Dr. Darian Parker covers an incredible amount of topics with a variety of guests from all over the world. He created this podcast as a different way to educate himself and expand his mind because being closed minded is a dangerous thing. Feel free to come on this journey with Dr. D and if you do...your horizons will be expanded.
Thu, 25 May 2023 12:00
Arbiters of Bad Taste is a bi-weekly movie review segment with professional musician, Simon Milliman and fitness professional, Darian Parker. Basically Simon and Darian use movies as a cover to talk about deep and substantive real-life issues. Intro music by Wordsmith: www.wordsmithmusic.com Thanks for supporting my affiliates: Are you ready to feel more energized, focused and supported? Go to https://zen.ai/drdssocialnetwork and add nourishing, plant based foods to fuel you from sunrise to sunset. Use the promo code DOCTORD at checkout to save 15% off your purchase today! Blend anytime, anywhere with BlendJet 2 portable blender. Use my special link https://zen.ai/doctord12 to save 12% at blendjet.com [http://blendjet.com/]. The discount will be applied at checkout using the code DOCTORD12. Ready to shop for better hydration, use my special link https://zen.ai/doctord20 to save 20% off anything you order. Use the promo code DOCTORD at checkout.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Simon, it's an over the top type of conversation today. Now, I told you I had some some anecdotes for this. You did. And I wasn't joking. Unfortunately for you. I believe you. I believe you. Let's start from from the top before we go over the top. Let's introduce this movie to those who because I told you I wouldn't did that photo shoot. That's why we had to reschedule. And I asked the person that I was photographing if they'd ever heard of over the top. No. Wow. Never heard of it. No, granted there about 10, 15 years younger than you and I. Okay. And at what age should people stop knowing about over the top? Maybe our age. So for those who don't know over the top is it's so vesters to loan. And what year was it? You know, I don't remember the year. No, I didn't, I didn't look up the year. It's got to be late 80s, right? Yeah. I was hit and astride. He was a different movie for a slide actually, but kind of similar, but different. So it's a sports movie. It's a sports movie. So it's got, you know, some stuff for Rocky 1987. That's what we're looking at for over the time. 87. Not a lot of things in 87 I remember. So yeah, I'm 10 years old when over the top comes out. So I, my 10 year old self says, this is a good film. Yes. It's a trucker. So is that what the, were 10 year olds, were they the target audience for this movie? It must be because we liked it back then. Yeah. I can't imagine an adult actually, I mean, other than to laugh at it. Yes. I can't imagine an adult going into this film movie and gone, man, what a great movie. What, what a stunning performance by everyone all around. No. You know, no. In fact, I was watching that that long ago and I was like, I didn't mean to watch it. Like it was all, and I was like, oh, over the top. But I just remember the power of the big dude is like, get in here. Yeah. He's sweating profusely. Eyes are big. Yeah, he definitely looked like he had taken, you know, like the smelling salt and stuff, you know, the stuff that guys get power lifters and stuff get hyped up with, you know. They were all definitely jacked up on some kind of energy stuff, you know. Jacked up on some stuff, yeah. Yeah. So, the premise for those who don't know, Sylvester Stallone is a truck driver and he's the quintessential truck driver. Every truck driver looks like Sylvester Stallone in 1987. Every one of them. Just ripped. They all have a cable curl machine in the truck so that they can work out their arm wrestling rotations while they're driving. This is just standard truck driver fare. Standard. They all wake up first thing in the morning and do some calisthenics, which we see Sylvester Stallone's character and his son doing. And that is the premise of the movie. The premise of the movie is a road trip with dad and dad has not been in the picture, but mom is dying. I don't remember if they ever specify what she's dying of. I don't remember that. No. No. Must be some kind of cancer something, something that's going slow. Very soon. And her kind of dying wish, although I don't think they call it that, but you know, she's kind of calling Sylvester Stallone from the hospital and is encouraging him to, you know, take this trip. So he's picked up his son from like the military boarding school. No, right. And I will say for this movie, they do a really great thing right off the top of character building. And I always enjoy this. And I think even some of the lamest 1980 movies do a good job of this where I feel like a lot of movies today don't do a great job. And that is they have a little graduation ceremony. All the kids cheer and throw their hats in the hair in the air except for Sylvester Stallone son who just calmly holds his hat and observes the silliness of everyone around him silently. They have that really cheesy song going on over the top. Oh man. I only remember one line from that song. I meant to watch this again for this, but then I thought I actually remember this film so well. I don't need to watch it again. No, no. But I don't remember the lyrics of that song except for one line and it's because in this country, and it's like a man can be what he wants to be or something like that. You know, it's like this inspiring Americana Ross. Oh yeah. I love it. It was a Kenny. I think some Kenny logins action. You know, it's like man. Yeah. I mean, I will say it's pretty good. So it's a little bit, do you remember the wizard Fred Savage? I love that movie. We may have to talk about that movie. It's pretty good. It's got the same kind of flavor as that one, which is really funny because the wizard is just a Nintendo commercial. It's like a 90 minute Nintendo commercial. But it's actually got some real heart and soul to it. Yeah. I don't know. Some real love and care that goes. True. And I do feel like in this movie over the top, it's a bad movie. Don't get me wrong. The wizard. Also a bad movie. These are bad movies. These are not good movies. Stated arbiters of bad taste guys. But what I'm trying to say is despite being bad movies, there feels like there's a lot of love and care that went into the making of these movies. Whereas I feel like today when we talk about bad movies, we're talking about the lack of love and care that has gone into the filmmaking process. And here in these