Latest / Cage Match: A Roundabout Way of Meeting Nicolas Cage / World Trade Center vs The Frozen Ground

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World Trade Center vs The Frozen Ground · Cage Match: A Roundabout Way of Meeting Nicolas Cage

• 0:00
  Hi everybody, this is Producer Peter. You are jumping into an episode that is about the events
• 0:07
  of 9-11 and also talking pretty candidly about sexual assault. Just fair warning,
• 0:12
  we are going to talk about those subjects. Oh god, oh my god.
• 0:18
  So I was like really into TIE Fighter and I spent like 90 minutes trying to get the sound set up
• 0:35
  right because it was supposed to be full stereo so you could hear something go I just use my hands
• 0:41
  for people who are listening. Yeah. To explain right to left motion. What if it went left to
• 0:47
  right? Oh okay. That's how sound waves work. Yeah. We're a science podcast from now on,
• 0:55
  I don't want to talk about these movies. Nobody wants to talk about these movies.
• 0:59
  Why do you guys let me come to you with terrible, terrible puns and then we turn them into like
• 1:05
  ideas? I mean we knew that there were going to be bad weeks. I mean I don't think we anticipated them
• 1:11
  falling on the same week. I mean what would you have put the 9-11 movie up against that you would
• 1:18
  be like what a good match. I mean just something dog shit that we could rag on you know what for
• 1:23
  the sake of our comedy podcast. Yeah. I think it's fine to just get it done with lumps. Yeah,
• 1:30
  that's fair. Yeah, agreed. So welcome to a very special episode of Cage Match, colon or roundabout
• 1:38
  way of meeting Nicolas Cage. Nick Cage, please don't listen to this episode. Jet fuel cam out
• 1:45
  steel beams. Starting strong. Birds aren't real. This podcast is hosted by Nick and myself Sean.
• 2:02
  Peter has to keep the audio because it's got both of us. That's true. Yeah. Oh my god is that all
• 2:08
  it takes? That's all it takes. I'm just too lazy. So I'm gonna whisper conspiracies throughout this
• 2:13
  entire thing. Okay. That's all I've got. Who did 9-11? Oh let's okay we're gonna we're gonna redo
• 2:19
  this whole intro thing. Hi Nick, my co-host for this podcast. How are you today? Don't use my
• 2:25
  government name. And I was hoping you'd throw it back to me. I'm Sean, the other co-host of the show
• 2:32
  and we're transmitting from a secret bunker. And then our producer Peter. Hi Peter. Hello.
• 2:40
  This week we're talking about World Trade Center and it goes up against The Frozen Ground,
• 2:47
  a movie about sex trafficking, rape and murder. Which one of these romps do we want to discuss
• 2:54
  first Nick? Well we've already started talking about Frozen Ground. Yeah that's what I figured.
• 2:58
  All right The Frozen Ground. Nick you want to give us a little wrap up of this one? Yeah this is the
• 3:05
  true story inspired by the true story story of a cop who finds the Alaska butcher baker serial killer.
• 3:19
  End scene. No there's a girl she oh god you kept looking at me I had to continue.
• 3:24
  So this sex worker. I'm gonna have to say it again. Do you need me to handle this one? Take the
• 3:32
  ranks on this? No. This sex worker escapes from somebody goes to the cop says that she was raped
• 3:41
  and the guy was gonna try to kill her and the cops are like I don't you're oh and we don't believe
• 3:50
  you then one cop is like I don't know so he escalates it and like secretly sends the stuff
• 3:55
  to the Alaska State Patrol and Nicolas Cage the Alaska State Patrolman is like look at this this
• 4:04
  is wild let's look into it and then they do and then turns out like he finds the murderer this
• 4:12
  guy who's killed like 17 people. Yeah that's pretty much about it. Yeah. So yes in this film. He rapes
• 4:18
  a bunch too. Not Nicolas Cage. The murderer. No one rapes Nicolas Cage.
• 4:25
  Peter I'm just gonna say boy we can't record we can't use that. Probably not I don't know we'll
• 4:31
  see how I'm feeling when I edit. You get kind of I mean depending on how many sparkle buddies you
• 4:35
  get kind of saucy. Oh yeah absolutely. All right so this film stars Nicolas Cage as Sergeant Jack
• 4:40
  Halcombe. John Cusack plays serial killer we'll just use that as the safe parlance. Robert Hanson
• 4:49
  who I'm pretty sure they didn't change the name of in this one. No that is his name. Yes and Vanessa
• 4:55
  Hudgens plays Cindy Paulson the young woman who managed to escape her captor and alert the
• 5:03
  authorities to Robert Hanson and eventually led to his capture and confession. The proverbial one
• 5:11
  who got away. And that's that's probably the best joke you're gonna get this whole episode.
• 5:17
  So Nick Cage plays a cop again. Where do we rate him on the good cop bad cop scale?
• 5:24
  I think he's a good cop on this one. I mean he was a better cop than some of the other cops for sure.
• 5:30
  Yeah this movie starts off with some really shitty cops. In fact the detective who is interrogating
• 5:38
  Cindy Paulson straight up says how can you rape a hooker? You know she's describing
• 5:46
  where she was the guy. They pretty much have an eyewitness to this individual to John Cusack's
• 5:55
  Robert Hanson. She can even describe the murder basement and when the detective comes out of the
• 6:01
  interrogation room he's just like yep nope not gonna do anything about it. And the detective or
• 6:08
  the cop who brought her in was just like aren't we even gonna interview the guy? And the detective's
• 6:14
  responses he doesn't have a record in the computer where within 15 minutes we find out that this guy
• 6:21
  has a record that goes back 20 odd years it just hasn't been digitized and that's as much detective
• 6:28
  work as that detective wanted to do. Yeah well I mean he talked to the guy's wife also she said he
• 6:34
  was good. Oh yeah. And he did have people corroborating his alibi. He had some buddies.
