TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE

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Death and lust. So spend a tender hour of boiling and running. Oh boy. Welcome to our very own Twilight Zone. The live streamers will have heard the most brilliant Rod Serling impressions ever in the history of mankind, and yet I didn't press record, and we went for like five minutes. Luckily, I looked back to see that it had not... Well, I did press record, but it wasn't in record mode.

Yeah, do you think that would be like an episode of the Twilight Zone? Two podcasters and they recorded an episode and then they look over and the twist is it wasn't recorded. But they recorded an episode and like solved a riddle of mankind. And said...

How did we do that? I don't know. Thank God we recorded it. And I look back and it didn't record. Well, Matt, you were being funny because we started off with some Rod Serling impressions that were not so good. You don't have to admit that now. That's lost to time.

As far as anyone else knows, they were the most unbelievable. Talk to people who are watching it on the live stream and they'll go, yes, they were right. They were the best surly impressions I've ever seen. Do not blow our secret. Yeah. Sterling Serlings, they would say. Oh, those were Rod Sterling impressions, if anything. Well, this is with Gourley and Russ. It is, and I'm just looking over my back. You can see that.

I should try to move. So live screamers, if ever you see that tiny little red light go out. Somehow flash it on the screen. It's probably in the comments full of like, you're not recording. You're not recording. Oh my God, the red light is not flashing. Get out of there. There's a man on the wing of the plane. There's a red light that's not on on the recording.

Recording machine. So this is with Gourley and Rust. I'm Matt Gourley. And I'm Paul Rust. You can live stream like we just said, which means to view these recordings live as they happen if you subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash with Gourley and Rust. You can get feature length commentaries, get your...

name read out mailbag episodes let's zoom through all the things we talked about we talked about how we both love this movie yes we're talking about our origin with the twilight zone how i watched it quite a bit as a kid i watched the movie as a kid haven't seen it since was scared of the lady with no mouth uh yeah uh hated when a western came on twilight zone but otherwise loved it how about you yeah uh hey that was a good summary uh yes loved twilight zone loved uh watching them as a kid um

With my family, it was kind of like a nice little end of the day before bedtime to watch a little... Oh, so they'd be on late day or something? They'd be on probably like 9 o'clock on WGN or something. Oh, really? Yeah. Mine was like... 12 to 1. Ooh, the real Twilight Zone. Monday through Friday. Oh, 12 to 1, like 12 p.m. to 1? Yeah, yeah. Ah, ah, ah.

Yeah, because now they're basically, they're like Sci-Fi Network, right? I'm not sure. They're on Netflix, I think, too. Oh, of course. Yeah, right, right, right. But we didn't say this when we were recording. Thank God, something new. Yeah, but I think there's an argument to be made that Twilight Zone, the Twilight Zone, the TV show, might be the... best slash coolest thing that TV's ever done? More than the cartoon mask?

Sorry, Matt. I know you really like mask, but it's such a cool thing. It's like cool in its ideas, like just that Rod Serling. A good-hearted man with principles is finding ways to tell stories that are about something and use the medium of TV. to kind of get into what was a very conservative time, kind of inject some progressive ideas into the young minds of people, or the old minds of people watching it. And how many times has it been...

imitate it too. People trying to do their own anthology. And even the show itself has been rebooted? Yeah, there was the 80s one, which we also watched as a family. We love the 80s Twilight Zone remakes. Jordan Peele's remake, and then all the countless sort of anthology shows that have been inspired by it. Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Outer Limits, Dark... Tales from the Dark Side. Tales from the Dark Side.

Friday the 13th. Yes. Freddy's Nightmares. Freddy's Nightmares. There was... Tales from the Crypt. Yes. A Wes Craven one called Nightmare Cafe. Oh, that's right. Yeah.

One that I thought of last night when I was watching this, I was like, oh my God, we watched this all the time. Because we watched Tales from the Dark Side, as this 80s stuff goes, but the other late 80s and early 90s ones, that was like a syndicated... scary show Sunday nights before you have to go to school so it was like this kind of like weird like I gotta go to start school tomorrow but on WGN there's a new episode of monsters

Do you remember that show? I vaguely do. I think at that point I was just out living a young man's life. I was going to say, you were probably not watching WGN on a sunny night before. Well, we didn't even have WGN except on cable. That's your Twilight Zone. I know. You weren't in the airing path of WGN in Chicago. Because there's also amazing stories. Even Goosebumps, kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

what was the Are You Afraid of the Dark was a kid's version on Nickelodeon like Goosebumps but Monsters had that really it was like a cool opening where it was like it looked like the suburbs and then it goes into a house and it was like a family of monsters who were gathering around the TV, and it's like a one-eyed dad. But the creature effects were really cool.

And Tales from the Dark Side was also, like, that would play during the day, and you'd hear, like, the theme song playing in the other room. Spooky. But, yeah, just the way the ideas of the Twilight Zone. The way that they're made, that they're like black and white and have some sort of like...

I mean, there's still, not all of them, but a lot of them are still creepy. And the fact that that was on broadcast television is just a really cool feat. And they're like perfect little one-act plays. Yes. Often in... a bubble, you know, where you could shoot it on one set. Sometimes not, but... Yeah, and didn't... Rod Serling had his... cut his teeth doing, like, those Playhouse 90. Yeah. So, like, they are kind of the... the...

I mean, television, how cool is that when they were doing like Playhouse. I know. Schlitz Playhouse. It was always some company name. So that Twilight Zone was carrying on that. uh, legacy of the like single story. Yeah. I mean, it's one degree away from radio really. Right. Right. It's just like, yeah. Thriller hour or whatever. Yeah. But, um, yeah, I love them. And then.

It was fun just getting a little spooky, creepy tale. And then this movie, when we were saying in our previous recordings, you had watched it on... Select Vision, perhaps? Select TV or VHS? I don't know. I know I saw it at home, and I feel like I watched it with my mom, maybe, and remember being afraid of the sister with no mouth.

Oh, I also very much remember Vic Morrow dying. That was such big news. I remember watching that on the news. I remember that being the cloud around this movie. I remember watching the movie, knowing that, and the kids dying. And you're growing up in Southern California when it's on the news. Yeah. And I didn't know who Vic Morrow was, but then I did because of this. And I certainly knew who Spielberg was, and I was aware that he did.

this that his segment which after reading our wonderful researcher brantley's notes i didn't realize he was going to do a bit more of a thriller but then after the deaths opted to do something a little more uplifting Yeah, he was originally going to do a really good original episode called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. Which is that one? The idea is that it's like, it's kind of like... favorite type of anything of the like growing paranoia amongst a group of people where they

people start turning on each other. So whether it's like the, um, treasure of the Sierra Madre or like the thing, like seeing that happen, it's that like the power goes down in a suburban neighborhood and people start speculating why the power has gone down and the people who aren't freaking out are seen as suspicious. And then it's just basically like probably a... It's the cold, it's the...

Cold War. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blacklist, sort of, if McCarthy comes to the suburbs kind of idea. Is there any stars in that one that went on to be? I don't remember. Yeah, I should check that out. I wanted to rewatch all the original. Even though the first one, there isn't really one. There's a couple that mix together to form that. But yeah, the original, or when Spielberg was going to make it, it was going to be shot at night.

outside with pyrotechnics and children. And after the accident in John Landis' segment, he was... I think he just tried to get out of... doing the twilight zone movie and then he was contracted so he was like okay if i have to do one I'll do this kick the can segment instead because... And you can tell it's like shot on set. Even when they go outside, it's like a stage. It's all controlled. I mean, maybe we should just kind of...

get through the Vic Morrow stuff so we can talk about the movie, kind of like the movie does itself. I mean, interesting. Do you feel like that placement of this story is an opener? was intentional after the accident or was it always that way? There, there does seem to be a little feeling of like, everybody knows this, let's get it out of the way. Yes. Yeah. I've thought watching it.

Is it like a choice to not have it not be... If it wasn't first, then it would just kind of be like a gloomy thing. It has to be, yeah. I mean, it could also just be... It was always going to be first, but I'm curious, when you watch it, how... And I've read three books about... Ever. Charlotte's Web. Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten. Home Alone.

