March 27, 2025 • 59 mins
315 FOREIGN DISASTERS!
Kelly has opinions on Snow White... Who cares?
Also discussed: The Electric State, The Gutter, Adolescence.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
How many devices do you talk to alien overlord?
(00:05):
You're the one who put him inyour home.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break yourconcentration
somewhere between science andsuperstition, we
(00:26):
have such sights to show you.
Strange eons. Welcome tostrangeeons radio that is Eric
over there. Hello. That isVenice over there. Hello, and I
am Kelly. We are in person,which is always my favorite way
(00:47):
to do this. You guys. Snow Whiteopened this weekend. Yeah, guess
it did halfway decently. Soshocking, Disney, really is that
shocking? Here's my problem. Ihave a problem with the casting,
okay, Snow White.
Good Lord, yes. I think if goahead, I'm very curious. If
you're thinking the same thing Iam.
(01:08):
Well, it's the same thing I hadthe casting of the last Snow
White movie, which with KristenStewart, yeah. Okay, so the Evil
Queen is like, who's the fairestof the land? And it's always the
Evil Queen until Snow Whiteshows up, right? Yeah, in the
Kristen Stewart movie, what wasthat the Huntsman and Snow
White, or something like that,the evil queen was Charlize
(01:31):
Theron, and really only the mostbeautiful woman in the world,
Kristen Stewart is somehowprettier than her. I
call bullshit. She's got thatgirl next door. Look. She's
not more attractive thanCharlotte. Look at
the original cartoon. See thedifference between the Evil
(01:52):
Queen and Snow White.
And so in this new one, I don'teven know who's playing Snow
White, but the evil queen is GalGadot. Yeah, only the other most
beautiful woman in the world.
And I'm like, You guys cannotcast your evil Queens prettier
than Snow White.
It It seems ridiculous, like,look in that mirror and say
(02:14):
that, and it comes back withsomebody else, like, okay, no
wonder they are so furious,because clearly they'd be
looking at Snow White going,that old thing is it
just because she's younger? Isthat supposed to be how they're
selling? Well, that'sjust it. Like Charlize Theron
was 42 or something in thatmovie. And I was like, she is
quite possibly the mostbeautiful woman on the planet
(02:36):
right now at 42 years old. Thiswas bad casting. She should have
played Snow White if that wasgoing to be the casting.
No, you've got a pretty goodpoint there. Did you end up
seeing this thing?
See this and then get angry. I'mstanding up in the middle of all
these parents with their kids.
I'm like, is everyone with me?
She is not prettier than theEvil Queen.
(03:00):
I just, yeah, the I saw thetrailer and saw the dwarves, and
was like, I cannot.
I cannot. CGI, right? Yeah, theylook
horrible. It's like, uncannyvalley again, we're like, going
back into that universe of like,it's a little too human, but not
quite human enough, and it'sweird and cartoony, but people,
and that was the point, right?
Because we hate little peopleand we don't want them to have
(03:23):
jobs. CanI cast them? Absolutely not.
Well, there'sthat local Snow White movie that
opened last night, did apremiere last night. Oh, did
theydo that? Okay, in LA I know that
they the castle they built forthat set is like in Monroe or
something like that. It's rightaround the corner from here.
And, yeah, I saw the trailer forthat. I was like, That looks
(03:47):
fun. Looks good. They have agory wheel, gory horror, Snow
White. Oh,nice. I have not heard about
people.
And of course, then theyactually cast like Eric Pope,
who I think is 10 feet tall. Ishe playing one of the
doors? Troll,that was my snow white stuff.
Okay, guys, Vanessa, I knowyou'll have something. Some
(04:08):
thoughts on this. I watched thelast the season finale of
severance. Oh yes,the fuck. The fuck indeed. I
mean, we got some answers, didwe Yeah,
they did say they're going to doa third series much quicker this
time. Oh, much. That would benice. That would be three years
(04:30):
between till season. I knowI was like, Oh, God, please. I
cannot wait that long. I mean,we still don't know what the
point of the unicon or whateverthey're called lumen. Yeah, we
still know what the point ofthat is. No, we don't know the
greater purpose, but we knowwhat the severance entire, like,
purpose of the severance flooris. We understand much more what
is going on with Gemma and,like, what they're hoping to
(04:53):
achieve.
Well, we've learned much more.
Do we understand much more? Imean, there's not a high. In
there where they're going tosacrifice a goat. Yeah, it's
just like we getting intosatanic territory all of a
sudden. Or whatis this? There's, I mean, it's a
cult. It is part cult, partcult, part tech, part whatever,
and it's got some weirdreligious affiliation. So there
(05:15):
is a sort of sacrifice happeningbetween the person and the goat
and the Apparently, they've donethis again and again and again,
as manytimes as it takes. Apparently.
I don't know if you know thisabout me, Vanessa, but in my
30s, I did a little Sinatratribute show, and I snuck in a
(05:41):
lot of Bobby Darin, who's myfavorite artist of all time. And
so to say that I was pleased atthe very end of the credits when
a Bobby Darin song came on, istaking it very lightly. I was
like, I'm always happy to see aBobby Darin appearance. Anything
new?
Did you feel like you enjoyedthe show overall. I'm
(06:03):
not sure. Okay, Ithere's a marching band segment
there that I was like, this isgoing on too long, and it's so
bizarre. Yeah? That I was justlike, I'm having a real hard
time with this scene. Yeah? Ifeel like, I mean, it's just
another easter egg of, like,what other random departments do
(06:24):
they have? And why? And why?
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't fully sure.
I don't know. I still have a lotof confusion around things going
on. Like, the end of lastseason. It feels like this whole
season, milk chick is, like,pissed at them, yeah, for doing
that. And, but there's like, aposter, a motivational poster,
(06:45):
in their break room of what'shis name, holding the two pieces
together apart. And it's kind ofthat, like, hang in there, baby,
yeah. And it's like, Well, whyis all? Why are they making them
sound like heroes, but thenthey'll check is, like, straight
up, like, pissed at them aboutit, like, you can't really have
(07:06):
both. So I don't know, I don'tfully get some of that stuff,
but that's okay, yeah,there's, for me, it feels like
there is a lot of weirdness forweirdness sake, yeah. And that
that is that's never satisfyingat the end, when you find out
what it is, because then you'regonna go, Well, then why do they
have this marching band who areall in ease? What is their
(07:27):
purpose there? Just toentertainment. And I can't
remember what he called them,entertainment and something
division, yeah, and, okay, yeah,I don't know. I feel like maybe
it's, is he building his future,like pyramid to be, you know,
buried in kind of that, likethat he's got to have a little
(07:50):
bit of everything. Or, I don'tfully get that, but I do. I feel
like I was pissed at the endingof this, and then realized that
you had to have the ending theyhad, so we would have a season
three. So I get that, I think, Ithink season three is going to
be the revolution. Has to be. Ithas to be. That's why the
(08:10):
marching band is there.
You hope, yeah. So that's partof why you mentioned part of the
reason I sort of faded out onthe show in the first season.
And I don't know, maybe I'll goback and check, because I I have
a real hard time with weirdnessfor weirdness sake, and I think
it's kind of like, well, is yourweirdness going somewhere,
(08:30):
right? Like, usually, notalways, but usually Lynch's
films, weirdness goes someplace,or at least has some kind of
meaning or reason behind it,which I appreciate. But the
first season hit me a little bitlike so it sounds like it's good
enough that it's still worthchecking out, I think because it
(08:53):
goes a little bit beyond that.
Yeah, I think it does. I thinkyou might enjoy it, especially
this season. I feel like there'sa lot more world building where
you're like, oh, okay, that's alittle bit more context for why
this is this way, or, I don'tknow, I just think you might
enjoy it more if you see theseason.
(09:13):
I think my favorite scene had tobe milcheck having this snarky
conversation with theanimatronic of the founder.
Oh my god, so good, so good. Andyou're like, who is voicing
this? He's getting really busyback and forth. But yeah, yeah,
no, so so incredibly good. So,yep, my brother had slightly
(09:37):
spoiled something where he saidI laughed so hard constantly at
the elevator thing. And I waslike, what? And then was like,
Yeah, okay, that's fuckinggreat,
yeah. And then where that wentwith him being able to utilize
it? I was like, this is a reallysmart thing. I'm glad that they
made it mean something, yeah. Soanyway, that's severance. It's
(09:57):
on Apple. Plus i. Cost $2million an episode. So watch it,
Eric, so that they can get acouple of cents back. Well,
you know, we saw that article Isent the other day where Apple's
using a billion dollars a yearon Apple TV. So yeah, 2 million
episode pocket change for theirlosses. That's
why I'm telling you. It's allgoing to wolves, like if you're
(10:20):
gonna have a fill with fuckingBrad Pitt and George Clooney.
Those people don't come cheap.
That is several, you know,episodes of severance right
there. Yeah. Well, I watched ashow that's kind of getting some
buzz right now on Netflix,adolescence, which is a British
show. It's four episodes long.
(10:42):
Each episodes roughly an hour,and kind of gives you moments in
time surrounding this kid who isaccused of murdering somebody.
So in the first episode, he'sarrested, and then he's like a
young kid. He's a young kid. Helooks very young. He looks like
(11:03):
he's like nine or 10. He'sactually closer to maybe 1413,
wow, but yeah, I mean, maybelike freshman in high school,
kind of age. But yeah, so you'rehe looks extremely innocent.
He's obviously from a familythat is very caring and loving,
maybe not super like rich. Butthe cool thing about each
(11:24):
episode is it's so contained.
They're all sort of oneers. Sothey whether or not they're
actually one ers, you don'tknow, but you're following this
camera up and down and aroundand going from one character to
the next to this to that we'rein the car now and then we're at
the police station, and it'sreally clever the way it's done
and choreographed, and alsoexhausting to think how many
(11:45):
times they had to do it to getit right, because even if you're
splitting it up, there's likelong, like conversations.
And I read an article that saidthey didn't split it up. Those
are all true learners. So Ihaven't seen it yet, but it
sounds fascinating anddisturbing.
It's really depressing. It'sreally tough to set to sit
(12:06):
through because of it's just asad story, and you can't get
around that. And it isdisturbing because the kid
actors so good. And the wholequestion is, maybe not so much,
from what I was hearing, it'snot so much about whether or not
he did it, it's why. And youhave these moments of seeing him
(12:29):
as this innocent kid, and thenother moments where the actor
almost puts on this adultpersona, which is really
distressing, and like you justget to watch this kid, this is
the first thing he's ever beenin. And he just fluxes in and
out of these perfectly, theseweird tonal shifts that just,
yeah, they make you I'm gettingshivers right now just talking
(12:50):
about it, but it's really cool.
It is kind of strange, though,structurally, because the first
episode, he's getting arrested,the second, second episode, it's
like three days later, and thenit's a much bigger time later,
and then a much even bigger timelater. So you don't get to see
all the in between things thathappen, but you do get a clue
with each episode, like, kind ofwhere everyone's at and what's
going on. So Wow.
(13:14):
One of the things they pointedout in this article I read was
The interrogation scene withthis kid, and it was the
director saying the only reasonthis scene works is because the
kid did not realize how hard itwould be. And he had never done
anything like this, and he hadnever talked to anybody like
this about it, so he had no ideathat what he was doing was,
(13:36):
like, impossible, jeez. And Iwas like, Okay, I gotta fucking
watch this kid? Yeah,no, it sounded like, I mean,
this kid had no formal training.
