SCIENCE FICTION DOUBLE FEATURE!

SCIENCE FICTION DOUBLE FEATURE!
Vanessa definitely tried to poison Kelly with an ice cream bar from outer space. Also discussed: The Wheel of Time, Hellhole, Strays.

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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. Hey, Lou. That is Vanessa over there. Hello. I am Kelly. Hey, Vanessa, do you remember God? When I had a birthday this last time? Yeah. And I said, no gifts. And you showed up with a grab bag full of whatever you could find. Yeah, one of those things was a astronaut ice cream sandwich. Yes. sealed and vacuum sealed and all of this stuff. I've been on a diet. I've never craved anything more than when I'm on a diet here. Yeah, I broke out the vacuum dried Ice Cream Sandwich. It wasn't worth it. Well, was it worth it? I didn't spend anything on it. No, I mean, calorie wise. Oh, I'll say this. It was different. I'm a big fan of ice cream sandwiches. I can't have ice cream sandwiches in the house because I will just eat the ice cream sandwich until they die on white sitting. Yes. I think that I could probably after this one, you know, not eat the rest of the ones in the box. They're very sweet. Not only that, they just kind of it just kind of crumbled apart. You know, when you freeze dry? Yeah. Kind of snaps off in your mouth. And then I don't know. I love me for meeting the entire fucking thing because I am a monster. Well, we all are. I love giving these as guests just because they're so fun, like astronaut food or freeze your eye candy is so fun. But these ones are. I think they're official ones because I got them from like the website and whatever. But yeah, there are a lot there. There are a lot to behold. My dad and I used to do like backpacking and mountain climbing a lot when I was in my teens. So we carried those freeze dried foods and stuff. They tell you when you're down here. They're all kind of awful. But when you're in the mountains, and you make they're so damn good. Maybe it's because I've been walking for six hours today, and I'm dying up here, but this is the best beef stroganoff I've ever had. Give me the another mre. Okay, I wouldn't go that far. Well, I'll say this. Please don't give me another one of those. I don't think I have any more to give. I can't I can't be trusted with them. And it wasn't Vegas. I would also like to point out I have no memory of you asking for it. I don't either so well. I'll remember that for next year. Because we were recording on my birthday. Yeah. And you had said something about oh my god, it's gonna be your birthday. And I was like, Yes, please do not bring gifts. Oh, you did have that tirade about something with your birthday, but I think I tuned you out pretty early on. What? That doesn't sound like you. Reptile alive. Let's see. What should I have for dinner? What's going on behind the eyes? You watched a couple of movies. Oh, what do you see? I saw a movie called strays. Oh, no. That looks so bad. You watch that? Well, you'll be shocked to know that it was bad. Well, I mean, I guess I'm just pleasantly happy that the status quo of planet earth remains. Eric Are you familiar with this movie at all pick I've heard of this one Will Ferrell Jamie Foxx. It is a movie about dogs where they have manipulated the mouse of the dogs. And so Will Ferrell's dog has an owner who hates him and ends up dropping him off in the middle of town and and the dog wants to get back to his home and along the way he finds out that his his owner is not a very good person and all the shitty things he's done to him had been that so then the movie turns into and I shit you not. This happens at about the 18 minute mark there on these dogs are on a journey to get back to his honor so they can bite his dick off. That is what the entire movie is. Oh yeah, they mentioned that in the trailer. I remember he Yeah, and I really wanted to go attack and after you start to remember the trailer but I didn't remember that specific being in a trailer. It is really bad. It's really dumb and I just felt bad. I felt bad most See for Will Ferrell who has just had a real streak of shit movies lately. And he used to be the funniest guy on the planet. Yeah, but he was really fun in that Christmas movie last year. Oh, right. I still haven't seen that. Again, I'm gonna watch it this year. Okay, please do I think you I think it'll help. Ross one with Ryan Reynolds. Yes. Yeah, that's really good. Really fun. Really. This was really bad. I felt bad for Jamie Foxx. He's had a rough year anyway. But this cannot be helping no man. Well, I just talk about a game of spending a lot of time playing Sure. It's called vampire survivor, which came out with a two player mode, you try not to get voted off the island. Now, this is a very confusing title game, because you do not play as a vampire. I guess you are kind of trying to survive in it. It's sort of a top down almost like a 16 bit looking game. And when I was on my honeymoon, my husband played this a lot. I remember being like, what is this dumb game? Why is he playing it so much? And he was very, like, he spent six hours of the flight there playing this game. And I was like, why? What is this stupid thing. But now that it's got to player mode. I have played a lot of hours of this game. And it is really, really addictive. It's super fun. You kind of select from a series of different characters, they each come with a weapon or a protection thing, or whatever it is, you have no controls, other than moving left, right up, down and down. You can move around the screen. And your weapon just does its thing, whatever that thing is that you selected. And