Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious podcast. You know, guys, you may ask yourself,
was Hawkins echoing putty joke from the movie Predator, Shane
Black's worst joke. The answer is no, Shane Black's worst
joke is a movie called Last Action Hero.
Speaker 2: And that's what we're here to talk about today, Last
Action Hero. My gosh, this is the last movie I
walked out on. I'm actually excited to come here and
revisit a movie that I had not seen since I
walked out of the theater in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 3: I gotta say this.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about last time when we had
Jeff before and we were talking about oh you ate
one two, And I said, Arlene, I had just spoken
with him before we started recording and asked him which
one he was picking between one two and Long Cold Winter.
And he's like, I'm siding with Jason. It's got to be.
Speaker 3: OU eight one two, And then of course you chose
not OU eight one two. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, he called me back after we dropped our episodes
and he was like, I gotta say this. I think
I'm changing my answer. I think that I still am
siding with Jason. I think it's still long cold winter. Yes,
and so it's still on the same page. And he
called me just yesterday and asked what was coming up,
and I told him and he said, oh, Last Action Hero.
Speaker 2: I would have.
Speaker 1: Walked out on that movie, but I was on a
date and that is the only reason that I did
not walk out on that movie.
Speaker 2: Well, we've got here from the Film By podcast, mister
Jeff Johnson. Jeff, hell us about your podcast. What you've
got going on right now?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: Well, I am happy to be back with both of you.
Speaker 4: We are the a Film By podcast where we are
waxing intellectual about Hollywood's biggest and best directors, their underrated hits,
and what we love about them. Along the way, we
have come up with a couple very fun limited series
which I'm happy to say has featured both Jason and
d Our nineteen eighty six series, our nineteen seventy six series.
Speaker 2: We've had some fun stuff.
Speaker 4: So as always happy to collaborate with you guys, Always
happy to be here at the Shirley Studios.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for coming back on today. We are going
to talk about what the heck happened in nineteen ninety three,
when we sat down to watch Last Action Hero. Jeff,
what are your initial thoughts on this one? Where did
you see this in the theater or what? Give us
your story?
Speaker 4: I did see this in the theater, I'll be honest.
I was excited to see it. The week prior, me
and two of my cousins had went and't seen Jurassic Park. Right,
so pretty easy to get tickets for Last Action Hero
because dinosaurs were ruling the box office. First time I
saw it, I gotta be honest, I loved it. Not
to say that I was hip to the whole meta
commentary that it was pulling off, you know, way before
it's time.
Speaker 2: But I enjoyed it for what it was. And it's
one of.
Speaker 4: These movies where it has its it has its haters,
but I'm not one of them.
Speaker 2: D You watched this movie last week?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for the first time or the first time I
watched this movie?
Speaker 2: Initial thoughts?
Speaker 1: Do you want me to tell you? I mean, I'm
going to say this or I thought i'd say it
for the end. Okay, here we go, Here we go.
We got We know that you hate it, We know
that Jeff loves it.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute. Now, I did hate it.
Speaker 3: Oh, so you get a question mark over your head
as well.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just saying. I'm just putting it out there.
I hated it in ninety three.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we can say that the first time that
you watched it, you hated it. The first time that
Jeff watched it, he loved it. Right, I'm going to
save what I feel about the movie the first time
I watched it, which was again this week.
Speaker 4: A final judgment on a What Were They Thinking?
Speaker 2: Episode? Yes, it's fantastic. Okay, So let's dive into the
story behind the story here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, starts off with a couple of college buddies who,
like me, were kind of disillusioned with all of the
action movies from the eighties. You know, we talk routinely
about some of the movies that I haven't seen, and
I've kind of noticed a trend. I haven't seen Commando,
I haven't seen Cobra, I haven't seen Rambo, seeing part blood.
Action movie for me was going to be Raiders of
the Lost Arc or die Hard. Those were my action movies,
the ones where it was all guns and explosions and blood.
I just didn't get into those things. I thought they
were just kind of silly, and there were a couple
of college guys who felt the same way, and so
they rented every single action movie of the eighties that
they could find, figured out all of the tropes that
they could find, and they wrote this really dark, heredy
movie called Extremely Violent.
Speaker 2: He's never seen Rambo Jeff.
Speaker 4: I the list that he just gave us, I am stupefied.
I mean, you missed out on quintessential eighties action films.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: So those two guys were named Zach Penn and Adam Leff.
Now we've talked about Zach Penn before because he also
went on to write the screenplay for Ready Player one,
which we discussed in detail with our friend Van Allen
Plexico on the White Rocket Podcast with a friend def Dave. Obviously,
Jason and I are huge fans of the book Ready
Player One. We are less so for the movie, but
still not a bad screenplay for Zach penned right. And
what's interesting is he's made his career off of writing
action movies, but he started his career by making fun
of them.
Speaker 2: I mean, look at this list here. Last Action Hero
Men in Black, X Men Part two incredible Hulk, The
Avengers Ready Player one. That's an impressive list.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and his partner Adam Leff. If you haven't heard
of him, you're obviously not a Biodome fan.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's not forget PCU.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, right yeah, Jeremy Pivens in one of
his pivotal roles.
Speaker 2: So when they sat down to write this script, these
are two college guys, he said, they went to the
video store and they rented every single action movie that
they could, and they watched him one after another after another. Now,
I'm guessing that the video store clerk did not look
like Bobby Brown and Angie Evahart. Probably more like Jeff
and Dayton, I'm guessing probably, But they he said that
they sat down and watched every action movie. He said,
it was soul crushing to watch Steven Sagall movie after
steven Sagall movie.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: I don't watch Steven Siagall movies. I don't watch John
Cloud Van dam movies. This movie, I mean, it came
at the right time. Say what you will about the
quality of the movie. Right, the idea of a spoof
of all of the eighties action violence explosions shoot them up.
