Excalibur and Point Blank - Talking Boorman

 In this episode, special guests Geoffrey Notkin and Jessica Stone are back on the podcast. Geoffrey and Jessica bring along the movie Excalibur. While Marty and Clif give them Point Blank to watch. Enjoy this special "Talking Boorman" episode, celebrating two films of the legendary director John Boorman.

First up is Point Blank, Boorman's stylish revenge classic starring Lee Marvin. Clif, Marty, Geoffrey and Jessica discuss the film's dreamlike storytelling, unforgettable visuals, why it still feels decades ahead of its time and Marvin's commanding performance.

Then it's time to unsheathe the sword for Excalibur, Boorman's epic retelling of the Arthurian legend. The gang celebrates it's breathtaking imagery, unforgettable performances and the lasting influence it's had on fantasy films for more than forty years.

Along the way: Sid Haig surprises, sword-and-sorcery nostalgia, fantasy movie rabbit holes and cinematic metaphors everywhere you look.

 #TalkingPondo #FilmPodcast #JohnBoorman #PointBlank #Excalibur #LeeMarvin #FantasyFilms #MovieReview 

Transcript

00:00:02.81
Marty Ketola
Gross point blank will not be seen this week, so we may bring you regular point blank, now with fewer calories.

00:00:10.94
Clifton Campbell
Regular point blank.

00:00:12.58
Marty Ketola
It's just regular point blank today.

00:00:13.99
Clifton Campbell
OK, not diet point blank.

00:00:15.35
Marty Ketola
No, no, it's different movie.

00:00:17.14
Clifton Campbell
Not point blank zero.

00:00:18.26
Marty Ketola
No.

00:00:19.27
Clifton Campbell
OK, just regular point blank.

00:00:20.22
Marty Ketola
ah It's just regular. You'd think it'd have more calories because of the the natural cane sugar, but, you know.

00:00:27.51
Clifton Campbell
But actually, yeah, no, you're right. It all kind of works out.

00:00:28.74
Marty Ketola
It's the Lee Marvin that takes the calories off.

00:00:32.50
Clifton Campbell
Well, they say if you're, you can be net Lee Marvin, which means you have more Lee Marvin than you have grams of sugar.

00:00:32.36
Marty Ketola
but

00:00:36.71
Geoff
Thank you.

00:00:37.78
Clifton Campbell
And so you're net, you're net Lee Marvin.

00:00:38.01
Marty Ketola
See, you got it.

00:00:39.86
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:00:39.99
Marty Ketola
You know what I'm talking about. We're back once again.

00:00:41.75
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:00:43.71
Marty Ketola
It's a another episode of Talking Pondo. 131 episodes. I just looked up crazy.

00:00:48.73
Clifton Campbell
Holy crap, dude.

00:00:50.49
Marty Ketola
We just keep going.

00:00:51.30
Clifton Campbell
That's a lot.

00:00:52.82
Marty Ketola
ah Yeah, it's me and Cliff again.

00:00:54.01
Clifton Campbell
Who did we sucker onto the show this week, Marty? Yeah.

00:00:55.83
Marty Ketola
Oh, and then ah the guest.

00:00:56.21
Clifton Campbell
It's you and me.

00:00:57.67
Marty Ketola
Well, you know, today's guests from their previous appearances on the show, as well as our film, The Love Song of William H. Shaw.

00:01:05.93
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:01:05.81
Marty Ketola
It's Jessica Stone and Jeffrey Notkin.

00:01:08.93
Clifton Campbell
Woohoo!

00:01:09.70
Jessica
Woohoo!

00:01:10.60
Geoff
Hello, gang.

00:01:11.87
Jessica
Hello!

00:01:11.99
Clifton Campbell
Yes. So excited. jeff that it Jeff, that is a super beautiful pop filter and microphone.

00:01:13.81
Geoff
What a team.

00:01:18.18
Clifton Campbell
You're rocking there. You've been on you've been going to other people's podcasts and not telling us what's going on over there.

00:01:19.06
Geoff
Oh, thank you.

00:01:22.07
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:01:23.20
Geoff
you know, I try to take the tech media stuff seriously, and every now and then I get invited on a really fantastic podcast like this one.

00:01:26.90
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

00:01:31.54
Geoff
And I thought it'd probably be better than using my old landline headset.

00:01:37.14
Clifton Campbell
Does make a difference.

00:01:37.08
Geoff
Well, that went on one side. Yeah, it does.

00:01:39.06
Clifton Campbell
Does make a difference.

00:01:39.80
Geoff
It does. It does. Well, it's exciting to have this team together again. i know Jessica and I have both been on the show several times, but not at the same time.

00:01:44.89
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:01:49.39
Marty Ketola
That's right.

00:01:49.93
Clifton Campbell
That's right.

00:01:50.54
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:01:50.70
Clifton Campbell
That's right. I'm really excited about this one.

00:01:51.75
Marty Ketola
And what, what movies, what movies brought these two together today, Cliff?

00:01:53.06
Clifton Campbell
Today we're talking Borman.

00:01:57.46
Jessica
ah

00:01:57.63
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:01:58.55
Clifton Campbell
Today we're talking, dead perfect, perfect segue. Today we're talking Borman, and in particular about Borman, we are talking Point Blank from 1967, I believe, and from this.

00:02:14.17
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:02:14.76
Clifton Campbell
i'm very excited about this

00:02:16.25
Marty Ketola
You might've heard us mention Excalibur back on our Batman episode. Cause I mentioned it was the opening of Batman versus Superman where Bruce, a young Bruce Wayne just left the screening of Excalibur and then his parents get killed to start the origin of Batman.

00:02:28.74
Clifton Campbell
That's right.

00:02:30.68
Jessica
Oh.

00:02:31.85
Marty Ketola
So I guess who was that Snyder said his movie, I guess he must be a big Excalibur fan to throw that in there.

00:02:32.40
Clifton Campbell
That's right. That's right. I'd forgotten all about that.

00:02:41.78
Clifton Campbell
Snyder.

00:02:41.53
Marty Ketola
Who knows?

00:02:42.02
Clifton Campbell
That makes sense.

00:02:42.65
Jessica
Yes, he is.

00:02:44.19
Clifton Campbell
That makes sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:02:45.18
Jessica
I just read that.

00:02:46.68
Marty Ketola
and We got some listener mail. It's kind of backed up a little bit here.

00:02:48.98
Clifton Campbell
Oh, do we? Sweet. What?

00:02:50.81
Marty Ketola
so we'll go through that pretty quick.

00:02:51.82
Clifton Campbell
Backed up. What?

00:02:52.92
Marty Ketola
I know.

00:02:53.37
Clifton Campbell
Okay.

00:02:53.36
Marty Ketola
it's we're We're blowing up, man.

00:02:53.93
Clifton Campbell
Go ahead.

00:02:55.28
Marty Ketola
We're blowing up.

00:02:56.50
Clifton Campbell
Look at us.

00:02:57.02
Marty Ketola
ah Okay. So we reviewed Scream 7 a few weeks ago, and we got a response from Ray Daniel, also known as the Call Me Crazy show from Public Access Day.

00:03:04.44
Clifton Campbell
Oh boy.

00:03:08.46
Clifton Campbell
What up, Ray Ray?

00:03:09.78
Marty Ketola
And he says, Scream 7 is awful. ah He elaborated to me that he didn't care for the AI storyline as well as it seems like these repetitive sequels just to make cash.

00:03:13.78
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. hey

00:03:23.06
Clifton Campbell
Yep.

00:03:22.90
Marty Ketola
I loved the film, so there you go.

00:03:25.21
Geoff
Yeah.

00:03:25.95
Marty Ketola
We're all different.

00:03:27.32
Clifton Campbell
I feel like you loved it.

00:03:27.10
Marty Ketola
But I understand i understand why you know why he did that.

00:03:29.50
Clifton Campbell
But what a lot of what you loved was like seeing the old characters, singing Sydney back, kind of like bringing the old band back together type of thing.

00:03:32.95
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:03:35.54
Clifton Campbell
And I get that. But my my problem, you I elucidated in the other episode.

00:03:39.06
Marty Ketola
and You got to sit through the rest of the movie.

00:03:40.34
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah.

00:03:40.42
Marty Ketola
I know, I know.

00:03:40.82
Clifton Campbell
You better sit the rest of the Exactly.

00:03:42.55
Marty Ketola
Well, then we also had some response about the primevals in DC cab. That was a little ways back here.

00:03:47.97
Clifton Campbell
Hey!

00:03:50.30
Marty Ketola
Let's see. We had a bouncing Bobby Lapeer from film thread on that episode.

00:03:54.31
Clifton Campbell
ey

00:03:55.69
Marty Ketola
And we had Dylan Schlender writes in and says, love that BBL. ah And then, you know, that's what it stands for.

00:04:01.55
Clifton Campbell
Brazilian butt lift. Yeah.

00:04:03.68
Marty Ketola
And Ben Hassler says prime evals is going on the watch list. So we're inspiring people to ah sit through some of these films.

00:04:10.19
Clifton Campbell
I have Jeff, Jessica, have you seen the prime utals?

00:04:13.56
Jessica
No.

00:04:13.54
Geoff
Nay. nay

00:04:14.84
Clifton Campbell
It's a movie that was started back in the nineties. It's a stop motion film about ah a group of explorers that find a lost world inside of like a, ah an ice cavern far down under the, under the earth where they find these lizard men.

00:04:30.62
Clifton Campbell
that are running a secret society and the Blizzardmen are all stop motion and it's it's magnificent. But apparently it took 30 or 40 years to finish. The guy who was making it died and kept running out of money and finding money to finish it. But it's literally some of the best stop motion I think I've ever seen.

00:04:45.82
Clifton Campbell
I mean, it it it's it's Clash of the Titans or a better level.

00:04:45.85
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:04:49.08
Marty Ketola
Yeah, harkens back to that.

00:04:49.46
Clifton Campbell
Fantastic.

00:04:50.24
Marty Ketola
If you like that Harryhausen stuff, this feels like a lost film from that era.

00:04:53.66
Clifton Campbell
Very much so. Very much so.

00:04:54.82
Geoff
Oh, marvellous.

00:04:55.28
Clifton Campbell
Like like it escaped.

00:04:55.86
Geoff
I love that stuff.

00:04:56.32
Clifton Campbell
it's it's It's like Indiana Jones meets Harryhausen is what I is what i feel like. yeah But anyway, go ahead, Marty.

00:05:01.11
Jessica
Cool.

00:05:01.40
Geoff
I was just going to say, it's at not having seen it, it sounds to me like Journey to the Centre of the Earth meets Gumby.

00:05:07.01
Clifton Campbell
yeah yeah that's it that For not having seen it, that's a pretty spot-on aesthetic right there.

00:05:07.19
Marty Ketola
yeah Yeah, that's a good pitch. Yeah.

00:05:11.82
Geoff
Oh, thanks. I produce every now and then.

00:05:15.13
Marty Ketola
but

00:05:15.40
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:05:17.21
Marty Ketola
And we got,

00:05:17.56
Geoff
Hey, are we supposed to introduce ourselves? I mean, say who we are. but Did we forget that bit? Do we not do that anymore?

00:05:23.26
Marty Ketola
well, I introduced you, but you can say who's the voice, the person behind the voice.

00:05:23.54
Clifton Campbell
No, Marty. Yeah.

00:05:29.02
Clifton Campbell
Sure.

00:05:29.84
Geoff
kind of meant just a little bit in our background that not only not only have we been lucky enough to be on the podcast several times, but we've been lucky enough to make movies with you.

00:05:40.88
Marty Ketola
that's right.

00:05:41.02
Geoff
So i'm I am Jeff Notkin. I'm one of Cliff and Marty's, I don't know, what would you call it? Unofficial production partners. So their production company together with mine and our friend Eric Schumacher's made Revenge of Zoe in Love Song of William H. Shaw.

00:05:59.29
Geoff
And we're we're old friends and and pals, and i'm ah I'm a former television host, perhaps best known for the kooky adventure series known as Meteorite Men.

00:06:09.84
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:06:11.38
Geoff
And...

00:06:12.88
Clifton Campbell
i i normally go friend first and then producer her second when i introduce you to people yeah it's totally fine just kidding and jessica introduce yourself young lady

00:06:17.18
Geoff
Yeah, I probably should have done that. Sorry. I'm just overexcited about today's episode.

00:06:23.90
Geoff
Well, also, actually, could I just say that isn't it obvious that already that we're friends because of our banter? Maybe that's why I just skipped over that bit.

00:06:31.00
Marty Ketola
her

00:06:32.12
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:06:31.97
Geoff
It seems like a given.

00:06:32.52
Clifton Campbell
Well, I i mean, I guess if you're, I guess for longtime listeners, people are like, Jeff, we know who you are.

00:06:38.94
Jessica
yeah

00:06:39.35
Clifton Campbell
But I, but I agree.

00:06:39.35
Geoff
Oh, that's so sweet.

00:06:40.47
Clifton Campbell
If this is, if this is the first episode catch, we should probably explain who you are.

00:06:41.98
Marty Ketola
It might be your first time.

00:06:44.55
Clifton Campbell
You're absolutely right. And Jessica, explain yourself.

00:06:48.12
Jessica
ah well

00:06:48.25
Geoff
In 10 words or less.

00:06:53.88
Jessica
um So, yeah, i met you guys actually at the premiere of Revenge of Zoe, and you guys kind of adopted me. And and i

00:07:05.64
Clifton Campbell
basically

00:07:08.06
Jessica
um when you were making William H. Shaw, I volunteered to participate in any way I could, and I ended up being able to be, have a bit part in the movie.

00:07:19.74
Jessica
I got to help in the background.

00:07:21.18
Clifton Campbell
you were everywhere you're in

00:07:22.22
Jessica
I helped with scenes and settings and costumes and, um, art stuff. Yeah. Just whatever was needed. I was, i i basically told you guys, I want to be your dog's body.

00:07:34.10
Jessica
Just let me do whatever. I'll go fetch water. I'll do whatever needs to be done. So yeah.

00:07:38.14
Geoff
General dogs, buddy!

00:07:40.06
Jessica
General dog's body. Yeah.

00:07:42.17
Clifton Campbell
You were, you were in everything.

00:07:42.36
Geoff
We... We...

00:07:44.60
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, you did.

00:07:44.95
Jessica
yeah

00:07:45.12
Clifton Campbell
it I mean, I, your photos, you're photos of everything. It's like Jeff.

00:07:48.31
Jessica
i

00:07:49.21
Clifton Campbell
It's like when Jeff was in the first movie, he was in photos everything. At one point he's putting makeup on Frenzy and another point he's, he's pointing at rocks and trying to find me the right rock but to for have a water out of.

00:07:54.74
Jessica
Yeah.

00:07:59.17
Clifton Campbell
And another point he's dressing a set and another point he's doing this and

00:08:03.06
Jessica
Yeah.

00:08:02.95
Geoff
Who is this guy?

00:08:04.02
Jessica
But my house was actually used for one of the sets and and my friend's house and her and her wheel, her pottery wheel.

00:08:06.71
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:08:08.41
Clifton Campbell
And your friend's house. Yeah. Jesus. Yes. Yes. God, we inconvenienced the both of you for multiple, multiple days. That was fun.

00:08:16.73
Jessica
It was, it was fantastic.

00:08:17.23
Clifton Campbell
Yeah,

00:08:18.01
Jessica
I loved it.

00:08:18.47
Geoff
We really did adopt you.

00:08:18.73
Jessica
I loved every minute of it You guys did.

00:08:20.50
Geoff
We we put you put you on screen in the saucy costume. We took over your house. We took over your friend's house.

00:08:25.88
Jessica
Yeah.

00:08:25.82
Geoff
We put you to work doing art and design and costumes and and finding us a potter's wheel.

00:08:28.79
Clifton Campbell
that's right. That's right. That's right.

00:08:32.22
Geoff
Good grief.

00:08:33.12
Jessica
And, and actually Jeff helped me out a little bit too. And, uh, well, I don't know. I, maybe I helped you out. It was kind of mutual. Like, um, I did, i created that little, meteorite chest, treasure chest for your, the cover of one of your books.

00:08:47.11
Geoff
That's right, the cover of my meteorite hunting book.

00:08:48.92
Jessica
And

00:08:49.68
Clifton Campbell
Oh,

00:08:51.13
Jessica
Yeah. huh And he also got me into um a magazine. the Do you want to tell them about Ad Astra magazine by the National Space Society?

00:08:58.11
Geoff
Ad Astra.

00:09:00.70
Clifton Campbell
that's cool.

00:09:01.62
Jessica
I was ah i did a jewelry ad for it.

00:09:04.40
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's cool.

00:09:04.34
Geoff
She was a model.

00:09:04.63
Jessica
but I was a model for for a day.

00:09:06.08
Clifton Campbell
Wow. Nice.

00:09:07.45
Geoff
She was a model in ah in a beautiful, fake, leopard-skin ladies' coat that I bought and wore when I did a New York Dolls tribute show in full costume Club Congress in Tucson.

00:09:13.61
Clifton Campbell
God.

00:09:18.78
Marty Ketola
ah

00:09:19.04
Clifton Campbell
Why does that sound familiar?

00:09:20.65
Jessica
Oh, you've seen that coat. You've seen that coat.

00:09:22.17
Clifton Campbell
so Somebody bought a costume and then put Jessica in it. Why does that sound familiar?

00:09:26.26
Jessica
Oh, yeah.

00:09:26.32
Geoff
Ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:09:26.56
Clifton Campbell
How how is that?

00:09:26.58
Jessica
i thought There's that.

00:09:27.52
Clifton Campbell
Why is that hasn't been done more than once? Anyways. know And that's folks that.

00:09:31.67
Jessica
You have to go back to the episode of...

00:09:33.58
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, i was going to say, folks, that sounds weird.

00:09:33.59
Jessica
my

00:09:35.42
Clifton Campbell
Hang on. That sounds weird. Let me explain.

00:09:38.33
Marty Ketola
ah

00:09:39.32
Clifton Campbell
We bought a costume. Go back an episode to the one that she's on and we'll explain. But basically in the short term, we bought a costume in Vegas. Jeff and I were shopping, found a costume. It's an old um a you know Vegas showgirl costume.

00:09:50.77
Jessica
showgirl

00:09:52.95
Clifton Campbell
Not that racy, but showgirl costume. And we gave it to her and she fixed it and put it on and she looked great in it and she wore it for the film.

00:09:55.68
Geoff
I think it's pretty racy.

00:10:00.82
Clifton Campbell
But anyway, so yeah.

00:10:02.29
Jessica
yeah anyway it was a lot of fun you guys have given me some of the best times of my life absolutely

00:10:03.88
Clifton Campbell
It was a lot of fun. Yeah.

00:10:07.64
Clifton Campbell
That's great. Well, you've been, you've been instrumental in what we've in these films and and getting them done. and I know Jeff, especially that last one, you guys were an awesome team. i mean, literally we're shooting in one house and they're across the street dressing another one.

00:10:21.11
Clifton Campbell
Right? Like, I mean, how, and and then it's like, all right, where's the next scene? It's literally 40 feet across the street. Everybody pick your shit up and let's go. and and then there you go.

00:10:29.57
Jessica
It

00:10:30.36
Clifton Campbell
You know, I that's what it was.

00:10:30.67
Marty Ketola
Makes the company move easy.

00:10:31.60
Clifton Campbell
what It was so much fun.

00:10:33.86
Jessica
was.

00:10:33.98
Clifton Campbell
It was so much fun. Anyway. All right. Let's, what do you guys do?

00:10:36.86
Geoff
that was That's welcome to indie filmmaking right there.

00:10:39.10
Clifton Campbell
Exactly.

00:10:39.86
Geoff
That's all you need to know about indie filmmaking.

00:10:43.16
Clifton Campbell
Marty, what do you got to any other, any other fan mail?

00:10:45.17
Marty Ketola
There is one more piece of mail.

00:10:46.81
Clifton Campbell
Hit it.

00:10:47.25
Marty Ketola
This is on our ah How to Murder Your Wife and Save the Tiger episode.

00:10:47.70
Clifton Campbell
Hit it.

00:10:53.40
Clifton Campbell
I love that movie.

00:10:53.91
Marty Ketola
The one with Daniel Roebuck, and that's been pretty popular episode, too.

00:10:54.87
Clifton Campbell
Both of them.

00:10:58.01
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Thousand views or more. Yeah.

00:10:59.70
Marty Ketola
And so other popular guest writes in Frank Dietz and says, I saw Jack Lemmon on Broadway twice in tribute with Robert Picardo and Catherine Hicks.

00:11:10.78
Marty Ketola
Gee, doesn't that sound familiar, right?

00:11:11.50
Clifton Campbell
Wow. Geez.

00:11:12.66
Marty Ketola
And long days journey into night with Peter Gallagher and Kevin Spacey. I got to play Ensign Pulver on stage in Mr. Roberts and it was so hard not to imitate Jack's Oscar winning performance.

00:11:25.02
Clifton Campbell
Wow.

00:11:25.78
Marty Ketola
We'll be seeing Frank again on one of the spooky episodes most likely coming up soon.

00:11:26.16
Clifton Campbell
Wow.

00:11:29.75
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, we had him on for Break Heart Pass, and he was such a great guest.

00:11:34.33
Marty Ketola
An Anatomy of a Murderer.

00:11:34.78
Clifton Campbell
So much.

00:11:35.99
Marty Ketola
If you haven't seen that, that's a classic.

00:11:36.26
Clifton Campbell
Anatomy of a Murderer.

00:11:36.75
Jessica
Oh, that's a great movie.

00:11:37.94
Clifton Campbell
Oh, so good. If you haven't seen Save the Tiger...

00:11:38.97
Jessica
Love that movie.

00:11:40.60
Marty Ketola
Oh, that's so good too.

00:11:41.88
Clifton Campbell
My God, that is five star ma type of acting.

00:11:42.14
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:11:44.42
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:11:44.70
Jessica
Okay.

00:11:45.68
Clifton Campbell
It's lemon. Just, he just sets himself on fire from the first frame and just burns throughout the picture. It's amazing.

00:11:50.26
Marty Ketola
And that was Talking Lemon. And today it's Talking Borman, another one of our series of ah two movies by the same person.

00:11:53.29
Clifton Campbell
It's talking Borman.

00:11:54.39
Jessica
ah

00:11:56.74
Marty Ketola
And let's see the odd similarities.

00:11:58.67
Clifton Campbell
All right.

00:12:01.16
Marty Ketola
but

00:12:01.94
Clifton Campbell
So I think we should probably go point blank first because we've got like at least two to three to four Excalibur nerds on this podcast.

00:12:10.68
Marty Ketola
ah It's hard to let somebody decide when it's two guests.

00:12:11.46
Jessica
Yep.

00:12:14.58
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, but I think we just kind of we just kind of do point blank, get it out of the way, and then dive into the warm bath that Excalibur.

00:12:14.36
Marty Ketola
You know, because we usually go, guess what do you want to do? You know.

00:12:21.75
Jessica
Because you know that's why we're really here.

00:12:21.99
Marty Ketola
Okay.

00:12:23.48
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, exactly.

00:12:23.45
Marty Ketola
You want to do the episode just on Excalibur we're like, well, we got to pair something with it.

00:12:24.52
Clifton Campbell
That's exactly it. that We got to pair of something, yeah. I personally...

00:12:29.88
Marty Ketola
So.

00:12:30.04
Geoff
I did say that, didn't I? I said, well, if if you had Jessica and me on at the same time, you'd have two guests, so we'd only have to do one film. But that logic didn't fly ah with you, gents.

00:12:39.59
Clifton Campbell
No, we got to stick with the family,

00:12:39.90
Geoff
But no, I totally agree.

00:12:41.37
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, we got to stick it.

00:12:41.86
Geoff
I think we should do point blank first. That really makes sense. I think i think there's a i think maybe we have more to talk about in Excalibur.

00:12:49.18
Clifton Campbell
Oh, I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Anyway, so let me let me go ahead and get this out of the way.

00:12:52.41
Marty Ketola
so So what is this movie that I watched the whole thing and thought, some of these people seem very familiar to me, and then I get to the end credits and I go, Sid Haig was in this fucking movie?

00:12:52.78
Clifton Campbell
You ready, Marty? Yeah.

00:13:00.69
Marty Ketola
What is? Not gross point blank, but regular point blank.

00:13:06.39
Clifton Campbell
regular point blank just point it's not regular point blank it's just point blank here we go point blank 1967 approved one hour 32 minutes here's your log line after being double crossed and left for dead a mysterious man named walker single single-mindedly tries to retrieve the money that was stolen from him this is directed by john borman read by alexander jacobs david newhouse rafe newhouse starring lee marvin and angie dickinson here's your storyline

00:13:08.84
Marty Ketola
Ha ha ha. Ha ha.

00:13:33.55
Clifton Campbell
Uh, let's see. Mel Reese is in a real bind, owning a good deal of money to his organized crime bosses and gets his friend Walker to join him in a heist. It goes off without a hitch. But when Reese relay realizes that the take isn't as large as he had hoped for, he kills Walker or so he thinks sometime later, Walker decides it's time to get his share of the money and starts, uh, start his wife X. Ooh, sorry about that. weird.

00:13:56.25
Clifton Campbell
One, two, three. Sometime later, Walker decides it's time to get his share of the money and starts with his ex-wife, Lynn, who took up with Reese after the shooting. That leads him on a trail to his wife's sister, Chris, to Reese himself, then on to Big Stegman, then Frederick Carter, then up the line of gangsters in an effort to get money from people who simply won't acknowledge that they owe him anything at all.

00:14:04.60
Geoff
Thank you.

00:14:16.03
Marty Ketola
It's like Taken.

00:14:16.53
Clifton Campbell
Point blank.

00:14:17.08
Marty Ketola
ah

00:14:18.58
Clifton Campbell
So right away, i don't know if you guys know this, but this is a full on Mel Gibson redid this movie in 1999 called Payback, a total remake of this. Almost almost beat for beat.

00:14:29.40
Marty Ketola
I was going say Taken, but that had Liam Neeson, but he's in the other movie.

00:14:32.79
Clifton Campbell
No, Taken's like to Taken's a hostage movie. This is like a straight revenge.

00:14:34.88
Marty Ketola
But I know, but there is the, I'm going to get my shit no matter what, up the ladder of the video game big bosses to the movie.

