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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb

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Speaker 2: and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And today on Weird House Cinema we are going to

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Speaker 3: be talking about the nineteen seventy six science fiction film

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Speaker 3: The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicholas Rogue

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Speaker 3: and starring David Bowie. This is a film that has

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Speaker 3: been on my radar for many years. I knew it

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Speaker 3: had a reputation for being quite strange and according to

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Speaker 3: some critics at least quite good, though I think critical

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Speaker 3: opinion is divided. And I'd never seen it before, didn't

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Speaker 3: really know anything about it at all, and so here

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Speaker 3: we are to talk about it. I just finished it

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Speaker 3: this morning.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what I had never seen in its

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Speaker 2: entirety before. I just had vague memories of catching parts

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Speaker 2: of it on like a lonely after noon in the

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Speaker 2: nineties on A and E television, so certainly certainly not

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Speaker 2: a full understanding of the picture. I just had some

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Speaker 2: visions of the alien David Bowie, and some basic kind

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Speaker 2: of like meandering about in the seventies.

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Speaker 3: Man showing this on TV must involve a lot of editings,

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Speaker 3: like every insurance salesman in the film gets naked.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this might be our nakedest film that

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Speaker 2: we've covered on Weird House Cinema. It's our thirtieth selection

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Speaker 2: from the nineteen seventies, and it's also pretty long. This

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Speaker 2: one actually ties Perana Mandir for the longest film we've

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Speaker 2: covered on Weird House. Both of those clock in at

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Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty eight minutes, though initially in the

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Speaker 2: initial US release of the film, there was something like

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Speaker 2: twenty minutes maybe even I've seen some people talk about

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Speaker 2: thirty minutes being cut off. I think it's more like

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Speaker 2: twenty minutes were cut from the film for that initial release.

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Speaker 3: I wonder what twenty minutes those were.

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Speaker 2: I think some of the some of the naked bits.

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Speaker 2: For sure. There is the Hello Mary Low sequence, so

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Speaker 2: we'll get too later on. It's my understanding that was

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Speaker 2: cut in its entirety.

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Speaker 3: I see.

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Speaker 2: But it's weird to consider this film and cuts, as

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Speaker 2: we'll discuss, like the this is not necessarily a linear plot.

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Speaker 2: You know, there are this this film, you know, drifts

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Speaker 2: across the peripheries of multiple genres. There are a lot

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Speaker 2: of ideas in it, and this is I think one

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Speaker 2: of the film's strengths, but it's also been pointed out

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Speaker 2: as a weakness by its many detractors. I wanted to

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Speaker 2: touch on just a couple of reviewers and what they

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Speaker 2: have said about this film in the past. Okay, First up,

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Speaker 2: Roger Ebert. You know, we often check in see what

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Speaker 2: the great Roger Ebert had to say about films. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: we agree with him wholeheartedly. Sometimes, you know, we have

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Speaker 2: to agree to disagree. He reviewed this film twice, once

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Speaker 2: upon its release in seventy six, and then again in

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Speaker 2: twenty eleven for its re release. He gave it two

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Speaker 2: point five stars initially, and then later in twenty eleven

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Speaker 2: he bumped.

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Speaker 3: That up to three stars, classic Ebert do over. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: but in the Airplane over the Sea, Oh no, actually,

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Speaker 3: I think that's a ten.

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Speaker 2: So it's still always interesting to hear what he had

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Speaker 2: to say. So in seventy six he wrote, quote, it

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Speaker 2: requires an almost courageous leap of the imagination to take

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Speaker 2: Nicholas Rogues The Man Who Fell to Earth. Seriously, here

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Speaker 2: is a film so preposterous and posturing, so filled with

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Speaker 2: gaps of logic and continuity that if it weren't so solemn,

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Speaker 2: there'd be the temptation to laugh aloud. And yet at

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Speaker 2: the same time, this is a film filled with interesting ideas.

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Speaker 2: It's like a bunch of tentative sketches for a more

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Speaker 2: assured film that was never made.

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Speaker 3: I think that's sort of right on the money. I

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Speaker 3: mean it just I think depends on how appealing or

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Speaker 3: unappealing those various elements are to you. There are parts,

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Speaker 3: I'd say, overall, I think I quite liked The Man

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Speaker 3: Who Fell to Earth, and I really liked the other one,

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Speaker 3: Nicholas Rogue movie I've seen, and there were similarities stylistic

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Speaker 3: similarities between them that we can talk about as we

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Speaker 3: go on. But there, yeah, there are things about this

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Speaker 3: movie that it would be hard to argue they really work.

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Speaker 3: Like the scene where where David Bowie's character is arguing

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Speaker 3: with his human lover Mary Lou played by Candy Clark,

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Speaker 3: and he gets angry and smacks a tray of chocolate

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Speaker 3: chip cookies out of her hand and they fly up

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Speaker 3: into the air and we see them in slow motion

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Speaker 3: like the spaceships, or like the Bone turning into the

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Speaker 3: spaceship in two thousand and one and then the cookies

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Speaker 3: fall to the floor and they're all broken, and I

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Speaker 3: think that the camera kind of lingers on that, like, oh,

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Speaker 3: the cookies are broken, you know, like their souls or

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Speaker 3: like like their relationship or something. I mean that is

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Speaker 3: that is high camp?

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Speaker 2: That is fun Yeah, yeah, like that that has to

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Speaker 2: be intentionally humorous, right. I laughed out loud at that sequence.

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Speaker 3: But to interpret it as intentionally humorous does take like

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Speaker 3: a leap of faith, because there's no wink at you

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Speaker 3: at all. It's you know, they're not There's nothing that

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Speaker 3: you could use to really prove that this is supposed

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Speaker 3: to be funny. Like that moment is played deadly serious

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Speaker 3: in the movie itself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. There. I think that the main scene that jumps

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Speaker 2: out as potentially having that wink is where the goons

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Speaker 2: are trying to throw buck Henry out the window and

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Speaker 2: they their first attempt, he like cracks the glass and

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Speaker 2: falls back on the living room floor. Yes, and he

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Speaker 2: apologizes too, and he's like I'm sorry, and they're like,

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Speaker 2: I don't worry about it, and then they throw them

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Speaker 2: out the window.

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Speaker 3: To h I agree that moment clearly. Yeah, that kind

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Speaker 3: of it breaks the reality a bit and becomes more

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Speaker 3: intentionally funny. And yet you could get the wrong idea

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Speaker 3: from what we're talking about and assume that that means

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Speaker 3: the Man who Fell to Earth is some kind of farce,

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Speaker 3: which for the most part, I think it's not. I

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Speaker 3: think most of this movie is meant to be taken

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Speaker 3: seriously to to you know, to convey emotion and drama

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Speaker 3: between the characters in the straightforward way it's presented, and

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Speaker 3: you are supposed to feel what the characters are feeling.

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Speaker 3: So it just has these strange kind of moments where

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Speaker 3: something absolutely ridiculous happens, but then it goes back into

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Speaker 3: being a kind of ponderous exploration of alienation and alcoholism.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Alcoholism is one of the central themes in

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Speaker 2: this film, and I understand in the book it's based upon,

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Speaker 2: and yeah, it's I think a lot of films you expect,

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Speaker 2: you reasonably expect more of a linear progression. Scene A

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Speaker 2: speaks to scene B, and so forth. This is a

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Speaker 2: movie where it's like you have all these different scenes

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Speaker 2: with different interactions between characters, and they may speak to

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Speaker 2: each other without any real consideration of time and space.

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Speaker 2: You know, It's like you're triangulating a feeling out of

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Speaker 2: different points in the film.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and I think also contributing to what you're saying

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Speaker 3: there well. Get in a more detail about this later on.

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Speaker 3: But David Bowie's performance itself, he's the central character in

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Speaker 3: the movie. I would say his acting performance is incredibly ambiguous,

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Speaker 3: to the point of almost feeling kind of random, like

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Speaker 3: Newton is often. The character he plays in this movie

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Speaker 3: is named Thomas Jerom Newton, and Newton goes through much

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Speaker 3: of the plot being kind of aloof and spacey and unemotional.

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Speaker 3: He sort of detached from the action. He doesn't display

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Speaker 3: a lot of emotion, and then there are suddenly moments

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Speaker 3: when he does display a lot of emotion, and they're

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Speaker 3: not always what you'd really expect based on the context

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Speaker 3: of the scene or the dramatic arc of the film

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Speaker 3: as a whole. The way he sort of occasionally comes

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Speaker 3: out of his somnambulent and detached state and displays emotion

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Speaker 3: almost feels like like Bowie kind of like roll to die.

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Speaker 3: Before he did each scene, it was like, how am

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Speaker 3: I going to play this one? Rather than like reading

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Speaker 3: the script and thinking what would be logical in this scene.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's I mean, this is especially a weird

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Speaker 2: film to try and judge an actor's performance in, especially

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Speaker 2: someone like Bowie, who is coming into this, as we'll discuss,

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Speaker 2: you know, not a tremendous filmography under his belt, coming

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Speaker 2: in mainly as a rockstar celebrity, and with Bowie especially,

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Speaker 2: I've always found this to be the case, and found

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Speaker 2: it to be the case leading up to this episode,

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Speaker 2: trying to figure out, like who he really was. It's

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Speaker 2: like that scene in Nolan's Batman sequel where you're trying

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Speaker 2: to knock down or the various scenes where you're trying

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Speaker 2: to figure out the origin story of the Joker. It's

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Speaker 2: like a different story each time, and it makes you

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Speaker 2: feel like, well, nothing is real, Like he's completely protean,

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Speaker 2: He's this this shape shifter.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I see exactly what you're saying. Yeah, Bowie can

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Speaker 3: very much feel like that, which which is not a

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Speaker 3: knock on Bowie. Of course I loved him, Bowie's music

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Speaker 3: and and you know, not a knock on him despite

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Speaker 3: what I just said, not really a knock on him

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Speaker 3: as an actor, because despite the the kind of random

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Speaker 3: displays of emotion and odd choices he makes throughout the film.

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Speaker 3: It does make it harder to take this movie as

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Speaker 3: a straight forward drama. But at the same time, while

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Speaker 3: he sort of Bowie's contributions are kind of taking away

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Speaker 3: from the movie in one direction, they are adding greatly

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Speaker 3: to it in another, which Bowie just brings some kind

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Speaker 3: of powerful energy to the screen and he is hard

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Speaker 3: to look away from.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, anybody you look at talking about this film,

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Speaker 2: they almost always at the very least praise Bowie's performance.

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Speaker 2: So like when Ebert came back and revisited this film,

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Speaker 2: he was acknowledging the cult status. He praised Bowie's quote

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Speaker 2: unquote eurie performance and he wrote, quote it's slow going

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Speaker 2: at times, and the plot isn't worthy of the performances.

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Speaker 2: Too many shots of limousines and an unexplained big truck,

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Speaker 2: too many unfocused conversations and offices. I gave it two

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Speaker 2: five stars and seventy six That was about right, but

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Speaker 2: I'm nudging it up to three stars for the twenty

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Speaker 2: eleven re release. Star ratings are meaningless anyway, so consider

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Speaker 2: this just a quiet protest vote against the way projects

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Speaker 2: this ambitious are no longer possible in the mainstream movie industry.

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Speaker 3: I see what he's saying there, So like, even though

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Speaker 3: he thinks this is still a very flawed film given

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Speaker 3: the convergence of a greater proportion of modern movies on

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Speaker 3: a kind of like safe marketable sameness, he looks back

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Speaker 3: and is like, well, Okay, they tried to do something

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Speaker 3: really weird and really different, different and really ambitious with

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Speaker 3: this story. And there might have been ways that it

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Speaker 3: didn't quite work, but great respect for trying.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Now. I also frequently cite the writings of Psychotronic

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Speaker 2: Film Guide author Michael Weldon as well. You know, he

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Speaker 2: almost always have something to say about the films we

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Speaker 2: cover on this show, and you know, sometimes it's very

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Speaker 2: matter of fact, like this is what this film was.

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Speaker 2: Other times there's a little more or like review quality

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Speaker 2: to what he's written, and this is such a film.

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Speaker 2: The really interesting thing, though, to me anyway, is that

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Speaker 2: he absolutely praises the film, seems to love the film

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Speaker 2: and Bowie's performance in it, while also seemingly being rather

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Speaker 2: dismissive of Bowie's musical career. So I'm going to read

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Speaker 2: part of what he has to say reminder that this

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Speaker 2: review would have been written no later than nineteen eighty three. Quote,

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Speaker 2: David Bowie makes a great alien, and this fascinating science

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Speaker 2: fiction film, which spans twenty five years, will be revived

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Speaker 2: in the future, long after most of his derivative rock

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Speaker 2: albums land in the cutout bins. Okay, Mikey, So you know,

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Speaker 2: I guess some folks don't like Bowie's music. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I guess, to be fair, Boi's discography covers a lot

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Speaker 2: of ground.

