Talking Pondo: Up in Smoke and Heart Like a Wheel

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Up In Smoke to watch and Clif gives Marty Heart Like A Wheel to watch.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to season two of Making Pondo and Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest. Making Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty talk to people they have worked with and discuss their experiences on set. Alright, Marty, that's us. We're back.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yes. Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo. Am I listening to the same episode? What what is Pondo? Oh, I already messed up my whole gimmick, you know. We've been doing the whole episode talking like this, man. Oh, that's right. That really sounds more like Harold Raymond's in the heavy metal movie than Chong, so. I could do my cheat. Yeah, I could do my better tobaccas. We watched Up in Smoke this week. Then we also watched Heart Like a Wheel. Heart Like a Wheel. And what is Pondo? Pondo. Wow, what is Pondo? Pondo is a lot of things. It's mostly was this this guy who was in this movie that he's not even happy with. But he played this character named Pondo, and we were like, oh, if that can get made, anything can get made, not realizing the real reason why that got made, because it's full of gratuitous nudity and you know dumb humor, and that's that was enough to sell something in the 80s. But we went, well, that means you can make any movie and get it put out right.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

And you know, we weren't completely wrong. No, we weren't. But also, I I think the meaning Pondo evolved over time because, like you said, as we learned about the film business it became, we realized how that film got made. Oh, that film got made because they put a bunch of of you know uh dancers and strippers from Vancouver in it, you know, and that was that was why it got made. And you know, that was enough to get some funding and to, you know, to to you know, he had to do the pitch, the whole deal, gotta know the right people.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Hot off the heels of things like uh Animal House and Bachelor Party, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Exactly. Exactly. So talk and Pondo is really talking about movies.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Talking about movies, yeah. Movies that made us make movies.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Up and smoke is definitely influential. And I think I may have seen pieces of heart like a wheel, but that one kind of filtered the cracks, as we'll get into. But let's let's start with Up and Smoke, I guess. Because I have so much to say about the other movie, I think it would be uh let me grab my notes here. We'll start with that one.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Up and smoke, there they are. Okay. So Up and Smoke. Um let me get started here. Your description. Uh Stoner musicians Pedro De Pacas and Anthony Mann Stoner unknowingly smuggle a van made entirely of marijuana from Mexico to Los Angeles, with incompetent police Sergeant Stadenko hot on their trail.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Well, that eventually happens. They always love to drop us about a half hour into these movies with the synopsis, right? Well, that's your log line. I guess.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

And your storyline is Cheech and Sean meet up by chance on the highway somewhere in California. They go in search of dope and are accidentally deported to Mexico, where in their desperation to get home, they agree to drive a van back to the States so they can get back in time for a gig they're due to play. Unaware of the properties, uh unaware of the properties for which the van is constructed, they make their way back, having acquired a couple of female hitchhikers, whilst all the time avoiding the cops who they are not even aware are following them.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

I didn't know your name was Alex, man. So I guess that does kind of uh sum the whole thing up. You know, I've seen this movie I don't know how many times. It's like an album to me. I just put it on, and it is an album, the soundtrack where they would put little pieces of the movie between the songs and stuff, and because we didn't have videotape, you just listened to the record at home and felt like you were watching the movie again. But it's it's such an easy, breezy watch. Seen it so many times, I didn't you know have to like analyze it. But since that's what we do for the pod, it was interesting to sit down and watch this one through the talking pondo eyes. And one of my first notes was they are so dirty. They're canos. It's it's funny because you go look at other characters and all the other movies we've watched, and these are like the grimiest lead characters, you know. It's so 70s aesthetic. It's sad they didn't make more movies in the 70s, because by the time we get to the 80s, Cheech and Chong are very clean looking in those movies, but this one is still the early 70s look.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

I would say this one and Nice Dreams look or the are the two that kind of look like this, and then by the time you get to next movie, like it's not even close to it. Well, just the productions got more money, you know. Like, I'm sure they filmed in somebody's house and those were somebody's kids, you know, and you know, that was somebody's bathroom, the laundry he peed in. And you know, um, starting a movie with a Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoon, that's that was pretty surprising. Um, especially considering I think this was put out by like, what is it, Paramount or Columbia? Yeah, it's Paramount.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Back then it was it was like music rights were easier to do and stuff. So I guess probably trickier now.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Um and fucking Struther Martin's in this. You know, that's the failure to communicate guy for for anybody who you know he's he's he was in Cool An Luke.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

The goddamn Finkelstein shit.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

God damn bitch. Work your way up to these goddamn bananas.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

If you watch the deleted scenes, he has it a little bit more in the movie where he's like picking up uh Anthony at jail or something something. The scene doesn't really make a lot of sense. I can see why it's not in the movie, but it's it's there on the DVD.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

I literally did not know that his name was Anthony Man Stoner until uh I checked the credits of this movie the last time and was like, oh my god, that's right. I think I did it at one point and I just forgot to. I want to talk to you. No, yeah. Don't talk away when I'm talking to you. Uh that there's an early shot of um Chee when Cheech comes out of the house and he sees his car for that first time and and he goes sliding up to the ride, and all the Cholos and the Cholas are sitting on the porches and shit, all hanging around and shit. That just it it's it's um it looks so different in my teenage years. I mean, it was sort of like it seemed it looked like a normal Tucson kind of West Side, but it but also kind of amped up for for television, for a movie, you know. I don't know. Uh comic in a comical way, I guess. Um but yeah, i the the the film is uh it doesn't look great. I mean it looks fine, but a lot of their movies later would look a lot better.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah. One of the main notes I have is towards the end of the movie, Chong's backstage and he can't see straight because what did you give him? Well, I gave him some ups or what or downs or whatever. How many fingers do you see, you know, and and he's like out of it. There's this weird cut that happens where she's like, Well, I could give him a popper, and then the next thing you know, you see him at in the front and she's trying to help him up. Yeah. It's weird, right? It's like this feels like something I've always thought, you know. And you could you your brain can and go, like, oh, they gave him the popper and he ran outside, but you'd never see that happen. So we don't really know what that strange gap is there.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

That's I always found it weird that he sobers up when he starts smelling the weed. Yeah, because he never got a buzz the whole movie, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

He's just been waiting.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

I guess, because it's like, oh, but that's the thing that that's the thing that de detoxifies him and allows him to drum. Like, okay. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Um, if he sold you long cookies, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

I ain't high. You mean you ain't high? I ain't high. Did my man Curtis come through or what? Oh, yeah. Don't beg me one.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

