Slop Culture
Slop Culture is a happy hour podcast that strives to see the beauty in stupidity. Movies, books, video games, media--anything that falls under the theater of the macho and the campy, we can't get enough of. Join us for a drink, a few laughs and then send us your angry letters when we have opinions you don't like.
Slop Culture
The Expendables 2 - Ah, Le Goonage
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This week, Will and Sam take a look at Sylvester Stallone's Expendables 2, a thoughtful and nuanced study of the relationship between masculinity, intimacy and conflict. Also, Jason Statham dresses up like a priest and stabs a dude and says "I now pronounce you man and KNIFE" and it's totally sick, you've got to watch it, bro.
What if you played with your action figures so hard they gave you a PhD and a government grant for it? Today on Slop Culture, we're talking about the Expendables 2, starring Sylvester Stallone.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to Slop Culture, a happy hour podcast where we try to find the beauty in stupidity. I'm Will Palmer, and uh with me today is a man who once told me in confidence that he thought Dwight Eisenhower was the sexiest president.
SPEAKER_04Boy, I know that's meant to be like like uh like like scathing, but you made me just think, like, God, is that true?
SPEAKER_02No, no, definitely not.
SPEAKER_04Well, like, are you talking like sheer sheer sexual?
SPEAKER_02Gerald Ford. It's for sure Gerald Ford, dude.
SPEAKER_04Well, alright, come on, like, but sexy, like you said sexy. You didn't say physically attractive. You said like if we were talking about physically attractive, I agree. Gerald Ford had kind of that like big, big uh papa bear physique that you could find a lot of comfort in. But like, you know, sexiness, that's achievement. That's uh, and I feel like Eisenhower did a lot. So he did. So okay, if we're doing vibe, maybe vibe, you know, like which presidential which president had the had the best vibe? And why did Will Palmer say it was Andrew Jackson? Well, all right, don't don't don't don't don't let's I take it back, I take it back.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it's pop he did have to like escape the White House during his own inauguration party because people got too drunk. That's kind of funny.
SPEAKER_04And they wanted to kick his ass immediately.
SPEAKER_02I mean, presumably.
SPEAKER_04Just we they knew something was up even back.
SPEAKER_02I don't think he was crowd surfing. Last week I uh foisted uh oh the movie Expendables 2 um upon you, or I guess two weeks ago, right? Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_04We just watched Expendables 2 starring Sylvester Stallone, starring Jason Statham, Jet Lee, Terry Cruz, Randy Couture, who is new to us, and uh also featuring Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgrind, who could we who could forget, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, and introducing and Chuck Norris, my god, and introducing the the the rightful king, the rightful heir to the Hemsworth throne.
SPEAKER_02Our young prince.
SPEAKER_04The black prince himself, Liam Hemsworth, Liam the Black Prince Hemsworth, Liam the Black Prince Hemsworth, who lives in exile with his supporters, while his nefarious brother claims the spotlight.
SPEAKER_02Indeed.
SPEAKER_04And works with Tycha White.
SPEAKER_02A nefarious sorcerer from parts unknown.
SPEAKER_04There's nothing like I didn't mean for it to sound that aggressive when I pronounced this name that way. I thought it would sound funnier than it did.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it sounded funny. It sounded like we were just like phonetically sounding it out as a simple name.
SPEAKER_04It sounded so fucking p Tyo, white like a fucking like 70s cartoon villain.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But yes, Expendables 2. It's a story of basically. I I meant exactly what I said. It is several grown men playing with action figures with an enormous budget, and they have all the they this is like every I I don't know if you were that rich kid or if you knew that rich kid, but like in grade school there was always one kid that had like every action figure. Like the rare ones, every vehicle, the carrying case, like the vehicle was sort of sick. The vehicles, the van, the motorcycle, the jet, the jet.
SPEAKER_02Can't forget the jet, the just the jeeps in general. You could pack all sorts of action figures in there, put like six of them in the motherfucker, there's a guy in the turret, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like the the the the fortress playset.
SPEAKER_02Oh, damn.
SPEAKER_04The secret fortress the secret mountain fortress playset.
SPEAKER_02Of Liam Hemsworth, the Black Prince.
SPEAKER_04Liam Hemsworth, the Black Prince. Where he and his loyalists.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he broods upon his Onyx throne.
SPEAKER_04I know I know for sure that there are some animation studios out there listening to this right now. I know you're out there.
SPEAKER_02Studio Ghibli.
SPEAKER_04If you want to do like a show, like a 90s cartoon with Toy Tie in of Liam Hemsworth, the Black Prince. As he fights valiantly against his scheming elder brother. Let us know. His nefarious sorcerer sidekick.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Tyka White. Uh yes, um as normal on Slop Culture. We are not in the business of recapping. We're not like other channels or podcasts where they just go through the movie and explain what happened. That's not what we do.
SPEAKER_02We wouldn't dream of it.
SPEAKER_04We are artists and we want to talk about art. Specifically the art of action figures. Now, because we don't do recaps, we still do a summary.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally different.
SPEAKER_04We try totally different because we do it in two minutes or less. Yep. Or less. We've come in under sometimes. Once in a while. And today, this duty falls to me because I had not seen Expendables 2 and Will had. Yep. And so now it falls to me to try to figure out what happened. These segments tend to spiral out of control pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_02It is just a bit of confusion in two minutes. Starting in five, four, three, two, one.
SPEAKER_04We open in Nepal, where there is just one of these random rogue mercenary armies that just seem to pop up in uh in various uh parts of the world in action movies. And they're ha they're doing all the great rogue mercenary army moves. They're fucking like hassling peasants, they're demanding grain, it it fucking rules. And then three Jeeps uh toting a crew of middle-aged action heroes comes roaring up, fucking A-Team style, shooting up everything, and magically missing every peasant uh that has just been hassled, and they drive into a warlord's compound, and they fucking shoot up the place with their jeeps. By the way, the back of the jeeps have plows on them, so at one point they reverse into a bunch of like barricades and take them out with a fucking plow. Uh, and then they escape on zip lines that happen to be there after rescuing a guy, and they're all led by Sylvester Stallone, I should say. And then they escape on zip lines and they get on boats, and they escape on boats and they're being chased on boats, and then they take jet skis off the boats and they're being chased on the jet skis, and they get into a plane and they get chased in the plane. There were there is in the first 15 minutes, there is our six vehicle chase sequences. After that, Sylvester Stallone meets uh Bruce Willis, who says he needs to get uh the blueprint to an underground plutonium mine out from uh a plane crash. And Sylvester Stallone says, I don't work for you anymore, but then he does work for him. And he and his crew of mercenaries go there, only the blueprints get stolen from them by another rogue mercenary army led by Jean-Claude Van Damme, who fucking ices the black prince himself right in front of Sylvester Stallone. And Sylvester Stallone and his crew go on a revenge mission with a uh a Chinese woman who is helping them for two minutes. Okay, like I think I got most of it.
SPEAKER_02I think I get dude that you got the first like 36 minutes.
SPEAKER_04I got like the first 36 minutes. A lot of shit was happening, and eventually dies, but like it is really it is really fucking interesting how it happens Oh yeah um and a lot of really really action movie stuff, like like this movie kind of refined action movie as a genre, like it's all distilled into like it's like the tungsten of fucking action movies. I was posting about it today, and I said this movie is like if they just distilled action movie tropes into like a syringe, like a tranquilizer dart, and Sylvester Salone had the gun that shot it, and he was hunting you like an animal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um this movie has just so much action that we wanted to talk about, and like the thing that's really interesting is that I said this I'm going to say it so many times, this movie is like watching guys play with action figures. And like I feel like people are gonna take that as an insult, but no, what I mean is like it is like I mean that in totality, like it is watching like a very specific kind of power fantasy play out. And with the case.