It was time they had reached their pinnacle. It was
time to do a parody of those movies. I mean,
this movie could have been scary movie five years before
scary movie came out except for action movies. But will
have to decide whether they hit the mark or whether
they missed the mark. But if you look at what
happened after this movie where the action movies of the
eighties went, it went by the way of Steven Siagall
movies and John Claude Van Dam movies, which were not
up to par of the movies of the eighties. I mean,
we're still talking about Rambo and Commando and even maybe
Raw Deal in that mix. But is anybody really talking
about JCVD movies.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 4: I guess this makes me an apologist for both those actors.
But when you're talking about Jean Claude Love blood Sport
got to be a guest on the All Eighties podcast
not too long ago talking about blood Sport, Love, Kickboxer,
Double Impact, all his fun stuff.
Speaker 2: Steven Seagal, For me, those hit at the right time.
Speaker 4: I was like ten eleven years old, so hard to
kill and out for justice. My thought was the rule was,
as long as he has a cool name like Mason Storm.
And it's a movie title with with exactly three words,
you know, above the law, hard to kill, march for death,
out for justice. That's that's the formula first to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and I think that you made you made
a good point. You were about ten years old when
those movies were coming out, right, And yep, I mean
when this movie came out, I was a year away
from graduate.
Speaker 3: I mean I was even a year I was.
Speaker 1: I was about to graduate high school the next spring, right,
and Jason was in one college. Yeah, he's in college.
Age difference is huge. I sent you guys at text earlier.
Zack Simmons, who is the city prosecutor for one of
the places that I'm a judge is. He's like, I'm
angry with you because your podcast has made me watch
this movie screenshots of Superman four the Quest for Peace,
which we covered with Jeff Honor what that happened last year? Right,
And I said, I am so sorry. I am genuinely
sorry that you felt obligated to do this. And I said,
please please don't watch Supergirl, okay, because it's just it's
worse and it's just not worth it. He said, you
know what, I was born in nineteen eighty three, and
I actually saw those movies when I was a kid,
but I loved them then because they were just superheroes
on TV, and so I loved them. And so at ten, yeah, sure,
Martial Arts movies with lots of you know, mustly great
action in the Jungle, I can totally see love in those.
Me at eighteen, Jason, at twenty, we're like, yeah, is
there something better that we can watch?
Speaker 2: So this is what happened when I saw it in
the theater. I saw an R. Schwarzenegger movie directed by
John McTiernan. I'm all excited. I go, there's this stupid kid,
the bad haircut, crossing his eyes, going freaking whiskers the cat. Okay,
I'm like, what the f am I watching?
Speaker 1: So, Jason, you described this before I watched the movie.
You were like, Okay, you like cheeseburgers, right, And I'm
like yeah. And you're like, and you.
Speaker 3: Like hot fudge Sunday ice cream?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: I'm like yeah, and you go, but would you like
hot fudge Sunday on top of a cheeseburger? And I'm
like no, And he.
Speaker 1: Was like, that's what this movie is. And I think
that is an excellent analogy of this movie. And I
think that they took it even to the extreme because
when they promot did the movie, they only told you
you were getting the cheeseburger.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: They didn't let you know about the ice cream. And
if you know the ice cream's coming, then maybe you're
ready for it. But if you suddenly have a cheeseburger
with ice cream all over in front of you, you're
gonna be like, what the heck, what what are we
doing here? There were many, many problems, but one of
the key problems that they had with this movie is
they prepped guys like you who were totally into all
of those action movies from the eighties, that this was
the pinnacle.
Speaker 3: This is going to be the best action movie you've
ever seen.
Speaker 2: That's what they said. That was the exact word, right.
But it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a spoof. It was supposed
to be a parody. We said at the beginning, these
guys wrote this movie to be making fun of those movies.
Why would they promote it as one of those movies? Stupidity,
bad marketing, Yeah, that's what I'll call them. This one
that's a mistake that happens later on. I mean, once
they've you know, they're far into the movie and they're
promoting it and they're marketing it. That's the mistake they're
making then. But they make mistakes at the outset. They
buy this script, which is arguably a better script. I
haven't read it, but there are a lot of fans
of the script as it's written, and as it was written,
the kid is not a kid. He's a teenager, right,
And there's a kind of moving part that he's lost
his father and he's trying to escape the tragedy of
his life. That's the thing that was left. He goes
into the movie to find out, Oh my gosh, the
violence that exists in the movies is much worse than
I could ever imagine at my home. And so it's
it's a realization.
Speaker 2: But what do they do.
Speaker 1: They take that well conceived idea and they give it
to the writer that wrote the movie that they're making
fun of. They give it to Shane Black, and then
they get the director of the movie that they're making
fun of. They get John McTiernan, and they say, you
write it and you direct it. Those guys are brilliant.
I love their work, but why would you give them
the movie that is making fun of their movies to direct?
It be like having George Lucas direct Spaceballs. That's right,
it doesn't make make sense.
Speaker 2: Good call. It's like asking Clint Eastwood to hang around
with an orangutang and make a comedy. Oh wait, sorry, no,
it just doesn't work right. It just it's it is
a mixture of a cheeseburger and hot fudge Sunday. It's
taking things that I do like. They just couldn't find
that tone. And Jeff, you and I were talking the
other night. They brought in William Goldman to work on
this script, among other people including Larry Ferguson, who worked
on Hunt for Red October.
Speaker 1: And worked on Aliens three. He was the guy that
wrote the script that everyone unanimously hated.
Speaker 2: And he brought in Carrie Fisher aka Princess Leah. Yes
that one Leah Leah. Excuse me, but they brought in
William Goldman, who had written The Princess Bride. And I
told you, Jeff, I'm like the one singular movie in
this world that combines action and comedy and fantasy perfectly
is The Princess Bride. Absolutely that movie.
Speaker 4: Like I told you when we were talking about that,
I don't care what genre film you enjoy, you get
it with The Princess Bride.
Speaker 2: That's right. They paid him a million bucks to come
and work the script four weeks. Four weeks.
Speaker 3: It's two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a week. Boys.
Speaker 2: Pretty good gig, bight there, That's a great gig.
