Ep 350 - Caine and Keaton 6 - Johnny Dangerously & The Hand - The After Movie Diner Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
You are listening to the sweet soundsof the Aftermovie Diner, which turned ten
years old in twenty twenty one.Insert suitable sounds of shock and all.
Now, if you enjoy the showand have pursued the recommended treatment from your
medical providers, why not support theshow on Patreon over at PA t R

(00:32):
e o N dot com forward slashAftermovie Diner. You can also donate to
the show directly at Aftermovie Diner dotcom. Rate and review the show wherever
podcasts are found and rating and reviewingis possible. Even a one star review
provides useful insights on exactly the sortof petty minded and wretched individual who negatively

(00:57):
reviews free entertainment they do not needto be consuming. And now try to
contain your outrage and yawns. Hereis your host, John Cross. Yes,
yes, yes, yes, yes, I am John Cross. And
unlike most human beings, my kneesbend inwards. This allows me to trim
my toenails with my teeth. Hello, and welcome to an all new episode

(01:19):
of the Aftermovie Dina. And it'sa very very very special episode because we
have Bavarian pop singing sensation schwenk.Here to perform her new single Ikazian Ganzigen
live on the show? Is SchrenkPopeye can who set fire to a tower
of yukuleles while urinating on a pictureof Otto von Bismarck. That that's the

(01:42):
one? Yes, oh goody?And when is she on the show at
the end? So I have tolisten to the whole boat of thing.
Well, preferably no thanks, oryou can fast forward once the show is
up online. I suppose, oh, thank folk for that nice anyway,
as I was saying, Shrink willbe appearing later in the program, and
yes, yes, what is itAlan? While Schenk has a few requests

(02:07):
do we have to do this onair? Wow? Okay, get on
with it. Well, there's alot of the usual things, hair extensions,
a life size lithograph of Fellow,the Law, bowl of pink sugar
coated almonds, the seven stuffed headof Stoat. So far it's the same
as Seal and Tom Jones. Thenshe wants a large coat made out of
a double sized douvet. Okay,because at the end of the song she

(02:29):
wants to remove it and reveal tothe world her tentacles. Well, that
seems perfectly reasonable. Wait, didyou say tentacles. Yes, she claims
to have large, slithery octopus styletentacles instead of legs, instead of legs,
yes, not as well as them. Well, that's not what it
says here. Okay, So shewants to wear a big douvet and at

(02:51):
the end of the song revealed tothe world that she has tentacles. That's
right. Then there's a Bible passageand something about inhaling the souls of the
young. And does she need anythingapart from the coat of paddling pools some
industrial tubing. No, she's justadamant about showing the world she has tentacles
of Lovecraft in proportions, inhaling thesouls of the young. Oh, and
she's playing the whole song and accordion. What fuck? No? I was

(03:15):
okay about the stuffed stoutehead, thetentacles thing, and the inhaling the souls
of the young. Actually I wasquite excited about that. But if she
thinks for one minute I'm going tohave accordion music on this show, I
can't blame you. Tell her toget knotted. Wise, move you don't
want this fine show to be associatedwith accordion types. Looks like we narrowly
dodged a bullet there. Anyway.Hello, and welcome to a new episode

(03:38):
of the Aftermovie Diner. Taking astand against accordions since two and eleven.
So I have to confess something.I started twenty twenty two with some zest
and verve. I recorded a tonof podcast I put out some music,
and I started writing a script.Two thousand and two. I thought it's
going to be my year. Andthen in February, March, and most
of April I stopped feeling it.I couldn't find the motivation anywhere. I

(04:01):
was just stopped dead in my tracks. This happens sometimes, and I actually
find its best to just ride itout. Now, my wife and I
have been going through a house purchasingprocess, and that's enough to make anyone
tear their own teeth out one byone and throw them at passing cyclists,
screaming, just what the hell isit all about? Anyway? I mean,
if the intention is that every personin the privileged western world at least

(04:23):
is meant to at some point getto where they want to go through the
house buying process, and presuming thatall the lawyers real to its mortgage brokers,
etc. All have to and wantto go through the process. Why
on earth do they make it soconfusing, time consuming, ridiculous and endlessly
nerve wracking. I mean, isn'tthis the same industry that we, the
taxpayers bailed out a little over adecade ago. Can't you cut us normal

(04:45):
as a break? No? Oh, okay, then let's continue with this
bureaucratic charade, shall we? Thatand getting a cute new puppy, natty
Gan and just not feeling it atall meant that there is nearly a three
month gap since the last ep ingood news about the new house which we
hope to close on in May.By the way, it does have three
sheds. That's three sheds, notone or two, but three sheds.

(05:13):
That alone should be a reason forcelebration. So I don't know what pushed
me back onto the podcasting horse.Really, it was a culmination of things,
not least of all because I believethat we all need a little joy
in our rebellion, Am I right? Anyway? I have four episodes recorded
that I will be putting out inthe coming weeks. After that, let's
see how this all shakes out,shall we? Anyway? On the last

(05:33):
episode, the Jumping Jack Flash episodefrom the end of January. You may
remember I put a call out tothe Internet for voicemails, and for once,
the Internet actually responded. And whilethis may be the longest gap between
bits, and while all of thesevoicemails are actually from January twenty seven to
twenty eight, here now is thesecond segment of our voicemails. Bit.

(05:55):
Don't forget that you can send yourown voicemail by calling three four seven six
nine zero zero five three que thesegment did voice mail a voice mail?
Everybody leave, vuts a boice,smeil the voicemail a voice mail? Would
everybody leave, get out? Voicemailvoicemail? Please, everybody leave VOTs a

(06:24):
bol voice, smil's voice smail thevoice mail? Now, everybody leave,
get out. Jeff your loiterer.A mysterious Facebook posting told me to call
this number and leave a message thatI have And now I must say that
I do believe that I have gonemad. Oh oh mad, I tell

(06:48):
you I have gone mad. Whyis that cat? Hey, get out
of there? Hold on one second, hello, John, missus, James
Sader, how are you doing?I was even wondering, when are you
going to have me on the downeragain? Buddy, Hey care, Hey
James, thanks for your voicemails.I don't know. Let's see how the

(07:12):
next four episodes go. Let's seehow I feel after that. Let's see
how I fail in my new home. Let's just see. But I'm always
open to it, sir as youknow, a big fan of yours,
and so we will talk in thefuture. I promise. Let's just see
how the next few episodes go.Hello, Hello, is this a video
store? Is this a video store? I'm sorry, my name is Madge.

(07:33):
I'm calling. I'm looking for amovie. It's called Deep Cheeks seven,
Deep Cheeks seven. It's d eet c h e e k s.
You know deep cheeks and the numberseven, but cheeks like in butt
cheeks. That's that's what I mean, deep cheeks. I'm calling because I
want this movie because I saw thefirst six and they were fantastic. They

(07:53):
would dynamite movies. And it's supposedto be messy here this weekend, and
I just wanted to watch a movieand I thought that would be a great
one to see. I can hitfind the movie anywhere, So if you
could help me, I would begreatly appreciative. All right, thank you
so much, and I hope youhave a great day. Sir. Hello,
this is d from Three Black Cheeks. How you're doing, John?

(08:13):
How was the whole after movie diner? I bet it's doing very very well?
All right, let me just dropall that shit. So why y'all
motherfucker's never did Pulma Man yet?I mean, you always talking at nauseum
talking about the greatness of one DonaldPleasant, and it is, at least

(08:35):
in my recollection, you have neverdone Pola Man. Now I get it.
Puema Man's a piece of shit,and it's sure your your classic for
this ReScience theater. But I justmissed me how that the Donald Pleasant movie
I never hear you mentioned? Andit's fine for that reason. But anyway,

(08:56):
I just wanted to say I loveyou guys, and I also wanted
to say we'll see you soon,John, because I'm pretty sure I want
to call you for a show.That also being said Michael McDowell, was
actually a really good a moment.Are you gonna have to deal with that?
Hey? There are all of lookingto pick up a couple of fortyweight

(09:16):
that sur valves a little bit ofWD forty get her done flying out the
Utah this weekend. The big gamestill there. A second Hello after movie

(09:37):
diner. This is Ode long Green, and I'm calling you with a movie
recommendation. I think my very favoritemovie that I saw in twenty twenty one
was a strange little indie comedy genrefilm called Chompy and the Girls. Again,
that's Chompy and the Girls. Iliked a tremendous amount. I have

(09:58):
a strong feeling at my my lifeof this film is somewhat unique. You
know, It's probably not shared asmuch as I do, but I do
highly recommend it and suggest you searchit out. I have a great day
and a great twenty twenty two movieyear. Okay, so I love the
stupid voicemail, So I thought Ishould also leave one of some substance as
well that want to thank you forkeeping your show going through these really frustrating

(10:22):
times. Even though you are notable to do what you're originally set out
to do anymore with going to actualmovies and sitting at actual diners face to
face with people, he persevered andkept it going as well as anyone could.
You and your guests, whether theydo mister Wallace or anyone else,
are always a source of interesting discussion, fun and sometimes inspiration. You keep

(10:43):
doing what you do best, andthat is just being you. I'll keep
listening and I really appreciate everything youdo. And just so you know,
because I realized I never once saidit on either voicemail the stupid order and
cater message as me, any oneof some quote unquote substance is me,

(11:03):
and that is from Christopher from Cincinnati, Ohio. I just thought you should
have a name to go along withit. Excuse me for being kind of
stupid. Well, hi guys,Well Christopher from Cincinnati, Ohio, thank
you so much for that beautiful andwonderful and sincere voicemail message. Although I
can't claim that it was the messagethat got me back to doing the show

(11:26):
when I was listening through to thevoicemails this morning as I was prepping this
show, it did at least solidifythat my decision to put these episodes out
and get back on the podcasting horsewas the right one. I hope that
the last three month break has notbeen too crazy and too horrible, but
if it has, I hope thenext few episodes do what our episodes last

(11:48):
year did and continue to bring alittle joy, a little silliness, and
hopefully some friendship to the world.I don't want to sound high falutin.
You know, we're not curing answeror sorting out the political divide, but
I don't know. I think there'ssomething to it. And if you can
find it in yourself to be alittle silly and bring some joy, I

(12:11):
think I think you really owe itto people to do that. So anyway,
I don't know. Whatever. Anyway, it is what it is on
with the show. A voice male, a voice male, everybody leaves a
voice mail voice, a voice male? Would everybody leave? Get out?
This week our guest is notorious author, father raconteur, investor in hedges,

(12:35):
banisher of all bow ties, ownerof many, a forehead pugilist, rabid
Beatles fan and conspiracy theorist, deardear friend and humanity representative who's also interested
in the concept of sheds and sheddingthe now and rightfully so. Legendary John
Wallace, Sir, thank you forreturning to the show. Have you been
so I'm good, I'm not toobad. It's a place to be back

