¶ Intro / Opening
Weird way.
Welcome back, everybody to HP hates me. Now listen, full confession here, everybody. We started this show and the idea behind it. As you know, so far, it's HP picking television or movies that were going to make me angry or make my brain shatter into pieces. And so far he's done a really good job. This time he did too fucking good a job. And I'm not even talking about the movie we're talking about today. I'm talking about
¶ The Apple: A Cinematic Nightmare
the movie he presented initially, which was The Apple. Now, folks, have you seen The Apple nineteen eighty I have? Oh, I know you have, and you know I have. Now, folks, if you have not seen The Apple, why don't you take this moment to go to YouTube and type into the Apple trailer, watch the trailer, and then come back. Now here's the thing, Welcome back. Here, here's the thing. But you think that movie looks awesome, like you can't believe it, you can't believe that it exists. And there's
what like ninety minutes to two hours of it. Oh my god, it's going to be fantastic. It's not. It's a nightmare. It's a slog. I thought it was camp being fun when I saw the trailer too, and then I watched the movie and I went, yeah, that is really bad. And then I watched it again, and then I showed it to friends because this is a movie that you pass around. You can't believe this movie. Nobody
likes this movie. So HB was trying to make me watch this movie again, and I put my foot down and instead, And I feel guilty actually about it, but I could not spend another two hours watching bim time. Yeah you've got mister tops.
You really did put your foot down, and it surprised me how forceful that you rejected this first choice. And maybe we'll get back to it at some other later date. Probably not, but I.
I hate it so much. I joke every episode like, yeah, yep, this is HB hates me, all right, ha ha ha. No, maybe he actually does. You would have, actually, if you had made me watch that movie.
It's not for everybody. I'll give you that.
I like it for a variety of reasons, maybe not specifically because.
It's all irony. You like everything about it ironically. Come on, man, this is the problem with our generation Gen xers. You understand what I'm saying. We just we don't have to marinate in the irony all the time. You know, we can just enjoy something as it is, or we can say that's garbage, don't watch that.
Look, there's many reasons why I can't consider myself a fan of the Apple. But we don't have to go into that year. What we do have to go into is the ultimate choice of movie that I picked, that you agreed to.
Yes, indeed, what is the movie. It's the Father Malone movie FM.
It's that time again, Dugan. In three minutes, I'm gone and this place belongs to you, so move it, baby.
It started with the Crystal age, it moved to the Golden Age.
And now welcome to the solid platinum age. Good morning, Los Angeles.
It's great to be a winner, and aren't we all?
And this is f M the motion picture that takes you inside your radio.
His mother on ju Ski FM, Los Angeles, Eric Eric Swan.
What it is is this with the.
Number two station and the second largest market in the United States, and we're not making any money for those of you who never knew, for those of you who've never forgotten, for those of you really don't give it.
The competition might be putting on the Ronstick concert, but Kiskuy is gonna steal it and Eric live.
On FM f M.
Even if the story isn't completely true, it's only because you wouldn't believe what really happens.
We got the best dance station there is.
That's not the point.
What do they care about our audience?
What do they care about music?
Well, they care about money. The entire staff of q SKY Los Angeles.
They're now going on.
FM featuring the music of America's hottest rock stars, with special concert appearances by Linda Ronstatt and Jimmy Buffett.
Are you listening to c Sky my Little Darleans?
FM coming at you soon at the speed of sound.
I see FM on the dial. Now I think follow them alone?
So FM Father Alone for your edification listeners. It is from nineteen seventy eight. It was directed by John A.
Alonso, fantastic cinematographer, a fucking beast of a cinematographer.
Yeah.
It was written by Ezra Sex and it's excellent writer.
Actually excellent writer. Later on wrote two of my other favorite movies. If there was a version of Father Malone Hates You, I would make you watch his second feature, A Small Circle of friends.
Oh, that's not the one with Mini Driver, is it. No, that's came later.
No, it's the movie with young Shelley Long.
Oh, I'm looking at the cast list, Karen Allen. Isn't it, Yes, Shelley Loan, I know that's not the same Davis, Brad Davis, Oh, from Night Whatever.
It's a sixties college campus drama where they take everything way too seriously, and then Brad Davis's character eventually joined. He doesn't join the Weather Underground, but there's a version of the Weather Underground where he tries to go talk somebody out of it and gets bombed.
Among the stars of this picture Michael Brandon, Aileen Brennan.
We love Eileen Brennan.
My fast so wonderful.
She's fantastic and she's really brilliant in this. Martin mull a precursor to them doing Clue together.
In a few years, as he did, he not look his best in this movie.
He is.
He's so impossibly young in this. I think I did the math. I think he's like thirty five.
The way he's manecured, the way he's tailored, the way he's styled, he's this is the most attractive i've ever seen Martin maull. I thought he was a good looking dude in this movie.
It makes sense because his character, which we'll talk about, is supposed to be a really really smooth talking, kind of new agey honk of a DJ and I think he fills that role really well.
He's the ladies man in this one.
He's the ladies man.
Sign up.
We also have Alex Carris, who most people might know from Webster from.
The Sporting World. He's a sportsperson.
He was the defensive tackle for the Lions from nineteen fifty eight to nineteen seventy one. Father Malone, and oddly enough, in this movie he's in. Honestly, he's only in this movie for maybe six minutes. He has third billing. He's third build.
On this movie, ahead of Eileen Brennan and Clevonne Libbel. Father Malone. Isn't that crazy?
How did that happen?
I thought it was crazy too till I did the math. He actually, by this point he had actually done quite a number of TV shows and movies. He had done Blazing Saddles, Gone Little, he was into the odd couple few episodes he was in Mash So it wasn't like he was just this jock fresh off the football field. He had some experience under his belt, so I'll give him a pass there.
Who else is in this? Norman Lloyd is in this?
James Keach, Stacy Keach's brother, who I think isn't James Keach the one who's in Wildcats?
Yeah?
