Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This
Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and I'm Annie Reese. That's right. Can
Speaker 1: I just jump in? Yeah? Yeah, that's that's that's perfectly,
Speaker 1: perfectly fine. That's the way to do it. Yes, everyone,
Speaker 1: it's Annie Reese of Stuff Mom Never told You and
Speaker 1: Safer Um. She is going to join me as my
Speaker 1: guest co host today as Joe is still very much
Speaker 1: on parental leave. Uh. And we kind of had a
Speaker 1: back and forth about what to discuss here, and eventually
Speaker 1: there was just no denying the appeal of Congo. I
Speaker 1: think it was my first option, and I'm very sorry
Speaker 1: if I overwhelmed you, because I do love movies. I
Speaker 1: do love bad slash weird. I don't want to put
Speaker 1: them in the same category, but I do love movies
Speaker 1: that kind of make you raise your eyebrow like huh um.
Speaker 1: So when you asked, I was super excited and immediately
Speaker 1: sent you I think like fifteen suggestionss what Congo was
Speaker 1: the first one. And I hope Joe is not mad
Speaker 1: that we're doing it without him, because I've talked about
Speaker 1: Congo with him um, but it is just something that
Speaker 1: is hard to explain. In fact, last night I was
Speaker 1: going over some of your notes and I was laughing
Speaker 1: aloud at your notes because it's just a strange film.
Speaker 1: So much of it is hard to describe, and I
Speaker 1: kind of love that about it. I'm kind of endeared
Speaker 1: by how strange it is, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's one of those films where, on one hand, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine Congo is anyone's favorite movie. No, and yet
Speaker 1: it's hard not to love. And if not parts of
Speaker 1: the film or the whole film itself, you you've still
Speaker 1: got to admire sort of the the guts to try
Speaker 1: and put together something like this like this was. It's
Speaker 1: it's like a throwback to older jungle adventure movies, but
Speaker 1: with the high tech Michael Crichton edge to it. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure ultimately anybody was really clamoring for this,
Speaker 1: but it's it's hard to argue with the fun results here. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I think that's It's such a It's a movie that
Speaker 1: continually is asking you, like, well, don't ask too many questions.
Speaker 1: Just come along with this journey. We don't have to
Speaker 1: explain this. It's just gonna be fun, and it's it's
Speaker 1: it does end up being very fun, even though at
Speaker 1: the end you're like, but wait, and it just like
Speaker 1: switches genres a million times. It's never entirely clear like
Speaker 1: what it's trying to be. It's very obviously in the
Speaker 1: shadow of Jurassic Park, because they had come out in
Speaker 1: the wake of Jurassic Park. Um, but there's something about
Speaker 1: about so much of the acting in it that is
Speaker 1: just full hearted despite what is going on around, like
Speaker 1: maybe even because of what is going on in the
Speaker 1: script that is just hard not to kind of it
Speaker 1: just kind of wind you over. You're like, oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: let's go on this journey it has. It has a
Speaker 1: lot of energy, and it has some great performers in it,
Speaker 1: who many of which really decided to chew the scenery,
Speaker 1: which I think is the right impulse for a film
Speaker 1: like this. And then the genre I wouldn't I won't
Speaker 1: say it's necessarily genre confusion, but you there are elements
Speaker 1: of this movie that are kind of monster film and
Speaker 1: and perhaps even seem like they might venture into horror.
Speaker 1: But there's also plenty of stuff that's just kind of
Speaker 1: this old fashioned essentially like a jungle cruise kind of adventure.
Speaker 1: And and if if you go in just hungry for
Speaker 1: the killer drillas, you get a little bit at the beginning,
Speaker 1: but then you gotta wait a long time before you
Speaker 1: get back to them. I think I read I read
Speaker 1: an article that said, if you're for a movie that
Speaker 1: was like promising killer guerrillas, you only really get them
Speaker 1: at the one hundred minute mark, just constantly like but
Speaker 1: wait where okay, but then they and then the ultimately guessyeah,
Speaker 1: they're not on screen a lot, but there are a
Speaker 1: lot of gorillas on screen when they are on screen,
Speaker 1: so you do get to see a lot of really
Speaker 1: amazing guerrilla costumes. And I'm I'm a sucker. I'm a
Speaker 1: sucker for a bad gorilla costume much and you bring
Speaker 1: a great gorilla costume, and I'm totally on board. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I if you would allow me, I would love
Speaker 1: to tell the very complicated story of how I saw congo.
Speaker 1: Oh let's hear it. Yes, okay, okay, um, so come
Speaker 1: along with this journey like this is oh so I
Speaker 1: One of the first movies I ever saw in theaters
Speaker 1: was Jurassic Park. I snuck into the theater. I was
Speaker 1: like three or four. I should not have been there,
Speaker 1: and I had a nightmare about raptors that I and
Speaker 1: I couldn't hide that I had seen this movie because
Speaker 1: it became very clear. So I got very big trouble
Speaker 1: for it. But I loved the movie, and after that
Speaker 1: I became Once I got older, I read a lot
Speaker 1: of Michael Crichton. I really liked Spear. I think my
Speaker 1: interest was sort of um reignited in the two thousand's
Speaker 1: Um after Lost, because there's a big lost theory about
Speaker 1: the book prey Um. Yeah, So I started reading it
Speaker 1: again and somehow Congo never entered this year. I did
Speaker 1: not know it was written by Michael Crichton. I because
Speaker 1: I'm kind of gullible and sometimes terrible at deciphering sarcasm,
Speaker 1: had been told that Congo was an Oscar winning movie
Speaker 1: and like best film level, okay, so I I thought
Speaker 1: it was going to be this really dramatic, sad take
Speaker 1: on I don't know, diamonds and or guerrillas in Africa, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, that is one thing that does not
Speaker 1: age well me. Um. So I was preparing it for
Speaker 1: it to be a really emotional, sad film and because
Speaker 1: of that I had put it off. I'd put off
Speaker 1: seeing it for years and years and years, still not
Speaker 1: knowing it's Michael Criton. And so at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the pandemic um when it's like, oh gosh, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna have to start, I'm gonna stream everything because that's
Speaker 1: what I that's what I have the only left to
Speaker 1: me to do. I was with a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: a very very good friend of mine, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what to nice to night, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do Congo. I'm gonna stream it. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: sad and it's going to be great and I So
Speaker 1: we kept putting it off even into the night, and
Speaker 1: so it was like two am, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of tipsy, and I started watching it, and she went,
Speaker 1: she went to lay down into a room next to
Speaker 1: me so she could still hear me, but she wasn't
Speaker 1: watching it. So what follows was me desperately trying to
Speaker 1: make sense in my head about how this could be
Speaker 1: a best Picture Oscar movie, and me shouting at Katie like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Tim Curry showed up and he's got
Speaker 1: some accents I can't explain, and her being like what
Speaker 1: and me being like, oh my gosh, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a talking griprilla and like smartinis what's going on? And
Speaker 1: just like my brain desperately trying to make this make sense.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a real testament to like what
Speaker 1: you think a movie is when you go into it,
Speaker 1: of how hard I was trying to well there's I mean,
Speaker 1: surely it's something. I'm maybe I'm missing something or and
Speaker 1: so I it wasn't until the lasers laser ring of
Speaker 1: the gorillas at the end that I was finally like,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure this movie one any Oscars. Then with
Speaker 1: the escape apen the hot air balloon, I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: there in a hot air balloon. I don't think I
Speaker 1: don't think this was an award winning movie at all.
Speaker 1: And so then I desperately like go online and I
Speaker 1: searched what is this movie? And to my delight, I
Speaker 1: found several several articles about it that were like exactly that,
Speaker 1: what is this movie? Um? And I read them all
Speaker 1: and then I said, we are watching this again, and
Speaker 1: I need you to witness what I just saw. So
Speaker 1: it was like only a couple of years ago I
Speaker 1: saw it, and I just It's still left such a
Speaker 1: mark on me because I was the whole time, what
Speaker 1: is going on here? Oh wow, that's so Yeah. If
Speaker 1: you go into into into the film Congo expecting one
Speaker 1: of these, and then they were I believe, several like
Speaker 1: serious films that came out and at least in the
Speaker 1: decade that followed, dealing with like serious dramatic scenarios in Africa. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is this is not one of them, though, but
Speaker 1: I can imagine that. Yeah, you're surprised when these various
Speaker 1: speculative and fantastic elements begin to pop up. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: the hot air ballue. It's the funniest part to me
Speaker 1: is that I made it all the way to that
Speaker 1: part before I was finally like, something's off here. I
Speaker 1: think I've been told a lie about what it is
Speaker 1: that is that's amazing to the second viewing you had,
Speaker 1: that was the one where you went in having full
Speaker 1: knowledge of what Congo was and what you're going to
Speaker 1: get out of it. Yes, and now I've seen it
Speaker 1: several several times and it's kind of a tradition, a
Speaker 1: tradition with me and some friends that we watch it
Speaker 1: and mostly we just are like, look, at what Tim
Speaker 1: Curry is doing, because he's really, like you said, a
Speaker 1: lot of the actors are chewing up the scenery. Him
Speaker 1: and Ernie Hudson are just it feels like they're having
Speaker 1: a good time. And yeah, I hope so because they
Speaker 1: it's it's shining through and it's so fun to just
Speaker 1: watch them have that fun. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to talking more about about Ernie Hudson in a
Speaker 1: bit because it is it is a great Ernie Hudson roll. Uh,
Speaker 1: perhaps his best roll. It's it's amazing. Now my history
Speaker 1: with Congo, Uh, it's very much connected to Jurassic Park,
Speaker 1: you know, because Jurassic Park comes out in theaters. I
Speaker 1: think I was fourteen at that point, and like a
Speaker 1: lot of kids of that of that age in that
Speaker 1: time period, like instantly you're you're in on Michael Crichton books.
Speaker 1: You pick up a copy of Jurassic Park, you read
Speaker 1: that and uh, and they both provide a very similar
Speaker 1: but slightly differing experiences. And I remember my my dad
Speaker 1: had read and was reading some Michael Crichton at the time,
Speaker 1: so we kind of had that to bond over, and
Speaker 1: I read I read a series of them at the time,
Speaker 1: I think I read Sphere, which I think I've mostly forgotten,
Speaker 1: Eaters of the Dead, which I enjoyed a lot, and
Speaker 1: then the novel Congo, which of course is the basis
Speaker 1: for this film. Um So, looking back on it, I
Speaker 1: think I was drawn in more to the more fantastic
Speaker 1: of the Michael Crichton books, the ones that involved dinosaurs
Speaker 1: coming back from the dead, uh, cannibal caveman attacking vikings,
Speaker 1: and of course this wonderful tale of of strange lost
Speaker 1: guerrillas and lost cities in the jungle and superpowered lasers
Speaker 1: of course, and diamonds that somehow, you know, that's one
Speaker 1: of my other favorite parts of this movie. And I
Speaker 1: am a big sucker for this period of technology where
Speaker 1: I experienced it. I grew up with it, but it
Speaker 1: feels so outdated and kind of like wonky now, and
Speaker 1: it's clear that, like the understanding wasn't entirely there. So
Speaker 1: I love the plot line of just like, don't ask
Speaker 1: too many questions, but this diamond is how we're going
Speaker 1: to revolutionize communications technology and it is necessary for satellites. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The techno aspect of the film is it's one of
Speaker 1: the aspects of Michael Crichton's work that I think tended
Speaker 1: to set a lot of his stuff apart, especially from
Speaker 1: this period of his writing, because you had he had
Speaker 1: a real knack for like adventure and thriller stories, but
Speaker 1: then would would bring in this level of technology and
Speaker 1: technological uh speculation, and yeah, it made things feel more
Speaker 1: alive at the time. Some of it maybe it has
Speaker 1: not aged as well, just because that's how that's how
Speaker 1: cutting edge sci fi works. As you eventually reached the
Speaker 1: period where you you read Neuromancer again and you're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: they're sending faxes. Um, that doesn't feel very cyberpunk, but
Speaker 1: but it's just how it goes. Yeah, and I do
Speaker 1: love it. I mean, there's so many parts of this
Speaker 1: movie where it is very fun, which again I'll use
Speaker 1: that word a lot because I do think Congo is
Speaker 1: a very fun movie. Um to look back at the
Speaker 1: technology and just smile to yourself and be like, well,
Speaker 1: it was a different time and they were trying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, this is a pretty pricey film. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's the most expensive film that we've watched
Speaker 1: on on Weird House, but it's Um, it's it's up there.
Speaker 1: It was a big summer blockbuster, and the weird thing
Speaker 1: is that it was successful. I understand it. It maybe
Speaker 1: not critically, but it made money at the box I was.
Speaker 1: People went out and saw it and they enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And yet it is it is the right level of
Speaker 1: blockbuster where it's sort of culturally forgotten by a lot
Speaker 1: of people, which allows someone like you to come around
Speaker 1: later and go into it not knowing exactly what you're
Speaker 1: going to get out of it. Yeah. Such a lot
Speaker 1: of the articles I read before this, a lot of
Speaker 1: people said that, like people are rediscovering Congo and asking
Speaker 1: the same questions I did after watching it. And it
Speaker 1: is interesting because, as you said, people saw it and
Speaker 1: it had a huge marketing push, huge marketing push. From
Speaker 1: what I understand, I think there was a quote from
Speaker 1: one of the somebody higher up involved in the film
Speaker 1: that he basically said, anybody who doesn't see Congo is
Speaker 1: a terrible person or something. But they have a real
Speaker 1: really hyping this and I'm surprised that. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: I guess people were like, sure there was this talking gorilla,
Speaker 1: let's move on to another thing. But now people are
Speaker 1: rediscovering it. And it is. It's just a ride. I'm
Speaker 1: excited for any listeners who haven't seen it to just
Speaker 1: just describing the plot. That was one of the most
Speaker 1: fun things that night when I was watching it the
Speaker 1: first time and just shouting these random phrases to my
Speaker 1: friend in the other boom, like I had to share
Speaker 1: it with her because this is so bizarre to explain
Speaker 1: to someone. Yeah, it's it's the story behind it is
Speaker 1: kind of bizarre to um. I was reading a little
Speaker 1: bit about this. Like, one thing we have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind is that coming back to the period that
Speaker 1: the book comes out, So by the late seventies, Michael
Speaker 1: Crichton was already a big name, both with books but
Speaker 1: also with movies. We'll get into of that in a bit,
Speaker 1: but the story goes that he had this idea to
Speaker 1: do a modern King Solomon's Minds type movie, a modern
Speaker 1: jungle adventure but updated for modern audiences, with lots of
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Crichton technos stuff in it. And twentieth
Speaker 1: Century Fox loved it. In fact, they loved it so
Speaker 1: much that they signed him to a contract to write
Speaker 1: the novel, the screenplay, and direct it before there was
Speaker 1: even a book Uh, he signed, but then he got
Speaker 1: massive writer's block and had to use an isolation tank
Speaker 1: to overcome it. And that is where Congo comes from.
