Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 3: today we are going to be talking about the nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty one science fiction film Visitors from the Arcana Galaxy. Rob.
Speaker 3: I just finished watching this one moments before we sat
Speaker 3: down to record here, and wow, this is in our
Speaker 3: It's got to be on the top ten list of
Speaker 3: weirdest movies we have ever done on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one was a real pleasure. This one's a
Speaker 2: real treat. This one's worth hunting down. And I have
Speaker 2: to say also thanks to listener Eric for recommending this
Speaker 2: one to us. He pointed out some months ago that
Speaker 2: the excellent restoration label Deaf Crocodile was going to be
Speaker 2: putting this one out, and I looked at the cover art,
Speaker 2: I looked at some of the stills from the film,
Speaker 2: and I was like, Okay, I think I need to
Speaker 2: buy this one. So I put in the pre order,
Speaker 2: set it aside during Halloween with the intention of coming
Speaker 2: back to it in November, and here we are.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you for the recommendation. So Rob, this was
Speaker 3: your pick. I really didn't know anything at all about
Speaker 3: it going in, except you handed the disc off to
Speaker 3: me said here's what we're watching. I put it in,
Speaker 3: and wow, this is the movie where you really do
Speaker 3: not know where this is going. Some of the weird
Speaker 3: movies we talk about have a weird texture to them,
Speaker 3: but they might be kind of formulaic in terms of
Speaker 3: plot structure. A lot of the you know, horror movies
Speaker 3: we look at or like that you can kind of
Speaker 3: tell where they're going to go. This one, I had
Speaker 3: no idea where it was going, and it felt at
Speaker 3: times like a child, you know, trying to make up
Speaker 3: a story as they go along, adding in just bizarre
Speaker 3: details like I really didn't expect there was going to
Speaker 3: be a major subplot where the main character of this
Speaker 3: movie's girlfriend is turned into a metalic cube. And I
Speaker 3: also did not expect, especially given how some earlier parts
Speaker 3: of the movie feel very broad and whimsical and almost childlikes,
Speaker 3: like they might be intended for like a younger audience.
Speaker 3: I really did not expect that later in this movie
Speaker 3: there would just be a gory monster rampage carried out
Speaker 3: by like the Axis Bold as Love cover version of
Speaker 3: like a cross between Alf and Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mumu the monster. It's gonna be fun to talk about. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is a move. It's like so many films, like
Speaker 2: you're saying, they're on the tracks of genre, they're on
Speaker 2: the tracks of formula, and this one, with this film,
Speaker 2: it may seem at first like it's going to be
Speaker 2: on the tracks, but no, the train lifts off the
Speaker 2: tracks and then you're flying off to who knows where,
Speaker 2: And we'll get into some of the reasons for that,
Speaker 2: like the different elements and inspirations that came together the
Speaker 2: alchemy of this picture. So this movie was a nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one co production of Yugoslav and Czechoslovakian cinema involving
Speaker 2: four different studios. Zagreb Film which is now in Croatia,
Speaker 2: Jadrun Film also now in Croatia, Kenny Montografi Zagreb which
Speaker 2: is also now in Croatia, and then film Ski Studio Barrandov,
Speaker 2: now in the Czech Republic.
Speaker 3: An international co production.
Speaker 2: An international co production of two countries that no longer
Speaker 2: exist in the form they existed in at the time
Speaker 2: of this film's release. Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. In particular.
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly where this was shot, but I
Speaker 3: would guess it was along the Croatian coastline because the
Speaker 3: movie has a much more I don't know, it's just
Speaker 3: kind of scenic Mediterranean feel than I was expecting as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's my understanding that this was filmed in Croatia,
Speaker 2: and yeah, you do have that texture of these like
Speaker 2: Oatian vacation towns, and they touch on that more than once.
Speaker 2: It's an important part of the background setting for the
Speaker 2: whole picture. And I was reading some of the background
Speaker 2: material for this particular film. The Deaf Crocodile release has
Speaker 2: a nice little booklet with information about the picture and
Speaker 2: the filmmakers by film professor Jennifer Lynde Barker, and she
Speaker 2: points out that a lot of the locations used from
Speaker 2: this film might look familiar to people who watch Game
Speaker 2: of Thrones because a lot of scenes from Game of
Speaker 2: Thrones were filmed in the exact same locations.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that would make sense.
Speaker 2: I think King's Landing. I'm not sure I'm remembering that correctly,
Speaker 2: but I think the King's Landing scenes were filmed in Croatia.
Speaker 2: But I could have that mixed around in my head,
Speaker 2: and it's another place in the Game of Thrones TV
Speaker 2: show that was filmed in Croatia.
Speaker 3: You absolutely on Game of Thrones. I think we'll see
Speaker 3: multiple locations that are, you know, coastal areas on the Adriatic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, my elevator pitch for this movie is,
Speaker 2: if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss
Speaker 2: will physically manifest, move into your flat and turn your
Speaker 2: girlfriend into a cube.
Speaker 3: I think that's dead on that. Yeah, that's exactly how
Speaker 3: I describe it. You know, I haven't had as much
Speaker 3: time to process this one as I sometimes do when
Speaker 3: we watch these movies, because I just now finished watching it.
Speaker 3: But I was trying to think, so, this is a
Speaker 3: story about a writer and a dreamer, a creative person.
Speaker 3: Of course, a lot of writers end up writing stories
Speaker 3: that are about writing. It's kind of it's a very
Speaker 3: tempting subject if you know, to write about what you
Speaker 3: are doing right now, which is writing, if you're writing.
Speaker 3: But I was wondering to what extent the themes of this
Speaker 3: movie are supposed to be about writing specifically, or if
Speaker 3: it's incidental that the main character is a sort of
Speaker 3: dreamy science fiction storyteller, and really it's supposed to be
Speaker 3: more about relationships or just obsession or whatever. The main
Speaker 3: character often describes his own problem not so much in
Speaker 3: direct terms of like creativity or writing, but as an obsession.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think multiple reads on it
Speaker 2: are of course valid, but yeah, it is fascinating that
Speaker 2: it is. It's not alone in being a picture about
Speaker 2: sort of the conflict between a creative obsession and the
Speaker 2: responsibilities of real life, and just sort of the texture
Speaker 2: and nature of real life versus fantasy and what happens
Speaker 2: when these two worlds come into conflict. But as we'll discuss,
Speaker 2: like one of the interesting things about Robert, the main
Speaker 2: character in this, the writer, is he doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: get a lot of writing accomplished. There's this strong sense
Speaker 2: that the book is nowhere near any state of completion,
Speaker 2: and it, like physically manifests later on, is a blank book.
Speaker 2: So it's almost really more about the conflict between the
Speaker 2: inner world of imagination and the outer world, you know,
Speaker 2: something that's been tackled in some and he works, including
Speaker 2: the never Ending Story. I mean, that's part of the
Speaker 2: whole scenario there, except with this whole childhood versus adult
Speaker 2: sort of scenario cobbled into it as well.
Speaker 3: That's a very good point. I think I was gonna
Speaker 3: say something right along those lines that the writing in
Speaker 3: this movie is there's never any indication that it involves
Speaker 3: language at all. Like you don't see him crafting sentences
Speaker 3: or paragraphs or like working on his his fiction. It's
Speaker 3: purely about coming up with ideas. And you can tell
Speaker 3: it because he likes to talk them into a handheld
Speaker 3: tape recorder. He's got like a cassette based voice memo thing,
Speaker 3: and so it and this is I think we will
Speaker 3: all recognize. In fact, I think most writers will recognize
Speaker 3: some part of themselves that is like this, that likes
Speaker 3: to just come up with ideas for things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And part of the whole conflict in the story too,
Speaker 2: is that when he dreams up things, when there are
Speaker 2: things that he wants, he has this peculiar paranormal ability
Speaker 2: to manifest them in reality, which that's kind of makes one,
Speaker 2: I guess, a crappy writer in the end, because you
Speaker 2: don't have to write it down right, because it's already
Speaker 2: so you're already making it real through some supernatural ability.
Speaker 2: And I think you could compare that to sort of
Speaker 2: like the pure idea dreamscape of creative endeavor. Like you know,
Speaker 2: you can set around and create whole worlds in your head,
Speaker 2: and you know that can be the end of it,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to,
Speaker 2: you know, to bring your rich inner life, you know,
Speaker 2: into a literary creation. You don't have to share it
Speaker 2: with the world. You don't have to market it and
Speaker 2: get a price tag slapped on it and so forth
Speaker 2: and try and fill out some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: a capitalist dream of what you should be. But but,
Speaker 2: but but Robert in the film, like he still wants
Speaker 2: to be a writer, and he still has this this
Speaker 2: aspiration that that is what he's going to be in
Speaker 2: reality as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's all like to level dreamy, dream based.
Speaker 3: It's all just the pure imagination point. And that is
Speaker 3: an interesting comment on writing, because I think it's very
Speaker 3: much the case, at least in my opinion, that almost
Speaker 3: always part of the magic of good writing arises from
Speaker 3: the conflict between like your initial imagine imagination of a
Speaker 3: story and then the process of putting that into language
Speaker 3: and getting it on the page, which fights back against
Speaker 3: your original imagination and makes you change things, often for
Speaker 3: the better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well we'll continue this thread as we
Speaker 2: discussed the movie further here, but let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: here a little bit of audio from the film. I
Speaker 2: could not find a video clip of like an original
Speaker 2: trailer for the film, so we're gonna hear just a
Speaker 2: little bit from the Deaf Crocodile Restoration trailer. So just
Speaker 2: a little bit of this JJ if you would planet.
Speaker 3: Erstigli.
