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The Middle of Culture is what happens when two siblings with too many opinions and not enough chill dive headfirst into movies, music, video games, and whatever else is rotting our brains this week. It’s part pop culture podcast, part sibling rivalry, and fully unfiltered. Expect passionate arguments, niche references, unsolicited rankings, and the occasional moment of unexpected insight. If you’ve ever wanted to eavesdrop on the kind of argument you’d hear at the family dinner table—only with better audio—this is your show.
Eden
00:00
Either Arnold Schwarzenegger is secretly one of the great actors of his generation, or he has the most talented agent who deserves the most money in the history of Hollywood.
Peter
00:25
Welcome back To the middle of culture. I am one of your hosts, Peter. And I am your other host, Eden.
Eden
00:31
Eden, how are you? Oh, it's been a long week. Uh guess what I woke up to this morning? What did you wake up to this morning? 200 gallons of water in my basement.
Peter
00:45
Oh no.
Eden
00:47
Yup.
Peter
00:48
No.
Eden
00:49
Worst flooding in my basement I've ever had. Um Yeah, it was rough. It took me over an hour just to get it uh v s shop vaced out. Uh again, it was over two I I estimate it was over 200 gallons because I have a five-gallon shop vac and I know I dumped it more than 40 times.
Peter
01:13
And was this was this a water heater or is this from rain that you've had
Eden
01:18
or rain? Rain. It just has rained a ton the last few days.
01:23
And we'd gotten a little bit of water and we cleaned it up and it wasn't a problem. And then I wake up this morning and like, so our basement basically is in two rooms. It's unfinished, but it's in two rooms.
01:35
The dog's kennels are in one of the rooms and then the other room, the bigger room is where like the washer and dryer are and the sink and that's where it usually has a little bit of water in it if we have water in it. That entire room was full Like two to three inches. And the only reason it didn't cover the entire basement is thank God for uneven flooring done by an idiot who used to own our house.
01:57
But that is the saving grace of Ivan, who used to own our house, who I usually am bemoaning constantly. I was like, thank you for being stupid and not knowing how to self-level concrete. Uh, but that means that it was kept to the one side, so I was able to get it cleaned up.
Peter
02:13
Oh goodness. Thank goodness. That's awful.
Eden
02:17
And then every hour or so, every hour, hour and a half or so, I go downstairs and I drain another five gallons of coal. Jeez. It's been a long day. It's been a real long day.
Peter
02:28
Yeah. It sounds like it. Well, I am sorry to hear that. There are
Eden
02:32
Which is why I'm enjoying this nice white claw, because I need something. You need something.
Peter
02:38
There you go. Well well that's awful. I'm I'm sorry to hear that and I hope that it uh it lets up a little bit so that you don't have to continue doing that.
Eden
02:48
We've talked for years about putting a sump in that corner because we have one in the opposite corner. Um, but that's also where the radon mitigation is, and I think there's some There's some sort of regulation about how close a sump pump and a radon mitigation can be to each other. So we might need to find someone who's willing to uh Not follow the law perfectly and put 'em a little closer than maybe legally they're allowed to be by code.
03:13
I don't know the codes. I don't know. Maybe it's not that bad.
03:16
I don't know. We're gonna reach out and have them come in and give us an idea of like how much is it gonna cost to put a sump? Where could we put it to feasibly keep this from happening?
03:25
again.
Peter
03:26
I mean that's that's sounds like something that's worth doing. I uh you know we were fortunate in New Hampshire is the only place where I've lived where that would have ever been a concern. And I when we would have days and days of rain, man, that sump pump was just going all the time.
03:42
But fortunately, it kept up. We never did have it get above the little pit that the sump pump was in. So Nice.
03:51
Yep. But what you been checking out? What's been what you been into lately?
Eden
03:56
Um, you know, a fair amount of stuff. I think By the time we recorded the last episode, I do not believe that Rebecca Black's new album was out yet. Is that correct? Did I talk about it last week?
Peter
04:08
We did talk about it. I don't know if the whole album was out or if there had just been singles.
Eden
04:12
I think I was talking about it being in anticipation because a number of singles had come out. Uh listeners, it's good. Listeners, it's good.
04:20
Listeners. Go listen to Age of the Exhibitionist, Rebecca Black's new album. It's got some real bangers on it.
04:29
I've really been enjoying it. it. It has been basically the only thing I've listened to with some exceptions that I'll talk about in the last couple of weeks.
04:36
But it has been on repeat a lot at my house. Very good. Hot Wet Delirious specifically, killer song.
04:43
Highly recommended. Um, but the the one detour I took all week, I was on YouTube and I saw a link in the sidebar for 70s Japanese jazz or something like that. And I was like, that sounds like good background music to my life.
05:02
And I started listening to it and I was like, oh, this is kind of good. I don't know. It feels a little soulless.
05:08
I'm like, where's the it's it's like nice background music, I guess, but I don't know. And then I was reading the comments, they were like, oh, this is AI generated. And I was like, oh, of course.
05:17
My enemy, my enemy, the generative LLM, has done this. But then I was like, well, what if I just go look up some actual 70s Japanese jazz. I mean I go down like a jazz fusion hole relatively frequently.
05:31
I've talked about Cassiopeia, who I listen to fairly frequently, but that's like 79 is when Cassiopeia's first album came out, so they are like on the vanguard of more 80s jazz fusion. And I wanted like more like early 70s jazz stuff. So I did some digging and found some, it's not instrumental, it's uh it's like vocal work, uh, but I've been listening to uh two artists Chiy and June Mayazumi, both of which do like kind of lounge jazz from the 70s. They're actual people.
06:03
These are albums that came out in the 70s. They're not a generative LLM slop. Uh, which is great. It's much more fun to listen to and be like, oh, a person made this.
06:12
This wasn't made by beep boop. Um but I really I I really liked him. It's been fun to listen to that in between.
06:20
getting extremely uh pumped up on electro beats with uh Rebecca Black. Very nice. Um In terms of things I've been reading, uh, I have read a lot of manga because I was able to get in a very good deal.
06:39
a book that has been out of print for about a almost a decade at this point, uh, which is a manga called Citrus, um, which is an extremely messy, messy manga. Um we don't need to go into it. It's just messy.
06:53
It's like, you know, uh not toxic in the way that some of the other stuff I've read is toxic, but like, oh, this is a messy situation between these two as they're falling in love with each other. other but it was one of those ones that I've it's like a foundational text um in like romance manga of like the 2000s 2010s um and I just had never read it And I read it, and it was one of those things where it was like, it's not very good, but I had a hell of a good time reading it. I read all ten volumes in a day and a half.
07:26
So it couldn't have been bad.
Peter
07:27
I mean, clearly you're in the room.
Eden
07:28
Because I read ten volumes in a day and a half Uh but it's not particularly good. Um but now I have the Interquel series Citrus Plus to read, because there's six volumes of that. Um and I have that too.