Speaker 1: It emerges from the isolation tank. That makes sense. That
Speaker 1: makes sense. And he had some really this original take
Speaker 1: on the film that he was going to do. It
Speaker 1: sounds like it was going to be extremely different, uh,
Speaker 1: and also kind of gave me the vibes of like,
Speaker 1: how is this going to get made? How are we
Speaker 1: going to translate the story to a movie? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think there were there were some some issues early on,
Speaker 1: just like how would you create like the guerrillas. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons they ended up making it,
Speaker 1: they're like, well, we've done Jurassic Park, now we can
Speaker 1: do anything. Let's make c g I guerrillas. And I
Speaker 1: think it didn't take them long to realize that that
Speaker 1: a that wasn't really achievable, mainly because of the fur issue,
Speaker 1: but then also I think they encountered something that that
Speaker 1: the filmmakers have have sort of have to rekeep reminding them,
Speaker 1: and that is guerilla suits absolutely work. Guerrilla suits are great.
Speaker 1: You get a good physical actor in there who can
Speaker 1: move around properly. And and it's amazing. It totally in fact,
Speaker 1: it works so well. You know, you you will encounter
Speaker 1: films like say, hell Boy. I remember seeing some behind
Speaker 1: the scenes stuff with Giama do Toro. We was talking
Speaker 1: about creating these um like secondary demon monsters that held
Speaker 1: boy battles, and he was like, well, basically we said,
Speaker 1: let's start with the guerilla suit and let's just monster
Speaker 1: it up. Make it not a guerrilla but ad men,
Speaker 1: but performance wise, it's essentially a guerrilla suit because that
Speaker 1: absolutely works. Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting because I do
Speaker 1: think um and I just watched documentary about this the
Speaker 1: other day about special effects, and I do think it's
Speaker 1: interesting that like Jurassic Park was such this like touchstone
Speaker 1: in terms of technology what we can do, and it
Speaker 1: was a lot in a lot of ways, like they
Speaker 1: had so many practical things, but they also had c
Speaker 1: g I and so I think there was a lot
Speaker 1: of like, well maybe c g I sounds cooler, like
Speaker 1: this technology is newrous what much must be better? And
Speaker 1: I think that we have seen and have talked about
Speaker 1: like c g I is obviously gotten a lot better
Speaker 1: since then, but in those early days especially, there was
Speaker 1: something better. It worked better to have these guerrilla suits
Speaker 1: as opposed to trying to do something with c g I.
Speaker 1: Like there Stan Winston who was behind it, like he
Speaker 1: he created these, and I don't think I think it
Speaker 1: would have been much worse if they had trying to
Speaker 1: go a different route, especially because as we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about there, I can't say it enough that this
Speaker 1: guerrilla like drink some martini, like we can't. I think
Speaker 1: if they had tried to c g I some of
Speaker 1: this stuff, or gone a different way than guerrilla suits,
Speaker 1: then it would be funnier in a way that they
Speaker 1: absolutely didn't intend. There are certain scenes in this movie
Speaker 1: where I'm like, I can't tell if you meant for
Speaker 1: this to be funny or not. But if they had
Speaker 1: gone c g I guerrillas, it would be an entirely
Speaker 1: different piece. Because there's plenty of stuff about this film
Speaker 1: that does feel dated, be at this sort of high
Speaker 1: tech stuff or the general like sheen that is over everything,
Speaker 1: and and like the film doesn't have like a visual
Speaker 1: um vision. I guess that really supersedes that ninety five
Speaker 1: nous of the whole picture. But the gorilla suits, amy
Speaker 1: that they all look very real. You still buy them
Speaker 1: like they hold up, even if there are other aspects
Speaker 1: of filmed it down. It's true. It's true. So but
Speaker 1: before we we go move on to the trailer, and
Speaker 1: I'll one more thing I want to add is that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I very much remember enjoying the book. I did read
Speaker 1: the book first. On this one. It's full of a
Speaker 1: lot of traditional jungle adventure story elements, but with the
Speaker 1: added laser technology that's very much in there. It does
Speaker 1: get progressively weirder as you end up learning more about
Speaker 1: these mysterious gray apes in this lost city. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of this ties into some elements of
Speaker 1: essentially what was kind of darwin exploitation fiction of yesteryear. Uh.
Speaker 1: We see this in um in the works of of
Speaker 1: HP lovecrafts uh of acts concerning the late author German
Speaker 1: um J. E. R. M. Y And but also Sir
Speaker 1: Arthur Cunnan Doyle. Uh he had he had one of
Speaker 1: the Sherlock Home adventures called the Adventure of the Crooked
Speaker 1: Man and uh. And then there's also it's also worth
Speaker 1: noting that the Lovecraft tail in question kind of links
Speaker 1: back to an Edgar Rice Burrow story from nineteen sixteen
Speaker 1: titled Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, which also seems
Speaker 1: very It seems like it was probably a primary inspiration
Speaker 1: on Michael Crichton here because it concerns a lost city
Speaker 1: and it also concerns a group of human ape hybrids
Speaker 1: that protected and all of these films, I mean, all
Speaker 1: these stories that I just mentioned, Uh, they all have
Speaker 1: elements of human ape hybrid city and strange things, strange
Speaker 1: apes and sort of evolution tinged danger. Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good point. And I do have a quote I
Speaker 1: want to read at the end, but somebody was reviewing
Speaker 1: it and was just asking, like the monstrous gray apes
Speaker 1: and this, if you dig too deep into why they exist,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make sense. Um. No, no, it doesn't
Speaker 1: really make sense at all. But that's true. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: kind of um, evolution gone wrong or maybe like even
Speaker 1: our fears around evolution and even some of those past
Speaker 1: perhaps scare stories and sometimes not scary stories of experiments
Speaker 1: done with humans and apes and like the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, But then you always had kind
Speaker 1: of the comedic tinge of you know, hearing the Henderson's,
Speaker 1: Like there was a lot going on in that genre
Speaker 1: activity or in that kind of specific idea. Uh so
Speaker 1: that's interesting, all right, Well it is again a jungle
Speaker 1: adventure movie, but with satellites and lasers. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and hear that fabulous mid nineties trailer audio to activate
Speaker 1: the remote in the race for the world's most advanced
Speaker 1: communications technology, are shocking discovery has been made. Lock your
Speaker 1: remote giving a thermal reading result to six six. It
Speaker 1: will take two long scientists into the heart of the
Speaker 1: African jungle. There a secret hidden for two thousand years
Speaker 1: owns the gay to the future. This is Karen Ross
Speaker 1: eight one five to Houston. Do you read you used
Speaker 1: to work and now you're trapical. Some will come to
Speaker 1: it for science, the big deals. This is a big five,
Speaker 1: some for fortune, an island line of incredible bounty, and
Speaker 1: some to return home. She doesn't really belong anywhere? Does
Speaker 1: she know she belongs here? Together they will search. My
Speaker 1: boss thought I wasn't going to make it. He set
Speaker 1: another expedition, drawn deep into a mystery camp destroid people
Speaker 1: dead and greg gorillas. I saw one. And the more
Speaker 1: they discover the same eer glyphics over and over, the
Speaker 1: greater the danger. What did they say, we are watching?
Speaker 1: You saw an animal move like that. How intelligent are
Speaker 1: the too damn spots we're getting out of here? What
Speaker 1: about put him on the iner species lift from the
Speaker 1: best selling novel by the author of Jurassic Artu of
Speaker 1: the Villa Ape is true. Yea Congo where you are
Speaker 1: the endangered species? See it sounds like it's going to
Speaker 1: be an adventure. It sounds like something that you're gonna
Speaker 1: You're gonna buy a lot of popcorn and cold before
Speaker 1: and you're just just try not to pee the entire time.
Speaker 1: There's a part of me that wishes I had seen
Speaker 1: I think if I had seen the trailer and had
Speaker 1: no idea about the movie, I wish I am jealous
Speaker 1: I didn't get to have that experience. I suppose um,
Speaker 1: because it's actually having seen it, it's a pretty accurate trailer.
Speaker 1: I was expecting something cheesier, to be honest, but it
Speaker 1: could be because I've seen Congo a lot by now. UM,
Speaker 1: so it didn't have exactly the as much of the
Speaker 1: strangeness and dated vibe that I thought it would. And
Speaker 1: it does feel very much like, Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: popcorn movie. Um, come out and enjoy your popcorn, have fun,
Speaker 1: and then go and home and forget about it. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know that much of the film really stuck
Speaker 1: with me. In fact, there are elements of the film
Speaker 1: that I remembered as being different because of the book.
Speaker 1: Like I just ended up assuming that the parts of
Speaker 1: the book were, uh, we're accurately depicted in the film,
Speaker 1: and so I just remembered the film is having those details,
Speaker 1: and uh, well, we'll come back to what those are
Speaker 1: in a bit. But if you are looking to have
Speaker 1: your first Congo experience, or your first Congo experience in decades, well,
Speaker 1: lucky for you, Congo is widely available, well even if
Speaker 1: if it's partially forgotten as much as a blockbuster can
Speaker 1: be forgotten. I watched it on a very old feeling
Speaker 1: DVD that I rented from Video Drum here in Atlanta. Uh,
Speaker 1: there is a Blu ray from and then there in
Speaker 1: their HD digital copies you can rent or purchase online.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it's received a full blown special
Speaker 1: a ship. So there are no like real Congo extras
Speaker 1: out there floating around, which seems weird, it does. I
Speaker 1: couldn't really get a good grasp on that I own
Speaker 1: the TVD because I never wanted to be without it
Speaker 1: after that first time watching it. Um. But it is
Speaker 1: one of those things where I honestly feel like most
Speaker 1: of the cast gave it there all they really did. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's it's also got the vibe of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we did that, let's not talk about it anymore. I
Speaker 1: do know Ernie Hudson has said he would reprise his
Speaker 1: role as Monroe. I know, but I'm not sure, like
Speaker 1: if there's any talk at all about the sequel. I
Speaker 1: just know he said that he would do that. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and like you said, it was it was
Speaker 1: financially successful, but I think it wasn't because of the
Speaker 1: critical review, which was not good. If we didn't make
Speaker 1: clearer but I think we did, but it was not
Speaker 1: good um because of that. And I don't think it
Speaker 1: did as well as they wanted, even though it did
Speaker 1: way better than it should have. Given the reviews, UM,
Speaker 1: I think they've just sort of, yeah, put that one
Speaker 1: up on the shelf. Uh, let's just forget that that happened.
Speaker 1: It is. Speaking of reviews, UM, I had to revisit
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert's review for the film because it's a pretty
Speaker 1: fun review. It's a three star review to be clear,
Speaker 1: So he didn't he didn't go beyond three stars on it.
Speaker 1: But it's also kind of a glowing review of the film,
Speaker 1: like he has a he has a lot of very
Speaker 1: nice things to say about it and some of the performances.
Speaker 1: So I'll call back to that review a couple of
Speaker 1: times in a bit. Yeah, I read that to you,
Speaker 1: and I was amused by it because I was expecting
Speaker 1: it to be negative. But he kind of seemed to
Speaker 1: hesitate to say get it because I mean, he kind
Speaker 1: of seemed to be like, you know, this is just
Speaker 1: it's a fun movie. It's got its issues, but I
Speaker 1: had a good time watching it. Yeah, Ebert. Ebert would
Speaker 1: would definitely fall on on that line for various film reviews.
Speaker 1: If it was just the top of the right type
Speaker 1: of kind of weird film or pulpy film, like he
Speaker 1: he would he would view it favorably. Um So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I find myself agreeing with Ebert a lot on uncertain films.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's get into some We've discussed some
Speaker 1: of the people already, but just to go through the list,
Speaker 1: and I think some of these will especially behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: uh names will help us sort of make sense of
Speaker 1: like what Congo is, and I think, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: pointing out that that Frank Marshall Born is both the
Speaker 1: director and the executive producer. This feels kind of key
Speaker 1: because Marshall primarily known as a may your Hollywood producer,
Speaker 1: and while he's not involved in the current Star Wars
Speaker 1: stuff with his wife, he's still very much a part
Speaker 1: of the Indiana Jones franchise, the Jurassic Park franchise, which
Speaker 1: of course keeps coming back to life and and emerging
Speaker 1: from eggs various other film and TV projects. His direct
Speaker 1: as a director's output has been far smaller, but I
Speaker 1: think this is perhaps key, Like it's like if we
Speaker 1: think of the blockbuster as as not just a film,
Speaker 1: not just like a piece of art, but this sort
Speaker 1: of colossal business project. Congo I think does kind of
Speaker 1: feel like that, Like like, can you fault the fact
Speaker 1: that the Congo exists as a finished film and made
Speaker 1: more money than than it costs? You know, it seems
Speaker 1: to have been a financial success. It checks off all
Speaker 1: the boxes. You can't really fault it for that. You
Speaker 1: might fault it for vision, You might say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it has this kind I've seen people point out what
Speaker 1: has kind of like a TV almost looked to it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel suitably cinematic enough, etcetera. But there's no
Speaker 1: fault in it from a business perspective. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it had all the ingredients there. And I do
Speaker 1: think the timing of this is important to keep in
Speaker 1: mind too, because again, it was a time when technology
Speaker 1: was shifting, when what people had access to in terms
Speaker 1: of technology was shifting, When what people could do in
Speaker 1: terms of creating things with technology was shifting. UM. So
Speaker 1: I think it very much was a product of its
Speaker 1: time in that in that way where you know, the
Speaker 1: idea of the blockbuster had been around since the seventies,
Speaker 1: but it had kind of become a here's how you
Speaker 1: do it by that point. But it also had these
Speaker 1: pieces that were changing, um in terms of the technology especially,
Speaker 1: so it is interesting to me that they did stick
Speaker 1: with the guerrillas and suits, um, but also having these
Speaker 1: people that had been involved in one way or another
Speaker 1: in this type of bockbuster business, as you say, because
Speaker 1: they did very much a business. UM. It's it's seeing
Speaker 1: what came out of that, um. Because there are pieces
Speaker 1: I feel like this is one of the things about
Speaker 1: Congo is there. It's all there, but it's almost like
Speaker 1: they weren't matched or they were like leaning in too
Speaker 1: hard at in this comedic way at one point too
Speaker 1: hard in this way. Like it was kind of like
Speaker 1: a blockbuster, but not one that was uniform, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Like there was a lot going on where
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, let's try this, let's try this, let's
Speaker 1: try this, which all can work in a blockbuster, but
Speaker 1: they did it from almost like three or four different
Speaker 1: blockbusters and kind of trying to jam it together. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can see you might might chalk that up
Speaker 1: to to Marshal and like like what's the director's vision
Speaker 1: for it, and how much of what works in the
Speaker 1: film is ultimately coming from all of the people who
Speaker 1: who give it their all for this performance of this
Speaker 1: bit of the of the special effects. But still at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like Marshall is the one
Speaker 1: he's landing the plane here, he's the one bringing the
Speaker 1: ship to port. So, um yeah, it's a it's certainly
Speaker 1: have to give him credit to all right, Um well,
Speaker 1: Michael Crichton, we already mentioned him a bit already, but
Speaker 1: live through two thousand and eight, probably one of the
Speaker 1: best known novelists of the late twentieth century, and his
Speaker 1: work continues to resonate, at least with some of the
Speaker 1: franchises that he helped establish, particularly Drastic Park in Westworld. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: I and I loved, I love Drassic Park, and I've
Speaker 1: read all of those books. Um, and it is very
Speaker 1: because I've seen the movie first and reading Durassic Park
Speaker 1: after you've seen the movie, and Lost World after you've
Speaker 1: seen the movie. Um, it is a lot more. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more attention to detail, a lot more technology,
Speaker 1: a lot more science. Um, which I guess that makes
Speaker 1: sense in terms of what can translate to film, especially
Speaker 1: a blackbuster film, and what can be in a book.