That was a line we used to repeat over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Over and over again, dude. Don't beg because that was back in the day where you you'd have a bag of chips or somebody and some someone won, you'd be like, Don't beg me one. Go in the kitchen. Go in the kitchen, man. Give him shit. What's Labrador? Still to this day makes me laugh. Um, does Howdy Duty have wooden balls, Marty? I mean, that still makes me laugh. Um that giant joint, the when he pulls that fucker out, and he, you know, oh my god, you know, and that whole sequence is just great. That whole interior car sequence is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

Like right from the moment he gets in the car, he's like, hey, you ain't no chick, man. I'm sorry, but that's the only way people pull over. And then he's like, Oh, I love your interior. Because you can see Cheech is thinking of a way to get him out of the car, and he's like, I love your interior, you know. And the next thing you know, they're talking and they're smoking, and they're and there's the beginning of Pedro and the man, right? It's it's fantastic. Um that that musical montage after that, that kind of sequence with the whole uh um Richie Vallon's.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Well, it's not Richie Vallon's cover, but it's you know, he yeah, he did do that framed song, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, yeah. Um it's it I always drift off. It's it's like this weird, it's this weird Nexus bubble zone where I don't focus on the movie for some reason, and it happens every time. Like I have to force myself to watch it. I don't know why. I just want to I want to look at something else or drift off, or I I don't I can't explain it, but it's it's happened the entire my entire life watching this movie.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

I was forcing myself to pay attention to spots like that more this go around. It's kind of like Rachel Fur had spots like that too. Uh and then I thought, and it's so silly because I've seen this movie so many times, I'm thinking, oh, they're they're hauling the car away and we never see the lowrider again. What the hell am I thinking? He's driving that car through the whole freaking movie almost right to the very end. But for some reason, during that scene, I'm like, oh, that's what happened to the car. Yeah, for about five minutes, then they drove home. Then you go through that whole weird, it's fucking vodka, man. And then the next thing you know, it's Oh, we got the new uniforms. Yes. And now we're back into portable territory.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Now we're back into yeah, exactly. There's but that weird I want something where we are something different, but the same, you know. Yeah, oh I I love that. The three the three band members off to the side, the guys who do the horns, and they're all always by themselves in their own shots as a group, reminds me of the three the three guys from from Bowfinger who ended up being the crew at the end arguing about Scorsese and shit. And I wonder if that was maybe a callback to it, but it makes a similar structure. Yeah, now that I see that, it makes me laugh every time I see it.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

No, we want something else, man. Yeah, yeah. These are genuine diamonds, baby. These are little diamonds, man. Oh, you're actually and that sets him off to the hole, you know, I'm not gonna look at his neck and like what you're saying about showing up with the strawberry's not here. Oh, it's a bird answering the door, man.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Well, and it's got that Pedro's not here bit's gotta be a callback to Dave's not here.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah, you know, a way to sneak that in, kinda.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Yeah. Um something that always bugged me about this movie is is the the record scratch. Oh, yeah. Where we get into the house and the record's playing and it's skipping, skipping, skipping, and for some reason it just stops playing or sk and skipping altogether when Strawberry steps into the room. And I'm just like the one did you step on the record players? Yeah, or it's like, what happened? What did he do? Did he exactly did he throw something at? What yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I guess they're all so fully heavy that they were putting a little bit of that kind of you know structure into a movie, but they didn't do as much of that as they go forward. It's only this one that has the weird sound gags and stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yeah, and it is definitely a sound gag. It just always kind of bugged me, I guess, because like you said, it's it's like it's like it's a that's a great way to look at it, and I think you're right, because it's like a comedy album. I mean, I listened to a lot of comedy albums as a kid. They did that all the time, but you don't expect it in a movie when you see the movie version. Right. Um, it really does look like Chong inhales the coal off that roach. He probably just probably did, and it's and and I laugh every time because I'm just like, oh man, been there, done that. That's a bunch of the team. The first time we see Studenko, he's peering through the zipper of a uh he's peering through a man uh a painted man's a man's uh pants and a zipper.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

We've achieved Stacey Keach again. First time since Road Games, I believe. Amy Lee Curtis will be mentioned later. On the microphone.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Um that sped up slapstick, it it doesn't work for me. You know, where they what are they is that undercranking? Is that what that is? You know, where they Oh, like when they're on the motorcycle and it's going to be that undercranking just doesn't work for me. It looks weird. Um shoot the moon is probably my I laugh so hard every time.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

We were using shoot speaking of Pondo, shoot the moon productions was a name we were floating around in the midnight at one point.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

That's that's another one we should probably do, actually. We'll do one of ours. Um The House Bust is another Nexus that loses me. It's another little Nexus where I'm just like about half about halfway into it, I get I just drift, and then I come back and Pedro's talking to him on the phone, telling him to get out.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

We really did get cut off.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

We gotta find some way to get you out of here. He's like playing like I was just outside.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Um uh chili choke and pepperbelly. That's just that's good shit. That makes me laugh every time. I can't push you for seeds.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Of course, I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

It's just La Migra, man. I forgot. You know, we're fine as long as you got an ID. Next thing you know, they're in Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah, another one of those quick cuts and patching it together with uh voice or or sound effects. So good. And then we're off and running because then oh my my uncle's got a van. We gotta smuggle back across the border, you know. So he gets all the uh refurnishing stun or whatever it was he was saying. Tuck and roll. He's got a tuck and roll shop. Is that a one or a seven? Yeah, it looks like a seven, and then we walk into the wrong place, which also includes the infamous cheeks stay together. Um if it's a pot shop, he just has to find the toilet. He doesn't care about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

But like you said, it's a real it's a real sudden jump to suddenly we're in Mexico because the movie, like, bam, it turns off. Yeah. And one of the things that I always think of with this movie is this movie feels a lot longer than the actual time that it takes to watch the movie. It's movie too. Yeah, it always feels like an hour 45, but it's an hour 26.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah, it's just so packed.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

It it well, yeah, and it just and at this point when this movie I always think of this, always when I watch this movie, right around the time we get to Mexico, I look at my watch and go, we've been going for about an hour, right? And it's like, nope, 45 minutes. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah, you know, these are the seeds that will sow the destruction. Long long trucks, long trucks, long trucks.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Come on, ice cream. Don't you eat a little bit of ice cream with it? One of the fucking funniest things ever. I read that that dog that takes that burrito, uh, that that wasn't a trained dog. That was just a dog that walked into shot and just took the burrito out of that guy's hand. And so they just they just they just um ad-lived around it, improved around it, and kept the scene.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

And it's one of the best lines in the movie, too, where it's like you never know what could be in one of those things, man. It could be a dog or something. He's always good dog, man. So it's like it works where he's saying good dog to the dog. Or the dog is actually good inside the burrito.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Come on, ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Um, I wonder how much money, how much of the budget went to actually making that weed van.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

