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 BIM. Excuse me, this is Joe mccor
Speaker 3: bim excuse me. My name is Joe mccorm mick. And
Speaker 3: I am so excited to BIM. I mean, I am
Speaker 3: so excited to talk about today's movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the bimnus is strong. The bim is
Speaker 2: strong in this picture because in today's episode we are
Speaker 2: going to be talking about nineteen eighties The Apple. This
Speaker 2: is a film that has been requested before by listeners.
Speaker 2: This is a film that I was previously familiar with
Speaker 2: from being featured on Riff Tracks many years ago. But yeah,
Speaker 2: this one is a tremendously weird and wonderful and flawed
Speaker 2: rock and roll disco musical that is also so dystopian,
Speaker 2: it's biblical, it's everything and more. It's like a Willy
Speaker 2: Wonka candy.
Speaker 3: This is one of the weirdest movies we have ever
Speaker 3: covered on the show. Is It's up there with like
Speaker 3: Super Mario Brothers and the other ones that are just
Speaker 3: kind of impossible to describe the feeling of. You just
Speaker 3: have to see it. And this is another one that
Speaker 3: I can't believe I made it this far in my
Speaker 3: life without ever having seen before. It's like, right up
Speaker 3: my alley. This is the kind of movie I should
Speaker 3: have seen when I was twenty years old and watched
Speaker 3: fifteen times since then, but this actually was my first viewing.
Speaker 3: So I'm very very grateful to you for choosing it
Speaker 3: this week, Rob, And it's going to be It's a
Speaker 3: new classic. It's going to be a favorite in our house.
Speaker 2: I know. I watched it, rewatched it on a flight
Speaker 2: a few weeks back, and after we selected it here,
Speaker 2: I watched it two more times. So it's rare that
Speaker 2: I watch a film twice in preparation for an episode
Speaker 2: of Weird House. And I don't think I've ever watched
Speaker 2: a film three times in preparation for a Weird House.
Speaker 2: But this one's irresistible.
Speaker 3: But yes, now, now, what did you say to describe
Speaker 3: its rough genre alignment. It's like a biblical allegorical dystopian
Speaker 3: science fiction musical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah, because it's very much like
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four. There's this Orwellian kind of vibe going on,
Speaker 2: you know, And then at the same time, it is
Speaker 2: biblical in nature. This is a movie that will take
Speaker 2: you to the hell, and in the same way that
Speaker 2: the Coffin Joe movie that we will watch, it takes
Speaker 2: you to the hell that I think they've those two
Speaker 2: visions of hell line up rather rather well alongside each other.
Speaker 2: But yeah, on the other hand, it's a Perils of
Speaker 2: Fame movie. Again, it's very disco. It's also very glam rock.
Speaker 2: It dabbles in some other musical genres as well, but
Speaker 2: it is. Yeah, it's tremendous. It's I should also mention
Speaker 2: it again, it is a musical. So this would be
Speaker 2: I believe, only the third musical that we've covered on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema, the others being nineteen sixties The Ship
Speaker 2: of Monsters and nineteen eighty five's Billy the Kid and
Speaker 2: the Green Bays Vampire.
Speaker 3: For me personally, two very strong highlights from our back catalog.
Speaker 3: I loved both of those movies, especially Ship of Monsters.
Speaker 3: I just think of fondly so often.
Speaker 2: This is a film that apparently did not do well
Speaker 2: upon release. It was not received well by the general
Speaker 2: movie going public. I think it was. It's a situation
Speaker 2: where it was both a little past its time and
Speaker 2: before its time, because certainly it's been well received in
Speaker 2: more recent years. I mean, it has a cult following.
Speaker 2: People love it. People there have been showings of it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they've even brought in some of the filmmakers in
Speaker 2: the cast, and you have people showing up with the
Speaker 2: little bimstickers on their forehead, which all sounds like a
Speaker 2: great deal of fun. But at the time people boot it.
Speaker 2: People walked out allegedly during some of the musical numbers,
Speaker 2: And I think part of that is that this again
Speaker 2: is a film that it's not all disco, but it
Speaker 2: has very strong disco elements, and it comes out in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty that's just like in the year following the
Speaker 2: whole Disco Demolition night thing, like sort of mainstream backlash
Speaker 2: against disco where some people, I don't think they were
Speaker 2: really in a position to make this claim, decided, you
Speaker 2: know what, Disco's dead, Disco's lame, We're not doing disco anymore.
Speaker 2: Kind of a backlash I guess against Saturday Night Fever
Speaker 2: and all of its success. But also, you know, I
Speaker 2: think also a backlash that was very much based in
Speaker 2: homophobia and racism and you know, you don't have to
Speaker 2: like disco, but disco's dead. Come on, that's ridiculous. And
Speaker 2: disco didn't die. Disco lived on, and certainly it continued
Speaker 2: to survive outside of this sort of mainstream backlash in
Speaker 2: North America. Anyway, it's a bit of a tangent, but
Speaker 2: basically I'm saying, this is a film that has sort
Speaker 2: of mid seventies energy and it was unfortunate enough to
Speaker 2: come out in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: All right, well, Rob, maybe you can set me straight
Speaker 3: on this if I'm wrong. But the way I understand
Speaker 3: the sort of market positioning of The Apple is it
Speaker 3: was a movie that came out a couple of years
Speaker 3: after like Greece, and so Greece was a big hit.
Speaker 3: It was a big, you know, rock musical movie hit.
Speaker 3: While exactly what makes it appealing to me is how
Speaker 3: off the wall and it just absolutely bananas it is.
Speaker 3: I think that probably did not appeal to a lot
Speaker 3: of the crowd that went and saw Greece and loved it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Greece though, because I
Speaker 2: think you can certainly look at this picture and you
Speaker 2: can identify the successful buckets of content musical of content
Speaker 2: that it's drawing from. You know, it's like, let's get
Speaker 2: a little Grease in there, Let's get a little bit
Speaker 2: rocky horror in there, Let's get a little bit of
Speaker 2: god Spell in there. You know, these elements are very clear.
Speaker 2: It wears these influences on its sleeve.
Speaker 3: In fact, there are even moments in this movie that
Speaker 3: very strongly reminded me of Grease. Despite the dystopian sci
Speaker 3: fi setting and all of the like vampires and devils
Speaker 3: and everything. There's like one song in it that basically
Speaker 3: sounds like a copy of the song Sandy from Grease,
Speaker 3: except it's talking about ALPHI.
Speaker 2: Okay, I know the song you're talking about, but I've
Speaker 2: never actually seen Greece, so I can't. Oh, okay, I
Speaker 2: can't compare it as well, And so that that comparison
Speaker 2: didn't jump out at me when I was watching it.
Speaker 2: But of course I love Rocky Heart, and I love
Speaker 2: God's Spell, I love I love a number of these
Speaker 2: big musicals from that time period.
Speaker 3: You know, there is another weird rock musical movie that
Speaker 3: has I would say significant overlap with The Apple, but
Speaker 3: I think is widely considered a much better film and
Speaker 3: that's Phantom of the Paradise, but that came out way
Speaker 3: back in seventy four.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that one's also on our list to cover
Speaker 2: at some point, and I believe Yeah, I should also
Speaker 2: throw in that The Apple is a production of Canon films.
Speaker 3: Oh so, how can we leave that out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get into some of the details beyond behind that.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of like the seal of excellence that
Speaker 2: kind of prepares you for your experience with The Apple.
Speaker 2: You know that this is a canon film, and if
Speaker 2: you're familiar with other canon productions, you know what that
Speaker 2: might imply.
Speaker 3: Well, yes and no. So on one hand, it does
Speaker 3: have some very campy canon qualities. Cannon films are widely
Speaker 3: known not to be unkind, but they're widely known for
Speaker 3: being hacked, sort of like poster first movie making. It's like, here,
Speaker 3: we have a poster of Chuck Norris holding a machine gun.
Speaker 3: There's some like jungle leaves around him. We can write
Speaker 3: a script around that, have the movie out. You know.
Speaker 3: It's that kind of marketing first movie making, which is
Speaker 3: funny because that exact approach to music is lampooned within
Speaker 3: The Apple. But I would say The Apple is by far,
Speaker 3: of all the canon films I can think of that
Speaker 3: I've seen, it feels the most like a movie that
Speaker 3: was made with genuine passion behind it. Like it may
Speaker 3: not be executed with the sharpest ear for tone, but
Speaker 3: this does feel in some ways like a passion project,
Speaker 3: and there were other elements of it that do have
Speaker 3: some of that canon hackiness, but it feels like some
Speaker 3: people working on this movie thought they were making something
Speaker 3: meaningful that like had emotional resonance and mattered. It feels
Speaker 3: that way to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think this was a passion project in
Speaker 2: many ways, and not to say it was completely a
Speaker 2: passion project, but there's there's some real authentic energy that
Speaker 2: went into creating it here. So we're gonna have a
Speaker 2: lot to say more to say about all of this,
Speaker 2: but I would say my elevator pitch is basically Adam
Speaker 2: Eve God the Devil, disco drugs and rock and roll.
Speaker 3: The musical I was gonna say, American Idol meets the
Speaker 3: Running Man.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's perfect. Let's go ahead and hear that fantastic
Speaker 2: trailer audio in which you'll get to hear some of
Speaker 2: the music that makes this film so special.
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety four. The world is controlled by one power.
Speaker 4: The apple is success.
Speaker 3: There no good very show there.
Speaker 4: The Apple brings you everything but about happiness show. I
Speaker 4: want you to release Phoebe from a contract.
Speaker 3: Cheers, Where is she?
Speaker 2: I stand long, stand along, Crown.
Speaker 4: The apple is the temptation. The Apple is the experience.
Speaker 2: Take the apple warm?
Speaker 3: Why apple?
Speaker 4: The apple is the forbidden fruit.
Speaker 2: Come in, take me and ship me, and mom me
Speaker 2: and make me and fill me up with your fire.
Speaker 3: Come do.
Speaker 2: To me your little heart desire. I've never been to
Speaker 2: high my life. Must see. I'm gonna talk to you.
Speaker 4: The Apple takes your soul. You got have too early.
Speaker 1: Everybody down in.
Speaker 4: Her way, fucking power everybody hour.
Speaker 3: I can bear the use that weekends.
Speaker 4: Shame fucking Powerboddy hour Now a special experience in moviegoing entertainment.
Speaker 2: The Apple all all right? Well, if you're convinced, you've
Speaker 2: got to see the apple as well before you hear
Speaker 2: us talk about it. You can find it in a
Speaker 2: number of formats. There are multiple streaming options. I think
Speaker 2: there are some like sort of free streaming options as well.
Speaker 2: There's also a physical Blu ray from Keno lorber So. Yeah,
Speaker 2: get your physical media, if you would or if you
Speaker 2: would like to own the Apple forever, because like I say,
Speaker 2: once you get into it, you're going to want to
Speaker 2: watch it multiple times. All Right, Let's talk about the
Speaker 2: individuals who made this film. Let's start at the top
Speaker 2: with Manahim Golan. He was the director, the writer, and
Speaker 2: of course one of the producers. He lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: nine through twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: Manahim Golan is the Golan in Golan Globis, which is
Speaker 3: another the Golan Globis or the heads of Cannon films
Speaker 3: in the eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with Globus being your Globus his cousin. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: Golan here Israeli film producer, screenwriter, director and co owner
Speaker 2: of the Canning Group from seventy nine through eighty five,
Speaker 2: which again gave us a whole bunch of stupendous Cannon films.
Speaker 2: They occasionally busted out some critically praised movies as well,
Speaker 2: like nineteen eighty five's Runaway Train, but other stuff it
Speaker 2: was like Chuck Norris' Is the Delta Force from eighty
Speaker 2: six or nineteen eighty one's Enter the Ninja starring franko'neiro
Speaker 2: as a Ninja. Both of those were also directed by Goland.
Speaker 3: I was trying to think, what canon films have we
Speaker 3: actually done on the podcast. I think Treasure of the
Speaker 3: Four Crowns was a Cannon film? Was it not?
Speaker 2: I think you're right. You know, I was struggling earlier.
Speaker 2: I was like, have we talked about I know we
Speaker 2: haven't talked about a Golan film, but have we talked
Speaker 2: about a Cannon film? And I think you're right if
Speaker 2: that one either is a cannon film or it's so
Speaker 2: cannony that it's an understandable mistake.
Speaker 3: We haven't done it on the show yet. And I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have known this off the top of my head,
Speaker 3: but I just saw on a list that Life is
Speaker 3: indeed also a canon film.
Speaker 2: Oh man, we've come close to covering Life Force. It's
Speaker 2: very much on the list anyway. As for Goland here
Speaker 2: he produced over two hundred films during his lifetime. He
Speaker 2: directed forty four of them. His first directorial credit was
Speaker 2: a nineteen sixty three western called El Dorado that starred
Speaker 2: Topol and when it comes to musicals, he produced a
Speaker 2: good dozen of these, including nineteen eighty five's Rappin' exclamation
Speaker 2: Point and nineteen eighty four's Break into Electric Boogaloo. But
Speaker 2: this was the first musical he directed, but not his last,
Speaker 2: because he also directed nineteen eighty nine's Mac the Knife,
Speaker 2: which I haven't seen and I understand not everyone loves.
