Episode 14 - Skyscraper - The PM Entertainment Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have entered the PIM Entertainment Podcast. Hello when Welcome

(00:31):
to an all new episode of the PM Entertainment Podcast.
And a Shakespeare once said, forsooth, this be a show
most relentless in its praise of yon spectacles, most fierce
and furious, wherein bullets fly as bees in battle roundhouse
kicks do smite with thunderous grace, and chariots explode in
fiery triumph. Lo jumpsuited heroes dos stride bold ear bathing

(00:57):
neath the steamy veil, whilst flashback of lustful dalliance dance
upon the screen. Villains clad in leathered hose do snarl
and plot as valiant stunt folk leap from heights, most
perilous are set alite as blazing torches, and steer their
wheeled steeds through vessels bearing the mark of Bud Dry.

(01:21):
Of course, I'm talking about the films produced by Richard
Peppin and Joseph May that lit up every mom and
pop video store shelf that they graced, although I am
not sure what influence or input they had on this
week's film, The Anonikole Smith starring high flying die Hard
retread Skyscraper. We get into lots of details about the
movie and our conversation, so I won't retread that here.

(01:44):
I'm just going to remind you that I'm your host,
John Crass, and don't forget that. If you like the show,
please remember to rate and review us on any of
the podcasting platforms that you use, share our Facebook posts
and our Instagram feeds, like comment, and you can contact
us via email well pmentpod at gmail dot com. That's
PM and T pod at gmail dot com. Much like

(02:08):
one Keith McAfee did this week, he wrote, just finished
listening to episode thirteen to be the best also known
as Karate Tigers, seven amazing guests and killer movie banter
are reaching an all time high here. It's like listening
to a vengeful Ferris wheel of Mayhem that keeps circling
one punch of excitement after another. Thanks for keeping me

(02:30):
going today. It was awfully hot and muggy and Maine
in the beer industry during the summer months, it's a
real killer bouncing between stops. Having the podcast going gave
me the adrenaline fuel I needed to complete my day.
Ps Still waiting for a don the dragonflick on the podcast.
Thanks Keith, McAfee. Well, Keith, thank you so much, sir,

(02:51):
what a wonderful email. Please do keep them coming. I
love a good email and I would love to get
some regular correspondents read out on the show. Just a
reminder again that everyone can email us at Pmenttpod at
gmail dot com, pm e Ntpod at gmail dot com,
just like Keith did, and glad to know that you
are listening to the podcast. While I presume trucking around

(03:15):
Maine with lots of beer in the back, that's what
it sounds like. I don't know. I can think of
worst ways to spend my days, even in hot and
muggy Maine. However, if you ever find yourself in equally
hot and muggy Connecticut, then do look me up and say, hey,
we'll grab a drink rather than drive them around in

(03:36):
the back of the truck. Anyway, thanks so much for
writing Keith. That's a real pleasure. And as for Don
the Dragon Wilson film, we will definitely be covering one soon.
I promise that is definitely going to happen, whether we
get an interview or not. Don respond to my Facebook messages. Thanks.
Our guests this week have reviewed Straight to Video and

(03:56):
VHS action movies on their blog Comeuppancereviews dot net four years,
almost two decades, and I strongly urge everyone listening to
rush to subscribe to and download the Come Up and
Reviews podcast hosted by these two wonderful gents. They're returning champions,
they definitely know their onions and while individually they might
have an issue, I'm sure if they got in there

(04:17):
together they would fill out Miss Anona Colesmith's jumpsuit just fine.
It's Ty and Brett Barger. Hello, gentlemen, a pleasure to
have you back on the show.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Hey, thanks again for having us on.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Right Schwarzenegger stallone van Damn the Goal Smith Will and
Cole Smith joined the Pantheon Great Action Stars find out
on today's PM Entertainment podcast.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I was right, that was wonderful. That was wonderful. Can
she can? She joined the pantheon of s named action stars.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
True speaking mean yes, she was born to do this.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Which is a very kind kind thing to say.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
If we span damn, that would that would that would
be perfect?

Speaker 4 (05:11):
But but yeah, right, uh well it's I'm glad you
mentioned that there was a kind thing to say, because
my whole goal today is not to make fun of
Anna Nicole Smith.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Because on a on our review for this I thought
I went back and read it today, and I also
went back and watched the movie today, and I thought
we were a little harsh in our review. So I
think it's unfair in many ways to kind of make
fun of her that harshly. So part of this podcast
for me today is to re you know, to correct
the record and and find the good and.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
All this you can find the good and one one rocket, Charlie.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
If I can't find the good and one rocket, Charlie,
what can I find good?

Speaker 1 (06:16):
All Right? We have rocket launchers, car explosions, repeated explosions
of cars, dumpsters and debris, slow mos, stuntmen, gunfight, multiple squibs,
blood squib hitting the camera. Stuntman almost toasted alive, possibly
by accident. Car while on fire, backs all the way
up and threw a truck, crashing out the other side
on fire and exploding. Man is shot off the roof
of a skyscraper. A guard is shot. Another guard knows

(06:38):
kung fu and fights for a bit before being repeatedly
punched in the back and collapsing. Another gunfight, cop and
car taken out by rocket launcher. Flaming and wailing stuntman
man shot out of window and bullet causes him to
do an elaborate flip over a balcony railing and he
falls off the building. Another guard is strangled to death.
Gunfight in control center. Anna Nicole Smith jumps off skyscraper

(06:59):
roof with the guff in a suitcase onto a handley
placed window washing platform. She swings out on a metal
wire while being shot at for a bit. She crashes
through a window and narrowly avoids being pulled out of
the building by a falling winch. Fist fight on the
back stairs yet another gunfight in which mostly phones and
computers are hit. Because everyone is a terrible shot, lots
of sparks go off. Malibu and Anna Nicole Smith fight

(07:21):
each other's hair. A still further gunfight where mainly notices
and noticeboards are shot at. Fire rescue workers and fire
ladder hit with rocket launcher and bursts into flames. They
blow several windows out of the building. Bad guy in
leather pants Johnny Hill, is stabbed in the crutch, shut
in the chest and is propelled out of a window
and falls down the building for about thirty minutes. A

(07:41):
few random people are shot throughout the movie. The thirty
fifth gunfight so far I think is in the loading bay,
culminates in a little Kung Fu bad guys, then roundhouse
kicked off the roof of a skyscraper. Graturitous time padding,
helicopter footage, groturitous adr graturitous multiple men in shades and suits,
graturs unexpl mcguffin, gratuitous bud dry truck, gratuitous reservoir dogs

(08:04):
rip off, gratuitous die hard ripoff, graturitu shower scene where
she appears to become a rouse simply by standing under
some water, gratuitt to slow motion sex scene, gratuitu's comedy
side characters, gratuitous flashback to show she's a good shot,
and gratuitous flashback sex scene. Well well, well, well, well,
that is an incredible list, quite possibly the silliest list

(08:25):
we've had on the show so far. Please write to
us and tell us what you think. Let's start, as
we always do with the show, before we go off
on our opinions of the movie. Is I always ask
my guests to give a quick rundown of the plot.
Now I understand that the plot is basically die Hard,
but it's die Hard with a mcguffin, Like Dieard doesn't

(08:50):
have a mcguffin. I guess the mcguffin in die Hard
is that everyone thinks they're terrorists and really they're robbers.
I suppose that's the mcguffin. But in this movie there
is a mcguffin. Not only is there a mcguffin, but
there's a mcguffin that are bad guys have to collect
multiple parts of. So so yeah, give us a give

(09:11):
us a quick lowdown on the plot of Skyscraper.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Okay, you want me to do it?

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Okay, sure, So we got to shake shakespeare cording. Villain
wants the what four pieces of the thing that will
change the ballance on the earth. We didn't really explain
too well, but one rocket Charlie carry Wink and Smith,
uh you know, figures this out and has to save
some hostages and it all gets very ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, so she is She is a and I don't
even know if this is a real thing. I mean,
I presume it is for the rich and famous. But
she is a helicopter pilot for basically a helicopter limousine
service hell escort, right, and she is married to a cop,
uh Gordon Wink. So the two of them are wink wink, yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
Because their partners are nude nudge, yeah, Right, was wink Martindale?

Speaker 1 (10:12):
That would have been what they He somehow gave them
his first name as his.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Last he give be wink wink.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
So wait a minute, are you trying to say that
the brother and sister.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Well that's interesting. But and also in the name department,
I should also point out Dudley right, So who is
kind of the wacky security guard? So could that be
a reference to Dudley do right? Maybe the name is
do you know?

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Well, I mean she doesn't one of his because he Again,
it's a peman tame of film, So we find out
lots of innocuous stuff about our characters that we don't
really need to know. But it's what I call the
Larry Cohen syndrome, which and I love this, which is
even the bit parts get a backstory. Right. So the
security guard who is Dudley Wright is picked on by

(11:02):
all the other security cards who all get killed by
the way, so he's the you know, he's the only
one who survived. Does he survive oh right, all right, Yeah,
he's a right, but he is like the weedy scrappy
but he wants to be a cop like he wants
he wants to be Dirty Harry. But he he looks

(11:25):
more like the sweet Chuck out of Police Academy, right, and.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Then yeah, he's kind of he's kind of a little bits.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
If any Deeson played Sweet Chuck in Police Academy, that's
kind of what Edward Eduardo des Yes, but no, he
is one of the things. He gets bullied or picked

(11:59):
on by his fellow security god. Is his name? He is?

Speaker 3 (12:04):
He?

Speaker 1 (12:04):
At one point, I think one of the security gods
goes Dudley do. Right, he's a mounted policeman from the
Great North or something like that.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right, But then not to get too far ahead of ourselves,
because you know, you should show up until a bit later.
Now we also discover the the drama of Carrie Wing's
fertility issues. Yes, and and you we're talking about quotes
right before we recorded, and the one I wrote down,
you know, in case not to to find a you know,
not to put too fine a point on it. But

(12:31):
she screams whales at Gordie wink, I want a baby.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yes, so yeah, so I was gonna say, I will
get into this with my general overview of the movie
in a bit, but yes, the plot that is set
up about Annonacole Smith Carrywink wanting a baby from Gordon Wink,
but Gordon Wink is too married to the force.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yea, the police department, not me.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
What I think all this is it might be a
pretext to say, hey, you know, theseletely unnecessary and gratuitous
sex scenes. They're not for the pleasure of it. It's
for procreation, for creation, procreation only. So the reason why
they're showing these sex scenes and you know, Playboy channel
style detail is just what they're trying to conceive.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Of course, and and and not because Joseph and Rick said, look,
if we're going to have to make a movie with
Anna Nicole Smith, that better be tits in it.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
I mean I think we said that in a review.
It's kind of like imagine being a kind of a
teenager and you catch it, or you try to catch
it on skin a Max or the cable channels or
your local video store. You would feel so cheated if
there was no nudity, wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
You, right? But I might have preferred the film.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Oh yeah, maybe no, Yeah, that's that's certainly something we
can debate and talk about. If you took those scenes out,
would that uh?

