Strange Aeons Radio

159 BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE!

February 17, 2022 Strange Aeons Radio Season 4 Episode 159
Strange Aeons Radio
159 BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE!
Show Notes Transcript

159 BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE!

Kelly changes his name to Peeping Kelly. Also discussed: Pam and Tommy, The Book of Boba Fett, Raised by Wolves. 

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I'm sorry did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition such sigh to show you strange aeons. Welcome strange aeons radio. That's Eric over there in you. That's Vanessa over there. Hello. That makes me Kelly. Hey guys, I've been writing again, yay. And what this means is I've been going down to a bar, oh, my writing station, getting some food, all that stuff. But I've been, I've been doing it regularly enough now that I have this route that I go. And I noticed Vanessa, this guy in this like, second storey apartment, he always has his shades open. And he has all of these Star Trek ships in the window, model a sky, they look gigantic, right? They look super cool. So I've been like, slowing down to check them out and everything that way, as I'm coming back, it's nighttime, and it's kind of off the beaten path. So I don't have a lot of people behind me and this last time, I had nobody behind me. So I was like, I'm gonna stop and just, you know, on the street and kind of look at his window. So I'm looking at it and it's clearly like, he's got at least the 60s Enterprise and then the next generation enterprise, I can see other ships in the background but then on the next window over I could see something else going on there and a dog looking out the window at me and I was like, Hey buddy, hey buddy. And then he he moved his head and I realized oh, that's not a dog that is a person with a bald head and his eye looked like a nose for a minute or so my god and and he then moves his head and starts looking out the window. This clearly insane I was like oh shit. Quickly put the car back. And now I'm afraid to go on that route. Because I had called 911 after that. I'm sure he wrote down your license and nothing else. Yeah, it was you could get a giant temporary Star Trek emblem put on like one of your sides on your window solution only solution okay, I should have just waved my hands no no, no, I'm one of you. This seems weird but I really like Star Trek I promise you apparently right oh my god Well done. Well, I was not looking at the out the right contact at him. Reading contact. Oh, boy. A lot of cool new stuff on TV guys. Did you guys know that the second season of raised by wolves and started I totally forgot. Oh my god, I haven't watched. Wow, I watched the first two episodes and I realized how I felt about it the first season. I was like, wow, this is really cool looking. I can't tell at all what's going on? Yes. This show is so fucking weird. But it looks great. Had some really cool Gore in it. Because remember, mother is a killing machine basically. Right? And I get just got wrapped up in it. But at the end of the first episode, and at the end of the second episode, I was like, What is going on? And yeah, I mean, I still have catching up to do for the first season. I can't remember why I stopped. I remember being really excited by it. But oh, well. Maybe you stopped because it got like super weird. Episode gets insanely Weird, huh? And then the new episode just starts off and it's like, oh, okay, I guess all that really happened, huh? All right. Is it really God still director, writer, executive producer now, which means he got paid a check to have his name on it. Yeah, he like started it and they Oh, it does feel like a Ridley Scott. thing. Yeah. It feels like Alien Covenant or, you know, it's got that like scale and emptiness and you know, androids Yeah. I've been I've been doing some homework and some a little this soul searching and a little bit of trying to come to terms with something that quitting the pocket No, no. Okay. So a couple of weeks ago, I had gotten a really, really big rant about. One, Joss Whedon. And I've been trying to figure out feelings we there's this constant issue of artists who reveal themselves to be total monsters. But there are is still interesting. And I've been seeing, like weird posts from people that I know online about how actually if you get rid of Joss and you rewrite, you know, Firefly in this one way, and you get rid of this one Kerio Mal, if you get rid of Mal, and all of a sudden, everything about that show just works beautifully. And I'm thinking, Yeah, but then there'd be no drama. So I don't know about that, guys. And there was a sort of backlash to his work. And I had been really wondering whether or not I actually appreciated his work, because I hate Justice League so very much, I almost feel like I need to talk to you ever since I think, did you watch in the order it was released, or the order the movies or actual shows were actually made? Because if you put it in the order, the shows are actually made, it makes perfectly fine sense. I don't know what they were just like, oh, well, if the I can't remember all the characters names down. But if the CO that the assistant captain lady was actually the captain, then this person would get respect. And this other person would be putting their place in this part that I was like, Yeah, that's fine. But that's not story. That's just a world that you like better. So I went ahead and re watched both Avengers movies. Which I have not seen a long, long, long, long, long. There's a lot of events. I'm sorry, the first two. Yeah, the ones with Josephine's name on them. Yeah, yeah. So I was just like, I'm just gonna watch these. And they're really well written. They're actually really, he's a good writer. And I, it was kind of one of those things where I had to, you know, tell myself, he might be a monster, but it's okay. If he has some kind of talent. That's all right. It's fine. It's, yeah, you know what, that's interesting that we haven't heard much from the Avengers actors on what I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if there's a contract thing or what they they do do. It's the in the second Avengers movie Age of Ultron, where we get a faceplant into boobs moment, the first one actually veered pretty nicely away from that. And it felt pretty empowering towards the female characters in general. I felt like there was some good writing in there. But the second one, it gets a little loosey goosey there. But still, overall, I, I don't know, I would be very curious. I think there's something that happens in super high budget movies, where the director gets a lot more credit than they deserve. Sure. Because the people that are around you, at that point are the best in the business. Yeah, you are not working with a DP, you need to worry about knowing what lens to pick or you're not working with the artistic palette, you are working with the best. There's there's really something that you've you've heard there that I think is very important. The actual directing, of both of those movies was literally nothing special. Yeah, it was just directed like TV, like, I mean, aside from the action sequences where somebody else probably, you know, stepped up. The it's clue, it's just like medium wives, wives, you know, let the characters talk to each other, have them sitting around chatting. There was nothing interesting, no special interesting shots. It was very, very by the book. So it did make me think, okay, it's fine. If he never directs again, who gives a shit? It's fine. He doesn't have to deal with any other human beings. But his writing? Actually, you know, it was good. He wrote both of those films, and he did a good job. Yeah, and I'll say it again, you know, everybody's got a monster in them. And everybody's got an angel in them. You know, he, he could