Excuse me. You know,
you look like your head fell on the cheese dip back in 1957.
You, you're okay. This one,
real fucking ugly. You see, I take these
glasses off, she looks like a regular person, doesn't she, huh? Put them back
on. Formaldehyde face. That's what we got. She took enough out of you.
You get out or call the cops. Call the cops. You know what
you need? You need a Brazilian plastic surgeon.
I've got one that can see.
He's a tall Caucasian male, doesn't appear armed,
wearing sunglasses. I don't like this one.
Not one bit.
It's two Dads one Movie. It's the podcast where two middle
aged dads sit around and shoot the about the movies of the 80s and 90s.
Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nick Brianna.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1
Movie. I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. And today we are Talking about the 1988
John Carpenter cult classic they Live.
Yes. Starring Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David.
Nick, this was your pick for us. Why don't you tell us a little bit
about they Live and why you picked it. Yeah. So they Live is something
that I saw pretty early on. I saw at some point in my teens.
And I think it was a word of mouth type movie. It wasn't like a
huge, you know, there weren't McDonald's cups with Roddy Piper on them
at that point, at least not for his role in they Live. Right.
Really interesting concept. I think a lot of the
imagery in this movie, you'd know even if you were
unfamiliar with the movie, a lot of it is kind of bled out into society,
especially with the last 15 years with like the Shepard Fairey Obey
line of clothing and stuff like that. And that the street art and stuff that
he did this movie I just thought was so cool. I loved wrestling
as a kid and Roddy Piper was one of my favorites. So to get to
see him in a starring role and actually do, like, pretty good. There's reasons
that he's in this role that I think we could get into. But that
makes it fun. There's fighting, there's aliens. It's just kind of. It builds
a very interesting view of the world. It imagines a very interesting
world. And also at one point in college,
I had a couple of film classes at UC Santa Barbara. And one semester
there was a guest lecturer for a class that was John Carpenter. Oh, my God.
So I got to take a class that John Carpenter taught, which was really
sweet. And, and I've loved his work. I mean,
I like a lot of. From everything from Escape from New York to Halloween to
Vampires. Like, I really like his style. I like his stuff. So I
think this one will be a lot of fun to talk about. Yeah, I think
you're right. This movie really exists, like in popular culture, kind of, whether or not
you see it. Yes. To wit, I was sure I'd seen this movie and then
I watched it like three days ago. I have definitely never seen this movie before
this week. Like, I've seen lots of clips. I'm obviously well aware of, you know,
the concept and the sunglasses and chewing bubblegum and kicking ass. Yeah.
Which actually kind of became a Piper wrestling catchphrase. I think later in his career
he used it in the ring as well. But yeah, this was like a really
fascinating view for me. I too love John Carpenter's work. You know,
I think the thing is like one of just the best sci fi or horror
movies, like, ever made. And this was not long after he did that movie.
And yeah, this was a lot of fun to watch. It's really very
in the Carpenter mold. It's very creative, it's very inventive. It's very,
you know, out of left field. But interestingly enough,
and we'll get into the facts in a minute, like, this movie opened its opening
weekend number one at the box office, which is kind of shocking. Pretty impressive.
Rated R sci fi horror movie starring a pro wrestler,
a Scottish pro wrestler. I mean, we didn't. We didn't look kindly
upon Scotsman back then. Oh, no, no, no. Immigrants. Anyway.
Yeah, okay, let's dive into the facts then. On. On.
They live. All right. Okay, so they live or they. An R rating came out
on November 4, 1988. Originally, I read something about it wanting to be, or intended
to be, earlier into Oct. October. But Halloween 4, the return of Michael Myers,
which Carpenter was not involved with, was slated to come out then. And so
they pushed it for two reasons. One, not to put Carpenter's movie up against Halloween.
And also to make it closer to the election. The 1988 US
presidential election makes sense. Interesting. With a running time of 94 minutes.
It was written and directed by John Carpenter from the short story Eight o' Clock
in the Morning by Ray Faraday Nelson. It stars Rowdy Roddy Piper and
Keith David. The scores on Rotten Tomatoes, 87% fresh.
Very highly regarded by critics at the time. IMDb a 7.2,
which I think is like 7.2. Feels very much like IMDb ratings at.
That level, we agree it's good. They're exactly. Everybody thinks it's a good movie.
Yeah, Right. And there are some people who are huge fans and probably some detractors,
obviously, but, like, generally, it's accepted as a good movie. Did not win
any awards. It was made on a budget of $4 million and it received,
or it earned 13 million at the box office for a 3.3, about three and
a quarter times its money, which in our scale puts it as a solid success.
Maybe not a blockbuster hit, obviously, but ye very successful run in
the theaters for. They live. Cool, man. Is there any other preamble
or should we just get into it? Yeah, I think we can just dive right
into it. All right, great. And, you know, one of the first things in this
movie that we noticed that occurs throughout, which is a Carpenter thing. Some people like
it, some people don't. But his score, he has a very.
There's a very signature Carpenter musicality to
it. Right. He uses similar themes throughout his films
and everything. And it's this kind of like low guitar with
some harmonica, like, very kind of bluesy, railroady. I even wrote
a note later on in the movie, dun dun dun, just because I'd heard it
so many times. I finally wrote it in my notebook. It's everywhere. It's everywhere.
And so this starts the movie off and we're kind of shown
a not so glamorous Los Angeles, right? The scenes it's showing,
it's very kind of working class Los Angeles, downtown la, you know, where the regular
people are at. And we have our lead character, Rowdy Roddy Piper,
who we would be fair to refer to as Rowdy Roddy Piper throughout this podcast
because his name is never presented to us in the film. Right, let's go
ahead and address that real quickly. Right. So I was watching this movie again for
the first time this week. I kept. Because so many of the characters are named,
you know, Frank and Gerald and Holly Thompson. Right. She actually gets a whole last
name, too. There are characters that have names and people refer to by their names.
But I kept thinking to myself, has anybody said anything to Piper referring to
him by a name? Has he introduced himself to anyone? And it's like, I was
pretty sure I didn't see that. So when the credits rolled and it said his
name is Nada, I thought, oh, it's just clever. Like, nothing Spanish for nothing.
Right? You know, whatever. Later found out, actually, in the short story by Nelson,
the main character is named George Nada. And so it does appear Carpenter Borrowed
calling the character that for the credits, basically.
But it is a quite intentional choice by Carpenter to not
have the main character named in any way as sort of an everyman scenario.
Right. He's just meant to be a nameless, ostensibly faceless. Although Piper
does a great job acting with his face, but, you know, ostensibly nameless,
faceless, everyman avatar for the audience to occupy while
watching the movie. So it is deliberate that he is not really named at all
in the film. No backstory, nothing interesting. All we
know is that this is a guy who looks like he's kind of traveling from
city to city looking for work, and work is dried up where he was,
and he ends up in this job placement center
in downtown la. A lot of people in line there.
The woman who's supposedly trying to help
him is very dismissive. Does not seem to care about his situation.
There's no work for you. Actively annoyed at him. Isn't this your job,
lady? Yeah. You know what I mean? Why don't you quit bugging me and get
a job? It's like, wait, this is the get a job place, right? And I
think it's like, if you're gonna be pissed at the public, if you have a
job where you have to deal with the public and they're not being rude to
you, you of have to at least have that surface level of, like,
helpfulness, you know, Like, I don't think you got to put up with anybody being
a dick. But he was being incredibly polite and giving her all the info and,
you know, whatever he could. I do think, by the way, I'm not. I did
not look this up, and I should have. I think that's the actress that plays
the, like, boss of the afterlife in Beetlejuice, the one that smokes from
the tracheotomy wound. I think that's the same woman. She looked real familiar to
me. Big couple years for that lady then. Yeah. And, you know,
we find out later, you know, why this person,
quote, it might have so much disdain for the average everyday
struggling person. Right, right. So we're
shown a few different. Just scenes of the street. We have nada.
Stumbles across this blind street preacher who's telling everybody,
you know, you know, they're. They got signals and they're. We have owners, whatever.
Yeah. So kind of explaining it in. In the typical, like, street preacher.
Why would I believe this guy? He sounds crazy kind of way.
There's people who are, like, watching TVs in the window of
an electronic store, which is my favorite way to consume television. That's actually how I
watch this movie for the podcast. Standing in a Best Buy. Yeah. Yeah.
