God didn't make rambo.
I made him. Who the hell are you? Sam Trotman. Colonel Samuel Trotman. Look, we're a little busy this morning, Colonel. What can I do for you? I've come to get my boy. Your boy?
I recruited him, I trained him, I commanded him in Vietnam for three years. I'd say that makes him mine. I wonder why the Pentagon.
Send a full bird colonel down here to handle this. The army thought I might be able to help. Well, I don't know in what way. Rambo's a civilian now. He's my problem.
I don't think you understand. I didn't come here to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him.
Well, we all appreciate your concern, Colonel. And we'll try to be extra careful. I'm just amazed that he allowed any of your posse to live.
Is that right? Strictly speaking, he slipped up. You're lucky to be breathing. That's just great. Colonel, you came out here to find out why one of your machines blew a gas.
You don't seem to want to accept the fact that you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who's the best.
With guns, with knives, with his bare hands.
A man who's been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather.
To live off the land. To eat things that'll make a billy goat puke. In Vietnam, his job was to dispose of enemy personnel, to kill.
Period! Win by attrition. Well, Rambo was the best. Praise the Lord for bringing us this generous bounty.
Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Wait, wait. I worry what you just heard was give me a lot of bacon and eggs. What I said was give me
Hello! And welcome to Cinema Beef Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Hill. Oh wait. No. No, I'm not. Who am I?
Oh shit, okay, my name is X and I'm filling in for Gary who is super tired, has car problems, and doesn't want to fuck with this right now, and I can't say is I blame him.
Anyway, let's go ahead and introduce our uh guests, our expert panel of experts. First off,
The No More Room in Hell podcast. I can't talk. I should talk more slowly and more.
Slowly. Mike! Mike Merriman.
What's up? Yeah, no more room in hell podcast. Yeah, and it's starting to feel like hell out here in California because we're getting up into the nineties already. It's too damn soon. Oh, are you getting that heat down, bruv?
Yeah, and uh that's not a good sign for what my energy bills are gonna look like pretty soon. Oh my god, I hate that so much. Also joining us for the first time on Cinema Be P P Pep.
And here's the thing.
I haven't even been drinking. I just can't Talk.
So you'll have to excuse me and get past the
this Dan from the Cozy Side of Cinema. Dan the cameraman. How are you doing, sir? I am well, thank you. I have been drinking, but I am still here.
Uh and
If I start to get a little incoherent, uh, after about a half hour, forty five minutes or so, uh, to you guys, to the listeners, just bear with me. Hopefully my thoughts come awa come along more coherently than I can put them.
I think if you've been listening to this show for a while, incoherent thoughts are just part and parcel of the program. That is what I think.
And finally from wherever, weighing whatever, it is Suzanne Capoletti. What's up, Suze?
Oh, trying to get out of vacation mode and into I have to go back to work and deal with humans. But other than that, here and I've been drinking.
I ha I handed my husband a beer when he walked in the door and I'm like, You would not believe this fucking day. So that's been going on since five o'clock this afternoon. I have slowed down, I did have an espresso, and now I'm drinking a flight which is barely beer. So we should be good.
You're drinking a y a yingling flight? Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Yes I am. Lord, I should just piss in your mouth about how much that
How much that's gonna do you. Okay, I lied. I lied. Fuck it. I'm drinking garage beer. I love garage beer. It's fun. Well, I did have a couple of half acres and uh A few spotted cows, which is a delicacy.
Wat about Don Callis?
Oh, it's uh local Wisconsin beer so you have to actually go to Wisconsin to get it and Pat went to Wisconsin and well, he knows he's not allowed to come back to the house if he doesn't bring the spotted cow.
I don't ever want to go to Wisconsin. That's just me. I mean I'm sure I'm sure it's a wonderful place, but I live in Tennessee and I have no reason to go to Wisconsin. Oh my god.
I have to admit, drinking there is sport. And you know, around here, I'm I'm pro. There, I'm amateur.
All right. Amateur Wisconsinites. Is that the word? Wisconsinians? I think it's Wisconsinites. Is it? Okay, good.
All right, people, let's talk about what we've been into lately. What kind of media have you been into? What are you watching? What are you reading?
Um what do you want? W what do you watch? What do you read? Go ahead, Seus.
Well, I've been I've had really bad short attention spam theater, so I've been
Kind of binge watching shows, and I got myself for a few months an a subscription to Print Box. Oh my God.
Brit Box has some of the best crime dramas ever. If you ever get a chance, you like police procedurals, I cannot recommend blue lights enough.
No, I have to wait patiently for the next season. And started watching his and hers on Netflix. It was pretty good. It is very, very it's pretty easy to figure it out.
but enjoyable nonetheless.
Movie wise, like I said, I have had no attention span. I turn something on, I watch it for twenty, thirty minutes and I'm out. I just nothing there. And
you know, gearing up, kind of getting excited about baseball season coming up, and that's next week. And I am for probably about the 50th time rereading my favorite novel, which is Ghost Story by Peter Strahl.
I have no problem with Peter Strub. Uh I love Ghost Story, I like Floating Dragon more.
Floating Dragon's fantastic. Floating Dragon's great and so is Coco. So I love all of those three books together. So yeah, that's a very fine choice. Uh let's see here. Dan, what do you got for us?
In terms of uh what I've been watching lately?
In terms of what you've been watching, what you've been reading, what you've been listening to, what you've been dreaming about, what you've been Fantasizing about on the street corner, all of that.
Well, what I've been fantasizing about might be a little bit too uh PG thirteen for the show, so I'll I'll do you guys all a favor and not kinda delve into that. In terms of films lately, I mean this been such a wide variety of films. Um, you know, like Mike.
Uh, him and I love going to the cinema. We love the theatrical experience. Um, we love just seeing a lot of the contemporary films that come out.
Um so I I I've seen a lot of contemporary films and theaters lately. I won't go into a lot of them. Some have been good, some not so good. But what I will mention is was one that I've actually talked to Mike about a little while ago.
And it's a uh it's a new film was actually nominated for an Academy Award called Surat, which is technically from 2025, but didn't play here until 2026. Anyways, I saw it in December. It finally played here in uh just this past week.
And Surat is a really incredible film. Exactly actually one of my favorite films.
I'll be brief with that because I I don't have a whole lot to say about it, but I will say that Tender Mercies was a film that I'd known about for a while and it was coincidental that it came up when uh Robert Duval had passed at not too far away from the time of this recording.
Um, it just came up to watch, so I watched it and yeah, it's it's a really solid, very low key, uh very cozy kind of film. It's one of these films where I mean the idea of him being an alcoholic and being very neglectful for his family are very serious issues that any other film
could delve into the melodrama of that. But this film in particular, it takes a far more relaxed approach to it where
He has these problems, but he's also willingly trying to get better. He's dealing with his his music career. He has these guys who come up to the house and talk about how much of a fan they are.
And it really is just that kind of that that ideal cozy film, you know, and I was saying before that, you know, country music isn't particularly the main genre that I that I run to.
But even watching this film, the songs that were playing, Duval's doing his own singing, I was just like, Man, I was just totally getting into the film, getting into the feeling of it. And when it was over, I'm just like, man, that that really is like a
Yeah I it's weird to say a gem of a film when it's so critically appla critically appraised, I apologize.
And um again, you know, Academy Award nominations, but it really is one where I'm like, man, this is like the exact kind of hangout film that people talk about.
It's just a wonderful film. I think Bruce Beresford's a great filmmaker. I've seen a couple of his films. Uh an Australian filmmaker, funnily enough, doing it this western, this contemporary western kind of uh country film. Um, but I really like it for sure. I'm I'm a big fan of this film.
And um I'll wrap it up briefly so I'm not going on for an hour. But uh one last film.
that I had watched today from a filmmaker I like quite a bit from Peter Yates is a uh latter era film from it from him uh from nineteen ninety five. It's his film Run of the Country. Now Peter Yates is known for doing films like Bullet with Steve McQueen.
um breaking away with uh young Dennis Quaid in there. He did crawl. He d he's done a he's done uh a lot of films but
Uh The Run of the Country in 1995 is a f it was one of his last films that he did. It stars uh Albert Finney and Mark Kiesler, and it's a really solid, kind of quiet, uh Irish, you know, character drama.
And it's funny to y w what I wanted to kinda highlight with this that it doesn't really have a whole lot of watches in Letterboxd, you know, it has about two hundred or so kind of middling reviews, but I watched this today and I really got a lot out of it, this character of Matt Keisler who
Um he plays the character David who is having these problems with his father. They have a very contemptuous relationship because they're uh you know, the the the the matriarch of the family's passed away, his mother, uh
So they have a lot of back and forth and he's getting involved with this girl in town and this possible pregnancy that's that's looming.
Um, it doesn't all work. I think the third act a little bit kind of goes into a territory that it didn't need to. But for such an acclaimed filmmaker whose latter part of his career I don't find the strongest, you know, some of some of the films
towards the end of Peter Yates' filmography I I I find very hit or miss.
Mostly on the Mess side.
Um for a film like this that I knew nothing about, I had never heard about, um, for as strong of a reaction as I had gotten from it.
It really made me want to highlight it. So um The Run of the Country, nineteen eighty five, I think is a wonderful film. So I won't talk for hours, but I will just highlight those films. Um, you know, these ones that have been on the mind of late.
And um yeah, I'll leave it at that. Just just three really quality films, uh Surat, Tender Mercies, and The Run of the Country. So I'll pass on the next person. If I'm not wrong, Tender Mercies also stars Amy Madigan. Is that correct?
That is a good question. I that she's she plays his wife. Is that Amy Madigan? Okay, interesting. Yeah. Uh well I know I don't are you huh.
Pretty sure that was somebody else. Uh I could be wrong. I'm willing to be wrong.
I think that actress was that was Tess Harper. Okay, then I was incorrect. I mean, I'm naming every actress I see on the IMDD page, hoping that it's one of them.
It could be anyone. It could be Wolfred Grimley. I don't care. I'm just gonna name actors. I'm pretty sure it was
It was yeah, but it was Jennifer Jason Lee. It's fine. Um
I think his wife was played by by Jennifer Lawrence, you know, in nineteen eighty three or whatever. I think that was her actually. I'm terrible.
Exactly. See, when you said Amy Madigan, I had to think like you might be right. I j I might just be dumb. Like I really don't know. Oh my gosh. I don't know anymore. Mike, what do you got, bruv?
All right. So like Dan, yeah, I I go to the theater a lot. I try to get out a couple of times a week, sometimes
Sometimes you get busy and like once a week is all you can handle. So, uh before I get into anything I saw in the theater, I will say I I picked up the Cornetto trilogy on four K.
recently and I I think I've talked about Shauna the Dead and Hot Fuzz before. Maybe not necessarily on cinema beef, but on other shows, but I wanted to mention I I've watched the world's end for the first time in I think since I saw it in the theater.
And I remember when I saw it the first time I kinda came out of it like I I liked it but it felt like a little bit of a step down. But I don't know if it's because I relate to kind of the situation going on, not that I went to a bar that was taken over by robots or anything, but the the messaging um
Kind of like that balance it that balance of like growing up and You have nostalgia for things but it's like what
Finding that balance between letting stuff go and kind of embracing like yourself in adulthood. When the movie came out, I was in my early thirties.
