216 MANO A MANO!
Everybody loves Rick Tillman! Also discussed: Cocaine Bear, Knock at the Cabin, The Redeem Team.
216 MANO A MANO!
Everybody loves Rick Tillman! Also discussed: Cocaine Bear, Knock at the Cabin, The Redeem Team.
Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition such sights to show you strange aeons. Welcome to strange aeons radio. That's Eric over there. Hello. That's Vanessa over there. Hello. You guys both sound amazing. I don't have to look at anybody behind the microphone. But again, between me and other human beings. This is my safe zone. The mics won't fit pick up the tick this time. Sorry about that. Yeah, that was kind of fun to listen to. I liked hearing the tick. I was really worried about that. I thought these mics were using on the phones would just pick that up, but it kind of buried it is like Okay, that's cool. I mean, for the first time ever, because I wasn't wearing the headphones. I guess I could actually hear it while you guys were talking. So I'm glad you're getting a little bit more of a hint of what it's like for me. One day you'll wake up from a terrible nightmare, then you'll really know what it's like when it goes off for me. Hey, Eric, you did something cool last night? Yeah. Steve Holtz and I from the bone bat show went to the Seattle horror filmmakers meet up. Wow, what is that at? The it's a group of cheese. Almost 2500 2500 members of Seattle horror filmmakers? Well, I didn't realize it was that large. Am I not? I feel like I am on that. And I just look at the page. Which once you lose sight of some page, it kind of disappears. But the it was at this place called two fingers social. And in the white center area. Have you heard of this? No. It's like a horror bar. What? They had display cases filled with props from horror movies, and other movies like Indiana Jones and stuff. But definitely Jason, The Exorcist and I mean, Jason Freddy, everything he could think of at a wall of swords and knives behind the bar. Oh my god. And it's called what? Two finger social, two finger social. Is that a reference? I don't understand that part. I didn't. Well seems like a strange name for this place. But I know it's gotta be some deep reference, established in 2017. So it hasn't been around too long. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it was a lot of fun put together largely by a guy named Daniel Daniel Hickey, who's runs the page. Also a movie fan. He screamed, screened. His film cookie crumbles at both bone bat and krypton Film Festival CEO of Krypton Film Festival last year and was saying but it wasn't able to go to either. I was at a town for both. Oh my god, that sucks. But so it's Everybody I talked to was in some way or another involved in shooting stuff. A lot of 40 an hour filmmakers, which is something I've never done because they've got the 48 hour horror film fast so that I can totally see that. Yeah, yeah. Have you done one of those? Yes. How fun is that? I mean, I think they're incredibly valuable for sussing out people you might want to work with, for getting an idea of what you can do in a really limited time. But, you know, after you've done like, six, call it quits. Oh my god, I've done I've done quite a few 40 eights, the horror one, you know, it's fun, because it's got a little bit of a twist to it. So yeah, yeah, I think we won. I don't know. I don't know what we did one some more. More somewhere. I don't know. I've got some awards in my closet that I'm like, Yeah, I can edit. Look at me go. How many people do you think showed up for it was probably 4050 people there? Holy cow. It wasn't a big bar either. So it was fairly packed. Wow. And Steven, I showed up about an hour late, because I'll be talking about later where we're gonna go next after that. We didn't want to stay too long. But Dan was saying the last time he ran when he was there from 430 to when they shut the barn. Wow, I have no idea this kind of stuff even happened. are they discussing projects isn't just a meet up and people are drinking and socializing? Both. We'll probably get some audience members from this group for our March 11. Shoot, I don't think we need I think we're pretty good on crew. But you know, we can get a we need what eight to 12 people preferably more than eight for the audience, and if we can get I figure 16 have 20 people committed to showing up? We'll get at least eight, right? Yeah. Sounds about right. But yeah, it was fun. I'll definitely be doing that. I'll let you know when it rolls around again. And yeah, as a monthly Do you think or I don't think it's quite that consistent, but I'll let you know when it comes around and give it a shot. It was fun, how much fun. That's awesome. That's really close to where I live. So be cool to buy. I saw some stuff. I'm going to talk about two things really quickly, because you guys talked about him last week. Okay, so I decided to jump right in with season three of Picard. Yeah. And because I'm a smart person, I didn't need anything. Before that. I caught up very quickly on a story. Very glad to hear it. I enjoy what I've seen so far. But man, the acting in that show is fucking rough. And I lay it all at the feet of the director because we know Patrick Stewart is a great actor. And he is acting bad television acting in this. I think he's had two years of practice of bad television acting. He's fallen into some bad habits. I think so. I mean, and also, the guy can barely move, you know, so everything they have him do now is like they probably have a stunt guy on the side whenever he's taking a walk down the hallway. Oh, wow. Oh, he's really fragile. So there's a lot of times where I'm like, you know, what, if you remember any lines, good for him. Good job, dude. Well, it was neat to see everybody popping back up and all that the guy who plays Riker, I can't remember his name now. Yes, he has always been a really bad actor. And the 20 plus years he's taken off since the next generation ended. Obviously, he is even out of practice of bad television acting like hard to watch not to do a lot of directing. Directing, but then Amanda Plummer shows up and fucking schools everybody on how to act. She's amazing. She's the new bad guy in the in the oh, he was insane. He's always been amazing. Amazing showed up. But it was just like, wow, this is now awesome. telemeters I know. I felt like the second episode. It kind of raised everyone else around. I felt like oh, hey, look, we got pissy Picard. Again. I forgot him like assessing the situation. Not super happy all the time. Picard. This is great. And then the other thing, Eric, I decided to watch or start watching Vox. Makena Oh, yeah. And what a cool little show. Is a humor