August 23, 2023 • 63 mins
My former colleague at Warner Bros and creative executive, Michael Stradford joins the podcast to talk about three iconic films. We start off with SHAFT (1971) and the impact that film had on him as a 10-year-old boy in Cleveland. Then we discuss his first memories of watching ENTER THE DRAGON (1973) and his impressions of Bruce Lee. We reflect on the enduring influence of Bruce Lee and how ENTER THE DRAGON revolutionized martial arts films and Hollywood. We also critique the current Warner Bros 4K release of ENTER THE DRAGON for the 50th anniversary of the film, and what the lack of any new extras says about the current state of physical media at the major studios. This leads to a discussion of the great work being done by many smaller boutique labels who have stepped into the void by creating exceptional box sets and extras. We then transition to a more positive discussion of the fantastic extras Stradford produced for THE BATMAN (2022) release. This is a great example of a studio and filmmaker working in tandem to produce over two hours of high-quality extras. We close with an engaging discussion on Stradford's books on Miles Davis and model Steve Holland, and his newest venture, the graphic novel "Fargo Hell on Wheels."
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Purchase links:
ENTER THE DRAGON 4K
SHAFT 4K (Criterion)
THE BATMAN 4K
BRUCE LEE: HIS GREATEST HITS
BRUCE LEE AT GOLDEN HARVEST (Arrow)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello and welcome to the extras, where we take you
behind the scenes of yourfavorite TV shows, movies and
animation and the release ondigital DVD, blu-ray and 4K or
your favorite streaming site.
I'm Tim Lardier host.
As many of you know, I workedat Warner Brothers for almost 14
years and during my time thereI had the chance to work with
many talented studio executives,so I always enjoy it when one
(00:28):
of them agrees to come on thepodcast to talk movies, and
since he's a big fan of martialarts and action films, we'll
dive into some Bruce Lee, someShaft, maybe some Batman and who
knows what else.
Anyway, I'm very happy to bringon one of my friends and
colleagues in the homeentertainment group, michael
Stradford.
Mike, it's good to finally getyou on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Tim, my pleasure.
Thanks so much.
I appreciate it.
I've been listening to the showand it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, I was trying to remember kind of how long we
worked together.
It's a bit of a blur, but Istarted there in about 2007.
I was trying to remember whenyou started there.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I think I was 2016.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Okay, so we probably worked together.
I was there until 21,.
About five years or so the lastfive and then you've been in
the group until just recently.
Right, I can't remember all thefilms you worked on, but I know
you worked on a ton of toptitles.
What were some of thehighlights while you were there?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Let's see the Joker Joker right.
First Wonder Woman.
It was a really great workingwith the director.
She was awesome.
Lego Batman movie was a lot offun.
Aquaman Crete the first Cretewas really cool.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Did you work on all the creeds?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, just the first one.
I think after the first creedthat was when we transferred
over to being a part oftheatrical Right and so titles
shifted around, so that was oneof those.
Yeah, lutbeinach wasn't a greatBen Affleck film, but he was
really a good guy to work withand that was a pleasure.
The Unfortunate Shaff movie,but it did yield what I think is
(02:13):
a great documentary.
There were some good highlightsand, of course, one of my last
projects, which is one I'mpossibly the most proud of, is
the Batman that read the version.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, I did want to come back to that so we could
talk a little bit about why thatwas such a great project for
you and everything.
But before we did that Ithought it might be kind of fun
for the listeners to get to knowyou a little bit.
I picked up the Black to theMovies book that you did and it
(02:46):
kind of gave me a little insightto some of your early days and
how you got interested in filmand music and everything.
But maybe you could take usback a little bit to kind of how
it all started for you back inCleveland.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, I mean it's really odd because my parents
weren't particularly hardcoremovie fans.
I mean they like movies, but Ithink in my lifetime my dad and
mom went to two movies they wentto see the Godfather and they
went to see Beverly Hills Cop.
So I mean movies just wasn'tgood for them, but for me, for
some reason, movies and comicbooks, I mean pop culture,
(03:22):
really just spoke to me as a kid.
And so, you know, once I leftCleveland and finished college
in Toledo, I was in radio and Ihad a broadcasting career for
about 12 years and I wound up inLos Angeles to launch what was
then 92.3 to beat, and I didthat for a couple of years.
(03:43):
So while I was in LA, you know,I was having an opportunity to
really indulge my love of moviesbecause there were so many
great bookstores and posterplaces, collectibles, and so I
ultimately, after I left radioand I worked for Quincy Jones
for a few years and when I leftQuincy, I went to Warner
(04:04):
Brothers, briefly as a managerof their archives, the film
archives, and that wasinteresting.
But then I went over to Sony,who had a fledgling DVD
department and they were lookingfor somebody to help figure out
how to create special featuresfor Sony DVDs.
So I did that with Sony from 98to 2006.
(04:26):
Then I went over to Crackle.
I ended up there originalprogramming.
We did a lot of short formcontent, like we did series with
Charlie Murphy and BarrySonenfeld and a number of other
people, and that was cool.
And then, you know, I came toWarner Brothers and, as opposed
(04:46):
to running the department, youknow I was a cog in the wheel
and I was happy with thatbecause I was a big fan.
I was happy with that because Ididn't want to run a department
again.
It was nice to just have a setlist of titles to work on.
You know, when I was at Sony,warner Brothers was always the
crown jewel.
You know, anybody that workedin home entertainment always
(05:08):
looked to Warner Brothers askind of the shining star.
So it was great to finally getover there and be a part of that
for a while.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, I was very proud to work there.
There's always usually numberone for just pure volume of
sales and the quality of.
You know, if you bought aWarner Brothers new release, it
was always usually pretty packedand I think that started with
the Matrix, you know, and reallywhat Paul Hemstreet had done
with that one and kind ofbreaking through showing, yeah,
(05:38):
if you do the extras right, ifyou put it on there and the
movie is something people wantto buy anyway, you'll push them
over the edge to say, yes, I'llpay premium to get this package.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, I've always seen the Matrix as a turning
point for DVD because I thinkthat was the first DVD where
what the format could offer justmade sense to a consumer.
You know, it wasn't complicatedand I think that just kind of
expanded consumer interest andappreciation in the format and
(06:10):
then that gave us all that allthe studios opportunities to
really do some cool andsometimes crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, yeah.
So it was a great place to workand you know that's kind of the
heyday the days we were there,the years you were there too was
like the peak of Blu-ray extrasand just really packing out a
lot of those titles.
So but you know things arechanging a little bit and we'll
get to that in just a second.
But I did want to skip back to,I think, some things you talked
(06:39):
about in your book growing upand some of I think one of those
was just kind of the impact ofShaft when you went to see it.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, oh man, I had been going to movies, you know,
for several years, even though Iwas a kid, you know I would go
see James Bond, double Featuresand all that.
You know, growing up in a lowermiddle class, lower middle
class, black neighborhood inCleveland.
Shaft was the first time I hadseen somebody on screen that I
could actually imagine seeing inthe real world, because prior
(07:11):
to Shaft, the only black actorsthat really had any prominence
on screen was Jim Brown andSidney Portier, neither of which
I could ever imagine seeing inmy neighborhood.
But Richard Routry, you know,he just he just looked like a
regular guy and he didn't reallyhave a history with the
audience.
So it was easy to just buy intothat world and he was so cool
(07:35):
and he was so tough and he justhe just had it together and I'd
never seen that on screen beforelike that without him being,
because Jim Brown to me wasalways kind of a super human.
I love Jim Brown, but you knowhe was coming down from Mount
Olympus, you know, and SidneyPortier was so proper and cut
(07:57):
and dry that that didn't reallyseem realistic to me.
But Richard Routry is Shaft.
I was like, yeah, I couldimagine seeing this guy coming
out of my dad's deli, you know.
And so that movie and theleather suit at the end and that
, you know, and the greatsoundtrack by Isaac Hayes, I
mean that was just always amonumental movie for me.
(08:19):
And when I finally got to meetRichard Routry, it was, it was a
big thrill and he couldn't havebeen nicer.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I was watching the documentary you did with
Constantine Nasser, friend ofthe podcast here, our mutual
friend, and I was just watchingthe other night, you know,
catching up on it and that's onthe criterion release Right
Looked like on there.
You, you guys were able tointerview Samuel L Jackson.
I mean a bunch of great peoplefor that one.
(08:47):
That must have been kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, it was.
You know.
I mean it's unfortunate thatyou know, a number of key
players are no longer with us,like director Gordon Parks and
Isaac Hayes.
But you know Richard Routry,who has kind of struggled with
his association with Shaft overover the years, seems like we
(09:10):
caught him at a time where hehad kind of mellowed into an
appreciation for what thecharacter had done for him and
what it meant to so many otherpeople.
So it was great to get hisperspective and get his memories
, because the one thing that Iwanted to do was make sure that
we captured an official documentof the making of that film by
(09:32):
people that were involved withthe film.
So to have him and Isaac Hayes'son and to have guys like
Samuel L Jackson who had aperspective, to have them all
add that in, it was just really.
It was really satisfying.
It was really happy because Iwasn't to be honest, I was never
excited about this movie, this2018 or 2019 version, but I felt
(09:56):
like, okay, if anybody's goingto do anything with this thing,
I need to be the one to do it,because I knew that I could come
up with a documentary thatwould honor the original trilogy
and Constantine.
You know, I know his level ofcommitment and his taste and his
ability, so I knew that if wecould do that together, we could
(10:18):
come up with something that weboth be proud of, and I think we
did.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And one thing I've noticed about your reviews,
whether they be in your book orwhether they be the stuff you
post on Facebook, is you're notafraid to say I don't like this
version.
Or you know to be somewhatblunt, you know, but you're
always putting in the context ofthe film history because you
have all of that and you'regiving some reason why it
doesn't match up or whatever.
But that's okay.
(10:43):
I mean, I think you and I aresimilar in that we still want to
go see these movies, we stillwant to see the new versions of
things and it's fun to have thatbackground where you can put a
little judgment on it, notsaying it's bad for everybody,
but just hey, based on what I'veseen and what I know, this is
kind of where I see it fittingand everything.
And it's really fun to readwhat you have to say, being so
(11:06):
knowledgeable about this stuff.
But I think one of the reasonswhy I want to ask about Shaft
and it's not just your book andbeing in Cleveland, but also
Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon,which we're going to be talking
about here I mean Shaft comesout in what 71?
Right, and then Enter theDragon comes out just a couple
years later.
So that you said also had justa huge impact.
(11:29):
So these two movies probablypretty close together.
Yeah, impact on you as a youngfilm viewer.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Well, you know, the funny thing about Shaft was I
was on under a year longpunishment going to the movies
because I had gone to see adouble feature of you Only Live,
twice and Thunderball and meand my buddies stayed and
watched it three times but Ididn't get home until like two
in the morning and I was like 10years old.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And so my parents were like, forget going to the
movies ever for the rest of yourlife.
So that held up for about ayear and when Shaft came out,
everybody was talking aboutShaft and had seen Shaft with me
, you know.
And so my mother.
Finally, even though it was anR rated film, my mother relented
and let me see it and you know,it just wiped me out.
(12:19):
Just wiped me out.
But if we jump to Enter theDragon, I was in Atlantic City
with my parents on vacation andthey were off doing whatever
they were going to do.
So I said I go see a movie.
So I remember walking down thestreet in Atlantic City.
One side of the street wasshowing white lightning with
(12:41):
Bert Reynolds, and the side ofthe street that I was on was
showing Cleopatra Jones.
And I said I'll go seeCleopatra Jones.
So I buy my ticket.
I'm walking through the lobbyI'll never forget this and there
are three pictures, three blackand white pictures.
There's a white guy and a ghee,there's a black guy with a big
(13:01):
afro and a ghee, and in thecenter there's a shirtless guy
with these scars on his chestand his stomach and his face and
it said Enter the Dragon.
I was like what the heck isthis?
So I sit down to watchCleopatra Jones and they show
the trailer for Enter the Dragon.
And I lost my mind Because atthat point I had only seen one
(13:22):
Kung Fu movie and it wasn't verymemorable.
So we get back from AtlanticCity, we're back in Cleveland.
I see my buddy Ricky, thatlives across the street.
I was like man, I just saw thistrailer for this guy, bruce Lee
, blah, blah, blah.
And they're showing two of hismovies downtown.
I'm going to go see himtomorrow Chinese Connection and
Fist of Fury.
And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah,the guy that played Kato, he
(13:42):
died.
I'm like no, no, no, no, no.
I'm like this guy didn't playKato.
He's got a new movie coming out.
He's like no, he played Kato.
He said I saved the clippingwhen I saw his death.
