Latest / Movie Meltdown / Michael Paré on the Streets of Fire

Transcript

Michael Paré on the Streets of Fire · Movie Meltdown

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Attention, shoppers! I trust you've got credit cards to pay
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: for all that stuff. Hi, this is Captain Mary Stewart,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. It's showtime.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Picture Association of America.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Our nuclear reactor.
• 0:31
  Speaker 5: Pumping out one million kilowatts of power.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: And I'm George.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And we're coming to you live via digital recording from
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the Oddity Studios for a very special episode. And as
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I was putting this together, our special guest star this episode,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, well, you know, beforehand, we'll want to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: kind of ease our way into the discussion. So who
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: do I know that's super into at least one of
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the films of Michael Paré? So as I remember, when
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: we first got together to kind of discuss doing these
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: episodes and doing more of this, somehow we were throwing
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: out movie titles and we got on a Huge run
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of Streets of Fire. And I was like, well, that
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: seems like a good way to ease our way in.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: So before we sit down with Michael Paré, yeah, I
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: figured if anybody wanted to discuss Streets of Fire, you
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: would be the one.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that would be, I would thoroughly enjoy that and
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: definitely send my best to Mr. Paré. Yeah, I've been
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: a fan of his for years.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I... He's interesting just because he hit at
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: such a specific point. And, like, so much, you know,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: thrown at him at once. I mean, he starts off
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: doing a little TV and then immediately gets, like, one
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of the biggest movies at that time. Like, not necessarily
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: box office wise, but I feel like impact wise. If
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: you had cable in the 80s, Eddie and the Cruisers
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was on. It was just on a loop, whatever channel...
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Or if you owned.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: A radio or had a car with a radio, you
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: heard one of the many songs off that album the
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: year or so it came out.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: That Dark Side was on nonstop. Radio Rock just played that.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: That was a great song anyway, but I think the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: fact that they had a way to mark it and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: tie it into the movie was like, I'm sure the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: studio and the radio stations all enjoyed this little tie-in,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and they played that all the time.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: And it was just kind of a nice kismet sort
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: of thing, because the band in the movie was billed
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: as they were of the time, but also a bit
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: ahead of their time because of Eddie's writing skills.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: But also kind of retro.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: It's like kind of a 50s rock feel, but then
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: it sort of jumps ahead in time because he's ahead
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: of his time, and then... I don't know. It's such
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a mixture of all of those things.
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Well, again, like I said, you know, when they were
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: doing it, it was, you know, the 60s. So, you know,
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: maybe the Beatles had hit, maybe they hadn't just yet.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: So it was not a common thing to have a
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: front man who was your chief songwriter and you primarily
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: did originals.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: Most of those times, the days, you maybe did one
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: or two originals and then you grabbed a shitload of
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: the popular songs of the day and did them your way.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Or as close to the original as you could. So
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: that's kind of what they were doing. And so John
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band had kind of a
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: straightforward rock and roll throwback sort of sound.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: In a time that they stood out. And so, you know,
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: basically it was kind of cool because the movie basically
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: made two careers. It made Michael Paret and it made
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: Except that John Cafferty was kind of pigeonholed. It's like, oh, hey,
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: we're the Eddie and the Cruisers Band.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: So... Yeah.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, again... huge at that point but then looking
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: ahead it was like you didn't see a ton from
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: him you know within the next within those 80s it's
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: like you don't really see a lot more they they.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: Had one hit that wasn't associated the song uh city
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: yeah that was the only hit they had that wasn't
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: associated with any of the cruisers yeah but everything else
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: was associated with either one or two uh so but
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: yeah but yeah that was definitely my introduction to michael
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: as well i was at any of the cruisers and
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: so Streets of Fire was pretty easy when seeing kind
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: of the first I think I can't remember if I
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: saw the trailer or the box art first.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: That poster art is amazing at least what they used
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: in the US I've seen other weird variations overseas but
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: like that just striking colors and like it's just so well.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: Put together it's always been one of my favorite movie
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: posters always has been I wish I knew the artist
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: who did that one but well.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And it's another one of those that much like his
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: first movie like had its own life in the soundtrack
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: and it is a huge soundtrack once you get into
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the movie but really the only one that broke through
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that's how i knew the movie at the time like
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: i didn't see it in the theater but i was
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: glued to mtv like every kid at that point and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: i was like i saw that video daily probably multiple
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: times a day and like i really liked that song
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And it's funny when you find out who the guy
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: is who does the song versus what they show you
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: on screen. They are complete opposites. But it works.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that. I Can Dream About You was
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: basically in the movie. It looks like it's done by
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: Robert Townsend and his doo-wop band when it's actually sung
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: by a white dude.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: The dorky is looking like Dan Hartman. No offense, but
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: he does not look like the cool guys on stage
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: in the movie.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Sorry, Dan Hartman. No offense. Just a great song.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I think he knows. He's not those guys. And even
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the studio was like, yeah, we like your song and all,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: but this is who's going to be singing it. They're
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: super cool and slick like the entirety of this awesome movie.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: And I was also fascinated with the fact that Jim Steinman,
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: of course, he had all the L & M and
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: the Attack songs. With the exception of Sorcerer, which was
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Stevie Nicks, which is a badass song. But yeah, it
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: was always intriguing to me how Jim basically used two
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: female vocalists for Ellen's sound. Sometimes they were used separately,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: and then for like Nowhere Fast, they were used simultaneously,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: which was great. That's technically amazing to make it sound
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: like that's one singer with a powerful voice, not sound like.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: It's two ladies.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: And it's completely, you can't hear it.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: And using that equipment at the time, not even fancy
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: digital computer nonsense like we have now, like to be
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: able to physically use these tapes. And create this new person, essentially.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: That's pretty impressive. It's groundbreaking is what it is. And
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: for that to get buried, you know, it just, yeah.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: There's another thing I love about this movie. Because that
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: thing is, I think this also kind of fell into,
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: you know, some marketing snafus. Because it's kind of hard
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: to market this movie. It's kind of a musical. It's
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: an action film. It's a romance. It's a throwback. It's
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: not a throwback.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: It's its own universe, essentially. Yeah, like, as you get
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: into it, yeah.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's like, okay, this looks very retro and 1950s-esque, but, oh, wait, there's, like,
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: music videos and neon and some modern-day clothing and.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Wait, what? It's 50s and 80s, and I think it's, like,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: one town over from the Tim Burton Gotham. Yeah. Like,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: it's also those same cars and kind of that same
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: weird over-the-top aesthetic, but at the same time, it's also
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: gritty 80s at the same time, like... It's such a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: weird mixture of things all crammed into one thing.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: And what war or conflict did Tom, Cody, and McCoy
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: serve in?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Because they are soldiers apparently, but he looks like he
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: just hopped out of World War I.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Whereas McCoy looks like she came out of a M.A.S.H.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Unit.
