Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: we are going to be talking about the nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: sci fi action cop movie I Come in Peace, starring
Speaker 3: the one and only Dolph Lundegren.
Speaker 2: That's right, aka Dark Angel. That was I think the
Speaker 2: international title for it, and it was released in the
Speaker 2: States is I Come in Peace. I Come in Peace
Speaker 2: as the title that I was exposed to as a kid.
Speaker 2: You see it on the other trailers that would be
Speaker 2: on your VHS rental, or I think I would see
Speaker 2: the poster art, and I was always really intimidated because
Speaker 2: it had this like really scary looking like giant dude
Speaker 2: with like long white, like white blonde hair, very serious demeanor,
Speaker 2: and yeah, he's he's from space and he is here
Speaker 2: to deal drugs and I don't know that anything can
Speaker 2: possibly stop him.
Speaker 3: So it's funny. I recall no awareness whatsoever of this
Speaker 3: movie when I was a kid, which is strange to
Speaker 3: me because it seems like exactly the kind of movie
Speaker 3: I would have thought was cool would have remembered and
Speaker 3: would have sought out when I was, you know, eight
Speaker 3: or whatever. But I don't remember this one. The Dolph
Speaker 3: Lundgren movie I do really remember, though I never actually
Speaker 3: saw it. I just have the cover of the VHS
Speaker 3: box burned into my brain. Is a later one from
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety six called Silent Trigger, where he's just holding
Speaker 3: this ridiculous looking gun with like bullets that are the
Speaker 3: size of crossbow bolts. Silent trigger? Is that a thing?
Speaker 2: Can you hear?
Speaker 3: I don't know. Is it like the trigger doesn't make
Speaker 3: a noise. I have no idea what it's about. It's
Speaker 3: just Dolph lund and looking very grim and I think
Speaker 3: he's got headphones on or maybe ear muffs because maybe
Speaker 3: the trigger is too loud and that's the problem. And
Speaker 3: the plot is about how he wants to achieve a
Speaker 3: silent trigger so he can take the ear muffs off.
Speaker 2: Well, Dolph never had any trouble looking grim and serious
Speaker 2: like that's that's pretty much one of his his trademarks.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing about the movie we're gonna be discussing
Speaker 2: today is that he gets a little more room to
Speaker 2: flex his acting muscles. And to understand that was one
Speaker 2: of the things that attracted him to the to the project.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna get to see Dolph, you know, do
Speaker 2: a little bit of comedy, do a little bit of romance,
Speaker 2: be uh, be more of a certainly an action hero.
Speaker 2: He's still gonna, you know, spinkick the soul out of people,
Speaker 2: but you know he's gonna maybe try a few other
Speaker 2: things as well.
Speaker 3: I'm more used to him in Ivan Drago mode, where
Speaker 3: he's just if he dies, he dies, But here he
Speaker 3: is he's trying to loosen up. He's trying to be
Speaker 3: funny and charming and make the same kind of transition
Speaker 3: that Arnold Schwarzenegger did from like originally just kind of
Speaker 3: like a grim, humorless muscleman like The Terminator, to become
Speaker 3: more of a charismatic action hero. And no offense to
Speaker 3: Dolph Lindergrin. I'm not sure if he quite has the
Speaker 3: charisma at the ready to make that shift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure it was entirely a success, but
Speaker 2: it'll be fun to talk about here. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: he barely takes his shirt off in this movie too.
Speaker 2: I should mention that's true. I think he's got it
Speaker 2: on pretty much the whole time. Does it ever come off?
Speaker 2: I think maybe there's one scene where he's getting bandaged
Speaker 2: up or something by a coroner. By the way, it's
Speaker 2: towards the end though, almost as if they were like,
Speaker 2: oh man, Doff's been fully closed this whole picture. Maybe
Speaker 2: he should take his shirt off a little bit. And
Speaker 2: he's like, okay, I will, but I'm trying to try
Speaker 2: new things here.
Speaker 3: I love a scene that has a coroner whose main
Speaker 3: experience is doing autopsies. They just start rolling for medicine.
Speaker 3: But hey, I know why you picked this movie, Rob.
Speaker 3: I think I know because you said it has Christmas themes,
Speaker 3: and by god, it's not really advertised in the marketing
Speaker 3: materials for the movie, but when I saw it, yes,
Speaker 3: this is a Christmas film, so it's perfect for December.
Speaker 2: That's right. We love to cover legit weird Christmas movies
Speaker 2: on weird house cinema, like Santa Claus versus the I mean, sorry,
Speaker 2: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. We're gonna be I think
Speaker 2: we're gonna be doing another weird Christmas movie straight up
Speaker 2: in the week ahead. But we also like to dig
Speaker 2: into those Christmas subgenres like Christmas horror. We covered one
Speaker 2: of these previously with nineteen eighty three's blood Beat, but
Speaker 2: this time we're looking at an even larger holiday subgenre,
Speaker 2: the Christmas action movie.
Speaker 3: Now, the big one that probably comes to mind for
Speaker 3: everyone is die Hard, which I think at least the
Speaker 3: first two die Hard movies are both set around Christmas.
Speaker 3: From what I recall, I don't know if the trend
Speaker 3: continues after that, but I can't really think of another one.
Speaker 3: What are there other ones you've got on the list?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, so Lethal Weapon apparently takes place at Christmas.
Speaker 2: Various Shane Black films. You know, he loves to go
Speaker 2: for the holidays and his action pictures and you have,
Speaker 2: so you have plenty of very mainstream films to consider
Speaker 2: in this subgenre, and you know they're probably influencing each
Speaker 2: other to some degree. I wouldn't say these are necessarily
Speaker 2: weird films. They may have some weird elements here and there,
Speaker 2: but you do get into the weird with films like
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two's Batman Returns, Oh Lord, which which definitely
Speaker 2: employs some Christmas in its weirdness.
Speaker 3: I always forget that there are Christmas themes in Batman Returns.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that one that's about as weird as a
Speaker 3: big budget mainstream movie gets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I he kind of pushed it over the line,
Speaker 2: and not in a bad way, but in just like
Speaker 2: a mainstream way. So we may have to come back
Speaker 2: to Batman Returns in the future. I rented this movie
Speaker 2: I Come In Peace from Atlanta's own video drome, and
Speaker 2: while I was there looking with the owner and manager,
Speaker 2: Matt about Christmas action movies, he was talking about he
Speaker 2: was thinking he was probably going to put together a
Speaker 2: selection of Christmas action movies there in the store, and
Speaker 2: he pointed out that a fair number of Hong Kong
Speaker 2: action films also take place during Christmas HM, which I
Speaker 2: was not aware of. And as for like why combine
Speaker 2: action films and Christmas, he said that he thinks part
Speaker 2: of is just how easy it is to use the
Speaker 2: holiday aesthetic to give a picture a sense of time
Speaker 2: and place, which I think is pretty valid. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like when and where does this take place? Well,
Speaker 2: we've got some tensil in the background. Christmas is almost
Speaker 2: like artificial depth has been applied to the scene. And
Speaker 2: or if you're filming at Christmas, you know, roll with it.
Speaker 2: But I think another aspect of it is certainly the
Speaker 2: juxtaposition between Christmas commercial Christmas that kind of like artificial
Speaker 2: souped up sense of joy and happiness with horror sci
Speaker 2: fi or just straight up explosions and spin kicks.
Speaker 3: I feel like using Christmas as a time setting for
Speaker 3: a movie is almost like using a recognizable location setting
Speaker 3: in the world, except it's cheaper to do. You know,
Speaker 3: It's easier to just like put up Christmas decorations on
Speaker 3: whatever set you'd be using anyway than it is to
Speaker 3: shoot a scene in Times Square and have everybody be like,
Speaker 3: I know where that is. You know, you have Christmas
Speaker 3: decorations in any room and people go, I know what
Speaker 3: that is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can relate, And it's there's also just almost
Speaker 2: a little bit, you know, you can get some nice
Speaker 2: subtle comedy in there a lot easier as well. So okay,
Speaker 2: so we have an action film. It is a Christmas
Speaker 2: movie and hot on the heels of our RoboCop episode,
Speaker 2: this is another Texas movie filmed and this time set
Speaker 2: in Houston, Texas. I have to say I always like
Speaker 2: it when they just go ahead and set the damn
Speaker 2: picture where it's actually filmed, especially if it doesn't really
Speaker 2: impact anything, you know, because otherwise they're like, oh, Ironman
Speaker 2: can't go to Atlanta. He's got to be someone like
Speaker 2: why can't Why can't Ironman come to Atlanta?
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Actually they go farther than just letting it
Speaker 3: actually be Houston. Dolph Lundgren is frequently seen wearing Houston
Speaker 3: Astros merchandise. Like when we first see him, he's got
Speaker 3: an Astros T shirt on underneath his cutoff denim vest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this the Houston Astros. By the way, it's the
Speaker 2: baseball team there. It's like the Astrodome. I had to
Speaker 2: look him up though, and I realized, oh they were.
Speaker 2: Until nineteen sixty four, they were known as the Colt
Speaker 2: forty five. I don't know if their mascot was a
Speaker 2: handgun or what have you. But anyway, Oh, I was
Speaker 2: thinking malt liquor. Oh yeah, I guess it could go
Speaker 2: that way. The cult forty five is also a gun, right.
Speaker 3: I guess, so I'd imagine the malt liquor is named
Speaker 3: after the gun.
Speaker 2: All right, maybe it's the malt liquor with the gun.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Now, you can also think if I
Speaker 2: Come In Piece as a kind of late eighties, you know,
Speaker 2: certainly nineteen ninety update of Not of This Earth, the
Speaker 2: film we've talked about on the show before, as well
Speaker 2: as a predecessor to another film we've talked about on
Speaker 2: the show before, nineteen ninety two, Split Second, starring Rutger Howard.
Speaker 2: Split Second especially, I think gave us both We can't
Speaker 2: help but compare this to these two films, even though,
Speaker 2: to be sure, I Come In Peace arrives in theaters
Speaker 2: years ahead of Split Second. But there are so many
Speaker 2: things they have in common with each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is some extremely similar DNA, especially in the
Speaker 3: specific buddy cop dynamic of the two movies. Both of
Speaker 3: these movies have sci fi elements where ultimately there's like
Speaker 3: an alien or monster doing most of the murders. But
Speaker 3: then they also have a main cop who is like
Speaker 3: a tough, no nonsense butt kicker who doesn't play by
Speaker 3: the rules, whose life is shattered by tragedy. The chief
Speaker 3: tries to take him off the case he's taken it
Speaker 3: too personal, and he gets a new partner who's a
Speaker 3: college educated nerd who insists on following the rules. But
Speaker 3: then in the third act is converted to the cult
Speaker 3: of instinct and breaks all the rules in order to
Speaker 3: save the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. To put it in like D and D terms,
Speaker 2: it's like, you have your chaotic good and your lawful good,
Speaker 2: but by the end, everybody's chaotic good because the message
Speaker 2: is chaos gets things done.
Speaker 3: I guess that's right. Your your main cop is chaotic good.
Speaker 3: I'd say, actually, the new partner usually starts off more
Speaker 3: as lawful neutral, like they would rather follow the rules
Speaker 3: than do the thing, and then by the end they
Speaker 3: are converted to the cult of the chaotic good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's the way it tends to play out.
Speaker 2: We had a whole offline discussion about well where does
Speaker 2: this come from then, like what specific film is being
Speaker 2: copied by both Split Second and I come in piece,
Speaker 2: like some sort of non genre piece, And we were
Speaker 2: looking around at different buddy cop movies and the articles
Speaker 2: about the evolution of the buddy cop movie, like apparently
Speaker 2: it goes all the way back to the forties with Kurosawa,
Speaker 2: but I'm not sure, Like where do you where you
Speaker 2: find that first really influential example of the he's a
Speaker 2: bad cop or not a bad cops? He plays by
Speaker 2: his own rules and he plays by the rules and
Speaker 2: now they're on the same case. That kind of odd couple,
Speaker 2: buddy cop the scenario, where does that come from? Exactly?
