Speaker 1: This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1: Chris Harrison Lawrence E. Mc coomedy from the home office
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas, just outside of Tornado Alley. Technically, the
Speaker 1: reason I bring that up the movie Twisters has dropped
Speaker 1: like an F five tornado that has ripped through the
Speaker 1: box office to the tune of eighty point five million.
Speaker 1: Elsie expectations were a mere fifty million, which would have
Speaker 1: been huge. It's almost doubled that. This is phenomenal.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy about this. Also, we're going to get
Speaker 2: into your knowledge of tornadoes. Is an F five the
Speaker 2: biggest it is.
Speaker 1: Technically, I think there has been whispers of an F
Speaker 1: six wow.
Speaker 2: Twist for Twisters.
Speaker 1: Yes, the next one, Twisters is but this I have
Speaker 1: seen this movie for the record, els has not. I
Speaker 1: am going back to see it with her tomorrow night
Speaker 1: because it's that good.
Speaker 2: Wow. So this makes me so happy. It makes me
Speaker 2: happy when movies do well at the box because I
Speaker 2: love movies and I don't want movies to go away
Speaker 2: as an art. There's a lot of talk in our
Speaker 2: industry right now about how well where people get their
Speaker 2: entertainment is just shifting, like instead of watching comedy movies
Speaker 2: at the theater, people watch comedy on TikTok on the
Speaker 2: one hand.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, can we know that when we're
Speaker 2: not giving people any good comedies at the box office?
Speaker 2: Like there used to be a different I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: aging myself. I guess I'm a mid thirties millennial, but
Speaker 2: not that long ago. It shows you how quickly things
Speaker 2: have changed. I remember growing up and we would look
Speaker 2: in the newspaper and be like, what's coming out this weekend?
Speaker 2: And look at the show times, and you would regularly say,
Speaker 2: what's coming out this weekend because every weekend there were
Speaker 2: like three new movies out. Now we're so limited, and
Speaker 2: I do think that when a movie like Twisters beats
Speaker 2: expectations hit so big, when it's just fun and joy
Speaker 2: and just a great watch, that people will go see it.
Speaker 2: And we need to get more movies in the theaters
Speaker 2: to give people the opportunity. Because here's the difference for
Speaker 2: me on movies versus thirty second videos on TikTok. TikTok
Speaker 2: can be fun, it's its own thing. I don't think
Speaker 2: that things stick with you in the short form the
Speaker 2: way that they.
Speaker 1: Do like that at all.
Speaker 2: Think about the way we all quote movies. We watch
Speaker 2: movies when we're younger, and we go on quoting them forever,
Speaker 2: and we reference them. And movies can change your outlook.
Speaker 2: They affect you on a deep level. They shape you,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to lose that.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it was Twister's a movie that shapes
Speaker 2: you well.
Speaker 1: I know it should well. But there's going to be
Speaker 1: a line that comes out of this and I can't
Speaker 1: wait for you to see it where Glenn Paalll says,
Speaker 1: have you ever driven a car before? That will last?
Speaker 1: That's going to be one of those levels. It's quotable.
Speaker 1: It's so good. First of all, I think we have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge Glenn Powell is a bona fide star.
Speaker 2: Now he is living for him.
Speaker 1: He is such a a grind for the guy who
Speaker 1: I didn't realize he was a child star, a young.
Speaker 2: Man Jason, one of the Spy Kids movies. I didn't
Speaker 2: realize that either. I knew he'd been in the business
Speaker 2: for about ten years. I didn't know it was longer.
Speaker 1: Taylor, who's twenty years old, our daughter, was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember him. And Spy Kids. I didn't realize he
Speaker 1: had been doing this that long, and so, like many
Speaker 1: stories in this business, it took a long time to
Speaker 1: become an overnight sensation. And obviously Top Gun Maverick really
Speaker 1: put him on the scene. He's been buddy, Well.
Speaker 2: He's having his moment, his long a moment he's long
Speaker 2: worked for.
Speaker 1: Hot take. Is this true or not? Is Glenn Powell
Speaker 1: James Marsden that finally got his shot at being a
Speaker 1: leading man?