And there's a lady on TV who's talking about like how important it is to
be famous and everything. So we're getting a sense of like what the values that
are being pushed on society are from this media and everything. And at
the same time, Nada is having difficulty finding any kind of work.
He ends up at a construction site and is told this
is a union job. And then we get the obligatory scene of the Teamsters
just kind of standing around doing nothing. And it really shows you it doesn't matter.
The politics of something. You know, things that are ostensibly left leaning,
like this film, the Simpsons, whatever, are still going to give you the lazy union
guy trope no matter what. Right. That's just how effective anti
union propaganda that's been in this country since the 50s. Yes. Is that even.
Even the ostensibly left le have an anti union bias, which is shitty.
So he ends up getting some employment
now. So he's got somewhere at least to swing his hammer for the day.
But that's as far as he's gotten. Right. And so we get the glamour shot
of Rowdy, Rowdy Piper shirtless, breaking bricks or whatever the hell he's doing
on this construction site. Looks great. Obviously this was near the peak of
his wrestling career. So obviously great shape, great physique. And I'll
just real quick, I think Piper, he claims, I read an interview with him that
came out shortly after this movie did and you. Or actually no, the interview was
much more recent, maybe 15 years ago. And he was like, hey, this was
like the movie that kind of started the whole wrestler to Hollywood pipeline.
You know, this was before no holds barred with Hulk Hogan. This was obviously long
before Dwayne Johnson became the highest paid movie star in the world. Right? Yeah.
But I think he's right. I don't know. Princess Bride. Yeah, that's true. Princess Bride
did come before this one by a year or two. Not as an action
star necessarily. And Audrey the Giant, obviously being Andre
the Giant and an absolute literal kind of freak of nature, you know,
he could have been. It's not surprising that somebody like that would find a
place in Hollywood for very specific roles. Yeah, but Piper, you know, as an
example, Carpenter originally apparently wanted Kurt Russell or wrote this role for Kurt Russell.
We know John Carpenter loves working with Kurt Russell. The simple fact that, like he
had just done a run. I don't know if this is the exact order of
the movies that came out in Carpenter before this, he might have done others,
but, you know, Escape From New York, the Thing, and Big Drum, Little China were
all within the, you know, seven years prior to this. And they were all John
Carpenter, Kurt Russell joints. So he decided, eh, maybe I need to
go somebody else. He was watching WrestleMania 3 and was so impressed with Rowdy Roddy
Piper that he decided that's who he was. Wow. Cast in the role. So.
But yeah, so I think Piper's right. This was like the movie. The first time
we really got a sense of, like, oh, these wrestling guys, they are performers.
100% performers. Yeah. 100%. These are, you know, actors.
Regardless of, you know, any hoity toity
ness that might say otherwise, like, that's what they are. So, yeah, like, coming out
of the gate and he really gives a. I'm not going to say it's a
fantastic performance, but it is a very solid performance. Yeah. Yeah.
It's funny, the Kurt Russell thing, because it makes total sense.
You could see Kurt Russell delivering a lot of these lines. I actually wrote down
that Roddy Piper's character is Kurt Russell from Overboard.
If some fork in the road moment happened where he didn't end up with kids
and stuff. Right, Right. He's basically could be the exact same guy.
Right. No kids, doesn't own his own construction company. No. No mini golf. Dreams of
the future. Right. Just Roddy Piper just building shoe racks and yacht closets,
like, I think. Yeah. So good on
Carpenter, though, for spotting this. I mean, it is a risk at the time,
even. It takes somebody who's famous because there wasn't crossover success. People might
have known who Hulk Hogan was, but probably not as many as we think.
Well, and this is the thing. And if anybody was known from the WR this
time, it was Hogan. It wasn't the Ultimate Warrior or Randy Macho Man Savage or
Rowdy. Rowdy Piper. It wasn't any of those guys. It was Hogan only. So the
fact that Piper got this gig before no holds barred came out is
remarkable. That's a big deal. And that's all Carpenter. I. I want to read something
because I think this is a good time to bring it up because it's showing.
Roddy. There's a few scenes where he's, like, shirtless and it's showing
like, all right. This is also why they put this guy in this movie.
He's enormous. He looks like a badass. Right. Built like a brick shithouse.
So in the vein of talking about why movie reviewers
are kind of worthless, that we got into a little bit during the Starship Troopers
episode. So, J. Carr,
writing for the Boston Globe. Am I going to hate this guy when you're done?
No, you're just going to be baffled at why he says this carpenter
delivers his throwback to the 50s visuals, complete with plump little B movie flying
saucers. That makes his point that the richer fascist fiends,
blah blah, blah, they live starts running low on imagination and inventiveness.
But then he says, but felt that as a sci fi horror comedy they live
with its wake up call to the world is in a class with Terminator and
robocop, even though its hero doesn't
sport bionic biceps. Well,
I mean, I'd put first of. All, Peter Weller's fucking biceps.
We're talking about RoboCop against Roddy Piper. I want
to have them arm wrestle. I think they mean literally bionic. The fact that RoboCop
is made of metal and the Terminat made of metal, I think is what.
Yeah, I see that. All right. I see that now. Because if Peter Weller was
not like, dude, are you calling him a wimp? No, I think they're calling him
all natural. And we're not going to edit that out because it's important to highlight
how wrong I am. I'll leave it in, I promise. All right.
Okay, back to the, Back to the scene, right?
So we've got him. He's working at the construction site. And it gets to the
end of the day and everybody's heading home. And the foreman looks over and goes,
hey. Because he can tell he doesn't have anywhere to be, any place to go.
He's like, hey, there's no camping on site here. You know, you got to,
you can go. Be back in the morning, but get out of here tonight.
You can't stay here. Yep. Which, you know, leaves him a little sort of like
Sol. But our second kind of second major character of the
movie, Keith David's character, Frank, shows up and
is like, hey, like, if you got need some place to stay, I'm heading to
this place. There's, there's food, there's space. Justiceville. Is that what he couldn't call from
Justiceville? Lovely. But yeah, he's like, hey, you know, you can come with me if
you want or whatever. And it's like Piper, sort of nada. Sort of says no
or doesn't really say anything at the first, but then ends up following him anyway.
It was a little bit of a strange exchange. He just kind of stays like
20 paces behind him. And then Frank turns And says,
you know, I don't like anybody following me. Right. Unless I know
why, or whatever. And then Roddy Piper's like, well, I don't like to follow anyone
unless I know where he's going first. And they both kind of give the knowing
nod of like, hey, you're a rugged loner, too. All right, cool, let's go.
This is 100% the version. This. This is the same thing as
the Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers handshake with biceps and
Predator. This is the moment between these two. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And they end up walking Justiceville, which is
this kind of shanty town. There's some kind of society structure.
They're getting people fed and everything, but it's definitely, you know, messed up. There's some
TVs operating, some people sitting outside watching TV. Good to
note, by the way, back in the day when, you know, TV signals, they weren't
cable boxes. Yeah, you got to get an antenna. All you need is a plug.
Exactly. Amazing. And they're kind of talking about, you know,
how the world came to. Came to be. Just making comments about just
the state of things for them. And I think at some point, Frank Keith
Davis character is talking about, well, I came from Detroit, but they kept closing
everything down. There's no work. So I'm out here. I have a wife and two
kids out there. He says, they close one more factory, we should take a sledge
to one of their fancy fucking foreign cars, Which I
really enjoy. Yes, good stuff. So now moving
the plot forward. Watching the TV in the camp, the signal appears to be
intercepted. So whatever's on tv and it's like an ad for
Lee Press on nails or something goofy like that. And then it
cuts into just this man's face who's like, you know, they're trying to keep us
asleep. They're trying to keep us selfish, keep us sedated. And then he's cutting in
and out and everything. And then after the signal goes back to normal, everybody gets
kind of a headache. And they're like, ah, this is. This has been happening all
day. Yeah. You know, first of all, this. I want to comment quickly on this.
They keep referring to this as hacker. Hey. The hacker got back on, like.
Which is like, fine. They don't know who this person is. So. But apparently this
is happening happened before. And this is like the least
intimidating looking, kind of least. I don't know. This guy to me
looked so strange and out of place. He looked like a college professor or something
giving a lecture. Giving a fucking TED Talk. Like, it was so strange.
