Hello and welcome to Hello This Is The Doomed Show. I am Richard. Folks, I am very excitable most of the time, but twice as much today because Simon's here. Hello Simon.
Susie, do you know anything about Tecna?
Susie, do you know anything about ecstasy? Folks, we're doing something. I think Simon, is this our first non-horror film that you and I have done?
Uh, yeah. It's interesting to talk about our episode we did on The Hidden, which was kind of a bit of a bit of an outlier as well, but it does have sort of slight horror elements. So yeah, I think this is the first one you'd call like sort of non-genre, I think.
Brilliant. Brilliant. It's definitely some kind of genre. Yeah, this is Vibrations from 1996. Directed by, I'm gonna probably butcher this guy's name. This is Michael Passerneck, and this is an American Canadian production, co-production, direct to video or direct to cable TV. I'm not sure about that. But yeah, we're gonna we're gonna talk about this, this very special film, and yes, we're gonna spoil it. So seek it out.
It's on YouTube, for one thing, listen to my chat if you want to see it.
There's a decent copy on YouTube. I went ahead and found a much nicer rip of it from God only knows where this came from. But yeah, this is a drama, which is, you know, I'm trying to think of other dramas we've covered, although this does have science fiction. It also claims to be a musical, but it's not a musical where people break in the song, though that's the only way they could have improved this bad boy was to...
If only.
There is a really, really, really shitty quality trailer. I'm not going to bother playing it. This audio is too crappy. There's a couple of fan made trailers, and I don't really play those on the show. I appreciate folks who make the fan made trailers because there's some movies out there that I wouldn't know existed without the fan made trailer. But you know, they don't have that sweet, sweet voiceover guy that I love. Vibration.
Real quick, plot synopsis here from IMDB is just a couple sentences. The seniors return to earth to visit their relatives. Will they all decide to go back to the planet where no one grows old, or will they be tempted to stay back on earth?
Sounds about right.
Oh wait, that's the cocoon, the return. Oh, sorry, sometimes I mix up movies.
When you said seniors, I thought they just like graduated and gone, I don't know, for like a gap year to fucking Mars or something.
Yeah, it's pretty funny the way they did that. I actually wouldn't mind watching Cocoon the Return. Yeah, I mean, I remember the first one so vividly. I remember watching that with my parents, because you know, it had sexual situations in it. So of course, my parents were all keen enough to watch it. As I've told people on the show many times before, my parents are perverts. No, they were just very liberal with sexual times. Good for them.
So I have the dimension VHS here of your friend and mine, Mr. Vibrations. The tagline on the back is, she dared to challenge his fears, dot, dot, dot, and found a way to his heart. Oh, bless him. Here comes the plot. In this high-energy story of passionate love and personal redemption, Christina Applegate, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and TV's Married with Children, stars as Anna Mika, a manager at the hottest dance club around.
There, by chance, she meets TJ, James Marshall, a few good men, Gladiators, a down and nearly out young musician in the struggle, what, a down and out, this, fuck.
A down and out and fuck, in the aftermath of a brutal attack, as they develop a mutual respect that eventually grows into something far deeper, you'll cheer as TJ, with the love and support of Anna Mika and some great new friends, finds the inner strength to triumph over his tragic past and become a music legend, all set to a hot music soundtrack, vibrations is uplifting, energetic entertainment, you don't want to miss.
Yeah.
So this movie opens with some sweet, sick bass electro dance music.
Oh yeah. Synth bass, man.
Emphasis on this sick, like the bass has that weird little, like funky warble to it, that's like, ew. We see this mustachioed cop cruising through the suburbia. It starts a little too surreal with the suburbia thing. The opening tone of just these first few shots, there's a lady who's using an edger to like clean up the line of her yard along the curb. And she's moving approximately one inch at a time. Like she's not using it properly.
And she's just, it's like, I got the vibe that this is gonna be kooky. This is gonna be a kooky weird movie. And that vibe has dropped immediately as soon as that shot is over.
Yeah, I mean, if it wasn't for a certain clip, which led me to this film, which we will come to obviously in due course, you know, found randomly on YouTube. When I was, if I'd just gone into this blind and I was watching this first scene, I would kind of have no idea what I was in for. You know, it's a combination of music and the cop driving. You'd be like, what is this?
If this had been a, based on what we're about to talk about, if this had been a comedy, a very quirky comedy, that this movie would make a lot more sense.
Oh yeah.
So he goes to a house, pulls up, you can hear a band playing, and they're jamming. They're jamming. I wrote in my notes, their genre is soggy postcard rock. I don't know what that means, but I wrote that down. And of course, as soon as the cop starts harassing these guys, I'm like, oh, this is the dad of the main dude. Somebody called the cops, and of course, this kid's lucky that his dad is like the sheriff, so he's coming to shut them down, and I was totally right.
And that's one thing about this movie is, aside from a couple of moments, you can predict what is coming next.
Oh yeah, yeah.
This is very, very formulaic in certain ways, which is not a criticism at all. This is, I'm the guy who has like hundreds of slashers on my shelves, so we're good to go.
Yeah, me too.
But this is Stephen Keats is the actor who is coming in to arrest these rock and roll boys. But this guy is a big time. He died in 94, which is sad. So this movie, oh wow. So he died before this came out. That's terrible.
Yeah, I just seen that. It's a shame. So you may have seen on the credits, there's a copyright date for 1994. And on the posters, if you look at the bottom, there's copyright dates for 1993.
Okay, so that will explain why this doesn't feel like 1996.
And how. He's making me think of The Gingham Hattor, a hidden episode, specifically The Hidden Two, because wasn't there like a rave in that, in like a fucking warehouse?
Yes, yes, yes. Dude, don't spoil the rave. Come on, that's the pot twist. He was in, this guy, Mr. Stephen Keats, was in a movie I remember very vividly from my childhood, and I've never watched again, called Turk 182. Dude's older brother gets injured on the job, he's a firefighter, and then he spends the whole movie trying to get justice because the city denies him benefits for his medical stuff. It's like an inspiring movie. It's really good. I need to watch the movie.
Bob Clark, Bob Clark. Interesting cast as well.
Stephen Keats, one of my favorite roles of his was in Silent Rage. He played the doctor, one of the doctors who creates the monster. And he's like basically a mad scientist in that movie. It's really good.
I still need to see that. It's like a Chuck Norris slasher movie.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Highly recommended. It has like, I would just say it's a few minutes too long. There's a section that the pace is amazing through the whole movie. And they tried to do something clever for this long section of the movie and it almost works. But it just, for me, and this is just me, it killed the pacing, but still recommend the film to anybody who hasn't seen it. But TJ is played by our friend and yours, freaking James Marshall of Twin Peaks. Oh my God. Let me see.
Let's just do a common cast and crew here. See if we had any other people. Was it just one Twin Peaks are in this or is it two? No, it's just one.
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Nope, just James Marshall. But so this is officially a Twin Peaks side movie. I'm proclaiming it right now.
No, yeah, and I love that whole, especially when we're talking about stuff on the show, of course, but just in general, Six Degrees of Twin Peaks, which I had yesterday and following on from this, rewatched Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, which has, I think, two Twin Peaks alumni, as is Kimmie Robertson and David Duchovny.
