Mike shares his love for The Simpsons and classic movies he discovered watching the show as a kid after they did parodies of them. He gives his list of perfect parodies of famous films executed on the show during the 90’s. Mike talks to Director Andrew Davis about how he felt after the Simpsons parodies his movie The Fugitive, working with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford and how he feels about people watching his work on phone screens. In the Movie Review, Mike shares his thoughts in the new Netflix movie Leave the World Behind starring Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke. The movie is about a family vacation that gets interrupted by two strangers bearing news of a blackout. As the threat grows, both families must decide how best to survive the potential crisis, all while grappling with their own place in this collapsing world. Mikes lets you know why this movie ultimately let him down after starting gout with so much promise. In the Trailer Park, Mike continues with his Godzilla fandom and breaks down the big action in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire which is the fifth installment in the Monsterverse series of movies.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike, and if there's something that
I could love almost as much as I love movies,
it would be the Simpsons. And in this episode, I
found a way to combine those two loves. I'm going
to share with you six perfect parodies of iconic movies
that the Simpsons did back in the nineties. We'll also
talk to the director of The Fugitive and I'll let
(00:20):
you know the way those two things tie in. That
movie is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, so we'll talk to
Andrew Davis about working with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee
Jones in the movie review. If I can only do
one part of this episode, it would be talking about
Leave the World Behind on Netflix. Ah, that movie made
me feel so many things. And in the trailer Park,
continuing my Godzilla kick, we'll talk about Godzilla and Kong
(00:42):
the New Empire. Thank you for being here, Thank you
for being subscribed, Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew.
And now let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast a man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like oh walking IMTB with
glasses from the Nashville Podcast Network.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
If you know me, you know that I love The Simpsons.
I was born in the nineties, grew up watching them
all the time, even when my parents didn't want me to.
And I credit any ounce of funny that I have,
even if it's just one percent funny, to The Simpsons
and what I've learned about writing and just the essence
of comedy by watching the show in my studio right now.
(01:34):
One of my favorite things I have in the back
wall if you watch my videos on YouTube or TikTok,
is a sign Simpsons script from one of my favorite
episodes ever that I got as a Christmas gift and
the only other podcast I could probably do an entire
thing I would be a Simpsons podcast, but that would
be so niche, even more so than movies that I
don't do that. And I've been trying to do an
episode like this for a while now, but it wasn't
(01:56):
until I had an interview opportunity with the director of
The Fugitive. Name is Andrew Davis, and I thought, oh man,
the way I learned about that movie was by watching
The Simpsons. So I wanted to share with you six
times at the Simpsons parody day movie back in the nineties,
and in most cases, since I was still a kid
watching all of these episodes, this is how I learned
(02:16):
about a lot of iconic movies because at the time,
when I was a kid watching these episodes, I didn't
realize that they were doing a parody of something. I
just thought, oh man, the Simpsons have the best writing.
How did they come up with this stuff? But as
my love of film grew and I started to realize.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Oh, these are based on.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Movies, I in turn would go and watch these movies
because I wanted to see what the source material was.
So I feel like this probably happened to a lot
of people, that we were exposed to movies on The
Simpsons without knowing it. So let's get into it. Here
are six examples of Simpsons movie parodies. The first one
I want to share with you was from an episode
called twenty two Short Films about Springfield, Season seven, episode
(02:58):
twenty two, and and the movie this entire episode is
really based on is Pulp fiction. This is one of
the best animated episodes of any show, and I'm biased
here because of how much I love the Simpsons. But
what this episode is is a series of twenty two
different short stories inside of one episode. So each story
is a minute, a minute and a half, sometimes two minutes,
(03:20):
sometimes a few seconds, but it's showing you all the
lives of the characters. And the thing that's so great
about this episode as how they are all intertwined. One
scene ends and that serves as the kickoff for the
next scene. But what this entire episode really is is
a loose parody throughout the entire thing of pulp fiction,
mostly with the interactions with Chief Wigham him eventually chasing
(03:42):
the criminal snake and they get into this brawl and
end up in somebody's basement, and that is where the
main focus of the parody of pulp fiction takes place.
But I just love that the Simpsons always committed to
doing things line for line, scene for scene, and this
is a great example of that. So here's the digal
interaction in pulp fiction between John Travolta and Samuel L.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Jackson.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
You know what a funny thing about Europe is what
it's the little differences.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Example, you know what they call a quarter pound with
cheese in and what did they call it?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They call it royal with cheese. Roy Yeah with cheese,
And then the Simpsons just did a straight up parody
of that in this episode.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
You know. The funniest thing though, it's the little differences. Example, well,
McDonald you can buy a Krusty burger with cheese, right,
but they don't call it a Krusty burger with cheese.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Shut out all out of that, call it a quarter
pounded with cheese, a quarter pounded with cheese. I love
this episode. That's why I wanted to share this one
with you first. Next up, number two. The movie that
they parodied here was The Shining, which came out in
nineteen eighty and this episode comes to us from season six,
episode six, tree House of Horror five. Now, I could
(04:55):
do an entire series on just the horror movies that
they parodied in all of the Treehouse of episodes. That
is really what these episodes are known for. But I
remember discovering The Shining because of the Simpsons and because
of this episode, which this is one of their best
Halloween episodes ever. It was so iconic that I remember
the promos that ran on TV for this episode. So
(05:16):
in this episode, much like in the movie, the Simpsons
family heads off to be the caretakers of mister Burns's
spooky winter lodge, and then when Homer gets there, he
discovers that he doesn't have a supply of beer and
he doesn't have TV, causing him to go crazy, and
much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, goes and tries
to kill his family. And the thing I love about
(05:36):
the Treehouse of Horror episodes, at least back in the
nineties is they had three different segments that were entirely
self contained, so they were able to take the entire
Shining movie and take all the best, most iconic parts
of that and do it in about six to seven minutes.
They covered all the iconic scenes like the blood and
the elevator, the twins at the end of the hallway,
(05:56):
the scene at the bar in the lodge, seeing the
deranged right on the typewriter. But hands down, the best
gag they did was the iconic here's Johnny seen So
here's the original from The Shining, Here's Johnny, and here's
the version from The Simpsons Johnny, So I put this
one at number two at number three from the episode
(06:19):
Cape Fear, which is season five episode two. Well you
guessed it. They did a parody of the remake, which
came out in nineteen ninety one, starring the one and
only Robert de Niro, So much like in that movie,
Krusty's X sidekick Sideshow Bob returns to Springfield to get
revenge against Bart after Bart exposed his murder plot, sending
him to prison. So in the real movie Cape Fear,
(06:41):
at least the nineteen ninety one version, Robert De Niro's
character gets sent to prison for fourteen years. The attorney
in that movie knowingly withholds information that would have had
him acquitted, so the entire time he holds it against
him in prison. So then he gets out and then
stalks this lawyer and his family who originally defended him.
The nineteen ninety one k Fear was a remake of
(07:02):
the nineteen sixty two movie, and both of those movies
were based on a book called The Executioners that came
out in nineteen fifty seven. But this episode came out
back in nineteen ninety three, so I really don't remember
when it originally aired, but I do know the first
time I watched it, much like the other ones I've
been telling you, I had no idea that it was
based on a movie. And it wasn't until much much
(07:22):
later that I saw just a still of Robert de
Niro in the theater, laughing and smoking a cigar that
I thought, Hey, that looks a lot like that scene
from the episode with Sycho Bob doing the exact same thing.
And then I realized, oh, it's a movie. So here's
a little bit of that scene in the nineteen ninety
one movie. What it's a Robert de Niro in that
(07:46):
theater with the family. They're all watching Problem Child, which
was an odd choice for a movie, and he is
laughing and smoking a cigar. And this is how the
Simpsons did a parody of that. Man's so rude.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, if you don't mind, we're trying to watch the mover.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
How am I getting my head out of this toe?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Oh? Really, no, that's too much.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And I think that right there is a great example
of the misdirection I learned by watching The Simpsons, because
they're doing a parody and in the film they get
upset because he's being obnoxious, distracting everybody from enjoying the movie.
