Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Christine (1983) - John Carpenter | Houselights #297

Transcript

Christine (1983) - John Carpenter | Houselights #297 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Nerd Party.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to House Lights, our director discussion show here
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: on the Nerd Party Network. This week, we're continuing in
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the House of Carpenter. with a selection of his work
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: from the 1980s. This week, we're going to be finding
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: out what happens when you're just riding along in your automobile,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: your baby's besides you at the wheel, and the car
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: kills her. It's 1983's Christine from the famed Stephen King
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: novel released in the same year. I'm your mild-mannered host,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: automobile assembly line worker Darren Two Days from Retirement Moser.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm joined by that old man whose house we
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: pass on the way home, Tristan Marley Riddell, and as
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: well as the operator of Mills' do-it-yourself garage, Mr. John Mills.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: So pull into the drive-in, keep your words kind, and
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: let's talk about Christine. So this one was a missing
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: frame for me. It was one that I had always
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: heard about. I had seen the poster. I knew a
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: little bit about a car that kills people and it
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: was by Carpenter. So it seems right up his alley,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: but I didn't know a lot going into it. Tristan
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: was this one or Adele, the number one question Adele
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: family favorite, or you'd never saw it ever.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Cause it seems to be very little in between. I
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: never saw it, barely heard about it. And I think
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: the only thing I knew about it was the poster
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: had no idea who was in it. I had no
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: idea about any of the, um, Any of the plot points,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: it was pretty much just, I think that's based off
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: of a Stephen King novel where the car kills people.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: That's it. And I remember my wife has been watching
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: House of Carpenter with me. And after the thing, she's like,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: what's next? And I said, I think it's Christine. She's like,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: what's that one about? I was like, pretty sure it's
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: a car that kills people. And of course, she just chuckles.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Cause she goes like, yeah, okay. It's Stephen King. Why not?
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: You know, he was bored that weekend, you know? Oh, exactly.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Now, John, was this a film that you were aware
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: of or was it one of those movies where you
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: kind of knew it by the inspiration it had given
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: to other television episodes? Cause we can all think of
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: a couple episodes that are not necessarily homages for Christine,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: but have that kind of vibe of the car or
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the vehicle that kills people and is making a special connection.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: What about you?
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: I mean, I knew about the movie all the way
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: back from when I was a kid. You know, I
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: remember my cousins talking about it. I remember I was
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: too young to go see it. I remember, you know,
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: all of those sorts of things. And it never, it
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: never just, it never stuck. Like, I remember people talking
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: about it. I knew of it. And I have read
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: older Stephen King works. So it was just a gap.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: And it was always the strangest gap for me because
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: I like older Stephen King stuff plenty. And I'm a
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: big John Carpenter fan. So the fact that both of
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: them slipped by me was something that I very much
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: was looking forward to correcting. Because I did read the
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: book in preparation for watching the movie for the first
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: time so that I could come back from that angle too.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Above and beyond.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Well, that's a real podcasting dedication, folks. I mean, that's
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: more so than watching special features or seeing an alternate.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: That's that's that's pretty hard.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: I just read the wiki. That's all I did. But yes.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: Well, it's a really interesting experience because it like it's
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: easy to say like, oh, well, that'll affect your your
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: review of the movie. I promise you it doesn't. But additionally,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: because the thing was a work of adaptation previously. So,
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: you know, I'd read the original story there, watched the
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: Kristen Nyby one again, and then watched Carpenters again. And
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: it's like, oh, seeing how adaptation works, I was coming
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: at it strictly from the angle of like, well, how
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: faithful was he in the adaptation? Because adapting a short
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: work like Who Goes There versus Stephen King back in
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: his heyday, he sneezed 400 pages. And like, Christine was,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: I think it was like 600 something pages. And I
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: was like, all right, let's settle in. And, um, it's
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: interesting because the whole time I was reading the book, no,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: I was going to watch it. I was sitting there.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, you couldn't film that. Oh yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: There's no way you're going to do that one. How
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: the hell would you convey that? And it was really
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: interesting because after, you know, I see the movie and
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: I started thinking about it, I'm like all of the
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: calls that I made about like what was impossible to
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: film from this book are like, I feel like I
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: sat next to John Carpenter reading through it going like, yeah, that's,
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: I can't.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Can you, can you give us a few examples?