But he's the face of, as we come to learn, this sort of
underground movement, this resistance that exists. And it's like, really? That's the
guy. Like, of all the other people that could be sort of the face of
this operation, this is the guy you're putting on TV to, like, very boringly drone
on at people about their owners and. And the signals and stuff. It's like nobody's
paying attention. Forget the Guy Fawkes mask. We need a Wilford Brinley
mask. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, that. It is
funny. He's not intimidating or scary at all, right? No, he doesn't
even have gravitas. Like, David could do it. Yeah. And just have gravitas because of
his voice and his stature and his. And his, you know, whatever. This guy just
looked so like. He was like a white, wet saltine. He's just like, meh.
Yeah. I mean, Keith David, as an actor,
I love so much. He's so good and his voice is great. And it does
feel like a treat whenever he's in something, because a lot of times he's in
something that seems beneath his level.
Right. Like, he's surrounded by actors who are not as good of him.
They're as good as him. Especially when he's playing alongside Steven Seagal in Mark
for Death and stuff like that. But love. Keith David, one of the best voices
of all time. Yes. Yes. So this signal is intercepted.
And Roddy kind of looks across the street and he sees there's a lot of,
like, action going in and out of this church. There's supposed to be a choir
practice going on. You can hear the choir singing. Hear the singing. And he makes
a comment about how choir practice is running late and goes over and starts poking
his head in. And he basically sees that there's some
speakers that are playing a fake choir practice, obviously concealing some kind
of meeting in a room. He finds a box full of sunglasses.
He ends up. What does he do? Well, he kind of, like, backs into
this, like, wall panel and kicks it open and realizes
there's this hidden paneling. Behind him, the whole room. He does a good wrestling kick
to. Open up the wall, too, but there's. The whole room looks like it's out
of Breaking Bad. Like, there's all these, like, beakers and graduated cylinders and all these
different things and Bunsen burners and shit. So it's clearly, like, not like an operating
place of worship. You know what I mean? This is being used for something else.
What I wasn't 100% sure about was we kept getting cuts over to this meeting
taking place with Gerald and the guy, the TV signal and a handful of other
people. Gerald, by the way, we should mention, was sort of the. The welcoming committee
at Justiceville and the one making food for everybody. So we've been introduced,
but now Rowdy sees him or there's a thing. What I'm not sure is does
Nada hear or see anything that's happening? Because it seemed like maybe he was hearing
it, but I'm not sure. He's not fully picking
up. But he knows that the choir practice is fake. Yes. And then he sees
all this other like production equipment laying around. So he's like,
yeah, what's going on here? But then he makes enough noise that it sort of
attracts their attention. And I think he can tell that he. That, you know,
somebody is. That he's being hurt. So he goes to leave.
He has a couple great falls in this movie, by the way, where it's a
very. It doesn't look like a cool guy falling in any way. Like he looks
goofy as hell in a great way, right. And in that controlled way that really
only stuntmen and pro wrestlers can pull off, you know, so. But I
did love this moment. So he goes to leave the church then and kind of
go back over to the camp Enchantment. And when he walks out of the church,
I don't know why this tickled me so much, but he tries to very casually
put his hands in his jean pockets. But his pants are so tight he
could barely get two fingers into each pocket. And he's trying to look casual with
just a couple of fingertips pointing out of his pockets. It's like the most ridiculous
looking thing. But that's the 80s working against him. Really, is what it was.
And as he's walking out of there actually he stumbles into the
blind preacher who touching his face and his hands
just to make sure he's okay. So Roddy Piper, I got the sense
and we wouldn't know this yet because we haven't gone this, but it's like looking
back on that moment, I have the feeling the preacher can tell by touching the
faces, right. If somebody's alien or not. So he's able to tell that not as
human. And Roddy goes across and then it looks like there's
a family that's staying in Justiceville. That kind of baffles me.
It seems like a 35 year old dad with two 26 year old
kids. It's really weird I mean, the daughter I could buy at 19,
but that son looks like he's at mid-20s at the youngest. So Roddy Piper
goes over and makes some kind of deal with the son, who gives him his
binoculars. And then there's a cut. And it just looks like Roddy Piper's been looking
through binoculars for 16 straight hours across the street at
the church. It's daytime, and then all of a sudden it's nighttime.
But he's kind of checking this building out. He's very suspicious of
it. And then we see that evening, the police raid this place,
right? They come in, they've got the helicopter, and all kinds of riot cops.
Well, it's super weird, too, because it looked like they were gonna raid the church,
right? And then it's like as more and more people
show up, you know, cops show up. And first of all, it is a legitimate
police raid. This is a ton of officers and, you know, people in body armor
and all this stuff. And Gerald and somebody else has helped the blind preacher out
of the church, and they've come back over to the. To the encampment side.
But then the bulldozer shows up and they turns and starts demolishing the
homeless encampment, which I was, like, kind of surprised by.
I don't think that. I don't. I couldn't tell if the movie was trying to
set us up, that they were doing that to try to surprise people, like,
oh, we're coming over here. Oh, no, we're not. We're going that way. Or if
it, like, what the kind of reasoning was to, like, make it look like it
was aimed at the church and then suddenly turn. It was just an interesting choice,
and I didn't fully understand. Yeah, I think they just had some kind of association
with it or. I mean, if you happen to be living near something that's
perceived as being bad, then you're open season to be killed in the
feather and stuff, right? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. And kind of brutal. I mean,
they're. They're just taking down these people's camps, and it looked like a pretty legit,
just collection of people trying to survive. You know, it wasn't like a
training camp for some militia or anything like that. But that's how. I mean,
that's how even today, our governments treat the unhoused. You know,
so then the cops are basically. We're beating up the broadcast guy,
who. I think that might be the last time we see him. The guy who
comes in the broadcast, the preacher is fighting them off with his cane and stuff.
He ends up getting kind of overcome and beaten up. Rodney takes the 26
year old boy with him to hide out and they
end up in kind of like a crack house type place. Really? Yeah, some kind
of flop house, Some old abandoned building. Yeah. And the guy in there is just
kind of like, oh, hey man. Like this will help you forget. Like just kind
of showing them like, hey, the other option is this. Yep. Like you can know
what you know and just do drugs all day. Like me. Like that'll work.
I mean, it does something for you. It's a choice.
There's an ad on tv.
It's for fashion as like freedom of expression. That I thought was
interesting. It was kind of like, oh, this is how you don't need to
like, you know, talk about your own conditions and what might be causing them.
You just wear a shirt and that's how you be yourself. Exactly.
This was about the point though, I got to be honest. Like, so the police
have raided this camp. Obviously we've seen the stuff with like the TV giving people
headaches. But like, this was the point where I glanced at how much timing.
I'm like, this movie's only an hour and a half long. Long. And this is
30 minutes into the movie, basic give or take. And like nothing
had really happened yet. You know what I mean? It's like it really is a
situation. We'll get more into, more in this, more into this as we go.
But like, this movie is doing so much work to set up this universe
for us and like, give us this setting and this place and, you know,
tell showing us ways in which it's subtly different from the reality that we understand
that we have. And that's all fantastic. But like, like we're also watching a movie,
so like, we need the plot to do something. Well, luckily it's about this time,
right? When Rowdy, after the raid, decides to go back into the church,
kick in that false panel that he found from before and take one of the
boxes of sunglasses. He just takes it with him. Yep. He goes to an alley
nearby, and this was, I thought, probably the dumbest move the character made. He goes
to hide them in a trash can. Terrible. Terrible. Which is like, while he was
doing it, I'm like, dude, they're gonna collect the trash. Like, do you know when
the trash gets picked up at this location? Cause if you don't know know,
you don't know when. You know what I mean? It's like, unless you're sure.
Like, oh, well, they picked it up yesterday. So it'll be here for a week.
Okay, fine. But like, there was a billion other places to put that thing.
Right? It could have hidden behind some kind of trash can or something. Right.
Maybe it would have been around longer, I don't know. But yeah, he's in an
alley, he find. He puts in this trash can, takes one of them with him.
Yep. And this is when he goes to put the sunglasses on for the first
time. And I think the first things we see are the signs or the advertisements.
Yeah, it's like billboards. Yeah. And they. The first one, I think says obey.
