Bonus Episode - The Rock - 1996

Mark and Niall talk about the 1996 action classic The Rock. Directed by Michael Bay, and starring Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery, Ed Harris, and Tony Todd, the movie focuses on what happens when an elite group of mercenaries come up against Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery. In this episode, they discuss car chases, classic lines, and Cage's epic action run in the 1990s. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Down, Bunny down in the box. Hello and welcome to Connor Air the

(00:25):
podcast. I'm your host Jake Lewison this show myself my regular co host,
Mark Off my flyaway through Conna Air, scene by scene with some wonderful
guests. But this is a specialBlown US episode which is the rerelease of
an episode marketed on his podcast Movies, Films and Flex. It's an episode
on The Rock. This was releasedin May of twenty twenty one, where

(00:45):
Mark and his guest and now I'lltalk about the nineteen ninety six Michael Bay
action classic The Rock. Sorry,of course, Nicholas Cages from Nicolas Cage
goes to a prison similar to Connorwith with Sean Connery. Ed Harrison said,
hold, look as of people peoplein this film. Wonderful film,
and I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Hello and welcome to Movies, Films

(01:34):
and Flix. I am Mark Hoffmeyerand joining me as a man that's about
to go on a really messed uptour. Nile Moore, how you doing?
I'm pretty good, Mark. Ilove that line. Obviously didn't say
it for PG thirteen reasons, butI love that scene, Like, what
kind of messed up tour is this? I love that line so much,

(01:56):
you know, in the commentary,Michael Bay said that he just would put
that the camera and the actors,the random act like the extras that were
there or paid actors that were featured, and you would just have them say
weird lines, and then that's same. Out of that, just have them
say random crap. Yeah, andthat's that's. I don't know, it
just seems like a very Michael Baything to say in a Michael Bay movie
back in ninety six, because thosehis movies now are littered with comments like

(02:19):
that. Well yeah, now,well, I don't know. I haven't
watched much of his stuff recently,but you know, I'd say The Rock
is probably his best movie, tobe honest, dark Oh yeah. I
mean, what would it go upagainst? Thirteen hours pain and gain?
The first Transformers was Armageddon? Him? Oh yeah, Armageddon? Bad Boys,
Bad Boys too, The Transformers movies, The Island, Like, there

(02:42):
are a few in there that aregood, but I don't think any of
them are classics, like The Rockis, like this movie is so ridiculously
quotable. I was reached out withsome of my buddies the other day and
I was like watching the Rock becauseI'm going to be doing podcast on it,
and it just denigrated into like thislike stream of quotes from the movie.
Yeah, there's just like a greatpleasure in gutting you boy, and

(03:07):
it's yeah, I know, likeyou know a petche sorbet persuasion, which
is the weirdest line ever. Butyou know, I gotta tell you,
I agree with you. I thinkthis is Michael Bay's best movie. I
own the VHS, I owned theDVD, and then I had the I
lost it. Now I have theBlu ray. But this movie, it's
it's kind of at that time wherethere's still a lot in camera. This

(03:29):
isn't super like. It's just anold school machine gun capable people killing capable
people film, and it just hitsso well because you have really good villains,
right, you have you have whata hummel Ed Harris who's the antagonist,
but then he sort of gets pushedaside for Fry and what Barrow,

(03:49):
and then because they're the people thatbecome the main villains. It's a really
interesting layered like you never know thatMichael Bean's just gonna get wiped out in
the first hour of this movie,you see him as like, you know,
the Navy Seals leader. Like youexpect he's gonna be like the guy
teaming up with Sean Connery and NicholasCage to like save the day, right
because he's a big name. Yeah, big names, and then they just

(04:13):
get wiped out and then you getNick Cage, who you know, he
had done Kiss of Death and hehad a chase scene and Raising Arizona.
But this was his introduction into theaction world and it's just before conn Yeah,
yeah, this is what kicked itoff. He did this and then
he did Conner and face Off becausehe was sort of he shooted them,
He shot them, shooted them,He shot them back to back, Kanar

(04:34):
and face off when he did that. But I mean he was hot off
raising leaving Las Vegas, and youknow he had done like guarding tests movies
like that, and then here heis where But I think this is a
good introduction to Supercage because in thismovie, you know, he's the he's
the chemical expert, he works forthe FBI. He's a rock star.

(04:55):
You know, he knows how todiffuse moms, he knows how to drive
Ferraris motorcycles, what, Yeah,exactly. So he's it's an interesting hero,
right, And we talked about thison Twitter Nile where he's the nerd
in this movie, but he alsodrives for our like he's also like a
superstud. It's an interesting dynamic thathis character has, Like you know,

(05:16):
the nineties action trope, It's likethe hero with zero training whatsoever, can
in fact do everything. It's like, you know, the Matrix actually shows
them having to upload how to flya helicopter into their brains, and other
movies they can do it. Ofcourse. It's like that's a helicopter.
Yeah, of course I can flythat. No, brother, I love
that shorthand in movies nowadays. Iwas watching San Andreas with Dwayne Johnson,

(05:40):
and then the beginning he flies ahelicopter into this cavern, rescues somebody,
and then later on he steals thathelicopter which probably could have saved many people
during this earthquake, and he saveshis life, but then it crashes and
then he ends up in a plane, but then he ends up in a
boat, and then he finds anothervehicle and he just flies everything known to

(06:01):
man in that movie, they justknow how and it just reminded me a
lot of Nick Cage in this movie, just grabbing dirt. Ferraris of course,
you know, had to do it. Yeah, of course he has
experienced driving you know, high poweredrear wheel drive sports car over the hills
of San Francisco. Yeah, likethat's not easy terrain. It's not you

(06:24):
know, that car is not designedfor those hills. You know, in
reality, he would have knocked thefront bumper off the first hill he went
down. He basically would have hitthe boat and the smash, the front
is gone. Yeah, it's sucha but it's beautiful though, right.
And Michael Bay in the commentary,he didn't quite love. He hated shooting

(06:44):
in San Francisco. He's like,the amount of permits that you have to
pull. I've done events in SanFrancisco. It's a miserable pulling all the
permits out there. But they hada two block radius, he said,
an entire army of people. Andthat's so they shot on Alcatraz. They
brought a crane out there, generators, miles of cable. They loaded that
entire National Park monument with with gearand they didn't get behind schedule. It

(07:09):
was when they shot in San Francisco. The car chase that he got behind
schedule. It's kind of funny.I don't know if you read this,
you might have read this, buthe got behind and he had to go
to a meeting with the producers toget yelled at, and Sean Connery was
was like, hey, I'll comewith you, and because he's like,
screw that, You're doing the bestyou can. So he walked into a
meeting with Sean Connery and I justconry Michael. He's doing fine. Yeah

(07:31):
he said that. Yeah, he'slike give them more money, like he
just so he stuck up for MichaelBay in that. But I love that
you have the gunfights, you havethe rockets, you have these wonderful sets
built with with these little tracks thatare on there and like seventy forty foot
drops in the water. I mean, there were some beautiful sets in that,
but that didn't set the production back. It was shooting on the streets

(07:54):
of San Francisco, which makes mekind of happy. But this movie,
it's I'm really happy that you recommendedthis, and I'm hack hacky, and
I'm happy that I bought the Bluray because this gave me a wonderful insight
into Michael Bay's brain. And whatI realized was that Michael Bay just has
a great idea of what of whoto sell a movie too, Like,

(08:16):
when you make a movie, youbetter know who to sell it to,
you better know your audience, youbetter add things for them. And so
in the commentary, I mean,this is back in the nineties when they
recorded it for the Criterion LaserDisc,which is amazing. Back in the nineties,
he just talked about being a commercialfilmmaker, and what he said was,
you know, you make these movies. You make a sixty million dollar

