September 29, 2025 • 43 mins
Join John and Darren as they revisit Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her, unpacking its groundbreaking visual effects, sharp Hollywood satire, and the over-the-top performances that made it a cult favorite.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the ned Palty.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome back to House of Zamechas, the latest exploratory delve
into the works of a director, specifically Robert Zamechis and
his work of the nineteen nineties. Here on house Lights,
I am one of your humble hosts, the gifted storyteller
John Mills, and with me is beautiful Angenoux and star
(00:40):
of the stage Darren Moser, recently back from the dead,
but a little worse for wear. Darren, we are missing
your nemesis this time around, but I think we'll manage
to carry on. The show must go on. As one
of the messages of death becomes her appears to be
oh exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I mean, I scaled the fence of his private property
and that's the last I ever saw Tristan. Nothing bad
could have happened.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
No, not at all, not at all, and not one
event in this film could have been prosecutable, And what
film could we possibly be talking about? But of course
nineteen ninety two's death becomes her, the quietly trailblazing affects
powerhouse that led.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
The way for digital filmmaking.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
For years to come. A little foretaste of what was
to come. A year later with Jurassic Park, A lot
of it trail blazed here in terms of match move
and digital replacement and all of those sorts of things.
So Darren, this, you know, obviously we always make jokes
about how I'm the old man. Obviously I saw this
(01:49):
in the movie theater. What was your first encounter with
Death Becomes Her?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
This is actually one I had not caught before, so
this was my first time watching it. I mean I
had I've seen tiny clips on like special effects reels,
like where they would talk about, you know, the turning point,
and they'd always list like this one amongst them, and
rightfully so for some of its amazing digital effects. I
(02:15):
think the moment when she sits through the spear on
the couch is particularly interesting. But from the get go,
though it's a smart effects movie, there's a lot of
makeup involved. There's only a handful of special shots really,
and they pick and choose exactly where they're going to
(02:38):
use the heavy hitting work.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I like that you point that out, because this really
is I do want to open the whole conversation talking
about the effects work, because I think that it's very
easy for people to continually overlook this film in terms
of what it did. And I think it's important to
couch this in the conversation that we were having during
(03:02):
Back to the Future Part three last week, where we
were talking specifically about that Zamechis has always been sort
of a quiet innovator and pusher of the envelope. He's
willing to jump in. Roger Rabbit had like virtually unprecedented
use of the cartoon and live action matching. Like it
was sort of a full realization of the filmmaking future
(03:27):
that like Walt Disney saw as a possibility. And I
think that, you know, we talked about the Back of
the Future films and then you get to this one.
And this is where I'm going with this is do
you think that this is a movie which could not
have existed without digital effects or does this come across
(03:48):
to you as a film that exists only as a
way to justify the effects costs.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I'll say, I think you could have made this film
sooner in the era of effects. You just would have
had to choose slightly different ailments for the main characters.
I don't think you could have done the full head replacement,
the flipping of the head back. I think you probably
(04:12):
could have gotten through with the hole in the chest,
but you would have had to maybe have one of
them lose an arm or something something more practical makeup
ish as opposed to I think that's what shocked everyone
with this one, was the head replacements and things like
(04:32):
that that had never been done before. Convincingly. Does it
show a little bit of its age, you know, many
decades later, Yes it does, but not enough. If you
squint at it sideways a little, like you get the
intent of the story. It's not impacted by that. And
like you said, this is a year before Jurassic Park,
it's a year after Terminator two. So right in that
(04:56):
spot where CG is about to explode.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I think that the movie itself is not as much
fun without the digital effects. I think that there's a
definite wow factor that goes back to when it first
came out and holds up today because to this day,
I know logically how they did certain things. I've seen,
you know, the behind the scenes stuff through the years.
(05:21):
But you mentioned it earlier, when she has the whole
blast in her Goldie Hawn does and she sits back
and it just seamlessly goes through so that the handle
is sticking through her and in the hole in the
center of her there's I mean, it's an incredible effect
that holds up now, you know. Yes, are there effects
(05:44):
like you're saying that don't hold up as well right now? Absolutely,
But that one in particular, that's still a wow factor.
That's still one that I look at and I say,
how did they manage this? Like it doesn't even make
sense to me what they did. So that's a lot
of fun. But let's roll it back here to the
real why of the story with this wow factor? Do
(06:07):
you see a movie that has enough punch, enough meaning
and enough purpose that is there enough story here for you?
Is there enough meat on the bone?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I mean it's interesting again this being a first watch,
because I have no idea what the plot is. All
I really had seen was the scene where they're fighting
and they're you know, sticking the hole through each other
and knocking her head back Like that's it. So I
don't know how we get there or or what. So
it starts and then we have this like seven year
(06:39):
later time jump and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Like okay, okay,
I guess they didn't get married. Oh they did get married, okay,
and then we jump again, and I'm just like, what
what is going It almost gave me Tim Burtony vibes,
where that first act is very kind of like your
Edwards says their hand or you know, maybe Corpse Bride,
(07:03):
where like the beginning is almost a prologue, and then
we kind of jump to the meat of the action,
you know, because we don't see anything of their relationship
through all these years of marriage. All we see is
the couple of days before the inciting incident, which is
you know, meeting and the and the potion and all
of that. And so with that, a lot of effort
(07:24):
is put on that early scene of convincing us that
these are not happily married people. They hate each other,
They loathe each other. The spark has gone away, and
so it not that it doesn't work, but it's a
choice because we don't we don't even get a montage.
(07:45):
It's just like nope, Q card, We're almost a decade
in the future. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think that that's a very fair observation. I think
that the latter two thirds of the movie is fun.
And what I get a sense from Zamechas is he
wants to get to the fun. He doesn't want to
take time to get there, and with how I mean,
with how long the film is, I can't blame him.
(08:10):
I almost wonder if there's stuff that's missing from that
that opening act, as it were, that maybe was you know,
cut for the sake strictly for the sake of time.
Like I think we come from Back to the Future
Part three and we see Funds zamechas Zamecchis is just
having a blast over there, and then we come over
(08:31):
here to death becomes her and that setup. It's there
because it has to be there, but he is just
trying to race along to the fun.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And part of that fun.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Of course, is Bruce Willis, who went from comedic TV
actor to big budget action star and now is coming
back to comedic actor. I got to ask you, since
this is your first time watching it, is it disorienting
at this point to see Bruce Willis embrace his comic
time and his comic nature.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Ah, it was a little because when I hear that voice,
I think of like John McClain, Like I don't hear
another care like when you hear Harrison Ford. It's hard
to detach him from certain roles but really, in a way,
he's like a supporting actor in this, Like he doesn't
(09:22):
have a lot to really do in this movie. I
mean not that he isn't doing things, but it is
such a vehicle, you know, for the our two leading ladies.
They're they're selling the whole thing. They're selling the joke
of the woman after thirty. You know, Hollywood's against them.
(09:43):
What if you found this magic potion? So I didn't
have a trouble at being Bruce Willis, But as we've
said sometimes here in house Lights, I could see this
almost going to someone else and it not really changing
the movie. I don't think it had to be Bruce Willis,
not that he did a bad job, but I don't
think it's that kind of a role that it had
(10:05):
to be him.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I agree it didn't necessarily have to be him, but
I regard him as like the secret weapon of the movie.
