Episode 10 - Last Man Standing - The PM Entertainment Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have had the entertainment podcast. Hello, and welcome to

(01:03):
an all new episode of the PM Entertainment Podcast. The
show that medets itself in a series of pastel jackets,
budges bystanders out of the way repeatedly, and likes mushrooms
on its cereal when it is singing the praises of
those purveyors of perfectly executed pacy, provoked pursuits and pugnacious
punch outs, police actions and powerful pandemonium. I refer, of course,

(01:26):
to the passionate, prolific partnership that provided prime pre adult
head personages with picture shows packed to popping with palpable,
playful and phenomenal pounding phosphorescence propagation PM Entertainment. I'm your host,
John Cross, and don't forget. If you like the show,
please remember to rate and review us on any of
the podcasting platforms you use, share our Facebook and Instagram posts,

(01:50):
like comment, and you can contact us via our email.
Pmentpod at gmail dot com. That's PM e nt Pod
at gmail dot com. This week, we're tackling a film
that ranks very highly for many a PM fan, a
film where Joseph May and Crewe were specifically trying to

(02:10):
push PM to the next level. The first film where
the second unit in stunt coordination was under the expert
i of Spiro Rosatos, a film featuring Mike from Breaking
Bad as anything but the titular Last Man Standing, and
a movie destined to be confused for the Bruce Willis
movie that came out the year afterwards by all except
a few discerning and intellectual film fans who know that

(02:33):
the correct movie is the one that features Jeff Wincott
wearing a waistcoat or vest if you're from the US
without a shirt in its closing moments. That's right. It's
nineteen ninety five's Last Man Standing, written and directed by
Joseph May, starring Jeff Wincott. Our interview guest this week
Gillian McWherter, Jonathan Fuller, Steve Easton, Robert Losado, and Jonathan Banks.

(02:56):
Art Camacho was the fight choreographer Spirorozatos responsible for the stunts.
It was shot by Ken Blakey. Paul Volk was the
post production director among many other things, and regular composer
Louis fabrey Is making the whole thing sing. It is
a shootout, car chase, explosion. Rich wambanger of the highest
order with all the PM powerhouses in play and to

(03:20):
talk about this week's film. Our guest is a songwriter, musician,
published poet, a hammer horror reviewer extraordinaire. Disturbingly shaved. I've
known him for about forty years, so I don't mind
it when he complained about the length of the theme
music for this very show. And he would have next
to no credentials to even be on this show if
he hadn't already put up with me in his role

(03:42):
as co host for over two hundred of the best
episodes of my original podcast, The Aftermovie Diner. It is
none other than old Bumface himself, my brethren from a
tother metherin. It's James or Jaa or Jim or Jimothy Wallace.
Welcome to the pyramid them partly, it's a pleasure to
be here, excellent And we always, as I'm sure because

(04:06):
you've been listening to the show, we always ask our
new guests some questions to kind of I guess, because
what I was trying to do with the podcast was
really show people, look, I know my onions, but I'm
also going to get some guests who know their onions.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yeah, you want to take a look at my onions, right,
you want to turn my onions out.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
I want to take your onions out. I want to
look at I want to look at your onions. Yes,
with one of those jewelers glass, right, you know what
I mean, Like they always have it always in like forging.
My onions are always ready for close analysis, close analysis
with a jewel onion analysis. So the questions I ask

(04:47):
are designed much in the way that on inside the
Actors studio, the survey that he would use from Bernard
Pivot were destined to get to the very core of you.
My questions are destined to get to the very like
movie action movie watching core of yous, I can establish

(05:07):
your credentials. Right, So were you always into action films
from an early age.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I don't know that I was. Actually, I guess I
suppose I like Bond movies, so that's something I suppose
that's probably where it started with Bond movies. Yeah, and
then I think I probably just liked action movies like
anybody liked action movies because they were just the big
popular movies. But the idea of being fond, particularly of
action movies or being in the mood for an action

(05:37):
movie probably came about more when we started being friends
and you started introducing me to the notion of action
movies being fun and a thing in and of themselves,
And that's when I started to really enjoy them, even
if they were like slightly cheaper and sillier.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah. Yeah, because I think that there's two types.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
There's a blockbuster movie, right, and most blockbuster movies have
some element of action in them, right, Indiana Jones, Bond,
Lethal Weapon, whatever. But you could also identify those as
other genres, right. Bond could be a spy genre, Indiana
Jones could be a action adventure movie. The leth Weapons
could be a thriller or a cop drama or whatever

(06:23):
you want to call it. The fact that they have
action in them. A lot of those movies seem incidental,
the fact that there's action in them. Something like Commando, however,
or Cobra or one of those like Stallone Schwartzenegger movies,
those are action for the sake of being action, you
know what I mean. The setup or the plot or

(06:46):
the characters or the whatever a secondary, whereas something like
Weapon Shane Black scripts that and plots that pretty tightly
so that even though yes, there's a lot of like comedy,
there's a lot of action, there's a lot of stuff.
You are engaged in the thriller element of it. Who
did the thing, how are they going to get the person?
Blah blah blah blah blah. Well it's something like Cobra
and Commando and some of these more like what people

(07:09):
think of the sort of the big muscled eighties action
films are a little bit more like, actually, it doesn't
matter who's doing the thing. There's a bad guy, there's
a good guy, and we just want to see the
good guy. They're they're they're the closest in uh, sort
of historical to the Western, right, it's not necessarily there
are some westerns where a lot of the characters and

(07:33):
drama and relationships and romance and other stuff come into
play with what the you know, stranger from out of
town ultimately ends up doing. And then there's other westerns
where the stranger coming in from out of town confronts
the gang who are terrorizing the town, and by the

(07:53):
end of the movie they're all dead or arrest it.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's yeah, I think that's true.
I think you're the one. I think watching more movies
with you taught me the value of the second, which
I perhaps I don't appreciate before. I might have been
a bit of a movie snob before that and be like, oh,
Kubrick and Striker Beard and then and then at a
certain point in my life, I thought like Sudden Death
with Jean car van Dam was completely brilliant, and I

(08:17):
watched it and thought, this is a like not ironic, No,
I just thought it was really fun, really well done,
funny cool. I mean, I loved it, and I actually
really love Peter Heims movies, I think. But that's an
example of ten years before, if I watched Sudden Death, I'd.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Think like, well this is just rubbish.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Yes, But now I really a really well done action movie.
It's something I really enjoy it. And I do think
that's in large part because of watching movies for you.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
And I think that's where you take the step down
from something right, so you have the stallone Schwartzenegger's Bruce
Willis's like, last time you were here, we watched boat
Cup striking disc oh yeah, yeh, yeah yeah yeah. And
similarly for every diehard Bruce Wallis did, even in the
eighties and nineties, he would occasionally do a boat cup,

(09:04):
which was.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Okay, who directed Boat Cop again? Wasn't it somebody who with.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
The Boat Coop? Director is Rowdy Harrington? Why do I? Okay,
it doesn't really matter that Rowdy Harrington is known famously
for Roadhouse. So Rowdy Harrington made Roadhouse, which works perfectly
because Roadhouse is like an eighteen episode with tits and gore.
That's what Roadhouse is.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
It's like, I'm not sure striking distance is like massively different.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
No, but it's a lot like striking distance.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
As in terms of an eighteen with you know, right.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
But it's not though, Like there's not like striking distance
requires or seemingly tries to ask of you that you
care about like him and Sarah Jusca Parker. You care
about the fact that the bodies keep showing up. You
care And I don't care about it. But I do
care about Boat Coop. I care about like him riding

(09:57):
about in a boat, being a boat cap. That's what
I care about. Yeah, so sorry, yeah, question no, no, no. So
the next couple of questions I ask are normally about
PM entertainment, right, because they are about establishing your connection
with the body of work that is PM Entertainment. The
interesting thing here is, Jim.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
I have never seen a PM Entertainment movie before this one,
because well I just haven't had a chance to. But
the since listening, I've become a huge fan of the podcast,
and now I want to watch lots of Peer of
Entertainment movies because you make them sound really fun and
really great and all the things I love about a
good action movie. So I really wanted to not only

(10:36):
watch a PEM Entertainment movie, but I wanted to come
and watch one with you and have you tell me like,
this is the PEM Entertainment This is the gateway movie
for you in PM entertainment exactly.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
And I think what I where you'll connect with this,
And I think what you all understand is that throughout
the Aftermovie Dinas series that we did that you were
the co host on, and you know, we did hundreds
of episodes together, what we found. It's funny. I was
just talking to someone the other night who wants to
get into podcasting, especially about like movies and things, and

(11:09):
I was sort of talking to them about this idea
where you can't really talk about movies that you like
you can't talk about perfect movies, Like no one wants
to sit down and listen to you talk about Like, well,
this is what we found when we were doing the
podcast was if it was a movie that we both
just unabashedly loved and there wasn't really anything in it

(11:31):
that we didn't just unabashedly love, we would just sit
there and be like, wasn't it great when this happened? Well,
wasn't it great when that happened?

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Sometimes I felt like we would talk It depends on
kind of movie it was. If it was something that
surprised us and we felt like deserved more, like something
like bag Man or.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Wait, but that's what I was about to say, Yeah, completely,
that's what I mean. Though, there was those movies where
like a podcast me doing a podcast on the Verbs,
or Evil Dead two or even something slightly more complex
like apock Ops Now or whatever, all movies that I
really love. I don't know what I'm bringing to that conversation,

(12:07):
do you know what I mean? Yeah, Like thousands of
people have talked about all of those movies at different times,
and sure I might listen to those podcasts and be like, oh,
you missed this bit or you missed that. But ultimately,
to me, it's not interesting just telling people anyway. What
we found with the aftermovie Dina and The bag Man
is a prime example where we always found the sweet

(12:29):
spot where our podcasting was always at its best, was
whither when there was a movie where we had dug
into my collection of films or found some DVD or
vhs and Blu ray or whatever that you know, we
hadn't considered before, but we sort of recognized what we
hadn't considered before that we would watch and be surprised

(12:50):
by some of it, or like The bag Man, a
brand new movie that we would go to, you know,
the twenty fourth screen at the top of AMC, the
only place in New York that was showing the movie
like bag Man or Stranded or one of those, and
we would try and find the gold or the attempted
gold in a film that while no one's going to

(13:12):
look at it and say, you know, this is an
unrivaled masterpiece, a lot of people are going to look
at it and just dismiss it outright because they go, well,
that's yeah, you know, they're going to have that kind
of attitude towards it. And I hate having any kind
of like pissy attitude towards a film that I think

(13:33):
is really attempting something. And so the reason why PM Entertainment,
to me has found this sweet spot and why I
think it works as a podcast, and why I think
it's interesting that you're on the show to talk about
it because you have this history with me of talking
about these kind of films is that they sort of

(13:53):
hit all these sweet spots for us. They're obviously they're
movies that are made with a lot of like gung
ho daring do like get it done, you know what
I mean, call in favors, shut down this road, blow
up a thing, whatever, Like it's all done with a
very kind of you know, we're getting together, we're putting

(14:15):
on a show. Let's move on. Next thing, three takes on,
we go right, So there's no pretension there. That's one
of the things. The other thing is that they are
films that know what Hollywood was doing. Like they can
see the lethal weapons, the commandos, the cobras, whatever it is.
They can see what they're doing and going well, I

(14:35):
think we can approximate that. But they are also ones
that because they did it enough and because they did
it with such frequency and with such ultimate professionalism and
skill down the road and they found their people, they
found their group. They actually ended up becoming PM entertainment films.

(14:56):
Like they Yes, you recognize them as an action movie
or you recognize them as a drama, your recondods and whatever,
and they're very competently made, but they have something that
is just a little left of center that makes some
PM entertainment films. And that's also something we always liked finding.
So I feel like when it comes to you and
I talking about these movies because of our history on

(15:17):
the Aftermovie Diner, that's kind of where that's fair PM
sort of sets.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think that's what I
enjoyed about, like listening to the podcast and listening to
the movies that you love. That's why I wanted to
watch them, like it is exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
That is definitely. And so the other the other questions
that we have are all very PM related, so I'm
not I'm not gonna go well. One of them is
is when did you put together that PM was a
company that was putting out a lot of these movies.
In other words, if you've been you began the podcast,
when I began the podcast exactly, and do you have
a favorite PM film? This one, this one, Last Man's Tantic,

(15:51):
right exactly.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Although the other ones that I mean, I'm intrigued by
the other ones you've reviewed, and I do really want
to watch them, So I am gonna at some point.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, because in the past and again, and I feel
like we're definitely at that. And I see this around
me actually with some of our peers, but also some
of the people like famous people or whatever. People of
our age group seemed to be like growing and changing
and opening up more than maybe they did when they

(16:18):
were angry young men in their twenties or thirties, or when,
like you said, they were more snobby about certain things
or whatever. And not that I think I could have
sat you down tonight and watched Guardian Angel and you
would have had a different take on it. But I
do feel that when I tried to sit you down
to watch Guardian Angel, there was a little bit of
your dismissive gym, like right from the beginning to a
little bit. Is that fair or yeah? I think that's

(16:40):
fair because I know to get about that.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
I don't think that was I did try to watch, Yeah,
so that was before you did the podcast.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yes, and we were there to watch a movie or
you wanted to watch Cynthia Rothrock, I want to watch.
I was trying to find the best one.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Right, but it was very it was very low budget
and very cheap, and and I wasn't yeah, oh yeah, no,
I guess, but low budget doesn't have to look cheap, right,
Like that was low budget, well, like he was saying,
they only cost are only fifty zerd, but like looks fantastic,
whereas the other one did look like they just went
to the local pub and like paid a bunch of

(17:18):
guys ten quid to.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Pretend to be drug dealers. I just wasn't.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
I wasn't pulled into it in any way, and I was,
and I was expecting to see like an eighties polished
masterpiece of like martial arts cinema and not like like
low budget nonsense.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
I should have just shown you writing, which.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
Is fine, but I'm saying that it wasn't so much
dismissive as I wasn't prepared what it was the PM
and Same movies had to offer.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I don't think I would have enjoyed this as much
and without having heard all your other episodes to understand
what to expect, what they were doing. Why it's interesting,
you know what there is to what there is to love,
in other words, space.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah. So what I'm very excited by therefore, is that
simply by starting the PM Entertainment podcast, which by the way,
between you and me, I never expected you to listen
to because you never really I mean, and again I
don't mean there's It wasn't like you sat there and
listened back to the aftermovie diner episodes.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Which sometimes I did if they were if they were
good fun ones, especially if like enough time had passed,
I forgot you know what I mean. I mean, I
some of the pandemic ones I would go back and
listen to because they were fun, they were great, and
Burn Hollywood Burn I enjoyed because we were both so
just udly made well.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
We did we did a great like we did Eric Ider,
we did Donald Pleasants. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
When that kept me saying during the pandemic, right, those
little seasons that we did really really helped keep me saying.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
No, I love those and I always like, again, I
always like when I find an act to a producing team, composer, director,
whatever it is when I find that and I go
on a deep dive, right wings Houser, Donald Pleasance, Michael Murriarty,

(19:11):
PM Entertainment, whatever it is when I go on a
deep dive with people. I'm doing it right now in
the aftermovie diner with my friend Gary Hill. We're covering
Michael Paray movies because you're like, well, I know of
Michael Parret, like I know Eddie and the Cruisers, and
I know some of the other stuff he's done, but like,
I don't know Michael Paray. You know what I mean.
I want to, really I want to squeeze the essence

(19:32):
of Paray and understand it. And we have, thankfully, and
it has continued to ring true. By just picking random
Paray movies in the sort of four point seven to
five point five kind of IMDb range, we've actually ended
up finding some incredible.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
You normally never go below is it below for you?

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Below? Four? Below four unless I know categorically that it's
going to be a movie that I'm joy and everyone
IMDb is just being an ass. Which does there are
some like three point five movies on IMDb that I'm
like three point five? This is a like this is
an eight point two. You know this is not a
three point five. But then there are other ones which

(20:15):
sort of hover around the four to six mark where
I will normally rank them eight, nine or ten, and
most other people are ranking them like two, three, four,
And that's why they're kind of ending upright right five
or six, and so doing the pari thing again, I've
never done a deep dive on any of these actors,

(20:38):
production companies, directors, whatever it is and been disappointed. I've
always found jams.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Sort of like when I was watching all the Hammer movies,
and after a while you appreciate the artistry of it.
Just they haven't got a lot of money they need
to make a horror movie and this is what they
came up with that instead of thinking like is is
this either worse two hours of my time? Or is
this worth like two fifty have you paid for it?
Instead it's like, well, it's a Hammer movie, so oh,

(21:04):
who's Michael Ripper going to play this one?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Like what's their take on this?