(08:39):
movie and it's not a hit,They're not going to give you sixty million
dollars again. So they gave himseventy five million dollars for The Rock and
He's like, I made sure thatI made a movie for an audience,
a worldwide audience. I wanted tomake this car chases, explosions, good
people like directing. He he justseems to get what audiences want. And
that great, great evidence. Andso that is the Transformers franchise. I

(09:01):
mean, yeah, that's you've got, you know, the toys, you've
got make box in, skimpy acfits. Yep, it's there. You go
teenage boys sources, and that's whathe said. He said, I make
movies for teenagers. That's what hesaid. And the results right. And
he also understands foreign box office becauseif you look at the amount of money

(09:22):
that Transformers Age of Extinction took inin China maid money. Yeah, I
mean it pulled in. You werein Korea at the time when it came
out. Do you remember, likethe Korean audiences go to that movie a
lot, not so much, kindof lost its audience in Korea a little
bit, but yeah, like big, and he gets it. I mean
there's over a billion people in thatcountry. So if you can connect with

(09:45):
those audiences, you're gonna keep makingmovies. You're gonna make three hundred million,
four hundred million, five hundred millionfrom them. So it's while people
were making fun of Michael Bay forhis Transformer movies, they're clearing a billion
dollars were old wide, so it'sit's obviously working, right. Yeah,
I mean he gets it. Youknow. He Michael Bay got to start

(10:07):
in music videos, so he directedyou know, Aerosmith, Big Bombastic films,
and he got to starting Bad Boys. He got Will Smith and he'd
made Will Smith and Martin Lawrence Actionstars too. I mean Will Smith's career
change. That was before Independence Day, wasn't it. That was ninety five
and then he did that. SoWill Smith said, there's there's a really
funny thing about working with Michael Bay. It's Ed Harris had some interesting stuff

(10:30):
to say about Michael Bay on thecommentary too. Jeezus. Will Smith said,
yeah, he's like, he's theone who made me into an action
hero. So like he made badBoys hyper stylized. And then, I
mean, this is his second feature, seventy five million dollars. You have,
you have Nick Cage, Oscar winner, Sean Connery, Ed Harris huge
cast, and it sounded like henever got overwhelmed by it. So it's

(10:54):
sounds like, you know, ashe said, he knew who he was
selling to and what Marx he knewto hit to sell it. Yeah,
and yeah, he fought hard fora scene. So the scene where the
Navy seals are taking the submarines intothe rock, those are all puppets.
Did you know that that's animatronic puppets? Real? Yeah, those are miniatures.
That's yeah, there's the thing onthe Blu Ray about doing that so

(11:16):
he fought for so much authenticity inthis and it's pretty interesting. Ed Harris
was talking about working with him,and Ed Harris Alto also worked with James
Cameron, who was incredibly difficult onset, but he's always on set,
James Cameron, he's in the muckwith you, which I love. But
Ed Harris was talking to Michael Bay'slike, you don't have to be like
James Cameron. He's like James Cameron'sin his word, He's like Cameron's kind

(11:39):
of an asshole. It's like,you don't have to be like him,
you don't have to be a toughguy. And Ed Harris said that Michael
Bay is actually really nice and sensitive, but on set he likes to yell
and be the general. And ifyou watch Bad Boys Too, behind the
scenes clips he's yelling. So he'sjust a big general on these sets.
But he gets huge names. Hehad Frances McDorman and it Transformers movie be

(12:00):
so actors must love working with himbecause of his style, like what people
come back too? You know,yeah, I guess a lot of it
is, you know, the wayhe does stylized action is you know,
you can instantly watch a movie andbe like, oh, is this a
Michael Bay movie? Like just theway the action is like framed and it's
like bombastic and there are explosions everywhere. That's stylized kind of action. It's

(12:24):
something. It's somewhat of a lostart really with the explosion to you know,
digital effects everywhere, Like he stilluses a lot of practical effects where
possible as far as I've seen,well, I haven't seen the most recent
Transformers, which are obviously quite um. That last one boggles my mind.
I watched it and it just exhaustedme. I just felt what just happened

(12:48):
there? The last watched with themLeonard Nimoy, and then I was like,
all right, yeah. But inbetween that, right, he made
thirteen hours Painting Gains a good movie. Painting Gains nasty. That's a that's
a nihilistic little movie right there.You got Dwayne Johnson grilling Hands does a
Bomber's Fest, so he's seen it. You know what I like about Michael

(13:09):
Bay, and this is what NicholasCage said about him, is that base
sort of has a weird edge tohim. His humor and his movies are
very specific. Yeah, and they'rekind of weird. But he has a
weird sense of humor, doesn't he. Yeah, definitely, Like there are
a lot of you know, littlethrowaway like some visual gags, some kind
of you know, not so visuallike to just throwaway lines like, you

(13:33):
know, did we really need tosee the hula dancer at the starts getting
set on fire? That was kindof Yeah, Yeah, he's just a
I love it. I love thathe just had this. I don't know
even in this movie there are somereally cheeky lines in it, but oh
yeah, this like when the guy'sgoing down with his street car, he's

(13:54):
like, you know, like saveyourself. Yeah, it's like I'm gonna
kill that guy. And but youknow what's interesting too, is the more
I read about the Rock, there'sabout six different writers. There's a lot
of producers who had skin in thegame. Nick Cage rewrote all of his
roles. Sean Connery had a guycome in and write rewrite his roles.
They had Aaron Sorkin working on thescript. They say, Quentin Tarantino did

(14:16):
some work on the script. Yeah, you just have you well, yeah,
it's carry like they brought in everybodyfor rewrites. We talked about Last
Action hero about rewrites and now we'retalking about the rock with rewrites. But
it in the end, it's stillit still feels like a it's a movie.
It's a film. It's a classicaction film. There's some really great

(14:39):
beats. You know. The thingis like, if you look at it,
you've got almost two separate stories.Like if you you could take out
this entire half of the movie,which is the Ed Harris story, and
it's like this tragic full where he'sbasically you know, he goes to his
wife's grave, he's like stealing therockets. He's like going up against the
government and he's trying to like youknow, do right by all the men

(15:01):
who died under his control, untillike the mercenaries eventually mutiny and you know,
he ends up dying. Like that'slike his tragic story. You've got
the other side, which is theyou know, the FBI who are trying
to stop at Harris from you know, being a terrorist. They take a
guy who's been in prison for twentyyears, get him out, but get

(15:22):
him a haircut. The world's aboutto blow up, and they take him
to a wonderful hotel and that's stringsWolmax's arm that string that has attached to
his arm is incredibly strong. Nile. Whoever makes that string or rope shower
a rope I want to hire.Yeah, Womac Hey, I'd say he's
easily pushing to twenty to forty.Yeah, with the pressure of falling.

(15:46):
And also another thing I love aboutthis movie. I promise you all this
isn't going to be a giant lovefest, but it is too because I
love this movie. But I like, in the first twenty minutes you have
some interesting things established. So inthe beginning, you know that that General
Hummel is doing an exercise and theygo in and steal the gas. They
let one of the orbs go andwe see what it does to somebody,

(16:08):
and you know it's tragic. Thisis a guy that had probably had served
with Hummel since the Gulf War orVietnam or somewhere in there. So you
know what the gas does, youknow how serious it is. But then
you also get another scene with thesarin gas with Nick Cage where you get
to see the gas working, Youget to see him diffusing bombs. You

(16:29):
can to see the beatle which atropine. Yeah, like the eatle. Yeah,
and the guy's like, I'm notgoing to stab this in my chest.
So you have the chess pieces startmoving pretty early. So later on
when he has to as Nick Cagecalls it, what kabuki himself, that
he tried to do it like kabukiwhen he has to do that. And

(16:51):
then when you have the gas,you're a teaspoon of this could drop one
hundred yards, kill everybode hundred feet, kill everybody, you know what it
does to them. So the stakesare quite real and that you just know
what the gas can do. Youknow what Nick Cage can do. And
when he stabs him heart and himselfin the heart earlier, you know why.