I don't think this works particularly well without him. I
think if you don't have Bruce Willis, you have a
substantially different movie that just doesn't work as well. I
think that Hawn and Streep are having fun, but if anything,
(10:27):
I would say I get the sense that they're constrained
by the effects work. These are two actresses who are
known for inhabiting their roles, Streep even more so than
anybody else in the cast. But this is a role
more about getting that technical timing right. You have to
hit a specific mark because we've got the match move
(10:50):
going on. If anything, in my brain, Willis is integral
to this working, And I think that Hawn shines in
this and Streep is the one that I think is
the rotating cast member for me. Interesting, Okay, I think
if anything, the choice that obviously she and Samecas came
(11:14):
to where she's a bit more zany.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
As things go on.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's almost as if I have a sense of her
not really finding the character, because it's almost like she
gains this momentum where she becomes more and more wacky
as it goes forward, and we sort of lose that
diabolical he earlier on in the movie.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Am I making sense?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah? They kind of both take turns being diabolical, because
you're right, she is more diabolical in the beginning where
she's getting her way and you know, stealing him away,
but then Han has it later where she's like setting
up her death and this is how we're going to
kill her and breaking into their house and all of that.
(12:03):
So they do trade places and then the kind of
the joke is that they're on the same page at
the end. But as a whole, with this movie's premise, John,
do you feel like this is a story that has
enough meat to be a movie or does it feel
like the joke you tell at a stand up and
(12:25):
then they stretched it to ninety minutes or or one
hundred whatever this was.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I'll answer by saying that I think it's a great concept,
but I think that you feel every single one of
these hundred and four minutes by the end of it.
And I think that that is a large part because
in his race to get to the fun stuff, Zamechis
never gives us the opportunity to care about any of
(12:52):
these characters. Eventually, by the end, I care about Willis.
That's why I defend his he he's.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
The only start with the character. Are not meant to
be sympathetic with the other two.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Well, I don't care what happens to them at all. Yeah,
Like I don't even want their just desserts. They're just
set pieces to me by the end, which is not
the fault of Hawn and streep. It's the fault of
the film. It's the fault of I think that's a
good way that you put it, where the joke takes too.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Long to get to the punchline.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I agree that this could have been probably ninety four minutes,
ninety two minutes even, and we would have been better off.
I think there's but where could those ten minutes have
come out of?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Is the problem? Well? And with the joke, it feels
like the first joke is, oh, you know, if you
could be young again and have this elix sir and
all that, and then that joke is kind of done
and they need a second joke to keep it going.
And that second joke is where they've done a lot
of setup to get you. There is oh, if you're dead,
(13:55):
because you're basically dead but immortal. What if we've manipulated
his character to be a mortician painter? Like what luck
that this exact role is what you need, you know,
not a plastic surgeon, but a mortician. And that's the
second joke of now we have to convince him to
keep it going.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I would offer that probably the script stage is where
this could have been saved, in the fact that they
could have streamlined that opening so that we didn't go
with Goldie Hawn to being in the asylum, Like that's
the part that takes too long. That's I think the
disorienting thing you're getting at where we're doing this thing.
(14:38):
It's like, oh, okay, this is where this is, and
then it has that seven years later and she's a
young and vibrant Goldie Hawn again, and it's like it didn't.
It doesn't spur curiosity in me so much as inevitability.
Maybe that's just because the gag had been given away
in the trailers or something. It feels almost like they
(15:00):
could have and should have had a different path for
these characters to get to that point.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Well, And I was just pulling up the poster because
the poster is literally Streep's head is on backwards and
he's holding the candelabra through the whole in Goldie han
so it's already kind of tipping its head. It's being
subtle about it, like you don't exactly know what's going on,
but something is wrong with this picture. And I mean
(15:29):
I've even was reading about in the production where they
cut a lot from the end, where there was even
an or they reshot the end where initially it was
more upbeat, and there was you know, he meets someone
and they fake his death and then they're living happily
(15:51):
and then they catch up with the girls later. But
it apparently wasn't the right tone for the ending. I
like the ending we got where you know there it's
the come uppance ending where they you don't get to
see any of his life, but we know it was great,
just like we didn't see any of his marriage, but
we know it was terrible. It's kind of the same playbook.
(16:12):
And then at the end they're just stuck with each
other like they made the wrong choice.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, I mean, you know there were You're right that
they they redid the ending in post and there's actually
the whole continuation of his story where he meets and
falls in love with a bartender played by Tracy Ullman
no Less who helps him fake his death, and then
(16:40):
Hawn and Streep encounter them as they're living as a
retired couple.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Almond winds up getting cut.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That entire thing gets cut because test audiences didn't react
well to it, so that means the movie was even longer.
Do you think that that longer ending with more payoff
for Willis would that have worked for? I mean, I'm
personally in love with the ending that we have because
I think that it was incredibly clever, you know, for
what it was.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I think it was the wedding. The ending we got
was was clever and the fact that, I mean, what
do they say, once you have the climax of the movie,
you want to end the movie as fast as possible,
And the climax is him choosing to not drink the
serum and falling and miraculously surviving. And so we basically
jump cut to forty years later, whatever number it was,
(17:28):
and it's really one scene. That ending is almost a
coda of yeah, now they're all together, and I mean,
it's again. Now it's almost running gag territory, like the
oh you you're you should have brought the right paint
and oh, your face is coming off, and then they
fall down the stairs and I guess they love that
(17:51):
tipping down the stairs gag. But and then they fall
apart kind of like mannequins, which is interesting. But yeah,
I mean, I guess it does. It works. It's not terrible,
but we're kind of like, but up up, but up
up and then the move's over. You know, it's just yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It's a full embrace of the absurdity. I mean, it's
very obvious. And this might be what works to the
detriment of the movie overall, is it's very obvious that
Zamechis is not invested in the central gag the way
he was with Back to the Future. Back to the Future,
you get the sense of a director, especially with that
(18:30):
train sequence that we praised last week, who really wants
to find a way to make this work and be believable.
And I think that there's no effort to make this believable,
and that's why you have when they do the alternate ending,
they fall apart like puzzle pieces, and then it'says like, yeah,
it's just it's a gag, and it's.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Like you're not supposed to think too hard about how
are they surviving. It's just like doesn't matter. Just that's
the joke that they're suck with each other and they
just have to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, And I think that, I mean, them falling apart
like that, I think is the bridge too far?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think that if you have that funeral ending and
they're disrespectful and they go off, and then maybe somebody's like, hey,
you're being you know, they're walking out and somebody's like, hey,
you're being rude, and one of them turns around, you
see that, Like somebody's missing a nose and somebody's got like,
you know, a flap where their tongue should be or
something like that, or something like staple together, and then
(19:31):
somebody's like ah, and then they run off to continue
their their secret existence. I think that winds up probably
playing better than the shattering, you know, because that you know,
to go back we were talking about Back to the
Future part three, a lot of sins are forgiven with
a really strong ending, and maybe they're just painted into
a corner here.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Overall, it's an okay story, but we've talked about the joke,
you know, the premise joke, and it is is very
one note, like there is no depth here. We're we're
never meant to k not care that's the wrong word.
