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The Bronzploitation Phenomenon · Cinema Yūgen

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G'day, that's right, it's that time again, time for Cinema Yugen!
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Music.
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Yes, little Yugenites, welcome back, Kent Hill, Cinema Yugen,
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Bronzploitation's on the menu this month. That's right, Bronzploitation.
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You don't know what Bronzploitation is? Well, you need to check out the films of one Robert Bronzy.
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That's right, films like Death Kiss, Once Upon a Time in Deadwood,
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The Gardener, and of late, 12 to Midnight, pardon the pun. It is a detective.
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He plays a detective. a despondent detective, after the murder of his wife is forced to resign.
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It's brought back to the force when a serial killer appears to be taunting him
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and turns out to be superhuman.
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The film, directed by Mark Savage, writers Joe Netter, Jeff Miller and Mark
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Savage, the cast, Robert Bronzy, because yeah, it's bronzploitation, you
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The always dependable and lovable Daniel Roebuck, the sensational Sadie Katz,
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the tenacious Tito Oritz.
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Great cast all around. Fantastic addition to the Bronzeploitation cinema genre, as we know it.
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And this month we're having the Bronzeploitation tapes.
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It's a two-parter. We were hoping to have a three-parter with Robert Bronzy,
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but Robert is doing back-to-back movies, so I do not want to stop or get in
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the way of progress. I want more bronzeploitation. That's what he's busy doing.
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But for the bronzeploitation tapes, part one, we have the co-writer,
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and many might say the godfather of bronzeploitation, producer Jeff Miller.
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Welcome, Jeff, to cinema.
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You get... Thank you. Thank you, Kit, for having me.
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Mate, it's great to finally talk to you. I've been enjoying a lot of your work,
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not just in recent years, but this year.
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Earlier in the year, of course, Galaxy, not Galaxy Quest, Space Wars.
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Garo Setty and Michael Paré, who we've both done films with, now French.
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That was a great flick, your producer of that movie.
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I've been loving the bronzy films. The new one out, of course,
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is 12 to Midnight, which is Bronzy versus Werewolves, which is,
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you know, beautiful, beautiful stroke.
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I've been loving it. I have to say, Jeff, that having seen them all come all
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the way from Hell to the Wild West all the way up till now,
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Death Kiss and The Gardener, this, I have to say, this is,
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I'm going to go on a limb and say this is my favourite bronze exploitation Oh, three sci-fis.
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Well, thank you.
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Yes. So tell our audience a little bit about yourself and the genesis of this genre within itself.
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So, yeah, in a nutshell, I live in L.A. I'm a producer.
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I write about half the movies I do. I either write or I'll originate and do
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a treatment and so forth. But I do mainly horror action, a little bit of sci-fi,
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done a Western. I'm doing another Western soon.
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I kind of dabbled in those genres.
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I think my next movie, I think will be my, the, be my 40th as a producer.
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So I've been very fortunate the last few years to been able to knock out a bunch
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of movies a year recently.
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Yeah. So, and then yeah, 12 to midnight is my, I think that's my sixth movie
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with Bronzi. The first one was death kiss.
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And that was a lot of fun. And Bronzy was a good guy. We just kind of,
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you know, got along well. And Death Kiss did really well.
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And so I've just been fortunate to do a few more over the years.
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I think, you know, I was involved with Escape from Death Block 13,
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Once Upon a Time in Deadwood, The Gardener, yeah, Exorcist Vengeance,
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and then, yeah, 12 to Midnight. So I think that's all.
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Yeah, no, it's a fantastic movie.
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Great cast all around. And all our former guests of this show,
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the wonderful Sadie Katz, the nicest guy in Hollywood, Danny Roebuck.
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Yeah, just a great cast around. I've got to say my favorite line belongs to
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Sadie if she's listening.
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It's that line when she turns up at the motel near the end and he opens the
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door and the first line out of her mouth.
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It's okay. I didn't come here. I didn't come here.
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Yeah blurb you um it's not
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often that you open the door and that's the first word the
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lady's mouth but anyway exactly you want to i wanted yeah we wanted to have
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some kind of shocking thing there for her to say i think i think it works that's
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a great scene that's really a chef's kiss of a of a scene that utilizes the
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best of i always said that charles bronson was at his best when he didn't say much,
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and Robert really captures that same particular ability because the partner
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is in his silence, and so when he does speak, it's arresting.
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That's what I tell people, people that write for him. I try to say,
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give him, you know, I used to hear stories that Eastwood and Bronson would get
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scripts and they would cross outlines of their dialogue, not add to them.
