September 8, 2025 • 70 mins
Original Release Date: Monday 8 September 2025
Description: This week’s show was recorded several days early because Dean is off to Canada to workshop a new play, to re-visit some of his old, musical stomping grounds, and to prepare for an art show! Phil hosted a live stage show this past week, one that featured such good friends of Chillpak as Lily Holleman and Jon Lawlor. Phil offers a full report in “Live Event of the Week”. An email from a loyal listener about the dangers and responsibility of making historical dramas leads to a fascinating, deeply thoughtful, thorny conversation, one that promises to continue to unfold in the weeks to come. Another friend of the show, Steve Benaquist, drops in to help answer a question from a listener about the current box office smash Weapons before Dean and Phil tackle Marvel’s Thunderbolts* and all of the MCU’s “Phase Five” before turning their attention to the brand small-screen franchise adaptations “Alien: Earth” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”.
Description: This week’s show was recorded several days early because Dean is off to Canada to workshop a new play, to re-visit some of his old, musical stomping grounds, and to prepare for an art show! Phil hosted a live stage show this past week, one that featured such good friends of Chillpak as Lily Holleman and Jon Lawlor. Phil offers a full report in “Live Event of the Week”. An email from a loyal listener about the dangers and responsibility of making historical dramas leads to a fascinating, deeply thoughtful, thorny conversation, one that promises to continue to unfold in the weeks to come. Another friend of the show, Steve Benaquist, drops in to help answer a question from a listener about the current box office smash Weapons before Dean and Phil tackle Marvel’s Thunderbolts* and all of the MCU’s “Phase Five” before turning their attention to the brand small-screen franchise adaptations “Alien: Earth” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
And now Your Chill Pack Hollywood Hour with Dean Hagland
and Phil Lareness's.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to Year nineteen, Episode eighteen of Your Chill Pack
Hollywood Hour for the week of Monday, September the eighth,
the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty five. Coming at
you from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Phelis. I
am Phil Lareness and joining us via the magic of
podcasting and zoom all the way from the environs of Detroit.
It's the Motor City adjacent Madman TV's Dean Hagland. In disclosure,
(01:00):
we are recording this several days early on Friday the fifth.
Why are we doing this, Dean, Ah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Some of us are traveling, and some of us are
not traveling, and some of us are very busy, and
some of us are not very busy.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Which one of us is not very busy?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I don't know. I think you are.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I mean you are enjoying what our listeners have come
to love. A tall glass with a lot of ice
in it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It is still warm here in Michigan, thank you very much.
As much as the cool breeze comes across you.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Know, there are these things that you can put beverages
into chill. You can even chill the glasses in it.
What Yeah, okay, anyway, but how seriously how much do
people pay to listen to this show? So again, if
audio quality were to start now, it would not be
your'll pack Hollywood Hour. Uh So, then if there is
(02:03):
any way for you to be less specific in the answer,
let me know. Okay, some of us are not traveling.
That is true. We are not, I think more to
the point we're recording. Maybe we're not traveling together, in
which case we could record maybe even today the show
comes out exactly, but you are.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We should fly together somewhere and record a chill peck
oh security, like just like live record you and I
flying somewhere.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
The longest whatever the longest flight is, and we just
record the whole thing. It'll be our first marathon since
the Mayan podcast We're gonna get. We would be so
passed out from drinking so fast.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
We miss a flight to Perth, Australia. I'm promising you
know there's a sci fi convention in Perth, Australia that's
very good and that would be an excellent flight.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Why are you traveling this week? What's going on Dan.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Oh, you know, you know what's going on?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Maybe I know, but maybe the listeners don't.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
All right, I am workshopping a play, believe it. Yes,
a friend of mine from we were in Team theater
school in Winnipeg at Prairie Theater Exchange, and we've kept
in touch all these years, maybe three, four or five
of us have from that healthy en days and we've
(03:37):
come into each other's lives. And so he reached out
to me and said, I got a Canada Council grant.
Would you like to come up and workshop a play
for a week. No guarantee of a performance, but putting
something together for the cultural enrichment of Winnipeg and perhaps
(03:59):
all of Canada and maybe the globe.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And like you said, it may nothing may come of it.
But if something does, how cool to have been able
to witness the evolution of it from the ground floor.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Absolutely, you know, workshopping is a unique It requires improv skills,
of course, and requires thought and often sitting around and
talking ideas out. The Drowsy Chaperone Broadway show were a
bunch of la improvisers that workshop to play and came
up with that. So so you know, there is hit
(04:34):
Broadway shows to become of improvisational workshops and so on
and so forth. So it's a it's a method of
playwriting that's quite quite fun.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I have never had the chance to workshop a play.
I often play workshop, but I don't. It's a little thing.
You know, other kids would play doctor and police and soldier.
I'd play workshop. You know, you're just why me playing
Santa every year at Traveltown makes so much sense because
(05:07):
I have that experience. Back on any.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Way, let me send that toy for you.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And is there not I may be totally mistaking this,
but is there something going on art wise for you
right around now?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah? Well, there's an art show in Hamilton, Ontario called
Winnipeg in Ontario. It's Winnipeg Artists and it's curated by
the same guy workshop in the play. And he said,
do you have any paintings? You being technically though you
haven't lived in Winnipeg since the eighties, you're technically a
(05:46):
Winnipeg artist, do you have any pieces that would go
into this show in Hamilton? And so I sent them
a couple of things and he kind of liked them.
And so luckily area of Detroit is very close to Ontario.
So in fact, Hamilton is about the same distance as
driving La to Vegas.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Since you're going to be spending so much time in
Canada and celebrating Winnipeg your ancestral mans, I'm sure that
you've taken in by now the king of Canadian absurdism,
Matthew rankins film right universal language, so that you can
(06:29):
drop some pearls of wisdom, some inspirations from that into
this workshop scenario.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Well, what I thought I would do is I'd watch
it there, because I imagine my hometown has changed a
little bit in the twenty plus years I've been away,
and I would think Matthew Rank has a different insight
to the city and I grew up in So I'm
(06:55):
going to compare and contrast. In fact, I'm going to
visit every venue that my punk band Truncheon Scars played
one evening, So I'm gonna go to all the bars, and.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You think you think both of those venues will still
be a see what I did?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
You did very good?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Uh? You know this is an interesting segue into an
email that we got because I like the idea that
you would be able to compare this person's work with
your own history of the place. First of all, I
will say a little bit of a meea couple. We
do have emails backing up for John Lawler specifically, and
(07:41):
we promise to get him on next week to answer them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We promise.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
But we do have two emails from listeners this week
that that hopefully we can address. And the first of these,
which I think is an interesting segue from what you
were describing, Dear Dean and Phil. Hey, that's us as
a fan of historic dramas in both film and television.
Of course, there are two main types of period pieces.
(08:10):
One those based around a specific time period, which may
utilize events of the era, such as Downton Abbey, when
calls the Heart, I don't. I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
One don't know Whens calls art No.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Dances with Wolves, I don't. I don't know that except
I always referred to it as dances with hair pieces.
But the Graham Green, who were not going to take
time to remember on today's show, But like what a
today great actor, Oh my god, he deserves more time
than we have for today. So anyway, Bridgerton another one
(08:48):
which is a show I am aware of, but I
but I have not seen. But the main characters, or
at least most of those main characters did not exist
in real life. So the example is around a specific
time period referencing historic events, but with fictional characters. Then
the second type of historic drama based around actual historic figures,
(09:12):
the Crown, Tombstone, Medici Apollo thirteen, so many that can
be in many different genres. Even right epochs yep I
have been considering the importance of historical facts surrounding this genre.
Changing some small artistic license for a better storyline or
(09:35):
giving a character more nuance and interest seems allowable. I
don't remember, Dean, this as me interjecting, I don't remember
what show it was in my formative years. It feels
like something that could have been SCTV, who knows. But
they did a you know, like a biopic, fake biopick,
(09:56):
and the opening was, you know, based on historic facts,
but filled with half truths and lies to make it
interesting and and and and it's a really funny joke,
but it is really the crux of a tough choice,
which is like, what do you owe history? What do
you owe your audience in terms of entertainment?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
For sure?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Anyway, So back to the the email, there there must
there also must be a fine line to not cross
to make people and those of the era you know,
seem unrealistic. The costumes need to be realistic for the time,
but most modern audiences will overlook the use of makeup
(10:41):
which may not have been used in the time period.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Oh fascinating.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
The reason No. S Feratu was uh really the crew
on that was very uh you know, not only inspired,
but ordered. Their marching orders were to be painstaking in
their historic authenticity of the details of the production design,
(11:09):
the costumes, the makeup right, don't use makeup that did
not exist at the time, So they've all developed the plague,
no all the actors. Anyway, back to the email. For
me this historic These historical dramas tend to be a
(11:32):
starting point for me to dive into history and learn more. However,
I'm not certain how many others take the time for this,
so deviation from history could lead some to believe the
depicted distortion as facts. Would love to hear your thoughts
on this subject, as well as any suggestions of historical
(11:52):
dramas which you have enjoyed and felt were beneficial to view.
Loyal Memory of the chillpac Nation Agent summer agent, and
then she has a ps that'll come to at the end.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I see, well, I just finished Rewatching Alexander the Great,
a six part series HBO Max. I'm going to sing,
I think, and it's intercut with historians explaining because the
amount of information we have about Alexander Great, of course,
(12:30):
from three hundred and thirty three BC, is rather limited,
and his rise from a Macedonian son of a senator
to the ruler of most of the known world. How
he defeated Darius the Second in Persia amazing a tactician
(12:53):
in his twenties, he did all well, he was in
his twenties. And the saying that you are the son
of the divine So that's where Alexander the Great came from.
All of this redefines how you see history because it
(13:14):
reenacted stuff, It reenacted battles, and it supposed emotional air
quote emotional aspects of all the players involved, be it
Alexander Great, his assistance, mother, you know, all of that
sort of thing. So I loved it for its detail,
(13:39):
but I was circumspect of its emotional through line, right
because you have to extrapolate based on I mean, how
much writing from three hundred and thirty BC still exists, right,
it's only a few tablets and maybe a couple of
school from a Roman historian.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So again, there's also one other source of, may I say,
just historic record that they hopefully availed themselves of, and
that was the nineteen sixty eight television pilot Alexander the Great,
directed by Phil Carlson, who had done so many wonderful
gritty film noir you know movies, and I guess it's
(14:28):
actually it finally got shown in sixty eight, but this
TV pilot was filmed in sixty three, shown as a
TV movie in sixty eight, but it was filmed as
a pilot in sixty three. Alexander the Great starring as
Alexander the Great William Shatner.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
No, why haven't I seen this?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Co starring Adam West.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
No, wait what however, Hey.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
The cast also includes Joseph Cotton, who we talked about
last week when I was regaling with my thoughts on
the third Man, and uh, John Cassavetti's.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
He must be Darius the Second.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Then he's Coronos cons.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Who's Adam West?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Uh you don't know Cleander?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Oh? Cleander was his Yeah, his major second.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
So hopefully, that's what I'm saying. Hopefully they availed themselves
of all the rich historic material that this television pilot,
no doubt.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Deeply researched to get.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That this this question, God, the historic dramas, I mean, uh.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I know Hogan is Hogan's Heroes? Okay, accurate of World
War Two?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Well, first of all, you are right out into comedy
right now. So I was gonna, I was thinking Hogan's
Heroes because it's the same era. But I was saying,
even if we are sure you the idea of comedy,
you know, I would argue that we have entire world
religions that are I don't know, illustrative of the tricky
(16:18):
nature of telling stories of history. Oh yeah, you know,
getting together as a counsel and deciding which of these
many texts should comprise the story of what happened two
hundred years ago, right, and this will dictate how people
live for the next two thousand years. But since that
(16:44):
point onward, certainly, boy, storytellers have a power, and one
would think maybe a responsibility. And so how do you
how do you address that? What is your master, Dean?
