Hello, and welcome to Deep Blue Sea the Podcast. I am Mark m
M and I am Jay. Actually I'm going to call an audible and that
Mark. I think nickname should be how we drive all we're like in a
car. That's what it is to say. So I'm Jay the Napper.
I should be allowed to drive because I just fall asleep welcoming you to deep
sleeping car even when driving. It's way I don't drive. I can It's
my superpower. I can fall asleep anyway, I've fallen asleep. I'm Mark
center Lane half Meyer, not slow, not fast, fall asleep in an
active m or machine and whilst having a haircut before. So are they offering
both? Yeah? It was a two and one deal. Yeah, it
was interesting afternoon anyway, this is deep Blue. See the metal clippers?
Yes, there was what they kind of have metal clipps. I would have
messed up the machine. It was all plastic. Didn't It wasn't a good
haircut. What's happening? I don't know. We're off track. I haven't
even got to the podcasts. It's deeper who see the podcast? On this
show? Mark and I have dived away through the Deep Sea Trilogy scene by
scene. I'm looking at some Deep Blue Sy adjacent films and his films featuring
sharks aquatic action or directed by Ronnie Harlan, therefore leading to a very much
not Deep Bluecy adjacent film, as is the case today with Driven. What
is Driven? It is a two thousand and one American actions sport film directed
by Ronny Harland, written by Sylvester Stallone or based on the screen by by
Stallone, starring is Stallone, but Reynolds, Kit Pardo, Til Schweiger,
Gina Gershon, A Stella Warren, Christian Delathquente. There's a plane going overhead
right now. I don't even hear that. And Stacy Edwards is a con
air. No, we've landed. That plane is Gerard Butler. Is Gerard
Butler on the plane with Mike cole her the jailbird. His land didn't been
destroyed in Vegas. That's Luke Evans falling out of the back of it.
Well, this is all very appropriate for our guests today because this is a
two thousand and one car movie, so it makes sense that we should have
on some people who are familiar with a different two thousand and one car movie.
And it's numerous sequels, so joining us from the Two Fast Two Forever
podcast. It's the two Gentlemen of Corona. It's Joe two and Joey Lewandowski.
Welcome to the show, guys, Hey, guys, I cannot believe
that this movie came out of the same year so Fast and Furious. It
feels both older and new nothing. It's out of time in a way that
like two. Like the Fast and Furious feels so two thousand and one,
this feels like, I don't know what it feels like, but it does
not feel like two, doesn't one. Listen, So Renny Harland special,
that's for sure, you know what. Listen Watching this movie again, it
made me really happy and it made me love Renny Harlan Moore because I think
this is probably like a two star movie, but for Franchise Pictures, I
would say it's a four star. Franchise Pictures. Say you guys know about
franchise Franchise Pictures. I forgot to say, yeah, So, like this
is the company that you know. They released Battlefield Earth, they released Sound
of Sound of Thunder, they released Get Carter, The Art of War,
Ballistic x Verse, Severn. Basically, what it was was it was like
a company that started by Elie Samaha. That and he just fleeced the heck
out of a German company and made a ton of money that he got sued
for one hundred million dollars and then his company went defunct. But yeah,
it's so basically what happened was I'm jumping all over the place because I love
this so much. Guys. Basically what happens was they said Battlefield Earth had
like a ninety million dollars budget. This is a lot of explaining, but
I'm gonna do it. It's worth it that. If it's if it's what
you sent me a link, it's worth explaining, Okay, So Ellie Elie
Samaha. What do he would do was he started franchise pictures and he would
find scripts that were in turnaround, which means they were going, they were
ready to go, they didn't go, so now they're sitting at a studio
there's waiting to be made, and he could buy them for cheap. It
was cheaper than getting a new screenplay written. It was cheaper than that.
Then he would find a list stars like Battlefield Earth. Nobody would make Battlefield
Earth like get Away from Me, John Travolta, like, you're the hottest
star on the planet. We won't even make this movie. So this guy
La Samaha who made his name like work in vip lounge at the Roxbury,
Like he knew all these celebrities. So somehow he got involved with this German
entertainment company that was going to put up forty seven percent of all of the
film's budgets that he worked with. So he like went up to Slice stallone.
He's like, Sly, you've been wanting to make Get Carter and this
racing movie for years and no one will do it, so you can come
make it for me. I'll give you twenty million dollars for each and we
will go make your movies. But the problem was like he's like, but
then once they sign on, he would ship them the Canada. He would
lower the budget, and then he would also have the catering company that fed
everybody on the staff, but he would overcharge for his catering company. So
whenever you see like Battlefield Earth has an eighty eight million dollar budget, it's
more like a thirty million dollar budget. The VFX supervisor on Battlefield Earth said
it was the cheapest thing you've ever has ever worked on, Like like he
would ship them the Canada and like he would he would do something too,
like since they were paying forty seven percent of the budget, he was like,
yeah, like battlefild Earth as a ninety million dollar budget, so then
they would pay forty five to fifty million. Bone Actuality was like a fifty
million dollar budget, so then like they ended up footing the bill for almost
the entire movie, and then he would pocket a ton of cash and then
just like ship them off to Canada to go make movies. So when you
see Driven having a budget of ninety million to seventy million, it's probably closer
to fifty million. And then Stallone got twenty million of that, which left
Renny Harland about thirty to thirty five million to make this movie. And this
was originally like a three hour long film with a two hundred and twenty page
script. Like nobody would touch this. People were like, Stallone, you
just made assassins in dread, Like we're not making a two hundred and twenty
page script into a movie for you. But this Ellie Samaha was like,
yeah, we'll do it, and I'll just fleece about twenty million dollars out
of it, put it in my own pocket, genuinely. That answers so
many questions about questions. Yeah, yeah, and so yeah. So that's
why this movie's chopped up. It was originally supposed to be like more of
like a movie about the male ego. So if you see this movie,
you have Kill Schweiger's character, that's who is well, believe Mark that's still
in there. Yeah, but I look like til Schweiger's the driven guy.
You know, he's driven, he runs, he trains. Stallone's the guy
who wrecked it all. Then you have Jimmy Bly as like the young kid
who looks at computers and is pushed. And then you have Memo as like
the guy who was also pushed, like he lost his spot. And then
you have Burt Reynolds and then the woman's there writing about like masculinity and sports.
It was supposed to be like this takedown of masculinity and like learning to
be humble and learning how to like you know, just live life and enjoy
and like put away the male masculine ego. But they got chopped all the
hell and then it's two hours of driven. But it still looks like the
invented can a Fraser camera before Top Gun. To like get the driving scenes
in this they made a nascar that could go two hundred miles an hour with
cameras on it to capture the speed of these carts as they're driving around the
tracks like Harlem went all around the world. It's like, I feel like
it looks authentic. It. I like the racing scenes. I have fun
with it, but it's about eight different movies in one and then with fifty
minutes cut out and so like it never totally works. But I still love
what Running was able to do. There's stuff in here that looks amazing and
stuff in here that looks worse than most movies I've ever seen in my life,
Like in the same scene, not from seeing the scene, but like
in the same thing. Like the rain race is like maybe cooler than any
race in any fastmarious movie, until the CGI comes in and just like,
oh no, what do you do with some original in this movie? Yes,
there is and basically was in Pointance. They should be fetty STRAIGHTFORO.
Yes. Look, here's the thing though, if you watch Sound of Thunder,
if you watch Art of War, Ballistics, Extra sever Battle Filled Earth,
all the franchise pictures movies have horrifying VFX in the films because they didn't
have a budget for good VFX. So basically what they did was they just
chucked a few dollars at some people and they're like, hey, make this
work. So like the vfx were always last and they're always bad for franchise
pictures films. But yeah, you have cool, practical racing footage and then
you have just like soul numbing vffs in this movie. So it's like it's
up and down for me. Like, I still like, you know,
there's no jerks in this film, guys, Like, there's no there's a
couple of jerks, but there's no mustache twirling villain. No, there's no.
Like at the end, right at the end of it, everyone's like,
yeah, we're cool, like, hey man, my bad. Like
Jimmy Blige goes up to tul Schweiger, hey man, my bad, lay
bad. They're all happy. But yeah, they've been sharing two girlfriends.