SPEAKER_02And to be fair, these guys have a lot of experience doing cool stuff with the action figures.
SPEAKER_04It is like watching like professional action, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is like You're having fun, you're having fun.
SPEAKER_04It was making and like it takes that and turns it into like a very specific art form that I was just really fascinated to watch play out. And like what's really interesting is it all it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and it almost works perfectly.
SPEAKER_02It was a bold choice for them to kill off the protagonist, like. Let me tell you, the poster is crowded.
SPEAKER_04We've already glazed uh Sylvester Stallone, and we've talked about his impact before. We talked about that back on Rambo 4. And we'll talk about it more this time, but um we're not gonna raise a glass. Instead, we're gonna raise a glass to the the actor who portrayed Billy, quote unquote, the kid. Yeah, who died with only one month to retirement.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_04The black prince himself.
SPEAKER_02Long may he reign.
SPEAKER_04Long may he reign in exile or on his or on his onyx throne. Next year on the throne is what is the common rallying crime.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04The throne by spring, my leash.
SPEAKER_02We've rallied an army of thousands.
SPEAKER_04We're raising like in our po in like our point of view, it's like totally noble and shit, and then like cuts to us at Comic-Con. We're like getting fucking arrested because we showed up to fucking attack Chris Emsworth in support of the black prince.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's like, guys, I actually I get along really well with me brother.
SPEAKER_04I get along really well with my brother. How about a game of no be spoon? Alright, well shit, you're gonna you're gonna he's he's never gonna be friends with us now. Oh boy. Easy. We got an army big enough. Uh so Liam Hemsworth, I actually legitimately like for serious. I thought he was actually probably the best actor in this movie. Uh like he actually tried to act like a human being.
SPEAKER_02Right, like he was kind of nervous. He like he like was excited to be retiring.
SPEAKER_04He was complicated, he had interesting, he had an interesting presence, like he wasn't trying too hard, he looked very natural, and everyone else is just like fucking being an action figure, like being a fucking ninja turtle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, more ham than a slaughterhouse.
SPEAKER_04It is like actually don't fucking say ham. I'm gonna think of ham wine. Pig wine.
SPEAKER_02I we can't like Yeah, we'll get into the our new sponsor later.
SPEAKER_04You're just gonna have to tune in to find out what pig wine is. Sure. But no, he actually he actually like tried to be a human being. And like I I mentioned this in my uh in my notes. Like, I do want to give sincere credit. Liam, what Liam Hemsworth does that Chris Hemsworth, the tr the traitor king, yeah, the pretender, yeah, the bastard prince, Chris Hemsworth. The bastard prince, the ruffian lord. Yeah the the the the the vulgar fro the vulgar lord.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um Chris Hemsworth has a lot of fucking confidence, but what Liam Hemsworth has is vulnerability, and like uh you might say that Liam Hemsworth is the most important character in this movie because he actually is the motivation for a lot of it happening.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_04Uh he plays the newest recruit to the Expendables, which is a team of mercenaries, uh led by Sylvester Stallone.
SPEAKER_02Who plays Barney Ross? The names are a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_04Barney Ross. The names are really fun, and we'll talk about them more. Um He plays the young sniper. I've noticed that in a couple of movies now, the young idealistic guy has always been the sniper.
SPEAKER_02You're right. Yeah, Rambo 4.
SPEAKER_04I feel like, and and you know, please forgive me for this observation. I feel like the sniper has traditionally been playing by a taciturn Asian.
SPEAKER_02An Asian? Okay, I was thinking of saving private Ryan.
SPEAKER_04And uh Oh, saving Private Ryan. Yeah, that's a good one. Well, I was thinking of uh I think it was called The Losers. I think I'm thinking about that because I I really liked that sniper. Put that one on the list. And he was yes, we absolutely should. It was not a bad movie.
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_04Uh, but anyways, yeah, he's a young idealistic sniper, and this is how good he was. He gives an actual speech about how he's going to leave and go back to his girlfriend after he finishes up the month.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And he's going to start a new life and get out of this. And also, he has trauma from the Afghanistan war where his commanding officer shot his dog.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they shot his fucking dog. I forgot about that.
SPEAKER_04Just such a horrible thing that's like.
SPEAKER_02Like he came back from watching all his friends die, and like they'd shot his fucking dog.
SPEAKER_04They shot his fucking dog. Oh my god, it's so horrible.
SPEAKER_02And it's like, how many death flags are you gonna throw up, dude? Like, come on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, like it was it was a rough time to be Liam Hemsworth in this movie. Uh, so all of that pretty much screams, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die. And I still didn't see it coming. Like, he is that crazy and I and I am that dumb sometimes.
SPEAKER_02Uh I mean maybe it seemed like they were all gonna get out okay right before JCVD Roundhouse kicked a humongous knife through his aorta.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Liam Hemsworth, if there's any other character to talk about, it is Jean-Claude von Dams, whose whose name is Villain.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Jean Villain.
SPEAKER_04John Jean Villon is actually but like but even that sounds like a fucking cartoon. Like, I am Jean Villon. Yeah, Jean Villeneuve's Jean Jean Baby Killer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, I feel like this is a good top place to drop this. Um in the uh Amazon uh Prime Video expen uh general trivia section, he has a little pop-out thing. Um I quote, in an interview with BBC Radio, Sylvester Stallone confirmed he named Jean-Claude Vandamme's character Villan to make it similar to the name of 19th century French poet Paul Verlaine. This was in order to set up an extremely obscure in joke where the final showdown between Von Damme and Stallone could be seen as a fight between Villon Verlaine and Rambo Rimbeau. Arthur Rimbaud, pronounced Rambo, being another French poet with whom Verlaine had a tempestuous affair.
SPEAKER_04Okay, well, hang on. So Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_02That was my reaction to it.
SPEAKER_04I don't I don't want you to do this right now. I just want to put it out there. I am not gonna go look for that interview to check if that's true. If it is, I will be stunned because I also like I don't think they check uh the trivia. Like, I feel like you can just write whatever you want on the trivia and just put it out there, like I think I just got a new hobby. Fucking we could just write on love actually, like here's a fact Hugh Grant has a crossbow that he brought to the set every every day to hunt the small pigeons that would often crowd the city stead, and he would eat these pigeons, claiming that only by eating what you caught can you stay a good actor.
SPEAKER_02Alright, I think I actually did find the video, but I'm not gonna like spend air time discussing it. We can cover it in a later episode.
SPEAKER_04Like I said, that's fun trivia. If that actually is true, that's amazing. Because Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jean Villon, plays a weird bad guy. It owns.
SPEAKER_02Like, I notice you texted me. He's I love a weird villain, and I wanted to see what you're doing.
SPEAKER_04I do. I don't I you know, like, that's not true. I do like a villain that has, you know, like um a complicated backstory or logical motive for what they're doing. I in general, that is good storytelling, right? But there is also room for just a uh for a bad guy who just likes it, you know, a bad guy who's just like he's got like an evil goat tattooed on his neck? Yeah, he's got like a fo and for like Satan, he's like he's all his crew has like neck tattoos of Satan. Yeah, and yeah, they capture Liam Memsworth and they fucking cut him across the chest, because that's that's what I mean. He's that kind of villain. He's like, Yeah, I'm gonna cut you. Like for the fucking reason. I just I just funny.
SPEAKER_02So I mean business, me and my goat homies.
SPEAKER_04And then he fucking roundhouse kicks the same knife.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, he has one of his ho his uh henchmen hold it. A henchman played by Scott Adkins, who's actually a great um action movie star in his own right. Shout out to Oh, wonderful. Yeah, but um, yeah, so shout out to Scott Atkins for real. But Scott Atkins holds it.
SPEAKER_04Has his henchman hold the knife up to the guy's aorta, and then he fucking roundhouse kicks it in, which is even better than if he had thrown it up in the air and kicked it there and so like no no hold it there, hold it there, here, watch. Everybody watch, everybody watch.
