RR Shelf Help / COBRA (Arrow Video 4K)

Paul does a mini dive on this weirdly influential, and equally tongue in cheek Stallone vanity piece "Cobra" (d. Cosmatos 1986) released by Arrow Video in 4k. A movie that has been argued to be shadow directed by Stallone, having origins in "Beverly Hills Cop," and being an indispensable LA noir experience. And how about that poster?!

**All episodes contain explicit language**
Main Artwork - Ben McFadden
'Review Review Intro/Outro' Themes - Jamie Henwood
"What Are We Watching?" & "Whatcha Been Doin'?" Themes - Matthew Fosket
"Fun Facts" Theme - Chris Olds/Paul Root
Lead-Ins Edited/Conceptualized by - Ben McFadden
Produced by - Ben McFadden & Paul Root ("Shelf Help" - Paul Root)
Podcast/Program Concept - Paul Root

***This Podcast/Program is for entertainment purposes only. This Podcast/Program includes parody. This Podcast/Program contains peer review, film review, and film/art preservation discussions. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Streaming services are a disease. Shelf help is the cure.

Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey listener, welcome. It's Paul. It's another edition of the Review Review Shelf Help. A corner of the Review Review Universe dedicated to assisting you in making your next physical media acquisition the right one for you and for the people that you care about. Again, my name is Paul. I'm a regular co-host here. Not that Ben is irregular. Sometimes I'm irregular. It just depends on how I'm feeling. It's just me here. There's nobody else here.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

I'm a one-man army. Like Cobra. Or Dirty Harry.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Or Ryan Gosling and Drive. Drive Man. I think they called him Drive Man. Today I brought you

Whatcha Got?! (Cobra - Arrow Video 4K)

SPEAKER_00 0:52

the Aero Video 4K release of not Stallone Cobra. But Cobra. Stallone in Cobra. When I was a kid, I thought it was called Stallone Cobra.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Cuz this is a version of Stallone if he was like, hey, yo, what if Dirty Harry was also like Superman? Or what if Superman was the Punisher? Then he would be me. Stallone the Cobra.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

I think that's what it is. Because that's essentially what this character is. It's like, what if Dirty Harry were Superman but the Punisher? I think that's the best way I can describe this character. Why do I have this film? How could I not have this film? How could I not bring you this film? I have owned this film, I think twice now. I believe I owned it on digital video disc. And now I have the fantastic arrow 4K edition of this film. And this is like a quintessential must-have action movie. Maverick cop, lone wolf cop, renegade cop, dirty hairy cop, lone gun, gunslinger. This is a massively important part of that genre. And I am a fan of the genre. So here we are. Cobra was produced

What's It About?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

by Golan Globus, the folks who brought us canon films. Warner Brothers Pictures. It's from 1986. It's rated R. It's an hour and 27 minutes. It's really more like 88 minutes if you add all the seconds and everything. It's more like that. It's an action thriller kind of slasher giallo picture. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous movie. It was directed by George P. Cosmatos. Are you sure? A lot of people would say. Letterboxed would say that the co-director of this film is Sylvester Stallone. And although he was a producer, writer, star of this film, and steered this in certain directions, doesn't ultimately get co-director credit, so I don't really understand that. But whatever. George P. Cosmatos also directed Tombstone. Really? Didn't Kurt Russell maybe co-direct? We can't talk about that in this episode. He also directed a pretty fun alien rip called Leviathan. This was written by Sylvester Stallone, who wrote the sequel to Saturday Night Fever Staying Alive. And the arm wrestling for the custody of your son and respect of your former father-in-law over the top. This movie also stars Sylvester Stallone as Marion Cobra Cobretti. Marion, and a nod maybe to John Wayne there. He was in Demolition Man. Could this be a sequel to Demolition Man? Should instead of naming the Demolition Man John Spartan, should they have just called him Cobra? Uh damn Cobretti. Like I think that just fits like a glove, like a sleek leather glove. And in this movie, those gloves do fit. Sylvester Stallone was also in Tango and Cash. Movie co-stars Brigitte Nielsen as Ingrid Knutsen. She was in Red Sonia. And Beverly Hills Cop 2, which is interesting. Is it? Is that a thing? That this movie, Stallone morphed it from Beverly Hills Cop into this, and it ended up with Eddie Murphy and Beverly Hills Cop instead of Sylvester Stallone. And that's all how that worked out. And I think it worked out great. Also has Andrew Robinson, who was the evil killer guy in Dirty Harry. He plays Detective Monty in this. He was also in Child's Play 3. Fun fact about this movie it originally received an X rating. Approximately 33 minutes of the original version was cut to create the R-rated theatrical version. What is that version? Well, I'm gonna break it down for you. Stallone Cobra, Fat Cobra Cobretti, Fat Cobra Video Cobretti, ripping, is a loose cannon cop. He's part of the zombie squad. He's one of those people that has no empathy for criminals and apparently no concern for his own well-being or legal uh situations being sued or imprisoned or what have you. And if something bad's going down, he's uh he's gonna kill the person responsible or he deems responsible for that. Uh he is the law. Reminds me of something else he's done to a degree. Sorry if you hear that humming in the background. It is my countertop-based ice machine. It makes great, like clear pebble ice, and I like to have that on demand. So we're gonna leave it, we're gonna leave it in this moment.