Speaker 2: But it features a cast that includes Rale Julia in
Speaker 2: the lead, Richard Harris, Roger Daltrey, and Bill Nye. I mean,
Speaker 2: how can you go wrong with that cast, especially with
Speaker 2: Raul Julia in the end of the league.
Speaker 3: It's funny that nine years after he made The Apple
Speaker 3: he made a movie star Roger Daltrey. Because there is
Speaker 3: a guy in this movie who I am positive he wanted.
Speaker 3: Roger Daltrey couldn't get him. So he's like, get me
Speaker 3: the guy you can find who looks closest to Roger Daltrey.
Speaker 3: And that's how we end up with the wonderful Alan
Speaker 3: Love in the role of Dandy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, give me the guy from Merlin. We'll
Speaker 2: talk about that second, all right. So this is so again.
Speaker 2: Golan was the director. He was also the writer, but
Speaker 2: we also have story credits as well as composition and
Speaker 2: lyric credits to a pair of individuals, the main one
Speaker 2: of being Kobe Wrecked and this and this other individual.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if this is Kobe's wife or what
Speaker 2: the relationship is, but same last name. Iris Wrecked and
Speaker 2: Kobe reck was an Israeli rock producer who acted in
Speaker 2: a handful of pictures, but his only other credited film
Speaker 2: composition is nineteen eighty nine's The Mask of the Red
Speaker 2: Death starring Frank Still and Herbert Lohm. What that sounds
Speaker 2: great on paper.
Speaker 3: But they thought they could one up the one with
Speaker 3: Vincent Price.
Speaker 2: I think I briefly looked into this one. I think
Speaker 2: Lom was filling in for someone else that they tried
Speaker 2: to get, not Vincent Price, but someone of that caliber.
Speaker 2: But of course Lom I think he was in some
Speaker 2: Hammer horror films as well, so you know, solid pedigree there.
Speaker 2: And then Iris. This is her only credit, but she
Speaker 2: also plays the character Dominique, who I think is the
Speaker 2: presenter at the euro Song type of event that we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about here in a minute.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Yeah, she comes out and introduces Alphie and BB.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So these two individuals seem to be the main
Speaker 2: creative forces behind the music, and we'll have a lot
Speaker 2: to say about the music as we get into the plot.
Speaker 2: All right, now the cast proper. We are really our
Speaker 2: main character. We have a pair of characters, two lovers
Speaker 2: that enter into this world of fame and sin as innocence,
Speaker 2: very mentor Adam and Eve character. These are the characters
Speaker 2: Bibe and Alfie. Bebe was played by Katherine Mary Stewart
Speaker 2: born nineteen fifty nine, Canadian actor who was not born
Speaker 2: in Moose Jaw. But this was her big break, so
Speaker 2: it's kind of like, you know, reality mirroring fiction here.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty four, she went on to appear in
Speaker 2: both The Last Starfighter, so he did previously talk about
Speaker 2: her in our episode on The Last star Fighter as
Speaker 2: well as Knight of the Comet Ah. Yeah. And in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven she was in the wonderfully nutty adaptation
Speaker 2: of George R. R. Martin's Night Flyers. That one is
Speaker 2: also on the list for Weird House Cinema because it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: She did one hundred and fifty episodes of Days of
Speaker 2: Our Lives from eighty two through eighty three. She did
Speaker 2: two different episodes of the nineteen nineties Outer Limits series,
Speaker 2: and she's still very active. She appeared on a Law
Speaker 2: and Order episode in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: In general, I think Catherine Mary Stewart is great. I
Speaker 3: don't I would say her performance in this movie is
Speaker 3: a kind of inconsistent. On one hand, what the story
Speaker 3: requires of her is to be kind of like the innocent, yeah,
Speaker 3: the sinless character who is introduced into an evil world
Speaker 3: and corrupted by it. But there are parts where she
Speaker 3: does seem just kind of like dazed, like she's just
Speaker 3: like wandering through the movie as things are happening. But
Speaker 3: then there are other scenes, like especially some of her
Speaker 3: musical numbers, where she's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think the dazed parts this is a
Speaker 2: film where that works. Like if you look a little dazed,
Speaker 2: you know, a little out of it. I mean that's
Speaker 2: kind of her character for a large portion of the film.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't doesn't, you know, knock her performance any
Speaker 2: but but yeah's it's a great physical performance. During the
Speaker 2: musical numbers. I'm to understand that her singing voice is
Speaker 2: actually provided by someone by the name of Mary Hyland,
Speaker 2: which you know is understandable. Not everybody, not everybody's a singer,
Speaker 2: and this is you know, standard operating procedure. Certainly in
Speaker 2: like say, Bollywood cinema, as we've discussed before. All right,
Speaker 2: so that's Babie and then there is her boyfriend. Also.
Speaker 2: This character is also supposed to be from Moose joh Canada.
Speaker 2: This is Alfie, played by George Gilmore. I couldn't find
Speaker 2: any dates on him when he was born or so forth.
Speaker 2: I think he's still around. This is his only acting credit.
Speaker 2: He was allegedly a member of the Scottish band the
Speaker 2: bow Weavils in the nineteen sixties, but I couldn't find
Speaker 2: much about that on discogs, so I'm not even entirely
Speaker 2: sure if that's correct, or maybe I was looking at
Speaker 2: the wrong bow Weavils. But it's a very earnest performance. It's,
Speaker 2: you know, a green performance. But he's at least very handsome.
Speaker 3: He is very handsome. I'm a little unsure why he
Speaker 3: has a British accent if he's supposed to be from
Speaker 3: Moose Jaw, Canada. But I don't know. Maybe he's a
Speaker 3: British person who moved to Moose Jaw, Canada and then
Speaker 3: started performing alongside bb here. Yeah, this character is a
Speaker 3: little stiff. I think a reaction to Alfie will make
Speaker 3: more since when we talked about the plot in more detail.
Speaker 2: So those are two, you know, babes in the woods.
Speaker 2: There are two innocents that are entering into this world
Speaker 2: of sin. So let's talk about the people that are
Speaker 2: active in the industry here. First up, we have Pandy.
Speaker 2: Pandy is played by Grace Kennedy born nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 2: Jamaican born actress who was a successful singer and BBC precenter.
Speaker 2: Now she's apparently a luxury wedding and event designer. She
Speaker 2: had four albums out between seventy nine and eighty one,
Speaker 2: so she's very much like the top female star in
Speaker 2: the music industry that's presented in the film. Looks fabulous
Speaker 2: throughout and of course has just tremendous vocal ability.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Grace Kennedy is great. So she's part of this duo.
Speaker 3: And I was going to say, and it is Dandy
Speaker 3: and Pandy, and they, I think, in contrast to our
Speaker 3: two main characters, are really fun, devilish performances. And then
Speaker 3: Pandy has a late late narrative change of heart and
Speaker 3: redemption arc which works pretty well too.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Not so not so much Dandy.
Speaker 3: No, Dandy's just a he's just a cad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dandy is our seductive brit rocker. This is the
Speaker 2: one that you said was clearly they wanted Roger Daltreve
Speaker 2: and they couldn't get him at the time. He was
Speaker 2: out of their budget. I guess for the time being.
Speaker 2: If only they'd made this film later, they could have
Speaker 2: definitely hired, like wooed him away from the Highlander of
Speaker 2: the series. But but they got they couldn't get him
Speaker 2: for this.
Speaker 3: But you know what, Alan Love is great. He is
Speaker 3: just a bad rock and roll man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He has this wonderful like seductive, kind of sleazy
Speaker 2: quality to him. So that Alan Love was born in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six, still very much around him to understand,
Speaker 2: and he has the pedigree. He was the lead singer
Speaker 2: of the mid seventies glam rock band Merlin. Definitely looked
Speaker 2: them up on discog so you can see the awesome
Speaker 2: album cover for their self titled release.
Speaker 3: Merlin seems like a band I would know, but somehow
Speaker 3: I don't. I'm gonna check him out after this.
Speaker 2: He was also in the earlier British rock band I've
Speaker 2: seen it described as just kind of like psych rock.
Speaker 2: It was called Opal Butterfly, but he also put out
Speaker 2: a single Can't Get Over Losing You in seventy nine,
Speaker 2: you know, right before this film. His acting credits are few,
Speaker 2: but he did one episode of Fox Mystery Theater in
Speaker 2: eighty four, and he acted and composed for nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: four's Pop Pirates, which actually does feature Roger Daltrey, as
Speaker 2: well as the actor John Finch, who was in Hitchcock's
Speaker 2: Frenzy and also in that excellent nineteen seventies adaptation of Midpeth.
Speaker 2: Love went on to open a restaurant that was featured
Speaker 2: on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Rams time
Speaker 2: to understand that it is and has subsequently closed.
Speaker 3: Oh is this the UK or the US? Kitchen Nightmares?
Speaker 3: I assume UK.
Speaker 2: I think it's UK. Yeah, I looked into it. I
Speaker 2: think it's like it was like a fish restaurant or something. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, by the way, if you get if you
Speaker 3: get a chance to look up Alan Love's album Can't
Speaker 3: Get Over Losing You. It is funny because he's doing
Speaker 3: the pose. He's doing like the seventies album cover pose
Speaker 3: that you've probably seen on many albums, the one that
Speaker 3: came up when I was searching for this because I
Speaker 3: knew i'd seen it before. Is like the Teddy Pendergrass
Speaker 3: It's time for love, but it's like where you lay
Speaker 3: back sort of you prop up on one arm and
Speaker 3: then have one knee bent up in a triangle shape.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know who decided this would be like the
Speaker 3: look for album covers at this time, but apparently people
Speaker 3: thought it was cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I guess it's just a pose that
Speaker 2: invites love making. You know, it's like the individual in
Speaker 2: the pictures, like, hey, it's thinking about birds, but love
Speaker 2: making maybe. So Yeah, it's tremendous to take a look
Speaker 2: at it, all right. Other members of the cast, we
Speaker 2: have the great Joss Ackland in this who has a
Speaker 2: dual role sort of kind of. He plays mister Tops,
Speaker 2: who does not feature into the plot at all until
Speaker 2: the very end, and then he also plays another late
Speaker 2: character that is referred to as the hippie leader, but
Speaker 2: I don't think has a name other than that.
Speaker 3: He plays the two out of nowhere characters in the movie,
Speaker 3: and one one of them is really out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, it's often been pointed out on the various
Speaker 2: film sites and write ups about this that there was
Speaker 2: they filmed, and there was supposed to be a big
Speaker 2: opening number set in heaven or in paradise or something.
Speaker 2: They clearly establishes, mister Tops, that establishes the presence of
Speaker 2: God all my li in this picture. But for various reasons,
Speaker 2: it just didn't work, and so they cut it. So
Speaker 2: that's the reason the biblical ending of the film really
Speaker 2: seems to come out of nowhere. But Ackland's great, if
Speaker 2: for no other reason, He's definitely a reason you want
Speaker 2: to stick around and watch the full film. His acting
Speaker 2: credits go back to the mid forties for stage and
Speaker 2: the late forties for TV and screen. His credits include
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventy one Amicus horror anthology The House That
Speaker 2: Tripped Blood seventy two is The Mind Snatchers with Christopher
Speaker 2: Walken and Ronnie Cox. He's the voice of the Black
Speaker 2: Rabbit in nineteen seventy eight s adaptation of Watership Down.
Speaker 2: He did two episodes of Tales of the Unexpected Lethal
Speaker 2: Weapon two in eighty nine, The Hunt for Red October
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey in ninety one.
Speaker 2: He did both The Mighty Ducks in ninety two and
Speaker 2: D three in ninety six, that's what the kids call
Speaker 2: the third Mighty Ducks movie, but not D two. I
Speaker 2: don't think he was Indy two. I think just D three,
Speaker 2: you know, is.
Speaker 3: His triumphant return in the Partia.
Speaker 2: And then he's he's really wonderful as the wizard Mustroom
Speaker 2: Rid Kohley, I forget how it's pronounced in two thousand
Speaker 2: and six is the hog Father, so he often played
Speaker 2: He's really good at playing like very serious characters. But
Speaker 2: as his apparent in this adaptation of The Hogfather the
Speaker 2: Terry Pratchett novel, he gets to play a very silly
Speaker 2: wizard and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: So his appearance in The Apple is categorically ludicrous. Yet
Speaker 3: he does a pretty good job of bringing gravitas to it,
Speaker 3: Like he's he tries to like tamp it down and
Speaker 3: make it serious. I don't think there is any actor
Speaker 3: alive who could really sell it and make it not
Speaker 3: hilarious when he shows up, But Acklin does a pretty
Speaker 3: good job.