Speaker 2: Well, I think if you're saying that, then he's not
Speaker 2: James Marsden, because that's James Marsden's whole story. James Marsden
Speaker 2: is always. No. I don't think he is, because what
Speaker 2: movie has has Glenn Powell been this in? James Marsden's
Speaker 2: thing was always he was the super good looking, nice
Speaker 2: guy in the movie who didn't end up with the
Speaker 2: robble loser like the Notebook. There's nothing wrong with him,
Speaker 2: but he didn't get the girl right, and he was
Speaker 2: that in a couple movies. I don't think Glenn Powell's
Speaker 2: been that guy. He's actually the guy who seems to
Speaker 2: get the girl.
Speaker 1: He is now. I just wonder if James Marsden had
Speaker 1: ever gotten his top gun Maverick like a shot to a.
Speaker 2: Like a career shift, a different type of.
Speaker 1: An action star to be so because Glenn Powell and
Speaker 1: I heard somebody else say, this is Glenn Powell the
Speaker 1: new Matthew McConaughey, and that actually tracks he is a Texan.
Speaker 1: Both went to u T. Both have that just big
Speaker 1: thousand watts smile that glean in their eye, that just
Speaker 1: captivates you. Guys want to hang out with them, Women
Speaker 1: want to be with him, that kind of leading man.
Speaker 2: Look, I think he's a baby of Matthew McConaughey, Matt
Speaker 2: Damon and Tom Cruise.
Speaker 1: And his second cousin to James Marsa.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think he has the like quirky aura
Speaker 2: of Matthew McConaughey. Matthew's kind of got a personality to
Speaker 2: him that I don't think Glen Powell has. And then
Speaker 2: he's got a little bit of action in him because
Speaker 2: of movies like Twisters, so that gives that's a little
Speaker 2: bit that Matt Damon action. And then he's got like
Speaker 2: the appealability, the broad appealability of Tom Cruise, but he
Speaker 2: also has the producer side of him, which both Matt
Speaker 2: Damon and Tom Cruise have done some producing, and on
Speaker 2: that note, I give him the credit. I think the
Speaker 2: reason Glenn Powell is having his moment now is because
Speaker 2: he has taken a very proactive role in being like
Speaker 2: in shaping the parts he's taking the movies he's doing,
Speaker 2: in adding that producer element and like going after like
Speaker 2: he basically and I wonder if Tom Cruise gave him
Speaker 2: this advice because they've become close since Tom actually convinced him.
Speaker 2: Do you know the story that he convinced him to
Speaker 2: do Top Gun Maverick?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because didn't he want another part.
Speaker 2: He wanted the Miles Teller part, and so he wasn't
Speaker 2: going to do it. And Tom Cruise, from I think
Speaker 2: Glenn Powell told the story, called him and said, like,
Speaker 2: take this part, going to be worth it. And I
Speaker 2: think he's taking a page out of Tom Cruise's book
Speaker 2: on just doing movies that people want to see. Like
Speaker 2: he's getting back to I know that sounds simple, but
Speaker 2: he's getting back to like the nineties and early two
Speaker 2: thousands type of movie that I think people have been
Speaker 2: longing for and no one else stepped up to do
Speaker 2: anyone but you was Sidney Sweeney. He gave us a
Speaker 2: rom com Twisters remake. He's giving us a fun, breezy
Speaker 2: or spinny action movie that people wanted to go to
Speaker 2: the movies and escape to see.
Speaker 1: Just want to give a shout out to Daisy Edgar Jones,
Speaker 1: who is his co star, the leading lady in Twisters,
Speaker 1: and she's fantastic. The chemistry between them is great, you
Speaker 1: believe it. Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were the originals
Speaker 1: in the nineteen ninety six version of Twisters, and their
Speaker 1: chemistry was great. They really played out. And by the way,
Speaker 1: more a tyranny coming in hot with a cameo as
Speaker 1: uh Daisy's mom.
Speaker 2: I love she's so good. Shews a little depth to
Speaker 2: it ravatas she's an actor.
Speaker 1: She's Aunt May. So if you saw the original, there's
Speaker 1: the Aunt May, Helen Hunt's aunt. They did a great
Speaker 1: job of casting Glenn Palell. They let him cook with
Speaker 1: that big smile and you know the Texas sayings. And
Speaker 1: Daisy played her role as the brilliant scientists.
Speaker 2: Very is set in Oklahoma. Of course it is Okay
Speaker 2: an tornado ally so and.
Speaker 1: I have to we'll talk about this of why this
Speaker 1: film means so much to me. This really this was
Speaker 1: an emotional movie to me.
Speaker 2: I want to give props again, like going back to
Speaker 2: the domestic box office take, eighty point five million dollars,
Speaker 2: vastly exceeding expectations, thirty million dollars more than analysts expected.
