Blast Hardcheese

My wife and I were initially perplexed why this innocuous-seeming film was picked for this week's episode, so we went to watch the trailer on Amazon prior to watching the movie. It was one of those non-trailer trailers which was actually a cut scene from the film. It featured the minstrel scene in the African-American music club. Yikes...! We instantly realized why it was chosen after that. This week's episode ironically coincided with my History of Sound in Cinema class's discussion of the introduction of sound in film, and, of course, 1927's The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson, is prominently featured due to it's innovative use of sound. It was how, I am slightly embarrassed (but not too much) to say, I realized 1980's The Jazz Singer was a remake of the 1927 film. So then I got to wondering, what producer (or producers) thought remaking this infamously racially insensitive movie in 1980 was a good idea? That would be like an 80's remake of Birth of A Nation (a film notable for its groundbreaking cinematic achievement in narrative form, yeah, but you know... ) So, back to that club scene: which is more egregious? The black face or the idea that, up until Ernie Hudson outs him, the all-African-American crowd is duped by the ruse and totally into Diamond's act? Like the producers thought that this was a hilarious conceit: fooling black people into believing this white boy in blackface is convincingly pulling it off. Okay, one last thing: I'm half Jewish myself and my best friend used to date a woman who would do this over-the-top "Jewish voice" thing whenever we'd hang out. I remember not being offended by the stereotypical "oy vey"s and elongated vowels in the middle of her words as much by the fact it wasn't particularly funny. If you're going to do minstrel Jewish voice, bring something new to the game, shiksa.

I can respect that. The tightrope Paul, Jason and June have to walk with this podcast now is really getting up there, though. I miss the unencumbered and fearless days of this podcast, but I also understand the politics involved.

Just your garden variety hectic life stuff (work, school, family, etc.) But, listening to Paul mention your comment on the recent mini ep made me miss this board and everyone on it (even the newbs who keep recommending the movies MST3K have already done). So here I am. Put me in coach. I'm ready to watch... Ninja Dance Squad? Or, whatever it is the next film's called. Add Jesse Falcon to that Wolverine: Origins list. I know it's one guest too many, but I'd love to hear his take on this film.

Any idea why? This movie is batshit bananas.

It's been a while since I've visited the forum and even longer since I've revisited this thread. In that time, I've amassed a list of 20 films on my iPhones Notes app that have yet to make it on HDTGM. Here goes: 1. Showgirls 2. Ishtar 3. Cutthroat Island 4. Waterworld 5. The Black Dahlia 6. Leonard Part 6 7. Suicide Squad 8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 9. X-Men Origins: Wolverine 10. Fant4stic 11. Freddie Got Fingered 12. The Postman 13. Southland Tales 14. The Scarlett Letter 15. Spawn 16. Robot Jox 17. Christmas with The Cranks 18. Frozen Assets 19. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra 20. Jack and Jill

Great! Now I have the Condorman theme song stuck in my head. Thanks a lot. No actually, wait. It's still pretty catchy. So, thanks a lot, man.

Thank you! In all of my years (oy vey!) of watching wonderfully horrible movies, this conceit infuriated me to no end. The baddies in The Wraith are essentially compelling their victims to "race for pink slips" under the threat of rape/murder of their loved ones. This might be a testament to their love of racing, but the gang could have essentially skipped a step and simply demanded that their victims sign over their cars instead. But even at that, couldn't the victims of these crimes go to the police and tell them that they were kidnapped, then robbed and had to sign their cars over under extreme duress? I mean the gang doesn't wear masks, they are locals and they actually let their victims go after stealing their cars. It seems like a fairly open and shut case since these criminals are so exceptionally dumb. This entire race-for-pink-slips-or-else scenario smacks of one of those faux law-and-logic loopholes idiotic people convince themselves is clever. I completely agree with you about this movie lacking dramatic tension due to The Wraith being omnipotent. RoboCop had Directive 4, and The Crow had his guardian crow getting shot, but the hero of this movie had bupkis: he couldn't lose if he wanted to. I think that's why the gang just sits there when our hero saunters in to their barn lair and Light Bright-shotguns the place up: they know there's absolutely no point in doing anything about it.

When this movie was announced, I remember feeling kind of, like, "really...?" about it. Running Man, as it has been noted on this thread already, isn't Arnie's best movie, but it's far from his worst. It's big, dumb, dystopian sci-fi fun. This was a great episode to listen to however, and I like June noting Arnold's sexy-ass beard (homina, homina, homina!) But in doing Running Man, it now seems like the gang is just dancing around more deserving films like Buckaroo Banzai, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Showgirls.