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Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I mean, if you don't like it, you

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Speaker 3: don't like it. I like it. I'm a Bowie fan.

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Speaker 2: I mean it could prove true. Eventually. There may come

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Speaker 2: a day where people are like David Bowie who and

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Speaker 2: they're like the guy from the Manufeld to Earth and like,

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Speaker 2: oh yes he's amazing.

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, that's strange musical career. Oh wow, watching twenty

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Speaker 3: five televisions and screaming get out of my mind.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well my elevator pitch for this one. I

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Speaker 2: went through a few different possibilities, but ultimately I'm landing

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Speaker 2: on David Bowie is from outer space. But like for real, I.

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Speaker 3: Do think it's interesting that by this point David Bowie

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Speaker 3: had already been playing an alien wasn't the premise of

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Speaker 3: Ziggy Stardust that he was an alien who came to

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Speaker 3: Earth and started a rock band. And then that was

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two, I think, And then several years later

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Speaker 3: he's in a movie based on this premise, but it

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Speaker 3: was a movie based on a book that already existed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's almost like he was auditioning for

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Speaker 2: the film with his career up to that point, And yeah,

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Speaker 2: you have a better head for all the different personas

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Speaker 2: he went through, because again that's another aspect of the

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Speaker 2: protein nature of Bowie. It's like there are these different phases,

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Speaker 2: different incarnations, and in a way, this film ends up

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Speaker 2: being like another version of himself that is out there

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Speaker 2: in the same way that Jareth, the Goblin King from

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Speaker 2: Labyrinth is like another Bowie persona that kind of lives

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Speaker 2: in the same pantheon.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm not going to pretend to have a deep

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Speaker 3: knowledge of all the faces of Bowie and the different

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Speaker 3: personas he adopted over the years. So I know there

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Speaker 3: was the Ziggy Stardust thing, which I think was more

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Speaker 3: audacious and supposed to be more audacious and outlandish than

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Speaker 3: this kind of persona I have seen The Men Who

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Speaker 3: Fell to Earth, persona linked to Bowie's musical stage persona

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Speaker 3: known as the quote thin White Duke, which is apparently

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Speaker 3: one of his more odious faces. That also I think

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Speaker 3: had to do with a time of his life where

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Speaker 3: he had genuine drug addiction. And so I don't know,

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Speaker 3: I don't know a lot about that, but it does

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Speaker 3: seem like this movie sort of fits in somewhere in

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Speaker 3: the mid seventies in his career and does contribute to

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Speaker 3: his evolving stage persona as a musical performer as well.

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Speaker 2: I read just drastically contrasting things about Bowie's performance in

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Speaker 2: this Like, on one hand, I think I saw something

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Speaker 2: where they like Bowie said that he was whacked out

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Speaker 2: on drugs when they filmed this and he doesn't remember it.

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Speaker 2: And then there are other stories where like Nicholas Rogue

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Speaker 2: is like, no, no, he gave up drugs for this

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Speaker 2: film and was, you know, very punctual and very professional.

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Speaker 2: And then you also hear things about how Rogue apparently

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Speaker 2: at one point entertained the idea of casting Michael Crichton

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Speaker 2: in This Ruffle, which was just because he was tall,

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Speaker 2: I guess, and maybe had a little like, but it

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Speaker 2: was like that gives you some insight into what he

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Speaker 2: was maybe at some point going for here, like he

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Speaker 2: wanted a non actor who also had some level of

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Speaker 2: celebrity status of that at the time period, and you know,

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Speaker 2: and then how does that play into sort of the

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Speaker 2: expectations of how this character was going to come across

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Speaker 2: on screen?

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Speaker 3: Is this before or after Westworld?

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Speaker 2: Oh? I don't, I don't remember off the top of

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Speaker 2: my head.

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Speaker 3: So annoying you google Westworld now and this TV series

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Speaker 3: comes up. It's like, I don't want to know. I

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Speaker 3: want to know about the movie. Oh, nineteen seventy three, Yeah, okay, okay,

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Speaker 3: So you know that was written and directed by Michael Crichton.

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Speaker 3: So it's like, I want the guy who directed Yule

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Speaker 3: Brinner in Westworld to play my alien.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Crichton was pretty successful at the time.

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Speaker 2: So I don't know. I guess it makes sense. But

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Speaker 2: I will drive home that David Billie's performance and this

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Speaker 2: does not feel like your typical non actor or celebrity

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Speaker 2: immediately turned actor performance. There's a lot more there to consider.

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Speaker 3: I think the way I would put it is, despite

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Speaker 3: him making some dramatic choices, that almost seem to work

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Speaker 3: against this directly. Bowie just has overwhelming screen charisma and

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Speaker 3: is very interesting and believable as a performer.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, let's listen to a little bit of

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Speaker 2: the trailer audio. Are you the the first?

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Speaker 3: The first one? This is it?

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Speaker 2: I've always been visited.

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Speaker 4: Nothing you have seen or heard about David Bowie will

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Speaker 4: prepare you for the impact of his first dramatic performance

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Speaker 4: in The Man Who Fell to Earth. This is another

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Speaker 4: dimension of David Bowie, one of the few true originals

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Speaker 4: of our time. You're really a freak, I mean not unkindly.

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Speaker 3: I like freaks. Is this a weapon?

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Speaker 1: The weapon was too small for aniplanetary travel.

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Speaker 4: Assume that it's a weapon. If I stay here, CAUSI die.

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Speaker 2: You take me with you. I'll see you don't die.

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Speaker 4: I can't see.

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Speaker 2: You.

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Speaker 3: Are I think you know?

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Speaker 2: You know too much about it?

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Speaker 4: Very taking me. He's just like everybody else.

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Speaker 3: He's he's he's a freak. You don't understand.

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Speaker 4: You might be able to save him, very lou save him,

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Speaker 4: help me?

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Speaker 2: Then no, love me?

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Speaker 1: I love you.

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Speaker 4: The Man Who Fell to Earth is a powerful love story,

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Speaker 4: a cosmic mystery, the spectacular fantasy a shocking, mind stretching experience,

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Speaker 4: insight in space and sas.

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Speaker 2: All right, well, if you want to watch The Man

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Speaker 2: Who Fell to Earth in its entirety, before you continue

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Speaker 2: on with this episode or after a week, talk about

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Speaker 2: the people involved in it. Luckily, it's widely available in

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Speaker 2: all formats. I'm not even sure exactly which edition I

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Speaker 2: rented from Videodrome. Maybe the fortieth anniversary edition. They had

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Speaker 2: like several different versions, and I think it's also available

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Speaker 2: in the Criterion collection. It's been put out a number

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Speaker 2: of times.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I just streamed at this time.

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Speaker 2: All right, let's jump into the people involved here. As

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Speaker 2: we've been saying, the director is Nicholas Rogue, who lived

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty eight through twenty eighteen English film director and cinematographer,

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Speaker 2: with a noted and highly influential style, often characterized as

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Speaker 2: featuring fractured editing and nonlinear storytelling techniques. He's also pretty

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Speaker 2: well known for his depictions of nudity and sex in

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Speaker 2: his films, but the details of this are a bit

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Speaker 2: more nuanced, as we'll discuss.

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Speaker 3: I think Rogue has a reputation, at least for using

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Speaker 3: sex to great dramatic effect in his films, So he

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Speaker 3: makes movies that have a lot of sex in them,

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Speaker 3: but it's not just for the sake of depicting sex

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Speaker 3: and nudity. It, more so than in most films, is

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Speaker 3: sort of a scene in which dramatic relationships and interactions

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Speaker 3: between characters are developed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like the flesh is not the endpoint. The

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Speaker 2: flesh is a storytelling tool or a character creation, character

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Speaker 2: development tool. So we'll have more to say about that

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Speaker 2: as we roll on. It's really I think one of

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Speaker 2: the several interesting things about the picture. Roguess cinematography credits

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Speaker 2: extend back to sixty one and include such films as

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Speaker 2: sixty four as The Mask of the Red Death. There's

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Speaker 2: one sequence in particular. I imagine you probably noticed this

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Speaker 2: as well. Remember in Mask of the Red Death we

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Speaker 2: had the procession of different rooms that are different colors,

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Speaker 2: and what did we have in this film? We had

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Speaker 2: a similar thing pretty late in the picture, Like the

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Speaker 2: penthouse in which the man who felt or earth is imprisoned,

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Speaker 2: has this feel to it.

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Speaker 3: I did not make that connection, but you're exactly right.

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Speaker 3: In the rooms, yeah, that you go from like a well, yeah,

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Speaker 3: like one of the rooms is a sort of a

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Speaker 3: yellow room that is a it has wallpaper up that

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Speaker 3: depicts a forest in autumn and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: So we featured Mask of the Red Death on a

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Speaker 2: previous episode of Weird House, So go back and listen

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Speaker 2: to that one if you want more on that.

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Speaker 3: But that one was directed by Roger Corman. Right, Rogue

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Speaker 3: did cinematography.

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Speaker 2: Cinematography, Yeah, so I started off on the cinematographer side

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Speaker 2: of things. He worked on Fahrenheit four fifty one. Then

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Speaker 2: he ventures into directing with nineteen seventies Performance starring James

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Speaker 2: Fox and McJagger, and then came nineteen seventy one's walk

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Speaker 2: About and seventy threes. Don't Look Now.

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Speaker 3: Don't Look Now is the other Nicholas Rogue directed film

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Speaker 3: I've seen, which it's been a number of years now,

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Speaker 3: but I remember that being a very dark and sad

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Speaker 3: but very interesting and compelling horror film.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm familiar with it by reputations when had Donald

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Speaker 2: Sutherland and Julie Christy. That sounds right, Okay, Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: haven't seen it. The only other film that I've seen

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Speaker 2: by him is The Witches from nineteen ninety, which you

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Speaker 2: know is ultimately a children's film, but also also very

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Speaker 2: interested in anyway. Following the Manufeld to Earth, he did Eureka.

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Speaker 2: In eighty three, he did I'm not sure to what,

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Speaker 2: he did some sort of music video collaboration work with

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Speaker 2: Roger Waters. He did a segment in eighty seven's Aria

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Speaker 2: the Witches in ninety Cold Heaven in ninety one, a

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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three TV adaptation of Heart of Darkness. And

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Speaker 2: then there was a period featuring a couple of erotic

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Speaker 2: or semi erotic film projects I'm not sure, an episode

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Speaker 2: of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicle Show and a two

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Speaker 2: thousand and seven horror film titled Puffball The Devil's Eyeball.

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Speaker 2: There's also a nineteen ninety six Sampson and Delilah movie

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Speaker 2: in the mix there that it looks like it has

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Speaker 2: a solid cast.

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Speaker 3: Oh Man, Nicholas Rogue movie about the Bible. That sounds

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Speaker 3: up my alley.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. The screenplay is by Paul Meyersberg born

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Speaker 2: nineteen forty one. He was an apparently an uncredited writer

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Speaker 2: on Roger Korman's The Tomb of i Gia from nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty four, followed by staff writing work on Conrad Rooks's

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Speaker 2: adaptation of Hermann Hess' Sidharta in seventy two. Subsequent screen

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Speaker 2: playwork includes seventy seven's The Disappearance Merry Christmas, Mister Lawrence,

407
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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three's Eureka, nineteen eighty eight's Nightfall, nineteen nineties,

408
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Speaker 2: The Last Samurai Not the Tom Cruise one, and that Nightfall,

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Speaker 2: by the way, that is an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's

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Speaker 2: work Nightfall. He also directed That Oh Interesting. The screenplay

411
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Speaker 2: is adapted from the novel The original novel by Walter Tavitz,

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Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty eight through nineteen eighty four an

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Speaker 2: American novelist and screenwriter. He wrote the novels The Hustler,

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Speaker 2: The Man Who Fell to Earth, Mockingbird, The Steps of

415
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Speaker 2: the Sun, The Queen's Gambit, and The Color of Money.

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Speaker 2: Obviously The Hustle, Yeah Color.

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Speaker 3: So did he write multiple pool related novels?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think one is the follow up to

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Speaker 2: the other. But oh, I see yeah, But yeah, The Hustler,

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Speaker 2: of The Queen's Gambit, and The Color of Money were all,

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Speaker 2: of course made into films.

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Speaker 3: I would not have guessed that in a million years. Wow.

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Speaker 3: Same writer as The Color of money.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we should also point out that The

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Speaker 2: Man Who Fell to Earth has been adapted a few

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Speaker 2: different times. This was the first adaptation, but then it

427
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Speaker 2: was adapted in eighty seven as a TV movie with

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Speaker 2: Beverly DiAngelo and Will Wheaton. And then there's a real

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Speaker 2: recent TV series adaptation that came out in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: And it looks interesting as well and has a good cast.