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Well, there is there is a version. There's there's a
version on YouTube that I believe is the edited for
TV version US that that does not have boobs in it. However,
for anyone who doesn't own this VHS and DVD like
I do multiple times, and I just ordered the Blu
ray from from Focus Media because this was the and

(14:09):
this will tell you everything you need to know about
the enduring fandom for this film and for Anna Nicole
Smith Focus Media in Switzerland, who have been putting out
the PM Entertainment Blu rays over the last few months
and that I've been reviewing on my YouTube channel and
we've been talking about here on the podcast. The only

(14:30):
two to have sold out completely of the media book version.
You can still get the regular Blu ray version, but
the only two to have sold out of the media
book version are the two Anonacole Smith ones, Skyscraper and
To the Limit.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Interesting because another question we posed is possibly if you
took in Nicole Smith out of the equation completely, what
would this movie be so? Right?

Speaker 1 (14:58):
It would just be golden. Yeah, and I don't particularly
care for stein Metz either, so or we'll get into that.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Or you replaced her with someone else, like more like
someone PM would more typically use, like say Jeff Wincott.
So let's say it wasn't a Nicole Smith at all
and it was wind cut. Would that change or how
would it change the dynamics of the film itself? Like
is it just stunt casting? Is that all it is?
Or is there more to it?

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yes? And all those questions will be asked, okay, good
and answered down down the road, because what I like
about what you're saying is a lot of the way
I felt after I watched this again. I've seen it before,
but this is probably only my third viewing in the last.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
Years.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
There's like third viewing in the last ten or fifteen years,
and I can't say that it's one that had stuck
with me so well that watching it this time I
remembered it because I didn't. I didn't remember all of it.
I remember some of it, but I didn't remember all
of it. Uh. The thing about the Yeah, A lot
of the things that I felt when I left this
movie was to do with the Anonacole Smith of it all,

(15:58):
not in a a negative way necessarily, but in a
PM entertainment way. And I'll get into what I mean.
I just want to finish up the plot for people
who are listening but who haven't seen it yet. But basically,
the first half an hour of the movie is you know,
Anna Nacole Smith is not in it very much. She's
either flying around in a helicopter, or she's having sex

(16:21):
with her husband, or she's complaining that they don't have
a baby yet, or she's sitting it out. Because essentially,
what we although we introduce the bad guys, we don't
really know who they are, where they are, why they are,
or what they are. They're just bad guys and we
know that. And there's also sort of like two levels
of bad guys, because there's the bad guys who are
doing the deals with the government in order to get

(16:44):
this suitcase. It's like a suitcase satellite interrupter or something.
I think it like manipulates satellites or something.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
I mean, not that it matters, but yeah, but I
know what you're saying. There's something very similar at Tie
is It Crisis with David Bradley. They're looking for something
very similar.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, Forston Nickel and David Bradley.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, a generic suitcase mcguffin. I mean that's what it is.
It's generic suitcase mcguffin. Part eight. And so there's these
guys who are doing a deal with the government to
get this suitcase satellite interrupter blah blah blah blah blah.
And just as they're doing the deal, the other bad guys,

(17:25):
the bad guys who are going to take over the
skyscraper and basically essentially become Hans Gruber and his team,
they intercept with rocket launchers and machine guns, and you know,
and this is PM saying like, don't worry, guys, I
know this is an Anna Nicole Smith, you know, softcore.
Put it on the shelves, get fourteen year old boys

(17:47):
to watch this, but don't worry. We're going to pack
it full of ridiculous action as well, so don't worry
about it. And they blow up an entire alleyway full
of cars and then they escape with the suitcase thing,
and then they hire Anna Nicole Smith to take them
around the city because they have to pick up four
other bits. You can't just guys, when you get a

(18:10):
suitcase mcguffin. You can't just open that suitcase and mcguffin everywhere.
You have to pick up four other little bits of
what looked like circuit board or little bits of circuit
board that you need to then stick in your mcguffin
in order to make it work. Because nothing can be easy.
So we then essentially again, we're still following the villains. Yes,

(18:33):
Anaichole Smith is flying them around, but it's not like
they're engaging with her very much. And what is amazing
is that when they filmed the helicopter, you would think
Anaichole Smith was sitting six feet away from the person
she sat next to, but you wouldn't. I mean, essentially
she'd be sat more or less right next to them.
But the way they film it is what's interesting is

(18:57):
Anna Nichole Smith is never filmed at the same time
as the other people in the helicopter. It's like they're
filmed in separate. In situations most.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
Of her lions are like not step by her in
a close stup. It's from far or like abr like.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh, the whole movie. The whole movie is almost ideodd.

Speaker 3 (19:16):
Yeah, And also the scenes where she's flying the helicopter
a lot of the shots concentrated on just her hands
with those crazy nails. Yeah, so you know, they could
overdub anything they want because there's a lot of nails shots.
Like it's very like almost like an ad for Lee
Press on nails. You could you can fly a plane girl?

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yes, No, I mean, look, it's odd because there is
so and I wanted to get into this because maybe
we just talked about it. But essentially I'll finish it up.
She goes to the skyscraper. She gets in braled in
the fact that these guys lock down this super high
text skyscraper. They locked some hostages in with them. No
one really knows what they're trying to do. They're trying

(19:55):
to get the suitcase back, right she she took the suitcase,
so ran away with the suitcase and they're trying to
get back or something. She put it in a garbage
cart that a guy was Jamaican garbage handler was pushing
around this office block. And then yeah, they have to
get it back and then they have to track it
down and it basically becomes die Hard in Yeah, it's

(20:16):
like die Hard. It's it's you know, we for years
we had die Hard on a plane, die Hard in
a boat, die Hard in a city, die Hard in
a hospital, die Hard wherever. We had die Hard clones
all over the place, and PEM Entertainment showed up and went,
it's fine, it's like die Hard but in a skyscraper.
And everyone went, wait, isn't die Hard die Hard in
a skyscraper? And they went shut up.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Probably what happened? Yeah, except yeah, this has ended the
Cole Smith as a helicopter pilot. That's pretty much the difference, right.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
And so the whole thing that's weird about this movie
from a PM entertainment standpoint is that there is sort
of especially at this point in nineteen ninety six when
this movie comes out, right, So there's a whole thing
in nineteen ninety six. This is the first year, I
believe it's the first year where they make ten movies
in one year, right, And so what you find watching

(21:08):
a lot of those movies is that there are two
types of PM. There are the ones where they have
clearly put all the PM all stars on the show
and they put a lot of time, a lot of energy,
a lot of effort into them, and it's a big

(21:29):
PM production number. And then there are ones like Skyscraper,
where really the only PM regular that is involved in
Skyscraper outside of obviously Joseph and Rick as producers is
Jim Halfpenny, who is the composer. He did a whole bunch.
Everyone else, while they have worked on one or two

(21:53):
PM films, are certainly not what you would call a
PM all star. The other one I forgot to mention
is col S McKay does the stunts for this. He
is obviously a big PM regular. But when you look
at nineteen ninety six, we're talking The Sweeper, Skyscraper, Tiger Heart,
the Silence is Pure Danger, Dark Breed, Riot obviously like Riot,

(22:13):
Dark Breed, Pure Danger and the Sweeper are all ones
that they have really backed, like big time with all
the guys that you want to see. And I said
it was the first year they did ten films, but no,
they do eight films. Sorry, in ninety six.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
It's pretty close.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah, it's pretty close.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
With the Jack Scalia there, you got Dark.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Right, and they're all they're all great, Like I've seen
all those other films and they're all like the best
PM has to Like, Pure Danger is phenomenal, and Riot
is obviously fantastic, and Dark Breed and Silences are two
of their best sci fi ones. And the Sweeper, which
we covered last time, is obviously a great one. And
so it makes me think about Skyscraper, which is so

(22:59):
the the director has only made. I think he made
some very early ones. He made Angels of the City,
East La Warriors, American Born, and he does to the
limit with Anaa Cole Smith, which was the first time
they worked with her, and I believe was dating her
at the time as well, because I believe this is
pre marrying a billionaire on his deathbed, Anna Na Cole Smith.

(23:21):
That Martino, yes, Raymond Martino. And so what I don't
have the answer to and what I'm really fascinated by
is did Anna Na Cole Smith demand but just because
she was having that moment, that zeitgeist, that you know,
that that thing where it was like for three or

(23:42):
four years, it's the Annaa Cole Smith years, you know
what I mean. She wasn't like famous for decades, but
she was famous for a very key moment in the nineties.
Is it that Anaa Cole Smith demanded so much money
to be in the film that everything else needed to
be low key? And sheep like, for example, there's one
bit in this movie that was clearly filmed in the

(24:04):
video vault at the PM Entertainment offices. They just hanged
plastic couple of the videos. Oh yeah, no, I know, right,
just in case any blood or squibs, you know, get
on any of the video casings. They have this plastic
hanging around. Anyway, it makes no sense whatsoever. So I
don't know. Is it that she changed so much that

(24:25):
they were like, you know this, this this doesn't make
any sense unless we cheap it up. Or is it
that they didn't have the full belief in her that
they cheaped out on the movie compared to all the
other movies I'm making that year, you know what I mean.
So I don't know what the answer is that question,

(24:47):
but I think that why I say it to the
Anna Nicole Smith of it all is and to answer
one of your questions earlier, I think there is a
version of this movie, even with Anna Nicole Smith in it,
that if it was you know, written by Jacobson Hart
and shot by either Ken Blakey or Rick Peppin, or

(25:07):
you know, had more involvement from the PM All Stars,
that the guys that make the movies we all love
and keep talking about. And if they paired her dialogue
back and just made just reduced her to like like
Arnie when he was a terminator, Like they just reduced
her to one liner's quips and you know, let's go

(25:30):
over here, you know, like directions. Right, if you just
reduced her whole character just down so it was more
Anonacole Smith, the icon and then she but she didn't
have to do any big heavy lifting. And then you
surrounded her with you know, great character actors, one martial
artist that recognizable, maybe like a you know, maybe a

(25:50):
Jeff Speakman or maybe a Jeff Winkt or maybe a
one or Zagarino even or or a Lorenzo Lamas or
someone right, and you reduced her to just like quips
and one liners and directions, and you made this movie.
Put a bit more effort, time and energy into this movie.
Could she have been good in that scenario in a

(26:12):
PM film, Yes, I believe so. I think there's enough
in this movie to lead you to believe that if
they had reduced her acting quote unquote, did she you know,
running around, you know, talking to a little kid hiding
under a desk, shooting a gun like she's fine at
all those things. So those are the questions that I
left the movie with. I'm like, did they cheap out

(26:34):
just because they'd spent all their money on all the
other movies? Did they cheap out because she was requesting
so much money to be in one of these movies?
Did they cheap out because To the Limit came out
before this movie and they were like it bombed? Like
those are the questions that I have around this movie.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Over to you guys, Well, what I would say about
all that is, like all the PM movies at this time,
it still looks good. You know, it's very bright, you know,
it's you can see everything, as opposed to a lot
of movies of today that are very dark. It's very
well lit, it's very well shot. So I don't think
they cheaped out in those technical departments.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
And certainly, certainly, except except that Frank harris Is who
shot it, is not exactly known for phenomenal cinematography. When
you look at this I recently did to be the
best which Rick shot in, Rick Peppin shot in Vegas.
And while yes, this looks fine for what it is,