Speaker 2: He somehow classes up the joint just by walking onto
Speaker 2: the screen and really just just you know, using just
Speaker 2: a few lines here and there, like he doesn't have
Speaker 2: a huge presence in the movie, but it's kind of
Speaker 2: like he shows up and you're like, Okay, we have
Speaker 2: to take things seriously now, and it actually makes you
Speaker 2: forget how unearned any of it is. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: So if we have a god figure in this picture,
Speaker 2: we also have to have a devil. And our devil
Speaker 2: is mister Boogolaw played by Vladix Shayball Live nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: three through nineteen ninety two, our chief villain, the satanic
Speaker 2: head of BIM. A tremendous Polish actor of stage, screen
Speaker 2: and TV. His biggest credits include nineteen sixty Three's From
Speaker 2: Russia with Love sixty seven, Casino Royale in nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: four is read Dawn, I say tremendous. I don't remember
Speaker 2: his presence in these other films that I've seen. I
Speaker 2: just know he's tremendous in this movie. And any time
Speaker 2: Booglaw is on the screen, you're just captivated by what
Speaker 2: is he going to say next? What is he gonna do,
Speaker 2: What's he gonna do with his face? Is he going
Speaker 2: to look directly at us again?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: He's great.
Speaker 3: He does love looking straight into the camera. It's boog
Speaker 3: Low because when we Boglelow, yes, Microsoft word kept trying
Speaker 3: to auto correct that to Bungalow.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, same, yeah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I remember this actor from definitely from From
Speaker 3: Russia with Love. That's one of the Sean Connery James
Speaker 3: Bond movies where I think he plays some kind of
Speaker 3: villain who plays chess. I think his name is Kronstein.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he has a very distinctive face. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 2: he also did see I was looking around. He did
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty. It was in the nineteen eighty TV adaptation
Speaker 2: of Showgun. He was also a regular on that old
Speaker 2: British UFO series that sometimes pops up in Our Connections.
Speaker 2: But yeah, absolutely wonderful. In this Booglow is just a
Speaker 2: wonderful villain.
Speaker 3: Oh but we got some more wonderful villains to kind
Speaker 3: of fill out the throne room of wickedness.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a number of lackeys and they're all great.
Speaker 2: The first show and we'll cover is Shake. Shake is
Speaker 2: his right hand man, played by Ray Schell born nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty one. I love this character essentially kind of like
Speaker 2: a right hand man, but also kind of a snake
Speaker 2: man sometimes actually a snake.
Speaker 3: Appearing in a snake costume with like a snake mouth
Speaker 3: around his head.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah. One of several characters that is sometimes sometimes
Speaker 2: on screen only in some sort of like bejeweled thong
Speaker 2: type of costume and still totally works that. Shell's other
Speaker 2: film and TV roles include nineteen ninety eight Velvet gold Mine,
Speaker 2: but he's mostly known for his stage work and musical
Speaker 2: theater credits. On the UK stage, he apparently originated lead
Speaker 2: roles in the musical Starlight Express in eighty four and
Speaker 2: five Guys Named Moe in nineteen ninety, and he's worked
Speaker 2: in various big name productions. He also was apparently part
Speaker 2: of the British new wave music scene and is an
Speaker 2: author of several books as well.
Speaker 3: In a movie where some actors might have felt compelled
Speaker 3: the phone it in Rachel, he brings his a game.
Speaker 3: Here he is, he is giving his all to this
Speaker 3: role and he does great.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, absolutely fabulous. There are various other stooges and lackeys.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna mention them all here. We'll get into
Speaker 2: some of them once we get into the plot. I
Speaker 2: will point out that there is a character named Bold.
Speaker 2: There are two like Big Grimlin type dudes. They're kind
Speaker 2: of like, yeah, they're kind of like Orcs, are kind
Speaker 2: of like the Gamorian guards from Jaba's Palace. Their names
Speaker 2: are Bulldog and Fat Dog.
Speaker 3: They're two. They're mister Boogalow's two bodyguards. They're both bald,
Speaker 3: and they both have ogre teeth. They have like underbyte fangs,
Speaker 3: which never explained why they have that, but they have
Speaker 3: orc teeth. And when I was looking at them, I
Speaker 3: was like, what I'm getting like calls to another movie,
Speaker 3: and I realized, like, they look like they would fit
Speaker 3: in with the cast of Alien three. They would be
Speaker 3: like prisoners on the planet on the space colony there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost a little shocking that the character, the
Speaker 2: British actor playing Bulldog Derek Deadman, isn't in Alien three,
Speaker 2: because it would have been perfect. He lived nineteen forty
Speaker 2: through twenty fourteen and his credits include Time Bandits, Brazil, Robinhood,
Speaker 2: Prince of Thieves, and he also one of his last
Speaker 2: appearances was in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone. I
Speaker 2: think he's like a barkeep in that. Yeah, a character
Speaker 2: actor who just did a lot of TV work. Oh.
Speaker 2: In another major appearance in this film. This is not
Speaker 2: a lackey or a henchman. This is just like a
Speaker 2: normal person outside of the industry, but we have this
Speaker 2: land lady. Alfie's landlady is played by Miriam Margolis born
Speaker 2: nineteen forty one, English Australian actress with extensive stage, screen
Speaker 2: and TV credits, but many filmgoers probably know her best
Speaker 2: as Professor Sprout from the Harry Potter films. She also
Speaker 2: had a major role in nineteen ninety three's The Age
Speaker 2: of Innocence. I believe that's a Martin Scorsese film. For
Speaker 2: that she won a BAFTA. Also on the TV series
Speaker 2: called The Midwife, so if you've seen the various seasons
Speaker 2: to Call the Midwife, you've probably a senior. And she
Speaker 2: also has a small appearance in nineteen eighty six's Little
Speaker 2: Shop of Horrors. She plays the I think she's a
Speaker 2: dental assistant or something when we get into the dentist
Speaker 2: office scenes.
Speaker 3: So she plays Yeat, the landlady of Alfi in this movie,
Speaker 3: one of the two heroes, and her main point is
Speaker 3: that she is encouraging Alfi to stop trying to write
Speaker 3: good music and to start trying to write bad music
Speaker 3: that will make money because she wants the rent right right.
Speaker 2: But then also she's like, yeah, you're the stuff that
Speaker 2: your unsuccessful stuff also kind of reminds me of the
Speaker 2: good old days, so she's also supporting of that to
Speaker 2: a point. So in many respects, she's Alfie's biggest supporter,
Speaker 2: all right. And finally, I do want to mention that
Speaker 2: the art director on this film is huh Jurgen Kaibak,
Speaker 2: who of nineteen thirty through nineteen ninety five German art
Speaker 2: director and production designer with credits going back to the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties. Of note, he won an Academy Award for
Speaker 2: his work on seventy three's Cabaret and was nominated for
Speaker 2: an Emmy for his work on the nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 2: mini series The Holocaust. But he worked on a lot
Speaker 2: of smaller budget genre films as well, including the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two Jess Franco slasher dere Totostrascher, The Death Avenger
Speaker 2: von Soho, as well as nineteen sixty one's The Return
Speaker 2: of Doctor Mabuse. I'm never sure if I'm saying that
Speaker 2: correctly Mabuse Abuse, but that one starred Gert froeb who,
Speaker 2: of course would go on to play Goldfinger. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: but yeah, German talent, I guess. Of note, because this film,
Speaker 2: though it is seemingly sort of set in New York
Speaker 2: like a futurist at New York City, it was filmed
Speaker 2: in Berlin, and so throughout the picture you see a
Speaker 2: lot of examples of really like cool euturistic looking architecture.
Speaker 2: You see a monorail and stuff like that. That that's
Speaker 2: because they filmed it in Germany. Hmm. Okay, Like there
Speaker 2: are scenes laid in the picture where they'll be like
Speaker 2: some sort of crazy building in the background, and you
Speaker 2: might think, is this a map painting, and you're like, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's just Berlin. It's just that that's what's going on here.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So yeah, that explained some things I didn't
Speaker 3: realize because I was very unclear about where the movie
Speaker 3: was supposed to take place. You tell me, it's supposed
Speaker 3: to be New York, okay, but it seems like it's
Speaker 3: set in the world. It's set in Earth nineteen ninety four. Yeah, yeah, basically,
Speaker 3: And almost to drive that point home, are are we
Speaker 3: going to the plot? Now?
Speaker 2: Let's get into it. Let's discuss the plot of The Apple.
Speaker 3: Okay, we open on a sea of flags, the flags
Speaker 3: of all the nations, like outside the UN building, and
Speaker 3: there is an uptempo disco beat chugging along, and we
Speaker 3: hear people letting out shrieks of excitement, so screaming crowd,
Speaker 3: the drums are building. There's anticipation coming and then the
Speaker 3: title reads The Apple. And now suddenly we're on the ground.
Speaker 3: And to set the scene, there are throngs of people
Speaker 3: surging through the streets toward a giant building. This building
Speaker 3: is I would say, it's like if the OCP headquarters
Speaker 3: were a concert Venue's this huge angular mass of concrete
Speaker 3: that is supposed to let us know that things ain't right.
Speaker 3: Also in the same frame giant metal towers and this
Speaker 3: futuristic elevated tram or monorail. So I guess this is
Speaker 3: probably some real world Berlin architecture. Maybe I don't know
Speaker 3: for sure, but yeah, it is obviously used in the
Speaker 3: context of the movie the same way the architecture in
Speaker 3: RoboCop is used. It's to make you feel uneasy about
Speaker 3: the esthetics and values of the future. It feels uninviting,
Speaker 3: it feels oppressive. Also to let us know that this
Speaker 3: is a bad future, we see police on boxing motorcycles
Speaker 3: cruising around through the crowds. There's just this vague aura
Speaker 3: of authoritarianism. And the cars. The cars are also these
Speaker 3: like boxy seventies models, but with a bunch of extra
Speaker 3: doodads stuck on top of them, like these big tall
Speaker 3: spoilers coming off of them, and just these bubbles and
Speaker 3: I don't know, things glued onto the hood and stuff.
Speaker 3: It Actually it looks like the car that Homer Simpson designs.
Speaker 2: You're right, it really does look like like the Simpsons car.
Speaker 2: But oh man, yeah, I love these big, boxy future cars.
Speaker 2: I just love future cars in general when they pop
Speaker 2: up in films, like movies we've talked about before. Time
Speaker 2: Cop has some great future cars. Goodness, there's another one.
Speaker 3: I vaguely remember that what were they like in Time Cop.
Speaker 3: Were they just like boxes with wheels and no windows?
Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, there were no windows on it, so in
Speaker 2: a way they were very convincing.
Speaker 3: Oh but this movie has another one of my favorite
Speaker 3: takes on the future, which is futuristic fashion. Everybody is
Speaker 3: wearing clothes out of reflective materials, so just all the
Speaker 3: clothes are shiny. It's like they all on the way
Speaker 3: to the concert here decided to make tunics and conical
Speaker 3: hats out of aluminum foil. Yeah, so out in front
Speaker 3: of this arena, it says World Vision Song Festival. I
Speaker 3: think this is supposed to be an evolution of the
Speaker 3: Eurovision Song Contest, which I've never actually seen, so I
Speaker 3: hope I'm not describing it wrong. But this is like
Speaker 3: a competition where musical acts from around the world compete
Speaker 3: for popularity and stardom. They all, like I guess, have
Speaker 3: an original song or prepare performance, and then they it's
Speaker 3: like American Idol, like they perform on stage and the
Speaker 3: audience vote. It's deep. Do you know if that's roughly right.
Speaker 2: I believe that's the case. I've only ever I only
Speaker 2: ever seen clips from Eurovision, and of course the clips
Speaker 2: are going to be the most outlandish examples as well
Speaker 2: as examples of things that maybe do not cross cultural
Speaker 2: lines as easily. So there's a lot of like, what
Speaker 2: is this weird that's going on with the clips you
Speaker 2: tend to see from Eurovision, But I've never sat down
Speaker 2: and watched it, so I don't know, like the full
Speaker 2: diversity of acts going on there.
Speaker 3: I've never seen it itself, but years ago I watched
Speaker 3: a Will Ferrell movie about it. Have you seen that too?
Speaker 3: He played. I think he and somebody else are like
Speaker 3: an Icelandic act that's competing.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing the trailers for it, but I don't
Speaker 2: think I watched it anyway.
Speaker 3: So, within the context of the plot of The Apple,
Speaker 3: the World Vision Song Festival is like the biggest pop
Speaker 3: culture and media event in the world. We are told
Speaker 3: that it has over two billion simultaneous viewers, and later
Speaker 3: we will find out that it's not only the hottest
Speaker 3: show on TV. Basically the entire culture and even the
Speaker 3: government is based around it.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, Like everything is writing on this contest.
