Talking Pondo: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Wind River

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie Wind River to watch. 

This week on Talking Pondo, Clif Campbell and Marty Ketola celebrate the show’s two-year anniversary with a wildly mismatched double feature.

First up is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), the surprise hit comic book movie that also happens to be the first film Clif and Marty ever reviewed together. They revisit its surprisingly dark tone, Jim Henson creature work, early appearances by future stars, and why this PG-rated movie still feels more adult than anyone remembers.

Then things turn sharply with Wind River (2017), the haunting conclusion to Taylor Sheridan’s unofficial frontier trilogy. The conversation digs into its themes of violence, justice, isolation, and why this powerful trilogy feels frustratingly unfinished.

Along the way: listener mail, Pondo origin stories, movie nostalgia, and reflections on how 1990 impacted film.

 #TalkingPondo #TMNT1990 #WindRiver #MoviePodcast #FilmDiscussion #ComicBookMovies #90sMovies #TaylorSheridan 

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

I think I saw the second one and then but they're more brightly lit and the turtles look more vibrant and it doesn't have that you know in classic feel the second movie after the first one in the eighties is not you know it's more kid friendly now. We took all the grit out, we took everything that an adult might grasp onto and we've replaced it with Go Ninja, Go Ninja Go.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Well, that's again the second.

SPEAKER_06 0:27

Yeah, that's what Welcome to season three of 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.

SPEAKER_07 0:48

Death Wish 12, Charles Bronson meets the Ninja Turtles, will not be seen tonight, so we may bring you the following post-Torture porn.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Strap in, folks.

SPEAKER_07 1:03

Hello, everybody. It's two-year anniversary of Talking Pondo.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Woohoo! I'm Cliff Campbell.

SPEAKER_07 1:13

I'm Marticatolo already talking at the same time as Cliff, but at least I knew to drop the volume of my voice that time, so you might be able to hear both of us.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Well, you know, I was excited to announce myself. Announce my presence with authority, as he says in Bull Durham.

SPEAKER_07 1:31

Right. So we're watching some more Tim Robbins classics this week. No, no, that would be the Bull Durham.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Yeah, but Tim Robbins did have a nice cameo in TMNT. We'll get to that later.

SPEAKER_07 1:49

Are we thinking Howard the Duck? Well, you know, it's crazy to think it's only a few years after Howard the Duck. But this is Talking Pond over. We picked two movies, we talk about them in detail. This week we're talking the original 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a movie that came out about a month before Cliff and I started doing a TV show.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

That's right.

SPEAKER_07 2:10

And boy, I can't think of a better time capsule for that time period than that movie. And then the other movie is the third in a trilogy. But where did Sicario Part 2 go? But more importantly, where is the incomplete Wind River sequel? Yes, we are talking about Wind River this week, which is a thematic trilogy of Sicario, Hell or High Water, and Wind Wind River. You can see some mix and match of themes, but we'll get into it. Like I think I understand why they kind of I I do too.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

I would understand thematically, but plot-wise and all that, they're not even close.

SPEAKER_07 2:56

No, no, of course not.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

But yeah, but we'll get to that. You're like you said, we'll get to it.

SPEAKER_07 3:00

Uh but yeah, listener mail. See, in 2026, it's not 2026 for us, but it's been 2026 for you for a while. Remember when it as a sidetrack, remember when how many years it took you to stop writing 19 at the beginning of a year? It's like it's no longer that you have to write 20 now. But we have listener mail that might as well have been written in the 19th century or the 20th century.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

What's up with stuff?

SPEAKER_07 3:29

What is up with stuff? I'm calling them listeners now because they're not viewers unless they stare at YouTube.

unknown 3:35

True.

SPEAKER_07 3:36

And they're viewers. But we see we did a TV show for a long time, so I still think you all are viewers out there. So Rare Exports. The Christmas episode got some response.

unknown 3:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 3:48

Uh we got uh Joe Palmer saying he was watching it right now. As that episode dropped. He said that in the ref for two of his faves.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Oh, okay. Well, we he should have loved that episode we did then, considering that that's exactly what we did.

SPEAKER_07 4:04

And then uh two more people commented on rare exports, and I don't know who these people are, so that's pretty cool, right? Uh people we've never met before. Yes, Kevin Cox says, Saul rare exports had fantastic fest, rare blend of horror and humor. Last 10 to 15 minutes, tears and eyes funny.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Okay, it's it's all the it's all the elf dick.

SPEAKER_07 4:30

I was gonna say it's all relative. And then uh Tim Thorpe also writes in to say rare exports is great. So people love people love the rare exports out there.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

I get I get why people like it. I do. It's not for me, but uh I I get I do get its weird it is a weird film that I could understand people who kind of are into that stuff really digging. Too much, too much L penis for me.

SPEAKER_07 4:57

CSU 2 coming soon.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing that.

SPEAKER_07 5:02

So that was our uh our mail.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

I'm gonna be handing you a lot more newer movies this this season. Strap in, folks.

SPEAKER_07 5:10

Oh yeah, we're gonna have uh twice as many guests as we've had before coming into the next season, and then we're also gonna be picking more, like Cliff said, more random newer picks, movies we haven't seen. Yep. And then, of course, there's always the shit that gets brought up because other movies were made to be watched are now point counterpoint.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Oh shit. Speaking of being brought up, real quick, uh, they made a Space Chimps 2. Oh I never knew that. Straight to straight to DVD or straight to video, but still they made they wasted their time making a fucking Space Chimps 2, and I didn't get any masks for that one.

SPEAKER_07 5:54

No masks for that one. No, can't fit them in the DVD case properly. You have to fold them up. You have to fold them up like that sketch of the Ninja Turtles. That kid just folded up, stuck it in his pocket.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Hey, can I have that? Thanks. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 6:08

And they find it and they go. I wanted my riff was, you've been at a con comic book convention.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

You lied to me.

SPEAKER_07 6:17

You're an artist. That's where you got this from. So yeah, we have two movies this week that couldn't be more different. We finally found two movies that have almost nothing in common with each other. For a minute there, I was thinking, okay, the only thing in common will be the two lead characters somehow end up hooked up with each other. Nope, we don't even do that. So uh no, it's it made my joke hard to come up with.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

The only commonality I could find was violence.

SPEAKER_07 6:56

Violence, violence. The only thing that really makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

The thing that ties us all together, party.

SPEAKER_07 7:02

Violence. In the darkness binds us? No. The force binds us together because Ninja Turtles pulls a lot of Star Wars in there, too. You know, Shredders of Darth Vader, who, as Adrian pointed out, sounds the same with or without his mask on. I thought the mask was a voice changer, apparently not.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Well, it's it's like Bane.

SPEAKER_07 7:29

It is right. He's old, he's original Bane.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 7:33

But she also pointed out the turtles are like original Deadpool. So because that turtles movie, it really did lay down a lot of you know what becomes comic book movies. But should we start with the Toytles?

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Yeah, let's first talk about it. Let's start with Turtles.

SPEAKER_07 7:50

Let's start with the the fresh movie here. Oh, but I had a little aside here in my notes.

unknown 7:56

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_07 7:57

Uh it's a follow-up on the uh party animal episode from last week where we explained the origin of our name and everything, and I realized there was a few other things that maybe one person cares about. So I figured I'll explain them further. What is Pondo's CP? Oh, anybody follows me, you go, okay, I get the Pondo part now because it's that movie, but what the hell is Pondskips or whatever? They've had that handle since '97 because of KOL. And uh we couldn't take I couldn't use Pondo, it was taken instead of doing the thing like you pick a number. I abbreviated Pondo's Children Productions, which if you heard last week's episode, you know the story about that was our old company name, and then it became Pondo's CP, which is utter nonsense. And I've mostly phased that one out, but every now and then it pops up and somebody goes, What the fuck is Pond Skip?