That's probably a big chunk, I would think. Look, they're busting nuns, man. Let's watch.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

My my favorite quote in the movie of all of all of it is the buying and selling of dope may be the last free enterprise left in America. That's my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Stop that. Stop that. Doing little shadow of puppets. We are on the verge of that's very good.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Um I love how they're on the highway, and he goes, There's a good donut shop. It's like there's no donut shop. Is there on a fucking you're on a mountainous highway, there's nothing around. What donut shop are you doing? He's got those really powerful blocks.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

These are great, Sarge. You can see everything.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

I love this movie. Um it's it it sort of wanders into its finale. Um, the joke's still going, you know, gotta wrap it up, but you know, mind if I have a bite of your hot dog is that gay coded, I don't know. Chong is Chong is sitting on Chicha's lap. Exactly. Yeah. You know, and maybe it's gay coded, maybe it isn't. I don't know, but it's funny, it's funny as hell.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

It's just a funny, awkward sight gag of like you don't if any other police officer came around the corner and saw one person sitting on the other person's lap after they pulled him over. But he's so high from the exhaust of the fucking fan that all he cares about is that hot dog on the fucking. You can have the whole thing, man. Oh no, this will be your this you you have a nice day. Oh, so good. And the irony of it all. I wish we had what he was smoking, man. It's like you are what he was smoking. You are what he was smoking. But of course, the whole fan catches on fire and fills up the nightclub.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Fills up the nightclub. And uh, of course, it's fills it up just the music movie time when and where all those fucking cheeseburgers suddenly come from.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

It's like it was the magic of the high, so people started ordering food. Right, right. It's like we're just cutting out all the middleman and cheeseburgers.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Here you go, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

It's almost like airplane type humor.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

I didn't know your name was Alex Man. That's a that's a classic.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

I love that joke.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

I fucking love that joke. I love how uh when Chong is in the lady when when Chong is in the ladies' room with her, and uh you realize that all the girls in the ladies' room are kind of they all act like her. They all sort of act like her in a weird way. It's really, really hilarious. And then, of course, uh Studenko freaking out is the best. That's the best of it all. I am stoned. Do you understand me? So good.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Here's the whole operation? Lost my best dog.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

You're telling me to go with it? I'll go with it.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Leads into the next uh nice dreams where he's still Stenko, but he's like the stoned-out Sudenko. Yeah. That one kind of functions like a as much of a sequel as you could get in a way.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Yeah. I I mean, I I I've always thought they were tied together, but not necessarily sequential, like a trilogy. But like they're all about Pedro and the man.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Um the the music show at the end is is such a cartoon. You know, the weed wafts in, everyone gets mellow except Chong, who draws power from the smoke, cut to cheeseburgers and the crowd gorging. It's it's just like it's like a it's like an adult loony tune or something. It's like you would see on on Family Guy. Right. 50 years early.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Um and all those other bands always crack me up too, especially the one at the beginning of their song.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Piss off. Bing, bing, bing, bing. But what's the first thing that we start this movie with? What's the first thing that we hear? A fucking cartoon. Oh, that's true. So it makes complete sense to me that it's it's it's brought it's brought brought back itself full circle, and you just gotta go with it.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

They're punk rock.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

You know. Um, yeah, it's fantastic. Uh I I I really like this movie, I always have. Um I I can't remember how much they spent on it, it wasn't much.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah. We had to watch it in full frame back in the day. And you this is a movie that you really Yeah, they spent The movie in full frame because you're supposed to see both of them at the same time and they're reacting to each other. And the full frame would be a close-up of one person's face, and it was still funny, but it's so nice that we can see it in widescreen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

How much did it cost? Two million. Yeah, that's nothing. That's that's a lot cheaper than our other movie.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Yeah. Yeah. Wikipedia says that uh before it had uh opened uh let's see here, what did they say? It says something like it. They opened it in Texas uh for in nine theaters in August of 78, and it grossed$344,000 in its first 10 days. And prior to its official release date, it had already made 1.7 million. And in the first month it made 20 million, it went on to gross 76 million at the domestic box office and 100 million worldwide.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

So it's kind of the opposite of our next three.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Yeah. And and I imagine Chi Chan Chong hopefully had a really a nice piece of that at least. I mean, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah, I would think that early on, it certainly spawned many more movie projects from them.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

So or maybe maybe nice dreams and next movie were the big payers, but I mean Yeah. That's that's I I always love to love it when it's, you know, hey, we spent four million dollars on it and made a hundred million dollars worldwide. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Yeah, opposed to the next movie that it's cost six million or seven million, it was one of the two. They put it in five states, it underperformed, and they gave up on it.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Seven and a half million. Whoo. Seven and a half million. Yeah, which back in 83 when that one thing was made was more like probably 15 or 20 now. But we'll get there. We'll get there. Um but yeah, um I I I don't think I have anything else. Uh let's see. The the car that Tommy Chong Chong drives at the beginning of the movie is actually owned by Jack Nicholson. Uh which is really hilarious. And the team found it hard to get any of the traditional advertising outlets to promote their film. And so they started putting comic strips on bus benches. That's interesting. Yeah. So for me, uh, I'm gonna go, I mean, I gotta go probably four stars.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

That's what I give it.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

It's it's um it's undeniably funny. It's pretty well made, especially for uh uh the time it was made and the amount of money they put into it. More than anything, it's hilarious, and I think it's it's uh you know, I I think that the the template of especially uh Chong's character is one that really hurt uh people who smoked marijuana and the marijuana movement in general, because that's how people see most people who smoke weed is yeah, hey man, like back off, man. And the fact of the matter is that ain't true at all. Um, you know, you it's very surprising the amount of people that you don't know that smoke weed, you know. Right. But having you know, having said that, it's the movement half baked. That's the grandma was getting high. Your grandma was getting high, yeah. But that that's uh I'm glad to sort of see that stereotype kind of die, and I think it it sort of should. It's it was it was of it, especially that hippie thing, it was of its time and place.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