Speaker 2: And I got to say. We listen to the podcast
Speaker 2: The Town with Matt Bellanie, which I love when he
Speaker 2: has people on, they say this a lot. I like
Speaker 2: that they own it. Analysts really struggle, people who've known
Speaker 2: this industry forever struggle still to know what's going to hit.
Speaker 2: I didn't expect Twisters to be this big. I'm glad
Speaker 2: it is. I want to know why it went even
Speaker 2: bigger than expected.
Speaker 1: The box office reminds me a little bit of political
Speaker 1: polls and also TV ratings. There are seasons of The
Speaker 1: Bachelor that blew up Ali Fedotowski, Sean Lowe. Uh. There
Speaker 1: are seasons that kind of came out of the blue
Speaker 1: and we didn't think we had the goods. We wrapped
Speaker 1: production and thought, oh man, I hope we can save this,
Speaker 1: and post production, I hope we can kind of put
Speaker 1: this thing together. And those turned out to be some
Speaker 1: of our biggest stars in our biggest years, and sometime
Speaker 1: you're a scratching your head of like what And then
Speaker 1: there were and then there were seasons where we thought
Speaker 1: we had it all and then it just went flat.
Speaker 2: Well, now that you have, now that you can look back,
Speaker 2: do you think there was a common thread between those
Speaker 2: seasons where it got way bigger than you expected it
Speaker 2: to be? What was that hit factor?
Speaker 1: For some reason or another, people resonated with the star people.
Speaker 1: That's why I say, Glenn Power, all kudos to you,
Speaker 1: because this was a great remake, but it was Bill
Speaker 1: Paxton's show. Glenn Powell clearly has that draw and so
Speaker 1: does Daisy clearly as the leading lady. We're drawn to him.
Speaker 1: Why did people get drawn to Ali, Sean Lowe, Ben Higgins?
Speaker 1: They did? They? I don't know if they speak to
Speaker 1: the Middle America, maybe Americana.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm sensing that from that group they maybe we're get.
Speaker 1: Thirsty for this right now in the world. We just
Speaker 1: need to escape. And you you mentioned something to me
Speaker 1: of someone said to the director, why didn't you you know?
Speaker 2: Oh there was there was a headline and I think
Speaker 2: the Hollywood reporter that was why which I love that
Speaker 2: they had to ask him this. It shows you where
Speaker 2: things are why Twisters doesn't address climate change, and the
Speaker 2: director said, movies don't always need to push a message, right,
Speaker 2: And I do think we need to get back to that.
Speaker 2: We got so far away from it. I'm I am
Speaker 2: not saying movies should never have a message. Movies can
Speaker 2: be some of the most powerful message makers out there,
Speaker 2: but it shouldn't be a forced message. It shouldn't be
Speaker 2: we have do have because I know what's been happening.
Speaker 2: Money people in studios have been saying, well, the movie
Speaker 2: needs They think people want something that says something. The
Speaker 2: movie needs to say something, and then it comes across inauthentic.
Speaker 2: Sometimes movies are just fun escapes, and then some movies
Speaker 2: have a meaning and are the most powerful, you know,
Speaker 2: culture shaping forces of our time. But I don't know
Speaker 2: the Twisters needs to be you.
Speaker 1: Know, everything doesn't have to mean everything all the time.
Speaker 1: We can just escape to the movies. That's what we
Speaker 1: used to do.
Speaker 2: But that's interesting because I do think that you know,
Speaker 2: people are now dubbing Glenn Powell a bonafid movie star
Speaker 2: and a big concern people have in Hollywood right now
Speaker 2: is that there are no more movie stars that new
Speaker 2: movie stars haven't been made in recent years. And by
Speaker 2: that they mean people who on their own with their
Speaker 2: name are a draw at the box office. The Tom
Speaker 2: Cruise is, the Denzel Washington's, the Will Smith's, the Tom
Speaker 2: Hanks a box office draw.
Speaker 1: And I will say, we're also getting over the hangover
Speaker 1: of last year's strike and for the first time, we're
Speaker 1: now catching up. And if you go to see Twisters,
Speaker 1: which I really highly recommend you do, you're gonna see
Speaker 1: some great previews to movies that you have not heard of.