Speaker 2: What puts that on the map?
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll have to chase down that lead someday, but
Speaker 3: I think we don't know the full answer today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But also so this movie, yes, it has every cop
Speaker 3: movie cliche in it. It is it is explosion fest.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, there are some elements to it
Speaker 3: that I think are kind of clever and do work
Speaker 3: on their own terms. I don't want to over sell
Speaker 3: that element of it, because this is ultimately a quite
Speaker 3: dumb movie, But like the idea of the villains being
Speaker 3: alien drug dealers, I don't know, that's just kind of good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The only film I could come across and this
Speaker 2: is not. This is one. I didn't make it all
Speaker 2: the way through it because I thought it was a
Speaker 2: little bit rough content wise for my taste at the time.
Speaker 2: But nineteen eighty two's Liquid Sky, I believe, also has
Speaker 2: some sort of like alien drug dealer kind of scenario
Speaker 2: or aliens harvesting dugs from human beings, and there are
Speaker 2: surely others. So right in with your suggestions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I was trying to think of another
Speaker 3: movie also that has the dynamic of an alien bounty
Speaker 3: hunter or cop chasing an alien criminal on Earth, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, Critters. Actually, the Critters has that dynamic.
Speaker 3: And also there is a Jesse Ventura movie called a
Speaker 3: Braxis Guardian of the Universe that has the same dynamic.
Speaker 3: That movie is quite i think, unintentionally hilarious, but nowhere
Speaker 3: near on the level of like a budget or filmmaking
Speaker 3: finesse that I come in pieces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you could even go I think the
Speaker 2: Critters example is great. Our aliens in this film also
Speaker 2: kind of dressed like The Critters bounty hunters, but you
Speaker 2: could even apply it to things like Highlander, where you
Speaker 2: have these outsiders, powerful outsider beings who are at odds
Speaker 2: with each other but in the background of normal life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good, all right.
Speaker 2: I came up with an elevator pitch for this one.
Speaker 2: But Joe, your chris Well is better than mine. Would
Speaker 2: you mind reading this?
Speaker 3: Oh? Okay, so I'm doing Chriswell predict So, my friend,
Speaker 3: can your heart stand the shocking facts about drug pushers
Speaker 3: from outer space?
Speaker 2: Yes? It is. I come in peace aka Dark Angel,
Speaker 2: and I might suggest you could also call this film
Speaker 2: White Christmas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because of all the heroin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and listen to the
Speaker 2: trailer audio. I don't know if we'll listen to the
Speaker 2: whole thing, but we should at least listen to the
Speaker 2: first part of it, because even though most like the
Speaker 2: posters don't make it look like a Christmas film, they
Speaker 2: do push the Christmas button right here at the top
Speaker 2: of the trailer.
Speaker 4: Houston, Texas, It's Christmas.
Speaker 3: Someone specials coming to town. And it's not Santa.
Speaker 4: Claus, Jack and Jane, a coup who does things his
Speaker 4: own way.
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: He's sensitive, understanding.
Speaker 3: And kind to strangers the Christmas? But all that's about
Speaker 3: to end.
Speaker 4: Three well armed men have their throats cut where they
Speaker 4: can even draw their weapons, and who could possibly move
Speaker 4: that fast?
Speaker 2: Aliens say, what are you crazy? True?
Speaker 4: It's true. You need a psychiatrist, Jack, your psycho of
Speaker 4: heroin to kill people with.
Speaker 3: What are you gonna do? Tell them where? We're fighting
Speaker 3: drug dealers from outer space? Huh?
Speaker 2: All right? Doesn't that put you in the holiday spirit?
Speaker 2: Doesn't that put you in the mood?
Speaker 3: I did listen to the trailer earlier, but I can't
Speaker 3: remember what the narration is like, is it is it
Speaker 3: the voice?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's well, I don't know if it is the voice.
Speaker 2: It might be. I didn't check to see if it
Speaker 2: was Lafontein on this. But the narration is Houston, Texas.
Speaker 2: It's Christmas, someone special that's coming to town. And it's
Speaker 2: not Santa Claus.
Speaker 3: This Christmas get drug snaked by a Martian.
Speaker 2: I will put an asterisk by that. We will come
Speaker 2: back to this question because I think a case could
Speaker 2: be made that it is Santa Claus. Hmm, okay, all right,
Speaker 2: Well if you want to go see I Come in
Speaker 2: Pece aka Dark Angel before proceeding with the rest of
Speaker 2: the episode. Well, it's pretty widely available. Watched this on
Speaker 2: the excellent twenty thirteen Shout Factory Blu ray release, which
Speaker 2: we've again rented from Video Drum. That was pretty solid.
Speaker 2: It only has one feature att on it, but it's
Speaker 2: a good one and get sent a little bit into
Speaker 2: the making of the film, and you can also rent
Speaker 2: it digitally for wherever you get your movies.
Speaker 3: I think they kind of missed an opportunity with this
Speaker 3: disc where you know, sometimes you have these physical media
Speaker 3: releases that mirror plot elements from the movie. So you've
Speaker 3: got your you know, your Evil Dead release where the
Speaker 3: case is the Book of the Dead bound in flesh.
Speaker 3: It's probably not really flesh, but who knows. I think
Speaker 3: in this case they should have made the disc razor
Speaker 3: sharp on the edges.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I think that would have worked. And maybe
Speaker 2: the case could have had a little liquid smoke in
Speaker 2: it so when you open it and then there you
Speaker 2: have some files of alien space drugs in there.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that'd be good.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's talk about the people behind this film,
Speaker 2: starting with the director. This is someone we've never talked
Speaker 2: about on the show before because he is very much
Speaker 2: an action guy for the most part. It's Craig R.
Speaker 2: Baxley born nineteen forty nine. Third generation stuntman and stunt
Speaker 2: coordinator turned director. His father, Paul Baxley, worked on such
Speaker 2: films as Diamonds or Forever and the original Star Trek series.
Speaker 3: I think Diamonds Are Forever is the James Bond film
Speaker 3: that Sean Connery came back for after he had left
Speaker 3: the James Bond franchise for one movie.
Speaker 2: That's the one. Yeah. Now, Craig Craig bar Baxley, the
Speaker 2: director of the Sun Here, started out doing stunt work
Speaker 2: in the early seventies on films like Diamonds or Forever,
Speaker 2: but also the Omega Man that was also from seventy one.
Speaker 2: He eventually starts doing stunt coordinator work. By seventy three
Speaker 2: or seventy four, he's still doing stunts though. He was
Speaker 2: Warren Baty stuntman on a few movies, and he worked
Speaker 2: steadily in the stunt department for another decade, culminating in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven's Predator. This is one where he served
Speaker 2: as stunt coordinator and also stunt coordinator second unit.
Speaker 3: I can't help but see a few little gizmo's and
Speaker 3: gadgets in this movie that may have been inspired by
Speaker 3: the movie Predator.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely some shared DNA, I think, And
Speaker 2: of course both are just bombastic action film sci fi
Speaker 2: action films of the day. Though I may come back
Speaker 2: to this, Predator is a film that had like three
Speaker 2: times the budget of this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah. As far as just like straight macho sci fi
Speaker 3: action goes, I think Predator is kind of unbeatable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's right there at the top. So Predator
Speaker 2: was let the last film where in which he served
Speaker 2: as stunt coordinator. He started directing a few years prior
Speaker 2: to Predator with some episodes of TV's The A Team,
Speaker 2: but then directed his first feature film with nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: eight's Action Jackson starring Carl Weathers of Predator, Fame and
Speaker 2: much more. And now then comes I Come in Peace,
Speaker 2: followed up by nineteen ninety one Stone Cold star r
Speaker 2: Brian Bosworth. Have you seen this one, Joe.
Speaker 3: No, but I think we talked about it in some
Speaker 3: other episode. I don't remember why. It's some kind of
Speaker 3: biker connection.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. I've watched the Riff Tracks version of it
Speaker 2: and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So Baxley, you know, firmly established himself in the action
Speaker 2: tough guy genre of film, but he eventually became a
Speaker 2: repeat Stephen King adaptation director with the nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 2: Storm of the Century mini series, two thousand and two's
Speaker 2: Rose Read two thousand and four's Kingdom Hospital. That's King's
Speaker 2: adaptation of Lars von Trier's The Kingdom, and he's also
Speaker 2: apparently directing an upcoming adaptation of Kings the Gingerbread Girl.
Speaker 3: I had a weird experience with Storm of the Century,
Speaker 3: which is I remember seeing ads for it before it premiered.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was on T and T
Speaker 3: or whatever I think it was. You know, it was
Speaker 3: made for TV mini series. And then I didn't actually
Speaker 3: see it, but I bought at a used bookstore a
Speaker 3: copy of the screenplay that was like published in bound form,
Speaker 3: so I like read the teleplay very Storm at the Century.
Speaker 2: I just never I was never drawn in by because
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell what, like, what's the speculative elopment, what's
Speaker 2: the gimmick? Is it?
Speaker 3: There's like a there's a demon. So a town that
Speaker 3: lives on a little island off the coast of New England.
Speaker 3: I assume it's said in Maine. Uh is cut off
Speaker 3: from the mainland by a blizzard, and in that time
Speaker 3: a demon comes to the town and tries to make
Speaker 3: a get the townspeople to make a deal with the
Speaker 3: devil with him. I think he's like, I will I
Speaker 3: will keep killing you until you give me all your
Speaker 3: children and then I'll go away.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's that's unbranded.
Speaker 3: I don't remember how it ends up.
Speaker 2: Well anyway, Uh, I guess the important thing to take
Speaker 2: home about Baxley at this point with I Come in
Speaker 2: Peace is this is a guy who knows stunts, who
Speaker 2: knows who knows stunt teams, know what stunts can do,
Speaker 2: how to and ultimately how to shoot them, or how
Speaker 2: to line up the right people to shoot them. And
Speaker 2: so no matter what you say about I Come in Peace,
Speaker 2: the explode usions are just top notch.
Speaker 3: Everything explodes if you're done with the location. It's like,
Speaker 3: do we need to shoot any more scenes there? I
Speaker 3: don't think, so let's blow it up. It's done.
Speaker 2: I'm talking like huge fireballs sometimes filmed like in interior
Speaker 2: spaces where I often get a little wigged out by
Speaker 2: fire effects, and shows these days, you know, have like
Speaker 2: a man on fire effect and I'm always like I
Speaker 2: admire it and I'm a little bit afraid for anyone involved.
Speaker 2: But like, these are enormous explosions, Like it's just fearsome,
Speaker 2: and yeah, a lot of this stuff, as they discussed
Speaker 2: in the extras, I mean, this is the kind of
Speaker 2: thing you would today you would use green screen and
Speaker 2: or CGI explosions, and a lot of these they were
Speaker 2: having to like shoot the actors in the same shot
Speaker 2: with the explosions, and you know, are all these additional
Speaker 2: There's an entire arc to shooting these things, so you
Speaker 2: don't like wide out your film while you're also just
Speaker 2: making everything explode an enormous fireball. And I should add
Speaker 2: doing all of that safely, I think the most important thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you will not if you watch I
Speaker 3: Come in Peace, you will not leave the movie thinking
Speaker 3: not enough stuff exploded. That's just not an opinion anybody's
Speaker 3: gonna have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, now the screenplay here, there are two
Speaker 2: individuals credited. There's Jonathan Tidor, who he hasn't worked on
Speaker 2: a lot else. This was his first produced screenplay. I
Speaker 2: believe he's directed a little bit as well. But then
Speaker 2: the other writer is someone that's credited is Leonard mass Junior.
Speaker 2: But this is a moniker for David Cope for nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty three. So this is of course one of the
Speaker 2: most successful screenwriters of the nineteen nineties, and beyond having
Speaker 2: worked on ninety two's Death becomes Her ninety three's Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2: To a lesser extent, ninety four is the Shadow, ninety
Speaker 2: six is Mission Impossible. Then you Got The Lost World,
Speaker 2: Jurassic Park, other films like Panic Room in twenty two
Speaker 2: thousand and two, Spider Man in two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: War of the World's two thousand and five, and also
Speaker 2: the two most recent Indiana Jones movies. He's also directed
Speaker 2: a little bit as well.