(12:56):
I've been very good because because we'rewe're kicking back in the Cane and the
Keats, and that that feels,it feels really really good to be to
be doing it. We thought thatwe had put Cane to Keats to bed
with quicksand the movie that they startingtogether. We kind of always said that
would be the last thing. Butwe are breaking with conventional rules rules,

(13:18):
and I mean, nothing means anythinganymore. So let's just tear that rule
book asunder and let us plow backinto the heady and choppy waters of Cane
and Keaton, which is which isalways a thrill and always fantastic. Tell
us a little bit about the twothat you picked for us to do this

(13:39):
week. What I should say beforeI before we begin, I should say
that, in line with Dina sortof law, Yes, as we presurrected
Tanny Keaton at the moment outside,Yes, this room in our drive is
stacked on a pallet a brand new, unassembled chef and over the next I

(14:03):
started watching like the key Mover.Wow, this is like there's a sort
of there's there's something there about likethe building of the shed and the building
of a new Cane and Keatan edifice. Yes, so yeah, it's very
satisfying. It's it's all sort ofshiny. It's going to be built by
large men, not me. Andthe idea of either of us wheezing in

(14:26):
our cardigans trying to we're both sathere ladies and germs, by the way,
in cardigans. I don't know aboutyou. If by trying to convince
myself that I can be handy,if I just you know, if I
really buckled down, I really justthought of that, and then I try
and do it, and it's justsuch an epic cluster fuck that I am.
We have to accept we're middle aged, we're bearded, We're in cardigans,

(14:48):
and that's entirely that's all life.Are both wearing cardis. We are
both wearing cardigans. That's entirely niceCARDI desper carrot, nice card It's entirely
where life expected us to be inour early forties was cardigan and bearded.
So I'm kind of a new building, not only an actual shed, but

(15:11):
a metaphorical shed as well. Yeah, and you know the old there was
an old, rotten shed and it'sall been demolished and taken away and there's
a brand new it's like there's awhole rebirth going on. Are you saying
that our old Caynean Keaton episodes arean old rotting shed, I'm saying the
rotting edifice of or you just knowwhat I'm saying. I've gone to I've

(15:35):
gone too much that I extended themetaphor. I should have just stayed where
I was. I shouldn't have rangedout into beyond the beyond the boundary.
You have broadened the metaphor to breakingpoint. And we have we have,
we have rejuvenated. And yes,Canaan Keaton is old and knacket because we
haven't done it in years, Imean literally years. We haven't done Came,

(15:56):
we haven't done Caynan King. Idon't think that we did, by
the way, I don't think thatwe did decide, oh, we'll stop
it with this. I think wejust sort of you know, you had
loads of stuff going on with Jim. You know, I am the like
the less good Jim. I'm likethe Marge to his butter right, and
I can't believe it's not Jim.Yeah, and you had better things to

(16:17):
do, so I think I thinkwe just sort of paused it and sort
of drifted apart it, so I'mso, I'm thrilled to be back with
it, and we are doing twoamazing films, right which, really I
was entertained. Well, I meanthat's true. There is nothing but entertainment
on the on the bill this evening. These two films are nothing if not

(16:41):
entertaining, not always for the reasonor certainly the first film, not always
for the reason that maybe the directorand start intended it to be entertaining,
but entertaining nonetheless absolutely, And I'mreferring to Oliver Stone and Michael Caine's The
Hand, Yeah, and all ofsaying marketing has to hand and Amy Heckling

(17:02):
and Keaton's don't dangerously, Johnny dangerouslyDo you know these name is an adverb.
It's one of the one of thegood lines among all the incredibly weird
lines. Amy Heckling, who isknown for clueless, fast times at Ridgemont
High and looking who's talking. Yeah, I had no idea that she was
known for those things. And she'sobviously she's a you know, I mean,

(17:25):
I don't, I don't know whatthe thought the sort of school school
of film thought is on Heckling,but she's obviously a very successful female director.
At a time many around. Yes, I believe she is. She's
writing and directing as well. She'swriting and directing very although I don't think

(17:48):
she wrote on this, but shedid write now she wrote Luk Who's talking?
Luk Who's talking too? So thosewere her initial that was going to
be her franchise, I guess.And then she wrote Clue, which is
probably her Clueless and Fast Times aRidgemond High probably her two most famous movies
that have stood the test of timein the pop culture subconscious. Um,

(18:14):
they have like a claim, don'tthey They have a claim? There is
there is Heckling has a claim forthose two movies. Um, yeah,
I mean it's it's It's always difficult, isn't it when you look at um
female directors, because sadly they area scars bunch. There aren't. There
aren't as many as there are menin Hollywood when it comes to directing,

(18:37):
and therefore one is always probably incorrectlytempted to go well her career versus you
know, a male counterpart of youknow, whether it's teen comedies or whatever,
is there a male counterpart that youcould kind of line them up and
be like career versus career. ButI don't think you need to do that.
I think Heckling has made her markon Hollywood and on cinema. She

(19:03):
has a legacy that is respected byI think everyone. I mean, you
know, fast Times, the rich. You can't help but respect it because
I like because I mean, firstof all, I knew nothing about it,
which I feel quite bad about it. But I just didn't know that
she really tisted. But I rememberwatching Luke who's talking as at the target

(19:23):
age, I don't know, notor whatever it was. I'm enjoying it.
Yes, I've never really visited it, but but but I know it's
probably enjoyable. You may show yourdaughter the movie out of pure curiosity.
It might be something that you go, well, let's just show my daughter
this this movie. And they weremassive, they were huge, massive those

(19:45):
films. Honey, I shrunk thekids and all that kind of stuff.
She also directed, and I'm afraidI wasn't aware of this National Lampoon's European
vacation. I'm often regarded as thebest vacation a lot of my favorite vacation.
That's what I'm saying. Man Like, I'm quite impressed, very impressive.
Certain I mean, certainly in theeighties and nineties, a very Sterling

(20:07):
creer. She's done a lot ofTV since that, and when I say
Sterling career, I'm talking about moviesonly. She's gone on to have a
very successful TV career with what looksto be three or four different franchises that
she's worked on within television, butcertainly within movies of the decades that we
tend to hover around eighties and nineties, she is one of the directing behemoths

(20:33):
of some key titles and why not. And I also think it's it's it's
fascinating as well, because I thinkthere is again this stigma, and I
think it's bullshit. I think it'sjust made up in people's heads. But
there is this stigma that, youknow, women make movies for women and
men make movies for men. Whenyou look at Fast Times, Richmond High

(20:55):
National, Lampoon's European Vacation, andeven Johnny Dangerously, you know those are,
in a weird way, very malecentric movies. They are movies Johnny
Dangerously a male centric, isn't itjust? I mean, who is Johnny?
Well? True, but I'm justsaying in general, and I understand
it's done for jokes. But womenare objectified in those three films for jokes

(21:18):
and for complexity and for various differentreasons, and because of it's the script
and blah blah blah blah blah.And I'm not saying, and I'm just
saying, you wouldn't imagine necessarily thosemovies coming in the form that they came
from a female director. But butthat makes it all the more fascinating.
And nor should those stigmas be inplace. I'm just saying they might be,
And I'm bashing down those walls.They are old, moldy sheds that

(21:42):
should be pushed away, been takenaway to the dumb. That's what I'm
along with, along with the bythe way, along with the suspicious dyed
purple curtains that they discovered behind them, people like drag strange things out of
corn as a pure Probably they hada shed there and they were like,
what do we do with these curtains? Barbara A just talking about That's what

(22:04):
I would have done. Yeah,I suppose you just talking about it dangerously
first, I mean I I firstof all, I want to talk about
dangerously. First. I was gonna, okay, fine, we'll go we're
already talking about is it Amy Heckling, Amy Heckling. Yes, we're talking
talking about Amy hecking So why not? I mean, first of all,

(22:26):
I would say, you know,unlike The Fan, which was the last
last one we did, where youknow, my honest, my genuine,
honest recommendation would be don't bother don'tI would say bothered with both of the
films to yes, if you're becauseone of the things I found really glorious
about it and the thing that I'myou know, I'm really keen to do
more any way, always be asgood. But is that in both cases

(22:49):
particularly would join dangerously though you dowatch you thinking, wow, like this,
this this sort of thing is justnot ever going to get made again,
right because it has Johnny dangerly hasthe weirdest blend of humor I have

(23:10):
encountered. I mean, it sortof has at times, it sort of
leans slightly towards naked gun. Allthe writers haven't done anything apart from one
of them worked on Blazing Saddles.Apparently of that sort of makes sense,
It hasn't. I was going tosay the closest is peridian, the word
someone who does parodies is that theword paridian. I don't know if it

(23:32):
sounds. It sounds very educated,even though it's probably not even a word.
But the closest peridian. I wasgoing to say it's probably mel Brooks,
because while mel Brooks does do parodies, it wouldn't be till like Dracula
Dead and Loving It that he wouldstart to do or actually Robin heard men
in tights that he would start todo parodies of very specific films. With

(23:52):
his early parodies Blazing Saddles, Historyof the World and Young Frankenstein, he's
sort of paroding more genres or ideasthan he is paroding specific movies, and
so this one falls more into that. But it doesn't even attempt to be
a parody of nineteen thirties gangster movies. Like in its design, like it

(24:17):
doesn't look like a nineteen thirties gangstermovie. It looks like it's solutefully.
It looks like The Godfather or something. Yeah, I mean, it's beautiful,
but it's not it's not done.It's not like when mel Brooks went
to do Young Frankenstein he was like, well, I'm going to dig out
the original Frankenstein sets and I'm goingto do it, the means on send
is going to match those early movies. And Da Da Da Da da Johnny
Dangerous, it's not like I don'tmen don't wear a play where it's just

(24:41):
even where it's embedded into that rightright, No, With with Johnny Dangerously,
it is a as you're right insaying, it has so many different
types of comedy that parody is justone of them. And to look at
the movie, to say that themovie is just a parody of nineteen thirties
gangster movies doesn't explain anything about itat all, because it doesn't look like

(25:03):
nineteen thirties gangs to films. It'snot set up to be a direct parody
of any particular nineteen thirties gangs tofilm. It's more, here is a
scenario, and it's this is whyit's similar to a mel Brooks thing.
Here is a scenario, and here'sa story in which we just want to
tell gag after gag after gag aftergag, and layer on the gags.

(25:25):
And if one gag happens to bea sight gag, and the next gag
happens to be a word gag,and and if it all sorts of has
this sort of vaudevillian feel to it. It'll hopefully work, yeah, and
it has so basically to Summer.It's the story of it. It's a
very sort of it's sort of thestory is framed in it in sort of

(25:48):
the ultimately traditional way where Michael Keatontells young whipper snap At the story of
his adventures, which they don't believein bother test eye up at the end
they're just like, oh, well, sort of, you know, whatever
they tell. How we end upin the place where he's telling the story,
like he worked out with Michael Gattonin a pet shop, right,
feeding stuff to various pets. Right. He tells him whippers Napper about basically

(26:11):
his rise from the you know,from the dirty Irish streets of the Upper
East Side into like a criminal organization, and then a very nineteen thirties Jimmy
Cagney storyline of his brother becomes theassistant DA and the two of them are
like pitted against each other crime bossand crime hunter kind of a thing.