• 6:41
  Oh yeah the initial one that he was there the whole time. So real Robert Hanson started getting
• 6:48
  like a rap sheet back in uh 63 when he held a housewife at gunpoint and tried to rape her and
• 6:57
  then also raped uh I think it was a sex worker at the time. But he got a lot of that thrown out
• 7:05
  like the rape of the sex worker by agreeing to like a plea bargain or whatever in the use of
• 7:13
  a deadly weapon. Yay the American justice system. Yeah and he only served six months by the way.
• 7:18
  Gross. Yeah uh some of his other early crimes are pretty interesting. Ha ha interesting or more
• 7:26
  disturbing interesting. Yeah just disturbing interesting I mean he's not like a very ha ha
• 7:32
  guy it seems like. Yeah this is now a true crime podcast. Yeah I was I mean I was hoping for like
• 7:38
  theft of Mylar turtle balloon or something. No only a whack job would do something like that.
• 7:45
  We're not going to talk about that one. The statute of limitation of turtle turtle balloon
• 7:48
  theft has not reached its limit yet. So Sergeant Jack Helcombe is introduced to this case. It's
• 7:54
  brought to his desk uh two weeks before his lovely wife and children and him are supposed to
• 8:01
  pick up stakes and move out of Alaska. There's kind of a ticking clock a two weeks till retirement
• 8:08
  type feel but clearly Jack isn't thrilled at the idea. He hasn't signed the paperwork or paid the
• 8:13
  movers yet. Yeah but they packed up like the food in the kitchen weirdly enough. It's like you don't
• 8:18
  understand moving if you put all your food away while you're still there. Like you can have food
• 8:24
  that you're just gonna abandon if you're moving states. Fuck it. These Cheerios they belong to
• 8:30
  the rats now. Yeah no one's bringing that peanut butter. Yeah not after I'm done with it. So I mean
• 8:36
  like all like all good movie and tv cops you know things aren't great at home because the job's just
• 8:41
  too too gritty and real. I do want to talk about though so you know Jack's the one who's realized
• 8:47
  that women have been going missing for a while. They're showing up out in the wilderness. How
• 8:51
  long Nick have like they've been finding bodies and they still claim it's none of them are
• 8:56
  associated with each other. They were like three within a year that's when like the press were just
• 9:01
  like this seems like a pattern but we do find out that there is a history of specifically young women
• 9:09
  17 to 23 ish and they're usually told Cindy and Jack finds out through the sister of another woman
• 9:19
  that they were told that they were going to go get photos taken for a modeling maybe a modeling gig.
• 9:26
  Photos taken or like some high payout thing so like Cindy was a pro so it was 200 bucks for a blowjob
• 9:34
  and it's like yeah okay I'll definitely get in there and take a shot in the mouth for 200. Another
• 9:40
  young woman is told she's going to have professional photos taken of her which cute as fuck.
• 9:47
  Which Cusack shows up in what I'm gonna refer to as Cusack's creepy camper. Yeah this is like
• 9:54
  anytime Paul Dano's in a movie it's like you should be nervous. Yeah like he shows up in a camper
• 10:02
  but I don't think we ever see again. No it was a single use camper. Girl gets in and it's off to the
• 10:09
  races. I mean he was a pretty prolific serial killer. Well let's talk about let's go back to
• 10:19
  being a true crime podcast for a second and let's play some serial killer bingo. Oh okay. Because
• 10:24
  dear god did this guy hit every mark. Murder basement. Yeah. Like just trophy hunter heads
• 10:31
  everywhere. The most impressive to me though was the walrus skull. Yeah that was pretty neat
• 10:36
  actually. I thought it was cool. I wish I had one. In his rumpus room because he has a good christian
• 10:43
  wife and a couple kids he's just got a spot to like hang a chain what for chaining up women. A hole
• 10:49
  made for a three-eighths lag bolt. Yeah how do you explain that one to your partner? I don't think
• 10:56
  his wife's allowed downstairs. It's a proper 70s man cave. Yeah okay you're right. So he's
• 11:03
  80s man cave. Everything about this guy screams he harms women for fun. I mean just the number of
• 11:13
  times he's been actually charged with rape. Yeah. But he definitely has a target audience.
• 11:22
  Speaking of targets. And they're a captive audience too. There we go we got there.
• 11:27
  Oh god I'm I feel dirty. Speaking of. I'm gonna make this as hard for you guys as I possibly
• 11:33
  can. That's why you're here. Speaking of targets though the way he disposes of his prey. Oh god
• 11:41
  this film. I mean you can just say victims. Victims. I was trying to go into the hole. Yeah that's much
• 11:45
  better. I was trying to play up the whole hunter aspect of this because he actually flies the women
• 11:51
  out in his private prop plane to the middle of nowhere lets them go and as they're running away
• 11:58
  shoots them in the back with a hunting rifle. I think it's exciting sorry just to step back a second
• 12:03
  that he's allowed to fly that plane because he was denied a pilot's license for being fucking wacky.
• 12:11
  Even when they try and stop him later when they like tell the tower don't let that plane take off
• 12:16
  he just goes anyway. Yeah. Are there plane cops? There have to be. The FAA? I'm assuming. Do they get guns?
• 12:25
  Probably not anti-aircraft. But how are you like what's the deterrent then? Take your plane away?
• 12:32
  Take his license the one he doesn't have? No just the airplane that makes it real hard to fly.