Speaker 2 (21:08):
And that you can appreciate individual parts of it in
a way that enriches your understanding of the whole enterprise
and not just judging whether this one movie is A
four five or six nine yb or whatever.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah exactly. I just I've I've always felt that doing
deep dives on stuff not only yields dividends. Like I've
I've never been disappointed. Ever. I've never got three or
four movies into a Michael Pray or Wings House a
deep dive and gone nope, like that's never had I've
always gone, oh my goodness, what is this? Yeah? And

(21:41):
PM was the same for me. And I've explained before,
like I came to PM because mainly Doc Paul Crowsen
Doctor Action from my previous show sent me a bunch
of DVDs years ago, and a lot of them just
ended up being PM. In fact, we opened the DVD
yeah yeah, yeah, disc of.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
This may well have had his leateral fingerprints on it.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
It literally had his fingerprints on it, because he had
left a little note in there saying, hey, I've sent
you this box of DVDs or whatever, and so these
are ones that you know, I started to recognize pretty
much when I was doing those shows with him a
few years back and Last Man Standing, which we're talking

(22:24):
about today, I would say, what's a great thing for
you coming to PM this way? Is that you've heard
the podcast, so you're sort of aware of and we've
covered the only thing we really haven't covered in the
podcast yet. It is like one of their tournament films,
sort of one of their blood sport type films. But

(22:44):
we've covered pretty much everything that we've covered, a very
early one with Shotgun, which is sort of very rough
around the edges, kind of sleazy. They're still trying to
find their way. We've covered some of their let's just
shoot on Hollywood Boulevard a lot and have some sleaziness
and some viol so maybe the odd car chase, but
it's not full blown action. And then we've covered like

(23:05):
lots of their action stuff, and this one comes in
nineteen ninety five, which I'm going to tell you, like
nineteen ninety four is when the light bulb goes off.
Nineteen ninety five is when they are about to hit
their like Zenot, their peak, their sweet spots, so like
ninety four, ninety five, ninety six, ninety seven, these are

(23:26):
your prime PM years. These are these are when they're
working with Gary Daniels, Jeff Wincott on the Dragon Wilson
and they are predominantly I mean, they do other stuff.
They do some family stuff, and they do some weird
stuff like the Bigfoot films and things, but in general
they are what most people know from this era are

(23:48):
the action heavy, car chase heavy, stunt heavy films. And
Last Man Standing makes so many people's top five lists.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, and he's mentioned like on the well the last
one I heard, Last Man Standing was mentioned. And you know,
especially with Jeff Wincott, who I know you've talked about,
but I've never seen. I've never seen Wincott in anything, right,
You've seen his brother and I've seen. Yeah, that was great,
And as soon as you mentioned that Michael Wincott is
his brother, I could see the resemblance, although not the

(24:18):
vocal resemblance obviously, But yeah, but that was why I
was quite excited to watch this one too, because I
know that it had been referenced on a couple of
occasions as like a classic of the genre. When people
were naming like their top five PM movies, like I
think this one came in quite a few people's as
they were like whittling down their favorites.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
This was always one of them. Well it has I
mean it has just about weirdly enough, it has just
about a bit of everything in terms of their straight
action films. It doesn't have a bit of everything in
terms of the full range of what PM did I suppose.
I mean it has the strip the strip club scene,

(24:57):
which sort of adds a little of their sort of
early sea readiness into it.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Kind of got to have a strip club scene, You've
kind of when a CoP's got to go and hunt
down anything, any kind of information, that information is.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Usually in a strip club. Yeah, that's just how it works.
So in the earlier ninety four PM films, a lot
of night shoots, a lot of CD Saxophone, Hollywood Boulevard
Neon drenched, and you get a bit of that in
the chemical plant. Yeah, yeah, you get some of that,

(25:28):
like smoke and like they really make the air.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Explore the unexplained criminal enterprise that takes taking place in
a chemical.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Plant and a chemical plant that we never find it out.
All we know is make sure you bring your suits.
Whatever you're going to do in the chemical plant in
your criminal enterprise, just make sure you're wearing a suit
and tie.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yes, you can't be handling a legal chemical plant, unexplained
without without a suit.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. So you get some I mean,
I guess this has a bit of everything, but you
be the judge. Does it have a bit of everything?
Because before before we delve any further, you know what
time it is by what Jim would no doubt refer
to as another pointless and overly long jingle. All right,

(26:29):
we have beating around the face with the butt of
a shotgun, beating around the head and neck with a
bat on, a highly dramatic and violent bank robbery, car chases,
repeated explosions, hotel foot chase, bread trays deployed repeatedly as obstacles,
several extras barged out of the way, knockdown or slammed
into walls, high fall from hotel balcony into swimming pool,
martial arts, arm brakes, neck breaks, wrench fight, truck driving

(26:52):
through guard building, and police cars causing explosion, more explosions
with stunt men flying out in front of them. Jeff
Wincott Steel's bike and sungline is from innocent bystander and
throws them to the floor. Armored van and motorbike chase
featuring car explosions, car flips, shotgun blast jumps and wheelies,
police car ramped into the air and twisting over next
to the motorbike, jumping a flatbed while everything explodes behind them.

(27:14):
Wingcott stunt double standing on moving motorbike and diving from
bike into back of armored van. Fight with sacks of money.
Wincott stuntman dragged behind armored van on sacks of money.
Wincott stuntman slammed into concrete partition of the freeway, shooting
glass bottles with wife while shirtless in the desert. Gillian
Macwhirtter and Jeff Wincott really running away from a giant
barn explosion in slow motion. Corvette chase ending in an

(27:37):
insane bridge crash and both corvettes completely totaled. Hotel shootout,
chemical plant shootout, parking lot shootout, strip club bar fight
that becomes strip club shootout, villain hideout shootout, second strip
club shootout, metro station shootout. Grotuta's silky silver hair, Grotiata's
pastel jackets, Greturta's comical character actors. Hotel manager Graturitis diving

(27:59):
behind fern Urre and through mirrors in slow motion Graturre
just running through panes of glass. Gratuitous love scene with
a bunch of roses, gratuitous Jeff Wincott smoking a bazillion cigarettes,
gratuit to shirtless Jeff Wincott, gratuit to snakeskin boots, Grature,
just close up with button tattoo, Graturre, just weekend at
Bernie's dead villain ruse, Gratur just troubadours that turn out

(28:20):
to be gunwheeleding cubs, and gratuitous a needless murder of hostage. Wow,
what a list anyway, So let us I'm gonna hand
it over to you, Jesus, because we always used We
always used to do this on the aftermovie Diner and
it's always fun. But I tend to make my guests
go through the plot a because I don't like doing

(28:41):
it generally, but also because with you, we had a
running joke on the aftermovie Diner that you would do
the plot and I'd be like, nope, here's why you
got that run. So uh look, look, I don't I
don't envy you in this because I feel like, while
we just watched it, while this holds together, as like,
you watch this so you go, oh, it's a fun

(29:01):
cop versus bad guys action movie.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
If you there were a couple of times you're like, wait,
what what is who's that guy he just shot?

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Like that happened a few times. All right, So I'm
I have to explain the plot of Last Man Standing.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
A little bit. Yeah, alright. Elevator pitch okay, elevator pitch okay.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
So Jeff win Catt is or is described by other
people as a good cop, even though, as you've pointed out,
one of the first things he does in the chemical
plant is break somebody's neck. Yes, with no clear idea
of who they are at that point. It's just somebody
who jumps out him and Jeff breaks his neck, which
I feel like that's a.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Little But they go to a hotel the very opening.
So they go to a hotel for a mild disturbance
and end up wrecking an entire hotel site.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, okay, right, okay, so okay, all right, so okay,
I'm let to be in here.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
All right.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
There is a gang rubbing banks in l A.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Coincidentally, Jeff Wincott gets called to a hotel room where
some guy who's not really explained is getting paid off
for some reason by the bank robbers. And then because
the bank robbers want to make sure they keep on
the down low execute the guy with the machine gun
in the hotel room, also having been asked to leave.

(30:16):
When the hotel guy, presumably having been asked to leave, says,
if you don't leave, I will call the police, Like,
forget it. We're having a secret meeting where we planned
to murder somebody, so could you please leave us alone?
Call the police all you like, apparently because we've got
murder to do, which again anyway, whatever, So they're meeting
in the room. Jeff and his partner Jonathan Banks gets

(30:39):
called to the disturbance the disturbances and people won't check out.
It's like, I don't know, the armed detectives are going
to arrive, do you know what I mean that quickly?
For some people won't check out of a hotel room.
I feel like Jeff's pretty low down in the packing
order of the detective assignment. But anyway, he gets called. Fortunately,
murder is committed and Jeff has to chase it down.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Jeff chased down some blake with.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Very natty hair and a baggy suit through quite in
quite a cool, windy like hotel. Like it's like a
nice big la hotel. There's lots of like brightly carpeted
like long corridors and like chasing through a kitchen. Anyway,
I'm really telling this badly. Out I'm doing anything, Okay,
so sorry. Bank robberies. Bank robber gets caught by Jeff

(31:23):
Wincott and put in jail. However, it turns out that
Wincott's new lieutenant is in league with the bank robber to.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Do with a transfer from Boston and we know.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Criminal, Yeah, for whatever reason, the bank rubber and the
lieutenant are in coats, yes, and so he gets let out.
Wing Catt and banks. Well, Wingcott basically accuses the lieutenant
of stealing money because he's seen in the hotel and
there's like hundreds of thousands of dollars and the lieutenant's

(31:57):
been like, well, there's only a few grands, so that.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Presumably, well when they go to checking evidence.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, well no, because presumably the reason he's been granted
bail is because there was hardly any money that was like,
that's what and also he got to take all the money, so.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Right, what happens next?

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Then they get called to the chemical plant after that,
again unconnected, but they still get called to them. They've heard shots,
they've heard shots, but it doesn't have anything to do.
It's like it's a separate criminal enterprise. Well, no, no,
it's because there's baggy suit, gray hair man. Isn't there
nobody from the bank robbing gang that's at the chemical plant.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
They just get caught.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
They only get called the hotel room to stuffs is
and funny noises in chemical factories. That's all Jeff is
equipped to hand.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
No, No, the guard of the chemical factory who copied
five dollars an hour. Here's a gun shot.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
So it's not just a gunshot and a chemical plant, right,
So it's it's people who don't check out of hotels
and weird noises and chemical plants. That's where Jeff gets
So Jeff and Jonathan get called out.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Nows Wing came back, which is so USA networkwork. Wing
cotton banks, the win cotton banks get called to the
chemical plant. That's when Jeff like breaks somebody's necks.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
And I think we're really hilarious because it was so like,
he just jumped out at you and he broke his dack.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
He could be literally anybody, but whatever, Well, don't jump
out on Jeff. Don't jump on Jeff. Don't jump Jeff.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
He should he should get on in the back of
his like pastel blazer.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
He should like don't jump, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Don't jump on Jeff, So don't jump jep So they
get called the chemical plant. He breaks somebody's neck, and
then Jonathan Banks gets in a hostage situation, like with
a gun point is head by one of the Chemical
Plant gang. Jeff puts his weapon down, but the lieutenant
shoots the guy who's holding Banks hostage from behind, which
means that the guy then talking about whenever you say

(33:51):
Seagrove shoots the bank rubber, who then kills Banks, and
Jeff is understanding to be very very angry. Now Seagrave
his boss, the Captain. Next day he grows boss, the Captain. Obviously,
Jeff's very upset about this, Captain de Mayo. Captain de
Mayo played by Michael Green right. Captain de Mayo then

(34:11):
calls Jeff into his office and says something like.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Basically, you never give up your gun. Seagrove saved your life.
He's a hero.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
You're on probation now from this point on. That's like
all a very convoluted setup. At that point on, Jeff
is off the force. H he's handing his gun and
his badge, and as the movie goes on, he becomes
more and more convinced that what's really going on here
because the bank robbery guy gets let out again.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yes, he gets let out again. That's right.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Bank rubber guy gets let again and coincidentally robs his
wife's bank again. Nothing to do with Jeff. His wife
just happens to work there at the bank. Jeff is
she's already wearing even though she's already wearing her glasses,
but he drives back, which is like, okay, I mean
that's fine.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
She's got two beads of glasses. These things happen, she
needs both. Jeff is normally nineties.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Jeff is usually busy breaking men's necks without as skady
questions to you know, to worry about what's.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Going on with his wife's classes.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
That's probably why she has two pairs, because Jeff's too
busy breaking next to carry about glasses. So he drives
back to give her the glasses and then busts up
like the bank robbery in progress.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
That's happening.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
That leads to an amazing chase scene where he again, no,
he doesn't arrest him, but he causes Yeah, that's right.
They get away, but they cause a ship ton of damage.
So the captain's really upset with him. He's like, first all,
you're off the force. Second of all, the cost of fortune.
And Jeff not unreasonably points out right, right, but the

(35:46):
crime was committed by a bloke that was just let out.
And that's when he formally accuses.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Corruption. Is they talk about, well, we really need evidence,
and you've got several so much now they don't have
evidence that connects snake to Seagrove. They've got and he's
just like wandering around. That's totally fine.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yeah, So Jeff is still off the force and you're
also meeting with his captain to explain why he chose
after bank. Robert isn't in trouble for that. The captain is,
and I guess he is kind of in trouble anyway.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Well, he was never off the force. He was put on.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Probation and he had to handle his gun bad He
had to handle his gun in his badge.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
But he said he was on something leave like paperwork
like desk. Oh, yeah, he had to be part of that.
It wasn't really made clear. But he's also being pursued
by like some rogue I A agents who are.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Not No, no, no, that's so that's later. So what
happens at this point is Jeff formally accuses Seagrove of
being corrupt, and then at that point I A come
and visit him and be like, oh, this corruption thing
is interesting. We should meet in an underground car park
to discuss. Why would you meet in an underground car
You're already in a police station talking about it. Why

(36:59):
did you need to have an other meeting? Well, I
mean it's important in an underground car. And they weren't
really I agents. They were actually hit, but they were
in the police station talking to.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Him in an interview works whatever. Yeah, you're right, so
is crooked?

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Right, So Jeff suspects not only a Seagrove crooked, but
the captain must also be crooked because they're all in
on this. So him and his wife drive away in
a red stolen corvette to a shark where the world vehicles.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
He steals that motorbike which is a yeah, he just
like pushes.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
He steals like two guys cars. Yeah, he breaks next
to a car again, not a good car. So they
drive off to a.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
To a there are no good cups.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
So they drive off to like a shack in the
Hollywood Hills and to lay low, and at that point
they're found on the basis that the carri style has
a thing in it. And the way that the bank
robbers decide to deal with them is while they're sleeping,
they sneak in to where they're sleeping and instead of
shooting them in the head, instead put some bombs in

(38:06):
the building and then they set timers and then they leave.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Job done.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
What could possibly go wrong with this bank?

Speaker 1 (38:13):
This is the other thing we need to explain about
the bank robbery team is that the bank robbery team have,
prior to robbing any bank that they rob rigged several
cars that.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Saying, which I did think was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
I think that several cars on their route blow up
causing distress for them.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
To be fair, I did like that. I did think
that was a pretty cool plan.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
So they have set them. Yeah, that's fair, that's trying
to give you no, No, that's fair.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
They're leaning on their area of expertise, which if you
ask people who when they're like asked to solve a problem, eat,
how do you get away from a bank? And their
answer is make things explode. If you ask them to
solve a problem, like Jeff, they're going to be They're
probably going to go to a problem, make things explode, right,
That's what they know, so no surprise, that's what they

(39:06):
go for. It doesn't work, so Jeff and his bird
drive back to the city, at which point it's basically
a showdown. This isn't so much as a plot as
the whole movie. Yes, yeah, but it's very complicated. Essentially, Jeff,
the most.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
You've ever got. Normally, only after we be done, I'd
ask you for the plot and you'd be like, there's
a carpet. I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
He drives back, he gets involved with He listens back
to tapes.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Of well Jonathan Banks is writing a book.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Jonathan ban Oh, that's right, Jonathan Banks is writing a book.
This is one of the things I loved about this movie.
They had narrative problems, like, whenever you're writing the story,
you're going to come across narrative problems. Right, well, we
need to do this, so how we're going to make
that happen? And they come up with solutions that are
absolutely solved that problem, while at the same time making
no sense at all. So what they've got is right, Well,

(39:57):
we need Jonathan Banks to have evidence he's writing a book. Well,
writing a book isn't really evidence, so we should have
him like talking about it. So it should be like
he's recorded himself. So okay, because what mom says he
doesn't even like to write, that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
It is like that.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
So it was like, well, how do we get it
so that he's recorded it when he says he's writing
a book, I know we'll say that he doesn't like
to write. So wait, what could be literally anything like
where he wants to get evidence down he had a
tape record or anything, but not like he doesn't Yeah,
his mom says he doesn't even like to write addresses
on envelopes. Well, that's a commitment to the idea of
not liking writing. And I think that's a splendid solution