So he went in the house andbrought out this clipping and it
had a picture of Bruce Lee fromEnter the Dragon and it had his
obituary.
And I was just stunned.
I was like what, what you know?
(14:04):
I didn't even know how toprocess it.
And then I saw the doublefeature and you know, it was
like this is cool, but thisisn't what I saw in this Enter
the Dragon trailer, but BruceLee is obviously awesome.
And then Enter the Dragon cameout a couple weeks later and I
went and saw it and it was justman.
(14:25):
It was.
I've never had a movie goingexperience where the crowd was
just out of control.
I mean, the theater was sopacked that when I got there the
only seats left were on thestairs on the sideways on the
side.
If the fire marshal came inthey would have shut the theater
down.
But every time and this was anall black theater, the theater
(14:51):
called the Scrompy Dump and man,every time the camera hit Bruce
Lee, the crowd was going crazy.
I mean every motion he'd make,when they cut to him at the
cemetery, when he goes to seehis sister and his mother's
grave, and he's got thebeautiful three piece suit on,
(15:12):
the girls were hollering andscreaming.
I mean it was just outrageous,yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
And I was rewatching it and I was just thinking, you
know, we've all seen the stillpictures right of Bruce
shirtless and everything.
But when you're watching themovie and you just see his, you
know his moving, like his body,especially the upper body, you
know they showed off.
I'm like that, is that thatlean martial arts?
(15:40):
Look, I mean you can just seeit's not, it's not the American
bodybuilder, you know thing.
Just so lean and andflexibility.
He's showing off hisflexibility and I don't know
it's very cool and I think thatI mean I know you're a huge fan
of martial arts movies, but youlook at modern stuff now and you
just know they've taken out alot of wires and they've done
(16:02):
all this other stuff.
And then you watch into thedrag and you're like I mean you
know he's, he's pulling punchesand kicks and all that stuff,
but that's all real, that's allhappened, he's doing that.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Well, the crazy thing about Bruce Lee was that he
slowed down for the most partbecause when he would go at full
speed the camera couldn'tcapture, you know.
But you know.
Going back to what you saidabout his physique, I had never
seen anybody with that kind ofdefinition in their physique
before.
You know.
I've seen guys that were bigand muscular but the definition
and the shoulder and arms, and Ijust had never seen anything
(16:36):
like that before.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, I mean that was groundbreaking, and obviously
the moves and his I don't know,there's a certain like real
beauty, almost to like his, hismovement, yeah, and how he
choreographed everything.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well, he was.
He was five, seven, about 140pounds and he just had, he just
clearly had complete bodycontrol.
But beyond that, you know, it'slike when you mentioned some of
the other martial artists Istill think Bruce Lee is the
only guy that was eminentlywatchable and compelling when he
(17:10):
wasn't doing anything, you know.
I mean, he just has such acharisma and he has such life in
his eyes that you know you werejust drawn to.
What is he going to do next,even if he's not doing anything?
And I can't think of any othermartial artists that really have
that same effect without themtrying to subtly apply some of
(17:33):
what Bruce Lee did.
Right, Right.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, looking back at it, this is the 50th year
anniversary, which is prettycool.
It's also kind of wow.
It doesn't feel maybe like 50,but when you look back and you
think about the impact that he'shad, I mean, what are some
thoughts that come to mind foryou?
Because I know I saw your post?
You wrote this very beautifulpost on Facebook on how
(17:58):
important Bruce Lee and thismovie is to you.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Thanks, yeah, I mean, I think for anything to last 50
years is an accomplishment initself and then to actually grow
during the 50 years, you know,speaks to the quality of what it
is.
And the dragon is just it's so.
It's special to me just becauseI had just never seen anything
(18:24):
like that and it kind ofculminated my love of movies
into that one film.
It's like the best experience Icould ever have in a movie I
had at that film.
But, you know, enter theDragons just got so much impact
in that it was the first timethat Hollywood financed and
produced a martial arts moviebiggest budget, up to that point
(18:46):
, that any martial arts moviehad ever had.
And it really took a big chanceto say, okay, we're going to go
with this Asian guy who's hadtwo Asian hits and we're
essentially going to make himJames Bond and we're going to
build this movie around him andwe're going to make sure that
the audience knows that he'sattractive.
Not only is he formidable, he'ssexy.
(19:09):
You know that he's powerful.
You know, because that justhadn't been seen, that just
hadn't been seen on screen.
You know, when you think aboutit, like in 1973, we're in the
midst of the black exploitationera.
You know Shaft and Superfly andthe Mac and Black Caesar and
all these things and Kung Fucinemas, you know, starting to
(19:31):
make little inroads.
But, man, when Bruce Lee hit,black audiences connected with
him like nobody's business.
And I'm not sure exactly whatit was about him that made that
connection so strong, but it was.
And it was one of those thingswhere, when I was just jumping
back a minute, when I wasprogramming the beat, brandon
(19:52):
Lee was in Los Angeles topromote Rapid Fire, which was
his first film for Fox, and hewas doing a meet and greet at
the shrine downtown during thiscomic book show.
So I went down and I met hismanager and I invited him to
come to the radio station to doour morning show.
And our morning drive host atthe time was a white guy named
(20:15):
John London.
He was in his mid-late 40s andJohn's contract called for him
to have complete control of hisshow.
And so I went and I said hey, Italked to Brandon Lee, I want
you to put him on the morningshow and he's like ah, brandon
Lee, he's like Mike.
You know, that's not really ouraudience.
I'm like this is where this isthe part of our audience that
(20:36):
you don't know, because when yousay you're putting Bruce Lee's
son on the radio, you won'tunderstand what's going to
happen.
Just trust me.
So Brandon came down, john puthim on the radio and he had
promoted the day before the.
Brandon was going to be there.
People came to the radio station, people were calling.
(20:58):
John got more calls during thatshow than he ever got and it
was people, largely black peoplesaying yo man, good luck, I
love your dad.
Your dad was the man I saw yourdad when I was a kid.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I mean even years later, thelove that that audience had for
Bruce Lee carried over to a sonwho was just getting started.
(21:20):
You know he could have been abust but there was such goodwill
because of how people feltabout his father that folks were
calling in and coming to thestation to try to support him.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
That's an amazing story, but I was also thinking,
as you were saying that, that alot of the last images we've
seen you know you watch themovie and then I think a lot of
people didn't know you died, ofcourse, for many years and still
, even today, people whodiscovered the movie don't know
the full story.
But then a lot of the lastimages that you see of Bruce Lee
are him holding his two babiesand his family and you see his
(21:56):
movies and you hear about hisphilosophy on life and you see
his family, like you just seehis values kind of system and
then that's it, his life's takenfrom him.
And then years later you seethese kids grown up and I don't
know, you kind of naturally havethis fondness Like you really
wanted him, as you just said,the audience really just wanted
(22:18):
his son to succeed too.
Kind of carrying on that man on.
Of course that was really, youknow, very tough then when he
was, you know, killed on set ofthe film the Crow, but it's a
tragic story.
But going back a little bit toBruce Lee's philosophy on life,
I thought you had said also justkind of held.
(22:38):
That also has helped his legacy.
It's not just the movies, it'skind of what he represented as a
person.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, I think you know one of the great things
about Bruce Lee was that, youknow his widow and his daughter
have really been committed tomaking sure that he endured and
that his legacy was acknowledgedand that people got an
understanding that he was morethan just what you saw on the
(23:09):
screen.
You know he was a writer, hewas a philosopher.
I've seen photos of his libraryand he had a massive library
with all types of books, youknow, a lot of philosophy books,
in addition to differentfighting manuals and that kind
of thing.
He was somebody that gaveparticularly Asian people such
(23:31):
pride and such a shining lightto reach for, and Shannon, his
daughter, and Linda Cadwell, hiswidow they've done a
magnificent job of just lettingpeople know this is who he was
and this is what he believed,and the fact that when he
started teaching martial arts,the Asian martial artists in San
(23:55):
Francisco told him don't teachit to non-Asians and he said you
know, we're all the same.
Yeah, I think he said under onesky, we're all the same, and so
the first person that he taughtmartial arts was a black guy,
so he wasn't hung up in thethings that, unfortunately, we
seem to be more hung up in nowthan we have been in quite a few
(24:17):
years and I think that there'sjust so much to him that it's
actually kind of stunning to me.
I've got a good friend thatlives in New York and we've been
friends for like 40 years andwe bonded on another dragon and
we were always talking aboutBruce Lee and we were just
saying, man, remember, like inthe late 70s and early 80s Bruce
(24:41):
Lee was kind of culty.
You know, like if you weren'tinto martial arts movies you
didn't know who Bruce Lee was.
And I think that's where, andpeople just thought of him as a
guy that was running aroundhollering with his shirt off.
But you know, over the last 20years it's just become more, and
I think part of it started whenTime Magazine named him one of
(25:01):
the most 100 influential peopleof the 20th century.
Oh, wow, yeah, and I think thatcaused a lot of reconsidering
who he was and what his impactwas.
And there's a program on Maxcalled Warrior.
They just concluded the thirdseason this week and it's based
(25:22):
on a concept that Bruce Lee hadthat he had pitched to
television networks and theypassed on it.
They ultimately made Kung Fu,but this series Shannon Lee is
one of the executive producersand Jonathan Tropper is the
showrunner and executiveproducer and he's made some
really good television shows.
And Warrior is a great show.
(25:44):
That's about an Asian guy thatcomes to San Francisco in the
early 20th century looking forhis sister who had vanished, and
it gets into the.
I mean there's a lot of fighting, a lot of action, but it gets
into the oppression of theChinese in America in the early
of 20th century, the oppressionof the Irish and the Irish with
(26:08):
their issues with the Chineseand not really realizing that
they're kind of all dealing withthe same thing and the
oppression that more traditionalgovernment is trying to keep
them under.
And they do a really goodpodcast where every week they
talk to the different actors,writers, directors on the show
(26:31):
and each one, each episode andit's unprovoked these people
talk about how Bruce Leeimpacted them personally and
what he's meant to them and howit's so important to them to
represent his vision the correctway and how he provided a sense
of empowerment and worth inprojecting that image on screen
(26:55):
that they had never seen before.
And to hear that over and overand over and over and over from
these filmmakers just reallyspeaks to the depth and the
impact that he had, probably alarger impact than he ever
imagined that he would have.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Right.
Yeah, I'll just throw in thatJustin Lin, I believe, is also
part of the producing team onthat Right.
Younger listeners might, ofcourse, know Justin.
So that's a pretty cooltradition that Justin wants to
be a part of is continuing thatlegacy of Bruce Lee.
And you did kind of mention inpassing about the networks with
(27:34):
Kung Fu, where they decided notto put an agent in the role to
go with Caredian, and I remembergrowing up and I really enjoyed
that series.
So we can all look back andmake judgments, but it was a
good series of its time andgreat to see now that Warrior is
doing well on Mac.
So those folks who don't knowabout it, I hope they'll check
(27:56):
it out and give it a shot.
I did want to ask what yourthoughts were on just the film
industry that Enter the Dragonhas had.
I mean, many filmmakers havetalked about the impact, of
course, of Hong Kong cinema andthen Bruce Lee.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah Well, like I mentioned, it was the first
martial arts film to be producedand financed by a major studio.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Warner Brothers too right.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, yeah, warner Brothers, in partnership with
Golden Harvest, and I believe itwas the first martial arts
tournament movie.
I could be wrong, but I feelpretty sure that that was the
first one.
I know it was in terms of amajor motion picture.
Most of the martial arts flicksthat follow weren't very good,
(28:41):
but a lot of more moneymakers.
Bruce Lee even spawned his ownsubgenre, bruceploitation, where
there are so many Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee, bruce Low, bruce High, bruce Lee returns from the
grave, all these differentvariations of Bruce Lee inspired
(29:05):
films.
But it forced Hollywood toconsider Asian performers with a
different lens, even though itwas slow and coming the days of
an Asian actor automaticallybeing a house boy or a femme
fatale dragon lady.
Those days were over 50 yearslater.
I don't think there would havebeen a warrior TV show that got
(29:26):
three seasons and a revampedkung fu series with a young
Asian American female lead, youknow, without any of the dragon.
Yeah, I added in the song,because if any of the Dragon had
not worked, no other Hollywoodstudio would have rolled the
dice to try to make another one,because it was something that
one they weren't interested in,two they didn't understand and
(29:49):
three they probably didn'tbelieve in, so there was a lot
riding on the shoulders of anyof the Dragon.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
And I think a lot of the top movies from John Wick
coming out this year, a lot ofthe top, most popular action
movies use martial arts, I meanas they're fighting technique.
Not all of them, of course, butI mean just look at Keanu
obviously going back to theMatrix and the use of the, the
wire work and the Hong Kongstunt teams and everything that
(30:19):
they brought over.