then as the game plays, you pick up more weapons and you have a 30 minute demarcation. And if you whatever happens, if you survive to 30 minutes, death shows up and kills you. Always, always. Just like life. Yep. But yes, there's more and more unlocks as you play more and it's created by this is all coming together. Now it's created by a guy who makes used to make Vegas gambling games is yearly addictive at some points there. For some reason, coins just start flying in the screen. And you're like, the more things you murder, the more coins to show up. And you're like, yeah, so of course it was raining down. There was like really like fun little sound effects that are happening all the time. And I'm like, God, dang it. It's a computer game. It's a video game. It's not a mobile game. He was playing it on a steam deck. But I've been playing it on Xbox. Wow. Yeah, it's it's fun. It's a very fun game. And it's nice because it's pocketed time. Like you can't really waste more than X amount of time on six hours on the fly. Well, you didn't have anything else going on. I think I was editing. So in fairness to him. He was just trying to use up the time. But I was shocked he was on board. And he didn't put it away for how simplistic it looked. But the Empire survive vampire survivor. Another one of the Kelly's me, but I enjoy films or TV shows as return the Wheel of Time has a new season out on Amazon. And I'm enjoying it a lot. It feels more like the books now, which I'm assuming of a lot of people didn't read the books are going to be a combination of bored and confused by the show at this point. Because we're talking about a they are doing a season a book. And the books are five 600 page books. They're giant, I think there's like 12 or 13 of them. So it's like appreciate that I'm going to finish the entire run. But it asked the reason I never made it past like book eight, even though I tried like three times read the whole series up to like book eight. They just introduced so many characters. And that's happening here too. It's like, oh, I don't know. Another one other one. But I'm really enjoying season two, I think it just feels more more like the Wheel of Time than even in the first one did. Didn't the author die in the middle of the series? Yes. Yeah. And his son took over I think somewhere around book nine or 10. I'll say you haven't read those. So you don't know if he's done a good job with it or not. So like that I never really read the dune after Frank Herbert's. It had to stop writing. Right? Yeah, I've heard good things about the finishing wheel of time because I've asked a lot of nerd asked friends about it. And they they said that the son did a good job. So there are a lot of notes left. Another movie, I watched his on peacock and it is called pinball. Oh, sure. And it's uh, I wasn't sure what I was gonna get into with this. I ended up loving it because of course it's based in the 70s New York in the 70s and I learned a lot of things like pinball was illegal in New York in the 70s. They had kind of equated it with games of chance. And so it was a gambling game. And so it's really the story of this guy who loved pinball so much. When he found out it was illegal there, he decided he was going to fight that and convince the state of New York, that it was a game of skill. And it's just one of those stories in the vein of like that Tetris movie that we all loved, or that that air jordan movie, what was that one called, I think was just there or something like that. So it's kind of that kind of thing with a little guy and a passion. And, obviously, spoiler, pinball machines are legal in New York. So he succeeded. But this story is, is told very well, because they are interviewing the guy who, who actually pulled it off, I guess, oh, you know what, I'm not sure if the interview is also fake. But it's told in kind of flashbacks during a documentary interview. There is a mustache that is troubling. And it's on the lead character, you know, so you're looking at constantly, it's so ridiculously huge, that it's hard to pay attention to anything else going on in any scene, also hard to believe that he could find a woman and keep a woman with this thing on his face. But at one point, they do mention, you know, that the mustache is ridiculous. So yeah, it's a great little movie. It's called pinball. I mean, it is a great little movie might be in my top 10 of films I've seen this year. Wow. That's awesome. Pimple was one of the films that we had considered for the Anderson Island Film Festival, which I was the co director of until I just retired this year. But this year, we got to watch a bunch of films to consider and one of those was close. Have you guys seen close? Okay, is it's a Danish movie, I believe film about two young boys who are best friends. And then they start attending school together and rapidly discovered that their friendship is not cool. Not seen as cool. So how their relationship started sort of starts to crumble, because of the way in which you know, the pressure from being around other kids. It was it was so heart wrenching, and powerful and moving. And this is why I don't watch dramas anymore. It's too much. I can't take it emotionally. It was just too much so it'll destroy you. But it's it's a great, great little film. So I'm really glad that even though I haven't been watching dramas that this film festival did force me to watch quite a few and that was that was one of the better ones among them. Well, close. Is that going to be available to stream? I believe it's free to stream on I might be on Hulu, I'd have to check but I believe you can stream it on something at this