Wow. I did not know Duchovny. That's brilliant. I haven't seen that in, I haven't seen it since it debuted on video. That was one of those movies, when it came out, I was very tempted to go to the theaters. I was very tempted by that one.
It seems to have kind of disappeared a bit now. I can't even see an official Blu-ray out. I think somebody's done a bootleg, but cinema aside, I think it just went on to HBO. I think they put the money behind it.
Yeah, well, same thing with Vibrations. Yeah, where's Vibrations gone?
I'm just praying one day that like, somebody like Vinegar Syndrome or somebody gives it like the Miami Connection treatment or something.
Keno Lorber for no reason. I don't know. Somebody would be freaking amazing.
Why not?
Our buddy, he's got beautiful blonde locks in this.
Oh, his hair is amazing, yeah.
But his dad says to him about their music, I hope you yo-yos make it so that I don't have to hear this shit anymore. But it's all in good fun. His dad is a loving father who supports him. I think there's some talk about his mother having passed away.
Yeah, yeah. And she is saying, yeah, because he sounds like his dad's more of a classical music buff, he's saying it's your mom who gave you permission to drop the classical and now play this rock, rock, I don't know if he says rock shit or anything. Even he did it, just be part of the, they have great banter, don't they? Like him and his dad and the friends as well.
Dad's cool, but he still prefers Beethoven. I almost said Beethoven because of Grease 2. They say Beethoven in Grease 2, damn it.
I hope you yo-yos make it so I don't have to listen to this shit anymore. I mean, imagine, responding to a noise complaint in my own house. It's getting to be downright embarrassing. I'd throw the book at you. But then whose ass would I kick in ping pong?
So after the band breaks, they have their big gig that night. They're all hyped about it. And TJ has something he has to do first. And one of his bandmates looks at him and goes, does this have something to do with your wiener?
Oh, and how it does. And boy, will it lead him astray.
Totally, literally astray from where he's supposed to be going later. So, yes, he goes to see his lady friend. She's asleep. She is a flight attendant, as her uniform hanging up can suggest. And of course, when you're a flight attendant, you can afford pink satin sheets. They get intimate, I guess. They talk about wearing protection. He makes gun jokes about having a sawed-off shotgun. Like, yeah, you keep bragging, buddy.
But he eventually makes a French tickler joke, and they, quote unquote, make the sex act.
I just realized this is terrible. It's probably going to get me sent to hell, but I will have a sawing off later.
Yes, I can confirm you're going to hell for that. That's fucking amazing. Thank you.
I'm sorry. It just kind of popped in there.
Yeah, you really had to fit it in somehow.
Yeah.
Okay, so he sleeps after she leaves. He totally sleeps late until 9 p.m. like a fucking idiot. And so he has to rush to the gig. And as he's driving, all I can think about is me whenever my band has a gig. I am there at least three hours before stage time because I'm so terrified that I've booked this gig and I'm keyed up. I'll even get there, like, before the doors open.
Yeah.
Do you know how many bands start when the doors open? Zero. So, yeah, no, I'm perpetually early because it's like, I can't even wrap my mind around being on time much less late. Oh, my God.
No, I think you got the right idea. I'm kind of the opposite. Sort of last minute, I'm trying to learn not to do that because it's just, yeah, running around last minute, it's not good for your stress levels.
Well, I'm like what they call a nerdlinger, a nerdy boy. So while he's driving, he has to take a detour because the road's under construction. He starts getting harassed by rednecks in a red truck.
Oh, God.
And one of them is played by Dana Ashbrook. There's a guy, that's one of the other things. I was like, oh, this is a Twin Peaks connection. Because the dude with the backwards baseball cap looks like Dana Ashbrook to me.
You expect he's about to start wuffing at him or something.
Or just start throwing bags of cocaine around. Or baby powder. Or no, was it not baby powder?
Oh, laxative.
Laxative, baby laxatives. Which, man, I snorted a lot of that before we got started. So things escalate as he gets in a little chase with them and his car stalls out, and they start beating his frickin vehicle with baseball bats and golf clubs and shit. And there's some heavy machinery nearby, which the guy who looks like Dana Ashbrook starts up, and it's not a bulldozer, and it's not like an earth mover type of thing. It's like this crane that has...
What do you call it? At least like a pneumatic drill almost, but not...
Yes. Yeah, it's like this big spiky drill thing at the end of it. And they start punching holes in his vehicle that he's trapped inside, and they eventually crush the roof. The guy literally tries to kill him. So they take off, and he wakes up in the hospital. One of his hands is missing. At first, we see one of his hands missing. His girlfriend, Lisa, and his dad's there, and they look very concerned. Then he sees... Well, he tells them, my hands are hurt, are killing me.
And both of his hands were amputated in the accident, or damaged so much, they had to amputate in the accident. Man, brutal.
I mean, you're saying that whole scene does escalate, I mean, and quickly, I mean, geez, you file that into that one, yeah.
Yikes. So we see a scene where he is meeting with his therapist, and this lady looks like someone, and I cannot place who the hell she is.
She's got no... She's the first person in the cast that doesn't have like a little profile thumbnail thing, so...
Virginia Sandal...
Oh, something you've mentioned before on the podcast, I think, which you will probably see here. I think a TV show. The Equalizer?
Yes, I have seen The Equalizer, yes. That's a good show, but yeah, this... She's been in like almost nothing. I don't know who she looks like. It's crazy.
Yeah, she has like four acting credits and one soundtrack uncredited for an episode of Sex and the City.
She's going to introduce him to his new hands, which are metal hands, like melital, metal skeletal structure with latex over the top. And she's trying to get him to just pick up a coffee cup, and you can see he's really struggling because it's like, you know, he's traumatized and just having to get used to this new life. It's very sad. I wrote in my notes that they were bionic hands, not realizing that they weren't and that he would actually get bionic hands later.
So he's going through depression, and he pushes Lisa away, and we don't see him arguing with his dad about it, but you can tell things are going south for him.
Yeah, his dad, you wonder if he just not leaves him to it, but you know, it's going to be less. I suppose maybe, you know, they obviously have a very good relationship before that, but you know, just by virtue of, I guess, spending less time on, you know, not obviously having the same, you know, intimacy, of course, and all that.
That, yeah, she's going to kind of push it more, which leads to, you know, him trying to be sort of a bit, because, you know, she I think gets a bit freaked out by the hand or something or like flinches.
Yes, they're about to get intimate, and he touches her shoulder with the hand and she flinches and it upsets him very much.
Which, you know, she's apologetic, she's like fine, but then he just becomes kind of almost flippantly like humorous.
Yes.
What does he say? He makes some puns. He says, he takes his hand attachment thing off and just holds up this, you know, what's left and says, you want the thrill of your life? Stumped. I know I am. Woo!
That's a smoky, fiery moment, right? That is like the most awkward moment in the whole movie where he jokingly suggests that she pleasure herself with his stump. It's like, whoa! Obviously, she's very appalled and very upset that he's going there, so she leaves. And then he goes out to the garage and he has a raging rampage. I call this TJ versus the musical instruments, and he trashes his beautiful keyboard and amplifier and just the whole garage.
Drop some rage against the machine there. That would have been it.
Oh, yes. Hey, perfect. Perfect. 1993, y'all.
Exactly.