They've been sharing two girlfriends the whole movie, and everybody's happy about it.
I don't like this take. I feel like they're all bad. There's no
enough bad guys. It's not good that there's no bad guys. It's bad
that they have some bad guys that they make okay at the end, Like
there are at least there are four four villains in this film. You have
wait, who are the Hill Schweger? Yeah, okay, at some point
Til Schweiger as Bo Bo Brandenburg, BT Reynolds, Car Henry Robert Sean Leonard
as the mill Bly a real name and Gina Gershon Stollin's ex wife are all
villains who are all nice at the end. And I wanted Okay, Mark's
just Jay. That's called character development. Mark's given a whole monologue before.
We've probably let our guests say anything, which you guys will get to talk
from it. But I do not share Mark's love for this film. This
feels like a film that was made in a lab for me to just not
care about it at all. Which yeah, I picture j just being furious
while watching this movie. I hate cars. I especially hate cars when they're
involved in sport hates. I'm not a sport fan. I've never really understood
sport and I've never understood driving sports above anything else. I have many My
dad loves Formula one. We have like barbecues over the somewhere. He'd keep
nipping back inside to check the TV to see what the score was, or
he was in the lead. And I don't understand. It's it's the most
boring sport. It's more boring than watchings. And then you throw on top
of that, not just one love triangle, but who loves trying things I
do not care for, And then you have no sharks, no dinosaurs,
no plane crashes, no one dies in this film. There's lots of crashes.
There's a blue race card now, and that's pretty blue. There is
a blue we'll get out and blue the film is later, Joe, it's
this isn't a film like this is a film that I was thoroughly bored.
Bye. But that's not Renny Harlan's fault. That's not the filmmaker, No,
no, no, no, that's not anyone involved in the making of
the film. That is just the subject matter on display. I don't like
anything about this film, like in terms of the subject matter. That's that's
no. I'm not saying it's a badly made film. It's just a film
about things I don't want to watch, which is not the film's fool It's
not really Harlen's fool. This is entirely my fault. This is my problem.
So I'm gonna not I'm gonna try not to have that opinion going on,
but just just know that of all the Ready Harden films we cover so
far, this is my least favorite, purely based on the subject matter.
End of that appear. So I love this movie. Okay, good,
Yeah, Joe, very happy for you, Joe too. What is it
about Driven that you loved? It was? It was at times, somehow
trying to be a very serious sporting movie that would then interject a slic stallone
monologue that he would deliver pretty badly and totally change what the scene was doing.
And at the same time it was also like very much a soap opera
and a lifetime style movie. And then it had a bunch of things that
I do love, like car racing and bad CG and like really cheesy love
triangles. So as much as this wasn't made for you, Jay, I
think this movie was made for me. I messaged Joe five minutes I watched
this movie last night. He watched it today, and I messaged him last
night. I'm like, look, I'm five minutes and I have a headache,
and I already know you're gonna love this movie. Those things are not
related, yes, but those two things are true, and I was right.
Yeah, I think you absolutely were. Do you like it, Joey,
No, I don't like it. I don't look I like parts about
it. I don't think it's a movie. I don't think that a lot
of the like cool stuff works. But I think there are elements of it
that I think work really well. I think the racing is pretty good.
Well you know, I have a handful of notes so we can get to
you. But like, overall, if I like it or don't, I
don't, but there are parts about it that I like. I the one
thing I will say that I don't like is that it feels like Gina Gershon
forgot how to ask. And I don't know that's a character I love her
in so much. The older girlfriend, Yeah, okay, that lady ex
wife yeah, uh huh, Like she's so good and bound, she's so
good and so many things, and here it's just like I don't understand what's
going on. Like there's like I get like the masculine machismo whatever, but
like I don't know if it feels Joey, we're talking about Oppenheimer today,
feels Oppenheimer asque in, Like these women are only there to like be with
literally literally further, like to be like a trophy or like a part that's
a bonus for him. Yeah, you know what I mean. He says
like that, specifically says that I guess in the longer ones she had more
like in the longer things, she had more to do where basically they were
a couple together and they were just absolutely wrong for each other, and so
he walked away from it, and he never gave her a chance to vet
her anger at him, so like he just stepped away. He's like,
we're not good for each other, and he left her completely. So then
she got with Memo after that sense and one has never been able to just
like yell at the dude. So it's been like years later and she sees
him and she's like, I just hate this guy, and then she goes
full on angry Gershan. But none of that comes across in the actual anything
that we watch. That's a two hour the two hour film, but yeah,
stallone over the fifty minutes of deleted scenes that he's taught, like he
does a commentary over it. He's like, yeah, she had a lot
more to do, and you know, you know, we didn't need it,
and so we cut it. But you know, he said, this
is a movie that he wishes he didn't make, and he also wishes that
he didn't make Get Carter. But the reason is no one would make this
movie. So Elie Samaha was like, yeah, we'll go make a two
hundred and twenty page film in Toronto and lower the budget and give you twenty
million, like like I think, once they got shooting, he and Harlem
were like, well, I guess we'll film this, but we can't use
all this. So they basically had to frankenstein the movie and the edit.
This movie shouldn't have been made. I wish. But so like the thing
that I you know, the issue that I have with Zack Snyder movies,
which it's going to come around, but like I think he makes a terrible
two hour movie. I think Zack Snyder makes an incredible four hour movie.
Like I don't like this movie, but if they shot the entire two hundred
and twenty page version of this, I want to see that movie. Like
I might not like it, but I want to see the complete thing.
The four hour version of this might be good. It's probably not, but
it could be. M well, it shouldn't have been made. He was
just this guy was like, listen, I need Stallan. Stallone gets me
international numbers. He opens me up in other markets. I can talk to
this German company that's funding most of my movies for it, and he plays
the budget. Yeah, and like Stallone wan to make this for four years
and then this guy's like, hey man, I'll give you twenty million dollars
just to pay you, then you can go make it. So Stallone,
I think, like Harlan had a racing movie fall through about Senna. You
know, they couldn't even get F one's approval. So that's why they use
cart racing in this movie. Is racing or like it looks like indeed it's
cart racing, but it's like open open car cart racing, And like they
couldn't even get F one, so they went to kart. And I just
think, if you're gonna go into battle with a two and twenty page script
and your leading star hasn't really had a hit in many years, you're gonna
be in some trouble. That's why I kind of like what Harlan pulled off,
because as I watch all the other franchise films, like three thousand Miles
of Graceland is a hot pile of hurt and that movie like they shipped them
off to Canada, cut half the budget, and you watch it and you're
like, this is a bad, bad movie. And like for me at
least, Harlan's skill as a director as like as a I don't know,
I feel like he just gets it done. So watching the races, like
when they go to Japan, I sort of felt that this was quite international,
Like I like the scope of the shots he's able to get. I
like the on car racing, but that's about it. Like, I don't
you know, I think Jimmy Blige just looks like computer the whole time.
But knowing what I know about franchise pictures, that's why I liked this movie.
That's why I find it endearing because I think Harlan pulled like got something
out of it. But it's a two star movie, but it's a five
star franchise pictures. One from four to five stars. He talked yourself out.
Yeah, I went eber to letterboxed would give it. Oh, Yeah,
so you're saying, like, because it's like a perfect franchise pictures.
Yeah, because it's not horrible, like it's it doesn't look terrible like you
watch Ballistics Expert Severn your eyes fall out, like you watch Battle Filled Earth
and they had no idea what they were doing, Like they just put aliens
on stilts like they just like and they dutch angle it a lot. So
at least on this one, Harlan made some thrilling shots of racing, Like
you know, people talk a lot about top Gun and the way they filmed
the cockpit stuff, Like I think Harlan should get some credit for helping use
a brand new camera lens that could get the guys in the cockpit driving,
Like I think some shots are pretty great in this movie. So that's just
like the fires every cool looking the giant explosion that memo goes up in.