have been on very good behavior. He could have been, he could, I mean, it was legit film yet first big data, projects like that. So we're all capable of all that bullshit. I should do remember when we were down to Lovecraft Film Festival, meeting our friends and Leah. Yeah. Leah listened to the last episode where we're talking about jazz. We didn't. And then she sent me an amazing article that was written about, you know, what do we do with with people whose art we love and the people we need? Yeah, it's a very long article really well written, I will forward it to both of you because I found fascinating. I would love to, I would definitely love to read that. Because I feel like it's been a very long and frustrating process. It's not just when it's been, you know, ever since the metoo began, there's been a lot of people that I've respected who are now you know, trash. So, yeah, it'd be great to have some tools, some other perspectives to see how people are kind of looking at this. I'm not even sure that the tools are in there. But it was, it was interesting. This was written in 2017. And most of it is written about Woody Allen. Oh, gosh, sure. So I just thought it was a really, really well written article. I should have afforded it to you guys right off the bat, but I forgot. Well now you know. Thanks, Leah. Yes, thank you. I'm excited to check that out. I say I caught up and I enjoyed the first two episodes of the new season the Mandalorian. All right, good. Have you seen all of the book of Boba Fett yet? Now? The last two episodes that came out had he was not in one of them at all right? Wow. And he was in the other one for a minute, maybe. And it's all Mandalorian story. And it's good look at it. Especially with the IMDB raise, like six 6.26 9.2 Okay, all right. Well, I mean, I stopped watching it because you guys are dying about that. I was so but I had heard through the ether that maybe the last episode or two were pretty good. So they've been certainly better. They've been the best couple episodes. An awful lot of fan service. Oh, yeah. Last couple of episodes. Unless you're a fan of Boba Fett? Sure. It almost feels like the writers. Rodriguez and what's his name? Jonathan. The main writer upon the column happy? Yeah. Oh, you know, God. Yeah, there you go yell at us. We'll get it. Anyways, but um, got part of the way through going through the movie. It's probably a Boba Fett thing isn't really coming together like we wanted it to. It's not really working. I have a solution. Yeah, I would like to know if maybe this was put together as a response to what was going on. And maybe we had different episodes. I bet it has to be if they segwayed really far away from if they were on a track with a narrative and suddenly we're very much not on that track. It's got to be because people were like, Why is this show total garbage? Yeah, I mean, you get grow goo back and you get everything. Holy smokes the new Luke Skywalker. Look. Oh, for you know, 40 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking to myself, that was less a Mandalorian episode and more at the continuing adventures of Luke Skywalker. I just have to put up with you know, some biker kids and then all of a sudden I'll be in good territory. Jon Favreau? Yes. Yeah, the how many episodes have you watched just like the first two or something? How I've watched up until I did not watch the last I guess. Three or four. I didn't watch the biker kids starting from that point. I start up until in Vegas three episodes since that's because that's what I had. That's when I stopped to the last one then. Yesterday we watched all three. Well, now I know what I'm going to be up to tonight. Oh good. I'm gonna guess neither do you guys have jumped on the PAM and Tommy? No, no, I have not. I do Hulu keeps telling me to watch it but I was I was finishing up why so it is. I don't know if I can say it's good. It's entertaining. Okay. There is literally nobody to root for in this show. Everyone is a fucking asshole and less maybe it's Pam. Because she seems a little more innocent than everybody. Strange take on. Oh yeah, I think that she was taken advantage of a lot. Everybody I live in however they've got playing her. Is so friggin beautiful that she's prettier somehow than Pamela Anderson at the height of her game. Yeah. What's his name? Stan. Is playing Toyotomi The Winter Soldier Spy in thrillingly Oh my God. He looks just like him and acts just like him. Wow. He is a massive prick. Yes. Hey, I featured it there. By the way, you get to see the massive brick. Oh, no. And it moves around and talks puppeted I heard Yes. Yeah. Oh, talks. Me this this sounds it's I would say I would say that the only reason to watch it is if you're interested in like, you know car wrecks on the freeway and shit like that. Slow down to look at dead bodies then you would probably be interested in this. It's it's also got zero Motley songs in it because it's all said 95. So what you're getting is the soundtrack and 95 That being said, I've liked a lot of the music. I heard on it. Seth Rogen is playing the guy who stole the tape. He's he's finding it almost unrecognizable since he's lost so much weight and I don't know. I'll keep watching it, I guess. So it's a full like series. Yeah, it was just a film. I didn't really I don't know, five episodes in now, I think well, you know, that's you got to have room for the talking penis. Yeah. We're talking penis is voiced by the guy from Big Mouth who? Oh gosh, every piece of furniture and Yeah, hello and everything. So, Gilbert Godfrey Yeah, that's a lost opportunity. Oh, geez, well, um, I watched something very different from that. I went home and visited my mom for a few days. And my mom and I have been working our way through dark, initial Emmys, years working on this thing. And initially, you know, season one was pretty good. Season two was interesting starting to get really difficult to keep track of things. Season three. It was like, dental work. Like sitting there. The whole time. I'm like, Okay, I think that's that person who did that thing. And but we're in this time, place, but now we're in this universe. It is. God frickin awful. How complex that series? Yes. We were just like we had just let's just finish it. Well, let's just finish it because we cannot keep doing this with our lives anymore. And see, yeah, so we finished up. And I'm glad that I don't have to watch it anymore. Let's see, I stopped about two episodes into the third season. Gosh, you're you made the right choice. It there's nothing more interesting. I mean, maybe the last episode is is kind of good. Because you're like, Oh, here's the resolution to everything that we've been watching. But even then. I love that first season. Yeah. No, I know. And the Characters are really interesting. And the dynamics and I'm just so frustrated that they had to then add more timelines, and then add an alternative universe. It's like, did you have to? You could have not, do you think it's one of those ones that it hits so hard and unexpectedly and was so popular? They're like, well, crap, we need to add some more seasons to this thing. Where the first one probably took the writer a long time to construct all this drawings and all the stuff that was going on in season three, right and went, well, we just need confusion. I need it fast. Like literally just taking a little chart of people's faces and just moving them around randomly going, Okay, what if this person actually was married to this person, but then this person is a great, great, great grandfather was actually the other person. Oh my god. I would love to get my hands on a series Bible. Oh my gosh, that would be really interesting. Yeah, I'm curious how they just want to chart I need a really good chart. Because I'm really confused. I like gave up I was like, I can't anymore. My brain will not. I don't have the capacity for this level of