I love him in Wildcats, also written by Ezra Sachs.
That's why I brought it up. So this movie again
¶ Plot and Characters
from nineteen seventy eight. It concerns a radio station in La called q sky FM.
It's a movie.
It's a radio station that can only exist in the movies. It's populated by a lot of really interesting and quirky and fun DJs among the Martin.
Mall based on a real station in La though KMAT.
That's fair, that's fair. It's there's a lot of versimilitude to this movie. We'll talk about, which I really one of the big selling points of it.
But what the name of the guy? The guy who ran km E T, who is the basis for the lead character in this is also the basis for the lead character on WKRP in Cincinnati. They're both based on KMET.
I'm glad you mentioned w krap because one one of the things that has been a legend about this ever since this movie and WKRP is a lot of people believe WKRP was made based off of this, like.
Happy Days After American Graffiti.
Exactly, But the fact is the pilot for WKRP was already well underway. This movie in no way inspired WKRP in Cincinnati, even though that was what I thought coming into it initially. It's just another movie about a wacky radio station peopled with colorful DJs.
That's what we have here.
So q SKYFM is the new number one radio station in LA. The corporation that owns q sky build the Billings Corporation. They send a sales manager oute to effectively sell more commercial time on the radio station, and this becomes a bit of a conflict between the station manager, this guy Jeff Dugan in the movie, and the forces of commerce because he wants this sound to be pure and he doesn't want it to be watered down by all these ads. The Army is wanting to put all
these ads on the radio station. So part of the movie, and there's a lot of moving pieces to this picture, probably more than there should be, but effectively, one of the main sort of plot threads of this movie is how are they going to balance the purity of the radio station and the music with the commerce that the corporation wants to bring to this radio station. In fact, one of the characters says, what good is a popular radio station if you can't sell it? So that's, in
a nutshell, that's the plot of this movie. But there's a lot of other things we'll get into.
It's the snobs versus the slobs.
Kind of is.
It's those movies have been around for a long time. I think this actually is would probably be one of the earliest. The earliest one I can think of in terms of slobs versus snobs is Meatballs, and this came before Meatballs, so maybe this lays claim to being one.
Of the first.
The thing of it is, though the radio station itself, these aren't slobs per se. This isn't a bunch of na'er do well DJs and other people working for the radio station. These they make it very clear that all of these people that work for the radio station, including the technician and the assistance and everything, they're all at the top of their game. These DJs are the best of the best. They don't get any better or smoother
than these DJs. So, for example, Eileen Brennan plays Mother, who I think there was She might be based off of another DJ around that time who went by the name the Nightbird, I believe, who is a very she's older and wiser than some of the other DJs, but she's very She's got the velvety, smooth voice. She's the DJ, she's very smoky. She's the DJ at night, so she's always.
The mid DJ with.
Nowadays who listens to radio, like actual terrestrial radio. But this was King back then, and DJs weren't just jocks who would just put play on a record and then go away. DJ's had personality at this point and before that, but this was really you. A lot of people listened to shows just for the DJ because they love their vibe, they love the music that they would play, and that's what we're dealing with here. There's Mother, Eileen Brennan. Clevond Little plays Prince.
Whose Prince over Darkness.
The Prince of Darkness, who's also very smooth and sexy and really very very smooth DJ.
They're all smooth.
Martin maull As I already said, is Eric Swan, who's a hunk and really the lady Killer.
Everybody think about the character named Swan that you don't like.
No, actually, if we're talking about Phantom of the Paradise, certainly not or the Warriors or the Warriors Swan Michael Beck, there you go.
Oh my god, we forgot to mention on our fucking Predator podcast and the Predator podcast, the fact that there's a fucking high school. The school is Lawrence Gordon Public School, home of the Warriors. Lawrence Gordon produced the original Predator and the Warriors.
I didn't know.
Sorry, folks who are all here to listen to us talk about FM.
No, that's great stuff. I wish we had thought of it. Alex Carris rounds it out. He's not in it much.
He's he plays the country Djay DJ dot Holiday, who is effectively he's not getting the ratings that the other DJs are, so their partner.
Oh yeah, they fire him pretty unceremoniously.
They do.
And it's actually I think it's meant to give a little bit of shading to the Jeff Dougan character because for the most part he's he leads the.
Radio station and guy in the fucking world HP is. Don't you know that? He fucking rolls out of bed, He fucking smokes a joint, fucking housles his hair, He calls the station, what I gotta be there in three minutes, No problem. I will drive so fucking dangerously down Sunset Boulevard that it will make people viewing the movie fifty fucking years later terrifyed.
And he has the look of a young Michael McDonald. He's got this bitch and beard, he's got the hair. Everybody loves him all He's got a lot of women mooning over him too. But he's so charismatic. Everybody in the movie loves this guy. They love working for him. They'll do anything for Jeff Dugan.
It's a little.
Culty, like I said before, but it works. It's the vibe of this really coming into it is. I guess it could be a hit or miss thing, But for me, I love this idea that there's this disparate family of characters that work at this radio station, and they all are very they're all very good at what they do, and they're all have this common goal of making the radio station number.
One, and they all have.
Their quirks and their little their own personal plot threads that you follow. But overall, this is, hey, let's put on a show, let's do this, let's it's really the vibe of it, I think is what really captured me first when I watch this. But then you have the music is Awesome.
List before we get there. Yeah, let's talk about the vibe in the station. Everyone hates their job and they all want to.
Leave at the radio station.
What are you talking about? Everyone doesn't want to be there. Everyone's just they all seem like at the end of their rope. Mother in particular, they all just seem fuck this place.
You're wrong, You're wrong.