The Simpsons take that and they do the same thing,
but then they flip the script because Homer becomes the
more obnoxious one, to the point that he gets a
(08:37):
rise out of the guy who is ruining it for
everybody in this situation. That was side show Bob, voiced
by Kelsey Grammer, who hands down is one of the
best voice actors, not just that Sideshow Bob, but he
also plays and voice beasts in the X Men movies,
but hands down even more so than Fraser. My favorite
role of his is when he voices sideshow Bob. So
this one had to make it at number three. At
(08:58):
number four, the episode is Bart of Darkness from season six,
episode one. Hands down, I think my favorite season of
The Simpsons ever. I still have the box set of DVD's,
which is how I was exposed to a lot of
these episodes watching them on DVD with the commentary. Without
the commentary, I know these episodes so much that I
could quote the deleted scenes, primarily from season six, but
(09:22):
that's the episode. The movie they are paroting here is
Rear Window, which came out in nineteen fifty four from
director Alfred Hitchcock. So how they parody this movie is
Bart breaks his leg at the beginning of summer vacation
so has to spend the entire thing from his bedroom
and he becomes really isolated and weird, and he gets
these binoculars and just starts creeping in on everybody's windows
(09:44):
in Springfield. They even do a direct parody because one
of the windows he peeps into is actually Jimmy Stewart's
character from Rear Window. But much like his character did
in that movie, Bart discovers that his neighbor ned Flanders
may have merged his wife and kids. So this entire
episode plot point for plot point is essentially Rear Window,
(10:06):
except he's spying on everybody with the telescope. So that's
why I added this one at number four on my list.
At number five, the episode is Bart's friend falls in
Love from Season three, episode twenty three, and the movie
they are parting here is Raiders of the Lost Arc,
which came out in nineteen eighty one, and there is
no better representation of how great the Simpsons were in
(10:27):
the nineties than this scene alone, even if it wasn't
a movie parody. And what I love about this episode
and the movie tie in is that this starts from
the very beginning of the episode, and it's something they
really don't do anymore of taking big, bold wrists like this,
and the way that they were able to parody this
scene basically with all the major elements from Raiders of
(10:48):
the Lost Arc with in that movie, it's Harrison Ford
stealing this precious artifact and then escaping because as soon
as he moves it, the entire thing comes crashing down
and it was booby trapped, so he has to get
out of there with his life as all these things
are trying to kill him. In this episode did a
great job of doing exactly what they did in that movie.
The way the Simpsons did it is Bart was trying
(11:09):
to steal Homer's big old change jar that he had
in his room, and as soon as he grabs it,
Homer starts chasing him in his underwear. So you have
Bart running through the house and at one point Homer
in his underwear is barreling down the stairs and he
essentially looks like the Boulder, and Raiders with the Lost
Arc you have Maggie shooting darts at Bart and Homer
much like they do in the Harrison Ford scene. But
(11:32):
hands down the best part is whenever Bart tries to
escape from the garage, Homer slams on the door to
have it come down, and just in the nick of time,
Bart gets through and still has time to reach back
and grab his hat like Indiana Jones did. So here's
just a little bit of that scene. That is such
(12:04):
a great way to start an episode and just a
great way to pay homage to such an iconic film,
which is something that Simpsons have done throughout the history
of the show, even in the Simpsons movie in two
thousand and seven, working in other movie references inside of
that movie. It just shows you how sophisticated their writers are.
(12:24):
And if you think that all the people who write
for the Simpsons are a bunch of dummies. In the
original run of the show back in the nineties, back
in the Golden Age, there were all mostly Ivy League students,
primarily Harvard graduates. One of the most famous Simpsons writers
all time was Conan O'Brien himself, who is a really
smart and intelligent guy. But you take people with all
(12:45):
that book smart knowledge and make them write comedy, it
just puts it on an entirely different level. And I
think that's why throughout the history of the show you
have all these references and parodies of movies that you
have to be a nerd to under stand and to
even know where to look to find these. So I
think watching The Simpsons so much as a kid just
(13:06):
attributed to my love of film, And now looking back
on all the influential film that they have parodied over
the years, they are some of the greatest movies of
all time that I may not have discovered if it
wouldn't have been for this show, because combined with me
rewatching all these episodes on DVD, that led to the
first incarnation of Netflix, where you would actually go online
(13:28):
and get DVDs delivered to your house. That's what I
would do. I would just go through this big list
of Okay, here are all these iconic movies I've seen
on The Simpsons. Now I have to watch the real movie.
So the final parody I want to share with you
is from an episode called Lisa's Rival, which was also
in season six, episode two, and they parodied the movie
The Fugitive, which came out back in nineteen ninety three
(13:48):
starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones and it's celebrating
its thirtieth anniversary right now, And I forgot how good
this movie was. I just rewatched it and it reminded
me how much this movie attributed my love of thrillers.
The movie is about Harrison Ford's character who gets accused
of killing his wife then goes to prison for it.
As they are transporting him to prison, the bus crashes
(14:11):
and he escapes and becomes well a fugitive. And then
Tommy Lee Jones' character is relentless in capturing Harrison Ford
and getting him back to prison. But the entire time,
Harrison Ford is using that time while he has escaped
to prove his innocence. So it's a great movie directed
by Andrew Davis, and that leads us to our interview
now with Andrew Davis, who is the director of the movie.
(14:33):
He is known for making sophisticated thrillers like this. Like
I said, The Fugitive is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this
year and had just released on four k UHD for
the first time ever. I have a copy. Now we
get into an entire discussion of why physical media is
so important. But the movie went on to receive seven
Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Harrison Ford
(14:54):
and Tommy Lee Jones ended up winning for Best Supporting Actor.
Back in nineteen ninety four, Andrew Davis was also nominated
for a Golden Goal for Best Director. In addition to
this movie, he also directed one of my favorite movies
from my childhood, Holes, which ironically just celebrated its twentieth anniversary.
So all the movies I know in love are getting older,
much like me. So for my final item on this list,
(15:17):
we're actually going to talk to Andrew Davis how he
feels about the Simpsons doing a parody of his movie
The Fugitive, and then we'll get into him talking about
working with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford. The first
time I learned about The Fugitive was watching them parody
the scene from the Damn.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I'm telling you, I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I don't care.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So I got to know, as a director, how does
it feel when the Simpsons parody your movie?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It's wonderful. I mean, I knew that I had sort
of made the big leaves when I was in San
Francisco and I picked up MED magazine and talked about
underslush for undersea, and then there were then then shortly
thereafter was the stugitive. When they started making fun of you,
it's either because they like it or they hate it,
(16:10):
and in these cases they like.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
The line they chose to use was the Tommy Lee
Jones line, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I didn't kill my wife. I don't care.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
In the script?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Was that supposed to be a big moment, a big
because it's a key turning point in the entire movie
of him in the beginning saying how he doesn't care
right or wrong, but it all comes back around. Was
it supposed to be that impactful in the script?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
You know, this is a controversial line because I've read
articles where Harrison's talked about, well, there were pages and
pages of dialogue and we decided to throw all that
out and just say I don't care. And Tommy thinks
he created that line. Jeff Stewart doesn't remember exactly how
it happened. He thinks he created that line. And now
somebody found an old draft, a Walter Hill draft, where
(16:55):
it says I don't care you're a fugitive. So whoever
came up with it seems, you know, it's It reverberates
so much because this is basically saying, my job is
not to decide whether you're guilty or innocent. It's just
to bring you in.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
My job is to bring you in and let the
course decide, and let the justice Department decide. And so
that's why. And then and then in the story of course,
Tommy develops his empathy for this doctor who's still trying
to save people, still trying to run an investigation. It
doesn't you know. So he realizes this doesn't make sense.
Why would the guy be doing all this if he's
(17:32):
if he's trying to just disappear.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
In the movie, Tommy Lee Jones character is just relentless,
And I got to imagine that Tommy Lee Jones just
has that like I just picture him being like that
in person. So is that how he actually just approached
the character and was like around set?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well, you know, he's a professional actor, you know, he's
not someone who who carries that character when he goes
home tonight, you know, to eat dinner. He's able to
just bring it to the set and play it on
the set. He basically became the godfather to those marshals.
He was he was the leader. He was their boss,
he was was his family, you know, so that that
(18:10):
helped him have that that banter back and forth to everybody.
I just think, you know, he's a very smart guy
who figured out how to how to how to have
this role be part of him. And you know, this
is a role that's triggered to many other characters. And
you know, you look at Men in Black, that's that's
a different version of Gerard.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Now in the movie, Harrison Ford and Timi Lee Jones,
they don't have a lot of screen like screen time
together because it's all the cat and Mouse gave him
him trying to capture him. Was there any like rule
on set that they couldn't be around each other because
they would take away from the illusion, It would take
away from that tension of where their character needed to
be in that mindset.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
No, No, I mean, you know, we were together on
the damn we were together in the tunnel. We were
together of course at the end of the movie. Yeah,
but you know it wasn't like, oh, you can't get
near each other because you may become friends and it'll
ruin your relationship. You know, they're they're too sophisticated to
deal with that. You know, they really didn't have much
time together, and yet they really appreciated working together on
(19:10):
the movie.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
My favorite thing about the movie is the tension that
it build really from the very beginning, Right at the
very start of the movie, I'm immediately sucked into this
story and I want to take the ride with these characters.