Speaker 1: Then they're not Marvel movies, they're not superhero movies. These
Speaker 1: are bona fide good. They look like really good movies
Speaker 1: that I hadn't heard were in the pipeline. And now
Speaker 1: like normal, we're getting introduced to five six new movies
Speaker 1: coming up, and I'm actually excited about the box office.
Speaker 1: We're finally catching back up.
Speaker 2: This is what I wanted to bring up about the
Speaker 2: box office. Twisters eighty point five million. Oppenheimer brought an
Speaker 2: eighty point five million last summer, so same debut as Oppenheimer,
Speaker 2: which wound up to be one of the biggest movies
Speaker 2: of recent years, multiple Academy Award nominations.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what Barbie, dude, I'll look it up.
Speaker 2: But putting Twisters matching Oppenheimer, that's wild. Glenn Poul's got
Speaker 2: to be feeling good. He just matched Christ.
Speaker 1: So here's the early early projection. Could Twisters be the
Speaker 1: Oscars Darling of the year. Never know? And that's what's
Speaker 1: funny is this show. This movie will do hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars when it's all said and done, but
Speaker 1: it will not get any Oscar noms. Maybe for special
Speaker 1: effects it could do that.
Speaker 2: Barbie kicked both there, but Barbie had a one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty five million dollar opening weekend.
Speaker 1: Lest Twisters has no help in the box office right now.
Speaker 2: There's nothing helping it, right Barbie and Barbie and Oppenheimer
Speaker 2: both had Barbenheimer. We'll see if Glicked the Gladiator Wicked
Speaker 2: weekend this fall that everybody's hoping for.
Speaker 1: By the way, I saw the Wicked preview. Oh it's good.
Speaker 1: I'm all I love Wicked. It's well, it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite musicals. It's one of the best musicals of
Speaker 1: all time. Part of that is I am a Homer
Speaker 1: and I love Kristin chenow with because I went to
Speaker 1: college with her.
Speaker 2: But I think Wicked special because like You and Taylor
Speaker 2: is no love. You and Taylor love musicals together.
Speaker 1: The imagination and the movie looks so creative and it's
Speaker 1: so good, a little bit different in a good way.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited about it.
Speaker 2: I don't know that it needs I'm still questioning it
Speaker 2: being in two parts. I don't understand that it's a
Speaker 2: one sitting viewing in Broadway theaters. Why is the movie
Speaker 2: two movies?
Speaker 1: Gladiator is going to be so good with Denzel I'm
Speaker 1: very excited about it.
Speaker 2: I hope so, but so there's a lot of pressure
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: My one bone to pick with Twisters whoa and spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: our heroes live. If you saw the original, you know.
Speaker 2: That it wouldn't be a light crazy movie. If they
Speaker 2: did it, then it would be an Academy Award nominated.
Speaker 1: At the end of the original Twisters in the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: there is chemistry, crazy chemistry. It's the moonlighting effect, right
Speaker 1: the old Bruce Willis Sivil Shepherd show of You want
Speaker 1: them together, but they're never going to get together. You
Speaker 1: want them together, but they're never going to get together.
Speaker 1: Of course they do get together. Bill Paxton and Helen
Speaker 1: Hunt share this wonderful kis after the huge tornado blows
Speaker 1: over them and they survive and the rest is movie magic.
Speaker 1: And you know, we pull out to the Big Field and.
Speaker 2: So and that movie gave us everything we wanted. Action, comedy, love.
Speaker 1: This New Incarnation Twisters remake spoiler alert, there is no
Speaker 1: kiss at the end. They shot it. They shot a
Speaker 1: kiss scene where Glenn Powell and Daisy, the two main characters, kiss,
Speaker 1: but they decided not And I went deep dive on
Speaker 1: this today. You know who we have to blame? Spielberg.
Speaker 1: I heard this was a Spielberg note. Wow, and I
Speaker 1: have no scientific evidence, but this apparently was a note
Speaker 1: in people No.
Speaker 2: Wait, I just pulled it up. Glenn Powells said it
Speaker 2: was a Spielberg note. Glen he said it was a
Speaker 2: good note. I don't know if I agree.
Speaker 1: Glenn Spielberg says it was too cliche in my opinion.
Speaker 2: But isn't the point of this movie to give us
Speaker 2: the cliches?
Speaker 1: Thank you, Elsie. That's exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: Is the whole point of this movie at the end
Speaker 1: is to be one big cliche. The boy gets the girl.
Speaker 1: They survived, the girl gets the boy, she survives. It's
Speaker 1: it's pretty woman, she saves them right back, et cetera.