Yeah, Now I would assume Joe watched the movie in the same way that
I did, in like, is this a fast and furious movie? What
connections can they make? And the one thing that the thing that jumps out
to me the most, well two things. Number one slides a garage very
early on, gives very big vibes of thirteen twenty seven's a garage, like
just that old kind of like outdoorsy, old timey kind of suburbs garage,
like he could be Buddy from F nine, right m m. The other
thing that I thought was funny was that like Tokyo Drift, when Sean races
past those cops and he's like, oh my god, I'm gonna pull me
over, and Hans, I know, if they're doing over one eighty k,
they don't pull you over. But here we see a Chicago cop again
in the United States with a radar gun show them doing one ninety five,
but like that's miles per hour, not kilometers per hour, which is like
way way faster. And I was just thinking, like, it's funny that
we're so used to like, oh, over one eightyk, like they don't
chase you, but like here it's like one ninety five, I've miles an
hour. It's like, what do you even do? Like you can't even
watch you're doing you're doing, but I was kilometers that's huge. Yeah,
it's insane. I was I was laughing at this whole like driving around Chicago
scene because I was like, they're going to get out of this, and
you absolutely would go immediately to jail, like the meme like straight to jail,
Like that's that's exactly what happened. He's like twenty five thousand dollars.
Fine, Like you guys are almost non existent. Fine, just like slap
on the wrist step and all that happens during that chase. Like, yeah,
I think it's it's cool them going under the scenarios, that's cool.
But the property destruction, the manhole covers that have flowed around, the women
who are exposed, the other cars that get hit accidents. I listened to
Renny Harlan's commentary on this at Mark's request, and when when that lady's dress
blows up, his remark, it's one of my little moments. What can
I say? It was Reny on commetry on I also the other the other
big very quick fastenaction here is that BT to the score for this one and
also for the first fast. So they sound the same. Makes sense.
It sounds like I didn't know the first fast periods you just said it,
but it makes so much sense now that you bring it up. Yep,
their parts were just like, oh, this might have just been like an
outtake from the Fast and Furious because they're at the same time too. It's
the exact same year, so he's definitely making them both essentially at the same
time. Yeah, they shot that in Toronto over nine nights, and Renny
Harlem was like, yeah, the residents must have hated us by the time
we were out of there with these cars driving around, But it was cool.
They like took that engine. They put a V eight in this what
is it like a two hundred and let's see five hundred horsepower V eight and
those cars could still go two hundred miles an hour on that course. And
also in the longer cuts, Stallone's character gets goes to jail and or Bly
gets off scott free because and then he learns that he's just expendable to these
people, like he's the fall guy. So like Jimmy, like the Golden
Boy, gets off and Stallone goes to jail. But once again, they
had to cut at all, which is why you don't go into shooting a
two hundred and twenty page sports movie with four different stories and it was all
misguided. Did you guys read Did you read Ebert's review for this? Please?
No? So he gave it to an half stars, but he I
kind of there's a there's a thing I like to call Horny Ebert where occasionally
he just dotes on a woman like unbelievably, like Nev Campbell, and like
sometimes he goes goes on, but this one he goes. The gorgeous Canadian
supermodel Ella Estella Warren plays Sophia, who is dumb by the champ, dates
the rookie and is taken back by the champ. She has lips that could
cushion a nasty fall and swimmer shoulders that look great except in that off the
shoulder dress that makes them look wider than Stallone's. He definitely mentally shooted for
a while. I like that He's like nagging this Canadian supermodel, like,
you know, she's pretty hot unless she wears that one dress and witch case.
It's just like come on, man, and uh, you know she
was a synker nice swimmer. She was like in the Olympics, Estella warrant.
That's why they have the synchro nice swimming scene with her in it.
And Harlan's like, well, if you have a synchro nice swimmer, you
have her new synchro nice swimmer that makes sense. I thought that it was
just like a little nod to Tarantino or something, because there was a whole
lot of foot scene. Yeah. Yeah, So he watched this and saw
Til Schweiger. I thought, you're gonna be hixt my next film. I'm
gonna put you any glorious plastics. It must have happened. The one thing
I remember from OH one is I remember my brother went and watched this movie
and I was like, hey, man, did you like it. He's
like, I don't know. He's like, there's this cool German guy in
there. I kind of like him. Like that was his whole comment about
it. My brother, his whole review is that there's a cool German guy.
Guy. This guy, Yeah that was still Schweiger. Yeah, I
like Til Schweiger in this movie. But yeah, that was his whole review.
I'm like, oh, okay, I got the tilly Schweiger. I
was convinced that he wasn't really German, Like I thought that that was a
fake accent. For a while, I was like, oh yeah, this
this it feels appropriate that it feels like a fake accent. So I like
that even better. So if he is German, good on him. Know
who he is like in Bastards, like he's Hugo Chiglitz, Like he's like
a big part of Chloris. Yeah, he's like the German. No,
everybody looked very familiar to me, Like Blai looked really familiar, but I
don't know why, like what I remember him from, Like the only person
I could definitely pick out with Sla Stallone, but like even the supermodel that
you guys were just mentioning, like, she looks like somebody that I've seen
in something else. So it's hard to balance in these like movies where everybody
we talked, Joey and I talked about this a lot, where it's like
they just like got a guy that looked like another guy type of situation that's
still a war. And you might remember her from Tim Burton's Planet the Aps,
Okay, Yeah, the only other thing that I know her from well,
her Fast and Furious connection is Jay. She did drive her Prius into
several cars and then got arrested, So yeah, so she had a she
had some fast and thus driving moments as well in her and her Prius.
Boy, how about that explosion which which when Memo goes up in the lake
and he explodes over the track. He erupts an oppenheimer S fireball before he
falls into the lake, and it just puts the biggest I was up at
five am doing a rewatch of this movie, and I just had the biggest
smile on my face. Is the biggest fireball ever on a cart track erupts
and just poor Memo gets shot. But he goes through the woods and into
a lake. I was like, where is this track at that you have
this much access to, Like that there's not like barriers and like crowd or
something. Yeah, it's like a trek. He's like like fifty one hundred
feet away. I'm like, how the hell did you get here? You
could be canoeing? Yeah, Like I having a nice afternoon and a cart
car lands on much it looks like a summer camp lake. You're right,
So, Jay, were there any moments you enjoyed in this movie? I
mean I did like the crash, I did. I did kind of like
that chase through Chicago and air quartes. But I just the whole time I
was thinking, these guys are assholes. They're just cooking so much sandwich and
destruction. They hate them. I mean, you've said bad things about it.
But every moment she goes ons on the screen, she lights it,
she lights it up. She's the closest that we have to a mustage dwelling
villains. She sways in a full intensity. It's just, you know,
you know exactly what she is, the most stereotypical ex wife character. You
can imagine what I love about it. What I love about this is imagining
me and Jay watching this together, and as soon as she comes on screen,
I check out and he checks in, and then like the rest of
the time, I'm just like, what else? What else could there be?
Like I'm optimistically watching for things I like, and I'm not finding stuff.
But like she comes on, I'm just like, come on, and
she's like, Okay, here we go. I stand up and start cheering.
I think you'll like this quote Jay from Eber He's like I mentioned that
all the characters are nice except for Gershan, who sticks to bitchiness and a
stubborn show of integrity. Absolutely, she knows what she's doing and she does
it incredibly will that's such a line though, bitchiness. It's h I love
franchise pictures, y'alls. You don't understand the fun like Battlefield Earth I wrote
about her Frotten Tomatoes in the Museum of Pop Culture in the United States invited
me to like moderate one of their panels that was watching this because I just
love the research on Battlefield Earth so much. This guy Ellie Samaha, just
like so I just found this other thing where he was doing City by the
Sea and he said all the actors cost eighteen million, but they actually cost
fourteen. He said all the sets cost two million, they actually cost one.