SPEAKER_02And he didn't even have to tell his henchmen to do that, so it implies that they practiced or had done it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they've been doing this before. Like they just like one night they got drunk and they're like, dude, what if what if you do his own? He plays a very, a very weird fucking villain, and I appreciate him. Like, there's not a lot to him, there's not a lot to much of what goes on in this movie, but sure uh I would be but those are the two characters most worth talking about. Um we'd be here all day if we talked about all the rest, and I'm sure we'll sprinkle some in.
SPEAKER_02Well, we got some favorites in there though. You know, we have Jason Statham saying, I now pronounce you man and knife, um, while he fights people with kunai knives in a church so he's dressed as a priest.
SPEAKER_04We'll talk about that because I did fucking love that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we had like Terry Cruz, a lot of fucking things.
SPEAKER_04If we did not talk about the action. The action.
SPEAKER_02It was chunks.
SPEAKER_04I was not fucking kidding. The first 15 minutes of this movie features so many chase sequences, so many uh action vehicle sequences they fucking charge in and like I wanna I wanna take a shout out because I wrote in my notes like in the air in like 2000 in the 2010s when these were made, uh you it's not like the 1980s where you can just have an entire nation of bad guys, you know? Like you gotta make clear that like, oh, these specific coroners are bad guys.
SPEAKER_02There's internal conflict, there's faction.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they're they're oppressing the native cons. I feel like that's a very American coping strategy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for the war on terror, sure.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, is to is to believe that there are these like super bad guys who are oppressing the native population, and you just you swarm in and you kill them guilt-free, and democracy happens. And there's free oil too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, free oil.
SPEAKER_04Who knows?
SPEAKER_02Like a secret gift from out of gratitude.
SPEAKER_04Out of gratitude.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh wow, thank you. No, no, that's actually.
SPEAKER_02No, we couldn't. We couldn't we couldn't. Yeah, we shouldn't, we shouldn't make light of it.
SPEAKER_04Oh no, especially when we have hats on both sides. Well, especially when we have this this in this fucking movie. Like it's it takes place in Nepal and it's it's a fucking, I think.
SPEAKER_02It's a Nepal for the first like bit of the first time.
SPEAKER_04Well, yeah, because this this practices the great action movie tradition of having an opening action sequence that has jack shit to do with everything else.
SPEAKER_02Like they spent millions of dollars on like chuck plows.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, it's an it's an incredible action sequence, to be fair. They ride in on jeeps, they battering down ram down the gates, they whirl around, put their jeeps in reverse, and they have plows. Yep.
SPEAKER_02They got a battering ram separately that says not knock on it, and they use the colour.
SPEAKER_04They got a battering ramp that they break down a separate door, they all get out, they ramp a motorcycle off a building into a helicopter.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I actually timed it. In my notes, I say it takes five minutes and twenty one seconds for them to kill a helicopter with a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_04Fucking record by anyone's.
SPEAKER_02Honestly, yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_04They save a guy. They save two guys because Arnold.
SPEAKER_02They save Arnold Schwarzenegger, right?
SPEAKER_04And then the guy and a Chinese billionaire who they are there to save.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, who then disappears with Jet Li for the rest of the movie.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. And then they hop on boats and escape by boats, and their boats get blown up.
SPEAKER_02So they hop on jet skis. Yeah, don't forget the zip line, right?
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, no. To escape the fortress, they have zip lines because they never show them setting up. They never show them setting up. So I like to imagine the warlord just had that installed for like his men. He's like, you know, you know what, guys? Take some time off. Have fun. Guys, you're working too hard. You gotta you gotta balance things. Look, next week, trampoline park, and they're all like I know I said I know I know I said I'd have them both in by now, but I'm sorry, the trampoline is next week. Oh, that's okay, boss. That's alright. Like he's just a really popular leader.
SPEAKER_02Like he actually like puts it, he goes the extra, like uh however many yards for his guys.
SPEAKER_04It is like, guys. I know you're all wondering what I did with the I know you're all wondering what I did with the tribute I exacted from the villages. We'll take a look at this. Wow, is that an air hockey table?
unknownNope.
SPEAKER_02Enjoying his head.
SPEAKER_04And an original Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet.
SPEAKER_02And tomorrow ice cream party.
SPEAKER_04You do have to put quarters in it, but just come to me. I'll get I'll get you.
SPEAKER_02I'll give you quarters. We got tons of tokens.
SPEAKER_04We got tons of quarters.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Alright, fuck. Um but they escape via five or six vehicles, then they use an artillery cannon strapped to their fucking plane to, I think, blow up a dam, right?
SPEAKER_04And then just kind of blow up a dam, and then they and then they just kind of vibe on out of there. Like uh There was a lot of that. There was a lot of really like there's a lot of shooting and very little how would you describe it?
SPEAKER_02I feel like I'm I would describe it as they did a a good job, apart from in my notes, I do say, and I think it was more prevalent in the opening scene. There's this kind of strange mix of CGI blood and like actual practi what I took to be some practical effects. Some of the like spurts of blood was like, okay, like that was computer generated, but then you know there's bits flying off and stuff.
SPEAKER_04It does have a few really bad CGI, which I would say I would love to say. I'm a bits guy too. Yeah, I I like especially if you're doing a send up to action movies, like you might as well be doing a send up to fucking practical effects too, right?
SPEAKER_02Right, and they had enough money to spend on like jeeps with plows on. They could for sure throw in for some. Yeah, but I think it got better later on.
SPEAKER_04Overall, like this is this is this is what I mean by like action figures as art is like they perfect like because I'm not you'll notice I'm not saying the opening sequence is bad. It fucking rules. Like it's fucking ridiculous, but it's played so fucking straight. Like nobody is ever saying, like, oh, this is so stupid. Like they're saying, like, nope, here is our truck that turns into a plow. Like uh and it kind of continues in that vein. Uh they there is a lot of shootouts that follow.
SPEAKER_02Uh there are noted that I thought the yeah, I thought the action was impactful, probably because they had so much money to spend on blowing stuff up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Did you did you really? Because I feel like not only was the action not impactful, I feel like not impactful in an emotional sense, impactful in an environmental sense.
SPEAKER_02I mean shit was blowing up all over the place.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Well we'll fucking go further there. What what do you mean by environmental sense? Do you just mean like by scenery blown up?
SPEAKER_02Uh for the most part, yeah. Like they at the beginning of uh at the beginning of an action scene, the place was intact. At the end of the action scene, it was very much not intact because of everything that happened, like, you know, during during the state.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there was a lot of there was a lot of there was a lot of property damage for sure. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And property damage to me is very important in an action movie. Now, emotionally it wasn't really impactful much at all because the heroes basically never got hurt, and you know, but at the same token, like the bad guys sure did, and Terry Cruz is walking down a hallway with the AA-12, that automatic shotgun just chum chum.
SPEAKER_04So like so, like, I do I do believe that property damage is a valid metric, uh, because as I said, like here's here's my position is I am judging this as a sort of honorific to action movies. So I don't question I don't question the logic why like all these guys get in like massive fucking shootouts all the time, and I don't think anyone gets hit, except for when like the time comes to do like hand-to-hand action sequences, like then they get hit. But like, you know, that's a that's what I mean, is like that's a law of action movies, is like you will you will get missed by every bullet, but then the guy with like uh with like no fucking martial arts training is gonna land a few blows on you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean bullets are like kind of suggestions.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Bullets are just suggestions. You don't have to do them if you don't want to. And like that's kind of what I mean by it has low impact because I talked about this. We talked about this prior the the end action sequence has everyone, like literally everyone, fighting against Jean-Claude Van Damme's forces. And there's a bit where Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger get in one of those tiny two-seater spark cars, yeah. And like the way I'm gonna describe it sounds fucking surreal. And it is kind of like if you can fucking take yourself out of the context of this movie, this is a fucking weird thing to see. But it's just Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in one in a tiny car driving around an airport, just shooting dudes left and right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, one-handed assault rifles out the window.
