220 BIG TOP FRIGHTS!

220 BIG TOP FRIGHTS!
We run away and join the circus, and somehow all ended up with black-and-white films! Also discussed: Shazam: Fury of the Gods, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, Targets.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

Oh I'm sorry did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition such sites to show you strange aeons. Welcome to strange aeons radio that's Eric over there. Hello. That's Vanessa terrified over there. Good morning. I'm Kelly you guys we just as we record this we're coming out of March Madness. And I gotta tell you, I'm happy about that. You can get ball fucking amateurs I'm furious every month of the year. About basketball about everything. Oh, confused. March Madness. I got April madness right now. Okay, so wait so bellemeade of the maddening give me a moment Do you know what I'm not furious about? We have the best fucking listeners on the planet are you guys I saw that Ron for back. Spit it out a couple of rhymes for us online which was pretty fucking great. Thank you for that Ron. And then we got a really nice review and donation from Bill Babcock. Bill you rock thank you so much. He he had some real nice things to say about you Vanessa some really nice things to say about me and not a damn word about you gotta mention it sounds about right to me. Yeah, that'll work. I think he said like all you guys are something that includes you. I have it right here. Let's see if he did. Not holding a grudge at all. Man. I love your show. Really appreciate the little retro intermissions and old commercials. Okay, I guess that's all right. Vanessa has been a great addition to the team for like, what, three years now? That's good to recognize I feel new. Kelly, especially your twisted sense of humor is so fucking close to my own that I sometimes find myself saying, in my head, the same thing you're about to say it's not in a good way. And really terrifying for you, sir. Because I know Kelly, pretty well, so be careful. Hell, what am I saying? You can't go wrong with nuts. Continue doing what you're doing, my friends. And thank you. Thank you. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you so much. Oh, it was amazing. And I think we all know that Eric is incredible. You're the foundation of this. You are the cement of which we lay upon right? away and nothing. Upon this rock I build my church. I also want to mention that last week, we played episode two of the Amityville Horror Picture Show. So exciting. That was fun. You know, we record these. Well, well in advance for some of these. And so that one we've been sitting on for a while that had Carlos as our guest. And I listened to it. And I was like, Oh, sounds like we were having a good time. I forgot that he brought us my Moses. Yes. Yeah, the Mimosa is the different take because it's got a different kind of different worldview than we do on some aspects. So that was cool. So yes, fun. Yeah. Yeah. So the next episode, sometime next month, I'm guessing stars, Vanessa. Well, what a what a shake up. What a shake up. Yeah, I will have to listen to it again to you. Because I hope I hope I said good. Thanks. Not really. It's fine. All right. And also, we got some really nice feedback on the Charles Dexter awards. Oh, cool. Some people were saying that they're not big on award shows. But they had a good time with this one. And remember, next year, keep an eye out because we're gonna want you involved in picking, maybe even choosing categories and suggestions for films. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I want to throw a little love out to Danny Willeford, who's always so great and gracious to us and everything and some some family stuff going on over there and just wanted to say, Danny, if we love you, we do we absolutely. All right, I watched a movie. Oh, shit, really? You guys want to watch this movie? I'd never even heard of this movie before. It's called targets. It's from 1968 Peter Bogdanovich his first film, I was under the impression that Last Picture Show was his first film. This film stars Boris Karloff as an ageing horror actor who is tired of everything he wants to retire. He's tired of the violence in the world and all that and then there is a parallel story going on. About a young man who's disgruntled with life and he finally snaps and goes on a shooting spree on a tower and start shooting at people on the highway and then he goes to Got a drive in and start shooting at people to drive in where Boris Karloff characters there to introduce the film. Oh, and it all winds up together super intense really, really great. Boris was amazing. Cool. And just a really haunting final shot. I really loved it. It is called targets and I found it on prime it recently popped up because I think criterion is putting it out or something like that or advertising what I might have to buy that really, really really good. That's cool to hear. Well, there you know there's been some incredible films that came out this weekend have their their you know, have we had? Can I name them? No, no, we had John Wick come out. We had something else big come out. I've forgotten about I chose it was so big, so big or so I I've been really excited about seeing these films. I chose to then go and see Shazam. Fury of the gods. Oh, sure. Okay, the second and the shazam timeline. The first one was fun. The first one is one I think it is my favorite DC film. It's it's definitely the top like two or three. This one. It was pretty bad. It was fun. Like the tone was fun. Like it achieves a talent that none of the other DC films do because they take themselves so seriously. So there were a lot of moments in their lives. Like, I love like the feel of this. It's just that every piece of story structure is no good. Like