understanding. Oh, mine's much more simple. Oh, start watching a series that apparently has made it to the US now that I did not realize until I was watching the original. BBC ghosts. Oh, it's on HBO. Max. Yeah, but I looked bad. It's fun. Is it? Okay, silly. I've only watched a couple episodes. So it may you know British comedy is weird, and can take a few episodes to really become good. Yeah. Like that. My Fallback is always red dwarf or people who come in. It was so stupid. Did you watch the first episode? Well, no. Then you don't understand what's going on at all. D is like no, I don't watch the first episode. And then the whole season. The whole series makes sense. But you don't see the first episode of red dwarf. They never again explain what's going on. Last. I love it when smug grit makes a return to this podcast. It's not me. It's the writing. We're talking years of experience for that one book coming in. Red Dwarf a very good, but the it's fine. It's fun. It's weird. The idea is they're moving to a haunted house. And the wife can see and hear all of the ghosts. And nobody else can. Is this like I think I might have seen this first episode. Is it like kind of a comedy and she's like getting along with the ghosts really? Well on episode one. No. Okay, nevermind. I think maybe the maybe the US version is it has been. It was 2017 series in Britain, but it's already been ported to the US. Okay. I have to check that out. Yeah, maybe we'll give that a try. How many episodes and how far into it already? Oh, like three maybe? If you want to wait a little while I'll let you know if Yeah, really good. Okay, well, with that in mind, how about we take a little break Then we're coming back. Younger buggy Have you seen Shere Khan is always hoping to catch Mowgli when his friends were lured by Gerhard around and now Python has led them off into the jungle. Now for plimmer vocalese puncture con it scrambles up into a tree look who's back with us a fried different a monkey another jungle fingers presets and vehicles each sold separately ask your parents permission before you go online. We are returned and today's topic is Jungle Book or jungle movies. wanted this to be a genre film that set in the jungle I don't think I said it but I hope that it was clear the predator is right out. I have to go home Hold on. We two hours. Okay, so with that in mind, I chose from 1996 solo it's time to pick a face like Mike you got good days. We have $2 billion tied up in this program. The perfect soldier no one was trying solos y'all missed another one. He is proficient at OpenType filing the structure makes him virtually immune to small arms fire he's equipped with motion sensors in about 15 times stronger 10 times faster than any man just a weapon he can make decisions to submit a direct order you do miss their mission they were unarmed and non aggressive therefore the directive was overwritten killing innocent people make solid feel bad and he isn't supposed to feel anything he's back home they have reprogramming their own disappear without a trace is three o'clock. serious situation on our hands. All records are supposed to be here the only tool of archives so your design is for the next generation I don't know anything about Godot. Well, let me tell you all that I mean, I know about solo as in like, you know, Han Solo solo. Wait till you hear the title but I think are the actors, but I think I know there's one you do. It had a budget of $19 million. A box office of $5 million. Oh no Rotten Tomato critics give it 8% The audience gives it 27% Direct by Norberto barber who has done just tons of television including episodes of the new reacher series, and written by David L. Corsi, who wrote executive power and Angel stance, which are both straight video movies. And it is based on the excellent book weapon by Robert Mason starring Eric Mario vamp, there you go. So when I was in Heartbreak Ridge jhaza Revenge full eclipse that one was for you, Craig, also starring William Sadler, who is death and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. He was in demon Knight and Shawshank Redemption. And a very young Adrian Brody from King Kong. Chapel Wait, and the pianist. Don't ever tell you guys about the guy who went into the bar with a tiny piano and pulled out a 12 inch pianist. Go on, you haven't but B grade schoolers. So we are introduced right off the bat to solo who was an Android designed as a military killing machine. Basically a one man army it is Mario van Peebles. We also introduced to his creator who was played by Adrian Brody, who was marveling his solos ability to learn and think on his own. He's like, Man, I did a really good job with this killing machine. Solo is dropped into Central America with a group of other soldiers a Black Ops group. They're there to destroy this Tiny airport that the insurgents have created and everything. But while he's, he's climbing this cliff that no other soldier could do, and he's placing these explosives there and everything. But then he discovers that there are women and children there that are being used as slave labor, and up on his bullshit, heads up display. Reading behind his eyes, he sees that he is not allowed to kill civilians. Oh, so this is already going against his programming and he starts defusing the explosives he said. But the black ops guy, there is William Sadler, and he's like what's going on air. So they decided, well, we got to blow it while they're still some explosives that are activated and so they blow it and Solo is injured, immediately, of course. Or previously in the side, a very messianic kind of injury, which I thought was incredibly stupid. We're gonna just go right off the bat and say this is Jesus. We see a bunch of steel pistons and shit in his side that could never actually be there surrounding a humanoid robot body, sir, that is like, Well, this looks really stupid now. Right off the bat, you guys, you're you're like, Oh, I see what I've done here. I've made a terrible mistake. Why? I don't know what you mean. So they decided they're just going to leave him there and they take off in their helicopters back to the base, but he decides to jump up and he catches the rung of one of the helicopters the landing gear and and hangs on. And they take them all the way back to base where, where he only noticed Yeah, where he is then repaired by Adrian Brody. But he is also looking at spiders. And he's very interested in living things and all of this stuff. And they do a flashback there where, where they show him being created, and he gets to pick his own face. And he sees a picture of Michael Jordan. And he says, like, Mike, Adrian bowties like you got good taste. Oh my god. I wish they had had like a picture of Mario van Peebles from from Heartbreak Ridge or something or jhaza Revenge, then he could have said, I want to look like that guy. And then it would have made sense that he looks exactly like that guy. And not like Michael Jordan does not look like Michael Jordan, although He is bald, and black. Sure. So I guess in a racist way. He looks like Michael Jordan now. Ah, goodness. Yeah. He starts thinking about his programming and all that stuff. And he decides he's going to take a helicopter and escape. And he goes back towards the jungle. And he pretends that he crashes while he does crash the helicopter on the side of the mountain and pretends that he is in it. fixes on mechanical death, yes, but but the, you know, this is like a $3 billion Android. So the military wants a back base. They're like, let's see if we can find any trace of him. So they got all this satellite imagery searching for him and everything. Meanwhile, Solo's main power source was destroyed when his when his side was destroyed. And so he is now using a much weaker secondary power source. This is important to you guys. They get they tell us this right off the bat, he is much weaker than he normally would be. He