Begin playing June 3rd at.
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A theater near you. Oh, the 80s. 1983 we're talking about. Specifically,
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June 3rd, 1983. That is when War Games hit the airwaves,
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the cinema screens. I was 10 years old. I was
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in a theater in Revere, Massachusetts, seeing this movie on
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opening weekend. One of, I don't know, a dozen, two
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dozen times I saw this in theaters. I was fairly
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obsessed with it, fairly obsessed with Matthew Broderick, fairly obsessed
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with Dabney Coleman. Figure that one out. This is the
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story of David Lightman, a young hacker who accidentally hacks
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into the NORAD computer, setting up a war simulation that
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might just end the world. When did you first see it, Laura?
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In theater. Nice. You were 10, so I was 9.
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And I was with my mom. I can't say if
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it was, or speak to if it was opening weekend, but.
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Right around then.
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Right around then.
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But then again, movies stuck around a while when we
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were kids, so you might have had all summer to
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see it.
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Can I ask a question, Father Malone?
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Absolutely.
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So your obsessions spanned quite a few things when you
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were entering the movie, yet you neglected to mention Ally Sheedy.
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I didn't neglect to mention her. I knew that she
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would be a focal point in your discussion and wanted
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to leave that to you. Oh, is that why you're doing.
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It as a favor?
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Totally. I was setting you up.
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But you weren't obsessed with her? No.
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At least it was not my thing.
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That's cool. Good to know.
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I liked Molly Ringwald.
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Oh, boy. Okay.
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Actually, I'm going to continue to say that I like
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Christine DeBell from Meatballs.
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Oh, my goodness.
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Or, say, Little Nell from Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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Baby Candice Bergen.
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I never really noticed the similarity between Christine DeBell and
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Candice Bergen, but now.
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I see it. So have you been watching Murphy Brown
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late at night?
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No, I have not. Why would I?
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Because you can't just break it.
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All right, I might start. Anyway, tell me more about
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your initial reactions to War Games. And in the Cold
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War era.
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It blew my nine-year-old mind. And I was definitely crushed
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out on Matthew Broderick.
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This was written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parks.
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They'd go on to do Numbers, that other sort of
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technological thriller that we're going to end up doing on
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this series. It was also directed by John Battam, who is...
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Listeners to this show are well acquainted with Mr.
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Batimus.
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He got his start alongside Steven Spielberg on Rod Serling's
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Night Gallery. He directed a clutch of episodes every season
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and pointed to a career as a rather artistic filmmaker.
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And instead of the sort of meat and potatoes guy
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he ended up being, even then he managed to continue
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to make his movies, I think, a little more stylish
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than the typical Hollywood film of the day. This one
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certainly looks beautiful. But if you go back and look
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at his night gallery things, he was very, very impressionistic.
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So it's odd to see just regular old setups from
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the man.
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So you're saying Bird on a Wire is more stylistic
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than the movies of the day?
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I think, oh, Bird on a Wire, no. I was
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thinking of Tequila Sunrise.
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Okay. Yeah, that was all style.
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Yeah, that was style to burn.
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No plot. It was like a dard.
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Yeah, exactly. Just look at these pretty people.
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And I neglected to go see Point of No Return.
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You neglected on purpose? Yeah. Were you a fan of
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La Femme Nikita or just Nikita?
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Of course. Yeah.
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I had a woman I worked with, a French woman
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named Sophie, who always complained. Because I had the movie poster.
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And she complained every time she saw the La Femme
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Nikita poster. She would say, that is so stupid. Why?
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The woman Nikita. It's just Nikita.
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Oh, Jesus. That was her thing?
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Yeah, I guess so. Still a good movie. And definitely
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a better movie than Point of No Return, which despite
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having adorable Bridget Fonda trying to assay the role of
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a junkie who gets reformed and turned into an assassin,
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which she almost pulls off, the movie around it just
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doesn't hold up at all. It's all like a beat-for-beat
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remake of the first film without any of its weird
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punky ethos.
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That's why I didn't watch it. Thank you for affirming
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my instincts.
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The opening of the Thumb Nikita when they're just going
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nuts inside that pharmacy, it was like.
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What the fuck is that?
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With the rabbit masks? Yeah, it was all like total chaos.
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I had no idea what was happening. And in the
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American version, it's just, eh, we're sad and we need
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some drugs. That's what it kind of felt like.
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Well, I mean, couldn't the opposite be true, that you
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can take an American, any movie, make it French, and
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then people pretend that it has some sort of depth?
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That's really not there.
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Have there been many French remakes of American films? I'm
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not even aware.
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Okay, the remake concept, yeah. I'll have to get back
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to you on that one, Father Malone.
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We should do a series about films that are remade
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from American films. I mean, I can think of a few.
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I think my point was things aren't always smart just
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because they're in another language.
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Or just by cutting dialogue, which is how Nicholas Winding
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Refn has gotten a reputation as having depth. He just
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has nobody say anything ever. Just stare longingly.
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Yeah. There's Gosling in his highlighted hair. Again.
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That movie Drive, I was just like, this is what
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everyone's been talking about? There's fucking nothing going on here?
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Did nobody see Thief with James Caan?
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I guess not.
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They did not.
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They did not.
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They would know what a good movie is with Tangerine Dream.
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Everything's better with Tangerine Dream.
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That's, yeah.
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They could have made the music a this movie better,
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I think.
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If that was a cocktail, what would it be?
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Tangerine Dream?
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Yeah.
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I'm guessing it would have some sort of citrus going on.
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Citrus, obviously. But, I don't know, soda.
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But shouldn't it be something bitter and not a bitter citrus?
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Okay. Well, look.
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Is there something worse than lime that you would not
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want to put in your mouth, that you would have
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to even it out with something sweet? I think it
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should be an extreme drink, but an extreme one of flavors.
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But would it be gin, vodka, rum, tequila, mezcal?
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Well, as someone who can barely drink any alcohol because
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it's mostly wheat-based, I'm going to go vodka.
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Vodka. Okay. That sounds good. All right, moving on. That
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was just something I thought about.
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When last I was in Los Angeles and at Amoeba Records,
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I was looking for Tangerine Dream. I thought, well, there
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certainly must be an album I haven't added to my
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collection that's out there. And I looked and looked and looked.
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Do you know where I found it? Do you know
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what section I found it in? New Age. I wanted
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to burn that building to the ground. Yes, next to Enya.
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Did you say something about it?
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I said it to the people I was with. I
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was like, what the fuck is this business? And they
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were like, well, yeah. So... I couldn't even get satisfaction
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from them.
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Okay.
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Anyway, war games.
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War games. Oh, right, yeah.
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It begins with Baby Madsen.
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Baby... Oh, Baby Madsen?
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Baby Michael Madsen. Young Michael Madsen in his first role.
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It begins with him?
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Turn your key, sir.
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That's not Michael Madsen.
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Yes, that is Mr. Blonde Michael Madsen. Really? From Reservoir Dogs?
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Yes. No.
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Older brother of Virginia Madsen. Or younger.
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I thought that was someone else. It doesn't even look
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like him.
256
00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:50.460
I know, because he's so baby-faced, you see.
257
00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:53.700
No, because when he's driving the truck, you can tell
258
00:11:53.759 --> 00:11:54.860
that that's Michael Madsen.
259
00:11:55.100 --> 00:11:56.259
He's only in the one scene.
260
00:11:56.659 --> 00:11:58.980
No, he's in the truck that turns over.
261
00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:00.299
That was him at the end?
262
00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:01.159
Yeah.
263
00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:03.399
We didn't recognize him in different scenes.
264
00:12:03.779 --> 00:12:04.980
I didn't think he had a line.
265
00:12:05.620 --> 00:12:07.740
Oh, yeah, that's him in the opening scene, not almost
266
00:12:07.779 --> 00:12:09.019
killing John Spencer.
267
00:12:09.470 --> 00:12:14.799
I don't... With all respect, Father, I... Don't think that's him.
268
00:12:15.070 --> 00:12:17.470
Would you like to pause the program and go rewatch
269
00:12:17.509 --> 00:12:17.850
the scene?
270
00:12:18.830 --> 00:12:20.370
I've watched it a few times.
271
00:12:20.529 --> 00:12:22.529
And yet you didn't realize that that's Michael Madsen.
272
00:12:22.610 --> 00:12:23.509
I don't think so.
273
00:12:24.169 --> 00:12:26.669
We are not going to argue facts. That is Michael Madsen.
274
00:12:27.009 --> 00:12:30.149
Okay, that's fine. The earth is flat.
275
00:12:33.730 --> 00:12:35.570
Yes, the point you've decided on.
276
00:12:36.250 --> 00:12:39.480
No, I really, I mean, that scene, what did, I
277
00:12:39.580 --> 00:12:41.919
didn't remember how jarring that opening scene was.
278
00:12:42.370 --> 00:12:43.950
It's the thing I think of most when I think
279
00:12:43.970 --> 00:12:45.970
of war games, actually. Him pointing the gun at that
280
00:12:46.009 --> 00:12:47.909
guy and say, turn your keys, sir. And what a
281
00:12:47.929 --> 00:12:50.669
scenario to begin a film, which ultimately turns out to
282
00:12:50.710 --> 00:12:54.730
be like a suburban thriller for teens. But yeah, it
283
00:12:54.789 --> 00:12:56.870
is so jarring, in fact, that when it cuts to
284
00:12:56.889 --> 00:13:02.330
the credits and this jaunty horn-soaked theme came on, I
285
00:13:02.370 --> 00:13:03.970
was like, what is happening?
286
00:13:04.370 --> 00:13:04.690
Yeah.
287
00:13:05.269 --> 00:13:07.149
You watching the scene now? You finding out it's actually
288
00:13:07.169 --> 00:13:08.029
Michael Manson? Yeah, you're right.
289
00:13:08.429 --> 00:13:11.009
But it's just, he doesn't look like him. I love
290
00:13:11.049 --> 00:13:12.110
John Spencer in that part.
291
00:13:12.659 --> 00:13:15.230
And the guy who signs them in is also famous
292
00:13:15.450 --> 00:13:18.230
in a character actor-y way, but I didn't write that.
293
00:13:18.250 --> 00:13:19.590
The one who complained about them being late?
294
00:13:19.809 --> 00:13:22.240
Yeah. No, no, no. The one who signs them in.
295
00:13:22.379 --> 00:13:25.220
It's Art LeFleur, who played the dad in the remake
296
00:13:25.240 --> 00:13:26.000
of The Blob.
297
00:13:26.820 --> 00:13:27.000
Oh.
298
00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:28.600
He's been in a bunch of other stuff.
299
00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:31.360
Michael Madsen is the driver in that car, but.
300
00:13:31.750 --> 00:13:32.000
Isn't.
301
00:13:32.870 --> 00:13:33.029
Is.
302
00:13:33.529 --> 00:13:35.629
Oh, he is. Okay, good. I'm glad he got paid twice.
303
00:13:37.240 --> 00:13:38.559
They had to have him out to location.
304
00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:40.539
I can't believe how much it doesn't look like him.
305
00:13:40.860 --> 00:13:46.299
He's unlined and not yet drunk. I met him a
306
00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:46.820
few times.
307
00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:47.960
You have?
308
00:13:48.179 --> 00:13:49.259
Oh, yeah.
309
00:13:49.610 --> 00:13:51.370
He passed away last year, or was it two years?
310
00:13:51.389 --> 00:13:54.549
I believe it was two years ago, yeah. Yeah, he
311
00:13:54.610 --> 00:13:57.649
came to, I was the projectionist for a screening of,
312
00:13:57.889 --> 00:13:59.690
it was a cast and crew screening for some film,
313
00:13:59.710 --> 00:14:02.210
and he showed up and was standing out front smoking,
314
00:14:02.269 --> 00:14:03.940
so I went out to smoke with him. And then
315
00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.320
he called me a pussy because I was smoking filtered cigarettes.
316
00:14:07.970 --> 00:14:09.950
And then he offered me one of his, which was
317
00:14:09.990 --> 00:14:11.610
a lucky strike. And I said, no, I don't want
318
00:14:11.629 --> 00:14:14.289
to talk like you. And then he said, I'm just
319
00:14:14.330 --> 00:14:16.309
waiting for Tim Roth, who's supposed to arrive, because I'm
320
00:14:16.350 --> 00:14:18.450
going to beat him like that. And then I had
321
00:14:18.470 --> 00:14:19.149
to go start a move.
322
00:14:19.429 --> 00:14:23.269
Well, that's a good story. Yeah. But you've quit smoking since.
323
00:14:23.990 --> 00:14:26.720
Yeah, I do not smoke cigarettes. No, I don't do
324
00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:27.539
that anymore.
325
00:14:27.580 --> 00:14:27.700
Why?
326
00:14:27.720 --> 00:14:28.679
We're talking 25 years ago.
327
00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:28.919
More. More.
328
00:14:31.490 --> 00:14:32.769
This is 95.
329
00:14:32.769 --> 00:14:35.269
So you were showing Reservoir Dogs.
330
00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:39.500
We showed Reservoir Dogs in its initial run, but we
331
00:14:39.549 --> 00:14:43.419
also frequently held cast and crew screening. Studios would rent
332
00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:45.720
us out because we were small enough and intimate enough
333
00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:47.500
that they could just get the entire cast and crew
334
00:14:47.580 --> 00:14:49.799
into a theater when they were showing the movie to
335
00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:50.860
them for the first time.
336
00:14:51.480 --> 00:14:53.639
So that was why he was at your theater.
337
00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:55.919
Yeah, it was a movie that Tim Roth was in, apparently.
338
00:14:56.639 --> 00:14:58.620
So he showed up sort of unannounced. Like the movie
339
00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:01.200
The Doom Generation, Greg Araki's Doom Generation. We did the
340
00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:03.220
cast and crew screening for that. I sat next to
341
00:15:03.259 --> 00:15:05.480
Greg Araki in the projection booth for the first screening
342
00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:07.730
of that. And he kept turning up the volume so
343
00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:10.769
fucking loud that the walls were shaking. And management kept
344
00:15:10.809 --> 00:15:12.769
pounding on the doors to get us to turn it down.
345
00:15:14.649 --> 00:15:17.950
Did he just want the reverb?
346
00:15:18.110 --> 00:15:21.210
Anytime there was a scene that featured music, he wanted
347
00:15:21.230 --> 00:15:25.179
it to reverberate in their heads, yeah. Ouch.
348
00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:25.799
Yeah.
349
00:15:26.340 --> 00:15:27.230
I wasn't going to stop him.
350
00:15:27.740 --> 00:15:28.700
Have you seen his new one?
351
00:15:29.100 --> 00:15:32.940
I haven't yet. I'm afraid to because it seems so mainstream.
352
00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:33.759
I'm a little nervous.
353
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.870
I want to see it too, but I have not
354
00:15:38.019 --> 00:15:40.590
yet either. Did you hear that?
355
00:15:40.850 --> 00:15:41.149
Yeah.
356
00:15:41.570 --> 00:15:43.269
That was a motorcycle. Oh, okay.
357
00:15:43.289 --> 00:15:45.350
I thought there was some crazy reverb going on in
358
00:15:45.370 --> 00:15:46.669
your microphone. No, sorry about that.
359
00:15:47.070 --> 00:15:50.809
I just like Olivia Wilde's haircut in the trailer, so
360
00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:51.830
I definitely think I'll.
361
00:15:52.210 --> 00:15:54.870
Are most of your film choices based on hairstylings?
362
00:15:55.210 --> 00:15:57.559
Some of them are. I wouldn't go so far as
363
00:15:57.580 --> 00:16:01.370
to say most. Those are re-watch. Some days you'll just
364
00:16:01.389 --> 00:16:02.490
have to watch certain.
365
00:16:03.330 --> 00:16:05.669
So you just see the movies in general, but catalog
366
00:16:05.710 --> 00:16:07.409
in your mind which ones have the best hair and
367
00:16:07.429 --> 00:16:08.710
those you will be revisiting.
368
00:16:09.009 --> 00:16:10.570
If I'm in, when I'm in the mood.
369
00:16:12.360 --> 00:16:14.620
Gotcha. So opening scene, they're trying to, they're going to,
370
00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:16.779
they're going to kill everybody. This is a simulation run
371
00:16:16.940 --> 00:16:19.539
on American soldiers, which apparently is a real thing. And
372
00:16:19.700 --> 00:16:22.480
I should say that the movie is based on an
373
00:16:22.519 --> 00:16:26.919
event in 1979 where a just like this, a computer
374
00:16:26.940 --> 00:16:32.190
simulation of Soviet submarines attacking the United States was accidentally
375
00:16:32.269 --> 00:16:35.929
fed into the NORAD computer. So they didn't recognize it
376
00:16:35.990 --> 00:16:38.190
as a simulation. It just ran in their minds like
377
00:16:38.230 --> 00:16:40.610
it was real. And they got down to the wire
378
00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.620
before figuring out that it was all fake because they
379
00:16:43.659 --> 00:16:47.379
didn't get any radar hits from actual stations. And these
380
00:16:47.419 --> 00:16:50.299
screenwriters heard that story and fancified it and turned it
381
00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:53.639
into this, which also included I forget the name of
382
00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:55.960
the hacker, but David's character is based on an actual
383
00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:58.980
hacker of the time. And remember we talked about phone freaking?
384
00:16:59.019 --> 00:16:59.700
Yeah.
385
00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:01.879
Yeah, he does that here with the other method of
386
00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:05.740
doing it, which is short-circuiting it, like grounding the receiver
387
00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:08.519
to get the dial tone to come through. We're learning
388
00:17:08.599 --> 00:17:12.039
all the tricks on old ways and now useless ways
389
00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:14.329
to trick the phone company.
390
00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:17.789
What year was that incident that you just talked about?
391
00:17:17.789 --> 00:17:18.549
1979.
392
00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:21.410
And so you called the computer NORAC. So that was
393
00:17:21.529 --> 00:17:22.849
like what the WAPR is?
394
00:17:23.529 --> 00:17:27.150
No, NORAD is the structure that they're in. That's the
395
00:17:27.230 --> 00:17:32.730
organization that monitors the North American radar, blah, blah, blah. WAPR,
396
00:17:32.829 --> 00:17:35.539
the computer that is running the simulations in this, is
397
00:17:35.630 --> 00:17:40.220
actually based on the original Defense Department's computer simulator, which
398
00:17:40.259 --> 00:17:45.920
was accidentally nicknamed BRGR. So as a joke, this one's
399
00:17:45.940 --> 00:17:46.599
called WAPR.
400
00:17:47.880 --> 00:17:51.569
Well, yeah. Yeah. I definitely started thinking of the burger.
401
00:17:51.589 --> 00:17:52.589
A juicy hamburger?
402
00:17:52.930 --> 00:17:53.250
Yeah.
403
00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:54.599
Flame broiled, you know.
404
00:17:57.140 --> 00:17:58.380
Yeah, I did think that.
405
00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:01.480
All right. Let's get to this cast. Let's get to
406
00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:04.740
these kids. What a perfect cast, actually. There's not a
407
00:18:04.980 --> 00:18:07.980
bad performance in the movie, first of all, which is
408
00:18:08.059 --> 00:18:11.190
rare for a movie centering on teenagers from the 1980s.
409
00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:14.119
Matthew Broderick was already a huge star, I think, on
410
00:18:14.180 --> 00:18:15.680
Broadway by the time he did this.