(26:33):
So that's a very very Jimmy Caggonstory hunter. But that's it. I
mean, that's it. That's whereit ends. It's it's not played out
like a Jimmy Cagney like neither,for example, Michael Keaton and Griffin Dunn,
who played brothers, Griffin Done theDA and Michael Keaton Johnny Dangerously the
Gangster Um, neither a doing Cagneyor attempting to do any kind of like

(26:56):
nineteen dity style acting. They're justbeing Griffin don and Michael Keene within the
roles of the movie. Yeah,yeah, yeah, And they they basically
like, so when when you readup something, the only reason I mentioned
Jimmy Kageny is they mentioned it inthe trivia and I thought, oh,
yes, that is like that Jimmykagenymovie that I've seen. I can't remember
what it's called it Under the Angelswith Dirty Faces or whatever it is,

(27:17):
but they it is, that's literallya plot from a Jimmy Kacky movie.
But to say that it's spoofing JimmyKagenuvie is just as you say, it's
not the case. What it isis they just they take a Jim Cagney
old school Hollywood plot and then theygo, how many gags of like five
different kinds strains of humor can wehang on to that storyline? So the

(27:37):
thing that I found so throwing aboutit, and it's like completely delightful as
well, because so much of itdoesn't land, but some of it was
really actually making me laugh. Andyeah, I've got to say I really
did not expect to laugh watching JohnnyDangers It not not out loud, which
I did, like fairly regularly throughoutit. And if you don't watch it,
you miss it's it's it's like it'slike airplay, and if you don't

(28:00):
watch it for thirty seconds, youmiss ten gags Like it's it sounds like
like an airplane strand to it,where there's all these like people just do
surreal random things through these surreal randomacts taking place, Like there's one point
right at the beginning where this blokethis like he's starting off as a paperboint.
This rival paper point comes along andcuts the lead of a blind man

(28:22):
to his dog and they wander intothe street and you hear I'll screen like
a big crash and sad. Imean that is pure like airplane moment.
And then there's stuff which is farmore like um like almost like woody early
Woody Allen to kind of stuff.Well, I mean there's some Laurel and
hardy stuff like the guy being hiton the head and then one minute he

(28:45):
can see again, and then thenext minute he can't hear, and then
the next minute he doesn't know whohe is, like a lot of that.
So it's like slapstick. There's thereare as, I say, there's
a Woody Allen type thing, whichand I laughed at a lot of the
Woody Allen type stuff, like whenshe goes like when it because you see
this like snowy New York scene andshe goes and she goes like, oh,

(29:07):
it's the worst July in years,and it's just it's such like random,
rat obvious gag. But I wasso surprised by it. It's really
the stuff where she says that she'slike twenty seven and I hope, I
hope I make it to thirty orwhatever, and she looks like an old
lady like seventy one or whatever,and she has and that's the other thing
about it is she has load themother like you never see this coming.

(29:30):
The mother has like loads of jokesthe whole way through it. Yeah,
you know, and loads them,don't mand that plays them quite kid.
And then there's this other stuff.There's there's a body, there's like quite
a body. It's like, there'sthe stuff that always us to all comedy.
Yeah, there's the stuff that usedto like they always depressed that I
would find depressing in the context ofBritish comedy, where British comedy went,

(29:56):
it's all a bit naughty, andyou go, oh, it's depressing.
It is what it is when you'vebeen trying to be naughty and think it's
funny, right, but it happensin this film. But but it races
fast, so quick that you don'thave chance to get depressive. This is
like ten more gags. Doesn't themother at one point say she she wants
to go both ways or something,or like yeah, yeah, there's like
little yeah at the wedding, athis at Michael Keaton's wedding, she says,

(30:19):
I've got you know, I've gotMichael Keaton, gryffin Don's wedding,
Gryffin Dones wedding. She's like,I've got something I need to tell him,
like I go both ways. Okay. Well, there's also the idea
that Griffin Done has really only wantedto get married, so we're going to
have sex and then the moment theyget married, they run off to find
a janitor's closet. And then,to add to the joke, when Griffin

(30:41):
Done can't perform because he has torun out and deal with something, the
janitor then runs in and has sexwith his new wife. Yeah, but
this is this is But then there'sthis author give an idea of what the
kind of film it is. Thisis the kind of film where so it
does also have a sense of himwhich does come out of like the nineteen
to support She's like, you're sayingmore Lauren and Hardy like, but it's

(31:02):
not even Lauren Hart. Perhaps it'sLauren Hardy like. It's a kind of
film where a boy puts a bucketon his head and shoots himself along a
bartop yea and in orders to bea projectile into someone's stomach and knocks and
knocked guns out of gangster's hands withthe newspapers that he's saying, it's the
kind of film where Michael Keaton isat one point in the pet shop is

(31:25):
seen price tagging dogs, but theprice taking gun, which is really really
good. Well, also like rightat the beginning, he's going through the
pet store and he's like handing outthe food and he says something about,
like, I've found this fish.It didn't look particularly good to me,
so I'm going to give you this, but you probably won't like it.
Puts it into the into the littlelike pet what are they called hutches,

(31:49):
I guess, and it keeps walkingout and then you just see the bowl
get flung out of the hat hutting. He goes, I knew it like
that. It's little things like that. I just found. The movie is
charming. It's pretty charming. It'sthe kind of film where an explosion happens
and someone emerges from an exploded roomlike covered in search with their hair like
singed at the ends, like that'swhat happens in an explosion in this film.

(32:15):
Yea. And but then it hasits own kind of like I think
we are, like I suppose airplaneis the closest thing, but it sort
of has its own quality because theway it's set up, the way it's
delivered. So it's got this incrediblecars like Peter Boil and Danny DeVito and
I can't remember his name, butthe chapters the American Way off in London,

(32:37):
Griffin done and Griffin Dune, andthen these other people who haven't seen
anything else who are brilliant, likethe mother. Don Delawiz shows up at
one point, who is as thePope. Has Joe Piscopo, who was
a Saturday Night Live alum, Marylou Hanno who was in taxi along running
sitcom in the US with Danny DeVito. Um, yeah, but they have

(33:00):
all this pass but at one pointDanny Devita the way that Danny. I
won't say it because if I listall the gags then then anyone listening who
wants to see it would be toosport. I've already said too much stuff
in some ways. But the wayDanny Devita was assassinated is so fucking weird
that it did make me laugh,and it is almost its own They almost

(33:22):
find their own kind of weird humorthrough through things like that. But there's
four writers on it, aren't there? And one of them worked on Blazing
Saddles. And there's like three otherpeople with credits who have no other credits.
When I looked on IMDb, Um, so there's Jeff Harris. The
trivia says that The trivia says thatthe director felt that you know she needed

(33:46):
to write her own stuff after thisum and so so she didn't she was
involved in writing it. But okay, um, I mean Jeff Harris looks
to be I mean he looks tocome out of stand up and Vaudeville and

(34:07):
The Tonight Show and stuff in theseventies. He writes a lot of what
I would call variety shows. Sohe writes on like the Valdunakan Show and
Jimmy Duranti Presents, the Lennon's Sistersand the Glenn Campbell Good Time Hour.
Like, he writes on a lotof those, which makes total sense because
there's a vaudeville strain running through this, Like you wouldn't believe one of the

(34:30):
writers would end up becoming more ofa producer and actually goes on to produce
or sorry, previously produced Mister Mumwith Michael Keaton and actually goes on to
produce Touch and Go, The Squeezeand One Good Cop also with Michael Keaton.
So he's worked with Michael Keaton alot. Bernie Kuckoff, who again

(34:52):
looks to have written a lot ofTV and a lot of comedy hours.
Again, he worked on Jimmy Durantyand stuff. So maybe those guys a
writing partnership. I don't know.Um. And then Norman Steinberg, who's
the guy who wrote on Blazing Saddlesand has done more stuff as a producer.
Um, but yeah as a writer, worked on a bunch of films

(35:16):
and the odd TV thing. Yeah. But again, they probably all come
out of uh, you know,pay to play comedy writers. They probably
they probably have all worked on abunch of writing rooms where they're like,
well, Jimmy DURRANTI wants to doa half hour variety show. We need
some gags, guys, you knowwhat I mean. They get like fifty

(35:37):
guys are smoking furiously writing scene fromI don't know if it's Annie Haller wherever
you see young Willy Adam distinct talkingto the older comedian writing gags for him.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, come out I do with this
French thing, Cherie Cherie the Ithink when So, yeah, there's some

(35:59):
interesting things about it, like,um, because you've got you've got Keaton
and I think two people he's goingto work with in the future. So
there's Keaton and Peter bo which obviouslythe dream team. Yeah, and there's
Keaton and yeah, and Danny DeVitowith Batman right, and the producer writer
who who he works with. There'sthere's some other gags in it, which
which actually made me laugh, andI was ashamed to laugh. I don't

(36:22):
mind meting. So so there's there'san entire running gag about an Italian,
a sort of an an Italian antagonistsa gangster, which is entirely about his
accent making him sound funny, andwhich I laughed, Oh, you mean
the guy who's there's fucking and it'sa way to get swearing in the picture

(36:45):
without actually swearing. He calls themices rather than asses, he calls he
says fucking rather than fucking. Hesays. Yeah, it's really really lame,
and it made me laughing, shamedmyself laughing at One of the that
sells the gag though, is whenthe newspaper, like the newspaper comes scrolling
towards the screen and it just sayslike fucking get out of here or something

(37:08):
and with or whatever it was onthe newspaper headline, and I'm just like,
well, that's the way to sella joke. You just have to
keep doing it till it commits toit. So much because he has to
do it so much. I meanit carries on happening. Yeah, so
he completely commits to it. Yeah, I just kids, and I just
found myself giggling and going, wow, I'm giggling at an accent joke.

