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joshg

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Posts posted by joshg

  1. Posted

    6 hours ago, Crashbangboom said:

    Finally, unrelated, who was taking the pictures of Chobani and Grace when they were rolling around on the couch? Some of those pictures were rather close, so who is the creep getting right up in there?

    I assumed those were from a self-timer. It's already established that journalists are expert hackers, so to show they are also gifted at self-portrait photography isn't too much of a stretch.

  2. Posted

    I'm feeling an old-man, get-off-my-lawn rant coming on...so apologies, disclaimers, and thanks-for-indulging me in advance.

    But...I really lost my patience with this episode. I suppose it's fun to rank our favorite things.  The premise of this podcast is based on a ranking. But then, do we have to obsess about ranking within that ranking? Which movies could be pushed out, which should be pushed in, your ranking of an arbitrarily  25 movies selected from someone else's equally arbitrary top 100 list, how it compares with my top 25...

    Is anyone else just a little tired of all the constant ranking? Not from this podcast per se, but in general.  I feel like it has become magnified through the internet, like so many things.  If there is a new Coen Brothers movie review, people will comment on the review by ranking every Coen Bros. movie. Every time a new Bond, Star Wars, Pixar or Marvel movie comes out there has to be a new click-bait list so we know where the new one falls within the existing pantheon. There are entire Youtube channels like WatchMojo that just publish Top 10 lists.  Buzzfeed is all about Top 10 lists. People have such short attention spans that they can't read a full analysis, but they can quickly skim through a ranking. They're short and provide a distilled opinion that can be easily digested and then argued about online. Every Youtube video of a cover song or anything else that exists in multiple versions is immediately deemed superior or inferior to an alternate version.

    It's all harmless fun, fine. But personally I've hit my threshold with all this constant comparison.  It's just gotten old for me. There's a Top 100 list...can't we just watch these films, enjoy them, argue about them, and appreciate them on their own terms? Nothing can just be. Obviously this podcast does go deeper, to discuss historical context, themes, significance, etc.  It's just a little dispiriting that the conversation will inevitably lead to assigning a number, as if that was ultimate point. And comparing Duck Soup to Titanic to The Sixth Sense is apples and oranges, anyway.

    Thus endeth the mini-rant.

     

  3. Posted

    On 10/29/2018 at 11:54 AM, pscudese said:

     

    From Action Jackson IMDB page... "Carl Weathers later called the film:  A creation that came about when I was doing Predator and talking to Joel Silver, who loved blaxploitation movies. Joel said, "Well, you know, why don't you put something together?" So during that time of shooting down in Puerto Vallarta, I created this story and came up with this guy — or at least this title —Action Jackson. And Joel found a writer [who] wrote the screenplay, and that was it. We got it made.[1]"

    And just in time for the 200th episode, we FINALLY answered the question How Did This Get Made?!

    • Like 5

  4. Posted

    7 hours ago, Blast Hardcheese said:

     

    It was mentioned during the podcast how the producers came up with the name Action Jackson, and an Australian crew member exclaimed, "I'm in like... " yadda, yadda, yadda. Action Jackson is actually the name of a line of action figures produced by the Mego Corporation during the 1970's. The commercials had a pretty catchy theme song: "Action Jackson is my name/Bold adventure is my game!" which , incidentally, was also sung by by Joel and the Bots on an episode of MST3K. Anyhoo... here is one of the Action Jackson television commercials:

     

    I would love it if this movie was the result of a long-gestating attempt to make a live-action movie version of the Mego action figures.  Sorta like how it took over two decades to adapt G.I. Joe into a theatrical release. But with years of script edits and studio interference, the team of scuba diver, Aussie marine (is that what he said?), karate expert, etc. was whittled down to "demoted Detroit cop with superhuman physical abilities" and the only thing that remained was the title.

    • Like 2

  6. Posted

    Did anyone else recognize Dellaplane's mansion as "Stately Wayne Manor" from the '66 Batman TV show??

