BONUS The Friday Show - Cannon Event
Guest:they made the missing in action movies they were making two at once they were like made the first one and they were making the sequel and the first one was so bad that they but the second one was coming out pretty good so they just decided flip them that's great i love that released the second one first the first one second no explanation
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Brandon McDonald.
Marc:I've been hearing your voice a lot this week, my friend.
Guest:How are you hearing my voice a lot?
Marc:I've been listening to your four hours of Total Recall talk.
Guest:Oh, four and a half hours total, I think.
Marc:I have not gotten nearly through it, but I'm working my way through it.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The second part of my Cinefiles episode has been posted with the remainder of Total Recall.
Guest:Yeah, it clocked in at two and a half hours.
Guest:And when it was done, I asked the host, Steve Morris, I said, are you going to cut this down?
Guest:And he was like, well, normally when we go over two hours, we move into a second part, but we already did that with you.
Guest:So...
Guest:I don't think we're going to move into three parts for Total Recall.
Guest:But they did leave it as a full two and a half hour second part.
Guest:Yeah, I was real talkative on it.
Guest:So I probably extended their normal runtime.
Guest:I don't think they minded.
Marc:It was really fun.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:It was a lot of fun.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was fun, as well as the bonus episodes today, or this week, I should say.
Marc:I enjoyed Mark's Chipotle story.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, you get why he didn't want to tell, like, you could hear he lost his nerve.
Marc:Yes, but it made me realize that I don't know if he knows, and I also don't know if you know, that there is a Chipotle TikTok thing going.
Guest:Oh, I think I know about this.
Guest:Is this that they tell you if you film people while they're doing your Chipotle, they'll put extra in because they don't want to be posted as skimping?
Guest:Correct.
Guest:Yeah, I saw a story about it.
Marc:So I don't know if Mark knows about this, but it seems like from the reaction of the pregnant worker at Chipotle who just quit on the spot there, that maybe that was happening to her with the Lady Asma Chickens.
Guest:Yeah, hey, by the way, anyone listening who does that, you're an asshole.
Guest:Don't film service workers, you fucking idiots.
Guest:Let these people do their jobs.
Marc:Yes, it's not fun.
Marc:No.
Marc:But you know what is fun?
Marc:Is this news story that you probably know...
Marc:Because I know you and you and I talk.
Marc:But I just want to give you the headline from QueerTea.com.
Marc:As they said, the Mets turned gay and invited Grimace to throw out the first pitch.
Marc:Now they can't stop winning.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, obviously I know this.
Guest:I was just at the Mets-Yankees game the other day.
Guest:I am very much enjoying the Mets' current June winning streak and winning record in the month of June.
Guest:And I will say, you know, my thing for the last several months that I have, like, you know, banned social media from my life and whatnot—
Guest:I had to go and, you know, go into my settings and undo the block that I have on Twitter because there was just so much good Mets Grimace content.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I had to.
Guest:It was prompted by you, I will say.
Guest:You're just sending me enough stuff that I was like, I got to watch this.
Guest:But then once also the Mets Yankees stuff starts going down.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I want to see like sad Yankee fans.
Guest:So I like go seeking that stuff out too.
Guest:And, and, and it was just, it's been the last couple of days.
Guest:I've been very much enjoying a very specifically curated feed for myself.
Guest:of baseball content and in this case specifically grimace and the gay mets uh this all happened in june right because it's pride month the mets have a you know full rainbow logo for the the month of june and they are uh they're having pride nights on several fridays in june and uh i think you know people when baseball is like the most superstitious of all sports right i think we can agree on that and
Guest:I think because it's old timey and it goes back a while, but also it's long, right?
Guest:It's a long season.
Guest:And even the best teams then all of a sudden have a dry spell, right?
Guest:You have a couple game losing streak.
Guest:There's no team that wins 140 games out of your 160, right?
Guest:Everybody, even the very best team wins 100, 110.
Guest:Well, that's still 35, 40 losses, right?
Guest:That's a lot to lose.
Guest:That's a lot of games.
Guest:If you think about like a football team loses two games and they're like, whew, that was a lot.
Guest:It was close.
Guest:We lost those two.
Guest:We almost got knocked out of the division lead.
Guest:But you can lose 40 games and still be the top baseball team, right?
Guest:And so I think because of those little swings and the momentum that goes from playing such a long season, people develop these talisman, you know, this like...
Guest:harbingers of good and bad luck right what caused it oh we haven't been good since this happened that's always bullshit or whatever but it is very fun when people assign a good talisman to a winning streak or a very like we've had him a couple of times right remember that time a parakeet flew on the on the on the netting at city field and
Guest:And we went on a winning streak.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Came like the rally parakeet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think before we were born, there was the black cat that went on.
Marc:Oh, that's the Cubs curse.
Marc:Against the Cubs.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:It's part of what makes baseball fun, frankly.
Guest:It's like why, you know, you still root for it.
Guest:You still enjoy it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's like the thing for me.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And like, look, for people that don't know, I'm just going to give them some backstory.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The Mets invited Grimace, the McDonald's second tier mascot and apparently gay icon to throw out the first.
Marc:Wait, is he?
Marc:What?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So I'll talk more about that in a second.
Marc:So they invited him to throw out the first pitch on June 12th and they have been on fire.
Marc:They are 11 and two since Grimace threw out the first pitch.
Marc:And in the all month of June, it's like 14 and 6 or something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, so the Mets, we call them the gay Mets because on Twitter, the Mets turned their image, their logo of the Mets and the city, their Twitter icon, into the logo of the progress flag color.
Marc:So it's like the rainbow color.
Marc:And they also declared that baseball is for everyone.
Marc:And since then, the gay Mets are 15-4 since doing that.
Marc:So it's like, a lot of stuff's going on here, okay?
Guest:Has this, like, the, you know, this site you're reading is Queerty, right?
Guest:Had they, like, embraced the Mets too?
Guest:Is this, like, are they co-opting it as part of Pride Month?
Marc:Yeah, they're into it.
Marc:They are.
Marc:And can I just say, we the Mets, and I say we, or the gay Mets, we beat the straight Yankees.
Marc:And I say they're the straight Yankees because the Yankees, for one whole day...
Marc:turned their icon into a rainbow, and then the next day- And then went back.
Marc:Went back, and they have been in free fall since that happened, by the way.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Yeah, so it's quite good.
Guest:Well, that's that whole corporate pride-washing thing, right?
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:It's like the one day where it's, oh yeah, that's fine, and then they disavow Bud Light or whatever whenever the next day happens.
Marc:Well, that's actually part, you know, the Bud Light thing is actually part of the whole Grimace thing.
Marc:Because apparently, so Grimace was supposed to throw out the first pitch for the Mets last year.
Marc:But it didn't happen.
Marc:And the reason why it was supposed to happen last year is because McDonald's had this big Grimace month.
Marc:Yes, it was his birthday.
Guest:The Grimace shake came out or something like that.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:But it's his birthday.
Marc:It was his 52nd birthday, Brendan.
Marc:Why would you celebrate that?
Marc:You wouldn't.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But apparently, the McDonald's was apparently going to announce, and allegedly, I should say, that they were going to announce that Grimace was transgender.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:And they had all the marketing going.
Marc:And then Bud Light got backlash for their ad with Dylan Mulvaney in April of 2023.
Marc:And McDonald's was kind of caught flat footed.
Marc:They didn't want to be weighed into the culture war.
Marc:Okay, but I have a question.
Guest:What is Grimace transitioning from or to?
Guest:Well, he's a taste bud, so I don't really know.
Guest:I mean, like, I don't know how you can be trans when there's no ability for movement one direction or another.
Guest:There's a spectrum, Brendan.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I guess, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Who am I to say?