Speaker 1: But that that was something that was interesting to me
Speaker 1: when I went back and read those books, was Wow,
Speaker 1: this is a lot more detailed in terms of how
Speaker 1: this would actually work. Yeah. Um. As a novelist, he
Speaker 1: wrote several novels underpen names in the late nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: but then he published The Andromeda Strain that came out
Speaker 1: in nine under his own name, and this prop propelled
Speaker 1: him into bestseller status. Uh've very listed some of his
Speaker 1: his big novels, but he also entered into the film
Speaker 1: world pretty early, directing and writing five films between four
Speaker 1: West World um Coma, The Great Train Robbery based on
Speaker 1: his book Looker, and Oh are you familiar with Runaway?
Speaker 1: I'm not Runaway is this stupendous film that stars Tom
Speaker 1: Selleck as like a cop who specialty is hunting down
Speaker 1: killer robots that are the work of the diabolical roboticist
Speaker 1: played by Bean Simmons of Kiss. And I mean that's
Speaker 1: already enough. You've got a that's a lot just going
Speaker 1: on visually with these two actors, but the tiny robots
Speaker 1: in question, So don't don't think um like black Mirror
Speaker 1: asks scary killer robot. These things look like something you
Speaker 1: would see in the nineteen eighties special about the Future
Speaker 1: of robots. You know, these are about as scary as
Speaker 1: the little robot that came with the original Nintendo system
Speaker 1: that puts the spinning disks on the controller. Wow, you
Speaker 1: have told me so, It's it's worth It's worth coming
Speaker 1: back to. But he also he also wrote nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three Extreme Close Up. He directed the eight Burt Reynald's
Speaker 1: movie Physical Evidence. He didn't write that one, but that
Speaker 1: was his final directing credit, and yeah, Michael Crichton again,
Speaker 1: I feel like, uh, you know, some of his works
Speaker 1: may feel a bit dated tech wise now, but a
Speaker 1: lot of it still holds up and it's still very enjoyable.
Speaker 1: But he did not write the screenplay. Screenplay credit goes
Speaker 1: to John Patrick Shanley and this this. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this actually played into your expectations of being a
Speaker 1: serious minded film, but I could see where it might
Speaker 1: have because this is a big name. I don't I'm
Speaker 1: not familiar with it, with his name. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: know that there could have been a legitimate reason other
Speaker 1: than me misunderstanding what I think was just a sarcastic joke.
Speaker 1: So I will take that lifeline that you're throwing me,
Speaker 1: but please tell me more. Well, just think of it
Speaker 1: this way. You're going into Congo, and you well, especially
Speaker 1: as a modern viewer of Congo or a recent viewer
Speaker 1: of Congo, you might well go into it and think, well,
Speaker 1: this is written by the guy who won an Academy
Speaker 1: Award for for writing Seven Moons Truck. This is the
Speaker 1: guy who won both a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and
Speaker 1: a Tony Award for Best Play in two thousand and
Speaker 1: five for Doubt, a parable um he and he also
Speaker 1: wrote Joe Versus the Volcano Alive UH and animated film
Speaker 1: We're Back a Dinosaur Story. But still a number of
Speaker 1: big films there that, especially when you're when you're looking
Speaker 1: at the credentials here, I could and if if this
Speaker 1: is the only name you recognize going into the film,
Speaker 1: you might think it's going to be more of a
Speaker 1: more of a drama. I wonder if they all have
Speaker 1: to go back and look. I wonder if they include that,
Speaker 1: you know how, sometimes they'll be like, and coming from
Speaker 1: this award winning UH writer, maybe they did include that,
Speaker 1: And I was like, ah, that proof. I think I've
Speaker 1: seen his name, and I've watched several of the trailers,
Speaker 1: and I'm not exactly sure which one of them we
Speaker 1: ended up sourcing here in the episode, but at least
Speaker 1: some of the trailers mentioned him by name, so I
Speaker 1: think they were very much like, Hey, you liked Moonstruck, Well,
Speaker 1: I hope you like Killer Apes because Congo is coming
Speaker 1: to theaters, but only for a couple like twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: You have to wait get a taste in the beginning,
Speaker 1: but otherwise, well, well, let's get into the cast here, because,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, our lead here, our leading, our
Speaker 1: lead um star as well as the lead character is
Speaker 1: Dr Karen Ross, played by the fabulous Laura Lenney. Yes, uh,
Speaker 1: who I love and probably uh And this might be
Speaker 1: saying something about me. I don't know, but I know
Speaker 1: her best from the Mothman prophecies that movie, which I
Speaker 1: know is not. She is a great actor and has
Speaker 1: done like amazing award winning work, and she did reach
Speaker 1: out in that movie. But that is the thing. When
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I love that movie. I would
Speaker 1: watch it all the time. I remember very little that
Speaker 1: I think. That's one that was kind of on in
Speaker 1: the background for me. So I just remember scenes of
Speaker 1: Richard Gear, like standing in the in the dark and
Speaker 1: there was a bridge, and there maybe being not as
Speaker 1: much Mothman as I thought there would be. There is
Speaker 1: very little Mothman. This is true. I am somebody who
Speaker 1: does enjoy as much as I as I've been making
Speaker 1: fun of Congo, actually do really enjoy like kind of
Speaker 1: like mystery. They would do like flashes of Mothman if
Speaker 1: you like paused at the right time, you'd be like
Speaker 1: there is like I liked that kind of stuff a lot,
Speaker 1: so I think it worked for me, and it did
Speaker 1: really scare me. Um. I'm a very imaginative, still am person,
Speaker 1: so I think I got I got all up in
Speaker 1: my head about Mothman. There's a screeching owl outside my window,
Speaker 1: and I was convinced it was math Man like um.
Speaker 1: And yet I do like scary movies, so I would
Speaker 1: watch it over and over again, even though it did
Speaker 1: scare me well. At the time that this movie came out,
Speaker 1: Laura Linney, I think, was best known for Tales of
Speaker 1: the City and also some smaller roles in various films.
Speaker 1: But of course she's gone on too. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people now know her for tell
Speaker 1: her performances in series like Ozark, John Adams, the movie
Speaker 1: Kinzie and many more. Like you said, she's she's she's
Speaker 1: a terrific actor. She's only gotten better. Uh As, of
Speaker 1: course she's gotten better roles because I guess when you
Speaker 1: come down to it, even though this is the lead character,
Speaker 1: this is the she's got the starring role here, and
Speaker 1: she does get a lot to do a lot of
Speaker 1: heroic stuff. But she's a she's a tech expert, she's
Speaker 1: a CIA operative there you know, she's looking essentially for
Speaker 1: well not a lost love but a former love who
Speaker 1: is now lost in the jungle and possibly dead. So
Speaker 1: it's not like there's no you know, dramatic material to
Speaker 1: to sink her teeth into here, but also like how
Speaker 1: much room does Congo really give her to do that? Yes? Um,
Speaker 1: But like I said, I feel that these actors really
Speaker 1: did give it there all and she did. And I
Speaker 1: watching it um as uh modern viewer who didn't really
Speaker 1: know what this was, but I knew it was from
Speaker 1: uh And I know we're going to talk about this
Speaker 1: in the plot because I have a lot of thoughts
Speaker 1: about it. But I did find it really fascinating that
Speaker 1: she was a woman who was an ex CIA operative.
Speaker 1: She was badass, Um. She had they like try to
Speaker 1: make this romance between her and the other like main
Speaker 1: male character that's not Ernie Hudson we're gonna talk about,
Speaker 1: but they never tried too hard, which I find really interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: and I do. I really do enjoy that her Bruce
Speaker 1: Campbell very brief cameo who was her ex fiance. It
Speaker 1: seems like they still care about each other even though
Speaker 1: they're exes, like there's just a lot of interesting stuff
Speaker 1: that women unfortunately in general, don't get. Um, especially in
Speaker 1: the kind of these blockbuster action roles like that. I
Speaker 1: did really enjoy h and I really love her and
Speaker 1: Ernie Hudson together being kind of like we're running this
Speaker 1: whole thing. Like I that's one of my very favorite parts. So,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, the role didn't give her like she can
Speaker 1: do so much more than that, and it was pretty
Speaker 1: limited in terms of what she could do. But I
Speaker 1: did like that she had these pieces, but again, are
Speaker 1: unfortunately pretty rare for a woman in a role like that,
Speaker 1: especially at this time. Now, she does have at least
Speaker 1: one really nice scene with uh. The the the the
Speaker 1: top build male actor in the film, and that's Dylan
Speaker 1: Walsh playing Dr. Peter Elliott. He's our primatologist who works
Speaker 1: with Amy the Talking Gorilla for nineteen sixty three. Um.
Speaker 1: He They do at least have one really nice scene
Speaker 1: together on the airplane where we were sort of we
Speaker 1: see uh Dr Elliott's whole deal with Amy, and now
Speaker 1: she's on board and Amy is um is like jealous
Speaker 1: of her presence, and so there's kind of a spat
Speaker 1: back and forth about not only like how we uh
Speaker 1: sort of like how we treat the natural world and
Speaker 1: and animals, but also like what is the purpose of
Speaker 1: this mission? And it's just a nice little scene on
Speaker 1: the airplane. There's nothing really action based going on. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do love the Oh gosh, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: talk about Amy, but I do love this kind of
Speaker 1: jealousy she has around uh Laura Lenny's character Dr Ross
Speaker 1: and just parsing that it's a fun thought exercise. Now, now,
Speaker 1: Dylan Walsh, he's fine in this, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to knock his performance at all. And in fact, it's
Speaker 1: kind of nice that it's a performance that allows this
Speaker 1: character to fade into the background a bed and not
Speaker 1: not not feel like he's an action hero that just
Speaker 1: just kind of pushed to the background by the plot.
Speaker 1: Like his role is there. As as as Amy's kind
Speaker 1: of like father figure and um and he phils, he
Speaker 1: fulfills that really well. This is an actor mostly of television,
Speaker 1: include in the Hearts and Minds episode of the nineties
Speaker 1: Outer Limits, which I'm not sure I've seen but but
Speaker 1: looks rather good. He also appeared in such films as
Speaker 1: The two thousand nine reboot of the Stepfather and two
Speaker 1: thousands sixes of The lake House. Again perfectly likable in
Speaker 1: this film. Um, yeah, no complaints, I agree it. I
Speaker 1: also think it's I like, when we give the so
Speaker 1: called heroes of something where they don't have to be
Speaker 1: physical or like they're they're here, heroism isn't that aspect?
Speaker 1: So I actually, do you really enjoy that? He has
Speaker 1: some lines where he delivers them so well and they're
Speaker 1: terrible lines, Like at one point he says, um, I'm
Speaker 1: a primatologist, not a pound of sugar, Like there's only
Speaker 1: so much he could have done as well, And I
Speaker 1: love that line. It is is very funny to me.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure as an actor you read that and
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, yeah, it's guess it's kind of a
Speaker 1: thankless job in some respects, like just to have an
Speaker 1: actualized who your role is to is do at times
Speaker 1: make U challenging lines believable, make this character believable, but
Speaker 1: in doing so, he's inevitably going to fade into the
Speaker 1: background compared to the more outrageous character such as Ernie
Speaker 1: Hudson's Captain Monroe Kelly. Oh. This this character, this performance
Speaker 1: just absolutely rules. He delivers every line where you're like,
Speaker 1: I just want I just want you, I just want
Speaker 1: this whole movie to beet you does it so well.
Speaker 1: He's so like charming and confident and and just like
Speaker 1: overall unflustered even when he is flustered. Like one of
Speaker 1: his favorite lines for me is when he says so
Speaker 1: to me, hilariously, I run away because he runs away
Speaker 1: from a charging guerrilla, and I just love that. I
Speaker 1: love that he kind of embraces even after he told
Speaker 1: Dylan Watching's character like, you don't run a way, but
Speaker 1: he did it. I don't know that. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of subversions with him that I very much enjoyed,
Speaker 1: And just the way he seemed to be having the
Speaker 1: time of his life with his character, um, it made
Speaker 1: it very enjoyable to watch this performance. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: one of those performances where every little thing he does
Speaker 1: is so entertaining. Like there's a there's a scene in
Speaker 1: the movie where they're just handing out little air conditioning
Speaker 1: units for the tents and he accepts one, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's great, Like nothing happening in the scene except
Speaker 1: Captain Monroe Kelly accepted an air conditioning unit and it
Speaker 1: was it was so charming. Yes, yes, So much of
Speaker 1: what he did he clearly like made the as an actor,
Speaker 1: went through and made the like fun decision or the decision,
Speaker 1: and like he thought about his character. And so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of times things are you just are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I pick up this air conditioning unit, but he like
Speaker 1: thought about it and acted it and made it fun
Speaker 1: and memorable. Like so much of his character is that.