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Speaker 3: Oh, it's got Bill NII and Chi will tell a

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Speaker 3: G four Yeah.

433
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Bill Nye apparently plays David Bowie's character from

434
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 2: this film, but an older version of him, So I

435
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 2: guess it's kind of like a sequel. But again, I

436
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 2: haven't seen it, so I don't know all the details there.

437
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,399
Speaker 3: Just looked it up as E four is playing somebody

438
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 3: named Faraday. That's not a character who was in this movie,

439
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:51,159
Speaker 3: so I don't know if that's an character from the

440
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 3: book or something.

441
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 2: Maybe he's a new alien, I'm not sure. Yeah, I

442
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:59,640
Speaker 2: just saw some stills from it. Okay, but now it's

443
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 2: time to talk about David Bowie. Yes, David Bowie plays

444
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 2: Thomas Jerome Newton. Bowie lived in nineteen forty seven through

445
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. Yeah, a legend of music and film and

446
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 2: just culture in general, an enigmatic figure who seemed to

447
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:21,640
Speaker 2: revel in alternate personas and phases and reinvention. Again, there's

448
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 2: this kind of protean element to his celebrity image. His

449
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 2: music career often flowed in and out of cinema in

450
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 2: the form of short film music videos, full blown musicals,

451
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 2: and more. He'd had a handful of bit roles before

452
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 2: this movie, but the manufeld earth like propelled him like

453
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 2: lead status this movie. By the way, if I'm looking

454
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 2: at everything correctly occurs in his discography between nineteen seventy

455
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 2: six is Stationed to Station. In nineteen seventy seven's Low

456
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 2: Low features a photo of Bowie from this film as

457
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:54,719
Speaker 2: the album ark.

458
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:59,160
Speaker 3: Oh okay, that's interesting. I wouldn't have identified that because

459
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 3: the cover of the background is very orange, which is

460
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,399
Speaker 3: not really one of the dominant colors in this film.

461
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 3: But yeah, hair, oh, that's true. You're right, the orange

462
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 3: and the sort of yellow in the front of the bangs.

463
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 3: But yeah, he what he's wearing sort of like a

464
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 3: coat without a dark coat with a high collar.

465
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, side profile.

466
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a coat that he wears several times

467
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 3: in this movie. We see him in that when he

468
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 3: first arrives on Earth and he's like sort of climbing

469
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 3: down a hillside in the American Southwest after his ship

470
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 3: has crashed and he's wearing this big coat. But there

471
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 3: are other times where he shows up, like he appears

472
00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:41,640
Speaker 3: to rip torn at one point and he's just got

473
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 3: the coat on and the hood on and he's like, hello,

474
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,120
Speaker 3: we're going to meet tomorrow and ripped horns like ah,

475
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 3: and then they meet the next day.

476
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 2: They do yeah, Yeah, it's an important scene to prepare

477
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 2: you for that meeting. Well. After this movie, Bowie, he

478
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 2: followed this up with David Hemming's nineteen seventy eight film

479
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 2: Just a Jigglow, Alan Clark's Ball in eighty two, The

480
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 2: Hunger in eighty three, which is a vampire movie, the

481
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 2: Japanese war film Merry Christmas, Mister Lawrence in eighty three,

482
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 2: John Landis Is Into the Night in eighty five, Absolute

483
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 2: Beginners in eighty six, Jim Henson's Labyrinth in eighty six,

484
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 2: as well The Last Temptation of Christ in eighty eight.

485
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 2: He plays a pilot in that and from here from

486
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 2: there on out, his acting roles, they seem to enter

487
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 2: it like a different phase, a lot of smaller roles.

488
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 2: He appears in Lynch's Twin Peaks fire Walk with Me

489
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 2: in nineteen two. He played Andy Warhol in Basquiade in

490
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: ninety six, Tesla and Christopher Nolan's The Prestige in two

491
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 2: thousand and six, a very fun small role, you know,

492
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 2: kind of a cameo. And he also played himself in

493
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 2: various movies and TV shows, sometimes to comedic effect, like

494
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,880
Speaker 2: he's in Zoolander. I think as himself that sort of thing.

495
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 3: Putting a musician in a movie doesn't always work. I

496
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 3: think it's the kind of thing people assume would work

497
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 3: because it's like, oh, yeah, you know, you're a rock star.

498
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 3: That takes a certain kind of charisma, But it doesn't

499
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 3: always translate into playing a role in a drama. But

500
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 3: I think with Bowie it does. I mean, Bowie Bowie

501
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 3: might have some kind of weird, some contours popping out

502
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 3: of the role he's assigned within a script that are

503
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 3: just pure Bowie, But at the same time he's he's

504
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 3: clearly quite good as a screen actor.

505
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we've been saying, it's just a tremendous performance.

506
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 2: You can't take your eyes off of head. He has

507
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 2: this like just his physicality is so strange and alluring.

508
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 2: He has this great kind of sickly elfin energy that

509
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 2: is even distinct and like, looking at these other Bowie roles,

510
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 2: like the Goblin King and Labyrinth is essentially an elf

511
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 2: you know, granted it's many years later, but totally different

512
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 2: energy to that elfin character.

513
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, No, the Goblin King is like he is

514
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 3: in charge. He's in control. He is the dominant master

515
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 3: of his kingdom. Bowie's character in this film is even

516
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 3: when he's playing like a a character who is the

517
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 3: head of a great industry and has all this money

518
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 3: and is being driven around everywhere, he is a man

519
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 3: who has constantly alienated, an off balance and afraid of

520
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 3: what might happen, and not in control.

521
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, we also have Ripped Torn in this

522
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 2: film playing Nathan Brice Torn lived nineteen thirty one through

523
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, American actor of stage, TV, and film, with

524
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 2: credits going back to the mid fifties. He acted and

525
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 2: eventually directed on Broadway as well, having studied at the

526
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 2: Actors Studio in New York under Lee Strasberg. Early TV

527
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 2: credits include such shows as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Thriller.

528
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 2: He went on to play Judas in nineteen sixty one's

529
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 2: King of Kings. He betrays Jeffrey Hunter's Jesus. By the way,

530
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 2: the story goes that he was originally cast in the

531
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 2: Jack Nicholson role for Easy Rider, but got into what

532
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,959
Speaker 2: seems to be a very heated argument with Dennis Hopper,

533
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 2: the details of which were later the subject of legal battles.

534
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,959
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, you can read about it online. There's

535
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 2: some disagreements about who started what fed, who may have

536
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 2: pulled a knife on who, and the courts had to

537
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 2: settle it.

538
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 3: But I can't imagine the noises Rip Torn made in

539
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 3: this argument, because I bet they were. A.

540
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, he has a kind of a bestial quality to him.

541
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the there's a yeah, there's

542
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 2: rip Torn has a there's an energy there.

543
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 3: He unleashes some fearsome growls and grunts throughout The Men

544
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 3: Who Fell to Earth.

545
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. He played Henry Miller in nineteen seventies Tropic of Cancer.

546
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: He appeared in Michael Crichton's seventy eight film Coma and

547
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two, he played the child sacrificing villain

548
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 2: Max and Don Cosarelli's The beast Master. Very fun performance

549
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 2: that one. But that doesn't stop there. He played a

550
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 2: ceo in ninety three's RoboCop three, he played Z and

551
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: the Men in Black Franchise, and oh, he played General

552
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 2: Electric Ceo Don Guys on Thirty Rock And Yeah. He

553
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 2: was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Cross

554
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 2: Creek in eighty three. And he also, I think had

555
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 2: multiple Emmy nominations for his role as already the producer

556
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 2: on The Larry Sanders Show.

557
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 3: I guess this reveals I've never seen a lot of

558
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 3: his work, but I mean, he's got that distinctive voice,

559
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 3: and he he's one of those character actors who can

560
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 3: just show up for a cameo role and the lines

561
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 3: written for him don't have to be funny at all,

562
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 3: just like the way his voice sounds and the way

563
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 3: he looks makes the role comedic.

564
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 2: I think this may be the first film I've watched,

565
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 2: the first anything I've watched with Rip Torn in it

566
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 2: where he's not an outright villain or there at least

567
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 2: a prop up comedic effect.

568
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. This is I think the first time

569
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 3: I've ever seen him in just a straight dramatic role.

570
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 2: All Right. We also have Candy Clark playing the character

571
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 2: Mary Lou, who we've alluded to already. Candy Clark was

572
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,320
Speaker 2: born in nineteen forty seven, probably best known for her

573
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 2: role as Debbie Dunham in a nineteen seventy Three's American

574
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 2: gri for which she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress,

575
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 2: only her fourth film role. Subsequent credits include Oh, A

576
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 2: wonderful list of movies, seventy eight is the Big Sleep,

577
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 2: A film called More American Graffiti in seventy nine, which

578
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 2: I didn't realize was a thing. She's in Larry Cohen's

579
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 2: ce the Wings Serpent, fabulously fung giant monster film set

580
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 2: in New York from nineteen eighty two. She's in the

581
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 2: Chopper movie Blue Thunder. She's in Amityville three D from

582
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 2: eighty three. She's in Stephen King's Cat's Eye from eighty five.

583
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 2: She's in the nineteen eighty eight Blobb remake. She is

584
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 2: in Cool as Ice, the Vanilla Ice movie from nineteen

585
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 2: ninety one.

586
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 3: Oh, that's a fan favorite. That's the movie where we

587
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 3: discovered that Vanilla Ice can jump a motorcycle over a

588
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 3: fence without a ramp. I guess he just kind of

589
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 3: lifts it. He's faster than a horse. And that's there's

590
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 3: like the whole racing the horse sequence there, right, Well,

591
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 3: I believe that motorcycle can go faster than a horse.

592
00:32:57,360 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but I don't know why. It seems to

593
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: you throw Vanilla Eyes into the equation. It just raised

594
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 2: his questions. I think.

595
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 3: Also, that's a movie about him falling in love with

596
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 3: and trying to date a girl whose father who's disapproving.

597
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:14,719
Speaker 3: Father is the gun guy from Tremors.

598
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes, yeah, it's been I saw a roof

599
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 2: tracks version of this. I've never watched it straight up anyway.

600
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 2: She plays Buffy's mom and Buffy the Vampire Slayer from

601
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 2: ninety two. She's in Zodiac from two thousand and seven,

602
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 2: and she did a number of TV episodes over the

603
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 2: years as well, including episodes of fairy Tale Theater and

604
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 2: Twin Peaks.

605
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 3: I thought Candy Clark was fantastic in this movie. She

606
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 3: is the human soul of the film, whereas Bowie is

607
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 3: giving this kind of random, uncontrolled, ambiguous performance where you

608
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 3: don't always understand where his emotional displays are coming from,

609
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 3: or why they're happening this way this time, or or

610
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 3: what the source of his aloofness is, what is he

611
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 3: really feeling. She is there to be the anchor of pure, understandable,

612
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 3: earth based human emotion, and she's quite powerful in her role.

613
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, it's a role that's often has this

614
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 2: kind of like raw, innocent, unfiltered feeling about it.

615
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 4: You know.

616
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 2: Again, she's definitely the human heart of the picture, all right.

617
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 2: We also have a character named Oliver Farnsworth. He's a

618
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:25,320
Speaker 2: patent lawyer that becomes important to the plot and eventually

619
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 2: ends up running David Bowie's Earthly Empire, played by Buck Henry,

620
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen thirty through twenty twenty American actor, screenwriter,

621
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 2: and director who worked on a lot of interesting projects

622
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 2: over the years. His writing credits include sixty seven's The Graduate,

623
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies Catch twenty two, seventy three's The Day of

624
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 2: the Dolphin, and nineteen ninety five's To Die For. His

625
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 2: directing credits include seventy eight's Heaven Can Wait I Believe.

626
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 2: He co directed with Warren Beatty on that one. His

627
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 2: acting credits include bit parts in various things he wrote,

628
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 2: but I'll single out here that he did one Tales

629
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 2: from the Crypt episode and was also a familiar face

630
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 2: on thirty Rock playing Liz Lemon's dad, Dick Lemon.

631
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that.

632
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, old Dick Lemon. Yeah, it's a fun, fun role.

633
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 2: He also is you know, kind of linked to especially

634
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 2: early Saturday Night Live because he was a he hosted

635
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 2: like ten different times.

636
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, I think he is also quite good in

637
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 3: this movie.

638
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is often wearing some really distracting glasses, like

639
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 2: reading glasses. I guess that it just like you know,

640
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:33,479
Speaker 2: total coke, bottle very trailer park boys, I guess would

641
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 2: be the comparison to compare it to modern media.

642
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 3: Yes, there is a tragic part where some goons come

643
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,359
Speaker 3: to his apartment to do him harm and they take

644
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 3: his glasses off and he says, those are my eyes.