It was like the stereotype of the hitchhikers, or they were all the same mindset. It was like this a different version of that.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Still hilarious. I mean, and I'm not I'm not knocking Chee Church, hilarious, my favorites. We saw we saw them live.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Yeah, uh it was amazing. But I know what you mean. It was like back then, it's it's how comedy transgresses, and this movie's getting close to 50 years old, strangely enough. And uh back then it was a lot more, you know, like oh shit, representation of anything. Right, representing, yeah. And now it's like, oh, okay, we don't necessarily always have to have the the stoner movies. Maybe we can have I mean it's funny, of course, there's a place for it, but you can also have like we brought up before. I like seeing things where people casually are hitting a bong, but they're just having conversation and it doesn't affect them. We're Dinner in America's use of pot was very good. He showed that kid how to fucking lighten up and his whole life got better. You don't see that a whole lot in the movies. You're gonna want to smoke a gram of that every day for the rest of your life. What if I ever get to have it? Well, hopefully you will, or whatever the line was.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah. Well, and that's what I'm talking about. I I it's so much because so much of it, I think, 80% of it is honestly, hey man, you know, fucking dirt, kind of, you know, a lot. I mean, so much of that in the 80s and the 90s, especially and into the 2000s, you know, evil bong, all that all that shit.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Jong is an evil bong.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Yeah, of course he is. Um, you know, how high. You had him over and over again, and it was all these.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

How high is partially responsible for Jay and Silent Law reboot. That's the story for another.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

And I'm not knocking How High.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

I enjoyed How High, but it's just that type of humor.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

That type of humor, that and that type of stereotype, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Well, once it becomes legal, you don't need that type of outrageousness to break the barriers. Now it can be now we can do more of the normalized instead of the reefer madness parody, which in a way kind of is what this was. And then some people without context think that that's how people are. It's like, no, they're making fun of the stoner who they said was in reefer madness. You take one hit and you jump out a window.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. It's like that's that stereo, that's where I'm saying that stereotype hurt, you know, that chong stereotype hurt them because people who have no exposure to it at all and have never been around it think, well, that's just all they are. Yeah, it's like dirty. If you never read a hippie, you think they're dirty hippies.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

They are dirty hippies, but so watch the Corsican brothers. There's not even any movie in that movie. See, they're actors.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Uh, which brings us to Heart Like a Wheel.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Heart Like a Wheel. As I like to call it, redneck graffiti. And that's not an insult, because I think it's part of that grand tradition of that good 10 years of redneck cinema we had between deliverance to Stroker Ace. It's weird how Burt Reynolds kind of bookends the whole thing. You got your 72 to about 83. And this one comes at about the tail end of Stroker Ace, doesn't it? Which also wasn't that big of a hit. I guess, I guess the ties were changing. By 84, you didn't have as much it is now in home Dukes of Hazard Entertainment, you know.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah, but it is about a woman who in real life was a part of that. So tell the people what the film is. Yeah, so Heart Like a Wheel, 1983. Um, let's see here. Rated PG. Shirley Muldowney is determined to be a top fuel drag racer, although no woman has ever raced them before. This is true. True story. Despite the high risks of this kind of racing and the burden it places on her family life, she pers perseveres in her dream. Uh storyline. Let's see here. Shirley Muldowney came by the love of her driving fast cars naturally after her father placed her behind the steering wheel as he was driving when she was a child, and as she and her then boyfriend Jack Muldowney, who would become her husband, participated in all street races when she was a teenager. As her mechanic and initial race car builder, Jack somewhat supported his wife's quest to drive in national hot rod races, although he saw her drag racing more as a hobby, her full-time job being as a wife and mother, while she saw it as her potential career. And then mid-1960s, surely the type of woman who would take no for not take no for an answer, fought through the stereotype that anyone involved in any type of motorsport had to be a man to get licensed in the National Hot Rod Association with the help of fellow driver Connie Kalita, who had more than a professional interest in her. Because of her female chutzpah, Connie gave her the moniker Cha Cha, which she disliked, which would be widely used by the public in the media. As Shirley progressed in the sport, her relationships with both Jack and Connie would be tested, both professionally and personally.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yeah, what you really have to keep in mind while watching the movie is the context of women didn't even have the right to vote for very long at this point. So it was highly unusual for something like this to be happening. We've covered things like this before, like my chauffeur, for example, but this is more of a realistic version.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

She she started in she she married Jack Muldowney in I think 57 and started street racing in 57.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Okay, that's why I call it threadneck graffiti, because we're in the American graffiti era where they're taking whatever 50s songs they can license, throwing them in there, and it's the 50s, and we're romanticizing street racing. Guys, please don't do street racing. It's such a fucking reason. We have such a problem with it here. Really? It's ridiculous, but uh interesting.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

But yeah, so she's she street races, and then this is back in just I want to say this real quick for content. We were talking context. Now you talk about women being able to vote or whatever. That's that happened in the 1920s, so that's also what happened earlier. But I don't think women could get could get credit cards or have lines of credit. Yeah, so it's you know, she grew up in a time where it had a lot of restrictions and so and pushed a lot of barriers like a lot of women did to get to open up these spaces. And and I mean there are women racers now all over. My dad was a was an amateur uh racer. He he but he went to the track, a quarter mile track, like she did, and raced his cars there. He didn't race on the street. Um and he had he had a Camaro that he raced, he had a El Camino that he raced. And I went as a kid during the summer, I went to so many of these dude of these drag races. I went to so I've seen top fuel drag cars. I saw a funny car hit the wall and destroy itself, just like in the movie, dude. I literally saw that. And uh I it always when my dad ran his Camaro, it always scared the shit out of me because that thing ran well, I think, a 12 second quarter mile, which is not super fast, 13 maybe or something. Not super fast. But uh yeah, they had a lot of good, yeah, they had a lot of good car racing in this, that's for sure. And it's very realistic. It it reminded me of being at the track as a kid because back then it was like a almost like a carnival. It was it was not real well formed. They had rules and shit, but it was like you said, it was like redneck kind of just a bunch of rednecks gathering up and having sodas and popcorn or whatever and watching people race. And uh yeah. So anyway, sorry. I saw I d I deviated there, but just to say she she I think she pushed a lot of boundaries in a time like we were talking about that women were definitely quite a few restrictions.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Uh the DP was Tak Fujimoto. Fujimoto, baby. Are you kidding me? I mean, among other movies, that thing you do. Silence of the Lambs singles.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Now that's weird. His credit list is amazing. Yeah. And also the director of the movie, uh, what was his name again? Jonathan Kaplan. Yeah, he he's responsible for things like Over the Edge, The Accused, Project X, the Matthew Brodrick movie. But see, he comes from the Roger Corman school of movies. He was trained by him, which makes sense why he's bringing Dick Miller along with him.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