When you're telling a historic drama and it becomes really
(17:05):
messy in a corporate landscape, of course, because you so
often find competing masters. But you know, you know, hopefully
at the very least as naive as it sounds, you're
trying to tell an entertaining story that enriches and inspires
in some ways.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Absolutely, and so okay, I mean the greatest story ever told?
What are we talking about? Moses, Party of the Red Sea?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Oh, I was thinking murder on the Orient Express.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Okay, oh, murder on there a great example of is
it historical telling? Because somebody did die on the Orient Express.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
On Well, well remember the whole crime spoiler alert, but
they announced it at the beginning of the movies. But
it's a thinly veiled depiction of the Limburg baby.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yes, oh that's right, the kidnapping of the Limberg baby.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
They use that. So this would fit in in some
real ways to what she's describing, right, you know, the
fictional characters, but using the real world. Can we say
that that is less thorny, that there's less potential damage
(18:26):
of doing such a thing, Because if you see dances
with wolves and you take that as historic, even with
the mullet of the lead character, you are you're just
(18:47):
exposing yourself as someone that doesn't care about the facts
of something, right, like what I know of the treatment
of Native Americans I know from Kevin Costner. Okay, we
can write you off pretty much, but boy, casting it,
(19:08):
this is a whole other conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
But then the one that's about the real the one
about the real characters, I'm gonna say, is more thorny
because every decision you make, you are depicting human beings
who are who are complicated, who are all messy, and
you are putting your finger on the scale of how
people should remember them and interpret them.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Right. And there's a Canadian version of Dances of Wolves
that this armchair director right here wants to cut, which
adds an extra scene because at the end, the Dakota
Nation packs up their tepees and puts them on their
horses and they just walk out of frame, and you know,
Kevin Costner nods his head thoughtfully, and you know, these
(19:56):
people are proud and all that sort of thing. Historically,
what they did is they went up into Alberta, and
they went into Alberta, Canada, where nobody wanted to live
in at that time. And one URCMP officer met thirty
thousand Dakota tribe member. Like you know, it seemed like
(20:18):
an immigration catastrophe. And the one officer apparently said, what
are you guys doing. We're just gonna look for a
new place, okay, don't cause any trouble. And the RCA
person just said, welcome to Alberta. That was the Canadian
immigration policy at that time. And there was no oh,
(20:42):
the savages are coming, oh, you know, no consternation, no whatsoever.
It's just like, yeah, it's lots of land here, you go, off,
you go. That ending of Dances with Wolf would have
been so much more satisfying to every Canadian viewer.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I know we're jumping all around, but this is such
a huge topic. This is we're the blind men and
this is the elephant. What's fascinating is this is a
conversation that two hundred years from now might be really
different in whatever form storytelling takes, because we have so
(21:24):
much more documentation, hopefully unless nuclear pulses everything, but you know,
the historic record is more enormous. And so what I'm
thinking about are some recent historic films. Oh my goodness,
you know the one that I liked so much last
(21:45):
year that was about the the Munich Olympics, and yeah,
that was the title of it. The title was a date,
and that was was problematic. But that movie I'm thinking
about I haven't yet to see. I have yet to
avail myself of the television broadcast of the George Clooney
(22:09):
Broadway show good Night and good Luck, but the movie
that he made. Here's two really wonderfully done historic dramas
that entirely rely on the recorded the record of what happened.
Because you have all the broadcasts, you have all the transcripts,
(22:32):
you have the congressional transcripts, you have the written reports
in the case of the Munich one of the police,
you have their press conferences. You can just use what
is public record, and then the first hand accounts of
the people who were involved in these broadcasts of what
(22:52):
were the conversations going on around it, And you have
actual historic depictions. And yes, actors make choices embodying these characters,
but the movies are not about interpreting their characters. The
movies are about examining the choices that are made and
(23:14):
so and in both cases, I think in good Night
and good Luck, wasn't George Clooney the biggest star, and
he gives himself the role of just the live TV
director right in that David strathare wonderful workmanlike actor had
you know, an actor's actor at that time, but he
was not a star. And that's the other element of
(23:37):
it that I would say is I think we are
moving into a time where less and less do you
need stars, And that's that has always been a big
stumbling point to me. And the example that I use
is a Kevin Coster film and it's JFKA, all the
stuff around, the conspiracies and the mist trees, notwithstanding in
(24:02):
the dangers of of what you take as real and
not real, the traps of that. The casting of Kevin
Costner was fascinating to me because Jim Garrison is a
complicated figure right as a lawyer, but Kevin in real life.
But Kevin Costner was not a complicated figure at that point.
(24:25):
He was an idiomatic pillar of virtue cinematic. Right you
put him in it. You have expressed a point of view.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
On this person already, right, just by cat.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
The other example I use of that was as a
kid seeing a Star Trek episode you brought up a
few weeks ago Specter of the Gun, the one in
the Old West at the OK Corral. I'm a little
kid seeing this, and my heroes Kirk and Spock and
McCoy are the Clantons, right and there they're trapped and
(25:01):
trying to find a way out and oh my goodness,
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and these are dark, scary figures.
So the little boy in me gets the message that
the Clintons have been wronged by history. Ah, because you
(25:22):
cast my heroes to play that part. And I'm not
saying that that is a flaw of the show. I'm
just saying as a young person coming to it and
really effective storytelling, that was the impact on me.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
For sure. And you can frame that anyway, right. I
think of the Brad Pitt movie The Killing of.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh Assassination of Jesse James.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Ye James by Rob Ford right, which to.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
His day, to this day, Brad Pitt says it's his favorite,
is the movie he's most proud of. Is his favorite movie,
and it's his least successful film too.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Absolutely, But his work as Jesse James, particularly where he
knows he has to be shot and or air quotes
maybe other historical facts say that it was faked, that
was a fake assassination. But he's up on a ladder
dusting a frame while coward rob for is about to
(26:30):
shoot him, and then goes on and does a play
one hundred and forty performances of the very assassination that
he did. And he toured the country reenacting the assassination
of Jesse James. So I can see why this why
Brad Pitt's so proud of it. But this is now
(26:53):
a thing about historical accuracy from a perspective, right by
me casting Brad Pitt is Jesse James, he comes off
of the hero casting who was Robert Jeez?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Was it one of the Afflecks or.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, Casey Affleck. It was Casey Affleck. And he
totally was playing it diminished and psychologically confused and sad.
And so you you now put a historical fact into
(27:35):
an emotional landscape that may or may not have happened, right,
And I think this is what every movie maker and
every screenwriter comes up to. Here's your historical facts, you
got your dates, you got your things that happen. What
emotional through line are you going to draw? And you
(27:56):
can draw it into arcs right one the hero is fantastic,
or one the guy who's a villain technically is not
the villain. We can go back to Judas for crying
out loud, Judas being the hero because.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Of course, I mean this is as you know, storytelling wise,
this is the point of view that I maintain. Yeah,
I know, because because without that betrayal, then there is
no heroic journey. Jesus does not become the Christ unless
he is betrayed. And if you really read, you know,
(28:34):
your texts, it's like he was the one that was closest,
the one that loved Jesus the most. Of course he
was because he was the only one that Jesus trusted.
Zactly do it when Jesus says, one of you will
betray me and they all say no, no, no, He's
taking volunteers, and because he needs that to happen, I mean,
(28:56):
the whole idea of like why would Judas sell him
out for a bag of coins that he then throws away.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Right because he's trapped with guilt And there's an emotional
through line right there you can draw why he did that.
So those are two historical facts I can draw two
emotional betrayal.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
The word betrayal, betray of course, the origin of the
word betray means to serve.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Ah, yeah, yeah, this is.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Fascinating. I think we'll come back to this the question
what historic dramas have you enjoyed that you could recommend
A maybe this is honestly a special theme show. Let's
do a list of historic dramas we've enjoyed, and then
we talk about why we've enjoyed them, right, and will
(29:50):
again come into some of the things that we think
people are smart to do, and even in the ones
we've enjoyed, probably come up against things that are like
this is a danger.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, and if when you rewrite it or you reimagine
the emotional through line of.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Again put simply, I don't think much has changed in
thousands of years of storytelling, where ideally the purpose is
to transport your audience, your listener, your reader, your viewer
right from there, here and now and take them somewhere
(30:32):
where they forget about that perhaps, but through that journey
give them something that they bring back to their here
and now right that in some way inspires or gives
a different perspective on things. Right, you take them away
(30:53):
from there, here and now so that you can bring
them closer to some part of their here and now.
And so the question with historic dramas, you know, I
think part of it always has to come back to look,
why are you telling the story? I mean, Musical biopicks
are a subgenre of historic dramas, and most of them
there is no reason for them to.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Exist except Chicago, Chicago, he had it coming.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
So that's not a musical biopick, though it is. Though
it's not about the band Chicago.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
No, No, it's about a murder. She murdered.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But that's not a musical biopick. That's not a biopick
of a musician.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Oh yeah, okay, good, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
That's a musical Yeah yeah, historic historic drama, I agree
with you. Yeah, it fits into this, But I'm talking
about the biopics of a musician. Biopicks are historic dramas, right,
you know, Elizabeth with Katelan. But the musical biopick, most
of them have no reason to exist beyond owning a
(31:56):
back catalog. Ah, and so therein lies the problem. Hey,
I'm going to offer up the ps SO Agent summer.
Thank you for the email. We're going to do a
whole special show built around this totally in the near future.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
So many movies running a yeah, so the the PS was.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
On a separate note, my latest non school work reading
selection was inspired by none other than Dean Hagland. I
picked up Beth Kempton's Wabi Sabby Japanese Wisdom for a
perfectly Imperfect Life and have been enjoying it fantastic. And
of course I wrote a whole essay about Wabi Sabby
and I'm going to send that link to agent summer.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And enjoying my imperfect life so well.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
The chill Pac Hollywood Live event of the Week.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
This week's live event was something I hosted so exciting,
a little something called Viva Los Felis Architecture at the
Barnes Dog Gallery Theater in the shadows of the frank
Wood right Hollyhowk House, the only UNESCO World Heritage site
in all of Southern California. I mean, they got the
Hollyhowk House, they got me as there MC Why this
(33:12):
night should have been called a Night of two Old Monuments?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Why wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It was the most fun of these, I think for
the audience, over sold, over.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Sold, packed beyond standing room only, so.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
It was the most fun for the audience. It was
a really, really fun show. I don't think it was
as much fun for my partner, Deborah Matlock, who produces
the show and creates all these incredible videos, because she
had more heavy lifting than usual on this thing, as
explained by one bit where I went into the audience
to work the crowd a bit and to ask people
(33:54):
about their favorite landmarks. I was kind of winging it
as I went right, but pretty soon as soon as
I was in the audience, people are raising their hands
for me to call on them so that they can
share their favorite landmarks. And I'm saying, I'm not taking volunteers.
I'm out here in the audience to take voluntels. The
last person I went up and talked to was my
(34:14):
pal Ben Deeb, who I had interviewed on a recent
episode of the Voice of Los Felis podcast, and I
pointed out that he a wonderful writer, was a staff
writer on Blackish for several years. He believes that everyone
in Los Felis should have a view of the Observatory
from their window afe his residence sadly does not afford,
(34:40):
so he remedied it by making his own stained glass
window of the Griffith Observatory. This thing is incredible. And
so that night in the audience, I said, Ben, I'm
assuming that means that the Griffith Observatory is your favoritvorite landmark.
(35:00):
So I'm not going to ask you that question. Instead,
the question I'm going to ask you is why do
you think I'm down here in the audience asking people
about their favorite landmarks? And he said because someone canceled.