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: Yes. Uh, so long as people don't mind spoilers for
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: a book that's almost 50 years old at this point.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: It's very clear that Roland Labey who owned the car,
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: it was his spirit that had infused the car and
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: Arnie isn't just influenced by the car. He starts becoming Labey.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: Like basically what you sort of figure out is Labey
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: has figured out the key to staying alive forever is
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: not just Christine but but by taking over Arnie because
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: he dies shortly after he sells Christine. Arnie starts taking
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: on his characteristics. Now the movie, and that was one
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: of the things where I was like, how are you
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: going to convey this? How are you going to adequately
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: convey this? And it's interesting because in the movie, they
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: collapse LeBay and his brother into one character. And George
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: LeBay is who we encounter in the movie. And he
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: tells us the story of Roland, but he dies differently.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Like it's, it's, it becomes this mishmash that's told for
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: speed and I totally got it, but like, that's a
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: big major thing. Like when Christine is going in and
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: killing people, people who are about to die or encounter
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Christine will wind up seeing Labey's ghost. And when Arnie is,
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: is interacting with his best friend later in the book,
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: he starts looking like Labey. He has a back brace and,
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: he starts taking on characteristics of him. And even a
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: word that Arnie starts using in the movie where he
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: starts calling everybody, we'll have to bleep this, but he
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: starts calling everybody sh * * ter is specifically a
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: word that they hear, that Dennis hears LeBay use that
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Arnie starts picking up. And it's like the first sign
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: that something's weird going on here. He's not just obsessive
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: with Christine and Christine is getting, you know, rehabbing a
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: lot faster. But Arnie picks up Labey's vocabulary and his
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: view of the world. And he starts manifesting Labey more
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: and more as the book goes on. And so Christine
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: and Labey are actually, you know, a conduit for one thing.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: And anyway, I'm rambling at this point, but that's a
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: big thing that they change. But the whole time I'm
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: reading the book, I'm like, this isn't going to work
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: on film, really. Like you'd have to sacrifice so many
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: other aspects of the plot to properly develop it.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting cause it seems like they instead focus
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: on that teenage coming of age. You're, you're changing as
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: you start to act out more and your person, you know, you,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: it's kind of like he's falling in with the wrong crowd,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: but the wrong crowd is a psychotic car and you know,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: he starts changing. But so, so yeah.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I kind of wish that was the tagline of the movie.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: What if your kid falls in with the wrong crowd?
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: But that crowd is a psychotic car.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: It would have opened at number one at the box
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: office instead of number four. That's all I need.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: That's all I need. So, yeah, that's interesting to know
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: that aspect of the book. But I can see where
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: they took the heart of that change. And obviously, you know,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: what translates onto screen, you know, condensing characters. We get
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: all of that. I swear this whole thing is 83
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: as far as he probably wrote it in a month
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: or two. I think the book published days before they
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: started filming in April. This movie came out in December.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Like I was chuckling because I looked that apparently they
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: were some producer was wanting to do a remake of
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: this in like 2021. And then they said, oh, as
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: of 2026, nothing has happened. I'm like, because they don't
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: make movies like Carpenter makes movies. He sneezes and a
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: movie is made. And they're just like, we got a summer.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Let's just make a movie and get it done. And
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: you just, there's so much tape nowadays.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Well, I have a question for you guys. So, you know,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: like we joke about how easy it is for Carpenter
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: to make films and, you know, like how busy it
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: was in the 80s. The same with King. Okay, so.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Carpenter has said that he took this as a job,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: that this was not a passion project, that he was
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: pretty down on himself because the thing was panned by
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: critics and not a financial success. And so and also,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: I think he wanted to do two other adaptations. I
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: think he wanted to do Firestarter and something called Ninja,
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: and he wasn't able to do it. So he's like, fine,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: I'll just do this one. I'll do this one. Do
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: you think that came across on screen? Yes.
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, why?
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: Because I think this is the third Carpenter movie that
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: we've looked at. You look at Escape from New York,
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: you can see independent filmmaker John Carpenter having a blast,
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: having fun with his buddy Kurt Russell. You watch the
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: thing and you see a guy who's like, this is
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: my movie. I am making this. There's stuff that's recognizable
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: from Carpenter as a director, but there's also so much care.
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: There's so much... pre-production, planning, focus in it. Like you
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: can see Carpenter's spirit in those two movies. In this one,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: you see a movie that's like pretty enough and the soundtrack,
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: you know, the score sounds like a Carpenter type of score.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: And then the rest of it is like there's nothing.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: I don't get the sense of a director who's working
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: with his actors is like, hey, let's really workshop this. Like,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: let's really make this work. What can you bring? He's like, yeah,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: whatever you got, just just read it.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: It's good.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: We're getting to the car effects. It's fine.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. This in a way, this movie is simpler.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: It's very straightforward. It's like A to B to C
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: to D. Like you could explain you could elevator pitch
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: this entire movie. And it is that complex. It is
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: not a complex movie like The Thing is with who
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: is the thing and who is not and the moral
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: tension and all of that. And I'm not saying that's bad.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: It's just that type of a movie. And you're really
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: balancing screen time of Arnie doing teenage things and Christine
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: killing people. and sometimes they're in the same place. So
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: now I wanted to, to ask, so this movie, I
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: want to talk about the effects first, because while it
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: is not a effects, I will say heavy because there
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: are key moments of effects, especially with the car. But I,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I think my, obviously I'll say my favorite and it's
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: just cause everybody's favorite. My favorite is obviously the red
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: regeneration scene. Oh, how could it not be? Which is
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: just fantastic. It's so amazing. I remember looking up how
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: it was done and all of that. It's one of
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: those things where people start to say like, oh, is
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: that CG? No, this was 83. There was no CG
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: that looked this good.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: There's no way.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: But apparently they took rubber molds of the car and
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: and then gutted it, and then had a bunch of
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: steel cables coming through the back of the car, pinned
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: to specific parts, and then pulled all of those out
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: through the back of the building, and it crumpled, and
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: then they just played it all in reverse. And it
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: is such an amazing practical effect that is.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: It still holds up. It holds up amazingly well. And
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: it's even more impressive because Carpenter... didn't originally want to
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: film those scenes, and he gave, it was Roy Arbogast,
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: three weeks to figure it out. He said, I don't
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: even want to film it, but if you can figure
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: it out in a month, fine. And it's almost like
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: you can feel like, you know, Arbogast was like, okay. Yeah.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: I can do this.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Screw you. I'm going to prove you. I can do this.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: It was very much. Screw you. Of course I'm going
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: to do it.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Right.