411
00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:19.359
I didn't know that. Yeah. I wasn't really following Broadway
412
00:18:19.420 --> 00:18:19.859
at the time.
413
00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:22.609
Why not? You were nine. What's wrong with you? Are
414
00:18:22.619 --> 00:18:23.329
you a late bloomer?
415
00:18:24.230 --> 00:18:25.990
Yes. Very much so.
416
00:18:26.490 --> 00:18:29.470
But co-star Ally Sheedy. Speak to Ally Sheedy. I know
417
00:18:29.490 --> 00:18:30.869
you're dying to talk about Ally Sheedy.
418
00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:32.349
No, I'm not dying to.
419
00:18:32.369 --> 00:18:32.799
Come on.
420
00:18:32.809 --> 00:18:34.119
You've been champing at the bit for days.
421
00:18:34.130 --> 00:18:36.259
What I realized watching this movie is how much I
422
00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:39.920
love Barry Corbin and how much he was in everything.
423
00:18:40.500 --> 00:18:42.059
Everything. Always as a general.
424
00:18:42.500 --> 00:18:44.869
And I love that. I just, I don't know.
425
00:18:45.190 --> 00:18:47.690
He's just an authority figure par excellence.
426
00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:51.450
Yeah, he is. I mean, he looks really rough, too.
427
00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:54.779
The older he gets, the better he ages.
428
00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:56.019
Oh, sure.
429
00:18:56.119 --> 00:18:59.579
I mean, he was in My Science Project, which I
430
00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:02.400
just watched the other day, on your recommendation.
431
00:19:02.839 --> 00:19:04.819
Was he by any chance in the military in that film?
432
00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:06.980
Oh, no, I think he had a hardware store.
433
00:19:07.009 --> 00:19:08.930
Oh, man, he broke out.
434
00:19:09.470 --> 00:19:10.869
He had a military vibe.
435
00:19:11.809 --> 00:19:12.650
Well, he just does.
436
00:19:13.230 --> 00:19:16.390
He just does. And I remember Northern Exposure before I
437
00:19:16.430 --> 00:19:18.160
rewatched it and realized how bad it was.
438
00:19:18.500 --> 00:19:19.779
Yeah, he's the best thing in that.
439
00:19:20.039 --> 00:19:20.400
He is.
440
00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:22.940
Because that is a terrible show.
441
00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:28.569
It's so disappointing. I remember loving it so much. And then,
442
00:19:28.589 --> 00:19:32.250
I mean, maybe the fact that they couldn't replay, show
443
00:19:32.309 --> 00:19:34.049
it with the music that they had at the time.
444
00:19:34.109 --> 00:19:36.579
But no, it was still kind of just lame. I,
445
00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:39.119
at that time that it was out, hate watched Northern
446
00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:41.460
Exposure because I was watching Twin Peaks and I felt
447
00:19:41.529 --> 00:19:43.990
it was a direct ripoff of Twin Peaks. It felt
448
00:19:44.029 --> 00:19:48.950
like happy days to American graffiti. And I wanted to
449
00:19:49.009 --> 00:19:50.680
punch that DJ in the face. the face who just
450
00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:54.720
never shut up about like fucking sophomore year college philosophy
451
00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:57.480
like i'm glad you screenwriters all went to fucking harvard
452
00:19:57.519 --> 00:19:58.799
for a few semesters just shut.
453
00:19:58.740 --> 00:20:01.400
Up you know they say what we hate what what
454
00:20:01.420 --> 00:20:02.819
we hate about ourselves.
455
00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:16.460
Wow. Right where I live. Now then, let me tell
456
00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:17.559
you a bit about Kierkegaard.
457
00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:22.009
So what did you think of John Wood in this movie?
458
00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:25.089
This big-eyed thing that he did?
459
00:20:25.690 --> 00:20:27.369
John Wood and his big-eyed thing?
460
00:20:30.769 --> 00:20:33.329
He just kept opening his eyes. That was how he acted.
461
00:20:34.589 --> 00:20:36.990
He made no impression on me at all, actually.
462
00:20:37.529 --> 00:20:39.039
Okay. Okay.
463
00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:42.880
I was too busy once again every time I see him,
464
00:20:42.940 --> 00:20:46.180
particularly in the past 10 years for some reason, marvel
465
00:20:46.220 --> 00:20:48.000
at Dabney Coleman as an actor.
466
00:20:48.380 --> 00:20:49.299
Such a good villain.
467
00:20:49.980 --> 00:20:53.529
Oof, isn't he? And I've remembered him being sort of
468
00:20:53.589 --> 00:20:57.029
a mustache-twirling villain in this movie, and he's anything but.
469
00:20:57.109 --> 00:20:59.970
He's just a middle management guy trying to fucking save
470
00:21:00.009 --> 00:21:02.990
his ass because his computer system is failing. Yeah, but that.
471
00:21:03.779 --> 00:21:07.180
Yeah, but he also really, like, pushes through his computer
472
00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:10.599
thing in a way that, to the detriment of humanity.
473
00:21:11.180 --> 00:21:13.789
That is true. But I don't feel like he means
474
00:21:13.809 --> 00:21:14.490
the detriment.
475
00:21:14.569 --> 00:21:17.289
I think he means to do well. He believes that
476
00:21:17.369 --> 00:21:20.390
he is correct in this. Yes. Yes.
477
00:21:20.950 --> 00:21:23.769
Yeah, he's eventually proven wrong, but yeah, unlike Tootsie.
478
00:21:24.150 --> 00:21:27.289
I mean, he's just, you know, gross, the director.
479
00:21:27.789 --> 00:21:29.630
Did you see him in Boardwalk Empire?
480
00:21:29.650 --> 00:21:30.759
I didn't.
481
00:21:31.490 --> 00:21:34.049
He plays the Commodore, who's like this sort of elder,
482
00:21:34.269 --> 00:21:37.230
old money person ensconced in a house on the beach
483
00:21:37.259 --> 00:21:39.119
that they have to go get permission from to do
484
00:21:39.180 --> 00:21:41.440
things every once in a while. It's pretty amazing.
485
00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:43.180
I've seen a couple of episodes stop.
486
00:21:43.519 --> 00:21:47.039
It's a bit of a commitment and not always a beneficial.
487
00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:47.599
Yeah.
488
00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:51.000
But it is Steve Buscemi for three and a half seasons.
489
00:21:51.460 --> 00:21:52.980
Yeah, Michael Pitt was in it.
490
00:21:53.180 --> 00:21:55.200
Yeah, and they killed him off after the first season
491
00:21:55.220 --> 00:21:56.859
because apparently he was a fucking nightmare.
492
00:21:57.210 --> 00:21:59.470
No, he just, he's mentally, he's good.
493
00:21:59.490 --> 00:22:00.130
Oh, was he?
494
00:22:00.289 --> 00:22:01.609
Oh, well, I feel bad.
495
00:22:02.269 --> 00:22:02.769
No, don't.
496
00:22:03.069 --> 00:22:05.230
I mean, he doesn't feel bad for us.
497
00:22:05.950 --> 00:22:08.799
That's true. Fuck that guy. I'm glad they came out here. God,
498
00:22:08.819 --> 00:22:09.730
they killed us too bad.
499
00:22:10.210 --> 00:22:11.079
Yeah, it is.
500
00:22:11.099 --> 00:22:14.039
I don't mean to belittle anyone listening with mental issues.
501
00:22:14.119 --> 00:22:14.839
No, but they did.
502
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:16.759
We all have them. I'm in therapy, Jesus Christ.
503
00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:18.480
Was Michael Shannon on the whole thing?
504
00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.440
Yes, and wonderfully. Yeah. He's really good in that show.
505
00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:25.049
But he's just really good in general. So you might
506
00:22:25.069 --> 00:22:30.799
as well watch him in something you like. You know,
507
00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:34.380
like that Superman movie. Zod.
508
00:22:35.220 --> 00:22:35.339
Oof.
509
00:22:37.900 --> 00:22:43.119
He winged in from a whole other feature. A better feature,
510
00:22:43.180 --> 00:22:43.809
don't get me wrong.
511
00:22:43.829 --> 00:22:45.210
Yeah, he's the.
512
00:22:45.349 --> 00:22:50.910
He's great in that movie. No special effect can top him.
513
00:22:52.650 --> 00:22:55.930
Yeah, I like him in everything he's in. Like, even
514
00:22:56.470 --> 00:23:03.740
Groundhog Day. Yeah. WrestleMania was his big line.
515
00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:05.019
Oh, yeah.
516
00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:06.000
I'm worried it.
517
00:23:08.099 --> 00:23:11.390
Was. Yeah. Okay. We're talking about war games here.
518
00:23:11.410 --> 00:23:12.990
We're big fans, Michael.
519
00:23:13.730 --> 00:23:14.309
If you're listening.
520
00:23:14.349 --> 00:23:15.390
Your bands are good, too.
521
00:23:16.630 --> 00:23:17.210
Ally Sheedy.
522
00:23:17.650 --> 00:23:20.029
What about, I mean, I love her. Yeah, I do.
523
00:23:20.789 --> 00:23:26.190
Her little apple-shaped face and her weird laugh and her
524
00:23:26.259 --> 00:23:29.490
screams that kind of seem like they were real. At
525
00:23:29.529 --> 00:23:32.210
the time and how buoyant she was when she was jogging.
526
00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:34.680
Everyone enjoys the jogging scene.
527
00:23:35.420 --> 00:23:37.359
No, it's not like it was sexual either.
528
00:23:37.380 --> 00:23:39.359
I'm just saying it's been noted online.
529
00:23:39.700 --> 00:23:40.240
Has it been?
530
00:23:40.259 --> 00:23:41.700
That's a favorite scene in the movie.
531
00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:42.279
Is it?
532
00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:47.250
Yeah. Wow. I'm glad I was on point with that one.
533
00:23:47.430 --> 00:23:48.990
Yeah, you were right there with the pervs.
534
00:23:49.970 --> 00:23:53.289
No, it's not even a dirty thing. Also, there's a
535
00:23:53.329 --> 00:23:55.410
lot of times in the movie where she's not really miked,
536
00:23:55.970 --> 00:23:59.000
but she says these things that are funny. you could
537
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:01.849
tell but they don't they didn't really dub them or
538
00:24:01.880 --> 00:24:03.750
anything so you can't really see what is it called when.
539
00:24:03.660 --> 00:24:08.730
You do a voiceover oh adr adr yeah yeah additional
540
00:24:08.750 --> 00:24:10.569
dialogue recording yes there's a lot for her in.
541
00:24:10.569 --> 00:24:12.390
The movie yes but there's not a lot that they
542
00:24:12.430 --> 00:24:15.450
don't do so there's stuff like when she's trapping between
543
00:24:15.470 --> 00:24:18.569
he's she's strapped him between her legs and she just
544
00:24:18.609 --> 00:24:22.250
repeats little friend you know that's something you could really miss.
545
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:24.750
You know they don't That's a behavior, by the way,
546
00:24:24.789 --> 00:24:27.309
that I recognize. This is such a teenage girl behavior.
547
00:24:27.490 --> 00:24:29.650
As far as his reaction to it, which is, I
548
00:24:29.690 --> 00:24:30.160
don't know what the.
549
00:24:30.369 --> 00:24:31.630
You know what I looked up?
550
00:24:31.839 --> 00:24:33.740
Is this flirting? I don't know. Let me go.
551
00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.980
You looked up all the technical stuff, which was great
552
00:24:37.019 --> 00:24:39.660
because that's what we're doing this for. But I looked up,
553
00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:44.440
were they dating? Were Halle Sheedy and Matthew Broderick dating
554
00:24:44.460 --> 00:24:46.640
at the time? And they were not. She was actually
555
00:24:46.660 --> 00:24:47.779
dating Eric Starr. Oh.
556
00:24:48.180 --> 00:24:50.759
Wasn't he dating, what's her face, from Baby?
557
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:51.359
Ferris?
558
00:24:51.700 --> 00:24:52.619
Yeah. Wasn't Ferris Bueller.
559
00:24:52.660 --> 00:24:54.490
Not yet. No, they weren't. They hadn't made it yet.
560
00:24:54.670 --> 00:24:57.380
It was later. Gotcha. Jennifer Grey.
561
00:24:57.940 --> 00:25:00.960
Oh, my God. They were brother and sister in that movie. Yeah.
562
00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:02.279
How incestuous.
563
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:05.900
Oh, well, everyone's got their kinks. You know, Father Malone.
564
00:25:08.500 --> 00:25:13.799
Fake priest aside, I found Ally Sheedy to be fucking
565
00:25:13.859 --> 00:25:14.960
delightful in this movie.
566
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.500
She was. She's cute.
567
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:20.990
Yeah. And shares Matthew Broderick's sort of ease with A
568
00:25:21.029 --> 00:25:23.910
lot of younger performers just have that weird precocious thing
569
00:25:23.950 --> 00:25:27.009
that I fucking despise, the sort of pretend kind of thing,
570
00:25:27.230 --> 00:25:29.369
which is on display. Matthew Broderick actually does it at
571
00:25:29.470 --> 00:25:31.130
one point in this movie. I'd like to point it out.
572
00:25:31.490 --> 00:25:34.769
And it really bugged me. But just an ease of,
573
00:25:35.049 --> 00:25:37.970
and a naturalism from both of them. But I think
574
00:25:38.009 --> 00:25:40.950
actually her more than him. He feels more actorly, ultimately.
575
00:25:41.069 --> 00:25:43.529
She feels more like just a natural performer, like a
576
00:25:43.569 --> 00:25:46.079
Shelley Long, or not Shelley Long, but Shelley Duvall, rather.
577
00:25:46.710 --> 00:25:48.799
When I use the word precocious, when I go out
578
00:25:48.839 --> 00:25:51.619
in Brooklyn and there are all these parents letting their
579
00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:54.000
kids run wild and we're all supposed to enjoy it.
580
00:25:54.049 --> 00:25:56.869
And because they're so cute and precocious, but they're actually
581
00:25:56.990 --> 00:25:59.950
fucking beasts and they need to be disciplined. That's how
582
00:26:00.069 --> 00:26:02.210
I think of the word. So tell me which part.
583
00:26:02.849 --> 00:26:06.430
Precocious to me is there's a particular breed of child
584
00:26:06.670 --> 00:26:10.529
actor where you could tell that they are aware enough
585
00:26:10.569 --> 00:26:12.990
to know what they're doing in a scene, but can't
586
00:26:13.150 --> 00:26:15.660
act in any other way than they've been coached. So
587
00:26:15.700 --> 00:26:18.299
it all feels like, and characters get written a lot
588
00:26:18.339 --> 00:26:19.819
like that. You see it in sitcoms a lot where
589
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:23.539
they're writing too high above the character's actual sort of
590
00:26:24.019 --> 00:26:27.279
comprehension of something. But isn't it funny to see coming
591
00:26:27.319 --> 00:26:29.460
out of the mouth of a babe? And there's something
592
00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:31.640
about that kind of writing and that kind of acting
593
00:26:31.720 --> 00:26:33.170
that to me equals precocious.
594
00:26:33.589 --> 00:26:38.650
And ruins shows. You're out of ideas when it's all
595
00:26:38.690 --> 00:26:41.069
a dream or you get someone brings a kid.
596
00:26:40.829 --> 00:26:45.700
On the show. At the time, so I was 10,
597
00:26:45.700 --> 00:26:50.339
so 11, 12, I had friends who effectively were computer
598
00:26:51.019 --> 00:26:54.240
people who had every piece of new equipment that came
599
00:26:54.460 --> 00:26:59.180
along and revered this movie. And I think it's like hackers.
600
00:26:59.339 --> 00:27:01.819
I think the generation that ended up making hackers, that
601
00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:05.200
generation of hackers themselves were like inspired by this movie
602
00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:07.970
to potentially end the world. At least they had high
603
00:27:08.009 --> 00:27:10.430
goals here. It wasn't just making money like the 90s.
604
00:27:10.569 --> 00:27:13.589
The end of the world was just an incidental thing.
605
00:27:13.869 --> 00:27:15.950
It wasn't like a goal, right?
606
00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:18.450
Well, it has to be somebody's goal because that's what
607
00:27:18.470 --> 00:27:21.809
the whole fucking point of the movie is. I mean,
608
00:27:21.829 --> 00:27:24.210
he engages it like it's a game, but he's really
609
00:27:24.279 --> 00:27:26.039
into it. I'd like to point out that the first
610
00:27:26.099 --> 00:27:27.579
target that they make is Las Vegas.
611
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:28.240
Las Vegas.
612
00:27:28.660 --> 00:27:31.059
Of course it is because we're the greatest city on earth.
613
00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:33.539
We've got action right to the end.
614
00:27:33.990 --> 00:27:34.680
I noticed that.
615
00:27:34.700 --> 00:27:37.220
So you know that an early nickname for Las Vegas
616
00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:40.240
was Radiant City, given to us by all of the
617
00:27:40.299 --> 00:27:42.119
nuclear testing we had on the periphery.
618
00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:42.880
Ah.
619
00:27:43.259 --> 00:27:46.400
There used to be viewing parties of nuclear tests.
620
00:27:47.069 --> 00:27:48.390
Isn't it called Sin City?
621
00:27:48.750 --> 00:27:50.250
It's definitely Sin City now.
622
00:27:51.390 --> 00:27:54.690
Okay. What about when the mob created it? Is it called?
623
00:27:55.069 --> 00:27:58.390
It was called Las Vegas. And quiet about that, everybody.
624
00:27:58.589 --> 00:28:00.890
I think that's what its official name was. You didn't
625
00:28:00.930 --> 00:28:04.940
see nothing. I think was its official tagline, really.
626
00:28:05.619 --> 00:28:07.319
And Eddie Deason's in this, too.
627
00:28:07.380 --> 00:28:08.380
Oh, my goodness, isn't he?
628
00:28:08.380 --> 00:28:08.859
And he does a great.
629
00:28:09.319 --> 00:28:10.279
Perennial nerd.
630
00:28:10.619 --> 00:28:11.779
He... Yeah.
631
00:28:12.259 --> 00:28:15.019
With Maury Chaykin as the double nerd team.
632
00:28:15.579 --> 00:28:16.470
Yeah, and I love how.
633
00:28:16.509 --> 00:28:19.400
The line, Mr. Potato Head lives in my head and
634
00:28:19.460 --> 00:28:23.529
has since 1983. That exact delivery when I hear somebody
635
00:28:23.569 --> 00:28:24.609
being idiotic.
636
00:28:24.650 --> 00:28:24.829
Mr.
637
00:28:24.849 --> 00:28:25.329
Potato Head.
638
00:28:25.410 --> 00:28:25.609
Mr.
639
00:28:25.630 --> 00:28:26.390
Potato Head!
640
00:28:27.930 --> 00:28:30.390
I loved that scene. And how he kept the woman
641
00:28:30.430 --> 00:28:31.009
away from him.
642
00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:33.220
Yeah, right.
643
00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:35.980
Because they got nervous and stuff.
644
00:28:36.500 --> 00:28:38.920
Exactly. Not to keep her from them or them from her.
645
00:28:39.460 --> 00:28:41.519
But I thought it was smart. It's just a smart,
646
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.220
tightly written thing, how they talk about Falcon's maze at
647
00:28:45.339 --> 00:28:50.940
the beginning, which leads him to eventually come to find
648
00:28:51.009 --> 00:28:53.869
out Joshua is the password. Spoiler alert.