(40:35):
to that.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
By the way, Jonathan Banks in a long line of
PM Entertainment characters who for many different reasons live with
their parents.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
I do think that's But I liked that thing where.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Apparently when she is sort of senile because she's serving him.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Much, Yeah, like mushrooms under syries, She's like she's gone
a bit mad. But I like when Jeff goes to
like break the news instead of it being like like
breaking the news of the young wife and family or whatever,
you know what I mean, Like it was like like, well,
we need something emotionally manipulated him. We need but so
kindly of mother. It's like sort of like a Western
kind of a thing, which I like.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Jonathan Banks, who doesn't like writing envelopes, so records his book,
which is basically him dishing the dirt on all his
former colleagues while.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Also saying what a swell go Jeff Win cut.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yeah, which is all like what this is massively here say,
it's a.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Bloke sitting around in a hotel room without a shirt,
without a reasons, no smoking and listening to the tapes
and then he smokes so much cigarettes.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
So anyway, on the tapes it says on this blike
you can trust he's from the He's from actually internal affairs,
so to go and see him. He says, you need
a link between Sea Grove and the bank robber Snake
Snake Underwood. Snake Underwood, great name for a villain. And
then the rest of the movie is him basically like
chasing down snake underwood and then having a big fight

(41:59):
with both the Sea Grove and then the captain, and
it's and that's basically it's like Jeff's Jeff's revenge for
the death of his partner. Yes, that's kind of it, right,
I think I covered basically they could have watched the
whole movie. That basically took the running time of the movie.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
For me, it did so, but but well done. No, yeah,
well no, because now we'll go kind of seen by
seeing the favorite scenes. I mean, so the opening with
with PM Entertainment, we always get like, especially by this
point in their ouvra if that is a word I
can use around uh, you know, the the genre cliches

(42:40):
or whatever you want to call it. This is this
is jeff yellow pastel jacket, the yellow past at the beginning,
we have yellow pastel, green pastel, and then kind of
like a bluey teal thing that kind of then he
just goes full baggy shirt. I thought, yeah, well, then
he's wearing like a blouse at the It's like he's
wearing like a shirt that's like part beetle collarless shirt, yeah,
part like Troubadour blouse.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yeah, it's kind of like Eryl Flinnish, which given the
whole well, given the whole snake underwood thing, being like,
I'm a swashbuckler.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Which is weird because although at the beginning we see
him hitting people with like a bat on, he's never like.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
They could have leaned into that more.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
He should have had a sword or something.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah, I know, I listen, I'm one hundred looking back.
I do feel like they missed a trick. If they're
going to call him the swashbuckle, he's got swashbucking hair
that hair buckles swashes.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Hair equal. If you look up swashbuckle in the dictionary,
it's just a.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, absolutely yeah, I would say it buckles swashes in
the double figure all over the place, double figure buckling.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
There are no swashes within.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
But you're right, you should have given him a sword,
you know, rubs Banks with a sort of guy. It's
a book robbing Banks with a sword. That would give
it a bit of like anyway.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
I know it occasionally you see so this happens occasionally
with PEMA entertainment films as well, where and again I
would never say that it's because they're not good enough,
because they're all good enough but occasionally you see something
where you're like, if you were just well, the thing is,
there's a thing you could have done there that would
have elevated this even higher. In the bananas stone.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
I suppose the point of why they're so good, or
at least this is my feeling.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
I love your like from my podcast and watching this movie,
you have fallen in love with PM. It means so
much to me that that's what's happened. Yeah, yeah, but
it's great man.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Well, I think because of how you've described the movies
to me, I can see how they need to get
it done quick and they need to get it done cheap,
and every movie is like how do we get from
one thing to the next thing?

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Right, That's all it really is.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
And especially since as you point out, what's so great
about the movies is it is how do we get
from one action scene to the next action?

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Right?

Speaker 2 (44:54):
We know things need to happen because like those scenes
need to have weight, but we just need to get
there quickly. So I like the fact that every solution
they pick is kind of feels like a little bit
on the fly and a little bit well, this is
just what needs to happen.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
But also they're not. They're falling.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
It feels like they fall back on structure, but not ideas,
in the structure of like, we need a reason why
he needs to speak into a you know, into a
recorder because we've got this thing and I head where
he's going to listen to it on the tape, Like
that's obviously what they.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Had in their heads.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
And it's like, so they know they need an answer
to that question, but the answer is always a bit
weird and a bit left field, because it's like, well,
we just need an answer, it doesn't really matter what
it is.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
And so because they're like, I.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Really addressed an envelope, so I like the the solutions
are peculiar rather than just pulled from another movie or
pulled from a screenwriting how to book, or it's just
like a boring idea you've seen a million times. The
answer to the question is always slightly odd it seems
like anyway, which is what gives it its charm. So

(45:59):
even though they missed tricks every now and then, it
feels like, well, they're missing a trip because they're just
trying to.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Get to the next thing.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
They're not necessarily thinking what's the best they're just thinking
what's the fastest.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
But then you also again, I think I think one
of the things that it's lucky that they have Jonathan
Banks as sort of their ace and their sleeve a
little bit to deliver, to deliver this soliloquy. But like,
there is something that I think is like a really
great bit of screenwriting, which is, so we we meet
Jonathan Banks, we know is his partner, but he's living
at home with his mum, right, and we don't really

(46:29):
know much about that. What we see is is mum's
serving him mushrooms and cereal, pouring milk on it, and
him being like, ah, mom. So your mind kind of
goes to, oh, she's old and senile and a little
weird or whatever, and but she's trying to do her
best because she's like, well you like mushrooms, like I
put mushrooms anything. It's like, yeah, okay, So there's they've

(46:51):
established this thing, but they've also established it in a
way that's made you, I'm sorry, what's going on? But
then he sits down in this diner, right, and they
have to solve two problems, right. They have to solve
the fact that Banks doesn't want to go after seagrove. Right,
and he's the older cop, you know, longer in the tooth.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
In a way that makes him like still an admirable character,
worthy of revenge, right, worthy of avenging, I.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Guess, coupled with the fact that we have to explain
how he wound up, you know, this late middle aged
man living with his mom again. Right, So he tells
this great soliloquy about how like his ex wife was
caught that is good, You're right, that's a good story, right,
story in a sleazy motel with another cop. She they

(47:39):
get a divorce, she goes off with this other cop.
She then gets caught cheating on that other cop, and
that cop that she was, the original guy that she
was cheating on, Banks with kills all of them and
ends up in prison, right. And this leads Banks to
two things, one going back to live with his mom
and two deciding like, I don't get involved, don't get involved.

(48:02):
I'm still here. Yeah, whenever you get involved, whenever you try.
Because he tells this great story about I went to
the hotel, I saw them, you know, doing the deed,
and I didn't say anything. I just shut the door
and I left because it's like I know what I'm
gonna do. I'm just gonna leave her, but like, let's
not get involved with whatever this is.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
Yeah, he's also like I guess, relatably human, right, Well,
he's relatably kind. That his mum puts the mushrooms on
the cereal thing is a neat trick too, because there's
different ways to react to that, Right. You can have
him be like angry and be like my mom, I'm
living with my mom or whatever, and then you'd be
like he's a bit of a dick. Or he could
be like, hey, don't worry, mom, I'll take care of

(48:44):
you or whatever. He could be like syrupy and again
like not really relatable. But instead he's just sort of
he sort of rolls his eyes. He goes, well, of course,
I know one mushrooms off with Serra and then he
makes a joke about how like she makes a great
strawberry Omelet you know what I mean. It's like he
makes gentle fun of her. But obviously he's kind and
like his mum loves him. It was to give him mushrooms,
but he'll, like Jeremy, he's not patronizing or mean. He's

(49:06):
sort of rolling his eyes sort of has to part
up with how weird she is. But the fact that
he obviously has to put up with this all the
time means he has to be a good son. Like,
obviously she's driving him crazy, but he's a good son.
So it's a way of making him a way. It's
not just the mushroom story. It's how he reacts as
a character mushroom story that makes him a good man
and again worthy of avenging. You're right, that story was.

(49:28):
It was very short, very neatly told, and leaves you
with the thing where it's like, like you say, he's
a good man and he's right not to get involved.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
But you know what, do you know what? We never
get an answer to what's that throughout the whole movie. Okay,
what's that is? What is that trophy on his bedside tape? No,
we're never gonna know. When Jeff goes looking for the
book that he's been writing, he finds that there is
a trophy on his bedside table that is never mentioned.
And if you look at Banks in the movie, you
know you can't. I mean, he never mentions that he's

(49:58):
on a bowling league or a golfing day or.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Whatever he's on a bowling league. He's he's going to
be on a bowling Yeah, that's my guess.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Yeah, yeah, I reckon it's like a bowling trophy from
like a few from like a few years ago.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Oh yeah, back in his youth.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Is right, had more more swing to it. No, I
think there's some I know what you're saying, and I
agree with that. There's definitely some non sequiturs in it.
But I also I also wonder if you went back
to the Cobra's, Commando's whatever, those even the striking distances
or whatever of the Hollywood world, we could probably find
the same non sequiturs. I just think that what's interesting

(50:35):
about Hollywood is they package those a little better. I
think what's interesting about PM Entertainment is they never let
the movie slow down long enough few to really care.
Just as you're asking, like, wait, why is this going on?
There's a shootout, a car chase, some boobies, like something happens.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
I would say, there's There's a couple of things I
was surprised by. Okay, One was how were written. It
was even the things that didn't make sense were at
least imaginative. You know, there's not things that like well
that doesn't work because there were things that In fact,
even the scene that didn't I was like, wait, who's
this guy whatever? So it's fine, like, just let it

(51:16):
play out. Oh, that's right, they're going to the drug
dealer's house because that's what they said.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
They were going to do.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
So even though there was a moment of confusion, it
all became clear what was happening. Yes, but the story
with the with the his wife and the hotel was
really neat be told. There was It was just it
barreled along nicely. It all made enough sense. There wasn't
like the stakes were clear. The acting was much better
than I was expecting, like both the sergeant and the
captain and win Cott was was also really I know

(51:43):
he was sort of a bit of a like occasionally
a bit of square George Chump, but actually he was.
He was really good and one of the better actors
martial artists slash actors, because I feel like Wing Coott
was probably an actor first who although Wincott's very good
at martial arts and it's definitely done other movies outside
of PM that focus a lot on his martial arts,

(52:06):
I feel like he was and I don't know his
full history because he was never competitive. It wasn't like
he's not like Van Dam or Speakman or Seagull, who
come from like a background of at least tournament fighting
or at least training and more an actor than those
martial arts rather than exactly Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Yeah, and he's very good at martial arts. And in fact,
you know, if you watch stuff like Mission of Justice
and some of his other movies outside of PM where
he leans heavier into the martial arts, or Deadly Bet,
which is a more of a tournament movie that he
does for PM, you'll see a lot more of his
more traditional martial arts in this. It's more sort of
roundhouse kicks and flipping people and breaking next and all

(52:44):
that kind of stuff, which is equally fun. And he
does have a very fun, loose style with his martial arts. Yeah,
I know, I like Ridgid. It's kind of liked it.
It's kind of a bit street Brawley in a fun way.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
I did, Yeah, Ira, what was fun about it was
I didn't feel like things were being set up for
martial arts moves. It more felt like like the strip
club fight was really fun because it was like six
guys against him and He dealt with them all in
like quite fun, imaginative ways, but also in ways that
felt improvised, as they would be in a fight, rather

(53:18):
than this is the moment where I'm going to do
this trick away, which somewhat sometimes can distract me. It
felt like, you know, they were filming a brawl in
a strip club, you know what I mean, rather than
this is a martial arts scene. So I really enjoyed
that part of it as well. I enjoyed the action
was The action was fantastic. Like you said on the
on the podcast a number of times, I really like

(53:39):
the way that there aren't boring moments in it. There
aren't scenes that you're just saying, you know, skip to
the end, you know, let's get to the next bit.
It was all very It went by. The whole film
went by in a flash. It was you know, it
was the writing, the acting. I was surprised by the
quality of the filming as well, like even like when
he told it was, you know, less than a million.

(54:02):
The scenes were really well shot. The action was really good.
The gunfights were good, the car chases, it was all
really really well put together.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
So it's it's you're also what I also really like
about this being your first full PM Entertainment film is
you are working with a lot of the PM Entertainment
all stars. So you have Joseph Mary who's the PM
he writes and directs it. You've got Ken Blakey, who
shot like two thirds of their film.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
You were right in the in the interrogation scene. The
way that it's lit, Yeah, it's just a rum and
three guys are in it, and the only thing that
needs to happen in that is like you need to
establish that they're going to make this deal with him
in underground car park. But the way that it's lit,
it's kind of sinister and shadowy, and it's.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Film they lean into, like yeah, And this is what
I love about it is that very often PM Entertainment
lean into kind of the old Hollywood way of lighting stuff,
you know, I mean stuff is often very either shiny
or shadowy or smoky or strong depth of field or
like a nice grain to the film, Like there's elements

(55:02):
to it where you're like, yes, I know, this was
you know, made for beans, and everyone's kind of being
scrappy and figuring it out, but there is real thought
and skill there.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, Yeah, it's like you said, it feels like everything
is made with love. Yes, in that well, we're here,
we've got a room, we've got some actors, we've got
a camera, we've got lights, we've got a few hours.
Instead of like we need to get out of here,
so just get it done.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
There's a light.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Let's try and make this the best we can with
what we've got.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Wait, and this is also the point that I'll make
over and over again about PM Entertainment throughout the show,
which is this Outside of PM Entertainment, there are tons
and tons and tons of production companies in the straight
to video action game. There still are. There still are
Dolph Langren Van Dam, Scott Atkins, Cigar, all these people

(55:51):
are still making straight to video action movies. There are
people like Alexander Nevsky who's like doing his own thing,
who's like a Russian who's been trying to produce like
low budget action movies and doing his own thing. There's
the Robert Bronzie, which we were talking about before. Is
it Robert Roberto Bronsi Robert Bronsie, I don't know, but
he's the guy who looks like Chuck Brunson, who's done

(56:14):
like a bunch of like B movies lately and things
like that. There's tons of companies out there still to
this day making straight to video action films filling up
streaming platforms. Whenever I have sat down to watch them,
I watch them and I go it's when those are
the movies I have to start making excuses for.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
I watch them and I go, okay, that bit was great,
but right, and there's always a long butt. It's always
a budgetary butt or a acting level but or whatever.
There's always like a huge butt where you kind of go, well,
you know what I mean, Like they can only afford
an opening action sequence and an ending action sequence. In
the middle is just this soggy pudding where you're expecting,

(56:58):
you know, martial artists or whatever who not necessarily trained
in acting to do a lot of heavy lifting with
the dialogue, and you're like, you know, very often, if
you're into straight to video stuff, B movie stuff, call
it what you will, you have to make a lot
of compensations for that. What I love about PM Entertainment
is they don't have any more money than those other guys.

(57:20):
They just somehow in the twelve thirteen years that they
were operating captured the right team around them, right. So,
Ken Blake and Rick Peppin being the guys who shoot
ninety percent of their stuff established a look and feel
of PM that leans on both film noir but also
glossy Hollywood action sequences and also like if you watch

(57:44):
The First Leave, the weapons keep coming back to there's
a lot of like noir ish elements in that, the
way they shoot stuff and so on action films nowadays don't.
Everything looks very flat these days. There's not like the
same kind of filmmaking techniques. So you've you've got Ken Blake,
he's doing incredible cinematography, You've got Spiro's Artus is the
first time that Spiro is on a PM Entertainment film

(58:06):
doing the stunt coordinator. And he's been a stunt coordinator
at this point, or at least a stunt man or
within the stunt world for quite some years by the
time he hits PM. But PM really lets it lets
his you know, lets him kind of go overboard and
do exactly all of the things that other low budget
films that he worked on, or maybe the horror films
that he was worked on, wouldn't necessarily have the ability

(58:28):
to do. You have Joseph Murray, who at this point
has been making movies for almost ten years and writing
films from us ten years and like figuring out his voice,
and they've hit you know, they're hitting their peak and
everything's going well. You've got Jeff Wincott, who, like we say,
has like much better acting than a lot of martial
artists and stuff. They have surrounded him with great character actors,

(58:52):
whether it's the henchmen guys, or whether it's the big
bad guy, whether he's even the captain, the guy who
plays the captain. He's just got that great old grizzled
character actor faced.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Yeah, he's got a bit of like La Confidential Cromwell, right.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah, And they all fit a cliched bill, you know.
See Seagrove looks a bit like I know the actor
he looks like, and I can't think of what he's
in right now. They've got the action, they've got the writing,
they've got the cinematography that they're firing on enough cylinders,
and somehow PM seemed to know how to keep all

(59:29):
that on the screen without it ever really becoming a
soggy pudding, or without it becoming a thing where you
have to make a lot of excuses because they don't
have a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Yeah, I suppose it's a thing where I guess you
could argue to an extent, if you're making a movie
for the if you're making move for the cinema, right,
then you have to give them something the beginning so
they don't walk out. You have to give them something
at the end to kind of make them leave happier,
not annoyed. And if in the middle it kind of

(01:00:00):
it's like, well, you know, they paid the money, we've
got them. If you're making these primarily for like cable
TV or videos or videos video, but they did but
in the nineties the nineties, right, so there's a lot
of like cable TV movies cinemas where they're making both,
so they're making a lot of money for that. Now,
if you're making a movie for TV, you can't afford

(01:00:23):
to have any boring moments in that because people can
change the channel any time, So you have to keep
the pace up all the way through so that every
ad break you're like gonna like come back more, or
is at the end of an exciting sequence or whatever.
So I do think that maybe with that in their head.
What seems to me is like whatever their budget is,
they're like stretching it out all the way through in

(01:00:46):
a really clever way. But I yeah, I do wonder
whether the cable TV thing is a part of it
that's in their head, because that must have been a
large part.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Of what they're making. And I mean a lot of
these movies played cinemas over Ce's. Eastern Europe is a
big fan of PM entertainment films. Asia loves pure entertainment films.
I think there's like some South American fans as well.
And they did play festivals and things on the big

(01:01:14):
and they were shot on thirty five mil. The first
few years they were shot on sixteen mil. But by
the time you got to Last Man Standing, they're all
shot in thirty No, it looks great, which is why
Clardia Auric over at Focus Media in Switzerland is able
to make them into blue rays because he has the
thirty five mill. He's not trying to scale and DVD.