But you just see the impact.
Not saying it all started them,but you know you can point to
that movie is just a hugeinfluence.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, the director of John Wick, chad I can never say
Chad's last name, right?
He clearly said on John Wick 2,that mirror sequence at the end
was his homage to the mirrorsequence from the end of the
Dragon.
So you know, he's never had anyhesitation about crediting
(30:50):
Bruce Lee as an influence and assomebody that he continues to
aspire to.
And you take that and you flipit with Quentin Tarantino.
It's like I don't understandwhat Tarantino's issue is with
Bruce Lee and you know I wouldhave thought that he'd be a fan
of Bruce Lee's but it seems likeover the last few years he's
kind of gone out of his way totry to denigrate Bruce Lee.
Oh, really, yeah, it seems likeit.
(31:12):
You know from once upon a timein Hollywood the way he had
Bruce Lee, kind of like a clown,and actually, as written, the
Brad Pitt character was supposedto beat Bruce Lee in their face
off and Brad Pitt said no man,that's Bruce Lee, that I'm not
doing, that's not happening,that's just not happening.
(31:35):
So thankfully, you know, bradPitt had enough regard for Bruce
Lee that they shot it the waythat they shot it, and I didn't
expect that scene.
I was going into the movieexpecting to hate that scene,
because I've heard what it was.
When I saw it it was a lot offun and I thought Mike Moe Koo
played Bruce Lee did a great job.
You know it didn't really looklike him.
(31:56):
He caught Bruce Lee's vibe, youknow, he just really had it.
And I had a chance to meet himlast summer and I told him man,
I love almost everything aboutwhat you did with Bruce Lee.
He said let me guess the onething you didn't like was the
haircut.
Mike, exactly, it's like hesaid I argue with Tarantino
(32:18):
because this part was supposedto be set in the 60s and you
know Bruce Lee had much shorterhair and he insisted on the end
of the dragon hair because hesaid nobody would know who Bruce
Lee was without the hair.
So you know right.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
What do you think of the movie overall?
Once upon a time in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
It's probably my favorite, tarantino.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I was going to say I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I've got a lot of issueswith him, but I thought that was
a hell of a film.
I've always been a Brad Pittguy, so I thought he knocked it
out of the park.
I thought he, into Caprio, hadgreat chemistry, yeah.
You know that was a really goodmovie.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of those two as well.
I mean, I feel like I grew upwith those guys, you know, being
the stars, and so I mean Istill remember when I watched
what's Eating Gilbert Grape andI'm like who is this kid?
Yeah, I mean, this kid actor isso good, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
He's almost 50.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yeah, but Caprio is, you know, so young, you could
just tell this kid's got it Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
But you know one other thing I wanted to mention
about the End of the Dragon,before I forget without Bruce
Lee it would not have been thesame film.
You know His charisma was on alevel of James Dean, marilyn
Monroe, steve McQueen.
I mean he was one of the greatmovie stars.
You know he just didn't get achance to shine beyond the few
(33:44):
films that he did.
But you could put anybody elsein that movie and you might have
an okay movie.
But so much of that movie wasjust the presence and charisma
of Bruce Lee.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
We were talking about Shaft, talking about Bruce in
End to the Dragon, and I guessit was as I was thinking about
some of the stuff he had workedon in movies.
We had talked about that.
I started to see how they wereboth really breakthroughs for
their ethnic groups and I knowyou're also you know, similar to
me Big James Bond fan.
(34:16):
They took that and did theirown twist on it and I don't know
if that was conscious, but weknow MGM was releasing James
Bond, right, and they releasedShaft.
And then Warner Brothers isprobably looking like you know
what's our Asian Shaft orsomething.
I mean, there's things likethat do happen in conversations.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
How can we touch an ethnic group and how do we kind
of hit that formula and the factthat they both did, within a
couple of years of each other,two different ethnic groups, but
ones that, as you just said,they crossed in terms of their
interest level?
Yeah, the Asian and the blackmarket, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, you know the first, the Shaft poster.
The caption said hotter thanBond, cooler than Bulldog Right.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
So they were making the direct connection.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Right, two terrific franchises and movies, obviously
.
So, yeah, that's a greatmarketing, and I was, I don't
know, in one of thedocumentaries I was watching.
You know they used a blackmarketing group to come up with
that marketing and they knew howto do it.
Right, yeah, because you'relike what?
But that was perfect, perfectmarketing.
So, hey, let's talk, since weboth come from the home
(35:26):
entertainment industry, a little, put it on a little critical
hat on this release that WarnerBrothers did of the 4K, and then
also I think you mentioned onethat came out from Arrow, and I
also have the one from Criterionfrom 2020, which still holds up
very, very well because it'sjust so packed with the
(35:47):
different films.
But let me give the positivehere.
First, I watched the WarnerBrothers 4K and because they
went back to the original 35millimeter camera negative, I
mean the color reproduction.
It is stunning to look at.
It looks terrific.
I've never seen it look betterthan that.
Just for that alone, if fansare building out a 4K library, I
(36:13):
say you probably got to buy itjust for that, if you enjoy
watching the film.
And it has the originaltheatrical version as well as
the special edition.
But the only extra on.
There is the commentary, so Iknow you kind of gave it a
little thrashing because of that.
Talk a little bit about, Idon't know, maybe your
disappointment that there's notmore there.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, for me it was heartbreaking.
I mean it wasn't justdisappointing, it was
heartbreaking because this is myfavorite movie of all time.
To be clear, I'm not sayingit's the best movie I've ever
seen, but it's my favorite movieof all time and I was really
excited about potentially beingable to do something that could
(36:55):
acknowledge the 50th anniversary.
I pitched some concepts to homeentertainment and, for whatever
reason, they decided not to doit, which is, you know, they're
right.
But to not do anything isreally disappointing and it's
really kind of a slap in theface to the fans who have
(37:16):
blocked this movie over and overand over and every iteration
that it's been released in.
And to your point, if you'rebuilding a 4K library and you
like this movie, the 4K versiondefinitely should be in your
collection.
But to spend whatever thecharge is for the big box set
(37:36):
that they just released when allof that material has been
previously released, just to meisn't the best use of my money.
But it's really disappointingbecause, you know, enter the
Dragon made, I think it cost ahalf million dollars to make.
When it was theatricallyreleased it made between 21 and
(37:58):
$25 million.
That's in 73, right, if youconvert those dollars, that's
like between $144 to $171million today.
And then I was reading thatit's been released several times
since then.
When you include there-releases, the profits from
global distribution, theall-time worldwide growths for
(38:20):
any of the Dragon WarnerBrothers is conservatively $2
billion.
So for a movie that's made thecompany that much money to not
be regarded the same type ofconcern and care that they would
give to the Wizard of Oz, theywould give to Casablanca, it's
(38:41):
just really disappointing andthere's no real excuse for it.
And you know there are only afew people left from the film
that are still alive and healthy.
And so to not have anythingfrom Angela Mayo, who played
Bruce Lee's sister, or JackieChan, whose neck was broken by
Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon,or Sam O'Hung, who was the first
(39:02):
person Bruce Lee fought at theopening of Enter the Dragon you
know these people are alive andwell.
You know it would have beengreat to have anything from them
.
And when you couple that withthe release that Errol just did
a couple weeks before this 4Kevent of the Dragon, it's really
shameful because the Errolrelease is unbelievable.
(39:23):
They did 4K releases of BruceLee's Golden Harvest films Fist
of Fury, the Big Boss Way of theDragon, several versions of
Game of Death.
All of them are packed withspecial features.
There's a 200-page hardcoverbook, there's posters, there's
stills, there's a beautifuldesign box.
I mean, the small company outof London paid more tribute to
(39:48):
Bruce Lee on the 50thanniversary of his death than
the studio that made the mostfamous martial arts movie of all
time could be bothered to do.
I mean, it's just it's.
And generally when I post stuff,I generally try to be really
positive, right, I try to beconstructive and if there's
(40:08):
something that I don't like, Ireally try to personalize it,
because just because I didn'tlike something doesn't mean that
you won't like it.
But with this it was just hard.
It was hard to find thatconstructive, that constructive
way to critique this 4K and thebest thing I could say I think
you already said is it looksbetter than it ever has.
(40:31):
And maybe when we get to the75th anniversary, if anybody's
around, somebody will dosomething better than the 50th.
Because to try to do somethingon the 60th, what does it really
matter?
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Right.
Well, you'd say missedopportunity.
I guess that's all you canreally say.
Having said that it's a missedopportunity, I did look at the
charts.
I debuted number three in thenation for sales for 4K, behind
Fastex and another like recentrelease, and I was like, okay,
(41:11):
that's not bad numbers.
Guardians of the Galaxy of Arm3, that's the was number two.
That's not bad.
But I actually think that itcould probably have been close
to vying for the top spot in 4Kif they had added another bonus
disc or at least had one newpiece commemorating the 50th,
something about that.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
So, yeah, and one of the things that they just
weren't connecting the dots towas, even if you only do one new
piece, that one new piece givesyou your publicity department a
hook.
So when they go out to try toget people to pay attention to
the umpteenth release of End ofthe Dragon, you've got this new
piece of content.
(41:52):
That's a new angle and maybeentertainment weekly.
Who wasn't interested beforewould say, oh okay, well, this
is, this is interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Cool, let's do this, but it didn't happen.
So here we are.
Yeah, I mean, it's the studios.
It's an interesting time andthis kind of leads us a little
bit into the discussion of, youknow, maybe, the state of
physical media and even thefuture of which I did want to
ask you about, because you'veseen the gamut.
Is it a sign of just where thepriorities are of the studio
(42:23):
that a movie this important inthe hundredth year of the studio
and it's a 50 year anniversary,so half of the studio's history
you know we're talking about iscovered in the anniversary for
this film that they just didn'tput the money behind?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
I think it's a sign that the people running the
studios now aren't movie people,they're business people and
movies are product and theyaren't much more than product
and so they're treated likeproduct, just like if they were
running the company that madeIvory soap.
So I think the difference isback during the heyday of DVD
(43:03):
you had guys who ran studiosthat loved movies, that knew
movies, that knew the history ofmovies.
You had owners that werepassionate about the legacy of
the studios you know and wantedto continue to build on those
things.
And everybody's interested inprofit and loss.
You know you don't want to makemovies to lose money, but I
(43:25):
think there was more risk oncreative ventures.
You know things that just spoketo someone, whereas now it's
like if it doesn't speak, itseems like if it doesn't speak
clearly to that bottom line theyjust aren't really interested.
And I think to me the way itlooked for Enter the Dragon.
It felt like, okay, well, wedon't need to do this, so we
(43:45):
aren't going to do it, and sothey didn't do it.
And not that it matters toWarner Brothers, but you know,
on a number of forums on socialmedia they're getting beat down
on the way that they treatedthis Enter the Dragon release,
and it didn't have to be thatway.
You know, and I think as longas we live in a world where the
(44:07):
people running the companiesdon't really care about the
movies beyond what they canbring to the coffers, you know
it's going to continue to kindof disintegrate, you know, I
mean, and I think that ties intopart of what the actors are
fighting for right now with SAG.
You know, with the SAG afterstrike, they're really concerned
(44:27):
about AI, and they should be,because AI to me seems to
represent to the new breed ofstudio owners a cheaper way to
get movies made without havingto engage actors beyond what
they absolutely have to do.
So I think we're hopefullywe're in a transitory period
(44:52):
that will not wind up being asdire as it seems to feel right
now.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, let's hope so.
Well, let's go a little morepositive here.
Go back to the last big projectyou worked on, which I think is
a great example of when thestudios put their money and
their muscle behind the release,and that's the Batman, which
you mentioned earlier.
Batman is the one superherocharacter that I think next to
(45:21):
Superman.
Those two stand out in terms ofthe money they just make for
the studio and the interest withthe fans.
But talk a little bit aboutthat and your experiences on
that, because I know that was agreat experience for you.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, the Batman was really special to me.
I mean there was a point whereour boss asked us to list three
titles that we'd be okay withgiving up and three titles that
we want to keep because we hadjust merged the departments.
And I told her look, I justwanted Batman and Black Adam and
(45:54):
I don't really care about therest.
You can do whatever you wantwith the rest.
Black Adam wanted to be indisappointment, but I had been
following Matt Reeves and justthe way he was talking about
Batman was really compelling tome.
So when I met with his producer, dylan, he said look, we're
taking a totally differentapproach on Batman and it's
(46:16):
really important that the behindthe scenes material reflects
the style that we're taking.
So we don't want to do standardcookie cutter HBO first look
types of thing.
Not that there's anything wrongwith that, but that's not what
our movie is.