point. Okay. And you say that pinball was one of those movies did you watch that and I watched chunk chunks of it because I was running low on time. You know, I cannot give a good I cannot give a good assessment because they did not give me a good idea of what that film was. I remember watching the chunks and going and it seems fine. But I think I should have watched it for real. So looked cool. I should I should have died. Sounds like something I should watch. Now. It's fun. Does that mean you've wrapped up? This change little? Little and I can talk more about close if you don't want to give anything away? So much. FOMO 20, another 2022 film called hellhole. Okay, it was on Netflix. Yeah, this sounds familiar about a guy who goes into a monastery pretending he's joining it, but it's actually kind of trying to investigate it. And some shit is going down at this monastery. And I won't talk about what goes down but it's on Netflix. And this is well worth watching. It's from. Okay, I set myself up for this one. But I've got our TAs M. Kawasaki, who directed a film that I thought was kind of a fun one called nobody sleeps in the woods tonight about a Danish filmmaker just sort of a take on Poland I mean, that Polish filmmaker take on On a slasher film in the woods, fairly inventive and this is a not a slasher film very different style film but well well shot really well acted and very interesting horror elements okay so very worship Satan dark maybe they do or maybe they worship bunnies there's very weird stuff going on it's pretty cool it's fun but then on the list a whole finally a reason to go to that app again it's been a while there's been a couple that I've caught recently you know during this 100 days things that like that one it's like fuck this should have been on shutter yeah, there's another one I watch I'm gonna Why the hell was it this on shutter? This is exactly what I expect to find on shutter. Yeah, a foreign made weird as hell film but anymore. It's been like you having a horrible trauma with your family is kind of loosely horror based. We've got it. We've got that space for you. Elevated, elevated horror. That's right. Sure. I think I figured out that elevated horror just means that it's adults. It's older people having these supernatural problems. Alright guys, how about we take a little break and when we come back we're continuing sci fi September. Terminator two, future warrior brought back to save our world his mission to destroy the evil team 1000 in his mobile assault vehicle Terminator scours the streets for his deadly foe. Adios amigo. It's the ultimate confrontation is power on Terminator faces certain death, only to return stronger and more powerful as text no punch Terminator. esta la vista baby Terminator to be back. We have returned. Of course we designated this sci fi September so we are just picking sci fi films that we all wanted to talk about. Yeah, I'll go first if you guys don't mind. Go back. Put in 10 minutes on the buzzer. And I am talking about a movie from 1975 called roller ball. Jonathan e that's the name coming down. Champion plays you know how the game serves us. It has a definite social purpose. Nations have bankrupt GM no poverty no sickness man has accomplished but he'd always credit corporate society was an inevitable destiny. Good luck a centuries old better do as you're told John that's all I have to say. Don't be here when I come back. You won't be back Johnny. Bear is greater than the game itself. It's not a game a man is supposed to grow strong in Jonathan. Still don't understand why I came. Here the only person I ever wanted wanted you on my side. books you've ordered are classified and have been transcribed and summarized. Who summarize? zero of course, the Whoa brain does it answer you? It speaks I'd like I'd like some information about corporate decisions, how they're made and who makes them. They're afraid of your job. All the way to the top of the game was created to demonstrate the futility of individuals. Again, All right. Budget of $6 million could find no box office numbers for this rotten tomatoes critics give it 67% And the audience gives it 61%. This is directed by a little known director named Norman Jewison. Who has 44 credits, including Moonstruck Fiddler on the Roof, The Thomas Crown Affair In the Heat of the Night, Jesus Christ Superstar and every other film he's done you have also heard of written by William Harrison, who has five credits, including mountains of the moon. This is based on his own short story, rollerball murder. Its stars James Caan who is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors 137 credits including the Godfather, the godfather to freebie in the been Alien Nation misery, the dark backward elf 88 episodes of Las Vegas and my favorite Michael Mann's thief, also starring John Houseman, who has 50 credits, including the fog ghost story and Scrooge and Maude Adams who has 45 credits, including The Man with the Golden Gun, Octopussy Angel three, the final chapter, and Silent Night deadly night for all stars Moses gun Pamela Hensley and Sir Ralph Richardson. Have you guys seen rollerball? Oh, yeah, no, I have not. This is a really good movie. I this was the first time full viewing for me. Oh, really? I've seen this movie or parts of this movie, enough to have figured out what it was all about, but never sat down and watched the entire thing. All right, Vanessa, it is the far future. The year 2018. And there is peace among the planet. There is no war or famine. And there is one international sport that everyone on the planet loves roller ball. Roller Ball is a mix of roller derby and demolition