(01:01:34):
He's actually re scanning and remastered. Is it widescreen? Yeah?
Is it possible to do that? It is, Yeah, it's
possible doing whites screen. Okay, we have come to the

(01:01:56):
middle section of the show, and you know what that means,
It's time for interviews. So this week we're exceptionally happy
to have the co star of Last Man Standing, a
fantastic actor who handles a lot of the running and
gunning herself. PM Entertainment regular who also stars in Rage,
the Underground and the season two finale of La Heat.
It's the wonderful Gillian McWhirter. We also have a clip

(01:02:19):
from our Spirorozatos interview where he talks about getting the
job for Last Man Standing. Don't forget if you enjoy
the show to rate and review, share, like comment, email,
and all that good stuff. One such fan of the
show who is an exceptional example of all of those
things is Keith McAfee, who wrote us an email this
week saying episode nine rules. Really enjoyed the latest episode

(01:02:42):
of the PEM Entertainment Podcast with Jeff Speakman. Listening to
Jeff talk about the business aspect of his films was brilliant.
Jeff's insights behind the scenes of his career was legendary.
The overall episode was a banger. Keep up the hysterical
banter and insightful movie knowledge. Running in a JC penny
cheap suit, laugh out loud loyal listener Kenneth McAfee from

(01:03:02):
the two oh seven. All right, you'll hear a few
commercials to help pay for this whole shebang, and then
the interviews. Thanks so much for listening, but thanks ever
so much for agreeing to talk to us on the
PM Entertainment podcast Today job. It's a real pleasure, of course.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Of course you're welcome. PM Entertainment was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Yeah, no, it's it's fantastic And there's you know, the
Blu rays are coming out overseas. I don't know if
you've heard that. And with Corey doing the book and
us doing the podcast, we feel as a resurgence, a
ground squirrel.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
I hope I saw the TV show that I did
for them. I saw that, I guess at about six
months ago on I believe it was Free TV, they
were airing the whole series.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Yes, no, that's that's now available on to be Fourshome. Yeah,
free TV and Amazon Prime. You can watch both seasons
fully on Amazon Prime. Yeah we'll get some reals, yes,
hopefully so. But now with Claudio over in Switzerland putting
them out on Blu Ray and remastering them from the

(01:04:07):
thirty five millimeter. Who knows what's next. I'm excited about it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Yeah, people like to watch them with the budgets they had,
and this is kind of sound like it.

Speaker 5 (01:04:16):
Blew me away.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Yeah. Completely.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
We were always in the movie, you know, the bombs
going off behind me. And then just to know now
that I've been more involved in the film world than
on the business side of it, I mean, what they
accomplished with such a small budget was beyond me. And
they're casting director Mark Sykes, who I had lunch with

(01:04:41):
about a year ago. I mean, they had some they
hired some very very strong actors that were unknown at
the time, and you really have to have a key
an insight for that to get an extremely low budget
project to look rich.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Yeah, they seemed to do put a great team around them,
both behind and in front of the camera that they
could always rely on. And in fact, I was going
to say, you know, one of the actors you worked
with both in the movie Rage and also on the
TV series, Kenneth Tiger. Yeah, much like yourself, was in

(01:05:21):
a ton of their things, sort of popping up in
little bets here and there. He's even at the beginning
of the Underground, so you, I think you and Kenneth
then a couple of others sort of seemed to be
almost less stable that they could kind of rely on
and bring back for multiple things. Is how did you
first come into the world of PM Entertainment? How did

(01:05:42):
you first get hired? For last Man's standing that it was.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
Just an audition process real quick while I'm thinking about this,
the audition process can be very quick or can be
very long. For instance, my first film with Roger Korman
and I know these are two different companies. Yeah, I
had seven callbacks for that project because I had done
no films whatsoever. And Carl Franklin was the director, Michael

(01:06:11):
pop and Michael was a DP and Jannish who is
now Steven Spielberg's DP, was a DP of that film.
So I had to go back seven different times to
you know, earn that credit. So those kind and then
after that I did the MGM film, So those credits

(01:06:31):
helped me when I went over to PM and auditioned
over there. And it's the same thing. You get your sides,
you get the script. If you're lucky enough, you get
the full script where you can actually read it. Before
you go in. Usually it's just the sides, and so
you go in and you audition and then you have
a callback. So it was just an audition process and

(01:06:53):
I got the part, so it was fun. I do
remember the TV. I was driving down mahulland drive up
here in LA and I get a phone call from
my agent and they said, PM is offering you the
contract role on their new TV series. It's an action

(01:07:15):
TV series. I thought, oh, I love these guys. I
know they have good taste. Yes, for sure, I want
to do it. And then I hung up. I went
I made it.

Speaker 5 (01:07:26):
That was it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
I did not have to audition. They called me and
made me an offer. So when you get to that
point where people are calling you and making you offers,
you know they know your work and they trust you.
It's a real trust factor that, especially when you're shooting
so fast and doing your own stunts, you got to

(01:07:49):
they have to know you're not only are you good
at what you do, but you're going to show up
on set and you're not going to be a prima donna.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Of course. Of course, So when you were auditioning for
Last Man Standing, was it for the role of Annabella
or did you audition for sort of multiple roles or
was it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
Yeah, And I think what's really interesting about Last Man Standing,
and I think this happens quite a few times throughout
PM because they do like to I think flip expectations occasionally,
is that you're not a damsel in distress role, You're
not just a wife of the hero role. You become
very part of the action, and you know, and we

(01:08:32):
love that. As as as action fans, I think we
often get labeled as a certain type of person and
we're not at all. We love when action gets everyone
involved and everyone kind of gets a chance to do it.
So those parts of the script, was that something that
was already in there and kind of drew you to

(01:08:52):
the role. Was that something you brought along with you.
Was that something that was kind of workshopped on set
or was it just listen, we want someone who's okay
to do action, running, fighting, jumping, shooting all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
It was the latter what you just said. It was
already in the script. And I was a competitive gymnast
growing up, so I and I worked out all the time,
so I loved doing my own stunts. And I remember
on one of the sets. You remember the big explosion, yes,
from the barn so and we had to play it cool.

(01:09:27):
It was like, oh, there goes a big blow up.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
So and then I got to I'm trying to I
was the detective. I know, I'm flip flopping back and
forth from the TV series in this, but the TV
series I actually had a lot more action in the
sense I was a detective.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:44):
At the end, I did, I was done.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
I was killed, right, But they had put squibs all
over me and it was really I mean, everything was
very safe. The prop master was there showing me everything.
But I was like seven times wow. So that that
was a really good action. And it was the first
time I ever did that type of action in a flick. Yeah,

(01:10:10):
and it was fun because of course I was able
to get up and walk away without going to the hospital.
And so I with PM Entertainment with Joseph and Rick,
I think they really respected their female actresses and again
the trust factor is going to come in and the
sense of they can also talk intelligence. They can still

(01:10:35):
look very attractive, but guess what, they can run and
they can fight with the best of them.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
Yeah, no, exactly, And I think That's what we love
about Last Man's Standing because you kind of get embroiled
in the action. You work closely with Jeff Wincott in
Last Man's Standing and your husband, yeah, in the movie, yes,
your husband. And I'm trying to think was it Jeff's
first movie with PM as well? I know he did
a few. I think it was his first movie. But

(01:11:02):
how was it working with Jeff? And obviously you're in
the whole movie with him. You have lots of scenes
with him, action scenes, emotional scenes.

Speaker 5 (01:11:10):
Oh, we had a love scene.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Yeah, I love scene. So what was it like in general?
Working with jeffs wonderful?

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
I mean I could never say anything wrong about him.
He is just a giving actor. He's very strong, excellent
with his action, very caring. You know in the love scene.
Love scenes aren't as sexy as everybody thinks it is.
It's very laid out. The lighting has there, it's a

(01:11:37):
close set. The director will go, Okay, we're going to
do this shot, so run your hand down this way
over the thigh. Let's make sure the light is hitting
the knee, correct. I mean, it's so technical and the
actors are there and very caring and loving and that's
who he was. He was and his shows in his

(01:11:59):
work too, believe, I mean, what you think, can't you
see that he's a caring actor. I mean, like I've
never I've been really blessed lucky that the people that
I have worked with, and some have gone on to
become really big names. I sometimes call myself the lucky
rabbit foot. If you work with me, you'll probably go

(01:12:21):
on and become a huge success. And I'm still I'm
still waiting for my big break. So but just a
very carrying actors in my whole rainbow of work.

Speaker 5 (01:12:34):
I've never worked with a.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
Drama queen or king or someone that slams the door
and won't leave their trailer or demands it.

Speaker 5 (01:12:42):
There's no.

Speaker 3 (01:12:45):
Cables across the walkway so that or they'd only get
green Eminem's. I mean, like some of the stuff is
just ridiculous, but I've fel lucky not to experience that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
I feel like the way PM made films, you know, quick,
on a smaller budget and with a loyal crew around them,
I don't know how you would have time to be
dramatic or pussy in that kind of scenario, because Joseph
would probably have just kicked you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
Out, you'd be gone. But there's a couple of times
where I was like, especially is the detective. I was like,
can we do another take? No?

Speaker 5 (01:13:22):
That was great?

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Okay, Well that's what I was going to say about
Jeff when you were saying about him. Can I tell
on screen? Yes? I can. And what I love about
Jeff is that, obviously he does have this incredible athleticism
and martial arts ability and other things that he he
shows on screen, but he's an actor first, and it's
an unusual mix in action movies, especially martial arts action movies,

(01:13:47):
because in general they tend to be a gymnast or
martial artists or action people first and then act as second.
And you know, Jeff seems to come out of the
acting school form. And I think that he is able
to so effortlessly for an action hero star that he
was at the time to go between the intensity he

(01:14:10):
needed to be you know, the quote unquote badass or
whatever and the emotion that he needed to be a
loving husband and a you know, someone who cared about
you and cared about you know, the people he had
to save and so on. So I think, yes, he
he does bring that across some screen and the both
of you, the chemistry, the real the realism between husband

(01:14:33):
and wife, both in the earlier scenes and the later
action scenes. There's a great bit where you come up
the stairs and you knock out a hench guy. I
think he's going into the club to and he says,
like at the club.

Speaker 5 (01:14:48):
I was thinking about the club.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
I remember shooting in there and everything was real dark
and yeah, again, all choreographed and worked out. I remember that.

Speaker 5 (01:14:58):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Yes see. You come up the stairs. He tells you
to stay in the car, I think, and you're like,
I'm not staying in the car. And you're coming up
the stairs behind a henchman who's about to hit him,
and you hit the henchman and knock him down the stairs,
and Jeff gives you this like sly smile that is
so perfect. He gives you this smile to say, oh,

(01:15:20):
you're okay. Why did I ever tell you to stay.

Speaker 5 (01:15:22):
In the car? Come on?

Speaker 6 (01:15:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
He says everything though with that one look, and it's
he's so proud of you and finds it funny at
the same time, like it's a wonderful moment. And then
you get to both like kick ass in the club.
It's fantastic, that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
I remember that, And I remember being outside and I
can't remember where we were shooting, somewhere in Sunland or somewhere.
It was like desert and we had all the bottles.
Do you remember that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Yeah, so that's the middle section where he kind of
takes you out to the desert to train you to shoot.

Speaker 5 (01:15:53):
Yeah, he was to shoot and that was fun.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
That was yeah. And had you handled firearms before you
to do?

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
I'm from Mississippi, honey, I grew up in the South.
You know, your daddy teaches you how to shoot a
gun right away.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Sure, of course.

Speaker 5 (01:16:10):
I haven't been a long time since I had a firearm.

Speaker 3 (01:16:14):
But I when all the acting came to a stop
when I had my kid, my baby, who's now all
grown up and doing her own thing.

Speaker 5 (01:16:23):
Were very proud of her.

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
I in the meantime, had started a book company where
I wrote thirty two booklets, all geared towards law enforcement,
so it's all educational. I've since sold the company me.
I sold it to my business partner. But I was
around all the cops, all of the deputies, the sheriffs,

(01:16:46):
the chiefs, and they when they would have these conferences
where we'd go and show everybody or books. They would
have these these stimulations where like real cops will go
up and they practice to shoot, and it was just
dim up.

Speaker 5 (01:17:02):
They'd let me go up there and do it. Sometimes
I was all right, sometimes not very good.

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
You really don't want to have I really don't like
holding a gun.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:17:12):
It scares me.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
I'm not a real I think if you're going to
hold one, you better know how to use it. You
better continue your training and not be afraid to use it.
God forbids you need to otherwise.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
Get a dog. Yeah, that's my little You don't want
me holding a gun.

Speaker 3 (01:17:33):
Let me put it that way, only pretend like yeah,
and in Last Man Standing and the Detective Show, and.

Speaker 5 (01:17:41):
Yeah, I guess I did. I did have a lot
of firearms in my career. I ran a lot too.
I was a good runner.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
So obviously you follow Last Man Standing up with rage and.

Speaker 5 (01:17:55):
Rage you it's a person, right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
Yes, it's a completely different role. And I mean you're
you know, you're still I think what's nice about it
is you're still Your strength still comes across on screen,
and your humor still comes across on screen and you're you.
You know, I think Kenneth Tiger starts off a little
bit like I just shoot it and shut up kid.
You know, he's got a lot of that kind of stuff,
But by the end of it, the two of you

(01:18:19):
are a real kind of tea.

Speaker 5 (01:18:22):
Yeah. I think my name was.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Bobby in that Yes, Bobby, Yes, and.

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
Kenneth and I that that was we were. That was
our part of the movie. Obviously, he was the newscaster producer,
and I was the camera person, yes, taking his orders.
So we really got to work together a lot more
in that picture than the other.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
So yeah, yeah, because he's yeah, he's only in the
underground for the beginning. I don't think he really interacted
with him at all. And then in the show he
had obviously played the chief of police for the whole
run of the series, so.

Speaker 3 (01:18:59):
Yeah, that's right, he was, and I was only in
the two episodes before it got canceled.

Speaker 5 (01:19:06):
So I don't want to blow the end.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
No, No, why too late? Now Pool's already done that, so.

Speaker 5 (01:19:11):
That for us, that's right, Thanks, Paul, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Enrage. Obviously you took on a different role, do you
remember was that was that because you had done Last
Man Standing and Joseph Rick kind of came to you
and said, what do you want to do next, as
they had done with other actors. Or was that again
something you felt you had to you wanted to keep
working with them, so you had to audition again. Do
you remember?

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
That's a good question, and quite quite frankly, I don't.
Maybe I did not have to audition for that. Maybe
maybe that was the first film that I was just offered.
I'd have to really dig deep and look back on that.

Speaker 5 (01:19:53):
Yeah, I do remember.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
It was a very different role for me, a young personality,
kind of tom boyish, not as challenging as some other
roles I've played. Yeah, it was fun, but I do

(01:20:16):
like a little bit more of a challenge. But it
sure was nice to get up there and work and
work with the same crew and same people and you know,
have a job to go to. It's it's tough being
an actor.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
Yeah, well I was. When I was talking to Jeff Speakman,
he said one of the things he liked about PM
was that they came and they were like, let's do
three movies. It wasn't like let's do one movie and
see it was like let's do three or four movies.
And he said, while the pay wasn't as great as
it might have been if I'd gone off and done
another film as an actor, having that consistent work in

(01:20:51):
the bank was worth everything.

Speaker 5 (01:20:53):
It was gold.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Yeah. And did you feel like that was the same
with you where they saw do two or three?

Speaker 5 (01:21:00):
Yeah? I do.

Speaker 3 (01:21:02):
But I never was as secure as maybe he was,
because I know that every gig you get you do
have to, you know, still prove yourself and get up there.
Maybe my name wasn't as big as his, and that
probably was reasoning. So yeah, I was thankful for every

(01:21:25):
job I got, and I just adored them. I mean, Joseph,
and Joseph was more on set than Rick was, and
so I really got to know him.