We see his dad talking to some colleagues on the phone, and we think that he's looking for those asshole rednecks who injured him. But no, he's just looking for TJ. TJ has disappeared. And we see TJ waking up in the middle of the street in New York City. He's now dirty and homeless. I'm assuming it's been some weeks since he just bailed on suburbia. This is funny. This is the only time in the movie where this feels like a much bigger film than it is.
They filmed some shots in New York City, and I think they booked it back to Canada. To kind of like, I mean, I know they filmed a lot in New Jersey, but it just, this felt like some added production value.
It's sort of like, although they didn't try and, you know, do Toronto or whatever for New York, you're reminding me a bit of like Jason Tate's Manhattan, you know, where I know everybody gets pissed at that movie because most of it's on a boat and then like, you know, back streets of Toronto, maybe a bit. I think they used Times Square here as well, don't they? I think for that, like, establishing shot where all the bums are kind of getting moved on and out.
I like the, I have to ask you what you think about, not just, you know, all the techno music and whatever, but the actual score to this. I mean, we've talked a bit about it already, but it's so interesting when, you know, the establishing shot is kind of, you know, kind of nice sort of almost atmospheric sort of borderline, I don't want to say ambient stuff, but, you know, it's kind of pretty, I guess.
Yeah, this is Bob Christiansen, he's the composer for this movie. And he's basically, if you look at his profile picture, he's got TJ's haircut in his profile picture.
Oh, wow, I've got to see this.
Yeah, he went into doing TV, a lot of TV composing.
Oh, What Sex in the City again, I've never mentioned that on this podcast.
And the equalizer, the equalizer again.
That is interesting. So yeah, him and that lady that came is like a package deal, maybe.
So yeah, yeah, I know the music is, I wouldn't say it's memorable.
No.
I wouldn't say, for me, it doesn't stick out.
No, it doesn't. No, I'd agree.
The incidental, the rave music will stick out. Crazy. Yeah, we'll get to that when we get to that. But our pal TJ is acting like he's strung out. He is instantly an alcoholic now. So that's why I don't know how much time has passed. He's going to drink something called Night Ship, which we'll talk about when we get to that.
It looks like, you know, I think they call it Viper, the drink they have in street trash.
Oh my God, it does. Good call. That'd be great if they just went for it. Viper. So Lietta points out, she's like, OK, he's dirty. How does he have no beard? How is he still clean shaven? Which we'll find out later that he actually carries a shaving kit around with him. So he has figured out how to shave without his hands. But Lietta is like, how is he still dirty? Because like shaving exfoliates you. And I'm like, man, if we start questioning this shit, we're going to lose our fucking minds.
So let's we cut to a rave or rave party or as I call it, a rave cotillion, where one of my favorite things in the world is how raves are portrayed in movies. As we saw when we briefly talked about The Hidden 2. I love that. We'll talk about youth culture movies a little later.
Before I forget, because I am liable to, can I just mention another movie to you? That one I alluded to that I came across. I think it's because somebody on a podcast, they covered this and this other movie. Brace yourself, I don't know if this has ever come up on your radar before. A movie from 2001, I think it's German, called Rave Macbeth.
Holy fuck.
Yeah.
No?
Synopsis. This movie is obviously a loose adaptation of Shakespeare playing Macbeth, except it's set in the world of dance rave culture. I watched a trailer for it yesterday. I nearly sent to you, but I thought I'd just, you know, put some play on you now. I think it's maybe German, but maybe shot in English, you know, like The Pool and some other movies of, you know, that vintage.
Holy shit, it's got Michael Rosenbaum in it. The dude from Cursed, he has my fucking favorite line in the movie Cursed. He was like, I lost Craig. I lost Craig. That's so good. Folks, that Cursed Blu-ray is sweet.
Oh, I need to get that.
Unfortunately, all that footage from the original scrapped version that Wes Craven shot, that has not shown up yet.
Kind of tie back to this, actually. We saw something to do with the Weinsteins again, and Miramax, and maybe Dimension, I don't know.
Yeah, they had some bad test screenings and a lot of delays, and they ended up shooting the... They ditched 60% to 70% of the original footage because they had to recast some people. It was a total clusterfuck. I always thought of it as a writer's strike, but I don't think it was a writer's strike. I think it was just bad shit that happened. I love Cursed the way it is.
I only seen it once, but I enjoyed it.
There's two versions. There's the R-rated version, which is the one... Oh, excuse me, the unrated version. That's the one to watch. PG-13, it's fine. It's the one I saw in the theaters, but it literally is kind of toothless. You got to see the unrated version to kind of get the real feel for it, but we'll never know what the actual movie would have been like. It's so funny. So he's in this rave. He strolls up to the Intellibar.
Oh, you caught that. I was trying to see what that was yesterday.
Their logo that they made, this little DIY thing they made.
Yeah.
It's not that it's made of shit. It's not that they took feces and wrote Intellibar and feces because it's not brown, but it's like yellow and swirl paint and everything. It just looks like actual shit. Dude, I can't with this sign. He's totally disorientated because he's an alcoholic and he's drunk, and he's in this rave, totally discombobulated. Our pal, Christina Applesauce, sees him struggling, and she's a very nice person. She helps him make his way outside.
Bill Murray has one problem.
I don't want it.
And he's got to take it 3,000 miles. Larger Than Life, ready at PG. Starts November 1st.
So after Animica... Animica... Anantica? Antica? After she...
Anakin?
Yeah, Animaco. I'm gonna call her all kinds of shit. After she gets TJ outside, she goes to see Barry. Barry is the manager of this club, and presumably a guy who runs a record label of sorts?
He mentioned something, Ron. He's taking people out on tour, so I guess maybe.
This is Bruce Altman. He's an actor. I've definitely seen him in something with 112 credits, but can't say I recognize him.
You know, I was just saying, there's something here I've always meant to watch. I think it's a Ridley Scott film with Nicolas Cage. It's a matchstick man.
Oh, yeah, that I have seen years ago. I saw that when it came out. I don't remember it at all.
Yeah, yeah.
But he's very concerned because he and Kristin and Applegate were a thing, and they have since broken up, and he's trying to figure out how to get her back. She's like, Barry, don't you feel it? The energy is not there. He almost comes off as semi, not a douchebag, but we'll find out later. He's a total idiot.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So she leaves the club, and she gets harassed by some punks, some, hey, what are you doing there, you pretty lady, I'm going to gobble goo. And so they're literally going to attack her, and TJ watches all this, and he yells and gets their attention, and he shows up, and the dude pulls out a switchblade, and he goes to stab TJ, and TJ just puts up his hand, and the knife goes right through it.
Is it him before that? Yeah, so he coins the name, and this could have been a whole different movie. He says, hey, it's Super Wino.
Yes, speaking of street trash.
Oh yeah, yeah.
That's all that movie needed was a superhero, Super Wino. They get freaked out when the knife goes through his hand, and he basically doesn't react, and he pulls the knife out, and of course she's asking, oh, are you okay? He's like, no, dude, I'm cool. It's fake hand, you know. She offers to take him home, because he obviously is homeless and in a bad way. And as soon as they get to her fancy-ass frickin street, she tells him, she warns him, don't go buggy on me.