We're never meant to root for the women, like yeah,
really ever, I mean maybe a tiny bit with Goldie
(20:15):
Hans's character at the beginning because of how she's being treated,
but for like half a second, but the vast majority
of time we are not on their side. They are
making terrible choices and are very selfish and narcissistic. So
we're it's just a come up in this movie where
we're watching them waiting for the shoe to drop or
(20:37):
the you know, the doctor to drop. But yeah, let's
talk about the again, the jokes. This is obviously a comedy,
the scene where they're in the mansion and it's the
client party, and obviously I feel like I needed to
kind of brush up on my who's who of the
(20:57):
early nineties because there were probably more people we were
meant to recognize maybe.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Watching Oh, there were plenty of people I recognize.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, Elvis it was the biggest joke, but.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
There are a few others for this young man. The
best joke was Jim Morrison asking him if he was
going to get out of the pool right right, Especially
back in ninety two, I was like.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Oh my god, Jim Morrison. Nowadays, that'd be oh, what
was it, like, ant man, Paul Rudd.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
That would be a great gag. Yeah, you're absolutely right,
that would be the perfect gag. Is Paul Rudd is
just at the party? Rights, No, but like getting chastised
for like having a career is like, come on, Paul.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Public facing the fact that's our aging is starting to
be noticed.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That somebody's movies need to be flops, you know, something
like that to get him out of the limelight. But
what's fascinating is this is only two years after Back
to the Future Part three comes out, So he goes
right into this and I don't understand the push except
(22:05):
maybe to keep the band together, as it were, because
Dean Kundy follows him here. Kundy is going to go on.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And he is.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
He's gonna photograph Jurassic Park as well, so you know,
so the guy's a pretty solid effects cinematographer. And I'm
not saying that in a dismissive way. I'm saying like,
he obviously knows how to get that camera movement right
and get things to line up and get things lit
really well. So comparing this to Back to the Future
Part three, do you see Condy at work here? Do
(22:37):
you see visual similarity with him and Zamechas working together?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I do. It's hard because we go from almost exclusively
an outdoor movie to a obviously built on sets for
major scenes movie like the inside of the castle, the
inside of their home, like it it feels like a set.
(23:02):
Uh and and so yeah, the the lighting, but it's
it's like literally night and day. As far as what
you're trying to portray, yeah, I mean, I don't want
to keep hashion on the tone, but even just the tone,
because I would say they're both comedies in different flavors,
(23:25):
but this one, like it makes me think more of
Rocketeer or Dick Tracy or or just kind of campy comedy,
where like the wind the lightning is it's like when
they're driving up the house and it's always lightning and
rain and thunder and a dark and stormy night, and
it's like, why is it always you know, raining, Yeah, exactly,
(23:51):
which you can no, it is not. It is a desert.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
We do no, No, I seem I seem to recall
you saying that it's always raining in La.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
That it's just never what I say, never ever.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Not raining in La. That is Washington. You are mistaken,
same coast, different climate.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Oh okay, oh is that how that works?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Well? But what is the vibe you get as far
as like the comedy. I mean, I know you were
talking about honestly, but.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, well, well, I mean the thing is even in
terms of the look. Honestly, what it calls to mind
for me is clue.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I was thinking clue. I was getting that vibe too.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
But but the key difference is the movie can't decide
and the ending I think very much contributes to this,
them falling apart on the steps and some of the
some of the wackier gags that they have is they
can't decide whether the characters are.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
In on the joke. I got how ridiculous it is.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, there's are they winking at us or are they not?
And in some of the stuff, it feels like they're
winking at us, and in some of the stuff it
definitely feels like they're not. And I think that the
winking at us is very early on, like Goldie Hawn,
the transformation they put her through and everything to make
her the lady living in the apartment with all of
(25:13):
the cats, rewatching something that suffer through it, neating ice
cream constantly. Like that's the moment where it's almost declared
where it's like, Okay, this is don't take this too seriously.
But then later on, you know, it just gets it
gets its own tone confused. Now the thing is, it
feels it feels like we're being really heavy on this,
(25:34):
and that's sort of like why I was going with,
you know, toward Kundy is I think that Condy at
least gets the shots composed really well, gets things lit
really well, and you know, the camera movement is very
good in this, and then I think the score is
very good too. Sol Vestri does a great job coming
back and working with his buddies and mechas again. And
(25:56):
so I mean, I guess what I'm left with. And
the all question for you is we're sort of like
rounding third here, right Is is this a movie with
all of this discussion that we've had, where the performances
are uneven We see unevenness in different spots, and we
(26:16):
have all of this great technical work, but we have
a script that's sort of a mess at least in
my opinion.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Are we looking at a.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Work by a director that needed to take another year
or two off or find a different project coming out
of Back to the Future Part three?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Well, it's interesting. I feel like we're almost kind of
foreshadowing into next week's episode a Forrest Gump, because we
have a very complex story there that is told over
an entire lifetime or the majority of this man's lifetime,
and I think does so very well, whereas this again
(27:00):
I come, I come back to the joke and and
really the best scene is when she's fallen down the stairs,
he's making the phone call and she gets back up
in the background like that that is a scene you
could tell someone had in their imagination, in their mind
and crafted. And then everything else is getting us there
(27:22):
or getting us away from there after like great point,
you know. And and not that there aren't great things
in the before and the after, but that that is
the bedrock of that movie. And and that is where
the joke lands of oh what if he finally kills
his you know, narcissistic wife and is calling you know,
(27:45):
his I don't I won't even say mistress because it's
not even that close, but uh, a semi accomplice. And
and then she you know, she's back there for a
while and like as if the audience is meant to
kind of forget that she's in the shot, and then
she kind of slowly starts to sit up, and it's
(28:07):
very you know, a powerful move as far as like, oh,
I'm interested now what is going to happen next? And
then we get a bit of good, we get a
bit of jumble.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Well, I just I go back to it's all solved
in the script stage, and I wonder with the how
close Back to the Future Part three and this are
if Zamecas just couldn't give it the attention that it
deserved in pre production. Because we talked, you know, last
week as well a lot about how in the old ways,
(28:43):
pre production was much more important. And I think that
this is one of those movies where you can sense
where pre production didn't get as much attention as maybe
it should have from the director. I think some of
the stuff, a lot of the stuff that we're talking about,
just going off of Back to the Future Part three,
even looking at the rest of his works, I think
(29:04):
this is a director who could have would have pushed
people to solve those problems before the camera started rolling.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Well and and I tried to look it up, but
I don't know where this story came from, you know,
I mean I don't see in the in the written
by you know. I mean, we have David Cope again,
so it's but I'm like, is this from a book?
From a short story? From a dream? Like where? Why?
(29:36):
Who looked at this idea and went like, that's the
movie I want to make, Like I don't feel that
here versus like Jurassic Park comes from. You know, this
very successful book Back to the Future is this passion
project that's grown for Zamechas Forrest Gump, I'm pretty sure
was a book.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
But yes, it was very different though zamechas Uh sort
of speeled that book with his adaptation, So it's the
book is not quite the lovable examination of American history
that the movie is.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
That's right. I think I remember hearing he interjected Forrest
into more of history that he probably wouldn't have been in.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And additionally, the situations are a bit sweeter and about
a bit more palatable. But I mean, I'm going by
what somebody told me because I you know, they read
the book and they told me stuff that happened in
the book, and I was like, that doesn't sound like the.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Movie at all.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So maybe maybe we need to have a book club
spin off of house Lights where we look at this
stuff now. The thing is before we go, though, I
do want to point out because we got at how
the performances felt a little stilted, a little restrained here
and there, and so I'm gonna grab a quote specifically
from Streep where she vowed not to work on another
(31:01):
film with heavy special effects, where she said, and I'm
just taking a couple of choice sentences here. She said,
I think it's tedious. Whatever concentration you can apply to
that kind of comedy is just shredded. You stand there
like a piece of machinery. They should get machinery to
do it. And then she back pedals and says, I
(31:23):
loved how it turned out, but it's not fun to
act to a lampstand. So you see right there, this
is a well established actress who was thrown into a
very experimental situation.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yeah, experimental is what I think of. Like if this
wasn't the on the Razor's edge of effects and was
more like, oh, yeah, we know how to do that.
We're going to do a head swap, and like we
could do that in our sleep right now, like it
would have it would be a completely different scenario than
this has never been done before.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Right right, And I think, yeah, I think this is
as a result of very challenging movie. But I think
that there is good stuff in here. I think that
there is stuff that's I really love Bruce Willis's performance.