The moment this movie was announced for the next episode of HDTGM, my wife and I were out the door and heading for the local multiplex. And while this movie was insanely enjoyable, I did had a couple of notes: 1. I get that this film is called The Fate of The Furious because it's the eighth film in the series and "fate" rhymes with 8... But, a more fitting title may have been The Forgiveness of The Furious, as forgiveness seems to be a running theme through-out the movie: Dom forgives the Cuban thug after he wins the race, Dom and the Rock each forgive Deckard Shaw (and be extension, the Shaw family), the crew forgives Dom for betraying them, Letty apparently forgives Dom for foisting a baby on her, etc, etc. 2. The remote control car scene in New York is amazing and fun, but wouldn't it have been much easier and less conspicuous for Cipher to simply seize control of the Russian diplomat's limousine? Even if the limo's systems were protected, Cipher, being the kick-ass hacker that she is, could have hacked its system and driven the limo to any destination she pleased. 3. All this mayhem taking place in New York City and the cops are pretty slow to respond to any of it. 4. The bit with Roman trying to read Russian out loud in the sub was the most hilarious moment in the film. 5. The scene with the Rock and his daughter's soccer team doing the war chant at the opposing team didn't strike me as empowering as much as it was kind of bullying. It had a real Cobra Dojo from The Karate Kid feel to it. Now had the other team been all boys, then that would have been empowering and funny. 6. Dom kills Cipher's clutch guy with a neck snap the way The Punisher did to the parkour leader in Punisher: War Zone. 7. "I will beat you like a Cherokee drum!" is one of my absolute favorite alpha dog lines from this or any movie. 8. Given that these films trash so many of them, how many muscle cars are left in the world? 9. My pick for the next bad guy's henchperson goes to Tatiana Maslany from the television series Orphan Black. Talk about being out-acted by an actor... She would be an amazing addition to this film series, with the potential to be assimilated into Dom's crew and take over the Brian spot by the 10th film (sorry, Chip Eastwood). 10. These Fast films are fun and ridiculous overall, and definitely meet the criteria for escapist entertainment. I honestly feel bad for people who feel the need to go out of their way to bad mouth this series (that's energy best used for DC's run of cinematic excrement. I mean did you see the trailer for the Justice League film?!? That movie looks like an ashtray!) This series is absurd, but also highly entertaining. To me, poo-poo-ing these films is like a hipster criticizing your choice of music at a record shop. Yeah, we get it: you're opinionated and constantly right about everything. Isn't that good enough for you? I love all kinds of movies, from film noir to mumblecore, foreign and domestic, past and present, you name it. These Fast and Furious movies are endlessly entertaining and fun. Big, dumb fun, but fun nonetheless. And I'm not ashamed to say I love them. So there.

I love that this entire opening was a big "fuck you" to Kevin McClory, who owned the rights to Blofeld and Specrte. From IMDB: "This Bond film [Never Say Never Again] was not part of the franchise produced by MGM and Danjaq. Kevin McClory, who was producer and co-writer of Thunderball (1965), won a legal battle against Ian Fleming to make his own Bond movie. The settlement stipulated that it had to effectively be a remake of Thunderball." Eon, the official production company of James Bond films weren't allowed to use Blofeld or Spectre in their movies after the settlement, so this was their work around: essentially letting McClory know that James Bond's success wasn't tethered to a single villain or evil cabal. Of course, after McClory's death, Eon brought both Blofeld and Spectre back in Spectre, so perhaps this was a double "fuck you" from them to McClory.

* I have to admit that I was a bit perplexed by the "mom"'s James-Bond-Villain-reveal scene. She's boasting that she can bring these body parts back together and reanimate the corpse. But, isn't her entire concept basically already proven by the fact that these limbs are already acting in concert with their original host, Charlie? If the limbs are still alive and doing their thing, then isn't her theory and end game moot? *With its loud-quite-loud line delivery, is this movie the cinematic version of a Pixies song? * I think there was a Simpson's episode from one of the Tree House of Horrors episodes that was possibly inspired by this movie. Homer has Snake Jailbird's luscious head of hair transplanted onto his head after Snake is put to death. The hair, of course, is possessed by the evil ghost of Snake and it inevitably makes Homer perform evil acts. The story climaxes with Homer ripping the hair off his head and Chief Wiggum shooting the hair several times. * I'm not sure if Gillian Jacobs has already seen it, but another film to add to her cinema-going experience is 1996's Kissed, starring Molly Parker. IMDB describes it as: "Over the years, a child's romantic ideals about death blossom into necrophilia, the study of embalming and the most profound relationship of her life." * I think Jeff Fahey is more the proto-Eric Roberts than the proto-Nicolas Cage. Not only that, but they could convincingly play brothers in a movie. Hollywood, get on this!

He also liked The Phantom Menace, for whatever that's worth.