645
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a This is a good performance as well,

646
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 2: in large part because Nicholas Rogue seems to have decided

647
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 2: at some point it's like it doesn't matter how small

648
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 2: a character you are in this film, we can still

649
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,320
Speaker 2: get in there and show you at your most tender.

650
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:05,000
Speaker 2: We can show like where your heart is, even if

651
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 2: it's really not necessary arguably for the overall plot.

652
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a character whose role in the in

653
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 3: the plot progression is just as like a lawyer and

654
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 3: then a corporate functionary. But we get these moments of

655
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 3: like him at his in his home life, with his

656
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 3: with his partner Trevor, and they seem to have this wonderful,

657
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 3: supportive relationship, and like there's no reason in most films

658
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 3: that you would see this character's home life and their relationships.

659
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 3: You just see him like executing orders that are to

660
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:38,759
Speaker 3: be done for the project.

661
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so their relationship is sweet, and I'm ultimately

662
00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 2: glad it was included, you know, even though it's exactly

663
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 2: the sort of thing you can imagine someone arguing for

664
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 2: a cut. They're like, why do we need to know this?

665
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 2: And you know what?

666
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 3: That continue that trend of like showing surprising glimpses of

667
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 3: home and family life and relationships with characters who had

668
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 3: other in other stories just be purely functional sort of

669
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 3: game pieces. That's true also of like even the sort

670
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 3: of the I don't know if you'd call them villains,

671
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 3: like the antagonists of Bowie's character in the movie, including

672
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 3: like rival corporate agents and people who work for the

673
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 3: government who were ultimately trying to enact a conspiracy against

674
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 3: David Bowie.

675
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 2: That's right, and that includes the character Peters played by

676
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 2: Bernie Casey, who lived nineteen thirty nine through twenty seventeen.

677
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 2: He was an American football player turned actor. As I've

678
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 2: had to do before, I'll leave it to you, gentle listeners.

679
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 2: If anyone out there knows football, you can write in

680
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 2: and tell us what Bernie Casey's role in football was

681
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 2: and like how big a deal he was. But at

682
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 2: any rate, he was a football player, he became an actor,

683
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 2: and his credits have a you know, there's a fair

684
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 2: amount of diversity in the sort of roles he played,

685
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: Like for instance, he's in nineteen seventy two's Gargoyles, a

686
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 2: desert gargoyle film, and yes, he plays a gargoyle, like

687
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 2: a full body gargoyle costume wearing gargoyle in this.

688
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 3: We've talked about checking this out to see whether it'd

689
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 3: be good for the show or not, because I think

690
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 3: wasn't it directed by Stan Winston or something or maybe

691
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 3: effects by Stan Winston. It was like a t a

692
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 3: made for TV movie about gargoyles that live underground in

693
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 3: New Mexico.

694
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's another one that I think I weirdly saw,

695
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,399
Speaker 2: like on A and E on a Sunday afternoon. There's

696
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,839
Speaker 2: like there's certain films. They're almost all seventies films, and

697
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 2: for some reason, like A and E was really into

698
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 2: playing them on Sunday afternoons. I don't know what it was. Anyway.

699
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 2: He was in seventy three's Cleopatra Jones. He was in

700
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six's Doctor Black, Mister Hyde, nineteen seventy seven's Ants,

701
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 2: Exclamation Point Roots the Next Generations. In seventy nine. He

702
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 2: was also in Sharky's Machine, an Atlanta movie that came

703
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:52,879
Speaker 2: out in nineteen eighty one.

704
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 3: I haven't seen that.

705
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't either, but it's I'm always kind of

706
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 2: interested in older Atlanta movies, you know, as I've explained before,

707
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 2: like The Visitor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, The Visitor especially. He

708
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 2: was in Never Say Never Again from eighty three. This

709
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 2: is the second adaptation of the James Bond Thunderball novel.

710
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 3: Did he play Felix Lighter in that?

711
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what This was the one where Sean

712
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 2: Connery came out of retirement, right, and there was like

713
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 2: some sort of rights issue that allowed them to do it.

714
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 3: That sounds right. So it was not sanctioned by the

715
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 3: official I don't know, the James Bond media machine. It

716
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 3: was not one of the official franchise films. It's just like,

717
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 3: we got Sean Connery for some reason. It's legal for

718
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 3: us to make Thunderball, so we're just gonna do it.

719
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I've maybe seen it once. Let's see

720
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 2: what else? Was Bernie Casey in eighty eight, so I'm

721
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 2: gonna get you sucka in eighty nine, he was in

722
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 2: Bill and Ted. He was an under siege in ninety two,

723
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 2: and oh, he's in John Carpenter's in the Mouth of

724
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 2: Madness from ninety four. I forgot about this. I believe

725
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:02,320
Speaker 2: he plays one of Sam Neil's characters, insurance Buddies.

726
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, was he his boss or something?

727
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's not a not a huge role, but

728
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 2: there there. I think he's in that sequence where they're

729
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 2: having lunch at a cafe and a sutter cane fan

730
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 2: smashes the window in Oh that's right.

731
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a guy runs up into like smashes the

732
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 3: window with an axe or something.

733
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, so Bernie Casey also has some

734
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 2: interesting TV credits star Trek d Space nine and Babbylon

735
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 2: five sequest twenty thirty two, and also a voice roll

736
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 2: on Batman Beyond And Yeah, like you're saying, this is

737
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:37,280
Speaker 2: another role that doesn't call for any fleshing out. Really,

738
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 2: this is just not even a secondary character in the film,

739
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:43,800
Speaker 2: but Rogue goes the extra mile to give his insight

740
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 2: into his romantic and family life.

741
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,800
Speaker 3: Wait did you mention also has him skinny dipping.

742
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Of all the actors I've mentioned here, Buck

743
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 2: Henry is the only one that doesn't have a nude scene. Yeah,

744
00:40:56,120 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 2: we get this scene between and Peter's wife where they're

745
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 2: skinny dipping, and it's kind of this dream like, Yeah,

746
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:10,240
Speaker 2: a dreamlike nude bathing scene that I guess it's probably

747
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:12,720
Speaker 2: less talked about in terms of the other nude scenes

748
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 2: in this film, but I thought it was. It was

749
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 2: very again, very beautiful, very dream like. Again, a sequence

750
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 2: that shows a lot of skin, but it isn't about

751
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 2: their skin like, it's about it's about their hearts. I

752
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 2: know that sounds cheesy to say, it out loud, but like,

753
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 2: like that's what it is. It's like, this isn't about

754
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:32,440
Speaker 2: their bodies. It's about the relationship between these two characters.

755
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 2: And we can argue to what extent we really needed

756
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 2: this insight into their their the way they feel, because

757
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 2: their characters are not as central to the plot as

758
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 2: other characters.

759
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,800
Speaker 3: Yeah. Again, if this were another movie, what Peters does

760
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 3: is primarily be involved in a conspiracy to imprison David

761
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 3: Bowie in a hotel room.

762
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. One last actor I'm going to mention here, and

763
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 2: this is Claudia Jennings, who plays Peter's wife. She lived

764
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine through nineteen seventy nine. Not a huge role,

765
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:04,360
Speaker 2: but we do get some sense of her character. We

766
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 2: get a sense of her as a mother even she

767
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 2: was Claudey. Jings was a was nineteen seventy Playboy Playmate

768
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 2: of the Year and made quite a splash in B

769
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 2: movies during her short career. So her credits include seventy

770
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 2: twos The Unholy Rollers. I think that's a roller derby

771
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,439
Speaker 2: kind of a movie. A movie also from seventy two

772
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 2: called Group Marriage, So future shock alert on that one.

773
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:26,359
Speaker 3: Uh huh.

774
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 2: Seventy three's Gator Bait, which is a swamp movie, like

775
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 2: some sort of an action swamp movie. I don't think

776
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 2: i've seen it, but I'm familiar with the title.

777
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 3: Seventy eight exploitation film, sowe it is.

778
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 2: It's a swamp'sploitation film, and I think they made a

779
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 2: sequel that she's not in with something like Gator Bait

780
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 2: to Cajun Justice. That's it. She's in seventy eight to

781
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 2: Death Sport, and she's in the nineteen seventy nine David

782
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:53,439
Speaker 2: Cronenberg car racing movie Fast Company that also has John

783
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 2: Saxon and George Buzza.

784
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:56,839
Speaker 3: Never seen it.

785
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 2: All right. Getting to the music on this picture, it's

786
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 2: interesting because there's a whole like saga here. There's a

787
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 2: whole story, and there are also differing details about how

788
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:18,480
Speaker 2: it all came together. But basically David Bowie was originally

789
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,919
Speaker 2: going to tackle the score and soundtrack for this film

790
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 2: as well, but apparently a variety of issues prevented this

791
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 2: from happening. So there was like there were time issues,

792
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 2: there were like royalty issues for some of the tracks

793
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 2: that he was eyeballing. There were creative hurdles, like you know,

794
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 2: we're talking about the different personas and phases of David Bowie,

795
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 2: and it sounds like like maybe he was kind of

796
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 2: between phases to a certain extent at that time. So

797
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:47,439
Speaker 2: instead we have a very fractured soundtrack, which I think

798
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 2: ultimately fits the film and was intended to capture a

799
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 2: diverse sense of American music. But we have two chief

800
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:57,359
Speaker 2: individuals contributing tracks here. The first is John Phillips, who

801
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 2: lived nineteen thirty five through two thousand and one, and

802
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 2: so yes, this is John Phillips of The Mamas and

803
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 2: the Papas. He wrote most of the songs that we

804
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 2: associate with The Mamas and the Papas, as well as

805
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 2: what San Francisco be Sure to Wear Flowers in your Hair,

806
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 2: though I'm not sure was that a Mama's in the

807
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 2: Papa's song without somebody else performing it?

808
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:16,720
Speaker 3: I don't know anyway.

809
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:18,680
Speaker 2: He was also one of the writers on the nineteen

810
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 2: eighty eight Beach Boys song Kokomo for the Tom Cruise

811
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 2: film Cocktail, and this was his first picture as a

812
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 2: composer and probably the best known of the handful of

813
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 2: films that he composed for. Now, I assumed that Phillips

814
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 2: was ultimately going to be responsible for only the folkier

815
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 2: tracks and the rockier tracks on here, and certainly he

816
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,279
Speaker 2: does give us the track Bluegrass Breakdown, which you can

817
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 2: listen to on You know that you can stream this

818
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 2: soundtrack wherever you can get your music. But he also

819
00:44:47,080 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 2: did an excellent electronic track on this titled Space Capsule,

820
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,840
Speaker 2: so that that track I really liked as well. But

821
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 2: then we have other tracks contributed by Stomu Yamashta born

822
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 2: nineteen forty seven. We talked about him previly on Weird

823
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 2: House Cinema as he did the montage music for Phase four,

824
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 2: the Weird Saal bass Ant movie.

825
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I'm trying to remember what the music for

826
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 3: that movie was like, I don't quite I remember the

827
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 3: visuals far more.

828
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:24,320
Speaker 2: But Yamashta it is a Japanese percussionist, keyboardist, and composer

829
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 2: known for helping defuse traditional Japanese percussive music with Western

830
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 2: prog rock in the sixties and seventies. He was a

831
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 2: member of the super group Go, alongside such names as

832
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 2: Steinve Wynwood, best known for the track Higher Love, and

833
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:43,760
Speaker 2: German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schultz. Yamashta also recorded also

834
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:47,799
Speaker 2: scored I'm Sorry nineteen eighty two's Tempest, starring John Cassavetti's

835
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 2: Susan Sarand and Molly ring Wald and rawl Julia. So

836
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,240
Speaker 2: his musical contributions on this film are are also really

837
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 2: interesting and also kind of varied. Two tracks in particular

838
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:00,879
Speaker 2: is one called Poker Dice, and there's another one called

839
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:01,479
Speaker 2: One Way.

840
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 3: You know, I'm just thinking about how different this movie

841
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,320
Speaker 3: would have been if it had had a David Bowie soundtrack.

842
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 3: That seems like that really would have changed the effect

843
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 3: of it. And I guess we don't get to know

844
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 3: exactly what that's like, but I expect that would be

845
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:22,319
Speaker 3: more than a superficial change in the experience. It would

846
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 3: be significant.

847
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 2: I found that in just thinking about this movie, just

848
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 2: knowing that I was even going to watch it, having

849
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 2: not watched it yet, I still had myself constantly earwormed

850
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 2: with Space Oddity and then also the Flight of the

851
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,799
Speaker 2: Concords parody song Bowie's in Space without even listening to these, like,

852
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 2: you can't help but think about Bowie's music when you're

853
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 2: thinking about Bowie and even in his acting work.

854
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 3: All right, we ready to talk about the plot.

855
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, this man's not going to fall to Earth on

856
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 2: his own. We got to help him.