I've read this book called Outrageous Conduct. Another book that came out in the last couple of years called Fly by Night. And another book that came out during a... outrageous conduct called special effects that are all about the trial and the behind the scenes stuff that led to the to the accident and uh because it is uh pretty fascinating uh i mean tragic as well um but the um so there's a lot to be

thought about and considered. But the, oh, I bring it up because I've never really gotten an answer reading those books about the ending of that segment. Yeah, I... Not to cut you off, but just briefly, because I haven't seen it and I've since seen stuff about it. In fact, an endorsement for a listener to this show and my good friend Jay Cheel.

cursed films on shutter. And there's an episode about this. I thought that it ended the way that they died, that you see the helicopters and the explosions and all that. I think it's probably a better ending what they ended up with, just him being pulled away to a concentration camp. It's a little bit more poignant, I think. But I...

thought totally thought it ended differently. And I had attached that onto it. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Cause you can see the footage and you know, yeah, I think like, right. You know, it's supposed to go. Nazi Germany, the South, then Vietnam, like in the movie. But then, you know, at the very, very end, he goes back into Nazi Germany and getting...

Being in the train outside the bar when he's yelling to his friends outside the bar, that seems like that would always be the ending. Yeah, maybe it was. So I think... Like I said, I've never been able to get definitive information about it, but it seems like it must have ended where he gets out of the Vietnam War segment and still ends up going back to...

Nazi Germany. Or does he flash back and forth rapidly to other places? And what's the context of him carrying the two children? He's saving them, right? Yeah, which is a really... It gets mentioned in a couple of those books. It's fascinating how it came to be because it's kind of a product of 80s big studio thinking, which is John Landis wrote the script.

It didn't end with the Vietnam, or it ended with Vietnam, but it didn't end with him with the children. A studio executive at Warner Brothers said... This character is really, you know, it's an ugly. Reprehensible. Yeah, character. It would be great if he gets to have a heroic redemption. That's what I thought. John Landis was like, I hear you on that. Okay, I'll go and rewrite it. And then he rewrote it where it was... When he gets to Vietnam, he encounters two children. And...

he decides to rescue them from a village that's being attacked. And so the segment would have ended with him... rescuing those two kids and saving them. But, you know, like... So that would have had to have been a different ending, right? I think... Maybe it would have been he rescued them and then... he thinks, okay, I've redeemed myself. And then, oh, I know the tragic ending that is in the story is he still got sucked back into it. And now...

He's on the train. Oh, man. If the movie... Of course not placing blame on a studio executive. It's just interesting that in the attempt to soften... a character is what inevitably led to the accident happening. It's so sad and so tragic, and I can't help but feel the second Vic Morrow comes on screen, you go, He's just started shooting the last thing he'll ever make. And this is like fate has sealed for him when he walks into that bar. And I just feel like such tragedy.

for him and obviously the two kids. Yeah. For Renee, Shinny, Chen, and Micah, we are the two kids. Yeah. The two child actors. Yeah, because, and even the way it ends.

It's like... Well, they don't get screen credit or anything. Yeah, yeah. And then the way the scene ends for him, you know, you would... Overall, it's just kind of a sad... thing because it's not like then the actor's last moment is him sitting in a laying in a warm bed and having a death scene surrounded by like loved ones it's like It's also a really kind of spooky, scary...

just sad ending of him crying out to friends who can't hear him and being pulled away is just awesome. And it's so weird too that I know that they obviously shoot a lot of things out of order and they probably shot all the Nazi Germany stuff at once and had that in the can. but that they had the ending and they had everything pretty much but...

That last scene, and I understand that was all the spectacle, so they probably saved it to the end. That is the case. Yeah, it was saved. The last thing that needed to be filmed was the accident, or, you know, was the stunt on the last day. the last shot of the, you know, production for that segment because it was going to be so... Production heavy. We should mention, I think most people know this, but what happened is that he was carrying the two children. There was a helicopter and...

pyrotechnics went off on the ground that then hit the tail of the helicopter, which then spun it out of control and the helicopter crashed and basically the worst thing you can think of. Yeah. And, um, And the trial, you know, it gets all... It was just really, it seems like it was a... not... There was a lot of choices made, not just on the production, but the way people were... The trial went that had people's hands tied because they were...

The guy who was part of the pyrotechnics, he wasn't charged. He gave his testimony in exchange for not being... charged necessarily so he if he had been part of the people who were defendants it would have been probably different because This guy had already been cleared. And so the communication he had with the other defendants, it was sort of like, oh, now he's off on his own. He's not getting charged. And then the...

The reason the kids were there is because they were hired illegally, but they were charged with that and then that was taken care of and then the trial was about... not that and so if you would have been like if the trial would have been about well the kids shouldn't have been there because they were illegally hired because they would have never No child welfare group would have allowed kids to be in that situation.

knowing what the production was and that it was late at night under these circumstances and so if it would have been the trial had been handled a little differently where it was like we have the guy who set off the bombs And also people are being charged. It just seemed like it was a mess. It does. And all the victims' families settled out of court with Landis and the... producers right and warner brothers and um i will you know having and then i

on youtube along with reading these books on youtube somebody collected they had videotaped every day of the trial every day of when the accident was announced and a trial made like one kind of big like three hour video like broken over two parts And I watched that, and it seems like...

The attorneys, all the attorneys involved had their own egos, and that was like... What? Causing problems, too, that they were having these bickery... in fights and not really focusing on you know with justice yeah but uh having read all that seen that thought a lot about it My feeling is, well, if a court finds somebody not guilty, you do have to... on some level accept that and allow people to atone and forgive them because you're like, well, the...

The things that we have in order to figure out whether somebody is guilty or not guilty, we have that. And then they discovered, you know, the jury decided that they're not guilty. So, okay. And... I think the people who are charged and found not guilty, that's their defense. It's like, hey, I was found not guilty. Give me a break here. The thing that's a little baffling for me is not taking the responsibility for illegally hiring the kids. Because, yes, you could say, well...

I didn't blast the fireballs. I wasn't flying the helicopter. But none of that would have ever happened if the kids... Why did they do that so they could work through the night? And how did a production of this level... like how well people were suggesting oversight what if you make it little people he's holding so he's not holding real kids that was decided that wouldn't be right yeah and then it was then it was suggested using

Dummies. And again, that was like... And yet Vic Morrow would still be dead. Right? Yeah. True. So like... It was decided, okay, then we need to have real kids. And then once that was decided, it was like, well, they're not going to... they won't be allowed to be on set with these loud noises and the helicopter and the explosions going off. So they, Oh, so they, the reason I thought it was just some like kind of technical thing, but they really were like,

this is dangerous. We can't get kids, so we have to hire them illegally. Yes. And that's where I think it's like, oh, there is some responsibility for those deaths. Because... The workaround was based on the fact that they knew it was dangerous and they wouldn't be allowed to. And then the cat's kind of out of the bag, which is like, okay, so then nobody's really around. Right.

So there's not even the potential to be like, okay, no watchdogs. There are pyrotechnics, but let's make sure we do the best that we can to make sure that this goes on. Now it's just like, cause also that's when you get into John Landis. So I think.

A lot of reports from the set were like, no, bigger, faster, let's go, let's go. I want huge explosions, right? And whether he told the helicopter to lower down. And... the helicopter pilots saying, well, when you lower down, then you're getting close into the flames and it makes it, but in that moment, how do you say to somebody, I mean, you're supposed to yell out.

I'm not supposed to go lower right now, but it's, you know, and I get it too, that it's like, Oh, if there was a precedent where any accident can always be, you can, uh, go up the chain of command and then be like, the director was ultimately responsible, then that gets into dicey territory because accidents could happen. But I don't know. And a director's not...

like a CEO at a corporation bilking people for money. It's not, it's not that tidy. You know, the producers really, the director is like responsible for the creative elements of the film. Yeah. Not entirely. the logistics in the below the line. production you know there are a lot of other people responsible for yeah and their argument is you hire professionals in each department so that they're the people yeah right right whether this is safe or not and and land as we know has some problematic

you know, behavior too. So it's really... Well, in the reports, it sounds like he was a difficult person to disagree with, that you would be sort of... He's an intimidating figure. and who would ask for things and want things and if you couldn't deliver it, people were chastised or whatever. So there was a... an environment on set of like, it was difficult for people, but you know, the parents also didn't.