07:39
So I'm gonna get to that hopefully soon Um, I read a uh very, very kind of funny novel um with a very stupid title. Named Sexiled, my sexist party leader kicked me out, so I teamed up with a mythical sorceress. Exclamation point.
07:58
Another one of those winning long titles.
Peter
07:59
Another one of those titles.
Eden
08:01
Another one of those is real stupid. Um but anyway, uh this basically this uh book was inspired by a scandal that happened in Tokyo University back in the early 2010s, mid-2010s, where they were artificially deflating the scores of the women applicants. Okay.
08:22
So that there would be more male doctors. Okay. And so that was the impetus behind writing this book, because that is the sexist world in which the main character Tanya operates.
08:34
Uh, you know, there's everyone is like sexist against female adventurers. She gets kicked out of her party again because he was sexist and she was a woman, as the title so adroitly says, sexist party leader, kick me out. And then she frees a mythical sorceress who's been in a in a status' jail for 300 years, and they team up to basically beat the shit out of the guy that she used to be friends with and then has become a sexist prick as he has gotten older.
09:00
Um, it was very silly. It was very fun. I had a lot of fun reading it.
09:04
There is a second one, um, which I'm sure I will start. They're not very long. I got through it in like a day or two.
09:10
So that is next on my reading agenda. Very good. Um In terms of playing games, uh I have talked a lot about Fields of Mystria.
09:19
Things were going really well. I had finished the main storyline about the dragon spirits. I was romancing people like crazy because you can date however many people you want in that game.
09:30
You can only marry one person. By the time I finish playing, I'm taking a break. I think I was dating nine people.
09:37
Okay. Uh because I could. Because you could.
09:40
You give them enough you give 'em enough gifts and you talk to them enough, you level them up to eight hearts, and then they uh give you a declaration of love. And who are you to turn that down? Right.
09:50
So I was dating like nine people. It was fine. Um, and I was like, you know, still plugging away at it.
09:56
I had finished basically all of the story stuff. It was mostly just like, hey, like Finish leveling up your farm and leveling up the town and stuff. But then I got distracted by another game that was on sale that was on my wa my uh why wish list.
10:10
which is Rune Factory, Guardians of Azuma, which is the latest game in the Rune Factory series, which, in case folks don't know, started as an offshoot of the story of seasons or the Harvest Moon games. Okay. So like that is its genesis is like, what if it was a more combat focused Harvest Moon.
10:32
Um That's where it kind of started. This newest one, it's the sixth one in the series, has really gone afield. I thought it was going to be a farming game with more combat.
10:43
I was thinking more like Harvestella, which we've talked about, is like an RPG with a farm tact on the side of it. Au contraire, Monfrère. This is the city manager game that happens to also have a lot of combat in it because you start getting a bunch of villagers coming to your villages, and then you gotta give them jobs.
11:00
I ain't planted a thing in a month and a half of game. Wow. Because I just I say you go go plant.
11:09
You you're in the fields. You go go work the shops. You go collect logger.
11:15
Go log. You go mine. You go fish.
11:18
On top of doing a lot of like storytelling stuff. It's like. Extremely tropey.
11:23
It's extremely like, oh, we're free. We're like giving the gods back their power by re like reviving the the the land , putting the runes back in the land. And, you know, removing the blight.
11:37
And it's like, you know, it's not doing anything stellar with the story, but I'm having a good time, and that's what counts. I can turn off my brain. The combat is fairly fun.
11:47
It's got a big party. It's like party-based too, so you've got like companions that are out there with you. Fairly similar to Harvestella.
11:55
But the story is not nearly as good as Harvest. Postellas. Sure.
11:58
Because there hasn't been. Listen, this this guardians of Ozma could win me over if they were like, actually. This is 4,000 years in the future of your planet.
12:09
You are on the moon. Here is the flag that the Americans put on the moon in 1969. Which is what Harvestella did.
12:17
And I was like, what the hell? And then that that game got buck wild. That's like a buck wild GRPG.
12:25
Guardians of Ozma seems much more typical, much more like not not balls to the wall, we're really pushing the what sorts of silly things we can do in the story. This is like Oh, we're freeing the gods. The the bad guy is my childhood uh betrothed who's now evil and I'm the good one and he's the evil one and he rides a black dragon and I ride a white dragon.
12:47
You know, those sorts of things. But I'm having a good time. I'm also you can only date one person in this game.
12:53
So I was given a whole lot of people to choose from. Who did I choose to date? The goddess of spring?
12:59
Who are you kidding? Why would I not date the goddess of spring? Uh when you she is i before she's even introduced in the gay game and the uh the village chief of the spring village is like I remember stories about the old spring goddess and her bosomy body, and I was like, what?
13:18
And she was. She is She's she's not tickle biddies. And it's like, okay, I guess I'm I guess I'm dating the spring goddess Ulalaka.
13:27
It's cool. It's fine. I'm having fun with it though.
13:30
It's a good game. It's a good game. And then the last thing I want to talk about.
13:35
Yesterday, or no, not yesterday, Friday, I went and I saw Resident Evil.
Peter
13:41
Okay.
Eden
13:42
Peter, that movie was fucking delightful, dude I've heard.
Peter
13:46
I've heard that it's it's pretty good.
Eden
13:50
It's really, really good. I was talking with some friends beforehand, because I had heard a lot of folks online say, hey This is a good movie and easily the best video game-based movie ever made. Okay.
14:05
And I was like. That's not that's I mean that's not hard. That's a low bar.
Peter
14:09
Low bar.
Eden
14:10
That's a very low bar. Um I would have previously given it to the 90s Mortal Kombat film because that was not a good movie But is a very good adaptation of Mortal Kombat.
Peter
14:23
Okay.
Eden
14:23
Because Mortal Kombat is also not a very good game. Correct. But it's fun.
14:27
Just like the movie Mortal Kombat is a fun movie, even though it is not a good movie. It's a bad movie. But it's a fun movie.
14:34
Um and I've I think I've talked on here about my love of the Paul the aforementioned Paul W. S. Anderson director of Mortal Kombat. I also love his Resident Evil series, his wife guy Resident Evil series. Speaking of, I mean, we'll get to wife guys later in this uh exact episode.
14:51
Uh Wife Guy directors, uh with uh one of our topics for tonight. True. But, you know, Paul W. S. Anderson, consummate wife guy, loves his wife Mila Jovovich more than anyone and wants to make cool movies with her in it.
15:05
And I like those Resident Evil movies. None of them are particularly good, but I like them. This new one It's a good movie.
15:12
Okay. It's really good. Um, the thing that I think is the most interesting about it, as I was talking about it with my friends afterwards Is we decided what made it feel so fun is it did not simulate like the characters in a Resident Evil game who are like all kind of like military badasses or like cops and things like that.
15:34
That's who your usual protagonist is, with the exception of Ethan Winters and Seven and Eight, but we don't need to talk about those two because we're talking about the earlier ones with the zombies. Um this is not like a Chris Redfield or uh or a Leon Kennedy kind of guy. Sure.