They just kind of found him. Andthere he was. Just nailed it. He
was just doing great work.
And so you've watched all of it,yeah, I've seen all of it, and
you were satisfied with theending. Um, yeah, no. I mean, I
think it's a really well donelittle show. It's, it's a slice
(13:58):
of life. It feels more itdoesn't feel like a three act
structure. It feels like the wayshort films work, where you're
just in a moment in time, soyou're just a fly on the wall in
people's lives. And it feelsvery honest in a really cool
way, like I feel like I have amuch better understanding of the
British like judicial system,pretty much next
(14:27):
it's so undramatized that you'relike, when they're processing
the kid, like, they all kind ofhave to be really nice because
he's underage and they can't getin trouble and whatever. So
everyone's really cool to him.
And you're like, you almostdon't realize how much trouble
he's in, because they're like,all right, may eat and yet
today, okay, all right, we'regonna get you some Frosted
(14:47):
Flakes here in a minute. Andthere's just a lot of like,
okay, you're doing really good.
All right. Now we got to do thisthing, and it's, it's hard, it's
hard to watch, but, um, yeah,so. I highly recommend it, but
also you should be in, like, agood mental state when you're
never watching thatdistressing thing I heard was
(15:08):
that, although it's not based onan actual case, it's based on
several cases of young peoplewho have mostly stabbing
murders. Yes, that is the bigthing there. And I was just
like, yeah, because I think theywere saying that this case is
kind of based on, like an 11year old who had done this,
(15:31):
yeah.
So in the UK, since guns are sodifficult to get a hold of, most
people, most of the crime isstabbing, and it happens
constantly. So when I was livingin London at one point, my
family was gonna buy me, like, astab proofed hoodie, because,
like, literally, I knew a guywho was, like, on the train and,
like, looked down and he wasbleeding, and he was like,
(15:53):
somebody fucking stabbed me, andhe had to go the hospital
because somebody just randomlystopped.
But crime will find a way. Yeah,although you can survive a lot
of stab wounds, true. So, like,there was somebody who survived,
I think it was 62 stab wounds.
Holy shit. Yeah. So you can, youcan, do you have a better
chance? Targeting was off onthat one go all around the
(16:14):
heart.
I've seen, well, I've never seena stab wound, but I've seen a
lot of AX ones before. So, Eric,what have you been watching?
Quickly moving on to a show, amovie, an actual film, companion
we've all seen now, yeah, and Idid manage to avoid all the
(16:35):
stuff about it. Oh, although theposter led me actually to a
different thing of what she wasas she actually was. So that
worked out nicely, good,like a demon or something, yeah.
So overall, good film. It's gotsome weird moments where you're
like, Okay, you gotta, I guessyou got to have the scene or the
(16:56):
movie kind of ends. But overall,really good. It was neat to see
Jack Quay being different. Yeah,we're used to seeing he seems to
be on his high upward trajectorythis year, yeah. But and Sophia
Thatcher, of course, she's donea lot of good stuff, but, yeah,
(17:19):
overall, fun, entertaining film.
The again, kind of want to trynot to be too spoilery with it,
but we've seen anything. I thinkthe description of it being
Black Mirror esque is a reallygood one. So if you like those
shows, you definitely want tocheck this one out, not saying
exactly what's going on, but,you know, you get the idea of
(17:42):
text involved, yeah. Butsmartphone just good movie. I
do want to get spoiler, leavespoiler, spoiler out this,
because the ending was the onlything that I didn't absolutely
love. And it was the very endingwhere she takes the money. And I
(18:08):
was like, Okay, so I'm rootingfor you this entire time, and
now you have now done the thingthat they were doing this for.
Yeah. I was like, I would loveto have seen that just change
with like, I'm gonna burn thehouse and the money and
everything, and then just go,but turning her then kind of
(18:29):
criminal on next instead ofvictim, I was like, oh god,
yeah. So that was my, literallymy only complaint to that. How
else will she start a life anew?
She's dialed up to 100% on herintelligence.
It's true. Yeah, so yeah,though, but yeah, that's out
(18:49):
for, I think it's rent still,but few different platforms.
While we're checking out, itmight be to, I don't know, Hulu,
or maybe paramount, plus, bynow,
you can watch it for if you're asubscriber,
one of them companion, yeah,that's a good one. Okay, then
the other one I want to watchcame as a little bit of a
(19:09):
surprise to me. You know, Ididn't think that I needed a all
black cast version of Kingpin,but that's what I got with the
gutter. Yeah, okay, cool.
It's basically Kingpin, about akid who never bowled. And turns
(19:30):
out he's amazing, and so thesepeople are going to use him to
raise money to save the bowlingalley and all this. And of
course, he's up against a motleycrew of different bowlers, but
one of them is Susan Sarandon,who has come out of retirement
to bowl again because she can'tlet this punk take over her
records. And I don't know howold Susan Sarandon is, 900 or
(19:55):
something, she's still sobeautiful. I'm like, wow. So
I'm. I know she's not 900 butwhat is she 78 she was in rock
your picture show that was 75 soshe was probably
like 21 Yeah. Sowhatever she's doing, she's
doing it right. Anyway, it'sfilthy, and it's, if you don't
(20:17):
like the N word, there's gonnabe a lot of words you don't like
in this is an all black caston a weird sidebar when you say
that, yeah, watching Britishshows. When they had, they had a
whole episode on Vera aboutillegal cigarettes, you know,
they call it, so it's like the Fword. I words are interesting,
(20:44):
yes, aren't they? Yeah.
Anyway, this is called thegutter. Eric, I know you'll love
it. Vanessa, you'll hate it.
It's very broad comedy. Yeah, Iprobably would enjoy it, but
it's on Hulu. Oh,awesome. Well, I checked out
something I think you talkedabout Kelly, which was the
electric states, yeah, what areyour thoughts? You know, like
there was so much I really likedabout it that it was a little
(21:07):
frustrating that it didn't havebetter connective tissue. I
think that there were some justreally great set pieces. I
thought the actors all did apretty good job. I liked the
world building that they did. Idid not mind so that it was an
action family movie.
(21:28):
You were familiar with thesource. Yeah, I actually have
all the books. Okay, yeah. Sothat's what you're talking the
connective tissue to that youwould have liked to
see, just connective tissuesfrom scenes to scene. Oh, okay,
so, for example, at one pointthey go to New Mexico from
wherever they are, and you'relike, could it? Could use some
of them between footage or, likeher becoming an orphan. You're
(21:50):
just like, Okay, I would haveliked to see any kind of lead up
into here so that I would careand understand more about your
situation. There's just littlethings here and there. 100%
agree with that, because the waythey explain it is sort of
flashbacks. And Eric, yeah,flashbacks are the refuge of the
week,yes. And then they end up in
Seattle. They're like, we gottatravel 1000 miles. And you're
(22:10):
like, I don't know who's goingon this trip. I don't know what
the plan is. I don't know, like,how you set it up. I know we're
in Seattle. I know that there'san island that doesn't exist
now, but somehow housing a giantcomplex. And
I was like, Why did this have tobe Seattle? Why couldn't this
have been San Francisco,contrast, or someplace where we
know there is an island thatmakes sense
(22:32):
totally I was like, Is thissupposed to be Vash? Like, what
am I look it's not. It literallysits out there, like it's in the
South Pacific or somethingIsland, and then water all
around it. And you're like, Thisis nowhere in Washington.
Totally. Yeah, I was verydistressed by that. But, you
know, like, yeah, there'scertain characters that I think
(22:53):
I would have liked more if Ijust had a little more info. And
the only solve I can think is ifthis was like a 10 episode
series instead of a movie,because then you could have
done, like an episode of setup.
You could do an episode just on,like the big cat guy who we see
starts the revolution, and thenlater he doesn't say anything.
He shows up, but you're like,are you not important anymore?
(23:17):
Okay, I guess you're just here.
Cool dancer was Hi, yeah, it wasjust a lot
of, like, the robots, thedesigns from the a lot
of it was cool, yeah, a lot ofit was, in fact, they have a lot
of shots that are literallystills from, like, the drawings.
Andso the drawings, does it depict,
like, a revolution of robots andall that
(23:41):
hard to know exactly what'shappening. Like you can see that
there are a bunch of dead robotsin desolate areas. You can see
that people now have these,like, specialized helmets. I
tried to find out how much theartist had influence on the
script, and it was reallyinteresting, because they did
change his piece a lot. I thinkhe was very heavily involved
(24:03):
initially, and then not so much.
But he was like, apparently hehas a couple kids. And he was
like, I don't care. It's auniverse. Do what you want in
there. It's it's great. And mykids can watch this. And that's
one story that takes place inthe electric state, and I'm
down. So that's cool.
Check was huge. Yeah, totally.
I mean, the last time, the lastbook he did, he ran as a
(24:26):
Kickstarter, so, yeah, like, Idon't think he's rolling rolling
in it, even though he's prettyprolific. And does, I mean, so
many people have his work ontheir shelves, but that's
cool. Yeah, I loved Chris Prattslittle robot buddy. He
was great. Yeah, I liked therobot. I didn't hate the little
(24:47):
yellow robot guy either. Ithought Millie Bobby Brown did
fine, good. You know, she wasMr.
Peanut. Wasn't that? WoodyHarrelson, yeah,
like, this is a good role forhim. There
was a lot of fish. Those peoplethat just kept rolling. And I
was like, Wait, okay, StanleyTucci is here. Fine, all right.
Oh, yeah. Also Stanley, she isone of those guys that is
(25:10):
suddenly aging into a veryhandsome older man. Yeah. I was
like, wow, this is not what Iexpected. Your third act was
going to be.
No, definitely not. And he'sdoing a lot more like villainy,
kind of it does. It's Susan,great. He's, yeah, nailed it.
The electricstate that's on Netflix.
Speaking of guys aging intoplaying villain roles. Watched
(25:34):
heretic with Hugh Grant. I thinkI enjoyed this more than you
did. Kelly, probably partiallybecause the sister Paxson, the
Chloe, the blonde character, Iknew, I lived and went to school
with. So lived around. I went toschool with so many people like
that, because it's, it's aMormon based concept, and I grew
(25:56):
up per capita more than SaltLake City, Mormon town. So there
was a lot of Mormons around,yeah, and she fit that weird
over the top, glossiness thatfits a lot of, lot of, a lot of
the Mormons. And SophieThatcher, again, who I actually
(26:16):
watched these movies, not quiteback to back, but they were back
to back movies that I watched.
Like, Oh, she's in thistoo. She had a strong year.
Yeah, sheis great in it. And she reminded
me of the rebellion levelMormons, kind of like one of the
girls I dated for on and off forquite a bit in high school. And
so this, just like a lot ofthat, especially the first two
(26:40):
thirds, when they get to theresolution.
I'm like, Well, this is reallyweird.
I love the idea of what he'ssetting up to do, but his
experiment and his execution ofthe experiment
are weird. Yeah, it's prettyconvoluted.
(27:03):
It is convoluted. It made mefeel like the writer was like,
you know, I really want toexplore this thing that I feel,
yeah, and unfortunately, it'snot as deep as he thinks it is.