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah, yeah. Well, and it was just a you know, we Pondo's Children Productions, PCP, aren't we clever? Ha ha ha.

SPEAKER_07 9:05

Well, yeah, PCP. We're not clever. Leads to the most obscure of all. What is Pondo Chitlin?

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Lord.

SPEAKER_07 9:17

Well, our friends started making little skits, and they called their production company Mr. Chitlin Productions because of the classic blind Melon Chitlin, Cheech and Chong bitch. Oh, Mr. Chitlin, Mr. Chitlin, blind baby. And so then when we combined forces together, it became not Pondo's Children, but Pondo Chitlin, which is probably a better name than Pondo's Children, anyways. But long story short, that's the past. It's Pondo Enterprises LLC now. So that was the little aside for please write in. We don't have Patreon. We give it to you for free.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

So please write in with more questions about Pondo and Pondo's children and the party animal because we'd love to answer them, and they do force us to dig deeper and deeper into our past. Much like honestly, this teenage mutant ninja turtles movie is.

SPEAKER_07 10:03

Yeah, well, it all ties in, sir. It's really funny.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Very much tie in.

SPEAKER_07 10:07

So I mean, you guys could force us to watch our remake of the party animal. That would be uh pretty fucking scary. So, anyways, uh Cliff and I used to write for the school newspaper many, many, many years ago. And uh we would write movie reviews.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

We suckered him into letting us be the new the high school Siscoin evert.

SPEAKER_07 10:39

We just did it and kind of forced our way in because that's what you do.

unknown 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 10:44

And so the very first movie that we went to the theater together to see was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, strangely enough. Why? I I'm still not quite certain why. I guess we had a mild interest in the film and decided it would be fun. Why that movie? Why would why didn't we go to a movie three years before?

SPEAKER_02 11:04

We were into comics pretty heavily, and I was into I was into Teenage Me and Ninja Sherls, the comics of the Eastman and Laird comic. And I think it was one of those things where it was also on cartoons, and we thought that the cartoons were we were still kind of mildly sort of watching those out of the corner of our eyes, you know what I mean? Like not like we were waking up to watch Saturday morning cartoons or watching things after school, but they'd come up and you'd kind of see them and that type of thing.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Um so I don't know, to me, I I and I I don't know why it was the first one we decided to review. But um yeah. It was other I the other reason that we I think we did it was we thought we could sucker some some uh places into letting us in for free to see movies, which I think we did a couple of times. We were like, Hey, we're reviewing for the basic school paper, would you let us into the movie theater? Well, that never worked.

unknown 11:58

But I do.

SPEAKER_07 12:02

I think it did.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

I'll tell you this as a GM of a theater, if some kid came up to me and was like, Hey, I'm here to review this for my high school paper, is there any way I could get it for free? I would be like, absolutely, and go get a free fucking soda and some popcorn at the counter. Like I would be totally like, I'd be fine, you know.

SPEAKER_07 12:18

You might be onto something there. That might have actually happened. I'm pretty sure it did, sir. You know, in the longer story, which will happen too in weeks to come, as you'll hear when we talk more about Sayufi.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Oh, Mr. Sayufi.

SPEAKER_07 12:32

When we went to that theater and people the guy who Brett who recognized us from the TV show when we were at the theater, we started getting in free because we'd call and be like, Brett, we're coming in. He'd give us the passes. So I remember that. But you're right. I think before that time we may have pulled that.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

We did.

SPEAKER_07 12:50

I want to say it was one was from it's hard to remember that shit.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

I want to say one was from Miller's Crossing.

SPEAKER_07 12:56

Well, that's right at that same time period because this and Dark Man and it was all right.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

It might have been it might have been Dark Man, but I but I like I I Miller's Crossing is the one that I remember us going to review with that. I came out of the theater just kind of fucking completely blown away. I think it was my first big screen Cohen Brothers experience, and I was just like whole and Turo was like on fucking fire in that film too. So he was just kind of mind-blowing. It was like when we went to see Goodfellas with your brother, and it was like I walked out of that theater just with my mind completely. Because I, you know, it's both movies. It's one of the things I also love. Yeah, it's one of the night we met Brett, but one of the things I I absolutely love about um going to the movies is when I've realized as I've gotten older, is the less I know about it, the better.

SPEAKER_06 13:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Like unless it's some sort of genre-specific thing like sci-fi where I kind of want to know about it. Like, I if I go in blind and it's a good movie, it's probably gonna hit me ten times harder than if I go in with some sort of expectation about it, you know. Anyway, Teenage Meet and Ninja Turtles.

SPEAKER_07 14:00

Well, and all that was in that same year. So once we started going to the movies, it was on. Yeah. It was Predator 2, it was sibling rivalry, it was Once Around, it was Always.

unknown 14:12

My Blue Heaven.

SPEAKER_07 14:14

Uh My Blue Heaven. Yeah, you talk about Steve Martin with weird hair again. Also, more Ephron involved in that. What did she have against Steve Martin's hair? Maybe we'll get into that one day. But yeah, 1990, once it was off to the races, we were in the movies all the time. Yeah, all the time. Previous years were more of the mazes and monsters era.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Oh, and especially once Brett gave us the passes when all we had to do was call and just put our names on a list.

SPEAKER_07 14:40

Because that theater was new. That theater didn't exist in the late 80s. It opened in 90, and so we had a theater closer to us. Yes. That's right, because you and it was nice. Yeah, you'd have to take a bus and go all the way across town to go to Elcon or something, and that was your whole day. Yep. So no wonder we didn't do that too much. Yep. But we did go to Elcon quite a few times. Sure. But yeah, it's interesting how it does tie in to the TV show.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

It's we were definitely theater agnostics.

SPEAKER_07 15:10

Yeah, we we went and saw this before we even started doing the show, which is kind of crazy to think. It might have been the only movie that landed on that. And then the we did our first show on April 13th. And all weird shit always happens on April 13th every year since then, to me. Weird coincidences. And so what is this year's April 13th coincidence? Well, that'll be the day that we've covered 200 movies on this show. The episode that drops that day will be the 200th 199th and 200th movies covered on this show. We don't know what they'll be yet, but they'll be something TMNT was released March 30th, 1990. It's two weeks before we went on here. We probably already had our slot set up by then. Yeah. Wow, what an interesting thing. You know, as you were talking about uh earlier before I even say what is TMNT and anything, I remember uh this was the first instance of being in the theater and looking around and thinking, uh, I'm 15, maybe I'm the wrong be in here.

unknown 16:20

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_07 16:22

But, anyways, what is this movie that didn't show you what the things looked like before you went and saw it? Was the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where you saw the movie and went, that's what the turtles look like. When they could keep that shit a surprise. What was that thing?

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990 rated PG.

SPEAKER_07 16:48

Wow, that'd be a PG 13 now.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

Hour 33 minutes? Hang on just a second.