I think that even though the opening is a jumble,
(32:19):
I think Goldie Hawn's having a blast with portraying her
sort of like a nervous breakdown era until she comes
out of it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
And I think that, I mean the.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Breakdown that Willis portrays at the party as they're trying
to force him to take the potion and he's just
refusing to do it, and sort of the hyjenks that
go through and you know, subtracting the fall down the
steps at the very end, which is just an unfortunate choice.
At the very least, they still gave us the idea
(33:00):
that he escaped and went on to have a good life.
At least I get that with the character that I
think is definitely the right instinct.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, the funeral ending itself the way it's just a
eulogy and you're listing like all the cool things he did,
I mean, even his go to saying of life begins
at fifty or something like that, and you're like, we
know the inside joke of all the little things that
are being said, of the causes he put money into
and the things he did with his family and all that,
(33:32):
and you're like, we know why we know what shocked
him into living that life to its fullest, so we
knew him even better than his family.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
But yeah, I think at its core, it's a movie
without a character to relate to or even root for, Like, yeah, Ruill,
it's like we're rooting for him in the end, but
I don't relate to him. I don't relate to any
(34:05):
of the main characters. I'm not like, oh yeah, when
I went through my narcissistic phase and I really valued youth,
I totally thought I wished I found a magic vile
like or maybe not that specific. It's being a little crass,
but yeah, I think other movies we've seen by Zamechas
there's at least some characteristics that you know makes you pause.
(34:28):
And I think movies that have a character, a main
character that you relate to and some way is important.
And there wasn't. Really it was the joke. It was
all about the joke and the stunt, which again isn't
a bad thing to make a movie on. But it's
only going to get you so far.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
It is only going to get you so far. But
at the end of it all, it's at least entertaining.
I think that this is something where a lesser director
painted into a corner with an ending that they have
to change. I think this goes disastrously wrong. I think
actually of another Bruce Willis movie that I've never seen
(35:12):
but was a very famous flop, was the adaptation of
Bonfire of the Vanities, which is relatively contemporary to this
and apparently did not come together at the very least Zamechis.
Even if it's a mess, you can tell that he's
throwing all of his skill behind telling it as best
(35:35):
as he can. He keeps it moving, and a lot
of the complaints that I would have about it are
in retrospect, not while I'm watching Necessarily.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, so I think that this I've always had a
bit of a soft spot for it, and I never
shy away from coming back to it.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
In fact, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So funny that we're covering this because not long before
this recording, I hosted fellow Nerd Party member Matt Rushing,
and he had never seen this before, and so I
showed this to him for the first time, and I
know that it went over well, and you know, it
(36:21):
got the last it got the positive reaction that I
know that Zamechis was looking for. So obviously the movie
still works at least for most people, I guess, and
I think it works for me. But even with Tristan missing,
we can't say what his rating is for this, which
is unfortunate because it feels like there's something missing. So Darren,
(36:45):
in Tristan's absence, we're going to come up with his
rating for death becomes or We've recorded enough with Tristan
that this is going to be a new feature. This
is how we're going to torture people for missing a week?
Is any one of the three of us now, and
we will be bound by the rating that the other
two come up with.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Do we agree with this? So we have a gentleman's
I agree.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
They're gonna have to update their letterbox account to match
what we say.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I think that's fair. I think that's fair. Okay, so
let's break it down. Of course, the first thing, I mean,
obviously Tristan's gonna have a problem with the editing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I mean he's gonna I thought, first thing was is
this a Adell family favorite? And oh I don't think
it is. It doesn't think so feel like the kind
of thing that ends up on that VHS shelf.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
No, it's not on the VHS shelf.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I don't think so. I think that I think that
he really hated the ending of this, and I think
he really hated the editing as well.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
And I think he didn't like the time. I mean,
we've talked a lot about time. Anytime time is on
the radar and it is too long, He's like, I
could have cut this in three different ways and it
would have been thirty minutes shorter and the jokes would
have been more succinct.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
He would have had a problem with me coming after Streep,
even though Streep herself said she didn't have a great
time making the movie. He hates when I come after Streep,
So he probably spitefully would have raised his rating a
little bit just to come at me about that.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I think that's fair. Do you think he liked the
music in the photography.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I think he would have liked the photography, at least,
especially knowing that it went into the same as Drassic Park.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
That's a good point.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
That's a good point. I think he loved the score,
so I think the score helped him like it a
little bit more so, where are we landing with Tristan
two or two and a half.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I think it liked two and a half. I think
two and a half. I don't think this movie did
well commercially, like there is an era of you know,
oh yeah it did not bomb.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
No, it cost a fifty five million to make, and
then I think globally it made one hundred and forty
nine million.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
So in the nineties, which is yeah, triple, it's triple.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
It's its budget pretty much close to triple its budget.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
That's okay. I mean, I'm looking back at Replacement Killers
and Equalizer and Where the Wild Things Are, which we're
all two point five for him. Tristan hasn't given a
two since Wes Craven's New Nightmare. He's very like it
has to really be a bad film for him to
get I think he's too I think he's going to
give it too.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
You think so, yeah, I think he's going to give
it too.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
All right, Well, I have to agree with you, John.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
But the thing is, even if he disagrees, even if
he comes in thundering at us when he finally hears this,
he's bound by house lights law.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
It's just there's no no way out.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Of it shaken from the amulet, so he has to
do it. Yeah, we'll put that in brackets.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
So put that in brackets, and uh, you know what,
I'm going to give my rating and I'm going to
let you go last. See I'm also kinder than Tristan
because I'm not gonna make you go first. I actually,
you know, for all of the seeming to rag on
it earlier, and there are problems with this movie, there
(40:13):
are definite problems with this movie. I really think Bruce
Willis has the energy that shows why he became a
star in the first place, especially as a comedic TV actor.
He's got a great charisma. I think that he's having
a blast, and when Willis is on screen, I can't
(40:35):
help but have fun with this movie. I think that
I'd be foolish to overlook the technical wizardry on display.
And even though the ending falls flat only because of
that last fall down the stairs. Seriously, if you subtracted that,
my rating man actually would be Yeah, it's one joke
too many. I'm going to come in and I'm going
(40:57):
to land with a three and a half for this.
So this is your first viewing. Where did you land
with it?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah? First viewing, I'm giving it a three, and that
gives it, you know, a little bit of a bump
from the technical achievement. You can tell. Besides, you know,
even with Street talking about the nuance of the technical,
that's really only a couple of scenes. So the vast majority,
(41:25):
she's just chewing the scenery up, and you can tell
she's having fun being the Hollywood wash out and Goldie
Hahn is eating like you said she was having I
think just as much fun doing the fat makeup and
being the cat lady for like half a second, and
then she's like, but then I get to be poured
(41:46):
into this dress later and show everyone who I really am.
And it's a movie that I kind of wish I
had caught the cover out of the corner of my
eye at Blockbuster years ago and picked up on a
lark to just watch and maybe had a little more
time with it. But is it something I'm going to
(42:07):
buy and be like, oh, I gotta watch this. But
would I maybe show it to another film friend like
you did with Rushing? Yes, I would so right down
the middle as a three, higher than Tristan rated it.
So there's that saying something.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I'm disappointed that Tristan was so hard on this film.
But you know I heard him. I heard him through
all the space and time. But what I haven't heard,
although you dropped a hint earlier, is Darren, what are
we covering next week as we continue looking at the
works of Robert Zemechis in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Well, if you love special effects, boy do we have
a movie with them. Spread throughout we are covering nineteen
ninety four's Forrest Gump here on house Lights.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Join the Revolution, Join the net Party.