00:14:38.62
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:14:41.30
Clifton Campbell
And this has been done many... This film has been done type of film has been done many times, like The Limey. They did it with... What's the dude from...

00:14:50.46
Marty Ketola
honey Yeah, people are screaming at their phones right now.

00:14:51.35
Clifton Campbell
from He played Bernie in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I can't remember. The older the older gentleman.

00:15:01.10
Jessica
Oh, yeah. I know who you're talking about, but i don't remember his name.

00:15:07.07
Marty Ketola
but

00:15:07.54
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Why is it so-and-so?! um But I think so.

00:15:10.71
Marty Ketola
But this is probably an early example of this type of movie, right?

00:15:14.94
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, I think so. But it's I mean, it's definitely been done over and over again. That slow burn kind of revenge. The the limey is definitely one of them. There's one with Michael Caine called Get Carter.

00:15:29.22
Clifton Campbell
That's English.

00:15:29.23
Geoff
Oh, yeah.

00:15:29.42
Marty Ketola
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:15:30.22
Clifton Campbell
It does this exact same thing, you know, and so there you know, this is this is not a this is not a new type of film or subject matter or type of movie.

00:15:30.31
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:15:38.26
Clifton Campbell
Right. Like.

00:15:38.52
Marty Ketola
But the way it's shot is different than those.

00:15:40.78
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

00:15:41.20
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:15:41.93
Clifton Campbell
That's what I love about it.

00:15:43.09
Marty Ketola
Mm hmm.

00:15:43.77
Clifton Campbell
I don't think it's breaking any new ground other than it is fucking gorgeous. i think it's fucking beautiful. I love its blues. I love its greens. I love the fact that he used such a big, wide fucking format and stuck the stuck the actors in the first third of the frame close up and let all that fucking behind them go on. Like, I love Borman's choices in the film, and I love the way the film fucking looks. I don't necessarily like the way it's told.

00:16:09.10
Marty Ketola
It's very 60s, but it does have that little bit of a leaning towards some 70s filmmaking in it. But yeah, it's it's totally drenched in its 60s. You know, watching today's movies, it made Zardoz make so much more sense to me.

00:16:24.12
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:16:24.31
Geoff
but but Well done.

00:16:24.27
Marty Ketola
I'm like, this is totally the same guy.

00:16:25.72
Geoff
Really?

00:16:26.15
Marty Ketola
I see it.

00:16:26.52
Geoff
Please explain to us.

00:16:26.87
Marty Ketola
I see it. Well, there's the fog first to start.

00:16:30.10
Clifton Campbell
i

00:16:30.31
Jessica
I haven't seen Zardoz yet and I've never really had the nerve to watch it because I mean Sean Connery just looks so wrong the cover yeah so but to realize but I realized it's like oh my gosh he did all of these movies and I and the only one that I had really seen was was Excalibur so yeah it's interesting to be introduced to other things

00:16:31.61
Marty Ketola
And then... but

00:16:39.96
Marty Ketola
Just another piece of the Borman puzzle. Yeah.

00:16:52.57
Clifton Campbell
yeah Yeah.

00:16:58.58
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:16:58.82
Geoff
he's He's a powerhouse. Not only did he make a lot of movies, but he made them his way.

00:17:03.35
Jessica
Yeah.

00:17:03.49
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:17:03.42
Geoff
he he's he's and And he did a lot of the writing, and especially in Excalibur, he was involved with locations and casting and so much.

00:17:03.36
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:17:10.33
Geoff
And i it's it's interesting that the last time I was on this podcast, we were also talking about John Borman films, We Did Hope and Glory, which is, as you will remember, my all-time favorite film in the history of the universe.

00:17:16.84
Marty Ketola
That's right. Mm-hmm.

00:17:19.67
Clifton Campbell
Fantastic. Yep.

00:17:22.01
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:17:23.64
Geoff
and and i'm i'm an And I'm an enormous Borman fan.

00:17:23.58
Marty Ketola
And very different than these, too.

00:17:26.64
Geoff
i just I think he's a masterful filmmaker. And a lot of his films are very puzzling, including this one, which was only his second feature.

00:17:32.47
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:17:34.20
Geoff
And it's as if... It's it's funny that so his first film is like that silly one about the Dave Clark vibe that's a bit like, I don't know, a bit like the bit bit like Help, the Beatles film.

00:17:44.44
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:17:44.76
Geoff
So it goes from that to this...

00:17:45.05
Clifton Campbell
and

00:17:48.43
Geoff
was going to say complicated. if if you If you describe the story in a nutshell...

00:17:51.74
Clifton Campbell
It's a, it's a gank. It's a gangster picture. It's really simple.

00:17:53.72
Geoff
it Yeah, it's and as you said, it's it's such a similar high concept to many other films. Gangster or criminal with a conscience gets double-crossed, money stolen, goes on a vengeance quest.

00:18:04.80
Clifton Campbell
It goes after his money.

00:18:06.86
Geoff
matt So there there's your two-line synopsis.

00:18:07.35
Clifton Campbell
Yep. There it is. There it is.

00:18:10.06
Geoff
But then you start watching and it's very confusing and mysterious and a lot of strange things happen.

00:18:14.38
Marty Ketola
to have a.

00:18:15.30
Geoff
and Cliff, it's interesting that you mentioned the color of the film.

00:18:20.22
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:20.14
Geoff
There's there's a very interesting interview with Jim Jarmusch. This is one of his favorite films. And had not noticed this until he pointed it out. But up until the moment when Walker drops his dead wife's bottles of perfume in this in the tub, there's hardly any color in the film.

00:18:36.57
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:18:39.62
Geoff
It's very noir-ish, as if he's intentionally doing an homage

00:18:41.42
Clifton Campbell
So

00:18:44.17
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:18:44.57
Clifton Campbell
I completely agree. I love that you brought that up because... ah Three minutes. One of my notes is three minutes in. and I love the look of this film. It's gorgeous. The greens and the blacks of the prison. They feel like an echo of Excalibur.

00:18:54.61
Clifton Campbell
They feel like what he's working, this weird green tinge that's throughout Excalibur, which we'll get to later, the power of the sword, the power of the land, the power of Arthur expressed in this green sort of tinge in this hue shows up throughout this film.

00:19:03.24
Marty Ketola
It's in Zardoz too.

00:19:10.46
Clifton Campbell
You know, and his blues and his his blues are so gorgeous. I don't know what the fuck he did color wise to this film, but I love it. It does feel it does feel so noir, Jeff.

00:19:18.04
Jessica
Yeah,

00:19:20.54
Clifton Campbell
It feels very neo noir.

00:19:22.78
Jessica
I had a sense that he was kind of using color for mood and and statements.

00:19:27.29
Clifton Campbell
Very much.

00:19:27.32
Jessica
Like it was very, like that's definitely something that I noticed.

00:19:27.97
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:19:31.28
Jessica
um I really loved the opening.

00:19:31.74
Clifton Campbell
Mm hmm.

00:19:34.58
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that whole sequence.

00:19:35.31
Jessica
shots, the sequence of just the the different camera shots, the weird, strange, unique.

00:19:36.02
Clifton Campbell
Oh. So unique.

00:19:40.35
Jessica
And I was like, and and it was like, okay, this almost feels like, you know, beginning filmmaker really like playing around and doing the things, figuring it out.

00:19:40.70
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:19:48.18
Clifton Campbell
Figuring it out. okay

00:19:50.42
Jessica
But i did yeah, but I and didn't like the movie much.

00:19:51.93
Clifton Campbell
Borman's Darkman.

00:19:57.33
Jessica
I thought it was, i I loved certain aspects of the filmography, like you're talking about the way it's shot is beautiful.

00:19:57.37
Clifton Campbell
really

00:20:04.70
Jessica
But I was like, I didn't like the characters. I didn't like any of the characters.

00:20:10.47
Clifton Campbell
they're not likeable They're not likable people for the most part.

00:20:11.90
Jessica
And I didn't want, and I was like, why do I care about this story? Like it was for me, I wasn't compelled by that, but I watched it and, you know, and I was, and at the end i was like, well, that was a movie that I saw, ah but I think,

00:20:23.48
Marty Ketola
and

00:20:25.56
Clifton Campbell
I mean, if you've if you've ever had $93,000 stolen from you, you might have an interest in this film.

00:20:29.75
Jessica
me

00:20:30.06
Clifton Campbell
but ah yeah

00:20:30.78
Jessica
I think the thing that both like I'd probably you know I'm not it's I think it's a guy's movie I really think that this is like this is such a guy's movie and I and I'm fine with that I mean I've there's other movies that I've seen that I thought this is a guy's movie and I still dug it like um like

00:20:38.49
Clifton Campbell
Oh, for sure. I mean,

00:20:48.12
Clifton Campbell
this one, this, this, the aesthetic on this is weird. Like, do you know when he and, he and um Angie Dickinson finally have their romantic moment? Like that scene before is one of the oddest, like,

00:21:01.26
Clifton Campbell
courtship type of lead up. Like it, the, the, the sixties had this really weird male aesthetic where it was kind of okay to be very smacky of women.

00:21:07.73
Jessica
It was very off-putting.

00:21:10.46
Clifton Campbell
And it like, I smacked her and now she's, and now she's ready to go.

00:21:10.94
Jessica
Yeah, I didn't like that.

00:21:13.74
Clifton Campbell
And let's have, so yeah and then I love, I love the fact that he stands there.

00:21:13.91
Marty Ketola
She smacks the shit out of him. That's one of my favorite parts of the movie where she just, and he's just standing there.

00:21:18.20
Jessica
Where she just starts beating on him.

00:21:19.23
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:21:20.42
Clifton Campbell
He's like, there's nothing you can do.

00:21:20.76
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:21:21.94
Clifton Campbell
That's going to hurt me. Like smack away.

00:21:23.54
Jessica
Yeah.

00:21:24.18
Clifton Campbell
Like there's nothing you can do.

00:21:24.22
Jessica
that i

00:21:24.30
Geoff
I have a note here about this.

00:21:26.17
Clifton Campbell
I loved that.

00:21:26.26
Geoff
I'm so glad you brought this up.

00:21:27.74
Clifton Campbell
Hit me, hit me with it.

00:21:27.90
Geoff
so So first of all, she's really pounding on him.

00:21:31.13
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:21:31.37
Jessica
Yeah, she is.

00:21:31.48
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:21:31.34
Geoff
That's not...

00:21:31.92
Clifton Campbell
She fucking, she, wears no, she, she lets go on him.

00:21:31.94
Geoff
They're they're not acting.

00:21:36.18
Clifton Campbell
I imagined right before action, he said, Angie, there's nothing you can do.

00:21:36.06
Geoff
And he's...

00:21:36.32
Jessica
I was thinking the same thing, yeah.

00:21:40.14
Clifton Campbell
Go ahead. And she was like, all right.

00:21:42.39
Geoff
You asked for it.

00:21:43.07
Clifton Campbell
Cause wow.

00:21:43.45
Geoff
And he's ah he's a big guy and you can see the force of impact when she's hitting him over and over again. And you know what it reminds me of?

00:21:49.14
Clifton Campbell
Very much.

00:21:50.09
Geoff
What it reminds me of is Revenge of Zoe when our dear Eric Schumacher hit Nate Campbell in the face so many times, slapped him in the face because we had to keep redoing the scene.

00:21:52.02
Clifton Campbell
Oh,

00:21:53.27
Marty Ketola
Slap acting.

00:22:02.26
Marty Ketola
flap acting

00:22:03.32
Geoff
And you guys, you rascals put together a little blooper reel of that, didn't you? All the slaps.

00:22:07.26
Clifton Campbell
I, I, I, at one point he looks at the camera and goes, I said, smack him again, Eric. And he smacks him. And then Nate goes, it looks at the camera and goes, at some point you're not kidding. And I looked at Eric and said, go ahead and smack him again.

00:22:23.96
Clifton Campbell
So yeah.

00:22:24.44
Geoff
I remember it well.

00:22:25.62
Jessica
Okay.

00:22:26.45
Geoff
Jessica, i have i have I have a comment.

00:22:26.71
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Oh,

00:22:28.73
Geoff
I have a comment for you. Something to think about.

00:22:30.36
Jessica
Yeah.

00:22:30.81
Geoff
So the very first time I saw this film, which was many years ago, i think I had a similar reaction to you, to yours. But there's an intelligence at work here. And like most of Borman's films, or perhaps all of them, the surface story is not really the story.

00:22:45.19
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

00:22:46.36
Geoff
there's ah there's There are other things going on, and and it makes you think.

00:22:46.61
Jessica
No. Yeah.

00:22:50.28
Geoff
So the central question in this film is, is Walker dead? is Is he a ghost? Is this a dream? Or is this really a narrative? Because he's shot at the beginning of the movie multiple times and left for dead in the cell in Alcatraz.

00:23:06.52
Geoff
And then there's that extremely bizarre scene where he's

00:23:06.74
Jessica
Yeah,

00:23:10.00
Geoff
thrashing around in the water in the bay in the san francisco bay while in the background there's ah a tour guide on a ship talking about on a boat talking about all the people who tried to escape from alcatraz and died of exposure in the cold water so it's it's almost like that's his like is that his spirit going into the water after he's been shot what the heck is going on there but

00:23:16.75
Clifton Campbell
That's fascinating.

00:23:26.01
Jessica
yeah you're right.

00:23:34.20
Marty Ketola
Explains the ending too, yeah where he doesn't take the money, he just drifts away because maybe he wasn't there.

00:23:38.07
Jessica
Yeah, and he just, that's, you know, okay, that gives me another angle.

00:23:41.02
Clifton Campbell
fascinating. that's That's a fascinating take. Yeah.

00:23:43.52
Geoff
Oh, thank you.

00:23:43.83
Jessica
and i might i might have to watch it again.

00:23:44.06
Geoff
Well, it's it's worth watching again from a clinical point of view.

00:23:44.38
Marty Ketola
Or a corporation won't pay here you.

00:23:45.87
Jessica
just to i might watch it again.

00:23:46.33
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, that's a fascinating take.

00:23:46.23
Marty Ketola
Nope.

00:23:50.20
Jessica
Yeah.

00:23:52.22
Geoff
I'm not following the story. I'm trying to, um what is the message here?

00:23:54.04
Jessica
Right.

00:23:55.62
Geoff
What what else is going on? it And it's really a lot.

00:23:57.72
Jessica
Yeah. The other, the one thing that I think that bothered me even more than the smackiness, the, what you know, the, the,

00:23:59.06
Geoff
And go on.

00:24:06.01
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, that's that's just kind of part of the milieu, right? Like, I mean, there's a certain point where it's not fun to watch, but at the same time, it's kind of...

00:24:08.48
Jessica
Yeah, right. I understand it's from the era and it's the way it was.

00:24:13.66
Clifton Campbell
Right, right, right, right.

00:24:14.50
Jessica
And it's just, but so the, so I was reading, I read a little bit about, you know, like some of the comments about the film and someone talked about how Walker's stoic and, and I was like, okay, I didn't, I'm not getting stoic out of this.

00:24:31.46
Jessica
What I'm seeing is like Vogue strike a pose on we affected.

00:24:36.66
Clifton Campbell
Maybe it's

00:24:37.82
Jessica
Like, he's just like, literally, he's sitting there like this.

00:24:40.94
Marty Ketola
That's the 60s aesthetic.

00:24:41.56
Jessica
And the woman is talking and looking at They're talking in different directions.

00:24:42.32
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:24:44.02
Clifton Campbell
said

00:24:45.60
Jessica
He doesn't even talk. He doesn't even move. He fucking doesn't even move. He just sits there. And like, to your point, Jeff, maybe it's because he's a ghost. I mean, that makes but it was just like, this.

00:24:53.50
Marty Ketola
and Right?

00:24:56.47
Clifton Campbell
maybe it's maybe's

00:24:57.02
Jessica
you know it's like This feels like such a like high school film, making someone making a high school film and trying to be affected.

00:25:03.73
Clifton Campbell
That's fascinating.

00:25:05.32
Jessica
you know and it was like, it just the ennui, I was just like, ennui is not a good flavor for a revenge film.

00:25:09.24
Clifton Campbell
You remember...

00:25:13.99
Jessica
It's like...

00:25:14.26
Clifton Campbell
peter Do you remember the Love Witch, Marty, and how we talked about how they intentionally they intentionally went back to a presentational style of acting?

00:25:17.96
Marty Ketola
Yeah, it's a performative acting.

00:25:22.79
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:25:23.39
Clifton Campbell
I think Lee Marvin's acting is a little older school.

00:25:27.48
Jessica
Yeah, that's...

00:25:27.77
Clifton Campbell
And so it so it reads a little differently to a modern kind of viewer, maybe, and and and that type of thing.

00:25:32.22
Jessica
Yeah, I think that's what's going on. I think part of it is that.

00:25:35.06
Clifton Campbell
Maybe that's what's going on there. Yeah.

00:25:36.89
Jessica
But I think it's like...

00:25:37.02
Clifton Campbell
is up Because i I hear what you're saying, but I think his, I do think he's stoic, but I think maybe his type of delivery of that style is maybe possibly throwing you.

00:25:46.07
Jessica
Mm-hmm. It reminded me of like, kind of like, maybe it's what I'm thinking of is like spoofs of that style later on in more modern times where they're they're being affected and it's for and it's done for comedy and that's the only thing I've ever really seen.

00:25:48.12
Clifton Campbell
Maybe.

00:26:00.28
Clifton Campbell
okay

00:26:03.74
Clifton Campbell
you felt he You felt his acting was a little too affected or affect.

00:26:04.41
Jessica
and so Affected. Yeah.

00:26:07.93
Clifton Campbell
Okay, I got you.

00:26:08.13
Jessica
And, and, and it really, to me, so it it wasn't stoic.

00:26:09.13
Clifton Campbell
Okay. Okay. Valid.

00:26:11.77
Jessica
It was on. We, I really got like that. That's why I was talking about like, it's not Vogue, but you know, these, these perfume ads and make, and you know, ads in like fashion magazines where everything is just out of my outer space.

00:26:25.28
Clifton Campbell
Well, Lee Marvin is a gorgeous man. Why wouldn't he? Why wouldn't he pose in Preen? But no, no.

00:26:31.06
Jessica
No.

00:26:31.28
Clifton Campbell
Look, that hallway scene where he's walking and it's just a clack of shoes.

00:26:34.81
Jessica
I love that. Okay. I love that.

00:26:36.60
Clifton Campbell
It almost it almost like think thinking about Jeff's take on it, though, it almost feels like him moving through purgatory or moving through.

00:26:36.94
Marty Ketola
Walkers walking.

00:26:40.57
Jessica
Yeah.

00:26:44.98
Jessica
Yeah.

00:26:45.66
Clifton Campbell
almost a refusal to sort of die or a refusal to go to the next plane and saying like, fuck you. I'll just walk the walk through this long fucking hallway, come out the other end and begin to affect my revenge rather than take, take the end.

00:26:56.92
Jessica
Yeah.

00:26:57.78
Geoff
It

00:26:59.26
Clifton Campbell
Right. I love that hallway scene now even more. And that's always seen. It's iconic as fuck.

00:27:03.74
Geoff
it it is.

00:27:04.27
Clifton Campbell
It's great.

00:27:04.58
Geoff
it's And it's a really important scene in in the film.

00:27:05.30
Jessica
Yes.

00:27:06.86
Geoff
And I'm going to refer back to this later, but I don't want to i don't want to but don't want to spoil this other part of the discussion. So what is going what is going on in that scene?

00:27:13.00
Jessica
Okay.

00:27:14.28
Geoff
and the his very The very loud footsteps. Okay, so his name's Walker. He's walking down the corridor. We get that.

00:27:22.08
Marty Ketola
Yeah, I love it.

00:27:22.55
Clifton Campbell
Oh, shit.

00:27:22.50
Geoff
I mean, that that's...

00:27:23.07
Clifton Campbell
Jesus. ain't put that together until just now.

00:27:23.96
Marty Ketola
You didn't catch that?

00:27:24.06
Geoff
that's

00:27:25.61
Clifton Campbell
God damn it. I'm stupid.

00:27:26.14
Marty Ketola
I just said that. Walker's walking.

00:27:27.58
Clifton Campbell
Oh, fuck.

00:27:27.90
Geoff
but but

00:27:28.30
Clifton Campbell
I'm dumb. I'm so dumb.

00:27:28.92
Geoff
you

00:27:30.18
Clifton Campbell
I got to stop smoking weed when i watch these movies.

00:27:30.36
Marty Ketola
And then he burst in that front door.

00:27:31.06
Geoff
But there's there's more...

00:27:31.72
Marty Ketola
I love that part.

00:27:32.38
Clifton Campbell
I didn't put that together at all.

00:27:33.02
Geoff
hey

00:27:33.58
Clifton Campbell
Sorry. Go ahead

00:27:34.07
Geoff
No, it's okay. And this this goes this is going to address Jessica's point.

00:27:36.26
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:27:37.51
Geoff
I have to respectfully disagree with you, Jessica. So so the so the the loud clacking of his feet, that is this the sound is then superimposed over scenes that that follow it.

00:27:41.22
Clifton Campbell
ahead. Yep.

00:27:47.42
Geoff
What is that?

00:27:47.78
Clifton Campbell
Yep.

00:27:48.66
Geoff
is that Is that his heart ticking? Is it showing telling us that he's alive? Is it is it his sense of purpose? he's He's pounding down that corridor. Nothing's going to stop Walker from exacting revenge.

00:27:58.41
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:00.42
Geoff
I think it's a time bomb. That's my take on it.

00:28:02.55
Clifton Campbell
i think it's I think it's the top. Much like you, I think it's the egg timer going the opposite way. like You got so much time left, Walker.

00:28:11.33
Geoff
Oh, that's interesting. Well, yeah, i I took it more as he's he's a time bomb and he knows he's going to explode.

00:28:13.59
Jessica
yeah

00:28:18.36
Clifton Campbell
That's a good call, too.

00:28:18.37
Geoff
he's he's going to take He's going to take everybody down.

00:28:20.55
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:28:20.97
Geoff
I may be seeing too much into it.

00:28:21.05
Marty Ketola
i thought it was a I thought it was a fun gimmick for you hear him walking and he's walking for like a minute and his name's Walker and lot Walker's walking and then all of a sudden he bursts through the front door and grabs his ex I'm like, oh, that was just him walking up to the steps.

00:28:23.15
Clifton Campbell
It's...

00:28:27.45
Clifton Campbell
It's Walker. Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:35.58
Marty Ketola
I thought it was a fun device.

00:28:37.70
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:28:38.06
Clifton Campbell
It's

00:28:38.14
Marty Ketola
It made me laugh when he burst in. I'm like, that's what he was doing. He was walking to the front door.

00:28:43.22
Clifton Campbell
it's so, so fucking stylish of a movie. like i i

00:28:45.55
Marty Ketola
It's all of those things, I think.

00:28:47.00
Clifton Campbell
I love how pretty it is. i love how stylish it is. um it has that 60s aesthetic. It has that 60s feel. It has that style.

00:28:57.50
Clifton Campbell
But yet, its you can like you said, if you can see Borman kind of working his shit out on film where he's like, I like doing this. I want to see if I can try this. and you know but one of the One of my complaints, by the way, and I'll drag this into Excalibur, is going to be this seems to be shot on a big format.

00:29:13.84
Clifton Campbell
I want to say probably 233, something like that, to one. it's It seems like

00:29:18.06
Marty Ketola
It's a scope, yeah.

00:29:19.67
Clifton Campbell
It's a scope. And then he goes and shoots fucking Excalibur in what looks like 16 by 9.

00:29:24.25
Marty Ketola
Yeah, it's a 185, yeah.

00:29:24.70
Clifton Campbell
What the fuck are you doing?

00:29:27.03
Marty Ketola
But, you know, it I watched it large and it it works, you know, cause i was thinking, why isn't this scope?

00:29:30.48
Clifton Campbell
Okay, I just...

00:29:31.54
Marty Ketola
But it's like, because I think he wanted that top and bottom of the, yeah.

00:29:32.28
Clifton Campbell
I just... Point blank point blank is so grandiose in its scale, especially again, when you put Marvin in that one third on the first on the, you know, if you put Marvin in focus close up on that first third of the frame on the right and you got all that background behind him and shit going on, it's so powerful.

00:29:37.84
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:29:50.20
Jessica
yeah

00:29:50.26
Clifton Campbell
And I, and then I'm watch Excalibur. I'm like, I would have loved to assume this fucking Excalibur.

00:29:54.17
Marty Ketola
And then Hope and Glory is like a 1.66 or something. So he liked to do different ratios.

00:29:58.23
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. He liked it. He liked to fuck around with it. Yeah.

00:30:01.75
Marty Ketola
ah This is the first movie with John Vernon in it.

00:30:02.26
Clifton Campbell
Um,

00:30:05.53
Marty Ketola
That was kind of surprising.

00:30:05.88
Clifton Campbell
Oh, really?

00:30:06.73
Marty Ketola
Because introducing John Vernon, it's like, oh, we've seen him in so many things since then.

00:30:07.64
Clifton Campbell
Okay.

00:30:11.11
Marty Ketola
It's like, even as a young man, he still looked the same. I was quite i was quite shocked when he flew over the balcony there.

00:30:13.93
Geoff
Yeah, that's true.

00:30:17.47
Marty Ketola
It was like, holy shit, that's pretty brutal.

00:30:18.73
Geoff
That was quite well done, actually, that effect, I thought, for the time, the body falling and hitting the road.

00:30:20.09
Marty Ketola
er Yeah.

00:30:23.71
Geoff
Because they they always cut before the body hits the road, but not this time.

00:30:27.06
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:30:27.90
Jessica
Yeah.

00:30:27.90
Marty Ketola
And it's approved still. It has nudity. It has dead bodies and naked butts and it's approved because it's the sixties.

00:30:33.76
Clifton Campbell
Yep. That's the 60s.

00:30:35.48
Marty Ketola
ah

00:30:35.90
Clifton Campbell
Let me ask you this. what So my my only real, honestly, problem with the movie, my only part where I'm like, nope, is that in in and a lot of movies did this back in the 60s and the early 70s where they would take a music scene and sort of draw the music into ah a fra a frenetic state while they're doing a killing or a beating or all that.

00:30:51.86
Marty Ketola
Oh God. The, uh,

00:30:55.24
Marty Ketola
The screaming singer is a bit much.

00:30:57.05
Clifton Campbell
I don't need to hear that yeah, yeah, fucking song ever again. And i don't need to, you know, that was the one part where i was just like, this is so dated in the sixties and, and it works.

