THE RUNNING MAN (1987) Paired with Love and Hate

With the brand new Edgar Wright re-adaptation about to drop on Friday, we decided to revisit the OG 1987 movie, itself an adaptation of the “Richard Bachman” novel, itself the pseudonym that Stephen King wrote his non-horror novels under, something he managed to keep secret for over a decade and hysterically the person who secured the movie rights to the book had no idea it was King!!!

We deep dive into this history, then talk at length about the movie’s themes and whether or not they resonate today (we did NOT agree on this point!) A man falsely accused of crimes forced to fend for his life on a televised game show where the stakes are life and death all for the entertainment of the passive masses…that sure sounds pretty resonate today, doesn’t it?

And in broad strokes, it absolutely is. But the devil is in them details.

THE PAIRINGS:

Ide Lamplighter 2022 Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County

Golden State Jamaica Cider

Chapters

• 1:57 Wine Trivia Question of the Week
• 3:07 Richard Bachman / Stephen King
• 7:32 George Linder and The Running Man
• 11:29 Screenwriter Steven E De Souza
• 12:52 Casting the Film
• 14:20 The Many Directors of Running Man
• 23:37 Final Cast - With Two Standouts!
• 26:48 Release and Legacy
• 36:12 Dallas' Love Take
• 41:44 Dave's Hate Take
• 49:49 Dallas' Wine Pairing
• 56:31 Dave's Cider Pairing
• 1:02:20 Bonus Pairing - Riunite is BACK! We Love the Shit!
• 1:05:22 Final Thoughts
• 1:08:12 Wrap-Up!
• 1:11:55 Outtakes!
• 1:13:28 Wine Trivia Answer!

Transcript

0:00

I love this movie. Just FYI, people listening to videos. I love it. I love this movie and I think we'll get into it, of course. But ah this film gets a bad fucking wrap. is actually ahead of its time. huh, well, we're gonna get into it if that's how you- saying it's a well-made film. That's not what I'm saying. There's a big distinction, people. ah Anyway, let's get started. We are recording, whenever you're ready. you asshole. Yeah, you're right. I was looking at the red dot right here. Hilarious. All right. You not then to He's Dave and I'm Dallas and this is Ventertainment. We have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes those opinions are spot on. Sometimes they go down easier with a glass of wine. This is entertainment, the wine and entertainment pairing podcast. And welcome back to another wine and entertainment pairing for Year of Entertainment. This is a podcast where we pair wine with entertainment. It's as simple as that. We always know what we like or dislike, but we rarely know why. So what better way to learn about that than by comparing different wines to different types of entertainment and compare and contrast how they both hit us and affect us the way they do. I'm Dallas, your professional world builder and writer. And I'm Dave, your WCET Level 3 certified wine professional. Our film today, folks, begins with the prompting, quote, By 2017, the world economy has collapsed. Food, natural resources and oil are in short supply. A police state divided into paramilitary zones rules with an iron hand. Television is controlled by the state and a sadistic game show. unquote. It's 2025 now. So like what they were only eight years off. No, I'm just kidding. And so our wine question of the day also deals with 2017 collapse specific to the commercial wine industry. The question is, with losses estimated above $100 million, the 2017 wine fires affected which California wine region was it a Napa County, B Mendocino County, C, Solano County, D, Sonoma County, or E, all of the above. Choose your answer before the end of the episode where we'll reveal the answer. Or if you're listening to this to part of a short video, check the comments. I will be posting it right down there. That's right. All right. Between 1977 and 1984, five books were released by author Richard Bachman. Bachman would go on to write a further two novels in 1995 and 2007 respectively, bringing Bachman's total novel publication history to seven. That author would eventually be unmasked as the Stephen King. And today's film is loosely based on one of these novels. The Running Man. It was in the February 1980 issue of Adelina Magazine where King published an essay discussing himself as a brand, specifically the then rising trend of him being referred to as a brand name author. The essay was not meant to disparage the branding phenomenon, but it was meant to discuss how the label actually came about. In both the article and other formats, King had reminded the public that he did not solely write horror, but Being the apex predator of the genre, few were receptive to the notion. While King's first published novel success was Carrie, he had, in fact, completed four non-horror novels before Carrie's publication, a fact that he details in the article while referring to those works as book one, book two, et cetera. While authors are notoriously cagey about giving too much detail about their work, um hi, I'm author, by the way. kings kj antics were dudes He doesn't tell me anything about his fucking work. King's Gagy Antics were due to the fact that at least two of those pre-Kerry novels had already secretly been published under the gnome diplome Richard Bach. And why did Stephen King do this? Well, in the 1970s, there was an unwritten rule that authors shouldn't publish more than one novel per year so as not to flood the market. But Stephen King, of course, was overflowing with fucking stories. And after 1974's Carrie, he dusted off the four novels he'd written in high school and college, and later a fifth additional novel, and released them under the Bachmann monoc... He and his publisher did everything they could to keep the secret that Bachman was actually King because it also served a second purpose. King wanted to know if he could sell books purely because they were good or if his massive sales figures were a result of quote unquote Stephen King becoming such a massive brand name as Dallas was talking about in such a short amount of time. Shockingly, they were able to keep this a secret until 1985. Shockingly indeed. And it was a curious and mildly obsessed bookstore clerk in Washington, D.C. named Steve Brown who was the reason for King's Bachman authorship facade cracking. Brown noted similarities between King and Bachman's writing styles and even hunted down publishers records at the Library of Congress. That of course included entries that listed King as the author of a Bachman work, Brown. unsure of what to do, then hunted down King's publishers and asked them how to best proceed with the information he had just uncovered. by the way, guys, this would become the get of the literary century. within a week, the man himself, Stephen King, called Brown and personally suggested that Brown himself pinned an article revealing how he discovered the truth. And ever the branding genius, King made himself available for an interview. This 1985 revelation came while King was in the process on what was to become the next Bachman novel entitled Misery, which it did not because the story came to life and it was published under King's actual name. And that is the origin story of the novel of the Running Man. That's right. And it was misery and things like Dolores Claiborne. Like these were all of the things he would have published under a name like Bachman, a moniker like Bob Penn, name like Bachman. But then it came to light and he didn't have to anymore. And then Stephen King became known for and even his short stories in the Bellas and things like that, like the story that was the Shawshank Redemption was based on and things of that nature like got to be all published under Stephen King. But before that secret was revealed to the public. The genesis of the film had already begun. An executive named George Linder at Quadra Medical Corporation, who made his fortune selling high-tech lightweight wheelchairs, read a little-known novel by a little-known author, Richard Bachman. The Running Man was a pulpy page-turner, and Linder was fascinated by the work. When Linder inquired about buying the film rights, he was shocked to discover how pricey they were, especially considering Bachman's books weren't exactly selling gangbusters at the time. He was a relatively obscure author and not even that prolific in Linder's estimation. You