Guest:I'm nothing but a cis white hetero male, so I don't have any stake in this.
Guest:But I do think a little shady for McDonald's to declare they're trans.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What?
Guest:They're a taste bud.
Guest:Can you explain more?
Marc:I would understand if the Hamburglar came out as trans.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:By the way, McDonald's has a lot of mascots, like second tier mascots.
Guest:It's almost like- That's the McDonaldland friends.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's like the super friends of McDonald's.
Marc:There's so many things going on.
Marc:I think there's like Fry Guys, like little Fry Guys.
Marc:Fry Guys, yeah.
Guest:They look like the guys from Pac-Man, obviously.
Guest:No, the weirdest thing was that he has that McDonald friend Birdie, right?
Guest:Birdie was like a walking around bird with curly pigtails.
Guest:But then they also have the little chicken McNuggets.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I don't know that.
Guest:But Birdie is a bird.
Guest:Like an anthropomorphized bird.
Guest:The chicken McNuggets are her as food.
Guest:And they all hang out together.
Guest:That's just the weirdest shit I've ever seen.
Guest:It's a before and after.
Guest:yeah yeah but like wouldn't that get like terrify you every time you walked in the room like you're like hey it's my friend ronald and grimace and oh god it's me i'm caught up they didn't think that far they just wanted mascots for everything apparently no instead this one character has to go through fucking seven every time she hangs out with her friends
Marc:Well, can I tell you, Brendan, the reason why I bring up Grimace and the Gay Mets, and it's the reason why I am never going to be leaving Twitter, because the memes are superb, Brendan.
Marc:There's Rosie the Riveter poster with Grimace wearing a Mets hat saying we can do it.
Marc:There's video of Edwin Diaz coming out of the bullpen to his walkout music Narcos.
Marc:But instead of Diaz, it's a superimposed Grimace.
Marc:That's like one of my favorites.
Marc:things in the whole world uh mcdonald's twitter like went full grimace and full mets like they are in they're constantly cheering for uh grimace and the mets and uh honestly there there's so many more that that there's like the pope where the pope is like cut into four slices and he's holding up something and in what he's holding up is grimace with the mets hat uh it's it's all just fun
Guest:What I would point out is that you have one of these memes as your current Zoom background that I'm looking at right now.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You have Grimace with some shades on and a Grimace shake.
Guest:Again, drinking his own goo.
Guest:These fuckers.
Guest:These are some sick puppies.
Guest:It's like Pizza the Hut.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's getting in, what is that, a Lambo?
Guest:It's like a purple Lamborghini, I think.
Marc:It almost looks like a DeLorean.
Marc:A DeLorean, but the doors are sideways.
Marc:Yeah, so I don't know what it is, but it is.
Guest:I think we got a purple Lambo with a Grimace air freshener hanging from the mirror there.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So yeah, I'm all Grimace around here.
Marc:But that's what I love about it.
Marc:And that's what I love about baseball.
Marc:That's the reason why I like it, is because it's fun.
Marc:It is fun.
Marc:hilarious and it's fun and it's not a bunch of rules not and look i'm sorry for my yankee fan people but the yankees are just a bunch of rule people like yeah yeah no no facial hair no no names on the jerseys just the worst your think about being i mean you were there you were at city field did you know who was playing like i don't know second base for them you had to like look up the number in the program like what
Guest:Well, no, I didn't have to do any of that because Citi Field has the most gigantic jumbo screen in any ballpark in America.
Guest:So I just looked at that.
Guest:But your point is taken.
Guest:You know what the craziest thing is, too?
Guest:I remember a while ago when some player was, maybe it was like Johnny Damon, when he was going to the Yankees and he was famous for having this big, bushy, Neanderthal beard, right?
Guest:And it's longish hair, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and he went to the Yankees, had to cut his hair and shave his face.
Guest:And it was just like a given.
Guest:Everyone was like, oh, well, he's going to have to shave and this and that.
Guest:And I remember at that point, I was like, man, what are the origins of this?
Guest:It must be something like... Again, I thought it was superstition, right?
Guest:It must go back to like Babe Ruth told everybody, don't have long hair or something.
Guest:Shave your face.
Guest:And they went on a winning streak.
Guest:It was just a crazy ass George Steinbrenner thing because he didn't like Thurman Munson's long hair and sideburns.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It does not go any further back than like 1977.
Guest:That's stupid.
Guest:Hey guys, stop.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Just like the craziest thing of like, oh, it was a tradition.
Guest:Oh, a tradition from how long ago?
Guest:2005.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, this is recent history.
Marc:Change that shit.
Marc:Yeah, that's just silly, honestly.
Marc:So yeah, so the gay Mets with Grimace, I'm enjoying it.
Marc:I'm actually going to be going on today, on Friday, to- What are you talking about, I'm going to be going?
Marc:Where?
Marc:We're going.
Marc:We're going to the Mets.
Marc:We are going.
Marc:It's a pride night.
Marc:I'm very excited to be there.
Marc:Hopefully I can fit into my, I actually have a gay pride Mets shirt.
Marc:So hopefully I won't embarrass you and have it be three sizes too small.
Marc:Why would that be embarrassing?
Guest:You're talking about hilarious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's nothing funnier than a person.
Guest:It's like one of the easiest jokes ever.
Guest:Wear a shirt two sizes too small.
Marc:Fair enough.
Marc:Well, prepare to laugh, my friend.
Guest:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Guest:I was like I said, I was there the other night.
Guest:It was kind of, you know, an electric atmosphere felt kind of like playoffy.
Guest:And I had a very good time.
Marc:They got the juice.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:They do.
Marc:They have this juice.
Marc:You know what else I love?
Marc:I mean, first of all, Jewel.
Marc:Can we just say Jewel?
Marc:Jewel's pretty cool.
Marc:She is a high flyer, man.
Marc:And also, congrats.
Marc:Thank you for having an episode where it was impossible to passively listen to.
Marc:There were times where I'm just like, wait, what did she just say?
Marc:And I had to repeat, this happened like 10 times.
Marc:She can go.
Guest:Well, I got to say, this is one of those examples.
Guest:I've brought this up before.
Guest:And it was explicitly clear to me in this one that Jewel seems like the kind of person who has a very good experience doing this.
Guest:She's probably been telling some version of her story for 30 years.
Guest:It's not boring.
Guest:It's not going to come off as uninteresting.
Guest:But she has a way to do it.
Guest:And it's always one of those things where I'm very happy we don't have a show and Mark is not a host who just lets people do that from start to finish, like tell their story like it's an audiobook.
Guest:I was so happy with how he was getting in there early on in the talk because it would force her to redirect to a different party.
Guest:It didn't throw her off her game.
Guest:Sometimes he knows a person can handle...
Guest:a redirect, and he will throw it at them.
Guest:And I said it to him while I was editing.
Guest:I was like, this was so good how you were anticipating her.
Guest:We call this talking your book.
Guest:And that doesn't come from this show.
Guest:It comes from when I used to work in news.
Guest:You'd have somebody on, and it's a news segment, right?
Guest:So you're not really bringing them on to promote anything.
Guest:But anybody who's coming on, a lot of times you have them on because you're like, oh, and right now let's turn for analysis of this to the author of, you know, whatever.
Guest:It's like the Helsinki Syndrome guy in Die Hard, right?
Guest:It's still so weird that they call it Helsinki Syndrome.
Guest:I don't understand.
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:That's Helsinki Sweden.
Yeah.
Guest:Such a great thing that they just take a minute of the movie to have this character you never see be a goof.
Guest:Anyway, Die Hard's awesome.
Guest:We'll talk about that movie some other time.
Guest:But yes, so you have a guest on.