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Neither seem like nom vets. So, yeah, it's like, what
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: war is this? I don't know.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love it. And, of course, you got the
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: biker gang with Willem Dafoe and Lee Ving. Willem Dafoe,
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, of course, he looked like a baby in
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: this movie anyway, but just still sinister as all get out.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: He is so, and like so committed to this weird,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: creepy thing, which, again, later we would see him make
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a career of that. But at this point, he's still
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: early on for him, at least on film. So it's like, yeah,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it's so crazy. Because that's the thing. I remembered it
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: at the time. It was on cable after I watched
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the music video. Eventually the next year it shows up
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: on cable. I kind of half remembered it and thought
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: it remembered cool visuals and stuff. But it was only
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: like in the last few years. I went and like,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I need to sit down and watch that. And sat
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: down and was like, oh my God. Like this is amazing.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Like there's so many parts here. again the juggling of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: everything that somehow works is like so amazing so yeah
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it's only recently i've come to like fully accept how
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: phenomenal this movie or the fact that it ever got
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: made so i don't know what walter hill did to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: bring it all together but at the same time it
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: didn't really work out so i don't know At the time,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: it was certainly not the box office success they were
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: hoping for.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: Well, see, that's the funny thing, too, is that, you know, critically, see,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: I would have enjoyed kind of a Rotten Tomatoes, something
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: like that, around to see what this was because I've
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: never actually, if people who are familiar with this movie,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: they never dislike it.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: They always have some level of enjoyment or they just
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: flat out like me, I'm a fanatic of it.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I think it was that, like you said earlier, I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: think it was that don't know how to sell it. Well,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: at the same time, I think the audiences were like,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with this. And that's
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: why they avoided it. Like if it would have been
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: one thing, oh, this is a great new action movie,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: all the action fans would have gone, or this is
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a cool musical, like musical fans would have gone. But
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I think it didn't hit with any of the groups.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: So everybody kind of went, eh, whatever, let's go see this,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and everybody went to something else, because I think it
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: just didn't fall with any of those little subcultures, because
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: it's like five or six different groups that should love
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this movie, and eventually did, but at the time, I
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: don't think they marketed it right to any of them,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: so everybody just kind of missed it at the time,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and found it later on cable, and then we all
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: grew to love it, but... Yeah, box office-wise, I don't
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: think it was appreciated the way it should have been.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's like anybody that's the rockabilly crowd,
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: they love this movie.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: This is their movie.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's, again, so many aspects. Like, even
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: just the... Again, sometimes I forget the Steinman part of it,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, that is its own subculture of, like,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: music fans that should be into anything that he has
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: anything to do with because he's so weird and identifiable
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: as a songwriter, so... He doesn't do short songs. No. No.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And they're very... Epic. Dramatic. Like, they're so over the top,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: which is perfect for a movie like this. Like, it's
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: already in its own weird universe, so it's like you can...
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: B is, you know, it's a rock and roll opera almost.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: It's that like epic in the way it approaches some
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of these things.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: But then to have like the complete stripped down nasty
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: version of the blasters in the movie when they get
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: into the bad guys hangout, you know, and them performing
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: and they got the girl scantily clad all twisting about
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: on top of the bar. It's like the complete opposite
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: side of the spectrum there too. So, of course, we
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: can't forget Diane Lane's performance. I mean, she was just,
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: gorgeous and just there i mean it's like just she
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: was the rock star and she just sold.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: It i was already in love with her by this
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: point yeah like i again as one of those kids
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: that just like that was my attachment was watching movies
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and occasionally tv people but the at There wasn't a
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: ton for guys. Most of your Tiger Beats were geared towards,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: you know, the girls. Yeah. But there was one that split. So,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: somewhere I had from that, like, Outsiders era, there's, like,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a fold-out poster of her that, oh, yeah, that was mine.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: There you go. And I was all about some Diane
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Lane at that point. So, yeah, she was already, like,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: amazing and super young to be, you know, the lead, essentially, of.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: I know, yeah. Because wasn't she, like... 19? Yeah, yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Like, she was... it was written to be like a
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: woman in her thirties, I think originally. And they saw
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: this performance that she's giving and like, well, we're going
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: to have to doctor this up a little bit. Cause
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: you can't say no to Diane Lane, but yeah.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: But, uh, yeah. So Michael parade or sorry, not Michael parade,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: but Tom Cody. No, that's right. I love it there.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: But yeah, that's one thing I love too about, you know,
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: Michael's performance in this movie. Like he is just the
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: ultra bad-ass in this movie, you know, just play like,
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: And it came off very natural. There's sometimes you get
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: somebody in a movie that plays a tough guy and
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: it looks like they're trying too hard. Yeah.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of that.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: There's a lot.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: In a lot of action movies.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: But, you know, Paré, like, he's, like, even in Eddie
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: and the Cruisers, too, it's like, there's a couple times
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: where he, like, you know, was like, oh, dude, he's
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: going to kick, like, Tom Berenger's ass or something.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like, but yeah, it just, it comes,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: him being a badass comes off him real easy. He's
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: got that kind of look to him and can just
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: put off that kind of charisma.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: So it was real easy to buy him as a
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: former soldier and coming in. He's basically kind of almost
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: like a, you know, gun for have gun will travel
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: paladin kind of dude.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: And so then he comes back to his hometown to
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: help out his girlfriend sort of thing like that. You know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: it's like, yeah, it is. Yeah, I did just his
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: whole thing sold it for me. But the surprising performance
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: for me always will be Rick Moranis. Basically, the only
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: time in his career, as far as I can remember,
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: outside of doing any SCTV skits, where he played an asshole.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and not just a little bit. That's one of those,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I forgot he was even in it until I went
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: back and revisited. And then I'm like, not only is
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: he in it a lot, but what a weird performance
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: coming from what we know is Rick Moranis in future
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: performances anyway.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: This is 84, so Ghostbusters came out that same year too.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: So it was a big year for him. And so
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: we knew that kind of lovable role and later on
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: do like the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movies and
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: all those other movies he's done. So he's always done
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: a lovable, nice guy role. I mean, to me, he's
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: Seymour for the rest of his life.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: You know, it's.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: Like he's so lovable and so dorky.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So like, yeah, let's be just kind of an asshole
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: this whole movie. I'm just like, yeah, this is a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: weird performance from him.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: But it's a great performance, too, because he pulls it off.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: You know, it's almost like, it's almost like if you
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: would see like Christopher Lee do a good guy role,
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: you know, it's like, and he does well at it.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: You're like, wow, I'm really, he's a nice guy, but
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: you know, but he probably just act like himself because
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: apparently I never got to meet the man before he passed,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: but apparently he was.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: A wonderful person. I've heard great things. Yeah. Yeah.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: But anyway, so, but yeah, just for Rick to basically
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: pull off this, like this, you know, just slimy, just,
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: weaselly little manager, exploitive kind of guy. You just want
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: to punch his face multiple times.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: The fact that our character didn't is amazing enough. And
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Michael too, probably.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: It's such a great performance. It's a movie I absolutely love.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: From head to toe. Nowhere Fast is still on my
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: regular playlist. It'll come out from time to time in Sorceress.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: Or Sorcerer, I'm sorry, as well. So, yeah. I regularly
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: visit those on a regular, regular basis.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. And I've got a couple that I watched
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: as a tie-in we'll get back to. But I'll let
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: him go ahead and talk with us first. So we'll
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: take our break here and sit down with Michael. And
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: then I've got some other movies to go into.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: I hope one of those movies happens to be a
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: certain horror film that he's involved in.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: There is one, yes. Good, good.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: That's another one of his I really enjoy as well.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I usually try to get into it early and just
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: see how everybody got to where they ended up. So
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I guess originally, where were you from?