00:31:00.83
Jessica
Oh, I agree.

00:31:05.77
Marty Ketola
But yet the scene itself without sound, you go, where would Skyfall be without this? Right.

00:31:11.51
Clifton Campbell
Yes. Yeah, very much.

00:31:12.09
Jessica
Yeah.

00:31:13.15
Clifton Campbell
in it Very much. And there does seem to feel like a little bit of James Bond in here at times, just a little bit of the sinister ah era of James Bond.

00:31:17.60
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:31:21.10
Clifton Campbell
But I just remember watching that scene and going, I'd rather listen to Abba and the Martian all fucking day than listen to that fucking guy scream.

00:31:27.79
Marty Ketola
No, you don't mind that.

00:31:28.70
Jessica
ah

00:31:29.94
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah. While that killing is going on.

00:31:32.12
Jessica
um yeah for me also the the scene where we meet Reese where you know it's just so frantic like this why are they why is he freaking out in this crowd and do it and it's like it's almost like and I'm like are you anyway you almost think he's gonna kiss him or something because it's like it's just so intimate but it's in the middle of these people and it's

00:31:45.37
Clifton Campbell
ah Oh, where he grabs him and takes him to the down.

00:31:47.75
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:31:48.14
Clifton Campbell
you're go like, you're going to help me out. Yeah.

00:31:49.75
Marty Ketola
They're trying to set that mood. Yeah. Well, see, you're tapping into something there, Jessica, which I will get into in a little bit.

00:31:54.69
Clifton Campbell
Well, i feel like that's very I feel like that's very British to me. That's like like's a bunch of people getting drunk and then somebody runs up and grabs you and takes you to the floor and goes, fucking you're going to help me. And we're all drunk. Yeah.

00:32:09.13
Jessica
And it was really confusing.

00:32:08.95
Marty Ketola
i think I think it's because, and having watched a handful of Borman's movies now, he has a reoccurring theme of throuples.

00:32:18.70
Clifton Campbell
thruples uh excalibur what we can yeah

00:32:18.94
Marty Ketola
it's Yeah, it's the one woman and two guys.

00:32:21.82
Jessica
oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:23.11
Marty Ketola
It happened in this movie. It happened in Excalibur.

00:32:26.38
Jessica
hmm.

00:32:26.23
Marty Ketola
I don't think it happened in Zardoz because that one's completely wacky. But even in Hope and Glory, it almost happens that then they decide, no, hubby's out there fighting the war. Let's not cheat on him.

00:32:37.62
Marty Ketola
And so he's got this little thing in his movie with this reoccurring theme.

00:32:38.18
Geoff
That's a good point.

00:32:41.18
Marty Ketola
And you go, wouldn't they just be happier if they did kiss?

00:32:42.45
Clifton Campbell
that's interesting is it it

00:32:45.66
Marty Ketola
and maybe Maybe Arthur and Lancelot want to hook up too. I think everybody would have been a lot happier if they would have had a threesome with them.

00:32:51.35
Clifton Campbell
Is it throuples or is it just cheating? Is it throuples or is it just cheating?

00:32:54.64
Marty Ketola
Ruffles a couple.

00:32:55.15
Clifton Campbell
Which is it?

00:32:55.61
Jessica
No, it was thruffles.

00:32:55.45
Marty Ketola
No, it's when it's a couple. And it's a couple of three.

00:32:57.78
Clifton Campbell
but Well, i don't I don't feel like Lancelot and Arthur and Guinevere are a throuple. All

00:33:01.62
Marty Ketola
Well, they could have been. They would have been a lot happier, probably.

00:33:04.18
Jessica
Because they, because Arthur, they loved each other.

00:33:04.98
Clifton Campbell
right, we'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there.

00:33:07.34
Jessica
Arthur loved both of them deeply and they both loved him deeply and then they loved each other deeply.

00:33:08.34
Marty Ketola
Right? okay

00:33:11.86
Geoff
Wrong film.

00:33:12.54
Jessica
it's all yeah.

00:33:13.69
Clifton Campbell
Wrong film. Stop. Yeah, thank you, Jeff.

00:33:14.48
Geoff
Save it.

00:33:15.16
Jessica
um Sorry, sorry, sorry.

00:33:15.40
Clifton Campbell
Thank you. Yes.

00:33:15.95
Marty Ketola
Well, it bleeds.

00:33:16.56
Clifton Campbell
Jesus.

00:33:16.75
Marty Ketola
It bleeds.

00:33:17.85
Clifton Campbell
Anyway, listen.

00:33:17.95
Jessica
Hey, it's so, you started it, Cliff.

00:33:18.39
Marty Ketola
ah Back to this one.

00:33:18.78
Geoff
ah dressed I haven't addressed Jessica's point yet.

00:33:19.57
Marty Ketola
Okay.

00:33:20.82
Clifton Campbell
Go ahead.

00:33:21.91
Geoff
i have

00:33:23.03
Clifton Campbell
Go ahead, buddy.

00:33:22.90
Geoff
i haven't address i haven't addressed it je I haven't addressed Jessica's point yet.

00:33:25.21
Jessica
Okay.

00:33:26.31
Clifton Campbell
He's going to defend this film to the fucking death.

00:33:26.55
Jessica
Sorry. Yes, go ahead. Okay.

00:33:27.99
Geoff
I, this is by no means my favorite Borman film.

00:33:28.35
Clifton Campbell
Go ahead.

00:33:31.30
Geoff
I just, I find it rather fascinating.

00:33:31.88
Clifton Campbell
It's it it's a good one, though.

00:33:33.70
Geoff
Yeah.

00:33:34.31
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:33:34.22
Geoff
And there, and I, as I, as I said before, I think there's a lot going on behind the scenes.

00:33:34.42
Clifton Campbell
It's a good one.

00:33:34.46
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:33:35.21
Marty Ketola
It's me.

00:33:38.84
Geoff
So to me, Lee Marvin Walker's stoicism is the point. He's like a big statue that's going through this world. And okay, it's a Los Angeles crime thing, but it's really a classic Western.

00:33:55.19
Geoff
This is the it's like it's like the searchers. Lee Marvin is John Wayne. He's got this purpose and he is not going to diverge from it. Whether people try to kill him, shoot him, he falls in the bay, he gets beaten up by his dead sister's wife. And it's everybody around him dies. He either kills them himself or something happens to them. And so it it it it makes fun of, I think, well, maybe not makes fun, but is maybe a ah commentary or an exaggeration of the of the revenge type film. But the the thing I love about this film, there's one thing to me that really stands out.

00:34:32.15
Geoff
And that is, it's almost like a Kafka thing. There's nobody in charge. I mean, he's going through, it's almost like John Witt film.

00:34:37.77
Jessica
Yeah.

00:34:39.82
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's true.

00:34:40.53
Geoff
He's just killing these people off one by one.

00:34:40.89
Clifton Campbell
No, that's true.

00:34:42.89
Geoff
He just wants his money. And every time he kills somebody or threatens somebody, they go, well, it's it's not me.

00:34:44.73
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:34:49.37
Geoff
You've got to talk to Baxter. And he keeps going up the chain.

00:34:51.27
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:34:52.46
Geoff
And it's a corporation. I think it's really funny because we think, we think oh, a crime movie is going to be drugs and guns and piles of cash.

00:34:54.81
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, I do too.

00:34:54.73
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:35:01.78
Geoff
But there is no cash. All of these people are very well dressed and they just go, well, I can't write you a check.

00:35:03.81
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:35:07.26
Geoff
Or you know we're a corporation.

00:35:07.79
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:35:08.54
Geoff
Where do you think the money's going to come from? I find that really funny that he's...

00:35:10.30
Marty Ketola
Exactly.

00:35:12.12
Jessica
Yeah, I actually i did appreciate that at the to the I liked the movie more as it progressed.

00:35:12.34
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:35:12.11
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:35:18.42
Jessica
It was just for me, the off putting part was the beginning was just off putting for me and this the sex scenes or whatever were.

00:35:19.86
Geoff
Yeah, me too.

00:35:24.89
Clifton Campbell
i so I swear to fuck, I'm going to bring you both back on.

00:35:25.62
Jessica
Yeah.

00:35:27.89
Clifton Campbell
I'm going to make you watch Payback from 1999, and we're to talk about it.

00:35:32.28
Jessica
Okay.

00:35:32.31
Geoff
We'll come back We'll come back any time.

00:35:32.73
Clifton Campbell
because Because listen to me, it's it's the same it's the same fucking movie.

00:35:37.34
Jessica
ah Okay.

00:35:37.55
Clifton Campbell
it's like so like so But the only difference is like... um You dive a little more into um the guy who stole from from Lee Marvin, John Vernon's character, John Vernon's in payback it from the 1999 film, John Vernon's a complete pervert.

00:35:49.01
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:35:55.96
Clifton Campbell
Like he's into some really like, like he likes to be dominated and Lucy Liu is his dominatrix and she, she, he calls her up and she comes up to his penthouse in the, in the syndicate's hotel room and like beats the shit out of him and he loves it, you know, but it's still the same fucking movie. It's the syndicate.

00:36:12.09
Clifton Campbell
They both go on a heist. He, he shoots Mel Gibson, takes the money, pays the syndicate. Now he works for the syndicate because the syndicate, you know, accepted his money. And here comes Mel Gibson working his way up the syndicate, up the ladder, up the ladder, trying to get to the top guy.

00:36:24.38
Jessica
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:36:27.03
Clifton Campbell
It's the same. It's fucking insane how it's just the same movie. It's weird.

00:36:31.00
Marty Ketola
ah

00:36:32.18
Clifton Campbell
Anyway.

00:36:31.96
Marty Ketola
But does the corporation...

00:36:32.30
Geoff
Well, as we said earlier, it's it's a very common theme, but I love the spin that that the the story puts on it.

00:36:37.59
Clifton Campbell
I do too.

00:36:39.29
Geoff
and and i know I know it's based on a hard-boiled detective novel, but i' I'm sure that Borman exaggerated that faceless corporation. And they all seem like quite nice guys, really.

00:36:50.38
Geoff
They're very well-dressed and they're they're quite polite.

00:36:51.11
Clifton Campbell
Oh, the fucking, this the sniper is the is the classy dude who was the head of the SWAT team on Hill Street Blues.

00:36:53.72
Geoff
And...

00:36:59.09
Clifton Campbell
What's his name? The fucking James B.

00:36:59.66
Geoff
James B. Sikking.

00:37:01.64
Clifton Campbell
Sicking. Yeah.

00:37:01.94
Geoff
He's actually a favourite actor of mine.

00:37:02.44
Clifton Campbell
He's like a, he seems like a very nice, very nice guy.

00:37:03.61
Geoff
And he was in Star Trek 3.

00:37:06.58
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. He's the captain. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:08.12
Geoff
Yeah, yeah. That's right.

00:37:10.03
Clifton Campbell
He's the captain can't get the Enterprise out.

00:37:10.08
Geoff
Well done. With the with the little cane.

00:37:12.11
Clifton Campbell
Yes. Well done, sir.

00:37:14.39
Geoff
Yeah.

00:37:14.68
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

00:37:14.83
Geoff
And Scotty can't stand him.

00:37:15.56
Clifton Campbell
Oh, it's so great. That's so good. um Reese,

00:37:19.61
Geoff
And then the scene when he fight when he gets to Carol O'Connor, I mean, that's just hilarious.

00:37:23.96
Clifton Campbell
Oh, I was like, arch Archie Bunker is just like, yes.

00:37:23.93
Geoff
he he bursts into he So he thinks he's at the top of the chain now, and he bursts into the house, and Carol O'Connor goes, you're a very bad man.

00:37:24.47
Jessica
Yeah, that was... Yeah.

00:37:31.21
Geoff
It's like the Seinfeld scene.

00:37:32.12
Marty Ketola
and

00:37:33.16
Geoff
He's just lecturing him, but like a dad, not like a gangster.

00:37:36.54
Clifton Campbell
Fucking.

00:37:37.12
Geoff
like where are what What is all this violence? You can't behave like that. And meanwhile, this guy is one of the top people in the syndicate. I also found that hilarious.

00:37:46.39
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, Carol O'Connor.

00:37:46.49
Geoff
I look really like Carol O'Connor anyway.

00:37:46.81
Jessica
I did I did i liked liked Carol O'Connor yeah yeah and I did I liked

00:37:48.18
Clifton Campbell
when when When it was Archie Bunker, I was just like, this is fucking awesome. Perfect. Perfect casting. Of course it's Archie Bunker. Why wouldn't it be?

00:37:56.06
Marty Ketola
But it ended up really being Keenan Nguyen, who was there the whole time, yeah.

00:37:58.71
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:37:58.68
Geoff
Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a twist. It's a surprise ending, right?

00:38:03.61
Clifton Campbell
What's a twist?

00:38:03.46
Geoff
It's a surprise ending because when, when we meet Keenan Wynn on the, on the boat, when, when he first arrives, we we just think he's a cop.

00:38:04.09
Marty Ketola
you know

00:38:04.86
Jessica
yeah yeah

00:38:09.62
Marty Ketola
huh

00:38:13.14
Geoff
We think he's a cop who wants to, who wants to legally take down the syndicate.

00:38:13.84
Clifton Campbell
Yep.

00:38:14.46
Jessica
Yeah.

00:38:17.82
Geoff
And that's why he's making a deal with Walker and, Do you say at the beginning of every episode that they're spoilers or is that just a given?

00:38:24.21
Clifton Campbell
Oh, it's all spoilers.

00:38:24.64
Marty Ketola
Oh yeah, we always...

00:38:24.72
Geoff
it's okay it's all okay I guess you can't really you can't really take a you can't really examine a film without talking about the ending.

00:38:25.21
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, it's always always spoilers. Yeah.

00:38:29.56
Marty Ketola
Yeah, we recommend you watch it first.

00:38:30.49
Clifton Campbell
No.

00:38:30.64
Geoff
but But the first time you see it, it's a real surprise when you find out that that that Keenan Wynn is Baxter.

00:38:35.16
Jessica
Yes.

00:38:37.24
Geoff
I mean, that that's a good one.

00:38:38.21
Marty Ketola
Thank you.

00:38:38.79
Geoff
That really comes out of nowhere.

00:38:41.14
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

00:38:41.14
Jessica
Yeah.

00:38:41.21
Geoff
And so since we're at that scene, what the heck is going on? They bring him the money. Everybody's dead except Baxter.

00:38:49.11
Jessica
And he's just hiding.

00:38:50.02
Geoff
I mean, everybody that he comes into contact with.

00:38:51.73
Jessica
yeah

00:38:52.66
Geoff
It also reminds me of James Bond in one of the recent, one of the modern ones when when M is chastising ah chastising Bond for for his enormous body count, for for all but all the dead bodies that he's left behind in which it also happens in this film.

00:39:07.74
Geoff
But in in kind of, I mean, know. I was going to say in a light way.

00:39:11.35
Clifton Campbell
Thank you.

00:39:11.94
Geoff
It's not a light way, but it's just kind of a throwaway. Oh, he's just killed another person. Now he's going on to the next one, taking going up to the next level in the corporation. So now I've. Oh, yeah. So what I want your analysis on this.

00:39:23.90
Geoff
So why doesn't he take the money at the end? What's what's what do you think? What do you think is going on there?

00:39:30.90
Marty Ketola
I think it's ah you know either, like you said, he's either a ghost or maybe it's my first impulse was, oh, it's like if I keep chasing this money, I'm going to be stuck in this.

00:39:42.42
Marty Ketola
but Maybe it's just better to just walk away from the whole thing.

00:39:45.17
Clifton Campbell
I think, yeah,

00:39:46.65
Jessica
Maybe he just realizes that it wasn't about the money.

00:39:46.63
Marty Ketola
don't know.

00:39:50.52
Clifton Campbell
it wasn't, it wasn't really about the money. It was, ah it was about being shot by the guy who brought him into the job and his wife who betrayed him and that whole thing and chasing it down and getting to, to a point where he felt like he had exacted his pound of flesh.

00:39:56.35
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:40:06.01
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:40:06.30
Jessica
Yeah.

00:40:06.49
Clifton Campbell
Like not really about the money. Like the money's the purpose. It's not the ultimate goal. Right.

00:40:11.80
Geoff
Agreed. It's the quest. It's the journey.

00:40:14.11
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:40:14.61
Geoff
It's the mission. It's the vengeance.

00:40:16.89
Jessica
Yeah.

00:40:16.89
Geoff
That's why, for me, that the stoicism works so well.

00:40:17.20
Clifton Campbell
Right. It's the excuse.

00:40:21.17
Geoff
He's like a killing robot. He's going through the film.

00:40:23.15
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:40:24.63
Geoff
I mean, he's going through this this these levels of this corporation, trying to find the person responsible, and he claims that it's all it's all about the money.

00:40:29.50
Jessica
yeah

00:40:33.51
Geoff
And so that that is... ah again, perhaps supports the view that he's a ghost or it's a dream. Or ah another interpretation is that he either is's he's not actually he doesn't actually die at the beginning, but he's spiritually dead and emotionally dead.

00:40:53.69
Geoff
And all that's left for him is revenge.

00:40:54.08
Jessica
Okay.

00:40:56.57
Geoff
So when he gets to the end and he's gotten he's killed everybody, ah and then he goes, i I agree with that, money doesn't really import.

00:40:57.24
Clifton Campbell
That makes sense.

00:41:00.94
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Well, what the fuck am I going to do with this money?

00:41:04.02
Geoff
I mean, of course, I would take the money regardless, but...

00:41:04.73
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:41:06.85
Geoff
But so, okay, now this this is going to be a shocker. You're going to have a hard time with this, but but i'm i'm dying i'm i'm dying I'm dying to talk about this.

00:41:13.72
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:41:17.43
Jessica
okay

00:41:17.78
Geoff
What else was made in 1967 that we love?

00:41:23.06
Clifton Campbell
What else was made in 1967?

00:41:26.35
Marty Ketola
A lot of stuff. Mm-hmm.

00:41:26.90
Geoff
It's tough question. Yeah, a lot of things, but...

00:41:28.47
Clifton Campbell
i want i also want I also want to point out that in 1967, $93,000 is worth a million bucks.

00:41:36.31
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:41:36.18
Geoff
Oh, good point. Yeah, it's yeah but

00:41:37.88
Clifton Campbell
So it's it's definitely something worth killing over, in my opinion.

00:41:41.72
Geoff
yeah it's quite funny today when it's like, um I don't know, it's like the joke that Austin Powers joke, $1 million, then they all just laugh at him.

00:41:51.91
Geoff
That does seem like, I mean, I'd love to have $93,000, but it seems like a relatively small sum to kill almost everybody in this corporation over.

00:41:52.66
Clifton Campbell
Right.

00:42:00.34
Clifton Campbell
rocky right um I mean there's a lot of shit the producers oh well fine well then why would you ask that just for fun just okay all right

00:42:01.59
Geoff
Okay, so something else.

00:42:05.85
Geoff
No, it's it's too it's too difficult to question.

00:42:09.27
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:42:12.09
Jessica
yeah

00:42:12.06
Geoff
just Just for fun, it's like a rhetorical question.

00:42:12.62
Marty Ketola
Thank you.

00:42:14.81
Geoff
The other thing that was made in 1967 that really reminds me of this is The Prisoner.

00:42:23.39
Geoff
Patrick McGoon in The Prisoner.

00:42:25.28
Jessica
Yeah.

00:42:25.70
Clifton Campbell
the whole twist at the end

00:42:25.59
Geoff
and And point blank reminds me constantly of The Prisoner, and here's why. First of all, as Cliff, as you said earlier on, that very lush 1960s look. It's very bright. It's very colorful.

00:42:37.56
Geoff
Next up, the the scene we already talked about, I said I was coming back to it, the footstep scene.

00:42:38.94
Clifton Campbell
pretty yeah

00:42:43.67
Geoff
Opening of the prisoner, same thing happens. McGowan is clumping down that corridor and he's going in to see his boss, played by George Markstein, to tell him he's he's resigned. But it's that same clump, clump, clump, clump. But what really makes it for me is they're the same kind of character.

00:43:04.34
Geoff
They are both in a situation where they're an individual, as one person against everybody else, and you never find out who's in charge. so So Walker just eliminates his people, the people standing in his way, by killing them.

00:43:15.30
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:43:20.89
Geoff
And in in The Prisoner, number six, McGowan's character, wears the number twos down. He either outsmarts them or he destroys them or drives them crazy. So he's victorious at the end of most episodes. And then what happens? Another number two comes in in the next episode and he tries to break number six.

00:43:40.15
Geoff
So i know I know it's not the same plot, but to me, there's a similar big concept there that you've got this single-minded individual, Lee Marvin, Patrick McGowan, not going to stop

00:43:45.29
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:43:47.19
Clifton Campbell
interesting.

00:43:50.76
Jessica
Yeah.

00:43:53.90
Geoff
until this is over. And it's a little different because but magoonon they're always asking Magoon, why did you resign? Why did you resign? And he's always going, who is number one? Who is number one? So that that that drive, that that drive of this very strong, steadfast individual, it really rings true. I mean, it rings similar to me along with the visual the visual similarities because they were made in the same year.

00:44:17.62
Marty Ketola
It's like a Terminator.

00:44:18.04
Jessica
m

00:44:19.26
Marty Ketola
He will not stop until you are dead.

00:44:19.96
Geoff
Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah.

00:44:21.44
Marty Ketola
End of...

00:44:22.49
Geoff
Although Magoon is very nonviolent.

00:44:22.98
Clifton Campbell
I

00:44:24.53
Geoff
So so he's and he's using he's he's an intellectual. he's he's ah He's using psychological warfare against number twos.

00:44:33.35
Marty Ketola
End of...

00:44:34.35
Geoff
They're the number two ah people in the village. but But Walker's just using full-on regular warfare against the corporation.

00:44:41.94
Jessica
so

00:44:42.49
Clifton Campbell
have.

00:44:42.26
Marty Ketola
The whole identity thing, what's my last name? What's my first name? you know It's that same kind of you know who is number one.

00:44:47.29
Jessica
I love that bit. Yeah.

00:44:50.02
Marty Ketola
you know They're just kind of Facebook.

00:44:50.39
Geoff
Oh, you're right.

00:44:50.62
Clifton Campbell
yeah yeah that

00:44:51.03
Geoff
You're right. And that is one of the best bits of dialogue in the film.

00:44:53.98
Jessica
I like that one.

00:44:53.91
Geoff
That's ah that's really clever.

00:44:55.03
Clifton Campbell
yeah agreed agreed so

00:44:56.92
Jessica
And I love the way that's presented. And also for me, the, the, it just occurred to me and I have, this movie has kind of stuck with me in certain scenes have like made, I thought about them in retrospect.

00:45:11.48
Jessica
um But talking about the fact that he didn't take the money and the way that it ends in darkness, he just backs into the darkness. It's like, who is Walker without the revenge?

00:45:26.55
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:45:27.33
Geoff
I was just going to come back to that because that's...

00:45:28.76
Clifton Campbell
who Who is Walker without an objective or or without a ah thing to focus on?

00:45:29.25
Geoff
And

00:45:31.17
Marty Ketola
huh

00:45:33.24
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:45:33.69
Jessica
Yeah.

00:45:33.82
Geoff
like again, it's it's the same in the...

00:45:33.77
Marty Ketola
That's why the the ghost can go away at that point.

00:45:36.41
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

00:45:36.90
Jessica
It's just, you know.

00:45:36.76
Geoff
Sorry to step on you.

00:45:37.58
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:45:37.72
Geoff
It's the same in The Prisoner because The Prisoner has this super bizarre, surrealistic ending that no one's ever been able to explain. And so it's as if once the combat, once the strife is over...

00:45:50.96
Geoff
There's nothing left. ah So after after number six has essentially destroyed the village, what does he do? what What does he do on Monday morning? He's got no one to fight against and neither does Walker.

00:46:02.12
Geoff
They've eliminated the competition.

00:46:05.84
Jessica
Yep.

00:46:06.30
Marty Ketola
Well, if I ever get the time travel back to when I was like 10, I'll be sure to remind young me to ask Lee Marvin about Point Blank. And he'd probably be like, kid, you're 10 years old. How do you know that movie?

00:46:18.25
Marty Ketola
Hmm.

00:46:18.64
Clifton Campbell
So...

00:46:19.70
Geoff
very That's very good.

00:46:19.90
Clifton Campbell
it

00:46:21.30
Geoff
And if I understand correctly, this was ah something of a passion project for Lee Marvin, that he was the engine behind this film. And that he hired Borman. I ah think they were already friends, but it was the first time they worked together.

00:46:33.39
Geoff
They worked together again in Hell in the Pacific, as as I'm sure you know. But here another little interesting thing i'd like I'd like to point out, you probably know this, but for people maybe not familiar with, that familiar with Lee Marvin's work, he was a real big deal at that time.

00:46:48.09
Geoff
So he'd just done the Dirty Dozen the immediately before Point Blank, same year.

00:46:53.43
Clifton Campbell
you.

00:46:55.26
Geoff
And a ah just a couple of years earlier, Cat Baloo, where he he was such a place.

00:46:58.81
Marty Ketola
her

00:47:01.11
Geoff
It was just such a funny, clever role.

00:47:02.49
Marty Ketola
One of the first movies I ever rented. Mm-hmm.

00:47:04.68
Geoff
Oh, really? So so he's a he's a powerful actor. He's got he's got star power. I i imagine he's very well liked by fans. And this is what he chooses to do for his project.

00:47:18.42
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:47:19.06
Geoff
and And he chooses a director who's only made one feature film, and that being kind of a kooky music comedy. So I find that very interesting and unusual. Just that.

00:47:30.39
Marty Ketola
Do you know the movie Bad Day at Black Rock?

00:47:32.89
Geoff
Oh, gosh, yes, I love that film.

00:47:33.69
Marty Ketola
Yeah, we talked about that a few months ago, another Lee Marvin.

00:47:34.32
Clifton Campbell
well yeah we talked about that one on it was so good yep that was so good

00:47:37.50
Geoff
Well, and there's another film with the with the the strange character who has an absolutely single-minded purpose and is not going to stop until he finishes his his duty as as a soldier.

00:47:44.44
Marty Ketola
Right.

00:47:45.15
Clifton Campbell
sure sure

00:47:50.18
Geoff
And he's also, ah ah' he's was wounded in the war and he's lost a hand.