And it it turns out I it wasn't until now my mid forties that I watched it uh again and I I feel like certain movies with certain messaging and characters about what stages in life they are, it can really
affect you differently, uh, according to like where you are in life. It you just kind of relate to different stories differently as you know it doesn't mean you're not gonna still get entertainment value out of it at any age if if it's well made and you're getting laughs out.
Um I think it's just one example of like seeing a movie again after a long while, you can really relate to it and get more out of it. I I think sometimes it can happen in the reverse too. I mean that I think that's what the movie is also saying. It's like
can uh fool you in some ways. So yeah, that was the world's end. What else?
I just uh saw Ben Hur on four K. I I've never well, that this was the first time I think I watched it front to back. I've I've seen like
scenes of it all through my life. I've always known it was like a famous epic movie with uh Heston in it. And I I really enjoyed it. I thought like the the sets that were built for this were just epic. It
that epic movie. I kind of knew like Ben Hur is one I want to get and eventually I want to get Lawrence of Arabia. But Ben Hur, man, it it lived up to the hype. It was kind of interesting because like
They it you can kind of call it like a Christian adjacent story, but then like I feel like the last twenty like the last twenty, thirty, maybe forty five minutes after the chariot races, I think it starts to lean into that more and I
I wasn't as like into like that that that final run in the movie. Not that it was poorly made. I just found it a little bit less interesting. But that first what two a two and a half.
hours or uh maybe three'cause I think this movie goes like three and a half at least. The first three hours of this is just epic and like the the
The scenes, the sets one after the other. I really love the scene when um they're all on the ship. I guess at this point, uh he's like a slave and he's on the ship and they just the way they built it out, like so much craft.
and care goes into like building these sets in in this era of film. So Ben Hur, I mean, I'm sure that's not like a unknown movie to anyone here.
Let's see. Uh I can I can mention I watched Carrie versus Jason, aka Friday the thirteenth, seven, The New Blood. I think it was
What what was it last Friday that was a Friday? I thought that was a fan film for a second. I was like, what the hell is this? Yeah, it's just the one everyone calls Carrie versus Jason, which is funny because like
the uh once you see it like more than a couple or more than you know the first time it's like we really don't even get that much of that battle. It it's like contained to like the last ten, fifteen minutes or so when like the way it's advertised and built up
when you're or at least when I was growing up it's like this oh it's this epic battle between let's carry Rip Off Girl and Jason and you're you're like waiting for it to happen.
Um overall I'm not I'm not I'm I'm a Friday one through five guy. I just like
kind of like that specific style and the way those are done. I still find enjoyment out of like most of the rest of the ones, but
Um yeah, this one was alright. It did have uh Terry Kaiser, Bernie Lomax in it, which is which is awesome. Um but yeah, it's it's an okay Friday, I guess. Uh let's see, what else?
I finally opened my Nightmare on Elm Street box set, the four K set, and I I went right to part two.
just because uh I bought the standalone of one like a year or so ago when that came out. So I didn't feel the need to rewatch the original yet. So
Yeah, uh the obviously i this is the oddball, I guess, in the franchise. At least at this point it it had a lot of like interesting choices for like part two of franchise. I mean, I guess to be fair at this point.
No one knew it was gonna be like that big of a franchise. But uh it took some bold swings.
And I I didn't like it as much growing up because I just thought it was such a departure from like the rules of the original set. Uh but like watching it
uh over the years, other times, it starts to it starts to grow on me and if I can if I kinda approach it as like a a standalone, this is like its own bizarro world version of Narmout Elm Street, I can dig it'cause there's some
weird oddball stuff going on in this movie. Like uh s Jesse's dreams and
The S and M Club is just I I I always like just watch that in awe. And then even like the opening nightmare um with the the school bus to hell thing, it's like the Th it just kinda hit me this time, like the scale of what's happening in this dream is like so
much bigger than like what anything that happens in the original. And that's not to say it's like better or worse, but I it just kinda like shocked me like, damn, like, Freddie was mostly
contained in the in the first one. In this one, he's driving a school bus out into the desert, which I I assume like falls away to like hell or whatever that's supposed to be.
Um and then I guess I'll wrap mine up with a movie. I I kind of just randomly watched this based on the synopsis and ended up liking it quite a bit. It's called A Samurai in Time.
and this is about uh this samurai I
I don't know the exact year, but Samurai Times we'll call it. That that that describes it. But it was He's having a duel in Samurai Times. The samurai era gets struck by lightning and somehow ends up getting like uh
uh thrust forward into time into like modern times, which I think the movie came out in twenty twenty-three. And uh he uh so it starts as kind of like a fish out of water movie and He he gets teleported to like the same place he was, but now it's modern, so it's actually on a movie set, and he
He ends up getting work as like an extra in like samurai movies. So that's kinda like the setup. And then of course, like, you know, he meets people in the modern time, he starts getting work, and then of course about three quarters or maybe
Maybe halfway through the movie we get a little bit of a twist from the past.
Uh so it it's mostly like a comedy, but I found it to be pretty endearing, like a warm movie, um, with a satisfying conclusion. So if you if that comes across your guys' screen, I would say yeah, check out Samurai and Time.
And uh yeah, I guess I'll leave it there because most of the stuff I've seen in the theater lately I've been pretty underwhelmed. So I'll save that for when I gotta talk about those on Sunday. So uh next person up.
So it's like Time Rider, The Adventures of Ogami Ito?
Yeah, exactly.
Mike, I gotta say, reading the description of Samurai in Time after you had talked about it, or maybe you logged but logged it on Letterboxd. I was uh looking up the description on it and it was one of these where I was just reading it and I'm like, man, I actually really want to check out this film. I d I don't know the availability of it.
But it's definitely on my radar of films I I would like to see soon.
Yeah, it's it's a pretty neat feel. Like it's like I would say it's like a little maybe like a mid budget like I guess what we c w what we would consider it, uh'cause it's definitely not low budget, but I would say it's it's a little just the cinematography, it's a style, but
It's just it's cool like it's a cool, easy, like movie. Um comforting kinda like i genre bending a little bit and i it actually like when I brought up the that kind of third act it kinda went a place like I didn't expect
But yeah, and you know, you I think you're gonna like big all the little side characters that are in it too, so yeah, definitely recommend checking.
Gary Hill. I don't know what sort of garage you're at and what sort of
southwestern desert state, but if you are here, this is your time to talk about your recent watches. Oh, my time to shine? Beautiful.
Uh f first of all, Dan, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Appreciate it. If Mike vouches for ya, that's that's that's that's money in the bank for me, sir. So I I it's good enough for me, man. I just uh Mike's a good guy. Mike's a smart guy, he's very knowledgeable. It was um
I had him on my own show a couple of months ago. We talked for five, six hours and he's one of these guys who can sustain a good conversation for that amount of time. So, uh, God bless him and thank you, Mike, for having me on here.
So somebody crashed something, that's fine. Oh, I know it sounded like a grocery carts. Um, but if you like Kendra Versus Zippy and you haven't seen Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges
I think it's kinda like a pseudo sequel to Tender Mercies'cause he he Jeff Bridges is the alcoholic now and, you know, getting mentored or whatnot. Yeah, it's it's I like it a lot. No, that that's an excellent film. I I I definitely would con I definitely recommend that as well.
Uh, stuff I watched. I watched Scream Seven today because it was there and said, you know what? Watch this bootleg of Scream Seven. I don't condone bootlegs, go to the movies, all that good stuff, but let me tell ya
A lot of folks were excited about this and I wasn't too excited where I were to the point where
My friend and and colleague who uh formerly of the Grave Shift Radio, Ryan Lewis, said he hated it so much'cause of the ending and I said, Just spoil it for my brother and I I listened to him spoil it and just get upset about that ending.
And I get it now because it started so strong and
ended with you know, by the way, I wasn't in New York and by the way, you see my executive producer credit? Like, yeah, we get it, Nev Campbell, we get it. You know, but uh
Hundred million dollars domestically, so they're gonna have another one naturally. So I guess I guess they could have it.
But I I really liked uh spoiler the the girl hanging down kill, I'll just say it from there because she gets filleted pretty hardcore. Uh that's pretty cool. Um but Joel McHale, um spoiler.
Uh, gets gets beat up pretty bad, but then, you know, wishes like fishes, you don't get what you want. I was gonna throw it out there. Uh other stuff.
rewatch Men in Black because it's Men in Black and it's great.
Um people stopped after the second one. I I'll I will defend the third one till the day I die. It's just it's a great companion piece of the first one. So if you skip the sec if you you watch the second one you can accept the silliness.
Watch the third one because it closes out real great.
And then you can skip international because you could watch R. A. P. D. instead with Ryan with Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges and enjoy yourself in that movie and not enjoy
how they made Tessa Thompson and and Chris Temsworth is really dull in a movie and made it really boring. It just um it tried real hard to do that.
Funnily enough with uh Men in Black International, I saw a film of my father and he he walked out halfway through but didn't tell me. So the film was over and then I was like, Where did he go? And he's like, Oh yeah, go fix like something in my car. I just left and I was like
You didn't tell me? Like what? No.
He just bounced out, man, he had to go. I mean I didn't think it was terrible or anything, but the fact that he was so adamant to walk out and then not tell me I'm like
Must have really not liked it. I mean this this the guy, Chris Hunsworth, whose comedic timing is great and and and and the things he's ever he's he's able to be comedic.
Uh Thor Ragnarok. W one of the best Marvel films on on the slate, in my opinion.
Because he's allowed to be funny. Uh Ghostbusters Answer the Call. Terrible idea for a movie with these women. But you know, him playing the the the the bimbo secretary.
just it it makes you wanna watch it because he's he's excellent at it and he's so funny. Um yeah, I'll depend Chris Hemsworth's c comedic output. Uh
Amazingly. Um, besides that I didn't I watch I watch stuff.
Oh, I watched Shelter today with uh Jason Statham.
Which is a film in which she lives on an island and then he inherits a girl, which I'm pretty sure is his daughter, that they they kinda give that away'cause it's he sh she's with her uncle and her uncle dies to the ocean and he takes her in and then
Statum of course um is like the reason why he's a recluse is he's like was former government agent and you know, they thought he was bad but he's not bad, so you know, he's bad guys are after him, so he just beats the shit out of a lot of people.
And I'm fine with this. I'm I'm fine that Statham is living in this this Liam Neeson world where he's playing the same part basically every time and just beat the shit out of people.
But in this movie he has a dog and a beard and that that enhances it for me. A bearded Jason Statham beat the shit out of people and playing Protector of this girl and uh
It's it's it's not the best thing to watch a week. I think the Beekeeper and um What was the one that came before the Working Man are better films, but this is a this is one of those he made it in Europe so the Europe ones have a different feel to them.
And um I I like Satums out but anything I've been calling him bacon since lock stock and new smoking barrels was a thing. So uh bacon is at it again, uh, kicking all kinds of ass and
We're getting beekeeper too and I couldn't be more excited for more Jason State them out, but I'm I'm just I'm that guy.