And that was great for mebecause it allowed me to go
outside of the principle two orthree vendors that the studio
(46:40):
would lean towards for a bigfranchise or superhero films.
So I went to a vendor namedSunny Boy that had done all the
Conjuring Horror movies for usand they did a great job and
they're big comic book fans whoare really passionate and young,
hungry guys, and I worked withthem.
We put together this pitch andpresented it to Matt Reeves and
(47:04):
Dylan and they loved it.
They really liked the approachthat we took and that was really
so empowering and so excitingbecause it was off the beaten
path.
It was definitely a differenttype of approach and so they
gave us complete access.
I went over to London while wewere shooting.
I got to walk around the backcave, which was unbelievable and
(47:28):
I went to the garage where theyhad all the Batmobiles that
they were still building and itwas just a great experience.
And then, I think the weekafter I got back, covid hit and
everything was shut down for awhile.
But we did a lot of differentpieces.
We actually won two Clio awards, one for this piece we did the
(47:49):
transformation, the Pink Wins byColin Farrell and the
comprehensive documentary we didcalled Vengeance in the Making,
and it just turned out.
It's one of those projects thatturned out for me exactly the
way I had envisioned it, andSunny Boy did an amazing job and
their stock has risen.
So they think they did theAquaman sequel and they're
(48:13):
working on some other large,large, large films, and that was
a result of them being given ashot to handle something as big
as the Batman and reallyknocking it out of the park.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Well, I'm a big fan of the film and I have the 4K of
the film and all the extras.
Vengeance in the Making.
I mean, what can you say?
That is top notch, studio levelextra right there.
And when I say that I mean fromthe filming, the shots, the
(48:49):
lighting, everything you knowfor Onset.
It used to be way back in theday you took anything from
behind the scenes.
It could be grainy, it could be, you know, the interview could
be with the loud generators inthe background.
I mean you're just going totake it because that's all you
got Watching that piece.
It's lit so beautifully.
The Onset guys did a terrificjob Of the interviews you guys
(49:12):
have in the stage.
You got some of the cards inthe background for some of the
cast.
I mean it's just top notch.
So it looks great, sounds great.
The coverage is amazing.
Matt Reeves' storyline of justeverything from his development,
how he saw the detective story.
I'm from Seattle.
(49:32):
So when he mentioned kind ofthe influence of Kurt Cobain and
Nirvana, I'm like you know, I'mall about that because I grew
up during that era in Seattlethere.
So I mean literally Cobain grewup 30 miles from where I grew
up.
So but to hear that influenceand everything and then to put
it together with what I saw inthe movie.
That's what I love about extrasIf you watch a movie you're
(49:56):
like I don't know why I loved it, but that was awesome.
Then you watch these extras andyou're like that's why I loved
it.
He's pulling from referencesfrom popular culture, from life,
from music, from sports, fromwhatever it might be right, from
film history, and then youstart to connect the dots.
And then, of course, there'sthose pieces that show you the
literal technology advances,like they're talking about how
(50:18):
they lit that, the romancescenes.
I guess you would call it whatthat lighting was.
I mean, I thought they were onan actual rooftop looking over
city.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
That's amazing technology that they used, so
that was great.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
I've always felt that the quality of the special
features will give you a goodidea of the level of involvement
and interest that the directorhad, because the more engaged
the director is, the better yourcontent's going to be.
And Matt Reeves he opened everydoor for us.
(50:53):
We filmed his EPK interview.
It was supposed to be 40minutes, it was three hours, wow
.
And then when he finished that,he said so, should we do you
want to record an audiocommentary?
It's like do you have more tosay?
He's like oh yeah, oh yeah.
And he gave us an incrediblecommentary.
So it's like the filmmakers theyget it that see the extras
(51:16):
provide an opportunity tohistorically document the
creation of their film.
You have a shot at gettingsomething really special.
Other guys you know, for somedirectors it's just a job.
They're just trying to do it.
It's not necessarily a passionproject.
They needed the work, so theydo it.
And you get a perfunctoryinterview and you get
(51:39):
perfunctory content and it'sokay, but it's nothing special.
But you know, I think about MattReeves, I think about Barry
Sonnenfeld.
We worked on Men in Black.
I mean, barry Sonnenfeld was soexcited that there was an
opportunity to be able toarchive the making of that film.
He just gave us everything, andover and over and over,
(52:02):
particularly younger filmmakers,you know, they seem to really
value it.
So now, as the studios arestarting to de-emphasize and I'm
not trying to be negative, I'msorry to go back, but as a
studio seem to be de-emphasizingspecial features, I think it
can have an unnecessarilyadverse effect on their
relationship with theirfilmmakers.
(52:23):
Because if filmmakers you knowthey're proud of their work and
they want to be able for peopleto see how they made the magic
and they want to be able to showtheir kids later on, when you
were four years old, this iswhat I was doing.
This is why I couldn't spend asmuch time with you as I wanted
to, you know.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Yeah, and I just recall the joy that filmmakers
had when they got their box ofBlu-rays and they're like when
are they?
Okay, every from their officeinvariably calls hey, when are
we getting our supply ofBlu-rays of the film?
Because, you know, some go tothe crew department heads and
(53:01):
some go to the filmmaker.
I mean, that's Christmas gifts,man, that's like it's going out
to all their friends and familyand what are they going to do
now in the future?
They're going to be like here'sa link to the streaming Right
yeah, right, yeah, christmas.
I mean having the physical media.
There was some just likeamazingly great thing.
I mean you're, we'll talk abouta few of your books too, but
(53:23):
holding a book, holding aBlu-ray or 4K or DVD, just that
physical thing, giving it tosomebody, signing it, I mean
there's something very coolunwrapping it, putting it in,
playing that thing and seeingthe quality.
I mean the quality is prettygood in streaming, don't get me
wrong.
But what you're not getting isyou're just getting the movie
(53:44):
and you have extras.
There's a lot of times there'llbe a little bonus or extras.
Very few times do those pieceshold up as anything more than
just like a promo.
Yeah, you're like, I alreadywatched the movie.
You don't have to sell me, I'mgoing to watch the movie.
Right, you know what I watchedand that just tell me why I want
to go see it.
So, yeah, I mean, we'll seeit's.
(54:06):
You know that if Matt spentthat much time when he got his,
he got his product Right.
A minor rub, yeah, original.
He's like you know, big smile.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Yeah, yeah.
But you know, thank goodnessfor these smaller companies like
M-Pact and Indicator andCriterion and 88 Films.
You know that there are thesesmaller companies that still see
value in physical media.
They still see value in specialfeatures.
They license, you know, reallycool movies and they find great
(54:39):
things to create impressivesupplements for.
So it still exists.
You know it's just unfortunatethat right now that the studios
aren't as committed to that kindof work as these indies are.
But you know, with the passionthat these indies are showing
for projects like this, it'sstill a good time to be a
(55:00):
physical collector.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah, that box looks terrific.
Now, it doesn't include Enterthe Dragon, though, because they
didn't license it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Well, it includes the Blu-ray.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
The Blu-ray?
Oh, okay, which is whatCriterion released as well,
right, okay, yeah, yeah, I meanthat does appear to be some of
what fans are going to have todo, for the hardcore collectors
is to see which of theseboutique companies is coming out
with maybe something differentor unique or, you know, maybe
(55:30):
it's an extra, maybe it's in thepackaging or some poster or
cards or other things that arein there.
But one exception, of courseand we highlighted here on this
podcast is the Warner Archives,yeah, which is tasked with
releasing that catalog fromWarner Brothers and MGM and RKO
on Blu-ray.
So that's why we talk so muchhere on this podcast about the
(55:52):
Warner Archive, because that'scoming from within a studio and
that's unique.
There's really no other studiothat's doing that.
They're basically licensing outtheir product to these others.
So that's a unique and greatthing about the Warner Archives.
So, hey, before we wrap up here, it's been a great conversation
.
You and I overlap a lot of ourinterests, but I did want to
(56:15):
talk about these very cool booksyou've been putting out.
I know you had the Miles Davisone you started with.
Tell us a little bit about thebooks and how you got into that.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Well, I got into Miles Davis when I was working
for Quincy Jones and when Istarted really digging into his
history, you know, particularlyin the 50s and 60s, miles Davis
was fly.
I mean, he was so stylish andhe's generally regarded as one
of the best-dressed men of the20th century, and I'd read a lot
(56:46):
of books on him, and thesebooks would always talk about
his fashion sense.
But that's all it would reallybe was a mention, and there were
some amazing photos of himcaptured by great photographers
like William Claxton and JimMarshall during that period, and
I just thought it'd be aninteresting project to do a book
on his style, and so the ideawas originally for it to be a
(57:08):
coffee table book, but the costto license the photos was really
prohibitive, so I just kind ofput it aside for a while.
But I had done so many greatinterviews with Quincy Jones,
with two of Miles's three wives,with his bandmates, with Brian
Ferry, with Lenny Kravitz, withall these people that had been
influenced by him, and theytalked about him from a
(57:30):
perspective that people hadn'texperienced before.
I just thought that I'm like,well, these interviews are cool,
so I should still get this bookout there somehow.
So I just did some research onself-publishing and
self-published it and it was fun, it was a good experience.
I guess I got some really niceresponse and some criticism
because it wasn't a coffee tablebook but you know I couldn't
(57:53):
help that.
And then I wrote well, black tothe Movies was kind of a
compilation of reviews that I'vewritten over the years and some
different essays that I'vewritten on some different blogs
that I had.
So it was just kind of acompilation of my career
(58:14):
post-radio and that was fun.
And then I wrote several bookson Steve Holland who was a model
for paperbacks and magazinesand comic books in the 60s
through the 80s.
He was such an overwhelmingpresence during that time.
I mean he was on the cover ofliterally thousands of
(58:34):
paperbacks and thousands ofmagazines and thousands of comic
book covers and the guy justworked all the time and he just
had a really interesting story.
So I've done a few books on himand that was fun.
And that led me to this latestproject I'm working on,
producing a graphic novel.
It's called Fargo HillongWheels.
(58:55):
It's from a series ofpaperbacks from the 70s of a
character called Neil Fargo.
That was based on a Lee Marvincharacter from a great Western
called Professionals, and I gotthe rights to the Paperback
series and Howard Chacon, who'sa good friend of mine, he's
going to do the adaptation, he'sgoing to write and draw the
(59:18):
graphic novel and we're going tolaunch a crowdfunding campaign
in October and we have apre-launch page up now If
anybody would like to get moreinformation.
It's zoopggc.
That's kind of crazy, butthat's what it is.
(59:42):
But that will give youinformation on the property, a
link to a video that we launchedat San Diego Comic Con, and
we'll see what happens.
It's a new adventure, so I'mexcited to see how it plays out.
Speaker 1 (59:58):
To make it easy for the listeners and everybody,
I'll put the link in the podcastshow notes as well, and people
can follow you on Facebook.
They can follow your page andyour updates, so we'll make it
easy for everybody to do that.
I know I've signed up for sothat I think this project sounds
pretty cool and I'm a big fanof graphic novels myself, so
(01:00:21):
it's something you know rightdown my alley.
So I'm looking forward to thatand I'm a big fan of you because
of all the creative stuff youhave done in your past and done
and when we were workingtogether, I always enjoyed
hearing what you were working onand just some of the cool stuff
.
It was always great.
So it's fun, man, haven't youcome on?
(01:00:43):
We may have rambled a little bit, because a lot of my episodes
are more geared to one or twotitles, but I feel like it all
fits together, from Shaz to Intothe Dragon, to the Batman.
I mean your love of martialarts, of action.
We didn't even mention the MMA,which was kind of interesting,
because that's a big part, Ithink, of the Batman.
I mean the fighting style, yeah, absolutely, but then even MMA,
(01:01:08):
I think, has been influenced bymartial arts.
What do you think I mean?
Hugely right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Yeah, I mean, you know, most martial artists call
Bruce Lee the grandfather of MMA.
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
So I mean that's a whole other thing.
Which MMA is, you know, sohugely popular now, and I know
you're in that world as well, soit all fits together along with
the pulp.
I got one of your Steve Hollandbooks and I'm looking at it and
I'm reading about it and I'dseen your other books and stuff
and I'm like this guy kind ofdominated Paperback.
Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
And I mean so many of the Paperbacks I remember
reading and growing up and it'slike, probably with Steve
Holland I didn't even thinkabout it because he kept so many
genres, he didn't just doWesterns or action.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
And he did romance books, he did espionage.
I mean he was James Bond, hewas Sherlock Holmes, he was
Superman, he was Doc Savage, Imean you name it, he was pretty
much it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Yeah, yeah.
So from the Elmore Leonard,some of his Westerns and
everything so very cool stuff.