Yep. And all capital letters, just Obey. And he starts
seeing, you know, people that look like they've had their faces melted off. People on
TV look like that, obviously. Every billboard, every sign in every
shop. Window, all the magic scene, every printed page.
Yep. Every single one of them is different. And it says something like, you know,
I obviously don't write them all down or anything, but, you know, like, obey buy
things, you know, watch tv. Marry and reproduce. Yeah, marry and
reproduce on night. Not mistakenly on a sign of a
beautiful woman in a swimsuit. Probably advertising beer or something. Right. Oh,
no, that's actually Marion. Reproduce is the actual message. So it's like he's
able to see underneath a layer of bullshit to what is actually being
shown to us or sold to us or whatever, which is obviously cool.
And obviously that's the crux of the premise of the movie.
This is the world as it exists. And we only
don't know because we don't have Rowdy Roddy Piper's magical sunglasses.
Exactly. We don't have those shades. Really cool scene. Really good
way to just like show, you know, the character's new immersion
in this world. And then the way that they decided to shoot it, where everything's
black and white, everything has a very like 50s look to it. The effects,
the way that they do, like the surveillance orb things like,
they have a very like 1950s sci fi look to it.
Yeah. Which. Which I think makes it a lot of fun. Yeah. Really great to.
Quick throwback to like. So we. We see Rowdy. One looks up and he's able
to see one of these surveillance drones or whatever they are. These like. And.
And you can't see them at all without the sunglasses. They're just invisible. And if
you think. If you go back to prior to the police raid before
the helicopter appears overhead, Gerald and one of the other guys is outside with
the sunglasses on, looking up into the sky and getting worse, run back inside and
Decide to start evacuating. So it seems like, you know, one of those surveillance things
was there, spotted them, and that's what triggered the raid to begin. Oh, we found
them. And then they're scrambling to get out. And that was something that, like,
you know, at the time, it's like, what are they looking at? Like, what does
that even matter? You might not even notice. Right. The helicopter shows up relatively quickly.
So, like, maybe they were just looking at the helicopter, but I really think there
was a moment before that when they're looking up into the sky with very worried
body. Body language. And so, you know, ostensibly, maybe one of these surveillance
drones is flying above them and tracked them down. And he starts.
Roddy Piper. He has some snappy lines for
things right away. I would liken him to ash
in army of Darkness with the way it seems like this is a normal
guy saying things that a real guy would say instead of a really polished,
like, perfectly delivered line. The way he's kind of. Of stumbles. He stumbles through
some of his words. He flips into having his accent
sometimes and not. Which is cool.
But, yeah, his lines are good. A couple of the
things that we see, he's at a newsstand and he's looking at all the magazine
covers. They just say, obey, consume, sleep, watch tv.
He looks at one of the alien guys who
can see. He doesn't know that Roddy can see him, but he's just like,
yeah, what's your problem? Problem. The newsstand worker
is holding money, and then when he looks at the cash, it just says,
this is your God on it. And he ends
up kind of walking through. He sees them in the hair salon. A lot of
them are the ones getting their hair done. There's a couple ones.
There's one unloading a car. Who's the alien woman? And clearly
the humans are her help, her nanny and her housekeeper
or whatever. It shows a couple of the alien women in the supermarket
talking to each other. And they're like, oh, can you believe she used blue corn
tortilla chips? How classless is that? You know, just this
good, good little, like, cross section of. Of that type of person who's
not far from, like, that type of person today. Yeah. And it's clear that it's
all people, all of the people that he's seeing as human. And then he puts
the glasses back on to see them as aliens. They're all, like, wealthy or.
Yes, they have good positions. Right. They're there, they're shopping at the store, but they're
not Working at the store, that kind of thing. And so generally speaking, it's not
like it's everyone that fits that category. There are humans that, that you
know, are, are by appearances upper class to wealthy that are not turning into aliens
when he puts on the sunglasses. But it's like the opposite isn't true. Like none
of the, like, service people are aliens. Exactly. So it's interesting
thing he goes into, I guess he's. It's in the grocery store and he's looking
around and he's staring at this woman, this older woman, and you
know, recognizing that she's an alien and, and this, you know, he kind of like
freaks out at whatever. And at one point he looks over to another woman who
we don't see, but we're guessing is human. He looks at her and goes,
you, you're okay. This one real fucking ugly.
Yes. I put on these glasses, formaldehyde face, like it's got all these little
lines. He says, looks like her head fell in the cheese dip in 1957.
Really good. Two of the guys having a conversation,
to your point, about like the successful people being the aliens. Yeah. Two of the
men having a conversation in the supermarket. You could see there's one alien and one
human. And the human is like, yeah, I don't know what to do. It's just
really, you know, I'm really depressed. I don't know what to do.
Then the aliens, like, I don't know, don't worry about it. And then the guy,
the human says, well, that's easy for you to say. You got the promotion.
You kind of get a window into that on tv.
It shows, you know, a politician giving a speech who could
represent like one of a million people of that time. Absolutely. And we
get like a little extra scene of Roddy looking at that and he goes,
huh? It figures it would be something like that. Kind of like Montgomery
Brewster's getting the idea to waste his money on a political campaign.
So we spot them on tv. So yeah, so he's starting to like,
he sees what's going on and people also recognize him as someone who
knows what's happening. Yeah, it's interesting too, like, like Carpenter has
never been about subtlety. Like, he definitely is about bombast and
about, you know, making the moral problems of his characters and stories
pretty obvious. So some of it is a little heavy handed, but it's like in
that Carpenter style. So it's like, I feel like as long as you go into
this recognizing I'm sitting down to watch a John Carpenter Movie, like, it won't bother
you, I don't think, if you're, you know, familiar with his work. But it is,
like, pretty on the nose. A lot of the, like, you know,
wealth bad, you know, consumerism bad, politicians bad.
Sure. But I think that filming the alien
stuff in this very, like, kind of almost campy 1950s way,
it goes hand in hand with everything else being on the news.
Yeah. The whole movie's supposed to beat you over the head. So in the grocery
store, they recognize the old woman that he was saying, like, you know, formaldehyde face.
You know, you're facing the cheese dip or whatever, all that stuff. Like, she recognizes
that he can see, so she literally starts talking onto her watch. Right. We've got
one that can see. Got one that can see. And they start describing him,
you know, male, 6 foot 2, like, whatever it is, you know. So he,
like, goes to leave the store and the police begin,
like, surrounding him. The key, I want to point out, is like, the first act
of actual violence that Rowdy Rowdy Piper commits in this movie is a textbook executed
WWF clothesline. Very nice. Perfect Frank Dreven esque.
Perfect clothesline to open up the violence. And at
that point, Piper's character basically is like instant vigilante.
Just add sunglasses. Oh, yeah. Like, it's like, immediate. He is ready
to just destroy. So he's able to acquire, like, a shotgun
and a pistol from the cop car. Right. Like, he beats up
these cops that were cornered him in the alley that he can see are aliens
from his glasses. So he beats them up, takes their weapons. Now he's got a
shotgun, he's got pistols, like, whatever. Right. He's got all this stuff.
And he goes into a bank. Yes. And look,
this is the part where the guy. There was a little bit of incredulity from
me on this. It's like. Like he is instantly just like, yep, gonna start killing.
And I mean, I. Did we get any indication prior to
this moment that this character is. That's how he would react? Like, it seems like
such an extreme reaction, but, like, I don't know. Yeah, no,
that's a good point. Especially with how, you know, earlier I said that
Keith David was talking about, oh, if these guys, you know, we should take
a sledgehammer to their foreign car? And Roddy Piper's reaction was very much
like. Like, no, I believe in America. I think if I have a. Can exchange
an honest day's work, then that. So, yeah. Did the sunglasses
shatter his belief in America? To a degree that he Just turned into a
rampage killer. Or did he just feel so, like, backed up against
the wall? Because, yeah, you're correct. It does seem like he's the guy who would
be like, all right, well, these aren't the problem still
that, you know, I should learn to code or something. Well, I don't even know
if it's. It's like, I feel like I can see why he would be like,
whoa, what the hell? But I feel like it's. It's an interesting jump to be.
To immediately like, well, I gotta kill these things then. Yeah, you know, that's the.
It's like wanting to fight against it, wanting to educate others or wake other people
up. Like, that all would make a ton of sense. That's much easier to,
like, follow. But, like, he just flips a switch and turns into Frank Castle.