649
00:28:54.890 --> 00:28:57.089
Yeah, my favorite character in the movie is Joshua.
650
00:28:57.490 --> 00:28:57.769
Yeah.
651
00:28:57.829 --> 00:28:58.890
Yeah.
652
00:28:59.579 --> 00:29:02.099
He's got all the best lines. He's the only character
653
00:29:02.119 --> 00:29:04.740
with real, true direction from beginning to end. He doesn't
654
00:29:04.759 --> 00:29:07.259
need an arc. He knows what he wants. He just
655
00:29:07.299 --> 00:29:08.180
wants to play chess.
656
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:09.700
Well, he wants to win the game.
657
00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:13.079
Right. If you make him play the Global Nuclear War one,
658
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:15.420
he's going to win that. But really, you should have
659
00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:16.359
just played chess with.
660
00:29:16.279 --> 00:29:17.720
Him at the beginning. You shouldn't just play chess.
661
00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:19.960
It's another Frankenstein situation.
662
00:29:19.980 --> 00:29:21.480
Yeah.
663
00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:26.960
We've gone too far and broken the bonds with our AI.
664
00:29:27.329 --> 00:29:29.569
Yeah. I'm too high to the sun.
665
00:29:32.660 --> 00:29:36.440
My wings. So this is effectively an AI film, and
666
00:29:36.460 --> 00:29:40.859
it is, but it's just the most benevolent AI experience. imaginable.
667
00:29:41.099 --> 00:29:45.960
This isn't Skynet. This isn't The Matrix. It really is
668
00:29:46.049 --> 00:29:48.789
just what you put into it that you're getting back
669
00:29:48.869 --> 00:29:50.119
out of it. If you tell it to how to.
670
00:29:50.130 --> 00:29:53.809
It isn't that what happens... But it's not just what
671
00:29:53.829 --> 00:29:55.279
you put into it. It's because it learns.
672
00:29:55.579 --> 00:29:58.200
True, but it only learns how to win. In those
673
00:29:58.319 --> 00:30:01.180
other AI scenarios, and ones we're probably going to face
674
00:30:01.220 --> 00:30:05.079
in the next few years, the artificial intelligence might make
675
00:30:05.160 --> 00:30:08.079
the decision that we should no longer be here. In
676
00:30:08.119 --> 00:30:10.700
this scenario, in war games, it's just like, hey, we're
677
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:13.220
going to give you access to these nuclear weapons and
678
00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:16.710
their nuclear weapons and see what happens in a simulation.
679
00:30:17.009 --> 00:30:19.829
And then it decides that there is no difference between
680
00:30:19.849 --> 00:30:22.130
the simulation and real life, which is maybe a glitch,
681
00:30:22.170 --> 00:30:25.069
but It isn't like intent. It seems in every other
682
00:30:25.250 --> 00:30:28.460
AI apocalyptic thing, AI makes the decision that we need
683
00:30:28.500 --> 00:30:28.799
to go.
684
00:30:29.259 --> 00:30:31.779
Right. I don't know if it made the decision as
685
00:30:31.839 --> 00:30:34.960
much as there was no decision to make. There is no...
686
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:37.859
Within the concept of the computer, there is no difference
687
00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:41.009
between game and reality. Do you know what I mean?
688
00:30:41.410 --> 00:30:41.930
Absolutely.
689
00:30:42.470 --> 00:30:49.230
Thank you. Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that.
690
00:30:49.250 --> 00:30:50.759
Well, it's just the truth. I mean, it just means
691
00:30:50.890 --> 00:30:52.869
that there's... When.
692
00:30:52.529 --> 00:30:55.869
You were just talking about decisions and stuff. Yeah.
693
00:30:56.210 --> 00:30:59.349
As a movie, there's no real antagonist in this film,
694
00:30:59.369 --> 00:31:02.990
which is remarkable. There's just things doing what it's supposed to.
695
00:31:03.009 --> 00:31:04.329
So Joshua is not.
696
00:31:04.710 --> 00:31:08.029
Joshua has no ill will. Joshua just can't distinguish between
697
00:31:08.069 --> 00:31:10.869
reality and fantasy, and that's not its fault.
698
00:31:11.190 --> 00:31:14.890
And doesn't understand that futility. Did you notice that it
699
00:31:14.910 --> 00:31:15.970
was called Crystal Palace?
700
00:31:16.609 --> 00:31:19.349
I did. Which made me happy, but I didn't understand.
701
00:31:19.430 --> 00:31:22.430
Because it's so fragile, I guess.
702
00:31:22.670 --> 00:31:25.440
Oh, maybe. I loved all that text speaking.
703
00:31:25.619 --> 00:31:26.779
There was a lot. Defcon.
704
00:31:27.299 --> 00:31:30.660
Defcon and get them on the horn and give me
705
00:31:30.779 --> 00:31:33.480
ASAC on the line and this is no rap.
706
00:31:33.500 --> 00:31:34.599
And that's Barry Corbin.
707
00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:35.599
Well, yeah, exactly.
708
00:31:35.619 --> 00:31:37.960
Who delivered those lines that were just like ace.
709
00:31:38.420 --> 00:31:40.240
Who improv'd a lot of those lines.
710
00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:43.240
Do you think the piss on a spark plug was
711
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:44.960
improvised or written?
712
00:31:45.529 --> 00:31:47.210
I feel like it was written, but I'd like to
713
00:31:47.250 --> 00:31:49.349
give it to Barry Corbin for being Barry Corbin.
714
00:31:49.470 --> 00:31:50.210
I mean, yeah.
715
00:31:50.329 --> 00:31:52.609
It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that
716
00:31:52.650 --> 00:31:53.549
he would come up with that.
717
00:31:53.849 --> 00:31:56.519
Nobody would have been able to say it that well. Nobody.
718
00:31:56.720 --> 00:31:58.500
I was going to ask as a former resident of
719
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:01.079
Seattle if you recognized any of the filming locations, but
720
00:32:01.220 --> 00:32:03.660
actually I do because it was mainly filmed in Van Nuys.
721
00:32:04.319 --> 00:32:08.099
Just see the Space Needle. Everybody knows the Space Needle.
722
00:32:08.269 --> 00:32:11.390
They went and filmed the harbor for two days and
723
00:32:11.970 --> 00:32:13.250
everything else was in Los Angeles.
724
00:32:13.589 --> 00:32:14.210
Oh, really? Yeah.
725
00:32:14.569 --> 00:32:17.910
Yeah, the tunnel leading to the giant NORAD vault that
726
00:32:17.930 --> 00:32:20.150
they have to get into is the same one that
727
00:32:20.390 --> 00:32:24.210
Roger Rabbit takes to get to Toontown. It's the one
728
00:32:24.250 --> 00:32:28.269
Marty McFly is on the hover fucking skateboard in Back
729
00:32:28.289 --> 00:32:33.079
to the Future 2. So everything L.A. Movie magic, everybody.
730
00:32:33.099 --> 00:32:36.880
Movie magic. Yeah, it was just some of the landscape,
731
00:32:37.099 --> 00:32:39.740
the water scene. Everything else was in.
732
00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:44.039
I noticed a lot of changing climates. From scene to
733
00:32:44.099 --> 00:32:45.220
scene and shot to shot.
734
00:32:45.240 --> 00:32:45.359
Yeah.
735
00:32:46.059 --> 00:32:47.799
Yeah, it did feel like fall at some point and
736
00:32:47.819 --> 00:32:49.460
then springtime and then a little bit of summer.
737
00:32:49.480 --> 00:32:52.690
And that's sort of Seattle for you.
738
00:32:53.470 --> 00:32:56.190
John Badham got brought in 12 days into filming. Martin
739
00:32:56.210 --> 00:32:58.990
Brest was the original filmmaker on this film. He eventually made,
740
00:32:59.089 --> 00:33:01.960
he did Beverly Hills Cop with Eddie Murphy. And the
741
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:04.839
problem they had with his, the footage he was turning
742
00:33:04.900 --> 00:33:07.140
in was it was too dark. He was trying to
743
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:09.319
make this as straight-ahead thriller as you could make it
744
00:33:09.380 --> 00:33:13.039
without any sort of lightness. And at that point, I understand,
745
00:33:13.259 --> 00:33:16.660
as much as I credited those two screenplays, those two screenwriters,
746
00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:18.319
Tom Mankiewicz got brought in here.
747
00:33:18.339 --> 00:33:19.519
Ah, the Mank.
748
00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:22.400
Yes, and that's why the movie got as light as
749
00:33:22.460 --> 00:33:24.869
it is and has as many funny lines in it.
750
00:33:25.289 --> 00:33:27.549
And that's why I think that line probably is not
751
00:33:27.589 --> 00:33:29.230
Barry Corbin, but Tom Mankiewicz.
752
00:33:29.549 --> 00:33:29.950
Okay.
753
00:33:30.450 --> 00:33:32.569
And I love me some Tom Mankiewicz. He wrote the
754
00:33:32.670 --> 00:33:34.730
two best James Bond films, everybody.
755
00:33:35.109 --> 00:33:36.609
What are those? Name them for us.
756
00:33:36.630 --> 00:33:39.930
Those are Diamonds Are Forever and The Man with the
757
00:33:39.970 --> 00:33:40.609
Golden Gun.
758
00:33:40.630 --> 00:33:41.539
Okay.
759
00:33:42.019 --> 00:33:44.700
Check those out if you haven't seen them. Those movies
760
00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:45.759
from 60 years ago.
761
00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:52.980
Tic-Tac-Toe. It's like the time when you're young and you
762
00:33:53.019 --> 00:33:56.049
realize what Tic-Tac-Toe is is around the time that you
763
00:33:56.069 --> 00:33:58.569
understand that there is no Santa Claus or was I just.
764
00:33:58.990 --> 00:34:02.089
That seems about right. All the futility comes flooding.
765
00:34:01.849 --> 00:34:04.390
Into you at once, right? It's a pretty sad day.
766
00:34:04.819 --> 00:34:08.679
Yeah, when you realize how pointless it all is. And
767
00:34:08.699 --> 00:34:11.539
the existential really starts to nestle in your brain.
768
00:34:12.570 --> 00:34:12.889
Sure.
769
00:34:15.090 --> 00:34:19.710
Not the best time in retrospect. But instructive.
770
00:34:21.869 --> 00:34:25.230
What do you think of the parents? Did they affect
771
00:34:25.250 --> 00:34:25.869
you at all?
772
00:34:25.889 --> 00:34:30.000
I love the parents. They're so typically parental here. But
773
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:34.079
really supportive and not... Yeah, they weren't... They're just regular parents.
774
00:34:34.099 --> 00:34:35.900
They weren't made up to be one way or the other.
775
00:34:36.420 --> 00:34:38.599
He had all that computer equipment, so he must have.
776
00:34:38.639 --> 00:34:42.679
He sure did. Like, too much for... Yeah, what? Where'd
777
00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:43.400
he get all of that?
778
00:34:43.860 --> 00:34:45.260
I don't know. The parents.
779
00:34:45.860 --> 00:34:48.199
But he is getting good grades. Now, speaking of.
780
00:34:48.360 --> 00:34:48.820
Well, yeah.
781
00:34:48.860 --> 00:34:51.889
He's getting good grades. That scene, the report card scene,
782
00:34:51.929 --> 00:34:55.090
which is really the he discovers that he nearly destroyed
783
00:34:55.130 --> 00:34:58.690
the world scene, when the mom leads him over to
784
00:34:58.730 --> 00:35:01.150
the father to show him the report card. If you
785
00:35:01.190 --> 00:35:06.099
watch Matthew Broderick's posture and demeanor he turns into that
786
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:09.179
precocious actor that i was fucking complaining about earlier this
787
00:35:09.199 --> 00:35:11.280
like he it's watch him up with the yo-yo even
788
00:35:11.320 --> 00:35:13.860
that only enforces it he does this like eight-year-old oh
789
00:35:13.900 --> 00:35:16.360
gee shucks me kind of thing i was like what
790
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.179
what you're usually so good sir.
791
00:35:19.409 --> 00:35:21.110
He does it at the end of the movie too
792
00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:24.269
and they still with the hair do you think.
793
00:35:24.210 --> 00:35:26.230
He still doesn't i'd like to see him do.
794
00:35:26.170 --> 00:35:28.510
It today i bet he does it when he gets
795
00:35:28.570 --> 00:35:29.949
caught messing something up.
796
00:35:31.659 --> 00:35:34.980
That's his sheepish go-to. His sheepish default.
797
00:35:38.550 --> 00:35:39.369
Shred shoulders.
798
00:35:41.150 --> 00:35:42.110
For our listeners.
799
00:35:42.409 --> 00:35:43.050
I'm cute.
800
00:35:44.130 --> 00:35:47.070
Oh, hey. Didn't see you there.
801
00:35:47.090 --> 00:35:48.150
I move my arms when I walk.
802
00:35:48.369 --> 00:35:56.110
Who, me? What was the other part of that scene? Oh,
803
00:35:56.530 --> 00:35:59.039
this is a trope that I hate in all movies,
804
00:35:59.320 --> 00:36:01.449
but I noticed it here. Most recently, so I'm going
805
00:36:01.469 --> 00:36:04.639
to talk about it. You get in here and you've
806
00:36:04.679 --> 00:36:07.840
got some explaining to do, the kind of, you're in trouble, mister.
807
00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:12.300
You got great grades. That sort of set up in
808
00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:17.239
movies that fake out of expectations, where we've just seen
809
00:36:17.260 --> 00:36:20.039
the character do something where they could be caught or
810
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:22.639
in trouble for. In the next scene, somebody says something
811
00:36:22.659 --> 00:36:25.030
to them that is so fucking leading that That nobody
812
00:36:25.130 --> 00:36:28.179
ever says. Oh, you wait till I get my hands
813
00:36:28.300 --> 00:36:29.980
on you. I'm going to give you a hug. It's
814
00:36:30.019 --> 00:36:30.619
like that.
815
00:36:30.900 --> 00:36:32.019
And that bothered you?
816
00:36:32.179 --> 00:36:33.460
Yeah, I fucking hate that.
817
00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:40.550
You mean? I hated the sexual harassment scene. That sucked.
818
00:36:40.969 --> 00:36:43.650
It was like. Oh, that's small potatoes compared to my thing.
819
00:36:45.409 --> 00:36:49.030
He just would not let up. And, you know, at
820
00:36:49.570 --> 00:36:53.380
the time. She was probably acting the way you're supposed
821
00:36:53.389 --> 00:36:56.599
to act in those kinds of scenarios, you know, without
822
00:36:56.679 --> 00:36:59.719
causing too much of a stir. So I remember that.
823
00:37:00.059 --> 00:37:02.280
I don't even remember what that actor was or why
824
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:06.039
he was wearing the weirdest military outfit when everyone else
825
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:07.679
had normal military outfits.
826
00:37:08.449 --> 00:37:09.829
Oh, he had the beret on.
827
00:37:09.909 --> 00:37:10.409
Yeah.
828
00:37:10.829 --> 00:37:14.309
That guy's freaky. Yeah, that scene is out of the
829
00:37:14.349 --> 00:37:17.989
blue just to provide a bit of distraction for David. Right.
830
00:37:19.210 --> 00:37:21.610
But it could have been anything. It's a weird go-to
831
00:37:21.889 --> 00:37:24.190
when it just becomes harassment and or rape as a
832
00:37:24.230 --> 00:37:26.360
plot point. You guys couldn't think of anything else?
833
00:37:26.840 --> 00:37:29.820
Yeah. That was distracting for me.
834
00:37:30.219 --> 00:37:32.559
But his solution opening that door was pretty good.
835
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:33.980
Yeah. With the tape recorder and everything.
836
00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:36.239
Remember in the 80s where for a brief time we
837
00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:41.559
actually praised intelligence and innovation? With movies like Real Genius
838
00:37:41.639 --> 00:37:43.739
or Revenge of the Nerds. I know, that's a big
839
00:37:43.780 --> 00:37:46.619
rape movie. I get that. But at the time, Animal
840
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:48.889
House had its thing. There was the whole slobs thing
841
00:37:48.929 --> 00:37:52.829
of the 1970s. But in the 80s, they started appreciating
842
00:37:53.090 --> 00:37:55.690
these kids who could be a little bit of tech savvy.
843
00:37:55.809 --> 00:37:57.369
And this is a tech show, after all.
844
00:37:57.389 --> 00:37:59.849
I think what they were trying to do is show
845
00:37:59.909 --> 00:38:03.250
how he wasn't appreciated, which is why the Russians probably
846
00:38:03.309 --> 00:38:06.599
got to him. Or something. Because they were trying to
847
00:38:06.619 --> 00:38:08.469
make it the Russians that were really doing it.
848
00:38:08.489 --> 00:38:10.050
They were making this an espionage situation.
849
00:38:10.070 --> 00:38:12.630
Yeah, so he was like alienated from his parents. And
850
00:38:12.929 --> 00:38:15.670
doesn't have that many friends at school. And it's a
851
00:38:15.710 --> 00:38:19.389
perfect example of someone the Russians would take mind control.
852
00:38:19.929 --> 00:38:20.449
And they did.
853
00:38:20.630 --> 00:38:22.590
And that was the end of the movie.
854
00:38:22.610 --> 00:38:25.820
America was wiped out. We didn't see it coming. Literally.
855
00:38:26.110 --> 00:38:27.340
His real name was Nikolai.
856
00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:30.000
Joshua. Nikolai Joshua.
857
00:38:30.280 --> 00:38:35.099
So I appreciated... It really... When finally, when Falcon comes
858
00:38:35.500 --> 00:38:41.389
and explains what's really happening to very Corbin or whatever general,
859
00:38:41.679 --> 00:38:45.590
what's his name? They turn pretty quick. They, for all the,
860
00:38:45.710 --> 00:38:48.809
it's like, it's like a 52nd thing where they're like, okay,
861
00:38:48.849 --> 00:38:50.789
we're just, we'll stay on the phone with you. You might,
862
00:38:50.829 --> 00:38:52.250
we might all die. We might not.
863
00:38:52.690 --> 00:38:53.769
It's not that convincing a speech.
864
00:38:53.789 --> 00:38:55.309
It didn't take much persuading. Yes.
865
00:38:56.949 --> 00:39:00.409
I did think the, I did think the level of panic.
866
00:39:01.199 --> 00:39:05.460
And that scene was way off. It was very solid. Well,
867
00:39:06.059 --> 00:39:08.170
we're ready to go. Birds are about to go in
868
00:39:08.190 --> 00:39:09.690
the air. We think we've got that. We've got all
869
00:39:09.730 --> 00:39:12.889
those guys scrambled. Hey, guys, maybe we shouldn't do this. Okay.
870
00:39:13.389 --> 00:39:14.530
It was a little like that.
871
00:39:14.909 --> 00:39:17.710
Yeah, but Barry Corbin was still Barry Corbin-esque.
872
00:39:18.130 --> 00:39:21.099
You know, because he doesn't trust these computers, mercifully. Right, right.
873
00:39:21.099 --> 00:39:23.840
Or else we'd all be dead. But I did notice
874
00:39:23.840 --> 00:39:26.219
that that scene and i did notice the ease with
875
00:39:26.260 --> 00:39:28.559
which he's just said hey what if we don't.