• 12:38
  Can they take the plane away? They're the fucking government. They'll come in and take anything they
• 12:44
  want. Like literally if you get pulled over they can take the money from your wallet and never give
• 12:50
  it to you again. Fuck cops. Yeah fuck them. Fuck the government too. This movie does not I mean
• 12:58
  outside of like the depiction of the cops who brought this guy in most other cops in this film
• 13:04
  are fairly inept and like the DA definitely just doesn't want to pursue this. But we have like the
• 13:10
  copiest cop actor Dean Norris the guy from Breaking Bad. Yeah I only watched like most of the season
• 13:18
  of that so I don't remember. You've seen him as a cop in like other shit for sure. He only plays a cop.
• 13:23
  He only is a cop. Kind of like Wendell Pierce who I can only imagine as being a cop ever.
• 13:31
  Oh god. Oh god who played Ben Graham in the Fantastic Four movie? Michael Chickless. Yeah
• 13:41
  this guy looks like a you know low rent Michael Chickless. Oh okay who looks like a low rent
• 13:46
  Dominic Toretto? Yeah kind of. I just keep talking about who looks like who. Yeah. Oh speaking of
• 13:52
  people that look like things this is really the era of Nick Cage looking like a ham sandwich.
• 13:58
  Yeah. He's got this whole like pouty lip action. He does. Yeah it was really weird. I couldn't stop
• 14:05
  thinking about that. Not quite as bad as uh early 2000s like Falcon hair where his hair just looks
• 14:13
  like a bird taking flight from his head. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. So of
• 14:19
  course Nick Cage and you know he has a tragic backstory that he uses to connect with Cindy. On
• 14:25
  his 21st birthday his sister got killed by a drunk driver and I don't believe the driver was ever
• 14:32
  brought to justice so that's what made him want to be a cop. That's that's the extent of that plot
• 14:37
  point. Probably my favorite part about this movie because I've been like fascinated by these things.
• 14:42
  Since I was 10 there's a moose in this movie. Oh I thought you were going to talk about pimps.
• 14:50
  Oh that's next. I will say that I've been fascinated by pimps for a while. All right I was
• 14:57
  gonna have some fun talking about a moose but yeah let's talk about pimps. So 50 cents in this movie.
• 15:03
  Yeah. He plays the pimp. He's got the sweetest wig ever. Oh man it's so good. He produced this too.
• 15:10
  He must feel very passionately about it. Good for him. Well there goes all my material. Thanks
• 15:15
  Peter. Yeah you're welcome. I mean my soul material is like hey isn't it weird that 50 cents in this
• 15:19
  movie. It is weird. So you want to talk about pimps. Go. Well he was kind of a pimp with a
• 15:24
  heart of gold in the end. He saw an opportunity and tried to rob the guy that was gonna kill the
• 15:30
  sex worker. Yeah okay so maybe not a heart of gold. So yeah 50 cent. So Hanson gets one of his
• 15:39
  buddies to go and rough up this pimp to track down Cindy Paulson. Biddy cent says they're gonna get
• 15:47
  out of town grabs the girl drives her out the middle of nowhere to do the trade-off and when
• 15:53
  the guy's got a gun on Cindy Biddy cent pulls a gun on the other guy. And we've got a real Mexican
• 15:58
  stand-up. Yes. Except Cindy doesn't have a gun. Instead she just drives away. Yes for every reason
• 16:05
  it is not actually a Mexican stand-up. Correct thing to do in that instance. Yeah why would you
• 16:11
  trust either of them. Yeah and instead of just you know shooting the guy because at this point
• 16:16
  you're not not gonna shoot the guy 50 cent. Yeah. He waits for the guy to turn around and shoot him.
• 16:22
  Yeah with his spare gun. Yeah you're in Alaska you're in North Texas everyone's got guns. Also
• 16:28
  you're on like what appeared to be a huge frozen over lake. Yeah. Like just shoot him. Speaking of
• 16:34
  everyone having guns like more guns than they know what to do with Hanson like packs up all of the
• 16:39
  evidence takes out in the middle of the forest and gets rid of it except for all the evidence he
• 16:44
  didn't pack up which was in a crawl which was in his attic under the floorboards. Yeah I think it's.
• 16:48
  Why wouldn't you just put the extra stuff there too if you don't expect that to be found. Well
• 16:53
  he doesn't want to keep like okay I'm not gonna try to pretend like I know what goes on in his
• 16:58
  mind but it seems logical that you wouldn't keep all of your trophies somewhere so high traffic
• 17:06
  like inside of your house like that. Except for the ones he did. But you kept the murder weapons
• 17:11
  there. Were those the murder weapons? I mean they talk about them using 223 ammo but it's not just
• 17:17
  a hunting rifle and a knife that's what he killed with and they showed like a Thompson and something
• 17:22
  else. But he still had the bag of like jewelry and stuff he kept because he'd like to keep those as
• 17:27
  trophies. He kept those in like the garage. Yes. Where he was when the cops showed up so he wasn't
• 17:34
  able to like go back and get anything else it's like grab these personal effects of the victims.
• 17:41
  But the cops didn't just show up they were just staking out his house they hadn't had the warrant
• 17:44
  yet. I mean which he wouldn't know but no one's coming to his house. I think he knew because he
• 17:48
  was looking out the window and he saw this. Yeah I mean that they just if you're gonna take the time
• 17:54
  to grab the stuff that you just keep out in the open why not get the actual stuff out of the house
• 17:59
  instead of the stuff that is adjacent. Could have taken more time. He did get rid of the bracelet
• 18:05
  though the matching bracelet to one of the murder one of the murder victims sister had a matching
• 18:11
  bracelet which is ultimately what Halcombe uses to kind of corner him in interrogation which is
• 18:17
  he says they found this bracelet even though it wasn't the original. I mean and ultimately what
• 18:21
  gets Hanson at the end is when he's you know feels cornered Cindy pretty much opens the door to the
• 18:28
  interrogation room and he sees her and just loses his shit and yells in front of her room of
• 18:33
  detectives I should have killed you when I had the chance. Yeah really kind of lost his cool there.