SPEAKER_04One-handed assault rifle, and they're landing every fucking blow. Like they're not even trying. Yeah, like this is interspersed with cuts of Chuck Norris literally walking down a bar and shooting dudes like while the good, the bad, and the ugly theme is as they fucking pop up. While the good, the bad and the ugly place. And then every time it cuts back, there's more guy.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Like infinite guy factory.
SPEAKER_04There's just infinite goons for them to gun down, and they're constantly gunning them down. Yeah. And like by the time it's over, like, it's non-Euclidean goons. It's fucking like goo, it's like goons that don't have fourth dimension of goons. Yeah, it's fourth dimension goons. Like they're they're we watched that like the population of a small midwestern city get fucking gunned down by these aging action heroes. But then when like the smoke clears, there's like a couple of hundred. Like we saw way more than a lot. Like, I know, I know, but like it's not as many as they killed.
SPEAKER_02It's not as many, you know, that's true. They killed the biggest.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. That's what I mean by like it being kind of low impact, because at the end, like the and like at no point do we get the impression that Jean-Claude Van Damme has this many people, they just kind of like show up.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah. When he first like uh confronts them, he has like 12 guys with him. And then the guys have multiplied exponentially.
SPEAKER_04We later see that they have a compound, but there's only like you know, like I don't know, maybe a hundred guys there.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's because they killed all the other guys.
SPEAKER_04I guess. But like well, no, even before that, we see they have a compound, and there's only like about a true and what are they doing? They're fucking hassling peasants.
SPEAKER_02Yep, they're hassling. They're gonna crush everybody with mining equipment.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, no, they're fucking like murdering peasants left and right. Like, I mentioned this. I mentioned this. Um, because I think we're on to something about this being kind of the American cope strategy where like the fantasy is that you are deliver you are through violence liberating an oppressed people.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Which is is very rarely the case, as we know, but like that is like the fantasy here is is that there is like a a subjugated peasant uh class that's being miscellaneously abused for nefarious ends. And you you see this a lot. We saw this in fucking Robin Hood starring Tower Nation.
SPEAKER_02We saw it in Rambo 4.
SPEAKER_04We saw it in Rambo 4, and I gotta say, don't read too too much into this, but like every time I see it, it looks so fucking fun. Like it looks like really fucking fun to hassle a peasant because it looks so fucking absurd and so pointless because there's never anything there, there's never any purpose to it. They're just like hassling peasants.
SPEAKER_02They're like pecking cabbages and you come over and bash them with a halberd.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like the whole the whole point is that they're helpless, and and that's to show what a bad guy you are. But like, it's so fucking stupid. Like, it's just really stupid to imagine, like, oh, your job is to go shove guys around, like, get out of the way, get out like Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right, guys, today just go out there and be dicks to peasants. All right.
SPEAKER_04Hey, listen, don't come back until you've spit in someone's gruel. Like, it's it's just like it's it sounds like a fucking performative cruelty, but like I mean like as in you're constantly trying to outdo the other guards.
SPEAKER_02Right, they have an award every month for like. Yeah, they have portraits up of like the the meanest guard every month.
SPEAKER_04It's fucking Jeff. It's always been it's always Jeff.
SPEAKER_02Like to the extent that people are like kind of like put off by Jeff.
SPEAKER_04Fucking Jeff is the guy that fucking takes all the fun out of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's like he carries around a sack full of feet.
SPEAKER_04He carries carries, he's like, ah, Jeff, it's got really weird when you showed up. But yeah, like there are some there are numerous peasants being hassled and like in the in a mine, right?
SPEAKER_02Aren't they mining like in a ludicrous amount of uranium or something?
SPEAKER_04The the whole plot is that Jean-Claude Van Damme is forcing uh nondescript uh Eastern European just one of those countries.
SPEAKER_02Just a bunch of Albanians, I think it's Albania.
SPEAKER_04Albania, but like, you know, it's very dis it's very much meant to be like, well, one of those one of them Eastern European countries that is not Russia. Uh like he's in he's enslaved the population of a local village and he's forcing them to dig for mine. Uh dig a mine, I'm sorry, dig a mine for plutonium left behind after the Cold War, and then he wants to sell the plutonium. And like he's such a dick, but he he just wants money.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh yeah. And he's pretty upfront about that too, you know. Well he wants money for like satanic purposes, I guess. They don't really go into the Satanism besides him like saying, look, we're all Satanists, and he points at the evil goat tattoo.
SPEAKER_04He just liked the tattoo.
SPEAKER_02It's it's a cool vibe, I guess. Like, especially if you can get all your friends to do it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Uh, but like it's the motives are pretty shallow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they killed Billy, and so like it's revenge time, and also they have nukes, which is bad.
SPEAKER_04It's revenge. Well, they have nukes?
SPEAKER_02Well, they had like they were mining plutoniums, they could they're not gonna be.
SPEAKER_04They were mining plutonium, but they want to they want to sell it. So like yeah, it will it will eventually be turned into nukes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's there's nukes.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I noticed he said like, oh, this sells for four million a kilo, and I'm like I feel like that's low. I feel like that's very low for like for like plutonium. I'm like yeah, he's just bad at fucking he just fucking he had to become a warlord because he's so shitty at economics. He's like just absolutely no fucking sense of of what to spend.
SPEAKER_02He has like hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt.
SPEAKER_04So he started a mercenary company to pay it off, yeah. To pay it off.
SPEAKER_02I mean, he could have paid it off a long time ago, but he just spent it all in laboo boos.
SPEAKER_04He keeps making unwise spending decisions.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he went from Funko Pops to laboo boos and he's just got like a whole room in the mind full of those.
SPEAKER_04He fucking lives for pumpkin spice. He gets fucking like three lattes a day in October.
SPEAKER_02And he goes rabid for pumpkin spice.
SPEAKER_04His henchmen are like, sir, nobody needs a subscription to Bath and Body Works. You don't but he's a weird villain, so you would believe that that was going on. Like that's what I mean. He's great at that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I I like the action. There's a lot of really great action. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What did you like about the action? I I can you didn't like the lack of impact. We I guess different senses of impact. I just like I'm a simple man. I like it when trucks drive through the street.
SPEAKER_04I didn't say I didn't like it. I didn't say I didn't like it.
SPEAKER_02Well, what did you like about it?
SPEAKER_04I recognize it. I recognize it as part of the art form. Like you know this fucking podcast. I I am always going to get artsy fartsy. I can't help it. It's how I'm built. I respected this movie. I and you know, I always meet the movie where it is. Like, if I were gonna say, like, that's ridiculous, how are they not getting shot? I would not be watching this movie. Like, if that were important to me, I would not watch this movie. Like, I knew I like accepted it from moment one. So I accept the low impact, the goon it, the gooning. The goonage.
SPEAKER_02Oh, of course. The goonage and the gooning.
SPEAKER_04The goonage, the gunage.
SPEAKER_02Lego nage.
SPEAKER_04Legunage.
SPEAKER_02As they say in France.
SPEAKER_04As they say in Cape Perry.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when a whole bunch of henchmen show up, ah, Legun Legoumage.
SPEAKER_04Legunage. Every year my family gathered on the banks of the Somme to watch the Legunage. To watch Legunage.
SPEAKER_02Shout out to Expedition 33. Great game.