00:47:55.67
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:47:55.96
Geoff
And despite that, nobody is going to stand in his way.

00:47:59.61
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:47:59.58
Geoff
And he's the opposite of Lee Marvin. He's he's ah he's a relatively slight slight character. So that was that was a very interesting, that was a really good parallel there to to bring that up.

00:48:14.54
Clifton Campbell
I have a couple of pieces of interesting trivia about this movie. If you guys are interested.

00:48:17.91
Geoff
Oh, good. Yes, please.

00:48:19.45
Clifton Campbell
um So James B. Sicking, we mentioned him. He auditioned for the role of the assassin and Borman was like, you, you, you look at your face. You look like a nice guy. You're not a killer.

00:48:30.01
Clifton Campbell
And Sicking was like, fuck you. And so he hid outside of the bushes outside of, of Borman's office for a week, just staring at the fucking windows. And Borman was like, right, fine. You look menacing. Go ahead.

00:48:41.66
Clifton Campbell
And gave him the role.

00:48:41.89
Geoff
Oh, that's fantastic.

00:48:43.64
Clifton Campbell
Um, so yeah, I thought so too. So first movie to be shot at Alcatraz, which I thought was very, very interesting.

00:48:48.13
Geoff
Oh, yes.

00:48:50.42
Clifton Campbell
Um, and then finally, um, um his widow asked the filmmaker, asked Borman for the shoes that Marvin wore during the famous walking scene. That scene we're talking about with the, with the echoing of the shoes.

00:49:05.50
Geoff
Yeah.

00:49:06.10
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. When he died, his widow was like, can we get those shoes that he wore for that, that scene in in point blank? And he was buried with him.

00:49:13.56
Jessica
Oh, wow.

00:49:13.91
Geoff
Oh, that's wild.

00:49:15.19
Jessica
That is interesting.

00:49:15.19
Geoff
That's a really good bit of trivia.

00:49:16.31
Clifton Campbell
So i think jeff I think you're right, Jeff. I think he that meant movie meant quite a bit to him.

00:49:20.70
Geoff
Yeah, he had some interest in it beyond just being the star. There there there was there was something that really moved him about this story, evidently.

00:49:24.86
Marty Ketola
right. Yep.

00:49:30.49
Geoff
And it it was the big it was the big break. one don't a Break is not the right word, but it was the big opportunity for Borman And I alluded to this earlier, but it's as if Borman just put a stamp on at the beginning and he goes, I'm going to make strange movies, so you better be prepared.

00:49:48.87
Geoff
And Jessica, you made a very interesting point as well, that some of it seems almost amateurish at the beginning. Like the opening the opening title credits, I find so odd that they use those still photographs and then there's a bit of motion and then there's a still photograph.

00:49:59.51
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:49:59.81
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:50:01.73
Geoff
And I thought my my streaming service had had stalled.

00:50:04.55
Clifton Campbell
The 60s for you.

00:50:05.42
Geoff
I forgot about that.

00:50:05.98
Clifton Campbell
No, that's the fucking 60s for you.

00:50:06.22
Geoff
I forgot about that.

00:50:07.48
Jessica
Yeah.

00:50:07.86
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:50:08.66
Jessica
And it was, and then I, you know, and I realized it was like, okay, so i haven't watched a really old movie like this in a while, ah you know, from the sixties and it's a different era. It's a different type of filmmaking acting was different.

00:50:20.02
Jessica
So I, you know, even though I'm like sitting here going, this is a little hard for me to adjust to, but I also was able to recognize, okay, it's just because it's so different from modern films and I've been watching so much modern filmography.

00:50:35.95
Clifton Campbell
Say no Lord of the Rings, that's for sure. I'll tell you that much, goddammit.

00:50:39.51
Marty Ketola
lot of walking too.

00:50:40.28
Jessica
but Well, it was just, it was also like, the there was a lot of, it was very frantic and then very still and very jarring and very, you know, um

00:50:42.07
Marty Ketola
so

00:50:43.19
Clifton Campbell
I'm walking. Yes, indeed, I'm walking.

00:50:49.58
Clifton Campbell
It's definitely different. I mean, it's 60 years old.

00:50:52.76
Jessica
yeah.

00:50:53.53
Clifton Campbell
I mean, it's 60 years old. that's a that's That's a long ways removed for a movie. And I think for 60, damn, it holds up. I think it holds up.

00:51:01.91
Jessica
Yeah. I'll watch it again.

00:51:03.80
Clifton Campbell
I

00:51:04.18
Jessica
i will give it some time and I will watch it again and I will pay, you know, I'll pay more attention to it.

00:51:10.38
Marty Ketola
It'll probably feel different, I bet, because this was my first time, too.

00:51:12.37
Jessica
Yeah, probably will.

00:51:12.57
Clifton Campbell
um bet i met you it would too.

00:51:13.38
Marty Ketola
yeah

00:51:14.12
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Well, this is a we spent way more ah time on this movie than I figured we would. Like, holy crap. What do you think score-wise? Jeff, what do you give it?

00:51:21.75
Marty Ketola
Well, i I still have a few things to say.

00:51:23.90
Clifton Campbell
No, come on, go ahead, go ahead.

00:51:24.58
Geoff
Oh, great.

00:51:25.56
Jessica
ha

00:51:25.72
Marty Ketola
Not much. ah This movie reminded me of Hopscotch.

00:51:30.38
Geoff
Oh, yes, I can definitely see that.

00:51:31.35
Marty Ketola
because Because Walter Matthau is always a step ahead of him and they can't catch him and he's screwing up everything.

00:51:32.01
Clifton Campbell
Why?

00:51:37.24
Marty Ketola
you know, he's not killing people, but he's he's going through everything.

00:51:37.85
Clifton Campbell
I could see him sneaking through the building being like that, yeah, right, I get that, okay, sure, sure.

00:51:42.81
Marty Ketola
Also.

00:51:43.35
Geoff
though Even though Hopscotch is kind of a kind of comedy, I mean, there's some really funny scenes in it, but but you're you're right.

00:51:46.90
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, it's done for comedy, sure, yeah, yeah, totally.

00:51:46.74
Marty Ketola
Yeah, exactly. exactly Yeah.

00:51:51.30
Geoff
You're right. That's that's a good call, Marty.

00:51:54.26
Marty Ketola
We just watched the long walk and I realized Walker would have easily won the long walk.

00:52:01.11
Geoff
I don't know.

00:52:01.69
Marty Ketola
a

00:52:02.69
Jessica
Yeah.

00:52:03.19
Clifton Campbell
um man Come on, Come

00:52:04.89
Marty Ketola
And ah also, ah so there's not very many movies where Johnny Mandel does the music and we keep popping them into the show.

00:52:05.21
Clifton Campbell
Come on.

00:52:13.94
Marty Ketola
And because all roads lead back to Ted Knight, the guy who made the music for this movie, Johnny Mandel, he not only did the MASH theme, but he did the theme for one of my favorite dumb sitcoms of the 80s, Too Close for Comfort, starring Ted Knight.

00:52:28.06
Marty Ketola
I don't know why, but that's just how it is. And also, there's an unofficial sequel to this movie, Escape from Alcatraz, because you know how they mentioned that?

00:52:36.18
Geoff
Oh, well done.

00:52:36.86
Jessica
so

00:52:37.62
Geoff
Very well done.

00:52:38.09
Marty Ketola
And I'm like, oh, that's the one where it was Clint Eastwood. He was one of those guys, the spoons, digging that tunnel.

00:52:42.66
Geoff
Patrick McGowan.

00:52:43.41
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:52:43.98
Geoff
Patrick McGowan is the warden.

00:52:44.23
Marty Ketola
Oh, wow. See?

00:52:46.58
Geoff
i told you there's a connection between the prisoner and this.

00:52:46.61
Marty Ketola
Yeah. see

00:52:50.65
Geoff
Wow. I didn't even realize that until just now. Well done, Marty.

00:52:54.43
Clifton Campbell
That's hilarious.

00:52:55.10
Marty Ketola
Okay, now I'm um done with that.

00:52:58.49
Geoff
Fantastic.

00:52:59.19
Clifton Campbell
Well, then then what do you give it, Marty?

00:53:01.60
Marty Ketola
Three and a half. I liked it quite a bit. Might like it even more as time goes on. so

00:53:06.62
Clifton Campbell
I agree. I think it's stylish as hell. I could see you totally giving it that. Jessica, hit us with it.

00:53:12.50
Jessica
Well, you've actually...

00:53:13.37
Clifton Campbell
did and And don't be pressured. Don't be pressured.

00:53:15.16
Jessica
No, no.

00:53:15.65
Clifton Campbell
Give it the score that you think it should give.

00:53:18.68
Jessica
I was, I've been thinking about it and I was waffling between a one and a half and a two, but I think I'm going to say, I'm going to give it a two with the potential of a two and a half, maybe, know, if I, yeah, because even after, even after I watched it, I was like, well, that was a movie.

00:53:27.76
Clifton Campbell
All right.

00:53:36.66
Jessica
Um,

00:53:37.24
Clifton Campbell
i

00:53:38.81
Jessica
It did. I kept thinking about it. like you you know there's there's stuff that was There was stuff that was interesting and it stuck with me and I realized that maybe it was just jarring because it was designed to be jarring.

00:53:42.16
Clifton Campbell
Sure. Sticks with you.

00:53:50.98
Jessica
And you know and i also kind of remembered vaguely, because it had been a long time since I've watched Excalibur, and it made me think,

00:53:50.97
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

00:53:59.86
Jessica
You know, I kind of remember franticness being in Excalibur too, but not, ah it and after watching it, it not to the same degree as the friend as the franticness in this movie.

00:54:08.49
Clifton Campbell
Right. He got better at it as he went along, in my opinion.

00:54:12.50
Jessica
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:54:13.39
Clifton Campbell
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I hear what you're saying.

00:54:15.48
Jessica
But the colors and the filmography was beautiful.

00:54:16.34
Clifton Campbell
Totally valid. It's beautiful.

00:54:18.08
Jessica
It was a beautifully shot film.

00:54:18.79
Clifton Campbell
Beautiful. Okay.

00:54:19.92
Jessica
I absolutely agree with that. So that kind of gave it, pushed it up to two for me was the beauty of it.

00:54:26.67
Clifton Campbell
Hefe? Hefe?

00:54:28.09
Geoff
So as I said at the beginning of the discussion, there's really an intelligence at work here. And I think there's a lot more to the film than the the simple gangster story that it appears to be.

00:54:38.55
Geoff
And it's an imperfect but fascinating early work by one of my all-time favourite directors. So I also give it three and a half.

00:54:46.06
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

00:54:47.84
Geoff
I'm um on the same page as Marty.

00:54:51.91
Clifton Campbell
Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm a little beyond you guys. I find this very singular. i find it extremely interesting for 67. i find it very future forward, uh, especially for his second fucking movie. Some of those shots, he, he does things in this movie where he's like, well, can't do the same shot twice. And he figures out over and over again, how to come up with a creative way to show the next thing.

00:55:19.13
Clifton Campbell
um Just tour de force of just brilliance and shots. I love the color of the film. I love the composition of the film. And again, this is a replay of payback when I just watched it went, this is so much fucking better than Mel Gibson's shitty ass payback.

00:55:32.75
Clifton Campbell
Like, holy you shit.

00:55:32.82
Geoff
Well, obviously.

00:55:33.06
Jessica
Hmm.

00:55:34.31
Clifton Campbell
The fuck am I watching? And so four so four stars for me I thought it was i thought it was um on that level of four going towards five.

00:55:36.12
Geoff
duh Great.

00:55:38.44
Marty Ketola
Thank you.

00:55:42.64
Clifton Campbell
It's easily one that you can point somebody at from the late 60s and say, if you want to see something that's kind of hard boiled and kind of edgy, watch that. you'll you'll easily enjoy it. So, yeah.

00:55:52.70
Geoff
Can I give a little postscript to this? Now, when we...

00:55:56.57
Clifton Campbell
No. Good.

00:55:58.32
Geoff
I've already told this story, so I'll keep it short.

00:55:58.68
Clifton Campbell
Good. Uh-huh.

00:56:01.25
Geoff
No, I told this story in in Hope and Glory, when we did Hope and Glory. But there's there's a significance here. So as you may remember, I had the great good fortune to meet John Borman. It was in 1992.

00:56:10.85
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

00:56:11.93
Geoff
And it was it was the release of his...

00:56:14.39
Clifton Campbell
You lucky son of a bitch.

00:56:15.51
Geoff
his journal for filmmakers called Projections that he published. And so a special event was held. And i was in London at the time visiting family and my mom who knew I was, a my mom was very sharp.

00:56:29.41
Geoff
She knew that I was huge John Borman fan. And she showed me this thing in The Independent, which is a wonderful newspaper we used to read, great arts coverage. And there was a competition

00:56:38.35
Clifton Campbell
you

00:56:38.78
Geoff
to win free tickets to this John Borman event and get a signed copy of Projections. So there were five pairs of tickets that they were giving away. And I go, I don't care what it entails. I have to go to this thing.

00:56:52.06
Geoff
So I sent three separate entries, one from my mom, one from me, and one from my friend's name. I didn't even ask him. And all three of my entries won. So I then had three pairs of tickets that I had to get rid of.

00:57:01.45
Jessica
no

00:57:03.98
Geoff
So I'm calling, my my mom wasn't interested, calling all my friends. ah You've got to come with me to this John Borman thing. I won all these tickets. So I did find good homes for all of them. But the point of the story is the screening was point blank.

00:57:16.12
Geoff
So I actually got to sit in the cinema with John Borman and watch that movie.

00:57:16.79
Clifton Campbell
Oh, shit.

00:57:18.36
Jessica
Wow.

00:57:20.31
Clifton Campbell
Fuck off.

00:57:22.46
Jessica
Okay, that's cool.

00:57:23.57
Clifton Campbell
Why don't you just leave, Jeff?

00:57:23.56
Jessica
Okay.

00:57:23.50
Geoff
Thanks.

00:57:27.29
Geoff
And of course, i went up and talked to him afterwards.

00:57:29.47
Clifton Campbell
That's amazing.

00:57:29.40
Geoff
And I talked to him about Excalibur and hope and glory. And he's a lovely, lovely, lovely man. Very gracious, a real now Sir John Bortman, understand.

00:57:38.18
Clifton Campbell
Sir, OBE, or is it, what is that? ah or

00:57:42.60
Geoff
That's order of the British Empire.

00:57:44.06
Clifton Campbell
Order the British Empire?

00:57:44.55
Geoff
I thought he was knighted, wasn't it?

00:57:45.70
Clifton Campbell
do...

00:57:46.63
Geoff
Did I misremember that?

00:57:47.03
Clifton Campbell
Knight? Okay. I don't know what the, what what do you have to be to be knighted? Is it an OBE? Is it a, uh,

00:57:51.03
Geoff
Very well spoken.

00:57:52.31
Marty Ketola
King Arthur puts the sword on your shoulders and says...

00:57:55.43
Clifton Campbell
Oh, do you have to, do you have to kiss it?

00:57:57.94
Marty Ketola
No, that's more the thruple thing I'm talking about.

00:57:58.74
Clifton Campbell
What happens if, what happens if you're, what happens like a Lancelot? You're fucking French and you're like, love your sword, my King. Are

00:58:09.51
Marty Ketola
You're just enforcing my point.

00:58:10.81
Clifton Campbell
and we, are we, are we ready to get into that?

00:58:12.04
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:58:12.41
Clifton Campbell
Okay.

00:58:12.60
Jessica
Yes, we are. Let's get into it.

00:58:13.69
Clifton Campbell
Okay. All right. Let's do it.

00:58:15.06
Marty Ketola
So what is this one of the world's first superhero stories, Cliff?

00:58:15.74
Clifton Campbell
All right.

00:58:19.74
Marty Ketola
Of course the origin story's got to be fucking weird. What is Excalibur?

00:58:25.20
Clifton Campbell
Excalibur from 1981 rated PG,

00:58:29.88
Jessica
No.

00:58:29.91
Clifton Campbell
two hours and twenty minutes logline

00:58:30.45
Marty Ketola
What? Well, you could get away with weird shit in PG back then, as we've discussed, so.

00:58:36.22
Clifton Campbell
Merlin the Magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart. This is directed by John Borman, written by Thomas Mallory, Rospo Pallenberg, and John Borman. Stars Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay. Let me get you a storyline. Here it comes. The myth of King Arthur brought once again to the screen. Uther Pendragon is given the myth mythical sword Excalibur by the wizard Merlin.

00:59:02.84
Clifton Campbell
Somebody just did a big line. At his death, Uther buries the sword into a stone, and the next man that can pull it out will be king of England.

00:59:05.46
Jessica
yeah

00:59:09.62
Clifton Campbell
Several years later, Arthur, Uther's bastard son, draws Excalibur and becomes king. Guided by Merlin, Arthur marries Guinevere and gathers the knights at the round table. Arthur's evil half-sister Morgana sires a son with him who may prove to be his downfall.

00:59:26.59
Clifton Campbell
May. Interesting.

00:59:27.00
Marty Ketola
and we'll throw this sword And we'll throw the sword in the lake, and one day somebody worthy will come along.

00:59:27.61
Geoff
I want to see that

00:59:29.85
Clifton Campbell
We're about we were're about to

00:59:33.48
Marty Ketola
And you know what? Nobody ever did.

00:59:36.53
Jessica
No.

00:59:37.82
Marty Ketola
There is no Excalibur 2.

00:59:38.21
Geoff
That's the very short version That's the G that's the G rated version nobody ever came along to pull up

00:59:39.70
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

00:59:43.00
Marty Ketola
There was quite like quite a King Arthur obsession in 1981.

00:59:44.92
Clifton Campbell
in fact

00:59:47.10
Marty Ketola
You know, we had Knight Riders, we had Dragon Slayer, there was a lot of this type of stuff then.

00:59:52.79
Jessica
I have a bit.

00:59:53.08
Clifton Campbell
you Calm down.

00:59:53.51
Jessica
i havet i have ah i have ah I have a bit of trivia that I just discovered.

00:59:54.28
Clifton Campbell
Whoa. Okay. She's got a bit. Go.

00:59:55.76
Marty Ketola
Not out the gate.

00:59:59.45
Clifton Campbell
Keep going.

01:00:00.78
Jessica
So both films... Both films, Knight Riders and Excalibur came out on the same day, April 10th.

01:00:08.09
Marty Ketola
same day.

01:00:08.63
Geoff
No way.

01:00:10.04
Jessica
April 10th.

01:00:09.82
Marty Ketola
That makes sense.

01:00:10.80
Jessica
I checked it and I was like, are you kidding me? Because I wanted to know i wanted to know which one came first when I saw that one was, that they were both from 1981.

01:00:13.24
Geoff
That's wild.

01:00:18.56
Jessica
They both released on the same day.

01:00:19.16
Clifton Campbell
Oh, you're foolish. shit That didn't happen. That didn't happen at all.

01:00:21.21
Jessica
That did.

01:00:22.34
Clifton Campbell
No.

01:00:22.40
Jessica
IMDB says it did. i looked

01:00:25.20
Clifton Campbell
Wow.

01:00:25.75
Jessica
i checked separately because I looked at it and GPT was like, oh, yes, they both opened.

01:00:25.56
Marty Ketola
I believe it.

01:00:25.90
Clifton Campbell
That's amazing.

01:00:31.63
Jessica
And i was like, wait a minute, no.

01:00:33.56
Clifton Campbell
One of my favorite things about this podcast is that we have infected her with that movie where she's like, I love this. This is one of my favorite movies of all time.

01:00:41.19
Jessica
Knight Riders, yes.

01:00:42.13
Clifton Campbell
Now, Knight Riders is like she talks about it every time she comes on the show.

01:00:43.42
Jessica
but

01:00:43.44
Marty Ketola
Right.

01:00:45.85
Clifton Campbell
And and I love the fact she she even brought it up with Excalibur.

01:00:46.62
Jessica
I love it.

01:00:48.89
Clifton Campbell
It's wonderful. It's great stuff.

01:00:49.69
Jessica
Well, that's what made me want to watch Excalibur again, was watching that one and just and

01:00:50.20
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:00:56.89
Jessica
loving that aspect, to that perspective of the Arthur story. I freaking loved it, every bit of it. And yeah.

01:01:03.58
Clifton Campbell
I agree, but I think strange women lying in pawns distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Just because some walking cart throws a sword at you is not a reason to fucking call yourself gang.

01:01:12.76
Marty Ketola
Well,

01:01:13.05
Jessica
Well, you know, maybe maybe we ought to try it.

01:01:13.10
Clifton Campbell
I'm sorry.

01:01:16.82
Marty Ketola
does this movie exist without Monty Python and the Holy Grail? I mean, it's just a flesh wound when the arms are flying, you know.

01:01:21.21
Clifton Campbell
Is that what happened to the reflection pool? Did Arthur walk through the reflection pool and drag his sword through it and cut the fucker up? Is that what happened?

01:01:28.41
Marty Ketola
No, because there's no kings here.

01:01:30.70
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's right. My bad. Anyway, let's...

01:01:31.99
Marty Ketola
but

01:01:32.57
Geoff
I was going to save this for later, but ah now now I guess now's the moment.

01:01:36.70
Clifton Campbell
Why bother? Yeah, bring it.

01:01:37.27
Geoff
So i I know this may sound like blasphemy,

01:01:41.14
Clifton Campbell
No, no.

01:01:42.47
Geoff
But numerous times watching Excalibur again this time, I was so reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

01:01:50.20
Marty Ketola
Oh, of course.

01:01:50.68
Geoff
And I actually burst out laughing several times.

01:01:50.94
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah, yeah.

01:01:52.64
Marty Ketola
has to be an influence.

01:01:53.70
Clifton Campbell
It's...

01:01:53.84
Geoff
You're just i mean you're just waiting for them to go, run away. and even when they're attacking the castle with the big wooden scaffolding, I go, oh, it looks just like the rabbit from Holy Grail.

01:01:57.46
Jessica
so

01:02:00.24
Marty Ketola
It's like,

01:02:01.11
Clifton Campbell
Yes. move when they're, when they're, especially when they're, they're trying to beat it down to get after, to get the king and to get Uther into the castle after a grain, it just looks like, it just looks like, go away or I shall fart in your general direction.

01:02:03.97
Geoff
that's

01:02:15.31
Clifton Campbell
you know, it's just, I shall taunt you a second time.

01:02:16.47
Marty Ketola
like we'll do that, but serious.

01:02:17.21
Jessica
Yeah.

01:02:18.77
Clifton Campbell
You know, it's just ridiculous.

01:02:20.06
Geoff
And the the group the group the group scenes are all these people.

01:02:20.01
Marty Ketola
We'll do that, but serious.

01:02:20.27
Jessica
What I...

01:02:23.02
Geoff
And i just I'm just waiting for someone to go, burn her, burn the witch. And i'm I'm sure it's unintentional. It's just, and at the time when it came out, it didn't seem silly.

01:02:33.92
Jessica
Yeah.

01:02:34.46
Geoff
So this was, was Holly 1978? Oh my gosh, I was off.

01:02:36.60
Clifton Campbell
First 75, so it's six years before this.

01:02:37.85
Geoff
and seventy eight

01:02:38.46
Marty Ketola
like 75. 75. seventy five

01:02:40.76
Geoff
oh my gosh oh it's off okay

01:02:43.54
Clifton Campbell
and And I'll say this, Borman did a real good job of avoiding that for the most part. I think...

01:02:48.31
Jessica
him

01:02:49.14
Clifton Campbell
is Python is so iconic that it's hard to avoid some of the castle stuff, some of the night stuff, but he did a really good job of making this ethereally eerie, wonderful tale of old England and its legends.

01:02:53.50
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:03:00.06
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:03:04.36
Clifton Campbell
And I think it's, and again, i will say, if you go watch point blank and you watch Excalibur right after, you are going to see those green and blue tinges all throughout Excalibur.

01:03:12.38
Jessica
Yep.

01:03:12.93
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:03:14.26
Jessica
Yeah.

01:03:14.90
Clifton Campbell
He started playing with in point blank and then he perfected it in Excalibur by being this weird power of the land, power of the dragon, power of Excalibur. Hugh, I fucking love it.

01:03:26.33
Jessica
I don't know if you, I don't if you

01:03:26.20
Geoff
well and And Emerald Forest. Emerald Forest has a similar thing.

01:03:29.43
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:03:29.75
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.............

01:03:32.57
Geoff
And ah is it is it was it Beyond Rangoon?

01:03:37.91
Geoff
Anyway, yes, I completely agree with you. He's got this this the strange... don't know, his love of the landscape, right? The the landscape, the the environment is part of his films.

01:03:47.86
Marty Ketola
i

01:03:51.29
Geoff
it Big time in Deliverance.

01:03:51.62
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:03:53.50
Clifton Campbell
No, I agree.

01:03:53.72
Marty Ketola
Oh yeah.

01:03:54.10
Clifton Campbell
I agree.

01:03:54.20
Marty Ketola
This has deliverance.

01:03:54.39
Geoff
And...

01:03:54.62
Clifton Campbell
Well, even in Hope and and glory even in hope and Glory, he turned he turns to the house and that and that whole area into an atmosphere.

01:03:55.44
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:03:55.90
Geoff
ah Exactly. Hope and glory.

01:03:57.88
Marty Ketola
i hope Yeah.

01:04:01.40
Clifton Campbell
Jessica, you were going to say something.

01:04:03.35
Jessica
Well, I was about the green glow. I don't know. I mean, the listeners won't see this, but do I deliberately, i have.

01:04:09.56
Clifton Campbell
I do. I do. Yeah, in the back of your monitors, you dork.

01:04:12.42
Jessica
I have a green lamp that had turned on so that specifically it was so funny.

01:04:13.66
Clifton Campbell
I love it.

01:04:15.10
Marty Ketola
ah

01:04:16.34
Clifton Campbell
You're the best.

01:04:19.51
Jessica
Anyway, but yeah, the what I really, um the first time I watched the movie, I noticed how awkward the knights are fighting in the armor and I think that Dorman, he did a great job of depicting exactly how freaking hard it must have been to fight and crawl through the mud and swamps and all of this stuff in this massive armor and like even though it probably was a lot it was probably nowhere near the weight of actual armor and I just loved that like the the battle scenes look clumsy and they look awkward because that's how it is you know

01:04:33.14
Clifton Campbell
I love it. i I love that.