Speaker 1: But I mean, if you're the guy that wrote Bush
Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and all the presidents men
and Marathon Man and The Princess Bride, and somebody's like, hey,
here's this total turd, what can you do with it?
I can't do anything with it. Will pay you one
million dollars. Let me see what I can do for
next four weeks.
Speaker 2: Step back, boys, I'm gonna take a shot at this.
Speaker 1: And the truth is is it he couldn't save it.
And I can't believe that because this to me, this storyline,
even with the way they jacked up the whole concept
by making it a younger kid and taking out the
extreme violence, even with that, they could have done a
better job with it and add a great movie.
Speaker 2: Yes, they could have.
Speaker 4: Well, it's back to marketing because you know, like you said, Jason,
you went in ready and hungry for that cheeseburger, and
then you had two scoops of rum raising slopped on.
Speaker 2: We were like, what happened here? I watched the City
Stickers earlier.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't I don't like rum raising,
but it was a city slickers. I blame City Stickers.
Imagine if you will, and let me take over for
marketing here. Okay, how about the movie trailer? Voiceover guy
tells you this summer, Arnold Schwarzenegger does not want you
to come see the movies.
Speaker 2: He wants you to be in the movies.
Speaker 4: And then boom and you get some great fast cuts,
you get some action cuts, you kind of pepper in
a couple of the fantastical and cartoony elements of this movie.
So now you're like, you're curious, You're going, wait, it's
Arnold Swarzeningger. But but it's it's comedy and it's did
I see an animated cat?
Speaker 2: Is that what that was?
Speaker 4: Now you've got you got a couple balls in the
air here where you're thinking, Okay, I like Arnold Swarzenegger.
Speaker 2: I liked Twins when he was funny.
Speaker 4: I liked Who framed Roger Rabbit when there was animated
people and real people. Sure, it starts to create a
a different vibe for this movie, and I think people
going in have a different expectation. And then that way,
nineteen ninety three's Jason Colvin is not walking out of
the theater because he was he got a bait and switch.
There is another theory on why this movie bombed. I
don't know if you guys saw.
Speaker 2: That or read that.
Speaker 4: It comes from Arnold Schwarzeninger himself, because Arnold, Oh yeah, well,
Arnold loves this movie. He has said it is his
most underrated role. Back in May, he was talking to
Cinema Blend. His quote was Last Action Hero. It was
slaughtered before anybody saw it. It was literally a political
attack because I was campaigning for former President George H. W. Bush,
but Bill Clinton won. Last Action Hero was great. It
wasn't fantastic, but it was underrated. Now more and more
people are seeing it and saying, I love this movie.
I'm getting the residual checks, so I know it's true.
It made money. That's always an important thing. For me
because it's show business, right, He's endorsed in the wrong horse,
and Hollywood was like, no, we're gonna shut this movie down.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So here's another one of the marketing missteps in the process.
Speaker 2: Us.
Speaker 1: They know that Jurassic Park is coming, they know when
it's being released, They know that they have thrown this
thing together in nine months, and that all you had
to do was postpone things two weeks, three weeks, just
a little bit of time, and you are not consumed
by the Jurassic Park tsunami.
Speaker 3: But did they do that.
Speaker 1: No. Their thought was, you know what, Spielberg's washed up.
His last movie was Hook, and that sucked, by the way.
Carrie Fisher also helped out with Hook. But and it
did suck. But you have made a critic, you have
chosen poorly on your release.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, one week after Jurassic Park.
Speaker 3: Mistake.
Speaker 2: Mistake.
Speaker 4: This is June thirteenth when this is coming out. So
to D's point, make it an August movie. You know,
this is the last action hero. This is the last
hurrah for these kinds of movies. Let it be the
end of summer. The marketing guys here, everyone's just failing.
Speaker 2: There's so many things that they could have done to
make this a better experience for the viewer. You know,
we forget Arnold had just been in Terminator two. You
talked about the best action movie of the nineties. It's
in the conversation McTiernan had given us die Hard Predator
Hunt for October. Diehard maybe the best action movie of
the nineteen eighties. So having a chance to recalibrate our
expectations would have been important. You either have to go
all in i e. Naked gun or loaded weapon. It's
got to be all in spoof or all in action.
It can't be both.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: You can have satire and you can have farce in satire,
but you don't have to have farce in satire, and
that is the critical mistake that they made.
Speaker 3: You can have this movie be a.
Speaker 1: Satire of all of the action movies if you are
choosing to go that way, right, if you're sticking with
the idea of the script that this is supposed to
be a mock of all of the action movies of
the eighties, But that doesn't mean that you have to
move into the Zucker Brothers' farcical stuff You don't have
to have the tennis shoes sticking straight up out of
the trash can. You don't have to have the guy
getting killed by the ice cream cone in the back
of the head lord. You don't have to have the
gigantic moon with the bicycle flying through the shadow as
an obvious throwback to eat. You don't have to do
that stuff. You can still make fun of it, which
is I've said this probably a handful of times over
the course of our podcast. I think that's what leth
Weapon three was doing. I think Lethal Weapon three was
making fun of the other two, but it didn't go
so far as to make it farccle, and it's still fun.
It's still enjoyable. Also, by the way, carry Fisher came
up with the Renee Russo part for that movie as well.
Speaker 2: Nice. But what they chose to do was try to
mix those two up.
Speaker 1: Mix the satire that seems ultra realistic in with the farcicle.
That is, it belongs in a mel Brooks movie, or
it belongs in a scary movie or a Zucker Brothers movie.
Speaker 2: I think we all agree the concept, the idea of
this kid magically getting pulled into his favorite action movies.
Is a great idea, and it could work if you
get pulled into a lethal weapon movie. Guys are not
going to be killed by ice cream cones and smoke
doesn't come out of the angry sergeant's ears.
Speaker 4: But to be fair, Animated aren't getting out of line
with their female partners Police Station.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Can we just touch on that for just a second?
That world? Okay? The idea is this kid goes into
the movie world.
Speaker 1: Then somehow the movie world becomes like backstage at MGM.
Why are all of these other characters from other movies
in this movie instead of it being like the world
of Jack Slater?