So well, hey, it's been a lotof fun.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Hey, I've really enjoyed it, Tim.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Well, I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as
much as I did.
Michael Stradford is a topnotch creative producer and part
of a great group that we hadthere at Warner Home
Entertainment for quite a fewyears.
If you're interested infollowing him or his new project
, fargo Hell on Wheels, thereare links in the podcast show
notes as well as links to someof the films and books we talked
about today.
If you're on social media, besure and follow the show on
(01:02:46):
Facebook, twitter or Instagramto continue the conversation and
to be a part of our community.
Until next time.
You've been listening to TimAlard.
Stay slightly obsessed.
Hello and welcome to the extras, where we take you
behind the scenes of yourfavorite TV shows, movies and
animation and the release ondigital DVD, blu-ray and 4K or
your favorite streaming site.
I'm Tim Lardier host.
As many of you know, I workedat Warner Brothers for almost 14
years and during my time thereI had the chance to work with
many talented studio executives,so I always enjoy it when one
(00:28):
of them agrees to come on thepodcast to talk movies, and
since he's a big fan of martialarts and action films, we'll
dive into some Bruce Lee, someShaft, maybe some Batman and who
knows what else.
Anyway, I'm very happy to bringon one of my friends and
colleagues in the homeentertainment group, michael
Stradford.
Mike, it's good to finally getyou on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Tim, my pleasure.
Thanks so much.
I appreciate it.
I've been listening to the showand it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, I was trying to remember kind of how long we
worked together.
It's a bit of a blur, but Istarted there in about 2007.
I was trying to remember whenyou started there.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I think I was 2016.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Okay, so we probably worked together.
I was there until 21,.
About five years or so the lastfive and then you've been in
the group until just recently.
Right, I can't remember all thefilms you worked on, but I know
you worked on a ton of toptitles.
What were some of thehighlights while you were there?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Let's see the Joker Joker right.
First Wonder Woman.
It was a really great workingwith the director.
She was awesome.
Lego Batman movie was a lot offun.
Aquaman Crete the first Cretewas really cool.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Did you work on all the creeds?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, just the first one.
I think after the first creedthat was when we transferred
over to being a part oftheatrical Right and so titles
shifted around, so that was oneof those.
Yeah, lutbeinach wasn't a greatBen Affleck film, but he was
really a good guy to work withand that was a pleasure.
The Unfortunate Shaff movie,but it did yield what I think is
(02:13):
a great documentary.
There were some good highlightsand, of course, one of my last
projects, which is one I'mpossibly the most proud of, is
the Batman that read the version.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, I did want to come back to that so we could
talk a little bit about why thatwas such a great project for
you and everything.
But before we did that Ithought it might be kind of fun
for the listeners to get to knowyou a little bit.
I picked up the Black to theMovies book that you did and it
(02:46):
kind of gave me a little insightto some of your early days and
how you got interested in filmand music and everything.
But maybe you could take usback a little bit to kind of how
it all started for you back inCleveland.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, I mean it's really odd because my parents
weren't particularly hardcoremovie fans.
I mean they like movies, but Ithink in my lifetime my dad and
mom went to two movies they wentto see the Godfather and they
went to see Beverly Hills Cop.
So I mean movies just wasn'tgood for them, but for me, for
some reason, movies and comicbooks, I mean pop culture,
(03:22):
really just spoke to me as a kid.
And so, you know, once I leftCleveland and finished college
in Toledo, I was in radio and Ihad a broadcasting career for
about 12 years and I wound up inLos Angeles to launch what was
then 92.3 to beat, and I didthat for a couple of years.
(03:43):
So while I was in LA, you know,I was having an opportunity to
really indulge my love of moviesbecause there were so many
great bookstores and posterplaces, collectibles, and so I
ultimately, after I left radioand I worked for Quincy Jones
for a few years and when I leftQuincy, I went to Warner
(04:04):
Brothers, briefly as a managerof their archives, the film
archives, and that wasinteresting.
But then I went over to Sony,who had a fledgling DVD
department and they were lookingfor somebody to help figure out
how to create special featuresfor Sony DVDs.
So I did that with Sony from 98to 2006.
(04:26):
Then I went over to Crackle.
I ended up there originalprogramming.
We did a lot of short formcontent, like we did series with
Charlie Murphy and BarrySonenfeld and a number of other
people, and that was cool.
And then, you know, I came toWarner Brothers and, as opposed
(04:46):
to running the department, youknow I was a cog in the wheel
and I was happy with thatbecause I was a big fan.
I was happy with that because Ididn't want to run a department
again.
It was nice to just have a setlist of titles to work on.
You know, when I was at Sony,warner Brothers was always the
crown jewel.
You know, anybody that workedin home entertainment always
(05:08):
looked to Warner Brothers askind of the shining star.
So it was great to finally getover there and be a part of that
for a while.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, I was very proud to work there.
There's always usually numberone for just pure volume of
sales and the quality of.
You know, if you bought aWarner Brothers new release, it
was always usually pretty packedand I think that started with
the Matrix, you know, and reallywhat Paul Hemstreet had done
with that one and kind ofbreaking through showing, yeah,
(05:38):
if you do the extras right, ifyou put it on there and the
movie is something people wantto buy anyway, you'll push them
over the edge to say, yes, I'llpay premium to get this package.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, I've always seen the Matrix as a turning
point for DVD because I thinkthat was the first DVD where
what the format could offer justmade sense to a consumer.
You know, it wasn't complicatedand I think that just kind of
expanded consumer interest andappreciation in the format and
(06:10):
then that gave us all that allthe studios opportunities to
really do some cool andsometimes crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, yeah.
So it was a great place to workand you know that's kind of the
heyday the days we were there,the years you were there too was
like the peak of Blu-ray extrasand just really packing out a
lot of those titles.
So but you know things arechanging a little bit and we'll
get to that in just a second.
But I did want to skip back to,I think, some things you talked
(06:39):
about in your book growing upand some of I think one of those
was just kind of the impact ofShaft when you went to see it.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, oh man, I had been going to movies, you know,
for several years, even though Iwas a kid, you know I would go
see James Bond, double Featuresand all that.
You know, growing up in a lowermiddle class, lower middle
class, black neighborhood inCleveland.
Shaft was the first time I hadseen somebody on screen that I
could actually imagine seeing inthe real world, because prior
(07:11):
to Shaft, the only black actorsthat really had any prominence
on screen was Jim Brown andSidney Portier, neither of which
I could ever imagine seeing inmy neighborhood.
But Richard Routry, you know,he just he just looked like a
regular guy and he didn't reallyhave a history with the
audience.
So it was easy to just buy intothat world and he was so cool
(07:35):
and he was so tough and he justhe just had it together and I'd
never seen that on screen beforelike that without him being,
because Jim Brown to me wasalways kind of a super human.
I love Jim Brown, but you knowhe was coming down from Mount
Olympus, you know, and SidneyPortier was so proper and cut
(07:57):
and dry that that didn't reallyseem realistic to me.
But Richard Routry is Shaft.
I was like, yeah, I couldimagine seeing this guy coming
out of my dad's deli, you know.
And so that movie and theleather suit at the end and that
, you know, and the greatsoundtrack by Isaac Hayes, I
mean that was just always amonumental movie for me.
(08:19):
And when I finally got to meetRichard Routry, it was, it was a
big thrill and he couldn't havebeen nicer.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I was watching the documentary you did with
Constantine Nasser, friend ofthe podcast here, our mutual
friend, and I was just watchingthe other night, you know,
catching up on it and that's onthe criterion release Right
Looked like on there.
You, you guys were able tointerview Samuel L Jackson.
I mean a bunch of great peoplefor that one.
(08:47):
That must have been kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, it was.
You know.
I mean it's unfortunate thatyou know, a number of key
players are no longer with us,like director Gordon Parks and
Isaac Hayes.
But you know Richard Routry,who has kind of struggled with
his association with Shaft overover the years, seems like we
(09:10):
caught him at a time where hehad kind of mellowed into an
appreciation for what thecharacter had done for him and
what it meant to so many otherpeople.
So it was great to get hisperspective and get his memories
, because the one thing that Iwanted to do was make sure that
we captured an official documentof the making of that film by
(09:32):
people that were involved withthe film.
So to have him and Isaac Hayes'son and to have guys like
Samuel L Jackson who had aperspective, to have them all
add that in, it was just really.
It was really satisfying.
It was really happy because Iwasn't to be honest, I was never
excited about this movie, this2018 or 2019 version, but I felt
(09:56):
like, okay, if anybody's goingto do anything with this thing,
I need to be the one to do it,because I knew that I could come
up with a documentary thatwould honor the original trilogy
and Constantine.
You know, I know his level ofcommitment and his taste and his
ability, so I knew that if wecould do that together, we could
(10:18):
come up with something that weboth be proud of, and I think we
did.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
And one thing I've noticed about your reviews,
whether they be in your book orwhether they be the stuff you
post on Facebook, is you're notafraid to say I don't like this
version.
Or you know to be somewhatblunt, you know, but you're
always putting in the context ofthe film history because you
have all of that and you'regiving some reason why it
doesn't match up or whatever.
But that's okay.
(10:43):
I mean, I think you and I aresimilar in that we still want to
go see these movies, we stillwant to see the new versions of
things and it's fun to have thatbackground where you can put a
little judgment on it, notsaying it's bad for everybody,
but just hey, based on what I'veseen and what I know, this is
kind of where I see it fittingand everything.
And it's really fun to readwhat you have to say, being so
(11:06):
knowledgeable about this stuff.
But I think one of the reasonswhy I want to ask about Shaft
and it's not just your book andbeing in Cleveland, but also
Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon,which we're going to be talking
about here I mean Shaft comesout in what 71?
Right, and then Enter theDragon comes out just a couple
years later.
So that you said also had justa huge impact.
(11:29):
So these two movies probablypretty close together.
Yeah, impact on you as a youngfilm viewer.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Well, you know, the funny thing about Shaft was I
was on under a year longpunishment going to the movies
because I had gone to see adouble feature of you Only Live,
twice and Thunderball and meand my buddies stayed and
watched it three times but Ididn't get home until like two
in the morning and I was like 10years old.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And so my parents were like, forget going to the
movies ever for the rest of yourlife.
So that held up for about ayear and when Shaft came out,
everybody was talking aboutShaft and had seen Shaft with me
, you know.
And so my mother.
Finally, even though it was anR rated film, my mother relented
and let me see it and you know,it just wiped me out.
(12:19):
Just wiped me out.
But if we jump to Enter theDragon, I was in Atlantic City
with my parents on vacation andthey were off doing whatever
they were going to do.
So I said I go see a movie.
So I remember walking down thestreet in Atlantic City.
One side of the street wasshowing white lightning with
(12:41):
Bert Reynolds, and the side ofthe street that I was on was
showing Cleopatra Jones.
And I said I'll go seeCleopatra Jones.
So I buy my ticket.
I'm walking through the lobbyI'll never forget this and there
are three pictures, three blackand white pictures.
There's a white guy and a ghee,there's a black guy with a big
(13:01):
afro and a ghee, and in thecenter there's a shirtless guy
with these scars on his chestand his stomach and his face and
it said Enter the Dragon.
I was like what the heck isthis?
So I sit down to watchCleopatra Jones and they show
the trailer for Enter the Dragon.
And I lost my mind Because atthat point I had only seen one
(13:22):
Kung Fu movie and it wasn't verymemorable.
So we get back from AtlanticCity, we're back in Cleveland.
I see my buddy Ricky, thatlives across the street.
I was like man, I just saw thistrailer for this guy, bruce Lee
, blah, blah, blah.
And they're showing two of hismovies downtown.
I'm going to go see himtomorrow Chinese Connection and
Fist of Fury.
And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah,the guy that played Kato, he
(13:42):
died.
I'm like no, no, no, no, no.
I'm like this guy didn't playKato.
He's got a new movie coming out.
He's like no, he played Kato.
He said I saved the clippingwhen I saw his death.
So he went in the house andbrought out this clipping and it
had a picture of Bruce Lee fromEnter the Dragon and it had his
obituary.
And I was just stunned.
I was like what, what you know?
(14:04):
I didn't even know how toprocess it.
And then I saw the doublefeature and you know, it was
like this is cool, but thisisn't what I saw in this Enter
the Dragon trailer, but BruceLee is obviously awesome.
And then Enter the Dragon cameout a couple weeks later and I
went and saw it and it was justman.
(14:25):
It was.
I've never had a movie goingexperience where the crowd was
just out of control.
I mean, the theater was sopacked that when I got there the
only seats left were on thestairs on the sideways on the
side.
If the fire marshal came inthey would have shut the theater
down.