Guest:They're talking about, you know, whatever you've booked them to talk about.
Guest:And you put up a little chyron, author of whatever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And sometimes what winds up happening is that person starts getting off of what you booked them to talk about.
Guest:And they're like on their existing script.
Guest:And it's like a very standard thing to get in the anchor's ear and be like, they're talking their book, get them off of it.
Huh.
Guest:Or like, you know, we'll say it to each other in the control room.
Guest:Oh, there's somebody talking their book here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, can we get a different, you know, clip ready so that we can move them on to something else next?
Guest:You know, that kind of thing.
Guest:So I've said to Mark many times, let's not have people talk their book.
Guest:And we, you know, generally have strategies for that.
Guest:And Mark has become very good at it, you know.
Guest:And...
Guest:I think he gets more aggressive about it when he can tell the person's energy will match his right and will allow it to move on from something.
Guest:And so that is totally what he did at the beginning of this.
Guest:And she was so good.
Guest:at answering what he asked she didn't get back on her thing she would respond to what he was saying and it would be a whole nother route of you know her story like i that that was the impressive part of that conversation to me yeah for sure like there were some jaw-dropping moments of it where guys would push her down push her up against the wall to measure her esophagus like
Marc:what yeah yeah but you know and like staring at the light bulb like there was some wild stuff and alaska is a weird place huh like you know i know mark uh his set um his recent set has a has a piece about alaska uh jewel jewel's grandmother walked 250 miles with the guy i mean alaska is like the wild west like the last frontier that we have apparently
Guest:I mean, I did say to Mark when it was over, it was like, I think a lot of this is kind of bullshitty.
Guest:Like, it seems like it's part of her lore at this point.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But it didn't matter to me.
Guest:It's like, well, tell a good story.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:You know?
Guest:You're not Steve Renazizi saying you ran away from 9-11.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:right so it's fine by me i really enjoyed her bob dylan impression by the way it's uh it reminded me of you doing an impression just like kind of kind of nailed it honestly well i laughed right away when when when she told said you know she went on tour with dylan and mark was like how'd that call go hey jules
Guest:I also love my favorite part of the whole interview is that is that detail that Bob Dylan only started paying attention to her show because she started kicking people out of the audience.
Guest:And and I said I said that to Mark and he was like, yeah, he's been trying to do that to his audience for years.
Guest:He's been trying to get them all to go away.
Marc:Well, you know, it's funny that that came up.
Marc:I mean, not kicking out an audience member, but sort of going on or, you know, sort of calling out a audience member in the Gareth Reynolds episode, which I thought was a nice little tie in.
Marc:Honestly.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I can't even imagine being that person that has to go to the bathroom and Mark just calling me out.
Marc:That would be quite a moment for me.
Guest:I remember this was in maybe 2010, like the winter of 2010, the beginning of the year.
Guest:So we had only been doing the podcast for a few months, and Mark had no mental adjustment yet to life other than the shitty life he thought he was living, right?
Guest:Basically, the way we were when we started the podcast, where he just thought, I got nothing anymore.
Guest:Like, I got no... I've just been like...
Guest:divorced and I lost all my money and I just did this shitty Air America job that amounted to nothing and I've got no draw and I just fired my manager and he just, you know, the story's been told many times that he started WTF at the very bottom of himself, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so the show was now growing and starting to get an audience.
Guest:And he was not yet mentally adjusted.
Guest:He still isn't to this very day fully adjusted to his, you know, fame and the way people receive him.
Guest:I mean, him and Gareth were even talking about that.
Guest:But I think in general at that time, he was still like, nobody knows me.
Guest:This is fucking bullshit.
Guest:Any show I'm on is like the people who are younger than me, who are achieving more than me or whatever.
Guest:And so I remember he was on one of Eugene Merman's –
Guest:in Brooklyn, around the city, actually, but I remember this was at the Bell House in Brooklyn, and he had a whole bunch of people, and some of the people went up before Mark, it was like Kumail Nanjiani and Michael Showalter, and all these people that the young, hip crowd really loved, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, like, Mark was now becoming that, like, because of the podcast, right?
Guest:Like, people were, you know, starting to embrace the, oh, I didn't know about this guy, right?
Guest:Like, this guy who's a, like, veteran comic, but he's, like, in our kind of alt-comedy nerd community, too.
Guest:And that was who our growing fan base was back in 2009, 2010.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember because of that, too, he was situated as like the headliner of this group of comics by Eugene.
Guest:Like Eugene was like, well, Mark's the top comic of these five people I have on this show.
Guest:So Mark will go on last.
Guest:He goes on last after, you know, all these guys go up and do as, you know, Mark would say at the time.
Guest:Oh, they're cute stuff.
Guest:They're being cute up there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and uh and eugene's doing bits in between like you know he's emceeing so they did a thing i remember where he like put chat roulette do you remember chat roulette oh yeah like a hookup thing basically or a jack off thing and he would put it up on the screen and he just kept hitting the chat roulette until you got a naked person
Guest:And I remember being backstage with Mark.
Guest:He was like, what the fuck is this shit?
Guest:He thought it was just total garbage.
Guest:Like, oh, great.
Guest:Yeah, I got to compete with this.
Guest:We're looking at a guy's dick or whatever.
Guest:He was just totally, totally bummed out.
Guest:So he gets on stage in a...
Guest:foul mood yeah and he sits down ready to do his thing and he's you know settling in and you know he's also probably been judging the audience the whole time listening to the things they've been laughing at this or that this is a recipe for disaster like this is the perfect storm of you know mark venom that's about to be spewed
Guest:So he, and I'm now standing in the back and he gets out there, he comes out and he's like, you know, getting ready.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:And he's starting to like mumble about the shit that came on before him.
Guest:Like, you know, like, well, I guess I'm competing.
Guest:This is what I'm competing with these days.
Guest:And some dude in the audience yells out, what the fuck?
Guest:Like, like, yeah, like, right.
Guest:And Mark's like,
Guest:shut the fuck up you fucking hipster shit like just like tears into this guy he's like who how badly parented do you have to be to think you're the center of attention here freaking out and now this whole crowd is like of these you know genteel brooklyn kids are like what
Guest:and it's like I'm not gonna say it was like a dead set but like I had just seen him do a set in a similar room the night before and it was totally fine and this was like this one curdled and never like got out of it oh no and and then I remember like he was on the mic the next day and he was talking about like how the one set went okay and the other set didn't go so good and he couldn't tell why and I was like wait wait hang on laughing
Guest:You couldn't tell why?
Guest:I seem to remember at once that you screamed at a guy who was your fan.
Guest:Nothing to do with it?
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:Ring a bell?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You want to change your bullshit story, sir?
Yeah.
Guest:oh yeah so in in many ways mark has grown but uh yes if you are going up to the to take a piss he still might say something to you uh thankfully he will judge the moment and then realize that he probably shouldn't keep saying something in case there's a like personal situation going on there yes
Marc:Also, can we talk about the diarrhea in the jacket store?
Guest:Diarrhea windbreaker.
Guest:I wrote it down right here.
Marc:So I personally, I mean, there's a couple of things.
Marc:I don't think Mark owed a apology or a windbreaker to that gentleman.
Marc:I mean-
Guest:I mean, if it helps with the joke and the bit, fine.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:But he didn't owe it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And his mom, I mean, I get, you know, his logic of, like, what his mom was saying.
Marc:But, like, you know, there's another take to it being like, oh, man, you'll never guess what happened.
Marc:And, yeah, I owe you a jacket or I owe you a windbreaker.
Guest:Yeah, but, like, whether you tell them this story or not, you're not giving them the shit jacket back, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So...