Unusually for me, I didn't take pages and pages of notes, and as I said to you before recording, the reason for that was, because if I had written down every line of dialogue that I enjoy in this, I really would have probably had to start a new notebook.
We just play the movie.
But yeah, there's an exchange here, I had to write down, before they get to the apartment, where they're introducing each other and says, Oh, my name's Annemieke. I say, TJ, TJ, I like that. I tried initials for a while. In fact, I even tried a few numbers when I was still trying to find myself, but Annemieke seemed to fit best.
Oh my God. Nothing is simple with Christina Applegate's character in this. Nothing she has some shit to say that's going to blow your mind. Her house, her little brownstone apartment here is a fucking death orgy of pastel nightmares. This is one of the ugliest interiors I've ever seen people go for in a movie. And I think they're trying to express her character.
Yeah.
And they are not doing it. They are making me want to murder the designer of this fricking place.
I've heard the phrase before, production design within an inch of its life, and this apartment might kind of, yeah, file under that one.
Yeah, man, it's rough. She offers to, you know, make him something to eat. He says he's going to go clean up. As he's taking a really long time in the bathroom, she's she bust out her radical sketchbook. She's got some doodles. She's doing some coloring. She's definitely one of those people that would have had stacks and stacks of adult coloring books.
Yeah.
And when I say adult coloring books, just saying that phrase out loud makes me it's a bunch of dicks and vaginas that you just color.
But yeah, it should be false advertising.
It should be. There probably are. I'm sure there are.
We sell a bunch of them at work, and I've not found one yet. I'm really disappointed.
I'm drawing mine, mine right now.
Drawing on it.
She, she gets concerned and goes and finds, of course, he's drunk in the bath, passed out. She gets pissed, but you know what? She forgives him. The next morning, he wakes up to the house falling down. Her upstairs neighbors are a guy named Simeon and another guy named Geek. And her other neighbor is Xena. But I thought Xena was causing all this shake, rattle and rollin because the house was totally shaking. And she has like a workshop. She's a metal worker.
Yeah.
But no, it is a geek. He has developed a new type of amplifier that's like this super scientific monstrosity that amplifies sound to the point where it can destroy, you know, building structures. And there's the raver named Simeon, who we will talk all about shortly. Boy, oh, boy. I can't wait to get to him. So he's having breakfast with Ani Maka or whatever. Anime girl. Fuck, I hate her name so much in this movie.
Xena bursts in while they're hanging out because she wants to know what the fuck that rattling and rolling was. This actress is named Fay Grant. And I call her Budget Jillian Anderson because I don't know why I kept getting Jillian Anderson vibes. She looks nothing like her. I don't know why. But she was in a very important movie for me called Drive Me Crazy from 1999. She did not have a big role. She played one of the teachers. It's a teen movie.
If you haven't seen Drive Me Crazy, it is my favorite fricking teen movie. It even beat out Get Over It. Get Over It was my ultimate favorite teen movie forever. And now Drive Me Crazy from 1999. Highly recommend it.
I'd love to see both. Is that Melissa Joan Hart? Right. That's 90s as fuck.
Oh, yeah. Same thing with Get Over It. Get Over It. They're both like, oh my God, they're so funny. But yes, she finds when she gives Geek some shit for creating a device that can destroy the house. Geek is played by David Burke. His big claim to fame is he played on The Tick, he played Arthur. It's a great show.
Maybe there was an animated version wasn't there earlier? I think I maybe saw that.
The Tick has one animated version and two live action. Oh, well, they have been trying to make The Tick happen for years. I think there might be a movie. I don't know if there's a movie. They should go ahead and just make a frickin movie. Yeah, it is. It's really fun. It's fun stuff. So he's the geek as his name is geek. But more important is Scott Cohen as Simeon. This guy is one of my favorite frickin character actors. One hundred and sixteen credits and counting. Holy shit.
I first noticed him on Gilmore Girls. He was one of the teachers at the fancy high school, and he ends up having a love affair with the mom. So I've seen many, many, many, many episodes with him. And he's just a solid dude. He's got a great voice. And according to what I learned from this movie, he will spout off any fucking shitty dialogue that you put in front of him, because this motherfucker is going to say some shit in this movie that is going to blow your mind, people.
I was just thinking he'd be... I don't worry if he wasn't a George Lucas movie, but there was that famous quote from Harrison Ford about the dialogue in Star Wars, saying, George, you can write this shit, you just sure as hell can't say it, something like that. And this guy would be like, no, fuck no, I'm just going to run with it.
But scrolling to the bottom of his credits, and I'm going to look out for him next time, his first acting credit was actually, he says, his resident doctrine, Jacob's Ladder.
Yes, I noticed that. It's crazy. It's crazy.
I'll have to look out for him.
But Simeon, he's a typical goofy guy with, you know, he he literally, they literally talk about him thinking with his dick, and he's just a hornball, and he's got a different girl every night, of course. Now, this is when the movie completely falls apart for me and if in a fun way.
Yeah.
So we back and we get a wide shot of all these characters interacting. It looks like a fucking stage play with the worst set designer, as we've discussed. What happens is Xena's giving him shit, then Dee Dee, the girl he's sleeping with, he calls her Mimi by mistake.
Yeah.
But instead of getting in trouble for it, it's okay because she's a twin and her sister Mimi is there. Or Gigi or whatever. It's Dee Dee and Gigi, but I think he says Mimi at some point. I am just lost. I am just completely lost.
Yeah, what does he say? It's like I couldn't break up a pair or something. I can't remember. It's kind of a blink and you'll miss it thing. It looks like it might even get worse later in the movie when they all go on tour.
Yep. Oh, yeah. He has another girlfriend later who's actually an actress I've heard of. This girl has a very small, she's a walk on role. This movie is losing it. The director, I believe, has lost control of this movie. Just in this one sequence, it's like, what are we doing here? TJ gets the shakes because he hasn't had a drink, and Akira, I'm gonna call her Akira from Noah, she catches him stealing some cash from her wallet, and she's like, just take it, just take it.
And now we have a sequence where he is begging for money on the streets. He's put his hands in his back pocket, and he has a bucket that he's holding with his stumps, and he's begging for money. And the MIDI saxophone. Mm-hmm. It sounds hilariously fake, and this is particularly painful. It's awesome.
Yeah, and you can't, when you hear that sound, hell, but think you should be watching like the Red Shoe Diaries now or something. Yeah, it's, yeah.
The first crazy sequence in the movie happens. He goes to a diner where he knows that Anika hangs out, and he pays her back, but they argue. She thinks he stole the money, and there's this whole thing, and she storms out, and he's trying to pick up his money, and the, because he struggles to pick up things, and he's trying to get all of his money back in his pockets, and the cook notices him, and he thinks he's stealing from Amidala.
He starts to get all shitty, and he walks away from the stovetop, and knocks a pipe loose, and the shit catches on fire. There is a pipe with gas coming out, and it's on fire, and everyone's freaking out. DJ, probably because he's drunk, dives into action, runs across the counter, or runs around the counter, shoves his hand over the flame to put it out. And everyone's like, dude, you're gonna burn yourself. And yes, he burns the latex on his hands, but puts the fire, so he saves the day.