Speaker 3: When do we get to Dolf take you a look
Speaker 3: at golf?
Speaker 2: Come on, all right, all right, Dolph Lundgren plays Detective
Speaker 2: Jack Kane. I don't really don't even have to introduce
Speaker 2: Dolph all that much here, but you know, born nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty seven. I believe he's about six ' five. Always
Speaker 2: hard to tell with people in entertainment, like what's the
Speaker 2: actual height, what's the build height? He's pretty tall, and
Speaker 2: we have people in this film that look even taller,
Speaker 2: and of course there are ways to trick that, but
Speaker 2: at any rate, huge guy, tall guy. Swedish made his
Speaker 2: film debut in nineteen eighty five's View to a Kill,
Speaker 2: and he immediately followed that up with his iconic role
Speaker 2: of Ivan Drago. As you mentioned in Rocky four.
Speaker 3: I did not remember that Dolph Lundgren was in A
Speaker 3: View to a Kill, though that would make sense because
Speaker 3: I know he at some point was the boyfriend of
Speaker 3: Grace Jones, who is in view to a kill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if memory serves, they were no longer dating at
Speaker 2: that point, but still knew each other, and she read
Speaker 2: commended him for the job, saying like, Hey, you want
Speaker 2: somebody stern and huge to stand in the background of
Speaker 2: your movie, what you should call my friend Dolph? And
Speaker 2: they did. But yeah, certainly by by Rocky four is
Speaker 2: off to the races, I mean, very iconic role. If
Speaker 2: he'd done nothing else after that, we would still be
Speaker 2: talking about it. But then in nineteen eighty seven he
Speaker 2: played he Man and the Masters of the Universe adaptation.
Speaker 2: I remember him as being being very fun and of
Speaker 2: course very jacked in that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think in that movie, don't they like they're
Speaker 3: not just hanging out in Eternia or whatever. They come
Speaker 3: to modern day la so he gets to have some
Speaker 3: you know what is the eighties?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Masters of the Universe is one of those films
Speaker 2: that it just has some awesome design choices in There're
Speaker 2: some great casting. I love all the villains in that movie.
Speaker 2: But even at and at the time I was I
Speaker 2: was rather disappointed when we leave Eternia and then we
Speaker 2: just do a you know, fish out of water story
Speaker 2: with all these goofy scenes of these fantastic characters interacting
Speaker 2: with modern life before then going back to attorney and
Speaker 2: having like an awesome showdown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go to the gallery.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a huge mole scene. That's awesome. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so he was already a huge name by nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: He had just played the title role in an eighty
Speaker 2: nine adaptation of Marvel's The Punisher. But as all these
Speaker 2: titles suggest, yeah, he was playing the stern, tough guy
Speaker 2: with maybe a little bit of humor there in Masters
Speaker 2: of the Universe. But apparently what attracted him to the
Speaker 2: script is it gave him that chance to try more things,
Speaker 2: you know, to try a little comedy, try a little romance,
Speaker 2: and in the futurette I mentioned earlier, the director back
Speaker 2: Soley gave him, gave him a lot of credit for
Speaker 2: his professionalism and his performance. So he was trying new things.
Speaker 2: But for the most part moving forward, Dolph would end
Speaker 2: up sticking mostly to action and is still active today,
Speaker 2: often in a lot of action films. Subsequent movies included
Speaker 2: the Universal Soldier franchise nineteen ninety five, Johnny Mnemonic. He
Speaker 2: pops up in the Coen Brothers Hail Caesar, and he's
Speaker 2: also in the Opperman movies. I think he's like a
Speaker 2: Russian submarine pilot. I can't even remember if he's in
Speaker 2: the movie or if he because I think, you know
Speaker 2: the Coen Brothers film late Coen Brothers films, everybody in
Speaker 2: the world is in most casts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that movie's got a big cast. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I did not remember that. That's funny.
Speaker 2: So again, Dolph was trying new stuff with this particular
Speaker 2: spreading his wiiing was a little bit but one of
Speaker 2: the things for me anyway, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: had this experience, Joe. It's like, you can't help but
Speaker 2: compare this movie to Split Second, which came later. But
Speaker 2: in doing so, you can't help but compare Rugger Howard's
Speaker 2: performance to Dolph Lungdren's performance. And that's entirely unfair. It's
Speaker 2: unfair to compare most actors to Rugger Howard. But yet
Speaker 2: I kept doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's natural for us. I would say
Speaker 3: that I wouldn't expect most people who see one of
Speaker 3: these two movies to see the other one. And I
Speaker 3: wouldn't expect most people who see both to remember both
Speaker 3: of them, So the comparison is not like inevitable, but
Speaker 3: for weirdos like us, Yeah, yeah, it's kind of hard
Speaker 3: to ignore it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is another thing that comes to mind is
Speaker 2: I often remember this film, or at least promotional materials
Speaker 2: for it, alongside promotional materials for Eve of Destruction, and
Speaker 2: have kind of merged them into a single film that
Speaker 2: I haven't seen. So I still need to get around
Speaker 2: to Eva's Destruction at some point, but I don't think
Speaker 2: it's one we could necessarily watch for weird house. All right,
Speaker 2: So Dolph is our cop who plays by his own rules.
Speaker 2: We have to also have a cop that plays by
Speaker 2: the rules. That is Special Agent Rwood Larry Smith or
Speaker 2: Agent Smith played by Brian Bendon.
Speaker 3: We do not learn that his name is our Wood
Speaker 3: until the very last line of the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a hilarious reveal that they leave until the
Speaker 2: very end, but it hits about as well as most
Speaker 2: of the comedy in this movie, the intentional comedy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, Brian Benden born nineteen five, you might watch this
Speaker 2: movie and say, where have I seen this guy before?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I never watched it, But he was the star of
Speaker 2: the HBO sitcom dream On from nineteen ninety through nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six, and he was also in Radio Land Murders
Speaker 2: in ninety four. Both of these were things that co
Speaker 2: starred Michael McKean.
Speaker 3: That's weird. I haven't seen those things, though he did
Speaker 3: somehow seem familiar to me. I know, I must have
Speaker 3: seen him in something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I would just see ads for dream
Speaker 2: On or you know, or perhaps if you're trying to
Speaker 2: watch the Tales from the Crypt episode, dream On would
Speaker 2: be on as the intro and you're like, well, I
Speaker 2: guess I gotta stet through this to get to the Cryptkeeper.
Speaker 2: It was not a film that was catering to me
Speaker 2: as its audience, for sure, but people seem to quite
Speaker 2: like it at the time. It's easy to see looking
Speaker 2: at this film how this actor went on to have
Speaker 2: success and kind of a you know, a TV sitcom environment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's the nerdy new partner.
Speaker 2: Yes. Now, of course we also need a love interest,
Speaker 2: and that's where we have the coroner Diane Palone, played
Speaker 2: by Betsy Brantley.
Speaker 3: She plays the romantic coroner her.
Speaker 2: Yes, which is fun I mean, it's the fun idea,
Speaker 2: and they do. It mostly works from a like a
Speaker 2: slight comedic standpoint, and she does come off as like
Speaker 2: the character who knows her stuff, like she makes some
Speaker 2: vital breakthroughs in the case.
Speaker 3: Credit to Betsy Brantley for delivering some of the most
Speaker 3: ludicrous lines in this entire script, like the scene where
Speaker 3: she has to where she asks Dulph Undergren to promise
Speaker 3: her something anything, that was hilarious, and also the scene
Speaker 3: where she has to explain how the alien endorphin plot works.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, she's she's she's great in that scene
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah, the whole idea. We'll come back to
Speaker 2: the promises aspect of the plot. That's yes, it doesn't
Speaker 2: quite work, but anyway. Brand is an American actress best
Speaker 2: known for her roles as the Mother and Princess Bride
Speaker 2: So that's John Savage's mother in that film, as well
Speaker 2: as supporting roles in such movies as ninety eight Deep
Speaker 2: Impact and nineteen ninety nine's Double Jeopardy. She was the
Speaker 2: performance model for Jessica Rabbit and who framed Roger Rabbit
Speaker 2: from eighty eight, and her first big role was opposite
Speaker 2: Sean Connery in nineteen eighty two s Five Days One Summer.
Speaker 2: But her first credit acting credit is actually for a
Speaker 2: small part in Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror follow up, Shock
Speaker 2: Treatment from nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: I know you've talked about looking at that multiple times.
Speaker 3: Of course, I know Rocky Horror, but I've never seen
Speaker 3: Shock Treatment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we recently had someone right in suggesting it as well,
Speaker 2: so I don't know. I need to give it a shot.
Speaker 2: I've never actually watched it. I've seen Rocky Horror so
Speaker 2: many times, but I've never watched Shock Treatment. Brandley also
Speaker 2: pops up in a nineteen eighty four episode of the
Speaker 2: excellent Granada Sherlock Holmes series, and she was previously married
Speaker 2: to director Steven Soderberg and later worked with him on
Speaker 2: his nineteen ninety six film Schizopolis and more recently in
Speaker 2: his twenty twenty two film Kimmy, which was also written
Speaker 2: by Cope. All right, it's time to get to our
Speaker 2: alien drug pusher here.
Speaker 3: What are you gonna do first? Good Alien? Bad Alien?
Speaker 2: Oh, we got to go bad Alien. Okay, okay, the
Speaker 2: reason for the season here, and he's credited as bad
Speaker 2: Alien tallic so Talliic is his name, though I don't
Speaker 2: remember them ever calling him that. That's the good character's name.
Speaker 3: I don't recall that coming up.
Speaker 2: Played by Matteus Hughes born nineteen fifty nine. I have
Speaker 2: to just say again, this is a character that scared
Speaker 2: me a bit as a kid, and watching the film
Speaker 2: still a bit scary. He's still quite a screen presence.
Speaker 2: I've seen his height listed as anywhere between sixty five
Speaker 2: and six eight, and he's wearing lifts in this alongside
Speaker 2: you know, various camera trick or a just make him
Speaker 2: look like an absolute giant.
Speaker 3: Another freaky thing they do to him is they, I
Speaker 3: guess it must be contacts or something, they cloud his
Speaker 3: eyes over so you can't really see where he's looking,
Speaker 3: like his eyes are kind of foggy. And he speaks
Speaker 3: in this this creepy horse whisper, and basically the only
Speaker 3: line he says in the movie is repeatedly telling people
Speaker 3: I come in peace, right before killing them.
Speaker 2: It's great. It's like you get the sense that this
Speaker 2: is the only thing he knows how to say in
Speaker 2: like Earth language. Maybe he can say to multiple Earth languages,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't necessarily even know what it means. He
Speaker 2: just knows that it's something that you can say to
Speaker 2: a hostile human being to momentarily give them pause so
Speaker 2: you can blow them up or drug snake them. So.
Speaker 2: Hughes is a German born Venice Beach bodybuilder who initially
Speaker 2: pops up as an uncredited extra in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: seven cult themed Dragnet movie, but then he followed this
Speaker 2: up with small roles and eighty seven's No Retreat, No
Speaker 2: Surrender eighty eight's Big Top Peewee. He plays the lion
Speaker 2: tamer in that, but then he pops up in another
Speaker 2: movie that we've We've talked about the cover art for
Speaker 2: this one because he's the other muscle dude fighting Jorge
Speaker 2: Rivero on the cover on the VHS art for nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eights Fist Fighter.
Speaker 3: Oky Rivero is the star of Conquest, and many listeners
Speaker 3: may also know him as the villain from the movie Werewolf.
Speaker 2: He's Yury, Yeah, so Matteas. Hughes's other credits include ninety
Speaker 2: one's Kickboxer two, ninety one's Star Trek six, The Undiscovered Country.
Speaker 2: I believe he's a klingon in that I'm assuming like
Speaker 2: maybe kind of a background muscle clingon. And then he's
Speaker 2: also in two thousand and eight puppet Master, The Littlest Reich. Again.