Welcome to the ned Palty.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome back to House of Zamechas, the latest exploratory delve
into the works of a director, specifically Robert Zamechis and
his work of the nineteen nineties. Here on house Lights,
I am one of your humble hosts, the gifted storyteller
John Mills, and with me is beautiful Angenoux and star
(00:40):
of the stage Darren Moser, recently back from the dead,
but a little worse for wear. Darren, we are missing
your nemesis this time around, but I think we'll manage
to carry on. The show must go on. As one
of the messages of death becomes her appears to be
oh exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I mean, I scaled the fence of his private property
and that's the last I ever saw Tristan. Nothing bad
could have happened.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
No, not at all, not at all, and not one
event in this film could have been prosecutable, And what
film could we possibly be talking about? But of course
nineteen ninety two's death becomes her, the quietly trailblazing affects
powerhouse that led.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
The way for digital filmmaking.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
For years to come. A little foretaste of what was
to come. A year later with Jurassic Park, A lot
of it trail blazed here in terms of match move
and digital replacement and all of those sorts of things.
So Darren, this, you know, obviously we always make jokes
about how I'm the old man. Obviously I saw this
(01:49):
in the movie theater. What was your first encounter with
Death Becomes Her?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
This is actually one I had not caught before, so
this was my first time watching it. I mean I
had I've seen tiny clips on like special effects reels,
like where they would talk about, you know, the turning point,
and they'd always list like this one amongst them, and
rightfully so for some of its amazing digital effects. I
(02:15):
think the moment when she sits through the spear on
the couch is particularly interesting. But from the get go,
though it's a smart effects movie, there's a lot of
makeup involved. There's only a handful of special shots really,
and they pick and choose exactly where they're going to
(02:38):
use the heavy hitting work.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I like that you point that out, because this really
is I do want to open the whole conversation talking
about the effects work, because I think that it's very
easy for people to continually overlook this film in terms
of what it did. And I think it's important to
couch this in the conversation that we were having during
(03:02):
Back to the Future Part three last week, where we
were talking specifically about that Zamechis has always been sort
of a quiet innovator and pusher of the envelope. He's
willing to jump in. Roger Rabbit had like virtually unprecedented
use of the cartoon and live action matching. Like it
was sort of a full realization of the filmmaking future
(03:27):
that like Walt Disney saw as a possibility. And I
think that, you know, we talked about the Back of
the Future films and then you get to this one.
And this is where I'm going with this is do
you think that this is a movie which could not
have existed without digital effects or does this come across
(03:48):
to you as a film that exists only as a
way to justify the effects costs.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I'll say, I think you could have made this film
sooner in the era of effects. You just would have
had to choose slightly different ailments for the main characters.
I don't think you could have done the full head replacement,
the flipping of the head back. I think you probably
(04:12):
could have gotten through with the hole in the chest,
but you would have had to maybe have one of
them lose an arm or something something more practical makeup
ish as opposed to I think that's what shocked everyone
with this one, was the head replacements and things like
(04:32):
that that had never been done before. Convincingly. Does it
show a little bit of its age, you know, many
decades later, Yes it does, but not enough. If you
squint at it sideways a little, like you get the
intent of the story. It's not impacted by that. And
like you said, this is a year before Jurassic Park,
it's a year after Terminator two. So right in that
(04:56):
spot where CG is about to explode.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I think that the movie itself is not as much
fun without the digital effects. I think that there's a
definite wow factor that goes back to when it first
came out and holds up today because to this day,
I know logically how they did certain things. I've seen,
you know, the behind the scenes stuff through the years.
(05:21):
But you mentioned it earlier, when she has the whole
blast in her Goldie Hawn does and she sits back
and it just seamlessly goes through so that the handle
is sticking through her and in the hole in the
center of her there's I mean, it's an incredible effect
that holds up now, you know. Yes, are there effects
(05:44):
like you're saying that don't hold up as well right now? Absolutely,
But that one in particular, that's still a wow factor.
That's still one that I look at and I say,
how did they manage this? Like it doesn't even make
sense to me what they did. So that's a lot
of fun. But let's roll it back here to the
real why of the story with this wow factor? Do
(06:07):
you see a movie that has enough punch, enough meaning
and enough purpose that is there enough story here for you?
Is there enough meat on the bone?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I mean it's interesting again this being a first watch,
because I have no idea what the plot is. All
I really had seen was the scene where they're fighting
and they're you know, sticking the hole through each other
and knocking her head back Like that's it. So I
don't know how we get there or or what. So
it starts and then we have this like seven year
(06:39):
later time jump and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Like okay, okay,
I guess they didn't get married. Oh they did get married, okay,
and then we jump again, and I'm just like, what
what is going It almost gave me Tim Burtony vibes,
where that first act is very kind of like your
Edwards says their hand or you know, maybe Corpse Bride,
(07:03):
where like the beginning is almost a prologue, and then
we kind of jump to the meat of the action,
you know, because we don't see anything of their relationship
through all these years of marriage. All we see is
the couple of days before the inciting incident, which is
you know, meeting and the and the potion and all
of that. And so with that, a lot of effort
(07:24):
is put on that early scene of convincing us that
these are not happily married people. They hate each other,
They loathe each other. The spark has gone away, and
so it not that it doesn't work, but it's a
choice because we don't we don't even get a montage.
(07:45):
It's just like nope, Q card, We're almost a decade
in the future. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think that that's a very fair observation. I think
that the latter two thirds of the movie is fun.
And what I get a sense from Zamechas is he
wants to get to the fun. He doesn't want to
take time to get there, and with how I mean,
with how long the film is, I can't blame him.
(08:10):
I almost wonder if there's stuff that's missing from that
that opening act, as it were, that maybe was you know,
cut for the sake strictly for the sake of time.
Like I think we come from Back to the Future
Part three and we see Funds zamechas Zamecchis is just
having a blast over there, and then we come over
(08:31):
here to death becomes her and that setup. It's there
because it has to be there, but he is just
trying to race along to the fun.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And part of that fun.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Of course, is Bruce Willis, who went from comedic TV
actor to big budget action star and now is coming
back to comedic actor. I got to ask you, since
this is your first time watching it, is it disorienting
at this point to see Bruce Willis embrace his comic
time and his comic nature.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Ah, it was a little because when I hear that voice,
I think of like John McClain, Like I don't hear
another care like when you hear Harrison Ford. It's hard
to detach him from certain roles but really, in a way,
he's like a supporting actor in this, Like he doesn't
(09:22):
have a lot to really do in this movie. I
mean not that he isn't doing things, but it is
such a vehicle, you know, for the our two leading ladies.
They're they're selling the whole thing. They're selling the joke
of the woman after thirty. You know, Hollywood's against them.
(09:43):
What if you found this magic potion? So I didn't
have a trouble at being Bruce Willis, But as we've
said sometimes here in house Lights, I could see this
almost going to someone else and it not really changing
the movie. I don't think it had to be Bruce Willis,
not that he did a bad job, but I don't
think it's that kind of a role that it had
(10:05):
to be him.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I agree it didn't necessarily have to be him, but
I regard him as like the secret weapon of the movie.
