Episode 741: So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)

Oh, folks, it's showtime.

People say, good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Got it off?

Hi, my name is Mike Myers.

Perhaps you recognize me from my recent motion picture Wayne's World.

Lax Lax.

As you can see, I'm on the set of my new film, which I play a young fellow named Charlie who gets a little more than he bargained for.

For example, there's suspense.

Have you heard of this case?

Missus X?

She murders her husband's on her honeymoon, then she changes her identity and marries again.

I never heard of it, So what I think I'm dating? Missus X?

The Justice Department reports an alarming rise at the number of poisoning murders across the United States.

It's a smart.

Drink to improve your brain power.

You like it, Charlie, Thank you. No, there's action, Charlie.

There's something I've a meaning to tell you.

She's a killer, Charlie, she is not a killer.

And of course there's plenty of romance.

What do you look for in a girl you date.

I know everyone always says sense of humor that I'd really have to go with breast size.

You lying on your side, totally asleep.

I could just.

Sticking italy.

So as you can see, it has all the elements of a truly great motion picture.

Oh did I mention.

The axe murder?

Hello, sweetheart, missed me darling.

Welcome to the Projection booth. I'm your host.

Mike White joined me once again as mister Mike Sullivan.

Hey, I'm happy to be here, happy to talk about Mike Myers and his movies in the career.

Also joining us in the booth is miss Amy Nicholson.

Hello, I just realized how outnumbered by Mike's I am to it.

Maybe so many Mikes this week we are mainlining the nineties into our veins like a supermodel mainlining heroine with Tommy Schlami's So I Married an Axe Murderer? Released in nineteen ninety three. It's the rare appearance from comedian Mike Myers where he's predominantly not in heavy prosthetic makeup and doing a bit.

Instead, he's a.

Relatively normal San Francisco beat poet. In nineteen ninety three, who's afraid of commitment. When he meets Nancy Travis as Harriet Michaels, he tries to get over his fears until he gets the idea that his new girlfriend may be the titular ax murderer of the film. We will be spoiling this movie as we go ahead, so if you don't want anything ruin, please turn off the podcast and come back after you've seen it. We will still be here. So, Mike, when was the first time you saw so I married

I saw this, like went right to video and at the time, remember I was kind of let down by because I was a big Wayne's World guy, but kind of like a Cohen Brothers movie. Like in a few years, my opinion about it changed. But as I keep watching it, my opinion keeps changing. I guess we'll get into that when we get into it. But it's the latest time I saw this. I wasn't as into it as I was previous feelings and Amy, how about yourself?

This was a huge movie with me and my friends when I was a kid, Like we were slumber party girls. We do slumber parties and watch satura night Live at that moment when Satura Night Live felt like the coolest thing in culture when you're a little kid, and there's never been anything like Adam Sandler before in Wayne's world and all of this stuff, and it was half over our heads. But so I married an ex murderer, maybe because it had a romantic element too. We were just obsessed.

Yeah, my buddy and I used to quote the Charles Brody scene a lot when I was in Bay School, which I didn't realize until I rewatched that we used to recite that scene a lot. That's just sort of like creeped into the culture of this movie.

Yeah, Like when they started doing the slam poetry, I had forgotten completely that there was slam poetry in this movie, and then every single line of every single poem immediately came back to me anyway. I don't remember the names of some of my friend's children, but I know every line of the poetry in this movie.

Oh man, whoa man?

She wasn't me.

You put a belief she stole my heart in my cat Very Judy, Josie and those pots. They make me morny Sata day, morny gold up Contuins.

Won't leave me at Ruins.

I want to be Betty's.

Barney, Hey, Jane, get me off this crazy thing.

Cold Love.

So that was back in ninety three. I think I probably saw it again in ninety five somewhere around there, and watching it again last night for the first time in however three decades, I guess I was remembering pretty much every line that was being said. Yes, the poems, but especially the alan Arkins stuff. I just fell head over heels for the whole alan ark and Anthony the Paglia stuff that is going on in this film, and

But you too nice.

I'm too nice.

Yes, you're too nice. Why can't you be like the captain of Stowski and Hodge, You know when you come in and you haul me into your office and you bawl me out because you're sick and tired of defending my screwballed antis to the commissioner. Why did you do that?

Well, the truth of the matter is, I don't report to a commissioner.

I report to a committee, some of whom are appointed.

Some elected, and the rest co opted on a biennial basis.

It's a quorum, so to speak. Quorum, Yeah, captain.

When I do in the police force, I thought that I was gonna be Curvico, but instead Fish.

From Barney Miller.

Hey, somebody needs a hug.

I really like this movie, and I ain't even remember it being a flop when it came out, But I didn't realize just how bad of a flop was.

Yeah, I forgot. Like the critical reception on this was so angry. I remember for a while it was like a running gag in Entertainment Weekly where it would get name checked in other like other movies they didn't like for some reason. I remember the review of Its Packed because there's a line in it that's so inexplicable where it's like it's like they're paying homage to So I married an axe murderer, which is like such a I

You're bringing have something I think about a lot as a film critic, because I see it happen when critics decide that there's a movie that they're just gonna pick on just ready and in a way that I find horrifying, and this is a horrible movie to point to. Is the ambassador of a film that was unjustly picked on and for a bunch of reasons, and it the Kevin Spacey movie Nine Lives, where Kevin Spacey plays a cat. Yes,

Don't remember From the Train being awful. I remember not liking it, But that was actually my first exposure to strangers on a train. I had never seen strangers on a train at that point, because I was pretty darn and young when that came out, not strangers but through mama, And yeah, this one has that same kind of hitchcock thing that they're doing. Of course, being set in San Francisco,

I'm curious about that because I was reading about the article and his version of it does not sound good. There's no punch to it, like she's the murderer and that's it. Like, how do they work around it. How do they make that? When he was He's like, it should have been done this way. And I kept thinking, if this was a made in the eighties with like Chevy Chase, this would be like forgotten, like unfaithfully yours, you know, like that Double War movie, Like it just

What was a basic instinct rip off, the kind of jokey one fatal instinct. It would be like that.

Although they talked about doing an Albert Brooks version, which I think that would be the other good version, Like if that was made, I feel like he probably would involve with like the screenwriting process, and that would have I think that would have been something there. But the other versions they just so trip Myyers at least, even like I was reading that scripture sentence, like the cut scenes were good, like the wax museum bit where there's like a wax esam and everyone looks like the own

Shoot, he's a guy who has the Swedish penis and larger pump in the very first Austin Powers films Neil Malarkey. And then you'll hear later on that this one of the scenes that takes place in the butcher shop was actually written or co written by Cohen and O'Brien, of all people, I.

Was one of the movie because I read that too. He was, but his piece was credited. That's okay, that's interesting.

Yeah.

And wasn't Carrie Fisher involved?

Yeah for a second, she definitely was. And I don't know how much of that stuff stayed in there, but it's very curious to see how this changed, especially because this is it's like the primordial Mike Myers one of the first movies that we get where he's playing multiple characters, because I don't believe he did that. In Wayne's World. It's the first time we hear him really doing and I know he did this on SNL, but in the

Yeah, even the whole father element, even the playing of his father. Like he's talked a lot about how Austin Powers was his kind of love letter to his fatherhood passed, and that his dad was that kind of old school guy. He loved his old school stuff, loved his old school comedies, and he made Austin Powers as like a salute to the things his dad loved. And I feel like you

Yeah, I think even the one of the opening credits is listed as Eric's Boy production, and that's He's Eric's boy. And of course, like the God the Father stuff in the third Austin Powers movie, it's off the charts as far as Dandy didn't love me and all this stuff, it's low. I know you're working out a lot of issues here.

I did also get like a flash of my own kind of guilt watching the Father scenes here because and I'm so sorry about this. This is my public apology. By the time I was in high school, the heat joke had made it into my friend group's culture so deeply that there was a guy at our school that everybody called Heed because he did have a big head, and people called him Heed all through high school, just to the point that I almost forgot where it came from.