Speaker 2: I love him in this, He's one. It's one of
Speaker 2: these roles where I guess I haven't seen him in
Speaker 2: a lot. So this character feels to me like very
Speaker 2: disconnected from the rest of cinema, Like he is an
Speaker 2: actual seven foot alien who has just popped out of
Speaker 2: a crater to start harvesting human brain juice for space drugs. Yeah,
Speaker 2: now that's the bad alien. We also have a good
Speaker 2: alien by the name of Azak. Again, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: we ever hear his name, but this alien is played
Speaker 2: by another very tall individual. Jay Bilas born nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: three former pro basketball player and coach who currently works
Speaker 2: for ESPN as a college basketball analyst. He had no
Speaker 2: acting experience for this, but he was six ' eight
Speaker 2: so they said, hey, how would you like to shave
Speaker 2: the front part of your head and put some contacts
Speaker 2: in and run from some explosions, and he gave it
Speaker 2: his all. So it is that given all of that,
Speaker 2: given how green he was, like, that's a pretty good job.
Speaker 3: So when he's on one of those shows, on ESPN
Speaker 3: where the guys are yelling at each other. Do they
Speaker 3: bring this up at him? They're you know, They're like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, yeah, uh huh. The astros are good this year.
Speaker 3: How about you go and starring I Come In Piece too.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I hope he's proud of it.
Speaker 3: I hope he should be proud of his haircut in
Speaker 3: this movie is solid. There are multiple mullets in I
Speaker 3: Come In Piece, but this one, this one is scullet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hair. The hairstyle is apocalypse in the front,
Speaker 2: party in the.
Speaker 3: Back, yep, yep. He also has cloudy eyes.
Speaker 2: Right. These are the main characters that are in play,
Speaker 2: So I'll try and run through some of the other
Speaker 2: actors a little a little more speed. But we have
Speaker 2: some criminal elements human criminal elements that pop up. The
Speaker 2: first is Victor Manning, played by Sherman Howard born nineteen
Speaker 2: forty nine, American actor of stage and screen, perhaps best
Speaker 2: known for playing the zombie and headphones bub from the
Speaker 2: eighty five Romero movie Day of the Dead. He also
Speaker 2: pops up An eighty nine's lethal Weapon two, as well
Speaker 2: as various TV episodes, including shows like Seinfeld and Deep Space. Nine.
Speaker 3: He plays an incredibly smug gang boss in this of
Speaker 3: a weird gang that we'll discuss more as we go on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we don't see as much of them as
Speaker 2: I would have liked it good that it's pretty pretty
Speaker 2: fun and over the top.
Speaker 3: One last, you know, regarding the bad guys. We've talked
Speaker 3: about movies before where unfortunately you have some trouble telling
Speaker 3: the different characters apart. I don't have that trouble with
Speaker 3: the main characters in this movie, but the villains. There
Speaker 3: are like seven villain characters in the yuppie gang slash
Speaker 3: the Feds in this movie that all look exactly the same. Fortunately,
Speaker 3: you do not need to be able to tell them
Speaker 3: apart to follow the plot.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, a lot of bad guys in suits in
Speaker 2: this film, and ultimately they're not a part of the
Speaker 2: final showdown. Another key character is Inspector Switzer. This is
Speaker 2: our villainous federal agent who's looking into the whole alien
Speaker 2: murders angle, played by David Ackroyd More nineteen forty, actor
Speaker 2: of State, screen and TV. His other credits include eighty
Speaker 2: three's Cocaine One Man Seduction, eighty three's Deadly Lessons, and
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six is a Smoky Mountain Christmas starring Dolly Parton.
Speaker 3: Ow Yeah, does he play a hard nosed federal agent
Speaker 3: in that?
Speaker 2: I hope so, I hope so, all right.
Speaker 3: To Dolly, I'm gonna bust up this whole operation.
Speaker 2: Now, on the criminal element side of things, we also
Speaker 2: have another guy who I'm uncertain if he's the main
Speaker 2: boss or the secondary boss, but his name is Warren.
Speaker 2: We only encounter him in a skyscraper number two.
Speaker 3: He's so like the main boss of the villain of
Speaker 3: the gang in the movie, leaves after the first scene.
Speaker 3: He never comes back in the movie. He's just we
Speaker 3: we hear about him being in Rio, enjoying the sun
Speaker 3: and the beach while all the other characters are suffering
Speaker 3: under the alien boot heel. And so he leaves. This
Speaker 3: other guy, Warren in charge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, played by Sam Anderson born nineteen forty seven. And
Speaker 2: if you're a movie go over of a certain age,
Speaker 2: you probably see this actor and you're like, I've seen
Speaker 2: this guy before, but I just can't place him. I
Speaker 2: suspect that the reason is that he's the principal. In
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four is Forrest Gump, yep.
Speaker 3: I had. I spent several minutes with it pause, just
Speaker 3: trying to think without looking it up, who is this guy?
Speaker 3: And then I realized, Yeah, he's the he's the Creepy Principle.
Speaker 2: And he's done some other TV work as well. I
Speaker 2: think he's also in Critters too. Oh okay, cool, but
Speaker 2: certainly Forrest Gump, that's a that's a big pop culture
Speaker 2: footprint to leave there. We talked about Split Second earlier.
Speaker 2: We mentioned Split Second. Interestingly enough, there is one individual.
Speaker 2: There may be some more in the deeper in the credits,
Speaker 2: but there's one core member of the cast who connects
Speaker 2: these two pictures, and that is the wonderful character actor
Speaker 2: Michael J. Pollard, who lived nineteen thirty nine through twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: He played the Ratcatcher in Split Second, and in this
Speaker 2: movie he plays a snarling criminal informant by the name
Speaker 2: of Boner who's essentially Gollum.
Speaker 3: He's essentially Gollum, Yeah, who, I will add, plays no
Speaker 3: role whatsoever in the plot. He's just there to like
Speaker 3: get ruffed up by Dolph Lindegren. And then Dolph Londergren,
Speaker 3: unrelated to his interaction with this guy, has an epiphany
Speaker 3: about the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird that it goes like that. It's almost
Speaker 2: like they're like, like, look, we got Pollard for a day.
Speaker 2: We got to use him, find a way slot him in.
Speaker 3: There somewhere he just happens to be fortunately standing next
Speaker 3: to a pool table, and then Dolph Londergren looking at
Speaker 3: the pool table is like, aha, aliens are throwing murdered
Speaker 3: discs through the air.
Speaker 2: But Pollard's always great though, as other films include sixty
Speaker 2: seven's Bonnie and Clyde. He's an eighty eight Scrooge for
Speaker 2: a Christmas tie in, and he's also in Rob Zombie's
Speaker 2: House of a Thousand Corpses from two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: All Right, now, this is a small role, but I
Speaker 2: have to point out that al Leong is in this
Speaker 2: playing the luggage salesman. There's like, essentially it's like a
Speaker 2: drug drop kind of a situation. Born nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 2: Small role, but I think film fans will recognize this
Speaker 2: guy because he plays the Wingkong hatchetman from nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: six is Big Trouble in Little China.
Speaker 3: He's another one of these recognizable character actors from a
Speaker 3: bunch of ades movies. A lot of other people might
Speaker 3: remember him from die Hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he popped up in die Hard. He's Genghis Khan
Speaker 2: and Bill and Ted from eighty nine. He's in Lethal Weapon.
Speaker 2: Longtime stump man as well. One of these guys is
Speaker 2: kind of kind of a low key action film legend,
Speaker 2: I think, because you just see him pop up in
Speaker 2: so many things. And he had a signature look and
Speaker 2: it had kind of like a receding hairline, but long hair,
Speaker 2: so you know, glorious mullet, and then a really robust.
Speaker 3: Mustache, powerful mustache, really strong.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So sometimes he's just standing in the background. Other
Speaker 2: times he's screaming with a hatchet in his hand. Does
Speaker 2: great work.
Speaker 3: You attached a picture of him in the outline where
Speaker 3: he's like squatting in the foreground and then you can
Speaker 3: see the Hollywood Hills in the background and the Hollywood
Speaker 3: sign is under his thigh.
Speaker 2: Glorious. I hope he used this as his main promotional
Speaker 2: image for many years. I think he's still active too.
Speaker 2: Great now. This we generally don't mention like special effects coordinators,
Speaker 2: but I will mention real quick that Bruno van Zebrowick
Speaker 2: is the individual who had the honors on this movie
Speaker 2: still active and highly cited by Baxley in the feature
Speaker 2: atte is a key part of the film's success, you know,
Speaker 2: from a stunt and production standpoint, So I'm looking at
Speaker 2: him a little bit. He worked on pre and also
Speaker 2: such films as John Carpenter's The Thing, Return of the Jedi,
Speaker 2: David Lynch's Dune Action, Jackson Roadhouse, Alien three, and Die Hard.
Speaker 2: So again, the stunt and and explosive effects pyrotechnics pedigree
Speaker 2: of this film is just, you know, you can't deny it.
Speaker 2: And then finally coming to the music, I got kind
Speaker 2: of excited when I was previewing the credits for this
Speaker 2: one because we have Jon Hammer on this born nineteen
Speaker 2: forty eight. This is the Czech American musician, composer, and
Speaker 2: record producer, best known for two tracks. Really he's done
Speaker 2: a lot of work. But there's the theme song to
Speaker 2: Miami Wece the TV show, and there's another track he
Speaker 2: did for Miamivice titled Crocket's Theme. Both of these were
Speaker 2: from the eighties TV series. Crockett's theme especially is just
Speaker 2: an incredible track. It's just oh, it's just so perfect.
Speaker 2: It's just this glittering, upbeat synth masterpiece. You know that
Speaker 2: just just bleeds eighties directly in your veins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's strong, it's moody. It's got a kind of
Speaker 3: a surprising and moody chord progression, but also the bouncing
Speaker 3: rhythmic synthesizer tone in it. I feel like it's something
Speaker 3: that has tried to be copied later by anything that
Speaker 3: is evoking the spirit of the eighties, even like the
Speaker 3: Grand Theft Auto games I think have some musical score
Speaker 3: in them that is trying to copy this feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, it's incredible. I highly recommend listening to it.
Speaker 2: And even the Miami Vice theme song like that one
Speaker 2: earned him I believe two Grammys, So highly successful guy.
Speaker 2: Other scores include two episodes of Tales from the Crypt.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly which ones off off the top
Speaker 2: of my head. He did Night Ride or two thousand.
Speaker 2: Some of his music appears on nineteen ninety two is
Speaker 2: Beyond the Mind's Eye, which was one of these like
Speaker 2: early like CGI psychedelic visionary art kind of things he
Speaker 2: could order off an advertisement on tele Vision. And he
Speaker 2: also scored nineteen ninety six as beast Master three The
Speaker 2: Eye of Braxis.
Speaker 3: Who is Braxis?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but he's got an eye. I was
Speaker 2: trying to like, what beefy guy plays Praxis in this,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't tell that there is a Praxis. There's
Speaker 2: a voice of Braxis. So maybe it's some sort of
Speaker 2: a special effects god sort of situation.
Speaker 3: I briefly forgotten. Then just remember that we covered beast
Speaker 3: Master two through the portal of time on this show.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that one was great wings houser.
Speaker 3: And that one speaking of he Man coming to La
Speaker 3: that's another one.
Speaker 2: All right. Let's let's get into the plot of I
Speaker 2: Come in Peace.
Speaker 3: All right. So the opening sequence we have ringing synth
Speaker 3: bells and a lonely city street late at night. They're
Speaker 3: trying to establish that moody eighties, you know, neon signs.
Speaker 3: In the background, dark city atmosphere. A car is driving
Speaker 3: down the street. It's a luxury car. We see the
Speaker 3: driver and he looks like one of Patrick Bateman's friends,
Speaker 3: and this will be a recurring theme. Fancy suit, smug face,
Speaker 3: looks like a rich, aggressive, mean guy. Driver of the
Speaker 3: car activates some blinking futuristic panel on his dashboard. What
Speaker 3: is it? It is a CD player and he inserts
Speaker 3: a gleaming silver CD into the slot. What's he listening to?