But every time and this was anall black theater, the theater
(14:51):
called the Scrompy Dump and man,every time the camera hit Bruce
Lee, the crowd was going crazy.
I mean every motion he'd make,when they cut to him at the
cemetery, when he goes to seehis sister and his mother's
grave, and he's got thebeautiful three piece suit on,
(15:12):
the girls were hollering andscreaming.
I mean it was just outrageous,yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
And I was rewatching it and I was just thinking, you
know, we've all seen the stillpictures right of Bruce
shirtless and everything.
But when you're watching themovie and you just see his, you
know his moving, like his body,especially the upper body, you
know they showed off.
I'm like that, is that thatlean martial arts?
(15:40):
Look, I mean you can just seeit's not, it's not the American
bodybuilder, you know thing.
Just so lean and andflexibility.
He's showing off hisflexibility and I don't know
it's very cool and I think thatI mean I know you're a huge fan
of martial arts movies, but youlook at modern stuff now and you
just know they've taken out alot of wires and they've done
(16:02):
all this other stuff.
And then you watch into thedrag and you're like I mean you
know he's, he's pulling punchesand kicks and all that stuff,
but that's all real, that's allhappened, he's doing that.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Well, the crazy thing about Bruce Lee was that he
slowed down for the most partbecause when he would go at full
speed the camera couldn'tcapture, you know.
But you know.
Going back to what you saidabout his physique, I had never
seen anybody with that kind ofdefinition in their physique
before.
You know.
I've seen guys that were bigand muscular but the definition
and the shoulder and arms, and Ijust had never seen anything
(16:36):
like that before.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, I mean that was groundbreaking, and obviously
the moves and his I don't know,there's a certain like real
beauty, almost to like his, hismovement, yeah, and how he
choreographed everything.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well, he was.
He was five, seven, about 140pounds and he just had, he just
clearly had complete bodycontrol.
But beyond that, you know, it'slike when you mentioned some of
the other martial artists Istill think Bruce Lee is the
only guy that was eminentlywatchable and compelling when he
(17:10):
wasn't doing anything, you know.
I mean, he just has such acharisma and he has such life in
his eyes that you know you werejust drawn to.
What is he going to do next,even if he's not doing anything?
And I can't think of any othermartial artists that really have
that same effect without themtrying to subtly apply some of
(17:33):
what Bruce Lee did.
Right, Right.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, looking back at it, this is the 50th year
anniversary, which is prettycool.
It's also kind of wow.
It doesn't feel maybe like 50,but when you look back and you
think about the impact that he'shad, I mean, what are some
thoughts that come to mind foryou?
Because I know I saw your post?
You wrote this very beautifulpost on Facebook on how
(17:58):
important Bruce Lee and thismovie is to you.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Thanks, yeah, I mean, I think for anything to last 50
years is an accomplishment initself and then to actually grow
during the 50 years, you know,speaks to the quality of what it
is.
And the dragon is just it's so.
It's special to me just becauseI had just never seen anything
(18:24):
like that and it kind ofculminated my love of movies
into that one film.
It's like the best experience Icould ever have in a movie I
had at that film.
But, you know, enter theDragons just got so much impact
in that it was the first timethat Hollywood financed and
produced a martial arts moviebiggest budget, up to that point
(18:46):
, that any martial arts moviehad ever had.
And it really took a big chanceto say, okay, we're going to go
with this Asian guy who's hadtwo Asian hits and we're
essentially going to make himJames Bond and we're going to
build this movie around him andwe're going to make sure that
the audience knows that he'sattractive.
Not only is he formidable, he'ssexy.
(19:09):
You know that he's powerful.
You know, because that justhadn't been seen, that just
hadn't been seen on screen.
You know, when you think aboutit, like in 1973, we're in the
midst of the black exploitationera.
You know Shaft and Superfly andthe Mac and Black Caesar and
all these things and Kung Fucinemas, you know, starting to
(19:31):
make little inroads.
But, man, when Bruce Lee hit,black audiences connected with
him like nobody's business.
And I'm not sure exactly whatit was about him that made that
connection so strong, but it was.
And it was one of those thingswhere, when I was just jumping
back a minute, when I wasprogramming the beat, brandon
(19:52):
Lee was in Los Angeles topromote Rapid Fire, which was
his first film for Fox, and hewas doing a meet and greet at
the shrine downtown during thiscomic book show.
So I went down and I met hismanager and I invited him to
come to the radio station to doour morning show.
And our morning drive host atthe time was a white guy named
(20:15):
John London.
He was in his mid-late 40s andJohn's contract called for him
to have complete control of hisshow.
And so I went and I said hey, Italked to Brandon Lee, I want
you to put him on the morningshow and he's like ah, brandon
Lee, he's like Mike.
You know, that's not really ouraudience.
I'm like this is where this isthe part of our audience that
(20:36):
you don't know, because when yousay you're putting Bruce Lee's
son on the radio, you won'tunderstand what's going to
happen.
Just trust me.
So Brandon came down, john puthim on the radio and he had
promoted the day before the.
Brandon was going to be there.
People came to the radio station, people were calling.
(20:58):
John got more calls during thatshow than he ever got and it
was people, largely black peoplesaying yo man, good luck, I
love your dad.
Your dad was the man I saw yourdad when I was a kid.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I mean even years later, thelove that that audience had for
Bruce Lee carried over to a sonwho was just getting started.
(21:20):
You know he could have been abust but there was such goodwill
because of how people feltabout his father that folks were
calling in and coming to thestation to try to support him.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
That's an amazing story, but I was also thinking,
as you were saying that, that alot of the last images we've
seen you know you watch themovie and then I think a lot of
people didn't know you died, ofcourse, for many years and still
, even today, people whodiscovered the movie don't know
the full story.
But then a lot of the lastimages that you see of Bruce Lee
are him holding his two babiesand his family and you see his
(21:56):
movies and you hear about hisphilosophy on life and you see
his family, like you just seehis values kind of system and
then that's it, his life's takenfrom him.
And then years later you seethese kids grown up and I don't
know, you kind of naturally havethis fondness Like you really
wanted him, as you just said,the audience really just wanted
(22:18):
his son to succeed too.
Kind of carrying on that man on.
Of course that was really, youknow, very tough then when he
was, you know, killed on set ofthe film the Crow, but it's a
tragic story.
But going back a little bit toBruce Lee's philosophy on life,
I thought you had said also justkind of held.
(22:38):
That also has helped his legacy.
It's not just the movies, it'skind of what he represented as a
person.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, I think you know one of the great things
about Bruce Lee was that, youknow his widow and his daughter
have really been committed tomaking sure that he endured and
that his legacy was acknowledgedand that people got an
understanding that he was morethan just what you saw on the
(23:09):
screen.
You know he was a writer, hewas a philosopher.
I've seen photos of his libraryand he had a massive library
with all types of books, youknow, a lot of philosophy books,
in addition to differentfighting manuals and that kind
of thing.
He was somebody that gaveparticularly Asian people such
(23:31):
pride and such a shining lightto reach for, and Shannon, his
daughter, and Linda Cadwell, hiswidow they've done a
magnificent job of just lettingpeople know this is who he was
and this is what he believed,and the fact that when he
started teaching martial arts,the Asian martial artists in San
(23:55):
Francisco told him don't teachit to non-Asians and he said you
know, we're all the same.
Yeah, I think he said under onesky, we're all the same, and so
the first person that he taughtmartial arts was a black guy,
so he wasn't hung up in thethings that, unfortunately, we
seem to be more hung up in nowthan we have been in quite a few
(24:17):
years and I think that there'sjust so much to him that it's
actually kind of stunning to me.
I've got a good friend thatlives in New York and we've been
friends for like 40 years andwe bonded on another dragon and
we were always talking aboutBruce Lee and we were just
saying, man, remember, like inthe late 70s and early 80s Bruce
(24:41):
Lee was kind of culty.
You know, like if you weren'tinto martial arts movies you
didn't know who Bruce Lee was.
And I think that's where, andpeople just thought of him as a
guy that was running aroundhollering with his shirt off.
But you know, over the last 20years it's just become more, and
I think part of it started whenTime Magazine named him one of
(25:01):
the most 100 influential peopleof the 20th century.
Oh, wow, yeah, and I think thatcaused a lot of reconsidering
who he was and what his impactwas.
And there's a program on Maxcalled Warrior.
They just concluded the thirdseason this week and it's based
(25:22):
on a concept that Bruce Lee hadthat he had pitched to
television networks and theypassed on it.
They ultimately made Kung Fu,but this series Shannon Lee is
one of the executive producersand Jonathan Tropper is the
showrunner and executiveproducer and he's made some
really good television shows.
And Warrior is a great show.
(25:44):
That's about an Asian guy thatcomes to San Francisco in the
early 20th century looking forhis sister who had vanished, and
it gets into the.
I mean there's a lot of fighting, a lot of action, but it gets
into the oppression of theChinese in America in the early
of 20th century, the oppressionof the Irish and the Irish with
(26:08):
their issues with the Chineseand not really realizing that
they're kind of all dealing withthe same thing and the
oppression that more traditionalgovernment is trying to keep
them under.
And they do a really goodpodcast where every week they
talk to the different actors,writers, directors on the show
(26:31):
and each one, each episode andit's unprovoked these people
talk about how Bruce Leeimpacted them personally and
what he's meant to them and howit's so important to them to
represent his vision the correctway and how he provided a sense
of empowerment and worth inprojecting that image on screen
(26:55):
that they had never seen before.
And to hear that over and overand over and over and over from
these filmmakers just reallyspeaks to the depth and the
impact that he had, probably alarger impact than he ever
imagined that he would have.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Right.
Yeah, I'll just throw in thatJustin Lin, I believe, is also
part of the producing team onthat Right.
Younger listeners might, ofcourse, know Justin.
So that's a pretty cooltradition that Justin wants to
be a part of is continuing thatlegacy of Bruce Lee.
And you did kind of mention inpassing about the networks with
(27:34):
Kung Fu, where they decided notto put an agent in the role to
go with Caredian, and I remembergrowing up and I really enjoyed
that series.
So we can all look back andmake judgments, but it was a
good series of its time andgreat to see now that Warrior is
doing well on Mac.
So those folks who don't knowabout it, I hope they'll check
(27:56):
it out and give it a shot.
I did want to ask what yourthoughts were on just the film
industry that Enter the Dragonhas had.
I mean, many filmmakers havetalked about the impact, of
course, of Hong Kong cinema andthen Bruce Lee.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah Well, like I mentioned, it was the first
martial arts film to be producedand financed by a major studio.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Warner Brothers too right.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, yeah, warner Brothers, in partnership with
Golden Harvest, and I believe itwas the first martial arts
tournament movie.
I could be wrong, but I feelpretty sure that that was the
first one.
I know it was in terms of amajor motion picture.
Most of the martial arts flicksthat follow weren't very good,
(28:41):
but a lot of more moneymakers.
Bruce Lee even spawned his ownsubgenre, bruceploitation, where
there are so many Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee, bruce Low, bruce High, bruce Lee returns from the
grave, all these differentvariations of Bruce Lee inspired
(29:05):
films.
But it forced Hollywood toconsider Asian performers with a
different lens, even though itwas slow and coming the days of
an Asian actor automaticallybeing a house boy or a femme
fatale dragon lady.
Those days were over 50 yearslater.
I don't think there would havebeen a warrior TV show that got
(29:26):
three seasons and a revampedkung fu series with a young
Asian American female lead, youknow, without any of the dragon.
Yeah, I added in the song,because if any of the Dragon had
not worked, no other Hollywoodstudio would have rolled the
dice to try to make another one,because it was something that
one they weren't interested in,two they didn't understand and
(29:49):
three they probably didn'tbelieve in, so there was a lot
riding on the shoulders of anyof the Dragon.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
And I think a lot of the top movies from John Wick
coming out this year, a lot ofthe top, most popular action
movies use martial arts, I meanas they're fighting technique.
Not all of them, of course, butI mean just look at Keanu
obviously going back to theMatrix and the use of the, the
wire work and the Hong Kongstunt teams and everything that
(30:19):
they brought over.
But you just see the impact.
Not saying it all started them,but you know you can point to
that movie is just a hugeinfluence.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, the director of John Wick, chad I can never say
Chad's last name, right?
He clearly said on John Wick 2,that mirror sequence at the end
was his homage to the mirrorsequence from the end of the
Dragon.
So you know, he's never had anyhesitation about crediting
(30:50):
Bruce Lee as an influence and assomebody that he continues to
aspire to.
And you take that and you flipit with Quentin Tarantino.
It's like I don't understandwhat Tarantino's issue is with
Bruce Lee and you know I wouldhave thought that he'd be a fan
of Bruce Lee's but it seems likeover the last few years he's
kind of gone out of his way totry to denigrate Bruce Lee.