(17:11):
So it's a miracle that all theseneat little bits survived throughout the writing
process because there's some cool callbacks.I mean you could it's a good script
that was Frankenstein by many different writers. Well, I even the like rocket
Man gag that's like a throwback likepart of the movie, like he's you

(17:32):
know when his fiance comes home andyeah, they're going at it. The
song that's playing in the background isrocket Man yep, which and then you
know callback later in the movie wherehe like calls the you know he fires
the rocket is it Tony Todd?Yeah, Tony Todd, because because you're
the rocket Man, oh brother?And what I love too? Is he?

(17:55):
Nick Cage included that Beatles the Beatlesrecord in the beginning too. That
wasn't in the script. That wasa Nick Cage is um because he wanted
the audience to know because he hatedthe Rocketman line, so he wanted audiences
to know that he loved music.I guess if he got an Elton John
album, it would have been twoon the nose and then they play Elton

(18:15):
John. So they had him gettingthe Beatles to just show that he's a
music junkie. So when he makesa reference later it makes sense. But
Cage was really worried about that.And that's why you have the Beatles album
in the beginning. Yeah, AndI think you know, getting the you
know it worked. You know hegets this. You know it's vinyl,
it's not and do they even talkabout how you could get it on CD?

(18:40):
But you know it sounds better onvinyl. And like the whole audio
file debate, which I don't careenough about music to get. Just give
me spotifyle I'll just listen to whateversongs I want to listen to. Yeah,
I'm good. I mean, I'mall for pretentious vinyl on soundtrack though
Mondel's like an Escape from La soundtrack, Escape from the York the thing.

(19:00):
I love my John Carpenter vinyl pretentioussoundtracks, But I just buy that to
be pretentious, not because of sound. Well, yeah, I could see
that, you know, I don'tactually have space for anything pretentious sound wise,
but no, it's a lot isset up early, and we explore
it, like we get the beginningof the film with Ed Harris. We

(19:22):
also see that Nick Cage has someaim with his gun. When he shoots
his little NERF gun into something,it's like middle of the target first try
exactly. Yeah, So later onwhen he's like die die die and kills
the guy, I mean, completelydifferent guns, but it comes back to
each other. And also, NickCage had a huge argument with Michael Bay
because he wanted to be sitting aroundin purple underwear playing a guitar drinking wine

(19:47):
after the Syrian gas scene. Sowhen she comes home, he's just sitting
there without a shirt, playing guitarwith wine Like that seems like a good
way for someone to relax after dying. So Cage fought hard for that,
like he came out in purple underwear, and Michael Bay just thought sure,
sure. Yeah, it's another oneof those weird choices that seems to make
perfect sense in the context of themovie. Yes, like why wouldn't you

(20:10):
like come home and just you know, you're probably taking your clothes off,
and that's to dump them because you'vejust been exposed to like siren gas.
Yeah, that's a great point whereyour work is probably giving you some like
overalls or something to come home in. And he's like, right, get
this crap off me. It's relaxing, and then hey, I'm gonna play
my guitar or yeah, you know, and you know, Okay, we

(20:32):
watch a lot of action movies,and there's a lot of stock action films
that's just to action beat, actionbeat, action beat. I think this
one is still beloved because of theZeus's butthole line and Nick Cage sitting there
playing the guitar without a shirt,the really weird side, strange humor in
certain parts, and I think there'senough weirdness in this movie to make it

(20:55):
stand out amongst all the other actionfilms that don't even try to be weird.
Does that make sense? Well,what I like is it's meta as
well, Like it plays with youa little bit, like having Sean Connery
have a throwaway line where it's like, oh, yeah, I was trained
by British intelligence. It's like that, that could be James Barton. It's
like, yeah, he's totally JamesBonds, who got like years right,

(21:18):
Yeah, yeah, and he evenhas a daughter. Well Bond wouldn't have
that. Well, well, hemight probably has a bunch floating around always
carry protection in the means of afirearm. I'm not too sure about the
other kind. But yeah, Imean this this film, I gotta tell
you. The commentary listening to itmade me really happy because I just loved

(21:40):
learning about the making of this movie. You had a guy, a former
Navy seal on set. They havelike a bunch of seals as the extras
for the like the seal team aswell. Oh it's funny you say that
because Michael Bean when he had tomake speeches, Michael Bean actually fell apart
a little bit one day on setand couldn't read his lines, and he
went to his trailer. Michael Baywent to go talk to him, and

(22:02):
Bean just said, listen, Ihave to make an inspiring speech to Sean
Connery, Oscar winner, Nick Cageand a bunch of Navy seals who are
giving me nothing. So if youwatch the movie, in the background,
the Navy seals are just staring athim. They're not not like they're just
they are murdering him with their eyes. So it through Michael Bean. He
had been in some gigantic films Aliens, Terminator, Tombstone, The Abyss,

(22:29):
but he had a really hard timeacting alongside those those Navy seals and the
guy who set everything up, theguy who trained was on set to make
sure all the military tactics were right. In the commentary, he made sure
to say, my Navy seals wouldnever go down to these Marines. He's
like, my Navy seals would neverbe in one place. My Navy seals

(22:51):
would have split off into one placeor would have been a diversion which would
have dragged some people away. Andthen my Navy like they never would have
been in one place at once.So he understood that they need to die,
but he had to throw in inthe commentary that there's no way it
would have happened like this, butit's a movie. My boys have been
much better than this. We wouldhave totally taken the island. That plan

(23:11):
was crap. Yeah yeah, andhe said it in the commentary. He
got very defensive, which I whichjust made me very happy. Well,
I get if you're the guy who'sseen as the source of the military tactics
in the film, you know you'regoing to want to show that you know
your stuff, be like okay,it's like, look, this was deliberately
poorly planned because we needed to setup this situation where you just have good

(23:36):
speed and Maston. And now,if they would have dragged Nucci down with
him, Danny Nucci remember him backin the nineties Titanic, Crimson Tide.
Yeah, he was the friend andTitanically, Yeah, he had a big
nineties run. If they would havedragged him with him, that movie would
have been something different entirely. Well, that's a good one. Crimson Tide

(23:56):
is a good one. Oh yeah, that's a pot. That's a gene
Hackman. Why Shehington going head tohead beautiful? So like, you know,
they've added all the new movies tolike Disney plus that new thing your
Cruson tied on it. Yeah,season tied on my Disney. I don't
think Disney pluses are rated in theStates. I do the Deep Blue Ce

(24:17):
podcast with he said, Deep Risingson Disney Plus Now. Yeah, they
just like in the last few weeks, they just added a bunch of new
stuff like adults stuff on there basically, and you can like like parental controls
and stuff and then go and seelike this, it's got like die Hard
two. Um, yeah, it'sgot like basically all the Fox kind of

(24:41):
movies. It's great. They'll probablybring in their touchdown films later on too.
Captain Rod, Yeah, the wonderfulCaptain Ron Dimension, because they own
all the Weinstein Dimension stuff now too, don't They don't put in phantoms?
You know, Affleck was the bombin Phantoms. I've never watched Phantoms,
or maybe I have. I thinkI background watched it one time, back
to back, back to the Rockand also on the on the commentary which

(25:04):
I thought was pretty fun I waslistening to with Michael Bay. There were
a lot of issues about the boilersstill working in the film, and a
lot of people questioned that on set, producers, writers, everyone wondered why
but it's still a working facility,so I mean they still do tours there.
Yeah, so it's still going tobe switched on. Yeah, it's
but people were worried about that.Why the boiler needed to be so flamy

