Latest / Cinema Yūgen / Cinema Yugen Unplugged, Part 2 — Deep Cuts, Dead Sharks & Movie Myths

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Cinema Yugen Unplugged, Part 2 — Deep Cuts, Dead Sharks & Movie Myths · Cinema Yūgen

0:00
G'day. That's right, it's that time again. Time for Cinema Yuga!
0:16
Yes, welcome back Cinema Yuga and DeCroat, John Lithgow's character,
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BZ, from Santa Claus the Movie.
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The people don't want to wait all year, they're dying for a sequel.
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Well, you've waited patiently, so wait no longer.
0:33
Part two of my incredible cinematically sprawling conversation with the wonderful
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man of letters and many movies, Paul Rollins, continues.
0:47
Part two of Cinema You Unplugged, my conversation with Paul Rollins.
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You've waited. Here it is. part two
0:57
is about to begin like i
1:00
was saying the universality of things like trying
1:03
to make everything family friendly but they
1:06
were talking the naked gun the other day on this podcast i
1:09
was listening to and how the the strength of
1:12
the original is was that leslie nielsen didn't have
1:15
to sell the gags and yeah and they
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felt that liam nason had to sell the
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gags so much do what do you think okay what
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did you have you seen what did you think i haven't seen it's
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not come out in um in in chapania but uh
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yeah no the interest in him as a comedian yeah
1:35
he had an interesting career Liam Neeson you think he was a serious actor yeah
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an action star to his comedian it was list and yeah yeah like three different
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eras of being a star yeah although that that no ice road Vengeance was absolutely terrible.
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Oh, really? I had to review that for a film threat, and it was like,
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I saw the first one, and the first one was formulaic, but it wasn't bad. This one was like,
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the sequel you didn't know that you wanted from Ice Road.
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And this time there's no ice on the road and it's in Nepal.
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And Liam Neeson's going there with his dead brother's ashes to scatter his brother's
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ashes on the top of Mount Everest, which he has no hope of reaching the top
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because he's now a senior citizen.
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He's climbing it or he's in a truck. Yeah.
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He's climbing Mount Everest. He doesn't really drive a truck in this one. He drives a bus.
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I've got to see this. It's like they took the plot for Speed and parts of the first Ice Road film.
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If it's a truck, is it more like Sorcerer?
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No, there's nowhere near the tension of Sorcerer anywhere to be found.
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Of Ice Road Vengeance. I keep calling it Dirt Road Vengeance because there's
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absolutely no ice on the roads. They're muddy and slushy, but no ice.
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I'm always thinking in letterbox lists. You know, when I talk to people about
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movies, I'm thinking letterbox list. Oh, okay.
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You could do a letterbox list of films that are completely the opposite of the
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titles, you know? Right.
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Like Ice Road, Vengeance, but there's no Ice Road in it. Yeah, no Ice Road, yeah.
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Well, I Drink Your Blood. Have you seen that movie, I Drink Your Blood?
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The exploitation movie.
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Yes, yes. Yeah, there's no blood drunk in the movie. Oh, no, yeah, yeah.
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It's like... It's rabies-infected meat pies, right? Yeah. No, it's...
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That's a good question. I don't think I've ever thought about that.
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I'd have to sit for a while. It'd be a good list, wouldn't it?
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Yeah. It'd be a very good list. Movies that promise something and don't actually have it in there.
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Movies that could be sued for false... False advertising.
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False hopes. Well, look, they used to say that about the posters from the VN. Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, one of my favorite movies, unashamedly, is Deathstalker 2.
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Now, Boris Vallejo's poster and the film Death Stalker 2 are not the same animal by any means. Yeah.
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Nor indeed any of the Death Stalker films with his posters. The posters are awesome.
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The movies are awesome too. I don't know how I feel about this new Death Stalker.
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I don't know if they'll look. I certainly know that there'll be no Lana Clarkson
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walking around with her knockers out. It wasn't the first one.