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: I was born and raised in New York.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: New York?
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I went to cooking school. I was working in Manhattan.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: I met an agent, Yvette Bickhoff. She sent me to
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: acting school. Two years later, I was on television on
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Greatest American Hero for ABC.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: That's great. I worked in a kitchen for many years.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Did you actually get into that?
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I went to the Culinary Institute of America. I was
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: a chef. I wasn't a dishwasher.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was running a kitchen for years there.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: What kind of kitchen?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: It was baking. They focused mostly on bagels. But we
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: baked all of it. But that's such a specific, I guess,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: New York, you know, that's such a specific process.
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: Bagels is pretty specific.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to boil it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You got to boil it.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Or poach it, and then you bake it.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those people that just throw them in the oven
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: and don't boil it, that's not a bagel. You're doing it.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Right, right. Then it's just a muffin or bread.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: But you were really into the culinary end of it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: before that?
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: I studied for a year and a half.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: I worked at Tavern on the Green. I worked in
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: three French restaurants. I was really into it.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: But I guess what was it about the acting that
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: was tempting enough to sort of take you away from that?
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: I went to my first class, and here it is.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: As a cook, all the waitresses in New York were actresses.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: They wouldn't flirt with a cook. But when you go
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: to acting class, if you did good work, they would
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: flirt with you. So you had better experience. opportunities with
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: pretty women in acting class than you did in the
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: window of a kitchen.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I think that's what lures a lot of people towards that. Oh,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: so you said then I guess the big one was
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: getting on TV. Again, that's a pretty quick turnaround. Were
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: you prepared for being thrown into a weekly TV show?
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know if anybody is prepared for their first
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: time in Hollywood because I went from acting class to
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: being on a network show. It was a big hit show.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Even the theme song was a national hit for like
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: three weeks.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: That thing was huge. I mean, and again, pretty, pretty
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: quick turnaround to go from being part of an ensemble to,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you know, your, your next big movie, I guess, is
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Eddie and the Cruisers where you're thrust into the lead there.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're, you're kind of the front and center
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: on that movie. So once again, like kind of, How
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: do you prepare yourself to be the focus of the
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: entire movie, especially one that, like, the story itself is
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: so much about your character and who, you know, who
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: exactly you were?
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I never stopped studying. I still go to the
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: actor's studio today. Yeah. So, you know, I don't think
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: it was a matter of being prepared. Tom Berringer was
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: a lead.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Ellen Barber. was the female lead. And we were supposed...
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: The band was supposed to be Tom Berringer's history. And
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: it was about him, you know, coming to terms with
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: his past. And coincidentally, the rock and roll was a hit.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: So suddenly they... Started focusing more on Eddie.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: And you hadn't really dealt in music growing up, so.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: You really didn't. No, I never did.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you weren't prepared to be, I'm going to have
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: to pretend to play music later.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Well, act. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: But still, that's timing-wise, that's a little more difficult to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: throw together. And then I definitely wanted to get to
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Streets of Fire. It is one of those I saw
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: originally but went back and revisited in the last few years,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and it's just amazing. Like, there's so much going on
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: on screen, visually, and just all of those characters. Like,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: when you read that script, like, how does it come across,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: you know, before seeing all of this come to life? Like,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: on the page, could you imagine, like, what it would
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: end up being?
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I had done this cool little movie
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: with David Caruso and Ray Liotta called Crazy Times for TV.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: And then I had done Eddie and the Cruisers. And
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: after that, I went to Australia to do a period
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: piece called Undercover. So I was doing this kind of
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: artsy stuff. And my agent and manager sent me what
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: appeared to be just an action movie. I was like,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: you know, I thought I was going more into the,
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: you know, Martin Scorsese school of acting, you know, movies.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: And they said, Michael, this is going to be a
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: big movie. And Walter Hill, and I knew his work
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: from 48 Hours. He did Hard Times. And Hard Times
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: was the one that I loved. It was like, oh,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: this is great. And then when I got to there's
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: a big fight scene in the movie, I thought this
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: could be a lot of fun. But I really wasn't
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: prepared for a $ 24 million budget. Because Eddie and the
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: Cruisers was like $ 3 million budget. maybe five by the
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: time we hit the theater. And, you know, we shot
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: in New Jersey on location, so it wasn't like a
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Hollywood production. But when I got to Streets of Fire,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: it was like, oh, my God, this is on the
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: back lot of Universal. Diane Lane is in it.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Amazing.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: I knew she was on Broadway when she was 12
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: years old. I saw the movie she did with Laurence Olivier,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: A Little Romance, and I thought, wow, this is big.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: This is really big. And then, you know, in comes
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Walter Hill. Like, you know, he's like a cowboy. You know,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: I would not have been surprised if he had been
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: wearing a six-gun. You know, that's kind of his attitude.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: And he was a very cool guy. But I don't
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: think he was prepared to work with kids, you know.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Most of the cast was under 30. I think Willem
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: was the oldest, or Rick Moranis.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: So, you know, Walter was used to working with cowboys
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: or guys, you know, you know, and we were kids.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: So that was kind of a, yeah, it was a,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: that was, I was really intimidated. You know, I wasn't
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: on Eddie and the Cruisers because like I said, we
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: were in New Jersey. It was an ensemble piece and
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: crazy times. It was Ray, David and I were hanging out.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: You know, we were like three wild and crazy guys
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: from Brooklyn and that's what the movie was.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: But when I hit the set of Streets of Fire,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: it was like, holy shit, man, this is a big deal.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Because didn't they tarp off so you could shoot night? Yeah,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: they spent $ 2 million.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: They covered the back lot. Yeah, so we could shoot
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: night for day. Yeah, night for day.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Which it almost exists in its own world anyway. It's
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: such a weird thing. visual presentation as far as time
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and space were they spending so much more time cinematography
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: wise just to get that look because everything's so specific.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: In that um uh god gene uh andy lazlo was
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the dp and he was hungarian and he had this
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: accent so he was like very you know he just
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: seemed like this is a an artist and you know
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: he would spend six seven eight hours lighting the set
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: so um yeah it was um A lot of it
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: was the look and the music. But the story was
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: pretty simple, you know. Diane is a local girl, comes
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: home to do a concert. She gets kidnapped by the
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: local bad boys. My sister calls me up and says,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: you got to come home. And, you know, I get
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: hooked up with Amy Madigan. And we go and rescue
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: her and they chase us back. And there's a big
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: fight at the end and I ride off.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's, I mean, such an interesting.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: That's a simple plot.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: That's early for Willem, too. What was he like as your,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you know, those scenes between the two of you?