(25:30):
pitney. Yeah, surely a kindof a better designed for that sort of
thing. I guess it works,and yeah in a movie for an action
beat, but you know, woulda boiler realistically have this periodic, flamy
kind of thing. Love was afind for the set piece or is that
what the boiler actually looks like.That's a great point. I mean they

(25:53):
were there, they probably took alook at it, but I don't think
there's a I'm sorry if you area boiler manufacturer or repairman. But yeah,
it's kind of funny that it's onan exact timer, but it's still
cool. Remember later on when Nickcages that was a badass by the way
he calls him out, go sweet, how you did that? And also
too you think he's gonna leave himand he opens the door and he's like,

(26:15):
welcome to the rock. Like that'scool, that's cool. That line
is explicitly for the trailer, Likethere's no two ways about it. It's
like, Okay, we're gonna havescenes of San Francisco, maybe some terrorists,
and then we're gonna have close upon Sean Welcome to the Rocky Beautiful,
and also too, that moment reallysells why they had to bring him

(26:37):
because some of these movies where weneed you to come with us, but
they don't really need them to comewith him, So they bring him with
they're trapped in that corridor and hegoes through the thing he lets him in.
So that explains why they destroyed halfof San Francisco and gave him a
nice haircut and fed him some nicefood to bring him there, because I

(26:59):
guess after that moment, it justifieswhy he's there. So I guess it's
good storytelling on a certain front thathe knows through kind of impassable object that
only he would be able to getthrough. Yeah. And then so right
there and there is the audience,you're like, go, okay, I
get it. That's why we justspent an hour in San Francisco. This

(27:21):
movie doesn't get to the rock quickly. No, it's well, you've got
the so you've got the opening,which I think that's about eight minutes long,
because I remember having the soundtrack andbasically the rock opening beat, like
that whole soundtrack for that whole sequenceis like eight minutes long. Then you've

(27:41):
got the whole bit where you haveto go and meet Nick Cage, and
you've got the staring gas and thenyou've got in climbing out the Carlos pregnant.
Then we moved to San Francisco,and we've got the whole We've got
the interview bit, then there's thehotel bit, then there's the car chase
bit, then there's the bit withthe water, and then we get three

(28:02):
things and stuff, and yeah,it's yeah, i'd say a good forty
fifty minutes of content before we evenget to know the rock Woomac. Can
we get him some coffee here?I love that interrogation scene, Oh my
gosh. But then but also morethings are set up. Nicholas Cage gives
his word good speed, gives hisword Woomac rips it up. So then

(28:23):
when he lets him go later,that all makes sense and it's you you
know, you know what's interesting iswhenever I think about the San Francisco car
chase, I'm really not that bigof a fan of it because a lot
of people get murdered in it.It's Sean Connery going to see his daughter,
and people die in that scene.I mean they drive with reckless abandoned

(28:45):
through that city. And Michael Bayadmitted that, and Michael Baban said,
I don't know how much I lovethis scene, but when we played it
without it was just a giant holein the movie. So you would have
just had, hey, let's getSean Connery, let's give him a haircut,
let's take him to the rock.It would have played flat. Yeah,

(29:06):
So it definitely needed something there,right, Yeah. And I mean
in that process you get the iconicNick Cage shot of him standing up with
the camera going what vertical while NickCage turns around. You get him stealing
the dirt bike from the kid,like you just wreck your Ferrari. Well,

(29:26):
that's mine too. He wasn't mine. It wasn't mine. And then
he's talking to his buddy on thephone. He's like, I'm driving a
stolen motorcycle right now, and Ifeel terrible about it. So and also
I guess it establishes trust between Masonand Good Speed because instead of Masons in
Good Speed saying hey, you're underarrest. When he's with his daughter,

(29:48):
he's saying, hey, come withus, we're looking for you. Yeah,
he played that, you know again, you know it shows a little
bit of compassion and that he's reasonable, and you know, it builds up
trust, which comes back later,doesn't it. Yeah, so he comes
back for him. He doesn't wanthim to die. I think Stanley helps
him, so, so Mason goesand helps Stanley. So despite the fact

(30:14):
that it's incredibly gratuitous, it wouldhave left a big hole of action in
the movie and it wouldn't have establishedthat nice trust element between them. You
know, how would they have evengot to that point? Like basically,
you just have him get away fromthe hotel and then like, what's the
kind of the next step to Doeshe still call his buddy and be like,

(30:34):
oh, hey, this guy gotaway. Do you know anything?
Oh yeah, I guess they couldhave had a big fight in the hotel
and then he disappears and then theyshow up when he's with his daughter.
Yeah. I bet you. MichaelBay wishes he did that though, because
he hated that car chase. Yeah. I think the thing is like almost

(30:55):
every movie you see that's set inSan Francisco. Is it like a rule
with like filmmaking in San Francisco,you have to have a car chase that
shows like a tram and like somecars going off hills and stuff like.
It's just yeah, and you knowwhat, I am kind of happy that
the streets are really busy, though, because I've driven in San Francisco before,
have you? I haven't driven init, but I've been there.

(31:18):
Traffic's a nightmare. I had todrive like a rental truck to pick up
a bunch of gear in parallel parkon streets to load up grills and just
you're stuck in traffic for forever.So I'm kind of happy that there was
a lot of track. Like Bulletthere's not much traffic in it. Yeah,
So it kind of makes me happythat they're wiping people. It kind
of seems like that's the way acar chase would be. But after Mason

(31:41):
does burder some cops and he's like, I hope they have insurance, It's
like, well, I hope theyhave life insurance. It's it's the one
okay, it's the one sore spotof the film for me. Do you
think that? So? Do youlike that car chase. Don't. I've
never really given it much thought.To be honest, I'm like, oh,
yeah, I love like the onelining it's like, oh, you
just like ruined your for whatever.But oh that's that's a cool action,

(32:01):
being like him, this Ferrari thathe's taken. And yeah, other than
that, yeah, it's not aparticularly good car chase. Mm hm,
as car chases go, it's youknow, fairly by the book, he's
just like driving and you know,you don't really get a sense of you

(32:24):
know, Nick Cage is in aFerrari. Hyeah, Mason is in a
hummer. How fast do those thingsgo? And how fast does a Ferrari
go? Realistically, Yeah, there'sno way you need to be driving,
you know, at peak performance ina Ferrari to catch up with that hummer.
You can catch it in yeah,twenty thirty seconds. It's pretty quick.

(32:46):
Yeah, pretty quick, especially sincethe hummer is knocking everything out of
the way. Um. But that'syou know, that's not every movie,
every cop TV show, everything.It's always like, why they are all
the cars always the same speed?Why don't he just have someone who you

(33:07):
know, just gets into a carand then just puts their foot down and
it's like, oh, it seemslike their engine is bigger than ours.
I guess we can't catch them.Yeah, but I guess I lived with
it now after because I never likedit. I would always complain about it.
But after hearing Michael Bay talk aboutit, after hearing the Sean Connery
story, and you and I justestablishing how it helps further some beats of

(33:28):
the story, it makes sense.It's cool. I mean, it also
gives a good insight into Michael Baybecause if you think about all the car
chases in his films, Bad Boys, The Island Transformers, there's so many
car chases. So I guess it'sjust a staple of what he does.
And you know that shot, theyou know, basically spinning upward padding hero

(33:51):
shot like yeah, raidemarks practically likeoh it's beautiful and someone broke down.
How many people have tried to recreatethat shot, but they haven't really figured
out the camera movement that Michael Bayadds to those shots to make it look
so epic. So it's one thingto just have an actor stand up or
to to dolly along the side andhave the actors stand up, but the

(34:15):
way he films it is. Hejust sort of lifts the camera up with
the actors and it makes it comeacross. Is so cool. Kind of
it lifts, but it also rotatesat the same time. And I think
there might be a little bit ofa pullback as well, or like an
adjustment in like the aspect ratio orsomething like basically pulling into a wider angle.