Guest:So there really is ultimately no difference between saying, I don't know what happened to it and being like, oh, to tell you the truth, we put sloppy poop all over it and you're not getting it back.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, it's probably what Mark was saying.
Marc:It's like probably a thrill for her to like lie a little bit.
Guest:exactly exactly it's like it's like uh it's like if there was a uh free sample but no one was standing there watching you take it and you take it and run you feel like you stole it right right um by the way gareth reynolds hilarious also quick dude dude so quick like i mean you had two quick
Marc:people on your show this week.
Marc:It was like Rocky and Apollo Creed happening.
Marc:But I love that he wrote for You're the Worst.
Marc:That's like one of my personal favorite shows that have been out in the last couple of years.
Marc:It's raunchy, deep, meaningful.
Marc:It's like an unknown, at least for people in my circle, like a gem of a show.
Marc:I personally love it.
Guest:Yeah, I never caught it, but I remember when it was out, I remember getting that kind of, you know, reception from people that it was diamond in the rough.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic.
Marc:I'm interested in his new podcast and...
Marc:Oh, with Jake Johnson?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, that.
Marc:And it's funny that he was, Mark was asking like, oh, how did Dave feel about you breaking off from him?
Marc:Like, does Mark or did Mark, when we started doing this, was he ever like, what are you doing with Chris Lopresto?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I mean, I do think there was a point where he, you know, didn't realize we were doing anything other than wrestling on here.
Guest:Because, like, I remember I started talking to him about something.
Guest:I remember what we were doing, and he was like, what does that have to do with wrestling?
Guest:I'm like, dude, we're not just talking about wrestling, man.
Guest:We could talk about whatever we want, you know?
Guest:It's its own thing now.
Guest:But, no, he just kind of is like, I think he's grateful that it's here because it's like, you know,
Guest:He wasn't going to do a second show a week.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Four total shows or whatever.
Marc:You can just imagine the monologue that would happen.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's great.
Marc:Well, again, another great, great week of WTF episodes.
Marc:I'm impressed.
Marc:Is next week the Paul Scheer episode?
Guest:Yes, Paul Scheer on Monday and possibly Tuesday.
Guest:It's a very long episode that as I cut it, I might wind up having a separate section that is just for the bonus.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:I actually dig that.
Marc:I like when you have the bonus episode where...
Marc:It's that previous day's guest.
Marc:So that's cool.
Marc:I can't wait.
Marc:I love Paul Scheer.
Marc:How did this get made?
Marc:One of my, in my Mount Rushmore of podcasts.
Marc:So very cool.
Guest:Yeah, and well, if you do, before we go to the Paul Scheer episode on Monday,
Guest:If you want to go back and listen to the original time Paul Scheer was on, which is all the way back on episode 124.
Guest:So that's just for you full Marin listeners.
Guest:That episode is basically the starting point for Paul getting to this book that he just wrote.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah, it's one of my favorite episodes of WTF, period.
Guest:If you have the WTF book, Waiting for the Punch, there is a lot of Paul's story in that.
Guest:In fact, Paul's story was the one that I had to go to Paul about and fact check a bunch of shit because it got flagged by Macmillan Legal just due to him talking about real life people and
Guest:And, you know, we had to make sure, like, do you feel like you can back up this story in this?
Guest:And I remember, you know, communicating with Paul at the time and he was like, I went easy on him.
Guest:Like, there is so much more I could have said.
Guest:So not only do I back it up, I could have been much worse.
Guest:um and so yeah that that's if you want to listen to that i i listened to it before paul came over to talk to mark and it was a rare time where i i made mark re-listen to it as well like usually you know i just send him some notes and be like this is what you guys talked about the last time just so he doesn't have overlap and whatnot but i wanted it to be kind of a continuation of
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:which is funny because I don't think it went that way.
Guest:Like they do talk about that stuff, but I think the reason it's so long is they spent like the first hour, uh, talking about like comedy and the podcasting business.
Guest:Like just that, that equally has grown, you know, immeasurably in those 14 years, like for both of them, like to be like, Oh yeah.
Guest:When we were first, when they were talking the last time, Paul had just started.
Guest:How did this get made?
Guest:Like it just started.
Guest:So, yeah, a lot has changed in his life, and you will hear that on Monday and possibly Tuesday.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:So I'm flying out to Nashville.
Marc:I'm going to probably listen to that old episode first so that I'll be prepared for that Monday and Tuesday episode.
Marc:So that's cool.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:There you go.
Awesome.
Guest:Well, yes, that was all from this week and a preview of next week.
Guest:But I do want us to go back to last week's episode of the Friday show.
Guest:Because of Death Proof?
Guest:Where we talked about Death Proof, yes.
Guest:Because I usually, when I watch a movie, something I've seen before and it's older, I always like to read Roger Ebert's review of the movie.
Guest:And I, you know, tend to read other things as well.
Guest:But Raj has like this, you know, vast online database of almost all of the reviews he ever wrote in his life.
Guest:And so it's very easy to go find those and you get some consistency out of it as opposed to if you want to go back and look at the New York Times review of something, it might be a different person each time, right?
Guest:It's not necessarily the same.
Guest:So that's the great thing about the Roger Ebert database of movies.
Marc:First of all, how many stars did Roger give this movie?
Guest:He gave it two and a half.
Guest:And it's because he then later said, he didn't say this in the review, he then later said in a discussion about it in his mailbag column, that basically he was splitting the difference.
Guest:That if he was reviewing them separately, he would have given Planet Terror two stars and Death Proof three.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Guest:And he gave the whole king caboodle two and a half stars.
Guest:And it was interesting.
Guest:What prompted me to go back and start reading old reviews was right after we did our recording on it, a comment came in from our listener, Zach, and he said, Doug, your death proof analysis.
Guest:It is indeed a big steaming pile of shit.
Guest:And had it been made by a less acclaimed filmmaker or someone that was early in their career, I think it could have been a career killer.
Guest:Love Quentin Tarantino, but he seems to be cut a lot more slack than most directors with a lot of different things.
Guest:And so that made me wonder, like...
Guest:Was he cut the slack at the time?
Guest:You know, because like you and I talked about how we felt about it and like were discouraged by making it.
Guest:But I wondered, you know, what did what did people who had been, you know, well into their, you know, second decade of taking in Quentin Tarantino's movies?
Guest:What did they think of it professionally?
Yeah.
Guest:And obviously the first place I wanted to look was Roger Ebert's review.
Guest:And this part jumped out at me like with full on 3D glasses.
Guest:He said, the evocation of a grindhouse may have existed somewhere sometime, but my movie going reaches back to before either director was born.
Guest:And I have never witnessed a double bill and supporting program much like the one they created.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:I mean, this guy has seen everything.
Guest:Roger Ebert used to review porn for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Guest:He legit would go see, not just any old porn, but if there was a porn that had been noteworthy, like Deep Throat or Behind the Green Door or something, he would review it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So he's...
Guest:if anyone should have a sense of what this was, it would be him, the co-writer of beyond the Valley of the dolls.
Guest:He should know this stuff.
Guest:And it just made me realize that these guys got themselves all geeked up about a thing that never really existed other than in their minds.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or maybe in a very, very specific context of like these ideas of, you know, obviously,
Guest:People have documented that there were shitty theaters that rolled out these movies they got for free or cheap and just kept them running so that people could, you know, use the theater for a toilet or whatever the hell they were doing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Obviously, that's a thing.
Guest:But I don't believe that what these guys made with Grindhouse was like a cultural thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was not a thing that people were like, you know what I love?
Guest:I love fucking grindhouse movies.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No one says that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And then Roger said something else.
Guest:He says, the fundamental reason young males went to schlock double features in the golden age was in the hope of seeing breasts or lacking that stuff blowed up real good.