Speaker 2: All right, well, if you want to watch Visitors from
Speaker 2: the Arcana Galaxy before continuing on with this episode. Currently,
Speaker 2: the main way to see it is to buy the
Speaker 2: excellent restoration from Deaf Crocodile. You can look them up
Speaker 2: at Deaf Crocodile dot com, but there the disc is
Speaker 2: also sold through various other online retailers like Vinegar Syndrome
Speaker 2: and so forth, wherever you can get it. I recommend
Speaker 2: picking it up if this is the sort of film
Speaker 2: that interests you. As far as I know, it's not
Speaker 2: available like streaming wise anywhere else right now, but a
Speaker 2: lot of these releases often wind up like that later on,
Speaker 2: so I don't keep an eye open for it just
Speaker 2: in case, But def Crocodile's put off the likes of
Speaker 2: films like The Sun of the Stars, Sampo and Delta
Speaker 2: Space Mission. Their Blu ray releases look awesome, and this
Speaker 2: one in particular has a number of cool extras on it,
Speaker 2: which we'll get into. Any Atlanta locals out there, you
Speaker 2: should be advised that Videodrome does have a copy. I
Speaker 2: checked with them, so they do have a copy of
Speaker 2: this movie for rent.
Speaker 3: But the first one to get there gets it, that's right.
Speaker 2: And then you gotta wait. Tell them you know how
Speaker 2: it works. You know a video rent works. If you don't,
Speaker 2: just ask them, go in and ask them how does
Speaker 2: this work?
Speaker 3: They'll tell you. Two film geeks enter, one film geek leaves. Yes.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the people behind this film.
Speaker 2: Let's start right at the top with the director and
Speaker 2: one of two writers on this Dusan Vukotic born nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty seven died nineteen ninety eight born in what is
Speaker 2: now Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to Jennifer Lynne Barker in
Speaker 2: the excellent booklet that came with the Deaf Crocodile release,
Speaker 2: he started off as a political and satirical cartoonist in
Speaker 2: the nineteen forties, but then became involved in film during
Speaker 2: the fifties, right as animation was beginning to thrive in
Speaker 2: Croatia for the first time, so he was one of
Speaker 2: the early innovators there. In addition to animated shorts, he
Speaker 2: also did advertisements for Jardin Film before founding Zagreb Film
Speaker 2: Studio his animation where it continued through the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: And I have to stress too, this disc is also
Speaker 2: awesome the Deaf Crocodile release in that it has a
Speaker 2: number of his animated shorts included in excellent quality and
Speaker 2: these were really fun to check out as well to see, well,
Speaker 2: what was his animated work like before he turned to
Speaker 2: live action.
Speaker 3: I would say this is a live action film where
Speaker 3: the set pieces in costumes and makeup effects and all
Speaker 3: that are very reminist scent of animation. Somehow, there are
Speaker 3: not really animated elements. I mean, I guess there's sort
Speaker 3: of like some laser effects on the screen, but there's
Speaker 3: not any straight animation. It's all. It's all live to film,
Speaker 3: but it does kind of look like a cartoon similar
Speaker 3: to I'm trying to think of another movie we've done
Speaker 3: that was like, this Return to Oz kind of has
Speaker 3: this quality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this kind of sense that even though it is
Speaker 2: live action, there is a basic animation absurdity to things.
Speaker 2: And I feel like you also see you see this
Speaker 2: element in other filmmakers as well, like Tim Burton, I
Speaker 2: think is an example of this. Like many of Tim
Speaker 2: Burton's live action films, they still have that kind of
Speaker 2: animated cartoon energy in them.
Speaker 3: There, but it's also just there are certain visual qualities
Speaker 3: that seem similar to animation to me, like a lot
Speaker 3: of bold lines and costume designs that just feel drawn
Speaker 3: as opposed to put together out of cloth, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, he started doing live action stuff, I believe
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties, and like through the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: did a mix of animation and live action. He was
Speaker 2: also a professor and film theorist. According to Barker, he
Speaker 2: also co founded the second oldest animation film festival in
Speaker 2: the world, currently known as anomy Fest Zagreb. His animation
Speaker 2: style on its own in these shorts that are included
Speaker 2: on this disc are wonderful. They're absurd, They're full of
Speaker 2: abstract shapes and possessed of a perky energy. But also
Speaker 2: like a genuine comedy like these are not like crazy
Speaker 2: experimental Film Board of Canada sort of fair where it's
Speaker 2: not to say that you know that all Film Board
Speaker 2: of Canada animation shorts are the same, but you know
Speaker 2: it's not like super serious stuff. It's about, obviously about
Speaker 2: making people laugh. And I feel like you see this
Speaker 2: kind of energy reflected in some of the retro animation
Speaker 2: projects you've seen in recent decades, such as the Pixar
Speaker 2: short Day and Night from twenty ten, the videos from
Speaker 2: the Fallout games. Also the MCU Loki series has a
Speaker 2: little video about the time variance authority that I mean,
Speaker 2: I have no idea if they were inspired by Vukotic,
Speaker 2: but I feel like there's a lot of comparisons to
Speaker 2: be made here between the two works. Barker also describes
Speaker 2: his animation style as being bouncy, and the animation is
Speaker 2: certainly bouncy. But he was a big success with these.
Speaker 2: The nineteen sixty one short Surrogat won the Academy Award
Speaker 2: for Short Subjects Cartoons the following year in nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 2: This is one about a guy who goes to the beach.
Speaker 2: He's kind of like, I guess if you were a
Speaker 2: real person who would be kind of like a rotunda fella.
Speaker 2: But everything's made out of abstract shapes, so he's kind
Speaker 2: of a triangle. And he gets there to the beach
Speaker 2: and he starts blowing up things like he blows up
Speaker 2: a float, but then he's blowing up things like a
Speaker 2: table and food, and then he blows up a female
Speaker 2: to hang out with him, and the first one he
Speaker 2: doesn't like, so he deflates her, and then he blows
Speaker 2: up another one. But then it just escalates from there
Speaker 2: and just gets ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Okay, is she also a triangle?
Speaker 2: She's very Yeah, they're all everybody's very geometric. This one
Speaker 2: is available. You can find it on YouTube. If you
Speaker 2: search for surro got s u r O g At
Speaker 2: you'll find the shorts. It's pretty fun. So Barker points
Speaker 2: out that Vukatak and his colleagues were initially influenced by
Speaker 2: Western animation like Looney Tunes. She mentions this specifically, but
Speaker 2: they were also influenced by Czech animation and they steadily
Speaker 2: developed their own styles and then as far as this
Speaker 2: film goes, Barker cites several key influences. So, first of all,
Speaker 2: international sci fi and horror films of the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 2: which I think we see that here. Like I think
Speaker 2: she mentions Children of the Damned as having an influence.
Speaker 2: Can't help but compare it to other sort of practical
Speaker 2: affects monsters of the nineteen eighties, like the Thing, but
Speaker 2: also he was influenced by nineteen sixties camp by Check,
Speaker 2: new wave absurdity, by magical realism. And then also just
Speaker 2: in sort of the visual texture of the film especially,
Speaker 2: there's this sense of like the banal, everyday world versus
Speaker 2: the colorful, explosive world of fantasy. It's pointed out that
Speaker 2: we see Robert he's almost always wearing like really drab tones.
Speaker 2: Most of the settings have kind of a drab, not
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say cheerless, but a very lived in kind
Speaker 2: of feel like it's comfortable, but it is every day,
Speaker 2: whereas the world of his imagination is like glowing lights
Speaker 2: and strange textures and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yes, a theme obviously that he wanted to hit over
Speaker 3: and over in this movie is just the fantastical versus
Speaker 3: the mundane, sometimes literally like the fantastic fighting the mundane. Yes.
Speaker 2: Now, the other writer on the piece is Milos Maccorik,
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty six through two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: a check writer who wrote, I believe mostly children's books,
Speaker 2: but also screenplays, comics and so forth. Now getting into
Speaker 2: the cast playing Robert, we have Zarko Potoznak who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six through twenty twenty one. As always, my
Speaker 2: apologies if I screw up any of these names here,
Speaker 2: but he was a Croatian actor of stage, screen and TV.
Speaker 2: He has a small part in the nineteen seventy six
Speaker 2: movie The Rat Savior, credited as participant in the Rat Party.
Speaker 2: This is a movie that you and I've been interested
Speaker 2: in for a while, but if memory serves, it's hard
Speaker 2: to find right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't seen it, but it's on the list
Speaker 3: due to its premise, which has something to do with
Speaker 3: the man discovering I think he can communicate with like
Speaker 3: a culture of sentient rats.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the actor here, I think this. I think
Speaker 2: this is his most well known film, both internationally and
Speaker 2: in Croatian sentiment and so forth. But I have to
Speaker 2: say he's very enjoyable as this kind of bumbling head
Speaker 2: in the clouds. Would be sci fi writer with this
Speaker 2: amazing supernatural gift. It's quite a fun and funny performance,
Speaker 2: but you also you also feel for him, you know,
Speaker 2: like you can't help it but sympathize with this character.
Speaker 3: I have no idea why I think this, truly, I
Speaker 3: don't know what was bringing this to mind, but I
Speaker 3: kept seeing him in scenes in the movie as a
Speaker 3: lost extra member of the crew of the Nostromo from Alien.
Speaker 3: He just looked like a hapless mechanic who would be
Speaker 3: working alongside you know, Harry Dean Stanton in Alien and
Speaker 3: like wander off and get cocooned. And I don't know
Speaker 3: why it brought to and maybe it's like his clothes
Speaker 3: kind of seemed sort of like a sci fi jumpsuit
Speaker 3: from the Nostromo. I really don't know what it was,
Speaker 3: but that just kept coming to mind.
Speaker 2: He's very mild mannered, and there's a sense that he's
Speaker 2: just doing his job. He's doing the bare minimum. He
Speaker 2: would rather not be here. He's not going to put
Speaker 2: a lot of effort into things that have to do
Speaker 2: with this world, because there is another world inside his
Speaker 2: head and that's where most of his focus is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do think there's an interesting tension in his performance,
Speaker 3: which is the fact that the whole movie is about
Speaker 3: his creativity. Like he the whole premise is that he
Speaker 3: is willing troublesome circumstances into reality with his imagination, and
Speaker 3: yet he seems almost completely hapless. You know, he has
Speaker 3: extremely little will or volition, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Over things in this world or the imagined world as
Speaker 2: we'll see.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, Robert has a girlfriend, and this is Beebe, played
Speaker 2: by Lucy Zolova born nineteen fifty two, checkborn actress whose
Speaker 2: credits include nineteen seventy five's Darling, Are We a Good Match?