(34:36):
That's Michael Bay's. Well, Hitchcockdid it first, but then Spielberg,
but that's Michael Bay's push. Soomyeah, pretty much. And it
looks great and it's in all ofhis movies and it should keep seeing in
his movies because it looks cool.It's a cool shot. Problems you end
up, um, you know,you end up with people copycatting them and

(34:59):
all of a sudden it become youknow, rose and it's like, oh,
you just see it everywhere and itloses its pill like saying with bullet
time and the matrix. You know, it's like there was a whole spade
of movies just every movie had thisslow mo action in it and it was
like done to death. It worksbecause it's organic, would you say,
because he did it first, andso I think you nailed it because after

(35:22):
Matrix came out. There's so muchwire work, there was so much bullet
time, and none of it feltorganic, so it all just felt very
yawny. Yeah, whereas in theMatrix, you know, it made sense
in the context of the movie,almost like how Yeah, yeah, I
do like The Blade featured a kindof bullet time, not with all the

(35:44):
cameras surrounding them to the certain extent, but when Deacon Frost dodges the bullets,
Blades underrated. I love that movie. No, but yeah, I
think you're right. We get thaticonic shot. They had done that in
Bad Boys Too. They didn't BadBad Bad Boys and Bad Too. But
yeah, it's um, it's okay, you sold me on it. It's

(36:06):
this has been. I've always lovedthe Rock, but I've never liked the
chase. But now I understand allthe cool things that come from it,
So it feels totally fine to menow I dig it. I just had
to spend some more time with itand not hate on it. Yeah,
it's yeah, it's fit for purpose. I think it's the kind of man
so Michael Yeah, So Michael Byactually told a story in that chase.

(36:28):
That's what I like when action scenestell a story and that's that's that's what
this one did. I'm happy,Hey so about this after that mind blowing
revelation, Let's take a quick breakand when we come back we will talk
more the Rock. We will beright back. Welcome back to movies,
films and flicks. And this hasbeen a tough one for me, Nile,

(36:51):
because there's just so much to talkabout in this movie. It's yeah,
it's yeah, it's full of umyeah, little things that we can
kind of we could go into,you know, hours worth of content on
you know, just tiny bill things. Maybe to follow up your deeply see
podcast you need to do with theRock the podcast, oh the Rock Minute.

(37:12):
Oh, that'd be amazing. Andyou know, I actually wrote a
Cracked article just about Bochium Woodbine's crispcharacter and this scene at the end when
it's down between Fry and Barrow andthen you have Francis and Baxter standing off
and they're they're like, they're likecrisp, disarm the general. But in

(37:34):
the background, Bochium Woodbine's doing someexcellent acting like he could have just been,
you know, not doing anything inthe background there, the background just
being a guy, but you learnedthat he had been with Hummel since Desert
Storm. So he's really conflicted.He's looking scared when they yells, he
flinches. He's really torn about whathe should do. So you have the

(37:58):
tenth name on the call sheet puttingit in great work, and the scene
where he is like the fifth characterin the scene. There's just so there's
too much. It's like when wedid Back to the Future Nile. When
you pitch that to me, thenI realized how much that world is loved,
with the documentaries, the books,the time travel. This is a
dense movie and I think it workstoo. You got you have Tony Todd

(38:21):
in here, you have Michael Bean. This is a loaded but I guess
that was the thing in the nineties, right where you had con Air with
me as well. Right, Yeah, it's just an embarrassment of riches in
this movie, and I think that'swhat this one had too. And that's
really I mean, obviously this isJerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, and Don
Simpson actually passed away shortly before thiswas made, so that like he helped

(38:45):
get this made and then he passedaway. Then it just became Buck because
it was Simpson Bruckheimer Simpson, right, and then it just became Bruckheimer.
But you had two of the biggestproducers in the world. You had a
young hot shot director. So actually, Michael, they did a video,
a background video for Days of Thunder, and that's how I met these guys.

(39:05):
Interesting, Yeah, and then that'swhy they brought him in for Bad
Boys, and he kept turning downthe rock Michael Bay, because I guess
the script was really bad. Wellyeah, as he said, they went
through, however, many script doctorsto get it to where it was for
shooting, and then you have Nickcagere writing it on set. I gotta
tell you, I love I lovethe movie making process sometimes because just the

(39:27):
amount of insanity on these film sets. And then you turned this movie had
four editors, four editors, andMichael Bay was talking about that and he
said that normally I'm in the editbay with all the editors, but he's
like, I had one editor whodidn't want me in there with him,
but he still did great stuff.So there, I guess they're editors who
were better with character scenes, andthere was actor people who are better with

(39:49):
action scenes. So this was hackedup by four people. But he's had
some people who are just they justhave an eye for a certain kind of
shot or a certain kind of sequence. Four of them. Though, it's
just a wild movie. This wasa Buy Committee movie, but it still
feels like a Michael Bay movie.Yeah. Well, I think he's got
enough of his stamp on it,like just in the shop choice in the

(40:14):
action beats all, kind of theflow is still very very Michael bayo.
And I assume he would have hadfinal say over the edit anyway, regardless
of what the editors actually did.No, I think you're right. And
also Ed Harris was talking about I'veread about this before where people working on
Michael Bay movies they don't really knowwhere all the cameras are. Sometimes Michael

(40:36):
Bay would just like act and soyou have to be very instinctual. I
think actors like doing it because it'sa fast moving thrill ride. When you
work with Clinistwood, you get oneor two takes. When you work with
Michael Bay get five six cameras andyou're in a giant set. So I
must test you with a certain degree. And Ed Harris said that he was
shot from every single angle you couldthink of but most of the shots were
just headshot, like he was mostlyjust tied up on his face because like,

(40:59):
and I get my you do that. He's like, I don't know
why they filled my feet then duringthese scenes, Well maybe it would have
looked cool may exactly. Yeah,you know what's interesting. People complain about
that, But I'd rather have enoughfootage than not enough. I mean,
you're in Alcatraz, like, you'rethere, you gotta shoot. But the
thing is, yeah, if you'vegot the resources to run six cameras at

(41:22):
once, then run six cameras.If you can afford that much film,
then yeah, exactly, and theydid. I mean this was seventy five
million back in the day, sowith inflation that easily jumps to one hundred
fifty one hundred forty million. That'sbig for an action picture. And with
inflation worldwide it cleared five hundred million. Nor like John Wick doesn't even do

(41:44):
that anymore. I missed the daysof gigantic, non superhero, non sequel
action movies speed true lies it willcome back. The days of like the
ten pole just action movie are gone. Like it's all franchise, it's all
about churning out these profit making filmslike Clockwork, and it's just like,

(42:06):
Okay, this franchise made a billiondollars in its last generation. Okay,
let's make another one of them intwo years, and we'll just release it
and the same billion people will goand see it. It's hard to hate
on it because it makes money.And that's also where Michael Bay has sort
of thrived with his sequels. Imean, all the Transformers movies. He's

(42:28):
really he's controlled that empire, andso I guess for him, I think
he's, like he said on thecommentary, he seemed to just be happy
to get a movie every two yearswith one hundred million dollar budget that will
make money, because he knows that'llmake more money the next go around.
Did you see Six Underground with RyanReynolds. No, I don't think so.