And I said, quite right, because someone canceled. And that
is why Deborah Mattluck may not have enjoyed this one
(35:21):
so much, because she had boy had to pull more
than yeoman's duty, not just to produce the show, but
to fill in the gaps with the videos that she
was making.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
But who's filmed? Are?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
They're filmed, but they I don't think they become publicly
available for anyone outside the Lose Feelus Improvement Association. I
do need to find that out because some people who
were there want to share it with people, So we'll
we'll see.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Just drop it up on YouTube. I mean, you don't
need that many views, but you can have it as it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I don't think you need it at all. I think
it's perfectly fine that it becomes something that only people
who are there get to experience. Crowds are getting bigger
and bigger for this thing. Our next one, we don't
even have as many seats as people who showed up
for this one, so it's like two hundred and fifty seats.
We're back in the autry for on December seventeenth, a
(36:10):
Viva Los Felis all about Hollywood history in Los Felis
and Holly Day's history in Los Felis. So it's Holly
Days and Hollywood. It's Viva Los Felis Tinsol town. Ah,
so it's gonna be great. And then after that we're
(36:31):
thinking about doing a regular monthly run in a small
theater on a subscription basis. Ooh yeah, that'll be fun.
But man, the people that I called upon. Lil made
her first return to the stage since starting cancer treatments.
She played Aleen Barnes Doll in an improvised Great Moments
(36:54):
in Architecture History, a conversation between Allen Barnes Doll and
Frank Lloyd Wright and as Frank Wood, right, my dear friend,
the brilliant improviser and just about the most brilliant person
I've ever met Fernando Funez. We had a marching band,
the Hollywood High Steppers. They played me onto the stage
with one of those themes go marching in. First they
(37:16):
were upstairs greeting everyone who came in, and then they
came down to the below the subterranean theater, and of
course our pal John Lawler flew into town to do
a couple numbers, including a live version of the Viva
los Felis theme song.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Oh Vegas, Yeah, Las Vegas.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
And it was so good and uh, and then mostly
it was like the most fun for me. There's two
reasons it was the most fun for me, I think,
I mean there were other reason, smaller reasons, right, like
getting to see Lil on stage, Like it was cool
that when hosting I actually sat down in the audience
to watch her improv performance and then to watch her
(37:57):
sing a version of the old folks song If I
Had a Hammer written by singer, and so I get
to sit and watch and enjoy that. Of course, but
doing the show itself often, as you know, it's it's
(38:19):
often it's not fun. It's not fun during it's it's
really rewarding afterwards. You you there's a bit of a
marathon element to it. There's you know, but this one.
Once I nailed the monologue, I had a ball. And
what I've realizing is the importance of a monologue is
(38:44):
not like your jokes killing, because I think when people
hear monologue, they automatically think jokes. And there were jokes,
but the purpose of the monologue is to really establish
the tone, absolutely create the tone.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
And yeah, the atmosphere in the room.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And if you've done that, because people said it was
a really rowdy crowd, but man, we created this crucible
of energy after that monologue and I could just swim
in that for the rest of the night, and so
that made it so much fun. Yeah, and freeing, right,
just liberating because from that point on it you know,
(39:24):
obviously I have to get people's names right and their
bona fides right, but most of what I'm doing is
improvised from that point on. And so it was this
combination of really preparing, giving part of what was prepared,
and then being able to let go and dive in
and swim. So that was fun, but let's not kid ourselves.
The most fun was that I got to spend most
(39:46):
of the night just hanging out backstage with John Lawler.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
It was a bo Did he have a good time
or was he nervous or like I guess, I think.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
He was probably nervous before and we should ask him
next week. I think he did have I think we
did have a ball and he crushed it. He killed it.
Don't don't kid yourself. People wanting to get photos with
him afterwards it was so sweet. Wow, it was. It
was really fun. So we'll ask him about his point
on it. But uh, yeah, Viva Viva loos feelis I'm
(40:17):
going to be doing more. Who knows, maybe maybe you'll
come to LA for the holidays this year. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Maybe we're talking that there's a four animal road trip
that will be extraordinary. It might be just me driving
four animals across the country because of Patty's work schedule,
so I will probably dial it back to seven hour visits.
(40:48):
So that might be one extra city that would go to.
Generally it's Saint Louis des Moines, Denver, Richfield, Utah, and
then we get to LA.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And all how much do these cities chillpeck, holly, whatever.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
They're all lovely cities. All of them have hotels that
take cats and dogs.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Maybe you'll be a part of Viva Los Felis Tinsel Town.
I mean, think about Dean Haglan doing a piece on
some of the silent sunk that was done in this area.
I mean, we'll just plant that seed. People love production
meetings for other shows that they'll never get to see
(41:29):
on the air. If I know anything about people. Hey,
a question. Second email that we got this week, really
it boils down to this, have you seen weapons?
Speaker 3 (41:41):
No?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
This email was so damn good that I'm not gonna
wait on it. So since you haven't seen it, I'm
I'm interviewing our friend Steve Benequist today for my other podcast,
for the Voice of Los Felis, because he was kind
enough to fill in me hosting one of my shows,
The Voices of Los Felis and up at Barnes Doll
(42:08):
a weekend ago. And it was a big, big hit
and he did great. Of course he did. But I
had a prior commitment taking taking my wife to go
see Pink Martini, So I set that whole thing up,
did all the tech on it and everything, and then
he he dropped in to host it, did a great job.
So I'm going to interview him about that, but since
(42:28):
I also saw Weapons with him, Yeah, I'm just gonna
ask the questions to him. We are recording in the
Rooftop Studios, the Rooftop Studio on Vermont Avenue. The voice
you've been hearing is Steve Benequist. And Steve, this is
a classic two bird bush situation. If I'm using that correctly,
(42:53):
if that's not a birdstone, if that's not a mala
for Yeah, because I need to ask you questions for
both the podcasts I do, all right. The voice of
those Felisa and Chillpack Hollywood Hour, and I want to
begin with Chill Pack because I received a message from
(43:15):
a loyal listener of the show, Dean needs to see
Weapons Phil because Hagland, after championing Zach Krieger's previous film Barbarian,
still has not seen this. Why not? I don't know.
Is it possible that it's because it's too successful.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
I can get a little resistant when something's hyped too much. However,
you guys have a podcast where you talk about movies,
so come on, yeah, do a little work and it's
a really good movie. Yes, So here was the.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Question, and I thought well, I'll just ask Steve this
because we saw the movie together. So do you think
Aunt Gladys the yes witchcraft practicing, how are.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
We spoiling or no, we should We should let the
listeners know if we are going to.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
There could be possible spoilers. Okay, but do you think
Aunt Gladys serves as a stand in for gun manufacturers,
as in the real reason these kids are in jeopardy,
these school kids which no one is paying attention to
(44:27):
while the entire town searches for escapegoat. I did find
myself speaking about on the show, how you know. I
thought there were some moments that were scary in the
first half, but then what kind of surprised me was
it is a horror film, but really from the second
half home, it's not scary, you know, and that's gruesome
(44:52):
in the very end. Gruesome, sure, and there are some
horrifying ramifications of things well actually.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
And in the okay, spoilers, a little bit of spoilers. Okay,
when the sort of the grand the Battle Royale, let's
call it, at the end where the parents and you know,
there's some scares there. I thought the nature of the
attack was like, oh my gosh, these people who have
bonded are gonna kill each other.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
And but I guess because of the nature of the
structure of it and how almost Rachamon like, and how
we keep seeing the lead up that's a big spoiler
to certain events, and then we switch the perspective and
we see it again, so we keep going back, and
then the more we are able to build a context,
(45:41):
then the less scary it is, because there's not quote
unquote that like the mysterious unknown of it, right, But
as I said, it still can be horrifying at times.
And what I found was one of the most horrifying
(46:01):
things was not so much the evil that is on
display in the movie so much as our need as
community members who feel pain and put upon to victimize
and blame and to find scapegoats, that that is kind
(46:23):
of to weaponize our powerlessness. Yeah, you know, by finding
Boogeyman instead of doing anything about the actual problem. And
that really resonated with me in our contemporary time, and
I found that rather horrifying, and so the idea that
(46:46):
it could be specifically a stand in.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
I don't to answer the question really directly, I would
say I don't think it was that character is intended
as a direct metaphor. I don't think it really quite works.
Although that's a really intriguing read, and like as soon
as you read it, I thought, that's a really cool
because if you recall, I said something to you at
the very end when they were I'm so torn on
(47:13):
whether to spoil, but we've spoiled it.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
I've already shared with the audience you're lying about this
is what happens when Trump does I think I've already
shared that A yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:23):
Because she I mean literally cast a spell on them.
But that's what that felt like to me as far
as metaphors go. I mean, I saw it immediately. I'm like,
people doing terrible things to each other, and well, yeah,
I reasoningly.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I do think that there is a specific message about
what we see altogether in culture, where you try to
weaponize people's vulnerability, people's sense of powerlessness, their fear. You
can gain power by weaponizing that. Ultimately you can't control it.
(48:02):
You are going to be thrown under the bus you
help create. And we've seen a lot of figures have
that happen. I mean, Carl Rove was doing this in
the bush and boy, he's found himself in the political wilderness. Okay, anyway,
our listener ends with this tagline that he thinks should
have been used in the movies trailer from Weapons talk
(48:25):
about a house with an ant problem.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
That's great, that's great, listener, I can't top that one.
But actually to give their.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Suggestion that comes to us from Greg Vincent to loyal
listener Gvas, the one also asked the question, Yeah, the
fact that it's called weapons, I mean that's the title
of the film.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
That does tip it a little his way.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I mean, look, my answer to the question is he's
not wrong.
Speaker 4 (49:00):
No, not at all. No, it's it's a it's a
cool and I mean it's like take you back to
English class in high school. You know, you can have
different interpretations. Was that the direct intended only meaning? Maybe not,
but it's certainly I think it's it's a take worth expressing.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
You know, it's a I think it's internally consistent too.
I bet you could do a reading. I mean, it'd
be fun to watch, like the whole movie just from that.
I want to see it at the same time.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Actually, like it's one of those movies where because of
the whole Roschamant thing, which by the way we've already
spoiled it for you, But like going in there not
knowing that that was a part of it was awesome.
Like I really thought fully was going to be about
that teacher and because she was the one that you
would blame like.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
And yet you see Josh Brolin get up at a
council town hall meeting to blame her, and you go,
why did Josh Brolin take such a small role in
this movie? It was supposed to be Pedro Pascal, Oh really,
and then he got too busy because the movie got
delayed from the strikes and all of this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (50:06):
Brolin is a better choice because Pascal has made himself
the guy who's always the heroic, supportive, loving guy, and
Brolin has a certain he is likable, but it's weird.
No matter how many movies I see of him, my
first reaction is often, not always, but often like, ugh,
(50:27):
he's kind of a he's kind of a jockey bro
that I don't like, And then he wins me over. Yeah,
but like he's and that pugnaciousness or.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
He's liable to think.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
Second, yeah, you kind of think he's a.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Jerk and he's going to react first.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
He made it good, and because you're already on the
teacher's side, he made a good like, oh, we don't
really like him, and then you see that he has
a point of view, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Did you see Thunderbolts, No, the Marvel Thunderbolts. Okay, were
you familiar with them in the comics?
Speaker 3 (51:01):
No, I don't even remember going to the comic book
store and even seeing Thunderbolts as a title on a
you know, on the racks.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
So this, I want to talk about this because we
spend a lot of time talking about Marvel. Increasingly we
talk about it through the prism of this whole business
model of theirs less about the movies, and I was
kind of interested, sort of watching this. It's Thunderbolt's Asterisk
is the title of the film. The asterisk is due
(51:34):
to the fact that they are ultimately revealed to be
the New Avengers, and in the end credits that becomes
the official title of the film. So the official title
of the film is actually the New Avengers, but the
advertising didn't let you know that it was Thunderbolt's Asterisk. Okay,
It's the final film of Marvel's rather shockingly awful and
(51:55):
frequently poorly performing at the box office. Phase five of
their cinematic Universe. Right, five phases are up.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Dean, I know this scene they had in the Well
twenty fourteen or whatever.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Again, as I'm writing about and yet another essay, the
next time a good creative idea comes out of a
committee meeting will be the first time in the history
of ideas. Anyway, this film not without charm. Florence Florence
Pew and especially David Harber are frequently very funny, as
(52:35):
is Julia Louis Dreyfus, whose Cia Head is now clearly
a villain, and a villain that has been made to
look a lot like real life Russian turncoat Tulci Gabbard. Enough,
they really are making her look like her. Wow. Yes,
beyond charm though it really doesn't have much or try
(52:58):
for much. It's it's well done filler. But my first
question is are these superhero fights in these movies entertaining
anyone anymore? Fights?