Like, I mean, it's just absolutely, like, ready to go. This is the movie falling
down all of a sudden, like, you know what I mean? So. Right. But yeah,
so he is basically trying to get away. So he goes in the bank,
he kills a bunch of people. Well, not people. A bunch of aliens. And he
delivers his famous wine in the bank. Right. Yeah. I came
here to do two things. Chew bubble gum and kick some ass. And I'm all
out of bubble gum. Which, by the way, he wrote that long before the movie
was even written. He talked to John Carpenter about it, and the two of them
were trying to figure out what little lines could throw out. And Piper's like,
well, I've got this one I haven't had a chance to use in the ring
yet, but I kind of like it. And they go, oh, yeah, that sounds good.
Apparently, he shared a bunch of. Of them with Carpenter. That's the one. Beautiful.
That's the one that made the movie. So. And that. I mean, that ended up
sticking. That was something that was in that. That Duke Nukem
game. I remember that popping up again in the late 90s.
Only six years later. Richard Linklater would repurpose the line for Dazed and Confused when
his Nikki Katz character says, I'm only here to do two things. Kick some ass
and drink some beer. And we're almost out of beer. Nice, but very similar.
Yeah, very nice. So he's in the bank and he's. He's blasting
away. Everything he sees is an alien. Really accurate from
distance with a shotgun to not hit any. No collateral damage.
And he sees that this watch. He has one of them
cornered or one is talking into his watch, pushes a button, makes himself
disappear. He's back out on the street. He takes out
a spy, one of the spy drones. A cop comes up to him, who.
Who he can see is human, so he doesn't shoot him. It was funny when
he tells him to run away, he says, beat your feet.
And he does. He runs off. There's a moment where there's a couple patrol cars
pass him and then a SWAT team, like, jogging behind the patrol cars, which is
not a thing because the patrol cars are long gone. But yet there's, like,
a group of, like, armed SWAT sort of LAPD that are just jogging
along in formation looking for him, I guess. But it very strange. Strange.
Like, I don't know if that's supposed to indicate to us, like, this is the
aliens thinking, what would they do? Yeah, what would humans do? And being
wrong, like, I guess that that's possible. It is very strange.
They do a bad job, I think, of. Of locating
him. He's able to get himself into a parking garage.
Poor women, man. I mean, every depiction of a
parking garage is just bad news for them. They're never handed a gift.
Gift in a parking garage. You know, they're never helped in any way. It's always
some like this. So he basically follows
this woman to her car and, you know, all right, just drive. My favorite
driving instructions. Just drive. Just drive. Yeah. And, you know, explains to
her kind of, but not very well, basically, first. Just, like, take me to your
house. Like, do you live alone? Like, blah, whatever. Don't lie to me. So first
of all. So again, we've gone from I'm a construction worker who's got a
live and let live, I love America attitude and I'm just here because Denver ran
out of work. Yeah. To I now know about these alien freaks and I'm going
to kill them. To I'm also willing to hide Carjack and kidnap
a human woman in order to get away from them, I guess.
But, like, man, we. We went to, like, kidnapping real fast. Oh, yeah,
this guy shifted. He. Roddy does not have much of
a plan. I. I don't think that this fight is scripted in the way that
many of his professional ones were. No, true. I think he's. He's going
off the. And this scene.
So we were talking earlier about this movie could definitely
be longer because there's some really cool stuff. It would have been fun to explore.
This was a scene that I felt, like, dragged a bit because it didn't.
He was just. He was at her house for kind of a while, and it
was just, you have to have a break in the action, I guess. But she
takes him back to her house. She pulls into the garage, and they
get out, and she has a neighbor across the street, a guy who's out there
in a Hawaiian shirt watering his plants, who looks more like a wrestler than anyone
I've ever seen in my life, I swear to God. Roddy Piper
was like, hey, we need, like, a real wrestler in this. Because this guy had,
like, a wrestler, wrestler look. So this guy's spotted,
basically, he's getting out of the car with her. He's trying to explain
to her about the glasses and what they do. She's not interested
in even peeping through the them. She's like, well, if. If I took those glasses
from you, I would tell you that I. What you want to hear. Exactly.
So what. What does that prove? Yeah. Yeah. And then so, you know,
he. He has a lining. Boy. He says, oh, I'm sorry. I need to be
here. And I'm thinking to myself, like, bro, you don't. You don't need to be.
You. You're choosing, you know. And she's like. He's talking to her about,
yeah, like, what he's discovered this day. And she's just basically, like. Doesn't believe him,
you know, it's like, whatever. And then, you know, he's like, so what do you
do? And she's like, oh, I'm a, you know, like program director or whatever,
at K. Something, something, something, whatever. You know, radio station or, I mean, a television
station. And he goes, that's the one that's got the broadcast. Like that. And he
goes to, like, turn the TV on to check it out, at which point she
just slams him in the back of the head with a champagne bottle. Thickest wine
bottles on the planet, by the way, are champagne bottles because they have to hold
5 or 5 to 8 atmospheres of pressure inside. So there's that.
He goes through the plate glass window. Yes, there is.
I'm sorry, this is a hard. I don't believe for a second this is
the fugitive. This is Richard Kimball jumping off the dam. Nobody survives that fall.
It's at least 30ft down. It's on to hard.
It's onto a hard slope that he then tumbles down. It's like the hot rod
in Hot Rod, where he keeps falling down the side of the hill. Impossible to
find that she smashed this. Bottle over his head and then gives him the slightest
nudge that blasts him through the window. I really enjoy
that scene. Yeah, but. Yeah, I mean, very improbable the,
the plus side, I guess, is that he seems legitimately
beat up. Like he doesn't seem like 100% physically for
the rest of this movie. I mean, he doesn't have this like Superman element of
like bouncing back. So he's really beat up and drags himself kind
of back to town and everything. Right. And. And that's true. And we'll. But I'll
get to the butt in a second. Yeah. So he goes back to the alley
where he hid the box of glasses. Of course, trash has been picked up,
so there's nothing in the trash can. So he's freaking out. But he looks and
he sees the garbage truck that just did the pickup is still there
in the alley. So he rushes over, he jumps into the back, he's able to
find the box of glasses, at which point the,
the back of the garbage truck lifts up as if to
dump everything out and does dump everything,
including him out. And I know the driver didn't know the back was open because
he had shut it and latched it. And then Rowdy came up and opened it.
But why would that have been? Why did it, why did it go up to
begin with? It was so strange. But regardless, it dumps him out. He's cleanest
trash ever. By the way, if you're ever going to end up in a truck
full of trash, that is the trash you want to be in. Must have been
a recycling truck. You know what it was? It was the dad's plastic bag
for Christmas wrapping on Christmas morning. It was all bubble wrap and
ribbon. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so he's there. So now he's got another pair
of glasses because he left the pair at. At Holly was the name of the
woman that he kidnapped. He. He lost his glasses there as he went through the
plate glass window, but he's got another pair. And his buddy Frank comes down the
alley and he's like, oh, Frank, like, I gotta whatever. But. But he know.
Frank knows that, like, he's wanted. Like, he basically is aware of the rampage that
he went on. It's like, oh, how many people did you kill? He's like,
oh, none of them were people. You crazy. You know? Yeah.
They start fighting and this is the
longest two person fight in the history of movies.
Yeah, it is. It goes for 5 minutes and 20 seconds.
It's too long. It's too long. I think the
too longness is what makes it good, I feel.
Because it's like there's three or four points at
which you think like, okay, well, this is for sure over. Yeah. And. And I
was watching it this morning. My wife came and. And was sitting with me and
she was just like, this is ridiculous. What? This is still, she couldn't handle
it. So I definitely understand where the too long
camp comes from, but I do love the strategy of I will keep punching
you until you believe me. Yeah, no, that's very, very WWF mentality.
A couple of great suplexes in there. I think there might have been a backbreaker.
There's like a lot of wrestling, dirty fighting. I mean, busting out like a 2x4,
kicks in the nuts and everything. And I read a little about this fight in
preparation for today, and apparently Keith David and Rowdy Piper
practiced. Rehearsed the choreography for this fight for two months.
They. They rehearsed in the backyard of the production of Carpenter's
production company offices, basically. And you know,
Keith David has been. Has gone on record in the past saying basically that
Rowdy Roddy Piper. Piper acted as choreographer for that fight.