• 18:39
  But hey there was a moose in this movie and that made me happy. Yeah yeah talk about that moose a
• 18:43
  little more. I have to I kind of like just the illusion of moose. Yeah you're right. Just a hint
• 18:49
  of moose. Just a little touch of moose touch of the tooch touch of moose. And that's how we're
• 18:54
  going to tie it back to last last episode. My last note is also fuck the police so hey we came full
• 19:01
  circle. Fuck those police. Do you have any fun facts about this film or the making of this film Nick?
• 19:07
  They were incredibly inconsistent in keeping things in the correct decade throughout the movie
• 19:14
  there's stuff like in the opening scene in the airport there's a flat screen tv on the wall.
• 19:21
  Yeah. Halcombe's car has 2012 plate registration. There's TripAdvisor stickers on a bunch of windows
• 19:29
  and stuff around town. That's awesome. I didn't catch any of that. I also didn't pay that much
• 19:33
  attention. Yeah I looked up some of these and kind of got on a roll with it but it's like
• 19:38
  it's a huge number of problems. There's a 2005 pickup just driving down the street. Those
• 19:45
  crosswalks that have the countdown timer those didn't come into play until 2001 in San Francisco.
• 19:51
  2001 interesting. Yeah. Space Odyssey. No because of 9-11. That would have been a great segue but
• 19:58
  we're not there yet. No that's true. We can put it anywhere. So except that is the power that I have.
• 20:04
  To put it anywhere. Yeah. Peter your power is incredible. So except for uh Cindy Paulson all
• 20:10
  the photos they used in the film for the murder board like the victims um all their files they
• 20:16
  used the actual photos of the victims and at the end of the film they showed them all said who was
• 20:22
  found kind of gave years and information about them and then the last photo is of Vanessa Hudgens
• 20:28
  and it then it changes over to an actual photo of the real Cindy Paulson. So we get to know names
• 20:35
  of these women and you know the full scope of how awful this human being was. Yeah which in numbers
• 20:42
  is 17 known murdered women. Yeah. Another 21 suspected murdered people and 31 rape. So that's
• 20:52
  pretty gnarly. It's not you don't want to eat ribs with this guy. Another fun fact. So oh wait I could
• 20:59
  I could tie I could I could work this narrative thread. Uh Cusack was tired of being of being
• 21:03
  cast in romantic comedies so he he wanted to you know do something more fitting for his acting so
• 21:10
  he decided to play two serial killers back to back. The other movie that John Cusack did where he
• 21:16
  played a serial killer was the paperboy from 2012. Based on the video game? Yes I'm going to just
• 21:22
  assume yes. Yeah gotta be. I mean you killed a lot of people in that game. Yeah but yeah I mean you're
• 21:29
  right there's there's sort of this era of people trying to reinvent themselves as actors a little
• 21:33
  bit and Cusack was tired of being the nice guy romantic lead so he picked serial killer and like
• 21:40
  Vanessa Hudgens had been you know Disney or whatever it was for forever and it's like I'm
• 21:46
  gonna play a sex worker. Let's talk I mean let's just talk about the performances they are
• 21:50
  powerful. I mean there's some pretty good ones. Yeah they're good I mean Cusack did a great job.
• 21:55
  Cusack did a good job. Cage was very I mean it was a good performance it was you know subdued
• 22:01
  but it wasn't like uh under performed or anything. No it was a very good performance and actually
• 22:07
  this will lead me to my very long extended quote for this episode. You go ahead and do that. I
• 22:12
  assume you don't have one for this one. I disagree let's see what you've got. All right so this is
• 22:18
  actually I'm gonna pull a uh I'm gonna pull uh what the hell is that on your own time. What was
• 22:25
  the worst movie that we've watched so far? Left Behind. I'm gonna pull a Left Behind. I'm gonna
• 22:28
  take a quote from an interview he did for this movie. It's a bit long so uh but he was asked
• 22:34
  about how he at this point was really known for just being in fantastical action films or like
• 22:40
  dumb ass movies and his response was I like fantasy movies. I like kind of charming horror
• 22:47
  films not slashers but charming horror films because there's a way of exciting the audience
• 22:52
  with a violence that's benign. It's a skull shooting fire or it's a magician shooting
• 23:00
  something out of a wand or whatever. It's a ring you know. That's still a safe zone. It's not
• 23:08
  promoting violence but when you deal with something that really happened that hurt people the families
• 23:15
  and you know there I wanted to approach it more docudrama style and more cinema verte and photo
• 23:21
  realist acting because also I've done a lot of larger than life kind of abstract performances
• 23:27
  by design and I wanted to remind people that I could also do this. Okay so I have a theory on
• 23:33
  this. It's right around this time that he was going through his financial troubles right like
• 23:38
  that was 2011 2010 something like that and there's like a run of movies that I'm like
• 23:45
  he didn't have to flex all that much on these and it seems like they are just you couldn't have
• 23:51
  waited for like one fucking second. I tried I was like I should stop and then it was too late.
• 23:59
  Yeah the damage was done. But like okay. The thought was in your head and you're just like I should stop
• 24:04
  but I don't have to. I was trying to have moose talk and you guys fucking cut that off. No moose talk.