Speaker 3: Can you guess? It's a new hit called Hark the
Speaker 3: Herald Angels sing.
Speaker 2: He had to get that hit of the Christmas music.
Speaker 3: So this guy from the Bateman Crew, he's cruising through
Speaker 3: the deserted city streets. It's nighttime. He's jamming to his
Speaker 3: Christmas carols until the music starts skipping. The song sounds
Speaker 3: totally scrambled, like the notes are playing at double speed,
Speaker 3: random order, that kind of thing. And the driver is
Speaker 3: very angry. He needs his Hark and he complains. He's like,
Speaker 3: you pay seventy thousand dollars for a and then they
Speaker 3: give you a broken CD player. Then suddenly the CD
Speaker 3: shoots out of the slot at him violently. He startled,
Speaker 3: and he nearly collides with a bus at an intersection,
Speaker 3: swerves to avoid an impact, and ends up crashing his
Speaker 3: car into a lot full of Christmas trees. So they're
Speaker 3: hitting you with a lot of Christmas right at the top.
Speaker 3: Almost makes you wonder if this whole prologue here was
Speaker 3: like added on to it really emphasize the Christmas themes,
Speaker 3: but I guess probably not, because we're about to meet
Speaker 3: a crucial character. So he gets out of the car,
Speaker 3: he complains some more, and then, to make things even worse,
Speaker 3: suddenly a fireball descends from out of space and obliterates
Speaker 3: his car, leaving only a flaming crater in its place,
Speaker 3: And the driver looks on as out of the flaming
Speaker 3: crater comes a man dressed in black with gloves, a
Speaker 3: long dark coat, and some kind of technological gadget strapped
Speaker 3: to his arm like the Predator. He's got long blonde hair,
Speaker 3: his eyes a foggy, like they're clouded with cataracts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they shoot him rising up out of this
Speaker 2: crater like he's like he's a redwood tree, you know.
Speaker 2: It just seems like he's at least eight or nine
Speaker 2: feet tall. It's great.
Speaker 3: So the man from the sky approaches the driver and
Speaker 3: looms over him. He opens his lips and says, in
Speaker 3: a hoarse whisper, I come in peace. Cut to something
Speaker 3: else next week, Get an infiltration. There is a dude
Speaker 3: sneaking into some kind of building through air ducts, cutting
Speaker 3: through metal grating with a torch, climbing around in the
Speaker 3: duct work. This is also a favorite theme of eighties
Speaker 3: action movies. They love putting a guy climbing through the
Speaker 3: ventilation shafts. So what's going on here, Well, it's a heist.
Speaker 3: This is some kind of police building. I think they
Speaker 3: later call it a federal warehouse. An infiltrator sneaks in.
Speaker 3: He sneaks into an evidence room and then in there
Speaker 3: he runs into a police officer and kills him with
Speaker 3: a throwing knife. He steals the officers. I was thinking
Speaker 3: at first he stole his clothes and his badge, but
Speaker 3: I think maybe he just takes his badge or his
Speaker 3: name tag, because you know, this police officer's clothes would
Speaker 3: have a big knife hole in the front and a
Speaker 3: bunch of blood on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this whole sequence is ridiculous, you know, it's their
Speaker 2: standards sort of nineties Batman s chaos criminals because there's not,
Speaker 2: ultimately nothing smooth about them. They immediately follow up the
Speaker 2: stealth portion of their mission with a seemingly unnecessary murder.
Speaker 3: Right, and so he's disguised as a cop. Now he's
Speaker 3: got this other guy's badge and name tag on. He
Speaker 3: loads up a briefcase full of these little plastic baggies
Speaker 3: of white powder. It looks like he's stealing about thirty
Speaker 3: pounds of heroin. And then the killer meets up with
Speaker 3: a co conspirator who's been like walking him through the
Speaker 3: heist on a walkie talkie. Together they go to the
Speaker 3: front desk and they sign out to this suitcase full
Speaker 3: of drugs. And the guy at the desk has a
Speaker 3: righteous mullet. He's like, some must be some party, ha hahu.
Speaker 2: According to I was looking at a two thousand and
Speaker 2: nine Dea press release, and according to that press release,
Speaker 2: thirty pounds of heroin might be worth somewhere in the
Speaker 2: neighborhood of for like thirty million dollars. So just go
Speaker 2: ahead and sign that out to officers shifty and sauce here.
Speaker 3: Yes, So on the way out these guys, one of
Speaker 3: these guys drops a bag on the staircase in the
Speaker 3: lobby of this police building. Somebody is just blasting joy
Speaker 3: to the world, and they leave the building. They pile
Speaker 3: into a waiting getaway car. The driver also has a
Speaker 3: mullet and is wearing you know, he's dressed like a
Speaker 3: Bateman bro. They're driving a luxury sedan. So the themes
Speaker 3: yet again they drive away and then the police building explodes,
Speaker 3: and as we said in this movie, everything explodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just fireballs of unreal proportion. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: But the other guys in the car are like, what
Speaker 3: was that, and the infiltrator dude says a little insurance
Speaker 3: policy and the guy goes, what the hell for and
Speaker 3: he's like, no witnesses experienced criminals here, and then they're
Speaker 3: all like, oh yeah, okay. So next we move on
Speaker 3: to a stakeout where we meet Dolph Lindgren's character. This
Speaker 3: is Detective Jack Caine. He's sitting in a car with
Speaker 3: an earpiece listening to a drug deal unfold at what
Speaker 3: looks like an empty nearby nightclub, and he's got a
Speaker 3: man on the inside wearing a wire. This guy on
Speaker 3: the inside is Turner, his partner who is undercover as
Speaker 3: a drug buyer. And the gang Turner is doing this
Speaker 3: deal with is called, for some reason, the White Boys.
Speaker 3: Their thing is that they are yuppies, so this is
Speaker 3: like a criminal street gang that distributes heroin throughout Houston.
Speaker 3: But they all have Ivy League degrees and they drive
Speaker 3: sports cars and they look like a Brooks Brothers catalog,
Speaker 3: so it's like, is this one of the concepts of
Speaker 3: the gangs from the war years, along with like the
Speaker 3: baseball guys. If not, it should have been, Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: And Victor Manning, the leader of the gang, is giving
Speaker 3: a speech to Turner about how he once thought his
Speaker 3: education would be his saving grace, but then he got
Speaker 3: out of Princeton and he realized MBAs were quickly becoming
Speaker 3: a devalued commodity. So he says he went back to
Speaker 3: school and he got another master's in international banking, and
Speaker 3: then he's like quizzing Turner, and in character, he's like,
Speaker 3: what university did you attend? And Turner says a funny
Speaker 3: but sort of unrepeatable line. And then before the gang
Speaker 3: boss here gets to the point of his story, his
Speaker 3: preppagoons arrive with the heroine they stole from the police warehouse.
Speaker 3: By the way, this is one of these scenes taking
Speaker 3: place on a street where the storefronts are just all
Speaker 3: apparently liquor stores and adult movie theaters, and they all
Speaker 3: have neon signs.
Speaker 2: He's very convincing. I don't know if they had to
Speaker 2: build this or they just found this in Houston.
Speaker 3: So they let Turner see the merchandise, say yep, that's
Speaker 3: a bunch of drugs, and then he opens up a
Speaker 3: briefcase full of money, and Victor Maning goes on with
Speaker 3: his speech. He's like, you know, if you don't have
Speaker 3: at least a master's degree these days, you could find
Speaker 3: yourself really desperate. You might have to turn to a
Speaker 3: life of crime, or even worse, become a cop. And meanwhile,
Speaker 3: right next door, two guys in duster coats run into
Speaker 3: an unrelated liquor store and start robbing it. They're roughing
Speaker 3: up customers, they're pointing a shotgun at the shop owner.
Speaker 3: And Dolph Lindgren sitting in his car, he sees this happening.
Speaker 3: Uh oh. Jack Kane is supposed to be listening in
Speaker 3: on the wire for Turner to make the deal so
Speaker 3: they can, you know, make the arrests. But now there
Speaker 3: are people in peril. What's a dolf gonna do. Of course,
Speaker 3: he's gonna go administer some roundhouse kicks. So he drops
Speaker 3: his earpiece. He says, keep talking, guys, and he goes
Speaker 3: and he roundhouse kicks one of the guys in the
Speaker 3: in the store and then shoots the other one and Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: while Kine is busy doing that not listening, the gang
Speaker 3: boss reveals that they know Turner's real identity. They've been
Speaker 3: playing him this whole time. They shoot Turner, they take
Speaker 3: the money he brought, and then Victor Manning leaves the scene,
Speaker 3: telling his goons to make sure they get quote every
Speaker 3: grain of that heroine. But after the boss leaves, while
Speaker 3: the preppy henchmen are finishing up with the scene, a
Speaker 3: new player arrives and hey, it's the alien from that
Speaker 3: flaming crater. He comes up to the henchmen, he says,
Speaker 3: I come in peace. Then he attacks them with an
Speaker 3: alien murder disc that shoots out of his wrist. Rob
Speaker 3: do you want to describe the death disk attack?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I really love the idea of the death discs,
Speaker 2: and ultimately it's a lot of fun in the movie.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the sci fi explanation that they get into
Speaker 2: about how they work more than that in a bed.
Speaker 2: But let's face it, the execution of the effect is adequate.
Speaker 2: You know, it doesn't take you out of the movie,
Speaker 2: but it's very clearly just a CD spinning that they shot.
Speaker 2: Watching the movie, you really want this thing to be
Speaker 2: something more like a cross between the tall Man's spheres
Speaker 2: from Phantasm and the Predators killer frisbee. I don't remember
Speaker 2: if he had the frisbee in Predator one or if
Speaker 2: that's just a Predator two thing.
Speaker 3: But I think that's Predator two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so you want it to be like that
Speaker 2: insteady weirdly seems to hit with more blunt force impact
Speaker 2: than slicing terror, So, you know, maybe a little disappointing
Speaker 2: in that regard, but otherwise still effective. You still buy it.
Speaker 3: Yes, On the other hand, I mean it is quite
Speaker 3: clearly just a CD.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it it kind of deflates it a bit too.
Speaker 2: When we had that opening scene with the CD player
Speaker 2: and the CD flying out, that's not doing that. It's
Speaker 2: not doing the effect any favors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a strange. It's strange to offer that visual comparison.
Speaker 3: It's almost like the alien got the idea of using
Speaker 3: a CD from that scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So after defeating the henchman, the alien steals the heroine
Speaker 3: and leaves alien one of those drugs, and then Dolph
Speaker 3: Lundegren comes in to find his partner dead. So in
Speaker 3: the next scene, police are all over the place. So
Speaker 3: we kind of get a walk through. Somebody says, looks
Speaker 3: like somebody put the white boys through the queas and art,
Speaker 3: I guess, referring to the cuts from the Flying Disc.
Speaker 3: And Jack Kaine's boss arrives to give the classic reprimand
Speaker 3: of the rogue cop by the chief monologue. So we
Speaker 3: get eye out to break your neck. You're taking it
Speaker 3: to personal. You're a loose cannon. You're off the case,
Speaker 3: go on vacation. That's in order. We're not yet to
Speaker 3: meet your new partner, but that will come in the
Speaker 3: next scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, by the books.
Speaker 3: Now, in the opening scene, we don't necessarily get a
Speaker 3: great look at the character of Jack Kine because he
Speaker 3: is sitting in a car. And then the later action
Speaker 3: scene'es in like a dark store where they've shot out
Speaker 3: the light. So let's take in Kane in his full
Speaker 3: glory here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say he's essentially a walking, big and tall
Speaker 2: store wrack in this film. Like I just kept being
Speaker 2: shocked by just like how much clothing he's wearing. And
Speaker 2: you know, not just that he's not shirtless, but like
Speaker 2: it's like, wow, that's that's a lot of clothes. He
Speaker 2: had to go to the big and tall shop for that.
Speaker 2: That's specially in this movie.
Speaker 3: He does not have his Ivan Drago blonde Frankenstein haircut.