15:52
What he is, is he is you playing the video game Because he has like a running self-monologue through most of the film where he is talking to himself about the terrible situation he's found himself in. That is the exact thing that I say when I play a Resident Evil game. I am the one who is going, Jesus, fuck, fuck, fuck, Jesus, fuck, and the motherfucker That's me when I'm playing a scary video game, and that is him in the scary video game scenario.
16:22
Okay. And that was very funny. Um and there was just I I there were so many things that we as you were watching it, you were like Oh yeah, that's that's what you do when you're when you don't know how to play a video game and you think that's gonna work and then it doesn't work and that's why because you don't Cause you just were playing a game for the first time.
16:43
And there's so many scenes like that. It's really good. Surprisingly funny.
16:49
Had some extremely big jump scares. Like I audibly gasped multiple times and then has one of the most bummer endings complimentary that I've seen in a movie in a long time.
Peter
17:00
Okay.
Eden
17:02
It's really good. I really recommend it if you're down with a little bit of spooky.
Peter
17:07
Okay. I'm usually not, so you know. I'll probably skip it.
Eden
17:12
Yeah, maybe watch it when you uh when it's on streaming. You might, you know, turn on the lights and watch it then. But it was I had a very good time.
17:20
Very nice. It was very, very funny. Uh I liked it a lot.
Peter
17:24
Very good. That's what I've been up to.
Eden
17:25
How about you?
Peter
17:27
Um, not a whole lot. Work has been kind of busy, some other things going on. I do have kind of a lot of music to talk about as I tend to, so I'm gonna jump through a couple things really quick.
17:38
I am still chipping away at the Iliad. It's the Robert Fagel's translation. Boy, it's kind of a bummer.
17:45
I mean, it just basically has me reading this going, all of my thoughts seem to center on the fact that Uh that that the pride of arrogant, powerful, bitch-ass little men has been causing horrible problems for millennia, as it continues to do. And so, you know, it's it's a little uncomfortable to read because it's just like, oh, so we're just doing the same thing all over and over again, where a bunch of, like I said, just whiny little baby men have uh getting their knickers in a twist and then they have to act out. So here we are in the year twenty twenty six with whiny bitch ass men making decisions that jeopardize the entire world because they're whiny little bitches But hey, um I did yes.
18:36
Quick question before you move on. Please.
Eden
18:38
Any particular reason why you chose Fagels as your uh translation of choice? Since I know there are many, many uh translations of the Iliad.
Peter
18:48
I r I had done a little research and read that it was considered widely considered one of the more readable but still not like modernized translations. Sure. So.
Eden
19:00
Yeah, like it, I I like the Fagels translation because it does kind of ride the line of it feels Like it has the feel of epic poetry while not trying to bend itself backwards to ape some of the things in epic poetry. Like it's not trying to do rhyming verse like some translations do. But it also is, you know, I I I don't know.
19:23
I I was just curious if there there was like a a method behind the the choice of fagles. Yeah. Because I know like at this point in 2026 It really comes down to one of two.
19:32
It's do you want to read the Fagel's translation or do you want to read the Emily Wilson translation? Um But yeah.
Peter
19:38
Yep. So so still chipping away at the Iliad. I mean it's nine hundred pages long, so it's kind of slow going. Um, I did actually, because you had been talking about it and it was on sale, I picked up Fields of Mystria and I played like three and a half hours one afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed that three and a half hours. And then I put my Steam Deck down and I haven't picked it up since. So
Eden
20:02
Yeah, that's fine.
Peter
20:03
You know, um I I'll get back to it. It's a charming little game though. I mean it is.
20:08
It feels like, again, what if Stardew? But it's streamlined a few of the annoying things about Stardew and stuff. So uh I I enjoyed what I played.
20:19
I'm I'm still only like, I don't know, a few days into spring. So um like probably a dozen or so Uh but like I say, a lot of music to talk about. We're gonna go back a couple weeks, and I know that I have spoken about them on this podcast before.
20:35
Uh but Eden, do you remember me talking to you about the band Psy? I do. So Cy, I kind of got into them when they did, I think it was maybe even last year, they did a remaster of Hangman's Hymn.
20:49
Well, they released a new proper album this year called Go Ka, G-O-H -K -A, and it is more sigh. It is kind of crazy, a little avant-garde. very entertaining, still some good emotional depth to it, uh lots of moments that just kind of come out of nowhere and catch you off guard.
21:09
Uh it is, if you want, some good avant-garde Japanese loosely I would call it black metal. You should totally check out Cy. Cy is a fascinating band.
21:21
And on the Sort of the heels of that, I realized that there's a band I've been tangentially aware of, but not really gotten into, and that is the band Igor, I-G-O-R-R-R. Uh it is realistically kind of more of a one-man band, but he has other people helping with stuff, but it's really one dude's project. Uh but I I decided to listen to the most recent album that came out last year, Amen, and holy shit. It is fucking awesome.
21:52
It is such a good album. I mean, there's break core electronic stuff, there's metal moments, there's operatic, there's it is just all over the place. But the thing I really like about Amen is A-Men is a little bit more grounded.
22:09
It is, I think a lot of folks would really say this is kind of the most fully realized version of what Igor has been transitioning to. I think the consensus probably would be that 2020's Spirituality and Distortion is maybe the best Igor album. I do like it as well, but there's something about Amen that just really has grabbed me and uh it's I keep coming back to it.
22:32
I'm really digging that album. And then a few more in the last week or two, again, talked about them on the pod. Raphael Weinroth Brown, Cellist.
22:44
Extraordinaire. He released an album this year called Empyrean. Last year he released Lifeblood.
22:50
It was one of my very favorite albums of the year. Uh Empyrean is interesting in that it started out as a score that he was commissioned to uh compose and play for the James Wilton Dance Company uh for a piece titled Bach Reimagined. So this is initially built off some Bach cello preludes, and it was eighty minutes for the for the dance, you know the dance show thing, uh he decided to kind of take some of the elements of that, strip it down a little bit, and really make it something that was uh a good 44-minute album or something.
23:24
Again, it's more Raphael Weinroth Brown doing what he does. This one I'd say is a little bit more, you know, on Lifeblood, there's a lot of him using the cello for percussion and things like that. This one, the first track, Speed of Light, is more like that.
23:40
And then the rest of it, so much of it is uh it's it's a lot more languid sort of emotionally building pieces. It is just absolutely gorgeous. I think because I've been geeking out about Raphael Weinrath Brown, the social media gods decided to uh point me in the direction of another solo cellist, Brianna Tam.
24:03
Uh so I've been really checking out her stuff in the last week or two as well. She is a solo cellist. She started out really as a classical cellist, went to a conservatory, got annoyed with that, dropped out, did some, you know, was principal cellist in a few different uh orchestras, and then eventually found an electric cello and got an electric cello and a loop pedal and started doing the same thing that uh Raphael Weinrath Brown does in that all of her compositions are pretty much her and her cello.