Mother is the only one who is actively and they really play it up. She Aleen Brennan is awesome. We know this her thing. She even says that she's been doing this for a long time. She's at the top of her game, but she still feels like she's missing something. She wants to quit while she still has the ability to try and figure out if there's something else in
life that she wants. She's the only one who is it has we about being a DJ, and she's getting like these these kind of Masher calls if I can say people calling who are obsessed with her heavy breathing calls things like that, she just can't take it anymore. Eric Swan is looking to make his next big career move, and he in fact auditions for a game show host gig. He it's not as if he doesn't enjoy being a DJ. He just he wants the glitz and the glamour of Hollywood.
He wants to be elsewhere. He doesn't want to be there anymore. He wants to be at a higher plane of entertainment existence.
He's looking for a stepping stone.
That's two of our several people, what three four DJs who want to leave. Doc Holliday will be leaving Forcibly.
Yeah, he doesn't count.
So what we're left with is the where or left is this prince of darkness who seems perfectly at ease where he is. He's totally cool. Yeah, he's got a great he's got a great lot. He complains about working that twelve to six shift, but that's the best shift, come on. And so we're left with him, and we're left with the fucking in the tech who wants to be on the air.
No, hey, when you listen to my tape. Here's my tape, Oh everybody?
But what I love about that? That that sort of arc for that Number one. He is painted as the best technician there is because at one point the cart machine goes bluey and he says, look, Dugan, if you just let me make my own tip tape decks, they'd be better than any of this kaka you could find.
So he is the best at what he does.
Weirdly, though, he has an assistant who's like Harpo Marx. She I don't know if she's just mute or what, but she can't. She doesn't speak through the whole movie. Did you find that a little peculiar?
Sound?
Everything movie peculiar about it?
No?
No, So this engineer Bobby, he's good at what he does, but he really wants to be a DJ. That's his dream. This is an aspirational thing. So he's always practicing in the bathroom and he's he'll pull Dugan aside and say, hey, listen to this, and Hugan, to his credit, Number one, takes time to listen to this whack job deliver his piece, and he's always encouraging him. He's, look, don't be so flashy, just be honest. But guess what, don't stop. I like
where you're going with this. Don't stop, keep coming. And eventually Jeff sees all the hard work this guy's putting in and promotes him to newsreader. So good for him, good for Bobby, good for Dugan. Another another cab, another feather in his cap.
Absolutely, this doing guy, he could do, no prom.
And you know that he lives in this awesome bitch and pad in Laurel Canyon, right because he crawls out of bed at in the morning and it's all trees and beautiful.
And let me correct you. He lives in the hills. He lives in the Hollywood Hills.
Oh, he lives in the hills. Okay, I figured Laurel Canyon for the vibe.
No, because he would not be getting to his station on Sunset Boulevard from Laurel Canyon in five minutes. I don't care how fast his little Porsche goes.
No, for sure.
But let's talk about I want to start off here by we can get into the plot points and some of the other finer points of this, But what I want to try to get into first is maybe try to pull out some of the things you maybe liked about this, or that some of the things that people coming into this who aren't predisposed of enjoying it might like the footage father alone of late seventies LA is fantastic.
You have to admit that.
Of course, you know me, I love Los Angeles. I love every decade of Los Angeles, this in particular, this weirdo version of LA where it hasn't really fallen to the ruin of the eighties, but it's still it ain't well, let's say, and I love seeing early morning footage of all of the places that I eventually haunted and that I don't know. I don't know this just there were so many films being made at that time in and
around those areas that it's just I don't know. It always feels like home for some reason to see it, let me put it that way. Yes, definitely, That's very high on my list of things that I liked about the movie.
There was a look about it, like you said, there's a lot of early morning footage of the sun coming up over the city. You get to see a lot of cool like it felt. Man, I would have loved to have lived there at that time, in that place, because you see things like the DJs go to a record signing for Rio Speedwagon. They go to Tower Records, which isn't even really around anymore, but it just looks so fucking cool.
They're all in. They're actually in.
The real Tower Records. The real band is there signing records.
And what have you.
It looks like it's late night. It's got that great nighttime texture to it. Man, that looks not that I'm a big Rio Speedwagon fan, but man, to be hanging out in Tower Records late at night, like with the band listening to cool records, and it was records, not CDs, not cassettes, records, platters.
I bought a cassette tape in that Tower Records.
You've been I was gonna say, I bet you've been to that Tower Records.
I bought Hell's Ditch by the Pogues in that Tower record.
Did it still kind of look the same as it did in this movie?
Looked exactly the same as it looked in this movie. Yeah, that was the one that was the one unchanging thing, one of the unchanging things. Now it is a transitory town, but there are certain landmarks that just seemed to always be there, so hopefully will continue to.
¶ Linda Ronstadt's Electrifying Performance
So not to cut to the chase of all of the best stuff in this movie, but I think another thing that.
It's Linda Ronstadt. Let me just interrupt. Look when you said we're gonna watch FM, I thought, haha, joke's on you. I love that movie Linda Ronstats. In that movie. Here was something I discovered only within the past five years about myself. Evidently I'm a fucking enormous Linda Ronstadt fan. If I could look at my final collection right now, he's no. Here's how I figured it out. I was
at a I was at it. I was at Amba in Los Angeles, and a Linda Ronstadt song came on and I thought, oh, let me go look at the Linda Ronstadt records. And as I'm flipping through her entire fucking catalog, I realized I had every single one of them. So I've been collecting them slowly over the years, having no idea. So the prospect of watching Linda Ronstat in nineteen seventy eight singing two or three of my favorite fucking numbers of hers, Yes, yes, please, and not disappointed
at all. That voice, Man, I can't get over it. It's the perfect fucking rock and roll voice.
She's amazing. This movie actually, if I'm being truthful, made me a Linda Ronstadt fan because I grew up like you did. Linda Ronstadt was on the radio You'd hear Blue by You. She had that Nelson Riddle record, which she got pilloried for at the time because.
Of the album. I liked that album a lot.
Yeah, yeah, she was ahead of her time period.
But and I probably first saw FM, if I'm being honest, maybe it was I think it was. Maybe I don't know if it was on cable or maybe it was when it was first released on video because Anchor Bay, I think this was an Anchor Bay released. Anchor Bay, for those who don't know, was a was a boutique producer of DVDs and VHS tapes back in the early to mid nineties, and on.