Speaker 3: Right? Why does that happen?
Speaker 4: D That's the one nitpick I have about this movie
is that it breaks its own rule. The whole idea
of the Magic Ticket is that you can go into
the movie of your choice.
Speaker 2: You can live in that world.
Speaker 4: There's too many cameos to name, would be here all night.
I get why they did it, you know, because sitting
there in this theater, you're like, oh, there goes Robert
Patrick from Terminato two. There goes Sharon stone form based
against me. You know, it's eye candy. It also breaks
the rule that the movie sets up.
Speaker 1: Then to further break that rule, even go beyond eye Candy,
you have the Seventh Seal and you have Death from
the movie to and Seal coming out. Now, obviously it's
a very old movie, so they didn't have the actual actor.
The guy they had was Ian McKellen. With that point,
I mean like he had had a little bit of
a career early on, but he was not a movie guy.
He was a stage actor. This was kind of his
reintroduction into the movies. So I thought that that just
that fact alone was pretty cool. But when he comes
out of the screen as Death, he's got this moment
where he confronts the characters and he's like, Jack Slater
is not on my list, and I just wanted to
see who he was.
Speaker 3: But you you are on my list. But don't worry.
Speaker 1: It's gonna You've got a long time left to go.
And I'm like, wait a minute, this is Death from
the movie Seventh Seal. This is not actual Death, Like,
how does he have this or it just doesn't It didn't,
Like you said, it broke its own rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I was telling you last night. The
break in scene at the beginning of the movie, Danny's
apartment is broken into. He's terrorized by this thug, and
it means nothing to the story. It means absolutely nothing.
Nothing happens. I guess they put it in there to
show that he doesn't have it dad, but we already
know that and it is meaningless to him. Like, he's
not upset, right, He literally is struggling to call the
police in time to get over to the theater and
catch the movie before it starts. It doesn't put any
fear in him. He doesn't act as a coward so
that we have a character arc that he becomes brave
later on. He's not brave, so that we can see
the seeds of the character when he is brave later on.
It's literally just this throwaway moment that could have been great.
It could have been an opportunity to truly give his
character some depth so that we root for him, because
to me, that is the biggest sin of the entire
movie is that you have no reason to root for
this kid. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4: On a Film By podcast, we talked about this movie
back in June. It was our John mc ternan episode
we had ninety Days in the nineties. Author Andy Frye
join us, and what started off as what was going
to be a conversation with the movie turned into you know,
like this is this is what they did wrong, and
this is what they did wrong and d we talked
about that scene though, that is it's a complete throwaway
to have this crackhead break in and the time like
like it doesn't add up. You know, if he's got
to meet Nick at midnight and it's eight o'clock and
you're telling me that the you know, the guy breaks in,
he's handcuffed and he goes down to the police precinct.
What is Mercedes Rule doing for a living? Where the
police department called. I'm not a father, I know you
guys are. But she gets she gets a phone call
that her son has been in a aggravated assault. Someone
broke into her home. The miner is at the police station,
and she says, send him straight home when you're done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 4: And the police aren't going to give him like an escort.
They're not gonna he's a ten year old kid, but
we're not gonna drive him home. Hey, mom says, straight home.
Speaker 2: That should all that should have been cut.
Speaker 1: Let me say this because I know that we've talked
about it, and we'll probably talk about it a little
bit more, but let's talk about the kid here for
just a second. Do I think that all of his
acting choices were the best choices. No, I don't, but
that or kid was handed a turd to work with.
If you just look at a handful of his lines
that he has had to read what was on the script,
you go, I feel sorry for this kid, Like he
had to say, my name's Danny O'Brien or whatever the
crap it was, I'm a kid, Like that was somebody.
Shane Black, a man who's been paid two million dollars
for a script, wrote that line.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, I'm a kid? Look you said it.
Speaker 4: You know, we talked about the resume for Shane Black,
Zach Pen, and Adam Leff in a game of whoever
smelt it delt it? You know we know that we
know Zach Penn and Shane Black are awesome. Adam Lef
PCU and Biodome. I'm not saying who's responsible for writing
Danny Madigan's dialogue or developing that character, but I gotta wonder, like,
out of the three writers responsible for his terrible dialogue,
who's in charge here because outside of the bad dialogue,
it's just Austin O'Brien's terrible acting, which is on a
Jake Lloyd level. You know, fan of nas Jake Lloyd level,
you know.
Speaker 2: It's just bad, bad, bad. He's a bad actor. I'm sorry.
Is the movie any better with mcaulay Culkin, Yes.
Speaker 4: Deficantly better, Jason, I don't know if we want to
get into this now. I told you I had three
options for you on here.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting all day for this.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, no way before you do that. The possibilities
for Last Action Hero what should have been was Arnold Schwarzenegger, McCully, Culkin,
Alan Rickman. That is what initially was set up. Yeah, right,
and even Timothy Dalton was talked about. Now, Charles Dance
did a great job. I'm not awesome, right, Yeah, But Schwarzenegger, McCully, culkin,
and Alan Rickman move over. Jurassic Park. Take my money.
Speaker 4: So you guys are the producers, I'll play the casting director.
I've got what I'm going to say is a safe
choice and inspired choice, and then the obvious choice. Keep
in mind, these three actors, they are age appropriate within
a couple of years. Each one of them has been
in the business long enough to to be great. Okay,
here's here's the safe choice. In nineteen ninety two, I'm
gonna give you Jonathan Brandis. So the year before Last
Action Hero, he does Lady Bugs and Sidekicks, which shows
he can have a blockbuster star, whether it's an action
star or a comedic star, and he can play the
sidekick role to both of them, right, Brandis, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he did that was in like the Dolphin thing
with Roy Scheider.
Speaker 4: Yeah you're talking, You're talking about SeaQuest. Okay, the year Yeah,
he joined SeaQuest the year that Last Action Hero comes out.
So even with Roy Scheider proven, you know he can
play the kids sidekick. So that's that's my safe choice.