01:04:36.89
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:04:37.59
Clifton Campbell
Yes. Yes. Yes. Right.

01:04:45.08
Clifton Campbell
yes

01:04:53.05
Clifton Campbell
I agree. that That choice was my one of my favorite that that was one of my favorite choices of the movie was to make it feel like that armor was heavy and it was real.

01:04:58.20
Jessica
Yes.

01:05:02.42
Jessica
Yeah.

01:05:03.45
Clifton Campbell
And and these people, you know, it was protective for sure. You know, these guys are banging on each other and hitting each other with everything.

01:05:07.13
Jessica
Right.

01:05:09.69
Clifton Campbell
But at the same time, It's heavy and it's exhausting. You know, and you watch, you watch Lancelot later in that fight with Gawain where he's injured and he rips his helmet off because he's heavy he'd having trouble breathing and he's dragging that giant cudgel around with him.

01:05:13.59
Jessica
Yeah.

01:05:19.01
Jessica
Right. Right.

01:05:23.69
Clifton Campbell
You know, he's one handed just backing away from him. And it's just like, you can feel the weight of the armor.

01:05:28.54
Jessica
Yes, it was brilliant.

01:05:28.86
Clifton Campbell
I think Borman's just, a he's, he, the guy's a genius filmmaker.

01:05:31.76
Jessica
Yeah.

01:05:32.44
Marty Ketola
What was your favorite headpiece?

01:05:32.76
Clifton Campbell
This is, I think this is probably Borman's greatest movie. What, go ahead.

01:05:35.58
Marty Ketola
what What was your favorite headpiece? The Merlin or the Mordred full head? math

01:05:42.30
Clifton Campbell
I think merlin Merlin's skullcap is so fucking iconic.

01:05:44.45
Jessica
Berlin's skullcap.

01:05:47.22
Marty Ketola
Right.

01:05:47.54
Jessica
Yes.

01:05:47.54
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:05:48.66
Clifton Campbell
and And I love Merlin in this movie in particular. He's the perfect he's the perfect um mix of confidence and knowledge and and legend and history, but also kind of foolish and sort of ease and and and can be fooled and has an ego and his hubris is his downfall.

01:06:08.22
Clifton Campbell
right It's very Gandalf in a weird way. um

01:06:11.22
Marty Ketola
all All that stuff steals from this, right? I mean, even Star Wars steals from this.

01:06:13.40
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:06:15.10
Marty Ketola
I have the higher ground, dark side, light side.

01:06:16.76
Clifton Campbell
Oh, fuck.

01:06:17.46
Marty Ketola
I mean, for God's sake.

01:06:18.29
Clifton Campbell
Dude, the start yeah the Star Wars stuff in this is crazy.

01:06:18.78
Marty Ketola
And Liam Neeson.

01:06:20.77
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:06:20.60
Marty Ketola
Qui-Gon Jinn is in the movie.

01:06:22.30
Clifton Campbell
Qui-Gon fucking Jinn is in this movie.

01:06:24.38
Jessica
Yeah. You're right.

01:06:24.28
Marty Ketola
And not to mention Patrick Stewart, too, you know.

01:06:25.24
Clifton Campbell
Jesus Christ. Hey, do you, I think, I feel like Borman's kind of working some shit out in this film, not to get weird, but like, he's got his daughter having sex on film, nude, and then he's got his son being killed.

01:06:38.78
Clifton Campbell
It's like, you know, dude, maybe therapy, just go to a therapist. You don't have to fucking work it out in our film. Like, just talk to somebody.

01:06:43.83
Marty Ketola
that's That's what filmmakers do.

01:06:44.68
Jessica
So...

01:06:44.82
Clifton Campbell
It's okay. If you don't like your son, it's fine. And if you have something with your daughter, they just work that shit out. Like, you don't have to put it on film.

01:06:52.52
Marty Ketola
that's what he's doing. He's working it out that way. And you can watch it and go, maybe I don't have to go to those extremes.

01:06:57.82
Clifton Campbell
That's true.

01:06:57.95
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:06:58.58
Clifton Campbell
That's true. I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding.

01:07:00.09
Jessica
um

01:07:00.60
Marty Ketola
You know what else?

01:07:01.17
Clifton Campbell
I'm totally kidding.

01:07:01.16
Marty Ketola
this This also reminded me of, well, I should say Blade reminded me of this because Blade has a fucked up origin story too. You know, like your mother got pregnant under weird circumstances.

01:07:09.85
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:07:11.90
Marty Ketola
So you come out with special powers and I'm thinking there would be no Marvel cinematic universe without King Arthur, you know, it all goes back to that.

01:07:18.96
Geoff
Oh, good point.

01:07:20.44
Jessica
Yeah.

01:07:20.60
Clifton Campbell
No, that whole, that whole hero story in general is so intrinsic in most of the hero movies movies and myths that we get now. It's not even funny.

01:07:30.47
Jessica
Yeah.

01:07:30.58
Clifton Campbell
Um,

01:07:31.80
Jessica
So.

01:07:31.77
Marty Ketola
This one feels like a biopic. Like, there's we're going to tell the story of King Arthur. We're going to do it in biopic style. We're all the important beats of this life. And it's pretty an interesting. ah But anyways, Jessica, go ahead.

01:07:43.86
Jessica
Well, I love the way it opens and that golden light and the flames. And it was just from the first opening, just beautiful, really captivating.

01:07:53.44
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's fucking gorgeous.

01:07:56.30
Jessica
um And then I don't know. I really, let's get into the meat of, of, of the stuff.

01:08:05.02
Clifton Campbell
Well, the the opening scene. So the opening scene of the movie is basically we're seeing Uther Pendragon fight for, you know, he's trying to be the new king with the and, you know, he's going to get the sword from Merlin.

01:08:10.38
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:08:14.70
Clifton Campbell
Right. And he makes peace with this other warlord. And what does he do? He breaks immediately sets about breaking breaking the peace with his dick. That's the first thing he can think of to do is like, i I'm sorry, I know there's peace, but my penis rules the land.

01:08:25.14
Marty Ketola
people are These people are assholes.

01:08:30.05
Clifton Campbell
Thank you very much. And, you know, cause he's got to have sex with this other dude's wife. That's just beyond it. And of course, then we get the magic scene where Merlin turns him into the other guy and we get the sexy scene where Borman's daughter's in there.

01:08:41.82
Clifton Campbell
And then we get Arthur from the weird tryst that happens. Right.

01:08:45.46
Marty Ketola
But if the dude was going to get killed anyway, you would have just moved in and you didn't have to do the rapey magic thing.

01:08:45.89
Clifton Campbell
And yeah, yeah.

01:08:50.46
Marty Ketola
All these people are assholes, man.

01:08:51.15
Clifton Campbell
It's,

01:08:52.14
Marty Ketola
These royals only care about their own personal issues.

01:08:54.48
Geoff
that

01:08:55.58
Jessica
I'm sorry.

01:08:56.41
Marty Ketola
They don't care about the kingdom itself. It's about what's them, you know. And where is this kingdom? We never see it. We see a few people out there, you know...

01:09:06.39
Clifton Campbell
fucking marty's Marty's over here digging ditches and fucking back in the old days going fuck Camelot this guy's an asshole fucking piece of shit what the fuck yeah he he's the guy who came up with the watery tart line back in the day that was him that's Marty fucking Jesus

01:09:11.86
Marty Ketola
Yeah, we would have been better off if Uther just died, man. mean, what about these other kingdoms? Maybe they were probably on a better idea, you know.

01:09:22.36
Marty Ketola
ah But it's, you know, it's your original soap opera.

01:09:25.05
Geoff
We get to see the kingdom. we see We see the golden castle up there on the hill, and I'm just waiting for Terry Gillian to say, it's only a model.

01:09:30.46
Clifton Campbell
beautiful

01:09:33.98
Jessica
I know.

01:09:34.33
Geoff
mean, I heard that in my head when I when i when i saw it.

01:09:36.97
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:09:37.37
Clifton Campbell
Go

01:09:38.87
Jessica
ah

01:09:40.22
Geoff
Okay, do i this this conversation could go so many ways.

01:09:40.66
Clifton Campbell
um go ahead.

01:09:41.62
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:09:43.06
Clifton Campbell
Please.

01:09:45.09
Geoff
Okay.

01:09:45.30
Clifton Campbell
but It's going to go all the ways. bet Go ahead.

01:09:49.30
Geoff
Okay, first first of all,

01:09:50.14
Clifton Campbell
This is the best. I'm loving this.

01:09:52.02
Geoff
there is There is an intentional weird disconnect in the big picture of this film.

01:09:52.37
Clifton Campbell
I'm absolutely loving

01:10:01.75
Geoff
So we know that Borman based this on Thomas Mallory's La mortte la Morte d'Arthur, The Death of Arthur, which is thought to have been written in...

01:10:02.24
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:10:08.95
Clifton Campbell
Right, Lamort to Arthur. yeah

01:10:10.68
Jessica
Yeah.

01:10:11.38
Clifton Campbell
Right.

01:10:11.51
Jessica
Yeah.

01:10:12.86
Geoff
in

01:10:13.06
Clifton Campbell
Not the once and not the onces in future king, which is written by T.B. White, which is also kind of...

01:10:16.45
Geoff
Oh, thank God.

01:10:16.59
Marty Ketola
That's Knight Riders.

01:10:17.14
Geoff
No, no.

01:10:17.53
Jessica
It's secondarily by T.H.

01:10:17.59
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:10:18.58
Clifton Campbell
But, yeah, but yeah it feels like there's some T.H.

01:10:18.90
Geoff
That's...

01:10:19.65
Jessica
White, but mostly it's more to Arthur.

01:10:23.40
Clifton Campbell
White in there, which is why i bring it up.

01:10:24.02
Jessica
There is.

01:10:24.42
Clifton Campbell
But go ahead, and if I didn't mean to interrupt you.

01:10:25.08
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah.

01:10:26.30
Geoff
So Thomas Mallory's book took the Arthur myth, which was in the consciousness of the world already, and he set it in the medieval era.

01:10:34.58
Clifton Campbell
Right, of of England, yes. Mm-hmm.

01:10:40.06
Jessica
Yeah.

01:10:40.44
Geoff
Now, there's... a there's a lot of evidence that the Arthur myth is based on a real on a real person and that would who would have lived probably in the 5th century. and the the The series of events likely takes place in the period of time when after the Roman Empire had pulled out of Britain and the the Brits are being attacked by the Saxons and the Vikings. And that may have been the time when this British warlord, the the legend began.

01:11:12.63
Geoff
So.

01:11:13.21
Clifton Campbell
And the Saxons the Germans, yeah? but where are the Saxons from? I can't remember.

01:11:18.55
Geoff
Well, yes, from from kind from continental continental Europe.

01:11:20.41
Clifton Campbell
From like the Germany area, okay.

01:11:22.07
Geoff
Yeah, of course, those countries didn't didn't exist then.

01:11:23.07
Clifton Campbell
Gotcha. Gotcha. Kind of little bit of French too, maybe?

01:11:25.43
Geoff
So.

01:11:26.83
Clifton Campbell
Go ahead.

01:11:27.16
Geoff
So we've got we've got a lot of Arthurian films, and I'm only going to mention a few of them.

01:11:28.35
Clifton Campbell
Just trying to figure out who was that.

01:11:34.90
Geoff
you So Knights of the Round Table, 1953, was one of the early ones, Sword in the Stone, Sword of Lancelot, Camelot, 1967, Lancelot du Lac, 1974, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Excalibur, The Fisher King has really strong references of First

01:11:41.78
Clifton Campbell
Fantastic. Fantastic.

01:11:53.02
Clifton Campbell
Yes. yes

01:11:54.52
Jessica
Yeah.

01:11:55.60
Clifton Campbell
Sword in the Stone by Disney. Yeah, you got to call out.

01:11:56.92
Marty Ketola
Yeah, he mentioned that one.

01:11:57.08
Geoff
Yep, yep.

01:11:58.02
Clifton Campbell
Sure,

01:11:57.88
Geoff
First knight, kid in King Arthur's court, quest for Camelot, a knight in Camelot, on and on and on.

01:11:57.84
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:12:03.11
Geoff
There are loads and loads of them.

01:12:04.20
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:12:04.38
Geoff
and almost all of them are set in the wrong time period. They're set in the medieval era, not in the or when this...

01:12:08.44
Jessica
young

01:12:10.74
Clifton Campbell
sure.

01:12:10.67
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:12:11.45
Clifton Campbell
sure

01:12:13.14
Geoff
four hundreds or five hundreds or when this these events, the root events likely occurred. So this is one of the things that I find so fascinating. I think it's really important about the film.

01:12:26.01
Geoff
When it starts, the first thing you see is the Dark Ages, which is when the Arthur myth stories would have would have happened, the the actual events upon which the myth is based.

01:12:31.26
Jessica
you know Yeah.

01:12:38.80
Clifton Campbell
Right. Right.

01:12:40.31
Geoff
But then it's very obviously not in the Dark Ages because they didn't have armor like that in in the dark in the Dark Ages.

01:12:42.65
Clifton Campbell
Middle Ages. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:12:44.03
Jessica
Yeah.

01:12:44.31
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:12:46.33
Jessica
Right.

01:12:46.59
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:12:48.33
Geoff
So really it's the shiny ages. the so so

01:12:51.06
Clifton Campbell
Jeff, anything anything before 1980 is the Dark Ages, bro.

01:12:51.93
Geoff
super

01:12:51.93
Marty Ketola
ah

01:12:55.55
Clifton Campbell
Come on.

01:12:56.92
Marty Ketola
wow

01:12:57.21
Clifton Campbell
Come on. Anything before 1900 is the Dark Ages. I mean, we all know that, right? No, like I hear what you're saying.

01:13:02.97
Geoff
So I think he's doing this really on purpose to tell us that he's doing a...

01:13:05.69
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

01:13:09.11
Geoff
Well, was going to say fictionalized. It's absurd.

01:13:11.03
Clifton Campbell
he is he bringing Is he bringing Arthur a little bit forward into the future and making it a little more future forward for us to to enjoy?

01:13:11.29
Geoff
because it But he's he's setting it in the correct time period.

01:13:17.03
Clifton Campbell
or

01:13:21.18
Geoff
he says He says very clearly the Dark Ages, which the other films don't do. they don't They don't bother to do that. But then he immediately starts showing things that didn't exist in the Dark Ages, like this very sophisticated armor and the armored horses.

01:13:30.71
Jessica
Right.

01:13:33.78
Geoff
And i I think that's part of the point, that he is telling us that this is going to be intentionally fantastical. And he's based on a book that's already fantastical and largely made up by Mallory. So so it's it's doubly made up.

01:13:51.42
Geoff
And yet he takes some of the very central tropes or imagery that we have for the Arthurian stories and he stands them on on their head.

01:14:01.94
Geoff
So typically, Guinevere is portrayed as the tall, blonde, willowy, glamorous one. And morgan or Morgana or Morgan Le Fay, who's been used many different names and in in many different stories, is typically the dark character.

01:14:12.83
Clifton Campbell
Morgan, look for you. Yeah.

01:14:17.75
Geoff
more petite, mysterious woman. So those are those are reversed.

01:14:21.77
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:14:22.30
Geoff
So we've got beautiful, elegant Helen Mirren in the Morgan role. And then, i look, I can't get over the the metal bathing cap.

01:14:34.93
Geoff
I don't like it. that's That's one of the things I don't like about the film.

01:14:36.74
Clifton Campbell
I love it.

01:14:36.73
Marty Ketola
a

01:14:37.29
Clifton Campbell
what Jeff, come on. Stop it.

01:14:40.37
Jessica
I love it.

01:14:40.44
Geoff
but But when when kids or many people think Merlin, what do you think of? That silly point, the big pointy hat with the with the moon and stars on it.

01:14:49.43
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:14:50.82
Geoff
So he completely slams that down into a flat metal plate on Merlin's head, which which i I find very clever.

01:14:56.56
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:14:59.32
Jessica
And he's not an ancient man with a three foot beard. He's, he's a middle aged guy.

01:15:02.68
Clifton Campbell
Right.

01:15:02.89
Geoff
Right.

01:15:03.32
Clifton Campbell
Right.

01:15:03.22
Geoff
Yeah, yeah.

01:15:03.60
Clifton Campbell
he's he's ah He's a vital guy. Yeah.

01:15:05.62
Jessica
yeah And, ah but he doesn't age like he's still the same age when Arthur's old, or although i'll guess he was in in prison for a while. So he wasn't really, but still timeless kind of he's timeless.

01:15:19.50
Clifton Campbell
I have to say that the effect that this film had on kids my age, I was eight when this movie came out and I probably saw it in 83. Right around the time I saw things like maybe Crawl

01:15:27.58
Marty Ketola
okay

01:15:29.48
Geoff
Thank you.

01:15:31.22
Clifton Campbell
um

01:15:31.11
Marty Ketola
That's another one. yeah

01:15:32.47
Clifton Campbell
and some other stuff where I, and I got very deeply, deeply into Dungeons and Dragons, right?

01:15:34.48
Marty Ketola
Ladyhawk.

01:15:37.91
Clifton Campbell
And so this was a real fountain of of inspiration for Dungeons and Dragons, you know, knights and, and, you know, all this type of thing.

01:15:42.25
Jessica
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:15:46.13
Clifton Campbell
And the movie's creepiest,

01:15:46.55
Marty Ketola
Even Mazes and Monsters rips this off.

01:15:48.54
Clifton Campbell
even Mazes and Monsters rips us off. But it's so creepy. You know, you get into later stuff where they're searching for the grail and it's, it's, it's a lot more, it begins to become a metaphorical journey through the last half, to the last third of the film where it's steeped in metaphor about Christ and about the search and about seeking yourself and seeking something higher. And, you know, the the search for the grail and, and,

01:16:12.09
Marty Ketola
And yet the old magic is still around too.

01:16:14.14
Clifton Campbell
And yet the old magic is still around.

01:16:13.97
Marty Ketola
I find that fascinating. The both are there.

01:16:15.90
Clifton Campbell
He ties all that together so well.

01:16:17.66
Jessica
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:16:18.06
Clifton Campbell
He really, really does. um it's It's really good. i it's It's funny. Like at the beginning, he does the whole like, he has merlkin mar ah Merlin Rumpelstiltskin, Uther's daughter, right? Like he's like, yeah, i'll I'll make you look like, what's his name so you have sex with But I get the kid that's very Rumpelstiltskin.

01:16:38.33
Clifton Campbell
You know what mean?

01:16:38.45
Geoff
Oh yeah, oh good point.

01:16:38.77
Clifton Campbell
the

01:16:39.29
Jessica
ah yeah yeah

01:16:39.70
Geoff
yeah

01:16:40.01
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:16:41.02
Clifton Campbell
And so, you know, there's a weird kind of like, you know, other things thrown into this myth from ah even other legends and other things that are going on, I felt.

01:16:49.46
Jessica
I also got a sense from one for throughout the film that the magic is not in, not in Merlin's control.

01:16:49.69
Clifton Campbell
um

01:16:57.16
Jessica
Like things happen that he doesn't even expect to happen.

01:16:59.92
Clifton Campbell
it's It's nature magic. it's not it's It's not spell magic.

01:17:01.50
Jessica
Like when, well, it's something.

01:17:03.44
Clifton Campbell
It's nature magic, right?

01:17:04.06
Marty Ketola
It's the force.

01:17:04.60
Clifton Campbell
Like it's, yeah, it's, no, but it's not the force. it's It's different, but it's like, it's like calling on something else to do your bidding, not casting a spell, right?

01:17:11.70
Jessica
Yeah.

01:17:13.80
Clifton Campbell
Like you're not casting fireball third level fucking D&D spell.

01:17:13.59
Marty Ketola
Well, if.

01:17:13.98
Jessica
Right.

01:17:17.48
Clifton Campbell
You're calling on the forces of nature and other things that are much more powerful powerful than you to do your bidding.

01:17:21.88
Marty Ketola
But if the king is doing well, then the land does well.

01:17:22.28
Jessica
Well, yeah.

01:17:23.00
Clifton Campbell
little a little vague.

01:17:24.56
Marty Ketola
And it's like they say, well, it was the will of the force.

01:17:25.34
Clifton Campbell
<unk> All that's tied together.

01:17:27.74
Marty Ketola
And people go, well, that's bad writing. I'm like, well, it's just the King Arthur mythos.

01:17:32.80
Jessica
Right, so he talks about the dragon.

01:17:34.82
Marty Ketola
Yoda is Merlin.

01:17:36.18
Jessica
Merlin talks about the dragon.

01:17:37.30
Clifton Campbell
Ooh, I got something for that later.

01:17:38.62
Jessica
and and and he And he talks about how it's the land, it's in you know the dragon is in the rocks, it's in the wind, it's everywhere.

01:17:45.09
Marty Ketola
I'm

01:17:46.49
Jessica
and one and that

01:17:47.55
Clifton Campbell
It's the force. Like he said. Yeah.

01:17:48.82
Jessica
And that plays into, if you go further back in the film, when Uther has the sword and he's just dying and he's like, no one else will have the sword.

01:17:50.97
Marty Ketola
fighting the dragon.

01:17:55.10
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:17:59.35
Jessica
he Merlin didn't expect that. He wasn't expecting that.

01:18:01.78
Clifton Campbell
No, no.

01:18:02.29
Jessica
He didn't do that. Uther did that. Uther's power.

01:18:04.45
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Well, no,

01:18:05.57
Jessica
Uther was part of the land. He had the magic of the land.

01:18:07.53
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:18:08.57
Jessica
That's even though he was an asshole, he, you know.

01:18:11.06
Clifton Campbell
Yes, but no more than no more than he had expected Arthur to find Guinevere and Lancelot entwined together and then bury the sword into the earth, which which is what gives Morgana the opportunity to learn the charm of making and and and begin her fucking reign of terror, right?

01:18:15.03
Jessica
Right.

01:18:24.38
Jessica
Mm hmm.

01:18:26.98
Clifton Campbell
with her with john With Charlie Borman's evil fucking...

01:18:27.20
Marty Ketola
Oh, just be happy for them. You know they were better off without you.

01:18:30.77
Clifton Campbell
Charlie Borman as a kid had one of the most evil fucking laughs on film ever.

01:18:33.69
Marty Ketola
yeah

01:18:34.85
Clifton Campbell
It is fucking creepy as shit.

01:18:34.95
Jessica
Oh, that was so creepy.

01:18:37.27
Marty Ketola
And what does he do?

01:18:37.53
Clifton Campbell
Jesus Christ.

01:18:37.89
Jessica
That mask, the armor and the mask, that his armor and mask were creepy.

01:18:38.87
Marty Ketola
He ends up hanging out with Obi-Wan. Boom.

01:18:45.10
Jessica
that was they That is the creepiest armor I've ever seen. so creepy.

01:18:47.67
Marty Ketola
and Right?

01:18:48.09
Jessica
Yeah.

01:18:47.96
Marty Ketola
Right?

01:18:48.22
Clifton Campbell
Very, it's, it's so well done.

01:18:48.07
Geoff
Agreed.

01:18:50.01
Clifton Campbell
All the armor in this film is so well done to the armor or the armor master.

01:18:50.78
Jessica
maybe be

01:18:54.42
Clifton Campbell
You should have gotten an Oscar. It's superb fucking work. And I think it's honestly the bar against which I measure every other film's armor. How good it against Excalibur?

01:19:04.42
Clifton Campbell
Because Excalibur had the dirty fighting armor, the shiny wedding armor.

01:19:09.24
Jessica
Yeah.

01:19:09.58
Clifton Campbell
the Camelot armor, all this different armor, you know, Percival's armor is all fucked up, you know, 10 years into his quest for the grail.

01:19:09.60
Jessica
yeah

01:19:17.98
Clifton Campbell
Right. And just beautifully, beautifully done costuming. I, I can't believe that didn't win an Oscar for costuming, man. I seriously can't. It was really well done.

01:19:27.39
Geoff
And we should mention that we love Charlie Borman on this podcast.

01:19:31.22
Clifton Campbell
We do.

01:19:31.40
Geoff
And we've we've talked we've talked about him before.

01:19:31.62
Clifton Campbell
We, we definitely do.

01:19:34.04
Geoff
So he plays as a child actor, plays the young Mordred.

01:19:34.71
Clifton Campbell
Sure.

01:19:37.76
Geoff
He was he was the the boy in the emerald Emerald Forest who gets lost.

01:19:38.42
Clifton Campbell
Creepy.

01:19:42.04
Geoff
He's the German pilot in in Hope and Glory. And then, of course... Charlie Borman went on to become an an amazing adventure television host with his buddy Ewan McGregor when they went around the world on motorcycles for, yeah, for for a Long Way Round and its sequels.

01:19:46.49
Clifton Campbell
yeah

01:19:54.71
Clifton Campbell
Obi-Wan Kenobi.

01:19:56.65
Jessica
What?

01:19:58.10
Geoff
And i I just, I find him a fascinating, find him a fascinating person. And is it's fun to...

01:20:02.10
Marty Ketola
So he he was in a movie with Liam Neeson. And then years later, he's with...

01:20:08.25
Clifton Campbell
eat He's with Obi-Wan Kenobi doing fucking television shows.

01:20:09.40
Marty Ketola
It was.

01:20:10.20
Geoff
Again, it's bizarre, isn't it?

01:20:10.13
Marty Ketola
Yeah. I don't

01:20:12.18
Clifton Campbell
What in the fuck?

01:20:14.04
Geoff
And that was almost right at the beginning of Liam Neeson's career.

01:20:14.07
Marty Ketola
know.

01:20:18.20
Geoff
It it was one it was one of his first.

01:20:18.46
Marty Ketola
it was

01:20:19.03
Clifton Campbell
This is the greatest. This is the greatest episode ever.

01:20:23.63
Jessica
Well, we're enjoying it.

01:20:27.70
Geoff
So

01:20:28.23
Clifton Campbell
Sorry. Sorry, Jeff. Keep going. Keep going, Jeff.

01:20:31.00
Geoff
just that Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Patrick Stewart, they were all right at the beginning of their careers, right at the beginning.

01:20:31.39
Clifton Campbell
Sorry.

01:20:35.81
Clifton Campbell
No shit. Jesus Christ.

01:20:37.23
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:20:38.01
Geoff
And they all became enormous stars.

01:20:38.20
Clifton Campbell
Fucking Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne. It's a great cast.