Oh, really, yeah, it seems likeit.
(31:12):
You know from once upon a timein Hollywood the way he had
Bruce Lee, kind of like a clown,and actually, as written, the
Brad Pitt character was supposedto beat Bruce Lee in their face
off and Brad Pitt said no man,that's Bruce Lee, that I'm not
doing, that's not happening,that's just not happening.
(31:35):
So thankfully, you know, bradPitt had enough regard for Bruce
Lee that they shot it the waythat they shot it, and I didn't
expect that scene.
I was going into the movieexpecting to hate that scene,
because I've heard what it was.
When I saw it it was a lot offun and I thought Mike Moe Koo
played Bruce Lee did a great job.
You know it didn't really looklike him.
(31:56):
He caught Bruce Lee's vibe, youknow, he just really had it.
And I had a chance to meet himlast summer and I told him man,
I love almost everything aboutwhat you did with Bruce Lee.
He said let me guess the onething you didn't like was the
haircut.
Mike, exactly, it's like hesaid I argue with Tarantino
(32:18):
because this part was supposedto be set in the 60s and you
know Bruce Lee had much shorterhair and he insisted on the end
of the dragon hair because hesaid nobody would know who Bruce
Lee was without the hair.
So you know right.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
What do you think of the movie overall?
Once upon a time in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
It's probably my favorite, tarantino.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
I was going to say I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I've got a lot of issueswith him, but I thought that was
a hell of a film.
I've always been a Brad Pittguy, so I thought he knocked it
out of the park.
I thought he, into Caprio, hadgreat chemistry, yeah.
You know that was a really goodmovie.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of those two as well.
I mean, I feel like I grew upwith those guys, you know, being
the stars, and so I mean Istill remember when I watched
what's Eating Gilbert Grape andI'm like who is this kid?
Yeah, I mean, this kid actor isso good, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
He's almost 50.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Yeah, but Caprio is, you know, so young, you could
just tell this kid's got it Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
But you know one other thing I wanted to mention
about the End of the Dragon,before I forget without Bruce
Lee it would not have been thesame film.
You know His charisma was on alevel of James Dean, marilyn
Monroe, steve McQueen.
I mean he was one of the greatmovie stars.
You know he just didn't get achance to shine beyond the few
(33:44):
films that he did.
But you could put anybody elsein that movie and you might have
an okay movie.
But so much of that movie wasjust the presence and charisma
of Bruce Lee.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
We were talking about Shaft, talking about Bruce in
End to the Dragon, and I guessit was as I was thinking about
some of the stuff he had workedon in movies.
We had talked about that.
I started to see how they wereboth really breakthroughs for
their ethnic groups and I knowyou're also you know, similar to
me Big James Bond fan.
(34:16):
They took that and did theirown twist on it and I don't know
if that was conscious, but weknow MGM was releasing James
Bond, right, and they releasedShaft.
And then Warner Brothers isprobably looking like you know
what's our Asian Shaft orsomething.
I mean, there's things likethat do happen in conversations.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
How can we touch an ethnic group and how do we kind
of hit that formula and the factthat they both did, within a
couple of years of each other,two different ethnic groups, but
ones that, as you just said,they crossed in terms of their
interest level?
Yeah, the Asian and the blackmarket, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Well, you know the first, the Shaft poster.
The caption said hotter thanBond, cooler than Bulldog Right.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
So they were making the direct connection.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Right, two terrific franchises and movies, obviously
.
So, yeah, that's a greatmarketing, and I was, I don't
know, in one of thedocumentaries I was watching.
You know they used a blackmarketing group to come up with
that marketing and they knew howto do it.
Right, yeah, because you'relike what?
But that was perfect, perfectmarketing.
So, hey, let's talk, since weboth come from the home
(35:26):
entertainment industry, a little, put it on a little critical
hat on this release that WarnerBrothers did of the 4K, and then
also I think you mentioned onethat came out from Arrow, and I
also have the one from Criterionfrom 2020, which still holds up
very, very well because it'sjust so packed with the
(35:47):
different films.
But let me give the positivehere.
First, I watched the WarnerBrothers 4K and because they
went back to the original 35millimeter camera negative, I
mean the color reproduction.
It is stunning to look at.
It looks terrific.
I've never seen it look betterthan that.
Just for that alone, if fansare building out a 4K library, I
(36:13):
say you probably got to buy itjust for that, if you enjoy
watching the film.
And it has the originaltheatrical version as well as
the special edition.
But the only extra on.
There is the commentary, so Iknow you kind of gave it a
little thrashing because of that.
Talk a little bit about, Idon't know, maybe your
disappointment that there's notmore there.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, for me it was heartbreaking.
I mean it wasn't justdisappointing, it was
heartbreaking because this is myfavorite movie of all time.
To be clear, I'm not sayingit's the best movie I've ever
seen, but it's my favorite movieof all time and I was really
excited about potentially beingable to do something that could
(36:55):
acknowledge the 50th anniversary.
I pitched some concepts to homeentertainment and, for whatever
reason, they decided not to doit, which is, you know, they're
right.
But to not do anything isreally disappointing and it's
really kind of a slap in theface to the fans who have
(37:16):
blocked this movie over and overand over and every iteration
that it's been released in.
And to your point, if you'rebuilding a 4K library and you
like this movie, the 4K versiondefinitely should be in your
collection.
But to spend whatever thecharge is for the big box set
(37:36):
that they just released when allof that material has been
previously released, just to meisn't the best use of my money.
But it's really disappointingbecause, you know, enter the
Dragon made, I think it cost ahalf million dollars to make.
When it was theatricallyreleased it made between 21 and
(37:58):
$25 million.
That's in 73, right, if youconvert those dollars, that's
like between $144 to $171million today.
And then I was reading thatit's been released several times
since then.
When you include there-releases, the profits from
global distribution, theall-time worldwide growths for
(38:20):
any of the Dragon WarnerBrothers is conservatively $2
billion.
So for a movie that's made thecompany that much money to not
be regarded the same type ofconcern and care that they would
give to the Wizard of Oz, theywould give to Casablanca, it's
(38:41):
just really disappointing andthere's no real excuse for it.
And you know there are only afew people left from the film
that are still alive and healthy.
And so to not have anythingfrom Angela Mayo, who played
Bruce Lee's sister, or JackieChan, whose neck was broken by
Bruce Lee and Enter the Dragon,or Sam O'Hung, who was the first
(39:02):
person Bruce Lee fought at theopening of Enter the Dragon you
know these people are alive andwell.
You know it would have beengreat to have anything from them
.
And when you couple that withthe release that Errol just did
a couple weeks before this 4Kevent of the Dragon, it's really
shameful because the Errolrelease is unbelievable.
(39:23):
They did 4K releases of BruceLee's Golden Harvest films Fist
of Fury, the Big Boss Way of theDragon, several versions of
Game of Death.
All of them are packed withspecial features.
There's a 200-page hardcoverbook, there's posters, there's
stills, there's a beautifuldesign box.
I mean, the small company outof London paid more tribute to
(39:48):
Bruce Lee on the 50thanniversary of his death than
the studio that made the mostfamous martial arts movie of all
time could be bothered to do.
I mean, it's just it's.
And generally when I post stuff,I generally try to be really
positive, right, I try to beconstructive and if there's
(40:08):
something that I don't like, Ireally try to personalize it,
because just because I didn'tlike something doesn't mean that
you won't like it.
But with this it was just hard.
It was hard to find thatconstructive, that constructive
way to critique this 4K and thebest thing I could say I think
you already said is it looksbetter than it ever has.
(40:31):
And maybe when we get to the75th anniversary, if anybody's
around, somebody will dosomething better than the 50th.
Because to try to do somethingon the 60th, what does it really
matter?
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Right.
Well, you'd say missedopportunity.
I guess that's all you canreally say.
Having said that it's a missedopportunity, I did look at the
charts.
I debuted number three in thenation for sales for 4K, behind
Fastex and another like recentrelease, and I was like, okay,
(41:11):
that's not bad numbers.
Guardians of the Galaxy of Arm3, that's the was number two.
That's not bad.
But I actually think that itcould probably have been close
to vying for the top spot in 4Kif they had added another bonus
disc or at least had one newpiece commemorating the 50th,
something about that.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
So, yeah, and one of the things that they just
weren't connecting the dots towas, even if you only do one new
piece, that one new piece givesyou your publicity department a
hook.
So when they go out to try toget people to pay attention to
the umpteenth release of End ofthe Dragon, you've got this new
piece of content.
(41:52):
That's a new angle and maybeentertainment weekly.
Who wasn't interested beforewould say, oh okay, well, this
is, this is interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Cool, let's do this, but it didn't happen.
So here we are.
Yeah, I mean, it's the studios.
It's an interesting time andthis kind of leads us a little
bit into the discussion of, youknow, maybe, the state of
physical media and even thefuture of which I did want to
ask you about, because you'veseen the gamut.
Is it a sign of just where thepriorities are of the studio
(42:23):
that a movie this important inthe hundredth year of the studio
and it's a 50 year anniversary,so half of the studio's history
you know we're talking about iscovered in the anniversary for
this film that they just didn'tput the money behind?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
I think it's a sign that the people running the
studios now aren't movie people,they're business people and
movies are product and theyaren't much more than product
and so they're treated likeproduct, just like if they were
running the company that madeIvory soap.
So I think the difference isback during the heyday of DVD
(43:03):
you had guys who ran studiosthat loved movies, that knew
movies, that knew the history ofmovies.
You had owners that werepassionate about the legacy of
the studios you know and wantedto continue to build on those
things.
And everybody's interested inprofit and loss.
You know you don't want to makemovies to lose money, but I
(43:25):
think there was more risk oncreative ventures.
You know things that just spoketo someone, whereas now it's
like if it doesn't speak, itseems like if it doesn't speak
clearly to that bottom line theyjust aren't really interested.
And I think to me the way itlooked for Enter the Dragon.
It felt like, okay, well, wedon't need to do this, so we
(43:45):
aren't going to do it, and sothey didn't do it.
And not that it matters toWarner Brothers, but you know,
on a number of forums on socialmedia they're getting beat down
on the way that they treatedthis Enter the Dragon release,
and it didn't have to be thatway.
You know, and I think as longas we live in a world where the
(44:07):
people running the companiesdon't really care about the
movies beyond what they canbring to the coffers, you know
it's going to continue to kindof disintegrate, you know, I
mean, and I think that ties intopart of what the actors are
fighting for right now with SAG.
You know, with the SAG afterstrike, they're really concerned
(44:27):
about AI, and they should be,because AI to me seems to
represent to the new breed ofstudio owners a cheaper way to
get movies made without havingto engage actors beyond what
they absolutely have to do.
So I think we're hopefullywe're in a transitory period
(44:52):
that will not wind up being asdire as it seems to feel right
now.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, let's hope so.
Well, let's go a little morepositive here.
Go back to the last big projectyou worked on, which I think is
a great example of when thestudios put their money and
their muscle behind the release,and that's the Batman, which
you mentioned earlier.
Batman is the one superherocharacter that I think next to
(45:21):
Superman.
Those two stand out in terms ofthe money they just make for
the studio and the interest withthe fans.
But talk a little bit aboutthat and your experiences on
that, because I know that was agreat experience for you.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, the Batman was really special to me.
I mean there was a point whereour boss asked us to list three
titles that we'd be okay withgiving up and three titles that
we want to keep because we hadjust merged the departments.
And I told her look, I justwanted Batman and Black Adam and
(45:54):
I don't really care about therest.
You can do whatever you wantwith the rest.
Black Adam wanted to be indisappointment, but I had been
following Matt Reeves and justthe way he was talking about
Batman was really compelling tome.
So when I met with his producer, dylan, he said look, we're
taking a totally differentapproach on Batman and it's
(46:16):
really important that the behindthe scenes material reflects
the style that we're taking.
So we don't want to do standardcookie cutter HBO first look
types of thing.
Not that there's anything wrongwith that, but that's not what
our movie is.
And that was great for mebecause it allowed me to go
outside of the principle two orthree vendors that the studio
(46:40):
would lean towards for a bigfranchise or superhero films.
So I went to a vendor namedSunny Boy that had done all the
Conjuring Horror movies for usand they did a great job and
they're big comic book fans whoare really passionate and young,
hungry guys, and I worked withthem.
We put together this pitch andpresented it to Matt Reeves and
(47:04):
Dylan and they loved it.
They really liked the approachthat we took and that was really
so empowering and so excitingbecause it was off the beaten
path.
It was definitely a differenttype of approach and so they
gave us complete access.
I went over to London while wewere shooting.