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: It's only the most.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Distinctive thing the car does, but you know, maybe we
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: won't film it if you can't figure it out.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you, I was incredibly impressed because that
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: is something in the book where like, while I'm reading it,
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: I'm like, how the hell are you going to film
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: this now? The book does some other stuff like that. They,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: they don't film even the regeneration sort of stuff, but like, it's,
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: it's pretty, I mean, it's such an impressive effect. Like it's,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: you know, because the thing is like nowadays, you know,
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: we always love to say it was all CG. They
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: do this, they CG, they do that. But just the
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: fact that somebody had three weeks to figure out how
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: to do it mechanically like that, That spurs somebody on
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: creatively to really, really think it through and say, I
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: really got to think of this from every possible angle,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: including how they're going to light it. I got it.
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: This has got to look absolutely real. And it does.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Especially with the lighting because it's rubber. Right. But you
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: can't tell that it's rubber. No, you can't.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: And like, I remember watching it. It blew my mind
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: as I'm watching it on screen.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I'm like, this is insane. How did you do this?
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like that... that moment in Force Awakens
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: when she rehydrates the food. And it's a practical effect.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: And people are still talking about it today of how
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: much they love that effect. And so very rarely do
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: you hear someone, man, I really loved that CGI shot
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: of the character or of the Transformers rolling around. And
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: this isn't a knock. I love Avatar. I'm a defender
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: of 2009's Avatar for the leap of CGI that it had.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: But there's just something about The practical effects that break
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: your brain and make you think about it even after
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: you're done watching the movie where you're like, how did
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: they do that?
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: It's the magic trick. We all know the guy with
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: the card or the guy sawing the woman in half.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: We know we're being fooled. And the fun of it
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: is sitting there going, how did they do that one?
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: It's like you take it back to the thing. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: figuring out how they made it so that it looked
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: like his arms were torn off was they went and
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: they got somebody who had his arms amputated and they
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: put a mask of the actor over him screaming so
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: that for one shot, you sit there and you're like, oh,
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: it ate his arms.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: It ate his arms.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: This is the same sort of thing where it's.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: Like it gives him three weeks. You're not looking at
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: his face.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I will say, you know, Also definite props to the
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: sound design of that scene, because as amazing as the
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: visual is, the sound design sells it because it is
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: just the right clank and rep and bend of metal
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that you don't think like everything matches. And it's in,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: and it's not like they're playing metal bent backwards or
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: they're reversing the audio. Like it, it, it works so well.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: And again, again, This is, I think, one of the
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: things that Carpenter is doing really well. And we've talked
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: before about some directors that get a lot out of
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: their people. And he's obviously getting a lot out of
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: his production team for this movie. Obviously with the effects
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: and with the sound design, the lighting, the night shots.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: But I love the fact that they went all in
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: on this one restoration shot. And then they don't ever
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: do that much restoration at once. But you don't need to.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: You see the car look destroyed. You turn around for
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: a half a second. You look back and it's solid.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Your mind fills in the blanks and it's chilling. Like
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: when we see it as the burned out husk and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: then the next day the cops are there and you
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: get the little tone as they come around the corner.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: And it's like, I mean, it's just a car. It's
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: just a car right there. But the fact that the
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: car is perfectly fine is terrifying.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And the thing is, that's, you know, That shot,
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: I'm glad you mentioned it, because I think that an
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: appropriate amount of credit has to be given to the cinematographer.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: It's Donald Morgan this time. And Carpenter might have been
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: there just for the sake of it, just to be like, oh,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: this is just a job. But the photography has to
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: sell the car's regeneration. But it also manages to get
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: this weird.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: Gauzy, like 1950s-esque feel to the first scene. Like it
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: feels like you're looking at an old 1950s movie. Like
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: it's that way we always fool ourselves visually, where it's like,
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: that's not what anything looked like, but it's like, oh,
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: I see that and I visually understand, oh, old timey.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: But to transition the photography in such a way that
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: everything works so well and looks so good. What I'm
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: really enjoying about this part of the discussion, and it's
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: going to turn south at some point, folks, is we've
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: really been heaping all of the praise that we can
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: on this movie up to this point. All of the praise.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: We're squeezing the toothpaste bottle as hard as we can.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: We're rolling it up at this point. That's what we're doing.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: And we're doing that little trick where we're putting our
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: thumb through the back of it just to get it
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: through the little neck. Exactly.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: I can't get to CVS tonight. I got to get
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: this little bit out. It's my dental health I'm worried
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: about here.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: I'm on vacation and there's nothing else around.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Exactly. And that's, as a lifelong Carpenter fan, that's
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: the toughest part for me. Because I look at this
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: movie and I think in terms of this guy can