nothing pays off. Like there's I cannot tell you what they were trying to have as their main theme. It's a very strange film. And I don't know if you guys remember this, I think it's the same director from the first one. He's actually a horror director. You should not take children to see this film. You should not it is it is a I think a PG 13. Eight, there are moments where I was like, Are they just gonna squeeze that entire man through those bars because this is, that's what it feels like. Or somebody pulls something out from underneath a fingernail. They're like, legitimately awful, like upsetting moments. And it's great filmmaking like it achieves a level of stress. And, you know, just anxiety. That's incredible, but not for kids. So there were kids in the audience with me, and I'm like, Oh, my God, oh my God, these kids are going to be having nightmares. I wonder if that. If that explains the pretty poor reviews it's been getting because the first one was definitely a family movie. Yeah, the first one had a lot more that sort of family feel it did not have these incredibly dark. So in the opening scene, this, this will give very little away. And the opening scene, there are a bunch of museum goers and the female goddesses show up and get like a magical thing. And they turn everybody to stone. And then they just fucking murder a guy. Like the guy you just started watching. They just chuck him over and he breaks into 1000 pieces. They are not afraid to kill people in this film. And there are several characters you care about. Not necessarily the family. They're just like, nevermind, don't worry. They're dead. Wow. And it's really for a kid like, I mean, none of those stone people they don't at the end goal. And you're all back and fine. No, they're just dead. And the guy who got shattered is especially dead. It's like these extra bonus stick. It's weird. It's a real weird feel. But yeah, it's I think, honestly, the bad reviews that are are just because the story is I mean, it's all of the family's falling apart. And I need to really glue it together. But I'm nervous about myself as a leader does not pay off. That's not that third act does not support any of that. Really. There are other characters that are coming in with their own problems that don't get solved. There are a couple of jokes that land real flat because they're trying to be Marvel and they cannot do it. But again, totally, there's some fun stuff. So I don't know, it's a real mixed bag. Weird. Everything that has come out since gun has taken over has also felt just kind of like it's in a limbo thing that nobody really cares about. And I think this is true here too. There is a little tie in with something gun related. And it's, uh, feels weird. Oh, it's totally extremely fucking weird. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Who would have thought that guy that directed and wrote Romeo and Juliet was something weird, disturbing into a movie. Shocking. This isn't when I saw this one that's coming out that I'm pretty excited about if you ever heard or read the book wool by Hugh howry how that came out a few years ago. No. It's a A story of silo where it's a utopian or dystopian future, where everybody now lives underground in these long, deep silos. Okay, so basically it's a vertical world. And there I think it's Apple TV on May 5 coming out called silo, which is a TV show based on that. And the first trailer looks spot on. Oh, and this a trilogy of books that I read, and I read all three of them. Like, right in a row. This is it's great, tense, dark stuff. But so yeah, looking forward to that one. Oh, hopefully it will be better than Halo. What is this what we're talking about now? Eric movies we haven't seen but want to see. Yeah, that's right. So did on the last baby. I'm really sorry, the de Sitter that I saw operation fortune ruse de Geer. That sounds French. I don't know about that. Guy Ritchie's new film with Jason Statham. Kira achieving French I don't know about that. I loved it. As he returned to form good. He spent a couple of years kind of putting out some really not very good. I was really surprised when I started looking at his IMDb he did now I can't remember what it was, but it was like a franchise film or something. I was like, what was it? When did that happen? Something like the transporters? Well, no, no, like, almost like a kids movie or something. This is very funny. satire about the way that nations get things done. So of course, stay with them is a secret agent type guy, a mercenary, and he's working for the US government as they're trying to figure out this thing that was stolen and is being sold. They don't know what it is, but they know it's selling for so much that it's going to be bad. So he sent in with a group of other people, including, while I'm blanking on everybody's name, who's this snarky actress from Sandra Bullock? Nope. No. Has she ever been snarky? More and more snarky with every later film? No, this girl was on. Well, she was Scott Pilgrim sister and oh, she's she was on that show. We love so much. Legion. Oh, no. I can't think of Audrey Plaza. Okay, there you go. Got her in it. Okay. You know what, if I had taken any notes this might have gone over a lot better right now. This is roll this is really nice guy. I'll just say this is called Operation fortune. And I liked it very much. Well, I have huge news, because love is blind. Season Four has come. I did see that on Netflix and wondered. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it is a hotter mess. Than I think the previous three combined. It is insane. These people are insane. And this time they're all from Seattle. Oh, it's not the the mothers and the sons. Is it? Oh, god. No. Okay. Oh, wow. Wow. No, no, this is like the people who go into little pods and talk to 15 Strangers on rotation in like fast dates. And then by you know, weekend or something, have quote unquote, fallen in love with one and get the propose and then they need each other. And then they spend the next three weeks preparing for their wedding, where they are actually hanging out and going in the real world and dealing with each other. So oh, probably breakup? Well. Some of them have already done so. Which is always good when you're in like episode two. And somebody's like, Fuck, I have made a mistake. Brilliant. Excellent. And it's very Seattle. Like, it's insane. The kind of So, man I don't even the girls, the guys are all kind of nerdy. Like one guy like keeps making weird nerd references. Even the cool black guy has like, video game figures in the background of his home. And you're like, All right, okay. And he's got like a VR headset. And the girl is like, what is that? And he's like, Oh, that's Oculus, like, of course. And there's another guy who's like an environmental scientist. He's kind of like a hippie dude. I'm like, This is so fucking Seattle, but they found a really great like diverse cast and I don't know where they can Seattle so whitewashed. I'm like, I'm really proud that they did it. But I'm also like, this is not representative of our city, unfortunately. And you know, I'm glad that we're seeing it but I hope people don't get the wrong impression that we are cooler than we are As far as diversity goes, because we think I think Seattle Seattle shot all of its cool stuff out in the early 90s. I know you know when the grinds ruled the world. Well, everything goes Seattle. I don't even know. I had to explain what grunge meant to like an assistant editor of mine last week and explain what grunge was and what the city was like at that point. And it was weird. It's really weird. Anyway, off topic, I drive downtown and Seattle is full of grunge now, but a bunch hilarious. Anyway, so went way back for my new one broke out the Rudy Ray Moore boxset that I got and watched the human tornado. I have not seen this. This is a second film as dolomite and it is so much better than dolomite. Why it is so entertaining. It's so ridiculous. It starts off with a probably 10 minutes maybe less of him doing his comedy routine. Which is what he made himself famous for making the comedy albums and stuff and is he unlike onstage? Yes. Oh, okay. And it's Well, it's a movie stage. They set this room up for him to perform in. But it is rude and crude and hilarious. The fights are ridiculously sped up. I didn't know why I'm doing it. The Ernie Hudson from Ghostbusters. Is this his second movie? No. And he's in it. I'm gone. Who the hell is that? Because he's bald, and he's you know what, probably 20 at most. And so I looked up holy shit that. Yep. Ernie Hudson, and then three or four scenes later on, but that's not Ernie Hudson. So I looked deeper and said him and his brother switched roles occasionally because Ernie couldn't be there the whole time. Oh my god so they brought in his brother who is much smaller than him looks really very little like him sort of like Frank and Sly Stallone and put those two guys together together related but and then he had a bald cap on where it was actually nice he was in pure shape well either he had like a slight stubble but the bald cap it's it's gold it is a really really great but for Rudy Ray Moore this is probably his I just gotta be his best film. Oh my god. The human tornado. Yes. Yep. Nice. Okay, well, why don't we take a break you guys and then when we come back we're gonna be talking circus films I couldn't say what I was gonna say because I realized that's the title of my Phil. Oh, Okay, gotcha. Well, we'll be right back then imagine going to the weeble circus good fun all right over there is vamos a Weibull in the flag. She falls off easy as we both fall down and matching going through the window. When we we will second comes with everything you see here. You remember some assembly required? We have returned Eric. Yeah, I believe this was your so yes, it is. I feel dive in with a classic from 1947. Whoa. 10 minutes on the board with 1940. The movie nightmare alley. I have another question here. Are you ready? Yes. Right this way, the dawn of history man has sought to see behind the veil which hides him from tomorrow. Through the Ages certain men have looked into the polished crystal and see is it some quality of the crystal itself? Or does the geezer merely use it to turn his gaze inward? Who can tell? See those yokels out there and give you sort of a superior feeling as if you were in the know and they were on the outside looking in? You get a guy to be a geek? The only one I mean is a guy born that way. Shifting shapes begin to clear I see fields of grass and rolling hills. The boy a boy is running barefoot through the hill. A Doug is with him. His name is Dawn Go on. My mother is waiting at the gate for you. A beautiful gray haired old lady. That's right, buddy. Pretty good. See how easy it is stop reading pitch everybody. Once you've had a one minute heartbroken the next every boy has a dog. Every boy has a beautiful gray haired mother going to go places, I think can keep you out of a big time. You got everything. That's like I used to have, oh, Rotten Tomatoes, 87 and 86. So pretty close for everybody. budget was quote, relatively large. I couldn't really find an exact dollar amount. But it's available on hoopla or criterion. Kind of a fun criterion comes with like five tarot cards. That's fun, but directed by Edmund Goulding, who you might know from Grandhotel Dark Victory or Hells Angels. The writer was Jules one of the writers is Jules Firth 120 writing credits including Rio Bravo, bravo, the the Boggs sleep, the Texan New York knights and Mutiny on the Bounty. So some pretty good cred there. And William Lindsey Graham, who wrote the original novel that was based on which is apparently much darker. Does this have anything to do with that? Chioma Del Toro? That is a remake of this film. Wow. Okay. Starring Tyrone powers. One of the one of the big guys from that era, from thin ice Mark of Zorro, Black Rose, witness for the prosecution and a whole crap ton of swashbuckler films. Yeah. Joan Blundell, who has 161 credits. She was in Greece. 