(27:29):
it's not a patch on if Rick or Kenna directed
shot it.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
I mean, I'm just saying it's it's clear and bright.
I'm not saying he's yes, Rio Storo. I'm basically saying
that you can see it and and and PM does
have a history of kind of putting people that were
in the zeitgeist in movies. Case in point, Tracy Lords
and O. J. Simpson. Right, I guess a question could
be were PM trying to do with Anna Nicole Smith

(27:55):
what they did with Tracy Lords, which maybe you know,
put it on box covers, give her like a career
after her adult career, and see what happens.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
She's three of us three, right, Well, she's in two movies.
And then they do that Anna Nicole Smith Exposed, which
they produced and put out on their label. But it's
not a movie.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
So it could be that they were just trying to
do something like that, like try to emulate the success
I would imagine as a success. You could tell me,
but what with Tracy Lord's and try to replicate that formula,
And they probably felt like they had not a lot
to lose. They say, let's try this and we'll see
what happens. And so I think that's a factor, you know, say, Okay,

(28:38):
we did it with OJ, we did it with Tracy.
Let's let's see what happens with Anna. No.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
Completely, I think that's a big part of it.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
No.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
I think the Anna Nicole Smith zeitgey such as it was,
and PM being PM. And I think the promise of nudity,
which again I don't know if that bumped up her
price or something. I don't know. I think I understand.
I fully understand why PM made this movie and why
they put it out. I also understand why years later

(29:11):
it's essentially the most well known of the PM films,
even by people who don't know that it's a PM film,
because of riff tracks and because of the you know,
so bad it's good, you know, low budget film watching
of stuff like Samurai carp and The Room.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah. I mean I would put this in kind of
a different category personally, But I get what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
No, No, I would as well. But I'm saying that
there are a lot of people out there on Internet
land that that's how they watch this movie, right, Okay, yeah, yeah,
I'm not saying that's how I watch it. I'm saying
that's how I think they watch it, and why it's
still more popular than say some of the ones we
truly love but aren't known as well.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
And the radar of these other like the Sweeper is
not going to be on these radars.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Right, not like that, not as a thing you can
kind of mock and ride.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I don't mark this one a little bit. I mean,
if you go as you go to my notes.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
While you do that, I have a quick log dad
to John's fire here, which is and Nicole Smith is
listed as an associate producer. Yes, so that could be
a factor in all this in terms of your questions,
And to paraphrase Katie Perry, she puts the ass an
associate producer right.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
No, And I also think like maybe it was you know,
Raymond Martine. And again I haven't looked into these, like
I could research it probably a lot better. But and
I apologize to the listening several that I have not
done that. But he did a lot of early work
with PM. As I said, Angels of the City, East
LA Warriors, American Born. These are all from like eighty

(30:45):
nine to ninety. And it may have been that he
started dating her and went to Rick and Joseph and said, hey,
do you want to like get Anna in a movie. Yeah,
because I'm dating that.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
I mean, because what is an associate producer? Really, it's
just you know, you put your name on it, and which.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
They did with Gary Daniels, They've done with Jeff Winktt.
Like some of those later movies that those guys were in,
they were also down as producer. I think speak Boom
was down as a producer on Land of the Free.
I think they well something to be proud of, for sure,
right exactly.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
I just want to mention some of the notes I have.
You know, if you watch There's you know, There's What
To and the cole biopics, right, so one as will
Afford will Afford and one as Agnus Buckner, and I've
seen both. I think you have to The Agnes one
mentioned skyscraper, like there's like some like shady producers like

(31:42):
water being Skyscraper. I don't know how accurate that is,
but at least that one mentioned skyscraper.

Speaker 5 (31:48):
Yeah, they don't mention it in the will Afford one, No,
but I mean it's it's you know again, I think,
and I don't know the history or the timeline of
their relationship, but even as an actor, Raymond Martino had
been in City Lights.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
He was in Mayhem in nineteen eighty six, which is
a city Lights movie that Joe did before PM. And
he was in La Heat and Emperor of the Bronx
and Night of the Wilding like he was in Living
to Die with Wings House. So he's acted, written, and
directed a lot of the early PM. He doesn't do
much after Skyscraper. He comes back and he writes the

(32:30):
screenplay to Exposed Anaa Cole Smith. I thought it was
a documentary, so I don't know what the screenplay is.
And he directed one episode of the TV series two
episodes sorry of the TV series La Heat, But in
general he stops working with PM as a writer director
after Skyscraper.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Well, I mean that makes sense. I mean why mess
with perfection? I mean, go on a high. Yes, it's
quit while you're on top, but kind of you know.
So the move of the opens with a wink's eye
view of l A. Yes, you see the city from
the helicopter's point of view, and you see the nails.
Then you hear her her voice, which I'm sure it

(33:11):
is her voice. She has a very distinctive voice because
it's she's Yeah, she still has her Texas accent, and
so I'm sure if there was dubbing, I'm I'm sure
she dubbed herself and uh and complete with pauses, like
there's some great pauses I've looked as this tie knows.
I'm a I'm a big fan of quote unquote bad
acting or flat acting, and she's a great one. She's

(33:33):
really flat, but she's flat with that accent and uh
and even with the pauses like I didn't write down
the exact quote, but she's like, what are you doing?
And it's almost shot in her ask speaking of land.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
To the free William Carvell.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yeah. So, so I just wanted to point that out.
As far as her, you know, we're talking about her
voice and I enjoy listening to her voice, and I
thought that was one of the line He's like, I
excuse me for believing against Sunny wats baby. Yeah that's great. Yeah,
that's a great one too.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
That's the line I think it's like, But.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
That's what I mean. In my version of this movie,
you would you would strip any of the unnecessary character
stuff with her and her husband and wanting babies and
blah blah blah blah blah, Like the only way like
the only way to pay off the baby thing would

(34:30):
have been if because later in the movie, there is
a woman who is inexplicably dressed exactly like Anna Nicole,
same hair, every yah who has blonde hair, and who
for no apparent reason, has brought her eleven year old
son who acts like he's five. That kid is not five.
I know, everyone treats him like he's five, but he's

(34:51):
like ten or eleven years old. That kid, who is
much like Danny and the Shining, just riding a trike
around an office building for no good reason.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
No whoever expected. There's even a couple of Shining esque
low to the ground, big wheel shots that that's a
real kid. Yeah, that's a real son.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
And I love his I love his life. Beat Deep Road.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
And that character gets a name. His name is Billy
Ray Johnson.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
It is he has a full full name that he gives.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
Me like Billy Ray Johnson. I was thinking, well, it
was the nineties and Billy Ray Cyrus was very high.
The fact that his name is Billy Ray could be
a reference to.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
That, right, and that wait, that's on it, Nicole Smith's
real son. Yes, okay, And what's interesting is that, uh,
and I want to see, if I'm right, when was
he born? I want to see what age she was?

Speaker 2 (35:43):
Right?

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Well, why you do that?

Speaker 1 (35:45):
So he was born in nineteen eighty six, so he's okay,
he's nine when they make this, but he's no difference. Yeah,
you know, everyone's treating him like he's full.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
You know, it's not just that this woman has brought
her son with his big wheel to her office. Yes,
but also he has a dog with him too.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
You're right, he has a little puppy as well. And
this is the thing, is that if you set all
that up right, based on the you know, the Chekhov's
gun version of storytelling. You set up at the beginning
that Anna Nicole Smith desperately wants a child. Right, you
set up the fact that her husband is not giving
her a child. Right, The only way to end this

(36:25):
movie correctly? Oh, you set up there's a woman who
looks exactly like her in the same clothes who gets
shot by some bad guys, and that she has to
look after the sun and keep the kid safe. Right,
you'd think the only way to end this movie is
that his mother really died from that bullet, right, that

(36:47):
the cop her husband gets killed, and that her consolation
prize is that she gets to walk away with the kid. Right.
That's how you would end the movie. If you were
writing any other mid nineties action film which started with
someone saying I really want a baby, you know what
I mean, right, you would start you would end it

(37:10):
like that. Instead, for some reason, this movie ends with
just everyone being alive and it all being fine, and
you kind of go, but what was the point of
all that horrible, painful dialogue about wanting babies in the
park on Sunday? Like, get jettison that, like, get rid
of it out of the beginning of the movie. If
you're not going to pay it off, don't have it,

(37:31):
you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Right?

Speaker 3 (37:32):
And because at the end, uh, mister Wing just says, okay,
I give basically you wore me down. Yeah, it's just
like it done in one little piece of dialogue at
the end, and everybody you know, hugs and walks off
in the sunset.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
And yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Sorry, I was just gonna say, because the mom who
was in the office with no other office workers around
on that floor, who looks just like her, was shot.
But she's gonna make it well, understand, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
And this is also weird because it's like they have
all these hostages, but then as the movie goes on,
they kind of go, oh, you forgot a few right right,
and on some of the high walls they were just
people working away completely way that they're like explosions going off,
gunfire and everything.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
And I can't. I have to mention this, you know,
just definitely for our buddy Matt the DTV because there
the guy got the bud Dry truck. Yeah, the bud
Dry trick. Yeah, I know, depending on you know which
copy you're watching. I took note of the time, but
the infamous bud Dry truck shows up five minutes and
twenty five seconds into the movie. We get, so not

(38:41):
long after the start of the movie, we get we get,
we get the bud Dry truck.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
And yeah, I had to mention that.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. And I agree with
what John was saying earlier, which is it's like, yeah,
this might have endicose with but don't worry, because we're
gonna give you a bang up action scene. And this
one is a really a good one. The one in
the alley that's the ends up with a lot.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Of really good one really good one like Last Man's
Standing that was really amazing.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
And there's one shot and that that's really incredible. And
I don't think this was done on purpose. It's like
a one second shot. You guys might remember it, Like
the car is driving away and it's on fire and
this like bit of fire comes in the window and
like the actors go, WHOA Like I don't think they
knew that was going to happen. And it's it's amazing,
It's it looked genuinely dangerous.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
And while we're talking about movies, it rips off. Did
you notice the little nod to reservoir.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
Dog I did I have that in my I have
that in my notes. It's like, okay, it's nineteenninety six.
There's a guy bleeding in the back of the car.
This it's very reservoir dogsy in.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
But I have to say high marks the PM Entertainment
for tracking down Darren McBee, because if you're gonna have
Anaacole Smith face off with someone, they better be as
ludicrous as she is, because she's a ludicrous human being, right.
And I don't mean this as a negative or a pejorative.
I just I just mean she's she's she's unlike, she

(40:06):
doesn't look like anybody else, right, She's sort of she's
sort of tall, obviously excessively curvacious. You know, she's got
big hips, big boobs, whatever. She's tall. Her face is
sort of you know, her eyes might be beautiful, but
then her chin and her lips are sort of weirdly,
you know, roided out mannish kind of. She looks odd.