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: just basically just machine gun movies out year after year
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: after year after year. And this is a movie I
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: would point to where I would say, oh... He's broken
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: a little bit. He's, and we all know.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: There's no joy. There's no joy.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: That's it. That is exactly the right way to put it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: There's nothing fun going on here. And it sucks because
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: we've seen just the two weeks prior to this, what
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: it's like when Carpenter loves what he's doing. And I
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: know you guys don't love Escape from New York the
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: same way I do, but like you can still see
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: the fun. The joy that's that's at play and even
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: just that sort of like mischievous, devilish nature is in
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: the thing. And then this is just I'm a director.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: This is what I do. And it's like that's heartbreaking
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: to me.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I almost feel like, you know, he's reading the script.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: He's like, oh, teenage high school. Oh, OK. I guess
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not hanging out with my. you know, with my
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: good friend. He's in every other movie, Kurt Russell. But yeah,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: so let's, let's, Toothpaste is Empty, guys. Let's go back to,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: you know, this is an interesting story because, you know,
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: our protagonist, Arnie, you know, he's not a likable character.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: He does not redeem in the end. Like, it's very tragic. Like,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: there's not, uh i mean is the is the best
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: friend supposed to be the one we're rooting for or
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the girlfriend like who's the protagonist i don't know the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: car the car is the protagonist kind of in a way.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: The fascinating thing is just a callback this protagonist confusion
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: exists in the book too Because it opens with the
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: story being told first person from Dennis, then third person
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: omniscient about Arnie, and then it switches back to first
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: person with Dennis. And you're like, what? What? Who do
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: I care about right now? And that is that like
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: it's almost like that negative from the book is retained
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: in the movie because it starts off. And I still
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: feel like I'm like, oh, OK, Dennis is there with
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: his friend. All right. And then the middle switches supposedly
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: to Arnie and then it switches back. And I'm like, oh,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: Dennis is OK. All right. He's he's the main character again. Yeah,
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: there is. It's unclear. Like this is a series of events.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: This isn't a story. This isn't a character arc. It's
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: just stuff that happened.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: So, yeah.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: No, it I mean, not to start rewriting the movie already,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: but I almost feel like with the with Dennis and
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: the best friend or being the best friend. And he's
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: kind of taken out of commission by the way through
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: where he's not really in the movie as much after that.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: I almost would have maybe changed the best friend to
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: maybe have been like a younger brother, someone that has
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: an even closer connection to Arnie. and is really distraught
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: seeing him like change and fall off the track and into,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: you know, bad choices. Cause there's a moment. It's kind
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: of even set up from the beginning where he there,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: when the parents are like, Oh gosh, yeah. Parents of
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: the year. But you know, but the parents are like,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: you know, why did you let him do that? Why'd
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: you let him buy the car? And he's like, I'm
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: not their parent. And from that moment, you're like, yeah, you're,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: you're kind of barely his friend.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: It's it's yeah.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: It's, it's an interesting connection.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: This is one of those those movies that I really
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: think if the studio got involved and said, no, this
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: ending sucks. We need the Hollywood ending. This is one
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: of those rare times I would have agreed with them.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: I feel like we would have really benefited from a
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Hollywood style ending where they're able to save. What's his name?
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: The not protagonist, protagonist, Arnie or whatever.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: No.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Arnie.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Arnie.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: And his personality has a reset. We start to see
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: him make amends. Like we start to see him like
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: have a better relationship with the parents. You know, like
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: he goes back to school. He's, you know, like maybe
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: he continues a relationship with that girl.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Maybe he doesn't.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: I don't know. But everybody's closer and wiser for the journey.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: And then at the end, we have that, is Christine
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: going to come back? Or maybe there's another car that
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: catches his eye. So that way we keep that little
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: wink that the story's not really over or something like that.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: But it felt so soulless to end that way because
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: what did you win? What lesson was learned? And because
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: we didn't really get to know Arnie too terribly much
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: at the beginning, Cause he was just a nerdy kid
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: who got bullied, had a terrible relationship with his parents. And,
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: you know, I had a, you know, like was threatened
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: with a knife, had his glasses broken and everything like that.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: And then just found a car and then he started
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: changing immediately. So we never really got to love this character.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: And I think the first, um, Like, let me rephrase.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: The first violent death that we got was at the
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: 49 minute mark. Good freaking Lord. The 49 minute mark
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: on what's supposed to be a quote unquote horror movie. No,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: that's inexcusable. It's not scary enough to be a horror movie.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: It's not dramatic enough to be a drama. This, I think.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: if this was made today because of the concept is
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: so overtly silly, you could have done kind of like a,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: a child's play type thing, or I should say a
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: later child's play type thing where it's, it's a, it's
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: a funny, like it's a, it's a horror comedy kind
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: of deal.