876
00:39:28.360 --> 00:39:31.900
Everybody with his big eyes yeah what was that what
877
00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:35.539
was that that matthew mcconaughey movie the the lawyer film
878
00:39:36.059 --> 00:39:39.900
where the last it was like a samuel jackson's on trial.
879
00:39:39.659 --> 00:39:42.610
For murdering the rapist or murderer of his daughter and
880
00:39:42.619 --> 00:39:45.429
whatever and matthew mcconaughey's big fucking speech at the end
881
00:39:45.570 --> 00:39:49.239
effectively was What if she were white? And they're all like, oh,
882
00:39:49.300 --> 00:39:51.789
my God. And it goes in his favor. I was like, really?
883
00:39:51.809 --> 00:39:54.010
A little simple. A little bit of that here.
884
00:39:54.309 --> 00:39:57.170
So then that's why I was glad that Joshua kept
885
00:39:57.210 --> 00:39:57.750
at it.
886
00:39:57.989 --> 00:40:00.570
Decided, I'm going to get these codes anyway. I don't
887
00:40:00.590 --> 00:40:02.360
know if you guys have finished playing, but I haven't
888
00:40:02.380 --> 00:40:06.800
finished playing the game. Yes. See, I agree that it's
889
00:40:06.860 --> 00:40:09.320
lazy writing to just have them speechify and have that
890
00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:12.889
occur where we find out that it is a simulant.
891
00:40:13.090 --> 00:40:17.139
But what follows... I remember being dazzled as a child
892
00:40:17.219 --> 00:40:20.420
by the following sequence. And again, today, I watched the
893
00:40:20.519 --> 00:40:24.500
Blu-ray of this, which looks fucking fantastic. And this sequence,
894
00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:27.000
watching those maps of the world and all of the
895
00:40:27.039 --> 00:40:29.519
major cities just get blotted out into little white dots
896
00:40:29.659 --> 00:40:32.070
over and over again. Fucking phenomenal.
897
00:40:32.340 --> 00:40:32.739
It was.
898
00:40:33.139 --> 00:40:36.329
Tom Rolfe is the editor on this, so kudos to him.
899
00:40:36.369 --> 00:40:39.329
But John Badham was always a really good editor, at
900
00:40:39.389 --> 00:40:40.750
least back on Night Gallery, where he had to be
901
00:40:40.889 --> 00:40:45.800
really economical within 22 or even sometimes 17 minutes. time frame.
902
00:40:46.380 --> 00:40:49.079
I love the finale. And by the way, I love
903
00:40:49.099 --> 00:40:52.659
the finale of this movie because it doesn't have anyone
904
00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:55.960
fist fighting or anyone going at each other. There's no
905
00:40:56.099 --> 00:40:59.440
violence to speak of here, but it is as tense
906
00:40:59.659 --> 00:41:02.900
and thrilling as anything. What we're watching is a computer
907
00:41:03.019 --> 00:41:07.670
figure out its own fucking sense of futility in real
908
00:41:07.769 --> 00:41:11.230
time with the possibility of it not understanding that our
909
00:41:11.329 --> 00:41:16.599
own demise. Pretty fucking potent for just a 1983 neighborhood potboiler.
910
00:41:17.110 --> 00:41:17.409
Yeah.
911
00:41:18.710 --> 00:41:19.880
Boy, I went on a tear there, didn't I?
912
00:41:20.869 --> 00:41:24.309
You're not wrong. You are right.
913
00:41:26.630 --> 00:41:29.730
You are not wrong. We're spending so much time disagreeing
914
00:41:29.789 --> 00:41:31.389
when we're just trying to agree with each other.
915
00:41:31.409 --> 00:41:34.780
Sorry about that. I do remember one part at the
916
00:41:34.820 --> 00:41:36.559
end where she's like, I told you not to play
917
00:41:37.039 --> 00:41:39.800
those games with them. And he's like, games. I was like,
918
00:41:40.230 --> 00:41:43.110
Light bulb moment. That, to me, was the only part
919
00:41:43.130 --> 00:41:45.710
that I noticed a little bit of lazy writing. Like,
920
00:41:45.969 --> 00:41:47.630
this is not the best time to be like, I
921
00:41:47.650 --> 00:41:48.289
told you so.
922
00:41:48.869 --> 00:41:51.849
Yeah. And, oh, stupid thing, because she really didn't say
923
00:41:51.869 --> 00:41:55.010
don't play those games. She was fully on, full on encouraging.
924
00:41:55.030 --> 00:41:55.469
She didn't.
925
00:41:55.610 --> 00:41:57.980
Once the game, once the password, by the way, helped
926
00:41:58.000 --> 00:41:59.099
him find the password. Yeah.
927
00:41:59.460 --> 00:42:00.739
And then once.
928
00:42:00.659 --> 00:42:03.159
He's in, wasn't like, no, don't do this. She was like,
929
00:42:03.440 --> 00:42:04.320
let's get Las Vegas.
930
00:42:05.900 --> 00:42:08.699
She was into Vegas. That was her choice.
931
00:42:09.139 --> 00:42:11.769
What the fuck? And now you're like, no, he not
932
00:42:11.829 --> 00:42:14.050
told you. We shouldn't have done this. No.
933
00:42:14.190 --> 00:42:16.849
Yeah, so it was like it helped. She was like
934
00:42:16.889 --> 00:42:18.349
the sacrificial lamb of it.
935
00:42:18.789 --> 00:42:20.949
She's a co-conspirator is what she is. Yeah, she was.
936
00:42:20.969 --> 00:42:21.869
Like pretending she's not.
937
00:42:21.889 --> 00:42:24.809
No, I know, but they made her sound like an annoying, oh,
938
00:42:24.849 --> 00:42:28.289
of course the woman's like, I told you not to
939
00:42:28.309 --> 00:42:30.869
do that. Just like that. That's how she sounded.
940
00:42:31.110 --> 00:42:33.070
It might have been a Tom Mankiewicz line because the
941
00:42:33.110 --> 00:42:36.590
other line I noticed when she says when she meets
942
00:42:36.639 --> 00:42:39.300
him at the airport after he's already escaped from the facility.
943
00:42:39.670 --> 00:42:41.610
And she says, is this because you changed my grades?
944
00:42:41.989 --> 00:42:44.849
What are you talking about? You saw the news. You
945
00:42:44.909 --> 00:42:47.400
know he got picked up by the feds. Like, you're
946
00:42:47.460 --> 00:42:50.519
on the run right now. It's just like a ha-ha-ha
947
00:42:50.599 --> 00:42:53.659
kind of moment, but no. No one's saying that here.
948
00:42:54.199 --> 00:42:56.610
So maybe Martin Brest was right. They should have kicked
949
00:42:56.659 --> 00:42:58.150
Mankiewicz off the set.
950
00:42:58.630 --> 00:43:01.269
I think, you know, they did try to portray her
951
00:43:01.469 --> 00:43:06.030
as the young, flighty, flaky... She's going to be on
952
00:43:06.070 --> 00:43:09.949
TV with aerobic class or whatever.
953
00:43:10.010 --> 00:43:14.239
Right. But it's Ally Sheedy who just presents so much
954
00:43:14.300 --> 00:43:17.139
smarter than any sort of airhead tendencies. They want to
955
00:43:17.199 --> 00:43:19.280
give her just for the sake of a laugh.
956
00:43:19.760 --> 00:43:21.920
Did you notice that the dog was always outside? Yeah.
957
00:43:22.300 --> 00:43:24.880
They never let the dog in the house.
958
00:43:24.900 --> 00:43:27.059
People used to do that. Do people still do that?
959
00:43:27.079 --> 00:43:30.889
It's fucking horrific. This is the outside dog? Why? You
960
00:43:31.110 --> 00:43:31.829
get outside.
961
00:43:31.849 --> 00:43:35.099
So... And then they get mad at him for wanting
962
00:43:35.139 --> 00:43:37.639
to play with garbage or something. Let him in the
963
00:43:37.699 --> 00:43:43.000
fucking house. Damn it. Cook that corn. Yeah.
964
00:43:43.599 --> 00:43:45.219
That's a weird little moment, but a nice moment.
965
00:43:45.239 --> 00:43:48.130
That was a weird little moment. I liked it too. Especially,
966
00:43:48.150 --> 00:43:50.550
I was like, wow, if I had known. If I
967
00:43:50.590 --> 00:43:53.989
would just butter bread all those years growing up on
968
00:43:54.030 --> 00:43:57.550
the table, it would be a perfect way to eat corn.
969
00:43:57.590 --> 00:44:01.559
Just by wrapping it. I was like, that's amazing. Why
970
00:44:01.579 --> 00:44:03.119
didn't I think of that?
971
00:44:04.760 --> 00:44:09.159
Tips and tricks. Not only for saving the world, but
972
00:44:09.260 --> 00:44:11.199
really making an efficient meal for yourself.
973
00:44:11.239 --> 00:44:12.940
Just make sure you cook it first.
974
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:16.599
And you can eat the bread after.
975
00:44:16.619 --> 00:44:17.460
Eat the bread.
976
00:44:17.719 --> 00:44:20.119
John Wood also supplied the voice of Joshua.
977
00:44:20.409 --> 00:44:21.099
Oh, he did?
978
00:44:21.349 --> 00:44:25.389
Yes, that was him filtered through a vocoder of some sort, yeah.
979
00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:28.820
He was also in Jumping Jack Flash, a movie that
980
00:44:28.860 --> 00:44:30.840
I hope we talk about here.
981
00:44:31.159 --> 00:44:32.440
That is a computer film.
982
00:44:32.760 --> 00:44:33.079
Yeah.
983
00:44:33.099 --> 00:44:34.579
So we're going to have to talk about it.
984
00:44:34.639 --> 00:44:35.300
I hope so.
985
00:44:35.500 --> 00:44:36.340
Jonathan Pryce.
986
00:44:36.360 --> 00:44:37.940
Mmm, I love him.
987
00:44:38.199 --> 00:44:38.940
Everyone loves him.
988
00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:41.619
Including Whippy.
989
00:44:41.679 --> 00:44:44.170
Let me see. Going through my notes, you got anything else?
990
00:44:44.610 --> 00:44:44.829
No.
991
00:44:44.849 --> 00:44:47.489
There has to be something. There has to be something.
992
00:44:47.769 --> 00:44:52.150
I already mentioned stuff I didn't like. which wasn't much. Oh,
993
00:44:52.179 --> 00:44:55.000
I did want to mention that this isn't about this movie,
994
00:44:55.039 --> 00:44:57.599
but sometimes we pair movies with other movies. A couple
995
00:44:57.639 --> 00:45:00.079
years later, they effectively remade this movie on a much
996
00:45:00.139 --> 00:45:03.159
smaller scale. That was The Manhattan Project with John Lethko,
997
00:45:03.940 --> 00:45:07.480
which I think I've actually seen way more than this film,
998
00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:09.719
but that might be because it was on a loop
999
00:45:09.820 --> 00:45:10.800
on cable at the time.
1000
00:45:10.820 --> 00:45:11.579
Yeah, I remember.
1001
00:45:11.940 --> 00:45:14.989
I just had the TV on. All the time. So
1002
00:45:15.010 --> 00:45:19.210
I've seen The Manhattan Project a lot. And that probably, no,
1003
00:45:19.230 --> 00:45:21.010
that's more of a, that's just a tech movie. That's
1004
00:45:21.030 --> 00:45:23.000
not really a computer movie. So I don't know we'll
1005
00:45:23.019 --> 00:45:25.659
be approaching that one. But we might because it is
1006
00:45:25.699 --> 00:45:27.159
the 80s and it is.
1007
00:45:27.179 --> 00:45:28.639
It's both. Yeah.
1008
00:45:29.159 --> 00:45:33.090
I guess it is tech. But it's, and that's real
1009
00:45:33.150 --> 00:45:35.170
tech what they were doing there. Teaching us all how
1010
00:45:35.190 --> 00:45:36.469
to create a nuclear warhead.
1011
00:45:36.489 --> 00:45:36.969
Yeah.
1012
00:45:36.989 --> 00:45:37.269
Yeah.
1013
00:45:37.690 --> 00:45:40.139
Not irresponsible at all. Not that we were getting into
1014
00:45:40.179 --> 00:45:42.300
any of those facilities, but neither was that kid. I'm
1015
00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:43.820
reviewing the movie now. Anyway.
1016
00:45:43.840 --> 00:45:45.369
Yeah, we were getting covered it.
1017
00:45:45.380 --> 00:45:48.840
I think, yeah. I think that, anything else you want
1018
00:45:48.860 --> 00:45:50.949
to talk about, say about war games?
1019
00:45:51.550 --> 00:45:53.750
I really liked her jean jacket. Nice. It was a
1020
00:45:53.789 --> 00:45:58.010
nice Levi, probably. Or Jordache.
1021
00:45:58.409 --> 00:45:59.449
Most likely Jordache.
1022
00:45:59.469 --> 00:46:00.440
It was probably Jordache.
1023
00:46:01.409 --> 00:46:04.429
I think it's funny that they made him named Falcon.
1024
00:46:04.449 --> 00:46:07.179
It's so close to Dr. Stephen Hawking, which he's so
1025
00:46:07.300 --> 00:46:09.860
clearly based on. And apparently they went to Stephen Hawking
1026
00:46:09.900 --> 00:46:11.139
to ask him if he would be in the movie,
1027
00:46:11.519 --> 00:46:15.780
but felt they were going to exploit his disability by
1028
00:46:15.800 --> 00:46:16.739
featuring him in the film.
1029
00:46:16.900 --> 00:46:20.170
So instead, Epstein called him up. Yes. Oof.
1030
00:46:20.570 --> 00:46:21.829
Nice way to end this one.
1031
00:46:21.849 --> 00:46:23.150
That was upsetting. Joke.
1032
00:46:23.489 --> 00:46:23.989
Sorry.
1033
00:46:24.449 --> 00:46:24.849
Sorry.
1034
00:46:27.429 --> 00:46:29.090
On that note, what are we talking about next time
1035
00:46:29.130 --> 00:46:33.449
when we get to... convene about technology it was war
1036
00:46:33.489 --> 00:46:35.369
games this time what is it next time you know.
1037
00:46:35.230 --> 00:46:37.179
No wait that's.
1038
00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:41.880
Airwaves that's sci-fi that's airlocks sensors.
1039
00:46:41.400 --> 00:46:43.659
Jumping jack flash jumping jack flash.
1040
00:46:43.619 --> 00:46:45.619
No i don't think so we're gonna do a serious movie.
1041
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:48.960
A serious one what you pick then how about disclosure
1042
00:46:49.420 --> 00:46:52.989
okay that will be fun yeah until next time everybody
1043
00:46:53.050 --> 00:46:55.429
say goodbye everybody to laura gorilla laura say goodbye to
1044
00:46:55.469 --> 00:46:56.889
everybody would you you have a.
1045
00:46:56.889 --> 00:46:59.590
Line from the movie I don't have a line from
1046
00:46:59.610 --> 00:47:00.050
the movie.
1047
00:47:00.139 --> 00:47:00.519
Think of one.
1048
00:47:00.539 --> 00:47:01.519
Except your wife.
1049
00:47:02.679 --> 00:47:03.360
There we go.
1050
00:47:03.599 --> 00:47:04.119
That was it.
1051
00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:06.119
You can hear the crew laughing in that scene. They
1052
00:47:06.159 --> 00:47:06.900
didn't know it was coming.
1053
00:47:07.219 --> 00:47:07.480
All right.
1054
00:47:07.519 --> 00:47:09.530
Until next time, everybody, try to enjoy the daylight.
1055
00:47:10.010 --> 00:47:51.699
Everyone knew that was coming. Thank you. Thank you.
1
00:00:00.450 --> 00:00:00.650
Bye.
2
00:00:35.460 --> 00:00:38.979
Welcome back, Midnight Viewers, to Button Switches and Consoles. It's
3
00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:42.329
a series about old tech, or new tech, or prescient
4
00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:45.929
tech in this case. We're talking about the granddaddy, really,
5
00:00:46.210 --> 00:00:52.380
of all computer technology thriller in suburbia. while dealing with
6
00:00:52.420 --> 00:00:55.539
the end-of-the-world thrillers. Are there a lot of those? There are, actually.
7
00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:57.780
There are a few, right in that decade. But I
8
00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:01.200
can't talk about war games alone. It's a duo situation.
9
00:01:01.450 --> 00:01:04.609
And as always, my co-host Laura Grillo is here. Laura,
10
00:01:04.629 --> 00:01:05.109
how are you?
11
00:01:05.469 --> 00:01:07.049
Hi, Father Malone. I'm great.
12
00:01:08.209 --> 00:01:13.790
Great. Laura, you're like me. You're a Gen X-er. Did
13
00:01:13.810 --> 00:01:16.299
you grow up with the constant threat of nuclear war
14
00:01:16.450 --> 00:01:18.500
absolutely raining havoc upon your brain?
15
00:01:19.140 --> 00:01:19.519
Yeah. Yeah.
16
00:01:19.859 --> 00:01:20.239
I did.
17
00:01:20.260 --> 00:01:22.299
I mean, not like they did in the 50s and
18
00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:25.459
they'd have to go under the classroom desks or anything
19
00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:28.599
like that. Yeah, it was a nice, healthy Cold War.
20
00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:29.920
Can I just say, now that we know how the
21
00:01:29.959 --> 00:01:32.340
boomers turned out, aren't you glad that happened to them
22
00:01:32.359 --> 00:01:33.420
and don't you wish worse did?
23
00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:38.319
That's a question.
24
00:01:38.340 --> 00:01:40.079
Another podcast, perhaps.
25
00:01:40.609 --> 00:01:42.250
Yeah, can we table that one?
26
00:01:42.390 --> 00:01:44.159
Yes, but we will get back to it.
27
00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:47.909
We will, yeah. I enjoyed the Cold War. There was
28
00:01:47.930 --> 00:01:48.609
a lot of good movies.
29
00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:50.620
Ruskies.
30
00:01:52.739 --> 00:01:53.560
Sleeper agents.
31
00:01:54.060 --> 00:02:01.689
Rocky IV. Apollo Creed. Come on.
32
00:02:01.750 --> 00:02:02.590
That's not Rocky.
33
00:02:03.349 --> 00:02:05.390
He was living in America, though. He was fighting that
34
00:02:05.450 --> 00:02:11.490
Russian in full Uncle Sam regalia. Got killed, certainly. Nevertheless,
35
00:02:11.770 --> 00:02:15.159
that was a Russian-American battle. And who had to win
36
00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:17.719
it for us, Laura? An Italian. Does that make you proud?
37
00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:21.280
An Italian-American.
38
00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:24.599
An Italian-American. He defeated Russia for us.
39
00:02:25.020 --> 00:02:25.189
He did.
40
00:02:25.300 --> 00:02:26.080
And ended the Cold War.
41
00:02:27.020 --> 00:02:27.400
He did.
42
00:02:27.659 --> 00:02:30.360
It wasn't long before the Soviet Union collapsed after Rocky
43
00:02:30.379 --> 00:02:30.599
did that.
44
00:02:30.620 --> 00:02:32.240
And he took his girlfriend at the time.
45
00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:33.819
He took his girlfriend?
46
00:02:34.219 --> 00:02:35.080
Brigitte Nielsen.
47
00:02:35.099 --> 00:02:36.969
Well, that wasn't his girlfriend in the movie.
48
00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:40.129
No, I know, but after the movie they started dating.