So he's got Hugh, who isfantastic all that, yeah,
delivering all of these ideas,but the ideas aren't as
impressive as the writer thinksthey are.
(27:25):
It does really feel like I'mgetting lectured, too, by like,
an early college boyfriendabout, like, the state of
religion, like, all right,the the and the reference in
their book of Mormon, yeah,which I remember seeing. And
because of the way I grew up, Iwatched this with people
laughing stuff around me. One,this is Mormonism, yeah. This is
not a stretch, which is why, youknow, the little program had an
(27:49):
ads for Mormonism in the programfor the Mormon because it came
out and they all went, Oh, allright, yeah. And it was Topher
graces. Character wasinteresting in the over kind of,
it's not the right, I forgetwhat they call him, but the guy
who sees the oversees themissionaries, is that
what I was, I didn't even putthat together, okay? And then,
(28:13):
like I said, Everybody'sperformance, though, was
stellar, really, really good. Ithink Hugh Grant has a good
future in being intelligent,dark character, yeah, because I
think you did really well inthis. And like I said, it does
fall apart a little at the end.
It gets a little like, that'swhat you're doing, okay, but I
think it's well worth watching.
(28:35):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I feellike we have the same okay
feelings on it. It's just I wasmore angry at the turn that made
zero sense back that he's got amaze like dungeon that is
clearly larger than his propertyunderneath his property, because
that's very, very large.
Yeah, anyways, but we're seeingyeah for sure.
(28:59):
Okay, well, how about we take alittle break, guys, and then
when we come back, we aretalking about Foreign Disaster
flicks.
There's no time to waste in firetower, harness the power of the
(29:21):
elements before you're all burntto the ground. Extinguish the
blaze or turn your opponents tofiery ashes quick. Get your fire
breaks in place to protect yourtower, use your car to deploy
your best strategies to be thelast player standing.
Accomplished. Get ready to fightfire with fire in fire tower
(29:43):
from Goliath,we have. Returned after an
intense plumbing discussion,plumbing angry.
(30:05):
Now, this is what happens whenyou are above the age of 40.
You know what? I don't like theway you said that, because it
sounds like it's my plumbing andsomething I must have done.
We're talking about you plumbingat your
house. Yes, yes, my 1959 yearold house, and it's plumbing
issues.
So yes, Vanessa, this was yoursub genre. You want to tell us
(30:28):
what it's all about again? Yeah?
Absolutely.
So I want to go with a disasterfilm, because I love disaster
movies, but with a twist, whichis foreign, a foreign disaster
movie that shows tons of greatstuff that have come out in the
last 10 years. Yeah, a nice likeflooding of the gates of there's
a lot of people who are able todo these kind of bigger budget
looking films that might nothave been able to before. So I
(30:49):
thought we could check them out.
I love it, and I'm gonna giveyou five minutes on the strange
hands radio buzzer to talk aboutyour film.
Awesome. So I went with 2019,Ash fall.
There are four magma chamberslocated under the pectin
mountain. The remaining threechambers will then explode
consecutively. How much time dowe have for it explodes again?
Breaking news, the PEC twomountain has erupted. According
(31:13):
to the latest analysis, it lookslike there are three more giant
magma chambers under the pectorsun. You
we're sending you out on the newmission report to base
immediately. It's our job to flythere to smuggle a few missiles
(31:34):
and get back home safely. Okay,consider him extremely
dangerous, and whatever you do,don't let your guard down.
Protective suit.
I ain't over there. They send abunch of Boy Scouts. Maybe it's
not evenly I had a littlesurprise visitor in the cell
give me a gun. Whatwent better than I expected it
(31:55):
to ifwe don't stop them, it's over
for the North and for the South.
So Uncuff me and let me out ofhere. Do you really believe who
will we are to get there ontime? But if we can hit it, we
can stop the last eruption. Dothis is a South Korean movie. It
(32:30):
had a budget of 17 point 7million and a box office of 61
point 3 million. I haven't seenit outside of streaming here,
but obviously it did very wellin its home country. It's
directed and written by KimBeyonce, who only has two
credits this in cold eyes, he'sprimarily cinematographer, and
(32:50):
he was he did the camera work onI Saw the Devil lead. Hao Zhen
also co wrote it with him. Fourcredits, nothing you really
would have heard of. But he'smostly a writer starring ha
Zhong Wu, who has 45 credits. Wewould have seen him in the
Handmaiden li by who has 57credits. He is the star of, I
(33:15):
Saw the Devil. He's the lead,good guy, good guy. He was also
in The Good, The Good, the Badand the weird, and he's the
front man in the squid gameseries. Oh, geez, yeah, I keep
seeing him. And be like, You areso familiar every time. And
then, like, Ah, so I Saw theDevil guy again. And then Mao
Dong SEK who is 65 credits,including Train to Busan. He's
(33:40):
the wrestler guy, and he's alsoin all the random movies as the
star. So this is the story of adormant volcano since 1903 going
ahead and erupting in the bikedo mountain region located on
the Chinese North Korean border,kind of between them and South
Korea, Joe in Chang is about togo on leave as his pregnant wife
(34:04):
is very soon to deliver, butinstead, he is called in to help
out because of everything that'shappening in the country, a
scientist who had called Thisdisaster out years ago, Ma Dong
sec, who's that wrestler, guywho is super miscast as the
nerdy scientist. It's very weirdto see this huge buff guy being
(34:27):
like, you didn't listen to me 10years ago. Oh, you all thought
it was crazy. Here's my sciencebooks. He's forced to help out
the government to figure out aplan to save Korea, if there's
any way that they can save it,because once the volcano does
its big, big explosion, it'sdone a little one, but once it
does the big one, all thesedifferent sites around the
(34:47):
country are going to basicallycollapse, or, you know, explode
from magma, and the entire placeis going to be gone. So he comes
up with a plan, along with thegovernment, to use a team of.
Bomb specialists, including ourstar Zhou in Chang and the
military to steal parts of anuke, the uranium, from North
(35:08):
Korea in order to put it into anuke that they will have placed
at just the right spot in a mineto blow up and then prevent the
volcano's flow from erupting inthe spots it's going to and
instead erupt in differentspots, and therefore not destroy
the entire country. Joan Changis assigned to be the captain of
(35:30):
a special force team behind theoperation, but really just the
science unit. And then, ofcourse, the actual guys who were
the real military dudes or in ahelicopter going into North
Korea with them, and it the ashcloud comes and they crash. So
now this really nerdy other guyis in charge of all these dudes,
and he is very bad at his job.
(35:55):
They must help free a spy who'sjailed in North Korea so that
they can find the secretlocation of the nukes, they find
him, but he has other motives.
He wants to sell them all out tothe Chinese for profit and
freedom. He is constantlyundermining Joe in Chang and
finds ways to escape and thenreroute their plans, steal their
maps, do all kinds of stuffalong the way. However, the spy
(36:15):
has his daughter in Korea, andeventually, kind of decides to
swap sides and again, maybe helpthese guys to save the place
where his daughter lives. Therest of the film is kind of this
weird buddy comedy between thespy guy and the demo guy, as we
watch their characters sort ofattempt to survive these weird
situations between the Chinesethe North Koreans, the
(36:39):
Americans, for some reason, andtheir own government, all trying
to kind of undermine their ownefforts when they know the only
way to save everything is tomake this nuke go off in this
one spot. So it's a pretty fundisaster film. It has a lot
going on. It has a real RolandEmmerich feel to it. They
clearly are taking from thatnarrative. So there's all these
(37:02):
different sets of people thatyou're following. You're
following the pregnant wife,you're following the scientists.
You're following, you know, thedifferent the spy guy, you're
following the sciency like bombdiffusion guys. But the one
thing it doesn't get right isknowing how to do the disaster
drama. So there's a lot of stuffthat just kind of happens out of
(37:23):
nowhere, and it's missing thatbuild up moment to make it
really feel stressful. So forexample, at the start, you're
like, Oh no, it's the bit wherehe's in his car, and all of a
sudden the buildings are gonnastart falling, but like it just
feels like nothing. He's just inhis car, and then all of a
sudden he starts running. Startsrunning and like the buildings
are just, you don't quite getthe like, and something rumbles,
(37:45):
and he sees a thing in thedistance, and he tries to get
out of his car. And then youhave the Jurassic Park water. It
doesn't have the buildup, yeah. So you get all these
huge disaster set pieces, and itdoesn't quite work. And the only
other thing I'll say about it isI do think that Lee beyond hung
the guy from I Saw the Devil.
(38:06):
He's such a good actor. Hesteals the whole fucking show.
Like, the minute he's he's theguy who plays the spy, and the
minute he comes on, you're like,I just want to see what the fuck
this guy's up to. What the hell.
Yeah, he was incredible. Sosuper fun to watch him. But
yeah, I highly recommend Ashefall. I don't, I didn't write
down where I saw it from. Ithink it's
(38:29):
on prime. I think it is onprime,
and I think it's free. Yeah, Ithat was one
of the ones I was kind oflooking at too, and peacock
and prime. It's on a bunch good,I'm curious. And South Korea
doesn't have nuclear facilities.
Apparently, not they have, like,the pieces, but they don't have
(38:52):
the uranium. So they had the,like, actual pieces of the bomb,
but they couldn't, like, theyneeded to get the stuff to fill
it in. Littlebit of sending drillers to stop
100% 100% it definitely has thatArmageddon feel to
it. Eric, if you don't mind,I'll go next. Enjoy
(39:13):
five minutes. I am talking abouta movie from 2012 called the
tower. You Down youon Another What's up here?
(40:40):
What's up? This was directed byKim Ji Hoon, who has six
credits, including sex SectorSeven sinkhole, and I want to
(41:03):
know your parents. I do too. Oh,my written by Kim Ji Hoon and
sang Dong Kim, who only hasthree credits this and Once Upon
a Time in Seoul and thebrotherhood of war. But also you
young guy who has 23 credits,including my annoying brother
wedding dress and our season.
Excellent. This stars Kim SangKyung. 27 credits, including
(41:26):
montage, the vanished and toxicso 52 credits, including
birthday, the book of fish andheartbeat and son ye Jin, who
has 33 credits, includingspellbound The Last Princess and
be with you. Have you guys seenthe tower? No, I saw this in the
theater when it came out, so Iwas very excited when you chose
(41:50):
this kind of thing watch. So youguys, it's Christmas Eve in
Seoul, Korea, and we areintroduced to a bunch of
characters. One of them is LeeDe ho who works at Tower sky, a
luxurious landmark buildingcomplex that consists of two 120
story towers of retail, finedining and condominiums. His
(42:10):
young daughter is there while hegets things ready for the huge
Christmas party tower skiesthrowing for its residents. And
also there's the woman he's inlove with, although she doesn't
know that, so he his shady bossand owner of the complex. Is
there an old couple who have metrecently and are kindling a new
romance? A single, very pregnantwoman is there and 1000 other
(42:31):
residents and workers and suchwho do not know that the
building has faulty sprinklersbecause of frozen pipes. Oh,
wow. Oh no, right, yeah. Acrosstown, we are introduced to a
rookie fireman who has justjoined the fire station, and we
get to meet a group of men,including their fire chief, who
seem like really great dudes.
(42:54):
And that's it. There's no fire.
The party goes off without ahitch, and everyone enjoys their
holidays. Merry Christmas. What?