52 episodes of Here comes the bride. Now that one but that's a lot. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She is achingly beautiful. Yeah, she's the place the woman who marries Coleen Gray, who is in the killing the vampire, Red River and 86 episodes of days of our lives. So what about a month on the show? Yeah, really. So the movie is starts off with a scene in a carnival. So you know carnival circus, the with a great carnival barker, and introduce train introduce the geek, which they established early on that the geek character is although a huge draw carnies can't stand them. Don't really don't like them and feel the audience although they might enjoy them didn't actually really like the performances, and really show the geek. But there was apparently some stuff originally shot with it. So I don't know if that's true. Or if that's just legend. It's hard to say a movie from 1947. The lead is also a carnival barker at this point and introduces Xena The Mentalist while her backup is currently drunk, he gets together well enough to show how they fake what they're doing. And the show where he's writing. They take the notes, she pretends to burn them while he's back there writing them on a blackboard, showing it through a hole in the stage. So it's fairly elaborate, pretty cool. But they do find out Tyrone powers character finds out that they actually have a code, a way of speaking that lets them communicate whatever like they're holding or talking about, to the person who's listening while blindfolded. Once Tyrone figures this out, he's like, Okay, I must learn this. So he learns this, largely from the explanation seems a little weird because Xena and her husband have the code but apparently, so the young lady that he falls in love with well falls in love with. And Mary's knows it too. But they're, they teach each other the code. So they leave the circus and go out to the big world where he puts on a blindfold and she stands in the audience and the way she says what she says the way she hits the syllables indicate what he's talking about. I have no idea how that would actually work because she doesn't save very much. But she's talking about things as elaborate from scarves and the color of scarves to questions on a page. Like, wow, that's a code man. plays great in the movie. It's relatively slow film, but it's 1947. So it's probably not slow if you were there then. And it is not a structurally sound Movie. Wii, it's got, it has structure, but it's not quite the setup and payoff it but it moves. It feels what it needs to and makes a really cool watch. I think the acting is absolutely top notch in this film. It's dark and personal with the elaborate here but an emotional realization that you don't see in a lot of films, especially at that time, where they tended to be over exaggerate things. They don't do a lot of that even though it's a carnival world. So it seems it would fall into that, but it really doesn't. They do got a great scene where this is put on display when a cop shows up to try to break everything up. But Tyrone Power shows his amazing ability to talk people in and out of stuff. And the cop ends up of course just leaving after he talks to him and that but that scene that interaction between the two of them was like stellar stuff. But later on in the movie after they've gone on in the kind of doing a John Edwards style. If you remember that guy who used to do cold reads on people on a Sci Fi Channel. They do that kind of a show is sort of what they're doing. And he runs into a psychologist to may or may not be even better at that game than he is. And that's kind of where the movie goes till the end and love the ending. Holy shit this movie and so well. I have not seen the remake. You've seen both right? Yeah, I love the remake, but it does not touch this film. I think this film is fan fucking tastic Yeah, it is really, really good tagline. He was all things to all men, but only one thing to all women. No. So Tantra 20 Century Fox bought the rights for this for the novel in 1946 for $50,000, which is about$700,000 in today's money, which is a gigantic fee for a book at that time. Because Tyrone powers wanted it and he wanted to change his image from the romantic lead to something different. And boy, he proved he could do it. They built the whole carnival set to the backlog of 20th Century Fox covering 10 acres, which it doesn't seem nearly that large watching the movie it seems fairly small actually. But they hired over 100 Sideshow attractions and carnival workers to be background extras and beyond the movie. The studio head at the time found the movie so generally distasteful that he didn't like it and took it out of circulation, but was theatrically released in 56 and 57 and did pretty good business. Of course, the way they drive in was its best place after a trailer on powers died in 58 and became very popular and went on to play a lot on television and got huge high ratings hit DVD but not till 2005. And this what I watched was the criterion blu ray release of it which I think was last year with when I when the remake came out. The director kind of had a scandalous past. He struggled with drinking and drugs and resume Mr rumored to host wild bisexual orgies to the level of several women needing to be hospitalized after some of these parties. Well, already