Well, I'm sure he hasn't forgotten is Heed. Their other son who is this kid, because I even went through and read the script and I was like, it just says young William or whatever his real name is, And I'm like, where did this kid come from?

Myers his brother, the character's brother. I always wondering the relation, what the relationship was. But yeah, not only it's his brother, Yeah, but.

They treat him like he's some orphan they took off the street to do the dishes. It's very much like an Oliver Toys kind of thing.

Yeah.

I don't want to start thinking about how old the mom was when she gave birth to Heed, but it must not have been an easy berth, I imagine, especially if it was Breach with that big head coming out.

I wonder if there's Mike Myers in Heed, if he felt like ad Well.

But mine with a loan. I mean, I was, you know, like I never considered that.

Yeah, so painful.

But to your point about like Mike Myers in this film, I think it's fascinating to watch him present himself not as the guy getting but as the straight man, the normal guy. He's just like Tom Cruise in this movie. He's got the Ray bans On, he's got like generic nineties guy open shirt, black tank top, black shirt underneath it, Like I've never seen him look this normal, and I have the confidence, I would say, to look normal, like he doesn't need to put on an act to be funny.

This is actually what didn't work for me this time. When I was watching this, I'm thinking, I don't think he has the ability to play a person. He's coming off almost like an asshole at times in this movie, Like he's very peevish, He's like pissy and scenes, and I was getting like a sense of uncomfortability from him that he was like I think the only time he was probably at home was when he was in the

I mean, I hear you like, I would never want to date this Charlie. You know now that I'm like, oh what every day Charlie. Charlie's an absolute mess and oh my god, he takes his ex girlfriends and puts their face up in public and then makes fun of them and accuses none of stealing his cat. Yeah, I hear you. I'm kind of two minds of it, which is like absolutely fair. And when he whenever he's like I'm a normal person, I definitely am rejecting that, like, no,

No, I've never really bought any romantic element in any of his movie. To me, almost like a female lead in like Mike Myers movie is like a tier above and Adam Sandler female lead and Am Sandler movie, I think they have a little more to do, but not by much. And anytime there's a romance and I just and it gets more and more unbelievable as it goes along, especially in the love googroup. But no, I never really bought it. I think I don't know what it is, but I've never been able to buy it.

Yeah, I'm okay with him as the romantically and I mean it follows such a typical romance trajectory through this whole movie, the whole like, Okay, they have their oh I'm sorry, guys, their meat cute and that spelt eat. Yeah, so sorry, they have their meat cute, the whole scene later on where he comes in and helps her out at the meet counter and everything. And I do like that old guy that's been in like American Graffiti and Jack who just always seems to hang out in San Francisco,

You know.

Yeah, I like that whole thing. And then there's like, oh, then there's the misunderstanding and listen, I'm sorry in those things. But of course, like if someone were to accuse me of being a murderer, I don't know if I would necessarily take them back as readily. But of course we're in fantasyland, we're in the movies. But yeah, I kind of see where what you're saying as far as like not buying it, but it just follows such a typical pattern that I'm like, Okay, yeah, now they're going to

I mean, I think she's so charming.

Oh she's adorable too. Oh my god.

I know that they thought about casting Sharon Stone in this in two roles. And this is not a diss on Sharon Stone, who I think can be a great actress at all. But you need that soft adorableness. You need to believe that this girl would date this guy, which I believe that Harriet's weird enough that she's open to him, and she's into a guy who'd be kind

I wish like Nancy Travis did like weirder stuff like this. I mean, I think the only other weird goofy thing she did was Anbernice on Duckman Like she never really she always seemed to just play Land characters. But I think she was way more than that. It's a shame she never really got to, you know, stretch a little more.

Yeah, because she's up for it right, Like she can do funny but also seem like a human being in the same time.

And it's very interesting to see her and her goofiness comparing to her sister Rose and her just I don't think it's goofy. I think it's just weird. And casting Amanda Plumber to play a weird person one hundred percent, I think she does it so well. But it was very interesting going through some of the deleted scenes last night and just being like, Okay, she's way more off the reservation in those deleted scenes than we see in

Yeah.

They almost make her disappear from the movie at the end, so you forget that she's there. I don't remember her doing much at the wedding or anything. It's like she's in the montage and then she's gone, so that you're not like it's obviously that person. That person is obviously the crackpot. I was really caught up that this movie was talking about what is it like when your parents are getting into fake news. This movie came out before Fox News. Fox News wasn't a thing for like three

Oh yeah, the ever evolving adventures of bat Boy and just what Elvis was up to. I mean, especially there was that summer where there are allowed of shark attacks, so reading all about the different shark attacks and Weekly World News was oh yeah, it was gold. The journalism

I mean, I wonder if that warped our brains.

Yeah, it is very interesting the way that Stuart is there drawing on about the Pentaverate, just like he was talking about the ILLUMINATIU. I'm surprised he doesn't talk about the Rothschilds. Instead, it's all about Colonel Sanders instead. And Colonel Sanders.

Just like you mentioned Lindon LaRouche.

Yes, yeah, Colonel Sanders. Because Colonel Standers shows up in the Pentaverate several times. And there's even a scene at the wedding where they're dancing, and I swear there's a guy in the orchestra who looks exactly like Colonel Sanders, but they cut past it so quickly. I was like, I wonder if that was part of a bigger joke.

Wow, have you.

Guys ever met any Lindon Larusians.

There was a guy when I lived in Bloomsburg. He used to stand in the corner and he would have like Lyndon LaRouche like pamphlets and he would just like shout conspiracy theories. He did this for like years. It was like every Saturday morning he would do this. But that was the only and this was like, this was like the early adds.

Yeah, the early odds thing.

Yeah, it's it. I guess that. Maybe is are there any Laruche sites still around? I guess there is, but maybe not as many. I don't know.

I don't know. I remember meeting a Larucian when I first moved to LA and I didn't know what they were. And they had a bunch of like nice Larusians my age who were out in Santa Monica and they just acted normal. And one of them befriended me in a way where I had just moved to town and he was like, oh, you're going out of town for the weekend. I was, I just moved here and I was going

Sky.

Oh why would you cut off the contact with this person? He sounds wonderful.

Yeah, the things you do in you're any like early twenties and don't understand.

One of my favorite cab rides was a guy who was telling me all about how we can teleport to Mars and that Obama had made a contract with the Martians that they wouldn't teleport down here and attack us.

And the crazy thing was I.

Was telling somebody about this and I was like, oh yeah, this was this absolute nutty cab driver.

And then I went out and I.

Like just googled it for shitts and giggles to see if somebody else had that same conspiracy theory. It was such a thing that they had to go. The freaking press person from the White House went in front of the whole core and was like, just so you know, President Obama doesn't teleport to Mars. And I'm like, oh my god, Like you had to address it.

It was that much.

These days, it's like, okay, yeah, you could that that crazy blond lady that's in there now. I'm like, yeah, come on out, tell me that Trump doesn't teleport. Tomorrow's he probably thinks he does.

I mean it away.

This movie's psychic about our country falling apart in terms of conspiratorial thinking. I mean, I wouldn't mind if the trade off was we get to hang out at cool coffee shops.

Like that at night.

But it's just amazing that he can make a living being a beat poet, because like I kept waiting for him to do like a day job, but he doesn't have a day job.

I guess in the script they explained in a way that he works in a bookstore, but they don't really touch upon that in the movie.

Yeah, no, no, because he's like ready to go and help her out whenever.

He needs to.

Didn't I hear that what's the famous bookstore in San Francisco? Powells? Oh yeah, yeah, that city Lights wouldn't let them film there. That maybe they meant to have him be because this is such a love letter San Francisco, that maybe they meant to have him work at city Lights and then city Lights so they didn't think there's anything funny about murder, so they wouldn't let them do it.