I Stay with twenty one Jump Street collection.
They would put out like interesting odd off the wall, not necessarily Criterion collection level of prestige, but interesting choices, and this was one of them. And when I when they got to this, it's effectively in the middle of the movie. The plot point that we're supposed to follow
is Jeff Dugan is such a crafty motherfucker. There's a rival station that is sponsoring a Linda Ronstadt concert, and Jeff Dugan hatches a plot to basically simulcast the whole concert on his radio station without this guy even being able to do anything about it. So there's a lot of hijinks involved there, But for us the viewer, what the payoff is. We effectively get to see a mini Linda Ronstadt set, and this is an actual live set.
This isn't her lip syncing, this is her and her band performing with Before I even go any further, I have to speak the virtues or extole the virtues of one of my favorites of all time, mister Watti Wachtell on guitar and backing vocals. He's the guy that you see. He's He's been on PROB, no doubt. He's probably been on many of your favorite songs or co written them. He the iconic driving guitar riff on Stevie Nix's Edge of seventeen Dog Dog Dog, Dog Dogada, that's.
Watti wak Tell.
He co wrote were Wolves of London with Warren Zevon. He's played on albums by James Taylor, Carol King, Jackson Brown, Randy Newman, Bonnie Rait, Brian Ferry. The man is a legend. He is effectively her He does all the backing vocals and the guitar, and it looks to me like he's a bit of a music director for the band because you can see during this concert footage that they're all taking.
Cues from him. He is so good and so dan.
I had the pleasure of seeing him with Stevie Nicks two years ago they came to They came here to Gillette Stadium and it was I couldn't believe it. The guy's fantastic. Having said that, we're all here to see Linda Ronstad and I know I am, and she performs. She kicks things off with cover of Tumbling Dice by Baring Stones, which is incredible. And this is a band, like I know, it's easy for someone that of our vintage to say.
Ah music nowadays.
I'm telling you music at back then, and this was probably even slightly before my time. This was a band. They are listening to each other, they are locked in. They are all pro musicians, including the one, the titular head, Linda Ronstadt.
It's magic.
So they do tumbling dice, which is awesome.
This is a time when you didn't have to be pretty to be a musician. She just she's having no, no, no, I'm not talking about Linda ron Set. I'm talking about the back Linda ni Oh, yeah.
Gorgeous, that's true. These are the crazy, but these are not the best looking.
I mean, way do you walk tell for all of his virtues is kind of a nebush.
I'm thinking about Linda Ronstein right there you.
Go, But this is but you can see, you can tell that they are lists there enjoying each other as they play this song.
It's it's magical to behold.
So they do tumbling dice, followed by poor, poor pitiful meat, which is my favorite.
God.
Speaking of Warren, and I think you and I have spoken about this off there. It's better than Warren Zevon's. That might be sacrilege to Warren zevun fans, but the fact is Linda Ronstet was known by musicians as like the best and worst thing to happen to them, because she would shine a huge spotlight on them if she
covered one of their songs. But it was accepted that once she did that, it was kind of her song there's a theory that it's the singer not the song, right, which I flat out disagree with, except in the case of Linda Ronstat like ninety nine percent of her music are all covers of other people's stuff, and for some reason that she does make it her own. That's all.
She's wonderful.
Her version of poor, poor pitiful me is I'd said this to you off the air, is, in my opinion, definitive. When I think of that song, I don't think of nothing against warren Zevon, he's just I just prefer her interpretation of it. There's something about the lyrics and having them sung through a female perspective I think works better for the song. No offense to warren Zevon rest in peace.
So it's much more of a torture that a female is saying, where warren Zevons saying it's like jokey, all these things are happening to me, But for her it's like motherfucker, another.
One of you.
That's the thing he's singing it. It's a bit of a braggadocio. Oh all these women, what am I gonna do with myself? Poor me?
But with her it's just it's got that twist, and she's she's so fucking talented that I can't say enough good things. The final song that she sings is a cover of Love Me Tender by obviously by Elvis Presley, and it's actually it matches with a sequence with Mother is doing her show as she's singing the song, and it's a wonderful match of the song's vibe with this late night DJ in this quiet, darkened studio.
It's just it, man.
I'm not going to sit here and pretend that FM is an important movie, that it is a movie that belongs in the Criterion collection. But when it hits, man, it hits fucking hard, and it hits hard with this. It really hits an apex with this Linda ronstat bit. Despite itself, I think the vibe is great, and plus it looks so fucking awesome to be going to a
rock show in nineteen seventy eight. It just it looks like everybody these dream of living like fun and free and easy in LA And that's one of the things I love about this movie.
It was the pinnacle for rock and roll right there. It was all downhill from there because rock and roll, rock and roll splintered so fucking hard at that point, like after seventy eight, seventy nine, it was gonna be hip hop, it was gonna be new wave, it was going to be punk, it was going to be all the tributaries speaking of rock and roll.
¶ The Soundtrack of FM
Let's talk about the soundtrack a little bit.
The soundtrack, the IRV special it was, and he in fact, he actually I think I read somewhere that he asked to have his name taken off of this because he didn't want it to be seen as his project.
But in fact, he said he took it off because he didn't agree with the treatment of the music industry. I don't. I think that's what are you talking about. Everyone comes off like gold.
Yeah, the musicians are treated like they're basically shown as like this incredible exponent of la rock music at that time. But let's talk about the soundtrack a little bit. So these this is, as you said, this is probably as good as it got at this moment in time, because you have FM, the actual song FM, written and performed by Steely Dan, one of my big favorites.
You've got them. It was big.
I think this actually it won and I want a Grammy for Best engineered song or some weird I want a Grammy. It wasn't like you were on best song, but it was more for the engineering.
But it's one of my at Irving is all of these artist manager by the manager put that in context. We don't do that enough. I don't think.