the New York Times could if you if one can take any moral value out of nightmare alley, it would seem to be that terrible retribution is the inevitable consequence for he who had mockingly attempt to play God. And that's partly what the movie got in trouble for was the god reputation like you're gonna upset Christians and Catholics and all that. So there's a scene in there where the his wife goes at him for you're messing with God and he's like, I don't think I am. And it's, they put that in intentionally because we need to have this scene, we can't have it just not have that ever mentioned. Otherwise, the experience would not be very rewarding for despite some fine and intense acting. This film traverses just faceful dramatic ground and only rarely does it achieve any substance as entertainment, which I thoroughly disagree with. Fuck that guy. Yeah, no kidding. Film is now regarded as one of the gems of film noir. And boy, is it ever it is different than film noir because it actually has a budget. They have a lot of fair amount of money went into this switch generally did not have a lot of money. And Tyrone powers obviously was massive star power at the time, which again, not had, but basically the overall oppression on Rotten Tomatoes is playing against type with nightmare alley, Tyrone Power, and Edward Golding delivered some of their best work and of Carnival set noir, unafraid to showcase true despair. Yeah, I'm happy with my selection this week with out any reservation times. Yeah, this film is so good. The the remake is really, really good too. Except I think you didn't care for Vanessa. I didn't like it. It's very long, and it doesn't need to be that long. And it's got a much more downbeat ending there. It's so far complete. Yeah. This is a book that back when eBay first came on the scene, I was looking for a first edition of this paperback. And I remember thinking, Well, I'm not going to pay $26 for that book. And then of course, I've been watching it just climb and climb and 1000s of dollars. Have you read? You've read I've never read a book but I always wanted the book. I suppose I could just read it on Kindle but that's not the only way to you don't have to just read the first edition books. Books had minutes for you Vanessa. Well go Yeah, I think mine's got us for the similar feel and premise and in an accent I mean, I guess with circus movies so I went with a film I hadn't seen before and I have always meant to and that was the 1980 film The Elephant Man I wouldn't any pain are your parents still alive is full of surprises oh wow, yeah, yeah. Critics really liked this film Rotten Tomatoes has it at 92% of critics. Audience really disagrees because they've got a 93% Really, it's I mean, super well regarded. The budget was 5 million box office brought in 26 million in North America alone. So did extremely well. It's written and directed by David Lynch was 98 credits to his name. We all know him from Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive Eraserhead, and of course, we talked about dune on the show, Eric. And it's written by kind of code written by a couple of guys, Christopher DeVore, and Eric Berggren, who don't have a lot of credits to their name, so I don't know what their involvement was really. Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, as Frederick Trivedi, who's a kindly doctor, it's 147 credits to his name, including Silence of the Lambs Westworld, and of course, Odin and Thor. He was in transformers the last night, he played Methuselah and Noah many, many ranges of types of titles, but his acting is generally very strong. John Hurt as John Merrick, who by the way is the The Elephant Man, but his actual name in real life was Joseph Merrick. People just kept calling him John for some reason. John Hurt has 212 credits to his name, including 1984, alien, Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy, and 65 episodes of Marylyn as the voice of the dragon. And Anne Bancroft. As Maj. Kendall she plays this kind of London stage star at seven credits to her name, we'd know her as Mrs. Robinson from the graduates. She was and Annie Sullivan and the miracle worker and the voice of the Queen and ants with a Z. This is a pretty fairly accurate description of the life story of The Elephant Man, weirdly, we start off with this circus, where all these people were kind of coming out in really upsetting screams are heard and there's crying and not really sure exactly what's happening. And we're following Dr. Trees, who's curious, and he's, he wants to figure out what this is about. And he finds a giant sign for the elephant man. And he finds these cops that are kind of surrounding the sign and shutting the circus act and kind of the whole circus down because it's upsetting to many people. People are seeing this particular character, and it's just truly so upsetting that it's too much. So he really wants to see what this is because he's curious about the human condition and the body and so he pays the quote unquote owner of the elephant man who kind of is the ringleader of the circus. A little extra to come to this through these underground alleys in London and check this guy out, he meets the Elephant Man, he's very, very deformed has a twisted spine, huge things on his back big lumps on his head, can't really walk straight and isn't able to talk. And trees pays to kind of take him as a medical exhibits. And you know, says, Hey, I'm gonna just want to take him for, you know a day and show him off. And he does this weird exhibition with him where it's very exploitive. And he's like the imbecile and, you know, reveals this poor guy behind this curtain. He's like, you can see that this is messed up with him in that and everyone's kind of staring. And it's very much the exact same as what we saw with him