Speaker 1: Sss ssss sss.
Speaker 2: Welcome back midnight viewers to Fuseco fest. Oh man, it's
Speaker 2: been a minute, but now we're back. We're back in it,
Speaker 2: and I can't do it alone. I can't talk about
Speaker 2: John Fusco by myself. I need HP to do it
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 3: You just go fest this back, father Malone. I'm so excited.
Speaker 3: What are we digging into today?
Speaker 2: It's like spring break, man. I just want to fucking
Speaker 2: run around and drink beer from funnels and ride horses.
Speaker 2: That would be appropriate. What are we watching today? My
Speaker 2: god Man from March the fifth, two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: that was the release date, directed by Joe Johnston, written
Speaker 2: by John Fusco, starring Vigo Mortenson. Oh marsha reef, motherfuckers,
Speaker 2: this is Hidalgo.
Speaker 4: My father was a cowboy scout and you fell in
Speaker 4: love with the chief's daughter, Mariner. I was never really
Speaker 4: sure where I'm a Sometimes I think the only one
Speaker 4: I can count on, I said, though I've done me
Speaker 4: proud partner.
Speaker 5: Frank Hopkins and cauld all go or legends they've never
Speaker 5: lost a long distance race. Perhaps you have never heard
Speaker 5: of the Great Ocean of Fire, a three thousand mile
Speaker 5: race across the Arabian Desert.
Speaker 4: Were betting on the last American cowboy. You think we
Speaker 4: got one more on us.
Speaker 3: I'm greatly pleased that you've accepted my challenge.
Speaker 2: What breed is your study?
Speaker 5: Mustang? Mustang?
Speaker 6: Also the ready Indiet small mixed blood.
Speaker 5: Mixed mustangs don't belong in races with thoroughbreds.
Speaker 6: You can say that you are about me. I'm do
Speaker 6: have to.
Speaker 5: Ask you not to talk about my horse.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should give you a headstuff.
Speaker 4: I'm not here to insult anybody, sir, of course.
Speaker 5: Ms the race touchtone pictures presents Your horse is too small,
Speaker 5: This land is too dangerous.
Speaker 6: You are gambling with your very life.
Speaker 5: The incredible true story of a man who went halfway
Speaker 5: around the world to find himself. The Indians of the West.
Speaker 5: Have you seen their vanishing kind, armor, kind and the
Speaker 5: friendship that inspired a legend?
Speaker 6: And I'll go is the one who believes in you?
Speaker 6: Can you believe in yourself? Little wouldn't send.
Speaker 2: I didn't get you into this, You got me into it.
Speaker 1: HP.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was this your first experience with Hidalgo?
Speaker 3: This was the first time I saw it. In fact,
Speaker 3: I was in my mind. I thought this was a
Speaker 3: movie from the mid to late nineties. It had that
Speaker 3: feel to it. Maybe part of it is seeing that
Speaker 3: good old Touchstone Pictures logo at the beginning kind of
Speaker 3: put me in the mind of that. But yeah, this
Speaker 3: was my first I was surprised that this came out
Speaker 3: after Lord of the Rings, after Vigo Mortensen's star making
Speaker 3: turn as Aragorn. So I was shocked. I was shocked
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways, as we'll talk about. But yeah,
Speaker 3: this was my first time.
Speaker 2: I was a movie theater projectionist who showed this movie
Speaker 2: back in the day, back in two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: That's I was already in Las Vegas. So I was
Speaker 2: showing it at over at the Orleans back in the day,
Speaker 2: and because of that, I was convinced I had seen
Speaker 2: the movie. I had never seen this fucking movie. I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe I had never seen this movie. And now
Speaker 2: I remember building it up. I remember checking the cues
Speaker 2: and that the reels were all cut together, that the
Speaker 2: image looked good. I must have been really busy and
Speaker 2: not sitting in the theater watching it, and probably had
Speaker 2: a lot of prints to watch in one night and
Speaker 2: chose something else. Given that Iron Man came out the
Speaker 2: same weekend. I'm guessing I was paying attention to Iron Man.
Speaker 3: I'm really shocked. I thought for sure that this was
Speaker 3: something you'd seen forever ago.
Speaker 2: No, and shame on me, but I'm glad to have
Speaker 2: seen it for this And what was the story on
Speaker 2: this one? HP was the story of Hidalgo.
Speaker 3: So the story of Hidalgo father alone is an interesting
Speaker 3: one now here. As I recall, Disney got into a
Speaker 3: little bit of hot water about how they marketed this movie.
Speaker 3: This movie was marketed as being based on a true story,
Speaker 3: and I think technically that's true. That there was a
Speaker 3: named Frank Hopkins who was a long distance Mustang rider
Speaker 3: in the I guess it would be the eighteen hundreds, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: and he I think he performed in Buffalo Bill Cody's
Speaker 3: Wild West Show. Anyway, he was known as being like
Speaker 3: the king of the long distance marathon horse ride. And
Speaker 3: in the movie, A a sultant a chic takes a
Speaker 3: front at this this guy who races on a Mustang,
Speaker 3: which isn't considered a very regal or what's the word,
Speaker 3: I'm looking for, a very It didn't have the breeding
Speaker 3: that the stallions and Africa had, so he is recruited
Speaker 3: to race in this brutal cross consonant race. It goes
Speaker 3: through Iran and Iraq and the winner gets one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. But this is a race that not many
Speaker 3: people survive. I think dozens and dozens of people don't
Speaker 3: make it because you're crossing desert after desert there.
Speaker 2: Are it's three thousand miles. It's three thousand miles on
Speaker 2: horseback through the most inhospitable territory you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 2: This is a desert race. The race itself is called
Speaker 2: the Ocean of Fire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sh of Fire. See. The problem though, is that
Speaker 3: very little of this is verifiable in real life. There's
Speaker 3: from what I gathered, there's precious little evidence that Frank
Speaker 3: Hopkins actually did. I don't even think this race truthfully
Speaker 3: actually existed. It did.
Speaker 2: They just didn't have a fanciful name for it.
Speaker 3: They didn't have a name for it. But the I
Speaker 3: think part of what doomed this movie originally, and maybe
Speaker 3: part of the reason why I wasn't that enthused at
Speaker 3: the time, was because there was such a backlash against
Speaker 3: this movie. I don't know if you recall for them
Speaker 3: alone but it was almost immediately slammed as how could
Speaker 3: you say this is based on a true story. This guy,
Speaker 3: Frank Hopkins was nothing but a charlatan or somebody who
Speaker 3: made up all of these things like a Baron Munchausen
Speaker 3: type of deal. These are tall tales, Jesus.
Speaker 2: I would invite everyone to watch any biographical pick from
Speaker 2: Time immemorial. Go back and watch Yankee Doodle Dandy and
Speaker 2: tell me how much of that was true? You morons?
Speaker 3: Well, I think if the Internet existed back then, they
Speaker 3: probably would have been debating the merits of Yankee Doodle
Speaker 3: Dandy excellent.
Speaker 6: I do you know?
Speaker 3: I know that that The backlash was so fierce that
Speaker 3: years later, John Fusco himself created a website, or at
Speaker 3: least contributed to a website which aimed to clap back
Speaker 3: at all of those people who said that it wasn't true.
Speaker 3: He had interviews with people who actually knew Frank Hopkins,
Speaker 3: and what is not what is not in dispute, is
Speaker 3: that the man was an incredible advocate for the much
Speaker 3: as John Fusco is, and he did do a lot
Speaker 3: of these horse races. He was known as a stellar
Speaker 3: long distance rider. Anyway, that's the plot of the movie.
Speaker 3: He's kind of recruited to do this hazardous three thousand
Speaker 3: mile race across the desert in Africa.
Speaker 2: Yeah see, I thought, I know that. I never saw
Speaker 2: the movie before because in my mind this was a
Speaker 2: movie about a guy who enters a camel race with
Speaker 2: a horse. I could not be more off the fact
Speaker 2: that these were all horses racing. I was like, I
Speaker 2: was stunned. I was like, where are the camels? I
Speaker 2: remember this having camels. Maybe there is a movie out
Speaker 2: there about a horse racing and a camel race that
Speaker 2: I've confused with Hidalgo. But yes, HP, I do remember
Speaker 2: all the controversy at the time, and who gives a shit?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? This is based on I agree
Speaker 2: with the I agree that if Disney were pushing that narrative, though,
Speaker 2: fuck them, like they should not have. Just how about
Speaker 2: come see this movie, Hidalgo. It's a rip roaring adventure
Speaker 2: in a traditional style, Like why does everything have to
Speaker 2: be based on something else? You notice the nineties were
Speaker 2: sort of lousy with that, particularly the late nineties. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's bled into two thousand and four. This movie comes
Speaker 2: out where everything has to be based on true events.
Speaker 3: I will go ahead and quote Roger Ebert's review of
Speaker 3: the movie, and I think this he's speaking for all
Speaker 3: of us spotting alone. The final line of his review is,
Speaker 3: and please ignore any tiresome scolds who complain that the
Speaker 3: movie is not really based on fact. Duh, And that's it.