857
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 3: So this is not one of those movies where it

858
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 3: would make sense to discuss things seen by scene. Instead,

859
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,399
Speaker 3: I think what I'm going to do here is give

860
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 3: a short synopsis of the whole film, and then we

861
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 3: can come back and focus in more depth on things

862
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 3: that stood out to us. So basically, the plot goes

863
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 3: like this. A spacecraft crashes down in a lake somewhere

864
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 3: in the American Southwest. I think it's in New Mexico,

865
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 3: and we see a hooded figure emerge and make his

866
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 3: way down a hill and through these ruins of an

867
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,839
Speaker 3: old mining town and into a currently populated town. And

868
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 3: this is David Bowie, and he looks human. In fact,

869
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 3: he even speaks English, and he speaks with a British accent.

870
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 3: So he is an alien disguising himself as a human.

871
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 3: He's trying to blend in. He doesn't want to be

872
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 3: found out, and he goes around telling people his name

873
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:48,839
Speaker 3: is Thomas Jerome Newton and explains some of his weirdness

874
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 3: by claiming that he is British.

875
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's rural New Mexico, so everyone's just like,

876
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 2: all right, that sounds about right.

877
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yes, the British are known to levitate. No,

878
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:03,840
Speaker 3: he doesn't levitate. So he immediately starts trying to get money,

879
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 3: which is interesting. I'm like, oh, why is he trying

880
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 3: to get money? Like, he tries to sell some jewelry

881
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:09,919
Speaker 3: at a shop, but he can't get what he wants

882
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 3: for it, so he ends up meeting with a lawyer

883
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 3: named Oliver Farnsworth. Farnsworth is a patent attorney and Newton

884
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 3: brings with him schematics for a number of technologies on

885
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 3: which he wants to take out patents and these are

886
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 3: all revolutionary alien technologies, things that we can't do on

887
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 3: Earth at all yet. So Newton quickly becomes a multi

888
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 3: millionaire and he becomes the head of a corporation called

889
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 3: the World Enterprises Corporation and hires Farnsworth to run the

890
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 3: company for him. So now he's rolling in money. And

891
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:49,760
Speaker 3: Newton rides around in a limousine, remaining polite but aloof

892
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:52,879
Speaker 3: like he is nice to people but does not form

893
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:56,880
Speaker 3: any intimate connections and is always awkward and reserved. But

894
00:48:57,400 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 3: that changes while he is on a visit to a

895
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 3: hotel hell somewhere in the Southwest, he meets a woman

896
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 3: named Mary Lou played by Candy Clark. She is initially

897
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 3: a worker at the hotel where he's staying, and he

898
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 3: has like an episode in an elevator that the elevator

899
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 3: is going up and he is like, I don't know,

900
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 3: rendered woozy by the g forces of the elevator or something,

901
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 3: and collapses on the floor and she carries him. She

902
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 3: picks him up and carries him to his room and

903
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:27,799
Speaker 3: then takes care of him once he's there, and they

904
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 3: form what at first seems to be a fast friendship,

905
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,359
Speaker 3: Like they hang out talking all night. I think they

906
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 3: play cards or something. She takes him to church and

907
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:41,360
Speaker 3: she introduces him to her favorite drink. Gin Bee Feeder

908
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 3: is a brand with a serious presence in this film.

909
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess this is kind of a

910
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 2: shame because prior to this, he's he's always turning down

911
00:49:49,719 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 2: alcohol and insisting on water. He's like, as we learn,

912
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 2: he's from a desert planet where there's little to no water,

913
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:58,319
Speaker 2: and so the mere fact that anywhere you go they

914
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:00,760
Speaker 2: offer you a water, He's like, yes, please, I'll take six.

915
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 2: And then she's like, you know, you could just be

916
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:06,399
Speaker 2: drinking gin and he's like, oh, well this is great,

917
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 2: I'll do this now.

918
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 3: But Mary Lou does not know that she is causing

919
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:14,439
Speaker 3: severe harm to him by getting him to switch from

920
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 3: water to gin. But yeah, that is a good point

921
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,239
Speaker 3: that early in the film, like he's always asking for

922
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 3: like when he goes to meet with the lawyer. At

923
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,359
Speaker 3: first he goes to Farnsworth's house and they're like, would

924
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 3: you like a scotch? And he's like, I'll have a

925
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 3: glass of water if you have it, and they actually

926
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 3: kind of amused by this. But yeah, he's always just

927
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:34,399
Speaker 3: looking for water everywhere he goes. I think there's even

928
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 3: a scene where he dips a cup early on in

929
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 3: just a stream of what looks like cloudy, dirty water,

930
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 3: just like runoff running through the you know, in a

931
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:45,439
Speaker 3: ravine and the desert, and drinks it and is really

932
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 3: enjoying it.

933
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's worth noting here that this is a film that,

934
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:53,399
Speaker 2: maybe almost stealthily, if you don't know to expect it,

935
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 2: you might be surprised that it is a film that

936
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 2: does seem to be in a large part about alcoholism. Yeah,

937
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 2: and I understand that they the author of the novel.

938
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:06,479
Speaker 2: Part of this was semi autobiographical, so you do see

939
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 2: him like struggling through alcohol addiction through much of the

940
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 2: film and having to interact in a world that also

941
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 2: seems to be heavily dependent on alcohol and constantly enabling

942
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 2: of his alcohol consumption.

943
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that. Yeah, that's right, that those are

944
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 3: constant themes, and in many ways you could almost say

945
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 3: that it's a story about a man who begins on

946
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 3: a mission of supreme importance and is derailed from that

947
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 3: mission by alcohol.

948
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and derailed makes sense too, because there is a trait.

949
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 3: Oh, we'll get to that.

950
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 2: Yes.

951
00:51:41,080 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 3: So eventually Mary Lou and Newton their their friendship blossoms

952
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:46,840
Speaker 3: and they fall in love. Though at one point she

953
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 3: asks if he is married, and he sort of matter

954
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:54,319
Speaker 3: of factly says yes, But they continue with their love

955
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 3: affair nonetheless, and Newton has a house built for them

956
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 3: on a lake in New Mexico and they start living together. Meanwhile,

957
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 3: we've also been been getting to know Rip Torn as

958
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 3: doctor Nathan bryce A. He's portrayed as a university chemistry

959
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 3: professor who has a series of inappropriate affairs with college students,

960
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 3: and he is hassled by the man in university administration,

961
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 3: Like there are scenes of his boss getting on his

962
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 3: back about things, including his affairs. So he leaves academia

963
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,879
Speaker 3: and takes a position with Newton's company, and he's sort

964
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:34,479
Speaker 3: of recruited to design some kind of spacecraft. I seem

965
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:36,720
Speaker 3: to recall a scene where he's arguing with his boss

966
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:39,479
Speaker 3: at the university about how he's like, ah, they want

967
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 3: computers to do everything these days. Computers leave out the errors.

968
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:45,320
Speaker 3: That's where creativity comes from.

969
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he does rail against computers there for a bit,

970
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 2: and he's like, I think I'm gonna go work with

971
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:53,400
Speaker 2: this company that's actually hiring human beings, and that, of

972
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:55,439
Speaker 2: course is David Billie's company. Right.

973
00:52:56,520 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 3: So as time goes on, Newton in several ways would

974
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 3: say becomes more human, like his relationship with Mary Lou deepens,

975
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:10,759
Speaker 3: but he also becomes deranged by addiction to alcohol and television.

976
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 3: Why would he need a TV when he's got t Rex. Well,

977
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 3: I don't know, but maybe in the world of this movie,

978
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 3: t Rex does not exist because David Bowie needs not one,

979
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 3: but seven TVs to watch simultaneously, and later about twenty

980
00:53:25,120 --> 00:53:28,040
Speaker 3: TVs to watch all at the same time, he is

981
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:29,480
Speaker 3: obsessed with television.

982
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like sometimes there's just a random TV. Like

983
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 2: there's one scene where he's watching TV and like a

984
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 2: shack and it's just sort of like haphazardly stacked on

985
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 2: some kindling.

986
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 3: Now, eventually both Nathan, Bryce and Mary Lou figure out

987
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 3: that Newton is an alien. Nathan figures it out by

988
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:53,240
Speaker 3: secretly taking X ray photographs of him while they're talking

989
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:57,400
Speaker 3: about work, and then when he goes to confront Newton

990
00:53:57,480 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 3: about this, Newton admits it. And actually in this scene,

991
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 3: that's the scene you were talking about, which I think

992
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 3: I want to get into more detail about in just

993
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 3: a bit. But basically, in the scene, Newton explains his mission,

994
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 3: this is why he's on Earth, and he says, quote

995
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 3: where I come from, there's a terrible drought. We saw

996
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:17,880
Speaker 3: pictures of your planet on television. We saw the water.

997
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 3: In fact, our word for your planet means planet of water.

998
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 3: So Newton's home planet it's all dried up, it's a desert,

999
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 3: and he is here for Earth's water. I think, not

1000
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 3: to steal it all and kill us, but to somehow

1001
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,279
Speaker 3: do something to get a significant amount of water back

1002
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 3: to his home planet.

1003
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, you get the sense that he's not greedy.

1004
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:41,880
Speaker 2: He just knows that there's so much water here that

1005
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 2: he can easily well not easily, but the big challenge

1006
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 2: is how to bring it back. But clearly, like we

1007
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 2: could stand to lose some of it and it would

1008
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:52,360
Speaker 2: make an enormous difference for his people.

1009
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 3: Newton also reveals what he is to marry Lou in

1010
00:54:56,680 --> 00:55:00,880
Speaker 3: a different set of circumstances. He reveals himself to Mary Lou,

1011
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 3: I think as a kind of atonement after they have

1012
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 3: a fight and he is mean to her, and this

1013
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 3: leads to a bizarre reptile pupil alien sex scene.

1014
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:15,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, following a rather weird sequence where he begins to

1015
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 2: take off all of his like fake human parts, including

1016
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 2: using tweezers to remove his contact lenses that hide his

1017
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:27,319
Speaker 2: reptile highs. This movie seems convinced that the way to

1018
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 2: take contacts out is with metal tweezers, which I found

1019
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 2: particularly horrifying to think about, because you know, I've been

1020
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:37,800
Speaker 2: wearing contact lenses for like thirty years at this point,

1021
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 2: and I've never used tweezers to take them out. Thank God.

1022
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:45,600
Speaker 3: Now, eventually Nathan, Bryce and Newton complete the spacecraft that

1023
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 3: they've been working on. But just when Newton is getting

1024
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:52,239
Speaker 3: ready to depart Earth, a conspiracy against him is unleashed.

1025
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 3: So there's like a shadowy government organization I don't know

1026
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 3: if it's the CIA or what. And also a consortium

1027
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:02,840
Speaker 3: of rival corporation have like joined forces to do something

1028
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 3: about Newton. I honestly don't recall exactly what triggers this,

1029
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 3: do you.

1030
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:10,360
Speaker 2: No, there's kind of there's this whole sequence where he's,

1031
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 2: you know, Bowie seems to be about ready to board

1032
00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 2: this spaceship and we're like, all right, let's do this,

1033
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:17,920
Speaker 2: let's take off, and then it doesn't happen, and everything

1034
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 2: feels fractured at that point, and so you kind of

1035
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 2: have to piece together what is happening and what happened.

1036
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 3: Right, So, they the bad guys kidnap Newton and they

1037
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 3: sort of old boy in prison him. They lock him

1038
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:34,960
Speaker 3: in a hotel room, and then scientists come and do

1039
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:37,920
Speaker 3: experiments on him and try to study his body, and

1040
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 3: they treat him cruelly, Like there's a scene where they're

1041
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 3: they're trying to look at his eyes and he's like, no,

1042
00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,439
Speaker 3: don't do X rays on my eyes, and they do,

1043
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 3: and it fuses his contact lenses to his eyes so

1044
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 3: he can't take them out. So now he can't reveal

1045
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 3: his real reptile eyes. He's like stuck with human looking eyes.

1046
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they kind of treat him like child. They're

1047
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:04,760
Speaker 2: not even like really treating him like an alien prisoner.

1048
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:07,719
Speaker 2: It's more like he's a child who's been grounded. But

1049
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:09,960
Speaker 2: they keep giving him alcohol to make him compliant with

1050
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 2: these various tests, and presumably they never really learned much

1051
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:14,720
Speaker 2: of anything from him, right.

1052
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 3: And there's a scene where like when they finally get

1053
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 3: the X rays, they're all like grinning with these evil

1054
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 3: faces while you know, while he's clearly there suffering. But yeah,

1055
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 3: they just keep shoving beefeed or in his mouth to

1056
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 3: keep him compliant. They also unfortunately murder Oliver Farnsworth and

1057
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:36,480
Speaker 3: his lover Trevor by throwing them out of skyscraper windows.