Kidding. One of the extravagantthings planned for the
building's residents is a groupof helicopters with huge snow
making machines that are goingto fly and make sure that Sky
Tower has a white Christmas.
Things go awry quite quicklywhen an updraft hits one of the
(43:14):
copters and it, along with thishuge snow machine it's carrying,
fly right into the side of oneof the buildings. Right off the
bat, we see a number of prettyhorrific deaths as fire breaks
out and glass and steel tumblesdown on top of people in the
streets, and then we are justoff and running. The main story
is Lee trying to get to so andhis daughter, who are stuck in a
(43:37):
part of the building that is cutoff from the rescue attempts,
and this is all cut togetherwith the story of the
firefighters who are doing theirbest to try and save as many
people as they can. There issome really amazing disaster set
pieces in this, including anelevator that was packed and
they refused to let sew, and theyoung daughter on it because it
was too packed. And then theyend up getting stuck, and
(43:58):
everyone starts cooking alive inthere. Their shoes are melting
on the floor of the elevator inone of the things horrible, yep,
there is a super stressful partwhere several people have to
jump out of a broken window downto a window washing gondola,
then start swinging it back andforth to try to smash the lower
windows so they can get backinto the building before the
(44:18):
gondola falls from all of theirweight, and I was just like on
the edge of my seat. And ofcourse, there's all the
cowardice and heroism you wouldexpect from a movie like this,
along with the expectedsacrifice that needs to be made
to save the many people. I willsay this movie is fucking great.
Eric, remember when I used to domy Sunday morning church, and
(44:40):
I'll just get up early and go towhatever movie was playing at
the theater. And this was one ofthem. I didn't know anything
about it. I walked in and Iwalked out going, what the fuck
this was great. A little bit oftrivia. The production team
built 26 different sets tocreate the various space. In the
fictional 108 story high risebuilding tower sky such as the
(45:02):
Chinese restaurant and thepedestrian overpass between the
two blocks. Director Kim Ji Hoonwas inspired by his personal
experience of seeing the 63building in Seoul for the first
time as a middle school studentand imagining how it would feel
to be trapped inside of it. Ohgod, yeah. Kim Ji Hoon spent two
years on the post production forthis film because of the 1700
(45:23):
CGI shots. And I'm just going tomention that this has a 29%
rotted tomatoes critics scoreand a 60% from the audience. I'm
like, what did you guys want?
This is clearly a, if not aremake very, very inspired by
The Towering Inferno, which wasan adaptation of a book called
(45:47):
The Tower this. This isavailable on Prime well worth
your time. The one thing I willsay about these disaster movies
from Korea, this was, like twohours and 15 minutes long, yeah.
I was like, we need it. Thiscould have lasted a half hour.
Yeah, yeah. I think this one'ssame. It could have, it could
(46:10):
have shaved a little bit offthere, but that's okay, yeah, a
lot of fun, nice. I'm definitelygonna have to check that out.
You will love it. It's reallygood. And you're just like I'm
stressed, everybody just calmdown. Why won't you let them on
elevator? Eric, yes, what do yougot?
(46:30):
I have got from earlier, 1980Australia, the chain reaction.
Oh.
(46:54):
This is Waldo,ultimate technology
in exhaustible power.
The future begins here,and here is where it all could
end you.
(47:26):
He won't get far, stepping upsecurity man
must be located and contained,regarded as dangerous. What was
that? What was, what somethingon the edge of the road? It is
urgent. It has happened. I needhelp. It's too late. You must
(47:52):
warn to people, my drink wasLarry. Don't worry, you're safe
now. Security Chief successfullylocated, but not detained. Await
(48:19):
further instructions. I can'tsee these people giving us too
much resistance. 239,what is 239, we must
know for sure. What are youtrying to tell us? It is too
late.
They have come at lastminute back. Smith, once we get
(48:40):
back to you big trouble up inparadise, that's what I'm just
about to find out.
Something is out of control.
Whatmore do you want from us for
cross siteand firm the connection?
(49:17):
Someone has seen too much yousomehow the one thing that
should never have happenedhas begun,
(49:45):
the chain reaction soon the deadmust see truth
could be the lucky ones.
(50:05):
I think I fared as well.
It's not a bad movie, but let meget into it's directed by Ian
Barry, who directed two episodesof start Farscape, 14 episodes
of Sea Patrol, the doctor blakemysteries, 12 episodes so live
TV. Ian Barry, who wroteairtight and short film, and
(50:27):
that's all he's got written. SoSteve Bisley, who took me a
second to remember, but he wasin Mad Max, and bore 26 episodes
of Sea Patrol and Red Hill. AnnaMarie Winchester is a five
episodes of homicide and copshop. She had a thing, I guess,
(50:49):
Richard Moore, who's in law ofthe land. 38 episodes, you see
this up TV guys, round of thetwist, until we get to Hugh
King's burn who, if you reallyknow Mad Max, you know who this
is. I'm looking at going becauseI usually, but they're short of
time, I tend to just two, threegone. That's got to be toe
cutter, and it is. So he's inthat he's also in Farscape and
(51:11):
the criminally, criminallyunderrated blood of heroes. So
this opens with the Westernatomic long term dumping
organization, or Waldo? Yes, youcan find a joke for that. Let me
know there's a quake of somekind that interrupts safety shit
(51:32):
so things start to go wrong withthe fallout. The one of the
scenes the sound is interestingin this. So you remember those
perpetual ball bouncing thingsthat all the yuppies had on
their desks in the 80s. There'sone of those. And when the
earthquake happened, it startsgoing and as the guys running
through the complex trying tosell stuff, you still hear it.
(51:55):
Strange choice. There veryartsy.
The causes a massive leak ofradioactive material, and a guy
who's looking straight into itwhen it sprays his face like
some steam release valve orsomething, and he's not
immediately killed. So it'slike, oh, okay, they expose he
(52:20):
ends up being well enough toescape when the you know, the
overseers of the thing want tomake sure we can't let anybody
know that this has happened. Andhe's like, I must let people
know that this has happened. Andhe's pretty fine. I don't know
if anybody here watchedChernobyl. You get hit with that
much radiation that fast, you'renot fine, and you're not fine
(52:45):
really quickly. But there'sdefinite ties to that Mad Max
was a recent film because thelead guy, the hero, is a race
car driver who has a kind of asouped up mini truck, sort of
looking thing that he drivesaround in the Outback and stuff,
(53:06):
saying, Okay, I see what you'redoing here. The problems like
overhearing calls or how thingsare found out, and weird little
things. The biggest problem ithas, this is a setup for, you
know, a lot of panic and runningaround and maybe nothing. The
(53:27):
whole thing is this one guywho's got the truck runs in and
his wife run into the guy who'sbeen exposed, and they're taking
care of him. And then the thepeople, if the, if you've, I'm
sure you've seen the cover, ifyou've read anything about sci
fi stuff with the radiationsuits that they use in here,
because they're very uniquelooking, and they're also cut to
(53:49):
look really cool on the peoplewearing them, so like, they're
cinched up sides, and it's likethey there's a lot to like in
this film. And if you took outthe middle, a huge chunk of the
middle, and he had the beginningand the end. It's pretty
entertaining, but the middle isso much of a like toe cutter is,
(54:12):
I don't know if he's, I don'tknow if he's a reporter, but
he's, he's investigating what'sgoing on. He's trying to find
out. And the guy with the truckgets arrested, and they spend
time in a cell together, andthat's how they each find out
about each other. And so it wasfine. George Miller was
originally scheduled to direct,which interesting that might
have made a very different film,but he withdrew, but did do some
(54:35):
of the stunt scenes, which arestunt scenes, and driving scenes
were some of the best scenes inthe film, he is credited an
associate producer and did dosome even some second unit
directing for the stuntsequences and some of the other
stuff along those lines.
Budgeted at about 600 grand,and got cut. By the down to
(54:58):
450,000and it looks, it looks to wear
for that. And when that got cut,that's when George Miller came.
I said, I'll help you guys, butI can't direct this film even
with that, though it went 40%over budget. Wow. There's a Ford
Fairlane Ltd featured in themovie, of course, but overall,
(55:24):
it's just fine. It's it's a goodlittle Aussie exploitation kind
of film, but it's not what I washoping for in a disaster movie.
Wow. Twothings, tow cutter was also a
(55:44):
Morton gel, right? Yes. And thenthe other thing was, so, I don't
think you said the year on this,it must have been early. Oh,
it's 1980 so rightin that, I think. But I think
Mad Max is 7979and road water year 81 I think
so. Okay, I wonder what Georgewas working on, right? Like, I
(56:06):
can't direct this, you guys. Igot something going on.
Well, I gotta direct one of themost successful posts ever made.
I'm sad that you didn't get agreat flick. It sounds like you
need to either watch the toweror asphalt.
Yeah, it was, it was good, butit was definitely it was a 70s,
(56:28):
80s, kind offinding our way film I
almost pulled out, uh, rememberthat one we both watched a
couple years ago about thevolcano at the resort. I know I
seen that too, too recently. Idon't think I want to watch this
one again. That'show I felt, too. And I was like,
and it's like, a Chineseproduction, so there's a lot of,
like, glossy, oh, like pro Chinastuff in it. So it's, like,
(56:50):
forgotten about that. But JasonIsaac, so, you know, yeah, well,
whatwas the movie where the moon was
going to hit the Earth? Moon?
Fall? Was movingthat basic, yeah, Vanessa,
anytime you want to pickdisaster movies, I'm going to be
(57:13):
on board this wholepodcast. I'm ready
strange disasters.
Speaking of changing thepodcast. This would be normally
where we pick somebody to talkabout the sub genre, but this
time it's from our friend Micah,who was kind enough to donate a
lovely amount of moolah and thengo Thank you. He said he wanted
(57:38):
us to do a to be episode.
I also want to quickly thank himfor he's revamped our, yeah, our
listings of all the films we'veever talked about. So we should
be, hopefully be able to makethat public here in a couple
weeks, or, yeah, so that's,that's gonna, that's great.
That'sa lot of time and effort. So
thank you.
(58:00):
Yes, this is he's taken thevalue for value model seriously.
Yes, got a little value out ofthis and given a tremendous
amount back. And thank you somuch, Micah. If you would like
to be like Micah, it's supereasy. You can do it by just
liking and sharing posts whenthe movie or when the episode
comes out. You can call us onthe strange eons radio hotline,
(58:23):
which is 253-237-4266, you cantell your friends you like this
episode, or any episode, or allthe episodes.
You can give us money, that'sright.
Or, you know, if you're thatkind of person, say, God, you
can't believe how weird andridiculous these people are.
You've got to listen to it,right? Feel free, right?
(58:45):
But yes, so thanks to everyonewho does that kind of stuff. We
really, really appreciate that.
Yeah, we are going to be back inseven short days. We are talking
to be films. Micah picked outour films for us. So, yeah, this
should be interesting. Allright, guys, I'll see you next
Thursday. Transportation andother considerations for strange
(59:06):
eons, radio, produced by Pan Amairlines. When you think of
traveling, think of Pan Am. Youcan't beat the experience.
Guests of strange eons. Radio,stay at econo Lodge, Everett.
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Strangeeons radio is recordedlive in front of a studio
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(59:27):
us a positive review on yourfavorite podcast. Sit Ubu. Sit,
in fact, just that basic.