Speaker 3: I basically he's doing the William Shatner Get a Life
Speaker 3: with You people, because it's beside the point. Is the
Speaker 3: movie fun? Did it transport you? Was it exciting? Was
Speaker 3: it action packed? Real? Frankly, I don't care about the rest,
Speaker 3: because anybody who believes that this is a word for
Speaker 3: word retelling of the man's life in accurate detail is
Speaker 3: fooling themselves or setting themselves up for a disappointment or worse.
Speaker 2: What's to think of the movie?
Speaker 3: I liked it. I liked it. I having said that,
Speaker 3: I don't I didn't think it was a perfect movie
Speaker 3: by any means that there were issues that I had
Speaker 3: with it, but overall I really liked it. I kind
Speaker 3: of wish there was more of the horse racing that
Speaker 3: gets a little derailed in the middle third of the movie,
Speaker 3: but look, it's Joe Johnston Number one. I love and
Speaker 3: I know you do. I love Joe Johnston. We're talking
Speaker 3: the Rockets here, We're talking Captain America. This guy knows
Speaker 3: how to shoot an old timey film serial.
Speaker 2: I think, oh my god, y absolutely, if you want
Speaker 2: something nostalgic, call Joe Johnson, because not only is he
Speaker 2: going to give you the nostalgia, he's gonna do it stylishly. HP.
Speaker 2: In the run up to watching this movie for this podcast,
Speaker 2: I actually avoided any information. I mean, I knew John
Speaker 2: Fusco wrote it. I knew Vigo is starring in it,
Speaker 2: and Amarsha Reef is in it, and I knew the
Speaker 2: basics of the plot and everything, but the actual minutia
Speaker 2: of who made the movie I didn't know. And there
Speaker 2: are no credits at the beginning. So I found myself
Speaker 2: over and over again thinking who fucking directed this? This
Speaker 2: is really solid, especially considering some of the other movies
Speaker 2: just here in Fuscofest we we saw The Babe, and
Speaker 2: that I thought was like, is the diametric opposite of
Speaker 2: this movie as far as shooting a movie as a
Speaker 2: period piece and making it look gorgeous as opposed to
Speaker 2: just we're wearing costumes on our freshly painted sets. This
Speaker 2: movie not only looks lived in, not only is just
Speaker 2: well acted and all of that kind of stuff, but
Speaker 2: there were a shot after shot that is just gorgeous.
Speaker 2: You never see a movie like this. You're never going
Speaker 2: to see a movie like this again. As a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, I agree.
Speaker 3: The vibe I got from it. Not to make a
Speaker 3: direct comparison, but it felt at times like Raiders of
Speaker 3: Lost Arc the original Raiders, because it really is at
Speaker 3: times a real swashbuckling type of adventure, which I really
Speaker 3: liked about it, and I think Joe Johnston placed with
Speaker 3: strengths there.
Speaker 2: Not only that as far as the sort of this
Speaker 2: movie delivering what you're not expecting, because I did get
Speaker 2: that vibe a lot the writers of Lost Arc vibe
Speaker 2: anytime it gets into a sort of rip rower and
Speaker 2: action adventury kind of situation. It Look, you know, Joe
Speaker 2: Johnson did Jumanji as well, so that's if you know
Speaker 2: he did The Rocketeer like this is, that's who we're
Speaker 2: talking about. If you haven't seen Hidalgo, so you know
Speaker 2: that he can sort of deliver it in that regard.
Speaker 2: But I've forgotten what on my point was what we were saying.
Speaker 3: We're we talk about Joe Johnston and how he how
Speaker 3: he delivers on a lot of different levels.
Speaker 2: Oh ok, yeah, not only that, So not only is
Speaker 2: Joe Johnson doing that, and well he's delivering what he
Speaker 2: always does. But this script was constantly defying my expectations. Man,
Speaker 2: this script is a lot of story. This is a
Speaker 2: two hour and fifteen minute movie, and I honestly did
Speaker 2: not feel it first of all, which is the hallmark
Speaker 2: of any good movie when you don't know the passage
Speaker 2: of time and it's freighted with a lot of emotion. Man,
Speaker 2: like the opening of this movie, now we said it
Speaker 2: like you kind of painted it in broad strokes. But
Speaker 2: like Frank Hopkins at the beginning of this film is
Speaker 2: a effectively a pony express rider who is running dispatches
Speaker 2: for the US military. So what they've said or Fusco
Speaker 2: has set him up here as the guy who has
Speaker 2: delivered the message to the seventh Cavalry Regiment to eliminate
Speaker 2: all of the Indigenous Lakota Sioux at the Wounded Knee massacre.
Speaker 2: He's the guy who delivered the message. It's basically like
Speaker 2: he's the fucking bombadier of the Anola.
Speaker 3: Gay exactly, but it's also freighted with the idea that
Speaker 3: he is much like we talked about Thunderheart previously, he
Speaker 3: is all you find out that he is also half
Speaker 3: Native American himself. So after having done this horrible thing,
Speaker 3: you know, unwittingly done this horrible thing, he's then saddled
Speaker 3: with all that guilt of what did he do to
Speaker 3: these people because he knew, Like he goes to the
Speaker 3: encampment where the cavalry is there and just waiting tensely
Speaker 3: and watching what these Native Americans are doing, and the
Speaker 3: Native Americans are doing like a tribal dance, and it's
Speaker 3: got them all on edge because they feel like this
Speaker 3: is going to lead to some kind of big uprising.
Speaker 3: They're just waiting, they're itching for something to happen here.
Speaker 3: And because he is familiar with the culture, when he
Speaker 3: gets there, the first thing he says is, though, if
Speaker 3: they're not preparing for war, this is a ghost dance,
Speaker 3: This is not this is nothing to be worried about.
Speaker 3: He knows that they're not a threat. But because he's
Speaker 3: delivered these orders and because of the has depicted in
Speaker 3: the movie, there's a misunderstanding with there's a Native American,
Speaker 3: a young Native American man who won't give up his
Speaker 3: gun when he's told to because you find out that
Speaker 3: he's deaf, and that kicks off like the powder keg
Speaker 3: of all. By the way, this is the first of many,
Speaker 3: if you'll indulge me in any interesting side notes. The
Speaker 3: Native American who doesn't give up his rifle, This deaf
Speaker 3: Native American.
Speaker 2: Good looking guy who is a good looking guy.
Speaker 3: The actor's name is David mid Thunder, which I'm sure
Speaker 3: will be familiar to you father alone, because he is
Speaker 3: Amber mid Thunder's father. Amber mid Thunder, of course, the
Speaker 3: badass Naarou in the incredible movie Prey, the Predator sequel
Speaker 3: that basically redefined the series. Isn't that cool?
Speaker 2: It's a fucking dynasty. I love it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The second I saw his name and his surname,
Speaker 3: I said, I wonder if he's related to Amber mid Thunder,
Speaker 3: And sure enough, he's her father.
Speaker 2: I thought that was the Barrymore's, the Arquettes, the mid Thunders.
Speaker 3: Indeed, where were we?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, listen that Fusco was able to sort
Speaker 2: of sneak in the Wounded Knee massacre in what is
Speaker 2: promised to be just a rollicking, old fashioned adventure across
Speaker 2: the desert is remarkable. And not only that he then
Speaker 2: follows it up with not only the character is now
Speaker 2: broken drunken period that he needs to be pulled out
Speaker 2: of that's sort of typical of any story like this,
Speaker 2: but he puts him in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West
Speaker 2: show enacting the Wounded Knee massacre. Holy God, it's like
Speaker 2: he's doing penance every night.
Speaker 3: I love that. First of all, we have to mention
Speaker 3: obviously that JK. Simmons is playing Buffalo Bill Cody. I
Speaker 3: didn't know that he was in this movie either, and
Speaker 3: I said, this is every new little tidbit that I'm watching,
Speaker 3: I'm going I love this fucking movie even more and more.
Speaker 3: But the way that that is depicted and written that
Speaker 3: like you said, he's doing penance every single night, and
Speaker 3: the way that they're being very even handed. They're showing
Speaker 3: how incredibly brutal and prejudicial and all of this that
Speaker 3: these Wild West shows are and depicting that the Native Americans,
Speaker 3: but they're kind of showing the other side of it
Speaker 3: that Buffalo Bill is actually like the chief who's acting
Speaker 3: in these shows who gets abused every time because he
Speaker 3: comes out basically symbolically to broker a treaty with the
Speaker 3: cavalry after wounded knee, and the crowd are throwing trash
Speaker 3: at him and booing him at every turn. The actor
Speaker 3: is tremendous. I don't have the actor's name here who
Speaker 3: plays this chief, but you see the other side of
Speaker 3: it where then the chief has to go and ask
Speaker 3: Buffalo Bill for help because he needs money and he's
Speaker 3: trying to help or save these mustangs that are going
Speaker 3: to be killed. I loved the even handed approach to
Speaker 3: because this is a two thousand and four movie. I
Speaker 3: didn't know to expect as far as how sensitive they're
Speaker 3: going to be towards the plight of the Native American.