SPEAKER_07 16:54

All that any window and I think I'm using my using the wrong microphone. Microphone check. That's okay because we have better mastering now. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

So I'm gonna remove this microphone out of the way because I don't fucking need it. And then I'm gonna edit myself right here like this. Alright, and we're off and running. Okay, so back again. Alright, so let me start right over. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990, rate of PG, one hour thirty-three minutes.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

This is directed by Steve Barron, written by Kevin Eastman, Peter Lair, stars Judith Hogue and Elias Codis. Um let's see here.

SPEAKER_07 17:39

Your voice seems real weak.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Does it?

SPEAKER_07 17:42

For a second there it did.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Okay. Uh okay. Four teenage mutant ninja turtles emerge from the shadows to protect New York City from a gang of criminal ninjas. That's your log line. Your storyline is convenient that everybody was ninjas. Through contract contact with a mysterious ooze, four turtles in the sewers of New York mutate into intelligent, pizza-loving humanoids and are mentored in the art of ninja combat by the wise rat Splinter. When the evil shredder attempts to take over the world, the turtles set out to stop it.

SPEAKER_07 18:18

Go ninja, go ninja, go. Oh, that was part two. See you get me going on the ooze, and it's the secret of the ooze. But it's amazing that this movie's PG because it's so gritty in all the innuendo with the horny teenage turtles that are in love with the human. It's a good thing that Casey Jones does show up and somehow becomes the romantic interest because the turtles stop perving over April O'Neill so much.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Well, they do seem to be very receptive of him dating her right away.

SPEAKER_07 18:49

Um came out in March of 90? March of 1990. It's still 1989. Oh, yes, it is. It has the 80s cringe. But at the same time, they're show me a character more 90s than Casey Jones showing up fully fucking 90s formed right in the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Yeah, got his got his flannel jacket around his uh tied around his waist and his hockey and his yeah. Yeah, his angst is full on in motion. He's mad.

SPEAKER_07 19:22

That's great. We can thank Batman 89 for really kicking these things off. I think. You know, they thought Dick Tracy was going to be the next to follow up, but really this little scrapper came out. It's nice and gritty, and it and it took off.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah, it did. It's it was considered to be the most successful indie film for years, I think for 20 or 30 years. 13 million, 13 and a half million to make, and I think he did 136 or 160 working right now. No, gross worldwide 200.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

So it it's opening weekend, it made twice its money.

SPEAKER_07 20:00

I read that um That's the day we saw it the opening day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Corey, of course, Cory Feldman's you know famously do does I think the voice of Donatello?

SPEAKER_07 20:08

Donatello, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

And uh he was paid fifteen hundred dollars to do the voice of Donatello. Wow. And and he complained about it when they when they offered him the role, he was like, dude, are you kidding me? Fifte. And they were like, look, this is gonna be some low budget direct video thing that's barely probably gonna get out. You know, so can you just help us out? He was like, Yeah, all right. And then it, of course, it went on to do these producers, these asshole producers line, it went on to do big time money. And he, of course, he didn't get any of it. So that's uh not uncommon in the business, right?

SPEAKER_07 20:40

Apparently he had a really bad heroin problem at the time of recording this movie was how the legend goes. Uh Golden Harvest, correct? Yes, Golden Harvest. We did one of their movies two weeks ago, right? Kind of trippy.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yep. 13 and a half million, that's that's insane. And um one of the early notes of this that I will say is do you know who does the voice of Shredder or of Splinter? The voice of Splinter is played by the guy who created and and puppets Elmo. Kevin Clash Kevin uh Clash, I think his name is.

SPEAKER_05 21:21

Well that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Um but he was a puppet, yeah, he's a puppeteer for for Henson, and then ended up creating uh Kevin Clash, yeah. Creating uh Elmo. I mean you talk about that dude's bigger than everybody in this movie a hundred times over at this point.

SPEAKER_07 21:36

This was one of the last, if not the last, thing that Henson worked on among one of them, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:42

I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 21:44

People really rave about Labyrinth and the Dark Crystal as they should, but to me, this one shows the more of the integration of the puppets and the suits with the live action better and better.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 21:56

It's like the next step after this is kind of Jurassic Park in a way if. Few years later. This is only a few years after put a duck head on Howard the Duck and have him running around, you know, so the suits of but I was I like this more than the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth because it's I would have liked the scene where they went next, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Sure. When was the dinosaurs television show? When did they come out? Because it seems like this dinosaurs television show was the next generation of this where they were like, all right, we figured this out now, and so now we can do it with these dinosaur characters and make it a little you know it might have been more of a Brian Henson thing.

SPEAKER_07 22:31

I don't know, right in guys. Let us know.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

I I read that uh for the Mutant Ninja Turtles because the the you know it's this massive headgear with all these robotics in it, right? That they're manipulating. Like it took three puppeteers to do splinter, right? And so apparently what they did was they shot it 23 frames per second and then and then transferred to 24, and it kind of slows them it it uh it it allowed them because the motors were slower, so it allowed them to speed the motors up. They could shoot at a regular speed and then play it back, and it would speed the motors up just enough to make it look normal.

SPEAKER_05 23:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah, so the the motors on the mouse and the eyes were just a little bit slower than normal, so they were uh shooting at a different frame rate to compensate for that on playback, which I thought was an interesting technique.

SPEAKER_07 23:17

Uh I'm glad that I have a HD copy of this movie because it's so dark and grainy that it never looked good on home video on it. No, it never did.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

You're right. VHS especially looked terrible.

SPEAKER_07 23:30

Yeah, because you moved to uh the sequels. I only saw part two. I never saw the turtles through time. We were working at the theater by the time that one came out. We were cleaning. Yeah, the next the next I think I saw the second one and then but they're more brightly lit and the turtles look more vibrant, and it doesn't have that, you know, in classic feel, the second movie after the first one in the 80s is not you know, it's more kid friendly now. We took all the grit out, we took everything that an adult might grasp onto, and we've replaced it with go ninja, go ninja, go.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Well, that's again the second one.

SPEAKER_07 24:07

Yeah, that's what I mean. Oh, yeah, yeah, my bad. Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Um that's hilarious. So right away, Blinkin You Miss It, there's Sam fucking Rockwell. So there's an Oscar winner in this movie. He's the head thug. Um Blink and You Miss It, you'll also see Joseph D'Nafrio, who ends up playing young Tommy and Goodfellas. Um and he was also he's also in some other gangster movies.

SPEAKER_07 24:34

Well, same year.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Uh you will also, if you blink and miss, you will also miss Scott Wolfe and Skeet Ulrich. They're both in this uncredited.

SPEAKER_05 24:43

I totally missed them.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah, Skeet Ulrich stands right next to um, you know, when when Sam Rockwell's doing the whole thing about they're over at the warehouse and blah blah blah blah, and you know, all that that scene, Skeet's standing right next to him in that scene. Which I thought was just crazy. Yeah, the amount of the amount of like hidden actors that would later be big in this film pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_07 25:04

The 90s arrived in strong uh suit with this movie. Uh looking back at it, it's like it seems corny now, but what it really reminds me of the most is hanging out at Fed rated. It was like a pre-Best Buy. And we when we go fuck with like boom boxes and shit.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

Oh, oh yes.

SPEAKER_07 25:30

Because you know, you see the kids that are all stealing the walkmans and the and the kid with every his whole wardrobe is Sid Vicious shirts, and it's like that could not be more early 1990 if it tried.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Well, the plots the plot's so bizarre. It's like this Foot Clan, which is a Japanese clan, is some coming to New York and they're using a lot of white teenage to take over crimes. To take over crime in the city, like yeah, it's like what the fuck are we you know that's 80s, right?