in the circus very similar idea. However, he ends up getting back to his owner a little late that night, the owner beats him and treats his call to recover him again, tribes wants to get him away from this situation. It's obviously like it, obviously, the sky is getting severely abused, it's really fucked up. And so he says, I, you know, I'm sorry, but you as your owner, sorry, you can't have him, he's gonna come and stay with us until he quote unquote, recovers, which, of course, is a very long time, and essentially steals him. And but he can't keep him unless the Elephant Man has any kind of mental health, because the hospital will not take in people who are in the cells and will not take in people who are lost causes. So he discovers, through trying to teach him how to talk that this guy is extremely well spoken extremely well, thoughtful, loves books, loves the theater, kind of helps him to blossom in society. So we get to follow this guy's life. And it's this weird back and forth between, he's being shown to, you know, being shown kindnesses. And he's being taken out into public and the High Society of London get to meet him. But they aren't necessarily treating him differently or better than the people who are trying to exploit him. So you have this really interesting balancing act. I think that this, I don't know. I've definitely heard that this is the most narrative piece that Lynch has done. I definitely agree with that. But don't be fooled into thinking there's no Lynch in here. It starts with a woman just screaming back and forth silently and like elephants superimposed on her face. There's a lot of dream sequences. When the elephant man's finally gets to go to the theater, it's like weird, and there's just like, bizarre imagery of the kinds of things you seeing on stage. So there is a ton of lunch. There's a lot of shots of machines that I do not understand why they're there. But that's okay. I think they did a great job of of giving this guy humanity because even though John Hurt is like, covered, and like, you know, all this prosthetics, they always show his eyes. And they always make a point of really reflecting that light in the eye and giving him a lot of soul. You also have these incredible moments where even when people see him and are kind to him and smiling, they stay on them a little bit long. And the people start to like avert their eyes, or they'll like turn their head around and like take a deep breath and then look back at him smiling again. There's just a lot of like subtle work to show that no matter who he's talking to even his friends, there's still a pity and a disgust that exists. It's great at showing the difference between the people who are grossed up out and screaming at him at the you know dredges of London and also the people who are at the highest level kind of doing the exact same thing. Everything is exploitive, and cruel. Gross, England, that's really fucked up and awful looking. They did a great job. Really good props, really good sets. I was like, oh, that's what an organ grinder looks like. I always wondered. They did fucking research. It's it's really good. I thought the makeup was a bit much. And then I looked up what the Elephant Man look like. It's identical. It's actually based off the cast of his when he passed away. They they of course, took all his bones and bluestem and so they make casts of it and the makeup is based off of that. And of course, it did take some liberties with his life. He actually was never mistreated by the managers of the circus. In fact, he saw out being in the circus because he needed work, and that there was no additional characters were made up. So just a little bit of trivia. This movie was produced by Mel Brooks. He was responsible for hiring David Lynch and obtaining permission to film in black and white. He deliberately left his name off the credits as he knew People would get the wrong idea about the movie if they saw his name on the movie. Given his fame as a satirist, when Paramount Pictures studio execs were shown a cut of the film, they wanted the opening and closing surrealist sequences to be cut. Mel Brooks said to them, we're involved in a business venture, we screen the film for you, to bring you up to date as to the status of that venture do not misconstrue this as our soliciting or of the inputs of reaching primitives. So good. The makeup first search on hurt, who played Marik, of course was designed directly from the cast, as I mentioned, and it took seven hours to apply each day and two hours to remove. He, it was miserable. Everybody said it was one of the hardest pictures they had to do. He ended up doing every other day shoots and will work from 5am till 10pm Just to try to get as much shot as humanly possible. And he told his wife, I think they finally managed to make me hate acting. So this also changed a lot about the Academy Awards. It was nominated for Best Picture It didn't win a single award and a lot of people were furious that it didn't get any notice notices or nods for the makeup. And the next year the academy did put makeup award so really so the makeup like special effects makeup, that was not a category before No Oh interesting for furious they were like it was a huge like rustling in the in the whatever the Hollywood scene, and there was no way of giving nominations or credits to makeup. Yeah, I didn't see this film until I was in my 30s and and then I've seen it maybe 10 times I weep openly every time. It's one of my very favorite movies good from we are on Kelly's favorite carnival films. So I guess so because I picked one I'd never seen before and I loved it. All right, talking. Okay, put in 10 minutes on the board for me. Before I do that, did you like the movie? I really did. I you know I didn't cry but I think it's because