Speaker 2: That was Floyd Red Crow Westerman.
Speaker 3: By the way, as from the Doors, he was the
Speaker 3: shaman in the.
Speaker 2: Doors, He absolutely was. He was. Yeah, he was the
Speaker 2: great Okay, yeah, so that was him. Also in I
Speaker 2: agree Buffalo Bill Cody's being performed by JK. Simmons. Is
Speaker 2: there never a role or is there ever a time
Speaker 2: when JK. Simmons shows up in a role where you
Speaker 2: don't immediately think, oh, perfect.
Speaker 3: He's amazing, and I just the fact. I mean, I
Speaker 3: know he was in OZ. I didn't watch OZ, but
Speaker 3: I know that was his big star making role. That
Speaker 3: must have already been what that was probably the early
Speaker 3: two thousands also, But frankly, I wasn't that aware of him.
Speaker 2: I was the nineties. He was already j Jonah Jamison
Speaker 2: by now.
Speaker 3: Oh Spider Man, of course, but it's just I was
Speaker 3: so because he's now, He's JK. Simmons. He's a big deal,
Speaker 3: so to speak. So it was really a delight to
Speaker 3: see him and others in this movie. But you're right,
Speaker 3: he just brings so much to every role. He's fantastic,
Speaker 3: whether it's something more sinister or someone more open hearted,
Speaker 3: he can do it all.
Speaker 2: I want to say that before we move on past
Speaker 2: the opening scene, because this is just all sort of
Speaker 2: prologue to the actual race. But playing Annie Oakley here
Speaker 2: was Elizabeth Barridge, who if eagle eye viewers would recognize
Speaker 2: her as Costanza or Stanzi from Amadeus, which he's so
Speaker 2: young and adorable in, and then she ended up as
Speaker 2: that girl on Night Court, you know, the bailiff, the
Speaker 2: bailiff with bull, the sort of pinched face kind of girl.
Speaker 3: Wow. Wow, I didn't put that together. That's amazing. The
Speaker 3: original Night Court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was Elizabeth Barridge. Geez, what happened to Elizabeth Barrett?
Speaker 2: She was fucking I don't know, man.
Speaker 3: And she's really good in this.
Speaker 2: She's gray here.
Speaker 3: She's not in it a ton. This is, as you said,
Speaker 3: this is all prologue to getting us to the race.
Speaker 3: But everybody up to this point, even somebody who's in
Speaker 3: it just a little bit like her, it's fantastic. They
Speaker 3: this movie is just stocked with great character actors.
Speaker 2: Now, speaking of prologue and character actors. Before we even
Speaker 2: got here, before we get to Wounded Me, we're introduced
Speaker 2: to Frank Hopkins in a race where he's racing a
Speaker 2: particular dandy I love this by the name of Preston Webb,
Speaker 2: that's the character's name. Who's all you know, a spit
Speaker 2: and polish and how dare you say? Your mixed race?
Speaker 2: Hoss played by c Thomas Howell.
Speaker 3: He's where did he come from?
Speaker 2: Where you see? Where did he come from? He's grained here.
Speaker 2: It's so jarring that he's here that I thought, clearly
Speaker 2: he's going to be in the rest of the movie. No,
Speaker 2: that's the one scene.
Speaker 3: I had the same reaction because it's essentially like a
Speaker 3: glorified cameo. He only has maybe two lines and a
Speaker 3: little bit of a dust up in a bar with
Speaker 3: Frank Hopkins where he gets his ass kicked, basically, but
Speaker 3: that's it. But it made me think, is there a connection?
Speaker 3: Is there some did he work with Joe Johnson or
Speaker 3: somebody else previously? And this was like his hey little cameo,
Speaker 3: a thing to like from one buddy to another. I
Speaker 3: couldn't think of it, but I thought it was awesome
Speaker 3: that he because who thinks of c Thomas Howell anymore,
Speaker 3: let alone twenty one years ago thereabouts.
Speaker 2: Oh, come on a couple of years from from this,
Speaker 2: he would be helping Spider Man in The Amazing Spider Man.
Speaker 3: I just I was delighted because, like you grew up
Speaker 3: with so many movies that he was in The Outsiders
Speaker 3: obviously that was the big one. So it was kind
Speaker 3: of it was jarring, and I had this the exact
Speaker 3: same reaction. I said, Okay, this is going to be
Speaker 3: one of Frank Hopkins antagonists. Nope, He's in it for
Speaker 3: about five minutes and he's gone onto the next adventure.
Speaker 2: Indeed. But and okay, so you mentioned it that this
Speaker 2: movie is predicated on a slight basically that the claim
Speaker 2: has gone out that Frank Hopkins horse is the fastest
Speaker 2: and longest distanced running horse in the world, and a
Speaker 2: chic around the world has taken umbrage with this and
Speaker 2: has invited him to join the race and prove it.
Speaker 2: Put up her shot up. Basically, it's one thousand dollars
Speaker 2: basically and a thousand silver coins with one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars perse so the all of the wild West show
Speaker 2: people one hundred of them or so. Pony up ten
Speaker 2: silver coins and off he goes, where he meets immediately
Speaker 2: Malcolm McDowell. Another shock. I was like, what he's uncredited
Speaker 2: in this?
Speaker 4: He does?
Speaker 3: He even have a credit for them.
Speaker 2: Alone as major devintort. Oh, hello, Vigo Mortenson, how are Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's my Malcolm mcdowald pression.
Speaker 3: It's very good.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 3: Well, So he's on the ship, he's en route to Africa,
Speaker 3: and some of the crew are taunting or basically taunting
Speaker 3: at his horse and haunting.
Speaker 2: They're like kind of giant stick and they're like menacing it,
Speaker 2: and they're all like ringed around the pen and like
Speaker 2: taunting it, like fucking swatting at it.
Speaker 3: Ah, they're poking him. And I will not stand for
Speaker 3: animal abuse of any kind. So I'm already on Hidalgo's
Speaker 3: side in a big way. But his so Major Davenport's wife,
Speaker 3: Lady Davenport, who becomes who figures very prominently in the
Speaker 3: main story, breaks up the fight, and that's how he
Speaker 3: ends up meeting Major Davenport, and they have a nice
Speaker 3: little tete a tet.
Speaker 2: They're horse traders, as it turns out, but they are
Speaker 2: competing in the race as well. And yeah, Lady Davenport,
Speaker 2: let's talk about Lady Davenport. Who's the actress. Let me
Speaker 2: find her name, Louise Lombard as Lady and the Davenport
Speaker 2: apparently was on CSI for a couple of years, the
Speaker 2: actual cs I, but that was the show I checked out,
Speaker 2: and as soon as William Peterson was gone, so was I.
Speaker 3: She looked exceedingly familiar to me, but I did not
Speaker 3: watch CSI, nor could I really associate any of her
Speaker 3: credits to something that I would have known her. She's
Speaker 3: very good in this, though, I will say, for somebody
Speaker 3: who has a bit of a hidden agenda, I think
Speaker 3: she plays it really well.
Speaker 2: Deceiver. You can tell she's a deceiver right from the beginning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, somebody anyone who wears as many veils and
Speaker 3: weird hat things that drape across her eyes. I think
Speaker 3: that's Joe Johnston signaling us without telling us that this
Speaker 3: person has a veiled agenda, so to speak.
Speaker 2: She has many secrets. Okay, Now, look, here's where we
Speaker 2: meet our other major star in the movie. Although we
Speaker 2: keep meeting major stars and like not to discount JK.
Speaker 2: Simmons and or C. Thomas Howe and or fucking well,
Speaker 2: we're talking about O Marsherive. He does dwarf. It's gone damned.
Speaker 3: Omar Sharif, Oh yeah, I mean the man is larger
Speaker 3: than life. That phrase is so overused, but in this
Speaker 3: case it's completely warranted.
Speaker 2: Doctor Javago, for God's sake, Lawrence of Arabia, Omar Sharif,
Speaker 2: the thirteenth Warrior, Omar Sharif, world.
Speaker 3: Class bridge player. Omar Sharif so good father Malone. He
Speaker 3: had his own computer game called Omar Sharif on Bridge
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety two. It actually featured him narrating the
Speaker 3: game that you play, so it would say, like, you know,
Speaker 3: he would say, bidding goes to the North, and then
Speaker 3: you would play it, and then if you did good,
Speaker 3: he would say that was a good play.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Badly he would say, oh, tough break or something like that.
Speaker 3: But he was That was his big passion in life,
Speaker 3: and that's something that he was kind of known for
Speaker 3: outside of acting. Did you know that he was a
Speaker 3: world class bridge player.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. I just know he was devastatingly handsome.
Speaker 3: He was the man. The man had it, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: They're not many like him at all.
Speaker 2: The it's factor. And now I'm going to tell my
Speaker 2: I don't have a story about him, but I have
Speaker 2: a story of him. When they're filming Lawrence of Arabia,
Speaker 2: the big no prisoners charging the train sequence, Oh Marsh
Speaker 2: Reif went to Peter O'Toole and said, I'm really nervous
Speaker 2: about that. So I've had myself tied to my saddle
Speaker 2: and Peter O'Toole said, oh, I'm just getting drunk, and
Speaker 2: Oh Marsh said, oh, I'm already drunk.