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I think that might have been his first time on film.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: He's still pretty young. Yeah, it's amazing.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Well, he was like 10 years older than me. Yeah, yeah. So,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: but he had been working with a theater group in
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Soho called the Wooster Group, which was experimental theater. So,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: you know, he was a very artsy guy.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: That outfit reflects his special black outfit there. Well then,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I guess getting into some of the other, there was
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: another around that same time, World Gone Wild I thought
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: was crazy. That whole run of post-apocalyptic and not really
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: fully explaining the story, I'm assuming had to be an
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: interesting shoot because it's mostly desert.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Well, working with Bruce Dern is what really hooked me
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: in there because he was one of those icons of
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: the 60s. Him and Jack Nicholson were doing you know,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: under five roles in movies, which you didn't have to
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: be in the union.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Right? And, you know, I had seen him all. I
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: had seen all of his movies. I had seen The Cowboys.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: So when I met him, you know, right away, I
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: rolled off all of, you know, the fantastic work he did.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: So we became kind of buddies. He mentions me in
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: his biography.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: You know, he's like a page about how, yeah, well,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: Michael probably did a step on the same toes I did.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: You know, sometimes a talent doesn't overshadow grace. so i
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: i like bruce a lot i worked with him again recently.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Between him and yeah i've at the time was in
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: love with and have met katherine mary stewart she seems
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: like the nicest person on the planet.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: She was a katherine mary stewart was a charming lovely
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: girl she played the role fantastic and you know you
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: have to remember she's in a cast with like eight
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: guys yeah so you know and she could hold her
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: own she was like dignified you know um She wasn't
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: a bitch or any of the other condescending terms. She
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: was just kind of like Mary Poppins. It's like above reproach.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: She still seems that way. It's crazy. Working as long
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: as she has and been through as much as she has,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: she still seems kind of wide-eyed about it all, which
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: is amazing to still have that. That's so great.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Because she's not pretending.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, coming back to... Were you prepared when
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: they decided to do an Eddie and the Cruisers 2?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Because that's kind of next on the list there.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Well, I was surprised that they were doing it because
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Marty Davidson was involved, and he wrote, directed, produced, and
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: edited the first one. And for some reason, they didn't
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: go with him, but they got a double album out
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: of it. Yeah. You see, the difference is in the first. Now,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: some people like the second one more because there's more music.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: But, you know, as an actor, the first one, they
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: hired a bunch of actors to play musicians. The second one,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: they were all musicians.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just looking at that cast, I'm like, these are
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: huge names.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I don't know if they were huge names,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: but they were musicians. They were professional musicians, and they
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: didn't act. Marina Orsini was beautiful and charming, but she
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: was the darling of especially Montreal. Because her mother was
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: a Montreal icon. She spoke beautiful French. She had beautiful
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: eyes and a charming girl. But, you know, I don't know.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: It wasn't as much fun because in the first one,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: you know, we really felt like a band because we
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: all hung around together. We all went out together. And,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: you know, it was like we have an opportunity because
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: we were all pretty young except for Tom.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: You know, and Ellen had, you know, had already worked
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: a lot, but you know, we were all new and
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: we had this guy, Helen Schneider.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Helen Schneider came from a band called Helen Schneider and
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: the kick in Germany. And her manager kind of really
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: took me under his wing and he taught me, you know,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: what rock and roll was really all about so that
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: I could play it on stage.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's yeah. I mean, it's, it comes through. It is,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it is impressive watching it. Um, I wanted to hit
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: a few other, mostly just director-wise, because I know on
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: story credit on Philadelphia Experiment was John Carpenter, and then
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: you come back on Village of the Damned to work
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: with him. So I guess what was your interaction with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: John Carpenter over the years?
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Well, when I met John for Village of.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: The Damned, he.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: You know, John is a very successful guy, and he
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: has houses all over fucking California. So I meet him
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: at one, I think in.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Toluca Lake. And he says, so how'd you like Philadelphia Experiment?
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: I said, John, my brother came home from engineering school
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: with that book, Philadelphia Experiment. And then here I find
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: myself seven years later being in the movie. yeah so
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: it was really cool and he says well you know
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: I gave it to those guys because I didn't know
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: how to end it you know when they added the
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: love story it all kind of sewed it up together
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: yeah but I also wanted you for Starman but they
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: went with Jeff Bridges instead and I said well Jeff
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: is an amazing talent so I don't feel like I've
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: been slighted there and uh we talked a little bit
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: about life and I was a father already, you know,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: and he says, well, you know, okay, yeah, we're going
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: to use you in this. And it was that simple.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: No auditioning, just you wanted to, you know, some of
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: these great filmmakers, they want to know what it's like
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: to be around you.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: You know, what you're going to be like and the
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: things that you're going to talk about, what's important to you.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: You already knew I could act because I'd done half
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: a dozen movies and TV series. So, You knew I
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: was professional. And that was it. The same thing with
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: Eric Redd with Bad Moon. I happened to be in L.A.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: because I was already living in Europe, and I met
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: him at the Warner Brothers lot. And I had read
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: the script, and, you know, a werewolf movie, a studio
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: werewolf movie. You knew this was going to be good.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: And Eric wrote a fantastic script, and the dialogue, in
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: the transformation scene was just fantastic. So I met him,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: and we talked for a little bit, and I said, listen, Aaron,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: what's entailed in me getting this role? And he says,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: just say yes. And I said, yes, yes, yes. And
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: he says, but there's one caveat. You have four days
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: where you're going to be in full prosthetics, and it
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: takes four hours to put it on and four hours
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: to take it off. So you're going to be eight
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: hours in makeup, We shoot for 12 hours. And I said,
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: can I sleep in the motorhome? He says, absolutely. And
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I said, deal. And, you know, Eric was so passionate.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: And so he knew exactly what he wanted. He fired
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: two DPs because they weren't giving him– because we had
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: to do a lot of tests, you know, doing the
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: werewolf stuff. And he fired them because he didn't like
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: what they were doing because he knows exactly what he
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: wants in that frame. So that was a thrill. I,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Eric and I did another movie together called a hundred feet.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: So I played a werewolf for him. And in the
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: hundred feet, I played a ghost for him. And, uh,
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: it's just one of my, one of my favorite experiences
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: was working with Eric.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess you do spend more time just on
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the set together than even in front of the camera.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: So I guess it is just building those relationships.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Well, they want, you know, it's not always, it's not
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: always fun. You know, um, a lot of times they just,
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: You know, directors have so much on their mind.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: It's not just the performance. It's they make sure you
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: get the content and make sure that it's good for camera,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: that there's no fuck-ups, that there's no mistakes, and everybody
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: says the dialogue and pushes the story forward.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: And then there's other times where, you know, you'll see
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: a director and he's completely confident in his crew. And nowadays,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: you know, directors are looking at monitors, but in the beginning...