    Digging a little online, it is quite the celebrity home (the home itself, not because celebrities live there). In addition to Action Jackson and Batman, it has been featured in Dead Again, Rush Hour, Bowfinger, Scary Movie 2, The X Files, and Stand By Me.

    http://www.iamnotastalker.com/2010/04/06/wayne-manor-from-the-batman-television-series/

     

    Apparently Paul McCartney bought the property in 2005. Here's the Zillow report. Anyone looking to drop $9 mil on a 10-bedroom?

    https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/380-S-San-Rafael-Ave-Pasadena-CA-91105/20858675_zpid/

    • Like 4

  8. Posted

    16 hours ago, KaylaGreet said:

    Now I haven't read all the comments here so far, but how did HDTGM not mention Rick talking about his mom's ass to her? At the 35 minute mark she's asking about when he's gonna get his grades. He pulls a three card monte switcheroo about which week he's supposed to get them instead of telling her he flunked because he made a joke about a corpse in Speech 101. Then to further distract her, he grabs her by the waist and says "Oooh you're losing your memory. But you've got a great ass though! And that's why I love you!"

    Did anyone else catch that?!? I felt like Paul was almost there. He played just about everything from that scene except when Rick picks her up.

    Also, when Rick's mom meets Faye, they are clearly holding hands. The mom is willfully ignoring this, looking only at Rick's face after walking right up to both of them. When they are introduced, she is surprised to meet her son's teacher but not because they were just canoodling. When also considering the trailer park scene, there seems to be a running theme here...

     

    So Thats How It Is_zpsg7uaqog3.jpeg

     

    • Like 2
    • huh? 1

  9. Posted

    21 hours ago, MichaelIanFinnigan said:

    I'll just leave this here. 

    Monty python - Decomposing Composers 

    https://youtu.be/sjWPXybVjYE

    Here's the thing about that speech.  It wasn't that Rick wasn't being serious or really didn't have anything to say. That entire speech was just a build-up to making a joke about decomposing composers! The classmate's question was exactly the point: there was no way that the archaeologists would actually know about the occupation of an ancient tribal corpse (and a "true story from central Florida"...come on!). The archaeologist's name was "R.F.Goodrich", as in B.F.Goodrich tires. It's not just that he was making an offhand wisecrack, or that his speech wasn't serious enough. The entire story was BULLSHIT.  In the immediately preceding scene he says "honesty is all I know". Obviously we're meant to take him as a bullshitter, which is reinforced in the classroom scene (and sets up a character arc that is never paid off).

    Which makes it even crazier that he had a visual presentation to go with it. He took the trouble of making a collage and brought in those artifacts just to make the joke even more elaborate. 

    I took a speech class in college, and like the audience members said, the only point of the class is speaking well.  However, it's not just about dumping some information on your audience.  You're supposed to persuade; state a hypothesis or opinion, and then back it up with arguments.  The speech that Rick made wasn't really a rhetorical speech, especially compared with the exemplars pictured behind him (FDR and MLK). This was just regurgitating information from an encyclopedia. And the poster is something that would have been more appropriate for social studies class, where the class is more concerned about the actual content.

     

    • Like 2

  10. Posted

    20 hours ago, mduncan55 said:

    Absolutely killing me that they are calling the Bryan Adams song "All That I Need" instead of its actual name which is "Heaven", both because this is one of my favorite songs of all time, and because it actually explains why they would use it in this movie. (Though not why Mr. Adams would allow them.)

    Were they? I thought one of the guests was just quoting the lyric, just to underscore the husband's loving relationship with his bike.

  11. Posted

    6 hours ago, DannytheWall said:

     

    A psychologist would have a field day with this movie. So many storytelling decisions point to some pretty deep subconscious fears, all 80s-flavoured. Fears of downsizing/job mobility in an 80s recession? Check. Fears of rampant militarization? Fears of redefining marriage and of non-traditional sexual awakenings?  Check, check, check. All we needed was some anti-drug messages and some good old-fashioned gay panic and we'd have "80s Existential Fear Bingo!" 

    Don't forget middle-age man's existential fear of emasculation. Is it purely because the crew had access to a space station that they spent the entire opening credits filming our third-billed main character riding a recumbent bike past a recumbent rocket? No, clearly this deeply layered work of cinema wants to say something early on about male fears concerning non-vertical phallic objects. The husband, after all, is the beta-male, the scientist who does the indoors work so the astronauts can launch their rocket into space and claim the glory. The main competition for his wife's affection?  A virile young man literally named ROCKET who dons a space suit at work. Not to mention Lesley Ann Warren's reaction when she reaches into his pants; we're obviously meant to think that this rocket is superior to what she's got to work with at home.