I don't think this works particularly well without him. I
think if you don't have Bruce Willis, you have a
substantially different movie that just doesn't work as well. I
think that Hawn and Streep are having fun, but if anything,
(10:27):
I would say I get the sense that they're constrained
by the effects work. These are two actresses who are
known for inhabiting their roles, Streep even more so than
anybody else in the cast. But this is a role
more about getting that technical timing right. You have to
hit a specific mark because we've got the match move
(10:50):
going on. If anything, in my brain, Willis is integral
to this working, And I think that Hawn shines in
this and Streep is the one that I think is
the rotating cast member for me. Interesting, Okay, I think
if anything, the choice that obviously she and Samecas came
(11:14):
to where she's a bit more zany.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
As things go on.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
It's almost as if I have a sense of her
not really finding the character, because it's almost like she
gains this momentum where she becomes more and more wacky
as it goes forward, and we sort of lose that
diabolical he earlier on in the movie.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Am I making sense?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah? They kind of both take turns being diabolical, because
you're right, she is more diabolical in the beginning where
she's getting her way and you know, stealing him away,
but then Han has it later where she's like setting
up her death and this is how we're going to
kill her and breaking into their house and all of that.
(12:03):
So they do trade places and then the kind of
the joke is that they're on the same page at
the end. But as a whole, with this movie's premise, John,
do you feel like this is a story that has
enough meat to be a movie or does it feel
like the joke you tell at a stand up and
(12:25):
then they stretched it to ninety minutes or or one
hundred whatever this was.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I'll answer by saying that I think it's a great concept,
but I think that you feel every single one of
these hundred and four minutes by the end of it.
And I think that that is a large part because
in his race to get to the fun stuff, Zamechis
never gives us the opportunity to care about any of
(12:52):
these characters. Eventually, by the end, I care about Willis.
That's why I defend his he he's.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
The only start with the character. Are not meant to
be sympathetic with the other two.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Well, I don't care what happens to them at all. Yeah,
Like I don't even want their just desserts. They're just
set pieces to me by the end, which is not
the fault of Hawn and streep. It's the fault of
the film. It's the fault of I think that's a
good way that you put it, where the joke takes too.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Long to get to the punchline.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I agree that this could have been probably ninety four minutes,
ninety two minutes even, and we would have been better off.
I think there's but where could those ten minutes have
come out of?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Is the problem? Well? And with the joke, it feels
like the first joke is, oh, you know, if you
could be young again and have this elix sir and
all that, and then that joke is kind of done
and they need a second joke to keep it going.
And that second joke is where they've done a lot
of setup to get you. There is oh, if you're dead,
(13:55):
because you're basically dead but immortal. What if we've manipulated
his character to be a mortician painter? Like what luck
that this exact role is what you need, you know,
not a plastic surgeon, but a mortician. And that's the
second joke of now we have to convince him to
keep it going.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I would offer that probably the script stage is where
this could have been saved, in the fact that they
could have streamlined that opening so that we didn't go
with Goldie Hawn to being in the asylum, Like that's
the part that takes too long. That's I think the
disorienting thing you're getting at where we're doing this thing.
(14:38):
It's like, oh, okay, this is where this is, and
then it has that seven years later and she's a
young and vibrant Goldie Hawn again, and it's like it didn't.
It doesn't spur curiosity in me so much as inevitability.
Maybe that's just because the gag had been given away
in the trailers or something. It feels almost like they
(15:00):
could have and should have had a different path for
these characters to get to that point.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Well, And I was just pulling up the poster because
the poster is literally Streep's head is on backwards and
he's holding the candelabra through the whole in Goldie han
so it's already kind of tipping its head. It's being
subtle about it, like you don't exactly know what's going on,
but something is wrong with this picture. And I mean
(15:29):
I've even was reading about in the production where they
cut a lot from the end, where there was even
an or they reshot the end where initially it was
more upbeat, and there was you know, he meets someone
and they fake his death and then they're living happily
(15:51):
and then they catch up with the girls later. But
it apparently wasn't the right tone for the ending. I
like the ending we got where you know there it's
the come uppance ending where they you don't get to
see any of his life, but we know it was great,
just like we didn't see any of his marriage, but
we know it was terrible. It's kind of the same playbook.
(16:12):
And then at the end they're just stuck with each
other like they made the wrong choice.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, I mean, you know there were You're right that
they they redid the ending in post and there's actually
the whole continuation of his story where he meets and
falls in love with a bartender played by Tracy Ullman
no Less who helps him fake his death, and then
(16:40):
Hawn and Streep encounter them as they're living as a
retired couple.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Almond winds up getting cut.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That entire thing gets cut because test audiences didn't react
well to it, so that means the movie was even longer.
Do you think that that longer ending with more payoff
for Willis would that have worked for? I mean, I'm
personally in love with the ending that we have because
I think that it was incredibly clever, you know, for
what it was.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I think it was the wedding. The ending we got
was was clever and the fact that, I mean, what
do they say, once you have the climax of the movie,
you want to end the movie as fast as possible,
And the climax is him choosing to not drink the
serum and falling and miraculously surviving. And so we basically
jump cut to forty years later, whatever number it was,
(17:28):
and it's really one scene. That ending is almost a
coda of yeah, now they're all together, and I mean,
it's again. Now it's almost running gag territory, like the
oh you you're you should have brought the right paint
and oh, your face is coming off, and then they
fall down the stairs and I guess they love that
(17:51):
tipping down the stairs gag. But and then they fall
apart kind of like mannequins, which is interesting. But yeah,
I mean, I guess it does. It works. It's not terrible,
but we're kind of like, but up up, but up
up and then the move's over. You know, it's just yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It's a full embrace of the absurdity. I mean, it's
very obvious. And this might be what works to the
detriment of the movie overall, is it's very obvious that
Zamechis is not invested in the central gag the way
he was with Back to the Future. Back to the Future,
you get the sense of a director, especially with that
(18:30):
train sequence that we praised last week, who really wants
to find a way to make this work and be believable.
And I think that there's no effort to make this believable,
and that's why you have when they do the alternate ending,
they fall apart like puzzle pieces, and then it'says like, yeah,
it's just it's a gag, and it's.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Like you're not supposed to think too hard about how
are they surviving. It's just like doesn't matter. Just that's
the joke that they're suck with each other and they
just have to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, And I think that, I mean, them falling apart
like that, I think is the bridge too far?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think that if you have that funeral ending and
they're disrespectful and they go off, and then maybe somebody's like, hey,
you're being you know, they're walking out and somebody's like, hey,
you're being rude, and one of them turns around, you
see that, Like somebody's missing a nose and somebody's got like,
you know, a flap where their tongue should be or
something like that, or something like staple together, and then
(19:31):
somebody's like ah, and then they run off to continue
their their secret existence. I think that winds up probably
playing better than the shattering, you know, because that you know,
to go back we were talking about Back to the
Future part three, a lot of sins are forgiven with
a really strong ending, and maybe they're just painted into
a corner here.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Overall, it's an okay story, but we've talked about the joke,
you know, the premise joke, and it is is very
one note, like there is no depth here. We're we're
never meant to k not care that's the wrong word.