is dumb. Yes. Almost angry every time it shows up. Because I'm like, this show is so cool. Will you stop doing the ball humor and everything. It just falls apart. I don't think it's funny. As part of their thing. Apparently, the figure does much original. And it probably works better when it's sitting around a table and stuff like that. It doesn't quite translate. But Jeez, what a gory. Cool little show this. I'm so blown away that you are taken out of a show by ball humor. This is like because a little surprising. Listen, you didn't get it from my rant last week. I just want everything to be good writing. So football humor is funny. I'm on board. But this is not. What was that silly? Fantasy kind of the same kind of idea only it was really? Rick and Morty type of humor. Okay. And that is so over the top. But I'm totally fine with a big mouth or something like that. Yeah, this is this is a this is a better Dungeons and Dragons show than anything Dungeons and Dragons has ever done. And then it's got this humor in it. And it's just like, it's not quite funny enough. And it doesn't really need to be there. But I don't know. I'm really enjoy the show. I'm like three episodes in now. Cool. So very cool. Yeah. Nice. Well, I went, Oh, my God, I went and saw a movie in a movie theater with someone other than my husband. Oh, shocking. How does he feel about that? It was my brother. And he was also there. So it was fine. We went and saw a cocaine bear. I was hoping what do you do? Yeah, I've heard incredibly good things. I mean, here's the thing. The premises cocaine bear. You know what you're going to get? The expectations are low. They should remain low. Do not go in thinking you're going to see a great film, please for the love of God. It is not a great film. It is just that there is almost a story. And there's a couple of good actors and the humor definitely hits very nicely in a lot of spots. It's not a good movie, but it's so much better than it has any right to be that it's just a lot A lot of fun. It's just a lot of fun to sit through. I think if you're walking into a film called cocaine bear, you know what you're gonna get. I was hoping Yeah, yeah, I mean, but I think I was just like, there is going to be a bear on cocaine the end, we're just gonna see it romp around and there'll be nothing else happening. I was really, really not sure about it, but having characters going through different things, and they intersect each other and there's like, humor playing off of, you know, repetitive moments. I was like, oh, somebody made a script. Shocked. I didn't expect that. So, is it super gory? Yes. There are things I actually close my eyes for and like, wow, there's one thing I can't get out of my head. And it's just one of those things that you see that you think about? What if that happened to me and I? Oh, my I can't wait. Yep. I think you guys would have a very good time at the theater scan weird as I create and we're kind of tired of giant Marvel movies. Let's go see this weird as I know, they random bizarro like that and cinema rink and you know, like, what are these films that are just blowing every middling film out of the water? Because people are like, you know, I saw the Marvel thing and now I'm gonna go see that, you know, Disney million dollar and a half. So well, I've been watching tons of Film Festival submissions. So when I'm not watching those I have veered severely out of the genre world. And I watched a movie called The redeem team, which is the story of the 2008 Olympic basketball team. Oh, okay. Going back to when gold back for the US after having lost it for fuel Olympics in a row. It was a lot of fun. I love I'm not much of a basketball fan. Yeah. Once the Sonics kind of got screwed by the NBA. I really haven't watched it at all since then. Yeah. But documentaries and movies. I well. I love sports movies. unabashedly love them. But documentaries about basketball are really good. It's sort of like my first exposure to boxing was the Rocky movies. There. I'm gonna go watch some real boxing like, this shit is boring. Except for like, a minute and a half of the 12 rounds. You're like, do what's called the redeem team. Yeah, Netflix, Netflix. Okay, fun. I saw a knock at the cabin. Oh, hey, have you seen this? Yeah, Derek. I have not done I'm I'll see it, but it's not good. I've heard so much about how it bastardize the book that as I can, but what did you think? I? I think that maybe I am just not the right audience for M Night anymore. Yeah, I think I might have a chip on my shoulder about him. Because I I went into it. And I thought it was mostly boring. And I thought Dave Batista was fantastic. So I was like, wow, the fact that he is a show laying this, you know, grade school teacher who just looks like a mountain and it's never really discussed. You know, he's covered in tats and all that. And then the ending I thought was horrifying. in a, in a way that I really wonder what am Knight is what his idea was for this, to try and to show that, that God is a cruel bastard. Right? Yeah. I hadn't thought to you. I was like, we're going like old school Bible here. Oh, wow. So I mean, yeah. What was his thought going into this? I mean, everybody, you know, when you're writing a story, you don't have to tell everybody what everything is, but you should kind of know. And it makes me wonder what his you know, what, what's behind the writing of this? Right? Like, what is the, when you simmer it down, and you take out the view? What is this film actually about? Yeah. And you try to look at it. It's like, Well, is it about doing the right thing for the greater good? Is that about family, like, you can't have your cake and eat it and the plate and the person next to us cake and like, it just felt like, there wasn't a point. Like I just don't know what he was trying to say. Well, unless the point is, yeah, God exists and he's a fucking asshole. Right. That could have been the point or socialism. Then, you know, democracy. I don't know. I was, I don't know. Like. I don't know. I've listened to Paul Tremblay. Talk about the film and his thoughts watching it. And he was like, you know, there were things that I thought are really great in this film. And he's like, that ending. He's like, boy, that is a way darker ending the night wrote. He's like, and while he's like my idea is you don't know. But night tells you exactly. I figured it out. So yeah, I don't know if I liked it or not. And I don't I just, I'm starting to just really not like him as a writer director. I think signs was at least the last one I thought was, that's okay, that was entertaining. Yeah, but, and we even like that weird when he did with the