So this dude is just making money. Like he was a bouncer at
the Roxbury. He was a dry cleaner and one day Joey Pants walked in
there and somehow he wrecked Joey pants clothes and then how Jolie Pants walked out
of there, like having a part in one of his b movies before he
started franchise pictures. The dude's a salesman, yeah, and like he's a
schmoozer and he used to party with stallone at the Roxbury and then he just
about this guy yeah right, and then after he got out of this,
he bought Graman's Theater, like he he and he's just and he keeps getting
in trouble and he got successfully so he was in court for two weeks and
he told all the jur jurors that if they found him innocent, they would
have they would have VIP passes for life at any of his cubb It's in
the middle of the thing, no, and so little during the after So
after the trial when they had to deliberate, they were gone for one hour
and they came back and found him guilty. So it's like, oh,
so it was like the reverse Oh j Yeah, like he said, I
will give you VIP passes to all my clubs, went out like when they
went to deliberate one hour later, you're guilty. It does everybody. It
does feel like the Jay's point. It does. It feels insane that we
have like Electric Bugaloo, the untold story of cannon films. We don't have
one as far as I know about this, Like we don't need like you
know, we don't need a wee crashed or like a fictionalized retelling of the
story. But just like, give us a documentary about this, because I
mean, the story is there. I had no concept of vendues this before
before Mark starts like dropping it on us. So I'm along for this ride
for sure. I love that he owned a catering company and would overcharge for
so get this. On Battlefield Earth, the food was so bad, but
he was charging so much money that Travolta dipped into his own pocket and paid
for crew for the entire staff. Like he Travolta, he got sixteen million
for Battlefield Earth and he started paying for food for the entire crew. It
was fire festival for the movie is bad. Yeah, because he's like,
this is terrible. So it's just I don't know, I love it.
Like these movies lost so much money, and nobody like storms off either,
you know what I mean. Like you get Travolta to be like, okay,
I'll just pay for the food then, and like you're still getting paid
more than you want for your food from you're catering companies. You're like,
yeah, okay, And just you know, none of these movies made money.
A lot of them failed. They were all critically bad. But Universal
was like, hey, keep sending it to us, because we'll just dump
them in August, we'll dump them in March, we'll put them out in
January like this. Because they Universal spent no moneies, they no money on
them. They just distributed them so like they're like, yeah, sure,
Ellie, just give us some crap movies that we'll put in theaters. In
the German company ever figured out about this, like they eventually have to get
wise, but that you've you've given me ten examples of him doing this.
So two thousand one they immediately see because they looked at the budget Forget Carter
and they're like, this is not a sixty five million dollar movie. And
then they did the math and it was like in the thirties, but Ellie
pocketed all that money. I was to that earlier point Mark. I was
watching this movie last night, like did they go to theaters? And I
was like, oh no. In two thousan on one, there wasn't really
another option, Like there was you know, home video and whatever, but
like most movies that came out then went to theaters, I'm just like,
it seems insane. This wasn't because Lifetime right, Like I can see you
cutting together a trailer face it like looks pretty cool. It's like, oh,
like there's sylvestor Stalone in a race car movie. Like hell y'all go
and you go, you go see the movie. You're like, what is
this? And that's what I said, I like what is happening here?
But yeah, the more I learn about franchise, the more I love it.
I'm gonna ask a really dumb question, but but I think I know
the answer to it. I'm going to assume that no picture from Franchise Pictures
ever actually became a franchise. Oh yeah, and then yeah, Whole ten
Yards is like one of the biggest flops of all time. But that's how
Ellie made it big was because of a Whole nine Yards, which is written
by Bruce Willis's brother, and then they went to Montreal to shoot it.
That's why it's in mont That's why it's in Canada. Okay, if they
did a sequel to Battle Killed Earth, I know that, like it's based
on the Round Hybrid novel, but like would it have been Battlefield Earth too,
or like Battlefield Mars? Like where would they have gone from the first
linking? Yeah, Battlefield Toronto. It went from Battlefield Vancouver, man Toronto
Mars looks a lot like it's more and more focused each time. I love
Toronto. Oh yeah, yeah, Franchise Pictures. Now, I had one
thought of something I didn't like in this movie, and for it being I
didn't know it was going to be a three hour movie. I was like,
oh, a two hour movie. This seems a little long because there's
like a point like three quarters of the way through the movie that there's just
like a big lull for no reason, and they just show crowdshots of like
Canadians walking to a race, and I was like, this feels so out
of place. That happens eight times in the fifth there's so much like yeah,
it's so much b rolled, and I'm just like, we definitely didn't
need this, Like for all the stuff that you're telling me, they cut
out of it, like to leave all this. I'm like, oh man,
this is weird. Before the final race, you do get all of
those actual real life race car drivers doing their real pre race prep. But
I didn't need a slow zoom in on a guy having a nap. Yeah,
that's not making me like hearing me up for this race we're gonna watch.
There's a guy listening to headphones. Cool. There's one you roll sequence
where I think it's three people in a row or eating a hot No,
yes, there's there is a lot of Fanny Truro, the girl eating the
Truro yea on one of the best sets very suggested, one of the best,
like it's not it's not suggested, but like one of the best shots
in this movie is when they're in Japan, like seeing like the the stadium
food but like the Japanese like they'm making noodles like frying. I'm like,
this looks I don't really agree. I agree, yeah, yeah, I'm
like, just more of this, please. That was You're right. I
think that might be my favorite shot there. And then I also kind of
like that he doesn't make the cart racing fancy because if you've ever been to
like one of these races and NASCAR races, they're a hodgepodge of every single
thing on the planet. You have two hundred and fifty thousand people eating,
you know, and this is a one. So we don't have like a
cybald, you know, food trucks yet just stuff in their face with food.
It's it's he didn't I think he tried to glamorize it, but it
actually just made it seem not glamorous at all, and so I kind of
appreciated that that. I'm like, hey, this looks like someplace I've been
before. This looks like one of the fairs in Florida that I used to
go to. Yet, so I do. I do appreciate that, but
I think that, yeah, the Japanese stuff. That shot was probably my
favorite of the lot. How do you think the Gratious Lady shots compared against
the Fuss and Furious franchise? The dress, the dress flip, Marilyn Monroe
thing, I think is even like two ambitious for Fast and the Furious that
I don't think that Fast and Furious has that much like risk taking. If
it happened in Fast and Furious, it would be like intentional, like Bob
was trying to do that? Did you do it? In Tokyo Joey?
Is there a shot? There's a there's a there's a wet t shirt contest
in the first movie. Yeah, but I mean like the specific like Marilyn
Monroe dress flip, oh like that in that in that shot, I'm like,
I don't think they would do that though. Tokyo Drift has that accentual
wind flip of that high school student on the car. Oh yeah, yeah,
the weird crotch shot of yeah what's her name? Yeah, the high
schooler? Yeah, that's true. Okay, I'm gonna ask you a really
weird question because I had to watch all the Fast and Furious movies where you
got to, I got to, I got to and I was tasked with
counting all the butt shots and he so I had to frame and like,
okay, basically what I what what I set up was if the ad was
like, hey, point your butt towards your camera, like not an incidental
but more like, hey, walk this way so we can see your butt.
Do you think the one in Fast ten where the lady gets off the
bike and walks is the most ambitious one ever? Like just we're talking like
a dolly or like a steadicam following her in the red shorts. Do you
think that's the most ambitious butt shot of the franchise? No, the most
ambitious butt shot of the franchise is Galgand on her butt. That's that's the
narrative. Yes, yeah, that's true. That's like a that's a narrator.
That's a subplot. There was all, man, I don't I already
I'm starting to forget this movie and I watched it last night. But there's
something in here where they're trying to get Oh, they need something, do
they need a handprint of they need fingerprints or something in this and it felt
like they were going to do the same thing where I was like this fast
am a might? Am I confusing with something else? You watching National Treasure
last night? No, there was something I think in this movie. What
do y'all think about the brother in this movie? Oh? I love him
in house, he's great. Society could call that's okay, Yeah, I've
always it's weird. So he starts calling like he's his brother, and then
all of a sudden, at some point he like starts using his first name
or his last name. It sounds like a last name, and I was
like, is this like his like calling his mom by her first name?
Situate like his teenage rebellion against his brother. But the brother, Yeah,
the brother plays in an evil villain. Pretty good, there's your villain Jay
all right. But at the end of the film, they have like a
nod to each other, like, yeah, we're all cool, we're good.