ends up joining this tiny little village that is under constant threat from guerrilla attackers, and he bargains with them and says, Hey, if you'll let me use your little gas generator to repower my batteries, Allah, I'll protect you guys. And they're like, all right. So when the local warlords guys attack, he just takes them all out immediately. The Villages saved, everybody loves him. However, by doing this, he pings a satellite, and the military is onto him. And they're like, Wait a second. He's still alive. We want him back for sure. Now. There's also this one scene while he's there with the villagers, that he watches them playing cards and he sees a guy bluff and he rents them out to the other players, saying, you know, this man is lying. And they give him a cigar and he learns to laugh. Ha ha ha ha ha. His lines are delivered. Like you delivered robot lines when you were eight years old on the playground. Stop. I am coming for you. Literally speak this word. Hello. So there's also Oh my goodness. There's also this one scene where one of the women from the village has fallen in love with him. It's not hard to believe he is a very attractive black man. He also has a big hole in his side with all these pistons hanging out but she still seems surprised He is not a real man. You know, hydraulic pumps. One point she is, she's very attracted to him and she touches his and us talking about matters of the heart and he says, I have no heart. A heart is for living things. And she says, but you're alive. And he says, No, I exist. Oh, man, do fucking deep. Yeah. Wow. So now enter the black ops guy again, William Sadler, who's incredibly cruel, and you're wondering why he's so pissed off and everything. I got to tell you. He either knew he was in a really shitty movie, or he thought he was going to be in a fantastic movie. Whatever way he's playing this guy's so ridiculously evil, that you just can't help him. Help him love him because he's like he elevates this movie from trash to the 8% that it deserves. So he is sent down to retrieve so and we learned that his his absolutely ridiculous. Unreasonable hatred for this thing is all because he sees solo as a threat to the job security of Black Ops, which when you pull back and think about it, you're like, really, you would rather send soldiers down to do all of this horrible dirty work and get killed and everything instead of a machine that could do it much more efficiently? That's how evil you are. It's It's It's so stupid that you guys I had to open a second bottle of wine to finish this. Pause. Yes, I was like oh, six. What do I got here? I've got some lab that I'm drinking that when Sadler gets down with his black ops guys, he turns to one of them and says Welcome to the Jungle. Said the spider to the fly. Oh my god. So no. So you guys, you can say Welcome to the Jungle. Especially if your guns and roses. And you can say welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly. But you cannot say Welcome to the jungle. The spider. That is so fucking apparently you can I know that that writer. Yeah. Amazing. A jungle spinning spider. Yeah, so he has brought Adrian Brody down and he's using Brody as bait to bring solo and because solo loves his creator. And the Creator loves solo. And it's, you know, it's one of the things he nearly succeeds in catching solo, but solo escapes with Brody, who has been mortally wounded. But when He sets him when he gets set down by solo, he is delighted, because solo makes a joke. He's like, Oh, look at your man. I can't wait to see what you're going to be like in another year. And then his eyes go glassy. And he's just like this is Oscar winning Adrian Brody in this and I think this is after the pianist. So he must have been like, well, what have I done? Did he do that was like me. He was like, I've made a terrible mistake. That weird Predator movie, too. Yeah, he did a slew of these weird action films like, what do you do? Indeed, wrench do? I get? Yeah. Okay. So after he dies, so it goes on a rampage. And he kills all of the Black Ops soldiers one by one in really stupid ways. Until he gets to William Sadler, whom he defeats fairly easily in hand to hand combat then raises him above his head and brings a down on his knee breaking his back but leaving him alive. Oh, yeah. You might ask why? Well, I'll tell you it's so the next part of the movie can happen. Which is a special ops helicopter showing up that drops off a package in the form of a new improved version of solo, but for some reason it has William Sadler's face. Oh, and is armed with a big huge Gatling gun on one arm instead of an arm after that, all confusing so it lands. It kills the real William Sadler immediately. All right. He starts to hunting down solo. It's it's a really poor third act. It's very bad. I'll just say this solos able to save all the villagers, and he beats the mark to Android. How you might ask? By bluffing. Oh, I guarantee you saw this coming when you saw how heavy handed the bluffing scene was earlier. And then the mark to Android is very surprised and he's like, You will cease to function. And so Hello says no, I bluffed. Ah well, we just watched you bluff. I'm not sure you needed to say that your bluff. We all figured out what she needed to reveal it to the other robot. It was very important. Yes. So the temple that these two androids are fighting in collapses on them and the military pulls out knowing the both units are destroyed and unrecoverable. The final scene is one of the villager boys who's mourning for solo but then he hears all those weird laughter in the trees and realizes Solo has survived all all all you guys there's like zero trivia for this. But I thought this was good 2018 solo A Star Wars Story included that subtitle so as not to be confused with this film. Oh, yeah, I was like, There's no way to confuse that with this. I think you're good. Yeah, because I had no trivia and I like to give something to the listenership. I pulled up a couple of reviews I liked Oh, there you go. And they run the gamut. This one by Muhammad Rafiq. My kind of movie seen it to ice now. Mexican B plus movie my ratings nine out of 10 off of Amazon. Yes. These are IMDB. Ah, Mohammed says I remember as a kid wanting to see this but never got around to it. Watching it. Now. It is not a bad movie. I felt the second half especially the ending was a lot more entertaining. William Sandler's performance and style are great. The action scenes are fun to watch as a cyborg lover. I thought it was fun to watch as well. There is nothing better than watching some guy do gymnastics while something is blowing up in the background. Overall, a good action movie. At least he had reasons backing up. But I I would take I would take the line. There is nothing better than watching. I do gymnastics while something's blowing up in the background. And I would say oh, maybe I can think of my crypto like I'm just gonna say that explains his review. 