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Most actors you think want more dialogue, open no i've heard that
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they would cross out lines and that even you know
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chuck norris was told after his first film or two to hey
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say fewer things you know so when you say something it's important yeah yeah
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no and i and i learned tim similar to when when i did righteous blood with michael
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parry and i was trying to give him like a john wayne shtick and he was like
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hey this is great This is poetic,
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but I'm going to learn this on the plane flight there.
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So we just need to, he just got out of pen and he didn't, it's not like you
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rewrote it. It's just like lose this, this, this, this. And he's,
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When you hear it, you go, yeah, it makes sense. You know, you read yours and
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you hear him say the kind of the broken down, like the bare bones of those, and you go,
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yeah, I see why that works better than, you know, mine might have read really
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good, you know, to the reader.
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But when it's got to be on the set on the day, it needs punch to it,
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you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But great stuff. So, I mean, these movies, Bronzeploitation,
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of course, across the world, are you finding that it's a growing fan base?
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I think so. Yeah, there's always somebody new that hasn't heard of Bronzey or
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you're not familiar with him.
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So, yeah, I think it seems to have been growing since I first worked with him six years ago.
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So, yeah. because i i remember as we
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said before we started the show like how did how
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did we come to to to learn about all this i mean i i can't remember who broke
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the first article i can't remember if it was in variety or one of the other
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trades and it was simply this story of here's this guy and a photo of him and
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charles bronson side by side and uncanny double gang i'm like wow who is this
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guy and why has nobody heard of him and so on and so forth.
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And as I went on to speak to Rene and he told me the story that he was shown
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a photograph of Robert and thought it was a photograph of Charles Bronson that
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had somehow been restored or digitized or some sort of treatment.
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They go, no, no, this is Robert and he's a horse wrangler and a stuntman and
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blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth.
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And thus the legend was yeah
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i think he i think renee saw that in a saloon in like spain when renee was working
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in spain and there's a place of one of these but you know parks where bronzy
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had been a performer you know playing the sheriff or something in a western stunt show yeah yeah.
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It's a it's a way for it's it's look it strikes me as amazing that that you
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know up until up until that point,
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you know, there had been, you know, no, no concept, you know,
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and then out of the clear blue sky, there he is.
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And it's, it's just, it's so uncanny.
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It's just incredible to watch these films and just, you know.
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And not be in awe of, and I love in this one in particular, I know that you
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write in the scripts too, but I love the running gag where they go,
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does he remind you of somebody?
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Yeah. And that's sort of the first one of these where that sort of played into
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the movie, and I was waiting for one of these movies for the characters to sing.
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You know, does he remind you of somebody?
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Yeah, this is probably the first one he's done, which somebody actually kind
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of acknowledges it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.
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So, yeah, it's kind of fun. So when you pull these ones together,
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do you look at Bronson's back catalog or do you just look at, okay,
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we want to do a bronzy versus XYZ per se?
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Or is that how you sort of go for it?
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Or do you look at what obviously the trends and
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the genres that are selling world at the moment and go how can
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we make a bronzy film out of that or yeah
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it's kind of a combination of all of the above you know it's kind of like you
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know the first one was obvious you know kind of close to death wish but you
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know since then i've done stuff you know and you know once upon a time in deadwood
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kind of played on the title once upon a time in the west.
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Not i don't know if people picked up on that or not i assume so
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but yeah i don't really read reviews where people
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really picked up on that but um yeah and i actually shot
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at some locations in the same locations in spain where
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he had done once upon a time with the west i can't too
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yeah that was kind of interesting but yeah
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it's kind of all of the above but also i'm thinking you know like you
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know because bronson died like i think over 20 years ago
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but i think like oh hey what would you know what would he have
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done now what kind of movies would he do now yeah did
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we put bronzy is not bronson i
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mean you know he's a different person so hey yeah fine what
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if bronson fought a werewolf or you know yeah so
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we just kind of you know have an idea for a you know
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a movie you know another kind of genre
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bending movie that charles bronson never
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did so yeah you know it's kind of like have fun
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with that you know it's almost like it's almost
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kind of like ai you know like hey gosh i wish
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that actor if he was still alive it'd be cool to do more movies yeah it's
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all like if charles bronson were in one
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of those mortal you could put him into the mortal combat fighting games.
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Or something yeah there you go charles bronson
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you know yeah and one of his fatalities is
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pulling out a bazooka and taking it there
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you go so we just you know we're just try to have fun
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with it and it's uh and again bronzy's his own person but
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it's just kind of like hey what what what would be kind of a fun movie a fun
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thing for you to do or as you said or as you said that you know since because
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you know the man passed so long ago i never really got to do or maybe was you
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know too too too far in his years to to do certain films like,
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you know i kind of wish sometimes that that that he had lived.