know, he had like four books in a number of years over time that he had released. Still, he forged ahead and made a deal for a $20,000 upfront option for the most part plus an additional $100,000 if he could actually get the movie into production. So for those of you not familiar with the film industry, that initial upfront payment is an option $20,000 for an option. That is a lot actually don't expect your anything to go for $20,000. That's why he was so shocked. He's like, I'm sorry, how much do you want just to option and usually an option comes with an expiration date like you have a year you have two years you have three years however long they're going to give you to try and get the film into production. and the rights revert you give them that. And the reason the payment is so small is once that timeline is up, if it's not in production, the rights revert. And that's money you just spent giving it the try, you know, and you have exclusive rights to try it for that limited amount of time. Then if the movie goes into production and if it goes into production now, you've probably got financers. And so you have like a production company. You maybe you have a studio behind you and you have to tell the studio that they're paying $100,000 if they decide to put this into production. So on that note, it was a massive chunk of change for a guy whose previous business ventures included lightweight bicycles and high tech wheelchairs, but he truly believed the running man was his ticket to Hollywood. So he took the gamble. Now, Linder, a complete novice in the moviemaking business, enlisted the help of two friends and wrote a screenplay adaptation of the novel over the course of nine months. However, When they began showing it around the town, he became frustrated at the lack of progress when dealing with the myriad producers, studio executives, financiers and agents he had to deal with, none of whom he had any prior experience with. Then the news that Bachman was in reality, Stephen motherfucking King broke and all of a sudden everyone in Hollywood wanted to make the movie. A stunned Linder. Here's the fun part of this story. finally realized why he had been forced to pay such a pretty penny for the rights and he likened the experience to finding a Rembrandt masterpiece in a Kmart. During the sudden explosion of interest, he signed a deal with Rob Cohen and Keith Barish who were busy establishing their new production outfit Taft slash Barish. Collectively, Cohen and Barish had decades of experience in film with major successes on their resume. Originally, Cohen was baffled by the seemingly lousy deal that Linder had negotiated with a rather unsuccessful Bachman for a book that only had 100k copies in print. This is where he couldn't get it moved because he had to go to these producers, these whether it's a production company, producer or studios, and he had to say, Hey, you have to give you have to give the author the their agents and for the rights, you got to pay like give me my 20,000 back probably, and then pay this $100,000 if we put it into production. And of course, everyone's like, No, not for this book, we're not doing this. It was revealed that it was Stephen King. Exactly. But once King's authorship was established, Cohen worked off the assumption that King's name would be used in the advertising of the movie. This was the exact opposite of what would actually happen. Now, next up, rewriting Linder's atrocious script, which was not so graciously dubbed, quote unquote amateurish. I've never read the script. So, you know, I'm going off of what everyone says it was. I want to it. I'm notorious for this actually. I know, I know, we gotta go maybe dig it up, I may dig this one up, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it was overhauled entirely by future diehard scribe Stephen E. D'Souza, the man also responsible for scripting successes like Commando. He was actually coming right off of Commando and coming into The Running Man 48 hours. And my favorite, my personal favorite, it's a masterpiece. I don't give a shit what anyone else says. 1994 Street Fighter, his masterpiece. um Yeah, fight me. I pun intended. ah That movie is Street Fighter is everything that I wanted the running man to be. I just thought it was not. we're to talk about that when we get there. with this foundational team in place and with an initial budget of five million dollars, you do not have to remember that number. It's never coming back again. With an initial budget of five million dollars, the production began to take shape. That was very good. I like the way you delivered that. That's because it's true. You will never hear that fucking number again in this film. For this film. All right. And on to casting. Cast in the lead role was initially another titan of 80s cinema, Christopher Reeve. This version, still faithful to the novel, was to be centered around an everyman unemployed father who goes in a horrifying game for 30 days in order to feed his family. uh Shooting was set to start in September 1985 but was postponed until January 1986 with location shooting schedule to take place primarily in the West Edmonton Mall, a giant shopping mall in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, Canada. then, largely due to the shift in shooting schedules, Christopher Reeve, of course, dropped out. Arnold Schwarzenegger, fresh off the success of the Conan films, and the Terminator was recruited to take the helm from Reeve, but this new casting also led to a rewrite of the script that deviated greatly from what it was originally inspired by. uh The dark allegory of the Reeve version shifted into something much more action-oriented with bites of humor. No longer a father trying to feed his family because who would believe Schwarzenegger was this, the protagonist was now a condemned but innocent security guard forced to fight off gladiators for three hours on national TV, who was also prone to very bad puns and tight leather clothes, a role Taylor made pun intended for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Initially slated for the director's chair for the film was Rambo First Blood, part two director, George Cosmatos. But creative differences quickly had him vacating the director's chair. Chiefly, his desire to lean into the pretty totalitarianism. of the plot which would balloon the budget from and again this is going to be the last time you hear this number 5 million to a purported $27 million and after producer pushback and a demand to cap budget at 18 million because Matos was out. Yeah, he wanted to more than five times, five times the budget. mean, that is not it's one thing to be like, we need a little more money to really make this happen. It's another thing to be like, oh, yeah, five million. Cool. How about twenty seven? No, it's like I'm like, what universe is that your first come? I mean, I you start high because you're to meet in the middle somewhere, but that is obscene, right? That is just like it's you don't start at 10 so you can get down to eight. That's that would be normal. Like, how about 10 million? And then you end up at eight million or something. One million. The producers were willing to do 18 million is kind of like amazing. Like that that kind of blows my mind. But anyways, a quick note on Cosmatos, because it's been revealed in recent years that he rarely was the true director of his films that he is credited on. Stallone hired him to be the de facto director on set of Rambo to Rambo First Blood Part two. But Stallone was in fact calling all the shots. He hired Cosmatos under this deal that on set he would act as director, everyone would treat him as director, but he would get credited as director, but Stallone had all the final say on absolutely everything. He would do, he would work with the storyboard artists. He would like all the shots were his. Kurt Russell later reached out to Stallone to hire Cosmatos to be the de facto director of 1993's Tombstone. While uh in fact, Russell was storyboarding and making all the director decisions. Russell knew of the Stallone Cosmodo steal and wanted to make his own deal like that on Tombstone. Everyone agreed to keep this a secret from the public until Cosmodo's death, after which they began to come clean. So it makes sense that Cosmodo's might have been a little in over his