100% To me, that's it. Yeah, he loves gymnastic explosion movies. This reminds me I didn't mention it. But there is a scene where solo is backflipping for no reason. While things are exploding people Marvin van Peebles just got real good Marvin's Mario, Mario Mario Mario Mario, Mario van Marvin van Peebles. Welcome, Melvin. Sorry, Melvin van Peebles was probably like, what the fuck I made some shit movies, but boy, son brought up check their mind. Okay, so that was one. This one is kind of a little more in the mid range. part man, part machine. Total rip off. Oh, by movie attic 20163. He says there are good action stars and there are bad action stars. Arnold Schwarzenegger will always be the best action star in my book. That's not to say van Peebles can't. Oh, who am I kidding? This guy sucks. He's annoying and talented and his muscles are puny flabs of flesh molded sloppily and with gallons of steroids. Wow, yeah. Hmm. I'd be more inclined to think his favorite guy has done a cycler to EROI people. Well, okay, you're saying he has flabby skin, but that he's done roids like, that doesn't really add up to me. They're molded sloppily, they're sloppy. So you can only get sloppy muscles from roids got it? Here was my favorite of the review. So please don't spend money on this rubbish by Bob the movie. He says I saw this free on TV and I still feel robbed. Mario van pebbles takes on a role that suits him one that requires him to be wooden and slow to move their brain is that sounds like a British you know how I like to say I when I didn't when I guess somebody else is gonna win. I know that. Your impersonation? That alone will has entertained me thoroughly for this entire hour. So that makes me feel good. Thank you. Yes. Um, wow. Okay, well, unfortunately, mine's a lot more serious than yours. So I'm gonna have to lighten it back up. Okay. So long as we've got that on the table, um, I went with a movie that I had only seen bits and pieces off and I really want to watch the rest of it. And I was like, jungle. I think this one took place in a jungle probably. And it did this in the tall grass again. Oh, green. Everything's good. No, it is lost soul the dune journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau from 2014. We just thought that Richard Stanley doing Island of Dr. Moreau was one of the most exciting projects we had heard of in a while. This is going to be a huge project and this is going to propel Richard Stanley into the superstardom that he deserves as an autour was a script for extremely confident that we thought would be some sort of milestone genre. newline tried in different ways to contain the material. I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the project, frankly, there was some lunatic movie that's known as one of the worst films ever made. Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer were there to mess with the film as much as possible. I've dealt with some very, very difficult actors in my life. But I have never, ever dealt with somebody like Marlon Brando. He wanted an ice bucket on top of his head. He'd covered himself in white paint. I think that's how the whole minimi thing developed of Marlon adopting this little guy. It doesn't matter who directs it. It's not it's not it's not about the vision. It's a you know, it's about the stars. Did you hear about oh my god, Richard Stanley climbed into a tree today wouldn't come down. It wasn't living and breathing. Morrow, and then he just have that murdered. I think if we went a bit mad. I think once that rumor started, the rich standing was in the background that I think that just grew into Richard Stanley, then wanting to sabotage the shoot. As he went on it, you send it into more and more kind of madness. I knew that this was going to be totally insane. And that we were going to be hugely lucky if we just finished a film with a beginning, a middle and an end. Knowing that the odds were stacked against me. I resorted to witchcraft. often wonder what happened to Richard Stanley, very nice. Very nice. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, produced by seven films. So I don't know at what point it was done. I didn't have the actual thing. I was watching it on streaming for a few years. Quite a while. Yeah, I don't think it was as nicely done as like their more recent stuff, like the cover art alone looks very hokey, but that's okay. It has a 100% Rotten Tomato critic Score. Score. It's only by eight people. But still, those eight people really liked it. Audience has an 87%, which is probably a little bit more realistic. The director, director and writer David Gregory, and probably also producer, he has 229 directing credits. Oh, yeah. It's because that the Severn guy, I don't know, I'm not sure. It's because he does all of those behind the scenes Docs. So he does like for every film he does, he's got maybe eight or nine additional credits for it. So he did things for Don's dead Fulci did something on Punisher to not to neighboring tunnelbear. living near the living dead, Evil Dead. He's just got a ton of these kinds of credits. He did also act as a producer on Colorado space. Not any other credits really than that because this is a documentary. Sure about Mr. Richard Stanley. So the story of why this is interesting, is we have an eccentric British filmmaker in 1996 named Richard Stanley, who went out to make the film he had dreamed of making most of his life. As a child, he had been obsessed with a story of Dr. Island of Dr. Moreau, Moreau he even read the first edition that his father had, he had made a couple of successful really niche films, including hardware and dust devil, which are both really, really interesting, fun science fiction, Apocalypse style films, he started making calls and somehow managed to convince somebody to listen to him and his ideas about making this movie a reality. He had 12 images created to help pitch the story based off of the 12 Stations of the Cross. They're all very vivid, gruesome, extreme images of artistic interpretations of scenes he wanted to do for Island of Dr. Moreau. Like really kind of cool. There's like one image of a like, I think it's, I don't know if it's the cheetah woman or half monster woman in stirrups giving birth, and it's just like viscera everywhere. And like, you know, the Dr. Moreau like holding the baby up, and it's very gory and crazy. Really, really interesting. So he had finally gotten the interest of Hollywood, who were thinking, you know, we could do this for like, maybe five to 8 million could make this happen. Not, you know, kind of give him a little bit of a budget, but nothing crazy. From the start, there was a lot of pushback on his original idea. Shocking. They wanted to bring it down a few notches. And as he said, Americanize it. He just did not fit into this Hollywood scene at all. They flew him out. He showed up with a large like hat. I mean, you guys have met him. So you know, he's got this kind of stick of what he looks like and how he is. And he's just that guy that you don't want to get stuck talking about Magic the Gathering for too long, because he knows like, all the cards and like, who drew them and like what they mean and what the perfect anyway, he's that kind of guy. So as soon as he goes to LA, he started getting really paranoid about the production and being terrified that they're going to take it away from him to the point where he just started missing meetings and just not being very present for a lot of the pre pro new line was behind the making of this. I don't know the greenlighting of it. And they thought maybe for lead, they could get Marlon Brando which was not part of Richard Stanley's vision, but he was like, Yeah, let's let's do it. But um, but he was also terrified that they were going to give the film over to maybe David Fincher or Paul Thomas Anderson to direct it because they sure were trying to. So Stanley went ahead and met up with Brando on his own how to one to one and got Brando to basically agree not to do the film unless he was the director. So while I was back in his court, they also had lined up Bruce Willis and James Woods to come on board. But unfortunately, Bruce Willis got a divorce and couldn't leave the country to film as it was going to be set in the jungles of Australia. As he was in negotiations over custody of his kids and therefore could not leave the country. Val Kilmer agreed to step in and come on board, but he wanted a different role, which meant that James Wood, James Woods lost his part. And Rob Morrow of Northern Exposure fame came on as essentially the lead of a hit headed out to the jungles of Australia and the literal wettest part of the whole country, which was probably not a smart plan, but they were like there's a mountain that looks cool, we want to film it. Immediately things started going wrong. First of all, Brando's daughter