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Or had had the chance to do like
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the roles that lee van cleef did you know
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later in his life you know like to skate from new york and
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and movies like that you know i heard
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bronson was up for i don't know if it was the snake plissken or the lee van
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cleef role but i heard he was asked to do escape
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from new york and turn it down see that there you go that'd
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be a great uh bronzy one you know yeah put him
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in an eye patch put him in an eye patch eye patch
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eye patch i've got good not a
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bad idea actually yeah we'll have to do we'll have
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to do an australian one def jeff you know like quigley
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yes bronzy down under
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yeah there's a good one there's a
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good well you know mark savage who directed 12 to midnight he's australian
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i know i'm actually we're having mark on
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the show on on saturday we're gonna we're gonna
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do the uh the 12 to midnight tapes we've got
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yourself we're gonna get mark hopefully we'll
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get the man himself so yeah it's it's
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it's 12 to midnight all month long it's
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gonna be cool but yeah it's um it's an it's really is i i look i i love werewolf
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movies so i was already on board for that but but werewolf and and bronzy together
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that and the i'm not going to spoil it too much because i want people to go and see it now it's.
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Out right now where can people go see
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it jeff at the moment so yeah in the u.s it's
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its own or in the i think north america because i'm not sure about canada or
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whatever but zumo play it's a zumo it's a zumo original and it had a really
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good place that last time i looked so it was i'm very happy about that it was
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a feature title and it was it was very easy to find but yeah zumo play Play,
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which is owned by, I think a couple of big cable companies here in the U S.
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Okay. So that's a pretty popular app. A lot of people have it,
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but it's there. I think it's on direct TV.
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And then yeah, Zumo play has a Avon exclusive because that's where,
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you know, ads play. So it's free.
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You know, everybody can watch it for free, but they have to sit through ads. So it's like TV.
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It's like Tubi, exactly. It's like Tubi, but it's on Zumo Play as an AVOD original for like a year.
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And then after that, it'll be on, I assume, Tubi and some other AVOD platforms.
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But I think starting February 1st, it'll be on some other TVOD platforms.
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And of course, for our listeners, the links will be in the description for Zumo
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Play. Check it out. Are you coming to physical media?
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Oh, yeah. I'm told there's going to be a DVD probably in, I think,
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February, I was told. So yeah, cool.
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Check it out. Fans of physical media, you can still get solid copies of your
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bronzy on your shelf, but the links will be in the description to check out
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12 to midnight bronzy versus werewolves.
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Zoom. I play check out the links in the description, Jeff.
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It's the reason that I, that separates this one for me from the others is,
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is I liked the, I liked the close more.
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I like more character stuff. Like I like genre tropes and all that sort of stuff.
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But this one has, like I said, Sadie's seen in the motel.
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The way Danny's, you know, comes across. Yeah, he's very sincere.
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Such a great actor. Such a great. He's great.
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He's great. The guy who plays his partner, who we won't talk too much about because...
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You know when I know, but we don't want them to know just yet.
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But that was a great reveal, by the way, that I like how I like how it plays
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first. And then when the reveal happens, you see it played from the opposite angle.
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The thing that you didn't see the first time you see the second time and then you go, ah, ah, right.
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But also a revenge story, which always works.
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You know, the guy has been, and especially, you know,
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leaning back into the Bronzy, Bronson tropes, you know, he's always a guy whose
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family who has been wronged by, you know, either a criminal element,
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in this case, a lycanthropic element,
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and he's out for revenge.
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And anyone who gets in his way is going to pay, so to speak.
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But, yeah, these films I know aren't made for anywhere near the budgets that
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the big boys play with. That they should have, yeah.
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Yeah. But I tell you what, you don't scrimp on quality, Jeff.
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I mean, I'm not interested in how much it costs, but what kind of timeframe
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frame and constraints are you under to make these films?
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I mean...
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That movie, I think 12 to Midnight was a 13-day shoot.
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Plus, Mark Savage and I got some inserts, like all the close-ups of photographs
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they look out, like the crime scene photos and stuff.
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That was me holding them and Mark Savage on camera at his place one day just doing inserts.
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But it was pretty much a 13-day shoot. We had a lot of locations in 12 to Midnight.
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I think I counted like 17 different locations or something that we went to in
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the movie. And it was, it was ambitious, but, uh, I will say that the people
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in Pennsylvania were amazing.
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Like we shot a few days in California and, uh, around the LA area,
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of course, everybody here was great.
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And then, uh, we went for eight days in Pennsylvania and coal,
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coal country, anthracite coal region.
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And everybody was just amazing there. We got great locations in the mines and
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a train yard, stuff like that.
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So I'm just very pleased with what we got for the money, but,
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and the budget, I think You just try to have good production value as much as
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you can with these movies and kind of do something to rise above all the other movies being made.