• 24:08
  All right so you were saying? So I just think it's interesting it's like and I'd love to actually
• 24:13
  pick his brain about this. What was the motivation for some of these movies? Was it to get yourself
• 24:19
  out of the hole? Was it to satisfy some creative aspect of your life? Because I mean here are the
• 24:25
  ones that came around this time. Joe, Rage, Outkast starring Hayden Christensen and Fucking Left
• 24:33
  Behind. Those are like his movies in this window. Well and in this film he was originally offered
• 24:39
  the role of John Hanson and turned it down. He didn't want to do that. He was more interested in
• 24:44
  playing the detective and he thought that was a much more interesting story and actually got to
• 24:49
  interview the actual detective and meet him before performing this role and promised the guy that he
• 24:55
  was you know gonna make him look good. And he also talked in an interview I watched about this how
• 25:00
  he likes playing cops. All right Nick did you have a quote for this one? I did but actually it was
• 25:06
  the same one that Sean had so he took my quote. Wow that was a really long quote. Yeah I guess
• 25:11
  we're even. I think the only other thing I had to say on this is that it was a really fast filming.
• 25:17
  It was just 26 days which you know back before 2001 it was like 90 plus days to make a movie.
• 25:25
  It was really fast filming sorry but the director actually timed it so that it would hit during the
• 25:31
  changing of the season and it was filmed like semi-chronologically so that way at the end he
• 25:38
  wanted the the feeling of like the weather closing in on the story and bringing more tension that way.
• 25:45
  He actually postponed the movie five months to do that. Yeah that's cool. This movie was made on an
• 25:51
  estimated 27 million dollar budget and made 5 million 617. Yeah not uh not good. And oh all
• 26:04
  right that brings us now that that's uh now that that uncomfortableness is out of the way let's
• 26:08
  talk about our second film which I'm sure will raise the spirits of this podcast. Oh wait it's
• 26:13
  World Trade Center. More government funded lies. Starting strong boys starting strong. So uh this
• 26:22
  propaganda movie was brought to you. I actually do want to talk about this um but we will talk
• 26:29
  about propaganda or talk about 9-11 propaganda. Talk about this movie as propaganda. Yeah 9-11
• 26:35
  was done on a fucking sound stage in LA. Everybody knows that. Same as the moon landing. I actually do
• 26:42
  want to talk about that as well. God you're you're fucking you're on it today. Sweet all right uh you
• 26:47
  know we're gonna talk about this first. What I found interesting about this and here was one of
• 26:50
  my fun facts is the city would not allow them to use ground zero would not allow them to film
• 26:57
  anything there. They were only allowed to film one scene of cops driving to ground zero for the film
• 27:03
  and anything shot in New York the actors weren't even allowed to look up in the direction of where
• 27:08
  the towers would be. There was the city would not allow for any depictions of this happening so they
• 27:14
  had to be real creative with it and I was remember thinking watching this I'm like this movie does a
• 27:19
  really good job of not like depicting this horrible event and it's not about that and it turns out
• 27:24
  that the city was just like no we don't fucking ever want to see this again don't put this in
• 27:27
  your movie. So this film was all shot in LA. All shots at ground zero are done in LA because the
• 27:34
  city would not allow them to depict that in New York. Well they also already had the set from
• 27:39
  five years prior when they filmed it the first time.
• 27:46
  And we're cancelled all right let's go get dinner. Now it's a conspiracy podcast. I'm just trying to
• 27:51
  get in on some of that Q money man. I'm gonna complain until that first check shows up then
• 27:56
  I'm like all right. But no I just I thought that was interesting. Real quickly this film is. Yeah
• 28:04
  give us the summary. I'll tell you it's 9-11. Yeah I was gonna say like oh how do I approach
• 28:10
  this because it is 9-11 and it's you know that but it's based on the true story of two port
• 28:15
  authority cops who were they weren't in the towers they were in building five so something in the
• 28:22
  attached area beneath yeah tower too yeah and when one of the towers came down the floor came out
• 28:31
  under them they were crushed under a bunch of debris and they survived but it's them being
• 28:36
  trapped while waiting for rescue juxtaposed with their families who are trying to get information
• 28:42
  and waiting to see what happens and it's a day I think it's what 12 to 20 hours of time. This film
• 28:51
  jumps around a lot especially at the end when they finally do get rescued it's like the all is lost
• 28:59
  moment and then five minutes later they're getting like dug out and not in a oh we're found it's you
• 29:05
  know the all is lost moment someone finds them it's like okay call somebody and then all of a sudden
• 29:10
  there's like everybody's there. Yeah I think this movie struggled with pacing a lot in the times when
• 29:19
  they're not underneath rocks like in the act one I mean the movie starts basically day in the life
• 29:27
  of a cop. The fucking thing happens at like nine in the morning yeah so it's like a couple hours
• 29:31
  into his day planes are hitting buildings supposedly and uh then like it's kind of it's kind of like
• 29:43
  really quick and everything's just kind of happening you don't know really who anybody is
• 29:47
  like Michael Pena who plays uh Jimeno is a rookie okay there's some kind of rapport that he has with
• 29:56
  people but you don't really get to know anything about him so just really he has nice boxers yeah
• 30:00
  so real quick Nick Cage plays uh John uh McLaughlin who was also at the World Trade Center for the 93
• 30:10
  car bombing and Michael Pena plays Willamino Maria Bello plays Donna McLaughlin uh John McLaughlin's
• 30:18
  wife Maggie Gyllenhaal is Alison Jimeno the pregnant wife of Michael Pena's character and then
• 30:24
  Michael Shannon shows up later for reasons and John Bernthal's in it too as Dave Karnes uh yeah