We're never meant to root for the women, like yeah,
really ever, I mean maybe a tiny bit with Goldie
(20:15):
Hans's character at the beginning because of how she's being treated,
but for like half a second, but the vast majority
of time we are not on their side. They are
making terrible choices and are very selfish and narcissistic. So
we're it's just a come up in this movie where
we're watching them waiting for the shoe to drop or
(20:37):
the you know, the doctor to drop. But yeah, let's
talk about the again, the jokes. This is obviously a comedy,
the scene where they're in the mansion and it's the
client party, and obviously I feel like I needed to
kind of brush up on my who's who of the
(20:57):
early nineties because there were probably more people we were
meant to recognize maybe.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Watching Oh, there were plenty of people I recognize.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, Elvis it was the biggest joke, but.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
There are a few others for this young man. The
best joke was Jim Morrison asking him if he was
going to get out of the pool right right, Especially
back in ninety two, I was like.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Oh my god, Jim Morrison. Nowadays, that'd be oh, what
was it, like, ant man, Paul Rudd.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
That would be a great gag. Yeah, you're absolutely right,
that would be the perfect gag. Is Paul Rudd is
just at the party? Rights, No, but like getting chastised
for like having a career is like, come on, Paul.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Public facing the fact that's our aging is starting to
be noticed.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That somebody's movies need to be flops, you know, something
like that to get him out of the limelight. But
what's fascinating is this is only two years after Back
to the Future Part three comes out, So he goes
right into this and I don't understand the push except
(22:05):
maybe to keep the band together, as it were, because
Dean Kundy follows him here. Kundy is going to go on.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
And he is.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
He's gonna photograph Jurassic Park as well, so you know,
so the guy's a pretty solid effects cinematographer. And I'm
not saying that in a dismissive way. I'm saying like,
he obviously knows how to get that camera movement right
and get things to line up and get things lit
really well. So comparing this to Back to the Future
Part three, do you see Condy at work here? Do
(22:37):
you see visual similarity with him and Zamechas working together?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
I do. It's hard because we go from almost exclusively
an outdoor movie to a obviously built on sets for
major scenes movie like the inside of the castle, the
inside of their home, like it it feels like a set.
(23:02):
Uh and and so yeah, the the lighting, but it's
it's like literally night and day. As far as what
you're trying to portray, yeah, I mean, I don't want
to keep hashion on the tone, but even just the tone,
because I would say they're both comedies in different flavors,
(23:25):
but this one, like it makes me think more of
Rocketeer or Dick Tracy or or just kind of campy comedy,
where like the wind the lightning is it's like when
they're driving up the house and it's always lightning and
rain and thunder and a dark and stormy night, and
it's like, why is it always you know, raining, Yeah, exactly,
(23:51):
which you can no, it is not. It is a desert.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
We do no, No, I seem I seem to recall
you saying that it's always raining in La.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
That it's just never what I say, never ever.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Not raining in La. That is Washington. You are mistaken,
same coast, different climate.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Oh okay, oh is that how that works?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Well? But what is the vibe you get as far
as like the comedy. I mean, I know you were
talking about honestly, but.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, well, well, I mean the thing is even in
terms of the look. Honestly, what it calls to mind
for me is clue.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I was thinking clue. I was getting that vibe too.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
But but the key difference is the movie can't decide
and the ending I think very much contributes to this,
them falling apart on the steps and some of the
some of the wackier gags that they have is they
can't decide whether the characters are.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
In on the joke. I got how ridiculous it is.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, there's are they winking at us or are they not?
And in some of the stuff, it feels like they're
winking at us, and in some of the stuff it
definitely feels like they're not. And I think that the
winking at us is very early on, like Goldie Hawn,
the transformation they put her through and everything to make
her the lady living in the apartment with all of
(25:13):
the cats, rewatching something that suffer through it, neating ice
cream constantly. Like that's the moment where it's almost declared
where it's like, Okay, this is don't take this too seriously.
But then later on, you know, it just gets it
gets its own tone confused. Now the thing is, it
feels it feels like we're being really heavy on this,
(25:34):
and that's sort of like why I was going with,
you know, toward Kundy is I think that Condy at
least gets the shots composed really well, gets things lit
really well, and you know, the camera movement is very
good in this, and then I think the score is
very good too. Sol Vestri does a great job coming
back and working with his buddies and mechas again. And
(25:56):
so I mean, I guess what I'm left with. And
the all question for you is we're sort of like
rounding third here, right Is is this a movie with
all of this discussion that we've had, where the performances
are uneven We see unevenness in different spots, and we
(26:16):
have all of this great technical work, but we have
a script that's sort of a mess at least in
my opinion.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Are we looking at a.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Work by a director that needed to take another year
or two off or find a different project coming out
of Back to the Future Part three?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Well, it's interesting. I feel like we're almost kind of
foreshadowing into next week's episode a Forrest Gump, because we
have a very complex story there that is told over
an entire lifetime or the majority of this man's lifetime,
and I think does so very well, whereas this again
(27:00):
I come, I come back to the joke and and
really the best scene is when she's fallen down the stairs,
he's making the phone call and she gets back up
in the background like that that is a scene you
could tell someone had in their imagination, in their mind
and crafted. And then everything else is getting us there
(27:22):
or getting us away from there after like great point,
you know. And and not that there aren't great things
in the before and the after, but that that is
the bedrock of that movie. And and that is where
the joke lands of oh what if he finally kills
his you know, narcissistic wife and is calling you know,
(27:45):
his I don't I won't even say mistress because it's
not even that close, but uh, a semi accomplice. And
and then she you know, she's back there for a
while and like as if the audience is meant to
kind of forget that she's in the shot, and then
she kind of slowly starts to sit up, and it's
(28:07):
very you know, a powerful move as far as like, oh,
I'm interested now what is going to happen next? And
then we get a bit of good, we get a
bit of jumble.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Well, I just I go back to it's all solved
in the script stage, and I wonder with the how
close Back to the Future Part three and this are
if Zamecas just couldn't give it the attention that it
deserved in pre production. Because we talked, you know, last
week as well a lot about how in the old ways,
(28:43):
pre production was much more important. And I think that
this is one of those movies where you can sense
where pre production didn't get as much attention as maybe
it should have from the director. I think some of
the stuff, a lot of the stuff that we're talking about,
just going off of Back to the Future Part three,
even looking at the rest of his works, I think
(29:04):
this is a director who could have would have pushed
people to solve those problems before the camera started rolling.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Well and and I tried to look it up, but
I don't know where this story came from, you know,
I mean I don't see in the in the written
by you know. I mean, we have David Cope again,
so it's but I'm like, is this from a book?
From a short story? From a dream? Like where? Why?
(29:36):
Who looked at this idea and went like, that's the
movie I want to make, Like I don't feel that
here versus like Jurassic Park comes from. You know, this
very successful book Back to the Future is this passion
project that's grown for Zamechas Forrest Gump, I'm pretty sure
was a book.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
But yes, it was very different though zamechas Uh sort
of speeled that book with his adaptation, So it's the
book is not quite the lovable examination of American history
that the movie is.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
That's right. I think I remember hearing he interjected Forrest
into more of history that he probably wouldn't have been in.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And additionally, the situations are a bit sweeter and about
a bit more palatable. But I mean, I'm going by
what somebody told me because I you know, they read
the book and they told me stuff that happened in
the book, and I was like, that doesn't sound like the.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Movie at all.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So maybe maybe we need to have a book club
spin off of house Lights where we look at this
stuff now. The thing is before we go, though, I
do want to point out because we got at how
the performances felt a little stilted, a little restrained here
and there, and so I'm gonna grab a quote specifically
from Streep where she vowed not to work on another
(31:01):
film with heavy special effects, where she said, and I'm
just taking a couple of choice sentences here. She said,
I think it's tedious. Whatever concentration you can apply to
that kind of comedy is just shredded. You stand there
like a piece of machinery. They should get machinery to
do it. And then she back pedals and says, I
(31:23):
loved how it turned out, but it's not fun to
act to a lampstand. So you see right there, this
is a well established actress who was thrown into a
very experimental situation.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yeah, experimental is what I think of. Like if this
wasn't the on the Razor's edge of effects and was
more like, oh, yeah, we know how to do that.
We're going to do a head swap, and like we
could do that in our sleep right now, like it
would have it would be a completely different scenario than
this has never been done before.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Right right, And I think, yeah, I think this is
as a result of very challenging movie. But I think
that there is good stuff in here. I think that
there is stuff that's I really love Bruce Willis's performance.