But like twos earlier was trying to switch sides and go off with with
Bo with til Schweiger, and now he's like and then Estella Warren hunched him
in the face and he has like I didn't hurt, uh that that kind
of pulled that a punch terrible may aigo comebacks? And then what are my
favorite parts now that you brought up Bow? Is that in these kind of
movies, one of like my favorite tropes is the like kind of Game of
Thrones zenis that they'd try to name everyone a very similar version of the same
name. So we have like Bow and Mo, and then we had like
Bly and then you have Slivester Salone, who Sly and so like. I
just keep mixing all these names up in my head, and I'm like,
this is top tier. When you like have the names that are almost start
repeating, I'm like, this is going to be a good movie. I
was thinking that the names in this film are terrible because you have like Memo
Moreno and Bo Brandenberg, Sofia Simone, the ladies. The laziest name picking
is always for me Joe Tanto and I've mentioned Demil bly Is Like, these
aren't real names. Then I thought about it. This was all written by
a guy called Sylvester Stallone, a ridiculous name, so of course they're gonna
be ridiculous names. Is that his real name or is that a stage that's
his real name. Ah, okay, makes more sense because I had I
had the same thought like his brothers could. Frank what he called Sylvestera.
No, it's a name. Is Sylvesta Gardenzio Stallone. Oh so it's a
good name. It's a great name. I still like this movie. I'm
just liking it more. The more we talk about it, the more I'm
enjoying it. I just, I just I just love that they went into
it with a two hundred and twenty page script and Stallone got twenty million dollars
for it. I mean, this is at the point in Stallone's career when
he had made ants like he his best fet Carter. He had made like
a Copland was good, but then he was coming off like Assassin's Daylight was
cool. But he was by no means like a hot commodity at this time.
But since this guy needed a list talent so much, he funded his
passion project that's two hundred and twenty pages long, and Renny Harlan only took
it because his movie fell through. Renny Harlan I was supposed to direct Sound
a Thunder for Ellie, then he ducked out. After this, he and
do that. So it's it's just you know, I'm not a filmmaker,
but I do. I am smart enough not to go into a movie with
the two hundred and twenty page script with four different characters and do that.
And I also want to say I did some data, and I researched.
I researched cold stallone, cold stallone, cold, cold stallone. Okay,
have you guys heard about this? Okay, so so let me get my
numbers here. I got some good numbers. Okay. So when Stallone is
in a movie and he's cold for a long period of time, they average
two hundred and thirty seven million dollars domestic or demolition. When he's in a
hot picture when yep, I counted that because I think so when he's hot,
when it's a hot stallone driven specialists movies like that, they only average
one hundred and five million. Okay, so that's also again yeah, and
they also have a much they are actually his cold stallone movies have a fresh
to meetum miror average because First Blood he's in the mountains, he's cold.
Cliffhanger, he's in the mountains, he's cold. Rocky four, he's in
the mountains. He's cold. Rocky He's cold, Rocky two cold. So
when Stallone the best Expendables two, Expendables two is the best of the franchise.
They're in a mountain, they have jackets, they're cold, so the
big Yes, that's right. So the best Expendables movie cold stallone, he's
not cold, and the other ones. So when you see a movie with
Stallone and he's cold, it's it's statistically critically and financially much much almost like
not double for the critic size, but it's double. It's doubly for box
office at doubles. You kind of are you also kind of like Guardians too,
where he's on that like ice set. Okay, okay, yeah,
so he's on that ice planet cold stallone. I was on that set that
day. I had to get him a Red Bull random story, but yeah,
so whenever Stallone is cold, his movies do better, Like sugar Free.
I just want to let everyone in regular red Bull and they didn't have
any on set, so I said yes to him. Then I had to
stress out about finding him one. I think the way of getting Rocky Road
ice cream into this, but I can't do it, So I'm not gonna
I'm just gonna stop. Like Rocky, it's like he's cold. He's Rocky's
ice cream. There's something that but it's not worth bothering with angling cash.
He's not cold, Like there's a scene in Colebra. So in Cobra there's
a scene where he's like it's getting cold and there's mountains in the background,
but he's not cold yet. Wait, is there is there a third category
where he's neither hot nor cold? Like are you kind of like the Rocky
because like Rocky four, he's cold, but he's also hot. Well,
anything with cold like a lot of cold, So cold was the designator.
So like he's training in the in the snowy mountains or whatever, he's cold.
I don't have it in me to get the time stamps of all of
them. I just kind of know, Like, but if he got cold,
you put him in that category. Yeah, And I especially know if
there's mountains and cold, that's when the movies are really successful. First Blood
Cliffhanger, Rocky four is the highest grossing of the franchise, was one of
his biggest films ever, So yeah, put him in the Mountains. Expendables
two highest grossing of the franchise. Put him in the mountains and make him
cold. Your movies make a lot of cash. He's not in the mountains
in these movies, and he's not cold yet. Can we talk about Burt
Reynolds in a in a wheelchair? I do want to talk about He's the
slowest man in the fastest sport. Guys on my on my lips talk about
for a while. Okay, I don't know how to transition. It's Sylvester
slow and he goes at my level and he makes him crouch down to match
him in the wheelchair. This was top tier cinema. This was like one
of my favorite parts of the movie. There was what's the There's remember the
Iron Side. There's a rebooted Iron Side drama like a decade ago that was
canceled like midway through his first season, but in me like teaser for this
season because he's like a detective who's like in a wheelchair and he basically he
says the same He's just like you see things a little different from down here,
and he's like seeing clues in couches or something like. He's just like
it's just like come on, man, Like what was Steve Martin in it
was this brass Ironside, because I think Ironside was you know, it was
the Raymond Burr show, which I know about from the BC Boys, but
Blair Underwood from those insurance commercials, but also from like other things that the
actually of note was Robert Ironside that got canceled halfway through his first season.
Mich cool. So they put him in a wheelchair and he's like, I
see, oh, the whole, the whole, the whole show. Like
the premise the show is he's a detective in a wheelchair that he solves crimes.
But like they sold it like things look different from down here, and
I only remember that because this is twenty thirteen. It's actually like literally a
decade ago because my friend and I just love that so much where there's like
we didn't watch a show where it's like that's so dumb, Like that can't
be the premise of your show that like people like that, like detectives who
were able to walk, like don't bend down to looking couches. Like he's
just like seeing the world different from like that's the premise. I don't know
what it's like. That show with the Magician that they made the guys the
magician and they do with Vinnie Jones and he does magic and then they helps
they do magic tricks to catch criminals. They watch this show. What is
it? Tell me now? It's with the guy from Tenant who sells the
art. Remember he runs out of the room before it goes to gas the
gas stuff, and he's an Oppenheimer through Vinnie Jones. And it's with the
lady from The Amazing Spider Man, your NEWCI show on the spaceship that's Oh
Avenue No. Channel five. Yeah, I love her in that show.
And she has one of the most like nasally American accents I've ever heard in
my life. Okay, but she's great, She's funny. Vinny Jones has
done too many. They solve crimes, They solve crimes, and their magicians
reception. Reception, yes, deception. A famed magician uses the skills of
deception to assist the FBI in solving high profile cases sold. There's also a
TV show called Jonathan Creek. This is all about that. I love Jonathan
Creek so much. I got the book set. That was the first thing
that came up when I when I googled magicians sobbing crime TV show, It
Lives in a Windmill. It went from Jonathan Creek to Deception. If you
haven't seen Jonathan Creek, it's it's excellent, It's it's yeah. It's a
missions assistant, so he like comes up with the tricks and then every week
he kind of gets involved in It's always a locked room mystery. It's always
someone who died in a room that's locked. Every single week, there's fifty
of these, and every single one is someone died in a locked room.
There's always a different mate. Wait, Billy Zane's in this show. Okay,
I need to I need to go. I have to go. I'm
sorry. Jack Davenport from a Carabbean. Yeah, this is my new favorite.
Before you Go, Before you Go, Jake and we talk about also
solvester salone humming for no real reason. If you didn't assume that the hummer
was going to come back around at the end, I was waiting, just
counting down for it. Or when he started humming again, Jimmy Bligh starts
coming. Yeah, he's humming. Okay, that's a scene. I liked
was when he was picking up the coins. I liked something different the coin
trick was dope. It was really really it was really cool, and it
was also again like this is a cool thing, and they shoot it,
and the scenes where he's like flicking, like when he comes around the corner
and he's flicking the coins out once a lap, that seemed like the corniest
way to shoot that for something that turns out to be so cool at the
end. And I was like, Okay, yeah, I like this.