I don't watch anything he's in because he's that charismatic, you know. Be Beekeeper rules. The great the thing with Beekeeper is that there was almost there because there was no expectation for it, you're just thinking, okay, it's a January action film, but I saw that, you know, opening day and
I was sitting there in that theater, I had a couple of beers with me. I'm like, wow, this is a really well shot, well directed, fun action film. And the fact that it be it became such a
uh a popular film in his in his filmography. Is is fantastic. You know, Working Man and Shelter, I think, you know, they have their own merits, their own right. But Beekeeper especially, I'm just like, man, what a fun
contemporary action film and Jason Statham, I think, is just one of the great contemporary action stars where he's one of these guys who, regardless of the plot or whoever's directing it,
If he's starring in a contemporary action film, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna go see that because j this is the ne the new Jason Statham film. You know even when it's stupid, like Fast and Furious Hobbes and Shaw.
The movie Hobbs and Shaw. You know what what's the part of that movie? The th they get the Hobbs and Shaw together and they're going after Idris Elba who's who's a half robot man and you know what? I'm all in. I'm all in.
Right, right.
Right. He was even in um I forgot which Fast and Furious he was in, but the fact that he was, you know, the villain, one of them as well, he he had s his own dynamic to that cast of characters and this established franchise.
I think he's just one of the the last great contemporary movie stars. It's very good. It's he does very good work and I'm I'm very impressed with everything he does and you know, just doing the simplest of things and
You know, he's he's UP and he's kicking ass. You know, and I'm fine with that, you know. It's just um it's good shit. But that's where I leave I'll leave my watches, but th then again he got Dan and uh
My people. I I'm not able to stay tonight'cause I'm exhausted from from everything. But I I have a a capable group of people and I'm uh ecstatic for that.
It and if if they do a bad job, guys, you listen? I'm letting you right now. Stick around to the end from from my man my other man, DJ Golden Brown's uh
Digging through the great I recall recalling now. Something about Craig Digging with you with DJ Golden Brown. Something like that. That's my boy in LA. You guys should show him love as well. Just uh but I love you guys. Thank you so much.
Representing the statum. Appreciate it. Dude, dude. So much statum love in this house too. Oh good grief.
Anything he's in we will watch. However, he was not in Honey Bunch, which we watched on Shudder. And this movie pretends to be a representation of love.
Focusing mainly on the in sickness and in health till death do us part of the wedding vows. And I don't know, I guess it could be interpreted as sweet.
But we found it to be a depressing exploration of twisted ego and selfishness, which is the complete opposite of love.
A mature human knows when to let go of things, meaning that the characters in Honey Bunch are a bunch of pittlefaced middle schoolers, and this movie can be safely skipped by anybody over the age of thirty six.
Then again, we watched a movie on Tubi uh called The Woman Eater from nineteen fifty eight, which is about a mad scientist who creates an immortality series.
by extracting the sap from an African tree growing in his basement. The scientist and his swarthy assistant, swarthy is such a great word, please use it on every sentence from here on out.
They extract the sap from this tree by feeding it local women.
The tree eats the women and then apparently just extrudes.
An immortality serum?
I th I think the science is a bit wonky, but it's still a fun movie. It's in black and white, it's British, and it is ridiculous. So highly recommended.
And while you're out there, um, listen to failure.
Listen to Everlastingness, listen to Sleaford Mods, and listen to Waffle House of a Thousand Corpses for the best cover of Bjork's Army of Me Ever.
Dirty jersey noise. I love it so much. It's so good. Now.
generally uh horked you off and not in that giggity way. Um, Suzanne, what has been making you irritated as of late?
I mean I really and truly Honey, we all do I think people
I I s I can't stand going to the store. I can't stand going anywhere. I've since I've been home from vacation, I've by I've been asked countless times, Hey, do you wanna come meet us for a drink? No, I really don't.
If you want to go stand in the freezing cold in my backyard and have a beer out there, I'm more down with that. And I hate the cold. I just everybody has been
I don't know. It's been sin thovid. This fucking entitled ass attitude like they're the only person in the world that matters.
No one pays attention when they're driving. No one pays attention when they're walking. I swear to god I shoved someone's grocery cart about ten feet down the aisle because they wouldn't fucking move.
I am absolutely going to get shot by somebody and my final word my last words are probably gonna be something along the lines are of are you fucking kidding me? I've just been maybe it's just because winter has sucked this year.
And I've been a little cooped up, but I just don't have any patience or tolerance for this bullshit anymore. And my filter is completely broken as an adult. No. Yes, people just irritate the fucking shit out of me and I hate them most of them.
I think that's a fair beef. Uh people are terrible en masse. Like individuals? Awesome. A bunch of people together? Absolute garbage. Mike, what do you got?
I don't know how to follow that up. That was a epic rant on people. Um Maybe so maybe I'll kinda turn this one sideways'cause we just had the Oscars, the uh the Academy Awards, and I know like there's this huge sentiment in like film nerd culture to like bash on award shows and oh they're
terrible, they're insignificant, who cares? And I'm kinda like, just have fun with it. Like let me have my fun. I I I tune in mostly for the show itself. Like
Yes, there's probably a movie or two, especially when it we get some horror nominations in there. That uh you know, I have a uh soft spot anytime a horror movie is nominated for anything.
That all that that I'm obviously gonna root for, um, out of like personal bias. But for the most part I don't tune in because I have a vested stake in who wins.
I just like the show. It's it's once a year. It's pageantry. It's fun. I thought Conan O'Brien was pretty good. In fact, like the opening skit this year It it really feels like the people who used to like produce and put on like the MTV movie awards.
are starting to like age into like the mainstream stuff because it it feels like that style is being incorporated. And maybe it's not exact like maybe it's been happening for a while, but I'm sort of noticing now
the the nineties nostalgia is starting to overtake the eighties a little bit. So you're like when I say like MTV movie awards, I'm more talking about like maybe
second wave MTV, not like the OGs when it first launched, but kinda kinda the MTV I grew up with, which is like the early nineties to like mid nineties of
MPB. I feel like that um influence is starting to trickle into like the more mainstream award shows. So I guess like
This would me more praising award shows than having a beef, but my beef would be uh the people that just don't want to let others have fun with award shows. Yes, they're silly. Yes, they don't matter in the grand scheme of things.
But I have fun with them, so leave me alone with my awards shows. No, I agree. I do love the Oscars. I was I I'm just like I you know, I've just been so aggravated
in the last week that l every little thing was irritating me. So I'm gonna I'm actually gonna sit down and watch it on Hulu and you know, chill out and enjoy it.
But I agree. I watch it every year. Some things are great. I usually the only thing I get really nitpicky with is the in memoriam because somebody always gets left out and that's where I'm like, Oh my God, that's terrible.
But yeah, I do and like I said, I did snark a little bit on Sunday, but that was that was on me and not the show.
My beef is Oscars related, but I don't feel like as the host I should jump into the middle of things. So Mike, I will come back to your comments here in a few minutes. I want to hear right now from Dan.
Well, uh I will say to uh ape off of what Mike said, I um one of the things I noticed, which isn't my main point, but one of the things I wanted to add to his point, which which I completely um agree with Mike, is that there is almost this um bizarre kind of gut reactionary
Not to be redundant, but reaction to the Oscars. You see somebody, you tell somebody, I'm gonna watch the Oscars, it's almost like
The gut reaction is, Well, I don't care about the Oscars. How could you watch the Oscars? The Oscars are meaningless. They mean nothing. It's like
Okay, well yeah, the Oscars, you know, they're they're just a they're just an award show. It's not uh indicative of what the the quality films that year. Whether you liked or disliked the films is irrelevant. They're just fun to watch. So it's the same thing where
Somebody could say, Well, I'm not watching the Super Bowl because I'm not uh that doesn't mean it's just a football game, blah blah blah. It's like okay, well no one's asked.
You know, it i it's it's become very redundant, I uh very repetitive to say that to take a quote unquote stance you are not watching.
The Academy Awards. Yes, you are very special because you're not watching something that everybody makes fun of and doesn't take seriously. Um, my Quam.
My uh I don't really have a lot of qualms, funnily enough. I don't like to search for things. Um, but I will say one of the things that has been a little tricky in terms of theatrical viewing is when the theaters themselves are not privy to aspect ratios on film.
I have seen uh quite a number of films lately, not too many, but ones that are not
uh str uh fit for the screen, ones that are not formatted correctly, ones that are not positioned correctly, and it's not too often. It's not egregious to the point where it makes it unwatchable. But even recently I watched a film like Undertone.
which w I there must have been a previous film in that theater that had been shown because Undertone was
Uh uh almost letterboxed in a way on the screen. Now I have two options. One I could say, hey, you know, the aspect ratio shows off, or I can just draw the film and go about my day, and I did the latter. And maybe that makes me the bad guy. I don't know.
Um, but I've seen quite a number, especially at the AMC that my girlfriend and I frequent where Because those screens are curved and oftentimes we'll see smaller, I say quote unquote independent films, but really lower scale sort of film.
um or films that don't have quite the budget as the three thousand theater filling contemporary films. Um, those aspect ratios and those screen fillings can be uh a little questionable. So that's uh I guess kind of my qual.
is my my qualm at the moment without having to try to search for something to be truly upset about because it's not as if it's making or breaking the the the film watching experience. It's more so that I wish
that these chain cinemas, uh the AMCs, the cinemarks, the regals, would be a little more on top of the films and their aspect ratios. But that is A fairly infrequent problem.
But I'll leave it at that. Oh, and by the way, you know, IMAX format is not true, IMAX. I'm gonna throw that out there too, okay? It depends on the IMAX you go to, because there are plenty of LIMAXs that are just not giving you the full picture.
Yeah, I I I love the there's one in Hobart, Indiana that has the stick the st the length of the six screens is it's just full IMAX, you know. I like that one.
For sure. Where where I live on the east coast, it's frustrating because the
We had a a crew IMAX. We had a crew uh uh an IMAX screen that could fit one four three that could project in one four three without getting into specifics for the listeners.
Um so I saw uh Oppenheimer there and was playing in fifteen seventy millimeter uh IMAX. It was a very uh incredible experience. Well shortly thereafter that projector broke or w something happened to it. Anyways, they didn't fix it.
So now we're at a point where that screen can utilize
the full IMAX frame, but it doesn't. So now where I live, there is one IMAX screen, which is about two hours from me. And I actually went there recently. I recently saw the Elvis Presley uh concert documentary and it was fantastic in IMAX.
But aside from that, the closest one four three IMAX is all the way in New York and I'm not going to New York for that, but I wish Imacs would take uh better care of their projectors and send the money out or the projectionists out to fix them. But
Maybe that could be my other uh my other uh my other qual now I say it out loud. But um no, I'm in full agreement with you.
G Dog, you're already up in this. You wanna go ahead and present us with your beef? Sure. Um I don't know.
I don't like centers like other folks like centers, so I was really surprised there was not many pretend awards.
So people are all surprised, well, the centers didn't miss it. Well, you know what? The centers got what it was gonna get. It's like last year. Last year with the substance. It got what it was gonna get. You know.
I don't like I'm I'm with John Carpenter. I don't like to throw react to the substance, so it kinda ruins the film for me. It's it's weird. I'm crazy probably, but you know Two thousand whatever hereditary Tony Collett
Back up by this fucking crazy fucking hoodoo vampire film, like it's fucking the the ape of the cinema, and you know, I just I don't see it.