And then he gets his money back and finds a big pile of t-shirts that Kira sells at these rave clubs, which I'm gonna be, they made a bunch of t-shirts, but I don't understand the t-shirts. We'll talk about the t-shirts.
Right.
So he goes out and immediately is drinking again. He's just drinking again. And we have a nice shot of him on the waterfront in New York City, just booze hounding it away.
Living the life.
Cut jarringly to a rave. This is my favorite part of the movie for one reason. There's a guy, and I wrote in my notes, double x shorts, screaming woo, like ears splitting, woo, over the microphone. And I had no clue this was Scott Cohen as Simeon. He is a DJ. He's a rave DJ. And I didn't know it was him because, bless his heart, he was wearing a hat earlier. And apparently, when someone's wearing a hat, I don't recognize them.
So if he wanted to pull some major con and like swindle me out of money, just put a fucking hat on, I'll never know it's you. TJ shows up with the t-shirts, it's help out, and he goes inside with them. And then there's a guy on the microphone. There's a dude holding the microphone on stage at the rave. He has a t-shirt on that says, white boy.
Ah, yes.
He is shouting musiclessly with no inflection whatsoever. I am free. So it's a sample of someone saying I am free. And instead of just admitting it's a sample, they have this guy pretending he's saying it. It's very cute.
Yeah. If it wasn't for the fact that he's shouting and like all the rave techno music under it, you'd think this was like some kind of ASMR like affirmations video or something. It's like, I am free. I am safe.
All of that. What's really shocking to me here is the fucking music during this I am free song. I wrote it's an EDM dirge that makes my dick fall off. Like I can't imagine anyone harshen some ravers vibes with this like weird, minor key shit. Like I would see people running out of there and having a fucking bad trip. Somehow someone brings up Generation X. And in 1996, I think people were literally over it. Nobody wanted to talk about Generation X, but this was made in 1993.
And Christina Applegate, under no uncertain terms, explains what Gen X is.
That's the great thing about our generation. What generation is that? Generation X.
Generation without a name.
And we don't need a name. We have no attention span, we have no wars, no jobs, no unifying event. We just are. Yep, the boomers suck the world dry. Sound pretty bitter. No, we're not bitter. We're just realistic. We don't need to blame anybody. We just want to improve what's here. The other stuff's already been done. Yeah, I mean, except for Star Trek, there are no new frontiers waiting to be explored. Nothing new to invent, nothing we really need, right?
Well, I think there is one more frontier to explore. It's cyberspace. The space inside of a computer still hasn't been explored. I'd rather explore the space inside my brain. I mean, it's the only place really worth exploring, if you ask me. Yeah, but how do you do that? Through self-examination, expression, through art and music. I mean, the answer isn't just up in here. It's in here. The breasts. Of course. The answer's in the breasts.
I'll only say one line from that previous scene, because it has to be seen to be believed and heard by people. But all I'll say is this. Nothing can doom this groove. Or should it be, nothing can doom this doom show? Or I don't know. We already are doomed. So we cut. Nothing can doom us.
Nothing can groove this doomed shit. That should have been the tagline of the movie. Oh my god, vibrations. Nothing can doom this groove. Like this movie isn't about music enough. That's the funny shit. It's like this movie wants to get back to anything but the music over and over again.
I have no plans of taking up acting anytime sooner doing any acting classes, but if I had to do one and I had to do a monologue, I would do that scene.
Yeah. Brilliant. Later, TJ and fricking America are talking and she's telling him to not feel sorry for yourself. She's trying to tell him that the booze was just clogging up your karma. And she offers him a job, which is a fake job of handing out flyers. This leads into this whole sequence is a montage of her getting getting him a shittier haircut and getting him some new duds so he looks like he works at fucking chess king or some shit is so funny.
Like I was shocked that they didn't do a him trying on clothes montage. I bet you anything they actually filmed that sequence.
Well, we'll get a montage in a bit, won't we? But yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, maybe it is on the cutting room floor. Maybe see if we get the eventual Blu Ray, whatever.
Some techno plays over this part. And this is the first bit of music in the movie that I genuinely like. I like the music that plays over this.
Yeah.
I thought it was really good.
And it's good. I'd like to write down some of the soundtrack credits there, because there's no sort of probably leaning into IMDB too much here. There's no actual page for it. Again, just shows you how kind of obscure this movie is.
They go to put up a flyer in a piano store and TJ, he's watching one of those player pianos, the ones that automatically play the music as you run it through there, gives him an idea. So he enlists the powers of Xena's metalwork, I should say Xena Warrior Princess, and their internal geek squad named Geek. They're going to build TJ what I can only describe as a cybernetic penis. Oh no, I'm sorry. Cybernetic synthesizer hands. I just wanted to say penis.
Robocock. Thank you. Good night.
So what they're going to do is they're going to take like MIDI technology and like an MP3 player or some shit, and they're going to do all kinds of wiring and soldering to make it so that he can use his metal hands to play music. And they do, they put felt on these metal hands.
Oh, for that soft touch.
Oh my God, I love that line. And I immediately am waiting for the sex scene with that. The funny thing is there's a couple of screenshots of these hands on Google. Somebody took a great picture of one and like did some nice like post Photoshop effects on it. It looks like a fucking album cover for the aforementioned Daft Punk. Oh, which will get even more we'll get even more Daft Punk-y later.
And sure enough, we have a nice Frankenstein moment where Simeon literally screams into the camera while staring at the hands. It's alive. It's alive. And then that night, Anika comes home. I know her name is not Anika. God damn it. She comes home and he's playing a sweet melody. He's got some candles going. He's got the lights going. He's got this beautiful vibe. And he's going to romance her, but he totally blows it. He totally asks her the question.
Do you care about me for me or do you just feel sorry for me? And she gets pretty pissed, but they work it out. And she's like, I would never feel that way about you. She's totally into his bionic man ass. And here's one of my favorite things in this movie. Clothed sex scene. These motherfuckers, the way the shot is framed, they're posing for like one of those romance covers. But he's still got his pants on. She's got a full on dress on with underwear and a tank top underneath.
And they're supposedly making the sex act, but they are absolutely clothed. It's great safe sex. Love it. Hey, through the pants sex is sex. And I tell that to everybody. That's one of my big platforms on this show. She goes back to Barry the next day to ask if TJ can play at the rave club. And Barry immediately is like, OK, if you'll reconsider our relationship, like if he tries to get her to have sex with him in order to let for this favor, for him to do this favor for her.
And she tells him off because he's an ass. Simeon bursts in and he just he's also telling Barry off. Like, what the fuck? You're an asshole, dude. Meanwhile, the next day, TJ is using his mechanical hands as a mixer to make a fucking milkshake.
He's got the nice whisk attachment.
That came up during their sex games. Now, Simeon has gotten him a gig. And he's like, Whoa, were you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Xena needs to help me with something, though.
Uh oh.
Now we're doing it. So we cut to the rave club and should be raving. We go. We have the most important shot of the movie. The Intellibar has a rack on it in the back. And what is draped along this rack for its customers, Simon? Did you catch it?
I'm not sure whether I did.
Passifiers. It's a whole string of pacifiers. Now, folks, I have been to precisely one rave in my life. I've been to one club that played rave music at night, and everybody there had pacifiers.
I've never thought about it till now, but this is just a theory. Is this because people taking cocaine or maybe pills, I forget which one does this now, where they end up chewing their own teeth off?