I want to know, when making a thriller like this,
how do you create that tension? Is it on the
page in the script, is it in the moment when
you're filming it, or is it an a post where
(19:31):
you just feel that tension.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
It's all the above, it's all the above. All those
elements have to work. You know, the basic story and
the caring about this guy who's unjustly accused. This guy
was there given as part of the whole basis of
Lena's Robla, going back to, you know, the basis of
the story that was created here for the TV show
(19:54):
that became so popular that we adapted it. And then
you know, on the set every day we came up
with things that sort of enhanced and embellished what we
were trying to do. And then, of course, in post production,
with all this footage available and brilliant editors and a
great soundtrack. It sort of all comes together.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
When the movie gets nominated for Best Picture and you're
up against Shindler's List. Do you ever think of yourself,
should we have put this movie out in a different year?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I did? I did? I think, how are you going
to be a story like that and a film that
was that well made? But you know, you know, probably
if Schindler's List wasn't out that year, we may have won.
But it's okay, I mean, but.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The legacy of the movie goes on. I feel like
it inspired an entire genre in the nineties of trying
to create a thriller like this. If you were to
go back to making your very first film, ever, what
is the one thing you would do differently about your
first film?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
It's very interesting. Did you say that? Because I just
came back from a screening of my first film. Stony
Island is being re released, and we had a screening
at the Cisco Center. It's available on all these platforms.
If you look at Stony Island, you'll see the Fugitive.
You'll see a lot of the textures of the fugitive
are in my first film, and they carried on to
other films through Above the Law to the package chain reaction.
(21:14):
Those are all films that were shot in Chicago and
have this kind of reality of the city and the
people in the city. And what's interesting about Living on
the Blue ray? The four K Blu ray is so
good looking and it actually looks better than the original movie,
I think, and as people can get their hands on
that Blu ray and get the right player, they can
(21:35):
experience the movie. I just talked to somebody who said
he was blown away by how the quality of what
it looks like today. So in some ways it's got
it's been reborn.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I mean that is music to my ears because I
am such a stickler about quality, and I tell people,
when you're just streaming all these things, you're losing out
on the quality, or if you're not going to see
it in theaters, you're not seeing it the way it
was meant to be seen. So for a movie like
The Fugitive, when you hear somebody maybe seeing it on
their phone, what does that make you feel?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Well, glad that they can follow it on their phone
and they still care about it, But it makes me
feel like they're not getting the full effort in the
full effect of what the movie is. You know. So
when now in a sixty five inch monitor with the
Blu Ray, it's looking better than it even looks in
the theater.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So watch it at home. Everybody, get that Blu Ray.
My final question for you was working with Harrison Ford.
Is there ever an urge to call him Han or
Indy at any point? No?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Call him Harry. That was his name in high school.
People came to visit the set, who went to Harry?
How are you Harry?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Well? I appreciate it. I love the movie. Hope everybody
gets a chance to check it out on Blu ray
and see it how it was meant to be seen,
if not even better.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Thanks a lot, nice making you, Mike.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Thank you. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free
movie review today, we're talking about Leave the World Behind,
which is on Netflix. It's also in theaters. This is
a review that I've been waiting to do. And when
I say that, it's because either I was so passionate
about a movie. I loved it so much I can't
(23:01):
wait to share it with you. The other reason, and
I say that, is because I was so infuriated by
a movie that I cannot wait to tell you about it.
Which is this one? This is the one I was
infuriated with because I love movies about the end of
the world, one of my favorite genres. I think about
the end of the world all the time. My most
reoccurring dream is the world ending of things coming from
the sky, and I've had that in my life since
(23:24):
I've been like thirteen years old. Torments me. So I
love movies about the end of the world, movies that
do it well, let me say, and that is exactly
what this movie is about. And the cast is amazing,
the one and only Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawk, Maherschela Ahli.
Those three actors combined alone should make it just all
out enjoyable. And then you have Kevin Bacon thrown in there,
(23:45):
who I feel is the X factor in that casting,
because maybe if it was eighties nineties Kevin Bacon, I'd
be like, oh, yeah, it's gonna be great. But now
when I see Kevin Bacon cast in a movie, I
start to question their decision. The movie is based on
a book, and I know that I'm gonna get it
to some things I didn't like about it, And people
are gonna yell in the come and saying it's based
on a book. If it's based on a book, they
should have fixed the things while making the movie that
(24:07):
the book got wrong then. But it's also from the
executive producer and director of Mister Robot, which lines up
perfectly with the material we have here in this movie.
So what it's about is Julia Roberts and Ethan Hank
are married. They're living in the city and they decide
they want to go away for a weekend and a
really fancy airbnb. They're spending a weekend away with their kids,
(24:29):
enjoying life. They're out on the beach one day and
this giant ship just comes onto the beach where they are,
and it's really weird, but they think nothing of it
at the time. And then some other weird things happening
with their cell phones networking with a Wi Fi being down,
and this movie just starts to create all of these
weird elements and all of this mystery. And then they
(24:49):
get a knock in the middle of the night and
it's Maherschelo Ali's character, who is the actual owner of
the home, and he gives them a story on why
he shows up on their doorstep. So this one has
to be very careful with because I don't want to
ruin it for you, because I will say at the
start of this that I was still highly entertained by
this movie. I would even say oddly entertained by it,
(25:10):
because again I love movies about the end.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And then you have Marshall Ali's character, who is there
with this daughter, so you have them two coming together
with Ethan Hank, Julia Roberts and their two kids. What
this movie did very early, I would say, in the
first thirty minutes. So I don't think this is spoiling anything.
But I realized that the movie had bitten off more
than it could chew, and I just it just hit
me that I knew that all the little things it
(25:34):
was setting in place, it was never going to be
able to deliver on everything that I wanted as far
as answering all the things. It reminded me of one
of my favorite shows of all time.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Lost.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
People either love or hate that show, mainly because at
the end of Lost, you don't get all the answers
of what happened on the island. I am on the
other side of that that I loved Lost, and I
believe that it was more about the journey than the
destination was lost. They had such great characters that I
(26:06):
bonded with, and I felt like I went through a
lot of things through the course of that show that
even though the finale was what it was, I found
that the journey getting there I enjoyed. I experienced something
that you can't take away from me. So for me,
that entire show isn't ruined because I didn't know what
a smoke monster was at the end of it. So
in that case, I had a more rational approach. In
(26:27):
this case, with this movie that's two hours and twenty minutes,
almost two and a half, there were so many things
going on and so much mystery being built that it
never really fully satisfied me. Throughout the movie, they're trying
to figure out why all of these catastrophic and weird
events are happening around them. There's also a lot of
tension between all of the characters, primarily between Julia Roberts's
(26:49):
character and myherschel Ali, of her not fully trusting him
for some odd reason and him kind of having this dark,
hidden pass that he's not being fully upfront with them.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Either.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So there's a lot of back and forth between just
characters not trusting each other, but also them trying to
figure out why they don't have internet. Is it just
a blackout? Is it something bigger? And throughout the entire movie,
there's just all these things just getting bigger and stronger
and bigger and stronger until you wait for it for
the big thing to finally happen and it's fully revealed
(27:20):
exactly what is going on here. And I would have
to say that I have never wanted to know the
ending more while watching a movie. This was one that
I was like, I gotta see it through to the end,
just because I need to know how this movie ends.