Showed him how to. How to take punches, how to limb. Everything was
as real as a wrestling match. Yeah. So for Keith David, that was
a very different day of. Yeah. At work for him as an actor, but for
Piper, I mean. Yeah. So it's like everything but the groin and face shots where
they just punched each other in the way wrestlers do, and then they react bigger
than the actual punch. But it's not actually pulled the way Hollywood stunt fights tend
to be, where the punches are pulled or whatever. They were actually hitting each other
and suplexing and doing all this stuff. And it was all kind of under the
direction of Piper and his wrestling experience and. And knowing how
two performers can work together to sell a fight. Yeah, basically. And it really showed.
I do think it was too long, but I don't think it needed to be
30 seconds. I think it needed to be like three and a half minutes instead
of five and a half. Like, it was. There was just too much of it.
I kind of like, by the end of it, I'm like, yeah, okay, I get
it, I get it. But, yeah, I literally wrote. My note is. Put on the
fucking glasses, Frank. Like, just put them on. You know what I mean? Like,
move forward here. And again, in a movie, it was only like 92 minutes
or whatever long. Where I already feel like we don't get enough plot
and there's not enough that happens. Having a 5 1/2 minute long fight
in the middle of everything is like, this is dragging ass. Like, we gotta get
the plot going. Like, what like, let's keep moving forward.
Yeah. So it's not. To me, it was like, not the way I
wish the filmmaker had chosen to use his time. I guess it's a metaphor,
though. Sometimes. Sometimes instead of moving forward, you just feel like you're getting punched in
the face for five straight minutes. I do think that
Carpenter letting Roddy Piper have the
leeway to kind of do what he does best in this movie
is a super smart idea. And it works like we talked about with
Dennis Leary basically getting his stand up and Demolition Man.
If you have someone who has a transcendent skill that is not
necessarily, you know, acting, figure out a way to
get it in there because you're gonna. Yeah, it's gonna stand out.
It's gonna stand out. I mean, actors put that kind of stuff on their resumes,
like, oh, I can roller skate, I can horseback ride. I can choreograph realistic wrestling
fights. Like, Right, that's. That's huge. Yeah.
So he finally, finally nada. Roddy Piper
beats Frank to the point, right, and puts the sunglasses on his head and then
kind of of like sits him up. Frank does an incredibly half assed
job of trying to take them off. Like, he looks like his arms are just
rubber, so, you know, he's pointing his head at the billboards. And then
we get one of my favorite scenes of just these two guys, the absolute shit
beaten out of them, lumbering down the street with their sunglasses on. Roddy Piper's
cheeks are so swollen. Oh, yeah, both of them fat lips.
But I just love the weariness of it. And the score fits so well,
I think, with like that feel. Feeling. Yeah, yeah, we get more of the.
Yeah, no, it's very good stuff. And so,
yeah, they get a room just to sort of like lay low and kind
of regroup and recharge, whatever. And they, you know, they're talking more about what
all this means, you know, and reality, now that they understand it
differently. I think at this point, this is when they decide to go look for
the. They got the card from. From Gerald, right?
Like, right, to kind of like, join us if you're ready or something. So they
decide, yeah, we got to go figure out what the hell is this, you know,
who. Who knows about this? What are they doing about it, where this sunglasses come
from, like all this stuff. And so they go and they do find, like this,
you know, this resistance movement that, as it turns out, includes not only like the
Blind Preacher and Gerald from Justice Phil, but also like that family,
you know, the. The sort of 30, 35 year old dad with 25 y old
children. They're there. And a few other people we've seen, seen. And when they
arrive, they are told, hey, you can take your sunglasses off. We're all human
here. Like, this is only humans. Also here we have contacts now. So convenient.
I love that so much. I cringed so hard when they put those
contacts without washing their hands. Like, I had contacts for like 25 years
until I got Lasik. And like, to put a pair of contacts into my eyes
without washing my hands would have driven me insane. Like, it was like, oh,
my God, guys, you got to wash your hands. You got to wash your hands.
But no, they just raw dog those contacts right under their eyeballs. It looked like
he just held the contact holder up to his eyeball. Maybe kind of
which you used to be able to do, but this is the thing. You used
to be able to do that. But these were like the little like compact carriers,
like the 80s, if it was the 70s. They had those little like applicator
things where it was like. Because the, the contact was solid glass
almost or whatever it was, but it was like not flexible at all. Yeah.
And so it had to be like placed just right. So, yeah, there was sort
of this little like applicator thing you can see in some movies,
especially older ones, and this was not that, though.
So I'm not sure how that would work. And the whole thing freaked me out.
To me, the scariest thing in the entire movie is putting context. I would rather
just not see aliens than have to touch my eyeball with a dirty finger.
Put me back in the, in the battery pack. Put me back in the Matrix.
I'm okay. To me, though, the glasses to contacts
is one of the all time most, most convenient things for
the filmmaker to happen in the movie where it's like, okay, now our stars are
not hiding behind sunglasses anymore, but it's like on a space movie where the guy
will just like pop his helmet off, be like, oh, we can actually breathe on
this planet. Oh, you got to show the star's face more in the movie in
a helmet. Yeah. It also signaled, I believe, the end of the black and
white scenes. So now whenever they see the aliens, they just see the
aliens. I think. I can't remember now. I think it's black and white.
No, I guess it is. That's true. But yeah, I guess we just don't see
the sunglasses anymore because they're. They're wearing contacts now. But yeah, so,
so they have their con. And I guess most Importantly is they're not detectable
as people who have ability to see the aliens. Not as easily, right. Until they
start acting like they see reality. But yeah. So they end
up, let's see, they're kind of being told that the creatures,
they're referred to as the creatures by one of the guys, they're recruiting humans.
So it's not just us against them. They're also making offers to humans.
We're basically a resource to them. But they're able to get some
people on their side. Holly is at the
meeting, right? The woman that he kidnapped. And I do want to say Holly's look.
And I know that's just how the actress looks,
but it is such a creepy look. She has this kind of Nancy
Mace, like, Republican fembot type look. You know that
like I said about the eyes are just. She has incredibly light blue
eyes, which is just like a look. It's like a whole vibe on its own.
And then she is playing it. And again, I think this is the act.
These are the act. This actress making choices. She's playing it very dead,
dead eyed, very sort of almost lifeless. Like things are not affecting her.
She's playing very, very down the middle of the road. And I feel like that
that's important because when I. So again, bear with me not having seen
this movie, as I realized through the beginning,
I hear her talking. So Nada goes up to Holly
and is like, hey, you're here. You know about this. And she was like,
I'm so sorry. I didn't know that you were like with everybody. And I'm thinking
to myself, bullshit, you know what the sunglasses are? He had them with him.
He explains, hey, I see these things, you know, exactly what. Now that he's
here, you say you're sorry. And it's seemed very strange to me at the time,
but not obviously why, and we'll get into that later. But as
he's talking about. But he trusts her too much for. Like, oh, God, ridiculous.
First of all, all. All you are, all she is to you
is your kidnapping victim who tried to kill you. Like, this is not someone that
you've like had a meet cute with, right? This is not Meg Ryan and Tom
Hanks and you've got mail. Like you are actual mortal enemies potentially.
Now, she showed up here, so now he believed, you know, she's in on the
resistance and everything, right? But maybe not surprising at all. As they're
chatting, the wall explodes, right? Boom,
the cops are here. They are assaulting the resistance meeting and killing
everyone. Basically Everybody. Yeah, they're just come in
blasting, taking everybody out. One sighting
I had in this scene. The cops are kind of coming down an
alleyway and they're blasting everybody out, out. Classic silhouette pops out from
the alleyway, takes a couple shots at the cops and ducks out of the way.
The long haired, kind of balding Asian guy,
Al Leong, he's like an extra. He gets killed in like Lethal Weapon and Die
Hard very briefly. Really I missed him. I missed a
little glimpse of Al Leong. So I really like to see that.
So the cops are basically backing everyone down and Frank and Nada
are in this alley and they're kind of screwed. Like, there's a million cops coming.
And Frank has this watch which they were talking about as some teleporter
thing, but it's broken. And all of a sudden
a Looney Tunes hole appears for them to escape through.