movies, they took what is a bad idea and they loved it. They loved it. Like the filmmakers just seemed to like they had this really dumb, dumb, dumb stupid idea. And then they just loved the hell out of it. They did, man. They did. And you think about like father, son story. And there's actually, I know this sounds weird coming from us about this. But it's like imagine you watched your dad arm wrestle a bunch of dudes. Right? And it was so proud of him. You'd be so pumped up. If I saw my dad arm wrestling that big gigantic dude and he won, I would like this like your children seeing you accomplish something. No matter how dumb it seems, it's just like he's there cheering on his dad's like, what do you get to cheer on your dad? Yeah. You know, it's kind of cool about that. Yeah. No, I think you're right. And so, and they have the really cheesy bad dynamic between Sylvester Stallone's father and law. There's the bad blood. Apparently he's what drove he and his wife apart. Yeah. And they're never too specific with these things. But it's just implied. And I actually feel like it's better for that. Right. Yeah. A movie I watched very recently, which is another movie that we should talk about in great detail is actually Conan the barbarian. I just watched it two days ago. Man. Literally just watched it. We need to go back to that one, but I bring it up just to say that movie ages better and better every time I watch it. And I don't watch it very often. Five years can go by. Ten years can go by. And then I watch it again. Like this movie's better now than the last time I watched it. Yeah. It's a long movie too, actually, man. It's like it's a long epic. People think Arnold Schwarzenegger, swords and sorcery. It's going to be and also what ruins Conan the barbarian is that they made Conan the destroyer, which is nothing to do with Conan the barbarian. It's true. You might as well just changed all the names and said it's a totally different story about totally different characters because the Conan from Conan the barbarian, he's not there in Conan the destroyer. He's not there. It's not the same kind of storytelling at all. But the storytelling and Conan the barbarian, I bring it up because they just do things. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. How it does? They just do. And there's not a lot of time about like, oh, I'm this and I'm that. And this character is this and this character is that you might have one line of exposition type dialogue to introduce this or that or the other. And there's a narrator to the whole film Conan the barbarian. But even he doesn't go into great detail about anything. You just go into this world and they build the world so well that you don't need any explanations. Yeah. When's the last time you watched a movie in the last that came out that was made in the last 10 to 50 to 20 years where it was done so well like a popular movie, you know, that it was done so well that they didn't feel like they had to keep on throwing in all this exposition or even where they had entire characters who saw purpose is exposition. Even really great movies if you think of inception. Yeah. I love that movie. I too. Man. There's one character in there. Ari Adne is what they heard her in the characters of Blankin on the actresses name. But her only purpose in that movie is for exposition is so people can explain things to her and therefore explain things to us. Right. Chris Fernall and I'm not faulting him. He's a great filmmaker. He's a different kind of filmmaker than, you know, the guys who did Conan the Barbarian. It's a different story. But what I'm trying to say is that Conan the Barbarian is telling I feel like just as complex of a narrative. But without anybody having to sit around telling and explain things to you. It's like, no, we just go in and do things and boom done. Yeah. Totally true. And it's the whole movie is almost kind of based on a philosophical argument. It's true. You think it's an action movie and it is. It is a sword and sorcery movie, but it's really about a philosophical argument between two sides. Not quite what we get in over the top. No. This isn't some religious idolatry about a guy turned to a snake and crumb, but it is an interesting, it is really an interesting human story about relationships. It is. It's interesting. And, let me say over the top, it's not interesting. All right, let's get this out of the way. Over the top is not an interesting movie. It's a movie about a truck driver who's trying to win a competitive arm wrestling match because he wants to win the first prize, which is a new truck. Right. And he, like we said, he's a trucker and he just wants the truck. Apparently, he's an independent contractor trucker and he just wants this new truck. I can't imagine any scenario of any type of sport competition in which an 18-wheeler is the grand prize. I know. Who wants that? Come on. It's all a slide, wants it. He wants to deck out the gym and his truck. He wants to get some more internal external rotation. He wants that sleeper cab so he can use his poor work and he can do it. Right. These are the important things. You can fit in a whole, both legs in the back. That's right. You know, the sun part is a secondary deal. Yeah. It's kind of. Yeah. There is some real drama in the film. Yeah. Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen this 40-year-old movie. 35-year-old. Sorry, pardon me. 35-year-old movie. But the mother dies. It's actually a pretty emotional scene. Even in dumb movies can have written. That's what I mean about heart. Somebody loved this movie. Somebody really cared about the craft of filmmaking, even making this. Simon. Like you said, they loved it. They loved it on it. And I don't know, this is the great thing about reviewing movies as a 45-year-old person from a 10-year-old's perspective. And watching it's like, I loved it when I was like that old. I watched that movie so many times when I was a kid. Absolutely. I like so many. I rented it with my friends and we would arm wrestle afterwards. That's right. I mean, the whole deal. Right? I mean, there's nothing more quintessential than 10-year-old boy watching people arm wrestle on like, let's get in there now. Let's do it. Get in here. Get in here. And the close-up, I love that they did the close-ups. And it was like, slides like, yeah. And the other guy's like, ah, and he's sweating profusely. And it's like a Vegas lights thing. And I was like, oh my God, this must be the best place ever to be. You got to say, I mean, you have to admit that as an actor, very few people, like, demonstrate pushing your body