Speaker 3: Are there any bad Peter O'Toole stories. Don't they all
Speaker 3: elicit some kind of laughter, Father Malone? Isn't that the
Speaker 3: point of these stories?
Speaker 2: They do? But there is an expiration date on that
Speaker 2: kind of behavior that's acceptable and such, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Like those old hard drinking English guys like
Speaker 2: Oliver Reed and Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton, like those fuckers,
Speaker 2: you know, the oh my god, Richard Button is drunk,
Speaker 2: you know that, Like those old stories like you know, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, we had an intermission, we'd run over to
Speaker 2: the pub. But those we don't want those stories anymore.
Speaker 2: Stop doing this.
Speaker 3: Sure we're more enlightened as a society. But having said that,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, I guess the expiration would be probably
Speaker 3: what maybe the eighties, maybe after that it was a
Speaker 3: little sad to be in that sort of company. But
Speaker 3: before that, in the golden age of Hollywood, that was
Speaker 3: Cachet right there.
Speaker 2: Another thing about Omar Shariff I'd like to point out,
Speaker 2: just because I recently was doing a twenty thousand leagues
Speaker 2: under the Sea or Beneath the Sea deep dive because
Speaker 2: of the new show Nautilus, and Omar Shariff was the
Speaker 2: first person to play the character of Captain Nemo of
Speaker 2: Middle Eastern descent. Everyone else was white before him, and
Speaker 2: that was only in the mysterious Island in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: We wouldn't get another We wouldn't get another Middle Eastern
Speaker 2: Nemo until the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, believe it or not.
Speaker 3: On a related note, Bother Moline, can I ask you
Speaker 3: a question.
Speaker 2: Yes, struggled with this a little bit.
Speaker 3: I might have just been a little over sent. But
Speaker 3: when we get to when we get to the race
Speaker 3: and Hawkins meets the chic of Chichs and his whole
Speaker 3: corterie of helpers and servants and what have you, how
Speaker 3: did you feel about it? Did it did you think
Speaker 3: that the ethnic stuff was handled well? Did you feel
Speaker 3: uncomfortable uncomfortable about it? Did you feel like it was ripped?
Speaker 3: How did you feel about the representation given that it
Speaker 3: was back in two thousand and four. I'm just curious
Speaker 3: what your thoughts were.
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought it was pretty even handed, to be
Speaker 2: honest with you, I think like most of your skots things.
Speaker 2: Even if I had a question about it, I know
Speaker 2: that guy's intentions. Maybe that's coloring it a little bit,
Speaker 2: but I didn't find anything untoork. The only time I
Speaker 2: kind of winced during this movie was when the ghost
Speaker 2: dance figures showed back up. But at least that was
Speaker 2: a fucking hallucination of a man in the middle of
Speaker 2: a desert who had been racing for twenty five hundred miles.
Speaker 3: True, and that kind of I put that in the
Speaker 3: same case category as Thunderheart, where he kind of hallucinates
Speaker 3: or sees his elders. That's I was a little uncomfortable
Speaker 3: with that for much the same reason. But I just
Speaker 3: was curious, how what was bothered about this?
Speaker 2: What was bothering you about their portrayal of Omar Sharif
Speaker 2: and his harem.
Speaker 3: Oh hang One second, Oh, sorry about that. I heard
Speaker 3: a door open. I thought someone was coming into the house,
Speaker 3: but it was Sam coming up from downstairs. What was it?
Speaker 3: It wasn't necessarily like I said. It could have been
Speaker 3: just me being very sensitive to this after having gone
Speaker 3: through a few of these movies and thinking about in
Speaker 3: those terms, And to be honest, I didn't do enough
Speaker 3: research into the actual ethnicity of some of the actors
Speaker 3: that were portraying these Arabian types and everything. So maybe
Speaker 3: that I should have done more research in that regard, but.
Speaker 2: Elmar Sharif is Egyptian.
Speaker 3: It definitely I was concerned at times that maybe it's
Speaker 3: playing into the stereo type of these sort of Arabs
Speaker 3: as being very ruthless and warlike and stop at nothing
Speaker 3: kind of thing. That's what got me a little bit.
Speaker 3: And I can't say how much of that might have
Speaker 3: been true for the time, or how much of that
Speaker 3: was ginned up just for this movie. That's what I
Speaker 3: struggled with a little bit.
Speaker 2: I found no I found no truck with that. But
Speaker 2: you know, I found Fusco's motivations to be above board, and.
Speaker 3: I think his intentions are all making a mistake. I
Speaker 3: don't think his intentions are ever anything but pure and honest,
Speaker 3: and I think any shortcomings that I felt are of
Speaker 3: the time. So it's not like this discussion there's there's
Speaker 3: an easy answer to any of this. I just was
Speaker 3: just curious about your impressions of it as you were
Speaker 3: watching this as I did. It didn't it did not
Speaker 3: impact my enjoyment of the movie in any significant way,
Speaker 3: but I felt like I had to bring it up anyway,
Speaker 3: just because it's a big part of the second two
Speaker 3: thirds of the movie. The second two thirds makes no sense.
Speaker 2: That's true. Okay, listen, where was I going somewhere?
Speaker 3: So we're where I'm going?
Speaker 2: All right? Yeah, Oh, I wanted to talk about the
Speaker 2: villain for a bit. Oh wait, god, no, wait, what
Speaker 2: was I gonna say? Shit, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Can we talk about let's do this. Can we talk
Speaker 3: about the horse for a minute.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, let's talk about the horse. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about horses in general. Let's talk about mustangs.
Speaker 3: Yes, I As I mentioned earlier, Fusco. When you look
Speaker 3: into Fusco's history and his socials and so forth, you
Speaker 3: will see that there is probably no bigger advocate for
Speaker 3: the good treatment of horses and the resettlement of wild
Speaker 3: mustangs in particular than John Fusco. And I think that's
Speaker 3: very well reflected in this movie.
Speaker 2: Oh there's a deep love of the animal obviously that
Speaker 2: you know. You often say, like you know that the
Speaker 2: animal is like a major character, but it really is
Speaker 2: in this case. Like, was this just one horse? I
Speaker 2: didn't do any research at all. Is this just one horse?
Speaker 3: It's several. Actually, I did a little bit of research.
Speaker 3: The only reason I know that it was several because
Speaker 3: I know after the fact that Vigo Mortensen adopted one
Speaker 3: of the horses that portrayed Hidalgo, and also John Fusco
Speaker 3: himself resettled. I don't know if he owned it and
Speaker 3: then but it brought it to some farm or something.
Speaker 3: But both horses were basically adopted by both Vigo and
Speaker 3: John Fusco. But they however, they however many horses there were.
Speaker 3: The horse the animal actor as it were in this
Speaker 3: is amazing because you from jump you love Hidalgo the
Speaker 3: horse because he's doing things like he's picking up Frank
Speaker 3: Hopkins because he's drunk and dragging him across the thing
Speaker 3: to get him going.
Speaker 2: There are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's giving these looks when things happen story beats,
Speaker 3: the horse gives a look, which I some of that
Speaker 3: is context, of course, but the way they got this
Speaker 3: horse to react and the way that Frank Hopkins treats
Speaker 3: the horse, because he most often calls the horse brother
Speaker 3: and I love yeah, Yeah, it's so sweet the relationship
Speaker 3: between the two of them because they need each other ultimately,
Speaker 3: and the way they got this horse or horses to
Speaker 3: act in the picture is really phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is at no point in this movie did
Speaker 2: I feel a presence of a trainer off camera? And
Speaker 2: too often you see that in a movie with animals.
Speaker 2: At one point you're gonna you're gonna feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: somebody's shaking something or calling or just to the left
Speaker 2: of the lens. But here it felt like a fucking performance.
Speaker 2: It felt like he was an actor in there, mixing
Speaker 2: it up. I'm sure he improv some of his lines.
Speaker 3: The horse. They the horse does so much that I
Speaker 3: began to be a little fearful, wonder just how they
Speaker 3: got this horse to perform, Like is it a mister
Speaker 3: ed situation where they're electrocuting this poor horse to get
Speaker 3: him to do things. But the fact that John fusc
Speaker 3: goes involved, and also Vigo Mortenson in particular, gave me
Speaker 3: all the faith I needed to know that these animals
Speaker 3: were treated humanely on this set. So frankly, I don't
Speaker 3: know how they got the horse to do it other
Speaker 3: than it's a really good actor.
Speaker 2: God bless it. Speaking of good actors, let's talk about
Speaker 2: the villain right now, katib He of the long and
Speaker 2: Pointy Beard, Silas Carson. Listen up, nerds, I love this.
Speaker 3: This is another great trivia bit, go for it.
Speaker 2: Eh Silas Carson, who is the villain of this piece overall,
Speaker 2: happens to be a sitting member of the Gedi Council.
Speaker 2: He was Kayati Mundy in all three Star Wars prequels.