How many devices do you talk to alien overlord?
(00:05):
You're the one who put him inyour home.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break yourconcentration
somewhere between science andsuperstition, we
(00:26):
have such sights to show you.
Strange eons. Welcome tostrangeeons radio that is Eric
over there. Hello. That isVenice over there. Hello, and I
am Kelly. We are in person,which is always my favorite way
(00:47):
to do this. You guys. Snow Whiteopened this weekend. Yeah, guess
it did halfway decently. Soshocking, Disney, really is that
shocking? Here's my problem. Ihave a problem with the casting,
okay, Snow White.
Good Lord, yes. I think if goahead, I'm very curious. If
you're thinking the same thing Iam.
(01:08):
Well, it's the same thing I hadthe casting of the last Snow
White movie, which with KristenStewart, yeah. Okay, so the Evil
Queen is like, who's the fairestof the land? And it's always the
Evil Queen until Snow Whiteshows up, right? Yeah, in the
Kristen Stewart movie, what wasthat the Huntsman and Snow
White, or something like that,the evil queen was Charlize
(01:31):
Theron, and really only the mostbeautiful woman in the world,
Kristen Stewart is somehowprettier than her. I
call bullshit. She's got thatgirl next door. Look. She's
not more attractive thanCharlotte. Look at
the original cartoon. See thedifference between the Evil
(01:52):
Queen and Snow White.
And so in this new one, I don'teven know who's playing Snow
White, but the evil queen is GalGadot. Yeah, only the other most
beautiful woman in the world.
And I'm like, You guys cannotcast your evil Queens prettier
than Snow White.
It It seems ridiculous, like,look in that mirror and say
(02:14):
that, and it comes back withsomebody else, like, okay, no
wonder they are so furious,because clearly they'd be
looking at Snow White going,that old thing is it
just because she's younger? Isthat supposed to be how they're
selling? Well, that'sjust it. Like Charlize Theron
was 42 or something in thatmovie. And I was like, she is
quite possibly the mostbeautiful woman on the planet
(02:36):
right now at 42 years old. Thiswas bad casting. She should have
played Snow White if that wasgoing to be the casting.
No, you've got a pretty goodpoint there. Did you end up
seeing this thing?
See this and then get angry. I'mstanding up in the middle of all
these parents with their kids.
I'm like, is everyone with me?
She is not prettier than theEvil Queen.
(03:00):
I just, yeah, the I saw thetrailer and saw the dwarves, and
was like, I cannot.
I cannot. CGI, right? Yeah, theylook
horrible. It's like, uncannyvalley again, we're like, going
back into that universe of like,it's a little too human, but not
quite human enough, and it'sweird and cartoony, but people,
and that was the point, right?
Because we hate little peopleand we don't want them to have
(03:23):
jobs. CanI cast them? Absolutely not.
Well, there'sthat local Snow White movie that
opened last night, did apremiere last night. Oh, did
theydo that? Okay, in LA I know that
they the castle they built forthat set is like in Monroe or
something like that. It's rightaround the corner from here.
And, yeah, I saw the trailer forthat. I was like, That looks
(03:47):
fun. Looks good. They have agory wheel, gory horror, Snow
White. Oh,nice. I have not heard about
people.
And of course, then theyactually cast like Eric Pope,
who I think is 10 feet tall. Ishe playing one of the
doors? Troll,that was my snow white stuff.
Okay, guys, Vanessa, I knowyou'll have something. Some
(04:08):
thoughts on this. I watched thelast the season finale of
severance. Oh yes,the fuck. The fuck indeed. I
mean, we got some answers, didwe Yeah,
they did say they're going to doa third series much quicker this
time. Oh, much. That would benice. That would be three years
(04:30):
between till season. I knowI was like, Oh, God, please. I
cannot wait that long. I mean,we still don't know what the
point of the unicon or whateverthey're called lumen. Yeah, we
still know what the point ofthat is. No, we don't know the
greater purpose, but we knowwhat the severance entire, like,
purpose of the severance flooris. We understand much more what
is going on with Gemma and,like, what they're hoping to
(04:53):
achieve.
Well, we've learned much more.
Do we understand much more? Imean, there's not a high. In
there where they're going tosacrifice a goat. Yeah, it's
just like we getting intosatanic territory all of a
sudden. Or whatis this? There's, I mean, it's a
cult. It is part cult, partcult, part tech, part whatever,
and it's got some weirdreligious affiliation. So there
(05:15):
is a sort of sacrifice happeningbetween the person and the goat
and the Apparently, they've donethis again and again and again,
as manytimes as it takes. Apparently.
I don't know if you know thisabout me, Vanessa, but in my
30s, I did a little Sinatratribute show, and I snuck in a
(05:41):
lot of Bobby Darin, who's myfavorite artist of all time. And
so to say that I was pleased atthe very end of the credits when
a Bobby Darin song came on, istaking it very lightly. I was
like, I'm always happy to see aBobby Darin appearance. Anything
new?
Did you feel like you enjoyedthe show overall. I'm
(06:03):
not sure. Okay, Ithere's a marching band segment
there that I was like, this isgoing on too long, and it's so
bizarre. Yeah? That I was justlike, I'm having a real hard
time with this scene. Yeah? Ifeel like, I mean, it's just
another easter egg of, like,what other random departments do
(06:24):
they have? And why? And why?
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't fully sure.
I don't know. I still have a lotof confusion around things going
on. Like, the end of lastseason. It feels like this whole
season, milk chick is, like,pissed at them, yeah, for doing
that. And, but there's like, aposter, a motivational poster,
(06:45):
in their break room of what'shis name, holding the two pieces
together apart. And it's kind ofthat, like, hang in there, baby,
yeah. And it's like, Well, whyis all? Why are they making them
sound like heroes, but thenthey'll check is, like, straight
up, like, pissed at them aboutit, like, you can't really have
(07:06):
both. So I don't know, I don'tfully get some of that stuff,
but that's okay, yeah,there's, for me, it feels like
there is a lot of weirdness forweirdness sake, yeah. And that
that is that's never satisfyingat the end, when you find out
what it is, because then you'regonna go, Well, then why do they
have this marching band who areall in ease? What is their
(07:27):
purpose there? Just toentertainment. And I can't
remember what he called them,entertainment and something
division, yeah, and, okay, yeah,I don't know. I feel like maybe
it's, is he building his future,like pyramid to be, you know,
buried in kind of that, likethat he's got to have a little
(07:50):
bit of everything. Or, I don'tfully get that, but I do. I feel
like I was pissed at the endingof this, and then realized that
you had to have the ending theyhad, so we would have a season
three. So I get that, I think, Ithink season three is going to
be the revolution. Has to be. Ithas to be. That's why the
(08:10):
marching band is there.
You hope, yeah. So that's partof why you mentioned part of the
reason I sort of faded out onthe show in the first season.
And I don't know, maybe I'll goback and check, because I I have
a real hard time with weirdnessfor weirdness sake, and I think
it's kind of like, well, is yourweirdness going somewhere,
(08:30):
right? Like, usually, notalways, but usually Lynch's
films, weirdness goes someplace,or at least has some kind of
meaning or reason behind it,which I appreciate. But the
first season hit me a little bitlike so it sounds like it's good
enough that it's still worthchecking out, I think because it
(08:53):
goes a little bit beyond that.
Yeah, I think it does. I thinkyou might enjoy it, especially
this season. I feel like there'sa lot more world building where
you're like, oh, okay, that's alittle bit more context for why
this is this way, or, I don'tknow, I just think you might
enjoy it more if you see theseason.
(09:13):
I think my favorite scene had tobe milcheck having this snarky
conversation with theanimatronic of the founder.
Oh my god, so good, so good. Andyou're like, who is voicing
this? He's getting really busyback and forth. But yeah, yeah,
no, so so incredibly good. So,yep, my brother had slightly
(09:37):
spoiled something where he saidI laughed so hard constantly at
the elevator thing. And I waslike, what? And then was like,
Yeah, okay, that's fuckinggreat,
yeah. And then where that wentwith him being able to utilize
it? I was like, this is a reallysmart thing. I'm glad that they
made it mean something, yeah. Soanyway, that's severance. It's
(09:57):
on Apple. Plus i. Cost $2million an episode. So watch it,
Eric, so that they can get acouple of cents back. Well,
you know, we saw that article Isent the other day where Apple's
using a billion dollars a yearon Apple TV. So yeah, 2 million
episode pocket change for theirlosses. That's
why I'm telling you. It's allgoing to wolves, like if you're
(10:20):
gonna have a fill with fuckingBrad Pitt and George Clooney.
Those people don't come cheap.
That is several, you know,episodes of severance right
there. Yeah. Well, I watched ashow that's kind of getting some
buzz right now on Netflix,adolescence, which is a British
show. It's four episodes long.
(10:42):
Each episodes roughly an hour,and kind of gives you moments in
time surrounding this kid who isaccused of murdering somebody.
So in the first episode, he'sarrested, and then he's like a
young kid. He's a young kid. Helooks very young. He looks like
(11:03):
he's like nine or 10. He'sactually closer to maybe 1413,
wow, but yeah, I mean, maybelike freshman in high school,
kind of age. But yeah, so you'rehe looks extremely innocent.
He's obviously from a familythat is very caring and loving,
maybe not super like rich. Butthe cool thing about each
(11:24):
episode is it's so contained.
They're all sort of oneers. Sothey whether or not they're
actually one ers, you don'tknow, but you're following this
camera up and down and aroundand going from one character to
the next to this to that we'rein the car now and then we're at
the police station, and it'sreally clever the way it's done
and choreographed, and alsoexhausting to think how many
(11:45):
times they had to do it to getit right, because even if you're
splitting it up, there's likelong, like conversations.
And I read an article that saidthey didn't split it up. Those
are all true learners. So Ihaven't seen it yet, but it
sounds fascinating anddisturbing.
It's really depressing. It'sreally tough to set to sit
(12:06):
through because of it's just asad story, and you can't get
around that. And it isdisturbing because the kid
actors so good. And the wholequestion is, maybe not so much,
from what I was hearing, it'snot so much about whether or not
he did it, it's why. And youhave these moments of seeing him
(12:29):
as this innocent kid, and thenother moments where the actor
almost puts on this adultpersona, which is really
distressing, and like you justget to watch this kid, this is
the first thing he's ever beenin. And he just fluxes in and
out of these perfectly, theseweird tonal shifts that just,
yeah, they make you I'm gettingshivers right now just talking
(12:50):
about it, but it's really cool.
It is kind of strange, though,structurally, because the first
episode, he's getting arrested,the second, second episode, it's
like three days later, and thenit's a much bigger time later,
and then a much even bigger timelater. So you don't get to see
all the in between things thathappen, but you do get a clue
with each episode, like, kind ofwhere everyone's at and what's
going on. So Wow.
(13:14):
One of the things they pointedout in this article I read was
The interrogation scene withthis kid, and it was the
director saying the only reasonthis scene works is because the
kid did not realize how hard itwould be. And he had never done
anything like this, and he hadnever talked to anybody like
this about it, so he had no ideathat what he was doing was,
(13:36):
like, impossible, jeez. And Iwas like, Okay, I gotta fucking
watch this kid? Yeah,no, it sounded like, I mean,
this kid had no formal training.