Speaker 5 (01:21:36):
I got to know Rick too.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
We would go he would sometimes have parties at his
house or a rap party or something when he used
to live out here in California, and we just always
had fun. And he's a good family man, and so
is Joseph. And they installed that kind of family film
with their a fill with their film company.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
Yeah. No, I mean everyone we talked to worked on
multiple films. Yeah, there was never a sort of I
mean there were a couple of one and dunes, but
I mean in general, they tried to keep that family
around because it was their business model. It was you know,
business market, kept everyone involved, kept everyone working. So obviously

(01:22:21):
one of the things PM is known for their big
action sequences. They're big car stunts, they're big explosions, things
like that. Yes, in Last Man Standing you're involved very
you know, you're in and amongst those sequences, and then
in Rage in the last sequence you are. Although you're
not involved in the action of it, you do get

(01:22:42):
to witness sort of the big mall fight and mall
action sequence with Gary Daniels and the FBI guys and
all that kind of smashing up the mall. Do you
remember witnessing that or were you offset at that.

Speaker 5 (01:22:56):
Point inside the mall?

Speaker 3 (01:22:58):
Yes, I vaguely remember that, but I think that I
was pretty much.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
Already already done.

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
Okay, yeah, because that was big action and they're going
to focus on that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
Yeah. Do you remember the slip of it as Bob?

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
I'm sorry, as Bobby. It seems like Kenneth and I
went in there and got a flip of it, Yeah,
and that was that was it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
But can you talk just a little bit then about
maybe from last man standing would be better, just sort
of how you observed or how you interacted kind of
pm putting together a set piece, were you like putting
together an action set piece? Can you kind of talk
a little bit about how they did that or were
you not really involved, not involved with.

Speaker 3 (01:23:44):
The set pieces being put together? But of course I
was hand The prop master was hands on with me.

Speaker 5 (01:23:51):
Yeah, whenever I was holding a.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
Firearm and the guns, I remember everything being you know,
you just go to your trailer or your tint wherever
it wasn't that low budget, go to our trailer, and
then they would just come and get us when it
was all ready to go.

Speaker 5 (01:24:11):
Can I tell you.

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
A funny story about with the Roger Corman flick? Okay,
so I was doing Dune Warriors. Yes, it was a
long time ago, and we were shooting in the Philippines.
So this is real true gorilla filmmaking, and so I
loved the Philippines still do. We're down there and we're

(01:24:32):
at shooting at a concrete factory in the middle of
the summer, and I had this long cape on and
I had to run through these barrels there was like
six barrels, and the director said he was Filipino director.

Speaker 5 (01:24:54):
Thank you cereals.

Speaker 3 (01:24:55):
I was thinking of his son, Christopher Santiago. I was like, no,
that's his ceio. So he's like, okay, Jill, I want
you to just run through those barrels and we're gonna
we're gonna film it. I said, I saw you want
me to do is just run through it, and he
goes yeah. So they set up the camera and everything
and I action. So I start running and all of

(01:25:16):
a sudden, as soon as I pass a barrel, boom boom,
all six of those barrels. I had never run so
fast in my life. And when I got done with it,
I said to Siria, I said, why didn't you tell
me they were going to explode?

Speaker 5 (01:25:31):
He was like, I was laughing.

Speaker 3 (01:25:33):
I did a real expression from you. I said, well,
I guess you got it, and thank god, I'm okay.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
Yeah no, and it's it's it's it's gorilla. It's funny
you're talking about that, because I mean, you know, obviously
I'm a big fan of Rogical, I'm a big fan
of PM, and I love the sort of you know,
running gun style of filmmaking as well as the kind
of familial style of filmmaking. But it's it's interesting because
even the slightest hint of any sort of stunt impropriety

(01:26:02):
or whatever, any kind of set accident, set mistakes at
whatever these days, would be completely not allowed. It would
be triple checked whatever, et cetera, et cetera. So it's
always interesting me to meet someone who kind of worked
in those kind of gorilla style films and just how
because you seemingly loved it, like you have a yeah,

(01:26:23):
you have a positive memory of it, so a comboy.

Speaker 3 (01:26:29):
And I remember Joseph telling me that he missed some
of those days where they would just go out and
do some gorilla shooting and just a small crew with
an actor and just really get dig deep into it
because they you know, they did get bigger, they kept growing,
and they were very successful film company, very successful for

(01:26:55):
where they started and where they stopped.

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):
Yeah, he did.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
He missed those really gorilla marketing days I remember.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Yeah, yeah, I mean their early days, their City Lights
films and some of their early PM films that were
shot on sixteen before they went up to thirty five.
Mil Rick told me, oh, we never had any permits.
We just went out and did whatever we wanted to do.
And I'm thinking they blew up cars and flipped cars over.
I mean, you couldn't do it in.

Speaker 3 (01:27:26):
A No you can't do that now, you'd be dragged away.

Speaker 5 (01:27:30):
You can't do that now.

Speaker 3 (01:27:32):
But the fight, You're right, we lived through a fun
time and I truly had fun.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
Yeah. And so the last thing apart from it, we've
obviously talked about the TV show then, but the thing
that you did in between was The Underground with Jeff Fahey,
and you were only in a couple of scenes. It's
sort of.

Speaker 5 (01:27:53):
Trying to remember it. Yeah, was that the bank tailor? No?

Speaker 1 (01:27:56):
No, the bank teller is last man standing in the
end Ground. What's interesting is, as I say, you're only
in a couple of scenes, and your role seems to
simply be that you kind of fancy Jeff fayhe's detective
and he's having trouble with his wife, so you kind
of think, well, wait, it's something going to happen, But
then nothing ever happens, and you're really just you're another

(01:28:18):
detective in the precinct and you help with a staying
operation at the end, a little bit you're in the
van and you're kind of helping them out.

Speaker 5 (01:28:25):
That's right, and it was it was.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
Yeah, it was just interested because obviously you had done
a big action role for them in Last Man Standing.
You've done a sort of similar sized role in Rage,
but obviously less action. And then for Underground you really
just kind of probably came back I don't know, day
day or two for shooting. You probably weren't there for
very long based on the scenes you're in.

Speaker 5 (01:28:47):
Was that just a memory?

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
Yeah? Was that just to kind of stay in the
PM foll that they knew you were.

Speaker 3 (01:28:56):
A thank you?

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
And again, and I love the acting so much. I'm
not saying that it's done for me. I've got a
couple of projects I'm I were my husband. I don't
do you remember The Sentinel.

Speaker 1 (01:29:11):
The Sentinel that the Michael Winner movie?

Speaker 6 (01:29:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:29:13):
Yeah, yeah, My husband wrote that novel. And he's a
subcurb novelist. He's and I'm going to say a little
thing real quick. He has his new novel coming out
thirty years in the making, and it's called The Circus
of Satan and his Preprohibition historical fiction. So we have
that project and then we have a project that I wrote,

(01:29:37):
and we have a team already and it's.

Speaker 5 (01:29:41):
Now we're getting down to it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:42):
It's interesting because we're talking about budgets, the way that
PIM was able to make their big action flips. Yeah,
you know, get a lot out of their production value.
So the one I wrote is an Eurotic thriller turns
in twisting. You don't know who's done it to the
very end. So we're working on that project and I'm going.

Speaker 5 (01:30:04):
To have it. Once it's up and going, I'll have
a little part in it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
I started this when I was working with PM and
Roger Carmen.

Speaker 5 (01:30:14):
I started writing it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:15):
Then I was to play the lead, but life happened.
It went on the shelf and I pulled it back
out like four years ago when I sold my book company.

Speaker 5 (01:30:27):
And we're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:30:28):
This so I'm really seeing it's interesting again. Okay, the budgets,
because I just had to do rewrites to fix the script,
so the budget.

Speaker 5 (01:30:39):
Will come down another meal.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
In today's world, the money is everything costs so much more. Again,
when you think back when we made all these movies
in the TV show, when PM was rocking, I mean,
they really got a lot for their money.

Speaker 5 (01:30:58):
The tax the tax credit were here.

Speaker 3 (01:31:00):
It's just hopefully we'll get those back and and that
these lower budget films they're coming back again.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
You know, to B you can upload stuff to two
be pretty easily.

Speaker 5 (01:31:11):
That's great. I did not know that. Yeah, and he
has some good stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
To B has all the old eighties, nineties and two
thousands video shows stuff. That's all that stuff, and they
might be I mean, if your if your film is
a genre film, an erotic thriller, genre film, oh it is,
that's right up there. Like I would be in contact
with them because they they that is half their stuff
is action stuff and half that stuff is sort of

(01:31:37):
erotic thrillers from from the nineties, which was another great
genre that I I don't want to be you know
casus about and I miss it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:47):
I did.

Speaker 5 (01:31:48):
I did one.

Speaker 3 (01:31:49):
I know you're going to remember this show Red Shoe Diary.

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
Yes, Red Shoe Diaries, zalmon King.

Speaker 3 (01:31:59):
Yes, there was a.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
Pioneer. I guess well.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):
I did one of those episodes, and you know that
we shot it out in the desert.

Speaker 5 (01:32:09):
The actor I worked with was superb. I don't even
know what happened to him, but it was.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
It was really maybe I got lucky and got a
good part. It was very psychological. I had accident in
my character had accidentally run over and killed a young
a child, and I was fighting in the desert so
that I wouldn't get arrested or anything, and this this

(01:32:37):
lone person coming through the desert it sounds like one
of their shows right now to the house. And I
try to help him because he gets hurt, and then
he finds out about my history. So it's a real
psychological twisting. It was not bad. It was I had
really yeah, but it did have a big I think

(01:32:58):
I did nudity in about three my projects and that
was it.

Speaker 5 (01:33:02):
It's really good.

Speaker 3 (01:33:03):
Then nobody's asking me now.

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
No, But again I think it's it speaks to what
I love is because you did a bunch of genre stuff.
It speaks to how you because I think there's two
ways to do it. There's a way that makes it
and you can tell when you watch it it just
translates off the screen. There's ways where you watch something
and you that actress really didn't want to do that,

(01:33:32):
and then there's other ways you can watch it where
you're owning it. You're owning the scene you're owning. I'm
a huge, huge Pangrea fan, and she talks about nudity
a lot and sort of being strong about it and
feminist about it, and not that you have to necessarily
instill politics on everything, but I'm just saying there are

(01:33:53):
ways to do it. I think where you're empowered and
it's safe and it's erotic and it's beautiful.

Speaker 5 (01:34:00):
Own it you.

Speaker 3 (01:34:00):
Actually, I love you said about that. If you're going
to take a role, it's they're going to be upfront
and you're going to see it's in there. And yes,
you can talk to the director. Yes you can have
a very close set, no still photography.

Speaker 5 (01:34:13):
You could do all of that.

Speaker 3 (01:34:16):
But you're right, if you take that part, you own it.

Speaker 5 (01:34:20):
You better own it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Yeah, And that's that's what we loved about Last Man Standing.

Speaker 5 (01:34:25):
You.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
You do everything in that movie, Like I say, you
have a dramatic scene, a love scene, an action scene
or whatever, and you own all of it. Your strengths,
your femininity and the strength within your femininity comes out
in that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:34:38):
You tell Joseph it's time to get all of us
actors back out there to do it again.

Speaker 5 (01:34:43):
Wouldn't that one?

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
It would be amazing. I think talking to him, I
reminded him that he did more than what he thought
he did.

Speaker 5 (01:34:52):
I think he really did. Yeah, really, now you make
me cry.

Speaker 3 (01:34:56):
Yeah, because he's you know, he was far and few
and between.

Speaker 5 (01:35:01):
And Roger too, I mean both of them.

Speaker 3 (01:35:07):
Joseph really loved filmmaking and he did treat us like family.
And it was a very special time and I was
blessed to really experience so much when I was in
it hardcore, you know, in the acting world. I never

(01:35:29):
really thought about how much I had accomplished for a
little girl from Mississippi, you know, not knowing a single
person in Hollywood and working my butt off. I studied
with one of the most wonderful acting teachers, Harry Master George,
who has since passed away, but he taught up into

(01:35:50):
his late nineties. Ray Liota was in my class, Daryl
Hannah was in there, tons of TV people, Jennifer Gray,
we I mean, we all worked so hard. In Regal Yota,
who was a superstar at that time, you know, rest
Is Solf. He would still come back and work out

(01:36:11):
in the acting class. So as an actor, you never
really stop, you know, working on your craft and Joseph
I think really appreciated all of his actors.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
Definitely, I think so. The way he talks about it,
I definitely think so. And Gillian, thanks so much for
real time today.

Speaker 3 (01:36:34):
I love your I love your voice too.

Speaker 1 (01:36:36):
By thank you, thank you. Yeah, I've actually been in
the States about eighteen years, but I've still got a
bit of the English.

Speaker 5 (01:36:42):
Accident a little bit, a little bit, a.

Speaker 1 (01:36:45):
Little bit, it still happens. But but again I just
want to say, I mean, obviously, thank you so much
for your time today, this this conversation has been great,
but also just to let you know, as as I
love to do with people who may think that, as
I said, you did a bunch of genre films. You
had a great time. But maybe you think they've been
I don't know, consigned to straight to video somewhere or whatever.

(01:37:11):
There are people out there.

Speaker 4 (01:37:13):
Who see the skill, the artistry, the passion, the excitement,
the silliness, the love, the fun, whatever, the weirdness in
these movies and don't dismiss them.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
And so and you may know that already, I may
be I don't know if I tell you something you
already know, but I just I feel that way about them.
And I want to say thank you for being a
part of so many of the great ones.

Speaker 3 (01:37:38):
Thank you. I really have had so much fun and
so lucky and so blessed. And what I was going
to wrap up about when I was in the depth
of it, you don't. It's kind of like when you're
really young and look at you look at yourself in
the mirror and you go, oh, I oh, I have

(01:37:59):
this funny looking hair, or I'm awkward looking, and then
about ten years later, you go, hey, I was a
pretty cool looking kid, you know, until you get out
of and then you can reflect back and I can
look back at my acting and go, yeah, I did

(01:38:20):
do a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:38:21):
I really travel the world. I got to have a
lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (01:38:25):
And it's not over yet, No, definitely not. And yay
for the action flicks. These great budgets. And there's another Rick,
and there's another Joseph not quite like them, but there
are more people like you're indie fronts.

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
Oh yeah there. I mean, there are independent filmmaking pockets
in this country all over the place. There are conventions
that happen that they themselves organize, there are screenings, everything
like that. It's still very much alive and vibrant, and
the more we can promote it the better. So, Jenny,
and when.

Speaker 3 (01:38:59):
You do, you remember Anthony Anthony who I worked with
on Progeny. Do the Shark Nato films?

Speaker 1 (01:39:07):
Yes, shot Nato.

Speaker 3 (01:39:08):
Yeah, he's directed all of those.

Speaker 1 (01:39:10):
Oh wow, wonderful. Oh that's fantastic. Yeah yeah with Oh
what the Asylum? Right, wasn't that the production company? Yeah?
They sci Fi Chanel Films. Oh yeah, Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:39:20):
There's still lots of people doing it. So let's let's
keep rock and rolling and keep growing. Look at my
husband's name, you can you see it? It's Jeffrey Convicts
k O N V I t Z. His new book,
thirty years in the making, is called The Circus of Satan. Okay,
and it's that's right now on through Amazon. But he's

(01:39:44):
got like thirty interviews lined up, and he's got he's
been asked to be like this center for anyway, it's
a lot of stuff going on. Releasing book is not easy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
No, I see it now, I'm a the Seconds of Satan.
I found it here. Yeah, okay, fantastic. And you want
to make that into a film as well.

Speaker 3 (01:40:05):
Though heat art ultimate goal is that it will become
a mini series.

Speaker 5 (01:40:10):
It's oh look, it's a big read.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
It's wonderful.

Speaker 5 (01:40:14):
Yeah, so keep an eye on that. We'll stay in touch.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much so for your time today.

Speaker 5 (01:40:21):
You're so welcome. It was a pleasure. We'll talk later.

Speaker 1 (01:40:24):
Okay, wasn't that fantastic? Another great conversation there and another
advert and then you will hear from spirouzatas.

Speaker 6 (01:40:37):
I actually started on last Man's Standing. That's the first
PM I did. Did Joseph tell you the crazy how
I got the show? The craziness?

Speaker 1 (01:40:45):
No he didn't, Actually, no, I was I was interested.
How you you got that?

Speaker 6 (01:40:49):
So this was this was pretty I mean, obviously there's
been a few there's been a few turning points in
my career that that have pretty much defined my career
from you know, in the early days there was Joseph
and Lustig and then you know, uh, and then it
got into Justin Lynn and the Russo brothers. Yeah, you know.

(01:41:13):
So what happened to him is I guess they were
they were doing a movie in Vegas, and you know,
they had the guy's low budget. Everything was down and dirty,
and they hired a stunt guy, Bob Brown, who was
the double for the guy on Terminator, the bad guy
forget the guy. They yeah, and they hired him, uh

(01:41:34):
because I think he might in the movie whatever. So
that was like their first case of the big Hollywood
and they hired him on he's a stunt guy, but
I guess he helped out or whatever. And Joseph said,
you know what, I need to take my movies to
another level. So he said to Bob Brown, hey, you
know we you you know, do our next movie. We
want to go to the next level and you know,

(01:41:56):
to our movies. And he said, listen, I can't do it.
But the guy for you perfect guy's Spiro. So it's
really nice to him to recommend me. So Joseph called
me in and we make a deal, you know. I
you know, obviously I had to adjust as the budget
and I did a play with him because that's one
thing I was doing because if I'm gonna not do
other jobs, they got at least to a pair of play.