head, actually trying to call the shots on a movie and trying to make it the budget of this budget and scope. Right. Because I think he was that first movie he did. He was the director. It was a much smaller movie. I think it was impressive. But going into Hollywood after First Blood part two and trying to just be like, know, Stallone was the one that everyone was given the money to, not Cosmatos. And then, and the running man, he's like, yeah, 27 million. That's, that's what the kind of movies I make. And it's like, whoa, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy. um So it makes sense that this would happen. But also Cosmatos, it also makes sense that Cosmatos didn't really understand the politics involved in making that happen because Stallone handled all of that. on Rambo First Blood Part 2. Yeah, he's an interesting character, Cosmatos for real. His son actually is also the director of that. I think I elude to this later in one of the pieces here, but his son is another fairly quirky director who directed Nicolas Cage's film Mandy. If you guys are familiar, I recommend. Yeah, that's son. I recommend checking that out and also do a semi deep dive on the son, P. I think his name is. his first movie was Beyond the Black Rainbow. that the first one? And then Mandy came after that one. I think that's correct. And they're all very like plainly, very Giallo inspired and very modern day Giallo, like very visual, very sumptuous and violent and bloody and crazy and psychedelic and all those fun things. And you can you can definitely see the similarities in their personalities when you look at interviews with them because you know the elder Cosmatos here definitely had gall. He had gall coming off of the Stallone successes. He had certain gravitas and he was probably like let me just shoot for the fucking sky here and see how much money and leverage I can get. And unfortunately it did not work out. So after Cosmatos producers approached. Right. Right. After Cosmodeus producers then approached Alex Cox who was unavailable due to ah directing two movies, Back to Back Sid, Nancy and Walker. uh Following Cox they approached Karl Schenkel, an up-and-coming German director who would leave the project due to nerves. uh Next up was British director Ferdinand Fairfax who didn't make it out of the storyboard stage as sometimes directors often do. And following him was Andrew Davis, a cinematographer, just turned director with apparently one good Chuck Norris movie, Code of Silence, under his belt. It all started off well. Davis worked very well with D'Souza to undo all the eccentricities Fairfax and Cosmatos had brought to the script. He handled pre-production duties, saw to the hiring of Paula Abdul to choreograph the dance numbers, the casting of Mick Fleetwood and Weasel Zappa to play revolutionaries, Richard Dawson to play Killian and generally got the movie ready to film by its September 1986 start date. Once that date came, they spent the first three days filming the prison break. Sometime after that they shot the ice rink battle. Yes, this film has an ice rink battle and it is fantastic. But they were only eight days into the shoot and Davis was already get this eight. million dollars over budget after eight days. Davis additionally had snuck a plot point into the ice rink battle scene that the producers had adamantly refused to allow. Once they saw the dailies, aka the raw footage of the scenes that were shot that day, you know, uh if you're on a set, you'll see directors and production teams sort of, you know, glancing at the footage and um figuring out what was good, what to throw out, what to redo, what to move on, what to, you know. Anyway, those are called the dailies and considering how over budget Davis already was the producers promptly fired him. So what you think has since said that Cohen's concept for the film should have been a hundred and fifty million dollar movie. Now, here's my question about that statement. Is he saying I still don't know and I've read this like five or six times. ah But is he saying that this film? should have gone on to make $150 million or should it have cost $150 million because there were costs. cost-cost-cost. I'm almost positive. Right? I think so. I think so. he's saying like the budget just could not what Davis was trying to film. And probably one of the reasons he has such a trouble staying on budget, staying on schedule and staying within budget is Davis just wanted all this crazy stuff to be happening. And he's like, buddy, buddy, buddy. Like, trust me, I just came from Conan, which was not that big of a budget and things like that. And the first Terminator, not that big of a budget. Right. It's like I'm coming from these movies. He's like, I've seen this in action. You can't make a massive tent pole movie on $18 million. Like it does not work. And then came the most what the fuck moment in the process. Producers went to Paul Michael Glasser, who was best known as the actor who portrayed Detective David Starsky on the police serial Starsky and Hutch. Glasser's directorial credits at that point had been limited to TV shows, but one of them was Miami Vice, which producer Cohen had also directed episodes for. Michael Mann, who knew both of them from his time writing for the show, suggested Glasser as the obvious answer to Cohen's running man problem. His reasoning? Glasser's vast experience in TV had prepared him to simply come in and get the job done on time, according to the producers wishes. So with less than a week to prep, Mr. Starsky himself, Paul Michael Glasser, dropped into the director's chair. Given little more than, get this, two days to prepare and no real authority to offer substantive notes on the script, Glasser steadied the ship and got Running Man done. He later told CineFantastique, quote, directing is basically problem solving. When you come into something in the middle like I did, your problem solving goes up about 300%, unquote. All told, the shoot took 61 days and finished at a somewhat insane $17 million over budget. Remember, that's essentially twice the original budget of $18 million when production began. So this is into the $30 million-ish range, I believe, at this point. It is it absolutely is. As already mentioned, the rest of the cast was rounded out by Richard Dawson of Family Feud fame as the villain. Game show host Damon Killian. By the way, he is phenomenal in this and I'm not sure he knows how great he is in this. You know what mean? Dawson. had done a lot of uh acting roles in the past. That's right. And this was his final movie performance. He never did another movie after this. That's right. He sure did. But he's funny. He's he's the perfect, perfect. Oh, it's so good. All right, calm down. As already mentioned, the rest of the cast is rounded out by Richard Dawson of Family Feud fame as the villain game show host Damon Killian Dawson was close friends with Schwarzenegger who suggested him to the production. Then Paula Abdul was brought in as choreographer as we stated before, for the dance sequences and a host of pop culture and sports figures rounding out the list of baddies, including pro football Hall of Famer Jim Brown, musicians Dweezil Zappa, Mick Fleetwood, pro wrestlers Jesse Ventura and Toru Tanaka, and an open era weightlifting Titan and best friend to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Colombo. But my personal favorite character, Dynamo, who was actually played by a classically trained opera singer. named Erland van Lyt. He is the reason this film still ranks in my personal top five favorite movies of all time. And it should be noted that this is Erland van Lyt's voice that is heard singing the aria from Marriage of Figaro in the film. And tragically, van Lyt died just a few weeks before the film's uh November release. And Van Leith sings a gorgeous rendition of Down in the Valley in the movie Stir Crazy, the Gene Wilder Richard Pryor prison comedy. He this guy, he studied computer science at MIT, was a world class heavyweight wrestler and all the while was working towards becoming a held in baritone or an opera singer whose particular voice is associated with the works of Wagner. And he was discovered by a casting director in NYC during the late 70s and started a unfortunately very short But at the time, uh quite remarkable movie career, becoming