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Well when i was growing up in the 80s the rule of thumb was the
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better the sleeve the worse the movie yeah yeah
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the worse the sleeve the better the movie because because we
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we just thought if it's a good movie they don't need to sell it
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you know like terminator just that so what's the cover you
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know yeah rambo just had stallone with
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the machine gun with fire in the background it's like you don't need to sell it
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so yeah yeah it's just you know even you know
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it's yeah but
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i mean even in that like talking about that like
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the poster i really hate the
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fact that poster art is sort of like i know chris
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gore says it's a lot over in film for it he says you know make movie posters
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art again yeah because they've
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kind of gone away like the photoshop is far too
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convenient uh you know yeah i mean i got a big thrill from like the uh the poster
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for the last indiana james movie you know because that was a really good poster
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you know yeah yeah the james it's funny when you buy these James Bond poster
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books and you get to these ones and you're like, wow, the seventies, the eighties.
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And then you kind of hit the Daniel Craig era and it's just like nothing. There's nothing.
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Yeah. It's like I said, to people like Tom Cruise movies are usually a photo of him or his face.
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Yeah. Like a full body or the mountain of people, you know, I mean,
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think about the early mission impossible films.
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It was the side of Tom Cruise's head.
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Yeah. Yeah. You know, the first one was this, the second one was this.
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The third one was this, right? By the time he finished the series,
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it'll be his head will have gone 180 degrees. I mean, Dead Reckoning was just
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a close-up of that. That was Tom Cruise like that.
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Yeah. And he always looks sullen, like, oh, no, another Mission Impossible. Yeah.
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I've got a film we could talk about because you're from Australia,
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a film that I watched recently, Dangerous Animals.
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Yes. Jeez, that was a good one, wasn't it? That was a really good film.
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I felt like a complete idiot. Joy Courtney.
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Yeah. Yeah. So I watched that movie and I've got to admit, okay,
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I don't like slacking people off, but I've never really been that impressed
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by Joy Courtney in movies.
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Yeah. You know, I don't dislike the guy, but I've just, I've just was like,
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you know, but I watched him in this movie and he was incredible.
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And I finished the movie and thought, that's one of the best Aussie accents
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by an American actor I've ever heard.
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And then I went to Wikipedia and it's like, the guy is Australian. Yeah.
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I didn't know that. My wife didn't know Tom Holland was British until she saw
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her. I said, haven't you ever seen him in interviews?
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She goes, no. And she goes, did you know Tom Holland's British? And I go, yeah.
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Well, you have that story about Ben Affleck and Christian Bale.
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No. Ben Affleck had just been cast as Batman.
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Oh, okay. And he was in a Halloween store in LA. Yeah. And he hears this voice,
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Ben, Ben. And he turns around and he's Christian Bale.
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And Ben Affleck said, the first thing I thought was, Bloody hell,
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two Batman in a Halloween shop.
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And the second thing is, it's just weird. And the second thing was,
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Christian Bale's British?
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He thought he was American, you know? Yeah. Nah, it's weird.
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But no, Joey. Yeah, that was a great little movie.
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That was really in the spirit of those exploitation films of the 70s. Yeah.
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I mean, I'm not into the hostile, you know, side of things, the gore porn or
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anything, but I liked the premise.
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I thought that was, you know.
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Yeah, and it kind of was a new version of a shock movie, right? Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, they're probably dying to, I know that there's probably powers that
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be out there that are dying to have another crack at the Jaws franchise, you know,
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in the wake of the anniversary or something. They're going to have to come up with something good.
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I know I'm excited to see, like I'm a passionate fan of Jaws The Revenge and
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there's a documentary coming out called Jaws Goes to the Bahamas,
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and it's purely devoted to Jaws the Revenge.
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So you're only supposed to blow the blood of your ark up. Yeah. Right?
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When I tell people about the plot of Jaws the Revenge, they just don't believe me. Yeah.
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It's hilarious. I have to record the conversation next time I speak to somebody
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about Jaws the Revenge. They're like, hang on, the shark follows us the Bahamas?
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Yeah, you mean the shark that they blew up in the first one has a
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vendetta against the family and is now coming off so hang
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on she's traumatized because she kids keep
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getting killed by sharks so she goes to the bahamas yeah
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and her son's an oceanographer and yet
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all his brothers were killed by sharks yeah and at the end of the movie there's
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a flashback to all the to the all the movies why is there a flashback what why
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would the shark remember yeah but yeah apparently the the script had much more
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kind of voodoo stuff in it right is what I've heard, and then it would have made me sense.
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Yeah. You know, they actually made a movie that could have been a better plot for Jaws of Revenge.
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It was called Ghost Shark, and that's the story. Okay.