swimming pool that everybody hated for. Yeah, I don't know if I still would if I liked the water or whatever. Yeah, I don't know if I'd like it if I watched it again. But time I enjoyed it for being what it was. Yeah. A love letter to the hero's journey. Yeah. I mean, I liked the village. The only one Yeah, you might be. But we're gonna have confessions about the only knife that you like everyone else know, the six cents. six cents everyone was is amazing. The thing is, he keeps making these low budget films. And they do very well at the theater. So he's gonna be continued to, you know, give given this kind of money. And I'm, I'm okay with that. I think that there is a need for these kind of mid budget films. Oh, yeah. Right. I just, I just want them to be better. Yeah, like the visit. I felt like, we're getting close. We're getting close to something. And then I thought old was a big step back from that. And I feel like this is two steps back from that. So I don't know. Yeah, I think I like split. Yeah, split was okay. But then. I don't know, whatever it was was was really bad again, and I was really looking for oh, that's another one of his that was good. The Unbreakable. Yeah. But yeah, I heard glass and I still haven't even watched it. Oh, it's bad. Yeah, that's what I heard. It's bad. Although, it's I probably worth watching again, because it's got to be Bruce Willis, his last film where he was kind of in demand of all of his mental stuff. So that's crazy to think about. Yeah. Well, I saw really, on the flip side of that a really fun. I don't know just really enjoyable film last night called we have a ghost. I've been wondering about this. Yeah. Yeah. It premiered on Netflix. It's by the person who did freaky and the one was the girl who keeps waking up. Happy death day. Yes. Thank you happy to say two films that are some of my favorites, as you can tell by my horrible lack of memory about titles. But aside from that, it was really fun. It's a little bit more family than his previous films. But that being said, I mean, I I cried. Oh, I had such a good time with it. I gotta say the trailer looks so stupid that I think I'll pass on this. I didn't realize it was that director. So you're giving it a thumbs up? Give it a big thumbs up. Yeah, Dave harbor getting to see him in a film. But he's not allowed to talk through the film. And that is set up in the trailer. That is kind of interesting. No, I haven't seen it yet. But this one sounds like included. All three of those movies sound dumb when you say what they are, or they've been done. We've already seen body switching Groundhog Day or whatever. And they're all really Yeah, he's really good at like taking a promise and just twisting it into something new that it's like his stamp is just such a good stamp. Yeah. Well, to follow up what I started talking about after the meet up with the filmmakers, whole it's another one went to see our buddy Rick Tillman play in his new band. I think they've been together what, like, a week has been a month or two. Yeah, couple months but, but that was at this place called the crack and in Seattle, which is yet another local bar that is closing and going away, or they're saying losing Yeah, next week, or last weekend. Ah, now they are saying they're trying to find a new location. I don't know. But anyway, so it was three bands, started with a band called serpent foot, which is not what you think it is at all. They're added to Coleman they play kind of a rockabilly surf, metal wire, and it's really they were really, really good. The next band, Kelly, you would have hated this band with a passion, viral tyrant. After they were done playing, I believe Dotrice, Steve, go. Now. What would you call that? He's like, that's probably like sludge metal. Jesus. I mean, it was just a wall of sound coming from these guys from Portland. They were good at what they were doing, but it's like oh, Almost two singers both got their vocals on. And then Rick's band executioner execution. They're fun. Do that man can play the shit out of a bass rig is a world class basically shit. I'm watching this guy play and I'm thinking of there's bass players that are good that sit like somebody like Gene Simmons who sit in a band, and just lay down what needs to be laid down to make the song work and occasionally get some flurries. He wasn't quite like Primus, but it was almost like he was playing a lead bass guitar. He was just flipping stuff all over the place. And his fingers are flies like, Dude, you are so damn good. And he, he was great. He had some tech problems, but it didn't slow him down at all. Once he got it was just like holy shit. And I had a very close. Thank God I borrowed earplugs from Rick to thank you. But But Ben, that was fun to watch just because he was. I think he's the best musician in the band. I think he's probably always the best musician and his bands. Rick, when we first met him. I knew that he played bass and a couple of bands and all that stuff. And he gave me a copy of his CD, which then sat my car and never got listened to. And then, like two years later, I think I was like, oh, yeah, I should listen to it. Rick sounds like and then I just had it on repeat in my car for like two solid years. Oh my God, it was so good. I was called Dinsdale. I was like, fuck, the songs are really good. I even had to tell him I was like, I finally listened to your CD. You're really good. It's that moment when you realize one of your friends is extremely talented at something and you're like a fan girl but a lot of times you're Oh, I do such and such. Oh, that's nice. And you hear and go. Oh, yeah, you do do that. Don't show. But then you hear somebody's like, well, you actually sing in there when you're doing the shows and stuff. Really fucking good. And then yeah, records just like holy shit. So it's cool when you find out that Oh, I do that. That's fun. Oh, well. You're actually really really good at that. Oh, man. I should mention Rick is also my partner in the publishing end of strange aeons. Yeah, so and a filmmaker in his own right filmmaker and yeah, he's a he's a goofy dude. Oh, okay. started a new podcast is called we love Rick. Join us on Fridays. already spent 10 minutes talking about how cool Rick is. We take a break from second break stick and then when we come back, we are talking hand to hand combat. Yeah, they're slugging it out, or left to the jaw and block is marked off, but you can press it right back on. It's Rockem sockem robots. press this lever. He throws away the other leg knock his block off. You're the winner. Next time you can rock them sock on with the Rockem sockem robots by marks and we're back. Eric, this was your sub