the face of some of our favorite films of the late 70s and early 80s. I will say if Van Leith had been in more of this movie, he would have been the best thing in it as well. ah Or possibly even topping Killian. Because he is, he's the best of the stalkers. He's the best of the, what they call the stalkers in the movie, the ones that are hunting the running men. um And when he starts singing the opera, Yeah, I mean, you just expect him to be lip-syncing it, but it's like, no, he's singing it because he's trained to do this type of a thing. So, yeah, he unfortunately passed away of a heart attack, like right before this film's release. He was a giant of a man, kind of Andre the giantish type of thing, where he was just a larger than life literally figure. um And so suffered from health problems for for those reasons, very likely. So very tragic. But yeah, he is amazing in this and he is one of the highlights for sure. But in any event. The Running Man was slated to open in summer tent pole season 1987, but found itself scheduled against another Arnold tent pole predator. The decision was made to push the release back to Thanksgiving. This is the problem with hiring Arnold Schwarzenegger's. He's everything around that time. So it's just sort of like greatest movie star movies a year. I know he was still he was still breaking like Terminator had just come out. Predator was about to land. So this was like the moment where it was Conan was, it hit good, um but I feel like he was still finding who he was. Cause after Conan, it's like, okay, I have this voice, you know, and it's like, and I can do the meathead type of a thing, but what else can I do? And then he did Terminator, which is the more silent, like just imposing science fiction figure and the villain of the piece really. So he was still finding what exactly he was going to be like, what is this marquee iconic, you know, Because shortly after I think after commando, then this then predator like that's when it's cemented. It's like, ah, this is Arnold. Now Arnold Schwarzenegger is bringing Arnold Schwarzenegger to the world like he's not really playing a role anymore. He's him. And that's what people want. That is what people expect. Yeah, this film definitely came out in what I'll call his like adolescent phase where he was really, as you were saying, of experimenting and trying on the different roles and archetypes to see, you know, was he the sort of, uh you know, romantic cover lead, you know, from Conan, because that's really just all that character is. ah You know, was he sort of a future Ford kind of warrior? Was he, you know, squarely rooted in, you know, the politics of the day? And this whole period, I think some of most exciting stuff he's ever done comes from this period because like you said, he was he the machine around him was trying to figure out the marketing of this, you know, Titan and it was clear he was going to be a Titan in the industry. And that's why I love this whole period of his work. uh I do and I don't. Well, you know what I do? I do. Just not this movie. We'll talk about it. But I do like this period. the fact that we got Terminator and Conan. You know what? I don't like Commando either. And that's a D'Souza. D'Souza, however you pronounce his name. D'Souza, yeah. Yeah, that's a D'Souza script as well. And Commando in this movie are two of the rare ones where he is the sole credited writer. And that's rare for him, like Die Hard, 48 Hours, other writers wrote with him. And those movies I like much better than these. These, and also after Commando, you can tell uh D'Souza, he's basically on record being like, now I had to make this an Arnold vehicle with one-liners and buttons. And he basically just wrote Commando in the running man world. And I'm like, oh, that's a little too literal and on the nose. I get that you have to change a few things for short snaker versus someone like Chris and every man like or another Christopher Reeve looks like an every man in terms of like good looks or anything like that. But in terms of like physical imposing this, it's like, sure. And he's more of an every man in that regard or something. You he looks average build and height and so on and so forth. I think he took it a little too far by just writing commando in the running man world where that's the part that doesn't work for me, where I'm just like. Arnold Schwarzenegger in this movie feels as out of place as he does in Batman and Robin. Because it's not, he shouldn't have just been Arnold Schwarzenegger in that world. They should have let him be slightly different instead of like, I have my one liners, know, chill out and like things like that. And then here it also, the one liners feel so ridiculous. ridiculously out of place every time they come, he spouts one, they shoot, they feel so shoehorned in like, and now you say a line Arnold and it's a cheesy one-liner and it makes no sense in the context of what's happening. There's so many great one-liners in this film. When I say great, I mean hilarious, because they seem so out of place and so just out of step with the film. But then I have to remember, OK, this is just a movie. This isn't fucking high cinema. This is meant to entertain you. And I think he says the phrase, I'll be back to Richard Dawson's character when they first send him. looks like square in the eyes. unironically and says, I'll be back. I was like, okay, Brady, all right. I know. Come on, come on. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. The one liners in this one. Now, to be fair, Terminator had just come out, so it wasn't quite the like complete like, that's I want to call it lazy. And to some degree, I still think they are. also, this was the era where one liners like this were kind of this was a new maybe maybe a newish thing, I think, for cinema. Like they weren't quite as. Place until the 80s. that's true. That became a real thing, like a standout sort of tag for the character. was definitely late 70s, early 80s for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so because a lot of these like in one scene, he has two one liners both need a lift and going down. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. I'm like, these are the laziest. Have a light. They're just they feel so lazy. They're not even good or funny or clever. They're just but then I also have to remember that maybe just maybe because this was the beginning of such kind of one liners. Maybe these were all back in the day, like, considered like, all right. I mean, they're dumb, but they're like, it's like a bad Vaudevillian joke, right? We were like, it's clever. And it's but it's so on the nose and such a pun heavy ish type of a thing that you find it funny because about bad. It's like a dad joke, right? It's so bad. It's good kind of a thing. It's so bad. It's funny. Maybe I still didn't like it took me out of the movie every single time. So I have issues with that. But to wrap this up here. The decision was made to push the release back to Thanksgiving to avoid clashing with Predator and competing directly with it. And with a total budget of $25 million. Okay, so not into the 30s, it was just 25 million. not terrible. Not terrible. It does make me wonder if they actually went over 17 million though, or what they were, because I thought it was 18 million they were going for. maybe it went down. That's a little confusing. Yeah, it's a little confusing. Anyways, with the total budget supposedly of $25 million. Thanks. premiered on November 13th, 1987 to generally positive reviews. Shockingly, honestly, I had to look that up. I was like, no fucking way. I went back to the old reviews on Rotten Tomatoes because remember Rotten Tomatoes has the old stuff. And then you also have the new stuff that's trickled in since. And I went back to like the old stuff and I was like, yeah, son of a bitch, they are predominantly positive. I'm like, wow, interesting. So it makes sense. Reviews and an eight Yeah, well, again, we'll talk about we'll talk about and positive reviews and an eight point one million dollar opening weekend with a total box office of thirty eight point one million. So failing to break even by typical Hollywood math, but not bad over the the production budget, right, of twenty five million. And obviously this will have home video life. So plainly, this movie