Speaker 1: There needed to be that kiss and at the end,
Speaker 1: what's funny, and I'll be interested for you to see it.
Speaker 1: I missed it. There was something missing emotionally. I really
Speaker 1: literally missed the kiss. I was waiting for it because
Speaker 1: I also knew the original so well that they had this.
Speaker 1: Really if you saw it, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt
Speaker 1: tied themselves to this deep pipe well and they survived,
Speaker 1: and then the water sprang on them, and the crew
Speaker 1: comes in and they're jumping because Dorothy was flying, and
Speaker 1: they got everything they needed from the tornado, and they kissed.
Speaker 1: I was waiting for that moment, and and you had
Speaker 1: great chemistry with the two leads, but we didn't get it,
Speaker 1: And I disagree. That's the one miss I think that's
Speaker 1: the one time in his career Spielberg has missed interesting.
Speaker 2: The director said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, I
Speaker 2: feel like audiences are in a different place now in
Speaker 2: terms of wanting a kiss or not wanting a kiss.
Speaker 2: He said that they tried the scene with the kiss,
Speaker 2: and the test audience has found it quote very polarizing.
Speaker 2: This no kiss shot was the other option that I
Speaker 2: had filmed on that day, and I have to say
Speaker 2: I like it better. I think it's a better ending.
Speaker 2: I think that people who want to kiss within it,
Speaker 2: they can probably assume these guys will kiss someday. Well,
Speaker 2: we want to see it, and maybe we give them
Speaker 2: privacy for that. We don't need to give them privacy.
Speaker 2: They're characters in a scripted movie. In a way, this
Speaker 2: ending is a means to make sure that we really
Speaker 2: wrap things up with it in a celebratory good way.
Speaker 2: I disagree. What's more celebratory than a kiss.
Speaker 1: So here's what's weird.
Speaker 2: So if we would, okay, But he just said they
Speaker 2: can assume they kiss. The entire point of film it
Speaker 2: is is that it is a visual medium that shows
Speaker 2: us the story. Think about how simple that is. It's
Speaker 2: not radio, it's not it's visual. We want to see
Speaker 2: the kiss.
Speaker 1: First of all, this will be released because this was
Speaker 1: a huge gaff, a massive miss. There's a scene at
Speaker 1: the end shout out to the Oklahoma City Airport. It
Speaker 1: was shot in the airport there and you know, you'll
Speaker 1: see how it plays out. I don't want to ruin
Speaker 1: too much because it's a very sweet scene. It is.
Speaker 1: By the way, this is what the hypocrisy is on this.
Speaker 1: The whole ending is so cliche. You see it coming
Speaker 1: a mile away the last two minutes. You anybody could
Speaker 1: write this scene and it is so cliche. The boy
Speaker 1: chasing the girl and in the interview the airport. How
Speaker 1: cliche is that the chase down in the airport.
Speaker 2: Well, now you're really revealing the ending.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing there is the chase does matter.
Speaker 2: The ending does so cliche, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's when Harry met Sally. It's every rom com we've
Speaker 1: ever loved. Give me the frickin' ending.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Daisy Edgar Jones said in this interview, we
Speaker 2: thought that getting rid of the kiss made it or
Speaker 2: stopped it from being too cliche. Like maybe they felt
Speaker 2: like the kiss just made it way too cheesy given
Speaker 2: all those other factors.
Speaker 1: You just said, this cliche was thelm and Louise. We
Speaker 1: drove off the cliff. It couldn't be more cliche. Trum.
Speaker 2: I'm on your side. Listen if you and I Love
Speaker 2: We met, you know, over a reality show about love.
Speaker 2: I Love Love on TV and I've seen it. I
Speaker 2: had heard about this even without having seen it, because
Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter a lot or X and people. It
Speaker 2: was kind of trending over the weekend that people were like,
Speaker 2: bring back kisses in movies. So I'm interested in if
Speaker 2: now that once the movie's out a few weeks, if
Speaker 2: the director or if Glenn and Daisy changed their tune
Speaker 2: on whether they think the kiss should have stayed in
Speaker 2: once they hear more audience response, because and that is
Speaker 2: something that's gone away, like kissing. Like I don't know,
Speaker 2: we kind of had this walk back of like you know, needing.
