bonjourjamie

Man, "Summer Girls" is a good song. The only redeemable thing about this movie is that it plays "Summer Girls" twice. That said, this movie was a great pick and I love this ep!

Hi everyone! On this, the last day in March, I present to you... the How Did This Get Made March Madness Bracket, or How Did This Get Made-ness for short (for obvious reasons). My husband and I - well, almost entirely my husband - designed this nifty way to help us determine which episodes we hold most dear while also paying tribute to the drama of following American college basketball. It's not comprehensive; rather, we've selected 64 HDTGM classics divided into 4 categories: Superzeroes, Meet-pukes, Inappropes Kids Movies, and Sly Cage Match. (This last category led to the realization that there are only 14 HDTGM movies starring either Sylvester the Comedian or Nicolas Cage of would-this-be-better-with fame, so we chose two additional movies that were clearly made in homage to these film legends.) There are two days left to play and determine your winner! Hope you all enjoy. And if you've no idea what this bracket/basketball/whatever business is... well, you should play along anyway. https://brackify.com...is-Get-Mad-ness

The monster Gibb?

I'd like to hazard a guess as to why June wanted to see Batman vs. Superman. Despite her Memento-like recollection of most HDTGM movies, it seems that the ones she truly loves are embedded in her consciousness like Grease 2. It's possible she saw a trailer for Ben Affleck in a superhero movie and was reminded of how much she loved Daredevil. (Speaking of, I hope June wasn't too crushed when Affleck and Jennifer Garner split up!) As for Escape from L.A., I LOVE IT MORE THAN WORDS CAN ADEQUATELY DESCRIBE. This episode was a struggle for me because of how much I love - NAY, ADORE - this movie. I genuinely can't understand how anyone could watch it and not love how ridiculous it is. Steve Buscemi in a zoot suit. Delightfully godawful special effects. Characters giving emotional rallying speeches who are then immediately shot in the chest. PETER FONDA SURFING THE VIADUCTS OF LOS ANGELES. I know a lot of people are complaining that this is a silly remake of Escape from New York, but look, Force Awakens ripped off Episode IV entirely and managed to make a gabillion dollars. This movie does the same, but I can't see it as anything other than an intentional move by (brilliant, slightly nuts) John Carpenter to make fun of the action movie genre. And if you need more evidence that it's a satire, I'd like to again point out that PETER FONDA SURFS THE VIADUCTS OF LOS ANGELES. Guys, I love this movie.

Also agree 100%. It's a subject that strikes an unpleasant chord with me, too, along with many other viewers - more so than, say, the topic of space vampires or rollerskating Greek muses or sports marketing - and to be confronted with it while in the middle of some good ol' Cage wackiness was... well, it just felt kinda gross. Actually, had they discussed the rape issue more in the episode, I think I'd have come away from it and the movie feeling less unsettled. Some of my favorite HDTGM moments are debates centered on uncomfortable topics. Abortion in Junior, animal abuse in Monkey Shines, molestation in Gooby ("I could listen to you say that all day") are some examples that come to mind, and I love Paul, June, and Jason all the more for addressing serious issues in this comedic podcast. It would ring as false if the show tried to avoid elements of the movies at hand that bring unpleasant issues to light. I don't think it's coincidence that the three examples I mentioned are shows taped in-studio. The performance aspect of the live shows and the fact that the hosts and guests are interacting with an audience understandably change the dynamic of the live episodes, and it's my sense at least that the studio episodes are often more in-depth and introspective. I'd guess that had Vampire's Kiss not been a live episode, there would have been more discussion of the movie's many thematic problems and especially its treatment of women, particularly from our resident expert, June.