01:20:41.24
Jessica
So.

01:20:41.39
Geoff
Well, great casting. I mean,

01:20:43.29
Jessica
Well.

01:20:43.37
Clifton Campbell
it's a great cast

01:20:44.12
Geoff
imaginative to

01:20:45.22
Jessica
Borman specifically chose Ireland and he chose Irish actors like Kieran what was the Kieran what was his last name he was this was his first yes first that was his first film I'm all so all of the like yeah Heinz Gabriel Byrne you know all of them are Irish so he

01:20:53.69
Clifton Campbell
Oh, oh, Kieran Hanna. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah

01:21:01.27
Clifton Campbell
Kieran Hines. Kieran Hines. Yeah. He plays lot. He's fantastic. Yep. Oh, here's the other thing I'll say.

01:21:10.01
Marty Ketola
like space truckers. They're all Irish.

01:21:11.74
Clifton Campbell
Nowadays, if this movie if this movie comes out now, I don't know if you've seen the absolute vitriol for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey that's coming out online. like People are fucking losing their minds about it's not historically accurate because they cast Matt Damon and not some Greek dude.

01:21:19.02
Jessica
Oh,

01:21:25.58
Clifton Campbell
And you know there's a black girl in it and there's no there's no black girls in Greece. And it's fucking ridiculous, right? But this this movie, if this movie had come out, it would be nothing but bitching about the non-English accents and the non-English actors playing classically English roles.

01:21:31.20
Jessica
bullshit.

01:21:41.05
Clifton Campbell
And every everybody would have to explain that Arthur, King Arthur is a fucking myth and is not real.

01:21:41.16
Jessica
Right.

01:21:45.16
Jessica
Right. Right.

01:21:47.03
Clifton Campbell
It's...

01:21:47.06
Geoff
And he he does it as he does it as a myth.

01:21:47.59
Clifton Campbell
it's

01:21:49.70
Geoff
It's also very dreamlike. Again, another one of his films that the the whole thing could be a dream.

01:21:52.25
Clifton Campbell
Yes, it's very dreamlike.

01:21:52.31
Jessica
Yes.

01:21:52.16
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:21:55.00
Jessica
Very.

01:21:57.02
Geoff
And even Plex's little capsule review note about it I'm sure you've noticed, says a surreal adaptation of Thomas Mallory's book.

01:21:57.71
Clifton Campbell
Yep.

01:22:05.72
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:22:07.29
Jessica
And it it feels like a fever dream, especially from the point from the point that Arthur casts the sword between but between the character, um Guinevere and Lancelot.

01:22:10.23
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:22:18.11
Clifton Campbell
Lancelot. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:22:20.18
Jessica
From that point on, it is like fever dream territory. It gets weirder.

01:22:23.70
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. It's like being sick.

01:22:24.46
Jessica
It gets...

01:22:25.30
Clifton Campbell
It's like, yeah.

01:22:25.75
Jessica
it's Yeah, it's so bizarre. And it's like, what's going on here?

01:22:27.79
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

01:22:27.70
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:22:28.93
Clifton Campbell
It's like you're sick with the land or something. It's weird.

01:22:30.97
Jessica
Yeah, well, yeah.

01:22:31.14
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. I agree.

01:22:31.85
Jessica
And the land is sick because that's exactly what happens.

01:22:33.53
Clifton Campbell
Uh-huh.

01:22:34.61
Jessica
And Merlin...

01:22:34.91
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:22:35.47
Marty Ketola
Y'all gotta see Zardoz, man. That's just...

01:22:37.67
Jessica
Merlin was pierced by the sword at the same time. mer when When he cast it into the land, he stabbed he stabbed Merlin too.

01:22:44.44
Clifton Campbell
Right.

01:22:46.21
Jessica
He participated in Merlin's destruction to some degree without even knowing it because he broke the he broke the land.

01:22:46.46
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:22:52.22
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:22:53.53
Jessica
He broke his connection to the land.

01:22:53.64
Marty Ketola
Because he's an asshole just like his dad, you know.

01:22:56.50
Jessica
He broke his connection to it.

01:22:56.41
Geoff
And there's Borman focusing on the landscape again, as we we talked we talked about earlier.

01:22:59.32
Jessica
Yeah.

01:22:59.67
Marty Ketola
hu

01:23:00.98
Jessica
Yeah.

01:23:01.45
Geoff
The landscape, the the heart of the land, the spirit of the land is very is very central to this film.

01:23:08.03
Jessica
yeah

01:23:08.38
Clifton Campbell
literature The British are shockingly good at lawn care and maintenance. I don't know what it is, but they are they are gardening fools. They are all about they are all about like transforming.

01:23:16.43
Jessica
it's all the sheep

01:23:19.88
Clifton Campbell
or you know that That island is theirs, and they take care good care of it, in my opinion.

01:23:23.79
Marty Ketola
I didn't do any watering. The hills all dried out.

01:23:26.55
Clifton Campbell
and It's all pretty. I'm just saying, that's pretty stuff.

01:23:28.54
Geoff
Yeah, that's funny.

01:23:28.57
Marty Ketola
Oh, that was Carl O'Connor's line.

01:23:30.26
Geoff
Yeah, that's clever.

01:23:30.58
Clifton Campbell
So...

01:23:31.23
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:23:32.10
Geoff
It's the rain, Cliff. It just rains all the time.

01:23:33.90
Clifton Campbell
It's...

01:23:34.50
Geoff
If you don't keep cutting things down, they just take over and it becomes Day of the Triffids.

01:23:39.02
Clifton Campbell
It makes, Oh my God. Uh, so, uh, dear diary, my foster dad and brother are dragging me to another one of these God awful tournaments. Uh, so they can have a go at some pull at some sort out of something rock. It won't budge. I don't know. I'd rather stay at home and plow the milkmaids fields if you know what I mean. But instead we're a day out from the tourney. Oh no, I forgotten case sort at home. Shit. Now I'll figure something else later. Talk to you later, Arthur.

01:24:03.99
Marty Ketola
ah Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:24:07.25
Geoff
I think we should, we should, very, very good.

01:24:07.87
Clifton Campbell
I haven't done one of those in

01:24:10.53
Geoff
I think we should compliment Nigel Terry's performance because he goes from this goofy country bumpkin, ah ah kind of like, oh, gee, ah i wouldn't give you 25 cents for a broken meteorite.

01:24:22.12
Clifton Campbell
a while. Yeah. I couldn't find your sword, Kay, but here's Excalibur. Get the fuck, kid. Fuck off. Yeah, it's very... it's very Yeah, I know it's exactly what you mean. Yeah.

01:24:30.39
Geoff
By the end, he's this this world-weary, soul-destroyed ruler of a country that's dying.

01:24:35.42
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah.

01:24:37.54
Geoff
It's a great performance. you can At the end, you can't even see the kid in him.

01:24:39.26
Clifton Campbell
Tells, tells,

01:24:42.62
Clifton Campbell
no, tell, he tells his own son, i can't give you the land, but I can give you my love.

01:24:42.66
Geoff
It's such a transformation.

01:24:44.89
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah.

01:24:48.02
Clifton Campbell
And his son's like, but that's the fucking last thing I want from you, piece of shit.

01:24:48.60
Jessica
and

01:24:51.64
Jessica
but

01:24:51.86
Clifton Campbell
Let's do this.

01:24:52.53
Marty Ketola
Yeah, the young Arthur.

01:24:52.66
Geoff
And isn't it

01:24:53.03
Clifton Campbell
It's fantastic. It's wonderful.

01:24:54.52
Geoff
And isn't the whole film also like that?

01:24:57.64
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:24:57.94
Geoff
and i don't i i think this was it must I think it was intentional. And if it was, it's a masterwork. Because the film is almost silly at the beginning.

01:25:08.63
Geoff
And with the these overblown characters like Patrick Stewart.

01:25:12.14
Clifton Campbell
it's it's it's hopeful it's It's hopeful, it's fantastical, it's fairy tale.

01:25:15.61
Jessica
Yeah, well, it goes from light into this total despair, like the the whole last part of the movie is just about death, destruction, wasting away.

01:25:19.93
Geoff
Yeah.

01:25:26.22
Jessica
and and

01:25:26.63
Clifton Campbell
It's a true, it's a true Grimm's fairy tale, right?

01:25:28.70
Jessica
yeah.

01:25:28.83
Clifton Campbell
Where like, where, where like the wolf eats grandma, like no shit, you know, like this, Excalibur is like, here's the reality of it, guys.

01:25:32.06
Jessica
Yeah.

01:25:36.73
Clifton Campbell
This is, this is rough. It's going to get, it's not pretty. It's not going to be the ah wonderful fairy tale because eventually more game, you know, Guinevere and Lancelot and and Arthur, they have to resolve their shit.

01:25:48.95
Clifton Campbell
And when they do, here's the, here's the fallout from it.

01:25:51.85
Marty Ketola
It's like chasing Amy.

01:25:53.21
Jessica
the

01:25:53.56
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:25:54.14
Jessica
So for most of the, ever since the,

01:25:55.35
Clifton Campbell
Oh, wow. That's a good ball. Interesting.

01:25:57.97
Jessica
most of the film, after well, basically from the point of the grail the search for the Holy Grail, I'm like, why are they looking for the grail? What does this have to do with anything? And finally, after you get you go through all of these fever dreams and all of the knights dying off or becoming corrupted, and Percival goes and he walks into a castle of Camelot. It's Camelot, but it's in his dream.

01:26:21.85
Jessica
He's having this vision or whatever. and And he's asked, what's the secret of the grail? And he finallys and he tells the tells him well, it's it's Arthur, you, the king.

01:26:31.30
Clifton Campbell
It's you. It's you.

01:26:32.88
Jessica
you are the You're the secret.

01:26:33.10
Clifton Campbell
You're the sacred.

01:26:34.69
Jessica
It's you your connection to the land.

01:26:35.46
Clifton Campbell
You're the land.

01:26:36.62
Jessica
And then so he goes and gets the grail from Arthur. And then he goes and gives Arthur the grail in reality. And I was like, what the hell does this mean? And I finally understand it's the same theme through the whole thing.

01:26:48.90
Jessica
The king is the land. The king is the land. The king is the land.

01:26:52.92
Clifton Campbell
Yes, yes.

01:26:53.21
Jessica
the land and when the king fails his fails the land the land dies and the people die yeah and it was

01:26:56.79
Clifton Campbell
The land fails and everybody suffers.

01:26:57.94
Marty Ketola
And that's why when Darth Vader dies, his shit blows up. It's the same thing.

01:27:03.26
Geoff
but he's got and this But he's got an escape pod.

01:27:05.62
Marty Ketola
have no not

01:27:10.21
Clifton Campbell
I fucking love this episode. Oh my God. So, so listen, you know, early on when, when Merlin, when Arthur meets Merlin and they're talking about his future and Merlin kind of disappears and he's looking for Merlin and he sees the centipedes then he, he sees the fucking owl and all that shit.

01:27:25.69
Jessica
I know.

01:27:25.90
Clifton Campbell
That's just Yoda and Dagobah. That is so fucking just straight up Yoda and Dagobah. It's like, wow.

01:27:31.92
Geoff
Slimey! Munhole!

01:27:33.43
Clifton Campbell
Exactly.

01:27:33.66
Marty Ketola
hutton

01:27:34.10
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:27:34.00
Geoff
Slimey! My home this is!

01:27:36.47
Clifton Campbell
It's like, don't you, Will? Go fuck yourself. You know, I just...

01:27:40.63
Geoff
his sheper Cannot get his sword out of the stone!

01:27:43.48
Clifton Campbell
no Yes, Watry Tot gave him a sword, did she? You know, it's just... It's the fucking... ah

01:27:53.34
Marty Ketola
Difficult the future is to see.

01:27:55.73
Jessica
Well, it's funny that you, it's funny because for me, um ni Nicole Williamson sounds almost Kermit-like in his tones, like somewhat like almost Muppet-like or very Grail-ish in characters.

01:28:07.13
Marty Ketola
yeah

01:28:09.45
Clifton Campbell
Mm. Mm.

01:28:10.66
Marty Ketola
So we should remake this with Muppets is what you're saying.

01:28:11.07
Clifton Campbell
Mm.

01:28:13.23
Clifton Campbell
Fucking please.

01:28:13.69
Marty Ketola
the

01:28:14.04
Jessica
Oh, please.

01:28:14.37
Clifton Campbell
Jesus Christ, I'd watch the shit out of that.

01:28:14.80
Jessica
would love that.

01:28:16.61
Clifton Campbell
Are you kidding me?

01:28:17.54
Jessica
Let's it. Good.

01:28:18.55
Clifton Campbell
ah the the the the The mounting scenes, we may have to go, but everything else we can totally do.

01:28:19.36
Geoff
I'm

01:28:20.18
Jessica
yeah

01:28:23.30
Clifton Campbell
It'll be fine.

01:28:23.57
Jessica
But I loved, I loved all of the Merlin scenes so much. I just like, to me, he is, he was just, he was awesome.

01:28:30.72
Clifton Campbell
So...

01:28:31.91
Jessica
I loved it.

01:28:31.91
Geoff
I'm glad you brought up the voice because on this viewing, i mean, I've seen this film many times over the years.

01:28:33.91
Jessica
Yeah.

01:28:37.94
Geoff
And and Cliff, you and I have talked about this in in in depth and also how your how film a film seems to change as you get older.

01:28:40.79
Clifton Campbell
so many times in detail.

01:28:47.13
Clifton Campbell
Oh God, over the years?

01:28:47.70
Geoff
And a good a good film, you'll you'll read it in in different ways.

01:28:48.33
Clifton Campbell
Yes. Lord, a good one.

01:28:51.82
Geoff
So I'm watching it um and I didn't quite finish this.

01:28:52.69
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:28:56.22
Geoff
I'll come back to this. the the idea of it being kind of light and silly and getting more and more serious ah as it goes. And it really pulls you in. And I, I, I'm at the beginning, I'm going, Oh yeah, the Uther scene's a bit slow.

01:29:05.66
Jessica
Yeah.

01:29:05.89
Clifton Campbell
Yes. Very much.

01:29:09.84
Geoff
And now Patrick Stewart's overacting a bit. And by the end, I'm absolutely mesmerized.

01:29:12.95
Clifton Campbell
oh you watch your fucking mouth what are you talking about listen to fucking sit here and listen to slander on my podcast what are you talking about shit you're a that's good call

01:29:15.53
Geoff
andates

01:29:16.81
Marty Ketola
Against you.

01:29:20.79
Geoff
Well, worse is to come.

01:29:21.22
Marty Ketola
Against you.

01:29:22.06
Geoff
Check this out. So I'm, I'm watching, I'm watching, I'm watching, and I go, what what does Nicole Williamson remind me of? Who does he remind me of? And it's Johnny They've both got that kind of slightly whiny, I really know what's going on behind the scenes, and you don't, dog's body.

01:29:34.84
Clifton Campbell
shit you are a furor and that's a good call

01:29:36.28
Jessica
ah

01:29:42.40
Jessica
Creaky.

01:29:46.49
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:29:46.84
Jessica
Yeah, yeah.

01:29:47.23
Clifton Campbell
I mean, I think rotten's a little too far over, but I can see what you mean.

01:29:49.56
Geoff
Yeah, but there's so there's a similarity, the young one.

01:29:51.28
Clifton Campbell
I can see what you mean.

01:29:51.65
Marty Ketola
Like one of the young ones, perhaps, right?

01:29:52.22
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:29:53.57
Marty Ketola
like

01:29:54.04
Clifton Campbell
Oh, there's a young ones type of feel.

01:29:54.74
Marty Ketola
ah

01:29:56.00
Clifton Campbell
Yes, yes.

01:29:56.54
Jessica
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:29:57.40
Clifton Campbell
I like that. I like that.

01:29:59.13
Marty Ketola
Instead of the stars, he's got the silver cap.

01:29:59.77
Clifton Campbell
um

01:30:02.20
Geoff
Yeah, instead of the studs on his forehead.

01:30:02.42
Clifton Campbell
So... this has This has my favorite – of my favorite MST callbacks of all time is in this film. It it references this film, and it is Joel ah gives the bots the opportunity to create their own theme song, and Tom Servo does the whole opera bit.

01:30:22.26
Clifton Campbell
you know I can't remember what's the name of the song, but it's the –

01:30:24.38
Marty Ketola
Oh, the this this song, yeah.

01:30:25.62
Clifton Campbell
oh Yeah, wonderful Tom, glorious Tom, bigger than you, bigger than me. You know, that that whole fucking, which it it's iconic.

01:30:34.69
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:30:37.98
Clifton Campbell
That opera piece in that film is so iconic and it's been reused so many times and borrowed from Excalibur so many times. I i mean, Borman's got to kind of be patting himself on the back with the music guy going, man, we fucking, look at that, nailed that shit.

01:30:52.02
Clifton Campbell
And we look at everybody using our stuff, you know, because...

01:30:53.72
Marty Ketola
it's It's funny you bring up a...

01:30:54.23
Geoff
um glad I'm glad you said that because that's it one of what it's one of my notes is that those big action scenes with the horses and the music, very reminiscent of the first Conan film and Basil Polidoro's beautiful score.

01:30:56.24
Clifton Campbell
It's referenced over and over again, man.

01:31:07.77
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's a good call, too.

01:31:07.54
Marty Ketola
Mm, that too.

01:31:09.57
Clifton Campbell
That's a good call, too.

01:31:09.82
Geoff
Very similar. And Conan came out a year after. So I wonder, I mean, John...

01:31:13.20
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:31:14.97
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, maybe was a little influenced.

01:31:15.30
Geoff
john

01:31:16.93
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

01:31:16.91
Geoff
It could be. And John Milius, another one of my favourite directors.

01:31:20.52
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

01:31:20.92
Geoff
And it could have just been coincidental, but it's just so powerful when you see the charge and the motion and those powerful voices.

01:31:25.10
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:31:28.41
Clifton Campbell
Love it.

01:31:32.42
Geoff
It's very percussive. And speaking of, know we're really jumping around, but think about towards the when knights prepare for

01:31:38.17
Clifton Campbell
I'll fucking take it.

01:31:39.90
Jessica
Oh, yeah.

01:31:42.17
Geoff
when when the nights prepare for the final battle. And they they gallop out of Camelot to go confront Mordred.

01:31:47.88
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

01:31:54.40
Geoff
Those scenes where the horses are galloping through, first it's a field of violets, and then it's yellow buttercups,

01:32:02.04
Clifton Campbell
Oh, oh the the the the and then the willows. Is it willows?

01:32:05.56
Geoff
Cherry blossoms. It's cherry blossoms.

01:32:06.80
Clifton Campbell
Cherry blossoms, my bad. Cherry blossoms.

01:32:08.50
Jessica
ah loveian

01:32:08.41
Geoff
So there there's that is not only my favorite shot in Excalibur, it's one of my favorite shots of all time.

01:32:09.32
Clifton Campbell
They're beautiful.

01:32:15.83
Geoff
That there's a, there's a camera in front of Arthur and you're seeing all the horses galloping behind him and these cherry blossoms are falling on him.

01:32:16.22
Clifton Campbell
I don't blame It's gorgeous.

01:32:19.83
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:32:23.96
Clifton Campbell
but it's but it's But it's steady.

01:32:25.87
Geoff
Oh yeah.

01:32:26.45
Clifton Campbell
It's steady. The shot's completely steady.

01:32:26.83
Geoff
It's an amazing shot.

01:32:28.73
Clifton Campbell
It's the only steady shot on him in that whole sequence. It's very Spike Lee. If you've ever seen Spike Lee put ah put an actor on the pallet and then drag the...

01:32:41.34
Marty Ketola
Oh yeah, we were talking about that.

01:32:41.90
Geoff
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:42.33
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:32:43.16
Clifton Campbell
It it's it feels...

01:32:43.04
Geoff
Well, Jean Cocteau invented that in Bel-Air La Besse, the original Beauty and the Beast.

01:32:44.68
Clifton Campbell
Yes, it it feels... oh I didn't know that. Okay. That's fantastic. I love that shot.

01:32:50.58
Geoff
He does that and it's mind-blowing.

01:32:51.45
Clifton Campbell
Mwah!

01:32:53.46
Geoff
So to it's, I mean, talk about magical. That's to me, it's the ultimate magical scene.

01:32:56.88
Clifton Campbell
it's It's fantastic. It's beautiful.

01:32:59.18
Geoff
So on one hand, I feel like the the the cherry blossoms falling on them are tears because the the land the land knows they're going to die.

01:32:59.73
Jessica
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:33:07.70
Clifton Campbell
Oh, shit.

01:33:07.71
Geoff
The land is crying because because they're going to the final battle.

01:33:08.27
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:33:08.90
Clifton Campbell
that's That's beautiful.

01:33:11.79
Geoff
But also I think the land is showing them what they're losing. there this this there this We know that you're going to to your to your doom and and this is our our final goodbye.

01:33:24.19
Geoff
This is a reminder of what the living world is like.

01:33:25.59
Clifton Campbell
what What about, normally when that stuff happens, it's spring.

01:33:30.78
Geoff
Yeah.

01:33:31.50
Clifton Campbell
It's cherry blossoms fall in spring. And spring is about hope and eternity and renewal. And so I wonder if maybe it's about, hey, you're going to your death, but there's hope and there's renewal and there's

01:33:37.51
Geoff
Yeah.

01:33:44.25
Clifton Campbell
and there's a future in your death and in your,

01:33:47.03
Marty Ketola
Yeah, because we'll all be better off without y'all.

01:33:47.38
Clifton Campbell
yeah well, yeah, well, you're going to give up your lives for something bigger than yourself.

01:33:49.90
Geoff
Yeah.

01:33:53.66
Marty Ketola
I know.

01:33:53.98
Clifton Campbell
Right. Which is, you know, one of the great lines of life that I've heard lately is that you, you know, uh, having a legacy is about planning a garden.

01:33:54.37
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:34:02.49
Clifton Campbell
You're never going to see grow, right. You plant the garden and then you do your thing and then you move on and then it, it sprouts and it grows for other people. Right. That's a legacy. Right. And I think that's what Arthur's doing is trying to create a legacy, planting things that grow beyond him for eternity.

01:34:17.82
Clifton Campbell
Right. And so this, this idea that the blossoms are following and that it's spring and that he's coming to give himself up to the land and for spring is, ah I think it's a cool idea.

01:34:29.05
Jessica
Yeah, I think some of the ending of that is also,

01:34:29.62
Marty Ketola
So he is Jesus.

01:34:32.65
Clifton Campbell
He's definitely Jesus.

01:34:34.23
Jessica
it's also remnant it's more of the uh th white influence the once in once and future king because most of it is more to arthur but there are bits of things there are certain twists the story yeah he pulls he pulls a little bit over like and and the the fact that arthur makes percival put the put the sword back because it will be needed again you know and he's like

01:34:38.36
Clifton Campbell
There you go

01:34:45.46
Clifton Campbell
He's borrowed, hasn't he? he's He's pulled a few things over.

01:35:00.18
Clifton Campbell
ah

01:35:01.14
Jessica
Even though, you know, but it's like, it's, there's going to, there will be another king.

01:35:01.21
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, that's good. I like that. Yeah. not that ah Not that I disagree with your take, Jeff. I just think it's another option.

01:35:07.22
Jessica
Yeah.

01:35:08.27
Clifton Campbell
It's it's ah it's fascinating. i love this i love this movie because you can interpret it so many different ways.

01:35:10.07
Geoff
but you yeah And you hit on, ah um I think, a very important theme, Cliff, which which is rebirth, the cycle, because we know that the Arthur myth is that he's buried on the Isle of Avalon and he's meant to return in England's hour of greatest need.

01:35:18.72
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:35:22.20
Clifton Campbell
yes

01:35:25.18
Geoff
Personally, I think he came back as Churchill. But the...

01:35:29.14
Clifton Campbell
Fascinating. That's a good call.

01:35:30.90
Geoff
Thanks.

01:35:31.26
Clifton Campbell
but

01:35:32.67
Jessica
Thank you.

01:35:32.49
Marty Ketola
That's the real Excalibur 2.

01:35:34.39
Clifton Campbell
I fucking love it.

01:35:34.82
Geoff
All right.

01:35:35.67
Clifton Campbell
Oh, it's great. it It was the cigar. That was Excalibur. Burn through anybody.

01:35:40.66
Geoff
may i May I digress a bit here? Maybe this is maybe this is a good point. I don't i don't know if you i don't know if you know you will know this about me, but to say that I am a fan of the Arthurian legends would be a massive understatement.

01:35:44.28
Clifton Campbell
Take it away, sir. Take it away.

01:35:53.69
Geoff
So it it really used really used to be my hobby, but when when I'm in my 20s and 30s, and I have read everything that that I could find from Mallory, Mists of Avalon, Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliffe, all the fiction of Once and Future King, but also many, many nonfiction books that that look at the the possible historic origins.

01:35:54.04
Clifton Campbell
i was I was a big fan as a kid, yeah.

01:36:05.64
Jessica
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:36:17.06
Geoff
And I'm not exaggerating when I say i believe I've been to every Arthurian site in the United Kingdom of any significance at all, starting at Sintagel in Cornwall, where the early scenes were supposed to take place, and all the way through to the Isle of Babylon, which is is in popular tradition believed to be a hill in Glastonbury, where the Glastonbury Music Festival takes place every year.

01:36:41.66
Geoff
So many, many, many, many sites. A lot of them are in Wales, in Scotland. And there's there's a fascinating hill fort in southern England called Cadbury, which was a fortified hilltop.

01:36:56.06
Geoff
And it's it's just in the woods. There's no gift shop. There's no admission. If you can find it, you can go up there. And and that is often thought to be the most likely place for the fortress of ah of a real Britain, a real Romano-Celtic or Romano-British king from that era.

01:37:18.00
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:37:18.11
Clifton Campbell
Right.

01:37:18.27
Geoff
But the reason I'm the main reason I mentioned this is I've i've made all these pilgrimages, some of these places I've been to many times. But of everything that I've seen and everywhere that I went, which is really a lot, my favorite and the most amazing place was where local tradition has it that Excalibur was thrown.

01:37:37.69
Geoff
And it is a small lake in the moors called Dosmery Pool. And the first time I went there, i was the only person there. It's quite a trek to get out there. And it was a gray, misty day. And the lake looked like it was made out of silver.

01:37:54.20
Geoff
And i I just completely believed it.