to the limit the way Slice D'Alone does. It's in like the faces he makes. Yeah. And the sounds he makes and everything. You got to say, I mean, give him props as an actor if we're just going for it because most of us would really hold back and try to look cool. He doesn't look cool. He's like the blues guitarist face, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's right. When they're bending a note. Yeah, there's taking faces and they're just sweating profusely. I just remember so much sweat. Just so much sweat. And like when they would interview the guys, I used to love the little interviews they did in the movie. Yeah. And that was the best. There was a guy who drinks the motor oil. And then you see him later taking like Alka Selser or something. He's like, trying to be cool. I'm drinking motor oil, blah, blah, blah. And then later you see he's totally sick from it. Exactly. Oh, man. Those are fun little things that they do. And you're right. Like those little interviews and stuff. It really kind of makes the whole competition at the end because let's face it. Arm wrestling isn't that exciting to watch over and over. No. No. So when they came up with the idea of those interviews, they made it almost like pro wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. And you get to know these arm wrestlers that you don't know. They're not in the film until the very end. Right. Most of these guys. And say anyway, yeah, it's great. And then the cheesiest lame is the whole part of those interviews or whatever. So that's just slow. It's like a switch. I turn it around. It's like a switch that I'm ready to go. It's always a good. You got a good pressure there. I used to do that. I used to do that with my hat. And I'll be like, yeah, I'm serious now. Now I'm serious. I wear my hat back. Now that I look like the paper boy, I'm serious about arm wrestling. Here we go. And then they try to throw like he's in the tournament and the father and law thing. You know, he's trying to give him money to like just get out of here. You know, just try to buy him off. You know, and Sly has integrity. He's like, he's going to make his own way. That's right. He doesn't need his father's help. So man, what a funny movie. There's two, what you could call maybe action scenes. The father and law, he's trying to basically, he's trying to kidnap his grandson away from some of us. So he has like some bounty hunters or whatever who's gone out. And there's like one or two little cards, short, car chase scene things, you know, where he has to get him back from the, the, the kid would be kidnappers. And then there's one scene where he's going to see his father and law and his father and law like has a bodyguard. What kind of business is his father and law in where he needs a six foot six monster body guard? The only reason for this bodyguard there is so, so Vester Salone's character can punch him through the window. Yes, yes. There's no reason. They've never defined what the father and law does for a living. No. Why he would need any kind of security whatsoever. You know, so anyway, it's just so funny that it's like, yeah, he's got a bodyguard there for this one purpose for so that's just to allow to throw him through the window. Your job is to let Sly look real, make him look really good in this part. I mean, come on. So I, I love stuntman and I love thinking about those scenes. It's like that stuntman, you know, that security guard, he's just a stuntman. He's not like an actor actor. He's a stuntman who just comes in and he's being hired to get thrown through this window. Yeah. And so it feels like a really simple scene, but everything goes into that scene and how dangerous the scene is, it's right. It actually is for the stuntman. And even for still Vester, no, he could possibly get cut up because you are going through real glass most of the time. A lot of people think it's all fake, but no, most of these guys are going through real glass and they have to, they use tiny explosives to pop the glass just before the person goes through. And if they don't do that in the right time or in the right way, and if the person doesn't actually go through the window, instead of if they just like fall into the window or whatever, they, you know, bad things can happen. Sure. So anyway, even in that scene, that such a dumb, stupid scene, once again, it's like a whole lot of thought preparation has to go into, hey, let's have some extra slow punch you guy through a window. Why? I don't know. This is because. This is a slime movie. I mean, come on. It's like, this is what happens during slime movies. Come on. Do you feel like they had to do something like that because you can't have a Sylvester Stallone movie where he doesn't punch a guy? No, he has to. Is that time in his career where, you know, he's doing, this is the rocky phase, all this stuff, man. He has to do something. He can't be, he can't be overly emotional in these movies in a slighway that he's emotional. Yeah. I just think it's good. So I was thinking about movies that came out that are kind of like this. So, I mean, not kind of like this in this anyway, but basically it's action heroes who take on kid companions. Yeah. And this is a theme that goes on. We've got last action hero. Yeah. And this is a Terminator 2. You've got even that Chuck Norris. You remember the Chuck Norris film Sidekick? Sidekick. Yes, I remember that. I mean, wow. Sidekicks and last action hero for all intents and purposes are the same movie. Yes. You know, they have different themes and everything, but they're both about a kid's hero. Basically they're their imaginary friend and then they become real, you know. And sometimes I wonder, you know, if I mean like Sylvester Sloan, last action hero, I actually just watched that recently. Me too. What are we doing that you and I are just watching all these old movies? I don't know why we're watching these movies. What are we doing? I watched last action hero kind of like what you said about Conan, kind of on accident. It was just an accident. Yeah. I was curious sometimes when I'm scrolling through, I'm curious about what they say about the movie, how they describe the movie. There's one movie that I scrolled through. It was a Vondam movie that's only a couple years old. Yeah. But they don't say a thing about the plot in the movie or in the description and that tells you everything. It tells you everything. All it says something like expect the splits and it's like kind of a tongue in cheek description because it's a Vondam movie. It tells you to expect some explosions and the splits and some kicking. Yeah, for