24:33
and she's recording it and looping it and recording it and looping it and there's this gradual build to the pieces. Uh and the thing that I love about both of these is they manage to make beautiful music that is emotional, can be haunting, but it never tips over into that saccharin sort of um you know sound that some string and classically kind of rooted music can get to. So I I really like that.
24:57
And then the final thing that I want to mention, I haven't had a ton of time because it just came out this Friday, but how am I not going to talk about the first studio album from Anthrax in 10 years? That is cursed. Oh, words?
25:11
New anthrax? New anthrax, they dropped cursum perficio on Friday And it's good. It's good.
25:19
Is it great? Good. Well, probably it's not great.
25:22
It's definitely not gonna beat um things like Among the Living. I think that for All Kings, the 2020 the excuse me, the 2016 release may be better But it is a very good anthrax album. It does a little bit of what uh Testament was doing on Parabellum in that it's kind of experimenting a little bit with other elements of other genres of metal, not just thrash metal.
25:48
But I think that anthrax actually pulls it off more successfully than than Testament did. Well, Parabellum has moments I enjoy as a full album, it felt a little too uh it just was i it wasn't very coherent. There wasn't a nice kind of through line through it.
26:06
And while there is some of that with Cursum Proficio, I actually think that it's I think it's a much better album than Parabellum, which makes me a little sad 'cause I love Testament. Uh but it's a good anthrax album and I will always have a very soft spot in my heart for anthrax. Um I think when we talked about some of our musical influences, I talked about how Persistence of Time, their nineteen ninety album.
26:30
really was the album that got me into metal in high school. Not, you know, I I I always actually r vastly preferred Persistence of Time. over Metallica's Black Album, over Countdown to Extinction , any of those things that were coming out in the early 90s. I definitely think it is.
26:53
I definitely think it is. It's
Eden
26:54
basically the blank album, but we don't need to we don't need to spend fifteen minutes today talking about why we both think Metallica sucks.
Peter
27:02
Yes, that is true. But Uh but yeah, so I I think it's a fun album. Again, Anthrax is always a little bit more Well, they're often a little more fun in terms of how their music feels than some of the other thrash bands, especially the, you know, vaunted big four of Thrash.
27:23
But at the same time, uh there's definitely it's it's not silly pointless music. There's definitely some seriousness to it. So uh it's it's a fun one.
27:34
But
Eden
27:35
So big four, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax number four.
Peter
27:42
They are.
Eden
27:42
Oh, they are the Big Four. Okay. I thought you were saying they were outside of the Big Four, and I was like, I would have put anthrax in a big four. So I was just mistaken. Okay.
Peter
27:50
That makes sense. They're in it. All right.
27:52
Well, to our main topic today, we're getting back to our Arnold versus someone else comparison. A few weeks ago, we compared the uh the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic Conan the Barbarian to the 2011 Jason Momoa Abomination, Conan the Barbarian. We're back to do it again, this time with the 1990s Total Recall and the 2012 Lens Weisman Descri Len Weisman Directed, as you were pointing out earlier uh make or at least alluding to vehicle with Colin Farrell as the main character.
28:32
So let's start and let's talk again a little bit about uh the Arnold one and kind of our thoughts and and that sort of thing and then we'll talk about the 2012 one and then we can kind of compare and contrast in some places. So Eden, tell me, what are your thoughts about 1990's total recall starring Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Eden
28:54
I know when we watched uh Escape from New York, I said Is John Carpenter my favorite genre filmmaker? Now I can't help but wonder. Is Paul Verhoven?
29:06
Is it Paul Verhoven? Is Paul Verhoven my favorite genre filmmaker? Because let me tell you what, dear listeners, Total Recall's great, man.
29:17
I had so much fun re-watching Total Recall. Uh Cassie watched it with me. It was her first time.
29:24
And uh perhaps the greatest praise one can give to a movie when she is laying with her head in my lap, she stayed awake for the time.
Peter
29:30
I was gonna say, I think you have pointed out that that is high praise from Cassie in the past.
Eden
29:35
Especially if she's horizontal. Like if she's vertical and she stays awake, you're like, that's like a 7 out of 10 film for Cassie. If she is laying down and she still stays awake for the whole thing.
29:46
That means it's a banger, folks. There you go. Let me tell you what.
29:50
Total recall, a banger. I love this movie. Revisiting it has made me love it all the more.
29:57
It is so off the wall. It is so over the top. Um it leaves you with just enough like I don't know man.
30:07
I don't know. Leaves me lots of questions at the end of this movie. Leaves me with lots of questions at the end of this movie.
Peter
30:14
Okay, so so I want to really briefly, and this really applies to both for the most part. We got our main character. He's in a eh so-so life.
30:24
He's having dreams of a different life and a different woman. He lives in a future hardy in which he just kind of is a manual laborer and he decides to go to recall to go on a mind trip. He's gonna get memories reimplant implanted in his head as if he lived them kind of a artificial, you know, virtual reality type trip, but but but better because it's going straight into your brain.
30:51
And then things go crazy from there. He he decides that he wants to take the SPY, the secret agent trip. And and then all of a sudden the next thing you know, oh wait, turns out he is a secret agent.
31:06
And in the one, he's gotta get to Mars, and in the other, he just has to get to the other side of the planet. And he's gotta stop the bad guy, Kohagen, and he meets the woman of his that's been in his dreams, but his wife is still chasing after him because she's not really his wife and they've only been married for they've only been together for six weeks, not seven or eight years. I don't know why they chose to change that.
31:25
That was kind of weird. But you know It all gets to this culmination that at the end of it, when the main character has accomplished the grand design, he has saved the day, it leaves you wondering. Did this actually happen?
31:44
Or once he goes into the chair at recall, are we just seeing the memory that's inside his head? That's that's the way what's that's the way it's left. In in both movies, and we're gonna get to it, but I think that in one movie that was a strength, and in another movie, I think that was a really big mistake and a bad idea.
Eden
32:03
Agreed. Agreed. That's because one of these movies is good and one of these movies is not.
32:09
And dear listeners, you've already heard my praise. for Paul Verhoven as a filmmaker, so I think you can gather which one I did not enjoy as much. So here's what I'm gonna say.
Peter
32:19
I like 1990s Total Recall. It's all right. I've seen it before, but it's meant been many years.
32:27
But I'm like, okay, it's fine. Yeah, this is fun and it's wacky and it's weird. But do I really have any desire to watch this movie again for another twenty years?
32:38
No, sir. No, I do not.
Eden
32:41
And see, I would just go turn it on right now. I'd watch it again today and I watched it like five days ago and I'd watch it again today. Yeah, yeah.
32:48
I was just thinking about it. I'd actually probably turn on a different Verhoeven movie today. Like, you know what I haven't seen in a couple of years?
32:55
I ain't seen Starship Troop Rusnar There you go.
Peter
32:59
There you go. So so tell me what was it about 1990s total recall that makes it gives it because here's the interesting thing about this. In almost a similar way to Conan the Barbarian , the reception of 1990s total recall was fairly mixed.
33:22
At the time it came out, it was a cult film. Correct. At the time it came out, it was, there were some good, some bad.