I think that even though the opening is a jumble,
(32:19):
I think Goldie Hawn's having a blast with portraying her
sort of like a nervous breakdown era until she comes
out of it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
And I think that, I mean the.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Breakdown that Willis portrays at the party as they're trying
to force him to take the potion and he's just
refusing to do it, and sort of the hyjenks that
go through and you know, subtracting the fall down the
steps at the very end, which is just an unfortunate choice.
At the very least, they still gave us the idea
(33:00):
that he escaped and went on to have a good life.
At least I get that with the character that I
think is definitely the right instinct.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah, the funeral ending itself the way it's just a
eulogy and you're listing like all the cool things he did,
I mean, even his go to saying of life begins
at fifty or something like that, and you're like, we
know the inside joke of all the little things that
are being said, of the causes he put money into
and the things he did with his family and all that,
(33:32):
and you're like, we know why we know what shocked
him into living that life to its fullest, so we
knew him even better than his family.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
But yeah, I think at its core, it's a movie
without a character to relate to or even root for, Like, yeah, Ruill,
it's like we're rooting for him in the end, but
I don't relate to him. I don't relate to any
(34:05):
of the main characters. I'm not like, oh yeah, when
I went through my narcissistic phase and I really valued youth,
I totally thought I wished I found a magic vile
like or maybe not that specific. It's being a little crass,
but yeah, I think other movies we've seen by Zamechas
there's at least some characteristics that you know makes you pause.
(34:28):
And I think movies that have a character, a main
character that you relate to and some way is important.
And there wasn't. Really it was the joke. It was
all about the joke and the stunt, which again isn't
a bad thing to make a movie on. But it's
only going to get you so far.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
It is only going to get you so far. But
at the end of it all, it's at least entertaining.
I think that this is something where a lesser director
painted into a corner with an ending that they have
to change. I think this goes disastrously wrong. I think
actually of another Bruce Willis movie that I've never seen
(35:12):
but was a very famous flop, was the adaptation of
Bonfire of the Vanities, which is relatively contemporary to this
and apparently did not come together at the very least Zamechis.
Even if it's a mess, you can tell that he's
throwing all of his skill behind telling it as best
(35:35):
as he can. He keeps it moving, and a lot
of the complaints that I would have about it are
in retrospect, not while I'm watching Necessarily.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, so I think that this I've always had a
bit of a soft spot for it, and I never
shy away from coming back to it.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
In fact, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
So funny that we're covering this because not long before
this recording, I hosted fellow Nerd Party member Matt Rushing,
and he had never seen this before, and so I
showed this to him for the first time, and I
know that it went over well, and you know, it
(36:21):
got the last it got the positive reaction that I
know that Zamechis was looking for. So obviously the movie
still works at least for most people, I guess, and
I think it works for me. But even with Tristan missing,
we can't say what his rating is for this, which
is unfortunate because it feels like there's something missing. So Darren,
(36:45):
in Tristan's absence, we're going to come up with his
rating for death becomes or We've recorded enough with Tristan
that this is going to be a new feature. This
is how we're going to torture people for missing a week?
Is any one of the three of us now, and
we will be bound by the rating that the other
two come up with.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Do we agree with this? So we have a gentleman's
I agree.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
They're gonna have to update their letterbox account to match
what we say.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
I think that's fair. I think that's fair. Okay, so
let's break it down. Of course, the first thing, I mean,
obviously Tristan's gonna have a problem with the editing.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
I mean he's gonna I thought, first thing was is
this a Adell family favorite? And oh I don't think
it is. It doesn't think so feel like the kind
of thing that ends up on that VHS shelf.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
No, it's not on the VHS shelf.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I don't think so. I think that I think that
he really hated the ending of this, and I think
he really hated the editing as well.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
And I think he didn't like the time. I mean,
we've talked a lot about time. Anytime time is on
the radar and it is too long, He's like, I
could have cut this in three different ways and it
would have been thirty minutes shorter and the jokes would
have been more succinct.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
He would have had a problem with me coming after Streep,
even though Streep herself said she didn't have a great
time making the movie. He hates when I come after Streep,
So he probably spitefully would have raised his rating a
little bit just to come at me about that.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
I think that's fair. Do you think he liked the
music in the photography.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I think he would have liked the photography, at least,
especially knowing that it went into the same as Drassic Park.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
That's a good point.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
That's a good point. I think he loved the score,
so I think the score helped him like it a
little bit more so, where are we landing with Tristan
two or two and a half.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
I think it liked two and a half. I think
two and a half. I don't think this movie did
well commercially, like there is an era of you know,
oh yeah it did not bomb.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
No, it cost a fifty five million to make, and
then I think globally it made one hundred and forty
nine million.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
So in the nineties, which is yeah, triple, it's triple.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
It's its budget pretty much close to triple its budget.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
That's okay. I mean, I'm looking back at Replacement Killers
and Equalizer and Where the Wild Things Are, which we're
all two point five for him. Tristan hasn't given a
two since Wes Craven's New Nightmare. He's very like it
has to really be a bad film for him to
get I think he's too I think he's going to
give it too.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
You think so, yeah, I think he's going to give
it too.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
All right, Well, I have to agree with you, John.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
But the thing is, even if he disagrees, even if
he comes in thundering at us when he finally hears this,
he's bound by house lights law.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
It's just there's no no way out.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Of it shaken from the amulet, so he has to
do it. Yeah, we'll put that in brackets.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
So put that in brackets, and uh, you know what,
I'm going to give my rating and I'm going to
let you go last. See I'm also kinder than Tristan
because I'm not gonna make you go first. I actually,
you know, for all of the seeming to rag on
it earlier, and there are problems with this movie, there
(40:13):
are definite problems with this movie. I really think Bruce
Willis has the energy that shows why he became a
star in the first place, especially as a comedic TV actor.
He's got a great charisma. I think that he's having
a blast, and when Willis is on screen, I can't
(40:35):
help but have fun with this movie. I think that
I'd be foolish to overlook the technical wizardry on display.
And even though the ending falls flat only because of
that last fall down the stairs. Seriously, if you subtracted that,
my rating man actually would be Yeah, it's one joke
too many. I'm going to come in and I'm going
(40:57):
to land with a three and a half for this.
So this is your first viewing. Where did you land
with it?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah? First viewing, I'm giving it a three, and that
gives it, you know, a little bit of a bump
from the technical achievement. You can tell. Besides, you know,
even with Street talking about the nuance of the technical,
that's really only a couple of scenes. So the vast majority,
(41:25):
she's just chewing the scenery up, and you can tell
she's having fun being the Hollywood wash out and Goldie
Hahn is eating like you said she was having I
think just as much fun doing the fat makeup and
being the cat lady for like half a second, and
then she's like, but then I get to be poured
(41:46):
into this dress later and show everyone who I really am.
And it's a movie that I kind of wish I
had caught the cover out of the corner of my
eye at Blockbuster years ago and picked up on a
lark to just watch and maybe had a little more
time with it. But is it something I'm going to
(42:07):
buy and be like, oh, I gotta watch this. But
would I maybe show it to another film friend like
you did with Rushing? Yes, I would so right down
the middle as a three, higher than Tristan rated it.
So there's that saying something.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
I'm disappointed that Tristan was so hard on this film.
But you know I heard him. I heard him through
all the space and time. But what I haven't heard,
although you dropped a hint earlier, is Darren, what are
we covering next week as we continue looking at the
works of Robert Zemechis in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Well, if you love special effects, boy do we have
a movie with them. Spread throughout we are covering nineteen
ninety four's Forrest Gump here on house Lights.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Join the Revolution, Join the net Party.
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