Speaker 3: He's got brown hair and I don't know what you
Speaker 3: call this hairdo, but it's more normal looking. It's sort
Speaker 3: of done up a little bit elvisy, but with a
Speaker 3: I don't know, later more eighties kind of style. His
Speaker 3: outfit includes what looks to me like a black denim
Speaker 3: cutoff of vest. I think it used to be a
Speaker 3: jacket or long sleeve shirt, but with the sleeves removed,
Speaker 3: the badge mounted on the vest. And then this is
Speaker 3: over a black Houston Astro's T shirt. So it's a,
Speaker 3: I thought, an amusing look. But another thing I want
Speaker 3: to get to is that a lot of movies of
Speaker 3: this kind will introduce some sort of little personality quirk
Speaker 3: to their main cut character to distinguish them ever so
Speaker 3: slightly from the other butt kicking, loose cannon cops who
Speaker 3: get results that we may have encountered in our movie
Speaker 3: Going Lives. For example, with Rutger Howard's character Harley Stone
Speaker 3: in Split Second, the quirk was do you remember what
Speaker 3: it was?
Speaker 2: Rob? Oh? He loved coffee and he loved sweets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a sweet tooth. He loved candy, and he
Speaker 3: put tons of sugar in his coffee. Yeah, so that
Speaker 3: was an interesting pick, And honestly, I think the quirk
Speaker 3: they pick for Dolph Lindegren's character here is kind of weak.
Speaker 3: The quirk is that he never breaks a promise. It
Speaker 3: is something that is universally true of his personality and
Speaker 3: everybody knows this about him. Odd choice, Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: I mean it feels kind of mythic or folkloric in
Speaker 2: its own way, but it also never feels real either.
Speaker 2: There's like the scene with his on again, off again girlfriend,
Speaker 2: which is like, I wish you would make a promise
Speaker 2: to me one day, like you make promises to us
Speaker 2: people and he's like, I don't know, I'm not ready
Speaker 2: to do that yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he doesn't do it in the scene. But also
Speaker 3: what promises is she aware of him making to other people?
Speaker 3: And also isn't keeping promises just a normal thing that
Speaker 3: is expected of most honest people, Like I feel like
Speaker 3: it would be more notable if a person was known
Speaker 3: for breaking a promise every promise they made.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it seems like they get to come up
Speaker 2: with something else with this character, and I mean they
Speaker 2: kinda they kind of weave it into the plot a
Speaker 2: little bit, but it never really sticks.
Speaker 3: The way it's first introduced is in this scene where
Speaker 3: the chief is, you know, Chiefs is chewing him out.
Speaker 3: He's saying, you're off the case. I command you to
Speaker 3: take vacation, and then he says, actually, no, I don't
Speaker 3: order you to take vacation. I order you to promise
Speaker 3: me you will take all your vacation days, because I
Speaker 3: know you never break a promise. Jack Caine, Oh, he
Speaker 3: got him, He got him. Can't get out of this.
Speaker 3: There's no way out unless there is intervention by a
Speaker 3: higher power. And then here we introduce the FEDS. The
Speaker 3: FBI comes in and Dolf meets the character of Agent Switzer,
Speaker 3: an arrogant, domineering FBI agent of the shut up and
Speaker 3: do what you're told style. He explains that his job
Speaker 3: is to know things, and he's smarter than everybody else
Speaker 3: and that regular cops like Dolf are just stupid and
Speaker 3: beneath him and they need to obey what he says.
Speaker 3: So Switzer takes Dolf into the bathroom to discuss the
Speaker 3: strangeness of the murder scene, it's like, what could have
Speaker 3: left these incisions on the victims? And Dolph says, I've
Speaker 3: seen a lot of knife wounds, but these were done
Speaker 3: by something else. Okay, I mean to be clear, Like
Speaker 3: we see the wounds in the movie and that nothing
Speaker 3: seems all that remarkable about them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also we don't have a weapon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: They're like, what could have done?
Speaker 3: Whatever this weapon is, it's the key to understanding what
Speaker 3: happened here. So Switzer decides that Cain should be back
Speaker 3: on the case. He comes and he tells the chief, Hey,
Speaker 3: you know, you've got to put him back on the case,
Speaker 3: and the chief complies. But the condition here is that
Speaker 3: Cain has to be paired with a new partner, and
Speaker 3: Dolph might as well look directly into the camera and
Speaker 3: shrug while a zoinc sound effect plays. It's like, new partner. Okay,
Speaker 3: So it's a classic cop movie pair up. The new
Speaker 3: partner is a sharply dressed FBI agent named Larry Smith,
Speaker 3: and it's cop oil versus FBI water. Cain is tall,
Speaker 3: Smith is short, Cain is buff, Smith is skinny. Smith
Speaker 3: is by the book. Cain plays by his own rules.
Speaker 3: Smith is snooty and stuck up, while Cain is down
Speaker 3: to earth. You could have a beer with him. Smith
Speaker 3: operates on reason and logic, which the movie implies are
Speaker 3: stupid and doomed to fail, while Cain relies on instinct,
Speaker 3: which is smart and gets results.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a whole sequence where they discuss the difference
Speaker 2: between relying on your gut and relying on on logic
Speaker 2: and learning without ever drawing the obvious. I mean, I
Speaker 2: would think to everyone connection between learning and repetition and instinct. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like these things go hand in hand. Why these seems
Speaker 2: like these are falsely separate categories here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course to the extent that instinct would actually
Speaker 3: be useful. It's like because of experience. Yeah, But essentially
Speaker 3: they're setting it up where like Cain is a jock
Speaker 3: and Smith is a nerd, and this movie hates nerds. Well,
Speaker 3: actually there are some nerds later on that we find
Speaker 3: out are okay, but certain nerds are not so good.
Speaker 3: And in the scene where they very first meet in
Speaker 3: the chief's office, they are immediately clashing because Smith condescends
Speaker 3: to Cain, He's like trying to explain the definition of
Speaker 3: the word parameters and Cain is getting mad, and then
Speaker 3: they get interrupted when the coroner comes in. The coroner
Speaker 3: is Diane Palone, as we mentioned earlier. She also happens
Speaker 3: to be Cain's girlfriend or something like that. They are
Speaker 3: in some kind of ambiguous romantic relationship. Oh and something
Speaker 3: I didn't mention before. Apparently Jack Kane went off the
Speaker 3: grid for eight days before the nightclubs stakeout, and nobody
Speaker 3: knew where he was or if he was even alive,
Speaker 3: including his boss and including Diane. Though it's I don't
Speaker 3: think it's ever explained why he went dark all this time?
Speaker 3: Do they ever say?
Speaker 2: We never get an explanation, He never has to explain
Speaker 2: what was yeah, and we just kind of forget about
Speaker 2: it after a while.
Speaker 3: Maybe his reason was just instinct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Or maybe he had a really good reason. He
Speaker 2: made a promise about it. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Anyway. So Jack and Smith are in the room and
Speaker 3: the coroner comes into the scene to explain that the
Speaker 3: forensics work has done. The murder weapon was quote razor
Speaker 3: thin and razor sharp. It made a deep, straight incision.
Speaker 3: I'd have trouble making with the scalpel. And the chief says,
Speaker 3: how do you explain, and the coroner says, I can't
Speaker 3: music sting. Everyone in the room makes ominous eyes at
Speaker 3: each other. I was laughing out loud here. I'm reminded
Speaker 3: of our episode on the cattle mutilation panic, where it's like,
Speaker 3: it's impossible to explain these cuts in the skin being
Speaker 3: so straight and precise with earthly technology. Oh and also
Speaker 3: Jack tries to patch things up with Diane after this,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't go well. She's mad at him because
Speaker 3: you know, he disappeared for eight days without talking to her,
Speaker 3: and Smith mocks Jack's relationship troubles.
Speaker 2: Smith is not likable at first. He thankfully he does
Speaker 2: grow on you. But they really come out strong with
Speaker 2: the idea that this guy's just unlikable, that we're totally
Speaker 2: unteamed Dolph at this point and can't wait to lose
Speaker 2: this guy.
Speaker 3: That's right. So we get to see them clashing again
Speaker 3: because they get immediately into some police work. Smith wants
Speaker 3: to start off their investigation by reading the coroner's report
Speaker 3: and Cain wants to ignore the report and go straight
Speaker 3: to the scene of the crime. Smith explains how he
Speaker 3: solves crimes. According to the Quote Switzer Manual, it is
Speaker 3: a handbook created by his boss, agent Switzer. Uh And
Speaker 3: to be fair, yet that does sound really lame. But
Speaker 3: the handbook includes advice such as exploit the knowledge of experts.
Speaker 3: Their expertise is essential. And Jack Kane is dismissive of this,
Speaker 3: and rightly so. It would be foolish to clutter your
Speaker 3: mind with facts about the case. You know, he's you're
Speaker 3: supposed to go to the crime scene and like get
Speaker 3: a vibe, feel it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just just feel it out. And we see this
Speaker 2: all the time in cop shows, right, I Mean, there's
Speaker 2: like a cop and he just has to inhabit the scene,
Speaker 2: you know, he has to get in the mind the killer.
Speaker 2: Put in some headphones and listen to some music and
Speaker 2: kind of like a have a jazz session with the
Speaker 2: crime scene. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he has to really feel it. But then, oh,
Speaker 3: and then there's some more clashing because Switzer the Switzer
Speaker 3: Manual says that you're supposed to professionally. Smith says external
Speaker 3: things are very important. They tell people who you are.
Speaker 3: And Jack Kane is apparently just not dressed up to standards.
Speaker 3: But once they get to the crime scene, this dynamic continues.
Speaker 3: Jack mock Smith for taking measurements and notes at the
Speaker 3: crime scene. What a nerd, Jack says, So it's all clinical.
Speaker 3: Huh what about instinct? And Smith thinks instinct is no
Speaker 3: good Jack says, it works for him. Meanwhile, we're going
Speaker 3: to see the arrival of a second man from space.
Speaker 3: There's like a derelict building where there's a woman sorting
Speaker 3: through aluminum cans. Suddenly a fireball hits from above, plows
Speaker 3: through a bunch of walls, and a guy dressed like
Speaker 3: the first alien emerges, except he has dark hair instead
Speaker 3: of blonde hair. And this is the one with the scullet.
Speaker 3: This is going to be our good alien.
Speaker 2: Yes, who spoiler is hunting the bad alien, right.
Speaker 3: But we also see the bad alien at work. We're
Speaker 3: going to get our first alien heroin at tax scene
Speaker 3: in a in a scene structure that will be recreated
Speaker 3: several more times in the film. The blonde alien like
Speaker 3: he attacks a bail bondsman in his office late at night,
Speaker 3: and he does some kind of weird stuff to his
Speaker 3: body before murdering him. Rob, do you want to explain
Speaker 3: the breakdown of one of these attacks?
Speaker 2: Sure? Sure, this is how it goes down. So first,
Speaker 2: our evil alien drug pusher is going to rip the
Speaker 2: shirt open a little bit, and then he's going to
Speaker 2: use sort of like a it's kind of like a tentacle,
Speaker 2: but also kind of like a kind of like the
Speaker 2: thing Scorpion shoots out of his wrist in Mortal Kombat.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, it's I think of it as a
Speaker 2: heroin injector tentacle. So this embeds in your chest and
Speaker 2: just fills you with like a lethal dose or a
Speaker 2: near lethal dose of heroin, just all the heroin in
Speaker 2: the world pumped directly into you. And then while this
Speaker 2: is going through your system, he has this big spike
Speaker 2: that he loads out of his like wrist gauntlet thing,
Speaker 2: and he drives that into your brain to then we
Speaker 2: get a lot of sci fi explanations about this later,
Speaker 2: but essentially he's draining the brain juice out of your
Speaker 2: heroin addle brain and then using that later to manufacture
Speaker 2: his own special space drug.
Speaker 3: That's right, So that what you were calling the heroin
Speaker 3: injector tentacle, I was thinking of as the drug snake.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's like a it's like a prehensile winding
Speaker 3: kind of thing. It stabs into the people, it injects
Speaker 3: them and then he gets the brain juice.