Speaker 3: So it's like, you win this, you not only become
Speaker 3: a big star and get a cash prize or whatever,
Speaker 3: you essentially like become the governing party in the government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your music becomes long.
Speaker 3: So we go inside and see see the venue, and
Speaker 3: we see the first musical act and it is a
Speaker 3: song performed by the characters we will come to know
Speaker 3: as Pandy and Dandy. Pandy and Dandy are dressed like
Speaker 3: sexual power rangers and They are surrounded by a kaleidoscope
Speaker 3: of lights and disco dancers, and they're performing this song,
Speaker 3: the theme of which is BIM. Don't ask questions about BIM.
Speaker 3: It is a call and response song. Somehow the audience
Speaker 3: knows the song already, so Dandy calls out. He screams
Speaker 3: the letter B and the crowd knows to scream back,
Speaker 3: I am, which I thought was kind of interesting because
Speaker 3: I understood this as a contest where you played the
Speaker 3: song in public for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that would seem to be the case. I
Speaker 2: don't know if they leaked notes early and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: Dandy is gonna say be and you need to say
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 3: Now, it's possible. We're coming in, like in the middle
Speaker 3: of a twenty minute long song and he's been doing
Speaker 3: the bim b im thing long enough that the audience
Speaker 3: has figured it out. But so, you know, they repeat
Speaker 3: the colin response a bit and then the beat stops
Speaker 3: and a guitar player who looks like Rod Stewart in
Speaker 3: Hunter s Thompson Sunglasses, leans into a microphone and goes
Speaker 3: do the boom.
Speaker 2: Bim is a tremendous start of the film. I have
Speaker 2: to say, both musically and visually, this is one of
Speaker 2: the top tracks. Just we get off to a great
Speaker 2: start with the apple.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's amazing. It's and the constant references to the
Speaker 3: concept of BIM and the power of BIM without any
Speaker 3: explanation of what BIM is. That was what drew me
Speaker 3: into this movie and just like Attached, it was like
Speaker 3: a magnet for my mind. It kind of reminded me
Speaker 3: of So I think we talked about this a little
Speaker 3: bit off Mike, But back in the day, I saw
Speaker 3: Highlander two The Quickening before I had ever seen the
Speaker 3: original Highlander, so I didn't have context from the first movie.
Speaker 3: And in Highland or two The Quickening, they talk about
Speaker 3: the quickening, but it's never adequately explained what it is.
Speaker 3: So I thought it was hilarious that it's this movie
Speaker 3: where the subtitle is the Quickening and there are parts
Speaker 3: were just like Christoph Limbert looks into the camera and
Speaker 3: goes the quickening, but what is it? And that's what
Speaker 3: BIM feels like here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's not really established what it might be,
Speaker 2: but it's clearly important. It's a way of life, it's
Speaker 2: a personal philosophy. It brings people together. It's what everybody
Speaker 2: wants exactly. So yeah, the guitar player says, do the boom,
Speaker 2: and then they do the bim. The band comes back
Speaker 2: in and the song really gets cooking. And I cannot
Speaker 2: stress enough this musical number rocks. It absolutely rocks. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is not a musical number that people were walking
Speaker 2: out during. It's impossible. You can't walk out during during
Speaker 2: the bim. It just totally captivating.
Speaker 3: Now that's my subjective reaction. There's also how the like
Speaker 3: the implied the narrative of the movie wants you to
Speaker 3: take this song clearly, what it's supposed to impress upon
Speaker 3: you is a feeling of overwhelming hyper stimulation. This song
Speaker 3: is just blasting your brain. And there are fast, constant
Speaker 3: cuts showing weird images, bright lights, flashing colors, bodies, reflections
Speaker 3: bouncing everywhere, musicians, dancers. The band has at least three
Speaker 3: different keyboard players that you can see. One of them
Speaker 3: is playing like a gold pulpit made out of keyboards.
Speaker 3: Another is playing a humongous, double sided, looseight key tar
Speaker 3: with one end terminating in this big sharp angle, so
Speaker 3: it's it's almost like a key tar is like fixed
Speaker 3: with a bayonet. The band also has a horn section,
Speaker 3: but the horns are maybe they're real instruments, but I
Speaker 3: didn't recognize them. So if they are real instruments, they're
Speaker 3: not ones I'm familiar with. One person is playing what
Speaker 3: looks like a giant elongated pyramid box. Somebody else is
Speaker 3: playing a capital L shaped saxophone. So I think these
Speaker 3: are supposed to be like science fiction horns.
Speaker 2: And clearly they have perfected disco rock and roll, and
Speaker 2: it requires technology that we don't have today. Only in
Speaker 2: the future of nineteen ninety four is it possible.
Speaker 3: So Dandy and Pandy start singing, and here are some
Speaker 3: of the lyrics to the Bim song. He goes, there
Speaker 3: ain't no good, there ain't no bad, There ain't no happiness,
Speaker 3: there ain't no sad, No it's there ain't no tears,
Speaker 3: there ain't no love, there ain't no hate. There's only power.
Speaker 3: Bim is the power. And then here's the chorus. And
Speaker 3: I truly could not tell which of the following they
Speaker 3: were saying. The chorus is either hey hey, hey, Bim's
Speaker 3: on the way, or hey hey hey, Bim's the only way.
Speaker 2: Bim's the only way makes more sense, But I've always
Speaker 2: heard it in my brain as Bim's on the way,
Speaker 2: which is confusing because BIM is not on the way.
Speaker 2: BIM is already here and established, right, mister Topps is
Speaker 2: on the way, but we don't find out about that
Speaker 2: until later on, much later on in the picture.
Speaker 3: And they don't want you to know that mister Tops
Speaker 3: is on the way. I mean, right, I guess either way,
Speaker 3: BIM is on the way because like, yes, BIM is
Speaker 3: already here, but more BIM is on the way. So
Speaker 3: it's like you're not going to run out of BIM.
Speaker 3: There's BIM. There's continuous BIM on the way.
Speaker 2: BIM continues to expand, much like the universe.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, but I guess in addition to so, BIM
Speaker 3: is on the way no matter what. But BIM, in
Speaker 3: addition to being on the way, might also be the
Speaker 3: only way.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, what else can BIM teach us?
Speaker 3: I don't. Oh, well, so there are more lyrics. There's
Speaker 3: there ain't no pride, there ain't no shame, there ain't
Speaker 3: no sympathy, there ain't no blame, there ain't no pleasure,
Speaker 3: there ain't no pain. There's only power. BIM is the power,
Speaker 3: uh and uh.
Speaker 2: Rob.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you have any comments on the
Speaker 3: visuals that are accompanying this. It's it's kind of hard
Speaker 3: to describe. It's just absolutely visually overwhelming answers the light show,
Speaker 3: it's too much to take in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like limbs flare like crazy, so many colors.
Speaker 2: It's just a complete brain melting rock disco performance.
Speaker 3: And I think the idea is that that overwhelming audio
Speaker 3: visual stimulation is supposed to help implant the meaning of
Speaker 3: the song. And the meaning of the song is discard
Speaker 3: or surrender everything that formerly gave meaning to your life.
Speaker 3: There's no love, no truth, no beauty, no friendship. There's
Speaker 3: only Bim. Bim is your God.
Speaker 2: Now do what thou. Bim shall be the whole of
Speaker 2: the law.
Speaker 3: Then the crowd loves it. They are screaming for the Bim.
Speaker 3: They want nothing more than for Bim to annihilate them
Speaker 3: and absorb their memories. And so the song kind of
Speaker 3: like it fades into the background and we go backstage
Speaker 3: to a futuristic control room that is tracking the audience's
Speaker 3: reaction to the song, and here we meet several other
Speaker 3: major characters. We meet mister Bougalow, who is a physically
Speaker 3: small but clearly powerful man wearing a purple velvet suit
Speaker 3: and a bow tie, and he has kind of the
Speaker 3: energy of a character in like a medieval movie who's
Speaker 3: like a like a corrupt cardinal of the church or something.
Speaker 2: Strong being the merciless vibes as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and everyone's eager to please him. He is
Speaker 3: the head of the Bugalow Music Company with which Pandy
Speaker 3: and Dandy are signed, so they're like his star act
Speaker 3: and he's eager to track their success and see that
Speaker 3: they win this World Vision Song contest. He promises to
Speaker 3: make them the biggest star of our decade. Also, we
Speaker 3: meet Shake, who we described earlier. Shake is mister Bougolow's
Speaker 3: top lieutenant and he is wearing a reflective metallic robe
Speaker 3: and has this awesome ensemble of jewelry and makeup that
Speaker 3: make him like sort of like a human precious gem.
Speaker 3: Shake is some kind of marketing expert. He's been tracking
Speaker 3: biometric feedback from the audience on the computer.
Speaker 2: Yeah again, Shake is just fabulous.
Speaker 3: And in the background, Boogalow has this general ensemble of
Speaker 3: cronies and yes men, as well as the two bald
Speaker 3: bodyguards who you know, could have been from Fury one
Speaker 3: fifty one, or who could have been like a wrestling
Speaker 3: tag team along the lines of like Nasty Boys or whatever.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean you can imagine Bulldog and Fat
Speaker 2: Dog going for the tag team titles for sure. Fat Dog,
Speaker 2: by the way, played by German actor Gunther Nothoff, who
Speaker 2: I think also did some special effects work in German cinema.
Speaker 3: You know, I had one other comment about the fashion
Speaker 3: that we start to notice in the scene, which is
Speaker 3: that in the future it's popular to wear jackets, not
Speaker 3: only with big shoulder pads. So, like, you know, jackets
Speaker 3: with substantial shoulder padding were I think common in the
Speaker 3: eighties and especially in eighties movies that envisioned the future,
Speaker 3: But here they're beyond pads. The pads like curl up
Speaker 3: at the ends, so your shoulders, the shoulders basically have horns.
Speaker 2: It's one of the many details in this picture and
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, futuristic films of this sort,
Speaker 2: that it really drives home that basically the way science
Speaker 2: fiction works is like, what if all of the things
Speaker 2: I'm uneasy about now are just more in the future. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that includes everything from you know, you know, dystopian
Speaker 2: elements of society to just like shoulder pads, Like I
Speaker 2: don't really get shoulder pads, but I guess in the
Speaker 2: future they will just be even bigger. That's the only
Speaker 2: way it can possibly go. There's no coming back from
Speaker 2: whatever shoulder pad level we are currently at. It's only
Speaker 2: only going to get wider.
Speaker 3: It's all if these trends continue. A so we cut
Speaker 3: back to the Bim song. It's still going on Dandy
Speaker 3: and Pandy. At this point, they're done with the lyrics
Speaker 3: and they're just singing ha ha ha. They're like laughing
Speaker 3: at you for being brainwashed. And at some point the
Speaker 3: song begins to incorporate a martial arts component as well.
Speaker 3: Do you remember this, like the kind shouts and yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's just it's like at this point they're just
Speaker 2: in full encore mode, Like the song really should have
Speaker 2: ended like ten minutes ago, but you can't stop once
Speaker 2: the crowd is this end of the app.
Speaker 3: It ends with them singing hey, hey, hey, BIMs on
Speaker 3: the way, like fifty times in a row. The crowd
Speaker 3: loves it. They absolutely lose their minds. They rush the stage.
Speaker 3: I think we can see riot police with batons having
Speaker 3: to hold people back from the dancers.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then we're back in the control room and Shake
Speaker 3: announces that they have achieved a new biometric record, which
Speaker 3: is one hundred and fifty heartbeats. Maybe that's beats per minute.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but I think again, the way we're
Speaker 3: supposed to understand this is that this, like biometric information,
Speaker 3: is reflective of a cold, calculating way to measure the
Speaker 3: success of a popular song, as opposed to I don't know,
Speaker 3: by listening for applause or something. Yeah, mister Boglow says, gentlemen,
Speaker 3: I predict our bim song is going to take this
Speaker 3: competition by storm. And then he howls like a wolf,
Speaker 3: and he says he's got another henchman named Ashley. I
Speaker 3: don't think we've mentioned already, but he's like, Ashley prepares
Speaker 3: some bim merchandise and Ashley says, ooh, how about bim
Speaker 3: T shirts. Ashley Boogleow is not impressed by this. He's like,
Speaker 3: use your imagination, Ashley, this is nineteen ninety four, and
Speaker 3: I gotta agree with the devil here, like bim T shirts.
Speaker 2: Come on, Yeah, you can do better than that Ashley
Speaker 2: and Ashley's tremendous. He's played by British actor Leslie Meadows. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just Key has this kind of like great, spaced out
Speaker 2: vibe to him. It's really hard for me to nail
Speaker 2: down exactly why I love this performance so much. But
Speaker 2: it's just anytime Leslie is on the screen, you know,
Speaker 2: busting out some merch ideas or whatever, it's just hilarious.