1058
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 3: And also for some reason, they throw out the barbell

1059
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 3: that Trevor was bench pressing.

1060
00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird because that out the window. I don't

1061
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 2: know it just I guess it made for a nice sequence.

1062
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:50,840
Speaker 2: It's it's so weird looking back on this now, because

1063
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:54,960
Speaker 2: again the film takes the time to develop Farnsworth and

1064
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:58,720
Speaker 2: his partners as people that you care about to some degree,

1065
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 2: but then they are dispensed with kind of comedically, and

1066
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 2: so you don't feel as bad for them as you might.

1067
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 2: Like you might think a scene like this would be

1068
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 2: would be played more for tragedy's sake, and it's it's not.

1069
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:15,920
Speaker 3: This is the scene where like Buck Henry, I mean,

1070
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:18,200
Speaker 3: he's good in the scene. He's quite funny, where like

1071
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:21,400
Speaker 3: they throw him against the window and he's like, oh,

1072
00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 3: sorry about that, like apologizing that he didn't break through

1073
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 3: the window as he was supposed to.

1074
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a great, great Buck Henry scene for sure.

1075
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 3: But anyway, so Newton is imprisoned for many years and

1076
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 3: finally Mary Lou finds him. She comes to visit him,

1077
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:40,800
Speaker 3: and they briefly rekindled their love affair in a bizarre

1078
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:45,640
Speaker 3: series of scenes, but eventually she starts asking him about

1079
00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 3: his wife and family back home, back on his planet,

1080
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 3: and they decide they do not love each other anymore,

1081
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 3: and they go their separate ways, and Newton escapes his prison,

1082
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 3: but now he has no hope of ever getting back,

1083
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 3: ever getting the water back to his home planet, or

1084
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:05,000
Speaker 3: ever seeing his family again, so he takes a sort

1085
00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:09,520
Speaker 3: of a sharp right turn. He becomes a musician and

1086
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 3: a recording artist of some kind. We never actually see

1087
00:59:12,680 --> 00:59:15,840
Speaker 3: him playing music. Instead, we just see rip Torn go

1088
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:19,120
Speaker 3: to a record store and listen to one of Newton's albums.

1089
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:21,640
Speaker 3: And then, in the final scene in the film, Rip

1090
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 3: Torn finds Newton drinking on the patio of a restaurant

1091
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:29,160
Speaker 3: and asks him about his music, and Newton says it's

1092
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 3: his only chance of ever speaking to his family again

1093
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 3: back on his planet. He's hoping they will hear his

1094
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:38,640
Speaker 3: music on their home planet over the radio beamed through space.

1095
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 3: And then like the waiter cuts him off. He says,

1096
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:44,520
Speaker 3: you can't, you know, I think you've had enough to drink,

1097
00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 3: and then he bows his head, and then the credits

1098
00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:49,840
Speaker 3: roll over the downturned brim of his hat.

1099
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ending alone, there's not a lot of wonder

1100
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 2: to it, you know, it doesn't end on a note

1101
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:58,880
Speaker 2: of wonder. And I'm not saying it doesn't work. And

1102
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 2: I guess it's kind of a it take on the weary,

1103
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 2: ageless immortal trope because at this point in the film,

1104
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:07,760
Speaker 2: everyone else has aged significantly, but Newton has not. Aged,

1105
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:10,360
Speaker 2: he still looks exactly the same. And you know, I

1106
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:14,240
Speaker 2: guess this is one more rumination on alcoholism and loneliness

1107
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:19,400
Speaker 2: and so forth. But it doesn't feel particularly cosmic, So

1108
01:00:19,680 --> 01:00:22,280
Speaker 2: I could see where people would have differing impressions on

1109
01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 2: the actual ending to the film.

1110
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:35,440
Speaker 3: So one of the things I wanted to think about

1111
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 3: in the movie is the recurring visions of Newton's home planet.

1112
01:00:42,680 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 3: First of all, I would say, I don't know if

1113
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:46,280
Speaker 3: it actually was, but it looks like it was shot

1114
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 3: at White Sand's National Park in New Mexico. It's got

1115
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 3: these kind of like white dunes. It's kind of a

1116
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:57,480
Speaker 3: pale aracus, some sort of desert environment, and we see

1117
01:00:57,560 --> 01:01:01,680
Speaker 3: visions of a family with rubber skin and reptile eyes,

1118
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 3: and they are wearing still suits. Basically, they're wearing some

1119
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 3: kind of suit that looks like it's recycling water in

1120
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 3: these tubes around their skin.

1121
01:01:10,600 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are one wonderful makeup, wonderful weird costumes. They

1122
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:18,480
Speaker 2: also kind of walk around oddly. They look like they

1123
01:01:19,640 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 2: have emerged from some sort of a fringe animated sci

1124
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:25,520
Speaker 2: fi picture that it's a great look.

1125
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:29,760
Speaker 3: Sometimes we see them languishing and apparently dying in the desert.

1126
01:01:30,120 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 3: I think this seems to be Newton's like fear of

1127
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 3: what is happening to them in his absence without him

1128
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:39,080
Speaker 3: completing his mission. Also, a lot of the visions of

1129
01:01:39,080 --> 01:01:42,680
Speaker 3: his home planet involve what should we call it, the

1130
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:47,920
Speaker 3: furry orange tram. There's like a train car that runs

1131
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 3: on a track through this desert. It's covered in orange

1132
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:55,360
Speaker 3: shag carpet or fur of some sort, and it's sort

1133
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:58,440
Speaker 3: of pyramid shaped and it has this I don't know,

1134
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:00,919
Speaker 3: it has like a tarp covering to block the sun,

1135
01:02:01,000 --> 01:02:03,040
Speaker 3: I think, but it's a furry train.

1136
01:02:03,960 --> 01:02:08,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing looking. It looks again, very seventies euro

1137
01:02:08,480 --> 01:02:11,840
Speaker 2: sci fi looked at this thing. It raises so many

1138
01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 2: questions about the technology of these alien creatures, in the

1139
01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 2: same way that you have so many questions about their biology.

1140
01:02:18,680 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 2: But I like that you have more questions than answers

1141
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,560
Speaker 2: regarding any of this, because it is supposed to feel

1142
01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:25,280
Speaker 2: completely alien to us.

1143
01:02:25,800 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 3: Another thing I was thinking about with the flashbacks to

1144
01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:31,800
Speaker 3: his home planet, one of his Earth based sex scenes

1145
01:02:31,880 --> 01:02:36,240
Speaker 3: with Mary Low is intercut with what seems to be

1146
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:39,960
Speaker 3: a memory of sex on his home planet, which involves, like,

1147
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:44,080
Speaker 3: I don't know, rolling around in Ian Holmes's Blood from

1148
01:02:44,120 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 3: Alien there's just like this frothy white milk everywhere is

1149
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:50,760
Speaker 3: really gross. But I guess if you're from his planet,

1150
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:51,760
Speaker 3: it's quite romantic.

1151
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:53,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't know what to make out of that

1152
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:55,040
Speaker 2: other than it was weird.

1153
01:02:57,200 --> 01:02:59,720
Speaker 3: Another thing that I thought was interesting about the film,

1154
01:02:59,760 --> 01:03:04,000
Speaker 3: and did involve a lot of filmmaking technique, was Newton's

1155
01:03:04,120 --> 01:03:09,800
Speaker 3: relationship with and eventually obsession with TV, starting with him

1156
01:03:09,880 --> 01:03:12,200
Speaker 3: just wanting to watch television and then wanting to watch

1157
01:03:12,280 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 3: multiple televisions at once, and he would and like you,

1158
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:19,960
Speaker 3: it would cut between the programming on the different televisions

1159
01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 3: showing all these sort of aspects of humanity. And there's

1160
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:29,280
Speaker 3: one part where he has a sort of alcoholic TV

1161
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:32,080
Speaker 3: freak out mom where he's like drinking and he's watching

1162
01:03:32,080 --> 01:03:35,720
Speaker 3: twenty TVs at once and they start overwhelming him clearly

1163
01:03:35,800 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 3: and he starts screaming, get out of my mind. But

1164
01:03:40,640 --> 01:03:42,200
Speaker 3: I wonder where this comes from.

1165
01:03:42,560 --> 01:03:45,240
Speaker 2: I feel like there's this It's interesting to look back

1166
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:47,200
Speaker 2: on pictures like this. There are various pictures I can

1167
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 2: think of off the top of my head that do

1168
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:51,360
Speaker 2: get into this idea. You know, sometimes for comedic effects

1169
01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:56,320
Speaker 2: sometimes for fantastic effect about just how overwhelming it suddenly

1170
01:03:56,360 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 2: felt like to have access to especially cable television or

1171
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 2: even satellite television. You know that very well may line

1172
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 2: up with this idea of overchoice that we've been discussing

1173
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 2: in our Future Shock episodes. You know, this idea that's like,

1174
01:04:10,240 --> 01:04:13,840
Speaker 2: suddenly you can watch television all the time, and you

1175
01:04:13,960 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 2: have access to tens, dozens, maybe hundreds of channels. You

1176
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:24,480
Speaker 2: can basically start watching television and not stop. And it can,

1177
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 2: I guess, feel kind of alien for us to think

1178
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:29,520
Speaker 2: about this, because you know, certainly we can still watch

1179
01:04:29,560 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 2: a lot of television, as we've discussed, but I feel

1180
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:35,880
Speaker 2: like our relationship with television is a little different now

1181
01:04:35,920 --> 01:04:39,400
Speaker 2: because we have these other major super time suck distractions

1182
01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:43,120
Speaker 2: via the Internet that are also vying for our attention.

1183
01:04:43,920 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was actually one thing about TV in this movie.

1184
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:50,959
Speaker 3: It was a scene that I thought was really fascinating

1185
01:04:51,400 --> 01:04:53,880
Speaker 3: that I want to get into in more depth here.

1186
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 3: So it's the scene where rip Torn confronts Bowie about

1187
01:04:56,600 --> 01:05:02,320
Speaker 3: being an alien. So to at the scene, Newton is

1188
01:05:02,360 --> 01:05:06,000
Speaker 3: like hiding alone in a dilapidated shack in the desert,

1189
01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:09,600
Speaker 3: watching TV. He's like watching a Western, I think drinking.

1190
01:05:10,240 --> 01:05:14,360
Speaker 3: And then Bryce arrives and Bryce confronts him and Newton

1191
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:17,080
Speaker 3: admits that he is an alien, and this is the

1192
01:05:17,120 --> 01:05:19,280
Speaker 3: scene where he explains his mission. You know, on his

1193
01:05:19,320 --> 01:05:22,880
Speaker 3: home planet there's a terrible drought, he says. He says

1194
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:26,880
Speaker 3: that he saw pictures of our planet on TV, on

1195
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:30,200
Speaker 3: the TV that reached his planet and saw the water

1196
01:05:30,280 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker 3: on the surface, so he is here to get the water.

1197
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:39,360
Speaker 3: So he knows Earth from television, which this in one

1198
01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:42,520
Speaker 3: sense maybe explains part of Newton's obsession with watching TV,

1199
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 3: or maybe it's just the raw appeal of TV to

1200
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:49,080
Speaker 3: any sentient being that can see it. But anyway, so

1201
01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:53,080
Speaker 3: he explains his mission and then Bryce says to him,

1202
01:05:53,160 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 3: are you the first? And Newton says there have always

1203
01:05:57,360 --> 01:06:00,600
Speaker 3: been visitors. In fact, he says, even on his planet,

1204
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 3: they found evidence of visitors who had been there. And

1205
01:06:03,920 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 3: then he says to Bryce, haven't you seen them here

1206
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:09,680
Speaker 3: on Earth? Haven't you come across them? And then Bryce

1207
01:06:09,720 --> 01:06:12,000
Speaker 3: says no, he doesn't think he's seen them, and then

1208
01:06:12,960 --> 01:06:16,400
Speaker 3: Bowie says, I've seen them. And first of all, like

1209
01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:18,640
Speaker 3: that was a cool moment. I was like, oh, oh,

1210
01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:21,640
Speaker 3: there have been other aliens here. But then it develops

1211
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:25,400
Speaker 3: further and goes in a totally different direction. It seems

1212
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:31,120
Speaker 3: to me so like Bryce seems unconvinced about Bowie saying this,

1213
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:33,280
Speaker 3: and he's like, what do you mean, what's the evidence

1214
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:36,120
Speaker 3: of them being here? And then I think it's sort

1215
01:06:36,120 --> 01:06:39,920
Speaker 3: of implied that Newton thinks there have been other alien

1216
01:06:40,040 --> 01:06:44,360
Speaker 3: visitors to Earth because he's been tricked by stuff he

1217
01:06:44,400 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 3: saw on TV, Like he literally has been watching In

1218
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:51,720
Speaker 3: Search of and stuff about UFOs and ancient aliens and

1219
01:06:51,720 --> 01:06:54,560
Speaker 3: stuff like I think he's talking about Eric Vondanakan or

1220
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:58,959
Speaker 3: something and bry and Bryce is like, well, I don't

1221
01:06:58,960 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 3: believe in any of that, and then Bowie just just

1222
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:04,760
Speaker 3: kind of like, oh, okay, well you know there has

1223
01:07:04,800 --> 01:07:07,960
Speaker 3: to be something out there. But that was so so

1224
01:07:08,120 --> 01:07:11,680
Speaker 3: like imagine an alien coming to Earth and then falling

1225
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:14,640
Speaker 3: for all of the like UFO stuff and being like, oh,

1226
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:16,640
Speaker 3: I guess there have been a bunch of other visitors here,

1227
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:20,400
Speaker 3: just like the rest of us seeing stuff on TV.