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: I can, I would come at it from the angle of,
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: if you were to remake this, I bring Labey back
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: into the story. And instead of spending all of this
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: time portraying it as if Christine was, she was just
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: made bad. she was just the bad car instead of
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: showing her on the assembly line, show LaBey buying her
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: and then just sort of like slowly go in. And
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: it's like, yeah, this is my baby. This is my Christine.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: And then you like sort of like dissolve into Arnie
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: and Dennis driving and seeing a car for the first
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: time and then go to school with them and then
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: seeing the car a second time. And then Arnie saying like, no,
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: that's my car. That's going to be my car. And like,
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: you gotta, I think you have to bring in the
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: supernatural ghost perspective. It's almost as if they were afraid
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: to make it a ghost story that they thought it
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: was better to have the possessed automobile. But the thing is,
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: I'm never going to look at that car as I
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: saw its inception. There wasn't any sort of like evil candy, like,
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: I didn't see the, you know, was it the devil
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: smelter made the iron or something like that? Like nothing
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: like that happened. So I'm like, it still doesn't make
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: sense for the car to be evil.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: I totally want that origin story where we see Sauron.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: He makes the ring.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: But there was another car made.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. Yes.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Well, speaking of the car. We'll leave that for the
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: HBO show.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: You have to drive Christine into the volcano at the end. Yeah,
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: I like this. I like this.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Dude, we're cooking with gas now.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: That's right. All of a sudden, Gina Davis and Susan
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Sarandon are driving Christine into the volcano.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Yes, and they're the ones that drive. Oh, my gosh. Oh,
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: this has to be made. Netflix, call us.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: There's the movie title, Thelma and Louise and Christine. And
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: you think it's about three girls on a road trip,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: but it's not.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Went from gold to platinum right there.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: But just as a little tweak to the title card, Thelma, A-N-D, Louise,
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: ampersand Christine. Like you have to have the Thelma and
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: the Ampersand. There you go.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: The two humans in the car, obviously. Yes. So, okay.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: But that was an interesting thought if we're remaking this movie.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Because it's set, even though it's technically, I think, set
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: in the late 70s. But it's around 20.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: 25 years old.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: From Christine's inception to the time of the movie or
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: at least the time of the movie release. So I
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: was trying to think, I actually looked back on like
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: early 2000s car. Cause I was, I mean, I'm not
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: saying modern cars are great guys. I'm not saying that
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: they are as iconic as a 58, but I, there
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: were some that actually kind of, I was kind of
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: leaning that direction. So if I was recasting Christine, as
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: far as just having a unique look, and maybe it's
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: sinister in a silly way, but a 2000 Chrysler PT Cruiser.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: It's just such an interesting shaped car. I'm not saying
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: it's winning any beauty contests, but it's the unsuspecting car.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: It doesn't even look menacing. If that car was a person.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: It would be the weird guy who lives down the
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: block where you don't go to his house for Halloween.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes. I got to say the difficulty is like
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: with the PT Cruiser, like there are so many scenes
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: where Christine, well, she can't fit there, but she sacrifices herself. Yeah,
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: the PT Cruiser can park in a bicycle parking lot. So,
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: you know, there you go.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: There's no, maybe they run away from it down a
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: small alley and they think they're safe. And they're like, Nope,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: it's basically a bat missile. Just following it right down. I.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: I immediately go to like, it's gotta be like a
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Mustang or something like that, you know, because that's just like, Oh,
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: it's gotta be like a muscle car type of thing.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: If it, you know, if it's not this big boat
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: of a car and, but the, the difficulty is car
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: culture has changed so much and, you know, fuel standards and, And,
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: you know, what people like and stuff like that. Like, honestly,
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: you know, the only thing appropriate I would see would
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: be like a Hummer or something like that. I'm like, yeah, big,
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: intimidating car. I wouldn't go that way, though. But my
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: question is, is the constraint that it has to be
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: an American car. Because that's also part of the old
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: car culture type of stuff. Because the thing is, you
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: go back, let's say you roll it back to 94.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Like the Volvo was one of the most popular cars
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: with teenagers back then. So I'm like, yeah, a teenager
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: today wouldn't care about a Volvo. So for me, it's like,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: what car from the past would a teenager today want?
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: Even if they saw it in a state of disrepair.
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: And the only thing I can go to, it's like
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: a Dodge, like a Charger or a... a Mustang or
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: something like that. Like that's where I go. Like for
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: a teenage boy to be like, that's the cool ass
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: car I want. Like what am I going to pick?