Oh, Lawrence fur Lengetti, come on, get over yourself.

Yeah.

I think that was the opening scene, right, is when people are coming into city Lights and he's trying to do a poem or something, and everybody that comes in is like, where can I buy on the road by Jack Harrowac And he's like over here, so just keeps trying to go through that. Yeah, that was the only time where it's like, oh, he actually does have a job.

All right.

This really made me miss San Francisco, didn't it? This version of San Francisco that doesn't quite exist anymore.

Was it affordable, even that version of San Francisco even then?

Or I think I had like what two or three more years before it went totally off the rails. Wasn't tech just starting It's.

A good question.

Yeah, probably in nineteen ninety three. I mean, but already, like, wasn't Pacific Heights all about how tough it was to find an apartment in San Francisco? Yeah, I mean, you're right.

I remember by the late nineties I had some friends who went there for college and they're like, no, it's too much. It felt like that was the first city to get too expensive.

And yes, some of these locations, some of the beautiful, beautiful shots of the city. I mean, I love their breakup scene that takes place in when is that the I can't remember the Arches or whatever park that is where you can see the painted ladies and quite tower in the back, and it's just, oh, it's such a stunning shot.

It really catches the vibe that I wanted my twenties to be like, which is hanging out at coffee shops with my friends. I mean this came out what the year before friends? Yeah, it came at the year before Friends. So there's like coffee shop twenty something culture that just felt so cool.

With your giant cappuccino, giant cappuccino, giant apartments too. Everybody lives in these big, big apartments. I mean the one that Rose and Harriet are in, it just seems to go on forever. Some of the artwork on their walls, it's really interesting too, And I just I was so curious as far as, again more of like what they do. I know what Harriet does for a living, she's a butcher, but like, what does Rose do? I would love to

That makes sense.

Yeah, apparently she does a lot of bondage photography. And there's even a scene where I think Lapagli comes in. Sorry, Tony comes in and she's completely covered in blood and she's wearing that same white outfit that we see her stalking him in on the rooftop at the end, and she's like doing a whole photo series and I'm like, okay, that's interesting.

Again.

It's like you think, well, yeah, this person's crazy, but then it's like, well, no, actually she's an artist, so maybe it's you know, she's just doing her art this way.

I'm sorry they cut that gag, although I can I understand why they cut it because it kind of kills the momentum, but it was a pretty good gag, you know, Sorry to see it go.

Yeah, well, yeah, a lot more to do in that final version with the Also, she is the one you're talking amy as far as what she does at the wedding. You get to see her in that tartan and everything. But there's also a moment where she goes up and takes a picture of Harriet, and there's this whole subplot in there about how Harriet and Rose's father was a photographer and took so many pictures of Harriet when she was growing up that she just is like, no more pictures.

Oh that's interesting, because yeah, there's something very pre Internet about nobody knowing what this person looks like, the ability to disappear.

This whole movie is set up in such a way that you can just take stuff out without any sort of real recompense. Like there scenes definitely will build on each other here and there, but like you know, you mentioned Phil Hartman as Vicky, that whole scene of them going to Alcatraz really could just be completely wiped out of this film, but it's one of the most delightful scenes that we have That's.

What I was saying before. A lot of my favorite parts sire the smaller bits, you know, like the side bits, you know, and you can see that in like Mike Myers's career, like there's always small bits, but it became a certain point where the small bits started to repeat themselves. That's why I like the small bits in this movie. They're all fresh, you know, they're not you know, like not thirteen variations on a penis joke. You know it. There's a lot I like about this movie, and I

And no?

Yeah, he he I was reading interview with this guy. He talked about it and he desperately wanted to be in the Kids in the Hall And it's hey, I don't know about you guys. She can't picture him as a member. I don't know if he was going to be like a sixth member or he'd like swap out like a Mark McKinney or a Bruce McCullough. I just can't picture him and the kids in the hall. You know, I don't know about you guys.

It's hard. It's like part of me wants to say, because I'm picturing the Mike Myers that as I imagined him today, that he's not like a team player. Then I'm like, but he came out of Signate Live, obviously he can be a team player.

Yeah, it's it's it's like unusual, just like it's like a weird alternate reality where he's like a member of the kids in the hall. I think about this a lot, you know.

Yeah, to your point, Namy, it feels a lot of times like he's selfish when it comes to his comedy, but then he does get the hell out of the way, especially in the movie like this with Tony and Charlie's mother and like that whole scene could just be again completely dropped of her making out with Tony and you know, it's just him, Mike Meyers standing by watching this stuff,

There's even something generous in when he's like driving by the butcher shop and you see Harriet outside and like the Dutchman hat, the flying Dutchman hat. Like you could just take the female character and make her basic pretty, but he lets her be interesting too, And I think that is actually incredibly generous. It's not just like I found this hot lady. It's like I found this hot, weird lady.

To have the little bits like you were talking about with the Charles Groden stuff, they Stephen Wright stuff, even Alan Arkin. Alan Arkin doesn't even need to be in this movie, but he's my favorite part of it.

Here from the boys upstairs, you've been sticking your nose in a Ralph Elliott case. Yes, captain don't, Yes, Captain me stay out of this.

This is strictly homicide. You, Captain, I got this friend.

We all got these friends.

I'm mourning you. Jidino, back off.

Italian boy, keep away from this one.

It's too big for you. What's the news, Oh you want to hear the news. Well, here's the news.

It seems that the old lady that confessed to the murder of Ralph Elliott has.

Also confessed to a couple of other murders.

I knew she would, Yeah, right, Well, she's confessed to the murders of Abraham Lincoln, Warren g Harding.

And Julius Caesar. She's a not case. I'm not case. Oh my god, I gotta go.

You screwed this one up, pal, and you'll be writing parking tickets for the rest of your life.

You got that, Captain, I want about you down.

All of these side characters that we're talking about ultimately makes such a huge impact. I mean, this is one of those successful post UHF acting gigs by Michael Richards. He's only in the movie for five minutes, but god damn is it funny, and I just love the way that he misconstrues stuff and they just go on from there.

Yeah, because I think the worst kind of comedy, which I think he's definitely guilty of, like in Oh for the Love Girl, for sure. Well, I mean, granted, I've only seen that movie once. Who knows, Maybe it's better than I remember, but I remember being so miserable. He has the ability to play a whole movie with that kind of anis stinker thing, you know, like ani s stinker. I'm walking through this world and everyone's laughing at me.

I mean, how stupid was that line from Stewardest film? Was it called up in the air? Just thinking about that today, Yeah, where he shows up and he talks about.

You put the wrong emphastist on the wrong salable.

I still quote that today, you know, all these years later and it's like, Okay, one of my favorite little bits. And he's in the movie for what five minutes if that view from the top that was an thank you, thank you.

Yeah.

Up in the air is a whole different thing, that's right. That's a whole George Clooney firing people thing, I believe, right.

Oh, I was confusing on with the air up there. That Kevin Bacon basketball movie. Oh my god. Yeah no.

I love the play of the language stuff as fantastic well as well. And it's really interesting too, because a lot of these scenes like reshot stuff. I was so surprised it took a lot for me to find the There is a I guess it's a four K blu ray of so I married an X murder that has about half an hour of deleted scenes.

Dummy me.

I didn't realize that I didn't have a four K player, so I had upgrade my entire system. Doing this episode has cost me a lot of money.

Guys, upgraded your entiresis simably a four K of So I married an.

X murderer just so I could see those deleted scenes and see that so many of those scenes were basically redone, like the whole thing of him with that giant cup of cappuccino that was a reshoot like there was a whole other version of that, and that's when he and the Paglia actually meet Debbie Mazar and her friend who would never see again in this version of the movie, and they're just like laughing their asses off about the whole like, oh, would you join me in a cup

Like his rules were like you have to like let the joke breathe, you have to hit via indirectly. You can't do funny shots. It's like, where are you getting this? This is the and it was the craziest thing you have. The camera's on the star, I'm the star. It's like this very bizarre idea of filmmaking.