Speaker 1: And there's so many lines he he has that he
Speaker 1: delivers in a way that is I mean, he just
Speaker 1: immediately makes you blanko Like it's just like, oh, so
Speaker 1: interesting and cool. And I love when Dylan Washing's Washing's
Speaker 1: character has a leech, you know, which I'm sure we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about, but he's just captain and Roe
Speaker 1: Kelly is just like, you deal with it. It's your leech,
Speaker 1: passes him the lit cigar cigarette. Yes, when he sees Amy,
Speaker 1: he just immediately was like, sure, this gorilla wants something
Speaker 1: to smoke. Okay, he puts like pills in her, but
Speaker 1: there's just something about and that rolls with the punches, yeah,
Speaker 1: and does it in a way that looks very cool
Speaker 1: and it's very charming. Very cool, very charming, and in
Speaker 1: Ebert's review, he did he seemed to really love this
Speaker 1: performance as well, and he points out that, like, there's
Speaker 1: a little bit Clark Gable to this performance, there's a
Speaker 1: little bit Stuart Granger. It's a droll performance, and the
Speaker 1: character has both sardonic detachment but also heroic courage. So
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's he's, uh, he's kind of right
Speaker 1: there in the middle. He's he's he's kind of a
Speaker 1: road but not not to the point where you're like,
Speaker 1: can we trust Captain Monroe Kelly. They're not playing that
Speaker 1: game with this character. And uh, um, yeah, he has
Speaker 1: his he has his flaws, but they're not tragic flaws. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's just a delight to watch on screen the whole time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that is one thing that Congo did that I
Speaker 1: can't really get a grasp on if they did intentionally
Speaker 1: all the time, but they did subvert a lot of
Speaker 1: like action movie tropes in particular. Um, I mean, they
Speaker 1: leaned into a lot of it, but a lot of
Speaker 1: it they did. They took things in a way I
Speaker 1: wasn't expecting. So there's a scene towards the end where, um,
Speaker 1: very reminiscent of Drastic Park, where dr Ross is like,
Speaker 1: I'm going in this temple. I'm going in. Give me
Speaker 1: a gun, give me a radio. I'm going and Monroe
Speaker 1: Kelly has it. He's like, no, no, no, it's not safe,
Speaker 1: you know, implied like for a woman, I'll do it,
Speaker 1: and then he pauses for like a little second and
Speaker 1: it's like, but I'm also scared. He keeps the gun
Speaker 1: and just the radio and they going together like I'm
Speaker 1: not going to look like. They have so many fun
Speaker 1: moments like that where you're expecting it to go one way,
Speaker 1: um and it doesn't. And I think for this character
Speaker 1: where it is there's a little bit of confusion about
Speaker 1: who's supposed to be the traditional hero, and he sort
Speaker 1: of emerges as more of the like strong leader that
Speaker 1: we are typically align with hero. I like that it's
Speaker 1: sort of more spread out with this these characters, that
Speaker 1: it's not just one um. But he does have those
Speaker 1: kind of moments where he's not like he's like, no,
Speaker 1: you're coming with me, I'm afraid to go in there too.
Speaker 1: Like I like it that he just acknowledges that, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It is a very fun performance to
Speaker 1: watch for sure. Now. Ernie Hudson has been in just
Speaker 1: so many things since I think the mid nineties seventies,
Speaker 1: but of course he's probably most famous as being Winston
Speaker 1: z More from the Ghostbusters franchise. He was in The Crow,
Speaker 1: he was in such TV series as Oz and The
Speaker 1: Family Business. But I've yeah, I've seen him point out
Speaker 1: that this was one of his favorite performances, if if
Speaker 1: not his favorite performance that he got to give. All right,
Speaker 1: now we've already mentioned him, but we also have Tim
Speaker 1: Curry in this role, playing um Herkimer Homolka. Oh man.
Speaker 1: This is this is the role that Ebert described as
Speaker 1: the Peter laure role, and I think that's I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty accurate. This is the kind of role Peter
Speaker 1: Laurie would have played in a jungle adventure movie like this,
Speaker 1: the mysterious European figure with suspicious morals and aims. And
Speaker 1: Curry the legend that Tim Curry is. Of course, he
Speaker 1: just breathe so much life into this scoundrel. Yes, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I think I have. I have done at
Speaker 1: least one viewing where I just watched Tim Curry the
Speaker 1: entire time, and he is like in the background, acting
Speaker 1: his ass off, like they're like the scene where they
Speaker 1: first get to Africa and Eddie Ventrou I'll talk about
Speaker 1: like is talking about how much Amy is worth. He
Speaker 1: lowers his glasses and has the most like star struck
Speaker 1: shocked look. I mean he's not even the focus of
Speaker 1: the scene, like he's just back there doing his thing.
Speaker 1: He's got the most unexplainable accent that he just leans
Speaker 1: into so hard. And he has some of my favorite
Speaker 1: lines where he's like that gorilla knows where the Lost
Speaker 1: City of Zinges, Like he just, oh, there's something about
Speaker 1: it that he elevator did a thing like he was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to really lean into this
Speaker 1: suspicious Romanian philanthropists going around the world and doing good.
Speaker 1: Who really wants to find this law city of Zinge?
Speaker 1: Like it's beautiful? Oh yeah, he um the accent, Yes,
Speaker 1: he's quite a mouthful. That's that's definitely worth noting. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's so many little moments, but then he
Speaker 1: he gets those big moments too, like when they finally
Speaker 1: enter the Lost City of Zinge and he gets to
Speaker 1: just be star eyed and wonder at all. And I
Speaker 1: think he has a line like the myth of the
Speaker 1: killer of the guerrilla is true, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's so wonderful. Yes, oh my gosh. And I
Speaker 1: do love about him, like he's the villain absolutely, um.
Speaker 1: But he's also kind of the like bumbling, wide I
Speaker 1: confused villain in a way you don't see too often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like he's in way over his head, I think, as
Speaker 1: well as the key aspects of it. He's instantly kind
Speaker 1: of like wide eyed and confused and concerned his money
Speaker 1: flow is always getting interrupted, which I very much enjoyed. Um.
Speaker 1: There's just something that feels kind of unique about his
Speaker 1: take on this very stereotypical, mysterious European villain that is
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Um. It's funny to see him out of
Speaker 1: his out of his depth, out of his league. And
Speaker 1: I love how everybody knows who he is. Everybody's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy, don't trust him. You can't trust this guy
Speaker 1: what's doing because everyone who encounters especially once they they
Speaker 1: get to Africa, everyone there is familiar with him, and
Speaker 1: he does not have a good reputation. No U. Now
Speaker 1: that What can we say about Tim Curry? I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously a legend. Bor six is probably one of his
Speaker 1: most famous roles is of course Dr frankenfurt Or from
Speaker 1: the Rocky Hart Picture Show Back in he was the
Speaker 1: original stage version as well, he was Wadsworth and eighty
Speaker 1: five Clue he was the demon Darkness Legend. Other memorable
Speaker 1: films include Annie adaptation of It, of Course, in which
Speaker 1: he played Pennywise, the dancing clown. And he's also done
Speaker 1: a lot of great voice work over the years, including
Speaker 1: the Pirates of dark Water and season five and six
Speaker 1: of Star Wars The Clone Wars, in which he took
Speaker 1: over the role of Palpatine slash Darth Sidious after the
Speaker 1: passing of Ian Ambercrombie. Amber Ambercrombie was pretty terrific in
Speaker 1: that role, but Curry he also brought his own like
Speaker 1: level of greatness to that voice role as well. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he's really really great at imbuing so much
Speaker 1: character with so with like one line, he can do it.
Speaker 1: So I often joke like, if somebody could win an
Speaker 1: Oscar for one line, I would give it to Tim
Speaker 1: Curry from Home alone too, for how he says pizza
Speaker 1: like he's never pronounced that word before, because he's that's
Speaker 1: two below him. Like he does so much of that stuff.
Speaker 1: For he expresses so much with his voice and how
Speaker 1: he delivers lines. Um, what what is he doing in
Speaker 1: hum alone? Too? I don't remember he's the Conciers. He
Speaker 1: should have wanted an Oscar for that role. I I
Speaker 1: like only half kidding, um, but he does that. He
Speaker 1: does that so well where he that was a minor role,
Speaker 1: but to me, like, I remember so much of how
Speaker 1: he delivered that line, that one word, and it communicated
Speaker 1: so much about that character. Um. And I also I
Speaker 1: loved him and these are this is a reflection of
Speaker 1: my childhood. I loved him in a Muppet Treedsure Island
Speaker 1: and Wild Thornberries. He was a voice in the Wild Thornberries. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he's done a lot, a lot of stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and I just yeah, there's so many Like if I
Speaker 1: if we wanted this episode to be basically just as
Speaker 1: quoting the movie, so much of it would just be
Speaker 1: me like loving Tim Curry's delivery of these often very hilarious.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Those are some of
Speaker 1: the main actors involved here, But we're gonna roll through
Speaker 1: some of the other ones. Maybe it maybe a little
Speaker 1: quicker on some of these because there's less to say
Speaker 1: about them. But I thought I was gonna skip over
Speaker 1: this one. But Richard, the secondary primatologist, is played by
Speaker 1: Grant has Love born nine three. He's done a lot
Speaker 1: acting over the years, but he's primarily known as a producer.
Speaker 1: He's a longtime collaborator with George Clooney and he's finding
Speaker 1: this no problems there. I think he's co by Gorilla eventually,
Speaker 1: like most Moss in the film. Oh and then we
Speaker 1: have we have Jodan Baker in the film. Jodan Baker
Speaker 1: born six plays r B. Travis Baker, of course, loud
Speaker 1: Texan actor who is perfect in this as the enraged,
Speaker 1: just comedically greedy head of a massive media corporation to
Speaker 1: his his son. Right, this is like Bruce Campbell's character
Speaker 1: is his son who is suddenly missing, presumed murdered by
Speaker 1: guerrillas in the in the jungle, and all he can
Speaker 1: think about is those diamonds. We've got to get those
Speaker 1: diamonds and and I mean, that's that's all. And he
Speaker 1: just rages the whole He's not on the screen a lot,
Speaker 1: but when he's there, he's swinging golf clubs at computer screens.
Speaker 1: He's yelling at Laura Lenney. Just a completely hateable character. Yes,
Speaker 1: he also has many lines that I'm like, I'm impressed
Speaker 1: with how much you gave this because it's not that
Speaker 1: great of a line. But one of my favorites is
Speaker 1: I could be human later. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 1: just a caricature of of of like a media corporation head.
Speaker 1: But as a characterature caricature, it's very well done. Um Baker,
Speaker 1: of course, has an impressive filmography going all the way
Speaker 1: back to the mid sixties. He did a lot of
Speaker 1: TV work, but he hit a big time in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy threes Walking Tall. Some of his more memorable films
Speaker 1: include Mitchell, Final Justice, Fletch. Oh, then we get into
Speaker 1: the James Bond era he's in. He's one of those
Speaker 1: guys that has the has the honors of playing two
Speaker 1: different characters in different Bond films. So he was seven
Speaker 1: The Living Daylights, where I think he's a villain, But
Speaker 1: then he's also in both Gold and I and Tomorrow
Speaker 1: Never Dies, playing a different character who's on the good
Speaker 1: guy side of things. Yeah, good for him, Jodan Baker. Okay,
Speaker 1: now we've mentioned Amy the Talking Guerrilla, who is just
Speaker 1: one of the greatest characters certainly in this film, and
Speaker 1: maybe you could make a role for like Cinema as all. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a role that again, like all the gorillas
Speaker 1: in the in this film, they're brought to life via
Speaker 1: fabulous guerrilla costumes, but also tremendous physical performances within the costume.
Speaker 1: And I believe there are two different individuals credited. One
Speaker 1: is um Lola No. Two credited is playing Amy Um,
Speaker 1: the first of two short statued actors credited with the role.
Speaker 1: I think she's been more active as a producer Um.
Speaker 1: But the other is Misty Roses three and uh Rosis
Speaker 1: is a wonderful performer responsible for bringing a live such
Speaker 1: characters as cool Is it cool? I can't remember this
Speaker 1: character's name. How we said quil quel quill Okay, the
Speaker 1: the Let's see what does he keep saying in the
Speaker 1: Mandalorian He's like, I have spoken, but I have spoken, Yes,
Speaker 1: So she is the physical performer. Nick Nulty did the voice,
Speaker 1: of course, but she's the physical performer of that character.
Speaker 1: She was also the physical performer of the frog Lady
Speaker 1: in what the second season That's awesome. So there there
Speaker 1: are a number of Star Wars Connections to Congre. Alright,
Speaker 1: this one's a blink and miss it role here, but
Speaker 1: Peter Jason plays a character named Mr. Janis is just
Speaker 1: one of the individuals at the airport before they leave
Speaker 1: for Africa, Borneo memorable face from various films over the decade.
Speaker 1: He's popped up in things like Alien Nation, Prince of Darkness, Dreamscape,
Speaker 1: They Live, Mortal Kombat, and Escape from l A And
Speaker 1: another one you might blink and miss is Jimmy Buffett
Speaker 1: shows up in this movie. He plays the pilot of
Speaker 1: the Seven seven that they that they board to travel
Speaker 1: to Africa. So yeah, for some reason, the High parrot
Speaker 1: Head himself is presence in Congo, and I guess has
Speaker 1: has blessed Congo. Yes, in that way, I mean it
Speaker 1: feels right for some reason, of course he's there. I
Speaker 1: don't know, now real we mentioned Bruce Campbell's in this, Yes,
Speaker 1: Bruce Campbell's in this for a hot minute. He's at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of the film and then he this
Speaker 1: is kind of a spoiler, he is assaulted by some
Speaker 1: sort of Killer eight and the movie keeps the hope
Speaker 1: alive that he will come back. And I remember by
Speaker 1: the time I saw this movie. I had already seen
Speaker 1: maybe Army of Darkness, so it's familiar with his work,
Speaker 1: even if I hadn't seen the Evil Dead movies yet.
Speaker 1: So I was I was excited that he was in here,
Speaker 1: and then I was disappointed that he was gone. But
Speaker 1: the movie kept the hope alive that we would find
Speaker 1: him again and he would help fight the guerrillas and uh,
Speaker 1: and of course we find out at the end he's
Speaker 1: just he's been dead the whole time. He's really dead. Um.