They were intentionally kept away from the set so that they wouldn't be knowing that the accidents were happening or that the explosions would be happening. They were also told if the fire marshal asks, you're not supposed to... claim that you're there the children were hired by getting money from a bank and putting in an envelope and then putting it on a desk to be delivered to the kids so that there was no trace

of paperwork that we hire. This is enough to like this. Oh my God. I don't think I realized a lot of this stuff. Yeah. So like that for me is the part where it's like, more responsibility should be taken for like, we knew it was wrong. We hired these kids because we knew it was wrong and dangerous. We put them in this situation knowing it was wrong and dangerous.

And even with all those decisions, we weren't then now taking the extra step of taking some precaution. Yeah, because what was Landis after the fact? He was fined $5,000 and then settled out of court. We don't know how much, but has he ever publicly... kind of admitted any responsibility at all? His stance is, you know, what we're just sort of saying, which is like, uh, I'm the director. It's people's.

uh responsibility to tell me if something is dangerous or not because i have a lot of other choices i have to make and i rely on experts to tell me um which On paper, that's true. It's a bit of legalese because knowing just like, oh, the kids shouldn't have ever been there. Right. I mean, it's really that. Not to belabor that point, but it's just. It really is that. And then also.

If they would have followed the rules, the rules would have never allowed the children to be in the situation where they were killed. Exactly. Vic Morrow's a different story, and that's also something they should answer for, but that's really what it comes down to. Yeah, and then... This is a smaller kind of version of how does one take responsibility in this that isn't as, I think, large as a, oh, if you followed the rules, the kids wouldn't have been there.

I don't know. I feel like a more precautious person would just...

Well, cut and dry. Be assessing the situation and seeing a helicopter lower down. It wouldn't have happened on a Spielberg set. I really don't think it would have. Yeah, I mean, because there's other... stories specifically on the set of that segment of dangerous choices being made for the sake of moving quickly or for to have the impact of visual uh spectacularism right yeah so like there was a moment in the um vietnam scene when the troop is shooting guns yeah and um

the palm fronds or whatever in the swamp weren't blasting right. And so the production decided to use like live rounds.

from shotguns to shoot the things, which is like, no live round should ever be used to make something blow up better. And there was some irresponsibility about how much... um wanting the explosions to they did a test rehearsal run it was like those explosions have to be bigger and that helicopter should be lower so just like um a desire for This spectacle seemed to cloud sensible judgment, which is just like, oh, you shouldn't have a helicopter lower closer to...

fireball is going off. And the helicopter pilot survived, right? Yeah. And he was one of the, part of the team of defendants in a way that sort of helped.

the defendants in a way because now we're all being charged and so if he's just taking instructions and it seems like it's all it was all decided upon them and it wasn't anybody going rogue and then they were able to blame that guy who's firing off the pyrotechnics as well that guy was going crazy we were just doing our thing he sent the blast off at a point they're united yeah it's just this like you look at

The Western Rust where Alec Baldwin shot and killed the camera. The DP? Yeah. Yeah. There's also that Lee Horsley movie. um sword and the sorcerer where the the villain of the movie falls off a cliff and the stuntman fell off the cliff and died but that shot i believe is in the movie oh wow It's just, it does seem to repeat itself. Yeah. No matter how many, I don't know if Rust, it seemed like, I've read a bit about that, just the chain of command and the...

The fact that it was an independent production seemed to have a lot to do with it. Right, they were able to not be under the watchful eye of Warner Brothers. Yeah, they're out in New Mexico, I think.

Oh, oh, this one you're talking about. Oh, Rust, yes, yes, yes. Well, this too, yeah, I mean, because it was kind of a low budget. Right. Yeah. Warner Brothers was doing the, they were... not directly involved it was like this production makes this and then we that's why the production was sued that production company Landis's production company right yeah and there's kind of like not necessarily like

Not being glib by being like, oh, it's like a Twilight Zone thing. But there is an episode or something. But it does have this kind of weird... Whatever... Twilight Zone episodes try to get at, which is like how... The hubris. Yeah, how a human being can create... chaos that's outside using institutions and stuff to to wreak havoc as opposed to um uh not as opposed to like i guess what i'm saying is like The Vietnam War existed. It was tragic in its own way.

The film brats who are making Vietnam War movies, they're all in agreement. Like, we're anti-Vietnam War. And then... filmmaker in their attempt to condemn the war is using a lot of the industry and mechanics of Fireballs and helicopters to recreate warfare. And a kind of, ugh, like, colonialistic way of... filmmaking versus right the story is saying an american is going to come in and make this better he's coming in to fix it but then he then this production

inadvertently kills two children whose families came from Vietnam to America. So like the idea that like... And this is 10 years. The war is only 10 years ago. Yeah, yeah. And the war ended up...

in some way, still taking lives and trying to reproduce the war as kind of its own weird... And not for, let's say, an artistic commentary like Apocalypse Now. This is for... a kind of oh henry-esque little look at our twists yeah it's a little bit more pop you know it's not like you're getting changing hearts and minds as i were yes and and watching this segment

if you can it's impossible but if you go like if there wasn't a tragedy here if there were no deaths and it had just been filmed i think the criticism you can make for it is like It's just a overall, like I said, even if the death didn't happen. it would still be tasteless in the segment because... It's a tough segment to watch not knowing any of these things. It's fascinating to watch academically. It's tough to watch.

sociopolitically obviously because the old you know times were different back then but that doesn't change the fact that even then it's not just the harsh pejoratives that are used it's the way they're delivered by a very effective actor who almost embodies that type of bigot so well that it it's it's tough it's a tough to open movie that way it's a tough opening for a movie yeah and it's like tough when

I know that the people who made it their heart is in the right place. They think bigotry is wrong. It just gets like a little screwy when you have like... You know, I have to say, when I was watching this, I felt, and maybe it's just my like hindsight of knowing what Landis, his role in all of this tragedy was, but it did have that feel of like...

What was Landis like? Because I know that the signifiers in this are very ham-fisted that bigotry is wrong. But I could easily imagine them ending a shot and then... racial slurs flying on the set you know like joke jokingly yeah and and it just it has there's a meanness to this that's not just included in the story but

In the delivery, there's a harshness that doesn't feel nuanced enough to handle a subject matter, which we've run across a lot, like in the zombie movies and stuff. It's like, you don't get... to moralize like this because you don't understand the nuance of it or something like that. I don't, I don't know what the right way to express that is. To kill a mockingbird where, yeah, it does feel like there's some sort of lurid.

enjoyment out of hearing these words said and this attitude expressed and kind of getting into the like And the melodrama of it. Like, here's our villain. Whaley turns. Yes. And right. I think that's like why then when stuff happens, like when the Ku Klux Klan. um, segment happens and, and famous bigot John Laro cat shows up. And when, but when they like, when the guy, the Ku Klux Klan member like starts on fire. Yeah. Like.

That's just an old Hollywood stuntman on fire trick and then having like gunfire effects of like squibs blasting off and stuff.

To be trying to bring like blockbuster entertainment to this story is like what feels tasteless about it. Like there'd be a way to tell this story that isn't also trying to kind of like... get you off into like a blockbuster exactly exactly weird and then having like little in jokes about like using the name of the guy in Animal House did you catch that like one of the troop guys goes like

Oh, Niedermeyer. We had Niedermeyer here. And at the end of Animal House, they make that joke about Niedermeyer was killed by his own platoon. Okay, I wrote that down only because I was like, that stuck with me. I had to rewind it and I'm like... he's a lieutenant like grunts often fragged their lieutenants because they were fresh out of the academy didn't know how to do like field strategy and stuff like that so they

grenade them and kill them. And that's, I didn't put it together. That was Niedermeyer or is that? Yeah. He said something like Niedermeyer should have, if he was here, he could do this or something like that. Right. Yeah. Maybe we shouldn't have shot Lieutenant Niedermeyer. Yeah. oh man that makes so much more sense so and then yeah but that's but if you're doing kind of like a moral fable you shouldn't put like in jokes about your movie. Like that also just makes it not as like a pure of a,

This is how I feel about something in my heart and I'm trying to express it. And then like doing kind of like cheap references to a... to apocalypse now like when he comes out of the water yeah and then the platoon guy who like gets everybody to quiet because he's the the person who can perfectly hear where the You remember that segment in apocalypse now where everybody gets quiet. So the guy can hear to know exactly where to blast it. They sort of use that. It's like part, uh, hot shots.

part Schindler's List. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But neither done with the tone or style that both of those deserve, you know? Yes. And when he comes back to, and he gets shot by the, there's a shot that sort of echoes a shot from that.

what's it called z where like somebody gets shot in the back they fall over yeah and like using the whatever the iconography of serious movies in this blockbuster treatment of a Twilight Zone thing, all of that stuff makes it feel like, yeah, even if this didn't lead to a tragedy, it still would just kind of be...