Sell It To Me

SPEAKER_00 5:49

There is a serial killer, uh, I think maybe lightly based off of the Night Stalker who reigned terror in Los Angeles, I think mostly in the 80s, maybe the 90s as well, but definitely in the 80s. And basically the way it breaks down is this Bobo Richard Ramirez guy is part of a big death cult, and they want to kill all the people that are not up to snuff by their code. They uh want to kill the weak, and that's pretty much anybody who can't stop them from randomly rushing them in the middle of the night with axes or whatever. Tough test, tough crowd. Cobra has to save a model from a bunch of robots and music videos, and a weird avant-garde career of some sort of something, and crazed murderers, and there's like no plot, no backstory about anybody, you're just in the middle of it, which actually is part of what makes the movie like kind of fun and cool, and it is part of this great kind of genre, sub-genre, micro genre of films. Uh Fear City, Abel Ferrara, Striking Distance, Rowdy Harrington, who did Roadhouse, listened to our Roadhouse episode, and our Roadhouse Shelf help about the vinegar syndrome 4K. Great episode Drives uh Thief, which predates it, Collateral, which post-dates it. I I mentioned Dirty Harry, and all these music video influences. It's a cool movie, and it's beautiful, and it's just bathed in neon and this insane machismo that exists through and around and via Stallone. It is an absolutely fantastic package as well. So it's got like the cardboard slip with the classic Stallone Cobra poster with the reflective mirror glasses, as there are a lot of reflections and mirrors and stuff in this movie, which is symbolistic of all sorts of things. The movie also includes a double-sided poster with the classic and the new arrow version. It has a booklet with little essays and blurbs about the movie. It has a ton of featurettes, making of theatrical trailers, teaser trailers, commentaries. It looks and sounds absolutely fantastic. Not to get overly nerdy here, but when he cuts the pizza with the scissors, the sound of those scissors and like the clank, it's so satisfying. The original 35mm camera negative was scanned to create a 4K 16 bit that Warner Brothers uh motion picture imaging worked on with Silver Star Salt Studios for the color grading. It just looks and sounds better than it ever has. The depth and the mood that the neon and stuff creates in this movie and the shadows create in this movie. It's it's moodier than ever.

Rate It

SPEAKER_00 9:12

So clearly, I've rewatched this recently. I'm gonna rate the movie a heart. I can't put a rate I'm gonna rate the movie a fat cobra. We'll replace the heart with a big fat cobra cabretti.

unknown 9:26

Let's go!

SPEAKER_00 9:27

I can't rate it with stars. It is such a specific movie, it is so insanely violent, it has no storyline, it is none of this is really like tangible, like exists in a fantasy world. This is Stallone what if uh Superman were the Punisher? Like I said, yo, like I said, where there's this level of like absolutely unbelievability about so much of it. But there's also all this great on-location stuff, and it's this really cool, fantastical mix of things. I'm going to rate the package and the whole deal. I'm gonna give it a five. It's a fantastic poster. I can flip it if I want the custom arrow art on the cover as well as the poster insert. It's got featurettes and commentaries and everything, galore. Jam-packed. I think for every bullet fired in this movie, there's a feature in this arrow video 4K. That's a lot of features. That's a fat cobra you got there. Yo, this is a room. I do like the idea of why didn't Stallone loves sequels and has talked about sequalizing, prequelizing Cobra, and I'm like, man, that already happened. Fucking John Spartan was the demolition, man. But wasn't he just Mary and Fat Cobra Cabretti? Aren't they one and the same? Same matter, can occupy some space. Difficult. Something to think about. This episode of the Review Review Shelf

Outro

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Help is brought to you by the Review Review Podcast. Our bookend themes are by Jamie Henwood. You can follow the review review on Insta, Flashes, and Blue Sky at Review X2 Podcast. You can follow me on Letterboxd if you want. It's at PaulaxBadly. The review review is available almost everywhere, including Buzz Sprout and Good Pods and Spotify and Apple Podcasts and Deezer and Squeezer and Measer and Keezer and Geezer and Behold the Ravagers of Age. Broom Broom.