Speaker 2: It's like a lot of the times when things need
Speaker 2: to be corrected at first, we overcorrect. And I think
Speaker 2: a few years ago there as part of many movements,
Speaker 2: it was like actors shouldn't have to have sex on
Speaker 2: screen and movies and bringing intimacy coordinators on set, and
Speaker 2: that's a good thing. An intimacy coordinator should be on
Speaker 2: set to help people feel comfortable and film and all that.
Speaker 2: But I do think people love to see love stories
Speaker 2: and they like to escape into great makeout scenes and
Speaker 2: even sex scenes and movies.
Speaker 1: What books are most women reading?
Speaker 2: Romance novel true crime thrillers, true.
Speaker 1: Romance novels, heavy sex scenes. You know, I know, we've
Speaker 1: gotten rid of sex scenes, We've gotten rid of nudity,
Speaker 1: now we've gotten rid of the kiss. I in my
Speaker 1: opinion and my experience of being on a show all
Speaker 1: about the kiss, lean into it. You can't be cliche
Speaker 1: enough when it comes to love.
Speaker 2: Also, Glenn, I got to tell you a lot of
Speaker 2: your audience wants to see you kiss. That's that's part
Speaker 2: of what they're there for.
Speaker 1: My first it was so they stopped the cliche just
Speaker 1: a bit. But even with that said, twisters, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give it a nine point eight out of ten
Speaker 1: because they missed the kiss, that took that doctum two tense. Wow,
Speaker 1: the dismount. They just missed the dismount. It's the Olympics
Speaker 1: coming out and sports.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me go back to the F five comment
Speaker 2: from you. Yes, please share how you know what the
Speaker 2: different levels of tornadoes are and then give us your
Speaker 2: what you will reveal to be expert take on this movie.
Speaker 1: This is why this movie was bizarrely emotional for me
Speaker 1: and Taylor. Even our daughter was with me, and so
Speaker 1: she looked over, She's like, are you okay? And I
Speaker 1: was like really kind of intently staring at the screen.
Speaker 1: At the end, it was really emotional because the original
Speaker 1: was shot back in the mid nineties. That's and it
Speaker 1: was shot in Oklahoma when I was a sportscaster and
Speaker 1: news journalist in Oklahoma. And so the original movie actually
Speaker 1: involved like our meteorologist Gary England, who helped create Doppler
Speaker 1: radar back in the day. He was like the guy
Speaker 1: when there was tornadoes and he had a bit part
Speaker 1: in the movie. A lot of the meteorologists around Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City did have you know, they were in the background
Speaker 1: when the tornadoes are coming and you're watching the news footage.
Speaker 1: That was real and those people are the people we
Speaker 1: worked with on the day to day in the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: and it was this was a big deal in the
Speaker 1: middle of Oklahoma in the mid nineties. Bill Paxton was
Speaker 1: in town and they did a movie premiere in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: For us, it was a big deal.
Speaker 2: So you were working where then.
Speaker 1: I was at kW TV, the CBS affiliate Channel nine
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: And did they film in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: They should part all over Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Parts of it were on a set, but parts of
Speaker 1: it were in Oklahoma, and I don't know, I have
Speaker 1: to look it up to see where they shot.
Speaker 2: The premiere was in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: One of them.
Speaker 2: Well you know how they move, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they you know, like our our meteorologist Gary
Speaker 1: was like on the red carpet, will you know. We
Speaker 1: just thought it was the biggest thing.
Speaker 2: In the world, you know, you know where you would
Speaker 2: go from, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Hollywood coming to Oklahoma City. It was a big deal.
Speaker 1: It was my first taste of that world. But the
Speaker 1: other thing is this was ninety six, so I had
Speaker 1: been working for three years. My last big one of
Speaker 1: my last big news stories that I covered because I
Speaker 1: would cross over and do news from time to time,
Speaker 1: was the biggest tornado outbreak in the history of Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: which is basically what this movie is about. Was the
Speaker 1: biggest tornado outbreak and then the biggest tornado dropping That
Speaker 1: happened in May of ninety nine. The day was crazy.
Speaker 1: There had been tornadoes all day. I was in the
Speaker 1: sports office, so our storm trackers, stormchasers were all over
Speaker 1: the state because there had been fifty sixty tornadoes, all
Speaker 1: these storms, and so everybody was spread out late afternoon
Speaker 1: early evening. The biggest tornado, one of the biggest, I
Speaker 1: don't want to misquote myself, but I think it was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest ever in the history of Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Dropped in the middle of Oklahoma City in the Midwest
Speaker 1: City Dell City area, went kind of across Tinker Air
Speaker 1: Force Base, and I think more across the Air Force
Speaker 1: base into Midwest City del City, because that's where I
Speaker 1: caught up with it. So our news director went running
Speaker 1: through the office screaming, who can go? We need a
Speaker 1: photographer and a reporter. They stuck their head in the
Speaker 1: sports office. My boss was like zero chance Harrison Europe.