Yeah, they chew their mouth like holes in their mouth. So that might be it. But dude, I laugh my head off. That's the best shot ever. She's working the t-shirt counter, and here's where I don't understand the t-shirts. All the t-shirts are for artists that are never playing at any of the clubs. She's always selling the same six designs, and I don't understand what any of them are for. Barry walks in, she calls him over, and he's like, hey, have you reconsidered my offer? She's like, I have.
And she calls him a purgatorious piece of shit.
Oh, I'm just waiting for the opportunity to be able to drop that one in real life.
Hold on, I gotta look this one up. I know what purgatorious is.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know whether I've ever heard purgatory used as a, I guess it's like an adjective.
Purgatorious is a genus of seven extinct Eutherian species, typically believed to be the earliest example of a primate or proto-primate. God bless her.
Brilliant.
But they look like little cute, the drawings that come up are like, they look like almost like squirrels. So I guess it's like a, just like one of those ancient species that, you know, we evolved from. That's pretty cool.
Good for her.
Good for her in her fucking dictionary if she busted out.
Now, what she says, she's, this is like a one, two punch. First, because he has to, she would, and maybe not just because of the volume and the rave, you know, he's like, what? So that's to repeat it. And then what she say to him, you want to get laid, Barry? Go fuck yourself. Yeah. Wow.
Zing. So Christina Applegate is at this rave and doing her thing. And then Xena shows up and she's shocked because Xena never comes to these things. And she's like, what are you doing here? Oh, I'm here for no reason. But she is there for a reason. Because on stage, Simeon is about to introduce something. He introduces what I call rave RoboCop. And the place goes wild. I'm going to play Simeon's entire spiel here.
Please do.
Because dude, it is so his his introduction is one of the funniest shit I've ever heard. That I would say one of Scott Cohen's non talents is a hype man because he is so awkward. And I but it's the dialogue. It's all complete dog shit. So, this whole Ravencop stuff, the shit's going nuts, people are bouncing off the walls. I keep thinking that they're introducing him as Cyber Star, but it is Cyber Storm. And Barry is like obsessed with him, like, who is that? Who is that? Can he go on tour?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yes, this is our proto Daft Punk. So my guess is that Daft Punk was formed and was touring, because I just can't imagine somebody randomly coming up with Cyborg Raver.
Yeah, as you say, they were formed, that's interesting, they were formed in 1993. And I think there's some early photos of them. And then I forget exactly when, obviously they adopted the whole robot persona, because I think he was trying to get away from that whole, you know, just, I don't know what you call them, like cult of personality or whatever, but you know, just going behind that to make it part of the concept or whatever, and not about them.
There are electronic music acts from, there's one from the 80s, I can't remember the name of, they all wore robot costumes. So it's not like a new thing. So the next morning, they're going on tour. They're packing up the van.
So we get the montage.
Yep, and Simeon straight up grabs Xena and kisses her, and before they leave, and he drops a Bram Stoker's Dracula reference, like, ooh baby, this movie was made in the 90s, baby. Got tour time montage. This is my favorite version of life on the road. That's one thing I've never done in my band. This is even attempted this, but they make it look awesome. It looks so easy, so restful.
And just, they got a van, like a big old, like a school and those like short school buses, trying not to laugh when I say that. But you know, they're having successful nights, making money, but the tour takes them to Woodfield. Woodfield is that little tiny town where our buddy TJ was going to make it. But he says he's too scared to go see his papa. But right after he kind of is acting like he's not going to do it, our police officer pal is responding to a noise complaint at the hotel.
And he finds the nightmare fucking music that was playing earlier in the movie. And I was like, holy shit, he's using that speaker. He's using that secret amplifier. He's not supposed to use it because Geek gave it to him for this tour. And he's like, don't use it irresponsibly, bro. But now it's just this little tape player. And I don't even know why I'm mentioning that.
No, I'm just gonna say, just before when they arrived in Woodfield, by the way, when they got off the bus, was it just me or is Simeon hooked up with triplets now?
He definitely has some ladies. That is a great call.
Yeah, I think whether they're related, I'm not sure, but.
Oh yeah, Dee Dee, Gigi, Rainy, Poopy and Scoopy. TJ and his dad have this beautiful reunion. It's actually really sweet. Yeah. And he's like, my friends made me these cyborg hands so I can play music again. And his dad, the actor, just laughs. And it sounds like a genuine laugh because dude, his son sounds like a demented liar. Like this whole thing sounds like a fucking fantasy. Like this whole movie is a fantasy. He asked about his band and they took off to the West Coast.
He's like, oh, good for them. Yeah, he's like super chill. He wanted them to succeed. He's not like bitter or anything. And he asked her about Lisa and Lisa, you know, taking it pretty hard. The funny thing is about his disappearance, as soon as he rolled up into his hometown, as soon as they were going on tour, I knew they were going to go to his hometown.
But I really thought we were going to have this huge drama about him and Lisa and Anamako trying to figure out if their love triangle is going to work. And the movie, we'll see definitely side steps. It's really good.
Yeah, no, I'd agree. I'm glad they didn't go the kind of typical or potentially typical route there.
But he tells his dad, do not tell her I'm here. I'm not ready to see her yet. But our pal Anika, she's snuck off to go do something. And it's like, oh, what's she doing? At the sound check, the most vague sound check I've ever seen, the sound guy keeps asking TJ, how's this? How's this? TJ's like, yeah, no, that's good. That's good. That's good, and no sound is playing. Nothing's happening. I'm like, what the fuck is he doing?
There's an odd moment. Is that around the scene where, God, I've forgotten her name now, is his old girlfriend. Lisa. Lisa, thank you. Where she shows up. There's one of those, whether it's done intentionally or not, you know, those kind of interesting moments where you get, don't be really pretentious here, drop a bit of film school jargon here. You know, like, what do they call it?
Like diegetic and non-diegetic music, I think is the phrase where you think he's playing, but then is it the score? You know, when she comes in that, you know, sort of nice piano melody or whatever. But yeah, that's where it gets confusing with the soundtrack check. So I know what you mean.
This is where James Marshall shines. You know, he's been good this whole movie, but he has this awkward but sweet, where he gets reunited with Lisa, and he's just so genuine. Cause you know, he plays a fucking idiot on Twin Peaks. Like, I love, I love James Marshall, and I love his character on Twin Peaks. But he is definitely like posing like a model boy. Doing the blue steel from freaking Zoolander too much.
And you just get this impression that he's not a great actor, but no, he's really good. Very natural with this. And you know, he obviously is still very, he cares about Lisa, but it's not like he's having trouble. He's not freaking out like he's falling in love with her. But our princess Amidala, she's like, even though she set this up, she literally made the phone call. Yeah. She's a very benevolent spirit. She's willing to let him go to let him go be himself.
She's like, well, you're gonna get back with Lisa. And he tells her to don't be an idiot. He's totally chosen her and that's all there is to it. It's just a great moment. I love it. It was refreshing to not have the drama.
It's so definitely done. And it could have just derailed like the third act of the movie or just, you know, if we'd gone down that sort of that path, you know, just would have been like, yeah, this is a much better way of doing it.