Speaker 2: And How To Drown Mister Marassek The Lawyer. These are
Speaker 2: not films I'm familiar with that I don't, but but
Speaker 2: she's very good in this so I think it's a
Speaker 2: solid performance as his loving but almost done with it girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Yes, she has very little patience for his initial even
Speaker 3: for his writing career, when he's just like talking into
Speaker 3: a tape recorder about his ideas for novels. Much less
Speaker 3: so when Aliens starts showing up and turning her into
Speaker 3: a cube and she's an interesting foil to his Like
Speaker 3: I was just saying, very a drift and non agentic personality.
Speaker 3: She is very like forceful and willful and has a
Speaker 3: strong personality and is the one who's like pushing back
Speaker 3: against all of this like fantastical stuff from the Arcanic
Speaker 3: Galaxy invading their world.
Speaker 2: So these are like our two main human real world characters.
Speaker 2: But we also have one of Robert's friends who has
Speaker 2: a minor but fun role. This is photo Tony Photo Tony.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think, wait, his name's just Tony, right,
Speaker 3: but he's a photographer, so his door is a partner.
Speaker 3: The door says photo Tony. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So my wife watched part of the film with me,
Speaker 2: and she got to see she's a photographer. So I
Speaker 2: was like, you got to come see there's a photographer
Speaker 2: in this.
Speaker 3: Movie, and oh yeah, what was her rating?
Speaker 2: She had some thoughts about it. Well, she was like,
Speaker 2: he's not gonna get a good shot trying to shoot
Speaker 2: through a window at night and so forth. But I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I don't think photo Tony is
Speaker 2: necessarily at the top of his game here either. He's
Speaker 2: just more ambitious than Robert.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Well, photo Tony seems strange in that his
Speaker 3: ambition seems to be to break through from like tourism
Speaker 3: photography into journalism. Is that how you understood it?
Speaker 2: Yes, but he wants to take that shortcut to the
Speaker 2: top of journalism by getting that one picture that's going
Speaker 2: to change the world, namely of aliens visiting the Earth.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Yes, so I think he hangs out around this
Speaker 3: beach resort taking photos of people for money, but he
Speaker 3: thinks if he can just snap a picture of an alien,
Speaker 3: then he'll be the most famous photo journalist in the world. Yes.
Speaker 2: So, Photo Tony is played by Lubashaw Samardzik who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six through twenty seventeen. Actually a pretty famous
Speaker 2: Serbian actor I read, also a director and a producer.
Speaker 2: He was very popular during the nineteen sixties in various films.
Speaker 2: He was a popular TV actor in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: and he directed the internationally acclaimed two thousand film Skyhook.
Speaker 2: So it's a fun supporting role, but it's definitely one
Speaker 2: of these cases where you can see how this guy
Speaker 2: might go on to have a great deal of success.
Speaker 2: Like if this were a traditional genre film, this would
Speaker 2: be our hero. Photo Tony would be the one to
Speaker 2: stand up and save the girl and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the same way that Biba is contrasted to
Speaker 3: Robert because she has more will and agency. I would
Speaker 3: say that photo Tony also has more concrete will and
Speaker 3: agency than Robert, like he's got a goal. Well you know, actually, though,
Speaker 3: I guess Robert does have a goal, but it's just
Speaker 3: not a concrete goal. He just wants to live in
Speaker 3: his imagination. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also worth noting that Lubashaw was on a twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: Serbian stamp. I included an image of it here for you.
Speaker 2: Joe looks great, great looking stamp, but I would add
Speaker 2: just about anything from this movie belongs on a stamp
Speaker 2: in any country.
Speaker 3: He looks like Kirk Douglas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we see him like earlier in life
Speaker 2: and then later in life. He does have kind of
Speaker 2: a Kirk Douglas kind of a vibe, all right. This
Speaker 2: movie notably has a female android in it by the
Speaker 2: name of Andre. If you've seen any like covers for
Speaker 2: this film, any posters, or certainly any footage, you've probably
Speaker 2: seen a glimpse of this entity. And this entity is
Speaker 2: played by the actor Cassinia Prohaska born nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 2: Croatian born actress who also pops up in some American films.
Speaker 2: She played a mummy. I don't know if it's the Mummy,
Speaker 2: but she played a mummy in the I guess kind of.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's infamous. It's definitely said to be bad.
Speaker 2: But the nineteen eighty five film Transylvania six five thousand,
Speaker 2: a movie that's mostly known for being a film project
Speaker 2: funded by Dow Chemical because Dow Chemical had money in
Speaker 2: Yugoslavia that they could not get out, and so they
Speaker 2: instead said, well, let's make a movie. Then let's funnel
Speaker 2: those funds into a film project, and Transylvania six five
Speaker 2: thousand was that film project that has a pretty good cast,
Speaker 2: but nothing. I've never heard anything nice said about it.
Speaker 3: Have you seen it?
Speaker 2: I have not seen it, of you.
Speaker 3: I tried to watch it one time and did not
Speaker 3: get to the end. It has a very low energy,
Speaker 3: improvised sketch comedy feel.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, which is a shame because again, fun cast,
Speaker 2: it's got Let's see who's an Ed Begley Junior?
Speaker 3: Is that Jeff Goldblum? I think Jeff Goldblum.
Speaker 2: Gina Davis, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. Maybe it gets really good in
Speaker 3: the second half. I remember, I remember something about the
Speaker 3: first few minutes kind of drew me in. I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: yeah sure, but then it just it got incredibly tedious.
Speaker 2: Reviews I was looking at seemed to indicate it does
Speaker 2: not get good. But if listeners have different thoughts, right in,
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from you. Prohaska also plays Marlene
Speaker 2: Dietrich and Barry Levinson's Bugsy in nineteen ninety one. I
Speaker 2: have not seen Bugsy, but I assume this is like
Speaker 2: maybe a small background kind.
Speaker 3: Of a role.
Speaker 2: So anyway, hard to comment too much on her acting
Speaker 2: ability this because his performance is again an android, a
Speaker 2: female android, but it is a memorable presence. So I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna go ahead and say she's great in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. Well, she doesn't have to do much acting.
Speaker 3: She just like says a few lines in a robot voice.
Speaker 3: The costume and the makeup do do more of the work.
Speaker 3: Thinking about this this character design, I was wondering, is
Speaker 3: the bored Queen based on this character here? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, you look at this, this character,
Speaker 2: and yeah, it makes you think of like the board Queen.
Speaker 2: I thought of cinnabytes a bit as well, because there
Speaker 2: is this mixture of sexuality and like dominant female power,
Speaker 2: but on the other hand, like clearly an uncanny inhuman
Speaker 2: quality to the being as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's a cool character design, and I
Speaker 3: think she looks great. She looks creepy, which is funny
Speaker 3: because a lot of the characters are like commenting on
Speaker 3: how beautiful she is. Yes, and of course she was
Speaker 3: to make of that.
Speaker 2: She is frequently accompanied by two Space children who also
Speaker 2: have like gold space jumpsuits on bright blonde hair that
Speaker 2: is cut in kind of like a medieval night haircut,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of a medieval bowl cut going on there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of gray and Nigel tough mel hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these children, one of them is played by a
Speaker 2: child actor by the name of Jasminka Alec. But this
Speaker 2: is one of those cases where this is our only credit,
Speaker 2: so presumably she was in nothing else. But the other one, Targo,
Speaker 2: we'll mention, was played by Renee Bittora Jack born nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two, Croatian actor of note, seen here in his
Speaker 2: very first role, so he's worked rather extensively in Croatian
Speaker 2: and Bosnian projects. I believe he was one of the
Speaker 2: stars of two thousand and one's No Man's Land, a
Speaker 2: film about the Bosnian War that won an Oscar for
Speaker 2: Best Foreign Language Film in two thousand and two.
Speaker 3: I would say so about the kids, it's hard to
Speaker 3: comment much on their performance because they're not doing a
Speaker 3: lot of human style acting. They're just like standing there
Speaker 3: and saying weird lines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you said that, with the Android, the
Speaker 2: makeup is key. And I did note that the makeup
Speaker 2: artist on this, or one of the two makeup artists,
Speaker 2: is Yuri Kurrich born nineteen thirty two, a Czech makeup
Speaker 2: artist who also worked on nineteen seventy eighth Beauty and
Speaker 2: the Beast, which we previously discussed on Weird House.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: One had some great Avian Beast makeup, Yes, totally, so
Speaker 2: I'm assuming he had a hand in the Android effects here.
Speaker 2: But there's also someone else. Evo Strongmuler born nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: four is also credited on makeup, and he worked on
Speaker 2: some big productions later on as well, including the two
Speaker 2: thousand dooon mini series Alien Versus Predator in two thousand
Speaker 2: and four and The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight as a prosthetic makeup artist.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, oh wait, but you didn't mention Faarab, did you. Oh?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't mention fat Vampire. That's another one that
Speaker 2: he worked on, a film that we haven't seen, but
Speaker 2: we've mentioned before because it's come up in connections on
Speaker 2: particularly check films. This is like the vampire car movie, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know if there's a good way to
Speaker 3: watch this one. Last time I checked, I didn't find
Speaker 3: one but it and it may not be good at all.
Speaker 3: Some of the reviews are pretty middling, but the premise
Speaker 3: is it's a vampire car, so I kind of have
Speaker 3: to see it even if it's bad.
Speaker 2: Now we've mentioned that this movie has a monster in it.
Speaker 2: The monster's name is Mumu, and we'll spend a fair
Speaker 2: amount of time discussing him. But the really fun thing
Speaker 2: here is that the monster designer here, the person who
Speaker 2: created Mumu and helped bring him to life, is none
Speaker 2: other than Yons funk Meyer born nineteen thirty four. So
Speaker 2: this is the check Stop motion animation master himself.
Speaker 3: I think while I was out on parental leave last year,
Speaker 3: you and Seth covered a Yan's funk Meyer film, didn't you.