• 30:32
  well okay we'll go there there's a lot of people in this film at the beginning also I mean when this
• 30:38
  was filmed I don't think John Bernthal was he wasn't the Punisher yet no or Shane from Walking
• 30:44
  Dead but either way I'm like oh John Bernthal's in here wait no he's not yeah because he's in two
• 30:50
  scenes he's introduced as working he's introduced and he's killed yeah he's introduced it's the
• 30:56
  pacing all over again it's like like everything's happening really fast then it happens and
• 31:01
  everything happens really fucking slow and then everything just resolves yeah so he's like
• 31:07
  he's working down in the buildings when it goes down or in the complex when it goes down and then
• 31:14
  but he used to work at the Port Authority with these guys so he's like guys let me come with you
• 31:19
  and then it all comes down and he's dead like that was a weird use of screen time I mean I get I
• 31:27
  again this is based on real people which I understand but at the same time conservation of story
• 31:33
  yeah I mean it shouldn't surprise you that credited writers on this are John McLaughlin John
• 31:38
  McLaughlin and his wife and I'm assuming the person who actually kind of tried to clean it all up and
• 31:44
  make it a screenplay yeah no so it's not written by somebody who is I don't know educated in
• 31:52
  screenplay writing speaking of slowing things down unnecessarily whenever when the buildings
• 31:57
  come down in that scene all I could think of is why has this been slowed to 12 frames a second
• 32:03
  I don't know it's kind of weird um because I thought that this movie had pretty effective
• 32:11
  practical effects I did too and then they do weird things like that kind of camera work and
• 32:17
  stuff like that it's like it's not necessary like unless they wanted to like I mean you're
• 32:22
  dropping foam blocks yeah and saying they're concrete and they don't fall the same way so
• 32:27
  maybe they wanted to speed it up just to like make it more chaotic but about the time this movie
• 32:34
  would have made the jackass movie would have been made and they do the same thing and it looks good
• 32:39
  yeah but they don't slow it down wait they did 9-eleven the towers yes I was sorry I thought it
• 32:46
  was no we're getting into it is Johnny Knoxville don't don't put that in the podcast
• 32:50
  don't say it was Johnny Knoxville we love you I do I do generally enjoy Jackass their opening
• 32:54
  scenes has like concrete blocks and stuff being like blown up yeah and it's just foam and I'm
• 33:00
  sure this movie could have had a bigger budget than the first jackass that's interesting look
• 33:04
  that up the estimated budget of 65 million jackass five million dollars okay so they could have only
• 33:12
  gotten a cage for jackass one true and no one else and I think that's the only reason why I
• 33:19
  think that would have been great you think Nick Cage took a reduced budget or a reduced payout
• 33:24
  on this because for half the movie you only see his face I mean just in terms of an acting gig
• 33:30
  how awesome would that be to just spend six hours in makeup and then just lay on your side I will
• 33:35
  say I think it would be terrible because his mouth is so fucking dry yeah it's gross like there's no
• 33:42
  shine on his teeth it's just grit and dirt inside of everything this movie made me real thirsty
• 33:49
  though it is a very dry movie yeah heart heart heart I did like just visually as the movie goes
• 33:56
  on I want to talk about chemtrails as they're under there more and more turning our frogs gay
• 34:03
  the the makeup gets more extreme like the bruising gets more extreme like there was
• 34:07
  attention to detail there that as a visual person I appreciated no the makeup effects were great
• 34:12
  yeah I actually think it was filmed really well too I mean other than some of the the antiquey
• 34:15
  crap that you're talking about with the frame rate like I thought it was lit well and good
• 34:20
  cinematography antiquey antiquey antiquey yeah not really a word but no but no because even like the
• 34:30
  last scene of this film is so one of the running stories in this is Michael Pena his wife's having
• 34:36
  a daughter they couldn't decide what to name it and at the end of the film this goes back to antiquey
• 34:42
  crap like when they're having the picnic for the survivors he calls out to his daughter because
• 34:46
  they finally got a name for her and it slows down to that 12 frame a second frame rate it's dumb
• 34:52
  I watched this on 9-eleven which was not planned it was just like oh wait we're recording and I
• 34:57
  still need to watch world trade center did you guys give a shit about any of the side plot with
• 35:03
  the families no no I feel like this actually could have been a better like a bottle episode
• 35:08
  kind of a style where it's just the two of them having to try and stay awake share stories about
• 35:14
  their families like who cares about the actual actors well one of the then you couldn't justify
• 35:20
  mclaughlin's or mclaughlin's wife co-writing it good point and she needed to get her money too
• 35:26
  because everybody is looking to get paid out for this 9-eleven cover-up you're just muting Nick now
• 35:32
  right I probably should but no no this film doesn't as a film care about any of the additional side
• 35:39
  bullshit because in the 11th hour of this film like in the third act they decide to just throw
• 35:46
  out there that John and his wife are having marital problems it's kind of implied from the get-go I
• 35:51
  mean you see gets up to go to work you see her just kind of give a look and then doesn't say
• 35:56
  goodbye or anything when he goes to her or in the morning she's asleep I get up at 3 30 every morning
• 36:01
  and I wake Josie's ass up jump on the bed yeah it's saturday we can put this in the column of
• 36:08
  terrible children because his son JJ is a fucking shithead like I get the kids like worried about
• 36:15
  his dad but at the same time like we need to go down there and literally everyone in the family's
• 36:20
  like that's not how it works you can't do that it would just be difficult stop it and he's just like
• 36:26
  you don't love dad anymore and like runs out and is just a shitty kid yeah I mean he's like 10 the