(42:49):
It's a Michael Bay movie with RyanReynolds, Melanie Laurent. It is
insane, Nile, it is.It's it's what happens when Michael Bay gets
Netflix money in full control. Hedoesn't have eight editors and four producers and
Jerry Bruckheimer. This Six Underground ispure distilled Bay. This comes out as

(43:09):
the moonshine out of the still thisdoes not go into barrels and get aged
turn you know, it doesn't goyeah, drink brought your insides and then
it doesn't get finished in sherry caskslike there's This is just hooch made by
Michael Bay and it's glorious, butit's a lot of it doesn't make some

(43:31):
of it doesn't make sense. It'svery crisp and clean. A lot of
people die pretty much. Ryan Reynoldscould probably carry editing. I love him.
He's just so good. So it'sabout this billionaire who pays a bunch
of people to pretend like they're deadso then they can just go around the
world free of being part of anorganization, and they can write world the

(43:52):
World's wrongs and they're ghosts. Sothey're they're lightfully weird. Yeah, dude,
there's a magnet scene and six Underground. It's so heightened, so you
know in the Transformer films where everythingis heightened, Shy is yelling, the
parents are yelling. John Taturo's yelling, Mark Wahlbergs yelling, TJ. Miller's
yelling, everybody's yelling, Kelsey Grammer'syelling. There's just a lot of yelling.

(44:15):
Kelsey Grammer's in one of those.I think he's in I think he's
either The Extinction or Last Night,one of those. But you have everybody
yelling. But in six Underground,Man, you gotta watch it. It's
crazy and it's just it's the moonshineof Michael bay movies. Under like just
pure distill Bay in your eyes andit burns a little bit and it makes

(44:37):
you tired, and it's very wolf. It's it's not this movie, that's
for sure, but no, Idig it. And there's a couple more
things I liked about this movie.There's there's some good quiet moments in this
film. I think William Forsythe getssome good work to do as FBI agent.
What Ernest Paxton, Yeah, hedoes good work, like his quiet

(45:00):
moment with Nick Cage in the bathroom, or Nick Cage is barfing, or
Stanley Goodspeed's barfing. Yeah, justthere. It's like, look, man,
I'll be there to back you up. Um, yeah, I'm sorry
you're vomiting right now. But yeah, he's like, you trained for this.
It's a sensitive moment, right,It's a it's a really interesting quiet

(45:21):
scene of a film, and it'sthat's why I like it. It's it's
it should play very totally imbalanced.But the quiet scenes I think work just
as well as the other ones.And you can tell that Connray and Cage
liked each other too. What's upon that? So the callback there is
that basically you can see that he'skind of an understanding guy. So at

(45:43):
the end, then when Goodspeed islike, oh yeah, he's vaporized,
he backs him up, and it'slike, oh yeah, that can totally
happen. That can happen. Youcan yeah, yeah, vaporized. Oh
yeah, yeah, I think Ican definitely happen. I love that.
It's it's it's just I don't know, it's I don't even know why that
characters in the movie Foresight right,it could have just been Woolmack, but

(46:05):
for some reason been there, absoluteasshole of an f like an FBI chief.
Yeah, you don't have you don'thave anyone who's got like good Speeds
back. You've just got this dick. Yeah, it'sactly this Woolmac yelling at
him. Yeah, but it worked, is this no, man? It
just it just works. And NickCage was also talking about the hairstylist,

(46:29):
which feels really dated. Nowadays.And Nick Cage didn't really want that hair
stylist in the movie who was cuttinghis hair because he just thought, like,
this is just, uh, what'sthe word, very exaggerated, very
stereotypical. But the Cage Cage justgoes but it's kind of funny. He's
like, it's kind of weird thatit's funny. He's like, he's like,
Michael Baby made it funny for somereason, So I don't hate it

(46:49):
as much as I should. Butit's a very it's just a very heightened
odd choice in Bays movie, butit doesn't feel odd now because everything so
heightened. Yeah, it's yeah againI've met that hairdresser. Yeah, people
like that, and you know inmodern culture now, like, yeah,
it's quite normal to see like thatkind of a caricature everywhere. Like some

(47:13):
people just put it on themselves.Some people are generally that allowed in their
life, and um, it wasjust kind of like, oh okay.
But the guy was super nice though, right. He just he's like,
they don't like you very much,do they. He's like, I just
care that you liked your hair cut. It's a he gave him lines.
There's and what I've noticed about MichaelBay movies, there's so many supporting characters.

(47:37):
Remember in the war Room in thebeginning, there's eight different talking heads,
yeah, talking about they named themall. It's like it's like state
your name. It was like,oh, this is an FBI general director,
blah blah blah. It's like thisis the president, and this is
this guy, this is this guy. And they're never seen again. No,
and they all have a lot ofweight to them too, and they're

(47:58):
good. I think, you knowwhat, I wonder what this is.
And I know Michael Bay got tostart in commercials, and commercials and music
videos have to move really quick becauseyou just don't have that much time to
shoot. So it's just go,go, go out, well like thirty
seconds and you need to use everyframe exactly. You know, you've got
one like three to four minutes,so you've got a little bit more time

(48:21):
to breathe, but still it's goingto be quite compressed. So you just
I wonder if for the rest ofhis movies. You watch his films and
there's just you see a lot ofrecurring characters in all of his movies,
but then there's also these big namenot big name, but oh yeah,
let's say, big name character actorswho get three minutes of screen time.
I wonder if Michael Bay just bringsthem in because he wants pros to work

(48:44):
with and then get out of thereand just bring some pros in, bring
some good names in. Knock himout, send him out, let's go
home. He seems like that kindof guy, really good pro Yeah,
they'll come in, do what youwant in one take and then you can
count it. Let just like rightnext, Yeah, exactly, And I
think it's interesting. That's why Ilike watching this movie. I think Bad

(49:06):
Boys had had a pretty big cast. But once you go to the Rock
and then you go to Pearl Harbor, I mean Pearl Harbor had Michael Shannon
at like Baldwin, I mean,just a huge name of of actors in
it. In the Island, justif you go through that again, like
you and McGregor, Yeah, SeanBean, Jaman Huntsu, Steve Buscheny.

(49:28):
I think he just likes Yeah,he's the guy who's he's the janitor that
works on the island. And youknow what's interesting for all of Michael Bay's
films, that seems the most UnmichaelBay, because in The Rock commentary.
I think he always understood you needan A lister, so pain and gain.

(49:50):
He brought in huge A listers,Pearl Harbor. He brought into the
hottest names, three of the hottestnames at the time to make that movie.
I think thirteen Hours is a littledifferent because it's more of an ensemble,
so we didn't and it wasn't thatbig of a budget, so we
didn't want that A lister. Ohmy god, Yeah, like you Go
Billy and Yeah, just massive names. But like Aerosmith, he did a

(50:22):
bunch of videos for them, sothey must have done that. They must
have. They must love Michael Bay. But yeah, the Island has I
love you McGregor. I think he'sa great actor. But to cast you
McGregor in a ninety million dollars scifi epic that isn't Star Wars with a
built ins fan base, that seemsa pretty that seems very Unmichael Bay to
me to cast him. And Ithink you McGregor is great, but I

(50:45):
wonder if you maybe lost out onan A lister then had to bring in
you And that's not a thing slighton you in like the thing about you
and McGregor is like you know,he has done some quite interesting work before
them like this. He ended upin Star Wars, like Trainspotting for example.
Yeah, it's awesome, like weknow the guy has range m's it

(51:08):
will be one. But he was, you know, quite big because he
was in Star Wars, so hewas a well known name. Yeah,
he was just in town because hewas doing Star Wars promos and Michael Bay
was like, hey, do youwant to come to this movie with Scarlett
Johanson And he was like sure,yeah, Sean Bean's in it too.