(01:42:17):
So the big sequence that I shot first is still
one of my favorites. Was when the armored car going
to the freeway, the guy rolling out the back and
dragging him on the freeway, and you know it was
a big thing. Motorcycles, jumping cars, flipping cannons, I mean,
you name it. It was a big sequence. And so
I was shooting it, and I remember I felt good

(01:42:39):
about it. You know, I never get a confident or excited,
but I didn't feel there was a problem in what
I was doing. I felt I was doing what I
always do. And I remember Joseph wasn't like excited. He
wasn't He just didn't say much. And then after I
finished the sequence, what I heard happen behind the scenes
before he called me into his office was I guess
he didn't understand my dailies, and he thought that I

(01:43:01):
wasn't getting the stuff that he was hoping he'd get.
So he went to the editor and said, listen, Spirril
stuff is not working. It's this, it's this. He goes
pull out all footage from other movies and put together
a sequence to make this work. And the editor goes,
wait a minute. He goes, give me a chance with
Spirril stuff. I see stuff that's gonna that's work, and

(01:43:24):
let me. Jeff goes. Joseph goes, no, no, no, no, no,
it's not. I don't it's not gonna work. Find footage
from old movies of ours and put a sequence together.
And so he told that to the editor, and two
things happened. The editor, thank god for me, did not
listen to Joseph and decided he would make a crack
at editing the sequence. Okay, so he didn't listen Joe,

(01:43:47):
and he edited with just the footage I shot. But
in the meantime, Joseph calls me into his office, and
because he was sincere, he said to me, listen, I
don't you know, I don't think I got it, but
I was hoping to get, you know, for the money
I spent, because you know, he spent more than he's
ever spent to hire me. But I also, you know,

(01:44:07):
took less than I normally do. But it was a
gift gift, and he just said, you know what, there's
not big, big action. I'm not gonna let you go
and have somebody else that I could afford finish the movie.
Now I had a pay or play, so I could
have said that Joseph, Hey, Joseph, you know you still
got to pay me because I didn't take any other show.
But I didn't. I felt bad and I just believed

(01:44:30):
he was sincere and I just couldn't understand why he
felt that way and walked away without asking for the
rest of my money. And in the meantime, the editor
cut the sequence, and obviously once everybody saw it, they
told Joseph, how much you know, the show's gone to
another level. This is it, and I get it. It

(01:44:52):
was very successful, and so then I as the rest
of history. You know, I've done I've been best friends
with him and done all his movie since then. He
tried one other time to do the same thing, but
it never worked because you know, he just there's been
some you know, a couple of funny stories where he's

(01:45:12):
tried to stop me from shooting a stunt and then
I had to do it, sneak it and all that,
and he's probably told you some of those. But we've
had a pretty crazy and wonderful relationship. But yeah, so
he fired me and then all of a sudden they
cut it, and then I've done every movie since then.
It's his and been his friend for thirty something years now,
whatever it skin.

Speaker 1 (01:45:31):
So your first big sequence with PM Entertainment that actually
ended up in the movie was the Armored car sequence,
the sort of the second Man stand.

Speaker 6 (01:45:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like the Vault. It's kind
of like the Vault sequence. You know, it's it's, it's,
it's you know, it's it's kind of like a memorable
sequence in their sequences. And yeah, it was my very
first sequence with them.

Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
And you've got Jeff wing Catt on the motorbike, chasing,
chasing the armored car and people firing off the back
of the car and everything like that.

Speaker 6 (01:46:00):
Yeah, yeah, you see you see the guy rolling Do
you see the guy rolling out the back and the
motorcycle and yeah, you know, I mean that's all real.
You know, it's you know, all that stuff is real.

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):
So let's go through some of our favorite scenes in
the movie. And so we start off with and as
I say, PM Entertainment always tried to make sure, especially
with their bigger budget action stuff, to start off with
a set piece and with the set piece, but then
make sure you got like two or three in the
middle as well. And like you say, this film hits
the ground running. There's like no, we start off with

(01:46:50):
a bank robbery, and in fact, they almost fake you
out because that opening bank robbery while there is some
action in it and he's hitting people with a Baton
and someone else is like, you know, hitting people, are
shooting at people or whatever, and there is some action
in that opening sequence. When it kind of fades at
the end of the bank robbery, you kind of go, oh,

(01:47:12):
that's not a normal Big PM entertainment opening sequence. Yeah,
it sounds like when's point break around this time.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
It has a kind of a like, yes, because point
break's got to be early nineties, right, yes, ninety three,
ninety four maybe someone that it had that kind of
gang walk into a bank take total control.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
Point break is ninety one. So there we go.

Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
So it's out there in the world, like if you're
talking about bank robbery movies, it's point break at this
you know, at that stage in cinema. So has that
kind of feeling of gang with the plan makes something
happen in the bank. It doesn't need to have loads
of explosions for it to be sort of exciting and intriguing.

Speaker 1 (01:47:47):
Right, And of course Christopher Nolan would rip this off
later with Batman opening the Dark Knight opening with the
Joker rubbing the bank. I mean the Joker's wait, did
the same scene Listen the Jokers wearing a big purple suit.
So is snake Johnson. What's the snake underwood? Underwood snake

(01:48:09):
Johnson basically penis snake, snake under it. So he's rubbing
it in a purple thing. He laughs maniacally like the Joka.
He has ridiculous hair, like the Joker. I'm listen, Christopher
Nolan watched this. Yeah, absolutely here, Yes, there's no doubt

(01:48:30):
in my mind. And the funny thing is, I'd rather
watch this movie anyway. So it starts off, you're like, oh, okay,
I was expecting a little more out of an opening
Pyramid entertainment sequence. But fine. Cut to Wincott in one
of his many pastel blazers, Yellow I believe, yes, Yellow,
showing up with Banks to the higher regency and.

Speaker 2 (01:48:50):
With again a weird comic character. Yeah, a weird comic
character of like like talking them all the way through
from the moment that they arrived, all the way through
the corridor up in the explaining everything, like complaining about
this guest and how it works in the value of
the room. And it's like nice because it's supposed to
be a background noise, yes, of like irritating information, but
they're not angry, they're not irritated with him. No, it's

(01:49:12):
just it's nice. It's nice.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
Well, so I call that the Larry Cohen effect, which
is that whenever you watch a Larry Cohen movie, as
B movie as it is, as grindhouse as it is,
he's managed to give every character, even the minor characters,
yeah that's something to do. Yeah yeah, yeah, And I
feel like Joe especially, but I see this with Jacobson
Hart and some of the other writers who work on PM.

(01:49:34):
They try and give everyone something yeah, to to sort
of be a character. And this guy this kind of
like you say, kind of squeaky voice, slightly effeminate, but
like hotel worker who's just kind of nagging the cops
about this. Go oh, you know, you know this was
a normally it's one hundred and fifty dollars a night.
You won't believe what the sweet is. It's like four

(01:49:56):
hundred dollars a night. And blah blah blah. He's got
all this stuff going on. You know, you're like, why
am I Why are they in a hotel? Why is
their two caps whatever? Well, they're going up because Snake
Underwood is, like you say, it's like paying off some
guy who's very upset that he no longer's not getting
of what though.

Speaker 2 (01:50:15):
I mean, I don't understand what he does of any
kind of right because it's weird because it seems like
he's the boss. It's like, initially as the scene happens,
you think he's the boss and Snake Underwood works for him,
But then it becomes about the Snake Underwood is much
more powerful than him, and the guys is liking to
get out of their like, which like.

Speaker 1 (01:50:36):
The Joker to keep making the Christopher Nolan comparison, Snake
Underwood will do what, dude.

Speaker 2 (01:50:42):
I kind of just so, I do think you need
to be a bit more original, you know, I mean,
I think the Last Man Standing Dark Knight comparisons have
frankly been done to death, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:50:51):
What I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:50:52):
Like, I really feel like Christopher Nolan and Joseph very like.
We know they're the same, we know they make the sad,
we know that Nolan.

Speaker 1 (01:50:58):
Rips off Maye. I would I just think you just need.

Speaker 2 (01:51:01):
To move on to like green Up, You've got to
find first thing.

Speaker 1 (01:51:05):
No true, but we also I feel like the hotel
scene it's a bit true romancy. And I do know
from a movie that PM make a couple of years
after this called Pure Danger with c. Thomas Howe, where
which is very kind of true romancy that clearly that
early Tarantino Rodriguez sort of action thriller, drama crime movies

(01:51:29):
that were very prevalent around this time in the nineties.
Polp fiction and stuff they do loom large in the
background of PM entertainment films in the sense that they
do try and you know, they start to use the
F word a little more, They start to have like
more flamboyant characters. There starts to be stuff in PM
films that are trying to capture a little bit of
that pulp fiction vibe. And there's definitely a true romance

(01:51:54):
vibe to the hotel shootout in this movie. But in
true PM fashion, they take something that is the climax
to another movie simply make it their opening. Yeah, So
let's talk the diving. The constant people diving behind stuff
is an absolute.

Speaker 2 (01:52:12):
My favorite is when he throws throws himself through a
mirror through a mirror. Before he does it, it looks
just like a mirror on a wall, on a wall,
and he turns off through the mirror through like three
First of all, who puts some just a mirror between.

Speaker 1 (01:52:29):
The action doesn't speak well of the highest regency, doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:52:33):
It's like, wait, hang on, so you're just gonna put
a mirror there? Yeah, I mean it's great. I mean
it's just just confidence and probably not a wall there.

Speaker 1 (01:52:40):
That's this guy for it. Probably not a wall. What
is proved in this movie, probably more than anything else,
is what I've said before on the show, which is
that glass has no purchase in pain. It has no solidity,
it has no uh you know normally like, yes, you
can punch through a plane of glass, but it's not easy, right,

(01:53:02):
Like you really.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
Have to, Yeah, and it would cause you a lot
of damage. People walk through glasses.

Speaker 1 (01:53:10):
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):
I think that like Jeff's carp character, like his his
last words, yes are definitely going to be it's probably
not a wool, probably not behind that.

Speaker 1 (01:53:22):
So what if he smashed through the mirror and it
actually led to the outside, well, the mirror, the mirror
a window, and he was eighteen four, Yeah, that would
be a short maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:53:34):
But you're right. There was a lot of great diving.
There's a lot of very bad aim, which I enjoy
as well. I do enjoy a good I'm eight feet away,
I'm holding a machine gun, I'm literally raking its side
to side, and you're running away from me in a
straight line.

Speaker 1 (01:53:48):
I haven't hit you then, though, What follows the chase
through the hotel, it's really good. It's one of my favorite.
It's really really good. But it's it's really really good
for for not necessarily the chasing of fighting, it's really
good for like all the other people that they involved.

Speaker 2 (01:54:06):
Because, yeah, because Errol Flynn keeps like grabbing people and
then throwing throwing him out of the way, and then
Jeff just like pushes them down. There's no like Jeff
would occasionally throw people out of the.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
Out of the way. At one point does it in
the kitchen bit when they're running through and he's moving
all the bread trays out. At one point, I feel
like he grabs like a bus boiler, a matrod or
something and like throws him over to Jeff's thing. And
when he hits Jeff, Jeff just like shoves him into
a wall like this poor bastard. Like and chef again,
Jeff is a cop. Like his first instinct, yes, I'm

(01:54:40):
gonna get the bad guy, but his first instinct should
be I'm not gonna hurt.

Speaker 2 (01:54:44):
It's probably like the guy. The fact he didn't break
the guy's neck. He should consider himself. He could they
could be working together.

Speaker 1 (01:54:52):
He could have been an evil bush.

Speaker 2 (01:54:54):
He could have been evil bus. A lot of bread
trays in that kitchen.

Speaker 1 (01:54:58):
Oh Man, that was my favorite saying that at one
point they run just through planes and it's like three
planes of glass, just planes of glass, just standing in
a hotel for it. And the thing is is that
while you know it's obviously set up as breakaway glass,
for them to like fall through it and give it
just a little bit of production value. Very often, and

(01:55:19):
they do this in several sequences. There's sequences in in
malls very often that just have random glass panes that
they can for airports are great for like random glass.
And even at the at the final sequence in this
at the subway station, lots of random I feel like
we do walk through areas sometimes and there are just

(01:55:41):
like random panes of glass or like partitions for things.
I mean, not maybe not as blankant because every urban planner,
Yeah a scene.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
Now what we need more glass, We need more glass,
more inexplicable gloves.

Speaker 1 (01:55:57):
For people to be thrown through. So this whole told
Chase has has just about a bit of everything, and
I'm a big fan of it. And then, right like
I said, PM always does this right at the end
of the action sequence, just when you think, Okay, great,
he's caught the bad guys handcuffing him. We're done with
the running, the gunning, the shooting, the whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:56:17):
No, no, it's but one of the things I really
really like is when he was, like when Jeff was
holding Errol's hand to like handcuff, He's like, give me
your other hand. And that's the point where I was
going to he should just like hit him and run away.
He's only got one he's only got one hand. And

(01:56:37):
that's a point when he head butts him and runs away,
And hooray, hooray for the criminal for doing the thing
that I didn't expect to do because that wouldn't be
narratively convenient. But instead they knew what they were looking at,
and they knew what was happening, and they they leaned
into it, which I just thought that was super cool.
So I really headed him and ran away, and all
criminals at the point where the cops like gloating over

(01:56:58):
having caught should.

Speaker 1 (01:56:59):
Head butt him and then run away. Yeah, exactly, brilliant,
Especially with that hair. You've got to protect it right there, absolutely,
because if you're Jeff and that hair comes at you,
you're you're you're blindsided. You know what's happening, You've just
got a silver wash. Anyway, they end up going out
a window, uh and crashing down into the pool below

(01:57:20):
because they've seen lethal weapon too. I mean, that's that's
what it is, right, Yeah, isn't it lethal weapon too?
Where they crash out of the window and fall into
a pool. I can't remember that yeahs, But either way,
it's fantastic. They end up in the swimming pool. I
love the other thing that Joe is great at doing,
just whipping a little bit of comedy the kids in

(01:57:41):
the pool. Wonderful touch. It's not an empty pool, like
there were just kids there. And then I point and say,
well look at that.

Speaker 2 (01:57:47):
Should we get out the way they were, just we
better make sure that people are watching the sequence, because
it took us a lot to three people out of
the window into the pool. So they put some carriage
in there to point at the actually go oh, look
at that, so I know we're watching the film. Obviously,
I'm looking at what you're putting on the screen. You
don't need to have characters. Oh, look at that.

Speaker 1 (01:58:05):
No, you do, you do, though, you do need characters
to react to what's happening.

Speaker 2 (01:58:08):
I suppose people do run on at the bottom of
like the screening Godsilla movies and point up and go,
oh my god, and point out the monsters.

Speaker 1 (01:58:14):
I know it's a monster.

Speaker 2 (01:58:15):
I can see it.

Speaker 1 (01:58:17):
Yeah, it's all good. Then we've got the as we
spoke about earlier, the chase after they rob his wife's bank.
That is the motorbike. That's a really good one.

Speaker 2 (01:58:27):
So he knocks all the car and the thing jumping
over with the big explosion.

Speaker 1 (01:58:32):
Yeah. He knocks a guy off a Triumph bike, stealing
his sunglasses, and as if it wasn't you know, an
insult enough to steal a man's motorbike, he adds insult
to injury or injury to insult. Either way, it doesn't matter.
He steals his aviator shades and puts them un because
he's like, well, if I'm riding a motorbike in this
action sequence, I've got to look bad at Yeah, so I.

Speaker 2 (01:58:55):
Need well, I guess you do need to. I guess
you do. If you're riding a bike out speed on
the free where you probably do need glasses.

Speaker 1 (01:59:01):
We're going to get bugs in your eye. No, I ununderstandably.

Speaker 2 (01:59:04):
But also I just like the Jeff thinking, I know
I'm about to chase after a bank robber here, Yes,
but I need to be mindful of bugs in the eye. Yeah,
So I better make this bike sunglasses as well as
his bike. So that makes the stunt man less difficult
to discern from me, so much the better.

Speaker 1 (01:59:20):
But it's often, like with all the car carnage and
explosions and chases and everything else that's in the movie,
I still think one of the most impressive stunts that
we see full on is the guy leaping from the
motorbike into the of the What is it? It's like
a it's like an armored truck. Truck.

Speaker 2 (01:59:41):
You're right, because when you're watching it again, I suspect
this is one of the benefits of being cavalier about
health and safety, is like, well, we've got a stunt.
We're going to have a like drive a motorbike up
to the back of the truck and or rather from
what I've heard from the podcast, The stunt man had
an idea of I think I can get a guy

(02:00:01):
to ride a motorcycle up to the back of a
truck and jump into it. Can we work that into
the movie and so when you see it, you're aware
it's really happening. It's not trick photography. It's not like
a series of clever cuts. It's like you watch him
like the camera's there where that's obviously the bike riding
up to the back of it and the guy jumping
in and who knows what, what the hell actually happens

(02:00:23):
after that, but that's definitely what you're seeing happen. It's
really impressive.

Speaker 1 (02:00:26):
The only awkward cuts you get is the cutaways to
Jeff to make because.