I'm like, hey, look, Dick Miller. Hey, look, it's Hoyd Axton. This is photo gremlins. You get a little three gremlins here, which is pretty crazy. Yeah. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Um, yeah, Hoyd Axton is the dad in this movie. Uh, he's also the guy who sang the Mitchell theme song, so um, I've never heard of Aurora Productions.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Oh, this is totally an indie. This was put out by Embassy originally, the distributor. But yeah, you could tell this must have been made on its own and then picked up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Um I read that she didn't much care for how it portrayed her life, but she liked how it portrayed the sport of racing, said it was good for racing. Right. Um But uh I I mean I I thought her dad as a redneck in the in the movie was a pretty progressive guy because he was telling her, you know, don't don't take away your ability to feed yourself or and be independent, you know, get a high school education and and make sure you're solid before you go marry and anybody having to rely on it for the rest of your life. And I thought that was pretty good because of course later on when they split up, that's exactly what she has to do to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

I mean, just because this is like the uh was it was a huge flop because they didn't have any faith in it, it doesn't mean that it's bad. It's the interest was waning at the time, and they didn't put any marketing behind it. I think that's why it's picked up as a cult film and found its audience as it went up.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

It was it was all this movie was all over cable for like a year or two easily. I mean, it played for a while, and it played I mean, I remember watching it quite a few times because it would just be on constantly. And I finally just he'd give up and watch it again.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

You know what the working title of it was? There were several, but one of them was American Beauty.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Really?

unknown 36:05

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

That's crazy, right? That's a different movie.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

I like Heart Like a Wheel. I think it fits the movie quite well.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

They never play the song in the movie. Apparently, that's a Linda Ronstadt song.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Uh what else was there? Oh, so you said, yeah, that Shirley didn't necessarily care for it too much. She didn't really like who I feel was the kind of woefully miscast Bonnie Bedalia. She does a good enough of a job. She's very subtle in like a Keanu Reeves way of the subtleness. I remember me of Keanu in that hardball movie where he was the baseball coach. Where he plays stuff on his face, but not as much as you would want. Because for me, the main thing why she doesn't completely work, there's several reasons, but it's I feel like she doesn't have any emotion towards the sport itself. Now I know the movie's not really about racing per se, it's about all the relationships, but I never see her being like, I'm gonna win, I do this, this is why I want to do this. Yeah, we know your dad put you on the lap. That but we never really it's kind of like this is my job, this is what I do, kind of as a vibe from her. And it was like, oh, I I feel like maybe there's like certain a spark of a and maybe she just wasn't feeling it. Yeah, maybe it's maybe that's script. Because this brings me to my next uh point, Bo Bridges. Bo Bridges is working off the same script, right? The same script that he's working off and Leo Rossi's working off. But he found something in there. It shows how good of an actor he is. He found something in that page where he's like, I'm gonna make you like this guy and not like this guy at the same time. I'm showing you I'm a creep, but am I really a creep? I don't like well, he's helping, he's doing maybe it was just this, and he's really good at pulling that out of that character. And Bonnie Bedelia and Leo Rossi aren't keeping up with him. It means it's somebody who was gonna go toe for toe with him, and he's like going like this is an Oscar movie, right, guys? And they're kind of like clocking in because maybe they're not finding it in the script, or maybe they're not getting it in the direction. I don't know. But he was great in it, he is amazing in that movie.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

If you were to level them, I would say that he is of a higher level or caliber of actor than Bonnie Bedelia or Leo Rossi, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

He was the thing where I was like, and he's a replacement. Somebody else uh dropped out of the movie. Ah. Because they were uh not getting along with somebody or something, so he came in at the last second, like a or like a week into production, and I'm like, oh my god, I can't imagine this movie without Bo Bridges in it.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

He basically really do have a proto-lifetime movie at that point.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Yeah, the the the scene where he is where you know that scene, there's a looks great tension scenes in the movie, but there's that scene where she showed up after the accident to the pit, and he and they're they're frantically trying to put this motor together, and the judge is like, you only got a minute. He's like, Come on, you can give me more than that, and they're screaming at each other, and then he gets up to chase the dude, and she follows, and that security guard grabs her arm and she starts screaming, and he loses his shit and just starts beating the piss out of everybody and has to be restrained, and he gets kicked out of the NHRA. It's like so good, it's so well done.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

It's one of my favorite scenes in the movie. He's constantly going back and forth of, oh look, he's fucking around on her. What the fuck? Oh, no, maybe he's not. No, he's defending her honor. Oh, he's helping her, but then he's being a shithead again. And so it finally gets to the end of the movie where I mean, in my experience in life, people like to bring up drama and God knows what else happened, but you're getting a bird victim, for God's sake, which is hurting. Like, even after all that and then that, and it's like that's why I say it's kind of proto-lifetime in a way, because those always seem to have some sort of, you know, like watching it, I was like, I knew, you know, first husband's gonna be an asshole, then other guys gonna swoop it. Like, you can check the boxes off on this thing. You can tell. You know exactly where it's going. It's very workman-like. Uh, it's the most middle-of-the-road movie we have ever covered. And I'm glad we did, though, because this is a movie that you could you could teach this in a screenwriting class because it hits the act one, two, three so perfectly by the numbers that you can break that down and show proper story structure as kind of like a baseline. So it's very important for that that respect, you know, because it's hitting the bam bam bam. They don't really make them like that anymore as much. I I admire the fact that you could put something like this in the theaters back in the day, because now it would go right to a TV, you know. But back then you you could put some theater for a little bit anyway.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Well, jumping jumping back to a couple things first off, jump I think that's that's what lifetime movies are. They're movies that want to be like this, but they're that but will never make it into theaters. And I think this type of movie, I think I don't think anybody was trying to make this middle-of-the-road movie. You know, that's you don't you don't go in to make a movie going, I'm gonna make a middle of the road movie. No, I don't think Bo Bridges was, no. Right. But at the same time, I'd say about Bo Bridges' character, um I uh I like the fact that he really dug into that character, and I like the fact that that character's layered, that that character is they they whoever wrote that character was sure to show a person who is can, you know, like human beings in general, can be both shitty and great to people.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

That's what made me feel like as an actor, I think he more than was there and pulled it out is the sense I got because I didn't see the other two. They were like when Leo Rossi beats her and she leaves. Right. He's just kind of wandering around like, I wish I had something else to do in the scene, but I don't know what to do. Uh-huh. Bo knows what to do. You know, Rowan Sheddie, he's keeping it up. I think it's just a difference. It's a it's an interesting study in acting techniques, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I um and everybody's good in it, but I just feel like there's different strengths, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

It's a it's a to for me, it's a very I'll say this, the production got the look of it right. It felt like the late 50s, 60s, 70s.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Yeah, they do manage to go through that. Music choices reminded me of uh film school once again, where it's like, oh, you licensed whatever music for that time period you could get. It doesn't necessarily fit the scene, but there it is. Yeah. The 60s ones, especially. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