So credit to them for hooking me in and creating
all this mystery to really make me want to finish
a movie, which is really important with a Netflix movie
(27:42):
right now, they're so focused on their completion rate that
this is a movie that will get you to want
to watch the entire movie. That being said, it felt
like it was doing an impression of m Night Shyamalan
mixed with Jordan Peel. Those are two directors who do
a movie like this really well. We're getting some big
mystery and then there's gonna be some overarching theme or
(28:04):
overarching message that the movie was trying to convey. It
never really had its own distinctive style that I was
just kind of craving. It really tried to do it
through the use of cinematography. Now, if I have to
give this movie just gold stars for it's because of
how great it looked visually. That is really what had
me suck in in this movie. That I found myself
saying a lot throughout it is how did they get
(28:27):
that shot? They did it a lot at the start
of the film. The first instance was when the family
was driving out in their jeep to the rental house
that there was a camera move that went from outside
of the car into the car. You get a glimpse
of every member of the family, and then the camera
is outside of the car. So I feel like that
was some trickery with some fake windows, But there were
(28:47):
a lot of shots like that that were really jarring,
maybe a little bit too much, too flashy, that they
were trying a little bit too hard to create that
style of going from horizontal to vertical inside the house
to outside of the house. You also see like all
the levels of the houses the camera would pay from
top to bottom, so visually there was a lot to
(29:07):
look at, and I have to respect their commitment to
making this movie look and feel unique because it keeps
your eyes on the screen. It was almost like they
filmed this movie incursive. It is hard to review this
one spoiler free because primarily my issue with it was
not being satisfied by the ending. And the reason that
is is because for a movie to take me on
(29:27):
a two and almost half hour journey and to not
have any closure, even if it was based on the book,
and that's exactly how the book ends. I was left
with cinematic blue balls after watching this movie because the
story started out with so much promise, building all this
mystery and me trying to figure it out on my
own by the character's actions and picking up on things
(29:50):
you said this here and you said that there, Are
you lying? Are you telling the truth? Are you really
who you say you are? And then to get to
a point where not only are none of those those
questions answered, but the grand scheme of thing just felt
like a waste of time. That is the biggest takeaway
of this movie. It felt like, what was the point
of going on this journey with these characters to get
(30:12):
to this destination that I wasn't any better off than
when I started this movie, and this movie just felt
like it was trying to be something else, like Netflix
attached themselves to this story because they wanted another bird
Box that was gonna get people talking by creating this
psychological end of world type movie to recapture that energy
of a movie that everybody watches and talks about, which
(30:33):
I have seen a lot of people watching this movie,
but have also seen people having that same reaction I had,
of being pretty let down by the time you watch it.
That being said, even though I didn't love this movie,
I would still encourage you if you, like me, were
intrigued by the trailer of wanting to give this movie
a chance. Maybe it's because you love Julia Roberts or
Ethan hank Commercial Ali. I still think this movie is entertaining.
(30:57):
But I'm here just to warn you about a movie
that starts out with so much promise and will probably
leave you disappointed because it's not even that it's a
full on bad movie in its own right. It's still
an entertaining movie and probably did what it set out
to do. It just wasn't for me and just didn't
leave me feeling good at the end. So based on
(31:18):
entertainment value and also based on the fact that you
did have a good cast here. The acting was actually
on point throughout this entire movie. But being what it is,
I give leave the world behind three out of five blackouts.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
It's time to head down to movie Mike trailor Paul Ah.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yes, I am now in full Godzilla geek out mode.
After last week I shared with you my five out
of five film Godzilla minus one. Still highly encourage you
to go check out that movie. But now right after that,
I guess they did this perfectly the time out with that,
but we got the trailer for god Zilla and Kong
(31:58):
the New Empire, which I gotta say, after watching Godzilla
Minus one and seeing the trailer for this movie, and
even though I love the Monster.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Verse, it just doesn't look the same.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
It's hard to go back. It's like how I imagined
a dog would feel if you were to give him
wet food and then revert back to giving him dry food.
They're like, I want the wet food. That is how
I feel now about Godzilla. I've seen them in the
best version and done at such a cheap price, which
now they are saying that it costs even less than
the reported fifteen million dollars to make that movie. So
(32:33):
it is just incredible to me still that you can
make a movie that looks like that for so little money,
which fifteen million dollars is still a lot of money,
but not when it comes to making movies. And then
I see a movie like this which is easily gonna
cost almost ten times that, because cong versus Godzilla costs
around one hundred and fifty five million dollars to make,
(32:53):
and by the looks of this trailer, they probably uped
it just a little bit because you have so many
more monsters running around fighting each other. So what the
premise is in this movie. It's now Kong and Godzilla
teaming up to fight this other big Kong like creature
who was more violent and just a lot more hardcore
than Kong. And what you have in this trailer is
(33:15):
something that I was not really expecting to see because
when these movies started out, this monster verse back in
twenty fourteen with Godzilla, they were a lot more grounded
and they were a lot more focused on the human
element and their connection with all the monsters in those movies, So,
whether it be the Godzilla movies or even like Kong,
because when you look back on the twenty fourteen Godzilla,
(33:35):
which really changed the landscape of the Monster verse and
how we receive these movies, they were a lot more
rooted in the human characters, and with every movie they'd
kind of gotten a little bit more and more away
from that. And I think that's also what led me
to love Godzilla vers just Coung so much, because it
was really just them two being the main characters in
those movies, and now here in this trailer it almost
(33:56):
looks like you don't need the humans whatsoever, because there
are so many monsters fighting each other and Kong and
god Zilla teaming up that it almost feels like it's
going the way of the Fast and the Furious movies,
where you just get right to the action and you
get to the ridiculousness of all these sponsors just fighting.
So this movie is coming out next year. Before I
get into more of my thoughts, here's just a little
(34:17):
bit of the trailer. This world has more secrets than
we could possibly imagine.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
What it's not, that's not cong con can't stop this
on his own. He won't be alone.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Is that a mini can Ah? Yes, it looks like
we're getting baby King Kong in this movie. So you
have some stars returning like Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry,
who I love. Doesn't look like Millie Bobby Brown is
coming back for this one, which I'm really okay with.
She can go back and maybe finish Stranger Things so
(34:57):
we can all get some closure there. But even she's
done with that series, so maybe she doesn't like any
of these movies whatsoever anymore. If I hadn't have seen
Minus one before seeing this trailer, I probably would have
been a lot more excited for this. But I have
to say my palette is just not itching for a
movie like this right now, even though I'm currently rewatching
all the Monster Verse movies. I just finished King of
(35:18):
Monsters and it's just not the same. Like those movies
are fun and entertaining, But to realize that there could
be a much more sophisticated version of Godzilla, I'm like,
oh man, they should really get some different filmmakers here.
But the thing that's troubling me about this trailer is
how ridiculous it looks, and whenever they come out with
like a baby King Kong, or if they did a
baby Godzilla, it just feels a little bit cheesy to me.
(35:42):
And like I said in my review, I'm not the
biggest King Kong fan. I'm much more into Godzilla. I'm
not the biggest fan of his look. In this trailer.
They chose to make them pink, which maybe they're trying
to level them up a little bit. It's like you
went Super Saiyan that references for all my Dragon ball
Z fans. So maybe they just wanted up, you know,
level them up a little bit and make them look
a little bit more hardcore. I just feel like they
(36:04):
revealed a little bit too much of the mystery of
this movie in this trailer, really trying to sell us
on the big visuals and all of the fighting and
all of the crazy locations that it looks like they're
going into. It just feels less and less like a
movie grounded in reality. I realizing I'm saying this about
a Monster Verse movie, but it looks like it's just
grounded a little bit, less and less in reality, and
(36:26):
more so just a bunch of animals kind of fighting
out in the middle of nowhere, but there is one
scene that did give me hype, and even with saying
all this, I'm gonna go watch this movie in theaters
and love it and take it for what it is.
But the scene of Godzilla and King Kong like running together,
and to think just how much those characters have evolved
from being you know, big and slow and they don't
(36:48):
really move that fast, especially Godzilla as he's ripping through cities,
to just fool out sprinting. That is what I look
for in a movie like this.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The other problem I had with a look at this
trailer is how much it reminded me of Transformers Rise
of the Beasts. It almost looks hand in hand identical.
There's one scene in particular where either it's Kong's hand
or the villain in this movie. It comes out from
the ground and it has like this mechanical look to it.
I thought I was watching a new cut of Transformers
(37:18):
Rise of the Beasts. So these movies feel so similar
to me that I think I'm gonna have the same
kind of experience going to watch them. Which Transformers Rise
of the Beast was a fun time at the movies
this summer, but it didn't really leave me like wanting
more of that, or it didn't really enrich my life
in the way that the early Transformers movies did. So
I just kind of feel like this one is getting
(37:38):
away from having any real story to it and instead
just kind of being WWE wrestling with Kong and Godzilla.
So again, the movie is called Godzilla and Kong the
New Empire and it's coming out in theaters next year
on April twelfth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
And that is this week's edition of movie Line Tram
or Bar.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
And that is gonna do it for another episode here
of the podcast. Before I go, I gotta get my
listeners shout out of the week. I encourage you if
I made your top five most listened to podcasts of
the year, to tag me in your Instagram story or
send me a DM with a screenshot making your top five.
And this week I got a shout out silas Pace,
who I'm right there in is top five most listened
(38:20):
to podcasts of the year, and he said I'd probably
be higher if I put out more episodes than a week,
So maybe I can work on that because there's a
lot of spoiler episodes that I would like to do
really diving into some details of some movies I've watched recently.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Silas for being a top listener this year. Thank you
listening right now being a part of the movie crew.