Guest:Now that the mainstream is showing lots of breasts and real big explosions, there is no longer a market for bad movies showing the same thing.
Guest:And this is such a great point that bad movies had already been co-opted by the mainstream long before that.
Guest:these guys made Grindhouse.
Guest:Like this was already a thing.
Guest:And I had just talked about this and I'm mad at myself for not thinking about it sooner.
Guest:But of course you used a mind, a fertile mind like Roger Ebert to help jog your senses on this stuff.
Guest:But I had just talked about this with Steve Morris and John Rocha on that Cinephiles podcast because we were talking about Total Recall, which at the time it was made,
Guest:was possibly the most expensive movie ever made.
Guest:It's debated, but generally thought of at that time, it was probably the most expensive movie ever made.
Guest:And part of the success of it was that every dollar was on the screen.
Guest:It won the best special effects Oscar with no competition.
Guest:They just gave it to Total Recall.
Guest:There's no other competing movies this year.
Guest:It's just Total Recall.
Guest:Nothing else got off the shortlist.
Guest:It looks like the money that was spent is on the screen.
Guest:But...
Guest:Because you were in an era that was pre-CGI, so you had all manner of special effects being used, miniatures, matte paintings, puppetry, makeup effects, camera tricks, all sorts of things, blue screen, everything that you could think of that involved craftspeople, right?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:That was what was needed on all movies at all times.
Guest:And this just happened to be like the most expensive version of it.
Guest:And with the highest level craftspeople, right?
Guest:Like Rob Bottin, who's the guy who made the stuff from The Thing.
Guest:He did all the creature effects for Total Recall too.
Guest:So like you're using the best of the best.
Guest:And you get something that looks as good as this movie did and it captured people's imagination.
Guest:But it still looks and feels like it's in the service of films from throughout your whole life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's on Mars and it's sci-fi.
Guest:So a lot of that, it gets into your head of like, this is schlock.
Yeah.
Guest:This is B movie Drek.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it looks great.
Guest:And it's Arnold.
Guest:And he's like the biggest movie star in the world.
Guest:But there was something about it that was not able to be separated from my mind from Canon films.
Guest:Like the look of what was going on on the screen looked like the best possible version of a Canon films movie that you could ever dream up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it made me realize now in conjunction with what Roger was saying in that review, there were legions of people who had been trained to enjoy these schlocky movies on VHS and cable.
Guest:And now they were getting one in the movie theater with the biggest star in the world and the largest budget ever.
Guest:And like, that's how you make Grindhouse.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that's how you get into people's brains of like, oh, you know, that stuff you like that was real shitty.
Guest:Like I'm going to make it great.
Guest:Here's a fun version of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This is going to be great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I had all those little mind grapes came out and it made me realize, you know what?
Guest:You know, we should watch.
Guest:I had seen this already, but so I recommended it to you.
Guest:was a documentary about the the story of canon films it's called electric boogaloo the wild untold story of canon films and it is appropriately available on tubi a place where you can watch any manner of these uh schlocky films canon and lesser canon yes that's the thing indeed yes
Marc:Although I will say Canon is sort of the movie logo of my childhood.
Marc:Like it was a thing that was always on the television.
Marc:And also when you go to like Blockbuster or Hollywood video, whatever video store it is, you couldn't help but check out the back cover of a few Canon movies because they were just fun.
Marc:It was just a fun place.
Guest:It was like the opposite of a stamp of quality.
Guest:But at the same time, there was a guarantee.
Marc:It's like junk food.
Marc:It's junk food.
Guest:It's like seeing a Lay's potato chip brand on something.
Marc:Oh, look, they have a new exploding barbecue flavor.
Marc:I got to try that at home.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, and so we watched this documentary, as I said, I'd seen it before, but Chris, this was your first time watching it.
Guest:I don't think it would surprise you to get even five minutes into this and realize why it's the kind of thing I like when you know how much I love American movie.
Guest:And in general, the story of people with inordinate enthusiasm and questionable talent, like that is an absolute sweet spot for me.
Marc:And this doc has it in spades.
Guest:Yes, what did you think of everything you were presented from Canon Films?
Marc:Well, I got to say, towards the end, they're sort of surmising this Canon Films.
Marc:And I was wondering, could they not have gotten better people to talk about this?
Marc:Or people who loved Canon Films?
Marc:Because...
Marc:A lot of people that I know love canon films and would be happy to talk for hours about most of the stuff that they were talking about.
Marc:You know, like, I don't know, like King Lear or even I love Over the Top.
Marc:Like, I love Over the Top online.
Marc:like that's a movie i would actually you know watch with my nephews and nieces um i i tolerate superman ford just because it's a thing but i mean these movies were fun it was a fun time so i i enjoy the documentary i wish they had some talking heads who had a little bit more reverence to the the uh the stuff that was being uh shown on the
Guest:Well, yeah, because they were definitely talking to mostly people who were involved.
Guest:And I think it's very telling that no one involved has particularly great memories.
Guest:They're all kind of bemused by the whole thing.
Guest:No one is outright hostile, except for one person, who I'll get to, and I thought he was a great addition to the movie.
Guest:But the general take of this movie is that you had these two Israeli cousins...
Guest:menachem golan and yoram globus who decided you for saying their names that me oh no worries uh i had that one on lock uh i uh i mean these are guys though they could they could be right at home with ed wood they're right at home with uh what's the guy from uh the room the disaster artist guy you know
Guest:Yeah, it's it's it's these are the dreamers who have only dreams that are completely outsized from their talent and or abilities.
Guest:Yeah, but they're rooted in this fundamental love of movies.
Guest:And so these immigrants, they come here to America with great visions of Hollywood success because of, you know, minimal success at the very low bar of entry that existed for like Israeli cinema.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like basically soft core porn, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, well, you know, it's interesting because the movie that like popped off for them was this movie that they eventually remake as the last American Virgin in America.
Guest:And like people talk about that movie, Lemon Popsicle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, that, yeah, like I've read about that for years as like a thing that people are like, that's actually pretty good.
Guest:Uh, you know, as far as those kind of like teen sex comedies go, I've never seen it.
Guest:I have seen the last American Virgin, which I don't have any affection for.
Guest:Uh, but that was their like American remake of this.
Guest:Uh, but so anyway, they, they come here, they start just, you know, trying to get off the ground, making movies.
Guest:Basically they're an independent house.
Guest:There's, there's, they're not, you can't even really call them a studio at that point.
Guest:They're an independent production house.
Guest:Um,
Marc:Basically like A24, right?
Guest:Like that type of Miramax sort of thing.
Guest:You're looking for partnerships to distribute your stuff, but you're going to make these things, right?
Guest:And I think the big thing is that the documentary doesn't really lean on this, but they make that movie Joe with Peter Boyle, which is such a huge hit at the time.
Guest:And really, I think kind of probably set them off financially to be able to continue churning out these movies.
Guest:But basically, the style is just like pump out as much as you can with like zero quality control.
Guest:And it's not even like the Roger Corman level where Corman was like, would just keep making movies on the cheap.
Guest:And I'll basically use like...
Guest:an intern type program where he'd get these you know people who wanted to become filmmakers like Ron Howard and James Cameron and you know Martin Scorsese and they would make this stuff for him on the cheap because they considered it like training ground right right like the
Guest:my favorite Roger Corman story is, uh, that, uh, someone presented him the script of water world, which would eventually become the next most expensive movie of all time.
Guest:Uh, when Kevin Costner makes it, but they gave the script to Corman at first because it really is like a fucking Corman level piece of shit.
Guest:And what'd he say?
Guest:He reads it and throws the script at the person who gave it to him and goes, you idiot.