It's an early girl power woman breaking the norm, especially in this type of thing movie.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

After normal ray and things.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

Yeah, after well, yeah. Um it moves well, but it doesn't have the look or feel of a film made in '83. It looks to me, and this is not again. I think the look and the movement is Tack doing what he can with the director, but I don't know if it's the cameras, the lenses, the film stock, but it just it feels more like 7980. It reminded me of it looked like 10 to me. Like because we we've recently watched 10 with Blake Edwards, and that's 80. And it's that's what it looked like, but it's made in 80, but it's released in 83. So it's like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

It had public director's kind of Carmen guy. And and most of his movies tend to look like they were just like, oh, you need somebody, I'll do it. You know. But things like Over the Edge, you could tell that that one, the the Matt Dylan movie, it felt like that was a passion one. But a lot of his other ones, like the Project X and some of the others, it's just like Project X was I remember that being so flat. It's just kind of like, oh, yeah, you just show up and you did your job. But I feel like that's what everybody did here. So if they showed up, they made the movie, they went home, there probably wasn't. Any stories or anything about what happened probably wasn't a bumpy production, but you know, it was just we show up, we do it, and yeah, oh no, that thing, yeah.

unknown 44:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Um the uh again, I think I saw a funny car crash. Um, so when I seen that in the movie, I I always remember it's it and I thought they really did a really good job. Like she gets out of it on fire, and that that close-up of her eyes through the through the horrifying really.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

It shows just how fucked up she got from that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Yeah, yeah, it's really well done there. Um it this this movie and it is came came out around the time of Eddie and the cruisers, and they feel for some reason to me sort of joined at the hip, and I can't tell you why. I honestly couldn't tell you why. Um probably because they were you know same summer release on cable when I was stuck inside the house or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Uh the safe word is Ned Beatty. Ned Beatty? Yes, because you couldn't get uh Burt Reynolds in this movie, but you got Bill McKinney. He's he's from Deliverance, he plays the other guy. And he's Big Daddy Don Garlets. That's right. Some of you might remember him from Master Ninja 1. But yes, he's that's that, and I was like, see, there's another one of the connections right there, you know. This is early Anthony Edwards. Oh, I was about to say, suddenly her kid is Anthony Edwards, and I'm just laughing. It because see back then you have to tell yourself nobody knew who Anthony Edwards was yet.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

It wasn't a a weird switch. Now I'm like, fucking suddenly her kid is Anthony Edwards, and I can't focus on anything, but Anthony Edwards is suddenly in this movie. And he has the worst part of this movie.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Well, yeah, the beard. That fucking beard they put on him is just it's it's hysterically bad. It's so bad.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Now, this is something I guessed pretty early on, and it was true. Leo Rossi and Anthony Edwards cannot have a scene together. They are not allowed. You talk on the phone once, but I only acted with the young version of my son, not you. Bye-bye. We will not be together on screen. Oh, and also Merry Christmas. We gotta start vetting these movies if they got Christmas scenes in them, yeah. Because we've been every Christmas over four movies.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Just because you can celebrate Christmas in the movies.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

You want a dark Christmas movie, you got a nice fucked-up Christmas towards the end of this movie.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Definitely. You can have a Bonnie Bedelia double feature Christmas and watch Die Hard and this.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Right, that's what I was thinking, sir.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

You bring this one into conversation. Everybody talks about Die Hard, you got to bring Heart like a wheel back into it. Now, this is a three-hour movie crammed into just under two-hour movies. Kind of like how you said Up and Smoke feels like. But the biopic, they always try to scrunch it all in. Because they had a lot to tell. They had like three decades to go over.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

So is this our first movie with Dick Miller in it? It might be. I think it is. Um suddenly Paul Mazerski's favorite actor, Paul Bartel, is in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

Oh, yeah, you had to get Paul Bartell because the Corman connection. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that didn't surprise me. That felt like that would be a deleted scene nowadays. It's I know why it's there. I know why all the scenes are there. They're character development stuff, but a modern editor were to trim this thing down to 90 minutes, and you'd lose, you'd lose some stuff, but that scene was kind of the most extraneous.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

I think it would focus more, I think if you cut if you cut that, you'd lose a bit of the beginning. You'd probably lose some one of those dad scenes. Like you he wouldn't, you wouldn't have the scene where uh she picks him up and he's drunk and he's singing the song and then it fades into the funeral.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Oh, yeah, and then all you see is just the procession of cars. You never see a cemetery or anything. That's a really clever way of not having to shoot at a cemetery and shit. Very clever.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

Um, I think they change her look in this movie almost as many times as they do Meg Ryan and when Harry met Sally. It's like I mean, it makes sense. She got it's 20, it got this movie goes through 25 years or so, but it's still like wow, they I mean they put a lot of different looks on her.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

What was your previous note? Before that one, before the funeral procession, what were you talking about before that?

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Oh, geez. Um, I don't you can't ask me to keep things shortly.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Oh, I thought I well thought it was easy. I was trying to maybe it'll come back to me.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

It was uh uh well, it was about Paul Mazirski and Paul Bart Paul Bartel. We were talking about um the fake beard on Anthony Edwards' god off.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, just how this uh yeah. Oh, oh, the other scene that I thought would be semi-disposable, and some people would argue with me on it because I read some reviews and it was one of their favorite scenes, and I kind of get it, is the one-sided phone conversation towards the end of the movie where she's doing the radio interview. Back then they'd show the whole fucking thing. Now they wouldn't, you wouldn't get a whole because it's like, yeah, I get it. People are being assholes to her, and it's like she she's really trying to hold it together right now because everything's fucked up, but yeah. Well, I also think it's it's it's her like is kind of asserting herself.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

Like, you know, you know, if you're gonna be a woman in a male-dominated space, you're gonna have to assert yourself, you're gonna have to, you know, stand your ground, tell people to you know, demand people that people treat you this the way they treat everybody else. Um especially back then when you know it's everything's hey little darling and pats on the ass and every other kind of you know shit that you shit that you never get away with now.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

I'll sign I'll sign your thing, but I'm still gonna say something demeaning to you as I do it. Yeah, exactly. Uh Connie sued this production. Did she really? Oh, he. Oh, he did, my bad. Yeah, because uh he wanted as much money as Shirley was getting, the 300,000. So he sued for like a million. I don't know whatever happened because the movie didn't make any money.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Well the movie didn't make any money, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Well, I mean the well, we know an interesting depiction of him, you know. It's not the most favorable light. You know, sports movies are breaking away. You could show people being shitheads in sports movies back then. They don't really do that as much anymore.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Um, yeah, so it it yeah, it didn't do well in theaters. It did 275,000 is what IMDB is claiming, 7.5 million to make it.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