(37:30):
One of my favorite running gags inthe thing is the Joe Piscopo jack joke,
where you know, someone hits himor something and he's like, my
dad used to hit me once.Like that, my dad hit me once,
and he goes once and that's aboutthe whole movie, and then at
the very end he's like my grandmothershot. He has some great lines,

(37:51):
really fucking weird nobody, Nobody hangsme on a door again or something that
was yeah, yeah, I'm notgoing to this because I don't want to.
Like, I get it, Iget it, but I mean he
has he has some really really goodlines. And as I say, the
thing, the thing that really struckme about it was like that it's interesting,
you know, and this this allyou know, but I've heard Taranto

(38:15):
Tarantino talking about how, you know, responding to criticisms of his his films
and saying that he thinks that we'regoing through a bit of a like Puritan
area era, and he was talkingabout eras of of of cinema and talking
about how he thought that the eightieswere like a Puritan era, and I

(38:37):
thought like, well, not sonot puritan, but like, um,
kind of like the fifties so kindso you know, taking no risks kind
of a thing. Basically I couldn'tdisagree with that more. But he was
talking about mainstream probably yeah, butI just thought like I just I really
couldn't I I I just as yousay, I really couldn't disagree more because

(39:00):
I think that it's probably safe tosay, well, it's not even safe
to say that, but in termsof like eighties US cinema, yes,
it's it's it's probably safe to saythat. You know, if you watch
a film in the nineteen seventies fromnineteen seventies US cinema, it's probably going
to have an ending that bleats youout slightly. Like that's probably like a

(39:22):
fairly safe where it's the nineteen eightiesfilm, it's probably going to have an
ending that leaves you feeling sort offairly unbeaten. Happen. That's very very
general, right, But the argumentI would have is that the seventies movies
that most people talk about, andI couldn't talk with any general education about
weirdly enough about like stuff like kidsmovies in the seventies or family movies in

(39:44):
the seventies. I don't really knowwhat was happening there. I know far
more about family movies and kids moviesand blockbuster movies in the eighties. But
this is what I would say tothat broad statement, which is broadly true
in the setup of most seventies moviesthat Tarantino would be referenced. Right,
So we're talking about the what we'recalled at the time, kind of like
the movie geeks, the Spielberg stuff, the Francis fort Coppler stuff, the

(40:07):
Scorsese stuff, these kind of movies. They're set up in their makeup to
be dramatic, to be shocking,to be gritty, to to have down
endings like, um, yeah,there's nothing you're not surprised going into,
you know, Taxi Driver or whateverthat it ends bleakly. Because I was

(40:30):
watching Parallax view the other day.This is a seventies mere film. I'm
just I'm just figured out this isnot going to have a good ending night
moves or whatever I mean, youname it, there's a bunch of seventies
movies where you're like, okay,it makes sense. The thing that eighties
movies does that Tarantino is ignoring isthat within the framework of what on paper
looks to be a family movie,it would have a lot of anarchic and

(40:54):
subversive things in it. Yeah,the difference things that we're not seeing today.
So even though Pixar has plenty ofjokes in it that play to adults,
most Pixar movies are family friendly andkid friendly and everyone understands them.
You know, most of the familystuff, whether it's you know, the
only one that kind of gets remotelydark is probably something like the Harry Potter

(41:16):
franchise, and even Nat never getsso dark that it's really troubling to anyone.
You're also meant to grow up witha series Harry obviously, is he
becomes more of a teenager, thesubject matter becomes darker. Where As you
think of something like I immediately popto something like Back to the Future,
which on the surface is a allAmerican, you know, fifties and eighties

(41:38):
time travel romp with you know,jolly japes and a funny older dude with
wiry hair. And blah blah blahblah blah. But you start to really
think about the Back to the Futurefranchise. There's lots of stuff in the
Back to the Future franchise that's subversiveand anarchic, an adult and weird and
not kid friendly at all. Yeah, So I think on the surface,

(42:00):
eighties movies look like coke and pepsi, Right, they look big and colorful,
but they're actually often you know,you mentioned something like Back to the
Future, I would say, andthis is this is this, this is
such a like useless comparison. It'sunbelievable, but still, you know,
it's there's a lot more artistry atwork in the structure, yes, back

(42:21):
to the Future, than there isin something like the Parallax View. Right,
the Paradax View just sort of rumblesalong and in its bleakness, and
the bleakness is sort of supposed tobe enough kind of the thing, whereas
Back to the Future that the waythat that is this pleasing like a box
of tricks, is is far moreaccomplished a piece of writing. I think

(42:44):
with the point I'm trying to sayis that just watching Johnny Dangerously, it
just you know, not so muchthe hand because the hand is horror,
and horror is kind of its ownthing. Yeah, but but Johnny Dangerously
um made me think like it justbrought up that thing again about like am
I an old Is it that I'man old man? Or is it that

(43:06):
I do suspect that there is arichness of variety and color? And do
you know what I mean those filmsthat that has completely evaporated? Yeah,
I mean I don't know, andI just think like, is it because
I'm an old man? I don'tknow? Well, the closes. The

(43:29):
closest you get to a modern versionof a film like this is probably something
like Anchor Man, in the sensethat Anchor Man isn't really a specific parody
of any one thing, and itdoesn't really have any one type of comedy.
It has multiple types of comedy,and it becomes defined as the you
know, McKay and feral version ofcomedy. They go on to do it

(43:52):
multiple times in different scenarios. ButAnchor Man, to me, is the
closest you get to something like JohnnyDangerously and since ancor and while we have
had other comedies within that style comedyin particular, nothing to me has been
kind of as successful since. Andagain, I was just talking with Mark

(44:13):
McDonald the other day. We werehaving a similar conversation about jumping Jack Flaph,
this this thing of you know,there was that big wave of kind
of bro comedies with the Seth Rogansand the what a judd Apatous and so
one of the world did a wholeslew of those comedies. But like,
what's comedy now, Like I don't, I mean, I know, Adam
Sana still puts a movie on Netflixevery so often, but like, there's

(44:37):
no there's no big comedies now.It's just no one. No one is
doing no one is attempting to makeyou know, this kind of we are
going to we are going to keepon firing jokes at you. Yeah,
I mean that has died as faras I know. Well, I think
those those movie movies killed it off. So you had, yes, you

(44:58):
had Scary Movie, which you hadScary Movie, which went to about three
films too many. And then offthe back of Scary Movie, you had
Superhero Movie and you know, teenMovie and various other parodies of things.
And parody two things happened in theUS. Parody became the only sort of
currency that was in movies for awhile, and then m satire became the

(45:24):
only comedy on TV. Sorry,I just dropped something. Sorry, dude,
satire became the only comedy on TV. So, whether it's The Tonight

(45:45):
Show or a variety show, orwhether it's The Daily Show or whether it's
a sitcom, every single joke isabout you know, the world right now,
and it's satirical humor. It's they'veceased, it sort of ceased or
off the back of like Big BangTheory, How I Met Your Mother,

(46:06):
The Goldbergs and other things like that. It's retro humor. It's like,
oh, we mentioned Bill and Ted'sexcellent Adventure, So that's a joke,
right because we mentioned something like wementioned the name of something you know about,
so that's funny, right. Wepointed out another person who likes Lord
of the Rings. That's comedy,right, Like there's no we weird comedy,

(46:27):
slapstick comedy, um, well crafted, witty comedy. And it's also
not just it's not just comedy somuch as the richness the variety of films.
You know, I just I justhad no idea that this even existed,

(46:47):
this film, do you know whatI mean? It's like a nineteen
eight film I had no idea existed. It's I don't I don't think I
even saw it in Star Video.In all the years we went down there,
I don't think I saw it.There's so much made in the in
the eighties. I keep on discoveringthrough through which, well over and through
this, and because that's the otherthing, is that more movies were made.

(47:10):
Yes, So that's what I'm tryingto say of all genres. I
mean, like I started collecting slasherfilms a while ago, and when I
look at my collection, I goall this, like you can have like
twenty slasher films and they all cameout in nineteen eighty one, like just

(47:30):
like twenty, like a huge flewof them. And that's not to mention
the blockbusters, the dramas, thecomedies, the musicals, the kids films,
whatever. That's just twenty. Andthat's not even all the horror films.
That's just the slasher films, youknow. So it's sort of quite
fat like we used to. AndI know, we've gone through a pandemic,
so less movies have been made andless movies are coming out, and

(47:52):
less distribution channels and maybe now weneed to start considering the Amazon Prime movies
and Netflix movies and these sort ofmovies that get made and whatever. But
I think even if you totaled allof them up, and totaled all the
cinematic movies and everything, I justdon't think we get our eyeballs on anywhere
near the amount of movies we usedto. And in terms of this existing,

(48:15):
I knew this existed. In otherwords, I knew there was a
movie called Johnny Dangerously, I knewMichael Keaton was in it, but um,
I never knew it was this typeof movie. I really didn't know
that it was this type of movie. I'd never seen a trailer. And
weirdly enough as well, because alot of the movies that I'm now into,
despite you know, watching movies withyou growing up, definitely being a

(48:37):
movie collector, growing up, etc. Etc. And having a formative years
filled with movies, a lot ofthe movies and I now talk about proselytize
about, collect love, etc.Are movies that I was made aware of
in the last ten years podcasting,either making the friends that I made online,
doing deep dives with you, whateverit was like when I met my

(49:00):
friend Moe. He introduced me toa whole bunch of movies that I kind
of knew about but had never seen. When I met my friend Scott to
me, he kind of did thesame thing. Doc Action Doc Paul Crowson
from the UK, he introduced meto all these B tier action movies I
didn't know kind of I knew existed, but had never really deald into.
So even in the last ten twelveyears, I can't say that being involved

(49:22):
in all the social media that I'minvolved in and all the movie groups that
I'm involved in, I've never seenanyone hype this. And yet there are
plenty of other comedies from the eraand from before and from later that people
will hype talk about. Oh haveyou seen this? Have you seen that?
Even when I mentioned something like brainCandy, which is still fairly rare,

(49:44):
there are fans of that out there. And sure enough, when I
put this up on social media,a few people are like, Oh,
I love that movie. It's endlessincredible. I have a post, but
I'd never heard them talk about ittill we decided to do this. So
I love discovering things. I lovebeing I think that's what I love about

(50:05):
these things. With having like acouple of actors and and and delving into
their like and forensically going through theircastlogs, you sort of subject yourself to
things which you just wouldn't watch.Well, here's I think to bring it
up to something that I was recentlywriting about, which is The Ghostbusters Afterlife.
And I'm not going to go downalong the thing here, but very
often, when I'm writing about amovie that's either part of an old franchise

(50:29):
or as a new movie that everyoneis raving about, whether it's a comic
book movie or a fantasy movie orwhatever that everyone's going on about, you
must see this movie. I gosee it, and ultimately I'm often left
a little kind of halfhearted, andI often think to myself, like,
and the other thing that we getaccused of is sort of eighties and nineties
kids, is will you only likeshit because of nostalgia? You only like

(50:51):
things because of retro It's they're notreally that good, You only like them
because you were there when you sawthem first, and blah blah blah blah
blah, right we were. Iam accused of this all the time.
What I love about discovering a movielike Johnny dangerously is I have no history
with it, I have no nostalgiawith it, I have no knowledge of
it. I watched it for thefirst time last week as as an adult,

(51:15):
and I fucking loved it. Andexactly that's what I'm saying, Yeah,
exactly, like we have no historywith it, no idea. It
even existed, cheesy looking poster thatmakes it look as if it's going to
be a sort of like shit thesting and it said, it's it's it's
it's a real discovery. And I'myou know, I'm just saying, I
do try. With Netflix and AmazonNew Productions and stuff, I do try.

(51:38):
I give them a go and allthe rest of it. Yeah,
it's another I tend. I tendto find that there is more pleasure to
be found and more variety and morecolor that I'm more surprised as I suppose,
Yeah, in in older stuff thatI'm discovering, not reliving, discovering.