It's so hard to separate the specter of the tragedy from this. But when you really try to objectively do it, it's not a successful segment, I don't think. And when I think of liking this movie, I'm thinking of the... third and the fourth easily I mean you talk to anybody and I'm sure that would be like who would like those first two more than the third and fourth I mean it's probably like an impossible feat to me to you know to like

Because like you said, it's the only one that's not based on a previous episode. It's completely originally written, which is weird anyway, because the whole reason they had to do previous... episodes was because that was the agreement with the Rod Serling estate like we'll let you make a Twilight Zone movie but they should and Joe Dante's like that's weird because the whole thrill of watching a Zone episode is the twist ending

So when people know the twist of these, it's hard for them to pack a punch when you're re-watching. Like, oh, I know where this is going. But the fact that this first one is written...

which already has a bit of the hubris of like, why do an old Twilight Zone episode? I can do a new one and it could be just as good when I don't even think it really follows the like... what the heart of a twilight zone is because i'm curious if it had the children being rescued and had some different ending maybe it would have but this i guess it has the darker twilight zone feel where he's punished

But there's never like a reckoning. Exactly. And the treatment of the bigot doesn't feel... Like that story just doesn't feel like a Twilight Zone episode in that... From the get-go, he's underlined and italicized and in bold as bigot, as racist, as prejudiced. And so when he has this sort of like quantum leap, bigot version of quantum leap where he's jumping into the people and being seen as them, like it has the... sensation of um at best like liberal wish fulfillment of like yeah if somebody

an ugly wish fulfillment. Like, Oh, I'd love to see a big and have to go through. Yeah. So even that doesn't really have like, a spiritual quality that's like no you know you're just kind of then like watching a revenge fantasy in a way weird way of like but then at like but the worst being revenged the people that are taking revenge on this horrible person are Nazis. Yes. You're like, you're not, what am I supposed to identify with these Nazis? Yeah. And then the Vietnam people are like,

Pot smoking. And I know he's turned into a Jew and turned into a Vietnamese. person so but it's just it's clumsy and i mean we should probably yeah um i just think like having such an ugly racist caricature too at the beginning allows the audience member to go that's not me and so anything that's happening to him is just desserts yeah and if it had just been a character who quietly shares and believes bigoted things as a way to like get through this life and then they have the experience like

the experience for the viewer should be, what is my own bigotry? How would I feel if I had to be the person who I've been bigoted for? But because... of the spectacle of the segment of the like broadness of the caricatured racist there's just so many points where you can just like jump off and just be like that's not me I wouldn't experience that and

then the whole reason for this segment just goes out the window. And then knowing what happened, you watch it with like the macabre sense of a car wreck. So it's just fraught. It almost should have... I'm surprised they didn't just excise it from the movie. Yeah, right? Because it's not an original Twilight Zone episode, and I think it would be stronger just to have the three, even with the schmaltzy Spielberg one in there. Let's...

Talked about the good stuff. Let's go into the intro, the prologue. To your point, it could be the prologue, then it could have been the boy, the kooky boy, and his kooky family, then kick the can. Exactly. Then Lithgow. And it would have been a good tone change throughout. Yeah, because Landis directed the prologue, which is next to the third and fourth segment.

Some of the best stuff in the movie. I'd forgotten about it. I love that you just got, which you would have at the time, just two dudes in plaid shirts. You got Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks. First thing that was filmed, Brantley Palmer's Notes said this, July 5th, 1982. Yeah. And my hunch, Matthew, is that if...

John Belushi hadn't died three months before this, he would have been the Albert Brooks part because even in their history, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi would go on these... between the first two seasons of an SNL would go on big, long cross-country road trips where they would bring tapes and listen to...

music on these like long car trips so it almost seems like it's inspired by has to be because you know John Landis directed Blues Brothers yeah with those two where they're driving around in a car the whole time but it's like this cool I mean I love it for this reason it's like Blues Brothers meets the opening of American Werewolf in London. Right, right. Because it even has that blue tint, nighttime, two buddies.

Where it's the fun of like, well, this doesn't feel like a horror movie. It feels like two guys hanging out and having funny buddy conversations. And then some crazy thing happened. But like the comedy in it. is like amazing. And it's so improvised. Yes. And almost a little too improvised. You could trim the fat a little bit. But so enjoyable. It's so like naturalistic.

Yeah. And dry. That's why going into the first segment is so jarring. Yes. Yeah. It's really funny. And also just like, I think Diner came out the same year. And diner is usually the thing that's like heralded as like, Oh, it's the first time people characters talk pop culture. Yeah. But this is like that. Like it's, I can't imagine how thrilling that must've been in the theater watching people.

singing TV theme songs to each other and then start recounting their favorite Twilight Zone episodes in a Twilight Zone movie. That's like a really inspired opening for the movie. It's really great. And it sets up the...

End tag of the whole movie very nicely. Yeah. I mean, I'm so impressed by it. It's like, starts off funny, then it gets... scary with the like turning the lights off yeah like oh we could turn the headlights off like that's scary then it goes to like Well, it just starts off fun having two people sing along to like Credence and stuff and then getting ending on a genuine

Shock. And the casting too, especially more appropriate if you had Belushi in there, but you would think Belushi would be the threat, not Ackroyd. Yeah. And it's even that way with Albert Brooks. somehow comes off a little more sinister than Ackroyd. Yeah. And then when Ackroyd turns, it's great. Yeah. Uh, when, uh, Albert Brooks is singing the, uh,

Look at those two apes. Let's see how they go. Let's go see how they live. Because I used to do theme song, name that tune with my friends all the time. It was like one generation before in terms of TV shows or after. And that ending, you know, you said you saw it on Select TV when we had the last like Twilight of our having HBO. I came downstairs once and my mom was watching this. And that moment when he turned around and then came back as like that ghoul.

scared me so much. I think it was probably my first jump scare in a movie of like... Yes, there was some setup that something scary could happen, but it went beyond what I could have possibly imagined. But it was funny that years later, when I finally watched Twilight Zone, the movie... It was so tame. I know. They even add like a funny little sound effect to make it silly. And then when he...

Kills Albert Brooks. All he's doing is kind of like taking him by the neck and shaking like a buddy. Throttling him like, snap out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's pretty... Tamed, but at the time, yeah, in my imagination, it was like the most vicious killing. It is funny, though, that this segment was made first because... It's kind of a, you know, it was made before the accident happened, but like, I wouldn't say it's necessarily like John Landis telling on himself or whatever, but like...

The main thrust of that thing is like, you know what could be scary is trying to do something like really... There's something fun and exciting about doing stuff that's dangerous. So like Albert Brooks, like turning off the lights and Dan Aykroyd being like, I don't like this. This isn't my idea. It does all. feel like it has a yeah and then that it's like ends with a death

Right. It just feels like a weird opening unto itself, given the movie. But I do love this opening. I do too. And I love, I did not remember that they got Burgess Meredith for the narrator.

Yeah. Because I read in Brantley's notes, too, that they wanted... It just says using special effects, they wanted to use Rod Serling's voice, but I would assume that would be like splicing together previously used... recorded words but that would be I guess there was no kind of like computer synthesis or anything back then where you could get intonation right so I don't know how they were gonna

Do that. This is the story of a man. Hey, that's a pretty good sermon. Almost as good as the lost recordings of this show. It is like how when Alfred Hitchcock presents, though, they did those 80s versions. they would use the Hitchcock wraparounds for the 80s ones. So I wonder if that was also maybe the thinking that you could somehow take the footage of other ones. I guess you could take his original... His original intros to each of these episodes. Yeah. Why not?