What does that mean? It just means you share your
love for the show on social media. Tag me and
your Instagram story at Mike Distro, comment on my TikTok
to get next week's listener shout out since we had
an interview this week, comment on my TikTok and Instagram
with the cop emoji. So many great movies coming out
(38:54):
this month, so it's a great time to be a
part of the podcast and share it with a friend
who you know shares your love for movies like we
all do on this podcast, so they can be a
part of the fun. Thank you, and until next time,
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike, and if there's something that
I could love almost as much as I love movies,
it would be the Simpsons. And in this episode, I
found a way to combine those two loves. I'm going
to share with you six perfect parodies of iconic movies
that the Simpsons did back in the nineties. We'll also
talk to the director of The Fugitive and I'll let
(00:20):
you know the way those two things tie in. That
movie is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, so we'll talk to
Andrew Davis about working with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee
Jones in the movie review. If I can only do
one part of this episode, it would be talking about
Leave the World Behind on Netflix. Ah, that movie made
me feel so many things. And in the trailer Park,
continuing my Godzilla kick, we'll talk about Godzilla and Kong
(00:42):
the New Empire. Thank you for being here, Thank you
for being subscribed, Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew.
And now let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast a man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like oh walking IMTB with
glasses from the Nashville Podcast Network.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
If you know me, you know that I love The Simpsons.
I was born in the nineties, grew up watching them
all the time, even when my parents didn't want me to.
And I credit any ounce of funny that I have,
even if it's just one percent funny, to The Simpsons
and what I've learned about writing and just the essence
of comedy by watching the show in my studio right now.
(01:34):
One of my favorite things I have in the back
wall if you watch my videos on YouTube or TikTok,
is a sign Simpsons script from one of my favorite
episodes ever that I got as a Christmas gift and
the only other podcast I could probably do an entire
thing I would be a Simpsons podcast, but that would
be so niche, even more so than movies that I
don't do that. And I've been trying to do an
episode like this for a while now, but it wasn't
(01:56):
until I had an interview opportunity with the director of
The Fugitive. Name is Andrew Davis, and I thought, oh man,
the way I learned about that movie was by watching
The Simpsons. So I wanted to share with you six
times at the Simpsons parody day movie back in the nineties,
and in most cases, since I was still a kid
watching all of these episodes, this is how I learned
(02:16):
about a lot of iconic movies because at the time,
when I was a kid watching these episodes, I didn't
realize that they were doing a parody of something. I
just thought, oh man, the Simpsons have the best writing.
How did they come up with this stuff? But as
my love of film grew and I started to realize.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Oh, these are based on.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Movies, I in turn would go and watch these movies
because I wanted to see what the source material was.
So I feel like this probably happened to a lot
of people, that we were exposed to movies on The
Simpsons without knowing it. So let's get into it. Here
are six examples of Simpsons movie parodies. The first one
I want to share with you was from an episode
called twenty two Short Films about Springfield, Season seven, episode
(02:58):
twenty two, and and the movie this entire episode is
really based on is Pulp fiction. This is one of
the best animated episodes of any show, and I'm biased
here because of how much I love the Simpsons. But
what this episode is is a series of twenty two
different short stories inside of one episode. So each story
is a minute, a minute and a half, sometimes two minutes,
(03:20):
sometimes a few seconds, but it's showing you all the
lives of the characters. And the thing that's so great
about this episode as how they are all intertwined. One
scene ends and that serves as the kickoff for the
next scene. But what this entire episode really is is
a loose parody throughout the entire thing of pulp fiction,
mostly with the interactions with Chief Wigham him eventually chasing
(03:42):
the criminal snake and they get into this brawl and
end up in somebody's basement, and that is where the
main focus of the parody of pulp fiction takes place.
But I just love that the Simpsons always committed to
doing things line for line, scene for scene, and this
is a great example of that. So here's the digal
interaction in pulp fiction between John Travolta and Samuel L.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Jackson.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
You know what a funny thing about Europe is what
it's the little differences.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Example, you know what they call a quarter pound with
cheese in and what did they call it?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They call it royal with cheese. Roy Yeah with cheese,
And then the Simpsons just did a straight up parody
of that in this episode.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
You know. The funniest thing though, it's the little differences. Example, well,
McDonald you can buy a Krusty burger with cheese, right,
but they don't call it a Krusty burger with cheese.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Shut out all out of that, call it a quarter
pounded with cheese, a quarter pounded with cheese. I love
this episode. That's why I wanted to share this one
with you first. Next up, number two. The movie that
they parodied here was The Shining, which came out in
nineteen eighty and this episode comes to us from season six,
episode six, tree House of Horror five. Now, I could
(04:55):
do an entire series on just the horror movies that
they parodied in all of the Treehouse of episodes. That
is really what these episodes are known for. But I
remember discovering The Shining because of the Simpsons and because
of this episode, which this is one of their best
Halloween episodes ever. It was so iconic that I remember
the promos that ran on TV for this episode. So
(05:16):
in this episode, much like in the movie, the Simpsons
family heads off to be the caretakers of mister Burns's
spooky winter lodge, and then when Homer gets there, he
discovers that he doesn't have a supply of beer and
he doesn't have TV, causing him to go crazy, and
much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, goes and tries
to kill his family. And the thing I love about
(05:36):
the Treehouse of Horror episodes, at least back in the
nineties is they had three different segments that were entirely
self contained, so they were able to take the entire
Shining movie and take all the best, most iconic parts
of that and do it in about six to seven minutes.
They covered all the iconic scenes like the blood and
the elevator, the twins at the end of the hallway,
(05:56):
the scene at the bar in the lodge, seeing the
deranged right on the typewriter. But hands down, the best
gag they did was the iconic here's Johnny seen So
here's the original from The Shining, Here's Johnny, and here's
the version from The Simpsons Johnny, So I put this
one at number two at number three from the episode
(06:19):
Cape Fear, which is season five episode two. Well you
guessed it. They did a parody of the remake, which
came out in nineteen ninety one, starring the one and
only Robert de Niro, So much like in that movie,
Krusty's X sidekick Sideshow Bob returns to Springfield to get
revenge against Bart after Bart exposed his murder plot, sending
him to prison. So in the real movie Cape Fear,
(06:41):
at least the nineteen ninety one version, Robert De Niro's
character gets sent to prison for fourteen years. The attorney
in that movie knowingly withholds information that would have had
him acquitted, so the entire time he holds it against
him in prison. So then he gets out and then
stalks this lawyer and his family who originally defended him.
The nineteen ninety one k Fear was a remake of
(07:02):
the nineteen sixty two movie, and both of those movies
were based on a book called The Executioners that came
out in nineteen fifty seven. But this episode came out
back in nineteen ninety three, so I really don't remember
when it originally aired, but I do know the first
time I watched it, much like the other ones I've
been telling you, I had no idea that it was
based on a movie. And it wasn't until much much
(07:22):
later that I saw just a still of Robert de
Niro in the theater, laughing and smoking a cigar that
I thought, Hey, that looks a lot like that scene
from the episode with Sycho Bob doing the exact same thing.
And then I realized, oh, it's a movie. So here's
a little bit of that scene in the nineteen ninety
one movie. What it's a Robert de Niro in that
(07:46):
theater with the family. They're all watching Problem Child, which
was an odd choice for a movie, and he is
laughing and smoking a cigar. And this is how the
Simpsons did a parody of that. Man's so rude.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, if you don't mind, we're trying to watch the mover.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
How am I getting my head out of this toe?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Oh? Really, no, that's too much.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
And I think that right there is a great example
of the misdirection I learned by watching The Simpsons, because
they're doing a parody and in the film they get
upset because he's being obnoxious, distracting everybody from enjoying the movie.
The Simpsons take that and they do the same thing,
but then they flip the script because Homer becomes the
more obnoxious one, to the point that he gets a
(08:37):
rise out of the guy who is ruining it for
everybody in this situation. That was side show Bob, voiced
by Kelsey Grammer, who hands down is one of the
best voice actors, not just that Sideshow Bob, but he
also plays and voice beasts in the X Men movies,
but hands down even more so than Fraser. My favorite
role of his is when he voices sideshow Bob. So
this one had to make it at number three. At
(08:58):
number four, the episode is Bart of Darkness from season six,
episode one. Hands down, I think my favorite season of
The Simpsons ever. I still have the box set of DVD's,
which is how I was exposed to a lot of
these episodes watching them on DVD with the commentary. Without
the commentary, I know these episodes so much that I
could quote the deleted scenes, primarily from season six, but
(09:22):
that's the episode. The movie they are paroting here is
Rear Window, which came out in nineteen fifty four from
director Alfred Hitchcock. So how they parody this movie is
Bart breaks his leg at the beginning of summer vacation
so has to spend the entire thing from his bedroom
and he becomes really isolated and weird, and he gets
these binoculars and just starts creeping in on everybody's windows
(09:44):
in Springfield. They even do a direct parody because one
of the windows he peeps into is actually Jimmy Stewart's
character from Rear Window. But much like his character did
in that movie, Bart discovers that his neighbor ned Flanders
may have merged his wife and kids. So this entire
episode plot point for plot point is essentially Rear Window,
(10:06):
except he's spying on everybody with the telescope. So that's
why I added this one at number four on my list.