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: You know, directors, like when I came up, like on
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Streets of Fire, I don't think Walter ever looked through
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: the lens.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: You know, because you're not allowed to. It's a union thing.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Got a guy running the camera. Yeah, you stand and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: actually physically watch people work.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: So when I came to Hollywood, you know, Stephen Cannell,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I called up, you know, what did I know? I
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: called up Stephen Cannell after we shot the pilot. I said,
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: so when is this coming out, Stephen? And he said, Michael,
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: why don't you come over to Paramount and I'll show you.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: And he took me to the editing room and you
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: see all of these pieces of film on. closed pins
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: hanging by, you know, a closing line. And I said, wow, man,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: is this how you do it? I know we're done shooting,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: but we didn't finish the show yet, Marcel. It was
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: a great guy. Steven was a great guy, and it
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: was really sad to see him go.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, that is one of the things I wanted
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: to look at just as far as, like, career-wise because
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you've got so much stuff that you've been shooting. It's
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: changed so much in, I guess, just– having the possibility
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: to shoot digital and then streaming services have kind of
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: upped the places to be able to put films. Now
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: that there are so many out there, do you find
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it easier to, to go from one project to the next,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: or is it still kind of the same fight it
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: was in the earlier days?
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Well, everybody knows, you know, when they're talking about me,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: they know my work, they know, you know, I'm, I'm
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: very capable and, and I'm, For the past, like, 20 years,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: the same people have been hiring me over and over again. So,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I've got a good reputation. The
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: thing that's different, and what I just did, I shot
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: a movie that, the first movie that shot entirely on
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: a virtual reality LED set. It's called Nine Windows. And
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: that is a big change. A big change. It's as
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: big a change from film to digital. And, you know,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: they do it with Mandalorian, but, you know, that's, That's
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: a television show.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: This was a movie, so this is the first movie.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: So I'm not making that up. I was on a
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: talk show in L.A. about a week ago, pitching it.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: But, you know, it's like on a 50 by 50 stage,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: and it has a wraparound of these LED panels. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: it goes up maybe 30 feet, and the ceiling is
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: covered in these sensors so that the the camera knows
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: where you're going and it changes the background depending on
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: where you're walking. And it's just like, wow, man, this
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: is almost like Star Trek's.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the holodeck.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: The holodeck, exactly.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. So is it easier to do that versus
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a set? I mean, or is it.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Well, it's different. It's not a matter of... It's a
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: skill set. It's more like theater because you're on the
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: stage that's set there. And, you know, the fourth wall
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: is where the camera is, but the rest is, you know...
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: But it's electronic, you know, and it's a different environment,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: but it's really the same skill involved because, you know,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: you're still talking to another actor and the drama happens
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: with a human interaction, right?
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: However, if I'm supposed to be standing on a prairie
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: with a herd of cows behind me, there might be
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: one big cow here and the rest is, you know,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: a herd of buffalo or whatever the hell it is.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: And it looks very real. And if I take a
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: few steps here, the herd changes. It's like amazing. That is.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it has to be a game changer at this
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: point because it will give, especially moving forward, once it
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: gets more affordable, like independent filmmakers can do kind of anything.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: Well, it is not as expensive as people think. You
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: can get one of the mid-range LED sets now built
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: with the whole package for like $ 3 million. Sure. And
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: you can use it for every movie you come up with.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: So think if you're a small studio and you say,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I got $ 5 million. I'm going to build the stage.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And then with that $ 2 million, I'll make four movies.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: And there, I've covered my nut. And now the studio
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: is free, free and clear.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: You can just keep bringing in new projects. Well, on that,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I know you've got a lot that you've done recently.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Do you have any ones that you want to tell
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: people about that are recent stuff that's come out?
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Well, this movie, Nine Windows, is coming out in the spring.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I have another one called The Knicks with the maker
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: of Sharknado, Anthony Ferrante. But this is like a very cerebral,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: serious kind of thriller monster thing where the monster is
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: actually a manifestation of the ego and, you know, subconscious
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: demons that, you know, materialize. I've got one.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: You know, I'll be honest. I've done a lot of
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: work this year.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: It's going to light up.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: I really can't think because, you know, I'm working today.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fine. And that is why I was kind
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: of bringing that up.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's one I did with Vivica Fox and a
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: female director, Jahan. And it's like a whodunit on a vineyard.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: Vivica Fox and I are married, and our son is
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: marrying into a vineyard royal family, right? And, you know,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: our son gets killed.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, man. Yeah.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: So the whole movie is about who killed who and why.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. But, yeah, they are shooting so many now. Because,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, even here, like, growing up, this was not
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: a place you could ever find a movie shooting. But
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: there's two that I know of. One just wrapped. One
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: is about to start. They're like, because, I guess, tax
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: credits help, and then people are willing with the digital
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: equipment now, you can kind of set up different places.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: So I feel like they're making so many, not totally
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: low budget, but mid-range movies that didn't get made even
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: 20 years ago. It's such an industry.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Everybody can buy a digital camera and these LED lights.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: For two grand, you get a whole fucking lighting package.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: And then you rent a red And, you know, you
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: get a script that the writer is directing or the director,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: you know, is hired by a producer who wrote it.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: So you can make them for real cheap, but, you know,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: cheap isn't always good. Yeah. You know, not everybody can
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: be an actor, and that's just the fucking bottom line, man.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm a member of the Actor's Studio, and that's,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: you know... kind of like a very prestigious group of actors.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: And there's a lot of talent in that room. every day.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Maybe 5% of them make a living acting. You know,
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: so it's not just talent. And they're in Hollywood, so
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: they can meet who there is to meet. And there's
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: just something that some people work and some people don't.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: And it has, you know, it's... That's why people feel
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: like there's magic in Hollywood because any Hank mechanic can
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: be a panic.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's how it was built. It's how it's come together. Well, again,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I know you've got a bunch of stuff in the works.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else coming up that people should look for?