49
00:02:40.590 --> 00:02:43.349
Yeah, you see her towering over him like a Lilliputian
50
00:02:43.389 --> 00:02:43.930
in Gulliver?
51
00:02:44.370 --> 00:02:45.770
I bet he loved every second of it.
52
00:02:45.770 --> 00:02:47.710
Oh my God, climbing her like a tree.
53
00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:51.039
Until the 80s Coke. Took over that face.
54
00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:58.840
America's front line of defense is this computer. It is
55
00:02:58.939 --> 00:03:01.629
totally secure. Or is it?
56
00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:04.379
You're really into computers, huh?
57
00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:04.939
Yeah.
58
00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:11.789
What are you doing? Dialing into the school's computer. Are
59
00:03:11.830 --> 00:03:14.849
those your grades? Yeah. I don't think that I deserved it.
60
00:03:14.870 --> 00:03:15.360
Do you?
61
00:03:15.370 --> 00:03:16.830
You can't do that.
62
00:03:17.430 --> 00:03:21.789
Already done. You can go to jail for that.
63
00:03:22.169 --> 00:03:23.500
Only if you're over 18.
64
00:03:23.500 --> 00:03:25.699
This computer company is coming out with these amazing new
65
00:03:25.719 --> 00:03:26.180
games in.
66
00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:26.780
A couple of months.
67
00:03:27.060 --> 00:03:28.439
I want to play those games.
68
00:03:28.460 --> 00:03:29.500
Wow.
69
00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:29.960
What?
70
00:03:32.060 --> 00:03:36.199
We got something. Games refers to models, simulations, and games
71
00:03:36.219 --> 00:03:38.539
that you have tackled on strategic application.
72
00:03:39.219 --> 00:03:39.840
Greetings.
73
00:03:40.379 --> 00:03:41.979
Game time is near.
74
00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:49.490
Shall we play a game? Love to. Let's play. Global
75
00:03:49.789 --> 00:03:53.139
thermonuclear war. Fine.
76
00:03:54.460 --> 00:03:55.039
All right.
77
00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:59.360
We have a launch detection. We have a Soviet launch.
78
00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:00.599
What the hell?
79
00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:04.789
Missile warning, no malfunction. Oh, my God. I repeat, confidence
80
00:04:04.909 --> 00:04:05.349
is high.
81
00:04:05.750 --> 00:04:07.750
Mr. President, this is Mary Jane Norris.
82
00:04:08.490 --> 00:04:11.590
Is this a game, or is it real?
83
00:04:13.689 --> 00:04:15.020
What's the difference?
84
00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:19.339
War Games.
85
00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:23.360
Begin playing June 3rd at.
86
00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:27.500
A theater near you. Oh, the 80s. 1983 we're talking about. Specifically,
87
00:04:27.579 --> 00:04:32.089
June 3rd, 1983. That is when War Games hit the airwaves,
88
00:04:32.149 --> 00:04:36.029
the cinema screens. I was 10 years old. I was
89
00:04:36.269 --> 00:04:39.569
in a theater in Revere, Massachusetts, seeing this movie on
90
00:04:39.670 --> 00:04:43.829
opening weekend. One of, I don't know, a dozen, two
91
00:04:43.850 --> 00:04:46.810
dozen times I saw this in theaters. I was fairly
92
00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:49.850
obsessed with it, fairly obsessed with Matthew Broderick, fairly obsessed
93
00:04:49.870 --> 00:04:52.269
with Dabney Coleman. Figure that one out. This is the
94
00:04:52.310 --> 00:04:55.689
story of David Lightman, a young hacker who accidentally hacks
95
00:04:55.709 --> 00:04:59.040
into the NORAD computer, setting up a war simulation that
96
00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:02.879
might just end the world. When did you first see it, Laura?
97
00:05:03.480 --> 00:05:07.259
In theater. Nice. You were 10, so I was 9.
98
00:05:07.259 --> 00:05:10.149
And I was with my mom. I can't say if
99
00:05:10.209 --> 00:05:12.769
it was, or speak to if it was opening weekend, but.
100
00:05:13.189 --> 00:05:13.790
Right around then.
101
00:05:14.170 --> 00:05:14.790
Right around then.
102
00:05:14.829 --> 00:05:16.829
But then again, movies stuck around a while when we
103
00:05:16.870 --> 00:05:19.269
were kids, so you might have had all summer to
104
00:05:19.310 --> 00:05:19.560
see it.
105
00:05:19.970 --> 00:05:21.430
Can I ask a question, Father Malone?
106
00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:22.350
Absolutely.
107
00:05:22.750 --> 00:05:26.189
So your obsessions spanned quite a few things when you
108
00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:30.620
were entering the movie, yet you neglected to mention Ally Sheedy.
109
00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:33.680
I didn't neglect to mention her. I knew that she
110
00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:36.019
would be a focal point in your discussion and wanted
111
00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:39.879
to leave that to you. Oh, is that why you're doing.
112
00:05:39.300 --> 00:05:40.300
It as a favor?
113
00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:42.079
Totally. I was setting you up.
114
00:05:44.670 --> 00:05:47.050
But you weren't obsessed with her? No.
115
00:05:47.750 --> 00:05:49.620
At least it was not my thing.
116
00:05:49.709 --> 00:05:51.439
That's cool. Good to know.
117
00:05:51.899 --> 00:05:52.660
I liked Molly Ringwald.
118
00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:54.459
Oh, boy. Okay.
119
00:05:54.540 --> 00:05:56.279
Actually, I'm going to continue to say that I like
120
00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:58.420
Christine DeBell from Meatballs.
121
00:05:58.620 --> 00:05:59.519
Oh, my goodness.
122
00:05:59.579 --> 00:06:02.879
Or, say, Little Nell from Rocky Horror Picture Show.
123
00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:04.319
Baby Candice Bergen.
124
00:06:04.459 --> 00:06:08.079
I never really noticed the similarity between Christine DeBell and
125
00:06:08.110 --> 00:06:09.379
Candice Bergen, but now.
126
00:06:09.699 --> 00:06:11.990
I see it. So have you been watching Murphy Brown
127
00:06:12.009 --> 00:06:12.490
late at night?
128
00:06:12.610 --> 00:06:14.439
No, I have not. Why would I?
129
00:06:15.379 --> 00:06:16.759
Because you can't just break it.
130
00:06:16.870 --> 00:06:19.889
All right, I might start. Anyway, tell me more about
131
00:06:19.910 --> 00:06:23.310
your initial reactions to War Games. And in the Cold
132
00:06:23.370 --> 00:06:24.110
War era.
133
00:06:24.470 --> 00:06:28.050
It blew my nine-year-old mind. And I was definitely crushed
134
00:06:28.089 --> 00:06:29.029
out on Matthew Broderick.
135
00:06:29.490 --> 00:06:31.649
This was written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parks.
136
00:06:31.670 --> 00:06:34.250
They'd go on to do Numbers, that other sort of
137
00:06:34.290 --> 00:06:36.810
technological thriller that we're going to end up doing on
138
00:06:36.870 --> 00:06:40.750
this series. It was also directed by John Battam, who is...
139
00:06:41.259 --> 00:06:44.060
Listeners to this show are well acquainted with Mr.
140
00:06:44.100 --> 00:06:44.480
Batimus.
141
00:06:44.519 --> 00:06:48.899
He got his start alongside Steven Spielberg on Rod Serling's
142
00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:53.029
Night Gallery. He directed a clutch of episodes every season
143
00:06:53.649 --> 00:06:57.790
and pointed to a career as a rather artistic filmmaker.
144
00:06:58.170 --> 00:07:00.470
And instead of the sort of meat and potatoes guy
145
00:07:00.490 --> 00:07:03.050
he ended up being, even then he managed to continue
146
00:07:03.149 --> 00:07:04.810
to make his movies, I think, a little more stylish
147
00:07:04.829 --> 00:07:06.949
than the typical Hollywood film of the day. This one
148
00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:09.540
certainly looks beautiful. But if you go back and look
149
00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:12.439
at his night gallery things, he was very, very impressionistic.
150
00:07:12.519 --> 00:07:16.610
So it's odd to see just regular old setups from
151
00:07:16.649 --> 00:07:17.009
the man.
152
00:07:17.050 --> 00:07:19.750
So you're saying Bird on a Wire is more stylistic
153
00:07:19.790 --> 00:07:21.009
than the movies of the day?
154
00:07:21.410 --> 00:07:23.949
I think, oh, Bird on a Wire, no. I was
155
00:07:23.970 --> 00:07:25.509
thinking of Tequila Sunrise.
156
00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:28.060
Okay. Yeah, that was all style.
157
00:07:28.379 --> 00:07:29.899
Yeah, that was style to burn.
158
00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:31.980
No plot. It was like a dard.
159
00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:35.060
Yeah, exactly. Just look at these pretty people.
160
00:07:36.290 --> 00:07:39.410
And I neglected to go see Point of No Return.
161
00:07:40.149 --> 00:07:42.810
You neglected on purpose? Yeah. Were you a fan of
162
00:07:42.930 --> 00:07:44.829
La Femme Nikita or just Nikita?
163
00:07:45.329 --> 00:07:46.689
Of course. Yeah.
164
00:07:47.750 --> 00:07:50.300
I had a woman I worked with, a French woman
165
00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:53.339
named Sophie, who always complained. Because I had the movie poster.
166
00:07:53.699 --> 00:07:55.439
And she complained every time she saw the La Femme
167
00:07:55.459 --> 00:07:57.519
Nikita poster. She would say, that is so stupid. Why?
168
00:07:57.620 --> 00:07:59.639
The woman Nikita. It's just Nikita.
169
00:08:00.139 --> 00:08:01.879
Oh, Jesus. That was her thing?
170
00:08:02.339 --> 00:08:06.149
Yeah, I guess so. Still a good movie. And definitely
171
00:08:06.170 --> 00:08:08.709
a better movie than Point of No Return, which despite
172
00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:12.310
having adorable Bridget Fonda trying to assay the role of
173
00:08:12.350 --> 00:08:15.649
a junkie who gets reformed and turned into an assassin,
174
00:08:15.889 --> 00:08:18.589
which she almost pulls off, the movie around it just
175
00:08:18.730 --> 00:08:21.800
doesn't hold up at all. It's all like a beat-for-beat
176
00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:25.319
remake of the first film without any of its weird
177
00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:26.300
punky ethos.
178
00:08:26.600 --> 00:08:29.279
That's why I didn't watch it. Thank you for affirming
179
00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:32.100
my instincts.
180
00:08:33.340 --> 00:08:35.139
The opening of the Thumb Nikita when they're just going
181
00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:37.240
nuts inside that pharmacy, it was like.
182
00:08:37.259 --> 00:08:37.759
What the fuck is that?
183
00:08:37.840 --> 00:08:40.500
With the rabbit masks? Yeah, it was all like total chaos.
184
00:08:40.519 --> 00:08:42.950
I had no idea what was happening. And in the
185
00:08:43.070 --> 00:08:46.909
American version, it's just, eh, we're sad and we need
186
00:08:46.929 --> 00:08:49.549
some drugs. That's what it kind of felt like.
187
00:08:49.570 --> 00:08:55.409
Well, I mean, couldn't the opposite be true, that you
188
00:08:55.429 --> 00:08:58.259
can take an American, any movie, make it French, and
189
00:08:58.299 --> 00:09:00.500
then people pretend that it has some sort of depth?
190
00:09:00.980 --> 00:09:02.019
That's really not there.
191
00:09:02.250 --> 00:09:04.889
Have there been many French remakes of American films? I'm
192
00:09:04.929 --> 00:09:05.549
not even aware.
193
00:09:06.450 --> 00:09:09.350
Okay, the remake concept, yeah. I'll have to get back
194
00:09:09.370 --> 00:09:10.649
to you on that one, Father Malone.
195
00:09:10.750 --> 00:09:13.490
We should do a series about films that are remade
196
00:09:13.529 --> 00:09:15.570
from American films. I mean, I can think of a few.
197
00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.559
I think my point was things aren't always smart just
198
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because they're in another language.
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Or just by cutting dialogue, which is how Nicholas Winding
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Refn has gotten a reputation as having depth. He just
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has nobody say anything ever. Just stare longingly.
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Yeah. There's Gosling in his highlighted hair. Again.
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That movie Drive, I was just like, this is what
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everyone's been talking about? There's fucking nothing going on here?
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Did nobody see Thief with James Caan?
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I guess not.
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They did not.
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They did not.
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They would know what a good movie is with Tangerine Dream.
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Everything's better with Tangerine Dream.
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That's, yeah.
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They could have made the music a this movie better,
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I think.
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If that was a cocktail, what would it be?
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Tangerine Dream?
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Yeah.
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I'm guessing it would have some sort of citrus going on.
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Citrus, obviously. But, I don't know, soda.
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But shouldn't it be something bitter and not a bitter citrus?
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Okay. Well, look.
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Is there something worse than lime that you would not
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want to put in your mouth, that you would have
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to even it out with something sweet? I think it
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should be an extreme drink, but an extreme one of flavors.
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But would it be gin, vodka, rum, tequila, mezcal?
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Well, as someone who can barely drink any alcohol because
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it's mostly wheat-based, I'm going to go vodka.
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Vodka. Okay. That sounds good. All right, moving on. That
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was just something I thought about.
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When last I was in Los Angeles and at Amoeba Records,
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I was looking for Tangerine Dream. I thought, well, there
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certainly must be an album I haven't added to my
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collection that's out there. And I looked and looked and looked.
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Do you know where I found it? Do you know
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what section I found it in? New Age. I wanted
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to burn that building to the ground. Yes, next to Enya.
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Did you say something about it?
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I said it to the people I was with. I
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was like, what the fuck is this business? And they
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were like, well, yeah. So... I couldn't even get satisfaction
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from them.
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Okay.
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Anyway, war games.
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War games. Oh, right, yeah.
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It begins with Baby Madsen.
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Baby... Oh, Baby Madsen?
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Baby Michael Madsen. Young Michael Madsen in his first role.
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It begins with him?
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Turn your key, sir.
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That's not Michael Madsen.
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Yes, that is Mr. Blonde Michael Madsen. Really? From Reservoir Dogs?
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Yes. No.
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Older brother of Virginia Madsen. Or younger.
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I thought that was someone else. It doesn't even look
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like him.
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I know, because he's so baby-faced, you see.
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No, because when he's driving the truck, you can tell
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that that's Michael Madsen.
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He's only in the one scene.
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No, he's in the truck that turns over.
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That was him at the end?
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Yeah.
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We didn't recognize him in different scenes.
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I didn't think he had a line.
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Oh, yeah, that's him in the opening scene, not almost
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killing John Spencer.
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I don't... With all respect, Father, I... Don't think that's him.
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Would you like to pause the program and go rewatch
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the scene?
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I've watched it a few times.
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And yet you didn't realize that that's Michael Madsen.
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I don't think so.
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We are not going to argue facts. That is Michael Madsen.
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Okay, that's fine. The earth is flat.
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Yes, the point you've decided on.
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No, I really, I mean, that scene, what did, I
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didn't remember how jarring that opening scene was.
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It's the thing I think of most when I think
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of war games, actually. Him pointing the gun at that
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guy and say, turn your keys, sir. And what a
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scenario to begin a film, which ultimately turns out to
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be like a suburban thriller for teens. But yeah, it
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00:12:54.789 --> 00:12:56.870
is so jarring, in fact, that when it cuts to
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the credits and this jaunty horn-soaked theme came on, I
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was like, what is happening?
286
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Yeah.
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You watching the scene now? You finding out it's actually
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Michael Manson? Yeah, you're right.
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But it's just, he doesn't look like him. I love
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John Spencer in that part.
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And the guy who signs them in is also famous
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in a character actor-y way, but I didn't write that.
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The one who complained about them being late?
294
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Yeah. No, no, no. The one who signs them in.
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It's Art LeFleur, who played the dad in the remake
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of The Blob.
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Oh.
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He's been in a bunch of other stuff.
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Michael Madsen is the driver in that car, but.
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Isn't.
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Is.
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Oh, he is. Okay, good. I'm glad he got paid twice.
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They had to have him out to location.
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I can't believe how much it doesn't look like him.
305
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He's unlined and not yet drunk. I met him a
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few times.
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You have?
308
00:13:48.179 --> 00:13:49.259
Oh, yeah.
309
00:13:49.610 --> 00:13:51.370
He passed away last year, or was it two years?
310
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I believe it was two years ago, yeah. Yeah, he
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came to, I was the projectionist for a screening of,
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it was a cast and crew screening for some film,
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and he showed up and was standing out front smoking,
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so I went out to smoke with him. And then
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he called me a pussy because I was smoking filtered cigarettes.
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And then he offered me one of his, which was
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a lucky strike. And I said, no, I don't want
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to talk like you. And then he said, I'm just
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waiting for Tim Roth, who's supposed to arrive, because I'm
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going to beat him like that. And then I had
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to go start a move.
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00:14:19.429 --> 00:14:23.269
Well, that's a good story. Yeah. But you've quit smoking since.
323
00:14:23.990 --> 00:14:26.720
Yeah, I do not smoke cigarettes. No, I don't do
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that anymore.
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Why?
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We're talking 25 years ago.
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More. More.
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This is 95.
329
00:14:32.769 --> 00:14:35.269
So you were showing Reservoir Dogs.
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We showed Reservoir Dogs in its initial run, but we
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also frequently held cast and crew screening. Studios would rent
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us out because we were small enough and intimate enough
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that they could just get the entire cast and crew
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into a theater when they were showing the movie to
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them for the first time.
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So that was why he was at your theater.
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00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:55.919
Yeah, it was a movie that Tim Roth was in, apparently.
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So he showed up sort of unannounced. Like the movie
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The Doom Generation, Greg Araki's Doom Generation. We did the
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cast and crew screening for that. I sat next to
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Greg Araki in the projection booth for the first screening
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of that. And he kept turning up the volume so
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fucking loud that the walls were shaking. And management kept
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pounding on the doors to get us to turn it down.
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Did he just want the reverb?
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Anytime there was a scene that featured music, he wanted
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it to reverberate in their heads, yeah. Ouch.
348
00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:25.799
Yeah.
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I wasn't going to stop him.
350
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Have you seen his new one?
351
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I haven't yet. I'm afraid to because it seems so mainstream.
352
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I'm a little nervous.
353
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.870
I want to see it too, but I have not
354
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yet either. Did you hear that?
355
00:15:40.850 --> 00:15:41.149
Yeah.
356
00:15:41.570 --> 00:15:43.269
That was a motorcycle. Oh, okay.
357
00:15:43.289 --> 00:15:45.350
I thought there was some crazy reverb going on in
358
00:15:45.370 --> 00:15:46.669
your microphone. No, sorry about that.
359
00:15:47.070 --> 00:15:50.809
I just like Olivia Wilde's haircut in the trailer, so
360
00:15:51.049 --> 00:15:51.830
I definitely think I'll.
361
00:15:52.210 --> 00:15:54.870
Are most of your film choices based on hairstylings?
362
00:15:55.210 --> 00:15:57.559
Some of them are. I wouldn't go so far as
363
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to say most. Those are re-watch. Some days you'll just
364
00:16:01.389 --> 00:16:02.490
have to watch certain.
365
00:16:03.330 --> 00:16:05.669
So you just see the movies in general, but catalog
366
00:16:05.710 --> 00:16:07.409
in your mind which ones have the best hair and
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00:16:07.429 --> 00:16:08.710
those you will be revisiting.