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I don't know if you've seen it. I've not seen it.
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Ghost Shark, it's a gem lost to time, but it stars Richard Moll.
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He's the headliner in it because everyone else is unknown.
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And the legend has it that he tried to bring his dead wife back to life in an
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ancient Indian cave using an incantation from a grimoire that he stole from
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the local museum and the problem is a dead shark,
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Flows into the cave at the same time, and the shark is reincarnated. But it's a ghost shark.
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Yeah, that happened to me once. Oh, really? Okay, yeah.
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The best scene, I'll tantalize the audience, the best scene involves a water
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cooler, and the shark can appear in any water, as long as there's water somewhere.
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Oh, okay. The shark can, because it's a ghost, it can come out.
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You've sold me. I'm going to check it out.
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Ghost shark. Yeah. The best shark movie that isn't a shark movie is,
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I think, Orca, The Killer Whirl. Yes.
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Yeah. David Harris, that's a great movie. Yeah, really good movie.
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I wish they got that on Blu-ray again.
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And I always just thought of it as like a crappy ripoff of Jules,
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but it's actually a really great movie, I think. Yeah.
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I liked the first Meg. I interviewed Stephen Alton, who I know,
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because I liked his books. The second one was terrible.
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I mean, I was so disappointed with the Meg 2. I didn't mind the first one.
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The second one was a shocker.
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The most shocking thing about the Meg 2 is that Ben Wheatley directed it.
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Yeah. And he's such a good director. I remember.
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But you look at his filmography and you go, okay. And then the Meg 2,
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I'm like, because when I saw the trailer for it, I was like,
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oh, it's just a guy with the same name, right?
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Yeah, yeah. And then I went to Wikipedia and I was like, I started thinking,
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well, Wikipedia must be wrong.
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Yeah. Then he's doing interviews for the movie. I'm like, no, he's a director.
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You just want you just want to know the circumstances like
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why they got the dude who directed you know a field in england
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to direct yeah like probably they kept calling him
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and calling him all the all these years to do all these b movies and he's like
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no and then he gets a big gas bill or something yeah it's like yeah i'll do
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it or he wants to buy a house in the bahamas uh like michael kane yeah yeah
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i'll do it i haven't as he famously said i haven't seen the film,
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but I do enjoy the house that it paid for.
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Yeah, he couldn't pick up his Oscar, could he, for Hannah and her sisters,
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because he's filming the movie.
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Crazy. Well, here's the thing, though. Here's the $64 million question.
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Which is the worst movie, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure or Jaws of Revenge?
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Whoa. Yeah. That's a tough one. Because Beyond the Poseidon Adventure is boring.
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This is pretty shocking, yeah.
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It's definitely an acorn that fell way, way, way far away from the tree of the first one.
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Yeah. Which had some genuine moments in it, but, you know.
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That was shocking. It's just like people walking around a set.
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It's just like, you know, the first movie with this big epic and then you just
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got these TV actors walking around a set.
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No. It's so. Every time Michael Ken made a film with Sally Field, it never worked. Yeah.
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Yeah. They did a movie where they were tied naked to each other for the entire
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movie. Oh, right. You see that one? No. Called Surrender.
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Michael Ken and Sally Field. Yeah, no, I missed that one.
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And they're tied up together the whole time yeah I mean,
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but they're just tied together naked the whole movie it's like a love hate relationship
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kind of movie I think I haven't seen it since the 80s he worked a lot in the
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80s right I mean he was bringing out like six films yeah,
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yeah Michael Caine yeah he's finally called it I mean he was a quintessential
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part of every Christopher Nolan,
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so you were talking about Superman
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before I it made me want to go back and watch all the Superman films.
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Yeah. Because I didn't like the new film when I first saw it. Yeah.
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And I realized that Superman was the film that made me fall in love with the cinema.
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So I'm too stuck on that original movie. So I went back and I watched the original,
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kind of got out of my system, and then I went back to watch Superman again, and I enjoyed it.
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It's a valid, unique approach to it.
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But the weird thing that happened was I fell in love with the Snyder trilogy.
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Right. I really love Man of Steel now, and I never got Man of Steel before,
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because it occupies the perfect kind of middle ground between the Donner and
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James Gunn, so now I just love it. Hmm.