Guest:That would cost me $7 million.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:that's great if only he knew what was what was the the final uh cost of that movie i think like 300 at the time which was just like astronomical yeah
Marc:yeah uh well these guys you've said this about about some people but like they have no natural predators like they are like like they think they're the lead character of the movie of life so they just will throw whatever it is and say that that's what we're gonna do and they're gonna like
Marc:you know, short it, unfortunately.
Marc:And then just, it's basically like the big short, like they're just, they're just, you know, mortgaging the last movie's profits for five other movies that they hope to strike gold on.
Marc:And it's, they're fascinating guys.
Guest:Well, it's not a surprise that eventually they become funded by Michael Milken, who is the junk bonds finance king.
Guest:And, you know, everything is just like, you know, basically being funded by fake money and chasing the last thing.
Guest:And, you know, if you're wondering, okay, Canon Films, it sounds kind of familiar.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:I mean, you've seen a million canon films, whether you've seen them or not, because they're just always on somewhere, someplace.
Guest:The Death Wish sequels, a lot of things with Ninja in the title, American Ninja, Enter the Ninja.
Guest:You probably have seen some of their like, you know, fake, what would you call them?
Guest:Like,
Guest:prestige pictures where it was like lady chatter, lover, but it was just full of just, you know, porn basically.
Guest:And, uh, the wicked lady and all of these things.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So they, they, uh, you, you know, all these things, their big hits were basically, uh, the break in movies, break in and, uh, break in two electric boogaloo.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:And then anything with Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson, of course, there were diminishing returns.
Guest:But, you know, the Delta Force movies, Invasion USA with Bronson, it was all Death Wish sequels up and down the line.
Guest:I didn't know there were five of those.
Guest:There are five Death Wish movies.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:By the way, that gives me a chance to recommend the podcast Fun City Cinema with Jason Bailey, who was a former guest on WTF.
Guest:And he did a whole episode about the Death Wish movies and specifically about that guy, Michael Winner, who shows up in this documentary and footage.
Guest:He was the director of those movies.
Guest:And he is like the canary in the coal mine.
Guest:Why this is like a shady fucking business that like this guy was essentially like a sociopath who was.
Guest:Filming these sadistic movies and taking the footage home of like, you know, horrible scenes, sexual assault scenes and stuff and like really abusing the women who were in the movie.
Guest:And they show interviews with him and he's just like this kind of gleeful Patrick Bateman like maniac.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Alex Winter from the Bill & Ted movies, and he was on WTF and has a great interviewer himself.
Guest:He really is a great talking head on these shows.
Guest:I've seen him on other ones.
Guest:He's on Jason's podcast, and he's in this movie, and he really sums it up.
Guest:This was dog shit, and they just kept making this stuff because you could keep...
Guest:financing dog shit with other dog shit.
Guest:It wasn't like you were hurting the fortunes of something else.
Guest:So, you know, that's why these things were given a life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Also Masters of the Universe was the He-Man movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a big one for me.
Guest:This is now toward the end of their run where they're trying to establish some reputability and they try to make the Superman movie, as you said, Superman 4.
Guest:That doesn't work.
Guest:The Masters of the Universe, that doesn't work.
Guest:They really kind of failed ultimately in their attempt to become a new studio, right?
Guest:Like that was what they wanted to be.
Guest:But what I find really interesting is that
Guest:They did create a model for something.
Guest:It was just the reverse model in that what they talk about doing was every now and then they were able to make like a movie they thought would be great, like because they'd give like.
Guest:franco zeffirelli the keys right and he made an othello movie which he in the documentary says that's the proudest i've ever been in my life as an artist right this was my this was my masterpiece and i i'm grateful to go on and globus every day because they they allowed me to make the best movie i made
Guest:So it's, like, this weird thing where they had all this schlock to be able to, like, have these movies that nobody really saw.
Guest:Like, they got – Barbette Schrader got to make Barfly, Charles Bukowski's Barfly with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway because, like, he just, like –
Guest:convinced these, these guys who were the consummate salesmen, he like sold them, right?
Guest:Like, no, I'm good.
Guest:It's going to be a masterpiece.
Guest:I'm going to make a masterpiece for you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it didn't go anywhere, but it's like, it's an actual movie.
Guest:It's not schlock.
Guest:And so they built this structure where like, they made all this garbage, all this garbage.
Guest:And then every now and then you kind of like sift through it and you find like, you're like, what was John Frankenheimer doing working with them or whatever.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:miramax comes along a couple years later and basically does the same thing reversed right where they make a prestige movie yeah and then they finance future ones of those by the dimension films label which bob weinstein ran and make all these horror movies and schlock movies and
Guest:And those are the things they get people in the theater for.
Guest:But then they funnel the money up to these prestige projects, which they can then go win Oscars with.
Guest:So it's very interesting.
Guest:They don't point this out in the doc, but I could really feel the connective tissue between those things.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And yeah, if only they could have pieced it together, because maybe, just maybe, they would have got around to making some of the other movies that are teased out in some teaser material.
Guest:Well, it's funny because there's a guy in the documentary that says his job was selling movies that didn't yet exist.
Guest:Like he was one of the guys on the team and like they would go to Cannes, right?
Guest:The Cannes Film Festival.
Guest:And they just go around like selling people on like, oh, we're making this.
Guest:And they tell them like what some movie they're making.
Guest:It was total horseshit.
Guest:Like there was no movie in the works like that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And this guy's like, yeah, my job was to sell movies that didn't yet exist.
Guest:And we just watched this Canon Films reel from 1986.
Guest:A friend of ours sent it to us.
Guest:And he was like, a great game would be try to guess the movies that get made and the ones that don't.
Guest:And it's impossible because they all sound fake.
Guest:They all sound like, you know, 30 Rock movies.
Marc:joke movies you know yes yes they i mean there's dustin hoffman and like the other thing is they have the movie voice guy like it's that guy yeah yeah like doing all of these in a world and and yeah in a world and what's great is throughout this like 15 minute like sizzle reel uh you can see different inflections that he's doing like oh oh this is this one this one's about a bunch of lovely ladies
Marc:And what are they doing?
Marc:It's housekeeping starring Diane Keaton.
Marc:And it's just a delight on its own.
Marc:By the way, got made.
Marc:Did it?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:My favorite one in that whole reel was like, it was like John Travolta.
Guest:And they're playing the Saturday Night Fever music.
Guest:They're playing Staying Alive.
Guest:And they're like, you know, he has sizzled the screens from coast to coast.
Guest:And now he returns with his greatest motion picture achievement.
Guest:cut to the next film like they don't they don't tell you what he's doing they don't tell you anything having to do it's all footage of him from his other movies and oh by the way did not get made they made no movie with john travolta
Marc:Well, they teased out not only Superman 4, which they did make, but right after they teased out Spider-Man the movie using John Williams' score from Superman, which honestly I popped for.
Marc:I wish that got made.
Guest:But I don't think they'd be using John Williams' music if they made it.
Marc:No, no, for sure.
Marc:But they did have a bunch of Chuck Norris stuff.
Marc:Chuck Norris was featured in that.
Guest:There was one that was called Kick and Kick Back or something like that, which actually did get made, but it was called Sidekicks.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Uh, they also, by the way, these all sound like movies that are in like the Boogie Nights universe.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like, you know, it's like, you got the touch.
Marc:Like, it's like that era of movie, but they also had a Roman Polanski flick, uh,
Guest:Well, they did the same thing where they're like, you know, oh, Roman Polanski.
Guest:And now he will bring his greatest epic to the screen.
Guest:And you don't know what it is.
Guest:But that did get made.
Guest:And it was a famous bomb called Pirates.
Guest:Just a total, total disaster.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I never heard of that before in my life.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I also wanted to point something out, though.