SPEAKER_07 25:59

You wouldn't there's the mom in all of this, you know. You wouldn't do this now. Oh, dude's got a a gang of 13-year-old boys. Is this gang the you that's the eighties, man? Because that shit you'd be like, what? Yeah, yeah. People didn't think of it so much printier in the 90s, right? It was just uh a kids' movie. It was just like, oh yeah, of course the kids are delinquents, yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Oh yeah, that's what kids do.

SPEAKER_07 26:24

You know, I sold here's the 20 bucks I stole. Oh, you stole more than 20 bucks, dude.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

We're gonna we're gonna have to eventually dive into that. We're gonna eventually have to dive into that youth gone wild theme of the 70s with some of those crazy ass movies.

SPEAKER_07 26:36

Skid Row, I remember you.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

We should take a minute though, and we should talk about how the movie could have made Rafael even more Italian. Like, is would that even be at all possible to make him even more from the from the Brooklyn and more Italian sounding and more Bronx Brooklyn Italian? Like it just it was like just maybe if he was just carrying around a can of tomato sauce and eating out of it every now and then. Well, he kind of was, you know, shouting you know, shouting bada bing or something, you know.

SPEAKER_07 27:09

Could have been one of his catchphrases. Well, it's like the main cop feels like he's straight out of the Pelham 123 movie, which makes me think how would the turtles have handled that situation?

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Yeah. Oh boy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meets Pelham 123. That would have been a fascinating episode. I'd have watched that. Are subways ever that empty? You know, when Rachel gets attacked by the Foot Clan? She just goes down and she misses the subway. Like it takes off without her. She's like, oh, I missed it, and turns around and like it's the whole subway station is completely empty.

SPEAKER_07 27:47

Yeah, the convenience of movies. It's like the Warriors, you know. Yeah. Yep. There's nobody around in Cran Central Station. Okay. Uh I would say Blinkin, you'll miss Brian Tochi, but you can't see him.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Can't see him.

SPEAKER_07 28:04

But that's another person we had an elevator ride with.

unknown 28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 28:08

We had an elevator ride at the con with one of the ninja turtles who's also one of the nerds in Revenge of the Nerds. But most importantly, he was in an episode of Master Ninja, and I didn't say a thing because I realized after the fact. But that's what happens at conventions. You go, I should have talked to them about this or that or the other. But wouldn't it be funny if we get Ninja Turtle peoples this year?

SPEAKER_02 28:33

If you ever get a chance and you know you're gonna meet them, write your write your questions down.

SPEAKER_07 28:40

Now we can talk about what is perhaps the most 80s line in the entire film. A reference to Primatine Mist.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_07 28:51

Do you remember Primatine Mist?

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Do you remember Gatorade in glass bottles?

SPEAKER_07 28:57

Yeah, I do. They took Primatine Mist off the market because they found out that shit was you know not work for you. It was worthless. It was a you know inhaler, much like in it where they spray it on the clown and you know, it's like that. Sh sh, you know. And it was then you you could get it 7-Eleven.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yep. Yep. Or you they come in pill form too, if I wasn't mistaken.

SPEAKER_07 29:24

But you know, the popular one was a ch sh.

unknown 29:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

I think it was just epinephrine.

SPEAKER_07 29:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

I think it was just epinephrine.

SPEAKER_07 29:32

And at one point, Casey Jones makes a reference of to Primatine Mist, and I was he's like, that might clear that up, you know, do a little primatine. I'm like, oh my god.

unknown 29:41

I know.

SPEAKER_07 29:42

Nobody's gonna understand that.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Dude, this movie has April O'Neill.

SPEAKER_07 29:47

That would have been my line at the end. Maybe you should try a little primatine.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

They've got her in a mini skirt and heels at the farm. Like she's just in a full-on, just a mini skirt and heels at the farm. And you're just like, okay. She couldn't change. You had to put her in this. And it's not a short it's not a sh like just a short skirt, it's a friggin' mini skirt. What in the fuck?

SPEAKER_07 30:14

It's just her aesthetic, which we didn't even use that term. No, her aesthetic style then.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Her aesthetic is a yellow jumpsuit. That's her aesthetic. I mean, like in Dick Tracy. You know, it's just anyway.

SPEAKER_07 30:28

But isn't it convenient that you have an abandoned house upstate that you can go to in all these movies? And you know, this lays down things we'd see in Marvel movies later on. This really helped lay the template for the modern comic book movie, I think, in in a lot of ways. You know, I feel like Ben Grimm wearing his overcoat going to the movies, is what it feels like, you know. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think. This feels this feels more comic book than a lot of movies were back then, so it was kind of like, oh.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

It was it was like you said, it was after Batman, and I think I think I feel like Batman was the first movie. You know, Batman obviously borrows from the Dark Knight, but and creates its own kind of version of the Dark Knight, right? Because we because if you know anything about the Dark Knight, he's far more violent than Michael Keynes' Batman. But you he's also not the Batman from the 60s, right? And so you get a Batman that's much more true to the source material. And I feel like I think you're exactly right. I think even though they they they took their own liberties, this is much closer to what Eastman and Laird had in mind. Um and it's closer to being a kind of a comic book movie, right? Even Dark Man, even Darkman, they had comic books made off of it, but it felt more like a comic book movie without a comic book, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

And then you know, fast forward to 2007 or 2008, and Favreau's doing Iron Man, and it's like, oh, here we go. But yeah, I think this is I think it's this is kind of laying some of the groundwork for it for sure.

SPEAKER_07 32:00

And yet, without movies like the Karate Kid, does this exist? Remember when we were talking about Enter the Dragon and how we got into Karate Kid helped kick off the getting our whole generation into it, and it's like this is another Yeah. This this and like I mean another step from that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

If you were a kid in the 80s, if you were a little boy in the 80s, probably, you probably had some sort of run-ins with on cable with Enter the Ninja, American Ninja, Karate Kid, No Retreat, No Surrender, Blood Sport, uh fucking so many of these types of movies out there, and that's not even counting the Chuck Norris movies. I was gonna say Lone Wolf McQuaid, you know. I'm talking about just more martial arts martial arts movies exploded in the 80s. Huge, huge genre, right? So uh but yeah, like getting back to TMNT, you're talking about this farm and its convenience. It's the whole repast at the farm is so silly, it takes forever. And I'm I know it's a kids' movie, but still it's like the pacing of the film sort of dies at the farm until then we get our you know, our action training sequence because we gotta have a fucking gotta have our martial arts action training sequence. And then just as soon as it's time to go back, of course, the foot shows up to destroy the fucking place.

SPEAKER_07 33:23

We've wasted enough time out here, it's time to go back. And don't worry, the whole foot clan is a bunch of 13-year-old boys. Anyway, anyway, we will be able to beat them up as we are gigantic turtles.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yep, and we're gonna free our master and he's gonna kick the shit out of the shredder anyway.

SPEAKER_07 33:37

So it's fine. How convenient that everybody knew each other. The total shades of Star Wars. And he even says, I am your father at one point. Shredder. You know, those turtle shells, it's gotta be some kind of light uh foam latex or something, right? For them to be able to move around and do all that.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

Yeah, no, it was definitely it's definitely soft foam latex, yeah. Molded um I can't remember exactly how they did the the the effects, but at one point they they have molded clay and then they're pouring foam latex into it.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

So it's definitely a soft suit.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

But apparently it's super fucking hot. Um one of the stunt guys is was uh Ernie Reyes Jr., who, if you know anything about martial arts and stunt work, you know he's he's big in that. And he said he drank uh what do you say, an extra gallon of water a day just to stay hydrated. Um it seems like it was pretty physical stuff. Interestingly enough, this is uh Sally Minky's first feature film as an editor. You know who she is?