SPEAKER_04Shout out to Expedition 33. We love you still. Um But uh I accepted that this movie would that part of the art form is the pageantry of violence. So like I like it. I like that it was low impact. I didn't mind it at all. Uh like to me and I think this is like I I mean it when I say this is action figures as art form. And that kind of but like as always, you know, what's the appeal behind the action figure fantasy? It's that you have this collection of complementing personalities and skills that are on an adventure together. Like we've talked about this before. The c you know, it boiled down enough you could call this the crew the team up, the crew fantasy.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_04Every man wants to be part of a crew.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_04And like, you know, when you're part of a crew, it actually doesn't matter if you're the leader or not. Like, some some guys want to be leaders, other guys want to be fucking uh Dolph Lundgren's character who's some guys want to be the knife guy, some guys want to be the knife guy, you know, some guys want to be the demo man, some guys want to be the sniper. Like you just Who dies? Who dies? You just want some guys want to be leadership.
SPEAKER_02Imagine like joining a crew or like you know, you have a crew of people and like there's just one agreed upon guy who's gonna get killed, so everyone else has a motivation.
SPEAKER_04I feel like that's the case though, because like you know, when you're a kid on the playground, oh we're all gonna be we're all gonna be ninja turtles, I'm Leonardo, you're Raphael, you're Michelangelo, you're Dantello, oh what am I? You're you're fucking I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_02Like you're Master Splinter, dude.
SPEAKER_04You get to you know you get to lie there and get old.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh but no, like, you know, like groups do have that. And like, you know, if any of you are or were the kid that was the designated one that was gonna die, shout out to you. Like, I hope you're doing better now, because that's a rough place to be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh but yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_04Like, what pretty effortless crew dynamic movie is when they lean into it, and this is something I I said I wanted to talk about. Uh a lot of modern action movies have sort of this moment of self-aware cringe where they draw attention. You know, like a good example would be that uh that bit in uh you remember in the first X-Men movie where it's like, what is this, black leather? And then it's like, Well, would you prefer yellow spandex? Uh yeah, yeah. Like, you know, a line that's meant to say, like, oh, yellow spandex is ridiculous. You're stupid if you like that. This is serious. I know we're talking about X-Men, but this is fucking serious. Like a lot of movies do.
SPEAKER_02That wink wink toward the audience.
SPEAKER_04Like, yes, this is ridiculous, isn't it? Oh, this is so goofy. Like, they don't take it seriously, and like uh Game of Thrones was kind of like that towards the end, I feel. Um But you know, like at the front, at the start of Game of Thrones, you know, nobody was saying, like, oh, how how ridiculous that we all wear interesting, like uh that we all wear big fur collars. Like, no.
SPEAKER_02And then it just turned into like watching a plane full of like puppies crash into a mountainside. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, for one, I think that's proof why we don't let puppies fly planes or build orphanages. Like they just can't be they just can't be trusted with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the CIA plan in the 1960s to like train puppy pilots. Yeah, to spy on to spy on the nommies.
SPEAKER_04To spy on Russia is the puppy pilot project. Yeah, and ended in disaster.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, destroy all the files. We don't talk about it anymore. Burn down site 69. No one was ever here.
SPEAKER_04That's actually what undid Nixon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the government just like it was too devastating.
SPEAKER_04They just like the first puppy pilot program just ended so terrible, they're like, oh, this could destroy the country. We have to you have to resign, sir. You have to resign before this gets out.
SPEAKER_03God damn it, break into the Democratic National Committee and we'll cover it up. Why did I think that I dropped puppy pilot a plane? Which one of you ruffians came in today? Now get out of my way. I've gotta see the new Liam Hemsworth movie. The new picture.
SPEAKER_04The Liam Hemsworth picture. How do you do that? You d when do you time the the cheek wobble? Um I don't know.
SPEAKER_02It just kind of comes natural. Hemsworth.
SPEAKER_04Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02Just imagining I'm shaking like a big like raw T-bone steak in my mouth and then Hemsworth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Hemsworth. That that layer that vagabond Christopher Hemsworth. He stole all the black princes from me.
SPEAKER_04Nixon's still alive, and he's he stands, Liam Hemsworth. He cannot die until the black prince is returned to the throne.
SPEAKER_02Just imagining him alive in like a techno coffin. Right?
SPEAKER_04Just filling the tubes and like flicking lights. Fucking Warhammer stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. He's like the god emperor of mankind. Just kept alive.
SPEAKER_04He has to be fed a TV psychic every month. Oh fuck, dude. I was here trying to talk about what I liked about this movie, and you fucking.
SPEAKER_02Fuck, yeah, my bad, my bad. I brought in Richard Nixon.
SPEAKER_04Because I want to talk about this, and then I want you to talk about uh about what you observed about the quivery. Because this movie, for a lot of it, it plays everything with such fucking sincerity that it's just so much fun. You know, like it's you believe it. You're into it. Like you you believe in these fucking fights. Like, of course, fucking Jet Lee is gonna fight two guys with frying pans because he only packed one bullet for his gun. Well, it's a challenge, right? That literally happens. He whips out his gun and fires once, and then he's out, and it's like, oh fuck. Like I should have loaded more than one bullet. Like um, when it leans into that and when it does it with sincerity, I like it because these guys all have such enormous personalities. Like, they're all characters. It's fucking Terry Cruz, it's fucking Dolph Lundgrim, fucking Arnold. Like, of course they're gonna have a big personality. And like they all play it so with such gravitas.
SPEAKER_02And they don't seem like they're competing either.
SPEAKER_04No, no, they're having fun, they're they're they're taking it seriously because that's part of the crew fantasy.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't really matter who's the leader.
SPEAKER_04It doesn't really matter, and it you trust that all your boys are gonna get to say something, you know? Like that's the fun part of it, is that it's just you and your guys, you know? Like it's a social fantasy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But where it starts to fall apart is because when it plays it so totally straight, like it fucking works. There's a fucking bit where they're in an abandoned fucking Soviet village, and Terry Cruz looks out the fucking window, and there's an army coming to it, and he turns around and he says, Houston, we got a problem. And then he goes, Ah! Jumps out of the way just in time. So, like, clearly the fucking like army waited for him to do to say that. Right. So that it could be and then they easily win the ensuing shootout.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, and they make a quip about a tank. Like, at least they don't have a tank and then a tank. At least they don't, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04But like they're playing it straight because like it's it's a fucking art form. The art the th it's a theater, it's action movie as theater, and part of the but then like eventually smart car that Arnold and Bruce are in. Yeah, like eventually, I don't know if it if if it is self cringe, because at some point it starts there's no good way to say this. The film starts masturbating. You know, like would you agree with that?
SPEAKER_02Like I want you to is it doing eye contact or is it like kind of shy about it?
SPEAKER_04No, it's like you're not aware of it at first.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04You're at dinner at Olive Gardens.
SPEAKER_02So it's kind of playing a little pocket pool.
SPEAKER_04It is, it is, like as you're talking to it.
SPEAKER_02As you're going into like the bottomless fucking crab dip or whatever, you make eye contact and you see like a little arm motion.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Like he keeps trying to the movie keeps trying to play it off as like it's it's reaching for the salad dressing. But like, no, you you can see what's happening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we and then everyone in the restaurant starts to become aware.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, everyone in the restaurant knows, and the waiter comes by and says, like, sir, sir, you got and the the movie's like, one second. Yeah, I'm almost there. Don't talk, don't talk. No talking. Um But yeah, like it starts referring to itself too much.
SPEAKER_02Yes, becomes masturbatory, certainly.
SPEAKER_04Like, I want I wanted you to talk about this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04At the end, you get some really interesting action movie lines, and some of them are really good, and some of them are just fucking terrible. But like in a way that you're not ex that like well here, tell us about the t tell, tell, talk. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, there's a a bit where um I don't think I let you get to it, but where Bruce and Annald are in the uh the smart car or whatever together, and they just start like doing each other's lines back to each other, like I'll be back. No, you've been back enough times. Let me I'll be back. Yippie Kaye. Like that's just like okay.