It's two but it is weird when I think about it that when I picture so I'm Mary an axe murder. In my mind, I do picture a good looking movie, and I don't know if I'm seeing to see. I would say it's like a beautiful looking movie, but I picture shadows and production design in a way that I don't always picture with the comedy.

No, these sets, like for their the parents' house or the apartments I was talking about, they all look real. They all looked very lived in, pretty dingy at times, which is a great thing because I hate movies where everything looks like it just got a fresh coat of paint. Yeah, everything looks really good, and especially some of the chachkes around the Mackenzie's house, where you've got like little Scottie Dogs and just all that, you know, his whole wall

It feels thoughtful, doesn't it When you watch a move and you can feel that every scene was really combed over it and thought about, from the production design to the jokes to what the people are doing, and it doesn't happen in a lot of movies.

I don't know.

I think about this a lot, like I start a movie and do I trust it or not? And trust it comes from kind of immediately getting that sense of like they map this out, somebody really planned this, and that doesn't mean there can't be happy accidents and they can choose to use them in the editing room, but you feel craft like it doesn't feel phoned in. And something about the dartboard of Queen Elizabeth makes me feel that I believe this this movie.

Mike and I have discussed this. I just want to get your take on it. Amy, This has bothered me for years. You've seen that the one sheet to this movie. Clearly there's supposed to be a joke there where Nancy Travis is holding an axe because behind Mike's Mike Myers's back there's flowers, and clearly there's supposed to be an act behind Nancy Travis's back. Has this bothered you as much as it's bothered me that this one sheet is like a like a half step of a joke.

I think I've hallucinated the X. I think I have Mandela affected that ax in my memory because I think it should be when as there, I just put the ax there.

Mike thought that I was photo shopping and axe in her hand, but no, I actually found a version of the poster that has I found some weird versions of this poster. There's also one that was very Missus Robinson where it was like Nancy Travis's well a leg that's supposed to be Nancy Travis like framing the shot and Mike Myers in the back and it's totally a body

Why would they have taken it out? It just feels like it should be there.

I guess because she's not the murderer. And they're like, well, that's false advertising. Like that's my only take on it. You know, it should be there. That's the joke, you know. But I think about this too much, like it just eats at me whenever I think about this movie that one shoots.

Well, if we're going to be like really getting into the details, what do you think the show adds to the title? Like, and I like this though, I'm just wondering why it's not I married an AX murderer. It's so I married an X murder.

Because it's like a casual conversation, like, so I married an axe murderer. That's how whites are good.

There's that that recent TCM book called but have you read the book? And the butt is very subtle on there, but I'm like, oh, that's nice that it's not have you read the book? It's yes, like the yes is implied, but have you read the book? So I married an ax murderer thing, yeah, which kind of I guess fits also with all of the Jewish people that were supposed to be playing this role originally, between like Woody Allen, Gary Shanling, Albert Brooks. Who else did we mention, Well,

I mean, it feels so much more special. I think being a San Francisco movie and being a Scottish movie, Like, there's no real reason for this movie to be as Scottish as it is, because it's not like bagpipes save his life or anything. Wearing a cult capes him from Like I don't wearing a cult like catches him when he off the roof, like you know it poofs up like nothing like that. The Scottish doesn't actually factor and

Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is if it's not Scottish.

Just clap.

Even some of the jokes that he's doing, like with where he's asking her to scratch us back and he's like, oh, prosidio, prosidio, and you know, and he's like doing the whole neighborhoods of San Francisco in order to tell her where to scratch. I'm like, that's nice, you know, just to bring that San Francisco into it. Mike Myers's own scottishness definitely plays into the scottishness of the film, you know, he just

That's true, and it looks good too. This The texture of the skin on the dad's jowls very convincing. They didn't just give him a big red beard. It looks advanced for nineteen ninety three to my eyes.

Well, and the split.

Screen effects look really good too. We are not that far away from some really bad split screens that we had in the eighties with like you know, Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin where it's just like, oh, look at that person across the very obvious line that's in the middle of the screen.

You know. Here it's like.

Good use of body doubles. You know, when he's saying goodbye and you get his dad in the distance and his dad's just doing the ah go on with you kind of thing. Yeah, that's really nice that we're we know when to use the body doubles. The body doubles look good. And then even when his dad comes in, when he's not wearing pants and he's just wearing his shorts and his like suspender socks and stuff, he walks

Yeah.

I think it's rare to see a comedy that wasn't designed to be like a gigantic hit and wasn't designed by you know, modern day Adam McKay or somebody working with like a budget and a sense of I've have

The Graduate comes up a bunch in Wayne's world too.

Oh right, that ending I forgot.

I was thinking of it too, when he's driving and he's got that whatever type of car that is, because it reminded me a little bit of when Benjamin is driving down to you know, try to rescue Elane and if you've got the you know, the Simon and Garfunk call on the soundtrack and stuff, and you've got to hear there's the moment when he's driving and I think it's when she goes to lean in and kiss him

It's red.

But I have no idea when it comes to cars that if it's the same or not. As I say that, the Laws do a way better version of There She Goes, which I think is their song than the Boo Radley's not a big fan of that Boo Radley's cover at the beginning.

Okay, but what about the spin doctors?

To hear this doctors on ironically, I mean it's kind of like hearing smash Mouth on ironically and in the Shrek films. But yeah, that wasn't bad. I mean, this was such a nineteen ninety three picture. I was just like, yep, top hits of the day, Yep.

Yeah, it feels so of its moment in a way that I respect. It feels like a tiny little time stamp, which I think either producer Carrie Woods, I think he was really good at that. He did Heathers that feels very then Swingers, Kids, Threesome. These all feel like movies that just captured that moment in which they were made in a way that's really great.

Usually you watch a movie where it's very much of its time, it's disgusting or laughable. This was like, wah, it's like, oh that's nice. I wish I could go back like there was. It was genuinely like, oh, why can't we be there now?

You know?

But I thought it was just me hotly.

No, I felt it too. I want to be in the coffee shop with the cappuccino people don't even drink cappuccinos, I think, as much anymore as all Latte is now.

Well, just think the movie Singles came out the year prior to this, you know where it's like, I'm not really rushing out to see Singles again with the whole like all those relationships. I mean, the grunge scene is so major in there. I mean, isn't Eddie Vedder and some of the guys from Pearl Jam or Temple the Dog in the movie with them with Matt Dillon playing like a grunge god, I'm like, oh my goodness, so that too, his little camp in Burton.

I mean, I think that's why some of these movies are so embedded in my soul is because I wasn't old enough to live them. I was just old enough to hope I'd get to grow up to be in that world, and then I didn't get to be. It's just mad about it. Some movies like that mean a lot to me because I thought I would get to grow up to be rallity bites are clueless and it I dismissed it, and that's so irritating that.

World had moved on by then. Of course, being the film guy that I am, I'm going to notice things like the way that the doors and Harriet's apartment. There's a couple of doors that she stands behind, and then also Rose stands behind. It's kind of nice to obfuscate who this person is that's on the other side of the door, because they're very distorted and you can't really see who they are.

But I'm like, oh, well, that's kind of nice.

So we're constantly, you know, who is this person? Is there this other person? I think maybe that's why I was getting the single white femaleness of it, but I kind of, you know, like the Rose character is such an interesting one because it's like you have to just use the right amount of her. And I did notice too. Talking about the deleted scenes, there's that montage of Charlie and Harriet kind of falling in love more. And you can bet your bottom dollar all of those things from

I miss Amanda Flo like she was like everywhere around that time, like, and I missed her intensity, and I wish she was still working, you know, or working at the capacity she was around this time. I mean, how long after was full Fiction? Was that just a year after? Two years the next year, Yeah, it's a shame. And then it was two years after that she was in Butterfly Kisses, which I think broke my brain for a

I get really sad every time I see Phil Hartman show up because he feels like such a loss from that period. I feel like there was so much for Phil Hartman we didn't get, you know, like, I don't know what Phil Hartman if he had done his own Chevy Chase career, what it would have been like if he had gotten to be more sent He was always popping up, But what would be like? What would Phil Hartman's opus have been?