Speaker 2: We did. We talked about nineteen eighty eight's Alice, So
Speaker 2: if you want to hear more about spunk Meyer, go
Speaker 2: back and listen to that episode, because we spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time talking about the man in his work
Speaker 2: and how influential he was and still is in the
Speaker 2: world of stop motion animation. But I'll sum it all
Speaker 2: up by stressing that he's just a master of the
Speaker 2: medium and if he has anything to do with the
Speaker 2: look of a film, you're probably.
Speaker 3: In good hands.
Speaker 2: And indeed, Mumu is just insane.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. Yeah, it is one of the weirdest things
Speaker 3: I've ever seen on film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should stress like spunk Meyers is part of
Speaker 2: huge part of that world of like strange stop motion animation,
Speaker 2: perhaps creepy stop motion animation that some of you might
Speaker 2: not be that familiar with, but it's out there, it's
Speaker 2: waiting for you. And then finally, the music for this
Speaker 2: film is really good too. I really enjoyed it. It
Speaker 2: is a score by a Croatian born composer by the
Speaker 2: name of Thomas of Simovic who lived nineteen thirty one
Speaker 2: through twenty fourteen. He worked on multiple films and shorts
Speaker 2: for Fukatk, including sixty one's The Substitute, seventy three's Man
Speaker 2: the Polluter, and seventy seven's Operation Stadium. Other films of
Speaker 2: note include sixty seven's The Fourth Companion and sixty eight
Speaker 2: So I Have Two Mothers and Two Fathers.
Speaker 3: I agree with your assessment. Really good music in this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's full of like cascading synth and all the
Speaker 2: sort of sci fi motifs you'd expect from a movie
Speaker 2: like this. And I'm happy to say that it is available.
Speaker 2: It was put out by the Croatian label Fox and
Speaker 2: his Friends, and it's actually available to stream in all
Speaker 2: the usual places. Just look up Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this makes any sense, but the
Speaker 3: music that plays over the opening credits. I was listening
Speaker 3: with headphones while I watched the movie, and the music
Speaker 3: created a sensation, like a kind of bubble of heat
Speaker 3: expanding through the inside of my cranium. Just soft, strange,
Speaker 3: enveloping sonic texture, a very strong mood. Really really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's this kind of I mean today
Speaker 2: we would would think of it as this kind of
Speaker 2: like retro electronic sound, and I guess at the time
Speaker 2: it was maybe slightly retro but also sounded like the future.
Speaker 2: And it still sounds like the future as far as
Speaker 2: I'm concerned.
Speaker 3: Also, I love the visuals that went with it. In
Speaker 3: the opening credits, there's this nice mix of concrete and
Speaker 3: abstract imagery. So like, while that music is playing, you
Speaker 3: see something abstract that looks like these blooming flowers of
Speaker 3: blue paint, but represented on what looks like an ultrasound display. Ye,
Speaker 3: And then there are also these slow pans over physical objects.
Speaker 3: One thing looks like the bolts around the glass face
Speaker 3: plate of an EVA helmet. And then you just see
Speaker 3: you know, space imagery, like these blue rivers flowing through
Speaker 3: space into a green sun, and droplets that look like
Speaker 3: the you know, the bits of splatter flying out of
Speaker 3: a lava lake. But that's like going just passing between
Speaker 3: the stars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean this is this is a film
Speaker 2: that portrays space as being a place of color and
Speaker 2: wonder and mystery. It's not a dark void of death
Speaker 2: and in emptiness.
Speaker 3: And so maybe we should get right into the plot then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're already here. Let's keep going.
Speaker 3: Okay, So we begin with some narration after we see
Speaker 3: you know space and the credits. The narrator says, one
Speaker 3: of the rare populated planets in the cold, uninviting universe
Speaker 3: is the small planet Tugador. Not the most elegant sounding
Speaker 3: planet name I've ever heard, but Tugador located in the
Speaker 3: depths of the Arkonic Galaxy. Its inhabitants look a lot
Speaker 3: like humans, but their abilities are almost godlike. Their spaceships
Speaker 3: move at such speed that they can travel and explore
Speaker 3: even the most remote galaxies. It was one of those
Speaker 3: journeys that Targo and Ulu embarked on, followed by Andra,
Speaker 3: and the whole time this narration is going on, we're
Speaker 3: watching stars flashing in space, and then we cut to
Speaker 3: a totally different scene. A voice mimo recorder with like
Speaker 3: a cassette tape in it, held in a man's hand.
Speaker 3: He's talking into the microphone and the narration continues. The
Speaker 3: inhabitants of Tugador had perfect maps of space. They knew
Speaker 3: all of the other inhabited planets. And now we see
Speaker 3: on the screen that the man speaking, Robert, is wearing
Speaker 3: what appears to be a space helmet, and he goes
Speaker 3: on talking, he says, and Earth, a planet revolving around
Speaker 3: a great shining star, has peaked their interest since the
Speaker 3: dawn of time. Andra, the she Robot, Targo, and Ulu
Speaker 3: are now approaching the surface of this unknown and mysterious planet.
Speaker 3: And then suddenly this is interrupted when a woman's hand
Speaker 3: just like wraps on the faceplate of the space helmet,
Speaker 3: and a woman's voice says, Robert, your coffee is ready,
Speaker 3: and so we're not in space at all. Robert is
Speaker 3: just a regular guy in his apartment. He is sitting
Speaker 3: at his desk narrating his own science fiction story into
Speaker 3: a voice recorder, and his office. In his office, we
Speaker 3: see all these like books on shelves, presumably a lot
Speaker 3: of science fiction books, kind of gadgets and sci fi
Speaker 3: toys and gizmos, posters scattered all around of NASA and
Speaker 3: you know, the moon landings and things like that. And
Speaker 3: the woman who was wrapping on his face plate is
Speaker 3: his girlfriend, Biba, who clearly has very little patience for
Speaker 3: his writing or his astronomical obsessions.
Speaker 2: It's a great saying because yeah, the whole like writing
Speaker 2: environment is very convincing and cozy, and there's nothing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's nothing too weird about it, but yeah, his insistence
Speaker 2: on setting there, dictating his notes while wearing the space
Speaker 2: helmet really drives on this comic understanding that yeah, he's
Speaker 2: maybe not getting that much done and it's more about
Speaker 2: shutting himself off from the rest of the world and
Speaker 2: living in fantasy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she says, clearly annoyed. She says, are you
Speaker 3: gonna sit around all day with this bucket on your head?
Speaker 3: And then the narrator the narration goes on. Robert says
Speaker 3: time didn't matter for the three Space visitors. They manage
Speaker 3: their time like we handle water faucets. And then Biba
Speaker 3: is like, we don't handle water fasces, we turn them.
Speaker 2: Like Robert, that's not even good writing.
Speaker 3: But like I was saying earlier, the writing as as
Speaker 3: writing does not seem to be the point. Robert is
Speaker 3: not in love with language. He is not a wordsmith.
Speaker 3: He is an ideas.
Speaker 2: Guy, absolutely, So it's more like if he could write,
Speaker 2: then it would balance things out. But it's all it's
Speaker 2: all like trapped in there, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But we see Robert has a very frustrated life
Speaker 3: because he wants to be just spending his days wrapped
Speaker 3: up in I guess talking this story into his tape recorder.
Speaker 3: But Biba does not like him spending his time that way.
Speaker 3: She gets annoyed with him. Also, his neighbors bother him,
Speaker 3: Like his neighbors come over and start having conflict. So
Speaker 3: his neighbor is Photo Tony and photo Tony's mother's dog, Vicky,
Speaker 3: keeps causing problems and they're trying to get Robert to
Speaker 3: sort this out for some reason. It is a cute dog,
Speaker 3: by the way, But they bring the dog over and
Speaker 3: they put it on Robert's desk and it peas on
Speaker 3: his manuscript.
Speaker 2: At first, I thought Robert was maybe like the super
Speaker 2: or something, but I think it's just like the supposed
Speaker 2: to give us an idea of the close knit community
Speaker 2: of this particular apartment building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for some reason, they want Robert to solve
Speaker 3: their problems. But I don't know why they'd be going to.
Speaker 3: Robert displays throughout the film no ability whatsoever to mediate
Speaker 3: or solve other people's problems. That not that I can remember.
Speaker 2: He's just so checked out. He seems neutral, like yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess so, yeah, like Robert doesn't have a bone
Speaker 2: to pick, let him solve this problem.
Speaker 3: That's a good point. Yes, it's like he's a disinterested party. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so he just wants time to write, but he can
Speaker 3: never have a moment's piece. No one respects his ambitions.
Speaker 3: And also, this was really funny. He just keeps trying
Speaker 3: to put the space helmet back on while everybody's bothering him.
Speaker 3: But so we see that Biba is actually jealous of
Speaker 3: Robert's characters. She's literally like, if you care about this
Speaker 3: she robot Andra so much, why don't you marry her
Speaker 3: instead of me? And we'll come back to that theme. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So they go to visit Biba's family. I think it,
Speaker 3: did you understand it the same way that Biba's sister
Speaker 3: is getting married, and so her whole family is there
Speaker 3: in the house trying to get ready for the wedding. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a big wedding coming up. And I believe
Speaker 2: the individual that Robert ends up talking to next is
Speaker 2: the fiance the groom.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, so yeah, Robert goes along with Biba to
Speaker 3: the house she's meeting with her family. Her family, he
Speaker 3: seems to look down on Robert. They're like, I don't
Speaker 3: know what you're doing with this guy, and Robert he's
Speaker 3: just there to he obviously he wants to talk to
Speaker 3: the fiance of the sister about science fiction novels. They're like, oh, boy,
Speaker 3: you know, did you read this one. It's about a
Speaker 3: monster from space. And so this other guy is like, look,
Speaker 3: you can't call it Visitors from the Arcanic Galaxy. That's
Speaker 3: what Robert wants to call his novel. He says, you've
Speaker 3: got to call it the monster from our cana Galaxy.
Speaker 3: And Robert says, there's no monster in the story. But
Speaker 3: the other guy's like, look, you're not writing Hansel and Gretel. Here.