33:28
It was sort of, okay, yes, it was a financial success, but it didn't blow anyone away. And over time has reached the status of being, I think, widely regarded as one of the best science fiction action kind of genre type movies. Yeah.
33:43
Maybe ever, really.
Eden
33:45
Yeah. I mean a lot of people I don't think it's Verhoven's best. A lot of people would argue it's Verhoven's best film.
Peter
33:50
Yeah. So what is it? What do you like?
Eden
33:54
What works for you in this? Here's the I'm gonna pause it a thing. This was the thing I was talking about with Cassie earlier.
34:00
Um, and I I'm very gonna I'm we're gonna have to revisit this when we do this for the three-peat, dear listeners, because you know we're doing another one of these for the running man. uh in a couple of episodes. I think one of two things is true.
34:15
Either Arnold Schwarzenegger is secretly one of the great actors of his generation.
Peter
34:21
Okay.
Eden
34:22
Or he has the most talented agent who deserves the most money in the history of Hollywood. Because Cassie and I were talking about it and I was like I am hard pressed to think of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that I would not sit down and watch with you right now. There's like two, maybe.
34:42
And she just started rattling them off and I was like, hell yeah, I'd watch that. Hell yeah. She's like, twins?
34:46
I'm like, pfft, Danny DeVito's there. Of course I'm watching twins. She's like kindergarten cop and I'm like, yeah, that has this scene where the kids are telling what their dads do and the twins go, our mom says our dad's a real sex machine It's hilarious.
35:03
And she's like, I've never seen this movie. And I was like, Cassie, we should watch Kindergarten Cup.
Peter
35:06
You need to watch Kindergarten Cup with her.
Eden
35:08
Um Yeah, I just For whatever reason, the guy was on such a hot streak from Conan onward that is should be studied in a lab.
Peter
35:20
Yeah.
Eden
35:20
Because it's just banger after banger after banger. Um and what Total Recall's just another one of those. He is so game to throw himself into the role.
35:31
Like The faces he is making as he is getting his brain scrambled at the recall place and afterwards when they're trying to uh unscramble him, like the guy is willing to put his like face and body on the line. Almost for the gag, uh it just really works. I I like the cast.
35:53
Um I think That Sharon Stone is a better evil fake wife than Kay Beck and Stone.
Peter
36:01
Oh, it's
Eden
36:02
that is
Peter
36:03
That is not even close. The the get for me that right there was the biggest gap between the two movies. And that's saying a lot when you're comparing Arnold to Colin Farrell.
36:13
Because here's my thought. Let's I wanna I wanna touch on on your Arnold comment. I think he probably had slash has, I don't know, he has had very good agents.
36:23
But I think the truth of the matter is, as I think that Arnold has dedication Yeah. And honestly really and truly does have a shit ton of charisma.
Eden
36:36
Oh god, he does.
Peter
36:37
Like
Eden
36:38
so much. It doesn't matter that his accent is kind of silly.
Peter
36:41
Like we all love him for it. And the thing is
Eden
36:44
We all have we all have an Arnold exp impression in our back pockets that we pull out and we're like, and none of them sound like him. And it's funny when anyone does it because we know we're not doing it to make fun of him. We do it because we love him.
Peter
36:56
It's true. Like For so many years, people always would talk about how The Rock had so much charisma. And the older The Rock gets, the more I'm like, he has Jack Squat.
37:07
He has zero charisma. All he does is the same tired shti over and over and over again. And like you said, you take Arnold and you put him in Conan.
37:16
Very kind of Self-serious up its own stuff. It's so serious. Yeah.
37:22
Super stoked. You put him in things like Predator and Commando and This and True Lies and Kindergarten Cop and Twins. Like all like All of these different things where it's still Arnold, I'm not saying you forget it's Arnold.
37:35
You never forget it's Arnold. You never forget. You never forget it's Arnold because Of all the inherent charisma that this man has And you can watch it and you can go, this is rid I mean, jingle all the way.
37:47
That's a terrible movie, but I would still freaking watch it because he's just it's funny. You're like, he's he's a It I think that that's what it is. He sells you on it.
Eden
37:57
He puts on the suit and then he flies. And Sinbad is also there.
Peter
38:01
Yeah, I think that really and truly that's what it is. So But the difference between Sharon Stone and Kate Beckinsale. And now I'm gonna say this.
38:10
Both beautiful women. I think that Kate Beckinsale In in the 2012 version, I think Kate Beckinsale comes across as more business-like and in some ways a little more menacing. And I think she does okay.
38:26
I don't think she does a terrible job. I think there are other people who do far worse jobs in the 2012 movie than K Beck and Spain.
Eden
38:32
Oh, I uh uh perhaps the other female lead, which we'll get to in a minute.
Peter
38:37
But Kate now, personal theory. Personal theory. I want to say that Paul Verhoeven directs Sharon Stone in total recall. And sees this like hot but so disturbingly fucking crazy portrayal on the screen that he goes, who do I want in basic fucking instinct? It's gotta be
Eden
39:02
like
Peter
39:02
I mean, you could even tell me that that movie was made for Sharon Stone after he sees how hot crazy she is. Like, she's so far up on the hot crazy scale in in this movie that it's like she is legitimately terrifying because you're like, oh my gosh, you are psychotic. She is
Eden
39:25
turns on a dime. Oh, I know. Because like Beckinsale never tries to sell any sort of kindness back to Quaid. No. In the in the Wiseman version. Even when they have to make her pretend to be like his loving wife, they couldn't even put her in the scene. She was outside on the other side of glass
Peter
39:46
with a coat wrapped around her.
Eden
39:48
Meanwhile, as you said, Sharon Stone is there. Like in that scene where they're fighting and then they're done fighting and they're just sitting next to each other and she's like You want one more one more for the road? Because sex was really good.
40:00
And all she's doing is trying to get him to delay so that her actual boyfriend can get him. She's so good. And and also, and here's the thing.
40:08
Here's the thing that the 2012 one was also missing. There's no Michael Ironsides. Because you know who kills it in this movie is Michael fucking Ironsides.
40:18
Yes. He's so hammy and so over-the-top bad. And Kate Beckinsale combining those two into one simply does not have the juice.
Peter
40:28
I will agree with you on that, but here's my yes but. Hit me. Probably my least favorite part of the 1990 total recall.
40:37
Is the creepy love, quote, love between Richter and Lori. Every time he like when he just like grabs her and gives her this aggressive kiss and um Yeah, it's across every time. Well, and then the one where he like gets the video call, and I like this was maybe the funniest moment of the whole movie for me, is here he is, he's being this hard ass chasing Quaid down, trying to kill him, even though Kohagan's like don't kill him.
41:04
And then he gets this call from Sharon Stone, and as he's walking away, he wolverine like reaches out and just like caresses the imit her image on the screen as before he turns around and walks out. And I'm just like that that part that whole part was just It was uncomfortable and creepy for me.
Eden
41:19
It is an unhinged performance by Ironsides. I think it's delightful while being extremely creepy.