You would have had it, You would have had fine
with that. Ye, here's an inspired choice. And I think
you know this is a little bit of a maybe
blow your mind on who it is? Do you guys
if I say the name Brandon Quinton Adams get getting
question marks?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: So in nineteen eighty eight he had a small role
where he played a character named Zeke and Michael Jackson
smooth Criminal and Moonwalker. If you remember the video street
kids are watching outside, and the one kid says, look
at him, go I taught him everything he knows, and
the other kid says, no, you didn't. And so Brandon
Adams is the one that jumps down and does a
perfect Michael Jackson dance number right there. Okay, you probably
don't remember him from that, but I know that in
ninety one you might remember.
Speaker 2: Him as Jesse and the Mighty Ducks.
Speaker 4: And if you don't remember him there Jason, you definitely
know him because in nineteen ninety three, same year as
Last Action Hero, he's in the Sandlot. He plays the
pitcher Kenny. Yes, who dares him to?
Speaker 2: You know, here's my heater, I dare you to hit it?
Speaker 4: Yes, this kid, this kid was ready to blow up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean he could have been a box office star. Okay,
so that's the inspired choice, right.
Speaker 2: You're blowing my mind. I didn't know that the picture
from the Sandlot was the same kid in the Smooth
Criminal video.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, okay. And then finally, I'm you know, I'm
gonna lob this one in. It's it's my obvious choice.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 4: Think of the year, Think of the resume that he's
got in the eighties, late eighties, Princess Bride, Little Monsters,
The Wizard, Fred Savage.
Speaker 2: Okay, And in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4: Three, the Wonder Years is ending, when Last Action Hero
is coming out, So it would have been a great
transition for his film career. Again, and we've seen that
he can handle the big budget movie and have fun
with it. Good point, and he's popular. Kevin Arnold, Kevin
Arnold and Arnold Arnold and Arnold. I can't some would
get me a marketing.
Speaker 2: Job because I don't know to tell you.
Speaker 4: But okay, so Jonathan Brandis, Brandon, Quintin Adams, Fred Savage.
Speaker 2: Who do you guys like? Man? I gotta go with
Fred Savage. Man, that's a no brainer. Agree, Yeah right.
Speaker 4: I don't know who's asleep at the wheel, but that
and again, any three of these guys would have been
light years ahead of Austin O'Brien.
Speaker 2: I just don't know what I.
Speaker 1: Think that Fred Savage could have actually sold the line Amadeus.
It won eight oscars. Oh gosha, I think Fred Savage
could have sold that line. It's a terriblene once again, terrible,
terrible writing for this poor child actor. But I think
Fred Savage might have been able to sell that.
Speaker 4: Line, and I would I would think that Fred Savage,
even at this young age, he's got enough enough time
in the business and enough cloud to say to look
at some of these lines and say, wait, you want
me to say, Hey, I'm Danny Manigan, I'm just a kid.
I guarantee you. Fred Savage makes the Danny character less whimpy,
less whiny, less.
Speaker 2: Weak, less cross eyed. Yeah, that too, definitely. Let's talk
about what we think really worked in this movie. Okay,
so I think the action really worked in this movie.
The action is awesome. McTiernan cannot be bad if he
tries diehard, just bleeds out of his pores. Okay, the
practical effects, the stunts, the car crashes, Schwarzenegger hanging off
of an elevator, glass breaking, even the shootouts are awesome.
They're all fantastic. I think the those are all really good.
I think mister Benedict, that character is cool and you
know solid. You know the contacts that he wears they
have a nice day contacts, I'm not sure about that
as a character. I thought his was really good. Bridget
Wilson as his daughter was inspired goodness gracious majors, they
did nothing with her basically except annoy you because she's
screaming at the top of her lungs the entire time.
Speaker 4: Well, quickly, I'll say she definitely graduated from the Kim
Beasinger school of screaming. But where the second you start
to get annoyed, you realize that she's using it as
an offensive weapon. Right, guy smacks her and she's like,
big mistake, has her dad's catchphrase, and she's beaten the
crap out of this guy while she's screaming at the
top of her lungs, so that the guys in the
other room just assume that you know, she's she's getting
tore up. I could go both ways on the on
the screaming, like, yes, it's annoying, but it's also like
an effective tool that her character does.
Speaker 2: The one scene that I thought was awesome because it
fits so well into eighties action movies. You have one
one moment, they're jumping the car like a thousand feet
over this thing, the kids cross eyed and making goofy sounds,
and then you crash into a lingerie photo shoot. This
is straight out of a you know, a lethal weapon
type of movie. And that was fun and funny and
I liked it. Yeah, And then there's one other thing.
There's one joke that hit for me that I thought
was really funny. Arl Schwarzenegger's carrying around a guy going
he needs a doctor. This guy needs a doctor. He's
not dead. And then one guy in a very Bugs
Bunny like moment, says, I'm a doctor, right straight out
of the Bugs Bunny cartoons. That was funny, And then
the soundtrack is amazing. One more thing, Jeff, the iconic
shot of Schwarzenegger in the movie Theater pulls out his
gun to shoot the axe murderer, and you have that
cool crane shot. These guys just are so good at
what they do, they're just not good at what they
don't do.
Speaker 4: So that that shot that should have been the poster.
And if look at the poster, the poster is almost perfect,
except for you've got the kid doing that stupid face
in the poster, you know, as as Jack Slader's carrying him,
you know, tucked away like a football, so this he's
not cross eyed at.
Speaker 3: Least, you know.
Speaker 1: I think that the the thing they absolutely nailed, that
they absolutely nailed on this movie was the movie within
the movie. Within the movie, Arnold Schwarzeningger.
Speaker 3: As Hamlet, to be, Oh, not to be, not to be?
Speaker 1: When we get the Joel Silver style like dark and
it's brilliant of course, because again they're making fun of
lethal weapon. Like there's just lethal weapon ish ness everywhere
in the movie, right, Jack Slater is Martin Riggs, right,
just without the partner. You even have the when the
when the house explodes, just like a lethal weapon.
Speaker 3: You have the old black cop.