Yeah, but then there's, yeah, the sort of like, I don't know if it's necessarily ILM, but the ILM treatment of a Twilight Zone opening of the like... The CG. Yeah, I mean, I love that. I did too. That's so cool. And yeah, Burgess Meredith's voice being like... In this first segment, we got to get rocked into the Rocky. Rocky. Well, should we take a quick pee break? Yeah. All right. We'll be right back.

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Okay, we're back. We're back. Kick the can. Yes. Scatman Crothers, Selma Diamond, the guy from The Birds. You know, it's schmaltzy, and Spielberg certainly dips his toe into schmaltz, but a Spielberg schmaltz, though very schmaltzy, still to me is a bit of a warm blanket. Yeah. You know, the music, the cinematography, the setting, there's some problems with this. You've definitely got like the, the magical Negro trope in this. Yes. But I don't know.

I think Spielberg will forever be one of my favorite directors because he truly, truly feels kind to me. And even if he goes a little saccharine sometimes... He just seems sensitive to me, and God, that goes a long way for me. I don't know what it is. I agree. I mean, it is a whiplash with this to go from the first segment to the second segment because one is the...

darkest and this is the lightest. And this feels like, forget what you just saw. Yeah. I mean, the opening prologue is kind of like, they say where there's no hope you can find some every once in a while. Okay. Everybody just relax. We'll find some hope here. Yeah, the Spielberg-y touches are the things that I do really like about this segment, like the... I think the DP is, I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but it's like Alan Duvaux, who did E.T. And he doesn't always work with...

Spielberg is. Not like that was his main DP. Not anymore. Take a break, Kaminsky. Yeah. But it has like ET lighting of that, like whatever that warm... dreamy, kind of like blankety, just like very cozy. Very cozy. And I... I will take a little issue with the schmaltz angle on this. It's only because there is a melancholic, bittersweet ending where Leo wants so badly...

After you've seen that you can become a kid, he wants to be a kid and is not allowed to be a kid. There's a real sadness to that and a kind of tragic. I mean, he finds it in himself and his current body at the end. And there's like... little bit of uplift in that but I felt really stirred by the fact that just because he lived a life and didn't believe in this that he was punished by not being able to go off and be a kid with

Mr. Agee. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting choice, right? That the guy who's the main old guy crank isn't one of the people who become a kid. Yeah. Like... Like he's lost his ability to believe, so he's punished for it. Yeah. And then when he comes back, and then, yeah, there's a total like E.T. type of ending where he's... Got his eyes filled with tears and he's saying goodbye to the person he wants to go with. Yeah. The boy.

Douglas Fairbanks type kid. Mr. Agee, I think, was his character's name. Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't remember the original television of this. How similar... Yeah, I don't remember. I want to rewatch it. Yeah, it's interesting. It's like a little moment in Spielberg's body of work because there came a point where...

He stopped viewing... The stories aren't told maybe through the eyes of a... kid and it does transfer like the identification then starts going with like grown-ups I mean obviously that was true in like Jaws and stuff it's like you're supposed to see it through Roy Scheider's eyes but like this like the debate of like how does one age and and if you get older can you does that mean you have to stop being a kid but like i noticed like when

The old guy is saying goodbye to the family that's not going to take him. Like... there's a young son there who's like Elliot's age and he's completely obscure and blocked. You can't even see him. And then when they go to like the wide shot of them going to the car, the kid just quickly kind of goes in the car. So it's like, Oh, the identifiers that you're supposed to, is either the old man or his son, the adult guy who's saying like, sorry, dad, you can't hang out with us this weekend.

you're not really even getting that kid now as a, well, that's also why this segment is, I feel kind of more poignant and sad than people remember it is that Leo is basically abandoned by his family. It's not like he's an asshole. Right. He's just someone that hasn't, I don't think, been given a life experience to be able to believe in a kind of magical thinking like the others. Oh, yeah, which is funny. Because in most...

Spielberg stuff the kid is somehow abandoned and it's like the plot is like either trying to get back to them or deal with the fact that there's not a parent around to take care of you that he's an old man and his Yeah, and if this was so schmaltzy, he would have been allowed to turn into a kid and go with Mr. Agee at the end. Yes, that's true. And he's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're left feeling, I felt a little heartbroken for Leo. I wrote in my notes, let Leo go. Yeah.

Oh, I mean, the idea of an old person packing up their bags, thinking that they're going to get to spend time with their family. No matter if there's nothing in those suitcases, so clearly when he picks them up. The other thing that felt like interesting... like biographical. Did you notice, um, she plays, uh, uh, Amy Irving's mom and Carrie, uh, Piper Laurie. No, uh, not Carrie's mom. Yeah. Um,

Snod, what's her name? But she's the house patron or whatever. But she's Amy Irving's mom. Oh, yeah, she looks like her, yeah. And so... It would be Steven Spielberg's mother-in-law. At the time? They married in... I think this was... They were together... here, then broke up for a bit, and then got back together in 1985 to have a child together. Okay, wow. And so... It is effectively his mother-in-law, but her character...

comes into the room and is like, what's this boy doing here? Get this boy out of here. Like enough, enough, enough. Get out. But she's great in it. I love it. Like that character is like so good. It does feel like the movie, I mean, it is schmaltzy. It's like too sentimental. Like when I was watching it, it feels like...

But I don't hate on it. It's definitely a precursor to Hook. Yes, that's right. For sure. Yeah. It feels a little like what a... person who doesn't like Steven Spielberg movies would like jokingly or snottily like say would be his Twilight Zone episode which is like a bunch of old people turn into kids and they learn he really leaned into it which I wonder if I don't like Hook and so I wonder if it's like too on the nose

I think so. I think so. That's why I like that little subtle thing at the end, because it does take some of that out of it. But on the whole, it really is. Yeah. Or if it's complicated, if it's like...

In Close Encounters, it's interesting that Richard Dreyfuss' character is a grown-up who wants to be a kid, neglecting his family. You know, it's a little bit more of a scuffed-up character, but when it is, it's just kind of like... so surface like an adult wants to be a kid and tries to be a kid again and you get to see the the same versions of them as kids, even down to Selma Diamond, the little girl kind of talking like this, which is funny. Yes. It's just...

It's way too cute. Although, did you notice, and I can't, maybe the screamers will confirm this. I feel like the cat gets turned young too. Did you notice the cat's smaller? It's a little kitten or something. Well, it's smaller so the girl can hold it. Because it's pretty big when the older woman is holding it. But it feels like the cat turns into a kitten. That's awesome. Yeah, and I think this was a little bit of a...

rush job. It seems like it was shot in a weekend. I don't want to do this Twilight Zone movie. You guys are making me. I'm not going to do the one that I was planning on. I'll do this easier one. If you're like a Spielberg fan, it is interesting to watch and you'll see just the 5% difference of somebody who's not... entirely reaching for like perfection or like maybe it's not their baby from a gestation period of long ago exactly yeah because like there's some shots where they

there's kids who are talking, but in the background, a kid will just be kind of like looking around and not like invested. It was like, whatever we, who cares? Let's just keep moving. Um, the, uh, um, uh, One thing I wanted to share with this is that there is a really cool documentary that was made in Japan and released in Japan that eventually somebody put up on YouTube. but like it must have been agreed that they could come in and be on set before maybe the segment changed but you get to see

this Japanese crew come and visit Spielberg and the Amblin offices on the Warner Brothers lot. And then on set. But you'll love this. They're like shooting a scene, him and Scatman Brothers. And Burt Reynolds and his like city heat. Oh my God. Like clothes. They must just be shooting next door. He walks over and like. just to visit the set and stuff. Oh, my God. So it's like surreal fun of that era. Well, talk about another film tragedy. He took a chair to the face and got like...

jaw injury that gave him migraines and that's why he lost all the weight and people thought he had AIDS and everything. Because he couldn't like chew food because of the chair hitting him. Yeah. Um, I mean, I don't really have anything else to say. I don't either. Yeah. Let's get to the two goodies here. Yeah. All right. Well, first of all, this next one opens with Dick Miller, who is basically the poor man's Vic Morrow.