Speaker 2: Oh, and then the spike. Yeah is really really they
Speaker 2: did a great job with the effects on this, because
Speaker 2: the spike really looks brutal when he drives this into.
Speaker 2: One of the victims says, they don't show it at first.
Speaker 2: They kind of successfully build up the mystique regarding like
Speaker 2: what exactly is he doing to these people, But then
Speaker 2: we see it. Yeah, he's draining something out of their
Speaker 2: brains after he gets them high with the heroin.
Speaker 3: Oh, and every time he says I come in peace.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: There are also later scenes where he does the same
Speaker 3: attack on different people. He attacks a guy driving a forklift,
Speaker 3: a woman repairing a car, and in these later scenes
Speaker 3: we see the scullet alien chasing after the blonde alien,
Speaker 3: blowing up nearly every car and building in Houston in
Speaker 3: the process, so many explosions. There's one scene where that
Speaker 3: the fugitive alien is just running away by like jumping
Speaker 3: from car hood to car hood. He's like running in
Speaker 3: every step lands on a different cars hood as they're
Speaker 3: parked in a row, and all of the cars explode
Speaker 3: as soon as he jumps off of them.
Speaker 2: Because the aliens. In addition to these gadgets that we've
Speaker 2: already mentioned with the bad alien. They also have these
Speaker 2: crazy guns that I believe are also based on the
Speaker 2: same underlying technology that they used to create the RoboCop gun.
Speaker 2: They have this like crazy space gun that just explodes
Speaker 2: everything in its line of fire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it shoots explosives at a buzzing rate of fire.
Speaker 3: But the blonde alien just keeps getting away. So we
Speaker 3: come back to our cops. Jack Kane apparently is going
Speaker 3: to show Agent Smith how to work by instinct, and
Speaker 3: so he takes him to some kind of combination nightclub
Speaker 3: bar slash strip club and he says, I can think here,
Speaker 3: and Smith is not happy with this. He's like, I
Speaker 3: don't drink on duty. And then Jack Caine goes and
Speaker 3: harasses and sort of beats up a guy, some regular
Speaker 3: informant of his. This is owner, Yeah, this is the
Speaker 3: ratcatcher from Split Second. But this apparently gets them nowhere.
Speaker 3: The guy has no information to report except to say
Speaker 3: that like, oh, there's no drugs on the streets. Everything
Speaker 3: dried up. What happened? Smith promises to file a report
Speaker 3: about this, but Jack Caine does get insight in this
Speaker 3: scene unrelated to his harassment of this poor guy here
Speaker 3: by looking at a nearby pool table in the bar.
Speaker 3: And I didn't understand what his revelation was at first,
Speaker 3: but then going back on it, I realized, Oh, he's
Speaker 3: watching the ball bouncing off the walls of the pool
Speaker 3: table to make a bank shot. And then he realizes
Speaker 3: that the weapon at the scene was a projectile that
Speaker 3: bounced off the walls.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't understand the connection either, but hey, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's the thing. We're too logical. He is an investigator
Speaker 2: that is based entirely in instinct.
Speaker 3: That's true. We are nerds and losers who rely on reason,
Speaker 3: and that that's not getting us anywhere, so we would
Speaker 3: never solve this case. He goes back to the crime scene,
Speaker 3: taking Smith with him, and they find the weapon. They
Speaker 3: Jack Kane sort of like models how it flew around
Speaker 3: the room and realizes it ended up lodging itself in
Speaker 3: a speaker cabinet and it's still there in the speaker cabinet.
Speaker 3: It's like jammed into the speaker cone and like vibrating,
Speaker 3: and it looks again like a metal CD. It looks
Speaker 3: it's a disc and if removed from the speaker, it
Speaker 3: cuts them and flies around the room until lodging itself
Speaker 3: back in the speaker. So they have found the secret
Speaker 3: alien weapon. Jack Kane takes the weapon home to his apartment,
Speaker 3: against the protestation of Smith, who quotes the Switzer Manual
Speaker 3: saying that evidence must be turned over in a timely manner.
Speaker 3: And again, I'm sorry, I got a side with him here.
Speaker 3: He's right, like, can cops just take evidence home with
Speaker 3: them overnight? What about chain of custody?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's just normal evidence, not even getting into
Speaker 2: the realm of strange alien weapons that nobody understands.
Speaker 3: But in this scene we get a little bit of
Speaker 3: the thawing of the relationship between them because Smith follows
Speaker 3: Jack Kaine into his apartment and he is immediately impressed
Speaker 3: Jack Kane. But why he's impressed was funny. He's impressed
Speaker 3: that Jack Kane has like high end wine and fine
Speaker 3: art on his walls. So Smith is like, Wow, I
Speaker 3: thought you were a low life, but actually you are
Speaker 3: secretly very classy and I didn't realize.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love that, Like this kind of reveals
Speaker 2: more about Kane's character, but also doesn't. It's just kind
Speaker 2: of like, oh, he likes paintings and he likes wine.
Speaker 2: All right, very well, yeah, he's a wine guy instead
Speaker 2: of a beer guy. I guess that's some level of depth.
Speaker 3: It seems like he's a beer guy in public, but
Speaker 3: a line guy in private. What does that mean? Well, anyway,
Speaker 3: Jack threatened Smith. He's like, if you try to take
Speaker 3: this evidence from me, I'm gonna I'm gonna hit you
Speaker 3: very very hard. So Smith leaves, and then Jack later
Speaker 3: goes to Diane's apartment to be like, I love you.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you where
Speaker 3: I was for eight days. She's she's very mad. But
Speaker 3: here's where we get to that that bizarrely written line
Speaker 3: where she's like, Jack promised me something. She says, promise
Speaker 3: to remember my birthday. Promise you'll come meet my mother,
Speaker 3: Promise me anything. I just want you to promise me
Speaker 3: something like you promise everybody else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like a very low bar for him
Speaker 2: to meet in this relationship. So it's really hard to
Speaker 2: figure this one out. What they were trying to trying
Speaker 2: trying to reveal about this character.
Speaker 3: I feel like he could have workshopped that. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't know. Yeah, but he doesn't promise her anything. They
Speaker 3: just start smooching, you know. And and Dolph comes back
Speaker 3: to his apartment the next morning to find it ransacked
Speaker 3: and Smith is hiding inside. Smith says he just got there.
Speaker 3: He found it like this. Somebody tried to steal the
Speaker 3: evidence the alien weapon, but fortunately Jack dropped it off
Speaker 3: the night before with somebody else who Well, here we're
Speaker 3: going to meet another character, the scientist who works at
Speaker 3: the university. And what's this is Jack Kine actually associating
Speaker 3: with a nerd. I guess there really is more to
Speaker 3: him than meets the eye. And in this scene they
Speaker 3: go talk to the nerd and it is explained that
Speaker 3: the murder disc works by electro magnetism, being attracted to
Speaker 3: the electric charge of the human body or to any
Speaker 3: magnetic charge. So they say the reason it's lodged in
Speaker 3: the speaker is because the speaker cone has a magnet
Speaker 3: in it. That's the driver and it was attracted to that.
Speaker 3: But you can tune it to attack the charge of
Speaker 3: a human body. And the scientist says, it's like turning
Speaker 3: radio dial to K I L L.
Speaker 2: This whole scene with what is the name Bruce, I
Speaker 2: think the scientists very over the top. This is some
Speaker 2: of the other like intentional humor humorous parts of the
Speaker 2: film are a little more subtle, but this is one
Speaker 2: of the moments where it's really ratcheted up, like like
Speaker 2: some sort of a an explosion that's been triggered for
Speaker 2: a string of cars.
Speaker 3: And I would say with mixed success. Some of the
Speaker 3: gags in the scene really fall flat. Others are kind
Speaker 3: of funny, Like it is funny the way the scientist
Speaker 3: is frantically trying to hide pills from the FBI guy.
Speaker 2: Well, that was good. Yeah, it's like these are vital
Speaker 2: to my research.
Speaker 3: So they leave the disc with the scientist and then
Speaker 3: later Jack and Smith meet with Diane at the coroner's
Speaker 3: office to review new evidence from the alien murder suspects.
Speaker 3: The people who have gotten you know, drug snaked, and
Speaker 3: she explains what's going on. People are being injected with
Speaker 3: massive heroin overdoses. They don't know why yet, but she's like,
Speaker 3: you know, people do all kinds of weird stuff to
Speaker 3: each other. And then she looks at Jack. But on
Speaker 3: the way out, Jack, oh, this is the scene where
Speaker 3: he gets a postcard from the villain from Victor Manning
Speaker 3: and Rio that's just like it's just like, Jack, wish
Speaker 3: you were dead. I hate you. I'm sending people to
Speaker 3: kill you right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again we'll never see this guy again. There's
Speaker 2: no follow up to this part of the plot.
Speaker 3: At the end, you get a sense that the ending
Speaker 3: is kind of like the ending of Silence of the Lambs,
Speaker 3: where it's like, you know, they're going after Chilton and
Speaker 3: wherever he is. But okay, so Victor Manning's gang is
Speaker 3: coming after Jack Jack for some reason. So there's like
Speaker 3: a car chase where his goons chase Jack and Smith
Speaker 3: around in traffic. So they're like, okay, we got to
Speaker 3: go confront these guys. So they go to the White
Speaker 3: Boy's headquarters, which just seems to be like a big
Speaker 3: law firm. Jack like, he gets inside by setting off
Speaker 3: a bunch of car alarms on the sports cars outside.
Speaker 3: People open the door and he sneaks in. He beats
Speaker 3: up the guards outside the board meeting, and then goes
Speaker 3: into the board meeting confronts Warren, the second in command,
Speaker 3: and Warren thinks that it is the cops who killed
Speaker 3: their guys and stole all the heroin. Jack doesn't know
Speaker 3: what he's talking about so they're like, well, then, who
Speaker 3: actually took all the heroin? They don't know, but the
Speaker 3: gang has no drugs to deal so their business is suffering.
Speaker 3: So Warren makes a deal. He says, all right, we
Speaker 3: have captured your FBI buddy Smith here and we're going
Speaker 3: to kill him unless Jack goes and buys them a
Speaker 3: bunch of heroin for them to sell. This is the
Speaker 3: scene where we meet al Leong because he's the guy
Speaker 3: who's supposed to be like selling the heroin to Jack,
Speaker 3: but it's a double cross. He gives Jack an empty
Speaker 3: suitcase with nothing in it after Jack gives him the money,
Speaker 3: and then he runs out of the building. Jack chases
Speaker 3: after him, but on pursuit he encounters as the blonde
Speaker 3: Aly and meets him I think, like grabs him by
Speaker 3: the neck. But then the cop alien shows up and
Speaker 3: they start shooting at each other and they make the
Speaker 3: whole alleyway explode and Jack witnesses the entire thing.
Speaker 2: So at this point things are finally like getting back
Speaker 2: on track. I feel like the investigation portion of the
Speaker 2: movie feels like he goes on a bit too long.
Speaker 2: There aren't as many explosions, you know. Luckily, we do
Speaker 2: have those random scenes with the aliens to keep things moving.
Speaker 3: Oh meanwhile, in this whole scene, Smith beats up his
Speaker 3: captors and escapes, so maybe hey, he's maybe he's part
Speaker 3: jock after all. But after this, we we sort of
Speaker 3: followed the blonde alien back to his lair like he's
Speaker 3: you know, he has this big fight and he gets
Speaker 3: away and we see him go back to It's kind
Speaker 3: of in fact, it's kind of like when we see
Speaker 3: the Predator, like, you know, cleaning his trophies in the
Speaker 3: first movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we find that he's he's just basically camped
Speaker 2: out in the ruins there, the industrial ruin there in Houston.
Speaker 2: When I would see the trailer for this movie and
Speaker 2: the promotional materials back in the day, I always assumed
Speaker 2: that this guy was going to like take over or
Speaker 2: insert himself into the local drug world using his technology.