    • Like 3

  12. Posted

    I find the Gus Van Sant remake to be even more pointless because Psycho was remade in 1980 by Brian De Palma - it's called Dressed to Kill.

    I know most people say Dressed to Kill references Psycho, or that De Palma is generally influenced by Hitchcock, but I'm convinced that this is actually a variation of the same movie. Basically, it's a successful version of the experiment that Van Sant failed at.

    Consider the similarities (spoilers for a 38-year old movie): each character has a parallel version. Michael Caine=Norman Bates. Angie Dickinson=Marion Crane. Nancy Allen=Vera Miles.  Guy from Back to School and Christine=Sam Loomis/Arbogast. The first act focuses on a red herring that resulted from an affair (in Psycho it's the stolen money, in Dressed to Kill it's the results of a venereal disease test). The "main character" is killed after 30 minutes in an enclosed space by a transvestite (1960:shower::1980:elevator). Although Angie Dickenson also dreams of getting murdered in the shower. In the middle of the film there is a misdirect scene that convinces you that the murderer and the main suspect are two different people. In Psycho, it's the overhead shot of Norman carrying his mother down the stairs. In DTK, it's Michael Caine listening to the message on his voicemail left by the killer. I'm sure there are other comparisons, but that's what I remember from just one viewing a while ago.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    17 hours ago, grudlian. said:

    Finding out Tarantino loves this movie is not a surprise at all. When I watched it again this week, the scene with Martin Scorsese cameo made me think this of Tarantino because it's a director giving himself a cameo so he can use racist language and fetishize misogynist violence.

    Of the three Scorsese/De Niro movies, I'd definitely keep this on here. If I had to choose one to remove, I might remove Goodfellas.

    I love when directors don't just do a cameo for the sake of doing a cameo, but decide that they are going to play the most sadistic fuck in their own movie.  The other classic example is Roman Polanski in Chinatown, who slices Jack Nicholson's nose. And not exactly sadistic, but it's disturbing when Spike Lee himself (as Mookie) throws the trash can through the window that sets off the riot in Do The Right Thing. 

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    11 minutes ago, DanEngler said:

    I have to confess that I don't get the praise heaped upon Taxi Driver at all. It's a story about an isolated and psychologically unwell man who, in his alienation, becomes increasingly angry about his lot in life/the perceived failings of women and minorities/the state of the world until he concludes that the only way he can make his mark and right society's wrongs is through violence. And (overlooking Paul's alternate interpretation of the ending) Bickle is ultimately vindicated: he murders a bunch of "filth" to "rescue" an innocent, is hailed as a hero in the press, and even gains the grudging respect of the woman who once rejected him. Viewed for the first time in 2018, it reads more like Elliot Rodger apologia than a critique of misogyny.

    What am I missing? I am genuinely fucking perplexed.

    To try to dissect your argument, I'm reading two complaints: an unsympathetic protagonist, and a narrative that doesn't serve him a just fate.

    People might have different views about how "unsympathetic" Bickle is. He is definitely a pathetic/tragic/unlikeable figure, but as to whether we can relate to his mindset at all (as the Uber driver could) depends on whether we detest/criticize society even more than we detest/criticize the protagonist. Are we like Bickle, looking out from behind glass, throwing spitballs at the world from a distant remove, or are we an active part of that dirty, pornographic, politically phony society? The first complaint is answered by not how much we like Bickle, but how interesting we find him. Raskolnikoff, Macbeth, Holden Caulfield, were all S.O.B.s. None of us would want to hang out with any of them, but we are fascinated by them. Patrick Bateman from "American Psycho" is kind of an 80's Travis Bickle.  He is also completely absolved at the end, which is a critique of 80s Reaganism as much as Taxi Driver was a critique of its own era. So the "happy ending" is really anything but.