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There's just a lot of movies being made, so it's just a very competitive time right now. Yes.
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Well, like I said, mate, you don't scrimp on quality.
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It's all there on the screen. The performances are great.
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The sound effects, the score just all comes together.
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In a wonderful alchemy that just makes it
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so delicious you know i really yeah i mean the cast was
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good i mean like you said sadie cats bronzy tito ortiz
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you know he he did he did fine you know he's a former fighter
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but you know i thought he did a good job and it was good to
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have his have him on screen and then dan robot mark savage
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does a great job he's you know he knows what he wants he's done
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this a long time so it's good to
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have somebody with that experience you know
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michael sue our dp yes bob savakinis
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who's our producer in pennsylvania on the ground and
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he just again we got amazing people and a lot of
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cooperation uh from local people there so
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it was just you know it was a good experience so i hope to return there to make
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another movie actually at pennsylvania so i've been working on ideas and coming
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up with stuff mark has too that we can shoot go back to pennsylvania to film
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yeah yeah totally and and yeah come bring it all down under i got i got i,
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I've got a Warchester great ideas for you, Mike.
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Yeah? Come on down. We'll put a boomerang in his hand that has blades pop out
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of it, and that'll be awesome.
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Franzi could box with the kangaroo. Yeah, totally.
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Or turn them into a small army and lead them against some sort of aggressive
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dictator who's trying to –,
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There you go. There's a lot of potential there. You got big crocodiles there, you know. Yeah.
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Bronzy wrestling a crocodile. Who doesn't want to see that? I want to see that.
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But you can see 12 to midnight right now. Check out the links in the description.
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Zumo play. Look for it in the new year on physical media as well.
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But go right now. The links in the description. We'll put the trailer and the
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link to check out 12 to midnight on Zumo Play.
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Jeff, it has been fantastic to have you on Cinema Nugent.
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This is a great film. You've got a lot of stuff, I know, in the pipeline.
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Can you tell or tease our audience on some of the genres that you're going to
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be visiting in the new year?
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Yeah, yeah. Well, I've got some stuff coming up very soon. But yeah,
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bronzy and another western.
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So we're doing that. And then I'm doing another bronzy kind of action thriller.
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So I'm doing two bronzy back-to-backs. Wow.
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Yeah. Just bronzploitation all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days. 24-7.
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He's flying out. He's actually flying tomorrow and wishing safe travels.
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And then, yeah, we're going to do two movies in California back-to-back.
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Are you actually going to film them back-to-back? Or are you having a breaking between?
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There's a short break between them. There's like about, you know,
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a week of about a week break between them. Yeah. Okay. Right.
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So, yeah. So that's going to be quite interesting. He's, I don't think he's
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done two movies this close together before, or maybe he did.
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I think he did escape from death block 13 and he might've done Renee Perez's
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cry havoc, like right after that or something. So there was, yeah.
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Otherwise you have doing these two back to back and yeah, got some more stuff
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playing for next year, but got to get this year done first. Yeah. So.
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Yes. Yes. Well, the bronzeploitation train sounds like it's all full steam ahead, and it's great to see.
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I've loved everything that's come out so far, Jeff.
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As they say, as Oliver said, please, sir, can I have some more?
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And he's got more in store.
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Jeff, thank you for being on Cinema Jugen, mate, and thank you for giving the world, you and Robert.
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And Mark, Mark Savage, who we'll have on the show and hopefully we'll have the man himself next week.
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So stay tuned, listeners. But right now, put your hands together.
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Thank the master, the man who pulls the strings, the Godfather,
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bronze exploitation, Jeff Miller.
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Thank you. Thank you for having me. Mate, it's been great.
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Keep up all the good work. 12 to midnight is out now. I'll check out the links
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in the description, the trailer, and the link to check it out.
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Zoom, I play Bronzy versus Werewolves. There is nothing else to be said.
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Simply to get out there and check it out.
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Yeah, and then I think come February 1st, it'll be on other platforms also.
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And also I think Latin America, I was told, it'll be available, yeah.
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Yes, the mighty Jeff Miller. The Bronzploitation train, he assures me,
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is well, well continuing.
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And when we caught up trying to
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schedule a bronzy for a part three of this unfortunately it
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won't happen till next year but he tells
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me there are really cool things happening back-to-back movies
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for robert bronzy more blondes bronzploitation on
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the way so stay tuned to
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my little eugenites and bronzyites across
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the world follow the links in
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the description 12 to midnight night is the hot one out now and as always my
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little yugenites thank you for listening to us on spotify or wherever you choose
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to listen to your favorite podcasts i'm ken hill and until next time you've
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been listening to cinema.
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Music.