Should have made that clear. Sorry.
Steve Miller Band is on this foreigner Tom Petty. Tom Petty makes a little appearance and as an interviewer and if ue at the radio station.
But he's Tom Petty. Let's see the Eagles.
Of course, bos Skaggs early yacht rock for you Boston is on this soundtrack.
This is seventies rock right here. You know what the Irving asoff. Shouldn't have had any guilt at all. He should have said, what do you want? This is fucking this is I am the music scene.
It's wall to all music.
Dan Fogelberg, who you no one ever thinks about now?
Dan so great.
His song There's a Place in the World for a Gambler is soundtracking basically Mother quitting, finally quitting, just and it's just again. It is emotional because the mood of the song is so sad and slow moving and you really feel it, Billy Joel's on this, Doobie Brothers, of course, James Taylor, Queen.
This was the did you know Father Malone?
This was the first instance of Queen appearing on a movie soundtrack.
It wouldn't be their last.
It would not be.
Their last, but I think that's worthy of calling out because they I think they've gone on to to offer their music something like fifty three movies since this, but this was the very first. We Will Rock You, So yeah, this the soundtrack is pretty bananas and much more successful than the movie could ever hope to be.
But it's I don't know, man, the mood of the movie. I love it.
I love the radio station itself. Look, I was a I think I've spoken about this on Noise Junkies. I was a college DJ and music director, and while I would never claim that our radio station looked anything like this one, the vibe I thought was just so fucking cool. It's like there's texture for days in this radio station. It's wall to wall promo posters and pictures like you would get from the from the record labels. There's albums everywhere you look. His Dugan's office has like a full bar.
It's all like nicely wood and polished everything.
Yeah. The movie's production designer is Lawrence G. Paul. Yeah, also the production designer on Blade Runner.
Then that explains why it's so dense with detail and really.
And because John Alonso is a director of photography most of the time, the movie looks fucking great.
It does.
That's These are the things, like I said that I think you and I I can agree with. I know this isn't one of your favorite movies, not even close.
But oh it's a fucking terrible movie.
This movie has its charms, though I'm a sucker for it. Man, it feels cozy to me father alone.
Here's the problem with the movie, HP. This movie wants to be the snobs versus the slobs, or the snobs versus the slobs. It wants to be an underdog story about the most successful people in Los Angeles. They're the number one station, all of their DJs are the number one at everything, and then they go and steal a lesser radio stations broadcast of a thing like I was just like, this isn't like hijinks this if they had been the least the last rated station in Los Angeles,
if this was this, like underground. Yeah, we're gonna stick it to the man thing. Then everything they'd engage in from without would make sense. It would also make sense to that fighting the army. Here's the thing. The central plot in the movie is that the corporate is putting more advertising on it. More specifically, it's if they want to advertise the army, which it's nineteen seventy eight, that's
the uncoolest thing in the world. Man, can't do that right now whatever, I don't care, like whatever your politics are like anyway, point being the conflict is this group of misfits and don't want military advertising on their station. The corporation has ten stations and they're going to force the ads on all ten stations. As the number one station, they could just say, fuck you, we're not doing it.
We're number one, and whatever the army is going to pay you, I bet I can get the same amount, if not more advertising right now because we're the number one station. If we can do that, we don't want your advertising. End of that.
So a couple of things in response to that. First of all, you're absolutely right that in a funny way, this is a reverse of slop. This is really snobs versus slobs, because it's almost like you're seeing the usual slobs versus snobs from the other side.
Yeah, this is like watching the Fuck fraternity and animal houses like nied A Meyer and his boys plotting to go fuck with the Deltas.
And that's fine.
At least you get the sense that this was a hard won victory and these are the best DJs in town. But you really get the sense that they had to work to get to where they were. And I'm okay with that. But where maybe it's not quite as accurate is that at one point they actually Dugan actually agrees to the deal with the army. The problem is it problem isn't that it's the army that wants to do
the advertising. The problem is they want to advertise so frequently on the radio station that Indugan's estimation, it would just water down everything, like it would make them sound like they were owned by the army if they put on three ads an hour, seven days a week.
Whatever it is.
So Gugen's idea is, let's, first of all, let's have the DJs themselves record their own spots for the army.
And he does this great.
He does an imitation of Eileen Brennan Clevonne Little doing their DJ pitches, which I actually thought was really funny.
Well, he does impressions of them. I don't know that I would say they were great.
I thought they were the one of Aileen Brennan I thought was fantastic.
But anyway, did I say the main problem with this movie is that it's that it's the actual not underdogs. It's not the main problem with the movie is the lead character. Anyway, go ahead, the lead act.
Well, okay, what we can get into him in a minute.
But my point is he tells the sales manager, look, this can work. Let's let the let's let the jocks through their own ads and we're good. And the sales managers yeah, that's great, so we can agree. He said, yeah, but I can't do it if we're going to have to do it three three ads an hour X amount of days a week. And the sales manager says, yeah, I don't think the army is going to go for that, and then Dugan says, then I guess they're going to
have to go somewhere else. The problem then becomes the sales manager doesn't take no for an answer, and he says, look, I'll.
Take this all the way to the top if i have.
To, but we're not going to lose this deal, and effectively forces Dugan not to go again to his own morals and he quits in protest. So it's not just a minor correction. It's not that it's the army wanting to do the advertising. That's a little part of it. But it's that they were relentless in the number of ads they wanted to put on the radio station.
And that's a number one station. You say, whatever revenue that they're going to pull in, I can pull it in further. I can do it right now. We can make two calls and we'll get that. We'll get the exact same amount with a number one station in Los Angeles, California. The end, Sorry, we're gonna have to come up with a different fucking sitcom plot. We're not going to save the rec center this time.
Well, they do, in fact, because what happens is after Dugan RESI, I'm.
Not going to go with them to save the rec center. That's what I'm saying. I reject their saving of the fucking rec center this time. The kids are going to have to find another place to play Zaxon, this is Zaxon. What else suppls we pull out of that defender? Of course.