Speaker 2: It was just two days away from retirement, like.
Speaker 1: It's and you've got the countdown, which I thought was
pretty funny honestly, as he's just pulling through the cards.
I think everybody hates that scene. I thought it was
just chuckling to myself and it was that and I
was like, this is great satire right here, this is funny.
But to have that Joel Silver style Hamlet where Hamlet
just starts shooting everybody with an oozy I thought, freaking brilliant.
That is great.
Speaker 2: That was funny.
Speaker 1: The soundtrack is a no brainer. I mean it was
a huge it was a hugely successful. It's the one
success they had, Like the action figures didn't sell everybody
hated the movie, but the album everybody bought it because
it was so freaking good. I think that the story
idea is fantastic. It is I think that the idea
of going in and I thought this was kind of
funny because literally, by pure accident, I'm watching old silent
movies this past week. I'm watching it. I'm like, oh,
it's a guy going into a movie and becoming the
main character in the movie. And it's from like nineteen twenty,
like it's one hundred year old movie and it's Buster Keaton.
I'm like, look, okay, so it's an inspired choice. You know,
it's Alice in Wonderland through the looking Glass all that stuff,
and the idea that there's something to be learned about. Hey,
when we do all these violent and crazy things, how
does that translate into real life? I think, again, inspired choice.
When the villain gets into the real world and you realize, wow,
bad things happen and nothing happens to the people that
do them, that's a poignant moment. I think they did
a ton of great stuff with that. And I agree
with you, Jason. I think that the action was done
like an action movie.
Speaker 3: It was real.
Speaker 1: It was if George Lucas directed Spaceballs, and all of
a sudden, you can't tell is this a movie or
is this a farce of a movie or a satire
of a movie. So I thought, I thought all of
that was great. But I'll say this, even the dumb,
farcical things that they did, they still made me chuckle.
But here's the key difference that I had from what
you had, Jason. I didn't go in expecting only a cheeseburger.
That's true. I went in knowing that this movie is
supposed to be a spoof of action movies, and so
I knew what to expect. I was ready for it,
and so I could enjoy it. I wasn't expecting pure action.
I wasn't expecting a Zucker Brothers movie. I was expecting
John McTernan does a spoof of his own style, and
that's totally what I got. So my expectations were met.
That was not the case for the entire audience of
the world back in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4: I will concur with the both of you when it
comes to the action of this movie and the soundtrack
that lights out, they just they hit it out of
the park on this one. What also works for me.
Austin O'Brien aside, I'm talking at both sides of my
mouth here because I'm talking about what they did get right.
Speaker 2: But the casting.
Speaker 4: You've got the biggest action star of the nineteen eighties,
You've got Oscar winners like f Murray Abraham and Anthony Quinn.
You've got the feature film debut of Bridget Wilson, and
you know, again all the fun cameos. So I think
the casting was fantastic. Another thing that I think that
they really got right, and this is something that I
know is important to you guys as well, is the mcguffin.
This magic ticket with a mysterious origin. Harry Houdini passed
it down and he got it from someone who got
it from someone. The Magic Ticket is a fantastic mcguffin
for both the villains and the heroes. So I love
the I love the Magic Ticket. And then lastly the
comedy when it hits right, and I'm you know, you
mentioned Schwarzenegger, you know, and the doctor and then hit him,
knocking out the doctor, and then he's like the doctor
has fainted and someone.
Speaker 2: Helped the doctor.
Speaker 4: You know, It's like, but but I love you know,
like IND's point when when Charles Dance when his character
makes it into the real world and he starts to
pick up on the fact that bad things happen and
you get away with it. I love that moment where
he he shouts out to the alley, I've just shot
him man, and I want to confess, and the response
he gets is he shut up down there.
Speaker 2: So like that kind of.
Speaker 4: Comedy I dig in this movie, and even the banter
between Arnold and Charles Dance when he knocks on the door.
Speaker 2: You know, I just speak to the drug dealer of
the house.
Speaker 4: Yeah, upside to do the day we're killing drug dealers?
Do you have any I just that part is fantastic.
Speaker 2: I love I love some of the comedy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, get rid of the farcical stuff, you know, ice
cream cones at the back of the head and Danny
Manigan cross eyed and you know, doing his goofy noises.
Speaker 2: Get rid of all that.
Speaker 4: But there there there's still plenty that works as far
as the comedy.
Speaker 2: Okay, a quick Calvin cut of this movie that makes
it one hundred thousand percent better. All right, okay, and
it's so easy. I told the this hours two hours
and ten minutes. You trim it back to an hour
and fifty. You cut all the farcicle crap out, so literally,
you go through. You scrub the ice cream cone to
the back of the head, You scrub some of the
stupid fart jokes, the silent but deadly I mean that
was somewhat humorous, but calling the guy Leo the fart
and he was a flagelette man. All that stuff is
for Leslie Nilson. Take that out of there. Do something
with whiskers the cat euthanasia. Yes, and you trim the
stupid cross eyed kid shot. Everything else is fantastical and acceptable.
Speaker 4: Could we cut a little bit more of Austin O'Brien's dialogue. Yeah,
And I'm just I mean, I'm not being like a hater.
I'm just saying, like some of just some of that
bad dialogue.
Speaker 2: Sure cut it.
Speaker 4: Like when he when he first meets Bridget Wilson's character
and then he has that moment by himself where he's like, Hi,
I'm Danny Madigan and I haven't had a long life,
but I just want you to know it's all downhill
for me.
Speaker 2: It's like, just can we.
Speaker 4: Just cut most of his stuffy. Cut a lot of
him and give me more Marcedes Rule. That'd be my
trade off, I'd request.
Speaker 2: And she's never looked better in my opinion. She she
looks wonderful in this movie.
Speaker 4: Dirty girl looking fantastic in this moody and I believe her,
you know, like and I feel bad for her, you know,
she's she has that terrible, that that sad line, like I, hey,
you think I asked to be a widow before before
I'm forty, Jason, you know, I'm a big fan of Marcedes.