Speaker 1: But in a way this in the film it ended
Speaker 1: up kind of subverting expectations as well, because, especially as
Speaker 1: a kid, not knowing maybe how structures of these things
Speaker 1: for likely will work. You think, well, Bruce Campbell's in this, well,
Speaker 1: he's going to show up at the end and he's
Speaker 1: gonna change saw some apes. But that's not happened. Now
Speaker 1: we get lasers instead. Um. And I will say a
Speaker 1: lot of the reviews I read from this time, it
Speaker 1: was people seem to that was one of the big
Speaker 1: critiques people had was I guess they felt tricked that
Speaker 1: he was in it and then just never he's in
Speaker 1: it for like I said, maybe a minute, maybe a
Speaker 1: little more, but then he doesn't come back, and people
Speaker 1: were like, this is criminally this is a criminally short cameo. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because Army of Darkness came out ninety two, so it
Speaker 1: had had time to of course not only hit theaters,
Speaker 1: but to really dig into the VHS market, in the
Speaker 1: home rental market. So again this is me my my
Speaker 1: sort of childhood memory of this, but or junior high
Speaker 1: memory of this or whatever. I remember feeling like the
Speaker 1: world was hot for more Bruce Campbell action and maybe
Speaker 1: maybe they weren't, or maybe the studio system that had
Speaker 1: not really caught wind of the hunger yet. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you were. I think you were picking it up.
Speaker 1: I think people wanted Bruce Campbell, but you know, this
Speaker 1: is what we got. We also have ottawally akanaway in
Speaker 1: this uh he he just plays uh. I think there's
Speaker 1: one of the many soldier characters that sort of populates
Speaker 1: the background of the film. But this is of course
Speaker 1: English fashion model turned actor born seven, who had pretty
Speaker 1: big roles on TV's OZ and also Lost, which you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, but this was one of his first screen roles.
Speaker 1: He's gonna to act in a number of big pictures,
Speaker 1: including the Mummy Returns, The Born Identity, the remake of
Speaker 1: The Thing, the Second Thor Movie, and Suicide Squad. So
Speaker 1: he's been in quite a few things. He also writes
Speaker 1: and directs now To getting into two surprisingly uncredited performances
Speaker 1: in this. The first we have Delroy Lindo pop up
Speaker 1: in this playing Captain Wanta. This is one of This
Speaker 1: is a corrupt military official that they encounter again on
Speaker 1: the way to the Lost City, and he like hits
Speaker 1: him up for a bribe and also just talks about
Speaker 1: how much he hates Tim Curry's character. He's really really
Speaker 1: hard on on Homolka here, even telling him that he
Speaker 1: has to stop eating the sesame cake in Hotel twice.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite articles. When I was the next
Speaker 1: day after I watched this and I was like, what
Speaker 1: did I just watch? Somebody wrote imagine a script that
Speaker 1: went through rewrites and still had to stop eating my
Speaker 1: sesame cake in there, not once but twice. But Linda
Speaker 1: makes you believe it. It's a yes, a small but
Speaker 1: but memorable little performance here, Linda. Of course, some of
Speaker 1: his biggest films have included Malcolm X, Get Shorty to
Speaker 1: Five Bloods, and The Core. He's also slated to have
Speaker 1: a major role in the Blade reboot if they ever
Speaker 1: actually make that movie. I don't know what he's going
Speaker 1: to play in that, but I kind of have I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if he's gonna play a whistler character, if he's
Speaker 1: gonna be like the mentor to Blade. But we'll see.
Speaker 1: And then you you mentioned this one already, but we
Speaker 1: have this character Eddie Ventro who shows up and this
Speaker 1: is an uncredited performance by Joe Pantolian though. Yes, and
Speaker 1: I was a huge Matrix fan. I had an extremely
Speaker 1: embarrassing email address which you unfortunately i've seen, um, which
Speaker 1: I've told that story before, but anyway, um, because I
Speaker 1: had a huge crush on Neo Keanu Reeves from The Matrix,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know he was going to be in
Speaker 1: this movie. And uh when he showed up, that was
Speaker 1: one of the things I shouted to the other room,
Speaker 1: was like, it's joey pants, it's Cipher. Who's here. My
Speaker 1: friend was like, what are you talking about? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a It's a great, slimy little role that he plays
Speaker 1: like that. I think one of the first things that
Speaker 1: he does is he offers to buy Amy the Gorilla. Yes,
Speaker 1: like immediately immediately yeah, so um yeah. Joe Pantoliano here
Speaker 1: probably have best known for playing Cipher the Matrix Caesar
Speaker 1: in Is Bound, and he played the character Teddy in
Speaker 1: two thousands of Memento. So yeah. Talented character actor that
Speaker 1: often plays kind of slimy, sleazy characters, morally ambiguous and past.
Speaker 1: I think he was also in a couple of Tales
Speaker 1: from the Crypt episodes, which of course perfect place to
Speaker 1: stick somebody with these talents. Yes, yes, I do love.
Speaker 1: He has a scene where, like the he re emerges
Speaker 1: after I assumed we would never see him again, um,
Speaker 1: and he's getting off the plane and he has like
Speaker 1: a head injury and he makes the like the funniest
Speaker 1: sound to me where it's like, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's just something about how he did that that cracks
Speaker 1: me up every time I watched this. Um in case
Speaker 1: I forget it for later. What happens to his character
Speaker 1: in this film? Do we see him killed by Gorilla
Speaker 1: or something? Because at some point later in the film,
Speaker 1: I'm like, where did he go? He kind of just
Speaker 1: wanders He's like, here's your equipment. Have fun? He doesn't,
Speaker 1: he says he doesn't like to leave the airport, so
Speaker 1: I assume he just haunts the airport. Okay, well, let's
Speaker 1: get into the plot a bit. Yes, Oh gosh, I'm
Speaker 1: so excited. So we opened in sub Saharan Africa, presumably
Speaker 1: the Congo given the name of the film. We have
Speaker 1: Bruce Campbell's character Charlie leading a team into the wild
Speaker 1: surrounding mountain Mukino. We're told here some sort of volcanic mountain,
Speaker 1: and almost right away we see he's packing heat like
Speaker 1: we see him like holding the pistol there. And I
Speaker 1: guess this is all kind of nice abversion because they
Speaker 1: really kind of present him as like, this is our star, right,
Speaker 1: this is the action hero. This is the guy who's
Speaker 1: going to take us through the movie, right, And I
Speaker 1: do want to before we move on again. I love
Speaker 1: when you can watch a movie and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the nineties or whatever. The Congo title is
Speaker 1: done in the most glorious like gold World word art
Speaker 1: if you remember what that was. Um So it's like
Speaker 1: a fading of gold to orange and then it has
Speaker 1: a blue drop shadow glow and that's like nineties. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh. So I'm I'm a sucker for that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But yeah, I do think you know, if
Speaker 1: you have started watching this and you're you're like, I
Speaker 1: guess this is our hero, and then it doesn't really
Speaker 1: turn out to be what you think it's going to
Speaker 1: be at all. Right, Well, for one thing, it's like
Speaker 1: we're very much in sort of Indiana Jones territory. And
Speaker 1: then we cut to space. We're in orbits and we
Speaker 1: see this satellite, which this is one of the moments
Speaker 1: where the effects feel rather dated because it it's like
Speaker 1: a very dated c G I satellite orbiting the Earth.
Speaker 1: And uh uh, this of course is going to be
Speaker 1: an important part of the plot. This is what is
Speaker 1: enabling him to communicate, uh without any lag at all,
Speaker 1: with a Houston Control center. That's where we go to next,
Speaker 1: and here we meet Laura Lenney as our our former
Speaker 1: CI agent Dr Karen Ross, and there they initiate a
Speaker 1: satellite call to Bruce Campbell's team around the volcano and
Speaker 1: they start talking about blue diamonds. Yes, And as much
Speaker 1: as I make fun of the script, and I do,
Speaker 1: I will say they accomplish a lot pretty quickly. So
Speaker 1: when you first see Laura Lenny, she's walking in with
Speaker 1: a colleague of hers who has a very hilarious like
Speaker 1: password which is just his name, Rudy, Rudy Rudy Um
Speaker 1: to get in. But it like immediately establishes that the
Speaker 1: character we're about to meet, who is Bruce Campbell's father, Um, Travis,
Speaker 1: is paranoid. He's very very paranoid, and he doesn't trust people. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love too how quickly there's so much
Speaker 1: whiplash in this movie where you're like, oh, diamonds, oh,
Speaker 1: but for satellites. And of course Bruce Campbell's character has
Speaker 1: brought a functional laser gun into the wild with him
Speaker 1: and immediately loads up one of these blue diamonds and
Speaker 1: test fires that's starting a small fire behind him, and
Speaker 1: we're like, Okay, I'm not completely clear on how all
Speaker 1: this works, but blue diamond apparently works. Blue diamond lasers
Speaker 1: are important and uh and it back in Houston, they're
Speaker 1: very pleased with how this is all shaping up. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I love how they don't bother to explain it. I like,
Speaker 1: legitimately love that when movies are like, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're not really about this part of it so I
Speaker 1: can explain it. Um, but he even makes a mention
Speaker 1: of like, if this isn't a good enough diamond, essentially
Speaker 1: like we need a better diamond and then will really
Speaker 1: be in business. So at this point, one of the
Speaker 1: other members of of Bruce Campbell's characters, Charlie's team, calls
Speaker 1: him over and says, hey, I found something. Jump into
Speaker 1: this water here and swim under these ruins with me,
Speaker 1: and he's like, okay, I'll do that, and so they
Speaker 1: jump in and lo and behold. They discover a lost
Speaker 1: city hidden beneath the jungle canopy, and the other guy,
Speaker 1: the character that will not be around for long, but
Speaker 1: we find out he'll be back actually, but then not
Speaker 1: be around for long. A guy named Jeffrey stresses that
Speaker 1: this is a big fine, this is amazing, and he's
Speaker 1: telling him all this in they're standing in front of
Speaker 1: this ominous stone rella statue, their sinister music playing. We
Speaker 1: can already tell nothing good it's going to happen here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really ramps up pretty quickly. You're like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: something is just about to go wrong, and uh. This
Speaker 1: has one of my very favorite like horror elements where
Speaker 1: one of them goes missing. Jeffrey goes missing, Bruce Campbell's
Speaker 1: kind of staring off in the distance, maybe getting you know, wind,
Speaker 1: something's not right. Calls from his friend eyeball just out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. Here's a human eyeball uh in front of him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we get we cut to the monster p
Speaker 1: o V. There's this growl and then we get the
Speaker 1: shot of Bruce Campbell screaming, and it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting to think like that, you try to put yourself
Speaker 1: in the mind of the monster here. So the grey gorilla,
Speaker 1: after brutally murdering the other guy, pauses to pluck eyeballs
Speaker 1: out and then sort of mess with Charlie here, like
Speaker 1: just chunk a few eyeballs at him, get his attention,
Speaker 1: and then kill him. So they're very twisted on the
Speaker 1: part of our our our ap adversaries here. So back
Speaker 1: in Houston, they try and call back on the video chat.
Speaker 1: They see everyone is dead, something is running around, and
Speaker 1: ap attacks the camera. They get kind of this freeze
Speaker 1: frame that they're going to have to figure out later.
Speaker 1: So things get a little bit event horizon here. They've
Speaker 1: got some footage that they're going to have to tinker
Speaker 1: with later. Uh. It seems like there was a This
Speaker 1: was a thing for a while in there's always a
Speaker 1: situation where you have some strange footage and there's something
Speaker 1: computery you could do to it and you could get
Speaker 1: everything enhanced and figured out later on. Yes, Yes, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot to there's a lot that I love
Speaker 1: about this part number one. This was such a trope
Speaker 1: in the nineties. I don't know if you ever saw
Speaker 1: the Mary Kate Nashley movie it takes two, but there
Speaker 1: was such a trope in the nineties that like, if
Speaker 1: you could control communications like cell phones or new technology,
Speaker 1: you you could cant well everything, and it was such
Speaker 1: like a evil villain trope. And I love how Travis
Speaker 1: immediately when you meet this character, who's like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: most over the top evil business, corrupt capitalist guy. Is
Speaker 1: it like that he's going to dominate the communications industry
Speaker 1: with this diamond um and all of this is interspersed
Speaker 1: with like the most nineties graphics and the most nineties
Speaker 1: sound effects to that like camera that they're looking in
Speaker 1: on the camp site with it is just there's something
Speaker 1: about it that feels so from that time that it's
Speaker 1: it's like a whole a full body experience for me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yes, this is nineties. Um. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think Tomorrow Never Dies, one of the Bond film we
Speaker 1: referenced earlier. I think that the villain in that one,
Speaker 1: played by Jonathan Price, is also some sort of a
Speaker 1: media mole type character. Yeah, it was such a thing, um.
Speaker 1: And I do love that he This is when his
Speaker 1: line I mentioned earlier like I can be human later
Speaker 1: comes up like he's like immediately an overtop caricature. I
Speaker 1: love how laure Lennie's character Literally she says to him,
Speaker 1: are you for real? And she's in the most nineties
Speaker 1: Khakis invest too, by the way. Um, And this is
Speaker 1: when you kind of find out like she was dating
Speaker 1: Bruce Campbell. They were going to get married and then
Speaker 1: they broke up for whatever reason, but she still obviously
Speaker 1: cares about him. And she has this confrontation with Havis like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going in there unless you promised me you're
Speaker 1: doing it for your son. If you're doing it for Charlie,
Speaker 1: I'll go. But if I get one hint that this
Speaker 1: isn't for him, I'm gonna make you sorry. She says, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that he He does calm down a little
Speaker 1: bit and he's like like, yeah, I'm doing it for him.
Speaker 1: I did not find it very believable, but it's good
Speaker 1: enough for her. She's like, Okay, all right, Yes, I
Speaker 1: believe you enough to go out and try and find
Speaker 1: him in the wild. Yes. And I also love one
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts, which like right before it he
Speaker 1: said something pretty offensive, which was like maybe it was
Speaker 1: the locals. Um. Then he's like or a rival company,
Speaker 1: Like there's just something about him that's so he's so paranoid.
Speaker 1: He's so so paranoid. Um. I also agree that she
Speaker 1: perhaps believed him too readily, but I also think she
Speaker 1: wanted to go, Like she she does still care about Charlie. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's not very believable at all. But maybe
Speaker 1: that's just his constant vibe is just this level of anger.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I think I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think like she she wanted to go. She wants to
Speaker 1: to try and find Charlie. And so it's not that
Speaker 1: she's saying I'm not going unless like she's not really
Speaker 1: looking for an affirmation from him. She's just trying to
Speaker 1: encourage the human side of him, like like, Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: do this, but I want to see it like some
Speaker 1: acknowledgement that part of this is because you love your
Speaker 1: son right exactly and uh not you know, not sending
Speaker 1: me off to get kittled to get well that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is one of my This is when I
Speaker 1: was watching the movie, this cut that happens now, Oh whoa,
Speaker 1: this is what am I watching right now? And this
Speaker 1: is when we get introduced to Amy. That's right, we
Speaker 1: we cut to our gorilla expert. Um. This is we
Speaker 1: meet our our primatologist characters, and we meet Amy the gorilla,
Speaker 1: and Amy is doing art, Amy is is making things.