Speaker 3: He explains that you've got to have a monster, and
Speaker 3: he talks about another sci fi novel that has a
Speaker 3: monster that bites off people's heads. Hey, yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 3: So the quote is, he says, you gotta a quote.
Speaker 3: You have to scare people. That's the secret to success.
Speaker 2: I love how he brings up Hansel and Gretel as
Speaker 2: if Hansel and Gretel does not have horrifying elements to
Speaker 2: it and it's purest telling.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting that he's giving Robert these very
Speaker 3: mercenary kind of pieces of advice about what the reading
Speaker 3: public wants. About like what makes a book marketable. But
Speaker 3: Robert doesn't seem to have written anything yet. It's not
Speaker 3: like he has a manuscript that's been rejected by a
Speaker 3: bunch of publishers. It's like he's he's like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to write a novel right.
Speaker 2: In fact, it's so unformed that he basically is like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I can add a monster. It really doesn't wrack anything
Speaker 2: at all because nothing has been written yet.
Speaker 3: Apparently that's right. So Robert ultimately decides his monster should
Speaker 3: be a toy belonging to the children in the story.
Speaker 3: And he also briefly says, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: cut out Targo, the boy from space or else. That'll
Speaker 3: just be too many characters. So four characters would be
Speaker 3: too many if he as the monster, He's got to
Speaker 3: get rid of Targo. And so he goes back home,
Speaker 3: gets back to writing, and now the tone of the
Speaker 3: story is a little bit different. He talks into his
Speaker 3: tape recorder and he says Andra and Ulu, visitors with
Speaker 3: power from the Arcanic Galaxy, are a menace to human life,
Speaker 3: and they are approaching the Earth and they're not alone.
Speaker 3: The Monster of the Arcana galaxy is with them? Are
Speaker 3: we ready for that encounter? But while he's talking, we
Speaker 3: see out the window behind Robert and he lives in
Speaker 3: an apartment building that's like right on the water. It's
Speaker 3: on the coast looking out over I guess the Adriatic.
Speaker 3: We see a bright object fall from the sky and
Speaker 3: land on an island across the water. Oh and by
Speaker 3: the way, yes, he is wearing his space helmet in
Speaker 3: this scene. But he goes to the kitchen to get
Speaker 3: a glass of milk, when suddenly his voice memo recorder
Speaker 3: starts talking back to him. It's a woman's voice, very
Speaker 3: tiney and robotic, saying, Robert, we have arrived. This is Andra,
Speaker 3: come find us on the island, and he gets very,
Speaker 3: very freaked out. He checks the tape to see if
Speaker 3: their voices were recorded, but there's only the hiss of static.
Speaker 3: The tape is blank after he stopped talking into it,
Speaker 3: so he doesn't know what to think. But Robert borrows
Speaker 3: a boat from photo Tony photo Tony's got a boat.
Speaker 3: Photo Tony's doing okay, and he motors out to the
Speaker 3: island in photo Tony's boat. He docks, climbs ashore and
Speaker 3: he goes wandering through the forest and then whoa, suddenly
Speaker 3: they are here. So he like follows a flashing blue
Speaker 3: light through the courtyard of this building. I think the
Speaker 3: building is part of a like a tourist resort area
Speaker 3: on the island. And then he goes through the trees
Speaker 3: and then over this rocky landscape and down a ravine
Speaker 3: until he meets the three alien beings. And when he
Speaker 3: meets them, one of the two children starts trying to
Speaker 3: zap him with eye lasers.
Speaker 2: I love the eye lasers. They're they're quite destructive, as
Speaker 2: we'll see later on.
Speaker 3: That's Targo who tries to eye laser him, but Andress
Speaker 3: stops him. So again, they introduce themselves. There, Andra, Ulu
Speaker 3: and Targo and Rob. How would you describe exactly what
Speaker 3: you what they look like. They're wearing like gold suits,
Speaker 3: and I guess you already mentioned they're like the children
Speaker 3: having the long white hair, metal band hair that Andra
Speaker 3: kind of has these gold ridges along her large pale head.
Speaker 3: I don't know what else there is to say. I mean,
Speaker 3: they look strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their gold space suits could also be robot bodies,
Speaker 2: especially in the case of Andre And Yeah, she has
Speaker 2: this big head like a like a like a heightened
Speaker 2: forehead situation going on, which is of course used a
Speaker 2: lot of times, especially with you know, aliens of like
Speaker 2: fifties and sixties science fiction. But here it is it's
Speaker 2: done so well. Like it doesn't it doesn't look fake
Speaker 2: it it's just it just looks exceptional. I loved it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Is there a Missus Exeter maybe maybe right here?
Speaker 2: And they must have I mean, this makeup job must
Speaker 2: have been really taxed the artist behind it, because she
Speaker 2: has these tubes as well that come out of the
Speaker 2: side of her head and go into her jawline. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And granted she's not doing a lot of like emoting
Speaker 2: with her face, but she is speaking lines and like
Speaker 2: you never see a shot where it looks like anything's
Speaker 2: cracking or coming apart. It looks great every time he's
Speaker 2: on the screen.
Speaker 3: When we first meet the kids, Targo says to Robert,
Speaker 3: you wanted to remove me from the story, but you
Speaker 3: were unsuccessful. There's something so threatening about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, already we see that he doesn't have control over
Speaker 2: what he's creating. He doesn't have control over his imagination.
Speaker 2: He tried to prune it a little bit, and his
Speaker 2: imagined world rejected the.
Speaker 3: Change, that's right, and Targo, seemingly upset by this, he
Speaker 3: throws out his toy, a little toy he has with him,
Speaker 3: which grows to a giant size. And this is moumoo
Speaker 3: the monster. But at this moment we only get a glimpse,
Speaker 3: so maybe we won't fully describe it yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at this point we can just tell that it's
Speaker 2: roughly by peedle, has kind of a snout or a
Speaker 2: trunk going on. But you don't really get much more
Speaker 2: than that.
Speaker 3: Right, So Robert is chased by the monster. He runs away.
Speaker 3: Then he's chased by what looks like a glowing blue
Speaker 3: Christmas ornament that floats in the air. It's like a
Speaker 3: sky blue ball with these greebles on it. He gets
Speaker 3: in the boat, he tries to drive away. He wields
Speaker 3: it I think a beer bottle and self defense against
Speaker 3: the thing, and the ship just keeps chasing him. He
Speaker 3: jumps out of the boat somehow, I don't know. Somehow
Speaker 3: he ends up back back home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, rather freaked out by the whole encounter.
Speaker 3: Right, So the next day Robert goes to speak to
Speaker 3: a professor. It's just a character, just called the professor
Speaker 3: about whether he is having a psychotic episode. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: here's what I saw, doc. And the doctor is like,
Speaker 3: do you use drugs? And he says no, and he's like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: it seems all right then. But he explains a bit
Speaker 3: about his personal history. Robert says that sadly, his mother
Speaker 3: died when he was born, but when he was a baby,
Speaker 3: he wanted milk, and he psychically made his father grow
Speaker 3: breasts so that his dad could breastfeed him. That's the story.
Speaker 2: You might ask, well, how would he remember that, Well,
Speaker 2: he probably he would not remember that. I think if
Speaker 2: you go back to some of our stuff to blow
Speaker 2: your mind episodes on this. But luckily the movie depicts
Speaker 2: this entire scene. We see his father grow breast and
Speaker 2: then breastfeed the young baby Robert. And already, you know,
Speaker 2: there's been plenty of weird stuff already in the film,
Speaker 2: but this was a scene that really lets you know like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this movie is going to continue to take some sharp
Speaker 2: turns that you were not anticipating.
Speaker 3: Yes, psychic powers making yeah, yeah, So the professor listens
Speaker 3: to this story kind of nods, He's like, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's called tellergy, he said. The professor says, this concept
Speaker 3: is not yet proven, but it's under intense study in
Speaker 3: parapsycholic and it's a condition where a person of intense
Speaker 3: willpower can make their desires manifest as physical reality. And
Speaker 3: Robert's like, oh cool. And the professor is like, do
Speaker 3: you have a problem or an obsession that is bothering you?
Speaker 3: And of course Robert does. It's the book he wants
Speaker 3: to write. But you know, he's like, it's always on
Speaker 3: his mind, but he's being bothered all the time. He's
Speaker 3: not really able to write it. And while they're sitting there,
Speaker 3: Robert psychically manifests a book on the professor's desk. It
Speaker 3: just like appears out of thin air. And the Professor's like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's interesting. You just made a book appear. So he's like, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to write you a prescription for chilling out.
Speaker 3: You need to relax, and Robert says, okay. This is
Speaker 3: a good scene. And then after this, Robert he picks
Speaker 3: up the book that he psychically manifested in the desk
Speaker 3: and he takes it to his sci fi buddy from earlier,
Speaker 3: who I think he's working at a bookstore, and when
Speaker 3: going into the store, the guy is talking to another
Speaker 3: customer and he's like, ah, yes, it's an alien beast
Speaker 3: from another galaxy. It you know, it eats everyone. And
Speaker 3: Robert interrupts him to be like, hey, I just made
Speaker 3: this book appear. Do you have another copy of it?
Speaker 3: I think, is what he asks, and the guy's like, no,
Speaker 3: this book says it's by you, and Robert says that's right.
Speaker 3: And then the owner of the shop, I think, comes
Speaker 3: in and looks at the book and says, all the
Speaker 3: pages are blank. This isn't a book, you know, come
Speaker 3: back when when it's got words in it. So we
Speaker 3: get some a little more seeing into Robert's mundane day
Speaker 3: to day life. He's doing a pretty crummy job at work.
Speaker 3: His day job is he's a desk clerk at like
Speaker 3: a hotel or resort on the coast here, and he
Speaker 3: gets in trouble with his boss for having a beard.
Speaker 3: His boss is like, shave that thing off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't look like a great work environment. His
Speaker 2: boss does seem like a bit of a meanie, but
Speaker 2: Robert's could have clearly not putting a lot.