SPEAKER_05 34:36

Wow, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Yeah, yeah. So she's this is her film. She was fired from it. They didn't like her editing work and they fired her and put somebody else in her place.

SPEAKER_07 34:44

Quentin Tarantino presents Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a dark turn. That movie's called Kill Bill.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Apparently the director on this film was fired too, because they the studio thought it was just too dark. They they they went and changed a bunch of stuff, made made up made some changes and and and uh cut some stuff out that was too dark. Like um oh uh when uh Shredder beats that kid, or the or when that when that kid gets beaten, he dies. He doesn't live. And in the French version, he actually does die. They don't edit it out, but they edit it out of the other ones thinking it was too violent and too dark. You know, so there's these choices, and the you talk about the Sid Vicious t-shirt choice, that's a director's choice. He told he said, Get I want that kid in nothing but Sid Vicious t-shirts in the whole film.

SPEAKER_07 35:32

Reminds me of uh one of our old co-hosts. Doesn't it? That's why I say it's so so spot on. It's like I don't know if people watch this movie 36 years out who weren't there realize no, this is this is a total snapshot.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Yeah, I get they did a real good job of yeah, making everything feel very in the in the moment. Yeah. Like I said, glass bottle's a Gatorade, dude. I feel older shit.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Um you got anything else for it?

SPEAKER_07 36:06

Oh, I felt like there was something that I'll probably remember three hours from now, but I guess that was uh the extent of everything there.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

I will say one of the one of my favorite m memories of this is we we go to the theater, we get in there, and like you, much like you, I'd look around and I'm like, there's literally nobody our age in this thing. It's all kids and and moms and dads, right? And the lights go down and we're watching it, and the turtles come on screen, right? Because they don't show you the turtles until we didn't credits them before. Well, you but but even when the movie starts, you see them in shadow and all this stuff, and then you have this big teenager turtles, and it goes away and suddenly pow the first one jumps onto screen, second one, third one, the fourth one, and now it's all and those and the kids were just really into it. And then I remember when Splinter came on screen, he came on through the shadow again, and you could literally hear the kids whispering his name throughout the theater, like, oh it's Splinter. Oh like it, like you know, saying like in hushed, reverent tones. I still remember that to this day.

SPEAKER_07 37:13

It's much like Gremlins, they did not show you what they looked like in the ad. You had to go to the movie to see what they looked like. They could keep that a secret back then.

unknown 37:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 37:22

Howard the Duck was the same way, but that didn't really help that movie.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

I read that uh uh or somebody told me, I can't remember which, but that they did that with the Alien movie where they kept the entrance lines and the the entrance line and the exit line separate so that the people leaving wouldn't tell the other people what the film was about and like the chest bursting scene and all that shit because they didn't want it ruined for for film goers.

SPEAKER_07 37:47

I remember what I was gonna say. It seemed like they were did that a lot back then. They could keep things a surprise. Don't tell anybody the amazing secret because no one will be admitted after the last 10 minutes of. I like that the this Ninja Turtles movie is very uh darkly lit. I know they're doing it to kind of hide the makeup suits and stuff, but it yeah, it works in the in a really nice way. It's shot really well.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Yeah, so it looks looks decent, the costumes look decent. Again, I I think the the mouth and the facial structure and everything is it got more and more realistic, but this is definitely kind of like you were saying, the prototypes for the stuff that came here.

SPEAKER_07 38:25

But much like the Ewok movies, it gets they look sillier as the sequels go, they make them smoother and lighter.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Yeah, they're not putting as much time and money into them.

unknown 38:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 38:35

Well, and Jim Henson wasn't involved anymore, he wasn't around. So I saw part two of the opening day uh with the person who wore the Sid Vicious shirts now that I think about it. And I remember that that dedication to Jim Henson came up at the beginning and he started clapping. Uh but when did that one come? That might have come out while you weren't here. But anyway, what do you give uh this movie? I give it two and a half stars. Two and a half.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

I give it two and a half stars.

SPEAKER_07 39:14

I give it a three. Oh no, I can't do that. It's a kid's movie that's got at least some things to grab on to, and 36 years after I I still can find things to enjoy in the movie, and it's not too creaky was was a nice surprise. Um weird Nexus movie, too.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Yeah, it did have some some crazy ass stars in it, I'll say that. That was that was the part that was probably the most shocking.

SPEAKER_07 39:49

So if Skeet comes back, you gotta print a picture of him from this movie and be like, hey, can you sign this picture? And just see what the look on his face is. Yeah, definitely. That's all the I saw like an Instagram video where somebody was printing out really old pictures of celebrities and showing them. Be like, hey, can you sign this for me? And you watch the person's face be like, Where the fuck did you find?

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Oh, yeah, I've seen that too. Yeah, that's good shit. Well, they pumped out the two the next year.

SPEAKER_07 40:15

Yeah, too fast.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

So too way too fast. Yeah. Anyway, uh that moves us to Wind River. Oh wider than a mile. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 40:27

Wind River. Oh, thank you, Doc. Do you ever serve time?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Use the whole fist there, Doc.

SPEAKER_05 40:35

I had to look that up. I wanted to get the quote right.

SPEAKER_07 40:40

Perfect. So we watched we watched a movie that I don't know. Is is it more preferable to getting the proc logical down?

SPEAKER_02 40:53

You know I had to make that joke. I know I get it. I'm we're gonna have to we'll get into it. It's gonna have to happen.

SPEAKER_07 40:59

So we're watching uh end of a trilogy in a way, and I I kind of understand because watching Sicario and Hell or High Water, and you watch this one, it's like, oh, there's elements we mix and match a little here. What if we took this part from this movie and mixed it with this of this, and then you go with this, and then this movie where I go 12 minutes in, okay, if this plays out like Fargo, I'm gonna be pretty upset, but it didn't. No, it did not. It did not. So what if Wind River from nine years ago is the time of this recording already?

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Wind River.

SPEAKER_07 41:33

Thank you, Doug.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Released in 2017. It was rated R, and it's an hour and 47 minutes. Uh a wildlife officer helps a rookie FBI agent investigate the murder of a young woman on an American Indian reservation in Wyoming.

SPEAKER_07 41:49

Okay, okay. So, first off, if you recast with Chevy Chase in this movie, now does he play Jeremy Renner? Or does he play Elizabeth Olson?

SPEAKER_02 42:04

I think he plays Graham Green's part.

SPEAKER_07 42:07

He plays the show. Well, that's good too. That's good too.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Because then he's can then he can just fire off the comic relief whenever he's around, right? Wow. Are you listening, Hollywood? Give us a call. Uh anyway, directed and written by Taylor Sheridan, stars Elizabeth Olson, Jeremy Ritter, and Graham Green. Uh let me get your storyline. Uh let's see here. East of Boulder Flats, deep into the vast and unforgiving white territory of the Wind River Indian Reservation, the seasoned game tracker Corey Lambert discovers the frozen body of the young Native American Natalie. As this is a federal crime, the FBI dispatches the inexperienced but courageous agent Jane Banner to lead the investigation. However, the unprepared outsider will soon team up with Corey to unravel the mystery of Natalie's murder.