I don't see it like other folks see it. I see I I see uh the the the the the the promising tale of two brothers who want to start a business and and let a white girl get in the way and then vampires happen.
And then then dancing jigs. And then the and then um
Yeah, Native American uh vampire hunters that d a story that doesn't go anywhere. I w I wanna more of that. The Native American vampire hunters. But you know, I'm I'm I'm calling me crazy. But uh That's my main beat was that the Oscars were decent.
I I popped hard for the the Pedro and Segurney Weaver uh Grogu moment. I popped hard for that. It was a
popped a little too hard by I I I got really excited because Covenant talked about how small that Grogu's arms are, he can clap. That was adorable. Um But just um
Car repairs are keep me down, keep me awake. This is why I'm not on the full show tonight. That's keep me down. But you know what? I have you guys.
to thank for for keeping it going again. I'll I'll thank you.
And here's Duchess talking to you guys too,'cause she she's right here. Yes indeed. I was I was questioning in my head, am I hearing a meow or is that no yes you are.
And uh today in the mail has a positive I did get a T-Rex record in the mail, uh, the slider uh album and OG reprise, and I'm very excited about that.
And if I could play with you I was on my turn turn my turntable right now. It's uh Canned Heat's debut and it's it's glorious and it's an original pressing, so
If I could play music for you guys and not get flagged by YouTube'cause we have like a thousand subscribers apparently and we're making all kinds of money.
Not really podcast listeners, but you know what? I would. Just to bring some more joy in your life because amongst all the bullshit, there are the little things.
like Canned Heat's debut album, which if you know don't have can't you don't have canned heat in your life and you want some fucking funky rock blues shit that you may love, uh go seek out some can't heat and some fucking T Rex.
And, you know, whatever you're into. Yeah. Just fill your light with positivity and I think uh
Your brain and soul will be better. Which is why this show is back, people. Cause my soul is better, man. I'll leave it at that though. It was something positive.
Gary, Mike, we gon' fight.
So I guess it's not really a beef, but I think the Oscars are stupid. And I haven't willingly watched that show since Chariots of Fire beat Ragers of the Lost Ark for Best Picture in nineteen eighty one. I'm old, come at me.
The game is rigged, the politics are performative, and the academy is woefully tone-deaf and uninformed. Did you read that this year, and it's on the Oscars website?
That the Academy insisted that voters actually have to watch the movies before they can cast ballots for best anything.
Like I said, go to the Austrian's website, it's under the press section, and I'm quoting now. In a procedural change.
Academy members must now watch all nominated films in each category.
to be eligible to vote in the final round for the Oscars. All designated nominees will also be included on the final ballot. And here's the problem. Were they not doing that before?
Was the Academy not watching the movies that they voted for? Does that not bother anyone? Can we get a redo for the ninety seven previous Academy Awards?
Because this is it explains ever so much and this is complete and utter bullshit. Now that being said, and here we go with the personal shit and I apologize, but If you think Sinners is just a vampire movie, you're watching it wrong.
Cinners is about racism.
Isolation.
and assimilation and conformity and the demented roots of Pentecostalism and the American South and the open bleeding roots of rock and roll.
You want to compare it to From Dust Till Dawn? That's fine. I can see a few similarities, but forgive me if I don't feel a whole lot of sympathy for the shrimping pedophile bank robber who got got.
Because he got off easy.
I'll speak for myself. I see sinners as a warning to
to not claim things for ourselves that are not ours. Music shouldn't be manifest destiny. And performers like Pat Boone, who took little Richard songs and lightened them up
should not be placed on any sort of pedestal. Know your history and if you don't know it
Learn it. That's it.
That's my beef. I want to talk about movies on this show, which are about Vietnam veterans being very uh
uh repressed until they are not. So give me a second and we will line up the trailer for ruckus.
Starring Dirk Benedict from nineteen eighty.
The chase was on.
It was him.
Against them. Hey Joe, it's gonna look too fast. Well, so much for them.
he'd go flying animal.
Oh no! Other times he'd go flying by him.
One day they thought they'd He's coming out.
When I'm on and left the shadow, this is seasick.
The sheriff had all You just heard the trailer for Ruckus, otherwise known as Ruckus and Maddox County.
otherwise known as the loser, otherwise known as the quitter, otherwise known as that movie Dirk Benedict was in where he's got shit all over his face. Here is the log line from IMDB.
A Vietnam veteran passing through a small town is harassed by local bullies, but he fights back.
Using his wartime skills and triggers a full scale police manhunt, and I don't think that covers everything but uh
Uh we need to talk about this movie because it's pretty great. I do have a Ruckka story. It will wait until I can get uh back to my turn. Suzanne, I know you are a Dirk Benedict fan.
Please tell us your thoughts on Ruckus.
This was a first time watch for me which actually surprises the hell out of you. You gotta be effing kidding me. What? Was this a made for TV movie? No. It wasn't? No.
Wow. No, it had that feel, but I'll take uh, you know, seventies and eighties made for T V movies over a lot of output I've seen lately.
I have to admit, I really enjoyed this one. It actually kind of felt a little bit like a long A-team episode, minus.
The rest of the team. But you know, he had Linda Blair by his side, you know, vouching for him. And I have to admit, some of the the stereotypes.
Well I I was really kinda surprised'cause well, it wasn't the local police, it was, you know, Deputy Lunkhead and Sergeant Dumbass and their group of even stupid friends.
Chasing down this poor guy who just wanted a raw fucking hamburger. Give the man some food.
That was when he said raw, I have to, but I actually I I had to rewind a little bit like, what the fuck did he say?
But I have to admit, this was overall, I don't know if it was meant to be, but I found it unintentionally hilarious. I had such a great time with this movie. I enjoyed the hell out of it.
These poor God and they're so inept and that one guy that just recently died was in it, whose name has completely escaped me. I saw his face and I can hear his voice.
was just one of those faces it was in everything in the seventies and eighties. But they're all just completely stupid. I've gotta I'm I'm just gonna keep everything here really, really brief.
But I gotta, there's some things that really do need a standing ovation for. The stunts in this movie are, let's be honest, kind of amazing. The driving stunts, the
guys f flying off the truck and just gently landing on their asses. Nobody actually dies in this movie. Except, you know, the husband of Linda Blair who the, you know, town millionaire, or at this point in the South probably thousandaire.
Who was funny to talk to him? Oh god, don't start saying that.
I was I just wanna break down some of those stunts. I l I loved it. It's one of those things the plot is pretty much it's pretty much what First Blood was based on'cause this was two years prior.
But I think they did it with kind of a a light hearted sense of humor and
Everybody just kinda comes around. I kinda like.
And it did have a happy ending.
I think him and pretty glare are gonna end up married and he's gonna help raise the little
Oh dear. She's gone. She's fine. She's looking at old jerk benedict pictures. She got driven she got driven out. They saw her jacket. They said, You weren't in the war. Get out of here.
Exactly. She's she's on her dirt bike getting air for absolutely no reason. Mike.
What do you think about Ruckus?
Well, this was also a first time watch for me. Um, and it's funny Suzanne asked if it was a made for TV movie because Uh when I watched it I didn't realize several times two years prior to uh first blood, so
My initial thought was like, Oh, this looks like it's probably like a lower budget clone. You know, you you get your hit movie and then you're gonna have like the copycats that come out and budget wise, cast wise
Uh it kinda had that vibe to it. So like, you know, half hour into it I look it up, I was like, Oh, this actually predates First Blood. So it's not a copycat. Um
Windows. But it does it yeah, it does kind of mirror Linux box never does sorry I'm having terrible
Yeah, no worries. I'm having terrible wife Wi Fi problems. It keeps booting me off. And I don't know why, but the expert is here, so maybe he can figure it out. Anyway, loved Ruckus, stunts were amazing. Dirk was cute as a button.
And there she goes back off on her dark her darkness.
She was helping she was helping me with my thoughts so I I appreciate it. I am really, really sorry, but I figured I'd get it out before the Wi Fi kicks me off again.
Uh I noticed the sheriff in this is the sheriff in misery, right? That's the same guy. Uh Richard Farnsworth.
Um so maybe this is uh that sheriff's prequel. Uh what he did before he uh
Moved to the quiet snowy town uh it's somewhere in Maine. Um and then Linda Bl Blair shows up for no reason in this movie like And that was interesting to see her there.
Um, but yeah, I I mean I thought it was like the cool the the truck chases, the boat rides, uh Dick Benedict's extremely accurate uh
What what was it? Like dynamite or homemade bomb throwing skills? Like he hit his targets one hundred percent of the time, straight on, and then
I he gets himself like the mud camouflage that I'm not sure I've seen that shade of mud uh too often, but that was interesting looking. Um so yeah, like This was a fun movie.
Obviously I think the the next movie we talk about is just a few tiers ahead of this one. But for what it was, um I I I got some fun out of it. I did think like the stunt work was pretty cool for like
what the budget overall of this of this looks like. And I do think this one was like a little sillier in tone, a little more slapsticky,'cause man
as opposed to the next movie where he's just trying to get the hell out of here, th this guy, he he just really wants to stay in this town and like, you know, he ends up at the carnival, which everyone who doesn't have fun at the carnival, right? Doesn't want to attend the carnival. But uh
Yeah, so I mean I'll I'll leave I'll leave it there for now. I'm sure we'll get into this a little more after everyone has their
Dan, what do you think about Ruckus, bruv? Ruckus, uh, this film is nonsense. Um, it really is. I mean, it's a film that when Mike said we're watching First Blood and Ruckus, my entire What the fuck is rock?
Uh I'd never heard of it. I uh I looked at my letterbox and none of my uh people who I follow had seen it. And it's funny that that uh it's pointed out this came out before First Blood, because I watched them back to back the same night.
And there are so specific similarities.
that it really makes me scratch my head. Like Jack and you know, him coming into this town. It's like what are we doing? Ruckus is it's just ridiculous. I I'm not gonna sit here and say it's some underseen gem, like it's some long, you know, forgotten solid cult film.'Cause it's ridiculous.
Um but I w what I will say is that the action sequences are very well shot. It's got a really
Uh I don't want to say upbeat'cause it's not as if the tone is upbeat, but it's got an upbeat pace in terms of uh the action sequences, the banjo score. I mean this is directed by Max Cleveland or Cleveland, I should say.
who was primarily uh a stud coordinator and he's also done stunts for films like uh like Back to the Future, Southern Comfort, um, Used Cars.
Um he didn't really do a whole lot of directed work, but the st I mean the stunts here, the action here, it's all solidly directed. Um is it consistently ent entertaining? Eh, I don't know. I mean I was watching this and
Aside from a handful of sequences that were fun on their own and enjoyable on their own, on top of it being just, hey, you're watching this as a a film in relation to first blood where you have this kind of like, you know, this vet coming home and getting messed with.
Um, it's as enjoyable as it isn't. I don't think it's consistently fun or consistently entertaining, but I think there was enough there to make me kind of question why this has been
kind of lost in terms of cult cinema. Um so very middle of the road on it overall.