Speaker 3 (53:09):
The action scenes, Yeah, because it's not a stunt choreography.
It's more digital. How do you do's? Right? I mean?
Speaker 2 (53:20):
And don't they all going back to the original Superman,
they kind of have the same element. If it's a
superhero figure. They have to keep amping up the threats
greater and greater and greater to make sense of the
fact that these heroes are being beaten up. But then
something turns, often working together, and they defeat the undefeatable. Anyway,
(53:46):
I am both surprised it didn't do better at the
domestic box office, as it's the best or should I
say it's the least bad of the seven Phase five films. Okay,
but it's also the one that literally doesn't feel necessary.
(54:09):
It grows to the second least of those films by
the way of the Phase five films, the second straight
Marvel movie to actually lose money, though again a negligible amounts.
So when you take into account all their collective revenue
streams and continuing to elevate the value of the overall library,
(54:31):
it's still turning a profit for Marvel in some way, right.
But even the biggest name in terms of the Marvel
cinematic universe to be in the film, Sebastian Stan who
had played the Winter Soldier in other movies and Ben
in Avengers movies and stuff like that, he looks so
exhausted with these films in this he just the actor,
(54:55):
seems so exhausted. At one point, Julia Louis Dreyfus says
of him, at least you're cute, And it's still true.
It's like, at least he's cute, but he is getting
a little long in the tooth to pass on cuteness alone.
If he's gonna keep somberly sleepwalking through these pointless exercises,
Oh my god, I mean, as an actor, Sebastian Stan
(55:18):
has moved on. I don't blame him. I mean he's
moved on. He's acquitted himself in really interesting movies outside
this universe. But he finds himself I'm guessing for business reasons, right,
God bless him still in these films, surrounded by people
that he is an actor no longer. It seems like anyway,
(55:40):
I was totally unfamiliar with the team from the comics.
Many of these characters had become kind of a I'd
become kind of aware of them through their appearance in
other one of the movies. You know, they're all anti
heroes who must band together to stop a new global
threat in the form of a lab produced superhero Century
(56:04):
played by Lewis Pullman. Oh Bill Pullman's son, who had
just been in that movie Riff Raff. I talked about
that that gangster thing with Bill Murray and and Lewis
Pullman at times is almost touching and and certainly almost charming.
Oh I kind of like his dad, almostman, which was
(56:28):
his Uh. But he's not much else. That's also the problem.
He's not much else. He's he's he's like a copy
of a copy of his dad. Anyway, I appreciated the laughs.
I appreciated that it was not convoluted. It was also
not heavy handed. But again it's so simplistic that I
(56:48):
can't help wondering why did they bother? Like, what is
going on?
Speaker 3 (56:53):
It's tough. Oh my god. And I just watched the
beginning of Friendship with the guy from the Detroiters that
I like so much.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and the.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
Weather Man and the punchline, the joke, Hey yeah, that
guy down the street inviting you for drinks at eight o'clock.
I said, you're gonna go, oh no, no, We're gonna
watch that new Marvel movie. I heard it's really crazy.
And the Sun God, I already saw it. It's not
that the like going to a Marvel movie is the
(57:27):
punchline of getting out of anything else that you will
ult just go no, no, I don't want to do
this thing. I want to go see a Marvel movie
like that is the man.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
I've talked about this film Friendship before on the on
the show, and you know it's it's more than that.
I mean, it's it's the excuse given by sociopaths as
depicted in Friendship, because you need to see I mean,
you've seen enough to know that the dude's associopath. There's
there's that scene at the beginning where he's in a
cancer recovery group therapy women who have cancer and their spouses,
(58:06):
and he manages to make it be all about himself.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
Totally, totally. Yeah. So all of it is like, oh,
so creepy. But my jaw drop was, oh, here the
writers are putting Marvel movies any mark. He doesn't even
specify what the Marvel movie is. It's like, oh, there's
another Marvel movie out. We have to go to get
away from him having a contact with a neighbor for drinks,
(58:34):
and it's like, oh my god, Like, does Marvel know
that other screenwriters are throwing them under the bus. Like
that that seems.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
So I was going to run you through just some
numbers here to show what the effects of franchise fatigue
are in terms of not just the box office, but
in terms of critics and audience. Right, our pal John
Lawler said something that I thought was really smart that
(59:04):
he looks at what a movie's Metacritics score is, not
the Rotten Tomato score, the Metacritic because those are the
top critics, and the audience score, the user rating on
IMDb because that's the user rating that's the least manipulated, right,
because they've figured out a way to keep bots out
of it and all this sort of stuff. So I
(59:27):
was looking at those numbers, the John Lawler numbers to see,
like what what what are critics and what do our
audiences really think? Despite you know, the box office and
that you know, this Thunderbolts one actually critically the best
reviewed all of all of Phase five, cause seven films
(59:50):
of Phase five sixty eight points out of one hundred. Okay,
that's not great, but it's above fifty. You know, a
superhero movie, an action movie being above sixty means somewhat
recommend especially if you're a fan of the genre. That's
the best one. The lowest one was ant Man and
(01:00:13):
the Wasp Guanta Mania, which was the first of Phase five.
They started this so poorly. That got a forty eight.
Oo man, oh, I'm sorry. That was the worst until
Captain America Brave New World, which was forty two. I mean,
some of these. You've got the Marvels at fifty, You've
(01:00:34):
got Deadpool and Wolverine at fifty six. That's the one
big hit out of them. And some of these have
been met with some audience love. Guardians of the Galaxy
three got a seven point nine from the audience, Deadpool, Deadpool,
and Wolverine audience has got what they wanted seven point five.
(01:00:56):
I'm more on a lot of laughs. I'm more on
the side of the critics who gave it fifty six
because I just thought, oh my god, it's so tortured
getting to the laughs. Yes, right, and the previous movies
had not felt that way, and somehow you bring it
into the Marvel Cinematic universe and suddenly it has to
(01:01:18):
be tortured. But and Thunderbolt's got a seven point two,
the current Fantastic four seven point three. Really, so anyway,
and that's the first of cinematic Phase six, of course.
But my point is a malaise is setting in with
(01:01:40):
the audience because these numbers are all lower than what
came before, and I feel like critics are you know,
we're no longer talking about movies in the seventies and eighties.
We're now talking about them in the forties, fifties, and
sixties of critical points. So yeah, over the course of
(01:02:02):
this phase, yeah, your critical group and your audience have
definitely downshifted in their appreciation. And you've gotta believe based
on these box office numbers, then their appetite one.
Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
Because you have these Harvard MBA eggheads coming going product locomotive,
what's our box cars? What's our risk management? Not one
of them going, hey, what do we have an idea?
Do we have a great script? No? No, no, no,
we need this to happen. We need phase six, which
(01:02:41):
sounds like, you know, the last twenty box cars of
three locomotives trying to pull a train set up the hill.
And once you start thinking like that in terms of
creative artistic which say what you will about filmmaking, it's
still an art form. It's still people who have trained
(01:03:06):
in writing and directing and lighting and acting. These are
all crafts. And to put a bunch of you know,
money and suits and corporate thought I think is the problem.
It's a corporate thought piece now, and that corporate thought
(01:03:28):
piece just rubs wrong with how anybody wants to view
any piece of artwork.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
On the small screen. I'm thinking about two different franchises
a lot these days and these very same issues, and
they both well, in one case, started as a small
screen franchise, became a big screen franchise, and then back
almost predominantly to the small screen. And that's Star Trek, right.
(01:04:00):
So thinking about the Alien franchise, have you have you
been watching Alien Earth?
Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
No? Because I still don't have my Disney plus.
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
You don't have Hulu. No, So there are five episodes
into Alien Earth. I'll just simply say that what's so
exciting is that this show has has carved out so
much terrain for itself tonally, thematically and dramatically. Wow, several
(01:04:31):
different settings, many interesting characters with their own intriguing stories
and mysteries and maybe unknown and unknowable aims. It's really
quite nifty and absolutely what I would hope for from
the guy who pulled off Fargo, Oh yeah, which again
(01:04:52):
had five seasons, four of which were at least pretty good,
which is which is for an anthology show. I mean,
that's amazing, really good, you know, ratio. Three of those
seasons were very good, and two of those seasons were
among the best seasons of television ever, and the one
(01:05:16):
truly bad season still had an episode that I would
rank as one of the ten greatest television episodes of
all time East West, and that came from the yes, exactly,
and that came from the bad season. So, you know,
how smart again a corporate committee deciding how do we
(01:05:38):
keep this franchise going? Because you know they're going to
keep it going in movies, but on the small screen, Hey,
why don't we get someone who has already proven it
doing something like this right and doing it in a
realm that's harder. Hey, how about expand the Cohen Brothers universe.
(01:06:03):
How many people could speak that language for sure? And
so getting him and as I said last week or
a couple weeks ago, whenever we talked about it last,
this was a guy that was supposed to be directing
the next big screen Star Trek movie, right exactly who
they needed exactly. You know, I have been a fan
(01:06:28):
of Strange New Worlds. I found it almost to be
a physical save on my soul at times. But have
you been watching season three?
Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
We just.
Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
Picked up I think first episode of season three.
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
First episode, so you have not been watching. The last
episode comes out this week. In January. Yeah, there was
a brand new Trek film that was made for the
Paramount Plus streaming service that focused on Michelle Yeoh's character
(01:07:10):
from Star Trek Discovery. It was a feature film called
Star Trek Section thirty one. Oh okay, that was in January,
and at the time of seeing it, I wrote in
my notes this subject held so many possibilities as a
(01:07:31):
movie about clandestine starfleet activities. Oh oh, my god, the
possibilities of having a really cool espionage story, right, or
a sci fi space version of Mission Impossible, which is
what I think it wanted to be cool. Unfortunately, in
(01:07:53):
this instance it would have been more accurate to call
it Mission perfunctory. There was a lot of action, none
of it involving in any way. My god, you had
Michelle Yeoh, you know, although at her age, probably also
Michelle Leo, and a lot of her stunt doubles. Right,
(01:08:15):
but still, but you have Michelle Leeo and we can't
be placed in the action the way that they certainly
did in the Hong Kong movies. Right. There are a
couple nice nods in that movie to Trek lore of
the past. It was a definite kick seeing a Delton,
for example, and Sam Richardson, the other star of the Detroiters,
(01:08:39):
tries his best to liven up the proceedings. But my god,
was this movie both paper thin and laborious. It is,
without a doubt, both with critics and audiences. It's the
single most hated thing Star Trek's ever done. Oh no,
perhaps the equivalent of like the Star Wars Christmas best.
Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Oh now, I'm going to watch this, oh.
Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
No, without any like like enjoyable. I mean, it is,
it is. It is brain cell killing this thing. So anyway,
the reason I bring all this up because I didn't
want to. I didn't I didn't need to trash Star Trek.
More So, I didn't bring this up at the time,
but I wrote down this when I saw it. I
am so happy that we have season three of Strange
(01:09:26):
New World's upcoming, or I might well be done with
Star Trek Wow, well, nine episodes of Strange New Worlds, Dane,
I am done with Star Trek. No, we we have
one episode left, but I don't think there's anything, honestly
(01:09:48):
that could redeem this season.
Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
I'm not watching Below Deck the Cartoons.
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
No, that's canceled. That got canceled.
Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
Oh what about the new one coming up with Holly.
Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
Hunter Starsleet Academy, part of the Panda Verse as it's
being called. Yeah, Alex Kurtzman basically announced like we're doing
everything that Star Trek fans hate the most, you know
which in this thing. So anyway, so we'll we'll talk
about that. But about season three, I guess when you
(01:10:20):
avail yourself of more of its.
Speaker 5 (01:10:24):
Guests, of your chillpack Hollywood Hours stay at the Baldwin
Hills motor End promotional consideration paid for by Empire State Gas.
From farm to pump, We've got great gas.
Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Belated spoiler alert
And now Your Chill Pack Hollywood Hour with Dean Hagland
and Phil Lareness's.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to Year nineteen, Episode eighteen of Your Chill Pack
Hollywood Hour for the week of Monday, September the eighth,
the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty five. Coming at
you from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Los Phelis. I
am Phil Lareness and joining us via the magic of
podcasting and zoom all the way from the environs of Detroit.
It's the Motor City adjacent Madman TV's Dean Hagland. In disclosure,
(01:00):
we are recording this several days early on Friday the fifth.
Why are we doing this, Dean, Ah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Some of us are traveling, and some of us are
not traveling, and some of us are very busy, and
some of us are not very busy.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Which one of us is not very busy?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I don't know. I think you are.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I mean you are enjoying what our listeners have come
to love. A tall glass with a lot of ice
in it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It is still warm here in Michigan, thank you very much.
As much as the cool breeze comes across you.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Know, there are these things that you can put beverages
into chill. You can even chill the glasses in it.
What Yeah, okay, anyway, but how seriously how much do
people pay to listen to this show? So again, if
audio quality were to start now, it would not be
your'll pack Hollywood Hour. Uh So, then if there is
(02:03):
any way for you to be less specific in the answer,
let me know. Okay, some of us are not traveling.
That is true. We are not, I think more to
the point we're recording. Maybe we're not traveling together, in
which case we could record maybe even today the show
comes out exactly, but you are.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We should fly together somewhere and record a chill peck
oh security, like just like live record you and I
flying somewhere.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
The longest whatever the longest flight is, and we just
record the whole thing. It'll be our first marathon since
the Mayan podcast We're gonna get. We would be so
passed out from drinking so fast.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
We miss a flight to Perth, Australia. I'm promising you
know there's a sci fi convention in Perth, Australia that's
very good and that would be an excellent flight.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Why are you traveling this week? What's going on Dan.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Oh, you know, you know what's going on?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Maybe I know, but maybe the listeners don't.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
All right, I am workshopping a play, believe it. Yes,
a friend of mine from we were in Team theater
school in Winnipeg at Prairie Theater Exchange, and we've kept
in touch all these years, maybe three, four or five
of us have from that healthy en days and we've
(03:37):
come into each other's lives. And so he reached out
to me and said, I got a Canada Council grant.
Would you like to come up and workshop a play
for a week. No guarantee of a performance, but putting
something together for the cultural enrichment of Winnipeg and perhaps
(03:59):
all of Canada and maybe the globe.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
And like you said, it may nothing may come of it.
But if something does, how cool to have been able
to witness the evolution of it from the ground floor.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Absolutely, you know, workshopping is a unique It requires improv skills,
of course, and requires thought and often sitting around and
talking ideas out. The Drowsy Chaperone Broadway show were a
bunch of la improvisers that workshop to play and came
up with that. So so you know, there is hit
(04:34):
Broadway shows to become of improvisational workshops and so on
and so forth. So it's a it's a method of
playwriting that's quite quite fun.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I have never had the chance to workshop a play.
I often play workshop, but I don't. It's a little thing.
You know, other kids would play doctor and police and soldier.
I'd play workshop. You know, you're just why me playing
Santa every year at Traveltown makes so much sense because
(05:07):
I have that experience. Back on any.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Way, let me send that toy for you.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And is there not I may be totally mistaking this,
but is there something going on art wise for you
right around now?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah? Well, there's an art show in Hamilton, Ontario called
Winnipeg in Ontario. It's Winnipeg Artists and it's curated by
the same guy workshop in the play. And he said,
do you have any paintings? You being technically though you
haven't lived in Winnipeg since the eighties, you're technically a
(05:46):
Winnipeg artist, do you have any pieces that would go
into this show in Hamilton? And so I sent them
a couple of things and he kind of liked them.
And so luckily area of Detroit is very close to Ontario.
So in fact, Hamilton is about the same distance as
driving La to Vegas.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Since you're going to be spending so much time in
Canada and celebrating Winnipeg your ancestral mans, I'm sure that
you've taken in by now the king of Canadian absurdism,
Matthew rankins film right universal language, so that you can
(06:29):
drop some pearls of wisdom, some inspirations from that into
this workshop scenario.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Well, what I thought I would do is I'd watch
it there, because I imagine my hometown has changed a
little bit in the twenty plus years I've been away,
and I would think Matthew Rank has a different insight
to the city and I grew up in So I'm
(06:55):
going to compare and contrast. In fact, I'm going to
visit every venue that my punk band Truncheon Scars played
one evening, So I'm gonna go to all the bars, and.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You think you think both of those venues will still
be a see what I did?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
You did very good?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Uh? You know this is an interesting segue into an
email that we got because I like the idea that
you would be able to compare this person's work with
your own history of the place. First of all, I
will say a little bit of a meea couple. We
do have emails backing up for John Lawler specifically, and
(07:41):
we promise to get him on next week to answer them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We promise.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
But we do have two emails from listeners this week
that that hopefully we can address. And the first of these,
which I think is an interesting segue from what you
were describing, Dear Dean and Phil. Hey, that's us as
a fan of historic dramas in both film and television.
Of course, there are two main types of period pieces.
(08:10):
One those based around a specific time period, which may
utilize events of the era, such as Downton Abbey, when
calls the Heart, I don't. I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
One don't know Whens calls art No.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Dances with Wolves, I don't. I don't know that except
I always referred to it as dances with hair pieces.
But the Graham Green, who were not going to take
time to remember on today's show, But like what a
today great actor, Oh my god, he deserves more time
than we have for today. So anyway, Bridgerton another one
(08:48):
which is a show I am aware of, but I
but I have not seen. But the main characters, or
at least most of those main characters did not exist
in real life. So the example is around a specific
time period referencing historic events, but with fictional characters. Then
the second type of historic drama based around actual historic figures,
(09:12):
the Crown, Tombstone, Medici Apollo thirteen, so many that can
be in many different genres. Even right epochs yep I
have been considering the importance of historical facts surrounding this genre.
Changing some small artistic license for a better storyline or
(09:35):
giving a character more nuance and interest seems allowable. I
don't remember, Dean, this as me interjecting, I don't remember
what show it was in my formative years. It feels
like something that could have been SCTV, who knows. But
they did a you know, like a biopic, fake biopick,
(09:56):
and the opening was, you know, based on historic facts,
but filled with half truths and lies to make it
interesting and and and and it's a really funny joke,
but it is really the crux of a tough choice,
which is like, what do you owe history? What do
you owe your audience in terms of entertainment?
Speaker 3 (10:18):
For sure?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Anyway, So back to the the email, there there must
there also must be a fine line to not cross
to make people and those of the era you know,
seem unrealistic. The costumes need to be realistic for the time,
but most modern audiences will overlook the use of makeup
(10:41):
which may not have been used in the time period.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Oh fascinating.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
The reason No. S Feratu was uh really the crew
on that was very uh you know, not only inspired,
but ordered. Their marching orders were to be painstaking in
their historic authenticity of the details of the production design,
(11:09):
the costumes, the makeup right, don't use makeup that did
not exist at the time, So they've all developed the plague,
no all the actors. Anyway, back to the email. For
me this historic These historical dramas tend to be a
(11:32):
starting point for me to dive into history and learn more. However,
I'm not certain how many others take the time for this,
so deviation from history could lead some to believe the
depicted distortion as facts. Would love to hear your thoughts
on this subject, as well as any suggestions of historical
(11:52):
dramas which you have enjoyed and felt were beneficial to view.
Loyal Memory of the chillpac Nation Agent summer agent, and
then she has a ps that'll come to at the end.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I see, well, I just finished Rewatching Alexander the Great,
a six part series HBO Max. I'm going to sing,
I think, and it's intercut with historians explaining because the
amount of information we have about Alexander Great, of course,
(12:30):
from three hundred and thirty three BC, is rather limited,
and his rise from a Macedonian son of a senator
to the ruler of most of the known world. How
he defeated Darius the Second in Persia amazing a tactician
(12:53):
in his twenties, he did all well, he was in
his twenties. And the saying that you are the son
of the divine So that's where Alexander the Great came from.
All of this redefines how you see history because it
(13:14):
reenacted stuff, It reenacted battles, and it supposed emotional air
quote emotional aspects of all the players involved, be it
Alexander Great, his assistance, mother, you know, all of that
sort of thing. So I loved it for its detail,
(13:39):
but I was circumspect of its emotional through line, right
because you have to extrapolate based on I mean, how
much writing from three hundred and thirty BC still exists, right,
it's only a few tablets and maybe a couple of
school from a Roman historian.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So again, there's also one other source of, may I say,
just historic record that they hopefully availed themselves of, and
that was the nineteen sixty eight television pilot Alexander the Great,
directed by Phil Carlson, who had done so many wonderful
gritty film noir you know movies, and I guess it's
(14:28):
actually it finally got shown in sixty eight, but this
TV pilot was filmed in sixty three, shown as a
TV movie in sixty eight, but it was filmed as
a pilot in sixty three. Alexander the Great starring as
Alexander the Great William Shatner.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
No, why haven't I seen this?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Co starring Adam West.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
No, wait what however, Hey.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
The cast also includes Joseph Cotton, who we talked about
last week when I was regaling with my thoughts on
the third Man, and uh, John Cassavetti's.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
He must be Darius the Second.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Then he's Coronos cons.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Who's Adam West?
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Uh you don't know Cleander?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Oh? Cleander was his Yeah, his major second.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
So hopefully, that's what I'm saying. Hopefully they availed themselves
of all the rich historic material that this television pilot,
no doubt.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Deeply researched to get.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That this this question, God, the historic dramas, I mean, uh.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I know Hogan is Hogan's Heroes? Okay, accurate of World
War Two?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Well, first of all, you are right out into comedy
right now. So I was gonna, I was thinking Hogan's
Heroes because it's the same era. But I was saying,
even if we are sure you the idea of comedy,
you know, I would argue that we have entire world
religions that are I don't know, illustrative of the tricky
(16:18):
nature of telling stories of history. Oh yeah, you know,
getting together as a counsel and deciding which of these
many texts should comprise the story of what happened two
hundred years ago, right, and this will dictate how people
live for the next two thousand years. But since that
(16:44):
point onward, certainly, boy, storytellers have a power, and one
would think maybe a responsibility. And so how do you
how do you address that? What is your master, Dean?
When you're telling a historic drama and it becomes really
(17:05):
messy in a corporate landscape, of course, because you so
often find competing masters. But you know, you know, hopefully
at the very least as naive as it sounds, you're
trying to tell an entertaining story that enriches and inspires
in some ways.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Absolutely, and so okay, I mean the greatest story ever told?