Speaker 1: But also we quickly learned that well, I guess we
Speaker 1: we kind of build up to this, right because we
Speaker 1: meet Amy and she's great and she's totally believable as
Speaker 1: a as a as a younger female gorilla. I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know. I went back and forth on how
Speaker 1: old Amy is because early on there is very much
Speaker 1: like a childlike aspect to Amy that we latch onto.
Speaker 1: But she's also she drinks, she's drinking martini, she's smoking
Speaker 1: cigars and spoiler, but at the end of the movie
Speaker 1: she goes off and marries a silver bag, so she's
Speaker 1: like she's a an adult woman guerrilla too, and we
Speaker 1: should we shouldn't take that away from her. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I mean those are some of our favorite parts of Amy.
Speaker 1: Amy is multifaceted. Um And I think I just I
Speaker 1: need people to watch this if they haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: because you're watching it and you're like, oh, here's this gorilla.
Speaker 1: This gorilla is drawing all these pictures that look very similar. Um.
Speaker 1: And I believe this is what they introduced, the stuffed
Speaker 1: animal named love e. Oh yes she shed because yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is another thing that builds up the sort
Speaker 1: of childlike nature because she has her loves, she has
Speaker 1: the little stuffed animal that she's carrying around. Right, So
Speaker 1: they're very much prompting you to believe, yeah, she's this,
Speaker 1: you know, more childlike gorilla and those other things which
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk about more detail at the
Speaker 1: Martini and whatnot come later. But right in the beginning, okay,
Speaker 1: it seems like a young, sweet gorilla. Yes, but but
Speaker 1: of course we keep talking about Amy the talking gorilla,
Speaker 1: and to get there together the movie it really doesn't
Speaker 1: waste a lot of time. We like cut to essentially
Speaker 1: like a ted talk thing that Dr Elliott's doing at Berkeley.
Speaker 1: He's talking about language, he's talking about sign language, he's
Speaker 1: talking about virtual reality technology, and then he cuts to
Speaker 1: the real meat of everything. They have created a real
Speaker 1: time sign language audible translator with power glove that allows
Speaker 1: sign language literate animals like Amy allow them to to
Speaker 1: actually speak out loud. She wears a little power glove,
Speaker 1: she does the signs, and this enables her to speak
Speaker 1: and say things like Amy good, gorilla. And this is
Speaker 1: one of my very favorite parts, because I mean, this
Speaker 1: is when it in one way really goes off the rails,
Speaker 1: at least when I was watching it. Um, but it
Speaker 1: has the funniest see it's like the funniest cut to
Speaker 1: the audience seeing I've ever I think I've ever witnessed,
Speaker 1: because people are watching. He's talking. Yeah, he's talking about
Speaker 1: virtual reality. He's talking about all of this, like really
Speaker 1: high tech stuff. And then he calls out Amy, and people,
Speaker 1: you know, turn and gasp and they see this gorilla
Speaker 1: coming down the aisle. It's just like you know, where
Speaker 1: you would go to see a talk out of college
Speaker 1: or something. And Amy comes up and there's this guy
Speaker 1: and I don't know the actor's name, but he's kind
Speaker 1: of like bored flipping through the pamphlet and he looks
Speaker 1: up and then Amy says, yeah, you know, Amy good, Gorilla,
Speaker 1: Amy good, gorilla um and he kind of like is
Speaker 1: staring ahead in horror and an awe, and he says
Speaker 1: that gorilla he's talking. It's so funny. It's such a
Speaker 1: great stand in for the audience, Like it really is
Speaker 1: because you're like having a similar reaction. But I love
Speaker 1: the cut back to him of what this grillast talking?
Speaker 1: And then we also cut to Homolka there played by
Speaker 1: jun Ury. He's in the audience and he's watching creepily
Speaker 1: and he has a ring with this kind of like
Speaker 1: eye on it, and we suddenly get this very mid
Speaker 1: nineties flash. Then of suddenly there's like scenes from Amy's dreams,
Speaker 1: something with a jungle and a flash of a gray
Speaker 1: monster a jumping across it, and uh, we're kind of left.
Speaker 1: I was left wondering like, well, what what happened? Where
Speaker 1: did this come from? Did that happen? Because I looked
Speaker 1: into the ring? Is was that in in yeah that
Speaker 1: I'm not cursed? Is that in his mind? Where is
Speaker 1: this Amy's dreams? But then we we we cut we
Speaker 1: cut ahead and we basically find out that well, she
Speaker 1: she doesn't seem to be sleeping. Well, Peter is worried
Speaker 1: that she's deteriorating mentally because she's not in the jungle.
Speaker 1: She needs to be in the jungle. He meets with
Speaker 1: the Dane and he's like, we need to raise a
Speaker 1: bunch of money to send our star talking gorilla back
Speaker 1: to the jungle. And the Dean's like, nobody's going to
Speaker 1: pay for that. Yes, which I am of two minds about.
Speaker 1: I think I can see. But you know, also these
Speaker 1: he believes these paintings are from the jungle, Like, this
Speaker 1: is what she's been doing, but inter Herkima Harmolka former Romanian,
Speaker 1: traveling around the world and doing good. And guess what,
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of money, and I want to
Speaker 1: fund your trip to take this guerrilla back to the jungle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: He's like, I have no alter your motive. I just
Speaker 1: want to see Amy return to jungle. Yes, just sounds
Speaker 1: like really likely. He's basically doing a Abella Lagosi Dracula
Speaker 1: character here. It's even more that than it is. Peter lore. Yes,
Speaker 1: and the accent is so immediately you can't think of
Speaker 1: anything else. Um, and I love like for the audience,
Speaker 1: at least you've gotten all these hints that he's up
Speaker 1: to no good or he's got an ulterior amotive, as
Speaker 1: you said. But it cuts to immediately from that scene
Speaker 1: to Dr Elliott being like, yes, his name's herker Mohamolka,
Speaker 1: I don't see the problem. He's gonna fund I trust everyone. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. He's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't see any reason why we need to wonder
Speaker 1: about this anymore. And of course Amy's on board. Yes,
Speaker 1: we get Amy into three D glasses. Yeah, yeah, a
Speaker 1: sweet scene where they're they were in their three D
Speaker 1: glasses looking at a book. So another scene with a
Speaker 1: lot of childlike wonder for Amy. M hmm. This is
Speaker 1: when she asked to be tickled the first time. I think, oh, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And so at this point it seems like, okay, the
Speaker 1: expedition is ready to go. They get to the airport,
Speaker 1: Kumulka is like, everything seems good. That seems like they're
Speaker 1: loading the plane. But then oh they're unloading the plane.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, so there's a scene out there on
Speaker 1: the tarmac on the the the crates. Everyone's a little stressed.
Speaker 1: Amy just wants to be tickled. She doesn't know what's
Speaker 1: going on. But then Dr Ross walks up and she's like, hey,
Speaker 1: let let my company pay for some of your trip
Speaker 1: and just let me bring my team along. Yeah. Basically
Speaker 1: they need like she needs almost like a visa. She
Speaker 1: needs a reason why she's going. She has to join
Speaker 1: their expedition um to get in because I guess if
Speaker 1: they report what's happened like that, they're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to get across the border to investigate what happened. Um.
Speaker 1: So she's trying very very hard, has been for a
Speaker 1: long time. This is where I get my line that
Speaker 1: I said earlier. I'm a prematologist, not a pound of sugar.
Speaker 1: Uh uh. We also see the beginnings of Amy being
Speaker 1: jealous of Dr Russ because Peter Um, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not me, it's Amy. You can't come because Amy
Speaker 1: doesn't like you. But yeah, they start unloading stuff off
Speaker 1: the plane and her malcha, I love this. He's he's
Speaker 1: what does he say? There's been an interruption in my
Speaker 1: cash flow or something? And then Dr Ross knows like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got you, you need me. He can't pay for
Speaker 1: the fuel for the plane, but her company certainly can.
Speaker 1: And so basically we cut to everyone's on board the
Speaker 1: plane flying to Africa, and this is where we have
Speaker 1: that wonderful scene where we get some some some scenes
Speaker 1: where Amy is upset with Karen and Um and the
Speaker 1: primatologist and Karen have a nice back and forth about
Speaker 1: like why what is the trip is about? And what
Speaker 1: is what? What is the human relationship to animals and
Speaker 1: so forth. Yeah, because she's very curious and can't quite
Speaker 1: pin down why he did it, and he kind of
Speaker 1: gives like why did he train Amy to be able
Speaker 1: to speak essentially? Um? And he he says some he
Speaker 1: gives her some quotes about you know, the face of
Speaker 1: the teacher and like why not and all this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But this is also when we get the
Speaker 1: infamous and I dare you to find any review who
Speaker 1: doesn't mention it. Um seen where Amy is a nervous flyer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she wants her rain drop juice. Yes, And it turns
Speaker 1: out that rain drop juice is a martini. Yeah. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we get a scene in a film or a
Speaker 1: gorilla is drinking a martini and looks very happy about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a totally totally believable scene too. I mean that's
Speaker 1: wide from the ridiculousness of it, Like you buy Amy
Speaker 1: the talking gorilla as a real individual who just likes
Speaker 1: a nice drink to take the edge off during a flight. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. And I mean she she had been tent
Speaker 1: because she had also just thrown an egg at Karen.
Speaker 1: She's and you called her an ugly woman, and yeah,
Speaker 1: an egg at her. So then things are off to
Speaker 1: a rocky start between Karen and Amy. Yes, and this
Speaker 1: is also when like that they have a discussion around
Speaker 1: the myth of the killer ape and like King Kong
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. Um so kind of you can
Speaker 1: see Hermolka starting to show his hand that he's interested
Speaker 1: in this, like he's got he's got more than he's
Speaker 1: letting on, uh, and what he wants to get out
Speaker 1: of this trip. Now I'm gonna, I guess try and
Speaker 1: skip some of what happened. Like basically, they land in
Speaker 1: in Africa, they land in one country, they need to
Speaker 1: go into another country, but already things are in a
Speaker 1: destabilized state. Here we meet Joe Pantoliano's character Eddie Ventro.
Speaker 1: He's immediately like, hey, can I buy that ape off
Speaker 1: you and their soldiers running around. Something blows up on
Speaker 1: the airfield in the back in the in the background,
Speaker 1: and and Elliot's like asking around for the guy that
Speaker 1: they hired, but that guy is nowhere to be seen
Speaker 1: because no, it looks like Big Media has paid for
Speaker 1: the best guide available, and that is Captain Monroe Kelly.
Speaker 1: And he's up and he's you know, he's suave. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, he's very laid back about everything, but he
Speaker 1: basically saves all of them and he's working on getting
Speaker 1: them where he needs to go. He's he's all action
Speaker 1: and solutions. He piles everybody in the back of a
Speaker 1: military truck and they're on their way out. Yes. Um.
Speaker 1: And one of my favorite things about this scene is
Speaker 1: we get two instances of seeing people being I guess
Speaker 1: totally on board and completely okay with the talking gorilla.
Speaker 1: But when Amy talks, uh, Captain Monroe is just like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: here's a smoke. Amy, like, I guess that's what you want.
Speaker 1: But he immediately takes control of the situation and it
Speaker 1: seems to immediately clock like one Hermolka is no good.
Speaker 1: He's one of the characters that's like, oh, I remember you,
Speaker 1: And then two that Karen is very competent and like
Speaker 1: that they will beat working together to kind of lead
Speaker 1: this expedition. But also I guess three that everybody's in
Speaker 1: there for a different reason, and nobody's being completely honest
Speaker 1: except for maybe Peter, right, like even um, even Captain
Speaker 1: Kelly here is is being uh, he's kind of it's
Speaker 1: he's a little uncertain as well, like you don't distrust him,
Speaker 1: but there's that part. Well, one of the characters ask him,
Speaker 1: are you some kind of criminal? And he just says,
Speaker 1: aren't we all? And it's just another great Captain Monroe
Speaker 1: Kelly moment that we get some It sounds like Kelly
Speaker 1: is perhaps also an armstealer. We're not entirely sure I
Speaker 1: guess what he's he's involved in, but it also seems
Speaker 1: like he's the best, most expensive hope for them. He
Speaker 1: was hired by the tech company. But they don't get
Speaker 1: very far before the military stops them and like arrest
Speaker 1: everybody and says, look, nobody can go to zi Ere,
Speaker 1: So you're all stuck in this hotel here. And this
Speaker 1: is where we get Captain Wanta played by Delroy Lindo
Speaker 1: show he shows up and people were interrogated, and he
Speaker 1: does not seem to have good intentions and almost immediately
Speaker 1: hits them up for a massive bribe. Yes, and he
Speaker 1: receives it. Uh. And this is when we get the
Speaker 1: infamous stop eating my sesame cake line twice because Tim
Speaker 1: Curry is back there kind of nervously nibbling the sesame
Speaker 1: cake and when he sees the money, like his mouth
Speaker 1: drops open. Like his expressions during this whole scene, he
Speaker 1: was just like a befuddled, terrified, out of his league
Speaker 1: villain who gets called out by del Roy Lindo was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this piece of trash, Like we don't work with him.
Speaker 1: He's terrible. Um. And it's just one of those things
Speaker 1: where you're watching it, you're like, wow, I mean, these
Speaker 1: performances are amazing, but how in the world that this
Speaker 1: get makes? So Captain Wantons up for this bribe and um,
Speaker 1: and Karen pays it like she basically has just an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of cash on her. There's this nice scene
Speaker 1: where Captain Wantas and stapling the brown sack that he
Speaker 1: put the money into shut and he tells them that
Speaker 1: it's the gorilla that's going to get them across the
Speaker 1: border because no one wants to be seen in Western
Speaker 1: media being cruel to the gorilla. And so it looks
Speaker 1: like they're going to get to continue. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: so this is this brings us to like another plane trip. UM.
Speaker 1: A lot of jokes about Dr Elliot and Amy being
Speaker 1: a husband and wife, which I think we've already had
Speaker 1: some of those two but people witnessing their interactions um.
Speaker 1: And some of the funniest, least believable parts of the
Speaker 1: movie I think take place in this section. UM, because
Speaker 1: they get shot at while they're in a plane. In
Speaker 1: this plane after Amy has been fed some kind of
Speaker 1: drug in a banana uh to calm her down, by
Speaker 1: the way, and Laura, Lenny badass that she is, gets
Speaker 1: a flare gun, kicks open the door to the airplane
Speaker 1: and uses the flairgun too, I guess, distract to send
Speaker 1: the heat seeking missiles that way, which I don't think
Speaker 1: is how it works. But it's quickly joined by Monroe.