Yes. Vic Morrow looks like Jerry Reed, but sounds like Frank Sinatra. And I love like Vic Morrow as an actor and stuff because that acting is great in that as good as you could do. Yeah. But yeah, getting to see Dick Miller in a diner. Oh, also that first segment does have some really great coziness when he's in that bar with the wood panel. And a sofa.

There's like an old upholstered macrame sofa. And then one of those fireplaces that's in the center with the red. And that was a real bar in Van Nuys, I think. Yeah, you can go visit it still. It's still there? Yeah. What's it called? Holy shit. I don't know. I've driven by it and I've also, I drove out to the Indian dudes place just to check that out. In Valencia. Valencia, yeah. Oh, just giving

Credit where credit's due. I think one really good part of that for a segment is when he's up on the ledge and he's getting shot at. That's like really suspenseful. Oh, when he also gets blown up and flies into that balcony of stone, but clearly wobbles when it's made of wood.

Yes, the wobbly stuff. Oh, also just wanted to say with the very, very opening, the Logo Loco, I have the VHS of this. Yeah. And the Saul Bass... warner brothers oh yeah i know white on red that's your logo yeah um that plays during that opening of midnight special with and it looks so good when the little like it's like as the black thing it's like

Guys, don't wallpaper those logos. Give me the original. Sometimes it's just, they made the choice with the music to make it work. Let it be in time. But the, yeah, the third segment and the fourth segment, for me, they're good. They're awesome because they achieve what you would want in... If you were like, okay, they're doing... movie a movie version of Twilight Zone episodes the thing I think I would be hoping for is like more contemporary acting

Yeah. I mean, I love old Twilight Zone episodes, but they have that sort of like, that pre-Brando, like people are still kind of...

I told him. Yes, it's a particular type of acting. And then also because of the budgets or the time period, the effects, they're charming, but they can't be at the level of like... uh star wars or whatever like but to see like a a cinematic like vision is really true in these two like they feel like oh a director isn't just shooting a workman twilight zone episode this is like the sets are made

to have Joe Dante's vision on screen. You feel Dante and you feel George Miller. Yeah. And George Miller is like, I'm shooting this like a short George Miller movie. That is a twilight zone story. So you have some sort of cinematic, like, uh, um,

execution of the ideas that like really worked. I think that's like why it's, funny to think that this if it were a streaming movie would have never been structured like this because back then people paid for ticket this movie isn't so bad that you'd walk out so you sort of slog through the

the segments from worst to best, basically. Yes, you're right. Depending on your opinions of them, but something like that. No, backwards, they're like... So you leave this movie thinking, that was a pretty good movie. Yes. And I did. But as we sit here and talk about the first two segments, I'm always like, wait, did I like this movie? But then we get in, let's get into this one. So you open with the kids in the diner. He's playing the video game Tempest, which was a...

a vector based video game that I used to play a lot as a kid. And not only that, but later when shit's going crazy in the house, they use the sound effects from that video game. that part when the blasting sounds, right? Like before the TV splits is when you hear the video game music.

Because it was played with just a knob and a fire button, and you would spin the knob as much as you want, and your little ship would ring around this vector ring as these little things would come up. Do you hear that crunchy synth video?

game music play in stereo watching it at my house was so cool yeah like with it because it got like distorted it was like yeah crunched yeah that whole um segment if you watch it and pay attention the music and sound cues are all I mean it's like masterly like put together sound edited wise it's all responding

to what's happening between the characters. Like a Walter Lance score to a Warner Brothers cartoon. Yeah, and it's like, oh, because it's playing on the TV right now. There's cartoon music coming on the TV, but there's a part where it's like... He goes, well, she helped me because I got into an accident. And then you hear a little sound go like... yeah and then like the if there's a turn where somebody's like why are you doing this that it the

Cartoon music plays like dun, dun, dun, dun. Like it's really cool. It's amazing and how the rooms all echo what's on the TV. Yes. It's so Joe Dante. I'm curious now that we talked about the situation with the kids in the first segment and the stunts. When that car hits the kid on the bicycle, I rewound it because it looks like a kid on that bicycle. You don't see the face, but it doesn't look like an adult.

And it is a real stunt where the car hits the bike and the kid falls off the bike. And it makes me wonder, like, did they just do it with the kid? Yeah. Well, that whole segment opens in such a funny way because segment two is all about like...

Kids are the best. Kids are the best. If you want to be a good adult, you got to figure out some way to remain a kid. And then this one is like... kids are little shits and it opens with him like hitting the arcade game and it's making their TV fuss out and they're looking at him like this fucking kid it's like such a funny and then yeah him getting hit with the bike Kathleen Quinlan is that the actor

so awesome I know she's really great I mean the acting like in this is so much better than those first two segments for sure you're just like oh man that's what this movie needs it's just some contemporary acting and characterization yeah it's something about like Spielberg's already established Landis is already established but Dante and George Miller really weren't and

It's not that they have a lot to prove on this. It just feels like they have a slightly younger sense of what the world was at that time. Yeah. And it works. a bit better yeah no I mean it does seem like that they were like oh we're getting our shot here to like be in this big Warner Brothers movie that's produced by John Landis and Steven Spielberg and then they end up

thing to give to an upcoming filmmaker is a 30 minute segment. Yeah. Did you, do you remember the original one of these with Billy Moomy? Yeah. And the cornfield and yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's different. Yeah. I, I, love I mean the premise of it too is like obviously you can make it about like oh you indulge kids too much and they end up running the house but to me it also feels just like a dark comedy version of any family where a person or an ethos or a religion like

grabs a hold of the reality of a family and how it really does like twist a group of people into being like, Let's just serve this thing and we're going to be okay, everybody. That's the agreement we're making here. We're going to all pray before dinner. Oh, my God. It hit home so much with me because Glenn has been circling a tantrum phase and she's been tantrum-bound in our house.

has a bit of a feel of this like what does young master Glenn wish for today oh my god what's cool though about this movie is that it feels like it's not I think it's in the original episode too it's not Not necessarily that it's like where Rod Serling's like heart is, is sort of like, yeah, people can do. kids people grown-ups whatever they can be selfish and nasty but the real nasty people are the people who

lie to themselves in order to enable that so that they can feel safe or get the good parts out of that. Because he's like, I let you stay in this house. you guys don't ever have to work. You just get to stay here the whole time and watch TV. It's like, oh yeah, they're doing this because there is some comfort out of like serving this little monster. They get stuff that they want and stuff, but.

And then the actors are so funny. I know. And just the angles that they shoot them with and the way that they're chewing the scenery in a good way. Yeah. I mean, that movie is like so... I mean, that segment, I love it.

But it makes me feel weird. Oh, definitely. And that's the point, I guess. It's a Twilight Zone episode you're not supposed to feel like. Yeah, but you don't get it right away. And it isn't really until they go in the house and you see the house on the cartoon and you go, wait, what?

But that's the same house. It's the same house that you just saw outside. It's like wild. And then they go down the hall and you start to see that this is a... cartoon house it's surreal yeah the walls are the black and white hallway is actually black and white yes painted with like the um

The walls are painted with certain shades of gray that it would be if the lighting was that way. Oh, it was painted that way? I thought it was actual lighting. I think it's like different shades of white and black. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you got Nancy Cartwright in this.

Which then ends up becoming its own thing of like, it's so funny of like, oh, how cartoon and life mixes. And she's put into a cartoon. Yeah. And then when she talks, she sounds like fucking Bart Simpson. I know. It's crazy. I, you know, I first... Heard about... I saw that little segment on HBO, right? So that exists in my mind as like, okay, that was the Twilight Zone movie, that scary thing where Dan Aykroyd attacked that guy. Yeah. And then...

driving to Omaha, the Omaha airport in the summer of 1990 to take a trip to Orlando. Whoops. And it's like 5 a.m. and the sun hasn't come up. We're taking a really early flight and I'm sitting in the back and I hear my... sister and mom start talking about the twilight zone accident and i was like what oh and they're like yeah somebody died and that like scratched this itch of like whatever macabre fantasies a boy has plus

movie making it was just like this perfect little thing that captured my imagination and then maybe three or four years later we go to my grandma's house and we come back from like a whatever's Out, we come back home. And your sister's got no mouth. And she's got no mouth and watching the TV. But on TV is the like, when the girl goes into the cartoon. Oh, yeah. And it was so trippy.

but cool. I was like, that's when I was like fully like, what am I doing? I haven't watched this Twilight Zone, the movie yet. And then I rented it the next week. And then from then on, I've like loved it. But that segment, when she goes into the cartoon. is really like uncanny. How does that work so well? And then when nightmare does the video game, it's so shitty. You're right. You're right. I think it's cause like the animation is so dope. And then you see her like,

I think they animate her shadow on the thing of her standing there. It's so well done. And then the recreations of the cartoon beds, the matching little green beds and stuff.