Speaker 3: Of effort into the whole endeavor yeah, it is bad
Speaker 3: on every end. I think his boss would be mean
Speaker 3: even if he was a good employee. But he's not
Speaker 3: really trying. No. But later that night, the voice contacts
Speaker 3: Robert again through the recorder, and Andrew is there. She
Speaker 3: tells him that she and the space aliens, all three
Speaker 3: of them, belong to him because he created them, and
Speaker 3: he's got to come back to the island. Oh but
Speaker 3: before he goes back to the island, it shows more
Speaker 3: relationship problems between Robert and Biba. Her family is mad
Speaker 3: at him for acting strangely and being a bad boyfriend.
Speaker 3: But Robert knows how to fix it. He's going to
Speaker 3: take Biba out to the island and show her that
Speaker 3: his alien robot characters have physically manifested and come to life,
Speaker 3: which is the perfect way to save any relationship that's
Speaker 3: on the rocks. That's right, totally the right move. So
Speaker 3: they go out, they explore the island. They see the
Speaker 3: giant glowing blue Christmas ornament going inside a cave. And
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm surprised here because what I expected
Speaker 3: to happen would be that he could see them and
Speaker 3: she couldn't. You know, that seems like what would happen
Speaker 3: in another movie, but no, she immediately sees it too,
Speaker 3: and so it's like totally physically externally real for her
Speaker 3: as well. And she sees Andra and Targo and Ulu
Speaker 3: and they are having quote an anatomy class where they
Speaker 3: have captured a guard from the resort on the island
Speaker 3: and they are dissecting him and removing his heart.
Speaker 2: Yes, which then this scene I have to stress it
Speaker 2: is not anywhere near as graphic as that may sound,
Speaker 2: but it is like one hundred percent weirder than we
Speaker 2: made it sound too, because it's like floating and they've
Speaker 2: like bloodlessly removed his heart and he's and also the
Speaker 2: guard is seemingly like a wake during the whole process.
Speaker 2: He's just kind of like, uh, and it's wonderful.
Speaker 3: So Robert then sees the blue sphere floating around and
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm gonna touch it. I want to touch
Speaker 3: the blue sphere. So he reaches out, he touches it,
Speaker 3: and this destroys it. It like it explodes and disappears.
Speaker 3: And then Andra is furious with him. She says, you know,
Speaker 3: this is our ship. How are we going to get
Speaker 3: home now? But she has a solution. She says, in
Speaker 3: situations like this, the only thing to do is to
Speaker 3: go back in time. So Andra opens up her torso
Speaker 3: and shows us her mechanical guts and then winds back
Speaker 3: the clock to the time before Robert touched the ship,
Speaker 3: and this time she interrupts him before he does it.
Speaker 2: This insight into the inner workings of Android are very
Speaker 2: well done as well. It's varies glowing and mechanical, and
Speaker 2: in a later scene we see I believe Robert like
Speaker 2: look through from the other side, which reminded me specifically
Speaker 2: of a scene in Tobor the Great.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I wonder if that was inspiration or if
Speaker 2: this was like maybe a common trope of sort of
Speaker 2: old robot movies that inspired it.
Speaker 3: Wow, if this movie was inspired by Towbor, that that
Speaker 3: would be something. Why not that I would mean two
Speaker 3: degrees of separation from the Christmas Carol sponsored by the
Speaker 3: Magnavox Corporation to visitors from the Arcanic Galaxy.
Speaker 2: Now, this is a lot for Biba to take in here, Yes,
Speaker 2: and I think we should not be shocked to see
Speaker 2: that she freaks out a little bit.
Speaker 3: That's right, She gets scared and tries to run away
Speaker 3: Andre says she cannot escape, and then zaps her with
Speaker 3: some kind of energy beam which transforms Biba into a cube.
Speaker 3: It like shrinks her into a metallic cube, first, a
Speaker 3: larger I don't know, like maybe foot cube, metallic cube
Speaker 3: with a hand sticking out of it, and then they
Speaker 3: shrink her into an even smaller cube that can fit
Speaker 3: into the palm of Robert's hand.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think one of the children initially zaps her,
Speaker 2: and then Andre has to finish it, and she says,
Speaker 2: so you can't do that yet. Yeah, you haven't worked
Speaker 2: out the art.
Speaker 3: Your skill at shrinking people into metallic cubes is not
Speaker 3: yet perfected. This is another classic way to heal a
Speaker 3: struggling relationship. One of you at least has to temporarily
Speaker 3: transform into a cube. That's right. And the aliens start
Speaker 3: talking to Robert. They're like, are you a mammal? And
Speaker 3: he says yeah, and they're like gross. And the children
Speaker 3: marvel at the fact of how primitive an undeveloped Robert
Speaker 3: is and the paradox that he created them. They are
Speaker 3: the much more advanced beings with all this technology and
Speaker 3: intelligence and everything, and they were created by this being
Speaker 3: that is far less complex than they are, which is
Speaker 3: kind of an interesting theme. Like Targo, as this character
Speaker 3: from a sci fi planet, knows about ways that he
Speaker 3: could have been imagined that Robert doesn't know about. So
Speaker 3: Targo is like, if our creator had been more advanced,
Speaker 3: we could have had para lasers in our eyes. They
Speaker 3: don't specify how para lasers are better or more advanced
Speaker 3: than the regular eye lasers Targo already has, but that's
Speaker 3: to be understood. And so the kids are kind of like,
Speaker 3: they're kind of bummed out. They're like, if only Robert
Speaker 3: had been from a more advanced planet, then we could
Speaker 3: have been imagined with more advanced capabilities of our own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Targo, I think, still has a grudge about
Speaker 2: the whole attempted pruning from the Fantastic narrative.
Speaker 3: That's right, Targo never really gets over it. He's got
Speaker 3: a chip on his shoulder the whole time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you tried to cut me from the story, and
Speaker 2: I refuse to go.
Speaker 3: But Andra is more interested in what Robert has imagined
Speaker 3: for their future. She's like, what's in the next chapter
Speaker 3: of the story. And Robert doesn't really have an answer
Speaker 3: for that, because you know, he's not very he's not
Speaker 3: really into the details the plot mechanics. He's a big
Speaker 3: ideas guy. Yeah. Oh. But then in one of the
Speaker 3: funniest scenes in the movie, even though it does involve
Speaker 3: corporal punishment of children, not usually funny, but funny in
Speaker 3: this case, Andre disciplines the children after they eye laser
Speaker 3: her fingers off. So I think Targo shoots her fingers
Speaker 3: off with beams of light from his eyes, and then
Speaker 3: she whips the children with a lightsaber.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she grows the missing finger back and then yeah,
Speaker 2: one of her fingers extends into a lightsaber and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: what's gonna happen next? Just she starts spanking the knuckles,
Speaker 2: lashing the knuckles of the children and they're like oh wow, which, again,
Speaker 2: normally maybe wouldn't be funny, but in this scene is hilarious.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Great. So back on land, Robert has to explain
Speaker 3: to Biba's sister that she has been transformed into a cube,
Speaker 3: and Beba's sister she doesn't like. She gets mad, she
Speaker 3: knocks the cube into the water and then he's like,
Speaker 3: oh no, she's down to the water. So they have
Speaker 3: to get a diver to find the cube.
Speaker 2: They taste great because Beba's sister too, is like, she
Speaker 2: doesn't outright say I think he killed my sister, but
Speaker 2: it's heavily implied, like what on earth has happened here?
Speaker 2: But then he keeps going on about this cube, and
Speaker 2: she's like, okay, I get saw listened to.
Speaker 3: Him, yes, and then but well, actually, Biba's got multiple sisters,
Speaker 3: so Biba's I think her older sister is the one
Speaker 3: who's skeptical. Biba's little sister seems to believe it, but
Speaker 3: she's like, Okay, we got to cut the cube open
Speaker 3: to get her out, but Robert has to explain no, no, no,
Speaker 3: she's not in the cube. She is the cube, so
Speaker 3: you can't cut it. Eventually, the cube spontaneously transforms back
Speaker 3: into Beiba, proving him right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the children or Andre had said
Speaker 2: that it was only temporary, so it's well timed before
Speaker 2: anyone could freak out any longer, or anyone could be
Speaker 2: charged with murder.
Speaker 3: If you thought things were weird so far, it is
Speaker 3: going to get so much stranger on the island. There's
Speaker 3: a sequence of events where like a tourist child no no, no,
Speaker 3: the child of the cook in the resort there finds
Speaker 3: the severed Andra finger, so like the severed alien robot finger,
Speaker 3: and takes it into the restaurant kitchen at the resort
Speaker 3: and is like, Dad, look a finger. And he's holding
Speaker 3: it right there next to a meat grinder, and all
Speaker 3: these tourists come into the kitchen, including photo Tony who's
Speaker 3: standing there with his camera, and they're all watching as
Speaker 3: they're holding this finger over the meat grinder. The finger
Speaker 3: falls in, it gets ground up with the other meat,
Speaker 3: which they do. They do explain what the meat is
Speaker 3: gonna be used for. It's gonna be to make stuffed peppers,
Speaker 3: and then the finger gets ground into a metallic powder.
Speaker 3: And there is a large man with a red beard
Speaker 3: who just keeps appearing and sort of like issuing authoritative statements.
Speaker 3: I don't know who this guy is or where he
Speaker 3: comes from. The big guy with the beard, he just
Speaker 3: looks at the bowl of ground meat. He says, that's
Speaker 3: not a human finger.
Speaker 2: This guy, I think must I think he's the town crackpot.
Speaker 2: I think we glimpse him earlier in the sci fi bookstore.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. Oh, and I think the actor who
Speaker 2: plays him, who I looked him up in it. He's
Speaker 2: rather tall. I think he plays Frankenstein in the Transylvania
Speaker 2: film we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like he's the town crackpot and now
Speaker 2: it is his time to shine. And I love how
Speaker 2: people start listening to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Wait a minute, when you say he played he
Speaker 3: plays Victor Frankenstein replays the creature.
Speaker 2: Oh, well, you know I Frankenstein the monster.
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh okay, I'm not trying to be pedantic. I
Speaker 3: just didn't know for sure.
Speaker 2: Is Victor Frankenstein in They had Bagley Junior translating idea.
Speaker 3: I don't remember.