sure. That was the description. Yeah, they don't tell you anything about the plots and obses whatsoever. I thought it was amazing. We're just watching all these movies, man. It's weird. It's like we've got the hive mind going. I'm almost almost kind of thinking I'm like, I need to have this in my back pocket when I talk to Simon. Yeah. Right. This stuff up next. I'm going to now I'm thinking I need to go and rewatch Delta Force which Chuck knows everything. Oh, man. My dad loved that movie. So I saw it when I was growing up. You know, man, me too. I loved it growing up. I was kind of weird with the hijackers and stuff. It's like, yeah. I always, my favorite scene in that whole movie was the priest. Yeah. And he sat next to the Jew because the the hijackers were anti Jew Jewish and they told the priest he didn't have to be up there with the Jewish captives and he said, Jesus was a Jew. So yeah. And I thought that was a really once again, it's like these little things in the in his old 80s movies. It's like these little touches. Little touches. Yeah. I mean, that priest is not like a big character in the movie or anything, but it's just this moment of somebody just doing the right thing. Somebody standing with somebody else and saying, we're all the same. Yeah. You know, that amazing. These these these it's easier to overlook those parts in these movies from these decades because it seems like everything else is about the explosions, the fighting, but they they sneak it in there. If you pay attention, you're like, Oh, that was thoughtful. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like that's once again, and I don't want to keep harping on the new movies and whatever, but I just once again, over and over again, I just think about it. I think about like we get Easter eggs today in movies instead of like thoughtful moments. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, heaven forbid, we watch a Chuck Norris movie and we have a thoughtful moment, you know? I mean, come on. You know, and I just feel like they're they're and it's not, you know, we're making blankets blanket statements here and there's plenty of movies that are made today and in this age that have really thought provoking things in them. Right. But I don't feel like a lot of the action ones really do. I think they just cater to they're basically a fast and a furious type of thing, you know? Yeah. It's like, hey, it's family, family, by the same guy who was in the pacifier. Can he jump his car through a plane into a ravine and still be alive? That's religious what you want to see, isn't it? Anyways, one of my kids said, you know, their friends wanted to see the new one that's just come out in theaters and it looks ridiculous. Oh, I mean, it looks so ridiculous. So I sat there and watched the preview for it, the trailer and I was like, oh my gosh. I mean, Jason Mahmo was lowering himself to I'm like, really? This is a money guy. I mean, it's paychecks. It's paychecks. That's what it is. Yeah. You know, and you know what? If somebody asked me to be in one, I'm there. Sign it. Are you serious? Oh, absolutely. No, there wouldn't, there's movies that never even get out of the movie like set. There's no way you would, you would have it burned out. This is not serious work, guys. I would give it 110% and I would take that paycheck all the way to the bank. I'm telling you that I have a lot of high ideals, but I'm also still out. Easy. But in your trailer, you would be talking so much shit about the movie. How bad it was. Imagine you and I were on set this movie, okay? Yeah. We're like, we have a bull's take the 20 million. For sure, we're not idiots. Absolutely. In the trailer, we would be trashing the movie completely. No doubt. We'd just be sitting in there and it's like, what is going on? Why are we doing this? Who are we? I know we're doing it. Yeah. Money. Lots and lots of money. Lots of money, but it's a terrible script. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, you know, that's what I've heard about some of these filmmakers who when they invite somebody to do a film, they're just like, hey, you want to make a lot of money. Yeah. You know, like, so Esther Stallone was doing the expendables movies. Like calling guys up, it's like, hey, you want to make a lot of money because we're going to go pretty cheap on the special effects. They're not going to be very good. Well, it's nice. You probably need the money. Get over it. Yeah. The IRS has been after your ass for years. Yeah. So I mean, as an actor, you don't know when your next job is coming. Right. I just, I never have a problem with actors and directors taking jobs. I just don't. Yeah. You know, I have a problem with movie houses, green lighting, the wrong projects. That's what I have a problem with. You know, these, these movie making machines and they're green lighting terrible projects instead of doing something that could be cool. It's totally agree. But you know, Simon, if it's like, if it's like community theater or free, Simon's ripping it apart, he doesn't care. He's going to destroy the production. I still, I still, you know, I still support people individually. I just, you know, sometimes the, the finished product is, is really, really lacking. And he'll let you know about it. Yeah. I definitely will. I definitely will. I'll let you know with something I do is bad. I've told you in things, I don't like things that I've done. Yeah. I'm not immune from this criticism. I know when I'm doing something bad and it doesn't get finished or released normally. Yeah. Because I'm just like, no, this is bad. Yeah. So that's the filter that we should have as, as creators, you know, creators is, is, is, be able to say, oh, you know what? What I'm doing right now is, it's not good. I should, I should stop this and do something different. Yeah. You know what? Here's the test for you. Since I'm going to trigger you with the whole Star Wars thing, because I know how much you, would you be in that? Would you have been in those movies if they paid you a lot of money, no matter what Simon. All right. So here's the thing. I don't think most people get the whole script or, or even a script at all when they get to it. I really don't. Okay. So yes, absolutely. I would have been in those movies. And I would have felt like Mark Hamill when he finally actually got to read the script. And I would have felt completely betrayed. And that's how it would have gone down. That's how it would have gone down. And then like Mark Hamill, I would have been a professional and said, okay, I'm, I'm doing this because this is the