What are we talking about? Moses, Party of the Red Sea?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Oh, I was thinking murder on the Orient Express.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Okay, oh, murder on there a great example of is
it historical telling? Because somebody did die on the Orient Express.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
On Well, well remember the whole crime spoiler alert, but
they announced it at the beginning of the movies. But
it's a thinly veiled depiction of the Limburg baby.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yes, oh that's right, the kidnapping of the Limberg baby.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
They use that. So this would fit in in some
real ways to what she's describing, right, you know, the
fictional characters, but using the real world. Can we say
that that is less thorny, that there's less potential damage
(18:26):
of doing such a thing, Because if you see dances
with wolves and you take that as historic, even with
the mullet of the lead character, you are you're just
(18:47):
exposing yourself as someone that doesn't care about the facts
of something, right, like what I know of the treatment
of Native Americans I know from Kevin Costner. Okay, we
can write you off pretty much, but boy, casting it,
(19:08):
this is a whole other conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
But then the one that's about the real the one
about the real characters, I'm gonna say, is more thorny
because every decision you make, you are depicting human beings
who are who are complicated, who are all messy, and
you are putting your finger on the scale of how
people should remember them and interpret them.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Right. And there's a Canadian version of Dances of Wolves
that this armchair director right here wants to cut, which
adds an extra scene because at the end, the Dakota
Nation packs up their tepees and puts them on their
horses and they just walk out of frame, and you know,
Kevin Costner nods his head thoughtfully, and you know, these
(19:56):
people are proud and all that sort of thing. Historically,
what they did is they went up into Alberta, and
they went into Alberta, Canada, where nobody wanted to live
in at that time. And one URCMP officer met thirty
thousand Dakota tribe member. Like you know, it seemed like
(20:18):
an immigration catastrophe. And the one officer apparently said, what
are you guys doing. We're just gonna look for a
new place, okay, don't cause any trouble. And the RCA
person just said, welcome to Alberta. That was the Canadian
immigration policy at that time. And there was no oh,
(20:42):
the savages are coming, oh, you know, no consternation, no whatsoever.
It's just like, yeah, it's lots of land here, you go, off,
you go. That ending of Dances with Wolf would have
been so much more satisfying to every Canadian viewer.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I know we're jumping all around, but this is such
a huge topic. This is we're the blind men and
this is the elephant. What's fascinating is this is a
conversation that two hundred years from now might be really
different in whatever form storytelling takes, because we have so
(21:24):
much more documentation, hopefully unless nuclear pulses everything, but you know,
the historic record is more enormous. And so what I'm
thinking about are some recent historic films. Oh my goodness,
you know the one that I liked so much last
(21:45):
year that was about the the Munich Olympics, and yeah,
that was the title of it. The title was a date,
and that was was problematic. But that movie I'm thinking
about I haven't yet to see. I have yet to
avail myself of the television broadcast of the George Clooney
(22:09):
Broadway show good Night and good Luck, but the movie
that he made. Here's two really wonderfully done historic dramas
that entirely rely on the recorded the record of what happened.
Because you have all the broadcasts, you have all the transcripts,
(22:32):
you have the congressional transcripts, you have the written reports
in the case of the Munich one of the police,
you have their press conferences. You can just use what
is public record, and then the first hand accounts of
the people who were involved in these broadcasts of what
(22:52):
were the conversations going on around it, And you have
actual historic depictions. And yes, actors make choices embodying these characters,
but the movies are not about interpreting their characters. The
movies are about examining the choices that are made and
(23:14):
so and in both cases, I think in good Night
and good Luck, wasn't George Clooney the biggest star, and
he gives himself the role of just the live TV
director right in that David strathare wonderful workmanlike actor had
you know, an actor's actor at that time, but he
was not a star. And that's the other element of
(23:37):
it that I would say is I think we are
moving into a time where less and less do you
need stars, And that's that has always been a big
stumbling point to me. And the example that I use
is a Kevin Coster film and it's JFKA, all the
stuff around, the conspiracies and the mist trees, notwithstanding in
(24:02):
the dangers of of what you take as real and
not real, the traps of that. The casting of Kevin
Costner was fascinating to me because Jim Garrison is a
complicated figure right as a lawyer, but Kevin in real life.
But Kevin Costner was not a complicated figure at that point.
(24:25):
He was an idiomatic pillar of virtue cinematic. Right you
put him in it. You have expressed a point of view.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
On this person already, right, just by cat.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
The other example I use of that was as a
kid seeing a Star Trek episode you brought up a
few weeks ago Specter of the Gun, the one in
the Old West at the OK Corral. I'm a little
kid seeing this, and my heroes Kirk and Spock and
McCoy are the Clantons, right and there they're trapped and
(25:01):
trying to find a way out and oh my goodness,
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and these are dark, scary figures.
So the little boy in me gets the message that
the Clintons have been wronged by history. Ah, because you
(25:22):
cast my heroes to play that part. And I'm not
saying that that is a flaw of the show. I'm
just saying as a young person coming to it and
really effective storytelling, that was the impact on me.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
For sure. And you can frame that anyway, right. I
think of the Brad Pitt movie The Killing of.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh Assassination of Jesse James.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Ye James by Rob Ford right, which to.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
His day, to this day, Brad Pitt says it's his favorite,
is the movie he's most proud of. Is his favorite movie,
and it's his least successful film too.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Absolutely, But his work as Jesse James, particularly where he
knows he has to be shot and or air quotes
maybe other historical facts say that it was faked, that
was a fake assassination. But he's up on a ladder
dusting a frame while coward rob for is about to
(26:30):
shoot him, and then goes on and does a play
one hundred and forty performances of the very assassination that
he did. And he toured the country reenacting the assassination
of Jesse James. So I can see why this why
Brad Pitt's so proud of it. But this is now
(26:53):
a thing about historical accuracy from a perspective, right by
me casting Brad Pitt is Jesse James, he comes off
of the hero casting who was Robert Jeez?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Was it one of the Afflecks or.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, Casey Affleck. It was Casey Affleck. And he
totally was playing it diminished and psychologically confused and sad.
And so you you now put a historical fact into
(27:35):
an emotional landscape that may or may not have happened, right,
And I think this is what every movie maker and
every screenwriter comes up to. Here's your historical facts, you
got your dates, you got your things that happen. What
emotional through line are you going to draw? And you
(27:56):
can draw it into arcs right one the hero is fantastic,
or one the guy who's a villain technically is not
the villain. We can go back to Judas for crying
out loud, Judas being the hero because.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Of course, I mean this is as you know, storytelling wise,
this is the point of view that I maintain. Yeah,
I know, because because without that betrayal, then there is
no heroic journey. Jesus does not become the Christ unless
he is betrayed. And if you really read, you know,
(28:34):
your texts, it's like he was the one that was closest,
the one that loved Jesus the most. Of course he
was because he was the only one that Jesus trusted.
Zactly do it when Jesus says, one of you will
betray me and they all say no, no, no, He's
taking volunteers, and because he needs that to happen, I mean,
(28:56):
the whole idea of like why would Judas sell him
out for a bag of coins that he then throws away.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Right because he's trapped with guilt And there's an emotional
through line right there you can draw why he did that.
So those are two historical facts I can draw two
emotional betrayal.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
The word betrayal, betray of course, the origin of the
word betray means to serve.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Ah, yeah, yeah, this is.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Fascinating. I think we'll come back to this the question
what historic dramas have you enjoyed that you could recommend
A maybe this is honestly a special theme show. Let's
do a list of historic dramas we've enjoyed, and then
we talk about why we've enjoyed them, right, and will
(29:50):
again come into some of the things that we think
people are smart to do, and even in the ones
we've enjoyed, probably come up against things that are like
this is a danger.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Yeah, and if when you rewrite it or you reimagine
the emotional through line of.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Again put simply, I don't think much has changed in
thousands of years of storytelling, where ideally the purpose is
to transport your audience, your listener, your reader, your viewer
right from there, here and now and take them somewhere
(30:32):
where they forget about that perhaps, but through that journey
give them something that they bring back to their here
and now right that in some way inspires or gives
a different perspective on things. Right, you take them away
(30:53):
from there, here and now so that you can bring
them closer to some part of their here and now.
And so the question with historic dramas, you know, I
think part of it always has to come back to look,
why are you telling the story? I mean, Musical biopicks
are a subgenre of historic dramas, and most of them
there is no reason for them to.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Exist except Chicago, Chicago, he had it coming.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
So that's not a musical biopick, though it is. Though
it's not about the band Chicago.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
No, No, it's about a murder. She murdered.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
But that's not a musical biopick. That's not a biopick
of a musician.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Oh yeah, okay, good, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
That's a musical Yeah yeah, historic historic drama, I agree
with you. Yeah, it fits into this, But I'm talking
about the biopics of a musician. Biopicks are historic dramas, right,
you know, Elizabeth with Katelan. But the musical biopick, most
of them have no reason to exist beyond owning a
(31:56):
back catalog. Ah, and so therein lies the problem. Hey,
I'm going to offer up the ps SO Agent summer.
Thank you for the email. We're going to do a
whole special show built around this totally in the near future.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
So many movies running a yeah, so the the PS was.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
On a separate note, my latest non school work reading
selection was inspired by none other than Dean Hagland. I
picked up Beth Kempton's Wabi Sabby Japanese Wisdom for a
perfectly Imperfect Life and have been enjoying it fantastic. And
of course I wrote a whole essay about Wabi Sabby
and I'm going to send that link to agent summer.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And enjoying my imperfect life so well.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
The chill Pac Hollywood Live event of the Week.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
This week's live event was something I hosted so exciting,
a little something called Viva Los Felis Architecture at the
Barnes Dog Gallery Theater in the shadows of the frank
Wood right Hollyhowk House, the only UNESCO World Heritage site
in all of Southern California. I mean, they got the
Hollyhowk House, they got me as there MC Why this
(33:12):
night should have been called a Night of two Old Monuments?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Why wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It was the most fun of these, I think for
the audience, over sold, over.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Sold, packed beyond standing room only, so.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
It was the most fun for the audience. It was
a really, really fun show. I don't think it was
as much fun for my partner, Deborah Matlock, who produces
the show and creates all these incredible videos, because she
had more heavy lifting than usual on this thing, as
explained by one bit where I went into the audience
to work the crowd a bit and to ask people
(33:54):
about their favorite landmarks. I was kind of winging it
as I went right, but pretty soon as soon as
I was in the audience, people are raising their hands
for me to call on them so that they can
share their favorite landmarks. And I'm saying, I'm not taking volunteers.
I'm out here in the audience to take voluntels. The
last person I went up and talked to was my
(34:14):
pal Ben Deeb, who I had interviewed on a recent
episode of the Voice of Los Felis podcast, and I
pointed out that he a wonderful writer, was a staff
writer on Blackish for several years. He believes that everyone
in Los Felis should have a view of the Observatory
from their window afe his residence sadly does not afford,
(34:40):
so he remedied it by making his own stained glass
window of the Griffith Observatory. This thing is incredible. And
so that night in the audience, I said, Ben, I'm
assuming that means that the Griffith Observatory is your favoritvorite landmark.
(35:00):
So I'm not going to ask you that question. Instead,
the question I'm going to ask you is why do
you think I'm down here in the audience asking people
about their favorite landmarks? And he said because someone canceled.
And I said, quite right, because someone canceled. And that
is why Deborah Mattluck may not have enjoyed this one
(35:21):
so much, because she had boy had to pull more
than yeoman's duty, not just to produce the show, but
to fill in the gaps with the videos that she
was making.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
But who's filmed? Are?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
They're filmed, but they I don't think they become publicly
available for anyone outside the Lose Feelus Improvement Association. I
do need to find that out because some people who
were there want to share it with people, So we'll
we'll see.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Just drop it up on YouTube. I mean, you don't
need that many views, but you can have it as it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I don't think you need it at all. I think
it's perfectly fine that it becomes something that only people
who are there get to experience. Crowds are getting bigger
and bigger for this thing. Our next one, we don't
even have as many seats as people who showed up
for this one, so it's like two hundred and fifty seats.
We're back in the autry for on December seventeenth, a
(36:10):
Viva Los Felis all about Hollywood history in Los Felis
and Holly Day's history in Los Felis. So it's Holly
Days and Hollywood. It's Viva Los Felis Tinsol town. Ah,
so it's gonna be great. And then after that we're
(36:31):
thinking about doing a regular monthly run in a small
theater on a subscription basis. Ooh yeah, that'll be fun.