(51:59):
Yeah. And that's the thing is, it's it's not about it's not
about when this movie came out.It's a little bit about who's in this
movie. But but even even ifyou've flipped out some of the cast for
other people from the day it wouldbe fine. It's um, you know,
and maybe forty years from now there'sthe forty year old equivalent of me

(52:22):
who's like, well, I neverwatched Ready Player one or whatever the latest
kind of fantasy comedy, sci fiblockbuster is. I'm going to watch it
now, and maybe they'll love itas much as the people loved it now.
I don't know. But in termsof um, new movies versus old
movies, I'm always accused of everythingunder the sun based around my opinions around

(52:44):
new movies versus old movies. ButI can tell you we can go back
and mind even that. But eventhat is a redundant accusation anyway, because
everything you've done with Jim has beengoing to cinema and taking a new stuff
and finding great pleasure. But yeah, people love to know all that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that'sliterally like two thirds of the podcast is

(53:07):
you're going and seeing new stuff.Yeah, sometimes it's really pitched you off,
but you have found loads of stuffthat you found pleasure in it.
But that brand new in the cinema, right, So that's just a redundant
one of one of the big thingsthat I've promoted is the man who killed
Hitler and then the big Foot,which literally came and went. No one
ever talks about it anymore, AndI'm like, I will, yeah,
champion that movie till the day.Trust Oh yeah, let's let's you know

(53:29):
what, what people really need?So they need another podcast talking about Marvel
movies? Yeah, nobody need nobodyneeds that. So I'm willing to be
who I am, and I thinkwhat's interesting in them about Johnny Johnny dangersrly
is The last thing I would sayabout it is that it doesn't give It

(53:51):
is one of those things. Boththese films give me a lot of respect
for Came and Keaton. Actually,so um keep part is in some ways
the least rewarding part, because heactually spends most of his time in this
movie being reactive. Yeah, he'svery rarely the guy like doing the joke,

(54:12):
and instead he's kind of a cockof the walk, Like I don't
know how to describe like like acharacter. He's a character as opposed to
someone who's making you laugh the wholeway through. And I was watching and
thinking if I was him, Imight I might have started to get pissed
off making this film about how everyonearound me is getting the laughs and I'm

(54:36):
not, you know, like mostof the time it's the other you know,
it's Peterborough coming out smoking, it'shis mother saying, you know,
the coldest July in years, andall the rest of it. But he
really gives it the beans. Yeah, and he's very He's an absolute delight
to watch. He's doing all thisstuff with his hat all the time.

(54:58):
Sometimes his delivery there were a coupleof times, well I thought his delivery
you mentioned Kids in the Hall earlier, was very like Kevin McDonald at points
and he and generally speaking, Ijust thought it was a really it was
a really good, selfless, charmingperformance that really holds the thing together because

(55:23):
in the end, it's just aload of fucking gags and it's it's a
it's a very demanding and not particularlyrewarding part. Well, what I liked
and this maybe this maybe to dowith the Cagney movie. I've no idea
that that maybe it was based on, but it was what I loved about

(55:45):
the movie in the same way thatwith Python films funny Enough, is that
you have a central character that becausethe essence of Johnny dangerously character is Yeah,
I'm a criminal, but I'm alsotrying to be the kind of criminal
that's like, don't we all haveenough? Now? Can't we all just
be kind of a bit nicer toeach other? Do we have to use

(56:07):
violence like Piscopo is in his gang, But Piscopo is the one who just
wants to shoot everyone with an enormousgun. And Keaton's more about, like,
you know, can't we just likekeep this trucking al be in a
sort of a nice, comfy away. And it made me think of
some of the leading parts in Pythonfilms that despite Python films being sort of
disjointed and surreal and weird, youat least had that Graham Chapman role where

(56:32):
you as the audience could kind ofgo, well, I understand what he's
going through here, and and I'mgoing to kind of support him in this.
So while he doesn't get all thegags, he does get your your
sympathy, your interest, your holdthe whole friendship and everything else he gets.
He gets that audience good will behindhim while also getting to do the

(56:57):
odd you know, eyebrow rays andthe like hat flip and the yard little
like Bonn mart again. It makesme think, you know, nearly every
time I've got to say something elseabout it. Every time I've watched Michael
Keaton, I think like I wishlike and I know, for instance,
Birdman was written for Michael Keaton.Yeah, but so many films should have

(57:20):
been written for Michael Keaton. He'ssuch a brilliant performers. He just oozes
fucking charisma. He's so lively andinteresting, just an absolute pleasure to watch
whatever he's doing. He's really reallyspectacular. I just love watching him.
And and while I love you know, I do love this film. As

(57:42):
I say, his ticks and hisespecially when he was young like that,
his energy and his his personality andhis charisma just so powerful. Um,
I don't know, I just Iwish more people had been right films specifically
for Mike michelating throughout the nineteen eighties, basically because I just think he's a

(58:05):
tremendous performer. So the film thatthis most sends up or references is a
nineteen thirty four movie called Manhattan Melodrama. William Powell and Clark Gable portray orphans
who are raised together as brothers.So maybe not a Cagney thing after all.
I don't know if there's other Cagneyreferences in it. The other thing

(58:28):
I wanted to mention is that weirdAl Yankovic does the well known Paridian or
Paradist or whatever the word is,does the opening credit song This is the
Life, which talks about sort ofhaving riches and wealth and all the things
that you can do with it.Brian de Palma is a massive fan of

(58:50):
the film, apparently, which iswhy Danny DeVito and Joe Piscobo got cast
in his project Wise Guys. Interestinglyenough, Amy Heckling was married at the
time to Neil Israel. Neil Israel, who is well known for Police Academy.
He wrote Police Academy. I lovepeople with the names. I mean,

(59:10):
I know, obviously it's the it'sthe Jewish edition eything, but I'd
love more name people to have nameswhich are countries, right, yeah,
Johnny Bulgaria or whatever. But NeilIsrael, who's known for Bachelor Party Police
Academy, ends up writing on look, who's talking too? Wrote Real Genius
and Real Genius is another one ofthose movies you can't quite pin down.

(59:31):
It's got a lot of different typesof humor in it. So now she
was married to him, he getshe gets a jokey credit at the end.
He didn't do any actra writing onthe movie, but you know,
obviously, just through partners kind ofsharing their work and things, I'm sure
a lot of his stuff got in. And the gangster comedy became a genre

(59:52):
unto itself in the eighties, includingfoot Printzisna Wise Guys, Alumn Nights,
City Heat, Little Miss Marker,and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, which
we mentioned earlier. But this isunlike any of those other movies that I'm
aware of, and delight is anabsolute delight. Yeah, and it is

(01:00:15):
different to much of the human islike airplane, but it does feel different
to airplane somehow. It doesn't feellike it's made by those people. It
does feel like it's made by otherpeople. Well yeah, because I mean
airplanes gags, while they can fallinto verbal slapstick and even you know,
gore body or whatever, which wementioned earlier. This movie never, this

(01:00:40):
movie never feels like Naked Gun orAirplane. There's a different rhythm. There's
a different rhythm to it. There'salmost more. There's almost more plot in
this film, even the little plotslike his father constantly needing more and more
medical work or whatever. There's littlelake subplots and running gags and things don't
always end up in its true andit's very innocent as well, very innocent.

(01:01:06):
Yeah, I mean even the theodd like body vaudevillian boob jack gag
is really not that objectifying. It'sjust a little book. It doesn't it
doesn't feel creepy, you know,even now right, it doesn't feel creepy.
No, And like you say,you have you have an incredibly skilled
performer at the at the center ofthis and an incredibly skilled helmer behind the

(01:01:30):
scenes. And I think it looksamazing. I mean, it looks completely
amazing. I mean, even thoughsome things that it's going too far to
say, it looks like it God, that's just going too far. But
it's all on a set. Butit looks great. Yeah, it looks
great. You know, you don'tfor a minute think like, oh,
look at the wobbly silly comedy set, like it looks brilliant. No,

(01:01:52):
it looks awesome, and it's it'sdone really well, and it's going to
be very difficult. I can't thinkother than the Michael's what the linking material
is is between this and The Hand, Oliver Stone's the Hand. Except to
say that Johnny Dangerously was Amy Heckling'ssecond movie, and The Hand was Oliver
Stone's second knife. That's a missionaccomplished. I would love to be able

(01:02:21):
to say as well that Heckling didlike two comedies and then went on to
do a whole other genre, becauseThe Hand is the second Oliver Stone horror
movie, and then he goes offand does other genres. He doesn't go
back to doing quote unquote genre filmsagain. Unfortunately, I cannot make that
samement about Heckling because she does goon and make more comedies. Oops.
Sorry, I wasn't ready. Iwas busy pickling some fish. I like

(01:02:45):
pickling things, fish, vegetables,running shoes. Anyway, apologies, We
sadly have to pause for some ads. Maybe if more of you supported us
on Atreon, But there it is. The aftermovie Diner doesn't endorse any of

(01:03:06):
these advertisers. We don't even knowwhat you're going to hear. It's forced
technical AI wizardry and don't fool yourself. None of us are in control.
The robots are coming and they wantto sell us insurance. So This is
another one of those movies that Caine, who's obviously a very very different performance

(01:03:29):
like put out out one of hisbut at the same time wonderful to watch.
And again it like when I wasenjoyed. I bloody love Michael Caine,
you know, I just watching Ijust love watching him do fucking anything,
you know, I really really do. And far more when he was
middle aged and when he was whenhe's become old and respectable and in and

(01:03:51):
in m you know, batman movies, like far more when he's making genre
stuff like this as a sort ofjourneyman, middle aged fella. I love
watching him do anything. And thisis another one of those films where so
just like with Jews too, hesaid, I don't know whatever, some
bullshit about like oh I did itto pay for the house extension or whatever.