Guest:Did you notice in the documentary, they talked about the movie Enter the Ninja?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Which had this Italian guy who was dubbed with American accent so that he didn't sound like this thick Italian accent while he was talking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That actor is Franco Nero.
Yeah.
Guest:Who is the original Django.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Django Unchained is derived from.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:In fact, you know, like the music at the beginning of Django Unchained, which is singing about Django is from his movie.
Guest:Like that's a repurposed song.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:And he's in Django Unchained.
Guest:He's the guy who is doing the the terrible slave fighting with.
Guest:Oh, is he?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's the other slaver along with DiCaprio who's betting on the fights.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Oh, I don't remember it too much.
Marc:Uh, I'm looking forward to rewatching it.
Marc:We will watch that in August.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, by the way, we didn't even mention Molly Ringwald's, uh, you know, friend of the pod.
Marc:Uh, her King Lear is featured.
Guest:They talked about it on that episode.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:She basically said the same thing in this electric boogaloo.
Guest:She was like, I want to know, am I supposed to be dead or what?
Guest:And he's like, Oh, whatever.
Guest:You're dead.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:She's like, okay, I guess I'm going to be dead.
Marc:Also, it goes with her being like, so am I going to get makeup?
Marc:Like, no makeup.
Marc:So it's like no rules, no budget.
Marc:And it's all just like, let's just do it live, basically.
Guest:Well, I think the thing that sums up everything they ever did was, and it's an earlier movie of theirs, but it's that movie The Apple, which is directed by Menachem Golan himself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he – it's like this was – this is the summation of something that could only be made by people with unfettered enthusiasm and no taste.
Guest:Like that's the key is that – and that is – that's what Tarantino and Rodriguez were missing with Grindhouse was they –
Guest:hold these kind of movies and the people who made them in some reverent place when the reality is these were not necessary they might be people to be admired for their like chutzpah but they shouldn't be admired for their art because they didn't have any artistry right
Guest:They had great verve, and it's kind of fun to listen to stories about.
Guest:It's very funny to hear the story of Menachem Golan trying to pitch the monkey from Every Witch Wave But Loose about the movie that the monkey should star in.
Guest:That's a great story.
Guest:Again, it's almost a little too perfect for it to be true, but I take them at their word in this that it's true.
Marc:Would you fuck this monkey?
Marc:God.
Guest:good god man i mean the this guy is basically trump before trump you know oh it's all yeah i mean we've we've watched so many things that are with the remember we watched that american gladiators documentary it's like the same guy or like robert parker from uh from from elvis you know like any wrestling promoter you've ever seen like that's these guys they just carnival barkers exactly
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love that detail that they made the missing in action movies.
Guest:They were making two at once.
Guest:They were like made the first one and they were making the sequel.
Guest:And the first one was so bad that they, but the second one was coming out pretty good.
Guest:So they just decided flip them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:Released the second one first, the first one second, no explanation.
Guest:That's just perfect.
Guest:You know, the key figure, though, in this doc, for me anyway, was the guy who was the president of MGM.
Guest:I think his name is Frankie Oblins.
Guest:And they keep going back to him.
Guest:And he, like, as everyone who's involved with these things tries to come up with explanations for why certain things were, weren't happening or working or, oh, you know, Monocamy just tried too much to do this or, oh, they got over leveraged with this.
Guest:And it would just go back to that guy and he'd be like, well, the bottom line is they made a shitty picture and nobody saw it.
Guest:So we couldn't make any money off of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, like once these guys got into like the real, like he's a great representation of the real world and the real world being like, I don't know what crap you're slinging, but it wasn't making me any money.
Guest:And you generally were failures at show business.
Guest:So like, I got nothing else for you here.
Guest:And it keeps going back to him every now and then.
Guest:And he's like, well, yeah, I mean, because somebody will talk about like, oh, well then they did this one and it was actually a pretty big success.
Guest:And he's like, I
Guest:It's kind of a success in light of the other shit they made, but it didn't really make us any money.
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:By the way, did they make the North South movie that was featured in that sizzle reel?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I don't think they made it.
Guest:I don't think that was made with with Canon films.
Guest:So that is.
Guest:the godfrey reggio uh i think trilogy of uh koyana scottsy powa scottsy uh it's those movies that are just collage filmmaking with set to philip glass music and yes they were going to make the second one or at least it was on that sizzle reel again you never know they could have just been like they saw koyana scottsy and they were like we'll make the second one of that
Guest:Because in that sizzle reel, there's a thing for Joe, too.
Guest:Like, it's like Citizen Joe.
Guest:And there was nothing on the books to make of Citizen Joe.
Guest:But they were just like, well, we made Joe, so we'll just say we're going to make a second.
Marc:Wait, did they make Zorba the musical?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Never got made.
Guest:I mean, there was Zorba the musical, but they never turned it into a movie.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:All right.
Marc:How about the white slave with Lewis?
Marc:I checked that one.
Guest:Cause that looked, that looked like it was dicey.
Guest:And I was like, this can't have gotten made.
Marc:And it did not.
Marc:Again, I mean, we're talking about movies that belong in a universe with like Tropic Thunder, you know, like before Tropic Thunder, like this is what happens.
Marc:I'm guessing they made Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, right?
Guest:They did.
Guest:And it, I guess, made a decent amount of money for them.
Guest:Again, it's one of those like it made money for them, but not in any grand stage.
Marc:Yeah, and did they make that... Were they the ones that made that Captain America movie?
Marc:Nope, nope.
Guest:That got made later.
Guest:I think it got made by one... So, okay, the ending of this movie, if we could give it away, is that Golan and Globus split up and start running their own separate companies and come to market with dueling Lombada films.
Guest:Like, it's like the perfect... They have the perfect ending of the movie here because it's like...
Guest:of all the things to do with each other, but it's not like, you know, deep impact versus Armageddon, you know, the big grand spectacles.
Guest:It's two dueling movies about the forbidden dance, the Lombada.
Guest:And, uh, and they both, you know, they had a falling out.
Guest:And so they're both releasing these movies the same weekend against each other.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:And, uh, and I literally split the profits in two because there's, there's only like a market for maybe one Lombada movie.
Guest:Um,
Guest:uh but yes the captain america thing i think was made by whichever one of them retained the rights and then moved it over and it was never released i don't believe i think that's a no was a direct-to-video captain america man there's so many movies that they that they just sort of churned out like all these ninja movies they they it's funny i think they i know of a ninja because of canon films
Guest:That's probably very true because of like American Ninja, Enter the Ninja.
Guest:Like, I think that, I mean, Chuck Norris himself is probably a big reason why.
Guest:Because like, even though Chuck Norris was never a ninja, he was always fighting guys in ninja costumes.
Guest:And they're always like, I very specifically remember having a Chuck Norris ninja star.
Guest:Yeah, like a plastic toy that said Chuck Norris on it.
Guest:It was a ninja star.
Guest:So like, I think you're totally right.
Guest:It's like Canon Films was a propagator of ninja in American culture.
Marc:I'm kind of bummed that the rocket launcher off of the back of a motorcycle never took off because that was a great clip from Delta Force.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That is just a chef's kiss of an idea.
Guest:There's plenty of these movies that are not terrible.
Guest:Delta Force is not terrible.
Guest:Invasion USA is not terrible.
Guest:In fact, that set piece in Invasion USA where they drive through the mall is pretty great.
Guest:What about Runaway Train?
Guest:That movie's awesome.
Marc:Runaway Train is awesome.
Marc:I saw that during this doc and I was like, I got to seek out a runaway trade.
Guest:You just played it over here at the movie theater by me and I didn't get to go.
Guest:I remember seeing it on TV when I was younger and I loved it.