you said you cry. Like every time you watch it I think I couldn't quite I don't know like there's something where I kept dissecting it and so but I loved it. I think it was beautiful. I think it was a really incredible I mean the the wage shot is so gorgeous. The acting is so good. You have to see this movie. There is a slight difference to in watching a film for when we're going to talk about it like this. Yeah, versus just watching a movie so I could see that. Yeah, it really felt like I was a little disconnected because of that. But I still I mean every time he cries you just want to die. Okay, 10 minutes on the board. I chose a movie called Let me pull my strange aeons. No book out hey, go. Nice circus of horrors from 1960 If you are a murderer, a black man or a thief, with a face as ugly as sin, a mind of this pocket as the devil's then this man. He might help you. You could be beautiful. If you will trust me think twice before you join his second Hadas he'll change our face beyond recognition which are sown hidden slave for all time. Remember, He alone will know the secrets of don't even past and never will he let you escape it's Dr. Sheila rose to glory in our trail of blood. Any coming back as one of the girls was faced on faith he Jade but not her mind. You can frighten me. These others effing stupid, just plain stupid. What others the late unlamented ones who have died so suddenly. And so strangely. This is the little girl with a named face, who has forever beholden to him who grew from innocent childhood into trusting adolescence would do nothing to hurt you. I owe you so much. I love you so much. G was his one weakness. maniac who first healed and then kill. What just happened cause an accident every second. with unexpected danger antenna specialist uses his sinister skill to make a circus of criminals a form at his bidding I could find no budget information or box office information although it said it was a surprise hit in the US. Oh, no numbers to back that up unfortunately. No Rotten Tomatoes critics and the audience has it a 42% Oh by, directed by Sidney hares who has 69 credits mostly TV. He also did night of the eagle in the devil's garden and in of the frightened people. Oh, written by George Bakst. He has 24 credits including tower of evil the shadow of the cat and the city of the dead. Starring Anton differing 196 credits. Fahrenheit 451. The Beast must die and Brian and Glenn if you're listening, he was in a movie called HP Lovecraft shot an astrocyte from 1975 A TV, German TV movie of the color out of space. Time. That's something I'm not sure sounds like an interesting version. Yeah. Also stars Eric Rimberg, who has 53 credits. She was in candidate for murder target for killing date of the vampire and Kenneth Griffin who has 126 credits, including a night to remember the frightened city and murder can be deadly. done early, also strange aeons radio mainstay, Donald Pleasants yay. Yeah. Okay, get my other notes out here. Circus of horrors. We opened on the scene in a police are of the police busting down a door to get to a woman she's sitting in front of a a makeup mirror and her face appears to be melting. And it turns out she is the victim of a botched plastic surgery and the surgeon who is our protagonist, I guess. He is on the run with his assistants, his doctor Rossiter, and his assistants are Martin and Angela, and they escaped to France, where he changes his name to Schuler and he befriends a circus owner Pleasance, who has a young daughter with a scarred face, of course, Rossiter fixes the girl's face for free, and the circus owner is in his debt. Now there's a lot of plastic surgery stuff going on in here. It seems to happen like overnight, you know, he did go into surgery, you have bandages on the next day they unwrap it beautiful. Wow. He's he's really good at but he fixes the girl's face and the circus owner is like in his debt, and he takes on roster as a business partner roster as ideas to make the circus more profitable. And the owner reluctantly agrees to sign over the circus to Rosler just in his name because Rosner says he can get the guy bank loans that the guy was not able to get for. Shortly after that, plus Hans gets drunk, and it's to dance with the circus bear. Oh, no, who was very hungry. Oh, no. Molson and kills him. Oh, no. Rossiter is right there. And he's about to help him until he realizes Wait is this guy's killed? circuses in my name and everything's hunky dory, right and up dude. He is now the sole owner of the circus. we fast forward 20 years. And the Circus is a very prominent act throughout Europe, mostly known for all of its incredibly beautiful performers. It does have a bit of an odd reputation and that whenever a performer wants to leave the circus they end up dying in a grisly circus accident where for example, one of the women is killed in a knife throwing accident. She's on one of those spinning tables. Yeah, the the knife thrower has a blindfold on. But he knows the timing of the spinning table right so he knows when to throw, but Rossiter has his hand on the plug and unplugs it just for a fraction of a second plugs back in the timing is thrown off, she is hit with a knife in front of everybody watching, but the power thing was so quick that nobody noticed anything else going on. So there's one of those roster keeps on meeting these women who would be absolutely gorgeous if not for a hideous deformity on their face, some kind of scarring from acid or a knife, you know, whatever. They're also they have very shady pasts and he turns them in Beautiful women and gives them new identities working at the circus. He also seems to fall madly in love with each and every woman gets violently jealous when they fall for somebody else. Oh my. Meanwhile, there's also a journalist who