1228
01:07:21,720 --> 01:07:24,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that side of this scene, but even

1229
01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:26,560
Speaker 2: like that initial feeling of like, well, here's the alien

1230
01:07:26,640 --> 01:07:31,520
Speaker 2: visitor potentially confirming that there are yet other alien visitors,

1231
01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:33,760
Speaker 2: like in a sense like he has insight that we

1232
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:36,960
Speaker 2: don't have, because he does have like some like he

1233
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:39,640
Speaker 2: knows there are aliens and he can he can, you know,

1234
01:07:39,680 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 2: sort of compare with what they know on his world

1235
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 2: as well. And Yeah, I liked it. It's a nice

1236
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:47,080
Speaker 2: weird section of the film.

1237
01:07:47,320 --> 01:07:49,320
Speaker 3: I love that the one too. Yeah, you think he

1238
01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:52,120
Speaker 3: has special insight, but then it becomes maybe he actually

1239
01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:54,800
Speaker 3: has the same insight that lots of people think they have,

1240
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:58,520
Speaker 3: which is they watched in search of Yeah, I just

1241
01:07:58,560 --> 01:08:00,919
Speaker 3: looked it up. It wouldn't be in search because that

1242
01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:03,760
Speaker 3: didn't start until the year after this movie, but would

1243
01:08:03,760 --> 01:08:07,160
Speaker 3: have been whatever the equivalent if that wash. Now there's

1244
01:08:07,200 --> 01:08:09,760
Speaker 3: another thing I wanted to get into, which is Newton's

1245
01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 3: relationship with Mary Lou. She obviously really loves him, she's

1246
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:18,920
Speaker 3: in love with him. Does he love her? As I

1247
01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:23,559
Speaker 3: was saying earlier, Bowie's performance is very ambiguous. He's often

1248
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:29,000
Speaker 3: kind of aloof and kind of tranquilized and seems to

1249
01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:32,599
Speaker 3: be not reacting to things very strongly, but then sometimes

1250
01:08:32,640 --> 01:08:36,960
Speaker 3: reacting very strongly and in sudden outbursts and unexpected ways.

1251
01:08:37,520 --> 01:08:41,040
Speaker 3: So he's often kind of somnambulent and then suddenly he

1252
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:46,679
Speaker 3: shows clear warm emotion toward toward Mary Lou. But even

1253
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:50,639
Speaker 3: in the moments when he does that, it feels kind

1254
01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:55,200
Speaker 3: of random, like other times he has these strong emotional

1255
01:08:55,200 --> 01:08:59,800
Speaker 3: outbursts like anger or dangerous playfulness at her, or kind

1256
01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:03,880
Speaker 3: of love bombing, and it's not easy to tell like

1257
01:09:04,040 --> 01:09:07,240
Speaker 3: why each particular emotion is coming out at the time

1258
01:09:07,320 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 3: that it is. And I guess you could just say, like, well,

1259
01:09:10,360 --> 01:09:13,679
Speaker 3: he's an alien and he can't relate to us, and

1260
01:09:13,760 --> 01:09:16,599
Speaker 3: you know, so it's hard to understand his you know,

1261
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:20,440
Speaker 3: the way his mind works. But what is his relationship

1262
01:09:20,479 --> 01:09:23,000
Speaker 3: to the people of Earth, especially the few people close

1263
01:09:23,040 --> 01:09:25,960
Speaker 3: to him? Does he care about them? Does he love them?

1264
01:09:26,400 --> 01:09:28,519
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess the feeling I got from the

1265
01:09:28,520 --> 01:09:31,519
Speaker 2: film is that it's it's paradoxical, you know, it's and

1266
01:09:31,560 --> 01:09:34,479
Speaker 2: it's and it may vary from one point to another,

1267
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:38,679
Speaker 2: you know, He's it seems like one of Nicholas Rogue's

1268
01:09:38,680 --> 01:09:42,400
Speaker 2: approaches here in this film anyway, is that like all

1269
01:09:42,479 --> 01:09:45,880
Speaker 2: humans and even non human characters are complex, you know,

1270
01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:48,519
Speaker 2: and it's like just because they even have a reduced

1271
01:09:48,600 --> 01:09:50,879
Speaker 2: role in the plot doesn't mean that they're not complex

1272
01:09:50,920 --> 01:09:57,439
Speaker 2: people with passions and fears and moments of tenderness. So

1273
01:09:57,640 --> 01:10:00,839
Speaker 2: I think it's very possible, Yeah, that there are times

1274
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:03,000
Speaker 2: and there there is a part of him that does

1275
01:10:03,080 --> 01:10:05,880
Speaker 2: feel this deep attachment to Mary Lou and perhaps that

1276
01:10:05,920 --> 01:10:09,160
Speaker 2: grows over time the more of an earthling he becomes.

1277
01:10:09,560 --> 01:10:12,679
Speaker 2: But then also he is still other. He is still

1278
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:16,040
Speaker 2: an alien. He still has this family that he has

1279
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:22,160
Speaker 2: essentially kind of abandoned. Like there's there's this movie again

1280
01:10:22,240 --> 01:10:26,559
Speaker 2: kind of triangulating different ideas, Like you have you have

1281
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:30,320
Speaker 2: his character who has an alien wife and children in

1282
01:10:30,320 --> 01:10:33,280
Speaker 2: another world, perhaps dying because he has gone to get

1283
01:10:33,280 --> 01:10:35,439
Speaker 2: help and hasn't come back yet. And then you have

1284
01:10:35,520 --> 01:10:39,679
Speaker 2: rip Torn's character, who also has a wife and child

1285
01:10:39,720 --> 01:10:43,360
Speaker 2: that he is distant from and is strange from. And

1286
01:10:43,360 --> 01:10:45,880
Speaker 2: then we also see the Peters character, you know, the

1287
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:49,400
Speaker 2: government agency guy, and we see his family, and this

1288
01:10:49,479 --> 01:10:52,400
Speaker 2: is an example of where the family unit is intact.

1289
01:10:52,920 --> 01:10:55,240
Speaker 2: And so we're you know, I think we're supposed to

1290
01:10:55,600 --> 01:10:58,360
Speaker 2: compare these, We're supposed to think about how these apply

1291
01:10:58,479 --> 01:11:00,000
Speaker 2: to these models apply to each other.

1292
01:11:00,760 --> 01:11:03,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is definitely something going on with the theme

1293
01:11:03,320 --> 01:11:06,519
Speaker 3: of like the families elsewhere and I think the way

1294
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:08,680
Speaker 3: it resonated for me with like these weird moments of

1295
01:11:08,720 --> 01:11:11,800
Speaker 3: like seeing Peters at home with his family suddenly like

1296
01:11:11,960 --> 01:11:15,200
Speaker 3: you know, tucking his children in and then discussing with

1297
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:17,400
Speaker 3: his wife whether he knows he's like, are we really

1298
01:11:17,439 --> 01:11:21,120
Speaker 3: doing the right thing? Is a strange moment again that

1299
01:11:21,160 --> 01:11:23,160
Speaker 3: you would not expect with this type of character in

1300
01:11:23,200 --> 01:11:27,120
Speaker 3: another movie. It's almost like it's a different way of

1301
01:11:27,160 --> 01:11:30,400
Speaker 3: reminding someone that even though he has shown with his

1302
01:11:30,479 --> 01:11:32,760
Speaker 3: family here, it's like showing you that in these other

1303
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:35,880
Speaker 3: scenes where he's just doing the conspiracy, he had a

1304
01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:37,040
Speaker 3: family elsewhere.

1305
01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very thoughtful, very thought provoking film that

1306
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:45,760
Speaker 2: I guess ultimately it puts a lot of the legwork

1307
01:11:46,320 --> 01:11:48,559
Speaker 2: on the viewer to try and sort of piece things

1308
01:11:48,560 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 2: together and figure out what is being said. It doesn't

1309
01:11:51,280 --> 01:11:52,439
Speaker 2: necessarily hold your hand.

1310
01:11:53,080 --> 01:11:53,599
Speaker 3: I like that.

1311
01:11:54,360 --> 01:11:58,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I wanted to touch on the eroticism of

1312
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:01,599
Speaker 2: the film again. I don't think it would be accurate

1313
01:12:01,600 --> 01:12:03,960
Speaker 2: to classify this as an erotic film by any sense,

1314
01:12:04,479 --> 01:12:08,280
Speaker 2: though it certainly makes frequent use of eroticism. We have

1315
01:12:08,360 --> 01:12:11,200
Speaker 2: scenes that feature male and female nudity, as well as

1316
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 2: alien in human nudity, I suppose, and they feature human

1317
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:19,519
Speaker 2: nudity in a way that is generally unapologetic and frank,

1318
01:12:19,600 --> 01:12:22,800
Speaker 2: in ways that viewers might not be accustomed to. But

1319
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:26,520
Speaker 2: Rogue again doesn't seem to be doing this just for titillation.

1320
01:12:27,479 --> 01:12:31,160
Speaker 2: At least to me. These scenes feel less exploitive, maybe

1321
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:34,880
Speaker 2: more voyeuristic, though, because instead of flesh again being the

1322
01:12:34,920 --> 01:12:37,880
Speaker 2: destination of the scene as it often is in other films,

1323
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:40,880
Speaker 2: especially the kind we often end up watching on Weird House,

1324
01:12:41,240 --> 01:12:44,440
Speaker 2: flesh is another tool that the filmmaker uses to explore

1325
01:12:44,560 --> 01:12:49,599
Speaker 2: a character, to explore a relationship between characters. But then

1326
01:12:49,720 --> 01:12:54,200
Speaker 2: this actually ends up making the scenes more titillating because

1327
01:12:54,320 --> 01:12:58,000
Speaker 2: they feel more genuine and actually provide insight into the

1328
01:12:58,000 --> 01:13:00,920
Speaker 2: inner depths of the characters on the screen. You're not

1329
01:13:01,040 --> 01:13:03,160
Speaker 2: just watching You don't feel like you're just watching flesh.

1330
01:13:03,479 --> 01:13:05,479
Speaker 2: You were watching flesh and emotion as one.

1331
01:13:06,400 --> 01:13:08,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that this just seems like a

1332
01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:12,280
Speaker 3: film in which sex is, more so than in most films,

1333
01:13:12,280 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 3: a locus of drama itself, like it shows how the

1334
01:13:17,520 --> 01:13:21,880
Speaker 3: characters are relating to one another, and what their lives mean,

1335
01:13:22,320 --> 01:13:25,120
Speaker 3: and how what they and how the ways they relate

1336
01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:26,160
Speaker 3: to each other is changing.

1337
01:13:26,920 --> 01:13:30,599
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I was looking at an article from

1338
01:13:30,640 --> 01:13:33,599
Speaker 2: twenty eleven. This was in The Guardian by Danny Lee

1339
01:13:33,800 --> 01:13:36,920
Speaker 2: titled good screen sex is hard to find unless you

1340
01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:40,639
Speaker 2: watch a Nicholas Rogue film, and the article is very

1341
01:13:40,640 --> 01:13:44,000
Speaker 2: interesting and in depth if for people interested in this

1342
01:13:44,280 --> 01:13:47,400
Speaker 2: filmmaker's work. But the article speaks of The Man Who

1343
01:13:47,439 --> 01:13:50,559
Speaker 2: Fell to Earth as quote, a deeply melancholy film with

1344
01:13:50,640 --> 01:13:54,080
Speaker 2: a strange and genuinely beautiful sex scene between David Bowie's

1345
01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:58,160
Speaker 2: stranded alien Newton and Candy Clark's hotel made Mary Lou

1346
01:13:58,560 --> 01:14:02,280
Speaker 2: that replaced the felt's heat of Don't Look Now with

1347
01:14:02,360 --> 01:14:05,920
Speaker 2: an existential ache and plenty of gunplay.