Speaker 2: You know those maybe those crazy discs that fly around
Speaker 2: attracted to people's electromagnetic fields. I assumed he was going
Speaker 2: to maybe be using some sort of crazy space drug
Speaker 2: that the world wasn't ready for. He was going to
Speaker 2: dominate the market, destroy the competition. But no, instead he's
Speaker 2: operating like a lone wolf out here, you know, living
Speaker 2: amidst the ruins, just harvesting what he needs to fill
Speaker 2: up is this small supply of drugs that he's going
Speaker 2: to bring back I guess to his home planet or
Speaker 2: his home system.
Speaker 3: Is he also using the drugs he's harvesting for his
Speaker 3: own pleasure? I think we see him do that.
Speaker 2: I believe so. Yeah, I mean in general, he does
Speaker 2: a lot of snarling, and you know, he has again
Speaker 2: just terrific performance here. Just he's a beast. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think he is also using this special brain drug.
Speaker 2: What do they call it? It's called like barci, Is
Speaker 2: that right, Barsie?
Speaker 3: I think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we find out eventually it's called barsie.
Speaker 3: That's human brain juice, that's what it's called barsie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least that's what the good cop tells us
Speaker 2: when he dies in the backseat.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But we'll get there in just a second. Okay.
Speaker 3: But first there is a scene between Jack and Diane
Speaker 3: where she explains how, you know, all the murder victims
Speaker 3: have a hole jammed in their heads all the way
Speaker 3: down to their pituitary glands. Ah, there it is, which
Speaker 3: she says, this is where endorphins are created. She explains
Speaker 3: that endorphins aren't nature's ecstasy. So if you shot somebody
Speaker 3: full of heroin then extracted the endorphins from their pituitary gland,
Speaker 3: you would have on your hands the perfect drug. The
Speaker 3: only problem is nobody on Earth has the technology to extract, preserve,
Speaker 3: or administer endorphins. Not yet. But Jack puts it all together.
Speaker 3: He's like, Aha, nobody on Earth, So now I know
Speaker 3: for sure we're dealing with as he tells Smith, and
Speaker 3: they go back to their scientist's friend to try to
Speaker 3: get the disc back because they got some physical evidence
Speaker 3: to back up the drug dealer theory, the alien drug
Speaker 3: dealer theory. Sorry, but when they get there, the disc
Speaker 3: has been stolen. The scientist says that the disc was
Speaker 3: stolen by guys who looked like Smith. So you assume
Speaker 3: at this point that means more of these preppy gang members.
Speaker 3: You know, they're dressed in their suits and they're back
Speaker 3: to square one. But then the alien drug dealer attacks
Speaker 3: more people in a convenience store and gets into a
Speaker 3: fight with the alien cop, and the alien cop is
Speaker 3: injured in the fight, like he's got sort of iin
Speaker 3: home from alien guts, hanging out of his belly and
Speaker 3: eventually Jack well. First they get to the cops get
Speaker 3: to the location, and Jack is ordered off the case
Speaker 3: once again. The Feds take over everything. They're like, Jack,
Speaker 3: now you really have to go on vacation, and he
Speaker 3: convinces Diane to quit her job and go on vacation
Speaker 3: with him. But before they can do that, Jack gets
Speaker 3: into his car and he is confronted by the cop
Speaker 3: alien who's like hiding in his back seat. I guess
Speaker 3: somehow he knows Jack can be trusted unlike anybody else here.
Speaker 2: He can tell he can tell that this is a
Speaker 2: true police officer, you know, a man who solves crimes
Speaker 2: with his gut as opposed to his logic. This is
Speaker 2: the guy I need to bring the details of the
Speaker 2: case too.
Speaker 3: Instinct can recognize instinct. Yes, so the alien explains, I
Speaker 3: am a law enforcement officer from space. The other alien
Speaker 3: is a drug pusher from space, and he explains if
Speaker 3: he escapes, he will bring more like him to Earth
Speaker 3: because they'll realize this is a good place to harvest
Speaker 3: endorphins and they will kill millions to steal their brain juice.
Speaker 3: Oh and then Smith is in the car with him
Speaker 3: at this point. So Smith witnesses all of this. He
Speaker 3: knows about the alien at this point, and then the
Speaker 3: alien self destructs. They're like, we've got his body to
Speaker 3: show people, so they'll have to believe us. And then
Speaker 3: like light starts coming out of his mouth and his
Speaker 3: eyes and he explodes.
Speaker 2: He does like a mini quickening and then explodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he leaves behind his alien gun as evidence.
Speaker 3: Smith insists on turning in this piece of evidence, and
Speaker 3: he he holds Jack at gunpoint to be like, you're
Speaker 3: not taking this one. I'm taking this to the boss.
Speaker 3: You know, this is we got to go by the book.
Speaker 3: But there's a double cross. He takes the gun to Switzer,
Speaker 3: and Switzer instead of you know, using it to expose
Speaker 3: the whole plot, he like hides the gun in a
Speaker 3: bag and he's like, Okay, this will be of great
Speaker 3: use to the US military for our you know, for
Speaker 3: our global domination. Now we're going to have to kill
Speaker 3: Jack Cain. And then he does another double cross and
Speaker 3: he's about to kill Smith, I guess to eliminate witnesses
Speaker 3: once again, but Jack Caine shows back up and saves
Speaker 3: Smith's life by shooting Switzer. After this, Smith just fully
Speaker 3: converts to Harley Stone. You know, he's like, I'm kind
Speaker 3: of used to following procedure, but now I think we
Speaker 3: should just and he holds up the alien gun and
Speaker 3: he's like, kick some ass.
Speaker 2: And so it's definitely going to be just all explosions
Speaker 2: in action from here on out, and that's ultimately what
Speaker 2: this film does best.
Speaker 3: Right, So there's a bunch of the rest of the
Speaker 3: movie is really just fight scenes. There's like a fight
Speaker 3: scene where they go and try to confront the alien
Speaker 3: and shoot him with the alien gun, but it gets away.
Speaker 3: They're injured in the process. They have to retreat the
Speaker 3: two cops. Finally, they eventually meet up with Diane. She's like, hey,
Speaker 3: I quit my job, ready to go on vacation, and
Speaker 3: they're like, no, we have to kill an alien drug dealer.
Speaker 3: So then all three of them are again can they
Speaker 3: confront the alien? There is a final showdown inside an
Speaker 3: abandoned factory, of course, where Dolph ends up taunting the
Speaker 3: alien drug dealer by like smashing the endorphin vials. He's like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're precious, Barsie, I've got it now, and he's smashing
Speaker 3: it on the floor and there's a big. You think
Speaker 3: at the end that the aliens going to defeat Dolf
Speaker 3: by like piercing him with the drug snake. But in
Speaker 3: the end, Dolf is able to out you know, outdrawn
Speaker 3: the alien and twist the drug snake back on him,
Speaker 3: and then he injects him. He like kicks him into
Speaker 3: a pipe where the pipe stabs through him, much like
Speaker 3: the defeat of the villain at the end of the
Speaker 3: movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger by the way, where the
Speaker 3: villains he gets shoved into a pipe. And then in
Speaker 3: the end, the alien just says once again, I come
Speaker 3: in peace, and Dolph Lindergren says, you go in pieces.
Speaker 2: It's a great exchange. It's a great exchange. I think
Speaker 2: they give it away in the trailer, but it's great
Speaker 2: when you finally reach it organically at the end of
Speaker 2: this journey.
Speaker 3: And then at the end of the movie, the three
Speaker 3: friends are like, hey, we did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think they're all going to go
Speaker 2: on vacation together. They're talking about this vacation, but Smith's
Speaker 2: there too, and so yeah, I'm assuming that they just
Speaker 2: all go on vacation together. And I'm fine with it.
Speaker 3: I think it's great, they're three way buried now and
Speaker 3: they're going to go to Rio and get revenge on
Speaker 3: Victor what's his name?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love how this film sets up a future
Speaker 2: adventure that does not involve all of the cool stuff
Speaker 2: that made this film watchable. You know, they're like up next,
Speaker 2: just drug dealers. All right, Well, at this point, I
Speaker 2: do want to come back to a question we raised earlier.
Speaker 2: Is Tallic the drug pushing alien Santa Claus? So that's
Speaker 2: credibly good question. Yeah, and you may have a gut
Speaker 2: answer for this. Your instincts may tell you one way
Speaker 2: or another, but I thought we might apply a little
Speaker 2: logic here. So first of all, kind of in the
Speaker 2: pro category, Tallic has white hair. Like Santa he is
Speaker 2: coming to town. We already established that, yes, he is
Speaker 2: giving people something that evidence suggests they like. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean biometrically, you can't argue with that. I guess
Speaker 2: he arrives from on high. Okay, Like Santa c in
Speaker 2: a number of movies, he has to contend with a
Speaker 2: supernatural adversary that is trying to stop him.
Speaker 3: Oh, this would make the alien good cop kind of
Speaker 3: the pitch of this film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he makes use of various special tools, much
Speaker 2: like like the Santa Claus in that film.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: He prefers to operate in the shadows. Obviously, his blood
Speaker 2: may or may not be eggnog, which you know is
Speaker 2: very Christmas y. He I also have to add he
Speaker 2: may use a sleigh in reindeer. We never see what
Speaker 2: made the crater. We don't know. If Talk and the
Speaker 2: other alien just fell from the sky, we don't know.
Speaker 2: You know, if they were encapsuled in anything, If there's
Speaker 2: a spaceship, but disposable spaceship they travel in, it's just
Speaker 2: left of the imagination, and you may use your imagination
Speaker 2: to insert a sleigh with reindeer.
Speaker 3: Therefore, he did use a sleigh in reindeer, disprove or
Speaker 3: accept exactly.
Speaker 2: However, he has no beard. That's just undeniging. Talk has
Speaker 2: no beard, therefore maybe he's not Santa. Also, he does
Speaker 2: not reward and punish with his gift giving. Instead, it's
Speaker 2: heroin and brain drains for everybody, unless he blows you
Speaker 2: up with his space gun instead. And then finally, there
Speaker 2: are no rules of correspondence with talent clause like nobody's
Speaker 2: writing to tallic and saying, hey, I've been a good
Speaker 2: boy this year. I would really like a whole lot
Speaker 2: of heroin shot into my neck with a space snake. Now,
Speaker 2: you don't communicate with him, he just comes regardless.
Speaker 3: I would also say that no one leaves out milk
Speaker 3: and cookies for Tallic No.
Speaker 2: No, I mean he doesn't want milkin cookies. He wants
Speaker 2: that sweet brain juice, so he knows where to get it.
Speaker 2: You don't need to leave it out for him.
Speaker 3: Does he know who's been naughty and who's been nice? Unclear?
Speaker 2: Unclear? Yeah, I might push that into the con category
Speaker 2: as well. But hey, maybe you listeners have some thoughts
Speaker 2: on this. We'd love to hear from you. Also, just
Speaker 2: in general, on the topic of Christmas action films, are
Speaker 2: there some other key examples that we didn't mention? Do
Speaker 2: you have some favorites? I don't know. I'll even entertain
Speaker 2: the old sort of false or sort of sort of
Speaker 2: trumped up argument of is Diehard a Christmas movie or not?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a Christmas movie if you want it
Speaker 2: to be. Why not?
Speaker 3: Okay? I think that is all I can do on
Speaker 3: the icome In piece.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right in. We'd love to hear from anyone
Speaker 2: else has thoughts on this film. In the meantime, we'll
Speaker 2: go ahead and remind you that Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 2: Mind is primarily a science podcast, you know, that employs
Speaker 2: reason and logic, But on on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 2: all of that. We just go with our gut and
Speaker 2: we talk about a weird movie here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: If you want to see a complete list of all
Speaker 2: the movies we've covered thus far on the show, head
Speaker 2: on over to letterbox dot com. It's l E T
Speaker 2: T E R B O x D dot com. Our
Speaker 2: user name there is weird House and you'll find a
Speaker 2: list there of everything we've covered. Follow us on social
Speaker 2: media if you If you're on there on Instagram, we
Speaker 2: are st b ym podcast. That is our hand on Instagram.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: your topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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