has made plenty of money since then. But in the box office didn't quite break even a remake. Or perhaps it's more accurate to call it a re-adaptation of the original novel is set to be released this Friday, November 14th, 2025, directed by Edgar Wright and adapted by Wright and Michael Bacall and starring Glenn Powell, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Amelia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Jamie Lawson, Sean Hayes, Coleman Domingo and Josh Brolin. The new film is said to be a more faithful adaptation of the original King. or Bachman novel. I'm excited about that cast actually that cast sounds like that's just filled with heavy hitters and I really hope the script has some weight to it because I would hate to see a readaptation of the original novel kind of fail but I hope it's got some I do too. I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest with you. Edgar Wright doesn't give me faith for weight. That's why I said that, exactly. Yeah, I Edgar Wright is a stylish AF director. He's got he's got the style. He's got the he knows he knows how to do a needle drop, obviously, ever since Baby Driver. Everyone knows he knows how to do a fucking needle drop. And look, when he came out of the gate with Shaun of the Dead, that was a shockingly emotionally well done movie, like character driven, emotional, funny and horrific. And like everything worked. And then he sort of went kind of a Guillermo del Toro route where he started so strong and then lost himself to the visual substance versus anything substance beyond the style and the visuals and the whatnot. um So I don't have a lot of faith on that. uh So we'll see. We'll see. And this we'll talk about this movie in just a minute. But before we get to the wines, because we have to say what we're to pair with this movie. Quick stock, we've already kind of revealed what our overall reaction was to this movie. But first off, Dallas, start us off. When was the last time you saw this movie? And I'm assuming you had seen this movie before watching it for this, to prepare for this podcast. And then what did you think on this latest watch and did anything change? So it's been at least at least a full decade since I've watched this movie start to finish. I put it in maybe two or three years ago. Put it in. What is what do I have? VHS? No, I started watching it. Maybe. I mean, I do actually have the I actually know that I say that I have all of the media. Oh, I miss that sound, man. I miss that sound so. Anyway, um but I put it in for a very specific reason. Actually, it was one of the earlier episodes. I needed to watch a very specific scene because I was referencing it in one of our earlier episodes. I can't actually recall which episode now. um But again, it's been about a decade since I've seen it all the way through. And prior to that, it was probably a solid decade. Now, when I first encountered this film, um it was probably... 1988, 89, 1990 in there somewhere and watched it monthly at least once for about a year. And so it's definitely been a while. There's been some time. I think the film is more in step with attention spans today and uh consumption habits today than it was when it came out. And I will say, this is what makes me excited about the remake because we already live in a time where this, with the exception of the death, right? This is our reality. The top rated shows year after year for the past two decades have been competition uh reality shows where people are dropped into places or are competing in front of the entire country for some sort of prize and often you are you are sort of you know your your mission is galvanized by your ability to uh bear your worst experiences for the viewing public and audience and show your pain and all so it is this it is a weird Can I can I just say too, the person who created American Gladiator is on record as saying this movie was the inspiration for it, not just the inspiration. When he pitched American Gladiator, he literally went into meetings and said, showed them Running Man or or mentioned Running Man and said that we're doing that, but for real and without the death. And that was the pitch. Sure. And by the way, that uh there is a great docu-series on Netflix about the original American Gladiator series. I highly recommend you fans of the 80s and 90s check it out. But uh this is our reality. mean, best rated, highest rated television shows on the TV for the past decade or two have been reality concepts. And now you look at the popularity of a show, a fictional show, Like, what's the Korean show? We just, the juggernaut that was the... m Oh, octopus game, squid game, squid game. Squid games. octopus games. I like it. I like it. ah But you look at something like squid games, which is, you know, for all intents and purposes, just sort of an extension of this concept. ah We have primed the pump, right? We are in this reality, the reality that this film sort of posits and ah I can't readily articulate it because I haven't sat down to actually write an essay about it yet. ah But this film seems so much more in tune and in step with consumption habits today with ah the sort of socio-political sort of concepts we are currently dealing with. And there's a part of me that wants to say, you know, this is a slippery slope, guys. Right down the road, this reality might become a reality because the pump is already primed. Of course, that's me. Catastrophizing, of course. But uh I do think this film ah is... I hate the phrase ahead of its time because that's a ridiculous concept, but, um you know, it just seems to carry a little more weight, isn't the word, a little more... I'm not sure. It's definitely not weight. ah But it just... Here's the thing. I think if people rewatch this film... and removed their cynicism about the way it's sort of presented, the sort of design, the sort of bad writing, the punny writing, the campy campiness of it all. It might be a little unsettling because that reality is possibly so much closer than not to where we are right now. Anyway, I'm going off cliff here. Thoughts, thoughts. Mm So I, I, I mostly disagree with all of all of that take. um I think I don't think I've seen this movie since I was a teenager or early 20s whenever I first saw it, like right around that time, I didn't see it when it first came out. I wasn't allowed to watch rated R movies when I was a kid. So the 80s, there was a no go. So I didn't see it when it first came out. And by the time I was older and I watched it, I remember not liking it a lot. back in the day, I didn't have a lot to, I didn't have a lot of thoughts on it. I was just like, eh, it's a okay, short snigger film, kind of forgettable, fun concept. The concept always sounds better than it actually is. um And then I watched it and I was like, I never went back to it until now. And so I think this might've been the second time I've ever seen it was watching it for this podcast. And I hated it. I hated it. I did not enjoy the experience. I did not enjoy most of what I mean, I admired what it was trying to do, but I think it's too dumb. I think it's not handling its themes well. I do. You mentioned that it's ahead of its time, but I disagree on a number of fronts on. What I said was, specifically what I said was, I don't want to use the phrase, it's ahead of its time. There's a phrase there, because it is not ahead of its time. It's a dumb film. True, but you also said, you don't want to say it's ahead of its time, but the other thing you said was that it's more pertinent today and for the audience today than in the past. And I also disagree with that. I don't think that's accurate. um We don't, I think everything that's happened in the world shows how something like The Running Man really would never work and would never pacify the masses and would never, the masses don't have the attention span to love a show like this today. the way they did in the past. In the past, you could have a game show maybe that was like, you know, we were monoculture back then. So you could have one show that everyone, the vast majority, the majority loved. And I don't think that exists today. You can have hit shows, you can have phenomenons that cross countries to some degree, but you don't have like just this majority where the culture is Because even nowadays, when they say the