(40:29):
I'm just saying she's not like a traditional kind of beauty.
She obviously had a whole Marilyn Monroe thing that's clearly
hinted at in this movie and and also in her
analyst Nicole Smith exposed screenshots that I've seen. I've not
seen the movie, but I've seen the stuff on IMDb
where clearly she is aping Monroe and she's she is

(40:51):
larger than life like, she is like literally, she she
is a very There are two countries on Earth that
would produce someone like Anna, Nicole Smith, and it's either
America or Russia. You know what I mean? Those are
the two countries that produce these just insane looking people.
Do you know what I mean? And I don't. Again,
I just mean that as a as an observation, Well,

(41:13):
if you're gonna have her fight off against the terrorist,
find Darren McBee, because he is He's like if someone
put Anna Cule Smith in a turn this person male,
you know, like fly machine, like from Jeff Goblin in
the Fly, and you just put Anatacule Smith and like
Fabio in a machine and they welded together. That's Darren McBee.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Well, I have some similar thoughts in my notes too.
It's kind of like, you know, you know the scene
where it's the Diehards scene, which is kind of like
on the window washers line. They could have gotten Malibu
to do the stunt double for that for her, you know,
because physically they're kind of similar, like they have similar hair,

(41:57):
they seem to be of a similar height, and you
know he he has kind of feminine hair and he's
and as a terrorist, he's wearing a man blouse, so
you know, it's not like a not quite the mirror match. Ty,
what's the one where I said it's like a Mortal Kombat. Oh,
it's it's a Frank Zagarino movie that I can't Uh,

(42:17):
David Shark Freelik, is it?

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I know what you're talking about? A project eliminator.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Yeah, so he said's like, because you can't tell who's
who what's Thankfully the movie was smart enough to make
sure that they had a fight scene. So Malibu and
nchall Smith have a fight scene, and it is sometimes
tough to tell who was on which side. You know,
they do have some physical similarities.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Malibu, he's American gladiators.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
Oh I see, I'm sorry, that's where he's from. I
got it. Okay, So if I say.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Malbout doron McBee, it's like interchangeable.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Understood, right because his character name is Lee Demaya, Right, I.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Wonder if that's a reference to Animal House with a
is their need of my hand?

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah? I mean I think it's more just that they
have And this is something else I want to get on.
You know, the villains. We've got Zakhov, Nikim Jack and Ledermeyer.
And what's funny is so they've they've essentially gone well,
no one can do a convincing German accent. Well, no
one can do any convincing accents in this movie at all.

(43:24):
All of the accents are absolutely terrible. Even the Jamaican
garbage hander is like an atrocious accent, and that might
be his real accent, but it's just not an authentic
sounding accent. But the funny thing is is none of
the villains are doing They're all doing just a random accent.

(43:45):
Like none of them, you know, none of them are
doing whatever accent that they think they're doing well.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
I think, you know, after Diehard, you know, they became
kind of a cliche in these movies to have a
quote unquote euro trash baddie. You know, Hans Gruber was
kind of the archetype of the eurotrash. So they figured,
let's get a couple. You know, we have a guy
doing entirely convincing French accent, and we have yeah, I
guess that would be Jacques and don't forget that Jacques

(44:13):
or Goonvin Fuller. He was snaked underwood, last man standing.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
The villain he is, he is, what's what's he keeps saying,
I'm the swashbuckler, baby, I'm Errol Flynn, I'm the swashbucker.
That was his whole thing.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
In lest it's interestingly enough, they kind of gave this
like a quick swing at a German accent because remember
like the whole kind of beginning subplot with the They're
like security guards, but they're bad guys and they're working
for the for the whole team there, and they arrest
the guy. You know, they have him in customers.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, he certainly puts on an accent.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah, out of nowhere, out of nowhere, he goes like, hi, Frau,
lines like he weren't German two minutes ago.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
No, you definitely would great eyes though, great goggly eyes,
like he's he's I see. I would have had him
and Fuller in more of the movie, and I would
have got rid of I would have got rid of
the leather pants guy who the guy who liked the
other guy. Yeah, he's he's the guy who molestso in

(45:12):
the scene where they're like, well, we've got to get
one more boob scene, and I'm like, right, but does
it have to be a grotesque quasi rape, like I
really wish it wasn't. But anyway, that guy, the leather pants,
sleeveless tank, that guy, he just looks ridiculous. He's such
a non entity. I would have got rid of him,
and I would have had the goggle eyed guy live

(45:34):
to the end.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
I could see that because Fuller does kind of fall
prey to that I'm looking at a bunch of screens syndrome.
He doesn't really do a lot other than that.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Oh no, Fuller they had for one day and they
just filmed him in a dark room looking at But it's.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Kind of my theory on this, besides trying to you know,
be consistent with the eurotrash battie, is maybe that was
their attempt to have some very cheap production value. It's
kind of like, oh, these guys are from around the world,
you know, we can add a bit of production value.
We have a French guy, we have a German guy,
we have a Jamaican guy. Oh, this is our production value.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
You know, right, Yeah, And again, I just think it's
one of those things where and I don't say this
about PM films very often. Normally a PM film when
it's as I say, they have when they have the
all stars working on it and not this isn't even
I wouldn't even call this the B team. This is
like the D team working on this, you know what
I mean. But except Cole s McKay, who is obviously

(46:29):
a list and phenomenal and and and the stunts at
the beginning of the movie and even in the middle
of the movie show that Cole was obviously at least
crafted a couple of great set pieces for the film,
which definitely end up saving the film. But had they
had they had like at least the A or the

(46:49):
B team for PM Entertainment, I don't think there would
be so many situations where you look at it and
you just go, well, I just jettison that, get rid
of that, change that. Like I don't normally watch a
PM tainment film and go, God, there's such a good
movie here. But if I could just tweak this, tweak that,
redo that. Whereas watching this, all I saw all the

(47:12):
way through was I was like, it's fun, it's a rump,
it's enjoyable, it's certainly you know, I would give it
five rather than three. I think IMDb gives it three
out of ten. I would I would give it a
bit more than that, because it is fun and it
is silly, and it is enjoyable, and I certainly am
not going to shit on it from a great high.
I'm more being coming at it from well, let's look

(47:34):
at it as a legitimate movie. Let's take away the
fact that it's a die hard rip off. Let's take
away the fact that you know they didn't throw the
A team at it, right, Let's look at it as well,
We're gonna make a concerted effort to make Anna Nicole
Smith an action star. Right, And they do at least
do that. They make a very concerted effort to make

(47:55):
try and make Ana Nicole Smith an action star. I
just think that at there are a few bits in
it from a plot standpoint where I'm just like, I
don't know why you did that when the answer to
making it a better film is so fucking obvious, you

(48:16):
know what I mean. It's so staring you in the
face the few tweaks they could have made with this
to make it a better PM film, And I just
feel like no one will do it really paying attention.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Yeah, but that in itself provides some entertainment value because
they kind of head scratching nature of the movie I
do believe adds to the entertainment.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
And yes, I just I worry about Like again, I'm
like you, I'm not someone who watches a movie to
laugh at it. I would rather laugh with it, right,
And I'm not someone who's gonna be like, oh, it's
so dumb that this happens. So that happens or that.
But you know, I mean, look, it's like shooting fish
in a barrel. If you want to like pick holes

(49:03):
in Skyscraper, right, why why do that. I'm trying to
just be more reasonable about it. I'm trying to be
more I'm trying to come at it like it's, you know,
one of the better PM films, and I'm trying to
do it a little justice and just saying if you
just change this tweak that, remove that plot point because

(49:24):
it doesn't work at a couple more set pieces. Apart
from that, it is. It's a fun, silly rump. It
does what you want it to do. Like anyone renting
Skyscraper at fourteen years old in nineteen ninety six is
not disappointed.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
No, I don't think, Oh they can't be.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
So, and also let's not forget there's rocket vision. So
when there's some couple of scenes with rocket launchers, you
see a bit of from the rockets point of view,
and they took the time to do that, and certainly
in that great Alleyway action scene they clearly put I
think put them most amount of time and effort probably

(50:01):
in that. And yeah, I think they came then they
that came up a winner. Like I think if someone
is making a top ten PM action scenes that could
go in.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
It, I think a thousand, Yes, a thousand, and I
think that's what they brought Coles McKay in four. I
can't imagine Coles McKay was on set the whole time,
because he was. I know that he at least did
two other of the movies that they shot this year,
that particular year, but so I can't imagine he was
he was on set the whole time. But that feels

(50:31):
to me that opening feels like, bring colon and orchestrate
an incredible twenty minute action sequence so we can get
away with the second half of the movie.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
Earn it. I get saying you earn it, so show this,
and then the audience can kind of coast a little bit,
you know, saying, Okay, well, whatever comes next comes next.
But at least we had that, yes, and so, yeah,
you mentioned the Marilyn Monroe thing, and yeah she had.
I guess Carrie wink Has also is obsessed with Marilyn
Monroe because there are two bits that we see of

(51:04):
Marilyn Monroe artwork in her apartment.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
And I wonder if that wasn't Annonacule Smith's real apartment.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Especially with the connection with Martino, it very well could
have been, especially because I think, I don't know if
you noticed this, and I could be wrong, but on
the night stand next to her bed, there's actually a
picture of her of Annonicole Smith. Yes, so you got
two Monroe's and a Smith. And they didn't bother to
say maybe we should not have this. They left that

(51:31):
in right, and.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
It looks like a you know, fairly high end for
nine to ninety six penthouse apartment, like I could believe
she lived there. You know, it's called you know, huge
vistas of LA and a big wrap around windowed living room.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Yeah, and I was thinking, yeah, hell Escort must pay
Hella good because right because I think in LA that
today it have to be multimillions, oh.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
At least, yeah, even with that beij competing.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Well, it was the nineties, and that is something I
want to mention, but I guess we can mention now.
It is part of the enjoyment for this movie today,
I believe, is the nineties nostalgia. You look back and
you see what people are wearing, and you see the
decor and everything, and that you remember seeing it on
Skin and Max or going to the video store as
a great example, And so it does have that nineties

(52:24):
nostalgia factory. I'm just as upset about anyone that there
is such a thing as nineties nostalgia. To me, it's
almost too recent, But I guess it isn't. So yeah,
yeah it was, And so I think part of what
else makes this movie go down smooth and easy like
a fine wine is on top of everything we've mentioned
thus far, there's also the nineties nostalgia factor.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
But isn't it Isn't it interesting when we talk about
nineties nostalgia because I mean definitely as someone who's doing
a PM stainment podcast, and as someone who PM entertainment's
prime decade is the nineties. Yes, they started in the
late eighties, but like their prime decade is the entirety
of the nineties, I guess this podcast is part of
nineties nostalgia, even tangentially, even if it's not what we

(53:11):
talk about all the time. And what's funny is is
that while eighties nostalgia persists because it was such a
vibrant time and such an excite, or certainly the way
they paint the eighties now, the reality of the eighties
were nothing like what eighties nostalgia it's at all. It's
like when they talk about the sixties as if every

(53:32):
single person was at hate Ashbury dressed as a hippie,
dancing around and doing tons of drugs. That was literally
like cities on the planet, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Yeah, I know, I'm seeing on the arms.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
It's funny I mentioned that guy. I was just thinking
that too, well, because what is he today? Like, is
he still alive? What he is? But no, no, you're
I take your point. And also the other thing is
there's a huge difference between nineteen sixty and nineteen sixty nine.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Of course, yes, no, I mean yeah, nineteen sixty is
I always say this, the decades that we talk about,
like the fifties, right, if we're talking about rockabilly and
rock and roll and whatever, that's really nineteen fifty five
to nineteen sixty five, like rock and roll is really.
And similarly, the sixties that people talk about the rise
of the hippie culture and psychedelia and and even the

(54:23):
come down afterwards is really nineteen sixty five to nineteen
seventy three, right, And then the eight then there's this
what we think of as the seventies, which is sort
of like seventy three to eighty three, and then what
you think of as the eighties, which is sort of
the you know, day glows, shell suits, coc and pepsi,

(54:44):
Michael J. Fox, you know, MTV crazy, everything's neon, everything's bright,
everything's crazy, every wonder all blah blah blah blah blah.
It's really only like eighty four to eighty eight, and
then the nineties come in in like eighty eight and
persist all the way through till about two thousand and five.