You know?

It just it feels like one of the bigger comedy losses one.

Hundred percent, because he was always there to support other people. You know, he'd show up in those tiny rolls here and there. I'm trying to remember what when I just saw him show up, Oh, Fletch Lives. He just is there, you know, working at the chemical plant that's shipping off all those chemicals to be sent to Fletch's ant's place that he just inherited. He's in the movie for again, five minutes at most, but he's fantastic every time he

He's even in the Gong Show movie. Like he has a very small part in the Gong.

Show movie because it was all about the groundlings, right, wasn't he part?

Yeah?

Which is all I want to say, San Francisco stuff, So that makes total that's right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean he's one of those people that I could also really see of having his dramatic career, Like what would he have done if he had gotten to do a punch dung glove? Like what would that have been?

Can you imagine?

Or non cut gems starring Phil Hartman.

A buddy of mine, said that if he lived, he probably would have had Bob Odenkirk's career.

Oh I could see that.

Yeah.

Oh It's so sad that I was at camp when he died and I didn't know he died for years because I was, you know, like girl scout camp and my parents didn't write me a letter letting me know, so I didn't know that he had died. I think I found out like four years later. It was really confusing, Its like where is he pre Internet. Where is that guy?

It is with a heavy heart that I write to you today at Cape Wakanaka to tell you the sad news of the passing of one of our great comedy geniuses, Phil Hartman.

When Robin Williams died, my father actually called me at work. Let me know, someone should have wrote your letter. Someone should have wrote your letter, Mamie. Let you know, Yeah, my.

Parents should have written me a letter. And then the camp counsels would be like, why is that girl right?

We can't have you written to her every time a well known comedian dies, she's just gonna cry her eyes out again. All right, We're going to take a break and we'll be back with a pair of interviews with the producers of So I Married an Axe Murderer, Carrie Woods and Rob Reed, And we'll be back with that right after these brief messages.

Join me Jamie Benning on the Filmermentaries podcast, particularly if you enjoy stories like designer Nilo Rhodis jamiro convincing George Lucas to push him around to help gain the support of his crew on the Ailing Howard.

The Ducklam the door opens its George, everybody gas George makes a bee line to me, I'm literally back against the wall.

Or here puppeteer Tim Rose's emotional story behind that iconic admurl acbar shot in Return of the Jedi.

I believe it or something to be proud of, but not to Celburg.

Or how Star was. Editor Paul Hirsch tackled cutting so many successful films.

The thing that I learned from working with the Palmer is that tension depends on a clock.

You need to have the sense that time is running out.

Maybe Oscar winning sound designer Mark Manginie's insightful chat about his work on Blade Runner twenty forty nine.

Not a single sound from the original Blade Runner in the new film, A great deal of inspiration.

That's the film you Menary's podcast with me Jamie Benning.

I'm so curious how you got into movie making.

I graduated law school in the University of Southern California. I was in LA recognizing that I didn't want to become a lawyer, and I loved movies. And in LA, if you throw a rock, you'll hit somebody that's in the film business. And a lot of people in my law goal class were related to film people I was told that working at a term an agency is where you can learn the most coming up. So I ended

And then when.

John Peters and Peter Bluber took over as the chairman of Sony, we were friends, we had worked together, and they hired me as one of the first vice presidents they had in the corporate group. And then after about two years of being corporate executive, it wasn't really what I thought it was going to be. I thought I was going to have a lot more involvement in the

How did that project come to you? How did you find that one.

Rob Freed, my partner, had that project. When we partnered, there was a writer called Robbie Fox who was the original who was the writer of So I married an Axe Murder who had a relationship with Rob my partner, and gave him the script. Rob liked it and it was in development a tri star for a bunch of years. In fact, they think when I got there, Cherry Chase

Though he didn't get a.

Writing credit, he did a tremendous amount of work. The whole Scottish thing was him and a lot of the kind of comedy stuff that was in there was more him. The original concept was Robbie Fox, and then so Mike agreed to do it if he could do the rewrite the studio was thrilled because he had just come up the biggest comedy, Wayne's World with the year before. And yeah, so we got a green light with Mike to do the movie.

This was maybe three.

You're right there on the cusp if not have already started with like independent film and things like kids and threesome and things to do in Denver when you're dead. I guess there was Wingsworld, and I guess that was a pretty good darn tine for comedies as well.

It was a good time for comedy. My interest in it was that I just thought Mike Myers was a genius. In fact, the side story to this whole thing is that we wanted to do mister McGoo and Mister Magoo was owned by a company in Japan called Toha, which was a huge entertainment company in Japan. They owned the rights to a bunch of American characters like mister Magoo. And I mentioned to Mike in his trailer one day that we wanted He goes, oh, I love Magoo. I'll

Right, So you worked quite a few times with Harmony Kareen.

Kids was the first. We made Gummo, then we made Julian donkey Boy, then we did it. Yeah, we did four full movies together, his first four movies together. When I met him on Kids, who was seventeen years old.

Going back to X Murderer, you said that the studio wasn't happy, and I'm curious what they thought they were getting what they signed up for.

I don't have any idea. I can tell you one story that was incredible. Before Nanty Travis was in the movie, we had a meeting with Sharon Stone, who loved the script, loved Mike Myers. We had a meeting with her at the Four Seasons Hotel. She just finished Basic in Think.

But it hadn't come out yet.

It was the same studio that was making till I married an expert, but they obviously didn't know what they had because Sharon wanted to do it. And the funniest thing is when Sharon sat next to Mike in the hotel, he was sorry, man, he was terrified of her, just because she was Sharon Stone and he was Mike Royers. And you could see his nervousness was palpable. It was

It's fair, but the Kladi's build very strict about protecting the original screamwriter. I understand, so he didn't get a credit, but he got in my mind he wrote at least fifty percent of the strip. Tommy Schlami, who went on to be a huge television director responsible for many of the West Winds.

How did he come to the project?

He read the script, he loved it. Tommy is an incredibly personable guy, like a really good guy. Can't remember what he did before at the quarter attention, but we all had meetings with him and loved him, and he can't not like Tommy Fammi couldn't be a nicer guy. Mike liked him. We all liked him, so he began to direct them.

And how was the actual shoot itself?

It was hard because it was six days. We wanted to keep the budget down, so we were pretty much shooting six days a week. It also was hard on the days when Mike had to play his Scottish grandfather or uncle like remember it was he was in makeup for a long time in those days, and that was like a four or five hour makeup session.

So those were hard.

But sixth day weeks are hard, and we had a bunch of them in a row and it was rough. But other than that, it was just to shoot. San Francisco is beautiful and they were working if the most of the time we were there said we really didn't have a chance to But other than that, it was was really it was a nice shoot.

With the studio or even done in your neck a little bit. Did the movie change at all or did it come out the way that Mike and Robbie wrote it.

No, it didn't change much. The studio wasn't Tri Star Studios at the time. Mike Manivoy was the chairman of the studio, was the chairman of UA, so he came from the school of leaving directors alone. He wasn't Harvey Wanston who'd go after the movie was done and started cutting it away. That's not who Mike met was. Mike Medaway is very respectful of his filmmakers, and they saw the movie, they tested it, and they put it out

I guess the.

Press campaign wasn't good enough for Mike Myers became famous bland characters or that not right then his first big hit movie, He's playing Wayne, a beloved character from the show. This was the first time that Mike Maris was Mike Meyer, and I'm not sure the public was ready for it, and it was a hard.

Thing for them to promote.