job I'm hired to do. But I don't agree with what's happening. And Mark Hamill was so tasteful. He said it. He said it straight to the interviewers. He said, I did not agree with this version, this take of Luke Skywalker. This isn't Luke Skywalker. But he, Ryan Johnson, that director, he seems to really get people to have faith in him. I don't know what it is about him. Maybe he has some kind of subtle charisma to him. But I, I don't think his track record as a filmmaker lives up to whatever, why, you know, people, his portfolio would not make me want to hire him as a director. Let's just put it that way. There's something else there. There's got to be something else there. I mean, I just feel like all of his movies, even the ones that I've enjoyed, like the first knives out movie, I enjoyed it. But even in enjoying it, I saw, you know, right through it and that it's so fundamentally flawed in so many ways. So as to, you know, make me think, well, I mean, it was almost good. But I still enjoyed it. I still enjoyed it. Even though it wasn't quite a good movie. Yeah. But also, I don't know how he does it. But if you get the right cast and crew, that's part of what pulls the wool over people's eyes when you get the right actors to deliver the lines and to get you, you know, through the scenes and stuff. Sometimes you forget how bad the scenes are or I don't want to say the word bad. Let me just say illogical or obvious or things like that. You know, it's like, okay, well, you know, that's what he did in both of those knives out movies. Is he put a killer cast together? That's right. He did. That's right. And that cast is completely wasted in that second. I know, man. In the first movie, at least the cast is utilized well. And everybody in that cast actually has some good stuff to do. Yeah. And they actually, you know, they're not complete and utter morons. I have a new spin off for you. Here's the new spin off. It involves you and me. Okay. Okay. You're Obi-Wan. I'm Mace Windu. Okay. I love this. And we're in space. Is this a buddy Jedi? Yeah, we're the new intergalactic like police force, Jedi force. And I think it's like it could be one of the better movies they put out telling you, man. See, and you just let Samuel L Jackson loose on that, or you know, you just let yourself lose. Yeah. I mean, I'd tell you it's like, gosh, yeah. I mean, pretty good movie, man. We use the force in a different way. Like we don't like it. We got imaginations and no scruples. No, we just, you know, it's a whole different movie. You know, we're not idealistic. You know, we're not even trying to go to the Jedi temple. We're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's other places to go, man. You know, I mean, that is once again, okay, let's let's go back to these movies. We were talking about like, you know, over the top last action hero, these movies that, I don't know, they just had this theme of like action hero with a kid. Yes. You know, so I guess in our version, you're the action hero. I'm the kid. Well, is this real life? Well, yeah, it's a bit of a ball. It's true to life. It's true to life. But you're the older wiser, Mace Windu. Right. And, um, but yeah, I mean, even in the Star Wars, you, you, you have those dynamics, right? You have something like an Obi-Wan Kenobi training, a Luke Skywalker, or you have an Obi-Wan Kenobi training, uh, Anakin Skywalker. You have that kind of, you know, he, you know, hero and younger person. And anyway, um, so it's a popular trope. That's just, that's just, that's for that way. Um, but I, I don't know why it became popular. Can you, like, compare last action hero to any other Arnold action movie, it's not as good. Of course. So why did we feel the need as a society to start putting 12 year olds alongside the biggest action stars of the time? No. Not sure. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, Indiana Jones had short round, short round. That's right. You know, um, who I will say as a character was not nearly as annoying and a lot more useful than these other characters, yeah, other movies, you know, other kid characters. Um, I don't know. I don't know what happened kind of mid 80s where up until the early 90s, roundabouts, where we had the biggest action stars of the era teaming up with teens and preteens. I just don't know what's going on. I just think it was a big time for like kids, like for some reason, it was a very kid-centric time with like goonies and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you had all these movies, you know, that were like very teenage, but there were a lot of stars that were kids in the 80s who were now like, you know, Sean Aston was a big kid guy back then. You know, it's like, I think it's just like there's a lot of kids star power in the 80s. Do you think they were trying to take the two? It's like most of the movies Arnold and so and Stallone were in our rated movies. So it's like, well, these kids can't really go, you know, unless their parents take them and then people are frowning at the parents for taking them to. All right. It moved me. I know. What are you doing in here? Watching them move? But, you know, we got kind of frowned upon because I took my kids to tomest, you know, screening of tombstones. Oh, really? Nice. That's so good. So good. And my kids loved it. I was just like, so what do you think? Of course they did. Of course they did. But like most kids, if you tell them it's a Western, they don't care about cowboys. No kid cares about cowboys anymore. They think it's going to be really boring. You know, right. You know, but they watch. There's like, oh, because what is it? It's a movie about characters. It's not about cowboys. It's about characters. So but anyway, I just thought that was really interesting that we go through this phase of action heroes. And I got to say, I think it's all about the box office because they're just trying to work kids into the theaters who, you know, kids they want to watch these movies and they have to like sneak to watch them. Most of the kids do it. Yeah. You know, and so anyway, yeah, I thought that was interesting. But so it's just a big cash grab. That's what I'm trying to say. I think so. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you want to kind of almost merge these two big draws. Say, well, you know, I want an Arnold movie, but man, people love these kids movies too. Well, Arnold could probably be kind of funny, you know, and he is kind of funny when he's slide to me is not funny ever with kids. No, he's just kind of he doesn't have that juice, you know, I was like, I don't think Sly has the comedy gene. Although when he's, when he's rocky, somehow he pulls it off. He's actually pretty funny as rocky, right. But when he tries to do something that is of a more sophisticated, let's just say nature where he has to be a little more well spoken. Yeah. Then he's not he's not good at that comedy. He's not like stop for my mom was shoot. Oh, I and I didn't like Oscar. Oscar. Remember Oscar. Okay. Those two movies we just listed off, even my younger self knew they were bad. Me too. I don't even think I got through stop for my mom was you. I don't think I ever finished that movie, even as a young kid. I was like, no, this is really bad. I saw the preview in a movie theater when I was younger. I remember this like yesterday. I was in the movie theaters, my brother, and it came on and we both looked at each other and said, this is a stupid movie. Yeah. We, I can't believe we're probably going to watch this. It looks really bad though. Oh, it's so bad. And that did the opposite. It took a 90 year old woman and brother with this is like, we went young. Now let's go. Go. Wait. Do the other side of the dial. Which I got to say also even my younger self was fooled by trailers because all right. You know, I actually love the golden girls. Me too. And she was in the golden girl. Still getting. Yes. Yeah. So, so when I saw that so that's just alone was teaming up with one of the golden girls. I'm like, I'm in. I'm in. I go to watch this. We didn't see it in the theater. We rented it when it came. I did the last theater. It's probably out of theater in a week. So we rented it from, you know, the local movie store. And yeah, I don't think I finished it. I don't think I ever finished it. It's as bad as you think it was. I have no remembrance of that. Well, I remember scenes of that movie. But I have no, I don't remember what the other than his mother comes to stay with him or whatever. And he is mother. He's a grandmother. I mean, you know, but it is his mother. But it's like, your mother would be like 60. This woman's like 80. I know. When did she have? Did she have you when she was 60? What? I mean, were you a miracle? It was not even necessary for him to even make this movie. It was not, and there was like no reason at all for it. I just think he wanted to do comedies. Arnold. Arnold successfully merged comedy and action. Yeah. You know, which was only slightly new to the United States to have a big action star doing success. But Clint Eastwood tried to do comedy back to this. Yeah. You know, Bert Randle's did comedy. His movies were more kind of action comedy most of the time. So it wasn't like a big tank. But for somebody like an Arnold to do comedy, like he hadn't really seen that. And then I was like, oh, wow. And to do it so well, like a kindergarten comp. Yes. That's such a good action comedy. So good. And it's very little action. It's mostly comedy. It's so it's so good. And then you have the junior, you know, you got to throw that one out. Yeah, you got to. You got to bomb here and there. That movie would get crushed today by like your political stuff, man. Oh, gosh. Yeah. Oh, so many of those old movies were so many movies. They just get crushed today. One of my kids recently asked me if the dukes of hazard, the original TV show, if it was any good. And I was like, well, it is not politically correct. They drive around with a car called the General Lee and it has, you know, the good federal flag. They feel like they're trying to be like weird though about it. That's the thing I was telling them. It was like, but these are, it was a different time and there's zero racism in it. Yeah. There's zero championing the, you know, the antebellum south. Right. These are just some, you know, I mean, cliche, southern moon shining. Just a moonshine or you know, yeah, we're doing no harm. And the funny thing about them is that they're like college educated football star, physique, good old boys. I mean, come down to the South guys. That's not what they're like. This ain't it. This ain't real. And they don't talk like that. I mean, the Duke boy brothers barely had southern accents. I know. These movies now would just be cast as like, like over the top. I would be a progressive and the guy he beats would be like a mag a guy. They just put it, they tell how they would instead of when we were watching and we were growing up. You just wasn't even a thought it was like, wow, this is great match up. Yeah. This really big guy and a smaller guy, you know, and the intensity. Zero agenda. And I think Clint Eastwood said it best actually when he was being asked about directing and stuff. And you know, how he directs a movie because his movies, you know, especially the ones who get, you know, like Oscar contend to movies. They have strong messages in them. If that's what you want to call it, but he's like the story comes first. You know, it's like, you don't worry about the message. Because if you tell the story, you know, the message is there. And you don't have to worry about am I am I sending the right message or am I sending a message at all. You just tell a story and movies like million dollar baby, unforgiven. That's right. You know, these are movies that are perfect examples of that where he just tells a story. He doesn't tell you what to think about it. He doesn't tell you who's right, who's wrong. He just tells a story and you're left to ponder that for yourself. Right. And wouldn't the world be so much better if that's what we got in film making more often. Like getting back. I mean, did you ever watch law in order when it was on? Oh, yeah. Once a while we would watch the law in order S.V.U. I've watched so much of that and so much of that in my life. Well, I just had a crush on Mariska Hargitane. Hargitane? Oh, yeah. Me too, man. Yeah, I had a big crush on her. So I'd watch it just to watch her. So, Simon. Yeah, I know. I don't care about anything else. Me too, guys. All right. But there's always those moments in those episodes where they just tell you exactly what you should think about whatever political thing that they're kind of dealing with in the episode. And it's so unnatural the way it even comes up and the way the characters have to say it aligns and everything is like, oh my gosh. You guys couldn't have a conversation about it. You just, they're not having a conversation. It's posed as a conversation. But it's just people making statements. And that's not a conversation. No. And nobody, there's nobody giving the opposite opinion. There's nobody, there's nobody, there's no pushback to anybody's opinion. It's just, well, this is how it is