• 36:32
  actor's definitely not but the character was 10 so so you know he's shitty yeah I mean what do you
• 36:40
  think about uh Michael Pena and Nick Cage just vibing off each other I think he'd be hard pressed
• 36:46
  not to have a good rapport with Michael Pena yeah I think he's just way too charismatic on stage and
• 36:53
  probably off or screen yeah well probably on stage too on stage or on screen Michael Pena gets my
• 37:01
  three thumbs up yeah oh and they're also there with the body of uh Dominic Pizzullo played by
• 37:07
  Jay Hernandez yeah this whole time he's another character who's introduced to immediately be
• 37:12
  killed do you think they just put like a mannequin like half a mannequin up there that looked like
• 37:17
  him I hope well I mean most of the shots we get of Pena and Cage once it's just them it's usually
• 37:26
  just this one one angle tight on their face yeah because you could probably only see them from one
• 37:31
  angle one thing I found shocking and Nick you'll have a witty retort to this I'm sure is just the
• 37:37
  audience disagrees how little people like at ground zero at the time how little people knew
• 37:42
  like they were debating whether or not there was a second plane like while driving over there yeah
• 37:48
  well I mean that wasn't like hardcore internet age people didn't have it in their pockets
• 37:52
  information didn't move as fast and people weren't able to like live stream it as it happened
• 37:59
  things like that I mean I was also on the west coast when it happened I woke up to it so it's not
• 38:04
  like just but being there and they're debating whether or not the second building had been hit
• 38:11
  or if that was just a smoke cloud from the first building I just thought that was interesting
• 38:15
  and something I'd never considered because I've never had to consider being at an event like that
• 38:20
  because it's terrifying yeah cool we're gonna draw the line there yeah shitty things like that
• 38:25
  I mean not not necessarily manufactured to that scale but shitty things do happen around my life
• 38:33
  like I mean things get dropped off of cranes and stuff on construction sites not like every day or
• 38:39
  anything but you hear about it I mean just a couple of years ago in Seattle we had a crane drop
• 38:44
  up on mercer off of a google building and it fucking fucked shit up killed a guy I do want
• 38:52
  to talk about how Jesus is an aquafina man Jesus shows up with a bottle of water well in Pizzullo's
• 38:57
  mind not Pizzullo I know I can't say that he isn't I mean I feel like he probably would have
• 39:02
  shown up with that in army of one I'm not gonna lie I don't think that was Jesus because I didn't
• 39:07
  see Russell Brand in the credits anywhere a very good point all right we got where I wanted with
• 39:12
  that bitch um but speaking of credits so Michael Shannon first of all like every time I see him I
• 39:18
  just think that he's like a melted Michael C. Hall what what do you guys think of him oh he would
• 39:27
  play a great serial killer I don't know who Michael Shannon is he is the marine and there's a guy who
• 39:32
  comes up and he's like hey you got a name marine and he goes staff sergeant carns he's like
• 39:37
  got something a little shorter staff sergeant Michael Shannon blaze staff sergeant Dave carns
• 39:43
  who heard of them and was the one who was like who found them or found where they were so did
• 39:48
  get them saved so I understand why he's a part of this movie but at the same time he's just there to
• 39:55
  be there he's got that dumb line where it's like don't you understand we're at war now yeah oh
• 40:01
  yeah god fucking get over it honestly it tracks with every interaction I've ever had with a marine
• 40:09
  this is this is clearly a different time in the world I do like how Allison's dad is very
• 40:14
  concerned about her losing the baby but is not concerned at all with smoking like a fucking
• 40:19
  chimney in the house yeah I mean I talked about this with Josie when we were watching it because
• 40:25
  she had the same statement and I was like they hadn't even banned it in like smoking in bars
• 40:31
  and restaurants at this point it's just it's hindsight yeah hindsight great yeah I don't know
• 40:37
  you got any fun facts for this 9-eleven movie Nick that's a that's a loaded question I should not
• 40:42
  have asked that yeah facts in a pretty heavy quote uh tell me about lizard people so in uh the summer
• 40:50
  before my junior year of high school whatever that was graduated in 03 help me out in the math
• 40:56
  drop it down in the comments later how old am I what am I doing here I went to New York with a
• 41:03
  fact-finding group just to try to figure all this out and get the information to the people and uh
• 41:11
  while we were standing there at this you know supposed site of a tragedy so my tour guide just
• 41:18
  turns around looks at me he's like want to hear a joke and then he throws up for a high five and then
• 41:24
  drops his hand real quick and goes who's gay and I'm just sitting there at 9-eleven with my hand up
• 41:30
  after a tour guide is like who's gay true story fucking wild yeah cut cut that that needs to be
• 41:38
  cut I'm not standing it didn't it didn't age well but it is pretty accurate for 2001 that's true
• 41:46
  and it's just outrageous that a New Yorker in New York at night at ground zero yeah he was
• 41:53
  probably from Jersey that's probably true fuck Jersey yeah those motherfuckers bet they did it
• 41:59
  no it was carried out too well hey uh don't don't sue us New Jersey oh my god all right um okay
• 42:10
  we got it do you have a quote Nick yeah we're gonna wrap this shit up real quick yeah I got
• 42:15
  I got a quote yeah actually before we do quotes just like what did you think of his performance
• 42:21
  in this because I know it's really weird he was sideways the whole time I didn't like his accent
• 42:26
  it was no it was a little overdone but he was also inconsistent yeah but he was also supposed
• 42:32
  supposed to be crushed I don't know I didn't I mean even when he wasn't crushed it was inconsistent
• 42:37
  Michael Pena stole the show like Michael Pena is the star of this film like he's the one who keeps