SPEAKER_07 42:53

She is a marvel character.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Before long, Corey will inevitably have to face his own pass while at the same time both he and Jane are thirsting to see justice done. In the end, will this be a fruitful alliance?

SPEAKER_07 43:11

Yeah, not the greatest record there.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Um so okay, so right away, my first note is so are we calling this the broken home trilogy, the trilogy of the divorced? Like I'm looking for commonalities, like why we consider these trilogies.

SPEAKER_07 43:34

Oh yeah, he doesn't like uh relationships in his movies. There's not very much hooking up. There's usually the woman who thinks she knows what she's doing, but turns out is needs the man to rescue her over and over again. He does that one.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Well, he likes I don't know about that, but he definitely likes putting them. He definitely likes putting them in in some sort of peril, and he definitely likes women who fight their way out of stuff, right? Because in in Both Sicario and in this one, like, I mean, they're dead sharp shooters and they're they're tough ladies. They're not they're not weak by any stretch of the imagination. All the women in this movie are pretty damn strong, in my opinion. Um, but yeah, he does he also seem to have this this obsession with, except for Hell or High Water, this obsession with people who are obsessed with their work. You know, like their jobs, their jobs own their lives.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

Right?

SPEAKER_02 44:25

And in Hell or High Water, it's more like the the the thievery owns their lives, right? Like what they're doing is owning their lives. But and I guess that's kind of a theme, too. I just kept trying to figure out the themes why these three are considered to be a trilogy, other than maybe they all deal with the frontiers.

SPEAKER_07 44:44

It's all the same guy who wrote them. This is the only one he directed of the three. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 44:49

And it's also another one was you you have like the crazy bad guy brother from Hell or High Water. Well, let's ramp that up and make him like the supervillain this time, where it's like Sicario versus the Hell or High Water guy kinda So you're kind of starting to lean into one of my problems with the movie.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

And one of my problems with the movie is that it eventually when we get to the bad guys, we know fucking fuck all about them. There's no backstory, there's not even any explanation after the shootout of what the fuck you have. I mean, and I kind of like the look, one of my notes is I'd like the fact that his the his movies aren't going to hold your hand and explain it to you. You watch the movie and you arrive at what's you arrive at at conclusions based on what's revealed. But he's giving us nothing in this film, backstory-wise, for me to hate these motherfuckers, other than this one scene where where, again, no backstory to it, which is why I don't like the scene in the movie. I don't like the way he did the scene in the movie because I want some more reason to hate these fuckers besides this, and I want I want to see it lead up to this. You know what I mean? I don't just want to see five guys get drunk and decide to fucking do what they do. I want to see some, you know, I want to see some dudes because they end up being some real asshole, shit ass motherfuckers, right? Like they end up being just the worst lot of dudes, and there's security for this, you know, oil company, but I want to see that before I see the terrible act. You know what I mean? It's like the accused if you don't understand who these assholes are that are doing this in the bar to her, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Um, and yeah, folks, if you're listening, what we're referring to is like eventually there's a rape scene in this movie, and it's the the the point being, yeah, I didn't like it at all, man. I really one of my notes is and he's actually gonna make us watch the rape, and it's like, god damn it, you know, like I I'm not a I'm not a I'm not a prude, and I'm not a I'm not a I'm not a whip when it comes to that kind of stuff, and I understand why it needs to be in the movies, but I just didn't feel like he justified its use. Exactly. I just didn't feel like he fucking justified its use.

SPEAKER_07 46:59

It's one of the bulk of my notes here, but before I go into that, I do want to say it it feels kind of novelistic, the movie. Like it feels like it was a book that got turned into a movie, and that's why some of those details kind of are missing. But I kind of in certain ways I liked it a little more than the other two, but ultimately I like the other two more than this one. But I like the novelistic, kind of felt more like a movie movie instead of like a prestige show kind of thing. Yeah, I can see which film feel. And I think it's because he directed it. He he probably knows his own news yeah, he knows but to go into uh what you were saying uh is to me true crime is not my comfort food. I know it's some people's, and it's probably like some people use horror movies to cope with things in in certain certain audiences and stuff, yeah. Uh but to me it seems like somebody watched Silence of the Lambs a lot, and that's okay if that's what you're inspired by. But for me personally, if I wrote the line, check the blood against the semen, I'd stop and go, What am I putting out into the world? What am I writing? But then again, this is not for me. There's an audience for everything, and some people use these things as coping mechanisms or whatnot. But then there's the other part of me where we've talked about exploitation movies as I define them in the past of you can do all this horrible shit and then you can put a moral at the end of it and see. See, we said all that shit was bad, so we got away with doing it. And one of the things that irritates me the most with Hollywood is how they will take elements from exploitation movies of the past that they sneered their nose at and were made said it was horrible, and then they go and make their elevated version of it like it's a prestige thing because they're selling it to an audience that never watched those other movies. So they think this is a fresh and original idea. That's my post-torture porn show because that's where you go after torture porn, you go to realistic true crime. To me, it's too much for me, it's it's worse than a horror movie for me, as grotesque, because you're trying to recreate something that feels real. This is why Henry is still the scariest movie for me. Yeah. In this one, it's like this is where you get that like Silence of the Lambs. They said that's a horror movie as well as being the thriller. But when Hollywood decides it's time to make a mainstream version of Death Wish or I Spit on Your Grave, you're left going, wait a minute, are you just did you make this just for the shock factor? Or are you trying to made it to make money?

SPEAKER_03 50:00

Because you know people watch it now.

SPEAKER_07 50:02

Well, it's the it's that age-old question that you brought up at one point. If scenes like this are hard to shoot and it's hard to watch, then why do they make them? Why do they why do they make movies like this? Well, I think it's like I said earlier, I think it's for a certain audience to cope with. Other people like us film snobs are going, dude, do you have to show all that? Because then I get to the end of the movie and yeah, you got you killed him and everything's bet, but I feel worse now. Well, that's the point. Well, I could watch the fucking news, but then again, some people's comfort food is true crime. Yeah, well, look at it it's not my We're trying to be objective about it.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

It's not my point in this to say with this to sit to yuck somebody's yum, right? Like, I I'm not I'm not trying to say, well, if you like this type of film, then you know, I like it. Hey, if you're into torture point, if you like that long, kind of grisly sort of you know screaming and real well, it's if you enjoy that, go right ahead. Um But I I don't know. I mean, I like you said it it was it was done to be gritty and realistic. So that's part of my problem with it being in the film, is like, okay, if it's gonna be gritty and realistic, you've got to give me a reason why it's there, and you've got to give me a better reason than just when the door opens and suddenly we flash to here's what happened, right? And here's why this big gun battle is gonna go on all of a sudden, which is kind of goofy. Like it's a it's a it's a goofy sort of sudden shootout type of situation that I I kind of find kind of found kind of weird. I didn't really feel like it worked. I I like some of his uh the some of his other setups for uh gun battles and shit, like that Sicario border moment where they get out of the car and they shoot those dudes. That shit is awesome.

SPEAKER_07 51:53

Well and he's really good at these 10 scenes. More understated than that.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Yeah, he's really good at these tent scenes and these moments of of of um, you know, it's like one of my favorite moments is when he uh Jeremy Renner's character at the end of the film tells her, you know, you fought for your life and now you get to walk away with it. Right. And I was like, oh, that's a really that's a powerful moment. That's a really good moment. I like that. But at the same time, give me some more of that on the opposite side, on the flip side with these bad guys, so that when you do finally show the bad things that they're doing, I've I'm A, kind of expecting it, and B, it makes sense and it's organic. I'm not necessarily against a rape scene in a movie per se. I just want it to make some fucking sense and not be there just to be there.