I love HDTGM, and it's been a great comfort to me this week in particular. When my husband did finally turn off the election coverage Tuesday night - I'd retreated under the covers hours before - it was to play one of our favorite episodes for "some normalcy" as he worded it, and we clung to Paul, June, and Jason's rants and giggles like a life raft. So it was a relief to remember last night that we had a new episode to look forward to and Vampire's Kiss to watch in preparation. And I enjoyed the craziness and the accents and the terrible overacting and the mimes... until I watched the increasingly cruel treatment of a young Latina turn into brutalization and sexual assault. (I realize the rape scene is ambiguously framed, but Loew does state that he raped her, and I've no reason to thing he would make that assertion if it weren't true.) I was unprepared for it and it plunged me right back into a world I was trying to escape for an hour or two. All the copy I'd seen written about this movie ignored the existence of a rape scene, including the promotions that came from Paul and the HDTGM team. And while other HDTGM movies have danced around the concept of rape – and there’s an episode (maybe No Holds Barred?) where one of the hosts or guests mentions how often movies in the ‘80s and ‘90s involved the threat of sexual violence, an example of the sort of thoughtful analysis mixed with funny commentary that makes me love this show – I think this is the only one that showed it, and in doing so I feel like the podcast crossed a line that I wish it hadn’t. Also, hearing how many people found this movie hilarious without adding a caveat along the lines of “despite the rape scene” is jarring to me. Though to be fair, no one on stage at the podcast taping shied away from discussing the scene, and I respect and appreciate them for it. Call me oversensitive and I will readily agree with you! I've watched the mistreatment of my sex become a constant topic of media conversation for the past few months only to find that the majority of my nation tacitly condones it. But ultimately I think it's better to call attention to the problem that a movie can be advertised as silly fun even though it includes a woman being beaten and sexually assaulted. Anyway, just some food for thought, and likely some cathartic venting on my part as an American in an America she doesn’t recognize. None of this changes my love for the people who make this podcast and its community so great.

My favorite part of the movie was before the movie even started, when I was assaulted by 6 production company logos along with The Weinstein Company's distribution logo. It took like 2 minutes to get through all that. Did anyone not work on this project? I hope this sets a HDTGM record for Most Useless Production Companies In A Single "Film."

Oh my God. That's so beautiful. I imagine them all staring at the cups, parched, so close but yet so far... assuming they had eyeholes, of course. How did they see and/or breath through those suits, exactly? And something I noticed while watching - Sean Connery throws what is essentially a small poisoned lawn dart at two of the bears to kill them. But the bear costumes are so thick that the dart would need to be significantly longer, at least a foot longer, in order to reach the human inside.

Great ep and great movie choice! I was completely lost the whole way through but the bear scene made it all worth it. Two things that drove me a little nuts: 1) On the drive over to meet Sean Connery / de Wynter, Steed tells Peel that the man is so obsessed with weather that he's named his children May, June (Diane???), July, etc. Those aren't weather terms, they're months! No one says it's Octobering outside. 2) What the hell is up with the old-timey portrait of Uma, or possibly Twoma, in de Wynter's castle? It looks like he has a 19th-century oil painting of her on one of his ornate walls. Just how long has he been cloning her, anyways?

Please please please let that couple have a child and name it Kumate!

About the Mel Brooks connection - IMDb states that the director of Solarbabies was the choreographer on several Mel Brooks films, including Blazing Saddles (so he probably the "I'm Tired" number, one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history) and History of the World. He, um, should not have strayed from choreography.

I wanted to mention that the actor playing the lead sand Nazi - Captain Pleather or whatever his name was - also played Duncan Idaho in Dune, which came out just 2 years before Solarbabies. So you could potentially argue (although you probably shouldn't) that this dry, dystopian future Earth exists in the same realm as Arrakis. Or maybe the actor just really liked sand.

Thank God I watched the movie before listening to the ep because I'd have been utterly lost trying to follow this. Hell, it was still a struggle. Great ep, and John Mulaney was fantastic! So good to hear June talking about hair again, too.

This is an excellent movie. I would watch this many, many times.

YES. This is my primary gripe about the movie aside from Ghost Mom reveal. I assumed Blondie was renting the place because buying a home when you're on the lamb seems like a bad decision that even she wouldn't make. But then she paints the floor?! You don't.. you don't paint the floor. It's cool that it was magical paint that sealed up the possum hole, but you still end up with yellow paint on your wooden floor. Only in the kitchen, though. And even then you manage to step in it before it dries.