But man, the people that I called upon. Lil made
her first return to the stage since starting cancer treatments.
She played Aleen Barnes Doll in an improvised Great Moments
(36:54):
in Architecture History, a conversation between Allen Barnes Doll and
Frank Lloyd Wright and as Frank Wood, right, my dear friend,
the brilliant improviser and just about the most brilliant person
I've ever met Fernando Funez. We had a marching band,
the Hollywood High Steppers. They played me onto the stage
with one of those themes go marching in. First they
(37:16):
were upstairs greeting everyone who came in, and then they
came down to the below the subterranean theater, and of
course our pal John Lawler flew into town to do
a couple numbers, including a live version of the Viva
los Felis theme song.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Oh Vegas, Yeah, Las Vegas.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
And it was so good and uh, and then mostly
it was like the most fun for me. There's two
reasons it was the most fun for me, I think,
I mean there were other reason, smaller reasons, right, like
getting to see Lil on stage, Like it was cool
that when hosting I actually sat down in the audience
to watch her improv performance and then to watch her
(37:57):
sing a version of the old folks song If I
Had a Hammer written by singer, and so I get
to sit and watch and enjoy that. Of course, but
doing the show itself often, as you know, it's it's
(38:19):
often it's not fun. It's not fun during it's it's
really rewarding afterwards. You you there's a bit of a
marathon element to it. There's you know, but this one.
Once I nailed the monologue, I had a ball. And
what I've realizing is the importance of a monologue is
(38:44):
not like your jokes killing, because I think when people
hear monologue, they automatically think jokes. And there were jokes,
but the purpose of the monologue is to really establish
the tone, absolutely create the tone.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
And yeah, the atmosphere in the room.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
And if you've done that, because people said it was
a really rowdy crowd, but man, we created this crucible
of energy after that monologue and I could just swim
in that for the rest of the night, and so
that made it so much fun. Yeah, and freeing, right,
just liberating because from that point on it you know,
(39:24):
obviously I have to get people's names right and their
bona fides right, but most of what I'm doing is
improvised from that point on. And so it was this
combination of really preparing, giving part of what was prepared,
and then being able to let go and dive in
and swim. So that was fun, but let's not kid ourselves.
The most fun was that I got to spend most
(39:46):
of the night just hanging out backstage with John Lawler.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
It was a bo Did he have a good time
or was he nervous or like I guess, I think.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
He was probably nervous before and we should ask him
next week. I think he did have I think we
did have a ball and he crushed it. He killed it.
Don't don't kid yourself. People wanting to get photos with
him afterwards it was so sweet. Wow, it was. It
was really fun. So we'll ask him about his point
on it. But uh, yeah, Viva Viva loos feelis I'm
(40:17):
going to be doing more. Who knows, maybe maybe you'll
come to LA for the holidays this year. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Maybe we're talking that there's a four animal road trip
that will be extraordinary. It might be just me driving
four animals across the country because of Patty's work schedule,
so I will probably dial it back to seven hour visits.
(40:48):
So that might be one extra city that would go to.
Generally it's Saint Louis des Moines, Denver, Richfield, Utah, and
then we get to LA.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
And all how much do these cities chillpeck, holly, whatever.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
They're all lovely cities. All of them have hotels that
take cats and dogs.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Maybe you'll be a part of Viva Los Felis Tinsel Town.
I mean, think about Dean Haglan doing a piece on
some of the silent sunk that was done in this area.
I mean, we'll just plant that seed. People love production
meetings for other shows that they'll never get to see
(41:29):
on the air. If I know anything about people. Hey,
a question. Second email that we got this week, really
it boils down to this, have you seen weapons?
Speaker 3 (41:41):
No?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
This email was so damn good that I'm not gonna
wait on it. So since you haven't seen it, I'm
I'm interviewing our friend Steve Benequist today for my other podcast,
for the Voice of Los Felis, because he was kind
enough to fill in me hosting one of my shows,
The Voices of Los Felis and up at Barnes Doll
(42:08):
a weekend ago. And it was a big, big hit
and he did great. Of course he did. But I
had a prior commitment taking taking my wife to go
see Pink Martini, So I set that whole thing up,
did all the tech on it and everything, and then
he he dropped in to host it, did a great job.
So I'm going to interview him about that, but since
(42:28):
I also saw Weapons with him, Yeah, I'm just gonna
ask the questions to him. We are recording in the
Rooftop Studios, the Rooftop Studio on Vermont Avenue. The voice
you've been hearing is Steve Benequist. And Steve, this is
a classic two bird bush situation. If I'm using that correctly,
(42:53):
if that's not a birdstone, if that's not a mala
for Yeah, because I need to ask you questions for
both the podcasts I do, all right. The voice of
those Felisa and Chillpack Hollywood Hour, and I want to
begin with Chill Pack because I received a message from
(43:15):
a loyal listener of the show, Dean needs to see
Weapons Phil because Hagland, after championing Zach Krieger's previous film Barbarian,
still has not seen this. Why not? I don't know.
Is it possible that it's because it's too successful.
Speaker 4 (43:33):
I can get a little resistant when something's hyped too much. However,
you guys have a podcast where you talk about movies,
so come on, yeah, do a little work and it's
a really good movie. Yes, So here was the.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Question, and I thought well, I'll just ask Steve this
because we saw the movie together. So do you think
Aunt Gladys the yes witchcraft practicing, how are.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
We spoiling or no, we should We should let the
listeners know if we are going to.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
There could be possible spoilers. Okay, but do you think
Aunt Gladys serves as a stand in for gun manufacturers,
as in the real reason these kids are in jeopardy,
these school kids which no one is paying attention to
(44:27):
while the entire town searches for escapegoat. I did find
myself speaking about on the show, how you know. I
thought there were some moments that were scary in the
first half, but then what kind of surprised me was
it is a horror film, but really from the second
half home, it's not scary, you know, and that's gruesome
(44:52):
in the very end. Gruesome, sure, and there are some
horrifying ramifications of things well actually.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
And in the okay, spoilers, a little bit of spoilers. Okay,
when the sort of the grand the Battle Royale, let's
call it, at the end where the parents and you know,
there's some scares there. I thought the nature of the
attack was like, oh my gosh, these people who have
bonded are gonna kill each other.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
And but I guess because of the nature of the
structure of it and how almost Rachamon like, and how
we keep seeing the lead up that's a big spoiler
to certain events, and then we switch the perspective and
we see it again, so we keep going back, and
then the more we are able to build a context,
(45:41):
then the less scary it is, because there's not quote
unquote that like the mysterious unknown of it, right, But
as I said, it still can be horrifying at times.
And what I found was one of the most horrifying
(46:01):
things was not so much the evil that is on
display in the movie so much as our need as
community members who feel pain and put upon to victimize
and blame and to find scapegoats, that that is kind
(46:23):
of to weaponize our powerlessness. Yeah, you know, by finding
Boogeyman instead of doing anything about the actual problem. And
that really resonated with me in our contemporary time, and
I found that rather horrifying, and so the idea that
(46:46):
it could be specifically a stand in.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
I don't to answer the question really directly, I would
say I don't think it was that character is intended
as a direct metaphor. I don't think it really quite works.
Although that's a really intriguing read, and like as soon
as you read it, I thought, that's a really cool
because if you recall, I said something to you at
the very end when they were I'm so torn on
(47:13):
whether to spoil, but we've spoiled it.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
I've already shared with the audience you're lying about this
is what happens when Trump does I think I've already
shared that A yeah.
Speaker 4 (47:23):
Because she I mean literally cast a spell on them.
But that's what that felt like to me as far
as metaphors go. I mean, I saw it immediately. I'm like,
people doing terrible things to each other, and well, yeah,
I reasoningly.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
I do think that there is a specific message about
what we see altogether in culture, where you try to
weaponize people's vulnerability, people's sense of powerlessness, their fear. You
can gain power by weaponizing that. Ultimately you can't control it.
(48:02):
You are going to be thrown under the bus you
help create. And we've seen a lot of figures have
that happen. I mean, Carl Rove was doing this in
the bush and boy, he's found himself in the political wilderness. Okay, anyway,
our listener ends with this tagline that he thinks should
have been used in the movies trailer from Weapons talk
(48:25):
about a house with an ant problem.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
That's great, that's great, listener, I can't top that one.
But actually to give their.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Suggestion that comes to us from Greg Vincent to loyal
listener Gvas, the one also asked the question, Yeah, the
fact that it's called weapons, I mean that's the title
of the film.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
That does tip it a little his way.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
I mean, look, my answer to the question is he's
not wrong.
Speaker 4 (49:00):
No, not at all. No, it's it's a it's a
cool and I mean it's like take you back to
English class in high school. You know, you can have
different interpretations. Was that the direct intended only meaning? Maybe not,
but it's certainly I think it's it's a take worth expressing.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
You know, it's a I think it's internally consistent too.
I bet you could do a reading. I mean, it'd
be fun to watch, like the whole movie just from that.
I want to see it at the same time.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Actually, like it's one of those movies where because of
the whole Roschamant thing, which by the way we've already
spoiled it for you, But like going in there not
knowing that that was a part of it was awesome.
Like I really thought fully was going to be about
that teacher and because she was the one that you
would blame like.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
And yet you see Josh Brolin get up at a
council town hall meeting to blame her, and you go,
why did Josh Brolin take such a small role in
this movie? It was supposed to be Pedro Pascal, Oh really,
and then he got too busy because the movie got
delayed from the strikes and all of this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (50:06):
Brolin is a better choice because Pascal has made himself
the guy who's always the heroic, supportive, loving guy, and
Brolin has a certain he is likable, but it's weird.
No matter how many movies I see of him, my
first reaction is often, not always, but often like, ugh,
(50:27):
he's kind of a he's kind of a jockey bro
that I don't like, And then he wins me over. Yeah,
but like he's and that pugnaciousness or.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
He's liable to think.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
Second, yeah, you kind of think he's a.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Jerk and he's going to react first.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
He made it good, and because you're already on the
teacher's side, he made a good like, oh, we don't
really like him, and then you see that he has
a point of view, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Did you see Thunderbolts, No, the Marvel Thunderbolts. Okay, were
you familiar with them in the comics?
Speaker 3 (51:01):
No, I don't even remember going to the comic book
store and even seeing Thunderbolts as a title on a
you know, on the racks.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
So this, I want to talk about this because we
spend a lot of time talking about Marvel. Increasingly we
talk about it through the prism of this whole business
model of theirs less about the movies, and I was
kind of interested, sort of watching this. It's Thunderbolt's Asterisk
is the title of the film. The asterisk is due
(51:34):
to the fact that they are ultimately revealed to be
the New Avengers, and in the end credits that becomes
the official title of the film. So the official title
of the film is actually the New Avengers, but the
advertising didn't let you know that it was Thunderbolt's Asterisk. Okay,
It's the final film of Marvel's rather shockingly awful and
(51:55):
frequently poorly performing at the box office. Phase five of
their cinematic Universe. Right, five phases are up.
Speaker 3 (52:03):
Dean, I know this scene they had in the Well
twenty fourteen or whatever.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Again, as I'm writing about and yet another essay, the
next time a good creative idea comes out of a
committee meeting will be the first time in the history
of ideas. Anyway, this film not without charm. Florence Florence
Pew and especially David Harber are frequently very funny, as
(52:35):
is Julia Louis Dreyfus, whose Cia Head is now clearly
a villain, and a villain that has been made to
look a lot like real life Russian turncoat Tulci Gabbard. Enough,
they really are making her look like her. Wow. Yes,
beyond charm though it really doesn't have much or try
(52:58):
for much. It's it's well done filler. But my first
question is are these superhero fights in these movies entertaining
anyone anymore? Fights?