SPEAKER_07 52:37

Yeah, it you're and that's where you're left dispeling uh about it.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

Because if he if he'd wanted to, what he could have done is completely shot that differently and he could have put uh John Bernfeld just showing up in this all of a sudden, of course.

SPEAKER_07 52:52

Yeah, because he was that's another tie-in. He was just briefly in Sicario. That's right, yeah. But you could have put well and the girls in that one.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

The the the girl who gets raped, she's in Yellowstone. She works with him on Yellowstone, if I'm not mistaken, I think early on. But anyway, point being you could have shot that completely different, put Burnthal in the front of the of the trailer with the other boys who are watching them over while they're taking turns on her, and all you hear is the noise from the back as the doors closed, right? And then suddenly he gets up and charges in there, they grab him, and then she runs away. You don't have to show all the graphic stuff that's that's not the movie he wanted to make. It's not the movie he wanted to make. So for me, doing it that way, then you need to give me more, right? You can't just give me these paper villains. You've got to give me a real villain if you're gonna do it that way. Anyway, that's that was my my whole fucking problem with the movie, was just like I just feel like he just forced this in.

SPEAKER_07 53:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

I feel like he specifically forced that scene into the movie, and I know you won't make it terrible because the plight of Native Americans being missing and shit. Sorry, I keep going on, but women being missing on Native American reservations is a big problem.

SPEAKER_07 53:56

I get that, but well, you're tying into what I'm gonna say is like it goes into intentional fallacy. Like you you know he was trying to make you feel gross when the movie ended because you're supposed to feel gross about all of this happening, and sure you know, you want to have something done about it, obviously. But the way that the movie sets it up, and also when you watch uh his other movies and his women characters, they're all there he is such an interesting way of how he writes them. And I feel like with each progressive movie, he's becoming a little bit sharper about getting his message across in parts. There's a little less clunkiness in this one, even though I like some of the others more. But it seems like, and this is an intentional fallacy, but this is also you know film discussion of things. You watch the movie and you get impressions, and it seems like he creates these female characters that are strong, but boy, does he put them through fucking hell. Oh, he just broken at the end of the movie, but weren't they strong? But did you make the movie just to break them? It was like, what was that other movie we watched where uh one of the criticisms was they made this movie just to beat up a woman? Oh, Strange Darling. But I don't think that was, I think that was just somebody online being way into it too much. But when you look into this one, you almost go, well, wait a minute, he needs to either write those characters a little bit more well-rounded, because Elizabeth Olsen basically ends up kind of the same way as uh Emily Blunt, you know, I'm I'm a broken person at the end of the movie, and then the guy gets to sit off and muse quietly as the story goes down.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

And you mentioned that in Hell or High Wire, the woman basically is just kind of.

SPEAKER_07 55:43

Well, she's barely no women in Emma at all.

SPEAKER_02 55:45

Yeah, she's just there.

SPEAKER_07 55:47

So I don't I I don't know. I think That's why I said intentional fallacy. I think it's off weird. And then you put the great thing where you go, there's not even a and you go, Man, what is going on here?

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Yeah, I I mean I think Death Witch, man.

SPEAKER_07 56:02

It's mainstream.

SPEAKER_02 56:03

Part of what I'm pulling from it is that he likes to do gritty stuff, right? He likes to tell tales that he thinks are real and and do this grit and all that type of stuff. And I and I get it, a lot of people respond to that.

SPEAKER_07 56:15

Um this just comes off like some kind of Stephen King revenge thing, like I can hold my breath for a very long time, you know.

SPEAKER_02 56:24

I gotta get I liked Elizabeth Olson in the movie quite a bit. Uh Graham Green is one of my favorite Native American actors. Uh it also had the dude, it also had the dude who played the deputy alongside.

SPEAKER_07 56:37

That's right, yeah, he was in the movie again.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

Jeff Bridges in the movie again. He's fantastic.

SPEAKER_07 56:42

Watching this movie, I realized Elizabeth Olsen is like a Priscilla Barnes. That's who she looks like to me.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

I'm like, you're that favorite actor. I really like she's I like her. I I don't have any problems with her as an actor. Um, I think this is the worst of the three movies that's the trilogy. There's a lot of melodramatic dialogue about the world and pain and being a man and taking it. You know, all this. They have these long conversations about how old especially older men just gotta take the pain and all this kind of crazy shit. And then you know, he even talks to Elizabeth Olson about it, you know, and they they tend to talk about how the world is pain, and it's a very bleak fucking you talk about nihilism. This movie is very bleak and nihilistic in its outlook on what life is and about, you know.

SPEAKER_07 57:26

That's what I'm saying. It's like pulling from all these other things, and I'm like characters are pretty damaged, but Jesus, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

Yeah, this is what other notes do I have. Another thing that sets this one apart, uh, and I I figured out what ties them together as a trilogy, by the way. But uh this one doesn't have that beautiful landscape of the first two. We see it, but for some reason it's it doesn't have the same impact. Like to me, one of the beautiful things about Hell or High Water is that gorgeous fucking Texas New Mexico landscape, and then you get some really great landscape shots in Sicario, but in this one it just looks all looks like snow. You know, there's really I I don't get any majestic mountains or rivers. I just get snow and more snow and more snow in houses. You know what I mean? Like and subscribe. And I and what happened to the fucking lions? Like he gives me these lions, they come back into play at the end. I expected those lions to eat that dude at the end. I expected him to kind of guide that dude back to the cave and then just have the lions fucking just eat him and then like there you go, circle of life, motherfucker, I'm out of here, you know. But no, that's not he didn't do it that way. What a mess. It's a it's a it's a mess of a movie.

SPEAKER_07 58:37

I have a note that says just like Superman, but I don't know what the fuck I meant by that. I don't know what that means.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

Is he the wandering out in the snow, maybe? I had to I just that. When he drags him out there in the snow and he wakes up and he doesn't have any boots and all this shit. Yeah, and he goes, uh, I've made some mistakes, okay? I started laughing. I started laughing at that point.

SPEAKER_07 59:08

And just like Superman, I'm gonna leave you out here for dead. So there's the old Superman TV show, the black and white one, and there's this controversial episode where Superman takes a couple of gangsters and he flies them up to a frozen mountain and he leaves them on a ledge and he just fucking leaves them there. And I'm like, this is just like Superman.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

That's what that note meant. Yeah. So one other thing. So one other thing. So one of the points in this movie is Elizabeth Olsen's character needs to get a diagnosis of murder from the coroner so that she can bring in the FBI to investigate, right? And he refuses to put homicide on the death certificate because technically she died from breathing in air that was so cold it froze her lungs, the look the crystals in her lungs burst, and she basically drowned in her own blood, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:00:05

What point.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

And so the revenge is to make that happen to the dude that killed, that raped, and and and and cost all this shit, right? It's poetic, but it doesn't make you feel any better. Right, true. But at the same time, it's it's it's because an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, right? But at the same time, everybody else is raw dogging the same fucking air the entire movie, and nobody has any breathing problems. So I guess it's only when you're just running really hard and you're huffing and puffing. Mm-hmm. Because it seems because the way they describe it, they're just like, yeah, when air gets super cold, you breathe it and then your lungs freeze.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:43