(51:28):
Great. Yeah, that's an expense. Have you watched that recently? I
had it on in the background.That's an expensive movie right there, Nile.
That is they built some sets forthat movie. But I guess going
back to this, it's just whatI like about this is you see so
much of early the early DNA ofMichael Bay in this movie. And I

(51:52):
think some of the biggest traits,some of the best and worst traits,
have led to that. I meanthe comically large explosions. They dropped that
that bomb down there with what agallon of gasoline and it's about a half
a mile explosion, or the youknow, the single planes bombs, that
blow up half an island. Yeah, exactly, And I think just the

(52:16):
he knows the big explosions, youget Michael Nicolas Cage surviving the heightened the
heightened aesthetic. And I wonder ifever, since then, I wonder if
because he hasn't reunited with Nicholas Cage, and Nicholas Cage just had nothing but
nice things to say about Michael Bay. But I wonder if Michael Bay likes
to have So he brought in Shiafor all these movies, and he brought

(52:38):
in Mark Wahlberg for all these movies, So I think he likes to have
oh yeah, flag. I thinkhe likes to have collaborators, not people
who challenge him, which is finebecause he leads such a big set,
and I'm not phrasing that in away where he gets rid of people who
want to do their own thing.Megan Fox have a falling apt to control,

(52:59):
yeah, because she didn't want todeal with his crap, right yeah,
And then they made up and thenshe was in the TMNT movies,
which is kind of nice. ButI think I wonder if moving forward,
he didn't want to deal with thatanymore. So we've got kind of other
actors, because it was really interestinglisten that Cage talk about this because he
didn't want to film the scene atthe end. He didn't want to be

(53:21):
at the church rich and ripping thatthing off the table. Yeah, he
didn't want to do certain scenes,but so he rewrote him and he did
him because he's a professional and heliked Michael Bay. But yeah, I
wonder if if after that Michael Bayjust kind of said, listen, we
need contributors, or I need somethingthat contributor. I need someone that works,
like a symbiotic relationship where we workedtogether. Yeah, I think,

(53:43):
like, you know, just onthat scene is kind of the only one
that feels a little bit tacked on? Did they really need to show that
church scene with the kind of leftit at? Did he just walk into
that church and just rip it off? And then like what are you gonna
do about? Basically, yeah,we just went didn't rip the leg off

(54:05):
of the thing, and then ranaway and then they learned who's shot JFK.
That's crazy. Yeah, what wouldyou do with that information? Now
I write a blog post these days, it's like, yeah, is it
gonna be earth shattering news? Youknow? Um, the real truth of
what happened well on my birthday sixtyodd years ago. Oh, that's that's

(54:28):
what it was on your birthday.Yeah. Wow. The only way I
can actually remember the date is like, oh, well that is actually on
my birthday. I can remember that. So hey, why where would you
rank these movies like this, thisfilm in against another the other nineties blockbusters?
Is this Tier one? Action?Is this Tier two? Is this

(54:52):
up there with T two and maybeSpeed or True Lies? Definitely? Like
yeah that is. Yeah, it'sgot all the elements there, Like,
it's got the funny quips, likethe little one liners here and there.
It's got some good action you know, there are you know, you've got
the die Hard on an Island kindof feel to it, where it's like,

(55:15):
okay, we're one guy against manyand has to take down this threat
kind of thing, you know,where everything had to be die hard on
or something. You know, you'vegot you know, the music is great.
Um, you know hand Zimmer hasgot this score going through it.
That's you know, if you wereto listen to the theme from the Rock

(55:37):
and straight afterwards listening to the themeor to the Caribbean, you'll basically think
they're from the same movie, likea lot of the same notes and through
because something I do like to dois I'll listen to like the best of
hand Zimmer or like you know,various movie composers and just listen to the
themes and you'd be like, Okay, but is that one from the rock

(55:58):
It's like maybe Pirates the Cab.I'm like, I'm not too sure.
Yeah, no, it's solid,it's a it's a it's a wonderful score.
And I also like the subversion ofthe classic villain trope where Hummel isn't
some maniacal general They're they're saying he'sa hero. No, he's a legend.

(56:20):
At the end, he actually wastrying to bluff everyone, but he
ended up bringing these murdercenaries who werelegit not crazy, but yeah they were
in it for the money, right, as soon as the money there,
Yeah, whereas he was an idealist. Yeah, I feel like Hummel was
redeemed in the end, like hewasn't actually the villain at all. He

(56:45):
was just, yeah, someone who'sgoing about trying to do good in a
misguided way. He's almost like Iwouldn't quite stay an anti hero, but
I wouldn't say he's a villain.Yeah, it made him much more likable.
Just and at the end he diesand then he's not around anymore.

(57:06):
Then it becomes more about the othertwo guys. It's a really interesting The
main antagonist is just killed off anact, but he also kills Bolkim Woodbine.
He just shoots him right in thechest. So it's yeah, he
just gets into his head. Hechose to go against him, right,
Yeah, Oh yeah, I kindof is it a bit naive though,

(57:30):
the that he kept playing kind ofgeneral towards the end. I mean they
were clearly they were clue, whatdid they say? They were mercenaries at
that point. Yeah, so they'resticking to call him general. What's up?
Mercenaries still have ranks. Yeah,that's true. I have a chain
of command, you know, evenif you're soldering for money. Yeah,

(57:52):
and he just lost control because hisbluff called his bluff was called there for
where he didn't have the money,which meant he was no longer urch makes
sense. Oh, I just learnedsomething fun. The DP John Schwartzman started
with Michael Bay on the Meatloaf,So Michael Bay directed Battle of Hell and

(58:15):
I would do anything for love,and John Schwartzman worked on that. He
also did Airheads, by the way, I love that movie, But this
is what Schwartzman came from. Hedid Benny and June, then he did
meat Loaf, then had Airheads withBrendan Frasier. Meat Looaf a pyromani They're
like Benny and June was a weirdone. Yeah, So these tiny tiny

(58:35):
films Airheads, meat Loaf, aPyremannis Love Story, Rim, Strange Currencies,
Mister Wrong, The Ellen de Generous, Bill Pullman movie, and then
The Rock. But then he movedon to conspiracy theory, Armageddon, Pearl
Harbor, Sea Biscuit, National Treasure, Book of Secrets, Night at the
Museum, The Amazing Spider Man.Draculin told Jurassic World he had a quite

(58:58):
a quite a jump there. Well, yeah, I guess for a little
while he did like Michael Bay's stuff. So Armageddon Pearl Harbor, did you
say, Yeah? And then theypretty much do whatever he wanted after them.
I mean, after surviving that thehuge shoot that was Pearl Harbor,
you can pretty much do anything afterthat, yeah, I would say,

(59:19):
But yeah, this movie, it'sinteresting. Now. Michael Bays took a
lot of people with him. Hetook a lot of returning you know,
the camera people like his John Schwartzman'sDP. This is al Now they're under
the tutelage of Simpson and Bruckheimer.But this is a young crew getting this
stuff done, and it looks legit. This is a this was big.
It's I guess the more I researchedit, the more I'm impressed by it,

(59:44):
and just the more I learn aboutit. And you know, the
production designer stuck with Michael Bay,which is pretty cool all throughout. I
think it's like a lot of times, like you know, it's not just
limited to film, Like if peoplef that they do good work together,
they'll stay together. Like my previousteam and my previous company. After I

(01:00:07):
left, it turned out like fouror five of them all moved to the
same company and are like working togetherstill on the same team. Like so
that team is kind of just likestuck together because they like working together and
they're like doing good work. Hmm, you get. I mean, yeah,
I mean, if you if you'rea good crew, I mean that's
half the film industry. That's whythere's such a lack of diversity in the

(01:00:29):
film industry because people just bringing thepeople that they've worked with before. But
I guess if you're working with acrew you like and you're basically going into
three months of no sleep, Iget you want to know people that you're
working with and being grumpy with outand about. Yeah, that makes sense.
Hey, what's up the first handexperience of that, right exactly?