And even further on in his career, his big hits was Austin Power, where he's again playing a character. So's it's a tough thing for a comic who becomes famous playing characters, and then all of a sudden he's playing himself in a romantic comedy where no one's ever seen him be romantic. He never had a romantic thing to do, and that live ever and obviously in Wayne's world, but there was no romance of any reality. So it was

I've always been curious about the poster of the film with the big hearts and Mike Myers holding the flowers behind his back she's supposed to be holding.

Can I tell you something? Yeah?

Please look.

When you are or even not when you're especially when you're a new producer and you have the zero leverage, you don't have anything to do with the poster the studio. There are poster.

Companies that charge a lot of money, and the studio paised them a lot of money to come up with the poster, and they had six or seven posters that they showed us. And it's always compromising down now. When I became a little bit more in my career where I had some poster and the trailers, I could then say five, I don't like the six, let me feed ten more or twelve more, and you want you then

We do the marketing.

We're the marketing geniuses, and you just make movies. So that's the poster. I think we all we're not into it. But I wasn't into the poster for kids. The American poster for kids that Harvey did, I thought was horrible. The poster for kids.

That was great was the French poster with the boys just walking down the boulevard. I don't know if you ever saw that poster, but if you google the French poster for kids, it's beautiful.

And that's the one we wanted to use. And Harvey put together this. He didn't understand him, he truthfully, veriusly, he didn't really The movie threw him off. But yeah, so he came up with that poster, which was it looked like a bunch of like lucky corns or something.

I don't know what that was.

We hated it, but again, fighting with Harvey's not easy, and it was what it was, but became what it became. But he hated it. Harvey was already he had no connection to that movie. It was the same year as sling Blade came out, and Harvey was all about Academy Awards. There was no way Kids was winning any Academy Awards. Oh no, this isn't it's this is Swinger. He did Waders is the same thing. He knew swingers were in the Academy and it would be go oping the same nabe.

I think he did get a nomination, but it didn't do anything really at the box office. It didn't do anything until after it left the box office and then everybody had advanced to see it.

But it was at the asperg. He'd released with kids was a different thing. He didn't have any feeling for those kids. He didn't even know what they were. He was like, we were at the Independent Spirit Awards where we had gotten nominated for a lot of stuff, and he was there. I don't know what the other movie had there, but he ignored us like we had a table. These kids were like, they were basically street bids and harm. You didn't speak to them, so we ignored us that.

I thought you were good.

Unless you've got any other Ax murderer stories that you wanted to share.

Well, I have another one. A great month we were coming up to on Monday shooting the Steing where Mike Myers meets Nancy Travis in the butcher shop and it's loved first sight. This was going to be the first So it was on Monday, and we had the weekend off, which means we only had a five day week, which was unusual. So we had the weekend off and Mike was like just working like crazy and habit and I said to him on Friday and I said, listen, let's go to the movies tomorrow, go to China Town and

Sure was, thank you so much for your time. This is great talking with you.

We'll fame here.

Pleasure candy coded cannon lifting news left to trump the stream.

Stay tuned.

Wanted to find what's wrong and what's right, what's obscuring, what's ub scene and the fat fat who's you have a chance that this pants slip right down the scene by again my break, God's say, I'm gonna make my break plan. Yes, I'm maybe thirty old man by the time I can beat down this studio scene.

Well, I'm so curious how you got into show business, coming in through the business angle of it, and it's not usually how I talk with people. So I'm so curious what that experience was like.

So I graduated from business school in the eighties and at that time, the idea of spreadsheet analysis. Financial analysis in Hollywood was a novel idea. At that time. Hollywood was still operating in the footprint of Irving Thalberg finding some young male who had his finger on the pulse of other young males, and that's how they would make

What were those that group of films that you were associated with.

It was right out of the gate. It was Hoosier's and RoboCop and Mississippi Burning and Bull Durham and Colors and it was just boom. They were all sort of mid budget films, but they all made money and they were all notable.

Those are all just top tier idols that you're saying.

Yeah, they were, but it wasn't because of anything I did.

It was luck.

Would you say that you transitioned into more of a creative role then as you started to move into producing things.

Yeah, So then I took a bunch of course is at UCLA and I realized so for two reasons, one of the creative is much more interesting than the business side of Hollywood, and two, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, is far more fragmented. That each film is like a little startup. So that was appealing to me as well. So I then enrolled in courses at UCLA Film School to learn the screenwriting and physical production, and because I realized this could actually work out for me, and I want to

I imagine you're still keeping your accounting hat on or your business hat on, so you can still maybe choose the projects that you think are going to make money.

There was an element of that, but turns out at that time the best risk return genre at that time were what we called family comedies. These PG rated comedies that did not have huge stars but were moderately budgeted seemed to have the greatest return on investment. So this was the area, but mostly no, it was the deal structures.

Film was that still the era of we can make a poster and sell the poster and thus sell the film like that kind of Roger Korman a school of thought.

He played a different game. He would actually sell the entire film or the motion rights to the film. He wouldn't parse it out. I was really still dealing with the student level of economics, and he real a true, genuine independent. His whole thesis was he could make the movie for less than a million dollars, and if it was reasonably well made, you would hire talented Yet he had a good eye for young filmmakers and a recognizable face.

The model that you were talking about with the whole idea of the comes out theatrically, then moves over to VHS or DVD if there's those steps. And that's what I grew up with. So it's so unusual for me now where it's oh, Mickey seventeen just came out and in two weeks it'll be on streaming, and it's just such a different mindset that we have today.

Now.

I just went to lunch with an old friend who's still a talent agent in the movie business. We went to a restaurant here that was loaded with Hollywood people that I hadn't seen in more than ten years years, and so I got an update and that basically the economic structure has pivoted quite a bit since the days that I was very active. The bundamental principles are still there, but the economics are different and streaming is obviously dominant, and the upside has changed quite a bit. So it's

So I knew though I married an AX murderer is over thirty years old. But can you walk me through a little bit of the timeline, because did you do this after Rudy? Because I could never tell with release states and stuff.

There concurrent those are two scripts that I developed when I first So I had this nice job at Columbia Pictures as an executive, but Sony bought the company and it was a public company, so it was a windfall for me because they bought everybody's stopped options. So I thought, no, this is a chance for me to not be an employee, and that I was able to get an actual deal

I take it that's where you met, mister Travis.

Actually I was dating. I met her while I was an executive at Columbia, and sometime after that I called her and we went on a date and we've been together since that day. But because I was not really in the I didn't grow up in the film business, and I wasn't I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an artist, dating an actress was a unique I grew up in a fairly religious, conservative home, and so we looked at the world extremely differently. Expansive was the word she used.

How do you find the script and really say, Okay, this is going to be it, this is going to be the next thing I do.

When I was an executive at Columbia Pictures, there was a young writer named Robbie Fox, who I'm still very close friends with to this day, who I met with and I had talked to him about this issue that I had that I'm marrying on dating an actress and it does it I don't know that I can live with. But and he thought that was funny, and so he wrote a treatment of this idea and that a fear

We talked about that list of demands, what other things were on that list?

He wanted the father that he hadded a character of the father. He wrote that character, and that he played the character, and that he have the freedom to do a rewrite himself, and a lot of that, like all that Scotted AGAs and the scottis all that is, Mike. The original script that was written by Robbie Fox, I would say it was more of a It had like

I wonder if that adds to the almost hitchcock nature, and I'm sure you're familiar with that with throw Mama from.

The Train exactly. In fact, to make for Mamma from the Train, there was an absolutely brilliant comedic writer, one of the best writers I've ever met, named Stu Silver still writes. But he wrote that script on speck and I was in a position to buy it. His manager presented to me an amazing producer named Larry Bresner, since passed away, but was a talent manager who managed Billy Bristol and Robin Williams and Woody Allen and many others.

It was forever before Arthur iiO came out, though, wasn't it.

Yeah, but they still wanted the rights. The movies are hard to come together. There's so many component pieces to it that you think it gonna happen quickly. The Godzilla rights took nine years.