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: A Prius? I, you know, I went with a Firebird
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: 2001 Trans Am because it's a last generation muscle car.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: I can see that.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: It's got a really distinct front end. And yeah, it's a,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: I think that's a key thing is that you need
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: a really distinct profile and front end. And like, it
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: kind of has that echo of what the fury was
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: going through at that time. And because they, they didn't
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: make that many of them. And with the Trans Am,
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: it's just kind of like the last dying generation. And
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: I kind of fooled around with the idea, like, like Darren,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I had the same instinct you had, but then laughed and, and,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: and didn't go in that direction. Was the do you
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: guys remember like in order to keep it a Plymouth?
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Do you guys remember the Plymouth Prowler that came out in?
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: 2000 around 2001 it was ridiculous but the reason why
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: i didn't.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Front wheels are like a race car like they're they're.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Exposed it's a throwback to the 1930s racers and And
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: so I didn't do that because in itself is a throwback.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no. I remember it now. Yeah, no, you can't. No, no.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: The other one that kind of struck my mind as
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: far as an interesting look, I can't remember. I think
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: it was Toyota or Chevy. But it was the pickup
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: truck that had the retractable roof. And it was very roundish.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: And it just looked terrible. Like nobody bought it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Like it was... It was terrible.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: I don't know that one. I'm trying to remember. There
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: was a car. It came out and it was like
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: this super in-demand sports car, but it died a quick
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: death because it was priced all wrong. So they priced
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: it at $ 80, 000 and nobody bought it. And it was, gosh,
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to remember what the name of it was.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's like the
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: Plymouth Fury, those older cars, they're monsters. They're insane monsters.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: Especially in the 60s. Yeah. That's what I struggle with.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: But there was a time in the 2000s where there
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: was a little bit of a resurgence. But I do.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: I go toward a charger, something like that. It's got
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: a growl. It's really loud. I hate them on the road.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: They always tailgate me. That sort of thing. But it's like....
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Today it would just be a beamer, a beamer that
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: doesn't use his turn signal, tailgates you.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: And that's another direction. It would just fly. Flips off
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: a granny. Christine, Christine nowadays would just have a high powered, uh,
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: led headlights and just blind people and just leave them
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: alone after that.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: So, or it's, it's a cyber truck, but yet it
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: explodes in the first five minutes and that's the end
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: of the movie.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: It explodes and regenerates. And it's just like the movie
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: is just people keep walking by and it just explodes
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: and regenerates. And they're like, Is that car going anywhere?
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: It's like, no, it just blows up every so often.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Just leave it alone. Just leave it alone.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: It's fine. It's fine. Yeah.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: All right. I found it. It's a Chevy SSR with
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: retractable hard top. Dear Lord, this car. It is a look. Like,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: that was the thing, is that it had this retractable
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: hard top. It was so... It's so bad, guys.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, I do remember that. That is so god-awful ugly.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: Hard pass. Hard pass.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Not a chance.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: No.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: So bad. Oh, my gosh. Guys, whoever is listening to this,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: pause the podcast.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: Somebody got paid to design this. Somebody got paid to
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: design this. That's not cool. That's not cool.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: This is like the Homer.
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: Now, see, remake Christine, and it's the Homer. You've got
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: a billion-dollar movie right there.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: Easy. Well, I forgot to mention the closest thing that
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: I got to Christine was, what was it called? The
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: honking or the honking, um, from Futurama, which was a
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: spoof on Christine.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: That's, that was my.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Exposure to Christine. Okay. We got it. Okay. All right.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: We got, we have to stick to reviewing this movie.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: I think our desire not to is really telling.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Honestly, it's so, it's so long. It's so boring. It's
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: so freaking boring. And it's not scary at all. I just,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know. You and I, like all three of
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: us want to make a fun, interesting podcast for you guys.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: There's just not much to say.
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: Look, I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Robert's Blossom is
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: George Labey. The moment where I went, hey, it's the
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: guy from Home Alone. That was a big plus. I
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: like that. That was a positive thing.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: That was true.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: I'm always a big fan of Robert Prosky. I got
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: to see him on stage one time. It was wonderful.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: He's a terrific actor. even outside of Mrs. Doubtfire. And,
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: you know, so, like, that's the thing, though, is, like,
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: Carpenter has some high-powered talent. Harry Dean Stanton's in this?
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: Good lord.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, it was just like, your
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: side characters are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Yeah,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: they really are. Because the kids that they get are okay.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: They're fine.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Like, they're doing fine.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's okay. And although a young Kelly
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: Preston is in there, Oh, that's who that was. That's
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: who that was. Yeah.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: I was a really young Kelly Preston.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: Very, that's a very, she didn't meet John Travolta yet.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: Kelly Preston right there. Yes.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: And also I'm so, I'm so terrible with what's her name?
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Kelly or what's her real, not Kelly Preston. We just
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: talked about her. No, the main female lead.