    I wanted to respond to this because I actually felt the same way about Raging Bull upon first viewing.  I did not give a shit about Jake LaMotta, and didn't care for the film as a result. I must have seen something relatable, if not sympathetic, about Bickle that I couldn't about LaMotta.

    • Like 6

  15. Posted

    12 hours ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

     

    Man, I love The VVitch. Put that on my AFI Top 100 list. Also, when we're talking horror films not on this list, The Exorcist, but that's a whole different discussion

    Still haven't seen The Exorcist. And still haven't seen Rocky. But that's a whole different discussion from the other different discussion we're not having.

  16. Posted

    7 hours ago, davgoncas said:

    How's this for a coincidence. After watching the movie ahead of last week's episode, I was listening to the audiobook Barrel Fever and Other Stories by David Sedaris. One of the journal entries he reads from the 80's says:

    In the mail we received a video guide of new releases. One movie is called Never Too Young to Die. The brochure reads, “A vicious hermaphrodite wants to control the country, and only two people stand in his way. The resulting ‘battle of the sexes’ will blow your mind. With a heady mixture of powerful heavy-metal music, state-of-the-art weaponry, martial arts, and espionage that makes this exciting action flick a winner.” - Things are looking up when a hermaphrodite wants to control the country and only two people stand in the way. 

    Notice, he doesn't mention actually seeing it, but it looks like just the description left an impression.

     

     

    This film was featured on Red Letter Media's first episode of "Best of the Worst". They read that description from the VHS box, and also pointed out the misleading press quote from the L.A. Times: "...explosions, one-against-a-hundred-bazooka battles,  and chases..."

    Misleading for a couple reasons.  First, what bazooka battles? This would imply that there are at least 101 bazookas.

    Second, have a look at the original review for comparison. The full context of that line is:  "You want James Bond? You want high-tech teens? You want gymnastics? You want drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll? You want car chases and chopper wrecks? You want vanity in a bikini? (And out of it?) You want explosions, one-against-a-hundred bazooka battles, and chases in the sewers? Hang on a while. If it moves, and it's sleazy or violent, producer-writer Steven Paul's team will try to grab it."

    So it's not "chases"...it's "chases in the sewers"...if that's the kind of crap you're into. You have to admit, the marketing team who designed that VHS cover has cojones. They took a review that called the film "aggressively bad" and pulled a quote to make it sound  complimentary.

    Here's the VHS box:

    https://www.blogto.com/events/video-vengeance-10-never-too-young-to-die-1986-free-vhs-screening/

    And here's the original review:

    http://articles.latimes.com/1986-06-17/entertainment/ca-11719_1_producer-steven-paul

     

     

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    On 8/18/2018 at 11:21 AM, AlmostAGhost said:

    Also, does anyone have any other favorite noir I should watch?

    In case you haven't seen it yet: Laura.

    I can only assume it's somewhere on the AFI List. Speaking of soundtracks, it has a great one. The theme song ("Laura") has become a jazz standard. Gene Tierney was arguably the most beautiful Hollywood star of the decade.

    It casts a spell, and there are definite thematic overlaps with both DI and All About Eve.

    The Big Sleep is also classic, especially if you're into movies with inscrutable plots.

    • Like 3

  18. Posted

    1 hour ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

    Let's also note that the payoff for this chewing-gum bug is that it does absolutely nothing to help our heroes stop the bad guy. Stamos leaves it with Gene Simmons, who discovers it immediately and flushes it down the toilet, and that's the end of that.

    At least in the first Mission: Impossible they introduce exploding gum and then have it actually blow up a damn helicopter.

    Are you suggesting that this movie isn't as good as Mission: Impossible?

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1

  19. Posted

    1 hour ago, CameronH said:

    That’s actually something I kind of enjoyed although I’m not sure that it was fully explored (or intentional). It showed just how inexperienced he was and showed how far ahead of him Ragnar was. There are fight scenes where the bad guys straight up ignore him and just attack Danja - which is exactly how it should be! She’s the threat! It’s not until he gets Stargroved by his father’s medallion that he actually becomes competent (and a bloodthirsty killer).

    Giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they were going for something "edgy" by subverting our expectation with the bug. But come on, man...that's one of the reliable pleasures of this genre. When Chekhov's aka Q's gadget is introduced in the first act, we expect it to be put to satisfying use in the second or third act.  It's like the money shot of spy movies. The idea of having the gadget blow up in the hero's face, literally or metaphorically, would have been a funny idea in a spoof like Johnny English or Austin Powers, a la Wile. E. Coyote (I don't think they ever tried it, though...). Unfortunately this movie isn't satirical enough for that. 

  20. Posted

    14 hours ago, WatchOutForSnakes said:

    I looked this up as soon as they mentioned it and it blew my mind! 

     

    As a lifelong Lynda Carter fan, I'm indebted to this board for bringing this to my attention:

     

    The KISS sequence starts at 2:32, but the whole thing is worth a watch.

    I'm fascinated to know how the dress made it from her closet to his. And did anyone else wear it between 1980 and 1986, in any context whatsoever?

     

    • Like 2

  21. Posted

    Paul alluded to this, but I can't get over how bonkers the chewing-gum bug was.

    1. You can't actually chew the gum with the bug inside it; it's just a thin circle of gum wrapped around a metal device. Even if you could, the way you'd be contorting your mouth to chew around the metal would look so awkward that it would defeat the whole purpose of surreptitiously disguising the device. You're going to be nearly as obvious when you try to extricate the bug from the gum. You're way better off just popping a regular piece of gum and then slipping the bug from your pocket into the chewed-up wad when no one is looking.

    2. Since Cliff was just a normal college student, why did the bug have to be disguised in the first place? Designing bazookas, etc. is crazy, but you could say that Cliff was a pyro. Those weapons were out in the open for all to see (and apparently...not suspend him for?) Disguising a listening device is specific to spy gadgetry, a la James Bond. What did Cliff plan to eavesdrop on, so crucially that he'd go through the trouble of disguising it as a piece of gum? If I found out that my roommate planned to eavesdrop on people for fun, I'm not so sure I'd trust him.

    3. I hate the wording Cliff uses, "Chew it up."  GROSS.

     

    • Like 6

  23. Posted

    On 4/18/2016 at 3:27 PM, JimAsmus said:

    a movie that races to cram in every 'drama' hot-button wrapped in new-age sci-fi and expects Ashton Kutcher to pull it all off.

     

    featuring

    - cancer

    - mental institutions

    - incest

    - pedophilia

    - amputation

    - suicide

    - and the SINGLE MOST INSANE ALTERNATE ENDING OF ALL TIME (which, I really hope they would find a way to watch and weigh in on. It's on the bluray/dvds)

    Doesn’t someone kill a dog?

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    36 minutes ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

    Does holding that note longer make it better?

    Good question. As we learned from Mission Impossible, it's only a 16th note, and the direction is poco allargando, not molto allargando (slow down a little bit, not a lot). So it's at least indulgent, if not against the composer's wishes, to hold that note forever.  Then again, the effect is thrilling, and it's one of the most famous and indulgent moments in opera, so if you got, flaunt it...(maybe purists would disagree).

    An important point about the compilation that  some people might not realize is that there are three categories going on here:

    1. Trained opera singers who are performing in a concert hall  (although we might be hearing a different audio mix as it was recorded, the live audience heard this without amplification)

    2. Pop singers who are amplified because it's not an acoustical hall but also because their voices would never carry over an orchestra anyway

    3. Trained opera singers who are amplified because they are singing in a huge amphitheater (like the Three Tenors at the end of the video, or Pavarotti in the Boston hatch shell)

    Because a lot of people don't make it to an actual opera, they take for granted that everything we see on TV is miked and remixed and amplified. But "opera is hard" because what separates opera from musical theater is that your voice needs to carry naturally.

    • Like 3

  25. Posted

    The movie takes pains to make the connection that Giorgio loses his voice because of what happened at the Met. Never mind that this is apparently the first time he ever lost his voice. Apparently he never lost his voice during or since the actual Met incident, but only after his agent receives a phone call seven years later.

    After he loses his voice the first time, lady doctor "cures" him, and he's back in top form. The Met isn't mentioned again. Then why does he lose his voice again in San Francisco? Could it be that he loses he voice only when the movie needs to conveniently reunite him with lady doctor?

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 1
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