culture, it's like it's some number that's impressive for now to get such a divided, bifurcated culture where everyone's in their own little bubble. Suddenly you get enough of them all watching one show and you're like, it's a sensation. But you know what? You go out on the street and start asking people, everyone's heard of Squid Game. How many people have actually seen it? How many people have actually watched it? How many people are binging it? How many people got jumped into the second season the moment it came out? It doesn't. really happen anymore. No one's going to be glued to their screen for a single show anymore. And I think even if you're talking about, the Trump era, where there is definitely a certain level of cruelty that is suddenly becoming more mainstream than we ever thought it could be, at least in terms of what the administration is doing, the stories that are coming out. then people aren't even really sure what to too about it because it's just happening and we don't have a lot. Like we can't just go out and we can't just stop it. We can't just make it stop. If we try to stop like ice from doing the cruel things they're doing, we just get arrested along with them. Like you kind of can't you can you can protest you can make a statement by by getting in the way, but you can't stop it from happening easily if at all. And certainly the MAGA crowd like the diehards, there's a certain they're signing up to be ice. people like there's if they did a show where we were throwing immigrants into a running man game, they would eat it up. No question. But that's one group of people. And they're not even a majority. If you get to the diehards that truly want to see this televised, most people aren't. It's not drumming up a storm of controversy because people don't pay attention and they're not sure what to believe. And that's fair game in this day and age and with with online misinformation and whatnot. And in this movie, this movie, you have a small rebellion pirate a station for a handful of minutes and it just takes down an entire misinformation machine. Like in one go, and I'm like, yeah, guys, no, it's just that's not how it works. This point, that's that. the moral of the entire thing. All it takes is a small band, a small band of triers and doers. All it takes is a small band of triers and doers. Right, so I think this movie, it was very of its time in terms of how they thought anything like this could possibly happen and might actually uh occur. even in that time, like people, I don't think people then would have like, these people are, it's one thing if these were in the original story, I think the Stephen King short story actually makes some, or short story novel, Bachman novel actually makes more sense in the setup in that. These are desperate people that are, they're accepting this crazy risk to achieve a lifestyle they couldn't achieve otherwise. That's something I can see culture kind of being okay with. It'd have its rebellions, it would have its resistance groups, it would have its political activists against it. But you're kind of like, but they accept the risk. in this case, these are like, according, it's misinformation and it's a lie, but the public thinks they're murderers. that they are like wild killers and we're gonna give them money and let them go if they kill the stalkers who we love as icons on TV. Like it makes no sense. It makes no sense an audience would like any of this or approve of any of it. It just doesn't work if you think about it for more than two hot seconds. This movie is too dumb to be ahead of its time, effective. or having a message that resonates. I just don't see it. It's not for No, it uh is a gloriously dumb film, but for me, I do think that sort of the architecture of this film in terms of what they're attempting to do. And by the way, it just with the background of how this film was made, my God, I'm one surprised that it was even done. ah Two surprised that there's even a sort of narrative structure to follow. ah But it is there's some there's some lofty sort of goals and ideas behind it, as you said. And, know, for me, I would like to see a version of this film that successfully capitalizes on those aims, because I do think yes. You know, like I really, I really, really I know that the new film is going to be fairly faithful to Stephen King's original. uh uh... telling and you know I'm gonna say let's see right it is right it is a good right we've been We've been told this from Hollywood before, so we shall see. You'll notice there's no Stephen King's The Running Man on the marquee. That's a good That is a very good point. I'm curious now what his sound bites have been about the film. I'm assuming he's seen it. he may be the point now where he just... I didn't look it up. didn't look it. We're not covering that film. So I didn't look it up. Yeah. But we may circle back and do a bookend for these two. um But we'll see. We shall see. see. We shall see. But let's get to the pairings. Dallas, what are you pairing with this ahead of its time, more pertinent to modern audiences than the audiences of the 80s? What are you pairing with this disaster piece? As I said, I think uh there is that core sort of note of rebellion that is uh necessary right now, that is pertinent. I think there is that uh sort of examination of uh sort of cultural sort of What's the phrase? It's a garishness. is the I think of reality shows as pornography. I do. It is weird. It's weirdly pornographic to me. um I'd be OK. That's no, I think pornographic is the word. But but, you know, and course in the non-sexual context. But uh I will say particularly that. Producorial thing that happens in these reality shows where you need the human interest story in order to give an engine to the subject, something for the audience to root for. And that usually entails uh a very sad or sob story where people are encouraged to kind of mine their existence and put their wounds and, you know, pains right on the table for everyone to sort of. just dig around in and uh excavate and that is weirdly pornographic to me and I just have never been able to kind of get behind it. But I get it from the production standpoint, that's the whole point. it, this film definitely, like we were saying, it has, there's some architecture in there that's just fantastic. Like there's some aims that are lofty and necessary. and they were necessary in the 80s and they were fucking even more necessary now to kind of just dig into and try and further it. So I think at its core, has a uh richness, a sort of a ripeness. uh So I know I wanted something that was sort of deep and uh pleasant and hearty to a certain degree, uh even though the film doesn't actually. There's no synergy to the film. There is no synergy to this film whatsoever. It is all a bunch of disparate sort of things happening and they're tossed in a bowl and salad dressing is added and then it's served and it's it's it's tasty at certain points. But, you know, because of that, I needed something that sort of could stand up to it. It was a little sort of a little more balanced, I suppose. And I remember hearing this story. think you and I discussed this vineyard. It's the Eide from Sonoma County. And I'll make sure to put this in the actual document because I haven't yet. Anyway, in Sonoma lore, William B. Eide presided over the rebellious California Republic, an independent nation that in the summer of 1846 existed for 25 days in between Mexico and American governance of the region. uh This moment in time was known as California's Eide. um And uh this is a pure cabsoff uh from the Greater Sonoma region. ah It is a lovely little hand-picked vintage. They're kind of known for this. um It is in terms of tasting notes. It is a good blackberry core. um At least to me, I get just a ton of blackberry on this and black fruit. Of course. um It is really well balanced and I I'm not gonna say I can drink an entire bottle, but I could probably get two or three glasses out of this and not be bored or annoyed with it, just like the running math. It is not perfect. It is a not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination. It is not well No, we agree on much more, you know, we agree on the idea that there are they're very yeah, but but even with this film, you know, there are very lofty goals, you know, there are things that resonate you can tell that if I don't know if you can tell this but I wonder um You know had production gone a bit more seamlessly, right ah what we would have gotten. did say that Andrew Davis could have handled this like he had a way to handle the themes better. And it was when the glass or the TV director came in and was just like, get it done, get it done, get it done. And he kind of complained off, you know, in recent years of the fact that Glasser, because he was a TV director, like everything was so on the nose and straightforward and point and shoot. And he's like, that's the point. He's not lost. He's like, there's there was no real handling of them. That wasn't what Glasser was interested in or focused on. He was just getting the job of literally getting the fucking film in the can. Yeah. And a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And so Shortstinker thought that hurt how this movie performed in the end. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So yeah, I went with the cab solve lamp lighter from I'd in Sonoma County. This is a 2022 full cabs of one 100 % hand picked it is you around anywhere from 21 to 30 bucks. Then dome it if anyone's familiar with them Tom in California or is it been domain I think it's been dome I keep saying domain. There's no accent on the no idea, but let's go with Vendome. So yeah. oh It's V E N D O E, Venn Dome. Maybe it's French and it's Venn Dome. Or I could just be as obnoxious as I usually am and saying whatever I want to say and adding letters. So that's we do here. That's what we do. All right, Dave, what you got, All right, so, you know, this movie is dumb to me. It wasn't fun. It wasn't entertaining. ah The plot is nothing but convenient setups and payoffs. ah The way a single hero and that small band of resistance fighters dismantle that entire misinformation system by pirating the airwaves, it just led to an unbelievable and poor finale as well. police and security guards just rush out into the open to be picked off by Schwarzenegger and co. While the heroes are just like standing out in the open feet planted and not a single bullet hits them. I mean so much about everything that should be fun about this movie just drove me batshit. So they get revenge on the game show host without actually tackling the underlying machinery that made him possible. So it's like not even. I'm like, okay, and like, where is this movie? This is the end. The action is WWF mouth breathing idiocy, just unexciting, slow lumbering meatheaded. It's dumb. It's I'm annoyed. It annoyed the absolute shit out of me. Everything about this movie annoyed the absolute shit out of me. That said, this movie is, you to your point about pairing it with a cab saw, this movie is excessive. It's a lot of a lot. Now it's a lot of a lot of brain dead shittiness to me. And the reason I couldn't go, I thought of going with like just a really intense red wine kind of a thing, maybe a really intense white or orange wine, but something intense. Something is just like a lot in excess of, but this movie also, frankly, it isn't deep. isn't complex or thought provoking. Even superficially, the themes are barely there, barely functioning. So while I watched it, first off, while I watched it, I completely forgot to drink anything. I just watched it in slack jaw disgust until it was over. And then it was over and I was like, ah right, pairing, shit, shit. um So look, I mean. I'm not going to say don't watch this. uh right, right, right. I'm not going to say don't watch because different strokes for different folks. And frankly, this movie is I know it has its fans. I like I know it has its fans. I got to say what's in my heart here. But I know this is a fun fucking time for a lot of people and no no shade, no shame on anyone where this is a fun ride. can totally see how. So if you want to enjoy this film for all the reasons that I don't. I do think that the following will be a solid pairing. Cider. Get one. Get a cider that isn't too sweet. A cider that's largely dry, but not too dry. A touch of sweetness, right? The movie itself is not sweet. It's not saccharine. um For me, it wasn't particularly fun, but it is. think if there's something to be gained from this movie, a joy, it's going to be the fun. part of it, right? Just the sheer exuberance of it and the silliness of it and the idiocy of it. It's going to be a good time. So you need a touch of sweetness, but not too much because it is still kind of a mean and serious movie in its way. So it's violent. It's ah it's trying to be a very, very weighty movie. I don't think it succeeds, but it's like it's trying for that. So mostly dry touch of sweetness. um This is mostly what I consider to be a beer movie, which tells you how much I think what I think of beer. But I wouldn't drink something I didn't like to pair with it. So you need something nice to counteract the pain. So this is a beer dumb in that in all the 1980s California slash Hollywood ways of the time. And so I picked the California cider, though, if you're East Coast. Maybe consider looking for a main cider to honor the Stephen King roots of the story and do a main style version. But I chose a cider called Golden State Mighty Dry Cider. It's what's in my glass here, the slight fizziness and whatnot, which is a mostly dry cider, 6.1 % ABV, slightest touch of sweetness to make it nicer, more sippable. They also make a brute bone dry cider fermented with champagne yeast at 6.9 % ABV, but that is way too refined for this. So I'm not gonna say, do not go bone dry, do not go with the champagne yeast. But in fact, I do think the ideal cider, it's not the one I'm sipping here, but they also make, if you can find it, Golden State makes a Jamaican cider, which also contains a touch of sugar. It's about, think, 5.9 % ABV. in the lower the ABV, the more sugar they're leaving in that cider. And then it's infused with Jamaican hibiscus for a tart bitter element as well. And I think that touch of sweetness, mostly dry, then with that bitterness, I think the bitterness would actually make me feel good watching this movie. That's like, I'm just like, yeah, I'm not, I don't like this movie. Let me, let me, let me get a little zing of something in there. So I think the bitterness, a touch of sweetness, mostly dry, and cider, it's light, it's not too weighty, it's not too serious, it's always a little bit crisp. So yeah, I gotta go with cider, and for me, Golden State from Sonoma County, ah California, cider, the mighty dry or the Jamaican. That's what I think. We got two Sonoma's today, so I'm gonna go with a bit of an alternate pairing here a Little coda here a little alternate pairing um If you guys haven't seen our episode on ah It was uh what was the film dead male? First of all go I let's I know it's been the right technically our last We're doing this every other week. We slowed down for a couple months to give ourselves some time. And so we're not used to it. used to every week just churning this stuff out. That's actually check. I'm like, yeah, we did something last week. Of course we did two things now, but it was our episode on dead milk. Please go check it out and and even if you don't watch the episode, listen to the episode. Check the movie out. Deadmail. Amazing. Deadmail. M-A-I-L. Film. Yes. Yeah, please check out this film 2024. But we Dave and I discovered something during that episode, which kind of sent both of us for a bit of a loop. Honestly, sent both of us for a bit of a loop. And that is re you fucking meaty. And I'm going to say it worked because I'm going to tell you why. Because It's not too weighty. It's a touch of sweetness, not too dry. It's got just enough enough flavor and depth without being a lot of flavor or it does match. And honestly, when I was thinking of cider, I was thinking Lambrusco as well. But we just did reunite Lambrusco. So I was like, no, no, no. Something else. And I went to cider instead for that. But Lambrusco overall and reunite in specific, which is a Lambrusco, a kind of a type of Lambrusco. Yeah. All of that would work for this, I agree. And specifically for the reason that you could probably drink three quarters of a bottle of reunity and not be terribly drunk because it's it's it's it's but it's also a happy wine and the film isn't terribly great. What was it like? Was it six