01:37:54.56
Jessica
Mm. Mm.

01:37:56.64
Geoff
I thought, if somebody was going to throw it, if Percival's going to throw Excalibur into a place where nobody's ever going to find it, this is the place. it it it was It was an amazing experience.

01:38:05.53
Clifton Campbell
past day. That's awesome.

01:38:07.53
Geoff
So that's one of the reasons that this film means so much to me, because of my love of the myths and my love of Borman's work. And the fact that he's, again, intentionally doing something other than the narrative.

01:38:22.42
Geoff
he's and he He tells us right at the beginning that he's setting it in the correct time period, and then he doesn't.

01:38:28.54
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:38:28.66
Clifton Campbell
Right.

01:38:28.70
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:38:29.30
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah. It's a good point. Um, I love the imagery of the film. I think the imagery is fantastic. I think he's, he has set so many bars and so many iconic, uh, images in this film that everybody else has to compare anything that they do to it to a certain extent. Like you're either going to completely throw away that, that aesthetic, or you're going to try to hinder here, adhere to it to a certain extent. Like, well, either we look like that or we don't, I don't know. You know, to me, it just, it's the total bar for it. Um,

01:39:01.91
Geoff
Oh, well said.

01:39:03.08
Jessica
I love how going back to turning everything on its head, you know, just even the fact of, um, the queen, grain, the way she dances, she's dancing.

01:39:05.21
Marty Ketola
Thank you.

01:39:15.61
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:39:16.41
Jessica
She's dancing like, uh, like, uh, a woman of the night, you know, she's dancing.

01:39:19.93
Clifton Campbell
Now you know. Well, but now you know how she got her king, right?

01:39:23.38
Jessica
Yeah.

01:39:23.57
Clifton Campbell
Like that's now, you know, because he's fucking like, oh my God, you know.

01:39:23.82
Jessica
yeah

01:39:26.78
Jessica
Yeah, I mean, but you it's like she's she's not acting like a queen you would you would particularly identify as a queenly behavior.

01:39:31.48
Clifton Campbell
hmm.

01:39:35.83
Jessica
But maybe in the time period of the fifth century, maybe women were more primal.

01:39:44.06
Clifton Campbell
It's completely talk possible. Absolutely.

01:39:45.72
Jessica
More primal and more, you know, because it was more, they you know, everything was, i don't know.

01:39:51.93
Clifton Campbell
yeah Well, it's it's not like you were going to vote or have a bank account, so you better use whatever you had to to you know to entice a man and to keep him and to fucking ah bend him to your will to a certain extent.

01:39:55.42
Jessica
Right. yeah

01:40:03.10
Jessica
Right.

01:40:03.66
Clifton Campbell
You know what i mean? and And to the point where literally she dances so well, she causes two fucking nations to to break peace and fight each other.

01:40:13.53
Jessica
Right.

01:40:13.69
Clifton Campbell
That's how good that dance was.

01:40:15.28
Marty Ketola
Well,

01:40:15.67
Clifton Campbell
Where one dude's like, I don't give a shit. I know peace, but my boner, let's go.

01:40:19.41
Marty Ketola
that's what that was the problem with the boner, not the dance.

01:40:20.28
Clifton Campbell
And the next, you know, yeah.

01:40:22.41
Geoff
you

01:40:22.68
Jessica
Right, not the dance.

01:40:22.74
Clifton Campbell
yeah know I mean, it's – look, I mean, at at one point there's a point where where fucking – where Guinevere runs up to Arthur and is like, here, eat this cake.

01:40:22.71
Marty Ketola
Don't victim shame here.

01:40:24.02
Jessica
i

01:40:24.19
Marty Ketola
ha ha ha.

01:40:32.58
Clifton Campbell
It's got stuff. He's like, what is it? She's like, oh, grains and blah, blah, and make you a little sleepy. And then he's like, I don't know. any he And he has this conversation with Merlin, this –

01:40:40.24
Jessica
Which is one of my favorite conversations.

01:40:41.21
Clifton Campbell
Yes, yes. And then Merlin's like, well, you never know until the cake's gone. And fucking he's already just wolfed it. And and Merlin's like, oh, too late.

01:40:47.18
Jessica
Oh, too late.

01:40:47.01
Marty Ketola
Now it's too late.

01:40:49.00
Jessica
Yeah.

01:40:49.66
Clifton Campbell
That's Arthur. That's the lesson right there in of itself.

01:40:52.32
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:40:52.86
Jessica
yeah

01:40:53.74
Clifton Campbell
And that's the power of the woman. He's literally showing Arthur. Like, if you don't, be careful. The cake, the thing. Too late. Fucking see you. Good luck.

01:41:02.71
Geoff
Happened to me, actually.

01:41:03.11
Jessica
Yeah.

01:41:03.48
Geoff
That exact thing happened to me.

01:41:04.14
Clifton Campbell
Good fucking luck.

01:41:05.24
Geoff
When I was still living in New York, I went to a Burning Man a burning man party in ah Williamsburg, and ah these lovely tray of hot brownies had just come out of the oven. I go, oh, those look good.

01:41:14.80
Clifton Campbell
Uh-oh.

01:41:16.00
Geoff
I'll have one of those. And I just finished it. And the guy runs in and he goes, whatever you do, don't eat more than half a brownie. I'm not kidding.

01:41:24.89
Clifton Campbell
Goodbye.

01:41:25.05
Geoff
I was so astounded I just lay on the floor for hours and they had to put me in a cab and send me home at some point in the morning.

01:41:25.62
Clifton Campbell
Have a good time.

01:41:31.69
Geoff
I mean, people people shouldn't people shouldn't make cake like that.

01:41:31.73
Marty Ketola
It's just Arthur. Arthur is such a contradiction because, you know, later on, he's all i have to be the king even above the husband. And it's like, yeah, but back in the day, you were scarfing the fucking brownie. You didn't care about the kingdom. You cared about your dick.

01:41:47.54
Marty Ketola
Which is it, man? Which is it? But the young, the young King Arthur, he's like Percival back then.

01:41:50.85
Jessica
Yeah.

01:41:55.38
Marty Ketola
But and then he gets kind of fucked up.

01:41:55.83
Jessica
yeah

01:41:57.14
Clifton Campbell
and he gets he gets he gets the experience yeah yeah um hey hey mr borman hey hey mr borman what design do you want on percival shield mr borman mr borman what design do you want on percival shield uh cubert i'm sorry what now you heard me fucking cubert

01:41:57.06
Marty Ketola
But Percival never gets corrupted, though, kind of, you know.

01:42:01.76
Geoff
Simon Holy Grail, funnily enough. Michael Palin.

01:42:04.16
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:42:19.42
Marty Ketola
Hubert wasn't even out for an extra year.

01:42:20.80
Clifton Campbell
Uh, what's, what's a figure it out. Qbert.

01:42:24.28
Jessica
but

01:42:25.43
Clifton Campbell
Sorry. I just, every time I watch a Gawain and Lancelot fight, I see that design on the shield, which is the three dimensional and it's Qbert. It's just fucking Qbert. And every time I'm like, oh it's Qbert.

01:42:34.82
Marty Ketola
Oh, his board, not the character itself.

01:42:36.84
Clifton Campbell
Well, look at that. Yeah. He's,

01:42:37.98
Marty Ketola
OK.

01:42:38.49
Clifton Campbell
No, no, no. his his The design on his shield. It's that it's the board.

01:42:40.95
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:42:41.48
Jessica
Yes.

01:42:42.29
Clifton Campbell
It's the Kubrick board.

01:42:42.38
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:42:43.80
Clifton Campbell
Totally just the the three dimension.

01:42:43.59
Marty Ketola
I'd always fall off the back.

01:42:45.72
Clifton Campbell
yeah oh

01:42:46.90
Jessica
ah

01:42:47.51
Clifton Campbell
I will say one of my favorite bits of the movie is Lancelot fighting himself where he's he's nude and he's fighting his fully armored self.

01:42:52.31
Jessica
yes

01:42:55.42
Clifton Campbell
it has a very Eastern promises feel. I don't know if you've ever seen Eastern promises with, with Vigo, but Vigo is a, he's a Russian mobster and he's in a Russian bath where he gets into a knife fight with another Russian mobster and they're both naked. So it's just blades and dicks flash around everywhere in blood.

01:43:15.38
Marty Ketola
And flying off the balcony.

01:43:15.77
Clifton Campbell
And, and,

01:43:16.98
Marty Ketola
No, that was the other movie.

01:43:17.37
Clifton Campbell
Exactly. and This Lancelot kind of reminds me a bit of that. But I do love the imagery of Lancelot fighting with himself, fighting with his love for, it's obviously his love for Guinevere, his loyalty to his king.

01:43:30.40
Clifton Campbell
It's all right there. He's naked and bare.

01:43:31.13
Marty Ketola
He was in the cave, and then they see that it's Luke's face under the mask.

01:43:32.82
Clifton Campbell
Yes. he's He's naked and bare in front of himself. You know, it's it's fantastic.

01:43:38.40
Geoff
Marty's just not giving up on the Star Wars references.

01:43:38.62
Clifton Campbell
I love it.

01:43:40.58
Jessica
Yeah, it is.

01:43:41.08
Clifton Campbell
No, he's like, I'm just going to keep fucking mentioning fucking, you know, Star Wars is 78.

01:43:41.00
Geoff
It's just not going to happen.

01:43:41.39
Marty Ketola
Well, they stole too much from it, yeah.

01:43:46.71
Clifton Campbell
I mean, that's all I can say. And and by the way, it's not it's not that they still, it's the it's the hero's journey from Campbell.

01:43:47.67
Marty Ketola
Well, the King Arthur story, I mean. You know, elements.

01:43:53.03
Clifton Campbell
That's this whole thing. this this The mythology of the hero's journey from Campbell, that's what Borman picked up on.

01:43:54.23
Jessica
yeah it is

01:43:59.50
Clifton Campbell
That's what fucking ah Lucas picked up on. And that's what everybody's been doing for the last, what, 40 years? Since Star Wars, for fuck's sake.

01:44:06.30
Marty Ketola
her

01:44:06.43
Geoff
Is that Cliff Campbell that wrote The Hero's Journey?

01:44:09.11
Marty Ketola
Yeah, exactly.

01:44:09.78
Clifton Campbell
i Of course, you're goddamn right it is.

01:44:10.01
Geoff
Yeah.

01:44:10.19
Marty Ketola
So...

01:44:11.79
Clifton Campbell
Are you kidding me?

01:44:12.12
Jessica
ah

01:44:13.62
Marty Ketola
so

01:44:14.17
Clifton Campbell
Look it up, guys. It's on Amazon.

01:44:15.64
Geoff
Oh, I've read the whole thing. No, it's Joseph Campbell. I know exactly what you're talking about.

01:44:18.39
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:44:18.99
Geoff
Have you ever seen the interviews with him that were done at at Skywalker Ranch where he talks about the origins of mythology?

01:44:19.64
Jessica
Yeah.

01:44:24.60
Clifton Campbell
Well, no, I haven't.

01:44:25.77
Geoff
He has clips from Star Wars in it because...

01:44:28.89
Clifton Campbell
Oh, fuck off.

01:44:29.43
Geoff
Oh, it's fantastic.

01:44:29.73
Clifton Campbell
I'm going to have to look that up. I've got to look that up.

01:44:30.91
Geoff
it's some

01:44:31.73
Clifton Campbell
Thanks. Give me that.

01:44:32.26
Geoff
it's so I think it was a pds i think it was maybe it was a PBS thing.

01:44:33.78
Clifton Campbell
Making a note.

01:44:36.86
Clifton Campbell
Joseph Campbell...

01:44:36.70
Geoff
um But it's cool. I think it's called The Power of Myth. And it's ah it's a long series of interviews with Joseph Campbell later later in his life.

01:44:40.89
Marty Ketola
Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:44:45.91
Geoff
And he's so articulate and mesmerizing. It's utterly fascinating. And he talks about the hero's journey.

01:44:51.11
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, I bet that's on archive.

01:44:51.37
Geoff
And then he shows clips from a Star Wars.

01:44:52.37
Jessica
Yeah.

01:44:53.13
Geoff
It's exactly what you're talking about.

01:44:53.75
Clifton Campbell
I bet that's on archive, dotor right on.

01:44:54.82
Marty Ketola
It's on DVD, I think, yeah.

01:44:56.31
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, yeah.

01:44:57.08
Jessica
um

01:44:57.75
Clifton Campbell
um You know you're fucked when the king is in church and is suddenly struck by lightning?

01:45:02.55
Jessica
he

01:45:02.71
Clifton Campbell
You're fucked.

01:45:02.49
Marty Ketola
well Right?

01:45:03.58
Clifton Campbell
You are fucked like nobody's business. You are in church asking for forgiveness and suddenly you are struck by fucking lightning.

01:45:05.48
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:45:09.72
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:45:10.30
Clifton Campbell
Good luck.

01:45:11.61
Geoff
That'd probably be a good time to abdicate.

01:45:14.14
Clifton Campbell
You think?

01:45:15.56
Marty Ketola
Mm-hmm.

01:45:16.04
Geoff
I'm done with this.

01:45:16.27
Clifton Campbell
Maybe just pray...

01:45:16.83
Geoff
I quit.

01:45:18.07
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Maybe ask for forgiveness. I don't know. What do I know? um

01:45:22.58
Jessica
Well, he, yeah, I don't know. He, he lost the plot. Arthur lost the plot for a while.

01:45:29.07
Marty Ketola
Uh-huh.

01:45:29.62
Jessica
He lost his connection to the land. he lost, I mean, and it killed, and it almost kills him when he, you know, when he puts the sword in between the two lovers, you know?

01:45:40.44
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. i

01:45:41.07
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:45:41.62
Clifton Campbell
I love how this movie is also kind of about the future. Right where it's like, hey, I'm old. I'm of the land. My time is done. It's you're next. You're up. What what are you going to do?

01:45:50.81
Jessica
Yeah.

01:45:51.37
Clifton Campbell
You're going fucking kill each other. You're going to keep going. Here's the thing. And ah there's a very much of there's a this movie is just full of fucking Borman. Again, just like point blank.

01:46:02.34
Clifton Campbell
Borman's just burying metaphors in this motherfucker throughout the whole film. Here's this metaphor. You can do about that. Here's this metaphor. Here's something to think about. Here's something else to think about.

01:46:09.43
Jessica
Mm-hmm.

01:46:10.06
Clifton Campbell
Here's the Jesus myth. Here's this. Here's that. It's it's so well done.

01:46:14.90
Geoff
well Well said.

01:46:17.21
Clifton Campbell
It's so well done. It's just, I think it's his masterpiece. I think Hope and Glory, if I was to, if i if I was to talk to John Borman, I'd say, I'm willing to bet that Hope and Glory is probably your most personal film, but I'm willing to bet that your masterpiece is probably Excalibur. The film that you think is probably the best thing you've done is probably Excalibur.

01:46:35.70
Marty Ketola
I think Hope and Glory is the best one.

01:46:36.38
Clifton Campbell
Maybe not.

01:46:37.50
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:46:38.30
Clifton Campbell
But I think Excalibur is, I think Excalibur nails so many of the myths, so many of the imageries and is borrowed from throughout the last, the next 50 fucking years that it's hard to ignore.

01:46:39.93
Marty Ketola
It's real up there, though. Yeah.

01:46:48.22
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah.

01:46:49.70
Clifton Campbell
It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Anyway.

01:46:52.67
Geoff
that's ah That's a really good insight. i i have not I'm not as aware as you are of all those references. I think Conan was one of well conan yeah what was yeah but one ah one of the ones that really stood out to me as perhaps being influenced by it.

01:47:02.75
Clifton Campbell
Conan's a great call too. Yeah. Yeah.

01:47:09.50
Clifton Campbell
this This influenced every sword and sorcery movie that came after for 20 fucking years, man. You can't you couldn't make a D&D sword and sorcery death stalker type ass movie unless you mentioned or referenced some of this shit in your film.

01:47:15.06
Jessica
yeah

01:47:22.67
Clifton Campbell
It's impossible.

01:47:23.38
Marty Ketola
Oh yeah, between this and Conan, there wouldn't be Lady Hawk and all that other stuff.

01:47:25.81
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm. No, no Beastmaster, none of that shit.

01:47:26.94
Geoff
All right, yeah.

01:47:29.37
Clifton Campbell
None of it.

01:47:29.98
Marty Ketola
No cave dwellers.

01:47:31.97
Clifton Campbell
Fuck, fucking Cave 12.

01:47:33.11
Marty Ketola
yeah

01:47:33.45
Clifton Campbell
Uh-oh.

01:47:34.31
Geoff
I've got a question for the panel.

01:47:34.73
Jessica
Okay.

01:47:36.57
Geoff
and And it is this.

01:47:36.86
Jessica
okay

01:47:38.52
Geoff
You could say, oh yes, it reminded me of a John Ford Western.

01:47:38.87
Clifton Campbell
Mm-hmm.

01:47:43.06
Geoff
And everybody would know what you're talking about. But you can't say, oh, it reminds me of a John Borman XYZ film, because his films are all so different.

01:47:49.85
Clifton Campbell
bull shit

01:47:51.54
Geoff
They're so different. I mean, how different is Excalibur from The Emerald Forest? How different is Deliverance from Hope and Glory?

01:47:58.10
Clifton Campbell
I agree. I think the the thing is, I think your your premise falls apart with the fact that fucking Excalibur has been referenced so many times by so many other filmmakers that you can easily look at other films and go, it's like Excalibur.

01:48:11.73
Clifton Campbell
It references Excalibur. Oh, look at it. There's some Excalibur there. You what mean?

01:48:14.69
Geoff
Oh, definitely. No, definitely. with With a single film. but i and And I would say maybe the same.

01:48:18.30
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. You're talking about it as like a hole. Oh, okay.

01:48:21.56
Geoff
I just mean, it you you can't you can describe his style in a couple of words.

01:48:22.94
Clifton Campbell
My bad.

01:48:24.34
Jessica
Yeah.

01:48:28.31
Clifton Campbell
No, he's like sp he's like Spielberg, dude.

01:48:29.31
Geoff
Yeah.

01:48:29.56
Jessica
No, because...

01:48:31.48
Clifton Campbell
he he he He molds himself to fit the form of the vessel that he needs to deliver.

01:48:31.67
Geoff
yeah

01:48:36.92
Jessica
Yeah.

01:48:37.16
Clifton Campbell
It's a jar. I'll fit in the jar. It's a bowl. I'll fit in the bowl. It's a box. I'll fit in the box.

01:48:43.29
Marty Ketola
Well, Spielberg likes to do love triangle movies too.

01:48:43.56
Clifton Campbell
He's brilliant that way.

01:48:45.40
Jessica
But he still does, he still does it his form and way.

01:48:47.53
Clifton Campbell
eh, that's just human nature, I think. Yeah.

01:48:49.62
Marty Ketola
Well, i'm I'm talking about and a director's stamp.

01:48:50.62
Clifton Campbell
but but

01:48:52.38
Marty Ketola
That's one of the things they like to tell the story over and over again.

01:48:53.05
Clifton Campbell
But borman borman has his Borman has this different way every time of doing a story he lets the story.

01:48:53.08
Jessica
and

01:48:58.14
Marty Ketola
Well, of course, yeah.

01:48:58.73
Clifton Campbell
He serves the story rather than serving himself, which is, I think, what what what Jeff is after, right?

01:49:01.56
Marty Ketola
have

01:49:04.05
Clifton Campbell
like If you watch ah um a Coen Brothers movie, it's you can tell it's a Coen Brothers movie from the tone and so on.

01:49:09.43
Marty Ketola
Well, there's trademarks, yeah.

01:49:11.42
Clifton Campbell
There's trademarks, right?

01:49:12.25
Marty Ketola
And that's why say the love triangle is the trademark for him.

01:49:12.88
Clifton Campbell
Borman, it's like Borman's a little harder to pin down, I think, because he's serving the film and the script and the story every time.

01:49:21.24
Jessica
I had never you would have never told i could have never believed that

01:49:21.47
Clifton Campbell
And that's my opinion.

01:49:25.53
Clifton Campbell
No.

01:49:26.10
Jessica
that all of these movies were made by the same person.

01:49:28.52
Geoff
you

01:49:28.78
Jessica
I've seen Robin and Marion, you know, and and would have just, no, I wouldn't have believed that they were all the same.

01:49:35.54
Clifton Campbell
No. Other than saying that's a cool green tinge that runs through two movies, there's no fucking way that Point Blank and Excalibur really have a lot to do with each other.

01:49:40.32
Jessica
Right. Right. I wouldn't, I was absolutely, I was like, why are we talking about, like when, you when I got the email for, for,

01:49:44.38
Marty Ketola
yeah I'm trying to tell you, you don't want to listen.

01:49:50.36
Jessica
for Excalibur, I was like, what's this point blank thing? And I've never heard of it. And then and I was like, oh, it's a Borman film. Okay. And, you know, but still just, no,

01:49:59.97
Geoff
i've tried I've tried really hard to answer my own question. What what is the theme that connects all Borman films? And and we I think we touched on earlier.

01:50:06.65
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah.

01:50:09.18
Geoff
i don't think there's an obvious one. I'd say the best that I can do is most of his films are about putting a person or persons into a strange environment or and landscape and how that landscape changes them.

01:50:22.78
Geoff
So Deliverance Turns Businessmen into Killers is is a perfect example.

01:50:25.14
Jessica
Okay.

01:50:28.42
Geoff
Hope and Glory.

01:50:28.70
Clifton Campbell
this The sword turns the farm boy into a king. Yeah, okay. Hope and glory.

01:50:32.25
Jessica
Yeah, I can see that.

01:50:32.86
Clifton Campbell
Okay.

01:50:32.82
Geoff
So it's it's it's...

01:50:33.91
Clifton Campbell
The war turns the boy into a man and so on and so forth.

01:50:36.15
Geoff
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:50:36.63
Clifton Campbell
Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

01:50:37.27
Geoff
And and an Emerald Forest also.

01:50:37.26
Marty Ketola
That's another one these themes, yeah.

01:50:38.18
Clifton Campbell
Okay. Okay.

01:50:40.05
Geoff
The boy is just changed from ah from ah a modern first world kid to ah to a to a forest dweller. he He's completely changed.

01:50:48.78
Clifton Campbell
You've mentioned that movie multiple times. Is that the next movie you want to bring on the show? it something? are you Yeah.

01:50:53.06
Geoff
Emerald Forest? Uh... Possibly.

01:50:56.26
Clifton Campbell
I'm messing with you.

01:50:56.95
Geoff
Possibly. That's an interesting idea. I wouldn't have thought about that. ah But i'll I'll consider that. Thank you.

01:51:01.98
Clifton Campbell
Oh, Meg Foster. Interesting. Okay, sure. ah Yeah, so anyway.

01:51:07.18
Geoff
There's a great bit in the in the Emerald Forest where they discover that the so the people who are searching for their lost son, who is Charlie Borman, again, with a wonderful Charlie Borman, who we love.

01:51:16.86
Clifton Campbell
Yes, it is.

01:51:18.38
Marty Ketola
It's on the poster of that movie.

01:51:20.18
Geoff
there' is ah And they they encounter the indigenous people.

01:51:20.71
Clifton Campbell
Yes, it is.

01:51:23.13
Geoff
people in the forest and they learn that the indigenous people call first world humans, modern humans, the termite people because they destroy the forest.

01:51:32.30
Jessica
Bye.

01:51:36.18
Geoff
so That's one of the bits that that sticks with me.

01:51:36.71
Clifton Campbell
It makes sense. Termite people.

01:51:39.38
Geoff
Hey, have any of you seen Where the Heart Is, which is the film he made after Hope and Glory? So very early Uma Thurman film.

01:51:48.29
Marty Ketola
No.

01:51:48.95
Clifton Campbell
a It sounds familiar.

01:51:50.87
Geoff
It's got Christopher Plummer in it. That is ah another film where people are put in a strange environment and there mystical, magical things in it. it's It's his Frank Capra movie.

01:52:02.30
Geoff
It's quite a light comedy.

01:52:02.74
Clifton Campbell
It's at the...

01:52:04.13
Geoff
Yeah.

01:52:04.38
Clifton Campbell
Okay, where the heart is.

01:52:06.97
Geoff
Yeah, Where the Heart is 1990. three years after...

01:52:12.44
Clifton Campbell
So not the Natalie Portman-Ashley Judd movie.

01:52:15.10
Marty Ketola
I have seen that one.

01:52:15.26
Geoff
ah note no thank you

01:52:17.54
Marty Ketola
That's about the kid. They have a big, she gives birth inside of a Walmart or something, right?

01:52:22.55
Clifton Campbell
Yes, and she's hiding in the walls of the Walmart. Fucking Jesus.

01:52:24.82
Marty Ketola
No, she's not hiding in the walls.

01:52:25.63
Clifton Campbell
i

01:52:26.46
Marty Ketola
It's a rom-com. She gives birth in the Walmart and that's the whole impetus.

01:52:28.18
Clifton Campbell
Oh, I thought she was... hot was Oh, I thought there was one where she was hiding in the Walmart.

01:52:33.05
Marty Ketola
That sounds like a ah horror movie.

01:52:34.58
Clifton Campbell
Something else. Okay. Where the heart is. Yeah, I see it. Okay. Wealthy businessman shows his young adult offspring how tough life can be. Written by Telsch Borman and John Borman.

01:52:45.21
Marty Ketola
Well, that's the theme.

01:52:45.94
Clifton Campbell
Starring fucking Dabney Coleman, dude. We may have to bring this on the show.

01:52:48.57
Marty Ketola
That's the theme. I'm going to tell the young generation how hard life is. ah

01:52:53.91
Clifton Campbell
There it is. That's what Borman's doing. You fuckers think you had it hard. Look at how bad King Arthur had it hard. You sons of bitches, mud and armor and a fucking magician.

01:53:01.24
Jessica
but

01:53:01.42
Marty Ketola
Look how bad Walker has.

01:53:05.17
Clifton Campbell
And you sons of bitches are microwave and hot pockets. Shut the fuck up.

01:53:11.28
Marty Ketola
I want my two dollars.

01:53:13.24
Clifton Campbell
what my two dollars All right, let's, let's get to the score.

01:53:14.04
Jessica
$2. Yeah.

01:53:17.42
Clifton Campbell
Anybody got any notes? Anybody else got, I figured.