G Doug. What do you think about Ruk Rukus? Rukus? Whatever the hell I was trying to say. Ru Rukets? Do you have Rickets? Wu Tang claim nothing to fuck with and uh neither is Dirk and this roo. Yeah, I I think
It lives and dies on the stunts uh like you guys said and and the ki the the charisma, which i isn't a lot. Usually he's a lot more care charismatic days in his movie, but he he works in the sense of
It's like a lost puppy that Linda Blair takes in. And she she's like adorable in this movie and
Her her her father just wants to know, you know, did did did he know his son in the war? They're just like his big big edge and it leaves at the end where, you know, whatever, but you know
Fun stuff about Ruck as I said, that the stunts are great. I love this exploitation playing to where any time a big chase happens, you the the banjo just start playing for no reason at all.
Um Linda Blair, super cute in this movie. Um, all day long. I just uh I love this era to where she's just like adorable, you know, pre pre
Pre Rick James and pre when I didn't met her in person, I didn't like her very much. But I think that's I think that's a Hera and not an Era. Yes. Yes indeed. Um
uh second best uh uh cycle uh dancing scene ever. First place goes to rad every time, but this this is second place.
I I love this ridiculous thing to where they're they're clearly not doing these my she's clearly not doing these motorcycle stunts, but you know what? They show her from the shoulder up saying, you know what, I really had this bike doing all these crazy jumps and you know what you you're kinda buying this.
And you are kind of buying it because their awkward relationship in the sense of, you know, she'll do everything for'em but she she won't bend down with'em obviously. But she won't do that. She won't do that, you know.
To protect her for the law and from random hillbillies, but you know, she won't do that.
You know, possessed by a demon, but she won't lay with a man and I respect that. Yes indeed. But um like a like you said, Dan, it's not it's not it's not perfect and you shouldn't be loved on like a cinematic sentence.
But I I have conversations with my friend John Cross all the time about ¡Suscríbete al canal!
I mean look at the c look at some of the grades. Hell Hell need'em you know make makes fun movies because he knows he knows stunts and how they work.
Um Spiro Rosado's is is a big one, the the John Cross Heralds'cause he was a big PM guy and now he uses his team and they still work together on the Fast and Appears films, the same same Sun team, so you know.
But you got a stunt guy doing the directing of a film. Is that necessary to an experience? This is this isn't necessary to where you watch a stunts film and you could tell
That a stunt guy directed these because the stunts look great. They look irre they look irresponsible, but yet safe.
I love the the the window dive of whoever was diving out that window. God bless you, into the water. It that looks it's a trailer moment and it looks amazing. Um
It's just dirt, man. And even even not so charismatic works works so well in this movie and I'm gonna leave it at that and uh Yeah, watch it. Go check it on YouTube. It's it's it's it's it's damn enjoyable for me.
Did we miss anybody? Can I go? Or are we cool?
I think you're good. Go, baby, go. Okay, I'm just check I'm just checking because there are so many people here that I have lost count. So I do have a ruckus story.
Because of course I do. Now I'm sure a lot of you have heard me talk about when I was little and when I was a kid, my grandmother lived right across the highway from our tiny
One screen neighborhood theater. I could walk out her door, turn left.
Crossed Dixie Highway and there was the village cinema. You pay a dollar, you pick out a seat for the best second run or drive in programmer that they could book.
Now, sometimes a little shit movie would play there for three or four weeks, and that was the case with Ruckus, which must have stayed at the village for about, I don't know, six weeks.
So this movie came out in nineteen eighty, which would have made me ten or eleven years old. People I must have seen this movie twelve or thirteen times in the theater.
Couldn't drive, there wasn't anything else to do in that little town, so why not? Yeah. The only f the only thing to do in town is to watch ruckus.
And welcome to my childhood. Yes. So yeah, I saw this movie a lot. And that doesn't mean I remembered a damn thing about it, because I did not.
This viewing was a wonderful surprise for me. Now, there are some big names attached to this movie.
Willie Nelson and Hank Cochrane wrote the songs for Ruckus, including that wonderfully pointed theme song What Can You Do To Him Now?
It was produced by Paul Muslansky, who who produced Police Academy and directed the classic black exploitation flick, Sugar Hill.
And there are a lot of solidaries, like you've all pointed out, between Ruckus and First Blood, but Ruckus come out first. First Blood didn't come out until eighty two, and I believe and I could be wrong.
That most folks don't remember that First Blood was based on a novel by David Morel, which came out in nineteen seventy-two.
So the basic plot of a Vietnam veteran having to take on a whole town was already floating around out there. So I don't know, universal hive mind, call it what you will. I think that the country music soundtrack.
was an attempt to get eyes on Ruckus by putting it in with that whole good old boys subgenre. Movies like Dixie Dynamite or High Bollin, obviously Smokey and The Bandit, of course.
A rural setting for a movie is fine, but Ruckus is a little better
than your standard ain't country folk peculiar with the Ain't Me and Vengeful Bumblers movie. If you think about this movie with a different soundtrack, If Ruckus had a tense orchestral score Rather than the corporate bluegrass with banjos and fiddles, it would have been a totally different family.
And trying to smash ruckus into that hillbilly subgenre undercuts a lot of the good ideas in the script. Now that's not to say that ruckus doesn't have problems, because it does.
How and why are there so many dirt bike jumps in this movie?
Is Maddock County built on a system of hidden ramps only visible when dirt is spread across them like the leap of faith in Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade?
And it's always nice to see stunt doubles having dirt buck rides through the forest where you can't see their faces, but you see them doing weird things or almost attacked by wild turkeys.
And they're popping wheelies over exposed tree roots, and they're jumping their bikes towards each other like some sort of motorized mating dance, and all without helmets.
I was talking to Mike earlier and it made me laugh because I was referencing a sequence in the film where there's a uh dirt bike chase.
And we see him uh main character on a flat path
We cut to a reaction of a character and all of a sudden we cut back to that chase and he is now over the cop car. He is leaping well into the air. And I was I had it's almost like a cartoon. I had to rub my eyes and and have a comical sound effect because I'm like, wait.
There's no way I missed something. Not even five seconds ago. That was a there was not there was no ramp. There was no friction for him to jump over that couch. Meanwhile
He is as high as the trees in a cop car that was really not even in his path. It's not as if he was like blocking a road or blocking a r like a way for him to go. I think he just did it.
Just for the sake of doing it, I said...
All right, well I'm not complaining.
No.
It's like indoor skydiving on a dirt. Exactly. It's like I know I'm sitting there, I'm like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna try to question the logistics of it all. I'm just wondering why he did it.'Cause it's not as if the cop car was really blocking anything.
He's just trying to make a point. He's like, listen guys, I don't like you and your stupid small town. I'll jump over as many cop cars as I have to. I can fly.
Yeah. I listen, I flew out of Nom, I'll fly out of your goddamn cop car and I'm like, you know what? I'm fine with that. Go for it, dude.
Also, I found it extremely disappointing that the whole final conflict in the movie comes down to one thing.
And not just not just pussy. Linda Blair's pussy.
No, if there is one constant in Linda Blair's career, it's that she has never given a good performance. Her line delivery is always way too slow.
and monotone, but somehow in Ruckus she is the hottest thing in town.
And the boys aren't really mad because, you know, Dirk Benedict, his character name is Kyle Hanson. They aren't mad that Hanson blew up their vehicles and made them look like idiots. Nope.
They're just mad because someone that they interpret as being a better swimmer in the gene pool is making a move on the town ovulator. But
Listen, when you have like three women in this town, one of the three is probably gonna get hit on by the majority of the drunk guys who we're not harassing the the war vet. They're like, Let's make a let's sexually harass this young girl you know.
I can deal with that. And it should have been the woman who works at the bar who was like, Got you a phone call dippity. It should have been her, but no, it was friggin' Linda Blair.
Who sounds like she's on sedatives the entire time she's talking. I if you end up working at like a Wendy's or something and there's like one moderately attractive girl, you're gonna automatically elevate her to being the most attractive girl. You're gonna say
Oh man, she is great. Where meanwhile it's like, well, she's great for, you know, Wendy.
The girl who worked at the bar was much better looking than Linda Blair and actually she's perished dairy clean.
She's probably posy the dairy queen and waiting for government. Exactly, waiting for government. Yes, yes. Exactly.
Got that biggie bag. Which I will say, one of the performances that I do I will uh uh disagree a bit in in terms of Linda Blair not giving good performance.
I do like her in Sarah T portrait of a teenage alcoholic, which I think is a very understanding. Yes. But I think that's a very good film and a very good performance as well.
Bruv, she was she was drunk. How could you tell afternoon?
Fair enough, I guess.
But just like Rambo, Hansen doesn't kill anyone. All he wants is to be left alone.
and in a stunning display of emotional intelligence. The sheriff and the richest man in town showed disdain for the actions of the local yokels and an appreciation for Hansen.
being a clever veteran, I guess. I don't know how else to put it. But the implication is that the good old boys are gonna pay
Well, Hansen gets to live under the protection of rich old man Bellows, and that may include access to Linda Blair's freely given pussy. The implication towards that reward, if you can call it that, is strong.
So despite his problems, I think Ruckus is a better movie than First Blood. Y'all gonna fight me? I understand. I find it more enjoyable.
I think the motivations of the male town folk are scattered, but more complex than just beat the freak.
They're afraid of outsiders. They're afraid of change. They're afraid they're not gonna get their shot at bagging the daughter of the richest man in town.
And they are so obsessed by these ideas that they carry out plans to destroy Hansen behind the sheriff's back.
They're willing to take those kinds of chances, but the cops in first blood, which we will get to later, and this will all make sense, they're only afraid of Sheriff Teasel. They don't want to look compassionate.
because they don't want to get mocked by their authority figure.
When they're hunting Rambo, the first blood boys seize that opportunity to let out their hinge.
cruelty while obtaining the approval of the boss. That's not an issue in Ruckus. These guys are selfish, greedy,
They think they're smarter than they actually are. I also love the idea of giving Hansen a romantic interest in Erecus, even if it is Linda Blair.
It raises the stakes, as does the fact that she has a kid.
Rambo didn't get a love interest until the second movie, and after she fulfilled the necessary stereotypes, take me back to Omega, Rambo.
And she got killed before there could be any consummation. So yeah, Rambo sought revenge, but is that a better motivation than protection? Remember, the Ruckus gang tried to kill Hansen at Linda Blair's house.
I would also say, subjectively, that the ending song for Ruckus, that What Can You Do to Him Now is better.
than Long Road, the Dan Hill song at the end of First Blood. Now you're not gonna find the title of the movie.
And what can you do to him now? But Long Road wedges that title in there which induces as much cringe as the ending song for Lethal Weapon by Honeymoon Sweet.
I think Kyle Hansen is more empathetic than John Rambeau. There's no attempt to paint Hansen as some kind of killing machine. He's just he's a guy.
He's just a guy who has seen too much. And Rambo is the sort of monster unleashed, which is evidenced by the promos by Colonel Troutman. I mean, come on, Troutman.
is as much a wrestling manager as he is a colonel, and it feels like his lines were written by Paul Heyman. I am done. Are there any more thoughts from any of y'all on Ruckus?
I agree with pretty much everything you said. I'm sorry my wifi cut out when I was
Doing my synopsis, which was, you know, let's be honest, fairly brief. We're just going to agree that you agree with me because that seems great. Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. We'll just leave it there.