• 42:41
  them both motivated and which will go into my quote yeah he's he's likable too likeable and just
• 42:46
  yeah it's just a Nick Kages soul whole performance and it's just like I gotta stay alive because you
• 42:54
  die I die well more those pouty pouty lips how about that mustache though oh yeah cop stash
• 43:00
  cop stash all the way good cop stash did we did we talk good cop bad cop uh not on this one good
• 43:06
  cop bad cop fine cop he doesn't do much cop work he gets insane by telling him to go to the
• 43:10
  elevator shaft because it's the strongest part of the building yeah that's about all we get from him
• 43:15
  but that's not even like cop knowledge that's just I don't know engineering yeah it's just structural
• 43:20
  knowledge yeah all right what's your quote nick so this happens over two scenes but originally like
• 43:32
  Jimeno and McLaughlin are talking about you know their wives and stuff and Nicholas Cage is just
• 43:41
  agreeing with Michael Binger and that like Michael Binger is like oh my wife she's Italian she can
• 43:47
  don't get her mad she's a wild one and McLaughlin comes back with Donna can get mad too she wants a
• 43:55
  new kitchen I'm an okay carpenter so I'm building her a new one there's no cabinets right now she's
• 44:01
  pissed so I gotta get out of here I married the right one so he's just like you know dudes kind of
• 44:08
  yeah going around talking about how uh shitty quote unquote their relationships are it's like
• 44:16
  oh don't get her mad oh my my wife she my bowling chain yeah but also you know at the same time
• 44:22
  being like oh she's a she's a right proper lady and then uh in a dream later he's having a
• 44:28
  conversation with his wife Donna and Donna's just like honey the kitchen's not even finished yet
• 44:35
  she's trying to motivate him to get out of this hole and go back so she's like the kitchen's not
• 44:40
  even finished yet and he's like okay would you get off the kitchen is this necessary I'm stuck
• 44:46
  and I like that because you know that is actually I think the best bit of script in this movie too
• 44:53
  well that was okay that second one was my first quote my second one uh I went for just copycat
• 44:59
  full Nick Cage quote it's Jimeno and McLaughlin when they're first just starting to talk they you
• 45:05
  know it's like the second scene of them underground and they're just going back and forth and Jimeno's
• 45:09
  like you're not a big talker talker are you no well gee you gotta give me something cuz
• 45:20
  I can't because my knees are crushed again that's why I can't fucking talk
• 45:25
  which was the most cage scene out of both these films yeah I could definitely see like a person's
• 45:32
  patience just being worn thin by somebody just yammering at them like and I know they gotta talk
• 45:38
  to like keep themselves occupied and focused but if like you're fucking crushed under all of that
• 45:46
  concrete and like bones are broken you're bleeding internally and you know you're dying and some
• 45:53
  assholes just like talking to you about space frogs and shit I don't know you never talked
• 46:01
  about space frogs no but oh my god so oh we still have to decide which one of these wins
• 46:06
  yeah I think we're at that point I don't really have any other it's not World Trade Center I don't
• 46:11
  want to watch this again yeah World Trade Center in my opinion is a bad movie it's not a good it's
• 46:17
  not good I agree I mean it's not fine to watch people shouldn't watch it no it's all a lie and
• 46:24
  it's just well it is it's big American propaganda and it's a big rah rah let's all go to war has uh
• 46:29
  the weirdest but I will say the weirdest part of this film for me is when it cuts to the rest of
• 46:34
  the world watching this and everyone's like America and everyone's like freaking out and you see like
• 46:40
  every other country and it's like old news footage from everything else including this one scene they
• 46:46
  have in Japan where they're what Japan's watching it live it would have been nighttime in Japan and
• 46:52
  the footage they showed was during the day so it wasn't live so it is a fucking lie yeah it's all
• 46:57
  a conspiracy it's I hesitate to say it's a conspiracy it's a fucking cover-up though what
• 47:04
  was in those buildings that the government didn't want us to see I bet it was hunter biden's laptop
• 47:10
  all right that joke out there uh so yes that was World Trade Center in the frozen ground the frozen
• 47:16
  ground goes forward it had better acting had a more compelling script it's a more watchable
• 47:22
  movie it's a more watchable movie um so yeah next week we've got a palette cleanser the last of our
• 47:28
  eight and nine seeds national treasure book of secrets against the sorcerer's apprentice
• 47:35
  and also we will have our first guest on the podcast so good good good I mean are we gonna
• 47:44
  are we gonna broadcast that uh forehand if he doesn't show we just rag on him for five
• 47:50
  minutes yeah we make fun of that and then we move on okay you hear that perfect you hear that if you
• 47:55
  don't come on our show we're gonna make fun of you yeah yeah you gotta come good night everybody
• 48:03
  yeah so uh please god thank you for making it through this episode like share and subscribe
• 48:08
  yeah tell your friends we need some word of mouth uh we're not desperate or anything but we'd like
• 48:13
  word of mouth tell me what theories you've got down in the comments in the comments I want to
• 48:17
  hear yeah someday actually somebody drop down in the comments and tell me where to find the
• 48:23
  comments because I don't know where I'm looking that seems like a conspiracy in and of itself
• 48:28
  yeah are people talking about this huh who fucking knows
• 48:34
  all songs are weirdly horny if you know you listen to them the right way I think in particular this
• 48:38
  dave one I mean all dave songs are super horny yeah that's probably true keeps going with the
• 48:44
  I'll come into you yeah and it's like like okay a little heavy-handed are those the actual lines
• 48:50
  yeah dear god crash into me and I'll come into you I thought that was about the time he like
• 48:56
  you let all his poop out in the uh yeah yeah yeah what a classic classic dmv move