Even imagine the red tape.

You had to go through with the Japanese producer, not just.

The producers, the creator, the original Godzilla creator was alive. Then I had to play golf with him. But yeah, so you never know with films. He could sometimes it happened quickly and sometimes they take decades.

How did Tommy SCHLAMI come to the project.

Billy Crystal, who I had done throwm from the Train with and was thinking about doing so. I married an axe Nurder but didn't had done an HBO comedy special with him. Tommy directed an HBO comedy special with Billy, and Billy told me I remember exactly. I said, what do you think about Tommy? He said, he's got he's got a funny bull. Those is exactly what he said. He's got a good funny bull. And we knew already

So it was all about.

He had this phrase, lay down tracks, one eyed Jack, lay down tracks, one eye Jacks. And what he meant by that was if there were tracks, In other words, if there was a dollar, then the camera was not going.

To catch two eyes.

It was only going to catch one of them. Lay down tracks one eyed Jacks. And he believed that when the punchline in a movie is delivered, the camera has to stop and you need to see the face straight on both eyes to deliver the punchline, and then you need a reaction shot. But if we're moving the camera and you're just catching the side of the face when the joke is delivered, he believed the joke is not optimized. Tommy did not agree. Tommy was more of a filmmaker.

So was it always a given that Nancy would be the main female lead.

Sharon Stone wanted it very much at the time Mike and I had dinner with her. No, No, she had an audition and the studio had to approve of it. Of course, Mike Myers was the head of the studio, but his executives who were someone named Mark Blatt who was still very active, and Stacy Snyder, who's still also very active. They were the senior executives that worked for Mike, but they were difficult and approving. They liked Mike, but they really wanted to be careful that we were casting

How was that working with your girlfriend?

It wasn't easy, but we got through it and we got engaged.

After that, so there was some success then. Yeah, and you guys are still together now. Yes, Ah, that's amazing, that's great.

Yeah.

The cast for that movie is just phenomena. Alan Arkin and Lapaglea. The way that they go back and forth, that is some of my favorite stuff in the whole movie.

Yeah, I love that scene two words therapy.

I loved that.

But also there were all these cameos that were great. Phil Hartman in particular, and Michael Richards and Stephen Wright and Charles Groden. Yep, we worked hard on that movie. We put a lot into that.

What do you remember about the making of the film.

Well, the obviously the notable thing was there was some tension between the director and the lead actor, so that was a lot to manage. At the end, it worked out. We reached compromises, but it was a lot of stress during the making of the film, and then we did

Did I read write that the ending was changed for the film.

It wasn't rewritten it. We just reshot it.

That's all, Okay.

What was the original supposed to be saying?

It was just we shot it better.

I thought maybe she was supposed to be an ex murderer rather than Amanda Plumber.

No, Amanda Plumber was great in the movie. There was some discussion it was an actress Inlita da Vidovitch who looks like Nance, and that would have been a very different movie in some ways interesting as well. Amanda was the way she performed it almost as to tell you know that she's so extravagant. We knew that was going to be the ending, I would say for those that haven't seen it, but Gooding most people on your podcasts have seen the movie we were contemplating.

Happily ever after, I went to see it at the theater, and I remember having a fantastic time when I saw it all the way back in ninety three, still of it today. I didn't get why people weren't flocking to this movie. It was incredible.

Who knows, but Mike may have been right. It might have been the title.

Can you tell me about the posters? Because the poster always looked a little strange to me, where he's got the flowers behind his back and it looks like she should be holding the naxe, but she isn't.

I think the studio didn't know where to go with it, so they just try to make some sort of pseudo hitchcocky and murder thriller comedy, and it just seemed like

It You've produced so many different things over the years.

I'm curious.

Are there things about projects that attract you in nately or were you obvious looking for a new challenge.

I just was responding to things that were inspiring at the time. When I first started, I said, I didn't really know much about movie making at all, so I tended to gravitate towards stories that I could relate to. So I worked on a lot of sports movies. So that's why it's like Hoosiers in Bull, Durham and Hateman Out and Rudy. You know, I understood sports very well.

Collateral is another one that I just cannot say enough nice things about, just so well made and what a great turn for Tom Cruise in that movie. Definitely one of the best times he's played a villain.

It was supposed to be Russell Crowe and we developed the script at the time. This is right around the time that I decided to leave Hollywood, but I was partnered with a writer, director Frank Darabumm, and we were going to form like an imagined pictures of partnership together, and this was the second film that we did together. Frank rewrote that script and his rewrite was really beautiful, and Russell prow read it and wanted to do it.

You mentioned leaving Hollywood. I'm curious what you were working on these days.

Actually, I didn't really start as a filmmate. I was really interested in many things, and I just fell into the film business having come out of business school. But I was interested in enterprises in general and business building, and there were a lot of things that were interesting me besides film. And around that time I started getting very involved in various Internet ventures, and a couple of them became fairly significant and more fruitful for me than

That's fantastic. I will definitely be looking that up.

Rob. Thank you so much much for your time. This was great talking with you.

That is my pleasure.

All Right, we are back.

And we were talking about so I married an axe murderer, and yeah, you talked about that alternate world where what would have happened if Bill Hartman had lived. I would have loved to have known an alternate world where this was a hit, and maybe we actually got more Mike Myers Sons prosthetics for a while and just actually had him show up like a normal person, like going back to the Pentaborat the main character that he plays in there,

When I was watching upin Tavert, the one thing I kept running into my mind, it's like, who does he remind me of? And then it hit me, it reminds me of Bob Hope in the seventies. It was a period where he just kept going to what was popular and what he would what people liked liked years ago, and he keeps hitting it to diminishing returns, and watching this, it just seemed like, Okay, well this work Land did

You know, that's fascinating, Like the way you're describing it, and I haven't seen the Pentavern, but it almost feels like it speaks to whether he doesn't trust himself or he doesn't trust us. He doesn't trust us to like him if he's not a makeup, or he doesn't trust himself not to be funny if he's not a makeup I won't Maybe if this had been a hit, maybe he would have felt like there was that trust.

That's what I think too, because like now you can't see him where he's not under a ton of stuff. Like I think a lot of people were like, oh, look at who is this guy when he was in Inglorious Bastards. Though with that, I was just like, wow, that is really bad. That does not look good at all. And then you get just like slight makeup stuff with things like Bohemian Rhapsody, which yeah, there's the irony of him talking about Bohemian rhapsoy to the song and how

I've grown to love the cat because Holy because here's why. Because the behind the scenes story is so fascinating to me. And also the fact that he just clearly the whole movie was a penance for him. It's because you did not use rockets, so you're sentenced to do this movie for imagine entertainment. And the fact that he was just miserable on the set and every shot of him is

You know, you might be the other person I've ever heard say nice things about that movie.

Do you think he'll have maybe a Jim carreysh resurrection where he figures out, Hey, I'll be the villain in a kid's movie and I'll do a really good job.

I would love it. I mean, I would love any kind of comeback. I like I said, I have like a weird love hate relationship with him. Anything he does, I'm just ready to see, you know. And I would love for him to have a career come back. Maybe one day he will, I hope. So you know, no, I have nothing but respect for this guy. And I know a lot of people, like we were saying before, like they were laying and wait for this movie and just wanted to take him down so much because of

You're right, and this is also coming out i think the same year as Wayne's World too, so it's like back to back Wayne's World, then Wayne's World two, and this that same year, and with him being the type of person who's comedy I think embedded itself so deeply in other people in the culture, like a pod person like me. I mean, I imagine being at five year old, forty five year old, fifty five year old movie critic. Your teenagers are talking like this guy all the time.

Yeah, we were just talking about that on a recent episode of James Bond podcast. I do and everybody's doing their Awestoin Powers. I'm just like, I never really did Austin Powers. I was much more doctor evil guy.

You know.