Peter
41:26
Yeah, totally. I agree with you. Here's the other thing. There's weirdness in the 20 , excuse me, in the 1990 version that makes sense in the world that they've built. You've got these people and you're on Mars and so we've got these mutants and we've got all this like
Eden
41:43
and so yeah, they've mutated. So yeah, there's a three there's a three-boob sex worker because she's a mutant. Yeah. And her mutation is she grew a third boob. Yeah There's no reason other than ha ha ha throwback for there to be a three titty girl in the tow in the 2012 one.
Peter
41:59
Like there are some there are some nods in the 2012 one. that I kind of like. One in particular, when he goes to so so again, biggest difference between these in the nineteen ninety version, he has to go to Mars because there's they're
Eden
42:13
they're
Peter
42:13
they're mining stuff on Mars and the rebels on Mars are trying to You know, they're they're gonna derail that and Kohagan's in charge of keeping the turbinium, I think is what it was called flowing. They gotta keep mining the turbinium
Eden
42:25
Yeah, he is like the corporate, like, like Mars is a corporate colony. He is the head of the corporation. Correct.
Peter
42:33
And that is the situation. And and so Quaid has to go to Mars. So he travels to Mars and he's got this whole big mechanical outfit where he's dressed as this lady with a yellow jacket and as he goes through it 's how long are you gonna be here and she says two weeks and then the guy asks another question and the thing's freezing, so he says two weeks again and and then it all comes apart.
42:57
And I actually this was the one nod that I actually really kind of liked in the 2012. So in that version he just has to go across he has to go through the planet. from the colony, aka Australia, to which we'll talk about to the UFB, the United Federation of Britain And he gets over there, and as he's coming through, and everybody's kind of getting checked in as they come off the fall, you see a lady with kind of reddish-brown hair and a yellow thing.
43:24
And she goes through and the guy says, How long are you gonna be here? And she says, Two weeks. That's not Colin Farrell's character in this one.
43:31
But that was the one I did like. But yeah, it's like again, the i in the in the brothel bar whatever on in in you know Venus Town or whatever in the 1990s version, it makes sense why you have these characters. But it was just such a stupid kind of felt like an attempt at fan service that I don't think the fans appreciated for the 2012 version where he's just wandering through, you know, the colony and up comes, you know, this probably three-breasted prost I mean prostitute who's got three boobs and she's just like oh and it's just like it doesn't do anything.
44:13
It it it made sense in the 1990 version. And and all plays in.
Eden
44:18
And it's like a funny thing. Like it's like it's one of those things where it's like, oh yeah, we've got like a little person sex worker. We've got a three-boob sex worker.
44:25
We've got a lady upstairs with three arms, and then obviously the regular degular sex worker with a heart of gold who's in love with our protagonist, and our protagonist is in love with. Right. But like It makes sense for there to be like these differently bodied people because we have already established people on Mars are developing these mutations and that is because they're not being taken care of by the government, all this sort of stuff.
44:50
Divorced from that, it just felt stupid. And like some of the other like some of the like it felt like I was walking through that one street of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 where all the sex workers hang out. But with even with like less sauce.
45:04
I was just like, what are we? Like, the okay, there's a there's a cool robo lady. And like, okay, I guess.
45:13
Yeah. I don't know. It just it didn't do it for me.
Peter
45:15
Well, and so let's get to anything else in particular you want to bring up about the So the 1990 version yet before we do our comparisons.
Eden
45:24
Other things about the 90 version that I liked more and that are worth mentioning. Ancient aliens. So funny.
45:31
Yep. The idea that there's like ancient alien shit, which is how they save the day in the end and basically terraform Mars in the space of 30 seconds, which keeps our hero our heroes alive. So that's how our heroes survive the being sucked outside, which does result in some of the most fun special effects you've seen in a hot minute.
45:50
Oh yeah. And also Is one of the most silly like Deus Ex Machinas you've seen in a movie anime.
Peter
45:58
Well, and for me, I'll just I'll just Given reinforces the belief that this is not real. 100%. Is the the is the bow on top of the package that this is all part of his recall memory?
46:10
Because the entire fucking planet gains an atmosphere. of appropriate pressure in in a matter of seconds. That nobody is is decompressing in vacuum.
46:23
So
Eden
46:24
no. No. It's very silly. It's very, very silly. So that is very funny.
46:30
Kohagen is great. I think Ray, whatever his last name is, is just like chewing scenery so well. Oh yeah.
46:39
And I'm just gonna like sex worker with a like Hooker with a Heart of Gold is more interesting to me as a character than Resistance Leader's daughter. I'm sorry, Jessica Beale. Hooker with a heart of gold wins me over every time.
46:52
Yep. And so Melina in the nineties nineties version. And how does she become such a badass?
46:57
That's another one of those things where you're like, oh, you're stretching the credulity to really make me think, no, he is trapped in a delusion here. Like This is what happened. He is trapped in this delusion.
47:07
Because why else does this sex worker become like the fucking Terminator? Uh-huh. How is she dropping Sharon Stone, who is a trained killer?
47:17
Yep. So so let's jump. I think the cast is really good.
47:21
I like it a lot. I think the reveal of the of the Like resistance leader, it's very silly and very gross, and Cassie thought it was the grossest. So disgusting
Peter
47:31
when Kuatu all of a sudden shows up as a little
Eden
47:36
baby man in the dude's stomach. You're kind of like It's gross and great. It's so gross.
47:41
The special effects are so grody so often in this film, and that I think wins me over. Yeah. Um, and that is the those are things that I just really like about the 90s film.
47:51
It just feels of a time and is situated so well in that 80, nine 80s, 90s, like turn um building off of all of the work that he did in Robocop to make an even more cynical film. And then he turns it over again and makes an even more cynical film in Basic Instinct. And then he turns it over again and makes an even more cynical film in uh Starship Troops uh Starship Troopers.
48:16
Like that's this is what Verhoven does, is he reflects back to you the time you are living in and he says This is um nightmare. You live in a nightmare time. Look at it.
48:27
I'm doing this story to make you look at it. And it works every time. It does.
48:32
And I think for And Lynn Wiseman ain't got it like that.
Peter
48:34
No. And I don't even think he was trying. to do the same thing. No, it doesn't have any of that social commentary.
48:42
Correct. And that was what I was going to say is that's what, everything else aside, that again is where the nineteen ninety total recall stands head and shoulders above the twenty twelve version because there is this social commentary. There is this almost s there are these satirical elements to it to kind of get you to pay attention.
49:04
And and so there's there's none of that in the 2012. So let's move to the 2012 version. And we've kind of already hit a few of the big changes.
49:13
It's all on Earth, not Mars. Earth has basically been made largely uninhabitable by we don't know how, but but then that begs the question But then how are their habitable zones? In one point they have to go out of the habitable zone because that's where the resistance is hiding out, but it's like Like as they're flying back to the habitable zone, it's just like the air just clears and it's like, well, if you can clear the air here, then and and your problem is you've got too many people.