Speaker 1: Kelly is like, yeah, this is a good idea. We're
Speaker 1: gonna help you. It's a really cool, like bad sn
Speaker 1: I just questioned to see that's how it works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they yeah, they fire off these flares. They're able
Speaker 1: to redirect the heat seeking ground to hair missiles that
Speaker 1: are being fired at them by the military. But it
Speaker 1: looks like the plane has been hit. Everyone's gonna have
Speaker 1: to parachute anyway. Uh. So we get some shenanigans here
Speaker 1: where um Homolka of course is cowardly and has to
Speaker 1: be booted out of the plane. Um Monroe Kelly, he
Speaker 1: grabs a drug. Damy Amy has been given the I
Speaker 1: think they later refer to it as the banana with
Speaker 1: the dope in it, so she has she's already had
Speaker 1: her dope banana. So he scoops her up and jumps out.
Speaker 1: Gear is being dropped as well, and uh yeah. Then
Speaker 1: we're in the jungle proper at this point, and I
Speaker 1: think this is when we start getting answers about what
Speaker 1: some of the characters are up to. So we're here
Speaker 1: a little bit about you know, the city of Solomon,
Speaker 1: the ls city of Zinge. Monroe Kelly reveals he has
Speaker 1: a past history of a terrible expedition that went wrong
Speaker 1: with hermoca uh and ing about at the jungle. Um.
Speaker 1: We also learn a bit more about Laura Lenny's character
Speaker 1: Um and what she's looking for because she has this
Speaker 1: what she says, is a gadget that has features um,
Speaker 1: like you know her x CIA passed has kind of
Speaker 1: talked about. So we're getting at some of these answers,
Speaker 1: these character answers about what people are looking into. And also,
Speaker 1: I would like to point out this is when I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is a volcano as well, Um,
Speaker 1: good to know. Yeah, and it's it's like what you
Speaker 1: bring a cannon on stage, right, you bring a volcano
Speaker 1: on into the picture. You know that volcanoes erupting at
Speaker 1: the end of the film. Yes, so, but we'll get
Speaker 1: we'll get to that part. So and they right, yeah,
Speaker 1: they set up camp. The tents are gray, the a
Speaker 1: C units are passed out. We already talked about that.
Speaker 1: We we get more, uh, they spill more details about
Speaker 1: the lost city of zinge U. Karen gets satellite gear
Speaker 1: set up, she checks in with Texas. They senter the
Speaker 1: creature in Elysis. They're like, we've we've done some some
Speaker 1: work on the footage. It is gerrilla like but maybe
Speaker 1: not a gorilla. And oh, by the way, that volcano
Speaker 1: is probably gonna blow up. And she's like, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: U we can we can handle it. But they're they're
Speaker 1: not even able to finish the call because then Amy
Speaker 1: and Elliott come racing through the camp like children. They
Speaker 1: knock over the satellite gear and destroy it like it's
Speaker 1: no longer functional. Yep, uh, just destroy her equipment. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is also when the scene you mentioned when
Speaker 1: we see kind of this gear kind of overkill perhaps
Speaker 1: that Karen bought with the a C in the tents
Speaker 1: um setting up with that. But yeah, now so now
Speaker 1: there cut off from that, uh, and they've got to
Speaker 1: check through the jungle and they've got this volcano threat
Speaker 1: looming over them and a mysterious creature that is not
Speaker 1: a gorilla but close. Yeah, so we we we get
Speaker 1: a a fun scene at night where there are all
Speaker 1: these monkey sounds in the in the forest and everyone's
Speaker 1: a little wigged out except for Captain Monroe Kelly U
Speaker 1: and he has some some fun lines there. But then
Speaker 1: it rains, it mud slides. There's a ridiculous scene where
Speaker 1: somebody sees a snake and their scary music and they
Speaker 1: chopped the snake with a machete, a scene that serves
Speaker 1: no purpose in the film, just to say that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: when they're also snakes, but don't worry, they don't factor
Speaker 1: into the plot, right. And this is also where we
Speaker 1: get um the leach. The leach scene on the penis.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like a montage of all of
Speaker 1: the stuff, the terrain and environment they're having to deal with.
Speaker 1: Um inexplicable singing scene where they all start singing is
Speaker 1: also in this kind of section well, California Dreaming. Also
Speaker 1: we also get members of a native tribe show up,
Speaker 1: the Ghost tribe they described them as, and they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: they they're Dr Monroquell, Captain Monroe. Kelly can speak there,
Speaker 1: which so he speaks with them and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: they have a they have a dead man or a
Speaker 1: nearly dead man, uh, and they want us to see
Speaker 1: him they have he has this TC symbol on his clothing.
Speaker 1: Karen quickly realizes, well, that's my company. We need to
Speaker 1: see what this is all about. And they check in
Speaker 1: on this kind of like a tribal ceremony that's some
Speaker 1: sort of a funeral ride. Uh. It seems like it's
Speaker 1: maybe patterned after a scene from Baraka. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: on that, but it's a it's it's impressive to watch
Speaker 1: and then they realize, Okay, is this man Charles, No,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's Bob someone else from that group. He
Speaker 1: wakes up, he sees Amy the gorilla and immediately just
Speaker 1: freaks out to death, which is classic classic scene if
Speaker 1: you know, being scared to death of something. I do
Speaker 1: think this is one scene um that did a disservice
Speaker 1: to the like payoff. And I know they wanted the
Speaker 1: final product to be really scary, but they just weren't
Speaker 1: that scary. So like the fact that he sees aiming,
Speaker 1: it's like it just really it was like it built
Speaker 1: it up and you're like, oh my gosh, this must
Speaker 1: be terrifying. It killed him, scared him to dive. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean it was really it was effective. It served
Speaker 1: a lot in terms of building your fear and anxiety
Speaker 1: around whatever it is they're going to eventually face, so
Speaker 1: they keep going. They're not going to be deterred by this.
Speaker 1: They're more zind revelations, King Solomon's legendary Diamond Mind and
Speaker 1: the congo others have saught it. None have come back,
Speaker 1: and Homolka insisted Amy knows where the city is the
Speaker 1: open eye symbol. She saw it in her dream. Um.
Speaker 1: So they keep going and eventually they're traveling by boat
Speaker 1: at night and this is like straight up Disney Jungle
Speaker 1: cruise adventure here, but we get a terrifying hippo attack
Speaker 1: where the hippos are attacking the boat and then a
Speaker 1: plane is shot down in the night. It crashes, uh,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, I don't know what that's about.
Speaker 1: That's that's bad. They reached the volcano. Uh, the two
Speaker 1: porters of Runaway. Amy wants her glove and at this
Speaker 1: point navigation is becoming difficult, like her little multipurpose device
Speaker 1: isn't really working, and Homolka says, well, we should let
Speaker 1: Amy lead us. Let Amy leave the the expedition, and
Speaker 1: everyone's like, you know, he's right, we should let Amy leave.
Speaker 1: That's gorilla knows where it is. I love that line
Speaker 1: so much. Uh yeah, so they're all like, yeah, let's follow,
Speaker 1: let's follow Amy. Um. And this leads us to another
Speaker 1: one of my very favorite scenes. This is when they
Speaker 1: meet a big silverback gorilla. Uh. And this is after
Speaker 1: they kind of transverse what seems to be straight up
Speaker 1: a volcano. I don't know that their path makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense, but anyway, they meet this big silverback gorilla. Uh.
Speaker 1: Monroe tells Peter like, don't run. Gorilla sees it as
Speaker 1: a challenge, um, and then yes, he doesn't run. The
Speaker 1: gorilla backs away, and that's when Monroe realized, like, oh
Speaker 1: he did run away, And then I love this. Amy
Speaker 1: tries to communicate with the gorillas and they look at
Speaker 1: her and they're like nah, and they walk away. But
Speaker 1: it's sad. You watch it, You're like, oh, he was
Speaker 1: trying to communicate with realis and she can't because she's
Speaker 1: been drained in this new system and it's it's um,
Speaker 1: it's sad. So we're holding out hope. We feel if
Speaker 1: you feel like, she'll probably get another shot at this.
Speaker 1: So they press on and she comes. As no surprise,
Speaker 1: they do find the lost city of Zinge. We see
Speaker 1: this fabulous looking, ruinous lost city with a big We
Speaker 1: see this like this head statue with these big eyes,
Speaker 1: and Homolka is just in tears. Uh. The eye on
Speaker 1: his ring matches the great statue, these amber eyes, and
Speaker 1: we get some just wonderful scene showing by Tim Curry here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because even he really does have an emotional moment and
Speaker 1: for all the cowardice he has um and I'm this
Speaker 1: is very telling of his character because he's still a
Speaker 1: huge coward. But he says I must go because he
Speaker 1: wants to go in. He wants to find these diamonds.
Speaker 1: Um And Uh, it's just like the culmination of everything
Speaker 1: he's been talking about. And he does have a line
Speaker 1: where I'm kind of like, I don't believe this at all,
Speaker 1: but he says, uh, he we can all share, we
Speaker 1: can all share the loops of the diamonds if we
Speaker 1: go in. So at this point we are here in
Speaker 1: the last city of Zinj. Obviously we have reached the
Speaker 1: final portion of the film, last thirty minutes of the film. Uh,
Speaker 1: and everything is about to just get really wild. Uh.
Speaker 1: So for starters, the guns are out now. Kelling his
Speaker 1: team are inspecting everything. They're they're wisely on guard because
Speaker 1: they realize some serious violence has gone down around here
Speaker 1: and they don't entirely know what's behind it. And Homolka
Speaker 1: tells them this story about the establishment of Solomon's mine
Speaker 1: here and the city around it, about how the savageness
Speaker 1: of the guards was famous, and then about how this
Speaker 1: it fell into ruin. But they perhap pressed and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: why did it fall into ruin? He's like, nobody knows. Uh.
Speaker 1: But they're like, okay, let's go in and explore. So
Speaker 1: we're in full blown Ruin exploration mode. And some of
Speaker 1: these scenes are effectively creepy, like the lighting is just right. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the typical shots you have in films
Speaker 1: like this, people pointing their flashlights at at hieroglyphics and
Speaker 1: checking out hallways and uh. And you're just expecting something
Speaker 1: to jump out at any moment. Yes, And it's that's
Speaker 1: built by the fact that Amy was not feeling it.
Speaker 1: She did not want to come in. Uh, So some
Speaker 1: of them, some of the members of the group stayed outside.
Speaker 1: Amy stayed outside. Um. And then there are these hieroglyphics
Speaker 1: on the wall that Dr Elliott translates, and again it
Speaker 1: basically boils down to they trained these guerrillas to guard
Speaker 1: the minds on a volcano whose activity is getting were
Speaker 1: intense by the way, uh, to guard the diamonds. And
Speaker 1: then the gorillas turned on the people there. And I
Speaker 1: guess I've just been living there guarding the diamonds, getting
Speaker 1: more and more violent. Yeah, and perhaps uh, like in
Speaker 1: bread like it's a very small population. Every time we
Speaker 1: see the great gorillas like they do look diseased. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is like seriously
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, like what is the like genetic
Speaker 1: decline of a small population of primates gonna look like?
Speaker 1: And then how much of it is like notes coming
Speaker 1: back or the or from the stiff from the studio
Speaker 1: or just the effects team looking at it, like, well,
Speaker 1: how scary can we make these guerrillas? Uh? And you
Speaker 1: look at when you look at them, like the sort
Speaker 1: of freeze frame of the of the grays that they look.
Speaker 1: They look very frightening. They did a great job making
Speaker 1: monsters guerrillas. It's just when it comes to actually seeing
Speaker 1: them moving around, I don't know. I think it probably
Speaker 1: does come back to the lighting and just some of
Speaker 1: the um you know that perhaps you can imagine these
Speaker 1: costumes being better utilized. I don't know, Yes, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: then and there they were trying to do a lot
Speaker 1: of things, um I will say in this movie with
Speaker 1: special effects and technology. And one of the most bizarre
Speaker 1: and jarring ones is in this section. Because so Richard
Speaker 1: had stayed outside with Amy and then he runs in
Speaker 1: screaming ah, and is killed by this big, angry killer gorilla. UM,
Speaker 1: and the group you know, tries to shoot at this
Speaker 1: gorilla and it's like inexplicable stop motion camera work, like
Speaker 1: it's out of nowhere. They don't do it again. Um.
Speaker 1: It just felt like, oh, let's let's experiment with this,
Speaker 1: and I do again. I go. That makes me wonder
Speaker 1: how much of it was, Oh, this is a new
Speaker 1: technology we can try, but also how much of it
Speaker 1: was Uh, these costumes aren't working out like we thought
Speaker 1: or like maybe or at least the resulting footage was
Speaker 1: not as scary as we thought it might be. What
Speaker 1: can we do, Let's tinker with it until we have
Speaker 1: something that that creates more of an emotional response. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's another thing every review mentions is
Speaker 1: that like where did that come from? Yeah? But at
Speaker 1: this point, like everybody's basically in the mode of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess we need to get out of here because
Speaker 1: gorillas are attacking us. Amy shows up for a nice
Speaker 1: jump scare. Um, one great gorilla has been taken down,
Speaker 1: but there are more. They leave the ruins, they find
Speaker 1: more bodies. Um. Homolka thinks this is why the minds
Speaker 1: had to close down in ancient times. I guess makes sense.
Speaker 1: Killer guerrillas. So they go back to camp and it's
Speaker 1: tech time because Amy gloves up and start talking about
Speaker 1: the bad guerrillas. And then in one of the I
Speaker 1: can't even honestly remember if this was in the book
Speaker 1: or not. I think it might have been, but at
Speaker 1: this point, the team, uh, Karen and or the team remember,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, amid the gear that we have, we have
Speaker 1: automated machine gun drones that we can set up. They
Speaker 1: use lasers to detect movement and we'll fire at anything.
Speaker 1: And they set this up around the perimeter of the camp.