genre. Yes. Yeah. Why don't you tell us what your idea and this was again? People beating the crap out of each other very good hand to hand combat in a movie. So I went with as far as movie fights go, one of the we are obscure fighters have filmed them. Bruce Lee and his 1972 film The way of the Dragon one could be more exciting than Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon Bruce Lee in return the dragon Yes, Bruce Lee is losing his way on camera Helen the adventures of the superhero the creator of the Dragon It's Lee Lee unmarshal. On our shuffle against even the best or better off Bruce Lee is his last and best performance in turn of the Dragon radar and we use him now. Where's the drill? I don't know if it was changed to return of the dragon. Okay after he became you know, giant hit right? That one movie he did. Anyway so this one is rotten tomatoes of 86 and 86 Wow. Very solid 86% movie. Yeah, it's very fun. Budget of 130 worldwide box office of 130 million Holy Cow adjusted to today's dollars who would have made a $700 million movie? On 130,000? Yep. Well, it's probably just that too. It'd be 700 cars right now math is easy. That's available a lot of places you rent it in watch on stars is the one film Bruce Lee completely directed, directed the whole thing and he you might know him from such movies as Game of Death or footage using Dec documentaries years later. Lots of footage. He also acted as a producer wrote the script and played percussion on the soundtrack. Oh my god. Wow. He also wrote it. Warrior is based on his writings that movie TV series on what HBO or whatever a couple years ago. They're so damn good. But see acting Bruce Lee, who you might know from Golden Gate girl, where he was a baby. TV's Batman, The Green Hornet, the big the big boss, type the bog boss. That's the big boss and Vista fury, also starring in his first significant film role ever. Chuck Norris. I have seen this the super hairy Chuck Norris, who you might know from 196 episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger invasion, USA, dodgeball, Delta Force Two and sidekicks. He did have an uncredited role in a movie called The Wrecking Crew. So it's technically not his first film, but it's his first film. Also starring Nora Maya who was in the big boss, Private First Class, young dragon Dragon Fist. Sure. And Robert wall who was an Enter the Dragon Game of Death 15 episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger sidekicks and Black Belt Jones. He's a guy that I actually didn't have originally written down, and then he popped up and gone. I know that face. He's the white dude with the curly hair and I think usually has a mustache. very memorable from Enter the Dragon, right? But so the movie kind of opens up with Bruce Lee at an airport looking horribly uncomfortable, and it pulls back a little bit. And he's the only Asian guy standing in a crowd of white people staring at him with one lady like, four or five inches from his face just staring at him. And eventually your husband comes up and they walk away. But that was the whole scene. It's like oh my god, it must be based on something he experienced in probably Seattle. So but then he wanders continues to wander the airport and figure out how to communicate which is kind of weird because the movie was shot silently. So everything is dumped. So it really doesn't matter if you watch the the original language or the English because he spoke all the English language but in the movie he's watching the dubbed version because it just felt right. Firstly movie and he's having a hard time reading the English menu. Speaking English like okay, maybe he doesn't read English. He managed to order himself like six bowls of Campbell's soup instead of eggs. It's got that weird Hong Kong humor. Not quite there, but he meets the lady and we set up for the very, very original martial arts storyline of a person in trouble because Big Bad guys want to take their restaurant. Whoa, he's there to help make sure that doesn't happen. So you get into the martial arts and they they asked him I would say do you do Chinese boxing like what the hell is Chinese boxing? So I looked it up and the description sounds like the forerunner to jeet kune dough which is the martial arts Bruce Lee create it where it's like short sharp kicks in and punches and a lot of close range rapid hits and a little bit of wrestling and takedown in the throes of going okay this I can see where he started it it is Chinese boxing is a real martial arts it's not just a movie made up won the fight between his bosses to the henchmen and fun and over really quickly Of course, and does include a man who looks like Wolfman Jack no it's not him though. Told You the plot already. It really doesn't deviate from it the whole thing is bad guys show up Bruce Lee kicks their ass bad guys tried to bring in tougher guys. And of course personally standing shirtless, flexing and popping his joints yesterday that at least once a movie. The movies have some strange sound effects. But of course Bruce Lee is a strange sound effect in and of himself. What do you suppose? Do you think he'll save the restaurant? Do you think he'll kick some more ass on the way and the introduction of Chuck Norris is just freaking great. This was this was the movie I was hoping it was because I remembered that from watching it when I was a kid. I remembered him coming in and going oh, this looks like he'll be out cool fight in this movie. And it is. So I'm gonna get into trivia because you know the storyline is covered. I have told you the story. taglines, the Coliseum the battleground of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. For the Australian video released they went all out. Bruce Lee's all new adventure of the superhero from enter the second superhero. Okay, the Battle of the Kung Fu kings. Bruce Lee versus American Chuck Norris in a fantastic new adventure. Man can we use him now? Bruce Lee is back in the fantastic all new adventure of the superhero from Enter the Dragon. His last performance is his best. The entire film was said that was shot without sound. Bruce Lee dubbed almost all over the English speaking characters. They're males who dumped a whole bunch of people apparently with them the way it was worded. It was worded really weirdly so I'm gonna say he dumped some of the English speaking language. He spent 45 hours on the fight scene with Chuck Norris. Wow. choreographed and instructed scenes took up nearly quarter a quarter of the script was just the description of the fight. Wow. Chuck Norris only says three words in the movie. Bob's my student. Well, that is a rumor. Even I'd say almost legend level rumor