killed himself or herself, sorry, and it was unclear if he would actually bother to come and do the picture at all since he had abandoned another film, which went completely under during that time. They started shooting everything they could without him starting off with some boat scenes, but like I said, wettest place in Australia, big hurricane came, took away the set. So they had nothing basically that they could film without Brando being there to do his parts. On top of it, everything was just really laborious. For example, all the extras were putting on this heavy animal, makeup creature costumes that were taking hours and hours hours to do. And then they would sit around having nothing to do all day. Because they're all the scenes were just being chucked and rearranged. Val Kilmer was making everything much worse. He was constantly pushing on Stanley and doing a lot of power moves. He was at the height of his fame having just come off of Batman Forever, and basically a total asshole to everyone. He would second guess and push back on every piece of direction saying, Oh, you want to put the camera over there? Well, it's not going to cut together is it? Just really, really needling at him Rob Morrow sense that this was not going well and begged to be pulled off of the project. I wasn't totally clear from the documentary but I think you did manage to go ahead and get out of there. Firoozeh bulk of the craft and Dorothy in return of Oz fame was also starring in this and she really believed in the project so much so that when new line started to feel like maybe Stanley should be taken off, she was like, Wow, I'm gonna walk and they were like, well, you'll get sued and never work again. And she said, I guess I won't walk. So Stanley's worst fears started to become true. He basically started hiding in his rented home in the jungle and refuse to come out for any kind of production meetings. He wouldn't show up on sets unless he absolutely had to. And shockingly, they put them on a tried to put them on a plane and sent him away. They were like we want you know what you can't do it and Valve Kumar also was like, Could you please for the love of God taken away? So, this is the end of Richard Stanley's parts of directing this movie. Now, of course, like I said they put him they thought they put them on a plane, but apparently he never arrived. So he just kind of disappeared into the woods somewhere. Moving on. At that point, the new director John Frankenheimer arrived to take over. He basically was hired because he was known to be able to work with incredibly difficult actors. And with the arrival of Brando finally showing up, and him and Kilmer hating each other. He was probably the right fit except for he was a total shock to everyone around him. He was quote unquote, an old school director, which apparently meant he just yelled at everyone, including the crew telling them that he Australian crews were shit, and that he wanted his American Crew constantly to their faces. So, you know, off in the middle of jungle, that's a really good plan. Brando arrived on day one with his face painted white and wearing a bunch of cheese cloth. He started basically rewriting things all over the place and saying, What if we did it like this like that? He had to have an earpiece put into his ear so that his assistant read the lines to him. He never he claims he never once read the script of Val and Brando fought constantly to the point of not getting other trailers. Again, the extras were stuck sitting around doing nothing for months, to the point where they basically just use their per diem to buy a lot of drugs and alcohol and toys and just hung out and partied. Which only got worse when a bunch of hippies from the woods, were incorporated into the film because Frankenheimer was like, Yo, we need more extras. We don't have enough. Let's get some people. And it was like we're out in Australia and the widest part of the country. In the whole of nowhere. All we have are hippies, who, like gone off the beaten path, and hidden themselves away out here. So he was like, Yeah, bring them on board. So. But however, one of the hippies note noted that he had heard of some strange guy talking about how Val Kilmer had ruined his life, often one of the hippie camps. The crew got curious, drove down, found, of course, Richard Stanley. Stanley wants to know how it was going. And they were like, very bad, very, very bad. Basically, everything's been being rewritten on the day. At some points. Brando, of course was like, You know what, I want this tiny little man that we have here, the world's smallest man, I want him to hang out with me all the time for no reason. And Frankenheimer was like, I don't care what happens in this movie. I just wanted to be done and leave. So pretty much anything he asked for was happening. The movie was becoming absolutely insane between Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando, basically trolling the entire process. So Stanley was like, You know what? Why don't you just put me in some big big costume because everyone's wearing monster makeup anyway. And I'll just come and hang out on set. And he did. And he's in the movie. So the film of course, they finished wrapping it up. The film bomb to kind of it cost 40 million to make, and it's made 49.6 So it actually got a little of its money back. The the head of newline essentially said it was better to have finished it than to abandoned it. But it was definitely seen as one of the worst films of all time. Richard Stanley's career was killed immediately. His agent ghosted him no one in Hollywood wanted to have anything to do with him. So he basically went off to live in the French Pyrenees Mountains de Gaulle, which is where they found him to do this movie. He is an extremely strange, eccentric and strange dude. However, the good thing was he got a three picture deal, as you both know, with Elijah Woods film company, Spectre vision, starting with Colorado space. The bad news is, it came out that he beat his ex girlfriend, and that was the end of that. Anyway, the positives of this interesting story. It's really interesting to see people who basically go insane in the jungle who have no way of escape and just are stuck in the worst set of circumstances. They got some pretty cool people to talk about it. They got Robert Shea, the president of newline, at the time to discuss it for the for Riva. Firoozeh. Falk was on there. Robin Morrow was on there. They got a lot of really cool people from the crew who were very honest about the process to chat, the negatives, they never actually talked to Ron Perlman who is apparently in this movie, nor David Thewlis about it. This is because Ron Perlman said on a podcast he had declined being part of the documentary because he didn't want to say anything negative when he did know everything that happened between the follow up of Richard Stanley and newline. He said that for a short amount of time that they had he loved working with Stanley. I wish that he could have stayed on the project. The other bad thing about this movie is it ends really abruptly. It feels like there should be some other I don't know. Maybe it's discussion of what happened everybody else or I don't know. It just feels like Stanley disappears for most of it and then is there at the end and then it's like, yeah, my life is shit. Now by the end. It just it was kind of an odd note to end on. Not much trivia It premiered at London's Fright Fest Film Fest in 2014. There is a director's cut of this movie, a Frankenheimer director cuts and it went from 96 minutes to 100. So four additional minutes a great content. I'm sure. It received five nominations at the Razzies including worst pick worse director and one for the Worst Supporting Actor with Marlon Brando getting it however, Val Val Kilmer was also a nominee. So I don't know if I've seen the documentary. I've never actually