This This seesaw of like laying into the corniest version of it and then also
trying to be very very serious at the same time. And and Kip Party
not understanding that wheels can rotate and the coin could be on the different part
you can't see. Yeah, okay, this kid screen. I don't think
they knew what to do with Kip Pardude. I didn't mean so well for
that moment, but I don't think they knew what to do with him in
this because he rarely ever says more than two sentences at a time. He
does have some speeches, but he's mostly looking at computers, so I think
he might have been a little overmatch. But when you're spending twenty million on
stallone and then you got ger Shawn and you probably paid Burt Reynolds three to
five million. You're gonna have to get like a Kip Pardue in this movie.
What'd y'all think about him in this film? I completely agree with me.
He just said, Joe you know who that is? Right? I
just recognize his face. What do I know him from? Joey? Remember
the Titans? Yeah? Yeah, that's that's why. Like two minutes just
like, oh, it's Sunshine and it's raised saying, I'm like, this
is Joe's but without the long hair rules of attraction, had long hair blindness.
Joey, he's Ronnie Bass Sunshine. He got in some trouble though,
in twenty nineteen he got fined. Drove it, he flashed. He I
guess he invited an intimacy coordinator into his trailer and he no, he harassed
the intimacy trainer. Oh yeah, not the smartest way to do this.
Let's play a game, is this? Okay? If I do this good
touch, bad touch and then goes too far, I'll get off franchise pictures
eventually. But I thought it was really funny quote by Ellie where he goes,
he goes, Yeah, I pumped the budgets. Yeah, He's like,
how else was I going to get my slate financed? And then the
reporter said that a Samaha almost a piece of shoot slate financed, and so
the reporter said he almost said pos. But I love it that. He's
like, yeah, I pumped the budgets. He's like, that's what we
all did. He not know he was being recorded. It just this guy
is still out there. He just started another production company. Happier man.
This guy he was married to Tia Carrera making his He was married to Tia
Carrera. He was like, well he married Tia Carrera, yeah, back
in the day, and he put her in a lot of his movies.
And like, this guy is an absolute and he only like I sent you
guys, I sent Jay and the article. But like he was flying high
from one movie, one movie, the whole nine yards and then he fell
from grace so fast and they got sued for one hundred million dollars and just
and he got paid. So who knows how much money he made from his
catering business. He owned a lot of gear that he would rent his own
movies. I have a like he bought I have such a soft spot in
my heart for like long term habitual fraudsters like this, you know what I
mean, like for you to run run it back the next like you know,
this is why I like Billy McFarland so much. I mentioned fire Festival
before, but like the idea that he's trying to start another fire festival and
people were actually still giving him money makes me really happy. That's what I'm
saying again, it can though, That's the whole point that like it's definitely
gonna happen. I think, I just I just think the thing you didn't
plan on. Like, so battle Filled Earth is one of the It's a
very bad film. I mean it had next to no budget. He dumped
them in a warehouse an abandoned mall to shoot the movie. Like he didn't
even give him sound stages to make Battlefield Earth Ballistics extra sever barely makes sense.
H three thousand miles of Graceland. I mean, you know Kurt Russell
and so you know how they got that movie made. He made a deal
with Costiner. He's like, you get final cut. And they also made
to deal with Kurt Russell and said you have final cut. So then they
both made their own cuts of the movie, and Costner's cut one, and
that's what was in theaters mark when we cut for that. Eventually for Viva
pot Vegas. I want you to come on. I want you to talk
about that, because after we do all of Elvis's movies, we're gonna do
movies with Elvis in them or like that are about Elvis or whatever. And
so I need I need to I need a deep dive. I needed to
mark offfmer deep dive on three thousand Miles of Graceland because I know nothing that
movie, and now I'm even more excited to see that movie. It's but
he dumped half their budget before they get to the location, so they had
to change everything. I love it. But the thing about Renny is Renny
had been making movies forever. He had made Prison, which we talked about,
like he had made low budget films. So I think he probably made
a decision to go around the world and get good b roll, right,
get b roll all around the world. He said. He took smaller crews,
some bigger crews. He got in the pits, he worked with,
the car he worked with cart racing. I think stallone was committed since Stallone
was produced writing and you know, like Stallone was involved, and I think
even though they probably lost a lot of their money, they didn't have as
much of money as they needed. I still think that's like Harlan, it
costs him a lot of jobs. This movie like this cost him more jobs
and probably cutthroat island. But I don't think if people put it into context
how much money he had to spend. This isn't a gigantic budget bomb.
The budget was not nearly as high as people think, and so I would
say at the end of the day, this movie made fifty two million worldwide.
The budget was probably forty five after everything was said and done, And
so I don't think he lost a lot of money on this. I just
think when people see ninety two million dollars they assume it's a dud. But
there's just so much more to it. So I mean, it was a
bad idea for him to go into it. It was a bad idea for
Slide to go into it. But Slide got twenty mill Harlan probably got ten
mil. So I mean they just went and made a movie hung out with
cart racers, drove around fast cars like and then the movie tanked. But
I don't know, I can't I don't blame Harlan for this film. I
really don't. I blame that's everything else, and Harlan for this was the
real I hope you get on any point in his career because he just made
his best film, the best film. Yeah, two years probably to see.
And then after this is I liked Mine Hunters. We liked Mine Hunters
on the show. They killed people really hot in that film. But you
have like excess the beginning twelve. It's not a great slit of films.
After this, we've tough with some of them. We're going to cover the
rest. I can't say I'm looking forward to some of them. I know.
I know that, like not the premise of the podcast, but like,
you know, one of the premises the podcast now is to you know,
cover his movies. And I was like, let me, let me
look up what movies he made, because like, did he only do Deep
Blue C Because I was just like, no, I'm like, I know
that he did die Hard too, which I which I personally really like,
but I know that people don't necessarily love that. I really like die Hard
two. I'm like, oh no, he made three or four movies that
I love, but they all came before Driven, and there are zero movies
that I love since Driven or like after Deep Blue Seat, right, so
it's like I haven't seen them, Like I haven't seen all of his movies,
but like die Hard two, I think it is great. Nightmare in
ONLM. Street four, I think it is great. Long as Good Night,
which we covered on two Fast, I think it is great. Deep
Blue Sea is obviously perfect because that's the whole premise of this, Like you
could say he made great stuff. It's just you know, we're you're you
know, we're on the wrong side of history right now, like the post
Deep Blue Sea, it's maybe a little bit bleak. Hey, he's coming
back, got The Strangers coming out this year movies, and he's got another
Shark film in development, so we're hopeful that he's like he's had that mid
career lull to come up to an even greater third act. Is that Strangers
anything to do with like the Strangers? The Strangers, Well, yeah,
this is the first in the strategy, but that will be past three,
four and five of the Strangers franchise. I just picked the first one.
I've never seen it before. We're gonnach, I'm gonna watcher. Oh,
the first the First Strangers is awesome. The second one, Jay, we
don't have to I love the second one. But we can talk about the
pool fight in the second one as a Deep blue scene. Okay, I'll
put on the list. So we cover movies that aren't Deep Bluecy adjacent totally,
but we just talk about the water moments. That's a lot of fun.
This moment there you go it, Yeah, I mean that that is
the most DEPC adjacent scene in this film of the you know, they're structing
to the guy's gonna drown, that everything's gonna explode. It's it's very deep,
busy moment in the waters. But actually we haven't had we haven't got
your guys thoughts on on Deep Blue Sea. This is your first time on
this show. It's kind of tradition that when new guests come on, they
tell us what do you guys think of this perfect film? I haven't seen
Deep Lucy and Forever dude, So yes, I'm sorry. I don't watch
it scene by scene every time. I'm too busy watching Fast and the Furious
scene by scene every time. So no worries. Well, it's fair trade
off if you want to watch it again and refresh yourself and come back on
and give it your thoughts. I will. Well, But Jerry, what
about you, if you any any Deep Blue sy memories or are you in
the same boat. I mean, we had no offense to you. Ja.
We had Mark on nineteen ninety nine the podcast to talk about Deep bluecy
over there, and I think it's really good. I think it's really good.
I think it's very fun. He knows exactly what it is. It's
a blast watch. I'm sure it was a blast has to make. The
titular song, even it's not really the same name in the movie, is
an all time classic. I love it. I think it's great. I
think it's I think it's exactly the right kind of movie to base an entire
podcast and pod podcast franchise around. Thank you. We have had guests don't
like the film. Oh so it's it's it's fine, Like yeah, it's
okay, it's okay, Like come, it's not everyone's cup of tea.