Speaker 3: When he reveals the bim Ball machine later, I out
Speaker 3: lost it. Yeah, okay, So here we go to see
Speaker 3: the next act in the World Vision Song Competition and
Speaker 3: it is Alfie and Bebe performing a song called Love
Speaker 3: the Universal Melody. They're gonna be our heroes for the film.
Speaker 3: This is a couple of humble singers from Moose Jaw, Canada,
Speaker 3: and they come out and compared to the bim act,
Speaker 3: they are incredibly stripped down. They don't have backup dancers,
Speaker 3: they don't have references to bim It's just a man
Speaker 3: and a woman in like white clothing singing along with
Speaker 3: one acoustic guitar. And actually we can hear there's a
Speaker 3: full backing track including drums and bass, but there's no
Speaker 3: band visible on the stage. It's just Alfie Strumman is
Speaker 3: acoustic and the two of them singing into one microphone,
Speaker 3: and the lyrics begin like this, You're the light within
Speaker 3: my darkness. You're my shelter from the storm. When my
Speaker 3: hope grows dim and fear shuts me in, you become
Speaker 3: my open door. And the crowd hates it. We see it.
Speaker 3: There's a sneering boy there. He says, what the hell
Speaker 3: is this? And the girl next to him says, it's
Speaker 3: a love song, but I mean, what's a love song
Speaker 3: that The boy is clearly disgusted. Another guy jumps up
Speaker 3: and screams, do the bim.
Speaker 2: And you know what, they're absolutely right. This is such
Speaker 2: a stark contrast between how rockin that first number was,
Speaker 2: and yes it's it's a tonal shift, but this number
Speaker 2: just does not hit. It just it just it just
Speaker 2: falls flat on the stage. And to a certain extent, Yeah,
Speaker 2: with these characters where it seems like this is the
Speaker 2: way we're supposed to feel, but it also seems this
Speaker 2: movie wants us to feel like this track the universal
Speaker 2: love song. Despite it, it's just tremendously sappy lyrics and
Speaker 2: so forth that it is touching us in a place
Speaker 2: that we didn't know still existed. It is supposed to
Speaker 2: on some level just resonate deeply with us. And I
Speaker 2: mean this is all subjective, but absolutely it does not.
Speaker 2: For me, this song sucks.
Speaker 3: I completely agree. Yeah, So the way I was thinking
Speaker 3: of it, there's two different ways to process the song,
Speaker 3: and the one is the way we are meant to
Speaker 3: by the filmmakers, which is that it is the wholesome
Speaker 3: contrast to the previous song we heard. You know, the
Speaker 3: Bim Song is a gaudy, soulless technological product, a satellite
Speaker 3: televised golden calf designed to extract money and obedience from
Speaker 3: an unthinking audience. And in contrast to that, Alphie and
Speaker 3: Bbi are supposed to be a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 3: Look at them. They're so nice, they're so earnest. They
Speaker 3: come in with a song that is simple and true
Speaker 3: and has a genuine heart in the middle of this
Speaker 3: baffling and heartless world. But the problem is it just
Speaker 3: doesn't match with your experience of these songs back to
Speaker 3: back in the movie, which in that experience is that
Speaker 3: from my point of view, and I think probably most
Speaker 3: of viewers would agree, the Bim Song is awesome and love.
Speaker 3: The Universal Melody sucks. It is so bad, and so
Speaker 3: when the audience like get up and start booing and
Speaker 3: heckling them, is just like, yeah, yeah, get it off
Speaker 3: my TV.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. The reality here is that the Universal Love
Speaker 2: Song feels like it was built by committee. It feels
Speaker 2: like it is the hollow product of corporate scheming, while
Speaker 2: the Bim song just like rocks its heart pumping, it
Speaker 2: feels very much a part of you.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, totally. You could say this is a problem
Speaker 3: with the Apple. Actually I would say it adds to
Speaker 3: my enjoyment of the Apple. But it's a problem with
Speaker 3: the Apple the way it is supposed to be processed,
Speaker 3: which is that everything in the movie that's supposed to
Speaker 3: be evil and soulless and a reflection of a world
Speaker 3: gone wrong is so good and so much fun, And
Speaker 3: everything that is supposed to be good and pure and
Speaker 3: sympathetic is boring at best and disgustingly treaqily and fake
Speaker 3: at worst.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. The film is will periodically preach at
Speaker 2: you that, you know, rock, disco, drugs, sex, it's all
Speaker 2: evil and dangerous, man. But at the same time, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're delivering these songs about drugs and sex that are
Speaker 2: and sometimes you know, with outright depictions of hell, there's
Speaker 2: so much more fun than anything else that's presented on
Speaker 2: the opposite side of the argument.
Speaker 3: So while Alfie and bb are singing, we go back
Speaker 3: to the control room with Shake and mister Bougalow and
Speaker 3: they start getting a little concerned because what do you know, actually,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that the audience initially hates love the
Speaker 3: universal melody, they start kind of quieting down. The heckling
Speaker 3: dies down, and then they start responding well like it's
Speaker 3: actually breaking through. The heartbeats are climbing on the computer screen,
Speaker 3: and we can see like we see shots of the
Speaker 3: audience and some of them or crying or they're like
Speaker 3: hugging their their boyfriend or girlfriend. And Shake insists that
Speaker 3: the song cannot actually be popular because they're singing a
Speaker 3: love song.
Speaker 2: Yuck.
Speaker 3: Love songs are out. So ultimately, uh Boogalow and Shake
Speaker 3: decide they decide to resort to sabotage. They insert what
Speaker 3: is called the red tape into the PA system and
Speaker 3: it starts playing excruciating high pitch noises over the sound
Speaker 3: system and ruins Alfie and BB's performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I uh, I like to think that this
Speaker 2: is the same tape the UK government uses in the
Speaker 2: Black Mirror episode the national anthem. You know, it's like like, quick,
Speaker 2: get the red tape. We've got to We've got to
Speaker 2: keep people from watching Slash enjoying.
Speaker 3: This, right, So I guess bim Song wins after all,
Speaker 3: even though Alfie and BB it seems like they were
Speaker 3: on course to win over the audience and win the contest,
Speaker 3: but then they got cheated out of it.
Speaker 2: M And we cut to this great scene where Booglow is.
Speaker 2: He's walking and talking and he's answering questions from the
Speaker 2: international media in various languages. Is seemingly fluent in any
Speaker 2: tongue you could possibly throw at him, because you know,
Speaker 2: at this point, you know, this is this character is
Speaker 2: supposed to be Satan. He is Satan. He's the pitch
Speaker 2: of this picture, you know, he is. He's a demonic figure.
Speaker 2: So of course he knows all human languages.
Speaker 3: That's that's right. And the reporters you're asking these questions. Oh,
Speaker 3: one reporter's like, I understand the government has adopted your
Speaker 3: bim Song as part of the national Fitness program. Is
Speaker 3: that true, and I was like, Wow, that happened fast.
Speaker 2: It's just that good a song. People are like, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's license it. Let's just do it. Let's make it laugh.
Speaker 3: Now, Rob, I think this was your note. But one
Speaker 3: of the one of the reporters says something to him.
Speaker 3: They're like, mister Booglow, what about something for the billion
Speaker 3: of Americans who are watching?
Speaker 2: I love that this. This is another one one of
Speaker 2: the moments in the film that just makes me laugh
Speaker 2: for no reason that I can really identify. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just kind of like the awkward way that
Speaker 2: he asks that. And of course where this interaction is
Speaker 2: going with this particular reporter is also kind of hilarious.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, because there's also a question where it's like,
Speaker 3: we heard there was another song that came close to
Speaker 3: beating the bim song. Is it true this competition is rigged?
Speaker 3: And mister Bugalow threatens him. He like pulls the reporter aside.
Speaker 3: He's like, what's your name? Who do you write for?
Speaker 3: You print that and you'll find yourself on the unemployment
Speaker 3: line by tomorrow. So next we go to mister Boogalow's
Speaker 3: victory party and his apartment is just full of sci
Speaker 3: fi showbiz partygoers. I wanted to point out a couple
Speaker 3: of great props. There is his trophy for winning the
Speaker 3: World Vision Song Contest, which is a giant gold pyramid
Speaker 3: with an extremely pointy top, and everybody's drinking out of
Speaker 3: transparent drinking glasses which are gigantic, clear triangular prisms. Ashley
Speaker 3: explains that these are bim glasses.
Speaker 2: See now, this is the Ashley magic that we were expecting.
Speaker 3: Right, and so booglow. He raises his bim glass and says,
Speaker 3: ladies and gentlemen, a toast to Bim and everyone shouts bim.
Speaker 3: And this is where we get some more of Ashley's merchandising.
Speaker 3: Of course, there is the bimball machine, but then we
Speaker 3: get to the really important piece of merch that will
Speaker 3: pervade the rest of the movie, the bim mark. What
Speaker 3: is the bim mark. Ashley demonstrates how it works. It
Speaker 3: is a shiny triangular sticker. That's it. That's the bim mark.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. You can wear it wherever you want to.
Speaker 2: That's established so you have a certain amount of freedom.
Speaker 2: But eventually it will become law that you do have
Speaker 2: to wear one, make sure that a law enforcement can
Speaker 2: see it on your person, you know. And obviously this
Speaker 2: has you know, sci fi dystopian shades of like the
Speaker 2: Mark of Cain and so forth, the East Mark of
Speaker 2: the Beast and and all. So it's it's a lot
Speaker 2: of fun. And also, yeah, clearly Ashley nailed this one.
Speaker 2: This one's going to really catch on to the point
Speaker 2: where it becomes a mandate.
Speaker 3: Right when Ashley debuts it, he says, you can stick
Speaker 3: it anywhere. Mister Buglow is pleased. He commands Ashley to
Speaker 3: make sure that everyone is wearing one immediately. And then
Speaker 3: somebody goes up to Dandy and Pandy goes up to
Speaker 3: Pandy and says, Pandy, may I bim unize you, and
Speaker 3: then puts.
Speaker 2: The bim mark on her yep, right on the forehead.
Speaker 3: So mister Bugalow invites bb and Alfie to the party
Speaker 3: at his apartment. This would seem to be, you know,
Speaker 3: the move of a gracious winner inviting his competition to
Speaker 3: celebrate with him, but we see them argue about it
Speaker 3: before going. Alfie doesn't trust mister Buglow. There's just something
Speaker 3: about the way that he is Satan incarnate that you
Speaker 3: can't quite trust, and BB counters that, Hey, you know,
Speaker 3: we need an agent. He could make us a big star.
Speaker 3: He made Pandy and Dandy, he made the BIM, so
Speaker 3: maybe he'll make us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it. This is you say what you will,
Speaker 2: mister Buglow. But he can get things done. He is
Speaker 2: a star maker, There's no questioning that.
Speaker 3: So they go to the party and for some reason,
Speaker 3: when they arrive at the party, Alfie is dressed like
Speaker 3: Indiana Jones without a hat, and BB is dressed like
Speaker 3: a flight attendant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're so square. They have yet to be transformed
Speaker 2: by the BIM. I mean, look at their shoulders.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, Oh where are the pads? Where are
Speaker 3: the shoulder pads? Where are the horns? But the here
Speaker 3: we get, like the seduction into the shallow life of showbiz. Luxury.
Speaker 3: Boogalow and the BIM organization offer them hospitality and compliments
Speaker 3: on their music and bowls of champagne. Yes, I said
Speaker 3: that right. It's like a soup bowl that they offer
Speaker 3: them with champagne in it.
Speaker 2: I've been thinking a lot recently about champagne glasses and
Speaker 2: about how the style seems to change because I was
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed watching the period series of the Gilded Age,
Speaker 2: and they're constantly drinking champagne out of more like a
Speaker 2: coup glass as opposed to like a fluted glass like
Speaker 2: you would tend to accept champagne in today. So if
Speaker 2: champagne in the future of nineteen ninety four is served
Speaker 2: in a wide glass in this case, even wider than
Speaker 2: a coup glass, in a way, it's like a return
Speaker 2: to a previous fad and then an exaggeration of that
Speaker 2: fad as opposed to a continuation of the current trend.
Speaker 3: Right, I would agree with that, except that it's huge.
Speaker 3: It's like everybody gets their own individual punch bowl of champagne.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like the whole like punch
Speaker 2: bowl margarita thing or where like a fish bowl margarita
Speaker 2: right where they actually have like a gummy fish in there.
Speaker 3: Oh, and mister Boogalow makes fun of Alfie because he
Speaker 3: doesn't drink alcohol, and there's clearly a divide, like Alfie
Speaker 3: wants to resist their charms, but bbe she just wants
Speaker 3: to dive. Right in Dandy of Pande and Dandy, right
Speaker 3: from the very first moments, just starts hitting on her.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, would you like to go up to
Speaker 3: the roof garden. I have unspecified pills. Would you like some?
Speaker 3: And she's like, yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 2: I don't think he even tells her what the pills
Speaker 2: do in even broad strokes. He's just kind of like,
Speaker 2: they're no big deal. Would you like some? Yes?