watched the movie. I've entered the movie when it came out. It's not very good. Yeah, yeah. And Brando is so weird. That that you're just like, I mean, it makes sense like how he just was like what if what if my character does this thing and they just let him and that's probably why this film is so hugging. Yeah, bizarre and Val Kilmer was royal tech for several years around that time you guys stopped getting hired for anything yeah I'd still really like to see that documentary Val but have not yet made it to know jungle so did not watch it it might have been a scene from you know what you're right there could have been I take that back. I missed opportunity. I went with 1980 eights. Robo war private Larry garena elephant Bray Papa duck Sunapee feel martial arts expert his friends call him blood Queen forwards gun point taker and this is our coordinator major Murphy black we're gonna start settling belong to the tenant to Woodbridge remember him? Targets and targets keep still. Rotten Tomatoes no critics reviews 40 from the audience losers. This is the return of Bruno Matej. You are podcast oh my god featured several times. Yeah, you really as he is best known for shocking dark Terminator two jaws five zombie three and 55 more directorial faults. Hmm. Recently Stephen got in trouble for the release of the jaws five was it universal or paramount? That's got Jaws universal universal. Yeah, I went in. So they they had to get rid of their they did a slipcover that was Jaws five while the movie was you know their original title cruel jaws. But yeah, apparently writer Rosella duty, or the screenplay. She also wrote troll too karate man 2022 Oh my gosh, I don't know what that is, but it sounds awesome. And lots of Bruno's films she wrote worked with him a lot. And Claudio fricassee also wrote the story. General story much just a bit hard. ripped off the general story of her deliberately. It's like predator meets Robocop or something if a predator Robocop Yeah, yeah, many things. Oh, man, I love this. I'll dive deeper as we go. Stars red brown. From who played you're in your hunter from the future by our sword and sourcer and several Bruno films including or and also is in the movie. Benedict what's his name? Starbuck? Yes. turns into a giant snake. Oh my god. Oh, God. It's a film. Okay, and Catherine HetLand, who is in 144 episodes of one life to live 139 episodes a loving and 124 episodes of Texas. So you can guess how she looks. Mrs. Lyon Masimo Vani. Who's got 106 credits law almost all Italian films, many Bruno films and 1990 the Bronx warrior. So this is movie opens with a what I would call a really bad version of predator. Look. You know, when the predator would look out at beaches, you see like the colors and the forms of people. This looks like a eight bit video game cold, gold colored. It's very hard to see what he's looking at. You can't really you can start to see images moving is I think that's people. And the voice from this creature is not good. It's so hard to understand at times. But he does manage with one weapon to destroy an entire military base. This does the nice introduction of showing you all the characters in the movie by presenting a slideshow. One military guy to another military guy. Here's the men of the crew, right? Really? This this combat team? Yes, this is the combat team bam. Badass motherfuckers My immediate thought is scatchard That'd be Bamp because you know you mother honor one word or two words it can be both but now it's bam. Yeah, I'm in the middle of reading the X Men so you know they are not the Dirty Dozen by any means. But they do smoke pot on the boat which apparently was real nice. It's a Bruno midday film. Yes, you're high. You're still fine. As everyone points, the reviews for this film, it borrows heavily from Predator Robocop and Rambo. They many of them to fail to mention that there is a Chuck Norris missing an action guide to oh, he kind of looks like Chuck and he's got the bullets across the chest the same kind of I mean, Chuck Norris is in the movie of man, these guys do their military stuff. You could tell they work well together because they do stupid hand gestures. And for some reason the other people know what they mean. They're great, because it's like all the guys standing in this group right next to each other and the one guy goes, does these real hand gestures and they all do something where you could just talk to him? Often right now, they see a sniper at one point decide they're going to take the sniper out by using probably what has to be half of their ammo. Shoot this guy out of the tree, who falls down and find out he's already dead. Oh, you've been killed by whatever it is they're hunting. So he's all burnt up and kind of gross looking. If for some reason his gun is burnt, but it looks like it was tied with a bunch of gaffers tape and then the gaffers tape was then on fire or something. The Amazing 1988 pounding soundtrack helps not take this movie seriously in any way and it's awesome. There are several times In the movie where there's probably a good solid, two or three minutes of them just walking through the jungle with this kind of music playing in the grass background, and not remotely suspenseful, which I think it's supposed to be but fun to watch. I gotta tell you, this powerful group of warriors that come together to hate each other quite a bit. I was like, Wow, you guys are a group of teams that save each other's lives. And it's not like they argue when everything was fine. They argue in the middle of battles, they argue no matter what's going on. They're exactly a great team. They're drama. Right, right. It's the reveal of the robo dude is oddly handled, because you see a sort of look out behind a tree. And he's really silver looking. And then a little while later, the next shot of him he looks like he's in full black armors Mike, is there two of them? Like no, there's just it's just the one they do, apparently, wandering through this deep, dark jungle where this guy is hidden. Wander around across a two lane hard top blacktop road where a bunch of I'm assuming bad rumble guys are chasing a bunch of people running down the road. Of course, who's the one person that killed don't kill the pretty little blonde? Who is the lady I mentioned earlier has been in 300 some odd so propers may have decided that need to take these guys out in the jeeps because it's time to start settling some accounts. Like what accounts Exactly. So of course, they shoot the shit out of those guys, and they all live except for all day except for the one guy who grabs the blonde and puts a gun to her head. You know, they have to deal with that. It's it's all great. And she joins in, and to the credit of Bruna Matej she carries a weapon the whole almost the entire time. And one of the three or four who keeps her finger off the trigger the whole time. Several training several of them don't. The guy said the robot voice is hard enough to understand that he was watching the true walk by this little eight bit gold thing saying I think things about the being and always ending with the line that sounded like greasy. Not saying greasy. There's no way he's saying so rewound, turned on the subtitles, and came back and he was saying receive Oh as in receive the information. And he says I see the whole movie man. Almost every time the robot says anything it ends with that received. Another thing that is fairly surprisingly common in most movies of this quality is that there's tons of violence and killing and explosions. Very little blood. Just doesn't use a lot of squibs anything like that. There's tons of great bad catchphrases. I mean it's 1988 action movie. But until the robot shows up this this team is very good. Apparently they kill like everybody they run into then the robot shows up and he just starts killing all of them. No problem. Are they are they sent to find the robot? Is that