SPEAKER_04It's it's just like okay, alright.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, look, maybe there are people out there who'd waited like decades to hear Anald say Yppy Kaye, and like kudos to that guy, you got to see it, right?
SPEAKER_04Um well but it's funny you should mention that because I looked at the Wikipedia page for our all this. Okay. There's some there are just some entries on on just with some little facts. And uh Stallone went on the record of saying, like, oh yeah, we got Jean-Claude Van Damme, because a lot of people have been wanting to see Sylvester Stallone fight Jean-Claude Van Damme, so that's gonna be intense. And I'm like, I you I'm I'm very sorry, Mr. Stallone, but I I don't think that's true.
SPEAKER_02Like, I don't I mean I I didn't know I wanted it, but I did, and now I've got it.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I mean, well, there you go. Maybe Sylvester Stallone knows like I love JCBD. Well, I mean, here's the here's the thing is like I didn't turn it down when it was presented to me. I fucking said, okay, yes. So I take it back. I take it Stallone, I know you're fucking hearing this. I know you're fucking we love you, Sly. You're on our Mount You're on our Mount Rushmore.
SPEAKER_02So but like next to JCBD. Right next to kissing.
SPEAKER_04I you know what I'm gonna take that as a sign to segue into the next point. Um there are some sexual stakes in this movie, but they fucking suck.
SPEAKER_02And the intended sexual stakes suck.
SPEAKER_04Here's here's a Okay, yeah. Give it give it give me a second. Sure. So there's a character named Maggie Chang who gets assigned to the team. Fucking Sylvester's like, a woman.
SPEAKER_03Like women can't do things.
SPEAKER_04Women can't do things. Like, actually, this one can. What?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like uh pretty much his character arc this movie is finding out that women can be competent at things, also.
SPEAKER_04She's sent along as the tech expert and gets to do that once. Yeah, like she gets to download a computer program.
SPEAKER_02She defuses a computer program. Oh no, that's true.
SPEAKER_04She she defuses a bomb while that's happening. Uh and then she occasionally hints that she's into sliced alone, and he rebuffs her at every turn.
SPEAKER_03I've gone full cell.
SPEAKER_04He's gone full cell. He's like, no, he's just like people who get close to me get hurt.
SPEAKER_02Like it's like, what about your massive crew of friends? I mean, I guess both of them.
SPEAKER_04What about your buddies? Like I get what he means though. Like it'd be difficult. And um uh at the end, he sends her away because as we've noted many, many times on this uh show, it's a common masculine fantasy to find a reason that you can't get the girl.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. How many uh ex-wives do you think Barney Ross has in canon?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I gotta say. I gotta I'm gonna I'm gonna say three. I was about to say three. I he doesn't strike me as the kind to keep marrying. Like I think he tried it three times, and he was like, Alright, fuck this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm just gonna hang out with my friends.
SPEAKER_04I'm just gonna hang out with my booze.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um so the sexual stakes never really materialize. I get why. I get why they are reluctant to have an attractive young woman be all well. No, actually, I don't get why, because they clearly make it evident that she wants that. Like, she's into him. So, like, the fantasy of being desired by a younger woman is still there.
SPEAKER_02But like, she rejects so like this is my question is like I feel like if you are doing a send-up to action movies, sexual stakes have been probably core component since you know, ever, right?
SPEAKER_04Fucking uh fucking diehard. What is diehard about like the the whole reason?
SPEAKER_02The forbidden romance between Hans Gruber and John McLean.
SPEAKER_04I was actually gonna say it happens because he's trying to get his ex-wife back, you know, and like that's a little bit of action. It's okay to be wrong. I mean, we can both be right now.
SPEAKER_00I guess so.
SPEAKER_04But a lot of times, sex, love, romance, the desire for connection, all of the things which fall under sexual stakes have been a part of action movies. So I act I'm actually I'm disappointed. I'll I'll go on record. I'll go on record right now and say I am disappointed.
SPEAKER_02We didn't get to see 65 plus Sylvester Stallone fucking making out with the super attractive, like I don't know, in fact 20 something, 30 something.
SPEAKER_04I uh yeah, looks like her 30s.
SPEAKER_02Uh they didn't sexualize her really at all, which I thought was fine. I didn't really you need sexual stakes, you don't necessarily need sexualization of the case.
SPEAKER_04No, no. Um well I mean this is as good a a time as any to talk about that, right? Like sexual stakes are not necessarily the same thing as sexualization. Right. It can feature sexualization, sure. But sexual stakes is just an acknowledgement of human attraction.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04Romantic attraction, intimate attraction, more than friends attraction between two people. Or more. Or more. Just like the presence of it and the acknowledgement. And so that's why I say this movie had bad sexual stakes and not sorry.
SPEAKER_02I'm just imagining the expendables as a poly cue.
SPEAKER_04Tell me! That's they that's not what they are. So we'll talk about that in a second, but like this is the final thing I want to say is like that's why I say this movie has poor sexual stakes and not no sexual stakes. It does like make clear that Maggie Chang is into Barney Ross, uh, and it makes clear that Barney Ross acknowledges this. So like it is deliberate. It just doesn't go anywhere. Like I guess I'm just a little disappointed. Like, I'm I like that in movies. I like that. I mean, I like seeing people get together. I I am as much a fan of that in romance. I like I'm actually, I'll confess this about myself. I'm not great to watch romantic or kissing movies with because I will shout, get in there!
unknownOh fuck.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Well, like, I can't help it. Like, I like seeing that.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, yeah, yeah. Okay. Rooting for your boy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well fucking, I'm sure we've watched a movie when I've done that.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, The Last Exorcism.
SPEAKER_04Russell Crowe.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_04Um. So I wanted to see that. I get why it didn't happen. I'm not saying it's a poorer movie for it. I am saying it's a poorer movie for it, but I'm not saying I expect anyone to agree with me.
SPEAKER_02I'm just saying, it's not a bad movie for it, but it would have been better had they consummated.
SPEAKER_04You know what? Like if you're if you're yes, consummated in some form, not just like a rejection, because like I get why he said that. But you know, if you're worried about uh the age gap, uh Maggie Chang's uh character would have worked great if she had been, you know, in her fifties, same age as uh Sylvester Sallone. I would have loved that. Dude, I would have fucking loved seeing a much like fucking Sylvester Sallone hack up shack up with fucking like Helen Mirin or that was my immediate like we've had precedent, she's an action star, but like yeah, fucking like shacking up with Glenn close, I would have fucking loved that. Oh my god. Oh, but I see why it didn't happen. Like America could not handle that. Americ America is not ready. No, but actually, like I I don't think I'm gonna get it. I don't think I'm gonna get it, but I would love a Glenn Close action movie. Okay, I mean, but but but like What's the setup?
SPEAKER_02Is it like modern action, sci-fi?
SPEAKER_04I'll put it this way a mature older woman action movie, I would not say no to. Uh oh yeah, yeah. So if not Glenn Close, Helen Mirin, uh Jamie Lee Curtis, that's fine too.
SPEAKER_02She's great.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, she's great. Uh I will take, you know, I would love the uh I would love it if it was like, you know, an assassin pulled out of retirement story.
SPEAKER_02Didn't they do that with Red? Like with like Bruce Willis and I think Helen Miran was in that.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, yeah, but like, you know, one where where she's the centerpiece. Like sure. And I'm not saying that like in any sort of virtue signaly, like, oh, you know, like women are owed that. No, I'm just saying I would seriously like to see like fucking Glenn Close doing fucking Keanu Reeves.
SPEAKER_00I think that would be fun.
SPEAKER_04I would love seeing that. I'm just saying, I would like to see that. I think that would be great.