blah, blah, blah. And this is blah, blah, blah. And everybody's like, yep. Yep. Yeah. So to your point, I, over the top scenario where it's the guy on the other side is wearing his MAGA hat forward and so that's just as the anyway. There would be no, we would not feel any humanity for the MAGA guy. No. And we would, we would not be told, you know, anything about his story, just like in over the top. Right. There's no political agenda there. Right. There's no political messaging there. But when we're doing political messaging, there's no nuance. It's what I'm trying to get at. There's zero nuance to it. And as much as I don't like sometimes to hear people who are speaking out against woke media. Yeah. Because I'm not anti woke. I'm just anti bad storytelling. That's all I am. You know, I know it, man. Cast cast as diverse as possible. Sure. I know tell stories about diverse people, all about equity, all about all these things. But if your story sucks and your movie sucks, I'm not going to watch it. I'm not going to watch it either. I don't care how, how great the message is. It just doesn't matter. Story matters the most. Exactly. You know, I think also like now, like, I just popped in my mind. I was like, man, imagine two-wong food coming out now. Or Angles broke back mountain, right? Oh, yeah. The rage would be unbelievable right now. And I think some of that is the reason why we're maybe not getting these quality of movies sometimes too. Is that there's a blowback. And maybe some directors are like, I just don't want to deal with this. You know, or I don't know. It's just a thought. You know, well, there's so many. I listen to a lot of film reviews, just as I'm doing stuff throughout the day. I really enjoy, I enjoy people who are thoughtful about it. And even people who I disagree with, one of them, his name is like the critical drinker or something like that. Okay. And he kind of puts on a character. He's like Scottish or British or something. And he's just kind of like a non-woake kind of guy. And he doesn't like the woke messaging and he doesn't like seeing, you know, the moment he sees like an all female cast, he's out, you know, kind of a deal. Which I don't agree with. I think is wrong. However, I can't disagree when he starts talking about how bad the movies are. Right. They're bad. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you should be able to make great movies with an all female cast or a mostly female cast. And we've seen it done before. I was just talking to a friend yesterday about steel magnolias. It's an amazing movie, mostly all female, all the lead characters are female. Right. It's an amazing film. You can make that today. You can make it with superheroes. You can make it, you know, whatever you can have an all female. But unfortunately, because of the political messaging that we've been talking about, we don't get a good story. We don't get good characters. We get Mary Seuss. You mean to get Mary Seuss. Yeah. Well, you do get Mary. You know, you, there's one statement you made that's probably false. Is you're talking to your friend the other day? I thought I was really true. Oh, yeah, that's true. I mean, what are you talking about? I was talking to you, Mennaquin Tints. How dare you make up these other people in your life, not me. You bastard. That is seriously a joke that we have around here, because I just don't hang out with anybody really. I'll talk to people on the phone. I, I, I, I don't call anybody and say, let's hang out. That's just zero percent of the time. Am I contacting somebody and saying, let's do something. Unless it's like another couple and like Shannon and I are going to hang out with them together or maybe. And even then, so rare, you know. Simon, you know, listen, Shannon, she warned me. Because she knows she's coming on the podcast. Pretty soon. Yeah. Yeah. And she texts me and she is like, I swear you better not talk about 80s movies to me. Yeah. And this, I will not do this. I was like, I don't even know what was I even thinking about it. Oh, man. She wants to listen to our podcast, but she's like, but I don't care about these movies. So I was like, yeah, I just think she's in the movies. That's what I can't tell her. It's like, well, you just have to, you have to listen to us talk about these movies so you can hear us talk about bigger things. Yes. Because that's what the movies are meant to do. Yeah. You know, to talk about bigger things. Even the dumb ones that we talk about, like over the top. It's meant to tell a story about a father and son and family dynamics. And that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a guy who is, you know, he's, he hasn't been a good father and he wants to be a good father now. Yeah. Basically that's pretty good story. Right. And that's a good story. Last action hero. You know, it's about a guy who finds out his entire life is a lie. Right. This guy is very, very significant. He's very important to him when they're in the movie but when they're out of the movie and in real life he has no faith in him. Yeah. And it's actually, it's kind of a great idea when he's actually trying to earn the faith and respect of this kid. That's right. And the real world. And the real world. Yeah. Sometimes that's a lot. Like there's, because it's kind of it's, it's. I want to say it's totally nuanced. But I mean, it's not the, they don't try to drive that narrative home. Here are they're too busy having fun. Right. Yeah. And sometimes they have fun to the detriment of the movie. And sometimes they're having fun to, I mean, the way that the whole purpose of that movie is to make fun of action movie. That's right. It's Arnold making fun of himself. It's his most meta movie, which he does a lot of meta stuff. I mean, let's face it, you know, he's, he's, we're always cognizant that he is Arnold in a movie. Of course. I'm watching his documentary on Netflix when it comes out next month, man. I'm like, I've heard about that. I'm all over that, man, you know, but even think about like Captain America Civil War, right? We talked about that. It's a movie that has a lot of heart about choosing between this person and you're choosing between friends. It's choosing, yeah. I mean, that's actually really powerful. It is really powerful. So Shannon, it's not stupid, okay? Yeah, we're not, we're not as dumb as people say. She thinks they're like two 10 year old boys in your talk. I know, just reminiscing about these movies we love. And I think sometimes Shannon is also not somebody to rewatch a movie. Okay. She just doesn't do it. Yeah. So for people like you and I, we'll