(01:04:15):
This he said like for a garage, pay for a garage, which
is like, yeah, that's reallyclever, Michael. And you think it
sort of excuses the fact that you'reslightly embarrassed about it being in your film
catalog. But I don't think youshould be, because because the thing that
most struck me about it is thatwhen he looked at something I can't remember

(01:04:38):
for sure because it's so forgettable,So I'm assuming it was a film like
this, But when you watch somethinglike The Island, he's basically asleep.
I was going to say exactly thesame thing. I was going to say
that, considering this is considered byKing a paycheck movie, he acts yeah,
incredibly well for it when we've seenother paycheck movies. He's like a

(01:04:59):
lad ball. He can be likeyeah, because I should walk back quite
so early about he's always apposed towatch because he can be depressing to watch.
It was awful. Remember us watchingThe Island and just being like yea,
like he was all yeah, yeah, yeah, he's not he like
not invested and he's not doing anythingin this movie. I mean to begin
with. The thing that tipped meoff that was that it was actually going

(01:05:21):
to be worth watching was that Oliverstonegets him chopping woods near the beginning of
a film. And what Michael Kaneobviously does is like arrive with a lot
of rules about like what he isn'tisn't going to do Because don't get me
wrong, that definitely exists in thisfilm. Because one of the things that's
amusing about the film is obviously Michaelreached an age I don't know twenty seven

(01:05:44):
twenty eight where he decided I'm onlycomfortable when I'm wearing a very expensive suit
and tie. To me, thatis completely like alien. Michael Wenny years,
Yeah, yes, I can't thinkof anything I'm less comfortable in than
a really expensive suit and tie.But he absolutely loves it. So he's
playing like a really quite poverty strickenwell read within this sort of Hollywood context,

(01:06:08):
like a blue color gay, likea like a well like an artist.
He's an artist who is supposed tobe stoking wearing a suit and tight,
and there's there's occasional point of thefield like I'm sorry, Michael,
but you really should not be wearinga suit and tight at this point.
But it just doesn't work in thisscene. But saying that, from that

(01:06:28):
first moment he's like chopping and like, wow, all of us got him
actually like lifting an axe and actuallychopping wood, Like I can see that
he's actually using an ax to chop. That work, Yeah, and sorry,
but on on the island, Michaelwas not going to get an axe
out and chop. Michael was goingto say, come and get me at
my trailer. When you're ready onmy scene, I will stand on the
boat. I will save my lineonce. I will save my line twice

(01:06:51):
and fucking after Dad the Beggar,I would do three tapes and then I'm
going out Like there's like that isthat is how he approach the island with
this. There's a definite sense forall that it is a very peculiar movie.
Yeah, there is a there's athere is a definite sense that somehow,

(01:07:13):
and this is where it speaks veryhighly of Oliver Stone. Oliver Stone
second of the movie, you knowsome like you know, churned out piece
of horror and it is like horrortrash. He's he's managed to say to
he's definitely. I can imagine thatthey have conversations taken place on that set

(01:07:34):
where Oliver Stone is talked to MichaelKine about how his character is feeling,
and Michael Kane has thought, oh, yeah, okay, I can do
that. I'll go for that.There's there's certain scenes where he emotes where
he's actually doing it and he caresabout performing. Yeah, and it lifts
the whole film like it lifts allof it when he's there. Actually,

(01:08:00):
not only that, but due tothe nature of the plot, Kane's character
has got to go through quite anarc, and normally an arc involving some
form of psychology and madness. Yeah, so you've got this thing of you
know, not only does each scenehave to have the emotional punch that it

(01:08:21):
has, but by the end ofit, he has to have gone through
his psychosis as a main character.And if you you know, I don't
know that in the horror genre youcan get away with sleepwalking through that,
you know what I mean. Youthink of the other great horror performances,
whether it's Jeffrey Combs and Reanimated BruceCampbell and Evil Dead, you know,

(01:08:43):
whoever it is, any of theguys from Dawn the Dead or whatever.
You can't really just mumble your waythrough it and go, you know,
oh, bloody hell, I chopmy hand off, here's my hand,
thank you, good night. Thatyou have to, if you if you
have any integrity with the film atall, you have to play some of
the psycho um and some of themadnesses that he is going through. But

(01:09:04):
anyway, tell the tell the plotof the film and we'll we'll get deeper.
So it's a really so so it'sbasically, it's basically. The story
is that Michael Caine is a comicbook artist who draws a middlingly popular Man
Madro. That's right, he's notbloody Mandro. That's not what Mandro would

(01:09:26):
do. Man Drove would not dothat. He um uh, he's so
hard not to do Michael Caine impression. He yeah, so he's and basically
he's a comic book artist. He'sliving out in I don't know, Vermont
or something like that, and atthe beginning it's meant to be Vermont,

(01:09:47):
Yeah, Vermont, and he's he'sin a marriage that is failing. His
wife wants to move back to moveback to the city, which is obviously
where they met. He wants tostay out in the country and continue producing
his cartoon. They are out inthe car having an argument and about wants

(01:10:08):
to return to the city, abouttheir marriage falling apart, and during this
argument, his wife does a dangerousovertake of a truck. There is a
there's a there is an accident inwhich Michael sticks his hand at the car
and loses the hand. The handis not recovered, and then after while

(01:10:30):
recuperating and learning to live without ahand living with a prosthetic Instead, Michael
begins to Michael's character begins to fallaparts, and various elements which may be
supernatural maybe real events keep on happeningaround him with increasing frequency and increasing horror,
basically, And I think the thingthat's I suspect, the thing that

(01:10:59):
the versation that happened, or whatI would have done, and I think
that Stone has must have done withCane is he must have sat and down
and said, look, either wecan say that you know, this is
a stupid, trashy throwaway thing,or we can actually talk about but you
know, we can actually make ita you can actually do a performance of

(01:11:19):
someone of someone who this hand isthe manifestation of their hidden, primal,
furious maleness. Kind of a thing. Yeah, and you know, and
let you know, we're here,we're getting paid. Should we have some
fun with it? Michael? Shouldwe? Should we really go for it?
And I enjoy it and give itthe beans kind of a thing.

(01:11:41):
And he seems to have somehow,even if he's not articulated it like that,
he seems to have persuaded my Caneto actually give it some attention.
And I think another thing that goesa long way in this movie's favor rather
than something like The Island, isthat this movie comes off the back of
another successful horror movie that he isin, Dressed to Kill, which got

(01:12:02):
a lot of accolades at the timebecause it's sort of a classy gallo type,
you know, department movie. AndI think that yes, he wanted
to build a garage, but alsooff the back of already having some success
in some acclaim from a horror genre. I think he went into this one

(01:12:23):
being more like, well, ifI do what I did and Dressed to
Kill, then you know, thismight be another successful one, and you
know, me and my pal Olivercan have, you know, some good
time. So I think that's probablythat probably also plays into it a little
bit because I think if this cameright off the back of the island,
because I think he goes Island Dressedto Kill and then this, and I

(01:12:44):
think if this came off the backof the Island, we might have got
a much more subdued Michael Kine.I think some of the money he got
from Dressed to Kill he thought,oh, this would be nice, we'll
do this. Yeah, But asI say, he shouldn't be embarrassed about
it because what he does is lifta very middling production that is well shot.
So it's like that there's no money, and everything that Stone does that

(01:13:10):
relies on performance and direction works,and everything that relies on special effects and
scares sort of fails. So there'slike that. There's there's like really shit
like cats based scares. There's likethis like three of them that a lot
of cats scared by the cat,Like I know, the cat's kind of

(01:13:31):
like screech. Why does the catrun through a window? Anything? Yeah,
why do I care about that?You know? That's all really ship.
There's a thing where like Arter he'slost his hand, there's a there's
a there's a tap in the showerthat turns into a hand. And what's
what's that? You know, likethat that has that that is nothing?

(01:13:55):
Whereas what is that Oliver, Yeah, Oliver, I read in the script
that the tat turned into a hat. Well, I'm not doing that.
You can get a bloody standard.Yeah, we give the shit impression.
I just can't help myself. Thething that the thing that happens. But
whereas there's other things in it thatare really effective and a pure direction and

(01:14:18):
performance. So at one point inthe film, the whole plot is just
all over the place. So heat one point he agrees to that he's
going to go off and he basicallybecause of this whole hand thing that's going
on in his head, he losesany chance of continuing his writing career and
he goes off to become a teacherand he builds this sort of not particularly

(01:14:44):
strong but a sort of friendship withanother teacher there. And there's a point
in the play by Bruce McGill fromAnimal House by Bruce McGill, And there's
this point where there was a momentwhere Bruce McGill is being quite threatening and
he's and the camera shows you himscraping the label off this beer bottle,
and it was and that was likea really effective, like horror, creepy

(01:15:08):
grim moment. I don't know whatit was about it because like if that
really works, whereas the cat andthe handling and all that stuff, it's
just it's so shit. Well it'slike it's like when so, So here's
the thing is Oliver Stone on oneof the things that he's doing with this
movie, which if a horror fancomes to this movie, it's a little

(01:15:29):
bit jarring because horror fans are normallyexpecting, especially around the early eighties,
they're horror to be a little heightened, right, a little, a little
on and above whatever is considered reality. Right, we're moving into a special
effects era. We're moving into filmsthat are either slashers, which are considered

(01:15:53):
like the redheaded stepchild of horror,or we're in the realm of the horror
masters like Raymian Carpenter and Tobe Hooperand people like that who are doing these
slightly heightened reality horrors with a lotof effective special effects. And the thing
that I think Oliver Stone does whichhampers the hand slightly from a horror perspective,

(01:16:21):
is not that there aren't flourishes,but he tries to tell it as
seriously as possible, like him andKine are kind of doing it almost as
serious as a heart attack. Andhorror always needs, especially if it's a
horror about you know, potentially mysevered hand is killing my enemies or is

(01:16:42):
it all in my mind? Likeif that's the if that's the core of
your baby, then there needs tobe a little drama, a little opera
to it, right, a littlea little thing on one of the things
that that does not sell at all, and one of the things that actually
ends up getting a lot is whenhe cuts his hand off, Like when
his hand is cut off, Ithink in an attempt to be realistic,

(01:17:05):
not just Gore for Gore's sake,but like the stump is like pissing blood
everywhere. Like it's a very goryscene, and your stump would like if
you lost a hand, I'm surethat blood would be going everywhere because there's
main arteries in your wrist. Butthe trouble with that is with Kane's distorted

(01:17:25):
screaming face, which is weird anyway, and his wife and the empty and
other people and the and the andthe truck driving everything like leaning over him,
him holding this bloody stump that's likespraying blood everywhere and getting his blood
over his wife. That I'm sureOliver Stone thinks is realistic and thinks is
shocking. It gets a gut laugh. It doesn't get shock, It gets

(01:17:46):
a gut laugh, do you knowwhat I mean. And so there's some
horror decisions he makes that don't quitethat another horror director would have done in
a more impactful way. I think, yeah, I agree, and I
do. But at the same time, I do wonder if and I who
knows, but I do wonder ifperhaps he brought Kane Rand to give this

(01:18:11):
performance by saying, listen, wehaven't got the money to do it,
like, we haven't got any money, so I can't be doing loads of
special effects, so I'm going totry and drop something in here and there.
But really this is going to reston the performance, and we need
to approach it more psychological thriller thanthe horror, because in the end,
that's what he does. It's ahorror film where he's tried to turn it

(01:18:32):
as much into like he's been paidto do a horror film. He's been
They've said to him, here's xx million dollars to produce a horror film.
Oliver, go in and do ahorror film, and he's going to
wear and gone like, I'm goingto try and make this as much a
psychological thriller as I possibly can,because it's sort of there in the script

(01:18:53):
and I don't seem to and Idon't appear to have any money for effects,
because all there is in the end, there's life, there's the there's
the tap handle thing, there's thehand being cut off. There's the really
lay mass like hand animation stuff,which is um you know, which,
to be honest, as you say, is often laughable and brings and makes