Speaker 1: And so my sports photographer and I get in the
Speaker 1: car and start chasing this tornado. And back then we
Speaker 1: didn't have all the technology. We had a CBE radio.
Speaker 1: There was a meteorologist on air that was Gary England.
Speaker 1: Then there was this other guy, I forget his name,
Speaker 1: Brady Bruce. Brady Bruce was he was also meteorologist, but
Speaker 1: his job with essentially like matchbox cars. Toy cars would
Speaker 1: map where you are and he would watch the tornado
Speaker 1: to hopefully keep you out of harm's way.
Speaker 2: It sounds like Game of Thrones level safety and strategizing
Speaker 2: in wartime.
Speaker 1: One thing you can usually count on with tornadoes. They
Speaker 1: move in a northeasterly direction, so you get on the
Speaker 1: southwest side of them and follow them.
Speaker 2: Was this the first time you'd covered a toy?
Speaker 1: I had been out four, but not to this extent.
Speaker 2: Wow. So you were literally thrown into storms.
Speaker 1: And I have video. I'll put this up on my
Speaker 1: social media. I have video of I got to the
Speaker 1: Midwest City, Dell City area, right after the tornado ripped through,
Speaker 1: and it was it really is like the movie. This
Speaker 1: is where I will give kudos to Twisters. The effects
Speaker 1: are real looking and the after effects how the towns
Speaker 1: look when a tornado has ripped through is very very real.
Speaker 1: I mean it's you'll see when I put up this
Speaker 1: social media video on my Instagram. It looks like it's
Speaker 1: the movie. Cars are strewn, trees are just ripped clean.
Speaker 1: Where where houses were there's just a slab. Stuff is
Speaker 1: just thrown everywhere. It's it's the craziest thing you've ever
Speaker 1: walked in. And right after a tornado it gets kind
Speaker 1: of soupy green. It gets kind of still, and it's
Speaker 1: eerie because all you really hear is the hiss of gas.
Speaker 1: Typically it's not raining, and there might be a little wind,
Speaker 1: but it's not too dramatic, and it's just eerie because
Speaker 1: all you're hearing is just gas leaks and people crying out,
Speaker 1: and it's a very eerie feeling. One thing that Twisters
Speaker 1: does dramatically a lot of people get sucked up in
Speaker 1: these tornadoes in the movie. In the movie, so there
Speaker 1: are several deaths in the movie for dramatic effect. Ironically,
Speaker 1: not a lot of people die because we know when
Speaker 1: you're living in a tornado alley where to go and what
Speaker 1: to do. Get in your if you have a basement,
Speaker 1: or you get in your bathtub for the F one
Speaker 1: through kind of F three tornadoes. But the interesting thing
Speaker 1: about the tornado I chase the F five. It was
Speaker 1: so big. It was the first time I heard kind
Speaker 1: of fear in our meteorologist Gary England's voice, and he
Speaker 1: was said, if you cannot get underground, you will die.
Speaker 1: Get underground or you will die. So if you can't
Speaker 1: get underground, and he never says this because you should
Speaker 1: never try to outrun a tornado. He was telling people,
Speaker 1: get in your car, get out of there. You have
Speaker 1: no hope of just being in your bathtub and being
Speaker 1: in a closet because this will one hundred percent destroy
Speaker 1: your house. And he's right, and this you'll see in
Speaker 1: my reporting. Nobody died in that F five tornado that
Speaker 1: went through. There were a lot of injuries because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of debris and cuts and it's it's wild.
Speaker 1: So this movie has a uh.
Speaker 2: So, what was making you emotional in the theater just
Speaker 2: took it.
Speaker 1: Took me back to my breaking news days. It took
Speaker 1: me back to that young man that was so like
Speaker 1: wide eyed and scared and covering it to his first
Speaker 1: big I mean, this was huge, a huge tornado, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I remember walking through the streets. We would,
Speaker 1: you know, helping people get out of their storm shelters
Speaker 1: because people were in their storm shelters and a washing
Speaker 1: machine or whatever was on top of it and there
Speaker 1: were gas leaks, so they were smelling gas. It was
Speaker 1: pitch black in their storm shelter and they couldn't get out.