SPEAKER_02Like just massacring a nightclub full of Russians, like she's Tom Cruise and collateral.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, or fucking like dropping in on a Russian roulette game and just being like, No, she drops in, plays, and then shoots them all. She drops in, plays, and when it's her turn, she inexplicably has more bullets. She's like holds the gun to her head and goes click and then holds up another gun and goes like there. We're gonna call it close to the edge. Oh, yeah. What do you like better?
SPEAKER_02Close call.
SPEAKER_04Oh fuck. Uh close contact. Oh, yeah, that's good too. Mirin present danger. Uh fucking.
unknownFuck.
SPEAKER_04Mirin's tougher than close. Mirin's tougher than close. I would love to see a Glenn close action movie. I'm just putting it out there. However, it finds its way out there. But you know, like. No, you know what? I feel like I'm gonna I feel like I'm edging on dangerous territory when I say, like, who's about to be a mature older woman actress?
SPEAKER_02I mean Charlize they're on. But she's she's already an action star. Yeah, and also she looks like she's like like.
SPEAKER_04She does look like she's made a bargain. She's made a bargain.
SPEAKER_02Right, like a Nicolas Cage style bargain, like with uh with Taika White. He grants her eternal youth in exchange for her loyalty.
SPEAKER_04I'll just put it out there out there. I hope that in another 10 to 20 years, Charlie Sheron is still making action movies.
SPEAKER_02Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04I I think I think she's been bad at I think she's got a good batting record for that.
SPEAKER_02For sure.
SPEAKER_04Uh but anyways, uh enough about fucking Celeste Sallone hooking up with people.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean we still have to discuss.
SPEAKER_04When we when we when you when you saw you saw this movie before me, and when you watched it, you made this you made the comment to me that it was very homoerotic. Yes. And I told you I would ask you to ex to explain that point of view.
SPEAKER_02Sure.
SPEAKER_04And now I'm just gonna put this out there. Just fucking walk carefully. Just be respectful.
SPEAKER_02But walking on landmines made out of eggshells here.
SPEAKER_04Landmines made out of eggshells.
SPEAKER_02I'm super, super nervous right now.
SPEAKER_04Okay, um but I mean you're right, and we've said this before on this podcast multiple times.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04A lot of action fans every action movie is at least a little gay. Like a lot of action movies are about appreciating masculinity. And people who are attracted to masculinity will probably also appreciate it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, like fucking um the Joel Schumacher uh Batman movies. A lot of masculine aesthetic in that. Was that the one with the nipples on the on the Ice to Meet you is that? Ice to meet you. What killed the dinosaurs? Oh guess who Richard Nixon. We can't we can't we can't cross these streams.
SPEAKER_03We can't do that. I'd like to introduce you to Liam Hemsworth.
SPEAKER_04No, no. Um so I want you to explain that basically. And then and then let's talk about this.
SPEAKER_02I think it's best encapsulated in the the climactic, I guess, showdown between uh Barney Ross and uh Jean Villon. Uh and I touched on it a little bit earlier with that obscure fact that uh may or may not be true about the uh really weird in-joke about French poets that fucked each other. But uh it just so much of it comes down to like you hear them say these lines and you realize that you know this went through like probably multiple iterations of script writers, or at least several, you know, talking about it. Yeah. Sliced alone and all the other actors like read it, practiced it. It was directed with a full crew on set.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Right? All these guys, there were probably multiple takes, you know, just to get it perfectly. And it was edited, produced, all that. And not once, nobody was just like like you realize this is super gay, right? Like what it you know tell us because they confront each other and they just start the wildest shit.
SPEAKER_04Say the say the fucking line.
SPEAKER_02Say the line. What is it? Uh time to man up, I'll man you up. Yeah. And then later on, Stallone punches JCBD in the face. How's it taste? Not how's that taste, how's it taste? Um, it doesn't uh what is it? The uh turn around sheep and then start whipping him with a chain.
SPEAKER_04Oh, there's this weird point. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry to all our listeners and to Jesus. Um towards the end, at the last big fight between Stallone and Van Dam, uh Van Dam's character has always been making uh allusions to sheep. You know, you either die like a man or you die like a sheep, and these constantly insinuating that Sly Stallone's Barney Barney Ross is fucking uh a sheep.
SPEAKER_02Not fucking a sheep, but he is a sheep. He's not fucking a sheep.
SPEAKER_03You're either a sheep or a fucker of sheep.
SPEAKER_02Like, no, what I don't want to be on the farm.
SPEAKER_04This is too weird for me.
SPEAKER_02You have to be on the farm. You're not allowed to leave.
SPEAKER_04You're not allowed to leave. Well, do I have to fuck a sheep? Could I just fuck a duck?
SPEAKER_03No, it has to be a sheep.
SPEAKER_02Or you get fucked.
SPEAKER_03Or you get fucked by the sheep.
SPEAKER_04It's a fuck or get fucked world.
SPEAKER_02But Stallone decides to turn that around on him.
SPEAKER_04So he fucking he has a chain. Yes. And he whips Jean-Claude's newbile tank top clad.
SPEAKER_00Oh, we damn we dropped the newbile on him.
SPEAKER_04With the chain, and fucking Jean-Claude Van Damme is face first against a chain link fence holding on as fucking Sly is whipping him. Like, ooh! Oh, as he's like holding on. And then Sly says, uh, turn around, sheep. And it sounds like the fucking daddiest thing you've ever heard. Like, yeah. Like, my gosh, and like the joke that like I'm not laughing because that's a joke or anything. I'm just laughing because, like, oh wow, like that is also like extremely deliberate. Like uh, but I I I agree with you, is what I mean, is like the men demonstrate a much greater intimacy with each other than they do with the women.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Which uh, you know, I I think it's fair to say that you know there's a fair amount of masculine fantasies around that. Like the crew, the crew fantasy is about having that, like, you know, and you know, so long as we're being real, men have a lot of differing levels of intimacy. Oh, sure. Like your buddy is different than your bro, your bro is different than your pal.
SPEAKER_02Uh pal's different from acquaintance.
SPEAKER_04There's if you say, Oh, this guy, that doesn't mean anything. And if you say, oh, this guy, like, then yeah, he's a great friend.
SPEAKER_02Like, then they've with villains, they've got that same guy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like, you know, the fucking intimacy of the rivalry. And I'm not saying I'm not saying that women don't have these. Like, above all, you know, like I'm speaking broadly here, but like that's you know, like, men do have these uh these complicated levels of intimacy.
SPEAKER_02Where you whip your bro with a chain and say turn around cheap.
SPEAKER_04Sometimes you whip your bro with a chain.
SPEAKER_02He turns around and it's Richard Nixon moving. Do it again.
SPEAKER_03I'll suffer any price for the black prints.
SPEAKER_02But like going through this this movie and like assuming that trivia fact is true, like we have to assume they did this on purpose, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like if if that trivia fact is true, then the entire purpose of the movie is the intimacy of a rival.
SPEAKER_02Set up to like a really obscure gay joke. That's the whole fucking thing. Jesus Christ, this cost so much money.
SPEAKER_04Dude, that's the dream though. Like, to be able to put together like a multi-million dollar gay joke.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm just trying to see how much fucking money it made.
SPEAKER_04We have talked a lot about this. Do you have anything else you'd like to add to the to this specific line of conversation? It was the level of intimacy between a guard and a peasant. That's like its own thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's pretty much all I got for this one, honestly. Alright. I thought it was a good movie. Recommend watching it. What do you got?
SPEAKER_04So I just want to I I do recommend like to be clear, I recommend watching everything we talk about. Like, at no this is not a podcast where we're saying, like, oh, watch this, don't watch that. Like, sure. Fucking there's tons of people who do that. I'm saying everything that is out there that has been created by another human being is worth watching just because it tells you something about a human being. And like, we just spent 20 minutes opining about the homoerotic relationship between action heroes. Like that should tell you there is a lot of I mean it's it just opening yourself to this expensive.