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: I can pull it for us if you want. No,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: I'm doing a cryptoid pilot. And it's kind of like X-Files.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: It's called Sacred Ground. And that one I'm kind of
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: excited about. Because, like I say, it's the same format
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: as X-Files. But instead of looking for UFOs, we're looking
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: for Cryptoids. And the first one is a tribe of Sasquatch.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: You know, so the idea... You know, and, you know,
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: it's the same problem that real scientists have. The minute
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: you endorse the possibility of UFO, you're not a serious scientist.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: And the minute you say that there could be a
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Bigfoot out there, like Jane Goodall, you know, the chimp lady?
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: She endorsed a friend of mine's project about Bigfoot, and
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: she lost her contract with the, what's the big media?
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Like PBS or?
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: Oh smithsonian yeah she she had a contract with the
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: smithsonian but when they found out that she endorsed this
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: bigfoot theory that there is an unknown primate in north
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: america she lost it and then she got picked up
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: by the discover magazine.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: People get really weird about this i i do really
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: like the whole idea of cryptids and and As a show,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: that would be great because there's so many options. Like
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: every part of the country has, you know, we have
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: a weird public monster that lives here under a train trestle.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: And for generations, people have stories about it. And it's, yeah,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: it's crazy that like everywhere you go, everybody has a
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: different variation of these things.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Around the world.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's amazing. So I definitely want to check that out.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, thank you for being here. All right.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, thank you to Michael for sitting down
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and putting up with me because I'm a challenge, I know.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I apologize for all wrongdoings. But that aside, he's awesome
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: to talk to. So yeah, the ones I've watched lately,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: like kind of knowing this was coming, I was like,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: there's a few, some of which I hadn't seen and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: like it surprises me. Actually, the main two are both
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: horror technically. So I guess first up, as you heard,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I brought up Village of the Damned. Ah, okay. Now
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I am like hardcore Carpenter anyway. Yeah. And like, I will,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: on a short list, give several of his movies like
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: masterpiece level. Like he is, he is a phenomenal filmmaker.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And then there were a handful, very few I hadn't seen.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: And like somehow, like I remember this coming out. We
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: were talking before we got rolling about working in geeky stores.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I remember the store I was at when that movie
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: came out because we got the one sheet.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: And even then, I remember looking at it going, Christopher Reeve?
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Kirstie Alley? What is this movie? So, and then somehow
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: along the way, just had never gotten around to it. So,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: I just recently went and watched Village of the Damned
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and it's such a, I guess I'd only basically knew the,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: the original premise. So I, I don't think I realized
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: how crazy that opening like 15, 20 minutes span is.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: And then, so I won't totally ruin it for people
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: who also hadn't gotten around to it. You should definitely
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: go check it out. Um, but yeah, it's such a
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: cool setup. And then what we kind of know as
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the audience is pretty quickly, like the rest of the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: town that this is built around has to go, well, uh,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: guess this happened. So they all just kind of have
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to accept it, whether they like it or not. And
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: by the time we get to the kids and they're
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: as grown up as they get in these story, uh, yeah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: they are, they are creepy, which is their job.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I think what doesn't hold up somehow the color makes
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: it seem sillier. Cause I'm watching clips of the old
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: ones and I'm like, somehow the black and white, it,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: it transfers easier. It's easier for these kids to just
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: be creepy and, And not so silly, but, like, something
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: about the white hair and the glowing eyes when it's
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: in color just made... I don't know. It's harder to
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: accept it... I don't know. Maybe it's just me, like,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: giving a pass for older movies, too. I don't know.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: That didn't do anything for me. I will say I
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: do enjoy the black and white, you know, version of,
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: you know, Village of the Damned, the Children of the Damned.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: It's a later sequel. Yeah. But, yeah, I thought the
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: remake was great, though. I, you know, it's... It's kind
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: of fun because it's a very good film. It comes
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: off well. It's in the minority of a good remake
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: of a movie that didn't necessarily need to be remade.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: But it's well done. I wouldn't say it's as classic
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: as his version of The Thing because it doesn't necessarily
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: reinvent the movie.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Definitely not, yeah.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: And that's why his version of The Thing is so great,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: because it does reinvent The Thing for another world. It's
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: a whole other movie.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it takes the premise and just gives you another movie, where.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: This sticks pretty close.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: It does.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: It sticks extremely close to it. But yeah, it's still
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: a very good film. It's kind of an understated Carpenter movie.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: It was kind of that weird later period of his stuff.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what I was looking at. I was like,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the 90s are a weird time for Carpenter. All of
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: his classic stuff is kind of that 80s run. And
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: then as soon as it hits the 90s, which is
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: pretty much this movie, from that point on, everything he
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: does is just different than his older stuff.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: It's rocky.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I guess we kick off. We talked about
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: a few years ago, we did a whole episode on
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Memoirs of an Invisible Man.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Oh, boy.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Which I actually like a lot about that movie, but
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: it doesn't overly feel like Carpenter. And it's such weird casting.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: And they both seem like they're going in opposite directions, basically,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: with the movie they're trying to make. So it's a
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: hard sell anyway.
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: It's a conflicted movie in itself. I think it's one
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: of those things, like, if you take either John Carpenter
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: out or Chevy Chase out.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: It works.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: It'll be a better movie.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes together better. But somehow they're both just
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: sort of butting heads and like, I'm making my comedy.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be serious. And they're both going in
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: opposite directions of who you think should be doing that
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: and it lands in the middle, but it, it, yeah.
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: Oh, if you think there's conflict with the movie, look
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: at the behind the scenes.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I can imagine. Yeah.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: I mean that not only did it really scar carpenters, uh,
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: want to kind of do Hollywood movies anymore. You kind
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: of started backing off, you know, at this point, uh,
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: it hurt a lot of Jimmy Chase's career because no
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: one wanted to work with him after more after this.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Well, we've not heard better things as the years.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: No, he never learned any of his lessons. Well, he's
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: still alive barely, but, Career-wise, yeah, not so much. He's
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: physically still alive, kind of.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Community was the nail in the coffin for him. Everyone
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: has stories that's like, okay, we're done working with you now.
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like, you know, for one cast member, usually
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: like when a cast member of an ensemble show leaves...
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: It's a big, oh, we're going to miss you. It
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: was great working with you. We're going to keep in touch.
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: You missed this person. He was like, don't let the
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: good door hit you with a good Lord split you.
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: Get the fuck out.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: I think even the cast was like, how have we
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: made it this long? Even the fans were like, he's
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: still on here.
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: Really?
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Like, yeah.
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: And it was unfortunate because I did enjoy his performance
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: in community because, you know, it kind of.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Well, it's close to him. Like, he was kind of
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: a jerk, so it read as realistic.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: An insane, out-of-touch jerk.