Galax In maybe some elevator action one of my favorites anyway, So what where it goes off the rails plot wise for me at least, is after Dugan resigns the rest of the DJs.
That's where it goes off. Goes off the rails in the fucking opening scene.
So he resigns, the rest of the DJ's decided that this is not good, so they effectively go on strike and they take over the radio station. And it gets a little it's strains credulity at this point because they literally barricade themselves inside of this radio station. The cops are there with no I guess they have some thought as to maybe losing their jobs and or their careers, but everything comes out at the end. Because Norman Lloyd is the head of the corporation that owns the station,
he eventually is disturbed by this kerfuffle. He flies out from Texas and he admires Dugan's moxie and the fact that all of his employ he's love him so much that he fires the sales manager who wanted to foist these ads upon him and to the strains of the FM reprise by Steely.
Dan all as well with the world Baby.
As you frown, listen, It's terrible. This is a terrible movie. The characters are terrible, the dialogue is terrible. Everything's terrible. I enjoy it as a snapshot of a time and a place, and I enjoy some of the musical performances. And yes, I enjoy watching Martin mull and Eileen Brennan and Clevond Little.
That is all.
The lead guy is so unappealing.
Michael Brandon.
You didn't like him. I did not like him, and I do not like his character for some reason. It's you know what it is like watching Niedemeyer. It's just just because he has long hair and he listens to fucking Steely Dan. Like I'm supposed to think he's cool. He's not. He just seems like a dick.
Did you know that Michael Brandon was in Captain America The First Avenger?
Yes, I didn't know that.
I did my due diligence. I know he's a working actor. If he's a Johnyman, he's been fucking humping it ever since. God bless him. I just don't like him as the character who should have as this character, the character who should have been played by Bill Murray now, but he.
Bill Murray would have had too much of a.
A Bill Murray type, someone who's loose and fun. This guy just seems like a prick to me. I don't know how else to say it. I know I should be more descriptive as a man on the radio, but let me tell you, there's just something I don't like about him. Like all, it just seemed so hipstery. It seems like, you know who. It seems like. It seems like the guy who shows up at the punk show to sign the punks and he's like, what's going on down here? That's who he seemed like to me.
Wow, you really didn't like him.
Not at all. And I don't think i've realized the dip. I you know what, that's not true. I knew from even before the rewatch that I did not like him, and I was not going to enjoy his character. So I was going to try to luxuriate in all of the other aspects of it. But this fucking movie is wall to wall of this fucking guy in Beard, and I just couldn't take.
It him in a stupid beard.
It's stupid. He looks dumb.
I don't know what to tell you. This is This
¶ A Cozy Comfort Piece
is a movie that I just it's.
All about with this weirdo thing where Martin Moule's character, this new artist shows up and basically fucks him on air, and he accidentally leaves the microphone on, so the record is playing and you're hearing them having sex. So the big joke is that when they come in that he's, oh no, it was a new thing. I was doing this sound effects record of love making And that actually kind of makes sense because people were doing shit like that. Yeah,
but that's not my point. My point is everyone rushes to get to the room to get him off the air, and the door is locked. Who's got the keys? The guy from the fucking corporation who just walked in, who gave him the keys to the fucking what is happening?
I don't know.
See the thing of it is, ultimately one of the things.
About was that a long story for a quibble.
That was a little bit, but you reminded me of something I wanted to bring up, actually, so thank you for that. One of the things I find charming about this movie is that it is rather episodic. There is a basic through line of this commerce versus art thing that's happening, but really things just happen here and I'm
along for the ride. Like I said, there's at one point there's a Save the Whales concert that c Sky is sponsoring featuring Jimmy Buffett, actually Jimmy Buffett, and he sings living in Saturday Night.
That happens at one point. Can all be great performances everybody.
At one I don't.
I'm no fan of Jimmy Buffett, but I dig the fact that it's a little bit of a time capsule of the kind of artist that he was at that time. I'm not saying I liked the song. I'm not saying I like him, but it was pretty cool because the concert stuff is we've already said is the best part of this movie, and this is just another example of that.
Blew out my flip flapp guard.
And at one point Swan has a crisis where he loses the game show hosting gig. His agent drops him and actually takes his girlfriend as a client. So there's a whole sequence where he his ego takes such a massive blow that he barricades himself in the air studio and they got to try to get him out, and all of these women that are swooning over him come to the station to.
Oh yeah, and he lays it all out on the air, right like, oh, man, can't why can't I just find somebody? So why can't I be loved? And all the women are like, yeah, sensitive man, because it's the late nineteen seventies and allan all, there's a sex symbol.
But as you said, Martin mul is really handsome in this fucking.
He just he.
If nothing else, not if nothing else. But you can also agree that this movie is maybe with the exception in your case of Jeff Dugan, Michael Brandon's pretty we cast.
There's some real heavy hitters here.
You can fuck with the Aileen Brenn and Martin Maull, Clevan Little, all these people are really really good and they bring a lot to their performances. But I was just it's cozy to me. This is a movie I can just put on and the music, even if not paying attention to it really specifically, the music's cool and I can check in and out of it and then I just go with it.
It's fun.
I don't know, background noise is what you just said, Just put the fucking soundtrack on. No, but I'd love the put the soundtrack on. I'll send you a viewmaster of Los Angeles in the late nineteen seventies and you can like listen to boz skags and go click aty click, oh my god, sunset over clickity click. Well, the Hollywood Sign looks in disrepair.
I love seeing, like I said, tower records. I don't know where they performed. I did try to figure out where Linda Ronstadt recorded her concert bits could not do that, but I imagine it's.
Just the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. That's where everything seemed to be recorded.
It could have been, wasn't Maybe the forum, I don't know. It was one of those places, obviously, But it's so beautifully shot, those sequences.
LA looks awesome.