368
00:16:09.009 --> 00:16:10.570
If I'm in, when I'm in the mood.
369
00:16:12.360 --> 00:16:14.620
Gotcha. So opening scene, they're trying to, they're going to,
370
00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:16.779
they're going to kill everybody. This is a simulation run
371
00:16:16.940 --> 00:16:19.539
on American soldiers, which apparently is a real thing. And
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00:16:19.700 --> 00:16:22.480
I should say that the movie is based on an
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00:16:22.519 --> 00:16:26.919
event in 1979 where a just like this, a computer
374
00:16:26.940 --> 00:16:32.190
simulation of Soviet submarines attacking the United States was accidentally
375
00:16:32.269 --> 00:16:35.929
fed into the NORAD computer. So they didn't recognize it
376
00:16:35.990 --> 00:16:38.190
as a simulation. It just ran in their minds like
377
00:16:38.230 --> 00:16:40.610
it was real. And they got down to the wire
378
00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.620
before figuring out that it was all fake because they
379
00:16:43.659 --> 00:16:47.379
didn't get any radar hits from actual stations. And these
380
00:16:47.419 --> 00:16:50.299
screenwriters heard that story and fancified it and turned it
381
00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:53.639
into this, which also included I forget the name of
382
00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:55.960
the hacker, but David's character is based on an actual
383
00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:58.980
hacker of the time. And remember we talked about phone freaking?
384
00:16:59.019 --> 00:16:59.700
Yeah.
385
00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:01.879
Yeah, he does that here with the other method of
386
00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:05.740
doing it, which is short-circuiting it, like grounding the receiver
387
00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:08.519
to get the dial tone to come through. We're learning
388
00:17:08.599 --> 00:17:12.039
all the tricks on old ways and now useless ways
389
00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:14.329
to trick the phone company.
390
00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:17.789
What year was that incident that you just talked about?
391
00:17:17.789 --> 00:17:18.549
1979.
392
00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:21.410
And so you called the computer NORAC. So that was
393
00:17:21.529 --> 00:17:22.849
like what the WAPR is?
394
00:17:23.529 --> 00:17:27.150
No, NORAD is the structure that they're in. That's the
395
00:17:27.230 --> 00:17:32.730
organization that monitors the North American radar, blah, blah, blah. WAPR,
396
00:17:32.829 --> 00:17:35.539
the computer that is running the simulations in this, is
397
00:17:35.630 --> 00:17:40.220
actually based on the original Defense Department's computer simulator, which
398
00:17:40.259 --> 00:17:45.920
was accidentally nicknamed BRGR. So as a joke, this one's
399
00:17:45.940 --> 00:17:46.599
called WAPR.
400
00:17:47.880 --> 00:17:51.569
Well, yeah. Yeah. I definitely started thinking of the burger.
401
00:17:51.589 --> 00:17:52.589
A juicy hamburger?
402
00:17:52.930 --> 00:17:53.250
Yeah.
403
00:17:53.559 --> 00:17:54.599
Flame broiled, you know.
404
00:17:57.140 --> 00:17:58.380
Yeah, I did think that.
405
00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:01.480
All right. Let's get to this cast. Let's get to
406
00:18:01.519 --> 00:18:04.740
these kids. What a perfect cast, actually. There's not a
407
00:18:04.980 --> 00:18:07.980
bad performance in the movie, first of all, which is
408
00:18:08.059 --> 00:18:11.190
rare for a movie centering on teenagers from the 1980s.
409
00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:14.119
Matthew Broderick was already a huge star, I think, on
410
00:18:14.180 --> 00:18:15.680
Broadway by the time he did this.
411
00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:19.359
I didn't know that. Yeah. I wasn't really following Broadway
412
00:18:19.420 --> 00:18:19.859
at the time.
413
00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:22.609
Why not? You were nine. What's wrong with you? Are
414
00:18:22.619 --> 00:18:23.329
you a late bloomer?
415
00:18:24.230 --> 00:18:25.990
Yes. Very much so.
416
00:18:26.490 --> 00:18:29.470
But co-star Ally Sheedy. Speak to Ally Sheedy. I know
417
00:18:29.490 --> 00:18:30.869
you're dying to talk about Ally Sheedy.
418
00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:32.349
No, I'm not dying to.
419
00:18:32.369 --> 00:18:32.799
Come on.
420
00:18:32.809 --> 00:18:34.119
You've been champing at the bit for days.
421
00:18:34.130 --> 00:18:36.259
What I realized watching this movie is how much I
422
00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:39.920
love Barry Corbin and how much he was in everything.
423
00:18:40.500 --> 00:18:42.059
Everything. Always as a general.
424
00:18:42.500 --> 00:18:44.869
And I love that. I just, I don't know.
425
00:18:45.190 --> 00:18:47.690
He's just an authority figure par excellence.
426
00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:51.450
Yeah, he is. I mean, he looks really rough, too.
427
00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:54.779
The older he gets, the better he ages.
428
00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:56.019
Oh, sure.
429
00:18:56.119 --> 00:18:59.579
I mean, he was in My Science Project, which I
430
00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:02.400
just watched the other day, on your recommendation.
431
00:19:02.839 --> 00:19:04.819
Was he by any chance in the military in that film?
432
00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:06.980
Oh, no, I think he had a hardware store.
433
00:19:07.009 --> 00:19:08.930
Oh, man, he broke out.
434
00:19:09.470 --> 00:19:10.869
He had a military vibe.
435
00:19:11.809 --> 00:19:12.650
Well, he just does.
436
00:19:13.230 --> 00:19:16.390
He just does. And I remember Northern Exposure before I
437
00:19:16.430 --> 00:19:18.160
rewatched it and realized how bad it was.
438
00:19:18.500 --> 00:19:19.779
Yeah, he's the best thing in that.
439
00:19:20.039 --> 00:19:20.400
He is.
440
00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:22.940
Because that is a terrible show.
441
00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:28.569
It's so disappointing. I remember loving it so much. And then,
442
00:19:28.589 --> 00:19:32.250
I mean, maybe the fact that they couldn't replay, show
443
00:19:32.309 --> 00:19:34.049
it with the music that they had at the time.
444
00:19:34.109 --> 00:19:36.579
But no, it was still kind of just lame. I,
445
00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:39.119
at that time that it was out, hate watched Northern
446
00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:41.460
Exposure because I was watching Twin Peaks and I felt
447
00:19:41.529 --> 00:19:43.990
it was a direct ripoff of Twin Peaks. It felt
448
00:19:44.029 --> 00:19:48.950
like happy days to American graffiti. And I wanted to
449
00:19:49.009 --> 00:19:50.680
punch that DJ in the face. the face who just
450
00:19:50.740 --> 00:19:54.720
never shut up about like fucking sophomore year college philosophy
451
00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:57.480
like i'm glad you screenwriters all went to fucking harvard
452
00:19:57.519 --> 00:19:58.799
for a few semesters just shut.
453
00:19:58.740 --> 00:20:01.400
Up you know they say what we hate what what
454
00:20:01.420 --> 00:20:02.819
we hate about ourselves.
455
00:20:07.559 --> 00:20:16.460
Wow. Right where I live. Now then, let me tell
456
00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:17.559
you a bit about Kierkegaard.
457
00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:22.009
So what did you think of John Wood in this movie?
458
00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:25.089
This big-eyed thing that he did?
459
00:20:25.690 --> 00:20:27.369
John Wood and his big-eyed thing?
460
00:20:30.769 --> 00:20:33.329
He just kept opening his eyes. That was how he acted.
461
00:20:34.589 --> 00:20:36.990
He made no impression on me at all, actually.
462
00:20:37.529 --> 00:20:39.039
Okay. Okay.
463
00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:42.880
I was too busy once again every time I see him,
464
00:20:42.940 --> 00:20:46.180
particularly in the past 10 years for some reason, marvel
465
00:20:46.220 --> 00:20:48.000
at Dabney Coleman as an actor.
466
00:20:48.380 --> 00:20:49.299
Such a good villain.
467
00:20:49.980 --> 00:20:53.529
Oof, isn't he? And I've remembered him being sort of
468
00:20:53.589 --> 00:20:57.029
a mustache-twirling villain in this movie, and he's anything but.
469
00:20:57.109 --> 00:20:59.970
He's just a middle management guy trying to fucking save
470
00:21:00.009 --> 00:21:02.990
his ass because his computer system is failing. Yeah, but that.
471
00:21:03.779 --> 00:21:07.180
Yeah, but he also really, like, pushes through his computer
472
00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:10.599
thing in a way that, to the detriment of humanity.
473
00:21:11.180 --> 00:21:13.789
That is true. But I don't feel like he means
474
00:21:13.809 --> 00:21:14.490
the detriment.
475
00:21:14.569 --> 00:21:17.289
I think he means to do well. He believes that
476
00:21:17.369 --> 00:21:20.390
he is correct in this. Yes. Yes.
477
00:21:20.950 --> 00:21:23.769
Yeah, he's eventually proven wrong, but yeah, unlike Tootsie.
478
00:21:24.150 --> 00:21:27.289
I mean, he's just, you know, gross, the director.
479
00:21:27.789 --> 00:21:29.630
Did you see him in Boardwalk Empire?
480
00:21:29.650 --> 00:21:30.759
I didn't.
481
00:21:31.490 --> 00:21:34.049
He plays the Commodore, who's like this sort of elder,
482
00:21:34.269 --> 00:21:37.230
old money person ensconced in a house on the beach
483
00:21:37.259 --> 00:21:39.119
that they have to go get permission from to do
484
00:21:39.180 --> 00:21:41.440
things every once in a while. It's pretty amazing.
485
00:21:41.680 --> 00:21:43.180
I've seen a couple of episodes stop.
486
00:21:43.519 --> 00:21:47.039
It's a bit of a commitment and not always a beneficial.
487
00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:47.599
Yeah.
488
00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:51.000
But it is Steve Buscemi for three and a half seasons.
489
00:21:51.460 --> 00:21:52.980
Yeah, Michael Pitt was in it.
490
00:21:53.180 --> 00:21:55.200
Yeah, and they killed him off after the first season
491
00:21:55.220 --> 00:21:56.859
because apparently he was a fucking nightmare.
492
00:21:57.210 --> 00:21:59.470
No, he just, he's mentally, he's good.
493
00:21:59.490 --> 00:22:00.130
Oh, was he?
494
00:22:00.289 --> 00:22:01.609
Oh, well, I feel bad.
495
00:22:02.269 --> 00:22:02.769
No, don't.
496
00:22:03.069 --> 00:22:05.230
I mean, he doesn't feel bad for us.
497
00:22:05.950 --> 00:22:08.799
That's true. Fuck that guy. I'm glad they came out here. God,
498
00:22:08.819 --> 00:22:09.730
they killed us too bad.
499
00:22:10.210 --> 00:22:11.079
Yeah, it is.
500
00:22:11.099 --> 00:22:14.039
I don't mean to belittle anyone listening with mental issues.
501
00:22:14.119 --> 00:22:14.839
No, but they did.
502
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:16.759
We all have them. I'm in therapy, Jesus Christ.
503
00:22:17.039 --> 00:22:18.480
Was Michael Shannon on the whole thing?
504
00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:23.440
Yes, and wonderfully. Yeah. He's really good in that show.
505
00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:25.049
But he's just really good in general. So you might
506
00:22:25.069 --> 00:22:30.799
as well watch him in something you like. You know,
507
00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:34.380
like that Superman movie. Zod.
508
00:22:35.220 --> 00:22:35.339
Oof.
509
00:22:37.900 --> 00:22:43.119
He winged in from a whole other feature. A better feature,
510
00:22:43.180 --> 00:22:43.809
don't get me wrong.
511
00:22:43.829 --> 00:22:45.210
Yeah, he's the.
512
00:22:45.349 --> 00:22:50.910
He's great in that movie. No special effect can top him.
513
00:22:52.650 --> 00:22:55.930
Yeah, I like him in everything he's in. Like, even
514
00:22:56.470 --> 00:23:03.740
Groundhog Day. Yeah. WrestleMania was his big line.
515
00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:05.019
Oh, yeah.
516
00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:06.000
I'm worried it.
517
00:23:08.099 --> 00:23:11.390
Was. Yeah. Okay. We're talking about war games here.
518
00:23:11.410 --> 00:23:12.990
We're big fans, Michael.
519
00:23:13.730 --> 00:23:14.309
If you're listening.
520
00:23:14.349 --> 00:23:15.390
Your bands are good, too.
521
00:23:16.630 --> 00:23:17.210
Ally Sheedy.
522
00:23:17.650 --> 00:23:20.029
What about, I mean, I love her. Yeah, I do.
523
00:23:20.789 --> 00:23:26.190
Her little apple-shaped face and her weird laugh and her
524
00:23:26.259 --> 00:23:29.490
screams that kind of seem like they were real. At
525
00:23:29.529 --> 00:23:32.210
the time and how buoyant she was when she was jogging.
526
00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:34.680
Everyone enjoys the jogging scene.
527
00:23:35.420 --> 00:23:37.359
No, it's not like it was sexual either.
528
00:23:37.380 --> 00:23:39.359
I'm just saying it's been noted online.
529
00:23:39.700 --> 00:23:40.240
Has it been?
530
00:23:40.259 --> 00:23:41.700
That's a favorite scene in the movie.
531
00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:42.279
Is it?
532
00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:47.250
Yeah. Wow. I'm glad I was on point with that one.
533
00:23:47.430 --> 00:23:48.990
Yeah, you were right there with the pervs.
534
00:23:49.970 --> 00:23:53.289
No, it's not even a dirty thing. Also, there's a
535
00:23:53.329 --> 00:23:55.410
lot of times in the movie where she's not really miked,
536
00:23:55.970 --> 00:23:59.000
but she says these things that are funny. you could
537
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:01.849
tell but they don't they didn't really dub them or
538
00:24:01.880 --> 00:24:03.750
anything so you can't really see what is it called when.
539
00:24:03.660 --> 00:24:08.730
You do a voiceover oh adr adr yeah yeah additional
540
00:24:08.750 --> 00:24:10.569
dialogue recording yes there's a lot for her in.
541
00:24:10.569 --> 00:24:12.390
The movie yes but there's not a lot that they
542
00:24:12.430 --> 00:24:15.450
don't do so there's stuff like when she's trapping between
543
00:24:15.470 --> 00:24:18.569
he's she's strapped him between her legs and she just
544
00:24:18.609 --> 00:24:22.250
repeats little friend you know that's something you could really miss.
545
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:24.750
You know they don't That's a behavior, by the way,
546
00:24:24.789 --> 00:24:27.309
that I recognize. This is such a teenage girl behavior.
547
00:24:27.490 --> 00:24:29.650
As far as his reaction to it, which is, I
548
00:24:29.690 --> 00:24:30.160
don't know what the.
549
00:24:30.369 --> 00:24:31.630
You know what I looked up?
550
00:24:31.839 --> 00:24:33.740
Is this flirting? I don't know. Let me go.
551
00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.980
You looked up all the technical stuff, which was great
552
00:24:37.019 --> 00:24:39.660
because that's what we're doing this for. But I looked up,
553
00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:44.440
were they dating? Were Halle Sheedy and Matthew Broderick dating
554
00:24:44.460 --> 00:24:46.640
at the time? And they were not. She was actually
555
00:24:46.660 --> 00:24:47.779
dating Eric Starr. Oh.
556
00:24:48.180 --> 00:24:50.759
Wasn't he dating, what's her face, from Baby?
557
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:51.359
Ferris?
558
00:24:51.700 --> 00:24:52.619
Yeah. Wasn't Ferris Bueller.
559
00:24:52.660 --> 00:24:54.490
Not yet. No, they weren't. They hadn't made it yet.
560
00:24:54.670 --> 00:24:57.380
It was later. Gotcha. Jennifer Grey.
561
00:24:57.940 --> 00:25:00.960
Oh, my God. They were brother and sister in that movie. Yeah.
562
00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:02.279
How incestuous.
563
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:05.900
Oh, well, everyone's got their kinks. You know, Father Malone.
564
00:25:08.500 --> 00:25:13.799
Fake priest aside, I found Ally Sheedy to be fucking
565
00:25:13.859 --> 00:25:14.960
delightful in this movie.
566
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.500
She was. She's cute.
567
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:20.990
Yeah. And shares Matthew Broderick's sort of ease with A
568
00:25:21.029 --> 00:25:23.910
lot of younger performers just have that weird precocious thing
569
00:25:23.950 --> 00:25:27.009
that I fucking despise, the sort of pretend kind of thing,
570
00:25:27.230 --> 00:25:29.369
which is on display. Matthew Broderick actually does it at
571
00:25:29.470 --> 00:25:31.130
one point in this movie. I'd like to point it out.
572
00:25:31.490 --> 00:25:34.769
And it really bugged me. But just an ease of,
573
00:25:35.049 --> 00:25:37.970
and a naturalism from both of them. But I think
574
00:25:38.009 --> 00:25:40.950
actually her more than him. He feels more actorly, ultimately.
575
00:25:41.069 --> 00:25:43.529
She feels more like just a natural performer, like a
576
00:25:43.569 --> 00:25:46.079
Shelley Long, or not Shelley Long, but Shelley Duvall, rather.
577
00:25:46.710 --> 00:25:48.799
When I use the word precocious, when I go out
578
00:25:48.839 --> 00:25:51.619
in Brooklyn and there are all these parents letting their
579
00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:54.000
kids run wild and we're all supposed to enjoy it.
580
00:25:54.049 --> 00:25:56.869
And because they're so cute and precocious, but they're actually
581
00:25:56.990 --> 00:25:59.950
fucking beasts and they need to be disciplined. That's how
582
00:26:00.069 --> 00:26:02.210
I think of the word. So tell me which part.
583
00:26:02.849 --> 00:26:06.430
Precocious to me is there's a particular breed of child
584
00:26:06.670 --> 00:26:10.529
actor where you could tell that they are aware enough
585
00:26:10.569 --> 00:26:12.990
to know what they're doing in a scene, but can't
586
00:26:13.150 --> 00:26:15.660
act in any other way than they've been coached. So
587
00:26:15.700 --> 00:26:18.299
it all feels like, and characters get written a lot
588
00:26:18.339 --> 00:26:19.819
like that. You see it in sitcoms a lot where
589
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:23.539
they're writing too high above the character's actual sort of
590
00:26:24.019 --> 00:26:27.279
comprehension of something. But isn't it funny to see coming
591
00:26:27.319 --> 00:26:29.460
out of the mouth of a babe? And there's something
592
00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:31.640
about that kind of writing and that kind of acting
593
00:26:31.720 --> 00:26:33.170
that to me equals precocious.
594
00:26:33.589 --> 00:26:38.650
And ruins shows. You're out of ideas when it's all
595
00:26:38.690 --> 00:26:41.069
a dream or you get someone brings a kid.
596
00:26:40.829 --> 00:26:45.700
On the show. At the time, so I was 10,
597
00:26:45.700 --> 00:26:50.339
so 11, 12, I had friends who effectively were computer
598
00:26:51.019 --> 00:26:54.240
people who had every piece of new equipment that came
599
00:26:54.460 --> 00:26:59.180
along and revered this movie. And I think it's like hackers.