Speaker 1: And I I remember loving this in the film and
Speaker 1: perhaps in the book if it was in the book
Speaker 1: when I was younger, but especially now, you like, this
Speaker 1: is just so ridiculous. This is just ludicrous that they
Speaker 1: brought automated machine gun Like what was the original like
Speaker 1: rationale behind this was it just rilla killer gorillas may
Speaker 1: show up in the hundreds, we will need machine gun
Speaker 1: drones because otherwise it's, like you were, these are like
Speaker 1: weapons of war you're bringing into this other country, right,
Speaker 1: and people could have shown up like anything that happened. Um,
Speaker 1: and they also have so Laura Lenny as cool as
Speaker 1: a cucumber during this part, by the way, and they
Speaker 1: set up a uptop an old laptop and she can
Speaker 1: like see their shapes on it, like see where they
Speaker 1: are and how many of them are. But it I
Speaker 1: mean again, I think the lighting didn't really work in
Speaker 1: the scene. But it could have been really scary because
Speaker 1: you you would just see like the guns turn shoot
Speaker 1: at something. The lasers were kind of goofy, but like
Speaker 1: the seeing that this turn and you couldn't really necessarily
Speaker 1: see where the the gorillas were, but they were all around.
Speaker 1: Like it ended up feeling very um humorous and over
Speaker 1: the top where I think it could have been scary.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that this movie ever succeeds really at
Speaker 1: being scary. I think it's much more fun action romps.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that it would have worked anyway
Speaker 1: given the rest of what we've seen already. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like fireworks and lasers, guns and killer apes. It
Speaker 1: feels kind of like like this is Congo the ride,
Speaker 1: which isn't too much of a knock because what is
Speaker 1: a blockbuster film? Like, it's kind of like the approach
Speaker 1: to a big like Disneyland ride or a Blockbuster film.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same energy, so I guess it's
Speaker 1: fine that they feel it feels much the same here. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then it's buttoned with Hermolka saying I've translated this
Speaker 1: phrase and it says we are watching you. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of just like goofy action set piece and then
Speaker 1: oh wait, go back to scary stuff. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: next morning, people are missing, including Amy and Homolka. Amy's
Speaker 1: out wandering. She encounters the other guerrillas again. They acknowledge
Speaker 1: her this time, but they're they're standoffish, so it seems
Speaker 1: like some progress is being made in in Amy guerilla relations. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the team heads back into the ruins and they had
Speaker 1: just armed to the teeth. They had just they're just
Speaker 1: bringing all the guns this time, and they find evidence
Speaker 1: on the walls. They find more not higher glyphics this time,
Speaker 1: but more like actual um uh image is that are
Speaker 1: like sequential art, and it seems that they the guerrillas
Speaker 1: were bred using guerrillas and humans apparently uh and to
Speaker 1: serve as guardians for the minds, but they eventually turned
Speaker 1: on their masters and they find the bones of normal
Speaker 1: guerrillas with crushed skulls. Yes, quite a few. Um. And
Speaker 1: this is when we see Amy, who's like the volcano.
Speaker 1: It's shaking, it's about to go off. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: the building collapses. So Amy is determined to help our
Speaker 1: human friends to fight these bad gorillas, grabs her a
Speaker 1: s L gear and makes her way to the to
Speaker 1: the temple, to the building, and so here we are
Speaker 1: the team. Eventually they have some trouble. It seems like
Speaker 1: they're the minds may be closed off, and then of
Speaker 1: course their seismic activity and their cave ins, and so
Speaker 1: they just keep going, you know, very very dungeons and
Speaker 1: dragon z at this point like okay, we gotta we
Speaker 1: gotta keep the party moving deeper into the dungeon here,
Speaker 1: and then they emerge into well into dungeons and dragons. Wise,
Speaker 1: this would be when the dungeon minister would pull out
Speaker 1: the feature map where the big battle is going to
Speaker 1: take place. It's this is apparently the mine. It's kind
Speaker 1: of this little valley with the stream going through it.
Speaker 1: They're all these like alcoves or cave openings in the
Speaker 1: walls and the ground is just filthy with blue diamonds,
Speaker 1: like they're just poking up out of the ground, like
Speaker 1: like big diamond baseballs. Yeah, you're right, that is very
Speaker 1: d and d like look at these shiny things. I
Speaker 1: know you want them. Um, no problem here and hermoca
Speaker 1: he can't resist. He's like immediately just shoving these diamonds
Speaker 1: into his bag. Yes, oh yeah, he kisses one of them.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, the great gorillas are starting to file out there.
Speaker 1: It is kind of creepy at first because they are
Speaker 1: in the shadows a bit, but then they're they're they're
Speaker 1: actively coming out. They're like, okay, guys, were on, this
Speaker 1: is what we were trained for. Uh, we did kill
Speaker 1: all of our trainers, but but this is Whine we
Speaker 1: live here. And so yeah, great shots of grey grillas
Speaker 1: creeping in the dark. We see some flashes of their
Speaker 1: monster faces and uh, now Homolka has gone too far.
Speaker 1: He realized it is too late, that he was too
Speaker 1: concerned with scooping up diamonds and that death is all
Speaker 1: around him now. Yeah, and he does have probably the
Speaker 1: most one of the most violent does we see on
Speaker 1: the screen. Um, because no, the the killer guerrillas are
Speaker 1: not happy about this. Uh, and they they kill him
Speaker 1: quite virarently, and this is when the rest of the
Speaker 1: party is like, oh wow, um, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of these killer gorillas. They're going to kill us all. Um,
Speaker 1: So they all start getting out their weapons. Um, they
Speaker 1: discover a geode, a giant diamond. H and they also
Speaker 1: as they're kind of running away trying to find a
Speaker 1: way out, Uh, they find Karen's ex Charlie, amongst a
Speaker 1: bunch of like other bones and stuff, and she takes
Speaker 1: his satellite gun thing, puts a diamond in it. She
Speaker 1: has a laser gun. And now she has a laser gun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the battle the battle continues to rage. Here it's
Speaker 1: soldiers and party members versus killer greg Rilla's looks like
Speaker 1: their deaths on both sides, and um, you know, we
Speaker 1: found Charlie, and it seems like the gorillas are are
Speaker 1: gaining ground. They're they're killing left and right, and it
Speaker 1: looks like they're moving in to kill Elliott. And then
Speaker 1: Amy jumps into the rescue and she says, ugly gorillas,
Speaker 1: ugly go away. And this is a nice moment because
Speaker 1: you kind of expect when this happens, You're like, oh no, Amy,
Speaker 1: they don't know what you're saying. They're not gonna listen
Speaker 1: to you. But the greg Grillas are thrown off on this.
Speaker 1: They're like, whoa wait, this is a gorilla, guys, We've
Speaker 1: got to at least hit here out, or they're at
Speaker 1: least confused by it. And I think that's what I
Speaker 1: think it's when Roe says like, they don't know what
Speaker 1: to make. They don't know what to make. They're just confused.
Speaker 1: And here in comes one of the best lines because
Speaker 1: laure Lenny Dr Karen Raw shows up with this laser
Speaker 1: gun and she says of the like great killer apes,
Speaker 1: put them on the endangered species list, and then starts
Speaker 1: shooting them with a beam of blue laser, just like arms,
Speaker 1: flying bodies getting cut in the half um and when
Speaker 1: asked what she's using, she calls it the latest thing
Speaker 1: in communication. It's just wild and ludicrous an absurd. Uh.
Speaker 1: Just this killer gorilla is getting just decimated by a laser. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just straight up cut in half by this thing. And
Speaker 1: then we cut to the outside and the volcano is erupting,
Speaker 1: and it's it's I I think I laughed at this
Speaker 1: point because the footage or the or the sequence that
Speaker 1: we see from afar of the volcano erupting is so
Speaker 1: intense that I felt like there's no way every one
Speaker 1: would just be killed instantly by this thing. They're like
Speaker 1: inside this volcano or inside the mountain when this level
Speaker 1: of a volcanic event is taking place. But it's a
Speaker 1: movie volcano, so the rules are a little different, like
Speaker 1: lava is not actually hot unless you're in it, uh,
Speaker 1: and other rules like that apply. Yes, and I do
Speaker 1: think it is a rule uh in these action adventure movies,
Speaker 1: you've gotta have your classic Like the set is falling
Speaker 1: apart at the end, like everything is collapsing and you've
Speaker 1: got to get out. And so that's what this scene is.
Speaker 1: Is very much like you know, ground, the ground is
Speaker 1: falling pieces of like stone, all of these structures are falling. Um.
Speaker 1: We get to see another odd scene of like gorillas
Speaker 1: jumping in the lava, the killer gorillas jumping in to
Speaker 1: the lava and dying. But yeah, this is very much that,
Speaker 1: like we're in the end game now the entire set
Speaker 1: is collapsing. Yep. We also get to see they make
Speaker 1: it out of the mountain and of course the ground
Speaker 1: opens up. This is huge chasm that opens in the
Speaker 1: earth and so Karen whips out that laser gun again
Speaker 1: use it to cut down a tree to make a
Speaker 1: bridge that they all escape over. And meanwhile the city
Speaker 1: of zinj is just crumbling into ruin behind them. Yes,
Speaker 1: and this brings us to one of my very very
Speaker 1: favorite things, because I can't stress enough. They escape via
Speaker 1: hot air balloon. Um yeah, and on my uh rewatch
Speaker 1: one too many rewatches, they do hint at this hot
Speaker 1: air balloon throughout because earlier on they kind of joked
Speaker 1: with Dr Ross like, do you really need a hot
Speaker 1: air balloon and she said no, Um, well here they are.
Speaker 1: And but but before that happens, though, she does check
Speaker 1: back in with Houston though. Remember she she gets some
Speaker 1: gear off of that crash that second plane, She fixes
Speaker 1: her satellite system, calls back and uh, this is a
Speaker 1: nice little sequence where she she touches base with Travis
Speaker 1: and tells him about his son. She's like, yeah, Charles's dad,
Speaker 1: I have to confirm this. And of course does Travis
Speaker 1: say and take a moment to reflect on this, No,
Speaker 1: He's like, tell me about those diamonds. I want those
Speaker 1: blue diamonds. Yes, And I mean he doesn't even ask
Speaker 1: about the crew, because everybody on that plane was working
Speaker 1: for him. There's a line earlier where laure Lenni is like,
Speaker 1: this is such a needless loss of life. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he's IMMANI like, did you get the diamond? And she,
Speaker 1: laure Lenny, She's got a good, cold, like calculated face,
Speaker 1: is realizing this and she says, you remember what I
Speaker 1: told you. If I ever got the hint that you
Speaker 1: sent me out here for anything other than Charlie, I
Speaker 1: would make you sorry. And then she does a bunch
Speaker 1: of techno babble that doesn't make any sense. I'm convinced,
Speaker 1: but she puts it in the coordinates of the satellite
Speaker 1: into this diamond laser gun and then Presto blows up
Speaker 1: his very fancy satellite. He blows up a satellite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah this yeah, And then she's like yeah in transmission
Speaker 1: obviously and uh and and moves on for then maybe
Speaker 1: I bust out the balloon. They get in the balloon
Speaker 1: at this point, yeah, it's just what it's Ross Elliott
Speaker 1: and Kelly. Oh. But before that, Amy goes off into
Speaker 1: the wild. We finally gets the third try. Will the
Speaker 1: gorillas accept me? Will the silverback gorilla potentially marry me
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, she goes. They say yeah, come on,
Speaker 1: and so she moves on to be with the Silverback
Speaker 1: Gorilla and his like three other wives. Yes, it was
Speaker 1: a very touch and good vibe between Peter, doctor Elliott,
Speaker 1: and Amy, who he had been adamant throughout, like this
Speaker 1: is where she belongs, even though she'd had these clear
Speaker 1: signs that it was gonna be difficult for her to adapt,
Speaker 1: and even her moca was like this is not gonna work. Um,
Speaker 1: but he they have this fond farewell. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: also a very funny part to me where suddenly his
Speaker 1: shirt is like wide open and like you were trying.
Speaker 1: You guys were really trying, very very nineties. But yeah,
Speaker 1: now it's the three. It's Karen, Monroe and Peter in
Speaker 1: this hot air balloon floating off. Karen asked Peter to
Speaker 1: throw away the diamond h which he does on row
Speaker 1: is not happy about that. Um. I did find it
Speaker 1: interesting that they kind of have this like lovely escape
Speaker 1: in a hot air balloon, but like their plane had
Speaker 1: been shot down, like two planes have been shut down.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe these are not questions I should
Speaker 1: be asking, but yeah, that's I mean, the hot air
Speaker 1: balloon was what really got me. I was not anticipating that.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: build up of like, oh, wow, there's a talking gorilla. Wow,
Speaker 1: she drinks partina. There's a lot of things I could
Speaker 1: never have anticipated, to be honest, But that was the
Speaker 1: final thing where I was like, Wow, they are escaping
Speaker 1: the hot air balloon. Yeah. Yeah, they take off and
Speaker 1: they they look at the diamond one last time and
Speaker 1: then they throw it over the other side. Yes, and
Speaker 1: I think we get another we get one more shot
Speaker 1: of Amy who looks happy her new her new crew.
Speaker 1: She looks like she's going to live a good life.
Speaker 1: And that's the end of the movie. That's Congo. What
Speaker 1: a ride? All right? All right, well well Annie, thanks
Speaker 1: for joining me here on this episode of Weird House. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was a lot of fun rewatching um Congo and
Speaker 1: then discussing it with you here. Yes, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me so fun. Absolutely
Speaker 1: so again. Your your your podcasts are stuff Mom never
Speaker 1: told you and savor people can find those wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Have have you done any movie related
Speaker 1: episodes of either of the shows, recently. Uh, well, we
Speaker 1: do once a month. We do Feminist Movie Friday and
Speaker 1: sometimes Wild Saturdays on UH stuff I've never told you.
Speaker 1: We just did for Savior, we just did Pans Labyrinth.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Halloween because it's her savor. We
Speaker 1: do like foods in fictional properties. Um, so I would
Speaker 1: recommend that for sure. Excellent. Al Right, well, um yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find those shows wherever you get your podcast everyone.
Speaker 1: And just a reminder that Weird House Cinema UH is
Speaker 1: a show on Fridays and the Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, but on
Speaker 1: Friday's we set aside most serious concerns to just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird film. If you want to follow the
Speaker 1: films that we've covered here, I blog about them at
Speaker 1: SMUTA music dot com. But also we have a letterboxed
Speaker 1: account that's l E T T E R B o
Speaker 1: x D dot com. You can look us up. Our
Speaker 1: user name is weird House and there's a list there
Speaker 1: and you can see all the films we've done uh
Speaker 1: in order, and also include links to where you can
Speaker 1: listen to them, and also all sometimes go ahead and
Speaker 1: give you a preview of what's coming up next Banks.
Speaker 1: As always to Seth Nicholas Johnson for producing the show
Speaker 1: here and stitching everything together and if you would like
Speaker 1: to reach out uh and if you have anything to
Speaker 1: say about Congo, if you have suggestions for the future,
Speaker 1: well you can email us at contact at stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 1: is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
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