derby with teams of men on roller skates and motorcycles. Armed with studded gloves and elbow pads is such an OLED ball that's a little bigger than a softball. It's transported from team member to team member who tried to stuff the ball in a little basket that corresponds to the team color. The other team is trying to stop them from accomplishing that. And they are allowed all kinds of violence to make this happen. In fact, more than one person has died during the game. Well, so we meet Jonathan e who is the team captain of the Houston rollerball team, and it's veteran star. He has become very popular worldwide. And at the height of his popularity he's brought in to meet Mr. Bartholomew, one of the owners of a corporation that sponsors the game, who tells Jonathan that they are retiring him and planning a big retirement party for him. So he set up for life with everything he could ever want. As you can imagine, Jonathan is a bit confused at this. He doesn't want to quit, and he's the best service of the sport. So why are they retiring him? Bartholomew tells him that's just the way of the game you're retiring. And Jonathan says the fuck I am now leaves. Oh no. So when Jonathan decides to dig into why they might want to retire him, he goes to one of these super libraries to do some research and finds that all of the books have been digitized and edited to suit the corporation's versions of past events. Here's what's interesting. His friend and former coach is Cletus who has risen up the ranks and become an executive at Energy Corp. And he tells Jonathan that he doesn't know why, but the executive committee is afraid of him and they want him out. Jonathan is completely oblivious as to why they want him gone and he's decides to keep playing the game and leading his team to victory after victory. But all of a sudden the rules of the game are being changed to make them more violent, and it becomes apparent that the rule changes in the hopes of someone injuring or killing Jonathan says he won't retire. When Jonathan digs even further, he ends up going to Geneva to a central supercomputer known as zero, which is the repository of all human knowledge. There he finds out that the computer memory has been corrupted by years and years of knowledge. In describing the zero computer the librarian says that the answers to questions have become so ambiguous that it almost seems to zero knows nothing at all. And it's it's kind of the idea behind the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy joke where the questions of the vastness of the universe are boiled down to the most generic answer, which is 42. Thank you. All right. What turns out to be going on is that the creation of the game was initially needed to keep the general public occupied. So they couldn't see that over the years, all of their freedoms have been taken away from them. But with Jonathan becoming so popular around the world, the corporations are afraid that he might inspire the public to also start looking at themselves as individuals. And as we know from very recent history that cannot be allowed. Jonathan decides he's going to play in the final match which devolves into a cage match where there is no time limit on the game and only one person can survive. Will Jonathan triumph while the audience all around him begins to revolt against the corporations on live TV? Will we see that everyone is watching the game all over the world and the chant of Jonathan, John? Jonathan is also being picked up all over the world? Or will the corporation's winning crush individuality continuing the soft fascism that the US had been living under for the past 20 years? Wait, that's the real world never mind. At first, I thought this movie was a bit naive, in that all the corporations were afraid of was the people regaining some kind of semblance of individuality. But towards the end, when you're seeing how they've manipulated the fans into absolutely hating the other person's team so that they never rise up against the corporation's, it started to feel very prescient and current. It's no secret that I think that politicians are all the same across the board. And the only reason we keep voting for our team is because they've got us at each other's throats instead of standing up and going, Wait a second. We don't like you guys. I ended up just absolutely loving this, and James Caan is, I'm just going to search out every every movie does from now on. I'm so glad you liked this, but this is probably in my top five of all time films. Why fucking love this movie? It's good. I've got some really fun trivia about it. The game of rollerball was so realistic that the cast extras and stump personnel played it between takes on the set. So good. At the time of the film's release, Howard Cosell interviewed Norman Jewison. And James Caan on ABC Wide World of Sports, showing clips from the film and with the two of them explaining the rules of the game. audiences who saw the film so love the action of the game that Jewson was contacted multiple times by promoters requesting that the rights to the game be sold, so that real roller ball leagues might be formed. Jewson, of course, was outrage, as the entire point of the movie was to show the sickness and insanity of contact sports and their allure. I'm not sure he understood exactly what movie he was making. Many of the extras in the film received an additional wage in order to cut their fashionably long hair so that the look of the film would not be tied to the era in which it was made. Alright. exterior shots of the Energy Corporation building in the film are actually of the corporate headquarters of car manufacturer