1348
01:14:06,439 --> 01:14:08,679
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so this is this talking about the quote

1349
01:14:08,920 --> 01:14:12,679
Speaker 3: Hello Mary Lou scene where they've got a revolver involved there.

1350
01:14:13,160 --> 01:14:18,400
Speaker 2: Yes, this is a deliriously ludicrous scene. It begins with

1351
01:14:18,479 --> 01:14:21,320
Speaker 2: a kind of like rough edge of meanness and potential

1352
01:14:21,400 --> 01:14:27,439
Speaker 2: violence where Newton has this shiny revolver and you know, see.

1353
01:14:27,360 --> 01:14:29,680
Speaker 3: His drink with it. He's making darkness.

1354
01:14:29,320 --> 01:14:31,560
Speaker 2: Drink with it, Yeah, and then like licking it. He

1355
01:14:31,680 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 2: like puts the barrel in his mouth to look the

1356
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:36,040
Speaker 2: alcohol off of it. And then he's like brandishing it

1357
01:14:36,160 --> 01:14:39,599
Speaker 2: at Mary Lou and you know this, again, this feels

1358
01:14:39,880 --> 01:14:43,320
Speaker 2: potentially like it's going to go in a really horrible direction.

1359
01:14:43,840 --> 01:14:48,560
Speaker 2: But then the whole scene transforms into just an absurd

1360
01:14:48,840 --> 01:14:54,000
Speaker 2: erotic romp with a kind of a heartfelt eroticism at

1361
01:14:54,040 --> 01:14:59,120
Speaker 2: the core, but also just a laughable and intentional disregard

1362
01:14:59,200 --> 01:15:02,000
Speaker 2: for how blank fire arm cartridges work and just how

1363
01:15:02,040 --> 01:15:05,600
Speaker 2: basic cam gun safety works, because as they're engaging in

1364
01:15:05,680 --> 01:15:08,840
Speaker 2: this kind of like playful four play, they are also

1365
01:15:09,000 --> 01:15:11,960
Speaker 2: firing this gun at each other at like point blank

1366
01:15:12,080 --> 01:15:16,280
Speaker 2: range and be like beyond fo yeah, not at all safe, like,

1367
01:15:16,640 --> 01:15:19,240
Speaker 2: not at all realistic. Do not get any actual four

1368
01:15:19,240 --> 01:15:23,559
Speaker 2: play ideas from this film, but it Yeah, it's just

1369
01:15:23,880 --> 01:15:28,599
Speaker 2: completely bonkers but also very tender. So again, this film

1370
01:15:28,640 --> 01:15:32,719
Speaker 2: is like that, it's uh, you'll it'll have different energies

1371
01:15:32,720 --> 01:15:38,000
Speaker 2: and also the like same similar but opposite energies in

1372
01:15:38,080 --> 01:15:38,919
Speaker 2: the same sequence.

1373
01:15:39,200 --> 01:15:43,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's strange, emotionally complex. Uh yeah, I thought this.

1374
01:15:44,040 --> 01:15:46,840
Speaker 3: See I when you said that this sequence is part

1375
01:15:46,880 --> 01:15:49,360
Speaker 3: that was cut out, I was like, what they cut

1376
01:15:49,400 --> 01:15:52,720
Speaker 3: out that part? I don't understand how you have this

1377
01:15:52,840 --> 01:15:53,880
Speaker 3: movie without that part?

1378
01:15:54,800 --> 01:15:54,960
Speaker 2: Uh?

1379
01:15:54,960 --> 01:15:59,280
Speaker 3: But then it transitions to to Newton and Mary Lou

1380
01:15:59,560 --> 01:16:04,040
Speaker 3: playing tennis in this room with bizarre forest patterned wallpaper,

1381
01:16:04,240 --> 01:16:06,240
Speaker 3: and they decide they don't love each other anymore.

1382
01:16:06,920 --> 01:16:09,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is one of many sequences too, where

1383
01:16:09,040 --> 01:16:12,360
Speaker 2: there's just way too many half consumed bottles of alcohol

1384
01:16:12,479 --> 01:16:15,680
Speaker 2: just sitting around, like it's clear that the alcoholism is

1385
01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:18,680
Speaker 2: just out of control. And oh, and then there's a

1386
01:16:18,720 --> 01:16:21,439
Speaker 2: weird sequence in there too, where like she asks him, like,

1387
01:16:21,520 --> 01:16:24,920
Speaker 2: why does he drink because he apparently doesn't physically get drunk,

1388
01:16:26,000 --> 01:16:28,439
Speaker 2: and he's like, well, I see things when I drink.

1389
01:16:28,680 --> 01:16:30,840
Speaker 2: And I didn't know what quite what to make of that.

1390
01:16:31,360 --> 01:16:33,960
Speaker 3: She says, you never get sick. I think she means like,

1391
01:16:34,040 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 3: you know, you never hung over, But I don't know

1392
01:16:36,880 --> 01:16:39,519
Speaker 3: if I buy that, because he seemed hungover a lot.

1393
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:43,800
Speaker 3: And yeah, but that's what she says. And then he says, yeah,

1394
01:16:43,840 --> 01:16:47,560
Speaker 3: I see things. I see bodies. I see the bodies

1395
01:16:47,600 --> 01:16:50,719
Speaker 3: of men and women as just Newton being Newton. Yeah.

1396
01:16:50,720 --> 01:16:53,440
Speaker 3: She's kind of scandalized by this, like, oh really.

1397
01:16:54,400 --> 01:16:56,760
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yes, I do remember this part. Yes, but

1398
01:16:56,800 --> 01:16:59,080
Speaker 2: then we never actually figure out what he's talking about.

1399
01:16:59,439 --> 01:17:01,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the part where he's pointing the gun

1400
01:17:01,600 --> 01:17:04,040
Speaker 3: at her. Yes, but she thinks it's funny.

1401
01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:07,759
Speaker 2: So they end up going their own separate ways. Bryce

1402
01:17:07,960 --> 01:17:10,200
Speaker 2: and Mary Lou end up becoming a couple. They say

1403
01:17:10,200 --> 01:17:12,599
Speaker 2: they have Christmas together. We get a whole Christmas sequence.

1404
01:17:12,920 --> 01:17:16,639
Speaker 3: They're both drinking a lot, also continuing with the themes there,

1405
01:17:16,760 --> 01:17:19,400
Speaker 3: but yeah, they have Christmas. We have Rip Torn drest

1406
01:17:19,479 --> 01:17:24,160
Speaker 3: as Santa Claus in a wicker store, and yeah, they're

1407
01:17:24,160 --> 01:17:28,120
Speaker 3: getting ready for Christmas. And then somehow this leads to

1408
01:17:29,400 --> 01:17:32,800
Speaker 3: Bryce ending up listening to the record and then going

1409
01:17:32,840 --> 01:17:35,719
Speaker 3: to talk to Newton one last time, and Newton asks

1410
01:17:35,760 --> 01:17:38,240
Speaker 3: him did you like the record? And Rip Torn says

1411
01:17:38,439 --> 01:17:38,920
Speaker 3: not much.

1412
01:17:40,680 --> 01:17:42,559
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it doesn't have to be good. It

1413
01:17:42,640 --> 01:17:45,080
Speaker 2: just has to be popular enough to get enough airplay.

1414
01:17:45,240 --> 01:17:48,720
Speaker 2: So those signals make it out to the mystery home

1415
01:17:48,800 --> 01:17:50,879
Speaker 2: planet of David Bowie.

1416
01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:53,840
Speaker 3: That's right. So I guess he's trying to specialize in

1417
01:17:54,240 --> 01:17:59,920
Speaker 3: radio ready, commercial, commercially marketable hits that have secreting code

1418
01:18:00,160 --> 01:18:04,719
Speaker 3: messages that his that his rubber still suit wearing family

1419
01:18:04,760 --> 01:18:05,560
Speaker 3: will understand.

1420
01:18:06,160 --> 01:18:08,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, seriously, there's a lot to sort

1421
01:18:08,960 --> 01:18:12,439
Speaker 2: of dissect there too, like this idea that he sets

1422
01:18:12,439 --> 01:18:16,840
Speaker 2: out to do something to support his family, to reconnect

1423
01:18:16,920 --> 01:18:20,759
Speaker 2: with his family, but eventually he just tries to create

1424
01:18:21,240 --> 01:18:25,839
Speaker 2: art instead that may somehow reach them in a distant

1425
01:18:26,040 --> 01:18:27,519
Speaker 2: and non physical fashion.

1426
01:18:27,840 --> 01:18:30,920
Speaker 3: He came here to save their lives, he failed, and

1427
01:18:30,960 --> 01:18:33,280
Speaker 3: in the end all he could do was hope to

1428
01:18:33,320 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 3: speak to them again.

1429
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:38,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's you know, it's powerful stuff, all right,

1430
01:18:38,560 --> 01:18:43,120
Speaker 2: that's the man who fell to Earth. So yeah, this

1431
01:18:43,160 --> 01:18:47,000
Speaker 2: is a very interesting film to look at. I'd be

1432
01:18:47,080 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 2: interested to hear what listeners think of the movie, what

1433
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:52,439
Speaker 2: your relationship with the movie over the years has been.

1434
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:55,040
Speaker 2: If we have any Bowie fans out there, how does

1435
01:18:55,080 --> 01:18:58,000
Speaker 2: it play into your understanding and appreciation of the artist?

1436
01:18:58,600 --> 01:19:01,120
Speaker 3: Why does he need a TV when he's got t Rex?

1437
01:19:03,520 --> 01:19:06,479
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm tempted to rewatch The Witches now

1438
01:19:06,760 --> 01:19:09,679
Speaker 2: because it's like I've seen this whole, Like I've seen

1439
01:19:09,680 --> 01:19:12,920
Speaker 2: the real Nicholas Rogue. I want to like, maybe watch

1440
01:19:12,920 --> 01:19:16,599
Speaker 2: something that is more commercial and more family oriented and see,

1441
01:19:16,640 --> 01:19:18,000
Speaker 2: like what did he bring to the table on that,

1442
01:19:18,040 --> 01:19:19,640
Speaker 2: because I don't it's been a long time since I've

1443
01:19:19,920 --> 01:19:22,840
Speaker 2: seen the original adaptation of The Witches has some great

1444
01:19:22,880 --> 01:19:26,040
Speaker 2: performances in it, some great puppetry in it, but I

1445
01:19:26,080 --> 01:19:29,559
Speaker 2: can't speak to like the fingerprints of Nicholas Rogue on

1446
01:19:29,640 --> 01:19:34,160
Speaker 2: that picture. But hey, maybe some of you listeners have

1447
01:19:34,600 --> 01:19:36,519
Speaker 2: watched it more recently and you can speak to that

1448
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:38,439
Speaker 2: for us. So we'll go ahead and close the book

1449
01:19:38,439 --> 01:19:40,400
Speaker 2: on this one. But just a reminder that Stuff to

1450
01:19:40,400 --> 01:19:43,160
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast, with new

1451
01:19:43,200 --> 01:19:46,120
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do a

1452
01:19:46,120 --> 01:19:49,639
Speaker 2: listener mail, On Wednesdays we do a short form artifactor

1453
01:19:49,640 --> 01:19:52,160
Speaker 2: monster fact episode, and on Fridays we set aside most

1454
01:19:52,160 --> 01:19:54,639
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on

1455
01:19:54,840 --> 01:19:57,200
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. And if you want to see all

1456
01:19:57,240 --> 01:19:58,840
Speaker 2: the like a list of all the films we've done

1457
01:19:58,880 --> 01:20:00,960
Speaker 2: over the years, the main place to go is go

1458
01:20:01,000 --> 01:20:03,920
Speaker 2: to letterbox dot com. It's l E T T E

1459
01:20:04,080 --> 01:20:06,240
Speaker 2: R B O x D dot com. You'll find our

1460
01:20:06,280 --> 01:20:08,080
Speaker 2: profile there. We are a weird House and we have

1461
01:20:08,120 --> 01:20:10,080
Speaker 2: a list and you can pull up all the like

1462
01:20:10,120 --> 01:20:12,800
Speaker 2: the poster images and the details of the films we've

1463
01:20:12,840 --> 01:20:13,320
Speaker 2: talked about.

1464
01:20:13,800 --> 01:20:17,280
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer, Jjposway. If you

1465
01:20:17,280 --> 01:20:19,400
Speaker 3: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1466
01:20:19,439 --> 01:20:21,679
Speaker 3: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

1467
01:20:21,720 --> 01:20:23,639
Speaker 3: for the future, or just to say hello. You can

1468
01:20:23,680 --> 01:20:26,719
Speaker 3: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

1469
01:20:26,840 --> 01:20:34,360
Speaker 3: dot com.

1470
01:20:34,479 --> 01:20:37,400
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1471
01:20:37,520 --> 01:20:40,280
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1472
01:20:40,439 --> 01:20:43,680
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.