what's going on? I believe so. Yeah. It's kind of vague. Although there is a wonderful series of shots throughout the movie they just cracked me up about the third time it happened where it you get this high, wide shot. And then all the guys come together and stand there and talk posing for a little while saying tough guy things. And then as it goes along, as they start dying, he keeps doing it but then there's less than that's an interesting effect. I like that because they do a lot of that looking cool trying to figure out what to do when they get another nice Musical interlude where they wander around for a while. It's not the best discipline team the guys just always kind of wander off on their own at various times with no reason. The rest most of the rest of the movie is them doing exactly that. Just wandering off getting picked off and not really figuring anything out and the one of the reveals in the movie nicely adds aliens into the movie rip offs borrowed from my final line on the movie of their finals battles as they tried to bring the robot man these people are truly inept. Like we're gonna shoot it the guy it's not working. Shoot again. This is also known as Robo man. movie credits roll with Vincent Dawn as the director at Bruno Matej interesting pictures. There's a telling made up name. How many credits is Vincent done? The actor playing the cyborg fainted twice during shooting the film because it was so hot. Which was amazing because I'm sure they built that thing with that air cooling stuff in the middle of everything right? It's not just a bunch of slap Together cardboard with duct tape out in the heat Christine over there. Right? They shipped in an Italian chef to make meals in the Philippines so the cast and crew didn't get too upset about what they had to eat there was a romantic subplot put in there that I mean they said oh the lead guy in the blonde but no it was take off of the Native American guy from predator that character this was supposed to fall in have like a relationship with one of the people that lived in the village nearby which I guess was shot but completely cut out and sevens released they didn't have it so I guess it's like lost footage and they but they decided to remove that and just keep the action going. What's what's the most fun about some of these movies is you go in and read some of the review views and most everybody in the review writes like they're the first person to realize this movies and rip off a bunch of the I love also love the reviews of movies like this which have no budget have no nothing but the reviewing like they expect this. This is a paramount production that should have been seen at AMC theater. Oh, yeah, clone mix a predator Rambo and Robocop pretty much predator being the main one. And there's a great making of interviews with Rosella, the writer. They knew exactly what they're doing. This was not it. We saw the movie and happened to me, right, something three months later, that's just like it. They say, you know, those are really good movies. Let's go watch those movies and write this crap. And which she had no problem with. She did come across as being on it was a little shady. She's like, What, that's just what we did. interesting interview with her because they never did anything with it, which is a little disappointing, but she's sitting behind this full drum set. And all the drums are like, clear plastic. So it's kind of an interesting looking drum set. She just sits behind it the whole time. Like we asked her about. She hadn't seen the movie until recently, and watched in last few years, really hated the robos Robo rose voice. They're like I did like that doesn't work at all. I think that movie is a lot of fun, made her laugh and was really surprised to go online and find out what a gigantic cult following this movie has, sir. I was like, well, that's kind of cool. The lead actress who did all the soap operas, is now a stage hypnosis performer in Las Vegas and has never watched the movie. Wow. Yeah, she was a neat interview, too. She was talking about how I love interviews with actors like that, like oh, yeah, you know, we have a lot of fun making this movie. I don't care what the end product is. I said she's never watched it. But my memory of this film is a lot of fun. Bruno is great to work with the location was hot and miserable. But the people I'm working with were all great. Very few of them spoke English. So the communication was weird. So it's very strange, but still loved it. So yeah, Bruno Matej returns triumphantly to the podcast with another fantastic Yeah, I do like this movie quite a bit. Okay, Eric, that means you get the next choice. Do we've been going wide for a little while? So we're going to go back to Pizza away and see if we can find something really weird a movie featuring I mean doesn't have to be musical movie don't have to do it. But a music movie featuring some kind of a I'm leaning towards disco style music My God a scene it can be you know something as simple as a high school reunion that is a 70s theme or the movie was shot in the 70s so it's got disco. But something disco we bring you the fun. Bring the funk, genre and disco kind of a follow up write really responsible for that with your catchy catchy tune there, Kelly, that is true. Okay, this is the part where we thank everybody for participating in the value for value model. I think we have a very special person to thank for this one. It's true. Thanks. Thanks, Mom. Oh, yeah, we got a buy you buy me buy me a pizza from Linda. Yep. Yep, she other synthesize. Tiny little. Yeah. Thanks, Mom. Yeah, she's been asking to donate for the last over a year and going I don't know how to do the coffee. I want to give the coffee and I finally was like okay, let's just sit down and do this. Oh, yeah. So they You mom for supporting us. That's really nice. You should be more like Vanessa's mom. No, listen. It's like, I mean I've got her genetic could be any more like I'm saying hey, if you like the show and you get some value out of it, turn that value into a number and send it our way there you go. Or any of the other awesome boards our page would you ever Etsy page and the link to it because it can be kind of weird to find if you just go to Etsy is on our website strange aeons. radio.com. Yeah, and I got a very mysterious message while we were recording this from one, Danny Wilford. Who said, try to dress up when you check the mail this week. Wait, does that mean? Well? I'll let you know when I know. Oh, my camera. Yeah, it's sitting there waiting for you to come out and his car ready to take a photo? You know what? I would love that. Get in here. You give him a big huge man hug and then we'd start drinking. Yeah. Sounds about right. Okay, so that's it for the show. We're coming back in one week. We're talking genre Disco, disco genre. Disco genre. It's gotta be John. Oh, yes. Go. Well, good. Disco John. So staying alive or sorry, my look, I love all those movies. I don't feel like I can in good faith. Make Vanessa watch one of those movies. I know. It'll be really hard if I have to. Oh, man. I could do the Village People movie. Oh, and I do. Thank God, it's Friday. There you go. Alright, nevermind. I'm changing my mind. All the time. The only way we do that. The only one I would be able to do is Saturday Night Fever because I don't know anything about disco movies. Perfect. That's why Google Yeah, yeah, I know. I don't like brother Cisco. Alright, guys, get out my house. I love you both and I don't want to see any more. Okay, yeah. Hey, strange aeons radio was artisanal quality podcasting, handcrafted with all natural ingredients and edited to perfection by Eric Margaret. Our blistery theme song is strange aeons part one by the ban nightshade and use the permission. Find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider dropping a positive review on this and the tall grass again