BMW in Munich, West Germany. exterior shots of the bowl shaped library building are of the old BMW Museum. It is located only a few steps to the left of the headquarters entrance. Oh, I've been there. And then this is the coolest part recognizing their contribution to the film's many crucial action sequences. This film was the first major Hollywood production to give screen credit to its stunt performers. Oh, hey, yeah. That's so cool. That took a long time. Yeah. Boy, this was a neat movie. I really, really enjoyed it. And I beat my time again. Well, also available everywhere over the place, Ryan. And I think it's maybe it's on shatter. I don't know. But yeah, it's definitely a well available, very available. I can't believe it took me this long to sit down and watch the whole thing. I am so excited to check this out. That sounds like such a fun watch. And James Caan is just so watchable. I'm gonna vote this guy up, because like, obviously, he sounds super familiar. But I know as soon as I see his face, I'll be like, That guy. I'm turning off my buzzer. That was my turn. And I'm putting it back on 10 minutes for you, Vanessa. Excellent. Well, this is another great opportunity for me to delve into a film I had not gotten around to yet. The Philadelphia Experiment from 1984. It was October 1943. The United States government authorized an experiment that would render it ships undetectable by radar. The experiment took place on a ship in Philadelphia harbor. Generators activated for 41 years the government denied it ever happened. I don't believe this. Be Eldridge has vanished. Of course she has. She's right are invisible. No, sir. She's really vanished. But one ship did disappear. And two of the crew suddenly find themselves in the present. Maybe all this isn't real. They tell me this my imagination. You think the Navy knows they're doing? You saw the guys on the boat. This wasn't supposed to happen. And Michael Perrey somehow we got moved in time. This now this time it's not ours 1943 was yesterday for me Lindsay Yellen. What sort of experiment is it? Is it some kind of secret thing is that it? Well, that story told the duck's back you know about time in 1943 Do you believe it? I believe that you believe it. And bubbly Chico well they can't go through the Philadelphia Experiment they opened a hole in time and it stayed open good god there it is now the government needs the one man who can stop the experiment I keep getting negative pressure it keeps going down it's impossible. It's pulling the air and pulling everything in now we can't stop it. But I believe that you can he's lying David I gotta go. Remember communication ceases when you enter the vortex we won't be able to help you Philadelphia Experiment Nice. Oh, I watched it on TV with ads. Because that's the kind of person I am. Don't do that. It's not the best quality. This has 50% from critics and 40%. From audience I'm Brian tomato budget of 9 million box office of eight point 1,000,003rd or executive produced by John Carpenter directed by Stewart raffle. 25 credits including ice pirates maketh me mannequin on the move Tammy and T Rex writers a bunch of three different dudes, only one of which really would have heard of William Gray 21 credits who did be smashed her Robocop dark shadows, the hitchhiker In the Heat of the Night and Black Moon Rising, starring Michael pear, who has 196 credits to his name, including gone Hope Floats The Lincoln Lawyer, Eddie and the cruisers, streets and fire Village of the Damned. And also he did a lot of D level movies recently in 2022. He was in 22 films alone. Wow. Yeah. This guy is working in later in life. Nancy Allen 39 credits. You would know her as Annie Lewis from Robocop. She's also in Cary as Chris Hogan sin, Eric Christmas 134 credits including Porky's, Harold and Maude moss hunt, and drama distrain and 54 episodes of Days of Our Lives. Yeah, this film, plot 19. And then at 43 US Navy has a ship called the USS Eldridge docked in Philadelphia dock James Longstreet and his team are conducting a series of experiments, hence the name to try and render the ship invisible to radar. So the Nazis can't find them. David, her grin and his friend Jim Parker, serve aboard the ship and know that they are off on a dangerous mission. Jim's wife is super pregnant. Well, she's actually not at all super pregnant. He keeps rubbing her belly and being like watch after Jr. for me. And it's like there's no stomach there. JR is going a long way to go. I'm shocked. You know, it's a junior. And David is just one of the sort of womanizer rapscallion he's just living his best life. The day arrives Jim kisses his pregnant, pregnant wife goodbye. And David and him get a board but the experiment of course goes terribly wrong. People are getting severely burned and electrocuted. The ship is phasing in and out of reality. It does work they are off the radar but they're also not seen by the naked eye. They try ready to jump in and shut down the generator and the power to stop the experiment and along the way, but they get shocked. So both Jim and David, do the only thing they can and they jump overboard. When they jump over the board, they not only go through the water, they go through a wormhole, and they arrive in the year 1984. They flee the sights, as there's a giant, weird moving machine in front of them, which is a helicopter. And they end up at a diner where they are very confused by everything they see, including like, the Coke can, which is way too late for what it should be. And the prices of eggs, which are way too expensive. Somehow, there's this weird electrical storm and damage that's sort of happening