But I do I I love that. I love the fact that you know the two people in charge are like just leave the guy alone.
Amen. Yeah. Like you guys are stupid and you have screwed up. Let this guy let him do. Let him do.
It's a film that I kinda question why it's almost faded into obscurity in a way where I feel like We're at a point now where so many of these seventies, eighties, uh sixties cult films, the these lower budgeted films
uh that maybe have like one or two big stars and then end up getting a newer reappraisal from a uh new Blu-ray or from some new restoration. And I I gotta wonder about that with Ruckus. Like why has this film not got the reappraisal that it has? I'm not saying this is some
uh long lost gem. Personally I'm mainly indifferent to the film. I have m many problems with the film. I think that the action sequences as well done as they are, the characters I find very underwritten
Um the pacing's really off. But but otherwise it's a film that um I I guess I just don't understand why this has been lost to obscurity, why this has been so uh underseen, under talked about, aside from the comparisons to First Blood.
It seems as though this has basically gone by the wayside. And I think that with a new physical release, a new boutique Blu-ray from Aero Video or Venigro Stringdrum or one of these companies that can give a new life to them.
uh would bring a new audience to a film like this and would would give a whole new appreciation as well.
Couldn't agree more.
Anybody else? Oh I forgot to mention something. Uh oh. Oh Han Hans's ability to to uh make crude weapons out of something he finds a brush he finds in the woods is spectacular.
Well he freaking shoots the twig at the guy after with his homemade bow and arrow. I can't stop laughing'cause the accuracy of that thing should not exist.
It should flop on the ground like a fucking dog's dick or something like that. But you know, it it it it goes straight as an arrow in that guy's leg. So the absurdity of ruck is I can appreciate all day long and I can turn my brain off and stuff like that and just
Enjoy myself. That's the point, right? Films like this, because they turn your brain off.
and a pseudo exploitation movie and you just just enjoy yourself. And I think that the ruckus accomplishes that in in spades and uh
Uh that's where I leave that. Yeah. On the same point, I believe it was Suzanne who was making this point about the uh his aim being amazing with the Molotov cocktails. Was that you, Suz?
Oh, I think that was me. Oh, was it you, Mike? I'm sorry. I appl I knew it was somebody. X, your your aim was off, unlike his aim with the Moltoff cup. Dude, look. You're lucky I can aim at anything at my age. Um I will say this, at least his Molotov cocktails didn't make the rattlesnake hiss.
that the explosive arrowheads did in Rambo First Blood Part Two.
So appreciated that ever so much.
Listen, when we come back, we're gonna talk about First Blood from nineteen eighty two, the very first Rambo movie. And in the meantime, please enjoy this trailer for that specific film.
John Rambo was just passing through town.
But they had nothing better to do. You're looking for travel. You came at the right place, buddy. They didn't know how far he would go.
They knew he was innocent. Just another drifter that broke the law. Vagrancy, wasn't it? They didn't know he had been trained for survival.
Over. There's no way out of here except through us. They didn't know he could stalk a soldier by his heartbeat. You don't seem to want to accept the fact that you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare.
They didn't know they had started a war.
Sylvester Stallone is First blood from the best-selling novel.
John Rambo, who is innocent. I'm warning you, boy. Don't make a move. I'll blow your head off. I didn't do anything!
They pushed him too far. I'm starting to dislike you.
One man who'll never give up.
I didn't come here to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him.
Are you telling me that 200 men against your boy is a no-win situation for us? You send that many. Don't forget one thing. What? A good supply of body bags.
Vester Stallone. You have never seen him like this before. First blood from the best selling novel.
You just heard the preview for First Blood. I don't know why that happened, but it did. Here's the p stupid one line log line from IMDB.
Green Beret veteran Rambo takes on a Pacific Northwest Sheriff and the National Guard.
What's that wrong? I like how this synopsis is more B movie sounding than like the ruckus synopsis.
The one for ruckus? Yeah, exactly. Might as well say an angry guy takes on a small town. It's like well you're not wrong, but you this guy meets other guys and they don't like him.
The movie. Also the plot for Kramer versus Kramer, you know. Do you want that ice cream, Rambo? I told you not to get that ice cream. Um
Jesus Gods. This has just gotten out of control. Let's talk about first blood because why wouldn't we and let's start with Then what do you think about first blood?
Uh first blood. Oh my gosh. Well this is directed by Ted Kogchev, who directed another one of my very favorite films, uh Wake and Fright, a very famous Australian film. Oh my god, that is such a good movie. He did direct that.
I forgot that, bruv. Yeah. The best Donald Pleasant's role ever.
It's a uh it's a it's a t it's a it's an unpleasant, uh comedic, nightmarish film. And it's funny because like such an Australian film and I feel like First Blood is such an American film, especially at the time this was released.
in nineteen eighty two. Um I saw this film at a very young age and funnily enough I didn't actually see any of the sequels until much later on in my life because Um, my father, who was a a big Stallone fan, um, he showed this me at a young age and I was infectured with the film.
And I was so engrossed by the film. I I've seen this film five, six, seven, eight, nine times. Who knows? I've seen this film theatrically, whatever. Um I almost I was talking to Mike privately and I was I was like, I almost don't even need to rewatch it, but I I did. And it's a film that Um
Man, I I just feel like it's like a fine wine. The the the older I've gotten, I think the more I've been able to appreciate it. And the other night my girlfriend was out. She had to you know do her errands. So I was in the apartment by myself.
watching this with a cold beer and I for a film that I had known like the back of my hand, I found myself so emotionally invested.
and um so infatuated with these characters. I have my minor nitpicks here and there. I won't deny that. I'm not gonna say it's a perfect film, but um it reminded me that this really is one of my very favorite films and one of the highlights
Of not only Stallone's career as an actor, but one of the highlights of the nineteen eighties in film as a whole.
That's an incredibly passionate defense of this film, bruv. Thank you for that. Thank you for saying that.
Uh Michael, what you got, bruh?
Alright, so often when I'm talking like horror stuff, I I like to mention that I I grew up in more of like the sequel generation than the originals.
I was alive for a lot of the originals in the eighties, but I was just too young. I would have been like two years old when this came out. So by the time I started like wa you know, watching movies, at least on my own accord, where I could kind of pick what I wanted to watch.
We were well into sequel territory. So when I or one my first kind of impressions of Rambo came from the sequels. Now I'm talking parts two and three. Obviously the the more modern ones hadn't come out yet.
So I kind of had an idea in my head of what Rambo movies were based on two and three. So by the time I was able to uh watch First Blood,
I s saw something completely different. Now obviously the Rambo character, you know, he's still
has some of the same characteristics, the character generally the same, but to me this this first one, First Blood, is just a totally different movie. It's it's it's serious.
It's dark. I think there's a lot more going on. Um it it feels like a little subtle in ways that the sequels aren't I mean, the sequels go full on.
like character. And that's not always a bad thing necessarily'cause we still get some
crazy fun action sequences and some ridiculous absurdity in the sequels. And then even I would say the modern ones, at least I think the fourth one it was, that first one back to the theater, almost kind of Takes like a retroactive
approach to kinda like first blood. Just kind of like the lonely guy that wants to be left alone until he's pushed too far. But uh yeah, this one I
I really enjoy it. I mean this the setup is simple. It gets into it pretty quick. I mean Much like Ruckus, he shows up to town and gets messed with almost immediately and within what 10-15 minutes.
John Rambo's in the woods and it's on and it stays on. Um, I think when the commander shows up and
He he's giving kind of like the monologue of just who John Rambo is. I mean, some legendary dialogue there. I mean is it
Can you view it through a lens that it's kind of corny in a way? Sure, you can. But it's I I still love it. I I love the the dialogue, explaining what a killer he is, what what he was trained to survive and what he will outlast.
Every other man
chasing him down to try to apprehend him. They're they're no match.
for John Rambo. Um and yeah, and I I think there is some good subtext in it that I I really didn't get when I was a kid. I mean I I didn't know any better. I just thought it was a cool movie of a of a man versus a small town. But, you know
as I saw it again as I was older, as I read reviews and analysis, you you kinda get a better picture of what was kinda going on under the surface. So yeah, I've always uh loved this movie.
I think it's a strong one and uh had a fun time watching it on the on the 4K, so I will leave it at that for now.
Sues, talk to me about first butt, I know you have opinions. Of course I have opinions, is what you expect.
No, this I this is one of those that I grew up with. It was a a staple on HBO when I was a kid back when it meant something to have that Saturday night movie premiere.
And it it is the the story between Ruckus and First Blood, it's not it it's been told countless times.
This one, like I said, it is where Ruckus was a lot more lighthearted. This one is just it's raw and it's made.
But there are two parallels and this this axe is just for you. Both of these guys just wanted to have something to eat. Yeah dude Yes.
I mean, honestly, if you think about it, first blood never would've happened if his friend's mother hadn't brought him in for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Oh my god, I love you for that.
And you know you got the hard ass cops.
The two are so similar, but yet the scales are so uneven on the character.
I mean, even David Caruso's character is like, Oh, he's a Green Beret, they're badasses. You know, maybe we should, well, not be complete and total idiots here.
But Brian Dennis Denih is the guy who's just got this big bug up his ass. For this guy who did nothing. He was just hungry. He just wanted something to eat.
That's all Dirk Benedict wanted. He just wanted his raw hamburger. For the love of anything holy, when the men are hungry, just give em a burger. Give em a sandwich.
But now that that's said, like I said, it's it's a staple. It is just one of those
You know, almost a quintessential eighties action movies. Everybody has seen the movie countless times. God knows there were some Saturdays on HBO, there is nothing else on.
But this was it, you know, the height of Sylvester Stallone. But I will say this in the Sylvester Stallone body of work, I think I like cliffhanger for its absurdity a little bit better.
Shout out Rennie Harlan. Hell yeah. Which apparently that remake is coming out this year.
No way. Uh Keep an eye out on Alice does.
No, um I'm just gonna go hang myself right now. What the fuck? That's fair. Well one of the things that I one of the things that I really like that you mentioned, which kind of ties into um my fascination with the character of Rambo And I I wanna say one thing before uh b before I lost I I
Since since I saw it when I was a young kid to now, I've always viewed First Blood as its own island, whereas Rambo First Blood Part Two, up until Rambo Last Blood as its own kind of thing. Those characters seem far more
conjoined to each other rather than first blood. So with first blood, the idea of this Vietnam vet coming back to a place that doesn't want him, to a country that he served that doesn't that turn its back on him. I like that you said something simple like him just wanting a hamburger was enough.
for him to be upset and and that's why I like that idea about this character who has been through this trauma, who's been who, you know, in the final monologue he he sort of really kind of lays his uh lays his woes on the table.
Or something as simple as just not getting something to eat.
and being pushed by Brian Denih in a great performance is enough for him to um, you know, among other things, not being harassed by the police, but enough for him to be kind of pushed into total survival mode where these these people I don't want to say character.
these people who come back from the war who have all the
kind of trauma that that is brought back with them. The they're very fragile where something as simple as that where somebody is just being a jerk to them or whatever. If that is enough to set them off. And I think that says a lot about the vets that were were coming home and not being treated um
empathetically or or sympathetically, I should say, um, to to how they were mentally coming back.