49:41
I mean, the whole thing is In the nineteen nineties version, Kohagan's just like, I just gotta keep mine because as long as I keep mine in the middle of the five,
Eden
49:47
he just wants money
Peter
49:48
lots and lots of money.
Eden
49:49
Yeah. It is he it is like ruthless capitalism. It is nineteen eighties style.
49:55
I've got mine Reaganism. That is what Kohagan is. It is the apex of Reagan Reaganism, like to a T. Reagan corporatism.
50:03
Yeah. And then this one just feels like it's like muddy. I still know
Peter
50:08
stupid. Like I don't even feel like I really know why he wants to invade the colony with with the fall ship chock full of synthetic police robots. Like at some point, somebody in passing is like, oh, he's gonna dis.
50:25
It's like he wants to take over the colony so that because the UFB, Britain, is getting too crowded, so that this way he can just like I mean at one point somebody literally says that he can move a few billion people to the colony and I'm sitting here going, friend, friend. I know that you have this multi-layered city and everything, but I'm sorry, Britain, no matter how tall you build things, is not holding multiple billions of people. No, no, it's not.
50:54
Like, it's just not. Um, and we I look Brian Cranston, I like Brian Cranston. I think he's good, but I think he's just fine in this.
Eden
51:03
Yeah, he's not bad. Here's the real thing. Here's the real thing that I have to complain about.
51:08
Okay. If it is Britain and Australia Why the hell is the only person with a British accent Kate Beckinsale when she decides to be evil? Why is the president Why is the President of the United Britain Federation An extremely American accented Brian Cranston.
51:30
And why is the Australia-dwelling Colin Farrell, who can do accents for basically anything doing his best American accent. What is what is going on? Why is Bill Nye here?
51:46
in the outskirts of United Britain doing an American accent!
Peter
51:51
It's true. It's true.
Eden
51:53
Why is Cape and then if everyone's gonna have an American accent Why does Cat Beckinsale get a British accent when she goes evil?
Peter
52:01
Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah.
52:04
Now, okay, I'm gonna do something risky here. And you're welcome. You're welcome.
52:10
To just have at me. Hit me. 2012's Total Recall is a bad movie when, especially when you take it in the lens of 1990s. But I think if you had someone who didn't know that 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger Total Recall existed, and you sat them down to watch 2012's Total Recall, they'd go.
52:32
Okay. That was fine. That was fine.
52:33
It was fun. Yeah, and and I'd say six out of ten. And yeah, I was thinking, you know, I think I'd give it like a two and a half to three out of five.
52:40
Yeah. But and and the funny thing is, is that and the reason I wanted to bring that up is I would not say that about 2011's Conan the Barbarian. That was just a dog chip.
Eden
52:50
That was just objectively a bad movie.
Peter
52:52
That was just bad. That was objectively just a bad one. But but this is so much of a lesser movie because it doesn't have So much of the interesting elements that make 1990s Total Recall a justifiable classic.
Eden
53:08
Here's another thing I want to mention about the new one. The first 30 minutes of it looks real cool.
Peter
53:14
It does.
Eden
53:15
The colony looks like it's like, oh, Cyberpunk 2077 is happening on the screen. Very much so. There's slums, there's cool, there's cool neon everywhere.
53:26
It's cool looking. Every part of Britain. Either looks like you did the most bargain basement minority report and you don't got it like Steven Spielberg does, Lynn Wiseman, or nothing.
53:40
Or just nothing. There's nothing there. In contrast, again, we go back to the 91.
53:48
They did a lot of filming in that weird concrete stair space. I don't know where that weird concrete stairs is, but they filmed a fair amount of the movie there, and it looks cool every time.
Peter
54:01
Yeah, it does.
Eden
54:02
Even though it is st spare and and sparse, it works because of like the brutalism of it. I was just saying. It reinforces those themes.
54:10
It is very much brutalism. The sterile feeling of everything in Britain just feels boring. It feels like you fin you didn't finish designing the film.
Peter
54:21
Yeah. No, I would agree. I would agree.
Eden
54:25
Also, the idea of the rail going through the middle of the planet is silly.
Peter
54:29
It's dumb.
Eden
54:29
It's just very silly.
Peter
54:30
It's dumb. I mean, I didn't do the math, but I thought to myself The fall only takes 17 minutes to go through the planet.
Eden
54:38
17 minutes?
Peter
54:39
And like, okay, so I'm I'm reading the expanse novels right now. I'm almost done with the first because I kind of paused a little bit. But it it at least has the it it it has the decency that every time they're going to do a maneuver in a ship that is accelerating at multiple G forces It talks about how the system is injecting them with drugs so that their heart will still beat and they can still have oxygenated blood flowing and all this kind of stuff.
55:09
And these people are going I don't know. I don't know what the the the diameter of the earth is. But I'm thinking to myself, to travel that distance.
55:22
In 17 minutes, they're pulling way too many G's to be reading a an Ian Fleming, probably, I think it was a James Bond book that he's reading when he goes through to go to work. It's just it it's one of those things where it's like
Eden
55:40
Okay, I had to look it up. I had to look it up. The movement of the fall as depicted in the movie is utterly impossible.
55:47
The distance between the colony and the Federation is about six thousand miles and the trip takes 17 minutes. This means the fall would travel at an average speed of 20,000 miles per hour or faster than the space shuttle in Earth orbit. Given that it accelerates at the start and decelerates at the end, the maximum speed would be even higher, and the acceleration required would be considerably more than 1G. Not only does the fall move at much slower speeds in all the scenes showing its movement, but this speed would only be possible in vacuum, which is not the case since people actually move outside the fall while it is moving.
56:19
Yeah.
Peter
56:20
Yeah, that was that was one of the big problems is you you set this thing up and then all of a sudden as it's moving through the planet, they're going outside and they're climbing around it and stuff. That was that was a big foobar right there, where I'm like, no, I mean come on.
Eden
56:33
Yes.
Peter
56:34
So a couple last things I want to mention before we wrap it up. Um I don't understand why does Kohagan insist on keeping Quaid slash Hauser alive in both movies.
Eden
56:49
It doesn't make a ton of sense in either film. Again, I think it makes more sense in the night. Although it must be mentioned.
56:59
Bring it back. We watched at least I'm gonna gather you watched the one that was on your Plex server, which is also the same one I watched. That's the director's cut.
57:07
So there is a scene at the very end that makes you think, oh, maybe he's still in the recall thing 'cause he doesn't have the little like little little thing on his arm. Yes. Remember that?
Peter
57:17
Very, very end. Well, and that's why uh you're talking about the twenty twelve version.
Eden
57:22
Yes.
Peter
57:22
Yeah, so that's why I that's where I felt that it was really cheap. So that was one of the things, and I'm gonna talk about it right now. That scene that scene is not in the d theatrical cut.
57:33
And well then it shouldn't be because here's the thing. In the Paul Verhoven version, it feels very vague. And it's at the end where finally I was like, okay, yeah, this is just all in, this is all in recall.