everywhere they go. And maybe it's to do with where they landed, but maybe it's to do with them, they end up destroying half the stuff in the cafe, and a guy is chasing them out with a gun. So they take a hostage Allison, who's just outside at a gas station. And they asked her to drive them away because they cannot figure out how to use this car because there's no clutch. So the rest of the film follows. As Jim starts to phase in and out of reality, becoming sort of invisible, like the other sailors on the ship, while David is trying to figure out what happened to them where they are. And of course, he and Alison are slowly falling in love. And eventually she finally believes his story when she sees old timey pictures of him at his father's shop. In the meantime, Doc long street did the experiment again, for some reason that's never really explains in 1984, but this time on an entire town. And now the town and the ship ship are trapped in this weird wormhole between realities and it's threatening the very nature of the universe. And so it's down to David to solve the entire situation as storms worsen on Earth. So this film, Nancy Allen is pretty weak. She's pretty weak sauce. Oh, no, I don't think she's getting this at all. She does have a fun sweater in the last scene. And that was pretty great. So I focused on that silver lining. The main leads are a bit hiddenness there are moments where they're, they're fun. There's moments where they're irritating. David didn't really go on to do much else, which maybe that's too bad. Because I feel like if it had been a slightly stronger script, instead of this more one dimensional character you might have, I don't know, I feel like he could have shined a little bit better. Scripts just generally it just feels very thrown together. It's kind of dull in quite a few places. That's a really fun premise. But there's a lot of like Back to the Future vibes, but not nearly as good. Also, there's this amazing moment where like, he finds out his dad is dead in 1984. And he's just so upset and you're like, Dude, it's 34 Times has passed I'm why would why is this surprising information and he's like crying you're like, wow, okay. Why does he there's there's an ending that I don't fully, fully buy. But that's okay. Trivia back in 1980 AGCO embassy pictures as John Carpenter who served as executive producer on the film to write and direct the film after the successes of Halloween and the fog, however, carpenter showed them Escape from New York, which he'd written years earlier and they did that instead. Although John Carpenter is listed as executive producer of the film, he and the director never met in person. And he actually did write the original draft. He called it a great shaggy dog story, absolute crap. But what a great story while I was writing it, I couldn't figure out the third act a friend suggested the revenge of the crew against the people who put them there, but I thought that was too much like the fog. So he does not have a writing credit on this. Stewart raffle became a says by the time he became involved in the film, the script had been rewritten nine times. He agreed to do the film subject to having the final rewrite which he thought the previous draft was terrible. The studio agreed to the additions and he rewrote it in only three weeks up until the film being coming out at the time are being shot at the time of its release. It had the fastest theatrical the video window and film history, opened in August and was released on video in late October. The film was widely believed to be based on real life and ill fated experiment with invisibility and forcefields in the 1940s. However, to the best of any factual knowledge, no such experiment ever occurred, and the story was the work of an eccentric loner, Carl Allen who sent notes on the experiment, quote unquote, to the government in the 1950s, and whose story was later leaked, despite the lack of any factual evidence, the story has become an urban legend and a favorite conspiracy theory of conspiracy theorists who point to the lack of evidence as proof has been covered up. That's how it works. How it be. So, yeah, that's Philadelphia Experiment. I remember kind of liking this movie and I thought for some reason that John Carpenter was more heavily involved. He's barely he's really just his name. Wow. I could have helped maybe it might have I mean, there's some character moments here and there that I'm like, maybe that was still remaining from his writing, but you can definitely tell in the directing style that this is not a carpenter joy. Like there's it's a lot of fast, furious, wishing it had more of that back to the future vibe to it. It's got just I mean, just from your description. It's got a junk carpenter feel to it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but it's when you watch the tone and the structure and the pacing, it's kind of all over the place. It's so fatty and just I don't know it languishes. It really loves that 1940s nostalgia, but without the budget for it. So you're like Wow, you sure wish you were had World War Two props, realistic Navy uniforms and some cars but aside from that, you're like, why are you dancing in a hall that's clearly painted with palm trees and this could be anywhere and there's a lot of 1940s style that looks like 1980s style. So it just feels like there's some something missing there's some kind of magic missing from this movie? This was when I remember kind of feeling like would be a good double feature with the final countdown. Yeah, sure. Yeah. We had another week of sci fi September I might temporarily two weeks I'm turning your buzzer