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Yeah, I have a, I don't know. I'm not a Snyder. I'm not a Snyder bro, as they say.
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I just want to say I don't like it. His stuff, I think there's merit in it.
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Certainly the revised version of his Justice League is a far better film than
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the Justice League that was released initially.
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That wasn't really a film. It was just a shocker with the Henry Cavill's fake top lip. Yeah.
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Or digital top lip to cover his moustache.
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You'd think in the age of all special effects they would have found a way just
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to give him a stick on moustache, wouldn't you?
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Yeah, I don't know. That film doesn't work as a film to me. It's just like a
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succession of scenes. Yeah.
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You know, it's just, it's awful.
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Yesterday I watched Ballerina, you know, the John Wick movie.
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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just finally opened.
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Yeah. I haven't seen it. I have to admit, I have seen bits and pieces of all the John Wick films.
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Yeah. I haven't really. I haven't sat down and watched the whole one yet.
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It just, it just interested me because like it, I've just watched the film and
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I really was really enjoying it, but I was still thinking, yeah,
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you know, when you do a spinoff of a franchise, there's so many different ways you can go.
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Each John Wick film was bigger than the last and kind of deep in the mythology.
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Yeah. But this one just is kind of just content to stay in that lane. Yeah.
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But that's the kind of the good thing about it. Cause you get what you want.
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And again, and because the series is over.
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But then it's also the bad thing because it's like, well, it's not really that different.
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Yeah. So it's like what do you
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do when you do – what do we expect from spin-offs, you know, of movies?
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Well, you know, I mean, I think some of the problem is movies used to be like
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– franchises is the big word.
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But I feel like there's too much pressure on these creators is to find stuff
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that can be interconnective and can't crawl out into a franchise.
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I agree with Mark Kermode when he said, I do not believe that The Matrix was originally a trilogy.
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I reckon that they had the first one nailed out and maybe the mythology and stuff behind it.
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But The Matrix Reloaded is one of the films I absolutely hate with a passion
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because they completely screwed the pooch. I'm sorry.
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At the end of the first one, he flies off like Superman and at the start of
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the second, he backs to being like, oh, Morpheus, I don't know what to do.
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I don't know how to feel, man.
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And then they have a sweaty grave in the cave and he gives the word,
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Morpheus gives the word, we are Zion and we are not afraid. Horseshit.
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It was just terrible. And the first one was so good. Shocker.
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Yeah, I went back and watched them all again when the last one came out And
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I did enjoy two and three more. I actually do really like two now.
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Three is, I think that Matrix two and three, the one movie, because three is
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just the big action finale.
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Yeah, yeah. Three is just like the second half of two that they cut off.
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Yeah, it'd be interesting if they could do like a new Beverly cinema version
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of that, you know, like they did with Kill Bill. Yeah. I just watched the film.
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What did you think of that Matrix rebooted or whatever it was did?
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I wasn't that hot in it the newest one yeah i
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didn't where i didn't mind
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it i didn't mind it but the thing that i really didn't
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like was the director just didn't seem to have his well have their heart in
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in the action scenes yeah the scenes were just second rate of like well this
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is the matrix i mean you kind of reinvented action cinema so you know yeah i
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enjoyed those guys back But, you know,
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because Kenner Reed's a charm on his knees, just so watchable.
18:44
Yeah, no, it was awful.
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I mean, look, I don't know. Maybe visually you can only, like,
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break the envelope or push the envelope once because once, like,
18:56
these things definitely don't get better as they go on.
18:59
Yeah. I mean, they talk a lot about the integration of AI into films.
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Now yeah uh look it's
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not it's not going to go away it's here to stay it's like
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you know you can't get rid of the internet now you can't
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get rid of social media now you're not going to be able to get rid of ai now
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and you know people are so worried about what it's going to replace or what
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it's going to take over i mean look it's only as good as the people who use
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it right You've still got to tell it what to do.
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You know, it's like, you know, to use a non-movie.
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Lance Armstrong took drugs, right, that helped him enhance his performance to
19:45
win all of those Tour de France. Yeah.
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But he had to be a pretty bloody good cyclist because just you and I could take
19:53
the same drugs and we couldn't win the Tour de France, right? Yeah.
19:58
Right? So it's like Harrison Ellenshaw once said, Shakespeare never had a word processor.
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And now that we have word processors, we have no Shakespeare's.