SPEAKER_02It's like a kind of Grecian kind of thing. Like this is a Homeric epic.
SPEAKER_04This is a Homeric epic. I'm just saying, like, uh yes, watch this movie and watch it on its own terms and enjoy it, and then you know, feel what you feel about it. If you feel it's not very good, why? So like and I can tell you why. Like the thing is, is this movie is meant to be action movie stuff. Like, it is meant to be a paean to ma action movies, and it does that really fucking well. It does that better than it intends. Except towards the end where it gets too full of its own shit. That's part is really fucking unbearable.
SPEAKER_02I did think that after they crashed the plane into the mine, it got a little weaker.
SPEAKER_04It fucking sucked. Like there were well at that point, you know, there was there's just no stakes. You know there's nothing's gonna fucking happen to them. They're just gonna shoot up a bunch of guys and just keep shooting guys.
SPEAKER_02I thought it would have been more interesting if the rest of the movie is Barney's like dying hallucination because he crashed the plane, like everybody's dead, and like right before the credits, it flashes into him like dying at the controls of the wrecked plane, and everyone else is dead in like the back.
SPEAKER_04But then he just keeps going back and he actually and like just as he's about to die at the fucking controls, he is flashes back and he's been shot through the fucking head at the in like the first minute, like he got fucking taken out by a sniper, and the second the bullet impacts, it flashes back to Expendables one. Oh fuck. It's just the next hour of the movie is just him eternally tying.
SPEAKER_02The worst kind of inception.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02I feel like what a happy hour podcast means is that we occasionally drift kind of close to something saying something interesting and then immediately turn it stupid and you try to get us on the the highway to um artistic discussion town, and then I at some point just hey, hold on, and then I grab the wheel and swerve us off into like a dirt road in the woods somewhere.
SPEAKER_04It's fucking Mario Kart Double Dash, baby. It's fucking artistic Mario Kart double dash, and one of us is fucking drunk. Actually, well, we both drink when we play when we eat. record this but here's what I'm just trying to say is like despite uh it getting a little too full of itself you kind of can't help but like this movie because every personality is so fucking big and they are like for the mo for the vast majority of the movie they are fucking taking it serious as hell and like even the parts where Arnold goes yippee ka yay like yeah it's not like a it's not like a big groan it's just like god damn it Arnold like get back to the other stuff come on yeah yeah it's like god damn it like okay but like I'm still happy to see you Arnold like it's the equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing shoes inside your house you wish he wouldn't but like you're not gonna send him home oh damn yeah no I hadn't even thought of that unless I I in my household anyways like if you grew up if you grew if you if you grew up in a strict no shoes household like Bro my parents were like weirdly into wearing shoes inside like I don't I I we I have like a specific set of indoor flip flops.
SPEAKER_02My parents were like gruesome about like they did go out gardening and shit just track stuff in crazy. I mean they always cleaned up like afterward but it's like you did like you're there's a couple steps there you could have cut out pretty easily right yeah you have a mandatory dirty shoes policy when guests visit in clean shoes.
SPEAKER_04Hey take those off go out in the garden and rub some mulch on your fingers rub some fucking dog shit on your flip flops right fucking now or get the fuck out. Yeah I grew I like I grew up with shoes in the house just because yeah no there are there are like a lot of critters around yeah I was gonna say crit it's like the like a miniature outback. Like sometimes I'll just get pictures like of from family members out there like uh oh yeah yeah of just like giant snakes or snakes or scorpions I had I I was with uh I was living with uh one of my friends at the time over in Tempe on the edge of uh Phoenix and we had a visitor from South Korea and she asked about scorpions and my friend just said like oh yeah here and you pick up the UV light everyone out here has a black light it just went to the edge of the uh of the fence and just shined it and there's just like scorpions fucking just hanging out there like and like I you just never know how many there are damn dog I would try to like befriend them I'd have them like bring me offerings. I think that would be really hard I I think it's hard to train a scorpion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I mean you just give them like treats and stuff yeah right now like imagine having an army of scorpions you can just unleash a pot and people who wronged you could call yourself the scorpion king.
SPEAKER_04Oh shit I didn't wow I didn't even thought which we'll eventually get to um so I think that's I think I think that is that is true. We'll we'll get to all of them because this is a fucking trashy podcast but yes I think that's about all I have to say about the experimentals. I feel like if I keep going I'm gonna start I feel like I'm gonna make it worse I feel like I'm gonna make it worse when I describe how when Jean-Claude Van Damme does turn around comma sheep he does it in like a very flash dancy way where like he's backed up against then like Sylvester Stallone makes eye contact while he dies like yeah huh alright. Yeah all right so anything else I want to see a favorite uh favorite action scene from this uh from this movie oh it's gotta be the initial it's gotta be the initial fight scene like the initial scene like I don't care multi-minute I I don't care that it had nothing to do with the rest of the movie like I don't care I fucking loved seeing jet lee I loved that there were so many vehicles yeah I wanted to bring in like oh we got check it out we got the we got the hovercraft we gotta bring in the hovercraft toy it reminds me of like fucking Looney tunes where like you know they'll be driving a car and then like there'll be an explosion and then like they're driving a bicycle made out of a car and then it's another close up and they're on roller skates. It's a unicycle and then it's a roller skate and like I just wanted to like I just wanted them to keep getting smaller and smaller until like they're on razor scooters trying to escape and harmy and they pull it off somehow everybody gets away like they fucking ramp over mental image of those guys all doing razor scooter tricks is killing me. Mental image of fucking sliced alone in fucking like full battle gear with a beret with a skull pin and he's like on a razor scooter just ramping it over a ramping it over with a mountain dew yeah Christ what was your what was your favorite uh probably the one where Statham dresses up as a priest and then like kills a whole bunch of people with digital would you would you repeat the line he said because I genuinely love I now pronounce you man in wall wait fuck man in knife I fucked it up dude I fucked it up I'm not even gonna do a retake because I I deserve the shame of fucking you would you would be such a fucking terrible action hero well I mean depends on what you want to see in your action heroes right I think that's relatable. Oh fuck you've done that look that's why they do multiple takes alright let's do it again let's do it again I would love the idea of like an ultra capable mercenary who just doesn't make lines so nobody fucking likes hanging out with him. Yeah he keeps flubbing the one liners he just keeps he's like perfect in every other way but like he just makes this flubbing one liner that he's like I'm pictured Chris Hemsworth doing that just like the bag of feet guy. Fucking Chris Hemsworth with a bag of feet that's way better than what I was thinking of. What were you thinking of? I was just like you know like Chris Hemsworth swooping in with like a really funny line and like having the the funniest fucking line in the Liam Hemsworth movie.
SPEAKER_02But like I love the idea that he has a bag of feet just like oh he's like in his dressing room right now it's like overflowing he needs help to see your he just keeps finding feet finding I mean that's a charitable way of putting it so in your mind he's actually hunting for feet and taking it as a foot there's a reason they call him the foot collector Chris the foot collector look it up look it up people is this a no way parody or no I'm kidding I'm kidding you're the lawyer you're the lawyer you should know whether we I would have to edit this part very carefully in no way shape or form does Chris Emsworth as far as I know carry around a big thing.
SPEAKER_04As far as we know Chris Emsworth does not have a bag of feet.
SPEAKER_02Some people have said it before but you know there have been rumors that the foot collector and the movie he did star he did star in the foot collector a true story just some quick housekeeping before we go uh Slop Culture is a podcast hosted by Sam Sykes and Will Palmer. Uh please give us a five star review on whatever platform you're on. Our cover arts by Andrew Sides intro music is by Joe Roy you can find me online at pretty much uh pretty much everything at uh at Palmskys.
SPEAKER_04And you can find me at Sam Sykes Swears.
SPEAKER_03I'm Bruce Nixon