Speaker 3: And she accepts and he's like, wow, you really are
Speaker 3: You're a hillbilly, you know, you're from the Sticks. And
Speaker 3: she's like, I don't understand what that means. And then yeah,
Speaker 3: they're just having pills and hanging out and smooching. And
Speaker 3: then interestingly, at about seventeen minutes into the movie, we
Speaker 3: get our first song and dance number that occurs outside
Speaker 3: of a within narrative musical performance. Did you notice this?
Speaker 3: So it's like a little jarring because the two songs
Speaker 3: that we've already heard were at a concert within the film.
Speaker 3: This is the first song that's just people dancing and
Speaker 3: singing into the camera.
Speaker 2: That's right, you know. I hadn't really thought about it before,
Speaker 2: But perhaps because I having seen it before in the
Speaker 2: past as a riff tracks movie and having not thought
Speaker 2: about it too much of them, I didn't think too
Speaker 2: much about how yet, Yeah, suddenly we're in full blown
Speaker 2: musical mode and not just musical concert picture.
Speaker 3: But the song is called made for Me. It is
Speaker 3: sung by Dandy to Bebe saying You're made for me,
Speaker 3: created for me. I'll be your man, You'll be my woman.
Speaker 3: This song getting all that great, but it does have
Speaker 3: a great dance number associated with it, Like in the
Speaker 3: Inside the Penthouse, we just see all of the wacky
Speaker 3: dancers and the amazing costumes and it's Yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: the best tune in the movie, but it is I
Speaker 3: think one of the best dance numbers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the tune kind of has a sort of nineteen
Speaker 2: fifties kind of feel to it, you know, but it's
Speaker 2: still better than anything Alfi's bringing to the table thus far.
Speaker 2: And I like this scenes with the various party goers.
Speaker 2: It has kind of a kind of a rocky horror
Speaker 2: feel to it in terms of like the visuals, you know,
Speaker 2: with all these partygoers and strange costumes, kind of like
Speaker 2: you see in the time warp section of Rocky Hart.
Speaker 2: But of course it's a totally different.
Speaker 3: Song absolutely, But yeah, I see what you're saying about
Speaker 3: the visual comparison. It is similar and I love the
Speaker 3: way it's got like at the party, like the hip
Speaker 3: people in the squares are all singing and dancing alike.
Speaker 3: So like the lawyers and the bodyguards are singing in
Speaker 3: perfect harmony with all of the cool showbiz people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks so fun. This it had to have
Speaker 2: been a fun shoot.
Speaker 3: So the end of the song, Alfie comes up to
Speaker 3: the roof garden and he catches Bebe kissing Dandy. Then
Speaker 3: Alfie grabs her arm and they run out of the apartment.
Speaker 3: And at this point I was wondering, like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: are they together or not? On it? I couldn't tell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now that you mention it, I'm not entirely sure it.
Speaker 2: Certainly this picture is from a time period in which
Speaker 2: it's impossible that to a man and a woman are
Speaker 2: not romantically linked if they are seen together, But the
Speaker 2: movie doesn't really put in a lot of legwork to
Speaker 2: really extrapolate on this this relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so anyway, the next day we see Bogleow arriving
Speaker 3: at his office building. He's he's dressed like a magician
Speaker 3: whose act would be based on sawing women in half.
Speaker 3: And also his bald bodyguards have changed costumes. They've gone
Speaker 3: from like their white suits to these all black outfits.
Speaker 3: And we move inside the building because BB and Alfie
Speaker 3: show up to sign a contract with Boogleow. Alfie clearly
Speaker 3: thinks this is a bad idea, but BB cannot be
Speaker 3: talked out of it, so they're going to go have
Speaker 3: their meeting with with Booglow and they've got to wait
Speaker 3: here in the lobby of the building to meet with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we get in great atrium scene. It might be
Speaker 2: like an airport or something, but certainly I get vibes
Speaker 2: of a of a massive hotel atrium. I love it
Speaker 2: when there's an obvious atrium in a sci fi movie
Speaker 2: or TV show that it's it's It's often very effective
Speaker 2: not knocking it is a is a location because it
Speaker 2: often works. It's just something about this huge interior space,
Speaker 2: this cathedral of modern life.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I agree. I think we're supposed to
Speaker 3: understand the scene as being they're kind of like being
Speaker 3: ground down and humiliated by being forced to wait to
Speaker 3: see Boogalow after they've been invited, and so they're waiting
Speaker 3: alongside all these other acts that are aspiring to sign
Speaker 3: with him, and the other acts that we see there
Speaker 3: in the waiting area include like a baroque vampire funk
Speaker 3: band who brought their instruments, including a full drum kit,
Speaker 3: a sci fi chorus dancer troupe wearing diamond bathing suits
Speaker 3: that are they're called Ballet two thousand. We see like
Speaker 3: these feather boa opera singers. There's a wizard in a
Speaker 3: pointy hat and several clowns.
Speaker 2: This is the riff raft for sure.
Speaker 3: Is mister Bouglow signing clowns? Does he represent clowns?
Speaker 2: You know? I guess it's possible that he might find
Speaker 2: the right clown that he could transform into something that
Speaker 2: would be successful. And I think maybe that's part of
Speaker 2: his message to them. It's like, right now, you were nothing.
Speaker 2: You were unformed. You were at best raw material that
Speaker 2: the bim can transform through his alchemy into something successful.
Speaker 2: Right now, you're no better than a birthday party wizard
Speaker 2: or miscellaneous clowns. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So here we get a song sung by mister
Speaker 3: Boogalow called show Business, where he sings about how he
Speaker 3: plans to exploit all these people and lie to them
Speaker 3: and trick them, and about how the world is cruel
Speaker 3: and hollow. The chorus of the song goes, life is
Speaker 3: nothing but show business in nineteen ninety four, we fight
Speaker 3: for the spotlight, We kill for encore. Life is nothing
Speaker 3: but show business. The world's a cabaret. We live for
Speaker 3: the fortune, we die for the fame. This song is
Speaker 3: also pretty great, especially for the dance number, which is
Speaker 3: it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Great dance number. It's our first song to feature mister
Speaker 2: Buglow as the as the main vocalist, and his his
Speaker 2: singing style, it's more like a flat spoken word style,
Speaker 2: but it's tremendous. He's like, you know, he's talking about
Speaker 2: like a puppet on a string, like a monkey on
Speaker 2: a swing. Like that's very much the delivery style, and
Speaker 2: often while he's again looking directly at us, directly into
Speaker 2: the camera. It's great.
Speaker 3: So eventually Alfie and bb they go up to his office.
Speaker 3: But wait a minute, wasn't he just down in the
Speaker 3: lobby with them singing the song. This is one of
Speaker 3: the many questions raised in musicals about like what is
Speaker 3: the level of reality in the narrative when people are
Speaker 3: in a place singing a song. Anyway, they go up
Speaker 3: to his office, they you know, they come in the door.
Speaker 3: They go past all the bodyguards and the lawyers. They
Speaker 3: meet with mister Boglow's lawyers, who are introduced as James
Speaker 3: Clark and Clark James. Okay, and this is the signing
Speaker 3: the on tracked scene. I think you probably understand what's
Speaker 3: going on here. So Boogleow is trying to sign them
Speaker 3: on to his record company or maybe as their agent.
Speaker 3: It's not exactly clear, but uh, there's no there are
Speaker 3: no surprises here. The contract is a deal with the devil.
Speaker 3: They would be signing away everything, their rights to their music,
Speaker 3: their control over their careers, their souls basically. And once again,
Speaker 3: Alfie is aware of the danger, but bb is portrayed
Speaker 3: as two entranced by the promise of stardom. She just
Speaker 3: wants to sign on the Dodger line and get it done.
Speaker 2: I mean, Alfie also just comes off as maybe a
Speaker 2: bit too protective of his talent here, because to be clear, again,
Speaker 2: Boogleow is a man that can make stars and does
Speaker 2: make stars, and yeah, he's going to take an enormous
Speaker 2: cut and he's gonna kind of sort of own your soul.
Speaker 2: But this is a man that can and will transform
Speaker 2: you into what you need. To be, so you're not
Speaker 2: selling your soul for pennies here.
Speaker 3: But he does put the pressure on because Alfie wants
Speaker 3: time to review the contract, and Google is like, you've
Speaker 3: got another minute. You've got another meeting in twenty minutes
Speaker 3: with the fashion designer, so you better sign it quick,
Speaker 3: you know, and by tomorrow it's too late, so sign
Speaker 3: it now or don't sign it, and then uh oh.
Speaker 3: And then he's also like, we've already sold your first
Speaker 3: album and Dube is confused. She's like, we haven't made
Speaker 3: it yet, and then Shake explains, first you sell it,
Speaker 3: then you make it. That's marketing.
Speaker 2: Yep, Canon films, Baby.
Speaker 3: So while bb is signing her contract, Alfie has some
Speaker 3: kind of apocalyptic vision. The first one is of an
Speaker 3: earthquake and great winds, but then it comes back to
Speaker 3: the room and it's like it's all in his head.
Speaker 2: Or is it? Yeah? So this this again gets into
Speaker 2: the unreality versus reality question in the film, because I
Speaker 2: think you can kind of go down two different streets
Speaker 2: of interpretation. Either Booglow is the literal devil or the
Speaker 2: moose jaw hit here is beginning to break hardcore from reality,
Speaker 2: and so instead of seeing a world of mundane excess
Speaker 2: and greed. He is seeing a clear supernatural threat to
Speaker 2: life and spiritual liberty.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And if it's the former, yeah, you have full license
Speaker 2: to be alarmed and to yell and shout and try
Speaker 2: and drag your friend or girlfriend out of there. But
Speaker 2: if if it's if it's the latter, then I don't know, Alfie.
Speaker 2: I think maybe you're more of a danger than anything. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Possibly, So, Alfie, he has this vision, then he comes
Speaker 3: back from it, so he sort of is calm down,
Speaker 3: and he reluctantly goes to sign his contract. But then
Speaker 3: a second possible hallucination or vision begins, which is a
Speaker 3: darkening at noon lightning strikes. No one again sees the
Speaker 3: darkening but him and the next prophetic vision is a
Speaker 3: musical number, And here is where we finally get to
Speaker 3: the title track The Apple stupendous.
Speaker 2: This is one of, if not the greatest dance numbers
Speaker 2: and performances in the entire picture. This alone is worth
Speaker 2: worth setting around for. If you have any intention of
Speaker 2: walking out on a number in the Apple, this is
Speaker 2: not it. This one is tremendous.
Speaker 3: So this number is set in hell and like the
Speaker 3: caverns of Hell, but it also has Garden of Eden themes,
Speaker 3: so they're all in this misty cave. Alphie and BBI
Speaker 3: are suddenly dressed up like Adam and Eve. They're naked
Speaker 3: except for strategic leaf coverings. Mister Boogalow is dressed like
Speaker 3: a Halloween store Dracula costume.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, with one horn on to show that yeah,
Speaker 2: he was the devil.
Speaker 3: We got some google eyed skeletons in the background. The
Speaker 3: two bald bodyguards here are shirtless in black leather pants
Speaker 3: and studded belts, wearing these dingy dog head masks. They
Speaker 3: remind me of that horribly creepy dog mask guy.
Speaker 2: And the shining Yeah yeah, definite, definite vibes of all that.
Speaker 2: Also great gels for the lighting here. We got like
Speaker 2: red and green. It's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Shake is dressed like a giant serpent. Of course, Alfie
Speaker 3: looks around. He turns to BB's like, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: this is hell. That's bad. We should go, and BB
Speaker 3: is like, no, I love it.
Speaker 2: And she should love it because it looks awesome. Once more,
Speaker 2: the film is that it's most fun and enthralling when
Speaker 2: it's showing us the dark side, And yeah, this is
Speaker 2: nothing new. I mean, I feel like this is basically
Speaker 2: the situation you have with Dante's Divine Comedy. Inferno is
Speaker 2: fun and wicked and funny and insightful and full of creativity.
Speaker 2: But and you know that the rest of the Divine
Speaker 2: Comedy is also great in the classic. Yes, but Paradise
Speaker 2: is significantly less fun compared to Inferno.
Speaker 3: Certainly less memorable to readers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a version of Hell you can
Speaker 2: get behind. You expect Coffin Joe to show up at
Speaker 2: any moment. Coffin Joe would love this place.
Speaker 3: Oh would he ever? I mean, he's very much along
Speaker 3: the Count Boogula lines. So Count Boogila transforms Beebe's leaf
Speaker 3: suit into a sparkling fancy dress and shows her around,
Speaker 3: and he introduces her to Dandy, who, now in Hell
Speaker 3: here is wearing sparkling gold briefs and nothing else. So
Speaker 3: in this mode to call back to Rocky Horror once again,
Speaker 3: he's very reminiscent of the appearance of Rocky, except again
Speaker 3: he has the big mass of Roger Daltrey hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he's maybe not as cut as Rocky, but
Speaker 2: he has all the charisma and charming, like, this is
Speaker 2: a man at ease in a golden pair of underwear.