But I would also say that um, you know, we don't know what it did in the other windows.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

And again, it played on cable constantly. That's true. It was more money back then, but uh I mean I'm not saying they got paid millions of dollars, but yeah, it's quite possible.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Because you don't find it anywhere. Didn't you have to search everywhere to even find the DVD of this? I did. I I I did.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

And and the and I remember because that's you know, we've since this move we've been doing this podcast, it's been uh you know, I've been kind of searching around for things. Part of this is about uh so we can talk about movies, but also part of it is so that I can throw you things that I know you haven't seen and hear what you have to think about them, because there we have so little time to watch movies. I have a lot of stuff I want to hear your thoughts on. And so I was like, I want to I gotta see what he thinks about this. And so yeah, I I ended up buying a copy off of off of Amazon Prime for like I want to say it was sixteen or seventeen dollars. Yeah, it's not just streaming anywhere just so that I could watch it and then mail you uh mail it to you. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Yeah, no streaming. No, nowhere. You gotta you actually have to buy the physical disc.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

Yeah. It's nowhere, you can't find it. So people you're not gonna be able to see it. Sorry. If you'd like, you can contact this place and I'll I'll mail you the DVD and you can keep it. Wow, even the DVD for a certain amount of money.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

You can get it for about 16 bucks used, the DVD. So you're still gonna a little bit of an investment.

unknown 52:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

So this is an out-of-printer, guys. This is a all ran on cable, out-of-print. Uh I found I find it an interesting movie.

unknown 52:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

Like it said, Redneck Cinema. It's kind of the end of redneck cinema. It sticks with you, it's a true story. Um it's before they st it's a biopic before they start calling them biopics.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

You know, like six pack was another one of the six pack in the coffin around that same time period. It's interesting how they all shift it to the car racing thing. Well, Smokey and the Bandit has a lot to do with the Smoky and the Bandit, Stroker Ace. You mentioned you know they start blending those genres together. Well, I watched Joe Bob do a two and a half hour lecture about redneck cinema once at the loft, so I feel like I took a class in it.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

Yeah, well, and Hal Needham was very big at have very much a part of that with Smokey and the Bandit and uh Cannonball Run and um Stroker Ace and you know, all that type of stuff. And he owned he owned the Skull Bandit racing team that ran in NASCAR, so you know he was involved in racing too.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

But it's like, you know she's gonna get the thing signed, you know she's gonna show everybody up, you know dude's gonna get in an accident, you know she's gonna get in an accident, but yet it's still compelling in the way it puts it all together.

SPEAKER_02 53:26

So well, and here's what I'll say I think if you had watched this in '83 before see everybody was so aware of these tropes and so.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

That's why they don't make them like this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

Yeah, it would have it would have played well, really well. But now because it's you're right, it's storytelling tropes, you know.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

Which makes sense why she said I appreciate what it did for the sport, but it's not really my story per se. And I'm thinking, well, yeah, you probably cared more about the sport.

unknown 53:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

You never really get to see her be like, I care about racing. This is what racing means to me. You know, we never really get anything. It's more like, I have to leave you, son, and I'm crying. What's supposed to be her big scene? But it's like, where's your passion for what you're doing for a living? I'm I never see that from her, the character. Yeah. And I feel like that's on the director. That's what that's my impression, anyway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

You hear that, Jonathan Kaplan? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

It could have been Susan Lucci. It could have been Jamie Lee Curtis, there were a couple other people up for this part.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

I would have loved to have seen Susan Lucci in this. Oh, yeah. I would have loved to have seen Susan Lucci in this. That would have been fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

Changed her career a little bit. Yeah. That would have been great. Yeah, this is this is uh an interesting movie. Definitely I'm serious when you and I say they could use this as something to teach in a screenwriting class because it it's one of those that so perfectly hits the beats that you could really break it down and use it to illustrate, you know, why each part of the script is important and whatnot. And there's not a lot of movies you could do that because too, because most movies don't go completely by the book, you know. But back in the day, like I said, this is before they started changing stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

I'll also say as a racing movie, one of the nice things about it is that it's uh it's very it handles racing very matter-of-factly, whereas a lot of these other racing movies tend to glor glorify this like, you know, or make it kind of redneck-y and sort of cartoonish. Like you if you watch Stroker Ace or you watch Days of Thunder, right? Or you watch these other movies, it it's you know, oh, Rubin's Race and Sun and all these, you know, it's it's it's uh it doesn't, it's not very realistic. And this movie is extremely realistic in what it what it does. When it when it talks about racing, when it shows you racing, it's as real as it can get it, as as true to actual life racing. Um, and I that's I think that's why it's when you're gonna talk about you know racing movies, it's probably gonna be up there uh ahead of a lot some other stuff because of that, because it's more realistic, because it's more believable.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

You know, that's probably one of the benefits of her having no emotion towards the sport is you don't get overly ridiculous emotion towards the sport. She's so matter-of-factly about it, you know. You don't ever see anybody else really being like, yeah, we're gonna win. There's never any of that. You know, it's like, I gotta race, I'm gonna race, I gotta go race. Are you excited? I don't know. Uh yeah, I mean, I I I hear you.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

I think I think it may make another version and maybe be like a little more like I think some of it was there, but maybe it was just a little more subdued, subdued of a delivery than you would have liked. You know, it wasn't wasn't coming across, kind of like you were saying with Keanu in his face, you know.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

The casting, yeah.

unknown 57:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

She did what she could with it, but you know, what she said, she didn't even like racing, Bonnie Bedelia. Yeah, she did. She was like, well, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Well, and and Muldowney said that she was a snot on the set. That Moldowni was the was the consulting, was the racing consultant, the creative consultant on it. So she said Bedelia was, you know, kind of haughty about it. And she also said that she, what did she say? Something about how she got out of a car, got out of the car.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

Oh, yeah, like she was her, it wasn't correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

Yeah, she said uh she got out of the race car like she was getting up from the dinner table.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Yeah. So whatever. And I mean, I get the demure angle of it, because it's like, oh, you don't expect that person to be this intense race car driver. Yeah, no, no. I feel like there's more dynamics that if like if they unfortunately probably wouldn't redo her life story because it lost so much fucking money the first time, but I feel like I feel like you could make an even better movie out of it.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

I think I think it's I think it's a tale that derves deserves to. I mean, this is the first woman in in drag racing. And not just the first woman, she she won the the crown several years in a row. That's you gotta win all four all four nationals to do that. The spring, the summer, the uh winter, and the fall nationals. So that's not a that's not fucking easy. That's not a joke.