So they're able to escape through that and they end up in one of
the hallways of the Oakland Coliseum.
Yes, it very much is like that.
Sorry, that tickled me. Yeah, Wait, but before they jump in
the hole, I just want to point out when they're fighting in the alleyway,
they're like back at the back of this alley, right behind a couple boxes,
which is like terrible cover to be with, you know, leaning out, shooting,
not hitting anyone. Leaning out, shooting, maybe hitting one person. But like the, the.
They're not the best marksman. Okay, that's fine. But then after Frank
jumps into the Looney Tunes hole that the watch opens up, Rowdy gets
up and he's got this like large automatic rifle that he decides
he'd be better off shooting with one hand and. Yeah, and killing like three guys
in a row. Like, he's literally more accurate with this like one handed Rambo three
look. And it's like, it's like
going out of control. Almost like, it's like, are you
celebrating a wedding or are you trying to kill somebody? Because it's almost like
halfway between that. Yeah, that is good. But he was probably like,
hey, I would look cool she shooting this thing, right? I mean, it did look
cool. It looked great. So they end up in the hole and now
they're in this concrete hallway and it just seems
kind of this endless industrial whatever.
It's hard to figure out. But then there's rooms that are like ballrooms,
like the ballroom that Richard Kimball comes in in the Fugitive here.
And they end up basically overhearing it for a
minute. And they walk in, in. They're in their street clothes, they're you know,
bloodied and battered and stuff and standing there. Nobody's really batting an eye that they're
there because it seems like, well, if you have access to the Looney Tunes hole,
then you belong here. Yeah. And because human helpers are
part of the system, it's not weird for them to be nearby.
Right. And then they're approached by this guy who we
had seen earlier. Justice Villain. I think this guy is kind of a John
Carpenter movie. Definitely been in a few and.
And you know, he was kind of what we'd call like a. Like a wino
or bum type character before. And now he's in a tuxedo and he has
a glass of champagne. Yeah. You know, exactly like every bum's
vision of them getting rich. Right. Like in a cartoon. And he's like, oh fellas,
I didn't know you guys joined us. You know, so super credulous immediately.
No skepticism at all about these two. He's like, oh, oh,
here you are. Hey, let me show you around. I knew we had a lot
in common, you know, that kind of thing. Some friends from out of town,
they wanted me to come show them the lab and. And he's able to
take them to an incredible amount of places, just feed them information.
And this is kind of like. Yeah. Maybe 20 more minutes of
some of this stuff being revealed to us in different ways might have built
the movie up a little stronger. I don't know if that's the thing. For me
it's more about like they're just. There just isn't like enough plot. There's just not
enough of a, you know, act structure and,
and things for these characters to do and goals for them to accomplish.
Right. Like that's. I think my. Which is. Which would mean really kind of coming
at it from a different angle probably altogether storyline wise. And that's, you know,
my. Obviously my opinion. John Carpenter would disagree with me. Yeah. You know, but.
But that's sort of my take is that there's just so much fantastic world building.
Especially when we get to this point and we're. Now are we underground? Are we
not? There's like literally an open to space like teleporter room.
Like it is a weird third dimension, whatever we're in or fourth dimension kind of
thing. And so it's very cool. I will say it was a
little strange that the communicators that all of the security guards under there, down there
using are actually Egon Spengler's PKE meetings.
But they are, they're walkie talkies. Apparently, that's the alien tech.
But yeah, so, you know, they're kind of being shown around by this guy,
and they get brought to. To basically the television studio where,
you know, the broadcast is being made that is controlling everybody.
He's like, hey, can we go inside? And the security guards, you know, like,
no, you know, we can't do it. Oh, come on. These are buddies of mine.
Let him inside. No, you know, we can't do that. At which point? Or do
you have a pass or whatever? Right. Yeah, yeah, we need your passes.
Here's our passes. And they got a couple of Desert Eagles and just start blowing
people away. So that. That's good. They're. They're taking out the guards,
and at the same time, they're looking for Holly. That's right. Yeah. Right. So they're
kind of going through these offices and not. I mean, to their credit, they're not
just opening fire every time they get to a floor. So they're in the news
office. They end up finding Holly. At one point,
he goes up to this woman in the break room who's very pregnant and holding
an entire pot of coffee, and he's like, where? You know, where's Holly's?
It's like the worst possible person to interrogate. No, seriously, like, she should. There's a
million reasons why none of this should be happening. She should be on maternity leave.
She shouldn't be drinking that coffee. I do love. As they're heading down some hallways,
you would just get this thing where it's like, you know, two guards pop out
of, like, a cross corridor and they shoot them. Yeah. They walk for a little
bit, and then two more pop out, like, very video game like. It also made
me think of those Lonely Island SNL sketches. Laser cats. It was very much
set up like a laser cat sketch, or just, like. Just enough people
show up at a time for you to shoot them, and then you move down.
You know, it was that or it was the Contra levels where you were going
up towards the top of the screen instead of across is very much what it
felt like. Yeah. So. So they make it
through their laser cats, and they're killing various guards and aliens. They end up finding
Holly, and immediately it's. It's not, hey, how come
the second you showed up to the secret meeting, the cops raided us? It's,
hey, come on, friend, come with us. Yes. And pretty girl,
very quickly. I mean, they. They do speed through this part. Yeah.
Cause it's like, oh, we found Holly. Come on, Holly. Let's go shut it down.
And then Holly shoots Frank in the head. Doesn't show it,
but we know that it happens. And now they're on the roof.
Basically, they're trying to find their way to the roof to destroy the satellite,
which is putting the signal out. Yeah. The transmitter. Yeah. Interrupt the signal,
and he says, oh, where's Frank? And she's
like, oh, Frank couldn't make it, or whatever. And, you know,
Holly shoots Nada. Nada shoots the satellite.
No, Nada shoots Holly. And then the satellite is what
happens. And then he is shot by the helicopter. There's, like, a helicopter.
Yeah, but not until he shoots the. He shoots the satellite dish. Yeah. Kind of
like in Terminator 2, where we were a little unsatisfied that he
blew up the liquid metal guy with just, like,
his handgun. Right. That it seemed like it should have been a bigger
thing. Like, in all this, he's had shotguns, he's had different things. He's had grenades.
It would have been nice for a little bit more of an explosive rocket
launcher at the satellite. In the words of Vinnie Jones, this is Desert Eagle.
50. So, you know, it is a pretty big handgun.
So he destroys the satellite, and we see the.
That Nada is obviously dying. He's been shot by the police helicopter and
musters a middle finger at the last minute,
which is a good. Good way for this. This guy to
go out. And as a result, now we're kind of shown
a few seconds of the world without the signal. Oh, man. Which is
cool. I think this is a very fun way to end it. Yeah, it's.
It's very cool. And I almost like. I feel like this should have been
the end of Act 2. And now in. And have not to survive. And then
now. Now how do you, like, what do you do? What do you do next?
How do you start the revolution or whatever, you know what I mean? It doesn't
even have to show us, like, the whole thing. That would be too much.
You know, that would kind of air in the other direction, but, like, something more.
I did like that Holly ended up being the traitor because it made the
interaction from her apartment to the resistance meeting and her whole like,
oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know, like, that then became intellectually, like, consistent. You know
what I mean? Because she's a traitor. Okay, cool. Like, so that. Because I was,
like, watching it at the time, I'm like, that's ridiculous. How would she not know
that? Doesn't make any sense. Oh, yeah. Oh, she's been in on it with the
aliens. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Got it. Yeah. So. But that is the end of
the movie. Oh, and just a couple shots that we get at the end,
which is cool. So the signal's out and we
have, like, a TV broadcast. And all of a sudden, sudden the newscasters
are shown as these aliens. And you hear one of the production guys off screen
say, like, what's happened, Sheila? You look like shit. Like, just shouted it out.
One of the things they were talking about TV directors and they
were saying, like, oh, yeah, filmmakers like George Romero and John Carpenter,
which is kind of cool. It has a group of people watching TV at
a bar. And then all of a sudden, one of the aliens is revealed.