Guest:It's a great movie.
Guest:John Voight got an Oscar nomination for that.
Guest:He's that good in it.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Very cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Canon Films.
Marc:I love it.
Guest:Well, yeah, if you want to go seek this out, like I said, it's on Tubi.
Guest:And I do think it is probably much more worth watching this documentary and then picking and choosing some canon films to watch than watching Death Proof or Grindhouse.
Guest:And it's interesting.
Guest:We got this comment in from Ryan.
Guest:And he said, Tarantino's idea that one bad movie erases three good movies is total horseshit.
Guest:I think it's more accurate that the bad ones don't matter in the long run, as long as the good one or good ones are really good.
Guest:People forget about the bad movies, records, books.
Guest:Remember the good things.
Guest:And, you know, Chris, we were just talking about this with our friends this week because Robert Zemeckis released this trailer for this thing called Here, which does not look good to me.
Guest:And it looks like it's of a piece with his late era, heavily reliant on motion capture, de-aging special effects.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Going back all the way to like the Polar Express, like, oh, we're going to do these motion capture.
Guest:And he's very enamored with this technology.
Guest:He did it with the one with Joseph Gordon-Levitt climbing the World Trade Center.
Guest:Is that called the walk?
Yeah.
Marc:I think so, or Man on Wire, or that's the documentary.
Guest:Man on Wire's the doc, right, and the walk is the Zemeckis one.
Marc:Oh, right, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, he's got his face all digitally altered, and it's just something this guy likes, and it's a weird choice, but...
Guest:Like, as I was saying, he made Roger Rabbit, like, Lifetime Pass.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future.
Guest:Like, there's no bad movie he can make that undoes those.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, and, you know, I think that, you know, in my opinion, I think...
Marc:Quentin Tarantino probably points to Robert Zemeckis being like, I don't want to end up like that guy.
Marc:I'm just going to make 10 movies and that's it.
Marc:So I don't know.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:I should check out Roger Rabbit again.
Marc:That is something I haven't done in a very long time.
Guest:it's worth it anytime you watch it but to go on to something else ryan was saying here i think it feeds into how we were talking about this last week he says uh you know look at the rolling stones they made maybe four good albums in the last 50 years and most people still agree that they're one of the best bands scorsese had some stinkers but nobody but the most contrarianism adult degenerate would argue against him being one of the greats and that's how like you were saying chris that like yes he
Guest:still making masterpieces you know at 80 does tarantino really think that new york new york cancels out after hours taxi driver or the irishman nobody even knows what the fuck new york new york is just like nobody knows what death proof is he could make a dozen death proofs and still be a legend because the good stuff is so good and i think that's true of tarantino and that's especially true of martin scorsese and i will end today by just
Guest:offering up this little nugget that last week I was able to go to the Museum of Modern Art because they have begun a retrospective of the work of Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger.
Guest:And they're showing all of their movies throughout this summer as part of this exhibit at the MoMA.
Guest:And they let it off with the screening of Black Narcissus.
Guest:And the person presenting this
Guest:was the one and only Martin Scorsese, which- Wow.
Marc:Was this over Zoom or was this in- It was live and in person.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:And it was something I would have moved heaven and earth to be able to go to see, but I didn't even have to do that.
Guest:I just got on the train and went over to MoMA and walked in with my ticket and sat down and there was Martin Scorsese with his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, right in the audience there.
Guest:She was married to Michael Powell and has devoted a good portion of her life to restoring his films and making sure they're preserved.
Guest:So she's part of this exhibit as well.
Guest:And it was a truly extraordinary thing to sit through, for one, to see his great restoration of Black Narcissus, but it was also great to listen to this person who I admire so much and realize, like...
Guest:And again, what you were talking about, Chris, it's like this guy's still making moves.
Guest:Like he didn't have to stop at 10.
Guest:Not only did not stop at 10, the thing he seems to be driven by so much, like he's standing there in the Museum of Modern Art and he is speaking to this crowd of people who are there.
Guest:And he had every bit of authority and gravity as one of the world's top museum curators would.
Guest:Like he felt like the guy in charge of the museum.
Guest:Like I'm listening to this guy because everything he's saying is important and he is preserving film history.
Guest:Like he is like Indiana Jones of film in this museum.
Guest:And I,
Guest:I just thought, what a special human being this is.
Guest:And I just felt so privileged to sit there and listen to him.
Guest:And it was one of those things, you and I were talking about it last week based on a question that was asked, like, is there anybody that you, you know, really wanted to see in your life, like a band or an actor or...
Guest:you know, that you're happy that you got to see them while they were still doing it.
Guest:Like, I am so happy that I got to sit in an audience and listen to this guy talk about film, talk about the importance of film.
Guest:Uh, he, he just, he just, uh, there was this point where he was like getting carried away with, uh, like the minutia of like film restoration.
Guest:And he's talking about like lining up the notches on the side.
Guest:And like, you, you have nitrate transfers that are better than other.
Guest:And he like catches himself.
Guest:He's like, I
Guest:Anyway, I won't go on.
Guest:And I'm sitting there going like, no, no, no, go on.
Guest:That's what I want to hear.
Guest:Like he could have talked for two hours and then played the movie.
Guest:It would have been totally fine.
Guest:But it's so perfect that he kept being like, well, anyway, I won't go on.
Guest:I won't bore you.
Guest:I won't blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Because to him, the main event is not him.
Guest:The main event is the film.
Guest:And it would have been a lesser event to him if he's standing there talking and you're not watching this movie.
Guest:And that's a truly special soul.
Guest:I think we're all extremely blessed that he's still out there doing the work and...
Guest:I'm not trying to cast any aspersions on Quentin Tarantino's designs for his career and how he wants to end it.
Guest:But I will just point out that you don't have to just fade away.
Guest:You can be truly a giant for the duration of your career and your life, really, as long as you're able to do it.
Marc:And honestly, I think just the game has changed since Quentin made those comments.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You know, and, you know, he probably maybe he looked at Martin Scorsese and he was like, oh, look, he probably has 10 good movies in there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, now, flash forward 20 years later, he has, you know, 10 good movies just in the last like, you know, 10 years.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That he did since then.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, I mean, the game has changed.
Marc:And I feel like hopefully Quentin Tarantino looks at his contemporary, Martin Scorsese, who is amazing, and just pivots to, hey, there are no rules here.
Marc:I'm just going to do whatever I want, you know?
Guest:Yeah, I kind of have the suspicion that he's going to go for his thing of making his 10th film or whatever and get that out of his system.
Guest:And then we shall see him again down the road when he decides his 11th film is ready to go.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's like when people retire because they want to be with their family.
Marc:And then a month later, like, hey, guess what?
Marc:But this isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Marc:The Tom Brady retirement.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, if you have any thoughts about the stuff we've been talking about, WTF episodes or the gay Mets or...
Guest:anything having to do with Canon films, please write to us in the comments section.
Guest:Just go to the episode description.
Guest:You'll find a link there.
Guest:I did have this question, and I want to answer it before we go.
Guest:This person wrote in and said, are both of you planning to attend Forbidden Door?
Guest:I missed the wrestling discussions on the Friday show.
Guest:And Chris, as you heard him mention, he will be in Tennessee, but I will be attending the Forbidden Door joint pay-per-view with AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Guest:And I will, you know, we haven't had wrestling talk on this show, but I will, for the people who still enjoy it, I will give a little recap next week of what my time at the live wrestling show was like.
Guest:Excellent.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, that's going to do it for us this week.
Guest:Like I said, comment to us about anything you want us to talk about or anything you want to react to that we've had on the Friday show or on WTF.
Guest:And until next time, I'm Brendan and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace.
Peace.