off an SMS job thanks and then I'm putting 10 on it for you Eric already this one we're going back to 1966 the movie called seconds yes listen very carefully I've been assigned to go over the circumstances of your death I have a gentleman here who wishes to leave the building it easier to go forward when you know you can't go back begin again all new all different directions a masterpiece ultimately will be called Taste the creator and then render up our last account that happens to all of us so it never was a struggle on the soul of a good man. It wasn't hard. Soon as these people leave, I'm going to attack you by Mr. Wilson. Your dirty old man Rotten Tomatoes give this 79 Critics 87 Crowd budget of 2.5 million box office 1.7. This was directed by John Frankenheimer right heard him. Director of Ronin that one Island of Dr. Moreau prophecy, the Manchurian Candidate and the television or the school series you are there. My favorite? Written by Lewis John Carlino, who wrote the mechanic that great Santini I never promised you a rose garden, where have all the people gone? And the sailor who fell from grace with the sea. He likes them long titles, based on a novel by David le starring Rock Hudson. You might know from Station Zebra, strange bedfellows giant all that heaven allows or 76 other films. Frank Campanelli overboard. Pretty Woman one of severance overboard when a severance crazy releases. I knew in part to the return of will Kane. That's an awkward dialogue. 157 credits for this guy. John Randolph who's in You've Got Mail earthquake, Serpico Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and escape from the Planet of the Apes with a hunt. Turn at three credits. And finally, Francis Reed who is in the Andromeda Strain, Alfred Hitchcock our days of our lives, apparently, from 1965 to 2007, and peering in 3384 episodes. Wow. She retired from the show at 92. As you do, this is a very experimental film right from the beginning, you can tell it the way it's shot, with distorted eyes and face close ups. out of focus stuff odd, right in your face camera angles. In the beginning, a man hands another man a small piece of paper with an address. And later that night, he gets a call from you're assuming maybe the same man telling that it is his dead friend. And he needs to go to this that address. He was handed tomorrow, past noon and say your name is Wilson. So he Amazon has, of course, but he does go eventually shows up at the address and a nice scene where he's sitting there in his boring job being a banker turning somebody down for a loan, dictating the message and constantly walking, watching the clock on Oh, should I do this? Should I do this? And he goes, Yeah, I'm gonna do this. And he shows up at that address. And the guy's like that. Sorry, this is the wrong one. Here's the new address. Because that new address that guy walks up to him goes you're Wilson? Yes. Like yeah, put him in the back of his van and take him to another location. All done really well, I thought I am. So into this movie already. appears to get drugged by something. And he's hallucinates a really weird dream that almost looks like a German impressionist silent film level backdrops and stuff. And it sounds like he's going to have his death faked. He doesn't know this is going to happen. But he's been set up by his friend to have this done for him. Or to him, depending on how you want to look at it. He's of an age, shall we say? Or he's kind of looking in the rearview mirror of his life wondering, do I really want to continue where my life is going? So he decides to do it? Richard Anderson, is his surgeon Goldman? That's right. appearing again in a film. He can rebuild him, he can make him better than he used to be. He can turn him from John Randolph into rockets. And the man is good. So he wakes up and now he's got the face. That's and and he's very not sure what he does, like, well, your new job is you're a professional painter, we're going to send you to remember if they said exactly, but someplace like the south of France or Greece, and you're going to live as this painter were supplying. And here's your beginning paintings that have already been done for you, you just need to learn like this. Wow. And it's just like, Oh, my God, so wild. And there he goes. They're very hesitant at first, but he's got a, like a butler, a system guy who's, who's walking him through what his new life might be like, and what he has to do. introducing him to other people in his apartment. He gets a new girlfriend and they go to this wild weird party that was initially cut from the film is as the 1966 film with fully naked people running around, but it is an amazing scene for the oddity of his character going from fighting against his new world and fighting against it to almost by the end of the scene, he's turned around or it's like, okay, maybe I can do this. And so that's the, the basis of the rest of the film is his him figuring out can I really do this? What if I want out? What happens? What is he going to do? This is a dark, twisted, hard to watch film in a lot of ways. And it's amazing. I felt like after watching this film was sort of like the swimmer where I'm like, how the hell have I never seen this film? I've never even really heard about it. Yeah, I haven't either. And it is phenomenal. Initially, Frankenheimer did not want to cast rockets, and because he thought he was kind of a lightweight he wanted Laurence Olivier or Kirk Douglas. And apparently, Hudson's agent convinced him no, he can do this. And Frank now of course, later on can he was right. He was perfect for this role. And he is, this is one of his best films, acting