(01:19:14):
you think of made more than thirtyhands for this. I read this thing?
Yeah, and like how really?How like they just seems to be
the same shot of like just dothis and put like a black sleeve on
someone's Yeah, god, yeah,just film it in a certain way.
But you don't get an impression thatthirty hands from Youth. You get the
impression that the same three shots Annewith beatles on it, like this one

(01:19:41):
thing with these beatles beatles what andthere's this um yeah, there's just that.
There's this. Then there's another scarewith like there's a lobster clenches at
one point where he's when he's atlunch and you're like, oh, okay,
so he's going to start who's snaking? But that never goes anywhere.
That just happens once. He doesn'tactually hallucinate consistently. Cats runs through windows,

(01:20:01):
which is not something that I dolike at base scares, like all
of the like horror elements are badlydone and in the end, but that's
the thing. I don't know.It doesn't look like well, it sounds
like they pissed off most of moneyaway on hand puppets that they didn't use
right. But but it feels likewhat he did was when what I've got,

(01:20:27):
perhaps he shot a lot of stuffand went like this kind of is
so lame that I'm going to haveto lean more heavily on the performance,
which means that you get this performance. And the other thing about I've never
seen a film in which a man'shair is so integral too, because Michael
Kane has and I think we talkedbefore on the podcast, Michael Kane has

(01:20:48):
weird hair. It's that tight curledthing that he has going on. It's
curly, it's wavy, it's straight, it's big, it's curly on his
head and it's sort of as yousay, it's normally a sort of medium
length sort of thing that looks unlikeany other hair cut that any other man
has in the entire universe. Withmassive classes and an expensive seat. Yeah,

(01:21:10):
in this he has grown it intosomething resembling a sort of restoration wig
that comes down to his comes downto be shoulders right right, and it
looks really fucking weird. It doesthe whole way through like man that looks
weird, and he and he doesagain as part of this performance he does,

(01:21:31):
he does this job of like lookingprogressively more physically a wreck as the
film goes on, and that's quitewell done. Like he does look more
and more like I mean, bythe time he's in the garage at the
end and the police are questioning himand they want to open up the trunk
of his car and everything, like, he looks certifiable. There's a reason
why. Yeah, he does.Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And his

(01:21:54):
hair is his hair is just allover the place and big and and it
sort of helps put it and I'vebeen quiet, so he was here.
It makes it a slightly different Michael. His hair provides a slightly different Michael
K. I think it was really, you know, at this time,
he's banging out multiple movies a year. I think it's just he didn't have
time to get it cut in betweenfilms. So I think he probably came

(01:22:16):
off the set of Dress to Gilland obviously in Dressed to Kill. I
don't want to give anything away,but he plays a cross dressing killer in
Dressed to Kill, so maybe hewas like, well, I'll grab my
hair out because I'm playing a ladyin the previous movie and maybe he just
left the He's like, sorry,Oliver, you get me with the big
hair. I haven't got time toget it. I get a feeling like
he did not have time to goto the barbers and you're like, well,

(01:22:38):
Mike only takes an afternoon. No, I don't have time. I've
got to go from one set toanother set. I do not have time
for the hair. Um, well, maybe I don't know. He needed
long hair for a future movie thathe was working on Roger Moore or as
in a print. Yeah, I'vegot to spend time with Michael Winner and
Roger Moore and we've got to talkvery loudly in the you know, some

(01:23:00):
exclusive club in London. But yeah, it's his Hair's incredible. His performance
is generally the generally the reason towatch this movie. Um, it doesn't
really play out like any other OliverStone movie. I mean, if you've
seen you know, The Doors orJFK or Natural Bond Killers or whatever,

(01:23:24):
this is long before Oliver Stone isgoing you know, whiz bang with all
the different film stocks and filters andDutch angles and zoom ins and wild edits
and all the rest of it.However, we do get we get to
two things that I think kind ofpaved the way for what Oliver Stone is

(01:23:44):
going to become. We get thehand eye view, if that makes any
sense, is in black and white, so he's like, well, I'm
going to change that to black andwhite. And then there's the hilarious Oliver
Stone cameos, a bum sequence whereI think, like, both as the

(01:24:06):
hand i view and as Cane's likedrunken view, the camera is sort of
all over the place a little bitthat made me think, oh, okay,
that's the way Oliver Stone is going. The rest of the time,
though the movie is filmed pretty Iwouldn't say pedestrian. I mean, there's
certainly someone at work behind the lens, but it's amazing. There's a few

(01:24:29):
shots of New York in the earlyeighties where wow, New York in the
early eighties. Look at that.Yeah, But most of it was filmed
out in California for the for themost part, even the early scenes that
are meant to be Vermont are clearlynorthern California. And the one thing,
the one thing that did strike meboth the first time I watched this movie,

(01:24:51):
which is a few years ago andnow, is that the female characteristics,
the female characters in the movie arewritten just terribly badly. I mean,
they're garbage female characters. Well thatit's a problem that it's a sort
of pointless problem that the film createsfor itself, that the wife is sort

(01:25:14):
of hateful and um and sort ofjust a bad person. And you sort
of think, like, I don'tshe doesn't need to be like a sort
of wet person who's been taken inby a wellness guru. Like he's going
like, all of that's completely unnecessary. You can why can't it? Just
like there's this whole thing with likeshe's like she's into yoga and she's like

(01:25:36):
having an affair with a yoga guru. Well, I don't give a shit
about that. Well, that's that'sto do with the constant theme running through
the movie that psychology, wellness,mental health, all that is bullshit like
that, like Cain mentioned, that'sthat's Kine mentions more about you than I
was thinking. Kine mentions it multipletimes throughout the movie. And then what's

(01:25:58):
weird is the movie last scene,and I won't spoil it, for anyone.
But the movie's last scene is meantto take place in like a therapist
psychological testing. You're absolutely right,you're absolutely right. I'm not being fair.
But so actually it does make akind of sense. It's just she's
very not likabout issue. The wife. I mean, she's she's all kind

(01:26:19):
of Kane's side as sociate. Right, she's awful from the get go.
But but maybe it's I mean,maybe you get away with it saying or
maybe you could have got away withit saying, well, everything that we
see through Kane's eyes is kind ofKane's approximation of who these people are rather
than who they actually are. Butthen there a there would be a better

(01:26:41):
way of showing it. Secondly,the other thing that the one thing that
rings really oddly just just sits reallyoddly considering the rest of the movie is
that after Kane loses his hand rightwhich let's not forget it's not just a
man's right hand, and the youknow, the Freudian symbolic some you know,

(01:27:04):
some Freudian symbolics of having that removed, but the it's also his livelihood
because he's a cartoonist. It's inhis entire livelihood is and he was it
was because his wife was driving recklesslyand was in the middle of telling him,
you're not coming to New York withme, by the way, while

(01:27:26):
trying to frame it as well,you want to stay in Vermont anyway,
don't you, So you don't needto come to New York. I'm going
to go New York and get astudio apartment and do whatever I want to
do because this is ending anyway,isn't it. Like this is kind of
her argument. So in the midstof all of this, he loses his
hand. It's a big crescendo,blood pissing everywhere, blah blah, blah,
blah blah. When he comes,when he comes out of it,

(01:27:49):
and during the hospital and he's talkingto the guy who's going to be fitting
him for his prosthetic, and hegoes back to the New York apartment,
actually lives with his wife in thestudio apartment for a while without his hand
and so on. While he's kindof getting used to it, he's not
not that you expect him to belike, well, fuck you, it's
all your fault, fuck you andwalk out. But yeah, yeah,

(01:28:11):
he's weirdly on the side of Yeah, he doesn't blame anyone for the loss
of the hand. There's not abig argument about how it's her faulter or
about whatever. There doesn't seem tobe any bemoaning of the fact of it
it being the loss of his lilihood. There is the idea that he doesn't
want anyone else taking on Mandrow,But when the guy explains to him that

(01:28:31):
he probably won't be able to drawwith his prosthetic the way he could with
his real hand, there is arecognition there from Kine. There's not a
I never feel the weight of theloss of that, do you know what
I mean? And it seems Ithink her characters, you're absolutely right that

(01:28:54):
the the psychology thing that in away that does work, because that is
referenced throughout and you're right, that'slike he keeps on rejecting it, and
actually that's exactly what's going on.So in a way that that works.
I think the reason I've come insaying, oh, I don't think it
works is that she's so unsympathetic,right, you know, it feels like

(01:29:15):
she's trying to put a fast well, she basically is trying to pull a
fast one on him by going offto New York and leaving him in Vermont
basically, and she's and she's basicallylike trying to ditch in the whole way
through in a dishonest way. Soso, so it's this character here just
like, well, I don't likeyou, you know. All those shots
have came in a balcony watching herflirt with his heir instructor and then its

(01:29:35):
zooming in on his like dead panface. It was one of my favorite
shots in the film. Yeah,yeah, yeah, but she so she's
sort of dishonest and unlikable, whichis which is unnecessary, Like it's just
it's not necessary that she should belike that. And even like the um
well, it just comes across aRoman strange that it's just plumb weird.

(01:29:58):
Yeah. They have this whole wherehe loses his hand in an incident that
is her fault as a result ofher losing control, and then they don't
do anything with that. He doesn'tblame her, he doesn't. He doesn't
blame it the entire way through thefilm, even at the very end,
with the events at the end,he still doesn't reference the fact that him
losing the hand in the first placeis entirely her fault. Yeah, so

(01:30:21):
that's It's just it's a strange thatthe sort of unnecessary things to have because
she could it could still be herfault, but she could still be.
It seems to me that the movieseems to be trying to play with the
idea of this, which is weall have or the or the assumption that

(01:30:42):
we all have murderous impulses. Weall have things that make us angry,
but most of us, hopefully aswe grow older and grow out of our
young adulthood and into our middle age, as we both are now that we
shared a lot of the things thatkind of make us angry, we grow
up, we assume responsibility for ourown actions, and we you know,

(01:31:04):
put a lot of our youthful impulsesto bed and and and settle down.
Right, there's this Kane is incapableof settling down. He's still you know,
this furious ball of anger, intentionand everything like this. However,
and therefore the hand plays this outthe seventh hand like plays this out either

(01:31:25):
in his head or for real asa fantasy, depending um. But the
difficulty is with this is that becausewe stick with Kane throughout the entirety of
the movie. It's meant to bethat, uh, you know, everyone
he can Sorry, it's not.It's meant to be everyone he comes in
contact with deserves what's coming to themto some extent. Now, when I

(01:31:49):
wouldn't go ahead and murder someone ifthey cheated on us, and we wouldn't
go ahead and murder someone for tryingto take our girlfriend away on holiday or
whatever, we might just be likevery unhappy about it. Maybe we'll go
talk to someone about it. Butthere's he rejects psychology, right, so
that's part of it, right,But then all the people that are trying