Those are good points and I appreciate you making them. Um I think a lot of what I have to say is going to um And back to what Suze thinks about this, but I will say this, man, it is a huge jump.
between First Blood and the rest of the movies that bear Rambo's name, especially the direct sequel. Now in First Blood, Rambo did nothing wrong.
He didn't kill anyone!
Even Sheriff Teasel, Brian Denih's character, was left alive at the end. Art Galt, that sadistic son bitch, he fell out of that helicopter because he wasn't wearing his seat belt. He didn't secure himself.
All John Rambo wanted was a bowl of soup and a club sandwich.
Not the killing machine that he became in the sequels. He's got bad memories. He gets flashbacks. He's got a strong sense of justice. It's not even justice. It's just Well, it's just how people should act.
Toward each other, you know? I mean, he did his job during the war, but he's still got protesters giving him hell, and I get that.
In a s in a far smaller sense, it's like being a server in a restaurant and getting yelled at because someone didn't like their steak fries. I mean what did you do? You didn't cook'em.
Anyway, even when pushed against the wall, the only thing Rambo killed was that boar.
He injured her.
people but he didn't make'em dead. And that's what I do love First Blood. I still think Ruckus is better, but I do love this movie. I love it for what it isn't. It's not some Sam Furstenberg shoot em up with ninjas and shit.
It's not some mindless action wank fest tail. It could be our game.
The Stallone's best moment on screen is that final monologue in first blood. He couldn't find his buddy's fucking legs. You can feel the despair.
in the speech that the the hopelessness and throughout the movie we can feel I guess I should tell you now I'm pretty much a liberal so if I offend you fuck off um
We can feel the restrictions and the assumptions of the self-protective conservative mindset. That sheriff didn't want guys like you in the town, but he didn't do the least bit.
of interrogation to find out what Rambo was or who he was, if Sheriff Teasel had shown the least bit of compassion.
How different would first blood have been? When did we stop trying to be nice?
And of course, if you've listened to anything I've ever said online, you know who I blame for this.
I blame Reagan for all of this, the attitude, the presumption. I especially blame Reagan for creating an atmosphere where First Blood Part Two became such a massive hit, and I'll take my own.
responsibility for that. I watched it in the theater a lot.
But Hell Rambo went from a veteran to with mental issues to being America's secret weapon in the search for missing vets in Vietnam
with a bandolier strapped across his chest and a bandana wrapped around his head. Yeah, America? Forget about the homeless vats that we have in the streets. Why can't they all be like this guy?
Anyway, I really did love for I really did love first Go ahead. Oh no I'm sorry. No no no I'm sorry I mean I thought you were I didn't want to uh cut off cut off the anti your point. I was just elaborating on it.
Yeah, go ahead.
No, no, I wanted to say I think that was a really good point that you brought up there in terms of um your own kind of uh like, you know, left winging left winging s sort of uh background. Um because what I like about the character of of Rambo in this one is that it's almost like
he can't align himself with a conservative or a liberal sort of mindset because, you know, you're you're in this sort of senseless war. The United States is saying, go off and fight this war
and then you come home and then you have a certain kind of people like he says in the in the monologue this film, this famous monologue where, you know, people are spitting on him, they're calling him baby killers. So it's sort of like
you know, a country that that turns its back on you and the people that turns its back on you, what does that do to a person? What kind of trauma does that put on a person? And for somebody like John Rambo who only knows survival and only knows his pure instinct.
It leaves him really nowhere. And that's what I say before is that a as much as I enjoy the sequels, and I I like all the sequels to various degrees, including Rambo Three, which everyone doesn't like, but I think it's enjoyable for what it is. Dude, he was funny with Abuja Hideen. I love that.
Yeah, we don't fight her.
To me, the I mean, th the Rambo three and Rambo Last Blood are get they get so ridiculous that to me they're they're just enjoyable dumb action films. I
The the separation from First Blood is is completely opaque because I don't even see it as the same as the same character. I enjoy all the sequels, but I I to me First Blood is so self-contained and is so uh personal.
And when I say personal I don't mean like, you know, like Stallone himself being in any kind of war, obviously it's a film, you know, based off a novel which funnily enough, uh David Morrell himself who has has very negative opinions about the sequels and what the franchise turned into.
especially Last Blood from twenty nineteen, which I like, but I understand his opinions. Um I understand his frustrations, I have to say. Um, the film feels so singular and it feels like the uh ultimate sort of Uh perfect reaction I guess to America at the time.
I'm too young. I was clean I was not around then. But it's sort of like the the sort of, you know, go to war, be a hero sort of mentality. And then you have this character who is lost in the country that he's fighting for and has no identity.
and has no one and nowhere to turn to. So much so he's wandering through the small town. He's something as simple as just a bite to eat is enough to to trigger him off and turn him into this machine that he was built for.
um I think is incredibly personal and incredibly touching that I feel like Um, because, you know, the character of John Rambo is such a pop culture signifier, such a pop culture icon.
Um, some of the themes in the film, some of the quieter moments, some of the more contemplative character moments, even when Rambo's in a cave, you know, talking to Troutman on the walkie-talkie, I feel as though these moments have been almost lost to time.
because you have the idea of Rambo of the machine gun toting, you know, pop culture phenomenon that he is. Um but I think ran I think First Blood, uh, like I said before, is truly one of the highlights of the nineteen eighties.
And just and just that a phenomenal film. Speaking of self-contained, I mean the original ending almost made it one hundred percent self-contained.
Which I'm glad they didn't go with that ending'cause I um when I No not not that it's a comical ending or anything. No, no, you're never mind my laughter.
No, no, no. You're completely right. My my father and I, we actually saw this film theatrically uh uh um uh gosh, fifteen years ago or so, and they had a well, it must have been some f first some anniversary or something and and Stallone had a new interview where he talked about
you know, the film and the S uh you know
for his cur for his career and all that. He talked about the ending, the original darker ending. And he talked about the same point that I had, which was, you know,
Are we doing spoilers? Are we you know I I don't wanna give away anything. Spoilers is not an issue.
You know, I agree with you, but I also wouldn't want to hearken someone who hadn't seen it before and then their first time. But either way, my my I I will my point is though is that the alternate ending I agree with Sallone's point of view that it almost does a disservice to
this character and and to people who maybe have related to this character. Related maybe not as drastically as his actions in the film. Um but
It's funny because when I was rewatching this film and I if I'm rambling, I do apologize so you can talk over me if you want to. Um, but rewatching it this last time when I got to that last monologue, and again I've seen this film
10, 15 times in my life. And I'm getting so emotionally wrapped up. There was a point where I did think like
Man, he really almost did go with that ending, that alternate ending, which I think would have been a like a real disservice to this film. Um
It would have been the wrong message to send. Uh, and I'm just so glad he didn't. And listen, the sequels are their own thing, I ain't chilling before they are, but first blood, even with this ending, feels so singular as compared to the rest of the franchise. And
My cat is knocking things over. So you guys saw.
Well, basically in this movie he's human. He's uh not the action hero. He's just a guy. He went through some shit.
and is just in an awkward place.
And you're right, the only death in this movie is that evil bastard who, you know, well, sorry you fell out of a helicopter, you dumbass. You kinda had that coming.
But he really is more three-dimensional. When you start getting into the sequels, it turns into something completely different.
It's a franchise action hero, you know, pretty much. I don't want to say generic, but it's, you know, off the stamping line.
So this one I really wish they just left it alone, but you know with a character like that they can't.
Plus F First Blood made a whole lot of money at the box office. You know they were going to be like Let's make a sequel.
Anyway, my point is I loved First Blood. I still think Ruckus has more depth in the script, which I know if that seems ridiculous, but
I'm saying this as somebody who saw that two thousand eight Rambo movie in the theaters more than twice. I mean, look, I was going through a bad breakup, okay? And I just needed to see people explode.
It's funny that you say that because when the I I also saw the two thousand eight Rambo in the theater and I remember my uh my father took me to that uh when I was, you know, younger and
Uh, you know, he he loved the films. He I you know, he appreciated first blood for what it was, but I think he also enjoyed
the action sequels for what they were. And I remember being in that theater and being um taken aback by how grisly the violence was. There's a lot of uh like child killings in that and how violent. I mean the mach like, you know, Rambo gets kind of like a turn gun.
And it doesn't just the bullets just don't shoot people. They they tear people apart. Yeah, they do. You know, and they're so grisly. And to me
It's like that the uh the Rambo the uh which I hate I hate calling it just Rambo. I just you know, I hate that title. Just call it Rambo Four, whatever. I understand why they call it that. My point is though is that Rambo four for someone to call it
It's such a uh exhilarating uh uh adrenaline film, contemporary action film.
that even with it trying to tie it into the franchise at the very end of like, well, you know, whatever the ending is go watch something for yourself.
You know, even though I don't see it as that character, I'm like, okay, if if this is where he wants to end the franchise, I'm okay with it. You know, even Rambo Last Blood, which I liked, but I'm also willing to admit, I I I can see how
uh kind of messy of a film it is. Um that's its own kind of breed, that's its own entity, w whatever. Um that that's so distant from from the series itself, but um But no, I think Rainbow two thousand eight, much like Rocky Balboa from two thousand six, I think it was a very strong
uh uh return to these characters from a Stallone who has been through, you know, the ups and downs of his career, from, you know, the low the low ranks to the ego to the narcissism
to bring these films back to their roots. Rocky m more so than Rambo, but still'cause these really quality films. And I really do like Rambo four. It's a far cry from Happy Birthday Polly.
You can't get rid of that robot. I don't care if he does, you know, when I watched that Rocky Ford Records cut, I saw that.
I said to my father, they left out Polly's robot. This is ridiculous. This is not the No, I'm only kidding. But no. Uh they're both good in their own right. But yes. Polly deserves his robot. Please tell me the turtles were in it.
What was that? The turtle.
The tur oh, Cuff and Link? Yeah. They were in they were in Creed. Uh so I don't know. I don't remember if they were in Rocky VI, but I know they're referenced in Creed. As for Creed 2, I couldn't tell you.
Um or three, I know they weren't in there. But uh but yeah, Cuff and Link are still alive, I think maybe in real life as well. No, they are still alive in real life. Turtles live on a long time.
And it's funny. It's funny to kind of see that um the the era of Stallone's career where he know he goes through, you know, his his like I said before, his lower rings, he does like, you know, Rocky, does fist.
Does um you know, Paradise Alley, uh, you know, um which is you know, th then that gets brought up, you know, in the eighties, gets, you know, uh Rocky III and Rambo two and And you know, these big kind of films in the nineties kinda gets brought back, uh, you know, he's kinda waning.
He does the phenomenal Copland, one of my very favorite films. Oh yeah. But he does love again. Such a good movie. I mean it to me a a total masterpiece.
I've seen that film five, four or five times now. A masterpiece. And then in the two thousands that resurgence where he's sort of you know, he's getting older, becoming more self-aware, like okay, yeah, he did the expendable movies, which are you know, they're they are what they are. But like I remember like
watching Rocky Six and being just so emotionally involved with that even Rambo Four, which is yeah, it's a big action movie, but it's like Stallone at this point in his career being well aware of
what this what these characters are and and what they would be doing, you know? I don't know. I mean it it's makes my own nostalgia maybe getting in the way, my own kind of bias. I can admit that. That's fair. Um but it's very funny to s or very interesting to see the kind of contrast.
in his career for for these different films. Um anyways I'm kinda rambling but you don't you're not rambling, you're rambling.