rewatch a movie even when it's bad. Oh, I still do it. Yeah. It's the whole premise of the show. Exactly. That's the whole thing. It's like, I will take two hours of my day or my night and I will watch this bad movie. And I sometimes I don't know why I'm doing it. Yeah, it just happens. Sometimes I don't know why. And it's kind of an existential crisis. But, but I will say like I learn something every time I watch one of these movies we talk about. And sometimes when it's like a movie like over the top, I learn about how much love and care can go into a movie. Even when it's not very good. And I feel like, I feel like when somebody puts love and care into something, even when it's not very good, it comes through. It does. Like you see it and you feel it. You feel the love and care that goes into something. Yeah. And you know, whether it's like, woke messaging or whether it's too many like special effects or whatever it might be. I feel like, and I don't want to insult any of the directors and actors working making these movies today. But I feel like the love and care gets lost. Yeah. It gets distracted from because they might have a lot of love and care that's going into it. But then we don't see it because it was all done on a green screen. Right. Yeah, exactly. Totally agree, man. Dude, we got to talk about Conan the Barbarian, maybe. Soon. I mean, it's top of mind for me right now, man. I said that movie. I'm just like holy cow. When I watch that just the other day, I was bloat. I'm going to be honest with you because it had been probably about five years since I've seen it last, at least. There are guys like five years. It hasn't been like 15 or 12. No, not here, guys. No. Because these are movies worth going back to. Yes. I mean, Conan, I was literally blown away by that movie. Same here. And it's not because it stars the greatest actors in the world. It's not because it has the most interesting story in the world. It's not because it has the most amazing message in the world. It's because every single scene in that movie is well crafted, well thought out. And it's just great storytelling. Yes. And every scene is real sets, real, most of it's outdoors. It is. That's just a crazy part. It's mostly outdoors. Even the sets that they're in a building or something, it's like an open building. Yeah, yeah. So it's like there's still hours. And so, but every set piece, it doesn't feel like a set piece. You know what I mean? Today, if you watch a fast and a furious movie, something like that, you're watching a set piece. But this movie doesn't feel like it never feels like a set piece. It feels like a natural. Oh, this is what I thought about the Conan, the Barbarian movie. There's no, I have to get this so I can go get that. What do we call that again? It's like, it's like, it's a video game trope. Oh, I see. But it's in movies now, side quest stuff. Oh, okay. Okay. It's like in order to get to here, to get this, we have to get this. And then in order to get that, we have to get that over and over and over again. There's none of that. There's none. And Conan, the Barbarian is not like a linear, totally linear story either. But there's no, oh, we have to do this to do that. No, they just go on and they're just going on adventures. And things happen naturally. They build naturally. Yes. It's just brilliant. I find it's a lot of traveling in the movie and it's just, it's a journey, man. We got to talk about it. I've got some, I have a lot of thoughts about that movie, like a lot of it. Me too. I could sit down and make like a whole list about how that might be one of the best movies in the last 40 years. And I'm not joking. I'm not, I'm not like, really good movie, man. People will laugh to hear me say Conan, the Barbarians were the best movies in the last 40 years. I'm not kidding when I say that. It's really that good. It's very good. I mean, you get James Earl Jones up in there, man. Yeah. I mean, it's, it kicks the hell out of almost every other sword and sorcery movie I can think about. It's true. I can't, I can't think. And it's also a comic book movie. Yes. And the Barbarians based on a comic book. So if you put, you put it up against pretty much any other comic book movie, I'm going to say it kicks the hell out of pretty much any comic book movie. Pretty good, man. I mean, it's so good. Yeah, we're talking about it. It's going to, you guys are going to get downloaded, Conan, the Barbarian. Yeah. I'm going to be nice to Simon as I usually am. Even though he's talking about these other friends, this nebulous universe of people who I don't know. I talked to your best friend, my husband and I was like, oh, really? Oh, okay. Oh, man. It's nice to meet you. It's like Simon has one friend and it's Darian. It's pathetic. Okay. Guys. No, they're like Amos and, you know, Julia Child and they're pen pals, they're podcasts pals and never met each other. And if they're smart, they never will. You keep saying this. The planet's going to die if we meet each other. Now, world's collide. Burn it down. Well, this was awesome. Simon, I mean, seriously, you're amazing. You're always amazing. You're misunderstood, but I understand you. Okay. Thanks, man. Appreciate it, man. Everyone else thinks you're weird. I think you're amazing. That's the best I can say. I told my kids the other day. I said, you know, my parents love me. They just don't like anything I do or say. So I appreciate that you, Darian, actually like some of the things that I do say. I do, actually. So I know it immediately. It's mutual and I don't know if your wife showed this text to you, but I sent her a very long text about my feelings about you. She didn't. She didn't. She didn't copy and paste that to me. I said, if it wasn't for you, I would have never met Simon. I said, yeah, actually the reason I know Simon. I said, yeah, that's you brought us together and it was magic right from the beginning, man. It really was. It was awesome from the second we saw. I said, I like this guy. It would go. Oh, yeah, exactly. Exactly. It was just like a spark. It was a romcom man. Such a meat cute. Exactly. And I look around all these years later. Want to do a show together? It's like three years now. I think we're going on like three years of talking to each other and Simon, I just can't quit you. It's really hard. All right, man. Thank you so much, Simon. Thank you. We got Conan on deck next time, I think. Sounds like that's what we're going to do. That's got to be what we do. That's what we're doing next time. All right. Signing out, my friend. All right. Was that one? Would thatred do kid? Okay, yeah.