is snooping around the circus. And it is later revealed that he's actually a police inspector undercover, who's trying to prove to prove that Schuler is actually Rossiter and bring him to justice. This is a really, really cool movie. It's it's one of those things where you realize in 1960, the circus was probably a pretty fucking cool thing. That has all been taken away now, as we've gotten wind of all of the violence that is done to the animals and all of that. So you know, you don't have circuses coming to town anymore. Plus, everybody's on their phone. So we don't need this kind of entertainment, I guess. Tick tock. Yes. Antani deferring is a really, really handsome guy, but in a very cruel kind of way. And he looks like he should be playing mostly nicely, Nazi officers and World War Two. And he did do plenty of those. The effects are pretty great. The horrible scarred faces. That kind of makeup looks pretty good. Every time you see one of these women, they're more hideous than the last. And then when he fixes them, they're more beautiful than the last guy is really good. And the ending is particularly satisfying because in the third act, Rossiter gets his face maimed by one of his Tigers, and his assistants who have not been super happy with how things are going are he forces them to do this constructive surgery on his face, and it does not go well. Plus, the cops are starting to close in on him. And there's a nice ending where the original woman that he is running from that he botched 20 years earlier, she gets her revenge and everything and it's really just a top notch film. I wasn't sure that I would like this, especially when I saw the Rotten Tomatoes rating. But then I started looking at reviews for it. And people were just like, this is a undiscovered gem. Although it was a surprise hit in the US there. Yeah. Oh, yes. We're all three of our films black and white. Yes, yeah. Oh my God, that's awesome. I do have a little bit of trivia. Kind weekly called it the most popular horror film at the British box office in 1960. Still could find no numbers. The horror films represented in 1960, where there is a song in the soundtrack called look for a star and it sounded vaguely familiar to me and it turns out that it was a hit but it's got a weird thing. The song look for a star became a hit for Gary mills in Great Britain and for Gary miles in the United States. Whoa. It reached number seven on the UK chairs when the movie was released in the US there were several versions of the song quickly recorded the main one being by buzz caisson under the pseudonym Gary miles in order to capitalize on the success of Gary mill so good. So the strategy worked. And the Gary miles version reached number 16 on the US pop chart in 1960. Wow. Circus of Horrors is my movie. I fucking loved it. And Eric, I miss thank you for choosing a a genre or sub genre that I really hadn't given much thought to. Yeah, this was so much fun. I had such a big list of the films I want to check out. Because I've like circus of horrors. Well, what circus of terrorists? Oh, this looks good. And a lot of them are older. Not as much nowadays. I think that's that's what I was talking about. Back then. The Circus would come to town. I remember Vanessa, here we go to the circus. No, I think the closest appeal fair. Well, I mean, I went to the Barnum and Bailey Circus when it came to town as a young boy and I remember riding the elephant and all that stuff. I did get to ride an elephant one time. Yeah, they've hit some of the smaller cities like Twin Falls and stuff. So yeah, yeah. Bailey, but I didn't realize the clowns were all beating the elephants backstage or anything like that. And then the you know, managers were beating the clowns, and then there's a lot of beating happening generally. Yeah. I had a great time with this film anyway. And I came in under time on my buzzer. Well, you guys think about that. I think you know what, I'm proud of all of us because we all kind of ended at the buzzer or just under so. But I'm the best. Do you want Kelly? I just want to hear you say it this shade of narcissism is not does not look good on you, sir. I'm turning my buzzer off. Wow. Really are like really early. I know what the people want and they don't want me rambling on and on and on. You know, it's we're all trying to we're all trying to achieve what you've got. stop shaming. I've leave this in the next episode is going to be Micah's choice. Yeah, so wanted us to do a remake episode. Oh, Lord. So I've decided to remake episode 158 Oh, shoot, okay, I really liked 64 We'll talk about it, we'll get it figured out. This is the part where I thank everybody for liking and sharing posts for participating in the value for value system. And value for value system means if you get any kind of value out of this, turn around and either turn it into a, a monetary amount and give that value back or turn it into a bandwidth amount and give that value back and we appreciate all of that. Yep, get it spread talk about it. Like a lot of people talked about the history of the cult, you know, come in with the other films, but they're a circus film you've seen that blew you away or something like that? Let us know. Yeah, and you can do that at the strange aeons radio hotline which is 253-237-4266 Once again, that's 253-237-4266 Drop us a line. Let us know we can use it on the air and we will do so anything else guys? I don't think so. Don't look at me. I'm wasn't looking at you Vanessa just vaguely looking out into the ceiling. Anything else? I'm good. All right. This is the end of the show. We will see you in seven short days and we are talking remix, 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? Sure 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 app. Since we will set about basketball