(55:05):
And it's this sort of there's no fashion that you
could talk about, but when you see it, for example,
the villain in Skyscraper bringing it back to Skyscraper, the
main villain in this the one who talks like he
talks like Matt Burry, like he talks like that in
the movie Whears, and I remember these distinctly, and it

(55:26):
was it's the nineties version of sixties nostalgia. Because the
thing we have to remember is that in the nineties,
the nostalgia was not for the eighties like it has
been the last third the last thirty years, everyone has
had nostalgia for the eighties. But in the nineties there
was sixties nostalgia. There was you know, another British invasion

(55:47):
with like brit pop music and stuff like that. There
was a bunch of like it's been thirty years since
Sergeant Pepper, you know, there was all that kind of stuff.
There was a lot of sixties nostalgia and the I
don't know what you would call it, a cardigan, a vesta,
a waistcoat, I don't know what you would call it,
but those woolen sleeveless cardigan, waistcoat vest things. They were everywhere.

(56:12):
They were everywhere, and like so many people, I had
one like and it's it's the nineties, but it's the sixties.
But you only know it when you see it. You
can't really pinpoint nineties clothing until you see it.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
Sorry, yeah, sorry, that could be a reference to you know,
at first we think they're just generic batties, but really
there are the People's Liberation Army or whatever they call it.
So that sort of sixties nostalgia with that sort of
knitwear vest or whatever that is could be like a

(56:49):
tying into their sixties radical group type thing.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
But are they really that I thought he was just
pretending to be that.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
Well, he couldn't. That's a that's an open question. That's
one of the many questions skyscraper opens up. Is he
really like about that or not?

Speaker 2 (57:05):
You know, Oh, I think he's making up something.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Yeah, he could have been. He definitely could have been.
But yeah, like even those like flowery sun dresses that
Annon Nicole Smith wears. To me, that's like a very
nineties look like you don't see a lot of women
wearing those today, right, So that a very unpleasant sort
of rape scene. Yeah, but that scene is cut. That
rape scene is cut in the UK. Yes, just I

(57:29):
just thought i'd bring that up, and also on the
UK artwork.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
I mean, it's not really a rape scene. It was
a rape, it's a it's a molestation, it's it's it's
within the definition of rape. But there's no he doesn't
have sex with that.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
No, No, I mean think he he would have if
Carrie Wink wasn't so resourceful. I think that's what he wanted, right,
But but yeah, they cut some of that in the UK.
And so I'm in the the UK box. I don't
know if you guys saw this, but maybe this was
a thing there, but you know, from Mad Dogs and
Englishmen as that movie with Elizabeth Early, right, you know,
instead of saying what a good movie it is, or

(58:01):
any sort of insightful quotes on the box, it says
Liz Hurley gets her kid off. Yes, that's the quote. No,
the same thing on this it says and Nicole Smith
gets her kid off.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Right. I don't know if I left it in, but
I had a whole conversation when we did the Zero
Tolerance and we were talking about Robert Patrick. Obviously, one
of the other films he did around the time he
was doing Zero Tolerance was Cool Surface with Terry Hatcher,
and there was a run of movies that came out
in the UK on VHS, and the way they sold

(58:35):
them to UK audience. I was still living in the
UK and the time, obviously, the way they sold them
to UK audiences was see the Star of you know
TV or whatever naked. So there was a Gillian Anderson
one The Turning or something where there's very brief nudity,
so they plastered that all over the front cover. There

(58:55):
was Cool Surface with Terry Hatcher because she was in
Superman at the time. It was like, you know, Superman's
lowest lane gets her kit off, right, you have Anna
Nicole Smith in this one. There was Elizabeth Hurley, you know,
there were there were multiple movies that after. It must
have been Austin Powers, I guess, but after whatever her

(59:17):
big hit was that made her Elizabetharley. I know she
was dating Hugh Grant through the whole prostitute scandal, so
maybe it was just that Brown.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Yeah, but you know, surprise PM didn't give her a shot.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Right, She was knocking about a bunch of British straight
to video early nineties movies and the moment she hit big,
either through the Hugh Grant thing or through the Austin
Powers thing. Yes, VHS raced the shelves with s Elizabeth
Thurley with a kit off.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
So I guess if Elizabeth Hurley and Annonnicole Smith have
something in common, that's it.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Did you were you going to say something really ridiculous
Brett about Divine Brown and.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Being at Yeah, I think I think you interpreted that
to mean Elizabeth Hurley Brown. They should have given Divine Brown.
They should have given Yeah, that's that's what I was saying.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Yeah, no one ever put her in a proper movie,
which I think was a missed opportunity, huge, huge missed opportunity,
huge missed opportunity because we were.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Talking about, you know, capitalizing on the people in the zeitgeist.
I think that's a prime example, right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Can you imagine if she'd gone on and done a
few PM films, Oh man, that would have been great.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
So, I know, because we always talk about with Matt,
you know, the most dangerous job probably in the world
is to be the front desk man at any.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
In any Yeah, and so this, you know, for example.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Dudley do right aside. A lot of front desk people
die in this movie as.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Well, oh almost all of them, except they do and
anyone will any ego eyed viewers will notice so many
regular PM entertainment haunts in this movie. So point she
flies over the rooftop from the sweeper that ce Thomas
Howl and the bad guy hangof that that was in
the movie. The foyer of the skyscraper in this movie

(01:01:12):
is also the same foyer that they use as a
news office in Rage when Kenneth Tiger and Gillian McWherter
meant to be in a newsroom, it's really in the
foyer of the same skyscraper. There are a couple of
other things.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
I think I'll ask you because you're the PM expert here.
Remember the scene kind of towards the beginning when the
baddies are doing like the deal for the for the
mcguffin and in this restaurant, is that the same restaurant
that was kind of the focal point of the sweeper.
It's like a seafood restaurant, you know, remember this?

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Yeah, I h I don't kind of looked like it,
but I wasn't sure it could have been, but they
were all the way down the other end of the bar,
so right, Yeah, I know that the seafood restaurant in
the sweeper is on a peer, So I don't know
if this was on a pier or not because they
didn't film it. They filmed it more like it was
in the city rather than it was by the way.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
Just looking at it's like it kind of just not
enough for me to be sure, but kind of looked
like the bar was in the same place that descort
kind of looked similar. But then again we were saying
was the nineties and things kind of looked like that,
so it could have been a different restaurant.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
So I don't want to say for sure exactly did
anyone did either of you guys notice that, you know,
one of the things that they tried to do with
the villain in order to make him kind of Hans
gruber esque, I suppose, is that he quotes Shakespeare all
the time. In his incredibly weird voice that he has.
He quotes Shakespeare a lot. There was a wonderful bit

(01:02:42):
when she's flying him around when they first meet, and
he's like, you got to go to this place, in
this place or whatever that he he does one of
his Shakespeare quotes, and without missing a beat, anada Cule
Smith goes, oh, yes, Henry the Fourth, not even Henry
the Fourth, like like a more obscure Shakespeare play, right,
as if as if to make it out like, oh,

(01:03:04):
not only is she a bombshell and a helicopter pilot
and you know, a keen eye shot, but she knows
Shakespeare like the back of her hand. Is anyone else buying?
Is anyone else buying that? Added tole Smith has ever
even seen the Shakespeare play?

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Well, Carrie Wink is a very well rounded woman, very well,
very yes, very well read. We saw all the books
that were in her apartment. Yeah, maybe maybe maybe we
didn't think that was that was yeah, then that got
cut out, but no books so and also I took
note of the time on this at twenty two minutes

(01:03:44):
and forty four seconds, and one of the characters says,
we got company.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Oh yeah, that was my last No, I forgot about.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
That, which was something we always take note of. It
doesn't really mean much of anything, but it's just sort
of an action movie. Stand by that, and a lot
of these action movies someone might say we got company,
and that's when they say in this movie.

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

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Also, you know the is the zy text or x
X the building? Yeah? Or in the review? Is that
where they make zits? We don't know, but if you
notice the logo of the zy Text building is the
Japanese flag? Yes, so I wonder, I mean, you know,
the Nakotomy building in Diehard is I think to sound Japanese.

(01:04:25):
They could just be kind of a low budget way
to say, hey, babe, we're Japanese.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Do what about the fact that in order to Crowbar
in an Elis style character, they have this weird thing
where as well as like isn't it a Saturday or
a Sunday? As well as people like working on the weekend,
as well as a kid running around on his strike,

(01:04:48):
as well as like a terrorist organization taking over the building.
With all this stuff going on, it's also the day
that some disgruntled employee has decided to break into his
boss's office and siphon off minutes of Thomas using his
commoner gun laptop.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
Right right, and that guy, that boss guy. That sort
of crazy subplot, which I guess is why this movie's
ninety six minutes. Why even those extra six minutes. I'm
not really sure, but he kind of looks like Mark Summers,
you know, the host of Double Dare. I don't know
anyway this might be considered a spoiler, but I don't know.
If you probably do spoilers on the show, I would guess.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Oh yeah, no, no, all these spoil these movies to death,
because if you haven't seen it by now, you know,
go watch.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
It, which is in another action movie stand by I don't.
I mean, I guess it's a cliche, even though it
could be a cliche, but I don't want that to
sound negative. But it is. Whereas stein Metz's partner dies,
you know, and his and his name's Jimmy, and you
know I.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
Didn't want what about the fact. And this is another
thing where I'm like, you didn't need to cut back
the second time, right, So he gets blown up. Let
the time car gets blown up, Jimmy is completely engulfed
in flames. We get an elongated sequence of a guy
clearly in a fire suit, right, running around on fire right.

(01:06:12):
He flops into the car. His partner, you know, as
you said, the wing guy, her husband, Richard Richard Steinmetz,
runs to the burning car, all Jimmy, Jimmy, Oh my god, Jimmy, right,
and then comes away with something else, and then cuts
back to him, and he's still trying to like get

(01:06:32):
into the car. I'm like, dude, the car's engulfed, Like
the car is a He takes his jacket off and
goes to like throw it on the fire. I'm like,
you ain't saving Jimmy. Jimmy died ten minutes ago, and
you're still just saying his name over no right, of.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
Course, his name is Jimmy. I mean that's the partner name.
It's it's of course it's Jimmy. Yeah, and yeah, I
mean if a bad guy blew up, he'd blow up
and I'd be it. But if Jimmy blows up, no,
maybe I can put him out with my.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Coat, you know, right, yeah, maybe, and then he has
to be pulled off. I have to say my favorite
person in the whole movie was the chief of police guy.
He was great. Oh no, And the helicopter Chancy Chancy,
he was great.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
I was going to mention Chancy a lead to Brew.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Is the lead to Brew as Captain Wood?