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: Alexandra Paul.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you. She was in, I did not recognize her
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: at first because I had to picture her with short hair.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: And cause that's how she was in Baywatch.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. Oh my gosh. The whole time I
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: was sitting there, I was like, what is she? She
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: did something after this, didn't she? Oh my gosh.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: That's wild. That's wild.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that's the consensus though. You, you
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: have a, a fairly strong supporting cast supporting who the protagonist,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I guess, but yeah, it's, it's.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: Although, okay.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I have one last positive squeeze out of the toothpaste and,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: And for me, that is the music. So this movie
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: is like, for me, it's quintessential Carpenter. Like in the 80s,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: like it is so Carpenter.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: It hurts.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: It's so much, you know, in a mix of pop
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: culture music. I like how they kind of play it
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: through the radio. And it's, you know, very Bumblebee Transformery of,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: you know, the emotions of the car, but I want
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: you guys to guess the, the, the sound of carpenter
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: that rings in my mind. If I had to give
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: it a sound it's in this movie, it's, it, it,
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: it's so iconic.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: Is it the sting when like her lights come up?
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: Like there, there's a certain eerie sting that he does. Yeah,
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: that's exactly it.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Every time it's, it not only makes me think of Christine,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: it's like, If a sound was on a tombstone, that
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: would be the sound on Carpenter's tombstone in my mind.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: So I looked it up and the right stuff won
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: best sound this year.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: But that's some tough competition right there.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Return of the Jedi was nominated too, along with War Games.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, yes, Return of the Jedi came out
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: this year. It's like, yeah, I mean, you know, why
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: even bother having special effects in your movie at that point? Wait,
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: wasn't this one of the years where they had a
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: special Oscar for Return of the Jedi? Because they were like,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: it's not fair. That's not fair to go up against them.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't remember.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: I could have sworn this was the year that they
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: did that. I could be wrong. Getting older, all that stuff.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: But what's really frustrating, and Tristan, you said this was,
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: and this is playing off of the music that you're
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: talking about, Darren, is Carpenter working with Alan Haworth is
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: always fun to listen to. Like they get a really
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: great eerie sound with everything, but it's in service of
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: a movie that to your point, Tristan is not a
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: horror movie. It's not even scary. Like it's, it's almost
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: like Carpenter who's, you know, credited with, with the rebirth
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: or birth really of the, the slasher friend franchises and
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: everything like that. Like he remade modern horror. It's like,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: he wasn't even interested in making that part of it.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Body horror soon after. Right.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: And, The thing that's frustrating, again, coming at it from
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: the like having read the book angle, the way that
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: Christine kills people would not have worked on screen. But
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: there is a happy medium between what happened on screen
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: and the way King wrote it that would have worked
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: so much better than this does. I think the exact
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: moment in the movie where I started sort of dissociating
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: from it completely was when Christine comes out on fire.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, yes, this is the visual I've been
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: waiting for. Why is it taking so long to catch
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: up to him? He's not running that fast. And I
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: don't even get to see you hit him.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: He's like a mile away.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: How did he get that far?
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: And it's like the car is just like going and
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: he's riding and he's going.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Throw him on a motorcycle. Have him like race away
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: on a motorcycle and you chase him with the flaming car.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: That would have been amazing.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: That would have been so cool.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: And it's, it's really just.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: Chabalouise and Christine.
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: But yes.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Like a really wide shot of like, you just see
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: a little light of the motorcycle and then the flame is.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Just following it.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Beautiful. Beautiful. But there is a part of me that
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: doesn't want to be as harsh on it as I
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: am because I imagine seeing it in the movie theater
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: probably looks cooler than it does on your TV. Because
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: it's larger than life and you're going and it's like,
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, what would I do in that situation? Well,
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't run on a straight line on the road
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: where the car can easily get to me. I'd like
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: to think I'm a little wiser than that.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: There was more than a few moments like that where
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: I was like, if only you could run where a
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: car is inaccessible.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: Like the sidewalk.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Oh no.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: A small hill. You jumped over it.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: He jumped over a chain link fence. There is no
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: way that that speeding car can get through.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Maybe go indoor.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's tough because if you're going to make changes,
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: there was even a terrific opportunity to have, it's Moochie
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: Welch is the first one that gets killed, to have
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: him go into the jungle. and have like a cat
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: and mouse game in the junkyard and then he jumps
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: up on a pile and he's like you can't get
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: up here and then it starts ramming the pile of
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: junk and he's like oh my god and like that's
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: if you're going to make changes to the book just
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: go ahead and do that because in the book Moochie
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: Welch like he's on Main Street at like two o'clock
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: in the morning and they literally like, it's not just
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: his legs that are turning to put it like they
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: can't identify the body at first. Like he's, he's so mangled. And,
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: but anyway, that's just getting more into that, like differences
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: between the book and everything. But like, yeah. Like why
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: isn't that? Why isn't the master of horror doing something
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: horrifying here? And it's just, I think that exact moment
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: where the car's on fire and I'm like, this is
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: the promise of the movie right here. And, showing why
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: it failed is you had a couple of neat ideas
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: and none of them were strung together properly.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Well, we say fail, but this movie did make twice
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: its budget. It was a slightly smaller budget than like
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: the thing. It was 10 million and it made 21
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: in 1983 dollars. So it was enough to keep the
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: carpenter train rolling.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: So it broke even basically. Basically.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: Which and, you know, but this was also released. They
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: could have explained plenty away. I mean, it got middling reviews.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: Ebert liked it a lot more than some other people did,
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: but the eighties became just a, a treasure trove of
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: Stephen King adaptation. And so you could easily say that
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: like Stephen King fatigue was set like Christine fire starter.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Now stand by me as sort of an anomalous one.