At number five, the episode is Bart's friend falls in
Love from Season three, episode twenty three, and the movie
they are parting here is Raiders of the Lost Arc,
which came out in nineteen eighty one, and there is
no better representation of how great the Simpsons were in
(10:27):
the nineties than this scene alone, even if it wasn't
a movie parody. And what I love about this episode
and the movie tie in is that this starts from
the very beginning of the episode, and it's something they
really don't do anymore of taking big, bold wrists like this,
and the way that they were able to parody this
scene basically with all the major elements from Raiders of
(10:48):
the Lost Arc with in that movie, it's Harrison Ford
stealing this precious artifact and then escaping because as soon
as he moves it, the entire thing comes crashing down
and it was booby trapped, so he has to get
out of there with his life as all these things
are trying to kill him. In this episode did a
great job of doing exactly what they did in that movie.
The way the Simpsons did it is Bart was trying
(11:09):
to steal Homer's big old change jar that he had
in his room, and as soon as he grabs it,
Homer starts chasing him in his underwear. So you have
Bart running through the house and at one point Homer
in his underwear is barreling down the stairs and he
essentially looks like the Boulder, and Raiders with the Lost
Arc you have Maggie shooting darts at Bart and Homer
much like they do in the Harrison Ford scene. But
(11:32):
hands down the best part is whenever Bart tries to
escape from the garage, Homer slams on the door to
have it come down, and just in the nick of time,
Bart gets through and still has time to reach back
and grab his hat like Indiana Jones did. So here's
just a little bit of that scene. That is such
(12:04):
a great way to start an episode and just a
great way to pay homage to such an iconic film,
which is something that Simpsons have done throughout the history
of the show, even in the Simpsons movie in two
thousand and seven, working in other movie references inside of
that movie. It just shows you how sophisticated their writers are.
(12:24):
And if you think that all the people who write
for the Simpsons are a bunch of dummies. In the
original run of the show back in the nineties, back
in the Golden Age, there were all mostly Ivy League students,
primarily Harvard graduates. One of the most famous Simpsons writers
all time was Conan O'Brien himself, who is a really
smart and intelligent guy. But you take people with all
(12:45):
that book smart knowledge and make them write comedy, it
just puts it on an entirely different level. And I
think that's why throughout the history of the show you
have all these references and parodies of movies that you
have to be a nerd to under stand and to
even know where to look to find these. So I
think watching The Simpsons so much as a kid just
(13:06):
attributed to my love of film, And now looking back
on all the influential film that they have parodied over
the years, they are some of the greatest movies of
all time that I may not have discovered if it
wouldn't have been for this show, because combined with me
rewatching all these episodes on DVD, that led to the
first incarnation of Netflix, where you would actually go online
(13:28):
and get DVDs delivered to your house. That's what I
would do. I would just go through this big list
of Okay, here are all these iconic movies I've seen
on The Simpsons. Now I have to watch the real movie.
So the final parody I want to share with you
is from an episode called Lisa's Rival, which was also
in season six, episode two, and they parodied the movie
The Fugitive, which came out back in nineteen ninety three
(13:48):
starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones and it's celebrating
its thirtieth anniversary right now, And I forgot how good
this movie was. I just rewatched it and it reminded
me how much this movie attributed my love of thrillers.
The movie is about Harrison Ford's character who gets accused
of killing his wife then goes to prison for it.
As they are transporting him to prison, the bus crashes
(14:11):
and he escapes and becomes well a fugitive. And then
Tommy Lee Jones' character is relentless in capturing Harrison Ford
and getting him back to prison. But the entire time,
Harrison Ford is using that time while he has escaped
to prove his innocence. So it's a great movie directed
by Andrew Davis, and that leads us to our interview
now with Andrew Davis, who is the director of the movie.
(14:33):
He is known for making sophisticated thrillers like this. Like
I said, The Fugitive is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this
year and had just released on four k UHD for
the first time ever. I have a copy. Now we
get into an entire discussion of why physical media is
so important. But the movie went on to receive seven
Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Harrison Ford
(14:54):
and Tommy Lee Jones ended up winning for Best Supporting Actor.
Back in nineteen ninety four, Andrew Davis was also nominated
for a Golden Goal for Best Director. In addition to
this movie, he also directed one of my favorite movies
from my childhood, Holes, which ironically just celebrated its twentieth anniversary.
So all the movies I know in love are getting older,
much like me. So for my final item on this list,
(15:17):
we're actually going to talk to Andrew Davis how he
feels about the Simpsons doing a parody of his movie
The Fugitive, and then we'll get into him talking about
working with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford. The first
time I learned about The Fugitive was watching them parody
the scene from the Damn.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I'm telling you, I didn't do anything.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
I don't care.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So I got to know, as a director, how does
it feel when the Simpsons parody your movie?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It's wonderful. I mean, I knew that I had sort
of made the big leaves when I was in San
Francisco and I picked up MED magazine and talked about
underslush for undersea, and then there were then then shortly
thereafter was the stugitive. When they started making fun of you,
it's either because they like it or they hate it,
(16:10):
and in these cases they like.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
The line they chose to use was the Tommy Lee
Jones line, I don't care.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I didn't kill my wife. I don't care.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
In the script?
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Was that supposed to be a big moment, a big
because it's a key turning point in the entire movie
of him in the beginning saying how he doesn't care
right or wrong, but it all comes back around. Was
it supposed to be that impactful in the script?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
You know, this is a controversial line because I've read
articles where Harrison's talked about, well, there were pages and
pages of dialogue and we decided to throw all that
out and just say I don't care. And Tommy thinks
he created that line. Jeff Stewart doesn't remember exactly how
it happened. He thinks he created that line. And now
somebody found an old draft, a Walter Hill draft, where
(16:55):
it says I don't care you're a fugitive. So whoever
came up with it seems, you know, it's It reverberates
so much because this is basically saying, my job is
not to decide whether you're guilty or innocent. It's just
to bring you in.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
My job is to bring you in and let the
course decide, and let the justice Department decide. And so
that's why. And then and then in the story of course,
Tommy develops his empathy for this doctor who's still trying
to save people, still trying to run an investigation. It
doesn't you know. So he realizes this doesn't make sense.
Why would the guy be doing all this if he's
(17:32):
if he's trying to just disappear.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
In the movie, Tommy Lee Jones character is just relentless,
And I got to imagine that Tommy Lee Jones just
has that like I just picture him being like that
in person. So is that how he actually just approached
the character and was like around set?
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well, you know, he's a professional actor, you know, he's
not someone who who carries that character when he goes
home tonight, you know, to eat dinner. He's able to
just bring it to the set and play it on
the set. He basically became the godfather to those marshals.
He was he was the leader. He was their boss,
he was was his family, you know, so that that
(18:10):
helped him have that that banter back and forth to everybody.
I just think, you know, he's a very smart guy
who figured out how to how to how to have
this role be part of him. And you know, this
is a role that's triggered to many other characters. And
you know, you look at Men in Black, that's that's
a different version of Gerard.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Now in the movie, Harrison Ford and Timi Lee Jones,
they don't have a lot of screen like screen time
together because it's all the cat and Mouse gave him
him trying to capture him. Was there any like rule
on set that they couldn't be around each other because
they would take away from the illusion, It would take
away from that tension of where their character needed to
be in that mindset.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
No, No, I mean, you know, we were together on
the damn we were together in the tunnel. We were
together of course at the end of the movie. Yeah,
but you know it wasn't like, oh, you can't get
near each other because you may become friends and it'll
ruin your relationship. You know, they're they're too sophisticated to
deal with that. You know, they really didn't have much
time together, and yet they really appreciated working together on
(19:10):
the movie.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
My favorite thing about the movie is the tension that
it build really from the very beginning, Right at the
very start of the movie, I'm immediately sucked into this
story and I want to take the ride with these characters.