Speaker 3: So they bring out the Ordu. They're making all these
Speaker 3: references to the Orduv, and it's this big plastic apple
Speaker 3: and they hand it to Bibe and everybody starts screaming
Speaker 3: for her to taste it. They're all yelling, taste it,
Speaker 3: taste it. And meanwhile, while while Dandy is seducing Bebee
Speaker 3: and trying to get her to taste the apple, Pandy
Speaker 3: starts seducing Alfie. And we see a very interesting cast
Speaker 3: of characters all throughout Hell here, all encourage Bebe to
Speaker 3: taste the apple. So some are like ladies in seventeenth
Speaker 3: century European clothes and bride of Frankenstein makeup like Elsa Lanchester.
Speaker 3: Several guys with no faces, just blank skin on the
Speaker 3: front of their heads, one guy with two faces. Randomly,
Speaker 3: we see Napoleon. I'm almost positive that's supposed to be Napoleon,
Speaker 3: Like he's got his hand in his shirt and everything.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then we also see just like vampires running around.
Speaker 2: Oh not just a vampire, Joe, it's an actual, actual,
Speaker 2: actual vampire.
Speaker 3: That is the chorus of the song it's a natural, natural,
Speaker 3: natural desire meet an actual, actual, actual vampire who.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I love it. They and the
Speaker 2: way the vampire lady like jumps up like a cat
Speaker 2: at that moment, turns it cocks her head sideways tremendous.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say tremendous about three dozen more times in
Speaker 2: this episode, but it's one accurate Dandy.
Speaker 3: I gotta give credit to Dandy on him selling this
Speaker 3: ridiculous song, by the way, like the parts where he's
Speaker 3: singing at the crowd of damned souls in the Pit
Speaker 3: of Hell and he's like, oh, yeah, oh, it's so good.
Speaker 2: It's kind of theologically, it's kind of interesting, right because
Speaker 2: he's like, look at this apple. This is temptation and sin.
Speaker 2: This is what got you here. And they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I did, but man, that's a good apple. Yep yep.
Speaker 3: So I think the apple represents fame, or maybe it's
Speaker 3: just supposed to represent all temptations, but the core one
Speaker 3: would seem to be fame. Like Bbe wants to be
Speaker 3: a star and she is willing to put her soul
Speaker 3: in danger and abandon I don't know, the good life
Speaker 3: in order to have stardom.
Speaker 2: I'm just now noticing in the stills you included that
Speaker 2: the apple is half green and half red, much like
Speaker 2: the gel lighting and the scene. So it's like half
Speaker 2: Foucie apple, half Granny Smith apple. So half great apple
Speaker 2: and half just for cooking out.
Speaker 3: I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out, but
Speaker 3: you're right. Yeah. Anyway, at the end of this excellent song,
Speaker 3: Alfie throws the contract on Boogalow's desk and he leaves
Speaker 3: without signing, yells you'll never get me never.
Speaker 2: So this but this hell vision was just in Alfie's head, right,
Speaker 2: So in reality he's coming off like a completely unhinged person.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, he goes up to sign the contract, everybody's
Speaker 3: standing around waiting, and then presumably he just suddenly like
Speaker 3: I don't know, he like closes his eyes for a
Speaker 3: minute and then opens them and he's like, ah, you're
Speaker 3: all demons. So Alfie leaves. Biebe tries to run after him,
Speaker 3: but Dandy and Pandy stop her. They're like, you don't
Speaker 3: know him anything, let him go. You're with us now.
Speaker 3: Pandy grabs her and says, whether you like it or not,
Speaker 3: you're a member of the Bim family, and this is
Speaker 3: sort of a transition point from here, I'm gonna kinda
Speaker 3: get a little more summary about the plot shift to
Speaker 3: a more zoomed out summary. I think we could focus
Speaker 3: on individual things that stood out to us, but we
Speaker 3: see across a couple of songs, we see Bbe falling
Speaker 3: prey to the lifestyle. Her earnest and innocent personality is
Speaker 3: replaced by an addiction to shallow materialism, drugs, and fame.
Speaker 3: And so the several songs in the sequence are first
Speaker 3: of all, a song called how to Be a Master,
Speaker 3: which I thought is it's the worst of the like
Speaker 3: bad people songs in the movie. I think it's really awkward,
Speaker 3: mister Bougelow singing about how he is the boss and
Speaker 3: how he exploits everyone under him.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure where I would rank it in terms
Speaker 2: of the villain songs. It's definitely better than any of
Speaker 2: the good Guys songs in my opinion. I liked it.
Speaker 2: It had kind of a reggae beat, and again mister
Speaker 2: Boglow is the main vocalist on it, as which I love.
Speaker 2: So I liked it.
Speaker 3: But then the next song I think is Rippen. It
Speaker 3: is a hit. That song is Speed, and it is
Speaker 3: a song in which Bbe sings about how she.
Speaker 2: Needs speed, not just speed, but speed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this song is dumb as hell,
Speaker 3: but it is so good it actually, I would say
Speaker 3: it feels a lot like a Jim Steinman song. Can't
Speaker 3: you just hear the song in meat Loaf's voice?
Speaker 2: Yep? Yeah, I think this would very much fit his
Speaker 2: general vibe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the dance number is biker themed. The opening lines
Speaker 3: of the song they are America, the land of the
Speaker 3: Free is shooting up with pure energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this song is incredible. I suppose on some level
Speaker 2: it is trying to say something about the pace of
Speaker 2: American life and the expectations of success and work great
Speaker 2: and so forth. But it's also a completely unsubtle track
Speaker 2: about just how freaking awesome amphetamines apparently are, at least
Speaker 2: according to Bbe. She just really gives it all to perform.
Speaker 2: This number. Just high energy, as it should be for
Speaker 2: a song called Speed.
Speaker 3: It. I mean, it's almost not double on Tandra. It's
Speaker 3: just it seems like the more literal reading is that
Speaker 3: it is about drugs, and that the it's like the
Speaker 3: secondary meaning is interpreting it having to do with the
Speaker 3: rate of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's ridiculous, but also another success for Bbe
Speaker 2: because now her star is just continuing to skyrocket.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. So we see her like talking to the press.
Speaker 3: A reporter comes up to her and says, how does
Speaker 3: it feel to be the world's number one BIM star?
Speaker 3: And BB says, it's frightening, but I put all my
Speaker 3: faith in mister Bugalow. And then they're talking to mister
Speaker 3: Bugalow and they're like, oh, does Bbe have any plans
Speaker 3: for marriage? And mister b says, she is already married
Speaker 3: to the bim Oh and if we didn't mention this,
Speaker 3: already Bbe is wearing the BIM mark. Now she's got
Speaker 3: the triangle on her forehead. Yeah, whoops, took the mark
Speaker 3: of the beast. Okay. So meanwhile Alfie is on the out,
Speaker 3: so we see him suffering without Bebe. He wants their back,
Speaker 3: he's feeling with a directionless she's sort of moved on.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: There's a scene out in the street with Alfie's landlady
Speaker 3: where police are writing citations for anybody not wearing the
Speaker 3: BIM mark. It is now required by law, but Alfie refuses.
Speaker 3: He's like, I will not wear the Bim mark. And
Speaker 3: also this is the scene where it is made clear
Speaker 3: that he would be rich and successful if he would
Speaker 3: just cave in and write if you just give in
Speaker 3: and write bad, heartless music, that the audience is crave
Speaker 3: the Bim music. But he refuses, He's going to keep
Speaker 3: writing good, pure music about love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with the imploy again the implication being that he
Speaker 2: could write successful music if he wanted to have he
Speaker 2: just sold out a little bit. But really, the picture
Speaker 2: gives us nothing to go on here because his heartfelt,
Speaker 2: authentic songs are too terrible, even though the movie would
Speaker 2: have us believe that they really resonate with people and
Speaker 2: are great and and and are just a vision of
Speaker 2: purity and innocence. But no, what we we we witness
Speaker 2: and hear in the in the in the movie does
Speaker 2: not deliver those vibes.
Speaker 3: Once again, that is correct. So his next new his
Speaker 3: new song which we hear, is called where Has Love Gone?
Speaker 3: It's a sad love song as opposed to the hopeful
Speaker 3: love song from the beginning, and it's about as good
Speaker 3: as love the universal melody which is not very good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's I guess it's it's ultimately a flaw
Speaker 2: in the film because clearly the composers were able to
Speaker 2: bring it with the other numbers, the other genres, but
Speaker 2: the love songs, the songs that define our heroes or
Speaker 2: our hero here, it clearly wasn't their strong suit, and
Speaker 2: so it deflates the power of our intended protagonists. You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's like if you were setting up Hercules in
Speaker 2: your action movie, but instead of Hercules like actually appearing
Speaker 2: strong and being able to beat people up, he instead
Speaker 2: comes off weak. People are like, oh, look how strong
Speaker 2: he is, but he's clearly not. It also reminds me
Speaker 2: of I've seen some dramas before that are about fictional
Speaker 2: stand up comedians, and the material they have the main
Speaker 2: character deliver is not convincingly funny. The show tries to
Speaker 2: make you feel like like, oh, people are laughing, this
Speaker 2: is a talented comedian, but it's like no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I can tell I'm watching the show. It's not funny,
Speaker 2: and therefore it deflates the power of the character because
Speaker 2: they are not. It's hard to buy into the illusion
Speaker 2: if you can't give me something to go on there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, totally like, they should just leave that off
Speaker 3: screen if they can't be confident that they can write
Speaker 3: really good material for them.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't that have been hilarious though in this movie? And
Speaker 2: they're like, and then Alfie delivers an amazing song. We're
Speaker 2: not going to show it to you, but it's better
Speaker 2: than anything you've heard in this picture.
Speaker 3: That would be an interesting choice, actually. But while Alfie
Speaker 3: is singing this clunker, I wanted to point out a
Speaker 3: good bit of environmental future texture I noticed, which is
Speaker 3: there's people in the back. They're out for a walk.
Speaker 3: They're dressed in their finest reflective tape, and they're pushing
Speaker 3: what I think are supposed to be you strollers, prams,
Speaker 3: baby carriages, whatever you call them. And in this world,
Speaker 3: these strollers are designed so that babies are encased within
Speaker 3: a plastic bubble. Do you see this?
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. It's the only way to keep them safe.
Speaker 2: I guess it's from all the you know, the dangers
Speaker 2: of the future.
Speaker 3: Oh, and everywhere there are faceless police in all black
Speaker 3: carrying triangular riot shields in the shape of the BIM mark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's BIM propaganda everywhere, And of course lots of
Speaker 2: places to get the bim burger. I wish I knew
Speaker 2: more about bimburger offerings. What's that bimburger like? Does it
Speaker 2: have a nice triangular slice of cheese, triangular pickle? I
Speaker 2: don't know. Maybe the paddy, maybe the whole thing is triangular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you never see one, but that's a good guess.
Speaker 3: So Alfi goes to the music studio. He plays this
Speaker 3: sad love song for these greedy music executives, not Boogalo
Speaker 3: some other I guess rivals. And these guys are like, hmm,
Speaker 3: it's not what the kids are into. Write something that
Speaker 3: will be a hit, and something with some bim to it,
Speaker 3: and then come back when you've got that for us.
Speaker 3: And Alfie is very upset. He goes to sit on
Speaker 3: a sit in a park and stare at the ground,
Speaker 3: looking sad, and then a cop comes up to him
Speaker 3: and writes him a ticket for not wearing the bim mark.
Speaker 3: So it's just not Alfie's day.
Speaker 2: Is this where the cop says, don't you know it's obligatory?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Oh, And then we get the announcement, like these
Speaker 3: loudspeakers on every street corner start broadcasting a message saying
Speaker 3: stop ordinary activities and prepare for the National Bim Hour.
Speaker 3: So it's like the Two Minutes Hate in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 3: except instead of yelling at Goldstein, everybody has to dance
Speaker 3: and celebrate the power of BIM. So we get a
Speaker 3: reprise of the original BIM song, Hey Hey, Hey, Bim's
Speaker 3: on the way or Bim's the Only Way, and we
Speaker 3: get to see firefighters who stop putting out a fire
Speaker 3: and go and dance to it, construction workers dancing to it,
Speaker 3: Surgeons in the middle of a surgery abandon the operation
Speaker 3: and start dancing. Nuns are dancing, police are dancing and leading.
Speaker 3: The whole thing is Bebe and Dandy and Pandy.
Speaker 2: It's great. It's tremendously silly, but it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it goes on so so long, by the way,
Speaker 3: but the sequence is awesome. So there is a scene
Speaker 3: somewhere in here where we get to see like Bbie's
Speaker 3: enjoying her popularity. She's the biggest star in the world.