I get it. It's some people don't like Corrod that like most of the
movies. That's fine. But the fact that you do like it, Joey
perfect. I'm just gonna assume that it's when Joe rewatched it, it will
become his new favorite film, I think, So, I mean there's you
know, it's it's a weird thing about the podcast, like nineteen ninety nine,
the podcast, where it's like we're watching so many different kinds of movies,
like for them for the most I mean, I try to mix things
up a little bit on cheap As, but for the most part, watching
similar ish kind of movies in nineteen and nine is like so scattered to the
point where like it doesn't really always make sense or work or jive or whatever.
But there are movies that I think, like Blue Sea Wearing, you
know, cut in between prestige movies or Blockbuster or whatever, it is like
work really well. And I also like there's a movie Bats from that year
that I really really love that's very I think spiritually similar about like Killer Bats,
which I think is just like great, just it's nice to mix things
up a little bit because I think that like nineteen ninety nine was obviously a
very interesting time, a lot of good movies, a lot of weird movies,
very you know, right before nine eleven, right before the millennium,
so on and so forth. But like deep Blue C's just fun. Man,
Like I don't I don't know, like I don't know how I call
it like good, but I really like it. And who cares, Like
that's that's I mean, it's I was, It's not good, but it's
perfect, you know what I mean? Some enemies today. So I just
I just added Bats to the evig rig spreadsheet of films to cover on this
show eventually, because we have you expended to creature pitches. Yeah, Jake,
have you seen do you like the X Files? I have never seen
an episode of the xpos. Oh well, this basically feels like an extended
version of the X Files, like an extended episode the X Files. And
I think Bats is a blast, Like it's like eighty five minutes long.
It's super cool. So this is why I like doing these deeply see adjacent
films that we're covering because it also a lot of them are similar. Get
we get a lot of shop films, sort of films set underwater, but
occasionally we get films like Driven, which is nothing at all, like deeply
or very little, And we've covered like Lifeboat, a very different film to
deep Sea, but it's so on the water, so accounts so like,
I'd like the variety that I can grow bar into it being similar to Deep
See in some way. Well, at least y'all got to learn about franchise.
That was the best part of my day. Honestly, it really was.
This movie was great, but learning about franchise pictures is what's set me
over the top. Thank you. When I saw Jay's score on Letterbox,
I was like, Okay, I need to go franchise pictures on this,
I mean, And then I watched it again. I was like, you
know what, I watched all the deleted scenes either want to watch with Stallone's
commentary to be beat even touched on today. But you know, you know
what the biggest bummer of this movie is so Estella Warren hadn't acted much,
so that scene where she's getting broken up with by til Schweiger. Harlan actually
made her cry on set by being mean to work. Yeah, and he
was like really mean to her on set and then he's like, I hated
doing it. But later on she came up to me and said that was
great. I'm like, I don't know already, that's a I don't know,
you don't don't don't be yelling at Canadian synchronized swimmers. He admits to
that himself in his own commentary. So I feel like it's maybe not that
bad or he's I don't know. I've also that they like the scenes in
Tokyo didn't get any permits. That's all shot Corona style, just like Get
Out of the Van film stuff, give back in very Tokyo. Drift of
that that's fun. Yeah, And Memo was a Chilean firefighter and pilot like
the Duds. The dude's a legit guy. Like, I like Memo.
The scene was like, yeah, I'll take off my ring, Like I
liked him in that, Like that was a cute moment. There was a
moment that was a very cute. Yeah, Like I love like he he
played dumb enough to not have me stealing your ex wife be ten like a
source of tension between me and you, you know, and when it really
should be. But like if you saw this guy and like he starts acting
like this, he'd be like, it's not his fault, it's her fault.
Don't worry about it, you know, Like because that comes straight it's
adorable because straight off the terrible dialogue Mark and like hate this kind of thing
where but reynolds a sense of slone ah that ex wife of yours piece of
work divorces you and marries another driver. Everyone in that scene knows what's happening.
But so we didn't meet just after that, and you're expecting, like
he's going to be another He's going to be the male equivalent of Gina Gershon.
He's gonna be this terrible guys, always lording it over, but he's
a nice guys. Yes, he gets possibly paralyzed unclear in the explosion,
never confirmed. I would like to just imagine if he breaks out of the
hospital like The Rock does with his cast. That's it's like one day he
just like like stands up and it's just like yep, I'm good. In
the whole hospital just crumbles around him. Yeah, get it memo. And
then that scene where the lady goes up to ChIL Schweiger and she's like if
I kiss every driver and he doesn't let her. She's like one of the
most popular German pop stars on the planet and she was just there that day.
So yeah, so that whole bit came up on the day. I
like that one that shows some personality from him. Yeah, Jay any other
things that you learn from these scenes that you wanted to talk about, Like
Stallone's such a smart guy. He has been making like he keeps coming back
right, Like he seventies, he wins an Oscar, eighties, he had
giant hits, nineties, giant hits, and then his career goes into down
like isn't doing great, But then he pops up with Rocky, Rocky Balboa
and Rambo, and then he pops up with the Expendables and then he's in
Creed. Like this is a guy who I think he's just such a smart
man, Like I think he really understands characters, he knows how to write,
and he's been staying relevant in the End of Street since the seventies,
like he's and I actually love hearing him talk like he does it. And
I listened to it in an hour and a half of him talking about editing
the Rocky four directors cut, Like I just love listening to Stallone talk and
the way he talks about characters. So you know, I know, Jay,
you had to listen to it, but I like, really I like
getting into Stallone's headspace, Like I really like learning from him. Yeah,
he's not a guy that I've really like valued or praise much in the past.
He's got some films. I really like Daylight, deminition Man put my
favorite films, but I've never really listened to him speaking as himself, and
so listening to his commentary on those fifty minutes of deleted scenes, it was
really like, hell, he actually he knows. He's like, he's a
smart guy. He like if you just take it as like, oh,
yeah he wrote driven, you're gonna come off at the thinking maybe he's not
a smart guy. But for listening to him talk about it, there is
a lot a lot more going on, and I thought I'd like to apologize
to this guy. I know he's he's listening right now for doubting him and
the bus. You're welcome to come on the show, sir. We'll talk
about Daylight with it. I loved him, but just he's not He was
very careful with how he spoke in acumentary because he's not saying things against Ronny
Harland for cutting him out of these scenes. He's praising everybody else. Yeah,
he like plays his all the cars and what else? Who watch in
the film never mentions Ronnie Harland's name at all. In that the guy who
cut him out of this film. Essentially, Yeah, so I feel like
there is a coin of this film where he is the star. It's it's
the Joe Tanto story featuring Jimmy a little bit of the side espeically Rocky five
with cars, But that's what he wanted, right, This was Rocky with
cart cars. Yeah, I don't know, that's that's that's all I wanted
to this one, Oh, Joey. Any any other thoughts on Driven?
Do we think if there's German Hawaiian tropic girls, because that just doesn't feel
appropriate, Like, I can't imagine German being I doubt there's any Hawaiian Hawaiian
that's true. But I was like, specifically in Germany, I was like,
that doesn't seem like a place it's that sunny, so like I don't
get why they have these like tan chicks there. But and also as someone
who who watches a lot of racing at F one and stuff like that,
one of my favorite parts of this movie is that the drivers have comms to
each other while driving, and your wife, like your ex wife, does
get on your comms as well if she wants, Like, there's not a
designated person that's just talking to you while you're driving. You could just kind
of just like you know, walkie talkie into whoever, like drop in breakout
room situation and just go and talk to whoever you want. In the middle
of the race, did Jill you want tacos? Later? Get off the
cars? Do you know what Estella Warren's role was at the race track,
because like she's initially with bro break up and then she's before she then like
his friends with well, no, she's still there Jay. She explicitly says
towards the end of the movie what her role is. She's there to get
blamed if he loses. Oh how did she does not paywell the dental No,
it's a horrible job to have. But he's like, he's like,
it's you're faulted by lou. She's like, that's what I'm here for.