(01:32:11):
to help him aren't really trying tohelp him. They're all doing it for
their own selfish needs. So hisagent who goes, well, we'll just
get someone else to draw it andyou can still like kind of do the
stories and do the thing, andblah blah blah blah blah. His agent
doesn't really want that. What shewants is Charles Fleischer, the guy they
get in to draw and write Mandro, who completely changes Mandro the first opportunity

(01:32:33):
he gets. And when Kane goes, well, you've changed bloody Mandro,
the agency goes, well, maybeMandro needs to change and maybe you need
to fuck off. So it's like, no one's really trying to help him.
Right, So if throughout the moviepeople were trying to help him,
and because of his insane anger andstress and his rejection of psychology and rejection

(01:32:53):
of help and I'm a man andeverything else, he rejected people trying to
help him, that would be onething, right, That would be you
know, here's a guy falling intopsychosis because of an accident. Here's a
guy, you know, giving intohis worst instincts. Here's a guy that,
while he comes across the world thatactually wants to try and help,
is rejecting all of that. Butthat's not what you get. What you

(01:33:13):
get is a bunch of selfish peoplearound him. You know, the wife
is selfish, the girlfriend is selfish, the teacher is selfish, the agent
is selfish. The other artist thathe's living with his selfish. And Kane
is sort of he's a lot,you know, he's selfish and aggressive and
angry and weird as well, butlike he's he's almost justified in all the

(01:33:35):
yeah yeah, murder does and hedoesn't quite. There's one murder of like
a homeless person that's quite random.That is the only one that isn't Oliver
Stone's cameo, right, Oliver Stoneplays the hobo. Yeah, that's the
only one that isn't sort of justifiedby the by the by their actions,
by it has it's to be honest, it just says a weird psychology to

(01:33:59):
it. The whole. It sortof rings it rings bells to me as
someone who's like trying to write moviescripts. And obviously, you know,
I've written many things and many timesit's very easy to have sort of two
slightly parallel ideas and never really pickone of them, never really get them
together until but but you know it'sum so so that's so, that's quite

(01:34:24):
familiar. Well, it just itjust means that the psychology of the movie
is and I'll be quick about this, but a tad a tad misogynistic,
you know, in no uncertain terms, and very nihilistic in terms of the
world. The world and and maybeyou know this is not this is a
theme that runs through Oliver Stone's work. The world is a cold, uncaring,

(01:34:47):
you know, machiavellian place that it'sfull of people out for themselves trying
to fuck over the other. Andwhether it's at a country level like the
JFK conspiracy, or whether it's notbeing able to Mandrow, it's still he's
being faced. He's still being besetupon by a cruel uncar. They come

(01:35:08):
up with a name that would justbe fun to him, Michael Caine saying,
you're going mad ro all right,that start my bloody Mandroway, you've
cut the balls on the Superman inthe end. What that's the thing about
it is it's a it's an uneven, wobbly production with horror effects that that

(01:35:29):
really don't begin to work. Andand the reason that that you stick with
the film is the Michael Caine performance. I mean, that's that's it.
That's why you stick with it.And if he hadn't bothered, if he
if he's sort of not bothered toturn up again and slept water to the
whole thing, it would have been, you know, a real trial watching

(01:35:49):
it. But it wasn't a trialwatching it because right from from the very
beginning he does he does enough init in what he doing to keep your
interest. As you know, thescene where's he there's a scene where he's
genuinely vulnerable. There's a scene wherehe in the car crosh scene he's putting
his head out the window and callingsomeone a silly cow, just like that,

(01:36:11):
without a clue. There's a sittingand the scene at the very end,
which frankly, I could watch anentire three films set in that world
where Michael Caine is that person.Right, Um, well, it always
enters going on. So the lastscene of the film enters what I was
talking about earlier. It enters thatreality horror world. I don't believe for

(01:36:32):
a second any hospital or any psychologystuff that looks like that. But the
way he films that, it's kindof cron and burn even that. And
that woman like a comment of thatactress's name, but she's she's wonderful,
that actress that I absolutely love her. Yeah, and but she doesn't ring

(01:36:53):
as real, not real at allin any way. And I just I
have to admit, when I sawthe last scene, I was like,
yeah, I've kind of gone fora film it was all about Michael Caine
and her. Yeah, totally,totally. It's just dumb. I don't
think that we last one of thegreat genre directors. When Oliver Stone decided
to go off and make and Interestinglyenough, the next movie he makes after

(01:37:15):
this is Salvador with James Woods.So I was going to say, yes,
that's something I was going to say, is that's another wonderful connection to
our previous like Someone and Someone seriesis You're absolutely right. So next thing
goes on to make Salvador. Butthe other thing is this is very much
the unknown origin of Cane and Key. It's it's it has it has that

(01:37:40):
same thing where it's a performance islifting a very yes, well, it's
most it's most in common with someof the James Woods movies we watched.
Some of the James Woods movies wewatch were bloody awful, but because you
had Woods eye rolling and spitting everytake, they became, you know,

(01:38:01):
watchable and entertaining. And this iskind of like that. This isn't quite
as awful as some of the JamesWoods ones we watched, but Kane's performance
at the center of it, andand the blossoming of Oliver Stone, or
certainly the emergence of Oliver Stone,there's some interesting for people who are Stone
fans. There's some direct Yeah.The closest he gets to doing something like

(01:38:23):
this again would be talk radio,which is a movie that he does.
He does Salvador, Platoon of WallStreet, and then he kind of does
this little side project called Talk Radio, which is sort of a one hander.
Again, it's sort of a maledriven one hander based on a stage
play film. And yes, ithas relevance because it's sort of talking about

(01:38:45):
the shock jocks of the eighties andthings like that, and and certainly has
some Stone themes in it. Butyou know, he then goes back to
doing Born on the Fourth July,The Doors, jeffk having an Earth,
Natural Born Killers, Nixon, Like, he doesn't really go back to kind
of doing genre work again. Isuppose you'd say You Turn, but many
many years later it kind of becomesas a sort of a genre film.
But You Turn is probably similar toNatural Bone Killers than it is similar to

(01:39:09):
The Hand. Yeah, well youTurn is. I mean, I I
always wanted to do with you aseries on Stranger in Town. Movies like
this and Bad Day of Black Rockand things like You Turn and Read What
Rest and Bad Day of Black RockLA. Those movies are a thing in

(01:39:30):
themselves, But I found it reallyinteresting to to watch, like a really
early I had no idea that Stonedid this early in his career. Yeah,
and again, you know, it'slike it's this lovely like um surprise
from the past and and just likewith Johnny Dangerously they they were both like

(01:39:50):
pleasing, entertaining, flawed, butyou know, yeah, we kept watching
delights. Basically, what's interesting isyou have I can point to almost every
famous actor working today starting off ineither horror films or genre films. There's
loads of horror and genre films litteringthe eighties that Brad pat and George Clooney

(01:40:12):
and Tom Hanks and other people kindof start and big names came out of
horror. There aren't many directors whostart in horror but then go a completely
different way. And I'm sure Stonewould be like, well, you know,
JFK and Ball in the Fourth ofJuly A horror films in their own
way. But maybe he's right,but there aren't many who normally, certainly
back in the end of the seventiesearly eighties, if you were doing horror

(01:40:35):
and genre films, you stayed doinghorror and genre films. Yeah, so
it's very I would love I couldn'tfind anything on Wikipedia or interviews or anything
of Stone talking about the one eightybetween the Hand and Salvador. I really
want to know where he went between. While I'll start my career off doing
a couple of light, low budgethorrors, and then I'm going to cut

(01:40:59):
a sway through you know, reallyweird like political films, slash fear and
loathing in Las Vegas film, Imean that El Salvador is very odd.
Yes, well, but yeah,that's it's a it's a very interesting about
turn. And I would love likeif I if I ever interviewed Oliverstone,
the only question that I'd want toask is about the transitions him to Salvador

(01:41:26):
bated Eric, I see if hebecause I want to know how someone goes
from you know, I know thathorror was a moneymaker. I know that
everyone was trying to kind of makea horror movie in order to kind of
break out. But it's just veryinteresting to me that you picked the Hand
and then go go ahead and makeSalvador. It's just such a it's such
an about face. But the horrorsof the real world versus the horrors of

(01:41:49):
the fantasy world, I guess isthe running thing. But very interesting.
And thank you so much for bringingJohnny dangerously into my life. That will
be a movie that I will seeagain. And I'm not going to thank
you for making me watch The Handa second time. But it certainly wasn't
it certainly wasn't horrible. It wascertainly fine to have to watch it again.

(01:42:10):
I've seen it before. But umbut, and I actually own it
somewhere. It was part of abox that I got of schlocky horrors for
four movies. Hum but but yeah, another wonderful Cane and Keaton. I
think a great revival of Cane andKeaton. Um. It'll be interesting to
see if we stick with eighties Keaton, because while there's more and more Kane

(01:42:35):
to explore, I've got the feelingthat Keaton's more recent output is more interesting
than his eighties output. I mean, everyone will want us to do stuff
like mister Marmon things like that,because they're they're fan favorites. But you
know, in one Good carp orwhatever, I don't know whether fan favorite,
but it's certainly like a thing.Um but Keaton maybe more way we

(01:42:58):
do like young Kane old. Idon't know. King seems to be doing
more interesting work now than he didback in the eighties. But we'll see.
If you don't know um, butthank you very much, sir.
This was a pleasure. I willalways do this. I will always do
Worsley snipes m and uh yeah.If you ever have a bit more time,

(01:43:18):
we can do our three Strangers inTown movies or whatever. We don't
have to be beholden to anyone series. We can just drag them out as
long as we want. Okay,cool man, Well, I'd love to
speak to you and be on thediner again. Yes, well, welcome
back anytime. And yeah, keepin touch, man talk. I eat

(01:43:58):
the Lady Beyond at the time dayabout the film with Harry A. What
can I say? This is alife. I buy a dozen cars.
When I'm in the food, Ihire somebody to shoot my food. I'm
gonna be more about this is alife. They say that money rust you,
but I can't read it him.I got the whole world at my

(01:44:21):
feet, and I think gets readyas well. I got women and outside
my door. David waited this inthe week before. Who could ask for
more? This is a life.You're dead, no real long time.

(01:44:55):
You just can't prevent it. Soif money can't buy happiness, I guess
I'll have to rent it. Yeah, every day I made for front papers.
No time to pay my dudes.I got a million perse shoe.
This is a life, my baba wow wow wow, I got a

(01:45:53):
song. No cattle like make morewhile I leave. You can can't have
a living legend that in every creamaway on the bar, the big trees.
Yeah, I got this down thatit's not your little leaves. I
can do just what I believe.This is a live that's right. I
was the king number one and bymonograph queen ain't by the time I bade

(01:46:15):
the bills like all the shots,I creased the palms by by the yard.
One thing I could guarantee the bestthings in life. They sure ain't
freeze. That's a thrill just tome me. This is a lie?
Why this is a lie.

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Ep 350 - Caine and Keaton 6 - Johnny Dangerously & The Hand

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 350 - Caine and Keaton 6 - Johnny Dangerously & The Hand