57:46
But in, you know, for example, when he is going to do the trip in recall, we see him getting strapped in, we see the thing going into him. His head is in the thing. Then we cut and we go to a different part of recall.
58:00
And then all of a sudden people are freaking out because he's having his schizoid embolus, which again, don't get me started. But uh but in this version, we see the needle go in, but then they stop it before the serum, the memory, whatever stuff actually gets there, before he's actually gone in. And then from there it takes off.
58:20
But not just that scene. There's a lot of things beforehand with his friend with Kate Beckensell where Not so that he can see, but you're seeing they're, you know, they're looking past him and stuff, and you're like, mmm.
Eden
58:34
Yeah.
Peter
58:34
So it's so it feels like they're setting it up from the beginning. that it is real. It is real. And so to pull that
Eden
58:41
put
Peter
58:41
that thing in at the end with that little piece tattoo or or that piece mark. Like That's where I felt like it was just really cheap. Because I wanted him, like again, it was you're trying to do the fan service-y thing when you would have made a slightly better movie if you had just committed. Just commit to say, no, in our version, this is real. He really is doing all of this stuff.
Eden
59:04
I mean, it's extra dumb because Uh the reason why he thinks he's not in the recall thing during the whole you're in the recall thing scene in the 90s one is he sees the sweat going down the president of recall's face, right? Because he's nervous. What is what happens in the 2012 one? His girlfriend cries, bro.
Peter
59:28
Well, bro. I mean, and that was one of the things where I'm like, this is okay. Another thing that makes me say he wasn't in the in recall is because when he's having that whole scene with his friend, his friend's solution, oh well to get out, will shoot her. That's how you gotta get out.
Eden
59:46
Yeah.
Peter
59:46
Shoot her. And I'm like, yeah, that was a stupid thing. If there's so yeah, it was it was frustrating to me.
59:54
Um I I I feel like again the 2012 version had they not They made some changes, but in other ways it almost felt like they were trying to be slavishly adherent to the 1990 version. And I feel like they could have made the movie a little bit stronger if they had said. No, we're gonna deviate in a few places.
01:00:16
We're gonna just be our own thing in a few places. And it didn't.
Eden
01:00:20
I agree.
Peter
01:00:20
Um I agree. I think we need to mention it. Jessica Beale is real bad. She's real bad.
Eden
01:00:26
She's very bad.
Peter
01:00:27
She's real bad.
Eden
01:00:28
She's always very bad. She's never been a good actor, unfortunately. Like I did think she was very pretty when I was younger. I was like, wow, she's really pretty and then I watched her and things and I was like she's not a very good actor.
Peter
01:00:38
There's a reason why I think we haven't seen or heard anything from her in many years.
Eden
01:00:42
She's too busy being Justin Timberleak.
Peter
01:00:44
I mean, good for her. But she did, she did apparently get a Razzie nomination for her role in this movie. And I think that was well-deserved. Yeah. Well-deserved nomination. Um anything else that you want to uh to mention between these two movies before we wrap it up
Eden
01:01:03
No, the only other thing I would mention is it did make me want to go download or Total Recall 2070, which was the TV show called Total Recall, made by Canadian television in the 90s. Not a to not actually a du adaptation, we can buy it for you, whole sell it to you wholesale, is in fact more of a blade runner. Uh, but they called it Total Recall because that movie was newer. Uh I did it's only 22 episodes, and I remember liking it when it was on syndication in the 90s. And I was like, should I go download that and just turn it on on the TV while I'm working?
01:01:35
I might. I'll let you know if I do. There you go.
Peter
01:01:38
This is interesting. Again, I think that I'm very interested to see, you know, in four weeks or so what happens when we compare the running man to the running man. Because I will say. Out of the three Arnold movies that I chose, I think that the Running Man is the weakest of the three. Uh
Eden
01:02:00
of the Arnold. I remember it being the I remember it being weaker than these other two, but I remember really enjoying it when all of the wrestlers are big goofy guys.
Peter
01:02:10
Yes, 100%. But so it would be very interesting to see because I think we had a huge we had a chasm between our two versions of Conan.
Eden
01:02:19
Oh yeah. I think we have a f it was like a ten on a it was like a ten out of ten and a two out of ten.
Peter
01:02:24
Yeah
Eden
01:02:25
With total recall, it's like a 9 out of 10 and a 6 out of 10.
Peter
01:02:28
Yeah, I'm curious to see what happens with this next one. So
Eden
01:02:33
me too.
Peter
01:02:33
But I I here's what I'll say. As we've talked about this, I think I'm getting um I'm warming up to the 1990s total recall a little bit more. I don't really love the experience of watching it in part because some of those things are really gross.
01:02:49
Like I just couldn't stand watching Quatu. But Oh, I loved that. It it made me so uncomfortable.
01:02:56
But but as a movie, I think that it's actually it is really a good movie. And it deserves It deserves its place in the pantheon of, you know, 20th century n you know action science fiction slash action movies. I think that the 2012 version does a few things right and does most things okay and a few things bad.
01:03:18
So it ends up with just kind of a fairly generic sci-fi action film that isn't as clever as the original, but looks good for the most part. Like, oh, one thing I do have to say. Oh my gosh, did you not find the lens flare, the constant lens flare in this movie so distracting?
01:03:39
Did J. J. Abrams shoot this thing? Oh my gosh, it was. Like I just sat there, it was one of the very first things I wrote down in my notes.
01:03:46
I was like, holy lens, Flare Batman, this is egregious. But again, I think if you knew nothing about the original version. And somebody sat down and watched this, they'd be like, okay, you wouldn't hate it.
01:03:59
You wouldn't be ready. You wouldn't it wouldn't be one where you're like, let's turn that back on and watch it again. But it's not nearly as bad as the 2011 Conan So there's how's that for damning with faint praise?
Eden
01:04:11
No, I, you know, I didn't have a good time, but I had an okay time. Yeah, I put it the same way. You know, the last thing I will say, Lynn Wiseman, wife guy, at least was a wife guy, he's not married to Kate Beckinsale anymore Ain't a wife guy on the level of Paul W. S. Anderson. You gotta get to that level, Len. You ain't got it like that.
Peter
01:04:32
No, no, he does not. He does not.
Eden
01:04:35
Now granted, Kate Beckinsale ain't got it like Mila Jovovich does either. She's a way better actor. I like Milajovovich a hell of a lot more than I like Kate Beckinsale.
01:04:43
I like them both, but One of them is Alice from Resident Evil, which I would watch any day of my life. One of them is the uh leather vampire lady from Underworld, which I never need to see again. Yep.
Peter
01:04:56
That sounds about right. Okay, well we'll go ahead and we'll wrap it up here. We'll be back in another couple of weeks.
01:05:03
And uh go ahead, as we've mentioned, leave us a review. subscribe, share, and if you've got anything you want to do, if you want to tell us why we were wrong in our judgment of either of these movies, reach out at feedback at the middle of culture. com and we'll talk to you in two weeks.
01:05:20
Bye