(01:00:51):
Hey, so people we get outof here, what are your three favorite
moments from this movie? M mythree favorite moments, so I think the
I guess we can go in reverseorder, so probably third would be I
think the whole scene in the bathroom, So the shower room, that whole

(01:01:17):
QUI like where you know, MichaelBean and Ed Harris are just like shouting
at each other. It's like youmust give that order. I cannot give
that order, and they're just likeshouting, and then you know, nobody
gives the order to fire, likethey are still at a standoff and kind
of like Ed Harris doesn't want toto fire on these guys and the Seals

(01:01:39):
don't want to fire. But thenall of a sudden, you know,
you just end up with this firefightand everyone the Seal team just gets taken
out and then you know, wehave this whole thing. But that whole
scene is just like it's not likewhat you get in you know, some
more recent movies where it would justbe like, oh, they've entered,

(01:02:00):
they've triggered, let's immediately go,we've got sentry guns. That's just start
firing and stuff, and it wouldjust be like boom, like it builds
and you still think it's like okay, right, there's this um there's a
chance that they might actually just negotiateand just be like you know, they'll
all get maybe taken captive and youknow then they escape later or something.
But yeah, I think that wholesequence is just um, it's just pretty

(01:02:22):
awesome. My number three is whenthe guy gets killed by the air conditioner
and his leg is this twitching.Bodies normally do that. Yeah, that
does that happen? Yeah, thathappens. Well, would you you know
I'm taking a bomb apart here ifyou've just caught me some slack. It
just that's another instance of just Michaelbay weird sick macabre humor of death.

(01:02:46):
Yeah, there's no need for thatat all, Like it serves no other
purpose excepts like just a visual gagand just to throwaway line, it's just
like, yeah, dead bodies twitchyou go. That makes me happy.
That's my third. What's your secondfavorite? My second would be the Escape
from the Cells, where like ageis just there and it's like, you

(01:03:10):
know, the thing you never toldme is like I would be really really
really useful here, and it's likehow the hell do you get out of
the cells? And then all ofa sudden his door just swings open that
he's just like trade secret and it'sjust like, yes, that is just
awesome. Nick finds that out.He never like finds out how Mason got

(01:03:30):
out of the cell. It's justlike, yeah, I'm gonna gut you
boy, and he's doing that voice. Yeah, but I'd take pleasure in
gutting you boy. No man,all right, So my number two,
Let's see, I don't want tobring up the shower around that's easy,
so I'll talk about something different inthere. Let's see, what are some

(01:03:52):
other moments I love in this movie? I love just this this set build
during the what where are those?So Michael Bay originally wanted to be on
these tracks these I forget the wordfor it, So they're on remember the
gunfight where he kills doctor Kelso fromScrubs by lightning his feet on fire,
then cutting him off and then hefalls down. Then they're shooting into the

(01:04:14):
art kind of thing where yeah,yeah, so they had a trolley at
first, and it wasn't even moving. Michael Bay was just shooting the camera.
He originally wanted to be in thosethose carts moving the entire time,
so they're moving through the facility,but then they ended up with just that
that cart on the wheel on thetracks to save money. But I just
the set building that. I mean, that's a deep set. They filled

(01:04:38):
that up with water thirty feet deep. They had people hanging. Nick Cage
was afraid of heights. They originallyhad a seeing where Sean Connery peg Doctor
Kelso to the cart, that's whyhe stuck to it, but they cut
that out and they never show itwhy he's stuck to that thing. But
it's just such an impressive and I'mjust my whole rolling up and watching that
movie. It's a really neat setto build for three minutes of an action

(01:05:00):
scene doesn't make much sense, butI love that Sean Connery has a little
flammable like what gasoline bottle that hesquirts on the guy's feet that he lights
the match. The dude doesn't evenhear it happening, and it's just doctor
Kelso getting killed by Sean Connery.It doesn't get better than that. So
I'm gonna take that. That's mynumber two. Um oh, number one,
I know, my number one.Yeah there, I think the one

(01:05:26):
that I would go for. Asyou know, my favorite piece of this
is the scene where Hummel is tryingto draw them out, so he's got
a hostage and he's got a gunto the guy's head and then Sean Connery
just walks out, cool as anything, and yeah, he's like, yeah,

(01:05:47):
I'm here now. And then somebody'slike, you will address the general
as general, sir, and he'slike, very well, general sir,
and he's just like so snarky aboutit, and he's just like and it
seems to me that you know,since you're immersedy, you're not really much
of a general sir or something likethat. You're a lunatic. And you
know, that actor that they weregoing to kill, he was so in

(01:06:11):
character that he kept throwing off atHarris. Yeah, they had a hard
time shooting that because the guy wasacting like he was about to die.
It was wonderful. They said howexcellent he was because he was he went
real method and its yeah, buthe made everyone uncomfortable on set by going
so method. That's crazy, allright. So my final thing, I
mean, we haven't even talked abouthow he shoves the green orbit and the
guy's mouth and then his face melts, and then a rocket man thing.

(01:06:33):
But I just like the green smokewhere Nick Cage goes out with the flares
on his knees. The plane fliesby, and for some reason, the
plane drops the missile too, likeit's too late, so they blow that
up and Nick Cage flies about seventyfeet. But this the look of it,
and there's a behind the scenes featuretteabout how they did it. This
was ninety six, so special effectsweren't really there at the time. But

(01:06:58):
if you watch it again, theplane flying up, the explosion, it
looks beautiful and just the iconic image. I mean, you take one image
from the rock, it might bea flair scene. So that's my favorite
right there. It's a green smoke. Yeah, that is a pretty awesome
scene, Like you know, justfrom you mentioning that song. You know,
it comes back to the soundtrack again. I can hear the soundtrack now

(01:07:19):
playing in my head and I canjust picture exactly the thing, and like
it cuts to the guy. Itdoes like a quick pullback to the guy
who's got the binoculars and he's like, we've got green smoke. And then
it goes back to Nick Cage andhe's just there. Yes, wonderful.
Yeah that was It's just a beautifulscene. But no, I just want

(01:07:39):
to thank you, thank you forjoining me, man. This was This
was a lot of fun, justto research more about the movie, spend
a lot more time with it,because I'd never researched this film, and
now after researching, I think Ilike it more just to hear about the
insanity behind the set. We've donea couple of these and you've you've always
seemed to end up enjoying the diggingmore into it. So keep coming.

(01:08:00):
Yeah, give me another one.This was fun, man, But so
what do you want to do next? Do you have any ideas? Uh
not yet? All right, figurestuff than that. It's not California,
man, oh we already did that, but una, man, Well,
thank you for joining me. Yeah, cheers, all right, So for
me, Mark Halfmeyer, and forNylmore this is movie so on in Flix.
We'll see you next week. Yeah, starts What's Mark Nile coal Ros

(01:08:23):
always wine about doing them listening toput it out of the podcast or Deeper
the podcast are you can hear Markand I Mark and Jay talk about adjacent
films. My color is terrible.I'm sorry you can. You can listen
to me and Mark can talk aboutDeeper C adjacent films. Every one DeepC.
You can find all of Mark's writingsEveryone Movies, Films and flix dot

(01:08:45):
Com, many other podcasts episodes likethis one talking about all kinds of films,
all kinds of guests, Ivery Movies, films and Flix. And you
can of course listen to me andMark over from Deeper See the podcast talking
about Deep with CE adjacent films.But as for this episode on the Rock,
I've been Jake Luk. That wasmarkov my come back next week or

(01:09:06):
the Bunny gets It I A Nara