Speaker 2: He remember when he gets betrayed in in in Revenge
Speaker 2: of the Sith, when his guards turn on him, He's
Speaker 2: like running with him and he stops. He's like, where
Speaker 2: are you guys? And then they fucking shoot him. Fuck
Speaker 2: those Imperial motherfuckers.
Speaker 3: He's really good in this The fact that he could
Speaker 3: portray this villain someone who is basically twirling their mustache.
Speaker 3: He could have been twirling his mustache at many points
Speaker 3: in this movie, but yet he is this iconic Jedi
Speaker 3: from the prequel trilogy. I was like, Bravo, whatever your
Speaker 3: This actor's name is are Silas What was his last name?
Speaker 2: Carson?
Speaker 3: Carson wonderful. I think he's done a lot of voiceover
Speaker 3: work for video games and that sort of thing. I
Speaker 3: just think he's a really versatile actor.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, listen up, nerds. He's the voice of the
Speaker 2: Oode in Doctor Who. You gotta be super nerdy to
Speaker 2: know that. One. Yeah, theme as a villain is great.
Speaker 2: I loved him. This was a villain I wanted to die.
Speaker 2: That doesn't happen often with movies for me anymore. And
Speaker 2: now I'm just like, can we all just get along
Speaker 2: By the end of the movie, this guy was like,
Speaker 2: you need to fucking go. Man.
Speaker 3: It was really brutal too. That the whole sequence where
Speaker 3: he spoiler alert. Obviously anyone who comes into these things,
Speaker 3: Father Milon should understand there's a spoiler alert blanketed across this.
Speaker 2: Well, it's definitely starting now because we're kind of in
Speaker 2: the end of the movie here, we're not wrapping up,
Speaker 2: but we got to talk about this because it's kind
Speaker 2: of vitally important and incredibly violent and yet somehow appropriate.
Speaker 3: So it's the closing sort of reaches of the race
Speaker 3: and he so the villain's motives. First of all, let's
Speaker 3: say what he wants. Let's kind of give a little
Speaker 3: bit of a clue there. So he is the nephew
Speaker 3: of the sheik of sheikhs. He's the nephew of Omar
Speaker 3: Sharif's character. And what he wants is so Omar Sharif
Speaker 3: is racing his prized stallion and the nephew wants the stallion,
Speaker 3: or at the very least wants the breeding manual so
Speaker 3: that he can effectively because this is a big deal
Speaker 3: to the Sheikh and to the bloodline, having this pure
Speaker 3: bred line of stallions that goes back generations.
Speaker 2: That's what Alhatal is the name of the horse, by
Speaker 2: the way, big prize for the Sheikh and for all
Speaker 2: for all of his relatives.
Speaker 3: And that's where Lady Davenport figures into this also because
Speaker 3: initially she's she has her own horse that's racing, but
Speaker 3: she's actually find out that she's actually in cahoots with
Speaker 3: Katib because he if she wins the race, she her
Speaker 3: horse will be able to breed with Al Hatal and
Speaker 3: that's the only way that she can get her hands
Speaker 3: on the stud rights effectively to this other horse. So
Speaker 3: all of these different competitors and people involved in this
Speaker 3: circle are trying to prevent Frank Hopkins from completing this
Speaker 3: race and going through some pretty extreme measures to do so,
Speaker 3: including horribly basically, Katib. This is the moment we talked about.
Speaker 3: Hebe effectively leads him into a trap. It's like a
Speaker 3: punge pit.
Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah, it's the worst.
Speaker 3: It's so the horse and Frank Go fall into this
Speaker 3: pit with spikes, and of course this poor horse, Hidalgo,
Speaker 3: has a spike right through its like front right leg.
Speaker 3: It's awful, it's skewered.
Speaker 2: It looks completely photorealistic. I've never felt so bad for
Speaker 2: an animal in a movie as during this sequence.
Speaker 3: Really sad. But that's that leads eventually to Katib's down.
Speaker 2: No no, no, wait, Before that, they get out of
Speaker 2: that fucking pit, and at a certain point, Frank Hopkins
Speaker 2: is deciding whether or not to kill Hidalga. Yes, hul
Speaker 2: he's got the fucking revolve. Is it a revolver?
Speaker 3: Right? No?
Speaker 2: It a knife?
Speaker 3: Well, no, he has the knife. He uses the knife
Speaker 3: to remove the spike from his his flank, but then
Speaker 3: he pulls out his revolver and.
Speaker 2: He and at that point HB I didn't know if
Speaker 2: Hidalgo was going to live or die, and I've never
Speaker 2: when listen, this might be some sort of manipulative thing.
Speaker 2: But as soon as he was saved, I fucking cried
Speaker 2: my eyes out, just in absolute relief that Hidalgo was
Speaker 2: going to continue to live.
Speaker 3: It was. It was so incredible because I don't know
Speaker 3: if it was the actual horse or what but as
Speaker 3: he's so, Frank is basically talking to the horse and
Speaker 3: effectively telling him like we've had a great run, but
Speaker 3: I'm sorry I have to do this. And it's wrenching,
Speaker 3: and the horse is on the ground looking at trying
Speaker 3: to look at Frank as he's saying this, and it's
Speaker 3: it rips your heart out because you're like, he's about
Speaker 3: to put a bullet in this poor horse's brain. Horse
Speaker 3: doesn't know what happened. The horse is in the middle
Speaker 3: of this conflict. I felt so bad for Hidalgo. But
Speaker 3: then that kind of gets you into like the rocky
Speaker 3: moment where before we even get to that, then we
Speaker 3: get to this bit and it's probably the thick hang
Speaker 3: one second, something happened with my headphone. Sorry about that.
Speaker 3: They disconnected. I can hear you now. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 3: I don't know why I disconnected. So the biggest problem
Speaker 3: I had with this movie ultimately was there's this moment
Speaker 3: where he's about to put Hidogo out of his misery,
Speaker 3: and it's a desert and like you said, he's hallucinating, basically,
Speaker 3: and he hallucinates a group of Native Americans that are
Speaker 3: surrounding him and chanting and out of that he ends
Speaker 3: up seeing a vision of his mother and him as
Speaker 3: a child, a Native American child, holding the mother's hand.
Speaker 3: And this is what convinces him not to put Hidogo
Speaker 3: out of his misery, because he I think Hidogo actually
Speaker 3: like stands up. He gets the strength to stand up,
Speaker 3: and that motivates Frank Hopkins to continue the race. But
Speaker 3: I don't know, I felt weird about this sort of
Speaker 3: Native American spirit thing coming through again. It was just
Speaker 3: like what happened in thun Hard, and we had our
Speaker 3: problems with that as well.
Speaker 2: There's probably a far less a problem that here.
Speaker 3: To your point, I guess you could make the case
Speaker 3: that he was literally hallucinating because of dehydration and everything else.
Speaker 2: They but Joe Johnson literally turned them into mirages. They
Speaker 2: are shimmering in the heat, these Native American spirits.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I just the fact that I don't know if
Speaker 3: the real Frank Hopkins claimed to have any real Native
Speaker 3: American ancestry.
Speaker 2: He know he did, and that is one of the
Speaker 2: FUSCO facts that was confirmed that he was in fact
Speaker 2: half half Lakota.
Speaker 3: Suit That's fine, then I will then, I you know what,
Speaker 3: I'll take back my criticism then, because I was afraid
Speaker 3: that might have been something that was invented to connect
Speaker 3: him with this whole Native American lore. But if that's
Speaker 3: the case, then I guess I will give it a pass.
Speaker 3: You're right though, the initial wave of tribesmen that surround
Speaker 3: him are But at the same time, when his mother
Speaker 3: appears to him with him in tow, that's not so Miraji.
Speaker 3: That looks like she's standing right there in front of him,
Speaker 3: not heat waves or anything. So that's still a little
Speaker 3: bit hinky for me. But ultimately, I guess I'll give
Speaker 3: it a pass. Oh, you'll give it a pass like
Speaker 3: they need to. But yeah, I guess I see your point.
Speaker 3: You could explain it away as maybe this is just
Speaker 3: a figment of his imagination, and that kind of explains Look.
Speaker 2: Here, man, a ghost dance is asking your ancestors for help.
Speaker 2: That's all he's doing right now.
Speaker 3: That's fair. I'll put it aside.
Speaker 2: I guess come on, that was listened. His name is
Speaker 2: Vigo Mortensen and he's from Sweden or something.
Speaker 3: But it's okay, but you know, but it's fine. But anyway,
Speaker 3: that gets you to the sort of the swelling moment
Speaker 3: where Hidalgo finds the strength despite this grievous injury too,
Speaker 3: because it's really his decision to keep racing. If it
Speaker 3: was up Frank, he would have said, that's it, I'm done.
Speaker 3: But Hidalgo standing up in the face of such a
Speaker 3: grave injury to his flank was incredible. And I don't know,
Speaker 3: I just like I said, I can't say enough good
Speaker 3: things about the horse that portrayed Hidalgo, but it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: But all of that leads to a moment where we
Speaker 2: would get Katib himself standing on one of these pungy
Speaker 2: traps but it hasn't broken through. It's one of these
Speaker 2: don't move kind of situation. And then Frank takes a
Speaker 2: rope and throws it to him, and I thought, at
Speaker 2: that moment, you know what, he is a decent guy.