Speaker 2 (02:00:31):
You're aware, ye, this is yeah, he's obviously on a
bike on the truck, right'.

Speaker 1 (02:00:36):
It's the era of stuntman, so instead of doing and
I think we have a benefit here because we grew up.
You know, we grew up watching Bond films, right and
especially the Roger Moore era, which was sort of our
era growing up, and especially as he got older. It
was definitely like, well, Roger's going back to his trailer

(02:00:56):
to smoke an enormous cigar with Michael Caine and and
or someone else and or Michael Winner or whatever. Meanwhile,
a much slimmer, fitter person who looks nothing like Roger
Moore in a bad tu pay trying to look like
rogero is going to do all the stunts. And there
was a point, And again, I think this helped with
sort of the suspension of disbelief. Watching those movies, you

(02:01:19):
knew there was a part of your brain that went, oh,
it's a stunt guy, but you also just was like
when I'm watching James Bond, you know what I mean,
Like you could to some.

Speaker 2 (02:01:27):
Extent, you could admire the stunt almost separate from the narrative.

Speaker 1 (02:01:31):
Right, but you also didn't have to. Yes, you might
jokingly or ironically point out the stunt man, but ultimately,
when you were watching the movie, you were just invested
in the action. Secret Yeah yeah, yeah, And I feel
like there are moments in this movie where you need
to have those goggles on because it's obvious it's not
win Cart. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:01:49):
Yeah, sometimes you need to have the stolen sunglasses on.

Speaker 1 (02:01:51):
Yes, yeah, I agree, but no, that's that's probably the
most impressive stunt in the whole thing. Yeah, are Oh No.
Second most impressive stunt is when he is hanging off
the back of the armored vehicle on the sands and
the chains with his ripped up, tattered trouser.

Speaker 2 (02:02:11):
I found that very difficult to watch because all I
was thinking was his testicles are getting a hell of
a back.

Speaker 1 (02:02:16):
Way because he's sliding along the grounds on his thighs
and groins, like he's not on his there's bits where
he's on his knees that I'm like, oh, even with
knee pads, that's probably not comfortable. But there was bouncing
along on his nose. Yeah, it's like he's have no
skin left, skin left on his eyes. But then what
about and again I don't think this was planned, but

(02:02:39):
like as the truck turns, he slams into like that yeah, yeah,
what are they called? They're not ballards, but like the
on the highway, he slams into one of those, and
I'm like, wow, it's it's such a I get such
a visceral reaction for watching PM because you know, some
dude is just doing it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (02:02:59):
It's like the explosions right when they were like the
explosion in the barn and them it's the actors actually
running away, and you can tell that's really an explosion.
They really just blow up that barn, and those really
are the actors running away from it. And there is
something to be said for the connection with the reality
of that versus.

Speaker 1 (02:03:19):
Even a bigger explosion.

Speaker 2 (02:03:20):
If it's CGIs and not and not real, it's just
not really invested it like you're saying it's better.

Speaker 1 (02:03:25):
It's more like, as Jeff runs away, regular human Jeff
can't help look behind him to like, watch, how cool
the explosion because normally, if you were running away from
an explosion, just fuck like you were just being booking it.
But you know, because it's all in slow motion, you
see Jeff win Cup running away and then he looks

(02:03:45):
behind it and he doesn't, you know, he still turns
around and maintains like cool intense wing cart. Yeah, but
there's a bit of his brain that's smiling at like, yeah,
running away. Yeah, it's very very cool. So we have
that sequence, we have the yeah, the bar explosion. I
think we should talk a little bit about Gillian mcwerter
because she is in a few PM entertainment films. This

(02:04:08):
is Norris's daughter, right, Well, explain who Norris mcwurter is
so people get the joke. Well, I can't.

Speaker 2 (02:04:15):
I believe Norris macwerter was the official representative from the
Guinness Book of World Records on the television show when
we were kids record Breakers.

Speaker 1 (02:04:25):
But wasn't Norris mcwerter, Like, didn't he do the Guinness Book? Like,
wasn't that his? He wasn't just a host on the
TV show, wasn't he?

Speaker 2 (02:04:33):
He was like the representative of the Guinness Book.

Speaker 1 (02:04:35):
Of Records, So he was like the Guinness Book? I
thought he was like the how many how many bees
are calling? Official? Until Norris gives the what's who's the comedian?
Is that Bill Bay? The only way you win that

(02:04:56):
is by having a bigger face. What is that? Who
is that? Oh there's a stand up? I think it's
Bill Bailey, but he's talking about GETTI getdis Book of
Records and he's like, you know, you get these silly
ones like how many pegs on her face? Well, the
only way to win that is by having a bigger face.
I forget who that is. But yeah, the wonderful Gillian

(02:05:17):
mt werter, who's not been in a ton of stuff.
She only has twenty seven credits to her name twenty
set as an actor, but she is in several PM films.
She is in Last Man Standing. She is in Rage,
which we've covered previously with Gary Daniels. She is also
in The Underground, which was another one that I was oh, yeah,

(02:05:37):
we were telling Jeff fayhe won. But she also is
in a bunch of other things tangentially linked. So she
is in Blood Fist seven and Blood Fist eight, which
are don the Dragon Wilson movies, a series of movies
that he made for Roger Corman around the same time
that he was working with PM Entertainment, so there is

(02:05:58):
that connection. Also have been referring to PM as sort
of the the action Roger Corman school, in the way
that kind of people trained on the on the job.
So mcwerter does. She dances around a lot of B
movie action in the nineties and good for her. What
do we what do we think of mcwerter, because I
think there's oh, she's in an episode of the TV

(02:06:19):
show La Heat as well, so she she did a
few things with PM. Mcwerter. I'm I'm I'm actually a
fan of mcwurt. I got it going on she's in
a movie with Arnold Vossalou as well, which is he's
also been in PM Entertainment films of course, of course,
of course it's vosslu Screams PM Entertainment. So yeah, Jillian mcwurter.

(02:06:41):
What's really interesting about this film especially is that mcwerter
is along for the ride throughout the movie. So normally
any movie in which there's like a hot shot carp
that goes, the wife either dies or is jettisoned off
after an opening scene with the kids, only a need
to show up on a phone call being like you know,

(02:07:03):
when are you coming home or whatever? You know what
I mean. So what's interesting about this is she is
called upon to like go into the fray. So but
also she's very good, right, but also there are a
couple of scenes of nudity with her. There's a sex
scene right towards the beginning, and there is nudity later.
But not only that, but then she's running, she's gunning,

(02:07:24):
she's shooting people, she's driving in the car first she's
at one point and this is another thing that I
love about PM because I want to I want to
see this more than I want to just see some
like you say square George Chump doing it. Yeah, she goes,
I married you. I mean, I'm in this for the
long haul. If I'm I'm in it, I'm in it right.

Speaker 2 (02:07:45):
Yeah, there's just there's a there's an agency there where
instead of her being like the helpless thing that needs
to be protected, she's like, well, you're on your own, right,
I'm in danger to you're telling me, so I we're
in it together. Like for example, what I like that
there's a narrative logic there. Yeah, instead of falling back
on well, he's a cop on his own and she's
helpless needs to be protected, so we're just going to
do that. Instead it's like, well he's on his own.

(02:08:08):
He's telling her, well, you're you're in danger too, to which,
of course irresponds can be well if I'm in danger too,
then I'm with you. And then well why wouldn't we
make her like, oh yeah, she could be good with
the gun, like why not? Like she could have been
taught at some point, so let's just have fun with that.
I think it's it's cool that the narrative choice there
is to give her agency because even though like you

(02:08:31):
can do that, so why not you know what I mean.
In other words, most action movies, like you know, one
of the problems you have with Cannon, Most action movies
fall back on cliche because they haven't got the time,
they haven't got the imagination of Frankly Hukas, and we just,
you know, we want to do what works right. We're
spending a lot of money here. We want to do
what works pmsull thing is like, well why not? And

(02:08:52):
if that thing is like, well, we got We've got macwerter.
Jeff's telling her you're in danger too, so she shouldn't
be a part of it like she would any human
being in that place. Well, I'm in it too, my marriage.
I'm not going to run away. That's cool. What else
it would be cool? We'll be cool if she could
also handle a gun, and then she could be in
the fight at the end, and they go great, and

(02:09:13):
then they just that's it. They don't fall back on
cliche because they're worried about, well, what happens if we
try something new and it doesn't work right. They're like, well,
we've got money, we just need to make it exciting,
So let's just do what we think.

Speaker 1 (02:09:28):
Is going to work. Any other film and even some
other PM entertainment films, because I don't necessarily want to
say that they always make the interesting choice. Sometimes they
make the obvious one as well. The that scene in
the bank, you know, she would either be like beaten
rather terribly killed or taken hostage. She would be a

(02:09:52):
thing that, along with revenging banks, wing Cott would have
to some how right. And what always becomes a problem
with the kidnapping scenario or anything like that is if
you were really this like criminal mastermind willing to gun
down his own men and whatever and and waste anyone,
why would you suddenly take a CoP's wife hostage and

(02:10:13):
then like have her around for long. Like there's always
that sequence in action films where like she's kicking and
screaming and he's trying to carry her. The bag guy's
trying to carry on any other buty, but just put
a bullet in ahead and get on with it. And
there's no like the leverage you have against the cop
is that the cop wants to stop you. Like you
don't need something to dangle in front of the cop
and be like come get me, cop. Yeah, he's already

(02:10:35):
coming to get you. Like, do you know what I mean,
and if you want right, if you want leverage to
stop the cop killing you, I suppose, But then again,
you could probably just put a hold a baby up
in front of you. It doesn't have to be his wife,
is what I'm saying. You could put like anyone in
front of you. And so and again it's it's similar
with like the whole uh you know, when they take

(02:10:58):
a hostage in this movie when Seagrove like grabs a
woman on the train at the end, and it's sort
of a flashback to when he gave up the gun
when Jonathan Banks got killed, and you have the you know,
Checkoff's gun or Checkof's you know, hostage, whatever you want
to call the trope. You have the sequence where you know,

(02:11:19):
he doesn't give up his gun the woman, like Seagrove
lets go of the woman to walk to Jeff and
then just instantly shoots her in the back. Like that's
not something you see very often either, Like normally the
kidnap victim is saved in some way because most Hollywood
movies don't just needlessly gun women down PM today. But
I've got no problem with just needlessly gunning women down.

(02:11:41):
So there are decisions like that that I think usurp
expectations and actually make these movies a lot more fun.
And so to that end, she is another ace in
the hole in the sense that a race up the sleeve,
in the sense that you don't see her coming throughout
the movie, as we said, kind of becomes like almost
the second action lead. And as an actor in a

(02:12:04):
weird way, Werter sells it like she does sell it,
even though I think she'd had a slightly spunkier haircut,
like a slightly sexier haircut, it would have helped. I
think the bob you know, is a little odd, but
you know who, they're not paying hairdressers. Like whatever you
turn up with, how you turn up with. I mean

(02:12:26):
at the end of the movie they can't even afford
or shirt for wing cut. At certain points, I don't worry.
I love it.

Speaker 2 (02:12:32):
He turns up his waist just a waistcoat.

Speaker 1 (02:12:34):
And great ending though as well. Yeah, it's terrific ending
because they have Jonathan Banks write a book called Last
Man Standing, even though he dies before anybody else. It's
the first one not standing, first one dead, last man standing.
He writes a book called Last Man Standing. And then

(02:12:56):
just when she's saying like, do you think you'll be
able to give up the life and go you know,
we could go live on a beach somewhere, just like
Jonathan Banks wanted to do and drink Margarita's or whatever,
which again is a neat callback. Yeah, he hears a
woman having her personal he breaks he breaks a man's
arm with that trial, yeah, and me immediately runs over
there and just starts being fact.

Speaker 2 (02:13:16):
Actually I was half eason to go over that and
genuinely like break the guy's neck. He starles somebody's handbag. Execution.
It's like, no, I've.

Speaker 1 (02:13:25):
Got execution, I've got evidence free executions. But what a
great way to end a PM Entertainment movie because it
immediately like right snaps the purpse arm, right freeze frame
on win shirtless wind cut with his waistcoat, right saxophone boom,
like text text book.

Speaker 2 (02:13:47):
It was great, and it was great because it was
It was saying like this, this isn't about like happy
endings for people. It's about Jeff likes punching criminals in
the face.

Speaker 1 (02:13:57):
Jeff will never run. Jeff will never stop punching criminals
in the face. I can't stop. But you could go
to a beach and drinking margarita, or or like perch
snatcher in the face. Is there any other scenes in
the movie that you are a particular fan of. Is
there anything else that we haven't covered. I like the

(02:14:17):
Corvette chase.

Speaker 2 (02:14:18):
I like I like that he steals a Corvette and
then drives a Corvette around for a while. And then
when the aral, the bank rubber snakes Snake under Snakes.
I know you keep calling him Rror because he calls himself.
I just remember his name. But Snake is bad. When
Snake the bank rubber runs away from his hideout, he's
in a black Corvette black and we both thought, like,
there's going to be a Corvette chase at some point,

(02:14:40):
and there was. There was a Corvette chase, and that
was a really good Corvette chase. When I did that,
I really liked.

Speaker 1 (02:14:45):
In a couple of like gnarly crashes.

Speaker 2 (02:14:48):
Yeah, And that was the point you were telling me, Like,
you know, they often didn't close the riders down. They
just filmed that. It was really they're properly fucking around
with these cars.

Speaker 1 (02:14:56):
I mean, on the they probably closed the bridge down
to do the big crack. Oh yeah, But I like
that too.

Speaker 2 (02:15:02):
I like that they both crashed and by and one
of them ended up in the river and one of
them ended up That was good, I really I.

Speaker 1 (02:15:09):
Like what about some of the one liners, Like at
the beginning where the snake was in prison, we were
talking about that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:15):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he owed him money. He's like,
you know, you got to get your money to us.
I'm not a bank. Hey, get it. I'm not a bank. No,
I don't get it, because that's not how jokes work.
I can see why your expertise is robbing banks. Yeah,
and not explaining comedy.

Speaker 1 (02:15:32):
Well, you can't rob yourself. So he's not a bank.
He's literally not a bank. Otherwise he would have to
constantly rob himself. Yeah, like I am a bank. A minute,
I've got to steal from myself. Yeah. But no, when
he goes in the water, uh, he says something like
you're dead. Oh, Errol Flynn's.

Speaker 2 (02:15:47):
Dead, Eryl Flint's dead, which is great because it's a
callback to something that the guy said in the car
during the car chase, which he couldn't possibly hear because he's.

Speaker 1 (02:15:57):
Literally call himself.

Speaker 2 (02:15:59):
He did, but like five days earlier, he made a
coment of everything which is.

Speaker 1 (02:16:04):
Fight, Like, wait, this didn't happen all in one day.

Speaker 2 (02:16:07):
Well, don't get me wrong, they they I like the
fact that it's a call back to something he couldn't
have said, but also could make sense because he did
say it to him. Yeah, I couldn't have heard, but
he it could be a callback to something he said
five days earlier.

Speaker 1 (02:16:22):
So it was. It was nice. I liked it.

Speaker 2 (02:16:24):
But I think I really liked the fight in the
strip club because he just walked in and caused trouble,
and then the whole thing is like, well, I think
I can walk in there and no matter how many
henchmen this guy has in the strip club that he owns,
I backed myself to beat them all up. I don't
need a plan. I'm just going to walk in there
and hit everybody until I get what I want. And

(02:16:45):
that absolutely is what happened.

Speaker 1 (02:16:47):
Again, macworter comes in and helps him.

Speaker 2 (02:16:48):
Oh that's right. Nor mcwurter comes in and say it
saves him. That's true, it was. But I liked the
scene because he ends up fighting seven guys, but not
in a way that like, oh, they're all just waiting
off screen to have their turn. They were all kind
of piling on him and it was quite confused.

Speaker 1 (02:17:06):
Well, one of the piers.

Speaker 2 (02:17:08):
And nicely, nicely put together sequence.

Speaker 1 (02:17:10):
One of the Piano Entertainment All Stars that we actually
spoke to a couple of episodes ago, when this one
as Art Camacho does the fight choreography, Well it's really good.

Speaker 2 (02:17:20):
I really, I really like the fight choreograph, not one
because it felt very real but also entertaining.

Speaker 1 (02:17:26):
Well, yeah, like that things that I love, right, which
is it's a total stunt fight choreographer move but it works,
which is he's grabbed from behind by a guy, right,
and instead of being like, oh no, I can't move
my arms, I'm out of this, he uses the pressure

(02:17:47):
and force of a guy grabbing you and pushing you
from behind to push off to kick the guy who's
running at him, which I think is just like such
a great move because he's like, well I can actually,
And it's a lot of what martial arts is about
is using the other person's momentum against them and him
being able to do that like ground from behind, great

(02:18:09):
push off his chest and kick the other guys coming
at you in the head. That like just those little
simple moves. I'm always like, oh that's do you know
what I mean? There's like a there's like a thought
process behind it. There's a little dance to it that
I really like. Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2 (02:18:22):
I like the uh, the sequence when they're persuading the
tattooed guy to wear a wire and they're like and
them trying to sell him on the plan of well,
he's the captain, is not gonna expect to bessumed to me,
he's gonna be expecting to speak to snake. But Snake's dead,

(02:18:43):
don't worry about that, will take care of that.