01:53:18.10
Marty Ketola
Well, I got a few last things here. Well, you know, i don't want to talk over everybody.

01:53:22.49
Clifton Campbell
yeah

01:53:23.78
Marty Ketola
Carmina Barana, is that how you say it? That that track? with

01:53:28.57
Clifton Campbell
yeah

01:53:29.24
Jessica
yeah

01:53:30.92
Marty Ketola
I'll always remember that from the Doors movie because Oliver Stone does gratuitous use of that.

01:53:31.18
Clifton Campbell
I'm sorry.

01:53:35.52
Marty Ketola
They even put it on the soundtrack of that album. ah Neil Jordan is listed as like creative associate or something in this. This is really early credit for him.

01:53:47.42
Marty Ketola
because he would go on to direct like interview of a vampire and stuff like that. Right.

01:53:52.79
Clifton Campbell
I'm i'm not from real honestly familiar with Neil Jordan's work.

01:53:54.78
Marty Ketola
Oh, the crying game. Right. But I noticed his name in the credits.

01:53:57.79
Jessica
Oh yeah.

01:53:58.43
Marty Ketola
I'm like, oh, that's a very early credit for him. And ah as you mentioned, Mystery Science Theater, I'm sitting here going, where is Santa Claus in all this? Well, the events of that Mexican Santa Claus movie must happen many years later because Merlin is in the Santa Claus movie.

01:54:12.60
Clifton Campbell
What?

01:54:13.38
Jessica
What?

01:54:15.32
Clifton Campbell
Oh my god.

01:54:15.86
Marty Ketola
And at one point, Santa Claus is because he helps Santa Claus out.

01:54:16.35
Clifton Campbell
It's fucking chill.

01:54:19.70
Marty Ketola
And at one point, Santa's yelling, Merlin, Merlin, and he sounds like fucking King Arthur. It's really funny. So I'm thinking that must be the unofficial sequel.

01:54:29.89
Geoff
Marty, you're the absolute king of the most obscure connection and reference that anyone could ever find to a film.

01:54:33.72
Clifton Campbell
Jesus fucking Christ, man.

01:54:35.62
Jessica
Hmm.

01:54:35.96
Clifton Campbell
Like fucking holy shit, bro.

01:54:36.65
Marty Ketola
Merlin, Merlin.

01:54:37.65
Geoff
It's really impressive.

01:54:38.33
Clifton Campbell
No shit. No shit.

01:54:40.12
Geoff
Oh, hey, I've got a fun thing.

01:54:40.65
Clifton Campbell
No shit.

01:54:41.80
Geoff
I know that listeners at home won't be able to see this, but I'm just going to hold up a thing to show you here.

01:54:46.84
Clifton Campbell
ah we'll put we'll put it We can put a picture in the show notes.

01:54:49.08
Geoff
oh oh, great.

01:54:49.48
Clifton Campbell
He's got a lobby he's got an Excalibur lobby card.

01:54:50.22
Marty Ketola
Oh, lobby card.

01:54:51.88
Clifton Campbell
Look at that.

01:54:51.83
Geoff
Yeah, this is this is an original.

01:54:52.10
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:54:52.82
Clifton Campbell
Beautiful.

01:54:53.87
Geoff
And it's the beginning of my favorite scene there where the the knights are zooming out for the...

01:54:54.83
Clifton Campbell
That's gorgeous. It's beautiful.

01:54:59.77
Geoff
for the final battle. So yeah, I can i do a scan of that and send it to you if you like.

01:55:01.84
Clifton Campbell
I love

01:55:04.98
Clifton Campbell
it.

01:55:04.80
Marty Ketola
Awesome.

01:55:05.35
Clifton Campbell
That last scene where where Arthur basically impales himself on his son's spear and then walks forward too to cut his own child down is some hard ass shit.

01:55:10.45
Jessica
Oh, that was hardcore. never saw that.

01:55:16.36
Marty Ketola
That's the first scene I saw flipping through channels at like age nine and going, what is this?

01:55:19.35
Geoff
Oh no.

01:55:20.38
Jessica
never saw that

01:55:20.66
Clifton Campbell
but

01:55:22.39
Jessica
um

01:55:22.68
Marty Ketola
No, I was just like, this is, is this a horror movie?

01:55:24.98
Geoff
Yeah.

01:55:25.08
Marty Ketola
What's going on here? It's

01:55:26.42
Jessica
I totally, I don't think i ever saw a version like that. I just, I don't know. That was, I was shocked. I was not expecting that scene. I was just, I mean, I just, I sat out loud.

01:55:37.06
Jessica
i was like, that's some hard shit right there. Oh my God.

01:55:39.00
Marty Ketola
just a flesh wound. Yeah.

01:55:41.02
Jessica
Yeah, just, and he's pulling hard to get down there.

01:55:41.56
Clifton Campbell
um

01:55:41.50
Geoff
ah ruin it for you but but therere I don't want to ruin it for you, but there's a terrible continuity error right right right there.

01:55:45.27
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, he's getting, yeah, he's getting, he's fucking not, yeah, he's going to get to that kid and kill him one way or the other.

01:55:48.41
Jessica
He's not yours. Yes.

01:55:50.91
Clifton Campbell
Gotcha.

01:55:52.11
Jessica
Sorry.

01:55:56.66
Geoff
so okay Okay, I won't say it.

01:55:57.11
Clifton Campbell
Shush. Why? Why?

01:55:59.20
Geoff
I went i won't tell you.

01:56:00.54
Clifton Campbell
What is it? No, you' it's too late now. The listeners need to know what the continuity error is.

01:56:04.12
Geoff
So Arthur's impaled on that giant spear, and he's obviously dying, and then there's it cuts to a close of him and Mordred, and then it goes back to the original scene, and the giant spear is no longer in his body.

01:56:17.53
Jessica
I noticed that the spear was gone.

01:56:18.01
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:56:19.17
Jessica
i just assumed that somebody, they pulled it out.

01:56:20.85
Marty Ketola
We took it out.

01:56:21.14
Geoff
But there's nobody else there.

01:56:21.60
Jessica
Yeah.

01:56:21.47
Marty Ketola
This can't be PG, dude.

01:56:22.42
Geoff
Everyone else is dead. And that's worth mentioning, too, that this film really turns into a bloodbath at the end, from the from the very hopeful beginning,

01:56:24.34
Jessica
and

01:56:24.46
Clifton Campbell
right.

01:56:28.98
Clifton Campbell
It's complete bloodbath.

01:56:29.08
Jessica
yeah

01:56:29.05
Marty Ketola
i

01:56:32.50
Jessica
Right.

01:56:33.53
Geoff
or fun, I mean, fun, it seems like a kind of a a family fun adventure movie to some degree in the early parts.

01:56:34.41
Clifton Campbell
Yep.

01:56:41.28
Jessica
It's...

01:56:43.19
Clifton Campbell
Family fun.

01:56:43.42
Marty Ketola
um g

01:56:43.97
Clifton Campbell
There is nothing family fun about this at all.

01:56:43.91
Geoff
No, just the early parts.

01:56:44.63
Marty Ketola
this can't be p g du

01:56:45.70
Jessica
No.

01:56:46.11
Clifton Campbell
this This thing is pure fucking dread, terror, and death all the way through it.

01:56:50.40
Jessica
Wait, wait.

01:56:50.36
Marty Ketola
How is this? how this

01:56:51.37
Clifton Campbell
And by the way, here's some titties to sustain you along the way.

01:56:53.43
Jessica
Yeah, here's the...

01:56:55.34
Clifton Campbell
This fucking movie is is awesomely insane as far as just like, hey, here's what the folly of man can possibly do when he believes in some crazy, magical bullshit with some dude wearing a fucking skull cap.

01:57:03.13
Jessica
Maybe now they did have, right.

01:57:05.19
Geoff
Thank you.

01:57:07.22
Clifton Campbell
Have fun.

01:57:08.36
Jessica
They had two versions.

01:57:08.57
Clifton Campbell
Amazing. It's amazing.

01:57:10.20
Jessica
They had the PG version, which had all of that stuff cut out. So yeah, maybe that would be misleadingly fun and family oriented, but then the R version.

01:57:17.91
Clifton Campbell
Maybe. Yeah. Marty's version. That's 90 minutes fucking long. Sure. Yeah.

01:57:21.62
Jessica
Right.

01:57:21.70
Marty Ketola
Well, that's that TV version, but it's those PG two hours and 20. It's amazing what you could put into PG. This wouldn't even have been a PG 13 a few years later. You know, it's so gory, but I guess it's fantasy violence.

01:57:34.30
Marty Ketola
So you can get away with it. You know, it's not somebody's head getting chopped off. So.

01:57:38.10
Clifton Campbell
So two things I have before we get out of here.

01:57:39.80
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

01:57:40.60
Clifton Campbell
One, I want to say the jousting is better in a Knight's Tale. It just is. It's more impactful.

01:57:44.66
Jessica
Yeah.

01:57:45.52
Clifton Campbell
It's more fucking fantastical. But I will say probably the jousting in Excalibur is probably more realistic, as especially as far as like a contest where you're trying to to to find a you know king of the hill.

01:57:47.22
Jessica
That is a great movie.

01:57:51.42
Jessica
More realistic, yeah.

01:57:58.58
Clifton Campbell
Right. And then secondly, um Lancelot from across the sea is the name of Lance.

01:57:59.26
Jessica
Yeah.

01:58:00.60
Marty Ketola
Bobby?

01:58:04.68
Clifton Campbell
I am Lancelot from across the sea. So he's French.

01:58:09.40
Geoff
and some I believe in some versions, yes. like la Lancelot.

01:58:12.06
Clifton Campbell
Well, of course he...

01:58:12.76
Geoff
la la Lancelot, do you lack of the lake?

01:58:14.49
Marty Ketola
but

01:58:16.04
Geoff
Lancelot of the lake.

01:58:16.54
Clifton Campbell
Yes.

01:58:16.57
Jessica
Yeah. Of the lake.

01:58:17.69
Clifton Campbell
Why would you ever trust a Frenchman around your wife?

01:58:18.62
Jessica
and so i do

01:58:20.12
Clifton Campbell
You know better.

01:58:20.60
Jessica
ah

01:58:22.01
Clifton Campbell
Never, ever. Ever trust a Frenchman ever.

01:58:23.54
Geoff
You second-hand electric donkey-bottom buyers.

01:58:24.18
Clifton Campbell
Never, ever. You so couldn't... Yes, exactly. Go away, I shall taunt you a second time. I fart in your general direction. Where is your... Where is your queen wife so that I may talk to her?

01:58:36.59
Geoff
Animal food trough of wet air.

01:58:36.82
Clifton Campbell
Anyway.

01:58:39.07
Geoff
Oh, of the water.

01:58:39.61
Clifton Campbell
I want...

01:58:40.94
Geoff
Lancelot of the animal food trough water.

01:58:42.36
Clifton Campbell
of Of the water.

01:58:43.51
Geoff
i Now it all comes together for me.

01:58:44.15
Clifton Campbell
the one the other The one other the thing i want to say is, During the wedding, when the veil she is wearing is magnificent.

01:58:52.86
Geoff
Yeah.

01:58:53.05
Clifton Campbell
And i know I know it's a very tiny bit, but when she, it seems like almost chain mail and she raises it and it's it's soft and like silk, but hard like steel.

01:58:59.13
Jessica
Yeah,

01:59:02.97
Jessica
but it's, yeah.

01:59:03.12
Clifton Campbell
And it's this beautiful, beautiful veil.

01:59:04.01
Jessica
Um.

01:59:05.56
Clifton Campbell
I just thought, and I've been thinking that every time I watch this movie over and over again, that feels fucking dope. That's really cool.

01:59:11.59
Geoff
And that goes with the magical feeling because everything early is magnificent and extra shiny and beautiful and perfect and illuminated like in some, yeah, yeah.

01:59:18.42
Clifton Campbell
Yes. Yes. Yes. yes Fairy tale. It's all fair. It's all a fairy tale. Yeah.

01:59:24.66
Geoff
And I i think he's,

01:59:25.05
Jessica
like the like the castle is like made out of silver silver bricks yeah

01:59:28.38
Clifton Campbell
Exactly. Yeah. This shining silver beam upon a hill. By the way, do we all know why it's a round table?

01:59:37.69
Clifton Campbell
You fuckers, really?

01:59:39.45
Geoff
Because everyone was supposed to have an equal say.

01:59:40.02
Clifton Campbell
It's so that

01:59:42.05
Jessica
everyone's unique yeah everyone's on the same um

01:59:43.45
Clifton Campbell
There you go.

01:59:44.15
Geoff
It was...

01:59:44.47
Clifton Campbell
Everybody sits at the table. It's round. Everybody has an equal moment. There's no head of the table, no end of the table, no side of the table. We're all the same and equal here at this round table.

01:59:53.78
Jessica
And you have to speak the truth when you're sitting at the table.

01:59:56.12
Clifton Campbell
And you have to speak the same truth when you sit at the table. well Thank you, Sir Gawain, you fucking moron, for setting this whole thing off, you dumb shit.

02:00:00.50
Jessica
yeah

02:00:04.14
Marty Ketola
there was round table pizza. Right.

02:00:07.35
Clifton Campbell
and it was And it was good because all the slices were equal, right?

02:00:10.40
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

02:00:10.91
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

02:00:11.74
Geoff
i think i think listeners I think listeners should know that earlier today, Cliff sent us a wonderful email which said, so we're having a round table about the round table.

02:00:24.18
Geoff
Oh, was that your was it you, Marty?

02:00:25.71
Clifton Campbell
That was Marty.

02:00:26.24
Jessica
That Marty.

02:00:26.28
Clifton Campbell
That was Marty.

02:00:26.20
Geoff
I'm so sorry.

02:00:27.05
Clifton Campbell
Yeah.

02:00:27.61
Geoff
I got everything mixed up with all the email traffic today.

02:00:28.05
Clifton Campbell
No, I'm, I'm, I'm not that clever.

02:00:28.99
Marty Ketola
Because part of our primer, it says we'll have roundtable discussion.

02:00:29.97
Geoff
and because you

02:00:32.42
Marty Ketola
And I'm like, oh, shit, we really are today.

02:00:34.81
Clifton Campbell
Round table on the round table.

02:00:34.74
Marty Ketola
Merlin.

02:00:35.19
Geoff
Sorry, Marty.

02:00:36.77
Clifton Campbell
I'm not that clever. I'm not that clever.

02:00:38.44
Jessica
OK.

02:00:38.97
Geoff
I didn't mean to Merlin you there.

02:00:39.58
Clifton Campbell
um

02:00:41.72
Marty Ketola
Merlin.

02:00:43.59
Clifton Campbell
Let's do the scores at this point. We're two hours in.

02:00:45.40
Jessica
okay

02:00:46.07
Clifton Campbell
i think, does anybody else have anything else they want to talk about before we jump out of here?

02:00:48.18
Geoff
free time i Every time I come on the show, it's two hours.

02:00:49.64
Marty Ketola
Merlin.

02:00:51.83
Geoff
I'm so sorry.

02:00:52.46
Clifton Campbell
It's a blast.

02:00:52.60
Geoff
You're so nice.

02:00:53.30
Clifton Campbell
It's a, no, it's a blast. have a lot to say, man. um But, but, but score it.

02:00:56.44
Geoff
Well, so does Jessica.

02:00:59.02
Clifton Campbell
Let's go. Marty, what do you think? Nice. Jessica?

02:01:03.70
Jessica
for

02:01:05.59
Clifton Campbell
Jeff?

02:01:06.04
Geoff
I think this is the second greatest Arthurian film of all time after Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and I also give it a four.

02:01:13.50
Clifton Campbell
It's a five.

02:01:14.14
Geoff
Well done.

02:01:14.46
Clifton Campbell
You guys are all wrong. You guys are all wrong.

02:01:15.29
Geoff
Wonderful.

02:01:16.26
Clifton Campbell
it's It's a five. There is no other Arthurian film that matches this, comes even fucking close, not even close for a moment. If you want to watch a movie about King Arthur, you put this fucking movie on, period.

02:01:24.42
Jessica
Well, no, it's a five of, yes. It's a five amongst all of the King Arthur themed-ish films, it's a five.

02:01:31.45
Clifton Campbell
no No, it's just a five in general.

02:01:33.27
Marty Ketola
Even that Martin Lawrence one.

02:01:33.55
Clifton Campbell
i think yeah The armor, the the imagery, the the filming, the metaphors, the the whole theme of the film, five stars.

02:01:44.05
Jessica
I'm sorry, Knight Riders is up there too.

02:01:45.59
Clifton Campbell
I'll tell you what. No, it is not even fucking close.

02:01:47.42
Jessica
I can't.

02:01:48.53
Clifton Campbell
Jessica, what are you talking about?

02:01:50.01
Jessica
i i I don't know. It's just my heart.

02:01:52.78
Clifton Campbell
I'll tell you what. I'll go four and a half just to give it some wiggle room. Okay.

02:01:55.35
Jessica
but

02:01:55.50
Clifton Campbell
Four and a half.

02:01:56.69
Geoff
Oh, I was just going to say how much I loved it that you guys had both given five stars to Borman Films in different podcasts.

02:02:02.90
Marty Ketola
Right.

02:02:04.76
Clifton Campbell
and Hope and Glory is genius, but Excalibur rides right up there on top.

02:02:05.35
Geoff
It's okay. Yeah, it is genius.

02:02:06.63
Marty Ketola
Yeah.

02:02:09.04
Clifton Campbell
Just fucking amazing.

02:02:09.27
Geoff
Yeah.

02:02:10.55
Clifton Campbell
um Although I do think Borman is working some shit out. He's over there going, all right, good my daughter's going to take her top off and my bastard son who's trying to kill everybody.

02:02:18.09
Jessica
laughter

02:02:18.72
Clifton Campbell
going to put him in it too. We'll work this shit out on film. Let's do it.

02:02:22.23
Geoff
And in the next one, we're going to drop him in the middle of the Amazon.

02:02:22.58
Clifton Campbell
John, i love you, man. Exactly. Exactly.

02:02:26.14
Jessica
but

02:02:26.40
Clifton Campbell
And then he's going to have to go make his own money by traveling around the fucking world with his Obi-Wan Kenobi friend. Fuck that guy.

02:02:34.10
Marty Ketola
It's still no Confederate. What was it? ah What's the, ah I can't even think of the title about the Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's.

02:02:43.45
Geoff
Yeah, yeah.

02:02:43.65
Clifton Campbell
Oh, Connecticut Yankee, King Arthur's Court.

02:02:43.42
Marty Ketola
quarter Yeah, there it's certainly, it's certainly not that film. So, but what is unidentified flying oddball?

02:02:50.33
Clifton Campbell
This is true. Does it?

02:02:52.19
Marty Ketola
What about that one?

02:02:54.14
Clifton Campbell
Oh.

02:02:55.10
Marty Ketola
You forgot about that one, didn't you?

02:02:57.53
Clifton Campbell
Does anybody, does everybody ready to get out of here?

02:02:57.98
Marty Ketola
but

02:02:59.69
Clifton Campbell
you got a quote?

02:03:00.19
Marty Ketola
Oh, you got anything you want to plug?

02:03:02.07
Clifton Campbell
Oh, that's a good call. a Biscuit, got anything you want to plug?

02:03:05.50
Jessica
No, but I have a quote, but I'll wait till the end.

02:03:07.03
Marty Ketola
all right. Ooh, I'm getting some thunder.

02:03:07.96
Clifton Campbell
Perfect. Jeff, you got anything you want to plug, buddy?

02:03:09.87
Geoff
Yeah, I've got a few things. Thank you for the opportunity. i i very recently completely redid my personal website, or rather I had an expert web designer do it. That's jeffnotkin.com.

02:03:20.86
Geoff
And I'm working on a new book. I'm not ready to say what it's about yet. But I will tell you that two days ago, i was writing all about the dream that I had, where I sat up in bed in the middle of the night and went, oh my God,

02:03:38.33
Geoff
Beating of the Rain should be the opening music to Love Song of William H.

02:03:41.45
Clifton Campbell
Uh-oh.

02:03:42.17
Geoff
Shaw, which is a true story.

02:03:43.35
Clifton Campbell
Here it goes.

02:03:44.41
Geoff
And i have a new I have a new business, as you guys know, called Knutkin Rock and Fossil, Rock and Fossil Company, and a website coming soon at rockandfossil.org.

02:03:44.71
Clifton Campbell
That's lovely.

02:03:53.24
Marty Ketola
Knockin' knockin'.

02:03:55.12
Clifton Campbell
Knockin' rockin'. Rockin' knockin'.

02:03:56.60
Geoff
And finally, I would just...

02:03:58.78
Marty Ketola
ah

02:03:59.54
Geoff
and finally i would just

02:04:00.44
Clifton Campbell
Rockin' knockin'? Is that what it's called?

02:04:02.26
Geoff
and

02:04:02.48
Clifton Campbell
Rockin' knockin' and fossils?

02:04:02.23
Marty Ketola
here

02:04:02.94
Geoff
Yeah, very, very close.

02:04:04.63
Jessica
hello

02:04:06.52
Geoff
And finally, I would like to mention that I accidentally became president of an international paleontology association called AAPS. And we have also just...

02:04:18.46
Geoff
unveiled a new website, which is aaps.net. And the purpose of of the association is education, supporting paleontology students and and championing the rights of people to collect fossils on their own land.

02:04:34.14
Geoff
So if you're interested in things even older than the Arthurian legend, you may like aaps.net.

02:04:34.63
Jessica
A

02:04:34.72
Clifton Campbell
There you go

02:04:41.37
Geoff
Thank you for the opportunity.

02:04:43.99
Clifton Campbell
Absolutely. um Marty, do you have anything you want to plug?

02:04:47.34
Marty Ketola
Where do dinosaurs fit into the King Arthur mythos? The dragons.

02:04:51.13
Clifton Campbell
Oh, bro.

02:04:51.22
Marty Ketola
That's what it is.

02:04:51.73
Clifton Campbell
Come on, man.

02:04:51.94
Marty Ketola
It's the dragon.

02:04:52.46
Clifton Campbell
Yeah, dragons.

02:04:52.50
Jessica
dragon

02:04:53.09
Clifton Campbell
Come on, man. Come on.

02:04:54.20
Marty Ketola
ah Yeah, we're just doing our thing.

02:04:54.94
Clifton Campbell
i

02:04:56.60
Marty Ketola
Tune in next week for, what it, Streets of Fire and Last Stop at Yuma County? or what

02:05:02.55
Clifton Campbell
God, I hope so.

02:05:03.29
Marty Ketola
Something like that. so

02:05:04.76
Clifton Campbell
But I mean, I didn't talk about Streets of Fire for two fucking years. All right, let's get out of here on a quote.

02:05:06.94
Marty Ketola
yeah

02:05:08.92
Clifton Campbell
Marty, what do you got

02:05:09.85
Marty Ketola
I was not born to live a man's life, but to be the stuff of future memories.

02:05:16.82
Clifton Campbell
got? Jessica.

02:05:18.87
Jessica
It's newish.

02:05:22.15
Jessica
toquele denbe

02:05:23.19
Marty Ketola
That was almost mine.

02:05:24.02
Clifton Campbell
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Jeff.

02:05:27.11
Geoff
I forgot that we were supposed to have a quote. I'm just going to come.

02:05:31.08
Clifton Campbell
You've been on this show like nine times.

02:05:32.86
Geoff
I don't think we did quotes before. This isn't this a new thing.

02:05:35.96
Marty Ketola
Relatively.

02:05:36.44
Clifton Campbell
Every time. We've done quotes every time.

02:05:37.75
Jessica
which

02:05:38.85
Geoff
Gosh, sorry.

02:05:39.06
Clifton Campbell
Every time.

02:05:39.37
Geoff
Well, I will I will I will say that I appreciated Jessica's and I did love the way Helen Mirren when she did incantations. It was in this kind of harsh Celtic voice.

02:05:50.78
Clifton Campbell
Okay.

02:05:50.81
Geoff
Oh, um my quote is my quote is Cassius King.

02:05:51.35
Clifton Campbell
I'm going to take... um Go ahead.

02:05:54.42
Geoff
Forget about Arthur. Cassius King.

02:05:55.85
Clifton Campbell
Cash, this game. Okay. um I'm going to take Jeff's quote and do my own quote. um So my quote is, you have broken what could not be broken.

02:06:06.87
Clifton Campbell
Hope is broken. And now my second and now my second quote is.

02:06:09.46
Marty Ketola
Against you.

02:06:11.82
Clifton Campbell
car yeah

02:06:14.55
Clifton Campbell
Sorry, had to.

02:06:14.71
Marty Ketola
My other one is against you.

02:06:17.43
Clifton Campbell
yeah

02:06:19.57
Jessica
Okay, how about look into the eyes of the dragon and despair?

02:06:20.26
Clifton Campbell
Anyways.

02:06:23.80
Clifton Campbell
Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

02:06:25.34
Geoff
Well, that's good.

02:06:26.14
Clifton Campbell
all right, let's let's get out of here before we talk just keep talking. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everyone, so much. It was a great episode. I really appreciate you.

02:06:32.92
Jessica
is this the longest one we've done?

02:06:34.62
Clifton Campbell
Literally the longest one, Jeff. I'm going to be bitching the entire time I edit this thing, I guarantee you.

02:06:37.33
Marty Ketola
I'll have to check.

02:06:39.86
Geoff
Sorry.

02:06:41.05
Marty Ketola
but You'll be laughing too.

02:06:41.88
Geoff
told you i i told you I spent a lot of time preparing for this episode.

02:06:42.20
Clifton Campbell
oh It's all good. It's all good. Yep. No, it's totally fine.

02:06:46.08
Geoff
It's going to be long.

02:06:46.00
Marty Ketola
right.

02:06:47.83
Clifton Campbell
Totally fine.

02:06:47.68
Geoff
No, you're all amazing. Love you guys. Thank you so much for having us on again.

02:06:50.52
Clifton Campbell
Same.

02:06:50.71
Jessica
I love you guys.

02:06:51.76
Clifton Campbell
Same.

02:06:52.28
Geoff
What a fantastic group. Be good or be bad, but be sure.

02:06:54.49
Jessica
Yeah. Thank you.

02:06:56.10
Geoff
Bye.

02:06:56.98
Clifton Campbell
right and if you can't And if you can't be good, be good at it. All right. We'll see you later.

02:07:01.59
Geoff
by

02:07:01.85
Clifton Campbell
Bye-bye now.