Speaker 3: The crowds are shouting her name, and then at one
Speaker 3: point Alfie comes to her through the crowd and tries
Speaker 3: to get her attention, and she sort of tries to
Speaker 3: call back to him, but the bim entourage keeps them apart.
Speaker 3: They put her in a car, and then the two
Speaker 3: orc gentlemen beat Alfie.
Speaker 2: Up Bulldog and fat Boy No way, Bulldog and fat Dogs.
Speaker 3: Yes yes, And then we get another sad song from
Speaker 3: Bib and Alfie called Cry for Me. This is the
Speaker 3: one that sounds like Sandy from Greece. It starts Alphy,
Speaker 3: where are you now? Uh? And this is not one
Speaker 3: of the better songs in the movie. It's standard basic
Speaker 3: pining for each other song, just.
Speaker 2: More evidence that Boogolow is right and that that Alfie
Speaker 2: may have some talent, but it desperately needs to be
Speaker 2: transformed into something else.
Speaker 3: So next song, at his lowest point, Alfie goes to
Speaker 3: a party at some kind of BIM pad I don't
Speaker 3: know if this is Bougolo's apartment or whatever. H And
Speaker 3: at this party, Alfie is drugged and taken advantage of
Speaker 3: by Pandy, and this leads into a song called Coming,
Speaker 3: where Pandy is taking advantage of Alfie while he he's
Speaker 3: on this like bad trip and he's like seeing hallucinations
Speaker 3: and bad dreams and all this stuff. And then it
Speaker 3: just generally turns into a song about the concept of sex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it has it's about as subtle as as Speed
Speaker 2: was earlier, real dumb lyrics, but it's kind of catchy,
Speaker 2: I guess, and it had. I did like the drugged
Speaker 2: out optical effects and sort of the dark disco stylings
Speaker 2: of this whole part of the picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like many of these other dance numbers, it does
Speaker 3: have some great visuals and and and like weird drug
Speaker 3: trip effects. But afterwards, Alfie wakes up on a park
Speaker 3: bench where here here the movie takes a real turn.
Speaker 3: He's on a park bench and he is greeted by
Speaker 3: Joss Ackland in a gandalf Beard wearing a robe with
Speaker 3: a knife on his belt.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeap, bear chested bear belly. It's you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily what you'd expect, but again, he brings
Speaker 2: a grandeur, he brings a dignity to any performance. Very
Speaker 2: much in effect here.
Speaker 3: Right, So he's like, Alfie, come with me, and he
Speaker 3: leads him through the woods and introduces him to a
Speaker 3: commune of hippies. These are hippies who live in a
Speaker 3: cave under a nearby bridge, and they are not plugged
Speaker 3: into the bim. It is specified that they don't want TV,
Speaker 3: and this is like, huh, what there can be a
Speaker 3: society that doesn't watch TV. And some of the hippies
Speaker 3: look at Alfie and they say peace, and Alfie says,
Speaker 3: haven't heard that word in a long time, A long time.
Speaker 2: I love how the old man here introduces the hippies
Speaker 2: as if this bunch stands in strong opposition to the
Speaker 2: forces of drugs and sexual liberation and rock music that
Speaker 2: we've been witnessing thus far. That has been established as
Speaker 2: like the enemy, you know, yeah, because these cave dwelling
Speaker 2: hippies did all of those things, they invented some of
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 3: But I think, are they are not part of the
Speaker 3: global technological mass media infrastructure?
Speaker 2: True?
Speaker 3: True, and that that seems to be a part of
Speaker 3: what the evil is in the movie.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: So meanwhile, we check in with Bibi and the Bim
Speaker 3: crowd and we find out that Pandy is actually quite
Speaker 3: penitent for how she and the others have manipulated Alfie,
Speaker 3: and she confesses to beb what they did, and then
Speaker 3: she tells Bibe to go to Alfie. She says, he
Speaker 3: loves you. And this is this is Pande's redemption. We
Speaker 3: see how she in turn is abused and mistreated by
Speaker 3: the bim world, and she sings a song about her
Speaker 3: turn of heart called I Found Me. I'm gonna say
Speaker 3: this is the best of the earnest songs in the movie,
Speaker 3: but it's hard for any of the earnest songs to
Speaker 3: compete with the awesome satanic majesty of Bim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree, I'm both counts here. Yeah, this
Speaker 2: this is a decent song, but it doesn't have a
Speaker 2: lot of competition against the songs Alfie has been whipping
Speaker 2: out and the rest of the picture.
Speaker 3: I think I would say the song as a composition
Speaker 3: is nothing special. But Grace Kennedy does much better with
Speaker 3: this song than it actually deserved.
Speaker 2: Yes, because she does.
Speaker 3: She puts a shocking amount of passion into it. We
Speaker 3: get like the real like close up on the tears
Speaker 3: and everything. She is selling that moral change of heart.
Speaker 3: So here we get to the end BB she repents.
Speaker 3: Also she leaves the bim world and she goes to
Speaker 3: seek out Alfie. She goes looking around the bridge that
Speaker 3: tries to find the cave and runs into Joss Ackland,
Speaker 3: the hippie leader, and when the hippie leader meets her,
Speaker 3: he says multiple lines, I don't know if you caught
Speaker 3: this rob that sound exactly like lines that Alec Guinness
Speaker 3: says as Obi Wan Kenobi when he's calling out to
Speaker 3: R two D two in the original Star Wars. I
Speaker 3: think he literally literally says, well, hello there, don't be afraid,
Speaker 3: and even kind of sounds like Alec guinnis so yeah,
Speaker 3: it's interesting. But so he leads her down into the
Speaker 3: hippie cave. He tells her that Alfie is down in
Speaker 3: the bachelor quarters. One of what things are like there.
Speaker 2: We probably probably smells a bit rough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they sing a song called Child of Love.
Speaker 3: That's okay.
Speaker 2: I like it. It's kind of booming wizard, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's okay. And so here like some time passes,
Speaker 3: like Bbe comes into the world. They take they take
Speaker 3: the BIM mark off of her forehead and she seems
Speaker 3: cleansed of the evil of Bim And then we cut
Speaker 3: to like a year in the future where she's been
Speaker 3: living there in the cave with the hippies with Alfie,
Speaker 3: and now Alfie and BB have a child together. And
Speaker 3: in the grand finale, the Bogleow leadership comes to mount
Speaker 3: an assault on the hippie community and to collect BB
Speaker 3: because they say, you know, we've got she's got a
Speaker 3: contract with us. And because of this contract she signed,
Speaker 3: she owes Boogalow Music ten million dollars for leaving the business.
Speaker 3: And also, by the way, all of you hippies are
Speaker 3: under arrest. But just when things look darkest, we get
Speaker 3: a literal diosx machina. So Alfie is he's he's looking
Speaker 3: around and Alfie who has a beard. Now, by the way,
Speaker 3: I didn't recognize him first with the beard. He says,
Speaker 3: it's going to be all right. I know he's going
Speaker 3: to come. BB says, who's going to come? Alfie says
Speaker 3: mister Topps.
Speaker 2: No idea that nobody has mentioned mister Topps up until
Speaker 2: this point. Again, the only thing or person that we
Speaker 2: know is coming is Bim Bim is on the way right,
Speaker 2: there is no mention of mister Topps.
Speaker 3: Who, So yeah, don't ask questions about mister Topps. Mister
Speaker 3: Topps does appear. He comes down from heaven in a
Speaker 3: spectral rolls Royce. He's wearing like a white suit and
Speaker 3: he he comes out of the car he leads the
Speaker 3: hippies away to become spiritual flesh and live in a
Speaker 3: place behind the sun. Oh and also Pandy abandons Bim
Speaker 3: and she goes along as well. And then we like,
Speaker 3: mister Topps here, who did we already say he's played
Speaker 3: by Joss Ackland. This is also Joss Ackland. Mister Topps
Speaker 3: has a little conversation with mister Boogalow, like as all
Speaker 3: of the hippies are departing into the heavens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again Shapal and Auckland. They do manage to
Speaker 2: make this exchange feel important, like they're both very talented actors,
Speaker 2: and they bring a certain gravity to the conversation that
Speaker 2: is maybe not completely earned, uh, to the point where
Speaker 2: you know they're having the conversation and you know, and
Speaker 2: mister Tops is like, well, we're gonna I'm gonna take
Speaker 2: them all, We're gonna go away, We're gonna go to
Speaker 2: another planet and do something else. Only you're not gonna come.
Speaker 2: We're gonna try it without you this time. And and
Speaker 2: of course mister Boglow is like, you can't have creation
Speaker 2: without me, you can't have good without evil. And mister
Speaker 2: Topps says, let's give it a try, and uh and
Speaker 2: it and it works like it doesn't come off as
Speaker 2: a corny will line. It like fools me into thinking like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's give it a try. Mister Tops is right, and
Speaker 2: then he like raptures everybody.
Speaker 3: Yes, one of the most out of nowhere endings I
Speaker 3: can think of in any film I've ever seen. Again,
Speaker 3: we do know. It was partially a disappointment to discover
Speaker 3: that there had originally been shot these earlier scenes where
Speaker 3: mister Topps creates the world, so you did know who
Speaker 3: this character was before. I prefer not to think about
Speaker 3: that and to think of the final cut of the
Speaker 3: movie as the intended version of the story where you
Speaker 3: have no prior knowledge of mister Topps and he just appears.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think I prefer that way as well.
Speaker 2: With all the disco freaks being turned into hippies and
Speaker 2: the hippies travel to the Gray Havens, Earth is left
Speaker 2: to Boogalow and his demons, and then the movie ends.
Speaker 2: You know. I've also seen it pointed out by people
Speaker 2: commenting on the Apple that we don't really have a
Speaker 2: rousing grand finale musical number, which is is kind of interesting,
Speaker 2: Like usually you have something like that, there would be
Speaker 2: a big musical number as all of these characters are
Speaker 2: raptured away to this new creation. But no, we don't
Speaker 2: get that. Not that I'm missing it, because I'm still
Speaker 2: just blown away by this divine ending to this picture.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's weird that our final musical number
Speaker 2: is I guess the wizard folk song from earlier Child
Speaker 2: of Love.
Speaker 3: Well, the we get a reprise of the apple that
Speaker 3: plays over the end, over the creds. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 3: funny because that almost makes it sound like a triumph
Speaker 3: of evil. Like at the end of the story, we
Speaker 3: just go back to the song about how wonderful the
Speaker 3: temptation is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Boogolow is going to make a party
Speaker 2: out of it. He's gonna make lemonade out of these lemons,
Speaker 2: So you know it's gonna be rocking. It's just gonna
Speaker 2: be The attendance is going to be far lower since
Speaker 2: all the people got raptured away, but he's still got
Speaker 2: a He's still got Bulldog and fat Dog there, so
Speaker 2: we get to discover what their talents are.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't be heaven without them, right, Okay, I think
Speaker 3: that's all I can say about the Apple I am exhausted,
Speaker 3: but this was one of my favorites. Have watched absolutely nuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this movie's a workout. It's I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2: It's People talk a lot about you know, movies that
Speaker 2: are so bad they're good, and about you know, weird
Speaker 2: movies like this is all of those things. Like it's
Speaker 2: rough around the edges. There are things that clearly don't
Speaker 2: work or didn't work as intended, but then there's so
Speaker 2: much that does work and succeed and resonates, like it
Speaker 2: has some great songs in it, you know. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of its failure comes down
Speaker 2: to just when it came out. If this had come
Speaker 2: out like five years earlier, what would the reception have
Speaker 2: been like. And if nothing else, I think it's great
Speaker 2: that it did find its audience over time and it
Speaker 2: does have this cult status now.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this is when I know I'm going to
Speaker 3: be coming back to it many, many times. I wonder
Speaker 3: what things I will notice in the future that I
Speaker 3: didn't notice this time.
Speaker 2: It's full it's you've noticed something different every time you
Speaker 2: watch it. All three times I've watched it in the
Speaker 2: last month, I've noticed something new. All right, We're gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and close it out here. We'd love to
Speaker 2: hear from you though, if you have thoughts on the Apple.
Speaker 2: We actually already heard from one listener who went to
Speaker 2: a viewing of The Apple, so right in if you
Speaker 2: two have a story about seeing the Apple. Also, if
Speaker 2: you have thoughts on other musicals we should do in
Speaker 2: the future. I know we've had multiple people suggest nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one Shock Treatment, the follow up to the Rocky
Speaker 2: Horror Picture Show, so you know that's potentially on the table,
Speaker 2: but there are other weird musicals. Let us know what
Speaker 2: you would like to hear us talk about in the future.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, we'll remind you that Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core episodes
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. If you want a complete list
Speaker 2: of all the movies we've covered over the years, go
Speaker 2: to letterbox dot com. It's l E T T e
Speaker 2: r box d dot com. We have a profile there
Speaker 2: it's weird House and you can find a list of
Speaker 2: all the movies we've covered, and sometimes there's a hint
Speaker 2: ahead at what's coming up next.
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: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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