Speaker 3 (53:09):
The action scenes, Yeah, because it's not a stunt choreography.
It's more digital. How do you do's? Right? I mean?
Speaker 2 (53:20):
And don't they all going back to the original Superman,
they kind of have the same element. If it's a
superhero figure. They have to keep amping up the threats
greater and greater and greater to make sense of the
fact that these heroes are being beaten up. But then
something turns, often working together, and they defeat the undefeatable. Anyway,
(53:46):
I am both surprised it didn't do better at the
domestic box office, as it's the best or should I
say it's the least bad of the seven Phase five films. Okay,
but it's also the one that literally doesn't feel necessary.
(54:09):
It grows to the second least of those films by
the way of the Phase five films, the second straight
Marvel movie to actually lose money, though again a negligible amounts.
So when you take into account all their collective revenue
streams and continuing to elevate the value of the overall library,
(54:31):
it's still turning a profit for Marvel in some way, right.
But even the biggest name in terms of the Marvel
cinematic universe to be in the film, Sebastian Stan who
had played the Winter Soldier in other movies and Ben
in Avengers movies and stuff like that, he looks so
exhausted with these films in this he just the actor,
(54:55):
seems so exhausted. At one point, Julia Louis Dreyfus says
of him, at least you're cute, And it's still true.
It's like, at least he's cute, but he is getting
a little long in the tooth to pass on cuteness alone.
If he's gonna keep somberly sleepwalking through these pointless exercises,
Oh my god, I mean, as an actor, Sebastian Stan
(55:18):
has moved on. I don't blame him. I mean he's
moved on. He's acquitted himself in really interesting movies outside
this universe. But he finds himself I'm guessing for business reasons, right,
God bless him still in these films, surrounded by people
that he is an actor no longer. It seems like anyway,
(55:40):
I was totally unfamiliar with the team from the comics.
Many of these characters had become kind of a I'd
become kind of aware of them through their appearance in
other one of the movies. You know, they're all anti
heroes who must band together to stop a new global
threat in the form of a lab produced superhero Century
(56:04):
played by Lewis Pullman. Oh Bill Pullman's son, who had
just been in that movie Riff Raff. I talked about
that that gangster thing with Bill Murray and and Lewis
Pullman at times is almost touching and and certainly almost charming.
Oh I kind of like his dad, almostman, which was
(56:28):
his Uh. But he's not much else. That's also the problem.
He's not much else. He's he's he's like a copy
of a copy of his dad. Anyway, I appreciated the laughs.
I appreciated that it was not convoluted. It was also
not heavy handed. But again it's so simplistic that I
(56:48):
can't help wondering why did they bother? Like, what is
going on?
Speaker 3 (56:53):
It's tough. Oh my god. And I just watched the
beginning of Friendship with the guy from the Detroiters that
I like so much.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and the.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
Weather Man and the punchline, the joke, Hey yeah, that
guy down the street inviting you for drinks at eight o'clock.
I said, you're gonna go, oh no, no, We're gonna
watch that new Marvel movie. I heard it's really crazy.
And the Sun God, I already saw it. It's not
that the like going to a Marvel movie is the
(57:27):
punchline of getting out of anything else that you will
ult just go no, no, I don't want to do
this thing. I want to go see a Marvel movie
like that is the man.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
I've talked about this film Friendship before on the on
the show, and you know it's it's more than that.
I mean, it's it's the excuse given by sociopaths as
depicted in Friendship, because you need to see I mean,
you've seen enough to know that the dude's associopath. There's
there's that scene at the beginning where he's in a
cancer recovery group therapy women who have cancer and their spouses,
(58:06):
and he manages to make it be all about himself.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
Totally, totally. Yeah. So all of it is like, oh,
so creepy. But my jaw drop was, oh, here the
writers are putting Marvel movies any mark. He doesn't even
specify what the Marvel movie is. It's like, oh, there's
another Marvel movie out. We have to go to get
away from him having a contact with a neighbor for drinks,
(58:34):
and it's like, oh my god, Like, does Marvel know
that other screenwriters are throwing them under the bus. Like
that that seems.
Speaker 2 (58:44):
So I was going to run you through just some
numbers here to show what the effects of franchise fatigue
are in terms of not just the box office, but
in terms of critics and audience. Right, our pal John
Lawler said something that I thought was really smart that
(59:04):
he looks at what a movie's Metacritics score is, not
the Rotten Tomato score, the Metacritic because those are the
top critics, and the audience score, the user rating on
IMDb because that's the user rating that's the least manipulated, right,
because they've figured out a way to keep bots out
of it and all this sort of stuff. So I
(59:27):
was looking at those numbers, the John Lawler numbers to see,
like what what what are critics and what do our
audiences really think? Despite you know, the box office and
that you know, this Thunderbolts one actually critically the best
reviewed all of all of Phase five, cause seven films
(59:50):
of Phase five sixty eight points out of one hundred. Okay,
that's not great, but it's above fifty. You know, a
superhero movie, an action movie being above sixty means somewhat
recommend especially if you're a fan of the genre. That's
the best one. The lowest one was ant Man and
(01:00:13):
the Wasp Guanta Mania, which was the first of Phase five.
They started this so poorly. That got a forty eight.
Oo man, oh, I'm sorry. That was the worst until
Captain America Brave New World, which was forty two. I mean,
some of these. You've got the Marvels at fifty, You've
(01:00:34):
got Deadpool and Wolverine at fifty six. That's the one
big hit out of them. And some of these have
been met with some audience love. Guardians of the Galaxy
three got a seven point nine from the audience, Deadpool, Deadpool,
and Wolverine audience has got what they wanted seven point five.
(01:00:56):
I'm more on a lot of laughs. I'm more on
the side of the critics who gave it fifty six
because I just thought, oh my god, it's so tortured
getting to the laughs. Yes, right, and the previous movies
had not felt that way, and somehow you bring it
into the Marvel Cinematic universe and suddenly it has to
(01:01:18):
be tortured. But and Thunderbolt's got a seven point two,
the current Fantastic four seven point three. Really, so anyway,
and that's the first of cinematic Phase six, of course.
But my point is a malaise is setting in with
(01:01:40):
the audience because these numbers are all lower than what
came before, and I feel like critics are you know,
we're no longer talking about movies in the seventies and eighties.
We're now talking about them in the forties, fifties, and
sixties of critical points. So yeah, over the course of
(01:02:02):
this phase, yeah, your critical group and your audience have
definitely downshifted in their appreciation. And you've gotta believe based
on these box office numbers, then their appetite one.
Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
Because you have these Harvard MBA eggheads coming going product locomotive,
what's our box cars? What's our risk management? Not one
of them going, hey, what do we have an idea?
Do we have a great script? No? No, no, no,
we need this to happen. We need phase six, which
(01:02:41):
sounds like, you know, the last twenty box cars of
three locomotives trying to pull a train set up the hill.
And once you start thinking like that in terms of
creative artistic which say what you will about filmmaking, it's
still an art form. It's still people who have trained
(01:03:06):
in writing and directing and lighting and acting. These are
all crafts. And to put a bunch of you know,
money and suits and corporate thought I think is the problem.
It's a corporate thought piece now, and that corporate thought
(01:03:28):
piece just rubs wrong with how anybody wants to view
any piece of artwork.
Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
On the small screen. I'm thinking about two different franchises
a lot these days and these very same issues, and
they both well, in one case, started as a small
screen franchise, became a big screen franchise, and then back
almost predominantly to the small screen. And that's Star Trek, right.
(01:04:00):
So thinking about the Alien franchise, have you have you
been watching Alien Earth?
Speaker 3 (01:04:04):
No? Because I still don't have my Disney plus.
Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
You don't have Hulu. No, So there are five episodes
into Alien Earth. I'll just simply say that what's so
exciting is that this show has has carved out so
much terrain for itself tonally, thematically and dramatically. Wow, several
(01:04:31):
different settings, many interesting characters with their own intriguing stories
and mysteries and maybe unknown and unknowable aims. It's really
quite nifty and absolutely what I would hope for from
the guy who pulled off Fargo, Oh yeah, which again
(01:04:52):
had five seasons, four of which were at least pretty good,
which is which is for an anthology show. I mean,
that's amazing, really good, you know, ratio. Three of those
seasons were very good, and two of those seasons were
among the best seasons of television ever, and the one
(01:05:16):
truly bad season still had an episode that I would
rank as one of the ten greatest television episodes of
all time East West, and that came from the yes, exactly,
and that came from the bad season. So, you know,
how smart again a corporate committee deciding how do we
(01:05:38):
keep this franchise going? Because you know they're going to
keep it going in movies, but on the small screen, Hey,
why don't we get someone who has already proven it
doing something like this right and doing it in a
realm that's harder. Hey, how about expand the Cohen Brothers universe.
(01:06:03):
How many people could speak that language for sure? And
so getting him and as I said last week or
a couple weeks ago, whenever we talked about it last,
this was a guy that was supposed to be directing
the next big screen Star Trek movie, right exactly who
they needed exactly. You know, I have been a fan
(01:06:28):
of Strange New Worlds. I found it almost to be
a physical save on my soul at times. But have
you been watching season three?
Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
We just.
Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
Picked up I think first episode of season three.
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
First episode, so you have not been watching. The last
episode comes out this week. In January. Yeah, there was
a brand new Trek film that was made for the
Paramount Plus streaming service that focused on Michelle Yeoh's character
(01:07:10):
from Star Trek Discovery. It was a feature film called
Star Trek Section thirty one. Oh okay, that was in January,
and at the time of seeing it, I wrote in
my notes this subject held so many possibilities as a
(01:07:31):
movie about clandestine starfleet activities. Oh oh, my god, the
possibilities of having a really cool espionage story, right, or
a sci fi space version of Mission Impossible, which is
what I think it wanted to be cool. Unfortunately, in
(01:07:53):
this instance it would have been more accurate to call
it Mission perfunctory. There was a lot of action, none
of it involving in any way. My god, you had
Michelle Yeoh, you know, although at her age, probably also
Michelle Leo, and a lot of her stunt doubles. Right,
(01:08:15):
but still, but you have Michelle Leeo and we can't
be placed in the action the way that they certainly
did in the Hong Kong movies. Right. There are a
couple nice nods in that movie to Trek lore of
the past. It was a definite kick seeing a Delton,
for example, and Sam Richardson, the other star of the Detroiters,
(01:08:39):
tries his best to liven up the proceedings. But my god,
was this movie both paper thin and laborious. It is,
without a doubt, both with critics and audiences. It's the
single most hated thing Star Trek's ever done. Oh no,
perhaps the equivalent of like the Star Wars Christmas best.
Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Oh now, I'm going to watch this, oh.
Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
No, without any like like enjoyable. I mean, it is,
it is. It is brain cell killing this thing. So anyway,
the reason I bring all this up because I didn't
want to. I didn't I didn't need to trash Star Trek.
More So, I didn't bring this up at the time,
but I wrote down this when I saw it. I
am so happy that we have season three of Strange
(01:09:26):
New World's upcoming, or I might well be done with
Star Trek Wow, well, nine episodes of Strange New Worlds, Dane,
I am done with Star Trek. No, we we have
one episode left, but I don't think there's anything, honestly
(01:09:48):
that could redeem this season.
Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
I'm not watching Below Deck the Cartoons.
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
No, that's canceled. That got canceled.
Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
Oh what about the new one coming up with Holly.
Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
Hunter Starsleet Academy, part of the Panda Verse as it's
being called. Yeah, Alex Kurtzman basically announced like we're doing
everything that Star Trek fans hate the most, you know
which in this thing. So anyway, so we'll we'll talk
about that. But about season three, I guess when you
(01:10:20):
avail yourself of more of its.
Speaker 5 (01:10:24):
Guests, of your chillpack Hollywood Hours stay at the Baldwin
Hills motor End promotional consideration paid for by Empire State Gas.
From farm to pump, We've got great gas.
Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Belated spoiler alert
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