600
00:26:59.339 --> 00:27:01.819
I think the generation that ended up making hackers, that
601
00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:05.200
generation of hackers themselves were like inspired by this movie
602
00:27:05.240 --> 00:27:07.970
to potentially end the world. At least they had high
603
00:27:08.009 --> 00:27:10.430
goals here. It wasn't just making money like the 90s.
604
00:27:10.569 --> 00:27:13.589
The end of the world was just an incidental thing.
605
00:27:13.869 --> 00:27:15.950
It wasn't like a goal, right?
606
00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:18.450
Well, it has to be somebody's goal because that's what
607
00:27:18.470 --> 00:27:21.809
the whole fucking point of the movie is. I mean,
608
00:27:21.829 --> 00:27:24.210
he engages it like it's a game, but he's really
609
00:27:24.279 --> 00:27:26.039
into it. I'd like to point out that the first
610
00:27:26.099 --> 00:27:27.579
target that they make is Las Vegas.
611
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:28.240
Las Vegas.
612
00:27:28.660 --> 00:27:31.059
Of course it is because we're the greatest city on earth.
613
00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:33.539
We've got action right to the end.
614
00:27:33.990 --> 00:27:34.680
I noticed that.
615
00:27:34.700 --> 00:27:37.220
So you know that an early nickname for Las Vegas
616
00:27:37.240 --> 00:27:40.240
was Radiant City, given to us by all of the
617
00:27:40.299 --> 00:27:42.119
nuclear testing we had on the periphery.
618
00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:42.880
Ah.
619
00:27:43.259 --> 00:27:46.400
There used to be viewing parties of nuclear tests.
620
00:27:47.069 --> 00:27:48.390
Isn't it called Sin City?
621
00:27:48.750 --> 00:27:50.250
It's definitely Sin City now.
622
00:27:51.390 --> 00:27:54.690
Okay. What about when the mob created it? Is it called?
623
00:27:55.069 --> 00:27:58.390
It was called Las Vegas. And quiet about that, everybody.
624
00:27:58.589 --> 00:28:00.890
I think that's what its official name was. You didn't
625
00:28:00.930 --> 00:28:04.940
see nothing. I think was its official tagline, really.
626
00:28:05.619 --> 00:28:07.319
And Eddie Deason's in this, too.
627
00:28:07.380 --> 00:28:08.380
Oh, my goodness, isn't he?
628
00:28:08.380 --> 00:28:08.859
And he does a great.
629
00:28:09.319 --> 00:28:10.279
Perennial nerd.
630
00:28:10.619 --> 00:28:11.779
He... Yeah.
631
00:28:12.259 --> 00:28:15.019
With Maury Chaykin as the double nerd team.
632
00:28:15.579 --> 00:28:16.470
Yeah, and I love how.
633
00:28:16.509 --> 00:28:19.400
The line, Mr. Potato Head lives in my head and
634
00:28:19.460 --> 00:28:23.529
has since 1983. That exact delivery when I hear somebody
635
00:28:23.569 --> 00:28:24.609
being idiotic.
636
00:28:24.650 --> 00:28:24.829
Mr.
637
00:28:24.849 --> 00:28:25.329
Potato Head.
638
00:28:25.410 --> 00:28:25.609
Mr.
639
00:28:25.630 --> 00:28:26.390
Potato Head!
640
00:28:27.930 --> 00:28:30.390
I loved that scene. And how he kept the woman
641
00:28:30.430 --> 00:28:31.009
away from him.
642
00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:33.220
Yeah, right.
643
00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:35.980
Because they got nervous and stuff.
644
00:28:36.500 --> 00:28:38.920
Exactly. Not to keep her from them or them from her.
645
00:28:39.460 --> 00:28:41.519
But I thought it was smart. It's just a smart,
646
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.220
tightly written thing, how they talk about Falcon's maze at
647
00:28:45.339 --> 00:28:50.940
the beginning, which leads him to eventually come to find
648
00:28:51.009 --> 00:28:53.869
out Joshua is the password. Spoiler alert.
649
00:28:54.890 --> 00:28:57.089
Yeah, my favorite character in the movie is Joshua.
650
00:28:57.490 --> 00:28:57.769
Yeah.
651
00:28:57.829 --> 00:28:58.890
Yeah.
652
00:28:59.579 --> 00:29:02.099
He's got all the best lines. He's the only character
653
00:29:02.119 --> 00:29:04.740
with real, true direction from beginning to end. He doesn't
654
00:29:04.759 --> 00:29:07.259
need an arc. He knows what he wants. He just
655
00:29:07.299 --> 00:29:08.180
wants to play chess.
656
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:09.700
Well, he wants to win the game.
657
00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:13.079
Right. If you make him play the Global Nuclear War one,
658
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:15.420
he's going to win that. But really, you should have
659
00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:16.359
just played chess with.
660
00:29:16.279 --> 00:29:17.720
Him at the beginning. You shouldn't just play chess.
661
00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:19.960
It's another Frankenstein situation.
662
00:29:19.980 --> 00:29:21.480
Yeah.
663
00:29:24.039 --> 00:29:26.960
We've gone too far and broken the bonds with our AI.
664
00:29:27.329 --> 00:29:29.569
Yeah. I'm too high to the sun.
665
00:29:32.660 --> 00:29:36.440
My wings. So this is effectively an AI film, and
666
00:29:36.460 --> 00:29:40.859
it is, but it's just the most benevolent AI experience. imaginable.
667
00:29:41.099 --> 00:29:45.960
This isn't Skynet. This isn't The Matrix. It really is
668
00:29:46.049 --> 00:29:48.789
just what you put into it that you're getting back
669
00:29:48.869 --> 00:29:50.119
out of it. If you tell it to how to.
670
00:29:50.130 --> 00:29:53.809
It isn't that what happens... But it's not just what
671
00:29:53.829 --> 00:29:55.279
you put into it. It's because it learns.
672
00:29:55.579 --> 00:29:58.200
True, but it only learns how to win. In those
673
00:29:58.319 --> 00:30:01.180
other AI scenarios, and ones we're probably going to face
674
00:30:01.220 --> 00:30:05.079
in the next few years, the artificial intelligence might make
675
00:30:05.160 --> 00:30:08.079
the decision that we should no longer be here. In
676
00:30:08.119 --> 00:30:10.700
this scenario, in war games, it's just like, hey, we're
677
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:13.220
going to give you access to these nuclear weapons and
678
00:30:13.400 --> 00:30:16.710
their nuclear weapons and see what happens in a simulation.
679
00:30:17.009 --> 00:30:19.829
And then it decides that there is no difference between
680
00:30:19.849 --> 00:30:22.130
the simulation and real life, which is maybe a glitch,
681
00:30:22.170 --> 00:30:25.069
but It isn't like intent. It seems in every other
682
00:30:25.250 --> 00:30:28.460
AI apocalyptic thing, AI makes the decision that we need
683
00:30:28.500 --> 00:30:28.799
to go.
684
00:30:29.259 --> 00:30:31.779
Right. I don't know if it made the decision as
685
00:30:31.839 --> 00:30:34.960
much as there was no decision to make. There is no...
686
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:37.859
Within the concept of the computer, there is no difference
687
00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:41.009
between game and reality. Do you know what I mean?
688
00:30:41.410 --> 00:30:41.930
Absolutely.
689
00:30:42.470 --> 00:30:49.230
Thank you. Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that.
690
00:30:49.250 --> 00:30:50.759
Well, it's just the truth. I mean, it just means
691
00:30:50.890 --> 00:30:52.869
that there's... When.
692
00:30:52.529 --> 00:30:55.869
You were just talking about decisions and stuff. Yeah.
693
00:30:56.210 --> 00:30:59.349
As a movie, there's no real antagonist in this film,
694
00:30:59.369 --> 00:31:02.990
which is remarkable. There's just things doing what it's supposed to.
695
00:31:03.009 --> 00:31:04.329
So Joshua is not.
696
00:31:04.710 --> 00:31:08.029
Joshua has no ill will. Joshua just can't distinguish between
697
00:31:08.069 --> 00:31:10.869
reality and fantasy, and that's not its fault.
698
00:31:11.190 --> 00:31:14.890
And doesn't understand that futility. Did you notice that it
699
00:31:14.910 --> 00:31:15.970
was called Crystal Palace?
700
00:31:16.609 --> 00:31:19.349
I did. Which made me happy, but I didn't understand.
701
00:31:19.430 --> 00:31:22.430
Because it's so fragile, I guess.
702
00:31:22.670 --> 00:31:25.440
Oh, maybe. I loved all that text speaking.
703
00:31:25.619 --> 00:31:26.779
There was a lot. Defcon.
704
00:31:27.299 --> 00:31:30.660
Defcon and get them on the horn and give me
705
00:31:30.779 --> 00:31:33.480
ASAC on the line and this is no rap.
706
00:31:33.500 --> 00:31:34.599
And that's Barry Corbin.
707
00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:35.599
Well, yeah, exactly.
708
00:31:35.619 --> 00:31:37.960
Who delivered those lines that were just like ace.
709
00:31:38.420 --> 00:31:40.240
Who improv'd a lot of those lines.
710
00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:43.240
Do you think the piss on a spark plug was
711
00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:44.960
improvised or written?
712
00:31:45.529 --> 00:31:47.210
I feel like it was written, but I'd like to
713
00:31:47.250 --> 00:31:49.349
give it to Barry Corbin for being Barry Corbin.
714
00:31:49.470 --> 00:31:50.210
I mean, yeah.
715
00:31:50.329 --> 00:31:52.609
It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that
716
00:31:52.650 --> 00:31:53.549
he would come up with that.
717
00:31:53.849 --> 00:31:56.519
Nobody would have been able to say it that well. Nobody.
718
00:31:56.720 --> 00:31:58.500
I was going to ask as a former resident of
719
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:01.079
Seattle if you recognized any of the filming locations, but
720
00:32:01.220 --> 00:32:03.660
actually I do because it was mainly filmed in Van Nuys.
721
00:32:04.319 --> 00:32:08.099
Just see the Space Needle. Everybody knows the Space Needle.
722
00:32:08.269 --> 00:32:11.390
They went and filmed the harbor for two days and
723
00:32:11.970 --> 00:32:13.250
everything else was in Los Angeles.
724
00:32:13.589 --> 00:32:14.210
Oh, really? Yeah.
725
00:32:14.569 --> 00:32:17.910
Yeah, the tunnel leading to the giant NORAD vault that
726
00:32:17.930 --> 00:32:20.150
they have to get into is the same one that
727
00:32:20.390 --> 00:32:24.210
Roger Rabbit takes to get to Toontown. It's the one
728
00:32:24.250 --> 00:32:28.269
Marty McFly is on the hover fucking skateboard in Back
729
00:32:28.289 --> 00:32:33.079
to the Future 2. So everything L.A. Movie magic, everybody.
730
00:32:33.099 --> 00:32:36.880
Movie magic. Yeah, it was just some of the landscape,
731
00:32:37.099 --> 00:32:39.740
the water scene. Everything else was in.
732
00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:44.039
I noticed a lot of changing climates. From scene to
733
00:32:44.099 --> 00:32:45.220
scene and shot to shot.
734
00:32:45.240 --> 00:32:45.359
Yeah.
735
00:32:46.059 --> 00:32:47.799
Yeah, it did feel like fall at some point and
736
00:32:47.819 --> 00:32:49.460
then springtime and then a little bit of summer.
737
00:32:49.480 --> 00:32:52.690
And that's sort of Seattle for you.
738
00:32:53.470 --> 00:32:56.190
John Badham got brought in 12 days into filming. Martin
739
00:32:56.210 --> 00:32:58.990
Brest was the original filmmaker on this film. He eventually made,
740
00:32:59.089 --> 00:33:01.960
he did Beverly Hills Cop with Eddie Murphy. And the
741
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:04.839
problem they had with his, the footage he was turning
742
00:33:04.900 --> 00:33:07.140
in was it was too dark. He was trying to
743
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:09.319
make this as straight-ahead thriller as you could make it
744
00:33:09.380 --> 00:33:13.039
without any sort of lightness. And at that point, I understand,
745
00:33:13.259 --> 00:33:16.660
as much as I credited those two screenplays, those two screenwriters,
746
00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:18.319
Tom Mankiewicz got brought in here.
747
00:33:18.339 --> 00:33:19.519
Ah, the Mank.
748
00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:22.400
Yes, and that's why the movie got as light as
749
00:33:22.460 --> 00:33:24.869
it is and has as many funny lines in it.
750
00:33:25.289 --> 00:33:27.549
And that's why I think that line probably is not
751
00:33:27.589 --> 00:33:29.230
Barry Corbin, but Tom Mankiewicz.
752
00:33:29.549 --> 00:33:29.950
Okay.
753
00:33:30.450 --> 00:33:32.569
And I love me some Tom Mankiewicz. He wrote the
754
00:33:32.670 --> 00:33:34.730
two best James Bond films, everybody.
755
00:33:35.109 --> 00:33:36.609
What are those? Name them for us.
756
00:33:36.630 --> 00:33:39.930
Those are Diamonds Are Forever and The Man with the
757
00:33:39.970 --> 00:33:40.609
Golden Gun.
758
00:33:40.630 --> 00:33:41.539
Okay.
759
00:33:42.019 --> 00:33:44.700
Check those out if you haven't seen them. Those movies
760
00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:45.759
from 60 years ago.
761
00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:52.980
Tic-Tac-Toe. It's like the time when you're young and you
762
00:33:53.019 --> 00:33:56.049
realize what Tic-Tac-Toe is is around the time that you
763
00:33:56.069 --> 00:33:58.569
understand that there is no Santa Claus or was I just.
764
00:33:58.990 --> 00:34:02.089
That seems about right. All the futility comes flooding.
765
00:34:01.849 --> 00:34:04.390
Into you at once, right? It's a pretty sad day.
766
00:34:04.819 --> 00:34:08.679
Yeah, when you realize how pointless it all is. And
767
00:34:08.699 --> 00:34:11.539
the existential really starts to nestle in your brain.
768
00:34:12.570 --> 00:34:12.889
Sure.
769
00:34:15.090 --> 00:34:19.710
Not the best time in retrospect. But instructive.
770
00:34:21.869 --> 00:34:25.230
What do you think of the parents? Did they affect
771
00:34:25.250 --> 00:34:25.869
you at all?
772
00:34:25.889 --> 00:34:30.000
I love the parents. They're so typically parental here. But
773
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:34.079
really supportive and not... Yeah, they weren't... They're just regular parents.
774
00:34:34.099 --> 00:34:35.900
They weren't made up to be one way or the other.
775
00:34:36.420 --> 00:34:38.599
He had all that computer equipment, so he must have.
776
00:34:38.639 --> 00:34:42.679
He sure did. Like, too much for... Yeah, what? Where'd
777
00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:43.400
he get all of that?
778
00:34:43.860 --> 00:34:45.260
I don't know. The parents.
779
00:34:45.860 --> 00:34:48.199
But he is getting good grades. Now, speaking of.
780
00:34:48.360 --> 00:34:48.820
Well, yeah.
781
00:34:48.860 --> 00:34:51.889
He's getting good grades. That scene, the report card scene,
782
00:34:51.929 --> 00:34:55.090
which is really the he discovers that he nearly destroyed
783
00:34:55.130 --> 00:34:58.690
the world scene, when the mom leads him over to
784
00:34:58.730 --> 00:35:01.150
the father to show him the report card. If you
785
00:35:01.190 --> 00:35:06.099
watch Matthew Broderick's posture and demeanor he turns into that
786
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:09.179
precocious actor that i was fucking complaining about earlier this
787
00:35:09.199 --> 00:35:11.280
like he it's watch him up with the yo-yo even
788
00:35:11.320 --> 00:35:13.860
that only enforces it he does this like eight-year-old oh
789
00:35:13.900 --> 00:35:16.360
gee shucks me kind of thing i was like what
790
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:19.179
what you're usually so good sir.
791
00:35:19.409 --> 00:35:21.110
He does it at the end of the movie too
792
00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:24.269
and they still with the hair do you think.
793
00:35:24.210 --> 00:35:26.230
He still doesn't i'd like to see him do.
794
00:35:26.170 --> 00:35:28.510
It today i bet he does it when he gets
795
00:35:28.570 --> 00:35:29.949
caught messing something up.
796
00:35:31.659 --> 00:35:34.980
That's his sheepish go-to. His sheepish default.
797
00:35:38.550 --> 00:35:39.369
Shred shoulders.
798
00:35:41.150 --> 00:35:42.110
For our listeners.
799
00:35:42.409 --> 00:35:43.050
I'm cute.
800
00:35:44.130 --> 00:35:47.070
Oh, hey. Didn't see you there.
801
00:35:47.090 --> 00:35:48.150
I move my arms when I walk.
802
00:35:48.369 --> 00:35:56.110
Who, me? What was the other part of that scene? Oh,
803
00:35:56.530 --> 00:35:59.039
this is a trope that I hate in all movies,
804
00:35:59.320 --> 00:36:01.449
but I noticed it here. Most recently, so I'm going
805
00:36:01.469 --> 00:36:04.639
to talk about it. You get in here and you've
806
00:36:04.679 --> 00:36:07.840
got some explaining to do, the kind of, you're in trouble, mister.
807
00:36:08.119 --> 00:36:12.300
You got great grades. That sort of set up in
808
00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:17.239
movies that fake out of expectations, where we've just seen
809
00:36:17.260 --> 00:36:20.039
the character do something where they could be caught or
810
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:22.639
in trouble for. In the next scene, somebody says something
811
00:36:22.659 --> 00:36:25.030
to them that is so fucking leading that That nobody
812
00:36:25.130 --> 00:36:28.179
ever says. Oh, you wait till I get my hands
813
00:36:28.300 --> 00:36:29.980
on you. I'm going to give you a hug. It's
814
00:36:30.019 --> 00:36:30.619
like that.
815
00:36:30.900 --> 00:36:32.019
And that bothered you?
816
00:36:32.179 --> 00:36:33.460
Yeah, I fucking hate that.
817
00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:40.550
You mean? I hated the sexual harassment scene. That sucked.
818
00:36:40.969 --> 00:36:43.650
It was like. Oh, that's small potatoes compared to my thing.
819
00:36:45.409 --> 00:36:49.030
He just would not let up. And, you know, at
820
00:36:49.570 --> 00:36:53.380
the time. She was probably acting the way you're supposed
821
00:36:53.389 --> 00:36:56.599
to act in those kinds of scenarios, you know, without
822
00:36:56.679 --> 00:36:59.719
causing too much of a stir. So I remember that.
823
00:37:00.059 --> 00:37:02.280
I don't even remember what that actor was or why
824
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:06.039
he was wearing the weirdest military outfit when everyone else
825
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:07.679
had normal military outfits.
826
00:37:08.449 --> 00:37:09.829
Oh, he had the beret on.
827
00:37:09.909 --> 00:37:10.409
Yeah.
828
00:37:10.829 --> 00:37:14.309
That guy's freaky. Yeah, that scene is out of the
829
00:37:14.349 --> 00:37:17.989
blue just to provide a bit of distraction for David. Right.
830
00:37:19.210 --> 00:37:21.610
But it could have been anything. It's a weird go-to
831
00:37:21.889 --> 00:37:24.190
when it just becomes harassment and or rape as a
832
00:37:24.230 --> 00:37:26.360
plot point. You guys couldn't think of anything else?
833
00:37:26.840 --> 00:37:29.820
Yeah. That was distracting for me.