point something percent or eight eight percent ish? It was low ABV. Maybe not as low as cider, but but but up there low low down there. It was getting close to down there. was like 80 percent or something like that. Yeah, so yeah, we apparently we become the podcast of Reunity. ah uh So you need eon ice so nice Media nice so nice and I'm surprised they didn't have it in this film because it would have fit perfectly because it is a branding and marketing just Cluster fuck there's so much branding And 1985 was Ruiuniti's biggest year of sales in America at 11.5 million, million cases, which is like 130 something million bottles, which is nother. It was the number, I still can't get over this fact, number one imported wine in the United States from 1974 until the year 2000. Fascinating! I'm telling you, we were a monoculture then. We would all get behind the same things. That's what's changed. Where now nothing sells that much as just the one thing. And that's where I feel like, yeah, we need a reimagining. Because this is what this type of dystopia looked like to writers back then. And now I'm like, yeah, it doesn't really hold up because so much of culture has changed and how things work and how we. go off the rails with misinformation and things like everything's it's not quite the same. Anyway, final thoughts. Any final thoughts before we wrap this up or have we have I bitched enough and have you glowed enough about this Well, I only glow because I am one of those people like I do wait the attempt in many things. um And uh I think again, the attempt is here, but it was just lost in the production. Dear God was everything lost in the production. um And I'm really hoping and praying that this new The reimagining Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm excited to see what comes out of this new one. um And uh we'll see if they give any homage to this original film. So yeah, no other thoughts. Watch it as an exercise. Watch it as a storytelling world building exercise and see what you would change. See what should have changed or see what you keep. So anyway, final thoughts. That's it. And if you love this movie, love it. Don't mind me. I'm not gonna love it. didn't even back then, like something about it never really connected with me, even when I was younger, even long before we're in the modern era. I always, this movie never the type of fun it was, never quite connected with me. And I love short snicker movies in general. Then again, will say again, Commando is also one of my least favorite short snicker films. that's just ridiculous. something about D'Souza and Schwarzenegger, the combo there, even though I love his Street Fighter. So there is something interesting about all of that. Can I just say also about D'Souza and Street Fighter when they first they did when they first gave did a cut and they released it, the MPAA gave it an R rating. Right. That's right. So they they did some edits. They gave it a G rating. I didn't know that. Jesus Christ. It went from R to G and then they. In post. Then they added one expletive in post just to put it back up to PG-13 because they were like, yeah, we can't release it as a G rated movie. That is insane. So brilliant. But I love Street Fighter. I'm not that into his short singer things. Anyways, folks, thanks so much for listening. As always, uh please make sure to. Follow and subscribe to this podcast if you like what you hear today. If you love this wine pairing with movies. Sometimes we even do like music, comics and books. So we're gonna have some very special guests coming up as well. So I have guests from the entertainment world and the wine world all coming up very soon. Rate us, give us a five stars, five stars. Give us the top rating you can. And you can also find us on Substack, entertainmentstudios.com. That's glorified vanity URL that'll take you to our Substack. That's where we post all. Also, this podcast gets posted there. Bonus episodes, bonus write ups on film, on wine. If you want to learn more about both and you want to interact with us and get closer and get to know us, go find us at entertainmentstudios.com. There will be a link down below in the description of this episode. And you can also become, believe it or not, a producer of this episode. And if you become a producer, you get to commission your own episode. Tell us what we want to cover. uh Last week's Dead Mail, an amazing movie that was on our radar, but we hadn't watched until one of our producers commissioned it and made us watch it. And we are so grateful that she did. And that is Jessica Mayson. who is also not incidentally going to be a very special guest on this podcast coming up. think the next episode, but we shall see. Subjects who change, but I think it'll be the next episode. And she was a great producer. You can find her on monsteroftheweek.substack.com. She is a graphic novelist and novelist extraordinaire, horror fantasy genre. She is amazing. Monster of the week dot sub stack.com or other two producers you get a shout out every episode if you become a producer as well. So shout out to our other two producers. uh Kate Rochelle of survives on wine dot sub stack.com. She is a Portuguese wine expert and she does these amazing visual tasting notes on her sub stack highly recommend checking her out. And Paul Kalamkiarian of wine talks with Paul K. He is an OG podcaster. His podcast is eons beyond what this podcast is. If you like this podcast, you're gonna love his podcast Paul wine talks with Paul K Paul Kalmkearian. Thank you so much to our first three producers. You can also support this podcast over at sub stack at a much lower tier than just becoming a producer at just $5 a month or no, no, no, I'm sorry $2 a month or $19 and 60 cents a year, you can become a supporter of this podcast. helps us pay the bills for all the services it takes to get a podcast out there, you would be surprised how many it takes to get it out there to edit it. All the services, all the, and these days, like everything's riddled with AI and they keep upping the price. Whether we use the AI or not, they keep upping the price, it's there. um So we try to do this as manually as possible, but, and of course the equipment, we got to have nice cameras, microphones, all that stuff to... give you the best podcast possible. if you want to support us two bucks a month or $19.60 a year, entertainment studios.com. Thanks so much, everybody. We will be back, I think this time in one week with another one entertainment pairing for your entertainment. So we have so many guests coming up that we've got to actually turn these out. So thank you so much for listening. We'll catch you next time. Later guys. It wasn't popular enough for like my relatives. Why didn't you tell me I had spinach in my teeth you bastard go on You're so pixelated I can't tell. Okay, all right, noted. I withdraw my asshole comment. All right, go on. It's alright, I'm like, fix your internet connection and then I can tell you if you have spinach in your teeth. uh, well it's already 12 hours before you wake up again, so you know. It's very true. It's very fucking true. Although I will say the older I get the more I look at your sleep schedule. I'm really envious sometimes. Like because I am one of those guys I will definitely I will find myself going to bed at like you know two or three sometimes if I fall asleep I will wake up and like have to do a little work or get ideas out of my mind and then go to bed but I'm up at the crack of dawn even you know if I go to bed at two so yeah. So it's life. Drugs yourself, I'm telling you, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs. I mean, it's a drug, it's a wine, sure, melatonin, gummies, uh Z-Quill, like whatever. I feel like you haven't experimented enough with the proper mix. You're probably right. You are probably quite right, honestly. And now the answer to the wine trivia question of the week. The answer is E. All of the above. All the counties, all the wine countries. was 2017 was a pretty shitty time for Northern California thanks to those fires. So it's amazing we have wine from Northern California in 2017. I know a lot of places that only release certain wines because of the smoke taint, because of issues. They lost. parts of their vineyards, um it was a wreck. Nothing like Running Man, but still not a great time.