Speaker 2: I guess he is going to save Katib here, and
Speaker 2: instead he has lassoed a piece of that pungy flooring
Speaker 2: and rips it off, so he immediately plunges in. It
Speaker 2: is fucking impaled.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's and he has one of those sort of
Speaker 3: Schwarzenegger lines. Afterwards, he says something like, don't never hurt
Speaker 3: my horse, and then he rips it and the guy
Speaker 3: falls in the part of the reason why you think
Speaker 3: he going to save the guys because just prior to that.
Speaker 3: So in this race we should mention you are forbidden
Speaker 3: to help any of the other racers. That's you know,
Speaker 3: if you see someone go down and their life is
Speaker 3: in jeopardy, you're supposed to just keep on going there,
Speaker 3: just forget about it. So there's one particular racer that
Speaker 3: they kind of cross paths a few times, this guy
Speaker 3: with a falcon right who's I don't remember the character's
Speaker 3: name or the actor's name for that matter, but he
Speaker 3: he pops up every now and again.
Speaker 2: I love that guy with his falcon, Like, what what
Speaker 2: a great bunch of supporting characters in this race. Man,
Speaker 2: if at some point Burt Reynolds and Don Delawa's drove
Speaker 2: in the background in a fucking ambulance, that it wouldn't
Speaker 2: it wouldn't have been out a character Captain Chaos.
Speaker 3: There's a by the way, there's a great moment where
Speaker 3: it's right after Hawkins has reached this camp and all
Speaker 3: the racers are gathering it. He wakes up in the
Speaker 3: morning and there's I think it's a rabbit start to
Speaker 3: dart across the sort of prairie or whatever, and he
Speaker 3: takes out his gun because he's gonna shoot it and
Speaker 3: eat it for dinner, and out of fucking nowhere, that
Speaker 3: falcon that this guy has had on his wrist for
Speaker 3: a while like just darts down and fucking kills that rabbit,
Speaker 3: like right there. I don't know about you, that looked
Speaker 3: pretty fucking real to me. I'm sure it was probably
Speaker 3: CG or something, but I was like, wow, that is
Speaker 3: fucking intense. So that's falcon guy anyway, Falcon Guy.
Speaker 2: Played by Will Forte, the falconer.
Speaker 3: Good call. At a certain point, falcon guys is racing
Speaker 3: and he falls into what amounts to it's not it's
Speaker 3: kind of like quicksand in the desert. It's this big, muddy,
Speaker 3: boggy area where arrow falls in its harrowing.
Speaker 2: Harrowing sequence.
Speaker 3: Brother, because not only is he you know, he's falling
Speaker 3: into this thing, but it's hot, it's like hot mud,
Speaker 3: and you can tell that it's burning him as he's
Speaker 3: sitting in this thing. Anyway, Frank hop happens upon him
Speaker 3: and it's nice time and the guy says, just leave me.
Speaker 3: You don't rescue me, just put me out of my misery.
Speaker 3: But Frank, being a decent guy, he throws a rope in,
Speaker 3: pulls him out, and kind of nurses him back to
Speaker 3: health a little bit. And eventually this same guy helps
Speaker 3: him escape Katib, only to be shot himself, which is
Speaker 3: kind of sad. But anyway, the fact that you see
Speaker 3: Frank save a guy when he's expressly forbidden not to
Speaker 3: makes you think that he's going to save Katib on
Speaker 3: top of that trap. But no, he doesn't. He gives
Speaker 3: us exactly what we want because this is the motherfucker
Speaker 3: that hurt Hidalgo. We want him to be to suffer
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 2: Here's one other aspect of this movie that I absolutely loved,
Speaker 2: which is as soon as he gets to the beginning
Speaker 2: of the race, he is assigned a squire. Basically some
Speaker 2: of too teach him the ways of teach him the
Speaker 2: local customs and the ways of the race and tips. Basically,
Speaker 2: he's going to be like Mickey in Rocky's Corner. This
Speaker 2: is his guy. His character is named Usef and he's
Speaker 2: played by harsh Nayer. Now Harshneier, I'm very familiar with,
Speaker 2: and listeners of midnight Viewing should be as well, because
Speaker 2: he has shown up on Tails from the dark Side
Speaker 2: twice last season, once is a Vampire, which he was
Speaker 2: the scariest fucking guy in the world that season, and
Speaker 2: then later he showed up as this pleasant, ghosty character
Speaker 2: in some guy's apartment. And he's great here because what
Speaker 2: Fuse goes done here is he's given him a squire
Speaker 2: who basically can't stand him and is rooting for him
Speaker 2: to fail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, from the very beginning, the moment he meets him,
Speaker 3: all this guy does is tell him how arduous this
Speaker 3: trip is going to be, this race, and all the
Speaker 3: reasons why he will never make it, why he shouldn't
Speaker 3: even start to begin with. And that basically continues throughout
Speaker 3: the movie until the eventual conclusion, which I guess we
Speaker 3: won't spoil just yet. But yeah, he's that character is hilarious.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of and it came later than this movie.
Speaker 2: I talk about the movie maybe too much, but Walk
Speaker 2: hard the relationship between Dewey Cox and his first wife,
Speaker 2: Kristen Wigg, where every conversation is her telling him that
Speaker 2: he's never gonna make it, so like he'll call and
Speaker 2: she's like, hey, honey, I can't really talk right now.
Speaker 2: By the way, you're never gonna make it click.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really good and it's I don't know, I
Speaker 3: just I the movie does have a lot of heart.
Speaker 3: It has a lot of humor. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: action too, but a lot of the humor is because
Speaker 3: of his sort of like you said, his squire. But
Speaker 3: there's a lot of heavy stuff too, Like they even
Speaker 3: touch upon the African slave trade, which I wasn't expecting
Speaker 3: in kind of a rollicking swashbuckling movie, because what effectively
Speaker 3: happens is Frank Hopkins sees these slaves being walked over
Speaker 3: to the market, including one little boy who's probably like
Speaker 3: seven or eight or something, and he ends up basically
Speaker 3: buying the little boy and saving him from slavery, drafts
Speaker 3: him onto his team, and then there's this little kind
Speaker 3: of back and forth between this kid and this squire
Speaker 3: who has no use for this little boy or whatever.
Speaker 3: But I was surprised that they kind of got into
Speaker 3: that they don't really shy away from, at least the
Speaker 3: like the what it looked like to be in the
Speaker 3: slave trade. I thought that was for something sort of rollicking.
Speaker 3: I was surprised by.
Speaker 2: That once again expectation versus reality. Given the trailer for
Speaker 2: this movie, I thought this was effectively a family movie,
Speaker 2: which it kind of is, But nevertheless it's not because
Speaker 2: this movie never pulls punches, not in any of these sequences,
Speaker 2: including the opening fucking massacre at wounded 'n He, and
Speaker 2: then it never what's crazy is what we're describing sounds
Speaker 2: like the ridious movie of all time, but it somehow
Speaker 2: manages to also be this rollicking, old fashioned family flick.
Speaker 3: It is, and actually, come to think of it, I
Speaker 3: actually agree. I'm not sure if my kids were younger
Speaker 3: that I would have them. It's kind of a family
Speaker 3: picture in the way that Temple of Doom. I guess
Speaker 3: if you think you know about it in a certain way,
Speaker 3: that's a family picture. But yet it's not because of
Speaker 3: all the awful things that happen in it, the things
Speaker 3: that you could that could scar a small child watching it,
Speaker 3: including in this case, watching Hidalgo get plunged into a
Speaker 3: pit of spikes and almost die because his owner is
Speaker 3: going to put him out of his misery with a
Speaker 3: gun to his head. These are the kind of things
Speaker 3: that you don't expect, and a family friendly picture.
Speaker 2: Or child slavery for that matter of course. But Don Marapis,
Speaker 2: by the way, was the name of the falconer. That's
Speaker 2: the actor who played Sucker.
Speaker 3: Ah. Okay, there's a few, but shockingly everybody who kind
Speaker 3: of comes out to help Hidalgo, not the Shekh, because
Speaker 3: the Sheikh is there through the whole movie. But there's
Speaker 3: at one point, and this was maybe one of my
Speaker 3: other big problems with this picture of Father Malone is
Speaker 3: that I wanted, I said earlier, I wanted more of
Speaker 3: the race. Well about halfway into the picture, this this
Speaker 3: nephew of the Sheikh leads a raid on the camp,
Speaker 3: on the Sheikh's camp and kidnaps the Sheikh's only daughter,
Speaker 3: only child, I think, because his sons have all perished
Speaker 3: in the race or otherwise. So then we have it
Speaker 3: goes on for a long time. We have a bit
Speaker 3: of a detour where the Sheikh recruits recruits Frank to
Speaker 3: save his daughter from the from his nephew. I don't
Speaker 3: know how you felt about this sort of detour into
Speaker 3: sort of adventureland. It's all great outside of the context
Speaker 3: of this race, but I want more of the race.