I want to know, when making a thriller like this,
how do you create that tension? Is it on the
page in the script, is it in the moment when
you're filming it, or is it an a post where
(19:31):
you just feel that tension.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
It's all the above, it's all the above. All those
elements have to work. You know, the basic story and
the caring about this guy who's unjustly accused. This guy
was there given as part of the whole basis of
Lena's Robla, going back to, you know, the basis of
the story that was created here for the TV show
(19:54):
that became so popular that we adapted it. And then
you know, on the set every day we came up
with things that sort of enhanced and embellished what we
were trying to do. And then, of course, in post production,
with all this footage available and brilliant editors and a
great soundtrack. It sort of all comes together.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
When the movie gets nominated for Best Picture and you're
up against Shindler's List. Do you ever think of yourself,
should we have put this movie out in a different year?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I did? I did? I think, how are you going
to be a story like that and a film that
was that well made? But you know, you know, probably
if Schindler's List wasn't out that year, we may have won.
But it's okay, I mean, but.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
The legacy of the movie goes on. I feel like
it inspired an entire genre in the nineties of trying
to create a thriller like this. If you were to
go back to making your very first film, ever, what
is the one thing you would do differently about your
first film?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
It's very interesting. Did you say that? Because I just
came back from a screening of my first film. Stony
Island is being re released, and we had a screening
at the Cisco Center. It's available on all these platforms.
If you look at Stony Island, you'll see the Fugitive.
You'll see a lot of the textures of the fugitive
are in my first film, and they carried on to
other films through Above the Law to the package chain reaction.
(21:14):
Those are all films that were shot in Chicago and
have this kind of reality of the city and the
people in the city. And what's interesting about Living on
the Blue ray? The four K Blu ray is so
good looking and it actually looks better than the original movie,
I think, and as people can get their hands on
that Blu ray and get the right player, they can
(21:35):
experience the movie. I just talked to somebody who said
he was blown away by how the quality of what
it looks like today. So in some ways it's got
it's been reborn.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I mean that is music to my ears because I
am such a stickler about quality, and I tell people,
when you're just streaming all these things, you're losing out
on the quality, or if you're not going to see
it in theaters, you're not seeing it the way it
was meant to be seen. So for a movie like
The Fugitive, when you hear somebody maybe seeing it on
their phone, what does that make you feel?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Well, glad that they can follow it on their phone
and they still care about it, But it makes me
feel like they're not getting the full effort in the
full effect of what the movie is. You know. So
when now in a sixty five inch monitor with the
Blu Ray, it's looking better than it even looks in
the theater.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So watch it at home. Everybody, get that Blu Ray.
My final question for you was working with Harrison Ford.
Is there ever an urge to call him Han or
Indy at any point? No?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Call him Harry. That was his name in high school.
People came to visit the set, who went to Harry?
How are you Harry?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Well? I appreciate it. I love the movie. Hope everybody
gets a chance to check it out on Blu ray
and see it how it was meant to be seen,
if not even better.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Thanks a lot, nice making you, Mike.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Thank you. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free
movie review today, we're talking about Leave the World Behind,
which is on Netflix. It's also in theaters. This is
a review that I've been waiting to do. And when
I say that, it's because either I was so passionate
about a movie. I loved it so much I can't
(23:01):
wait to share it with you. The other reason, and
I say that, is because I was so infuriated by
a movie that I cannot wait to tell you about it.
Which is this one? This is the one I was
infuriated with because I love movies about the end of
the world, one of my favorite genres. I think about
the end of the world all the time. My most
reoccurring dream is the world ending of things coming from
the sky, and I've had that in my life since
(23:24):
I've been like thirteen years old. Torments me. So I
love movies about the end of the world, movies that
do it well, let me say, and that is exactly
what this movie is about. And the cast is amazing,
the one and only Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawk, Maherschela Ahli.
Those three actors combined alone should make it just all
out enjoyable. And then you have Kevin Bacon thrown in there,
(23:45):
who I feel is the X factor in that casting,
because maybe if it was eighties nineties Kevin Bacon, I'd
be like, oh, yeah, it's gonna be great. But now
when I see Kevin Bacon cast in a movie, I
start to question their decision. The movie is based on
a book, and I know that I'm gonna get it
to some things I didn't like about it, And people
are gonna yell in the come and saying it's based
on a book. If it's based on a book, they
should have fixed the things while making the movie that
(24:07):
the book got wrong then. But it's also from the
executive producer and director of Mister Robot, which lines up
perfectly with the material we have here in this movie.
So what it's about is Julia Roberts and Ethan Hank
are married. They're living in the city and they decide
they want to go away for a weekend and a
really fancy airbnb. They're spending a weekend away with their kids,
(24:29):
enjoying life. They're out on the beach one day and
this giant ship just comes onto the beach where they are,
and it's really weird, but they think nothing of it
at the time. And then some other weird things happening
with their cell phones networking with a Wi Fi being down,
and this movie just starts to create all of these
weird elements and all of this mystery. And then they
(24:49):
get a knock in the middle of the night and
it's Maherschelo Ali's character, who is the actual owner of
the home, and he gives them a story on why
he shows up on their doorstep. So this one has
to be very careful with because I don't want to
ruin it for you, because I will say at the
start of this that I was still highly entertained by
this movie. I would even say oddly entertained by it,
(25:10):
because again I love movies about the end.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
And then you have Marshall Ali's character, who is there
with this daughter, so you have them two coming together
with Ethan Hank, Julia Roberts and their two kids. What
this movie did very early, I would say, in the
first thirty minutes. So I don't think this is spoiling anything.
But I realized that the movie had bitten off more
than it could chew, and I just it just hit
me that I knew that all the little things it
(25:34):
was setting in place, it was never going to be
able to deliver on everything that I wanted as far
as answering all the things. It reminded me of one
of my favorite shows of all time.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Lost.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
People either love or hate that show, mainly because at
the end of Lost, you don't get all the answers
of what happened on the island. I am on the
other side of that that I loved Lost, and I
believe that it was more about the journey than the
destination was lost. They had such great characters that I
(26:06):
bonded with, and I felt like I went through a
lot of things through the course of that show that
even though the finale was what it was, I found
that the journey getting there I enjoyed. I experienced something
that you can't take away from me. So for me,
that entire show isn't ruined because I didn't know what
a smoke monster was at the end of it. So
in that case, I had a more rational approach. In
(26:27):
this case, with this movie that's two hours and twenty minutes,
almost two and a half, there were so many things
going on and so much mystery being built that it
never really fully satisfied me. Throughout the movie, they're trying
to figure out why all of these catastrophic and weird
events are happening around them. There's also a lot of
tension between all of the characters, primarily between Julia Roberts's
(26:49):
character and myherschel Ali, of her not fully trusting him
for some odd reason and him kind of having this dark,
hidden pass that he's not being fully upfront with them.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Either.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
So there's a lot of back and forth between just
characters not trusting each other, but also them trying to
figure out why they don't have internet. Is it just
a blackout? Is it something bigger? And throughout the entire movie,
there's just all these things just getting bigger and stronger
and bigger and stronger until you wait for it for
the big thing to finally happen and it's fully revealed
(27:20):
exactly what is going on here. And I would have
to say that I have never wanted to know the
ending more while watching a movie. This was one that
I was like, I gotta see it through to the end,
just because I need to know how this movie ends.
So credit to them for hooking me in and creating
all this mystery to really make me want to finish
a movie, which is really important with a Netflix movie
(27:42):
right now, they're so focused on their completion rate that
this is a movie that will get you to want
to watch the entire movie. That being said, it felt
like it was doing an impression of m Night Shyamalan
mixed with Jordan Peel. Those are two directors who do
a movie like this really well. We're getting some big
mystery and then there's gonna be some overarching theme or
(28:04):
overarching message that the movie was trying to convey. It
never really had its own distinctive style that I was
just kind of craving. It really tried to do it
through the use of cinematography. Now, if I have to
give this movie just gold stars for it's because of
how great it looked visually. That is really what had
me suck in in this movie. That I found myself
saying a lot throughout it is how did they get
(28:27):
that shot? They did it a lot at the start
of the film. The first instance was when the family
was driving out in their jeep to the rental house
that there was a camera move that went from outside
of the car into the car. You get a glimpse
of every member of the family, and then the camera
is outside of the car. So I feel like that
was some trickery with some fake windows, But there were
(28:47):
a lot of shots like that that were really jarring,
maybe a little bit too much, too flashy, that they
were trying a little bit too hard to create that
style of going from horizontal to vertical inside the house
to outside of the house. You also see like all
the levels of the houses the camera would pay from
top to bottom, so visually there was a lot to
(29:07):
look at, and I have to respect their commitment to
making this movie look and feel unique because it keeps
your eyes on the screen. It was almost like they
filmed this movie incursive. It is hard to review this
one spoiler free because primarily my issue with it was
not being satisfied by the ending. And the reason that
is is because for a movie to take me on
(29:27):
a two and almost half hour journey and to not
have any closure, even if it was based on the book,
and that's exactly how the book ends. I was left
with cinematic blue balls after watching this movie because the
story started out with so much promise, building all this
mystery and me trying to figure it out on my
own by the character's actions and picking up on things
(29:50):
you said this here and you said that there, Are
you lying? Are you telling the truth? Are you really
who you say you are? And then to get to
a point where not only are none of those those
questions answered, but the grand scheme of thing just felt
like a waste of time. That is the biggest takeaway
of this movie. It felt like, what was the point
of going on this journey with these characters to get
(30:12):
to this destination that I wasn't any better off than
when I started this movie, and this movie just felt
like it was trying to be something else, like Netflix
attached themselves to this story because they wanted another bird
Box that was gonna get people talking by creating this
psychological end of world type movie to recapture that energy
of a movie that everybody watches and talks about, which
(30:33):
I have seen a lot of people watching this movie,
but have also seen people having that same reaction I had,
of being pretty let down by the time you watch it.