Speaker 2: Rule, you know, because of Fraser. But I wish we
could have.
Speaker 4: Had more of her in this movie.
Speaker 2: One thing I wish we could have had more of
in this movie, Man, it was so close to be.
In an awesome moment in the movie Theater, Jack Slater
is pulled out a gun. He's trying to shoot the
ex murder. Everybody's duck and it's mass chaos and he's
tackled by Arnold Schwarzenegger. And I thought, man, this would
be a really cool way to have a fight right here,
like do something. Oh yeah, and you know they have
a minor disagreement and that's it. And I thought that
really could have if you could have expanded that scene
into some sort of wrestling match.
Speaker 1: Or that could have been your trailer for the movie,
Oh my god, and that would have given you the
appropriate expectation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right, Greed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, what the Colvin cut, I'll
give you the grapes cut here, all right. Yeah, yes,
I would have cut some of the farcical things, although
like I said, I did enjoy them because I had
that expectation. So the key thing that I would say is,
had they marketed it properly at the beginning, they would
have offended a whole lot less folks. But there's this
beautiful opportunity to create a father son story here. He
is a father who's lost a son. Danny is a
son who's lost a father. They are both looking for
the wrong solution to their problem, and ultimately that could
have been the right solution. And so if you build
that relationship and make that more of a focus of
the movie, then suddenly we've got characters that we can
care more about. And that gets us through the kind
of bumpy ride of the ice cream cones and the
funeral full of people who all have their own personal
oozzis right right, right, yep.
Speaker 3: And so if you've.
Speaker 1: Got those things that you care about, and you eliminate
some of the silly stuff that they're just doing because
they think that's what they're supposed to do. Because of
mel Brooks here, I think is an important thing that
would have been a very simple fix. Change the way
the real world looks compared to the movie world. I
think one of the key problems is that they look
exactly the same. If your point is to show the
difference between movies and reality, you need to be able
to see that on the screen, right. Desaturate what you're
doing in the real world, give it a more authentic vibe,
which you absolutely could have done at this point, and
then that drives that point home that you're trying to
make in the movie itself about what is good about
movies and what's bad, and what's good about real life
and what's bad. So I think those simple changes and
you have a movie classic instead of a classic.
Speaker 4: Blunder, I absolutely agree, and to your point on the desaturation,
and I'm not I don't want to pick a scab
here from the last time I showed up when we
talked Alien three, but imagine, imagine if the movie world
had that hazy blues of Cameron's Aliens, and then in
the real world we get the cpia tones of the
yellowish tint that Venture had in Alien three. You're absolutely right,
distinguishing between the two worlds would have been much better
for this film.
Speaker 1: One more change that I would make. The axe murderer
has to be.
Speaker 3: Less intelligent and less well spoken.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's this scarred up walking in a yellow
rain slicker with.
Speaker 3: A makeshift axe in his hand. You can't talk like
a very educated man and talk to Jack about the
problems that they've had and the way that they can
work these things out. Brilliant Jack, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant Jack.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, he's a psychotic killer. Make him talk
like a psychotic killer. Make him sound like Buffalo Bill
from Silence of the Lambs, And then yes, we now
have a scary villain instead of something that just seems ludicrous.
Speaker 4: To your point, The Rippers played by Tom Noonan, who
is famous for playing the Tooth Fairy in Michael Man's
Manhunter from nineteen eighty six. Yeah, so again with there's
a Silence of the Lambs connection that guy's creepy and
scary enough. You know you didn't have to make him
look like Chro Magnan.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: If you're gonna make him look like that, make him
more barbaric, more gruff, not what we got.
Speaker 2: Well, is it time for final judgment?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we have two kind of final judgments here.
Number one. I mean we kind of already have talked
about how we felt about Alien three, but we're comparing
Alien three and Last Action Hero to some degree, although
we are really asking the question what the heck happened?
But we talked about how we felt about Alien three.
Let's talk now. You've rewatched it, Jeff, you loved it
when you first saw it, and you've rewatched it as well.
I watched for the first time, Jason, would you think
on the rewatch?
Speaker 2: So on the rewatch, I've already told you guys, this
is not a walk outable movie. So I was with
my college buddy Craig Parrish. I want to give him
a shout out. We both agreed, we both walked out.
We were like, this sucks, get us out of here.
But upon rewatch, it's a fun ride. There's a lot
of fun to be had in this movie. There's some
stupid decisions that were made, but overall I had recalibrated
my expectations for the movie. I knew what I was
getting into, and overall it was a lot of fun.
I think it's a It was a big swing and
a big miss, but at least they took a big
cut and really went for it. They just didn't They
just didn't catch it right. So overall I enjoyed it
upon rewatch.
Speaker 1: Hey, Jeff, you loved it when you first saw it
and have now since expanded your palette, if you will,
on what quality movies are versus how you felt when
you were ten. So what did you think on the rewatch?
Speaker 2: I'll say this.
Speaker 4: Years and years watching it, you know every now and
then does it have its faults? It absolutely does. I
do think it was ahead of its time. You know,
we talked about that meta commentary that that the film
offers up and I would love to do to see
more from it. I know they just released a four
K Blu ray that has an alternate ending and some
other some other goodies. I still like the film. I
think it's fun, but I'm not ready to buying the
Blu ray. I've got for seven ninety nine is one
thing before I'm going to spend forty bucks on a
four K steal book that has the I'm not there yet,
so I'm kind of trying to compromise. Meet Meet Jason halfway.
I loved it, and I still I still care a
great deal about it. It's got some great moments, but
I get it. It's not for everybody, but it was
for me.
Speaker 1: I like it, okay, And just real, real quick before
I throw this out there. They didn't know what to
expect when this thing finally came out, right, they and
they test audience.
Speaker 3: They showed it to him.
Speaker 1: We've talked about Mark Cannon before because Mark Cannon when
we talked about vacation, he was the guy when everybody
else said, no, vacation idea is a stupid idea. He
was the one guy at Warner Brothers right who said, no,
I think we can make this something great. And he
was right, And then I said, and then he went
on to do Purple Rain and Batman, and I mean,
if you look at his stage production career, it is flawless. Well,
he's the president of Columbia. At this point, they do
their test showing the cards they got back were so
bad that he confiscated all of them and destroyed them.