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
Yes, the skyscraper developer guys told the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Oh he was great too.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Oh yeah, that guy. It was a small part, but
that guy made the most of it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
He really did.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
So apologies, we don't have any interviews this week, but
we do need to pause for a little ad break
because this show needs to get paid for in some
way or other. So apologies for that. Either skip them
or don't listen to them, and certainly certainly do not
buy or subscribe or endorse anything that is mentioned on

(01:07:56):
the commercial.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
Thank you, So, I guess my My last question for
you is how serious is all this? Like? Did they
make this seriously or was this sort of a tongue
in cheek kind of put on like that serious most
of the time, Because I.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
Feel like if it was a put on, there would
be more obvious jokes. I mean, there are there are
things like there's that guy that keeps saying that the
goggle eyed guy we were saying earlier, like doesn't he
have a few one liners? And the and the and
the captain has like a few one liners like I'm
gonna knock your teeth so far down your throat you're

(01:08:39):
going to be shitting out molars for a month or
something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Right, yeah, because there are examples of some humor and that.
I mean, that doesn't mean they're not taking it all seriously,
but that could be sort of a wink, like when Charlie.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Wink Gary or Golden Wing. Which wing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
I'll leave that up to me. We're talking stein Metz,
We're talking stein mets We're talking could be talking Steinmetz.
But you know, at one point, Chauncey says to carry wink,
keep your shirt on. I wonder if that's a reference
to her playboy past and the whole nudity aspect of everything.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
And the fact that she even in the flashback this
is this is something I wanted to bring up. The
there is a flashback right in the movie that is
initially meant to tell us it's early on in the film.
What it's early on in the skyscraper bit of the film.
So it's early on in the second half of the film,
which is meant to tell us, because up until now

(01:09:38):
we're just like, well, she's a helicopter pilot with enormous boobs.
What is she going to do against these terrorists? And
then we have a flashback that lets us know, don't worry, lads,
she can shoot beer bottles like nobody else because she's
from Texas, right, the genius of this movie and I'm

(01:09:59):
she's the word genius with broad strokes, but the genius
of the movie is like, well, look, while we're in
the flashback and while her and Steinmetz Gordon Wink are
shooting guns at each other, that's bound to arouse them.
You know what I mean? You know what I mean,
She's from Texas, The guns arouse her. He's a cop,

(01:10:22):
so he's all about guns. And so they get all aroused,
and then we get the second of the three love
scenes that we get in the movie, the picnic love scene.
And it's so funny to me that I can't think
of another movie unless the flashback is Oh I was

(01:10:43):
so in love with my husband, but he died, and
then there's like a flashback to them like making love
and I don't know, looking out over a pond or whatever.
I can't think of another movie that when they have
a flashback that's completely unrelated to sex. The flashback then
continues and has lots of sex, which makes you think

(01:11:03):
that Anna Nicole Smith's character, right, Carrie wink she's under fire, right,
she knows she's in a skyscraper full of terrorists, right.
She she ducks down behind a thing to remember her
shooting training, and while her brain is remembering the day
that she was shooting with her husband Gordon, she goes, ah,

(01:11:24):
while I'm reminiscing, yeah, while my brain, let me just
play back a gratuitor sex secrets.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Well, I'm sure that's what anyone would think if they
were in the midst of a terrorist attack, right, I'm
sure you'd have the time and inclination for that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
But it comes back and she looks as equally frazzled
as she did prior to the flashback. It should cut
back to her and she should be in the bathroom
like pleasuring itself.

Speaker 3 (01:11:55):
Well yeah, you think, yeah, or at least her demeanor
would change in some way, like it calmed her down
maybe to figure about this. Yeah, but yeah, I mean
there's a couple other little jokes they put in, like
I think someone crashes through a window and one the
other character says like, oh, this the operation is a
smashing success. Right. And also I think after I believe

(01:12:17):
it's after one of the sex flashbacks, you know, the
the the fire department arrives and the ladder is like
extending up in kind of a phallic manner. It's subtle,
but I think that could be something. And also after
the rape scene, when they're thinking about how to get
into the building with that die he says we might

(01:12:37):
have to try a forced entry, So I wonder if
that is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
But the only thing is is that if you think
about die Hard, the LS character, the al Pal character,
even John McLain occasionally, and especially like once the FBI
guys show up Davvy and Grandel Bush, once they show
up Johnson and Johnson no relation, and you've got Paul Gleeson.

(01:13:03):
There there is humor in die Hard, Right, It's not
as obvious as something like lethal Weapon, where obviously Mel
Gibson is sort of riffing the whole way through. But
there is comedy in die Hard, right, I don't think
Skyscraper ever goes beyond the comedy that just happens in

(01:13:26):
action films anyway. Like, if this was a parody, this
is what I'm trying to say. If it was a parody,
if it was a oh, let's make die Hard but
with Anna Nicole Smith and kind of a comedy, kind
of like a raucous comedy, there would be more than
just a few one liners to point out, do you
know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Oh? Absolutely, So what you're saying is this sort of
little bits of humor here and there is all part
of the die Hard knockoff ism of the movie. It's like, okay,
want to be like Diehard, die Hard head humor here
and there. We'll have humor here and there.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
So yeah, right, I mean yeah, I mean even you know,
even other PM films. I mean, yes, okay, this is
the most blatant ripoff that they do. But even in
other PM films, there are comedic characters in the way
that there are in lots of action films. And so
to your point that the guy who designed the skyscraper,

(01:14:17):
like the nerdy guy who has to hang out with
the captain. Captain would.

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
See that tells me something right there that maybe this
wasn't all entirely series along with the whole you know,
Dudley right and all.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
That Dudley right. Yeah, but that would have been they were.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
Good together lead to brew and that guy I don't
know his name who played the building designer. I would
have liked it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
It's so funny that they give her son three names
when and it's also so odd in PM films, like
when you look at them on IMDb, most people only
have one name and then like Vince de Palmer is
Johnny Hill and and Clay Banks is Jimmy Dile but

(01:15:03):
everyone else is just Booker, Dudley, Williams, Cranston, Clancy Leroy,
like Paul Iding is John Jarrow. But then you've got
like just Mather, Sarah Pollard, Chauncey Simpson, Like why why.

Speaker 3 (01:15:18):
Is he Billy Ray Johnson?

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
Well you know that's but why is Paulding John Jarrow?
Or Christopher Boyer is Wayne de Lesky? Like what?

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
But yeah, no, it's all part of the fun. But yeah,
but yeah, but as far as yeah, I would have
liked to have seen more of the Lee de Brew
and the building designer, because I thought in those brief
scenes they had together they had like some kind of
funny chemistry, like he was the building designer would say
something wacky and Lead Bru would look at him and
kind of exasperated.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
But Lee Debrew becomes the al pale Yea, the designer
becomes the Paul Gleeson, right, it's it's yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:57):
Yeah, yeah, what's so funny about this? They're such a
good chemistry. They can have their own movie, oh yeah,
or they could almost have a like a Buddy cop
kind of could almost be a TV show maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
And I am sorry, we are going to stop for
just another short advert break. Apologies again again, fast forward.
Don't even listen to them, don't do anything that they say,
and be highly suspicious of everything you hear, other than
everything you hear on the PM Entertainment podcast or any
of the other podcasts that I've endorsed. Anyway, at here

(01:16:30):
they are, as we're kind of coming towards the end,
Let's talk about the action sequences then, because essentially we
get that amazing opening that we've talked about with the
ALI shootout. Lots and lots of rocket launchers in this

(01:16:51):
like rocket the proper like full blown explosive rocket launching
in this movie, which is fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:16:57):
Yes, and that is how Jimmy met his untimely end
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
Yes, indeed, his entire car gets engulfed in flames, which
would be enough for me not to run towards it.
No offense, guys, but if you were in a car
that was decimated by a rocket watch and exploded into fire,
I don't think I'd be throwing.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
I appreciate that. I said, none taken, no offense taking,
But I mean if you wanted to, you know, give
one quick swipe with your jack, I mean that would
be appreciated.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
But but.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
You don't have to. Okay, you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
It's only so that Richard stein Metz good go back
to the police precinct and be like I tried, guys,
I tried. I took my jacket off and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
I'm changing in out of John Steinmetz technically, but also
if it's a very small character part, but don't remember there.
He's like a dispatcher and he's like, I'll tell the
captain and you're busy, and then he kind of looks
at him. That guy was pretty good too, and he
only had it like a couple of brief scenes, but
you know that stood out a bit.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
And again some of the sort of Larry Cohen esque
give every character a little bit of business to do.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
Help.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
It really does help this movie. Like if all that
wasn't going on, it wouldn't be the jolly rump that
it is.

Speaker 3 (01:18:15):
Exactly. No, that's that's very good. That's the good point.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
Yeah, you were going to say something, ty sorryment.

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
Oh okay, I just wanted to mention and Nicole martial arts, yeah,
which really gets gets some shine in the in the
darn McBee slash Malibu fight scene and at the end
when she's beating up Shakespeare and like them, oh yeah, no, yes,
he gets into pretty some savage punches and there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
Yeah, that's what I mean. I think you could probably
have trained her or a stunt double to do the
physical fighting because she's a big woman. And I'm not
just talking about her boobs and her hips, but like,
she's a big woman. She looked like in the flight jacket,
you could believe that she's you know, powerful and muscular
and whatever, right, And you could probably have done that

(01:19:03):
and you could. She does the shooting bit very well.

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
That was pretty well done for her.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Yeah, and so like if you just reduced her dialogue
and made her more of a full bore action hero,
I think she probably could have done it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
Yeah, no, I agree quite well.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
The only bits that I WinCE in this movie is
when she's forced to like deliver more than three lines
in a row. There are plenty of times where she
delivers just one or two lines and it's fine, Like,
I have no problem with it at all, and in fact,
you can you know now, look that there are a
lot of reports about this movie from behind the scenes

(01:19:40):
where she was late every day to set. It was
at her worst drug adult moments, et cetera, et cetera.
So when you when you play that into it, it's
her acting is even better than you have any reason
to expect, because you know, I do you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
Oh yeah, oh definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
I think the adring of the whole film is a problem, but.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
I got used to after a while. It's okay. Yeah,
And it's kind of part for the course. Yeah, it's fun,
it's part for the chorus. I have no issue with it. Yeah, yeah,
especially especially if it's her voice, which it clearly is.
It would be weird if it was if she was
dubbed by someone else, if she.

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
If she was dubbed What if she was dubbed by Brown?

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
Yeah, well that would be that would be that would
be like an art film or something, would be something
very strange.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
And what if she dubbed him?