Speaker 3: I wanted more high jinks and interesting stuff happening to
Speaker 3: him on the race. I didn't need this detour into
Speaker 3: kind of action adventure territory. What was your thoughts on this,
Speaker 3: this thing that happened midway through the picture.
Speaker 2: I think if you're talking about it in a hindsight
Speaker 2: way and coupling with the lack of race, because I
Speaker 2: do agree with you, the one thing this movie is
Speaker 2: lacking is more of the race. Ordinarily, I would never
Speaker 2: be saying that in a movie about race. I'd be saying,
Speaker 2: let's race, give me some more character. In this case,
Speaker 2: not there not that they skimp on the race at all.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of horses, there's plenty of fighting, there's plenty
Speaker 2: of whatever, you know, But yes, I would like it's
Speaker 2: the racing stuff here is so good that I definitely
Speaker 2: did want more of it. And if you start looking
Speaker 2: at the film that way, you can find plenty to
Speaker 2: xcize in its favor. This movie is two hours and
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, so you know, I think at that point
Speaker 2: you you wouldn't even be if you sat down to
Speaker 2: edit the movie. You wouldn't be looking to add more race.
Speaker 2: You'd be looking to just cut down overall.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was sort of necessary in a way
Speaker 3: because initially the Sheikh has a sort of a jaundice
Speaker 3: view of Frank, and in fact, later his daughter visits
Speaker 3: Frank in his tent and that's a big no no.
Speaker 3: And when he's discovered. Actually, and this is another kind
Speaker 3: of horrifying bit of a movie, the penalty that Frank
Speaker 3: incurs upon himself is basically he's to be gelded like
Speaker 3: a horse.
Speaker 2: Basically, they're going to cut his balls off, and they
Speaker 2: have even little utensils that are ball shaped. This is
Speaker 2: not the first time this is.
Speaker 3: And that's really uncomfortable to watch anyway, and you I
Speaker 3: know as a viewer it's not going to come to that.
Speaker 3: But basically this is he has this penalty and inflicted
Speaker 3: upon him, and then this raid happens in the midst
Speaker 3: of all of this, and that is what allows the
Speaker 3: Sheikh to bargain with Frank to say, look, if you
Speaker 3: can bring my daughter back before the next night fallo
Speaker 3: or what have you, I will not you will not
Speaker 3: be punished for this slight but the punishment is still
Speaker 3: pretty heavy for a family friendly movie. Again, they're going
Speaker 3: to cut his balls off and they come really close
Speaker 3: to it too.
Speaker 2: And Vigo fucking sells it.
Speaker 6: Matt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk.
Speaker 2: About Vigo martins In for a second, shall way. Vigo Martinsen,
Speaker 2: coming off of the Lord of the Rings movies, chooses
Speaker 2: this as his big Hollywood think this one hundred a
Speaker 2: million dollar movie it getting made without Vigo martins and
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 3: And he's so good in it, it's hard for me
Speaker 3: to imagine anybody else who could really pull off that.
Speaker 3: The soulfulness of Frank Hopkins, the guilt that he carries,
Speaker 3: and the really the plain spokenness of the character. There's
Speaker 3: one hundred percent no subterfuge with the character of Frank Hopkins. Here.
Speaker 3: He is devoted to his horse, he wants to race
Speaker 3: in this Actually you end up finding out his real
Speaker 3: motive for competing in this race and eventually spoiler alert
Speaker 3: winning it is because he knows that there's This was
Speaker 3: a little fuzzy for me. I didn't really understand this,
Speaker 3: but apparently the US military have rounded up all of
Speaker 3: these wild Mustangs for the sole purpose of killing them.
Speaker 3: They have them all corralled fa them alone, and they're
Speaker 3: what was maybe I missed that part? Why were they
Speaker 3: going to kill this giant herd.
Speaker 2: Of mustang to get the plot in motion.
Speaker 3: There was nothing. It didn't make sense to me why
Speaker 3: you'd want to kill these anyway. He wants to compete
Speaker 3: in this race, Frank Hopkins, so that he can buy
Speaker 3: the mustangs and basically let them run free, which I think,
Speaker 3: I mean, how amazing is that's he wants to put
Speaker 3: himself through hell and back to number one to suage
Speaker 3: his own guilt maybe at what his involvement and wounded knee,
Speaker 3: but this is his way of making up for that,
Speaker 3: is he's going to do this amazing, He's going to
Speaker 3: spend all this money to save these wild mustangs that
Speaker 3: he loves so much.
Speaker 2: So let's face it, it's the fucking horse that won
Speaker 2: the race, so it really.
Speaker 3: He owes it to the horse to do this, and
Speaker 3: in fact he sets hid I'll go free at the
Speaker 3: end too, which is a wonderful moment. But my point
Speaker 3: is in saying all of this, is that the character
Speaker 3: is so pure and true, and not that he doesn't have,
Speaker 3: you know, an edge to him, and not that he
Speaker 3: doesn't have flaws and foibles. But like I said, I
Speaker 3: don't know anybody who could really pull off the character
Speaker 3: with all of those shadings like Vigo Mortensen does.
Speaker 2: This is our second tangle with mister Martinson and mister
Speaker 2: Fusco in our Fusco Fest. He was John W. Poe
Speaker 2: back in Young Guns two, a like the most tonic
Speaker 2: of the Western characters in that movie. I think I
Speaker 2: said it then too, like Young Guns One's Dirty Steve
Speaker 2: and Young Guns too. It's definitely John W. Poe. He's
Speaker 2: great there, He's fucking great here. He did a movie
Speaker 2: with Ed Harris a few years later called Apple Lusa.
Speaker 2: I encourage everyone to see that because he's even better
Speaker 2: there somehow.
Speaker 3: Well, don't forget about him in a History of Violence.
Speaker 3: He's amazing. He's amazing and everything he does.
Speaker 2: I was talking about his Western performances. Thank you, Sorry
Speaker 2: you had to go on David Cronenberg. But he's the guy,
Speaker 2: remember him in the Eastern Eastern Promises. It was with
Speaker 2: his dick out.
Speaker 3: Ve Go's the man. He's awesome, man.
Speaker 2: I met him once at a diner in Santa Monica.
Speaker 3: Did you really was he just kind of a schlump?
Speaker 3: I imagine him very schlumpy and kind of hey, what's
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It was. He was very hippyish with kind of
Speaker 2: a beard. Well it was the early nineties too, by
Speaker 2: the way, so it wasn't like he was Eric yet.
Speaker 3: Well he and he also had a very heavy spoken
Speaker 3: word thing going on for a while, So the hippie
Speaker 3: thing makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he was with Exene Cervenka at the time.
Speaker 3: Oh, they probably performed together. I know they. I think
Speaker 3: they had CDs of spoken word performances like collaboratively, So
Speaker 3: that makes perfect was he was he involved with her
Speaker 3: and neverran I'm not going to go there, but anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the hippie thing makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, I love Viego Martins, and there was such a
Speaker 2: decency in there. And when he's playing just a decent
Speaker 2: fella without any agenda, you really feel how good a
Speaker 2: person can be. Kind of weird to say, but like, like,
Speaker 2: I don't he seems he can make himself seem innocent.
Speaker 2: I guess it is my point, and that doesn't seem
Speaker 2: possible when you look at that man.
Speaker 3: It's a rare quality and I think it's one that
Speaker 3: serves him well in this part in particular, because you
Speaker 3: have to root for this guy. You want to root
Speaker 3: for him, and the way that the character. Look the
Speaker 3: fact that he's talking to his horse and calling him
Speaker 3: a little brother, and all this sort of stuff could
Speaker 3: on paper sounds a little goofy, but man does he
Speaker 3: sell it, him and the horse both. But he sells it.
Speaker 3: You really feel the bond that he has with his
Speaker 3: horse and the lengths that he will go to to
Speaker 3: you know, stand up for him, number one and number two,
Speaker 3: just be a decent guy and make up for this
Speaker 3: sinful thing that he was involved in.
Speaker 2: I do want to say one thing before we start
Speaker 2: wrapping things up. Okay, One time I had a gig
Speaker 2: in Denver, Colorado. So I had to drive from Las
Speaker 2: Vegas to Denver, which means you're driving through the mountains.
Speaker 2: And at one point I went through basically a tunnel
Speaker 2: and into like a cavernous valley where directly across from me,
Speaker 2: across from the road, there was a river. And then
Speaker 2: on the other side of the river a train was
Speaker 2: going by. An old West looking locomotive was steaming past,
Speaker 2: and I thought, my god, that's the most Western American.
Speaker 2: That's the most American Western thing I've ever seen in
Speaker 2: my life. Right, and then there was a bit of
Speaker 2: a depression with a car lowered down a bit, and
Speaker 2: what was revealed was the rest of the side of
Speaker 2: the road beside me, where a pack of wild mustangs
Speaker 2: were running free. And what I thought was the most
Speaker 2: American Western thing I'd ever seen became the most American
Speaker 2: Western thing anyone has ever seen. And it is just
Speaker 2: magnificent that there are still wild horses running around America.