And it's like, well six miles.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

You guys are all raw dogging this fucking air. You won't make it six hundred feet. I wouldn't make it six feet, dude, without my shoes. Are you kidding me? I wouldn't make it six inches. I'd be like, just shoot me now, motherfucker. I'm not running. So you should have freezing the cocaine there. Cocaine mountain lion. This is what I'm telling you. That's a Chevy Chase. This is what I'm telling you. Do you know what the street value of that mountain is, Marty? You know how much snow that mountain is on there? Boy, we've done some deep references in this one.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:14

Mountain rules. Uh, so with this film, Taylor Sheridan, that's his name, right? Yeah, he becomes a real honest director because he has a chainsaw sequence. And as Joe Bob Briggs says, you're not a real director until you've had a chainsaw sequence in one of your movies. And it's in this movie, briefly. Now they did make a part two to this that is sitting in limbo, unreally, unfinished somewhere. It was shot like two years ago. Nobody came back for it. And it's about the further adventures of the hunter guy. He's hired again to go find somebody. See, this sounds like a series of novels to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Yeah, it's like taken or something. Uh it does cover an important topic, topic about assault on Native American women and Mative American women who are missing. And if you get into the actual kind of legalities of that stuff, it's pretty crazy. Um I think it's important. I think it's cool that he he because nobody was talking about that, right? Like it's so it's cool that he made a movie about that. But um it's not one I'm gonna watch often or maybe ever again, honestly. And if I do, I'll probably I'll probably zip past like the whole scene in with Burnthal and her in the trailer and everything with that.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:28

It just It's supposed to be unpleasant, and you know, it totally is, but at the same time, I it just didn't give me enough to to make me un to make me understand or believe in the unpleasantry. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

That was my problem with it. Anyway.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:43

Well other other than that being one of my main issues with the movie is and of course this movie is almost 10 years old at this point, and so maybe this trend has slowed down a bit. Please, no more shaky Cammon movies. I don't even want to see it slightly moving anymore. There's a shot in this movie where you see his headroom go up and down like a millimeter over and over again. I'm just thinking, man, we turned that in for our field production class, they would have told us to take the class again. And somewhere along the line, this oh, isn't it realistic documentary shaky cam thing became a thing? Please let's just take this whole movie and run it through a filter to stabilize it. I bet it's a better movie then.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:31

Blair Witch Project did more damage to film than we'll get it, we'll get into it.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:36

Headroom. You know, please stop, let's stop. And maybe they have by now. This is ten years ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:41

So I want to point out that this movie has an 87 certified fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 90% popcorn popcorn.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:49

People love their true crime. Yep. You want a dark Marvel movie? There's the darkest of all.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

What do you give it?

SPEAKER_07 1:03:57

Two. Two and a half.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:00

That's what I'm giving it.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:01

Two and a half.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:03

It's right in the middle. I mean, I I think Sicario is ten times better than this.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:08

It's the best of the three.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

I'd rather watch. Oh, I I I actually prefer Heller High Water over Sicario, but I I I would watch either one of those over this one any day of the week.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:15

Yeah, Sicario's got like it's crafted more. It's crafted well, but Hell or High Water is probably the most interesting story of the three.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:23

It tells the story from beginning to end and moves the best out of all of them, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:29

But yeah, so just like yeah, but these these these thrillers, they're like they're horror movies in disguise. Yeah, they are. They are. No, I agree. Somebody who's watched every Saw movie, and what's the next level of shock? And some people need that heavy shock, but for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

Well, I think you've I I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's it's a type well in comedy, they're all the same. It's a type of catharsis, right? Like, you know, and art is meant to reflect back upon you, the society that you live in, right? And to comment upon it, right? And so, you know, he's he successfully did that. I gotta I give him credit for that.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:09

It's a trip, it's a trip to see it in a movie that's legitimately movie in the term of made to rent seats and sell popcorn. You don't see this type of subject matter.

unknown 1:05:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:21

Or if you do, it's something like the accused and that's yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:26

See, he must really like if he makes a movie with Jody Foster, then we'll see, because you know, there was the taxi driver, the you know, it's thing it's like the the Scorsese and the Tarantino and it these people who really want to show you the black hole of life. And it's like I gotta be in the right mood. But some people watch true crime to fall asleep at night.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:45

So Well, it's like Cassavetes. Cassavetes is all you know, always about trying to show you the reality of life rather than uh the the Hollywood version of life, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:54

Yeah. Anyway. To me, it's like picking up a rock and looking at the worms under sometimes, you know. Or look, I found a rotting I found a rotting body over here. Sometimes that has merits.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

It's part of life.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:07

It is part of life.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

Yeah, that's what I mean. It's sometimes it has its merits. You know. You can't because your life was great your entire life and you never had any kind of struggle or strife or pain, then how would you fucking know what was good anyways, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:06:23

What do you got for me next week? Next week, uh Charlie Bronson and the Ninja Turtles team up to uh sweet. Take over the Pel M123 to Death Ooos. Death Ooh. Well, we own that, by the way. Death Oooo.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:41

Copywritten. You heard of your first Death Ooze. Yeah. I'm on a roll.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:50

Okay, so uh next week we have a guest. Next week we have a guest, and that'll be our last guest of season three. It's gonna be fun. That's right. That's right. And the week after that we come back with uh the last two episodes of the season. Not all the same week, but you know, one week, then the next week, and then season four starts. But you don't care because this was done years ago by the time you're listening to it. But what movie does Cliff have to watch that week? Well, it's bounced around quite a bit, and some of these other movies that got moved around, we'll go another week, but I felt uh thematically it was time for this one. Because now that we've we've uh finished this trilogy, and I didn't want to end the season with this one because I have another movie coming after wraps up things more, but this one for towards the end of season three, I feel that this movie from the early eighties is like a what if Taylor Sheridan was making movies then? An old favorite of mine, The Border with Jack Nicholson.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:02

Really?

SPEAKER_07 1:08:03

Yep. I would have had us watch it at some point, but it felt appropriate now that we've gone through those movies. So we'll see if this holds up still, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

Uh all right. And and you said this is first and season four next who we're gonna be watching this.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:21

No, this is like the very end of season three. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:24

Very end of season three.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:25

Yeah, it's like penultimate episode of the season, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Penultimate episode of the season.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:31

Next to the last, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:34

Okay. Well. That totally threw me out of whack. I know I thought we were uh I thought we were in season four already. This is this is hard to keep track because we unfortunately, folks, we've recorded so many of these out of order. I can't I just can't keep them straight half the time anymore.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:54

Well, we're starting doing them in order, though. So I don't thank God.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:58

Okay, so alright, so I'll give you all right, let's do Nicholson. Let's do Nicholson for the end of the year. I I've had this one, this one's also been kind of fallen back. Talking Nicholson, uh, let's do the last detail.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:11

Last detail, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

I've had that one that's been on the list to give you for a while now, and I just it was either that or going south, but let's do the last detail since the other one's since the other one's a western, kind of a western.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:24

Yeah, I had a mild obsession with going south as a kid. Watch that on cable all the time. You think that would have been one of those top 50 movies on HBO?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

Well, if we do another talk in Nicholson, maybe we'll do that.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

All right. Well, you want to get out of here on a quote?

SPEAKER_07 1:09:41

Yeah. Oh, go ahead. Do yours, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:47

Okay. Um, mine is uh a wise man says never pay full price for late pizza.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:53

Kawabunga.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

Later, man.