about whether Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris ever fought for real or in any kind of a competition. Nor still to this day will not confirm or deny whether it took place although he has stated on several occasions that he feels if he fought Bruce Lee in a stand up straight on fight he'd get his ass kicked. Okay. There was big problems of shooting in the Coliseum because you're not supposed to do that they don't want film shot in the Coliseum itself. So what they did is they bribed a bunch of Roman officials snuck in all the camera gear in like tourist bags. They shot they were only able to shoot there for a few hours. So they shot a little while getting base scenes so they could recreate back in Hong Kong and finish the fight after the golden harvest and blend the footage together, it's not perfect, but it's well enough done that it could pass I mean he could see where but brick looks very nice. That brick looks like it's a few 1000 years old. It was the first Chinese film to be made in the West and the first Hong Kong director to viel daily rushes in color because he wanted to match the color for since they're shooting some in Italy and then shooting back in Hong Kong you wanted to make sure that they kept those colors working there are there's a scene or two that are just fucking gorgeous, incredibly well shot most is fine. But there's there was a scene or two like there's something in the dark where they're kind of sitting, planning something I'm like, fuck this looks amazing. And Bruce directed you said, Wow. Let's see his bill. It was billed as return of the dragon because during his Western release, it was re released to cash in on the success of Enter the Dragon which was came out in 73. When the way the dragon actually came out in 72. But wasn't released in the US until 74. So for our US, US audiences, it was a brand new experience. I mean, they spent I think it was they spent like weeks shooting that fight too. And there's possibilities like they're saying that they punched each other for real a few times and there's the very strange scene where he grabs Chuck's chest hair and Cold Brew Chuck is hairy in this movie, man. I mean, it's like all the way back over his shoulder. Like it's a it's a 70s Man's. Yeah, he looks like he's wearing a sweater. Yeah. So that nailed it that time. No going over. No going over. No extra trivia. No, I'd have to watch this again. Man. It's been forever since I've seen this one. I don't think I saw it since the 80s. Yeah, it's good. It holds up. Well. It's not into the dragon. But that's a friggin masterpiece. Yeah, of a martial arts film. I'm really surprised. It's got 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. That seems high. But I don't know. It's your earlier talking about cocaine bear. It's exactly what you expect it to be. This movie is exactly what you expect it to be. It's really not much more, but it's definitely not less. So it's, it's well worth checking out. Well, Vanessa, I'm gonna put 10 minutes on the timer. And my heart is already racing. And there you go. All right, so I went with a recommendation of a film called wheels on meals from 1984 Welcome to romantic space, land of bovine Fleming. And beautiful, mysterious, dangerous women. Like this one of these three fellows, what is danger? Trouble is their business. Well, that's not exactly true. Their business is a food van Jackie Chan Sammo Hung out Yuen Biao and featuring Benny the jet or Kitezh. Come join Hong Kong's most amazing martial art superstars as they team up to serve up an all time classic dish of international action. Nonstop rollercoaster of excitement for Star slam bang directed by the great Sammo Hung, it's one bar James Bond, one bar Bruce Lee, one bar instructor Peruzzo and it's not have bad wheels on meals. A motion picture that's available now on video a strange title but I'll get into that later. It's a Hong Kong martial arts comedy film. Budget of question mark. Do you not know box office of estimated 13 million it was a huge box office hit in East Asia. Rotten Tomato nothing from critics but 81% from audience so you know, it's got some somebody likes it. Directed by I'm going to try to pronounce these names correctly. I apologize ahead. Sam. Oh Kimbo young. He's an actor director stunt artist has 37 directing credits including Mr. Nice Guy blade a fury. He has 200 Acting credits and 69 stunk credits. He broke into the scene when he was a sparring partner with Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. He produced several kung fu comedies including enter the fat dragon written I think I know this actor sounds from you definitely would he's very recognizable. Written by Edward Tang. He has 20 credits including rumble in the Bronx lend Legend of Drunken Master Police Story and Mr. Nice Guy and going guy Lee 29 credits including legend of the dragon in the Painted Veil, starring Jackie Chan 144 Acting credits, 87 credits 18 directing credits and 64 producing credits this guy we all know him known for Hong Kong films before breaking out in rush hour in the US where he's had a successful career. He was actually and we might have mentioned this before, but he was approached to play the villain and Demolition Man but turned it down because he didn't want to be typecast as a bad guy. So now he's known as always being the good guy. Also starring Beol young 133 Acting credits 36 stunk credits Shanghai noon prodigal son, righting wrongs and project A and the third star is also the director SEMO Kimbo young. So these three actors attended the China drama Academy and we're known as the three brothers. So this is part of a long legacy of films that they did together. The story man The whole thing really threw me for a loop. All right, so we will, we opened on the sort of well established bromance between two cousins. They wake up in their apartment, come out of the rooms and immediately jump into a training montage together. But it's like ridiculous. They're like almost bumping heads and they're like sort of spin on things, then it becomes very clear. It's going to be comedic. Yeah, physical humor. Suddenly, their Italian neighbor runs into their apartment. By the way, this is all taking place in Spain. He's attempting to hide from his wife who he cheated on. They tell him hey, you know, that was not good. And he goes, I know, but I'm Italian. So they need to find another way out because his wife may kill him and they've got to get to their job. Jackie Chan, who's played his title name is Thomas jumps out the window bounces off the awning below does a big flip and lands perfectly. The owner of the shop gives him a very irritated look. And just as his cousin