Mike Mike, you're out of the group chat.
I wish I thought of that because I'm embarrassed I didn't think of that. It's interesting that you did not mention uh Fist F I S T where Stallone was pretty much Jimmy Hoffa. No, you said Paradise Alley, which was
for a wrestling stallone movie, which I appreciate being in either way, yeah. I I mean I I thought I mentioned Fist, but either way, yeah, Fist is um the the um the film based around uh well loosely based on um uh
Oh my god, what's his name? This is embarrassing. Jimmy Hoffa? Jimmy Hoffa, thank you. Uh that's sort of like, you know, dealing with, you know, the uh
Oh my gosh, I'm losing my mind. Anyways, but yeah, no I'm all my points are like lost now. But uh the unions and all that. But yes, no f I uh yeah, I has seen fist, it's it's it's fine, it's you know.
Oh, it's not great, but it's it's there. We can't forget to mention, of course, the party at Kitty and Stud.
Of course not, where he was just the Italian stallion. He was the Italian Stallion
Which is the the funniest story when they they came to him after Iraqi was a success and they were like, Well for a hundred thousand dollars you can buy the prints for this film and Stallone was like, I don't uh what no. Like I'm not buying the
this stupid ass movie. No. And they're like, okay. And uh now it's something of an odd.
Alright, people, do we have any final thoughts on First Blood? Please jump in. I've I've lost control of this show and I realize that, so just yak.
Well, it's not as bad as the football one that we did.
Oh sweet Jesus Gods Yeah, I I mean I would just kinda echo what's already been said. This to me is the definitive depiction of the Rambo character, uh with much respect to
The fourth entry, which uh I mentioned earlier that I I think is an attempt to get back a little bit to like this kind of crafting of the character, but If if there's people listening that have only seen like the more like myopic, bombastic version of Rambo in the sequels.
Uh definitely I think you owe it to yourself to watch the original First Blood and see where the origin of the character was born.
I will say that Rambo Four provides a more solid reason for why he is against
those people. The fucking scramble into the bog at the beginning of the film makes you hate the Myanmar I don't want to say anything bad about them.
Just Jesus Christ. What a f it's right rightfully disturbing. It's it is disturbing and and wow.
Like I don't like Rambo defending Christians'cause I don't think a religious viewpoint comes into these movies at all, so that's weird.
But definitely you should destroy those people who are trying to destroy other people for no effing reason.
So yeah, I s that's the main reason I love Rambo for as much as I do. Well, I mean, you y you could cut the religion out and just say he's uh protecting people from their oppressors.
I agree.
I have sequels in years.
But like I I look at First Blood, it's it's just a very, very, very quintessential action movie. It has a solid tone.
And uh as kids of the eighties, this is what we grew up with. This these are the things that we watched and maybe we shouldn't have at some of our ages.
But there there is a a message in there.
Alright, I'm done.
Um yeah, I mean I I I I I echo the sentiments of all you guys. I mean I uh I apologize if I dominated kind of the conversation before I was talking quite a bit. I it's a film that
I feel very passionate about um and rewatching it just a couple of nights ago, just in my living room, just, you know, as is uh kinda reminded me of why this film has been so monumental in in my life. Um in terms of me know my father showing it to me, me showing it to other people.
Uh I I think this is just a really touching, really incredible film.
Uh yes, the action is it's very well directed. It's very tense. I mean, we didn't even talk about like the whole like, you know, scenery's hanging on the side of the mountain and the helicopter, you know, th that that that's all great, you know. The action is is great. I think Ted Cockchap's a a fantastic filmmaker.
But the emotion of the film, I mean the the the final monologue. I mean it you know, I've seen it X amount of times, but watching it again just, you know, the other day on 4K, I mean it's just
It just breaks my heart. It's so moving, it's so heartfelt, it's so touching about a character who was lost in his own country, a country that he fought for, who turned it back.
Uh the way that that Stallone plays him, that kind of underdog in a way, uh is so emotional.
Um I think this is a brilliant film. I think this is one of the highlights of twentieth century films as a whole. Um I'm watching it again, I have little to nothing net n little to nothing negative to say about it. I think this is a masterpiece.
Um, and it's just one of the best films I've ever seen. I have nothing negative to say. Um, it's brilliant. That's all I have to say.
Put your ears back on your face for DJ Golden Brown, who is going to tell us what music we should listen to to expand this thematic schematic. He's not wrong.
Greeting cinema lovers.
Golden Brown back at it again, contacted by Beefy Gary to give you another movie music rundown. Today's topic.
is songs to listen to when no one wants to know your name. We're gonna start off with number five, and that is Radiohead's creep. I'm a weirdo.
I'm a creep, Tom York. croonin' over the top of crazy alt rock guitars telling ya about how he is none other than a creepy, creepy guy.
Number four Becky.
You gotta go with Beck's loser.
He's a loser. He's a he's a perdedor, as they say in Spanish. Beck poetry at its finest. Kind of hip hop vibe over some alt rock.
Rappin' Beck Loser at number four. Number three, I'm gonna go with some old school Alice Cooper. Nobody likes me. Alice kinda You know, whining over some guitar and just telling ya how basically
He is not a fun person or a likable person to be around. And uh I'm gonna go with that one number three, Alice Cooper, Nobody Likes Me. Great song. Definitely check that one out.
Number two, none other than Jim Morrison and the Doors. People are strange.
Faces look ugly when you're alone. You know how it is. We've all been in those shoes at one point in our life. And uh number two, Jim Morrison, people are strange.
Great lyrics, great song in general. That is a solid number two. And number one, I'm gonna go with the Smiths. Stephen Patrick Morrissey with Unlovable.
Him basically whining the whole song about how he's just the bottom of the barrel, the dregs of the earth. He's unlovable.
Love that song. Total of vibe.
I guess you could call that emo to some extent, but that is our number one, unlovable by the Smiths.
And that is the top five songs to listen to when no one wants to know your name. We'll run it back. Number five, Creep Radio Head. Number four, Beck's Loser.
Number three, nobody likes me, Alice Cooper.
The doors coming in at number two, which people are strange. And number one, the Smiths, unlovable.
There's the wrap-up, thanks again to the Beefy Podcast.
And everybody out there tuning in, we appreciate you. I'm Golden Brown signing out from Los Angeles.
You can catch me on social media at Golden Brown Mundo, G-O-L-D-N-B-R-O-W-N-M-U-N-D-O.
On Instagram. And I'm also on 88.9 KXL U FM radio out of Los Angeles.
Or K-XLU.org online. Thank you so much. Talk to you guys soon. Have a great one. Enjoy those flicks.
Savage and its diabolical leader, Jim. Threaten the freedom of the people.
on the face of the earth.
And anyone stops.
Expert in all technical weapons.
be easy because General Warhawk doesn't fight fair and he doesn't fight alone. Second in command is
He thrives on treachery and dirty tricks. Mad Dog, he's one mean dude with a real short fuse. Gripper, a ruthless mercenary, he rewrote the book on combat. Nomad, a terrorist who's not above seizing hostages or planting a bomb.
And the final member of Savage is the black.
Deadly Ninja Warrior. But if freedom and justice are to survive, the only hope is with Rambo and the force of freedom.
Fighting alongside Rampo is Colonel Troutman, the toughest CEO in the world.
Turbo.
The force of freedom one step ahead.
But with Rambo and the Justice and liberty will never surrender.
Rambo.
All right, people, where can we find you? We are an outlet and you are here to plug. Let's start with you, Dan.
Where can you find me? Well, I got two shows. I got my weekly show, um The Cozy Corner of Cinema. We talk about film, literature, life, um, our daily blessings. Um you can find that on YouTube and Spotify, as well as my other show, which is
Generally about once a month, which is peephole pictures discussing the films from the golden age of adult cinema. Um you can find that as well on YouTube and Spotify and I will kick it back to whoever is up next.
All right, so you can find me on the No More Room and Hell podcast in Fresh Cuts. Fresh Cuts being discussions on new horror releases. It's a weekly show.
And you can find those both on No More Room and Hell Podcast channel on YouTube.
also on Spotify, Dark Discussions Network. And I guess I'll give a little plug to
A few of my co-hosts that are also featured on the channel. They do a show called Creature Comforts, which is all about monster movies. And I pop up other places.
uh and you know, guest on other shows, but those are my two main ones that are we put out consistently, so uh mostly horror on those. So if you're into horror movie discussions, check'em out.
Dan, does this mean that I can talk to you about the glory and wonder that is memories within Miss Aggie?
Well, funnily enough, I reviewed that film uh a little while ago, one of my favorite adult films from that era, so we can talk about that in depth, or if your listeners want to hear me talk about it in depth.
You can go to my YouTube channel or Spotify where I talk about that for a half hour'cause that is one of the highlights of the golden age of the Would you please please tell us where we can find that? Give us specifics.
You can find Peephole Pictures on YouTube and Spotify. Just search it up and you'll find it. My newest episode that just came out is all about sex in the comics from nineteen seventy two. And I actually have a new episode coming out fairly soon talking about
Talk dirty to me, directed by Eric Von Leck.
Which you can find again on YouTube and Spotify.
Thank you guys for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure talking about these films. It's great. Mike, thank you for inviting me on here.
Um, I had such a blast talking about uh rocks that I have never heard of before in First Blood, which is one of my all time favorites. And um it's great being on a show like this because it allows me to
Discover new films and also reappraise films that I have already liked or maybe even disliked. So again, thank you guys for.
Suzanne, where can we find you, sweetheart? Oh, you know you can always find me here at the Cinema Beef Podcast. I recently just did an episode of Cinema Degeneration with Cam where we broke down Susperia.
Frame by Glorious Frame that should be coming out soon. And I do believe he's also on the Legion Network. So but check out Cam anyway. He's just amazing.
Susperius my all-time favorite movie. You know that, right? You've seen the tattoo on my arm. I too have a Susperia tattoo, funnily enough. Oh my god. I feel so I f I f I I feel so um
I'm not up to speed. Anyway.
behalf of myself and Dan and Mike and Suzanne and Gary Hill, this is the Cinema Beef Podcast where if you've got the beef, we've got the grinder.
Oh, that was so much fun.
Served in a dirty ashtray.
All right, here's your piss break, y'all. Go ahead.
I was sitting here like, what do I do? I was like, damn. It's amazing you went you went real you went hard on sinners but There is a point in this film where
Dirk Bagby accidentally go accidentally goes blackface in this movie for no reason at all. It's in the trailer, I think. Are you serious? No, he didn't he went. It could be a it could be a sinner's prequel, you know.
If that if that's the case look if that's the case then so was Predator
And so is ramp apocalypse. Apocalypse now, thank you.
If you gave him a guitar, forget about it. We're getting sixteen Academy Award nominations. Right. But he didn't come out he didn't come up out of the water like Eric Idol on the Attila the Hun show on Monty Python Flying Circus.
So physical's here to see you, Master. I talk about Chuck Connors and Geronimo here, okay, people that's all I'll say about that, John. Oh dear Lord.