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
I love that. Now we're going, Now we're getting you
want to talk about the psychedelic sixties, that would be
pretty psychedelic right there, right uh. But yeah, so you know,
a good time was had by all, I mean, all enjoyable.
I mean, like I said, I do believe it's a
little long for what it is. This type of movie
probably shouldn't be ninety six minutes. And I know that's

(01:20:54):
kind of like splitting hairs a bit. I do think
if they chopped it down just a little bit, you know,
cut down on maybe some of the side plots, you know.
I obviously they can't get rid of the sex scenes
and the nudity. I guess all that has to stay.
But if they made it a little short, just trimmed
it here and there and like to maybe give Anna
like a couple more like physical fight scenes you know,

(01:21:16):
like kicking and punching scenes. To me, those are the
only things that really would have improved the movie. But
those are kind of like minor quibbles, Like I think,
all in all, you know, it's by the ticket, take
the ride, you know what I mean, You're you're not
watching Skyscraper to you know, pick it apart and make
fun of it. I mean, I guess people do do
like you said a shooting fish in about too easy,

(01:21:36):
Like you don't want to kick around a movie like this.
You just watch it. You enjoy it for what it is,
not for what you think it should be.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
It's a fun enough rum. But I mean, if we
go past the opening action sequence, which I do agree
with you guys, it's up there with some of PM's best.
I specially loved the flaming cord driving through the truck.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
Yeah that's great, so awesome stunt. What a stunt.

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):
Her hanging from the building is done pretty well. I mean,
obviously when you see her hanging from the building, she's
obviously not twenty stories up right. It cuts, it intercuts
very well, and they do have a stunt person that
looks a lot like her, and it is another kind
of classic flashback to sort of the Rage skyscraper kind

(01:22:28):
of stunt, right, and it's maybe Colis McKay trying to
do Sparrows out Us without Spirit's interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:22:36):
And also I just want to point out, like it
right before that scene where with the wire where she's
hanging from the wire, like the bad guys are chasing
her and she's at the edge of the building and
she has no choice and she looks down. It's like, oh,
I was going to fall to my death and then
she does. Anyway, then there's a window washing car that
was not there before. No, because we would have seen it,
so I thought.

Speaker 1 (01:22:56):
I also I also wonder, you know Rage end of
ninety five, this is early ninety six, This could be
like they could have finished filming Rage on a Friday,
and she could have filmed that sequence on a Monday,
you know what I mean. Like PM. Yeah, PM could
have just been like, well, let's get two set pieces

(01:23:16):
for two different movies out of this one building with
a window washing cut.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
Well that's the thing about PM, And I'm sure this
is one of the reasons why you like PM. There's
a PM style. You know, these PM movies they look
alike and in a good way, because that's what you
want to see, Like you feel like you're in good hands.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:23:33):
It's like a symbol of quality. It's a PM movie.
We're gonna get something of a certain quality level. And
so I think that I don't know if you meant
to it now, but that's what you're referring to. It's
like the PM house style.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
Yeah, I think the only thing you noticed I was
saying earlier about Anna Nicole Smith being you know, a
little worse for where behind the scenes of this movie.
I think the only thing that sort of shows that
when you're watching the film is all the way through,
actually not just in the helicopter sequences, but all the
way through there are occasionally repeated cutaways to Nicole Smith.

(01:24:11):
That is, they're the same thing repeated, meaning like, oh,
we need a reaction shot. Oh we don't have one
because Anna was in a trailer or whatever. Oh, just
reuse that from earlier. Similarly, it makes me think of
the sequence before her and Malibu fight. They have this

(01:24:34):
ludicrous run around gun shootout thing where he keeps shooting
telephones and she keeps shooting computers, and neither of them
are shooting each other.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):
That kind of reminds me the guy he's like, he's
the black guy in the in the gang, not the
Shakespeare guy and this other guy and he just like
opens fire with a machine gun in every room. He
like he opens the door and just starts shooting, like
like maybe it might save if you waited to see
if there is a person in Yeah, everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
In this movie is able to outrun bullets. Like, by
the way, if someone opens a machine gun opens fire
using a machine gun at you. Like, there's even a
bit where stein Metz is running away. I think this
is a sequence you're talking about where the terrorist guy
comes out just firing his UZI and stein Metz like

(01:25:25):
puts his jacket up a little over his head, like
a jacket is gonna stop bullet.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
Right right, I see what I thought he was gonna do.
There was like a decoy kind of thing like where
he like so the bad guy would think that's him,
but it's actually just an empty jacket. But I don't
think that's actually what he did.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
No, he just runs around. He runs with his head
sort of bowed and his body like like running when
you're bent over, Like he's running and he's like bent
over and at one point he just like raises his
jacket up over his shoulder and head because the other
the guy is just firing, you know, and only hitting
the wall. And what's hilarious is if you were all

(01:26:02):
the way down the end of an office floor and
there's all the cubicles to the to the left of you,
and all the the wall and all the noticeboards and
everything to the right of you, actually hitting a noticeboard
would be hard, like at that distance would be harder
than hitting the guy running down a corridor with nowhere
to go.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
But I think maybe he has one of those john
Wick style like bulletproof jackets.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
Yeah, bulletproof twin jackets.

Speaker 3 (01:26:27):
But of course this guy's jackets can do lots of stuff.
They could protect them from bullets that he can. He
thinks they can put out fires on his right, Like
he's like an amazing jacket kill.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
But that sequence with Malibu and Nicole Smith running essentially
around and around and around the same kind of office,
there's so many repeated shots in there, Like they got
three or four shots of her and three or four
shots of Malibu, and a bunch of shots of like

(01:26:58):
phones exploding and and and computers sparking and whatever, and
then they just elongated it. There was a lot of
that in the film, do you know what I mean?
Where they kind of padded the running time a bit
where they didn't need to.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
Yeah, I mean, I could add to the ninety six
minute running time, but it kind of worked for me
because it's all so silly, Like, what's a little more silliness? Yeah? Right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
There was one other thing that I noticed, there's a
bit of a The only real martial arts in the
movie is when one of the bad guys is fighting
one of the security guards.

Speaker 3 (01:27:29):
Yes, oh yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
What is so odd about that sequence for a PM film?
Is it the security guard the guy playing the security guard,
and I don't know who it is. He is so
clearly wearing stunt pads in his chest and in his back,
right clearly because the guy fighting him is going to
punch him in the gut or kick him in the back. Right.

(01:27:54):
What's super weird about it is when he gets punched
in the gut or kicked in the bag, there's like
a really awkward close up cutaway, which makes me think, well,
if you're going to have a cutaway to the blows
the kicks or the punches in the wide shot? Why

(01:28:15):
is he wearing the stunt pads? Like, just put them
on in the close up, and I know you're going
to be like, oh, it's a PM film and blah
blah blah blah. But like most PM fights and most
PM stunt sequences are not so odd, Like, yeah, I
either have him wear the stunt pads the whole time
and then don't clumsily cut away to a fist badly

(01:28:41):
punching a stunt pad. Just film it all in wide
shot and have him get kicked and punched because he's
wearing pads so who cares, or don't have him wear
pads and do cutaways, but doing both doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):
But also that seems really funny too, because like this
guy really cares about his job, like all of a
suddenre's and then he gets into a martial arts fight
with him like no questions asked the security guard who's
Asian and like instantly snaps into martial arts mode, cracked
up with that I'm so great. It's like it's yeah,
it's like a martial arts fight off the bat, no dialogue,

(01:29:15):
It's like, oh, here's a guy don't recognize martial arts fight.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Yeah, we get a couple of fantastic high falls. In fact,
we get we get a high fall in this movie
that goes on longer than I think any high fall
that's ever got on. They cut away to the police
chief Lee debrew captain and he has a little back

(01:29:40):
and forth again with the with the guy who designed
the skyscraper. It then cuts back the guy's still falling.

Speaker 3 (01:29:48):
Fantastic, Like they don't use they don't do dummy deaths
in these PM movies. No, No, you see a person
flailing their arms and legs and it's it's death defying.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
It really is, Oh, it really is. The two things
this movie has going for it stunt wise and impressive,
you know, entering the annals of stunt cinema or whatever
you want to say, like, you know, put this up
against anything else, is the high falls are genuinely impressive,
like genuinely eye openingly impressive. And the opening sequence that

(01:30:22):
we keep going on about everything else in terms of
action sequences is a little bit. We just get little bits.
It's a it's not like a constant cacophony of madness
like something like Executive Target, which is really just wall
to wall action, and it's not vast you know sways

(01:30:44):
of the movie where nothing is happening, But in between
the high falls and the opening sequence, all the other
action is sort of fairly low key, you know what
I mean. It's a guy getting shot, it's a guy
getting punched, it's a person falling out of a window.
You know, it's it's sort of very standard PM stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:31:03):
Well yeah, it's like they're not going to do another
like Ali style actions that that was their big one.
You know, they're not gonna even though other PM movies
do do that a lot, but in this one they
had one big action scene and you're right, they kind
of tamp it down a little bit for the other.

Speaker 1 (01:31:18):
Sorry, it was one of the There was one other
part of the movie where I could not stop laughing.
And I don't like to laugh at me, but in
order to get the die Hard and this is where
again I would have said to the director Raymond, I
would said, listen, Raymond, let's not be so slavish in

(01:31:41):
our die hard ripoff the sequence in the air ducts
where they have you know, listen, I'll buy that there
is an air duct in a skyscraper that John McClain
can just about fit in and crawl through slowly. This
has this has the largest air ducts you've ever seen

(01:32:02):
in your life. And not one, but three police guys.
And you see them repeatedly, like you see them like
eight times, like shuffling three of them all at the
same speed, like shuffling back and forth through air ducks.

Speaker 3 (01:32:22):
Right, and that guy ends up shooting him and because
because he's French, I guess he has to say ahir
after he kills people.

Speaker 1 (01:32:30):
Well, so this also they get a little dig at
arc Camacho. Did you notice the little dig at art Camacho?

Speaker 3 (01:32:37):
I think I did.

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
So he shoots the air duck. By the way. Also,
this is the other thing. When Jonathan Fuller is shooting
up at the ceiling, there are no ducts, like zero ducts.
It's a suspended polystyrene ceiling. There's no ducts, like it's
so weird. They have him walking along a corridor firing
a machine gun up at the sky and then you

(01:33:00):
cut to the ducts and you see holes coming up.
But he's walking along the corridor where there are no
air ducts above him, like it's so weird. Anyway, it's
another thing where I'm like, just just stop, Like you
don't need air ducts, Like just because it's in die
Hard doesn't mean you need to have a sequence. But
know where they go at ar Camacho is he shoots

(01:33:21):
one end of the duct and no blood, nothing, whatever.
He shoots the other end of the duct where he
thought like, oh, maybe a six foot guy or five
five for eight guy, five or nine guy whatever, maybe
his head is more here, shoots there and nothing and
then he goes small guy. Huh, And I thought, oh,
that's a little dig at art. Come on now, Oh

(01:33:43):
I didn't pick up on that.

Speaker 3 (01:33:44):
I was kind of funny. Is a short guy, right,
so he had to throw in that the right.

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
And then he shoots him right in the middle of
where he was shooting, and that's where the blood falls
from the ceiling.

Speaker 3 (01:34:00):
Yeah, so a lot to talk about with skyscrapers. So
I'm glad you asked us on to talk about this
gem of a movie.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
Yes, and again it's Look, I'm not going to pretend
that it's my favorite or that I'm going to put
it in very often, but for a fun romp that
is a good five out of ten or you know,
or two and a half out of five whatever you
want to say it as we have an expression in
the UK. I don't if you have it here, but

(01:34:31):
it does what it says on the tin.