David is jumping out the awning is put away and David lands flat on the ground. Now we begin the film. So the the cousins are living in Barcelona, they're running a food truck together, which is where you get wheels on meals. Kind of they live in a version of Spain where everyone speaks Chinese. The punch sounds are very poorly placed. They do not happen when people actually hit each other. They sound ridiculous because they're like and there's a zany soundtrack, a very zany soundtrack constantly going. We see that they're really loved by the community. They go to a local street market where Jackie Chan skateboards around taking orders from people. And then when he has the food he does really fascinating fun physical ways of giving it to people throwing it over awnings, placing on top of people in picking it back up. Just doing fun things with a skateboard. And then of course a motorbike gang shows up to disturb the peace and they have to fight them. So we see that they are they are cool good dudes who are just cool good dudes. Meanwhile, a kind of friend of theirs works at a detective agency movie he arrives for work and the lead pi shows up complains about the power being out Moby reminds them and they haven't paid the bills in three months. He tells them Moby tells his boss, you know there's some guys looking for you. They say you owe him a bunch of money. And the detective says no, that's all code means that there's this case and they need me on it and I gotta go out of town immediately. He's like, Okay, well, they're coming up at noon. And he goes, Oh, well, that's code for my life is in danger by you are now running this agency. Good luck. I mean, he was like an assistant who was supposed to be changing light bulbs and now he is the lead pi. As soon as his boss takes off, a man comes in and says I need help with a missing persons case. And he hands him huge wads of cash upfront. So Moby takes the job. Meanwhile, David and Thomas go to visit the their father, uncle, respectively, who is in a mental institute. There's a lot of zany characters, a lot of insanity that happens with a lot of weird jokes, but it's kind of neat the way they take on, like mental illness like they're not like these are stupid people. They're very smart people who just happen to have a mental illness. Anyway, they discover that his father is dating a beautiful woman. Or rather, when the woman steps away her elderly mother, they instantly want to ask out Silvia but David, who is the one who seems the most interested chicken chickens out at the last minute, they can then go to their next job, serving food in the red light district where the hookers are extremely friendly customers. Here they see Silvia again, but this time she is selling herself and David is incredibly disappointed. But it turns out actually she's just a thief. She's stealing men's money and she hides out in their truck and they take her away. At this point. They start to become friends with Sylvia. And the story with Moby trying to find a mystery missing person hits them right in the head when Moby is of course actually looking for Sylvia. There is a huge plot about other hired men trying to find her as well as the guy who hired Moby. There's a lot of slapstick, there's an adventure, there's a royal conspiracy. And of course, the three boys must fight together a lot to get all the way to the top of a castle. So it's insane. It's literally insane. First of all, why does everyone in Spain speak traditional and simplified Chinese? But it's still very weird. When there's just it's such a crazy movie when Jackie Chan for example, climbs up the castle wall using TOS sticks, balancing them as poles and vaulting himself up about eight storeys that he gets to the top look looks over the edge, it gets hit in the face by a baseball and then falls back down. Because the henchmen in the castle are playing, you know, a Midnight Game of three men baseball. It's just constantly so strange in this thing asylum. There's a guy who's a clock, and he just keeps going back going tick, tick, tick, tick. And then they're like, What time is it? He tells them the wrong time. They're like, ooh, not the right time. The guy goes, Oh, I'm so and so is going faster and faster to catch up. Later, he goes off as an alarm and somebody has to hit him on the top of the head so he gets reset. There's just comedies is absolutely insane. You know, it's just a delightful, delightful film. There's car chases. There's this real absurd humor. It was a lot of fun. Trivia tagline not since Don Quixote has been had so much fun. Know how to deal with that. The reason this is titled wheels on meals instead of Meals on Wheels is because of a superstition. Golden Harvest had produced two movies beginning with N, including Megaforce and Manassa tois. Both huge flops. So they decided they could not have another film title starting with them. They decided to film this outside of Hong Kong because by the time it was 1984, Hong Kong was impossible to shoot in. They were all too big of action stars, so they would just get swarmed by people on the streets. And on top of that, and the Hong Kong permits were getting incredibly difficult from the government. So in Spain, the authorities were very cooperative, allowing them to use locations for filming anything, chasing cars down the street and doing fight scenes. They were just like, yeah, cool film here. It sounds good. Nice. The final fight between Jackie Chan and Benny are good is, which is considered one of the greatest is considered one of the greatest fight scenes of all time, and it is extremely good. The fight scenes in this are so well choreographed. They're just incredible to watch. There's so much movement, there's so much talent. And I would highly, highly recommend this film. Couple other pieces of trivia not super exciting other than there was a video game that adapted off this called Spartan X. Releases kung fu master internationally laid the foundations for beat him up genre of action games. So this film actually started an entire genre of games, which is kind of cool. Oh, yeah. The NES. How are we supposed to tell when the aliens take you over and impersonate you? Because all of a sudden you've got a sense of humor? Well, that's the thing. I was literally trying to look at what sense of humor are the three things I like sense of humor in figure out what it is that I find funny circus? I think it might be absurdist, because it's just like it I didn't look it's not the people hitting your each other. It's funny. It's the insanity of the situations that they're in while they're hitting each other. That's funny. So you know, like they're having a sword fight like