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Any technology, and this is a good documentary too, if you haven't seen it,
20:11
it's called Jurassic Punk.
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It's on Tubi right now. It's the story of Steve Williams, who was really the
20:17
creative genius behind the digital integration into ILM back in the day.
20:23
He was responsible for the water tentacle
20:27
in the abyss the the the liquid metal
20:30
all that sort of stuff and he
20:33
basically got shit on because he
20:36
wouldn't play the corporate game within ilm like dennis mirren is the honcho
20:41
he's going to get the awards you just work for him right no matter doesn't matter
20:46
if dennis didn't do the innovation he's still the guy and he's still going to
20:51
get the australian you you're going to sit quietly in the background and do
20:54
as you're told, and he just, he didn't.
20:57
So that's the story of him. But he talks about, in that documentary, the fact that CGI is,
21:06
was came along and it was a tool to enhance films right and just like hollywood
21:12
does they learn all the wrong lessons to figure well people like the cgi so
21:16
now we will just put as much cgi.
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Into a film as possible now this could go this could be the way that ai goes if they say well
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we can just use ai to fix the problem or people
21:29
like the ai bits let's just put more in it
21:31
right and you know it was the same thing with top gun they learned the wrong
21:35
reasons from top the long wrong lessons from top gun maverick what they saw
21:41
and what they took away is we can take films that are you know 20 you know nearly
21:47
30 plus years old and make a sequel and people will go,
21:51
right but what should have gleaned from is this is how you make a this is nostalgia
21:57
done right Right. It's not over.
22:00
They made sure to tick all the boxes. Here's all the stuff you love.
22:03
Right down to the detail of Don Simpson's name at the start of the movie next
22:07
to Jerry Brockham. Yeah.
22:09
You know, I knew I was in there for a good time with Top Gun Maverick as soon
22:12
as I saw the Simpson Brockheimer logo at the start.
22:16
And that film reeks of the ghost of Don Simpson.
22:20
You can almost hear Don. I think people over-emphasize the point about it being
22:23
a sequel, being a big thing, because a lot of people I spoke to,
22:28
they've never seen and still haven't seen the first one.
22:30
Oh, what, the first Top Gun? Yeah, they're just like, I went to watch Top Gun
22:34
Maverick because it looked like a good movie and I heard it was a good movie.
22:38
And I've got a friend, it's one of his favorite movies, what he says is one
22:41
of his favorite movies, but he still hasn't watched the first movie.
22:44
And I'm like, that's crazy, you loved this one, why didn't you watch the other?
22:47
And he said, because I kind of get what it's about from this movie, so it's fine.
22:54
The real genius, though, is how they made, Penny, like, who's only mentioned
22:58
in, like, only literally mentioned, like, as the Admiral's daughter in Dinger,
23:03
and they made her, like, a whole character.
23:05
Yeah. Well, no, I think what the great thing about Maverick is that they made
23:09
a great film. Like, it stands up as a really good film.
23:12
Yeah. And it stands alone, too. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like you said,
23:16
you can watch it and not watch the first one and be satisfied.
23:21
I think three will be a mistake, though. I know that they want to do three.
23:25
Macquarie says he's already got no difference. What do you think they want to do Days of Thunder 2?
23:32
In the wake now of F1, which was, let's face it, there's Days of Thunder vibes coming all out of F1.
23:41
If you know your Days of Thunder, there's Days of Thunder vibes in there.
23:46
Well, it's going to be tricky because Days of Thunder does not have a cultural
23:51
footprint that's top numbers. That's true, yeah.
23:54
It's got the stench of kind of failure about it, even though it's a great movie.
23:58
And also, how are they going to improve upon F1? That's true.
24:03
Well, no, it's not just improve. People don't want the same experience again. Well, that's it.
24:10
I think if they do F1 too, I wouldn't be surprised if… That's great.
24:17
I think they don't do F1 and he's doing another kind of race or something. Yeah.
24:22
You know, because he does all kinds of races, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah.
24:26
But no, what an incredibly immersive, like I don't watch a lot of motor racing
24:30
at all, motor sport in general, but my golly. Yeah.
24:35
But it's sad that you come out of the movie and then immediately when you start
24:38
reading reviews, it's like, where's the sequel?
24:40
It's like, you know, it's like, it'd be great if they didn't make one.