But unfortunately he didn't keep it a secret. And Jeffrey Wells,
who was just a freelance guy, then he wrote a
story about it and it created white a havoc. I
saw the interview that Brian Gumble did with Arnold Schwarzenegger
before this movie came out, and he's talking to him,
this is before the movie comes out, and he's talking
to him about all the bad press that this movie
is getting. So I think that it's terrible at that
point in history that not only did they give people
false expectations, but then they made that even worse by
putting out these stories that put everybody questioning, oh my gosh,
is this just going to be this horrible, horrible thing.
I didn't have to experience any of that. I got
to watch it a week ago when I knew that
you hated it, and I knew that you liked it,
and I knew that it's supposed to be a far
and that it wasn't well received. I sat there watching
that movie with a smile on my face the whole time.
I loved it. I mean, I'm not gonna rewatch it.
There are a lot of things that I was just like, Oh, okay,
I can see why everybody hated this part. Okay, yeah,
I can see where this is terrible. But I knew
that going in, and so knowing that going in, I
got to really truly enjoy this movie.
Speaker 3: And I did.
Speaker 1: I obviously have a lot of criticism of the movie,
because I just threw that out there for the last hour,
but truthfully, on my first watching of it.
Speaker 3: I genuinely enjoyed the movie.
Speaker 1: I thought that it was a good concept, not even
poorly executed, just with some poor decisions, but for a
lot of other factors that were outside the movie itself,
this could have been a truly great movie.
Speaker 2: It could have been a great like one of the
best of the nineties. Yeah, okay, let's go. Let's go
comparison Last Action Hero to Alien three. Jeff, you love both,
so you're on the hot seat.
Speaker 4: Man, Okay, Well, you know what, I'm not gonna put
a lot of thought into it. I'm gonna say Last
Action Hero would be my choice between the two.
Speaker 2: All right. So for me, when I think back to
where I was, I was very like I read Entertainment Weekly,
I watched movies like crazy. I was into what was
coming up on the Blockbuster movie screen for the summer.
I went into Alien three expecting aliens. What I got
was a kick in the nuts in the first three minutes.
Last Action Hero. I had just seen Jurassic Park and
I was expecting Terminator two, and so with that heightened expectations,
what I got was like cold water in the face. Okay,
So I hated both of these movies when I saw
him the first time in the theater, But after rewatch,
after some time has passed, after I recalibrated my expectations,
Alien three still sucks balls, but Last Action Hero is
enjoyable for what it is.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I land on the same page as both
of you, honestly rewatching, Like, I saw Alien three in
the theater, and I was young enough at the time
that I didn't couldn't tell you exactly what was bad.
I just was like, this was boring. This is a
boring movie. Didn't live up to the first two. Now
that I've seen Last Action Hero and I've rewatched Alien three,
one hundred percent, Last Action Hero is the better movie.
Alien three is worth the watch. If you're analyzing the
history of David Fincher and what he had to do
and what he had to work with and what came
out despite all of the obstacles that he had. But
beyond that, other than an educational experience, it's not worth watching.
It's not something I would pick out and watch with
the kids. Last Action Hero. I would totally take this out.
I'd say, Okay, guys, this is a movie that is
full of action, and it's also full of stuff where
they're making fun of movies that are action movies, and
we would get to enjoy it for that, I would
have a great time. I think all of this would
have a great time. Last Action Hero definitely wins the day.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, Well, we want to hear from you.
Hit us up on Facebook, hit us up on Twitter,
send us an email. Tell us what you think about
Last Action Hero. Tell us what you think about Alien three. Jeff,
thank you. Where can we find your your stuff? Man?
Speaker 4: We are streaming on every platform, but I'll make it
easy for you. Just head over to www dot a
film by podcast dot com. You'll find links to all
the streaming platforms, plus some other fun stuff.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: We have access to all the episodes but we're also
throwing some more fun stuff, some trivia stuff for there.
We always love talking to people on social media, so
you can definitely find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
at a film by podcast as well.
Speaker 2: One thing I went through out there real quick. We
have a Patreon page. Jeff, you have a Patreon page.
Speaker 4: Yes, a film By does have its Patreon page as well.
Speaker 2: Awesome. We now have a money back guarantee. If you
come over to our Patreon page and you listen for
one month and you don't like it, we'll send your
money back, no questions asked. What do you have to lose?
We got tons of great stuff over on our Patreon page.
We just a deep dive on Kokomo. Jeff, you were
with me when we did. There's something going on. We
deep dive on one hit wonders and sort of musical anomalies.
It's a lot of fun. Check us out on Patreon, and.
Speaker 4: I'll point out I'm not just a guest host. I'm
also a patron. I absolutely love these episodes and I
look forward to him every month.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mike, appreciate it. I'm a patrion of yours. I
love your stuff too, man.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: All.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, we will be back next week. D we're
taking a deep dive with our friend Amanda Janek. Amanda Janik,
who has been a listener of ours, made a like
a billboard that said, Jason and d you've got to
go into the cure and depeche mode, and so we're
going to do that with her next week. Rest. I
remember seeing that. Wasn't that on your Facebook page? Yeah,
the Shirley Facebook.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and I recognize the name because you have
You've warned me Jason, like, hey, I've made some some
comments that you felt.
Speaker 2: She's not gonna like that when you when when she.
Speaker 3: Reached out, So she was offended by your position on
Greece too.
Speaker 2: Yes, it that's what it was. Yeah, we'll come back
next week and hear the latest edition of the Shirley
Camby Series podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you guys so much for listening.
Speaker 2: So there's a whole bunch of you know, the cameos
and the bloated budget. They put Last Action Hero on
a rocket.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we forgot to mention that that's so ridiculous
And the rocket didn't even take off until like the
movie had been out for a month.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wonder everybody already hated it.
Speaker 2: It failed to lunch,