They just kind of found him. Andthere he was. Just nailed it. He
was just doing great work.
And so you've watched all of it,yeah, I've seen all of it, and
you were satisfied with theending. Um, yeah, no. I mean, I
think it's a really well donelittle show. It's, it's a slice
(13:58):
of life. It feels more itdoesn't feel like a three act
structure. It feels like the wayshort films work, where you're
just in a moment in time, soyou're just a fly on the wall in
people's lives. And it feelsvery honest in a really cool
way, like I feel like I have amuch better understanding of the
British like judicial system,pretty much next
(14:27):
it's so undramatized that you'relike, when they're processing
the kid, like, they all kind ofhave to be really nice because
he's underage and they can't getin trouble and whatever. So
everyone's really cool to him.
And you're like, you almostdon't realize how much trouble
he's in, because they're like,all right, may eat and yet
today, okay, all right, we'regonna get you some Frosted
(14:47):
Flakes here in a minute. Andthere's just a lot of like,
okay, you're doing really good.
All right. Now we got to do thisthing, and it's, it's hard, it's
hard to watch, but, um, yeah,so. I highly recommend it, but
also you should be in, like, agood mental state when you're
never watching thatdistressing thing I heard was
(15:08):
that, although it's not based onan actual case, it's based on
several cases of young peoplewho have mostly stabbing
murders. Yes, that is the bigthing there. And I was just
like, yeah, because I think theywere saying that this case is
kind of based on, like an 11year old who had done this,
(15:31):
yeah.
So in the UK, since guns are sodifficult to get a hold of, most
people, most of the crime isstabbing, and it happens
constantly. So when I was livingin London at one point, my
family was gonna buy me, like, astab proofed hoodie, because,
like, literally, I knew a guywho was, like, on the train and,
like, looked down and he wasbleeding, and he was like,
(15:53):
somebody fucking stabbed me, andhe had to go the hospital
because somebody just randomlystopped.
But crime will find a way. Yeah,although you can survive a lot
of stab wounds, true. So, like,there was somebody who survived,
I think it was 62 stab wounds.
Holy shit. Yeah. So you can, youcan, do you have a better
chance? Targeting was off onthat one go all around the
(16:14):
heart.
I've seen, well, I've never seena stab wound, but I've seen a
lot of AX ones before. So, Eric,what have you been watching?
Quickly moving on to a show, amovie, an actual film, companion
we've all seen now, yeah, and Idid manage to avoid all the
(16:35):
stuff about it. Oh, although theposter led me actually to a
different thing of what she wasas she actually was. So that
worked out nicely, good,like a demon or something, yeah.
So overall, good film. It's gotsome weird moments where you're
like, Okay, you gotta, I guessyou got to have the scene or the
(16:56):
movie kind of ends. But overall,really good. It was neat to see
Jack Quay being different. Yeah,we're used to seeing he seems to
be on his high upward trajectorythis year, yeah. But and Sophia
Thatcher, of course, she's donea lot of good stuff, but, yeah,
(17:19):
overall, fun, entertaining film.
The again, kind of want to trynot to be too spoilery with it,
but we've seen anything. I thinkthe description of it being
Black Mirror esque is a reallygood one. So if you like those
shows, you definitely want tocheck this one out, not saying
exactly what's going on, but,you know, you get the idea of
(17:42):
text involved, yeah. Butsmartphone just good movie. I
do want to get spoiler, leavespoiler, spoiler out this,
because the ending was the onlything that I didn't absolutely
love. And it was the very endingwhere she takes the money. And I
(18:08):
was like, Okay, so I'm rootingfor you this entire time, and
now you have now done the thingthat they were doing this for.
Yeah. I was like, I would loveto have seen that just change
with like, I'm gonna burn thehouse and the money and
everything, and then just go,but turning her then kind of
(18:29):
criminal on next instead ofvictim, I was like, oh god,
yeah. So that was my, literallymy only complaint to that. How
else will she start a life anew?
She's dialed up to 100% on herintelligence.
It's true. Yeah, so yeah,though, but yeah, that's out
(18:49):
for, I think it's rent still,but few different platforms.
While we're checking out, itmight be to, I don't know, Hulu,
or maybe paramount, plus, bynow,
you can watch it for if you're asubscriber,
one of them companion, yeah,that's a good one. Okay, then
the other one I want to watchcame as a little bit of a
(19:09):
surprise to me. You know, Ididn't think that I needed a all
black cast version of Kingpin,but that's what I got with the
gutter. Yeah, okay, cool.
It's basically Kingpin, about akid who never bowled. And turns
(19:30):
out he's amazing, and so thesepeople are going to use him to
raise money to save the bowlingalley and all this. And of
course, he's up against a motleycrew of different bowlers, but
one of them is Susan Sarandon,who has come out of retirement
to bowl again because she can'tlet this punk take over her
records. And I don't know howold Susan Sarandon is, 900 or
(19:55):
something, she's still sobeautiful. I'm like, wow. So
I'm. I know she's not 900 butwhat is she 78 she was in rock
your picture show that was 75 soshe was probably
like 21 Yeah. Sowhatever she's doing, she's
doing it right. Anyway, it'sfilthy, and it's, if you don't
(20:17):
like the N word, there's gonnabe a lot of words you don't like
in this is an all black caston a weird sidebar when you say
that, yeah, watching Britishshows. When they had, they had a
whole episode on Vera aboutillegal cigarettes, you know,
they call it, so it's like the Fword. I words are interesting,
(20:44):
yes, aren't they? Yeah.
Anyway, this is called thegutter. Eric, I know you'll love
it. Vanessa, you'll hate it.
It's very broad comedy. Yeah, Iprobably would enjoy it, but
it's on Hulu. Oh,awesome. Well, I checked out
something I think you talkedabout Kelly, which was the
electric states, yeah, what areyour thoughts? You know, like
there was so much I really likedabout it that it was a little
(21:07):
frustrating that it didn't havebetter connective tissue. I
think that there were some justreally great set pieces. I
thought the actors all did apretty good job. I liked the
world building that they did. Idid not mind so that it was an
action family movie.
(21:28):
You were familiar with thesource. Yeah, I actually have
all the books. Okay, yeah. Sothat's what you're talking the
connective tissue to that youwould have liked to
see, just connective tissuesfrom scenes to scene. Oh, okay,
so, for example, at one pointthey go to New Mexico from
wherever they are, and you'relike, could it? Could use some
of them between footage or, likeher becoming an orphan. You're
(21:50):
just like, Okay, I would haveliked to see any kind of lead up
into here so that I would careand understand more about your
situation. There's just littlethings here and there. 100%
agree with that, because the waythey explain it is sort of
flashbacks. And Eric, yeah,flashbacks are the refuge of the
week,yes. And then they end up in
Seattle. They're like, we gottatravel 1000 miles. And you're
(22:10):
like, I don't know who's goingon this trip. I don't know what
the plan is. I don't know, like,how you set it up. I know we're
in Seattle. I know that there'san island that doesn't exist
now, but somehow housing a giantcomplex. And
I was like, Why did this have tobe Seattle? Why couldn't this
have been San Francisco,contrast, or someplace where we
know there is an island thatmakes sense
(22:32):
totally I was like, Is thissupposed to be Vash? Like, what
am I look it's not. It literallysits out there, like it's in the
South Pacific or somethingIsland, and then water all
around it. And you're like, Thisis nowhere in Washington.
Totally. Yeah, I was verydistressed by that. But, you
know, like, yeah, there'scertain characters that I think
(22:53):
I would have liked more if Ijust had a little more info. And
the only solve I can think is ifthis was like a 10 episode
series instead of a movie,because then you could have
done, like an episode of setup.
You could do an episode just on,like the big cat guy who we see
starts the revolution, and thenlater he doesn't say anything.
He shows up, but you're like,are you not important anymore?
(23:17):
Okay, I guess you're just here.
Cool dancer was Hi, yeah, it wasjust a lot
of, like, the robots, thedesigns from the a lot
of it was cool, yeah, a lot ofit was, in fact, they have a lot
of shots that are literallystills from, like, the drawings.
Andso the drawings, does it depict,
like, a revolution of robots andall that
(23:41):
hard to know exactly what'shappening. Like you can see that
there are a bunch of dead robotsin desolate areas. You can see
that people now have these,like, specialized helmets. I
tried to find out how much theartist had influence on the
script, and it was reallyinteresting, because they did
change his piece a lot. I thinkhe was very heavily involved
(24:03):
initially, and then not so much.
But he was like, apparently hehas a couple kids. And he was
like, I don't care. It's auniverse. Do what you want in
there. It's it's great. And mykids can watch this. And that's
one story that takes place inthe electric state, and I'm
down. So that's cool.
Check was huge. Yeah, totally.
I mean, the last time, the lastbook he did, he ran as a
(24:26):
Kickstarter, so, yeah, like, Idon't think he's rolling rolling
in it, even though he's prettyprolific. And does, I mean, so
many people have his work ontheir shelves, but that's
cool. Yeah, I loved Chris Prattslittle robot buddy. He
was great. Yeah, I liked therobot. I didn't hate the little
(24:47):
yellow robot guy either. Ithought Millie Bobby Brown did
fine, good. You know, she wasMr.
Peanut. Wasn't that? WoodyHarrelson, yeah,
like, this is a good role forhim. There
was a lot of fish. Those peoplethat just kept rolling. And I
was like, Wait, okay, StanleyTucci is here. Fine, all right.
Oh, yeah. Also Stanley, she isone of those guys that is
(25:10):
suddenly aging into a veryhandsome older man. Yeah. I was
like, wow, this is not what Iexpected. Your third act was
going to be.
No, definitely not. And he'sdoing a lot more like villainy,
kind of it does. It's Susan,great. He's, yeah, nailed it.
The electricstate that's on Netflix.
Speaking of guys aging intoplaying villain roles. Watched
(25:34):
heretic with Hugh Grant. I thinkI enjoyed this more than you
did. Kelly, probably partiallybecause the sister Paxson, the
Chloe, the blonde character, Iknew, I lived and went to school
with. So lived around. I went toschool with so many people like
that, because it's, it's aMormon based concept, and I grew
(25:56):
up per capita more than SaltLake City, Mormon town. So there
was a lot of Mormons around,yeah, and she fit that weird
over the top, glossiness thatfits a lot of, lot of, a lot of
the Mormons. And SophieThatcher, again, who I actually
(26:16):
watched these movies, not quiteback to back, but they were back
to back movies that I watched.
Like, Oh, she's in thistoo. She had a strong year.
Yeah, sheis great in it. And she reminded
me of the rebellion levelMormons, kind of like one of the
girls I dated for on and off forquite a bit in high school. And
so this, just like a lot ofthat, especially the first two
(26:40):
thirds, when they get to theresolution.
I'm like, Well, this is reallyweird.
I love the idea of what he'ssetting up to do, but his
experiment and his execution ofthe experiment
are weird. Yeah, it's prettyconvoluted.
(27:03):
It is convoluted. It made mefeel like the writer was like,
you know, I really want toexplore this thing that I feel,
yeah, and unfortunately, it'snot as deep as he thinks it is.
So he's got Hugh, who isfantastic all that, yeah,
delivering all of these ideas,but the ideas aren't as
impressive as the writer thinksthey are.