wise, it is all over the place. It's sort of like Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys where he's changing, he's lost and what's going on in the world? He's trying to figure out what it is. And just like that movie, wherever rock is, you're like, going on that journey with him where you're really confused or Oh, no, maybe I'm okay with this. It's an incredible film in order to shoot in Grand Central Facing without anybody noticing Franken hire Heimer hired a male model and a Playboy bunny to make out on the stairs. And for her to get into a bikini. So everybody watching that they shot. Let's see they wanted to show good. That's so good for plastic surgery scenes were real. The cameraman fainted during the shooting of those scenes so Frankenheimer took over and shot most of that footage. Wow. That's a little uncomfortable. Paramount Pictures I mentioned that that scene that they had cut was seven minutes long, but it's uh, they're crushing grapes. And it's the big ol party of drinking wine and making crushed grapes. And everybody who gets into the grape Crusher takes off all their clothes, and there's not a lot of nudity. There's just a lot of naked people. The Cannes Film Festival was actively hostile against this film. The director refused to leave Monte Carlo and be interviewed by anybody. They sent rockets and who was could not answer most of the critical questions because he didn't because they were being so hostile towards him. Because it's a very confrontational film. It is very in your face. It is like are you worth living your life is your life what you want it to be? What would you do if you change? It's just very, very interesting. ANDREW JOHNSTON time out in New York Road seconds is easily one of the most subversive films ever to come out of Hollywood events exposes the folly of selfishly abandoning one's commitments. It also makes a compassionate case for following one's heart and rejecting conformity. Chilling portrayal of a well meaning guy stuck in a Kafka s nightmare, is unlike anything else Hudson has done. And it won, or got nominated for an Oscar for Best black and white film for James Wong Howe, in one of his 142 films that he shot, so damn good. It's funny. This is one of those films where if you during the criterion sales, if you filter by science fiction, it's one that pops up and I've had it in my cart so many times. Oh, yeah. And thought like, oh, maybe but that I just didn't know enough about it. So never pulled the trigger. But this sounds incredible. I'll be buying this on the next criterion half off sale, without a doubt. Does it get two copies? Well, that is not half off? Well, no, I'll give you the other half the money, you know, I'm lost. What is a To what end? Have they given him this second chance at life? There is a there's a conglomerate business that becomes involved in changing the people's lives. And there's the evil, there's kind of an evil scientist who talks closer to the end about why he's doing what he's doing and what's involved in the, the remaking these people's lives, almost Brazil level, some of the weird scenes of when he decides, I don't think I want to do this anymore. And what happens is, it's really dark. It's really good. So you found this on prime or I just Googled, because, you know, I've sitting there going, well, maybe I can work this into my 100 days, you know, like a horror sci fi. So I googled horror, sci fi and that showed up and certainly could qualify, straddling that line. Putting it on the list. Okay, well, so we blasted right through sci fi September, Vanessa. I'm sorry. That's all right. But we're going to continue themed month coming up here. Yeah, and there's sci fi allowed in this theme. Because we are going to make October a month of the October country. I found out that all episodes of Ray Bradbury theater are available on to be or a couple of places Yeah, to be one of them. And I suggested to you guys, how about we each for all four weeks Pick an episode. There's six seasons worth of episodes to choose from there. It started out on like HBO, and then I think it by the end was on a Canadian television show or anything but I'm a big, big fan of Ray Bradbury. And I wanted to somehow incorporate watching those episodes again into this show. Next. That's gonna be such a fun. Yeah, such a fun idea. I'm stoked to jump in. Yeah. And I'm actually I actually pulled out my old copy of the October country, which a lot of the stories in that show are in. So I'm going to be reading along every day. We're watching the episode. exactly correct. So that's what we are doing starting next week. for four or four episodes, you'll get four times 312. Wait, yes. That was a reason to me. I was like, I don't know. For reason we don't do a math podcast so suspiciously like math. Yes. I thought I was the weakest person on planet Earth with math but here we are you met me? Well, this is the part then where we say thank you to everybody who's liking and sharing the posts who is participating the value for value model, which is if he gets some value out of this, turn it back into value, give it back, who's on the strange aeons radio talk page on Facebook, which is getting a lot of traffic and I really enjoy that. And who is leaving? See messages on the strange aeons radio hotline, which is 253-237-4266 Okay, guys, that's the end of the episode. We're coming back in seven short days and we're talking Ray Bradbury. Thank you. So you see you next Thursday. Transportation and 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 app. Sit set. Looks cool. I should I shouldn't die. It sounds like something I should watch now.