SPEAKER_01 58:27

Yeah, it kind of brings me to, I guess, my final point is it really does show misogyny and sexism in the absolute worst form possible. Because you weren't supposed to be doing it in the first place, and now you're better than me, and I hate you because you're better than me, because you make me feel emasculated or whatever. It's like, fuck you. Does the sun still come up tomorrow? Yes. So what difference does it fucking make? Let her race the car. But it's that kind of like not even getting respect after. Eventually she does, but that initial of well, of course you're better at it than we are, because you're not supposed to be doing it in the first place. It's just like, oh god, you can't win for losing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 59:08

The first people through the breach are usually are usually casualties, you know. The the first people through the through the through the the door are usually the first to go down, but they're also a lot of times they're heroes, you know, they're heroes for it. And she's still around. I admire her. I I know she's still around. I I admire her. She's still living, and I I'd love to see somebody redo her tale in a way that's um not necessarily accurate, but at least in a way that portrays her personal life.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

You know, this is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

And like you said, more of this intensity of like, this is why I race and this is what I want to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:45

There's a few moments, especially when she's trying to get her license signed in the early part.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

Yeah. I love that she gets her license signed by two top, I mean, Connie Kalita and Big Daddy Don Garlets are going and are in the NHR Hall of Fame. So she got her she got her uh application for her license signed by two huge, massive just about race car drivers. That's pretty awesome. Uh so yeah, so um I'm gonna go two and a half stars, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

That's reasonable. I gave it two.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

Okay. It's yeah, it's not one I'm gonna watch often, um, but I you know, I'll I'll go uh thinking of it close in comparison to other race movies. Like I like Days of Thunder better because it's a silly ass movie, but this is a much more realistic realistic race car movie, like completely more realistic.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

You know, he's making a follow-up to Days of Thunder. Of course he is. I know more if it's another Maverick, though.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

Yeah, well, I mean, well, first off, Days of Thunder wasn't Top Gun. Well, actually, it was in a car. No, it was Top Gun in a car, but yeah, uh it wasn't it wasn't anywhere near as good. We'll see. Um, so yeah, you got two, I got two and a half. Okay. And four for uh up in smoke.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Yeah. Makes sense. I'd watch them both. You know, I might I'm you might be like two, but I'm like, well, that's because it like all the things I was saying, but that doesn't mean that it's not it's uh necessarily a bad movie. No, I mean I it's not I liked it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

I liked its subject matter, I like what it did. It's just not one, like you said, it's it's it somehow ends up being a Hallmark movie. It ends up being a lifetime movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

I was saying lifetime because I called it, and then when the domestic abuse stuff happened later, I'm like, oh, this really was a lifetime. But they didn't make those movies yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:37

A 90s AE movie is what this ended up being, you know, and and and unfortunately it's just it and it there's just something about it that was lacking, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

So but yeah, I I'll never look at Bo Bridges the same way because now it makes me realize it's like oh we knew he was a really good actor, but you start to realize that whole family is I mean, they're all really talented actors in different ways. And this is if you like Bo Bridges and you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself because this is one where he's really going for it the whole time and finding all the little intricacies in the character and makes you go back and forth on how you feel about him, kind of like how you become Shirley in a way. Well, should I trust this guy? Oh no, he's a piece of shit. Well, I'm gonna trust him again, and so it's pulling you through the whole codependent thing. Or as Tom Servo once said, I can't believe I just said codependent. Well, it's off my list. We won't have to talk about it again. Oh, but it'll come up from time to time because, like I said, it's got a lot of scholarly aspects to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

It's um this has been uh an interesting podcast that idea that we've been doing. Because I've I A, I've seen movies that I wouldn't have seen. I s I'm still chewing on dinner in America. Oh, of course. I'm still I still can't stop thinking about that movie. It's like I don't understand why more people haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Yeah, they will.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

I'm telling other people to see it constantly. I think it's gonna be a huge cult hit five years from now.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

But anyway, what do you got for me next week?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:10

Next week. Uh, let's let's continue the theme a little bit, but let's move up a little bit. Let's move a couple decades forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Your movie next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:20

Well, Noelle, I can't make that joke anymore because you are employed now. So we're gonna say it's Friday, you ain't got a job, so you're watching Friday. Friday, really? You're watching Friday, but you are not watching the director's cut. Do not watch the director's cut, watch it on MyPlex. I have the uh original version. What they did with the director's cut is they put all the deleted scenes back in, which are good, but I feel like they changed the pacing of the movie and they changed the color correction on it too to match the deleted scenes, and so the whole movie just feels really saturated and yellow. But if you go back to the original R-rated version of Friday from 95, a nice follow-up to Up and Smoke. Then, you know, and if you feel like for extra credit, if you want to watch the deleted scenes, but you know what? Okay. Alright. You've alright, you've gone completely silly.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

For another week at least, yeah. Uh so what I have to give you then is completely silly. Uh, and I know you haven't seen it, and we should probably talk about it. And it's actually a good follow-up to my movie, staying within the theme. I'm gonna give you Barbie.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Oh, wow, Friday and Barbie. Okay. Yeah, I certainly have not seen Barbie, so.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

I know you haven't.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

And I'm watching it without Oppenheimer, and I haven't seen that either. So I haven't seen Oppenheimer either. And I'm I can tell you right now I'm not giving you Oppenheimer next time, so I mean I kind of want to, but I still have a few things that I'm sticking with. You give me another weed movie next time, I swear to god, I'm gonna pull something. No, no, that was I can tell you right now that was just a twofer. Yeah. Okay. We're we're transitioning to something else for the next batch.

unknown 1:05:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:07

How many uh not many and not many episodes left to go? I believe this is uh we got about nine more left to go, folks, and then the season's over.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Something like the to record anyway. Yeah. Oh yeah, because then there's a few talking guests coming up. Yeah, it's almost season three, guys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:21

Yep, getting there. Well, alright then. Uh Friday Barbie, it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

Not Shrimp on the Barbie, the Cheech movie. Friday with the Barbie. I thought you wanted the voice of the Cheech movie. Where do you go to Australia?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:38

No, that's Shrimp on the Barbie.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

That's right, yeah, Shrimp on the Barbie.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:43

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

Eric Roberts. The Arc Hippies that were living. Oh, that was awakening. Yes. Okay. Wow. Another movie you can't find.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:57

No, it's it's that one show with Don Johnson. Nash Bridges the movie. Nash Bridge is the movie. They made a movie. Well, all right then. Till next time then, Marty. Friday Barbie. We'll see ya.