Speaker 2: There is some sort of Frankenstein's monster in it, and
Speaker 2: I believe this is the gentleman who also plays it.
Speaker 3: So everybody on this island now it's full of tourists.
Speaker 3: They all been hanging out of the beach and I
Speaker 3: guess they're bored and they want to see aliens. Now
Speaker 3: They're like, all right, that wasn't a human finger, so
Speaker 3: there must be aliens on the island. So they start
Speaker 3: like running all around trying to find the aliens. There
Speaker 3: are dudes in wetsuits with spear guns who say they're
Speaker 3: gonna hunt the aliens, and they go to the cave
Speaker 3: where the aliens are hanging out and shoot spear guns
Speaker 3: at them, and there's like a laser battle where the
Speaker 3: aliens are shooting you know, cyclops I beams at them
Speaker 3: and Ulu Zapp's one of the spear gun men on
Speaker 3: the butt with a laser.
Speaker 2: Oh. This seems great because it's like they're trying to
Speaker 2: make this aquatic landing. It's like the Battle of the
Speaker 2: the Alien Cave, and the eye beams are just causing
Speaker 2: enormous explosions in the water, which I guess it's due
Speaker 2: to like like the rapid thermal heating.
Speaker 3: Of the of the water.
Speaker 2: That probably, Yeah, the effect is explosives in the water.
Speaker 3: But it's great.
Speaker 2: It's like wow, it's like this is this is it.
Speaker 2: It's like the children are artillery in a battle.
Speaker 3: It's wonderful. Yeah, And so this causes tourists from the
Speaker 3: beach now they know the aliens are in the caves,
Speaker 3: so like hundreds of tourists flood into the caves to
Speaker 3: find the aliens. And I don't even know where this
Speaker 3: comes from, a bunch of them start yelling and they're
Speaker 3: like come out and meet us, and they decide to
Speaker 3: get naked to prove to the aliens they are harmless.
Speaker 3: So a bunch of the tourists just like take all
Speaker 3: their clothes off, except they've still got shoes on, and
Speaker 3: they're running around in the cave naked but with shoes.
Speaker 3: And then the big guy with the beard is there
Speaker 3: and he's like, if you see them, don't make any
Speaker 3: sudden moves. Yes.
Speaker 2: They then say something about just smile, just smile and
Speaker 2: look peaceful or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love this. Barker in her notes points out that
Speaker 2: it's like this inversion of the Frankenstein scenario where the
Speaker 2: villagers instead of grabbing pitchforks and going up there and like,
Speaker 2: let's get him. Though I guess we do see that
Speaker 2: initially with the first phase of the assault, but here
Speaker 2: with the villagers, it's more of like, no, let's just
Speaker 2: take all our clothes off so they know that we're
Speaker 2: just soft and harmless. Yeah, and we don't wish them
Speaker 2: any harm, though we are still rapidly invading their space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maximum disarmament of just getting completely naked. Yeah, But
Speaker 3: they go looking around in the caves, they don't find him.
Speaker 3: It's like where are they? It turns out the aliens
Speaker 3: have moved into Robert's apartment. So he comes. Yeah, Robert
Speaker 3: comes home and he finds Andra operating her own hand
Speaker 3: as a magical vacuum cleaner on the floors and she's
Speaker 3: like vacuuming. He drops his groceries when he sees her,
Speaker 3: and her vacuum cleaner sucks up objects as large as
Speaker 3: an apple and a baguette.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some nice stop motion work here, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: love that her arm is extended into a vacuum cleaner.
Speaker 2: And when she's done with it, like it glows and
Speaker 2: then shrinks back down to a normal hand again.
Speaker 3: So he says he's hungry, and she offers to cook
Speaker 3: for him. She's like, you know, what do you want?
Speaker 3: And he says, you know what, I would like a
Speaker 3: steak Pomfrey and a salad. And so she makes him
Speaker 3: a steak, Pomfrey and a salad out of her this
Speaker 3: like weird magnet in her guts. But it's tiny, it's
Speaker 3: like a little tiny plate. It's one bite of each thing.
Speaker 3: He says, it pills like in Santa versus the Martians.
Speaker 3: That's right. He says that it's the best beef steak
Speaker 3: he's ever had, but portions are kind of small, and
Speaker 3: she's like, no, no, no, you don't need any more
Speaker 3: than this. Oh, and then it just Andrew starts demanding
Speaker 3: that Robert touch her. She's like, touch me, and he
Speaker 3: wants to, but he's very afraid. And then Targo interrupts
Speaker 3: by he comes into the room, the kid, and he
Speaker 3: has his little monster toy with him, Mumu, and he
Speaker 3: like makes it turn into a big monster and sends
Speaker 3: it after Robert. And so for a moment it's menacing,
Speaker 3: but Andrew shows him how to defend himself by pressing
Speaker 3: a button on this little remote control.
Speaker 2: Now we only get a really a quick look at
Speaker 2: the full size Mumou here, but already we can see
Speaker 2: that this is an incredible creation. I have to say,
Speaker 2: Mumu is unlike anything I've ever seen before in a
Speaker 2: monster film. The basic concept I think does remind me
Speaker 2: a bit of what we talked about in Terror Vision,
Speaker 2: which of course came later, the idea that you wanted
Speaker 2: to create a practical effects monster that was at once
Speaker 2: incredibly terrifying if the context was right, but also looked
Speaker 2: really dumb. So Mumu's an absurd monstrosity with parts of
Speaker 2: him seem to be He seems to be cobbled together
Speaker 2: from oversized and misplaced bits of human anatomy, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of him, Like he seems to have sort of
Speaker 2: wing like appendages or features that that seem to be
Speaker 2: big human ears that are part of his body.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they're also kind of they're kind of mouse
Speaker 3: ears at a distance, but they're also a curled up
Speaker 3: appendage making it look like a rams horn.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, oh, you're talking about on his head, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he does.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm sorry I misheard you.
Speaker 2: Then no, yeah, because on his head he has these
Speaker 2: things that are like ears or horns but are also
Speaker 2: like tentacles. But then on his torso it's like he
Speaker 2: has giant human ear lows as part of him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're right, it's really weird, like the outer
Speaker 3: fleshy part of a of a human ear on as
Speaker 3: as wings. Almost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, we'll see a lot more from Mumu.
Speaker 2: And there's never any way did scene with move and
Speaker 2: move's terrific. It's because it's either you're getting like a
Speaker 2: bumbling rubber monster suit kind of an effect in all
Speaker 2: the best ways and it's you know, it certainly allows
Speaker 2: you to lean into the comedy and the absurdity, but
Speaker 2: also he's like legitimately terrifying and scenes as well, especially
Speaker 2: given the context of the film and the sort of
Speaker 2: thematic ambiguity of the film, where at least for me anyway,
Speaker 2: watching it as someone who's you know, not there as
Speaker 2: part of its original time period and original release audience, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know
Speaker 2: what to expect of this movie, and therefore the monster's
Speaker 2: a little more dangerous because of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, I would actually compare it to though,
Speaker 3: This design is one hundred times weirder and more interesting
Speaker 3: and better. But it has a similar dual nature and
Speaker 3: appearance to Trumpy from Pod People.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, similar morphology. This is like the nightmare version,
Speaker 2: like the extra nightmare version of it. And of course
Speaker 2: later on we see stop motion and puppetry effects added
Speaker 2: into the overall moomoo effect and it just works wonderfully.
Speaker 3: All right. So, after this next thing that happens is
Speaker 3: Biba comes home to Robert's apartment only to catch Robert
Speaker 3: caressing Andra, the alien android, and Biba is very angry
Speaker 3: about this. Robert tries to defend himself by saying, but Biba,
Speaker 3: every part of her body makes a different beeping noise
Speaker 3: when you touch it. She is perfection. And Biba is
Speaker 3: not swayed by this, like this doesn't make her less angry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this scene is great because on the one hand,
Speaker 2: this is very much a trope, you know, the whole.
Speaker 2: You know, one character catches the other two in the
Speaker 2: act and there's a confrontation. But it's all the more
Speaker 2: ridiculous here. It's not even the first time this has
Speaker 2: been done with a human in a robot being caught
Speaker 2: by another human, or the last time. But it's just
Speaker 2: it has such absurdity to it, like the whole, like
Speaker 2: like her body makes a different beba you know, wherever
Speaker 2: you touch it, and Biba's like, I bet it dies.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So Biba gets very angry. She directs a
Speaker 3: lot of her anger at Andra. She calls her an
Speaker 3: erotic bucket of bolts and compares her to a laundry machine.
Speaker 3: And then at one point, Andra shocks Biba with blue
Speaker 3: light to like, I don't know, I guess in reaction
Speaker 3: to her touching her, and Biba then begs Robert to
Speaker 3: send them back to the Arcana galaxy. She says, make
Speaker 3: them go away forever. If She's like, if you love me,
Speaker 3: make them disappear. And he tries. He you know, he
Speaker 3: cares about Biba, so he does want to do that.
Speaker 3: He tries to make them disappear, but he is unable to.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know how to get rid of them. Mentally,
Speaker 3: They're just stuck here now. So Biba storms out and somehow,
Speaker 3: I think, does Targo put the Moomu doll in EBA's purse?
Speaker 3: Is that what happens?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he does that, mean spirited little scamp. He puts
Speaker 2: that Moomu doll right into her purse.
Speaker 3: And so she goes back to her family's house, where
Speaker 3: I think she was coming to get Robert to go
Speaker 3: to her sister's wedding. So the wedding celebration is going on.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's like a rehearsal dinner the
Speaker 3: night before or if it's the wedding itself. I don't know.
Speaker 3: There are a bunch of people at the house, gathered
Speaker 3: for a big meal. She goes back to the house,
Speaker 3: takes the Mumoo doll with her and Unfortunately, it transforms
Speaker 3: back at her family's house into its full size mode
Speaker 3: and just it just goes wild. It starts attacking people.