I got to walk around the backcave, which was unbelievable and
(47:28):
I went to the garage where theyhad all the Batmobiles that
they were still building and itwas just a great experience.
And then, I think the weekafter I got back, covid hit and
everything was shut down for awhile.
But we did a lot of differentpieces.
We actually won two Clio awards, one for this piece we did the
(47:49):
transformation, the Pink Wins byColin Farrell and the
comprehensive documentary we didcalled Vengeance in the Making,
and it just turned out.
It's one of those projects thatturned out for me exactly the
way I had envisioned it, andSunny Boy did an amazing job and
their stock has risen.
So they think they did theAquaman sequel and they're
(48:13):
working on some other large,large, large films, and that was
a result of them being given ashot to handle something as big
as the Batman and reallyknocking it out of the park.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Well, I'm a big fan of the film and I have the 4K of
the film and all the extras.
Vengeance in the Making.
I mean, what can you say?
That is top notch, studio levelextra right there.
And when I say that I mean fromthe filming, the shots, the
(48:49):
lighting, everything you knowfor Onset.
It used to be way back in theday you took anything from
behind the scenes.
It could be grainy, it could be, you know, the interview could
be with the loud generators inthe background.
I mean you're just going totake it because that's all you
got Watching that piece.
It's lit so beautifully.
The Onset guys did a terrificjob Of the interviews you guys
(49:12):
have in the stage.
You got some of the cards inthe background for some of the
cast.
I mean it's just top notch.
So it looks great, sounds great.
The coverage is amazing.
Matt Reeves' storyline of justeverything from his development,
how he saw the detective story.
I'm from Seattle.
(49:32):
So when he mentioned kind ofthe influence of Kurt Cobain and
Nirvana, I'm like you know, I'mall about that because I grew
up during that era in Seattlethere.
So I mean literally Cobain grewup 30 miles from where I grew
up.
So but to hear that influenceand everything and then to put
it together with what I saw inthe movie.
That's what I love about extrasIf you watch a movie you're
(49:56):
like I don't know why I loved it, but that was awesome.
Then you watch these extras andyou're like that's why I loved
it.
He's pulling from referencesfrom popular culture, from life,
from music, from sports, fromwhatever it might be right, from
film history, and then youstart to connect the dots.
And then, of course, there'sthose pieces that show you the
literal technology advances,like they're talking about how
(50:18):
they lit that, the romancescenes.
I guess you would call it whatthat lighting was.
I mean, I thought they were onan actual rooftop looking over
city.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
That's amazing technology that they used, so
that was great.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
I've always felt that the quality of the special
features will give you a goodidea of the level of involvement
and interest that the directorhad, because the more engaged
the director is, the better yourcontent's going to be.
And Matt Reeves he opened everydoor for us.
(50:53):
We filmed his EPK interview.
It was supposed to be 40minutes, it was three hours, wow
.
And then when he finished that,he said so, should we do you
want to record an audiocommentary?
It's like do you have more tosay?
He's like oh yeah, oh yeah.
And he gave us an incrediblecommentary.
So it's like the filmmakers theyget it that see the extras
(51:16):
provide an opportunity tohistorically document the
creation of their film.
You have a shot at gettingsomething really special.
Other guys you know, for somedirectors it's just a job.
They're just trying to do it.
It's not necessarily a passionproject.
They needed the work, so theydo it.
And you get a perfunctoryinterview and you get
(51:39):
perfunctory content and it'sokay, but it's nothing special.
But you know, I think about MattReeves, I think about Barry
Sonnenfeld.
We worked on Men in Black.
I mean, barry Sonnenfeld was soexcited that there was an
opportunity to be able toarchive the making of that film.
He just gave us everything, andover and over and over,
(52:02):
particularly younger filmmakers,you know, they seem to really
value it.
So now, as the studios arestarting to de-emphasize and I'm
not trying to be negative, I'msorry to go back, but as a
studio seem to be de-emphasizingspecial features, I think it
can have an unnecessarilyadverse effect on their
relationship with theirfilmmakers.
(52:23):
Because if filmmakers you knowthey're proud of their work and
they want to be able for peopleto see how they made the magic
and they want to be able to showtheir kids later on, when you
were four years old, this iswhat I was doing.
This is why I couldn't spend asmuch time with you as I wanted
to, you know.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Yeah, and I just recall the joy that filmmakers
had when they got their box ofBlu-rays and they're like when
are they?
Okay, every from their officeinvariably calls hey, when are
we getting our supply ofBlu-rays of the film?
Because, you know, some go tothe crew department heads and
(53:01):
some go to the filmmaker.
I mean, that's Christmas gifts,man, that's like it's going out
to all their friends and familyand what are they going to do
now in the future?
They're going to be like here'sa link to the streaming Right
yeah, right, yeah, christmas.
I mean having the physical media.
There was some just likeamazingly great thing.
I mean you're, we'll talk abouta few of your books too, but
(53:23):
holding a book, holding aBlu-ray or 4K or DVD, just that
physical thing, giving it tosomebody, signing it, I mean
there's something very coolunwrapping it, putting it in,
playing that thing and seeingthe quality.
I mean the quality is prettygood in streaming, don't get me
wrong.
But what you're not getting isyou're just getting the movie
(53:44):
and you have extras.
There's a lot of times there'llbe a little bonus or extras.
Very few times do those pieceshold up as anything more than
just like a promo.
Yeah, you're like, I alreadywatched the movie.
You don't have to sell me, I'mgoing to watch the movie.
Right, you know what I watchedand that just tell me why I want
to go see it.
So, yeah, I mean, we'll seeit's.
(54:06):
You know that if Matt spentthat much time when he got his,
he got his product Right.
A minor rub, yeah, original.
He's like you know, big smile.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Yeah, yeah.
But you know, thank goodnessfor these smaller companies like
M-Pact and Indicator andCriterion and 88 Films.
You know that there are thesesmaller companies that still see
value in physical media.
They still see value in specialfeatures.
They license, you know, reallycool movies and they find great
(54:39):
things to create impressivesupplements for.
So it still exists.
You know it's just unfortunatethat right now that the studios
aren't as committed to that kindof work as these indies are.
But you know, with the passionthat these indies are showing
for projects like this, it'sstill a good time to be a
(55:00):
physical collector.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah, that box looks terrific.
Now, it doesn't include Enterthe Dragon, though, because they
didn't license it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Well, it includes the Blu-ray.
Speaker 1 (55:09):
The Blu-ray?
Oh, okay, which is whatCriterion released as well,
right, okay, yeah, yeah, I meanthat does appear to be some of
what fans are going to have todo, for the hardcore collectors
is to see which of theseboutique companies is coming out
with maybe something differentor unique or, you know, maybe
(55:30):
it's an extra, maybe it's in thepackaging or some poster or
cards or other things that arein there.
But one exception, of courseand we highlighted here on this
podcast is the Warner Archives,yeah, which is tasked with
releasing that catalog fromWarner Brothers and MGM and RKO
on Blu-ray.
So that's why we talk so muchhere on this podcast about the
(55:52):
Warner Archive, because that'scoming from within a studio and
that's unique.
There's really no other studiothat's doing that.
They're basically licensing outtheir product to these others.
So that's a unique and greatthing about the Warner Archives.
So, hey, before we wrap up here, it's been a great conversation
.
You and I overlap a lot of ourinterests, but I did want to
(56:15):
talk about these very cool booksyou've been putting out.
I know you had the Miles Davisone you started with.
Tell us a little bit about thebooks and how you got into that.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Well, I got into Miles Davis when I was working
for Quincy Jones and when Istarted really digging into his
history, you know, particularlyin the 50s and 60s, miles Davis
was fly.
I mean, he was so stylish andhe's generally regarded as one
of the best-dressed men of the20th century, and I'd read a lot
(56:46):
of books on him, and thesebooks would always talk about
his fashion sense.
But that's all it would reallybe was a mention, and there were
some amazing photos of himcaptured by great photographers
like William Claxton and JimMarshall during that period, and
I just thought it'd be aninteresting project to do a book
on his style, and so the ideawas originally for it to be a
(57:08):
coffee table book, but the costto license the photos was really
prohibitive, so I just kind ofput it aside for a while.
But I had done so many greatinterviews with Quincy Jones,
with two of Miles's three wives,with his bandmates, with Brian
Ferry, with Lenny Kravitz, withall these people that had been
influenced by him, and theytalked about him from a
(57:30):
perspective that people hadn'texperienced before.
I just thought that I'm like,well, these interviews are cool,
so I should still get this bookout there somehow.
So I just did some research onself-publishing and
self-published it and it was fun, it was a good experience.
I guess I got some really niceresponse and some criticism
because it wasn't a coffee tablebook but you know I couldn't
(57:53):
help that.
And then I wrote well, black tothe Movies was kind of a
compilation of reviews that I'vewritten over the years and some
different essays that I'vewritten on some different blogs
that I had.
So it was just kind of acompilation of my career
(58:14):
post-radio and that was fun.
And then I wrote several bookson Steve Holland who was a model
for paperbacks and magazinesand comic books in the 60s
through the 80s.
He was such an overwhelmingpresence during that time.
I mean he was on the cover ofliterally thousands of
(58:34):
paperbacks and thousands ofmagazines and thousands of comic
book covers and the guy justworked all the time and he just
had a really interesting story.
So I've done a few books on himand that was fun.
And that led me to this latestproject I'm working on,
producing a graphic novel.
It's called Fargo HillongWheels.
(58:55):
It's from a series ofpaperbacks from the 70s of a
character called Neil Fargo.
That was based on a Lee Marvincharacter from a great Western
called Professionals, and I gotthe rights to the Paperback
series and Howard Chacon, who'sa good friend of mine, he's
going to do the adaptation, he'sgoing to write and draw the
(59:18):
graphic novel and we're going tolaunch a crowdfunding campaign
in October and we have apre-launch page up now If
anybody would like to get moreinformation.
It's zoopggc.
That's kind of crazy, butthat's what it is.
(59:42):
But that will give youinformation on the property, a
link to a video that we launchedat San Diego Comic Con, and
we'll see what happens.
It's a new adventure, so I'mexcited to see how it plays out.
Speaker 1 (59:58):
To make it easy for the listeners and everybody,
I'll put the link in the podcastshow notes as well, and people
can follow you on Facebook.
They can follow your page andyour updates, so we'll make it
easy for everybody to do that.
I know I've signed up for sothat I think this project sounds
pretty cool and I'm a big fanof graphic novels myself, so
(01:00:21):
it's something you know rightdown my alley.
So I'm looking forward to thatand I'm a big fan of you because
of all the creative stuff youhave done in your past and done
and when we were workingtogether, I always enjoyed
hearing what you were working onand just some of the cool stuff
.
It was always great.
So it's fun, man, haven't youcome on?
(01:00:43):
We may have rambled a little bit, because a lot of my episodes
are more geared to one or twotitles, but I feel like it all
fits together, from Shaz to Intothe Dragon, to the Batman.
I mean your love of martialarts, of action.
We didn't even mention the MMA,which was kind of interesting,
because that's a big part, Ithink, of the Batman.
I mean the fighting style, yeah, absolutely, but then even MMA,
(01:01:08):
I think, has been influenced bymartial arts.
What do you think I mean?
Hugely right.
Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Yeah, I mean, you know, most martial artists call
Bruce Lee the grandfather of MMA.
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
So I mean that's a whole other thing.
Which MMA is, you know, sohugely popular now, and I know
you're in that world as well, soit all fits together along with
the pulp.
I got one of your Steve Hollandbooks and I'm looking at it and
I'm reading about it and I'dseen your other books and stuff
and I'm like this guy kind ofdominated Paperback.
Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
And I mean so many of the Paperbacks I remember
reading and growing up and it'slike, probably with Steve
Holland I didn't even thinkabout it because he kept so many
genres, he didn't just doWesterns or action.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
And he did romance books, he did espionage.
I mean he was James Bond, hewas Sherlock Holmes, he was
Superman, he was Doc Savage, Imean you name it, he was pretty
much it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Yeah, yeah.
So from the Elmore Leonard,some of his Westerns and
everything so very cool stuff.
So well, hey, it's been a lotof fun.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Hey, I've really enjoyed it, Tim.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Well, I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as
much as I did.
Michael Stradford is a topnotch creative producer and part
of a great group that we hadthere at Warner Home
Entertainment for quite a fewyears.
If you're interested infollowing him or his new project
, fargo Hell on Wheels, thereare links in the podcast show
notes as well as links to someof the films and books we talked
about today.
If you're on social media, besure and follow the show on
(01:02:46):
Facebook, twitter or Instagramto continue the conversation and
to be a part of our community.
Until next time.
You've been listening to TimAlard.
Stay slightly obsessed.
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