This is why, like I said, it's not just a matter of putting the soundtrack on, because I like to see LA in nineteen seventy eight. It makes me happy, even though I've only ever been to LA once, and that was frankly, it was just a few months ago. Never been to La before that, But I'm in a way it's almost being homesick for a place that you've never been to.
Right.
I would have loved to have been in that La environment back in nineteen seventy eight as an adult.
I don't know that's fun for me. So much of our entertainment around this time was television shows. Hundreds of television shows and movies and stuff, all being filmed in and around what thirty mile radius in Los Angeles. Yeah, no doubt that. It all feels like home. It's an odd experience to go somewhere you've been looking at your whole life and you just go, I know where everything is.
First time I went to Chicago, it was like, take me to Daily Plaza, I must see the Picasso they got there, you know, like rounding a corner, Yep, I know where this is? Okay?
That? Yeah?
There is that.
Yeah, Chicago's one of the best places, just because The Blues Brothers, The Fugitive, these movies, a lot of them, are the fabric of our childhood.
And so now it's Gotham City for an entire generation.
Is that right? They filmed Gotham there.
No, they filmed The Christopher Nolan films were all filmed in Chicago.
Oh oh, I'm sorry, you're right. I thought you meant the television show Gotham.
No, they filmed that in New York. They actually filmed New York for Gotham. For Gotham, that was crazy. What an idea?
I know what an idea exactly, but I don't know.
Let me ask you one last question, not specifically about FM, but this notion of cozy comfort food movies that maybe aren't the most well made movie, just something that hits those buttons for you. What's your comfort food movie if you had to pick one up out on the spot.
Fallen Alone Fails from the Crypt from nineteen seventy one, the Emicus production with Joan Collins and Peter Cushing and Freddy Francis. That is a movie, or you know what, I take that back, because that's a decent movie that I could recommend out of hand. Somebody said an anthology movie, I would recommend that one. One I would not recommend out of hand, but does exactly what this movie does for you. Is The Monster Club from nineteen eighty, which
is the end of Amicus Films. In fact, Amicus has already done it's not technically that that movie is fucking terrible, but I love every frame of it.
And what is it about that movie that hits you just right?
I saw it young enough and it was formative enough for me that even though the stories being told are really super simple, they were complex to me and my young brain. So there, I guess it's based on nostalgia in some way, but I still appreciate those stories the way I did when I was a kid, even though I can recognize as an adult. If I were to see this today, I would go, this is a mediocre effort by a bunch of people who don't care. But
I didn't know that then. And it's got a it's a fucking nightclub with monsters dancing for whole portions of it. And it's got some really good songs in it, And which is what I'm saying, is the relation here to FM those songs. I do have the soundtrack album and I can listen to them, but I want to see them dancing in the club with monsters, Like that's it does it for? The visual is part of it, So I get that.
And that's a great comparison for me. The unique thing for me about this is that I didn't see this in my youth, so I can't lean on the fact of like youthful nostalgia for me, A movie like you describe is more like Heavy Metal, right, the animated movie, because that's one that I've tried watching that in with people who never saw it as a kid, that it's a new effectively a new movie to them, and I've been embarrassed because with modern eyes when you try to
watch Heavy Metal, it's not necessarily the cool movie that I remember from my youth. But it will never not be that for me because I saw it when I was eight, nine, ten years old or whatever, so it's always got that cachet. And the soundtrack is awesome. I can listen to the soundtrack and it takes me back to the movie. But the odd thing about FM is I can't lean on that youthful nostalgia to take me through it. I saw this when I was effectively already an adult, so it just grabbed a hold of me
in it for whatever reason, it never let go. It's weird. I can't quite explain it, but.
It's look, it is a trifling entertainment. I'm being really hard on it because I fucking hate that guy. And there's so much about it that I like that I want it to just be. I want it to be the movie it wants to be, which is just a hangout movie where we spend two hours with these characters. This movie wants to be car washed for white people,
but it's not. They have to tack this fucking stupid we got to save the rec Center subplot going on, and it's so lopside, like every little plot thread is dumb, and there's so much of them that I fucking hate it. And I just want them to be on the air and have radio station problems and then go do a concert and hang out, man.
And that's exactly it. I was gonna use that term, but I didn't. There's almost too much plot for it to be considered a hangout movie. To me, a hangout movie is something like Dazed and Confused, where you're just there for the experience. The plot is somehow secondary to just hanging out with these kids in the last day of school nineteen seventy eight or whatever it was seventy nine.
But or American Graffiti, what's the plot in American Graffiti? There is no fucking plot. It's everyone just hanging out for one night. Some people are going to be leaving the next day. That's it.
Yeah, I want to spend time with mother and prints and hang out at this radio station. You are absolutely right there. And maybe that's why I like rewatching it so much, is I feel like I'm back there with them somehow.
And you can totally do that, and I can see that the movie can be experienced that way. It's just that it's so plotty, too plotty. Keep your goddamn plot mister Sachs. That's all I have to say about that.
I think we've talked it out. I think we can agree.
Yeah, this was not worse than Corey Ham.
No, that might be the low water mark for this whole series, I have to admit.
I mean, but that's unfair, because that's it's that's a real special case. As far as somebody sat down and wrote words for other people to speak in front of a camera, this is still better than Billy Crystal. Don't get me started. This is technically the high point so far FM because look, man, it has Linda Ronstadt in it, and I'm going to say it's a terible movie. Don't watch it if you like Linda Ronstadt. Why haven't you watched
it already? Go watch it immediately. In fact, if you have seen Linda Ronstat the documentary they made about her, oh my god, watch that documentary. I'm telling you she's the best. She's just awesome. She lived her life the way she fucking wanted to, and now she's at a point where she can't really sing because she also has ms. We were talking off air about David Lander, but in the documentary she's like, no, I don't want to sing
anymore because I can't sing like I do. But she does sing in it, like with her family, like at some sort of Sunday get together or something, and what she considers to be a wretched version of her voice is still better than ninety percent of people out there.