That being said, even though I didn't love this movie,
I would still encourage you if you, like me, were
intrigued by the trailer of wanting to give this movie
a chance. Maybe it's because you love Julia Roberts or
Ethan hank Commercial Ali. I still think this movie is entertaining.
(30:57):
But I'm here just to warn you about a movie
that starts out with so much promise and will probably
leave you disappointed because it's not even that it's a
full on bad movie in its own right. It's still
an entertaining movie and probably did what it set out
to do. It just wasn't for me and just didn't
leave me feeling good at the end. So based on
(31:18):
entertainment value and also based on the fact that you
did have a good cast here. The acting was actually
on point throughout this entire movie. But being what it is,
I give leave the world behind three out of five blackouts.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
It's time to head down to movie Mike trailor Paul Ah.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yes, I am now in full Godzilla geek out mode.
After last week I shared with you my five out
of five film Godzilla minus one. Still highly encourage you
to go check out that movie. But now right after that,
I guess they did this perfectly the time out with that,
but we got the trailer for god Zilla and Kong
(31:58):
the New Empire, which I gotta say, after watching Godzilla
Minus one and seeing the trailer for this movie, and
even though I love the Monster.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Verse, it just doesn't look the same.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
It's hard to go back. It's like how I imagined
a dog would feel if you were to give him
wet food and then revert back to giving him dry food.
They're like, I want the wet food. That is how
I feel now about Godzilla. I've seen them in the
best version and done at such a cheap price, which
now they are saying that it costs even less than
the reported fifteen million dollars to make that movie. So
(32:33):
it is just incredible to me still that you can
make a movie that looks like that for so little money,
which fifteen million dollars is still a lot of money,
but not when it comes to making movies. And then
I see a movie like this which is easily gonna
cost almost ten times that, because cong versus Godzilla costs
around one hundred and fifty five million dollars to make,
(32:53):
and by the looks of this trailer, they probably uped
it just a little bit because you have so many
more monsters running around fighting each other. So what the
premise is in this movie. It's now Kong and Godzilla
teaming up to fight this other big Kong like creature
who was more violent and just a lot more hardcore
than Kong. And what you have in this trailer is
(33:15):
something that I was not really expecting to see because
when these movies started out, this monster verse back in
twenty fourteen with Godzilla, they were a lot more grounded
and they were a lot more focused on the human
element and their connection with all the monsters in those movies, So,
whether it be the Godzilla movies or even like Kong,
because when you look back on the twenty fourteen Godzilla,
(33:35):
which really changed the landscape of the Monster verse and
how we receive these movies, they were a lot more
rooted in the human characters, and with every movie they'd
kind of gotten a little bit more and more away
from that. And I think that's also what led me
to love Godzilla vers just Coung so much, because it
was really just them two being the main characters in
those movies, and now here in this trailer it almost
(33:56):
looks like you don't need the humans whatsoever, because there
are so many monsters fighting each other and Kong and
god Zilla teaming up that it almost feels like it's
going the way of the Fast and the Furious movies,
where you just get right to the action and you
get to the ridiculousness of all these sponsors just fighting.
So this movie is coming out next year. Before I
get into more of my thoughts, here's just a little
(34:17):
bit of the trailer. This world has more secrets than
we could possibly imagine.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
What it's not, that's not cong con can't stop this
on his own. He won't be alone.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Is that a mini can Ah? Yes, it looks like
we're getting baby King Kong in this movie. So you
have some stars returning like Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry,
who I love. Doesn't look like Millie Bobby Brown is
coming back for this one, which I'm really okay with.
She can go back and maybe finish Stranger Things so
(34:57):
we can all get some closure there. But even she's
done with that series, so maybe she doesn't like any
of these movies whatsoever anymore. If I hadn't have seen
Minus one before seeing this trailer, I probably would have
been a lot more excited for this. But I have
to say my palette is just not itching for a
movie like this right now, even though I'm currently rewatching
all the Monster Verse movies. I just finished King of
(35:18):
Monsters and it's just not the same. Like those movies
are fun and entertaining, But to realize that there could
be a much more sophisticated version of Godzilla, I'm like,
oh man, they should really get some different filmmakers here.
But the thing that's troubling me about this trailer is
how ridiculous it looks, and whenever they come out with
like a baby King Kong, or if they did a
baby Godzilla, it just feels a little bit cheesy to me.
(35:42):
And like I said in my review, I'm not the
biggest King Kong fan. I'm much more into Godzilla. I'm
not the biggest fan of his look. In this trailer.
They chose to make them pink, which maybe they're trying
to level them up a little bit. It's like you
went Super Saiyan that references for all my Dragon ball
Z fans. So maybe they just wanted up, you know,
level them up a little bit and make them look
a little bit more hardcore. I just feel like they
(36:04):
revealed a little bit too much of the mystery of
this movie in this trailer, really trying to sell us
on the big visuals and all of the fighting and
all of the crazy locations that it looks like they're
going into. It just feels less and less like a
movie grounded in reality. I realizing I'm saying this about
a Monster Verse movie, but it looks like it's just
grounded a little bit, less and less in reality, and
(36:26):
more so just a bunch of animals kind of fighting
out in the middle of nowhere, but there is one
scene that did give me hype, and even with saying
all this, I'm gonna go watch this movie in theaters
and love it and take it for what it is.
But the scene of Godzilla and King Kong like running together,
and to think just how much those characters have evolved
from being you know, big and slow and they don't
(36:48):
really move that fast, especially Godzilla as he's ripping through cities,
to just fool out sprinting. That is what I look
for in a movie like this.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
The other problem I had with a look at this
trailer is how much it reminded me of Transformers Rise
of the Beasts. It almost looks hand in hand identical.
There's one scene in particular where either it's Kong's hand
or the villain in this movie. It comes out from
the ground and it has like this mechanical look to it.
I thought I was watching a new cut of Transformers
(37:18):
Rise of the Beasts. So these movies feel so similar
to me that I think I'm gonna have the same
kind of experience going to watch them. Which Transformers Rise
of the Beast was a fun time at the movies
this summer, but it didn't really leave me like wanting
more of that, or it didn't really enrich my life
in the way that the early Transformers movies did. So
I just kind of feel like this one is getting
(37:38):
away from having any real story to it and instead
just kind of being WWE wrestling with Kong and Godzilla.
So again, the movie is called Godzilla and Kong the
New Empire and it's coming out in theaters next year
on April twelfth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
And that is this week's edition of movie Line Tram
or Bar.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
And that is gonna do it for another episode here
of the podcast. Before I go, I gotta get my
listeners shout out of the week. I encourage you if
I made your top five most listened to podcasts of
the year, to tag me in your Instagram story or
send me a DM with a screenshot making your top five.
And this week I got a shout out silas Pace,
who I'm right there in is top five most listened
(38:20):
to podcasts of the year, and he said I'd probably
be higher if I put out more episodes than a week,
So maybe I can work on that because there's a
lot of spoiler episodes that I would like to do
really diving into some details of some movies I've watched recently.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Silas for being a top listener this year. Thank you
listening right now being a part of the movie crew.
What does that mean? It just means you share your
love for the show on social media. Tag me and
your Instagram story at Mike Distro, comment on my TikTok
to get next week's listener shout out since we had
an interview this week, comment on my TikTok and Instagram
with the cop emoji. So many great movies coming out
(38:54):
this month, so it's a great time to be a
part of the podcast and share it with a friend
who you know shares your love for movies like we
all do on this podcast, so they can be a
part of the fun. Thank you, and until next time,
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
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