the guy who's in the castle, head down Duke, whatever. He's got the sword out and all of a sudden, Moby the fat stumbly like pie detective guy who keeps getting slashed and hitting the button whatever picks up a sword is is incredible with it, and just starts fighting perfectly. And you're like, what, what? What is happening? It's so good, because it's just so strange. And I felt that same way about the five elements as well. Like it's just so weird. I like it. Yeah, I think you guys would both really take this movie. So if you get a chance I unfortunately I could only find it on Amazon as a paid rental. But I think it is out there for free on Plex. Who recommended this to my husband. Oh yeah. He's obsessed with martial arts movies, Asian movies. He's I think he went to film school and got really really into the Asian side of things. So I told him I need a really good fight scene and he was like, you have to do this very cool. Okay, for my movie, let's see put in 10 minutes on here. I chose something pretty recent from 2018 upgrade. Can I have everybody's attention? Look at so the guys who murdered my wife Stephanie can take over. Thank you. I now have full control. Great graded. Now you're stronger. Faster. Better than everyone else. Hi sit back and enjoy the ride. Yeah, we all chose highly rated movies because it says the Rotten Tomatoes critics have 88% and the audience has an 87% budget of $5 million box office of 17 million worldwide. Written and directed by Lee Welch, who has five directing credits including Insidious Chapter Three, the Invisible Man and get this upgrade the upcoming TV series that is in pre production right now, if that doesn't have not Tom Hardy in it, though, I'm gonna starring Logan Marshall green, also known as Tom Hartley. 37 credits including devil Prometheus, and the invitation which I believe you spoke about on the show right? At the invitation also starring Harrison Gilbertson, who has 23 credits, including haunt doublespeak. And in the tall grass, which is definitely not a road movie 100% on the side of a road, what do you want, also starring Betty Gabriel, who has 23 credits, you probably recognize her most as the woman and get out who you first start realizing something is very wrong in the house. She's also in the spine of night and beyond skyline. So this story is really cool. It starts with a nice Mr. Act of an opening, that is an opening shot on a vinyl record being played in somebody's garage. And we meet Gray who is working on the engine of a beautiful TransAm from the 80s they do this one thing that I fucking hate in movies, we see him ratchet a couple of bolts down in opposite corners of the engine. And then it gets inside and turns the key looks like you know, a hopeful look. And it roars to life. And I'm like, What the fuck did you have to tighten down with three ratchets on opposite sides of the engine that would make this hopefully start. It's like this was loosen that was loose. Now it's tight. But did it anyway, he leaves his garage and sitting in his driveway as an early 70s Dodge Challenger to continue the mystery. But then this very futuristic self driving car shows up, we realize that gray is just an old fashioned dude in a world that is set, maybe 15 or 20 years in the future. His wife is driving this fancy smart car and their house is a smart house and all of that everything has a surface that you can touch and then it comes to life and the house talks to them and all that stuff. It turns out the gray was restoring the TransAm for a client and he has his wife follow him to drop the car off. When they get there, we find out that the client is kind of an Elon Musk kind of guy. In fact, his name is Iran. She's he's very uncomfortable in social situations and all that. But then he shows them this thing he's created called stem that is going to revolutionize the world to say basically a neural implant kind of thing, just like Musk is trying to do. Yeah, and if he if he succeeds in this is probably going to turn out just like this movie. So on their drive home, their Smart Car malfunctions and crashes in a very Bart, very bad part of town. And then this group of very bad people pulled them out of the car. And even though there are police drones filming everything, they murder his wife and cold blood and shoot gray in the spine. When he wakes up, he's in the hospital, and he's now a quadriplegic, and we get a chunk of time spent realistically depicting how horrible that would be, how it needs to be bathed and shaved and helped with everything. We also see him try to kill himself by having his drug robot administer too much medication. But that doesn't work either. Because the drug robot is like if I administer more, you will die and he's trying to get it to do it for that exact reason. So when he's at his lowest, Iran suddenly shows up and offers him a second chance at life with a secret surgery to implant stem in him. The surgery works and all of a sudden break and walk again and do everything he was unable to do. The catch is he can't let anyone know that this surgery happened or they'll probably thought Iran in prison and take it out of him and he'll become a quadriplegic again. So gray signs a nondisclosure agreement and heads home. When he gets home however, he has quite a start when stem starts talking to him in his head. STEM has seen the drone footage of his wife getting killed and has spotted some clues that might prove who the killers were. The problem is there's no way to give this information to the police without betraying Iran and stems existence so so them solution is gray, go to the suspects house and see if he can find more proof. So gray does this, he sneaks into the guy's trailer while he's gone. But once inside, he's not finding anything that can really help. And then worse, the guy comes home and finds gray in his house and starts kicking the shit out of it. So this movie has some truly amazing fight scenes. But the one that I thought of immediately when you suggested this, Eric is this very first night. It's so unexpected, because gray is getting the shit kicked out of them. And he could hear stem saying things like, you're going to have to be quicker than that gray. Or you won't be able to take many more hits like that one. And then finally, would you like me to help and Grace says yes, help. And he's like, I need you to relinquish control, I need you to give me permission. And he's like, I give you permission. And then all of a sudden, everything changes. He's basically a passenger in his own body, while STEM is using his body to just kick the fuck out of this guy. It is such a such a bizarre fight. So you will start laughing watching the