Speaker 1: So we were like clearing debris and we would when
Speaker 1: people were injured, we'd put them on a piece of plywood,
Speaker 1: carry them to the street until you know, emergency vehicles
Speaker 1: could get in. So it was a lot of triage,
Speaker 1: a lot of just and for you know, a young
Speaker 1: and it was such a wild, emotional day and it
Speaker 1: kind of took me back to that. It was really Uh,
Speaker 1: they did a really good job. It's very realistic, very good. Again,
Speaker 1: too many people are getting sucked up all the time.
Speaker 1: But with that said, it was And there is a
Speaker 1: scene in there. You know she's holding you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a gladiator when he you know, grabs
Speaker 1: the dirt before war. You know, she's like holding a
Speaker 1: dandelion and she can read the weather by the dandelion
Speaker 1: being blown around. A little whimsical and fantastically.
Speaker 2: This in Gary, England could have done that.
Speaker 1: Gary England could have done it. But shout out to
Speaker 1: all the meteorologists in Tornado Alley. It's funny. We get
Speaker 1: so mad because they put the map up and they
Speaker 1: cover up programming, but when you need them, you're happy
Speaker 1: they're there.
Speaker 2: Oh well, well, that's the number one thing always that
Speaker 2: people watch on local news, right is the weather forever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's interesting because I grew up in Chicago, and
Speaker 2: I've seen that green sky before, and we have tornado season,
Speaker 2: not on the level of Oklahoma, but like when we
Speaker 2: first moved to Texas or even in I guess in California,
Speaker 2: I knew there weren't really tornadoes, But when we first
Speaker 2: moved to Texas, I'm like, why doesn't anybody have a
Speaker 2: basement here? Like you guys get tornadoes right because and
Speaker 2: I guess we don't really get them in Austin, but
Speaker 2: in Chicago, everybody as a basement, and we were.
Speaker 1: A city you do, I guess because of the soil
Speaker 1: and whatever going on in Texas and Dallas, you can't
Speaker 1: really have basements. I'm sure you could now, but back
Speaker 1: in the day they just didn't build them.
Speaker 2: And one of the you know, wherever you grew up,
Speaker 2: you know that type of disaster.
Speaker 1: And you know where to go. I mean, as kids
Speaker 1: growing up in Dallas, we spent so many days in
Speaker 1: the spring hunkered down in the hallway or in the gym,
Speaker 1: you know, with your head between your legs and hunkered
Speaker 1: down no because tornadoes were you know, the sirens were going.
Speaker 1: And this one of the other big emotional scenes at
Speaker 1: the end. It was really funny because again Taylor, our daughter,
Speaker 1: caught me. There's a scene in al Reno, Oklahoma, big
Speaker 1: scene at the end and where the big tornado comes through.
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time in a Reno. It's
Speaker 1: just outside Oklahoma City, I want to say, like forty
Speaker 1: five minute drive. And one of my fraternity brothers we
Speaker 1: used to go out there and play golf at al
Speaker 1: Reno Country Club, and so it just it took me back.
Speaker 1: It really took me back to my Oklahoma days. It's
Speaker 1: it's a life and a world that I was very
Speaker 1: proud of, and I, you know, really draw back to
Speaker 1: a lot of people, my mentors. You knows who I
Speaker 1: found in Oklahoma City is where I went to college,
Speaker 1: and so it was just cool. I like, I like
Speaker 1: when places like that are put on the map.
Speaker 2: Well, we are going to go see Twisters again?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: I love that just a few days later you will
Speaker 2: are willing to go see it with me again. I
Speaker 2: love when a movie as well at the box office.
Speaker 1: I can remember the last time I wanted to see
Speaker 1: a movie twice.
Speaker 2: That's a big rave review that you want to see
Speaker 2: it twice in the theater.
Speaker 1: I'm double dipping on Twisters, and I'll put up that
Speaker 1: video because it's really funny, and don't make fun of
Speaker 1: my Oklahoma accent by the way, because it is heavy.
Speaker 1: So Number one, congratulations to everybody involved with the movie Twisters,
Speaker 1: huge success of the box office. It's good to see
Speaker 1: movies back, and we will see you at the cinema. No,
Speaker 1: we will talk to you again next time because we
Speaker 1: have a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever
Speaker 1: and make sure to write us a review and leave
Speaker 1: us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.