I could do the whole, you know, meat helmets speech kind of thing. But I was never the big fan of Austin Powers as much as the other guy, because I thought they was great at that and then all only to find that that was kind of a ripoff impersonation that he was doing of Dana Carvey doing Michael. Yeah, that's kind of sad. I kind of bummed that he took that without asking Dana Carvey if it was all right.

Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, that it was like Dana Carvey, who will put the finger to the side of his mouth.

Because Lauren would his chow his cuticles or whatever. And then the whole idea too, of this not having any sort of special features for the DVD or anything, that I had to buy this four K to see these things, and there's no setup, nothing that as far as like, oh well this comes at this point, it's just like boom. They take twenty seven thirty minutes of cut scenes and they just squash them all together, throw them onto this disc and that's it. You know, Like there's no commentary,

Really, does she say something different? I don't speak that. I don't really speak Gresha, but I thought she called them little boys or little mean boys or something.

Was it like linear? Did it? Like what did it like play out kind of like the way the scenes play on the movie.

That was one nice thing where you're like, Okay, I can see where this was supposed to be and I remember this from reading the script. Weird people in the coffee Shop. There's a guy named Sack who's just a person that lives on a sack. There was a guy named Gus, who I guess is like his mentor, and he's and I can't remember who the actor is that played him, and I tried to look him up last night just to make sure I didn't say the wrong person,

Oh, how how is it?

And he's like, oh, yeah, it's fantastic. And then later on Harriet is talking with this guy and he's just talking about how Charlie's not that talented him, Like, go, okay, there's a lot more about the smoothie. You actually get to see the smoothie being made. There's all the stuff about the photographs that Rose takes. Of course, there's this stuff about the father that I mentioned.

There's also a Bart sequence. Did they shoot that?

I think there is a Bart sequence, because yeah, they do talk about that, but I'm trying to remember what happens in that one.

It's like a bit where like she keeps getting closer and closer to push him off the some way. No, it's not okay, okay, because the gag similar to the gag in Austin Powers where the guy keeps getting closer and closer, but then when they pull back you realize he's really really far away them guys. It's basically that he kind of cannibalized that scene for Austin Powers. He later used that yeah, oh.

Yeah, and Austin Powers is a whole thing about my girlfriend is a femba who wants to kill me. He's really got a complex. I mean, what do you think is the most quotable line for you personally? Because I know mine. Mine is just clearly a hard hearted, harbing gerve hagas. I love that line.

I would probably say.

Hey, Isan, what you sprew up one more time?

I'm gonna kick your spaghetti bending buck back to Milan not now?

Not now?

Was it too much with the ethnic slurs.

So it was fine.

It was not paisand pie zaw.

With the mispronunciation of Milan. I cut out the Paisan part of it at least, But yeah, mine.

Is I'm gonna butcher as Charles Growen's line, he goes, No, I really like you doing that. I'd say, I think I'm saying that wrong.

Would you mind not doing that?

I'm just bother you. No, it's one of my favorite things. Oh it is so good. Oh my god, he's awesome.

And I think the one that probably just absorbed into my life the most was the way he breaks things into syllables, because I know I said so love ed forever, and I think I still talk like that, So love Ed.

Yeah.

There's even a part two where they stop for gas, and it feels like it's going to play into something bigger because he gets out and goes into the gas station to pay for gas. You see her take the keys out of the car, and then you see her outside of the car and she's like, I'm going to go in for a snack.

What do you want?

He asked for like beef Boleignier's or all this kind of stuff, and he's like, oh, actually just a bag of chips will do. So he goes, she goes in, and then they cut too later, so the whole thing of her taking the keys never pays off, And then they cut to later her looking behind her while they're

Second kind of thing.

But they never again in these deleted scenes, they never say who this kid is. So I'm like, Okay, I think he's supposed to be Harriet and Charlie's kid. And then after Charlie does his poem at the coffee shop at the end, his dad steps up and does a whole poem all about Heat, and I'm like, okay, I'm glad they cut that too.

Aw justice for Heed.

Yeah, and he like changes his hair so he's got dreadlocks.

What about that article? Like the article, may it seem like Heath goes up and does like beat poetry.

No, it's a picture of Heed on the screen. You know how Charlie like will show those pictures of Harriet or Sherry or anything. Yeah, it's a picture of Heed because they show him coming in and like looking at the camera and they stop it and then they use that photo of him up there like he's recording something.

So I mean, if anybody in this movie is going to be an AX murderer, it's Heed, right.

Yeah.

Heat is definitely the one with the who is justified and growing up with rage issues of course.

Yeah, no, that would be awful to have Stewart as a father and just constantly making size and fun of the size of my head.

Yeah, you birth my fault.

I didn't pick it all.

Right, Let's go ahead and take another break and play preview for next week's show right after these brief.

Messages, today's my birthday nice to be very.

Nice to see you all. Listen.

I got a very funny story.

I gotta tell it.

Have you ever been to an army hospital?

When you see it live, there's more effect than a protest.

Thirty I want at sixteen.

I'm a very frank person, George.

I'll lay it right on the line. Your script, although it is an excellent one, does not have the ingredients for a commercial success. You see, I must present the project to my investors, and that project must reach certain requirements.

I mean like writhing love Garden.

That's it.

You've got to wait till she says something.

Can you just answer and you play it by year?

That's our Do you like it here? Please don't kill this hair.

You know you're better than him. I need him for.

My bread and butter. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be out on the streets.

Please please have mercy.

On his soul.

Right, you must be number thirteen Business thirteen.

Wore you O?

No one? I don't think exist.

I don't understand.

Could you try?

That's right?

We will be back next week with a look at a bunch of rare, underseen or lost movies for May, and we are starting off with one called there is No thirteen. So until we go, I want to thank my co host this week. So Amy, what are you up to these days?

Oh?

Well, I'm the film coaduct the Los Angeles Times and I co host the podcast Unspooled with Paul Shecher, who I'm sure people out there know and love for How did this get made? And unspool As our podcast, we were going through the best movies of all time. We did AFI Top one hundred was season one and now Who We're doing a lot of our curiosity, but also the Letterbox Top two hundred and fifty. So we just

Mike, how about yourself? I don't know if you guys have ever heard this anecdote about an alpie spherus. Apparently there was they butted heads on Wayne's World and they he basically barred her from doing Wayne's World too, because like apparently he wanted to take out the head banging Saint Wayne's World and Penelopie Sphrus like went over his head and kept it in And there was other things she kept in and they had a very contentious relationship. Now I heard the story, and I can't track down

Well, yeah, I probably should have said that when we were looking for interviews for this show, so I reached out to Tommy Shlami, who has publicly gone on the record talking about how much he really disliked working.

On this movie.

I think it's at emmy Legends dot com. I'll also link to a video in the show notes that he is not shy about that.

I literally was going into this believing that this guy, who I still think is an enormous talent and actually a really gifted actor was going to branch out in this movie. It was going to try you know, I thought this movie was for thirty year old men or older people about their phobia of commitment. This was not

Pulled that off.

And then talking with Robbie Fox, the screenwriter who kind of gave me a no, I don't want to talk about this, but then like reached out to me later on like, well, maybe I do, And then he called me and left a message no, I don't want to talk about and then he called me again and we talked for like an hour, and at the end I was like, so, are you ready to go on record

I love hearing Mike Meyer's stories and I love telling Mike Meyers stories, but if I could make my small plugs. I'm in Shock Cinema number sixty five. I will be in Shock Cinema number sixty six. I'm hoping this time I can someone will talk to me and tell me about their acting careers. Also, I'm in Robin Bushy's a Sonic Sewer. It's a music theme follow up to his magazine Cinema Sewer. I'm writing about I'm defending basically the career of Darryl Dragon, aka The Captain from Captain of Tanil.

I'll tell you my first forty five I ever owned was Level Keep Us Together.

I think it's a better song than people are ready to admit. I enjoy that song. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much y'all for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at Wirdingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the projection Booth take over the world.

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