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely.
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: Let's get that out of the way. But yeah, so,
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: oh well.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, anyway, the Carpenter run there. So it's like,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: it's Invisible Man, it's In the Mouth of Madness, which
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: again is God It's Following, but it's different for Carpenter.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: I very much enjoy that one. That feels like a
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: Carpenter movie.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: That's the closest one in this run. Because then after that,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: you get Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., and Vampires.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: All of which are kind of like, everybody's just sort
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: of like, I don't know. I like this part about this.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: And people just didn't know what to do with the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: rest of his 90s run there.
• 48:35
  Speaker 4: I like Vampires.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I need to re-watch that. It's been a long time.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: Since I've seen it. In the mouth of madness in Vampires,
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: it was a 90s run. I will definitely defend those films.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Escape from New York. Sorry, Snake, you're on your own.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: Escape from L.A. I'm sorry. Good lord, my mistake. Escape
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: from L.A., Snake, you're on your own on that one, buddy. Yeah,
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: and then the less said about Ghost of Mars and
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: the Ward, the better. I will say, though, of his
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: late period, his finest achievement was his episode of Masters
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: of Horror called Cigarette Burns.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: That.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: It's Carpenter at its best, but unfortunately it's only like
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: an hour long.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: So it's like, damn, this is so good.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: That's when he started kind of tapering off. And yeah,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: he did two of those. and that was about it.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I saw the second one, but
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: Cigarette Burns, like I bought.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: That's a classic.
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: I bought a copy of that.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Everybody references that to this day.
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's probably the best episode of the
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: whole series, in my opinion.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: So that's its own little weird tangent, which is what
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I got on as I was watching this. But what's
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: funny is that it was a tie-in specifically to Michael
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: because I did not see his character ending up the
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: way he did.
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: Let's put it that way.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, go watch it. It's an
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: entertaining movie. I like a lot of stuff going on there.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: I'm always impressed with Christopher Reeve, like specifically outside of
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Superman because... I'm always impressed that he makes me care
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: about Superman. So that's how I know he's a great
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: actor anyway. Yeah. But when he does other stuff, it's
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: always so cool to see him. So, yeah.
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: It's like, use your heat on these kids. Oh, wait.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: It's an interesting performance that even then turns in the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: middle that you're like, whoa. Everybody just starts to, like,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: fall apart in this town. As we get halfway into
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: the movie. So it's a fun movie.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: So, yeah.
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: Interesting footnote about Village of the Damned, too, about this
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: particular remake. When it came out, of course, it had
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: a nice theatrical run. It made its money. It was well-received,
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: whatever else. But when it was eventually pulled, as it
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: usually does, I remember a cousin of mine who lived
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: in Parkersburg, West Virginia, said that weeks after that film
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: was pulled, his local theater, which was a one-screen theater,
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: that movie was still there. It played for nearly three months.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: They skimmed other movies that were bigger hits that could
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: have gone to other theaters around town because everybody loved
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: going to see Village of the Damned.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: He's like, that movie made so much money in that town.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: In that one theater. He's like, I.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: Don't know if it was an isolated thing or not,
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: but he's like, it was just weird. He's like, I
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: saw it probably about four or five times myself. I
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: was like, That's kind of odd.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: But cool, but odd. It's a cool setup. Like, again,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: just the premise alone is such a cool idea that, yeah,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: then you throw in all the cast and Carpenter. It's like, yeah,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: it's got to be fun.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: But it kind of makes sense to play this kind
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: of movie would play in a small town. It's a
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: remake of an old 60s horror movie that wasn't gory.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: It was spooky, but it wasn't gory. And that's how
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: the remake was. And it's about a small town.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: So I guess it can kind of play. It works.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: Um one other horror movie michael prays i'm not gonna
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: get into this one or not but.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I only well i had one other one set up
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: so let's see if you pick the same one would
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: be bad moon that's what i just i have recently
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: watched and uh it's another one of those i knew
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: the box art and i kept thinking i was like
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: have i seen this one and the more i thought
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: about it i was like i don't really remember seeing
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the one that had him in it as if not
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: our lead certainly our werewolf So, yeah, I've recently watched it,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: and it is a lot of fun.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: It's number five, but it is in my top five
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: of werewolf movies. I mean, it's such a fun flick.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: It kind of reminds me a bit of Silver Bullet.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I love Silver Bullet, too.
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: Because it's the who's the werewolf sort of thing like that.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: And then when you find out, oh, it's Uncle, it's.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: Like, ah!
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: But then for dog lovers out there, The dog is
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: the hero of the movie.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: He's kind of our protagonist.
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: He is our protagonist. Really.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, cause it's based on a book. The book
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: is named after the dog.
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: It's called Thor. So many shots of it are POV
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: dog shots. And like, there's so much of it that like,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: he is the hero of our story.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, he.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Literally is by the end, but even in the beginning,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: like he's our main character that we're sort of watching
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: this scenario unfold through his eyes. And like, We're seeing
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: the kid, but we're not seeing it through the kid's eyes.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: We've got the mom there, but she's just there to
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: be a mom. And the one that's seeing this guy
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: come in, I'm like, I don't trust this guy. I
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: know he's family and all, but something weird's going on.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: It's all through the dog. And I'm like, that's such
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: an amazing. I was like, Primo is our main actor.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Primo plays Thor the dog.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: And, like, I kept watching it going, this dog is
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: a good actor. Because there are so many times when
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: he has to do things that are, like, not what
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: a normal dog would be doing in this scene. Right, yeah.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: Or there's a time when he's, like, trying to keep, like,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Meryl Hemingway's the lead and, like, the other lead. And, like,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: she's trying to drag him back. And his motive as
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: the dog in the movie is to go after this
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: thing that's, you know, potentially a werewolf.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: And like he is selling it. I'm just like, how
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: do you even get the dog to do the thing
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: that you need him to do while in the real
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: world you're dragging him back this way? It's yeah, it's
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: an impressive performance, not just from Michael, but also from
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: our lead dog.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but of course, you know, it seems like. Sometimes
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: you explain this to people and they're kind of like, oh, no, no, no.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: You have to defend the gimmick a bit.
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: Oh, no.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Well, and it doesn't seem overly gimmicky. Exactly. It's genuine
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: to our character who happens to be a dog.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: It works, but if you're telling someone who's never seen
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: the movie, yeah, the dog is kind of the hero
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: of the movie and you see some of the movie
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: through his point of view.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: They're like, what?
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no, no. It's like, okay, I
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: know you've seen The Hills Have Eyes 2 where the
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: German Shepherd has a flashback. This isn't that.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: It's not that. This is good.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: It works. It doesn't feel stupid or gimmicky. It works.