But I love the turns that the actors do too. Like when he leaves, how they... drop the facade quickly yeah they're like fighting over the cigarettes and stuff it's so funny and then the way he comes back and he's like I'm coming back I like to let them know when I'm coming like You know, like I said, it's like some dark version of a dysfunctional family, but it's also like a dark comedy version of the workplace when one person gets to kind of set...

the tone of how the workplace works. Yeah. And when the boss leaves, everybody's like a little lazier, talk shit. And the boss who knows that happens. So they start whistling before they come back to the office. So it's like, I'm going to give you guys a heads up. So you can put up the facade that you're working. So then I don't have to have my ego bruised that I know you don't work. I'm not around. It's a weird, tacit agreement that is so, so great. Yeah, I love it. It's a really...

The main cartoon they're watching is Feed the Kitty, which is one of my all-time favorite Warner Brothers. It's so good. I highly recommend you check it out. I don't want to say too much because it has a couple of little... adorable twists but we watch it a lot in this household it's about a dog mark anthony and a little kitten that he finds that he wants to keep but his his the woman of the house doesn't want him to and the the emotional

journey that the little kitten and the dog go through. Oh my gosh. But it's Chuck Jones at his... like height of powers. That's awesome. It's so good. That's so good. Yeah. And then, yeah, having like a Warner Brothers thing with all these Warner Brothers cartoons and how, like that bunny that comes out.

Both of those effects are by Rob Boutin. Yes, which is... The Tasmanian devil effect is so amazing. And then when you get to the static creature, it's interesting, but it's not quite the same. But when it's whirling out and it's... tactile and looks just like Tasmanian devil and it's

frenzy it's incredible the couch and stuff yeah and they're using the sound effects from Tasmanian Devil I thought it was gonna be Tasmanian Devil I know be too when I first saw it but the rabbit even kind of being like a demented Bugs Bunny yeah in a way then yeah the Tasmanian guy I love all those effects. Yeah, I like it too that the kid, when that stuff happens.

he thinks the grownups are going to like it. I know. Like he turns to them like pretty great. There's like, Oh, Oh, Oh, I mean, it does feel like a, uh, some allegory for like a filmmaker of like, I can make stuff of my imagination come out. But the, uh, uh, the human stuff though, too, of like, The family's...

all on board on, not all on board, but they're just like, they indulge him. But the one family member who has the hardest time with it is the sibling, which is so true. Of course, the older sibling. Yes, because when he goes, well, it's my birthday. And she goes, another birthday. birthday is like such what a sibling would be like and she gets ratted out this power but you're gonna use it for your birthday again fuck you uh

Like the opening prologue too, there's a meta element of this in the Heckle and Jekyll cartoon when they're talking about how you, it's a cartoon, I can be anything. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that. And then that ending when they go into the void. The double exposures are so... brilliantly timed. Do you know how that was done? Separately. They shot it separately. Yeah. What it was was they were in the editing room. I heard Joe Dante talk about this and they felt like there was something amiss.

So they just took another take. They didn't even plan that? No. I thought for sure it was planned because... it times out so well. I know. The way that they space compositionally, that's insane. It was just discovered that you could take one take over the other and when you watch it with that, you're like, oh, you are seeing...

different choices that an actor would make. Oh, I thought for sure they knew what they were doing on both takes and that they were going to go together. And if you just would watch it as like one single take without those dissolves, which is like brilliant. Like what a brilliant mind that you would.

experiment that see that it works then make the choice to have it be in the movie is all cool stuff uh but like if you do watch it if if it wasn't double exposed or whatever it would be pretty lame because they're just like in a foggy area. And even the stuff she's saying is a little corny. It's kind of like you have a power and I want to help you develop it if you allow me and I'll learn from you.

All that stuff that could be kind of corny ends up just not mattering because you're seeing this really trippy, cool effect. Isn't it crazy that these two, Joe Dante and George Miller, come in and kind of out-Spielberg-Spielberg?

What's essentially kind of his own movie because for sure the Lithgow terror at 20,000 feet or whatever, it's kind of a Jaws based thing. And this has some like, antics of like a 1941 or something that no and uh exactly and i've read somewhere that i don't know if this was joe dante's intention but that you could see this kid as like a stand-in for...

Spielberg. Oh, interesting. That it's like a wonder kid who can make things happen. People around him are a little intimidated and will indulge him because they think they... But yeah, we can move on to the last segment. Real quickly, what do you think... this woman's fate is because she takes this kid on and she's got some like agency over him. Yes. But you feel like that can't last. Yeah. It's just going to take like,

She's doomed. Yes. Yeah. I know. What a funny little partnership they formed. I know. And the ending does, I mean, I like the... the effect of the plants growing and blooming and stuff. And then as they go down the road, they're blooming as they go. Yeah. But that's like all pretty like, Oh, E.T. was the most successful movie of all time within the last year. Steven Spielberg's producing it. The music gets pretty like E.T. ish. And then the idea of like.

I can bring flowers back to life. Well, it also insinuates that all he needs is an actual... Like a loving but parent with boundaries. But I don't think that's realistic. I think this lady's fucked. No, yeah. She's going to have a pretty rough parent-teacher conference in a couple of years. Okay.

All right, next segment. Yeah, because the nightmare at how many feet? 20,000, I think. The Spielberg thing of out Spielberg-ing him, you're right. I was watching it thinking like... the array of kind of everyday Norman Rockwell characters that are like awesome and like Jaws and E.T. where you're like, it's the fun of close encounters where you're like,

I know people like that. They're in my neighborhood. One of them's in that movie, Cloak and Dagger. Yes, yes, yes. Well, that's the other out Spielberg is like all the everyday caricature, character people are so like funny and true. Like Spielberg. is best and then the funniest precocious

The kid in the whole Twilight Zone movie is the kid from Cloak and Dagger. I know. And I think this isn't as good as Jaws, but they're out Spielberg-ing Spielberg within this movie is what I mean. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that kid is so... I mean, she is like a... an extension of the Gertie from E.T. Yeah, and look and tone and everything. Yeah, but when she goes, what's the thing she says to him?

You big silly, you used to be a normal person. I know. It's such a funny line, but it's also, it is the terror of that segment is the... Am I becoming not a normal person? Do people see me as not a normal? How am I going crazy here? Yeah, it's so good. Lithgow's perfect in this because he's always a little scene-chewery, but in this, it's so great. Plus, you got... Donna Dixon. Oh, Donna Dixon, she deserved a far...

bigger and greater career. Did she meet Dan Aykroyd on this movie? I think so. Wow. Uh, and you know, she ends up in spies like us directed by John Landis, which has the tidbit of John Landis shares this. he took that job because warner brothers was offering it to him and his attorney said this would help you in the trial

to show that Warner Brothers never saw you as dangerous because why would they rehire you for a new movie? Well, they went on to make a hell of a movie. I love that goddamn movie. But she's so funny in it. She's great. No one talks like her. I know. She's kind of breathy, but there's also like a gravity to her voice because it can get a little deep at times. I know. Somebody with that voice doesn't usually have authority, but she always has authority.

That scene in Spy is like, what? That's what she's like. I have to go back. And if you want to stay here, you can. But if you believe in America, you'll follow. It's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, because it sounds like a breathy supermodel's voice, but she always has something to say. Yeah. Wait. And I feel like she's one of those people that didn't disappear. She just said...

I'm done. Yeah, I could see she married Aykroyd during the Ghostbusters era. You're like, this guy's great. Are they still together? They are. Really? She's putting up with that weird guy? She's also really funny in Wayne's role. She's the waitress that Garth fawns over. Dan, how many more crystal skulls do we need in the house, honey? Honey, you know I save all of them. I know, but we chose a room and then there's some overflow.