Revealed to be an alien. Everyone kind of turns and looks at him. And then
the last scene, which, look, I'm pro. Gratuitous nudity,
but it almost feels like the. Oh, well, you're gonna give us an R
rating anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I don't see a ton during this movie that
really merited, like, that hard of an R rating. I mean, there's some good violence,
good people getting shot and stuff, but, yeah. So we have this topless woman,
obviously, like, having sex with a man whose face we can't see. And she's like,
oh. And then she looks down and she, like, starts screaming, and it's
an alien. And he's just looks. He's like, what's wrong, baby? And then that's
the end of the movie. So, I mean, I could see Carpenter
being like, I'm not making a PG13 movie. I don't care what it takes.
Yeah, I could definitely see that as well. But,
yeah, it is kind of funny. A lot of times, like, when you only see
nudity at, like, one extreme end of a movie, it seems like, oh,
do you just, like, shove that in. In there? And I. I'll be honest with
you, I like it much better this way than Pacific Heights, where we get topless
Beverly D' Angelo in the first, like, 20 seconds or whatever. And then no more
nudity throughout the whole movie. Because I feel like if you're going to give it
to me first thing, you're setting me up for an Andy Sedaris film. This should
be like Hard Ticket to Hawaii or something, where it's just gratuitous boobs left and
right. Yeah. If you're going to do it right at the end, it's like,
oh, okay, at the end there were some boobs. Right. Moving on. But, like,
it was weirder in Pacific Heights. Where it's like, let's open with like this real
sexy kind of thing and then not even get close to that vibe for the
rest of the movie. Then that's it. Yeah. So at least they saved the best
for a very, very funny gag to end the movie on. Yeah.
So that is. They live.
That is. Yes. And I'm glad. I'm glad you saw it for the first time.
And it is kind of a movie that you would feel like you'd seen it
even if you hadn't seen it. Because there's so much out there that's familiar.
It's so unique that if you're familiar at all with the concept,
you know, it's this, like, this isn't like a vampire movie that's
been done 20 times or a zombie like Romero, right? Yeah. I'm not sure which
of John Romero, George Romero's zombie movies I've seen. I know I've seen some of
them. I haven't seen all of them. All of the. Of the living dead or
whatever. Right? Yeah. But this was like, this is such a unique concept that
it's like, yeah, of course I've seen they. And it's like, oh man, I never
actually did get around to watching this. So it's. That was great. I really am
glad I did. I do love John Carpenter's work. Roddy Piper was great. I love
Keith David in anything and he was great in this, you know,
but like I kind of said before to give kind of my wrap up thoughts
on it. Like, the movie's too short. Short. It not enough happens. It doesn't have
enough plot. The world building is fantastic. Carpenter does a
great job of setting us up to understand this world and to watch our
main character discover, you know,
what. What is going on and kind of we discover with him. It was all
really freaking cool. Like, I loved all that. I desperately want
Netflix or Hulu or HBO or somebody to do like a
10 episode miniseries or something out of this movie's
concept. Yeah, like, give me a John Carpenter's. They live on, you know,
Netflix and do it, you know, full TVMA. Right. And do it,
but do it over 10 hour installation installments.
And you know, give me more like, let me understand way more about like,
how did we get here? You know, why is the world like this? How long
has it been like this? What happens? How does the resistance gain size?
You know, know, they really, they really put the kibosh on
this particular, you know, cell or whatever. But was this. It was this LA group
all the Resistance that exists in the world. Nobody else knows what's going on.
Where did the sunglasses come from? What kind of technology is. Is in the contacts
and glasses? Like, how do the lenses do this? Like, all that stuff is fascinating.
We get none of it. And I think in general, the plot to this movie,
this movie takes so much time to give us all that, which is fantastic,
that it doesn't have enough time to. To ref. Really give us a lot of
story. And I think that's my biggest problem with the movie is that it just
isn't great as a movie. It's fantastic as
a story setup, it's fantastic as a premise,
but I don't actually love it as a movie. So I am 2
stars, 2 out of 5 on they live because I just think it's a lot
of kind of missed potential in a lot of ways. But I want more and
I want John Carpenter involved in more. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like,
get. But yeah, if he could get on the Carpenter still.
Carpenter still alive. Yeah, he's still around. He did something just a few years ago,
something for like a series, I think even Suburban Scares or something like that.
It was like an anthology series, dude. Get on the horn with your agent and
get to like Netflix or HBO or somebody and make a. They live. Because in
today's day and age, all this stuff, like the sort of,
you know, example in reality of like social media
and like all the kind of like, ways that that has changed since 88,
like, could be very interesting and take the same premise and give us a
modern take on it and a much longer, more fleshed out story. It could be
fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, that's my take. No points well taken
for sure. And especially, you know, about the story,
about this being structured as like a filmed story. It's definitely lacking
as far as like, you know, caring about the characters and whatever.
I think as something that sticks with me
and the reason I'm going to give this a better rating is this
is something I think about all the time. And it's kind of rare that there's
a movie where I'm thinking about parts of it, like the world that it's built.
Think about it all the time. Like, there's a unique twist on it.
And I think that what Carpenter maybe was trying to do, the Roddy
Piper character, the fact that there's like no development of this character at all,
it's just showing this is you're the average person with
nothing special against about you. What can you do? Yeah, I don't
Know, meet some people who are seeing the same stuff as you're seeing and then,
you know, maybe go blow up a satellite dish. It's almost like he's like
a, like a drone, like a bee, honeybee drone
or something like that as just like. Well, it doesn't matter what his backstory is.
Like we're flinging guys like this at the problem. You know, we're punching
the problem in its face until it agrees with us.
I like the fight scene. I, I like Keith David
so much. He's good in everything. His voice is great.
I'm really happy he was in this. The, the woman who played Holly,
you know, really most of a lot of the other actors kind of like
could do with or with or without them. Although there is like something to
the distance that she played that character with that she was like a little
bit non human with what she did.
I love Carpenter. And yeah, so I think if listeners
out there, hopefully you've seen the movie, if you're listening to this podcast, if you're
talking to somebody else about it, I think it's definitely worth seeing because it's going
to show you something different than most movies show you. And again,
hour and a half, not a big time commitment and you get a
little bit delighted by Roddy Piper's acting. I think the way he played
it was smart. It was within his limitations.
Yeah. But I think he also like did make some choices that
led to his character being effective. That he wasn't like a non actor
doing a bad job of acting. Like this is someone who is on stage
every day for 20 years of his life, like doing wrestling shows and stuff.
I'm gonna give this movie a 4 out of 5. Nice. I love Carpenter.
I love Roddy Piper. Rest in peace to Roddy. Definitely see this one.
This is a lot of fun and very fun to think about outside. But Steve,
I'm with you. When that Netflix series comes out, I'm gonna be the first one
in line on my couch to watch that. There you go. I do think,
and I said this to my wife after I watched the movie, like I stand
by the rating. I think that it is the movie kind of is weak as
a movie in a lot of ways. I also think you should see it.
I think like if you haven't seen they Live, like watch it. It really is,
is so unique and inventive and interesting that even
if I don't think it actually works super well as a self contained movie,
the world it builds and the premise that it posits is, like, so fascinating.
And there is nothing about the movie that's, like, so bad that it's,
like, not worth watching. And like you said, it's like a quick watch, you know,
So I definitely liked it and think people should watch it. I just, like,
can't give it a very high score, personally. So we're six out of ten from
the two Dads on They Live from John Carpenter.
And. Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, yeah. What do you have coming up for
us next week, Steve? Okay, next week we're gonna go from the late 80s.
We're heading to the mid-90s, and we're looking at a movie that really
was, like, the breakout performance for someone who became a comedy
kind of superstar of the 90s and maybe early 2000s, and, you know,
then his life changed a little bit and he's not really in movies anymore.
But this is the movie that put Chris Tucker on the map. Okay. This is
the movie that showed us that Ice Cube is not just a rapper and an
actor, but also a filmmaker because this was his screenwriting debut.
We're going to go watch 1995's Friday, like, one of the most quotable
movies of all time. Oh, my God. I think the POD is going to be
us just firing quotes back and forth. Yeah. Oh, I've seen this
one so many times, like, back from when it came out. And I
can't wait to talk about this one. It's going to be fun. So if you're
listening and you like what you hear, and hopefully you do, head on over to
Apple or Spotify, give us a five star review. It really helps people find
the show. If you want to drop us a line, you can do that at
the show@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two. And the number one.
This has been they Live. This has been another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. Thank you all so much for listening and we'll catch
you next week. Thanks,