(27:25):
It does really feel like I'mgetting lectured, too, by like,
an early college boyfriendabout, like, the state of
religion, like, all right,the the and the reference in
their book of Mormon, yeah,which I remember seeing. And
because of the way I grew up, Iwatched this with people
laughing stuff around me. One,this is Mormonism, yeah. This is
not a stretch, which is why, youknow, the little program had an
(27:49):
ads for Mormonism in the programfor the Mormon because it came
out and they all went, Oh, allright, yeah. And it was Topher
graces. Character wasinteresting in the over kind of,
it's not the right, I forgetwhat they call him, but the guy
who sees the oversees themissionaries, is that
what I was, I didn't even putthat together, okay? And then,
(28:13):
like I said, Everybody'sperformance, though, was
stellar, really, really good. Ithink Hugh Grant has a good
future in being intelligent,dark character, yeah, because I
think you did really well inthis. And like I said, it does
fall apart a little at the end.
It gets a little like, that'swhat you're doing, okay, but I
think it's well worth watching.
(28:35):
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I feellike we have the same okay
feelings on it. It's just I wasmore angry at the turn that made
zero sense back that he's got amaze like dungeon that is
clearly larger than his propertyunderneath his property, because
that's very, very large.
Yeah, anyways, but we're seeingyeah for sure.
(28:59):
Okay, well, how about we take alittle break, guys, and then
when we come back, we aretalking about Foreign Disaster
flicks.
There's no time to waste in firetower, harness the power of the
(29:21):
elements before you're all burntto the ground. Extinguish the
blaze or turn your opponents tofiery ashes quick. Get your fire
breaks in place to protect yourtower, use your car to deploy
your best strategies to be thelast player standing.
Accomplished. Get ready to fightfire with fire in fire tower
(29:43):
from Goliath,we have. Returned after an
intense plumbing discussion,plumbing angry.
(30:05):
Now, this is what happens whenyou are above the age of 40.
You know what? I don't like theway you said that, because it
sounds like it's my plumbing andsomething I must have done.
We're talking about you plumbingat your
house. Yes, yes, my 1959 yearold house, and it's plumbing
issues.
So yes, Vanessa, this was yoursub genre. You want to tell us
(30:28):
what it's all about again? Yeah?
Absolutely.
So I want to go with a disasterfilm, because I love disaster
movies, but with a twist, whichis foreign, a foreign disaster
movie that shows tons of greatstuff that have come out in the
last 10 years. Yeah, a nice likeflooding of the gates of there's
a lot of people who are able todo these kind of bigger budget
looking films that might nothave been able to before. So I
(30:49):
thought we could check them out.
I love it, and I'm gonna giveyou five minutes on the strange
hands radio buzzer to talk aboutyour film.
Awesome. So I went with 2019,Ash fall.
There are four magma chamberslocated under the pectin
mountain. The remaining threechambers will then explode
consecutively. How much time dowe have for it explodes again?
Breaking news, the PEC twomountain has erupted. According
(31:13):
to the latest analysis, it lookslike there are three more giant
magma chambers under the pectorsun. You
we're sending you out on the newmission report to base
immediately. It's our job to flythere to smuggle a few missiles
(31:34):
and get back home safely. Okay,consider him extremely
dangerous, and whatever you do,don't let your guard down.
Protective suit.
I ain't over there. They send abunch of Boy Scouts. Maybe it's
not evenly I had a littlesurprise visitor in the cell
give me a gun. Whatwent better than I expected it
(31:55):
to ifwe don't stop them, it's over
for the North and for the South.
So Uncuff me and let me out ofhere. Do you really believe who
will we are to get there ontime? But if we can hit it, we
can stop the last eruption. Dothis is a South Korean movie. It
(32:30):
had a budget of 17 point 7million and a box office of 61
point 3 million. I haven't seenit outside of streaming here,
but obviously it did very wellin its home country. It's
directed and written by KimBeyonce, who only has two
credits this in cold eyes, he'sprimarily cinematographer, and
(32:50):
he was he did the camera work onI Saw the Devil lead. Hao Zhen
also co wrote it with him. Fourcredits, nothing you really
would have heard of. But he'smostly a writer starring ha
Zhong Wu, who has 45 credits. Wewould have seen him in the
Handmaiden li by who has 57credits. He is the star of, I
(33:15):
Saw the Devil. He's the lead,good guy, good guy. He was also
in The Good, The Good, the Badand the weird, and he's the
front man in the squid gameseries. Oh, geez, yeah, I keep
seeing him. And be like, You areso familiar every time. And
then, like, Ah, so I Saw theDevil guy again. And then Mao
Dong SEK who is 65 credits,including Train to Busan. He's
(33:40):
the wrestler guy, and he's alsoin all the random movies as the
star. So this is the story of adormant volcano since 1903 going
ahead and erupting in the bikedo mountain region located on
the Chinese North Korean border,kind of between them and South
Korea, Joe in Chang is about togo on leave as his pregnant wife
(34:04):
is very soon to deliver, butinstead, he is called in to help
out because of everything that'shappening in the country, a
scientist who had called Thisdisaster out years ago, Ma Dong
sec, who's that wrestler, guywho is super miscast as the
nerdy scientist. It's very weirdto see this huge buff guy being
(34:27):
like, you didn't listen to me 10years ago. Oh, you all thought
it was crazy. Here's my sciencebooks. He's forced to help out
the government to figure out aplan to save Korea, if there's
any way that they can save it,because once the volcano does
its big, big explosion, it'sdone a little one, but once it
does the big one, all thesedifferent sites around the
(34:47):
country are going to basicallycollapse, or, you know, explode
from magma, and the entire placeis going to be gone. So he comes
up with a plan, along with thegovernment, to use a team of.
Bomb specialists, including ourstar Zhou in Chang and the
military to steal parts of anuke, the uranium, from North
(35:08):
Korea in order to put it into anuke that they will have placed
at just the right spot in a mineto blow up and then prevent the
volcano's flow from erupting inthe spots it's going to and
instead erupt in differentspots, and therefore not destroy
the entire country. Joan Changis assigned to be the captain of
(35:30):
a special force team behind theoperation, but really just the
science unit. And then, ofcourse, the actual guys who were
the real military dudes or in ahelicopter going into North
Korea with them, and it the ashcloud comes and they crash. So
now this really nerdy other guyis in charge of all these dudes,
and he is very bad at his job.
(35:55):
They must help free a spy who'sjailed in North Korea so that
they can find the secretlocation of the nukes, they find
him, but he has other motives.
He wants to sell them all out tothe Chinese for profit and
freedom. He is constantlyundermining Joe in Chang and
finds ways to escape and thenreroute their plans, steal their
maps, do all kinds of stuffalong the way. However, the spy
(36:15):
has his daughter in Korea, andeventually, kind of decides to
swap sides and again, maybe helpthese guys to save the place
where his daughter lives. Therest of the film is kind of this
weird buddy comedy between thespy guy and the demo guy, as we
watch their characters sort ofattempt to survive these weird
situations between the Chinesethe North Koreans, the
(36:39):
Americans, for some reason, andtheir own government, all trying
to kind of undermine their ownefforts when they know the only
way to save everything is tomake this nuke go off in this
one spot. So it's a pretty fundisaster film. It has a lot
going on. It has a real RolandEmmerich feel to it. They
clearly are taking from thatnarrative. So there's all these
(37:02):
different sets of people thatyou're following. You're
following the pregnant wife,you're following the scientists.
You're following, you know, thedifferent the spy guy, you're
following the sciency like bombdiffusion guys. But the one
thing it doesn't get right isknowing how to do the disaster
drama. So there's a lot of stuffthat just kind of happens out of
(37:23):
nowhere, and it's missing thatbuild up moment to make it
really feel stressful. So forexample, at the start, you're
like, Oh no, it's the bit wherehe's in his car, and all of a
sudden the buildings are gonnastart falling, but like it just
feels like nothing. He's just inhis car, and then all of a
sudden he starts running. Startsrunning and like the buildings
are just, you don't quite getthe like, and something rumbles,
(37:45):
and he sees a thing in thedistance, and he tries to get
out of his car. And then youhave the Jurassic Park water. It
doesn't have the buildup, yeah. So you get all these
huge disaster set pieces, and itdoesn't quite work. And the only
other thing I'll say about it isI do think that Lee beyond hung
the guy from I Saw the Devil.
(38:06):
He's such a good actor. Hesteals the whole fucking show.
Like, the minute he's he's theguy who plays the spy, and the
minute he comes on, you're like,I just want to see what the fuck
this guy's up to. What the hell.
Yeah, he was incredible. Sosuper fun to watch him. But
yeah, I highly recommend Ashefall. I don't, I didn't write
down where I saw it from. Ithink it's
(38:29):
on prime. I think it is onprime,
and I think it's free. Yeah, Ithat was one
of the ones I was kind oflooking at too, and peacock
and prime. It's on a bunch good,I'm curious. And South Korea
doesn't have nuclear facilities.
Apparently, not they have, like,the pieces, but they don't have
(38:52):
the uranium. So they had the,like, actual pieces of the bomb,
but they couldn't, like, theyneeded to get the stuff to fill
it in. Littlebit of sending drillers to stop
100% 100% it definitely has thatArmageddon feel to
it. Eric, if you don't mind,I'll go next. Enjoy
(39:13):
five minutes. I am talking abouta movie from 2012 called the
tower. You Down youon Another What's up here?
(40:40):
What's up? This was directed byKim Ji Hoon, who has six
credits, including sex SectorSeven sinkhole, and I want to
(41:03):
know your parents. I do too. Oh,my written by Kim Ji Hoon and
sang Dong Kim, who only hasthree credits this and Once Upon
a Time in Seoul and thebrotherhood of war. But also you
young guy who has 23 credits,including my annoying brother
wedding dress and our season.
Excellent. This stars Kim SangKyung. 27 credits, including
(41:26):
montage, the vanished and toxicso 52 credits, including
birthday, the book of fish andheartbeat and son ye Jin, who
has 33 credits, includingspellbound The Last Princess and
be with you. Have you guys seenthe tower? No, I saw this in the
theater when it came out, so Iwas very excited when you chose
(41:50):
this kind of thing watch. So youguys, it's Christmas Eve in
Seoul, Korea, and we areintroduced to a bunch of
characters. One of them is LeeDe ho who works at Tower sky, a
luxurious landmark buildingcomplex that consists of two 120
story towers of retail, finedining and condominiums. His
(42:10):
young daughter is there while hegets things ready for the huge
Christmas party tower skiesthrowing for its residents. And
also there's the woman he's inlove with, although she doesn't
know that, so he his shady bossand owner of the complex. Is
there an old couple who have metrecently and are kindling a new
romance? A single, very pregnantwoman is there and 1000 other
(42:31):
residents and workers and suchwho do not know that the
building has faulty sprinklersbecause of frozen pipes. Oh,
wow. Oh no, right, yeah. Acrosstown, we are introduced to a
rookie fireman who has justjoined the fire station, and we
get to meet a group of men,including their fire chief, who
seem like really great dudes.
(42:54):
And that's it. There's no fire.
The party goes off without ahitch, and everyone enjoys their
holidays. Merry Christmas. What?
Kidding. One of the extravagantthings planned for the
building's residents is a groupof helicopters with huge snow
making machines that are goingto fly and make sure that Sky
Tower has a white Christmas.