No! I wanna kvetch about Paywallgate too, ad nauseam... 1. Can we talk about how Snake's big plan to screw the President over and take the Earth back into the dark ages hinges on Eddie's impromptu idea to dot a disc with nail polish and pass it off as the satellite control disc? I mean, shouldn't Snake, not Eddie, have come up with this idea, seeing how the ol' pull-a-switcheroo-on-president thing is basically in Snake's wheelhouse? And what was Snake's grand plan if Eddie didn't make a fake satellite control disc play. 2. About that nail polish: I've seen my wife paint her nails more times than I can count, and it takes a while for the nail polish to dry. In this film, Eddie dabs a small dot of nail polish on a teen-tiny disc (which is pretty impressive in its own right) and simply closes the case holding the disc. I would have loved to see a cutaway of Eddie gently blowing on the red nail polish dot for a solid minute, waiting for it to dry before he slides the case closed. 3. In the 90's, I used to work at a Tower Records subsidiary called Tower Outlet. It was basically a bargain basement depository to sell over stocked products that were either returned, slightly damaged or too old to send back to the manufacturer, like CDs, books and rental VHS tapes. Needless to say, we had a shit-ton of Escape From L.A. VHS tapes, and nobody wanted them. After awhile, the manager just started giving them away free with a purchase of three VHS tapes or more. A short time after, a customer came back to return this movie because she wanted us to know exactly how awful she (rightfully) thought it was. She could have trashed it, or donated it, but no: she took time out of her day to return this free VHS tape specifically to tell us how awful Escape From L.A. was. I guess she figured yelling at us was the next best thing to yelling at John Carpenter and Kurt Russell. 4. I'm sorry first poster on this thread, but the CGI and story in Escape From L.A. are absolute dog shit, even by 1996 standards. 5. Since everyone in the movie keeps mentioning it, whatever it was that took place in Cleveland sound infinitely more interesting than what's going on in this film. I mean, besides being a more juiced-up version of Escape from New York, Escape From L.A. completely blew any and all opportunities to tell us more about Snake Plissken, clue us into more of his back story, see him take part in one of those famous heists, or anything. Here we have this great anti-hero; this bad-boy rebel we all wish we could be, sneering at society's laws and living the life of a gruff, one-eyed street wise outlaw, and he's wasted in a film that is a near-shot-for-shot retread of the better film that came before it. 6. Does anyone else think the tail of Snake's cobra tattoo wraps around his dick and/or balls?

Emily touched on this at the end of the show, but the one scene that really irked me takes place when Jobe is driving the truck and is listening to the first five seconds of each CD he puts in the boombox. I get that this is supposed to be something akin to Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation super speed reading a book, but seriously? Speed listening?!? Even when Data would speed read, he would read whatever he was reading in its entirety. It's as if the movie is telling us all Jobe needs to do to fully comprehend music is to listen to a snippet of it. Wouldn't a true genius listen to an entire song or album to glean the nuances of it? Like say, Jobe listens to Beethoven's 9th Symphony and, using his super genius brain, hears something in each and every note no human has ever conceived of before.

I need to go back and listen to the Maximum Overdrive episode, but didn't the audience member say he actually read the three-page short story that the movie was supposedly based on?

But the original had this exchange: "Is that a grenade?" "It's a hand grenade."

AKA, "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus.

The "original" AVP (which was based off of a Dark Horse comic by the same name) had a tagline like, "Whoever wins, we lose." Well, not exactly, as the Predator ends up teaming-up with the last human to defeat the Alien queen, even going so far as to make a shield out of a dead Alien's head for her (no, seriously). But, as bad as AVP is, however, AVP:R is absolutely insufferable. A no-name cast playing forgettable characters you could give a shit less about. Add to this, the film looks cheap (or, "Canadian") and fucks the original Aliens timeline up for anyone paying attention (kind of like what Enterprise did with that one episode featuring the Borg). (((BUMP)))

I remember as I was watching that film thinking, "So these vampire have taken over the world, yet they're running out of humans to eat? Have they never heard of farming?" Like, they got this far then totally gorged themselves on their human supply without cultivating new crops. Way to plan ahead, guys.

Totally late to the party on this one, buuuuut... Okay, so I only have one observation about Vampire Academy and it has to do with the Ducky line that Michael Showalter mentioned in the podcast. Was I the only one who thought the movie was attempting to be clever à la Joss Whedon by slamming that one character with a pop culture reference no one in this movie's targeted demographic would get? As I understand it, millennials and tweensters could give a shit less about anything not in their immediate and disposable purview, and being completely ignorant of everything that came before they were born is seen as a plus. So, dropping a "Ducky" on someone has about as much impact as calling them Fatty Arbuckle. "Who...? Pretty in wha...? I can't even with this!" On the Luke Cage tip: how great was that scene with a certain Shaolin MC during the liquor store hold up?

Troll 2. The time has come.

Again, late to the party on this. Here's my EDI playlist, culled from my iPhone: 1. The Avalaches "Colours" 2. Guided By Voices "Eskimo Clockwork" 3. DJ Shadow and Run The Jewels "Nobody Speak" 4. Big Black "Bad Houses" 5. My Bloody Valentine "If I Am" 6. Thee Oh Sees "Ticklish Warrior" 7. The Caretaker "Roll Up the Carpet and Dance" 8. Make Up "What's the Rumpus?" 9. JG Thirwell "Optimistic Space Travel" 10. Panopticon "Pale Ghost"

Owing to your masterful acting chops, Paul would you please read the line, "Just tell me you love me, you pussy," in a pirate voice on the next mini episode? I feel Jessica Biel - fine actress though she may have been - just didn't do this line justice.

I wonder why a third Escape From... sequel never came out.

To be fair, Die Another Day makes Moonraker look like Goldfinger. If The Matts over at James Bonding didn't do such a stellar job reviewing that film, I'd recommend DAD for HDTGM in a heartbeat.