Speaker 1 (02:18:44):
Is that? But he's dead.

Speaker 2 (02:18:46):
That but the whole secret, like Jeff's acting was really good, Yes,
like it was just a.

Speaker 1 (02:18:51):
Funny about that.

Speaker 2 (02:18:53):
They weekend up the weekend at Bernie Snake having drawn
and they just What I also like is.

Speaker 1 (02:18:58):
Also when they dragged his corpse out of the river,
who blow dried his hair back to perfect silky his suit.

Speaker 2 (02:19:06):
But what I like too is they don't even try
and make him look anything other than the up in
a chair. You know what I mean, don't worry, Oh
he's over there. But what I also really like is
they said to him, look what a idea though, don't
make them suspicious, right, just tell him he's behind drinking cappuccino.

Speaker 1 (02:19:27):
You're taking care of it. And when they go up,
where is he? Like, you don't need to know.

Speaker 2 (02:19:30):
He properly makes them really really suspicious.

Speaker 1 (02:19:33):
And he's sweating.

Speaker 2 (02:19:34):
And but I like, I just I really like this.
But it was the scene of persuading him that propping
up a dead blake in a chair and he'll be
drinking a cappuccino, so don't worry about it as a
plan was great.

Speaker 1 (02:19:46):
I just don't like that. And of course Jeff just
to hammer at home, you know, knees him in the hat.
Oh that's right, Yeah, he's like.

Speaker 2 (02:19:52):
Look, I mean, first of all, the coin makes an
unbelievably shit argument, which is, well, I'm going to hire
a really good lawyer, and the lawyer i'm hyde got
someone off for shooting their parents and all I did
was Robert Banks. I don't think that's how evidence works.
It's not like I'm a good lawyer, and so therefore
I'm going to get you off this crime because it's

(02:20:13):
not as big a crime as murders.

Speaker 1 (02:20:15):
I don't that's not but it's fine.

Speaker 2 (02:20:18):
But the fact that Jeff's reply to this is to
knee him in the testicles until he agrees to the plan.

Speaker 1 (02:20:22):
It's like, all right, I'll do the brilliant again. I
really like.

Speaker 2 (02:20:25):
That the criminal has come up with a shitty idea
and you've called his bluff, not through the means of
intellectual argument. You've called his bluff by kneeing him in
the testicles until he says yes.

Speaker 1 (02:20:35):
And it completely worked in the testicles.

Speaker 2 (02:20:36):
The whole scene is great because it's weird, and yet
that's what I like about it. I think there's one
of the reasons you can fall back on cliches in movies, right,
is that they don't have to make sense for the
audience to know what they're supposed to be thinking. What
I like about this PM movie and other PM movies

(02:20:57):
that you've talked about it is that they can sell
the logic of a scene without falling back on cliche.
And so even though the choices within the scene, of
the individual choices that each character make are deeply weird,
they do make sense in and of themselves and when
strung together, so that by the end of the scene, like, great,

(02:21:18):
he's agreed to do the scheme.

Speaker 1 (02:21:20):
Yeah, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (02:21:21):
Like he's arguing we need him to argue, but we
need him to agree. In any other thing, he'd argue
with some kind of like well I don't really feel
like I can go through it. It's like, well you
go through with it or else, and like it won't
really be believable if he argues by like being completely
insane and not really grasping how law works, Like yeah,
I could believe a criminal would massively overplay their hand

(02:21:41):
and not really understand how the law works, and I
could agree that the cop gets him to agree by
kneeing him in the testicles, because of course he's going
to agree. It's like do I say or on the
of the testicles again, I'd probably agree to it. So again,
it's not falling back on cliche to make the scene work.
They make it work with weird choices, but somehow that
that's better because it actually makes sense, even though none

(02:22:04):
of the individual choices makes that.

Speaker 1 (02:22:06):
But the fact that a very serious I a operative
who has ties to Boston or something, which is sort
of this weird throwaway plot point. Wow, you know that's
how he got his transfer from Boston.

Speaker 2 (02:22:18):
I think it's because the guy they hide had a thick.

Speaker 1 (02:22:23):
Great character actor, really good actor as well, considering against
like but he just looks the business. He looks like
what you would expect the sleazy Bostonian. I a agent
who's long and the two thing really can't be bothered
with any of this. But he looks that. But the
fact that his plan would be, well, we'll just hide

(02:22:44):
behind this pillar while smoking cigarettes, as if people.

Speaker 2 (02:22:48):
They didn't even hide just standing pillar. This is not
a surveillance. This is just watching what's going standing around.

Speaker 1 (02:22:56):
And they're going to prop a corpse up in a
chair and no one, no one in the whole subway
station is going to go, wait, that's a corpse. There's
a corpse that Jimmy, don't look at the corps and.

Speaker 2 (02:23:09):
Also what they had to carry in carry corps and
they prop up in the chat?

Speaker 1 (02:23:14):
Did they just put a corpse in the chat? That
looks like that's what they just did. Yeah, I think they.
I think that's a corpse there. Someone should probably call
the police. It'd be funny if for like a second squad,
like the MTA police or whatever. I know it's not
the MPT because it's LA, but like the Metro station
police show up because they're not in on this. I
a scab that they're running.

Speaker 2 (02:23:35):
No way anybody came in a scab that was cracked out.

Speaker 1 (02:23:40):
Don't worry.

Speaker 2 (02:23:41):
We're gonna put a corpse in the chair and then
we're going to get the criminals agreed to do it
by being the test.

Speaker 1 (02:23:46):
By the way, all they had to do was find
an outrageous silver wig, and anyone could have worn it,
you know.

Speaker 2 (02:23:51):
What I mean, there's literally but that's what But again,
that's what I love about the choice. There were so
many other things they could have done to explain away
the fat that this is how it's going to go.

Speaker 1 (02:24:01):
By the way, they just.

Speaker 2 (02:24:02):
Chose to weakender Bernie's and it doesn't even work.

Speaker 1 (02:24:05):
At no point does it work. They're massively suspicious. And
then they push him over. By the way, there stood
like where we're sitting right now, right there, stood about there,
and the corpse is at a coffee table roughly where
my back door is from here. If there was a
cot at the table, they walk all the way up
to it. In fact, they touch him to the point

(02:24:27):
where he falls off the chair. I'm like, at what
point would you not think.

Speaker 2 (02:24:32):
This is what I would like to know how the
guy the corrupt corp has managed to be corrupt successfully
for this long When his reaction to, oh, this is
a setup is to shoot the guy in the stomach everybody,
in front of many, many witnesses. Yeah, I just I
really liked that that was his reaction. Well, what about
it's a setup, I'm going to kill you.

Speaker 1 (02:24:53):
Early on, when banks and wing car simple they don't
even confront him. They ask him a simple question about
like how much money or whatever, and all they say is, oh,
that's odd because it looked.

Speaker 2 (02:25:05):
More like more like more than four ground, more like more.

Speaker 1 (02:25:08):
Than four grand, at which point Seagrove like loses his
ship and starts stabbing him.

Speaker 2 (02:25:13):
And you're accusing me of stealing money, because if you're
going to accuse me, you better really accuse me.

Speaker 1 (02:25:18):
And I'm like, well, you've just given away every like
feels like maybe you're a criminal. As they walk away there,
like I think Seagroves crooked. I mean, but I think
sea Grove is definitely a bad egg. Yeah he doesn't.
Seagrove doesn't bother Seagrove is an idiot. I feel secrets, Like,

(02:25:38):
what's weird.

Speaker 2 (02:25:39):
I'm just going to take my kids for pizza. That
was weird. There's a bit when he's talking to the captain.
I think they're in a church, and but Seagrove's wearing
like a polo like a tucked in polo shirt, Like
I'm on my day off and he's taking his kids
for pizza. Why do we need to know where Sea
Groves off? There's always and again that's the other thing

(02:26:00):
about PM entertainment films. They're always dropping in information. Like
the whole bit where they it starts in a diner,
right and you have a whole discussion the waitress about
do you want extra this?

Speaker 1 (02:26:12):
Do you want extra? That wink is seemingly eating two
plates of food. Banks has a plate of food in
front of him, but never eats it throughout. He's serial
and mushrooms at that point. But like the fact that
you get the weight, the waiter gets her, like the
server gets her moment to like ask win cart whatever,
because it's all about, well, we've got to make this

(02:26:33):
real and we're like, well yeah, but you're also you
could just start it at a diner table and we're
all like, oh, they're in a diner, diner eating lunch.
You don't need the lead in, but they want to
give you that extra I like that.

Speaker 2 (02:26:46):
I liked that enormously, I really really did. I liked
I like the mood of that. I like the feel
of that good. I liked how all it wanted to
do is entertain me. I think that's the thing, and
maybe that's what they care about. And maybe it's just
you're getting older. But the more things I watch at
the moment, I feel like they're they're telling me something
that is really up for debate, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (02:27:09):
I don't really feel like they're prime that.

Speaker 2 (02:27:11):
I don't really feel like they're trying to entertain me necessarily,
or if they are, they're just going from some rule
book in terms of like, well, this is how characters work,
and this is how you make it exciting scene, and
this is how a callback works, and it's all become
so formulaic that, frankly, what's the point. What I liked
about is it doesn't want to do anything except to
entertain me, but not in a cynical way. Now's it

(02:27:34):
feels to me like the whole movie is we've managed
to get enough money to make an entertaining movie, so
let's make the most entertaining movie we possibly, you know
what I mean, And every single like you're saying, even
with the waitress, every single decision matters. Every single moment
is a moment that we could be entertaining people instead
of how do we pad out the running time? And

(02:27:55):
like you was saying before, how do we pad out
the running time until we can get to the action
sequence we budgeted for? This feels more like everything is
costing as money. This diner is costing his money, that
waitious is costing his money. So let's make it. Let's
make it work. This isn't We're not just like you know.

Speaker 1 (02:28:10):
Yeah, and I think that's and I don't. I've not
come up with a sentence that fully explains what I mean.
But when I put PM entertainment straight to video movies
up against other straight to video movies, whether it's action,
whether it's horror, whether it's sci fi, whether it's whatever,
I just think PM Entertainment just knew instinctively or whatever

(02:28:32):
it was, how to just not make a padded or
saggy film. Now that's not to say like there are
some of the earlier thrillers where they're not doing as
much action and they're doing more character driven. You know,
there's some violence, but mostly it's sort of character driven

(02:28:52):
thriller aspects, which yeah, do not have the pace that
some of the later ones do. Uh, And there are
some of the earlier ones that don't have the budget
that some of the later ones do. But there's always
an attempt to and this is this is more a thing.
There's there's also always an attempt to go from A

(02:29:14):
to B in the best way and the quickest way
possible and and get out clean. And I just I
feel like that is lacking in so many movies, and
with all its plot inconsistencies and with all its you know,
random decisions, and with all its you know, odd ball
characters or whatever, at least PM that keeps its eye

(02:29:36):
on the prize.

Speaker 2 (02:29:38):
I wonder if, like you know, what we were saying
earlier about, like the cable the cable TV thing, I
wonder if a part of it, too is as much
as you don't want people to leave a movie on
cable TV, you're also setting up for what if people
stumble on it?

Speaker 1 (02:29:51):
Right? Right?

Speaker 2 (02:29:51):
How many movies do you start watching you're channel flipping,
and then you come across like Wincot smoking in a
motor if it doesn't have to be like a motorbike chase,
or if you come across that like, okay, well, I'm
obviously watching this right. You know, if you if you're
channel flipping and you come across any one of those
car chases, you're going to continue watching that movie. But
even if you channel flip and Wincot's sitting there listening
to a tape recorder with a cigarette, you're like, oh,
what's going on here? Like everything, even the scenes that

(02:30:14):
aren't just like through our action, there's something in it
to like draw you in that's intriguing. And maybe it's
mcgworth or maybe it's like listening to something on the tape,
or even the quieter bits are something's happening and you're
drawn into it immediately where you know what's going on.
And then there's an action sevement right after, so then
you're in. So I wonder if there's like something to
that as well.

Speaker 1 (02:30:34):
There's also two last points. I know we're going on,
but there are two last points that I want to
make that are actually really interesting from a filmmaking standpoint.
First of all, when he's listening to that tape in
order to get that thing where the word trust. Like,
so he's listening to the tape right now, Normally in
a Hollywood movie, that the he would hear what he's

(02:30:58):
been waiting to hear, right, because it's like, I know
there's some evidence on this tape. I know there's some
evidence on this tape, and I need some information about
this evidence. Right, he would hear it, right, We would
cut to our hero's face and maybe the word would
echo on the soundtrack or something like that, or like
that sequence where he was having a restless night and

(02:31:18):
they were playing back in his head all the conversations
he'd had with Jonathan Banks and with his police captain,
everything else, right, which was also a really effective sequence
because she understood he's not sleeping because his brain is
filled with all these questions.

Speaker 2 (02:31:32):
Yeah, yeah, that was nice to because I had a
thing where he wasn't sleeping and then they cut, Yeah,
and he's still not sleeping, but he's he's in a
different position, she's in different positions, So he's in the
whole night, yeah, which was really neat.

Speaker 1 (02:31:43):
But when he's when he's listening to the tape show
tape machine and it's like, this is the guy you
can trust he rewound it. And then it was like,
guy you can trust, rewound it, you can trust rewound it.
Trust he was the one. Yeah, it was really neat already.
You don't see the actor doing the thing normally. It's
just like a cord movie trope, right, They just have

(02:32:06):
like the word echoing trust similarly later on the movie.
And they do this in PM entertainment films all the time,
and it's a lot of fun. You will hear a
soundtrack like you're they set up the scene in the subway,
the subway station. They set up to seeing the subway station.
You can hear like this typical PM saxophone guitar music
playing in the background, only for the camera to pan

(02:32:27):
over and not only reveal that the saxophone guitar sound
is actually two buskers in the train station, but then
the buskers turn out to be undercover cops or thugs,
I don't know which one, under cover cops and pull
an ouzy out of the guitar case and start like
capping people. So you've got this like one two three thing.

(02:32:47):
First of all, you think it's just soundtrack on the movie.
Then you find out no, it's actually part of the
meson sound of the whole setup and whatever. Then you
find out O no, no, no no, they're also part
of the shootout. It's like this wonderful like one, two three.
You would maybe say this is the other thing. If
you were in the production office or whatever, you might

(02:33:09):
pitch that in like a joky moment. You might be yeah,
funny if right. But the fact that they then go
out and like do it, and not only that, but
the repeated shots of this hugely mostassio and saxophone player, like, shoot,
he's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (02:33:23):
Can I just say I want to see either? A
TV show was just following the guy who's a copper,
who's a really excellent saxophone player, who is only required
busker cop right on, he's only required to be yeah
to busk busk during busts. He's busk bust right, He's

(02:33:44):
a bust busk busking the busts busker bus bust busker
and his name is busker busts.

Speaker 1 (02:33:52):
Or buster busk but surely buster busk Wait wait wait
wait is he is? He? Is he a busker at
a bust, which would mean he would be busker bust Yeah,
or is he a bus that needs a busker? So
he's bust busker. Oh a bust busker.

Speaker 2 (02:34:08):
Oh bust busker, He's busker, bust the bus busker. That's
the day of the TV show right now.

Speaker 1 (02:34:16):
Yeah, well you're you're part of Peacock. Make that happen.
I will, I will, I will no. But again, like
if PM decided we're going to do a movie guitar
and saxophone guy who go around like breaking, they would
be the ones to do it. And I think, you know,
that's that's That's what I love about this movie. That's
what I love about this production company, and that's why

(02:34:38):
I think it continues to bring me joy is that
I don't feel like any decisions or or ideas are
off the table. So anyway, Jim, do you have any
final thoughts on the movie or anything anything you want
to depart from your first experience of PM Entertainment, I
guess that.

Speaker 2 (02:34:57):
I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, and that
I really enjoyed this in your podcasts. I've been really
interested in watching the movies. I expected that I would
enjoy them, but having watched one, the experience of watching
it was as fun and entertaining and rewarding as I

(02:35:19):
could have possibly hoped. And so often that's not really
the case with life, right, it doesn't usually live up
to expectations. So it did more than live up to expectations.
So I'm really glad to have found these.

Speaker 1 (02:35:32):
Movies through the podcast excellent, and I want to say personally,
thank you ever so much for doing the show. I
one of the biggest things I miss in my as
much as I love my current life, one of the
biggest things I miss is podcasting with you. I feel
like we have a very unique chemistry when it comes
to like podcasting and a unique way to talk about

(02:35:55):
stuff because we're on the same wavelength. But we also
come at things so yeah, yeah, we also have like
a mutual respect, so there's like an interesting thing that
plus we can riff. Uh no, anyway, Look, thanks ever
so much. Man, this has been a real podcast, and
you're welcome back in the podcast. Welcome back. At the
time you are now leaving the entertainment podcast sum can

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Episode 10 - Last Man Standing

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 10 - Last Man Standing