Speaker 3: Somebody cuts off it's like weird snout snake tongue thing
Speaker 3: anteater tongue, and it sprays green blood all over everybody,
Speaker 3: ruins the wedding. There is this giant scene that goes
Speaker 3: on forever of Mumu, just like attacking the wedding and
Speaker 3: ruining the feast and like shooting weird tentacles everywhere and
Speaker 3: maybe being defeated, like oh, Dad gets it, like shoots
Speaker 3: the monster and then it falls down, but then it
Speaker 3: gets back up. And then the professor is there at
Speaker 3: the wedding for some reason, and he's like, you are
Speaker 3: witnesses to the first ever visitor from another galaxy. And
Speaker 3: he goes and tries to touch the thing. No this
Speaker 3: he later goes and tries to touch it after he
Speaker 3: decides instead that it's a collective hallucination, and it bites
Speaker 3: his hand off. It twists the grandpa's head off. This
Speaker 3: other grandpa is playing accordion wedding music the entire time.
Speaker 3: It like attacks some family member with this puff of
Speaker 3: green gash and then at the end, the monster's alf
Speaker 3: trunk turns into a flame thrower and is just like
Speaker 3: torching everything, and it spits out a glowing hot fork
Speaker 3: into a slice of cake and the cake hisses, which
Speaker 3: is a nice touch.
Speaker 2: This is a lot to try and handle, I realize,
Speaker 2: especially if you haven't if you haven't seen the film
Speaker 2: and you're just hearing all this, because it's like, on
Speaker 2: one hand, like the flamethrower is terrifying. It's a lot
Speaker 2: of these fire effects more day, more nowadays than ever.
Speaker 2: I'm just like, oh my god, it's just terrifying. It's
Speaker 2: real flame. This is not a computer effect. The head
Speaker 2: ripping off, and I think a leg gets ripped off
Speaker 2: as well. These are not bloody scenes. It's more of
Speaker 2: like a surrealistic, like absurd dismembering where he pulls people apart,
Speaker 2: like their dolls. Like when he pulls the head off
Speaker 2: and he throws it lands in the punch bowl, and
Speaker 2: then there in the poet punch bowl, the head is
Speaker 2: bobbing around and still speaking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it keeps talking. Yeah. And the effect they did
Speaker 3: on that is great. There's a cartoonishness, kind of non
Speaker 3: reality to it. And Robert arrives just in time to
Speaker 3: save Biba by pressing the button on the remote to
Speaker 3: make the monster disappear.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, before the monster disappears, I also have to
Speaker 2: mention this is pure synchronicity. But the monster also manifests
Speaker 2: a belly mouth and nipple eyes.
Speaker 3: Yes, catch, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Which we just finished talking about on our core stuff
Speaker 2: to blow your mind episodes. But yes, swank Meyer didn't
Speaker 2: hold back. This monster Mumu is just a buffet of
Speaker 2: just absurd monstrosity.
Speaker 3: So Robert goes back and complains to Andra. He's like,
Speaker 3: this monster from your planet attacked Biba's family's wedding guests,
Speaker 3: and Andre says, you can't be mad at a toy.
Speaker 3: She's like weirdly unsympathetic at first, but then she says,
Speaker 3: you know what, we can go back in time and
Speaker 3: fix it. So she rewinds the clock on reality goes
Speaker 3: back to before Biba walked in on them earlier, and
Speaker 3: so now Biba comes into the apartment and does not
Speaker 3: find Robert caressing Andra, but instead she finds the blue
Speaker 3: ball floating around the apartment, the alien spaceship, and from
Speaker 3: here Andra Targo Ulu Mumu, and Robert all fly away
Speaker 3: together in the spaceship into space to go back to
Speaker 3: the Arcanic galaxy. And then there's an interesting twist in space.
Speaker 3: He's like sitting there sort of at a desk, just
Speaker 3: floating in space. It's like their spaceship doesn't have really
Speaker 3: like a metal interior hull. It's just like they're floating
Speaker 3: through the stars and he's sitting at his desk and
Speaker 3: Andra comes up to him and says, your coffee's on
Speaker 3: the table, which is what Biba said to him at
Speaker 3: the very beginning of the movie when interrupting his writing
Speaker 3: and not letting him concentrate. So it kind of makes
Speaker 3: you wonder that in a way, he's like, oh, have
Speaker 3: I been freed from all of these distractions now? Can
Speaker 3: I just like dream and imagine forever because I'm floating
Speaker 3: off to this other galaxy with my alien friends. Maybe
Speaker 3: not really, maybe they're just going to keep interrupting him.
Speaker 2: Now. This is also a callback to when Andre pours
Speaker 2: in coffee to go with his meal. I don't know
Speaker 2: if we mentioned this or not, but she pours coffee
Speaker 2: out of her fingertip and then and then pours cream
Speaker 2: out of the other fingertip. She's just like a swim
Speaker 2: this army knife of gadgets and features.
Speaker 3: I wonder what you made of the ending, rob Is
Speaker 3: it a more straightforward, sentimental, happy ending where Robert is
Speaker 3: finally getting to live the life of the imagination now
Speaker 3: that the people are back on earth unharmed, Like you know,
Speaker 3: they wound back the clock so the monster didn't actually
Speaker 3: hurt anybody. Everybody's okay, and now he just gets to
Speaker 3: you know, dream and imagine forever. Or is it a
Speaker 3: more satirical thing where it's kind of like Robert's problems
Speaker 3: are not solved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it's kind of both, right, because yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it comes back to that confrontation earlier, like
Speaker 2: where Baba walks in and there's the you know, a
Speaker 2: big argument and you know, this is like like the
Speaker 2: final straw of your fantasy versus your reality. You have
Speaker 2: to choose, and of course he's not really able to
Speaker 2: muster enough will to choose, and it leads to this
Speaker 2: whole catastrophic set of events with Mumu the monster rampaging
Speaker 2: and killing people. But then they solve it by just
Speaker 2: turning back the clock and removing that point of confrontation
Speaker 2: by just going ahead and removing any choice from him,
Speaker 2: and so he just gets whisked away into that world
Speaker 2: of fantasy. But at the same time he seems happy.
Speaker 2: I guess he's happy, And I mean an argument could
Speaker 2: be made that everyone off else is better off without him,
Speaker 2: especially if he's just gonna manifest rampaging monsters if left
Speaker 2: to his own designs.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's consciously getting at this, but
Speaker 3: I wonder if another thing is, well, these are the
Speaker 3: creatures that he is imagining, so in some way he
Speaker 3: is kind of responsible for what they do. So I
Speaker 3: wonder if the whole thing of her now saying you know, Robert,
Speaker 3: your coffee is on the table and interrupting him while
Speaker 3: he's trying to dream on the ship is a way
Speaker 3: of showing that he's like creating the situations where he
Speaker 3: is constantly being interrupted to sort of like prevent himself
Speaker 3: from ever having to follow through on the full creative work.
Speaker 3: You know, I think we all know creative people, or
Speaker 3: probably in some sense creative people know a part of
Speaker 3: yourself that's like this, where like you can you know
Speaker 3: if you fear that you're not going to be able
Speaker 3: to create the thing you want to create in the
Speaker 3: way that you want to create it, you might sometimes
Speaker 3: subconsciously put obstacles in your own path that kind of
Speaker 3: obviate that that problem, like that prevent you from ever
Speaker 3: failing on your own terms.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Yeah, I mean, especially if you like you have
Speaker 2: you haven't sort of embraced the reality that that any
Speaker 2: creative endeavor is going to kind of have those two phases,
Speaker 2: right or more or certainly more than one phase. You're
Speaker 2: gonna have that initial phase of sort of free form creativity.
Speaker 2: But then you have to make the stuff work. You
Speaker 2: have to you have to to turn it into language,
Speaker 2: you have to turn it into cinema, you have to
Speaker 2: break it down into a script, et cetera. And a
Speaker 2: lot of times you are going to lose stuff and
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to, Like, the dream is not going
Speaker 2: to come willingly into reality, you know, coming back to
Speaker 2: the whole idea of reality and fantasy budding heads. And
Speaker 2: you know, Robert I guess is just fundamentally unable to
Speaker 2: deal with this transference. You know, he's not able to
Speaker 2: muster the will to control the fantasy or to like
Speaker 2: control its possible entry into reality in either a fantastic
Speaker 2: sense or a realistic sense, like writing the book.
Speaker 3: How much of it do you think he ever actually
Speaker 3: did write. We see some of a manuscript at the beginning,
Speaker 3: like with the dog peas on some pages. At another
Speaker 3: part we see him wad up some pages and throw
Speaker 3: them in the trash. So he's writing something, but I
Speaker 3: never get the feeling that he's getting very far.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming he has a bunch of notes, like sort
Speaker 2: of D and D setting notes about characters and factions
Speaker 2: and planets, though again not more than four characters, because
Speaker 2: that's plenty. And then he probably has like five to
Speaker 2: ten pages that he is just constantly rewriting and tinkering with,
Speaker 2: but never getting much much further than five or ten pages.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this dude's drawing maps, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. Yeah, he's drawing maps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Trugidour that's the planet, right, Trugador is fully mapped,
Speaker 2: all the continents everything.
Speaker 3: All right? Should we call it there? Yeah?
Speaker 2: We should go and call it here. We could keep
Speaker 2: talking about this movie. Yeah, it's a great one. Highly
Speaker 2: recommend it. Check it out wherever you can get it
Speaker 2: rented at video. Drone by it from deaf crocodile. Just
Speaker 2: see it if you can. Just a reminder that Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast with
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we
Speaker 2: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a
Speaker 2: weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you want to
Speaker 2: see a list of all the movies we've covered on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema, well, you can go to letterboxed dot com.
Speaker 2: This's l E T T E r bo x D
Speaker 2: dot com. We are Weird House on there, and we
Speaker 2: have a list of all the movies we've covered over
Speaker 2: the years, sometimes a glimpse ahead at what's coming up next.
Speaker 2: I also blog about these films at some immutomusic dot com.
Speaker 2: Don't always put a lot on those blog posts, but
Speaker 2: on this one I'll make sure to throw some of
Speaker 2: those short films and also some of the music so
Speaker 2: you can check those out as well, and also some
Speaker 2: links to where you can obtain the picture.
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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