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: It's great. Go see it.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: But, yeah.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: The other thing that, you know, to give him credit,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Michael's performance is because he is meant to be kind
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: of the hero when we start. We start the story
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: with him. We bring him into this family and, like,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: we kind of already suspecting that what happened is what
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: happened because we saw it at the beginning. But we
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: don't know for sure, like, the... outcome of his attack
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: at the beginning because it's you know no spoilers it's
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the first thing that happens in the movie and like
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: so we know that happened we suspect this is what's
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: going on but he still has to be like the
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: likable uncle and he like has to sell this as
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: his like actually caring about his sister and wanting to
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: be around his nephew and like he's the hero he's
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: yeah and it comes off like he's going to be
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the hero for a little while until you start seeing
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: him Like, you know, he's up to something and he's
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: got his restraints and he goes out in the woods
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: and you're like, OK, this can't be good. So as
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: it unfolds, he almost becomes the full on villain. Certainly
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: by the end, the monster does. But like there's a
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: midway point in this crosses over to the other thing
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: that's really great about it, where he's in the halfway
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: makeup and he's got the teeth and he's got the
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: eyes kind of done and like. he's delivering lines still
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: so it's like it's still him yeah and still selling
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: his like normal human performance but with this monster coming
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: out of him and it's such a great moment and
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the makeup is so good so there's most of what's
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: going on in this where where the werewolf is involved
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: is practical there's a moment in the middle that there's
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: maybe some sort of cg or cg at the time
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: going on but The majority of it is a physical, made.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: Werewolf, and it looks really cool. Yeah, and seeing as
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: around the same time, the horrid sequel to American World
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: from London came out and was almost entirely CGI, but
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: it had a theatrical run and bullshit and whatever else,
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: whereas you've got Bad Moon, which was a straight-to-DVD release,
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: but was a great film. It was just criminal that
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: this was not released to a wider audience.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I was thinking that earlier, too. I was like,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: because we, on the recent soundtrack episode, we were talking
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: about that 80s era of werewolf movies. And, like, we
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: had that, you know, dueling werewolf movies in the same year.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: And they were both practical effects and both, like, super cool. And, like,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: people love American Werewolf and The Howling. But then I
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: was like, they're really, like, from that point on, there
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: aren't any, like, go-tos. Like, everybody has their favorite little one-offs. But, like,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: especially that 90s run. Like, there was... Not a whole
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: lot that were successful. They made a few. There were
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: a ton of Howling sequels.
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: But, like, for the most part, there's not really a
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: one-off that's, like, universally loved like either of those 80s ones.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: Sure, yeah.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Everybody has their favorites. You've got people that are, like...
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I think the closest, as we move forward in time, is, like,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Ginger Snaps has a really big fan base. And then
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: there's still people that are like, I love Dog Soldiers.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was about to bring up Dog Soldiers.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: I was like, there's pockets of, like, fans for each
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: one that comes out. But I was like, there's just...
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Nothing else that really reached those heights of, like, beloved,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: you know, fan base and practical effects. But, like, this
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: one was kind of, like, sold short because it does
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: pretty well on the practical effects and, like, gives us
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: a cool story and good performances, too.
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it depends on who you talk to.
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: If you're going to talk to a movie fan, especially
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: horror fans, they know Bad Moon.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: And generally they love Bad Moon. Yeah. So, yeah, your
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: general audience, they don't know or maybe they have seen
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: the box art. We're like, oh, I don't know about
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: this one.
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: No.
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: If you see, if you're flipping around on like Tubi
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: or any of your streaming channels or whatever else pops
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: up in your weird horror movies, like, oh, I'm not
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: sure about this one, but it kind of looks cool. Yes,
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: it is cool. Go watch it.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Yep. Michael is very good in it. So that was
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: just another one I'd watched recently that I wanted to
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: throw out there.
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: Nice.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: For the most part, just wanted to say thank you
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: to Michael for sitting down, talking with me. And he is, again...
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Go look at his IMDB. He is one of the
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: hardest working men in show business.
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: I know, right?
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: He had that run in the 80s there, but he
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: just consistently kept working and has made so much stuff.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: And that's what that is. I was like, I only
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: had a few things I could pick. And I'm like,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: there's just so many things you've done. And so by
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: the end, I'm just like, you pick some stuff. Or
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: what's the stuff coming out? So yeah, it's an interesting
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: career there because he's got so much stuff that he's
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: done over the years. No kidding. Yeah, so definitely keep
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: an eye out for stuff he's got coming out and
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: check it out because he's putting out some interesting stuff.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, that about does it for this time around.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Once again, thank you to Michael and thank you for listening.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: Y'all have to be good out there.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Same geek feed. Thanks for listening.
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: You've got so many dreams that you don't know where
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: to put them, so you better turn a few of
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: them loose. Your body's got a feeling that it's starting
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: to bust. You better rev it up and put it
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: to use. We'll make it all alone When you're home
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: to make.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: It better And it better be tonight And we'll.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: Fly away on those angel wings Of Rome in your
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: daddy's car We'll be there for you tonight I'll be
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: there for you tonight And if you don't have anywhere
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: to go And we gotta get away from the past.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: There's nothing wrong with going nowhere, baby. But we should
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: keep going nowhere. It's so much better going nowhere.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: It's like a prison.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: And the night is a sail Going anywhere, it's gotta.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: Be hell And tonight, cause it's day and here, it's gotta.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: Be hell You're dying in the city like.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: A fire on the water There's no running on the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 5: back of the way There's gotta be some action on
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 5: the face of the earth And I gotta.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 6: See your face once again And I don't know where
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: I feel that I was.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: Fooled So alone and independent But I'm dependent on you.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: Now And you'll always.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 5: Be the only thing That I just can't be without
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: And I'm out for you tonight I'm coming out for
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: you tonight Even if.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: You're not in.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: You and me, we're going nowhere slowly And we gotta
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: get away from the past There's nothing wrong with going nowhere,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: baby But we should be going nowhere fast Everybody's going
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: nowhere slowly They're only fighting for the chance to be
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: last There's nothing wrong with going nowhere, baby But.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: We should be going nowhere fast.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: God speed God speed Speed us away God speed God
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: speed God speed Speed us away God speed God speed.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 6: God speed Speed us away.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: Bye.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: It was Rue McClanahan and Betty White, I think, and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: who else? Oh, it was like Fred Willard. It was
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: the most love boat ever.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: I think I know what you mean, because there's been
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: a couple times where it's been like, holy crap, it's
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: the best of the guest stars here.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: It's like everybody that was a cliche love boat guest
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: was all on one episode at the same time. It
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: was like, what the hell is going on?
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: That was when they were having their own Infinity War
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: and Endgames.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: Pretty much, basically. Fred Willard gets.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: The glove, we're all screwed.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: edited by The Oddity Studios, with the opening music performed
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: Talk hard!
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.