Like it's it's almost I think for abating like that. I'm like, this
is a terrible thing to talk about. I'm Sofia, that's your problem.
I think I thought he was joke because he dumped her because he wanted to
have like no nothing in his way to get to the top. And then
he drives better, but they never Yeah, and then he and then and
then Joe only wants him to take her back because she's hanging out with the
driver and he can't focus on himself. So they're sort of just bouncing for
Estella war end and back with with By at the end. I just not
win that race. Yeah, she's like a bad one and her broad broad
swimmer shoulders. Hey, j So how Deep and Blue is it? Okay?
Well, first off, how is this film similar Deep Blue Sea?
I have a list. If my connection fails during this, I apologize.
I'm just going to keep in lots of communicating over the radio. They talk
about a mountain catastrophe because Reynolds says he wants someone he's been up to the
mountain and formidably down, so like that it counted. I guess there's a
dance party. Sofia swims at one point and it's synchronized swimming. Likes the
music video. Actually, she has a feet straight up in the air,
like the dead guy from Tangle from Tentacles recently as a helicopter briefly, the
antagonist Bow is a cold, emotionless monster in Something. Some of these are
very tenure. There are shots looking up from underwater. It just happens to
be in a stink, but it still counts. There is a there's an
incoming storm at the German Race, which I worked out because the German race
for the Geman word is winter storm, which I translated beet winter storm.
There are Formula one results on a newspaper, just like at the the second
scene in Deep Blue Sea when doctor Susan McAllister is talking to Sam Jackson,
there's a newspaper with the headline of like hacking and wins or something hacking and
one of the few racists not in this book, but there were they.
In the rain, people spin out or fall over because it happens in Indepucy
a vehicle explodes in water. They drag him out across the water's safety.
They worked the save a guy. There's blurry point of view shots which in
this moment from Driving and Indepoca from the Shark, and there's Renny Harlan cameo.
He plays a replacement driver in that scene where Kit Potty has to hop
up and down on his broken leg. I Renny Harland's in the background and
the replacement driver similarities seen this one in DBC but how deep and how blue
is this film? As your as you to a less familiar deepacy, you
may not remember that Deepnesse is of approximately fourteen and a half meters or fourty
seven and a half feet and thirty one percent blue. So when I went
when I went through Deep to See, I kind of worked out how blue
it was every given point during the film and now Deep the action was roughly
taking place, and worked out that average. Do you think Driven is deeper
and all bluer than Deep Blue seat the question for the ages, No,
even with the rain and the blue cars, I don't think that the rain
adds up enough to be deeper and bluer Thue. You are correct. This
is the only scenes that take place at any kind of depth are when Sophia
swimming, and even then it's like minus a little bit. And there are
some scenes up in a plane. So the average depth is three point one
seven meters up in the air. Will ten and a half feet up in
the air even if the cars are low? Yeah? Can I ask you
a question? She gets a pool on the top of a hotel, is
that deeper if they go underwater? If they go underwater, I count it
as depths. If they get out of the water, it counts. As
I was thinking some of the tracks might be under sea level two, you
know what I mean. So I was wondering if you factored in the tracks
like the sea level of the tracks. I don't factor in sea level because
I will lose my mind. Fact So it's basically, if they're on land,
I count as a meter up in the air. Fair That's just kind
of my base rule. But if they go like upper mountain, like in
Cliffhanger, then I factor that in. There's some scenes in twelve Rounds when
they're on top of a building, I fack that in. When they're up
in the the stadium when slowed until a try having the conversation, I can
factor that in. But if they're on the ground, it's plus one.
Otherwise I'm here for all day doing this. Never blue us. This works
out being about seven point two percent blue. It's not terrible. There's some
shots of sky, there's some blue pas, blue uniforms and things, but
it's not it's not very blue. In terms of our ranking. That means
that this is our fifty eight deepest shallowest, fifty eighth shallowest film and also
fifty eighth bluest it's time both. So this is deeper than Triangle, less
deep than Muppet Treasure Island, blue other than deep water, and less blue
than The Misfits. There any hard of the film The Misfits, so not
terribly deep, not terribly black, not a great showing Triangle and Muppets Treasure
Island in the same sentence. I don't know if that's ever been like.
This is right between those two films. It's a it's a beautiful list deep
wad you guys? Do you did the ben Affleck Deep Water? Different ones,
the ben Affleck and dalist one. It sounded like it was gonna be
more deep Jason, and actually was. No. I love that movie.
That movie. I want the directors kind of that movie Real bad Man and
Man. Yeah, that's that's a film. That's movie many snails. All
right, great, where can we find you? Guys? We're the Joe
and Joey Wait, Joey, Joe and Joe too or Joe and Joey.
You can do you either call us both Joe or both Jewey. It doesn't
make any sense to me, but that's just how you do it. It's
okay, Okay, where can we find y'all? Joe hit him with it?
You find us pretty much everywhere at Too Fast, Too Forever with the
number two Twitter, Instagram, Uh, find the main website, Go Bigger,
Go broader? What do we do? Who are we? What do
we do? Every child? Yeah? Every Tuesday we record a podcast.
It's sometimes Twitter. Sorry, it's it's about the Fast of the Furious movies
where we watch them in a loop over and over and over again until we
go bensane and which has happened yet? And then you know, hasn't it?
We cut in some other movies, usually about cars, usually about people
that are in the Fast and the Furious, like you know, kind of
stuff like this adjacent tangential. So you can find us there every Tuesday and
at Cage Club dot me. So I was on recently one of the Fast
and Furious, the fourth one, And then since then you've had a listener
write in saying that that they thought the same way that I do. Have
you sent this person? Help? Oh? I need? Are they okay?
I need? I would assume that they listened to that and liked me
for some reasons. They may have come here. So if you're out there.
It's like, are you okay? Oh yeah? This was this was
West writing in because you had an idea about new ways for us to watch
the movies, and you said, watch him alphabetically, and then you spent
a long time trying to figure out how that would work. And then West
spent even more time trying to figure how that would work. And then I
got all excited. I'm like, I'm gonna read this because these are new
rankings. I'm like, they're not new rankings, They're just him doing alphabet
at you know, the whole email potation outization of the fast serious with a
bunch of rules that were some use, some not made up. Who knows,
but yeah, I hope, I hope he knows. He knows he
needs help with like that. So it's it's good he's he's very open to
it. So, you know, shout out to West. Where's I got
a daughter? I have a daughter? About the busting Mallory, come on,
name girl, don't we have some plucks? A small look at her?
Hey, Mallorie, you can't hear me? Yeah, don't go ahead,
phone in, Mark, put a put a headphone in a ear.
I just waved at my camera that's turned off. Hi Hi Mallari, Hi
Mallari, say hi, say hi Mallary. Hello him so happy, so
much hair. She just busted at the door. He played with this right
on, right on that. Mallory will be a guest. She's almost two,
so she'll be on two fasts year old on SI in about sixteen years.
She'll do it too fast too. No, I thought you were saying
when she turns too we have a two fast too, Mallory. Ah,
So that's what you should have her on before she turns to because then she's
one to cover the first one, then she turns to cover the second one,
and do once a year. That's a good idea. One year olds.
Then what do you consider? She has no knees? All right,
every fruit, every new mark. Do you have any plugs? Yeah,
movie SOMs of flicks. And I got some fun articles coming out. I
don't want to jinx it yet, but I got two big articles coming out
in September October. I got some fun I have a fandom video about the
boys coming out in the biggest franchise by the numbers. Yeah, I'll keep
you updated when the articles are released. Nice and that the arschool link you
sent me earlier to the New York Times. Didn't work when I try to
open it, so instead I found this great piece written by Mark Utmer Moves
all the Flix one franchise film so I read that instead, So listen,
good find and you can find my writing at lifeasts film dot com. And
that's about it. Follow this podcast on all social media at deep Blue seapod
email as deep We see pot at gmail dot com. If you have any
recommendations for other films well scenes, we could cover any on any upcoming episode.
As for today, As for Driven, thank you once again to our
guests from Too Fast, Too Forever, Joe Dwandowski and Joe too thanks for
having us. Thank you goodbye, I've been Jake Blewitt m that's Mark them.
We'll deep Blue see you next week. Can