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: You have so many movies in the eighties that are
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: Stephen King adaptations that you could easily look at Christine and,
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: from an outsider perspective, be like, well, I mean, like
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: five or six Stephen King movies coming out in a
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: few years. Yeah. They're not all going to do gangbusters.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: And it's like, so I could easily see a studio
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: exec to your point, Darren. Oh, it only made bad.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: It only, it broke even. It's like, ah, you know what?
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: In this market, that's not too bad because it was
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: competing against other Stephen King books that were being adapted
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: at the time.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: And, and again, like some of us have mentioned it,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: is memorable it is inspirational I'm not saying on a
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: high level but we have other television other it's it's
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: just touching into the pop culture you know fabric enough
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: that it's referenced you know we say Christine and you
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: know if you have seen the movie once you know
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: exactly what I'm it's it's just a name it's not
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: like Christine the car is the title of the movie
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: you say Christine and if you've seen this movie you
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: might think of it it might cross your your mind
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: I'm squeezing the toothpaste guys. I'm trying, I'm trying.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: My absolute best. It's a valiant, valiant, valiant effort.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, I know Tristan really wants to compare
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: this to Star Trek Voyagers season six, episode five, Alice,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: but I'm not going to let him talk about, no,
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: he can if he wants to, but so let's do
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: a final thoughts and, and ratings on this. I think,
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: We've kind of shown the trajectory of this protagonist confusion movie.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: But John, you're a regenerating car, as you claim to be.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Tell me your final thoughts and your star rating. How
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: many fixed bumpers do you give Christine?
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: I want to throw out there two things that I enjoy.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: Stephen King himself said this was one of only two
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: films adapted from his works that that he found boring.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: Tristan knows what the other one is, The Shining. The Shining,
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: which is absolutely mental. I mean, I will never understand.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: Same with millions of other people will never understand his
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: hatred towards that movie. I did for a time. You
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: were there when I changed my mind years ago. Actually,
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: I'm missing frames here on The Nerd Party. But also
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Halloween Ends, which is a Halloween movie that happened. The
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: guy who directed that, David Gordon Green, said that it
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: was a love letter to Christine. and John Carpenter's body
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: of work in general. And after watching the film, Carpenter
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: was asked about that. He's like, I don't see anything
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: resembling Christine in here. I love the honesty of that
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: man so very much, is he just doesn't play. But
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: this movie just doesn't work. It's a one-star movie. It's boring.
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: It's got some terrific effects. I'll never watch it again.
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: So that is one repaired bumper for Christine. Oh, wow.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: At number one for the number of protagonists? Question mark.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: All right. I'm I'm actually giving it a little a
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: little more. I'm going to give it a two like
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: because it for me, it's it's falling into that. I
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: don't like you were talking about, it's a popcorn movie.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: It's a, you know, this isn't the cinematic event of 83.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: That was return of the Jedi. That was many other movies,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: you know, but I, I would watch this again. I,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: because I am watching for the Christine moments I'm watching for,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: you know, they're not even jump scares. They're more like
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: moments of intrigue when you come around the corner and
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: the car is fine or, you know, the, And it's
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: always punctuated by my favorite sound effect ever. So it's yeah,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: it's is it in King's best work?
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: No.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Is it in Carpenter's best work?
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: No.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: But I will probably put this on my spooky season
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: rotation because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed getting exposed to it.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: You know, in 2026, I think it's a lot of
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: fun to think of or just not think because you
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: definitely don't in this movie. So I'm going to give
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: it two, two bumpers. Ah, ah, ah. What about you, Tristan?
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: I'm giving it two stars as well, but I'm nowhere
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: near as generous as you as to why. I do
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: believe that the movie deserves one star because it's just
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: so bland, joyless, soulless, and just not fun. But I'm
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: giving it another star just for the special effects.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: Oh, you've got to make me feel like an angel.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Come on.
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: Jeez. Come on, man.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, John doesn't like the special effects. He gave
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: it a one.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's what you can surmise from
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: his rating is that he doesn't really appreciate the hard
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: work that it takes to put in practical.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Did you skip the scene, the regeneration scene?
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: Did you skip it?
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Clearly this one star means if only there was CGI.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: I was just outraged that it was different from the
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: book at all. That's just, that's why I hate the movie.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: There you go. That's it.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All right. Well, Carpenter, he was putting out movies
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: in 81, 82, 83. He took a little break to
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: work and build up to his next picture. Give that
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: man some air. So next week, we're going to be
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: covering Big Trouble in Little China next on House Lights.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Join the revolution. Join the nerd party.