Things go awry quite quicklywhen an updraft hits one of the
(43:14):
copters and it, along with thishuge snow machine it's carrying,
fly right into the side of oneof the buildings. Right off the
bat, we see a number of prettyhorrific deaths as fire breaks
out and glass and steel tumblesdown on top of people in the
streets, and then we are justoff and running. The main story
is Lee trying to get to so andhis daughter, who are stuck in a
(43:37):
part of the building that is cutoff from the rescue attempts,
and this is all cut togetherwith the story of the
firefighters who are doing theirbest to try and save as many
people as they can. There issome really amazing disaster set
pieces in this, including anelevator that was packed and
they refused to let sew, and theyoung daughter on it because it
was too packed. And then theyend up getting stuck, and
(43:58):
everyone starts cooking alive inthere. Their shoes are melting
on the floor of the elevator inone of the things horrible, yep,
there is a super stressful partwhere several people have to
jump out of a broken window downto a window washing gondola,
then start swinging it back andforth to try to smash the lower
windows so they can get backinto the building before the
(44:18):
gondola falls from all of theirweight, and I was just like on
the edge of my seat. And ofcourse, there's all the
cowardice and heroism you wouldexpect from a movie like this,
along with the expectedsacrifice that needs to be made
to save the many people. I willsay this movie is fucking great.
Eric, remember when I used to domy Sunday morning church, and
(44:40):
I'll just get up early and go towhatever movie was playing at
the theater. And this was one ofthem. I didn't know anything
about it. I walked in and Iwalked out going, what the fuck
this was great. A little bit oftrivia. The production team
built 26 different sets tocreate the various space. In the
fictional 108 story high risebuilding tower sky such as the
(45:02):
Chinese restaurant and thepedestrian overpass between the
two blocks. Director Kim Ji Hoonwas inspired by his personal
experience of seeing the 63building in Seoul for the first
time as a middle school studentand imagining how it would feel
to be trapped inside of it. Ohgod, yeah. Kim Ji Hoon spent two
years on the post production forthis film because of the 1700
(45:23):
CGI shots. And I'm just going tomention that this has a 29%
rotted tomatoes critics scoreand a 60% from the audience. I'm
like, what did you guys want?
This is clearly a, if not aremake very, very inspired by
The Towering Inferno, which wasan adaptation of a book called
(45:47):
The Tower this. This isavailable on Prime well worth
your time. The one thing I willsay about these disaster movies
from Korea, this was, like twohours and 15 minutes long, yeah.
I was like, we need it. Thiscould have lasted a half hour.
Yeah, yeah. I think this one'ssame. It could have, it could
(46:10):
have shaved a little bit offthere, but that's okay, yeah, a
lot of fun, nice. I'm definitelygonna have to check that out.
You will love it. It's reallygood. And you're just like I'm
stressed, everybody just calmdown. Why won't you let them on
elevator? Eric, yes, what do yougot?
(46:30):
I have got from earlier, 1980Australia, the chain reaction.
Oh.
(46:54):
This is Waldo,ultimate technology
in exhaustible power.
The future begins here,and here is where it all could
end you.
(47:26):
He won't get far, stepping upsecurity man
must be located and contained,regarded as dangerous. What was
that? What was, what somethingon the edge of the road? It is
urgent. It has happened. I needhelp. It's too late. You must
(47:52):
warn to people, my drink wasLarry. Don't worry, you're safe
now. Security Chief successfullylocated, but not detained. Await
(48:19):
further instructions. I can'tsee these people giving us too
much resistance. 239,what is 239, we must
know for sure. What are youtrying to tell us? It is too
late.
They have come at lastminute back. Smith, once we get
(48:40):
back to you big trouble up inparadise, that's what I'm just
about to find out.
Something is out of control.
Whatmore do you want from us for
cross siteand firm the connection?
(49:17):
Someone has seen too much yousomehow the one thing that
should never have happenedhas begun,
(49:45):
the chain reaction soon the deadmust see truth
could be the lucky ones.
(50:05):
I think I fared as well.
It's not a bad movie, but let meget into it's directed by Ian
Barry, who directed two episodesof start Farscape, 14 episodes
of Sea Patrol, the doctor blakemysteries, 12 episodes so live
TV. Ian Barry, who wroteairtight and short film, and
(50:27):
that's all he's got written. SoSteve Bisley, who took me a
second to remember, but he wasin Mad Max, and bore 26 episodes
of Sea Patrol and Red Hill. AnnaMarie Winchester is a five
episodes of homicide and copshop. She had a thing, I guess,
(50:49):
Richard Moore, who's in law ofthe land. 38 episodes, you see
this up TV guys, round of thetwist, until we get to Hugh
King's burn who, if you reallyknow Mad Max, you know who this
is. I'm looking at going becauseI usually, but they're short of
time, I tend to just two, threegone. That's got to be toe
cutter, and it is. So he's inthat he's also in Farscape and
(51:11):
the criminally, criminallyunderrated blood of heroes. So
this opens with the Westernatomic long term dumping
organization, or Waldo? Yes, youcan find a joke for that. Let me
know there's a quake of somekind that interrupts safety shit
(51:32):
so things start to go wrong withthe fallout. The one of the
scenes the sound is interestingin this. So you remember those
perpetual ball bouncing thingsthat all the yuppies had on
their desks in the 80s. There'sone of those. And when the
earthquake happened, it startsgoing and as the guys running
through the complex trying tosell stuff, you still hear it.
(51:55):
Strange choice. There veryartsy.
The causes a massive leak ofradioactive material, and a guy
who's looking straight into itwhen it sprays his face like
some steam release valve orsomething, and he's not
immediately killed. So it'slike, oh, okay, they expose he
(52:20):
ends up being well enough toescape when the you know, the
overseers of the thing want tomake sure we can't let anybody
know that this has happened. Andhe's like, I must let people
know that this has happened. Andhe's pretty fine. I don't know
if anybody here watchedChernobyl. You get hit with that
much radiation that fast, you'renot fine, and you're not fine
(52:45):
really quickly. But there'sdefinite ties to that Mad Max
was a recent film because thelead guy, the hero, is a race
car driver who has a kind of asouped up mini truck, sort of
looking thing that he drivesaround in the Outback and stuff,
(53:06):
saying, Okay, I see what you'redoing here. The problems like
overhearing calls or how thingsare found out, and weird little
things. The biggest problem ithas, this is a setup for, you
know, a lot of panic and runningaround and maybe nothing. The
(53:27):
whole thing is this one guywho's got the truck runs in and
his wife run into the guy who'sbeen exposed, and they're taking
care of him. And then the thepeople, if the, if you've, I'm
sure you've seen the cover, ifyou've read anything about sci
fi stuff with the radiationsuits that they use in here,
because they're very uniquelooking, and they're also cut to
(53:49):
look really cool on the peoplewearing them, so like, they're
cinched up sides, and it's likethey there's a lot to like in
this film. And if you took outthe middle, a huge chunk of the
middle, and he had the beginningand the end. It's pretty
entertaining, but the middle isso much of a like toe cutter is,
(54:12):
I don't know if he's, I don'tknow if he's a reporter, but
he's, he's investigating what'sgoing on. He's trying to find
out. And the guy with the truckgets arrested, and they spend
time in a cell together, andthat's how they each find out
about each other. And so it wasfine. George Miller was
originally scheduled to direct,which interesting that might
have made a very different film,but he withdrew, but did do some
(54:35):
of the stunt scenes, which arestunt scenes, and driving scenes
were some of the best scenes inthe film, he is credited an
associate producer and did dosome even some second unit
directing for the stuntsequences and some of the other
stuff along those lines.
Budgeted at about 600 grand,and got cut. By the down to
(54:58):
450,000and it looks, it looks to wear
for that. And when that got cut,that's when George Miller came.
I said, I'll help you guys, butI can't direct this film even
with that, though it went 40%over budget. Wow. There's a Ford
Fairlane Ltd featured in themovie, of course, but overall,
(55:24):
it's just fine. It's it's a goodlittle Aussie exploitation kind
of film, but it's not what I washoping for in a disaster movie.
Wow. Twothings, tow cutter was also a
(55:44):
Morton gel, right? Yes. And thenthe other thing was, so, I don't
think you said the year on this,it must have been early. Oh,
it's 1980 so rightin that, I think. But I think
Mad Max is 7979and road water year 81 I think
so. Okay, I wonder what Georgewas working on, right? Like, I
(56:06):
can't direct this, you guys. Igot something going on.
Well, I gotta direct one of themost successful posts ever made.
I'm sad that you didn't get agreat flick. It sounds like you
need to either watch the toweror asphalt.
Yeah, it was, it was good, butit was definitely it was a 70s,
(56:28):
80s, kind offinding our way film I
almost pulled out, uh, rememberthat one we both watched a
couple years ago about thevolcano at the resort. I know I
seen that too, too recently. Idon't think I want to watch this
one again. That'show I felt, too. And I was like,
and it's like, a Chineseproduction, so there's a lot of,
like, glossy, oh, like pro Chinastuff in it. So it's, like,
(56:50):
forgotten about that. But JasonIsaac, so, you know, yeah, well,
whatwas the movie where the moon was
going to hit the Earth? Moon?
Fall? Was movingthat basic, yeah, Vanessa,
anytime you want to pickdisaster movies, I'm going to be
(57:13):
on board this wholepodcast. I'm ready
strange disasters.
Speaking of changing thepodcast. This would be normally
where we pick somebody to talkabout the sub genre, but this
time it's from our friend Micah,who was kind enough to donate a
lovely amount of moolah and thengo Thank you. He said he wanted
(57:38):
us to do a to be episode.
I also want to quickly thank himfor he's revamped our, yeah, our
listings of all the films we'veever talked about. So we should
be, hopefully be able to makethat public here in a couple
weeks, or, yeah, so that's,that's gonna, that's great.
That'sa lot of time and effort. So
thank you.
(58:00):
Yes, this is he's taken thevalue for value model seriously.
Yes, got a little value out ofthis and given a tremendous
amount back. And thank you somuch, Micah. If you would like
to be like Micah, it's supereasy. You can do it by just
liking and sharing posts whenthe movie or when the episode
comes out. You can call us onthe strange eons radio hotline,
(58:23):
which is 253-237-4266, you cantell your friends you like this
episode, or any episode, or allthe episodes.
You can give us money, that'sright.
Or, you know, if you're thatkind of person, say, God, you
can't believe how weird andridiculous these people are.
You've got to listen to it,right? Feel free, right?
(58:45):
But yes, so thanks to everyonewho does that kind of stuff. We
really, really appreciate that.
Yeah, we are going to be back inseven short days. We are talking
to be films. Micah picked outour films for us. So, yeah, this
should be interesting. Allright, guys, I'll see you next
Thursday. Transportation andother considerations for strange
(59:06):
eons, radio, produced by Pan Amairlines. When you think of
traveling, think of Pan Am. Youcan't beat the experience.
Guests of strange eons. Radio,stay at econo Lodge, Everett.
It's an easy stop on the road.
Strangeeons radio is recordedlive in front of a studio
audience. If you enjoyed thisepisode, please consider leaving
(59:27):
us a positive review on yourfavorite podcast. Sit Ubu. Sit,
in fact, just that basic.
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