Speaker 3: It's shocking because they the movie. The PostScript of the
Speaker 3: movie makes mention to the fact that Hidalgo's forebears or whatever,
Speaker 3: the children, grandchildren and so on Hidago are still alive
Speaker 3: and still running free in this area of the car.
Speaker 3: And look at you and I were raised on the
Speaker 3: East Coast. There ain't no mustangs around here. The closest
Speaker 3: we can see is maybe, I don't know, a coyote
Speaker 3: or something like prowling around. There's not a lot of
Speaker 3: wild animals that can shock and surprise us and fill
Speaker 3: us with that feeling. So it's surprising that there are
Speaker 3: still parts of this country that are that still, you know,
Speaker 3: play host to wild mustangs. That's incredible, Like how do
Speaker 3: they survive?
Speaker 2: There's a reason that car is named Mustang, because it's
Speaker 2: fucking awesome. Because mustangs are fucking awesome.
Speaker 3: They are, But again, how do mustang How do wild
Speaker 3: mustangs wild horses survive.
Speaker 2: Where they drink? They drink water from the stream and
Speaker 2: then they eat the hay that grows naturally.
Speaker 3: I mean, do ranchers like take on mustangs and just
Speaker 3: I don't know, Like, is there any benefit to having
Speaker 3: a mustang that you don't train to be a riding horse?
Speaker 2: I think you should just let them be themselves and
Speaker 2: there and doing their thing. I don't want anyone jumping
Speaker 2: on a fence and putting a saddle on me and saying,
Speaker 2: now you're my horse. I have a question for you, HB.
Speaker 2: Is this the best horse movie you've ever seen? If not,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 3: That's a good question that begs the response, what other
Speaker 3: horse movies have I seen?
Speaker 2: The Black Stallion?
Speaker 3: No? I never saw it?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 2: Really I saw that movie in the theater twice.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: I remember the commercials on TV, but it wasn't something
Speaker 3: that I was clamoring to see.
Speaker 2: Wait, why do you think of that? I'd like to
Speaker 2: say Earlier I mentioned that the sort of advertising this
Speaker 2: movie convinced me it was a children's movie. It also
Speaker 2: convinced me that a good portion of this movie was
Speaker 2: going to be spent during a sandstorm where has been
Speaker 2: sequence lasted about two minutes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that also features some of the awful special effects.
Speaker 3: I have to say it. We didn't talk about it yet.
Speaker 3: Some of the effects in this movie are abysmal, and
Speaker 3: they all have to do with computer generated the state
Speaker 3: of the art at the time. There's the sandstorm, which
Speaker 3: looks terrible. There's at one point Katigue as part of
Speaker 3: his trap to kill Hidalgo, he releases two leopards into
Speaker 3: the desert, and there's there. Well, it was an interesting idea,
Speaker 3: but the leopards are so badly animated that it took
Speaker 3: me out of the whole plot.
Speaker 2: Disagree. I loved it. Yeah, okay, oh yeah, I was
Speaker 2: in for penny, in for a pound, and you know what,
Speaker 2: it was never going to look real unless they were
Speaker 2: actually having those animals, and it was never going to happen.
Speaker 3: It felt a little bit like, no, like Gladiator, well
Speaker 3: when they released the lions and stuff.
Speaker 2: But not that bad man, come on, No.
Speaker 3: No, not that bad. But an answer to your question,
Speaker 3: it's it's up there with my favorite horse movies. I
Speaker 3: think probably Seabiscuit is somewhere in there. I remember liking
Speaker 3: that very much when I saw it. That was a
Speaker 3: long time ago. But I can't and I can't think
Speaker 3: of too many right now. Secretariat I never saw. I
Speaker 3: don't know what's your favorite horse movie? Fathom Alone.
Speaker 2: Well, I actually do have a soft spot for The
Speaker 2: Black Stallion because it is so melancholy, and you know, me,
Speaker 2: hb if a movie's out to press a young child,
Speaker 2: then it was specifically made for me.
Speaker 3: They're bless the beasts than children.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there you go. That's a good, good
Speaker 2: horse movie. Thoroughbreds. That's a really good horse movie. Okay,
Speaker 2: horses are tangential almost to the plot of that movie,
Speaker 2: but nevertheless, that's probably my favorite movie involving horses. Let
Speaker 2: me think. I do not like any version of Oh
Speaker 2: never mind, I'll tell you what, man. Yeah, you're about
Speaker 2: to say, war Horse, Oh boy, war Horse. Where was
Speaker 2: the war.
Speaker 3: Spielberg? I don't know. I never saw that one either.
Speaker 2: Oh I saw that in the theater. Man, I was
Speaker 2: wildly disappointed. It really is the story of that horse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, siading detail, I'm sure, but yeah, this is I
Speaker 3: would look put it this way. This is probably top
Speaker 3: three in my favorite horse movies that I can think
Speaker 3: of right now on the top of my head.
Speaker 2: What's the name of that Bob kat Goldthwaite horse movie.
Speaker 3: Oh? Is that not Let It Ride?
Speaker 2: No, that's the Richard Dreyfuss horse movie. Is it, by
Speaker 2: any chance called Hot to Trot?
Speaker 3: I think you might be right.
Speaker 2: Oh, you know what, you know what you know? It
Speaker 2: was a pretty goddamn good movie involving horses recently. No,
Speaker 2: what's that the Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the Jordan Peele movie. Yeah, that's a that
Speaker 3: great call for them alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great Collins. It shouldn't have taken us this long
Speaker 2: movie's like five years old.
Speaker 3: Well it didn't, It didn't. I mean, that's a UFO
Speaker 3: movie or you know, the First and foremost horses. It
Speaker 3: figures into the plot, but it's not. It didn't come
Speaker 3: top of mind. But you're right, that is a good
Speaker 3: horse movie. Hot to Trot was the name of that movie, by.
Speaker 2: The way, ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a voice of the horse.
Speaker 2: Right, he's in the movie with the horse. The horse
Speaker 2: is voiced by John Candy.
Speaker 3: That's right. I thought it was the reverse.
Speaker 2: That actually mean, you know what you're saying makes sense
Speaker 2: given how weird bobcats vocal range was at that moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh that was a that's a that was a
Speaker 3: bad run for John Candy.
Speaker 2: Rest in Peace, deliriously bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's but you know what though, if someone like
Speaker 3: Eugene Levy can have like a second act and you
Speaker 3: remember Armed and Dangerous that was a movie he did
Speaker 3: with John Candy. Yeah, terrible, but he can you know,
Speaker 3: he can be such a respected actor. Now this room
Speaker 3: for everybody.
Speaker 2: Oh, John Candy was well on his way. I point
Speaker 2: everyone to JFK. His sequences so fucking good man. He
Speaker 2: was poised to be a really good dramatic actor. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a damn shame dance all over your head, Jimbo
Speaker 2: cock that doodle, dude.
Speaker 3: But you could say there's a lot of great performances
Speaker 3: in JFK that begs its own episode.
Speaker 2: I think, oh my, do we dare?
Speaker 3: I would love I would love to talk.
Speaker 2: JFK for Do you know that I saw that movie
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas while I was still living in Los Angeles?
Speaker 3: Did you really? It was along? It was ninety two,
Speaker 3: right two? Good movie? I am an anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Thank you once again, Midnight viewers for joining us here
Speaker 2: at fuse Go Fest. We've got more fuse Go on
Speaker 2: the way. We've got several options. We've got kung Fu,
Speaker 2: We've got martial arts flicks coming, We've got Highwaymen on
Speaker 2: the Way and others. Until then, HP, where can people
Speaker 2: find you? If they're looking for you? And they are
Speaker 2: you all right? They keep telling.
Speaker 3: Me that remains to be seen. I co host the
Speaker 3: Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast with my esteemed co host
Speaker 3: right here across from me, father alone. I'm also an
Speaker 3: occasional guest on the Culture Cast with Chris Dashu, and
Speaker 3: I also host the Noise Donkeys music podcast. Finally, I
Speaker 3: have a band campsite hpmusicplace dot bandcamp dot com.
Speaker 2: As for me, you're listening to it midnight viewing. Although
Speaker 2: I've got a couple of irons in the fire HP.
Speaker 2: Later this year, Paul Waller from his podcast to A
Speaker 2: Year in Horror and I are teaming up to do
Speaker 2: a show called A Little Old Lady Got Mutilated Late
Speaker 2: last night. We're looking at Werewolf movies that'll start later
Speaker 2: this year, so look out for that. Also look out
Speaker 2: for our first live show October fourth and fifth at
Speaker 2: the Silverton Casino at the Nightmare in Vegas Convention and
Speaker 2: Car Show. We will obviously keep you abreast of that.
Speaker 2: Until then, we're going to leave you a little bit
Speaker 2: from Hidalgo.
Speaker 6: Why do I feel that you truly see me.
Speaker 4: When others do not? Horse glaves. Even a plan man
Speaker 4: can see that you're beautiful, Sis London,