24:44
Yeah i feel i feel that way increasingly oh well i've felt that way for about
24:48
20 years i'm like as soon as something's successful there's a sequel and then
24:52
the sequels never you know,
24:56
great great movies become like your your friends yeah and you know and it's
25:01
just like you like to think about your friends sometimes you're like i wonder
25:03
what you know because i've got friends from all over the world because i live
25:06
in japan and teachers come and go you know you say i wonder what this friend's
25:10
doing i wonder what that friend's doing and it's like that it's like i wonder
25:13
what Cole Trickle would be doing there.
25:15
You know I wonder what Maverick would be doing there and that's but Maverick
25:18
got it right every choice in Maverick they made the right decision because I
25:24
remember watching the movie and I was like okay I'm going to pinpoint the moment where they trip up,
25:29
And then without killing them, I was like, oh, they're going to screw this up.
25:32
I was like, whoa, they landed it.
25:33
Yeah, yeah. It's just like every single choice. Just really great.
25:38
Even putting Ed Harris, you know, as a reference to the right stuff there at the start.
25:45
Yeah. The way he walks up to the plane is totally right stuff, you know. Yeah.
25:50
I don't like that look on your face, man. Only look I got, you know.
25:54
Yeah. But. I like films that are very open about their influences. I like that. Yeah.
26:00
I mean, no one does it better than Tarantino, of course, when writing Valentines to, you know,
26:11
the age that has been and gone and will never be sadly repeated.
26:17
I mean, no. It's funny with Tarantino, because sometimes you're absolutely sure
26:21
that he's homage in a movie and then on his podcast he's like,
26:24
I've never seen that movie.
26:26
Like everybody was convinced that the bride war black influenced
26:29
kill bill yeah and he he said
26:32
i never saw that movie yeah you know i
26:35
was i was more about a lady snowblood or yeah movies like yeah but i mean i
26:42
mean look when you when you sort of the difference with him though is because
26:46
he sort of is openly that way i mean everyone's bound to you know just by instinctually look for,
26:55
references the way they used to look for you know when certain
26:58
directors used to came out in their films like find alfred hitchcock in this
27:02
one yeah yeah you know find uh you know whoever yeah i think tarantino's legacy
27:08
is going to be amazing because i mean he's my favorite uh a little bit my favorite
27:12
he's my favorite director that started that started directing in my lifetime
27:17
if that makes sense Yeah.
27:19
You know, Scorsese started in the 60s, so, you know, I was only four when Chidova came out.
27:25
But I saw Reservoir Dogs the day it came out in England, so I've been a fan from the beginning.
27:33
No, he's good. I mean, for me personally, Jackie Brown, I think,
27:36
is my favorite of Tarantino's.
27:40
I know that's a common answer sort of shared among some people.
27:46
Although I do like The Hateful Eight, the more I watch it, I like The Hateful Eight a lot more.
27:55
Now, I remember when I first saw it at the cinema, I...
28:00
I was having a crappy day. I'll put it on the crappy day because you take the
28:04
baggage from the day into the movies with you.
28:07
So it was just a bad day in general. So I put that down and I'm enjoying it the first time.
28:12
But in subsequent viewings, The Hateful Eight really is, you know,
28:17
Tarantino has talked about it.
28:18
It's one of his, he considers one of the better scripts that he has written on.
28:24
Or one of the direct, I think he said recently in a podcast,
28:28
It was one of the directorial efforts of his that he prizes in others.
28:35
I think my favorite scene in a Tarantino movie is amazing. It's hard to explain.
28:41
It's the scene where Tim Roth is.
28:43
It starts off with Tim Roth talking
28:45
to the black guy about how he's got to tell an anecdote to the cops.
28:49
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fellow gangsters. He says, what's an anecdote?
28:54
Yeah. Like a funny story that you make up to make people believe so.
28:57
Yeah. But you've got to remember the details.
29:00
Yeah, and they go to him explaining it in the bar. Yeah.
29:03
And then it goes to, you actually go inside the story that he's telling.
29:07
But the genius move of it is, that scene where all the cops and the hand drives
29:11
go in, it's so tense, right? Yeah.
29:14
But why is it tense? Because we're the audience, we know it's not real.
29:18
That's cinema to me, though. Yeah. He's making you feel tense when he's just
29:23
told you that it's an anecdote.