She's fantastic.
But to see her in her absolute prime, like I said, enjoying herself, grooving to the music, listening to the band as she's performing, and really just there's just such a such fun to be had, and watching Linda Ronstad do her thing, it almost makes me. It doesn't almost it makes me hope or wish that they had an actual Linda Ronstad Live DVD that we could get of just her doing songs at the LA Forum or wherever it was, because it's just that good. It sounds great. The musicians are a top.
Notch man's great. I haven't checked out the Blu ray or anything. We don't do that. We're not so techy nerdy here. But is there? Does extra footage exist?
No?
I had.
I eventually upgraded to the DVD. I don't think they ever put it out on Blu Ray. I could be wrong about that. Maybe I bought it and forgot about it, because that's happened.
But the DVD.
I think that this is one of those DVDs where just the fact that it was released at all is an achievement in and of itself. The only extra you get on those kinds of movies are maybe the trailer, and I think that maybe it might have been the only extra. No commentary, just widescreen and a trailer.
I do love a trailer, but come on, there's so many people involved in this, then you got to figure somebody wants to talk about it. I'd like to. I would enjoy hearing a commentary by anyone involved with this movie.
Honestly, sure I would too, because there's got to be stories that came out of this because they were immersed in that culture of radio stations. At that time, terrestrial
¶ The Decline of Terrestrial Radio
radio was everything. It's impossible for quote unquote kids nowadays to understand that that's how you consumed music. Most often, you went to the record store, you got records, actual records before they were a hipster thing. Or you listened to the radio in your car. When's the last time you listened to the radio in your car? I actually put a radio station on father belone listen to music.
I drive a bike, so I don't really have a car. But when was the last time I just listened to music for music sank?
Yeah, just pop on the radio to some FM radio station and.
Listen yesterday and the day before that. But that was not my choice.
It was at work to listen to podcasts at work.
I listened to podcasts at work. If people I don't know, if you know I work in the cannabis industry, I work in cultivation. So there are many stages of marijuana cultivation. One of them is a harvest, and when we're harvesting, it isn't as intensely individual. We do it as a group.
During that time, we usually just have a radio on, so we're listening to whatever station, in this case a station that plays nothing but nineties classics that everyone seems to like love, and I'm just like, this was terrible. I hated this whole era of music. But they're all so young that they think it's really good.
That's classic rock to them.
Oh my god.
At some point someone.
Told me that we were talking about Weezer, the band Weezer.
I don't hate Weezer, let me just put that out there.
I don't hate them, but my point was that they said Weezer is classic rock for the next generation after us, and it blew me away because they're one of those bands that to me now they still feel like a new band even though they've been around for twenty five years, thirty years.
Or something like that. Ridiculous.
It's crazy, so but I more than thirty.
It's insane.
But I guess my point is to me, listening to terrestrial radio that isn't some talk show or like something like that is a last resort for me, because it's not fun to listen to the radio now, even if it's a station with music that I would normally like, it's just so sterile. And pre programmed and a regimented It's part of the fun of FM is seeing this era of free form DJs with real personality and real autonomy as far as what songs that were going to
play and how to conduct their show that moment. Not only is it gone, it's been gone for decades, so this might be the only way that somebody can really get a taste of.
That you missed Charles Lockwooderra don't you.
Maddie in the Morning?
Maddie in the Morning. These are regional DJs of the nineteen seventies in the Boston area. Folks Dale Dale Dorman. Oh my god, Uncle Dale, Uncle Dale. It should be pointed out the local DJ, Uncle Dale Dorman or Uncle Dale as we knew him, because he also in addition to the morning DJ where he'd play disco. Basically he was on Kiss so that was a fucking disco station, right, So he was the disco DJ. By the way, the better version of this movie is Thank God It's Friday.
That's a movie that is a hangout movie about this time period in Los Angeles, except it's about disco and it accomplishes what this movie fails at anyway. In addition to being a DJ, also was the voiceover guy for TV channel fifty six, and on fifty six on Sundays was Creature Double Feature. So Dale Dorman was the announcer for Creature Double Feature, which is where I used to
watch The Monster Club. In fact, I remember listening. I was riding in a van, we were going back home, and on the radio, Dale Dorman announced that today The Monster Club was going to be on Creature Feature, and I could not make them make the van go fast enough to get home.
Because this was before DVRs, before VCRs. You missed that movie.
You missed it for a whole year, yep, and there was no guarantee it was coming back.
Yep, yep. Good times.
All right, listen, I don't know what is planned next this he springs these things on me, and clearly I've already burned through my veto. But until next time, HP, Where can people find you when they're looking for you?
All right, you can find me. I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast with my esteem colleague here, my man father Malone.
Yeah, I'm on that show. You should go check that show out if you haven't listened to it. The Night mister Walker. Even if you don't like Taxi, we're funny.
It's good stuff.
We I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast when the mood strikes. I am an occasional guest also on the Culture Cast with Christashu and I have a band camp site HP music Place dot band camp.
As for me, you're listening to it here, folks, patrons, you're listening to it wave before anybody else. So thank you very much for your patronage. It is more than appreciated. We've got fests going on everybody. We're still working through our Predator Fest, our Yahoucha Fest as it were. Another one should be up on the Patreon channel as well right now. And we're starting a Moranus Fest, starting a
Books of Blood Fest. We've got a lot of fests coming up, folks, in addition to the Weekly round Up, which is on every Monday. Thank you everybody for tuning into Weekly round Up and keep your letters coming, and I hope to hear from you again soon. And I guess we're gonna leave with a Oh, We're gonna leave with something really fucking cool from FM, or we might just put some Lindaranstadt on here.
I don't know.
I haven't decided yet.
I don't know.
I don't want to copyright Striker now, I don't know.
Here we go.
No, isn't that just so so hot? Yeah?
This is mother telling you if you find it, oh you got it, then you just better keep that.
Now, what you think about that?