Yeah, Lithgow is like perfectly cast. Every character is so well cast. Except what kind of air marshal is that? That guy, that big guy. That feels like such a, I mean. oh my god a filmmaker would give their right arm to have filmed this like it is like what a showstopper from the very beginning when it's like

descending down into the airplane bathroom and the walls are like twisting and war. Imagine having that much room in an airplane bathroom. My God. But the, when that big guy is next to the little girl, like that feels so. Aussie filmmaking. I know, because he's got those... They're not quite speed rampings, but they're...

Crash Zooms and he's doing that Mad Max stuff on a tamer level. It's like when Sam Raimi went to Spider-Man. Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when Lithgow was like cracking me up. This is like such a...

funny performance too because when he first comes out of the bathroom and he's just like spinning out talking about the different numbers and facts of like different crashes It's like special effects put to their best use, which is like there's a real interplay between his performance and what's... happening with the plane so it's whatever on that what would you say it's a gimbal gimbal yeah and the lightning's flashing but it's like he's timing it perfectly with like

He'll like be rattling off facts and a lightning thing and the plane will rock. But he's so focused on like sharing his like weird spiel. He'll take the moment to get himself like, but then keep going. And like, it's just really funny, but also like. I mean, that had to be rehearsed. They had to rehearse where it's like, okay, the plane's going to jump here and you kind of stutter there and then you get to the plane. It's...

By the time I've watched the segment before this in this segment, I was going, I wish they would make more movies like this. And I don't mean anthology movies because anthology movies are almost always horror now. Yeah. Occasionally comedy, but kind of.

middle of the road, and I mean that in a good way, thrillers like this? Yes. Simple thrillers. I wish that they would... do these again yeah I mean he I love the Joe Dante segment but he just sort of blows everybody out of the water with this because it is so it's the most simple of all of them but it has the greatest

Yeah, it's so dynamic. Yeah, and like the human story in it is the one that's the most compelling. I can't necessarily go like, oh, what if I was... racist and I was put in the shoes of the person I'm bigoted towards or I'm an older person I want to be a kid again what if I got to have that fantasy or I'm somebody who's

my brain is warped by entertainment and I push that on the other like all those things are like interesting ideas but like this guy's smart yeah he's like he's a genius or something he's working on microchips and stuff And he can even reason for himself that that would be impossible, that a man would be on the wing. So you're seeing a true vision of what madness must be, where you're like...

I know this can't be possible, but I'm seeing these things and I can't, I can reason, my brain can reason to an extent and then at some point I can't have reason anymore. It's such a... And it works so well because it's George Miller and the effects are so good. And when you see the original Shatner one, and it's just a man basically in like a gorilla suit. Yeah. This, when you first see that...

very like hazy shot of the creature and it moves so fast. You just, you, you, you are in Lithgow seat where you're going, did I just see that? Yeah. And that, that happens a couple of times when you finally see it and its face, you're like, okay, move. creature but before that it's done so well and it's also there's an element of comedy to this but it also is genuinely kind of thrilling it holds up so I know he looks out and sees him on the wing and it's like

You're just seeing parts of it because it's in the mist and lightning's flashing, but you're seeing the work it's doing of pulling the candles out. It's so cool. And it's a proper gremlin. And then... But in every... trick in the book is kind of like used in this you know like so you have these frenetic editing and crazy close-ups but then there's just like at that moment where it's like one long sustained shot where he gets in the seat and then he waits

And the camera always starts pushing in on him the moment when he starts, like, touching the, not the curtain, what would you call it? The screen, yeah. The screen. And then you're like, the moment the camera starts pushing it and he touches it, you're like, oh right, that window's been there the whole time.

Oh God, maybe he's going to open it. And then it's that long build of suspense. Same when he falls asleep. Oh yeah, you're talking about that. It's the face like right up against it. I don't know if you've noticed this, Matt. But you can pause it and they use a prosthetic for John Lithgow where his eyes bulge out of his head. No, I didn't know that. It's cool. Oh my God. In that moment when he screams and sees it, you see the closeup of the monster's face.

You see John Lithgow's face, normal, goes back to the creature. Then it goes to him, and you see these eyes pop out of his head. No, I didn't notice that. It's so cool. Oh, that's impressive. Yeah. And then that music is by Jerry Goldsmith. Do different composers do different segments? I think he did all of it. Because that's the first time Jerry Goldsmith worked with Joe Dante. And that's an amazing score too because... It's almost like a, what are those called?

mashups where the cartoon music will be playing on the TV and Jerry Goldsmith will start like accenting that music with his own score. Well, the variety in this film is incredible. But the...

that music is, it's all like strings. But did you notice when the gremlin touches John Lithgow's face, the music goes... it like gremlins yeah oh my god this is a year before gremlins it's almost like the first hint of the little gremlins oh when the gremlin does that finger wag which is that instagram thing of like home repair like don't do it this way do it this way i've never fucking hated a gremlin more in my life

Of course they would. So you think he's going to crush John Lithgow's face and stuff and instead he just does no, no, no. And then just shoots off vertically into the sky, into the lightning. Yeah. Like a wicked witch style. Yeah. He like jumps off and swirls around. And the story you hear about that first segment is that the spectacle that John Landis was going for was because in his mind, maybe Spielberg was going to have the big segment.

This is maybe apocryphal, but he was trying to outdo it by having these big explosions. Sounds about right. Little did he know that George Miller would be the person you've got to worry about. Yeah. With just one plane set, there's so much done that the movie has actual levity. When they're going down the thing and you're...

It's the horror of seeing how different people would deal with their own demise. You see a couple crying. You see another person praying. And then the girl is like, I don't know how they did it, but she's levitating in the air one moment. She loses gravity and she's giggling. And then the like perfect little bit of satire or whatever, the checked out mom who's like drunk and like, she's like, what is she doing right now? But the...

The movie for me just goes to this thing that's already been at such a heightened pitch. When he smashes the window and things start getting sucked the fuck out of the plane. And then he's hanging out. And it's not enough just that he's hanging outside a window. Ice and snow starts. forming on him. And the, the guy that's trying to, his nemesis is helping him. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, what a wild. It's so good. I had a pull right at that age. And I got it for Christmas or birthday, but I remember...

Film and especially the flashes were so expensive and you could, it came with a thing you put on top like a cartridge and it had five flashes. Yes. And the way she's just burning through there. On those things, I'm like, God, you must be made of money. I was a kid going, I've only got one shot at this. That's so funny. Yeah, you're right. That's what explains the rich, checked out mom. Yeah. Probably. Yeah, they have a wealthy husband.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, when he takes that picture through the window. Which I did once on a plane. And then it just is that glare. It's really great. And then I think the segment when they get down on the plane, off the plane. That was, they needed a new bookend because Aykroyd had to come back to do the like, but Joe Dante, I think. is the film when everybody comes off the plane. Oh. Because it does have a little bit of a different...

Oh, interesting. And I noticed, I don't think the kid's there. So it's like, oh, they got the people they could get, but she's off shooting cloak and dagger. She's a big star. Oh my God. Well, that little twist ending. is pretty great. Yes. Yeah. And Dan Aykroyd looks different. Yeah. Like, he's got a haircut. He looks thinner. Well, he's got a job. And then that last shot, I think, is like...

a Burbank street that's like right outside the Warner. It looks like it. Like they just jumped out. It looks like it. Yeah. Well, anything else? That's all my notes. Yeah. Um, uh, That's all my notes too. I'll recap our scores here. We got body bags. I gave it a nine. You gave it a 10. Cat's eye. I gave it a nine. You gave it a nine. That seems wrong to me.

Why do I feel like Body Bags was better than Cat's Eye? What were our Body Bag scores? Nine and ten for you. I was the ten? Yeah. So it was Bo Derek. I've heard she was, you know what? No, that's got the Stacey Keech thing. I'll allow. All right. What are you going to give the twilight zone? Um, I'll give it, uh, 11 and a half.

11.5. I'll give it an 11. Nice. There it is. All right. Well, we'll close this out next season, next episode with creep show. Yeah. And I was suggesting a episode or two ago that we should. We should rank these films, but we should also rank the segments. So maybe we can come with those ready to go. And we should also come with our next season idea too. So you and I can talk over text and we'll have that. Fun, fun. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank y'all. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye.

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