29:25
Yeah. But he invests you in it because you're invested in him making it believable
29:29
so that he doesn't get found out and get killed.
29:33
I think, Paul, that's the difference between people like you and myself and
29:39
the casual cinema goers, the way the cinema makes it.
29:43
We respond to the way movies make us feel.
29:47
Yeah, exactly. Not purely like, well, this movie made $100,000 from the producer,
29:53
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
29:54
That doesn't draw me at all. Never has, never will.
29:58
The advertising isn't what draws me at all to the movies.
30:02
I go to movies and I watch movies and stories and I hope to get literally something
30:08
out of it, like some sort of, you know, if I don't feel anything.
30:13
Yeah. I want to be transported to it. Yeah. And, I mean,
30:17
it's with the stagnation and
30:22
the homogenization of what they sadly call content today and not cinnamon.
30:30
It's just they're taking all the flavor, they're taking all the – it's sort of like food products.
30:37
Yeah, exactly. The last time I read the ingredients label for a block of Cadbury's
30:42
chocolate, there's no – the slogan used to be it has a glass and a half of full cream dairy milk.
30:47
Now there is absolutely no milk in Cadbury dairy chocolate. It's just soy and
30:54
flavoring and solids and milk product, but no real milk.
31:00
And I think that's the problem with the movies. Well, it's like the reason that
31:05
we love films is because of the unique kind of, you know, the unique edginess and the flavor of it.
31:12
But that's the stuff that studios don't care about. No.
31:16
You know? I mean, The Silence of the Lambs was a mega movie,
31:20
right? It's spawned sequels and prequels and a TV show.
31:25
But that film was kind of a very unique beast, right? I mean,
31:28
it shouldn't have worked.
31:29
Jonathan Demme, you know, was not a horror director. He brought something unique
31:34
to it and whatever that couldn't be replicated.
31:38
And it didn't get replicated, you know? Yeah.
31:41
But when they were doing the sequels, they weren't, and that's the other thing
31:45
is when Hollywood makes a really good film, they never understand what made the film good.
31:51
Like the great, the great thing about Maverick was that Cruise and Macquarie,
31:55
they understood what was great about Top Gun.
31:58
I never, if you watch Top Gun again now, it feels a much more emotional film because of Maverick.
32:04
Yes. Because you know where it's going.
32:07
Yeah. Because you originally thought the Top Gun was just this jinguistic,
32:10
you know, kind of Yeah, rush out, rush out and, and join the, uh, yeah.
32:16
And they killed his best mate just to give a little bit of drama before he could
32:20
go off in the skies again.
32:22
Yeah. But now when you watch it, you realize now there's real sorrow in that
32:25
movie. Yeah. You know, and that's sorrow, what Maverick's all about.
32:30
Yeah. And, and one of my favorite scenes in Maverick is, is,
32:34
is not very, well, compared to some of the exciting ones is the scene after
32:39
he's outside the bar and he watches them doing Great Balls of Fire inside.
32:45
Yeah, yeah. And then the music just goes away and it's all silent.
32:48
Yeah. And then it's just Jennifer Conley sees him outside looking in.
32:53
Yeah. And that's like – Food poignance, yeah. That's good filmmaking.
32:58
That's economy. That says so much without saying a damn word.
33:02
Even though they show the flashback of him – Even though there's much back of
33:06
him watching Anthony Edwards do it.
33:09
There's an interview that Macquarie did. It might be a video interview where
33:13
he talks about that whole scene and how he – because just before that,
33:17
they introduced all the recruits, right?
33:19
So they've got to – that whole scene in that bar, they've got to introduce Tom
33:26
Cruise and Jennifer Connelly's relationship.
33:28
Then they've got to introduce all the recruits. And then they've got to introduce what you just said,
33:33
tom cruise seeing miles teller and hearing the music and
33:37
the way that they had to stage it and do all this it was he said
33:40
it was a real you know minefield trying to
33:43
get through it yeah yeah it hit all
33:46
the hit all the right notes but as we've
33:49
been saying it uh i think that's the reason it was so successful because they
33:53
took the like you said they take the time they took the time that studios don't
33:58
take the time to and that's tick all the boxes again this is what the audience
34:02
will want to see they'll want to see this they'll want to see him put on the jacket,
34:07
ride the ride the kawasaki alongside a jet you know.