But don't worry folks, there's drama. There is some drama coming. So he and Anika are leaving the club to go have dinner and the security team just happens to be those fucking rednecks who destroyed his life and cut his motherfucking hands off. And you see, he's like, oh shit, I gotta kill these guys. So, you know, he just goes off to do something else. He's setting up the speaker, the evil earth shattering speaker.
And he convinces one of the tech guys to tell the security team to go downstairs and have some sandwiches. So he took all the craft services and gave it to these bozos to lure them into the basement.
I'm just thinking, by the way, and this is something I know you'll appreciate, Richard, is I wonder if going off what this can potentially do where the geek went on to form Earthquaker devices.
Yeah, he's doing death by audio. Yeah, that pedal line. He's doing the guitar pedals for death by audio. Boots and pants and boots and pants.
Nice.
He traps the fucking guys in this place by putting a freaking two by four across the door, the exit to the green room or whatever this fucking place is down the basement. Places the speaker, the super speaker pointed at the air conditioning duct that will lead directly into the room at the club. We got his dad's there in the audience, Amidala's in the audience watching him, and he is rocking it.
But on his keyboard, one of the outputs has this yellow and gray striped cable that we're supposed to know snakes down to that devil speaker that's going to kill these guys. And of course, the camera literally shows you where the speaker cable goes. I love it. Just in case we're not following along. He has a foot switch to turn that on, and it's clearly labeled on and off. I love it. Yes. And he starts pumping the sound into these douchebags. And now you want them to die, okay?
Because these guys are like, hey, so I fucking told her, oh, but do we and me too, buddy. Hey, it's so horrible. These guys are so stupid and annoying. Like they don't even eat the vegetables. They call it rabbit food. I'm like, eat the vegetables. You guys know you're not going to be able to shit that fucking turkey and ham out of your ass. You fucking idiot.
So they're screaming and yelling and rolling around on the floor, trying to break the door down because they're just being pummeled by this horrific rave music to death.
Sorry, this is before or after. I forget the chronology exactly. Oh, because obviously the security has been, you know, spirited away now.
Oh yeah, the British guy.
The British guy. Yes, thank you. Who is pissed because as he says, he's brought this great, this top group from England and he says, listen, sunshine, you couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery, you pratt.
Now, is that an authentic British person? Is that does that? Did that sound like an American?
No, it sounds I mean, those are those are genuinely like, you know, especially the whole piss up in a brewery. That's a phrase I hear quite a lot. So he seems fairly authentic.
Yeah, brilliant. So so yes, he decides to spare their lives. He he kind of looks at Anika and he realizes, yeah, it's Christina Applegate. I really don't want to blow this because this is like, not only is she hot now, she's going to be hot for like the next 30 years. So I guess I better be nice, which is amazing. Like you know, 1993 was almost 30 years ago. Yikes. So he turns off the speaker and the guys managed to get out of the room and they stumble into the audience.
They're totally disoriented. And TJ takes off his mask and he finally reveals himself to be he is Cyber Storm. Oh, my God. What a spoiler. But he starts giving his dad the signal. Because of course, these are the guys that they never found. These are the guys who mangled him, you know, so he's showing his dad his hands and looking urgently at him and then pointing to the guys and his dad's like, what? What are you trying to? Are you having a seizure? And he realizes what he's trying to say.
So his dad goes and, hey, you guys don't look like you're doing so good. You want to go outside?
Yeah. He says, you got a problem with the music.
Yeah, let's go outside and talk about it. So we don't get to see these guys get arrested. We assume that they're being arrested.
Yeah.
But yeah, TJ's made it. He's a big success. And I think the movie ends really fucking abruptly, doesn't it?
It does. So Christina Aguilera, she goes on stage. She's going to do a collab, you know, Cyberstormfeet.ChristinaAguilera. Coming soon.
I hope that domain isn't taken.
Yeah, they go up on stage, they embrace and all that. And they literally, I think they walk off then, and then it fades to black and yeah, that's it.
Let's run them credits. So, director Michael Pasernick, he did not find much success as a writer-director. I'm sad for him that he wrote Meatballs 3, Summer Job, which somehow I don't know my parents didn't rent that. I don't know if that's just insane. But his producing credits are fucking incredible. He's an executive producer, producer on Buffalo 66 and American Psycho, Monster's Ball, Dead Heat. Not that Dead Heat, different Dead Heat.
He executive produced American Psycho 2, colon, All American Girl. Don't need to say that. I think it'd be funny now. Let's just say when I watched it in the mid 2000s, I didn't have the sensibilities. I would have probably liked it.
I think I saw the first five minutes back in the day and was probably the same. It's pretty bad.
Yeah. But he produced Rules of Attraction, Wonderland, Crank, fricking the eye, the remake, My Bloody Valentine remake, he produced Madea Goes to Jail. Good on him. Wait, did he produce the Madea Halloween movie?
There's one that says Madea is a big happy family as well.
No, it looks like he's not the guy who did not a favorite Madea's Boo, like fucking legendary episode right there. Check that shit out, folks. That was great. The guy who shot this, the cinematographer has had a very interesting career as a big TV guy. So Michael Slovis, I'm not saying like his cinematography was, you know, mind blowing or anything, but he was the fucking cinematographer on a movie that immediately I thought of when I was watching this.
A little movie called Party Girl from the previous year, 1995, it's Parker Posey's. This is how I discovered Parker Posey and I've been a huge fan of hers ever since. You should, if you haven't seen this movie, it's great, leave Shriver's in it. Somebody called the Lady Bunny, the Lady Bunny is in it. She ends up getting a job at a library and it's the most wonderful thing ever. It's very relatable for me, not the partying aspect. I fucking hate party.
But yeah, again, he's a guy he's done all right for himself. He shot 50 episodes of Breaking Bad. Yeah, I need to watch this one.
I did enjoy. I did enjoy that first season though.
It's the thing with TV though and movies, but especially with TV, it's like where the fuck are you going to find the time to watch all this great stuff?
Exactly.
So before I forget, so on the producing credits and one of these guys, sorry, I forget which wrote the story. We have a couple of guys who, because I think there's a lot of Canadian talent or whether this money or whatever in this. But going back to the 80s, obviously the original, My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday to Me, Shivers. Did you see there was a Shivers poster? I think somewhere, where was it? I think it was in Geeks, Geeks room, actually, in the background.
Wow, I'll look for that. That's incredible. Yeah. Of course, America's Sweetheart, Christina Applegate, one of the shows that ruined my ability to not be mean to everyone I talked to. Merit of Children is I used to watch that and I used to watch Beverly Hills 902 and I went back to back as a young teen, 14 I think I was, and that shit all started. But honestly, Merit of Children is too cruel. It's too mean. But I've always found Christina Applegate so beautiful.
I mean, that's such an original statement. I'm sure no one else has noticed how fricking wildly hot she is. I wish she'd done some fricking horror, man. She's like almost zero horror credits. I would just kill for that. Or her playing a villain, like a fricking... Did she ever play in a... Did she ever do any thrillers? I could see her doing like a Lifetime movie where she's the evil lady. That'd be fucking incredible. I would love that. Oh, she was in Donnie Darko?
Was she really?
Or was she a producer or something? What was her job in that? Oh, she was just in the thank you list. Man, that blew my mind for a second. I was like, what?