sequence. Logan Marshall green is so good in this particular fight sequence because he's so surprised that everything he's doing, he's blocking everything. And it's getting really violent. And he starts like closing his eyes and wincing at everything that he's doing to the guy. And in fact, he's finally tells him please stay down, please. The guy keeps getting up at five to give it till stem just destroys him. It's really brutal. It's brilliant. And so interestingly shot that has stuck with me since my very first viewing and I'll get into what makes the shooting in this. So interesting. From here, the movie turns into an all out action film, basically with gray alternating between killing all the guys that killed his wife and still acting like a quadriplegic around the police and his mom. And all while Iran is trying to shut stem down from a distance because he's See he could track him. Of course, he's got this multimillion dollar chip in gray and he's not just gonna let him walk off and do everything. And then STEM is trying to take more and more control of grace body. There's some really interesting ideas here with various segments of society, upgrading parts of themselves, whether it's their eyes so that they can read more information, stuff like that, or guns that are built into their forearms, or even having deadly nanobots that can be sneezed towards you, and then kill you when you inhale them. It's really cool shit. In 2018, none of this seemed that far fetched. But in 2023, it now seems practically inevitable and really right around the corner. It's really good, really smart, gory action sci fi flick, and if you have not seen it, I say you must some trivia. During the fight scenes, the camera often tracks gray so that he remains in the middle of the frame. And this was achieved by hiding a phone somewhere on Logan, Marshall green, and then syncing the phone to the RED cameras that were following him so that he was always perfectly in the center of the shot while he was doing all the movements. And it's really weird. It's almost like those shots where you would see somebody running and they clearly got a camera connected to them, you know, so it makes everything look strange. Well, this is shot from a distance you can tell there's nothing connected to him it's really neat effect. There's a scene where gray is reviewing his dead wife's autopsy paperwork. And when pause you can see his wife was born in 2008. And at the time of her death, she is 38 which means the movie is set in the year 2046. Just around the corner, right around the corner. The character stem only presents itself as a voice in the movie. The word stem is Dutch for voice. Well, STEM is also an abbreviation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And then the film has drawn a lot of comparisons to another 2018 film venom. But Lee Well says he was not familiar with the comic book character before writing the film. Interestingly, the lead actors of both films, Logan Marshall green and Tom Hardy bear a striking resemblance. Yes. I think that this is not a perfect movie, but it's pretty dang close. And I think that if then, um, which I know we all have real issues with. I love it. I know you do. Because it's a good movie. I accept it. But I think that if it were if it had been a little more like this movie, it would have been much more successful I think then this movie is this tiny little film that I still shocked me so many are so few people have seen. So I don't know this is a much better version of venom, I think. Yeah, it's it's an incredible film I just you talking about it gets me like I gotta re watch this movie. So good. If you have a choice between seeing venom in this you should definitely see this upgrade is great. Yeah, and I've got friends who really loved about them. And when I saw it, I was like, You guys need to see upgrade and they're like, what's that? I was like, it's this movie only better. Is that a Blumhouse? Film? Who knows? I don't know. Okay, so James is a producer of this one. And so Oh, wait, James one is not strictly Blumhouse is he? Yeah. So, I mean, he might be now, but he was not. Yeah, I don't know. But everything that Leland l does is produced by James lon so they've got some kind of very solid partnership going on. I always, always kind of default sometimes if it's a really good Blumhouse movie, and all the Blumhouse haters just avoid it just because it has that name on it. But that's freaking great. Are there Blumhouse haters, I think that there should be more Blumhouse Yes, it's hard to be a Blumhouse hater though. Because like, one in every 10 or 15 is incredible. Yeah. I mean, you can't be mad at the spaghetti that sticks to the wall. You know. I guess the ones that fall off. You should be appreciative of the one that stuck to the wall. The other way with words. I'm just hungry. All right, Vanessa. I think it is your turn for the next pick. Right? I believe that you are right. So it's been a hot minute since? I don't know. I would love to look at films where they feature a seance. Like people sitting around a table I get not a podcast. We're not trying to raise the dead. We're trying to raise our ratings. But yeah, I think there are some really fun uses out there of course of the seance. It's a very classic thing and it shows up and sneaks up in even unexpected films. So I think we will have a lot of interesting possibilities out of this. Definitely yeah, I like this idea. All right, then well this is the part where we thank everybody for liking sharing posts participating in the value for value model. You know, you can call in and tell us your thoughts on the strange aeons radio hotline which is 253-237-4266 drop us a note say Hi. Come on down. Come on with your next contestant our prices right keyboard anything else guys or shall we call this an episode Riri thanks to all the folks who do anything involved with with this weird ask that we do but yeah, yep. All right, then well, then we will be back in seven short days and we are talking seances transportation other considerations for strange aeons radio produced by Pan Am airlines. When you think of traveling think of pan and you can't think the experience. Yes, the strange aeons radio stay at econo lodge ever. It's an easy stop on the road. You know, strange aeons radio is recorded live in front of a studio audience. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a positive review on your favorite podcast. Set we will sit. So stressful, so stressful. I'm glad you're getting a little bit more of a hint of what it's like for me. One day you'll wake up from a terrible nightmare and then you'll really know what it's like when it goes off for me