34:12
It's not, look, it's not pandering to get it, to take the time to realize,
34:20
well, this is what people liked about the first one.
34:23
We really should put it, we really should put it in because otherwise they run
34:28
into the problem that they're running into now is if it's something like,
34:32
well, it's the same characters, so they should be satisfied with that.
34:36
Well, like Beverly Hills Cop 4.
34:37
Oh my gosh. Yeah. You know, where it's just the heat is on, it's just throwing it down your throat.
34:43
Like the old movies, the old movies, the old movies, it's like,
34:47
it's got no personality of its own. Yeah. Like coming to America.
34:51
When you speak to people about it, they just say, well, it was good enough, wasn't it?
34:56
Yeah, but when I go to the movies, I don't want them just to be good enough.
35:02
I want it to do that.
35:06
Yeah. Yeah, but it's funny, like Maverick, people still talk about Maverick
35:09
all the time. You and I talk about Maverick.
35:11
That means there's not been a film, a blockbuster as good as that since Maverick.
35:17
That's true. Even I was a bit disappointed too with the way,
35:21
the longer the Deadpool goes on.
35:24
Because the first one I thought was so good.
35:27
I thought its strength was its economy, and I think that its downfall,
35:31
even though it made a billion dollars, I think anything's downfall is constant expansion.
35:37
When there's been no tracks laid for expansion, that's what killed Star Wars.
35:43
Right yeah what killed star wars is the fact that
35:46
there was no overlining plan for a trilogy
35:49
there was nowhere it was going to start and it was going to end they're just
35:52
going to well each person's going to have a go and hopefully they all
35:55
fit together and that's what's
35:58
interesting isn't it when you watch new hope nowadays it's just amazing they're
36:02
just in the desert and they're in the cantina and they're in they're just in
36:06
rooms after that yeah and the empire is just basically i mean that's got some
36:11
worlds but then you get to the prequels and the new tv shows and it's just this.
36:17
Amazing universe but it didn't start out that way you
36:20
know no no like like all
36:23
good things like all good things they they didn't
36:26
start it out but once they become once they become
36:29
generic and and they they start turning franchises into
36:33
like cereal flavors that you can just walk along the
36:36
isles and get your star wars get your marvel get
36:39
your yeah whatever your taste is it's
36:42
um it's interesting how they always get i mean obviously it's
36:45
a subjective thing but they always seem to get spider-man right though yeah
36:49
well i mean it's it's pretty hard to must pretty hard to muck up spider-man
36:55
i know but why because the the superman they've i mean in one level they've
37:00
tried different things with it and when you do experiment you run the risk of
37:03
not being completely successful,
37:05
But I would say all the Spider-Man movies have been really, really entertaining,
37:11
and they haven't ruined the legacy of the character, I don't think.
37:19
It's interesting how they get that one, right?
37:22
Yeah, who knows? Well, look, we're going to get another one.
37:25
It's like all this stuff we've been talking about. There's more on the way, folks.
37:30
So, you know, don't worry.
37:32
Yeah, new director, right? New director.
37:35
And he's getting done there. So maybe, I mean, I hope it's good.
37:40
Fingers crossed, though. As with all things, we will wait and see.
37:46
Okay, cool. It's been great to talk to you, mate. Like I said,
37:49
everything. Yeah, let's do it again, yeah.
37:52
See you on the Facebook. Yeah, yeah. We'll be there, and I'll put a link in
37:57
the description to all your wonderful work that you've done.
37:59
All the wonderful people that you spoke to.
38:02
And we will see each other at the movies. On the ice road. Yeah. On the dirt road.
38:10
On the non-ice road. All right, mate. Take care. Yeah.
38:15
See you at the cinema. Yes, Paul Rowlands, the maestro of money into light.
38:20
Check the links in the description great
38:23
bloke we will certainly at some point
38:26
have him back once we've had a nice plethora of great films to uh digest yet
38:33
again we will look forward to future conversations with a man from money into
38:39
light paul rolands check the links in the description.
38:44
And as always, my little Eugenites, thank you for listening to us on Spotify
38:50
or wherever you choose to listen to your favorite podcasts.
38:53
I'm Kent Hill, and until next time, you've been listening to Cinema Zero Games.
39:00
Music.