Yeah, yeah.
That would have been fucking hilarious. Yeah, she played Donnie, the infamous Darko. I don't know if I had any other like, trivia stuff.
No, I did look. I couldn't really find much about this. So I'm just scanning again. Yeah, it was to say, so he was like, yeah, it would make sense for me to write Stephen Keats. This was his last film, sadly. One of the, and I think this is the guy in the ironic white boy t-shirt, if I remember rightly, is this fierce ruling diva, performed one of the rave scenes. I forget I neglected to write down the other thing. It was something called, was it U-96?
And God, I can't, sorry, I can't remember now, but it's all on the flyer. You know, you see a few times with that. Yeah.
Sorry, I just noticed. Lisa, his girlfriend, is the one he is...
Oh, yes, I looked, yes, I looked her up, and then I completely forgot about this.
This is Paige Turco. She was in Ninja Turtles, the movies, part two and three, as April O'Neil.
I really, especially the second one, I'd quite like to rewatch that.
Yeah, dude, that's fricking hilarious. I did, I am really bad. I've only seen the first two Ninja Turtles movies, and I only watched them once right when they came out.
Yeah, the first one, I honestly think it holds up. You know, I might be colored by nostalgia, but I rewatched it like years after seeing it. I was really kind of surprised by it, you know, that it has a lot of heart to it.
One show that she was in that is horror related is American Gothic, a show that ran from 95, 98. I've always wanted to check it out. It looks really fun. Looks like good stuff. I need to watch it. There's some funny screenshots from the plot. There's a girl whose neck is broken and she looks very happy about it.
Good.
Did you want to talk about how you feel about this movie?
Yeah, so I say I didn't really find any trivia and I think you've gone through all my notes. Yeah, like I say, this is one of those films, kind of like, say, Miami Connection, that came from fucking nowhere. And I honestly, I say this with like no hyperbole. For me, it's fucking life changing. So I honestly would divide my life into two chapters an hour. It's like before Vibrations and after it. I just couldn't believe what I was fucking seeing with this, especially just that.
I mean, it's kind of a shame that I saw that, you know, do you know anything about techno scene out of context before the film? But obviously that led me to it. And things I also said to you recently to someone, you know, this was one of those films, I didn't look for it. It found me, you know, kind of the right time really. And yeah, I love it.
Yeah, and it's one of those where, I'm sure there was a point of comparison that I've forgotten, but because of, you know, how game the cast are, and you know, how he so perfectly cast as James Marshall and Christina Applegate, they're so, even though some of the dialogue is kind of a bit, you know, redonkulous and all that, in the best way, I wouldn't change a line of it. Because they are so earnest and so sweet and so genuine and so game, it all works.
And it generally has a lot of heart to it. You know, the bits earlier on, you know, after he loses his hands and when he's detoxing, he's generally, I think, despite all the silliness, I found him quite moving, actually. I was kind of surprised. So it's one of those films now, if I wanted kind of a pick me up, I think I would stick this on.
Nice, very nice. This is definitely something I should have seen on cable. Like I said earlier, like that whole sequence where he's explaining techno, TJ, and how to maintain the vibe with the audience. That's like something I would have just would have stopped me dead in my tracks.
Yes, exactly.
What the fuck? But this rides the line with like perilously stupid ideas that they don't have the budget to pull off. And like, I really don't think they were that interested in music. I think the only thing I would change about this movie is I would have, because there are some rave or EDM artists that are in the movie.
Yeah.
But they did such an afterthought. They're not focused on it all. This was obviously more about the drama than it was about the whole scene. But it's not bad. It definitely is heartwarming and it's inspiring, the stories about people who feel like they've lost everything and you have to crawl back from the edge, you know, it's good. This made a great double feature with Grease.
The only reason it was a double feature with Grease is because Liet and I were talking before we were picking what to watch for the night. We just needed some comfort viewings. We had a crowded week.
Yeah, it's fair enough.
And dude, Grease just goes great. Grease 2 goes with everything as well. And I know, Simon, you've still never seen Grease.
I've still never seen it. As I said to you, I think I've seen more of Grease 2.
Well, Grease 2, I've always thought is the better film. It's so much more fun. The original Grease.
Yeah, no, I need to get on that, yeah.
It's definitely a phenomena. I didn't understand why people held it in such high regard. I used to really not like it at all, but I've come around. It's perfect.
It's weird. I think because I've heard the mega mix that many times, I feel like I feel like I've seen it, but I haven't. But no, I'll get on that. You know, I do, you know, especially as I get older and I'm kind of less cynical, I think, not that I ever was tremendously. I enjoy musicals more and more. But yeah, what did Lietta think of it, by the way?
Oh, she thought it was crazy. She just thought this movie was nuts.
Great.
I think she liked it.
Good, good, I'm glad.
But it does feel like a TV movie during parts, especially that sequence when Simeon has to confront his twins, and the whole thing just felt like a situation comedy, and it was just crazy. The last thing I want to say about this movie is, I love youth culture as misunderstood by Hollywood, or just filmmakers in general. And this movie doesn't try to explain what rave is, which is good, because that's one thing.
There's one of my new favorite episodes of Inspector Morse, which used to be my most hated episode, but I've come around to it completely. They have a rave episode. It's called Cherubim and Seraphim. And it is just the rave episode of Inspector Morse. Highly recommended. And the reason it works is because the rave stuff is presented pretty realistically, and you've got grizzled old Inspector Morse literally trying to understand what the fuck is going on. It's so fun.
My favorite movies for this type of thing is skateboarding movies. I don't think a skateboarding movie exists where the producers and the directors, unless it's just footage of people skating, like if you've ever seen Gleaming the Cube, or I just watched a skateboarding movie recently with Josh Brolin when he was super young.
I think Gleaming the Cube has come before again. I'm just laughing because I think we decided it was maybe a euphemism.
Oh dude, I'm gleaming my cube. Yes, Josh Brolin was in, I can't believe I can't think of the name. It's so funny. I just watched it.
Skateboarder Uncovers Government Conspiracy.
Thrashing.
And Tony Hawk's in it, right?
Yes, you have to see Thrashing. Thrashing is awesome. I like it better than Gleaming the Cube. The tagline is hot, reckless, totally insane. And folks, I think Simon and I teased about it once before, but we're going to keep thinking about this. Speaking of movies that we shouldn't cover, there's like two movies about the Lombada, The Forbidden Dance.
Oh, God, I forgot.
And we need to watch. We need to do one of them. Yeah, we got to do one of them because they're rated so poorly on IMDb. They are like like dog shit. Well, I might do that. We're going to hurt ourselves.
Yeah, I think we are.
But chances are for our next episode, I think we're going to get back to our boy, Mr. Chaz Chaz, Mr. Oz Perkins for I think I really think we should finally get around to. I am the pretty thing that lives in the house, dude.
Yeah, definitely.
Nice. But I think that wraps us up, man.
Yeah.
Folks, if you got the if you got that groove, you know, don't doom it. Man, oh, God.
The world is coming to an end, but nothing can doom this groove or this podcast.
Oh, fuck. Well, Simon, thanks for hanging out, dude.
Oh, no, it's a pleasure, man.
And folks at home, thank you for listening. We'll talk to you next time.
Good night.
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