834
00:37:30.219 --> 00:37:32.559
But his solution opening that door was pretty good.
835
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:33.980
Yeah. With the tape recorder and everything.
836
00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:36.239
Remember in the 80s where for a brief time we
837
00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:41.559
actually praised intelligence and innovation? With movies like Real Genius
838
00:37:41.639 --> 00:37:43.739
or Revenge of the Nerds. I know, that's a big
839
00:37:43.780 --> 00:37:46.619
rape movie. I get that. But at the time, Animal
840
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:48.889
House had its thing. There was the whole slobs thing
841
00:37:48.929 --> 00:37:52.829
of the 1970s. But in the 80s, they started appreciating
842
00:37:53.090 --> 00:37:55.690
these kids who could be a little bit of tech savvy.
843
00:37:55.809 --> 00:37:57.369
And this is a tech show, after all.
844
00:37:57.389 --> 00:37:59.849
I think what they were trying to do is show
845
00:37:59.909 --> 00:38:03.250
how he wasn't appreciated, which is why the Russians probably
846
00:38:03.309 --> 00:38:06.599
got to him. Or something. Because they were trying to
847
00:38:06.619 --> 00:38:08.469
make it the Russians that were really doing it.
848
00:38:08.489 --> 00:38:10.050
They were making this an espionage situation.
849
00:38:10.070 --> 00:38:12.630
Yeah, so he was like alienated from his parents. And
850
00:38:12.929 --> 00:38:15.670
doesn't have that many friends at school. And it's a
851
00:38:15.710 --> 00:38:19.389
perfect example of someone the Russians would take mind control.
852
00:38:19.929 --> 00:38:20.449
And they did.
853
00:38:20.630 --> 00:38:22.590
And that was the end of the movie.
854
00:38:22.610 --> 00:38:25.820
America was wiped out. We didn't see it coming. Literally.
855
00:38:26.110 --> 00:38:27.340
His real name was Nikolai.
856
00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:30.000
Joshua. Nikolai Joshua.
857
00:38:30.280 --> 00:38:35.099
So I appreciated... It really... When finally, when Falcon comes
858
00:38:35.500 --> 00:38:41.389
and explains what's really happening to very Corbin or whatever general,
859
00:38:41.679 --> 00:38:45.590
what's his name? They turn pretty quick. They, for all the,
860
00:38:45.710 --> 00:38:48.809
it's like, it's like a 52nd thing where they're like, okay,
861
00:38:48.849 --> 00:38:50.789
we're just, we'll stay on the phone with you. You might,
862
00:38:50.829 --> 00:38:52.250
we might all die. We might not.
863
00:38:52.690 --> 00:38:53.769
It's not that convincing a speech.
864
00:38:53.789 --> 00:38:55.309
It didn't take much persuading. Yes.
865
00:38:56.949 --> 00:39:00.409
I did think the, I did think the level of panic.
866
00:39:01.199 --> 00:39:05.460
And that scene was way off. It was very solid. Well,
867
00:39:06.059 --> 00:39:08.170
we're ready to go. Birds are about to go in
868
00:39:08.190 --> 00:39:09.690
the air. We think we've got that. We've got all
869
00:39:09.730 --> 00:39:12.889
those guys scrambled. Hey, guys, maybe we shouldn't do this. Okay.
870
00:39:13.389 --> 00:39:14.530
It was a little like that.
871
00:39:14.909 --> 00:39:17.710
Yeah, but Barry Corbin was still Barry Corbin-esque.
872
00:39:18.130 --> 00:39:21.099
You know, because he doesn't trust these computers, mercifully. Right, right.
873
00:39:21.099 --> 00:39:23.840
Or else we'd all be dead. But I did notice
874
00:39:23.840 --> 00:39:26.219
that that scene and i did notice the ease with
875
00:39:26.260 --> 00:39:28.559
which he's just said hey what if we don't.
876
00:39:28.360 --> 00:39:31.900
Everybody with his big eyes yeah what was that what
877
00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:35.539
was that that matthew mcconaughey movie the the lawyer film
878
00:39:36.059 --> 00:39:39.900
where the last it was like a samuel jackson's on trial.
879
00:39:39.659 --> 00:39:42.610
For murdering the rapist or murderer of his daughter and
880
00:39:42.619 --> 00:39:45.429
whatever and matthew mcconaughey's big fucking speech at the end
881
00:39:45.570 --> 00:39:49.239
effectively was What if she were white? And they're all like, oh,
882
00:39:49.300 --> 00:39:51.789
my God. And it goes in his favor. I was like, really?
883
00:39:51.809 --> 00:39:54.010
A little simple. A little bit of that here.
884
00:39:54.309 --> 00:39:57.170
So then that's why I was glad that Joshua kept
885
00:39:57.210 --> 00:39:57.750
at it.
886
00:39:57.989 --> 00:40:00.570
Decided, I'm going to get these codes anyway. I don't
887
00:40:00.590 --> 00:40:02.360
know if you guys have finished playing, but I haven't
888
00:40:02.380 --> 00:40:06.800
finished playing the game. Yes. See, I agree that it's
889
00:40:06.860 --> 00:40:09.320
lazy writing to just have them speechify and have that
890
00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:12.889
occur where we find out that it is a simulant.
891
00:40:13.090 --> 00:40:17.139
But what follows... I remember being dazzled as a child
892
00:40:17.219 --> 00:40:20.420
by the following sequence. And again, today, I watched the
893
00:40:20.519 --> 00:40:24.500
Blu-ray of this, which looks fucking fantastic. And this sequence,
894
00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:27.000
watching those maps of the world and all of the
895
00:40:27.039 --> 00:40:29.519
major cities just get blotted out into little white dots
896
00:40:29.659 --> 00:40:32.070
over and over again. Fucking phenomenal.
897
00:40:32.340 --> 00:40:32.739
It was.
898
00:40:33.139 --> 00:40:36.329
Tom Rolfe is the editor on this, so kudos to him.
899
00:40:36.369 --> 00:40:39.329
But John Badham was always a really good editor, at
900
00:40:39.389 --> 00:40:40.750
least back on Night Gallery, where he had to be
901
00:40:40.889 --> 00:40:45.800
really economical within 22 or even sometimes 17 minutes. time frame.
902
00:40:46.380 --> 00:40:49.079
I love the finale. And by the way, I love
903
00:40:49.099 --> 00:40:52.659
the finale of this movie because it doesn't have anyone
904
00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:55.960
fist fighting or anyone going at each other. There's no
905
00:40:56.099 --> 00:40:59.440
violence to speak of here, but it is as tense
906
00:40:59.659 --> 00:41:02.900
and thrilling as anything. What we're watching is a computer
907
00:41:03.019 --> 00:41:07.670
figure out its own fucking sense of futility in real
908
00:41:07.769 --> 00:41:11.230
time with the possibility of it not understanding that our
909
00:41:11.329 --> 00:41:16.599
own demise. Pretty fucking potent for just a 1983 neighborhood potboiler.
910
00:41:17.110 --> 00:41:17.409
Yeah.
911
00:41:18.710 --> 00:41:19.880
Boy, I went on a tear there, didn't I?
912
00:41:20.869 --> 00:41:24.309
You're not wrong. You are right.
913
00:41:26.630 --> 00:41:29.730
You are not wrong. We're spending so much time disagreeing
914
00:41:29.789 --> 00:41:31.389
when we're just trying to agree with each other.
915
00:41:31.409 --> 00:41:34.780
Sorry about that. I do remember one part at the
916
00:41:34.820 --> 00:41:36.559
end where she's like, I told you not to play
917
00:41:37.039 --> 00:41:39.800
those games with them. And he's like, games. I was like,
918
00:41:40.230 --> 00:41:43.110
Light bulb moment. That, to me, was the only part
919
00:41:43.130 --> 00:41:45.710
that I noticed a little bit of lazy writing. Like,
920
00:41:45.969 --> 00:41:47.630
this is not the best time to be like, I
921
00:41:47.650 --> 00:41:48.289
told you so.
922
00:41:48.869 --> 00:41:51.849
Yeah. And, oh, stupid thing, because she really didn't say
923
00:41:51.869 --> 00:41:55.010
don't play those games. She was fully on, full on encouraging.
924
00:41:55.030 --> 00:41:55.469
She didn't.
925
00:41:55.610 --> 00:41:57.980
Once the game, once the password, by the way, helped
926
00:41:58.000 --> 00:41:59.099
him find the password. Yeah.
927
00:41:59.460 --> 00:42:00.739
And then once.
928
00:42:00.659 --> 00:42:03.159
He's in, wasn't like, no, don't do this. She was like,
929
00:42:03.440 --> 00:42:04.320
let's get Las Vegas.
930
00:42:05.900 --> 00:42:08.699
She was into Vegas. That was her choice.
931
00:42:09.139 --> 00:42:11.769
What the fuck? And now you're like, no, he not
932
00:42:11.829 --> 00:42:14.050
told you. We shouldn't have done this. No.
933
00:42:14.190 --> 00:42:16.849
Yeah, so it was like it helped. She was like
934
00:42:16.889 --> 00:42:18.349
the sacrificial lamb of it.
935
00:42:18.789 --> 00:42:20.949
She's a co-conspirator is what she is. Yeah, she was.
936
00:42:20.969 --> 00:42:21.869
Like pretending she's not.
937
00:42:21.889 --> 00:42:24.809
No, I know, but they made her sound like an annoying, oh,
938
00:42:24.849 --> 00:42:28.289
of course the woman's like, I told you not to
939
00:42:28.309 --> 00:42:30.869
do that. Just like that. That's how she sounded.
940
00:42:31.110 --> 00:42:33.070
It might have been a Tom Mankiewicz line because the
941
00:42:33.110 --> 00:42:36.590
other line I noticed when she says when she meets
942
00:42:36.639 --> 00:42:39.300
him at the airport after he's already escaped from the facility.
943
00:42:39.670 --> 00:42:41.610
And she says, is this because you changed my grades?
944
00:42:41.989 --> 00:42:44.849
What are you talking about? You saw the news. You
945
00:42:44.909 --> 00:42:47.400
know he got picked up by the feds. Like, you're
946
00:42:47.460 --> 00:42:50.519
on the run right now. It's just like a ha-ha-ha
947
00:42:50.599 --> 00:42:53.659
kind of moment, but no. No one's saying that here.
948
00:42:54.199 --> 00:42:56.610
So maybe Martin Brest was right. They should have kicked
949
00:42:56.659 --> 00:42:58.150
Mankiewicz off the set.
950
00:42:58.630 --> 00:43:01.269
I think, you know, they did try to portray her
951
00:43:01.469 --> 00:43:06.030
as the young, flighty, flaky... She's going to be on
952
00:43:06.070 --> 00:43:09.949
TV with aerobic class or whatever.
953
00:43:10.010 --> 00:43:14.239
Right. But it's Ally Sheedy who just presents so much
954
00:43:14.300 --> 00:43:17.139
smarter than any sort of airhead tendencies. They want to
955
00:43:17.199 --> 00:43:19.280
give her just for the sake of a laugh.
956
00:43:19.760 --> 00:43:21.920
Did you notice that the dog was always outside? Yeah.
957
00:43:22.300 --> 00:43:24.880
They never let the dog in the house.
958
00:43:24.900 --> 00:43:27.059
People used to do that. Do people still do that?
959
00:43:27.079 --> 00:43:30.889
It's fucking horrific. This is the outside dog? Why? You
960
00:43:31.110 --> 00:43:31.829
get outside.
961
00:43:31.849 --> 00:43:35.099
So... And then they get mad at him for wanting
962
00:43:35.139 --> 00:43:37.639
to play with garbage or something. Let him in the
963
00:43:37.699 --> 00:43:43.000
fucking house. Damn it. Cook that corn. Yeah.
964
00:43:43.599 --> 00:43:45.219
That's a weird little moment, but a nice moment.
965
00:43:45.239 --> 00:43:48.130
That was a weird little moment. I liked it too. Especially,
966
00:43:48.150 --> 00:43:50.550
I was like, wow, if I had known. If I
967
00:43:50.590 --> 00:43:53.989
would just butter bread all those years growing up on
968
00:43:54.030 --> 00:43:57.550
the table, it would be a perfect way to eat corn.
969
00:43:57.590 --> 00:44:01.559
Just by wrapping it. I was like, that's amazing. Why
970
00:44:01.579 --> 00:44:03.119
didn't I think of that?
971
00:44:04.760 --> 00:44:09.159
Tips and tricks. Not only for saving the world, but
972
00:44:09.260 --> 00:44:11.199
really making an efficient meal for yourself.
973
00:44:11.239 --> 00:44:12.940
Just make sure you cook it first.
974
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:16.599
And you can eat the bread after.
975
00:44:16.619 --> 00:44:17.460
Eat the bread.
976
00:44:17.719 --> 00:44:20.119
John Wood also supplied the voice of Joshua.
977
00:44:20.409 --> 00:44:21.099
Oh, he did?
978
00:44:21.349 --> 00:44:25.389
Yes, that was him filtered through a vocoder of some sort, yeah.
979
00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:28.820
He was also in Jumping Jack Flash, a movie that
980
00:44:28.860 --> 00:44:30.840
I hope we talk about here.
981
00:44:31.159 --> 00:44:32.440
That is a computer film.
982
00:44:32.760 --> 00:44:33.079
Yeah.
983
00:44:33.099 --> 00:44:34.579
So we're going to have to talk about it.
984
00:44:34.639 --> 00:44:35.300
I hope so.
985
00:44:35.500 --> 00:44:36.340
Jonathan Pryce.
986
00:44:36.360 --> 00:44:37.940
Mmm, I love him.
987
00:44:38.199 --> 00:44:38.940
Everyone loves him.
988
00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:41.619
Including Whippy.
989
00:44:41.679 --> 00:44:44.170
Let me see. Going through my notes, you got anything else?
990
00:44:44.610 --> 00:44:44.829
No.
991
00:44:44.849 --> 00:44:47.489
There has to be something. There has to be something.
992
00:44:47.769 --> 00:44:52.150
I already mentioned stuff I didn't like. which wasn't much. Oh,
993
00:44:52.179 --> 00:44:55.000
I did want to mention that this isn't about this movie,
994
00:44:55.039 --> 00:44:57.599
but sometimes we pair movies with other movies. A couple
995
00:44:57.639 --> 00:45:00.079
years later, they effectively remade this movie on a much
996
00:45:00.139 --> 00:45:03.159
smaller scale. That was The Manhattan Project with John Lethko,
997
00:45:03.940 --> 00:45:07.480
which I think I've actually seen way more than this film,
998
00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:09.719
but that might be because it was on a loop
999
00:45:09.820 --> 00:45:10.800
on cable at the time.
1000
00:45:10.820 --> 00:45:11.579
Yeah, I remember.
1001
00:45:11.940 --> 00:45:14.989
I just had the TV on. All the time. So
1002
00:45:15.010 --> 00:45:19.210
I've seen The Manhattan Project a lot. And that probably, no,
1003
00:45:19.230 --> 00:45:21.010
that's more of a, that's just a tech movie. That's
1004
00:45:21.030 --> 00:45:23.000
not really a computer movie. So I don't know we'll
1005
00:45:23.019 --> 00:45:25.659
be approaching that one. But we might because it is
1006
00:45:25.699 --> 00:45:27.159
the 80s and it is.
1007
00:45:27.179 --> 00:45:28.639
It's both. Yeah.
1008
00:45:29.159 --> 00:45:33.090
I guess it is tech. But it's, and that's real
1009
00:45:33.150 --> 00:45:35.170
tech what they were doing there. Teaching us all how
1010
00:45:35.190 --> 00:45:36.469
to create a nuclear warhead.
1011
00:45:36.489 --> 00:45:36.969
Yeah.
1012
00:45:36.989 --> 00:45:37.269
Yeah.
1013
00:45:37.690 --> 00:45:40.139
Not irresponsible at all. Not that we were getting into
1014
00:45:40.179 --> 00:45:42.300
any of those facilities, but neither was that kid. I'm
1015
00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:43.820
reviewing the movie now. Anyway.
1016
00:45:43.840 --> 00:45:45.369
Yeah, we were getting covered it.
1017
00:45:45.380 --> 00:45:48.840
I think, yeah. I think that, anything else you want
1018
00:45:48.860 --> 00:45:50.949
to talk about, say about war games?
1019
00:45:51.550 --> 00:45:53.750
I really liked her jean jacket. Nice. It was a
1020
00:45:53.789 --> 00:45:58.010
nice Levi, probably. Or Jordache.
1021
00:45:58.409 --> 00:45:59.449
Most likely Jordache.
1022
00:45:59.469 --> 00:46:00.440
It was probably Jordache.
1023
00:46:01.409 --> 00:46:04.429
I think it's funny that they made him named Falcon.
1024
00:46:04.449 --> 00:46:07.179
It's so close to Dr. Stephen Hawking, which he's so
1025
00:46:07.300 --> 00:46:09.860
clearly based on. And apparently they went to Stephen Hawking
1026
00:46:09.900 --> 00:46:11.139
to ask him if he would be in the movie,
1027
00:46:11.519 --> 00:46:15.780
but felt they were going to exploit his disability by
1028
00:46:15.800 --> 00:46:16.739
featuring him in the film.
1029
00:46:16.900 --> 00:46:20.170
So instead, Epstein called him up. Yes. Oof.
1030
00:46:20.570 --> 00:46:21.829
Nice way to end this one.
1031
00:46:21.849 --> 00:46:23.150
That was upsetting. Joke.
1032
00:46:23.489 --> 00:46:23.989
Sorry.
1033
00:46:24.449 --> 00:46:24.849
Sorry.
1034
00:46:27.429 --> 00:46:29.090
On that note, what are we talking about next time
1035
00:46:29.130 --> 00:46:33.449
when we get to... convene about technology it was war
1036
00:46:33.489 --> 00:46:35.369
games this time what is it next time you know.
1037
00:46:35.230 --> 00:46:37.179
No wait that's.
1038
00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:41.880
Airwaves that's sci-fi that's airlocks sensors.
1039
00:46:41.400 --> 00:46:43.659
Jumping jack flash jumping jack flash.
1040
00:46:43.619 --> 00:46:45.619
No i don't think so we're gonna do a serious movie.
1041
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:48.960
A serious one what you pick then how about disclosure
1042
00:46:49.420 --> 00:46:52.989
okay that will be fun yeah until next time everybody
1043
00:46:53.050 --> 00:46:55.429
say goodbye everybody to laura gorilla laura say goodbye to
1044
00:46:55.469 --> 00:46:56.889
everybody would you you have a.
1045
00:46:56.889 --> 00:46:59.590
Line from the movie I don't have a line from
1046
00:46:59.610 --> 00:47:00.050
the movie.
1047
00:47:00.139 --> 00:47:00.519
Think of one.
1048
00:47:00.539 --> 00:47:01.519
Except your wife.
1049
00:47:02.679 --> 00:47:03.360
There we go.
1050
00:47:03.599 --> 00:47:04.119
That was it.
1051
00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:06.119
You can hear the crew laughing in that scene. They
1052
00:47:06.159 --> 00:47:06.900
didn't know it was coming.
1053
00:47:07.219 --> 00:47:07.480
All right.
1054
00:47:07.519 --> 00:47:09.530
Until next time, everybody, try to enjoy the daylight.
1055
00:47:10.010 --> 00:47:51.699
Everyone knew that was coming. Thank you. Thank you.