Speaker 3 (01:34:33):
Oh yeah, I definitely know that phrase. Yeah, but that
is definitely a UK thing. But you know we've all heard.

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
It right, meaning if and I'll say it again, if
you're fifteen years old in nineteen ninety six and you
went Skyscraper starring Anna Nicole Smith, it's exactly what you want.
You have, you know, two sex scenes and one extra
piece of nudity unless you also count the shower bit
as nudity, so you get four bits of nudity. Then

(01:35:00):
if you want to count the shower bit at the beginning,
you you get you know, shootouts, high faals, big opening
action sequence, a little bit of martial arts, and a
lot of wackiness.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
That's that's a good summer's perfect that's perfect summary.

Speaker 1 (01:35:17):
So where would you guys rate this on a PM level?

Speaker 3 (01:35:21):
Then? Good question time you go first, well, a tough
one and think about the other pms. I don't know,
it's probably a little bit down.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
Oh it's low down. Yeah, that's not.

Speaker 3 (01:35:36):
Fifteen or something that would be on it just like
somewhere towards the bottom of this was the bottom. You know,
I'm thinking of like other classics like you know, Executive
Target or Sweeper, Last Man Standing or Riot Recoil, right,
the three rs Underground yea, even like Deadly Target, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Yeah, I mean if they let's say they made around
about one hundred movies, or at least ret least about
one hundred movies, it's in like the middle fifty.

Speaker 3 (01:36:04):
I would say that. Yeah, No, that's fair. That's but
I mean because five, I mean, are we talking about
purely on the action, Because if so, then it maybe
wouldn't rank as high as the others because there's that
one big one.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
But no, the whole movie.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
I ranked the whole whole movie.

Speaker 3 (01:36:20):
It'll probably be in top twenty. Maybe you would put
it in the top twenty, top twenty five, top thirty,
top thirty, forty five, top forty, top four.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
It might break for the wackedess alone. Yeah, it might
break my top forty.

Speaker 3 (01:36:37):
Okay, that's fair. That's kind of where I am with it.
I mean, like I said, I think we said we've
all seen it three times, which is probably more than
most people have seen Skyscraper it is. I do think
it is a movie you can go back to. You can,
but you have to be in the right frame of
mind and you have to be willing to accept. Yeah,

(01:36:58):
you have to be willing to accept the wackiness of it.
And yeah, it's not a serious minded movie. It's not
a last man standing as long as you keep that
in mind, and I think you can have fun with it.
I do think it's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:37:12):
And on the question of is it a is it
intentional or not? I think everyone at PM knew exactly
what they were making. I don't think that. I don't
think that they're surprised by it being a riff tracks
movie or it being a so bad it's good again.

(01:37:32):
That's not how I feel about it, but you know
that's how the greater internet out there feel about it, right.
I don't think they're surprised by that, and I also
don't think they're bothered by that. If people are watching it,
that's all they care about, right.

Speaker 3 (01:37:44):
I think that's probably right. Right, They're not stupid. I
think they knew. They knew what they were doing. Like
we're kind of saying, before they took a swing, you
know what I mean, they said Okay, like with the
Tracy Lords and OJ thing. Not to repeat myself, but
I think they kind of took a punt, as they
might say, UK and they want to say, hey, let's
just see what happens with this, you know. I don't

(01:38:04):
think maybe they weren't taking it entirely seriously, but on
a certain level they were. I think they took the
action perfectly seriously. So it does have that blend. That's
why it's so hard to categorize. This movie has that
blend of PM style action that we all know on
love but also has that whackiness factor and they're both together.
You don't see it that much with PM. You do
kind of see it in the underground because that's also

(01:38:26):
very wacky. So there's that aspect as well.

Speaker 1 (01:38:29):
What's super weird about Skyscraper to me, as I think
about it now rather than when I watched it last night,
is that it's not classic PM. Oh not at all,
because they don't, like I say, they don't have the
team behind the scenes that are classic PM. You're not
getting any actors in there apart from obviously people like

(01:38:51):
Jonathan Fuller who have been like Bad Guys and other
PM films but in general, you don't have Robert Miano,
you don't have a Kenneth Taiger, you don't you don't
have like a PM character actor to hang your hat on.
You don't have a PM all star, you know, you
don't have a Gary Daniels or Jeff Wincott or a
Tracy Lord's or whatever in the movie. So it's, on

(01:39:13):
one hand, it's not classic PM. But because it has
so much in it that is why we love PM.
And because it does sort of weirdly work even though
it's scrappy and mad and rompish and everything else that
we've talked about, it sort of becomes classic PM despite itself.

(01:39:37):
Does that make any sense?

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
Yeah? No, I totally get what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
It's sort of here we go. Instead of it being
classic PM, it's iconic PM.

Speaker 3 (01:39:47):
Yeah. Okay, yeah, No, that's that's I think that's well said.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
Does that make sense? I know what I mean by that's.

Speaker 3 (01:39:54):
Because as long as you know what you mean, Joe,
well a time, what are you gonna say? I say,
I'm absolutely agreeing with that. Yeah, it's almost like it's
a classic PM by default. It's like, yeah, because the
thing is like, even though they were they did traditional action.
Let's say they did have this kind of crazy willingness

(01:40:16):
to experiment. And I do think this kind of falls
into that experimental category that we'll experiment and see what
happens with Anna Nicole Smith. Like, you know, they experiment
with their action scenes. They are always trying to make
when it's bigger, louder, crazier. So if you think about
their experimental side, I think this falls into that.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
And Anna Cole Smith is you know, she's she's the
next incarnation of a Jajah Gabor type American icon. And
there's no other way to explain, Like, yeah, she's an
icon for being trashy. Yeah, she's an icon for being
in Playboy. Yeah, she's an icon for marrying a you know,
a billionaire on a deathbed, whatever it is. She's you know,

(01:40:56):
she's an icon for dying young. She's like, she's but
she's she's like like the Kardashians are just a slightly better,
more polished version of Vanna Nicole Smith, who in herself
was a slightly more you know, ridiculous eighties and nineties
version of Josh Like it's just it's a continuation of.

Speaker 3 (01:41:17):
Those Yeah, she would I mean, you know, she had
the mail memoral session. But let's not forget you mentioned
the Kardashian She had a reality show on E as well,
just like they and uh and she hawked products too.
But if you remember trim Spa, so you know her
career did follow a similar trajectory, just had more of
a tragic side to it. And we're lucky to have her.

(01:41:39):
Basically her two movies, you know, To the Limit and
this and so yeah, that was all part of that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:48):
And I and I would put this over To the Limit,
which I did watch recently as well, Like To the
Limit is that is tough to get through, that is there.
There's not even the occasional insane action piece to to
really sideline the fact that you're having to sit through
again another kind of pedestrianly directed sort of turgid slow

(01:42:13):
spy drama interrupted by the occasional not needed sex scene.
The only thing that To the Limit has going for
it is the final death is death by CD in
the floor, which is how I want to go. Well,
that's how I want to go. That's how I'm going
to put it in my will. So we can't really
I mean, if I rank it out of Annekle Smith films,

(01:42:34):
I've only seen two, and this one is the best one.

Speaker 3 (01:42:37):
Yeah, number one, Oh right, it's number one.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
So yeah, that's so it's number it's number fifty out
of my favorite PM films, but it's number one out
of my favorite Aticle Smith.

Speaker 3 (01:42:49):
Yes, it's always number one for her. So so you know,
you do the law of averages. Now we're looking at
more like twenty five divide fifty by two and that
math works out right, it does.

Speaker 1 (01:43:00):
Well, look fellas, Thank you very much for joining me. Again.
I think we have covered just about every aspect in
this film. I think people who listen to the PM
Entertainment podcast are like, when are they going to do Skyscraper? Like,
I think there's there's a pot of that in there,
and I hope that we've done it justice.

Speaker 3 (01:43:22):
I certainly hope so as well. And I'm honored that
if there's people that want this, you know, skyscraper podcast
that you invited us. Yea honest, So I want to
thank you for that. But yeah, it worked out, Yeah,
worked out, And I think, like you said, I think
we covered every possible base. I think we were very
thorough on this on this cast yeah, and I hope

(01:43:43):
people appreciate that. And uh yeah, you know, maybe in
another ten years I'll watch it again. Yeah, and if
I have final words for this, I don't know if
it's time for the final words, but uh my final
words would be don't ask, why try but dry? Yeah? Perfect? Yeah,
I can't beat that.

Speaker 1 (01:44:01):
And maybe just tell the listening several where they can
find you and what it is you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
Do well, Bratt, you wanted to sweet split it, I
would just say, come up into reviews. Dot net is
our website where we've reviewed a lot of action movies.
I think over thirteen hundred at this point. And we
also have a podcast that come up interviews podcast, find
pods and wherever. Yeah, wherever you get your podcast, check
it out and tie. As far as other socials, I'll

(01:44:27):
let you do that because I don't know how well
you got to be on our pod, John, Yes, Yeah,
what's it called vstor Memories or something? Anyway, Well, we'll
work that out.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
Yeah, let me know, and I'm happy to do whatever.
Let's not forget just one last thing while we're talking
on a Nicole Smith, she did legitimately star in Naked
Gum thirty three and a third the Finnel Insult. She's
in the Hudsucker proxy as jaaball Or is the jaj
Argabor type. She's just her characters just called Jaja. So uh.

(01:45:07):
And then she's also in Be Cool, the two thousand
and five movie with that was a Get Shorty sequel.

Speaker 3 (01:45:15):
I never saw that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:17):
Yeah, I never saw that either.

Speaker 3 (01:45:18):
But I believe my son Naked Gun thirty three and
a third in the theater and I and also if
I remember, she was part of the commercials and marketing
campaign of that movie. They were say, oh, this has
Icle Smith. Well yeah on YouTube litter Yeah, so oh
it's so oh socials right uh, tig come up as
on the Twitter x and then tacting Rocks is my

(01:45:40):
Instagram handle. I posted my VHS collection. I just posted
Jango strikes Back, Franco.

Speaker 1 (01:45:45):
Nero, Donald pleasants.

Speaker 3 (01:45:47):
Donald Pleasant, your buddy Donald Pleasant.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
Wearing a big white top hat.

Speaker 3 (01:45:52):
That was great. He almost told the movie of his hat.
I'll post more stuff, sod.

Speaker 1 (01:46:00):
And apparently she was in a nineteen ninety seven Super
Tramp music video with Ood with Udo Kia.

Speaker 3 (01:46:09):
Wow, okay, I look, I gotta look that up. That's up.
That's right up my alley.

Speaker 1 (01:46:13):
Yeah, super Tramp you win I Lose music video from
nineteen ninety seven, directed by David Hogan, starring udo Kia
and Anna Nicole Smith. Wow, I mean, come on now,
she turned she she turned what she had into gold

(01:46:34):
a decent enough career. Let's just say that she.

Speaker 3 (01:46:38):
Did it right after Skyscraper apparently, because.

Speaker 1 (01:46:40):
Yeah, good, good for her. Cool. All right, guys, work,
take care of thanks for staying so late, and have
a guy no problem, all right, by bye bye by
like leaving entertainment podcast

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Episode 14 - Skyscraper

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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 14 - Skyscraper